--- Disturbance, Book 3: Endurance ---
Chapter E01 - This Moment
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.
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-You will remember this moment as you dig into me-
-And from your smile now it seems as if you liked it-
In a location between time and space, in a realm that by all regards should not exist, blew a breeze that could not possibly have blown. The breeze swept through the barren white wastelands, picking up near invisible dust particles off the shimmering ground, before whipping around the four figures by the massive palace in the 'centre'. Standing to one side was Piccolo, keeping an eye on proceedings while staying out of range, his cape flapping in the improbable breeze.
Standing before him was Majin Buu in all his glory, smirking eagerly at the two before him, cracking his head from side to side as he asked, "So, who's first?"
No reply was forthcoming. To Majin Buu's left stood the imposing - for her size - form of Liran, the five distinctive spikes of her hair wavering slightly as she glared at the pink bubblegum monster that had driven her (their?) brother to suicide (or the brink thereof), after having killed her eldest sister, if not by blood. Her ponytail swung back and forth as she folded her arms, waiting for Buu to act.
To the monster's right stood Gotenks. Though his odd black-and-purple hair was more resilient to the wind, the spikes on the edges swayed in the wind, as he smirked confidently, if cheekily, back at Majin Buu. Gotenks, it would seem, had Vegeta's arrogance, Goku's confidence, and their shared love of battle, making him a perfect combination of his halves' respective fathers. Gotenks, it would seem, had already declared himself the winner, though the fight had yet to begin.
That would shortly change. Growling in irritation at the lack of response he got, Majin Buu lunged for what he perceived as the weakest target: Liran. Screaming, "Fight me!" he drew back his fist with every intention to shatter the girl's skull, but she calmly flipped backwards, vaulting off her hands and leaping over the follow-up strike. She continued to flip backwards over his wild swings until, after vaulting off her hands, she charged a minor blast and launched it at near point blank range. It didn't do much damage, if any, but it stunned Majin Buu for just long enough for Gotenks to slam-kick the monster in the head.
The fight was on.
-You'd better cherish this moment as you dig into me-
-You'll never get another chance at this-
The scuffle that followed was brief, and did little save to anger Majin Buu even further; at this level, not even the combined strength of Goten and Trunks could so much as scratch the monster. "You little insect!" Buu growled, his head-tentacle stretching to lash the boy around the ankle, hurling him across the white expanse. "Stay out of this!"
A grin on her face as he flipped backwards to land on his feet, charging ki in his hands and unleashing a volley of attacks; again, they'd do little more than annoy the beast, but if their training had taught them nothing else, an angry opponent was a sloppy opponent. "Oh come on!" The fused boy taunted, "You don't seriously expect to fight us one-on-one do you?"
A matching grin on her face, Liran took tot he air, weaving between the stream of blasts and flaring her aura, charging her fists with ki, before slamming Buu full force. "We play to win!" The girl declared, chasing the stunned monster.
"Don't play games with me!" Growling again, Buu grabbed the girl, hurling her back the way she came so that she crashed into Gotenks. The result was a humorous, if embarrassing, position for the both of them, with the fused girl sprawled prone over the boy.
Quickly shaking the cobwebs away, Liran opened her eyes to find herself staring into the face of the newly recovered Gotenks, and immediately blushed; the male Oran may have made up half of Liran's memories, but her personality was all her own, and it was inherently female. As the boy's eyes widened, it was on instinct alone that she dived to the side, Gotenks rolling to the other side as the foot of Majin Buu slammed into the ground where the two of them had been lying.
Quickly clambering to her feet, Liran dropped into her fighting stance, growling, "Right, I guess the warm-up's over."
Regaining his footing on the opposite side, Gotenks fell into his own stance, igniting his aura and remarking, "Time to kick it up a notch then." With a rising shout, the two kids flared into Super Saiyan, leaping towards the monster with a cry of, "Let's dance!"
-I won't stand another minute of your questioning me-
-You hear me, bitch, now the interrogations over-
"Where the hell are we?" It was a simple question the former-fighter-turned-baseball-player asked, and one would think it deserved a simple answer, but none was forthcoming. The group of friends had, up until a matter of minutes ago, hiding in the palace atop the Lookout, contemplating what, if anything, they could do to assist the kids in their preparations to stop Majin Buu, when all of a sudden, they were not there any more, but here; wherever 'here' was.
