-- Disturbance, Book 3: Endurance --

Chapter E05 - Monster

Disclaimer: The fun about this sentence is that by the time you realise it doesn't say anything, it's too late to stop reading it. Also: See first chapter.

--

-End this suffering-

The group of seven watched the newly returned Majin Buu with a variety of emotions. For Goten and Trunks, the primary emotion was fear; they were young, having only been in one real battle before, which they lost, so having to face that monster again wasn't their most ideal option at this point.

Oran, who refused to feel fear on general principles if nothing else, was wary; they had Gohan on their side now, but the boy had learned never to rely too heavily on someone else. Lime was somewhere in the middle; she'd always tried to be like her brother, but she was never able to truly grasp her twin's unwavering faith.

Dende was nervous; Majin Buu had found him, and would no doubt be less than pleased by what he'd done earlier. Piccolo was quietly cautious. With six of the seven people present weaker than Buu, the wisened Namek was taking no chances. And Gohan...

Gohan was bored.

-You made a monster of me-
-Through all your wicked lies-

'What is he playing at?' The teen mused to himself, watching the pink monster lazily. 'He knows I have him completely outclassed, yet he shows up here, no stronger than when he fled, where he's severely outnumbered. Why? What could he possibly hope to achieve?'

"Back for another whoopin' are you?" Gohan drawled, taking a few steps forward until he was between Buu and the rest of the group. "And here I thought we'd resolved that little conflict earlier. You can't beat me Pinko, and I know exactly how to beat you, so what's say we skip the warm-up and get right down to me destroying your sorry ass, hmm?"

"I'm not here for you boy," Buu growled back, glaring at the teen before pointing a hand at the kids. "I'm here for them."

"Well that's a bit of a problem," Gohan remarked, "Because it's my fight now. They've played their part, and now it's my turn."

"What's the matter brats?" Buu sneered, completely ignoring Gohan, "I thought you were gonna 'take me down'? I thought you were going to 'make me pay for everything I'd done'? I thought you were going to 'show me what you were truly made of'? Looks to me like you're made of cowardice and failure!"

He was goading them, that much was painfully obvious. Unfortunately, Gohan noticed, it was working: Goten and Trunks were powering up slowly, and he could tell it was only a tightly clenched self-control that was preventing Oran from doing the same; that, and his sister holding him back.

-Forever tortured by you-
-Abandoned at death's door-

"Don't." Gohan's voice cut through the air like a knife. "Stay out of this guys."

Buu let out a rumbling laugh, "Yes, run and hide. I'm sure your father would be so proud of you." Buu knew that line would strike a nerve with Trunks, and he wasn't disappointed; he was, however, a little surprised to see Goten affected by it too.

"Stop it you two!" Lime shouted, still resting a hand on her brother's shoulder to keep him calm. "He's just trying to rile you up."

"He killed my father!" Trunks shouted back. "I'm not going to stand around and do nothing when I can avenge him! Don't forget he killed your brother and sister too!"

Gritting her teeth at the barb, and silently asking herself what she saw in the lavender-haired child, she hissed, "Yes, thank you for that reminder, but it is because of my brother that I am going to do exactly what he taught me to do, and that is to show respect to my elders, namely Gohan, and not disobey his wish to stay the fuck out of this fight!"

-Until I said no more!-
-Don't look away-
-You're just a former regret of mine-

Staring down at the girl with ever ounce of princely might he had, Trunks retorted, "And I'm going to do what my father taught me to do."

It was here that Gohan, in his anger, made possibly one of the worst mistakes he could have made. Spinning around to face the boy, he barked, "I told you to stay out of this Trunks! I'm not going to have someone else doing something stupid and throwing their life away needlessly like Vegeta did!"

"Go to Hell!" Trunks snarled, fanning his fingers before his face and shouting, "Solar Flare!" His eyes snapping shut to hide from the blinding white light, Gohan lunged for the boy, trying to stop him, but it was too late.

-And when you want, just look away-
-You're just a former regret of mine-
-Erasing now-

"Let's do this Goten!"

"Fusion Ha!"

"Damn it you meatheads!"

"Fusion Ha!"

By the time Gohan could see again, Goten, Trunks, Oran and Lime were all gone, and in their place was Gotenks, held in a headlock by Liran to keep him from attacking Buu. It was here, when it was far too late to stop it, that one fact became painfully clear.

