Author's Note: Hey guys! I'll make this very short and sweet this time. Forgot to mention this last month, but this story is over a year old now! I remember starting this story all the way back in June of last year as a project of mine, but I'm glad to see that this story is doing great! I'm very happy to see that you guys like how it's going so far! Other than that, I think that this arc is going to be one of my favorites! And I hope it'll be yours too. Without further ado, let's continue with Dragon Ball Shinsei!
Chapter 15:
In our last entry, we see that a spaceship has come crashing onto the Earth, alerting the Neo Z-Warriors of their presence. Ryuko, Oritsu, Letuce, and Vejin all fly together. B'az heads down from the lookout and heads towards the ship's location. Who could these mysterious creatures be?
They all arrive in a grassland surrounded by cliffs and mountains. The spaceship's door makes a clicking noise before it opens. Within the ship would be four figures coming out. They all wore some kind of thin armor and had a noticeable symbol on their chests. It was just a purple letter V. They investigate the nearby area before running into the Neo Z-Warriors. Their expressions shifted from curious to serious. Letuce and Oritsu step in front of Ryuko, Vejin and B'az. Letuce questions them: "Who are you guys? And what business do you have with our planet Earth?" They all stare at the saiyan, until one of them spoke: "We're mercenaries for hire, kid. We were sent to this planet to pursue our target." This group has the appearance of a namekian combined with a serpent kind of look. The person that spoke out to them had a rather slim appearance, as if his arms and legs were almost as thin as his bones. His head was larger than the others. Oritsu chimes into the conversation: "So you say you're mercenaries for hire. Then, why are you here? And who is your target that you're hunting down?" The more feminine looking mercenary stands next to her comrade: "We already told you why we're here, dummy. We're after our target." Oritsu responds: "Okay, well who IS your target that you're after?" The third subordinate decides to say his piece as well: "Like we're gonna let you know. Since when do you people become so nosy with our business?" The feminine merc interrupts the third subordinate: "Oh please Slyther, just calm down. Surely this job won't be much of an issue." The third one's name was Slyther, the scout of the crew. He looked rather normal amongst the four, responds to his comrade: "Mmba, the whole point of this operation is to get our target, kill him, and leave. It's that simple!" The female merc's name was Mmba, the stealth expert of the mercs. This leaves our large-headed mercenary the only subordinate with no name for now.
However, a looming presence would tower over the three, standing tall behind them. The last person's power was so immense it left shivers through all the Neo Z-Warriors, and even his own comrades. While Ryuko wasn't as nervous as Letuce, Oritsu, or B'az, there was one person who wasn't afraid. Vejin stared this looming presence down with a prideful smirk, seeing he'll be having an excellent battle against him. Slyther and Mmba quickly learn their place from this presence and stop bickering: "K-Kobra! Sorry! We didn't know you left the ship!" The large-headed fellow just rolled his eyes: "Those two seriously bicker too much…" Slyther and Mmba hear this: "WE CAN HEAR YOU KONSTRIKTA!" Our large headed fellow is Konstrikta, the brains of the operation. Leaving Kobra, who is the leader of this group of mercenaries. Letuce just sighs: "So what's your guys' deal? And answer the question! Who's your target!" Kobra wastes no time in answering: "He's our target…" He points directly at Ryuko. All the Neo Z-Warriors were in utter shock at this revelation! B'az was speechless at this fact: "Ryuko..You're the target? Who could be after you!?" Ryuko is confused at why it's him: "I-I-I don't know! I was raised here on Earth! This shouldn't be happening right now!" Vejin looks over at Ryuko: "Perhaps it's something that dwells before your time on Earth…But, how should I know…" Kobra interrupts their chat: "Here's what's gonna happen. Hand over Ryuko immediately, and we'll leave. If you don't, then you will all fall here on this rock..Your call."
In a moment of complete unison between the five warriors they all shout:
"WE REFUSE!"
Kobra just sighs: "I should've known you wouldn't be so quiet about it…Venom Mercs. Get your job done, and fast…" The other 3 nod: "Yes, sir!" Slyther, Konstrikta, and Mmba dash towards the five swiftly. B'az, Oritsu, and Letuce would clash with the three instantly, kickstarting the fight to defend Ryuko at all costs.
