Chapter 50
From Bad to Worse
Day 1 in the month of Strength, 16:30
Blizzard spun away from the Kienzian at the last second. The spinning disk of ki would have taken his head off, but merely cut a slash into his cheek.
'Damn!' Roshi thought as he sensed the other three Changelings jump at him. 'I was hoping I could end this fast.' He thought as he quickly took a step back. 'Ah well, time to show them why they are afraid of Super Saiyans.'
"Jump people!" Roshi yelled. Then, in the split second that the three Changelings where arching down through the bleak gray-blue sky to kick him from three sides, Roshi kneeled down on the hard packed snow and balled his fists and arms across his chest.
At the last moment, he whipped his arms out. "YAAAAHHH," he screamed as a brilliant yellow dome of ki shot out and away from him. The wall of force his ki created threw not only the Changelings, but also debris, bodies, and anything else that it encountered out of the way. Roshi was left in the exact center of a perfectly flat and clear circle that measured about 40 meters across.
Roshi slowly raised his head to look up at the large pile of marble upon which Blizzard stood. Blizzard was surprisingly small. Roshi guessed that he stood about 145 cm tall (about 4'9").
"You were warned. I am a Super Saiyan. I killed Snow, and if you won't leave, I will kill you all as well. Now which one of you wants to die first?" He said as he stood up and flared his ki.
"Sakura!" Roshi's momentary amount of bravado was shattered as Ichigo yelled out the Saiyan girl's name.
'Oh no!' Roshi thought with a jolt as he reached out with his senses and found the girl. Sakura was alive, but clearly unconscious lying on her face in the snow some 60 meters from where Roshi stood. Ichigo was already landing next to the fallen girl.
"Pathetic! Your own attack felled one of your own warriors!" Blizzard mocked Roshi from where he stood. The blood red Changeling turned and looked at his three companions as they slowly got back to their feet and shook off any damage they may have taken from their encounter with Roshi's bubble of pure ki.
"I've changed my mind. This one will be entertaining. I think I will fight him. Kill the other four."
Roshi closed his eyes for a moment so he could get a better sense of the powers around him. 'Blizzard is not at full power yet, but he is very nearly my level. As long as the other three Changelings don't transform, Ichigo, Boxers, and Tee should be able to handle things on their own.' Roshi glanced at where Ichigo was kneeling over Sakura. 'If they can focus that is.' He thought with regret.
Blizzard leapt at him in a whirring front flip. Roshi just barely jumped back as Blizzard's tail sliced through the jacket Roshi was wearing over his gi like the jacket had been made of butter.
'That was close,' Roshi thought as he blocked two punches and then jumped back and away from Blizzard's tail as it slashed out at him again.
* * *
Meanwhile, Ichigo was patting Sakura's forehead with snow in an effort to wake her up. Sakura had not jumped soon enough, nor flown fast enough to escape Roshi's attack. It had hit her and thrown her as though she were leaves tossed about in the wind. The impact with either the ki wave, or the collapsed building had snapped her collarbone and her left leg. Blood was starting to stain the navy blue fabric of Boxers's jacket where her shattered collarbone had speared through her skin.
"Wake up Sakura! I did not come back here to watch you become a victim now." Ichigo said desperately to her fallen friend. "Come on! Wake up!"
Ichigo felt a Changeling approaching, but she ignored it. "Damn it! Why did we leave all those Namekians on the ship?"
The Changeling was walking up to her. The snow crunched slowly under its feet. The sound stopped several meters back, indicating that he Changeling was stupid enough to stop rather than attack her while her back was turned.
It laughed. "At least you know how to bow down and await your death Princess."
Ichigo turned her head just far enough to see the small Changeling out of the corner of her eye. In it's first form it looked like all other male changelings except this one was pink and canary yellow. 'This must be Thunder. If I remember right Thunder was almost thrown out of his family for being a misfit.'
Ichigo turned back to look at Sakura. "Since you killed my father, you made me Queen you misbegotten worthless freak of a Changeling." Ichigo replied over her back. 'The taunts that used to work so well on me aught to work on him as well.'
"What did you say you dirty little monkey!?! Are you blind and stupid? I am a Changeling! I am one of the most powerful beings in the entire universe and you are nothing but a hairless vermin invested disease-plagued ape! Look at me when I am talking to you!"
