Chapter 15

Douse watched the humans warm up before the fight she would have with them. She didn't really mind, but she was worrying about Haelles. Wasn't he supposed to be with them? Terra had said she'd actually gotten a lucky shot in with Haelles, which was a new one. Usually, Haelles wasn't so careless.

When the humans got back up, she smiled and stood up and asked if they were ready. The only response she got, was having them draw their weapons.

"So be it! If you can beat me, you'll get the relic, but if you lose, well, let's just say it won't be pretty!"

Douse looked a little less innocent than Terra, so she was probably a lot tougher than the Earth Dragon. She was holding a magic wand in her hand. Ancha cracked her knuckles, something she picked up from hanging around with Laze so much, and grabbed a set of pins between her fingers. One by one, she threw them at the Water Dragon, but she dodged them all.

Bulma studied the Water Dragon closely, and noticed an almost identical plate like that of Terra being held by Douse, only a lovely blue hue.

Yellow sparks surrounded her as she screamed: "QUICK SNATCH!!!"

Same routine, she ran at Douse, hit her, grabbed the plate, and returned to her place. Douse didn't find this as bad as Terra did.

"Hey! You're a sneaky little thief!!" Douse accused rather playfully. "Alright!"

The Dragon ran over to Bulma and hit the girl easily with her wand, and knocked her into her face as well. It hurt rather badly, but Douse didn't continue her pouncing.

Vegeta ran toward Douse, and lashed at her with his axe, but Douse blocked 90% of the hits. One hit managed to get through her defenses and made her leg bleed, rather badly.

"OUCH!!!" Douse screamed out. "No fair!!" she said.

Blue sparks came up to surround her.

"AQUABEAM!!!" she shouted, aimed her open palm at Vegeta, and shot a blue beam at him.

That one hit, and sent him back.

Elvor shook his head, but ran at Douse, holding a broadsword now. He lashed out at her, but she dodged. The next blow was blocked, and Douse kicked him back, before sending a ray of energy from her wand at Elvor. He groaned as it hit, but didn't falter. He shook his head, and smirked.

"You fight dirty!" he mumbled, before white sparks surrounded him. "No problem, because so can I!! DASH & SLASH!!!" he hollered, and raced at Douse with speeds unmatched.

Before Douse knew what happened, pain shot through her body as she held the bleeding wound on her waist. Elvor stood in a crouch behind her, not even breaking a sweat.

"Why… you!!" Douse said, and Bulma immediately noticed that she was starting to become angry. "Take THIS!!" she screamed, whirled around, and landed a kick against Elvor's face, sending him sprawled into the water.

Douse screamed in pain as a pin suddenly pierced her arm. She growled as she pulled the pin out.

"DARN!!! CUREPLUS!!!" she cried out, and blue energy centered on her, and focussed on her wounds, healing them in an instant.

Goku growled and tightened the grip on his blade as blue sparks surrounded him.

"SLICING WATER!!!" he hollered as his sword lit up a piercing blue color.

Goku lunged at the air in front of him, but a slash of water shot at Douse, and slashed her across her body, shredding her clothes to almost nothing.

Ancha had enough of this, and pretended to roll up her sleeves.

"Enfin! On zo buziness!!" she mumbled. "REDFIELD!!!" Ancha hollered, and the ground flashed red, and then extended its glow, until it disappeared.

Bulma's Innate Guide suddenly bleeped, and when she looked down, she saw that there was a field effect. She smiled. Ultimate red sparks surrounded Ancha, which then centered at the center of her chest, and a massive blaze began to burn all around them. Ancha crouched, touched the ground with two fingers, making a fire below her fingers burn. She raised herself with three spins, making flames whirl around her, and when she tossed her now open hand back, the whole cave seemed to be burning.

"ETERNAL FLAME!!!" Ancha hollered with such intensity, she could've have woken up the dead.

The fires surged toward Douse as Ancha pointed at the half-Dragon. Douse tried in vain to block by wrapping her wings in front of her body. It didn't help. To finish it off, a large volcano erupted below her feet.

Everyone thought they won, but Douse was still standing. She shook her head to get the soot out of her hair, and growled. She was now, visibly angry.

"All right, enough!!" she shouted.

Blue sparks surrounded her, and at first, they thought she was going to heal herself. Not a chance.

"FIST OF WATER!!!!" she hollered, and she raised her fist above her head.

The water around her seemed to spring to action and raised high into the sky, forming a fist made out of water. Douse pulled back her hand, and the giant fist of water did the same. With a force unlike anything, she slammed her fist into the earth, and do I really have to tell you what happened?

