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Chapter 33: A Nightmare from Hell
18's eyes all but narrowed as she lunged forward to attack the vile creature before her. He took them away from her. He... killed them. And what was worse and absolutely unforgivable, was the fact that Buu had the audacity to do it right before her eyes.
As if this was some sort of sick way for him to gain satisfaction; as if he wanted to enjoy it.
18 could hear her husband roaring behind her, but she paid it no mind.
She couldn't - not when Buu was mocking her with that flaunting, remorseless grin on his features.
"You need to die," 18 hissed heatedly, phasing in behind Buu with two yellow energy spheres in either of her hands. Hurriedly, 18 slammed the butts of her palms together and combined the yellow spheres into one attack. Eagerly, she was releasing it, "HAA!"
A grinning Buu was quick to take flight, ascending upwards.
18's eyes widened slightly upon realizing her attack was now heading straight for her shell-shocked husband.
Raditz still seemed to be out of it. She could feel his pain, anger, and guilt through their bond; it was intense and he was completely immersed within his head and thoughts. 18's hard features faltered slightly at the sight of her husband like this, but was quick to phase in before Raditz protectively and send said attack back hurling towards Super Buu with a swift kick.
Buu crossed his arms over his chest and blocked her attack with ease. Far from finished, 18 appeared behind Buu, slamming her knee into his back with as much force as she could muster.
In response, the villain hurled downwards and 18 all but gave chase, appearing directly before him again just before he could crash into what remained of the Lookout tower. She swiftly sent him flying back upwards with a double roundhouse kick and then, "Infinity Bullet!"
The blonde bombshell rapidly fired out an barrage of pink spheres in Buu's direction. "Take this, you freak!"
Buu's body was being pushed back and riddled with a plethora of sphere-shaped holes. Even from here 18 could see that Buu wasn't taking all of her attacks - some of them were going right through him thanks to Buu's Body Manipulation.
The blonde scoffed, easily doubling her attack.
Unbeknownst to Buu, she wasn't the average woman, mother or warrior. She had already been strong before this, before she even met Raditz. Since then, she had gotten stronger courtesy of training off and on with her husband. With stamina like hers, doubling or tripling an attack like this was nothing to her.
"Don't underestimate me, you feen! You will pay for killing my kids and my friends!"
18 released a fierce cry, amplifying her barrage of attacks even more. "Triple Infinity Bullet!"
Buu could try to regenerate all he wanted to. She had unlimited energy.
That was the blessing to the curse of being an Android; she would never tire.
~0~
Raditz failed.
He failed again.
The male Saiyan felt his eyes brim with tears and he couldn't help but feel even more pathetic than he already felt.
Kakarot, Vegeta, and his kids looked to him.
Everyone looked to him and trusted him and he did nothing but continuously fail them. It was supposed to be different this time and it was almost as if he couldn't catch a break. He didn't understand what he did wrong.
Then again, he did know.
He had underestimated Buu.
Severely.
And it had cost him Bulma, his kids, and everyone else.
He told them that he wasn't going to fail.
He promised them.
Raditz gritted his teeth in frustration. He felt so many emotions, so many feelings were overtaking him that he couldn't even completely concentrate on being angry. His throat was probably sore from all of the yelling and roaring he did.
Raditz clenched a fist, sending it down and creating a crater in the Lookout tower's foundation. He had never felt this way before. It was foreign to him and he couldn't help but feel as if he was losing himself in the process. And to make matters worse, why was he remembering everything? Why was he remembering every single failure, including bits from his childhood, at a time like this?
- Mama! Papa!" Marise called out fearfully, holding onto her brother for dear life. The twins were shaking as well as everyone else.
"No," Raditz muttered as the image of his frightened kids played in his head. The male closed his eyes as if to force it away, but it did little justice.
Raditz balled his fist and angrily drove it down with another frustrated roar.
Raditz!
The Saiyan in question perked up slightly. "Kakarot?"
'That's right. It's me, Raditz.'
