A/N: Something screwed up the formating last try. For some reason, half of my quotation marks vanished. Ugh. I think I've managed to restore them all now, however, so let's try this again, shall we?

Also, a note for those interested, I recently made a short 'sprite movie' battle between Appla and Hotaru, just for fun/out of boredom. It is up on my Youtube account. Same username.

Chapter Sixty-three – The Beginning of the End

Bardock watched the ground shrink as he flew up higher and higher. He could easily sense Dabura, Nefaria, and three other powers that stood out amongst the masses. There were at least five thousand people on this world, though none of them all that powerful by comparison to him or the Mazoku. None of them would be even the slightest threat to him in Super Sai-jin. The two Mazoku who had sided with Quietus, however, were stronger than him.

"So exactly just how powerful are Dabura and Quietus?" he wondered, flying up past the sparse cloud layer and still going. The Spirit Bomb he'd be making would be huge, and the best way to make it unnoticed was to do it way above the surface, and so far there seemed to be no end to this world's atmosphere, and so no reason to not go higher and decrease the chance of being spotted.

As he flew he focused on the five powers that were above the rest. He'd have to keep close watch on the fight, just in case things went badly below. Dabura's and Nefaria's powers he picked out from the group easily enough. He'd been around the pair long enough now that their patterns were familiar.

He came to a stop in his ascent at last, now about fifteen miles above the surface. He figured this should be high enough to avoid detection. He had to admit, he was curious as to just how powerful this Quietus was. He could feel how calm and controlled the Demon's energy was on the surface, and how much it churned underneath that veneer. He was putting on a show of being in control, but he was on edge, itching to fight, and teetering dangerously close to an uncontrolled frenzy.

/Too bad I'm up here and not down there./ Bardock thought with a sigh as he raised his arms and sent out his thoughts through the link to the lower planes. His concentration faltered for a moment, however, as he felt the energy he was sure was Quietus's suddenly spike up, growing, matching, and surpassing his own maximum in just a few seconds.

And then, a churning and shifting of energy, the unmistakable sign of a transformation, and Quietus's power jumped up even higher. /Unreal!/ Bardock thought, eyes widening. In an instant Dabura's power grew to match and exceed it, though just barely. They were both nearly twice his own power. And Dabura had said he was weaker than Quietus, which meant that the Demon wasn't at full power yet.

Shaking his head, and mentally grumbling that he wasn't directly involved in the battle below, even if he wouldn't have a chance in a direct fight, he returned to the task at hand. He made contact with those in Purgatory and the Dead Zone after just a few seconds, and smiled. It didn't take any coaxing at all for them to yield up their energy, either, and his smile grew as he felt the power surging toward him at great speed.

/This could actually work!/ he thought, as the attack began to take form overhead. /At this rate, I should have something strong enough to defeat Quietus in about twenty or twenty-five minutes!/

XXX

Nefaria was happy that Neikan had been dispatched elsewhere. Even with her link to the Plane she'd been certain fighting both Aku and Neikan would be a losing battle. But with only Aku as an adversary, she felt she had a fighting chance.

/Though only because we are here./ she thought, as she readied to fight. /Anywhere else and I wouldn't have much hope of winning./

"You were fools to come back here." Aku said, smirking, his three rows of pitch black razor sharp teeth contrasting strongly with the alabaster white of his skin, and the red and purple of his robes. His eyes, perfectly round and solid black, were set almost on the sides of his head.

Those features, and the wide blunted snout that dominated the lower half of his face, came together to give the impression you were looking at a shark turned into man. But then, his race in the mortal plane was evolved from the creatures. One of the more ferocious and vicious races Makai had, and there were quite a few. And Nefaria knew first hand what it was like to fight them.

She could vaguely hear Dabura and Quietus talking, vaguely noticed their powers flare up, and vaguely noted that Dabura seemed to be the stronger of the two at the moment. But her main focus was on Aku, on his features, and on her own past. On all of the Shraken she had fought and killed, and on those few that had killed her.

