I do not own Dragonball Z, Death Note, Batman Beyond, Justice League, Teen Titans, X-Men Evolution, Bleach, Yu Yu Hakusho, Ghost in the Shell, Fairy Tail, or Darker than Black
Chapter 23: Line in the Sand
Caliwone and Helena appeared on the planet called Mopai, the planet that currently was occupied by four Celestials. Even knowing what to expect having faced these Celestials several times now, Caliwone had to admit that the sight of a twenty thousand foot tall creature was staggering. Still, Caliwone knew that its height was of no real consequence. With the ability to manipulate all sorts of matter, the ability to change its density and size could not be any more difficult that it was for him to raise or lower his power level.
The Celestial called Eson stepped forward at their arrival, slamming its staff down to stick in the ground and raised both hands palms out and clearly not noticing or caring that it destroyed several housing structures of some kind. There was a long, low bleat from Eson that resounded over the landscape and bounced off of the mountains in the far distance.
"L," Caliwone said. "Deploy Team Three to make sure that all of the inhabitants are out of harms way."
"Understood," L said. "Team One is also on standby to assist if you need them. Or rather, Jean Gray says that she can copy herself and send her clone down to assist you if you need her."
Caliwone snorted softly. "Keep her on standby in case this is a feint. The rest of you will not be needed for this confrontation."
"Of course," L said dryly.
Eson bleated again, clearly not liking his first statement being ignored and lowered its arms.
"We are beyond words, creature," Caliwone said. "It is clear that we cannot coexist together. And I am nothing if not a survivor."
In unison, gold energy began streaming off of Caliwone's and Helena's bodies like trails of smoke gradually getting thicker. Red energy began mixing in with the gold, looking angry and threatening until with a shockwave and flash of light, Caliwone and Helena transformed together; Caliwone's red hair and slightly slimmer form of his Super Saiyan God form and Helena into her Bankai Super Saiyan 4 form.
Eson seemed to understand. He took hold of its staff and stepped back into line for a moment before the Oneg the Prober and Arishem the Judge split off to either side, and the big one, Exitar the Exterminator took a long stretching step forward, cutting the distance between them in half with the one step.
"I hope you are ready for this," Caliwone said, throwing Helena a challenging look. "I don't want to have to step in and protect you again."
Helena shot him a coolly amused look of her own. "You worry about yourself. What do you say to the first one to kill two wins?"
"Hn," Caliwone said, turning his attention back to the Celestials. "I am taking the big one, though."
"Sure," Helena said with a snicker. "As long as you remember that Exitar still only counts for one."
Caliwone smirked and exploded forward toward Exitar just as its big footed thudded down deep into the ground and causing a plum of dirt to fly into the air. Caliwone fired a ranging shot of energy to help him define the edge of the giants shield and rocketed upward. He broke through cloud layer after cloud layer before finally meeting Exitar face to blue and gold face. It's armored face, as expressionless as the rest, eyed Caliwone from its aggressive looking mask before it took its massive hand and swatted at Caliwone.
Caliwone smirked and vanished, using his incredible speed combined with his mental capacity to speed up his mind to easily dodge the now sluggish moving attack. He reappeared, spinning and flipping his body around to face the Celestial again and launched himself forward. His mighty fist slammed into the shield, the air still rippling from the blow even in the thin upper atmosphere. The Celestial turned its head and ignited fire where Caliwone had been.
He skidded to a stop in the air untouched and clapped his hands together. Pulling them apart, a blue pinprick of energy glowed and sparked before Caliwone lifted his hands over his head and blasted his Burst Rush forward. Blue light eclipsed the sky, bathing everything within view in an electric blue glow as the blast hit Exitar. Caliwone abandoned the attack as through his connection with it, he could feel it connect and halt, and flash stepped away just as Exitar's hand grasped at where he been.
Helena barely had an opportunity to glance up at the blue tinged sky as both Arishem and Oneg took turns launching world ending level attacks at her. Helena's fur rippled in a still unsettling way as her body moved faster than she ever had before, dodging and deflecting everything she could up and out of the atmosphere.
She glowered up at Caliwone briefly, annoyed that he would go after the big one right off the bat and leave her with three Celestials on her own. Luckily, Eson the Searcher appeared to be quite content watching the battles unfold.
