Chapter Ten:
"They're so far ahead I can't even see them." Krillin said, gazing off into the distance. "I wish they'd realize there are others who aren't quite so fast."
Piccolo didn't answer, unless a grunt is considered a response.
"I mean, they are stronger and all, but why can't they wait for a couple seconds? I'm sure Gotenks will be okay for just a little bit longer."
"He won't." the namek said shortly. "He's already losing."
Krillin's eyes widened. "Losing like, having a tough time, or losing like he's going to be in extreme pain later?"
"Losing like he'll be dead in a minute if someone doesn't intervene." Piccolo said dryly.
The scene was almost a repeat of what had happened before, except Arda was with Gohan and Uubu, and Gotenks was on the ground, now just plain Goten and Trunks, the loss of ki bringing their fusion to a premature halt.
The vampire sensed them coming first, combining his two halves again and staring off into the distance as the boys fell to the ground and separated. Not long after he sensed them, he could see the pinpoints of light coming at him. Two points of light, three people. One was Arda, still alive, and the other was Gohan.
"Two birds with one stone, isn't that how the saying goes?" Osiris asked no one, his face a complete mask. "That idiot demi-saiyajin and the idiot vampire at the same time."
His aura flared around him in a flash.
Perhaps three seconds had elapsed while he thought and let his ki flare out. They were speeding out of the sky, like Gohan alone had done only hours before, and despite his state of mind, Osiris felt a vague sense of deja vu. He didn't like it t all.
His heightened senses made the seconds stretch into almost minutes if he chose them to, so he was able to watch them come, study the expressions on their faces, and wonder how they could look so noble and be so incredibly stupid as to throw their lives away.
Gohan's face was twisted into a mask of absolute vengeful rage, as he felt his brother's rapidly fading ki, now that he was finally close enough to sense it clearly. Osiris permitted himself a brief glance at the ground, and saw that both of the boys had blood trickling from their eyes, noses, and mouths. He wondered briefly how much internal damage his quick blast of vampiric energy had done, then glanced back at Gohan's face.
The boy was almost beautiful in his rage, which was totally righteous in his heart, seeking revenge for the nearly dead twice over Goten. The vampire cooly calculated the lines of anger that ran down Gohan's face, making it more severe. Then he glanced away.
Arda he only gave a passing glance at, as he had seen that face many, many times before and each time found less that interested him. His fellow ancient vampire looked somewhat agitated and somewhat annoyed.
He glanced at Uubu, the last, and was again taken in by the emotions he saw there. The boy was coming here because he had to. There was no desire for revenge or battle in those soft eyes, rather a desire that none of the events of the past day had taken place. Yes, Uubu was looking more and more with each passing millisecond like someone who doesn't want to be in their place at all.
Then they were in front of him.
When they landed in the rocks in front of Osiris, he was standing with his arms smoothly crossed, simply staring at them with vague interest, but with malice as an undertone the whole time. It was like someone appreciating a painting seconds before they doused it in gasoline and struck a match to it.
Gohan nodded to his two companions, and both needed no explanation of what he wanted. They went to pick up the boys, Arda on his right to get Trunks, and Uubu on his left to get Goten.
He read the boy's mind easily enough, and true to his earlier observations, Uubu was simply thinking over and over, perhaps not consciously, 'I wish I were anywhere but here. Why is this happening?' But wether it was meant or not, it was preventing Osiris from getting anything worthwhile from the boy's head.
He shifted and tried to read Arda's mind, but realized with a grimace that the older but weaker vampire was blocking him as well. When he tried to access Arda's mind, he got nothing but the image of a locked door.
They picked up the two boys, and flew away directly to Osiris' back, doing as Gohan wanted and getting the unconscious teenagers away from the battle that was about to erupt.
"Why?"
