Author's note at end of chapter
Disclaimer: All characters/settings/trademarks referenced from Dragonball/Z/GT and DC entertainment are the respective properties of their original creators.
"The Sun And The Moon"
Chapter Three: Enemy Of My Enemy
Seventeen saw glass, then tile, steel, concrete, drywall, wood, and brick as he flew, face first, through building after building as a result of Thirteen's overwhelming brutality. And then he saw stars. The thirty-four year old teenager shook his head and spit out a tooth as he pushed himself up, with shaky arms, from the bathroom floor of the abandoned apartment he had crashed into. The smell of mold assaulted his nose as he caught glimpse of the mossy fungus growing over the edge of the bath tub from his peripherals. Directly below him, blood from his mouth pooled on the grimy linoleum floor. He still had the ability to bleed? He hadn't seen his own blood in twenty years. This couldn't be real.
The howling wind carried the distant sound of Thirteen's menacing laughter through the well ventilated rooms of the Swiss-cheesed apartment. Not long afterward, distinctly feminine screams of agony and terror arrived with another gust of wind. Seventeen scowled, gritting his teeth and pushing himself back onto his feet, upon recognizing the unmistakable cries of his sister. He shook off the wave of dizziness that momentarily crashed over him before stepping onto the air and floating himself back out of the giant hole in the wall. Following his ears, he turned his head up and to the left to see Eighteen hanging, stretched out, in front of Thirteen while the latter gripped her by one ankle and one wrist. The blue beast was trying to pull her limbs off with his bare hands.
The cyborg numbered Seventeen clenched his fists, digging finger nails into palms, before blasting into sonic flight. "That's enough!" he shouted as he rammed himself, like a missile, into the large android's abdomen. That seemed to do the trick as his sister was freed from the death grip while he continued to push against the solidly built android with all of his might. With his right shoulder dug into Thirteen's gut, and the attached arm wrapped halfway around him, Seventeen used the fist of his left arm to hammer a flurry of punches against every piece of blue skin he could reach. Unfortunately, his assault only lasted a few seconds before a large hand gripped his neck from behind and pulled him away. Thirteen, now in control, delivered a fierce knee into Seventeen's solar plexus, driving the air from his lungs as it lifted him up, then followed up with a lighting one-two punch combo to his rib cage before making his head snap back with a seismic uppercut.
Seventeen's vision swam as he felt himself launched skyward. He could hear the sharp wind of the upper atmosphere cutting passed his ears, feel the stinging mist of irradiated clouds, and smell the acrid sulfur in the air. When his eyesight came back into focus, he found himself at the very edge of Earth's breathable environment. He had never bothered to fly this high before and, thus, was awed by the immense curvature of the planet laid out before him. The moment ended just as soon as it had started, however, when gravity called him back. Still reeling from that bone-jarring punch, he struggled to right himself but eventually managed to gain control of his flight in time to avoid a painful landing.
The formerly human brunette man gritted his teeth as he came back within attack range just as his sister was being knocked away, into a horizontal trajectory, by a severe back-handed slap to her face. Deep scowl lines marred his youthful features as he screamed with rage during his final approach. "You'll pay for that, you bastard!" he shouted as he thrust both palms forward to unleash a salvo of high speed energy blasts that detonated on impact. "HAAAAAAAHHH!" he continued to yell at maximum volume as his non-stop assault clouded the area surrounding his target. Despite the heavy damage he had taken, and the pain he was feeling because of it, his endurance persisted. Thanks to his special internal reactor, courtesy of Gero, he could theoretically expend full powered attack energy for several days without breaking a sweat. Then again, if the blue brute was to be believed, that meant the freak was powered by Gero technology as well and quite possibly had the same kind of endurance. Against a foe as powerful as that, with near unlimited energy, victory became an inconceivable notion. That was too scary a thought to dwell on, though, Seventeen decided before noticing that his sister had rejoined his side and followed suit with her own spray of colorless energy blasts. "How you holding up, Sis!?" he asked the blonde over the chorus of continuous explosions.
"How do you think!?" she yelled her reply as she held her right foot out to show him. Her black leggings were torn around the ankle, where the blue monster had gripped when he had tried to remove the limb, and her boot was missing. More importantly, she was bleeding from a gash where her skin had ripped open and electrical sparks were surging around the wound. "Do you know how hard it's gonna be to find another matching pair in this apocalyptic nightmare!?" she said about her boots, in a tone that was meant to be a parody of her usual self, in order to make light of their dire situation.