She vanished and reappeared above the two, spinning her body and crossing both of her arms over her chest. As her view came back around to the Celestials, she infused her hands with as much energy as she could manage and swept her arms around, sending a sizzling crescent shaped blast of energy arcing down toward her enemies. Her jaw dropped as she felt the energy release, forgetting to regulate the power she now commanded. Lucky for her, the attack hit right on the mark and blasted the two Celestials backwards, their feet digging trenches in the ground from the force.
She let out a breath, knowing that had she missed with her ill regulated attack, the whole planet may have been cut in two. Still, the fact that that same power had hit both Celestials and hadn't even knocked them down was a tick on the impressive list. Smiling darkly, Helena dove back down and attacked Arishem. With a two handed blow, she struck its shield behind its head, trying unsuccessfully to drive all of her strength into a single pointed attack and get some kind of purchase.
Abruptly, Arishem's head swiveled around to look at her with suddenly accelerated speed. She met its eyes but before she could react and speed up her own mind, Arishem struck her with speed that she had not yet seen from a Celestial. The attack sent her hurtling toward Oneg who struck her down into the ground with shattering force. Lifting a leg with the same amount of speed, it crushed down onto her.
Arishem was there in an instant and the two began alternating stomps before Helena was able to fire a reflexive blast of energy that sliced off both Celestials' stomping legs and allow her lift back to the air. She shook her head and her shoulders, freeing all of her hair across her body from dirt and in the time it took her to do that, the Celestials had both managed to grow back their appendages but that had reminded her of exactly how these shields worked.
Mentally bracing herself, she sped up her mind the second she saw Arishem move. It was just in time. He appeared in front of her in nothing flat, its enormous left arm raised and swinging down at her and even as she looked to see if its shield was down, she instead noticed something very peculiar about it. Smiling tightly to herself, she drifted in close before Arishem's fist could make contact with her and punched it straight in the abdomen at a very specific point. Her fist hit uncontested and Arishem doubled over, a staggering sight on a being so large. Helena darted casually backwards, a grin on her face as she arced around Oneg and looked to confirm her suspicions. For once, it seemed, Caliwone had not been completely correct about how these shields worked.
Without hesitating, she struck right at the crease she could see between where the shields were being generated. She punched through, meeting as little resistance on Oneg as she had on Arishem and sent the Celestial crashing face first into the ground.
From high up in the sky, Caliwone backed away from Exitar briefly, frowning and watching Helena's sudden ability to break through the Celestials shields with such precision. Clearly, there was a secret to them that he had missed. He looked back at Exitar just in time to see the monstrous Celestial speed up itself, crossing the distance and swinging fast at him. Caliwone dodged easily enough but the sudden change in speed from what Caliwone had become accustomed to was a bit disconcerting. He dodged twice more, then blocked an incoming swing high.
With a yell, Caliwone sent energy tracing up Exitar's arm via the physical connection they shared, bypassing its shields and literally blowing the creatures arm nearly clean off. The monster stumbled back, looking down at its dangling arm in what could only be seen as shock or surprise but Caliwone wasn't fooled. This wasn't the first time he had dismembered a Celestial, afterall.
Moving as fast as his mind and body would allow, Caliwone struck. On his third strike, the Celestial's shields winked back into place, bouncing Caliwone off into the air and away but Caliwone was already prepared for it. Before he had finished his flipping recovery, lightning was already arcing around his right arm as he charged the White Lightning. Just as Exitar looked around at him, its arm nearly completely reattached, Caliwone let his attack fly.
Like a thousand lightning bolts flashing out of Caliwone's hand and arm, the attack struck home, blowing through Exitar's shields and through its chest to the ground. The massive creature spasmed as the electricity disrupted all of its electrical signals from its brain, its arms jerking wide to the side. With his left hand, Caliwone reached back and pitched his Sphere of Destruction directly at the hole in its chest as the lightning faded. Just as it breached the hole, it expanded and imploded, sucking Exitar bit by bit into oblivion.
Caliwone reached a hand out toward it, feeding it energy as to not let the implosion diminish. It was a strain but Caliwone had more than enough energy to spare. Exitar's chest and shoulders peeled apart and vanished into the black hole that the Sphere of Destruction had become as did its hips. It's neck and thighs vanished as well and just as it's head disappeared, Caliwone was knocked backward by some invisible force. The unexpectedness and shock of it froze Caliwone's reflexes and he slammed deep into the ground .
