Warning: The rating on this fic is currently a PG-13 rating, mostly for language. It may, as a result of further foul language and extreme graphic violence in later chapters, be moved up to a R rating. So please, this fic is for the mature (preferably ages 15 and up). If you cannot take the contents of this fic, or if you have any problems with it whatsoever—take it up with me, KASH, the author—not the staff. The rating on this fic is currently a PG-13 rating, mostly for language. It may, as a result of further foul language and extreme graphic violence in later chapters, be moved up to a R rating. So please, this fic is for the mature (preferably ages 15 and up). If you cannot the contents of this fic, or if you have any problems with it whatsoever—take it up with me, KASH, the author—not the staff.
Author's Note: Well damn. Haven't I sunken away into a little pit of darkness? Oi...I'm very sorry--moving has been Hell. Absolute HELL, says I! ...Yes, well... In the process of moving and being introduced into an entirely different environment, I have lost MUCH of my writer's spirit and inspiration. But do not fret--for I am diligently working toward gaining it back! Huzzah! And to my remaining reading audience--who have not left me despite the long gaps between my updates--we shall now pick up here where we left off. Viewer discretion is EXTREMELY advised--there will be LOTS of violence and bloodshed in this chapter. ...And, ehem, if you're a Gohan fan (which I, of course, am not), I don't recommend it. No flames, pwease? It's not like I kill him or anything! Ahh, I'm giving things away--bad me! Anyhell, please enjoy!
Chapter 11 :Fallout
"Yeessss," Cyris said, her voice sharp, icy—emotionless.
Slowly, her lips parted, curling into a snarl.
"He...is the one who killedme"
"Yeah, that's right... You haven't seen a girl around here that looks like this, have you?"
The old man reached forth with gnarled, shaky fingers, and delicately took the photograph from Saiyaman's gloved hand. He adjusted his thick spectacles on his hooked nose, squinting his eyes at the picture.
"Well, she's a very pretty girl, she is..."
Gohan blinked from behind his visor, a slight blush quickly sweeping onto his cheeks.
"Umn...well...I never really...thought about that..." he said in a sheepish voice, finding himself absently scratching the back of his neck.
...Wait a minute, what am I saying!
Quickly the blush on his cheeks darkened, furrowing his eyebrows downward. "Th-th-that's not important!" he practically hollered at the old man, who gave a small yelp. "Ha-Ha-Have you seen her or haven't you!"
Suddenly, her eyes snapped open wide, her pupils shrinking down to small specks amidst the light auburn, which was seeping over with an unnatural reddish tint.
"Now, now, young man... Don't get so flustered up," the old man said with a huff, puffing up his wrinkled cheeks. "It takes us old men time, just be a little patient..."
A surge of power swept over her, through her veins, blinding her senses.
A ping swept through Gohan's thoughts, and he whipped his head up.
And as soon as he did, and he saw, his blood instantly ran cold as ice.
There she stood, in the center of the sidewalk not too far away from him. Her hair was fluffed up, visible even from underneath the hood drawn over her head, crackling with fiery static in the dry air, and the pavement beneath her sneakers chipped and cracked.
But her eyes...they were the most terrifying eyes he'd ever seen...
Red...a hot glowing red.
A lifeless gaze, piercing, causing a chill to travel up his spine.
"Cyris..."
"Hmmm, nope, I can't say that I've seen this girl at all before," said the old man simply, straightening out his thick glasses with a shaky hand.
Throwing her head back, Cyris screamed out in rage to the sky, the ground giving way and exploding violently beneath her feet.
Gohan swerved himself back to the old man, and opened his mouth up wide. "GET OUT OF—"
Light enveloped her small figure, and quickly swept outward, swallowing up all that were in its path—they became lost to it—disintegrating.
Gohan had only a split of a second to look back at the giant wall of golden-white light as it raced toward him. He was barely able to lightly lift his boots off from the ground, before he too was consumed.
With a force that knocked the air out of his lungs, he was sent tumbling violently and blindly head over feet through the air, in a billowing vortex of chunks of concrete and rubble. It was no longer apparent to him what was down or up—the ground was below him, above him, then below him again, then swallowed up in the blinding radiance—the only sensation that was evident to him being the searing hot light all around him, eating at his clothes, his skin, his face.
Gohan became so distracted and unattached--his every thought being swallowed up within the fiery, white-hot pain all around him--that he failed to notice when the heat had vanished from around him, and he was left soaring unconsciously through the air.
For a small moment, he remained still, simply hanging sideways in mid-air. Then, slowly, his body limply dipped back, and he was sent spiraling downward in a nose dive.
Faster and faster Gohan's descent became, down faster toward the earth below him...
