--- Disturbance, Book 2: Divergence ---

Chapter D15 - Numb

Disclaimer: The fun about this sentence is that by the time you realise it doesn't say anything, it's too late to stop reading it. Also: See first chapter.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-I'm tired of being what you want me to be-
-Feeling so faithless lost under the surface-

"Wow!" Goten breathed, gazing out across the vast white field before them. Everything was white; the walls (assuming there were any), the ceiling (assuming their was one) and the floor. In fact, the young boy couldn't even tell where the room ended, just noticing the vague black line of the horizon, but then he remembered Piccolo saying the room was endless. "This place is cool!"

"This place sucks ass," Trunks grumbled, flopping down on the short stairwell leading down from the cream-tiled housing chamber tot he pure white floor. "How the hell is this place supposed to make us strong enough to fight Buu?"

Gritting her teeth, Lime booted the boy hard in the back and sent him sprawling on the ground outside the protective shielding of the housing chamber, where it became clear the gravity was stronger (a mere 2G, but a noticeable difference all the same). "By you getting off your lazy ass and training, that's how!"

As Trunks rubbed his back and grumbled to himself, Oran strode out onto the training field before turning back to the chamber, casting his gaze up towards the giant hourglasses framing the staircase, that had just started to count down from whatever total they'd been set to; he assumed it was a year. "We have about nine months to get you boys strong enough to defeat Majin Buu," he stated firmly. "More if we're lucky, less if we're unlucky. Now then, I want you two to fight each other in your base forms until either Lime or myself tell you otherwise."

"And what if we don't?" Trunks sassed.

The boy never heard her move, but he sure felt it when she kneed him in the back of the head at high speed. "Now you listen, and you listen good," She growled, her tail lashing about angrily behind her, "Our brother and sister gave up their lives to buy us this time, and if either one of you slack off for a second I swear to every god ever to exist I personally make the rest of your miserable existences a living hell. I will have you begging for a death I will not grant you, and when you do eventually die, I will follow you to the other side and keep going. We clear?"

Trunks swallowed fearfully. "Crystal ma'am!"

She smirked. "Good boy. Now get to work."

-Don't know what you're expecting of me-
-Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes-
-(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)-

This was not how Gohan expected he would obtain god-like power. He had always assumed his true potential would be unlocked through harsh meditation and rigorous training so as to fully master his body, mind, and soul. He'd assumed it would be a colossal achievement, the crowning glory of months, if not years, of hard work. He would never have even entertained the thought of it happening as a result of an old man pointing his hands at him silently for however long this was going to take. Speaking of which...

"Hey Elder," Gohan asked, "How long do you think this is going to take?"

The wrinkled Kai seemed to take a moment to think it through, before shrugging and replying in a bored tone, "Thirty hours, give or take. Maybe more."

Gohan gaped, as did the observing/listening Goku, Kibito, and Shin, though it was the teen who replied, "Thirty hours? I don't think the Earth has that kind of time!"

"Well it had better find the time," Elder snapped, "Because you can't rush these things, and once I've started, if I don't see it through to the end your true potential will be locked away where even I can't reach it."

Forcing himself to calm down, Gohan asked, "So dad, what's this plan you've got the kids working on to stop Majin Buu? You think it'll actually work?"

"Of course it'll work," Goku smiled confidently, "The fusion technique is-"

"The Fusion Dance?" Gohan asked, a hint of mirth in his tone. "You're pinning your hopes on that? Kami, I can't believe it actually works..."

Goku shot his son a confused look. "How do you know about the fusion technique Gohan?"

The teen grinned. "Kaen. When I was little, he told me stories of his travels, including one about when he and Pi combined forces through the Fusion Dance to defeat a planet full of violent robots. I mean, I loved listening to them at the time, coz I was eight, but looking back I thought he'd just made some of them up, that one included. You're telling me it's real?"

"Real enough Gohan," Goku grinned back. "Who knows, maybe you'll get to experience it first hand some day."

