Chapter 95 - F
The pallid, pasty complexion of the former Emperor of the Universe was a face that Piccolo knew very well, and one his student knew not. Everything was as he remembered from when the tyrant fought Son Gokū years ago. The same ruthless sneer, even though this creature could have neither personality nor will. The same sickening way it moved. The same cold and callous disregard for everyone and everything around it. To Piccolo, this clone may as well have not been a clone as well.
Every bit of it was as terrible as the genuine article, and he loathed seeing Freeza's face again.
His reactions were not lost on Videl; the change in body language, the tensing of his facial muscles. Videl knew how to read people well, her teacher moreso. She'd never seen him this angry before. Frustrated, certainly. Calculating, of course. But the sort of contempt she saw on his face was an expression she knew was possibly only for a person who considered the one in front of them an affront to their very existence. She couldn't fathom how, but her teacher wasn't a very open man.
"Do we have a plan?"
"He's largely a distance fighter," Piccolo explained. "Freeza's abilities give him a large array of psychokinetic techniques in addition to deadly ki blasts...but it isn't simply that. He lacks regenerative capabilities, but makes up for it by being remarkably hard to put down."
Videl's face blanched. While her teacher was easily mid to long range as a combatant, she was primarily close range at best. Working alongside Piccolo, however, she might be able to balance out her weaknesses. A slender hand gripped the headband on her forehead; at the same time Piccolo discarded his turban and weighted gi, Videl cast her headband to the wayside. The duo stood tall, teacher and student, the shining black 'M' on each of their foreheads broadcast defiantly.
The floating effigy of the former Emperor of the Universe made no move, at first. He had either had no been expecting two opponents, or simply hadn't expected to come across someone he couldn't kill in seconds. These two were different from the riffraff who had fled or died when he attacked this city; they were powerful, and they were a threat. Placing both hands at his sides, Freeza's clone leaned forward slightly, placing one foot before the other; a mindless duplicate or not, it seems some things were retained on habit.
This was the battle stance of the Emperor. A royal invitation to begin battle.
"I'll lead off," Videl suggested, stepping ahead of Piccolo to emphasise the point. "I'm a poor match for him, fighting-style wise, but I can at the very least draw his attention. You've got a plethora of long-distance moves you can hit him with, right?"
"More than I know what to do with," replied Piccolo dryly. "You sure? I can't guarantee you won't be collateral."
"I'm quite nimble," Videl grinned widely. "On my mark, sensei!" The student of Piccolo clenched both fists into claws, settling into a stance reminiscent of her teacher's. Her fingertips blazed alight with ki, Videl lobbing them forth as an opening salvo to war. She followed the release of these ki bullets, which homed in towards the fake tyrant. Freeza's slit eyes opened wide, narrowly moving to the side to avoid the incoming bullets. He raised a hand towards Videl, who had begun to close in, releasing a kikōha from the fingertips.
The thin beam whizzed through the air, necessitating a dodge from Videl, who felt the heat of the blast sear the air. Regardless, the important factor remained that his first strike had missed her. She might be able to do this. Freeza kept Videl at bay, releasing a volley of thin, piercing beams from his fingertips towards her. Videl weaved around each strike, reached outward and latching onto the discharged ki she had emitted before, pulling it backwards. Controlling it, the multiple bullets struck Freeza from the back — at the exact same time one of Freeza's beams sliced just above her shoulder.
Shit!
The pain shot through her, sharp and blazing. It was more, however, from shock than damage; Babidi had ensured her body was something far different from a normal human's. And she'd show that now, to this fake Freeza, just how far apart she was from regular Earthlings. Coating her entire hand in an aura, Videl ran it through the air, leaving a thin line floating unsupported. The line crackled with electricity before exploding with a roar like thunder — Piccolo's Makōu technique, learned and utilised by his new star pupil. If the sound was thunder, the accompanying flash was the bolt of lightning. The line released a massive surge of energy that flew down upon Freeza in a rain of needles — constructs of ki, finely tuned with the intention of slicing into the target they collided with.
The resounding bout of explosions was satisfying enough to bring a smile to Videl's face...
...one which was immediately wiped away when she saw a soft glow through the smokescreen, and Freeza unharmed within the protective confines of an energy barrier.
Videl clicked her tongue impatiently. A barrier as well? He's going to be all sorts of a pain. Her blue eyes kept their focus on Freeza, who let down the shimmering purple sphere with the ease of someone pulling curtains. She could sense the ki behind her building, Piccolo prepping himself for a large-scale assault. Videl didn't know how Piccolo would give her a cue, merely that she was counting on receiving some warning before he blasted this bastard to kingdom come.