Distantly, a small dawning of realization came to him.
Falling...Falling at a speed that was bound to have broken the sound barrier by now... And the ground isn't exactly going to soften the fall
soften fallHis eyes snapped open, and lurched himself to an abrupt stop in the air—and probably not a second too soon, for he was only about 100 or so feet above the ground.
After a few moments of regaining his composure, Gohan slowly swept his gaze back over the area; his eyes widened, and his mouth fell open, a look of absolute shock sweeping over his face.
Gone.
Nikkeitown was…completely gone. The entire area had been reduced to a large, flat crater--a deserted expanse of land.
"K…Kami-sama…"
Standing in the very center of the crater, out of his current sight, still sizzling with crackling ki static…senses buzzing…automatic.
Gohan watched as a few of the buildings that were lucky enough to remain intact fell back down to the ground, smashing with a loud boom back into the remnants of their lost city.
No conscience…lifeless…only initiative based on the one, drilling thought. The words that had plagued her for so long, that had consumed her now. The voices, the orders, telling her over and over what she really was--the program…
"Kill…Kill everything…"
everythingDust flared, and she was gone.
Gohan continued to stare in horror down at the area where the city had once been, the area now swept clean. "This can't be…" he said in fearful awe. "Everything's….gone… It's just gone!"
He failed to notice the brief ping of energy, as someone appeared behind him silently.
Suddenly something smashed into the side of his helmet, crushing it in like a mere tin can, and only a split second later he had collided into the ground. Gohan quickly stumbled to his feet, and tried moving his smashed helmet without success. Viciously ripped it apart and tossed it to his side, gasping and holding the side of his head as he began to feel warm blood run down the side of his face.
That blow took him completely off guard, his mind was spinning, there was a ringing in his ears…
A blur in front of him, and another sickening crack rattled through his skull. It was only in mid-flight that the sting of a hit to the face came to him, and he lurched his feet out, heels hitting the ground first. He ground them down into the rough terrain and came screeching to a stop.
Another blur, and suddenly he was doubled over. Before he could even comprehend what was happening, a fist had managed to slam into his center--this fist just happening to be attached to a figure that he was leaning over.
His eyes widened and his jaw fell open.
"C…Cyris…?"
Another crack as the other fist ground into his lower jaw, throwing his head back. He stumbled, and caught himself before his legs had the chance to allow him to fall backwards. His eyes spun around in his head, and came to rest on the small, lithe form of the girl he had just addressed. She was staring at him with a predatory gaze, fist still extended up into the air from her punch to his jaw.
What was going on? This was just…some girl he knew from school! How could she….why could she…
She raced at him, and drew back her fist to deliver another punch. "NO!" Gohan yelled, and lurched to the side, the fist sailing past him. He hopped off the ground and flew off to the side, trying to double back on her. He couldn't fight her. This was…insane!
"Cyris! What are you doing! You've got to stop this!"
In a split second she was in front of him, and he managed to block what would've been a lethal kick to his head. The next few moments were a wild scramble of punches and kicks and blocks. He was only concerned with trying to fend her off, which Gohan found to be a more than difficult task. Every blow was aimed at a lethal point, and every block he made was almost crippling to him. She hardly looked like a challenge, but every hit seemed to be a death blow, like being hit by a giant steel wall, just compacted into a convenient fist.
When it became apparent to him that he was losing his bearings, he felt a maddening dread creep over him. Cyris wasn't trying to beat him--she was trying to kill him.
"RRAAA!" With a furious jerk, Gohan managed to knock her fist away forcefully, and for just a split second, she paused. Out of pure saiyan instincts and fueled with mad adrenaline, he pounded his gloved fist into jaw.
Her head limply tilted to the side from the blow, a slight crack ensuing from the skew of her neck, and she was flung backwards through the air.
Gohan sped after her almost like a mad-man, rearing his hand far back past his shoulder.
Cyris's limp form just kept soaring along the surface of the cracked pavement, not shifting or veering off its course. She looked almost...unconscious.
Gohan flew up next to her, and with every possibly effort he had left in his body, he thrust his fist at her.
An abrupt flare of dust, and his fist made contact with the pavement.
"Whu--!"
His face was smashed down into the ground, a wave of blood and saliva spluttering forth from between his teeth and over his lips. Cyris, with one of his ankles in each of her hands, sped off along the broken, rubble-filled terrain, dragging Gohan behind her--he was being tousled through the rough and shattered ground like a limp rag doll, so disoriented the thought of reacting didn't even phase him. Gohan didn't have a second to even ponder what would happen to him next...
