THE VEGETA CHRONICLES

Chapter 8 - Crossing the Line Part II

The stadium was in an uproar.

While the battles were both vibrant and exciting to watch, the shockwaves that shook their seats began to alarm them overtime. That, and the constant camera malfunctions to either electrical malfunctions or them meeting an untimely end by one of the proximate battles taking place, caused the audience to become more wary of their current seating.

"What's going on?! I-Is this part of the show?!"

"Someone please tell me this is part of the act!"

"This is awesome! I can't believe we got seats like this!"

"Who are these guys?! How are all those buildings exploding?!"

"Is someone going to fix the cameras soon? I want to see more of this battle!"

These were but the sampling of more of the closer by citizens that were nearby to Chi-Chi and Bulma. The two women had reached out for each other's hands and gripped them tightly since the intensity of the fighting began to grow more and more apparent. This is the moment, from what they saw, would be the life to be taken by one combatant or the other.

"Trunks...Vegeta...please come back to me safely," Bulma whispered quietly, as she fixated her strong gaze towards the shaking stadium floor.

"Gohan...make sure you be safe, please?" Chi-Chi asked as well, knowing it probably wouldn't be heard. But still, she hoped that she would see her son again, alive, victorious, and happy.

18 was surprised by her enemy's tenacity.

Ever since Zangya had pumped herself with even more power, she had gained an additional boost in raw power, but had significantly slowed down, and even forgone her former dexterous grace. Every swing, every punch, felt more carnal than the last and debased. It lacked the beauty it once had and began to be easier for the cyborg to predict her movements.

Still, the intensity of which she pushed herself unnerved 18, as she fought on with passion that she had rarely had become witnessed to, especially from an enemy. If only the passion had been more admirable, as her constant verbatim of swears and unintelligible growls didn't make her more of an insane berserker than a dignified warrior.

"I will not lose to you!" Zangya punctuated her statement with a hook, blocked by 18's forearm, "Lord Bojack promised me...a place where I am recognized...for my power and status! I will not be forgotten after I annihilate all the weaklings and become a goddess!"

Several more punctuated crackling punches and kicks hurtled towards the stoically glaring blonde, causing Zangya to become even more enraged, as tears burned down her glowing eyes.

"Why are you getting in my way, bitch?!" Zangya asked once more, thrusting her fist towards 18, only for it to be caught by a impassive fist.

"Simple," 18 spoke coldly, as she wrenched the Herasian's wrist to the side, snapping it smoothly before she kicked her in the gut, "you hurt a man who loved me, and I began to fall in love with as well. I kill people who try to kill the people close to me. There's nothing personal I have against you other than you are an utter bitch with a superiority complex I could care less about."

"RAAAAAAAH!" Zangya rushed forth with a burst of energy, knee-kicking 18 in the gut, following up with a punch to her jaw, and finished with a roundhouse kick to her midriff.

Caught once again within 18's grasp, she would find herself flipped over onto her backside, as her knee became dislocated, causing her to scream out in agony, finally forcing her to yield. Her hair lightened to its orange texture, her skin deflated to its normal complexion and texture, replaced with only a sobbing woman in its place with angry eyes cast in her direction.

"I...hate...you," she weakly snarled at the impassively staring cyborg.

Raising her right hand towards the prone enemy, 18 gave only one verbal response that she'd understand, "I know."

With a blinding discharge of a Photon Blast, Zangya's body became incinerated with a single blow, perforated only by an enormous explosion left in the wake of 18's effective execution to her form.

Turning her head, she reached out with her senses, blocking out all the ongoing battles going on around her, to find Krillin. When she did, she flew with as much speed and caution as she could. The sooner he'd get medical attention, and find herself a new change of clothes, the better.

CLANG-VWHOOSH! Trunks found himself face-to-face with his nemesis as he clashed his Brave sword against Kogu's once again. The pressure exerted between the two of them became apparent, as sparks showered the air around them, as their eyes focused upon each other. They didn't see the various scathing gashes and bleeding wounds enamoring their sides, arms, or legs from their vicious clash of steel and force.

Trunks found himself more at odds with a skilled swordsman than he expected him to be. Drawing the battle out like this had been costly, and he knew neither of them could go on much longer without dismemberment being part of the plan.

"HRAH!" Trunks broke the sword block and kicked Kogu back a good distance, rearing back he charged blue currents of electrical harnessed force. Slashing in front of himself, he roared out, "LIGHTNING SWORD SLASH!"

