Dragon Ball X
Guardians of Tranquility
NYA-HA~! YOU ALL THOUGHT I'D DIED, DIDN'T YOU~?!
Hey guys :P So, I know there's been a delay in everything lately, the last update was for the OVA late last year. It's freaking October. I've been pretty busy, Year 12 and stuff, I need top marks to get into a Law course at university, and I've started serious planning for, well, you know, actual novels. So, this has taken a bit of a back seat to everything, and to be honest my inspiration has been kind of lacking lately for the OVA. Part 4's going pretty good prose-wise, but it's still only about a third in after almost ten months months. I wanted to finish the OVA before I started work on Volume II again, but I need a change. So here is chapter 11.
Last time, if you can remember back that far, the invasion of Haven has already begun. Korros arrived in the nick of time to save Kenta from Ursula's beating, but now the Guardian is finding a tough opponent on his hands; Ursula's like no opponent he's ever faced before. Meanwhile, Oki is still somewhere in the city, and Korros charged Kenta with finding him and killing him, as well as stopping the Haven Special Forces from interfering with the battle against Ursula.
So, I'm sure you just want to read, eh? Fine with me; on with the chapter!
000
A deep appreciation was beginning to be instilled in Kenta as he was led through the contingents of Rankmen. A sort of inner respect at their discipline and level heads as they shouted orders and organised their weaponry. Their self-control was outstandin-
"What the hell is going on?!" said the Rankman escorting him, voice shaking. He stood a few inches over Kenta, dressed impeccably in the grey-blue military jacket of the Special Forces. His head was bare, brown hair cut short. Sweat coated his neck and face; training was all very well, but Kenta doubted anything had prepared the Force for this. The soldier's face twitched. He was one of the calmer soldiers around.
"Do you really want to know?" Kenta replied. They didn't slow their pace, but the Rankman stared over his shoulder at him for a few seconds; his eyes were blinking aimlessly; there was a dull unawareness in the way they stared.
"Nothing we had even slowed them down," he stammered. "This is like the Archfiend all over again."
"Forget that," said Kenta hollowly. Something was wrong, he could feel it. He felt…drained, his energy spent despite the replenishing effects of the Gaman Pea he'd consumed. Briefly, he glanced at his hands; they were shaking violently. He exhaled, shoving his hands into his ruined pants and holding them against his body to ease their quivering. His limbs ached. "He's got nothing on these guys."
The soldier stumbled over his feet and almost fell, but caught himself just in time, halfway to the ground. Cursing, Kenta came up short before he ran into him as the man turned and looked up into his eyes. Kenta realised he must be scowling, because the soldier averted his gaze almost immediately, staring somewhere near Kenta's chest.
"You're exaggerating, right?" The soldier's breathing was beginning to become uneven. Kenta could see it in his stance, but what really showed it were his blank eyes; the instinctive Havien urge to protect one's own life was awakening in the soldier. But that wasn't all. There was utter, utter fear. He didn't know how he could tell, but Kenta knew this man had seen Denkuma during the purge of Haven almost six years ago. He'd stared extinction in the face and had experienced the feeling of complete helplessness before a being beyond his conscious imagination.
That was something no amount of discipline could suppress. Ordinary Haviens could be slaughtered by the millions in an instant before the supernatural forces present, and the man knew it. There's a point where you can tell victory is simply unachievable with your current means.
There was another phrase for that sort of thinking, thought Kenta: losing hope. He'd seen it before, he suddenly realised; that look in the soldier's eyes. In a cavern beneath the surface, the despair of defeat had slowly swallowed a fearless warrior and pulled him into a pit of anger. This soldier's blank eyes were like staring into a mirror to the past, a reflection of Korros' loss of faith.
The same Korros who had clawed from the trap of darkness, devouring his hatred and facing his nightmare at the cost of his own life.
Kenta closed his fingers around the soldier's arm and pulled him back to his feet. The man blinked, and a small flicker of light went through his pupil. Kenta gripped the man's forearm tighter, and a small flow of his energy ran down his arm and into the man. "It's no exaggeration," he said quietly. "But don't think for a second that we'll lose. Not with our man out there backing us up."