"You were the fool to help free Quietus." she countered, forcing the memories of her history with the Shraken race back into the depths of her mind. Remembering that, now, would not be helpful. "I may be new to all of this, but at least I understand the bigger picture."

"Bigger picture, pah!" Aku snorted. "Worthless nonsense. All of this talk of 'maintaining balance' is just an excuse for the weak to hide behind. Dabura is too soft to be our leader. Though it's no surprise you sided with him, you're just as soft. Why such a pathetic wretch as you was chosen to be a Supreme Mazoku is beyond me. You forget, I know your history."

"Then you also know that this 'pathetic wretch' conquered your entire race by herself." she replied, smirking. "So I guess that makes you more pathetic."

For a moment Aku's sneer shifted into a scowl, but then changed back to a sneer once more. "Perhaps you did conquer them, but then you let them live and look what it got you. Dead, by their hand, and most painfully at that."

Nefaria shuddered involuntarily at the memory of her death, which broadened Aku's sneer. She forced those thoughts down, buried them, and focused her mind on the coming battle. Even with the fight occurring here, in her plane, the power difference between the two of them would make things difficult. She needed to be focused on the fight, not the past.

"Enough talk." she said, pushing off and charging in at Aku. "It's time to end this!" She lashed out with a hard left punch but Aku managed, just barely, to slip around the attack. His right knee shot up as he dodged, aiming for her side, but Nefaria leaned in and away and the blow just barely grazed her back instead.

Twisting around she thrust her elbow out and slammed it into the side of his head, causing Aku to stumble back a few steps. She thrust her other arm out and launched a blast of black and purple energy, but despite the blow to the head Aku reacted in time and deflected the attack away.

Nefaria's eyes widened first in shock, then in pain, as Aku moved in and quickly slammed a large foot into her stomach, doubling her over, then smashed an open palm down into the back of her head, driving her face first into the ground.

Too stunned to react fast enough the surging follow-up kick to the stomach caught her full on and knocked her into the air and fifty yards away before she fell back to the ground, rolled another ten, and came to a stop. Coughing and gasping for air, grimacing against the pain lancing through her stomach, she climbed back onto her feet.

Even as she turned to face Aku, who had yet to move again, or to even lower his foot from his last kick, she felt the pain and damage fading away as her body was restored by the power of the Mazoku Plane.

She had hoped her connection to the plane would boost her defensive capabilities more than they had, but judging from the damage Aku's attacks had done, it hadn't. The plane's power would heal her of any damage she received, at least for a time, but she didn't want to push her luck to see if it could revive her, too, if he got in a lucky killing blow.

/And, eventually, the healing will stop./ she thought. Her connection to the plane allowed her to absorb the ambient energy around her and stimulate a rapid cell division and repair process, identical in nature to the process she induced in others when healing them. So, in effect, her body was actually repairing itself as normal, just at an accelerated rate.

However, a body, even a Mazoku body, could only be stretched so thin before it hit the breaking point. Each healing consumed internal bodily resources. Fat stores, cellular base proteins, and so forth. Mazoku or not, she was still technically a living being, and like any living being there was a limit to how much cell division her body could achieve with a set amount of resources to use.

She considered all of that in the two seconds it took for her to stand back up again, a frown forming on her face. It looked like it was a very good thing that Neikan had been sent off. She wouldn't have had any chance at all against both Aku and him. As it stood, it looked like her chances against Aku were a lot smaller than she'd first assumed.

/Still, if I can anticipate his moves.../ she thought, slipping into a fighting stance. /His fighting style is a blend of the standard Mazoku style, Kenshouten, and the ancient style of the Shraken royal family. While the Shraken royal style I encountered was a more recent variation and development of the ancient style, Aku having died several million years before I was even born, there are similarities.