Cyris lurched to an abrupt stop and with a furious jerk flung Gohan upwards over her head into the air away from the ground, and then pulled him on his ankles right back down, in the same motion as one snapping a towel in the air, slamming him with a crack into the concrete. The rocky ground underneath him seemed like it exploded upon the impact, a flare of chunks and bits of rubble flying up around him, sinking downward into a slight crater. A wave of shattered glass rained down around him--one of the nearby building's windows had blown out from the force.
Gohan could only stare upward with shocked, almost terror stricken eyes, watching the shards slowly fall to the ground downward around him…
I...I can't...I can't m-move...I can't...feel anything...
Then, the pain struck.
It was almost like someone had fired an electro-shocked cannon ball right up his spine. It was so intense, so blinding, so excruciating, he couldn't even cry out in sheer agony. Everything, every nerve ending in his entire body burned with such intensity it was unreal. A loud ringing came to his ears, and everything in his shocked sights swept over with a dark blue tint... Then, slowly, he began to grow cold...the pain sweeping effortlessly away...and again, he could feel nothing, nothing at all…and he was growing sleepy…
Cyris walked backwards a ways, out of his vision, and then raced at him, kicking him in the side. Gohan was basically punted like a foot ball, and went spiraling through the air. He slammed into another building structure, and whatever supports still held it collapsed, and it crumbled and buried him.
For a brief time that almost felt like forever to him, there was darkness and silence. The cold feeling was slowly distilling over him again, and he felt at peace…
His body felt a tremendous jerk, and his eyes were suddenly staring up into the clear blue sky again. Cyris had an iron grip on the front of his hero suit, having ripped him out of the rubble with baffling ease. She turned, and dropped him on level earth. Gohan landed heavily on his back, giving an "Oof!" sound, but nothing else.
Cyris walked around him, stopping to stand at his side. She raised up a hand and spread open her fingers, aiming her palm at his head. A glowing ball of ki formed in her palm, and progressively began gathering power.
All Gohan could do was stare up into her eyes, completely helpless.
Her eyes, they were so cold...So lifeless...
So hollow... And yet so filled with malice...
The glowing orb began to expand in Cyris's hand, growing past the length of her fingertips...
Gohan could only continue to stare at her helplessly with hooded eyes, frozen with pain.
Why is she doing this...?
The glowing ball instantly dissipated with a small ping. Cyris slowly veered her eyes to her left, and instant met a kick to the side of her face. She was sent toppling through the rubble a good ways, kicking up all sorts of dust, and smashed through the wall of the ground floor of a building. The glass of the bottom seven floors erupted outward, showering the ground with glimmering shards.
A gruff voice came to ear, but it was familiar, and hinted concern. "Gohan, are you alright?"
"P…Pic…"
The Namek knelt down next to him, and pushed something into his mouth. "Try swallowing this."
Even through his blurred sense of conscious, Gohan understood. As best he could, he chewed on the senzu bean and swallowed it.
Piccolo stood, looking across the way as Cyris began to climb back up to her feet. Gohan soon followed, looking to his old teacher gratefully.
"Thanks…"
Piccolo continued to stare at Cyris as she stood there, the same lifeless look on her face, not making the slightest inkling to movement.
Gohan looked questioningly at his former trainer. "What is it?"
Piccolo narrowed his eyes, a look of dread on his face. "Somewhere...I've seen this girl before."
Gohan's looked at him incredulously. "You know her!"
Cyris levered her head up, and before either of them could blink, she threw her hand forward and fired a ki blast at them.
The two quickly dispersed, flying the opposite directions along the battleground as the abandoned blast left a large crater in the ground.
Cyris too dove to the side, shooting countless repetitious blasts after the both of them as she ran along.
But even if most of the blasts were surprisingly every time almost on their mark, they were meager. Gohan had plenty of effort to veer off to the side, letting the blasts zoom right past him, and Piccolo knocked them away swiftly.
Gohan was the first to land. He landed down on his left foot, and skidded a few inches backward, trying to regain his footing to prepare for another ki onslaught.
Cyris, however, lurched to a quick stop, a few yards away from him, for the meantime turning her attentions completely to the half-saiyan and letting the Namek decide for himself how to proceed. She put the back of her hands to her forehead, crossing her wrists over one another, standing up tall.
"Maaseeenkoooo…."
Gohan's eyes went wide. "What…But that's imposs--"
"HAA!"
An earth-shattering energy pulse ripped through the air, and the large ki wave that was in fact one of his own trusted techniques, sped its way right toward Gohan. With only a split second to spare, Gohan leapt out of the way; a large explosion soon followed, and the force of it sent him flying through the air, and he smashed torso down into the hard ground a few feet later.
They closed in on her motionless figure, closer and closer, their fists drawn back.
