Chapter Sixty-Three: Tayla Meets Jaden
Tayla said boldly to the alligator-creature as possible. "Let him go now!"
Jaden laughed. "You've got some nerve, kid, a scrawny little thing like you hoping to challenge me! If you give me half of the fight that Dirkan here did, I might spare you, but I'll doubt that you will last for more than five minutes!"
"Get out of here, now!" Dirkan ordered Tayla as strongly as he could.
"No," she told Dirkan quietly. "I am not leaving you behind."
"Brave kid," Jaden said to Dirkan. "Well, I'll get rid of her quickly, and then, if you're still up to it, we can finish our fray." She flung Dirkan away from her and against the wall. Dirkan crashed into the wall of the cave. Jaden then used zanzoken, and she was in front of Tayla in an instant. She chuckled.
"Hoping to save your friend, eh?"
"What did you to do to him?" Tayla cried, trying to keep the anger and shock out of her voice, even as she was using the anger to bolster her confidence. She looked at Dirkan worriedly, for Dirkan's left arm was broken, his handsome green face was bloody, and his right leg was missing. Dirkan's nose was also broken, and his red fighting gi , or uniform, was torn to shreds. Dirkan's left hand was missing as well, and a horrified Tayla saw the large bruises covering most of Dirkan's torso. The pink muscle patches on his remaining limbs were torn and ripped. There were lacerations and scratches all over his body. Tayla was dismayed at seeing her handsome, strong, beloved Namek guardian and step-grandfather in such a bad shape. She had never seen him this injured or damaged. She wanted to run to him and hug him and tell him that she would take care of him and protect him. And she would have, then and there, if Jaden had not been in her path.
"How dare you do what you did to him? You're going to pay for that!" she cried in fury.
Jaden smirked. "He paid the price for getting in my way, kid. I promise not to hurt you too badly, if you tell me where Princess Tayla Chloe is." She then cocked her head thoughtfully and said, "Hmmm…you know, kid, I got a description of this Princess Tayla from Vegeta and his bunch before I left for Calmag, and you look like you fit the description. Compact body, black hair, brown eyes, button nose, that monkey called Raditz actually described her as 'cute, but troublesome'. You look like you could be her, kid. What is your name?"
"Rosynthia Chloe," Tayla lied promptly, remembering the name that Dirkan and Nama had told her to use, should any of Frieza's minions capture her or question her.
"Hmmm," Jaden murmured thoughtfully. "Rosynthia, eh? Well, Rosy, you do look like the description Vegeta gave me, however." She looked at Tayla skeptically, and Tayla answered calmly:
"There are many Astorian girls that resemble me, and Tayla is my cousin, a distant cousin who did not come with us. Let me take Dirkan out of here with me, and I promise not to harm you."
"Sorry, kid, but that's not happening. I was ordered to get rid of all of the Astorians here, except for Tayla Chloe. And I know that she is here on this planet, kid, because those spies, Alberm and Reccor squealed on her."
"You know Alberm and Reccor?" Tayla asked. "If that is so, then you probably know where Princess Petalia and Princess Caline are. Where are they?"
"I had them released," Jaden told her curtly. "I probably should have killed them, but I didn't think it would do any harm to let those two live. Alberm was not so lucky, for I sent that pig into the next dimension. He deserved it, for the way that he had treated his little child bride, Caline. I never knew that Calmagian men could be such a sick bunch, but anyway…do you plan to fight me or not."
"I have no choice, do I?"
"What do you think, kid?"
Tayla stood up, straight and tall, as she unsheathed her sword.
Jaden opened her right hand slowly, like a yawning bird, and she calmly shot out a burst of reddish-white light from that hand. The shot hit Tayla and Jaden cursed. She then turned on her scouter and nearly fainted.
"She's-she's got a power level of twenty thousand!" she gasped to herself. "How can this be? How many Astorians have a ki as high as hers at that age?"
