--- Disturbance, Book 3: Endurance ---
Chapter E14 - Dare
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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-Sometimes when your hopes have all been shattered, and there's nowhere to turn-
-You wonder how you keep going-
Kaen ducked and wove between Buu's extended limbs, using a ki blade to slice one arm off at the wrist, only to dodge that same limb as it tried to wrap around his torso. Using a wave of fire to annihilate the rogue limb, he was caught unaware by the second arm, which slammed into him with almost enough force to break his jaw. Floating backwards as he watched Buu take a Gallic Gun to the face, Kaen had to admit the fight wasn't going well.
He was tiring. He'd already dropped back to the second level, having to clamp down hard on his control as he was almost dropped further, but it still wasn't enough. As he started to fall back, Gohan flew past him, laying a hand briefly on his shoulder and remarking, "Tag, I'm it," before charging towards Buu to continue the fight.
Kaen floated back to a safe distance, smiling tiredly at Pi, who floated nearby. They'd been doing this for what felt like forever, but in reality was probably closer to three minutes. Vegeta and whoever was the most rested would fight Buu, while the other two would recuperate and gather their strength. Going into this fight, Vegeta was the only one at anything near full strength, and the prince had sworn outright that he would not fall back until there was no other option but failure; his pride would keep him in the fight long after a more sensible man would have retreated.
Pi had used a lot of her own energy in getting the Gaia Bomb ready as soon as possible, and quite a bit more in merging her attack into Goku's, and even her normally overflowing reserves of energy were close to drained; as it was, she was only barely hanging on to the second level of Super Saiyan through sheer force of will. Kaen and Gohan had expended a great amount of their own energy keeping Buu distracted while Pi and Goku prepared their attacks, though Gohan fared better of the two; Kaen had, after all, used a lot of energy first thrice ascending, then burned through a lot more holding that level of Super Saiyan, whereas Gohan's form required almost no upkeep at all.
All in all, things were looking bleak. If luck was on their side, which was looking more and more unlikely, they'd have to hold Buu off for a further two minutes. If not, seven. And the way things were looking currently, they'd fall after five.
-Think of all the things that really mattered, and the chances you've earned-
-The fire in your heart is growing-
After narrowly avoiding a potentially deadly blast, Gohan dove back, and Pi leapt forward, her arms and legs coated in pulsing green ki as she engaged Buu in close quarters combat; with her energy reserves as low as they were, Pi couldn't afford to waste energy using ki blasts, so she used what energy she had as efficiently as possible. Vegeta, however, continued to fling energy attacks around like it was going out of fashion, but then, the prince was newly revived, stronger than before, and eager to test the limits of his new strength.
'She's not ready,' Kaen mused to himself. He could see she was still sluggish; she hadn't managed to regain enough energy to continue the fight yet. 'Pull back Pi. You're dangerously low on energy.'
'No! I can do this!' The girl replied back stubbornly, her ki-coated leg lancing through Buu's body, hip to shoulder. Howling in pain, Buu belched out a blast of pink ki, and Pi dove out of the way, barely avoiding having her tail blasted off, and singing the tips of her hair. To herself, Pi had to admit that she wouldn't last much longer. However, she knew that neither Gohan nor Kaen was rested enough to take her place, and if they let Vegeta hold off Buu alone, their chances of winning dropped dramatically. As always, Pi was ready to give her life if it meant the survival of her mate, and her family.
Buu twisted around one of Vegeta's blasts, sending an extended kick the prince's way, and, before Pi could recover from his earlier attack, Buu lashed out with his head tentacle, the tip sharpened to a point as it lashed across her back. Pi hissed in pain, refusing to give Buu the satisfaction of a scream, as she attempted to retreat from the fight. Buu, however, wasn't going to give her that chance, cupping his hands to one side in a perverse parody of Goku's Kamehameha Wave, and unleashing a massive wave of pink ki with a scream of rage.
"Pi!" Kaen exclaimed, bursting forth with all the speed he could muster, flaring back into Super Saiyan Three for the extra boost. Mere seconds before the deadly blast could hit Pi, Kaen dove in front of her, spinning so as to bear the brunt of it with his back, the energy obliterating the top half of his gi, and much of his back with it, as the beam split around him, diverted both over and below Pi's position.
"Kaen!" Pi cried out, a single, silent tear slipping down her face.
