Chapter Nine:
Goku and Osiris appeared in the midst of Tien, Trunks, Goten, Yamucha, and Choutzu. At the sudden unexpected arrival, all of them jumped, and Trunks and Goten openly recoiled, dropping into defensive stances instinctively in the presence of an enemy.
Goku saw this at once, even in his injured condition, and quickly moved to intercept the attacks he knew would be directed at the vampire. Fortunately he got in front of him before the boys were able to focus their just-dropped energy.
"Wait, you two! He's here to help!" he yelled. The demi-saiyajin stopped, but their expressions didn't change, and they didn't get out of the stances.
"He almost killed Goten and me." Trunks said in a low voice. "What the hell do you mean he's here to help!?"
Goku shook his head. "I know that, but we have to put that aside for now. The situation is far worse than we thought it would ever be."
"Put it aside!!" Trunks' eyes widened, with anger or true surprise it was hard to tell. "Goten was almost dead! Your son was almost dead because of that bastard, and you of all people are saying put it aside!!?"
Goku opened his mouth, looking as if he was about to speak, but Osiris cut him off.
"Trunks, you have every right to complain about me, and to want to see my head on the end of a stick, and anything else you can think of. But, how would you say it? This i9sn't the time for bitching. I'll be more than hap[y to give you another shot at me when this is all over, but for now all our quarrels must be put aside to serve the good of the entire universe."
He said it in a way that sounded almost snide, definitely smart aleck, but the words seemed to do the trick anyway. Trunks seemed to consider for a long moment, staring at Osiris, and then at Goku's pain-filled, serious face. Then he finally stood up.
He looked hard at Osiris. "I won't forget what you said. I'm fighting you again when this is all over."
"Of that I have no doubt." Osiris said, crossing his arms. His tone was somehow insulting, so much so that Trunks considered for one brief moment just attacking the vampire, hitting him with a huge blast from the side or the back. But that quickly faded when he thought of how much of a breach of honor he would be committing, and he was content to glare at Osiris without attacking for now.
It might have gone on peacefully, if Vegeta, Arda, Krillin, and Piccolo hadn't chosen that moment to appear, via Arda using instant transmission. Vegeta took one look at Osiris standing there, and immediately screamed and dove at him.
The vampire threw up his arms in an x, easily blocking the powered-down Vegeta's punch. The saiyajin prince's hair flared sudden gold fire and lightning snapped around him as he blazed into super saiyajin level two. He flipped backward, landed on his feet, and dashed quickly back, this time successfully landing a foot into Osiris' face.
The vampire snarled, and he reached up and grabbed Vegeta's foot, and threw the prince down hard on the rocks. Then Goku landed, grabbing Vegeta arms and dragging the prince back, somehow holding him and trying to talk to him.
"Vegeta, stop! Dammit, doesn't anyone listen to me!?" Goku yelled. "Alright, no one attack Osiris!"
Vegeta didn't power down, but he did stop struggling and looked curiously at Goku. "What? You mean he wasn't attacking you?"
Goku looked dumbfounded.
"When we sensed you both in the same place," Arda said, walking up, "we assumed you two were going to fight, so I teleported us over here."
Goku shook his head suddenly, clearing it all away. "Forget about all of that, you guys. I have a plan."
Uubu caught up with the other as they stood on the ground discussing Osiris and hitting each other. Just as Goku had convinced them to wait, he touched down.
When Goku saw him land, his teacher smiled hugely.
"Uubu!" he rushed over, wrapping his young protégé in a bear hug almost before Uubu could be sure what was happening. "You're alive!"
The young human boy laughed and hugged his teacher back. "Goku-sensei! You're okay too! I was worried something was wrong."
Goku laughed. "Oh, there were some problems alright. And there still are. But I think I may have a way to get rid of them. I was just about to tell everyone my plan. It's a little risky, but I thin we can do it."
"Just spit it out already, baka." Vegeta said, patient as ever.
"Okay, okay." Goku sighed, suddenly more serious. "I really don't know if this will work, guys. But we have to try. This is what we do: everyone who's here, power up as high as you can and charge up your best attack. We get in a circle as we do it, and our auras all connect and sort of mesh, binding us all together. Then, I use the instant transmission, taking us all directly to Morgoth. If all our energies are linked, I can do it."
"I get what you're saying!" Tien smiled suddenly. "It could work!"
"Bastard won't know what hit him!" Vegeta smirked.
"Let's do it, then, and stop wasting time!" Trunks said.
Quickly, everyone arranged themselves in the air into a circle, and there were several flashes of gold and white as they all began to power up.
Goku was last to start, taking longer to gather his energy because it was so depleted. His hair finally blazed into the golden, gravity defying spikes and lightning of super saiyajin two, but he knew instinctively that he wouldn't be able to take it past this form. He simply supped his hands and began to gather energy.
Vegeta went directly to level two as well, his energy also being too low from the beating he had taken to reach level three. His hands in front of him, palms out as the ki pushed into them, gathering into a blast.
Uubu was actually able to have fun, he was so pleased with the new amount of energy he had. He let the ki rush around him in a wave before focussing it into a kamehameha, enjoying the feel of the unaccustomed power.
