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 38: The Whereabouts of Happiness
Dabura dropped into his stance as both girls charged in. He blocked both punches aimed for his head with both forearms. Then blocked both kicks aimed for his stomach with his knees. All curled up, he could push both girls back with his energy when he broke out of the block. Videl flew around to attack from the backside while Fasha attacked from the front. Instead Dabura lined up and shot out two red blasts with both hands directed at either girl. They both dodged them, but then had to fly around a bit while the energy chased them, directed by Dabura. They glanced at each other and both flew straight at Dabura. Dabura kept his grin as he allowed both girls to get close before dashing upwards. They gave each other thumbs up before looking down to see that Dabura hadn't been hit. He had stopped the two blasts a few feet short before looking up at them and smiling wickedly.
"Oh crap," Fasha managed to say.
BOOM! Both red blasts then zoomed up faster than either girl could react and made contact with a pretty decent explosion. Fasha dropped back to the ground, for the most part unaffected other than a slight pain in the chest. Videl clutched at her gut on the way down to the ground, suffering a slightly greater impact.
"Videl you shouldn't fight in this match. He isn't even trying and you're no match for this!" Fasha warned.
"No, it's okay, I need to know how far I can push myself!" Videl said, standing up straight. Her shirt had a nice hole torn right through it right under her ribs, showing a bright red mark that would surely be a bruise before the day was done.
"She's right you know. Your training isn't enough to compete at this level, never mind any further. You should stick to cooking," Dabura chuckled slightly.
"Shut up. I'll give you my best shot!" Videl declared, her red aura reappearing and charging Dabura, who was more than ready. Fasha jumped at him as Videl attacked him in a flurry. He dodged all of Videl's attacks while blocking Fasha's, all the time keeping a fat grin on his face. He kicked Fasha away before stopping Videl by grabbing her head and squeezing a bit. Videl cried aloud in pain, trying to get him off. Dabura began to punch her midsection pretty hard, trying to get her to push a little harder. Fasha charged back in, before seeing Dabura's hand go up with a blast ready to go.
"Don't even think about it, you'll get yours!" he warned.
"Let her go or deal with me!" Fasha shouted back.
"No, Fasha, I can still get him!" Videl groaned. Dabura chuckled slightly as he hit her some more, seeing some blood streak down her chin and tearing her clothes a little more.
"I'd ask how, but he's already got you beat. Just give up and I'll take it from here!" Fasha called back.
"She's got a point you know, even at this level you're still just a bystander to the true warriors of Earth!" Dabura taunted slightly.
"I'll show you what I can do!" Videl growled. She charged ki into her hands and started blasting hard and fast in front of her. Her arms roared like a train as she fired multiple ki blasts, but when the smoke cleared, it had done nothing.
"Nice try. You have the fire, just not the power!" Dabura laughed again.
"Fine, guess I'll go all out! Kaio-ken, times ten!" she shouted. Her aura expanded and sharpened violently before blowing Dabura's hand off her head and causing him to back up a bit with caution. Fasha's eyes widened more when she felt Videl's power signal and it was as high as her own. Videl kept a grim look before charging a big blast behind her.
"Kamehameha!" She hit Dabura right on and kept her beam going even as her aura and energy died out quickly. As her beam died out, she saw that Dabura had erected some sort of red shield around himself, and it had shielded him from any impact from her beam.
Videl sank to her knees as her energy did the same, "Well, it was worth a shot!" Dabura dropped the shield, looking rather impressed himself.
"I suppose you're not that worthless, the child's energy must have boosted it," Dabura noted.
Fasha gasped slightly, looking straight at Dabura but also glancing at Videl, "What do you mean?"
"When she died, her unborn child's high energy passed to her by default. That is why her training went so quick when she finally managed to tap into all of it. It is a little unusual for a mortal to achieve a higher power level in this way, but it's not out of the question either. Carrying the child of Gohan certainly didn't hurt," Dabura cracked slightly.
"Will my child take that energy back? Kibito said that its spirit was going to be preserved and all," Videl asked without looking.
"Probably not, it will be given new strength considering the child's father. Just don't slack off too much and you won't lose it. Now then, Fasha, shall we have a real match?" Dabura asked as Videl got out of the ring.
Fasha smiled brightly as she landed in the ring again, "Thought you'd never ask!" Two auras filled the area a moment later, one red and one gold.
