Legal crap/Disclaimer: With the exception of Tourra St. Bloodbane, the characters depicted herein are the property of Akira Toriyama and the various companies who have licensed his work, not of myself (and heaven forbid if I did own them! Who knows what uses I'd put them to). I'm not making any money off of this lovely little piece, so hopefully the folks who own the characters can't sue me.
This is my first really long DBZ fic that isn't centered around my favorite insane mass-murderess - here's hoping it doesn't suck too badly!
A Lazy-Eye Metaphor on the Rocks
by Shido no Ama
"This fanfiction has its faults, no one can doubt
Although the Author was too lazy to find them out
If you find some, dear Reader (ha-ha -- 'if'?)
Make them known with many riffs."
Cell's vision finally lightened from the pitch-dark that had engulfed it immediately after Gohan's Kame-Hame-Ha struck him. Gradually the world around him swirled into shape.
He was on a road above a seemingly endless plain of yellow clouds. If he squinted a little, he could just make out Earth's check-in station in the distance.
"Fuck! Fuck! FUUUUUUCK!" The sound of his scream echoed across the cloud-plain.
Cell's fist thundered down into the pavement, leaving a crater. "God-fucking-DAMN IT!! STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!"
He vaguely recalled that swearing and generally making a scene were beneath his dignity, but utter red rage, coupled with the stress and adrenaline overload that had waylaid him during his last few moments of life, made this fact seem insignificant.
He'd had it in the bag - he would have destroyed Gohan!
"If only I hadn't been so fucking careless!"
"Excuse me..."
Cell looked up, and found himself regarding something puffy and white. "What?"
The soul backed away at the sheer venom in the android's voice and glare. "Could you kindly refrain from swearing, sir? After all, there are children present." It hovered aside to reveal another amorphous soul, with two smaller ones huddled up to it.
The android realized, a little belatedly, that he had drawn a small crowd. He stood up hurriedly. "What are you staring at?!" he snarled, flaring his aura. "Get out of my sight or I'll-" he realized that threatening to kill them wouldn't work, "-come up with something really damn painful to do to you!" What the threat itself lacked, Cell's angry tone and fierce expression more than made up for.
Cell relaxed slightly as he watched the souls scatter before him. They rather reminded him of little lemmings....
For some reason, the thought struck him as unbearably funny.
He let himself laugh until his knees gave out, feeling all the residual stress, all the hate, and all the rage melt away as the ghosts of adrenaline filtered out of his system. (Cell wondered how he could still have adrenaline, lacking the physical glands to produce it; the words consciousness imprint rose unbidden to mind, neatly answering the question, as if his subconscious was irritated with his ignorance.)
He'd only lost because of carelessness. The thought, while still irking, was also reassuring now. It meant Gohan hadn't won by virtue of superior power, but merely by opportunism.
It meant that Cell had been the most powerful warrior on Earth, at least for a little while.
He stood up and took a deep breath. What was more, being dead didn't seem so bad - it was acceptable, so long as he could retain control of his situation.
With the excess hormones no longer so thoroughly frazzling his thoughts, he was starting to be able to sense his situation's potential.
As he walked along the road, the occasional soul almost falling over itself to get out of his way, he realized that it did have quite a bit of potential indeed.
King Enma scanned the thick ledger before him. He peered over the book at the green-armored warrior standing patiently at the foot of his desk. "Cell, I presume?"
"And you must be King Enma, whom I've heard so much about," the android replied, bowing slightly.
"Well, I certainly expected you'd make a bit more of a fuss on the way in.... most of the more powerful warriors killed on Earth had to be dragged in fighting every inch of the way."
"It'd accomplish nothing except needlessly wasting your time. And I presume you're quite a busy man, being judge of the dead..." Cell's eyes revealed not a hint of his internal astonishment at having been able to say that with a straight face. The android was starting to discover his hidden inner reserves of diplomatic talent.
"Quite right." King Enma scanned the ledger for his place. "It's always nice to get the occasional cooperative newly-dead - most of them put up such a struggle. I can't imagine why - everyone knows they're going to die sooner or later..."
"Possibly it's because they all hedge on the 'later' rather than the 'sooner.'"
"Could be," Enma conceded. "I've never really understood mortals myself - ah, here we go..." He located is place. "Let's see now... You've led quite a rotten life. You've committed 15,788,936 murders..."
"What, only?" Cell muttered under his breath.
"...four acts of major environmental destruction, and wanton destruction of the property of a god. Have you anything to say in your denfense?"
"At this point many people try to plead temporary insanity, don't they?" Cell raised an eyebrow knowingly.
Enma sighed. "You have no idea... I get at least one a day. It makes me want to just drop the little blasphemers straight into the lowest circle of Hell..." Enma snarled, making portal-opening motions.
"I'd imagine." Cell nodded sympathetically.
"...Why do you ask?" Enma's tone was suddenly suspicious. "Surely you weren't thinking of--"
"My good minor god, of course I wasn't." Cell laughed. "I'm not that uncreative. No, I have a far better defense than that - though I hadn't intended to argue with your judgement."
"Who are you calling a minor god?" Enma muttered disgruntledly, hating the accuracy with which the android had addressed him.
