"Kaioken!"

The cry of the infamous technique resonated around the area. And the power that followed sprung to life.

A crimson red aura replaced the normal aquamarine one that Ash normally used and his power level spiked considerably, lighting up the area

Although the fighters were far from the ground, small fragments of broken rocks of the battle thus far were flung up into the air before being disintegrated by the insane energy being thrown around.

Tightening his grip on his Power Pole, Ash glared at Xero, who held both of the spikes that were previously attached to his shoulders firmly in his hands too, like they were oversized makeshift stilettos.

The air was thick with tension as the two waited to see who would make the first move.

Ash swallowed. This wasn't a time to be waiting. His Kaioken had a time limit after all.

Ash let out a roar as he charged Xero. He aimed for an overhead strike, but was halted as his opponent blocked it with no effort by crossing the dual spikes.

"Do you honestly believe that you could hit me with an offense as pitiful as that?" Xero taunted. He quickly vanished and reappeared behind Ash, holding out one of the spikes with the intent to stab the teen.

Ash noticed just in the nick of time however and twirled out of the way, using that momentum to swing the pole at Xero's head.

The tyrant, not seeing the attack coming, took the full brunt of the weapon right to his temple. With his Kaioken-increased strength, Ash was able to send Xero a few meters away as a result of the hit, grunting in pain.

Recovering a mere few seconds later, he saw Ash twirling the Power Pole in his hands.

"That any better?" He asked, smirking as he reclaimed his stance.

That of course served to tick the tyrant off further.

"Lucky shot..." He responded bitterly, brandishing the spikes threateningly. He then resumed his assault, which was met with clacking sound as his weapons met Ash's

The two pushed their immense strength into the weapons, trying to overpower the other. The stalemate lasted only briefly however, as Xero's second form strength overpowered Ash's Kaioken-induced strength.

With no ground to get any footing, Ash being pushed back, but since ground was more stable than using ki anyway, Xero would have the same advantage, and nothing would change.

Xero had managed to corner him against a cliff face, and still wasn't stopping if the deep indentation of Ash's body on the rocky wall was any indication.

Not having much choice, Ash took a deep breath.

"Kaioken x2!"

Suddenly, the playing field was evened dramatically as the red aura around Ash doubled in size, destroying the stone around him. With a face of determination, Ash let out a grunt of effort before finally pushing Xero off of him.

Shifting the Power Pole to one hand, Ash used his now free one to fire a beam of blue energy at his opponent.
Xero gasped in response and quickly crossed his arms to block the shot. He was clearly strained however, as the blast sent him sprawling backwards in the air.

The beam phased out of existence after a few seconds of it being fired. However, it didn't seem to do anything else to the tyrant besides agitating him further.

He rushed back in to the fray and lunged the spike that was in his left hand at Ash's face, but he was able barely dodge it with his enhanced speed by moving his head to the side.

However, in that same moment, with the spike he held in his right hand, he aimed for Ash's midsection, an assault that Ash didn't see coming in time.

He was still able to dodge it, but didn't come out unscathed as a deep scratch was drawn onto the side of his ribs, which had already begun to bleed. This was worrisome of course. The suit was supposed to repel small attacks and he was covered in a Kaioken x2 aura, which proved just how deadly those spikes were.

Ash groaned and quickly held up a ki sphere near the wound to cauterize it, a trick that King Kai taught him. Burning the area would stop the blood flow and allow him to focus on fighting. The pain was a small price to pay

"Gaah!" Ash let out a yelp of pain as he pressed the orb into the wound, not too deep, but just enough to make contact.

Xero ceased his assault thanks to a sense of morbid curiosity at what Ash was doing.

"You must be an idiot...or are you trying to kill yourself?" He asked.

Wincing from the pain, Ash looked up at him with one eye open.

"I'm c-cauterizing my wound...not that I-I would expect you to know that. I'm sure you haven't shed a drop of blood in your entire life." Ash said, stuttering in his speech a little from the pain.

"Cauterizing...? I'll find out what that means later. But a word of advice, boy...you can't just stand around and try to fix every small wound you get in a fight...And you're right of course, I'd never shed blood against someone, below me, which means I never bleed."

"Gee, pretentious much?" Ash replied as he finished treating the wound. He stood up fully and retracted his now orbless hand.

"The only time I plan to bleed is when Son Goku and I fight, after I kill you..." Xero declared, pointing at Ash.

The trainer didn't retort at first as he held the pole in both hands again, the rip in his fighting uniform slowly knitting itself back together until it looked like it was never there at all.

