As the words rang out, Evan's whole body came to a standstill as he watched Weiss squirm in Turles's grasp.
"Let her go!" Evan ordered loudly.
"Why?" Turles replied casually.
"She's just a pathetic insect. Why would it matter if I just tightened my grip a little more?" Turles continued as his hands closed even further around Weiss's throat with careful precision.
"Although…my reflexes aren't quite like they used to be, especially the ones in my hands. I could just let out a quick sneeze and…then…well…" Turles said with a light chuckle at the end.
"We'd have a real mess on our hands then, wouldn't we, Mato?" Turles finished with a wicked smile as great beads of sweat slipped down Weiss's forehead.
While Evan did remain stationary, the ground beneath him cracked and heaved as the dead leaves around him levitated into the air, quickly crackling to life in a fiery blaze before immediately turning to ash and floating away on the wind.
As his golden aura rose higher and higher, surpassing the surrounding trees in height, the only part of his body that was actively moving was his right fist, which trembled with fury. Watching the display unfold, Turles narrowed his gaze.
"This proves it…I couldn't believe it at first, but you've actually grown to care for these weaklings…Explain yourself!" Turles loudly questioned the young Saiyan.
"Why would you lower yourself to work alongside such miserable creatures?" Turles continued with a touch of disgust in his voice as he looked at Weiss briefly.
"Because I'm trying to be better than the warrior that I used to be. To atone for what I did in my past." Evan replied back with an angered look which caused Turles's jaw to drop in shock.
"Atone? Have you gone soft?!" Turles yelled out accusingly, utterly baffled at what he just heard.
"And why is it that your hair is golden? Is this some kind of alien trick that you picked up while you played pacifist on this miserable rock." Turles asked as he gestured toward Evan's hair.
"I think you already have an idea as to what THIS is." Evan threatened.
"No…" Turles barely managed to say as the pieces started to click in his mind.
"No!" Turles shouted loudly.
"There's no way that's possible! How could some bleeding heart disgrace have achieved the power of the Legendary Super Saiyan?!" Turles continued on in a mixture of confusion and anger.
"You'd think I'd tell you!? What you should be focusing on is what I'm going to do to you if you don't decide to release her and leave! After all, we both know just how strong the legends claimed that this form was." Evan demanded with a furious look on his face.
"Don't think you can order me around!" Turles yelled back as he gestured toward Weiss.
"I still hold all the cards here!" Turles argued.
"So what is it that you want? I already told you that I'm not joining your crew!" Evan replied back as he grimaced at Turles.
"Not like that, you aren't. I simply refuse to let what could be the only other member of our entire race waste his talents for such…idiotic ideals." Turles spat out.
"It seems like I'll have to force you to see things my way." Turles said as a smirk crossed his face.
"And don't worry, Mato, I'll let her go. I just need her long enough for me to do…this!" Turles announced as he lifted his other arm up and opened his palm, creating a floating, white ball of blutz waves in his hand.
Tossing the sphere high into the air, Turles closed his fist as the ball rapidly expanded in size. Bathing in the blutz waves, Turles smiled as his grip loosened. Releasing Weiss from his grasp, Ruby used her semblance to rush forward at super speeds to grab the huntress as Turles began to increase in size. Sliding along the ground, with Weiss in her arms, Ruby hugged her friend close as she stared at her friend worriedly.
"Are you ok, Weiss?" Ruby said with a concerned look.
Taking in a few deep breaths of air, Weiss tried at first to articulate her thoughts, her body still shaking with fear, before simply responding with a quick nod.
As the light of the blutz wave ball bounced off of Evan's special goggles, the young teen channeled his Ki directly into his left fist.
"Everyone get back!" Evan shouted as he flew forward toward Turles.
Punching the vicious Saiyan in the face, Turles reeled back in pain from Evan's strike. By this point though, Turles had already doubled in size. Sending another punch forward, Turles simply took the second attack, barely even wincing from the devastating blow.