"You see, I've always held that 'good' and 'bad' are simply self-righteous terms for that which is either advantageous or detrimental to survival, usually as applied to clan animals. That which contributes to the survival of the individual, the clan, and the species, often though not always in that order is considered 'good.' For example, by protecting another member of one's clan, one increases the group's chance for survival until another day at the least and eventual genetic dominance at the most.
"Any act that decreases the potential of survivability is, of course, 'bad.' Unprovoked killing of a member of another clan, for example, has the probability of leading to costly friction between clans - resulting in your own clan expending valuable time and energy, and perhaps losing their lives. I'm sure you know where all this is leading."
"Humor me," Enma replied.
"Very well then. You see, I'm no clan animal. I'm a solitary apex predator, and must be judged accordingly."
"An interesting defense. Have you been working on it?"
"By no means." Cell shrugged. "I didn't even know I'd be allowed to present a defense."
"It's not bad. Still, my judgement rests. While I'll grant you the murders on grounds of necessary predatory activity, you have no excuse for the environmental destruction. In fact, part of it was, as you'd put it, indirectly detrimental to your survival - remember all the land you disrupted in preparations for and over the course of your Cell Games?" Enma smiled; the expression was oddly creepy.
Cell smiled back, hiding his irritation at having underestimated Enma's intelligence. "Touché. I can see I'll have to come up with something better to get around you..."
"In the meantime, I suggest you accept the punishment for mass murder instead of violence against nature. It's a little more lenient," Enma responded.
"Very well... A mass murderer I am, then." Cell was almost impressed at how easily the judge of the dead had maneuvered him back into his original position. It would've been impressive indeed if Cell had intended to argue in the first place - he'd never intended to escape Hell, or Enma's judgement; he almost didn't want to. Hell seemed to have a few more options than his other possible destinations, if only because most of his predecessors were now residents there.
"Have a nice day." Enma opened a portal under Cell's feet, dropping the now slightly pissed-looking android into the netherworld. He flipped to a different place in his ledger, hollering, "Next!" as he did.
Cell spat out a mouthful of slightly rancid blood as his head broke the surface of the river that King Enma had dropped him into. He began plotting a minor revenge for his undignified arrival as he took stock of his surroundings.
He stood shoulder-deep in a river of boiling blood, in which, to his surprise, were other former mortals. He recognized Napoleon Bonaparte among them, and got the impression that he would have recognized others, had they not stood too deep in the river.
Along the banks of the river, incongruously enough, green grass and a few flowers grew, interspersed with small patches of blue fire; the sky overhead was a blanket of marigold-yellow clouds. It wasn't nearly as sinister as all those rumors would have, though he could see how one could easily grow sick of the clouds....
"Ksst, hey, newly-dead," hissed a voice, in a language that Cell was quick to identify as Middle German.
Cell turned, curious as to the identity of the one who'd dared address him so informally.
"No, not there. Over here."
Cell located the speaker at last. It was a woman who appeared to be mostly human, with a fair amount of anthropomorphic white tiger mixed in- her body was covered in short, black-striped white fur, and her piercingly blue eyes had vertical pupils. Her slightly broad and flat nose ended in a black, feline pad. A mane of blood-caked, obsidian black hair cascaded from under her dragon's head-shaped helm. Her armor and cloak were blood red, brighter than the river in which she stood up to the bottom of her ample bosom.
"Can I help you with something?" Cell asked, a fine layer of frost condensing on his voice.
She tilted her head slightly. "Would you mind too terribly escorting me out of here?" The cutely pleading expression in her eyes almost hid the natural steel of her countenance.
"Is there something in it for me?"
"I'll owe you a big favor, redeemable at any time. Down here, those can count for a great deal," she replied. "So how about it?"
Cell had mentally begun framing his polite refusal when her eyes locked with his own. Thoughts of anything besides acceptance died a quick death; that unreadably cold, fearsome reptilian gaze sent a chill down his spine in spite of the boiling river's heat.
"Well?" she pressed.
"That sounds reasonable." Cell looked away, attempting to quell the slight yet persistent fear insinuating itself within his mind. "After all, it's not as though I've any particularly urgent matters to attend to."
As he swam over to her, he realized that any being with a power level of a mere - he did a few quick calculations in his head - 78,000 who was capable of igniting fear within his heart could well be one worth allying himself with.
He was halfway to her when a pitchfork barred his passage.
"Overstepping your bounds a bit there, newly-dead," the oni sneered. "Get back to your place, before I get mad."
Cell didn't dignify him with a response. Instead, he grabbed the pitchfork, and flipped the oni into the river.
"Why not just leave on your own?" Cell asked the tigress as he resumed his progress. "It's not as if these onitachi have any power to speak of."
She smiled bittersweetly. "They may be weak, but there are thousands of them and they're practically indestructible. My own strength wouldn't be enough to convince them of the virtues of leaving me alone - it takes a power more like yours to accomplish that."
Cell stubbornly resisted the urge to preen; then, he got a closer look at her face. In her eyes was a look that Cell had seen often before - usually on Vejiita's face, come to think of it. It was the look of pride that had taken a severe beating, and survived, though not completely intact. For some reason, the expression reminded him of a shackled beast; it brought to mind the great wolf Fenrir and the fearsome serpent-dragon Iormungand.
