Chapter 66: Taint of the Ring (Part 1)
"All you have to do is focus on where you wish to go, pour some of your power into the ring, and push," whispered Towa into Potara's ear, a hand resting on her shoulder, the demon uncomfortably close behind her.
Potara held out her hand, eyeing the blood-red and black ring on her finger. She did as instructed, pushing power into the ring...
She flinched. "Ow!"
It felt like the damn thing bit her!
"Oh stop your whining," scolded Towa, "Give it... more."
Potara frowned, but did as instructed, feeling the sharp bits of pain slowly increase as she did so, the cold of the ring spreading a little down her finger. She closed her eyes and focused...
Vegeta was surprised and momentarily looked at Pan, silent thanks in his eyes, before he turned and blew a hole through Vegetto's chest.
"DADDY!" screamed Bulla, holding a hand out towards him.
Vegeta flew back to the group as the grayness of stopped time spread from Vegetto and engulfed his daughter and his friends and family, spreading to consume their entire world. Pan watched it all quietly, feeling horrific guilt trying to tear her apart. She could feel it in the other's ki as well, none of them felt remotely good after doing this.
To her; the scene; a dead Vegetto with his daughter on the ground nearby stretching a desperate, pleading, hand out to him, tears streaming down her face. Pan knew the image was going to haunt her for the rest of her life.
Potara snarled and swung her hand with the ring, and a rip in air and space appeared in front of her. She stared at it for a long moment, taking one final look back at Pan's old home, at the life she was leaving behind...
She stepped through, coming out to the scene in her memory as if it had happened mere moments ago. Towa moves to stand at her side, humming in satisfaction. Everything around them is gray, time frozen and stilled. Potara stares down at Vegetto's corpse for a few minutes, at Bulla reaching for her father, tears on her face. This Timeplane's Gohan, Piccolo, and Bulma looking at him, their faces warped with grief. It twists at her, and reminds her how much she hates the demon she's currently working with. How much suffering the demon caused.
She is very, very tempted to simply kill Towa and be done with it, but, she doesn't know how to fully work the ring.
She doesn't know how to make this Timeplane into a Timeline.
So she will stay her hand for now.
But she's not the little girl Son Pan once was in her childhood.
Potara herself had never been raised to believe in mercy.
Especially to creatures like Towa.
She doesn't care if she turns her back on the deal they struck. The moment she doesn't need the demon anymore, she has a list of Timeplanes that were created to suffer and die for Towa's ambitions that demand justice. Demand vengeance and retribution. Towa's days are numbered, mark her words.
"How do I fix this?" demanded Potara.
"The Demon Time Ring is a construct that defies the rules of creation," explained Towa, "At its most basic, it can functions like a normal Time Ring. To go beyond that requires Will and Vision. Feed your desire into the ring, and will your design into reality."
She thumbed the ring for a moment before closing her eyes.
Make time flow again.
Make this right again.
She ascends to Blue, and the moment she does, its like the ring is tingling with delight. It quivers on her finger, and begins to drain power from her. An insignificant trickle at first, but slowly picking up speed. The grayness of frozen time begins to fade, color seeping, bleeding in, around her. But its so slow...
All at once.
She wants this entire Timeplane active again. She demands it. She focuses the desire on the Demon Time Ring...
...and it answers.
She guts out of Blue, gasping as the world spins. Pain rips through her body, electing a sharp scream from her. Like a nova, red and black energy bursts from her, banishing the grayness and shooting off faster than she can see. She collapses to her knees, feeling cold all over...
Pain all over...
Feeling...
Feeling like she just lost something of herself.
Like there is a hollowness in her chest.
"DADDY!"
She blinks and looks up to see the Timeplane is live and active again, Bulla rushing for her dead father and sobbing over him.
Potara takes in a shuddering breath, forces her exhausted body to stand up, and says, "You'll need to bring him back with the Dragonballs."
Bulla looks up sharply, eyes narrowed. "What? Where did they... who..."
She notices and glares full force at Towa. "You! You lied to us!"
Towa smirked and batted an eyelash. "I'm a demon, love, it comes with the territory."
Bulla rises to her feet, energy cackling around her...
Gohan is there in a second, hand clamping on her shoulder. "Reign it in Bulla. I have questions that better damn be answered."
He looks at Potara. "Like who the hell are you? I know who you look like, but you feel nothing like either my daughter or the Pan that was just here."
"Potara," she answers.
"Yeah, I see the earrings, I figured," he said flatly.
"No, my name is Potara," she answered, "I didn't bother with the 'normal' naming convention."