As the iris and pupil vanished and the white sclera of his eyes shifted from white to pure red, Turles watched as Evan swung one more punch forward. Catching the punch in his ever growing hand, Turles chucked Evan high into the air. Feeling his mouth and jaw stretch out into that of an ape's, Turles could do nothing but laugh as his voice deepened.
"We need to get moving, now!" Yang said, practically lifting Weiss onto her feet as the team turned away from the growing villain.
Running as fast as they could, Ruby and the rest of her team rushed to avoid getting crushed by the beast's massive footsteps.
As his muscles thickened and fur began to grow on every part of his body, Turles's advanced armor miraculously kept up with the incredibles changes and increased in size along with him.
Reorienting himself midair, Evan was in shock as Turles was now big enough to be at eye level with him that high into the air.
"Now then, let's see if you can handle the full power of a TRUE Saiyan warrior!" Turles challenged as his voice boomed throughout the forest.
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"His power has skyrocketed!" Evan thought to himself with a worried look on his face.
"I have to go for his tail! It's the only way I can beat him!" Evan decided as he rocketed down toward Turles's waist.
As Evan descended through the sky, Turles swung his massive fist at the teen, forcing Evan to redirect his course. Leaping from the top of one tree to the next, Evan attempted to gain some distance. Turles, despite his massive size, pursued the young Saiyan at blazing speeds.
"You'll have to try harder than THAT!" Turles shouted out.
"Damn it, he's too fast! I can't get a clear shot off on him!" Evan frustratedly thought as Turles punched into the ground ahead of the teen.
As trees and dirt was sent flying in all directions, Evan took to the sky as Turles stared him down.
"And the tree's still draining the planet's nutrients while I'm getting my ass kicked. Even if I somehow beat Turles in his Great Ape Form, I doubt that I'd have enough Ki to destroy the tree, even with Elm and the others helping me out." Evan said as Turles opened his mouth and unleashed a massive ball of Ki, one the size of a small house.
"But maybe I don't have to…" Evan contemplated as he avoided the attack and looked toward the Tree of Might.
"Maybe it's finally time I tried out that technique I've been working on." Evan thought to himself as he let loose a barrage of Ki attacks at Turles.
Uprooting and kicking trees away with every step, Turles swept his right hand forward toward the young Saiyan.
"Here he comes!" Evan continued as he focused his Ki.
Grabbing Evan out of the sky, Turles held him firmly in his grasp.
"It's over." Turles announced as he sneered at Evan.
As Turles waited for the Saiyan to struggle and writhe in a hopeless attempt to escape, he was quickly met with nothing. No words of vitriol, no shouting, just pure silence. In fact, for some reason, the teen had stopped moving altogether as soon as Turles had grabbed him. Leaning his head forward, Turles tried to discern what was happening.
However, as he moved in closer, he watched as Evan's body instantly changed. His skin and clothes rapidly turned a pure white while his hair changed to a light blue hue. Then in a blinding burst of light, Evan's body exploded, right in Turles's face.
"AAAGGGHHH!" Turles yelled out in pain as he instinctively held his hands up to his eyes in response.
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Now floating in front of the Tree of Might, Evan looked from far away as Turles roared in pain.
"Incredible! Looks like my afterimage kamikaze worked after all!" Evan thought to himself with pride on his face.
Putting his hands together, Evan began to charge up a Crimson Cannon as he pointed it toward Turles.
"You're finished Turles! That tail is as good as gone!" Evan yelled out at the top of his lungs.
Turles, only now able to barely see with his eyes, blindly opened his mouth and let loose a massive purple laser the width of a skyscraper in the direction of Evan's voice. As the laser rapidly closed the distance, Evan moved his hands to the right of him. Firing the Crimson Cannon off, Evan used the propulsion of his own laser to blast himself narrowly out of harm's way.
As Turles's laser made contact with the side of the tree, wood splintered and cracked as the laser cleaved right through it before causing a massive explosion in another part of the forest far away from the Tree of Might.