"If I'm to be helping you, we should at least know each other's names," he remarked upon reaching her. "I'm Cell, also known as Android 21."
"Ah, so you'd be that 'perfect warrior' Dr. Gero was yammering about in between escape attempts," she noted. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Cell. My name is Tourra." She gathered up her cloak and swung herself into his arms, blood pouring from her armor.
Cell allowed the faintest tinge of irritation to manifest upon his usually impassive features as he carried her to the riverbank, where he dumped her unceremoniously.
Tourra landed easily on her feet, growling at the android.
Cell's ego struck out with rage against rising fear. "You do remind me so of a tiger cub," he remarked in cutting tones, before he could consider stopping himself.
For an instant, indignant wrath flashed in those blue-fire eyes. However, almost immediately the fires of anger flickered out, damped by hastily-concealed misery.
"I suppose you're right," she muttered.
Cell frowned slightly. Her second reaction was puzzling indeed, and rather disappointing. "....Don't take it personally."
"No, it's quite amusing." Tourra attempted a smile. "Ha. Ha," she added for good measure.
There was a commotion a little further down the river bank. Tourra's head snapped up, and her ears twitched towards the source of the noise. "Anyway, we'd best get a move on," she informed Cell. "The demons will be here in force soon. There's a stop I need to make before I'll be prepared to face them."
She grabbed Cell's hand and took off, sprinting along the river bank.
"Where exactly are we going?" Cell asked.
"Back that way, the river leads to Judecca," Tourra indicated the opposite direction from which they were heading. "This way leads to Pandemonium. I have a few allies there - some demons who are followers of my great-grandfather. I left something important in their care."
Within a few seconds, the great city became visible in the distance.
"I assume you have a plan for getting us into and out of the city without bringing a host of onitachi down on our heads?" Cell asked.
"Broadly, yes. I'm still working a bit on the fine detail, but we can definitely get in and back out. We might be able to get away unmolested afterwards, though I wouldn't count too heavily on that."
A forest appeared up along the riverbank. Tourra ducked into it, slowing her pace to a jog.
"Be careful not to damage any of the vegetation," she commanded, carefully stepping around a bush.
"Tch... surely you're not an ecologist?" Did Hell work in subtler ways than he'd thought when it came to the task of tormenting former mortals? Cell winced at the thought.
"If you wanna be caught now, be my guest." Tourra gave him a steely glare. "This is the wood of suicides. If you break something, it bleeds; if it bleeds, it talks; if it talks, it gives us away. There aren't very many demons here at the moment, but they'd get here damn fast if the harpies started kicking up a ruckus."
"...Harpies?"
"Get down!" Tourra pulled him into the undergrowth. A few seconds later, a beast that looked like a cross between an old woman and a vulture glided past overhead.
"I see," Cell whispered, when the harpy was a fair distance away.
"Remember, newly-dead, I've been here much longer than you. I know some things about this place that you don't." Tourra stood up. "Now, if we're careful, we can get through here without the harpies even noticing us."
A faint smile flitted across her face. "You know, I do wish I had power like yours... Being weak is so damned frustrating..."
"I know exactly how it is," Cell replied, sympathetically. He stood up, brushing a few flecks of leaf-mold off his armor.
"Really?" Tourra cocked her head.
"More so than you'd believe. You see, I was created to be the ultimate weapon... However..."
They walked through the forest, Cell quietly narrating his life story.
"...I wound up here through my own carelessness," he concluded. "It's a disappointment, but then, this place also presents a great many opportunities. I could likely do a great deal more from Hell than one would think possible. And besides, if worse comes to worst, death isn't as final as everyone likes to think. Chances are, I've got a cult of followers somewhere on Earth who I could convince to have me revived, if necessary."
"Harpy!" Tourra hissed, pulling Cell behind a tree.
A harpy shot past, moving far faster than the one they had seen earlier. It was followed shortly by several more, a few of them shrieking.
"That's odd..." Tourra looked out from behind the tree. "I wonder what's gotten into the buggers?"
There were muffled shouts from up ahead, followed by a faint explosion.
Cell and Tourra exchanged looks.
"We should check it out - from a safe distance, of course," Tourra proposed.
"Agreed."
They moved quickly and silently through the trees, towards the disturbance.
Tourra paused, looking westward towards Pandemonium; she caught Cell's hand. "There's a squad of demons heading in this direction. You should hide yourself for now - I've got business with a few of them."
Cell settled into the undergrowth, his coloration rendering him nearly invisible. Tourra ducked behind a tree on the edge of the path.
The squad of onitachi thundered past, yelling at eachother; from the noise, Tourra was able to pick up the words Gero, helluva nuisance, and incompetent fuckos.
Tourra smirked. There were a few people who had never gotten quite the right idea about how to travel in Hell; Gero-hakasei was one of them. Intelligent as the man was, he was also unintentionally excellent at attracting attention. Even in her bright red armor, Tourra could still camouflage herself better than him; she got the feeling that fact would've still held true if she traded her red armor in for blaze orange. Also, for some reason, Gero tended to get entire regiments of onitachi after him; even Korudo, Furiza, and Kooler had not attracted so much attention when they made it clear their intent not to be confined to one particular region of Hell.