He blinked once. "Two Pan's fused?"
"Its complicated," she answered, scowling, "I can answer more later, but, I think you'd rather revive him sooner rather than latter, right?"
"Why?" demanded Gohan, glaring at Towa, "So we can be lead to the slaughter all over again?"
Potara crossed her arms. "I'm working on that, I unfroze your timeplane, and I'm going to try and make your Timeplane into a real Timeline."
He paused. "That's possible?"
She glanced down at the Demon Time Ring. "Hopefully, and even if its not, I can push Vegetto into Super Saiyen Blue easily enough, good look anyone that isn't God of Destruction or above having a ghost of a chance against that."
"Argue it out later!" demanded Bulla, "Just... bring dad back!"
Gohan sighed, but nodded, glancing back towards the ruined Capsule Corporation. "Radar Bulma?"
"Err... yeah," she said faintly, "Right. I'll... get on that. Where did they..."
She glances at Potara. "We've been 'frozen' a lot longer than a few seconds, haven't we?"
Potara nods, but doesn't answer otherwise.
Much like it had been back home for he... for Pan, she is the odd one out when everyone is regrouped. All familiar faces, Pan's family, friends, and acquaintances, and one of them...
"Why does she look like me?" asked Son Pan, peeking out from behind her father to look at Potara, "She doesn't feel like me."
Something ugly fills her at the sight of Pan, except... this isn't... this isn't the Pan that she was made from. This is someone else, a Pan that lived a different life. Its not quite fair to hate her for something she didn't do. Still doesn't mean Potara doesn't want to punch her face in. Repeatedly.
"Its complicated honey," answered Gohan, "I imagine we'll get answers once Vegetto is back."
Pan nods, looking solemnly at Vegetto's body a ways away.
"You staying then I assume?" said Potara quietly to Towa, "I'm guessing Vegetto is going to want to deck you pretty bad."
"He can try," mused Towa.
Not fearing a soon-to-be-Blue Vegetto? Potara idly wonders just how strong Towa is. It occurs to her, that with the Demon Time Ring being able to manipulate time, it could have been a great deal longer for Towa since the original Timeplane mess than everyone else. Not only had they not gotten an accurate read of her power back then, but she could have become far stronger now. It also occurs to Potara that she might not actually be able to defeat Towa yet.
Good thing Vegetto will end up an amazing sparring partner then, isn't it?
She watches idly as Shenron is called forth, and Vegetto is wished back to life. He looks baffled to be alive, before he is swarmed by his family and friends with hugs, kisses, laughter, and slaps on the back.
"What happened to no tears in public Bulla?" teases Vegetto.
"Shut up dad! You were dead!"
"I suppose I was," agreed Vegetto, motioning a path with his fingers, the others parting to give him a clear line of path to Potara and Towa.
The man approaches, jaw set as he glares full on at Towa. "Why?"
"Why what?" asked Towa, cocking her head.
"I don't consider you the sentimental type," said Vegetto flatly, "Why come back? Why bother bringing us back?"
Towa thumbed at Potara. "Part of my bargain with Potara here. I personally don't care."
Vegetto looks at Potara.
She looks back.
Its odd being in the presence of another of her kind.
A potara fusion.
Two people crafted and combined into someone new.
But...
His eyes aren't certainly a marred red.
His fusion is whole.
"Alright then, why?" he demands of her.
"Towa knows how to play me," said Potara flatly, earning a startled cough, then a laugh from the demon in question, "I don't like having Pan's memory of this shit in my head. I came here to fix it."
He narrows his eyes and waits.
Potara gives a crooked smile. "Also to survive."
"Survive?" he poses.
"I'm a... forced Potara fusion," she answers, scowling.
"Like the Elder Kai?"
"No, his fusion was accidental more than anything else," she explained, "Mine was out of selfishness and malice."
His eyebrows climb. "I'm assuming then that the intent matters, and there are consequences for that."
Let it not be said he wasn't intelligent. "My eventual loss of sanity and death."
Vegetto whistles. "Nasty. Take it the demon lady dangled a fix in front of you then?"
"Yep."
"And you went along with it?"
"Ahuh."
"Whats the fix?"
"The Demon Time Ring."
"Thewhatnow?"
She holds up the finger with the ring. "Did you ever encounter Zamasu? Goku Black?"
"No," he said slowly, frowning, "I'll save the 'who are they' for later. What is a time ring exactly?"
"In general, it allows time travel," she explain, "Also prevents you erasing yourself from existence if you mess with time the wrong way. The Demon Time Ring was Towa's... modification of it."