Seventeen briefly sniggered at his sister's antics, but remained grim nonetheless. He opened his mouth to say something else but cut himself off when he noticed the rampaging android stomp out of the cloud of smoke with his arms crossed in front of him to block against the energy they were still in the process of unleashing. What's more; the hulking madman was completely unscathed. Seventeen had already been going at full tilt and, likely, Eighteen had been as well, so he had no more in reserve that would have allowed him to up the intensity of his assault to help repel the doom that was steadily marching toward them.
A few miles away, Kara and Trunks were still locked in an argument over what to do after having met up under the cover of an abandoned cafe situated on the corner of a major intersection. They had long since re-capsulized their scouters. Knocked over round iron tables and matching chairs lay strewn across the floor of the establishment which was covered in a bed of shattered glass. The "L" shaped coffee bar had a chunk ripped out of its splintering wood as well.
"...and I'm telling you that it'd be stupid to take that chance!" Trunks said, adamantly, as he gestured toward the direction of the fighting with his left arm. "What if they just decide to attack us as well!? Huh!? It'd be a free for all! Or, worse, they might just run away and leave us to deal with it ourselves! Anyway, I'd rather die than fight alongside the monsters who murdered the ones I cared about. You should know better than to ask me to do that!"
"Oh yeah!? Well, you may be fine dying without taking a chance, that might help us by the way, but I don't believe in giving up! And, from the stories I've heard, neither did your master!" Kara said in rebuttal.
Trunks looked like he had been slapped in the face by Kara's words before he recovered his wits enough to manage a stubborn scowl. "You don't get to bring Gohan into this," he replied in a dangerously low voice. "You're just an outsider who knows nothing about the reality of growing up in this Hell. If you want to throw your life away trying to save a couple of heartless cyborgs, on the slim possibility that they'll back you up, then go ahead and do it on your own! See if I care!" he shouted as he threw his hands up in the air.
Kara barely managed a calming breath as she leveled an intense, glowing red, glare at the lavender haired boy standing opposite her. "Alright... If that's the way you want it, then fine. Since you're so against this, you'd best be on your way back to your mother with the parts we gathered," she said as she pulled the small capsule case from her belt and dropped it on the wooden bar beside her. "Think about this one thing, though. If Seventeen, Eighteen, and I all die in this fight, will you be able to protect your mother from Thirteen all by yourself? Because, at that point, there will be no one left with enough strength to help you." The last daughter of Krypton walked herself passed the broken window frames of the cafe and onto the concrete sidewalk just outside before looking over her shoulder. "Goodbye, Trunks," she added before blasting into the air.
The son of Vegeta clenched his fists as he glared at the glassy floor beneath his shoes. "Damn you, Kara..."
Eighteen was clenching her jaw as she and her brother desperately unloaded everything they had while slowly backpedalling to keep space between them and Thirteen's advance. The largely flat open area they were in used to be the city's most beautiful park; once widely recognized for being featured in many iconic movies. Before the conflict, it had still somewhat resembled its former self, despite the dead grass and barren trees. Now, however, the earth had been turned inside out and dried up flora fueled several small fires that had sprung up all around them. She glanced over her shoulder to see how much ground they had left before they would be forced to take to the air and saw Trunks' blonde friend flying in at a low altitude. She grimaced. If that girl was here, then Trunks was most likely not far behind. The last thing they needed right now was the distraction from those two. "Heads up, Bro," Eighteen said, gaining her brother's attention. "We're about to have new company," she continued as she inclined her head in Kara's direction.
"Shit," Seventeen replied as he spared a glance. "Can't catch a break today. Any ideas?"
"Yeah," Eighteen said before taking one hand away from their focused effort as she turned her body halfway. She used that hand to start blasting the red and blue clad girl as she drew near. When she noticed Seventeen about to do the same, she stopped him. "No, don't stop attacking him. This will only take me a second."
"You idiots!" Kara yelled as she dodged Eighteen's blasts with a combination of twists, turns, and barrel rolls. "I'm here to help!" she added before unleashing sustained eye beams at Thirteen, which significantly slowed his forward movement. The female cyborg dropped her hand as a genuinely surprised expression came over her face, giving Kara the time she needed to land between the two. "Big Blue over there is the greater threat, so you don't have to worry about me. It's gonna take all of us to bring him down, so we need to work together. No arguments."
With a mere glance, Eighteen had a silent conversation with her brother before coming to a joint decision. "See ya!" they chorused before she and her brother dropped their attack and rocketed into the sky at top speed.
Kara heard Seventeen's laughter with acute clarity before Thirteen leapt out of the smoke, undamaged, with a huge grin on his face. She tried to evade his grasp but he was too quick and able to wrap his right hand around her neck. The red beams, that her eyes had been projecting, flickered out as her windpipe was slowly crushed. He belly laughed as he held her out in front of him and rocked her body with one solid gut punch after another. She began to cough up blood after the third strike.
