A/N: To avoid confusion, Gohan Sr. is Gohan Sr., and Gohan Jr. is just Gohan, k? Also, when I updated the last chapter, ff dot net didn't acknowledge it. I guess it doesn't see a revised chapter as an update like it does a new chapter. So please go check it out. I made two updates to it: One about what happened to Mie and the others while Piccillo handled Gohan, and just now I added three paragraphs to give it a proper ending. (And a cliffhanger, so you won't readily understand this without checking it out).
Time Distorted
Chapter 11
By: Mara Roberts
The five warriors snapped to defensive position, and that was their mistake. They should have attacked. Bibidi did not play by the rules, fighting not with Ki, but with sorcery, and the only way to stop his magic was to keep him too busy to form a spell.
Mie's eyes widened as she realized their mistake, and shifted to an attack position, about to charge, when dark energy exploded but Bibidi's cupped hands, forcing the fighters back a few feet, before centering on the cocoon.
"He's… taking our energy!" Gohan Sr. yelled between panting breaths, struggling to master enough Ki to process air in his lungs.
"It's going directly into the cocoon!" Gohan said.
A misty form emerged from the cocoon, almost like a pink cloud. It was weak at the moment, but that would not be its problem for very long. It was gaining energy as fast as the five were losing it, and would overpower them very quickly. Gohan Sr. fell to the floor, almost completely drained. As a human, he was the weakest one there.
"This has to stop!" Bardock yelled, looking desperately for Bibidi. He was weakening fast, and if he didn't move quickly he'd soon he unable to move at all.
He charged to where he had last seen Bibidi, but the wizard was no longer there. He had disappeared in the chaos. Bardock charged to the door and punched right through it and made it halfway down the hall before falling to his knees. Back in the circular room, Mie was absolutely paralyzed. She had a lot more energy than anyone in the room, but because it was pure Goddess energy, the spell affected her in a far more powerful way, immobilizing her completely.
Gohan was the only one left who could move, and move he did. Bardock's action snapped him out of his stupor, and within seconds he was hurtling past the fallen Saiyjin. His body pulsed with absolute agony. Every grain of Ki felt like he was losing a vital part of himself, an arm, an eye, a leg… Gohan pushed down on the deadly distraction with a growl. He had to concentrate, straining his Ki even more to sense where Bibidi was. Stretching his senses, he was able to sense more "Sarlaac's" somehow hidden. Bardock had mentioned holograms. That had to be it.
Gohan was running so fast now, faster than he had ever run in his life, struggling to keep up with Bibidi's spell-induced speed in unfamiliar territory. He slipped and his foot caught in a Sarlaac, but for some strange reason when it tasted his energy it seemed revolted and shoved him away. Gohan couldn't figure it out, wasn't it supposed to take his energy? Grateful, though still not understanding, Gohan plunged on.
((o))
Back in the circular room, Gohan Sr. lay dead, his body raped of all its living Ki. Had Bibidi been on top of his game, he would have had the spell eat up dead Ki as well, so Gohan's body would decay at a visible speed, giving off energy with his deterioration. But Bibidi was not on top of his game.
In the hallway, Bardock moaned, and his breaths became struggled gasps.
Mie closed her eyes – the only movement left to her, and prayed.
((o))
Gohan skidded to a halt. Bibidi was right before him. There was plenty of hallway left for which the wizard could run, but instead he had turned around, and was studying Gohan.
"Strange," the wizard said. "You seem partially immune to my spell. I wonder why that is."
Gohan said nothing, so the wizard continued.
"Perhaps you are not as pure as you would have everyone believe. I was, after all, able to conquer your mind earlier, although you did admittedly force me out, but maybe, just maybe, your purity is not a constant thing. It is as though two halves of you are at war, one pure, one not. Which is on control of you now, I wonder?" Bibidi's eyes flashed with a gleam, and Gohan swallowed hard. As Bibidi spoke, he was reminded of Piccillo and Kami, but he also remembered that Piccillo had reformed.
"You needn't worry. It would do me no good to try and take over your mind in this case. I need your energy, not your loyalty –"
Bibidi's voice was cut off as Piccillo charged into the room.
"Kid! Snap out of it!" he yelled.
Gohan's mind immediately cleared, and he realized that as Bibidi was speaking, he was wrapping a spell of complacency around his mind, to keep him from attacking the wizard and saving his friends.
Gohan spared a glance as he saw Piccillo fall to the floor, energy spent from the chase. Gohan attacked Bibidi, but the wizard had already moved beyond his grasp. The foul creature had once again used magic to assist his speed, and Gohan suddenly understood that somewhere ahead of him, was another teleportation device.
"Gohan, wait. You won't catch up to him that way. Come here."
((o))
Mie struggled to control her breathing, more out of an attempt to keep from panicking than from the actual spell. When she had made her prayer, Piccillo answered it. He had enough energy to keep from being damagingly drained just yet.
"Give me your energy," he said. "I'll hurry up and pass it on to Gohan. It might be enough."
Mie nodded. Although the spell took her energy at an enormous rate, there would still – hopefully – be plenty left for Gohan to use. Not being a God, Gohan could not be immobilized by simply possessing her energy. She opened her shields, and gave Piccillo everything she had to spare.
((o))
"Take this," the Namek ordered, pouring immortal energy into Gohan's mortal frame. "And hurry."
Gohan rushed away as the foreign energy assimilated into his body. It was fire along his veins, and he didn't understand why it hadn't affected Piccillo so. Then he realized Piccillo had not tried to use the energy, just carry it. But these thoughts served only to distract him, so he pushed them away and hurried on.
