Dragon Ball Z: Dynasty – The Season of Dragon Ramen
Written by: Feraligreater328
Overseen by: StevenBodner and SparkerLightning
Chapter 9: Beast
Back on Dragon Rock…
Ghastel cackled as he poured an entire barrel of sake down his gullet. "Stupid Earth-dwellers turned tail and ran the second they faced the power of the great Ghastel! Too bad you missed it, Shula~"
Shula groaned, holding his hand over the bandage covering the left side of his face. He sneered. "Damned monkey brats!"
Gola placed a commiserating hand on his friend's back. Melee rolled her eyes as she drank. Ghastel sighed. "Shame we couldn't string 'em up! Gonna have to remember their faces for when we-"
A cry cut him off. "GHASTEL! THEY'RE BACK!"
Ghastel sat up. It was indeed the same group of Earth-dwellers again. Except, this time, they didn't jump in for a surprise attack. They marched through the crowd with determined looks on their faces. The lead one, that woman who called herself Gyuhime's daughter, glared right at Ghastel with fire in her eyes. They stopped in the middle of the crowd of gobsmacked partiers and Chi-Chi glared. Something seemed different now. Ghastel chuckled. "Well, well! I never expected to see you fools again! Not after-"
Chi-Chi spoke bluntly. "There are two choices in front of you, right now."
Ghastel flinched, fear once again festering in his eyes at Chi-Chi stared a hole through him. Chi-Chi continued. "Option 1: you give me me mother's polearm and you and every other demon with murder in their hearts goes back to the Demon Realm until you can learn to behave. Option 2: I take my mother's polearm back and your nasty little thug minions head home on the end of my comrades' fists. Choose."
A hushed silence fell over the crowd. The wicked fires of the Demon Realm shined on Chi-Chi's horns. She was dead serious. Ghastel cleared his throat, then gave a nervous little laugh. "S-Seems like you might need another dose of my Demoniac Downpour! Let you friends suffer and then you all can die in despair!"
Ghastel heaved the drum off of his back and then began to hammer the same raucous beat from before. The sky grew dark, clouds rolled in, black lightning flashed, and then it began to rain. Neither Chi-Chi, nor Chika, nor Tien, nor Chiaotzu, nor Piccolo flinched. The water cascaded down on them, an none of them so much as shuddered.
The gathered demons all gasped. Ghastel shuddered. "Wh-What?!"
Chi-Chi nodded back to her entourage. "You said when you did this technique last that they would be okay so long as they were granted permission to enter this place by someone with recognized demon blood. Well…"
Chi-Chi punched herself in the chest. "I'M DONE HIDING FROM MYSELF! I AM CHI-CHI, DAUGHTER OF THE GREAT GYUHIME CHIKA! I AM A DEMON, DAMMIT! AND I WELCOME MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY TO MY HOME!"
Behind her, all of Chi-Chi's companions smiled. Ghastel snarled. "S-So what?! I'll just redo the spell! I'll drum out a new tune! I'll-"
In a flash, Chi-Chi's foot was splitting right through the center of Ghastel's drum. The rain immediately stopped. Ghastel shrieked in horror and Chi-Chi glared at him. "Option 2, then."
Before the demon brute could react, Chi-Chi charged forward and unleashed a savage assault.
Left jab to the ribs. "GIVE!"
Right kick to the upper arm. "ME!"
Palm thrust to the chin. "MY!"
Right hook to the jaw. "BIRTHRIGHT!"
Ghastel went flying back, crashing into the rock. He groaned and Chi-Chi struck a fighting stance. She glared at Melee, Gola, and Shula. Melee shook her head. "Nope. Not our circus, not our monkeys."
She grabbed Shula and Gola by the collars of their shirts and leapt over the side of the platform. She looked up at Chi-Chi from the ground below and shot a thumbs up. "We'll talk once this is settled. Kick his ass, girl!"
Chi-Chi nodded as Ghastel stood up. The demon snarled and tossed his two clubs aside. "YOU WANT THE GYUHIME'S TREASURE?!"
He summoned the polearm from thin air and charged Chi-Chi. "THEN TAKE IT!"
Down below…
As Chi-Chi fought her battle up above, down below the others were enjoying a fight of their own. Piccolo, Tien, and Chiaotzu were putting the minimum effort into their blows, sending drunken demons flying back without much strength at all. Piccolo sneered. "Without that blasted rain, this is embarrassing."
Tien caught a punch and easily snapped the offending wrist, flipping the screaming demon over his head and then flinging the poor bastard into a crowd of his friends. "These don't really seem like the warrior types."
Chiaotzu kicked one across a table. "We're basically bar bouncers at this point."
He looked around. "Hey, where's the kid?"
Standing on a nearby table, Chika picked up a crock of some kind of sauce. She stuck her finger into it and gave it a taste, then smiled and nodded her head. "Okay. That tastes good. I'll have to remember that and get Mommy to help me later. Daddy'll love it!"
A demon rose up behind Chika, pulling both arms over his head for an overhead smash on the unsuspecting toddler. Piccolo elbowed the demon in the jaw. "You're not fighting, kid?"
Chika shook her head. "Nope. Nobody here can hurt the four of you. I don't like fightin', so I'm trying all these yummy foods and stealin' recipes to make for my Daddy later~"
A demon tried to stab Piccolo with a knife, he caught it in a headlock. "Not a fighter, eh?"
Chika chuckled. "No, silly. Daddy's the fighter! Big Bro Gohan likes studyin', Goten likes games, I like cooking with my Mommy~"
Piccolo was a tad taken aback, but then he smiled. "Excellent! Follow your own path!"