Tayla stood still coolly, and her ki continued to steadily rise on Jaden's scouter, from twenty thousand to thirty thousand, where it stopped for now. Jaden then realized that "Rosynthia" was hiding some of her ki. She smirked again.
"Hiding some of your ki? Clever trick, kid, I will admit that you Astorians have always had that edge over us, but it won't be enough. If your ki had been any lower than twenty thousand, you would have been turned into a glass statue. You should be thankful that my Glass Freeze attack didn't work."
"Glass Freeze?" Tayla asked, and then she slowly realized whom she was dealing with.
"You are Jaden, aren't you?" Tayla inquired. Chocolate eyes looked steadily into glowing goldenrod ones.
Jaden smiled her cruel smile again. "You're smart, kid, very smart. Or just well informed. Is my fame that well known throughout the galaxy?"
"Yes," Tayla told her quietly. "You happen to be fifth on Intergalacticpol's Most Wanted List."
Jaden snorted. "Fifth? Intergalacticpol should update their list, kid. Only fifth, well I'm disappointed."
"What you are doing is wrong, and you know it," Tayla told her. "You should just go home and leave us alone. You don't have to keep hurting me or Dirkan or anyone else."
"You sound like Shalila Chloe, for that sounds like something that she would say," Jaden told her.
"Of course I do," Tayla told her proudly. "She is my grandmother."
Dirkan groaned, "Kid, don't…" He was worried that Tayla would accidentally reveal her true identity to their Rybanese enemy.
"Shall we continue?" Jaden asked her confidently.
"Fine, I will fight you, but keep Dirkan out of this," Tayla told her bravely. "He's been through quite enough with you."
Jaden sniffed. "Fine with me, kid, he's not much of a challenge to me anymore. But I recommend that we move our fight to another location, say one that won't collapse in on us should we get too rowdy."
"It might be hard out there," Tayla told her. "There is snow and hail blowing outside."
"What?" Jaden exclaimed. "C'mon, kid, it was sunny and clear before I dragged Dirkan in here to finish him off."
"There is a blizzard and a hailstorm going on at the same time," Tayla informed her.
Jaden cursed under her breath. "Curse you, Diamonique! You just made things harder for all of us: friends and foes alike. First Vegeta and his Power Ball to turn his pals and sister into Oozarus and now this-just what we need! I'll break that Gemstarian strumpet's neck next time I see her!"
"Diamonique did all of that?" Tayla asked her.
"Yeah, she can create snowstorms or hailstorms, but she picked a lousy time to do so! Let's just go to another part of the cave."
"Works for me," Tayla told her. "I just have one request."
"And that would be…"
"I want to check on Dirkan and see if he is okay." She looked over at Dirkan, who had yanked out his bad left arm from its socket and threw it aside, like a dead tree branch.
Jaden snorted. "Very well. You have twenty minutes, and then you will meet me in our next location, kid. I will fire a shot when your twenty minutes are up, and then you better show, or I will come after you. And if I have to come after you, I will be much harder on you, is that clear?"
"As crystal," Tayla affirmed, reciting one of Steak's favorite quotes.
"I will be in the northwest corridor of this cave," Jaden told her. "The entranceway will be marked with two black X's." And she left. Tayla promptly ran to Dirkan, knelt, and carefully put her arms around his neck. She whispered tender words of comfort and filial love in his large green ear. Dirkan slowly wrapped his good right arm around her waist and closed his eyes.
When Jaden was safely out of earshot, Tayla whispered, "Dirkan, are you okay?"
Dirkan gave her a saucy grin. "Now that you're here, kid."
"I'm getting you out of here and to somewhere safer in the cavern, Dirkan. I'd take you out of the cavern altogether, but Diamonique created that nasty snow and hail storm outside."
"Don't worry about me, kid; worry about yourself. Jaden is tough and very strong, much stronger now than the last time that I fought her years ago."
"How was she defeated the last time?" Tayla asked him.