Helena jerked her head around as Caliwone crashed, reflexively reaching out with her senses to make sure that Caliwone was alright. Like was normal with the Super Saiyan God transformation, she could not sense his God Ki and her distraction immediately cost her. Oneg's eye beams, so similar to Eson the Searchers she had seen used against her that first time, slammed into her full force. She was blasted backwards but unlike the last time which had nearly annihilated her spirit form, her body was significantly tougher. In the flow of power around her, she managed to struggle to a halt, using her aura to help push away the light to regain her orientation and then flared her power up to her maximum. In a burst of red infused gold, Oneg's attack shattered, rebounding lightly on the Celestial that it ignored.
Helena smiled, more than pleased to see how significant of a difference her Bankai offered. And from where he had been crashed, Caliwone's own red glow erupted from a collapsed mountain of rock and he too rose, his eyes shifting angrily over to Eson. Even as the battle paused for all members, Exitar's body completed its regeneration, stepping forward and for the first time let loose a deafening blast of sound that shook and split the ground under them all. Caliwone floated over to toward Helena, a frown creasing his lips.
"Was that Eson that caught you?" Helena asked as he came into hearing range.
Caliwone shot her a dark frown. "You were able to learn something about the Celestial shields," he said instead, ignoring her question. "Care to share?"
"You mean that I was able to find something out that you could not?" Helena mocked, a predatory grin on her face. "What will Vegeta say when he finds out?"
"Enough mockery, woman," Caliwone growled. "What is it you learned?"
Helena snickered and brushed some invisible dirt off of her furry shoulder. "Not much. Just that there are crease areas in their shields if you look for them."
"Crease areas?" Caliwone said, frowning.
"Yes," she said, turning her attention back to where Oneg and Arshem we standing. "Those areas seem to be significantly weaker and breaking through them is all but effortless."
"I see," Caliwone said, turning his head upward to look at Exitar. "I see no such creases. I cannot see its shields at all."
Now it was Helena's turn to frown. "What do you mean, you cannot see them? They aren't opaque or anything but they are still clear enough."
"Not to me," Caliwone said, and turned distrusting eyes on her again. "Are you still mocking me?"
Helena shook her head. "I am being completely straight with you. Maybe Exitar is different due to his size."
"Perhaps," Caliwone said, still sounding as though he did not fully trust her words. "We shall see." In a blaze of gold fire, he flew off.
Next to her, as if some ghostly image, she could see the spirit of Mangetsuken step forward. "Caliwone cannot see the shields the way you can," he said, looking at her. "You must be able to see them because I am able to see them."
"Thanks for letting me know that sooner," Helena said, bracing herself to jump back into combat. "And why exactly are you able to see them?"
"Between the two of us, we have access to every form of energy in the cosmos except God energy," Mangetsuken answered. "Living energy, Spirit energy, and Demonic energy."
"I know I have not lived a very good life, but I think Demonic might be saying a bit much," Helena retorted.
"The Demonic energy comes from me and how my vessel was originally made." Mangetsuken turned a look at her. "The combination of all three original planes of existence must be how we are able to see things usually hidden by the walls separating reality. In this case, those shields that they use have a specific resonance that our combination must able to see. Without the other, neither of us could see it at all."
"I see," Helena said. "Well, let's take advantage of it the best we can."
With another burst of fire, Helena shot off toward Oneg and Arshem.
Above her, Caliwone snarled as he darted backwards in the air. That damn woman and her made up chinks in the Celestials armor. As far as he could tell, the only times the body shields were down was when one attacked or when it was otherwise caught by surprise. Caliwone frowned suddenly. That wasn't right. The shields also failed when it was hit by a strong enough attack such as his White Lightning… or perhaps there was something indeed to what Helena had said.
He flickered across the sky at a speed that the Celestial seemed struggle to follow and let lightning arc across his right arm, building into the thousand individual bolts of lightning that was the signature of the attack. Perhaps it wasn't about strength, per say.
He back flipped away through the air just as Exitar's massive form hurled after him. Setting his stance, Caliwone fired, this time watching closely and speeding his mind up. With his own attack seeming to stretch out in slow motion, he could feel as each of the bolts of lightning that made up his attack hit but as his senses slowed it all down, he could tell that some were hitting the shield and others were passing through unhindered. Helena was right, there were gaps in its shield.
Caliwone released his mental hold on time and the bolts pierced through Exitar, impaling him again and flattening the giant onto his back, rocking the ground on which it landed for miles around. Without waiting or taking action against the obvious advantage, Caliwone darted right at Eson the Searcher.
