Outlanders

Chapter 46: A Test of Strength

A/N: Another week, another chapter! Hope you enjoy! Also, 199 reviews! Wild! Thank you all so much for your past and continuing support!


Garlic Jr. flew backward, frantically dodging to avoid the swordsman's lightning-quick strikes. He would only have a second to glimpse a flash of metal before a sword would stab at him, forcing him to stay constantly in motion. Abruptly, Yajirobe's grip on his sword shifted and he spun it in a circle, barely nicking Garlic Jr.'s arm and slashing off his cape in one fell swoop. The garment fell to the tiles in a clump.

'Yaagh!' Garlic Jr.'s roared as a point-blank purple blast of energy launched from his palms, flinging him backward even as the blast hurtled towards Yajirobe. Seeing this onrushing blast, Yajirobe grimaced and planted his feet. Swirls of blue energy began running up and down the length of his blade, giving it an otherworldly glow. When the blast was just a handful of feet away from him, he stepped in and swung the sword in a clean vertical slice, moving the tip of the blade from the tiles at his feet to slightly above and behind his head. The energy blast was hewn clean in two, compromising its integrity and exploding it to either side of Yajirobe.

Scowling, Garlic Jr. continued to hang in the air. His sword is annoying… wish I could snap that troublesome thing in two. As Garlic Jr. continued to catch his breath, he noted that Yajirobe, while similarly winded to himself from their bout, was moving back into a more defensive position around Korin. His face betrayed something akin to worry. Wait… Ah, of course! Every strength comes at a cost.

Garlic. Jr. flew closer to them, though he made sure to keep himself an appropriate distance off the ground. Yajirobe didn't challenge him in the slightest. 'You can't fly!' Garlic Jr. exclaimed, throwing an accusatory arm at the samurai. 'Haha! What kind of fighter are you?'

Yajirobe squinted towards the sky. 'A regretful one.'

'I see…' Garlic Jr. purred as a ball of energy blossomed into existence in his right hand. 'So there's not much you can do to prevent me from lobbing ki at you and your cat friend, is there?'

Coughing ragged, Korin trembled as he remained mostly prone on the ground. He wasn't getting up anytime soon.

Damn it… Yajirobe's grip on his blade tightened. 'Try me!'

0o0o0

The hard crunch of small rocks and hardened lumps of dirt beneath their feet echoed off the canyon's ragged walls, Straining underneath the planet's strong gravity, Tien and Yamcha had dutifully trodden far into whatever constituted a wilderness on this planet. Without a complaint or a whimper, they had pulled themselves over boulders, down cliffs, and jumped across chasms as they sought to remain behind their captor. Not that they had much of a choice in this. Nappa's relaxed posture and unrelenting pace essentially said: If you run, I can and will catch you. And where would they have gone? The planet itself seemed devoid of any and all life except for the complex they came from, and judging from how most of the people there had eyed them it was doubtful if they would be warmly received there. So there was nothing else to do but walk, and hope whatever purpose Nappa had for their exertion was purposeful.

Eventually, they came to a stop at what must have once been a great and mighty river- a fairly straight gorge was jagged and angular towards the top but was wide and smooth at the bottom. A dry riverbed cut through the valley like a knife, whispering of some great prowess long gone. But beyond this, it was clear that the place they now found themselves in was a place of battle- the devastation wrought around them in the form of odd angles and delipidated groupings of rock made that clear enough. It was nicely tucked away from any other part of the planet- a perfect place to kill someone.

While the wind blew in unmanageable chunks, Nappa strode over towards the center of the riverbed. His boots left huge, heavy footprints in the soft dirt. 'This planet used to be in a much better shape,' he commented, focusing his attention in a spot on the ground. He crouched down and, curiously, he began to use his hands to cup dirt and dump it at his side.

Tien scrutinized this for a second, then cast his vision towards a part of the valley that looked like it was eviscerated out of existence by a ki blast. 'What happened?' he asked.

'Sometimes we get a little overzealous in doing our jobs. This planet used to be one of the highest valued contracts out there- paid a lot of money if we purged it right, in other words. The reason it was so lucrative, however, is that this planet had one hell of an angry native populace…' As Nappa said these words, he clenched his fist and pushed it into the small hole he had made, shook it, and then scooped the dirt back into the hole and patted it down. 'They fought to the bitter end, and damn well took their planet with them. A lot of people on both sides died for a planet that, ultimately, wasn't worth more than this dirt…' He gestured broadly to the broken chunks of land around them. 'The scars of battle never really go away.'

Yamcha, who was propping himself against a rock-face, pushed himself away. 'Sounds like a thoroughly useless waste of life.'

'Most planets don't go like this,' Nappa replied, retrieving a small bag from his side. He unscrewed the bag's top and tipped it, pouring clear blue water onto where the hole had previously been. 'Usually we know how to pick our battles… or the natives have the good sense to roll over and die for us. On each contract, there's usually a few smart ones who betray their world to survive.' Nappa stood, wiped his hands on the front of his armor, and took a few long steps backward away from Tien and Yamcha. 'You'd be surprised to know how many people involved in our army are survivors from now-defunct civilizations. Evidently, this planet was populated by foolish idealists.'

'That's…' Tien couldn't find the words to express his presently felt revulsion. 'What kind of-'

'-but enough about that,' Nappa interrupted him, who in turn was interrupted by the sound of dirt being heaved. 'Time to talk business.'