The proverbial light bulb clicking on above her head, Bulma replied, "I know where we are! It's-"
"Videl!" Chichi cried, cutting the older woman off as she raced towards the young woman she'd spotted approaching them, grabbing her into the patented 'Chichi Mother Bear (tm) Hug' and squeezing the life out of her. Setting the girl down on the ground again and casting her mother's eye over her, she asked worriedly, "Are you okay? What happened?"
"As I was trying to say Chi," Bulma commented exasperatedly, "We're on the Icebreaker."
"Videl?" Krillin asked confusedly, "But how did you get here? We saw you get splattered."
The girl shrugged. "I've been trying to figure that out myself, actually."
"It's quite simple." An authoritative male voice remarked. "We merely teleported young Videl onto our ship, while replacing her with a blood splatter body double, such that when Majin Buu struck where Videl was prior to her teleportation, not only would a solid object be struck, but one that simulated her death."
Smiling towards the speaker, Bulma commented, "Wow, that was really clever Kellre."
The Saiyan in question smirked, replying back, "Would you expect any less?"
-I can't handle the feeling of your pestering me-
-How would you like to meet my favourite fist?-
'This isn't going well...' Liran mused to herself, as Majin Buu once again batted her away like an insignificant insect. Her attacks just weren't strong enough to hurt the monster; hell, she couldn't even make it flinch! Kaen would be so ashamed of her if he were alive (here) to see her. Even Gotenks, just in the base Super Saiyan form, was doing enough damage, though not lasting, to make the monster react.
She might as well have not been there, for all the affect she was having. She'd never felt so helpless before, neither as herself, nor as Oran and Lime.
Falling back to stand beside her, keeping his eyes on Buu, Gotenks commented dryly, "This isn't working. We're just not doing any lasting damage."
"I don't think I'm doing any damage at all..." The girl remarked bitterly. "I'm just not strong enough in this form to even scratch him."
Were he completely honest, Gotenks would be forced to admit he'd noticed that too, but he wasn't going to make any mention of that; one Saiyan never insults another's pride if it can be avoided. "So what are we gonna do?" The boy asked. "Are we gonna take it to the next level, or have you got some other trick up your sleeve?"
An idea occurring to her, Liran grinned, replying, "Option B. Just keep ugly there busy a sec while I do this; I've never really tried it before."
Gotenks grinned back, replying, "Can do boss lady," before launching off towards Buu again.
-No you can't renege; I'd love to see you beg-
Liran closed her eyes, focusing on the power she could feel inside her. She remembered, as Oran and Lime, the words of encouragement her (their) brother had given, the gentle, and not-so-gentle, shoves towards the greatness she (they) saw in him. She could remember the look on his face when he first started training them three or four months ago, when he told them they were too weak to train with him.
When he told them he was ashamed of them.
That single moment was one of the most defining moments in their young life. For nine years, they had seen their brother as their idol, the paragon of everything it meant to be a Saiyan. When he'd disappeared, they had taken it upon themselves to train, knowing he would return, and determined to be ready for him when he did, but they had failed his first test.
Since that day, they had vowed never to fail him again. They would make him proud. When he had given them those video games 'to train their mind' they knew he was testing them. And this time, they would pass his test.
-Dream this moment as you run away-
Her power reaching critical mass, she leapt into the air slightly, drawing in her legs and wrapping her arms around them, curling up into a ball in mid air. A sphere of light expanded out to surround her, before scattering outwards like glass, and she touched ground again, her eyes sliding open.
She had changed
Her five-point hair was now pulled back, her hair straightened, with her ponytail still trailing down her back. This, however, was not nearly as noticeable as the massive scar that now adorned her left cheek. All colours on her clothing had now changed to a shade of blue, her vest now having royal blue trim, with a light blue undershirt and pants, with deep blue sash and wristbands.
-You will only separate me from all I believe-
The two combatants, Buu and Gotenks, paused as they registered the flash to examine the changes, and it was Buu that commented, "You just changed your clothes; what difference could that possibly make?"
Liran grinned, holding her hands out to either side as though she were grasping something, as blue energy swirled around her wrists. With a pale blue flash, and the sound of snap-freezing ice, a pair of odd weapons appeared in her hands. The handle she grasped were close in shape to a quarter circle, with the curved part wrapping around the front of her hand, which trailed up to the centre of a circle which made up the centre of the main part of the weapon.