The water crashed down on top of the gang with a huge collision, but Ancha couldn't handle the enormous pressure of the Blue Element, and she passed out. Bulma looked at Ancha in shock, who wasn't moving. She looked up, and noticed that Vegeta and Elvor were now busy warding off Douse, who looked extremely mad. Vegeta lashed out at Douse, but she dodged and kicked him aside. Next, she jumped up and kicked Elvor in his face, sending him into a deeper part of the water.

He vanished under water for awhile, until he came back up, grasping the shallow part of the water, panting for breath. Elvor looked at himself. He was soaked!! He growled in anger and jumped out of the water.

"YOU BITCH!!!" he screamed. "THIS WAS MY FAVORITE OUT-FIT!! YOU'RE DEAD!!!!" he hollered as a large mass of white sparks surrounded him.

His rapier changed into a swallow, he lifted off of the floor, twirled around in the air once, and ended up holding the swallow with one hand, aimed at Douse. Behind him, a white, ghostly figure of himself, only without the swallow, was following his movements as the world turned black. The see-through figure seemed to hold something that looked like a large glowing arrow, before Elvor screamed the name of the attack.

"FLYING ARROW!!!!"

He was shot at Douse with high speed like an arrow from a bow, and Douse fell onto her back, before getting back up. Blood was coming from her mouth, but she seemed to be ignoring it. Goku growled angrily and ran toward Douse. He battled with her for a long time, before Douse found him annoying and blasted him into a wall with her wand. Vegeta managed to get some hits in, before he too was knocked aside. Elvor didn't stand a chance either.

Bulma finally growled angrily, and screamed out as electric sparks shot up from around her to center on her dagger. The dagger was transformed into a large electric blade, sizzling with energy.

"ELECTRICSWORD!!!" Bulma suddenly hollered, and ran at Douse, grasping the hilt of her dagger with both hands, and the now electric blade slashing through the ground.

The electricity continued to crackle and when Bulma was about 5 feet away, the blade raised and was aimed at Douse' waist.

With a loud scream from Douse, the blade connected to her flesh, and sent her flying into the sky, coughing up a large amount of blood, before she dropped face-first into the deeper parts of the water, which changed into a deep red almost instantly.

Douse climbed out of the water, shaking terribly. Her body shook as she carefully stepped out, and raised herself to her feet. Her clothes were still shredded, but most of her wounds were healed, besides the one Bulma had just given her. That wound probably needed some extra time to heal. Her face was contorted into a painful grimace, but she was smiling.

"Terra wasn't kidding when she said you humans were good. That was fun!" she said, her voice quivering a little bit.

"Why do Dragons find a beating so fun??" Goku asked out of curiosity.

"Didn't you ever hear that Dragons enjoy a rush every once in awhile? And I think a near-death experience can be considered as a great rush!" Douse answered with a smile. "This is something you deserve."

She floated upward toward where she had sat when they had entered, grabbed something, and came back down. In her hand, she held something that seemed to be made of water, frozen at a certain point. A small boll was poised on the spray of water.

The Blue Relic.

"Oh yeah! Here, this will help if you wish to get through Mt. Pyre."

She picked up a glass vial, which was empty, but she pulled the teat off, and blew into it. Small misty clouds came from her mouth, and were blown into the vial, which was easily sealed off. Douse gave the vial to Vegeta, who placed both the Blue Relic as the Dragon's Ice Breath in his pouch.

"Good luck, you'll need it," Douse said, before lifting off and heading back to the ledge she came from, when she stopped. "Oh, and if you wish to get to Gaea's Navel, head for the Hydra Marshes."

And with that, she left.

"What the Hell did she mean with heading for the Hydra Marshes?!" Elvor asked when they were back in Guldove.

Bulma was thinking.

"Maybe the Green Dragon is on Gaea's Navel, and Douse just gave a hint on how to get there," she said.

"Ohh… quiet down… je suis not feeling well…" Ancha said from where she was laying on the couch.

She was still a little weak from the battle against Douse, and no one could blame her.

Vegeta was silent, he was studying the map of El Nido, trying to figure out which Dragon to visit next.

"What's taking Haelles so long anyway!?" Goku suddenly asked, bringing up a subject practically everyone had been worrying about.

Even Ancha joined in the conversation.

"Moi hope he's not dead, or we are!" she said.

"Haelles? Dead?" Elvor asked, and chuckled. "Oh please, now that's a laugh. Haelles is too tough to be killed that easily. He's probably just wrecking havoc among Porre or something."

That's when they overheard some people talking.

"Porre seems to be under attack, did you hear?" a man asked.