The ground in front of Nappa churned and shook, until an odd creature with a ridged dark green torso and a light green limbs burrowed out of the ground. It was short- maybe three or four feet tall, it was covered in unsettling dark veins and possessed startlingly red eyes. Its hands and feet, which were nothing more than three straightened talons sticking out at regular intervals, swiped and stabbed at the ground around it.

Nappa's voice wrenched them back to the present. 'You two, and your friend, were brought here on the condition that you could enlist under Vegeta and I and help fulfill contracts. Raditz and his brother's absence have left us short-handed for the foreseeable future. You two could help us out in that regard.' While Nappa spoke, the creature was motionless, poised to fulfill some sort of command. 'But… you see, we have no reason to believe your claim that you killed Raditz. And we have no interest in weaklings who can't complete contracts for us. So consider this a test. This creature, a saibaman, will be about as strong as Raditz, if not weaker.' Nappa's face twisted in a grin. 'Kill it.'

Tien and Yamcha tensed on reflex. The green creature stomped and bucked, making an odd high-pitched warbling sound. 'What kind of sick game is this?' Yamcha demanded.

Nappa tapped a finger to the side of his scouter, bringing up a display of the nearby power levels. 10, 10, and… weaker than I would have liked. 800. Good, but not great.. 'Consider this your entrance exam and me as the proctor. If you live, you pass.'

The saibaman appeared to possess some sort of limited understanding what Nappa was saying- it started to drag its feet across the ground in preparation for a charge. Fangs swung in and out of sight from its mouth.

Tien quickly put aside every stray thought running through his head, 'Get ready!' he barked to Yamcha, who nodded and jogged over to Tien's side. Together, they both dipped their heads and began powering up.

Numbers ran across the visor of Nappa's scouter. He couldn't help but let one of his eyebrows raise in mild surprise. This should be fun.

0o0o0

Going down the path laid out in front of her ended up being the right move. It was only after a few minutes of thoughtless walking did Launch find the stone underneath her feet abruptly end at a large gate set in-between two towering white walls. Even more encouragingly was a winch set in the ground nearby that began to raise the gate when Launch started to work it. Now we're getting somewhere! Any sort of landmark was welcome news for Launch- or, at least, it was better than the never-ending darkness that seemed to tail her like a starving stray dog. She had the feeling that if she spent any significant amount of time in wherever-she-was-right-now, the darkness would start to get to her. Make her a bit more unhinged.

Comparatively. I've already reached a good level of "unhingedness"- don't want to be messing around with that if I can help it.

The gate finished moving upwards- beyond it was a blindingly white chamber to the point of forcing Launch to shield her head with one arm. She couldn't make out any feature of the room, but she wasn't going to turn back at this point either, so squinting as best she could, Launch walked through the gate.

A few steps into the chamber the air around her began to shudder and move- light flashed and floated past her in strange chunks, giving her the impression of stars moving across the night sky. The ground beneath her feet shifted from something hard to something soft, and the sound of wind slowly filtered into her ears. The light eventually dimmed, and when she opened her eyes, she found herself in a wooden building. Wait… I know this place… though the color palette of the place was off and the fixtures seemed out-of-place, Rayne could distinctly recognize the bar stool she had sat upon every night for damn near a month a few years back. When she had been essentially cast out of Tien and Chiaotzu's home in order to "find herself".

Just thinking about that time made her want to punch a wall. Hell, I'm not in the real world, so… her arm whipped out to the side, crashing through the flimsy wooden wall to her right. Her hand came away vindicated. Worth it.

While the parameters of the room itself remained fairly constant, figures and shapes roamed around, coming together and dissipating like ghostly apparitions. Two distinct entities began to come into focus, however- seated at opposite ends of the bar were two nearly-identical women if not for the differing colors of their hair.

Launch involuntarily took a step backward. Ahh, damn it… In one synchronized movement, the two women stood and turned to her, each one sporting a snarl on their face. 'You've come back, huh?' the woman with the blue hair growled. 'Like a coward, you came crawling back…'

'We were doing just fine without you,' the woman with the yellow hair said sadly. 'We're happier without you getting in the way of us.'

Launch glared at the yellow-haired one, then yanked her gaze to the ceiling. 'Really?' She yelled out to no-one in particular. 'This is what you test me with? My halves from a past life? Pathetic!'

The yellow-haired woman charged Launch at this comment, pulling back a fist. 'Don't you call me a half! I'm more of a match-'

She never finished her sentence as Launch closed the gap between them in the blink of an eye and wrapped her right arm around her neck, wrenching her to the ground. Launch's foot then came down on the yellow-haired woman's chest, pinning her.

The wooden floor creaked and shuddered, and the yellow-haired woman struggled to work herself free, but Launch's judicial grip didn't let up. Without sparing a glance at the person lodged beneath her, Launch turned with a soft face to the blue-haired woman, who was presently trembling in fear near the bar. With a gentle lift of her hand, Launch beckoned her other half to come closer. The blue-haired woman hesitated for a moment, flicking her gaze back and forth between Launch and the struggling woman beneath her, but eventually, she sauntered forward. They clasped each other's hands and nodded, passing some unspoken message between them. The yellow-haired woman intensified her struggle to break free.

'I never forgot what I learned here-' Launch said without looking down, pressing her foot down harder on her yellow-haired half. '-I'm stronger, together.'

As if some magic curse had been broken, upon Launch's utterance the room around her rapidly began to dissolve, stretching and fading all color and shape from the scene. Launch saw both halves of her give a small smile before they too dispersed into pieces and floated away.