/Perhaps enough of them for me to pick up on, and allow me to anticipate his style./ she mused. /And it is perhaps wise, for those same reasons, for me to avoid the use of Kenshouten in this battle. He's seen me use my own style before, but I doubt he really paid it much attention./

"I can see you scheming over there." Aku called, smirking. "It wont do you any good, there's no plan to get you out of this one. You and Dabura were dead the second you returned here. I will crush you, Lord Quietus will crush that fool Dabura, and then there will be no one left able to stand against us."

Nefaria's frown faded away, dissolving into a faint smile. She knew the Shinkai mortals wouldn't have a chance against Quietus in a direct fight, and only if the stronger two worked together could they hope to take Aku, but it was enough to underscore to her how truly clueless and stupid Aku was.

Granted, she hadn't anticipated such powers from Mortals either, but at least she was intelligent enough to realize they could possibly, as impossible as it seemed, beat her in fight. Aku, on the other hand, was so full of himself, so arrogant, that he could sense Goku's power, and that of the Mortal he was fighting, and still think he was invincible.

As she pushed off with her left foot and surged in at Aku again her faint smile turned into a smirk. She was looking forward to seeing the look on Aku's face, and on Quietus's as well, when Bardock unleashed the attack he was forming. She had no love for Shinkai, but she'd been a fan of underdog causes since she was a child, when she had been the underdog.

Reaching Aku she lashed out with a powerful kick but the other Mazoku ducked under it, and right into her other knee. It slammed into his snout with with a resounding crack, and she was sure something had broken. Flipping over his head and coming down behind him she slammed her foot into his back and knocked him face first into the ground.

"It's pathetic." she said, turning to face him again as he rolled over onto his back. "Lord Dabura should have removed you the last time you helped Quietus. You're too narrow minded to serve as a Supreme Mazoku. Too dense to grasp the nature of the universe, of reality. Even now you're missing the big picture. Too focused on yourself to realize you've already lost, that you're already dead."

Aku snorted as he wiped some of his pale blue blood off his snout. "You're delusional." he said, climbing to his feet. "We've lost? I can't fathom how you've come to that conclusion. Our power goes well beyond anything Shinkai could dream of. Neikan will decimate any resistance it offers him."

Nefaria shook her head. "Just like your Demon army conquered Shinkai in less than an hour?" she asked. "That is what you said would happen when you tried to recruit me, is it not? And yet, not only is Shinkai not conquered, but it has launched a counteroffensive against you and Quietus."

"One that will soon fail." Aku said, smirking. "It's already stalled, now that those two Mortal's are fighting on Malchio's world."

Nefaria was about to say more but stopped as a new surge of power grazed her senses. The other Mortal they'd left behind, Gohan, had just dramatically increased his power. It was so close to Aku's, now, that she couldn't tell which was higher. But the increase was fleeting, gone after only a few seconds.

/What was that?/ she wondered, shocked. She could tell by Aku's expression that he'd not felt it. Likely he wasn't even following the battle unfolding on Malchio's planet. She shook it off, it didn't matter what had caused that spike, she had a fight to finish.

"You see?" she said, resuming the conversation she'd been having. "That is exactly what I'm talking about. But don't worry, you'll understand soon enough!" and with that she lunged in again.

"It is you who will understand soon." Aku said, blue light flashing in his right hand as a long metal pole took form. An instant later he was holding a four foot long Trident with foot long tines. "Understand that you are weak, and that you chose the wrong side!"

Nefaria's eyes widened and she ducked quickly, just barely avoiding being impaled on the points of the Trident as she flew under his jab, only inches above the ground. Passing him, she came back up and turned, landing a few dozen feet away from him.

The trident, at a total of five feet in length, was going to make things trickier. It would give Aku a much greater reach, make it harder for her to get in close. Getting it away from him wouldn't even work, he'd just summon it back to his hands again.

She frowned as Aku pushed off, charging toward her and pulling back his weapon arm as he flew. She ducked under the thrust of the trident and then came up, intending to pound an uppercut into his abdomen, but before she could make contact his knee shot out and caught her in the face, knocking her back.