Said main part was shaped like a four-pointed star, only with a circle in the centre of it, and the points being different sizes. The 'top' point trailed back partway over her wrist, the 'side' points were both fairly short, while the 'bottom' point trailed at least a foot long, if not a bit longer. Grinning at the pink monster, she flicked her wrists, making sure he noticed as half a dozen pale blue spikes erupted from the guard, before she raised the weapons to point them at him.
-This moment in brutality-
She held a pair of guns, which was never more obvious than when she replied, "Cover fire." Without a moment's hesitation, she pulled the triggers on both weapons, one after the other, a hidden, seventh shard firing out of the main weapon and screaming towards the two fighters. Quickly diving out of the way lest he be hit, Gotenks spun around to watch the monster's reaction.
Confident in his power, Majin Buu didn't even consider moving out of the way. However, as the pale blue points ripped clear through his pink bubblegum body, a bellow of pain was wrenched from his throat, and the threat capability of the girl's weapons was instantly escalated.
That had hurt. A lot.
-You're the one who on kept on pushing 'til I made you bleed-
Quite simply, Liran's weapons were constructed purely from her will, though she was unaware of this, making them, and the damage they caused, not actually ki-based, but psionic-based. These made them a very real danger to Majin Buu, because although they too could cause no real lasting damage to a body that could regenerate from being blown into atoms, they could do damage to the magicks holding said body together.
That, and having psionic energy tearing through your magic-based body hurt kinda like having a red-hot knife stabbed through a socket joint like your shoulder might.
Blinking at the revelation, Gotenks remarked, "Well, that was effective."
"That hurt..." Buu muttered, sounding as though he were amazed that something had actually hurt him. That amazement quickly turned to anger, the monster shouting, "You impudent brat! You actually hurt me!"
The shards sliding upwards, the 'top' one loading into the gun automatically, Liran kept her aim at the pink monster, shouting back, "There's plenty more whoop-ass left in the can especially for you, you pink shit!" In truth, Liran was just as surprised that her guns were so effective, but hey, gift horse, mouth, all that jazz.
With a roar of anger, Majin Buu charged towards Liran, hoping to reach the girl before she could fire again, but was intercepted by Gotenks again, howling in pain once more as two more shards tore through his body. The monster grit his teeth; this was swiftly getting annoying.
-It seems your pride has been stolen since you stood up to me-
-I'll tell you now you know I think I really like it-
"Gohan's alive?! Where is he?"
"Other world."
"You mean he's dead?"
"No, he's alive."
"He's alive?! Where is he?"
Kaen groaned in frustration at having to deal with the woman. In her hysterical state, she seemed to have the memory of a goldfish, and the conversation kept cycling around. The first time it had happened, it was funny. The second time, irritating, but still comical. However, after four loops, he was really getting sick of it. His tail lashing around behind him, he barked, "Shut up and listen woman! Gohan is alive. He is in Other World. Both of these facts are true."
Before Chichi could cycle once more, Bulma interrupted with, "What is Gohan doing in the Other World if he's still alive?"
'Thank you!' The frustrated Saiyan thought to himself, glad the voice of reason had finally had a chance to speak. "From what he told me, that bastard Kai Shin practically kidnapped him and took him to his home world for some kind of special training."
Blinking, Krillin asked, "But, if you're not dead, how could Gohan have told you anything?"
Kaen flinched slightly, before replying, "That's a much longer story, and quite frankly, none of your business. All you need to know is that I saw Gohan, he's fine, and he's training to destroy Buu."
-So learn a lesson from someone who will never repeat-
-The many tragic mistakes of his past-
"Hey Kaen," Videl asked curiously, "How did you manage to survive anyway? I mean, I'll be the first to admit I don't know much about this ki stuff, but that was one hell of a blast-" She paused as he grinned and replied 'Thank you'. "-so how the hell did firing it not kill you? Heck, how did charging it not kill you?"
"Tenacity." He shrugged. "Quite literally, I was too stubborn to let myself do any less. I mean, a lot of this stuff is purely psychological; if you believe there's no chance you can survive, there won't be, but if you believe there is strong enough, you just might find the way. In a very real sense, my body held out long enough to fire the blast because I would not let it do otherwise."
"But you're better now right?" Krillin asked almost excitedly, "You're strong enough to kill Buu right should the kids fail?"
