-- Disturbance, Book 3: Endurance --
Chapter E03 - Down With The Sickness
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.
-Can you feel that?-
Gohan sighed blissfully as he felt the breeze blow across his face, a familiar scent on the wind. "I'm home." And the planet never felt more dead. His face shifting into a cold battle mask, he nodded to himself, locking his senses onto the dark ki far in the distance, one he would remember for the rest of his days. "Time to finish this."
With the briefest gust of wind, he took to the sky, before rocketing off at blinding speed.
-Ah shit...-
"Oh man this is bad!" Trunks exclaimed fearfully; he may have been every bit his father's son, but he was only eight years old, and this monster scared the bejesus out of him now that he knew it was going to turn him into candy and eat him.
"Get behind me!" Piccolo shouted, diving in front of the children. "Go! Run! I'll hold him off until-"
"Wait!" Goten shouted excitedly, "Did you feel that?"
-OH-WAH-AH-AH-AH!-
The former demon king paused, replying, "Yes! It feels like-"
"Niichan!"
It was impossible to tell whether Goten's cry summoned Gohan, or if it was in response to his brother appearing, because the two events happened almost simultaneously. The end result was the same however; Son Gohan, in all his glory, was back, and he looked angry.
If Buu looked worried, however, he didn't show it. Instead, he grinned maliciously, stating, "So you finally show up."
-OH-WAH-AH-AH-AH!-
"You've been expecting me." It wasn't a question.
Buu answered regardless. "I felt you. I felt your power rising. I never forget a power, especially not one I killed."
"You didn't kill me," Gohan stated dryly. "And now you never can."
"We'll see about that boy!" Buu growled angrily.
-OH OH!-
Turning back to his old mentor, and the four kids he was protecting, Gohan stated firmly, "No matter what happens, I want all of you to stay out of this. This is my fight now."
"But-" Trunks started to protest.
Gohan cut him off sternly. "No buts Trunks. Understand?"
-OH OH!-
'Angry Gohan is scary.' Trunks thought to himself, before nodding once and taking a few steps back. He may not have liked the situation, but he would obey Gohan's wishes, if only because he respected the older Saiyan so much. 'I don't see why he's so confident though. I mean, he doesn't feel any stronger than he was before.'
Apparently Trunks wasn't the only one having that thought, as Piccolo stated, "Gohan, what're you doing? You can't beat Buu alone!"
Gohan just grinned. "Don't worry about me Piccolo. I have all the strength I'm ever going to need to stop this monstrosity."
-OH OH!-
Majin Buu just grinned coldly at the teen, stating, "Your overconfidence will be your downfall boy. Do you forget the last time you and I fought? I seem to remember you getting your ass kicked."
"So you actually have a high enough IQ to speak properly now?" It would appear Buu had picked up a healthy dose of Earth colloquialisms too; he blamed Trunks for that, though it was just as likely Oran or Lime. "That's good. It means I won't have to dumb down to you just how badly I am going to destroy you. I am going to get vengeance for each and every person you have killed these past few days, then, if there's anything left of you, I might start on those you killed before you arrived on Earth."
"So you say boy," Buu sneered, "But those brats swore the same oath, and look at them now."
Gohan scowled. "That was mistake number two."
-Drowning deep in my sea of loathing-
-Broken your servant I kneel-
-(Will you give in to me?)-
A pale blue aura burst into life around the teen, before, without warning, he blurred forward, his fist burying in the pink monster's gut. Without waiting for Buu to recover, Gohan grabbed his head by the tentacle-thing atop it, and drove the creatures face into his knee. Smirking coldly at the satisfying sound it made, he kneed the monster again, and again, until he grew bored of this, at which point he planted a ki blast in the monster's mouth and slammed his jaw shut with an uppercut.
Piccolo gasped at just how fast his student had become, considering he was still in his base form. Goten gaped at how brutal his brother was being, recalling his fight with Spopovich the previous day. The other three, however, only had one thing on their mind: how awesome this fight was going to be.
Smirking as the pink monster toppled backwards like a felled tree, black smoke trailing out between his teeth, Gohan remarked, "That was for insulting my family. Now, I think I'll start repaying you for what you did to my friends."
