Dragon Ball GX, Side Story: The Alchemic Saiyan
Chapter 15: The Colonel's Close Call
Maes Hughes
The death of my friend Edward Elric had certainly put me behind schedule, now having finally returned from my days off mourning the loss of the eldest Elric, I gathered up my supplies and began to look at them again, trying to find a connection between all the uprisings and deaths around the country. As I read the latest paper, realized I had finally found one. "Sheska, Fokker, I'm going to the archive room, I'll be back soon" I say as I drop the newspaper and walk out the door to head down the hall.
Sheska
As the colonel left the room, Fokker sighed and sat down in the chair Hughes had been using. "Finally, a guaranteed break from him mentioning his damn wife and kid, that gets annoying hearing about it every 5 minutes" the captain says with irritation.
"Oh come on, I know it gets kinda old, but I think its sweet that he holds his family to such high esteem, it says a lot about his character" I reply in defense.
"Yeah, that he's obsessed with them" Fokker remarks sarcastically. I moaned in defeat, knowing there was no way I could change his mind.
"(SLAM) Where is Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes, this is a matter of life and death!" a tall man shouts as he practically breaks the door off its hinges.
"Whoa! Calm down sir, no need to scream, why the big rush?" Fokker says as he jumps up to try and soothe the man's anger. I realized something, his face seemed different, but the hair and jacket had the same style as…
"Edward Elric, is that you?" I ask as I adjust my glasses to make sure that my eyes weren't playing tricks.
"GIIIHHH! Pipe it Sheska! I'm in disguise" the man whispers fiercely as he closes the space between us without even moving and clamps my mouth shut.
"Oh, well its very good, I doubt I'd have recognized you if not for my eidetic memory" I state, proud of how well Ed had covered himself up, he'd even somehow found a way to appear taller convincingly.
"Enough prattle, where is Hughes!" he snaps angrily.
"He went to the archive room just moments ago, he seemed to be onto something" Fokker says casually.
"DAMN IT! I hope I'm not too late" Edward screams. Suddenly, he just vanished into thin air.
"What the hell, how did he do that?" Fokker exclaims.
"And why does he seem so distressed?" I say out loud. I wondered if it had something to do with what the colonel was researching.
Maes Hughes
"Liore, these endless uprisings, the Philosopher's Stone, human sacrifices, and the outright genocide of the Ishvalan people" I list aloud to myself as I draw circles on my map of Amestris. As I connected the marked areas, my eyes widened at the sight. There, plain as day, the entire country was covered by an alchemic equation of immense proportion, a nationwide human transmutation circle!
"Then this means…how could this even happen, and who could have orchestrated something as terrible as this? I've gotta tell the Führer right away!" I yell as I jump up and drop the map.
Suddenly the doors closed shut loudly, snapping my attention away from the map, where an admittedly lascivious woman stood. Tall, with long raven hair and a dress with large cleavage, she blocked the door.
"Well hello Lieutenant Colonel, its nice to meet you. Well actually, hello really isn't the word I'm looking for" she replies coolly.
"Cool tattoo you got there" I reply with a smirk as I notice the Ouroboros marking right above her breasts, immediately knowing that she was in league with the same people responsible for the death of Edward Elric.
"Those are your last words, wouldn't you rather scream?" she asks sarcastically as she lifts her right hand, and the fingers suddenly turn into razor sharp spears with the trademark CHINK sound. I quickly grabbed one of my throwing knives and tossed it right at her forehead, but in that same instant, her spear fingers elongated and one pierced me through my shoulder, the others barely missing other areas of my body as my own turned during the knife throw.
Mustering as much strength as possible, I tried to walk out of the room, but just after opening the door, I collapsed onto my injured shoulder and winced with pain. I tried to use my other arm with my legs to try and get on my feet, but then through the door, 5 spear points struck me, one through each limb, and the last one through the same area of my chest that her tattoo was on.
"Its really a pity, the original plan was that I'd let Envy finish you off since he likes to kill so much, but sadly he's no longer available, so I guess its up to me to do the job" the woman says with a wicked smile as she reduces the rest of the door to splinters and casually saunters out, the spears of her left hand still pinning me to the floor. As I managed to open my eyes, I saw her aim her right hand of spear fingers at me, and within moments, they punched through various parts of my upper body, one of them barely missing my heart, while another punctured one of my lungs, yet another striking my liver, the fourth striking my stomach, and the thumb hitting my pancreas; I instantly coughed up blood as the tips damaged my vital organs.
"The secret dies with you Hughes" she laughs icily as I feel myself slipping into a blackout from the pain.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" a man screams with rage.
Edward Elric
As I came upon the entrance to the archive room after spending several minutes searching everything but the ruins of the center wing I'd destroyed earlier today, I found Hughes already on the ground.
"You…you…YOUUUUUUU!" I growl as I tremble with rage, barely able to speak coherently, I couldn't believe it, even with the altered flow of events from the anime I saw, I was still too late to save him.