Then he tossed the demon in his grip into a charging crowd of others.
Back on top of the platform…
Chi-Chi deftly dodged strike after strike from the furious, fearful Ghastel. She glared at him with disdain. "You could just stop this, you know? You know I'm stronger than you! Give it to me and shove off!"
Ghastel snarled. "Never! I'm a real demon! I'm the next Demon King! Not like you or yer human lovin' mother!"
Chi-Chi arched her back, just missing a stabbing blow, then responded with a punch to the center of Ghastel's face. He flinched, blood pouring from the corners of his eyes. Then he raised the polearm with a mighty roar and tried to slash down on Chi-Chi with it.
Easily, she caught the weapon by its wooden haft and held on tight. Ghastel snarled and tried to yank the weapon from Chi-Chi's hands, but found himself unable. He looked up from the tug-of-war, wanting to snarl in Chi-Chi's face, but immediately came upon a sight which made him piss his pants.
Chi-Chi stood there, a determined expression on her face. But, she didn't look the same as before. Her eyes were once again blood red pools with lunatic spires swirling in them. Her formerly ebony black hair was now a flickering sea of pure white, as if her hair were caught in some holy fire. Chi-Chi took a deep breath and then sighed. "You know, you talk about what a human lover my mother was as if she were some sort of traitor. As if, because she and my father fell in love, she told him about every secret of demonkind. But…my dad doesn't know about this…"
Chi-Chi looked down at her hands, stronger than she'd ever dreamed they could be. She felt her power and smiled. As it turned out, Piccolo wasn't embellishing at all. She was strong, fierce even. And she felt deep within that she could easily become even stronger if it ever suited her fancy. Chi-Chi grinned from ear-to-ear. "My mother was a Beast Demon. One who could command legions of lesser creatures with little more than a thought. This is a form she never shared with my father. She only ever shared it with me. And I am her daughter!"
Ghastel flinched, and then he began to cry out in anguish. Smoke rose from his palms where he was touching a treasure that proved to be far above his register. He couldn't let go, he couldn't pull away. Chi-Chi's smile faded. She looked furious. "Now, I will repeat myself once more…GIVE ME MY BIRTHRIGHT!"
Ghastel burst into pure, white flames. He shrieked as if death were the least concern he'd ever felt and flew backward, crashing into rocks and continuing to burn. Chi-Chi watched until nothing but ash remained, and then she marched to the edge of the arena. Raising her newly acquired polearm into the air, Chi-Chi engulfed it in her beastly flames and slammed down the more ornate form of her mother's naginata. She shouted in her most authoritative voice. "EVERYONE CEASE THIS VIOLENCE AT ONCE!"
The rabble down below, alongside Chi-Chi's travel companions, screeched to a halt. They all looked up at the regal silhouette of Chi-Chi above them and then all of the fearful demons took a knee. Instinctively, they recognized that a higher power had arrived.
Piccolo, Tien, and Chiaotzu stared in awe at the change that their friend had undergone. Chika, still stealing brief tastes of the party spread, smiled a wide, beaming grin. "That's my Mommy~"
Chi-Chi put a hand on her hip and spoke in a steady, intimidating voice. "Hear me! And hear me well! I will not be repeating myself!"
The demons tensed up. Chi-Chi continued. "I am both a proud demon and a proud human. I love my heritage from both sides. But, love is not something I give lackadaisically! It would do my heart good to see a day when humanity and demon-kind could share this realm and the next. Working together and supporting one another. But that can never happen if you come here with intentions of malice!"
SHe scanned over the shivering crowd. She sighed. "If you wish to come here, to this realm, whenever Dragon Rock does and throw a party, I see no issue with that. But, you do not come to this Earth to wage war! We don't put up with that from our own kind, and we will not put if with it from you all either! Just like Cell, just like Frieza, just like the Saiyans and the pretender demon before you, if you come to this planet and try to do anything that Ghastel suggested, then I will have no qualms if my peers were to give you the same violence you plan to inflict!"
Chi-Chi frowned, looking genuinely sad down at the demons below. "M-My mother never wanted to harm humans. She wanted to live on this planet in peace and solitude. She didn't deserve to die because people assumed that she would automatically be violent towards them…so, I'm asking you all to please not help support such awful rumors. Please…"
The demons were all silent. Then, Melee spoke. "I agree."
Everyone turned their attention to Melee as she walked up behind Chi-Chi. Chi-Chi turned to face her as well. Melee sighed. "Ever since Dabura disappeared, we've started to get more and more greedy. Without him roaming the Demon Realm and tormenting us, we've started to become tormentors ourselves. While I have no particular love for humanity, I don't think that morons like Ghastel should be taking charge of us."
She turned to Chi-Chi. "I take it you have no plans to stay here and try to govern the Demon Realm yourself?"
Chi-Chi threw up her arms in an X-shape. "Nope! Not at all. I just wanted my mother's naginata and to pick some Tatsuenoki Mushrooms! I have a family to tend!"
Melee chuckled. "Fair enough. Then, go collect your mushrooms. We won't cause anymore trouble."
The two demon women smiled at each other, and then Chi-Chi looked down to her comrade. The white fire in her hair extinguished and her ebony locks draped over her shoulders, across her horns, and down her back. "Did you hear that, guys?! You know what that means?"
Piccolo, Tien, and Chiaotzu all smirked. Chika jumped up in delight and shouted in her loudest, most joyful voice. "RAMEN TIME!"