-It seems what's left of my human side-
-Is slowly changing... in me-
-(Will you give in to me?)-
There were a few moments of tense silence, before Gohan remarked, "You can get up now. I know you're not really hurt by that."
Smirking coldly, Majin Buu climbed back to his feet, a trickle of purple blood dripping out of the corner of his mouth. "Have you realised yet that you will never be able to kill me?" Buu sneered.
"Hardly," Gohan replied dryly. "As much as you'd like to believe otherwise, you're not invulnerable, nor immortal. I know exactly what you are, and exactly what I can do, so it's only a matter of time before I destroy every trace of you."
Growling, Majin Buu charged towards him and screamed, "Then I just won't give you that time!"
-Looking at my own reflection-
-When suddenly it changes-
-Violently it changes!-
'So predictable,' Gohan mused to himself, waiting until the last possible second before reacting, leaping up and driving his fist into the taller monster's chest, and stopping him cold. Before gravity could begin to take hold, Gohan swung his knee up to connect with the left side of Buu's face, then spun around the other way and slamming the other side with a hook kick, sending the monster sprawling once more.
The angered teen wasn't content to stop there though, charging in front of the sliding monster and digging his leg into the ground, carving a trench and kicking Buu into the air. Taking off after him, Gohan let Buu sail high enough into the air for Piccolo and the kids to look like ants, before getting ahead of the monster and slamming him over the head with a double axe-handle.
Majin Buu let out a roar of shock and pain as he plummeted back down towards the ground, but managed to right himself at the last second and land heavily on his hands and feet, even sinking into the sun-scarred soil an inch or two. His respite was short-lived however, as a dive-bombing Gohan drove his extended leg into the monster's back, the force of impact cratering the ground, and burying Buu under a hundred feet or so of rubble.
-Oh no! There is no turning back now-
-You've woken up the demon... in me!!-
Landing on the lip of the new crater, Gohan peered inside, trying to spot the homicidal monster buried within. Now, many people, when faced with a hidden enemy, would spring the trap in the hopes of flushing them out. Others preferred to wait until said enemy revealed themselves, regardless of how much hidden power-up time it would give them. Gohan, on the other hand - "Kamehame" - preferred to smoke them out.
"HA!" He cut the flow to the beam a split second after firing it, releasing a pulse of energy just large enough to destroy all of Buu's cover, before adjusting his aim to parallel to the hole, and firing again. "HA!" True to his prediction, Buu took to the air moments before the pulse exploded, and the teen couldn't help but grin at the wide-eyed look on the monster's face as he was caught by the follow-up beam and carried off.
Gritting his teeth, Gohan pumped more power into the beam, continuing the flow until the head of it, and the monster sprawled across it, was over five miles away. With but a mental command, the beam veered towards the sky, before, with a short smirk from Gohan, it plummeted back towards the ground, burrowing over twenty-five feet before exploding.
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Gohan turned to the others and remarked casually, "That'll leave a mark. Once I've finished up here, you guys have got to tell me what I've missed out on, okay?" Without waiting for a reply, he charged off after the monster, an almost gleeful smile on his face melting back into his battle mask.
-Get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-Get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-Get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-Open up your hate, and let it flow into me!-
"Wow, Gohan's sure kicking some ass down there," Kat commented cheerfully, to the general agreement of the teen's extended family nearby.
"Well, I always knew he'd show up just in time to stop that monster winning," Videl replied in a no-nonsense tone, though she had a massive smile on her face as she said it; she may have been told Gohan was still alive, but it was nice to see the truth herself with her own two eyes.
"But where's he getting all this power from I wonder?" Pi mused. "I mean, he's stronger now then he was as a Super Saiyan Two, but he hasn't even ascended yet."
With a shrug, Videl suggested, "Well, maybe he can't. Maybe whatever new power he's got has replaced that, or something." She didn't miss how every Saiyan in the room either winced, frowned, or scowled at that suggestion. "What? Did I say something wrong?"
-Get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-You mother get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-You fucker get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-Madness is the gift that has been given to me...-
"The Super Saiyan transformation is part of who we are as Saiyans," Kellre explained. "It's our birthright, our heritage; it helps define who we are. It is the symbol of ascension for our species; the symbol that we have surpassed our bestial origins. If Gohan has had to give that up..."