"That was hilariously foolish, little cheerleader," Thirteen said as his laughter subsided. "Did ya actually believe that'd work?" he asked rhetorically. "If it's any consolation, I was just testin' my new abilities against those two traitors. So, even if ya had teamed up, it woulda made no difference 'cause I'm still only warmin' up. Ya ain't seen nothin' yet, darlin'. But, don't ya worry, I ain't lettin' those cowards get away so easy," he added before kneeing her in the face. He laughed some more as she went limp into unconsciousness. "Oops, guess I got a little too excited! Now, ya can just go ahead and nap right here while I go round up them troublemakers so we can all play together some more," he said before tossing her onto a pile of smoldering earth. "Be right back!" he added before blasting off.
Trunks arrived at the park, moments after Thirteen had departed, to find the bruised and bloody Kara laying prone on top of the smoky soil. His breath caught in his throat as he descended to his knees on the ground right beside her. "Kara...no..." he croaked out passed the lump squeezing his voice box. "I'm so sorry..." he whispered, voice tight with emotion, as his anguished expression deformed his face into a pitiful state. He fell onto his hands and leaned over her as his eyes began to sting with unshed tears. "I didn't mean it...you're not an outsider...I didn't mean it, I swear..." he continued as he struggled to control the trembling that had come over him. Not once did it cross his mind that his argument had been the right one or that she had ignored his warning. All he could think of was that he had sent her on her way while refusing to back her up from the beginning. Because of his failure, another person close to him had been lost. He leaned back on his haunches and let his arms drop to his sides as he gazed up toward the overcast sky. "Gohan...father...everyone...wherever you are, please lend me your strength and allow me to do whatever is necessary..." he said, following a deep breath. He clenched his fists and eyelids as tightly shut as they would go, for just a brief moment, before opening them up again to stare back down at his first, and only, Kryptonian friend. And then he saw it; the slow rise and fall of her chest. "Kara!" he exclaimed in astonishment as he leaned back over her. "Hang in there, okay? I've got you," he said as he scooped her up into his arms before levitating away from the scorched earth.
When Kara came back around into consciousness, she was met with the sight of her Saiyan friend staring down at her with guilt and relief layered into his otherwise melancholy visage. A gentle breeze blew his lavender bangs back and forth in front of his glistening eyes. Those crystalline pools of blue were locked onto her own as they conveyed his raw soul. They said to her; 'Never again. I'll never abandon anyone ever again, no matter what. Please believe me.' She stared long into his eyes, and the sunny horizon reflected on their surface, before suddenly becoming fully aware of herself once more and then realized that she was resting, bridal style, in Trunks' arms as they floated somewhere far above the clouds. An awkward heat quickly flushed her face before she squirmed a bit and began to float under her own power which caused the boy to gently release his grasp. When she noticed his face similarly tinged with the color of embarrassment, she gave him a tentative smile. "Thank you...for coming back," she said softly as she righted herself.
Trunks hung his head in shame. "I almost didn't," he admitted. "I'm so sorry, Kara. Will you ever forgive me?" he asked as he struggled to lift his head and once again lock eyes with her.
"But you did," Kara said, floating a bit closer to him. "And I knew that you would. You just needed the right push. So don't beat yourself up, okay? We're both still alive, which means we still have a chance to win. And...anyway...I should have thought of a better plan instead of rushing off like that so...it's on both of us." She extended her right hand in an offering befitting of the human tradition. "I think the right phrase here would be...water under the bridge?"
Without hesitation and with the feeling of a great weight being lifted, Trunks accepted Kara's hand. "Yeah," he said with a real smile on his face as he shook her hand. "That's the one."
A crescendo of consecutive sonic booms resounding throughout the atmosphere brought the duo's attention back to the most pressing matter. The air itself vibrated with the force of blows being exchanged by the three combatants fighting below the widely spread cloud coverage. Kara, now mostly recovered, had no problem discerning the heated conflict taking place. The trio of human shaped weapons were extremely adept at shrugging off fatal damage, although it was painfully obvious that number Thirteen's capacity for such things exceeded that of the twins.
"You can see them, right?" Trunks asked Kara as her eyes focused on things he could only hear. "What's happening?"
"They used me as a decoy and tried to escape, but Thirteen wasn't having it. You can call me crazy but I'm almost sure that he has more of a personal interest in them than us. They keep trying to get away, but he won't let them," Kara said as her eyes still followed their target.
"So...using you as a distraction failed, huh? I'll bet they wouldn't dare refuse any help they could get now. Wait a second..." Trunks drawled as his realization dawned on him. "Kara...how good are you at controlling your energy?"
The Kryptonian raised an eyebrow, suspiciously, as she studied her companion's expression. "Uh...I'm good enough to get by, I suppose. But I never got trained to use these powers, so I really don't know. What are you getting at?"