-Every step that I take is another mistake to you-
-(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)-

"Well, that's quite a tail you've spun boy," Avarrdo remarked in his usual standoffish manner. "So you're telling me you have the powers and memories of twenty-four different incarnations of yourself?"

"And what proof do you have for any of this?" Kellre added; it's not that he didn't believe the boy, it's that he didn't believe one of Avarrdo's time-space inventions actually worked.

Kaen sighed. "You mean other than the two-hundred-and-forty years of techniques and memories I can't possibly have?" The older man nodded, a grin on his face. "Well, do any of you remember having this weird dream a while back about feudal times, horses, swords, spears, all that crap?" Everyone nodded. "That was one of the alternate worlds. The one where my dimension hopping alter ego encountered all of you. And by 'encountered', I mean 'killed'."

Avarrdo nodded. "So the mind rationalises the new memories away however it can. In our case, because we knew nothing about the alternate worlds, it was just a dream, while to you, they were scattered memories that had to be pieces together, sorted, before they meant anything."

Kaen nodded. "Yup. I guess, in a way, I can thank Babidi for that; while he was digging for a way to control me, he cut through the jumble of memories and basically sorted them for me. Plus he pretty much stole all the bad ones and used them to create Dark Phoenix. I feel a lot lighter now."

"Then the talk before-" Kellre began.

"-Was, at least partially, because Phoenix was still linked with me," Kaen cut in, before adding with a shrug, "Plus, the loss of memories left a few gaps, that lead to speculations, et cetera." Quickly changing the subject, he asked, "So what's going down on Earth to solve this whole 'Buu' thing?"

"The twins and the boys are training and using the Fusion Dance you taught them so they can defeat the monster once and for all," Kat replied cheerfully.

"The twins?" Kaen asked in a confused tone. "They don't have enough power to defeat Buu."

"Actually," Avarrdo remarked, "They might. You see-"

"No!" Kellre cut in. "You can't tell him!"

"He has a right to know." Avarrdo remarked, completely ignorant about why Kellre was trying to shut him up.

There was a tense silence in the air, as Kaen asked icily, "Have a right to know what, exactly?"

-I've become so numb I can't feel you there-
-Become so tired so much more aware-
-I'm becoming this all I want to do-
-Is be more like me and be less like you-

"That's it!" Trunks shouted angrily. "I have had it with your stupid training regime! For months now you've just had me and Goten fighting in our normal forms; what the hell is this meant to teach us? I thought we were meant to get stronger?"

Lime grinned, though it wasn't a mirthful grin. "And it has; you just haven't noticed it, because the two of you are rising at the same rate. And it's only been a month; stop being a baby."

"But what the hell was it 'sposed to teach us?" the lavender-haired child repeated.

"Simple," Oran replied, folding his arms. "It was to teach you endurance. It was to strengthen the instinctual bond you and Goten share, by getting your bodies working in synch. It was to teach you how to think, act, even breath alike. It was to make Gotenks unstoppable. And now it's time to move on to the next lesson."

Trunks growled. "And when were you planning on telling us?"

Before either of the twins could reply, Goten asked, "What's the next lesson?"

The twins grinned, replying together, "You've learnt to fight like each other. Now it's time to test yourself against a true duo, one you can't predict. And you have to do it in your base form."

The boys smirked, also replying in synch, "We have to beat you two? Easy as."

"That a fact?" Lime asked tauntingly. "It's time to show you-"

"-The true depths of our power," Oran finished, clasping his hands before him as though praying. A wave of pure white light expanded out from him, 'wiping away' the pure white terrain to reveal a barren desert wasteland, like Goku and Vegeta first fought on.

"Whoa! That's cool!" Goten cried.

Smirking to themselves, they added, "We're not done yet." Throwing her hands out to either side, waves of fire spiralled down Lime's arms, spinning into a disk-like shape before her palms, then exploding to reveal a pair of eight-point, fiery-red filigree chakram. His right hand glowing with green and orange energy, Oran plunged his hand into the ground up to the elbow through a weird black portal.

