I do not own Dragonball Z, Justice League, Batman Beyond, Teen Titans, X-Men Evolution, Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Bleach, or Yu Yu Hakusho

****Chapter 24: Decisive Strike****

Caliwone ignored the flames that licked at him as he surveyed the damage his entrance had caused, obscured as his surroundings were by debris, fire and smoke. His ears were assaulted by a shrieking that it could only be the massive ships alarms, warning its citizens of his arrival. The floor rumbled as massive security doors slid into place to impede his progress to the nerve center of the alien ship.

Caliwone opened his eyes and stood in the destruction that he had blown through with the help of Magneto. He took in a breath, let it out, and breathed in deeply again, blocking out the irritating sirens. All around him in the small room on which he had found himself, the flames rose and settled in unison with his breathing as his golden aura merged with that of the raging inferno. He inhaled one final breath and the crimson Sphere of Destruction appeared in his hand and impacted the heavy blast doors. The resulting blast extinguished the flames and launched the debris out into the Earth's atmosphere to rain down on the battlefield below.

He stepped forward through the smoke and placed a hand on the still intact door, extending his senses to examine the surprisingly strong obstruction. There were no force fields or any type of supernatural barrier aiding the door, just an incredibly durable alien alloy, little more than scuffed from the attack. His right fist swung with all his might, normally a feat that would shatter mountains and shake the Earth. Here, it did little more than dent the metal.

Stepping back, Caliwone's lowered his arm, and powered up the Dragon Twister. It shuddered and flickered briefly before the attack kicked into life, the sealing bandages restricting his power a great deal, and struck the bulkhead. He pushed as hard as he could, the piercing powers of the attack sinking his hand and arm steadily through until he could feel cool air grace across his hand on the other side. With a final cyclonic whirl of energy, the bulkhead shredded itself into a hole just large enough for Caliwone to climb through. He looked to either side as made it through only to find no more than twenty feet in either direction a blast shield had been dropped into place and looking quite as thick as the bulkhead he had just cut through.

With a sigh, Caliwone called the Dragon Twister forth once again.

Kitty looked after Caliwone's glow as he forced his way into asteroid. She desperately wanted to go with him, to help him do whatever it was he was going to go do.

'Wakare, watashi no harõ.' The last words he'd spoken before streaking off in a blaze of gold. What did they mean? She didn't recognize the language from any of those she was familiar with. Was it his own native language? She pondered this for the briefest moment before bringing herself back to the present. A battlefield was no place for daydreaming. There would be time for that if she survived the war.

With a screech and a thunderclap of dark wings, more Prey Birds reentered the fight, diving down at her, their stingers poised to strike. The first one struck, its stinger aimed at her back. She phased, letting the stinger pass harmlessly through her then grabbed it and sank the alien into the ground where it flailed with what remained above ground.

Before she could deal with anymore of the flying aliens, three attacks cut through the air, engulfing a mass of the aliens in the giant maws of a great blue and white dragon made of ice, and a giant snake with a skull for a head and dark red mane passed by over head.

Kitty watched them pass in awe as, from one end of the island, an enormous samurai rose and brought a massive sword down onto a large portion of the Doomsday aliens. On yet another side of the island, what looked to be a large swell of cherry blossom leaves swirled then engulfed more of the aliens.

By now, Kitty knew exactly what was going on. Ichigo and his Shinigami captains had made it into the battle. Somehow without any real explanation, Kitty could see both the captains and their attacks, each quite consistent with what Caliwone had described to her so long ago. The only conclusion that she could come to was that Fate had cast his spell onto the entire Earth Defense Forces.

The giant snake looked down at the Doomsday aliens and fired a blast from its mouth that blew the ground into rubble and incinerated the aliens on contact. The great ice dragon fired icicles down, this attack doing little against the Doomsday alien's thick skin but shredding through the Prey Birds before melting from existence.

Kitty slid down the cliff to where Captain America and Iron Man watched as in mid air, the Prey Birds were cut in half as if by some invisible blade.