Well… that was cathartic. She stood and watched the last remnants of the bar blink out of existence. It was always easy to for me to talk to my yellow self- violence is a language almost everyone understands. Weird to think that I got as far as I did without giving my blue self the time of day. Launch glanced down at the hand that had gripped her blue half. You were never the weak one. You always tried to be strong for both of you, in your own way. I wouldn't be here without you.

The space around Launch became more vivid, dynamic, as an increasingly fast cavalcade of shapes and colors blurred past her, giving her the impression that her speed through wherever she was was although she wasn't sure how she knew this, she distinctly felt herself returning to where she was before entering this realm- Earth. Alright… time to sock that imp's jaw- wait.

Launch leaned backward, slowing the frantic procession around her. Through what might have been the interdimensional equivalent of a window was an alien landscape- brown and dusty looking rocks framed a dreamlike scene of four figures buzzing around before her. Vaguely familiar shapes rocketed back-and-forth, trailed by flashes of light and color.

She had no idea what she was looking at- but she still felt it to be important nonetheless. Just before she felt her grasp window come undone, she extended an arm and shot a quick blast of ki through the window, splattering the barrier inwards. She was only able to see a faint glimpse of something green before her momentum whisked her away. Forced back to face the direction she was moving in, she was overcome by blinding white light.

0o0o0

From an observer's perspective, the first few minutes of the meeting was uneventful. While Puar and Oolong crouched on a catwalk nearly flush to the warehouse's ceiling, every single shape-shifting mob boss that they had identified spoke in hushed tones to each other. The two of them had succeeded in bringing every person of import who was involved in the shape-shifting underworld to this meeting- the culmination of almost five years of effort- but now that everyone was in one place, they weren't sure how to proceed. As they conversed they were quickly figuring out that someone had misled them all and had drawn them to this warehouse- and the suspicion on their faces grew clearer in turn. On their own, Puar and Oolong weren't strong enough to take out forty-something people, each one protected by two or three bodyguards. It was the worst possible time for every single one of her super-powered friends to be conspicuously unaccounted for.

But, on this day, Puar received the most fortuitous development of her life. Just as guns were being raised and aimed towards every possible hiding spot in the building, purple smoke drifted across the warehouse floor. In a matter of seconds, every single person below started to savagely assault one another.

As rapt as she was with this development, Puar failed to notice Oolong's whispering until the pig had forcefully shoved her. 'Puar! What the hell is going on!?'

Puar could only smile. 'An act of Kami, that's what's going on. Look!' Puar excitedly dragged Oolong's attention to two mob guards bringing down another one of their bosses and plunging their hands into the fallen person's guts. Chunks of muscles and intestines flew into the air.

Oolong looked at this for a long moment. 'I mean… Puar, they're killing each other,' he said softly, watching as someone's neck was ripped open, spurting blood onto the floor. 'Shouldn't we stop this? This is horribly brutal…'

'Do you want to go down there yourself and break them up?' Puar asked, incredulous.

'Uhh… no, I'd prefer not.'

'Then, like me, you're stuck up here.'

'Well, do we have to watch?'

'Just… turn around if you're so inclined,' Puar said dismissively. 'While you're doing that, I'll be watching the fruits of our labor.'

Oolong creased his brow, but nodded weakly and spun around away from the carnage. Over the next few minutes, Puar watched the bloodbath unfold eagerly, but upon seeing someone be drawn and quartered, her appetite for spectacle vanished. Mortified, she turned away from the scene as well.

0o0o0

Chaos had erupted across the Lookout in a startlingly short of time. While figures rose and fall all around him, Chiaotzu kept his attention dead-set on the smallest of Garlic Jr.'s henchman, who, since the beginning of the fight, had remained immobilized within a running position as a monument to Chiaotzu's psychic talents. Although this didn't prevent Ginger- a name Chiaotzu had learned from repeated threats over the past few minutes- from running his mouth.

'I can feel you slipping!' Ginger hissed, struggling against Chiaotzu's bonds like a worm trying to dig itself out of the dirt. 'You're weak! Otherwise, you wouldn't hide behind such a flimsy stalling action! Release me!'

It was annoying whenever an opponent was right- and, in this case, Chiaotzu agreed with Ginger. His psychic strength was lagging, weakening from such a sustained exertion over the past few minutes. There wasn't much he could do about that, though- Chiaotzu could clearly sense and see the Makyan advance in halts and spurts.

In retrospective, he was bewildered that he thought it would be a good idea to detain an opponent indefinitely, draining his own power in the process, without having some sort of plan in mind. Chiaotzu could have been fashioning a piercing weapon, or weakening the ground underneath Ginger, or even edging his captive towards the constant stream of ki attacks Garlic Jr. was ferrying down to Yajirobe, whose expert display of defensive swordsmanship kept himself safe. But, instead, he was spending these precious moments grappling with his own confusion. What he was doing- willingly distracting himself in the middle of a fight- was against every teaching and lesson he had learned during his time under Shen, and yet he felt no pull to stop. There was something important to this hesitation, this blatant lack of consideration… floating just below the surface… If only someone could-

There. That was it. He had expected someone to help him. Someone who could have struck down Ginger while Chiaotzu had him immobilized. He, Chiaotzu realized, had expected Tien.

The thought chilled him. I'm on my own. Not a single person had even stopped and looked in on his fight, let alone tried to attack Ginger while he couldn't defend. Yajirobe was detained defending Korin, Suno was locked in her own battle, and Launch was simply missing.