'Please wake up Sakura. I do not wish to leave you defenseless, but I have no choice.' Ichigo said in her mind to her friend before she turned and got up to face Thunder. 'The idiot is so sure he can beat me that he did not even attempt to attack me while my back was turned. Is he that stupid, or did my words just fluster him that well?'
"Correction," Ichigo said calmly after she turned to look down at Thunder. "You were one of the most powerful beings in the universe." She finished moments before her aura flared brilliant red and she drove a Ki Punch charged fist directly into Thunder's stomach.
Thunder collapsed around her fist and his head fell forward. Ichigo slapped the side of his head, practically caving in his squarish ear with her other arm and followed that up as she kicked him in the shin and used his momentum to sweep his feet out from under him.
Thunder fell and slid on some ice to land in a heap at the base of what had once been a large barracks facility. Ichigo jumped down after him and glared at him as he balled himself up in a fetal position and gasped for breath.
"The only vermin I see today is your kind." Ichigo said as she hauled back her leg and kicked him hard enough to send him flying back towards Blizzard. Thunder almost Blizzard as he circled Roshi. The sight of his brother slamming head first into the marble ruins of the building he and Roshi were fighting on distracted Blizzard long enough for Roshi to drive two roundhouses into the Changeling's head.
Once the building stopped falling in on him, Thunder did not move. 'Good, his ki has fallen to almost nothing. He is not dead, but he is out of the fight.' Ichigo thought to herself as she flew to help Boxers with Ice.
Ice was even larger than Snow had been. It was clear that she was stronger too. She was, however, still not as strong as Boxers, and when Ichigo showed up, it turned the fight quite substantially.
Ice was a dull battleship gray. There were a few plates of armor that were even darker, but the only thing on her that had color were her eyes, which were a bright orange rust tint.
Ice glared at Ichigo apprehensively. "Don't expect me to be as easy as that idiot Thunder. He always was worthless."
Ichigo cocked her head to the side slightly. "Did Blizzard fail to teach you not to talk to your superiors? I do not recall asking for an opinion."
Ice didn't wait to be attacked; she just leapt right at Ichigo. Ichigo jumped up and kicked her in the face. Ice was knocked back several tens of meters where she fell onto her back.
"Boxers, I can handle this. Go get Sakura and carry her back to where the healers are waiting. We need her awake so she can lead the people who are in the Catacombs to safety."
"No, problem." Boxers replied before he jetted off in Sakura's direction.
'Hmm, normally Boxers would have acknowledged me by name, yet I told them not to, so he is silent. I know my father would have expected me to require proper respect be given.' Ichigo watched Ice get back up, 'however, now is not the time.'
* * *
Meanwhile, up in the Phoenix, Kit was waiting for the air locks to finish cycling. The smaller rescue ships were automated to the point where they could dock to the Phoenix with no pilots. All Kit had to do was show the survivors to a room where the last five Namekians were waiting to help heal the wounded.
"Well, I didn't get to go down to the planet, but I do get to help the people." She told herself as she grabbed one of the med kits and a satchel filled with capsules of food.
"MMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn" bellowed something on the other side of the airlock as the doors started to open.
"What the?" Kit said moments before the higher-pressure air from inside the rescue ship forced its way in and past her nose.
Kit's eyes started to water instantly as the sickly sweet stench of death and decay hit her like a shot from a pepper gun.
Then the deck plates started to shake.
Kit barely had time to move out of the way before an elephant sized animal with bronze-gold fur charged through the door, past her, and down the main corridor of the ship.
Kit had to grab an emergency air mask from the locker by the air lock before she could breath again.
"What in hell was that?" Kit said to the air. She quickly walked into the docked ship and looked around. "There isn't anyone in here." Kit shook her head. "Some sick twist of fate or something. Did that creature somehow launch the ship?"
Kit looked around at the nearly devastated rescue ship. 'Whatever it was it just about destroyed everything in here. I need to see if I can trap it someplace before the real rescue starts.'
* * *
"You! You can't be real! I refuse to believe this is happening! Just wait till Lord Blizzard gets here. He'll destroy you for this!" The big-bloated twenty-legged spider looking thing yelled.
"Can I rip off another leg now?" Slip asked sinisterly.
Goshu looked from where the insectoid warrior was desperately trying to keep Slip away from it's remaining legs over to the large group of several thousand warriors that were standing between him and the holding pens Blizzard's troops had forced the remaining Saiyans into.
