Chapter Seventeen - Showdown on Kurokokun

Bra wasn't sure where they were, her brother and father. She had ideas where to find them and decided she'd start with looking for her father. She figured she should let him know about 17 before going off to do other things, that way he could set up a replacement. She'd tried the royal chambers and the dining hall so far. Only one other likely place he could be, his chambers. Stopping outside the doors she reached up and knocked. "Father, you in there?"

"Hm? Bra? What is it?" Vegeta called from the inside. A moment later the door opened and Vegeta, still in his robe, poked his head out the door.

"Got a call from Pan earlier... she and 17 have been trying to contact you..."

"I have my com station set to handle matters with this... thing." Vegeta said. "What's up?"

"It seems that Master Cooler's put things on hold on his world until this creature is handled so... 17 will be delayed and can't deal with the problem on Leberion."

Vegeta nodded. "Alright... Tell 18 she's to take over the mission. She should be with Trunks down in the holding area."

Bra shook her head. "Figures that's where he'd be." With that she made her way through the halls again, her mind still working over matters about Marron. She was so lost in thought that she'd reached the holding cells before she'd even realized it. She could hear some cries coming from down the way and figured that'd be a good room to start at. Sure enough she found Trunks there, 18 standing off to the side and just staring at the ceiling, and the prisoner in the cell had apparently just passed out.

"There you are." Bra said leaning against the door frame. "You're the easiest person to find in this place, just follow the screams."

"Oh, hey Bra, what's up?" Trunks asked turning around.

"I wanted to see if you were up for a spar? I need to work some kinks out of my system."

Trunks raised an eyebrow but then shrugged. "Sure, I'm done down here for now anyway. I'll just go change and meet you in chamber 9?"

"Ok."

Trunks nodded and left leaving the two women behind. Bra was silent for a moment but as 18 started to leave she realized she still had to give her father's orders. "Oh, 18. It seems 17 is going to be delayed on Planet Cooler for a bit so dad wants you to take over the mission to Leberion."

"Leberion?" the Cyborg asked pausing. "Isn't that the one rebel planet?"

Bra shrugged. "Don't know."

18 sighed. "Sure, I'll handle it."

"Ummmm. There's something else I... want to talk to you about."

"Oh?"

"Ya... Ummm. It's... well... I think, maybe, I'm not really sure, but... I think I might..."

18 smirked. "You like Marron?"

"Wha?"

The Cyborg moved a hand up to her mouth as she chuckled. "It's obvious, really." she said after a moment. "Your mother and I noticed it a few days ago."

"You... you did?"

"Ya. Marron hasn't seemed to have figured it out yet but she's been noticing too, you know. So, I take it you wanted to ask me if I'd mind, and if she might feel the same, right?" The young Hybrid nodded. "Well, as for me minding, no, I don't. Certainly better you than some of the others around here. But for her... I don't know. I've talked with her quite a bit but she's never brought up any past romances and I've yet to ask so I don't really know."

"Oh. Well... I guess I'll just have to then... later... after the spar."

18 reached up and put her hand on Bra's shoulder. "I hope things work out, but if they don't you can come and talk to me, ok?"

"Thanks."

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Gohan opened his eyes and looked up. While his father had slept he'd been meditating. Now, though, Buu was close. He could clearly feel the creature's power only a few moments from reaching the planet. "Man, that thing is fast." he muttered.

"You're telling me." Kakkarotto said suddenly sitting up. Gohan blinked a few times, he'd not realized his father was awake. "Remember, stay back unless I can't get a footing in the battle." the elder Sai-jin said.

"Right." The two stood and waited but then they felt Buu's energy shift courses slightly. His direction would have him by-passing the planet now. "What the hell?"

Kakkarotto frowned. "Wait, our powers, they're still supressed." Suddenly the Sai-jin grinned and a gold light flared up around him. There was a flash as he transformed into a Super Sai-jin. He wanted to attract Buu, not give away the extent of his power. Not yet at least. Both felt Buu suddenly stop and pause for a moment, and then he began to descend toward the planet. "Well, that proves it, this thing can sense power levels."

A moment later a streak of pink appeared over the horizon flying down through the sky and toward them. It only took a few seconds for it to streak passed them and slam into the ground a few dozen yards away. The two Masters turned to watch as the dust settled. There was silence for several long moments and then soft footsteps as Buu slowly walked up out of the crater. "Sure is ugly though." Kakkarotto said crossing his arms, and then he started laughing when the creature scowled. "Oh, you can understand me then?"

