___Chapter 4___

It WAS horrible. Anything the warriors tried only ended up in more pain. Goku attempted a ki-powered kick to the monster's neck, but Kartak only maneuvered his head in front of the sayian's foot, ready to saw it off. It almost was, but Krillan tackled him seconds before that happened.

He flew so fast to get to Goku though, that Goten was knocked over by the force of the wind as he passed. When Trunks bent down to help his friend up, Kartak seized the moment and hurled a huge spike at the boy that went at such speed, Trunk's arm was ripped clean off as it connected with his shoulder. Trunks stood dumbfoundedly staring at the bloody stump, not able to comprehend that his arm was gone just like that.

Then the pain hit him, and he cursed like a drunken sailor for a second before passing out two later from the blood loss. Goten grabbed him immediately and rushed at full force to their healer.

Vegeta got extremely pissed off at that, and powered up to blast Kartak sky high, when once again the creature took advantage of his opponent's unawareness and gashed Vegeta's back with his foot claws, the prince swearing in sayianjin as he fell like a stone to the ground.

But Piccolo lifted up his friend's limp form, and muttered "Like son, like father. Gotta get him to Dendea. Too bad that kid only has a limited amount of energy to heal with." As he flew off towards the far side of the lookout.

Kartak saw the movement from battle this time.

---
The younger sayians rushed back to the battlefield as Dendea ran up to the next person needing his aid.

"Not another one!! First you, then Yumcha, then Goku, then Trunks, now Vegeta! It must be really bad for you guys out there." Dendea said as he grimaced slightly at the sayian's injuries, and healed him.

He looked up, about to say he was finished, when he stopped suddenly in the middle of his sentence, a look of horror overshadowing his small face, and he froze with his mouth wide open.

"What's wrong with you?" Vegeta questioned irritably.

Dendea only pointed behind the two and yelled out an unintelligible wail of utter fear. The fighters twisted around just in time to be greeted a crushing blow to the ground by a heavily spiked tail. Two screams rang out as those spines dug deep into their backs, and then were ripped out mercilessly as Kartak jerked his tail back up.

Kartak stared inquisitively at Dendea, like a cat staring at a trapped mouse. "Kartak not told to kill this? Is Kartak? Kartak kill small one anyway." He said as he pushed him off the side of the tower with a sphere of energy.

Piccolo shook himself into consciousness just in time to see this. Only powered by his rage, he screamed out "DENDEA!!!" and staggered up and over to the side. The little namekian was nowhere to be seen. Then he turned to the monster who had attacked their healer, their only hope of staying alive in all probability, and only a child at that.

"You damn..." Piccolo muttered as he charged up a masenka "SHARUKUS!!!" he cursed out in his native tongue as he let the energy fly.

Vegeta opened his eyes to an explosion, and when he finally could, all he could see was his friend, exhausted and in a decent amount of pain. "Huh? Nice shot Piccolo. Hey, where's the kid!?!" the sayian stuttered as he realized the sudden disappearance of the two.

"That bitch shot Dendea off the edge of the tower and it's... still alive! Shit! Back with the others already, let's GO!!" first said, then yelled the fuming namekian. The two then flew off to the ever continuing battle.

---
After Dendea was shoved off the edge, he was knocked unconscious by the blast's explosion. He never felt it when someone picked him up out of the air and landed in the forest.

The first thing Dendea saw upon waking was the hazy forest canopy high above him, but then he sat up, shook his head, and muttered "W-where... am I?"

"In the woods. I saw you falling and got you before you hit the ground. If I hadn't, you'd be dead now."

Dendea turned around to see who was talking and nearly toppled over and fainted when he saw the speaker. "Oh my god!!! You're a namekian!! Who are you!!!!" he yelled out in utter shock.

"That's that word! Never could remember it. Namekian. Yeah, that's what I am. And my name is Lute. Yours?" smiled Lute.

Dendea smiled back, sensing only good in his heart, and replied "Dendea. What are you doing out here anyway? It's dangerous with all the fighting."

Lute sighed. "I wanted to fight. But I've been told not to. My anoco told me I'm not allowed."

"Who's you're anoco?" Dendea said, not really expecting an answer he'd care about.

"Piccolo's his name."

Dendea just stared for about five seconds straight, too shocked to move, and this time he did faint. {{Wait till Kami hears this!!}} he thought with a laugh to himself as he blacked out.

---
Everyone was distressed at the apparent loss of their healer. "How are we gonna survive without him? Damn!" Goku yelled irritably, slamming his fist into the ruin of a wall. Kartak had decided to stop fighting and sit down again. He was succeeding well in unnerving the fighters.

Gohan smirked, and mocked "Dad, I'm shocked!" Even in this serious time, they couldn't help but laugh, or at least smile. Gohan continued his act, he knew when he was on a roll. "You can forget about kint'oin. Pure of heart people don't use such language." he said, sticking out his pointer finger and waving it in front of his father's face as he clicked his tongue.

Even Goku chuckled that time, and then he rolled his eyes and replied "It's not the first time son, and you've thrown your share of it. Now let's stop playing around and get back to the matter at hand. We've already had one casualty, and the whole time we've been killing ourselves out there he hasn't been phased at all."

This brought them all back to reality and they decided to try spheres of energy.

"Ok, let's GO!!!!!" yelled Yumcha as they tossed aside their weighted training clothes and began another attack.