He grimaced. "Not really, no. I'm still recovering from hitting the third level so soon after the second. Hell, I'm not even sure if I could take it to the third level again period, let alone without nearly killing myself again, and believe me when I tell you, massive internal organ failure is not a pleasant experience by any stretch of the imagination. Plus I still don't know why a blast that size didn't erase Buu from existence completely, taking... special situations into consideration." He didn't exactly feel like telling them just how he had managed to bring Pi back from the other side.
"Actually, we had a bit of a theory on that," Videl commented almost excitedly; after all, it had originally been her theory, and the others had accepted it without issue. "We suspected that, since you were taken over by Babidi's magic, either that somehow stopped you being able to kill Buu, or just simply proved that you couldn't."
"That would mean you were still considered 'evil' when you 'killed' Buu," Pi commented, to the muttering of the old men in the back. "But we literally killed the evil inside you, so how-"
"We were still linked," Kaen grimaced, "Meaning his evil stain was still on me when I made that attack."
"The fact you were using Hellfire wouldn't have helped either," Kellre pointed out.
Nodding once, Kaen commented, "Your theory... has merit. Unfortunately, if it's true, then there's a chance that, even now, even if I could reach that pinnacle of strength again, I may still not be able to destroy him..."
-I hope you savour this moment as you're still on your feet-
-So keep it quiet now I think you're gonna like it-
The girl had a weakness. It had taken several minutes of taking and dodging those painful shards for him to find it, but she had a weakness. Every fourteen shots, she needed to pause and wait for the guns to reload. He counted down the shots now, knowing that soon, she would be wide open for retaliation, and he would make her pay for all the pain she caused him.
That moment came very soon, as the girl muttered annoyedly, "Ugh, gotta reload." Why she was announcing it he didn't know, but he took full advantage, batting Gotenks aside and tear-assing towards her at high speed, fist drawn back to take her head clean off her shoulders. What he didn't expect was for her to suddenly launch a green arrow four times the size of one of those shards at him, which tore through him painfully, then teleport to the end of it's trajectory and bat it back at him.
Smirking to herself, Liran continued to warp around the room, batting the Green Dragon, as she called it, back towards Buu until the energy eventually faded, then resumed shooting him as normal. As Goten intercepted Buu again, and she resumed shooting, she quickly realised that she didn't have that much longer left in this form before she would 'revert', so she had one final ace up her sleeve.
"Let him get through," Liran instructed telepathically, to Gotenks' surprise. "I've got one final move in store for him. Let him through."
Letting Majin Buu 'slip past him', Gotenks turned to watch what the girl did, gasping in amazement as the room itself seemed to shift, leaving Majin Buu atop a tiny square platform, with nothing else around, and Liran nowhere to be seen.
Without warning, the girl suddenly appeared in the centre of the platform, glowing white, and, to Buu's amazement, totally impervious to harm. With a shout of "Let's see how you handle this!" she spun around on the spot, firing wildly around her from a seemingly endless supply of ammo; strangely, Gotenks noticed, the bullets seemed to strike invisible walls a few feet away from the 'platform' Buu stood on, so obviously she'd boxed the monster in.
Warping out from the centre, she started randomly appearing in a walk around the platform, peppering the trapped monster with bullets at seemingly random intervals, before, having completed a full circle, she warped back to the centre of the platform, though now about ten feet above it, and started firing into weird white and black swirling portals. In response, a mass of portals opened in the 'sky' around Buu, maybe ten or more, and the swarm of shards fired seemingly randomly out of one of those portals, arcing around the platform and tearing chunks out of the pink bubblegum monster.
-Words have their consequences when they're spoken to me-
-Better be careful when you're writing checks-
As the attack faded, and Buu's 'room' faded back to the normal off-white of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, Liran warped in slightly behind Gotenks, panting slightly as her new form seemed to splinter into fragments of light, leaving her back in her original outfit again. "Man that takes a lot out of you..." she breathed tiredly, a grin on her face as she watched the steam venting from the slowly healing Majin Buu. "Worth it though."
For the second time they could see, Majin Buu's ki level had dropped; the first being after Kaen had blown the monster to atoms. Granted, with him currently doing his steam vent power-up as he healed himself, a lot of his lost strength was coming back, but slower than it used to.
"Certainly was effective," Gotenks commented borderline jealously. "Can you do that again?"
"That particular form?" The girl asked, shaking her head, "Nah, he'll be expecting that." Grinning again, she added, "Once I get my strength back though, I've got yet more tricks left."