Range really isn't my forte, thought the daughter of Mr. Satan. I'm going to have to bring it back in close...or at least try. So long as he focuses on me, sensei can wipe him away in one well placed attack! Swinging her arm in an arc, her thin hand ignited in a conflagration of red which elongated into a blazing crimson sword. Videl was hardly a swordswoman, but ki sabres were becoming her specialty.
Once.
Twice.
Thrice.
Videl twisted her body to the left, to the right, even bending backwards to avoid a flurry of fingertip kikōha blasts emitting from Freeza. The thin rays of ki whizzed past her, cutting the air but missing her body. As she dodged, the woman progressed towards the Emperor's duplicate. She raised her ki sabre to be level with her body, using it as a means to deflect incoming kikōha; bolts collided with the burning sword, flying in every direction with Videl at the centre. Having almost cut away the distance between them literally, Videl had come face-to-face with the evil former Emperor of the Universe.
A line of red cut through space.
Freeza slithered to avoid it, snakelike in his motions. Videl's blade caught to naught but air.
Red split space again.
Freeza managed to avoid yet another blow from the energy sword. Again and again, the two danced, a blazing red line whirling around a twisting white form. On a final downward swipe, Freeza's hands came up to meet the energy sword, deflecting it with a crackling blade of his own. Videl was taken off-guard, surprised to see her technique replicated so easily — even though Erasa had just as easily used the skill against her when they were younger — and barely managed a successful parry of Freeza's incoming strike.
"Videl, get down!"
Her sensei's words snapped Videl out of her reverie; deactivating her ki sabre, she smirked in Freeza's face, before sliding out of view swiftly. She didn't suspend her ability to fly, merely reversing the flow of the ki to force herself down towards the ground at an incredible speed. Her body collided with solid asphalt, and she clung to it as if he life depended on it, savouring the distance she'd put between herself and Freeza. Piccolo, meanwhile, was ready to unleash his own assault; with the distraction provided by Videl, he'd charged up more than enough ki for a new special technique. His body was immersed in a shimmering golden-white aura, the bulk of it centralising around his eight fingertips.
"Try this, Freeza! Makōsōmō!" Piccolo thrust both arms forward, the spheres of ki erupting into thin strings, wires of energy, expanding into a vast net over a surprised Freeza clone. The net, formerly vast, pulled itself inward, encasing Freeza in an overlay of ki strings. "Die bastard!" Following a clench of the fingers, pulling against the ki strings like wires on a puppet, the strings began to glow brighter, igniting in a vibrant explosion. Smoke and flame engulfed Freeza, erupting high into the air. Even against the ground, Videl could feel the searing of heat, the acrid taste of smoke, and was inwardly thankful her teacher had given her some warning.
That would have erased me entirely, Videl thought ruefully, bringing herself to her feet with a wary gaze as the smoke column. There's no way he could have taken that head on and sur— Her thoughts were cut off by her own senses. The smoke faded gradually, revealing Freeza's mutilated, but still living, form. Piccolo's Makōsōmō was indeed ludicrously powerful; His body was singed and burned, suffering charred marks over his entire form. Both of his left limbs had been completely destroyed, while his right leg was missing from the ankle downward, and half his tail had been severed. Freeza's body was trembling in pain, his face contorted in rage, yet he did not bleed out, the intensity of the heat from the Makōsōmō having cauterised the wounds it caused.
"How did he survive?!" Videl howled, indignation peaking in her voice. She was certain that the Makōsōmō would have wiped her off the face of the Earth, yet Freeza was only suffering severe injuries.
"I told you that durability is a forté of his," Piccolo said bitterly, having leapt over to stand next to Videl. "We're not much different anymore; this technique wouldn't have killed us either, these emblems on our foreheads would see to that much. But it did what I needed it to. He's been drastically weakened. Even the likes of Freeza can't fight missing three limbs. We'll take finish him off now and —"
A disturbing, squelching sound, distorted from distance, but clearly audible even to Videl's weaker ears, caught the attention of both fighters. Piccolo grimaced, recognising the sound clearly as something disturbingly familiar; the Nameccian knew what was coming long before Freeza's missing limbs and tail had gushed forth from the wounds in a spray of blood and light-green liquid.
"S-Sensei! I thought you said he couldn't regenerate!"
