Part 1: Tabula Rasa

Darkness. The darkness gradually began to blur, melting into a flurry of swirling mists and distant noises. Then the pain came, suddenly and uninvited with the force of a spring flood after a heavy downpour. He groaned and forced his eyes open, instantly realizing that it had been a mistake when nausea hit him. "Ow."

"Awake again? Stay down next time, fool." The face of an old man swam into vision. "Ya ought to stay down and not try to fight them, Piccolo."

"Fight?" he croaked. He tried to search his memory, tried to pass the barrier of swirling darkness that reduced him to here and now. The old man had called him Piccolo. Was that his name? It sounded vaguely familiar. Why couldn’t he remember anything? Why was there a void inside him? Panic and fear tugged on his consciousness, made him want to scream, but he fought it down. He couldn’t afford to break down, not when his life was in danger. With the emptiness in his brain, Piccolo was as good as any other name. He shivered slightly. "Where am I?"

"Ya still don’t know?"

The stranger applied a wet cloth to his forehead and Piccolo winced as a new wave of pain shot through his skull. Through clenched teeth, he hissed: "No. I don’t remember anything."

"Ya took some serious punishment. Them don’t like it when ya don’t follow."

"Really?" Biting sarcasm laced his voice before he could prevent it. "Tell me, where am I and what happened?"

"Ya’re aboard a bounty hunter ship. Ya wanted by the people of planet Ice," the old man explained patiently and Piccolo realized that he must’ve given the same speech a few times already. "Ya strong, but they laugh about it. Ya wanted to break free after them killed the kid, but not for long..."

"..and so they used me as a punching bag," Piccolo finished the sentence. Planet Ice. An inner voice told him that he was in grave danger. "Do you know why there’s a price on my head?"

"Ya one of them who killed Lord Frieza and His Majesty," a smile lit the man’s face. "Caused war amongst people of planet Ice. Big war. But now, there’s a new Majesty..."

Piccolo tried to follow the man’s ramblings, but his concentration faded rapidly and soon he slipped back into the whirling pool of darkness.

Yamucha studied the readout of his medical scanner and nodded to nurse Puar. "Wake him up."

The female shape shifter took a hypospray injector and pressed it against Son Gohan’s neck. With a soft hiss, the medication was pressed through the boy’s skin and entered the half-Saiyan’s system.

For a moment, there was no response, but then Gohan’s lids fluttered and with a moan, he opened his eyes. "Wha..."

The dazzled look on Gohan’s face was quickly replaced by worry. "No!"

"Calm down," Yamucha stepped to the medical bed and tried to keep the boy down, without much success. "You’re back onboard the Dragonball. Everything’s going to be okay."

"No... no! You don’t understand, they got Piccolo-san!" Gohan shook his head and swung his legs over the bed’s rim. "They’ll kill him!"

"Gohan," Puar hovered in front of her patient. "Vejita and your father are looking for Piccolo. They’ll find him."

"V..Vejita?" Gohan stopped his attempt to get up. "Vejita is looking for Piccolo-san?"

"Yes. He and your father, both. Don’t worry." Yamucha smiled his best, reassuring smile. "Captain Roshi wants to talk to you when you’re doing better."

"But I am doing better already!" Gohan protested.

"Gohan, you were dead when you were beamed up from that outpost." Yamucha explained, the criss cross of scars on his face giving him a stern look. When the boy scowled at him, the doctor’s expression softened. "Look, just let me run some tests on you to make sure you’re really okay."

The half Saiyan sighed, but he knew that Yamucha was right. Besides, his mother would throw a fit if he sneaked out of sickbay without permission, and Gohan knew better than to stir the wrath of ChiChi.

Vejita tightened the grip around his informant’s windpipe, causing the terrified creature to wheeze and gasp for air desperately. "Is that the truth?"

The unfortunate alien nodded, eyes bugging out when the oxygen in its system became scarce.