"We don't have time for you to take a break," Gotenks remarked, though it was more a worried tone than an angry or irritated one. Charging a baseball-sized ball of ki, as concentrated as possible, he held it out to the girl, stating, "Here. This should charge you up."
Taking the ki ball, Liran gasped slightly as her body automatically absorbed it, and felt her energy return; not all of it, but it was enough for what she wanted to do.
-Don't you question how I stand above you now-
Growling as he watched the demon girl begin to glow with a pale orange energy, Majin Buu leapt towards her, not even looking at the approaching Gotenks, just swatting the boy aside like an annoying insect; he was not going to give the girl a chance to do that again! He almost paused as the girl leapt into the air and curled up again, being surrounded by a sphere of white light again, but he knew the girl had to be at range to truly hurt him, and he wasn't going to give her that chance.
Spinning around to land on his feet, Gotenks quickly blasted off after Buu, hoping, praying, he could give Liran the time she needed for her latest trick, but he needn't have bothered; she already had all the time and space she needed.
The sphere of light exploded outwards before Buu could get within three feet of her, the light dying down to reveal the girl as she gently landed back on the ground with a pair of soft taps. She'd changed once again, into something new.
-Dream this moment as you run away-
Like before, her clothes had changed colour, though this time instead of blue, everything was a shade of red, in similar tones; light red for the undershirt and baggy pants, deep red for the trimmings. That sort of change all parties concerned were expecting, given the previous transformation. What was new, however, was Liran herself.
Her face looked more feminine than it had before, and the massive scar was nowhere to be seen. Instead, two small, red lines sat on either side of her nose, like tiny arrows pointing down from her eyes. The biggest, and most noticeable, difference was her hair, formerly so organised, now stuck out wildly in every direction, kind of resembling her older brother's hairstyle, only coming down past her shoulders.
She smirked at the fast approaching Buu; the stupid creature had no idea what he was walking into.
-You will only separate me from all I believe-
She held her hairs out to either side, waves of flame spiralling down her arms before pooling in her hands and exploding outwards to reveal a pair of eight-point filigree chakram; the same pair wielded by Lime during the kids' training sessions. Clutching them tightly as Buu drew ever nearer, she fell into a fighting stance, waiting until the last second before ducking under Buu's attack and swinging her arm up.
The fiery chakram tore through Buu's body, carving a gash clear halfway around his body, before the girl spun around and hurled the other towards his back, the weapon digging deep into his mockery of flesh, imbedding itself in the gum-like material; needless to say, this was extremely painful. As Buu howled in pain and reached to pull the weapon out, Liran quickly turned to Gotenks with his next instructions: "Cover me from a distance. On my mark, bind him."
-This moment in brutality-
Raising her hand, she called her weapon back to her, leaping at Buu while it was still airborne, and proceeding to slice the hell out of him. She knew he'd take to the air if given a moment's rest, to avoid her continued barrage, so she deliberately gave him that moment; true to her brother's design, playing video games had taught her tactics, and she employed them to great effect.
As Majin Buu took to the sky, Liran shouted mentally, "Now! While he's weak!"
"Galactic Donut!" Raising one hand over his head, a single finger extended, Gotenks drew a circle above him, focusing ki as he did to form a ki band. Hurling it at Buu like he was playing the ring toss, he clenched his fists and held them in front of him, still spaced a distance apart, as the ring settled around Buu's midsection; it was so much wider than him it looked like a hula hoop. With a grin, Gotenks opened and closed his hands rapidly, the ring suddenly splitting into three, one just below his shoulders, and one near his ankles, before slamming his fists together, and the rings shrunk down, binding Buu tight.
-You're the one who on kept on pushing 'til I made you bleed-
With a smirk, Liran shouted, "Let's turn up the heat!" and stomped her foot, causing walls of flame to erupt from the ground on all sides around Buu; even the ground and 'sky' themselves became covered by fire. Leaping backwards into the flame, Liran darted around in a circle, stopping at random to throw her chakram at, and through, Majin Buu; at the rate they were spinning, they were the equivalent of a buzz saw heated red-hot.
Buu growled like a caged animal as he struggled to free himself. Irritatingly, he could heal just fast enough to avoid being sliced to ribbons, but not fast enough to be able to gather enough strength to muscle out of these ki bonds. But this Buu was smart. This Buu could plan.