"It was your grandmother who did it," Dirkan told her wearily. "She used Electric Quake on Jaden, and while it didn't kill her, it did cripple her enough, so that she had to retreat. But she is much stronger now, and Tayla, I say that you take me out of here, and we will come back later to finish Jaden off. I am in no condition to fight at this moment until I rejuvenate myself and regenerate my limbs. If Jaden finds out who you really are, there is no telling what she would do, and your chances of fighting her and surviving are slim. I'm just thankful that you have not met Balair yet; he's equally as strong as her, but much more vicious and merciless than she is."
"I already met Balair," Tayla told him, a bit triumphantly. "And I managed to slow him down, although he's probably still alive."
"What???" Dirkan exclaimed, as Tayla pulled out her healior's kit from under her shirt to treat his wounds the best that she could. "How did you do that, child?"
"I used two new attacks that I learned at Kami Orchida's, which are Double Janus Bolt and Blitzer, which crippled him enough for us to escape," Tayla told him simply.
Dirkan was impressed and amazed that Tayla had fought against Balair and lived to tell about it.
"Are you okay, Tayla?" he asked her, examining her gently with his good hand. She cried out when he touched her broken shoulder. Dirkan then noticed that the gold shoulder cloth was missing on that shoulder, and that Tayla had a large bite mark that could have only come from Balair.
"He hurt you, didn't he?" Dirkan hissed, and Tayla nodded quickly. "I'll kill that bastard!" Dirkan vowed. And then a new worry came to him. "Does he know your true identity?"
Tayla nodded again. "Yes, because Vegeta told him when he recognized me." She gave him a brief summary of her and Bendros' battle with Vegeta-Oozaru.
"I hope that Bendros is okay," Tayla said worriedly. "I should have cut off his tail, but I had to fight Vegeta after I cut his tail."
Dirkan's stump, where his right leg once was, began to tremble, and juices spurted out, as a new leg emerged from his stump, a new, perfect limb. Five minutes later, he regenerated a new left arm and hand as well.
"I wish I could regenerate my body parts that easily," Tayla told him.
Dirkan laughed, as the rest of his wounds slowly began to heal, slow being as in a few minutes. He was still not at his full strength yet, but he managed to struggle to his feet, with Tayla's help.
"Dirkan, she will come after me, if I don't go fight her when she says I have to," she told him.
"We still have time to flee," Dirkan told her firmly. "If we stay together, we can fly through the storm and make it to a safer location. I insist that we head back to the castle for now to reformulate a new game plan. I suppose that I can't convince you to stay there until this battle is over, can I?"
"No, you can't," Tayla told him equally as firmly.
Dirkan sighed, but then he gave her a small grin. "Then let's get out of here for now and come back to face Jaden when we have backup."
"I will carry you," Tayla told him. "We must hurry, Dirkan, for we only have eleven minutes now." She looked anxiously at Dirkan's watch, a gold one that Shalila had given him for his one-hundredth birthday. She carefully lifted Dirkan, who was three times her size, onto her back.
"Sure you can carry me?"
"Positive." And with that, Tayla wrapped Dirkan's legs around her waist. Dirkan rested on her back, and his head lay on her shoulder.
"I love you, Dirkan," Tayla whispered, and Dirkan told her that her loved her too, knowing that she meant what she said as a daughter loving a father. He closed his eyes for a few minutes, as
Tayla walked out of the corridor quietly, with her Namek guardian on her back.
But Tayla and Dirkan would not make it far, for just as they were about to leave the cavern, Diamonique appeared at the entrance, as if waiting for her prey the entire time.
"Who is she?" Dirkan asked, not having seen nor met Diamonique yet.
Diamonique smiled at the injured Namek on her prey's back. Should she poison him, or turn him into a diamond. While it would be more fun to watch him die slowly from her poison, turning him into a diamond statue would be much quicker.
She raised her hand, and Tayla, knowing what she was about to do, quickly threw Dirkan to the ground before Diamonique's blast could touch him. She threw herself at Diamonique.