Several minutes later, as Kara watched the Earth shrink from over her shoulder, she shook her head and thought; 'I shouldn't have asked. This plan is even worse than mine was.' As she turned her attention back to the path ahead of her, and squinted slightly, the sun slowly grew to encompass nearly her entire field of view. It was a strange sensation. The closer she got to the local star, the less she noticed the mild strain of holding her breath against the vacuum. Additionally, the few lingering aches and pains that she had brought with her were now long gone. It was as if she had never had a finger laid upon her. At this close of a distance, it was unmistakable; the solar radiation charged her much faster than she could expend it. She almost lost her breath as her heartbeat suddenly shot up to unimaginable speed as it thundered inside her chest. 'Rao help me...' she thought as she was doubled over by the overwhelming force. 'It's...so much...'
The very next moment, Kara's head was thrown back as two untamed whips of red energy lanced viciously from her eyes and cut streaks across the blackness of space with a roaring light show. Power; it screamed angrily at her as it cursed the body that would dare try to imprison it. 'You think I'll bow to YOU!?' it howled in a voice that only she could hear. 'I am KING of this system!'
Violent red electricity began to surge all around Kara as a luminous aura of the same color faded into visibility and rolled away from her like ripples in a weightless pond. Each minute felt like an eternity as every fiber of muscle in her body was tensed while she struggled with the urge to give in against the convulsions that threatened to shake her body and, probably, tear her apart from the inside out. The pain was so intense that it was all she could do to keep from screaming out and letting go of her breath. 'Can't hold on...' she thought as she felt her grip slipping more and more with each passing moment. As wave after wave of hot agony slammed against her, a forgotten memory began to play across her mind's eye.
(Kara was inside the study of her family's old home in Argo City going over her preliminary scores for the practice exams that she had enrolled in to prepare herself for the actual trials. The beautiful sparkle of Argo's nighttime cityscape, visible through the floor to ceiling windows that ran the length of the room, was completely lost on her as she scrolled through the data on the small handheld holo-pad while pacing restlessly across the smoothly polished stone floor. As expected, she had failed the combat and physical conditioning portions which brought down her overall grade to just below the requirement. During her most recent sparring session with her instructor, her father had told her that, despite the ancient traditions of their people, she was bred to be a scientist and thus would have little use for the ways of the warrior in her adult profession. She had initially thought that he was implying that over stressing about something that wasn't going to be a large part of the rest of her life was the thing that was holding her back from overcoming it. Had she misinterpreted his words? Maybe, being that academics came easy to her, she was supposed to shift all of her focus onto the physical aspect, for just as long as it took to pass, while not worrying about the intellectual side which she had already sharpened to a sufficient level. Which was it then? The frustration she was harboring soon boiled over and she flung the small device against the far wall with an audible grunt before realizing what she had done. The noise had been enough to escape into the next room and, within moments, Alura joined Kara in the study. Despite Kara having scooped up the evidence of her small outburst before her mother arrived, the sense that something was wrong was not lost on the perceptive woman.
"What is it that has you so troubled, child?" Alura asked as she approached her daughter to place a gentle hand upon the side of her face and search her eyes for a clue.
The younger woman cast her gaze downward as her mother regarded her with genuine concern. "Mother, I..." She paused, released a heavy sigh, and composed herself a little more. "I feel at a loss. I've failed my practice exams because of poor martial performance. I think I may have misinterpreted father's words of advice but I can't be sure. Should I forsake my academic studies in favor of immersing myself in the martial arts just so I can eliminate that area of weakness? Or am I just failing because I've been psyching myself out about it this whole time? The deadline is only getting closer and I don't know what to do..."
Alura pulled her daughter into, what she hoped was, a comforting embrace that lasted several minutes. After they separated, she held the teenager at arms length and attempted to enlighten her. "Kara, darling...wars aren't won with brute strength alone. Nor are they won purely on the merits of scheming. A balance of the two forces must be achieved in order to grasp success. And I fully believe that the only way of achieving that balance is to let yourself be open to the will of your heart. If you allow your heart to overrule the conflict, and bring about peace within, you will be surprised by the things you can accomplish. Have faith in yourself as I have faith in you, my daughter.")
The precious memory of her mother's encouragement brought tears to Kara's eyes as the feeling of hope swelled within. She thought of Trunks and his mother as she clenched her jaw. They were doomed if she didn't come through with her part of the plan. With her will solidified, she stopped tensing so hard against the immense force just enough so that she was no longer paralyzed by it. She brought her hands up to her face and interrupted the raging energy by clasping them over her eyes. The pressure within her body instantly shot up several degrees, but she didn't allow herself to be overcome - not again. She still had something worth fighting for and would be damned before she let it end without having done everything within her power. 'Hang in there, Trunks,' she thought as she slowly regained her bearings.