"Sometimes, the benefit is not worth the price," Kaen scowled.
Almost able to see the gears turning in Videl's head, Pi added, "Gohan would never willingly have paid that price unless there was no choice; he is every bit as proud of his Saiyan blood as we are. If he has lost it, he was either not told about that, or given no choice."
"Or will be able to find a way to get it back," Videl added hopefully.
"He'll get it back," Kaen commented firmly; he'd see to it if nothing else. Grinning wryly, he added, "Typical Gohan. I break through the limits of my power and nearly kill myself doing so. He shatters the limits of his and barely breaks a sweat."
-I can see inside you, the sickness is rising-
-Don't try to deny what you feel-
-(Will you give in to me?)-
Gohan roared forwards, slamming his fist into the yielding pink flesh of Majin Buu's gut, sending the monster rocketing backwards, before giving chase with a flare of ki. Whipping around the other side of the out-of-control construct, he booted it skywards, before unleashing a volley of blasts to juggle the battered pink thing for a while.
Gohan was bored and irritable, plain and simple. After having fought this monster for maybe five minutes, he realised that all the challenge of the fight was gone. He was the stronger, Buu was the weaker, and the passage of time wasn't changing that at all. Buu had hit his peak, it seemed, though his power didn't drop much despite how much damage his artificial pink body sustained.
There was only one thing stopping Gohan from killing Buu once and for all; he didn't know how. He knew what he had to do - sever the creature's link to the Well of Evil - but that was the sort of thing easier said than done. Then again, he had managed to sever Phoenix's connection to Kaen's soul, so this shouldn't be too much harder to work out.
-It seems that all that was good has died-
-And is decaying... in me-
-(Will you give in to me?)-
"Can't you see yet boy?" Buu's voice bellowed from the smoke enveloping him, "You can't beat me."
"Which fight are you watching? Last I checked, I was beating you," Gohan replied wryly.
Growling, Buu shouted, "This means nothing! You'll never be able to kill me; I'm invincible!"
Gohan just shook his head. "Wrong. You're just another asshole, and it's only a matter of time until I work out how to kill you." Grinning, he added, "Until then, I'm going to milk this for as much fun as there is to be had."
Twitching, Buu growled, "This is no game boy!"
"Of course you'd say that." Gohan's grin never slipped. "You're losing."
-It seems you're having some trouble-
-In dealing with these changes!-
-Living with these changes!-
"Wow, Gohan's really kicking Buu's ass," Trunks commented, a decidedly impressed tone to his voice.
"Yeah, but he's all... different now," Goten replied a touch sadly.
His face neutral, Piccolo remarked, "This is how Gohan has always been when focused on the battle at hand. He has learned to shut off almost all emotions until the fight is over."
"You make him sound like a monster," Goten muttered hollowly.
"Wrong," Oran stated firmly. "He makes Gohan sound like a true Saiyan."
-Now the world is a scary place-
-Now that you've woken up the demon... in me!-
A Saiyan's mind was a truly complex machine, so much so that there were many skills they possessed that most Saiyans didn't even know about unless they had been strictly trained in it. For Gohan, however, training had always been almost superfluous to his own innate abilities, and so it came as no great surprise that he discovered this ability on his own.
A Saiyan's ability to fight on autopilot.
It was truly a remarkable adaptation. A Saiyan was so conditioned to fight, from such a young age, that they could do so without requiring to think about it, allowing them to focus on more important matters, such as how to defeat the foe they were fighting. Of course, there was only so much one could do on autopilot, so relying on it to win a fight was asking for defeat, but it could easily be used to hold ground in a so-called 'routine' fight, like the one Gohan was in now.
And he used this ability to great affect, focusing all his energy on just how to destroy Buu once and for all.
-Get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-Get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-Get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-Open up your hate, and let it flow into me-
"Geez, Gohan's really tearing it up down there," Kat remarked casually, her ears twitching as she watched the fight going down on the planet below. "I mean, I knew he had assloads of energy, but this is just nuts. He's like the freaking Energizer Bunny or something."
"That's Gohan for ya," Kaen drawled amusedly, "Makin' it look easy as always."
"Shouldn't he have won by now?" Videl asked curiously; if Gohan was that much stronger than Buu, winning shouldn't be a problem, right?