It was almost like watching them in slow motion. Every inch they took was like an eternity passing by, every shift in their muscles and tendons below their skins more completely evident to her eyes.
They grew closer, and closer still to her, their fists simultaneously being pulled backwards, gathering up force and energy for the blows...
Cyris's red irises moved upward, gazing forward aimlessly with an icy, piercing gaze.
Just as the punches were to be thrown, she disappeared into a puff of dust.
Gohan let out a shocked gasp, angling his fist into the ground, narrowly missing punching the Namekian right square in the face. Piccolo was forced to do much the same, toppling over onto his past pupil, and the two worked themselves into an odd knot on top of one another on the ground.
"Argh!" Gohan cried. "Wh-what happened!"
"I don't know, but get your elbow out of my eye!"
The two quickly managed to get back to their feet in a hurry, Gohan looking a little embarrassed, whereas Piccolo immediately began scanning the area.
"Where did she go!" he said with a growl.
"I don't know…her ki signature vanished…" Gohan said, starting to look around as well. "It's like she just disappeared…"
"Don't be ridiculous. No one is capable of that," Piccolo snapped.
"…Except Dad," Gohan replied simply.
"….Well, I suppose there's no more we can do…for now," Piccolo said, regaining his normal calm.
Gohan nodded slowly, and looked back to the ground.
Why…is this happening…?
Slowly, his eyes opened.
His vision was extremely blurry, even though it was already hard enough to tell where he was because it was so incredibly dark.
...Where...am I? Where is this
He shifted stiffly, and sat up from the ground. He lifted his hands out from behind him, and numbly felt the rough, gravel-like texture underneath his fingertips.
Why would this be here?
This place...even though his vision was returning to him...he did not know this place.
Where was I before?
Before... All he remembered from before was Gohan, surrounded in an eerie blue glow, stepping ominously towards him, pain filling his entire body, blinding him--becoming swallowed up in light, to the point that...
...That he was consumed within it...
...He had...died...?
And then…then there was that damned Other World—that "H.F.I.L", or so they called it. Being sent there, with that putrid pink sky, to rot in that horrid cell with those other dim-whitted ex-villains…
...And then...there was her...
Sita...
Slowly, a horrid realization dawned on him, streaming like a chill through his veins. He instantly sprang to his feet, and brought his hands up to stare at them. They were small, pale, thin fingered, almost bony hands, with rough knuckles and nails that looked as though accustomed to being chewed at.
No...
He thrust them onto his face, patting his cheeks lightly with his fingertips, sweeping them over rounded ears--no longer large and box-shaped…
Slowly, he ran his fingers gently down his skinny neck, and began to run them down his chest, but stopped when they began to follow a foreign, protruding curve on either side.
Wait a minute…what is this …?
thisHe looked down, and in each hand was a strange soft lump, which were stuck to his front.
He felt the corner of his left eye twitch unconsciously, and another slightly sickening feeling hit the pit of his gut.
He had breasts.
Thunder rumbled loudly overhead, and almost on queue, a steady rain began to fall.
He burst out of the mouth of the alleyway, the rain beating, almost lashing, down into his face as he raced down the sidewalk. Why he started running, he didn't know. He just had to keep running, had to escape this twisted nightmare.
He rounded the corner, and narrowly avoided plowing right into a woman shielding her head with a newspaper as she scurried past him. Disoriented, he toppled a little bit on his feet, and managed to catch a foggy blur sweep past out the corner of his eye. He screeched to a halt, the flimsy shoes on his feet practically grinding into the pavement, and jerked around.
Instantly, he froze.
The large, frightful-eyed gaze of a young, scrawny, bedraggled looking girl met with his in the reflection of the dark store window. She was sopping wet from head to foot; the clothes she was adorned in were tattered and dirty, and her stringy black and green streaked hair was an unruly mess.
But it was her eyes...her eyes were the only familiarity to him... They were the same sharp, narrow, piercing magenta eyes that he remembered--that were staring back at him.
Slowly, he lifted his hand from his side, and pressed the fingertips against the cold surface of the dark, streaked glass--and watched in horror as the dull reflection in the window did exactly the same.
"No... This can't be..."
The words that escaped his throat were in an unfamiliarly high-pitched voice. The girl in the reflection's thin, light pink lips parted with each delicately spoken syllable, and remained slightly agape when he had ceased.
"I...I'm a...a female..."
Ahh-hum. Well, after about a whole year, this chapter is all said and done. Certainly took me long enough, eh? Yeah well, I apologize for that again. Like I've probably said numerous times over, everything has been a living hell. And again like always, I apologize to my reading audience for this inconvenience--and my utter laziness. Bleh I suck. But anyway, until next chapter, peace.
-KASH