A series of rippling blue fissures of sharp energy tore through the open air at the airborne Kogu. Spreading out wide crossed angles, they were ten meters in reach and a couple with width, making them hard to avoid within the quick succession they were launched from Trunks' hand.

Kogu, had already reared back his own rapier blade, gritting his teeth in concentration as he laced its edges with violet electricity as a counter to Trunks' attacks. Then, he thrust out with a series of discharges, sending out a number of black-violet lances of energy that clashed with the folding forces of energy that projected from the two warriors, "DEVIL SHOCK LANCE!"

They continued this dance, hoping at least one would get through to the other. An orchestra of thunderclaps from the vibrant explosions of blue-violet light that emitted within the dark sky, as they continued to harry each other with as many attacks as they could muster. They had no strategies left, no other form of force to break the other down and whittle them away. One strike from their blades would end it, it was just a matter of who would strike first.

"Tell me this, Super Saiyan! How long can you keep this up?!" Kogu verbally goaded, trying to psych out his enemy as he continued to thrust out his Devil Shock Lances.

Trunks knew he had to finish this in one blow, but he needed an opening. Kogu's monologue just allowed him the opportunity to focus his energy in one swift lunge. So, he played along as he kept slashing forth, "Shut up, bastard!"

"Am I touching a nerve there? How does it feel to watch your father get pummeled by our master? Must sting to know that your strongest warrior was knocked down off his pedestal in a matter of seconds! After this, when you're dead, this whole planet will burn! Won't that be delicious?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Kogu shouted out with malicious satisfaction.

Oh how Kogu drank in the moment of despair his enemy would hold before him. The fact that he would cut through the audience lingering above, and watch them cry out in shock and horror, gave him an anxiousness to finish his battle with the Super Saiyan. Oh how he loved culling the weak. Earth would be no different than the hundreds of planets he helped slaughter...

Upon his bout of nostalgia and his maniacal laughter, Trunks managed to pull up and hurtle himself towards the air above Kogu's attacks, halting just above him as he descended with sword in hand. Concentrating, his right arm began to swell, bulk up with incredible energy and strength, fueling the blade with an orange glow of enormously condensed Ki. Then, he yelled out above his enemy.

"BURNING INFERNO SLASH!" By the time he cried out, Kogu's blade blocked the blade's initial descent. It wasn't until that he realized that Trunks right arm had grown to twice its normal size, pumping and fueled with energy, that he just realized he was outmatched. The blade cut through his Devil Blade like butter, and then slice evenly through him, as the Super Saiyan flew past him along with the path of his blade.

Landing upon the ground below, he twirled his blade around before sheathing it, defining the moment of execution with an audible click.

CRACK-VOOM! Within that moment, a skyscraper standing behind Kogu split apart in sync with his body, as his two halves began to catch on fire and burn up as it hurtled towards the earth, joining the blackened debris and ruined landscape.

Wincing, Trunks dropped to one knee, de-powering to conserve energy as he gasped at the wounds that layered his body, causing his blonde locks fell down to his medium length gray hair. Even with all of his training, he still came up nearly defeated, by an unworthy opponent no less. Still, he couldn't help but smile that he wrought justice upon one more evil being. He just hoped the others would be as lucky.

"So...little...Saiyan...what will you do now?" Bujin's enormously grown vocal chords shook the air like thunder. Unlike any other form that the Herasians have shown to possess, Bujin had used his psychic powers to modify him to become an unstoppable mass of flesh and bone, towering above all. Like the Titans of old mythic lore, he looked down with an evil grin, waiting to crush the tiny Saiyan standing before him.

Yet, Gohan did not yield nor did he tremble. Like a stoic lighthouse in the face of an enormous wave of water, Gohan didn't flinch nor did his glare shift from the Herasian's eyes. Even in the face of adversity of such monumental scope, Gohan didn't feel fear. In retrospect, Bujin didn't even hold a candle to his master, let alone Cell. He knew victory was already assured.

"Give up, Bujin. You can't win this way," Gohan spoke with a stoic voice, magnifying it so that the tall lumbering form his enemy had assumed could hear him, "if you leave now and promise you won't hurt anyone, I'll spare your life. If you don't, I will kill you. This is your only chance."

A brief silence overlapped Bujin as he heard Gohan's words. He felt rage boil within his gut, quickly transforming his gait to be that of an incredulous one. Rearing back his head, he laughed aloud, "Reform?! Surrender?! BUAHAHAHA! You know nothing of me then, Super Saiyan, Son Gohan! I WANT to die! I want to die a glorious death on behest of my lord and master, Bojack!"

