Legacy of Chaos

Chapter 9

Doom's eyes flickered open when she sensed a presence she had not felt for 10, 000 years. She let out a low growl. They were going to get discovered. That damn Supreme Kai was going to find them! If Sukoshin found them, she'd kill them! Doom had to act quickly.

"Girls!" she hissed to her sisters. They looked up from their lunches. The Armageddon sisters and Videl were sitting under the tree like every lunch. "Sukoshin's just made her appearance on Earth. And she's brought the current Supreme Kai with her. We're running out of time."

"She's here?!" Crisis yelped. "N...no! We've gotta hide! We have to!!"

"Calm down, Crisis," Doom said quietly. "This is Chikyuu we're talking about here. There are a million hiding spots. And besides, even if she tells those brain-dead saiya-jins about us, it won't change a thing. Gohan will be with them, and if we keep Devil close to us, he won't attack us. Understand?" They all nodded. "But as a precaution, we should leave this area at once. This will be the first place they'll look." The girls stood and walked as calmly as possible to a back alley. Once sure no one could see them, they took to the sky, masking their ki.

"So where to?" Peril asked.

"To home base! We'll turn the cloaking on so they'll never find us!" Doom replied. Videl had been very quiet during the whole situation. She was not in the least bit scared of this 'Sukoshin' character. But then again, she was sort of 'programmed' not to concern herself with anything but killing Gohan and fulfilling her mission of resurrecting Apocolypse.

*~*~*~*

Doom was not the only one who was disturbed by a new presence appearing on the planet. Gohan snapped out of his meditation and nearly fell off the comfy spot he had found on a large tree. He sat up straight and extended his senses to try and discover the identity of the two new life forms that possessed such...

It was Kaioshin and...someone Gohan had never sensed before. A life form that possessed such... beauty...almost heavenly.

Another god, perhaps? He was unsure.

But had the feeling they were going to be there awhile, so checking his watch, he decided to go see if he could actually get a chance to talk to Videl, see what was wrong. It was well after school now.

He sprung to the air and flew off towards the Satan mansion. Arriving in no time, after he rang the front bell, a CIA-looking guy answered.

"May I help you?" he asked. Gohan put on his cheesy smile and one hand behind his head.

"Uh...is Videl here?" he asked shyly. The man studied him.

"No, Videl has not returned for quite some time," he replied coolly. "Would you like me to deliver a message for when she gets back?"

"Uh, just tell her Gohan dropped by."

"Gohan?" said a voice from inside. The guard was shoved aside by Mr. Satan. "Gohan! Great to see ya!" the 'world saviour' exclaimed quite happily. "How's it going?"

"Um...not so good," Gohan admitted. "Have you see Videl at all today?"

"Only this morning," Mr. Satan answered sadly. "She was late coming home last night and practically blew up at me when I asked if she was okay." Gohan almost gasped in surprise. "I haven't seen her since she left for school. I was actually hoping you'd know where she is." Gohan shrugged.

"I was called for Saiyaman duty and she refused to help," he explained. "She screamed at the police chief. But before that, she was ripping everyone to pieces with her harsh words."

"It has to be that Dune girl," Mr. Satan growled. "She took my little girl right after that incident in the infirmary." Gohan didn't know how to explain it, but he almost positive that the Armagen sister had something to do with Videl's drastic change. No one goes from sweet, almost innocent to bitchy and absolutely horrid in one day without some influence.

After saying his goodbyes to the 'Champ', Gohan left for home. Then his mind wandered to the Supreme Kai. What was he doing on Earth? Finally allowing his curiosity to get the best of him, he followed the ki signal until he got to a forest close to his house. He descended to the ground and spotted Kaioshin, his father, Vegeta, and an unknown woman standing together, discussing something.

"Hey guys!" Gohan called. "What's going on?" They all turned at the sound of his voice.

"I guess this saves us having to go looking for you," Kaioshin said with a grin. Gohan's eyebrows went up slightly.

"Me?" he repeated. "Why me?"

"Listen carefully, Son Gohan," the woman said softly. "I'm Sukoshin, the Supreme Kai of 10 thousand years ago. We need your help because your friend has been taken captive, mentally." Gohan stumbled forward, getting confused.

"What?" he mumbled.

"Let me start from the beginning, I suppose," Sukoshin said with a heavy sigh. "Back in 10 000 B.C.E., a woman named Chaos Armageddon was born, on the planet Orin, with the very first imbalance of good and evil. She had more evil in her than good. This allowed her to do things without thinking, to commit acts of violence without a conscience.