"Just try it..." He challenged.

The two fighters then vanished from eyesight that the naked eye could track. The ripples in the air would be the only way that you could tell that someone was fighting. The two were speeding around the mountainous area while exchanging blows with their weapons.

Xero was laughing madly as he stabbed with the spikes, trying to hit Ash. The trainer was able to avoid most of the strikes luckily, by intercepting them with his Power Pole, but got scraped a few times, although Xero wasn't spared some blows with the staff either.

By this time, both fighters were marred with scratches, bruises and other sorts of injuries, although that didn't hinder their fighting prowess.

Ash was able to end the weapon barrage by dodging another thrust, but instead of counterattacking with the staff, he quickly gave himself a bit of altitude and flipped upside down, swinging his leg down into a kick that the tyrant took to the head.

Xero was sent sprawling to the ground, trying to recover from the blow, but Ash still wasn't done. Raising two fingers to his forehead, Ash quickly teleported down to the ground, sheathing his Power Pole, and hit him with an axe strike, moments before the villain hit the earth.

Only this time, the strike was infused with ki...

With the upward angle that Ash had on the blow, Xero was not only sent up into the sky, but was thrown so high he wasn't even visible, reminding Ash of a certain trio of idiots that he had the misfortune of dealing with in the past.

"Whoa! Look at that! He totally turned the tables on that impasse!" Krillin muttered in awe as he watched the battle rage on.

"And exactly how does he know Instant Transmission? Dad, did you teach him?" Gohan asked.

Goku shook his head in reply.

"No...King Kai must've taught him..." He replied as he watched the battle.

"I can't believe how well that technique of Ash's works." He continued with a chuckle.

"What, Instant Transmission?" Piccolo asked.

Goku shook his head.

"No, he lets his opponent fall too far into the rhythm of the battle, by means of repetitive movements, and then does something unexpected to land a blow. I fell for it and I paid the price." Goku said, a grin on his face.

"And I don't think those are the only things Ash has yet to show..."

Ash waited with bated breath as the anxiety of where Xero was going to come from crept up his spine.

A red glint in the sky was all the warning Ash got before he was able to raise his arm and block a strike from the justifiably infuriated Xero.

Their forearms connected for a brief moment before the resulting clash created a shockwave that created a massive crater beneath Ash's feet.

Ash could only groan as the blow felt it made his arm shatter, but that wasn't something he could dwell on right now. He pulled out the Power Pole again and got into a fighting stance.

Quickly blurring to more stable ground, the two continued their dance of weapons.

Ash dodged a swipe from the tyrant and attempted to swing down on Xero's head. The swing was dodged however, and the tip of the Power Pole was planted beneath the villain's foot.

Ash, who was unable to move his weapon, was left a sitting duck as Xero used his one of his spikes to try and skewer Ash's head.

Ash luckily was able to avoid it by leaning his head to the side, but the weapon did graze his cheek, but the cut luckily wasn't too deep, so Ash could focus on fighting.

Ash grabbed the arm Xero tried to stab with and pulled him closer before landing a punch in his midsection, making the tyrant cough up spit, although it wasn't obvious because of the facemask.

While his fist was buried in Xero's gut, Ash created a ki orb and pushed it in even further, eventually shooting the sphere from his hand and by extension, Xero away from him.

They crashed into a plateau before the sphere shone with bright blue light, before exploding with its unwilling passenger. The detonation covered a large area, swallowing up the landscape along with the villain.

That was what Ash initially hoped would happen.

However, his shoulder was met with a vicious kick that sent the trainer sprawling to the ground. He helplessly rolled on the ground before he pushed a hand to the earth and launched himself up. regaining his footing.

Ash had no time to rest though as Xero appeared behind him and swung his spike horizontally. Ash leaned his body to the side, the spike claiming a few strands of his raven hair.

Ash immediately gained some distance between himself and Xero. He quickly shot a blast of ki, not at Xero, but the ground where he was standing.

As the energy hit the ground, it caused an explosion of dust, obscuring Xero's view of Ash.

In the dusty cloud, Ash's opponent was met with a few strike that he couldn't see coming, due to his reliance on a Scouter and not his ki senses.

Growling in both pain and anger, Xero swung his body in a circle and cleared the dust away from his vision. But he was met with more than he bargained for when his attention was brought to Ash.

He was bent low, right inside the tyrant's defense with his Power Pole inches from his abdomen. Before Xero could react however, Ash said three simple words...

"Power Pole, extend!"

