Chapter 67: Taint of the Ring (Part 3)

Potara wakes feeling dizzy and tired for the umpteenth time in a row. Ever since she'd started seeing Ring in her dreams, she'd slowly became more and more exhausted. Ring had apologized, said being active in dreams wasn't technically being asleep and letting her body fully rest, but honestly, Potara liked what she could remember, which was a swing and a miss sometimes, they were fuzzy recollections towards the end as she got tired. But what she could recall was about talking of the past, about how angry she was at her fusees (it never seemed to fade, that rage), plans for how they'd turn on Towa when the time came, or just bantering...

It was nice to have a friend all her own. Bata was nice, but... she was more like an inherited friend from Pan. While that wasn't very fair to Bata, Potata couldn't help the twang of frustration that came with the acknowledgment.

'You can't help how you are,' was all Ring said to it, 'It is not like you're condemning the girl or going to stop liking her, are you?'

'No', agreed Potara, she wasn't.

'I only have memories from the souls Towa fed me to know, but friendship isn't a perfect thing, there will always be things that irk you about them, or test that bond,' continued Ring.

That was a fair point, though... she brought up something that had... unsettled Potara every time she heard it.

'It doesn't bother you? Having been fed people's souls?' asked Potara quietly.

'I cannot help the circumstances of my birth any more than you can yours,' Ring chides back gently.

'Fair enough,' agreed Potara before posing a question, 'What was it like for you, becoming sentient after not being so?'

Rain took its time thinking, 'That is a difficult question to answer. I don't have prior memories aside from the souls I was given, which was thankfully enough to learn speech and other traits and mannerisms. Before then... there is nothing concrete, just the sensation of time immemorial, a vast expanse, brief flashes of emotions not my own. I think... bleedthrough from the Kai's before Towa took me. The time spent with Towa... is best left unspoken of.'

Potara chooses not to pry on that.

'What of you?'

Potara blinks, then frowns. 'When I was being born in the struggle it was... chaos. So many emotions that weren't mine but I could feel. Thoughts and desires not my own pushed on me, memories that encompassed who they were put into my head. It took... it took a bit, even after the fusion finished, to accept it all. That I was me, that I was born from Pan and the Doll. That I loathed them, because, at that time, there was nothing about me that was me, just them. The whole god situation that I was forced into... well, its best left unspoken of.'

Ring huffed. 'I suppose. Though you are wrong about something. The moment you were born, there was one thing that was yours that was never theirs.'

Potara blinked. 'What?'

'Your eyes,' said Ring, 'Red, marred, imperfect, and yet all you. We are all imperfect beings, Potara, the strength of your imperfection bleeds through your eyes. An imperfect broken soul, yet it is yours. No one else's. Never allow yourself to feel otherwise.'

Potara pursed her lips.

'To be broken is not a bad thing,' soothes Ring, 'It is a state of being, you are not as you should be as a potara fusion, and I find it is what endears you to me so. You would not be remotely interesting if you were like Vegetto. His soul is smooth, a melding of who he once, albeit Towa's method of crudely forcing his fusion to be permanent left a scar, it's merely one little flaw. You though, looking at your soul is like watching a wildfire. You burn, and I cannot help but be drawn to that flame, wondering if you will soothe that inferno, if you will burn yourself out, or burn everyone around you.'

Potara has no idea what she is supposed to say to that.

Thankfully, she hears a knock on her door and a call for breakfast, so she uses that as an excuse to say nothing at all.

Vegetto's fist stops inches from her head.

Potara blinks owlishly at him, at the annoyance on his face.

"Potara," he said slowly, "When is the last time you've had a good night's sleep?"

"I don't know," she admits.

He closes his eyes, grits his teeth, takes a step back, and opens his eyes, glaring down at her hand, at Ring. "I really think you need to take that thing off and give yourself a chance to recover. It's not doing you any favors."

"And if we lose progress on your timeplane being a timeline because I had to take a break?" she snapped back.

He shrugged. "Then we lose progress."

She scowls. "I'm fine. I don't need to take it off."

He gives her an unimpressed look. "Take the ring off, or we're done training. Your use of the ring along with our training sessions is wearing too much on you."

She returns his look with her own foul one. "Then we're done training. I'm not Son Goku, I don't particularly care to train or fight. I was only doing this as a favor to you. To help make sure you can actually stand up for your timeplane."

He crosses his arms. "And I appreciate it, but I'm still concerned about you."