A blotch of colour began to seep back into the man's face as Kenta's energy rushed through his body, and his chin dipped a few times. "My name's Jesse," he murmured. "I'm sorry, sir."
Despite everything happening Kenta felt a ridiculous thrill at the title, and he brushed it off as nerves playing at him. What foolish priorities, he told himself.
"Kenta," he answered awkwardly, and dropped his hand from Jesse's arm. "Don't apologise. We need to get to whoever's in charge."
Jesse seemed confused for a second or two before his mind began to shift into gear, his training taking charge of his composure. "Yeah…follow me."
The soldier turned and resumed picking his path through the carnage of panicking soldiers, weaving his escort towards an ensemble of large vehicles a few hundred yards away. Kenta began to follow.
Just then, an intense lance of pain sliced through his torso, so sudden and so consuming that for a moment Kenta thought he'd blacked out. His vision blurred and he fell, legs losing their connection with his brain and folding like broken matchsticks. A hot gasp rose in his throat. It burned as it came out, a searing fire, before it swelled and became a desperate shout of pain.
It was unlike anything he'd felt before; a hunger, his body devouring itself and it loved the taste. Kenta found himself on all fours, mind clamouring to piece itself together, and as he stared around he couldn't place himself on the physical spectrum. There was nothing but this torment, this total pain that was now wracking his entire body, pressing and ripping at his flesh. He screamed.
And then it was gone as quick as it'd come. Kenta's voice broke and he dissolved into a panicked breathing, his body coated in a layer of sweat. His bones ached to the very centre, and he could still feel a terrible echo of starving flames on his skin. The memory of it remained in his mind.
"Hey!" shouted a voice on the edge of his hearing, and Kenta rolled his gaze in a cloud of disenchantment, staring from beyond a veil. Jesse was at his side, tapping his palm against Kenta's sweat-soaked cheek and shouting distant words.
"I…" Kenta breathed. His vocal chords felt stretched and foreign, his voice hollow.
"Are you okay?" Jesse's face hovered above him, the soldier's worried features filling his view. Kenta blinked slowly, and his vision began to clear, the blurriness at the edges of his sight growing sharped. He still felt numb all over.
"Y-yeah…" he murmured, and allowed Jesse to lift him into a sitting position.
"What just happened?"
Kenta flexed his fingers, staring at them. "I don't know." Suddenly he felt very tired, his every instinct willing him to sink backwards into the peace of blessed unconsciousness. Despite the Gaman Pea, he was still feeling the effects of Ursula's beating; her cruel laughter still resonated in his mind. And now this.
Had Ursula's actions caused this spasm? It shouldn't have been possible; Gaman Peas were fabled to restore the body to perfect condition, and until now – from what he knew - every single one had lived up to that reputation. A faulty pea, maybe? It wasn't implausible, but Kenta was certain that this was something else. It hadn't been the pain of injury…it was something much more.
"Help me up," he grunted, and Jesse lifted him to his feet. Kenta swayed as the last remnants of his spasm stretched through his limbs, but he managed to stay upright. A breath of wished finality eased from his lungs; this was turning out to be a very bad day.
000
The cluster of vehicles Kenta had noticed was their destination, Jesse informed him. After giving himself a reluctant minute to shake off the shadow of the attack, Kenta had forced his body into action. Adrenaline was beginning to return in response to his spasm. It would have to suffice until the crisis was over.
As they drew closer, Kenta quickly found himself picking out the guy in charge. A desert-coloured military truck stood out next to the standard issue troopers around it, with a steel canopy and what looked like one of the enormous chainguns employed against Ursula mounted on top. Painted on the side in dark brown lettering was the word "Condor". Kenta baulked at the sight of it. It was quite the badass vehicle.
But even more noticeable was the guy inside.
He stood in the large roofless cab, one leg inside with the other up on top of the windshield, putting him several metres above everyone else. The man had a mop of brown hair that hung in a loose fringe, and an angular face that both brought out his youthful looks and gave the air of a guy you seriously didn't want to mess with. He wore a commando vest, bulletproof and covered in portable weaponry, and there wasn't much doubt that he knew damn well how to use it.
