Galea-10

It was all just a little too dirty for Bura. The ground was nothing more than dirt the walls seemed to be made from it and worst of all, her clothes was covered in it. Now it was in her hair. She knew for certain that she had smudges on her face. All this from just wanting to get some fresh air. When she had first heard of Trunks' predicament, quite honestly she had not known what to think. Her brother was going to take her dad away from her—she had hated Trunks if only for a little while. It was not his fault, Bura knew, but it was unfair all the same and there was nothing she could do for it. What could she do?

All this about Rebecca—a girl who seemed to come out of nowhere—seemed farfetched. Then again, this entire situation seemed a little crazy. Maybe all of this was just a silly dream. There was no way that Trunks even had the strength to defeat their father. He was invincible wasn't he? So why was everyone so scared?

As soon as Bura had stepped outside to think things over, she had been kidnapped—taken from behind so that there wouldn't be much struggle. They were wrong, however, there had been a lot of struggle but her mouth had been firmly covered the whole time. That was why there was a trail of blood streaming down from a wound on her temple—it was the only way she could be tossed into a car and taken to an unknown location.

"You guys are gonna be sorry! My dad'll see to it that you won't see the light of day again!" Bura yelled out.

Of course, Bura had been yelling such things for over an hour and the threats had begun to seem more frantic and desperate.

"Shut that girl up already," Bura heard a man say.

She quickly grew scared as she heard someone unlocking the door to her `room`.

Zigguraut knew exactly what Rebecca was talking about when the duel began. It was a fight that he wanted. At first the cyborg had been a little hesitant; he was not in the business of beating up on little boys. This, however, was not the same Lang from before. Something had obviously changed. His eyes had an obvious red glint to them and his natural strength had increased exponentially. Soon the cyborg's instincts kicked in and the fight was in full sway

The majority of the fight featured Zigguraut being in defense. Not only had Lang's strength increased, but also his speed so it was a task to simply keep up, but soon the cyborg got into the rhythm of things. Besides that, he hated being in defense, it meant that he wasn't doing anything to his opponent. At some point, he got a hold of one of Lang's fist and sent Lang zipping through the air. That was when it really became serious, but Zigguraut had size on his side. Lang couldn't very well lift him up and slam him to the ground—no, he could not afford to be so direct.

They traded blow for blow, but soon another advantage that the cyborg had surfaced: the fact that he could never grow fatigued. Lang, however, did. He began to slow and the cyborg began to get the upper hand. Zigguraut was not an expert in hand to hand combat, but rather he could handle artillery and most weapons expertly. He did not use any of these in their duel because he had not planned on actually killing Lang.

"You have to kill him!" Rebecca warned Zigguraut again as the fight drew to a close.

By this time, Lang was clearly out of breath, but the cyborg could also tell that he was not going to simply lose peacefully. His breath was ragged yet he stood there glaring at the other with furrowed eyebrows. They were at a standstill.

"Listen, kid, you lost. I don't know what has happened to you, but it would be better if we simply called it quits and we figure out exactly what has happened to you."

Deep down, Zigguraut knew that he would not get a response. Lang hadn't said a word since he had passed out. He was oddly silent. Even during the fight, the only thing that could be heard from Lang was perhaps his breath. No grunts, no yelps, nothing. Lang simply stared at the other with more than a little vehemence.

Zigguraut glanced over at Rebecca who simply restated her previous statement.

"Oh, now you want to act like you have a conscience," Rebecca said with disdain, "What's the big deal, do it already. We don't have all day."

"You have this all planned out, don't you?" Zigguraut accused Rebecca, "Everything's going according to plan, huh."

"Zigguraut," Rebecca said with a sigh, "why do you think I'm here?"

"What kind of question is that?"

Zigguraut looked back at Lang who had grown stiff as if he was locked in that position as if he was waiting for something.

"For God's sake, I'll do it then," Rebecca said growing impatient.

She began to walk forward cautiously, but then stopped abruptly when she moved a little ways from the cyborg. Lang's eyes had suddenly shifted to her and a jolt of fear had suddenly gone through her.

Her head turned back to Zigguraut, "Well, are you going to do it?"

"Stand back," the cyborg said simply.

Rebecca was very quick about doing this as electricity began to spark around one of Ziggurat's outstretched hands.