Eson lifted its staff immediately as if knowing the mighty Saiyan was on approach but, like all the others, Eson was too slow. Caliwone ducked the initial blow and rounded to Eson's back, energy arcing from both of his fists and then let them fly. Thousands of bullets of energy crashed down on to Eson's back, ignoring the fact that Exitar was slowly rising to its feet once more. Caliwone grimaced, watching carefully for any of his attacks to break through the barrier. Helena had said she could penetrate the shields with ease if he could find the crease so he would blanket the area until he would he would find it.
Urameshi Yusuke watched the screens from behind L and Kurama with arms crossed and his eyes sharp. He knew what it was that Caliwone was looking for and wanted to be a second set of eyes for him. Unfortunately, his senses were also being sharply directed at Aizen who, as seemed always, was sitting in his chair like it was a throne, waiting to be called in by the Phoenix should there come an assault on the pillar they had been assigned.
Unlike him, however, both L and Kurama had their heads down and fingers skating across their innumerable keyboards, running through diagnosis and pattern analysis and who knew what else. Outside of battle, they could multitask, Yusuke could not. Still, his eyes caught the moment Caliwone's attacks started breaking through and the grin that formed on the mighty Saiyan's face told him that he had finally found the chink in the great Celestials armor.
"It looks like he found a way through," Aizen said, his tone sounding interested but not surprised. "This battle should be over soon. It looks as though I may not be needed after all."
"It certainly looks that way," Yusuke said. "We still need to find those last pillars so they can be protected and monitored going forward, though."
"That is getting a little ahead of ourselves, Yusuke," Kurama said, not looking up from his board. "These Celestials have not been defeated yet. And while I have the utmost confidence in our Saiyan friends, we have all had tides turn in the last second before. We need to stay focused on the present threats."
"Well said," L commented. "I am so glad to have at least one smart person on my team."
Yusuke let his lip twist but didn't bother to comment and for once was able to keep a snarky response in check. He did, however, bounce the back of L's chair as he moved closer to Kurama.
"I would appreciate it," L said, shooting a hooded look over at Yusuke, "if you would refrain from doing that."
"Any luck on identifying any new pillars?" Kurama asked before Yusuke could respond.
"It won't be long," L said, peering down at his monitors. "With the locating of the other three, I am finally being able to write an algorithm to speed up the search. In fact-" L said and cut himself off as a ping sounded on his board. "Here." With a swiping motion, L sent the coordinates over to Kurama's station.
"Sending Team Three down now," Kurama said. "They are away."
"One more to go," Yusuke said and glanced up at the monitor that had just winked on to show the pillar and the Saiyan's now guarding it. "Or if Caliwone and Helena are able to just kill these things, then the threat can be ended that way, too."
"Unless there are more of these out there in hiding," Aizen said casually and standing up. "Perhaps it be best to find them just to be on the safe side."
"And once we do," Yusuke said, a frown creasing his face, "we will be able to put an end to this chapter and put you back in prison."
"Home sweet home," Aizen said, turning his back to the remaining heroes and heading for the door. "How I miss all my darkness."
Caliwone cut off his barrage as he felt where the seam in the Celestial's armor was and tore after the tail of his final blasts with a streak of blue lightning clenched in his fist. Like a hot rock through wet paper, Caliwone punctured through ripped through Exitar's right arm at the shoulder. With a screech of not-quite pain and a final twisting motion, the enormous limb tore free of the rest of its body and landed heavily to the ground, causing even Eson the stagger a bit with the tremor.
Not pausing to give Eson time to intervene, Caliwone flung his Sphere of Destruction up at the ragged injury with his left hand and streaked at Eson. His concentration split between Eson and continuing to feed power to the imploded Sphere of Destruction, his Dragon Twister failed and faded from his right hand but that was alright. He didn't need anything quite so direct this time around.
Like a racing meteor of red fire, Caliwone arced his path down to the ground and tunneling through, using the innate force of his Super Saiyan God aura to do the work for him. He popped straight up underneath Eson, bouncing off of its shield with such force that it managed to destabilize the Celestial enough to prevent Eson from destroying Caliwone's Sphere of Destruction as it continued to eat away at Exitar.
Exitar's scream continued right up until its monstrous head was pulled into the vortex, its legs and left arm continued to flail, swiping at the imploding attack even as it progressed to its upper torso. It was taking too long, he couldn't keep it up with his focus split on fighting Eson and maintaining the attack.