Xero didn't know what hit him as the staff that Ash had wielded all this time was now pressing into his midsection, growing in length at an absurd rate and pushing him backwards.

As if the feeling of a pole shoved deep into your stomach wasn't bad enough, Xero was also flung through a few rock formation and even through the side of a cliff.

With each puncture through the rocky structures, Xero let out grunts of pain. Eventually, the pole couldn't push any further when the tyrant was forced to the rocky ground, but that wasn't the end of it, not at all.

Ash appeared above him out of nowhere and sped down to his prone body and landed a kick directly to his solar plexus.

Xero's blood red eyes widened to insane amounts as the pain rocketed through his body. The villain unintentionally retracted his facemask and spat out a considerable amount of blood, dropping his dual spikes.

Ash left his foot firmly implanted in Xero's body.

As he saw the blood, he winced a bit, but he knew that bloodshed was necessary in these kinds of fights.

He grinned at his downed adversary.

"Looks like I'm not so beneath you now, huh?" Ash said, motioning to the blood running down Xero's bottom lip.

With slightly shaking hands, Xero slowly began to realise what Ash meant as he felt the warm liquid on his fingers.

"M-My blood...?"

"I...shed my blood..."

"For this brat?"

The thoughts ran though Xero's head as the shock registered in his head. As the blood he had shed dripped through his fingers, a great amount of anger also built up inside of him.

"...You..." He muttered, his eyes narrowing.

"...You..." He repeated, his fist clenching.

"DAMN YOU!" Xero unexpectedly yelled at the top of his lungs, catching Ash off guard.

The tyrant quickly formed a black and magenta mix of ki and fired it directly at Ash.

"DEATH TORRENT!" He cried out.

Being in such close proximity to the blast, Ash had no choice but to take it point-blank.

Ash's pain receptors registered the impact as practically unbearable as the blast burnt both his body and clothes.

"Aaagh!" Ash cried out as he was sent flying backwards, crashing through a few rocks before he was flung away again from a kick delivered by Xero.

Ash soon became trapped in this pattern, being kicked away in one direction only to be kicked away in another. He was unable to fight back as he reeled from the pain from each previous strike.

Thankfully, the pattern ended after it had been repeated for the last ten times, but that didn't mean the end of the assault. As Ash lay face up from the ground, trying to comprehend the intense pain he was feeling, he noticed Xero take to the sky.

Ash groaned in extreme pain as he managed to get up onto his knees. He attempted to alleviate the pain by rubbing some of the struck areas, but it didn't do much.

"This is bad...I'm being completely overwhelmed...and he still isn't using his full power!" Ash thought.

He looked to the sky to see Xero with his spikes held in both hands, but both glowing an ominous magenta light.

Ash assumed that he was about to attack with them, but strangely, they weren't aimed at him.

Widening his eyes in horror as he remembered what was back in that direction, he followed Xero's line of sight to confirm what he was desperately hoping wasn't true.

He was aiming at West City...

He spared a single, sickening glance to Ash, as if to say: "Watch this." and the glowing that engulfed his spikes increased, along with the humming from the energy becoming louder.

"NO!" Ash cried in alarm as he forced his body to get up, despite the protests it was making.

Ash raised two fingers to his forehead and quickly teleported behind Xero.

What he didn't expect was for the tyrant's tail to wrap around his neck the second he appeared behind him.

Ash gasped for air as the tail tightened around his neck. He desperately pulled on it to try and get some oxygen back into his lungs, but Xero's appendage was surprisingly strong.

Ash's pupils shrunk a little as the lack of air and abundance of panic, both from the situation he was in and the situation innocent people of West City were in. Before he knew it, his Kaioken aura had vanished.

"Hm, you want a front row seat, do you boy? Heh heh, who am I to decline?" Xero said as he brought the choking trainer around to his side.

"You think it's amusing for me to shed blood? How about I destroy that city to return the favor?"

Ash could only watch helplessly, kicking in the air uselessly as the light glowed it's brightest.

"Death Hail!"

As Xero called out his attack, beams of ki shot out of the spikes, resembling their shape and size. The amount was in the hundreds, all fired from their source in a matter of seconds.

"N-No!" Ash moaned weakly as he held out his hand to the defenseless West City.

Ash's eyesight began to blur as the lack of air was causing him to pass out. That was until he noticed something in the distance, something that Xero seemed to miss due to the glowing of the attack he was firing taking up his vision.

It was three golden auras, auras that he'd felt once before.

The first one was the very one he fought today, well, not so much fought as much as brought to the surface, but it was comforting to see. It was Goku

The second one took a little more effort to recognize, but the slight annoyance he felt from that aura made it clear who it was. It was Vegeta.