Kobra opts to sit out of this sense of combat, as to him, it feels rather useless to exert that much strength to kill one target. Cutting back to the fights, they've been split into separate groups. Oritsu vs Slyther, B'az vs Mmba, and Letuce vs Konstrikta. Although, with their extensive training, our Neo Z-Warriors are more on the losing side, as the mercenaries prove to be too much at times. Oritsu goes in for a straight kick to Slyther's chest, but Slyther evades the attack with ease, giving him room to punch Oritsu right at his jaw. Slyther jabs at Oritsu's chest several times, before finishing the assault with a one inch punch, knocking Oritsu back to a tree. Slyther states: "Hmph…You lot are a bunch of pushovers..Looks like we'll be leaving here with more than one body" Oritsu gets back up and rushes back into the fight.
We cut over to B'az and Mmba's clash. B'az is extremely even with his match as they each share blows towards each other. Mmba starts to get irritated: "You really are a tough cookie to crack, aren'tcha?" B'az replies to her: "I never said that this would be easy for you. I will make sure that you leave our comrade alone." Mmba scoffs at this: "Hmph! Please. I can work my way around this.." Suddenly, Mmba had vanished from thin air! B'az was left stunned by this: "What!? She's disappeared!" All of a sudden, B'az was struck from behind, leaving a blast mark on his back: "GAAAAAAAAAGH!" Mmba revealed herself: "See? You couldn't even track where I went! This is gonna be a breeze!" B'az notes this in his head: "So her power is some kind of camouflage, or invisibility..I'll have to keep my eyes peeled to stop her in her tracks…"
We head to Letuce and Konstrikta's battle. Lettuce has been getting pummeled down by Konstrikta. Konstrikta tells his opponent: "I must leave you no openings..I've done my research on this planet, and the warriors here still have remnants of saiyan DNA. We must leave you no room to recuperate!" Konstrikta knocks Letuce back with a backhanded fist, before firing a volley of blasts. Letuce has little to no recovery room, so he gets hit my a majority of the blasts before putting his guard up a few seconds later. Letuce gets back up on his two feet once more, but Konstrikta blitzes over to Letuce and kicks him up in the air. Letuce in retaliation to Konstrikta flying towards him lunges out with a headbutt. Both Letuce and Konstrikta end up with a bump on their heads. The both cry: "Ouch! What the hell!" They both stared each other down before they clash once again.
With all of that going on between the six of them, we cut over to Kobra by his ship. Ryuko and Vejin walk towards the leader of the mercenaries and confront him. Kobra just bats one eye over to the approaching duo, shrugging it off. Vejin was the first to speak up: "Well now, you certainly got quite the posse with you, hm?" Kobra stays silent at Vejin's comment. Vejin continues to talk to Kobra again: "Not much of a talker, hm? Alright then. Let's get straight to this, shall we?" Vejin immediately rushes in before Ryuko tries to reach out: "Wait, Vejin no!" However, Vejin was already next to Kobra, but Kobra just smacks Vejin far from the battlefield. Now that Vejin was out of the picture for the next minute, Kobra immediately heads to the offensive and goes to attack Ryuko.
However, Ryuko quickly evades the attack, as it grazes by his cheek. Kobra continues on his air tight assault against Ryuko, leaving him no room to recover. As Ryuko just barely makes it by each attack he asks the main question to Kobra: "Why are you doing this? Why do you want to kill me so badly!" Kobra answers with a cold response: "We're mercenaries kid. Someone hired us to kill you." Ryuko responds to this answer: "Then who hired you!? Who wanted me dead!" Kobra vanishes and ends up behind Ryuko as the battle between the two goes quiet. A slight gust of wind passes by before Kobra speaks again: "The man named Bruzzell is the one who sent us…" Ryuko raises an eyebrow at the name Bruzzell. But, all of a sudden, Ryuko's eyes go dark. He gets down to his knees, and sweats profusely. Ryuko starts hyperventilating after hearing that name again. Through Ryuko's eyes, he sees the shadowy figure from his nightmare chapters prior. The same body shape, the same voice, everything about the shadow from his dreams was a reality. Kobra looks down on Ryuko with slight disgust: "Seems you can't even handle hearing that name. But, I have a job to do here." Kobra gets ready to strike the open Ryuko, however Vejin makes it back in time. Kobra gets slightly agitated after Vejin's return, but stops his pursuit.