-
Fasha battled furiously to get through Dabura's defenses, and only got more frustrated. She was at her maximum at Super Saiyan two and was still having loads of problems. She had heard briefly that this Dabura was strong, but that an ascended Saiyan shouldn't have too much of a problem. This belonged to some of Goku's storytelling in the time chamber when they trained for two days prior to the Zerg. She quickly learned that information was now outdated. This guy had an answer for everything that she threw at him. She hadn't really dipped into everything that Vegeta had been teaching her yet, but those were mostly high power moves. Dabura seemed to be waiting for a high power move before he really attacked, he wasn't in a big hurry to finish this fight. She attacked brutality with punches and kicks, most of which were blocked or parried aside. She threw an absurd amount of ki blasts at him, most of which were dodged or knocked away. She resorted to medium power beams only to watch that red shield pop up again no matter how fast she gathered them. She got through his blocks a few times, but the hits she scored didn't do anything. She wasn't winded yet, but the fact that she was the only one attacking really bothered her.
"Why don't you attack?" she asked directly after a long time of no communication.
"Why don't you, you're an ascended Saiyan right? Surely a little Demon King isn't that much of a threat?" Dabura smirked at her. This got Fasha even angrier and she attacked out of it, leaving her wide open on her left side after a few punches. Dabura took advantage of this and let her have a point blank energy blast that left a big hole in the side of her armor, leaving bare but muscled skin around the love handle area. She clutched at it in pain, cursing silently that she made such a mistake.
"The smartest warrior wins the battle of defense. You can attack all you want, but unless you efficiently defend all attacks made on you, you are more than likely not going to win. If you use up all your energy attacking, nothing is left to defend yourself with, save for your own physical body. As you know, that doesn't cut it in a fight at this level. One mistake can decide the entire battle. Quite often the winner of the fight is the one who strictly defends himself to the point where the opponent has worn down themselves enough to be finished off with one attack. This is what Verto must learn to be the perfect warrior!" Dabura said, landing and powering down a bit. Fasha dropped back to the first level of Super Saiyan, landing and holding her side, interested now in what Dabura had to say.
"I thought you said he would be one of the greatest fighters ever?" she asked.
"He has that potential, but a lot of his movements are strictly offensive. He knows how to block some hits and return them, but he must learn to focus a majority of his energies to defense! That and his body must be strengthened to handle that energy for a long time, as most defensive battles take a while to finish. It may not sound like an effective way to fight, but it is one of the more efficient ways, especially when faced with multiple adversaries. That is his number one thing to learn whenever he trains under me! I can teach him many things about his powers, but the only other thing that he must do is develop more effective attacks when using Chi!" Dabura stated, turning and heading for the exit.
"What the heck is Chi?" Fasha asked though Videl was about to.
"Oh, I forget that most mortals don't know about it. It is simply the total energy of any life form. Many mistake this for Ki, which is life energy and is a portion of it, but not the total package. Verto and Gohan are some of the few that can access Psi, which is spirit energy. Combine those and you have the complete soul energy known as Chi. Most mortals cannot access Psi or Chi, its knowledge was erased from the more primitive minds because of its sometimes destructive and intoxicating use. Kais and demons can use this energy though, including myself. These two energies can be combined at any level for an effective attack, but they possess the most energy when combined equally as you may or may not have heard. I cannot use Psi however, when I power up the energy automatically converts itself for reasons I don't understand completely myself. I have tried to find Psi within myself for a very long time with very little success. Are there any more questions?" Dabura asked. Both girls looked like they had been through the math class from hell, but shook their heads no. Dabura began to walk towards the entrance before Fasha suddenly thought of something.
"Hey is there any way we can see Verto from here, like monitor him or something?" she asked, Videl nodded.
Dabura chuckled slightly, "I can, by tapping into the link that I have with my daughter!"
"Daughter?" both girls exclaimed with gaping jaws.
"I get that reaction a lot. But I do not feel like discussing those details; I had business with Babidi at the time. I planted a secret link in her young mind so that I could check on her without anyone's knowledge. Despite her formidable telepathic abilities, she still doesn't know about it, nor does the Overmind thankfully. With that link I can scan around the world she is on, checking on anything that I want to as long as it isn't in someone else's mind. I can only look into another's thoughts if she already is, but I can't force her to look for me. She'd surely find out if I tried that! What's that saying? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned? I could just picture that reaction!" Dabura laughed aloud. The girls barely recognized this as his version of a joke, but understood it.
"Is your daughter with the Zerg, is she that Kerrigan chick?" Videl asked straight up.
"Good deduction. Yes, she is. Strangely enough she has Psionic abilities without ki or Chi ability. But enough of that, let's watch this viewing ball, it should show the boy!" Dabura said, using his powers to create one. Verto showed up on the screen, very pale looking and out cold. He was bleeding at several other points besides his deep scars, but just a trickle.
