I wish I owned DBZ, but I don't. I own DVD's and tapes, but it just isn't the same. I also don't own the right to Starcraft or any of the music pieces you see selected, just copies of merchandise, such a shame. The artists that created them are geniuses and we all must bow to them.
Chapter 10: Making a Stand
"Everyone, surround the compound in a semi-circular formation! Bulma, hold laser fire until my order!" Vegeta shouted. I quickly dashed beside Fasha and Tora and took a position on the Northeast corner of the compound, though not quite as many Zerg were coming from there, unlike from the southeast. Everyone quickly noted that none were coming in from the southwest at all.
"That's the obvious escape route, they would have their forces out at sea seal that off. We will fight it out here!" Vegeta barked when Mom brought it up. The Zerg closed, easily within a half mile from the air, many descending quickly.
"Everyone, power up to full power now!" he ordered. The ground shook as everyone soared into their ultimate forms, many of which being Super Saiyans or beyond. I felt like the runt of the group with my power being on the lower end of all the Saiyans, but I didn't think much of it, Goten and Trunks were still lower than I was. Speaking of the boys, they were not far behind me, powered up and ready to fight. I suddenly felt Goku and Vegeta start hitting their Super Saiyan two forms and then charging whatever ki blast they had in mind.
"Kakarot. At my signal, prepare to unleash hell!" I smirked at the note in Vegeta's voice and started charging my own Galic gun attack. The Zerg inched closer, but did seem to slow down. I could see many of the kamikaze's getting restless as they flew about the pack, ready to charge in at any time. Everyone had his or her respective ki moves ready to go at any moment, but Vegeta paused as he waited for the Zerg to get a little closer. I glanced upwards to see several Overlords descending from the dark red clouds, no doubt full of ground troops to attack us with.
"Vegeta...let's do this," I said aloud.
"Just a few more seconds boy!" he growled. I scowled at the order, and almost immediately I felt my power jump up a little because of it. Interesting, if I can only control myself better.
"Just a little closer," I heard Goku mutter. I stared forward and saw that more ground troops were flooding in on the backside of the Zerg, many more than the flyers I would bet. I shifted slightly to aim at those since they were easier to take out.
"Everyone keep focused on your power, ignore the Zerg until they get here," Vegeta shouted, apparently sensing my shift. I glanced at him as to ask why, but his battle plans were pretty good so no doubt this was part of it. The flyers completely stopped probably one third of a mile away as the ground lings not quite there yet, but getting closer. I could see many Zerglings hopping over the trampled buildings we had knocked down earlier. The Overlords above us were getting a bit closer than I would have liked and I was very ready to fire at them now, but stayed where I was.
"Goten, Trunks, kill those!" Vegeta barked. Instantly Goten and Trunks soared into the air and beat up on the many Overlords coming in, making sure to dodge when some of the ground troops inside lashed out at them. A few ki blasts later, the Overlords were destroyed, and several Zerg chunks fell on us, making me wince while I tried to stay focused on keeping my energy flowing into my Galic Gun. I scowled deeper, it had been easily a minute or two since I had started charging it.
"Vegeta, are we going to fire this or not? We'll burn up at this rate!" Gohan said loudly.
"Be patient Gohan, we had a plan for this kind of attack. Just hang with it for another few minutes. If this works it'll severely cripple their forces before they even get to attack us!" Goku proclaimed, causing me to stare hard at him. When did this come up? They are all spread out, how are we going to take that many out with one big shot?
"You ready Kakarot?" Vegeta asked.
"Yeah, just fire it at me guys, I'll handle the rest!" Okay...I thought with a dazed look. Fasha shrugged and shifted to fire at Goku, who was hovering about thirty feet above ground. Is this a new attack? I was beyond confused, but Goku had never steered me wrong before so I would trust him for now.
"On the count of three guys, don't hold anything back!" Goku ordered, powering up as far as he would go. Everyone including myself followed through.
"One!" I could hear the Zerg groundlings snarling and hissing not a mile away.
"Two!" Everyone's aura flickered with their power and determination.