"Sorry about that, Dirkan!" Tayla cried aloud, as she landed punches on Dirkan's would-be assassin. She and Diamonique kicked and punched at each other, showing each other no mercy, leaving the cave entrance and fighting in the freezing cold and snow. Tayla punched Diamonique in her face, while Diamonique kicked her in her thighs. She then tried to scratch at Tayla with her sharp diamond nails, but Tayla seized her wrist before she had the chance. She then punched Diamonique in her windpipe, knocking the Gemstarian warrior off of her feet and into the snow.
Diamonique choked and gasped for air. She emitted a loud cough; Tayla's attack could have killed her for good, if she had hit Diamonique any harder. She then struggled to her feet, and she fired small ki blasts at Tayla, who deflected them back at her with Mirror Shield attacks, crippling Diamonique, knocking her over. Tayla was merciless and angry, for it was bad enough that that horrible woman had turned her family members into diamond statues; she would not allow her to do the same to Dirkan.
She was through running away now. She slowly moved into the snowing and hailing air, bravely ignoring the cold and hail, as she crossed her wrists in an X position, opened her hands in a clamshell position, and cried "BLITZER!"
Diamonique screamed, as the twisted, double attack shot into her, creating an avalanche, shoving her into the ground, and destroying much of that side of the mountain. While the snow, rocks, and hail were falling, Tayla rushed back inside the cavern and grabbed Dirkan. She swiftly threw the Namek over onto her shoulder, and they flew away from the crumbling cavern, to face the snow and the hail.
Diamonique's screams could be heard, as the mountain around the cavern began to crumble and collapse under the impact of Tayla's Blitzer attack. An avalanche of snow, rocks, debris, trees, and hail pieces rained down onto that side of the mountain and Diamonique.
As the mountain crumbled, Diamonique's ki faded away until neither Tayla nor Dirkan could feel it.
Tayla hurried away from the falling mountain with Dirkan in her arms. Both of them fought against the wind, snow, and hail, as they fled from the dying mountain. Hail pieces were hitting them hard, but they both tried their best to ignore the pain. Dirkan was a heavy bundle for Tayla to carry, but he was her guardian, and she loved him; she would get them both away from there.
"What the hell is going on here?" Jaden cried out loud, feeling the ground and corridors shake and tremble. She had been wondering why "Rosynthia" had not shown up, for it had been forty minutes since she had last seen "Rosynthia". What had been keeping the brat?
The cavern shook and trembled, and Jaden saw giant pieces of rocks and debris fall down around her. Stalactites began breaking free of the cavern roofs and crashing down all around her.
Jaden was furious that "Rosynthia" had run out on their fight, but she was no fool. It would be one fight that Jaden would not get to finish. She shot through the ceiling of the caverns, between the stalactites, creating a giant hole in the cavern ceiling. Jaden ignored the pain of crashing through hard rock and debris, but blasting a hole would have made things worse and cause everything to crash down around her.
She continued breaking through the hard rock in the ceilings of the mountain with her body until she reached the outside, into the snow and hail. Just as Jaden was preparing to fly away, a gigantic boulder broke off of the top of the mountain and fell down towards her. The boulder was just as large as she was, but Jaden could have easily destroyed it-had she been able to see.
The snow and hail were blinding her, blurring her vision and making it hard for her to keep her eyes open. She did not see the boulder smashing into her back, shoving her out of the sky and down onto the mountainside, where snow and rocks continued to fall and collide into her body.
"JADEN!" a familiar, feminine voice cried.
Jaden heard her, but could not respond, as another boulder crashed down onto her head, cracking her skull and giving her a nasty concussion. She saw everything began to grow dark, as a pair of much smaller arms caught her as she fell through the icy air.
"Hang in there," the recognizable voice whispered. "I will take care of you."
Jaden moaned weakly before she faded into unconsciousness. Before she passed out completely, she saw that the arms rescuing her belonged to a beautiful young woman with red and green hair and a panther-like face...