Fasha and Videl gasped at all the scars on his body, "What the hell did that to him?" Fasha asked.
"The Super Saiyan Broly did, and the Overmind didn't let his Zerg cells regenerate him in time, if at all!" Dabura said with a slight frown.
"Broly did?" Videl asked.
"Long story," Fasha sighed slightly.
"It appears that most of his Zerg cells have retreated, more than likely they were blown off and partially ejected from his bloodstream when he used too much power after his evil self killed you. There are some left, but just at the tip of his tail. Probably won't take much to get rid of the rest as long as he doesn't wait too long!" Dabura explained, zooming in and out at different points on the fallen Saiyan's image.
"His evil self?" Videl asked now.
"Long story," Dabura and Fasha both said.
Videl grimaced at the lack of an answer, "Is he ever going to wake up?"
"Eventually, he's too strong inside to be killed by a little overload. He'd have to be beaten very badly for it to kill him. Though he probably shouldn't try that little trick any time soon," Dabura explained.
"Too confusing," Videl said, holding her head slightly.
"I will keep monitoring him until he comes to me for training. I can't see the future like the Kais can, so I don't know what may happen. I'll update you from time to time. You two should go back to North Kai now, I'm sure he has some sort of exercise for you to do! I will hold training sessions from time to time if you two wish to learn how to fight," Dabura said, shutting off his ball and making it vanish. Fasha and Videl walked out slowly, a bit more informed than they had been when they entered. He listened briefly to Fasha beginning to tell Videl about what had been going on before they were out of range.
"You can come out now Kai," Dabura said.
Kibito Kai appeared in front of him right away, "How did you know I was here?"
"You stick out like a foul smell," Dabura laughed.
"You really shouldn't have told those girls such things about Verto and some of his and your powers. That was not information that they needed to know. What if they spoke of it to another?" Kibito asked in a raised voice.
"Settle down Kai, those two are not ones that would leak information onto a massive amount of mortals. Not to mention that, but how many would actually believe them aside from their family and friends?" Dabura asked to Kibito's blank look.
"Why did you tell them in how you were going to train Verto? You didn't even tell us, the Kais!"
"You never bothered to ask, you only requested that I train him how to use his Chi energy. What I teach him otherwise is of no concern to you," Dabura chuckled again at the Kai's expense.
"And you have an active link to your daughter Kerrigan? One of the most known and deadly of the Overmind's agents!" Kibito asked in panic mode.
"Again, you need to settle down Kai. If you and the dinosaur have really been watching effectively, you would know that she isn't truly on the Overmind's side. She is on her own objectives, and none of those involve your dimension of rule. So calm down before you steam out like Majin Buu!"
Kibito blushed slightly, "Just don't be spreading this to North Kai, I don't need him trying to contact the other dimension!"
"Don't worry Kai, your underlings are quite often smarter than you realize. Anything your futuristic mind can tell me about our young friend?"
Kibito looked flustered, "Ever since the Verto's evil self was released, we haven't gotten a clear vision. My elder and I tried again not long ago, but we keep getting nothing but clouds in our vision regarding that dimension. We have no idea what is going to happen now!"
Dabura gave Kibito a nasty grin, "Perhaps your vaunted powers aren't working properly, and it's not like you two do much preventive work in the correct way!"
Kibito glared at him, "No it isn't that, we checked by looking at the Earth's future, it is also clouded. We looked at other planets that are not impacted by these events and they were moving along as normal. The Earth's future is as unknown as young Verto's is!" Kibito said, before teleporting out promptly.
Dabura snorted slightly as he walked out of the arena, "Interesting, that planet's future is intertwined with the boy's, very intriguing!"
Interlude 38.1: Earth
Back on Earth, many pedestrians were passing by the newly reconstructed Capsule Corp building. This was no longer the company's headquarters as just about everyone knew. It mostly served as the home of the Briefs family and whoever was staying with them at the time. The new building had been put up right where the old one was, and had started going up the day after the Zerg and Protoss had left. Just about everyone knew that both alien races were gone and that the golden fighters had defeated the evil ones. Most did not know of their mission to space, only that they hadn't been spotted for a while. Some of the closer people of the Satan family knew that something had happened to Videl, but the cover up was that she was severely injured and had some sort of emergency surgery and would not come out of her house for a long while. Whoever wanted to dispute that or butt in ended up talking to Mr. Satan himself, who promptly shut them up with their own fear before giving them the boot out of the door. Most reporters then got the rumor that Vegeta had moved into the Satan mansion. This raised questions with Bulma, especially with her newly born daughter on hand. She declined comment on the rumors, but kept a sharp grin in doing so, saying that she never knew when he may strike if the press were bugging her or Mr. Satan too much. That put a stop to most of the nosiness.