What tricks will Bibidi use? He doesn't need to defeat me, only slow me down… Gohan harnessed all of Mie's sacred energy and used it to propel himself forward faster than light. He saw Bibidi ahead as though in slow motion. The wizard would never see him coming, not even too late. Gohan struck out with his arm, leveling a fatal blow to the neck, and the wizard fell, decapitated. Gohan powered down and stared at the lifeless form. That had been easy, anticlimactic even, but he wasn't about to complain.
The spell decelerated without its master to sustain it, and would eventually stop draining them of energy and return the stolen Ki to its original hosts. He reached Piccillo and revived the Namek with some Ki, and they headed with all due speed back to their friends, hoping they were well.
They came across Bardock's body, and indeed, body was the word. Gohan looked up to his sensei in shock; the saiyjin was dead. Rushing to the circular room, Gohan paled further, seeing Gohan Sr.'s corpse cooling down as well. Mie bent over him but was looking at Gohan with a smile.
"Don't worry. As soon as the spell winds down, the energy will return to their bodies and restore them to life."
Gohan sighed in relief as Piccillo walked in, carrying Bardock. "How much longer do you think it will be?"
"Any second now." And just then, the spell stopped, and a rush of energy seemed to fill the room. The cocoon where it was stored seemed to be in a frenzy of activity, as energy was rushed back to the five of them, reviving their two friends as promised. But something was off. Although there had been a backlash of power, and all five of them had received a little energy, it was not nearly all of what they had lost. In fact, Gohan Sr. and Bardock were still unconscious, having just enough energy for their hearts to beat and their bodies to process.
A pink fist slammed into Gohan's face and he flew back with a crunch. His noise was bleeding profusely, probably broken. The boy looked up and saw that the pink cloud from earlier had become a giant pink baby.
"Oh, no." Gohan paled in shock but did not panic. In the excitement of the chase, he had put this out of his mind.
"Buu," Mie whispered, and that seemed to be what the pink beach ball was waiting for. He attacked the three fighters left, but he went at it very strangely. Buu was not using his full strength, and almost seemed to think it a sort of game.
Gohan, Mie and Piccillo were too busy dodging to think on the implications of that. If Buu wanted a game of cat and mouse, they could only hope to hold out against him once Buu decided to up the ante. Had they time to think, they might have even been insulted at fighting a baby in nappies. As it was, Gohan's mind was working overdrive. The spell had returned the five some of their energy. If they could siphon off more, the five could be returned to full strength and weaken their enemy simultaneously. But the five of them could never hold enough energy to seriously disable Buu…
And then he understood. He knew why Bibidi had chosen such a remote, dead planet for his base. Gohan would stake his life on the idea that once Kubindi had possessed a flourishing fauna and flora, a hotbed of life, and of Ki. And Bibidi came to Kubindi with the express purpose of stripping the planet of its Ki for Buu's reawakening. If he could somehow mimic the spell and take energy from Buu for himself, his friends, and the planet, it might just be enough to subdue the monster baby.
But Gohan knew nothing of spells, and he had a feeling even Intuition could not help him here.
But then he saw it. A tiny little switch on the side of the cocoon, almost hidden by the enormity of the machine on which it was housed. There was a label on it, but he did not know the language.
"Mie!" he yelled. "What does that label say?"
She looked at him askance, but when she saw the switch and label her face glowed in triumph. "It's on 'absorb'. The other one is 'discharge'."
Piccillo was the closest, and reached for the switch. Buu, being a baby, apparently did not know the importance of that switch, and seemed surprised his playmate was playing with something else. The baby stopped, eager to see what game his playmate would share. Then the switch was turned, and the baby did not like this game at all.
Gohan was ready for it. As soon as the switch was hit, he focused his mental energies in an attempt to control the flow of Ki emanating from Buu. First he fully revived his fallen comrades, then reinforced himself, Mie and Piccillo. But there was still so much energy waiting to be harnessed, and this, he sent straight into the planet's core.
Buu wailed and flailed about, trying to keep himself together. The giant baby was dissolving into a thousand small pink pieces, most of which were dispearing – void of energy – at an amazing rate. But it seemed even a planet could not fully harness the power of Buu, because there was enough left to be drawn back into the cocoon, to wait for another millennia if need be. Without a sorcerer of Bibidi's skill, that millennia would hopefully never come.
Mie sighed. As much as she wanted to, she could not mess with the path of time. Babidi was hardly the wizard his father was, but the old man had left enough instructional tomes behind that his boy didn't have to be.
"Well," Mie said, clapping her hands together. "Who's up for going home?"
((o))
Although his body was dead, Bibidi was a very resourceful wizard, and he had put in position many spells which would allow him to linger for a time after death. He could not save himself, no, but that was not the point. He would have vengeance on that boy, and so with the last of the spirit energy that left him leave to stay in limbo, he thrust his most intricate curse at the boy's spirit, intending to make him as a great an evil as could be. But as his spirit descended into Hell, the wizard frowned. Something was wrong. The spell was not fixating on the boy, but it almost seemed as though heading towards the future. That didn't make any sense…
And then in a flash the learnéd wizard understood. The boy was a time-traveler. Because of this, the curse's unique properties would instead begin at the moment of the boy's future birth, corrupting him from infancy. He laughed at the irony. It was his very curse that had slowed the energy-sapping spell. To take Gohan's energy, the spell first had to purify it – of Bibidi's taint! That was why the boy had more energy than he should have had… Energy to keep from falling to the ground as had his companions, strength to persevere, speed to catch up… Bibidi's insane laughter rattled in his ears all the way to Hell.
A/N:
1) Wondering why Babidi didn't gather energy from so many sources as well? Cause he wasn't as good a wizard, that's why. Bibidi's no idiot, unlike his son.
2) No one knew where Kubindi was from, and I don't think anyone will figure out it's from Star Wars. I cracked open my map of the galaxy, found a planet whose name I liked, and used it here.