"Is this what you want, Lang?" Zigguraut asked as the electricity became stronger and more pronounced.

Lang put his arms up in defense and for a moment Zigguraut hesitated, but Lang's eyes looked back up at him with obvious challenge. A smirk formed on his face. `I dare you.` Lang seemed to be conveying to the other.

"Fine."

Intense electricity danced around his clenched hand and then suddenly, the cyborg rammed the fist into the earth. Then the sparks shot up from the ground right below Lang—all of this happening in a matter of seconds.

But Lang did not die—at least not for long. A red transparent force field formed around his charred body and Lang slowly came back to his feet.

Rebecca pulled at Ziggurat's arm then, "C'mon we have to leave. It's going to happen!"

"What's going to happen?"

"No time!"

With another glance at the expanding force field, Ziggurat grabbed Rebecca and dashed away from the area at an incredible speed. He could hear the boy's cries in the distance as he still ran and then a large explosion. Zigguraut ducked and then shielded Rebecca with his body as the large blast overtook them.

"What was that?" Trunks and Vegeta both said at once

They had suddenly felt a large output of ki as they were again searching for Bura. They glanced at each other and then sped off in that direction. A trail of bright blue aura followed in their wake. Vegeta debated turning super saiyan, but decided that it would probably be overkill—they were almost there anyways. It was made painfully obvious where the explosion had taken place as they noticed the clearing overhead, but what neither of them expected to see was Lang standing in the middle of it.

"Impossible," Trunks said almost in a whisper, but Vegeta heard.

"I can't sense his ki now. It seems the only way that's possible is when he physically uses it."

"But how. He's not a…he's not a saiyan is he?"

Vegeta crossed his arms then, "I doubt it. That would be impossible. He could very well just be human—another Krillen, I guess."

"But Krillen had to train for most of his life to even get close to that kind of power."

Vegeta merely shrugged and the two of them flew down to the spot where Lang was. Trunks noticed an immediate difference in Lang as soon as he saw him. Trunks had always thought Lang's eyes were a little odd, but now that reason was made evident—it had always had a red tint to it and now it was more prevalent. Though there was an unmistakable look of confusion in his eyes right then.

"Lang, was that you a few moments ago?" Trunks asked.

Lang looked around himself as if he had just noticed the destruction around him, "I'm…not certain. I don't really remember how I got here. But you're here. What are you doing here?"

"We were searching for Bura, but then we saw this," Trunks said gesturing to the obvious of presence of an explosion on the ground, "Are you sure you don't know how this happened?"

"I was actually on my way to your house…but obviously I didn't quite get there."

"This is a dead end," Vegeta said getting impatient, "Obviously the kid doesn't know what happened."

Everyone turned when they heard Rebecca's voice in the distance.

"Yay! He finally did it. It took him long enough!"

Not only was it Rebecca coming towards them, but also the blond cyborg.

"Finally did what?" they heard Ziggurat ask the girl as they approached their position.

"You know, the explosion. His power has just awakened. Oh, looks like we have company," Rebecca said as she reached the group acknowledging Vegeta's and Trunks' presence.

The white dress that she had on was tinged with dirt; it was obvious that she had been there when everything happened. Ziggurat, however, seemed as well as ever; nothing had changed in his appearance.

"Well then, little girl, it looks like once again you know something that we don't," Vegeta said to her wanting to cut to the chase.

"Perceptive. Well, Lang is a mystic—a being born with two spirits instead of one. It doesn't occur very often, but lately they seem to be popping up in more places. There's only four that I know of. The extra spirit you were born with, Lang, is that of a very powerful Demon Lord named Galea. Now for most mystics, it's not so hard to awaken their power, but for some reason yours was very dormant and the only way I was ever going to get you to fully unleash it is if I got someone strong enough to face you in combat and eventually kill you. So you were dead for a few moments, but with your spirit you were able to be resurrected just like that—that's just something you can do."

"A-a demon lord? Wait a minute; I don't get this at all. One moment, I'm walking next I'm here and now you're telling me I'm some kind of mystic or whatever. How do you even know?" Lang said.

"Don't worry yourself with that. I just know. Remember that fever, Lang—the one that made you hot enough to melt steel, the one that made your mom think the thermometer was broken when she took your temperature?"