The blow caused her to stumble a few steps, and her vision to blur. Her disorientation lasted only a second, but by the time it cleared Aku was on top of her again. She tried to dodge but wasn't fast enough and her eyes widened in shock and pain as the three points of the trident pierced through her stomach and out her back.

Aku grinned. "Understand now?" he asked, flicking his arm to the side and flinging her off the end of the weapon, a trail of bright red blood trailing after her as she flew a dozen feet, hit the ground, rolled a few more, and then came to rest on her stomach.

XXX

"I have to admit, I had not expected you to return here." Quietus said. "I thought you were too much of a coward."

Dabura shook his head in a mix of derision and disbelief. "Neither bravery or cowardice have anything to do with ruling the Realm, or how I conduct business." he said. "Rushing blindly into a situation is a sign of arrogance and idiocy, not bravery, and is the trademark of the selfish. I operate off of a higher doctrine, abiding by intellect and the good of the realm."

Quietus snorted in disgust. "Nothing but words spouted by the weak." he said. "Those who have power and yet cower in the corner instead of taking what should be theirs are weak, pathetic, and do not deserve the power they hold."

"Power is not authority, it does not give you carte blanche with the workings and order of the Realms." Dabura retorted. "Even I obey a higher power."

Quietus smiled. "Yes, I know." he said. The remark caught Dabura off guard, but before he could press Quietus about it, the Demon's power suddenly began to skyrocket. A second later he flashed bright red and instantly his appearance had changed.

His dull gray skin had turned blood red, his dark blue hair had turned leaf green, and the hair on his eyebrows had vanished. In their place a pair of brown bone horns grew out, running along the length of his brows and then hooking up off his head, like a V resting on his nose.

His eyes were no longer red, but pure solid white, and the black cloak he'd worn had fallen away. His muscles had bulked up and grown, his biceps now as big around as Nefaria's waist, and he'd grown a foot in size now standing 7 foot tall. A brown bone plate covered his chest and ribs, leaving only the flesh of his abdomen exposed.

But despite all of these changes, the most obvious difference about his new appearance over his old was the pair of red, bat like, wings that sprouted from his back. While he wore no shirt he had on a pair of black pants with a green waistband and cuffs. Dabura recognized the form from the last time they'd fought, though he still wondered where the Demon had obtained it from.

"This time you wont escape." Quietus said, his voice a low growl.

"You don't have what it takes to defeat me." replied Dabura. "No matter how much power you have."

"We'll see about that!" Quietus cried, lunging in. Dabura took a half step back, crouched, and then thrust his right fist up as he stood, launching a rising uppercut at the charging Demon's stomach. However, Quietus reacted quickly, grabbing Dabura's wrist before the Mazoku's fist made contact, stopping the punch. His other arm shot out, palm open, aimed for Dabura's chest. The Mazoku King stepped to the right, just barely slipping out of the way of the blow.

Dabura smirked, then, as the fist at the end of the arm Quietus held opened, black and red light flared, and the point blank blast slammed into the Demon's chest with a thunderous crack. The force of the impact drove him twenty feet into the air and broke his grasp on Dabura's arm. The Mazoku surged up after him, passed him, and then thrust his elbow down slamming it into the back of his opponent's neck, driving him back down into the ground.

/The arrogant fool is going easy on me./ Dabura thought, scowling. He'd expected Quietus's power to quickly climb up to the Demon's maximum as soon as the battle had begun, but it hadn't budged. At their current levels he had the power advantage. If he could capitalize on that edge, small as it was, the Sai-jin's attack would be unnecessary. /And if he launches it before Quietus is at full power, he may not make it strong enough to destroy him./ The first thought had made him smile a little, the second had him scowling.