The vampire was taken back by the sharp question, almost as if Gohan had hit him with a sharp blow. It wasn't that one word, which countless victims had asked him over the centuries, it was the way it was said. Not only in total anger, but confusion as well. Gohan actually wanted to know why he was doing these things.
He recovered his composure quickly, fixing Gohan with an icy glare that didn't daunt the saiyajin, but made Osiris feel a little better.
"Why not?" he asked back.
Gohan's eyes widened in surprise for a second, then narrowed as he shook his head.
"You're evil, but I can't help feeling sorry for you." Gohan said softly. "You seem to take so much joy in other's pain, but you've denied yourself the real pleasures of life by doing so."
"Have I?" Osiris smirked. "I believe it's the other way around, young friend. These are the real pleasures of life. Your's are just a shallow mirror of true fulfillment."
Gohan raised an eyebrow. "Really?" he said. "If you believe that, I feel even more sorry for you. But that won't stop me from killing you."
Osiris' smirk vanished in a grimace. "No, it may not. But I'll stop you, you can be sure of that."
Gohan crouched into a fighting stance. "Try me."
Uubu and Arda stood on a small cliff almost a quarter mile behind Osiris, far enough to be away from the crossfire the battle would certainly produce, but close enough to see, and to rush in if Gohan needed help. Goten and Trunks were side by side on the ground, now not so much unconscious as just passed out from exhaustion. The blood had stopped flowing from their wounds, and the truckles on their faces had dried. But every once in a while, one of them would groan in pain and clutch their middle, just enough to show that Osiris may have done some very bad damage to them.
"Will Gohan win?" Uubu said, not sure wether he was talking to himself or the vampire next to him. "He can do it, can't he?"
Arda answered, even though he wasn't sure if the boy was speaking to him. "I think he can. I hope he can." he paused. "If he can't, we're pretty well doomed."
Uubu nodded slightly. He liked the vampire. It seemed to him that Arda was a lot like himself, only infinitely older.
"Let's just hope." he said.
"Yes." Arda agreed.
The Mystic ability had always been just that to Gohan: mystic. He didn't really understand why it worked, except in the simplest terms. It was like a pipeline into reservoirs of ki that he otherwise would have had to train for decades to bring out. But did that mean that he had the power already, and had just to unleash it, or that the Mystic form itself gave him the power?
Whichever was the answer, it was really a moot point, anyway. The power was there when he needed it, and that was what counted. It was also wholly unlike the super saiyajin transformation, because it basically had no emotional basis.
Incidentally, it also overrode his ability to go super saiyajin. Which meant that no matter how much emotion he felt, it wouldn't be of any use to bring out more power. Emotion had served for him just earlier today, but it had only helped him remember how much power he really had and helped him use it. It hadn't given him more like it had in the past.
As he stared into Osiris' cold eyes, he wondered if the strength that even he had to admit was absolutely phenomenal would be enough to get the job done. Maybe if he took Arda's advice and made sure not to let the vampire power up... but Osiris was somewhere around fifty percent of what he could do, at a guess, and he already almost equaled Gohan.
"I more than equal you, young saiyajin." Osiris said with a smirk.
Gohan jerked slightly, wondering if his thoughts had actually just been read.
"Yes, they have." Osiris' smile widened. "At least that contemptible Arda and the young human were wise enough to guard their thoughts. You simply wear them about you like clothing. I'm surprised some more finely tuned mortals can't hear them. I myself can hardly shut them out."
Gohan didn't want to hear any more. He simply let his power come out and in a blink, he shot at the vampire.
Osiris did a quick dodge to the left, getting out of Gohan's way far too easily and quickly for the demi saiyajin's liking. But he still didn't think it would be a problem.
Then the thought was cut off when a sharp kick landed in his ribs, and at the same time a fist hit the back of his neck. Before the combo move was even really done, the vampire spun and slammed his other foot into Gohan's side at an angle, sending him straight up into the air.
Osiris smiled for a second, then followed.