"Three!" I fired straight at Goku just as everyone else did, still bewildered at why he wanted us to do it. He had his own blast ready to go and waited until everyone's power got to him. He jumped backwards just a little bit, enough to dodge by a nose hair, and then fired his own. All of our beams collided right in front of him and the added push from his beam sent the huge multi-colored beam straight into the sky, right at the Zerg troops. It was actually mostly golden in color, but had many different hues coming off of it. No matter the color, the Zerg flyers were instantly obliterated in the path of the beam. I kept pouring my energy into my own beam and watching at Goku then turn a little to the left and the beam followed suit, slicing through the Zerg flyers as it crossed their positions.
"Keep it coming guys, its gonna work!" Goku shouted. I did just that, noting that most everyone was still running fairly well on power. I could see now what Goku and Vegeta had planned. Goku's ability to redirect energy beams was being used to the maximum, and any Zerg caught in the path of a beam was wasted on contact. So if we could keep up the effort long enough, their troops would be decimated. It was something that seemed to be unique to Goku. I could do it, but it was very difficult to stay that focused for very long. I turned my head slightly just to see the progress of the plan. The Zerg flyers were getting wiped out quickly as Goku did a sweep on by before turning back to due east and then south. Then I saw that whatever flyers had not been completely wiped out, their body remains were falling on the ground troops, killing most of them on impact. Wow, nice plan, and we haven't even used the lasers yet! I began to run low on power, as was everyone else, not surprising. I pushed and pulled all the ki I could find and forced it to Goku, who was still sweeping the skies of Zerg. After clearing my head a little from excitement, I managed to scan for Zerg signals. There was nothing compared to what there had been, I wasn't even seeing any flyers now, though Goku was still making dust out of whatever was there.
"Okay guys, that should be enough!" Goku shouted. I instantly shut my beam down, and dropped to a knee with some heavy panting not a second later. Most everyone else did the same, except for Vegeta. He rose to the sky along side Goku and watched as Goku drew the remaining energy from our combined effort. He then held onto it and moved it over between himself and Vegeta, who put up his two hands in support. Both of them powered up more, up to their Super Saiyan three forms, adding more energy to the huge ball growing in from of them. The ground started shaking some more as they did this, and I watched as they prepared to fire. I managed to see into the shadows of the eastern buildings, and there were still some Zerg popping up from the skies and ground, in a direct firing line of Goku and Vegeta.
"Final Kamehameha!" They both shouted. My eyes darted open when I heard the name of the attack, but then I had to shut them right away as the entire area lit up from blue light. I kept with my senses, barely being able to track the path of the huge blast, but I had a few guesses as to where it was going. A loud roar followed the light and my ears barely stood up to it. Fasha was down on the ground in a similar predicament, as was Tora and the others. The blinding light and loud noise continued for at least half a minute before it sailed off into the distance. Everyone groaned slightly as we brushed off the dirt that had somehow been blown up onto the compound. The lightened sky darkened once again and I saw nothing but dirt in a wide path going straight east, easily a mile wide and getting wider in the distance.
"Man, what an attack," Tora said as he stood up. I staggered up myself, getting an eyeful of the result and scanning for Zerg signals.
"Bulma, how many are left?" Vegeta barked into his scouter, despite the fact that Mom was really only about a hundred feet away inside the house. He and Goku had powered down all the way, not that I could blame them either.
"Eighty percent of the invading forces were destroyed, all of the nearby flyers were killed. The rest are all groundlings, and heading straight this way!"
"How in the hell are all of them not dead after all of that?" Fasha asked me in a low tone.
"I have no idea. Considering how many there were, I'll take the other twenty percent on the ground!" I laughed slightly while gasping for breath.
"Everyone get inside and get healed up! Bulma, order the soldiers to fire at will when they arrive!" Vegeta ordered. I was too tired to say no to that.
-
After getting a healing job from Dende, everyone listened to the many laser fire sounds going off. It was right in sync with some of the dying Zerg's snarling and hissing, when it was loud enough. Watching the holoscreen, the ground Zerg dwindled very quickly despite the overpowering numbers. Mom's lasers were doing an exceptional job, both the automated and the manned guns.
"Just can't mess with the Briefs technology can they," I grinned as she beamed at us in triumph.
"Yeah, just leave it to me!" she boasted.