Vejin wipes the dust off his face after Kobra's attack: "Damn. That was a lot more than what I expected." He pans over to Ryuko, seeing him undergoing what seems to be a panic attack: "Ryuko? Hello?" He snaps his fingers in front of his face, but to no avail. But, Ryuko mumbled to himself very softly: "This can't be happening…No no no…Why him? Out of all times…" Finally, Vejin gets irritated seeing Ryuko stuck in this state he punches him in the back of the head: "Would you quit it!" Ryuko finally snaps back to reality: "Ow! What the hell man!" Vejin helps Ryuko get back up: "What's gotten into you? He hasn't even landed a blow on you, yet you go on your knees for death. You better start talking." Ryuko immediately rebuttals: "It's not that I'm worried about, Vejin! It's something far bigger and dangerous that could happen!" Vejin chuckles a little: "Really? That's what you're worried about?" Ryuko snaps at Vejin: "IT'S SERIOUS VEJIN! IT'S A PERSONAL MATTER THAT COULD CAUSE EVERYTHING I KNOW TO BE GONE!" Vejin stops messing with Ryuko and notes the serious tone and firmness of his voice: "Alright. Apologies. We'll talk about this later…" Ryuko focuses back to Kobra: "It's fine Vejin..But yea, we'll talk later."
As Ryuko and Vejin charge in once again to fight Kobra, we head back to the Neo Z-Fighters. Oritsu and B'az would be fighting against Slyther and Mmba respectively. Overtime, Oritsu has lost his footing severely against his opponent. Slyther looks disappointed to see that his adversary is already done for: "That's really all you've got? What a joke…If you just stayed out of our way, we wouldn't have to kill you, but. A job is a job." Slyther condenses his ki into two arm blades as he charges head on towards Oritsu: "DOUBLE ANACONDA SLASH!" Slyther forms an X shape with his forearms, ready to slice at Oritsu. All of a sudden, Oritsu grabs both of Slyther's arms in an instant. It's as if, Oritsu has obtained a second wind! Slyther was surprised to see this: "What? So you've recuperated, eh? Fine then, let's-" Oritsu immediately shattered the ki blades by crushing them himself. Slyther was even more shocked at this surge: "What!? He broke my energy blades!?"
Oritsu began to change in tone. His posture changed to where he hunches over, grabbing his head. His energy changes color to a lime-green color as a sphere of energy surrounds him. In a burst, Oritsu unleashes all of his power as the sphere expands and disperses. Oritsu is coated in a very thin green aura, his hair is in a slightly greener tone than normal, as well as a little spikier. While it doesn't look like much, Oritsu's strength has increased significantly. Oritsu stares down his opponent: "This is what my true power is!" Slyther's expression went from shocked to stoic in a second. He knew he had to take out Oritsu then and there, or it's his head.
With B'az's encounter, he's having a hard time tracking Mmba down due to her enhanced camouflage abilities, leaving her trace and energy covered. B'az has his guard up, but Mmba attacks from the side and kicks B'az in the chest. B'az gets knocked into some rubble before getting back up. This time he doesn't use his eyes to look for Mmba. Instead he uses his ears. Some say namekians have an incredible sense of hearing to where they can hear a drop of water fall from thousands of miles away. Within his head space, he visualizes Mmba accelerating all around B'az. He begins to hear footsteps from a certain direction. B'az doesn't open his eyes but turns his head in that direction. Mmba gets caught dead in her tracks: "Shit! Busted!" She quickly changes direction, and vanishes behind B'az. However, B'az grabs her from behind. He reopens his eyes and Mmba reappears right before him. Mmba struggles to break free from B'az's grip: "How did you even find me!?" B'az just pulls her slightly towards himself: "Simple really. Namekians have quite the hearing." In that instant he extends his arm outward, as it stretches all the way down and crashes into a boulder. B'az retracts his arm and returns to normal. "You may be a worthy opponent for me, but I'm afraid you stand no chance in your camouflaged state" B'az tells to Mmba.
Mmba wipes the blood off her lip as she continues her assault against B'az to no avail. Now that B'az knows her strategy, he easily predicts her moves. Mmba bites her lip in anger: "You leave me no choice, Namekian…THIS IS IT! VENOMOUS BLITZ!" Mmba no longer uses her camouflage state, but instead, she relies on her sheer speed to appear invisible. B'az drops his guard for a moment at how fast Mmba has become. In that instance, Mmba strikes at B'az's arm, clawing at it. As soon as the attack made contact, B'az's arm began to decompose. Mmba reappears in front of B'az: "That was just a taste of my power, honey. You aren't standing a chance." As the venom decomposes B'az's arm, he uses his other arm to cut off the decomposing one, stopping the spread from happening.
Back at Capsule Corp, Vegeta Jr would be doing some office work with Kiki. Goku Jr pops in through the window: "Yo, Vegeta!" Kiki jumped after hearing Goku Jr suddenly appear in the window and fall behind. Goku Jr laughs this off: "Heheheh! Sorry Kiki! Here." Goku Jr helps her back up and reorganizes the papers. "What is it now, Goku? Another one of your infamous chit chats, while the boys are out fighting some new opposing force?" Goku Jr doesn't know how to respond other than: "Uhhh….maybe?" Vegeta Jr sighs: "Make it quick, I gotta run these documents over to the office quadrant in 20 minutes."