'Slip seems to be enjoying this too much,' Goshu surmised. 'Not much I can do about that now, but if I let her push the bug too far he might order his troops to just kill the people we came to rescue.'
Goshu pointed off to the edge of the horizon were there were a group of large saucer ships parked. "Are those your ships?"
"Don't bother trying to steal them to make your escape. Lord Blizzard will find you." The warrior said directly before he spat green slime at Slip from between his large mandibles.
Slip kicked him in the face and smashed in one of the warrior's compound eyes.
"Slip, don't kill him, at least not yet." Goshu warned before he turned to the assembled group of warriors.
"Those of you with scouters might be able to detect the battle that is now going on near Saiya's Capitol. Blizzard isn't coming. He is learning first hand of the power of a Super Saiyan."
As he shouted the words Super Saiyan, he let his Kaio-ken powered red aura expand to its absolute highest level. The dramatic flare seemed to have an effect as nearly half of the assembled warriors suddenly fell to their knees and started begging for mercy.
"Shut up!" Goshu screamed at the top of his lungs. "You have blood of billions on your hands, you are despicable, and you do not deserve mercy. I however, am more lenient than some. Go to your ships now and leave this world or die!"
* * *
Roshi was realizing several things, which he did not want to be realizing. The first thing he realized was that he had been sourly mistaken when it came to what to expect from Blizzard. Now that he was fighting he remembered Ichigo saying that Snow was female so she was slower but stronger than the males. Roshi realized that he had expected to have a speed advantage in the fight with Blizzard. But there was no advantage. Blizzard was almost exactly the same speed and power as Roshi.
The second thing Roshi realized was that while he had become used to his weighted boots and wrist guards, he was not used to wearing them in the intense gravity of Saiya. Roshi guessed that the gravity here was close to ten times what Earth's gravity was. While he had barely noticed the extra weight earlier, now that he was fighting Blizzard, it was slowing him down. Not much, but enough to be giving Blizzard an edge.
Blizzard shot down and kicked Roshi in the side. Roshi stumbled and slid on some ice before he back flipped over a fallen streetlight and landed behind what had probably once been a trash receptacle. Without even pausing, Roshi kicked it at Blizzard and then threw a Masenko to follow.
Blizzard knocked the metal bin away and was then smacked in the face by the Masenko. He spun backwards and then landed with a front flip on the street.
"I would have thought that the mythical Super Saiyan would be a harder opponent. I grow tired of this charade." Blizzard closed his eyes for a moment and then raised his arms up to fire several rapid-fire ki blasts at Roshi.
* * *
Tee was starting to get annoyed. The blue Changeling he fought had a maximum power of about 760,000 or so by Tee's best estimate. Which meant Tee didn't even really have to strain himself to hard with the Kaio-Ken to be quite a bit stronger and faster than the Changeling.
This did not stop the Changeling from bouncing back after every attack.
"You'll pay for this humiliation Monkey!" The Changeling screamed before sending several more of his nasty stinging ki blasts at Tee.
Tee jumped up and landed on a large pile of snow. The snow was not solid and soon blew away in the backwash from his landing. This much to Tee's revulsion reveled the pile to actually be a pile of dead Saiyan women.
'Ugh,' Tee fought the reflex to hurl again and turned to glare at the little gloating Changeling. 'This is disgusting! Why am I toying with a monster like this?'
* * *
Ichigo was caught in mid air by a hail of ki blasts. They pitted and burned her armor knocking her back and away from Ice. "Damn it Roshi!" She screamed in frustration when she realized she had not been paying attention to Roshi and Blizzard.
'Gah! That stings.' She thought as she looked back towards Blizzard. 'Come on Roshi I know you can do better than this!'
* * *
Roshi blocked the blasts and then noted that not all of them had been directed at him. 'Shit, several of those hit Ichigo.' Roshi opened his mind further and found she was not hurt by the attack. This calmed his nerves a touch, but for only a moment before he felt a power spike behind him. He was just about to turn to get a better sense of what it was then Blizzard kicked him in the throat. The blow bruised his Adam's apple and almost crushed his larynx.
Roshi struggled for breath as Blizzard followed up the kick with several rapid jabs to Roshi's ribs.
Roshi coughed and spat bloody spit into Blizzard's eyes before kicking off the ground and slamming both of his knees into Blizzard's forehead.