Rearing back a colossal fist, Bujin swung it down with all of his might, intending to end the battle with one blow.

BOOM! When Bujin connected with Gohan's frame, a shockwave erupted from the epicenter of impact, flattening the earth around them for dozens upon dozens of meters, collapsing all nearby structures. Even as Bujin laughed, feeling a sense of believed victory, he couldn't move his fist back.

"Your strength didn't change a bit by growing to such stature, Bujin," Gohan chided aloud, holding up a single fist to grip firmly the towering one that shadowed his golden-aura enraptured being, thrumming constantly with power and support, "you should have studied your own limits, that way, you would have known using up all your energy for growth would have been futile."

"D-Damn you, Saiy-AAAAAAAN?!" Bujin felt his fist wrenched to the side, before he was pulled violently towards the ground. Having no time to brace against the incoming impact to the ground, Gohan readied his right fist back, coating it with electrical currents and energy, before thrusting it at the incoming head.

A thunderous crack echoed the atmosphere of the mock city battlefield, as Bujin's neck snapped up with such force, that his neck was broken before his body had fallen upon his backside. When his monstrous form struck the rest of the metropolitan landscape, an intense wind rippled through, flourishing Gohan's stoic blonde bangs and his orange gi.

Gohan sighed, as he reached out with his senses to check up on the other battlefields, to see if he was needed elsewhere. It didn't take long, as his eyes darted out momentarily to see the giant form of Piccolo, roaring out as he fired an explosive beam at his position. The following explosion wiped out the center of the city, and also sent his master's form reeling back, even as he shrank.

"Piccolo!" He cried out with sudden fear for his friend and mentor's safety. With a brief roar of excess Ki, Gohan rocketed up into the air, bursting towards the battlefield his comrade had been battling. He only hoped he wouldn't be too late.

"Come out, come out, come out, wherever you are?!" Bido jeered with a menacing tone. Though he was bleeding, bruised, burned, and scarred, he still felt his power thrum with every heartbeat he possessed. Having taken the fight to the two humans, he realized with sadistic joy that they had used up most of their energy combating him earlier.

Though he had sustained a lot of external damage, none of his energy had been reduced more than half, still plenty to give his enemies the lethal inevitable end they deserved. He knew it was a good thing to use an explosive wave just before he hit the ground, to dampen the explosion that would follow his descent.

Now, they were hiding, having already struck the bald one and briefly sparred with the black haired one for a minute, before he got past his guard and sent him reeling. A piercing Dodon Ray caught him in the heel, causing him to double over, and allow them to scamper off to safety.

Now, pissed more than ever, he began looking around for his prey, while occasionally discharging a blast of emerald energy to demolish another structure, one after the other.

Tien peered his head around the corner, hearing the distant Bido get closer and closer. He and Yamcha currently took refuge in one of the half collapsed buildings, the shadows giving them good camouflage from a distance, but he knew it wouldn't be long before they're forced out of their place of refuge.

"Well, it doesn't seem like we're going to last much longer. Hopefully Trunks or Gohan will fair better than us and give us a helping hand, eh?" Tien mused aloud, looking over at the surprisingly quiet Yamcha. But what Tien saw, was him far from giving up.

Yamcha had gotten on one knee, and seem to have been holding his stance for a good two minutes, as he clasped his left hand over his right upraised hand. What Tien saw was astounding, as what appeared to be crackling white light coalescing around his body, and swirling around the surface of his hand, before transforming into a blue-white sphere of energy. Sweat poured down Yamcha's brow, as he added the finish touches to his greatest weapon, seemingly harnessed within only a few minutes time.

"W-When did you master that?" Tien asked with widened eyes of surprise, as well of relief to see they had a chance.

"When you guys were busy training to reach higher multipliers of the Kaio-ken, I was studying on controlling it. At the same time, I found out that it became natural for me to gather the planet's energy and fuse it into the palm of my hand. Condensing the energy seems to take less time than merely expanding it," Yamcha spoke with a smile as he explained. Looking down as the glowing sphere that crackled and hummed softly, he bowed his head, as he spoke softly, "I know this may be asking a lot...Tien...but can you just get that guy's attention enough so you can use the Solar Flare?"

"I can do that," Tien nodded with a smile, before steeling himself.

"Just keep him distracted for like fifteen seconds, and I should be able to line this bad boy up to fire, okay?" Yamcha spoke with seriousness, but still held his cocky grin as he stood up onto his feet.