Vegeta grunted slightly, "Only because we are fighting a war against inferior creatures woman, and your little pistols have a decent effect on those little cretins!" Eye rolls followed by anyone not of the Saiyan race.
"Well Vegeta, if you like I can shut them all down and you can go fight them all by yourself, how's that sound?" she said back with a bright grin. Vegeta knew that look and quit while he was only a little behind in the count.
After a silent twenty minutes of nothing but laser fire, the auto guns shut down and the soldiers got on the radios heavily.
"Miss Bulma, the Zerg have stopped advancing, most out of sight range. I've still got about five percent of their forces on this scanner, correct?" one asked from the rooftop.
Mom had barely hit a button before she had that answer, "Yeah just about thirteen thousand to go. See Vegeta, just let them try and storm this place, we've got better firepower!" she boasted again. Then her alarm tripped with great timing, though it had been blaring every so often as it was.
"Man, what is up with this thing? It keeps saying that there is Zerg Hive clusters all over the area, then they just vanish like they weren't there!" she whined slightly, but getting my attention again.
"Hmmm, well I doubt they would make one underground, but you never know and we can't blast at them there. I don't think their buildings can fly, but I don't know either," I said with a finger to my chin, trying to figure it out.
"Flying buildings, yeah right," Tora exclaimed like he was an expert.
"Well the buildings are alive aren't they? Who says that they can't move?" I asked.
"Yeah but come on! If they had flying buildings they could just drop them on us!" Everyone's face lit up with the same horrified expression, including my own.
"If they have spies in this room, I'm going to kill you Tora. Just keep giving them ideas!" Krillin muttered a little loudly. The alarm blared even louder now, yet none of the soldiers reported seeing any Zerg around the compound or even close to it.
"Well your scanners are picking something up woman. Care to let us in on what and where it is?" Vegeta asked. Mom looked bewildered when she looked at her readout screen.
"Yeah there's something up there, but its not a Zerg structure!" She hit a few buttons and punched it up on the holoscreen. At the base of the red clouds, an object was emerging. It was a solid brown color and looked rather rough. It came out of the cloud very slowly, and I could see a hint of the purple Zerg creep on the topside of it. But it was no building I had ever seen, it looked more like a big boulder, but was very deformed.
"A really big rock? Do they want to play catch?" Goten asked before anyone said anything.
"No dummy!" Trunks immediately shut his counterpart up.
"It's an asteroid, there is a Zerg Hive entrenched on top of it!" Mom deduced quickly.
"There you go Tora, you gave them the idea of dropping rocks on us now!" Krillin muttered again.
"We can't let it hit us, the compound can't hold up to one of those! That one is over three hundred feet in diameter!" Mom shouted. She needn't bother telling us, we were on the way out the door. Gohan was out the door first, and shot a large ki beam to take out the asteroid. It seemed to accelerate as he did so, and the collision caused it to break apart very slowly, showering the surroundings with car sized pebbles, but none hitting the immediate area. The hive on the rock was cut apart in the blast.
"Well that was easy," Tien said. I stared hard at the clouds and noticed they were starting to move a little, or so I thought. I spotted a hint of dark blue in the glowing mesh and saw they were actually breaking up.
"The clouds are starting to dissipate, scanning now!" Mom said over the scouters. The glowing red mess of clouds vanished quickly, but as they did they left behind large dark objects in the skies, at least fifty of them.
"Fire the lasers at whatever that is up there!" Vegeta shouted right away. The soldiers opened up right away, but the lasers simply seemed to bounce right off of the objects in the sky.
"No good Vegeta, its all asteroids up there! Some are bigger than that last one, and the remaining Zerg groundlings are moving in quickly!" Mom shouted again. Then one of the large rocks fell from the sky, right towards us like we were a painted bulls eye. I didn't even wait for an order and fired a Galic Gun at the first one I saw. I happened to see the Zerg ground forces of Zerglings, and big elephant Ultralisks coming straight at us.