Tourra tripped up an oni at the back of the group, grabbing him and pulling him behind the tree before he could hit the ground.
"We meet again, Haufni." Tourra smiled menacingly. "You do remember me, don't you? After all, I always considered myself rather hard to forget."
"H-h-hullo, Lady St. Bloodbane," the oni stuttered back nervously.
"St. Bloodbane?" Cell hissed. The world seemed to spin, if only a little. Now it made sense that she had the ability to frighten even him.
He had heard much of the legendary beast who was the only female spawn of Loki's monstrous brood - the granddaughter of Iormungand, and daughter of the great dragon Bloodbane whom it had taken an immortal knight of the gods and three incredibly strong heroes ten days to defeat. She was said to be even more powerful than her sire - she was more clever at least, with a bright and steel-cold mind more like her great-grandfather's.
Yet, the gods had still managed to shackle her, to restrain her power so that she was almost no threat.
Tourra laughed loudly and dealt the oni a ringing slap on the back. "No need to be so uptight. After all, it's just me." She winked. "Ya got my spear?"
Haufni glanced around, rather nervously. "Where's your escort?"
A bush in front of some unusually-shaped black rocks metamorphosed into a smaller bush and Cell as the android arose.
"It'd be against the rules for them to just keep the spear for me until it becomes convenient to collect it," Tourra explained. "Demons aren't allowed to render any assistance to their charges unless said charge has completed a designated task or won some sort of wager. In my case, I had to find someone willing to escort me to pick it up."
Haufni sighed in apparent relief, and raised his right hand, palm upwards. A column of black fire materialized above it, then faded to reveal an enormous, yet elegantly simple Viking-style spear. The blade bore seven small runes, glowing black - not a mystical incantation, but simply the weapon's name. The oni's hand closed around the spearhaft, and he proffered the weapon to Tourra.
She took it, smirking. "Thank you ever so much." She twirled it, performing a few strikes to adjust to its weight and balance. Cell's eyes widened slightly as he recognized the runes inscribed on the blade - gefu, uruz, nauthiz, gefu again, nauthiz again, isa, raitho. Gungnir.
Haufni saluted. "Make good use of it for the sake of our cause, Lady St. Bloodbane."
Tourra nodded. "Don't worry about that. Now, weren't you trying to catch someone...?"
The oni took the hint, and made himself scarce.
At last, Cell found his voice. "So you're really..."
"It would be best if you forgot about that." Tourra's eyes betrayed a flicker of miserably futile rage.
"Why do you hide your true identity?" He shrugged.
"It would gain me nothing to reveal it."
"You're wrong. It would gain you fear, at the very least."
"And very shortly there would be one who would try to expand their fame by destroying me," she snapped. "Even with this weapon's power, I would still be vulnerable... I might last for a little while, but one mistake, and that would be the end of it. Besides," the fire in her eyes died down, "one who has shamed the Beast race such as I have deserves no respect."
"You've shamed them no less than Fenrir and Iormungand have." Cell snorted derisively. "They are bound even tighter than you, and you have Odin's spear besides--"
The muscles in Tourra's throat tightened and changed shape. "At least they still have their strength!" she snarled. Her voice had dropped to a low, raspy growl of just the right pitch to do genuinely unpleasant things to the nerves. The physical effects made Cell want to scream - it was like a piece of wet silk being dragged across an exposed nerve - but the sheer terror it invoked kept him utterly motionless.
It was the voice of primeval fear itself.
Her voice returned to normal. "I have nothing except the Gungnir, and even that is only borrowed - well, stolen - power."
After a few tries, Cell managed to make his own voice work again. "You're still wrong."
She glared at him disbelievingly. "Am I?"
"You have your name and your voice. You can easily gain victories with those alone."
Tourra snorted. "And here I thought you might be onto something I had missed. I already told you what the outcome of using my full name would be, and the voice - the voice is nothing without the form to back it up. I can't even do it right anymore. It's just a damned party trick."
"It's a hell of a party trick..." Cell chuckled. "St. Bloodbane, if I had even your voice, I'd be able to conquer the universe without ever using more power than is required to walk. You underestimate what the gods have left you with."
"I find that hard to believe. If this voice could make me so dangerous, why would the gods have left me with it? They aren't fools."
"You'd never have thought of using it that way, would you?"
"I suppose not... but would they really take the chance anyway?"
Cell sighed. "This is getting us nowhere, St. Bloodbane." He smirked. "But I know a way to prove my point to you."
"And what exactly do you have in mind?"
His smirk broadened. "Become my weapon. Allow me to direct your powers... then you will see what you are really still capable of."
Tourra smiled. "You are a devious one, aren't you... I'll bet you were setting that up the whole time."
"Don't tell me you're going to refuse - not with the favor you owe me, and all."
She shrugged. "If you want this as your favor, I can't refuse. A Beast never breaks her word. Besides," she pouted at the obvious unfairness, "you're bigger than me."
"True, but you've got Gungnir. How did you manage to obtain that thing, anyway?"
"It's a long story... But right now, I think it's time to be moving far, far away. Haufni will have alerted the others about our presence by now..."