Buu just tilted his head side to side and flexed his arms as though working out some kinks.

"Not much for talking huh? Well, that's ok. Mind if we do a little warm up first? Work up to the fight? It's more fun and helps me get going." the Sai-jin said with a grin, a gust of wind ruffling his blonde hair.

"Shaaaaaa." Buu grunted walking forward.

"I'll take that as a yes." Kakkarotto said uncrossing his arms and slipping into a combat stance. Another gust of wind blew across the soon to be battlefield causing the Sai-jin's hair to wave about lazily. And then he pushed off and shot across the expanse at Buu, a sparkling trail of gold left in his wake. As he neared Buu merely grinned. The Master's fist lanced out but the creature caught it.

Kakkarotto pulled back and lashed out with a kick to the side of Buu's head that completely caved it in. Pulling back and landing a few feet away he stared at the pink creature before him and blinked. Buu's head rippled and then reformed as he laughed. Suddenly the creature launched in and began exchanging blows with the Master at close range. Each thunderous crack from a blocked or landed blow cracked the ground beneath them, the rocks and debris around began to lift up around them as they fought.

A hard right hook from Buu sent Kakkarotto sailing backwards. As he pulled to a stop he looked up at the laughing creature and grinned. "Oh, think you're winning, do you?" Buu just smirked. "Heh heh. Well, you forget, I'm only warming up... HA!" In a flash of gold he charged through the air toward Buu once more, blue lightning sparking about his aura. The creature hadn't expected the sudden jump in power and speed and was caught completely off guard as the Master slammed a knee in his gut, a fist into his face, and then an elbow into the back of his neck that sent him down into the planet hard.

As the dust settled it revealed a pink puddle at the base of the crater. It only took a moment though, for it to reform into Buu. The short being looked up at it's opponent grinning. Kakkarotto shrugged and smirked. Buu thrust an arm up and it shot through the air extending more than a hundred yards to crack against the shocked Master's jaw. As the creature retracted it's arm it shot up through the air after the Sai-jin. Kakkarotto pulled to a stop just as Buu reached him and the two began to exchange blows again.

Down on the ground Gohan was keeping track of the fight best he could. He knew his father was still only warming up but he was a little worried. This thing was strong and from what he'd seen so far, next to impossible to kill. "Come on dad. You can beat this thing!"

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Tien was only about a foot away from landing a punch to Enzeru's stomach when he suddenly froze in mid motion and landed. "What... is that?" he wondered, focusing on what he felt.

"What's what?" Enzeru asked relaxing as she moved out of her combat stance.

The other three still chasing Bubbles paused as North Kai emerged from his small house. "What's up?" the Kai asked. He'd noticed the sudden hault to Tien and Enzeru's sparring and thought something had happened.

"I can... feel something." Tien said slowly.

"I don't feel anything." Yamcha said trying to focus.

North Kai blinked behind his glasses. He agreed with Yamcha, he couldn't sense anything either. At least, not in Otherworld. Perhaps... perhaps Tien's mental abilites were expanding thanks to the training and he was feeling something in the Mortal Realm? The Kai focused his thoughts and sensed out matters in the living world. "My word..." he said after a moment. "Kakkarotto and Majin Buu are fighting."

"You're kidding!" Krillin cried. "And Tien sensed that from here?"

North Kai nodded. "Tien's third eye isn't merely cosmetic you know. It allows for heightened mental abilities, and Ki sense is a mental technique."

"I can't train if I know their fighting." Krillin said after a moment. "Any chance we could watch the fight?"

"Sure, come place your hands on my back." The five warriors nodded and moved over to the Kai. They looked down at the battle just in time to see Kakkarotto ascend to the second level.

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Bra had decided to go to the spar fully decked out. She figured her father would eventually get wind of it and it'd score her some bonus ponits she'd be cashing in before too long. So she had on her white boots, white gloves, blue body suit, and white and brown armor when she walked into Chamber 9 for her spar. She saw Trunks across the room leaning over the bleachers talking to someone in his typcial black tank top, black slacks, and black boots.

"Probably flirting with someone who'd been training in here or something." she thought shaking her head as she crossed the room to her brother. As she neared, however, she picked up part of the conversation.

"... so it's been set-up. My mother finished the arrangements this morning, actually. You'll be heading out for the Gorneo project in about a week."

"R-really?" Bra froze at the sound of the voice. It was Marron!