Gohan stopped himself, trying with only marginal success to make the roaring pain vanish. He didn't need a lesson on how easily bones could be broken for the second time today.
He caught a quick glimpse as Osiris left the ground, and immediately thrust his hand out and sent a blast down to meet the vampire. He knew it wouldn't do much damage, but it would buy him a fraction of a second.
And that could be all the time he needed.
Osiris dodged to the side and slapped the ball away, but it did slow him down a bit. Consequentially, when he got to the sky Gohan was ready.
The demi-saiyajin had seen Osiris fight enough by now, and knew that the vampire relied very heavily on strength and outright attacks, much less on speed. He didn't know how fast his opponent really was, but he had to take a gamble.
He surrounded himself in his aura, using his ki more for faster flight than for pure power, and did the in air equivalent of taking a step back, causing the punch that had just been aimed at his face to miss him by bare inches. As it did, he swung his own arm, giving the back of Osiris' fist a brisk hit, causing the vampire's momentum to carry him around.
Before the surprise could hit and Osiris could right himself, Gohan threw a super fast series of kicks into his back, so fast that the two kicks to the lower back, two between the shoulder blades, and one to the neck had connected in less than a second and before the momentum could kick in, sending Osiris flying straight down.
Gohan smirked as the vampire struck the rock face first, an a huge cloud of dust rose. He put both hands in front of him and let fly with a large blast.
He realized too late that it was a mistake. A beam of ki shot up, blowing away the dust and meeting his blast head on. And even though his Gohan's ki ball had been rather large, this one was much more powerful.
So the choice he had to make in the next fraction of a second was to either try to dodge or push back, hoping that he could pour on enough ki to hold the blast at bay.
He very quickly decided to dodge. But before he could even move, the ball had picked up speed and he was hit by his own blast as well as Osiris'. The vampire was apparently trying for pain rather than efficiency. He could have let the blast carry Gohan up and hopefully into space where he would die, but instead he let it detonate, tearing Gohan's top to shreds and slamming him off into the distance, feeling like he had been run over by quite few trucks.
Uubu stared worriedly off into the distance.
"Gohan's losing."
"Not necessarily." Arda replied, though he, too, looked agitated. "It's just one blast, and I'm sure he can take a lot more than that."
Suddenly a voice came from behind them.
"We have to help my brother." Goten said quietly but urgently.
He was standing, his gi in tatters and obviously exhausted, but standing. He had wiped the blood off of his face, and he had a set look of determination that made him look uncannily like his father.
"Goten, you should rest." Uubu said urgently, looking even more worried about Goten than he had about Gohan. "Gohan can take care of himself. He's the best hope we've got right now."
The young demi saiyajin shook his head. "I can sense it just as well as you can." he almost growled. It was true, though. The situation on sensing ki had improved a little, just enough so that they could all sense what was happening on the battle field. Not that they liked what they were sensing.
"We have to help him. He can't do it on his own." Goten said determinedly, and began to stride forward.
He was caught by a hard, white hand before he took three steps.
"Goten," Arda said, "Gohan is our only hope right now. We would only get in his way."
From the simply touch of Arda's hand, Goten realized very quickly something about the vampires' power that would take his brother much longer to discover. The strange force that wasn't ki was blasted into every cell of their being, making them unable to power down fully. Being held in that white hand was like being held in the gears of a machine.
But the way that power behaved had a weakness, if he could only put his finger on it.
Though he didn't know it, Goten had just gained a huge amount of respect from Arda. The vampire knew perfectly well what his touch was like, and the fact that the young teenager didn't recoil from it in the least was pretty amazing to him.
"How do you know?" Goten asked. "How?"
Arda's hand dropped. "I just do. Gohan is like his father..." then he stopped. "On that note, where the hell is Goku?"
Neither Uubu nor Goten could answer that.
"Goku-sensei was only supposed to be gone for a very short time." Uubu said. "Maybe something's wrong?"