"YES!" Evan thought excitedly as he looked on at the massive hole in the side of the tree.
With his vision mostly restored, Turles gazed on at the partially destroyed tree, his body filled with rage.
"Rraagghh!" Turles roared as he leapt through the air, grabbing Evan with both hands before he landed.
"You're ruining everything!" Turles screamed out as he looked down at Evan whose lower torso was trapped in between Turles's hands.
"You think you can change?! That you can somehow redeem yourself and make up for all of the things you did working under Frieza's thumb!?" Turles questioned angrily.
"I can tell from your fighting skills that you've been through more than your fair share of battles, so let me ask you this: Even if you did do something good, does that suddenly wipe away the evil that you've done?" Turles proposed as his grip began to tighten around the young teen.
"For every life you've saved here, you've killed 10 more in the past!" Turles yelled out as Evan desperately pushed against Turles's colossal hands.
"So you managed to save a town full of people, you've still destroyed dozens of cities without a second thought." Turles continued with a mocking tone.
"Even if you protected this entire planet, that doesn't mean you get a free pass for all of the other planets that you helped conquer and the species you've scrubbed out of existence!" Turles argued as Evan's arms started to give out under the pressure.
"Those races are all dead and gone, and no amount of "good" is going to bring them back. So when are you going to wake up!" Turles exclaimed as he finally brought his hands together.
"GAAAAHHHH!" Evan screamed out as the air filled with the sound of bones cracking and shattering.
"There's no point in trying to change. The only thing you can do is accept what you've done and embrace it. To take pride in what you truly are: a powerful and feared Saiyan warrior." Turles simply stated with as much certainty as one would describe fire being hot.
"The fruit from the Tree of Might is the only way to surpass Frieza. Don't you care about what he did to our planet, Mato…our people!" Turles questioned with righteous anger in his voice.
"OF COURSE I CARE!" Evan yelled out as he fought through the pain and raised his head up to stare down Turles.
"And trust me, Frieza's going to pay for everything he took from me!" Evan continued with an almost murderous look on his face.
"Maybe you aren't too far gone after all." Turles replied with a large tooth filled grin.
Turning toward Team RWBY, Turles threw Evan down toward the four of them like a pitcher throwing a baseball. As Evan crashed into the dirt, Evan raised his head to look up toward the four girls, only to see the same mortified expression on all of their faces. Upon closer examination, Evan saw them all looking toward his lower half. Trembling in pain, Evan turned to look down at his legs.
Both of his legs and feet were by all means: crushed. His feet were snapped and looked as if someone had folded them like a piece of paper multiple times over before unfolding them with the creases and folds still clearly showing. In contrast, his thighs and legs had been reduced to barely half their original width. Blood oozed out and trailed downward from numerous puncture wounds that, if he looked close enough, had bone barely poking out from a few of them.
"I'll give you one more chance: Crush these fools and I'll let you join my crew. We'll scour the galaxy for new members and planets ripe with nutrients for the tree! No one will be able to stop us, not the Galatic Patrol and not even the Frieza Force!" Turles exclaimed as Evan struggled on the ground.
Pushing through the pain and concentrating, Evan managed to float a few inches into the air as he looked toward Team RWBY.
"You're right." Evan replied with his head lowered, his voice barely audible to both Team RWBY and Turles.
In his palm, Evan produced a single large Ki sphere as Ruby shifted about nervously. Just as Yang and Weiss stepped forward to protect their teammate, Evan immediately spun on a dime and launched the Ki blast at Turles, the attack singing some of the fur on the warrior's left arm.
"You may be right that the good that I do now won't change the evil I've already done. But so what? I'm just supposed to give up!? Go back to being a cruel and heartless Saiyan, LIKE YOU?!" Evan shouted out defiantly as his aura spiked.
"I don't care if my fate's already been decided! Even if I did nothing but good for a CENTURY and I still ended up in the same circle of Hell as you, then I'd accept that. At least then I can't say I didn't try to make a difference." Evan continued as he looked daggers at Turles.