"He never showed the skill when we fought him," replied Piccolo in a matter-of-fact tone. "This is Cell's meddling." The reincarnation of the former Great Demon King scowled bitterly. His regeneration skill was potent, even more so when modified by that damned Doctor Gero and implanted into Cell; this would not be an easy battle at all. Piccolo was unable to suppress a groan. Regeneration had become a recurring theme among their nemeses — Cell possessed his own skill, while the many forms of Majin Bū continued to confound their opponents with their insane regeneration ability. Now, to see Freeza — who was already in possession of durability enough to survive a Genki Dama of insane strength — could regenerate.
"Sensei, he's moving!" Videl called out, a hair too late. Freeza swung his body forward, stretching a limb out forward with a Nameccian biological trait that Piccolo recognised, yet it still caught him off guard. The man felt pale hands clasp around his neck, in time for Videl to feel her entire body seize up through psychokinetic force, which centralised around her neck. Freeza lifted her up telekinetically, keeping his other hand viced around Piccolo's neck.
"S-Shit—" The black-haired martial artist choked out, frantically and futilely trying to peel away the pressuring force squeezing her windpipe shut. Unable to resist the psychokinetic force, Videl nearly gave in to her blackening vision...
...only to feel the pressure loosen, air rush into her lungs with great desperate gasps, and the distant sound of a thudding ki into a body. She slumped to the ground, rubbing her neck and taking in deliberate, precious lungfuls of air. Piccolo stood at her side, ki crackling in remnants from his dark irises. Whatever he had done, it had thrown Freeza away from them completely.
"It seems he's an entirely new bag of tricks," Piccolo growled ruefully. "And he liked to make liberal use of my techniques."
The airborne Freeza clone snarled. His own ocular sockets were smoldering with wafts of smoke visible to Videl from the spot in the air she was levitating. Seconds afterwards, a grotesque squirt of juices and bile came a pair of red eyes that glared towards the pair.
As if incensed by eye beam shot at him, he replied in kind.
"Move!"
Piccolo's bellow came within seconds of the pair avoiding a massive twin blaze of red light that nearly eradicated their bodies, scorching the heavens as it arced across the bluish vista - briefly painted scarlet in its shrieking wake. Then, the pair of red lights trailed after them, with an almost sentient purpose in hunting them down from the very distance they had just momentarily soared over. Having dropped down to the earth, the pair were forced back into the sky, not even watching it cleave through the soil as it twisted up and shot after them like missiles with plumes of light behind them.
"We can't outrun these things!" Videl crowed as Piccolo's mutually tattooed brow furrowed.
"Maybe we don't have to!" He retorted, his eyes glancing briefly up at the icy emperor, whose head was tilting around as it continued to funnel an impossibly large pair of kikōha from his formerly blinded face. With a crackle along his pointed antennae, a bolt of electrical energy discharged upward, impacting against the automatic defense of Freeza's own raised hand.
At that exact moment, Videl capitalized on what her sensei meant and bolted. Pushing herself as fast as she could go in this state, she arced around to ascend behind the frosty adversary. With a prime of her ki sabre, she slashed at his back, shallow enough that it couldn't be deflected by the now expected energy blade of the clone's own making. Still armed in its singleminded goal of the eye-funneling beams, it had no means of seeing the target but knowing it was there; thus it redirected the beams towards Videl while separating briefly around his person to hone in on her.
Which Piccolo banked on happening.
Clenching a hand on his forearm, he howled out a singular purpose of murderous intent.
"MASENKŌ!" The roar came with a massive beam of Sun-colored light, the kikōha thrown forth and slamming into the back of Freeza that made him lurch. The blast itself caught his own kikōha on either of his sides, causing it to detonate and burn his arms down to his legs. Without a defense, the clone was helpless as Videl launched downward with her blade in hand-
KRAK-KRAK-KRAK-KRAK-SLIIIIIIIK!
-cutting him down to size, eviscerating his body into multiple pieces, releasing vile gore behind her in the wake of the carnage she had wrought on the copy's body.
"And to finish it!" She crowed, turning around and throwing a hand out, unleashing a vibrant blast of close-quarters energy. More akin to a flamethrower than a true kikōha, the vibrant flame burned away the durable tissue, allowing herself a grim smile as she saw arms, legs, head and torso bits reduced to nothing but dust before her eyes.
Sighing aloud, she felt a sense of relief wash over her.