Apparently finding what he was looking for, he withdrew his arm again, first revealing a blue-and-gold handle longer than his forearm, and as he kept pulling, he soon revealed that, at the end of the shaft, was a massive black-with-red blade, shaped and attached like an upside-down 'J', with the curve pointed back at the handle. Hefting the massive weapon onto his shoulder as he dropped into stance as Lime absently swung her chakram by the filigree, holding them with just her middle fingers, falling into a loose stance. "Now," they stated firmly, "Bring it!"

-Can't you see that you're smothering me?-
-Holding too tightly afraid to lose control-

"Back on Vegeta-Sei," Avarrdo began, "You, of all people, know about the Wyld zones. About those areas across the planet's surface where raw elemental energy ran rampant, and resisted the forces of change entirely. Volcanoes powered by Fire, forests by Earth, deserts by Wind, lakes by Water, and, rarely, rifts by Shadow."

Kaen rolled his hand irritably, trying to hurry his old man up. "Yeah, I know about the Wyld zones, what's your point? Are you saying the twins copied me and camped out in 'em?"

"No," the elder Saiyan replied, shaking his head, "It's nowhere near that simple." Taking a deep breath, he asked, "Do you remember hearing about The Forbidden Zone?"

Furrowing his brow, he replied, "Uh, you mean that weird crater, where everyone who entered never came back?"

"That's the one," Avarrdo replied with a nod. "You see, we Saiyans had always known that the Wyld radiation caused mutations, but once the King saw the changes the radiation caused in you, and it became clear the mutations could be beneficial, I was tasked with investigating, researching, and cataloguing the Wyld zones."

"Like all of your father's projects, I soon joined in, and together we studied the planetary abnormalities." Kellre added. "We found out exactly why the Forbidden Zone was so dangerous."

Avarrdo picked up where his partner left off. "The Forbidden Zone, as it turned out, was a junction, where not two, not three, but five separate leylines of elemental energy met; one of each. The radiation levels were off the scale."

"Using one of our scouting robots, we found a crystal valley in the centre of the crater," Kellre continued. "The radiation levels those small crystals gave off was greater then any single-element location on the planet; we couldn't safely take it out of the containment unit, but we did glean enough information to replicate the material in a lower radiation form."

"The crystals, both original and cloned, were almost entirely transparent, and yet glowed with a five-colour strobing aura, cycling through red, green, yellow, blue, black." Avarrdo shrugged slightly. "It defied all physical laws, but somehow, the glow did not come from inside the crystals, but purely from outside. We named them fel diamonds."

"Now, obviously, once we had created these replica fel diamonds, we needed to see the effect they had on the Saiyan body, so-"

Kaen opened his mouth, although the correct term would have more been snarled, and was half a heartbeat from tearing into both of them when Avarrdo interrupted, "They volunteered before we could even begin the search. It wasn't even a controlled experiment; they snuck into the lab and stole one each. It was a week before your mother and I discovered they had them."

A confused look on her face, Pi asked, "So the twins gained elemental attunement from the stones?"

Shaking his head, Avarrdo commented, "No, they got something else entirely."

Kellre's face was grim. "Psionics; latent, uncontrolled, but more powerful than we can imagine. They can literally do what they can because they believe they can."

-Cause everything that you thought I would be-
-Has fallen apart right in front of you-
-(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)-

"How..." Trunks breathed, hunched over on his hands and knees, struggling to get his breath back. Goten lay sprawled on the floor next to him, his chest rising and falling as he raggedly drew in precious oxygen. Oran and Lime, however, still stood in their respective stances, though they were panting slightly. Despite the fact that both of the twins were using bladed weapons, neither Goten not Trunks was cut anywhere, though that was purely due to lack of trying. "How can you guys keep going?"

Lime smirked, twirling her chakram. "Because we're not weak like you two."