Raditz felt shame and self-hatred flood his being. 'Kakarot, I'm sor -'
'Hey!', Goku interrupted his older brother before he could continue, 'I want you to listen to me Raditz! King Kai got in contact with me and told me what happened; I'm sorry I couldn't be there. We've all taken loses one after one today; you're not alone. None of this is your fault, Raditz. This is Buu's! He chose to kill those people! He did this! Not you!'
Raditz eyes only widened in response, but he refrained from saying anything.
'Raditz,' Goku tacked on sternly, 'I know you're hurting right now. I know you're blaming yourself. There must be so many things you're feeling right now and I know it's hard to fight it given all that you and everyone has been through. However, Raditz, you need to help your wife. Now is not the time for this! She's fighting Buu; she needs you. You can't give up at any cost. If you give up and don't do everything that you can, then that's when you have failed, Raditz.'
'Keep pushing forward!'
~0~
"Looks like that grin has finally been wiped off, huh?"
Buu's eyes narrowed at 18's words as he was still right where she wanted him. It was clear that the male was getting irritated and no longer found the situation humoring.
And at this, 18 smirked.
Little did Buu know, this wasn't even the gist of it. 18 wanted him to suffer the way Gohan, his kids and everyone else did. Skillfully, while still firing her onslaught of infinity bullets with one hand, 18 faced a hand to the sky and summoned a huge orb of yellow ki.
One of the first lessons Raditz taught her was to always make use of her unlimited stamina against any opponent.
With that in mind, 18 fired out a dozen or so more of her infinity bullets. And whilst Buu was still caught in the cross hairs of said attack, 18 was quick to phase out of sight and appear directly above Buu and dropped her leg atop his head with a feminine cry.
Buu grunted with narrowed eyes, moving to right himself so that he landed on his feet at least.
Though, his opponent refused to give him a second to break away and was relentlessly slinging her attack downwards with a hard twirl, "Hyper Blitz!"
The Lookout tower rumbled heartily upon impact, shattering and crumbling apart even more, huge clouds of smoke and debris hindering her sight. Distractedly, she took in the environment around her and it was near destroyed. There were piles of rubble everywhere despite 18's attempts to keep her attacks focused.
If she had to guess, her Infinity Bullets were most likely the culprit as not every attack hit Buu initially. The villian had used his Body Manipulation or some of her attacks merely ricocheted off of him; that was of course until she amplified her attack to even a rate Buu couldn't outperform.
What was regeneration against someone who had infinite energy?
"Hey," 18 bit out after a pregnant pause, "you can come out now! I'm far from stupid, you feen!"
On cue, 18 caught movement out of her peripheral and fired an attack instinctively.
To her surprise, it was her husband - of whom easily whisked the attack away with a hand.
"Raditz!"
At the sight of her husband, 18 dropped her guard instantaneously. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm fine."
18 met Raditz's words with silence, diverting her eyes off of him and onto the mess below them. "That monster is playing around like he's injured. He has some nerve. How about we lure him out?"
Raditz was unmoving though.
18 cocked a brow, "Raditz?"
Raditz grinned widely, charging up yellow ki in his right hand.
18's eyes widened in realization. "You!"
However, the real Raditz was quickly phasing above Buu and sending him hurling downwards with a kick and away from a wide-eyed 18. This version of Buu was definitely more intelligent than Fat Buu.
Raditz didn't like that at all; nevertheless, he turned to face his wife.
"Sorry to keep you waiting, L." Raditz's features fell slightly. "I just - "
" - Don't." 18 interrupted softly, "I know how you feel. I felt...everything through our bond."
Raditz exhaled slowly, as if struggling to pull himself together. His emotions, thoughts, and mind was everywhere, but Kakarot was right. 18 needed him right now.
They needed each other.
"Have you calmed down?" 18 inquired worriedly. The blonde got concerned when her husband fell quiet.
"Have you?" Raditz retorted with a cocked brow, gesturing to how destroyed the Lookout tower was with a hand.
