A/N: I hope you guys are up for reading a fairly long chapter (over twice as long as my usual chapters). If you think it's too long, don't blame me, it's all Nadz's fault. He pointed out that Ammit was something of a one dimensional character and could use some depth and also that Akira was being a bit of an idiot with all of his trash talking, so I decided to give a reason (I happen to think it's a darn good one too) for Akira's overconfidence and also to insert some history on Ammit that I had written up a long time ago, but just wasn't sure how to use (it still doesn't seem perfect where it is, but I think it's okay). Given that the vast majority of my reviews have been positive, I don't really think anyone will have much of a problem with the long chapter, but if you do...well, you'll just have to deal with it, sorry. ;)
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Chapter 51
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Akira's spiky, black hair, which fell about his shoulders, and soft, red fur rustled slightly in the faint breeze that blew over the battle field as he stared at Ammit. The evil warlord was smiling confidently at him, but the young Saiyan's eyes could see that the muscles in his face were twitching slightly; the alien had not been ready for this transformation.
"You know," Ammit said in an even voice, "I think you looked better as the monkey, you certainly seemed more powerful." His smile widened and a purple tongue ran over the top of his shark-like teeth. "I guess that power was a bit much for you, huh? Good thing your little girlfriend was here to keep you from trying to hurt her friends...again."
The Saiyan's expression became cold and hard as he said, "Enough of your mind reading old man; it's time for me to finish you once and for all."
Ammit started to laugh, but before he could even get his first chuckle out, Akira's fist was embedded in his stomach. The Dark Lord blinked, it had happened so fast he hadn't even seen the warrior from earth cross the distance between the two of them. He dropped to one knee, clutching his stomach in pain.
"Tha...that's impossible..." the evil alien gasped through clenched teeth.
The Saiyan smirked; "Really?" the Saiyan asked as his foot lashed out and sent Ammit deep into a distant mountain.
A moment later, the mountain began to crumble as dark energy erupted from within it. The boulders that had once been the majestic peak swirled around the Dark Lord as he powered up even more. He glared at Akira as a slight trickle of blood ran down the side of his face.
"You will pay for that," he hissed, but the young Saiyan only smiled, completely unafraid.
Suddenly the enormous rocks that had been floating around Ammit shot towards Akira. The fur covered warrior leapt into the air, dodging boulders as they chased after him. Every time one of the rocks got too close, he would destroy it with a simple punch. After several minutes of evading the mini meteors, Akira grew tired of the game and a golden aura surrounded him, expanding outward and destroying the remaining boulders.
He landed a short distance from Ammit and crossed his arms. "Thanks for the exercise, the young Saiyan said with a smirk as he rotated his right arm, stretching his enlarged, fur covered muscles. "This new form takes a little getting used to,"
The Dark Lord threw a punch, but it passed right through Akira as his after image faded away. Ammit's eyes opened wide in shock and then narrowed in anger, the boy was just playing with him.
"If you can't make any better showing than that, maybe I'll just end this now," the Saiyan whispered from just behind him. Then, with a surge of power, a ki blast slammed into the mighty warlord, sending him flying back towards his ship.
The ancient alien landed in a heap and lay still for a moment; the remnants of his legion stared in wonder at their fallen leader. Then he stirred and looked up, Akira was already looming over him and in the distance the eight other warriors from earth were rapidly approaching.
"Have a nice nap?" the level four Super Saiyan asked. "I thought about waking you, but you just looked so peaceful I couldn't bring myself to do it."
Ammit climbed to his feet and his confident smile returned, "You don't have the power to defeat me, my cocky little roster. Perhaps a moment ago you had a chance, but now that time has passed." A red mist began to swirl within the aliens colorless eyes, filling them up.
Akira took a slightly hesitant step back; he'd seen something like this before when he fought Sike at the Tenkaichi Budouia.