Kaen just smiled, in the brief seconds before gravity took over, holding his hand out to his mate. With but a thought, Kaen sent all available energy he had into the palm of his hand, his hair shrinking and fading to black as he formed a ball of ki, coloured the purest gold, and threw it at his mate, whispering, "Use it well."
Pi felt her energy reserves soar as Kaen's energy washed over her, her royal green aura gaining a second, red inner aura, and the wound on her back sealing as her Saiyan regenerative abilities kicked into high gear. None of that mattered to Pi though. She just kept her eyes focused on Buu, the rage of an entire fallen race burning in her eyes, her heart, and her soul, as she swore with every fibre of her being to make Buu pay.
As a result, she failed to see that Kaen's body didn't hit the ground. It passed through it as though the ground were not even there.
-You can fly, if you try leaving the past behind-
-Heaven only knows what you might find-
Pi gathered her energy, her new duel aura flaring as she prepared to charge into battle in vengeance of her fallen mate; she needn't have bothered. Before she could take so much as one step (metaphorically) a cry of "YEEE-HAAA!" echoed across the planet, before a massive gout of flame blasted out of the surface of the planet itself, the intense pyre torching all of Buu bar the head, before gathering up in the sky and assuming the shape of a man. One that quickly solidified and gutted out to reveal Kaen in full Super Saiyan Three glory, a massive grin on his face as he added, "I had totally forgotten about that move."
Pi was before him so fast it was like she teleported, and given her ability to manipulate time subtly that wasn't entirely out of the question. Grabbing him by the throat with one hand, the remains of his gi shirt already discarded, she backhanded him in the face with all the force she could muster, shouting angrily, "You jerk! You had me all worried over you for nothing!"
His head snapped to one side from the blow, and he knew if she'd been able to hit him any harder, she would've dislocated his jaw. Turning back to her, he replied, "First: Ow. Good to see you too. Second, in my defence, I didn't realise I could actually use that technique until maybe half a second before I hit the ground. Third-" He reached up and gently grasped the back of her head, dragging her down and kissing her for all he was worth. "-I'm sorry. It's just... You've already died on me twice, protecting me. It was past time I protected you."
The giddy girl inside fought with the warrior woman, and the two reached something of a stalemate, as Pi tried to find a response to that. Finally, she settled on, "We'll talk more about this later, when we're not fighting for the safety of the universe as we know it."
"Agreed." Whistling sharply, Kaen called out, "Hey, Vegeta. Take a breather. Pi and I will take over from here."
Vegeta's head snapped in his direction, though he kept his senses on Buu, lest the monster try anything as he rapidly regenerated. "Now listen here boy, I am more than capable of-"
"I'm at full power Vegeta," Kaen cut him off, "And Pi's at maybe two-thirds. Take a rest, you've earned it."
With a sharp nod of his head, Vegeta floated back, until he was at the same range as Gohan. The youngest Saiyan, however, was more curious as to how, exactly, Kaen had been recharged to full power in the few seconds since he'd fallen, staring up baffled and asking, "But, how-"
"No time to explain Gohan," Kaen replied, a smirk on his face. "I'll tell you after we win."
-Dare - dare to believe you can survive-
-You hold the future in your hand-
The chibi bundle of rage that was Majin Buu let out a shriek of power, venting steam and causing his power level to begin shooting upwards. Before he could pull roo much strength from his vast, and possibly limitless, reserves, Pi charged towards him, rapidly flinging a quick series of blasts at Buu; however, instead of exploding, she aimed the blasts carefully to plug up the holes in his arms, head, and, with some creative aiming, even his back. They weren't ordinary blasts, of course, but were specially designed not to explode; ki rocks, if you will. The result: Majin Buu began swelling up like a balloon.
A grin came to her face at the panicked look on Buu's face, as his body continued to stretch, though the rate of growth was slowing as Buu forced himself to stop drawing more energy. Despite that, however, he still seemed unable to actually vent the built-up steam, turning him into the universes most irate hot-air balloon, sans basket. "That should keep him from powering up any further," Pi remarked, holding her hand out to one side and summoning her sword, "Now, let's see how many surface cuts I can make before the wounds run deep enough to slice him open." Threat made, the Saiyan girl charged forward to begin her test.
Kaen was more than happy to let the girl have her fun; she was angry with him, but she'd be less so if she had a chance to work off some of that aggression first. He even decided to make things easier for her, using his astral clone technique to split into four, and each of the four lassoed a different limb with a chain of dark ki, keeping the monster immobile. Grinning as his mate went to work, he noted to himself grimly that such levity wouldn't last forever; despite the sheer domination they'd shown in the fight so far, if Goku couldn't get the Spirit Bomb finished soon, they were still going to lose.