Trunks shook his head, instantly regretting it when the motion made him dizzy, before replying, "No... There's something... else..." Breath caught, or at least caught enough, he sat up staring at the two of them before stating, "Your power levels are lower than mine or Goten's; you should not be able to outlast us. How can you keep going so long?"

Standing up straight, his giant tomahawk resting against his shoulders, Oran answered, "Our brother has drilled us time and time again on endurance, on outlasting your opponent, and about how the stronger fighter isn't always the one that wins; it's the smarter fighter. We can keep going because we can manage our energy better than you."

What neither Oran nor Lime knew was that this was, in fact, not true. Due to the power of their latent psionics, they could outlast Goten and Trunks because they believed they could. They believed that, thanks to their training with Kaen, they could outlast anyone except Kaen or Pi, and so they could; this was also the reason why they could never outlast either Kaen or Pi, because they believed they couldn't. In truth, they should have collapsed from exhaustion long before now.

"On your feet, both of you!" Lime commanded, and both boys struggled to obey; they'd learnt, in the month prior, that when she said 'jump', if they didn't immediately ask 'how high' she could and would be every bit as violent as Oran. Nodding in satisfaction when they carried out her orders, she barked, "Now, fuse."

"What?" They both cried together, before whining, "But we're tired..."

Throwing their arms out to opposite sides, and launching their weapons in the throw, the twins replied, "The key to getting stronger is finding your boundaries, then pushing past them. Fuse or die; your choice." As they watched Oran and Lime fuse, the boys knew they had no choice, forcing themselves through the motions, and soon, Liran faced off Gotenks. "Right," the twins' synched voices declared, "Let's see what you've got."

The fight, if it could be called that, that followed was decidedly one-sided. Liran sped forward, grabbed Gotenks by the vest, and hurled him into the air. She then proceeded to warp around, punching, kicking, and blasting him faster than he could react, before punting him back down to the ground, the desert terrain shattering like glass on impact and returning to the white room.

"Game over!" Liran shouted, the room fading to black, before lightening again to reveal Gotenks surrounded on all sides by thousands, if not millions, or red blasts simply hovering in midair. As they all started to move inwards, Gotenks quickly threw his hands up, creating a domed energy barrier around him, and the blasts rained down.

It quickly became obvious Gotenks could never be able to last, so he forced himself into his Super Saiyan state, but still that wasn't enough; the shield was wavering, but the rain of blasts looked nowhere near ending. In a desperate last resort, he dug deep, pulling out every scrap of power he could find, and with a roar and a golden explosion, Super Saiyan Three Gotenks stood, for a certain definition of the word, in the now blast free room. As the fused boy passed out, he could vaguely hear Liran clap and comment, "Congratulations."

-Every step that I take is another mistake to you-
-(Caught in the undertow just caught in the undertow)-
-And every second I waste is more than I can take-

A blanket of horrified silence descended over the Lookout in the wake of Majin Buu's devastating lightshow, in which he reduced the entire population of Earth to the handful on the floating platform. Shock, it seemed, prevented anyone from reacting, even to Buu's repeated, and increasingly angry, demands for them to "Produce." Everyone was frozen in place, their minds unable to comprehend the situation.

All except one. Her eyes twitching, fists clenching with barely repressed rage, a growl worked its way up from Videl's throat. This... Thing, had taken everything from her. First, he had hurt, maybe even killed, the love of her life (though she'd yet to admit that to him); then, he had killed her father, and her friends (albeit, incidentally while killing everyone else on the planet). She knew, deep in the logical part of her mind, that nothing she could do would even scratch a monster like Majin Buu. However, that part was quickly being walled off by her irrational instincts, and those instincts told her to make Buu pay.

Using the skills and techniques her would-be boyfriend taught her, Videl pooled energy into her fists, the pale blue glow bringing a tear to her eye; the sight of it stung her heart, reminding her of Gohan. With a roar of "You godless savage!" she charged towards him, launching a massive (for her, anyway) wave of energy at the pink monster

"Videl! No!" Dende cried in panic, but by then, it was too late; far too late...