Ammit began to chuckle, his voice was now deeper and had lost a bit of its raspy sound, "What's the matter, hero? Not feeling so confident? Good, because it's time I showed you my full power!" His hands shot out to his sides and he slowly lifted into the air. Thin, dark beams of power flew from his hands and connected him to the many aliens that were watching. After a couple of seconds, white energy erupted out of the chests of the Dark Lord's soldiers as their eyes filled with horror. The white light swirled around the might warlord; his chuckle became a hysterical laugh as more and more energy flowed to him. Even the aliens who were unconscious or dead began to glow and faint traces of the wispy, white energy joined the larger flow that was now whirling around Ammit like a tornado.
'What is he doing?' Akira asked in wonder.
"Soon you will understand; you will know why my people named me Ammit...'Devourer of Souls'," the Dark Lord's voice called out from the center of the glowing sphere of power. Akira fired a ki blast at the energy sphere, making a small dent which was quickly filled in by more white light.
"Hmmm, still not enough," Ammit's voice said thoughtfully, "Well, there are still other sources of power." A scream came from a nearby crater as Runihura's broken body was lifted into the air, connected to one of the dark beams.
"Please my lord. Please have mercy on me..." the terrified alien begged as his body began to shake and glow.
"Now, now my loyal servant, you know the price for failure. You have been made weak and if there is one thing I won't tolerate it is weakness!"
Her father looked grim, "I don't know, but it won't be good."
"He's stealing power from his own men," Vegeta said quietly, never taking his eyes off the awesome sight. "The legends say that he could give and take energy at will, draining the life, powers, and memories of his followers and enemies alike."
The rest of the Z-Fighters were speechless for a moment, and then Trunks cried out, "Oh shit! Where did we leave Goten?"
After a quick scan of the area, they spotted the unconscious Saiyan not far from where the spectacular show was playing out.
"I'll get him," Vegeta said, he hopped off the boulder he'd been perched upon and stealthy made his way to the prone body of his son's friend.
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Akira watched in awe as the body of Runihura began to disintegrate, the alien's skin hung off of his bones as his life was ripped from his body. Runihura gave one last gargled cry and then turned to dust; a moment later the rest of Ammit's fighters began to do the same.
The white energy surrounding the evil alien began to change; black energy swirled within it and soon enveloped it. With a mighty scream from Ammit, the sphere of energy exploded into a column of dark light. As it faded, a tall, powerfully built figure could clearly be seen standing within it.
The Super Saiyan's eyes widened slightly as the being stepped forward. Its face looked similar to Ammit's, but the wrinkles of age had vanished, replaced by a handsome face full of youth. Silvery hair that had once looked sickly and thin was now full and healthy, giving the alien a regal look. The red veins that had been visible through the transparent skin could no longer be seen and the atrophied muscles now bulged with power. The creature smiled showing off its razor sharp teeth.
"Now, this is more like it," Ammit said with a deep voice. He looked down at his firm abs and large biceps and laughed almost joyously. "Yes, this is definitely an improvement. It has been a long time since the universe has seen my true power, but now it will once again tremble at the name of Ammit."
"Not if I have anything to say about it," Akira said, forcing calmness into his voice that he did not feel. "I won't let you leave this planet alive."
The Dark Lord glanced at the young warrior and shook his head, "You don't get it, do you? This fight is already over; you cannot stand against the power that is before you for long. Oh, you may last a few minutes, maybe even an hour, but the end is written, set in stone on the day of my birth. Nothing can defeat me."
"I guess we'll just see about that." Akira shot forward and his fist slammed into the young face of the ancient warrior. He threw left and right uppercuts to the foul creature's body and head over and over, pushing the warlord back. Then as Ammit staggered away from the assault, Akira appeared above the mighty alien and brought both fists down hard. The Dark Lord was driven into the ground like a nail into wood, with only his head sticking up. The mighty Saiyan didn't hesitate for a moment; he threw his hand forward and screamed, "Sei Kaze!"