"You claim that the good I do today won't erase the sins of my past, but the opposite is also true! All of the horrible things that I did in the past won't cause all of the good that I have done to suddenly vanish!" Evan argued passionately.
"I accept what I've done, but I won't let it stop me from trying to bring some good back into this universe." Evan announced as he looked toward Team RWBY.
"I have you all to thank for that." Evan said as his voice softened before turning back toward Turles.
"The people of this planet gave me a chance to change my ways. And I'm going to take that chance and use it to stop people like you!" Evan proclaimed as he raised a fist toward Turles.
"If you want to cast your lot with these vermin so badly, then you're even more foolish than I thought!" Turles yelled out, his body visibly shaking with rage.
"My crew has no place for a kind hearted Saiyan like you!" Turles exclaimed as the ground beneath him cracked.
Composing himself, the young Saiyan tried his best to ignore the immense pain in his legs as he took in a deep breath and looked up toward his gigantic opponent.
"This is going to be tougher than I thought." Evan muttered to himself.
"Hey, what makes you think you'll be doing it all alone Sparkler Hands?" Yang said in a surprisingly uplifting and confident tone as she stepped forward to the left of Evan.
"His tail is his weak spot, right? That's what I assumed when I was watching you fight him earlier." Ruby questioned as she walked next to Yang, her face filled with anger and fury as she craned her head up to look up at the monster that had hurt her friend.
"Yeah, one clean cut, one opening in his defenses, and he'll go back to normal." Evan replied with a nod as Weiss and Blake approached him from the right.
"Then we'll give you that opening." Weiss added as she raised her weapon into the air.
As she tried to maintain a neutral but determined look, Evan noticed how her nervousness occasionally bubbled to the surface through her eyes.
Upon closer inspection, Evan saw that the other members of Team RWBY were also masking and suppressing their own fright and unease from the current situation through various means, trying their best to act courageously in the face of such immense danger.
"You sure about this? You could be killed." Evan asked hesitantly as he looked toward Weiss.
"We're huntresses. We knew the risks that come with this line of work the moment we signed up. Besides, you're not the only one who wants to protect this world." Blake said aloud as she quickly loaded her weapon, her hands briefly shaking before going still as she tightly held the weapon's handle.
"That's right, and we're not going to just stand by and let you get all the glory." Yang replied with a joking smirk which quickly faded to a look of solidarity and support as Evan locked eyes with her.
"It doesn't matter how many ants that join your side, they'll all still be crushed regardless." Turles boasted.
"Alright. Stay alive…and good luck." Evan stated as he, along with the rest of Team RWBY, scattered into the area surrounding Turles.
Summoning a flock of small Nevermores, Weiss leapt onto the back of one of them as she charged forward.
At the same time, swinging from tree to tree, Blake threw her weapon and wrapped it around one of Turles's arms as she launched herself into the air.
As the birds attempted to claw at Turles's face, Blake leapt onto his arm and ran up his shoulder.
Jumping into the air, Turles fired a large Ki blast from his mouth as Weiss moved her own Nevermore out of harm's way. In an instant, all of the remaining Nevermore perished on the spot. Hanging onto his armor, Blake remained on Turles's shoulder as she approached his right ear.
Using her semblance and some fire dust on hand, she created a shadow clone next to his ear as it quickly burst into a series of flames, causing the gigantic foe to grunt in pain.
Growing even more irritated, Turles swatted his hand up to his shoulder as Blake jumped off the massive warrior and into the air. Flying by on the Nevermore, Weiss caught Blake as the two guided the winged beast back toward the ground. Leaping back toward the forest floor, the warrior's massive weight briefly causing the ground to shake, Turles looked around to try and spot his opponents.
Using her shotgun gauntlets, Yang propelled herself through the air while Ruby sprinted along the forest floor with Evan flying next to her. Grabbing a hold of Ruby by the arm, Evan threw her as hard as he could into the air. Using her weapon's sniper mode, Ruby unloaded her sniper's magazine right into Turles's eyes.