"Alright then." Goku Jr replies."Those boys really have improved significantly huh? After the whole Leech fiasco, they really took their training to the next level after these few months." Vegeta Jr raises an eyebrow: "So, what's your point?" Goku Jr answers his question: "Do you think they can reach that level?" Vegeta Jr paused to ponder for a second. He had to think about it, but came to an answer: "To be blunt with you, Goku, I do and don't see them at that level yet. It'll take some serious incident to kickstart it." Goku Jr shrugs it off: "Eh, that's true I guess." However, what the duo didn't know is that their conversation was about to be cut short. A new threat began to make its way to Earth, in search of someone. However, they weren't searching for Ryuko.
Goku and Vegeta Jr were left taken aback by this new presence that outweighed the Venom Mercs. Vegeta Jr notes: "Wh-What power! I haven't felt anything like this in quite some time!" Goku Jr's expression went from carefree to serious and cautious. Vegeta Jr sees this: "Goku, what's going on? You haven't been this tense." Goku Jr looks to Vegeta Jr: "I know this energy..I know it all too well." Vegeta Jr asks Goku Jr: "You know who he is?" Goku Jr states: "Yea, I do…I fought him all those years ago." The massive power heads towards the Venom Mercs and the Neo Z-Fighters. Goku Jr quickly takes flight and exits: "Sorry, Vegeta! Gotta leave early! I can't let him near the boys!" Vegeta Jr heads to the window before he's stopped by Kiki: "Goku, wait! What are you-" Kiki interrupts Vegeta Jr: "Sir, you can't just leave now!" Vegeta Jr clenches his fist before turning around: "Right…I suppose we should get back to work" He then speaks to himself in his head: "You better come back alive, you bastard."
Goku Jr begins flying towards the battlefield at high speeds, but it'll take a few minutes to get there. Back at the battlefield, we look at both fights between Oritsu and Slyther, and B'az and Mmba. After Oritsu's sudden power change and green aura, he quickly dashes to Slyther, throwing a punch. Slyther blocks it, but Oritsu pours in more power into the attack, resulting in Slyther's guard being broken. Oritsu proceeds to unleash several punches and kicks before drop kicking Slyther into a mountain. On the other side of the spectrum, B'az is currently waiting for an opening to strike from the ever so agile Mmba. Mmba quickly grows arrogant: "Seems you can't keep up with my speed. Here's another…VENOMOUS BLITZ: SIXTEEN POISONOUS STRIKES!" She quickly dashes at B'az and attacks all around B'az fifteen times, saving the sixteenth and final attack as a double handed strike to B'az's abdomen! B'az was left with poison across his body, slowly decomposing. Mmba laughs at B'az: "So sorry, Namekian! You won't be able to live after my venomous blitz." B'az heads to his knees as his body eats itself away: "Tch…Dammit.." Mmba puts two fingers right above his chest: "This next venom strike will head straight to your heart and kill you instantly. Do you have anything left to say before I kill you, hun?"
B'az answers her: "Yeah…Catch.." He quickly slices his arm off that's still covered in venom and chucks it at her face, giving her a taste of her own medicine. She screams in agony: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHH! MY FACE! MY BEAUTIFUL FACE! LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE!" Her face begins to decompose in front of B'az. He releases a swift pulse of energy to disperse the venom from his body, and regenerates quickly after. B'az successfully turned the tables against his opponent: "Kind of fitting, yet ironic that you are defeated by your own attack. But allow me to stop your pain and suffering." B'az charges up a ki blast with both hands. The blast resembled that of a flame growing brighter and brighter, before he releases it all: "Fortune….FIREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Mmba's body would be disintegrated into ash after the blast.