"Excuse me, but who are you, can't you see I'm too busy to kill you too? Now shoo before change my mind" Lust replies nonchalantly.
"(Grins) You don't recognize me like this, do you Lust?" I say with a wicked smile. Her eyes immediately widened as she recognized my voice.
"Can't blame you, this disguise is almost fool proof to most beings" I reply with a smirk. Immediately I activated the alchemic reset formula's I'd made and my body returned to its original Saiyan form, causing her to gasp.
"Edward, How did you get here so quickly! Last I saw you were at Eastern Command with Mustang and the traitors!" Lust whimpers as she retracts her spears and backs up to the wall.
"Oh is it that hard to guess? I can move faster than light now, its what my master's training and this new body have yielded, and you're not gonna live past the next 5 minutes you bitch" I say with a blood-thirsty smile.
"We'll see about that!" She screams as she extends her spears right toward my chest, an evil smirk growing on her face as they reached ever closer, certain to make contact and pierce through me.
If she only knew how futile it would be.
The instant they struck, they reacted as if hitting an invisible barrier, which wasn't too far from the truth.
"No…that's not possible…my ultimate spears" she whispers with shock as her face contorts with terror.
"You fool, did you honestly think I would let your spears hit me if I didn't know the attack would fail and make your face go like that?" I laugh as I look at her horror stricken face.
"But, they're ultimate spears, they can pierce any substance, I tested them, only Greed's ultimate shield can withstand it!" Lust exclaims, trying to deny what she'd seen.
"(Scoffs) Greed's Ultimate Shield is just layers of diamond grade carbon atoms, I know over half a dozen substances stronger than that" I remark casually, causing her to gasp again.
"But that's beside the point, you didn't even hit matter, what stopped your spears was my life force, I concentrated a super dense layer of pure Ki energy just millimeters above my skin, every inch of it, its strong enough to survive a direct hit from a whole train…no, a train yard full of dynamite like it was a pea shot from a straw, easily" I explain with glee, enjoying the growing shock on her face.
"In short, with the resources at your disposal, I' am completely and utterly invulnerable" I finish, causing her to have a look of despair. She quickly snapped out of it though, and began to charge me with her claws.
"The hell you are! I know you have a weak spot somewhere" she snarls as she lunges at me. I snickered at her pathetic attempt and easily side-stepped it like a pebble thrown by a kid.
"Maybe you're not getting the picture wench, I'm no longer a weak and vulnerable human, I' am a member of a proud alien race known as the Saiyans, let me spell out what that means for you" I chuckle as I grab her arms right down at the shoulder sockets. She turned her head around and looked at me with shock as she saw the way I held her so easily.
"I'm STRONGER!" I grunt as I rip her arms off effortlessly, causing her to scream in agony. Letting go, I casually strolled up to the end of the hallway we were in, then back again in moments, her jaw dropping at this sight.
"I'm FASTER!" I shout angrily. An instant later, I moved faster than the blink of an eye and tore her legs off at the sockets as well, causing her to scream even louder, as her arms hadn't even had time to start healing as I stood over her currently limbless form.
Then before she could even speak, I restructured my left hand into thousands of needle sized pins and extended them through every inch of her body in the same manner as her ultimate spears shot out, resulting in making her appearance exactly akin to a human pincushion. The wounds were so extensive, blood was leaking everywhere, coating the floor like a new paint job.
"I'm better" I say calmly as I look her in the eyes with a smile, that same blood lust from earlier today coming over me, only this time I wanted to feel it, to enjoy making her suffer for all the people she'd killed, and all she had planned to kill in the future.
"Now your story ends here Lust; no more grand schemes, no fight to the finish with my brother or friends, no more" I state coldly as I raise my right hand, a glowing blue orb the size of a marble forming at my finger tip.
"(Cough) N-Not that again" she moans as she spits up more blood, my pins keeping her from healing.
"That's right, concentrated Ki, enough raw energy to pop Amestris right off the face of the earth like a fucking pimple!" I say with mad glee, causing her to scream with terror, barely though due to the level of her injuries.
"You're…you're insane, you'd kill everyone, including your brother and girlfriend, not even you are that cold!" she shouts weakly.
"Who said I'd just toss it at you dumbass?" I retort with a grin as I retract my pins and reform my left hand back to normal, allowing her to regenerate completely. Then, forming another more hollow yellow sphere in it, I lazily threw it at Lust, causing her to cringe and shield her face with her newly reformed arms. However, the blast she'd anticipated never came, and as she lowered her arms and opened her eyes, they nearly shot out of her head in awe.
Lust
I had expected the yellow orb to hurt beyond anything I'd ever felt, but instead of feeling concussive force, it was as if a balloon had hit me. Opening my eyes, I found myself surrounded by a film of yellow light the same color as the sphere Edward had launched moments ago, a bubble of energy!
"I'd be the biggest damn idiot in the universe if I just let this loose the way bullets are" he laughs dryly as he holds the blue orb above his right index finger. Casually walking up to me, he looked me right in the eyes, with a wild, feral stare, with a blood lust unlike anything I'd seen before.
