An Unburdened Fury
Chapter 61: The Pale Horse
Janemba stepped back with a scowl. It was just like that other one. Streams of lightning scarred the landscape around thee two as a storm erupted from Broly's body. A guttural growl rumbled from his chest. The light in Hell bent and twisted. Fresh rage filled him as he grew to enormous proportions.
She floated as the floor beneath her collapsed and cracked. He opened his massive maw and a great boom of a roar shook the afterlife. The Blutz Wave orb shone like a new star. Snakeway's scales fell from the near endless road between Otherworld and Hell.
His speed was deceptive and the demon was caught in his grasp. She was little more than a mouse with her tail stuck in between his fingers. He threw her down with all the might of an Oozaru and she carved a scar into Hell's floor a hundred miles long a split second later. She reformed beside his jaw, his fangs dwarfing her, with a sword easily ten times her size already in mid-swing.
The Oozaru smacked the weapon out of the way and out of her hands. He brought an open palm down on her and she seemed to realize her fate as terror reigned on her face. The demon was left crushed within a deep impression of his hand.
Before she could recover, a fist crushed her once more followed by another and another until Broly threatened to get himself stuck in the stone. Not one to leave a job unfinished, he tidied up with a full powered blast of ki from his open maw.
An impact to his chin closed his jaw and cut the attack short. Janemba was mangled it was clear she was more than capable of still fighting. Hell twisted around Broly as his feet was encase in stone. Janemba palmed a stone and it grew to a gargantuan warhammer. His head rang as she slammed it on top of his skull.
Broly stole the weapon away and crushed it as he pulled his legs free. His jaws enclosed around her but Janemba resisted by holding it open. Her arms shook as the pressure of the bite seemed to only grow around her. Power gathered once more in his throat and he swung his jaw up as a torrent of ki burst forth to consume the demon.
She reappeared above him, black smoke hung around her burnt body, and she smacked her hands onto the back of his head. Yet more horrors entered his mind but the beast merely thrashed them away. Poisonous ki oozed from his skin not unlike armor. The Oozaru beat its chest with manic fury and the demon fell away.
"You think those tricks can save you?!" The Great Ape snarled, his voice deep and booming, as he rounded on Janemba. "They might have worked on those Otherworld failures but I have committed far greater sins than anything you've shown me!"
"Come on, you damn fool!" Bardock yelled as Hell became less and less stable. "I know you're alive!"
The clash between the two was uprooting Otherworld from its very foundations from what he could tell. Hell, he just saw a plateau grow a mile in front of him. You'd think one of those 'Heavenly' warriors would stay behind to help but they all booked it as soon as they were free! Well, the ones they could free anyways. They deliberately ignored Bojack and Cold but there were a few others they couldn't get to.
Paragus roused from his unconsciousness with a groan. "It feels like a planet smacked into me."
"You fucking idiot!" Bardock slapped the other Saiyan in the back of the head. "What the hell were you thinking just going in like that?"
The injured Saiyan shook the fog from his head. "That thing had my son in its grasp, what was I supposed to do? Let it do to him what it did to the others?"
"No, you talk with me first and we make a plan instead of just doing a suicide charge!" He yelled. "On my soul, I will beat the absolutely shit out of you if you do anything like that again!"
Paragus smirked as he adjusted the rags on his body. "Aw, you do care."
If looks could kill. "Come on, let's see what we can do to keep that son of yours alive."
Shin and South Kai were both impressed and dismayed at the progress on the crystal encasing the Check In Station. Impressed because it was the only damage they've seen so far. Dismayed because there was still plenty left.
"And you've done this by...insulting it?" South Kai could hardly believe the words as he said it. It couldn't be that simple.
"I could hardly believe it myself." Olibu confirmed. "I screamed at it in frustration, most unbecoming of me I assure you, and it suddenly cracked. I repeated it and more damage was made!"
Shin made a thoughtful sound as he regrettably thought back to his encounter with the demon. "It affects her too." He muttered just loud enough to grab South Kai's attention.
"Pardon?"
"It affects Janemba as well." He said loud enough for all present to heard. Just saying the name had him shivering. "As they dwindled, those of our warriors not stricken dumb by sheer terror hurled invective her way. She seemed to take the words like one would receive an unexpected punch. It did little to help them in the end."
The rest were dumbfounded.