"No," 18 answered back with a frown. "Not at all - and I'm sure you haven't either. He has to pay, Raditz."
"Of course." And then his features dropped even further, "18, we have to assume that everyone is dead and it's just us. If we die, this monster roams free. As angry as I am and as close as I was to losing myself, this is our last chance. Luckily, Kakarot got to me before I was too far gone out."
18 gave a nod in response. "Well then, are you ready?"
"Yeah," Raditz answered calmly, "Let's take him down together."
And as if hearing them, Super Buu was firing out continuous laser-like attacks (1). He was taking advantage of the fading smoke screen while he could do so.
Raditz and 18 dispersed and went separate ways in order to avoid the attacks.
'Alright,' Raditz thought to himself, maneuvering in and out of Buu's attacks. This wasn't something he could go into without a strategy. At the very least, Raditz needed to grasp something out of his failures. That was the only way it wouldn't be in vain.
No, winning so that they could wish everyone back was the only way he could fix this.
They just needed to get past Buu.
He had made the mistake of underestimating his enemy's intelligence.
Clearly, he needed to outsmart Buu, but at the same time, they weren't completely aware of his abilities.
The Saiyan turned into a SSJ3 with a grunt.
"Now!" Raditz called out to his wife.
The duo was quickly rushing Super Buu simultaneously.
Raditz was the first to phase out and appear before Super Buu, moving to slam his fist into Super Buu's face. Super Buu hefted up a hand, catching Raditz's fist with a slow yawn. From above, 18 appeared in with a leg hefted up and slammed her heel down into Buu's head. The male grunted, inhaling and then forcing them backwards with an erratic output of ki.
The fighters momentarily lost their balance, but 18 and Raditz didn't let that stop them and continued pushing forward.
'18, stay on him and seize an opening!'
Out of fear of Buu catching on to their plan, Raditz deemed it best to discuss the plan telepathically. It also helped that 18 didn't have to respond for Raditz to know that she heard him; most of the time, Lazuli just knew what he was communicating.
The blonde beauty quickly bolted forward towards Buu, slinging out yellow ki blasts with either of her hands as she charged him. It was a simplistic way to try to keep Buu in one spot. Just as she predicted, Buu didn't see her as a threat and remained unmoving as if challenging them to make him do so.
18 'tsked'; nonetheless, she executed a perfect baseball slide and kicked at Buu's feet. Buu fell forwards and she quickly slammed the butts of her palms together and attacked as he fell forward, "Saturday Crush!"
It was such a close range attack that 18 had hoped she moved fast enough to catch him off guard, but Buu merely manipulated his body so that the attack went right through him.
In a blur, Raditz slammed his knee into the side of Buu's features, blindsiding Buu whilst he was focused on 18. From the attack, Buu hurled into a pile of tidbits of the Lookout tower with a grunt.
Hurriedly, 18 fired out a plethora of yellow ki spheres so that they encased Super Buu; she wanted him surrounded on all fronts.
Meanwhile Buu slowly rose out of the debris, cracking his neck a few times.
"Raditz!"
The burly Saiyan understood immediately.
His job was to keep Buu occupied until 18 finished setting up her attack. The Saiyan phased in before Super Buu, throwing out fast punches and kicks as he took the monster on in close combat. Raditz wasn't sure how much time passed, but it seemed as if time deliberately sped up - as if time itself knew that they were attempting to buy time.
Nonetheless, Raditz did his best to stay on the cunning monster, ducking and dodging all the while staying on the offensive.
"Energy Mine!" 18 yelled out, slinging her arms forward; thus, slinging her barrage of attacks forwards.
Raditz was quick to pull out of the way with a few backflips. Meanwhile, with each orb that made contact, the Lookout was rumbling heartily with explosion after explosion.
