Chapter Four:
Uubu fell to one knee, breathing so hard that it hurt, desperately trying to force oxygen into his tired body.
He had saved the earth from being destroyed in that instant along with himself, but how he was going to keep from being killed now was beyond his ability to comprehend. He had used far too much ki to be effective in a battle for quite a while now.
He stared down at the dirt, still trying to pump air into his lungs, which were stubbornly refusing to hold it for more than a second before he had to take another whooping breath. He wondered briefly if it was possible to hurt oneself by overusing ones ki. It was very likely that he had done it.
"This is bad…" he muttered.
"For you, yes." Frieza chuckled as he landed about ten yards from the exhausted boy. His brother landed behind him silently.
"I was a bit surprised by your power." The ice-jin said in a low, mocking tone. "But now I see that you must have poured all of your energy into that last attack. It's actually a little disappointing. I was hoping you would last a bit longer than this."
Uubu gritted his teeth and said nothing. He was in to much pain to reply, the grinding feeling in his stomach assuring him that he had definitely damaged himself.
"Well, if you have nothing to say…" Frieza crossed his arms and smiled.
"Shut up and finish the pest, Frieza." Coola said suddenly. "Why are you wasting time taunting the pitiful thing when we should be going after Goku?"
Frieza turned back angrily. "I'll do what I want! If I want to let the monkey live a little longer, then I will! You can't stop me!" he added, sounding almost like a child.
"We don't have time for this." Coola's eyes narrowed. "You're always such a child. I'll do it."
The ice-jin held out one fist, first finger extended, pointing at Uubu's heart.
Frieza grabbed his wrist and pulled it back.
"I said I would kill him when I'm ready!" he yelled hotly, now looking angrily into his brother's face. "That means you don't lift a finger until I say so!!"
Uubu looked back and forth between the two, amazed in spite of the pain. He couldn't believe this sudden break of luck. If those two kept at it for long enough, he might be able to sneak away in one piece.
But his hopes sank back into frustration when Coola turned his face disgustedly away. "Do what you want." He said with a sneer. "I could care less. But while you waste your time playing with this little thing, I'll be off settling my score with Goku. You can follow when you wish, and if you're lucky, there'll be something left for you."
Coola made as if to take off, and Frieza glanced nervously back at Uubu.
The boy was sure his life was over. But then he sensed it, and saw an electric blue streak appear in the sky.
Frieza and Coola didn't sense the huge ki, but they did see the aura speeding toward them. It was moving very, very fast, though, and before anyone had time to do more than widen their eyes, Osiris hit the ground in front of Coola feet first, sending cracks radiating out, his aura so intense that it melted the rock under his feet.
"What the…" Coola began, but he never got any further. Osiris smiled maliciously, and reached up swiftly with one marble white hand. Before the ice-jin even finished his exclamation, his throat had been ripped out.
Blood spouted from the place where the front of the changeling's neck had been, and his eyes went wide in an almost comic expression of surprise, his hands flying up and clawing at the wound. Osiris' smile only widened, and the irises of his eyes began to spin.
Coola sank to his knees, and as his legs touched the ground his skin began to bubble with some unseen force. His hands continued to clutch at his ruined throat, and he managed to choke out one gargled syllable.
"Please…"
Then his entire body exploded in a ball of fire. The huge flame was out the instant the air hit it, but Uubu saw in horrible clarity that bits of burning flesh were dropping out of the air and hitting the rock on the ground with sickening wet slapping sounds.
Frieza screamed out.
"No, please, it was all my brother and my father, never me!" he began to back away, his hands flailing in front of him, as the vampire began to advance. "I never would have said a word behind your back, Osiris-sama!"
"Shut up." The vampire said coldly, the smile never faltering. Frieza's cry for mercy stopped.
Now they were standing face to face.
"I'm not stupid, Frieza." Osiris said. "I keep a clearer memory of our exchanges than you seem to. And even if what you said was true, I would kill you anyway."
Frieza let out one more scream, this one of anger as well as terror. Then Osiris had him by the throat and lifted him into the air.
The vampire's grin spread apart, showing two fangs. As Uubu looked on, the two teeth seemed to grow slightly. Then they plunged into Frieza's neck.