The current day was absolutely beautiful, the sun was bright, the temperature was warm, and the birds were singing. It was hard not to look back to the new Capsule Corp home, shining brightly in the sun. This lasted for a minimal amount of time before a small explosion sounded from inside, leaving smoke coming out of one of the windows. The onlookers kept moving, for them it was normal. Not many people knew what caused these little incidents, but as long as they kept it small and contained on their own property, they didn't mind too much. This incident was regarding a game of dodge ball between Goten and Trunks while their minder was attempting to stop them. Only the ball was made out of energy blasts, not rubber. Their babysitter was quite brave considering present company, and he was strong enough to handle it. However these two demons could run anyone into the ground mentally and physically.
"Goten! Trunks! You two better not have blown out another window!" Bulma screeched from below. She sighed, knowing that they had already, luckily the explosion sound didn't compare to her voice. She was rocking her new baby girl, Bulla, to sleep in her cradle. The baby had become used to the small explosion sounds and screeching voices, as long as they weren't directly near her. If that was the case, she had a fit with anyone around her. She was quite feisty in her early infancy, crying and getting angry often. This stopped for some reason after Bulma and her father carefully removed her tail. They didn't get it completely just in case Vegeta became too upset about it and gave it room to grow back. Vegeta had never left instructions about it, saying that it wasn't completely important to him. With Verto being the only one with a tail and no longer having a transformation gene, they were all safe from any moonlit accidents. Dende hadn't decided yet about bringing the moon back, saying it depended on how well the Earth stayed balanced without it. It had been discussed before, but with more appearances by other Saiyans and newborns, such talk ended quickly. Nothing catastrophic had happened yet other than the occasional super powered evil villain showing up and there being a big battle with plenty of giant explosions. So with those thoughts in mind, bringing the moon back became a stronger possibility in the future, though Bulma preferred things to stay as they were for now. Mostly for scientific study on whether or not the Earth could remain stable over a long period of time without the moon.
After she was assured that Bulla was sleeping soundly, she left the room and closed the door quietly. She walked down the halls, noting that she wanted a different color of the walls in one or two sections of the hallways. She came up to the room that most of the sounds were coming from, seeing the broken window right away. She laughed slightly, not at the window, but at the poor man down on the ground. He had bumps and bruises all over him, and his hair partially dyed. Yamcha groaned as the boys were jumping up and down on his back, playing human trampoline.
"How did I get myself into this?" he moaned.
"That would be because you elected not to go to Kami's place to speak to Piccolo! You thought you could handle these two better than Tien could, that's why. And I can't handle both of them and the baby at the same time! I don't want to hear any complaints now, you knew what to expect!" Bulma said with a tight grin.
"Yeah. I suppose you're right, they have been worse," Yamcha dragged out at the end.
"Give it time and see if you say the same thing!"
"Hey, I see Mister Tien coming!" Goten pointed at the window.
"Finally," Yamcha said, getting up and brushing himself off. They all went downstairs and met Tien in the lobby.
"So?" Bulma asked right away.
"Same thing as last time, he doesn't have any news!" Tien said in a low tone.
"Why not? I thought he said he could contact King Kai and all that? And can't Dende teleport to Other World to find out as well?" Bulma screeched.
"It's not that. He said he contacted King Kai several times for updates and got none. He even confronted him about it and was told that King Kai wasn't allowed to tell him due to Kibito Kai being involved. He wouldn't even tell me if there were any others up there besides Videl, Broly and Borgos," Tien explained.
"How strange, why would the Kais keep us from that?" Bulma asked.
"Maybe it's not just them. Since this is all happening in a different dimension, maybe they have stricter rules about that stuff. If they have Kais over there, perhaps they aren't allowed to interfere despite our friends being there!" Yamcha said thoughtfully.
"That's a good point, and I lost contact with their signal when they left the edge of this galaxy. Vegeta said they were probably going to some point in the eastern cluster, but he didn't know exactly where. All we really know is that there is a dimensional rift there!" Bulma said.
"We could always get your dad's new model spaceship and go check it out!" Yamcha suggested.
"That's true," Bulma looked thoughtful.
"I think that's a bad idea. Vegeta said there were a lot of enemies over in that area of the universe, and we're undermanned here as it is. We can't leave the Earth unprotected!" Tien said sharply.