"What's going on here?" Tony Stark asked, his sophisticated sensors picking up nothing other than the Prey Birds in the sky.

"It's alright," Kitty said, skidding to a stop. "They are allies."

"How can you be so sure?" Cap asked, turning his face to look at her.

"Because they are Shinigami." Kitty said.

Cap and Iron Man exchanged a look before looking back at Kitty. "If you say so," Tony said, lifting his face plate and planting his fists on his hips. "They won't turn against us, will they?"

"No," Kitty said, sounding more confident than she really felt. "They will only attack those aliens."

"Let's hope your right," Cap said, seeming to struggle to his feet and he rushed back into battle.

Helena covered her head, using Mangetsuken to block the largest bits of flying rock that gigantic snake had caused with its blast before blocking an alien fist and cutting it down. Flash sped around the battle, driving hard to toss the aliens in as many directions that he could, while Superman, J'onn, or the Green Lanterns helped to deliver the final blows.

"Shingetsu Sutoraiki!" Helena shouted and watched as the blast of energy dug through the ground and tossed the immune aliens away.

Beside her, Urameshi Yusuke did what he could to hold them off. Kuwabara and the rest of Ichigo's friends had joined the fight, more of an irritant in her opinion than anything else. However, even she had to admit that they needed all the help they could get.

She cut another alien down before finally having a chance to look up and see where those other attacks had come from and she could see twenty-four men and women flying through the air and swinging all manner of swords and weapons and she was instantly reminded of Ichigo. So, these were the Shinigami...

Behind her, the Hulk roared wildly, still locked in a bloody battle in the midst of a pile of dead aliens around him. Even the Juggernaut had racked up a graveyard of his own but the unstoppable Juggernaut, like the Hulk, was wearing out. Like the Hulk, and everyone else.

Batman lit his rockets and soared into the skies as he tried to escape the seemingly infinite number of aliens, the large red bat on his chest having been mostly ripped away to reveal the technology under the armor but not even he could escape as one arm reached out and yanked him back down to Earth. He managed to roll out of the way of an alien. Superman rushed in to help but got caught up by two other aliens. Diana dropped down, using her terrific strength to give Batman time to escape.

Reaching to his belt, he pulled out several batarangs and hurled them at the feet of the alien and a thick layer of smoke erupted to cloud the area. J'onn Jon'zz, transformed into a truly terrifying alien form, dove into the smoke and emerged the victor as the smoke faded.

On the other side of the battle, Logan continued to throw himself into the fight, dried blood caked to his otherwise unmarred body. His blades continued to flash and sing in the semi darkness. For a brief moment, Kurt teleported next to him and ported him away as an alien nearly fell on top of him.

"Thanks, kid," Logan shouted. "Where's stripes?"

"Where do you think?" Kurt shouted back. "She's in the thick of everything."

Logan spared a brief glance away to see Rogue indeed in full combat mode using her Ms. Marvel acquired abilities to their fullest effect. Scott was there, too, doing the best he could to fight. For the most part, he had exhausted his combination plan and they were now as helpless as they been immediately before hand. Even Magneto was showing the strain.

Logan growled deep in his throat and looked up at the asteroid. "Hurry up, kid," he said under his breath to Caliwone. "Whatever it is that you plan on doing, do it soon."

Deep in the maze of worlds that consisted of Other World, Goku and Vegeta remained silent, each resting a hand on the shoulders of King Kaio, lord of the northern galaxy and watched the battle unfold. For the first time in a long while, deep worry lines creased Goku's face and his fist clenched into a fist.

"I wish I could help," he said angrily as more League members fell to the onslaught. "I could help."

"Just remember one very important thing," King Kaio said. "You're dead and this time, you cannot cheat it." He snorted into his hand for a few moments, clearly unable to restrain himself even in these serious times until Vegeta's hand clenched hard on his shoulder and making him cry out in pain.

"Give him time," Vegeta said, the stress he was feeling evident in his voice. "Caliwone will come through."