"You mean to tell me the thing that has upended our entire universe is weak to- to- to harsh language?" Kibito sputtered in utter disbelief. "Are you sure it is not some deception, my lord?"
Shin shook his head. "Not at all, I'm sure of it. As horrid as it is, it strikes me as a simple creature, one driven only by the suffering of others it seems. If only we know where it came from!"
"Uh, I can answer that." Yemma nervously replied. The ogre had been left dumbfounded at the presence, and state, of the Supreme Kai but he had found his tongue once more. "One of our soul cleansing machines were damaged in a freak accident and exploded. There was a chain reaction and dozens of our storage containers were destroyed too. An engineer of ours was caught in the accident."
Shin's eyes widened as he made the connections. "It's the collected negative energy of countless souls. How could this have happened?! I've been careless in my supervision to allow such dangerous conditions to exist right under my nose! You!" He pointed at South Kai. "Warn Broly of Janemba's weakness." The Kai nodded as his teleported away.
"Kibito, gather any able bodied warriors we have and bring them here; the sooner we free the station the better!" Shin turned to Olibu without waiting for affirmation. Kibito was a good and loyal assistant; he'd what was asked without question. "You and I will maintain our efforts here."
"Aye aye, Supreme Kai!"
A violet beam torched across his back and he cried out in pain as he swung a backfist at the offending party. Janemba barely shifted away in time and the tunnel of wind that followed his arm devastated the remaining dead trees.
Her ki coalesced behind him once more but he was ready for it. She fell once more into his grasp and the muscles and veins in his arm bulged as he squeezed. She writhed miserably in his grasp and great rivers of the lightless bile flowed from her.
More memories flooded him but the Ape shrugged them off. Even with all his training, he was closer to a creature of instinct than a truly thinking, rational being. These images did nothing. The demon seemed to realize it too.
Her eyes glowed and a thin green light cut through between them. Glass shattered. The Oozaru instinctively brought his arm up and closed his eyes as millions of shards pelted him. The pain grew from little more than stings to a searing burning as layers of fur and skin were shredded.
With one last squeeze, he tossed her away and jumped out of the way himself. Broly looked at his arm. It was chewed up but nothing he couldn't shrug off for now. Even with their sudden gap in power, she could still hurt him. This thing didn't play by the rules.
A new ki signature appeared behind him. A familiar one.
"Broly."
"South Kai." Broly growled. "What are you doing here?"
"She's weak to insults!"
"I'm busy here-" The words took a moment to process and the Oozaru turned to the deity. "What? You're kidding."
"I can't stay too long so just trust me on this one!" He looked over the ape's shoulder to make sure Janemba was gone. "She and her creations take physical damage if you insult them. We made a big dent in one of those gems and the Supreme Kai said that Otherworld's warriors discovered her weakness to it during their confrontation."
His crimson eyes narrowed for a moment before he shook his head.
"Of all the stupid bullshit- why should I believe you?"
"Then test it out for yourself, you oaf, and take care of her ASAP! Our universe can't take much more of this!"
With that, the Kai teleported away once more.
As for Janemba, she bounced several times before coming to an ungraceful stop. For once in the demon's brief life, there was doubt. She raised herself as a chorus of the shattered battled for what to do. Flee. Die in glory. Retreat. No honor in cowardice. Honor is a dead man's game. Don't waste time.
Escape Hell.
Janemba let out a frustrated cry as she struggled to parse everything. This was what they wanted, not her, but they were her so what did that mean? She stumbled as the ground quaked.
She, reluctantly, turned around. The Ape was back.
"Any last words, weakling?"
Janemba was pushed back as her armor cracked. 'Well, I'll be damned. Again.' Broly swiped her away and chased her rocketing body. He raised his arm as it crackled with emerald fury and crashed it into her in a massive overhead blow. Her screams were quickly buried along with the rest of her as she tore through the stone and soil.
He dug in his feet to stop his momentum but the demon burst from her improvised tomb. She grabbed a wayward stone and it formed into yet another blade. He went to grab at her again but she fell away once more. He screamed as a half dozen slashes cut across his head and shoulders.
Blood painted his vision as he stumbled away. The sound of glass rang in his ears and a new agony cut his side open. Janemba rushed him and he kicked up at her. She smirked at him as his giant leg passed through nothing before her face disassembled as well. He fell on his ass.
That was a quick reversal. Was she not taking him as seriously before? Her power didn't feel like it increased. No, no, he was cocky there. Being an Oozaru amplified his Saiyan instincts, that's what Sprout and Bardock said, and that's what happened. He'd have to be more mindful to avoid giving her anymore openings.