It was a trap.

-You made a rock star of me-
-Gave me this wicked life-

Laughing deeply, Majin Buu roared, "And now you're mine!" Without any further warning, a massive wall of pink goo erupted from a crack in the ground behind the two fused kids, and another from behind Piccolo. With mere seconds to act, Gohan had to choose which of the two he was going to save.

Drawing his sword, he coated the blade with ki once more as he dove towards Piccolo, slashing away at the pink goo trying to envelop him. Their connection to the magicks holding Buu together severed, the pink pieces of faux flesh fell limply to the ground as he sliced them off neatly, leaving Piccolo free. Spinning back to the kids, he was just in time to watch Liran become completely covered.

Gotenks lay sprawled on the ground nearby, staring in shock at the pink mass that almost ate him, and whispering softly, "Liran..." The girl had pushed him out of the way before it could get them both, but she couldn't stop herself being caught.

And as it turned out, she didn't need to.

A faint shout could be heard from inside the mass of pink goo, before a fountain of flames erupted out of the top of the cocoon, quickly spreading to consume the entire thing, revealing naught but flames inside. Flames with eyes.

-Paid to be tortured by you-
-A life I now abhor-

"Liran?" Gotenks' voice questioned curiously.

The flames that made her form dying down to reveal the girl, she glanced down at him tiredly and stated, "Next time I tel you not to do something, would you just fucking listen?" The boy just nodded mutely.

Not wasting a second, Gohan flung his ki-coated sword at Majin Buu, and the pink monster, still too stunned that his plan had failed completely, had no time to react before the weapon speared him through the chest, wrenching a howl of pain from what passed for lips.

Smirking, Gohan clenched his outstretched hand, remarking, "Like the kid said, go to Hell." Splaying his fingers once more, he willed the ki to detonate, and detonate it did.

A massive explosion rocked the rocky terrain, as a shower of pink flesh rained from the sky. Blinking slightly as he glanced over at the crater that had once been Majin Buu, Gotenks commented, "Well, that was... dramatic."

"Uh, I hate to put a downer on the situation," Liran remarked, "But didn't Vegeta already try this, with minimal success?"

-And still I say no more-
-Don't look away-
-You're just a former regret of mine-

No sooner had the words left her mouth than the chunks of flesh began twitching. Quickly recalling his sword, Gohan fell into a loose stance, watching the Buu bits warily, expecting them to liquefy and flow back together at any moment, but what they did was infinitely more terrifying.

It started directly in front of them, where they could all see it. A piece of pink... whatever it was, growing first one arm, then a leg, then the second of each, before finally reshaping itself into a mini-Buu. Then another followed, and another, and another, until finally, the group of seven was surrounded on all sides by an army of tiny Buu's.

"Holy Hell!" Liran exclaimed, taking a step back towards Gohan, and thus, away from the Buulets; she was quickly followed by Gotenks.

"I... I saw it do this before," Piccolo remarked breathlessly, "When Vegeta blew Buu into thousands of pieces, they turned into tiny Buu's, and flew back together to reform the original."

The blade of his sword glowing white once more as he watched the Buu army take a step towards them, Gohan replied, "Something tells me these guys have no intention of forming the original just yet."

Gotenks watched in horror as the pink flesh sliced off Piccolo by Gohan earlier also began twitching and reshaping itself, despite being 'dead', and the remnants, and smoke, of the charred cocoon also began changing. "Um, guys... What do we do now?"

Throwing her arms out to either side, Liran summoned her chakram in a flurry of flame, clenching them tightly. Snarling, she launched one at an approaching Buulet, slicing it clean in half down the middle, before shouting, "Kill them! Kill them all!"

-And when you want, just look away-
-You're just a former regret of mine-
-Erasing now-

As the fight on the view screen resumed in earnest, Kaen calmly set his book down and walked over to his father, and by extension Kellre. Placing a hand on the older man's shoulder, he asked quietly, "Can we speak in private?" His voice was just loud enough to be heard by both older men, yet soft enough to be drowned out from everyone else's ears by the sound of combat.

'This must be a serious matter,' Avarrdo mused to himself, nodding but once at his eldest (living) son, and the three of them quietly walked into the hallway adjoining the bridge, collecting Pi along the way; Kaen had no intentions of keeping anything from her anymore, so it was simpler just to bring her along.