"You really think he had the nerve to betray us?"
"Of course. That's what being a demon is all about." She smirked. "Don't worry, newly-dead, you'll learn the way this place works soon enough."
This is my first really long DBZ fic that isn't centered around my favorite insane mass-murderess - here's hoping it doesn't suck too badly!
A Lazy-Eye Metaphor on the Rocks
by Shido no Ama
"This fanfiction has its faults, no one can doubt
Although the Author was too lazy to find them out
If you find some, dear Reader (ha-ha -- 'if'?)
Make them known with many riffs."
Cell's vision finally lightened from the pitch-dark that had engulfed it immediately after Gohan's Kame-Hame-Ha struck him. Gradually the world around him swirled into shape.
He was on a road above a seemingly endless plain of yellow clouds. If he squinted a little, he could just make out Earth's check-in station in the distance.
"Fuck! Fuck! FUUUUUUCK!" The sound of his scream echoed across the cloud-plain.
Cell's fist thundered down into the pavement, leaving a crater. "God-fucking-DAMN IT!! STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!"
He vaguely recalled that swearing and generally making a scene were beneath his dignity, but utter red rage, coupled with the stress and adrenaline overload that had waylaid him during his last few moments of life, made this fact seem insignificant.
He'd had it in the bag - he would have destroyed Gohan!
"If only I hadn't been so fucking careless!"
"Excuse me..."
Cell looked up, and found himself regarding something puffy and white. "What?"
The soul backed away at the sheer venom in the android's voice and glare. "Could you kindly refrain from swearing, sir? After all, there are children present." It hovered aside to reveal another amorphous soul, with two smaller ones huddled up to it.
The android realized, a little belatedly, that he had drawn a small crowd. He stood up hurriedly. "What are you staring at?!" he snarled, flaring his aura. "Get out of my sight or I'll-" he realized that threatening to kill them wouldn't work, "-come up with something really damn painful to do to you!" What the threat itself lacked, Cell's angry tone and fierce expression more than made up for.
Cell relaxed slightly as he watched the souls scatter before him. They rather reminded him of little lemmings....
For some reason, the thought struck him as unbearably funny.
He let himself laugh until his knees gave out, feeling all the residual stress, all the hate, and all the rage melt away as the ghosts of adrenaline filtered out of his system. (Cell wondered how he could still have adrenaline, lacking the physical glands to produce it; the words consciousness imprint rose unbidden to mind, neatly answering the question, as if his subconscious was irritated with his ignorance.)
He'd only lost because of carelessness. The thought, while still irking, was also reassuring now. It meant Gohan hadn't won by virtue of superior power, but merely by opportunism.
It meant that Cell had been the most powerful warrior on Earth, at least for a little while.
He stood up and took a deep breath. What was more, being dead didn't seem so bad - it was acceptable, so long as he could retain control of his situation.
With the excess hormones no longer so thoroughly frazzling his thoughts, he was starting to be able to sense his situation's potential.
As he walked along the road, the occasional soul almost falling over itself to get out of his way, he realized that it did have quite a bit of potential indeed.
King Enma scanned the thick ledger before him. He peered over the book at the green-armored warrior standing patiently at the foot of his desk. "Cell, I presume?"
"And you must be King Enma, whom I've heard so much about," the android replied, bowing slightly.
"Well, I certainly expected you'd make a bit more of a fuss on the way in.... most of the more powerful warriors killed on Earth had to be dragged in fighting every inch of the way."
"It'd accomplish nothing except needlessly wasting your time. And I presume you're quite a busy man, being judge of the dead..." Cell's eyes revealed not a hint of his internal astonishment at having been able to say that with a straight face. The android was starting to discover his hidden inner reserves of diplomatic talent.
"Quite right." King Enma scanned the ledger for his place. "It's always nice to get the occasional cooperative newly-dead - most of them put up such a struggle. I can't imagine why - everyone knows they're going to die sooner or later..."
"Possibly it's because they all hedge on the 'later' rather than the 'sooner.'"
"Could be," Enma conceded. "I've never really understood mortals myself - ah, here we go..." He located is place. "Let's see now... You've led quite a rotten life. You've committed 15,788,936 murders..."
"What, only?" Cell muttered under his breath.
"...four acts of major environmental destruction, and wanton destruction of the property of a god. Have you anything to say in your denfense?"
"At this point many people try to plead temporary insanity, don't they?" Cell raised an eyebrow knowingly.
Enma sighed. "You have no idea... I get at least one a day. It makes me want to just drop the little blasphemers straight into the lowest circle of Hell..." Enma snarled, making portal-opening motions.
"I'd imagine." Cell nodded sympathetically.
"...Why do you ask?" Enma's tone was suddenly suspicious. "Surely you weren't thinking of--"
"My good minor god, of course I wasn't." Cell laughed. "I'm not that uncreative. No, I have a far better defense than that - though I hadn't intended to argue with your judgement."
"Who are you calling a minor god?" Enma muttered disgruntledly, hating the accuracy with which the android had addressed him.
"You see, I've always held that 'good' and 'bad' are simply self-righteous terms for that which is either advantageous or detrimental to survival, usually as applied to clan animals. That which contributes to the survival of the individual, the clan, and the species, often though not always in that order is considered 'good.' For example, by protecting another member of one's clan, one increases the group's chance for survival until another day at the least and eventual genetic dominance at the most.