Shielding his eyes with one of his arms, Turles used his other arm and ripped a large pine tree from the ground and threw it toward Ruby. Blasting her way through the air, Yang moved in front of her sister and used her weapon to punch the large tree in two, causing both halves of the tree to fall toward the ground on either side of Ruby.
Gliding along the forest floor, flying in between Turles's legs, Evan channeled his Ki as he flew higher and higher, rapidly approaching Turles's tail. Pulling his fist back, Evan prepared to cut the appendage off, only for Turles to turn his body around and punch Evan out of the air.
Immediately, Evan's body shot toward the ground at high speeds. Upon making impact, his body briefly bounced upward, before finally landing in the cold dirt. Raising his left foot up into the air, Turles brought the limb down on the teen.
Raising both arms up to defend against the attack. His arms shook, threatening to break right then and there, as Turles's massive boot made impact with his hands. Struggling and straining with all his might, Evan was just barely able to keep the boot stationary.
"N-No! I won't let him win!" Evan thought to himself as his legs and arms screamed out in pain.
As Turles grinned in assured victory, a green laser blasted him from behind, breaking through not only his armor but briefly burning the skin underneath. His concentration momentarily breaking, Turles turned his head as he looked toward the new adversary.
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"Damn it, come on!" Evan yelled out as he tried his hardest to overcome this massive force.
As Evan fiercely fought against Turles's onslaught, an old voice rang out, one he never thought he would hear again.
"Get away from my friend!" Penny yelled out angrily.
As the immense weight acting on him weakened for a brief instance and hope filling every fiber of his body, Evan exerted every muscle in his arms to finally push Turles's foot off of him and launch it a few meters into the air.
As Turles focused back on Evan again, the gigantic warrior tried to crush him once more. However, Turles could only watch as the teen immediately blasted off the ground and took to the sky.
And there, floating high in the air with her swords spinning all around her, was Penny. Evan stared at Penny in shock and awe, refusing to blink as if the very moment he did, she would vanish from his life once more.
Like what he saw when he had traveled back in Atlas, her eyes were the same bright green that she had previously while hair was now significantly longer and curled inward at the tips. A large black bow was placed in the back of her hair instead of her normal pink one.
Like before, she wore a white blouse with a black and green collar alongside black leggings, but her skirt was now a light green with dark green circling all along the bottom of it. In addition, she now wore large black boots that continuously blasted green flames to keep her aloft in the air.
"Penny?! Wh-What? How is this-" Evan questioned with an utterly baffled expression as he flew next to her.
"I'll explain everything later. Right now, everyone's counting on us." Penny responded with a comforting smile as she gestured toward the Tree of Might.
"O-Ok." Evan simply said, his mouth barely able to produce the words after everything his mind and body had been put through today.
"Where's Winter, Clover, and the rest of the Ace Ops?" Evan asked aloud as he quickly looked around for his other Atlesian friends.
"Not to worry! They all should be arriving at our current location shortly, and General Ironwood's fleet will be close behind them. ETA should be in approximately five minutes." Penny stated with a cheerful smile on her face.
"Good, that's goo…Shit." Evan replied calmly before his expression dropped.
"What's wrong?" Penny inquired with a look of concern.
"Ironwood's fleet will be sitting ducks for Turles. He'll blast them out of the sky!" Evan elaborated as realization filled Penny's face.
"Which means that only we have five minutes to stop Turles." Penny explained as Evan simply nodded in agreement as the two fighters looked down at their enormous opponent below.
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Hey everyone! I hope you're enjoying the story so far! It's been so long, but we've finally reached this very pivotal chapter for Evan! Plus, Penny makes her official return to the story! Leave a review to let me know your thoughts. I should have the next chapter out within two weeks or so.
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www . P a treon . com (slash) Alist0r
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Until then, see ya!