-Twenty minutes ago; Planet Earth-
Trunks watched as Kara became nothing more than a distant spec in the sky. When she was completely out of sight, he turned his gaze back down to the blanket of clouds below him. His three least favorite people of all time where still going at it - he could hear the shouts and feel the thunderous blows being exchanged. If he were to be honest with himself, the thought of jumping into the middle of that particular fray was quite frightening. However, he wasn't going to let that stop him from doing what needed to be done. With a sharp breath and tensing of his muscles, he called upon his latent Ki. A flourish of golden aura preceded his quick transformation into a Super Saiyan. 'Here goes nothing,' he thought before propelling himself downward to pierce through the shroud of darkness.
When the black mist of the clouds thinned out, near the bottom, Trunks caught sight of them fighting in the air just above an old highway, leading away from the city, that was clogged with abandoned cars. The twins were, admittedly, doing a decent job of dividing Thirteen's attention by staying on opposite flanks and blowing up the occasional automobile to use the cover of explosion to switch positions with each other and get a hit or two in as well. Though, it was blatantly obvious that their bait and switch tactics weren't actually gaining them any ground against their superior foe. In fact, it couldn't even be considered a stalemate because, after watching them execute another exchange, he saw Seventeen catch a glancing blow to the side of his face which sent him crashing into a tanker truck several hundred feet away that resulted in an excessively large explosion. When the blue beast temporarily focused his attention on Eighteen, Trunks decided to make his move.
The Super Saiyan flew in low, mere feet above the highest roofline of cars present on the motorway, and got to Seventeen while under the cover of smoke. With a firm grip on the back collar of the cyborg's tattered black shirt, he hauled the slightly dazed man away from the inferno and took cover behind a white cargo van that was a relatively safe distance away.
Seventeen grunted as he was deposited unkindly onto the coarse pavement by his unlikely savior. Before he could get a word out, however, the kid that he usually considered a source of entertainment beat him to it.
"Listen up, asshole," Trunks said, glaring at the other man while gripping the hilt of his sword with his right hand. "I got a surprise waiting for that overgrown freak and you're going to help me herd him up passed the clouds so we can get him as close to orbit as possible. It's pretty obvious that he's not going to leave you guys alone so, if you value your life, you had better suck it up and swallow your pride - just like I've had to do."
Seventeen wore quite the amused smirk as he picked himself up and dusted himself off. "Hah! I can't believe it..." he drawled. "I never thought this day would come, but here I am about to agree with a guy who just admitted to sucking and swallowing. Alright, Trunks, we'll do this. But don't think that it's going to change anything between us. When this is all over, we pick up right where we left off."
"Whatever you say, douchebag," Trunks replied. "Just make sure to get your sister on board. We'll probably only get one shot at this," he added as he peeked his head around the edge of the van to glimpse Thirteen swinging the blonde cyborg around by her ankles in preparation for a power throw. "We had better get back out there and help her. It looks like she's about to go for a ride. And, head's up; be ready to guard your eyes."
"I hate it when you do that stupid trick," Seventeen grumbled as he began to levitate off of the ground.
"The only stupid thing is that you keep falling for it," Trunks replied before blasting into the air.
Seventeen was right behind the Super Saiyan as they rushed the spinning Thirteen. The orange haired android was, as they had come to expect, laughing out loud while his sister screamed. The lunatic must have noticed them, though, because he chose to hurl his sister into his chest the very next instant. The jarring impact sent both he and Eighteen flying into an off-axis spin on two different trajectories but still in the same general direction. A lot of the momentum had been wasted by the collision, however, so neither he or his sister got very far before they managed to right themselves. That was lucky for them because he saw Trunks lift his hands for the Solar Flare attack just in time to warn Eighteen. "Sis, look away!" he shouted as he sped in to provide her with cover.
"Solar Flare!" Trunks shouted as he hovered at an almost point blank distance from number Thirteen, having successfully gotten in close due to the distraction that the twins had provided. He laughed at his good fortune while the large man reacted by pawing at his eyes. Then, just as quickly, he choked on his own breath when said man dropped the act only to stare directly at him with a mocking smirk.
"Ahahahaha! You fool!" Thirteen bellowed with laughter. "Unlike those inferior siblings, there ain't a single piece of organic tissue floatin' around inside my body. Their eyes might get hurt by somethin' as simple as really bright light, but not mine. Nice try, though," he added as he reached forward, with incredible speed, to grab the collar of Trunks' capsule jacket and yank down before kneeing him in the face once and then hammering the back of his head with a double-fisted haymaker.
