Chapter Five:
Osiris gazed at Uubu coolly, letting the mental feel of the boy's conflicting emotions flow through him. It was amazing, the mixture of fear and wonder that the boy was sending out. As if he wanted to think that Osiris had done him a favor, but was far to smart to really believe it.
As he always did, he stopped to listen with his mind, and see himself as mortals saw him. Skin so white it seemed impossibly inhuman, eyes that burned like torches, a disarming feeling of unearthly power binding the whole immortal figure. He smiled. He was quite vain, actually, and enjoyed looking at himself. Most vampires really were beautiful; they were chosen for their beauty. Strange but true. Most immortals came to be because another could not resist them.
But good looking or not, Uubu was very afraid right now. Not that he intended to let it show. He was fairly sure that Osiris was not going to let him live, but if he had to go, he was at least going to go down fighting honorably. No sniveling or begging for Son Goku's student.
"Are you going to kill me?" he asked, trying to sound as brave as possible.
It worked. Osiris' eyes widened just slightly, almost not even enough for Uubu to notice. He was stricken by the boy's bravery, actually. Understand, bravery has nothing to do with feeling no fear. Bravery, real raw courage, had to do with how you acted in spite of the fear. Uubu had shown more courage than many, many thousands of beings that had fallen at Osiris' hands over the centuries. It was vaguely unsettling, but also pleasant.
"Well?" Uubu repeated, still no hint of a shake in his voice.
"I don't know." Osiris answered truthfully. "To be quite honest, I don't really feel one way or the other about you. But your courage touches me. It makes me feel a bit reluctant."
The boy's eyes widened. "You mean… you don't want to kill me?"
A wry smirk crossed the vampire's face. "No. But I don't really want to not kill you, either. Sometimes that's just as important. At least to me."
Uubu's eyes narrowed again, and he struggled down into a defensive stance in spite of the ever worsening pain he was feeling, and the extreme drain of energy.
Osiris smiled again, this time a smile that almost looked human.
Almost.
"That's what I needed, my young friend." He said with a slight laugh. "I don't think I'll kill you. In fact, I think I may help you."
"Wha…?" Uubu muttered. He didn't understand what the vampire was going to do. He sank halfheartedly to one knee. The pain was really getting horrible.
"You're injured." Osiris said, walking up so that he stood directly in front of Uubu. "I can heal you easily. Bu the methods may be a bit… strange to you."
Uubu was in so much pain that he wouldn't have cared if Osiris had put on a skirt and danced around him, chanting. He just wanted to be rid of it all. So he nodded.
"Very well then." Osiris said. He raised his arm, and suddenly bit into his wrist. Then before the boy could react, he had pressed the open wound against Uubu's mouth!
At first he tried to jerk back in revulsion, but then a liquid so wholly unlike blood hit his tongue that he paused.
It was so strange, and yet absurdly wonderful that it was more felt through the whole body than tasted with the tongue. It was like moonlight made liquid, drinking the night. The second it hit him, it was almost as if his body had reacted without his brain, because he was sucking it down greedily.
Later he tried to describe those few seconds of his entire soul being penetrated by this strange thing, and could not come even close. All he knew was that he fairly wallowed in it. It was the most intense thing he had ever experienced. If he had been a saiyajin, he would have been able to claim with full confidence that going super for the first time was nothing compared to this surge.
It could have been five seconds or five days when Osiris pulled the wrist from him. For a second he grabbed at it, but then quickly regained control of himself. He felt winded, like after running a very long distance. Without even thinking about it, he sat all the way down, then went flat on his back, staring up at the clouds that covered the whole sky.
After laying for a second, he realized that all the pain was gone, and after the shortness of breath wore off it was clear that his ki was back to full power, or maybe even stronger than before.
"What did you do to me?" he asked slowly, not looking away from the clouds.
"The dark blood heals all wounds." Osiris answered. "You see?"
Uubu turned his head and saw that the vampire was holding his right arm up, and the skin of the wrist had already healed flawlessly, as if it had never been cut at all.
Suddenly a horrible thought hit him.
"You didn't…." he paused, almost not able to finish.
"Make you a vampire?" Osiris chuckled. "Of course not."
He sighed in relief. At least he didn't have to worry about that.
"I'll be leaving you now." Osiris said. "Although I don't think I'll leave the planet just yet. You never know, I may decide to lend your comrades a hand after all."
Uubu was about to reply, but Osiris blurred away, moving far faster than Uubu's eyes could detect. To all appearances, Osiris had vanished from sight again.