"Theoretically, yes," Kellre replied, in true scientist fashion, "However, beating this opponent isn't as simple as fighting him until he stops moving. In order to destroy Majin Buu, he must disrupt that which holds him in this dimension."
-Get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-You mother get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-You fucker get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-Madness is the gift that has been given to me...-
Blinking, Videl replied in a confused tone, "Uh, you lost me at 'disrupt'. What exactly does he have to do?"
"It's quite simple," Avarrdo picked up, "From what out scans of the creature have discovered, we have come to the conclusion that Majin Buu technically does not exist. He is a construct, held together by dark magicks. As such, as long as those magicks bind what passes for the creature's spirit to this plane of existence, destroying his physical body will only delay him as he is forced to recreate another, as evidenced when young Kaen here disintegrated him."
Ignoring the satisfied look on Kaen's face this comment produced, Videl pressed on, "Okay then, but how is Gohan meant to kill him?"
The two older Saiyans just shrugged, Kellre replying, "That, we do not know. But if anyone can figure it out, I would wager Gohan could."
-And when I dream-
'What was it the Supreme Kai said?' Gohan mused to himself, still smacking Buu around without even thinking about it. 'He said that Buu's 'soul', if it could be called that, was the Well of Evil itself, and if I ever hoped of defeating him, I would need to find a way to sever that connection. Then he said something about how only good can defeat evil.'
-And when I dream-
Growling to himself as he threw the battered monster aside, Gohan thought sourly, 'Well that's just no help at all; why are these things never clear? I mean, the Supreme Kai all but kidnaps me, only to inform me that if I ever want to defeat Buu, I have to work out for myself how to do that. Well news flash, I already freaking knew-'
-And when I dream-
His thought train derailed suddenly, as he realised, 'Wait a second, he didn't take me there to find a way to defeat Buu at all; he took me there because he was convinced I could draw the Z Sword, a weapon capable of cutting anything. It's already proved that, even corrupted, it can cut intangible connections; is this what it was meant to be used for?'
-And when I dream!-
Gripping the hilt of his weapon, he drew it out of the sheath with a flourish, commenting to himself, "Only one way to find out."
-OH-WAH-AH-AH-AH!-
Ignoring the fast regenerating Majin Buu in the distance, Gohan closed his eyes, forcing his heart rate to slow down, as he held the sword before him with one hand, resting the two middle fingers of his other hand on either side of the blade, directly in front of his face. 'The only way to defeat evil, is with good,' the teen repeated to himself.
Focusing his thoughts, and remembering back to how he had cleansed the blade, Gohan began to gently force his energy into the sword, coating the blade with his ki. Before long, the blade began to glow a soft blue, almost indistinguishable in the midday light, but it was there.
Gohan didn't need to see to know that the newly healed Buu was charging towards him, intent on blowing his head off; he could feel him coming. Waiting until the last possible second, Gohan swung the sword around until it was horizontal, slamming Buu with the flat of the blade and wrapping him around it, the momentum causing the monster to flip forwards. Continuing the motion, he swung the sword up and behind him, carving a line from just under the monster's chin to halfway down his stomach, before stabbing him and pinning him to the rocky ground.
-Get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-Get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-Get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-Open up your hate, and let it flow into me-
Buu howled with pain as the ki-coated blade impacted his flesh, the cries increasing once the blade actually pierced him, before going strangely silent when he was impaled; the sword hurt, possibly as much, or maybe more, than that stupid brat girl's weapons had. But he was numb to the pain now; he had a plan to get back at all of them.
Grinning as he held the sword in place, and thus held Buu pinned to the ground, Gohan commented, "Looks like I've found your weakness monster."
"Wrong!" Buu shouted back, purple blood starting to drip from his mouth as his voice started to increase in pitch, as though he were sucking back helium, "You may have hurt me, boy, but you'll not have the last laugh! I'll kill you all!"
His eyes widening in shock as he suddenly realised what Buu was doing, Gohan cried, "Oh shit!" And took to the sky. Moments later, everything within a five mile radius was vaporised in a devastating pink explosion, the dome visible from space.
-Get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-You mother get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-You fucker get up, come on get down with the sickness!-
-Madness has now come over me!!-
Author's notes:
Edit (25/03/08): Fixed up some formatting errors