"Any act that decreases the potential of survivability is, of course, 'bad.' Unprovoked killing of a member of another clan, for example, has the probability of leading to costly friction between clans - resulting in your own clan expending valuable time and energy, and perhaps losing their lives. I'm sure you know where all this is leading."
"Humor me," Enma replied.
"Very well then. You see, I'm no clan animal. I'm a solitary apex predator, and must be judged accordingly."
"An interesting defense. Have you been working on it?"
"By no means." Cell shrugged. "I didn't even know I'd be allowed to present a defense."
"It's not bad. Still, my judgement rests. While I'll grant you the murders on grounds of necessary predatory activity, you have no excuse for the environmental destruction. In fact, part of it was, as you'd put it, indirectly detrimental to your survival - remember all the land you disrupted in preparations for and over the course of your Cell Games?" Enma smiled; the expression was oddly creepy.
Cell smiled back, hiding his irritation at having underestimated Enma's intelligence. "Touché. I can see I'll have to come up with something better to get around you..."
"In the meantime, I suggest you accept the punishment for mass murder instead of violence against nature. It's a little more lenient," Enma responded.
"Very well... A mass murderer I am, then." Cell was almost impressed at how easily the judge of the dead had maneuvered him back into his original position. It would've been impressive indeed if Cell had intended to argue in the first place - he'd never intended to escape Hell, or Enma's judgement; he almost didn't want to. Hell seemed to have a few more options than his other possible destinations, if only because most of his predecessors were now residents there.
"Have a nice day." Enma opened a portal under Cell's feet, dropping the now slightly pissed-looking android into the netherworld. He flipped to a different place in his ledger, hollering, "Next!" as he did.
Cell spat out a mouthful of slightly rancid blood as his head broke the surface of the river that King Enma had dropped him into. He began plotting a minor revenge for his undignified arrival as he took stock of his surroundings.
He stood shoulder-deep in a river of boiling blood, in which, to his surprise, were other former mortals. He recognized Napoleon Bonaparte among them, and got the impression that he would have recognized others, had they not stood too deep in the river.
Along the banks of the river, incongruously enough, green grass and a few flowers grew, interspersed with small patches of blue fire; the sky overhead was a blanket of marigold-yellow clouds. It wasn't nearly as sinister as all those rumors would have, though he could see how one could easily grow sick of the clouds....
"Ksst, hey, newly-dead," hissed a voice, in a language that Cell was quick to identify as Middle German.
Cell turned, curious as to the identity of the one who'd dared address him so informally.
"No, not there. Over here."
Cell located the speaker at last. It was a woman who appeared to be mostly human, with a fair amount of anthropomorphic white tiger mixed in- her body was covered in short, black-striped white fur, and her piercingly blue eyes had vertical pupils. Her slightly broad and flat nose ended in a black, feline pad. A mane of blood-caked, obsidian black hair cascaded from under her dragon's head-shaped helm. Her armor and cloak were blood red, brighter than the river in which she stood up to the bottom of her ample bosom.
"Can I help you with something?" Cell asked, a fine layer of frost condensing on his voice.
She tilted her head slightly. "Would you mind too terribly escorting me out of here?" The cutely pleading expression in her eyes almost hid the natural steel of her countenance.
"Is there something in it for me?"
"I'll owe you a big favor, redeemable at any time. Down here, those can count for a great deal," she replied. "So how about it?"
Cell had mentally begun framing his polite refusal when her eyes locked with his own. Thoughts of anything besides acceptance died a quick death; that unreadably cold, fearsome reptilian gaze sent a chill down his spine in spite of the boiling river's heat.
"Well?" she pressed.
"That sounds reasonable." Cell looked away, attempting to quell the slight yet persistent fear insinuating itself within his mind. "After all, it's not as though I've any particularly urgent matters to attend to."
As he swam over to her, he realized that any being with a power level of a mere - he did a few quick calculations in his head - 78,000 who was capable of igniting fear within his heart could well be one worth allying himself with.
He was halfway to her when a pitchfork barred his passage.
"Overstepping your bounds a bit there, newly-dead," the oni sneered. "Get back to your place, before I get mad."
Cell didn't dignify him with a response. Instead, he grabbed the pitchfork, and flipped the oni into the river.
"Why not just leave on your own?" Cell asked the tigress as he resumed his progress. "It's not as if these onitachi have any power to speak of."
She smiled bittersweetly. "They may be weak, but there are thousands of them and they're practically indestructible. My own strength wouldn't be enough to convince them of the virtues of leaving me alone - it takes a power more like yours to accomplish that."
Cell stubbornly resisted the urge to preen; then, he got a closer look at her face. In her eyes was a look that Cell had seen often before - usually on Vejiita's face, come to think of it. It was the look of pride that had taken a severe beating, and survived, though not completely intact. For some reason, the expression reminded him of a shackled beast; it brought to mind the great wolf Fenrir and the fearsome serpent-dragon Iormungand.
"If I'm to be helping you, we should at least know each other's names," he remarked upon reaching her. "I'm Cell, also known as Android 21."