Blizzard had seen the attack coming so was already ducking back away from the blow. Roshi's knees barely glazed Blizzard's forehead.
"Is this the best the mythical Super Saiyan can do? I can see why Kold and his sons were so afraid of you. You are quite powerful compared to them. I however am far stronger than they ever dreamed." Blizzard mocked.
Roshi was about to comment when he realized the energy spike from behind him was still going up. He jumped back away from a haphazard swipe of Blizzard's tail and caught a glimpse of the battlefield. 'Ichigo's mauling the big gray female, and Tee is holding his own against the blue one. I don't see Boxers.' Roshi held his concentration away from Blizzard for too long and was rewarded with a ki ball to the side of his face.
Roshi lifted his hand up to feel the singed area of his scalp. 'Damn it, that was just starting to look normal again. It's going to take me a month to re-grow that hair.'
Roshi ignored Blizzard's posturing blather and jumped down to land on the big gray female's shoulders. After her head had shattered the concrete and been driven into the frozen ground he bounced off and landed by Ichigo. "Where's Boxers!"
Ichigo turned and ran past him. "I sent him to the ship with Sakura so she could be healed. Hurry, I thought Thunder was out of it, but he is transforming!" She said before she threw a large double-handed Flare attack into the pile of debris Thunder was in.
"I've had enough of you pests!" Blizzard screamed as he came closer to Roshi.
Roshi turned to face him. "Good then as soon as I kill you, you can forget all about us." He said dropping into a defensive stance as Blizzard shot at him.
Roshi started to charge a Kamehameha to throw at him when Blizzard suddenly veered off to the right.
'Oh shit', Roshi knew instantly where he was going. "Tee watch out." Roshi yelled as he tossed the Kamehameha at Blizzard's back.
Tee kicked the bright blue and white male away and then turned to look over at Roshi.
Tee's eyes bulged out when he saw Blizzard and he tried to dodge out of the way, but Blizzard caught him with a down thrust kick, which drove the Changeling's heel into the side of Tee's neck.
Tee collapsed like a limp noodle and fell to Blizzard's feet.
"NOOOO!" Roshi screamed. Seeing Tee go down woke a surge of desperation in Roshi. He reached into the well of power that was always there but never available and knew only he could save Tee now.
"I won't let you kill him!" he shouted as he knifed through the air passing his own Kamehameha. The blue and white Changeling saw Roshi coming and quickly slunk away seeming to not want to get anywhere near a Super Saiyan.
Blizzard was about to deliver a finishing blow to Tee when Roshi slammed into his back and knocked him into a frozen pile of bodies.
Fighting in the ruins of the city in amongst the piles of dead disgusted Roshi. The impact shattered several of the bodies as though they were fragile glass. The head of a young woman who had probably been Max's age rolled down the pile to bounce off of Tee and land staring with vacant lifeless eyes up at Roshi.
Roshi stared into her dead eyes and almost forgot to duck as his Kamehameha caught up.
Blizzard was starting to get back up and knocking over corpses in the process. The Kamehameha grazed over Roshi's back and slammed right into Blizzard knocking him down again.
Roshi flew in and grabbed his arm. "You have desecrated enough of this world. This ends now!" He yelled as he wrenched Blizzard's arm and threw him towards the outskirts of the city.
Roshi then kneeled to check on Tee. Ichigo landed next to him and knocked a ki blast away.
"He's alive, but his neck is broken. We don't dare move him, but as it is, we can't move him."
"We dare not just leave him either. The Changelings will kill him." Ichigo replied, "But that isn't our biggest problem right now. Look, Thunder is already at level two, and Ice is transforming now. Thunder and Chill are standing guard. While they cannot stop me, by working together like that, I cannot break through and stop them from taking the time to transform."
Roshi looked down at Tee and then over at the three Changelings gathered below. He knew he didn't have much time before Blizzard recovered and came back. "This is your world we are fighting for. Can you hold off Blizzard at least until Boxer's gets back? I should be able to keep those three occupied."
Ichigo glared at him, "I can handle Blizzard for a while. Just stop the other three or Tee here won't be the only one needing a healer."
* * *
Boxers had followed the now happily healed, fed, and better dressed Sakura to an entrance to the Catacombs. The two of them landed before a large metal door set into the side of a hill. It looked like nothing more than an old cellar door.
"It is right here." She said as she beat her knuckles against the door sounding out what was obviously a coded message. "Just a moment and we will be in." She said turning to look at him as though she was waiting for him to do something.