Kaen could feel his own energy burning rapidly, and not just because he was holding Super Saiyan Three; in fact, that wouldn't have made much difference at all, which is why he stayed in the third level. The technique he'd used to recharge himself was powerful, of that there was no doubt, but it was also painfully temporary. The power fuelling him was that of the planet's core, the same core he'd slingshot around to make his entrance, and it was an energy the planet wasn't willing to share for long; after all, if the core cooled too much, the planet stopped spinning, and the planet would literally shake itself apart.
If his calculations were right, he had about three minutes until he'd be out of power again.
-Dare - dare to keep all of your dreams alive-
-It's time to take a stand-
In the end, it took roughly a minute before Pi's assault caused a breech in Buu's structural integrity. And it took roughly one minute and two seconds for all four Saiyans to realise they'd just been played, as the monster smirked at her. All the pieces fit together far too quickly for everyone's comfort. They'd underestimated Buu once again. The monster hadn't even tried to fight back when Kaen bound him, and now they knew why. He'd been compressing all the energy he'd drawn in, waiting for the moment they dropped their guard. This moment, right now.
When the built up energy was released, it wasn't in the form of a comical stream of air, like a balloon being popped, as the Saiyan fighters had assumed. Instead, it exploded with the force of a gigatonne bomb. A massive, wild explosion of raw pink ki shook the planet to its foundations, and caught all of Buu's would-be attackers in a single blast. Gohan and Vegeta, caught more in the shockwave than the actual blast itself, were sent hurtling uncontrollably for hundreds of metres, the prince plowing through a distant mountainside, while Gohan crash-landed in the middle of a forest.
For Kaen, and especially Pi, being caught in the epicentre of the explosion, things were a lot worse. Pi, being directly in front of the monster, took the equivalent of a nuclear blast to the face, driving her back at a sharp angle, shattering through a few trees as though they were made of glass, before slamming into the ground and carving a massive trench that partially buried her, though fortunately left her face uncovered so she wouldn't suffocate. While painful burns covered much of her front half, her contact with fresh earth was boosting her regenerative abilities, though not nearly as fast as Buu was able to rebuild himself.
For Kaen, the real Kaen being one of the ones restraining an arm, it was more like a glancing blow, though a glancing blow from a tactical nuke was still quite devastating. With the explosion annihilating his copies in an instant, the rapid assimilation of three additional consciousnesses was disorienting enough, without himself being caught in the same explosion. The force of the blast sent him skywards in a high ballistic arc, before he was caught in the gravity of one of this planet's moons, slingshotting around it and being fired back to the ground at high speeds. His impact dug him his own thirty-foot trench, before the momentum of the blast wore off.
With all four of his defenders down from a single attack, Goku was left to protect the growing Spirit Bomb all on his own.
-And you can win, if you dare-
Quickly reforming within the maelstrom of violence, Majin Buu let out an evil cackle. The massive pretty light was capable of hurting him, of that he knew. He also knew, with how determined they were to protect it, that they would only have one shot. Majin Buu had survived countless battles, more than these things could ever hope to see if they lived a thousand years, and they thought they could kill him? Impossible. He was the perfect killer. He was invincible.
And he was going to rip the head off the one holding the pretty light, to ensure things stayed that way.
Goku grit his teeth as chibi death drew nearer. The Spirit Bomb wasn't ready, that much the veteran fighter knew. However, it was also painfully obvious that he had run out of time. Majin Buu would be on him in seconds, and the collected energy of the entire population of Earth would be wasted. Steeling himself, Goku prepared to throw the Spirit Bomb once Buu was just out of melee range; the attack wouldn't destroy him, but hopefully it would wound him enough to allow the Earth-raised Saiyan to finish the creature off.
"NOW YOU DIE!" Buu shrieked, drawing back his right fist as he rocketed ever closer to Goku's stationary position.
By some kind of miracle, the creature's forward charge was halted a mere fifteen metres away from Goku's position; ten metres more, and Goku would've been shoving the collected energy down Buu's throat. Looking up, Goku could see a band of black ki wrapped around Buu's neck, and two more binding his arms. As he watched, another darted out to bind a leg, then another for the other leg, and they kept coming, binding every part of Buu, one piece at a time.