What was it? Reluctance? Fear? Brazen confidence? Every single one of these emotions swirled within him, coalescing into one unyielding blob of feeling. A spool of something came undone in the center, however, prompting Chiaotzu to mentally lean forward and tug on it.

I wasn't there for them. When they needed me the most, I couldn't help them face Raditz due to my own weak stomach...

Ginger lurched a foot closer, straining Chiaotzu's faltering psychic grip. He was feeling too much regret, too much self-loathing to muster a defense. With the last strands of his power falling away, Chiaotzu's strength failed and he toppled backward to the ground. The Makyan moved immediately, zooming to only a few feet away from him-

Phooom. In the time it took for him to blink, Chiaotzu's opponent was planted face-first into the tiles, splattering blood and breaking limbs in a circle all around the center of the crater. Launch, who stood over the goon with one fist extended, gave a crisp nod to her friend and spun around- and her outline shimmered away.

Wide-eyed, Chiaotzu continued to stare off into space in front of him. Too close.

0o0o0

Suno twirled, absorbing a hit to her forearms, before spinning again and catching another blow to her guard. Another hit, then another, and then she dodged backward and pressed herself to the ground, narrowly avoiding a wave of energy passing just a few inches over her head. On the way down, she lost her balance, and as she tilted to one-side like a child misplacing their feet, a foot slammed into her front, digging into her ribs and scoring her across the rough white tiles. Rips in her gi and gashes in her side opened up, leaving a trail of torn, blood-stained white and blue fabric in her wake. She used her fist to dab at a spring of blood trickling out of the right corner of her mouth and stood, staring down her gloating opponent. This one had an infuriating smirk.

Her first true fight wasn't going as well as Suno would have liked. Too often in the past she had either stood gaping on the sidelines or been so thoroughly and immediately outclassed by her opponent that she would be knocked out of a fight without so much as a single chance to throw a punch. She was determined to change the narrative.

Her opponent lunged at her, but Suno sidestepped and pivoted, slamming a kick into the side of the Makyan's guard. Both of their bodies tensed and shook at the heavy impact, but Nicky was able to recover faster and zoomed forward, headbutting Suno in her chest and eliciting a gasp of pain from her. Nicky promptly delivered a few more palm strikes to her torso before leaning back and punting her body further away from him. Like before, Suno slid painfully across the tiles, weakly trying to grip them to slow her momentum.

'You know,' Nicky called out to her once she had slowed to a stop, 'you don't need to fight me. If you would just stay down, I'm more than happy to go pay a visit to your friend over there,' he said, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder to Yajirobe, who remained in a defensive posture around Korin.

Shaking, Suno picked herself off the ground. Her red hair hung down past her head, adding to the disheveled and injured look of her ripped gi. 'Now…' she muttered angrily, raising her gaze to meet his. 'Why would I do that?'

'Well, I'd hit you less, for one.'

'I don't… care.' Suno stood, fending off her dizziness from the increasing number of times her opponent had smacked her around. Wheezing, she asked, 'Couldn't you attack him right now while I'm struggling to stay upright?'

'Oh, I could, but I'm not one to disrespect an opponent. I'll fight you until you stop. Whether you're conscious for that moment is up to you. Besides, Master Garlic is in no danger from your friend there.' Nicky's face coiled into an ugly grin. 'I can play with you at my leisure.'

Suno blearily shook her head, willing to clear her vision from any spots of pain. 'You'll… see what I can do.' Nicky simply bent lower to the ground, preparing to charge her-

Phooom. Air blasted across the surface of the Lookout, prompting Nicky to turn his gaze towards its origin. 'What?...'

Phooom. An arm appeared within Nicky's midsection, clean and without a trace of residue. It would have been almost dream-like if slick teal blood didn't gush out over in not a second later. Behind him, Launch grunted, frowned, and briefly made eye-contact with Suno. Before she could say anything or react in any way, Launch disappeared, leaving Ginger's unsupported and rapidly expiring body to flop forward to the ground.

0o0o0

Seven purple blasts screeched down from the heavens in a quick procession, each one aiming square at Yajirobe's sword. Seven purple blasts streaked and shuddered through the air, warbling with enough energy to wipe out a medium-sized town. But, in the end, seven purple blasts were cleaved into nothing, diced and dispersed into sparks by a freakishly sharp sword and an even freakier wielder.

Winded, Yajirobe made sure to keep the blade's edge pointed up, ready to slice through another blast. He had resolved, to the detriment of his body and his life, to stand guard over Korin for however long it took for the cat to recover. This promise was proving difficult to keep.

'Yajirobe…' Korin croaked from behind him, 'leave me…' The cat coughed and sputtered, caught in an expression of suffering from whatever damage he had done to his body before. Yajirobe wasn't fazed.

Hovering in the air above them, Garlic Jr. appeared to be in a similar state to Yajirobe- he took his time after launching his last blast to catch his breath. Stymied and incredibly frustrated, he began to run his mouth. 'You're really going to just stand there, aren't you?' he said nastily. 'Guard over that pathetic being behind you? It's been a long since I've walked among Earthlings… I seem to have forgotten how stubborn you can be!'

'Are you trying to convince me to stand down by insulting me?' Yajirobe replied, flashing a small smile. 'I'd recommend you try another tactic.'

Energy billowed into existence in one of Garlic Jr.'s palms. 'Gladly!'

Phoom. While Yajirobe's sword carved through another blast, the sound of rushing air reached him from his right. What?