The incredible force of the blow, coupled with the short distance to the ground, caused Trunks to create a sizable crater when he broke through the highway asphalt upon impact. Most of the cars that had previously littered that section of the road were either flung into the air in every other direction, several of which exploded, or fell into a pile on top of the Saiyan as they rolled down the inside of the newly opened hole. It had been all the teenager could do to not instantly black out when he felt the sharp crack of pain hit the base of his skull. He was left twitching involuntarily as he lay beneath a small stack of decaying vehicles, robbed of his Super Saiyan state.
"That idiot," Seventeen hissed through his teeth as he and his sister watched Trunks fall from their distant vantage point. "He didn't even tell me the second half of the plan before getting himself taken out like that."
Eighteen was still skeptical about the kid's so-called plan, which her brother had hastily explained to her in just a few short words only moments ago. "Don't tell me you're still considering going along with nothing but a vague concept to guide you. 'Get him above the clouds'?" she said, quoting her brother, with a fair amount of incredulity in her tone. "That isn't even a percentage of a plan, let alone half of one," she added, punctuating her opinion with a willful roll of her eyes.
"Well it's the only thing we haven't tried yet; so what do we have to lose? I mean, we could be dead soon no matter what we do. Might as well make a solid attempt at something else while we still have the chance," Seventeen replied with a shrug of his shoulders before angling his gaze skyward. "All we really have to do is fly upward as fast as we can. We already know that he's not gonna stop chasing us. So, what do you say?"
"Fine," Eighteen relented with a sigh of resignation.
"Last one there's a rotten egg!" Seventeen shouted as he blasted off without giving her a warning.
"That's not fair!" she yelled at him as she quickly gave chase. The blonde sliced through the air as she pushed herself to catch up, but her brother's lead wasn't shrinking fast enough. He pierced the cloud layer just seconds before she did.
Seventeen looked back over his shoulder as he exited the dark mist on his continued ascent. His mind was already working to generate an appropriate quip for when his sister arrived in second place. Any second now she would shoot out of the clouds, to accept her defeat, and then they would steer Thirteen, who no doubt would have noticed their departure, up towards orbit when he caught up to them. It really was about as simple as any plan could get. Leave it to the Saiyan brat to come up with something like that. As the seconds ticked away with no sign of her, however, he began to suspect something was wrong. He slowed to a halt and turned all the way around to face back toward the direction he had just come from. Just as his tension reached it's peak, he caught sight of her come flying out of the darkness faster than he had expected. It took him a moment to figure out that she wasn't in control of her own speed. Her posture was limp, he realized. He sprang into action immediately thereafter, shooting off into an intercept course in hope of catching her. His best just wasn't quick enough, however.
Android Thirteen speed flickered into Eighteen's path before Seventeen got anywhere near her. The look on his face as he caught hold of her was positively sadistic. With his left hand grasped around her neck from behind, he held her out in presentation for Seventeen to see. She was definitely unconscious, the cyborg noted. He didn't dare make a hostile move as he floated stationary. The android's toothy grin and insidious glare were more than warning enough that he wouldn't hesitate to end her life if he so much as flinched the wrong way. Seventeen's mind raced as he fervently wracked his brain for a workable solution. 'Damn it, this is the one time I could've used the brat's help...'
"As ya can see, I've decided ta take yer bait and join ya up here on this beautiful sunny day," Thirteen said as he gestured to the sky with his free hand. "I ain't stupid. I knew there musta been some sorta plan in place as soon as I seen the kid an ya come out together with guns blazin'. However, before we continue this here game, I feel it's only fair for me ta edit the roster n give one of our hard workin' players a break."
!SNAP!
"Nooooooooooo!" Seventeen howled, with blood curdling intensity, as he reached out toward his expired sister. "Lazuli..." he said in a voice trembling with anger, despair and, most of all, regret.
Eighteen/Lazuli's neck had been broken with a simple flick of Thirteen's wrist. "Hahaha, music ta my ears!" he said with a twisted satisfaction. "Her goose ain't fully cooked yet, though. This bird still has one golden egg left ta give," he added before continuing. "It should be right about... here!" he said before thrusting his hand into her lower abdomen and ripping out a glass-like cylinder with wires coming from both of it's metallic end caps. "A thing o' beauty; this here power core. I wonder what I'll be able ta do with somethin' like this..." he trailed off cryptically while rolling it around in his hand.
Seventeen was beyond livid at this point. His knuckles popped as he squeezed his fists and drew blood from his palms. His lips curled back to bear teeth as he clenched his jaw and shook with a budding rage. "You put her down...RIGHT NOW!"
"No problem," Thirteen replied before letting go of her blood stained corpse as he casually tossed her to the side.