Again, no one could answer.
Goku was now a total emotional wreck. It seemed that the more calm Vegeta stayed, the more agitated Goku was getting. Vegeta was still sitting in one spot, watching in utter boredom as the other saiyajin paced back and forth, letting out a low snarl now and then that didn't sound menacing so much as severely pissed. Goku's feet had literally worn a path in the grass, exposing dark brown earth.
"I don't suppose you could stop that anytime soon?" Vegeta asked sarcastically. "We've got at least two hours to go, so why don't you just sit down and wait?"
Goku didn't answer, or even look up from the ground. He just continued pacing.
This was hard for him, much harder than for Vegeta. Goku just wasn't used to sitting back and waiting for things to play out. Not unless he knew the outcome, such as when Gohan fought Cell. It irked him beyond belief that he had to just sit here, staring at the ground or into the crystal ball, not able to help his family and friends in any way. He just couldn't stand it.
Gohan couldn't possibly win, not without a huge helping of luck, and maybe a bit of Osiris' ego (the only emotion the vampire seemed to react to besides rage) in with the bargain. If the vampire stayed at his present level, then there would at least be a chance.
But if he went to full power, Gohan was dead, pure and simple. There was just no way he could stand against a power so huge.
"Just hold on for another two hours..." Goku whispered.
Even more frustrating, was the situation of sensing ki. It had gotten the smallest bit better, almost making him hope that it would keep getting better, and he would be able to teleport. But that was all it had gotten: a little better. Now they would not only be able to see their friends die, but feel it as well. It was just clear enough to tell what was going on, but not enough to use the instant transmission.
Maddening. Absolutely maddening.
Goku continued to pace.
Osiris watched with a smirk as the ki ball exploded, sending Gohan careening off into the horizon. He doubted wether the boy could remain fighting after that blast, but it was best to stay prepared, all the same.
He glanced down at himself as he dusted the black earth and rock dust off of his black gi, looking like a practiced aristocrat or a rich artist, the illusion only broken by his pearly skin and the light saber like ki sword smacking against his hip every time his arm jerked.
He stood looking off in the direction Gohan had been thrown, still smiling. The boy was tougher than he had first appeared. Much tougher. But that didn't mean that he could take that blast head on. Even if he was still alive and, by some miracle, conscious, there was no way he would be able to continue any kind of fight. Surely...
But Osiris' smile slowly began to fade. The boy's ki signature was still there, and stable.
Perhaps there is more to this boy than I thought, he mused, not knowing that Cell had wondered the exact same thing just before he died.
A brief flare of worry went through his mind. But there was no way the no could not be at least injured.
So, then, why did he still feel worried?
Arda was concentrating as hard as possible, listening to the hum of Osiris' thoughts, trying to hear without exerting enough mental power or coming in close enough to be noticed.
"He's worried." the vampire said shortly, and Goten and Uubu both smiled. "He didn't think Gohan would even survive that blast." he smirked. "But he's not only alive, he's not even hurt. I think Osiris is going to have a little surprise waiting for him when he finds Gohan."
Suddenly, Osiris realized he was being listened to. With an angry growl, he sent a blast of mental energy back through his mind, before Arda could sever the connection or even summon the power to block.
Arda's eyes went wide, and then he let out a startled yell as a ripple of strange power went through the air just in front of his forehead, knocking him backward through the air over ten feet, landing on top of the still unconscious Trunks.
Satisfied that the connection had been broken and then some, Osiris blasted off the ground and flew, without using any ki, so as not to waste his energy, straight toward the area he estimated that Gohan had landed.
Not only was Gohan still alive and conscious, but the blast had done him so little harm that he had been able to right himself and land on his feet.
He was now crouched behind a tree. There was thick vegetation all around him, a startling contrast to the crater he had just come from, a crater that had been there from Osiris hitting the ground. But he didn't mind the plants at all. They shielded him from sight, so that Osiris wouldn't know precisely where he was, and he wouldn't have to lower his ki at all.