"Yeah, by a one-man-army, quite literally," a woman said. "I wonder how he did it."

Elvor looked at the gang with a look that said: "I told you!!"

Same and Sky were simply relaxing near some shallow waters on the western side of Marbule.

"So, how's your brother?" Sky suddenly asked as he watched Same, laying on her stomach, feet near her long scaled tail, leaning on one arm, and twirling around in the water with one finger.

"He's alrigh'. Still a little down 'bout his mate and all, but, if ya don't count tha, he's fine," Same answered.

Sky sighed.

"Poor Mura, I really feel sorry for him," he said.

"Hey, yer mate died too, and ye don't seem all tha upset, why's tha?" Same asked, looking at him from over her shoulder, but keeping her head poised on her hand.

Sky shrugged.

"Past can't be changed. At least… not anymore."

Same sighed, and looked back at the water.

"If I had the right material, I coul' rebuild her," she mumbled.

Sky sighed too, and said: "But you don't. You don't even have the proper instruments to make her."

"Wow, thanks a lot," Same mumbled sarcastically.

They stayed like that for a long time, when a sudden gush of wind blew over them.

Same closed her eyes, and said: "Trouble."

"Great, now what?"

"Ya don't wanna know."

Vegeta sat outside, glaring at the stars, as if they did something wrong. He felt something in his heart, something he hadn't felt in years. He didn't like it. Last time, it had gotten somebody killed, and all because of him. Everything seemed to go wrong for him. Why was he the only one having these problems?! Why not someone else?! What had he done to deserve this?

"Vegeta," a familiar voice said, and he looked over his shoulder.

Elvor looked at Vegeta with his emerald green eyes, his spiked red mane still wet from the shower he had just taken. He wore some loose jeans, and that was it. At the moment, he didn't really care. Vegeta was in the same condition as he had been years ago, and Elvor knew how the guy must feel now.

"What do you want?!" Vegeta asked, seemingly mad, but Elvor could see what he was feeling through his eyes.

"Just tell her," Elvor said.

Vegeta gasped, then growled and glared at the stars again.

"Tell whom what?!" Vegeta asked, not feeling like talking about it.

"You know to whom and you know about what Vegeta! Stop playing dumb!!" Elvor almost shouted.

"There's nothing to tell!!" Vegeta hissed.

"Oh no?! Not even that you were staring in that stupid orb every night just to see her!?" Elvor said angrily, crossing his arms across his chest.

Vegeta visibly flinched, and Elvor went on.

"Don't think I don't know that stare you constantly threw at that orb!! It's the same you always gave Ciria!!"

"Keep her out of this!!!" Vegeta shouted, whirling around.

"Aha!! So that's it!! You're just too afraid that she'll die, just like Ciria did!! Aren't you?! Or is it just because you're becoming an emotionless bastard?!"

"Shut up!!"

"NO!!! I'm sick and tired of hearing you deny what you KNOW is real!!" Elvor said, his eyes suddenly a blazing red and his hair was starting to stand on end. "You already ruined your chance with Ciria, and you can't do that again!! I won't let you!! Either you tell her, or I will!! And I swear, I am a man of my word!!! You have until we collect all relics to tell her, or I will tell her the feelings you have for her!!"

With that, Elvor stormed into the Inn, leaving a shocked Vegeta outside, shaking.

He turned back around, and walked toward the pier. There, he sat, watching the stars, but not with as much hate as before. It's been so long. He closed his eyes, and he could still see her silver gaze, looking up at him as it slowly faded, her silver hair that glowed in the light of the torches in Fort Dragonia, the feel of her skin as he held her. He opened his eyes, and crystalline tears trickled down his cheeks.

"Ciria… I'm sorry… it's all my fault…" he whispered, and hid his face in his arms, crying for the first time in what could be years.

You know, I heard no one say anything about Same's accent. Anyway, next chapter contains some more background information about what happened after that Porre guy shot Ciria, and Ciria's last words…

Reviews:

Ciria: The gang won't find out Haelles is dead until they reach Marbule.

Hope: Thanks.

trunks babe: Give it some patience and it'll appear. Bulma's going to make the first move though. Small Spoiler: Bulma makes the first move at Mt. Pyre, so be on the lookout!

Bulma BriefsYue Lover: Uh… let's see… Somewhere around chapter 19, I think. [rereads story] Yep!

Alright, to get all six relics, there are 5 more Dragons they need to beat. They still need the White, Black, Red and Green Relic (they have to fight two battles to get the Black Relic).

Well, I have a lot of homework to do, so I have to go. Ciao!