"Ah, so you'd be that 'perfect warrior' Dr. Gero was yammering about in between escape attempts," she noted. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Cell. My name is Tourra." She gathered up her cloak and swung herself into his arms, blood pouring from her armor.
Cell allowed the faintest tinge of irritation to manifest upon his usually impassive features as he carried her to the riverbank, where he dumped her unceremoniously.
Tourra landed easily on her feet, growling at the android.
Cell's ego struck out with rage against rising fear. "You do remind me so of a tiger cub," he remarked in cutting tones, before he could consider stopping himself.
For an instant, indignant wrath flashed in those blue-fire eyes. However, almost immediately the fires of anger flickered out, damped by hastily-concealed misery.
"I suppose you're right," she muttered.
Cell frowned slightly. Her second reaction was puzzling indeed, and rather disappointing. "....Don't take it personally."
"No, it's quite amusing." Tourra attempted a smile. "Ha. Ha," she added for good measure.
There was a commotion a little further down the river bank. Tourra's head snapped up, and her ears twitched towards the source of the noise. "Anyway, we'd best get a move on," she informed Cell. "The demons will be here in force soon. There's a stop I need to make before I'll be prepared to face them."
She grabbed Cell's hand and took off, sprinting along the river bank.
"Where exactly are we going?" Cell asked.
"Back that way, the river leads to Judecca," Tourra indicated the opposite direction from which they were heading. "This way leads to Pandemonium. I have a few allies there - some demons who are followers of my great-grandfather. I left something important in their care."
Within a few seconds, the great city became visible in the distance.
"I assume you have a plan for getting us into and out of the city without bringing a host of onitachi down on our heads?" Cell asked.
"Broadly, yes. I'm still working a bit on the fine detail, but we can definitely get in and back out. We might be able to get away unmolested afterwards, though I wouldn't count too heavily on that."
A forest appeared up along the riverbank. Tourra ducked into it, slowing her pace to a jog.
"Be careful not to damage any of the vegetation," she commanded, carefully stepping around a bush.
"Tch... surely you're not an ecologist?" Did Hell work in subtler ways than he'd thought when it came to the task of tormenting former mortals? Cell winced at the thought.
"If you wanna be caught now, be my guest." Tourra gave him a steely glare. "This is the wood of suicides. If you break something, it bleeds; if it bleeds, it talks; if it talks, it gives us away. There aren't very many demons here at the moment, but they'd get here damn fast if the harpies started kicking up a ruckus."
"...Harpies?"
"Get down!" Tourra pulled him into the undergrowth. A few seconds later, a beast that looked like a cross between an old woman and a vulture glided past overhead.
"I see," Cell whispered, when the harpy was a fair distance away.
"Remember, newly-dead, I've been here much longer than you. I know some things about this place that you don't." Tourra stood up. "Now, if we're careful, we can get through here without the harpies even noticing us."
A faint smile flitted across her face. "You know, I do wish I had power like yours... Being weak is so damned frustrating..."
"I know exactly how it is," Cell replied, sympathetically. He stood up, brushing a few flecks of leaf-mold off his armor.
"Really?" Tourra cocked her head.
"More so than you'd believe. You see, I was created to be the ultimate weapon... However..."
They walked through the forest, Cell quietly narrating his life story.
"...I wound up here through my own carelessness," he concluded. "It's a disappointment, but then, this place also presents a great many opportunities. I could likely do a great deal more from Hell than one would think possible. And besides, if worse comes to worst, death isn't as final as everyone likes to think. Chances are, I've got a cult of followers somewhere on Earth who I could convince to have me revived, if necessary."
"Harpy!" Tourra hissed, pulling Cell behind a tree.
A harpy shot past, moving far faster than the one they had seen earlier. It was followed shortly by several more, a few of them shrieking.
"That's odd..." Tourra looked out from behind the tree. "I wonder what's gotten into the buggers?"
There were muffled shouts from up ahead, followed by a faint explosion.
Cell and Tourra exchanged looks.
"We should check it out - from a safe distance, of course," Tourra proposed.
"Agreed."
They moved quickly and silently through the trees, towards the disturbance.
Tourra paused, looking westward towards Pandemonium; she caught Cell's hand. "There's a squad of demons heading in this direction. You should hide yourself for now - I've got business with a few of them."
Cell settled into the undergrowth, his coloration rendering him nearly invisible. Tourra ducked behind a tree on the edge of the path.
The squad of onitachi thundered past, yelling at eachother; from the noise, Tourra was able to pick up the words Gero, helluva nuisance, and incompetent fuckos.
Tourra smirked. There were a few people who had never gotten quite the right idea about how to travel in Hell; Gero-hakasei was one of them. Intelligent as the man was, he was also unintentionally excellent at attracting attention. Even in her bright red armor, Tourra could still camouflage herself better than him; she got the feeling that fact would've still held true if she traded her red armor in for blaze orange. Also, for some reason, Gero tended to get entire regiments of onitachi after him; even Korudo, Furiza, and Kooler had not attracted so much attention when they made it clear their intent not to be confined to one particular region of Hell.
Tourra tripped up an oni at the back of the group, grabbing him and pulling him behind the tree before he could hit the ground.