Seventeen's eyes went wide as he watched Lazuli fall back to earth in seemingly slow motion. Her wind swept hair brushed against her face which was frozen into a pained and sorrowful expression; one which so obviously conveyed the sense that she had not made peace with the reality of her own mortality. He called out her name once more as his vision grew blurry with tears but, for some unknown reason, he couldn't hear his own voice as he said it. The only words that reached him were the ones that had been repeating inside of his own head since the moment he had watched her life get snuffed out. 'She died not knowing the truth. You remembered everything and never told her even when she brought it up. Now it's too late.'
Time suddenly sped back up to normal speed before his sister's body disappeared beneath the roiling clouds. He struggled to maintain rational thought against the tidal wave of emotion that threatened to consume him. No matter what, he absolutely could not let her death be in vain. In order to do that he needed to keep resisting the urge to charge blindly in and stick to the plan. Whatever Trunks had waiting in store just had to be worth something. Why else would he be so confident in approaching his own arch enemy with it? In an incredible display of self control, Seventeen backed away from the guy who was still gloating about having murdered his sister and decided to pick up where he had left off. With a burst of energy, he blasted upward to continue his ascent while counting on the fact that Thirteen would follow.
The android with the most deadly and unlucky (for his opponents) designation continued to laugh out loud as he watched Seventeen make a break for it. He wasn't the least bit worried about the last living cyborg fulfilling his plan. After all, he had just acquired another power source. With one last chuckle, he grinned down at the device held in his blood soaked hand and then pushed it against his chest. That grin immediately flipped upside down when the cyborg reactor failed to absorb. "What the hell?" he muttered to himself before glancing back up toward Seventeen, who was already distant enough to appear as merely a large spec against the deep blue of the upper atmosphere. "Shit!" he added before hastily propelling himself into a pursuing trajectory.
It didn't take long for Seventeen to reach the atmosphere's outer limits but, once he got there, he realized he was in trouble. There wasn't any sign or indication of what his next move should be. Did that mean he shouldn't have left Trunks back on the surface? Was this surprise something that he couldn't set in motion without the kid? Whatever the case may have been, it no longer mattered. Seventeen realized that his time was up as he watched his pursuer arrive. With his wit's end long surpassed and the last vestiges of his hope leaving him, he struggled to hold his head up. 'This can't be how it ends...it just can't...'
And it wasn't.
A burst of golden light, a yell, and the glint of a blade accompanied the sudden return of none other than the very last living Super Saiyan as he flickered into visibility right behind android Thirteen while in the midst of a downward swing with his sword that was cloaked in the writhing fire of his transformative energy. The slice itself didn't actually manage to break through blue skin, but the force of the blow did make his foe flinch in surprise - which gave him just enough time to finish his maneuver. Golden energy erupted from the tip of his sword as he hurled it into the most powerful stabbing thrust he could manage. The strength of his point blank, and ultra thin, concentrated Ki wave was just enough to tenderize the android's synthetic skin in that single spot so that his blade finally penetrated and went clean through his back to emerge out of his abdomen. That was, however, everything he had left. His transformation fizzled out immediately afterward and left him lacking the strength to withdraw his own blade from his foe's body.
Both Seventeen's fighting spirit and his hope for victory were rebooted when the brat's sword tip burst out from Thirteen's gut. So, when said android howled, not with pain, and rounded on the now defenseless Saiyan to exact his revenge for actually injuring him, Seventeen was already on the move. He pushed Trunks away from Thirteen with an invisible kiai and thus made the large android's spinning back-fist hit nothing but air. 'That's right,' he thought as the monster's attention became divided.
Trunks quickly got over the shock of having been rescued by his loathed cyborg ally and immediately put distance between himself and Thirteen by flying beyond Earth's atmospheric barrier. He made sure to hold in what last breath he could get before entering the vacuum. Unlike his Kryptonian friend, he would last only a few minutes in such a harsh environment - probably less now that he wasn't a Super Saiyan. He shot off a few weak blasts at Thirteen to goad him into following. It worked. 'Come on, Kara...' he thought as he searched for her while keeping an eye on Thirteen who was being slowed down by Seventeen's salvo of energy blasts.
The Kryptonian had no way of hearing Trunks' silent call for her as she blazed passed the planet Venus with a tangible sphere of barely restrained red energy encasing her body. With her hands still over her eyes, she focused on the path before her by using her X-Ray vision. Daring to try it, she used her telescopic ability to magnify her view of Earth until it encompassed a much larger portion of her perspective. She spotted the trailing explosions of Ki blasts light up the planet's low orbital zone and instinctively zoomed in to see Seventeen peppering their mutual nemesis with energy while keeping Trunks mostly out of the way. Both young men looked worse for wear and Trunks wasn't even in Super Mode anymore. The real surprise, however, was the sword that impaled the blue antagonist. That was a good sign. She kept her attention trained on the rapidly approaching battlefield and, within moments, no longer needed to employ her visual magnification. Unfortunately, she couldn't risk tipping Thirteen off by giving Trunks a warning of her arrival, so she had to time it just right. 'Come on...come on...please get out of the way,' she chanted inside of her own head as her two allies darted around her target in a deadly dance. 'THERE!' she shouted internally, having found her opening.
