The Next Dimension Over
Chapter Twenty-two
The wall and floor exploded, engulfing their forms in a powerful and fiery explosion.
Goku squirmed and dropped out of her arms behind the nearby support pillar. The giant figure had, apparently, so far completely missed that his discarded arm had vanished from where he'd thrown it, replacing his two targets at the last moment. Instead, he simply droned on to himself about a successful mission.
"Hey, I could have escaped on my own." Goku shoved her leg and frowned up at her for a moment, before his attention shifted back to the man who still stood looking out of the hole he'd made in the wall. Again. Another floor, another hole in the wall. By the time they were finished with this tower, it wouldn't be any warmer on the inside than it was on the outside.
"I wonder what kind of move that was..." He frowned, leaning around her slightly to look at the man. "That must have been some kind of mouth Kamehameha."
She blinked. "That's what the Kamehameha wave is like?" She couldn't clearly remember the one time she'd seen it before...but usually ki glowed more brilliantly than the fiery explosion that the creature (surely not a man...) shot out of its mouth.
"Uh huh..." He nodded, then frowned up at her, pointing. "No more helping! You promised to let me fight him this time!"
Clearly, he needed to learn the values of teamwork. She sighed, and gestured over her shoulder. "Don't get killed and I won't need to interfere."
"I won't! If he wants to use Kamehameha, then I will too. Watch!"
Goku jumped out from hiding and waved his arm excitedly. "Hey! Over here!"
The tall humanoid turned its head toward him, expression slowly shifting from neutral to surprise. Despite whatever attack was undoubtedly on the way, her gaze pulled back to Goku. Kamehameha was the primary reason she'd wanted the old man's teaching, and he'd refused to give her the secret of it until she mastered control of ki. If somehow Goku had learned it, then at least she could get a close up look at it this way.
Goku bent his knees slightly and turned, gathering his hands at his hips. "My turn! Ka...me..."
Light sparked and then began to glow between his hands. "Ha..."
The bizarre man gave an unnatural roar, and then charged toward Goku, hand outstretched.
"Me"
One huge hand reached out toward the tiny figure of Goku, dwarfing his head and blocking out the light filtering into the room by the broken wall. "HA!"
Goku's arms snapped outward in front of him, hands still clasped together by their palms, and an intense white-blue beam of...ki shot outward. The giant figure and its remaining arm vanished entirely into the light, roar of anger transforming into something that might have been a scream of shock instead.
As the light faded and the dust began to clear, a gigantic fist shot through the air. At her.
Well...more likely, it had been aimed at Goku and simply missed. She tensed, calculating whether to dodge or to knock it back where it came from...and then Goku leaped into the air and kicked it as it passed. The huge fist spiraled away and crashed into a nearby wall instead, completely missing either mark. "No fair attacking someone else! I'm-..."
He trailed off, as the strange creature stumbled out of the cloud of debris and smoke caused by the previous Kamehameha. Armless, dragging a broken leg...and without a head. It sparked and sizzled, and Goku recoiled in shock, words apparently lost.
"Perhaps someone should have warned you before that Sergeant Metallic is no mere human." The voice from the floor before crackled through the air, sounding far more smug than last. "He lacks any of your weakness! Nothing you can do will stop or even slow him."
Unaffected by the voice, Goku charged ahead, and propelled himself into the air by his tail. As his opponent now lacked a head or arms, the attempt was actually successful this time, colliding with the beast's giant chest. Boots skidded across the floor, and he vanished into the gloom of the far side of the room again. Predictably, a moment later, heavy thuds echoed through the darkness.
"This will be is as far as you go, intruders."
Goku charged ahead, drawing his red staff. "Power pole extend!"
"You see, no matter what you do, you cannot escape or overcome Sergeant Metallic's durability."
As the giant creature reappeared, the red staff swung through the air, colliding with Metallic. The beast stumbled and slid back into the darkness with a crash and loud whirring. A moment later, it reappeared, pulling itself across the room by its half arms.
"He cannot be bargained with or reasoned with, he is incapable of feeling pity, remorse, or even fear"
Again, showing...remarkable determination, the creature struggled to its feet, and marched toward Goku, who crouched down again, readying himself for another attack...
"He absolutely will not stop, ever, until-"
Something sparked and popped loudly from the top of what should have been its neck. The giant creature shuddered, hissed...and then fell backward onto the ground with a crash, unmoving.
The disembodied narrator of the room said not another word.
She shoved away from the support beam, and walked across the cracked and damaged floor toward where the behemoth lay. Goku glanced between she and it uncertainly. "Uh...is it...?"
"I'll check." She clenched her fist, summoned chakra, and punched through the center of its chest, crushing it inward. Sparks flew into the air for a moment or two, and then the constant soft whirr of the room finally silenced. She nodded, and glanced over at her small figure. "It's stopped."
He frowned, expression a mask of worry and concern. "Did you...you didn't kill it did you?"
She shook her head and planted her hands on her hips. "I think it was some kind of puppet to begin with."