It was only in the movies that vampires sprayed blood and tore savagely as they fed on their victim. In real life, the increasingly terrified boy noted from his position nearby, Osiris didn't spill a drop. It was actually almost anti-climatic. Frieza struggled wildly for a few seconds, choked cries coming forth. Then he began to weaken, and finally, went still.
It had taken about thirty seconds, in all.
Osiris kept drinking for another ten or so, then pulled his mouth abruptly away from Frieza's body. A very thin trickle of dark red, almost purple blood ran down from the right corner of his mouth. He wiped it away absently with the sleeve of his shirt.
"Almost too easy." He said, and dropped the corpse into the dirt.
Then he turned to Uubu.
Goku desperately tried to summon more power. Keeping the full energy of super saiyajin three maintained was draining his ki away rapidly, and he was beginning to feel the uncomfortable pulling sensation in his chest that meant he was edging ever closer to the breaking point.
Vegeta was using only the normal amount of power that the form required. Quite a lot, but not near what Goku was having to do. Vegeta would have done it if he could, but he simply couldn't raise the energy. Goku was at a point that the gods didn't even dream of. If he were to self destruct, he would probably destroy not only the earth, but most of the surrounding galaxy as well.
If it had been five years ago, Vegeta would have been furious with jealousy to the point where it affected his fighting ability. But now he felt only a twinge of that old emotion. He had been changed during his years on earth.
Now all he wanted was to be Goku's equal, and help at the moment. Because things were looking pretty grim.
Goku was breathing slightly hard, because of how much ki the full level three was requiring. But he could still fight for quite a while. And Vegeta felt fine, not even bruised from being thrown into a mountain. But the problem was that they weren;t hurting Morgoth, and they were using every bit of power they had.
"Kakarott," Vegeta began, "there's no way for us to win this fight by brute force alone. We have to come u[p with some kind of plan. This creature has already shown us that he doesn't work well against strategy."
Goku nodded. "But what can we do? You're going to be a little slower because of those scratches." He pointed at the four inch deep cuts that ran down Vegeta's lower leg, courtesy of Morgoth's claws.
Vegeta frowned. "I'm not worried about that. They hardly even hurt. I'm more worried about you. You're wounded, and you've been using up enormous amounts of ki. How much longer can you hold up, Kakarott?"
"As long as it takes." Goku said grimly. "But it'll be hard. This is a battle I wasn't expecting to have to fight."
Vegeta nodded at the words, but he wondered. Goku's wounds were already beginning to bleed again.
"Well, whatever we do, we have to figure something out quickly. I'm betting that ugly bastard isn't going to sit up there all day, smiling waiting for us to come up with a plan."
"Just use all the speed you can." Goku said. "Attack from the sides and behind, and we'll try to ad lib something in the air."
They flew forward and up, toward the ever smiling demon.
Vegeta flew right at Morgoth, but when he got close he changed direction slightly and flew up over his opponent's head. As quickly as he could, he jumped behind him and threw an hard elbow back, trying to catch the spinal cord. But Morgoth spun around easily and blocked it before it hit home.
Goku had flown under, but he didn't attack at the same second Vegeta did. As soon as he saw his friend's blow blocked, he flew upward, twisting upside down in midair, and slammed his foot up into Morgoth's jaw. The demon's head flew back, and he was pushed away from Vegeta about a foot, but apparently it was just momentum, because right away he grabbed Goku's foot, swung him around easily, and threw him at the saiyajin prince.
Vegeta's eyes widened, but Goku was able to stop himself just before they collided. Communicating in some subliminal way that very great warriors have, they both spun and quickly fired.
"Kamehameha!"
"Big Bang Attack!"
Morgoth flew straight at the attacks, showing one of the first real bursts of movement, and ducked under the huge beams. He did a sort of roll, putting his feet in front of him, and moving so fast that he was only a blur to the saiyajin, he planted one in Vegeta's stomach. As the prince doubled over, he pulled his leg in, then righted himself and landed an elbow in the face, then brought one fist up. He slammed it down into Vegeta's neck, sending the prince plummeting.
