Warning: Rather disturbing descriptions of a murder. Reader discretion is advised. (Never had one of these before...)

Chapter 4: Clubbing

"A person's eyes reflect their mood, whether you're unhappy, confused, angry etc. But his eyes are completely empty as if his soul is dead. It's sad in a way." - Bra Briefs

"Kaasan, Papa, why don't you believe me?" Bra asked them. "How could you think I was joking about this?"

Bulma shook her head. "It's hard to believe."

"That's what my Tousan said," I rose to Bra-chan's defense. "It's absolutely, positively, one-hundred percent true. Do we have to prove it to you?"

Bulma considered this. "It would be better to have concrete evidence."

"They can't prove this," Vegeta-ojisan said with confidence. "It's impossible to prove this."

"Mark is a werewolf," I told him. "A scared werewolf, but one nonetheless."

"He's stronger and faster than a normal human," Bra added.

Vegeta had a skeptical look on his face. "If he's so strong, why the hell was he so afraid of me?"

Bra rolled her eyes. "*Trunks* is afraid of you! You're just good at making people frightened, that's all."

He was apparently proud of that fact. Bulma still didn't believe us.

"How about this," I said, "Bra can have Marky boy shapeshift right here in front of you." I guess that wasn't an option because Bra glared fiercely. "Or not..."

"I can't ask him to do that!" Bra said. "How about you get your vampires over here. It's easier for them."

"Now they're *my* vampires?" As we began to bicker, Bulma left the room. This happened without our notice. The gravity is what caught my attention.

"Uh Vegeta-ojisan?" I asked him after he had gone back to kicking and punching the air. "What are you doing?"

He didn't even spare me a glance. "Training. What does it look like I'm doing? Baking a cake?"

"That was rude, Papa!" Bra said to him as she lowered the gravity again. "We're going to prove to you that they're real."

I nodded in agreement. Then I froze. We were? Elbowing Bra, I decided to bring a small problem to her attention. "How the hell are we going to do that? We can't make Mark shapeshift and it would be wrong to put the vampires on display..."

The look on her face said it all. That little thought had never occurred to her.

"Now if you two are finished wasting my time..." He didn't have to finish. We left.

Trunks was still waiting outside.

"Do you think he would believe us?" I whispered to Bra-chan.

She appeared to think it over. "Sure, why not? He believes almost everything else."

"Trunks, we're ready to tell you now!" I called to him. He looked up with an expression of happiness.

"Really? I'm not too old, or dumb, or-"

"Are you going to talk or are you going to listen?" His mouth shut quickly. Bra and I ran down what we had told his parents. Trunks didn't even question us; he believed instantly.

"See? What did I tell you?" Bra whispered to me.

"Can I help you guys?" he asked. "I think it would be great!" He started for the house. "Just let me call Goten...."

"No Goten!" We exclaimed this in unison.

He was confused. "Why not?"

Bra and I both agreed on this one. Goten was not the shiniest penny in the fountain, the sharpest knife in the drawer, the nicest house on the block...; the list went on and on. Well, I might say it to his face occasionally, it would never even cross Bra's mind. It's because, as my mother was prone to saying, she 'fancied' him. Personally, the thought turned my stomach. It's hard to see my best-friend and my favorite ojisan (my *only* ojisan), married with children. For one, they're eleven years apart! That's one hell of a generation gap.

"You can help me," I suggested to him. "I'm the one with the most work! I have to track down the remaining criminals on my list."

"What if none of them did it? What would you do then?" Trunks asked. He just had to pick now to say something intelligent, didn't he?

"Then I guess we're in trouble."

***

The more I thought about the list, the more it nagged at me. Something just wasn't right. I don't think we're going about this the right way.

Maybe it was time to focus on the lycanthropes.

"Are you any closer to solving the mystery?" Trunks asked as he sat on the edge of my bed.

I passed my hand over the sheets of paper, my laptop, and other things. "Does it look that way?"

Trunks shook his head. "Nope."

"We need to find this murderer before more people die!" My fist came down onto the desk, luckily not hard enough to cause serious damage. I was just *so* frustrated!

"There's this club in town," Bra said suddenly from the doorway. I didn't even notice her arrival. "that caters to the lycanthrope crowd. Mark told me about it."

"Are you serious?" I asked, jumping to my feet. "That's the best lead we've had so far!"

Trunks was confused. "How so?"

"This person that's hunting lycanthropes would need to find victims, am I right?" He nodded. "What better place than a popular club?"

"Who said it was popular?" he asked.

I looked at his sister. "Bra?"

"It is."

I smiled, happy that we were finally closer to solving the mystery. "Then let's go!"

***

I felt them watching me. It was *not* a nice feeling. Every time I glanced at one of the patrons, their eyes would always be on me. It felt as if their eyes were looking inside of me, probing, trying to measure my worth.

The club, Mangetsu Go-ruden, was located in the area of Satan City was full of cafés and restaurants all competing against each other for business. The line to get inside was long but we had business. It took us thirty minutes to get inside.

"This place is crowded!" I shouted above the music once the unnerving moment had passed. Bra agreed with me.

"But it's the best place to get some good clues!"