Janemba's power spiked behind him. He rolled over to see what was going on. She held out her sword to him as it shone violet. She brought it to her hip and yet more power erupted from her. That was going to hurt If he didn't stop it.
"You think your little toothpick can hurt me?" Janemba's faced quickly soured into pain as armor was chipped off. Her focus wavered. "You're nothing to me. This has been a game for me to play." The demon snarled as the light dimmed considerably; more indents crushed her back. Broly's power rose along with him. "You're a joke, a stain on my boot heel, pretending to be something you're not: a threat."
She dropped her sword and fell to a knee. Every word was like a hammer to glass. Acrid smoke leaked out of the fissures that opened on the surface of her skin. Sections of armor fell away revealing bleeding muscles.
"Undone by some mean words like a child. I don't think there's ever been a more pathetic end."
Janemba could hardly see him past the pain but she did feel what was going to happen. Broly's ki exploded out and smashed into her. It was a violent torrential hurricane that closed around her and gnashed at her within its teeth. Skin and armor broke away within the unnatural disaster and its jade winds were darkened by the bile that was ripped from her.
She screamed for there was nothing else to do.
Janemba woke half submerged in that familiar black ooze. She lifted an arm, the slow movement a great labor for her in her state, and watched yet more bile flow. Dead faces stared back in anger and despair.
Whispers flooded her ears.
'You're usele-I want to see my fam- We're going to die here! -ily…The Strong do no-I need to get out of here!'
Janemba smacked her head as the whispers grew and overlapped until they were little more than static in her head. An unintelligible cacophony of pointless noise that pulled her in infinite directions. What did it matter to her what they wanted?
The light was blocked. "Good, you're broken. It'll make this next part easier."
Broly held out his hand as a minuscule orb of ki was birthed in his palm. Janemba panicked and pushed away from him but her bile made her slip. That's when she spotted it. That white orb he cast earlier. That other Ape did the same thing.
"Omega Blaster."
Janemba opened a portal, the one thing she could still do, and redirected the blast. The explosion followed an instant later. The Oozaru's eyes widened as he suddenly started shrinking.
"Ah, you bitch." The moment the Saiyan was back to normal he exploded back into his Legendary state. "I can still kill you like you are!"
She broke up and the Saiyan cursed as the demon escaped. She reappeared just above him and took the opportunity for what is was. Janemba went straight up.
"A coward too!" The Saiyan screamed once he realized and flew to follow her. She was knocked off course by the invisible blow but corrected herself a moment later. "You won't escape me; we're finishing this!"
They reached the barrier between Otherworld and Hell in fraction of a moment. Broly was just about to grab her when her momentum reversed as she bounced off of something. He couldn't react to the sudden stop and braced himself for the impact only to fly through the clouds himself.
Janemba cried out below as she punched at the invisible wall to no avail. He laughed at her expense. Unlike everyone else, she was still stuck in the afterlife.
"You're trapped for now it looks like. Fantastic!"
He dropped a boot to her despaired face and she cracked Hell's floor once more. He landed as she tried to stumble away. Plumes of the black stuff flowed out of her broken body. Faces twisting in agony screamed silent ghostly wails within the haze. Janemba stared at her broken arms as she limped forward.
There was a cold silence save for her struggle as he approached. He felt at the cuts on his face; they were deep and bleeding profusely but the pain was muted even as he touched them. That would've ended things prematurely if he wasn't quite as strong.
He kicked the demon onto her back. She was barely conscious. He raised a boot and brought it down onto her chest. The ground cratered as she screamed in agony. He did it once more and the remaining armor on her torso disintegrated with another horrible screech. His leg rose once more and it became a pillar of shining emerald. It fell like a hammer.
A brief burst of sickly flame and toxic lightning ignited the area for miles. In the aftermath, Broly stood triumphantly for a moment as he let go of his transformation. That was underwhelming. He pulled his leg from Janemba's corpse with a squelch and shook the fluids away. The whispers and memories that were ever present in the back of his mind died and he was left with true silence since this thing appeared.
"You two can come over now, she's dead." He shouted out. From a nearby stone outcropping, Bardock and Sprout popped their heads out. "If I was a more caring man, I'd say it was reckless for you guys to be so close."