"A puppet?"
"A human shaped tool someone else controls. They're never alive to begin with." Except when they controlled themselves. Or human shells are used as puppets. But that wasn't likely to be the case at all.
Probably.
She shook her head slightly. "Come on. Next floor."
He nodded quickly., and turned to sprint up the nearby (slightly damaged from the fight) stairs "Right!"
She brushed her clothes free of the debris of the fight, and followed after him. Her longer legs allowed her to walk at a more relaxed pace and still keep up with him, and that allowed her to think a little as they made their way up the steps. Ki really was a simplistic thing to use, if what she'd seen from Goku were an accurate read of the technique. She didn't have a dojutsu to be sure...but he didn't appear to use any hand signs, simply summoning his ki and directing it in the fashion he wished.
To handle chakra that way, no need for calculated techniques or concealing hand seals, would be extremely useful. Even if she relied primarily on medical chakra techniques and taijutsu, there were others like Sasuke who used ninjutsu, Of course, worrying about how to use that brilliant beam of pure chakra was a waste without first being able to manipulate ki in any reliable manner.
"Ooh..." Goku halted at the top of the steps and looked around the floor in awe. A moment later, she made it to the top of the staircase as well, and...it was indeed very different from the other floors they'd seen so far. Somehow, they'd managed to turn the stone floor into something that could sustain plant life (even trees) and put forth the effort of maintaining an entire floor worth of grass and trees unsuited for the outdoors climate.
It'd be a shame to rip a hole through this floor.
"Weird..." Goku wandered into the room, eyes on the tops of the trees. "It's like they put outside inside..."
She scanned the treeline as she followed after him, boots crunching softly in the grass. "An odd choice for a migrant military force..."
She sensed the stir in the air before she saw the attack, and sprinted forward, lifting Goku off of his feet once more. A rain of kunai scattered across the ground where she'd been standing. She glanced over her shoulder briefly, and then scanned the leaves in the area in the direction where the attack must have come from.
"Goku..."
"Yeah?" He looked up at her from under her arm.
"This one's mine." if it was anything as durable and determined as the creature below, she wasn't about to match Goku up against something that had the skill of a shinobi. He didn't possess the sort of skills to be able to deal with even chuunin level strategies. Admittedly, he could probably deal with the average chuunin...but the one on the floor below was much above those in strength and speed.. No matter how much he wanted to fight after waiting around a month in Bulma's house, she wouldn't allow him to risk himself.
Masculine laughter echoed off of the walls, masterfully deflected from wherever the source came from. "Yours? You fools! There's never been anyone to so much as see me, let alone 'claim' me! You should have turned around when you survived by fluke before. Perhaps then you might have been able to see the face of your killer one day."
As laughter rang out again, she let Goku drop to the ground. "Stay out of the way."
He huffed and stuck his tongue out. "I know how to give people turns!"
Ah-there. As Goku marched back to the top of the stairs, she sprinted toward the figure in the trees, barely visible due to the light pouring in from a window on the opposite wall. Shiruken flew through the air, and she simply knocked away the one in her path with a kunai of her own. A moment later, her fist crunched through the branch the purple-clad ninja crouched on.
His scream was quite impressive. Crashing onto his back instead of his feet wasn't.
She dropped to the grass next to him, and he scrambled backward, eyes wide. "Th...that was lucky! I hope you feel honored, even if you'd only found me on a fluke!" He stumbled to his feet once he was a few feet away from her.
:"Maybe I should have traded with Goku." She walked after him, as he backpedaled through the forest. "If the rest of your skills are as poor as your reflexes, I don't think you'd have been any trouble for him after all."
He dug out a small round thing from his belt and tossed it at the ground. She flicked her wrist, and a senbon knocked the device away. A cloud of smoke exploded in the distance. So...it must have been a primitive form of a smoke bomb, not really any threat. The tall man turned on his heel and sprinted away. "Y-You won't find me a second time!"
She doubted that, but she didn't really have the patience to wait and see.
With a quick burst of speed, she jumped ahead of the man, and struck him upside the head. Unsurprisingly, he didn't make the barest attempt to deflect or dodge her. She didn't even bother to watch him crash through the nearest tree. Apparently, the giant creature in the floor below had been a fluke.
She sprinted back to where Goku stood, and settled her hand on her hip. "He wasn't that impressive."
"Oh. Guess it's a good thing it was your turn, then!" He laced his fingers behind his head and grinned, before heading toward the other stairs. "Mine's next!"
As she started after him, another rain of kunai shot through the grass.
"And just where do you two think you are going?" The voice echoed across the room again, followed by that same laugh.
She frowned, looking across the treeline again. He shouldn't have gotten back up again for a long time, if ever. Not with the lack of skill he'd displayed so far. How the hell could he be back? It couldn't have been an illusion. Had he simply been faking his weakness? But if so...exactly what advantage had it given him?
"As I said, you fools, there is no one who has ever even seen my face! Now that playtime is over, it's time to cut you down!"