The vampire seemed to be musing, taking his time in a self satisfied way, which was good, because it gave Gohan a few minutes to think up a strategy.
Power was almost null in void right now, because Osiris overpowered him too easily. But he was pretty sure that he could still win if he used his speed and stealth rather than a complete frontal attack. But Osiris could still sense his ki, and if he powered down he would be too slow to be stealthy.
Suddenly he had an idea, and at the same time sensed Osiris' ki signature slowly moving toward him.
He smiled, and his body began to glow slightly.
Osiris flew as low as he could, scanning the trees below for any sign of the demi-saiyajin. He could sense Gohan's ki down there, and it seemed a bit weaker for taking that ki blast. That was good enough. But there's was something decidedly odd about his ki...
No matter. Osiris continued to gaze, and soon saw what he was looking for standing behind a tree. There was Gohan, not even looking at him, or apparently even sensing that he was there.
"Fool." Osiris whispered, and slowly lowered himself.
Then he suddenly felt strong arms wrap around him from behind, and legs wrap at his knees. The person holding him felt weaker than him, about the same strength as Gohan, but the leverage and position made it impossible to break away.
He growled and jerked his head around, not bothering to fight and expecting to come face to face with Uubu or Arda, but instead he saw...
Gohan!?
"You little bastard!" he yelled at the Gohan below him and the one behind him.
The little ass must have known some split form technique similar to mine. Little brazen granger... he snarled in his mind, falling into some language he had learned perhaps hundreds or even thousands of years ago.
The Gohan on the ground had floated upward, and was now on level with him, smiling.
"I'd like you to be the first to see my new attack, Osiris." both Gohan's laughed together. "It's a real kicker. Just wait."
The Gohan in front of him cupped his hands behind him, his body turned sideways, end began to gather energy.
Yet even in his present state of rage, Osiris could sense something very weird about the way the energy felt. It was far to strong for the amount of ki that was gathered. It just felt... wrong.
Nobody but Gohan and Tenshinhan knew it, but the saiyajin had been studying others attacks quite a bit lately, and he had looked over Tien's Kaikoho most thoroughly of all, striving to understand the principles of it, exactly how the special life energy was mixed with the ki, making the attack u to twice the user's maximum ki level. And he had been adapting them.
His technique wasn't tested, because if the blast wasn't directed at one particular thing that could take the force of at least half of the energy, just the explosion would destroy the planet, and maybe a few of the surrounding ones as well.
But that didn't matter. Gohan knew thins could be his last chance to win, and he had to use it.
The ball of ki behind him was now so huge that it threw everything into gold and white relief, and blocked out the sky behind him.
"Here you go, you brother killing bastard." Gohan whispered. Then his voice roared.
"Shin Ka me ha me HA!!!"
Osiris' vampiric brain was able to slow his vision down, but not make him move faster. Thus, he had a very slow motion view of the wall of gold death coming his way. He didn't even bother to kid himself; the time for such nonsense had long passed, and if he had realized that sooner, he probably wouldn't be in this mess.
If that wall of ki hit him, he would die. No coming back to life, no near death experience. He would be gone for good. So if he didn't do something right now, it was all over. And he knew of only one thing he could do.
He sighed as the ball of gold inched closed, now only a foot from his face. He hadn't wanted to do this, because it was so much more sport when he stayed the way he was. But he had no choice.
The Gohan that was holding his arms and legs dissolved into white light and zoomed back at the Gohan firing the blast. Now he was free, with precious little time to act. The blast was about two inches from his face.
There was one thing he really could do faster due to his vampiric brain besides slow down his vision, and that was summon his ki.
All right then, he thought to himself. Full power.
With the wall of energy almost touching his nose, he opened his mouth and roared, his own wall of ki rushing out.