Trailing from the bands of ki were a series of chains, all of which fused into a single length at the first available juncture; a juncture getting closer to the monster with each new band binding the creature closer and closer into a tight ball. And at the head of the chain was Kaen, the black energy wrapped around his right arm all the way past his elbow, strained from the force of holding Buu back, while his left, a fairly large gouge near his shoulder from debris, continued throwing out more and more lashes. The once golden hair, standing proud above his head, was now stained with dirt and blood, but the twice-ascended Saiyan showed no signs of slowing down. His legs, Goku noticed with a start, were actually phased through the ground, giving him the perfect anchor point.
"Oh, not so fast shithead!" Kaen half growled, half hissed out, a snarl on his face, and his scarred eye closed, "I'm not done with you yet!"
-Everybody's trying to break your spirit, keeping you down-
-Seems like it's been forever-
The aura of doom and gloom that permeated the control room of the Icebreaker was practically visible, as they watched Kaen struggle to bind Buu on the view screen with a crushing wave of helplessness. The five Saiyans, upon whose shoulders the fate of the universe rested, were cut off from all support they might have received, and three of them had been taken down in a single attack. There was hope, of course, that Pi, Vegeta, and Gohan, would recover in time to assist Kaen (who, incidentally, never seemed to have the decency to actually die from any should-be-fatal wounds he received, as Truniz pointed out) but even so, things weren't looking good.
All of them, Avarrdo, Kellre, and Truniz included, had underestimated just how much of a deep-seated, malevolent intelligence Majin Buu actually possessed. With 'Fat' Buu's incredulous stupidity and naiveté, and then 'Super' Buu's simple thought processes, it had been very easy to believe that the 'pure' Buu, having a consciousness constructed from countless fragments, would be little better than a wild animal. An image Buu himself had played on, to their detriment. They had gone into this fight believing they fought a creature of instinct, and had instead found one that could not only think, it could plan.
And its plan had worked. They had walked right into a trap.
Spinning around to face her father, and away from the sight of possibly the most important person in her world struggling to restrain the embodiment of death itself, Lime exclaimed worriedly, "Dad, you've gotta do something! Niichan's getting killed out there."
Avarrdo shook his head slowly, almost transfixed by the sight of his (technically middle, but currently older) child on the view screen. "There's nothing I can do," he replied, his tone wistful, "Short of killing ourselves, I know of no way for us to reach them in Otherworld." And the thought had crossed his mind briefly.
Joining his sister in badgering their father, Oran shouted, "Surely you've got something! You've always got plans and schemes and ideas in that head of yours!"
That much, Kellre was forced to admit even to himself, was true; the problem was, none of the plans they could think of could be accomplished in time to save the others from a painful, and possibly gruesome, death at the hands of the evil bubblegum monster. And, given the fact that they needed to let their engines rest before they could recall the city again, their only option to save the rest of the Saiyan race was also gone. "I'm sorry," the older Saiyan replied, "We can't do anything."
"If you won't," Kat spat icily, "Then I will."
-But there's another voice if you'll just hear it, saying it's the last round-
-Looks like it's now or never-
For Kat, standing by and watching Kaen and Pi (well, and the others too, but especially Pi, and especially Kaen) fight, and maybe even die, to protect her, brought up a host of bad memories. She remembered how helpless she'd felt, when those men attacked her, when Kaen had first rescued her. She remembered how helpless she had felt as she watched Pi first die, and Kaen first ascend. She remembered each and every time she had felt completely helpless.
She would be helpless no longer. Even if it cost her life, she was going to stand up for herself, and her family.
Of all the adults present, possibly the only one that truly believed the girl could actually make a difference was Truniz, who asked, "Do you even have a way to reach them?"
As the group watched, the young catgirl's appearance changed. Dark shadows began weaving around her form, as her hair and eyes both faded to black. Adopting the full catgirl appearance, the most obvious change was that her usually red fur was now streaked with black, similar to a tiger. Flexing her newly sharpened claws, she pooled the dark ki in her right hand, before holding her arm behind her, the shadow energy shaping itself into an archway, the interior of which faded away to reveal a dark hallway.
Glancing up at the view screen, Kellre pointed out, "I don't see a matching portal on the Kai's planet."