He let himself get injured, consciously not healing away his injuries, as he pooled his energy. With a roar of "Enough is enough!" he let the collected energy reach critical mass, exploding in a violent wave of pink light that completely obliterated the ki bonds, and wiped away the flame walls, sending Liran crashing into the ground.
Buu grinned; he had the girl right where he wanted her.
-Now you know the answer-
-Save yourself from danger-
Liran was in trouble, and she knew it. Gotenks was too far away to help her, and even if he wasn't, the residual light and energy from the explosion would have made it near impossible to find her. She knew it was only a matter of seconds before Buu was all over her, and for all the pain she'd caused him, she knew there'd be no mercy; he could rip her to pieces before Gotenks even knew she was in trouble.
Which meant it was her responsibility to drag her ass out of the hole she'd dug herself.
Her current form would never be able to withstand a full assault from the enraged Majin Buu, and she didn't have enough time, or energy, to revert to her base form, then switch from there into one that could, so she did something dangerous. Something that would, if it failed, result in her death, either directly, or indirectly from being left wide open for the attack she knew was coming.
She switched forms from a form.
-I cannot forget how-
-All of this began-
There was a brief, familiar flash of light, before the girl disappeared in a shower of sparks, leaving a disoriented Majin Buu to slam his fist into the off-white floor. A second shower of sparks heralded the girl's return, changed once more. Now, everything was a shade of yellow, her body was more lithe, and looked more like Lime's natural form than Liran's. Her hair was perfectly straight, and cut short to just behind her head, save for two antennae-like locks protruding backwards from a few inches above her eyes.
Buu growled in annoyance, straightening up as he commented, "You are very annoying girl. How many forms do you have anyway?"
The girl just grinned at him, giggling and replying, "Enough. But don't worry, you'll be long dead before I use all of them." Closing her fists, the grin slipped from her face, as four yellow daggers seemed to sprout from between her finders of each hand, almost like claws. Her voice lost its previously playful tone as she stated, "It's time to show you what we're truly capable of. Gotenks? We give no quarter. Hold nothing back."
-I know you know the answers-
-Save yourself from danger-
"Alright!" The boy cheered, taking a deep breath, before exhaling what appeared, at first glance, to be an opaque white cloud. However, that cloud quickly reshaped itself, forming a torso, arms, and head to match its creator. Pointing towards Majin Buu, Gotenks shouted, "Super Ghost Kamikaze, Attack!" With an excited whoop, the ghost, as Gotenks' called it, sped towards Buu, and, acting on instinct, the monster struck it.
This turned out to be a mistake. The second the ghost came in contact with the solid substance that was Buu's body, it grinned and exploded, launching the monster to crash painfully into the ground. Before the monster could recover, Liran was all over him, slashing his imitation flesh with her daggers, and launching wave after wave of lightning bolts as she attacked.
Growling, Buu lashed out at the girl, grinning as he felt his fist strike something solid, but the grin fell when that wasn't followed by the satisfying sound of the girl hitting the ground, he was instead greeted by a pair of lightning bolts to the face. From two different directions.
-Beaten by a stranger-
-Blood still on his hands-
Standing up, he saw one Liran standing northeast of him (assuming north was directly in front of him), and then another to the northwest; Gotenks, he noticed, was directly behind him. He may not have exactly been a genius, but the mass of intellect he had absorbed from the countless thousands of people he had eaten had given him a cunning many people underestimated; that had proven to be their downfall.
'She can't possibly be both of them. One of them must be an illusion,' he concluded, studying the two girls. For whatever reason, he had disregarded his confrontation with the second long-haired man, the one that smelled similar to this girl, as a one-time fluke; after all, the odds of two of these Earthlings being able to do that? Decision made, he powered up and blasted towards one of them, and though she ducked his strike, he smirked slightly as he felt her yellow blades pierce his flesh; this one was real.
That smirk lasted until he felt another four daggers rip into the exposed flesh of his back. Spinning in the direction they'd come from, he noticed the other girl too had only one handful of daggers, the others clearly the ones that had struck him; that meant she, too, was real. Which meant his original assumption was wrong. The girl's grinned, clenching their empty hand and spawning new handfuls of daggers, which distracted him long enough to cop another Kamikaze Ghost to the back
Buu growled to himself. He was going to destroy these kids if it was the last thing he did.