Raditz ended up hefting up an arm just to shield himself from all the debris. The Lookout wouldn't hold out much longer. Raditz was honestly surprised that it lasted this long, but given that it was crumbling apart more and more as time passed raised some red flags. "18!" The male called out quickly, extending a hand. "We're leaving! We're taking the fight elsewhere!"
18 seemed to understand, quickly making her way towards Raditz and taking his hand. Quickly, Raditz phased behind Buu and slammed his knee into Buu with a light twirl. Raditz forcibly made a gaping hole within the tower using Buu's body and watched as the male plummeted towards the bottom of the Lookout tower. Wisely, Raditz waited a bit, just until he felt like Buu had gained enough distance, and then Raditz was IT'ing (2) to the monster's location.
"Throw me towards him!" 18 ordered quickly.
Raditz shot her an incredulous look; they were all just currently allowing themselves to freefall to the bottom of the Lookout tower. "What?"
"Just do it," 18 ordered with a little bit more bite.
Raditz cut his eyes, but nonetheless obliged and slung his wife towards Buu with as much force as he could muster up.
The blonde woman slung a ki blast towards Buu's eyes, landing a hard twirl kick moments after.
Buu flew backwards, slamming down into the ground below them at an even faster rate. As a result, a tremendous crater had formed beneath him. It was almost as if the ground was all but roaring in protest.
Expertly, Raditz and 18 touched down and took in their surroundings. They had far more open space here and they could use this to their advantage. Unlike Buu, they were more familiar with the area. Furthermore, they no longer had to worry about the Lookout tower.
"Enough games." Super Buu remarked slowly as he got up. The villain was quickly extending his arm out until he was able to grasp 18 by the throat and quickly reeled her in by retracting his arm back to its normal length.
"18!"
Fruitlessly, 18 delivered hard consecutive kicks to Buu's exposed head, but the monster paid them no mind. However, when 18 refused to let up on her attempts, Buu drove his free hand into her gut.
18's eyes widened instantaneously as she spluttered up blood.
The Saiyan hurriedly made his way to his wife, but it seemed as if Super Buu figured out that it was better to deal with them apart rather than together.
Raditz released an irritated 'tsk' when Super Buu started releasing pink ki blasts to keep him away. Super Buu having intelligence was beyond problematic.
Why did this even have to happen to begin with? He spent seven years of training after Cell just to be reminded that he was weak again? And that he couldn't protect his family? Would things have been any different if he mastered SSJ3 earlier on? Instead of waiting to master it when he basically had to?
As much as Raditz hated to admit it, he had gotten slightly arrogant and complacent after achieving SSJ3 - albeit unmastered at the time.
When he speculated that he wasn't too far behind Kakarot in strength and that he was stronger than Vegeta, Raditz thought he had achieved something and that he had finally caught up.
Well, Raditz did in a sense, but he failed to remember that there was always someone out there that was stronger than you and that Kakarot was no exception to this.
Even though he and Vegeta felt like it at times, Kakarot was not the strongest person in the world.
His goal post shouldn't have just been to catch up to Kakarot, but to be able to surpass him and anyone else out there. Raditz could blame Vegeta for causing this mess, he could blame himself for failing to stop this and not being strong enough, and he could also blame Zangya and 18 for getting arrogant after their fusion; the point was that Raditz could literally blame anyone he wanted to, but the fact of the matter was playing the blame game would not make up for his lack of strength.
He had the opportunities to turn this around just like everyone else and they all failed.
Collectively.
"Saturday Crush!" The Saiyan exclaimed the second he was close enough.
Buu grinned in the slightest of ways, merely shielding himself from the attack with 18's body.
Raditz's eyes widened, but it was too late. On cue, 18 let out a piercing cry as Raditz's attack hit her back. To make matters worse, Buu tightened his grip on her neck. "Don't move."
Reluctantly, Raditz remained where he was with balled fists. "Shit."
This wasn't going to be good.
Unbeknowst to Raditz, Super Buu had Raditz in more ways than one.
"What the - ?"