"What did you want to know?" Kellre asked, after a few moments silence while Kaen checked for eavesdroppers.

"The twins," he replied tersely, "They're my responsibility, so I need to know everything about their powers that you know. And don't try to tell me you don't know anything," he cut off the reaction he expected was coming. "I know the both of you well enough to know you would've done almost anything in your power to ensure you knew everything you could about it, and I need to know. I've earned the right to know."

The two older men shared a considering look before Kaen's father began. "I can't dispute you on that point my boy; you have earned the right, and we'll tell you everything we know, however..."

"We don't know much," Kellre continued. "Don't misunderstand, we did all the research we could, but short of cutting their heads open and dissecting their brains, there was only so much we could learn."

-Think over all of the shit in your mind-
-Think over and come to grip with it-
-Think over all of the shit in your little twisted sick mind-
-All said-

Nodding his acceptance to those terms, Kaen asked the first question plaguing his mind. "You said their psionic power is so great that if they believe they can do something, they can, correct? And, assumedly, the stronger that believe, the stronger the effect. Does that also apply to something they believe can be done, even by others?"

Putting a hand to his chin in thought, Avarrdo replied slowly, "Well, I surmise it might be possible, if they believed strongly enough, but from what we gleaned, they themselves would need to have a vested interest in it for it to happen."

With another nod, Kaen asked his second question. "Does the reverse apply? If they believe they can't do something, will they always fail to do it? And, by extension, if they believe strongly that something can't be done, will that something then be impossible?"

"What exactly do you mean by that?" Kellre asked curiously.

It was Pi that provided an example. "The twins have grown up with the belief that Kaen and I are stronger than them, and always will be. With all the power you said they possess, they should have well surpassed us by now, yet they've never even come close to beating either one of us. Is that just because they don't believe they can?"

The two older men nodded slowly. "Yes, that makes a good deal of sense," Kellre replied. "They believe you are stronger and faster than them, and so to them, you are. Conversely, they believe that through your training, they are stronger and faster than almost everyone else, and so they are. It's a precarious balance, one you will have to be careful to maintain. My question to you though boy is, why, out of all possible questions, did you ask that one?"

His face neutral, Kaen replied simply, "Because I should be dead."

-Think over all of the shit in your mind-
-Think over and come to grip with it-
-Think over all of the shit in your little twisted sick mind-

Were he anyone else, Avarrdo would have been gaping. "What do you mean by that boy? You brought Pi back, and she brought you here."

Kaen shook his head slowly. "I know how much energy I put into that attack dad. I know how much of an impact that should have had on my body. I pumped so much of my own life force into making Buu dead that I'm quite surprised I didn't burst into flame, or start disintegrating, or something."

"So what are you saying then?" Kellre asked carefully.

Sighing, Kaen replied, "I'm saying, by all rights I shouldn't have even survived long enough for Pi to reach me, let alone bring me back here. I should have been dead almost instantly, but I'm not."

"Kaen," his mate asked slowly, "What are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggesting," he commented grimly, "That maybe I survived purely because one, or both, of the twins believed I could; or, more accurately, believed I couldn't die."

Now that was a scary thought, but one that neither of the older men could find a fault in. "Oran." Avarrdo stated calmly; of course, if such a thing were true, it would've been the boy. He had an unwavering belief in his older brother's status as an immortal phoenix, and nothing could sway him from that.

"So what're we gonna do?" Pi asked almost fearfully.

Kellre shrugged. "What can we do?"

-When you want, don't look away-
-You're just a former regret of mine-

"This isn't going so well," Gotenks shouted over the roar of battle. "My ki blasts just don't seem to be doing anything!"

Flinging both her chakram at approaching Buulets, and slicing them into smaller pieces, Liran held her hands out to either side, summoning her guns with an icy crackle, and throwing them absently to the boy before catching her recoiling weapons. "Use these. They're auto-reloading."

Bringing his ki-coated blade up to intersept an incoming Buulet, Gohan turned his head slightly towards Piccolo, shouting, "How're you doing back there?"

"It's no good." The Namek growled back, firing wave after wave of blasts at the incoming pink gribbleys. "They're just not dying!" Fortunately, neither Gohan nor Piccolo had to worry about running out of energy any time soon, because between the two of them stood Dende, healing them of any energy they lost, and they, in turn, protected the healer.