Trunks shrugged. "Least I could do for you since you saved my life and all. You'll be put in as an observer for the first couple weeks and then the guy in charge, what's-his-face, will figure out a position for you."

"Thank-you, Master Trunks." Marron said happily.

"Trying to "sweet talk" your mate's daughter, are you?" Bra asked, finally speaking.

"Huh?" Trunks turned. "Oh, hey Bra. And no, I'm not. 18's told me Marron's strictly hands off. Not going to push the issue, she's dangerous when upset. Mom and I have been working on getting Marron a good position in Capsule Corp. and finally worked out something." The Sai-jin Prince moved over and leaned in close to his sister's ear. "Don't worry about it affecting your chances though, the project could use a serious kick in the pants so Dad's been thinking of sending one of us there anyway."

Bra couldn't think of something to say for a moment but managed to shake it off and saw that Marron had a book in her hand. "Oh, what are you reading?"

"Hm? Oh, this? It's a book on Quantam Equilibrium and Spectral Balance."

Trunks shook his head and shrugged when his sister looked back at him. "Don't look at me, it's over my head. Mom wrote it a few years ago."

Marron giggled. "It's not that complicated." she said. "Basically it boils down to everything having it's counter. For everything that exists an equal something must exist elsewhere." When she saw the look on Bra's face she laughed again. "Here, think of it this way. Master Vegeta was born with the power to transform into a Super Sai-jin, right? Well, because of that and because an equal balance must exist in the universe, Master Kakkarotto was also born with the ability to transform. It's a bare bones and basic example, but it applies. It's more complex a system where the balance could be spread out over several points. Like, the existance of the Cold Family could be the balance to Master Kakkarotto's existance."

"I... think I get it." Bra said slowly. "I remember mom saying once that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Is it the same thing?"

Marron nodded. "Basically. The theory of Quasan Stability shows that the universe is a really finite balancing act. Disrupt it even slightly and you create chaos as the balance fights to be restored. There are a few instances of such a thing happening but not many and usually only on no more than a planetary scale. But by your Mother's equations... something is pushing that balance and has been for a while."

"Oh?" Bra asked sitting down, her nervousness and spar temporarily forgotten.

Marron nodded again. "I was looking at her work the other night. Really amazing stuff. Anyway, by her calculations something is slowly tipping the balance offscale. She thinks it may have already been tipped beyond stability. In fact, she thinks that the events of three weeks ago were a result of the tipping."

"The events... you mean Cooler and Pan transforming and Goten... dying?"

The blonde girl sighed and cast her eyes down realizing she was probably bringing up wounds that hadn't healed completely yet. "Yes." she said after a moment. "And the destruction of the Earth too. She's been trying to work in the effects of it's destruction but since she doesn't know the full extent of what was actually done, death counts, power eliminations, energy disruptions, etc, she can't get a perfect model. But, with what she does have... well, I think Buu's the counter balance. He's being used by the universe to restore the order... If he can't..."

"Then what?"

"Then the universe will make another attempt." Marron said. "If we're right, anyway. It all comes down to the Natural Order."

"Enough talking, I thought we were going to spar!" Trunks called over from the middle of the room.

"Oh, sorry." Bra said turning and walking over to him and following his lead, took a fighting stance. Marron laid her book down and leaned back to watch. She'd not actually seen what any of the Masters could actually do yet. "Let's just go light." Bra said. "Keep it in base."

"Sure." Trunks said. The two siblings faced each other for a long moment, neither moving, and then they simply vanished. Marron went to look for them when suddenly a crack sounded high above her and she looked up. The sparring rooms were large areas. A hundred yards by a hundred yards, by a hundred yards. They also had gravity systems in them capable of going up to 100 times normal Saiya gravity.

About half way up to the top of the room she saw the two appear for a second and then vanish again. "This is... wow. I can't even follow them... and 18 said these two are the weakest now that Goten's gone... And they're not even transformed..." She swallowed as she took all of it in. The power these two had just in base, and the amount of power that the rest of them must have. "Mom said she was fifty times stronger than Bra's base... that's... this is amazing. But..." She blinked and looked down at the book in her hand. "The effect of all these powers... it has to be upsetting the balance to have so many people so much stronger than normal. There's only so much energy in the universe to be spread out..."

Her thoughts were broken by a loud crack and the entire room shaking nearly knocking her off the bench. Looking around she saw Trunks on the ground not more than five yards away, the floor cracked under him. Bra floated up in the air above him grinning. "Don't let your guard down Trunks!" she called down almost laughing. "I may be a girl but I can still beat you in a fight if I want."