She turned around and walked away, making for the entrance of the Time Chamber. "Like I said, I'm fine. I don't need to take the ring off."

She doesn't want to lose her friend.

She feels a brief flicker of warmth down her hand from the Ring, a brief reprieve in the cold numbness coating her. 'Don't worry Potara, it won't be too much longer now until the process is finished.'

That's... that's nice.

Though she's a little worried, about what happens when they're done here. When Towa is dead and the timeplane becomes a real Timeline. What would happen between them after?

'Do not fear, Potara,' soothed Ring, 'You won't ever leave me.'

Potara smiles a little, but for a moment, something felt... wrong... with that statement. But it's gone a moment later to the numb cold...

The cereal tastes like ash in Potara's mouth.

Vegetto is eating a leftover steak as a 'breakfast of champions'. It looks like it tastes amazing, covered in sauce, sizzling hot. But Potara can't smell it.

Color has started to bleed out of the world, everything just seems... glazed over to her.

Bulma lays a hand on her shoulder and asks something, but the ringing in her ears makes it so hard to hear, and she can barely feel the touch through the cold coating her very being.

"...otara!"

Potara blinks and looks up at Vegetto, her voice is... so quiet. "...what?"

He frowns at her. "You look like shit."

'He is a rather rude individual, isn't he?" muses Ring, 'After all we are doing for him?'

"Why would you care?" asked Potara irritably. Ring was right, he was rude.

Vegetto stares at her for a long moment. "Okay, I've held my patience long enough. Potara, you've been getting worse and worse since you started using the ring. While I'm grateful that you are trying to help us, you need to take the time to help yourself. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it's slowly killing you. Take the damn thing off for a few days and recover."

'He wants to separate us,' whispered Ring, 'To what end, I wonder?'

"He's just worried...," mumbled Potara to herself, earning yet another frown from the fused-Saiyan.

'Or he could seek to take me from you...,' tempted Ring.

Potara shakes her head. "I'm... going to get Towa and get today's session over with..."

Vegetto stands up as she does. "Look, Potara. Take the ring off."

She brushes past him and heads outside.

"Potara!" says Vegetto sharply, following her outside, "Take. The. Ring. Off."

"Shove off Vegetto," she snapped back at him, feeling... feeling a brief warmth of anger. Its... it's so much better than the cold...

She gives it to the numb state she's in that she didn't react until he has her hand in his grip and is actually trying to rip the ring off her finger. "Wha... stop..."

'Stop him!' cried out Ring, 'He's going to take me from you!'

Potara lashes out with her hand and blasts him away with a brief burst of ki. "The hell is your problem Vegetto!?"

"I'm trying to help you!" he snapped back, dusting his shirt in irritation, "That ring is killing you Potara. The longer it stayed on, the worse you get, and the viler that ring feels. We will find another way, just take the damn thing off before finishes the job!"

"Oh Vegetto," comes Towa's voice, "The ring isn't killing her."

Towa appears with a crack, moving to sit on the outside table, one leg crossing over the other as she does so.

"Forgive me if I don't take your word for it," gritted out Vegetto.

Towa chuckled. "Well, you'd be smart not to I suppose. But really, you should have listened to your instincts weeks ago. It's a bit too late now."

Too... late? Too late for what? She's about to ask... then the thought slips away... what was she just...

'It would seem Towa is about to make her move,' mused Ring, 'We find ourselves caught between two forces, Potara, I hope you are ready to defend yourself from them.'

'I have no problem killing Towa,' answered Potara, 'But... Vegetto's just being overprotective...'

'Tsk, Potara,' said Ring in a soothing tone, 'You can't trust his intentions. Half of you was the Pan who helped kill him last time. He could be bidding his time to get strong enough to kill you, to take me, using your own goodwill against you.'

'You're being paranoid.'

"Dad? What's going on?" came Bulla's voice, peaking outside.

"Get back inside," he orders firmly, "Protect your mother."

Bulla tenses. "We were right then?"

"Yeah," muttered Vegetto before glaring at Towa, "So what's the deal then? Why the hell is killing Potara with that ring important to you?"

"As I said," said Towa with dark glee, "It's not killing her. Even after it's done what its purpose is, she will still exist, in a sense."

"What do you mean?" demanded Vegetto.

"Well, she'll exist on within the ring," said Towa, laughing, "After it finishes eating her soul from the inside out."

Potara slow blinks. What...?

'Her bluntness makes this difficult, I suppose the manual way it is,' said Ring irritably, 'Hush Potara, hush and sleep...'