"Modification?"
"She murdered a Supreme Kai in some kind of ritual and corrupted it."
He stares at the ring for a long moment. "Sounds about right. That thing gives me the creeps just looking at it. I'm assuming wearing it keeps you meshed together then like a normal one protects the wearer?"
"Towa hasn't explained the specifics of it, but yes."
"And you trust her word?"
Potara pauses and considers that. Unease doesn't begin to describe the prospect that Towa is lying. That Potara might have jumped before she looked...
"Vegetto," drawls Towa, hand to her chest, "I'm hurt."
"Not hurt enough," he said flatly, "I'm more leaning towards you stringing her along for your own gain than anything else."
"Well of course," agreed Towa, "We were both quite up front about that. She gets what she wants, I get what I want."
She grins slyly. "Or would you rather not exist anymore? Hmm?"
He scowls, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Potara is a... special existence," said Towa, grinning, "She is capable of using the Demon Time Ring in a way I cannot, and that I cant force through without a great deal of time to gather energy, in which, the gods could yet again get in my way. She is here to make your Timeplane a true Timeline, then, she is going to create MY paradise for me. That is the deal."
"There is just one, tiny, problem with that," said Vegetto, eyes flickering to the ring, "What happens with that when she does so? I can't see you willingly letting her keep that ring if that's what its capable of."
"How fortunate then that once we create a proper Timeline out of this mess, we'll have another set of Time Rings to create another Demon Time Ring," answered Towa smoothly.
"Convenient," commented Vegetto, eyes narrowed.
"I am a genius, love," answered Towa slyly, "I do think my way through things."
"It would also make you an accessory to murder, Potara," said Vegetto, eyes flickering to her, "If you helped her make another ring."
Potara blinked. "Who said I would help her beyond the deal we made? She's not my responsibility afterwards."
Towa laughed. "Oh Potara, I like you."
She does plan on killing Towa before she can make another Demon Time Ring though, she bores her eyes into Vegetto and 'thinks' that very, very, loudly at him. His eyes twitch, a slight smirk on his lips that hides itself quickly.
"Alright then, so, do your magic and make us a Timeline then," said Vegetto, making a shooing motion at Towa.
Towa huffed. "Veggeto darling, we don't know how."
Vegetto gapes at her. "You don't?"
"No, why do you think we're still here instead of just doing it all at once?" posed Towa, "Potara is going to need to experiment with the Ring, well, after she's not about to drop dead anyway. I think you ought to sit down dear, unfreezing the timeplane looks like it did quite the number on you."
The demon snaps her fingers and a chair appears, Potara flops down on it with a tired sigh. "This ring is a hungry little bastard."
Vegetto frowned. "Hungry?"
"I fed it energy to open the way back here, and it pretty much gutted me to unfreeze this timeplane," she said, a bead of sweat rolling down her forehead despite the chill rolling down her spine, "I feel cold and I ache all over."
His eyes narrowed, a wary look crossing his face. "You don't say. Perhaps you ought to take the ring off until you feel better."
"Vegetto love," drawled Towa, "How is she supposed to get used to it and master the ring if she backs out the moment it gets rough? Hmm? A little bit of pain is nothing, it is a demonic creation after all."
"Yeah," he said flatly, "That's what concerns me. I overlooked and underestimated you the first few times we met, Towa, not again. Unless you are actively working alongside Potara to 'make us a real timeline', then I want you gone, and once we are 'real', I don't ever want to see you here again."
"That makes two of us darling," said Towa, grinning before she vanished with a sharp crack.
"Potara," Vegetto said sharply, "Believe me, I'm happy to be alive and existing again, but I have to ask, do you trust anything she's said since she convinced you to do this?"
Potara hesitates. "I... to a degree."
"What degree exactly?"
"I know she's hiding something from me, playing me more than I'm likely aware of," said Potara slowly, wiping sweat from her forehead, "But... I don't think... I feel that she is telling the truth about the consequences of me being a forced fusion. Before I came here, things were... starting to get bad."
"Bad how?"
"Seeing and hearing visible recreations of Pan and the Doll as they lived out their lives right in front of me," admitted Potara.
His eyebrows climb for a moment before furrowing, "...odd."
"Whose the Doll?" pipped in the Other-Pan.
Potara grimaced. "A colossal fuck-up."
"Language," said Gohan reflexively before flushing a bit, "Erm... sorry."
Potara shrugged. "I don't care otherwise, but do not ever call me Son Pan and we won't have a problem."