On a whim, Kenta reached out with his essence, expanding his energy. He could feel the erratic life-forces of hundreds of soldiers around him, but when he touched the commander, he felt his heart throb inside his own chest. It was as if he had reached into a vast well of substance and vitality.
This man was alive.
Beside the commander was another soldier – this one actually inside the cab – at the wheel, who had also rigged up a fearsome display of radios, hardware, and a laptop around him. He was relaying a steady stream of information to the commander, who listened with one ear and barked orders to the vehicles around him at the same time.
"Commander Craine!" shouted Jesse, and hastened his step as they drew closer; Kenta's body followed, numbness rising in his limbs. Exhaustion was close to setting in, he knew.
Craine – the commander, Kenta guessed – turned at Jesse's voice, and almost instantly Kenta saw his eyes flicker to him. An unknown face.
With an almost feminine grace, Craine dropped from the vehicle, landing with barely a falter. He stood maybe an inch under six foot, and now that they were closer Kenta could see the assurance with which Craine held himself. It was difficult to tell under his clothes, but Kenta could see from the shape of the commander's limbs that his body would be covered in hard, lean muscle; the kind that lent endurance as well as sheer strength.
Despite being able to shred buildings with something close to ease, Kenta was impressed.
"Who's this?" Craine demanded. His eyes narrowed, quickly and threateningly appraising this newcomer.
"Kenta Hale, sir," said Jesse formally, standing to attention and staring at somewhere over Craine's shoulder. "He requested to speak to you regarding the…situation."
It was subtle, but as soon as Jesse mentioned Kenta's name Craine blinked heavily in surprise. Kenta smirked an inward smirk. He was being name-dropped a lot today, and it seemed to be garnering much of the same reaction from everybody.
He supposed that when the city was being attacked by aliens, it'd be handy to have someone with supposed alien experience on hand. Go figure.
And then the air turned yellow and the air bended as a sizzling orb of shining light arced through the air and ripped into the side of a nearby army truck. The truck's tires screamed as it skidded sideways for twenty metres, but not as loud as the metal of the truck as it superheated and warped, buckling in from the massive pressure and almost breaking the entire truck in half. An instant later the orb detonated, vaporising the truck and sending a vast wave of fiery smoke in all directions.
The air filled with shouts and cries of panic, and wild chattering as some soldiers fired their guns wildly into the air, blindly aiming for a target they couldn't see or place.
By the Condor, Kenta's heart skipped a beat, and he recoiled. His senses assaulted him; the repugnant smell of burning tires and steel, the deep roar of flames and the horrific image of the smoke and the fire.
But more intense than any, the sixth sense that only he of all present possessed.
"Get down!" Kenta roared, pushing his ki into his vocal chords to make his voice echo over the cacophony all around him. "Everybody get away from he-"
Kenta cut himself off a sudden, splitting agony ran through his body again. It wasn't as intense as earlier, but it still drove him to his knees, and he clutched at his chest. It choked him, his throat tightening and not letting a breath in, and his heart burned with an inexpressible, terrible vehemence.
In a fit, barely able to see through the unstoppable tears melting across his eyeballs, Kenta raised his head and stared past the Condor, to where, a hundred metres down the road, the hulking pale beast that was Oki wrapped his enormous limbs around a deserted family car that had been abandoned on the side of the road. With a great roar, he pulled backwards, gaining leverage, and then lifted the car and swung it through the air.
Helplessness saturated Kenta as he knelt paralysed on his knees, unable to move, unable to act. Oki tossed the car like it was nothing heavier than a vehicle-shaped beanbag, and the makeshift projectile seemed almost weightless flying over the asphalt, ready to slam directly into him.
SSSHHFFF-BOOM!
A tail of grey smoke carved through the air and collided with the airborne vehicle while it was still in midair, and suddenly a ball of flame blossomed from its head and enveloped the car, atomising it in an instant. Shrapnel exploded everywhere, pinging against surrounding army vehicles and embedding itself into the asphalt road.
"HEY!" yelled a furious voice, and as the throes of agony began to fade Kenta was able to blink away the tears and look up. Commander Craine stood in the cab of the Condor, once again standing with one leg on the windshield. Clutched in his hands was a smoking RPG launcher.
"Get the hell off my planet!"