Kat just rolled her eyes, though given the fact they were almost completely black, the motion was hard to spot. "That's because I can't open the other end until I'm inside," he girl remarked dryly, "With luck, we'll be able to use this to get the injured home. And worst-case scenario, and Buu tries to use it, I can seal him in. It won't hold him forever, but it might buy us some time."
Sparing a glance to each other before nodding, Oran and Lime stepped forward, stating together, "We're coming with you."
"We're coming too!" Goten and Trunks declared, before the lavender-haired child continued, "Kaen said we were the reserve forces, an' I can't think of a time we'd be needed more."
When Chichi looked about to protest her youngest child running off into danger, Goten cut her off with, "Kaasan, if I don't go help, Gohan'll die, an' dad'll die, an' everyone else'll die." Chichi didn't fail to notice that, despite her not being on the list, the people who would die were ranked in order of importance, but Gohan had always been the centre of her youngest son's world. With a sigh, she nodded once, accepting his decision.
Glancing through the portal, Oran blinked for a moment, asking, "So how long is the corridor anyway?"
"I won't know until we reach it," Kat replied, marching through the portal, "So we'd best hurry."
With a nod, the four children followed her in, taking to the air and blasting off towards, hopefully, saving their families.
-Out of the darkness you stumble into the light-
-Fighting for the things you know are right-
'Damn it, I can't hold him much longer!' Kaen growled silently to himself. He'd lost count of how many chains he had used to bind Buu with around the thirty mark, and had been forced to cease throwing more in favour of using both arms to hold the monster back when Buu had almost managed to yank his arm out of it's socket. Fortunately, because the chains were made of Hellfire, Buu couldn't merely liquefy and slip through the cracks, but it was only a matter of time, a minute at most, before either Kaen would run out of power, or Buu would merely be able to break his own way out.
'Goku,' Kaen called telepathically, 'I think you're just going to have to throw it as is.'
'But, it's not ready. If I throw it now, it may kill you too.' Goku thought back.
Kaen just smiled sadly. 'If that's the way it has to be-'
He was saved from having to finish that thought by two young voices crying out in synch, though what they cried was different. "Buster Cannon!/Kamekameha!" A massive blue ball of energy slammed into the side of the restrained Buu, followed closely by a familiar looking, though small, blue energy wave, which proceeded to detonate the original blast, and knocked Majin Buu to one side. Using the momentum, Kaen swung Buu around in a circle a few times, before lobbing him towards the five o'clock position, assuming Goku was at twelve, so even should he circle the planet, he wouldn't interrupt Goku's concentration.
"Niichan!" Two other voices declared, racing towards him and wrapping their tiny arms around him; poetically, being as deep in the ground as he was, the part of him above ground was just their height.
"Oran? Lime?" He turned his head, noticing Goten and Trunks standing nearby, relaxing out of a firing position, "How did you guys get here?"
"Kat brought us," Lime replied, as if that explained everything.
Blinking once, Kaen asked, "Uh, how long have you two been Super Saiyans?"
Oran and Lime both looked visibly taken aback, before glancing at each other and noticing that, sure enough, their hair was blonde. "Uh... Since now, I guess?" Oran replied unsurely, as his sister shrugged her shoulder. Smiling slightly, Kaen shook his head; this was clearly their psionics at work. While before, they 'knew' that Pi and himself had only been Super Saiyan, after the past day-and-a-bit they now 'knew' them to be Super Saiyan Two or better. That, coupled with the fact they 'knew' Kaen and Pi had trained them well, meant they now 'knew' they had the potential to ascend; thus, they did, without even realising it.
'Scary thought,' The older Saiyan mused to himself, filing it away for later, before his tired mind realised something. "Wait, you said Kat brought you here?"
-Dare - dare to believe you can survive-
-The power is there at your command-
Phasing out of the ground and into a half-sitting position, Kaen turned in the direction the kids had come from, and sure enough, out from a small group of trees strode Kat, head held high. The battered Saiyan's jaw actually dropped as he checked her power level, and found she was way higher than his base form, a standard she was usually well below, and rising further towards Super Saiyan level. "Kat?" He questioned dazedly, "Where are you getting all this power from?" Noticing she was making arcane looking gestures, shadows pooling around her form as she did so, he added, "And what are you doing?"
The girl merely smiled, pooling the darkness swirling around her into a half dozen balls with a wave of her hand, before replying softly, "It's my turn to protect you Oniisan." With another wave of her hand, the balls of shadow stretched and grew, warping into a humanoid shape, before refining, until there were a half dozen, perfect replicas of Kat herself around her. "Oran, Lime, I want you two to protect Oniisan and Kakarott. Goten, Trunks, see if you can rouse the others."