By now Quietus had picked himself back up off the ground, and out of the small crater he'd formed on impact, and was looking at him, smirking. Dabura's eyes widened an instant later as the Demon's eyes sparked, and he quickly moved backward. He wasn't fast enough, however, and the twin beams of energy Quietus had launched from his eyes pierced Dabura through the left shoulder. Dabura felt the injuries vanish almost at once. While the entire Realm was his domain, and his abilities and capacity was enhanced everywhere, he had his greatest edge in the Mazoku Plane.

Here, alone of all places in the Realm, he was all but invincible. The power of the plane would work to heal him, as it would Nefaria, but the Realm also worked to heal and empower him separately from the plane. As much of an edge Nefaria had here, as quickly as she would heal from injury, he had it double. Twice the power, twice the resistance, and half the time to heal from any injury.

Though he had his recovery limits, too. Greater than those of Nefaria, because of his higher position in the hierarchy, but limits all the same. The last time he and Quietus had fought, it had taken only twenty minutes for those limits to be reached. He'd given the Sai-jin an hour long link to the lower plans to be safe, but he wasn't sure he could last that long. He was just about to charge down at Quietus when he felt a twinge of power at the edge of his senses. It was distant, one of the energies on Malchio's world.

/Impressive./ he thought, as he realized it was the other Mortal that had come with them, the younger of the three. His energy had just spiked greatly, just barely exceeding that of Aku's. How or why, he was unsure, and he felt it drop again only a few seconds later, and then decrease massively after that, though he didn't seem injured or drained. He'd noticed Malchio's power vanish following the Mortal's spike, and knew something would have to be done after this was over to compensate for his loss or Limbo would be in disarray before long. Still, as much as the power spike intrigued him on intellectual level, and Malchio's loss concerned him on a administrative level, there were other things that needed his focus.

He charged down at Quietus and the two locked into a close range exchange of punches, kicks, blocks and dodges. He could tell by the exchange that the Demon still wasn't giving it his all. It wasn't just the fact he'd still not powered up, either. He simply wasn't putting all of his effort into the fight. The fact that Quietus felt he could phone in the fight had him annoyed. The fact that, as things were going, he was right about that had him mad. He'd trained over the last two thousand years in case anything like Quietus happened again and it, clearly, hadn't made the least bit of difference.

/Then again, we Mazoku, just like the Kais, gain in power far more slowly than Mortals do./ He thought, ducking under a kick from Quietus, grabbing the Demon's foot, and then yanking him in toward him and smashing his elbow into the man's jaw. The blow snapped the Demon's head back but didn't seem to daze or slow him as he retaliated at once, smashing his other leg into the Mazoku King's side, causing him to gasp in pain.

Dabura released Quietus's leg, flipped over, thrust a hand down into the ground, and then sprung up into the air and back, moving away from his opponent. The pain lancing through his side had dulled within a few seconds, but had not left completely. Simple injuries, like bruises, would not be healed by the powers of the Realm or Plane. However, the cracked rib that had been the cause of his gasp, had mended. As he glared at Quietus he found himself wishing, much to his shock, that Muzai had not been... lost a few thousand years ago.

/As much as I would dislike relying on a Kai, even more than relying on Mortals, to help us, having him here with me would make this a far easier battle./ he thought. The Lord of Kais had been always a little stronger than him, though if he was remembering Quietus's full power correctly the Demon would have still outclassed even Muzai's maximum by a fair margin. Together, however, he was sure they could have dealt with him. He'd fought beside Muzai once before, shortly after becoming the Supreme Mazoku, and they'd worked surprisingly well together.

"Pah." he muttered, turning aside and spitting at the ground. /Maybe I'm getting soft in my old age./ he thought. /Missing that fat old fool./ He dodged to the side as Quietus, grinning, lunged at him, and just missed being punched in the face. He ducked under a kick, countered with a punch that was blocked, and then deflected another kick aimed for his head before smashing his knee into the Demon's fleshy abdomen. The blow drew a gasp from Quietus and knocked the wind from him. It was a small victory but, at the moment, he'd take whatever he could get.