Tayla said boldly to the alligator-creature as possible. "Let him go now!"
Jaden laughed. "You've got some nerve, kid, a scrawny little thing like you hoping to challenge me! If you give me half of the fight that Dirkan here did, I might spare you, but I'll doubt that you will last for more than five minutes!"
"Get out of here, now!" Dirkan ordered Tayla as strongly as he could.
"No," she told Dirkan quietly. "I am not leaving you behind."
"Brave kid," Jaden said to Dirkan. "Well, I'll get rid of her quickly, and then, if you're still up to it, we can finish our fray." She flung Dirkan away from her and against the wall. Dirkan crashed into the wall of the cave. Jaden then used zanzoken, and she was in front of Tayla in an instant. She chuckled.
"Hoping to save your friend, eh?"
"What did you to do to him?" Tayla cried, trying to keep the anger and shock out of her voice, even as she was using the anger to bolster her confidence. She looked at Dirkan worriedly, for Dirkan's left arm was broken, his handsome green face was bloody, and his right leg was missing. Dirkan's nose was also broken, and his red fighting gi , or uniform, was torn to shreds. Dirkan's left hand was missing as well, and a horrified Tayla saw the large bruises covering most of Dirkan's torso. The pink muscle patches on his remaining limbs were torn and ripped. There were lacerations and scratches all over his body. Tayla was dismayed at seeing her handsome, strong, beloved Namek guardian and step-grandfather in such a bad shape. She had never seen him this injured or damaged. She wanted to run to him and hug him and tell him that she would take care of him and protect him. And she would have, then and there, if Jaden had not been in her path.
"How dare you do what you did to him? You're going to pay for that!" she cried in fury.
Jaden smirked. "He paid the price for getting in my way, kid. I promise not to hurt you too badly, if you tell me where Princess Tayla Chloe is." She then cocked her head thoughtfully and said, "Hmmm…you know, kid, I got a description of this Princess Tayla from Vegeta and his bunch before I left for Calmag, and you look like you fit the description. Compact body, black hair, brown eyes, button nose, that monkey called Raditz actually described her as 'cute, but troublesome'. You look like you could be her, kid. What is your name?"
"Rosynthia Chloe," Tayla lied promptly, remembering the name that Dirkan and Nama had told her to use, should any of Frieza's minions capture her or question her.
"Hmmm," Jaden murmured thoughtfully. "Rosynthia, eh? Well, Rosy, you do look like the description Vegeta gave me, however." She looked at Tayla skeptically, and Tayla answered calmly:
"There are many Astorian girls that resemble me, and Tayla is my cousin, a distant cousin who did not come with us. Let me take Dirkan out of here with me, and I promise not to harm you."
"Sorry, kid, but that's not happening. I was ordered to get rid of all of the Astorians here, except for Tayla Chloe. And I know that she is here on this planet, kid, because those spies, Alberm and Reccor squealed on her."
"You know Alberm and Reccor?" Tayla asked. "If that is so, then you probably know where Princess Petalia and Princess Caline are. Where are they?"
"I had them released," Jaden told her curtly. "I probably should have killed them, but I didn't think it would do any harm to let those two live. Alberm was not so lucky, for I sent that pig into the next dimension. He deserved it, for the way that he had treated his little child bride, Caline. I never knew that Calmagian men could be such a sick bunch, but anyway…do you plan to fight me or not."
"I have no choice, do I?"
"What do you think, kid?"
Tayla stood up, straight and tall, as she unsheathed her sword.
Jaden opened her right hand slowly, like a yawning bird, and she calmly shot out a burst of reddish-white light from that hand. The shot hit Tayla and Jaden cursed. She then turned on her scouter and nearly fainted.
"She's-she's got a power level of twenty thousand!" she gasped to herself. "How can this be? How many Astorians have a ki as high as hers at that age?"
