Brother

Episode 8: Enter the Plan: Part Deux

Disclaimer: I don't own Toryama-sama's characters, just James, Ed, the TCA, and the Skeemdians (well, there's more, but that would be spoiling the later parts of this story).

Warning: Sharp language (somewhat sharper than DBZ), violence, gore (more than DBZ), and maybe a little sexual innuendo. I would rate this fic a heavy PG-13, but not R. Enjoy!

Nappa landed heavily, rolling away even as his first target fell to the ground in two neatly bisected pieces. His ki cackled about his hands, drawn into thin tendrils--ropes of raw power--that cut finer and faster than the sharpest knife ever made.

He let a yell of anger follow as four more Skeemdians rushed him. They were cut apart mercilessly, the blackened sky and shredded landscape bearing witness of a whirlwind of death and destruction. His feet moved from vegetation to rock in the course of the battle, as he danced on the edge of a large volcanic crater, following the line between life and death.

He slid to a stop, corpses piled at his feet like trees cut violently felled in the wrath of a passing storm. Quiet settled over everything, perfect and complete for a moment.

Then the sounds of distant combat came to him, slowly, as if he was waking from a dream. The war raged on about him, distant yet oppressive, soldiers flooding in from every direction. Closing in for the kill. Snarling in disgust, he leapt away from a beam of plasma as it tore into the ground beneath his feet. That had been a close one.

"BASTARDS!" He yelled, turning on them viciously. The hairs on the back of his neck abruptly came to attention as the squad which had been aiming for him obligingly exploded.

I... didn't do that. He thought quickly.

Turning 180 degrees before he landed, Nappa found himself face to face with the larger of the two Human warriors. A grinning Human warrior. It was not a happy grin. Not the grin found on children at play. Not a grin of contentment. No, it was a grin completely and utterly lacking in mirth, a gesture that showed a smile was just an old reflex that bared the teeth.

He stepped around Nappa and fired again.

Nappa looked at the Human in puzzlement. Ed's black coat was scorched between rivulets of alien blood that criss-crossed the garmet, dripping onto the smoking ground. In places, he could see bits of flesh that no professor of Anatomy could possibly identify. Most of it was thrown loose as the blow-back from Ed's last shot cast his coat about in the sudden, stiff wind. The Human turned towards Nappa with a worn smile as the report echoed off of the distant mountains.

"So, what's going on here?" He asked.

"Um... more of the usual." Nappa said, uncomfortable.

"Think we have a chance of winning?"

Nappa scoffed. No Saiyajin would be brought low by these... these insects! A short bought of maniacal laughter later, Nappa shook his head. "Not in a million years."

Ed's grin turned vicious again. "As they say, there's no time like the present. Let's take it to them!"

"Right on!" Bellowed Nappa

The two charged back into battle.

----------

"YEEEAAARRRGGG-HAAAAAA!!!"

Vegeta hurled a stray aircraft into the ground, his vocal cords tossing aside the complex notes and tones of language in favor of an open-throat yell. The ground beneath him glowed from the ship's last barrage, and the clouds were lit from below by its explosive demise a moment later. Dead Skeemdians lay all about, markers of a body count rising into the tens of thousands. They were piled two and three high in many places, particularly visible where immense trees had been burned down to toothpicks and ferns the size of houses had been reduced to smoldering stalks of carbon.

James and Ed were missing. Nappa was down on the other side of this hill and killing nasty things, which was great fun in his book.

The Saiyajin no Oji was tempted to say things were going well.

Cutting off the ki that kept him airborne, he began a slow dive towards the ground. He was interrupted when a severed hand with six fingers flew through the air in front of him.

Vegeta blinked. What the hell?

"BOOM! WHEEE!!" Exclaimed a voice from the ground. Not surprisingly, it was followed by the report of a minor explosion.

"BITCH!" Another voice echoed from the base of the hill.

He fell immediately to the ground, crushing a lone Skeemdian underfoot like a grapefruit under a Cadillac. Something was going wrong down here.

He hated it when things went wrong.

Another explosion shook the ground underfoot, like the fist of a giant slamming into the ground. Vegeta rocked on his feet, his hair unaffected by the sudden wind kicked up.

"LAST ONE!" Yelled a not-too-distant voice.

"EAST! EAST!" Commanded a more distant one.

Something not unlike a giant buzz saw cut through the undergrowth following the clipped orders. The tall Human sprinted past Vegeta, a chunk of distorted metal in one hand.

"Human! What is going on here?" The Prince demanded.

The Human warrior skidded to a halt in mid-air, his feet six inches above the ground. "Lots of the bastards on the West side. We're taking the high ground."

"Ground forces?" Vegeta queried.

"Yes. Air defenses have pulled back. Your doing, I suppose?"