"Videl!" She heard Piccolo cry, causing her to look over her shoulder at him with curiosity. That curiosity turned into dread when she saw the normally deep forest green complexion pale into a sickly lime, pointing at her with an attempt to warn her. "You missed the tail!"
A sickening, grotesque sound of contorting flesh that rapidly grew within the smoke of the mostly destroyed body of her foe. Turning shakily to look around her shoulder, she saw - thick in leaking fluids - the replicated Emperor of the known Universe staring down at her with a sinister, cold fury from its red eyes.
"Uh...my bad?" Videl weakly tried to quip as she backed away in the air from the reformed enemy.
"Your bad?! YOUR BAD?!" Piccolo angrily yelled back, veins throbbing along his M marked scalp. "That was your one shot and all you have is, 'your bad'?!"
"Hey, I didn't wake up today thinking I had to fight yesterday's freak show rolled up with today's issues-!"
As she tried to banter, to ease her own tension of the situation, the Freeza clone smiled with a visible sneer. Raising a hand faster than she could process, it locked her in place; not like the psychic grip it had before, but this time in a barrier that froze her body within a tangerine colored field of psychokinetic force.
"W-What is this?!" Videl cried out with fear. "I-I can't move!"
"Hold on!" The viridescent guardian yelled back, powering up with a halo of silver energy as he prepared to intercept this modified Freeza. In an instant, the pasty skinned creature pulled an invisible rope, hauling the Capture Light Shell with its captive in tow.
Then, he threw a three-prong foot to slam against it, bending it like pliant rubber and crashing against Videl's abdomen. A pained look of agony broached her face, unable to brace against the blow while the full velocity of the entity's kick threw her towards Piccolo.
Piccolo aimed to catch her, but something within his mind told him that wasn't the correct course of action. Danger filled within the field of psychic compelled ki. Despite it being punted with ease, as it raced towards him, he felt as if his life was endangered by it.
With a grimace, he placed trust into Videl's own abilities and avoided it with a sidestepping dash. By design, he had fallen straight into the line of fire as a thin beam of light lanced through his abdomen. Coughing out blood, he'd watch with horror as the perfect replication of Freeza grinned viciously with a glowing index finger pointed straight at him.
Unleashing a volley of kikōha towards him over the ruined southern capital.
All this transpired within the bare seconds Videl had before she'd crash into the other half of the smoldering city. Though pain was mitigated, the blow she felt had no inclination of halting her undoubtedly dangerous momentum. Yes, even like her mentor and teacher, she felt danger that permeated this oddly constructed bubble that held her fast to course of ground zero.
I can't let it...end...like this!
She grit her teeth, a thinly veiled fiery wave of light brewing like a star within the tangerine-colored ball. Mere moments before it touched the half-standing, half-flaming skyscraper, she tore through it with a harrowing cry and launched herself out; leaving a sizable explosion in her wake that decimated the city block while a streak of flame outlined her silhouette arcing back towards her master who was evading the piercing beams as best as he could.
Surprising the clone, she spiraled through the rain of ki, twisting her body around so that her foot stretched out with a lancing strike aiming straight towards the creature's skull. The force of it was significant enough to snap it around in a circle, grotesquely spinning around while punting him across the air like a crash dummy with next to no motor control over the momentum of her completely unchecked power throttle.
"She's using it, I see," Piccolo spoke gruffly beneath his breath, seeing the brilliant white aura that coated the daughter of Satan. His pupil's hair stood on end with her skin forming a number of throbbing veins along her arms and legs and over her neck up to her brow-line, showing the exertion that was required to use such a stunning display of control and force all in one package. "Kuumaken. If she wants to use that, she'll have to end it quickly..."
The Freeza clone jerked back in place, hauling its slack neck forward with its head oblong to the side. Grasping its skull, a squelching snap was heard as it popped back into place. Rolling it side to side, the saurianoid stood upright, grinning bloodily at Videl as she launched herself back at him.
This time, however, a dramatic spike of power released from its body. In this unleashing floodgate of strength came a brusque wave of cerulean light followed by Freeza's hand swinging out in time to block Videl's punch. A seismic pop crashed against his skin, bruising and contorting it backward but not breaking apart as intended.
Throwing a strong right, Videl ducked below, punching up at the entity's elbow when it fully contracted and cracked the joint with a viscous explosion of blood and tissue. The entity's eyes blanched, and a snarling hiss released as it swung a tail at her that cracked against her side. Not blown away by the strike, it'd watch with surprise as she clenched at it, hauling it forward to plant a rising knee straight into its stomach.