The final one was the person he came to view as his older brother soon after he arrived in this world. It really moved Ash since he knew that Gohan didn't really like fighting as much as Vegeta and Goku.

Together, the trio of Super Saiyans worked as one unit to destroy as many of the spikes as they could. They truly were powerful warriors.

Goku, Gohan and Vegeta succeeded in destroying the majority of the onslaughts. However. the crazy shower of energy that Xero was creating was not infallible. About a quarter were able to get through the saiyan's defense and impact the city.

Both Ash and the saiyans watched in horror, as the spikes exploded outwards into large domes of destruction. Even if Ash was over half a mile away, he could still hear the screams in his head, and he could picture the looks of terror on the faces of the citizens.

What was truly horrific was the fact that half the city had been completely wiped out, by a quarter of what was originally going to be used. It was outright unnerving to imagine the result of a full-on barrage.

Ash felt dizzy, sick even. Those deaths may have been committed by Xero, but he was the one who failed to stop him.

"D...Do y-you...have any idea...how...how many innocents you just killed!?" Ash cried in a feeble voice.

Ash was punched in the gut, causing him to spit out blood.

"I've ended worlds, boy. What's a city to me? It's nothing." Xero said as he quickly swiped the one of the spike's tips across Ash's cheek, making him yelp in pain as the new wound began to leak blood.

"I'll end whatever I want, whenever I want, whoever I want. That includes you, and then Son Goku. I will realise my ambitions and lay waste to the planet that dammed saiyan loves so much..."

"I-Is that why you destroyed your ship? You're so dedicated to your mission that you decided to cut all ties? You planning on renting an apartment here or something? Ash strained to get out.

He was met with a fist across the face and a snarling Xero.

Yeah, Ash didn't think that was a good joke either.

"Nothing matters to me but to have that filthy saiyan dead at my feet. Nothing else...! I know this was likely a suicide mission. No sense in leaving anything behind" Xero explained, a grin growing on his face at the end.

Ash growled. Unless he could get some air, he was helpless. But the tyrant's tail was still gripping strong. So, after a few moments of pressure induced thought, Ash acted in a way strongly reminiscent of what Goku did when he fought Frieza.

He opened his mouth and bit into Xero's tail.

The result was practically instantaneous.

Xero's eyes opened wide and his grin turned into a look of pain as he quickly retracted his tail from Ash's neck and held it in his hands, alongside his spikes.

Ash took in a deep breath of air, thankful to finally get out of the tail's grip. His vision unblurred and his ability to think and move freely returned.

Xero blew on the now visible bite marks on his tail, trying to cool the wound.

"Y-You damn animal...you actually...bit my-"

He couldn't finish his sentence as his face was met with a kick, fueled by rage.

Before the tyrant could even think of reacting, he was met with multiple fists to his torso, knocking the wind out of him.

"I'm the animal?!" Ash growled as he lashed out another kick, knocking Xero aside. He disappeared and reappeared behind the villain, hitting him with a punch to the spine.

Moving around the recoiling Xero again, Ash hit him with a fist to the face.

"Don't you...!

Ash planted a kick in his gut.

"...Dare tell me...!"

He finished off the combo with a ferocious uppercut.

"...I'M THE ANIMAL!" Ash yelled.

Ash was just about to launch into another combo, until Xero managed to recover from the uppercut and land a haymaker in Ash's face, sending the teen flying back down to the ground.

Ash landed hard on the ground in an explosion of dirt and debris. But that pain was almost nothing in comparison to some of the other injuries sustained in the battle thus far, so he simply shrugged it off.

He let out a shocked gasp as he saw Xero gathering the energy in his spikes again.

"There's...there's no way I can block all of those, and they cover an area too big for me to dodge. Maybe if I could attack him while he's firing it, I could stop him, but he can hit me twenty times over before I can even get close. Dammit! If only I could…" He widened his eyes,

"…Attack and defend at the same time..." He muttered.

Ash looked down at his hands, a solution coming to him.

Memories of his training at King Kai flooded into his mind, and Ash suddenly found himself smirking.

He brought his hands to his side, palms facing each other and began to focus his attack in that space.

"Kaa...!"

A blue orb formed in between the space between his palms and glowed beautifully.

"...Mee...!"

The orb got bigger and Ash prepared to make the required maneuvers, he would only get one shot at this.

"...Haa...!"

He let his tired legs lower him to the ground, falling backwards, yet never losing his concentration.