Goku glanced over at him briefly then looked away again. "That reminds me," he said. "That attack he used on the aliens; the lightning one-"

"Yes, Kakorate," Vegeta said. "It is the technique we developed together."

"But I don't understand how it can be so powerful," Goku said. "I mean, if he had that kind of power, before-"

"He did not," Vegeta answered. "Nor does he now. That technique is a very dangerous one for him in more ways than one. You see, it pulls the energy from the particles in the air as well as drawing on his own life force to a small extent."

"How very foolish," King Kaio cut in disapprovingly. "That kind of attack is too dangerous for both him and the planet."

"I understand the risks, Kaio," Vegeta said angrily, clenching his fist on his shoulder and making King Kai howl in pain again. "More importantly, he understands the risks. That is why I sent him back down to the Soul Society for the seal. Since I did not have time to properly train him on how to control the attack, this was the only way for him to restrict it."

"And what happens when he removes the seal?" Goku asked.

"The attack by its nature was designed to produce more power than he could possibly generate on his own," Vegeta said through gritted teeth. "When the seal is removed and he uses the attack, the power will shred his body but the results, if used properly, will be more than sufficient to help end this war."

"What kind of power are we talking about?" Goku asked.

Vegeta gritted his teeth, thinking about the level of damage Caliwone would receive. "Strength surpassing that of Super Saiyan 4."

With yet another explosion of blue power, Caliwone blew through another blast shield; this time opening up into a large open space. He gave a sigh, having lost track at the number of blast shields he had been forced to cut through somewhere around the seven hundred range. This was getting tiring. No matter how many he broke through, there was always one more twenty feet away.

He straightened and looked around, noting that for the first time, there were actually sentient beings here. There were six of them, each and every one of them grown to make the Doomsday aliens seem small and pathetic in comparison. These ones stood nearly five feet taller and three feet wider with muscles more defined than even Caliwone's own. To Caliwone, they were rather reminiscent of body builders of days gone by compared to normal men.

"Terrific," Caliwone said, his inner Saiyan warming to the thought of a challenge. He lifted his arms, a sly smirk playing about his lips before his brain caught up with him.

Time is short.

Caliwone's smirk turned to a grimace as Vegeta's cut through his thoughts. He was right. He had spent far too much time simply getting to this point while all of the mutants and Justice League members, his friends, were all below the asteroid; fighting and dying while they waited for him. He had no time to play around. Knowing that the aliens would be immune to his restricted White Lightning, lifting his left hand, he tore away the bandages around his right arm.

The bandages fell to the ground, each piece glowing slightly as the seal was broken. Caliwone flexed his arm, enjoying the freedom from the bandages and sparing little more than a glance down at his arm. Scars for a Saiyan were really no big deal; it was to be expected from a life of battle but these scars came from no enemy.

Over a dozen deep scars ran up the length of his arm, some reaching from wrist to elbow, some from forearm to shoulder. Each looked like jagged strikes of lightning, almost identical to the arcs of his White Lighting attack. Despite his dislike of those wretched seals, he had to admit that they did a good job restricting the true power of his White Lighting from doing more damage to his arm than it already had that first time in Spirit World. However, it didn't really matter.

The aliens lurched forward like thunderous mountains bearing down on him, a deep roar coming from their salivating mouths. Caliwone smirked as lightning arced around his right arm, this time the lightning actually cutting into his flesh but this small amount of pain was nothing to him. What was about to come next would far more so. He cupped the blue ball of energy in his fist and threw it forward just as the first of the aliens reached him. Lightning burst forward once again, the flash of lightning looking more like an entire thunderstorm all striking at once, his attack flashed out. Blood spewed from his arm, intermixing with the lightning and vaporizing instantly as old scars reopened and new ones etched themselves up his arm in the same lightning like pattern as the others.

The attacked flashed out, instantly annihilation even the brutes instantly on contact, pushing Caliwone back despite his training and long experience nearly back into the previous room. The asteroid's flooring tore themselves to ribbons under the enormous force, the walls nearly fifty feet away pulled themselves apart as at the head of the attack, it burst through the blast shield as if it were paper, blowing clean through the side of the asteroid and into space. The air thundered violently, shooting thick bolts of lightning in all directions.