Bardock shrugged as the duo approached. "Nobody wanted a repeat of earlier. Imagine getting your ass saved twice in one fight." He added though with attention focused squarely on the body by Broly.
"I knew you could do it." Sprout clapped a hand on the younger Saiyan's shoulder. His lone eye shone with pride. "As much as I worry, I had full confidence in you."
It was strange to have someone else have pride in him. Broly shrugged off the words, and the pleasant feeling that came with them, as he kicked dust at Janemba.
"Good to hear someone did."
Bardock ignored the father and unwitting son as they fell into a stilted conversation. He wanted to shake his head. Paragus was so eager at the fruits of his labor that his enthusiasm threatened to alienate the boy though the kid seemed to put effort in the conversation. Maybe they'd have a proper bond yet. That was for the future however.
Right now, Janemba's eyes, bottomless holes now, stared back at him and he wondered. He had five visions in rapid succession and four of them came to pass. The fifth never did and that was a first for him. His visions weren't as clear cut as some might think, they were up for interpretation and he was always missing context, but to never happen?
'You're overthinking this. This thing messed with reality itself. Maybe it's desires manifested themselves in your visions?' That was a possibility as he'd never seen anything like Janemba. That static would haunt him. He could still hear it at the very edges of his perception. A constant swarm of microscopic bugs that he couldn't see.
The bile swam around. Faces stretched with unheard cries.
He reached for it.
And Bardock witnessed.
He was in a mass of trillions. Waves of fragments of damned souls pushed and pulled him like a buoy in a storm. At the center of it all, he felt her. and she saw him. The demon walked the endless, thrashing sea as though it was still ground and approached him.
Janemba reached for him. Searing horrendous pain filled his mind like a flame as five fingers grabbed onto his face. She opened his thoughts and read his memories as though he were little more complex than a children's book. She grinned as she came upon the visions.
And she sent a message.
Not to him but a him. Bardock was connected to time in a manner unlike any other being in Hell and Janemba used that. He saw his past self, just the day before, keel over from the sudden invasion of his mind. That's when he got the visions.
They weren't the future. They were transplanted memories. But the fifth, it hasn't happened, what was it? The answer came unbidden.
A threat.
He was let go into the black waters yet his vision was never obscured. Janemba wanted him to see for he could do nothing. Her arms rose and in the same motion she brought them down. The sea sunk into the foundation of Hell. Through them, the near endless reaches of the realm became known to blinked and he was back in Hell yet still frozen. The bile was absorbed into the stone surrounding her body.
Bardock cried out. Broly and Paragus were completely unaware. They were distracted and he was trapped. The tendrils of her essence spread through the dimension and began to melt it into the clay she needed. The barrier was yet too strong; she needed to further disrupt it.
He felt it when she did. Her tendrils reached too far and she touched Nothing. A malleable Nothing. Janemba's curiosity was piqued, her plight nearly forgotten, as she shaped this lack of things. It was calm like still waters yet it held together; it would not let go easily if something were to fall within its grasp.
She pulled it to the surface.
"I wonder how long it'll be before Vegeta and the rest of the Saiyans are back." Broly said as he glanced at Bardock. The older Saiyan hadn't moved for a few seconds.
"Ugh, don't remind me. It's been nice not having them around. Demon tearing apart Hell notwithstanding of course." Replied Sprout.
Broly turned just as a plume of nothing speared up through the stone and pierced the sky above. "What-?!"
"Whoa!" Sprout jumped out of the way as another opened up beneath him. Bardock jumped to his feet but promptly lost balance and fell on his ass.
Mountains floated as more of these pillars grabbed hold of the heavens. Snakeway fell from its lofty position above them and whole swaths of Hell were flattened. Stones near these constructs of nonexistence were reduced to dust and back to stone in rapid succession.
"What the fuck?!" Bardock said as he got his bearings. She'd already started. "Oh no."
Around them, the many eyes of the Dead Zone opened and Hell sunk into its gaze. With a terrible scream, Janemba's corpse shook Hell as a great burst of a thousand faces erupted from her.
Broly narrowly avoided falling into a void with a quick hover as he raced to Janemba. "That thing is supposed to be dead, how's it still doing all this?"
Another endless pit into the darkness below Hell groaned open beneath Janemba and the horror fell into the abyss.
With little fanfare or notice, Janemba was gone.
The Dead Zone
She fell through that which did not exist. 'Falling' was a misnomer as paltry things like gravity and time were mere ideas within the Dead Zone. It was emptiness in the truest sense; outside of herself, there was truly nothing.