"...Mee...!"

Xero was confused by Ash's actions, but figured by the orb glowing between his hands, he was up to something, but it didn't matter, nothing could stand against this attack, it was impossible...

"DEATH HAIL!"

"...HAAAAAAA!"

The two attacks were fired at the other, one energy aquamarine, the other magenta. But opposed to the hundreds of energy spikes, it was a clear-cut victory for Xero's attack, right?

Wrong.

Suddenly, the blue beam began to bend from its original course, twisting away and bending at angles it wasn't supposed to. What was even more curious was that another beam seemingly formed out of the first one, crossing over and overlapping it. Another followed, then another, and another.

Ash was firing the beam from his hands and also incredibly enough, his feet as well. But the thing that was peculiar was that Ash seemed to be breakdancing on the ground, which was what seemed to give the beam it's twists and turns.

With the Kamehameha wave being a mostly linear beam move, it wouldn't prove much help in this situation. However, with this new variation of the beam, Ash could create ten beams out of a single one! With the two he was currently firing, he had his own little arsenal of both protective and offensive ki.

With the beams growing, twirling and twisting into a massive tower of sorts, the spikes that Xero fired stood no chance. They were completely wiped out by this incredible technique.

Xero didn't notice until he finished firing all the spikes in a state of semi-disbelief.

He, himself had been trapped in the tower.

Inside a tower full of roaring and humming Kamehamehas' with no gaps for him to slip out from even with his insane speed.

Yeah, his chances weren't looking so good.

"Wh-What the-!" Goku cried out in alarm.

After Goku, Gohan and Vegeta tried to stop the first volley of ki spikes, they returned to where they were originally watching.

Needless to say, anyone there who wasn't a pokemon had their jaws resting on the ground.

The Kamehameha was a destructive technique on its own, but here was a teenager, bringing it to heights that Goku had never even considered.

They watched in silence as Xero bounced off the burning walls of the pillar only to be thrown into the opposite wall by means of a stray beam. It was like watching a pinball shoot around the board, although the differences were plainly obvious.

All of Ash's pokemon gazed in pride at their trainer. They were glad to see that the technique Ash had conceived, truly became his own.

"How?...How...?" Krillin stammered, trying to find words to describe this awesome move.

"To have the control needed to fire a wave from both his hands and feet like that. And also to have that much control over the beams while spinning. What an insane student you have, Goku." Piccolo commented.

"I...I...know..." Goku muttered in reply, barely having any words at all.

Vegeta could only look in awe as the tower continued its assault on the tyrant.

"This kid is not an ordinary one, that's for sure...If he lives through this fight...maybe I could..." Vegeta's thoughts trailed off as he looked to Goku, then back to the trainer.

Ash wouldn't mind having two teachers, would he?

Ash was grinning like a madman. The Kame-Countershield was working perfectly. Not a single energy spike had hit him and he was instead landing decent blows against Xero.

With a dose of adrenaline coursing through his veins, Ash reactivated his Kaioken, only this time, it was multiplied by five.

As the red aura surrounded his body yet again, the beams that made up the Kame-Countershield became even stronger, growing thicker and wider.

For one hopeful...fleeting moment...Ash hoped that this would be able to end the fight...

And then reality had to happen...

A haunting cry of both anger and pain echoed out from the tower, sounding not unlike a wounded beast.

And then, to his horror, Ash watched as his technique fell apart by means of a purple repulse of ki that emanated from Xero's form. He stopped spinning and watched, his sight glued to his now mostly visible opponent. How could that've have happened, there was no way! His Countershield was clearly overpowering Xero. So, unless the villain could draw on more power...

Ash widened his eyes.

"Oh no...!"

"Damn you..."

Ash heard a bone chilling voice.

"Damn you..."

.

.

.

.

"Damn you..."

.

.

.

.

"Damn you..."

.

.

.

.

"DAMN YOOOOUUUU!"

The tyrant was covered in his malice infused ki and his body was shrinking down. The spikes that Ash had been fighting against were long gone and the horns vanished from sight.

Ash broke out into a cold sweat as the power that he felt from Xero grew exponentially again. But the power increase was far more than when he went from his first form to his second form. Almost ten times that.

The planet itself was shaking as Ash and the spectators watched the tyrant transform into his final, horrifying form.

Ash's knees almost buckled underneath him and the air felt toxic. He forced himself to stand however and not turn away...no...he'd come too far for that.

He poured in more effort into the Kaioken and brought it to a x10.

He'd need to pull out all the stops now...

If he wanted to live that is...