"That's IT!!"
Trunks' yell brought everyone to a halt.
"I'm through playing around!" the young super saiyajin yelled, but he was smiling. "What about you guys?"
Tien smirked. "Definitely."
"Sure thing." Yamucha smiled as well.
Goten gave Trunks a thumbs up. He had been steadily recovering, and though he was far from 100%, he was much better than he had been half an hour ago.
Choutzu didn't say anything. He sat down, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes tightly.
"Let's go all out!!" Trunks yelled, as his hair flashed bigger, his aura shot higher, and ki snapped around him in whips of lightning as he pushed into level two.
Cell, who hadn't said a word to Trunks since the whole affair started and they had been evenly matched, suddenly looked very afraid. It was clear that he hadn't been doing any training at all in the other world.
Tien was floating in the air, in front of and above Recoome and Jiece. He grunted and clenched the muscles of his shoulders bulged. Suddenly a second pair of arms burst from them.
Both sets pressed their palms to each other, and formed two triangles in front of Tien's eyes and chest.
"Twin Shin Kai-ko-ho!!" he screamed, and two huge blasts suddenly roared into existence where there had only been air.
Yamucha thrust his hands forward, throwing a huge beam of ki at the Burter, who was staring at the huge beam in which his friends were currently being disintegrated.
Trunks' arms and hands flashed in a series of quick moves, then he snapped them to the front, thumbs and forefingers together, palms out.
"Burning attack!" he shot an enormous beam at Cell.
Now the only one left was Guldo, who was staring at the small psychic in front of him. Choutzu had begun to glow slightly.
Suddenly his eyes snapped open, and a huge jet of flame erupted under Guldo, vaporizing the weakest Ginyu member instantly.
The total light and sound made by the four attacks was enormous.
Krillin, Arda, and Baba stood next to Piccolo in the barren space made by the huge blast the namek had just let out. There had only been a small bit of trees still standing after Osiris had stripped most of the ground while powering up, but now even those were gone. For miles around all that was visible was bare rock.
"So what do we do now?" Krillin asked. "I mean, we got rid of most of those dementors, and I don't think there are any more of those weird things that attacked us. So where do we go from here?"
"I suggest helping Goku and Vegeta." Piccolo said calmly. "What else is there?"
"I'm not so sure you know what you're getting yourself into with that, Piccolo." Baba said. "Even if everyone on earth went to help Goku, we couldn't do any more than he could do by himself."
Suddenly Arda's head cocked to the side. "Someone's coming towards us. No ki, but it's definitely something alive."
The others looked in the way he was gazing, and now they could all see a pinpoint of light on the horizon. But Arda was right; there was no ki. None of the others could sense anything. Unless…
"I think I do sense something." Krillin said. "But it's so far away."
It was definitely at least ten miles from the spot where they stood to the point of light I the sky. The complete absence of scenery was frightfully ugly, but it did make for long range visibility.
"No, wait…" Arda said, his brow furrowing though it didn't really wrinkle into human lines. "I think I sense two things now. One has ki, more than the average inhabitant of this planet, but not really a huge fighting power. The other… it's sort of mechanical feeling, no ki at all. But it still feels human."
The point of light had now become two points of light, though still blurry. They were headed roughly in the warrior's direction.
"Can you make anything of it, Baba?" Piccolo asked, calm as ever.
"Not a thing." The witch said. "My crystal ball's been on the blink ever since those stupid clouds came in."
Suddenly Krillin burst into a smile. "Hey you guys, I can sense who it is!"
When Juunana-gou landed lightly on the hood of her hover car, Marron screamed so loudly it was a wonder that the windshield didn't shatter. then she recognized the rain soaked face in front of her as her uncle's, and quickly brought the air car to a halt so that she could land. Her intentions were fine, but the sudden stop threw Juunana-gou off the front of the car. If h hadn't been able to fly, he would have tumbled to the ground, but as it was he floated back in front of her in only a second.
Glancing out of her window, Marron saw that the rain had gone down to a mere drizzle. She decided that she really didn't need to land at all and opened the door.
"Uncle Juunana?" she hovered out of the air car and floated next to the ever ageless young man who was now floating near her. "What are you doing here?"
He shrugged. "My radio started yelling at me in the voices of several of your friends." He said in an almost total deadpan. "I figured that was sign that something was going on. Then I saw your car flying over here, and here I am."
"Oh."
A second of silence followed that would have become awkward if a ball of fire hadn't suddenly zoomed up from the ground and slammed into her aircar.