"And what're you gonna do?" Trunks asked, even as Goten left to find his brother.
Kat just continued to smile and chose not to answer, taking to the sky with her new shadow entourage. Flying over until she was between Buu and the rest of the group, the shadow clones positioned themselves parallel, like a wall between enemy and friend. The six clones mirroring her actions completely, shadows began pooling in their right hand, before all seven started drawing sigils in the sky. When the last was complete, a massive translucent-black barrier exploded into life, the sigils trailing all along the surface. Barrier up, the seven began going through a series of kata Kaen wasn't sure he ever expected to see again, as Kat intoned, "Rejoice! Despair! Fate does not care."
A weight settling down beside him brought a smile to Kaen's face, tired though it was, before he felt a head against his shoulder. Sounding just as tired as he was, Pi muttered, "Is she doing what I think she's doing?"
-Dare - dare to keep all of your dreams alive-
-It's time to take a stand-
"Looks like," Kaen replied, wrapping one arm around Pi, and leaning back on the other, though not as an affectionate gesture; well, not just an affectionate gesture. The hand on the ground phased through the soil partially, before he began coaxing energy out and, using the knowledge he'd acquired from Pi, used the energy gathered for a rudimentary healing with his other hand; whereas her healing focused on rebalancing the body's chi, Kaen's was designed to 'burn away' injuries.
Wrapping an arm around his back, Pi used her own healing ability on him, leading to a bizarre chain under normal circumstances; as Kaen was borrowing energy from the planet, using it to heal himself would be only temporary, but using it on Pi was not, leaving her free to use her new reserves on him. "Remind me never to get so complacent again," the Saiyan girl remarked dryly.
The dance before them drew attention again, as the seven figures began pulsing with light, and Kat's intonation continued. "Each knotted mind entwine. Each soul, anothers' bind."
"I would've thought being point blank for that explosion would be reminder enough," he replied, his tone just as dry, though, truth be told, both had been really worried about the other. Some of Pi's more basic wounds had been healed away from her time in fresh tilled soil, such that it was, just as his had been when he had been near the molten core of the planet, and a few more were fading by his own hand, but they'd both need a qualified healer before too long.
"Touché." It was fortunate that the sharing of techniques had gone both ways, though, Pi thought to herself amusedly, she didn't actually know she knew Kaen's techniques until she saw him use some of them; in her defence, however, Kaen had had Babidi's help filtering the mass of past-life memories, whereas she had not. Phasing her own free hand into the soil, Pi was considerably more polite in asking the planet for whatever help it could give; she and Kaen would both need as much energy as they could gather.
"What's she doing?" The tired voice of one Gohan Son asked from behind the couple, before he lowered himself to the ground to begin drawing out whatever he could from his internal reserves.
Smiling in his sister's direction, Kaen replied, "Buying us time."
-And you can win, if you dare-
With a wordless shriek, the newly recovered Majin Buu flung himself against the shield, the flowing sigils amassing wherever he touched as if to repel him; that may have been exactly what they were doing. Despite the monster trying to batter his way through her shield, Kat and her clones didn't so much as flinch, moving on to the next stage of her kata routine. "And blind, though we are lead..."
The very air itself seemed to hum, as the power in the seven 'dancers' began to swell. The kata Kat and her clones performed was originally something she dubbed her Focus Dance, a series of motions to go through to focus her mind and body, but once her normal strength had began to grow, and her ki level rose, her Focus Dance had revealed an odd, and seemingly random, side effect. When it worked, the dance unleashed a massive torrent of energy Kat decided to call Starshadow Storm; when it didn't, her body regressed into a kitten. Sometimes, both happened at once. "In time, we do know when..."
Kaen only vaguely noticed Vegeta crouch down to his right, the four kids taking up a defensive position in front of them. Instead, he focused on his sister, sending up a silent prayer that she'd learnt to control her Starshadow Storm.
A smirk on her face, Kat performed the last step of her kata, intoning, "To cut a thread!" and the entire area was awash with what could only be called un-light. Black became white, light became dark, and every colour between inverted. Before the 'light' could fade, the other side of the barrier was awash with a hail of midnight-black beams, not all of them hitting Buu, or even coming anywhere near him, but in the three seconds it took for colour to return to normal, the entire side of the barrier was one massive pearly-white explosion, with Buu buried somewhere inside.