The blast faded and Caliwone stumbled back, grabbing his right arm in pain as blood poured to pool at his feet. The pain was excruciating, teetering on the edge of even Caliwone's pain threshold. He dropped to one knee, gritting his teeth as he fought not to bellow in pain; he, as the greatest Saiyan Elite, would not succumb to such weakness.

A thunder of grossly oversized feet snapped his head up as out of the shroud of dust, fire, and debris, three of the behemoths charged at him, long trails of saliva trailing from their jaws. Caliwone snarled as he pulled himself together and moved. The first of them didn't even see him as he slid below it and kicked upward with all the strength his injured body could muster. The attack lifted the alien centimeters off the ground while the other two changed direction and angled in toward him. With his right arm currently in too much pain to use, he threw his body to the ground and focusing his energy to his feet, he spun himself on his back and to his feet again, forcing a blaze of yellow energy out from his feet with withering force that threw them all away from him and left deep scars across their broad chests.

Caliwone leaped forward toward the first one, spinning his body to drive the maximum force with his left elbow as he drove it into the face of the large alien. This one didn't even flinch as it took the blow head on, reaching out and punching Caliwone full in the face.

Caliwone slammed into the far wall almost before he realized he had been hit. The left side of his face flared with pain and he could feel blood flowing into his mouth. Another massive fist crushed into his side, the loud cracking sound of shattering ribs cutting through the air. Caliwone gritted his teeth and jerked his head to the side as another fist swung in, intending to crush his head into the bulkhead. With a violent explosion of energy, Caliwone blew the three aliens back just far enough to drop back down to the ground. In one swift motion, Caliwone swept the feet out from under the first alien and brought the heavy end of his left foot down hard in an ax-kick to the alien's neck. This attack proved as effective as the others. The alien snapped at Caliwone's foot with its jaws, forcing Caliwone to back toward the other two aliens.

They are unimportant distractions.

Caliwone gritted his teeth but back flipped dutifully high over the head of the second alien, grabbing his ribs from pain in the process and landing directly behind the monolith. Without hesitation and with another grunt of pain, Caliwone ducked just in time to avoid a swing from the third alien, its massive fist and wrist brushing through Caliwone's golden hair as it passed.

Moving as swiftly as he could, injured as he was, Caliwone slid himself between the large legs of the alien as its other fist came down hard onto the asteroid floor. In front of him now was the gaping hole his White Lightning had created, standing nearly three stories high and several more below his level with a small pinprick of light at the far end that indicated the sky outside of the asteroid several miles away. Growling at himself, he threw himself down it in a blaze of gold and a trail of guilt and shame for leaving a battle in this way but he had a larger purpose right now. If the opportunity arose, he would deal with them then.

He broke his flight mid way down the hall, noting with only slight pride as he saw that the walls had all been melted together, forming a solid wall except in a few cases where the rooms beyond could be only partially seen. Behind him, he could hear the thunderous footsteps of the aliens pounding after him but they would never reach him in time. He gathered his bearings as best he could and focused to a point he figured must be the center of the asteroid.

Caliwone lifted his arm and for one final time, he allowed the lightning to engulf his arm, each arc cutting deep into his right arm. He bit back a yell as more of his blood escaped him and he fired the blast upward. The force of the blast recoiled hard down his already damaged arm and centered on how upper body, crushing his ribs further and nearly into fine powder. He cried out in pain as he could feel more than just bones beginning to disintegrate before he was thrown straight backwards and into the opposite wall. The blast trailed off as his consciousness faltered briefly but what he had set out to do had not yet been accomplished.

He forced himself to his feet as the aliens neared him and threw himself up into the hole. He crashed into the wall, unable to focus his powers long enough to make it to central core. His left hand reached out and caught hold of a small protrusion on the wall, his right hand hanging down by his side, small spasms of pain jolting through it occasionally as tears of pain leaked through his tightly shut eyes. Snarling at himself, he pulled himself up as far as he could then threw himself back into the air and burst upward as far as he could.