Videl hesitated before pulling her daughter a bit back. "You... you hate the Pan you're born from?"
"Both her and the Doll," spat Potara, "It... it doesn't matter."
"It does actually," said Vegetto, studying her thoughtfully, "Because we're working on not even half a fully story yet. I get its personal to you, and likely bad, but we need to know whats going on."
She sighed and grumbled a bit. "I don't suppose you have anything to eat and drink first?"
"AHEM!" boomed a voice from above.
Potara blinked and looked up. Oh right, dragon was still there.
"Uh, hey Shenron, sorry for the wait, I wish for you to set the place back to the way it was before I fought the time travelers," called out Vegetto.
Shenron glared down at him before grumbling out, "Your wish has been granted, fare thee well."
The area flashes and was restored, capsule corp back in peak condition, before Shenron vanished.
"Kids, help your mother make something up real quick, everyone else, help set up the tables and chairs, they're in the same room as last time we had a gathering, grab them and bring them out, I feel like we're going to be here awhile," ordered Vegetto.
Half an hour later, they're all digging in. Potara sits a bit from the group, eating ravenously like she hadn't since... well... she'd never eaten this much before. It was almost Saiyan in appetite for once. When they finished up, Potara had the uncomfortable sensation of everyone looking at her and waiting.
"I'm... not really sure where to begin," admitted Potara, "With my birth, or perhaps, with the Pan I was born from. Things... seem a bit different here, two paths that went wildly different when you stayed fused, Vegetto."
He nods. "Background then? I killed Majin Buu, I fought Beerus and lost when he showed up, some idiots tried to revive Freeza, killed them, then things settled down until Towa 'warned us' about our time traveling counterparts. Then we trained like hell until they arrived."
"Right, well... first, that Pan that was here is the same Pan I was born from," admitted Potara with a scowl.
"Figured."
"How did she get like that?" asked Gohan quietly, "She hardly felt like my daughter. Her ki felt... not evil, but definitely darker than most people I'm comfortable being around. Well on her way towards Vegeta."
"Short answer, Son Goku is an idiot," said Potara, earning a sharp laugh from a few of them, "Long story, wait for me to get to it. I know a bit of the background leading up to where things went... bad. So I'll start there."
She tells them of what happened if Freeza hadn't been killed right away. His golden form, Goku and Vegeta going away to train with the gods. The eventual battle. The first tournament between universes. Who and what the Omni-King was. Future Trunks and Zamasu and Goku Black. The eventual tournament for the survival of all the universes. She hesitates briefly before she admits to the memory Goku showed her later on, of another Potara.
Vegetto frowned. "So another you came back and changed things? Like Trunks?"
She shrugged. "Not sure."
He hummed and motioned her on.
"I imagine that Pan's life went not too differently from the one here. Maybe, but, she didn't seem that different from what I see of her. The thing that eventually set everything off was another multiuniverse tournament. Goku won it, and we all got brought into a secret of the Omni-King's, that there are multiple dimensions with different Omni-Kings."
Bulma whistled. "Shesh. Timelines, universes, dimensions. Its all one giant mess, isn't it?"
"Yeah...," agreed Potara quietly, "It is."
She shakes her head. "Goku, being the I've-got-to-find-and-fight-everyone idiot he is used the wish he won to make it possible to visit other dimensions, which was not only apparently against the Omni-King's rules of creation, but got Pan sucked through a portal and thrown out into another dimension."
"Oh, that had to be fun," mused Vegetto.
"She landed in an earth that the Saiyan's had been been purging for decades," said Potara flatly.
Vegetto winced. "Real lovely."
"Her role model was a brutal woman who loathed Saiyans with a burning passion who did her best to shape Pan into a weapon," said Potara, scowling, "I loath Pan, but I'm not blind to what happened."
Gohan grimaced. "That's..."
"Awful," finished Videl, hugging her Pan to her.
"Didn't help that when she eventually went Super Saiyen, said woman tried to kill her either," agreed Potara, "Then she got sucked to another reality just before that happened."
"That's... convenient," said Vegetto slowly, "How?"
"Short answer, Pan absorbed some of the power used to make the whole between realities," said Potara, "Had long term consequences too."
"Alright, I'll assume you're going to clue us in on that eventually. So... what happened next?"
She spoke quietly of Pan waking up in a new world. The recovery, Bata, discovering it was a subjugated world. Making a foolish, unprepared and arrogant stand. Death. Training, being wished back. Bata's murder, Pan ascending to Super Saiyan 2, nearly killing herself by going Kaioken ontop of it...