A sadistic grin on his face, Buu telescoped his fist towards her, punching straight through her meagre blast. As the killing blow drew nearer, given the lightshow already taking place, no one noticed the faintly perceptible blue glow, before all that remained of Videl was a red smear against the once-pristine white tiles. Tilting his head to one side, Buu recoiled his fist, licking the blood off his knuckles, and stated simply, "Produce. Unless you want someone else to die needlessly."

A gasp of horror rang up from the Z Fighters, seeing one of their own (technically) killed that brutally; Chichi, in true fashion, fainted. Maintaining a white-knuckle grip on his staff, Dende grit his teeth. Piccolo, noticing his second student's emotional state, hissed, "Don't do anything stupid Dende, we need you alive."

Dende, however, would not be dissuaded, growling, "You come onto my planet, slaughter my people, murder my two best friends, one right before my eyes, and dare to make demands of me?" His eyes glowing white, Dende thrust his staff in Buu's direction, shouting, "Get off my planet!" A massive, though invisible, wave of energy launched out towards Buu, lifting him up and launching him far out of the planet's atmosphere.

"Damnit," Piccolo muttered, giving the demi-god a chop to the back of the neck, knocking him out cold, before stabbing the gnarled staff through Dende's back and hurling him off the Lookout; the injury would prevent him regenerating, which would, in turn, prevent Buu from finding him. Closing his eyes, he opened his mind; all that remained now was to warn the kids that the time to train was over, and the time to fight was soon.

-I've become so numb I can't feel you there-
-Become so tired so much more aware-
-I'm becoming this all I want to do-
-Is be more like me and be less like you-

Death, Videl decided, was a lot less painful than she'd always assumed it would be. 'But then,' she mused to herself, 'He was probably so much more powerful than me I died before I could even realise I'd been hurt...' Opening her eyes, which had flown shut a fraction of a second before Buu's attack landed, she came to the conclusion that the afterlife wasn't what she expected either. 'It looks like a science lab or something...'

Her musing about the oddity that was the futuristic metal environment she found herself in was cut off when something slammed into her; something that revealed itself to be a person, judging by the arms that wrapped around her. "Ooooh, we were so worried about you Videl," a familiar voice announced, "We were afraid we'd mess it up."

"Mess what up?" She asked automatically, before turning her head to examine the speaker; the female, as the voice suggested, almost crushing her in a powerful hug. "Pi? Guess this really is the afterlife then huh? Can't say it looks anything like I expected..." Noticing something, or rather, the lack of something, the human girl asked, "Hey, I thought you got a halo when you died, or is that just something Gohan's dad got?"

Pi blinked, releasing the girl and leaning back, though maintaining a grip on her shoulders. "Videl," she stated calmly, "You're not dead."

Videl shook her head, replying, "Of course I am; there's no way I could've survived Buu's attack. Plus, you're dead, and I'm with you, ipso facto, I'm dead."

Pi raised an eyebrow at her. "I'm not dead either."

"But I saw you die!"

Pi just shrugged. "Just a flesh wound."

"You were blown into atoms!"

"I got better."

Videl stared at her incredulously. "'You got better'? How the blue hell can you 'get better' from being blown into particles?"

"Hell is more of a violet, actually; well, the ground is. The sky's kinda orange," a male voice remarked. Turning her head, she saw Kaen leaning against a nearby wall, his arms crossed, as always. "And to answer your question, I'm the reason she 'got better'; they didn't call me 'Phoenix' for nothing ya know."

Videl blinked again. "But, you're dead too..."

Kaen just slapped his head. "And this, people, is why we should not have had Pi greet her."

Shaking her head, Videl remarked, "Fine, whatever. Where's Gohan?"

Kaen shrugged. "Hell, last I checked."

Her face twisted in confusion. "Wait, Gohan's good. What was he doing in Hell?"