Goku flashed at Morgoth, but the demon stuck one hand in earth's hero's face and shot a huge ball of ki right into it. A huge flash of light lit up the sky as it exploded, driving the saiyajin to the ground.
Morgoth just chuckled.
"You two are pathetic. Really, I expected better. If I had known you would be this easy, I would have just killed you both from the start." He sighed, as if bored. "But I guess now that I started the battle, I have to finish it."
"I'll finish your battle!!" Vegeta's voice roared from below, and Morgoth glanced down, already too late.
In a moment of amazing clarity, Vegeta was visible. All the ki in his body was pushed forward into his arm, which was extended out with his fist clenched at the end. He had concentrated his ki so much that his golden mane of hair was actually black at the tips, and his fist was so full of power it was glowing like liquid metal.
Morgoth had no time to move. Vegeta was only feet below him.
He didn't even utter a syllable as the saiyajin prince's fist struck where his stomach would be if he had been a mortal, and plunged in, a jet of steaming dark blood shooting out. But it didn't stop. Vegeta kept going…. And going…
And his body went through, ripping Morgoth in half at the waist.
Covered in the blood, mixed between the monster's and his own, Vegeta spun around, and saw that a horrible ooze, not smoke but looking exactly like it, only solid, had begun to fly out of the two halves of the body. The stuff wasn't even black, but a disgusting looking dark brown.
Just then Goku flew up from where he had been thrown down, and leveled off next to Vegeta.
The saiyajins looked and saw that the brown muck had begun to intertwine, and was pulling the body back together. Apparently it wasn't so easy to kill a demon as to simply cut him in half.
"Vegeta, remember perfect Cell and Majin Buu! Hit him with everything you've got, now!"
Vegeta's muscles bulged slightly, and he put his hands together in front of him, palms facing outward.
Goku closed his eyes and brought out as much power as he could, pushing it into the cup he made with his hands.
The two halves of Morgoth's body were almost joined.
"Now!" Goku yelled, his eyes flying open.
"Final Flash!"
"Chou Kamehameha!"
The beams rushed forward just as the two points of fire in Morgoth's eyes became fully aware again.
The demon spread his arms in an oddly calm gesture. And black ki suddenly poured out of every pore of his body, making a huge shield that knocked aside the oncoming attacks as if they were water, pushing them off to the left and right and slightly upward.
As their attacks exploded harmlessly over the horizons, Vegeta and Goku looked in disbelief. The orb of protective ki around Morgoth was a strange glowing black that hurt the eyes. it was crossed occasionally by snapping purple lightning bolts.
He smiled indulgently inside the shield.
"Now that was much better." He laughed. "If you can keep that up, then we can have a decent fight."
Gohan stepped through the glowing circle of light where King Kai stood, Juuhachi-gou following close behind him. He was only slightly surprised to find that he had just stepped through a doorway to Kaio-shin-Kai.
"Wow." He said with a smile as the gateway closed behind Juuhachi-gou. "How did you guys get us here? And where were we to begin with?"
King Kai smiled and stuck his chest out. "Well, you could say I talked a little with lord Enma, and he decided that it would be okay if me and Kaio-bit made a few modifications to the spirit directory of earth."
Gohan looked slightly confused. "The what?"
"See, whenever someone dies, their spirits are guided to the otherworld by what's called a spirit guide. Usually you can't remember them, but I'll tell you, there a little like elves, and a little like horses, and a lot like Koosh balls."
"Umm…" Gohan scratched his head.
"Anyway, we made a few modifications, so that whenever any warrior on earth died during this fight, it would bring them to purgatory, the place you just were. And as gods, we have direct access." King Kai smiled proudly.
"Oh…" Gohan shrugged. "I guess I understand."
"Pretty genius, huh?"
the demi-saiyajin smiled. "Sure. But didn't you say something about getting me back to earth?"
"Oh, right! Well, you go down under the clouds, and then you'll be in the lower hells. Then you just go right back out the gateway!"
"All right!" Gohan smiled. "Well, I guess I'd better get going!"
"Wait just a minute, Gohan."
Gohan looked back at King Kai questioningly.
"I was wondering… What do you know about the Kaio-ken?"