"Damn! Kakarot, Broly, go fight the Zerg! Everyone else concentrate on the asteroids!" Vegeta shouted as he turned to go fight the Zerg as well. I wanted to turn to the Zerg, but I had to stay concentrated on the lead asteroid otherwise it would not break up. I powered some more energy into my blast and caused it to blow up instead. The other asteroids were still hovering in the air, not moving an inch. I turned to see what looked like smaller rocks floating off of the asteroids. They got closer and I sensed more Zerg up there with them.
"Great, INCOMING!" I shouted to get the other's attention. Vegeta, Goku and Broly had stuck with hand-to-hand fighting against the numerous Zerg pouring in. Bardock, Shugesh and Borgos joined them, and all of them were in their Super Saiyan two forms with the exception of Broly. The rest were watching out for more asteroids to come crashing down, but no more came down yet.
"How are they keeping those asteroids floating in the air like that?" Tien dared to ask.
"Must be some sort of anti-gravity organism that can lift a lot or something," Gohan said with a finger to his chin.
"Look, I can see more flyers coming off of the rocks up there!" I shouted a little louder than I needed to, as they hadn't seen it yet.
"Oh great, more of them," Seventeen said in disgust.
"Let's just blast them all out of the sky now, while they're sitting ducks!" Krillin suggested.
"Hold your fire, they may want us to do such a thing and we would miss the asteroids and run low on power. Then we may not be able to blow all them up should they decide to drop them. Let's see what the Zerg do first!" Piccolo said, holding a hand up to halt us.
Seventeen then took off for the front line where most of the fighting was taking place, "I can't sit here and do nothing Piccolo, I'm fighting up there!" Piccolo didn't argue, just kept his watchful gaze on the sky above.
"Shouldn't we go help the others with the Zerg coming in Piccolo? I mean we can blow these rocks up anytime!" Trunks asked while Goten was twiddling his thumbs.
"Not yet Trunks, whomever is controlling these Zerg is doing so directly. So they are just waiting for us to drop our guard and be distracted as well. Vegeta knows what he is doing and so do the others. They can hold the Zerg off just fine on the ground. We can't go help them otherwise we will lose our technological advantage!" the Namek said wisely.
I looked at him, impressed, "For someone who doesn't rely on machines..."
"Only when necessary kid, this is one of those times!" he finished for me. I glanced back over to see the Zerg bodies quickly piling up. Against a Super Saiyan on the ground they were no match one on one. Granted it was more like five hundred on one every few seconds, but they just weren't as strong, fast, or as smart as a Saiyan. Their numbers were impressive but the line of Saiyans had made an impassible wall. If they stuck to fast and furious battles on the ground, the Zerg had a very low chance of taking them out. Attrition didn't work when a Super Saiyan can physically fight weaker beings for an extended amount of time without burning up energy. The Zerg I had spotted had vanished as they descended to the ground, but had dropped off to the south compound, somewhere inside the city. It wasn't long before I sensed whatever had been dropped off coming our way.
"Hey guys, there's a bunch of them coming in from the south through the city! They aren't even attacking the city, they are coming straight here!" Mom announced through the scouter.
"Seems they are very intent on getting us looking the other way. Goten, Verto, Trunks, I want you three to stay back and blast any asteroids that come down. Don't engage the Zerg unless we are getting overrun, understand? Be very careful with your energy output as blowing up asteroids is not that easy! Everyone else come with me!" Piccolo directed, flying straight towards the swarm of more ground troops coming in. Gohan, Tora, Fasha, Krillin, Tien and Buu followed him quickly, leaving myself and the boys alone. The human soldiers had been firing occasionally at the Zerg, but far enough away from the Saiyans so not to hit them.
"Hey Goten, I bet I can blow up more of them than you can!" Trunks dared.
"Oh yeah, I bet you can't!"
"Hey you two, this isn't the time for one of your games! We need to stay focused on this!" I said loudly.
"Oh come on Verto, they are just sitting up there! They're no threat at all right now, so let's blow em up now before they drop on us! Hey Goten, I think we can get em all in one shot if we fuse! It's been more than an hour so we can do it again!" Trunks urged him on.
Then again, that might not be a bad idea, "Go ahead and try it I guess, but you better get them all!" I said.
"Yeah yeah, we will!" Trunks said in a cocky tone. The boys lined up and started the dance.
"FU". Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the dirt below Goten's feet start to move a little.