On the cliff where standing, all four of the warrior's eyes went wide. Trunks had woken when Arda landed on him, and now was watching the fight with the others. Osiris and Gohan had long been out of visual range, but now they saw the very clear flash of gold, and then what made their eyes go wide.
A huge dome of electric blue ki, lightning snapping around it, suddenly leapt out as if just appearing from nowhere. The gold Shin Kamehameha that Gohan had thrown, over half a mile wide, was thrown off into space at an angle as if it where nothing. If anyone was looking out the window of a space station, they would see a pillar of gold light fly up into space, and a bubble of blue on the surface of the planet.
Then the wind hit. The roar was so loud that none of them would have heard even a whisper of the loudest yell possible.
So none of them were really surprised when Arda's telepathic voice came into their brains, making them glance aside from the task of keeping themselves in one spot, a task that they were losing.
Gohan's in trouble. As soon as this wind stops, we all have to help right away, or he's dead.
No would have argued, even if they could.
Piccolo and Krillin were still flying toward the rest of them when the huge wave of ki and wind knocked them out of the air.
Krillin landed immediately on the forest floor, or what had been the forest floor and was now already reduced to bare rock. He instinctively crouched down low and formed a ki barrier around himself, just able to stay in one place. He couldn't muster one coherent thought after that. The sheer amount of ki roaring around, not to mention the ki in the dome in front of him, hurt to look at or even sense.
Piccolo landed a bit away from Krillin, also forming a ki shield. But he, unlike the former monk, was able to form one coherent thought in his head before the roar shut it down.
We're all dead.
Gohan was actively flying forward with all his strength just to keep himself in one spot. His sole good thought was to thank the gods that his Shin Kamehameha had gone up and not back at him. Although he was pretty sure that he was going to die anyway, so it didn't make much of a difference.
Under the opaque blue globe of ki that contained Osiris, huge cracks had begun to spread in every direction, the fissures opening in the earth with a crack that was audible even over the roar of energy and wind. Gohan noted with fear that they had been driven so deep that even with the bright glow of ki, he couldn't see the bottom. They must be miles and miles deep.
Then, just as he was wondering how long he was going to be able to survive against this huge furnace of power, he saw something so strange that it took his mind completely off Osiris for a second.
About a mile beyond Osiris, a pillar of silver and black was becoming clear in thin air, stretching up into the sky. He could faintly see figures moving in it.
The gateway.
King Kai, Dende, and Kaio-bit all snapped up in unison, unable to believe what they were sensing.
Goku was still staring intently into the crystal ball, even though it had gone completely blue and was probably hurting his eyes because it was so bright.
"Goku!" King Kai yelled, "the gateway to hell! I don't know how, but it's open! The huge amounts of ki being thrown around on earth must have made it come early!"
Vegeta came suddenly to life, looking just as anxious as Goku. Neither looked at the Kai's or even paused. As one their hair flashed gold, and they dived off of the planet, zooming down to the yellow clouds below Kaio-shin-Kai, the barrier between hell and the rest of other world.
"The lower hells are just under us, you know." old Kai said, not even looking up from his magazine.
They all whiled at him, looks of worry on their faces.
"And you never told them about Morgoth." he said, turning his page.
Morgoth stared happily at the pillar of white light, a pillar that was penetrating every level of hell right now. In mere seconds it would be ready to step through, ready for him to burst into the world of the living again.
The Hells didn't exist on the same plane of rules as earth and the rest of other world did. The different levels were all located side by side, the lowest levels being just under Kaio-shin-Kai, but once you were inside, they were on top of each other. So this pillar that served as the gateway to the world of the living was penetrating every level of hell right now.
He smirked and continued to strong the Glutton, though it had long since died from his touch. He could sense someone coming toward him. Two someones, actually. One that was quite powerful, but nothing to him, and the one that he had watched all his last few years here. The one that might have a chance of gving him a halfway decent fight before he began destroying things.
Son Goku.