Gritting his teeth, Caliwone slammed his shoulder full tilt into Eson's shields, staggering Eson down to one knee. Snarling, Caliwone arced around and hit it again from the side until Eson fell completely. Without hesitation, Caliwone whirled around, the Dragon Twister clenched in his hand and compressing the energy like a coiled spring. With a yell, Caliwone released the Dragon Twister and like a violently writhing tornado, lurched outward in a narrowly controlled wrath, tearing up the ground wherever it touched. Powerful though the attack was, it was slow, and the time it took for the attack to reach Exitar gave Eson the time to stand back up. Ignoring him and fueling his attacks as best as he could, Caliwone's Dragon Twister reached Exitar.
Eson bleated in distress as the attack hit home on the shield-less Exitar and shredding the Celestial into pieces that were swallowed up by the Sphere of Destruction. Even the disembodied arm of Exitar was dragged into the vortex and swallowed from existence. As the attacks faded from existence, Eson hit Caliwone in the back hard with its staff, rocketing the mighty Saiyan into large hill and burying him deep in a flash.
Helena was only able to spare Caliwone a quick glance of concern as she flew backwards, fending off multiple attacks by Oneg and Arshem. She spun in the air, changing her trajectory and letting loose a hail of energy blasts at the creases she could see. Oneg and Arshem dodged or deflected them all, alternating their temporal speeds and sending out counters of their own. Time and space seemed to warp around her as they manipulated reality around her as she furiously tried to not get caught. With another spin, she fired off her Noventa Cannon, allowing the initial burst of energy to fly high before falling back down to the planet as a hail of fire.
Narrowing her eyes, tired of the games, Helena sped her mind up to the maximum. Time seemed to slow to a snails pace, even managing to counter Oneg and Arshem's own time warping effects. As fire erupted around, and sometime on the shields of the rogue Celestials, bathing her entire planet view in red, yellows, and blacks. Her aura exploded around her and her frustration grew, feeling her power spike as she halted her retreat and burst right back at the Celestials.
It took the Celestials an extra long heartbeat to react to the sudden change but it was a beat to long. Like a bolt of lightning of her own making with green energy blazing in both of her hands, Helena tore through first Oneg, then Arshem's shields and bodies, blowing off limbs with a single blast as she passed through. Without pausing to look, she landed hard on the ground with her hands crossed over her chest. With a spin and a yell, Helena let loose with full power.
A wave of green planet killing energy blasted out in a flat arc laying parallel to the ground. It caught the Celestials, hesitating a moment as it met resistance, and then blasted past, leveling what had been a mountain range off in the distance to nearly completely flat glass land.
"Watch it!" Caliwone shouted down to her from high above the ground. "You nearly caught me in that!" Helena snarled up at him as she looked around for the remains of Oneg and Arshem. Dust clouded the area, making it impossible see.
"L," Caliwone said, floating down to near Helena's level. "Did she get them?"
"It is hard to say," L responded. "But, judging by how Eson seems to have stopped attacking, I would say it was likely."
Caliwone turned back to see that Eson had, indeed, halted. As it had in the beginning, Eson took his staff and impaled it into the ground to stand on its own. Beside it, looking like strangely growing plants, Oneg and Arshem enlarged to stand next to him.
"Likely, you say," Caliwone said coolly to L.
"Sorry about that," L said, just as coolly.
"You ready to go another round?" Caliwone asked, turning to look back at Helena as she matched his height. "Don't let your anger control you."
Helena shot him a look but the rage in her eyes was back to her normal level. "Stop harping on me being emotional, Caliwone."
"I am not," Caliwone said, returning her look then bringing his attention to the Celestials. "Your whole aura changed at the end there."
Before she could reply, Eson made a loud bleating noise, louder than before. After the echoes faded, the three Celestials vanished. The two Saiyans looked around, ready for an attack but they both knew that it was over.
"Ran away?" Helena asked, the shock in her voice giving way to anger. "Seriously?"
"L, were we able to learn anything?" Caliwone asked, the anger in his voice also beginning to creep in.
"I am not sure," L said. "Koenma is here and what he tells me is that the creature he found imprisoned in the Spirit Wilds made sounds similar to Eson. We will be trying to decode any meaning there might be to it."
"Great," Caliwone spat. "What a waste."
"Next time, use the stupid tech," Yusuke said. "Just a thought."
"Let's go," Caliwone snarled. "Hopefully, Koenma can do something useful here."
To be continued…
Perhaps Caliwone overestimated his abilities this time. However, that is one more Celestial down.
Is it possible that Koenma will have some insight? He has heard this language before.
Stay tuned. Only a couple of chapters left for Season 2.