"Sion!" They were both lined up perfectly and started to swing around to meet each other's fingers. Suddenly the dirt below Goten exploded upwards just as his fingers slipped by Trunks'.
"HA!" The fusion started just as I spotted that it was a single Zergling that had unburied directly below Goten. An automatic laser turret blasted it to death an instant later, but the damage was done as Goten had been knocked off balance just as the fusion occurred.
"Duh, uh, what happened?" Fat Gotenks said as he appeared and gawked around.
"Bad timing and interference. Go back inside until the fusion wears off, you're no good to us like this!" I ordered. Apparently that seemed to click in his head and he stumbled off. I shook my head slightly, looking up at the asteroids again.
They were moving straight down towards me, "Oh shit."
One, two, three - Go!
I don't think I had ever fired such a big ki beam so fast in my short life as a Saiyan, but I did. Just as quickly as I released it, I quickly cut it off so not to waste too much energy on one shot. The sky lit up a bit when it crashed into the lead asteroid, blowing it up as well as the next few that were lined up behind it. I grinned slightly, this might be pretty easy.
Broken,
Yeah, you've been living on the edge of a broken dream.
Nothing,
Yeah, that's the only thing you'll ever take away from me.
I was quickly wrong when I noticed the next few asteroids were coming down even faster, despite being a good ways up. They kept on a direct course towards me, with Capsule Corp being directly behind. I rose into the air just above the compound and powered up to full. As if drawn to a magnet the asteroids followed suit. I charged up ki in my hands and began to unleash the assault.
I'm never gonna stop,
I'm never gonna drop,
Ain't no different than it was before.
So take some good advice,
You better stop and think twice,
Before you take your first step,
Out that door.
My many small ki blasts roared into the field of giant rocks and pelted them severely. Several would hit and break off much smaller chunks that would drift off and fall elsewhere, too small to do much to the already damaged area. Even after a dozen of them blew up I kept the arms chugging like a train engine, firing as many off as fast as possible to break up the huge rocks.
If you wanna step up (step up),
You're gonna get knocked down (knocked down).
If you wanna step up (step up),
You're gonna get knocked down.
You had your chance to walk away.
Live to see another day.
If you wanna step up (step up),
You're gonna get knocked down (knocked down).
You're gonna get knocked down...
Fireworks were going off in the sky, but not because it was the fourth. Once it darkened a little more and I couldn't see any more asteroids in the light of my ki blasts, I stopped firing. I grinned seeing that all of the asteroids had been either broken and battered or completely blown up. The light dust and debris falling from the sky in the horizon was a clear-cut symbol of that. I scanned all around the skies for any more surprises. My eyes stopped almost directly overhead at a very large circular object, getting larger and closer by the second.
I tapped the scouter button, "Mom, is there another asteroid up there?"
"Yeah it just floated in, its huge though! About two miles in diameter. You can't let it hit the ground, that would be very bad for all of us. Its gonna be a little tougher than the other little ones, good luck!" she called out. I scowled and shut off the scouter, powering up more.
Ahhhhh...
Suffering,
Yeah, that's the only thing here that's left for you.
Nothing,
Yeah, that's the only thing you're ever gonna Fucking do!
A little bit of ki lightning surrounded me as I powered up all the way, giving off a little bit of a anguished yell though I was not in pain. I rocketed toward the rock from space. In barely ten seconds I stopped, trying not to get too close, but float directly in its falling range. I scanned ahead and sensed Zerg flyers floating off of the rock, coming towards me. The rock kept descending very slowly, making it obvious that it was infested to the core. I fired a volley of ki blasts ahead into the flyers, revealing several of the ones I couldn't see, and cutting through the other ones. They raced towards me as I waited patiently before phasing out and speeding past them. As they turned circles in confusion, I raced back into them; bashing several very harshly and breaking whatever flying bones they had. Those dropped like flies as I ki blasted the other ones. Quickly scanning and sensing there was no more around, I turned my attention to the mother of all rocks.
So if you wanna step up (step up),
You're gonna get knocked down (knocked down).
If you wanna step up (step up),
You're gonna get knocked down.
You had your chance to walk away.
Live to see another day.