"You got it!" Tien gave him a thumb's up, before he walked out as quickly as he could. Seeing Bido in the distance with his back turned, the three-eyed man smiled deviously. Charging up a normal Ki blast in his right hand, he threw it at his backside, before jumping up into the air and gunning it as fast as he could.

"What the-?!" Bido, having obviously felt the blast hit his bare back, winced as he turned to see the bald man take off into the air. Growling, he flexed his fists before pointing out all ten of his fingers towards the airborne warrior, lighting the tips with crimson energy. When he had a good read, he shouted aloud, "Brave Gatling!"

Ten beams fired from his fingers like gunshots, homing in on the target, and aiming to strike him from the sky. As Tien preformed a few dazzling flips strafing maneuvers, the pain in his muscles came back, allowing two of them to penetrate his left arm and skin his right knee. With a mighty fall, he crash landed into a pile of rubble, made from the ground zero of the Super Spirit Ball's explosion.

Bido was upon him within a moment, slamming his foot into Tien's back, ushering a scream of pain from the ruthless blow. Repeatedly grinding and slamming his foot into Tien, Bido smiled viciously as he grabbed a hold of the back of his head, to turn the broken man to face him.

"You gave me a lot of misery and pain, worthless garbage. I'm going to repay you for everything you've done, hahaha!" Bido laughed darkly, as he began to crush Tien's head from behind.

Tien however had two moves to make before he felt he was done. With as much as he could muster, he reared back his left leg and swung it towards Bido's crotch area as hard as he could.

The affect was surprisingly more than substantial.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!" Bido's eyes bugged out and his voice comically screeched aloud in pain, forcing him to use his spare hand to cover his wounded man package. Vegeta's earlier strike still hadn't recovered, and the kick just now, reawakened those painful sensations once more.

Then Tien raised his hands up to either side, as he cried out, "SOLAR FLARE!"

"AAAAAAARGH!" Bido's eyes became blinded as well, forcing him to throw Tien aside as he nursed his seared eyes and his swollen groin. Kneeling over in writhing pain, he was now completely open for an attack.

"TAKE THIS!" A distant voice cried out, as Yamcha soared into the air with the baseball sized orb of blue-white energy in hand. Thrusting his palm, he discharged it towards his enemy within his scope, "RAPID SPIRIT BOMB!"

Bido didn't have time to turn to face the attack, or figure out where it came from. By the time he felt the heat upon his backside, it was all over. With a tormented and enraged scream as his body was slammed into the ground before becoming enveloped in a cocoon of searing electric light. Within a matter of seconds, the spirit bomb detonated in a vibrant display of crackling energy that poured up and out within a power explosion.

Yamcha barely had time to pull Tien's limp body out of the way of the blast, before the shockwave sent them tumbling head over heels. Crash landing into a mostly demolished building, being half buried by rubble and dirty. They went limp and accepted their incapacitated states, as their bodies heaved from the effort they went through into defeating their enemy.

"We did it," Yamcha said with a happy, exhausted grin on his face, as he rolled onto his back, as Tien did likewise, "I can't believe...we won..."

"See? Just...keep training...and...we'll...eventually...surpass...an yone...heh," Tien spoke with a half smile of his own, wincing from the last of his spent energy having left his body.

"Yeah...if only we had Krillin here, this would be a full celebration," Yamcha closed his eyes in thought as he leaned his head against a large piece of debris.

"Yeah, where is that guy?" Tien asked, trying to see if he could reach out with his senses, "the guy must be far away or I really am out of energy...or you know who swept him off his feet and out of the Tournament grounds?"

"Lucky bastard is probably being carried off by the dame right now," Yamcha pouted his lips, frowning at the thought.

"Hey, you might get lucky. Who knows? After this Tournament ends, you might get yourself a girl who can appreciate you, huh?" Tien spoke enthusiastically, tried to encourage his friend.

"That's as likely as you getting back together with Launch," Yamcha quipped.

Tien quieted down, huffing as he remembered his bipolar girlfriend, and how his death at the hands of Nappa affected their relationship. He tried contacting her, he did, but she never returned his calls nor even paid attention to him. He never once tried during the brief amount of time before the Cell Games started, nor these past six months.

"Hey, I'm sorry man," Yamcha apologized, when he heard Tien's solemn silence take hold of the air.

"Don't be, its probably for the best," Tien sighed, closing his eyes and allowing rest to take over him.

Even in the wake of distant explosions, he found a certain measure of peace, that they did their part in helping out.

Everything burned.

