"Oh no," gasped Holly, looking skyward. The beam would have been visible even if she hadn't been looking. It was close, close enough that she could hear the rushing pulse of its blast, close enough that it kicked up the dust they were standing in. The windows up and down the street rattled in their rotten frames, all of them reflecting the flash of burning blue that ripped through the sky and made the sun look rather dim.

"That's the guy," whispered Twilight. "Son Goku."

"Do you think Ryuko stands a chance?" Katniss asked.

Poppy cleared her throat. "She stands more of a chance than you. Or have you forgotten that you desired an early death?"

Holly shrugged. "We're going to have to hope that she does. We're probably going to wish we had her help in a couple seconds."

The man continued to float in the air in front of Ryuko, his arms bent slightly in a claw-like stance. Ryuko didn't know how he was flying, but assumed it was through some sort of energy manipulation, since there was no evidence of any sort of thrusters- which she was currently hovering on- nor did he have any wings, mechanical or otherwise.

Maybe there are wings hidden in his hair.

"So… are you going to go?" asked Goku.

"Go?"

"First. I'm letting you have the first attack."

Ryuko let out a solitary laugh. "Oh, I don't think you should have done that."

With a blast from the long thrusters that surrounded her legs, Ryuko flung herself forward, swinging her Scissor Blade towards the man's right shoulder. It would have been a debilitating attack, if it had connected. Instead, the sword found only empty space. A sharp whoosh sounded behind her, and she turned to find that the source of the noise was a relocated Goku.

"Now, it's my turn," he stated, before landing a series of mixed punches and kicks that knocked Ryuko into a tailspin. The girl tumbled through the air for a few seconds, before regaining her balance and returning to hover. The man still waited far above, an orange fleck in the blue sky.

Okay, he can throw a punch. I'll give him that. If he's going to be fighting like that, I'll need every limb I can for attack and defense. That means we'll need to drop out of Shippu.

But, Ryuko, we won't be able to fly!

So? He'll have to fight us on the ground.

The long, dresslike hem of Senketsu's skirt in Shippu mode retracted, exposing Ryuko's legs and causing her to drop from the air like a cartoon anvil. Her fist-first landing shattered the golden-brown crust the sun had baked over the desert, forming a shallow crater. Goku descended in a much more graceful manner, lighting on the ground twenty meters across from her.

"Are you sure you're really Ryuko Matoi? I didn't think a couple punches would knock you out of the air."

"Believe me, I'm the genuine article. We're down here because I want to be."

"Suit yourself," Goku called back, before charging across the gap in a single stride. Ryuko launched forward as well, and the two met in a clash of equal strikes. For every punch she could land, Ryuko's Scissor blade would be blocked barehanded. For every kick that connected with her bare stomach, a palm strike would be absorbed. This continued for about five seconds, until both parties realized that they weren't getting anywhere and retreated with long leaps backwards.

"Wow, you are pretty strong. At least strong enough to keep up with me," said Goku. "If you don't mind me asking, what's up with your wardrobe? It doesn't look like it'd be that comfortable to fight in."

"This is my Kamui, Senketsu," she explained. "I give him some of my blood, and he makes me stronger. And he may not look like it, but he's very supple."

"Interesting," mused the man. "I don't know how I'd feel about that- having to get my powers from somebody else. Do you ever feel bad that your strength has to come from him, instead of you?"

"No. We like working together. It's what we're meant to do."

"As long as you're confident in each other, that's what counts. Now come on, show me all of that power! I didn't come all this way for you to go easy on me!"

All the nutcases we've seen… and Twilight still thinks I'm the sadomasochist.

Her smaller, back-mounted booster kicked on, propelling her toward her opponent. Just before reaching him, she turned slightly, causing her to race past him. Ryuko then turned again, beginning to circle the martial artist. She leaned forward, and increased her speed, forming a black, red, and pink ring around him.

"Get ready see the power of teamwork!"

Goku's eyes attempted to track the girl's movements, but it quickly became much more difficult than he could manage. The dust kicked up by her circling only added to the confusion. He decided to stand his ground, but resolve was not an adequate defense against the sudden strike to his back that nearly forced him off of his feet. He spun to catch his attacker, but only found the same whirling black ring and its twirling streams of crimson. Another strike hit his knee from behind, while a third jabbed into his side. Soon, he was overwhelmed with countless attacks from all directions. Goku let his mind escape the steady current of pain, in order to strategize his way out. It was a clever trap that the girl had come up with, but not a perfect one. He pressed his index and middle finger to his forehead, and disappeared.

Ryuko realized almost instantly that her target was no longer where he had been before. What took her longer was slowing down to locate him. He was no longer inside the circle, and a quick survey of the entire horizon indicated that he was no longer at her altitude. She looked up and found him hovering just above her, his hands splayed out next to his face.

"SOLAR FLARE!"