000
Korros stepped out of the air, his body a mirage before Ursula's eyes. Just a blur of green and purple shimmering towards her, and then suddenly he was less than a metre away, grim angular face carved into an expression of no description, blank and completely calm. In the same movement, not even pausing to breathe, Korros shifted his weight to one leg and the other snapped out, his heel slamming into Ursula's stomach.
A pulse of displaced air detonated from the point of impact and Ursula's cry of pain was cut short, time slowing as her vision faded black for an instant before her peripheral view turned into a blur. Korros' aura twisted and flared, surging down the Namekian's leg in an instant and converting into kinetic energy. Ursula exploded backwards, friction burning at her skin and a sharp stabbing pain spreading across her torso, emanating from where Korros' dynamitic kick had impacted. A shockwave accompanied her, blowing debris away and stripping paint from the walls of buildings as she passed. The street ended and Ursula smashed through an entire office building, glass and steel crumbling under her body. She rolled to a stop on a carpeted floor and drew in a raspy breath. The alien's single lung seared. She hissed.
"Weighted clothes…" Ursula's tongue flickered out, still stained with Kenta's blood. One eye twitched. "He's faster and stronger now."
Flurried gasps and a thud were barely audible over the howling wind ripping through the gaping hole in the wall. Panicked Haviens, residents of the office, scrambled to get away. Ursula didn't even look at them, staring out the hole at the city. She spat.
"Guardian or not, I'll peel his skin like a grapefruit," said Ursula. She rolled her shoulders. They made an unpleasant rippling noise. "I want blood."
Then she raised both hands above her head and the voice of the temptress rose, purple energy sizzling around her. Sudden screams of the spectating citizens were silenced quickly as their bodies were charred to a crisp, and then the walls were evaporating and Ursula ripped the skyscraper apart in an explosion of energy.
The resounding blast roared across the city, a cacophony of shrieking metal and burning air.
Debris and atomised dust hurricaned through the sky around the centre-point, and then was blown away as Ursula expanded her ki in a sphere around her. The pulse of energy caught the airborne rubble and pushed it away like a growing bubble of destruction. In the middle of the wreckage, Ursula was suspended in midair. Her arms were extended and her palms flat, pushing the air. Energy lanced in all directions ahead of the field, stabbing through skyscrapers and simply melting walls.
She dropped her arms, shifting her stance, and scanned her bug-eyes over the city. Below her, there was nothing left of the building but a twisted stump protruding from the ground. Korros was perched on the pavement almost a kilometre away, crouched in a defensive position with his arms protecting his face from the rubble. As she watched, he stood and cracked his neck, staring back. Neither moved.
"What's he waiting for?" thought Ursula. "Is he trying to unnerve me, or is it a waiting game to see who strikes first? He's a lot faster and able to hit harder without those clothes dragging him down…but by how much?"
And then Korros' feet skidded across the pavement of the road and he squatted, before energy exploded around him and he fired from the ground like a rocket. The Namekian covered the distance in seconds, body as straight as an arrow, and they were together.
SHWZ-SH-SH-SH-SHWZ-SH-SHWZ-PHM-SHWZ-SH-SH-SH-SH-!
Korros' fangs gleamed in the sunlight, his face drawn into a snarl, and green limbs blurred and faded, snapping out and retracting. Ursula defended, caught off-guard, dodging, ducking, blocking, parrying, weaving around the stream of punches. They came hard and fast, endless and constant.
The combatants broke apart. A spark of energy burned and Korros unleashed a barrage of white energy balls from a glowing palm. Ursula deflected them with an open hand, and they arced away, detonating loudly against buildings. Ursula rushed forwards, catching Korros on the hip with a well-placed kick, but he rolled away and recovered quickly, responding with a powerful elbow in Ursula's side. As she recoiled, Korros reached out and closed his powerful fingers around Ursula's long braid of hair.
"HYYYAARRGGHH!" he roared, and began to spin, picking up speed. Ursula's cry of pain ebbed and was lost as the rushing wind around her shielded Korros from her voice, and when they were spinning as fast as Korros could handle, he let go.
Ursula zoomed away, unable to control her body as it was propelled by the centrifugal force of the spin. Immediately, Korros charged up and flew after her, catching up in seconds and soaring to the space just above her.