"Good," Vejita snarled, shaking his captive violently, just for good measure. Since the bounty hunters had hijacked Piccolo three days ago, Vejita had followed their trail from one Ice-jin outpost to the next, but whenever he thought he had a solid lead, he only ended up in another dead end. It was as if his prey knew about his tactics and lead him astray on purpose. The thought made the Saiyan snarl angrily. No one messed with Prince Vejita and lived to tell the story. The bounty hunters would pay dearly for this, and no senile Federation Captain would hold him back this time. The body in his grip stopped struggling and he dropped the creature with a disgusted look. "Cross me and I’m coming back to finish the job, vermin."

x

Three days after he had woken up, Piccolo hadn’t made much progress, at least as far as his memory was concerned. He managed to stay awake longer each day and didn’t forget what he was told anymore, but his past still was a mystery to him.He had gathered as much information from the old man as possible, but what he had learned wasn’t much. He and a kid named Gohan had been captured by the bounty hunters about a week ago on a planet a few hundred light years away. When they had tried to escape, Gohan was killed trying to protect Piccolo. In the ensuing berserk fight, he had been captured again and savagely punished.

Listlessly, Piccolo shifted his weight to get himself into a more comfortable position. He had long ago given up trying to break the high tech shackles that cuffed his hands and feet and bound him to the floor. He had soon found out that he wasn’t even remotely strong enough and any attempt ended with the shackles sending painful jolts of power through his body.But the inability to escape wasn’t the only thing that bothered him. Gohan. The boy had died because of him, and he couldn’t remember anything. Had they been friends, or comrades in arms? Was that Gohan-person just accidentally in the wrong place at the wrong time? What had driven the young man to sacrifice his life? The more Piccolo thought about it, the harder he tried to break through the wall that surrounded his memory, the clearer it became that the only results he’d get was an unbearable headache and a constantly growing feeling of guilt.

"Gohan..." he whispered, wishing that he had never heard the name which was haunting him now.

x

"Captain’s Log, Stardate 56732.6. It’s been over a week since we’ve freed Son Gohan from bounty hunters in System Ice 710. Despite our efforts, Piccolo’s still missing. The kid tried to rescue him, but they used Ki-dampening weapons and he was out like a candle." Starfleet Captain Muten Roshi brushed over his beard. "Vejita has used some of his old connections and thinks they brought him to System Ice 526 for a public trial. That’s two days at Warp 7, but we would break the peace treaty if we fly into Ice-jin territory."

There were times when Muten Roshi hated his job. And that the Ice-jins had dared to hijack one of his crew definitely made his day. "Of course, Starfleet Command denied our request. Federation diplomats are on their way but Headquarters thinks it’s hopeless. It doesn’t help that our elusive Namekian tactical advisor is considered a war criminal by the new Ice-jin government and is treated accordingly. I hate to say it, but Piccolo’s life is hanging by a very thin thread."

Piccolo had lost count of how long he had been imprisoned in this dark hellhole, but it seemed like an eternity. They had interrogated him, asked questions he had no answer for, questions about Saiyans and a starship called USS Dragonball. When he hadn’t ‘co-operated’, he took more beatings and they tortured him, turned him inside out until he had begged them to kill him.

However, the Ice-jins had different plans for him. They had forced him to watch pictures and movies of cities in shambles, slaughtered people, cruel and useless destruction. Piccolo had stared at the images in horror, had listened to their words and accusations in utters hock and disbelieve. He saw himself as the source of evil. A child died by his hands, the fragile body burned to ashes, and he was laughing all the time. The sound send chills down Piccolo’s spine. Daimaou. Piccolo Daimaou. The people screamed his name in terror, and they continued to scream as they met their violent death by his hands.

Piccolo trembled, shaken by what he had seen. Evidence, they had called it evidence. So it was real? Had he really done all these atrocities? Was it the truth or were the Ice-jins just playing another sick game with him? If he just could remember, but no matter what he did, his memory didn’t come up with answers for the questions that burned through his conscience.