For the second time, Ryuko was blinded by one of Goku's attacks, albeit now more directly. She covered her singed eyes, but it did little to drive away the light frozen into them. The man seized the opportunity to drop to the ground and land a roundhouse kick on his opponent, sending Ryuko flying backwards. Though it made no difference to the temporarily-blind girl, he vanished again, reappearing further along her trajectory. He halted the shallow arc of her flight with another kick that threw her into the air, only to teleport above her and end her flight with a final kick to the ground. Her landing created another depression in the barren, flat earth.

"I am having a serious case of Deja-vu, here," grunted Ryuko, prying herself out of the dirt and blinking the stars out of her eyes.

"You are? Did you fight Vegeta or something? Is he here? I bet he is and he's just avoiding me. Typical Vegeta."

Ryuko did not know of this Vegeta, but he sounded annoying. She was instead reminded of her fight with Hermione in the last big round. She had used a style nearly identical to his.

So, how did we beat Hermione?

I synchronized with Gurren Lagann.

And we totally wrecked them, didn't we?

That is correct.

Well, that sucks. I'll just have to keep wearing this guy down until I can land a decisive hit.

"No, no, I think I'm just remembering wrong." She jumped off the ground, the thruster on her back carrying her up to Goku's altitude. It wasn't as good for high-speed maneuvers, but it could hover just fine, and she needed her legs free.

"That's a shame. So are you ready to give up?"

"Do you think I am? You haven't even scratched me yet. You've got a ways to go to live up to the hype, Mr. Goku."

"Then I'll just have to make things a little more interesting," he laughed. With a flex of his muscles, he exploded with a burst of violent golden energy, which blew his hair upward while tinting it from black to yellow. His eyes glowed a pale green through the rushing haze that surrounded his body.

Just like Hermione.

"So… is this your super form, or something?"

"Yep. I'm actually a kind of alien called a Saiyan, but we're pretty much just strong humans with monkey tails. But if we train hard enough, we can do this."

"I don't see a monkey tail on you."

"It got cut off. Long story."

Ryuko rolled her eyes. "Why don't you just show me how super that form is?"

"All right. But I'm warning you, I'm on a whole other level now."

"Uh huh. Sure."

The now-shining Goku raced forward, surrounded by a gleaming arrow of golden energy. Ryuko brought her arms up to defend her face as he began another set of rapid-fire mixed strikes. He was definitely hitting harder than before.

We need to be careful, Ryuko. We can adjust for this kind of damage, but not if he can keep pummeling us like this.

Right, I got you. I'll make some space.

"SENKETSU SENJIN!"

Goku froze just before he would have kicked his shin into a series of razor-sharp blades now covering the girl's abdomen.

"That looks like it hurts," he murmured.

"It will," chuckled Ryuko. "SENJIN SHIPPU!"

Her skirt extended again into the powerful thrusters of Senketsu's Shippu form, while she retained her pincushion coating from Senjin. The most logical use of this combination was to fling herself at top speed toward her opponent, which Ryuko did with reckless abandon. She pulled her arms and legs in and twisted her body, becoming a whirling disk of sharp edges. Goku quickly realized that a conventional block did little against a spinning bladed surface, and retreated fifty meters backwards as soon as Ryuko began to slice into his arms.

"She's too sharp! I've gotta take her out at range!"

He pressed his palms together and moved his hands to his side, chanting the syllables of the attack's name. "Ka-me-ha-me-ha!"

He threw his hands forward, and another great blue beam punched a hole through the wispy clouds above them. Goku kept his hands forward, sustaining the attack. He couldn't let her get that close again. The beam continued to surge onward, the weaponized ki superheating the air around it in a wave-like mirage. He eased up on the attack after five seconds, confident that he would have at least dissuaded her from approaching again. The Kamehameha dissolved, revealing the girl to be standing where the center of the beam had been. She wiped a soot-like smudge off of her face.

"Hmph."

"You're still alive? No human could have resisted that attack."

"Whaddya know, I'm not human either."

"We've got a lot in common, don't we?"

"Yeah. We can talk about it over a nice glass of your tears," snarled Ryuko, shooting forward again. Screaming, she slashed wildly with the Scissor Blade and her own body. Goku knocked as many of the attacks away that he could, but a few slices did make contact, forming thin red lines across his skin. They were not deep cuts, nor did they hurt to the Super Saiyan, but they were a sign that his defenses meant little to his opponent. Goku wasn't one for strategy, but something had to be done. He sacrificed a few more nicks to his arm to use Instant Transmission again, reappearing just to Ryuko's right. A hard punch sent the girl spinning away, but as Goku reappeared to follow up, Ryuko responded with a powerful elbow strike. Goku countered with his own set of mixed strikes, before vanishing again. Ryuko had tracked his movements, and with Senketsu's thrusters at full power, closed with him instantly to continue her assault. The two warriors bounced across the sky, the impacts of their fists and feet like small explosions over the desert.