The mighty red ki blast hit Ammit and exploded, sending rocks and debris flying in all directions and leaving an enormous crater.
Akira floated above the destruction, looking down into the hole as he waited for the smoke to clear.
'I've won, it's over,' he thought with grim satisfaction. 'Nothing could have withstood that attack from point blank range at that speed. Ammit didn't even have had time to defend himself.'
Then he spotted it, standing in the center of the crater was the silver haired warlord, looking up at the Saiyan with a bemused expression on his face. The alien appeared to be slightly singed, and a small rivulet of blood was trickling down from the corner of his mouth, but other than that, he seemed unharmed.
Akira bared his teeth, 'Damn it, I barely even scratched him! I should have finished him earlier; if anything happens to the others it will be my fault,' a vision of Pan flickered across his mind and he shook his head, 'I won't let him or his followers hurt anyone ever again!' Golden power erupted around him, bathing the ground below in a warm glow. Without another word he rocketed towards his enemy.
Ammit sidestepped Akira's first attack and then blocked a follow up kick. The young man's wasn't even trying to hide the rage in his eyes. The warlord smiled, it was only a matter of time now.
The Super Saiyan's attacks became more and more ferocious as anger-fueled power coursed through his veins. But, while his attacks were becoming more powerful, they were also beginning to grow more reckless. He couldn't seem to connect any of the punches he threw. He spun and sent a kick at Ammit's face, which the Dark Lord dodged easily; Akira fired a ki blast, but the alien was no longer in front of him. The warrior from Earth looked around wildly, searching for his adversary.
Then something tapped him on the shoulder, the young Saiyan spun and was hammered in the face by Ammit's powerful fist. Akira was sent flying out of the crater he'd formed only a short while ago and landed in a heap on the hard dirt.
He lay very still for a moment, panting for breath. The punch had hurt...a lot, but it had also awakened him from his rage. He'd been fighting stupidly since almost the beginning of the fight and he knew it. His own confidence in his immense power had left him blind to the reality of the situation.
He was not Goku.
During his time in the afterlife, Piccolo had told the young Saiyan a great deal about Goku and his amazing ability to overcome the odds, to rise to any challenge and beat back almost any force. Though Akira would never admit it, those stories had made him believe that he too would have that ability; after all his powers, body, and even life were all a manifestation of a part of the legendary Saiyan.
Akira had hated the idea that he was in some way Goku; it had made him feel empty, used...fake. He'd grown to think of himself as a puppet of some sort, Goku's way of protecting his loved ones, even when he couldn't be there himself. Now it was obvious. There was no super warrior pulling Akira's strings, he was doing this on his own and he was losing badly. Whatever it was that pushed Goku to his limits and beyond had not been transferred to Akira; that knowledge was a secret he did not have access to.
The Saiyan pulled himself unsteadily to his feet, willing his body to focus on the task at hand. Ammit was already there, smiling in the young warrior's face.
Akira crinkled his nose, "You know, you look a little better, but you still smell terrible."
The warlord's smile became a sneer, "You spend too much time talking." His fist slammed into Akira's gut, sending the young man flying once again.
When the Saiyan finished sliding along the ground, he opened his eyes and found himself looking at a slightly surprised Vegeta.
Akira sat up with a groan and stared at the Saiyan Prince. He started to ask what Vegeta was doing, when he noticed the unconscious body of Goten lying at the older Saiyan's feet. The two warriors exchanged a glance and then nodded.
"Get going," Akira said simply and then, with a burst of golden light, leapt into the air and headed towards Ammit.
The two powerhouses met in the sky with a clap of thunder, exchanging brutal blows as the clouds swirled around them. With his attitude in check, Akira seemed to be managing to hold his own more easily against the mighty warlord, but it was not enough to hold any advantage for long as the battle raged on.
