Disclaimer: No, I did not suddenly get rights to the DBZ characters in the midst of writing this story, nor will I ever.

This may be the last new chappie for awhile cuz I've got finals, mid-terms and projects coming up so I'm not going to have a lot of time to write. Thanks goes out to hikosmymanfriend and Volcanic for reviewing the story so far, thanks, it means a lot!

Chapter 3: Summoning

Piccolo had been training non-stop for two weeks now. His body was tired and his mind was on the brink of giving in to the Death Hand, but he now had basic control over it. He had only a few visits from old foes, but they stopped, looking on from a distance, gathering information on this new technique of his and trying to come up with a way to overcome it. That was fine with Piccolo; he needed the time to himself anyways. He powered down the souls and easily got into his normally meditation position. He delved deep into his mind, hours passed, all the training with the Death Hand had severely fragmented his mind, he untangled the complex knots the souls had made and fastened new and stronger mental barriers. This was a long and tedious process, but necessary for him to keep his sanity. That done he asked the Death Hand, "King Kai mentioned summoning monsters from the depths of Hell, how do I go about doing that?" "…You must travel to where their power is the strongest and defeat them on those grounds. If you can do that, they will infuse an orb into your hand and will do your bidding whenever you call them." "Sounds easy enough." "It will not be, the summon spirits here are much stronger than any foe you have faced." "Then, they'll be that more advantageous to have. How do I find them?" "You can scry them with a ghost." Piccolo released one ghost from the Death Hand and told it to seek out a summon spirit and report back with its location. As the soul carried out its orders, Piccolo pulled back into meditation, this time going to the state as close as sleeping as he ever got.

The soul took nine ours to find the closest summon spirit and come back. Piccolo completed his meditation and headed for the demon's lair. The soul was able to locate the thing but give him little else, outside that it thought it was a fire demon. Indeed, he found himself flying over the Lake of Lava and straight for the Ever-raging Volcano. Near the base of the volcano, there was a gaping hole in its side that spiraled down, deep into the dark depths where no ray of light had ever reached, not even before the dawn of time itself. A putrid smell clung to the walls of the hole, a combination of fowl, rotting flesh, ashes, and noxious gases. Piccolo lowered himself into it, placing his right hand on a wall, and then jerking it back as the wall severely burned him. He flew carefully down, the darkness so absolute he could see nothing, but he did not want to run into the wall again, he could still feel the intense heat radiating off it. The tunnel was narrow and was getting even narrower as he got lower. An idea came to him, "Demon Eye," he said and it transformed, he no longer had to put two fingers on his left eyelid though. It worked, it was still extremely difficult to see, but he was no longer flying blind, and that's all that mattered. He felt like he was descending for hours and yet going nowhere. Then, he saw a faint glow up ahead. The closer he got to it, the hotter it got, until finally, he came upon an exit from the tunnel. It led to a massive cavern, a lava pit that covered about half of the floor the source of the glow that lit the area.

Something in the lava stirred, sensing the intrusion of a stranger. Its wings flared out, the first to break the surface of its lava bed. It lifted its horned head and all at once sprang from the pool; its dark flesh still dripping with the lava it was bathing in. It glared at the intruder with its flaming eyes and roared, the lava that was its spit dripped from its mouth, the boulder-sized ruby mounted on its forehead glowed as tongues of flame shot out at Piccolo, who was no larger than this demon's finger. Piccolo haphazardly dodged the oncoming flames, "Good grief, this thing is enormous, how am I supposed to fight it?" He shot off in the opposite direction as a taloned claw grabbed for him. Another pillar of flame shot from the things mouth, Piccolo did the best he could, but suppressed a cry as one of the flames scorched his chest and stomach. Piccolo activated the Death Hand to full capacity as it went to grab him again. He flung himself out of harm's way and placed his left hand onto the demon's arm. Its very skin burned Piccolo, but he kept his hand firmly on it and activated a special technique, "Souls of the Damned, Internal Carnage!" Souls from the Death Hand shot into the flame demon's veins coursing through its body and causing massive internal damage throughout the things body. It howled and pulled back a little, Piccolo flew behind the creature to avoid its angry thrashing, only to be winded by one of its wings as it spun violently around. Before Piccolo could fully recover, it was bringing is two hands together around him as one smashes a bug in a clapping motion with both hands. Piccolo tried to fly up, sticking his left hand over head in the hope he could create a force field before the attack hit. He didn't have the time. Piccolo could not suppress his cries this time as every bone below his neck except for his spinal cord was shattered, his internal organs and muscles cut up by broken bits of bone and smashed with the insane pressure the monster's two hands had created. In one move, the creature had incapacitated both of Piccolo's legs and one of his arms, caused internal damage that would have killed him had he not been dead and burned most of his skin with its scalding flesh.

It opened its mouth wide, forming a massive ball of super concentrated flames to finish Piccolo off and fired. Piccolo was prepared this time, he released many souls in front of him, "REFLECT!" The shield of ghosts bounced the flaming ball back right into the creature's mouth and out the other side, it cried and squirmed in pain but was not dead. On a hunch Piccolo flew right for the Ruby on the demon's forehead and poured all the souls he had collected into one attack, "Souls of the Damned, Piercing Canon!" The blast shattered the ruby in a dazzling display of grey and red. The monster screeched than explode harmlessly into a million pieces, reforming below him in a much small stone statue of the beast. A ruby no larger than a marble flew towards Piccolo and embedded itself into the back of his left hand. He had to squeeze his eyes shut and grind his teeth together as searing pain ensued from his hand to his elbow. The pain dulled and he saw that his forearm and arm was charred to the point it was a black crisp, and the ruby glowed. "It is normal," the Death Hand spoke, "it is simply the process of your body accepting this power. Once the ruby stops glowing it will be calibrated to you in a sense and you can summon the demon with an offering of your own blood onto the ruby and the speaking of the words 'Son of fire and molten lava, I command thee to rise from the darkest depths of Hell and smite my enemies with your mighty inferno.'" Piccolo listened and filed the information away. Then he forced himself to start leaving this fiery hole. The damage was sever and the two heavy uses of the Death Hand when he formed the shield then the blast taxed heavily upon his chi, he floated haphazardly, his knees scraping a side of the wall ever so often and burned his shins and knees.

It took twice as long as getting in, but he finally was out and by the erupting volcano. He flew away from the lava and as far as he could, then collapsed the only thing he could move was his head and his left shoulder and bicep. He was defenseless, and two Saiyan warriors that had been cheated out of revenge when King Kai had whisked him away were not about to pass the opportunity up. They quickly closed in and beat mercilessly on the Namek, who felt the full brunt of ever blow, especially to his chest, since he did not have enough of his ribcage intact to protect those organs. Then he noticed the ruby stop glowing. He sent what little chi he had left to his left hand, sucking up souls off the two Saiyans without them realizing it and converted the souls into chi. Then he moved his shoulder so the ruby flopped into a pool of his own blood, and whispered the incantation. It sucked up the rest of his chi, Piccolo was able to stay conscious long enough only to see the demon appear and easily obliterate Raditz and Nappa, then erect a small force field around him. Then his eyes closed and his mind shut down what it could to focus on regeneration.

There we go, I hope that was interesting. Like the fire demon?

Elieare