"Heh. You just got lucky." Trunks said sitting up and wiping a trickle of blood off his chin. "I got distracted..."

"Sure, likely excuse. Admit it, you're just no match for your little sister."

The Sai-jin prince reached up and cracked his neck. "You're forgetting which of us is stronger. Though, I'll admit, you're a lot stronger than I remember."

Bra shrugged. "I spared with Goten now and then, whenever one of us needed to burn off some steam. Usually after father did something stupid."

Trunks started laughing as he climbed to his feet. "No wonder you're so strong. Spending that much time training you're probably stronger than Gohan and Kakkarotto combined." The two siblings grinned and then started laughing again.

As Bra calmed down again she brushed a few strands of hair behind her ear. "So, shall we continue? Or... are you going to give up, hmmm?"

"Not on your life." Trunks said taking his fighting stance again. "Alright, round two!" he cried launching up.

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18 stood in her formal armor watching as several dozen techs ran about the hanger prepping everything for launch. They'd have been ready for her had they known she was going anywhere prior to her appearance in the hanger. After looking into the reports on Leberion she decided to head off imedeately to deal with it. Apparently it had been taken over nearly ten years ago and in that time had resisted constantly. Not by sending it's warriors after the Empire but by sending it's latest models of battle droids, as they called them.

Apparently the earliest models from ten years before were capable of a power of about 1,000. The last model encountered, nearly six months ago, had apparently broken the 500,000 mark. Vegeta had marked it as a level 4 priority, not that high really. 18 figured his arrogance had been a deciding factor in that, personally she saw it at least as a level 2 priority. Their technology had improved considerably in just ten years and 16, not to mention Gero's latest body, were proof that machines could generate vast amounts of power. She'd feel safer knowing the chance of them coming up with something stronger than 16 had been eliminated.

When she'd announced she was leaving the techs had originally set about to prepare her saucer ship but she'd stopped that and had them preping a pod instead. The saucer ship would be a faster flight, only two days instead of seven, but the time it would take to get it ready, get a full crew set-up, and then launch, would be at least two days. That and she preferred to be alone when dealing with a mission like this one.

"Mistress 18." a tech said running up to her. "All preperations are complete. You can enter your pod and launch when ready."

"Good." the Cyborg said moving across the large room toward her pod. Part of her was worried that by the time she reached Leberion there wouldn't be an Empire to work for... but she knew that if anyone could defeat that thing it was Kakkarotto. She dropped down into the pod and closed the hatch. It only took a few seconds to log in the coordinates of Leberion and the Cyborg settled back in the pod for the trip. A moment later she was streaking away from Saiya.

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Buu and Kakkarotto split apart from each other, the Sai-jin panting lightly. "I've not had... a fight like this in a long time." he said grinning. Buu just laughed. The Master relaxed slightly and his hair fell back down as he returned to base. The creature across from him tilted his head in wonder. "Hope you don't mind if I take a short break." Kakkarotto called over. "Just want to catch my breath before the battle starts for real." Buu crossed his short arms and frowned. "Oh, don't pout!" Kakkarotto called laughing. "You'll get your fight. Afterall, you want me in top condition, no?"

The pink being just shrugged. "Weeeeeakk." it managed to rasp.

This got a raised eyebrow from the Master. "Oh, think I'm weak do you? Well, you've only seen my second level transformation, I still have one left." Buu tilted his head to the other side. "Ah, got your interest do I? Well, I'm all for a demonstration. This is my base form." The Sai-jin braced and then in a flash of gold transformed. "This is level one, where I started the fight at." He braced and transformed again, blue lightning flashing around him. "Level two, the highest form you've seen. Now, give me a moment, this next one isn't as easy to reach."

Kakkarotto hunched over and let out a cry as his aura flared out massively and the planet several yards below him began to shake with the energy he was putting out. His hair began to glow and then soon his entire body was hidden by a golden glow. There was a flash and rush of wind and it stopped. The Sai-jin floated there with protruding eyebrows and long flowing waist length hair. "And this is level three. Impressed?"

"Naaaaaaaaaaaa."

"Heh heh. You will be. So, ready for round two?"

Buu uncrossed his arms and vanished. A split second later Kakkarotto vanished as well. Suddenly the sky went alight with flashes of pink and gold. They were only fractions of a second apart but filled the entire sky. The thunderous cracks that came with them rumbled across the planet and shook the ground. The warm-up was over.