Dabura took a step back then, stretched out his right arm, palm pointed at his opponent. "Desolation Wave!" he yelled, red and black energy flaring to life and erupting from his palm. Quietus reacted quickly, turning slightly to his left and bringing one of his wings around to block with. Dabura scowled as his attack hit the wing and stalled. He'd forgotten about this little nuisance. The Demon's wings seemed to be utterly impervious to damage, they could be used to block anything and everything without any issue, preventing even his strongest attacks from doing any damage.

The Mazoku let up on his energy attack, it was pointless to keep it up with the wing in the way, and lunged in close again. He reached his opponent in an instant and lashed out with a punch. Quietus's arm shot up and blocked it as the Demon countered with a kick but Dabura slipped around it and then spun and slammed the heel of his foot into his opponent's back, driving him forward. Turning to face him he thrust his arm out toward him again, palm open.

"Evil Blast!" he cried, a three foot wide red orb of energy suddenly forming in front of his hand and then shooting across at Quietus. There was a thunderous crack and flash as the energy impacted and exploded, the shock wave billowing Dabura's cape out behind him as he lowered his arm and then surged into the rising dust cloud.

XXX

Unknown Location

"Ma'am!" one of the techs called, twisting around in his chair to look behind him.

"What is it?" Raven asked, from where she sat in the seat usually occupied by her mate. She was currently the only part of the command structure in the room. Her daughter had gone off to train, likely to burn off the anxious tension generated by the closeness of their plan's fruition. Razor was dealing with matters outside their prison, though much closer at hand than the North Galaxy, working with Ozotto to prepare their fleet for the coming departure. And her Mate was going over the finer points of the last phase of their plan with their Generals.

They'd discussed the plan in detail before, of course, but it had under gone several revisions in recent years as events in the North Galaxy had unfolded in slightly unexpected ways. In that regard, at least, Slug had been right about their plans. When things didn't go as anticipated they simply adjusted to compensate, which they'd been doing more frequently in the last two decades than in any of the thousands of millennia since they'd first set the plan into motion.

"A pure energy build-up has been detected." the tech reported. "The reading is faint, hard to pin down. It has to be emanating from Makai."

Raven took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It seemed that the moment of truth was finally at hand. All of their planning, all of their plotting, all of their careful organizing, it all came down to this. Something completely and utterly out of their hands. They'd orchestrated the order and powers of the galaxy to meet their needs, manipulated the biggest players in both Realms, and still it all came down to this. All they could do was hold their breath and cross their fingers that enough energy was gathered to achieve their goals.

Win or lose, the outcome of the battle occurring now in Makai didn't matter to them. The victor would be dealt with eventually either way. Her only stake, their only stake, was whether or not the Spirit Bomb currently being generated would reach sufficient power to break the Black Field, to free them. Nothing they'd done thus far would matter if that singular event did not occur. If that happened they would have to back shift again, slip some unknown amount of time into the past once more and plot, orchestrate, and manipulate some more, tweak things into the state they needed.

All well and good, in the end. They would be free eventually, it was only a matter of time. But the time was the problem. Kais, she was sick of this place. She wanted OUT. Solid ground, fresh air, sunshine. She suddenly found herself missing them more now than ever before, more than she'd ever realized she did, she could. Longing for them like nothing else before. Her hands clenched, gripping the arm rests of the chair, and her back stiffened as she tensed. This had to work, now, on this try. She couldn't stand another decade of this existence, let alone the millennia that would likely be needed to correct any problems that arose at this juncture.

"What's the reading?" she asked.

"Two hundred and fifty thousand RADs and climbing quickly." the tech responded. "At current rate of increase, I estimate complete field collapse in approximately twenty-two minutes."

/Twenty-two minutes./ Raven thought, jaw clenched, heart racing. In twenty-two minutes she would know if she had freedom or if she and her daughter would be forced to wallow in this hell thousands of years more while they made adjustments to history.