"That's good. I wanted to make sure you got here safely, but I really aught to get back to the fight."
Sakura gave him an appraising look. "Is he really a Super Saiyan? The golden haired one?"
Boxers nodded. "Yes, Roshi is definitely a Super Saiyan."
Sakura cocked her head to the side a touch before gingerly reaching out and carefully grabbing a few strands of Boxers's long silky blonde hair. "And you also claim to be Saiyan? Your hair is gold, why are you not also a Super Saiyan? Is your weak hair an indication of a weak body as well?"
Boxers mouth fell open. He had once seen a picture of Mirai Trunks from right when he exited the ROSAT before going off to face Cell. With the exception of being blonde and blue eyed, he was near the spitting image of Trunks. While he was not up to par with Roshi, no one had ever mocked his hair or questioned his fitness in quite that manner. "Excuse me? I may not be a Super Saiyan yet, but I certainly am not weak!"
Sakura smirked. "No, just limp? Had not the Pr... The Queen said you were a Saiyan I would have never believed it. You have not the look nor truly the act of a Saiyan." She finished as she stretched some in the Capsule Corp version of the Vegeta's armor; she now wore, and brushed her fingers down his chest.
'Holy DENDE! She's flirting with me!' Boxers realized with a jolt. This realization and the sudden loud crack of sound that accompanied the opening of the large metal door set in the ground they stood by.
"You've made a mistake coming here!" An old grizzled man yelled as he poked his head out and glared at them. His face changed almost instantly. "Sakura! You're alive! Why are you smiling? What's goin on? We all thought you was dead girl! When we heard you knocking we checked and thought you had being forced to tell how do get down here to a Changeling." The man looked at Boxers. "But you ain't no Changeling and ya doan have the look of one of Blizzard's men."
Sakura shook her head rapidly. "Father we don't have time for this. Where is Momo?"
"At headquarters like always." The old man replied before ushering them inside so he could reseal the doors. "And who may I ask is this?" He asked once again looking at Boxers.
"Oh, where are my manners?" Sakura laughed. "Father this is Boxers, he is a descendant of the Vegeta Rebels. Boxers, this is my father Anzu." Sakura took a breath before either could speak and continued. "Father, Prin... Queen Ichigo is back. This is one of those she brought with her to help us."
The man looked to be a good number of years too old to be Sakura's father. "Your father? You look like you could be her grandfather." He said instantly realizing the mistake of the words.
Anzu peered at him through half lidded eyes. "I married late not that it is any of your business. A Vegeta Rebel eh? How low we have sunk in our muddy flounderings."
Boxers ignored the man's comments. "Ich... Queen Ichigo wanted me to get her here safely. I have a fight I need to get to." Boxers paused. "Oh, and although you may not be pleased, I am pleased to meet you, but I have to go." Boxers turned to leave before they could seal him in.
"Wait!" A female voice cried out through the depths.
Boxer's turned. A woman in white robes was rushing into view. As she grew closer he realized she had a striking resemblance to Ichigo. The woman's eyes were darker, and her hair shorter. But she could have been Ichigo's sister with the exception of the fact he knew she had no siblings.
"Wait!" The woman said again. "Please, you said my niece is alive? She is back?"
Boxers nodded. "Yes, ah, Queen..."
"Oh drop the formality and tell me how she is!"
Boxers was about to relent and drop into conversation with Ichigo's aunt when he felt a surge of ki from a changeling followed directly by the sudden lack of anything detectable from Tee.
"Oh fuck!" Boxer's remembered where he was. "I am sorry, but one of my friends just went down. I have to go." He said as he turned and darted through the still open doors out into the chilled winter air.
Boxers shot towards the ship where the Namekians were. "I'm coming Tee, just hold on buddy."
* * *
"I don't think so." A large and sinister looking man said as he landed between Goshu and the horde of Blizzard's troops.
The man was huge. He stood at least 2.5 meters(8'3")tall and was almost at broad. He was hunter green and yellow colored with large six fingered hands that ended in black claws. Even his leathery bat wings had barbs and claws on them.
"I am a Chartashan!" Screamed the new warrior. "I killed my own king to join Blizzard, and I am not about to run from you puny Saiyans!"