"Of course." Vegeta answered, his mind half on the conversation. He wondered if the other Human would need assistance. He was a violent sort, and enjoyed war far too much. Vegeta had been watching, watching how his eyes shone with each kill. It was one thing to enjoy the battle, revel in the conflict, and celebrate victory, but this one was not here for the fight. He was a killer through and through, and when he waded into the Skeemdian forces, it was with the intent to be the last man alive. It was that moment of absolute superiority that lit up his features.

What a life.

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Ed continued his up-hill dash. Below, he watched Nappa work around the edge of the crater that had suddenly become their rallying point. None dared to venture within its confines--that area was central to part of their larger strategy, and would be put to use later. He poured on the speed as a flurry of miniature ground rockets narrowly missed him. He was down to a crowbar and the Forbidden Techniques.

He really, really didn't want to use the Forbidden Techniques. Not only were they, well... forbidden, but they were embarrassing as well. It was a strange legacy James had left him. They practiced a martial arts style with only a dozen basic moves and four special attacks. All were lethal in a single blow, and none of them truly specialized. Given the enormous boost in basic abilities that their recent ki discovery permitted, the Forbidden Techniques would be gross overkill, yet....

Yet both had expended all of their ammunition already. Only one weapon remained, and neither was prepared to detonate a thermonuclear bomb in order to achieve victory. Not today.

So, it was the Forbidden Techniques.

Ed mounted the last ridge, little more than a dark line of soil, and stood to defend for the second phase of the plan. His eyes narrowed, crowbar held in a ready position, as a hundred screaming Skeemdian warriors charged up the slope he now commanded.

----------

Vegeta was right. He hated it when he was right. He was always right about the bad things, the wrong things, the things that drove lesser men to madness.

And dammit, he was right this time, so much it hurt.

James came bursting from the ground cover just as Ed had done seconds ago. James had no weapons in his hands. No fancy guns or terrible explosives. He held not knives nor swords nor bombs. He had only his bare hands and his wits about him.

He also had his skill. His ki... and a lot of luck.

"Detroit Fist!" He shouted, dodging to one side so fast that a normal person would have seen only his after-image. The Skeemdian squad which was chasing him found themselves caught flatfooted. James punched the lead one dead in the chest. It really looked like a punch.

Vegeta did note how James' fist just appeared in the Skeemdian's mid-section. It was just there, without the little punching bit in between. James wasn't that fast....

The Human flipped backwards several times. Thankfully, he launched himself into the air first. As he landed, he drew a tiny bit of wood from within the folds of his coat and smirked at the charging Skeemdians like a god about to extract vengeance for a crime to terrible to name. "BEHOLD THE POWER OF THE GREAT TOOTHPICK!"

The what?! Vegeta was thinking as James carved up the Skeemdians like a Thanksgiving turkey.

That bought of carnage not worth description finished, he stuck the wooden piece in his mouth and smiled broadly as Vegeta. Vegeta looked back at the beaten, bruised, and thoroughly lethal form of James Rahn through narrowed eyes.

"I won't waste your time asking what madness you've embarked on now... but I do want to know what you are going to do with this force of insanity."

"Thanks for being concerned with my well being." James said flatly. "You know, there are more of them."

That wasn't an answer. Vegeta shook his head. He had no idea what wild moss James had been munching on, either here or before his arrival, but it was clear the Human was utterly, utterly cracked. "Right... whatever."

James' gaze didn't waver. "Many, many more. You could say we have a ... 'problem.'"

"Problem?" Vegeta quickly checked his reserves, refusing to be worried. He could last for a long time yet, but the Skeemdians did have a giant shield that needed to be put down. He was tired, but just a little.

"Yeah. About ten thousand little problems and a few dozen much bigger ones."

"What's that rumbling noise?"

James sighed, a smile cracking his face. "I've been waiting to use this line for a while now."

"What?"

"It's a fuckin' ambush! RUUUN!!!"

Vegeta took a step back in surprise. He must really be slipping if James could... that rumbling was growing louder.

Step.

It was also growing... closer.

Step.

It was getting very close.

Step.

It was on top of them.

Skeemdians came charging up the hill like ants. In a wave of life, they simply obliterated what was in their path. Vegeta could easily imagine the air itself darting out of their way.

Running sounded very appealing right now.

Very appealing indeed. He scowled when he noticed James was ahead of him, screaming at the top of his lungs.

"MONTANA WAY!!!"

The wave of living death rode over the rocks, dissolving the foliage. Vegeta ran, the Human before him, uphill. The Skeemdians may have had them out-numbered over a thousand to one, but they obviously didn't know the first thing about strategy.

It's time to fry some bugs.

Vegeta smiled.

And all was going as planned…

- TbC