"Fighting me." Short, sharp, and to the point.

Videl's right eye twitched. "Are you deliberately doing this to piss me off?"

The couple grinned, as Kaen replied, "Why, is it working?"

Pi spoke out, "Kaen, stop being an asshole." He opened his mouth, but she cut him off again. "Stop being an asshole to Videl."

Nodding slightly, he waved his hand absently around the room, indicating the rest of his extended family, and commenting, "Videl Satan, welcome aboard the Icebreaker."

-And I know!-
-I may end up failing too!-
-But I know!-
-You were just like me with someone disappointed in you!-

"Nine hundred ninety-eight, nine hundred ninety-nine, one thousand." Lowering his other hand to the floor, Oran eased himself out of the one-handed push-ups he'd been doing, leaning up to sit on his heels. Rolling his arms and shoulders, he called out, "Okay guys, that's it. We've done everything we can. Now, I want you to get a good meal into you, and rest up; Majin Buu's gonna be here tomorrow."

It was finally time. The fated battle was on the horizon, and the time to train was past. Piccolo had contacted them psychically to inform them that, in an hour at best, Majin Buu would be arriving at the door to the chamber; that was just under a fortnight ago to them, so the boy assumed they had, at best, one day left until show time.

Walking over to her brother, and offering him a hand to help him up, Lime asked, "Bro, can I ask you a question?" He nodded, accepting the hand up, and waiting for her to ask him her question. Judging by the way she kept glancing over at Trunks, he could work out what the question was going to be, but she seemed to chicken out at the last second, asking, "Do you think it's enough? Do you think we'll be able to stop Buu?"

They had come a long way in a short period of time. Gotenks could now hold Super Saiyan Three for a good while, though he seemed to have skipped level two entirely, and Goten and Trunks themselves were nearing the border for the second level; with another few months training, they may have made it. Liran could reach Super Saiyan levels one and two, yet, strangely, Oran and Lime themselves still could not transform, though their base form maximum was comparable to Goten and Trunks' base Super Saiyan forms.

This in mind, Oran nodded, replying, "Yeah, I do. But if nothing else, we'll be able to stall him long enough for Kaen to show up." Even now - especially now - his belief in his brother was strong. Glancing over at Trunks, Oran gently nudged his sister forward, stating, "Go to him." She shot her brother a panicked and questioning look, and he answered her unasked queries. "Do I approve? No. Do I want you to be happy? Yes. We don't have time for regrets, so follow your heart, and go to him."

Taking a deep, calming breath, she steeled herself, walking over to the boys and asking, "Trunks, can we talk?" When the haired-haired child nodded, she grabbed his arm and all but dragged him away. Fidgeting nervously, she stammered, "Uh, Trunks... Well, with this, uh, fight, we, um... Might not make it... And I wouldn't want to, uh, pass on, without telling you... Uh... So here we are, and um... What I'm trying to say is, I l..." She trailed off, her words leaving her in a rush.

"You what?" Trunks asked curiously, placing one hand on her shoulder. "You can't just drag me over here and then leave me in suspense. You w-"

He cut off as she acted. Leaning forward, she aimed to kiss the boy, but at the last minute, she chickened out once more, pressing her lips onto his cheek, before blushing brightly; a state Trunks soon joined her in. Scuffing her shoe against the floor, she said bashfully, "Don't die out there. When this is all over, well, we'll see... where this goes, okay?"

Nodding once, Trunks just watched her walk off, a vacant expression on his face. He ignored Oran calling his sister 'Chicken', as well as Goten's singsong voice repeating 'Trunks has got a girlfriend'. A smile coming to his face, Trunks strode into the living area; he had a fight to win.

-I've become so numb I can't feel you there-
-Become so tired so much more aware-
-I'm becoming this all I want to do-
-Is be more like me and be less like you-

To say that Buu looked angry when he arrived back on the Lookout would be to say that the surface of the sun was how, or the oceans wet; the pink monster looked absolutely livid, demanding to know where 'the short green one' was. Piccolo, however, remained perfectly calm, telling the demon that Dende had been 'dealt with', and with him gone, Piccolo himself was the only one who knew where 'the fighter' was.