Phoom. In an errant strike, Yajirobe tried swinging his sword wholly vertical, moving upwards, which put his blade directly against the approaching angle of the blast. The blade cut through it like it had done hundreds of time prior- but when Yajirobe's stroke finished and the sword coursed through and re-emerged out of the blast, he saw that two-thirds of the blade was gone, consumed or broken by the last swing. Unable to cope with a sudden and crushing sense of loss, he let the hilt of the sword slip from his hands and clatter quietly to the floor.

'NOW!' Garlic Jr. boomed, making a show to disguise how tired he himself was. 'YOU DI-'

Phooom. The boast was ruptured as a blur of yellow and blue rocketed up into the sky and smashed Garlic Jr. squarely across his body. The Makyan flailed in vain as his body tumbled down and pierced the dome of the main complex atop the Lookout, coming to a noisy and rumbling stop inside. Launch- who Yajirobe could now recognize as the assailant- remained suspended in the air. Her head turned to him. 'You two okay?'

Yajirobe gave a meek nod. As he did this, he spotted Chiaotzu and Suno trodding over to join him and Korin. By the look of it, their battles had taken a lot out of them.

'Ah… feels good to fight another day,' Chiaotzu remarked wryly.

Suno made a point of screwing her face in a sour manner. 'Feels good to have someone else fight your battles for you,' she expressed.

'It would have been a real shame if she didn't swoop in and save you.'

'Just let me gripe.'

'Come out!' Launch taunted loudly towards the building. 'I'm not done punishing the thug who hurt my friends! In other words, you!' Energy started to crackle up and down her body. 'I'll blow up what remains of that building if I need to!'

From behind Yajirobe, Chiaotzu, and Suno on the ground, Korin loosed a fit of soft coughs. 'I'd prefer she didn't do that,' he said lamely, slowly pushing himself into a sitting position. 'And that she'd finish this fight before-' Korin's sight lodged on the something in the sky above them. Curious, the three of them turned and noted that, all around them, the sky began to turn a sickly shade of yellow, casting dark and concerning gloom all across the Lookout. Korin shook his head feebly. 'Too late…'

From within the complex, a dull rumbling began to grow. Launch narrowed her eyes and descended, electing to put herself back on solid ground. She touched down several feet from the yawning opening to the complex. 'You finally ready?' she shouted.

There was a pause and tension in the air, punctuated by the sound of something very heavy moving from within the darkness. From Launch's position, she could see a single shaft of light flooding into the building through the hole she had created with Garlic Jr.'s body earlier. Slowly, a figure moved around the shaft, only giving Launch glimpses of a body. An incredibly large body. This… this isn't right…

Similar to how he had first revealed himself to them, Garlic Jr. strode out of the darkness within the complex. What was once a diminutive, although deceptively tough opponent, was replaced by a hulking nightmare. Muscles were laid across his arms and legs like steel cables, wrapping taut against his frame. Veins latticed his body from head to toe, giving him an aura of monstrosity and overwhelming strength. But what startled Launch the most was his eyes; never before had she seen such clear-minded hatred from another living being.

Launch had but a second to all that she saw before Garlic Jr. shifted forwards, slamming into her wide-eyed body like a train and moving with her across the Lookout. The clump of fighters gathered in the middle ducked for cover as chaos once again erupted.

0o0o0

The castle proved to be a bit of a maze- it seemed that whoever had built the structure had prioritized an obtuse and unintuitive layout for the rooms and corridors, aiming to stymie any sort of coordinated hostile action towards its inhabitants. The experience was decidedly unnerving.

Would be better if I could pin down that weird energy… at least I'd know what I'd be walking into, then… The walls pressed down on her, amplifying her own sense of claustrophobia. Being asked to run into a spooky swelling to save someone is stressful enough. She crept around a corner and came face to face with an austere wooden door. It would have been nice if Chi-Chi's dad could have told me where she is-

The door before her swung open on its hinges violently, propped against a stone wall by a fumbling and staggering Chi-Chi. Any clumsiness vanished, however, when her head tilted up and met Rayne's gaze and snarled. Without any warning, she charged.

'Woah!' Rayne exclaimed, bringing up a block with her arms- but Chi-Chi simply barrelled through her, throwing them to the ground in a limb-tangled mess. Rayne squirmed underneath Chi-Chi's body, forced to lurch her neck away from Chi-Chi's diving, frothing mouth. When she finally succeeded in gripping Chi-Chi by her arms and holding her a few feet off of her, the fangs jutting out of the Ox-Princess's mouth became freakily apparent. 'Aaah!' Rayne yelped, reflexively throwing Chi-Chi off of her similar to how someone would remove themselves of a spider. Chi-Chi rolled a few feet back, but undeterred, she quickly followed Rayne's lead and clambered back to a standing position.

'What's the matter with you?' Rayne asked testily. 'Where's Gohan, Chi-Chi?'

If Chi-Chi understood what Rayne had said, then she deliberately chose to give the most inhumane response possible- she puffed out her body like a predator and screeched, sending an awful chill down Rayne's spine. Then, like before, Chi-Chi abruptly charged her.

She was better prepared this time. Rayne nimbly stepped to the side, looping Chi-Chi's flailing and clawing arms behind her body and de facto restraining her. Whatever thing Chi-Chi had turned into howled and struggled, but it lacked either the strength or the coordination to get out of Rayne's grip. Sorry, Chi-Chi… Rayne delivered a few quick jabs to Chi-Chi's back and head. Silence descended on them, and carefully, Rayne let Chi-Chi's unconscious body fall to the ground.