-Dream this moment as you run away-
Piccolo smirked to himself as he watched Majin Buu getting the crap kicked out of him by the two (well, three, but technically only two) children. For the first time, he felt truly confident that maybe, just maybe, they'd be able to win this thing; unless he miscalculated, the kids still had ten to fifteen minutes of fusion time left, which should've been plenty of time.
What he didn't count on, however, was a stray blast that neither Liran, nor Trunks, were prepared to block.
Diving out of the way, he watched in horror as the powerful pink blast obliterated the palace, destroying the doorway and forever sealing them inside the Room of Spirit and Time, trapping them in the pocket dimension. The green-skinned man wasn't the only one to notice either, as the fight drew to a halt, both kids having noticed.
It was Liran who actually spoke though, shouting, "You fucking idiot! Do you have any idea what you've done?" When Buu just stared at her blankly, curious as to why the fight had stopped, she yelled, "You destroyed the door! Without that, we're stuck in this place! FOREVER!"
-You will only separate me from all I believe-
"Forever?" Buu echoed. "You mean, no more candy?"
"That's right Majin Buu, unless you eat the three of us, there will be no more candy," Piccolo replied grimly; sure, he may have been prepared to destroy the doorway if they were losing, but that didn't mean he had to like it.
"Damnit!" Gotenks cried, kicking over one of the giant, now-half-destroyed, hourglasses. "This fucking sucks! Trapped in this wasteland forever without a scrap of food!"
"Ugh, tell me about it," Liran griped, powering out of her yellow-clothed form and back to normal. "Kill me now. At least then this punishment will end."
"No candy?" Buu parroted again, before screaming, "I can't live without CANDY!" His scream echoed throughout the cavernous room, making all bar Buu himself clutch their ears to try and drown it out. Not even the room itself could withstand the scream, it seemed, when a fairly small circle appeared, like a window to back on the Lookout. Poking it curiously as the other three recovered, he quickly realised what it was as it began to shrink, liquefying and pouring himself through it.
"NO!" The other three shouted, mere seconds before Liran disappeared in a burst of fire, and, seconds later, the portal was closed, trapping everyone else behind.
-This moment in brutality-
Majin Buu flowed out of the hole, spilling into a pile on the tiled floor, before quickly reforming into his evil self. Grinning darkly, and rubbing his stomach, he began to look around eagerly; he knew there should still be some people left in this place, and they would make a tasty treat. He was distracted, however, by a brief flare of fire, which died down to reveal Liran, looking just as confused as he felt. Muttering irritably, he commented, "You just don't give up do you?"
Quickly shaking off her stupor, she dropped into a fighting stance, grinning at him. "Nope." Her grin hardened into a glare. "I'm not going to rest until you have been made to pay for what you did to my brother and sister!"
"And how are you going to do that?" Buu smirked back. "Without that boy to back you up, I am going to beat you to within an inch of your life. And then, I'm going to eat you."
A battle smirk slipped across her face as Liran began to power up, reaching, then passing, the maximum she displayed in the Room of Spirit and Time. "I think you'll find I'm no easy meal," the girl replied coldly. "It's time to show you what I'm truly made of. And this time, no amount of regeneration will save you."
"We'll see little girl," Buu gloated. "We'll see."
Round Two had begun.
-You're the one who on kept on pushing 'til I made you bleed-
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Author's notes:
I have no idea if the lyrics are exactly right, as I found no less that four different versions of them.
Well, I'm back! -insert fanfare here- Well... kinda. I'm not returning to the weekly update schedule I had before, as, despite taking close to four months off instead of the one month I originally mentioned, this chapter is the first one I've managed to complete, and I finished it a mere ten minutes before posting it. See, when I took that break, the pressure of writing, having a social life, and doing my other recreational activities left me with little time to write. To make things worse, about two months ago, I got a job. My first ever full-time paid employment. I now bring in about three grand a month. Needless to say, settling in there ate into all other activities.
However, there is good news on the horizon. Working gives me a good opportunity to write, during slow periods or lunch breaks. In fact, though it took me close to three months to start this chapter, it's taken me somewhere between one week and two to finish it. I always knew that once I got started, I'd probably steamroll like a snowball rolling down a hill, getting bigger, and faster, quickly. While I can't promise a schedule, I can promise that the story will be finished by the end of this year.
On a side note, this chapter did not go through beta testing, so there may be errors in it, but whatever, it's done now, and that's good enough for me.