Tayla stood still coolly, and her ki continued to steadily rise on Jaden's scouter, from twenty thousand to thirty thousand, where it stopped for now. Jaden then realized that "Rosynthia" was hiding some of her ki. She smirked again.
"Hiding some of your ki? Clever trick, kid, I will admit that you Astorians have always had that edge over us, but it won't be enough. If your ki had been any lower than twenty thousand, you would have been turned into a glass statue. You should be thankful that my Glass Freeze attack didn't work."
"Glass Freeze?" Tayla asked, and then she slowly realized whom she was dealing with.
"You are Jaden, aren't you?" Tayla inquired. Chocolate eyes looked steadily into glowing goldenrod ones.
Jaden smiled her cruel smile again. "You're smart, kid, very smart. Or just well informed. Is my fame that well known throughout the galaxy?"
"Yes," Tayla told her quietly. "You happen to be fifth on Intergalacticpol's Most Wanted List."
Jaden snorted. "Fifth? Intergalacticpol should update their list, kid. Only fifth, well I'm disappointed."
"What you are doing is wrong, and you know it," Tayla told her. "You should just go home and leave us alone. You don't have to keep hurting me or Dirkan or anyone else."
"You sound like Shalila Chloe, for that sounds like something that she would say," Jaden told her.
"Of course I do," Tayla told her proudly. "She is my grandmother."
Dirkan groaned, "Kid, don't…" He was worried that Tayla would accidentally reveal her true identity to their Rybanese enemy.
"Shall we continue?" Jaden asked her confidently.
"Fine, I will fight you, but keep Dirkan out of this," Tayla told her bravely. "He's been through quite enough with you."
Jaden sniffed. "Fine with me, kid, he's not much of a challenge to me anymore. But I recommend that we move our fight to another location, say one that won't collapse in on us should we get too rowdy."
"It might be hard out there," Tayla told her. "There is snow and hail blowing outside."
"What?" Jaden exclaimed. "C'mon, kid, it was sunny and clear before I dragged Dirkan in here to finish him off."
"There is a blizzard and a hailstorm going on at the same time," Tayla informed her.
Jaden cursed under her breath. "Curse you, Diamonique! You just made things harder for all of us: friends and foes alike. First Vegeta and his Power Ball to turn his pals and sister into Oozarus and now this-just what we need! I'll break that Gemstarian strumpet's neck next time I see her!"
"Diamonique did all of that?" Tayla asked her.
"Yeah, she can create snowstorms or hailstorms, but she picked a lousy time to do so! Let's just go to another part of the cave."
"Works for me," Tayla told her. "I just have one request."
"And that would be…"
"I want to check on Dirkan and see if he is okay." She looked over at Dirkan, who had yanked out his bad left arm from its socket and threw it aside, like a dead tree branch.
Jaden snorted. "Very well. You have twenty minutes, and then you will meet me in our next location, kid. I will fire a shot when your twenty minutes are up, and then you better show, or I will come after you. And if I have to come after you, I will be much harder on you, is that clear?"
"As crystal," Tayla affirmed, reciting one of Steak's favorite quotes.
"I will be in the northwest corridor of this cave," Jaden told her. "The entranceway will be marked with two black X's." And she left. Tayla promptly ran to Dirkan, knelt, and carefully put her arms around his neck. She whispered tender words of comfort and filial love in his large green ear. Dirkan slowly wrapped his good right arm around her waist and closed his eyes.
When Jaden was safely out of earshot, Tayla whispered, "Dirkan, are you okay?"
Dirkan gave her a saucy grin. "Now that you're here, kid."
"I'm getting you out of here and to somewhere safer in the cavern, Dirkan. I'd take you out of the cavern altogether, but Diamonique created that nasty snow and hail storm outside."
"Don't worry about me, kid; worry about yourself. Jaden is tough and very strong, much stronger now than the last time that I fought her years ago."
"How was she defeated the last time?" Tayla asked him.