"Honestly, if I hadn't needed this ring to survive, I probably would have ended up going back there," admitted Potara, "Bata got revived to be that world's guardian. She offered me a home there if things didn't work out back in Pan's home."
"There a reason you don't consider Pan's home your home?" came Piccolo's voice.
She glanced over at the Namekian, his chin tucked down into his turban, arms crossed over his chest.
"Because its not," said Potara flatly, "I'm not Pan. Nor would I want to fill in the hole she left behind."
Piccolo half tilted his head, a single eye boring at her. "...I'm assuming your Piccolo never had a reason to research potara fusions as I had, or at least, hasn't had the time to do so. Potara, from everything I've heard so far, from every time you've spit out Pan's name, or this 'Doll's' name, you're rejecting them, aren't you?"
"Oh hell," swore Vegetto.
"What of it?" she asked, glancing back and forth between them.
"Have you considered, Potara, that your rejection of the two parts that literally make up your mind, body, and soul might be causing the damage to yourself?" posed Piccolo.
She tensed. "No. I refuse to believe that's it."
Vegetto scowled. "Potara, let me give you a piece of advice. Always trust the Namek, he's usually right."
Potara glared at him. "I don't care, I think I'd rather die than accept them."
Vegetto's eyebrows climb. "The hell did they do to piss you off that much?"
"The Doll might have deceived her, but Pan spit on everything she had and threw it all away chasing power," snarled Potara, "That unstable little brat didn't know what she had, what she gave up for what ended up being a worthless, pointless cause. My entire creation ended up being for nothing and landed me into a mess of her making."
Vegetto twiddled his fingers. "Skip ahead and explain."
"The energy Pan absorbed to teleport through dimensions? Its called the Power of Creation, the Omni-King's personal energy as I figured, what he used to make everything. Apparently no one else is really supposed to have it, and its not supposed to be used outside of Creation itself," explained Potara, "The Doll was created in Pan's image to steal that power from her subtly by the gods. Afterwords, they were going to dispose of the Doll. Somehow, the Doll became sentient..."
"Somehow," said Vegetto flatly, "How?"
"I don't know," admitted Potara, "Maybe the Power of Creation did it, since their objective was somewhat fufilled and the majority, but not all of it, was stolen."
"I'm guessing," said Gohan slowly, "That partial absorption was the reason behind your fusion?"
Well, let it not be said any Gohan wasn't smart. "Neither of them could access the power split as it was. The Doll acted with a lot of incomplete information and assumed fusion was a battle of wills and sought to absorb Pan into her to attain the power to survive the Gods. The fighting escalated, Pan got the shit beat out of her by Beerus. Goku got in the way. The Doll used the chance to force a potara on her ear."
Potara's jaw clenched. "Considering the struggle, Pan could have fought off the fusion, but in the end she chose to give it all up chasing the power to beat the gods."
"Its not supposed to be a struggle," muttered Piccolo.
"No," agreed Potara, "Its not."
"So... how'd fighting the gods go?" posed Krillen, head poking forward across the table.
"It escalated all the way to the top."
"Yikes."
"Did it now?" said Vegetto, eyebrows climbing.
"Potara fusion plus power of creation plus super saiyan plus going god, then plus the Kaio-Ken x50 at the end," said Potara, shrugging, "I can't describe how unreal that kind of power was."
How empty she felt without it...
Vegetto stared at her for a long moment before he let out a long whistle. "Damn. How'd you fare?"
"I hit the Omni-King, it didn't do shit."
Vegetto gives a full belly laugh. "Even with all of that?"
"I really don't think the Omni-King exists inside any power scaling any of us can even conceive of," admits Potara grumpily, sighing and rubbing her eyes tiredly.
He hummed before looking up. "Alright, I think we're calling it for the night. You can finish tomorrow. Its been... one hell of a day for all of us."
"Bit longer then..."
"Nope," he cuts in cheerfully, "Don't want to know."
Fair enough.
They ended up letting her crash in one of the spare bedrooms in Capsule Corp. She laid in bed, tired, aching, and cold, until sleep took her...
Red eyes float in utter darkness staring at her.
P-O-T-A-R-A
They stare at her in hunger...
Potara...
In yearning...
Potara...
The demon time ring spins underneath the eyes.
Potara...
An outline begins to form around the eyes and the ring...
A mouth forms in the darkness underneath the eyes, and blood runs from the lips as it speaks, "Hello Potara."
Potara gasps awake.
She feels ice cold.