"Yeah..." Gohan's voice was grim. "It's not hard to knock 'em down, it's getting them to stay down that's the trick." (1)

"They're indestructable!" Liran remarked incredulously, as she watched the severed halves of Buulets she'd bisected forming even smaller Buulets. (1)

Glancing around the battlefield, Gotenks noticed that there were now many, many more Buulets than there was at the start of the fight. "And they're everywhere!" (1)

With a childish squeal, one of the Buulets launched itself at Gohan, the teen raising his aura to deflect it at the last second. However, instead of repelling the tiny monster, the Buulet plowed through it, being almost instantly vaporised, and resulting in a spray of pink dust and smoke being shot into the teen's unprotected eyes.

The Buulets grinned maliciously. The Saiyans had revealed a weakness.

-And when you want, just look away-
-You're just a former regret of mine-
-Erasing now-

"Oh man, this isn't good," Goku remarked, watching the fight through the Kai's crystal ball. "They're completely outnumbered."

"They can't win," Shin remarked defeatedly, "At this rate Buu will overwhelm them. He has limitless stamina; they do not."

"Hey, you can't give up that easily Supreme Kai," Goku replied in his usual cheerfully hopeful voice. "I mean, it's not like the kids are really using a lot of energy since they switched to weapons, and Gohan and Piccolo have got Dende keeping them topped up, so-"

"What are they doing now?" Kibito growled, watching a handful of Buulets seem to kamikaze themselves through first Gohan's aura, then through the flame aura that Liran had erected.

"That's weird," Goku remarked, scratching his head. "It's almost like they're killing themselves, but why would they..." He paused, watching Gohan clutch a hand to his eyes, before his widened in fear. "They're trying to blind them!"

"I'm afraid it's a lot worse than that Goku," Elder replied grimly, "They've found a way to kill them."

-You made a monster of me-
-Until I said no more-

Gohan fell to one knee, gritting his teeth as he forcibly maintained his aura, his lungs burning as he fought the need to breath, lest he inhale Buu-smoke. Somehow, despite everything he threw at it, the smoke seemed to retain enough sentience to know that hovering around the teen's face was a sure-fire way to kill him; either he'd breath the smoke in, and Buu could kill him from the inside out, or he'd die from lack of air. Catch 22.

He could barely see through the pink haze, but he could tell that Liran and Gotenks had this massive pink cloud surrounding the pair of them, though fortunately they had kept moving enough to keep the cloud from suffocating them. Piccolo and Dende, however, he had no idea about, except that they were still fighting, or in Dende's case, healing.

Gohan knew, if he wanted to survive, he had but one shot, so he had to make it good. Placing a hand on his chest, he began focusing his energy, before taking a deep breath and shouting, "Masenko Ha!"

The orange beam fired out of his mouth, having been charged inside his body, and instantly annihilated the Buu-smoke that had been inhaled, before slicing straight through the cloud surrounding him. Twisting his head this way and that, he carved the cloud up, forcing it to disperse, before falling back to his knees as his lungs drew in precious oxygen.

-Don't look away-
-You're just a former regret of mine-

A deep laugh resonated from above him, as Buu reformed from the leftover cloud. "Well done boy," he sneered, "I thought you were dead for sure. But while you've won this battle, I'm pleased to say you lost the war."

Before Gohan had even a moment to ponder that statement, there was a cry of surprise from the kids, as the cloud around them seemed to instantly solidify, rapidly spreading to cocoon them completely. A similar cry from behind him indicated that Piccolo too had been taken, but fortunately Dende, who had moved to heal Gohan, had been out of range.

"Come to me!" Buu shouted, as the two blobs of putty launched into the air, merging with Buu's main body, reforming it. When the shifting stopped, Gohan grit his teeth to bite back a gasp; Buu now wore the same vest as Gotenks. "Now then boy, what were you saying about you destroying me?"

Buu was right; he'd lost the war. Gotenks, Liran, and Piccolo had been taken.

-Erasing now-

--

Author's notes:

(1) I borrowed these lines from Transformers (the original 1984 movie)

I'm not entirely happy with the ending, but considering I wrote this chapter in, what, a week? I'm not exactly complaining.