"She met someone who was also born with such an imbalance. His name was Havoc. They married and had three children, Doom, Crisis, and Peril. Together, this family of heathens began to reek disasters and panic universe wide. It was because of them that Kais everywhere had to band together and attempt to stop them. Havoc was captured and executed immediately. I suppose the lose of her husband threw Chaos over the edge and she used every bit of energy and evil inside her to create a being capable of annihilating the entire universe with just a thought. And since this person was created and not born, she was able to sustain completely evil with no room for good. Unfortunately for Chaos, that drained her life-force away and she passed on. The new evil, dubbed Apocolypse by her fallen mother, picked up where her parents left off, and began her rein of terror throughout the universe, with her sisters, the last of the Armageddon family, by her side.

"This is where I come into the story. In an attempt to stop Apocolypse, I used my energy reserve to seal her away in a statue shaped like the untameable lion and sent it far away where the Armageddon Sisters could never find it.

"See, if I had used every bit of energy, I would have died. But one of the other Kais, I believe it was North Kai, he recommended I base the sealing spell on the elements of the remaining sisters. So when I locked away Apocolypse, I created three cubes, Water, Terrain, and Energy, to extract her powers. Those cubes were scattered across the universe, but still left me very weak. I had to put myself under a deep stasis sleep to regain my powers, and in the mean time, I granted the powers of Supreme Kai to Old Kaio-o-shin. Unfortunately, it was the exact moment I fell asleep that Buu struck. I had a crystal ball that kept me informed, even while asleep. It was also an internal alarm clock to wake me, should the Armageddon Sisters come near Apocolypse's statue. Apparently, I didn't hide it well enough.

"Some followers of the Armageddon Clan found it and discovered some stupid ritual to revive Apocolypse. It involved placing the cubes at very precise spots around the statue, pointing at Orin, and its two neighbouring stars, Helenia and Garmelon, birth systems of Havoc and the Armageddon Sisters. The cowardly followers built temples in the exact places, the Temples of Orin. When those three stars become aligned, they reflect a strange light that reaches Earth on its Spring Equinox. This event only occurs every 2500 years. The light is supposed to activate or trigger the elemental cubes to send off a pulse of energy right back at the stars. When the pulse is sent back, it strikes the statue of Apocolypse. The Temples have small pedestals attached to narrow, vertical shafts pointing to the afore mentioned stars for the cubes and one large pedestal for the hostess."

"The hostess?" Gohan asked, finally getting a moment to speak.

"A girl," Sukoshin replied. "Who must channel Apocolypse's energy during the ritual. Apparently, without the host, Apocolypse's energy gets released from the cubes, but it has nowhere to go, so it disperses. The hostess' job is to channel that energy to the statue. She must be more evil than good and has to be stronger that Chaos herself. But something the Armageddon Sisters can do is force others into evil, simply by locking onto a single angry thought. That's how they got so many followers, and that's how they got the hostess." The god paused, waiting for this new information to sink into Gohan's mind. She knew this would be difficult for him to accept, considering how close he and the 'hostess' had become.

"No…" he whispered, as the obvious dawned on him. "They…they took Videl? They messed around with her mind?!" Gohan shook his head in disbelief. "No! Why her?! She…What's going to happen to her?" Sukoshin sighed and hesitated.

"I'm not entirely sure," she answered truthfully. "I've only recently become aware of this ritual they've been planning. Like I said, it's only the hostess' job to channel energy. For all I know, he could be release after it's all done."

"But then again, she could be killed!" Gohan yelled. "This 'ritual' could kill her!"

"Don't jump to conclusions," Goku warned quietly. "Maybe nothing will happen at all to her." Gohan couldn't sit still. All this information had just been dumped on him, and now he's being told that the girl he's had a crush on for nearly a year has been turned evil.

'And he's telling me not to jump to conclusions,' he thought bitterly to himself.

'He's only trying to help,' Sukoshin said through Gohan's mind. Gohan nearly had a heart-attack. Then he remembered that Supreme Kais could read minds.

'Don't do that…' he thought back to her, muttering to himself. Sukoshin grinned and turned to the others.

"Let's go," she instructed. She knew Gohan wouldn't follow. He just needed time to think. The others nodded and floated up, but Goku paused, noticing his son not joining them.

"Uh, Gohan?" he inquired. "What's up? Aren't you coming? " Gohan didn't say anything, staring at the ground.

"Goku," Sukoshin called. "Let's go. He needs a little time, that's all. He'll come after." Goku looked at the female god, then to his son, then back to the others.

"Oh…okay," he muttered, nodding. The rest of them took off into the sky towards the general direction of Kami's Lookout.

Gohan sat alone on the forest ground, silent and unmoving.

"Videl…"

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