Ammit flew a small circle around the young warrior, and then, after the briefest of pauses, shot towards him with lightening fast speed. Akira dodged at the last possible moment and brought his knee up, catching the Dark Lord by surprise. Ammit's breath was pushed from his body and a follow up punch left him slightly dazed. The Saiyan used that time to power up a ki blast and fire it into the alien's back.
A second later Ammit slammed into the ground with Akira chasing him. The Saiyan nearly had his hands on the Dark Lord when the alien fired a powerful ki blast into the young man's chest, sending him flying out of the crater Ammit's landing had formed and creating his own a short distance away.
It took Akira a second to shake the cobwebs from his head and stand up, but fortunately the evil alien had fared no better. Both fighters were bleeding from several wounds now, but neither looked ready to throw in the towel.
Ammit's face showed almost no emotion as he spoke. "You are the most powerful warrior I have faced, since those cursed kais allowed the destruction of my people and then locked me away."
"What are you talking about?" Akira said, waiting for the alien to resume the attack. He would have made the first move himself, but he needed all the time he could get to regain his depleted energy.
"Didn't they tell you? You've been dead, no doubt you spent some time with one or more of them, and they never explained how all this started, why they need you to fight me? How very like them.
"Those foul beings charged with overseeing the universe are little more than simple tyrants, keeping the 'mortals' from reaching their full potential. They know what many of us have the power to become. What my people strove after for so many years. We were going to rise to the heavens and prove that what the kais call 'mortal' can actually achieve a power that surpasses those fools in every way possible."
Akira looked at the alien skeptically. "So you don't like the kais because they're gods and you aren't?"
Ammit scowled, "My hate for them runs far deeper than that. They stole my people's destiny all to hold onto their own power. It began shortly after I ascended to the thrown of my world and proclaimed that we would finally achieve our goals. The prophets suddenly began to speak of the end of our world. They had never been wrong, but what they spoke of was unbelievable...that is, until the plague broke out. In less than a year, my beautiful planet was a graveyard; most of my people were dead or dying. We had little in the way of medical scientists; the planet was a paradise, there was no need for them; we had no way of fighting the disease.
"The few doctors that we had told me that it was a virus that came from a nearby planet, that our first contact with our neighbors was to blame, but I knew the truth." The Dark Lord's eyes shimmered with near insanity as he spoke, "The kais, our great protectors in the sky, had conspired to destroy my people before we could achieve what was destined to be ours. I was forced to flee my planet, but before I did, I used my unique abilities to absorb the last of my people; so that through me, they would live on."
Ammit began to power up and the earth shook beneath his feet, "With the combined might of my people and all the others that I have absorbed throughout my long life, I have become more powerful than any other being to ever exist. By rite of might, I deserve to rule over all!"
Akira's feet slid along the ground as the force of the energy radiating from the maddened alien pushed him back, he shielded his face with one arm as he watched the terrifying display.
"Now, meet the weapon that will be your end; that with which I have laid waste to a thousand worlds and subjugated thousands more!" the Dark Lord held his hand in front of him while the wind whipped around him. "E ERRESI JATAGAN!"
Lightening flashed around him as a curved blade of pure black formed in his hand, the handle looked like the neck of a serpent, it's open mouth and fangs formed the cross guard and the blade formed the creature's tongue. Red energy flowed around the blade, giving it the appearance of being on fire. The power from the sword curled up Ammit's arm and around his body, adding, Akira assumed, to the Dark Lord's power. As the energy continued to swirl around him, Ammit's eyes became blood red and his face, which had been regal not long before, began to take on an ugly, demon-like quality.
Akira could see why Vegeta, King Kai, and Kabitoshin had been so afraid of this monster, but he forced himself to relax. He had to find a way to confront this evil or all would be lost; the Dark Lord's ravings had shown the Saiyan that nothing short of complete dominance over every living thing would satisfy the ancient alien. Akira powered up and shot into the sky, after a moment, Ammit smirked and followed him.