Then he spun to gain momentum and drove the back of his leg into her stomach.
PHBM!
Ursula folded under the blow like a pillow and was driven directly downwards, smashing into the road and throwing up a shower of pulverised asphalt. Korros fell gracefully through the air and touched down lightly thirty yards away, guard up and ready.
A strange silence settled over the battlefield as the Namekian waited for his opponent to rise. The silence was broken as Ursula pirouetted from the smashed road and flipped through the air, dark energy swirling around her. She landed, gathered her ki, and thrust her arms out, a scream ripping from her throat.
The light was sucked from the world as a thick purple beam erupted from Ursula's spread palms. Bolts of electricity fired out of it wildly, hitting abandoned cars and turning them into hungry balls of fire. The road beneath the beam was ripped up, and a second later it was on Korros. He didn't hesitate, throwing his arm back and pouring his energy into his fingers. White light gathered into a shrieking orb and he hurled it at the incoming energy beam. It expanded as it left his hand, turning into his own wave of destructive force, and the two collided halfway.
Dark and light reacted, atoms smashing into one another and being blown apart, and there was a great roar as a blinding flash of light exploded from the epicentre of the beams. Korros leapt backwards, taking into the air and retreating quickly, and felt Ursula do the same.
"This is too destructive," he thought. "The entire city's going to die if we keep this up the way it's going!"
He flew backward through the air, riding the wind and slowing his movement before skidding backwards along the road. He came to a stop and immediately straightened.
Ursula was out of sight, but he didn't need to lay eyes on her to know her location. He reached out with his energy, feeling the flow of life in the fabric of the air and latching onto her position.
Korros drew in his power around him. What he was about to do had taken him several years to perfect. Learning a technique just from watching was tremendously more difficult than being taught.
But when it came to Denkuma's techniques, those memories were burned forever in Korros' memory.
Two fingers found his forehead, and suddenly the physical distance between he and Ursula was irrelevant. Darkness flickered in front of his eyes and then he stepped out of the void, into new space.
"Instant Transmission!"
000
Pungent fumes choked Kenta, and he heaved at his stomach and chest. Blinking through the smoke and pain, he put his weight on one knee and pushed himself to his feet.
"What are you doing?" he shouted. His voice was cracked and he thought he could feel blood running up his throat. Panic was beginning to take its hold in his mind. "You can't fight him."
Kenta's vision blurred. He swayed, legs losing their strength, and his heart leapt in his throat as he began to fall. He grunted as a shoulder collided with his chest. A rough arm pushed under his torso and he was lifted back up, his weight supported by the shaking soldier at his side. Kenta's mind flitted, struggling to place itself in the current time and place, and then a name slotted into his head.
"…Jesse?"
"I've got you. We gotta move. Let the commander take care of things here."
Jesse's face was pale under the new coating of grime and ash on his skin. He'd been standing closer to the truck Oki had targeted, but had obviously managed to keep himself together. Blood oozed from a wound on top of his head; his hair was matted and gritty.
"Where's Oki?" Kenta whipped his head around through blind eyes, but the smoke was too thick. He could only sense. An awful pressure built behind his forehead as he cast his energy in all directions, but he kept up the field. It touched Craine, still atop the Condor, and then it touched Oki, a foul presence that still stood several hundred metres down the road. Kenta knew he was sizing up Craine. But the brute wouldn't stand there watching for long.
"That thing. It's too strong for anyone else to even be around," said Kenta as Jesse began to half-drag him away. He focussed and dug in his heels, and Jesse stopped. "Only I can fight him."
"Look at you," said Jesse. He shook his head. "No way, I'm getting you out of here. Don't underestimate Craine."
"No!" Kenta pushed the soldier away and swayed, but he was standing by himself. He took a deep, wracking breath, and looked Jesse in the eye. "If anybody stays here, they will die."
Jesse's face was tight. His jaw clenched for several seconds, and he opened his mouth to speak.
The air turned yellow again.
He felt it before he saw it. A huge concentration of energy from Oki's direction, and then Kenta felt something stir within him, a righteous anger that supercharged through his limbs and sent the pain shrivelling back.