Letting out a gagging puke of air and fluids, Freeza's doppelganger was grasped by the neck, twisted around and thrown towards the decimated city. Streaking down in a blur of white-purple, it had no control over its own momentum as she chased after it, beating it to the ground before it did. A second later, she leaped up, and stretched her arm out-
KRAK!
-enveloped with a fiery limb, she connected an explosive lariat against his back, splitting open his chest cavity and tearing him in half with a pyrotechnic blaze of sheer friction. The area around her blew back the two halves, chunks of blood and guts spreading across along with freshly exploded glass from the still standing structures that were blown back by the force of her technique connecting.
Turning on her heel, she rushed towards the lower half of Freeza's body. Raising her hands up to interlock her fingers together, she formed a fiery club that she brought down on the disembodied parts.
A powerful thuum! was released as her two hands rended the tissue, guts and limbs asunder, tail and legs included with a fiery blast that cast the ground below into a smoldering crater.
Twisting on her feet, she felt her joints creak and her muscles throb - even with her Babidi-enhanced body - telling her the time to use this technique was almost up. Launching herself like a missile, she threw herself towards the creature just as a viscous expulsion of fluids and freshly grown limbs replaced the ones she destroyed that she bifurcated brutally from. Not relenting, she threw her full body's power into a significant arching hook towards his skull-
-and nothing.
Nothing but a significant upturn of energy bathing this iteration of Freeza like a mantle of bristling bluish light. No stunning shift into another color, nor a grotesque form. This was simply all power available pushed to the fore. Her fist lodged straight into its face, with only a dribble of blood leaving its nose and lips as it smiled evilly back at her stunned, fiery framed person.
"Get away, Videl!" She heard her teacher call out, her eyes looking up to see a familiar technique alight in the sky. Like a flashing comet, the energy condensed between both palms indicated something massive was about to be released and she leaped back while still within this powerful state.
"MAKANKŌSAPPŌ!" Piccolo howled, unleashing the spiraling death beam towards his target, aiming to drill through his flesh and out the other side.
Or at least, that was the plan.
A single white hand raised up, piercing the drill with a beam in its exact likeness. Crashing into Piccolo's, he watched with horror as it overwhelmed it, splitting it down the middle and poised to skewer him. Sidestepping to the right, he watched the lance of energy shriek up into the sky, painting the southern capital's ruins in a pinkish-yellow before returning to its dismal blue once more.
"This is bad...!" The former guardian grimaced aloud, turning his head to look down with fear in his eyes while the effigy of Freeza chuckled with delight.
Freeza swung two arms to either side while taking a step forward - a favorite stance when he was alive, to show he was getting serious - while maintaining a smug expression.
"We can't beat him like this...!" Videl realized, her teeth gnashing as she traded an expression to Piccolo as he looked to her with confirmation.
We'll have to use that, after all!
Whis had taken more students under his wing than initially intended — with the promise that he would be treated to delicious foods, of course. Videl and Piccolo both were two his students, and they had trained to learn to harness the god ki in their own way, different from how the Saiyans or even from how Erase were using it. It was their turn to show simply how much the had learned.
Videl inhaled slowly, deliberately, as if pulling the very air around her inward. With these methodical breaths, her own ki — originally a blazing white firestorm — began to recede. The churning storm of ki had been replaced by a soft, flickering fire which clung to Videl's body, a faint, shimmering light as opposed to a raging inferno. Whatever Videl's flames had been, they were no longer a roaring blaze; they now burned quietly, an indicator of utter control. The ebony-tressed woman exhaled slowly, taking in the feeling.
Right now, this is only possible when I apply god ki, she thought. The gentle light of her enhanced state clung to her arm in a way Videl had never imagined ki could move. I can't transform like Erasa...the only thing I have is the Kūmaken...and by training with Whis, with the power of the gods, I was able to improve and refine it... She wasn't completely sure how long she could maintain the Kūmaken now; she'd been forcing it past its previous minute usage merely during this fight alone, but the difference in the natures of god and mortal ki were as night and day.
"I feel like I can do anything now...!" Videl said, unable to suppress a grin.