"Yeah you're right. I just have this weird feeling that something bad has happened to them, I just don't know what though!" Bulma said sadly.
"Cheer up, what's the worst that could happen?" Yamcha asked. Everyone gave him an eerie look as they all went back to their own activities.
-
Gohan slowly munched on the food provided to him. It had been about twenty hours since the incident with Verto. The Protoss had done a good job on getting the area prepped for a Zerg attack. They had all kinds of scouting teams, detection fields and photon cannons up for early warning. Most everyone was certain that the Zerg would not easily tunnel though the planet's surface. The ash layers would be easy, but not the lava basins. Planet Char's outer crust might have been rather thin, but whatever was there was very difficult to puncture. Just about everyone was in a foul mood after what had happened, and dealt with it in their own way. Goku and Bardock stuck to a far enough site to spar heavily, but close enough that they could come back in case of attack. Vegeta hadn't been seen for quite some time, but Gohan could sense he was nearby somewhere, watching out for the Zerg while having his own period of mourning. Tassadar and Zeratul remained locked in a chamber somewhere in the labyrinth, telling everyone that they were not to be disturbed unless there was an emergency. Artanis was the only other figure that was regularly seen other than the other soldiers. Gohan ate slowly and let everything soak into his mind. He blamed himself to an extent, but even he knew it wasn't truly his fault. The only thing he felt guilty about was that he just stood by and let it happen. Then again, no one was doing anything rash considering the state that Verto was in at the time.
Since they came back from incident, one Zerg brood had gone crazy and others seemed in a constant state of flux. He watched a display of their movements on a hologram provided to him, seeing very strange patterns. They had seen quite a build up in forces as they expected, but after the incident the Zerg movements changed. Most of it involved a large build up around where they believed the Overmind to be nested, circling around that point. Gohan watched it with boredom, trying to figure it out. After awhile he ignored it and just munched on his food. A few Protoss soldiers came and went, wisely leaving him alone in case of an outburst. Most of them hadn't been on Earth, but a lot of them had heard stories of crossing the Saiyans, and didn't want to be victims. Out of nowhere, Gohan noticed a sudden sharp change in the Zerg pattern. They started to flash in signal a bit, like they weren't being picked up very well. Then they simply vanished on the radar, one big blob of them, gone in the blink of an eye. It took Gohan a moment to realize this, before he tore off and about plowed over a few surprised Zealots in the process. He reached the command center in a few seconds, seeing that they were monitoring the same thing.
"Hey, did you see what happened?" Gohan asked the obvious.
"Yes we did, a large number of Zerg have left the planet surface and have gone into space, and we also detected a few large energy surges coming from there! One of them we believe is the Overmind lifting out of the ground, the others we are unsure about!" Artanis reported. The screen continued to show reduced numbers of Zerg, more leaving by the minute, before it showed sporadic Zerg activity at best.
"What the hell is going on, are they going to come in on us from space?" Gohan asked himself. He spread out his senses, forgetting that most of them were blocked inside the cave. He rushed outside, getting there in about a minute. He spotted Vegeta on the edge of the cliffs, who was looking upwards as well.
"Do you sense it boy? The Zerg are leaving!" Vegeta said directly.
"Yeah, but why? Are they just gonna come down on us in force?" Gohan asked, sensing the same.
"Doesn't feel like it, use your senses as far as they will reach and try to pinpoint their destination!" Vegeta ordered. Gohan scanned and scanned, feeling a general movement in space that was indeed away from the planet. He tried to sense if they were going back towards Earth, but felt they were moving in a different direction. He soon lost the feeling as they got farther away, but was confident they were not going back to Earth.
"Well boy?" Vegeta asked.
"Don't know where they're going, but it's the opposite direction of Earth for sure!" Gohan said meekly.
"Blast it, what are they up to?" Vegeta dared ask.
Power levels:
Videl: 7,000,000; Kaioken X2: 14,000,000; X10: 70,000,000
Fasha: 70,000,000; SS2: 370,000,000
Dabura: 100,000,000; Full Power: 400,000,000
Next time on DBV: The Saiyans lose track of the Zerg, but the Protoss track them in the direction of their own home planet, Auir. A warning is sent to Auir, only to be answered by Aldaris, who orders Artanis to execute Zeratul and the Saiyans. With little to no hope of getting a ship from Auir, the team ponders what they will do. When Captain Raynor contacts them with good news that his ship is running, they receive word from a scouting team about a nearly dead Saiyan out in the wastelands of Char. Verto returns, next time on DBV!