"It was your grandmother who did it," Dirkan told her wearily. "She used Electric Quake on Jaden, and while it didn't kill her, it did cripple her enough, so that she had to retreat. But she is much stronger now, and Tayla, I say that you take me out of here, and we will come back later to finish Jaden off. I am in no condition to fight at this moment until I rejuvenate myself and regenerate my limbs. If Jaden finds out who you really are, there is no telling what she would do, and your chances of fighting her and surviving are slim. I'm just thankful that you have not met Balair yet; he's equally as strong as her, but much more vicious and merciless than she is."
"I already met Balair," Tayla told him, a bit triumphantly. "And I managed to slow him down, although he's probably still alive."
"What???" Dirkan exclaimed, as Tayla pulled out her healior's kit from under her shirt to treat his wounds the best that she could. "How did you do that, child?"
"I used two new attacks that I learned at Kami Orchida's, which are Double Janus Bolt and Blitzer, which crippled him enough for us to escape," Tayla told him simply.
Dirkan was impressed and amazed that Tayla had fought against Balair and lived to tell about it.
"Are you okay, Tayla?" he asked her, examining her gently with his good hand. She cried out when he touched her broken shoulder. Dirkan then noticed that the gold shoulder cloth was missing on that shoulder, and that Tayla had a large bite mark that could have only come from Balair.
"He hurt you, didn't he?" Dirkan hissed, and Tayla nodded quickly. "I'll kill that bastard!" Dirkan vowed. And then a new worry came to him. "Does he know your true identity?"
Tayla nodded again. "Yes, because Vegeta told him when he recognized me." She gave him a brief summary of her and Bendros' battle with Vegeta-Oozaru.
"I hope that Bendros is okay," Tayla said worriedly. "I should have cut off his tail, but I had to fight Vegeta after I cut his tail."
Dirkan's stump, where his right leg once was, began to tremble, and juices spurted out, as a new leg emerged from his stump, a new, perfect limb. Five minutes later, he regenerated a new left arm and hand as well.
"I wish I could regenerate my body parts that easily," Tayla told him.
Dirkan laughed, as the rest of his wounds slowly began to heal, slow being as in a few minutes. He was still not at his full strength yet, but he managed to struggle to his feet, with Tayla's help.
"Dirkan, she will come after me, if I don't go fight her when she says I have to," she told him.
"We still have time to flee," Dirkan told her firmly. "If we stay together, we can fly through the storm and make it to a safer location. I insist that we head back to the castle for now to reformulate a new game plan. I suppose that I can't convince you to stay there until this battle is over, can I?"
"No, you can't," Tayla told him equally as firmly.
Dirkan sighed, but then he gave her a small grin. "Then let's get out of here for now and come back to face Jaden when we have backup."
"I will carry you," Tayla told him. "We must hurry, Dirkan, for we only have eleven minutes now." She looked anxiously at Dirkan's watch, a gold one that Shalila had given him for his one-hundredth birthday. She carefully lifted Dirkan, who was three times her size, onto her back.
"Sure you can carry me?"
"Positive." And with that, Tayla wrapped Dirkan's legs around her waist. Dirkan rested on her back, and his head lay on her shoulder.
"I love you, Dirkan," Tayla whispered, and Dirkan told her that her loved her too, knowing that she meant what she said as a daughter loving a father. He closed his eyes for a few minutes, as
Tayla walked out of the corridor quietly, with her Namek guardian on her back.
But Tayla and Dirkan would not make it far, for just as they were about to leave the cavern, Diamonique appeared at the entrance, as if waiting for her prey the entire time.
"Who is she?" Dirkan asked, not having seen nor met Diamonique yet.
Diamonique smiled at the injured Namek on her prey's back. Should she poison him, or turn him into a diamond. While it would be more fun to watch him die slowly from her poison, turning him into a diamond statue would be much quicker.
She raised her hand, and Tayla, knowing what she was about to do, quickly threw Dirkan to the ground before Diamonique's blast could touch him. She threw herself at Diamonique.