Piccolo felt like everything on his body was on fire. As his eyes opened, he concentrated his energy on regenerating all of the tissue that had been ripped and burned up by the explosion he and 17 produced. He looked around through the thick black haze the smoke created, as a defining ring of fire enveloped the outer crevices of a large hole from which the blast burrowed Bojack into.

The fact he didn't get attacked so soon after the blast, felt good to the Namekian. It meant he had actually done some real damage, and maybe given the Herasian leader a moment of pause to reconsider his tactics.

When he felt his skin fully healed, he looked down to see his entire gi that wrapped over his torso had been burned to ash and his lower legs were shredded to near disrepair. Despite the lack of worthy attire, he felt confident in himself to check on 17's status as well.

Leaping over the large chasm, Piccolo landed over to where 17 was. He saw that the teenage cyborg was hurt, but not too badly. Flickering energy crackled around his body, showing telltale signs of a barrier being enveloped not but a few seconds after being hit by the blast. Still, his arms were burned and his entire jacket and shirt was burned to mere tatters of its former sleekness.

"You owe me...Piccolo," 17 coughed up, as he winced at the pain writhing up and down his arms, sitting up to face him, "this is...a...$300 jacket, and the rest wasn't cheap...either!"

"You can worry about your sense of fashion, after I confirmed our enemy's condition-" Piccolo began to speak, before being interrupted by a ghastly sensation.

VOOM! Turning around his head to look over his shoulder, he gaped as he saw Bojack rise from the smoldering crater, covered in a bright emerald-white aura, surrounding his now bulkier green chest. With bright red hair and a renewed malicious grin plastered on his face, the menace of men and the bane of gods had surfaced to show them their true despair.

"What the hell? He should be dead from that last blast, not powering up!" 17 uttered aloud in annoyance and alarm.

"This is the power I used to frighten the gods and overpower their best forms of containment. They trembled before my might, relying on their master to do battle with me as they cowardly fled to their planets to seal me away. Unfortunately for you, with no Kai and no fourth planet to create the Nexus Prism, you are as good as dead," Bojack flexed his muscles as his blazing aura crackled with telltale signs of ebony bio-electricity, thrumming the air with his power.

"This is bad..." Piccolo sweated nervously in the face of the demigod standing in front of him, "if only...only there was another way..."

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Their form of salvation, however, would come in the form of a ear-piercing cry, bring bout of familiarity and nostalgia to the Namekian master. As he looked over, he could see Gohan, hovering a mere dozen meters away, unleashing his full power to the surface and not holding a single iota back. His aura engulfed the air and land in flames, his hair stood vertically straight, coursing with thrums of bio-electricity as the rest of his skin did. Then,

When that power stabilized, the Super Saiyan 2 made itself known. Gohan to fixate a vicious snarl towards Bojack, before he pointed small hand towards the much larger Herasian, "Leave them alone, bastard! You're fight is with ME now!"

Bojack had joined his two would-be victims in utter silence.

His black, cold eyes dilated at the sight of the burning, bright aura that the young half-Saiyan created. He found himself confused, having believed only Vegeta to be capable of such power. Was he confusing two signatures for being only one? This changes things...but not by too much. Allowing himself to elicit a smile, he realized the boy's power may be high, but he was confident in his own strength to overcome it. This boy was far from being the god-king, let alone his master. How much trouble could he be?

"Very well, boy," Bojack turned away from Piccolo, raising himself to the air, hovering a good distance from the ground as he approached his opponent. His staunch, green being easily being four times in mass in every way to the young Super Saiyan. His body itself glowed, underneath a fire of violet-white energy that burned from his own pores, as vividly as the red pigmented hair that coiled with black bio-electricity. His smile was menacing and his gait imposing, threatening, everything a real bully would be.

Contrary to this being of evil, Gohan held nothing but a passively calm, determined stance. Glistening with incredible power that boiled to the surface of his body in a display of golden energy, flourished with much higher intensity with a series of crackling blue tendrils of bio-electricity. It looked as if he embodied the personification of rage and righteousness, as he glared evenly and without trembling at the being of evil in front of him.

The two glared, clenched their fists, expanded their auras and finally pulled back their fists to strike each other at the same time...

A/N: End Part II

As explained in the last chapter, THIS is Chapter 8, but Part 2 of 3 sections dividing up the enormous former Chapter 7. This is to better emphasize the story without exhausting the reader, as I took the time to read it several times, and I recognized its length to be pretty dramatic. While keeping true to a movie format, this chapter is split up, for those who rather read in a comfortable, and reasonable episodic manner.

Please leave reviews and comments, new readers, for those of you who wish to express your thoughts and comments of what you thought of the following chapter.