His aura broke again as he made for one of those spots that had not been melted together onto one floor and managed to grab the edge with his left hand and hauled himself onto the floor. He rolled onto his back and grabbed his ribs again as he breathed heavily.

After a few minutes, he pushed himself to his feet and looked around. Small aliens of what looked to be several different species watched him from around doorways. He could sense no hostile intent coming from them and ignored them completely as he looked around. This section of the asteroid appeared to be made of more sensitive equipment and stations that would be expected to be seen on a ships bridge. Caliwone walked further into the maze of corridors, beginning to understand the layout of this alien ship.

All around him, more of the blast shields dropped down into place as his presence on the bridge became apparent to whomever or whatever was monitoring him. There was a flick of sense, almost missed in the collage of pain fogging his mind. He hurried forward as quickly as he could and threw himself under the dropping door closest to the thing he sensed. He rolled himself to his feet, determined to keep his composure as he saw this through. Sitting in what looked to be the ships main control board was another alien, this one similar to a lack muscled and slimy version of the Doomsday aliens, its head twisted around to stare at him through dark wide eyes.

Caliwone smirked, knowing this was the source of all of Earth problems. Even if this alien was some lackey, this control room was definitely the real thing. But this was only part of it. Somewhere else on the ship was the cloning stations that allowed for the genetic manipulation, as well as any back up stations that held and reported attacks. In short, he knew this entire ship needed to be destroyed. Once that happened, the signals Batman had noted early on should disappear and all the attacks that are currently useless should once again become effective.

"What do we have here?" Caliwone asked, not really sure or caring whether or not the alien could understand him. He leaned heavily on the far wall, unable to even stand up straight on his own; blood loss and injury teetering on the edge of bringing the powerful Saiyan down to his knees. "I hope you and your pathetic invasion understand that you are all finished. You will all be defeated by my hand, and those of this planet." He raised his left hand up in a fist in front of him and his Super Saiyan 2 aura blazed around him, his aura larger and bolder than ever before, his blue lightning arcing like a private thunderstorm.

Caliwone laughed as his power shook the asteroid around him and the face of the alien took on what Caliwone could only be terror as his aura grew, swirling lazily around him. What little energy Caliwone had left in reserve went out of him and he did something he had never done before. He dug deep into his life force energy, far more potent than his normal energy but fatal to use in too much excess.

His body glowed brightly with gold, freezing Caliwone's grin before his energy exploded all around him, incinerating everything it touched instantly, including the alien at the control. Bulkheads and blast shielding vanished without so much as a tug as Caliwone's own view and perspective blurred into a sea of gold.

To him, he could feel every molecule that was reshaped into the very energy that fueled the attack, touching and joining with the energy of his soul in such a way that Caliwone had never experienced. He mentally cringed at the touch, still not fully caring for this planet as he had for his own home, but the people of Earth had proved their worth in his eyes. And therefore, they had earned his protection. On his soul, he could feel the breeze of cool air kissing the edge of his blast and knew that he was on the verge of success. With one final roar of pain and rage, Caliwone gave it his all.

From outside the asteroid, light pierced through the few holes in the asteroid, and the asteroid exploded into city sized fragments and fell out of the sky.

To be continued...

And with that awesome display of power, could Caliwone have sealed victory for his allies on the ground by destroying the asteroid which powers the aliens immunity or will his efforts all be in vain? Can Caliwone even survive this destructive display and return to Kitty, Superman, and the rest that are still alive to close this series?

Here we are at the eve of the last episode. Can you feel the excitement, the anticipation?

It sure has been a long road and I thank each and every one of you readers for putting Dragon Sagas on the map and look forward to a spectacular conclusion, date set for Friday.

Super special thanks to Kobez2.0 for the wonderful beta and helping me get my jumbled mess called a brain in something resembling an actual plan for this chapter.

I will see you all on Friday, as long as the chapter goes according to plan.

The Dark Prince