Kenta roared and then he lifted from the ground, his body moving without him consciously telling it to. He cleared the Condor in a single bound and spread his fingers out before him. An invisible wall of his will rose and Oki's beam slammed into it. The force numbed Kenta's entire arm.
If someone were to ask him how he'd reacted like that, Kenta wouldn't have been able to tell them. Instinct had moved his body for him, and instinct had been what had saved the Condor. As Oki's energy dispersed, Kenta dropped his arm and his shield dissolved. The pain rushed back instantly as the immediate threat was countered, and the sudden energy that had risen in his body returned to dormancy. His mind began to cloud again.
But even at full awareness, he never would have been able to see coming what happened next.
Ignoring every single meaning of the word 'danger' known to man, Craine leapt from where he was perched atop the Condor and soared the drop to the ground. But he wasn't idle while doing so.
He was holding a freaking minigun.
It was as long as Craine was tall, an enormously long contraption with six gleaming barrels. In both hands Craine clutched what was equivalent to the main body of the gun, a solid block of molded titanium. Sprouting from the back of the body was a tube as half as thick as Kenta's arm, running back up to the Condor and into the covered area behind the cab. Which Kenta could only guess was full of bullets.
"I told you," began Craine, and lifted the minigun to his hip. He flicked a small cap from near his thumb and slammed the button beneath it. Immediately the barrels came to life, shifting and beginning to spin, building up speed in a matter of seconds. Soon they were revolving so fast even Kenta could barely keep up with them. "To get the hell off my planet!"
The gun began to fire.
It was deafening. Kenta's head exploded in sound and he cringed, falling back and crawling away as fast as he could from the death machine that was Craine. He could feel almost literal bolts of vitality shooting from this crazy man, sheer life and maniacal passion infused with every iota of Craine's being.
The bullets burned, hot and deadly, and even Oki wasn't able to react fast enough. They pounded into his body and he was blown off his feet with a wordless bellow, slamming across the bonnet of an abandoned car behind him and rolling over the top of it. His enormous weight buckled the roof, windows crushing under the pressure, and then he was over the other side. Still the bullets came, as bright as fire. They cut the car apart, ripping it to shreds to get at Oki behind it. He wasn't too seriously injured, but it looked like he'd been winded.
The barrels slowed, and the vicious chatter of the minigun died. Kenta's eyes boggled. The mouths of the barrels were glowing orange.
"Lanstar!" Craine ordered, and another man rose from within the cab of the Condor. Kenta had forgotten about him; it was Craine's assistant, the one who'd been relaying information to him from the passenger seat. Now he was holding Craine's abandoned RPG launcher, and as Craine's minigun slowed he lined up his own weapon.
"Yes, Commander!"
Lanstar fired. A jet of refuse billowed from behind the launcher and a missile exploded from the end, trailing smoke as it arced down the street and hit Oki in the face.
In the face.
BOOM!
The alien disappeared within a growing cloud of flame and several tongues of ash and debris leapt ahead of the explosion. Oki's shout of pain was audible even from the distance.
"You, up!"
Kenta's head was ringing. A wall of sound and sight and raw adrenaline had closed in on his mind. He became dimly aware of Craine's voice, and managed to focus on the man. He climbed to his feet.
"Get a hold of yourself," said Craine. "What's the matter, can't handle my babe? Toughen up. You saved our asses just before, and if he attacks again we'll need you to do it again, so stay in the game before this guy wipes our collective cracks with that daisy-may light show."
Kenta felt his face go red. He was meant to be the superhero here, and this vanilla Havien was handling Oki better without any enhancements whatsoever.
Craine repositioned his hand so that his thumb was ready to hammer the fire trigger again as Oki regained his feet. He glanced at Kenta. "You said your name was Hale? Cid Craine. Accept no substitutes."
He began to fire.
000
Well.
That took a while.
Hope it was an acceptable return to the game. I can't think of too much to say other than that Commander Craine ended up turning around, slapping me in the face and demanding that I don't dictate what he does. He was very explosive about it. Kinda evolved on his own.
With this down I'm gonna be writing regularly again. Expect Part 4 of the OVA up before the year is out. It's gonna be dramatic. I promise.
Toodles~!