"Yeah…"

"If you had waited any longer to awaken your power, then you would have died—burned from the inside out. Lucky I was here, huh."

"So Lang is a mystic. This explosion was a result of you and the cyborg awakening his power. And now I think I've wasted precious minutes of my life listening to your speech. I have other pressing matters to attend to—unless you want to shed some light on that as well," Vegeta said.

"You saiyans are so perceptive," Rebecca said, "Look at Lang, he's still as confused as ever, but you understood and you weren't even around when any of this happened."

Someone must have told Rebecca that Vegeta was a sucker for flattery because he was all ears afterwards. Trunks rolled his eyes—he never wasted his time with such things.

"You're in luck, this has everything to do with your daughter as well, Vegeta," Rebecca continued, "A man named Avalon has your daughter captive in hopes of luring you there. What he doesn't know is the fact that you can't sense his ki—but no one has to tell him that. I'll just take you to him."

The name sounded familiar to Lang, though he hadn't the slightest clue why.

"Well, some call him Gold Eyes, but that's because his eyes are, you guessed it, golden and that's due to his second spirit. The suspense is over, Lang, he's your father."

Lang was utterly shocked when he heard this, "A-are you serious?"

Rebecca nodded, "Very. But you're going to destroy him."

"I won't do that. You tell me he's my father only to find out that I have to destroy him?"

"Listen," Rebecca said, her voice finally becoming serious, "He is a very evil man. Not only that, but very powerful. You're the only mystic that exists who would triumph over him—and a mystic can only be destroyed by another mystic. You're the one who must do this."

"He could change—I could—

"No, Lang," Rebecca said shaking her head, "It's obvious you don't know him at all." Her eyes glanced over at Vegeta, "It won't be like that saiyan over there, he's too set in his ways. He's worked many years to get to this point, but until these recent years his goal has been impossible to reach. Ever since the saiyans came to Earth, Avalon has moved ever so closer to his goal. They are a powerful race and easily have enough raw power to bring his dream to existence. As you know, a mystic is a being who naturally has two spirits. While Avalon's extra spirit is quite remarkable—a saiyan's spirit would be even more so; any saiyan spirit in fact. He chose you, Vegeta because you have a daughter, a completely vulnerable and easy target. She was to be the bait. Once he had you in his clutches he would then make the switch—as in switch his extra spirit—The Supreme One named Igol—with yours. It's a technique he's learned how to do over the years."

"So a mystic can only be destroyed by a mystic, huh," Vegeta said, "He's a very lucky man," he said dangerously.

"On the slim chance, that Lang doesn't defeat him, I don't see how he'd even be able to get close enough to do anything. You could probably kill him over and over and over and over again, but he needs to be destroyed permanently. Not just for your daughter's sake but also for the world's," Rebecca said.

"I guess it's final," Lang said looking down.

"Take solace in the fact that you don't really know him. He is your father only in name. He's a complete stranger as of now and in fact he doesn't even know you exist. There will be no mercy from him—don't show him any either." Rebecca stated.

"What would happen if Avalon really got away with this?" Trunks asked, "If he really did switch his Igol spirit up with my dad's."

"Oh, there wouldn't be a drastic change—it would be very settle to those who perhaps don't take notice in the small things. The only thing different would be your spirit," Rebecca said turning to Vegeta, "Your memories would still be intact, it would still be your body, and most of all you would still have your soul. It's not a hostile takeover, but it would be more like a fusion of Igol's spirit and Vegeta's soul." Rebecca sighed finding it hard to explain, "The soul is who you are as a person, the spirit is the force behind it—it's where that extra spurt of strength would come from; a reinforcement to the You you already are, I guess one could say. It doesn't matter in any case, because it won't happen."

"Enough explanations," Vegeta said. Though he did find it to be very intriguing, he still had to stay on task, "Now tell us where this Avalon is."

"Well, Lang, are you ready?" Rebecca asked the youth.

Lang was almost too afraid to say no for fear of getting on Vegeta's last set of nerves, but the truth of the matter was that…, "I don't know how to use this power you keep talking about. How am I supposed to face him?"

Vegeta looked ready to pound the mystic to a bloody pulp—in fact that didn't sound like a bad idea. After all, a mystic can only be killed permanently by a mystic. He could kill him over and over and over and over again…