"Shit!" she screamed out, and dived backward in the air. The hover car her father had bought her for her last birthday (even though she was under the legal driving age) was now two smoking chunks of metal falling toward the ground.
"What the hell was that!?" she screamed, now looking scared and puzzled at her uncle for an explanation.
Juunana-gou uncrossed his arms and pointed casually downward.
Following to where his finger was pointing, Marron saw on the ground (she had been flying over some of the bare rock left by one of the many power ups, blasts, etc. over the day) that there were several large mecha suits with the Red Ribbon logo on them, being swarmed over by several hundred dementors. A stray blast must have shot up into the sky and hit her car.
"What are those things?" she asked in disgust. "They look repulsive!"
"I have no clue what they are, but they're everywhere on the ground." Juunana-gou answered. "And get this; I tried to fight one, and when it touched me, it sucked my energy out."
"Kami!"
"Yes. I suggest we don't walk."
Marron glanced up from the ground back up to her uncle. "So where do we go?"
He shrugged. "Your father is in that direction." He pointed off in the direction where the other warriors were. "I would say there. Unless you feel any particular urge to join Goku right now."
She shivered slightly and shook her head. She had been able to sense the thing that came out of hell well enough.
Behind Juunana-gou, a huge explosion suddenly went off, further away than her father was, but too close for comfort. She didn't know that it was Trunks, Tien, Yamucha, and Choutzu's attacks all going off at the same time, and she didn't care.
"Come on." She said, and they took off in the direction of her father, creating two points of light in the sky.
Goku stared mutely at the ball of energy that surrounded Morgoth. They had just thrown their strongest attacks at him. Their very strongest, and he had completely blocked them. What were they supposed to do against that?
"Well?" the demon taunted. "Come on, why don't you attack? You haven't worn yourselves out, have you? How perfectly disappointing."
Vegeta growled, and was about to rush forward. But Goku reached a hand out and stopped him.
"Vegeta, I think I might know how we can win."
"What!?" the saiyajin prince turned to Goku. "How? What is it?"
"Do you remember the fusion dance?"
At first, there was no reaction at all. Then Vegeta said in a low voice, "You must be mad."
"Come on Vegeta!" Goku looked at his rival/friend pleadingly. "I know you hate it, but I don't think we're going to win any other way! This guy just threw off our best attacks, and it doesn't even look like he's powered up yet!"
"No, no chance in hell, Kakarott. I absolutely refuse to fuse with you again. I told you before, and I meant it!"
Goku only stared at him.
"Don't try to convince me, baka. I said no!"
"Then I guess we all die." Goku said flatly.
Vegeta paused. Then he sighed.
"You owe me, Kakarott. You owe me."
Goku's face lit up. "Thanks, Vegeta! I know we can beat him now!"
They floated to the ground, Vegeta grumbling under his breath. They took their positions, Vegeta slightly closer to the demon above them than Goku was.
"Don't want to fight anymore? Well, isn't that too bad."
Morgoth's voice startled them both, and Vegeta most of all, because before he noticed a difference the monster had swooped down on him and grabbed him by the neck.
Goku screamed out and slammed a fist into the side of Morgoth's face, but it looked as if he didn't even feel it.
Vegeta was being held with his boots hung about two feet above the ground, because Morgoth was so tall. And was Goku drew back for a second punch, the demon casually reached up slightly and ripped Vegeta's leg off.
The saiyajin prince screamed in agony, his hair instantly shrinking down from super saiyajin three down to level two as his ki was sapped away by his central nervous system, burning it away in the extremity of the pain. Morgoth smiled.
"Here. Hold this." He laughed and threw the leg at Goku, who actually caught it in the shock at what Morgoth had just done. Then he dropped it with a jolt, and looked back at the demon.
"What comes next?" Morgoth mused. "How about the left arm? You don't use that much anyway, do you?"
"BASTARD!!" Goku screamed, and launched at the demon, pushing ki into his forearm, going for a blow of decapitation force. He connected with Morgoth's face again, and this time the demon was knocked back a few feet and actually to the ground.
Vegeta landed on his one leg, and actually stood for a second.
"Kakarott…" he said groggily. "I think I may be wounded."
Then he fell flat to the ground, blood still jetting from the stump of his leg.
The last of Vegeta's words were mixed with Morgoth's laughter.
"I'm going to kill you." Goku said, his aura flashing around him in a blaze of power, his eyes taking the golden hue of his ki again. "I'm going to take you the hell apart."
"Well, you can try." Morgoth chuckled, and then in a blur leapt up and flew at Goku.