I led her and Trunks over to a vacant table in the back. It was far enough from the stage and the DJ so the vibrations from the music were barely felt. I started to signal the waitress and Trunks caught my hand.

"What in the world do you think you're doing?"

I looked at him and then laughed. "I'm not going to get drunk, baka. I just want a coke. I already had to use a fake ID to get in here, I'm not going to push it."

"I had to show mine too," Bra said. "I just look *so* young! Unlike some people," She looked pointedly at her brother when she said this.

Trunks frowned for a moment before he came back with a retort. "At least I can drink legally."

I chuckled a bit before I came back to myself. "Once I get my drink, we're going to eavesdrop of people's conversations and we're going to find our killer."

"We can start now," Bra suggested.

"Alright." I began to scan the room, looking for anyone that fit the characteristics of a shifty person. There were more than a few.

"You see that man over there?" I discreetly pointed to one man who was whispering something to a blond. "To me he's like the perfect shifty looking type. His hair is black and there's *way* too much gel on it, he has a moustache, and a bimbo looking date."

"I see," Trunks said slowly. "But I don't know. We'll have to see if something suspicious is going on before we leave. Like if some large dudes come to his table and they discuss something."

Bra frowned at both of us. "What do you think this is? The Godfather?"

"Hey! That's just a possibility."

"A pretty good possibility." Trunks added.

I got both of their attentions quickly as I saw something began to not-so-quietly happen. I stood and began to stroll as casually as I could over to the bar. As I took a seat on the stool, I caught the most important part of the conversation.

"This place is going to be targeted tomorrow night. I'm sure this is a 'thrope hangout."

"How are you going to do it this time Eddie? Bullets? Fire?"

"Explosives."

There was a low whistle from the other man. "Explosives? Nice..."

My mouth dropped open as I listened to their conversation. As I stood to slip back to our table, I walked a little too close to theirs and ended up bumping into Eddie himself. I looked up quickly with an expression that I was sure was as close to horror as I had ever gotten it. Without even pausing, I turned quickly and sort of half-ran, half-skipped back to the table.

"Oh Kami he saw me," I whispered to them. "We have to get the Hell out of Dodge."

Trunks and Bra both looked back over to the table just as Eddie and friends jumped to their feet and began to search for me. I pushed both their heads down.

"What are you trying to do? Get killed?"

Bra sighed. "Pan-chan, calm down. We all have some saiyan in us, correct?"

I nodded.

"Then those bullets won't even hurt us, correct?"

I nodded again and slowly sat back down. "Then I have nothing to fear." Then a single shot sounded throughout the club, making the music and the crowd hush completely.

Trunks slowly looked around until he had seen into every single corner. In that short amount of time, Eddie had men in every single area.

"But they have plenty to be afraid of," he said in a low voice.

He was right.

***

"I want that small shrimp of a girl who was spying on our conversation," Eddie said in a completely calm voice. "If she does not step up within one minute, I will begin to shoot one person every thirty seconds until she *does* show." He smiled coldly. "Whether it's fatal or not is entirely up to me."

"It won't hurt us human!" A large man shouted from the back. "Lead cannot kill us. We can heal the damage it does."

I smiled. Maybe this won't turn out as bad as I thought.

Another shot rang out as well as a muffled thud as a body hit the ground. Eddie's smile grew wider.

"How unfortunate for you that my bullets are silver plated."

The people reacted accordingly. They all hit the ground, knocking over tables to use as sparse cover. I joined Bra and Trunks behind ours.

"He must be an expert as this sort of thing," Bra murmured. "He knows their weaknesses and his eyes just scream psycho."

I blinked. "How is that?"

"A person's eyes reflect their mood," she said softly, "whether you're unhappy, confused, angry etc. But his eyes are completely empty as if his soul is dead." She shivered slightly. "It's sad in a way."

I slowly rose my head higher to look over the table. She was absolutely right. His eyes were dead and probably has been that way for quite some time. But unlike Bra I didn't think it was sad.

I thought it was down right frightening. They're exactly how you imagine Satan's to look.

Settling back on my knees, I looked over at the man he shot. After one glance I knew that he had gone for the killing blow. I just didn't know how messy silver bullets made things.

Our psycho had gone for a traditional head-shot, right between the eyes. The entry wound was circular and neat. The exit wound was an entirely different story.

The back of his skull..... was gone. Completely. The wall he had been standing in front of was completely splattered with blood and other fluids. It slowly slid down the wallpaper to accumulate on the floor in a gruesome puddle. No one would even go near the body. His date had fainted at the first sound of the gunshot. If she was lucky, she would remain that way until the whole ordeal was over.

To do all of this from more than twenty feet away, you have to have excellent aim.

"I have to go up there," I said firmly to my friends. "I can't let any more innocent people die. Not without trying everything that I could first."

It turns out the problem was solved for me. Suddenly the Satan City police force emerged from the donut shops and ran into the club.

"Shit!" Eddie cursed. "We can't have any more run-ins with the cops." He snapped his fingers. "Boys, get your asses in gear!"

As they ran through the club and out of the back way, everyone let out a collective sigh of relief and suddenly turned to me.

Either they knew he wanted me or they were looking for some dinner. I'm not sure which one I'm hoping it is, both promise to be bad.

*Very* bad.