"Sorry about that, Dirkan!" Tayla cried aloud, as she landed punches on Dirkan's would-be assassin. She and Diamonique kicked and punched at each other, showing each other no mercy, leaving the cave entrance and fighting in the freezing cold and snow. Tayla punched Diamonique in her face, while Diamonique kicked her in her thighs. She then tried to scratch at Tayla with her sharp diamond nails, but Tayla seized her wrist before she had the chance. She then punched Diamonique in her windpipe, knocking the Gemstarian warrior off of her feet and into the snow.
Diamonique choked and gasped for air. She emitted a loud cough; Tayla's attack could have killed her for good, if she had hit Diamonique any harder. She then struggled to her feet, and she fired small ki blasts at Tayla, who deflected them back at her with Mirror Shield attacks, crippling Diamonique, knocking her over. Tayla was merciless and angry, for it was bad enough that that horrible woman had turned her family members into diamond statues; she would not allow her to do the same to Dirkan.
She was through running away now. She slowly moved into the snowing and hailing air, bravely ignoring the cold and hail, as she crossed her wrists in an X position, opened her hands in a clamshell position, and cried "BLITZER!"
Diamonique screamed, as the twisted, double attack shot into her, creating an avalanche, shoving her into the ground, and destroying much of that side of the mountain. While the snow, rocks, and hail were falling, Tayla rushed back inside the cavern and grabbed Dirkan. She swiftly threw the Namek over onto her shoulder, and they flew away from the crumbling cavern, to face the snow and the hail.
Diamonique's screams could be heard, as the mountain around the cavern began to crumble and collapse under the impact of Tayla's Blitzer attack. An avalanche of snow, rocks, debris, trees, and hail pieces rained down onto that side of the mountain and Diamonique.
As the mountain crumbled, Diamonique's ki faded away until neither Tayla nor Dirkan could feel it.
Tayla hurried away from the falling mountain with Dirkan in her arms. Both of them fought against the wind, snow, and hail, as they fled from the dying mountain. Hail pieces were hitting them hard, but they both tried their best to ignore the pain. Dirkan was a heavy bundle for Tayla to carry, but he was her guardian, and she loved him; she would get them both away from there.
"What the hell is going on here?" Jaden cried out loud, feeling the ground and corridors shake and tremble. She had been wondering why "Rosynthia" had not shown up, for it had been forty minutes since she had last seen "Rosynthia". What had been keeping the brat?
The cavern shook and trembled, and Jaden saw giant pieces of rocks and debris fall down around her. Stalactites began breaking free of the cavern roofs and crashing down all around her.
Jaden was furious that "Rosynthia" had run out on their fight, but she was no fool. It would be one fight that Jaden would not get to finish. She shot through the ceiling of the caverns, between the stalactites, creating a giant hole in the cavern ceiling. Jaden ignored the pain of crashing through hard rock and debris, but blasting a hole would have made things worse and cause everything to crash down around her.
She continued breaking through the hard rock in the ceilings of the mountain with her body until she reached the outside, into the snow and hail. Just as Jaden was preparing to fly away, a gigantic boulder broke off of the top of the mountain and fell down towards her. The boulder was just as large as she was, but Jaden could have easily destroyed it-had she been able to see.
The snow and hail were blinding her, blurring her vision and making it hard for her to keep her eyes open. She did not see the boulder smashing into her back, shoving her out of the sky and down onto the mountainside, where snow and rocks continued to fall and collide into her body.
"JADEN!" a familiar, feminine voice cried.
Jaden heard her, but could not respond, as another boulder crashed down onto her head, cracking her skull and giving her a nasty concussion. She saw everything began to grow dark, as a pair of much smaller arms caught her as she fell through the icy air.
"Hang in there," the recognizable voice whispered. "I will take care of you."
Jaden moaned weakly before she faded into unconsciousness. Before she passed out completely, she saw that the arms rescuing her belonged to a beautiful young woman with red and green hair and a panther-like face...