"We meet again, Haufni." Tourra smiled menacingly. "You do remember me, don't you? After all, I always considered myself rather hard to forget."
"H-h-hullo, Lady St. Bloodbane," the oni stuttered back nervously.
"St. Bloodbane?" Cell hissed. The world seemed to spin, if only a little. Now it made sense that she had the ability to frighten even him.
He had heard much of the legendary beast who was the only female spawn of Loki's monstrous brood - the granddaughter of Iormungand, and daughter of the great dragon Bloodbane whom it had taken an immortal knight of the gods and three incredibly strong heroes ten days to defeat. She was said to be even more powerful than her sire - she was more clever at least, with a bright and steel-cold mind more like her great-grandfather's.
Yet, the gods had still managed to shackle her, to restrain her power so that she was almost no threat.
Tourra laughed loudly and dealt the oni a ringing slap on the back. "No need to be so uptight. After all, it's just me." She winked. "Ya got my spear?"
Haufni glanced around, rather nervously. "Where's your escort?"
A bush in front of some unusually-shaped black rocks metamorphosed into a smaller bush and Cell as the android arose.
"It'd be against the rules for them to just keep the spear for me until it becomes convenient to collect it," Tourra explained. "Demons aren't allowed to render any assistance to their charges unless said charge has completed a designated task or won some sort of wager. In my case, I had to find someone willing to escort me to pick it up."
Haufni sighed in apparent relief, and raised his right hand, palm upwards. A column of black fire materialized above it, then faded to reveal an enormous, yet elegantly simple Viking-style spear. The blade bore seven small runes, glowing black - not a mystical incantation, but simply the weapon's name. The oni's hand closed around the spearhaft, and he proffered the weapon to Tourra.
She took it, smirking. "Thank you ever so much." She twirled it, performing a few strikes to adjust to its weight and balance. Cell's eyes widened slightly as he recognized the runes inscribed on the blade - gefu, uruz, nauthiz, gefu again, nauthiz again, isa, raitho. Gungnir.
Haufni saluted. "Make good use of it for the sake of our cause, Lady St. Bloodbane."
Tourra nodded. "Don't worry about that. Now, weren't you trying to catch someone...?"
The oni took the hint, and made himself scarce.
At last, Cell found his voice. "So you're really..."
"It would be best if you forgot about that." Tourra's eyes betrayed a flicker of miserably futile rage.
"Why do you hide your true identity?" He shrugged.
"It would gain me nothing to reveal it."
"You're wrong. It would gain you fear, at the very least."
"And very shortly there would be one who would try to expand their fame by destroying me," she snapped. "Even with this weapon's power, I would still be vulnerable... I might last for a little while, but one mistake, and that would be the end of it. Besides," the fire in her eyes died down, "one who has shamed the Beast race such as I have deserves no respect."
"You've shamed them no less than Fenrir and Iormungand have." Cell snorted derisively. "They are bound even tighter than you, and you have Odin's spear besides--"
The muscles in Tourra's throat tightened and changed shape. "At least they still have their strength!" she snarled. Her voice had dropped to a low, raspy growl of just the right pitch to do genuinely unpleasant things to the nerves. The physical effects made Cell want to scream - it was like a piece of wet silk being dragged across an exposed nerve - but the sheer terror it invoked kept him utterly motionless.
It was the voice of primeval fear itself.
Her voice returned to normal. "I have nothing except the Gungnir, and even that is only borrowed - well, stolen - power."
After a few tries, Cell managed to make his own voice work again. "You're still wrong."
She glared at him disbelievingly. "Am I?"
"You have your name and your voice. You can easily gain victories with those alone."
Tourra snorted. "And here I thought you might be onto something I had missed. I already told you what the outcome of using my full name would be, and the voice - the voice is nothing without the form to back it up. I can't even do it right anymore. It's just a damned party trick."
"It's a hell of a party trick..." Cell chuckled. "St. Bloodbane, if I had even your voice, I'd be able to conquer the universe without ever using more power than is required to walk. You underestimate what the gods have left you with."
"I find that hard to believe. If this voice could make me so dangerous, why would the gods have left me with it? They aren't fools."
"You'd never have thought of using it that way, would you?"
"I suppose not... but would they really take the chance anyway?"
Cell sighed. "This is getting us nowhere, St. Bloodbane." He smirked. "But I know a way to prove my point to you."
"And what exactly do you have in mind?"
His smirk broadened. "Become my weapon. Allow me to direct your powers... then you will see what you are really still capable of."
Tourra smiled. "You are a devious one, aren't you... I'll bet you were setting that up the whole time."
"Don't tell me you're going to refuse - not with the favor you owe me, and all."
She shrugged. "If you want this as your favor, I can't refuse. A Beast never breaks her word. Besides," she pouted at the obvious unfairness, "you're bigger than me."
"True, but you've got Gungnir. How did you manage to obtain that thing, anyway?"
"It's a long story... But right now, I think it's time to be moving far, far away. Haufni will have alerted the others about our presence by now..."
"You really think he had the nerve to betray us?"
"Of course. That's what being a demon is all about." She smirked. "Don't worry, newly-dead, you'll learn the way this place works soon enough."