Tien held his hands in front of him in a triangle, charging one of the most dangerous attacks to the user and the receiver alike, letting bits of his life force slip into the Kai-ko-ho blast, carefully controlling it so that the attack would remain stable and not blow up in his hands.
Goten focussed his kamehameha as well as he could, simply trying to stay focussed and keep pain as far from his mind as possible.
Trunks was in super saiyajin level two, his index fingers and thumbs touching, palms splayed out in front of him. He was charging the attack well, but he wasn't able to focus with Osiris so near to him. He was thinking strategy, how he would try to maximize whatever advantages he had against his stronger opponent.
Various warriors, all thinking various thoughts. But one by one, all eleven warriors yelled out that they were ready, ki glowing in everyone's hands, auras enmeshed with each other.
"Okay." Goku grunted with effort. "Just in case this doesn't work, I want you all to know that this is the most honorable way for a warrior to die. I'm proud to be on the same side."
Then the entire circle vanished.
Morgoth had been pondering which of the earth's surviving warriors he would hunt down first and exactly how he would do it when he first sensed ki beginning to gather. He paid attention, interested, wondering what was happening. Then it had kept gathering, and gathering, and gathering. It was becoming confusing.
Then they had appeared.
When they first all saw Morgoth, the demon didn't seem to register what he was seeing. Then his eyes went wide, and the pits of fire in them flared.
"No.." he said, growling.
Then everything blew up.
"Ka me ha me HA!!!!" Goku, Goten, Uubu, Krillin, and Yamucha all let the signature kame blast loose in blazes of light.
"Final FLASH!!" Vegeta screamed, his signature attack flying down out of his hands.
Arda and Osiris, working strangely alike, letting down twin beams, their attacks exactly alike, twin fists in front of their bodies throwing nameless spiral blasts as they yelled with power.
"Kai-ko-HO!!" Tien let the huge life force attack rip from his hand, almost burning the air.
"Burning attack!!" Trunks' blast shooting down at the enemy with a super saiyajin's intensity.
The energy was huge, the explosion too loud to be heard by human or saiyajin ears, the sight of the blast too bright for saiyajin or human eyes t take in. the sheer force blew them all back, a literal wall of ki hitting Morgoth and meeting in the middle, pushing every which way.
It seemed that the roar of power would never end, but it finally did, after all the warriors had been tossed away, and buried in rubble. The blast had been huge, and the warriors were all close to half a mile from the point they had fired the blasts, and a few seconds after the energy died, they began to dig themselves out.
The scene on Kaio-shin-Kai was an interesting one.
Gohan and King Kai stood off to one side, the god now apparently just talking to Gohan, giving him last minute instructions or something. Kaio-bit was pacing back and forth in front of the black gateway in the air, looking down every once in a while to where Dende was, floating on Mr. Popo's magic carpet (old Kaio-shin had produced it from somewhere without even taking his eyes off of his comic book) and trying to comfort the residents of earth. He didn't seem to be doing much good, but he was trying.
"Okay now, Gohan, I want you to remember what I told you." King Kai said seriously. "The more powerful you are in your base state, the more dangerous the Kaio-ken becomes. So you can't use it more than times two. If you do it more than that, you could cause severe damage to your body."
"Right." Gohan nodded, looking like he agreed completely. But inside, he knew that if it meant saving the earth, he would push the Kaio-ken to whatever lengths he had to.
"Okay." The Kai smiled. "Go get 'em then, kid. Just dive through the clouds and find the gateway."
Gohan nodded, floating up off the ground. "Thanks for all your help, King Kai."
The god nodded.
Gohan waved his hand one last time, then flew around the planet and straight into the clouds, down to the lower hells, and the gateway.
Barren rock, nothing but rubble as far as the eye can see. Then a muscular arm suddenly pierced through the top, hooked into the ground and pulled. Then came a shoulder, shredded pieces of orange cloth still clinging to it. Then a head full of black hair. Finally, Son Goku was visible, dragging himself from the pile of rocks.
He coughed out rock dust, and turned his eyes upward, seeing nothing but darkened, clouded sky. He saw no black eyed demons, no threat at all. They had done it. They had done it!
"We did it." Goku smiled, his eyes half closing. "We beat Morgoth."
Then his eyes went wide as a cold voice came next to him.
"Not quite."
Goku's whole body shook. He slowly turned his head, toward the sound of the voice, desperately hoping that he hadn't just heard what he thought he heard.
There was Morgoth, looking scuffed and burnt, his arms crossed over his chest and one leg slightly elevated on a rock. He was staring down at Goku, and for the first time since he had come out of hell, Goku saw Morgoth not spiteful, not laughing hatefully, not even mildly annoyed. He was very, very pissed.
His mouth curled into a snarl, exposing his sharp teeth, Morgoth uncrossed his arms.
"I told you the game was over, Goku, but you just keep on trying. Now I'm going to have to put you down permanently."
One hand reached out, palm flat toward Goku, long claws splayed out. Ki began to gather in the hand. But Goku didn't shut his eyes, he looked bravely into the face of death.
Waiting for the end, Morgoth smiled.