Too much physical exertion. Also... too… weird. She shuddered. Ugh! Rayne cast a sideways look towards the room where Chi-Chi had come from. A growing sense of… something... reached her. She recognized the strange ki she had felt earlier was coming from that room. Oh… oh, Kami. If Gohan's in there, and he's been affected by whatever had gotten into Chi-Chi… oh, Kami.

She lingered in the hallway, waiting to see if either the strange ki would dissipate or if her own quaking would cease. When neither happened, she sighed, resigning herself to her duty, and charged into the room.

The sight that greeted her once she was through the doorway was breathtaking. All around a single crib was a white dome of energy, pure and powerful, which gave the faintest opacity to the room. Stepping closer, Rayne sighted Gohan within the middle of the crib, seemingly oblivious to everything that was happening around him. When Rayne nearly came into contact with the barrier, however, the baby's eyes fluttered opened and the barrier shrunk back into him like a string being pulled back through a small hole. The white lights thrown across the room vanished in the same motion.

Mutely, she stepped closer and took Gohan into her arms. He looked as content as any bubbling baby could be.

Kid… what are you?

0o0o0

Retu rammed a quick palm-strike into the assailant's chest, flinging the woman off her feet into a pile of similarly-minded attackers. He paused, taking the chance to take stock of his surroundings, and noting that not a single more stark-raving-mad person was shambling towards him, he lowered his guard. His initial surprise at being attacked earlier by what appeared to be everyday farmers and villagers was soon replaced by a sense of competency. He hadn't had a good warm-up in awhile. He had honestly forgotten about the thrill that fighting and training gave him. Perhaps when Rayne came back he would proposition her for a match.

In the meantime, though? He laid a protective hand over the plane he presently stood watch over. I can do this all day.

0o0o0

The gorge rumbled and rattled, shaking free any sort of precarious slabs or chunks of rocks that hadn't been disturbed by battles in ages past. Dull impacts sounded from the ground as more and more rocks from the gorge's side tumbled to the bottom of the riverbed, clobbering the once peaceful remains of a dead waterway. A single, final impact sounded- an entire section of one side of the gorge fell away, causing a massive cacophony of environmental destruction- and Nappa zoomed out from the resulting cloud of dust and dirt, his arms locked in a crossed position, as his right eye followed the energy readings coming from down below. He slowed his ascent as he came to the lip of the gorge and lowered himself down onto a perch overlooking the area below. Another explosion rang out- and the dust propelled up and past his body, draping him in a vague brown outline. When it cleared, Nappa could clearly make out the earthling Tien charge the saibaman only to be whiplashed backward by a punch to the jaw and receive a hammering of blows that smashed through any guard he tried to throw up. A few brief seconds later, a roundhouse kick slammed into Tien's abdomen and sent him sprawling across the ground. Squealing gleefully, the Saibaman turned its gaze towards the other earthling, Yamcha.

Nappa had to give them credit- they were giving it their all. He had to respect the weaklings for that. Because that's what they are, isn't it? Weak. Raditz was never a prolific contract fulfiller- year-in, year-out, he barely kept his head above water In all frankness, the fact that these two could defeat Raditz didn't say anything good about them. It was more a verdict of Raditz's weakness.

Perhaps… Perhaps Vegeta had seen something useful in these two earthlings. Something to be exploited. Their trick of hiding their power levels was useful, for one. If Nappa and Vegeta could disguise themselves and their powers at will, it would be simple to land on a target planet, mix in with the native population, and then strike for maximum damage. Hmm...

But there was no doubt in Nappa's mind that they would inevitably slip-up, say something out of turn, or utterly fail in completing one of their contracts. And when that happens, I'll be there, ready to press my boot down on their throats…

Another explosion punctuated his thoughts, causing him to refocus his attention on the action below. The saibaman crawled out of a cloud of dust, evidently surviving whatever ki attack was sent its way.

Then again, I shouldn't get ahead of myself. Let's see if they survive this, first...

It was a simple pleasure, but It had been a long time since Nappa had had the chance to try out a new recruit. Hopefully, this goes better than the last one… speaking of, the corpse of that spiky-haired one should be around here somewhere...

0o0o0

'Yamcha, move!' Tien telepathically hollered while propping himself off the ground by one arm, as a green outline appeared behind the scarred human fighter. Acting quickly, Yamcha spun and caught a kick with his right forearm, even as the saibaman's sharpened foot gouged across the surface of Yamcha's arm. Grimacing from the pain, Yamcha lashed up with a retaliatory knee strike, but the creature caught the attack effortlessly, sinking its straightened talons into his flesh. Unable to move or do anything else useful, Yamcha involuntary howled in pain as the Saibaman wrenched Yamcha's leg up and backward, flipping him and slamming him face-first into the ground. The taste of blood and dirt barely filtered up to his mind when he felt his body start to be dragged by one leg.

Nearby, Tien pushed himself to his feet, eyeing the encroaching Saibaman. Like a heavy sack, Yamcha was dragged on the ground behind the creature. Tien found himself mentally bemoaning their situation- the exact opposite of what he currently wanted to do. What kind of monster is this?... This is insane! The thing is toying with us! The speed of his heartbeat quickened- rage sank into his blood. Fuck it! Acting out of anger and indignation, Tien brought his hands to his face and planted his feet in the ground. 'SOLAR FLARE!'

It was a quick move, and had even less preparation, but like always it was devastatingly effective. The saibaman stopped dead in its tracks and thrust its arms to his heads, screeching and stamping from the blaring visual pain. While it was debilitated, Tien rushed forward and batted the saibaman into one wall of the gorge. He then quickly turned his attention to the prone Yamcha at his feet. 'Are you alright?' he asked, extending a hand to the scarred human.