From their hiding spot inside the palace, the Z Fighters watched as the ever-calm Piccolo slowly walked, via the side entrance of the palace, towards the door to the Room of Spirit and Time - taking the long way - with a barely contained Majin Buu following behind him. Buu, clearly, was itching to blast Piccolo's head off, but at the same time, believed that without Piccolo, he'd never get the challenging fight he craved.

"Should we do anything?" Yamcha asked quietly.

"Like what Yamcha?" Bulma hissed back.

The former martial artist cum baseball player shrugged. "Slow him down?"

Chichi nodded, picking up a nearby lamp. "I'm not going to let that monster get to my baby!"

"Wait Chichi!" Krillin declared, glad Buu was now out of earshot. "What about Goten? Would he want you throwing your life away?"

"He's right Chi," Bulma replied. "What we need to do is get away from here as fast as we can, and maybe-" Before she could finish her sentence, the entire group disappeared in a blue shimmer.

-I've become so numb I can't feel you there-
-(I'm tired of being what you want me to be)-

"This is it?" Buu asked, indicating the plain wooden door Piccolo had stopped beside.

"This is it," Piccolo confirmed with a nod. "Behind this door is the fighter you have been waiting for."

With a scowl, Majin Buu undid the latch, swinging the door open and striding in. With the tiniest of grins, Piccolo followed him in, closing the door behind him. If all else failed, Piccolo was more than prepared to destroy the entrance, sealing everyone inside; if the kids wouldn't win, he would ensure they didn't lose.

Walking into the garish white room, passed the curtains blocking off the sleeping area, and down the short flight of stairs to the off-white floor, Majin Buu saw four children standing before him, their backs to him. A grin came to his face; he recognised these children. The two on the right were Goten and Trunks; the others, the two who blasted him. As they turned around, he asked mockingly, "So, which one of you is going to fight me? Where is the great fighter I was promised?"

"Right here!" The boys intoned together.

"And fortunately for you," the twins added, "This one's a twofer."

Four simultaneous cries of "FU-SION-HA!" rang out across the white terrain, and a pair of flashed of light erupted suddenly, before dying down to reveal two children where four had once stood.

"I'm Liran," the girl remarked.

Pointing towards himself with one thumb, the boy added, "Name's Gotenks."

"And together," the pair finished, "We're taking you down!"

-I've become so numb I can't feel you there-
-(I'm tired of being what you want me to be)-

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Author's notes:

And so Book 2 draws to a close. Stay tuned for Book 3: Endurance.

Gah, that took forever to get done... But it's finally out. Chapter 40. However, as much as I hate to be the bearer of bad news, it has to be said.

I'm taking a short break from the story. As evidenced by the fact it's taken me two weeks to get this update out, I am reaching the point of no return, and if I press myself any harder, I'm going to burn out. My life has been so hectic recently, and I just haven't had the chance to write anywhere near as much as I needed to.

I'm not abandoning this story; I've put far too much time and effort into this to not see it through to the end. However, I feel I need to take some time off, to write without the pressure of weekly updates, so I can rebuild my chapter buffer. With the exception of maybe 5 chapters, the entirety of the next book is going to be fight scenes, which take time to get right.

As it currently stands, I plan on taking up to a month off, before returning to a weekly update schedule. Depending on the state of my life, this may be extended or shortened as my discretion, and updates may have to be more sporadic, i.e. posted whenever I finish them rather than every Sunday. But we'll see how things go...

And to everyone who gets the urge to complain about my little break, this is for you: I have keep weekly updates for 38 weeks on this story, and bi-weekly updates every week for the story before it. Once you can say the same, and back it up with hard proof, then you can berate me for needing some time off.

Until then, ja ne.