If you wanna step up (step up),
You're gonna get knocked down (knocked down).
You're gonna get knocked down...
You're gonna get knocked down...
"No, you're not coming down!" I shouted, charging and firing a Galic Gun. The beam struck and lit up the skies a little better. Then I saw how huge the asteroid actually looked, my beam looked like a tiny pin needle compared to a truck. My eyes widened in surprise to say the least, but I kept my resolve and poured all of my ki into it, widening the beam greatly. The rock plowed downward as the extra power arrived, struggling against my beam. I frowned quickly when I saw my beam was very slowly starting to break it up, and I had hoped for quicker, much quicker. I struggled keeping my beam up, wishing I had all that excess hidden power at the moment.
And now you've crossed that line...
You must be out your mind.
I stared in horror as my beam shrank away into the planet killing rock. I had already pushed all of my remaining ki into the beam and it barely even flinched from its course. Soon my beam was non-existent and shut off by default when I moved my hands out of position to catch the huge rock. Its surface was now smoothed and polished from my Galic Gun impact. It was also very hot, but I didn't care how burnt my hands ended up. I pushed against it, trying to fly upwards and send it back into space. My ki was nearly gone and I barely had anything to float on. I cringed as I struggled to move against the asteroid. I felt myself losing it and starting to drift downwards, with the asteroid pushing me down. No. My senses were picking up the Zerg and the other Z fighters on the ground, dueling it out. I had lost them when I had ascended so far up. I can't let this hit ground. My eyes darkened from fatigue and I felt very faint. I let go of the rock and fell with the asteroid pushing against me with no effort at all. Damnit I can't let it happen! Thoughts quickly turned to all of the people below that would die if I failed. I felt my hands brush against some sort of object that felt like a wall.
GO!
My eyes snapped open in anger and I felt renewed energy coming from my insides. I snarled at the huge space rock of death and punched against it; quickly halting it's course and making it bounce back a little bit. It flew back probably a good fifty feet before stopping and coming back. I glanced down just to see where I was before powering up another beam. Random pictures of death and destruction entered my mind in my angry state, and fueled my power like gas to a campfire.
"Kamehame, HAAAA!"
If you wanna step up (step up),
You're gonna get knocked down (knocked down).
If you wanna step up (step up),
You're gonna get knocked down.
You had your chance to walk away.
Live to see another day.
If you wanna step up (step up),
You're gonna get knocked down (knocked down).
You're gonna get knocked down..
You're gonna get knocked down (step up).
You're gonna get knocked... down!
Step up!
When I thrust my arms forward for the attack, the asteroid was once again upon me, but it didn't matter. My beam came roaring out like a tidal wave and cut it through down the middle before I spread it out and split the huge asteroid in two. I allowed my hands to drift apart and fire separate beams, cutting across the sky and blasting the two halves of the asteroid. The explosion of green light blinded me, but ended once I stopped firing the beams.
You're gonna get knocked DOWN!
The night air was once again tranquil and the ground war was settling down. I powered down as I floated to the ground, glancing around to make sure everyone was all right. All of them were, and each of them were coming back to the building from wherever they had ended up while fighting the Zerg ground forces. I could see a select few of them cheering as I descended, more from the human soldiers than anything else. I smiled slightly as I stared back up at the sky and replayed some of the event in my mind. I did it, I did it all by myself! I didn't think I could blow that thing up after that first try!
I glanced at my hands and noticed they weren't bruised or anything from the impact that the extra large meteor despite the speed it had hit with. I noticed my power was back up to normal like I had eaten a Senzu bean or had gotten healed, but I didn't see Buu or Dende extremely close by, and I hadn't eaten a bean. I saw Tora coming up first.
"Hey kid, that was a hell of an attack! That a new one?" he asked.
"Huh, new attack, no?" I said, confused.
"Well I just never seen you use a green beam before, I just thought it was new. Not that color really matters, it was just a damn cool attack. It was more powerful than anything I've seen you use before, so I was wondering where you dug all that up from, that's all!"
"Oh right, that attack, I guess I never noticed the color," I said with my hand on my head Goku style. At least that's what I said on the outside, GREEN BEAM?!
-
"Step up" by Drowning Pool