As the two superpowers faced each other, the Dark Lord brought the sword handle up to his waist, with the blade pointing at Akira's throat. They seemed to stand there for an eternity and then, Ammit leapt forward, brought the sword handle to his chest and thrust the blade at the Siayan's throat. Akira dodged to the side and then ducked as the sword swung around, he felt a breeze pass over his head and tried to use what he thought was an opening to get an attack in.
There was no opening, and Akira let out a cry of pain as the sword sliced into his chest, he fell back from the Dark Lord and looked down, the cut wasn't too deep, but it appeared to be burned.
"Hurts, doesn't it?" a deep voice said quietly. "The sword burns with power that is directly connected to its wielder. I can use a small amount of the power like I just did, or magnify it a hundred times that." Ammit rushed towards Akira again, and again the Saiyan dodged most of the attacks, but in the end the lightening speed of the Dark Lord let him score another hit; Akira's shoulder was in agony as the tip of the blade pulled out of it. Ammit smiled wickedly and fired a ki blast into the young warrior's already injured chest, sending him plummeting back to earth.
Akira lay very still at the bottom of the newly formed crater. It hurt to move, it even hurt to think about moving. All he wanted to do was lie still and sleep for a moment.
{Akira!} Pan's voice called out in his head, cutting through the pain. He looked up just as Ammit started to swing for his neck. The Saiyan dodged to the side and then leapt to his feet, despite the loud protests from the rest of his body and shot into the air, trying to put some distance between himself and that blasted sword. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that he wasn't being followed, with a slight sigh of relief he turned his eyes forward again...and found himself staring into the red eyes of Ammit. Akira backed away slowly, fear running through his body.
"Your life ends here hero, feel the true might of the Dark Sword!" the red glow that had surrounded the sword erupted into a huge flame. Ammit brought the sword up, pointed it at the Saiyan's heart and a wave of dark- red power shot from its tip and slammed into Akira, throwing him into a cliff far below. The rocks of the mountain caught fire and burned under the intense heat of the attack; nothing within a half mile radius was saved from the blast as a huge mushroom cloud curled its way into the sky.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"No!!!" Pan screamed as the shockwaves from the blast subsided. She tried to sense Akira, hoping to find something, praying that the lack of a power signature was because he still had his barrier up and not because he was dead. She stared at the mushroom cloud and then at the mountain that had literally melted in the heat of the explosion. Nothing could have survived that attack. Akira was gone.
The young woman turned her attention to those around her. Her dad and Vegeta's faces were grim, they knew what would be coming next. Uubu, Yamcha, Tien, and Krillin simply could not seem to register the power of the attack that had just been used. Trunks, with his sword strapped to his back, had an expression of hopelessness on his face. Pan's eyes focused in on the sword.
Before anyone knew what was going on, she had grabbed the blade from its sheath and blasted into the air. She knew she couldn't win, knew that it was futile, but that didn't matter, all that mattered was she die trying to get her revenge. She would let this vile creature know that she did not fear it and would not bow down, even if it meant her own death.
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.A/N: It's kind of funny, but these chapters just keep getting longer and longer. Usually I tried to stick somewhere in between 1,000 and 1,700 words, but the last two or three have hit that mark before they even get close to the point that I want them ending at (this one was almost at 2,000 and I was only half way done). I considered making this into two chapters, but it just didn't ever seem to reach a stopping point. Oh well, I guess it still keeps me on track to be done in two more chapters.Rigger Mantis: I'm glad Akira's oozaru transformation wasn't exactly like Goku's and I'm very happy to hear that you liked this better. The only thing I had to go by was the little "Last time on Dragonball GT..." clip at the beginning of the episode I own, so I suppose there were bond to be differences. Thanks for the review.
Nadz: Thanks for the advice, I hope that I put at least a little depth to Ammit, I think there's still a little more about his past that will be coming out, but not until the end.
Everyone else: Thanks for all the reviews, you guys rule!