"That's what this barrier is for, it allows matter and energy inside, but only certain types of energy can pass back out, such as low power light, all matter and all but the strongest energies rebound against its interior" he says with a smile, then holds the orb right in front of me, its icy blue glare penetrating right into me.
"So what do you think would happen to you…if I were to shove this into the barrier and let it detonate?" he says cruelly as he slowly inches the finger tip closer. Instinctively, I backed away, hitting the opposing end of the bubble.
"Nonsense, I can break out, this thing has to have a weak point!" I shout desperately as I extend my spears and shoot them toward the inside surface across from me. But just like when they hit his stomach earlier, they just rebounded off, like against Greed's shield.
"HA HA HA! What, did you really go deaf after my last attack or are you just plain stupid? Its made of Ki bitch, you can't break through it" he boasts proudly, inching the tiny glowing orb ever closer.
"You're never gonna get to see Father's "Promised Day", cause in a minute or so, I'm gonna shove this little ball of Ki into the barrier and let it loose, do you know what that will be like?" he asks sarcastically, giving me the feeling he was about to explain whether I asked or not, so I decided to humor him, as I just realized that though he planned to try and kill me, so far none of his attacks had been able to do so.
"Ok then Fullmetal, do it, just remember, the moment you think I'm dead, I'll shoot my spears straight through your heart once your guard is down, so go ahead, try it" I reply as I lean back and wait for him to finish up.
"You honestly think that you'll be able to walk away from this, don't you?" Edward says with shock.
"I've regenerated from much worse kid" I say as I blow a strand of hair out of my face, still reclining against the bubble wall.
"(Chuckle) That would imply that I leave something for you to regenerate from Ms. Conceited" he states coldly. This snapped me back to full awareness and I looked at his eyes, noting the cold stare.
"Wait, what do you mean?" I ask, my fear returning as a sinking feeling crept under my skin.
"Quite simply this; the Ki orb on my fingertip has more than 4 times 10 to the 22nd power joules of energy, to put that in perspective, more than 9 and a half trillion tons of trinitrotoluene; HA. that's like all the energy from a huge earthquake or a large asteroid impact put together!" Edward laugh, causing me to shiver as I start seeing a mental picture of what an explosion of that magnitude would be like.
"But that barrier is less than 10 cubic feet, so at that level of concentration, you will vaporize instantly. Regenerate? There won't even be any flesh or Philosopher's Stone that survives to reconstitute from! The instant I let this blast loose inside the sphere, there will be nothing, absolutely nothing left but free floating atoms of your former body and stone. So…any last words, Homunculus?" Edward continues, giving me a mad grin, signaling that he would greatly enjoy seeing me die for my crimes he somehow seemed to know of. As I stared at this orb that was certain to completely obliterate me, I felt my eyes filling up with something, but before I could think more on the matter, a voice said, "D-Don't"
"Huh, did you hear that?" Edward asks, I promptly nodded to affirm his question.
"P-Please, don't do it Ed" the quiet voice wheezes, causing us all to snap our eyes to the still form of Maes Hughes. But it was no longer still, his chest was rising and falling, HE WAS ALIVE!
Edward Elric
"Hu-Hughes, is this for real, are you?-"
"(Cough) Yeah, just barely, please don't do it Edwar (Gasps and coughs up more blood)" Hughes groans as the back of his head slams onto the ground again.
"HOLD ON HUGHES, I CAN STILL SAVE YOU!" I bellow as I zip over to my friend instantly, extinguishing my Ki orb immediately and reabsorbing the energy back into my system. I didn't know how long he could last with his Ki this low, it was barely detectable, so I couldn't risk trying to take my time transmuting senzu beans. The only thing that might be fast enough is by using the same technique of Ki healing that Dende knew, boy it's a good thing that Psyagon thought to teach me that, now would be the perfect time for my first field application of it!
"Hold still Hughes, I'm gonna save you, you won't die in this universe" I say as I open up my palms and point them at the Lieutenant Colonel's body. Summoning forth the life giving power of Ki, I began to pour it out into Hughes, the trade mark pulsing hum accompanying my use of the technique. As the seconds past, I felt his breathing becoming less and less labored. Within 10 seconds, I felt his energy surging back toward normal levels, and it was then that I knew I had succeeded.
I had prevented the murder of Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes single-handedly, he would live to see his family again, Elicia wouldn't have to grow up without a father! I could barely contain my joy, knowing that thanks to Psyagon's kindness, I would be able to change history for the better.
"Edward, what are you-"
"Don't talk, its almost over" I reply as I cut off the still weak Colonel. I just needed another minute uninterrupted and Hughes would be 100 percent-
"HALT MONSTER!" an all too familiar voice bellows boisterously.
Oh fuck, not him, anyone but him!
"You will fall before the might and glory of my muscles monster! Alex, the Strong Arm Alchemist!" Major Armstrong shouts as he removes his shirt and shows off for a moment.
"Damn it, why did he have to show up now?" I moan as he tackles me to the ground.