Yamcha clasped the hand and pulled, willing himself to his feet. 'I've been better,' he said bitterly, rubbing at his own eyes as the remaining visual residue from Tien's attack faded. Yamcha had seen and recognized Tien's Solar Flare, but he still hadn't acted quite quick enough to negate it entirely. 'Do we have a plan here, Tien? We can't defeat this thing at the rate this is going.'

Tien spared a glance at their "proctor" up above- he saw that Nappa, too, was to a lesser degree blinded judging by his hunched, protective posture. He muttered a curse under his breath. Shouldn't have done that. What kind of idiot shows their ace-in-the-hole at the first possible opportunity?

'Tien!?' Yamcha practically shouted in his ally's ear. 'What are you doing?'

Tien's gaze jumped back to Yamcha. 'We… we need to overpower it somehow. But we would need to pin it in place for a moment.'

'Yeah, and the chance of that-' Yamcha abruptly cut himself off and wrapped his arms around Tien. Together, they were pulled into the sky by Yamcha's flight, narrowing avoiding a barreling saibaman passing a few inches underneath their feet. Yamcha let go of Tien and flew higher into the air, aiming a blast down at the ground, but before he could do anything, the saibaman sped into the air and backhanded the human across the sky above Tien. With a sick grin, it then slowly turned its attention to Tien. It stared at him for a heartbeat.

Tien dodged. It was the most frantic and obscene combat maneuver he had ever performed in his life- he splayed his limbs as far as he could and pushed ki out from his front, propelling him back-first towards one wall of the gorge and out of his attacker's path. The saibaman was moving far too quickly to adjust its target mid-flight, so with a growl it spun around, positioning its back to the ground, and started to decelerate in preparation to charge Tien again.

Something strange happened them. While Tien sucked air into his lungs and frantically tried to ready himself for the next bout, the air above the saibaman shifted and rippled like a stone plunging beneath the surface of a lake. The saibaman then suddenly and violently accelerated its downward speed, almost as if it had been hit with a crushing blow. Flailing, it was buried into the ground, leaving only half of its domish green head exposed to the air. Through hisses and snarls, it struggled to free itself from its entombment.

From that point on, things played out in slow-motion. Tien sent a single telepathic message to Yamcha: 'Now!' He had no idea if Yamcha had recovered from the saibaman's last strike on him yet- but Tien doubted they would receive another chance like this again. Tien arranged his hands into a triangle in front of him.

'TRI-BEAM…' The latent energy within him bloomed into being, sparking and jolting with yellow streaks. With great care, he angled himself down to the ground.

'KAMEHAMEHA...' the words were distant, almost ephemeral, but Tien was certain he had not imagined them.

The saibaman had now clawed itself halfway out of the ground, choking and spitting out dirt in a rough spray around it. The light bearing down from above suddenly caught its attention, and with an expression of newly discovered fear plastered to its face, brought its arms up in a desperate blocking motion.

Sound and thunder returned to the gorge, louder than anything up to this point. Two blasts spiraled down from the sky, shooting towards a small green creature trapped at the bottom. A flash of light, then a release.

Tien and Yamcha were pushed by the explosion of the dual wings higher out of the gorge, coming nearly level with Nappa. By this point, the Saiyan had cleared his vision, and after tapping the scouter on his head a few times, he grimaced and growled. 'Lucky. You pass.'

They could sense as much. They'd won.

0o0o0

Launch's feet furrowed into the tiles, failing to catch on anything that could resist the force of the massive behemoth pressing down on her. Straining, she pulled on more of her power and propulsed herself from her feet, slowing down their momentum with her ki. They slowed, then stopped, as Garlic Jr,'s runaway plowing ground to a halt. Both of them froze in their positions, each one pushing against each other. Despite the massive size difference between them, Launch found herself holding her own against him. Encouraging

Less encouraging was that this insufferable troll was intent on screaming into her face.'THE ENTIRE WORLD WILL BE REMADE IN MY IMAGE!' Garlic Jr.'s roared, his voice a gross, deepened parody of what it was before. 'IT WILL ONLY BE A MATTER OF TIME BEFORE MY BLACK WATER MIST CORRUPTS THE PEOPLE OF THIS PLANET PERMANENTLY!'

Oh? Launch mentally tucked this bit of into away even as she tried forcing Garlic Jr.'s arms up and away from her. 'Permanent, huh?'

'YES! UNTIL EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE FOOLS ARE DEAD!'

'Good to know,' Launch muttered, adjusting her footing. 'Too bad you won't live to see it, though!' She taunted, shifting her weight down and left. Garlic Jr. lost his balance and started to fall forward, impaling himself on Launch's carefully positioned knee-strike. He gasped, but then to Launch's surprise recovered quicker than he should have and grabbed her by that leg. She cried as he swung her by her leg like a flail and slammed her into the tiles beneath him, causing the foundation of the Lookout to shudder. Launch could only blink away her pain and surprise while she dimly felt her body be picked up again and elbow-dropped by Garlic Jr., driving any air out from her lungs and forcing her deeper into the ground. She coughed up a congealed clot of blood.

Garlic Jr.'s raised his hands, knotted into a grossly huge fist, high above his head. The intent in his eyes was clear-

A yellow blast smashed into the left side of his body, wrenching him off his feet and carrying him away and to the left of Launch. Not a second later did Suno appear above her and frantically help her to her feet. 'You okay?'