The burly Saiyan looked down the moment he felt something wrap around his ankles. It was pink and looked like slime. Naturally, Raditz moved to free himself, but found that the more he did so, the tighter the slime became.
And the faster it moved.
"What the hell is this shit?" Raditz inquired gruffly, his eyes angrily taking in the monster before him. "I listened and didn't move just for you to attack instead? And - " Raditz tacked on menacingly, "you need to unhand my woman."
18 was no doubt unconscious as she wasn't moving at all.
Contrary to Raditz's orders, Buu outright ignored the Saiyan. He even went as far as to grin.
Within the next instant, he had turned the blonde beauty in a bar of chocolate.
Raditz's eyes widened in horror as the last image he literally saw was his wife being picked up and chomped on. "Lazuli!"
The slime from Buu's body encased Raditz in one fluid motion before returning back to Buu's body.
A/N: A special shoutout to everyone and the constant support! And yes, I did change my penname; this should be the last time. I'm deciding to take writing a bit more serious, so I needed to make all my accounts uniform. I'm also in the process of making my own personal website and it's pretty exhausting and time consuming.
(1) Super Buu's Eye lasers
(2) short for Instant Transmission
A special thanks to: Sebastin Mrmol, Zealot07, coldblue2015, Gamelver41592, Jutten, and Derek83!
Zealot07: I'll look back over the previous chapter! I don't think I left out a paragraph, but it never hurts to double check! Thanks for looking out!
Jutten & Gamelover41592: It's great to be back! Thank you guys!
Derek83: Thank you, and I never connected the SSJ3 transformation to their tails! That's certainly interesting. Also, I have considered an audio book, but I wasn't sure how it would work out since there are so many characters and different voices to keep up with. If you have anymore suggestions or ideas, I'm glad to listen! I have been hearing about the Super timeline but I'm honestly not sure at the moment. I have been considering whether I should go back and re-edit all of the chapters for Second Chances though.
coldblue2015:
suggestions
You were right on the money with suggestion 1 and 2! It's almost like you know what I have in mind at times! Raditz and 18 will definitely have some personal issues to work out after all of this is said and done. I don't think anyone is going to want chocolate after this lol. I couldn't imagine being turned into chocolate and then chomped on. That sounds pretty painful. As far as suggestions 3 & 4, I wished that Dragon Ball Super had both 18 and 17 grow and get stronger. It was great to see 17 stronger, but it makes us realize that 18 has the potential to become stronger and that's just something I would absolutely love to see. Super Saiyan 4 limit breaker would definitely be pretty cool to see Raditz acheive. suggestion 6: I'll definitely give it a read and let you know what I think!
questions
1) This will be answered next chapter. I don't want to give away too much, but if things go how I am planning them to go, we'll see 17 and Piccolo, and some more perspectives in the following chapter!
2) Raditz will definitely want to get stronger. He had to swallow a very hard pill this chapter and after the Buu saga, Raditz and 18 will go through a few struggles - Raditz moreso than 18.
3) I think they did remember what happened. I'm not entirely sure, but I think that was what ended up happening in DBZ. Plus I think I remember Goku wanting to erase the memories of everyone that knew about Buu. Again, I'm not entirely sure, but I'll definitely do a bit of research on it just to make sure.
4 &5) We will see how things fair with the Buu arc and then see what things will look like afterward. I wouldn't be against doing Super and the tournament, I just don't want to make any promises this early just this yet. I'd feel really bad if I fell through.
6) Definitely sounds interesting and I like the idea of all of the weaker characters being focused on. I've always wanted DBZ to give out a little bit more attention to everyone instead of just the Saiyans all the time.
Apologies if I missed any questions or comments! Always feel free to PM me or leave something in comments and I'll get back with you next chapter or soon as possible! If you're ever worrying about a update, check my profile! I'll get in the habit of posting info there if a chapter is going to be late and etc.
Sorry for the cliffy! Next chapter shouldn't be too bad. We'll see what happened to 17 and the others and we'll see what's going on with Gohan.
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