"Don't get ahead of yourself," said Piccolo, his eyes glinting ominously. They shone bright, vivid red, and the Nameccian leaned forward, adopting a more feral stance, clenching his four-fingered hands. A guttural sound escaped his throat, threatening to rip it into pieces, and only Videl knew this was a shout for combat. Piccolo's aura began to swirl around his body, a vivid white tinged with shades of indigo. His antennae, formerly hanging loose, stood at attention, and his bright green skin shifted to a midnight green hue, the yellow circles on his body now dyed blue. Pressure exuded off of the Nameccian in waves, staggering Freeza without even giving him a chance to prepare for the sensation of the ki of gods.
The master and student duo stood before Freeza in their godly splendor, each emanating a very different kind of force, despite wielding the same godly pressure. Freeza backed away, nearly tripping over his own tail in an attempt to put some distance between them, and he rushed into the sky. Raising both hands above his head, electricity, hued lavender, crackled upwards from his arms and into the sky, coalescing into a sphere above his head. It brimmed with vibrant hues, lavenders mixed in with deep crimsons. This went against the orders received from Cell, but the duplicate Freeza no longer cared. Every fabric of his being demanded he destroy the planet, and them along with it.
"Old habits die hard," Piccolo growled, seeing with clarify that Freeza was ready to blow up the planet if it meant defeating these two. Heaving with his entire upper body, Freeza brought the orb down upon them. It crossed the path of the sun, eclipsing its light as it descended on Piccolo and Videl. The sheer size of the sphere obscured them from Freeza's vision, but it didn't matter whether he could see them or not.
In mere moments, the entire planet could go up in flames.
A streak of white was the answer to the Earth's impending destruction. In a burst of motion, Videl had cleared the distance between herself and the kikōdan Freeza had discharged. She reached forward, her palm connecting to the sphere without harm, and gripped it hard. Another flash, her knee was brought up to the mass of energy; in a second, it rocketed away, rising high into the sky before it exploded in a violent display of light. The ki issuing forth rushed across the planet, yet otherwise caused no disturbances — an evil, passing wind.
"I didn't expect there to be that much of a difference in strength," Piccolo noted, struggling to hide his approval of Videl's swift action and show of strength. "The ki of the gods is...sublime."
"Maybe I'm just too good," Videl said, her face cocky with a grin.
"Be mindful, Videl," replied Piccolo sternly. "Freeza is not one to be trifled with. But I have a plan...if you don't mind a few burns."
"We're going to execute you-know-what?" Videl asked, shocked. "I mean, we've tested the theory, but—"
"I don't think we'll have a better chance than this! Brace yourself!" the god-clad Nameccian thrust his arms forward, calling out the name of his technique. "MAFŪKAN!" From his fimgertips again, swirling tendrils of ki exploded, reaching into the sky and arcing until they slammed into the Earth, spearing them with tendrils of light. Surrounding Freeza and Videl was a brimming cage of ki, raining down at a constant pace. Piccolo and Videl had gone over this in theory; a constant stream of ki meant to contain the opponent and force them into close quarters; perfect for their own teamwork.
Completely contained within the cage, it was down to Videl and Freeza now.
The Clone of Freeza twitched its head back and forth, its eyes shaking at the sight of the prison its been captured in. Grinding teeth together angrily, with veins throbbing along its brows, the clone of the formerly most feared being in the galaxy barring Freeza and Majin Bū shook with fury. Muscles began to bulge along its arms, stretching out the flesh of his neck and enlarging the lithe torso into a defined chest of muscular flex. Within seconds, the thing that took its living counterpart quite some time to utilize transpired and now it was bristling with a chaotic amount of power that cracked the air and shifted the atmosphere of the light cage around itself.
"You're a real monster, clone or not," Videl intoned, her eyes glaring upwards past the film of softly burning white energy flowing around her relaxed form. "But I've transcended monsters!"
To cement her words, she kicked off the air and disappeared from sight, a streak of light arcing through space to detail her swift momentum that couldn't be seen. The bulked up effigy of Freeza blinked once and in an instant found itself lurching forward, a rising knee smashing into his densely packed abdomen.
Growling, it swung the muscular right arm, feeling it connect-
-only for it to feel a punch that comically indented its face and threw him mightily across the air, straight into the cage.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" The Clone screamed, its back - though densely woven with bleeding energy - slashed upwards and across, blood spraying freely as he'd bounce back from the rebound of the continuous cage's energy output.
"Come on!" The daughter of Mr. Satan cried out in a goading manner. Her defending arm that took the brunt of Freeza's blow was still hissing, the thin burning mantle only showing a small bruise where it previously could've been snapped easily in half; it was now curling fingers in a come hither to the clone, a fierce glare framing her even more fearsome snarl on her lips. "Is that all you got?!"