-Dare - dare to believe you can survive-
-You hold the future in your hand-
Kat breathed a sigh of relief as she realised her technique worked properly this time, before taking a minute to examine her new power level. She guessed she was about two-thirds of the way towards a Super Saiyan Two level, which was quite impressive considering her level one month prior; however, the fact there were currently seven of her at that level was about the only thing that would prevent Buu from wiping the floor with her. For a while, at least.
She glanced back at the barrier she'd erected, still quite mystified as to how, exactly, she'd done it; she remembered the technique, of course, and what she'd done, but not for the life of her where she'd learnt how to do it. That aside, Buu was somewhere on the other side, and it was only a matter of time before he managed to break through; she doubted it'd last long against a second assault. With a thought, she directed her clones into action, the six dark figures opening portals behind themselves and stepping through; that was one technique she knew the origins of, at least.
Sure enough, within seconds, there was a heavy thump against the barrier, amidst the still-fading white explosion, followed by another, and the catgirl quickly floated back, putting a little distance between her and the soon-to-be-destroyed barrier. Steepling her fingers before her, she drew her hands apart slowly, black electricity crackling between her hands, as she counted down the seconds until Majin Buu was free once more, and smiled as she heard the first of six portals opening. The trap was set.
With a noise sounding much like glass shattering, Majin Buu broke through the barrier, screaming towards her at high speed, but the catgirl was ready for him; intelligent or not, Buu was cocky, and knew he was stronger than her. For her, time seemed to slow as Buu approached, and she waited for the right moment before turning both hands to face him, and unleashing a punishing Dark Lightning attack; Buu, she'd observed, was somewhat weak against electricity.
Just as she'd hoped, when the lightning struck him, Buu seemed to lose all forward momentum, caught in the crackling darkness, and quickly trying to back-pedal. Before he could get far, however, two portals opened behind him, yielding two of her clones, each of which unleashed their own Dark Lightning. Two more portals followed, then a further two, on either side of the monster, each sending their own wave of lightning towards Buu, and keeping the creature trapped in their seven-point circle.
Kat knew it wouldn't last forever, but in this fight, every second mattered, so maybe it would last long enough.
-Dare - dare to keep all of your dreams alive-
-The power is there at your command-
Long enough or not, that time came all too soon for Kat's liking, as, with obvious effort, Buu forced his limbs to move again, curling into a ball, before both arms shot out at high speed, each arm punching clear through the chest of a shadow clone, his legs kicked out to decapitate two more, and it was only quick thinking and a well timed dodge on her part that prevented her from being impaled by Buu's head tentacle.
Fighting down panic, Kat went into full retreat, trying to lead the irate Buu away from her family as best she could, the two remaining clones flying after her, and keeping Buu's attention with further Dark Lightning's. When Buu started flinging ki blasts, however, she realised she was in trouble. Buu was throwing around enough energy per blast to blow a hole in her. 'Clearly the shock therapy had a... negative effect on his disposition,' the girl mused to herself with wry amusement, as her second last clone dove in front of a blast that would've removed her head, and probably much of her torso with it.
Kat wasn't thinking about actually beating Buu, nor has she ever. By this point, she was only partially thinking about actually surviving this encounter. No, the main thing on her mind was buying Goku enough time for the Spirit Bomb, or, failing that, buying Kaen, Pi, and the others enough time to recover, so they would succeed where she failed. 'It's what Kaen would do,' she thought to herself firmly, 'It's what he is, was, and will do. Survival of all over survival of one. It's time to do my part.'
With a start, she realised her final clone had been destroyed leaving her as the only target in Buu's way. However, glancing back to confirm this fact brought another fact to mind: the Spirit Bomb was now almost completely behind the horizon, meaning she'd successfully put quite a distance between Buu and Goku. One other thing looking back showed her, however, was that Buu had not already prepared a blast to finish her off, but had actually thrown it.
Fear and panic setting in, and temporarily overriding her resolve, she hurriedly opened one of her dark portals in front of her, diving in just as the blast exploded behind her. The net result: she managed to avoid most of the blast, though she did get rocketed out of the other end like a human cannonball.