Goshu realized that this newcomer was stirring up the rest of the warriors. If he wasn't beaten and beaten fast and thoroughly, then there would be a lot more blood shed today than Goshu had hoped. "Then you will be the first to fall." He said as he threw a Kamehameha at the warrior.
The green warrior jumped into the bright blue summer sky laughing. "No! She will be! Joltage!" He yelled as he launched a bolt of electrical looking ki directly at Maxine.
"Max duck!" Goshu yelled but it was to no avail. The bolt hit Max full on in the chest and arced around her singing her gi and filling the air with the stench of ozone and melted hair.
Max's eyes rolled back in her head and she fell over without even making a sound.
Goshu's Kamehameha cut a circular angle through the air to slam into the Chartashan, but the damage had been done. In a split second of shock Slip relaxed her hold on the large insectoid warrior.
In a flash he moved to catch her slim waist between it's large mandibles. Slip shouted in surprise, and hit him in the top of his head, crushing it like an egg and killing the warrior, but not before she had received a possibly lethal dose of venom.
Goshu heard her scream and turned to watch her pull herself free of the dead warrior's fangs. "I feel like I'm on fire." She muttered as she winced and doubled over.
"Slip, get to the ship. Don't argue just move!"
Time, however, was up for them. As Goshu turned around to face the warriors again, they seemed to take that as a cue to attack. Goshu turned to watch a wave of ki race towards him as over a thousand warriors attacked as one.
* * *
"Stop following me!" Kit yelled at the gigantic elephant sized beast.
The animal had turned out to be very docile once it had calmed down. It had in fact, proven to be rather like a very large dog. It was now trying to follow Kit anywhere she went.
Kit had originally loved the large open hallways of the Phoenix. Since the front section had originally been built as a cargo vessel, the halls between holds were very large to facilitate the loading and unloading of cargo.
Now, however, the facilitated the large smelly animal as it followed Kit around.
Smarter than it looked, it refused to go into any of the many cargo holds Kit had tried to lure it into. It would just stop and stare at her from the hallway until she gave up and went someplace else.
"I swear when Roshi gets back up here I am going to give him a piece of my... OOUCH!" Kit screamed as the Sartan's long leathery tongue suddenly rapped around her tail and threatened to yank it off.
Kit suddenly found herself being shaken as though the animal was trying to shake her free of her tail. "AAAAHHHHH!!! I am not a plant let go, let go, let go!" She cried as she beat her elbows against its leathery nose.
Finally convinced that either her formerly fluffy tail was not a gray shrub, or that it was not worth it, the beast dropped her and slowly ambled away.
"Ahhhh I definitely have tail bones broken." Kit gasped as she stood up and had shards of pain shoot up from her now bleeding tail. "No wonder Ichigo wouldn't drop the conversation about how Roshi was cruel!"
Kit slowly ambled to where the Namekians were, so they could fix her tail up. "Oh, this is humiliating!"
* * *
Thunder had skipped stage two and gone all the way to stage three in his transformation. This gave Roshi hope. Obviously the Changelings needed time to recover before they could make the final transformation.
Unfortunately for him on the other hand was the fact that Ichigo really was no match for Blizzard. She had fought for less than a second before he had managed to incase her in an energy sphere thing. The glowing ball of Red ki now hovered about a hundred meters off the ground. Ichigo beat her fists against the walls of it but was unable to break it.
Her ki was starting to drop away.
"Well Super Saiyan," Blizzard sneered as he used his free hand to lob a ki blast at him. "Your time is growing short, but not as short as hers. I think I will enjoy watching you fight the inevitable. She's suffocating in there. Anything that could break that shell would kill her instantly. Bow down and accept death or watch your precious Princess die slowly."
'He is controlling it with that up held arm, but anytime I get close to him he causes it to get smaller, which could kill Ichigo.' Roshi didn't know what to do. He had knocked Ice out and stopped her transformation, but Chill had gotten smart and flown up into space. He could feel the blue Changeling transforming not more than a few hundred kilometers from where the Phoenix sat in orbit. 'Oh please don't spot the ship.' He silently prayed.
Ichigo was gasping for air. She had her hands pressed against the side of the ki sphere. She was looking at him. She needed him.
Roshi ducked as Thunder landed next to him and tried to take Roshi's head off with his large clawed hands.
"You're not the only one with claws! Jade Talon!" Roshi yelled as three nuclear green scyth like claws of ki sprouted out of each of his hands. A quick pair of slashes and Thunder had six bloody gashes forming an X on his chest.