With veins almost popping from its skull, the clone shrieked with a high pitch shrill as it powered up with a familiar barrier encircling it. Throwing itself forward with enormous battering rams for arms forward, it jettisoned forward with impressive velocity, eclipsing the sound barrier many times over.
It might as well been moving in slow motion, in Videl's eyes. Thanks to her training under Whis she could allow her senses put her body into reaction faster than she could originally fathom. It was all to the credit of focusing on incorporating Godly ki into her natural faculties; everything seemed that much clearer when tapping into the realm of the divine.
So when Freeza came into to barrel through her, she was already rippling across space, twirling around like a graceful dancer as she pirouetted in an invisibly fanciful sidestep evasion. By the time the clone could process it was crashing through an Afterimage, it was already feeling an explosion of pain from a spinning elbow strike to its temple.
A loud shearing crack! was heard that split the air, casting lightning into the sky, and thrusting Freeza into the other cardinal direction of the light cage. Piccolo had to grimace in concentration, feeling the energy barely holding together as Freeza's screaming body bent the normally straightly firing beams like rubber from the sheer speed of its impact.
Rubber banding back with a thuum, Freeza's barrier - cracked and barely holding together - shattered to pieces as he'd be pendulum slammed by Videl's prepared heel of her right foot coming down in an ax kick to his skull. Hitting the earth, the shockwave was great enough that what ghastly remains of the southern capital blew apart, shaking the beams of Piccolo's design and sending seismic tears across the land through the force of which she sent the foul clone of Cell's making into the ground.
It's incredible to think this was the same girl who saved my skin from Majin Bū on a bluff!
Piccolo thought it through as he continued to maintain concentration over this stratagem the two had concocted, in theory alone. There was a swell of pride within him, seeing how she's come this far on effort and will, reinforced through sweat, tears and blood shed to obtain the heights she's surmounted. The fact she could use such a dangerous technique like Kūmaken in the first place, and then refine it with the gods' power was a testament to how much of a fighting prodigy she was.
Gritting through his teeth as he sent another wave of light from his finger tips to keep the cage in order, he'd watch the a staggered but very much standing Freeza rise from the pit under its own power.
Wheezing under its breath, the strain of this mode wasn't as significant as much as the pain that it had sustained thus far. It wasn't the kind that one could just regenerate from. The blows to the head and chest was enough that it was maintained, but still put pain through its every pore.
And it wasn't even the ordinary injury it felt; somehow these blows were like lightning, shocking every cell in its body from the impact!
"Still in one piece? You really are tough," Videl remarked, watching the clone of Freeza raise up to her altitude, eyes twitching with a sign of fury that hadn't died down in the slightest. Unable to conceal a smirk, the tattooed girl crossed her arms and cocked her head to the side as she inquired sardonically. "What's the matter? I was giving you a compliment. Haven't had one of those in awhile, ugly?"
Blood spurted from clenching gums, the creature's body throbbed violently as another wave of violet light pulsed from its form.
"More powering up?" She questioned rhetorically. Her eyes widened as Freeza's mass began to swell to an even greater height, its head painfully cracking outward to fit the gargantuan spread of muscle and tissue that was coming from the howling wave of ki funneled air. Staring upward, she saw the form of Freeza was now two if not three times its original height and now brimming with an amethyst sheen of energy that quaked as much as its body.
"Damn...you're big," Videl intoned, her smile disappearing as she narrowed her eyes with a deadly promise in them. "I guess this means I'll have to end you with my ultimate technique, before you get any bigger."
"I-I..." The Clone began to croak out, drool escaping its mouth along with blood, eyes becoming pins within a red cracked canvas of its own sockets. "I-I'VE HAD...ENOUGH!"
Piccolo blinked with surprise, hearing the construct of Cell's talk. This was the first time, and its behavior was oddly deviating from what a simple drone would do. No, it had far more of the old personality of Freeza than even the Bio-Android could've predicted...!
His attention turned back to his pupil, watching her raise up a hand flattened into a knife shape. From the wrist up erected a luminous blade of pure white light, not too dissimilar from the soft burning flame of her own divine energy. But, whereas that burned, this one bristled like a solid coat of glittering crystal. The precision of control over energy, and maintaining its shape without letting it expand unnecessarily was yet another sign of her progress in her study under Whis.
This is her trump card!
The deep emerald fighter grinned despite the focus he was maintaining on the light prison, knowing the end was within reach, even while the clone of Freeza was frothing with fury and raising up an energy encircled fist nearly five times her size.