Shell-shocked and reeling from the intense amount of pain felt in such a short amount of time, Launch only numbly nod her head yes. This seemed to satisfy Suno, for the girl turned her gaze in the direction Garlic Jr. had tumbled off in.

'He's much stronger than he was before,' Suno said out loud. 'This willl be difficult...

'Yes,' someone replied from Launch's other side. Dimly, she recognized Chiaotzu floating and holding out one hand as if he had just shot a ki blast. 'We'll have to take him together, wear him down-'

'He's more durable than anything else…' Launch interrupted. 'Any prolonged fight with him won't go our way. He's just too tough.'

'Then we'll overwhelm him-'

'I don't think you understand,' Launch said pointedly at Chiaotzu. 'Every single part of me hurts after he hit me twice. We should not be in the business of getting hit again.'

'Well, do you have any other bright ideas?' Suno whined, annoyed by Launch's gloomy advice. 'We're not going to roll over and die by our own accord, you know.'

Launch took a hard look at Garlic Jr.'s across the Lookout, who was now standing and sneering at them twice as angrily as before. 'I have an idea.'

'Yeah?'

'Put your hands on my back.' Launch flexed, placing her hands diagonally and above her body. 'Combine our energy and I think we'll have enough force.'

Suno and Chiaotzu's faces registered skepticism, but lacking any better ideas, they both compiled and moved behind her. Launch felt two sets of hands press to her back soon thereafter, filling her body with a soothing, gentle pulse of energy.

Taking notice of what they were doing, Garlic Jr.'s began drawing back his arms, splaying his hands out in their direction. Wicked bolts of dark and light streaked all around his body, filling the air around him with a sickening hiss. 'I WAS GETTING TIRED OF YOU PESTS ANYWAY!' Darkened purple energy drawn from this miasma around him began rushing into his palms. 'AND WHAT BETTER WAY TO END YOUR PITIFUL RESISTANCE THAN TO DRAW ON THE HATRED AND SUFFERING OF THE PEOPLE OF THIS PLANET! AHAHA!'

Launch ignored him- instead, she focused her attention on the energy flowing through to her. Slowly, the energy in her palms began to coalesce into nearly identical spheres of ki, only differentiated by their differing blue and yellow colors. Her hands then drew closer into her body, coming together at the base of the palms, just barely keeping the blue and yellow spheres from touching. If everything worked as she had practiced it, this would work. Big "if", though...

She lifted her gaze from her hands- and sighted Garlic's purple-black blast screaming across the Lookout at them. Now or never! Like opening a spigot of water, the spheres blasted from her palms, dragging behind them longs trails of blue and yellow. As they traveled, however, the blasts swirled and pressed closer together, eventually mixing and binding together into one blast of alternating blue and yellow color. The head of the attack sharpened into a single white point and drilled into Garlic's opposing ki blast. 'Two-Souls Beam!' Launch roared out.

The beams crashed into each other, struggling with the force of each other's attacks- and that fact was concerning to Launch, for she designed her attack to pierce anything it came into contact with. Energy was rushing out of her like crazy- any power advantage she might have had against Garlic Jr. was slipping away with every passing second. It's not enough. She shut her eyes, searching for any source of energy within her- and vaguely found the tether holding her to this world. She considered it, then thought about it, and then finally reached within her, grasping-

A third pair of hands touched Launch's back, flooding her with a burst of needed energy. The change was instantaneous- the blasts before her burgeoned in size and narrowed, taking a more refined shape. The clash between her attack and Garlic's broke- and a hurling sphere of white, blue, and yellow was flung towards the Makyan. The would-be guardian of the Earth balked, then grimaced, as the blast collided against his massive frame, pierced his chest fully, and rode him out past the edges of the Lookout. Several yards out, the energy impaling him finally lost cohesion and detonated, blanketing his body and the space around him in a deafening and blinding explosion. Then, it was over, like a star winking out of existence. Nothing remained of him.

Launch saw all of this with bated breath. When enough time had passed for her to accept the reality of the day, she fell to one knee and released a minute's worth of breath. The guiding hands pressed to her back slid off of her, giving her an odd sense of satisfaction. She half-turned her head backward, saw Chiaotzu, Suno, and Yajirobe panting on the ground similar to her, and a thought occurred to her. It felt good to be the hero in front, for a change.


A/N: Few things to note here. Garlic Jr. isn't immortal so there's no need to trap him in the Dead Zone or anything. Also, in terms of why he didn't use the Dead Zone, he wasn't being outclassed by any one particular fighter. Also, the idea of the Dead Zone is kind of dumb. So, yep, he dies a normal death.

Also, more power levels-

Garlic: 300, 400 beefed

Nicky: 250

Sansho:240

Ginger: 240

Yajirobe: 300

Suno: 225

Korin: 200

Chiaotzu: 230

Launch:350

Reviews:

Transformers g1's-Prime: I always figured Korin had a more important role than "strong cat who lives directly under the residence of Earth's god". It can't be a coincidence that his tower is directly underneath the Lookout, right?

DarkFireCat5241999: Thank you for the review! Also, any Star Wars fic I'd write is waaaaay out (if at all). I'd need to think a long time about the story I wanted to write.

Dragonblade101: Thank you for the review! We'll see what pans out!

FiascoTurvo: I'd agree the characters are kinda flat. In general, the first arc of this story ain't my best writing. It's gotten better since, though; I promise!

Also, in terms of DB plot, I didn't really stick to the actual storyline that much, so, yep...