"That's it!" Roshi realized as he threw a ki ball into the ground between himself and Blizzard. 'He can't sense me, and now he can't see me.
Roshi shot for the sphere, which contained Ichigo and quickly slashed at the sides of it.
The sphere ruptured with a gigantic explosion that shook the ground and toppled the several of the damaged buildings that had not fallen previously.
Roshi cleared the smoke about kilometer further out from the Palace than the center of the blast had been. It not only took the fight further from the ships, but further from Tee.
"Come on Ichigo, breathe. He said as he looked down at her in his arms. She coughed and her flushed face started to return to it's normal coloring.
She opened her eyes blinked twice and then glared at him. "Put me down!" She said moments before she slapped him.
He dropped her. Ichigo regained control over her fall long before she would have hit the ground.
"You like cutting things close don't you!" She screamed at him. Roshi blinked as he realized she was so mad as to use contractions again. It didn't happen all that often anymore.
"No, not particularly!" He yelled back.
"Well then why aren't you fighting like I have seen you fight before? You practically seem to be toying with them!" She yelled her face flushed with anger.
"I am! Ichigo! I am! Blizzard is just stronger and a heck of a lot smarter than I had expected!"
"Well try harder!" Ichigo yelled before turning to fly back towards the city.
"Ichigo!" Roshi called after her.
"That is Sir, Ma'am, or Your Highness to you!" She shouted without even looking back.
Roshi glared at her. "Great time to get petty! For all we... Oh SHIT Boxers!"
* * *
Goshu put up a ki wall that was strong enough to shield both himself and Slip. While each individual ki blast was not that strong, together they were more than enough to have reduced either one of them to atoms.
Slip was starting to convulse as she broke into cold sweats from the toxin.
"Hang in there girl, your mother would kill me if you died." Goshu said as he stooped to pick her up and toss her over his shoulder. I've never made a tactical retreat before, but I think this time it is needed."
Goshu shot up into the air only to watch in horror as a wave of warriors looking nothing so much as ants washed over Max and Nail where the two had fallen.
"I didn't even feel Nail go down." Goshu said in shock.
For a few moments he didn't think the battle could go any worse.
Then he watched almost in slow motion as a ki blast hit the landing ship. The ship rocked for a moment, and then their landing ship blew up.
The landing ship had still held five of the ten Healers they had brought with them. It had also still held all of the capsule ships.
It was nearly impossible to destroy a capsule. Goshu had only once seen the effects of what happened when one exploded incorrectly. The extra-dimensional pocket within them collapses and the resulting micro black hole first sucks in loose matter around it before it too implodes and then releases the matter within.
Goshu watched in horror as first one then more of the capsules cooked off. As the fire of the burning ship destroyed the containment of the extra-dimensional pockets within each capsule catastrophe bloomed.
Goshu felt the other five healers die as they had not gone far enough from the ship and had been caught in the suddenly disintegrating landscape as the capsules and the ships within them exploded.
Several nuclear bombs had gone off in close proximity to them during the fight with Snow.
That was merely a firecracker compared to what was happening now.
* * *
Up in space on the Phoenix, isolated from the battle Kit had finally made it back to the ship's bridge.
She looked at the readouts and shuddered. One bank of blinking red text showed that every single capsule ship Goshu's group had taken with them had been destroyed.
Another screen was monitoring the health of the fighters down below. Tee and Slip were flashing yellow. Ichigo, and Goshu were green. Max and Nail were flashing red. Only Roshi and Boxers were still in the blue, indicating good fighting condition.
Slip looked at the map of the world. Goshu was now leading a massive contingent of warriors away from where their landing ship had blown up.
"They're leaving the prisoner's unguarded!" Kit said with no attempt to cover her surprise.
She looked back up at the screen. "Wait! Roshi said that names turn black if someone dies. Which means..."
Max and Nail were both still flashing red. They had been at ground zero and most of the warriors that had gathered there had flown of so quickly after Goshu they may not have realized the two were still alive.
Kit shook her head. "Roshi, I promised I would stay out of this, but I can't"
Kit rushed to get two of the healers and several bags of Capsule ships before she got into one of the last landing ships, and headed for the planet.
* * *
Please Review
I am sooo sorry this took so long to post.
Barring more problems with FF.net, I will post 51 SOON.
The Smooster.
p.s. hey stop by my forum ;)
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