"I...AM...FREEZA!" The towering menace roared out, his deep timbered voice twisting into a shrill scream as it launched itself towards its diminutive target, aiming to pound her with all of its might in a single blow. "AND YOU WILL DIE, INSEEEEEEEEEEEEECT-!"
A spiral of white flew over the monstrous proportioned arm, leaving behind neatly bifurcated partitions of the outstretched limb. Even as they fell, each slab was caught aflame, burning away into ash in the wake of their severing from the main body.
The clone of Freeza twisted around to face her floating frame, throwing its remaining arm to swipe at her with eye-bulging rage. In the span of him blinking, he'd see as much as feel the outstretched hand leave the body in another spiraling current of swift movement and precise cuts. Bereft of both arms for the moment, the monstrously sized Freeza gaped, looking down at the girl's blade as she held it behind her, kneeling down in readiness.
Then, it opened its mouth and a swell of light forming within the back of its throat.
"FALL BEFORE ME-!" It howled, firing an immense kikōha at her.
But, that too was cut in twain, along with a sudden emptiness filling his skull. No, not filling but, the contents of it leaving. Eyes oblong looking to and fro, like independent parts of a chameleon's ocular organs, looking at itself being cut down the middle in a resounding shear of burning white light that set it aflame, and produced enough heat to burn through the core of its head; along with every single cell of its being.
"You...all...!" It choked out impossibly, as the last of its body turned to embers and drifted into the wind before Videl's stoic glare.
Freeza's Clone now fell, and the battle over the southern capital's remains, was finally over. Videl and Piccolo steadied themselves against solid ground, releasing their godly enhancements with a great exhale. Freeza's defeat was a relief to the Earth, that much was sure. Yet they could feel it, in the distance. Two immense powers, clashing, simple blows causing the entire planet to shake and tremble.
Gohan and Cell were fighting.
A/N:
LastationLover5000: Hello, everyone! I am so sorry that it's taken The Erased Chronicles nearly three months to get back off the ground. My friend, Demod20, and I have begun a new project, which has commanded a lot of my attention. But it isn't merely that, this entire COVID pandemic has been stressful for all of us involved — even moreso because I work in a place where people shirk the need to wear masks constantly, and many people are stupid enough to believe it either doesn't exist or they are somehow impervious to it — and my job just doesn't care about us all. So I've been ludicrously stressed out, in addition to some admitted burn-out I've felt while writing Erased. The new project we have — Tale of the Sky Maiden — has been a much needed way to relieve myself of both stress from real life and pressure from the burn-out I'm experiencing. I won't abandon the Erased Chronicles at all, as I still have three more arcs planned before this fanfic has reached a conclusion. However, due to the bulk of fighting chapters, and my inability to proper concentrate on writing them, the next two battles will be written by my friend, Demod20, who contributed insanely to this chapter to ensure you all had something without hitting the four month period. I hope you all enjoyed Videl and Piccolo's usage of god ki. Both were vastly different, yet suit their styles, and I tried to give Piccolo a state that is neither underdesigned, like the Heroes' bullshit, or overdesigned, like what you'll see online, and I think I struck the right balance. His new techniques — the Makōsōmō (魔光層網, Demon Light Layering Net) and the Mafūkan (魔封檻, Demon Sealing Cage) are results of his training with Whis. Videl's expansion on the Kūmaken — which has yet to be named — is also very much her "god form". She's the simplest out of all of them; while the Saiyans and Piccolo's god form invoke a change, as does Erasa's due to the uniqueness of her powers, Videl's god form is all about the utter refinement and utilisation of what she already has.
I cannot stress my appreciation of Demod20 enough; I've been having such a hard time writing fight scenes, that, at least until Gohan vs. Cell, I'm going to get him to help me. You will see more chapters very soon, because he's agreed to help me with the upcoming battles! So, as always, I'll see you all on the next exciting episode of the Erased Chronicles, and thank you all ever so much for your patience!
Demod20: Hello again! I've come to lend my talents for action for the Erased Chronicles once again! Now it wasn't the whole fight, but some parts. I enjoyed detailing the growing sinister behavior of the old Freeza revealing in this Clone, climaxing in the final bits of the action. On top of that, I also liked utilizing Piccolo's brains and Videl's tenacity; and of course, I have to end it with Freeza being cut in pieces, as he should be. I'll see you all again in the not too distant future, so look forward to that