-Dare - dare to keep all your love alive-
-Dare to be all you can be-
Jumping slightly as he heard a crash from behind, Oran darted around almost fast enough to make his head spin, hunting for any potential threats, before a second crash revealed Kat crashing out of the forested area behind, having just avoided several trees as she skipped along the ground, before coming to rest behind Kaen and Pi, lying face up. He just managed to catch a glimpse of one of her portals winking out before she laughed tiredly and asked, "How'd I do?"
"You bought us about a minute Oneechan," Lime replied from beside him; having come to properly accept Kat as family during the month Kaen and Pi had been away, he and his twin had debated for a while as to just what to address her as, before eventually deciding on the more formal 'oneechan', if only because Pi was already 'neechan'.
Kat just groaned in disappointment - all that effort for just a minute?! - before Kaen remarked, "You did good sis. You did real good." That put a smile on her face. Turning back to the twins, Kaen then added, "You guys better get outta here. Buu's gonna be back any second, and I'm not going to let you get killed on my watch."
"Nuh uh Niichan," Oran declared, "You're not ready to fight Buu again yet, so it's our turn to buy you some time-"
"-So you better get well quick," Lime finished, the twins turning to face each other and grinning. It was only then that Kaen noticed the two were dressed alike, in gis of mirroring colours, in the style he himself wore; Oran in a red gi with a green undershirt, and Lime in green with red. In a way, it was kind of surreal how the thoughts of 'When did they have time to change?' and 'Were they wearing that the whole time?' flitted through his head, despite the war they were all hip-deep in.
-Dare - there is a place where dreams survive-
-And it's calling you on to victory-
Turning from her brother to the other two boys, Lime barked authoritatively, "Goten, Trunks, protect Kakarott, and make sure that if Buu gets past us, he doesn't get to the Spirit Bomb or the others, got it?" A satisfied smile came to her face when they instantly nodded; if nothing else, their time in the Room of Spirit and Time had made it much easier to control the so-called 'Demons'.
"Whaddya think?" Oran asked, "You tank, I'll DPS?" A slight grin came to Kaen's face at the terminology the twins were using. With a nod and a shared grin, the twins took to the sky, blasting towards the rapidly approaching Buu, before being consumed by a very familiar flash of light. By the time the light had faded, the twins were already stationary in the air, awaiting Buu's arrival.
Lime, floating ahead of her brother, was now in a black gi with a dark grey shirt, and her hair now looked much like how Trunks' did in his normal form, except the golden colour of the Super Saiyan. In one hand she held a sword about a foot-and-a-half long, the blade shaped like some sort of demon wing, and in the other hand, she seemed to be preparing a black fireball. Oran, hovering almost directly behind her, was now wearing a royal purple gi, with a very pale blue, almost grey, shirt, and his hair, now hanging past his shoulder, was twisted around itself in inch-thick dreadlocks. He held in either hand a spear longer than he was tall, and, Kaen noticed, he had four more floating around him.
Kaen couldn't keep the grin from his face at the fact the twins had manage to adopt and adapt the fighting styles of video game characters to work in the real world. 'I'm really going to need to invest some serious time in their training once all this is over,' he mused to himself; there was no doubt in his mind that this would all be over, not any more. They would win, and Buu would die; there was no other way it could be.
Settling in to watch until he was strong enough to help, Kaen thought to himself, 'Okay guys. Let's see what you can do.'
-Dare!-
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Author's notes:
I'll be honest, I'm not particularly happy with some of the stuff I've written lately. I'm not particularly good at describing things, nor do I have much skill in writing fight scenes. However, we've passed the halfway mark. The next chapter might pose something of a problem, but after that it should all be downhill from there; after all, I actually know what I want to have in the chapters from E16 onwards, whereas after E10 I was kinda making up everything as I went, which may have/probably did screw up the flow a little.
Still, it's done now, and there's one less chapter I need to write. Part of me feels I'm dragging my feet on too many things, but then, I've already comitted myself to a further six chapters. While it may be a bit of a chore sometimes finding content for some of them, at least having a concrete number of chapters, and a basic plan of what to include in them, is a nice safety blanket for an experiment such as this. I know this story would've been a lot less successful if I hadn't done the planning I did. It's just a shame I could never truly picture much of the early half of the fight, but spent a lot of time thinking on the late half.
I'll probably write the sixth chapter of Shades of Grey before I write E15, but at least I seem to be able to write chapters of that pretty quickly once I get started and focus on writing.
I meant to have this chapter out a day or two ago, but I got distracted, so... Hopefully, the next one will be easier to write. I've already got more planned for it than I did this one.