Yet this emptiness was docile. It did not pull, it did not push, it simply was.
So she drifted. Janemba was instinct and desire and the utter silence was antithetical to her but no matter how she screamed and wailed, she was too weak for now. She was forced to just be. Instinct, forcibly tempered, became thought and so the demon learned to think. It could have been a billion years later, it could have been a billionth of a billionth of a second, but an end soon came.
Janemba touched something at the edge of this empty place.
It wasn't a true barrier, not in such a way that the word implies. The Dead Zone wasn't simply an empty box that you could throw things in; it was the emptiness of a box. Hell wasn't on the other side; this was pointing somewhere else. Somewhere worse.
It tore away at whatever breached the black edge. Existence was intolerable to it.
That's when she knew.
She was Janemba. A tide that would cleanse all things. She ravaged that which sought anything more within herself. She tore their throats and stole their mouths until all that was left a void equal to that which she had touched.
All that was left now was to breach Hell. Only once everything was available to her could she finish her task.
Hell
Cold finally ripped himself from this prison that thing had left him trapped in. To think he could die as just a soul was utterly ridiculous. At least it was just a minor inconvenience down here. What was less minor were the missing organs and meat from most of his body. Were he any other species, he'd been dead several times over again.
But he was Arcosian. They had evolved to survive near indefinitely with anything less than lethal wounds; sometimes they lived still with those as well.
And he was their greatest example. More of those black columns or some such were appearing and he wanted nothing to do with it; he recognized the Dead Zone when he saw it. Without that blasted Kai around, he was free to leave.
"Don't-" A wet cough interrupted. "Don't just leave me here."
Cold smirked as he looked over his shoulder. Bojack had made much less progress in his own escape. "Enjoy your time getting out, Bojack. I hope you suffer."
The Heran slumped over as death came for him once more. "I'm...I'm...going to fuck you up when I get out of here."
The Arcosian chuckled at the pathetic display. "Oh, believe me, I'm looking forward to it."
Cold went to leave but a dome ballooned up in front of him and he was forced to leap away. Another few inches and he'd be trapped down there again!
"That was a close...one?" The Patriarch grew silent as a shape form within.
Janemba stepped forth. She was taller though longer felt a more appropriate descriptor as she appeared to be stretched into her new height that had her almost eye level with Broly's Legendary state. Her horns swept further back and her armor had smoothed so that it appeared more as an extension of her skin rather than a separate, protective layer.
It was hard to focus on the demon as the very edges of her form seemed to blur like her existence was designed to not be fully comprehended. Cold swallowed a lump in his throat. That thing had played with him effortlessly before and something told the Arcosian she hadn't grown weaker.
She stared him down and he took the moment to just fly away. Luckily for him, he wasn't chased. Seconds later and he was back in the mortal realm. Odd, he didn't even noticed the transition. Cold tossed away the though; he needed to find his children and regain control of his empire. Kami knows, his children weren't ready for the responsibility when he passed.
It only took a few days to find them and he was shocked. They had somehow not only made peace with one another but the Planet Trade was more prosperous than ever! His sons were shocked at his return but they welcomed him with open arms.
"Father," They had said. "You can enjoy retirement. The empire is in good hands."
And it was. So he did. Cold swirled a cool glass of wine on his throne. Even in retirement, he still held ultimate power at the end of the day and so his people served him on hands and feet without complaint or question. It was everything he wanted.
Janemba smirked at how easily this once, almost-formidable foe had fallen under her sway. The Arcosian even drooled at whatever he witnessed. It left him an easy, still target for her experiment.
She sought that feeling of the emptiness where creation never touched. It left its mark in her; not a wound but an imprint like a carving in stone. She, with trillions united in purpose, brought that forth. On her fingertip, an eldritch flame of violet light appeared. She put her fingertip right at his forehead as she released her hold on him.
With a simple touch, Cold screamed as his soul was erased.
Author's Note
I think that's a good place to end things.
So to everyone who didn't check my profile recently, my computer went and shit the bed. It took me a couple weeks to get everything fixed up so I couldn't write anywhere near as much as a result which is why this one is super late.
That being said, I did make it pretty long compared to recent chapters so hopefully that dulls the sting a bit!
Ent out.
Review Responses!
I just want to get this out ASAP so no review responses this time around! Sorry!