We head back to Oritsu who has Slyther on the edge of the can see the death of his comrade in the corner of his eye: "Mmba! Damn it…ALRIGHT SAIYAN! THIS IS IT!" In one burst of power, he pushes Oritsu off of him. Oritsu doesn't flinch at Slyther's full power, but remains calm. Slyther turns his arms into ki blades. As Slyther plants his feet into the ground, the ground crumbles before him until he charges full speed to Oritsu. He began to twist his body as he points his arms forward, in a drill like formation as he shouts: "FINISHING MOVE: FIERCE ANACONDA SLASH!" In that instant, Slyther's body and attack transform into a snake-like figure as it charges to Oritsu. Oritsu holds two ki blasts in hand as he charges towards his opponent: "CRIMSON…CRUSHERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!" But, instead of utilizing the blasts, he closes his fists as the energy covers them with a red and green glow. Slyther makes his approach quickly as he's right in front of Oritsu: "DIEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Oritsu ducks under the snake, and aims for Slyther, uppercutting him out of his attack in an instant. The impact of the first energy coated fist severely broke Slyther's ribs and resulted in internal bleeding. Oritsu then hovers over Slyther and uses the other energy coated fist to clobber Slyther into the ground, resulting in a crater left over from the impact. Slyther was out of commission almost instantly after the second strike. He was left with a huge indent of Oritsu's fist on his head, which was the killing blow to the mercenary. Oritsu heads back to his normal state once again.
After the two fights, B'az and Oritsu regroup. B'az takes the lead: "Alright, we need to go help out Letuce and fast." Oritsu nods to B'az as they make their way. However, the unknown force that Goku and Vegeta Jr were able to detect earlier makes its presence known by arriving in the middle of the battlefield. Our Neo Z-Fighters were left in complete shock, whilst the only one who really kept their composure was Kobra himself. But even he was amazed at this massive power. The unknown force is revealed to be a man with blue skin, and green hair, wearing a dark and slim set of armor. This man also wields a spear as his weapon of choice. The man speaks and looks over across the crowd: "Where is the man known as Goku Jr?" Ryuko would be the most shocked out of everybody, seeing as this man has some score to settle with his grandfather. But, Goku Jr arrives on time, before any action takes place: "Looking for me?" The man began to devilishly smirk at the sight of him: "It's been quite some time, hasn't it, Goku?" Goku Jr tells him: "I knew that you'd be hanging on to life after thirty years..I thought I finished you off for good." The man chuckled a bit after hearing that. "You thought wrong, Goku." The man states. "I'm alive and well, and looking for my revenge.." Ryuko shouts towards his grandfather: "Just who is that grandpa! Is this some former enemy!?"
Goku Jr nods to his grandson: "Yeah..This was a former enemy for when Vegeta and I fought against an evil empire thirty years ago..Kurvos.." The man's name is revealed to be Kurvos, the vengeful warrior to a fallen empire!
The Lost Warrior: Saito (#2)
In our last entry, the mystery saiyan began to pursue Saito down after knowing of his plan to go after a Saiyan on Earth. The mystery saiyan bellows through the hallways of his ship: "Come out, Saito! I know you're hiding close by!" Saito would be hiding within one of the recovery rooms as the saiyan runs past the room. Saito quickly makes a break for it in the opposite way. But in that instant, the saiyan hovered over Saito in an instant: "Where do you think you're going!" The saiyan grabs Saito's head and begins to crush it. Saito screams and hollers in pain. He instantly kicks at the saiyan's face to let go of his head.
Saito fires a blast at his eyes to temporarily blind him before running away once again. The saiyan grew furious, but regained his composure instantly as Saito was a mere gnat to his plans. While the saiyan is able to walk around the ship in a leisurely stroll since he can take his time. Saito on the other hand would not stop running. Unlike the saiyan, he starts feeling fear and begins to hallucinate that he's surrounded by the saiyan, leaving him no way out.
The saiyan makes his way to the center of the ship. It was a rather large room that had the ship's main reactor right below the room. The reactor was covered by a very thick shield that not even a warrior like Saito can shatter. He'd push a button and he'd be on a communication call with the same person as last time. Saito would once again make his way back to where the saiyan was. Saito accidentally makes a noise noticeable for the saiyan to hear. He turns his head to see that nothing was there. He doesn't bother to check it out further, since it was probably the ship anyways. Saito holds his breath until he exhales and listens in. The voice from the other end of the communication line speaks first: "So our target is this saiyan. Hate to ask again, but why exactly him?" The saiyan answers the man's question: "It's a personal matter that I can't do myself. Hence, why I hired you to take care of it for me."
The voice tells the saiyan one more thing: "Alright. I won't dive any further as this is business. But, what is our target's name?" The saiyan responds: "The name? Well…His name is Ryuko…" Saito notes to himself in his head: "This isn't looking good…I have to stop whoever is heading to Earth to kill this Ryuko! I can't let the same thing happen again like on Yardrat!" The saiyan tells the voice: "Well, I will make sure you get your payment when the job is done, Kobra." The voice turns out to be Kobra's! Kobra responds to the saiyan: "We appreciate you using our service…Bruzzell.." The mystery saiyan reveals himself! He is Bruzzell!
Chapter: END