The floodgates of hellish solar fury were thrown open as Kara removed her hands and let all of her pent up energy rocket toward the unsuspecting android. The beam, which had the diameter of the sphere that surrounded her body, slammed into her foe near instantaneously before obscuring him with it's all consuming intensity. She had never experienced a greater feeling of release than in that moment and, as the torrential wave of her effort continued to flow, she doubted she ever would again.
Trunks and Seventeen were nearly blown away by the shockwave of invisible force that was projected along with Kara's special delivery. They watched in awe as the blast washed over Thirteen then grazed Earth's atmosphere, as it continued traveling, before ending in a massive explosion when it reached the moon. There was no doubt in either of their heads about the android's fate.
The Saiyan managed to tear his eyes away from what was soon to be a shower of rocks and dust headed their way just in time to witness Kara's luminous red cloak dissolve as she ran out of puff. He waved her over with a hand before gesturing that he was about to lose his breath and then quickly angled his flight back down toward the life sustaining atmosphere. As the air thickened around him, he heard two additional sonic booms - indicating the re-entry of his two comrades in arms. Within minutes, he was close enough to solid ground that he had to slow his descent and level off. He touched down in the wasteland just outside of Orange Star city limits. Seconds later, the Kryptonian and the cyborg joined him.
Instead of celebration, a silent tension settled over the group as Kara and her Saiyan friend exchanged cautious glances with each other while facing Seventeen.
"Stop staring already," Seventeen snapped. "I've had about all the fighting I can take for one day and now my sister is dead. So, if it's all the same to you, I prefer to be left alone. We can go back to trying to kill each other some other time," he added. Both teenagers visibly relaxed in response to his words, he noticed. He slowly levitated himself off of the dried up soil in preparation to fly away. "See ya around," he said before blasting off.
"I still hate that guy..." Trunks muttered as he watched Seventeen ascend at a leisurely pace. "Hey, watch it," he said, rubbing his left shoulder after Kara punched it playfully. "I'm running on fumes, okay?"
"We did it!" Kara exclaimed excitedly as a beaming smile spread across her face. "We won, Trunks. We just saved an entire planet! Sorry about your moon, by the way..." she added quickly as she replayed the explosive scene in her head. "But I was so so pumped! I can't believe I actually held it in for so long! Trunks are you listening?" she asked when she noticed him staring at her with a concerned look on his face. "What's wrong?"
"Kara, your nose is bleeding," the Saiyan replied with worry evident in his tone. "You didn't notice?"
"Huh?" the blonde replied as she reached a hand up to touch her upper lip and came away with a gob of blood. "That's weird, I feel...fine..." she said softly as her head began to swim. All of a sudden everything went dark as a feeling of weightlessness came over her. She heard the distant noise of someone calling her name as she drifted off.
"Kara!" Trunks called as he held her off of the ground. "Kara, wake up! KARA!"
xxxxxvvvvvvvxxxxx
And that's a wrap for my number three chap! I'm a poet and didn't know it, lol.
HERE'S EVERYONE WHO REVIEWED THE SECOND CHAPTER:
Hybrid potato
Ulquiorra Schiffer 007
Chris
moshe30350redstar
Superman
heroman45
itheone - btw, if anyone hasn't read THE BURNING WORLD, I recommend it!
Screaming Dean, Rocco13, and Radio Driver (who have stuck with me a long time) I owe you guys many thanks
Neobahamut86 - special thanks for letting me know about Toriyama giving the twins real names
ThatGuy brother of OtherGuy
Sir Thames
THANKS TO ALL OF YOU!
QUESTION AREA: There was surprisingly only two questions asked of me during the last chapter's reviews and I believe I've already answered one in this very chapter. Thirteen got his country ass blown away by a supercharged solar death ray!
As for Cell making an appearance - he will definitely show up eventually and play a big part in the future of this story.
Now, I have a couple of question for everyone reading this;
WHAT DO YOU GUYS THINK ABOUT THE PROGRESSION OF TRUNKS AND KARA'S FRIENDSHIP SO FAR?
HOW GOOD OR BAD WAS MY CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT DURING THIS CHAPTER?
Feel free to answer (or don't, if you prefer) in reviews and PM's. Thanks again for reading! See you next time.