So she sleeps.

Vegetto hates being right. He really, really does. "Potara, take the ring off, NOW!"

The girl just stares at him blankly.

Towa rises to her feet and walks over, placing a hand on Potara's shoulder. "Oh Vegetto. At this point, she's lost so much of herself that she belongs to the Ring now, to me. She won't take any action to remove the Ring, or fight me, will you now dear Potara?"

Potara says nothing.

Towa shakes with laughter. "Her soul is going to gorge the Demon Time Ring, taking its power to new levels. Combined with my own power I've taken over the years, and all the power and souls I've fed into it, I doubt I'm far away from matching a God of Destruction. I'll keep feeding it souls and power until I can fell even angels! Until all of creation bows to me!"

Vegetto ascends to blue and readies himself...

"Get the hell away from her!" comes Gohan's voice suddenly.

Except...

That's not his Gohan.

His eyes flicker to see his very killers flying over. Gohan, Vegeta, Goku, the Supreme Kai of Time. Great. Lovely. Even if Towa could be dealt with, there is still the whole 'timeplane' mess, and he doesn't think his timeplane is a timeline yet. Awesome. Knew he shouldn't have gotten his hopes up. Goddammit. He's likely to be too exhausted fighting Towa and Potara to fight them after.

Towa looks backward at them. "Oh ho, I was wondering if you lot were ever going to show up. I was expecting you at least a week ago, what took you so long?"

Vegeta scowls. "If you must know, not doing the obvious and just wishing to know where she was right away, followed by difficulty getting in contact with the Supreme Kai of Time. Now, step away from her."

"Oh, but I like being right where I am," said Towa, gripping Potara's shoulder tightly.

"You never know when to quit, do you Towa?!" snaps the Kai, "No matter what version of you it is, you always keep grabbing for more!"

"I'm a demon love," taunted Towa, "It's what we do, and unlike the rest of them, I have the greatest prize of all. Once it's done eating her soul, the Demon Time Ring will be so powerful, it will outstrip your little White Time Ring."

The Kai glares at her before looking down at Potara, at the ring on her finger. The Kai's face goes blank for a long moment. "...what the hell?"

"It feels glorious, doesn't it?" whispers Towa.

"It feels like it's... alive," answered the Kai uneasily.

"I don't care what it feels like," said Gohan, powering up to Blue, "I want it off Potara before it's too late."

Goku puts a hand on his shoulder. "Wait. I'm with Chronoa on this, something feels weird. I'm getting all kinds of bad feelings off that ring, it's like Cell, but worse."

"Well, considering it eats souls, there is a reason for that," mused Towa with a mock sage tone, "That the energy it feeds off of from the timeplanes themselves is from both from their inhabitants and the timeplane? Oh Son Goku, Cell is nothing compared to my ring. It creates realities just to feed off them. A marvelous little thing, isn't it?"

"You're sick!" gritted out Goku.

"I am many things, Son Goku," mocks Towa, "Soon enough, I'll be a Demon Goddes beyond anything that has ever existed!"

"Alright, enough harping," snapped Vegetto, "You three, keep Potara contained and get the ring off if you can, I'll entertain the witch."

"Oh? Want to dance do you, love?" said Towa.

"Always ready and willing," mocked Vegetto back.

"Why would we 'deal' with Potara?" asked Gohan.

"Her soul belongs to the ring, my dear, so she belongs to ME," Towa informed them, "Speaking of which..."

She leans down to whisper into Potara's ear. "Potara dear, would you kill them for me?"

Then... everything that was going wrong, gets even worse.

Potara turns her head and smiles the most creepy fucking smile Vegetto has ever seen in his life. "Only after I eat you first."

Towa startles. "What?"

A black and red aura momentarily ignites around the fusion right before Potara drives her hand with the Demon Time Ring on it right into Towa's chest in a spray of blood. Towa stares down at the hand, speechless.

"You made a very, very foolish mistake, little demon," mocked Potara, "In feeding me souls."

Vegetto blinks. Feeding her... oh... oh fuck. "That's not Potara in control of her body."

Potara grins ferally. "Call me Ring."

Then Towa stares screaming. Veins throb and pulse along her body. Blood starts gushing out of her eyes and ears and mouth and down the hole in her chest. Her skin begins to shrivel. Her body begins to fold in on itself in a gruesome display with a disgusting slurping sound. Until all that is left is sucked into the ring on Potara's finger. Towa is dead and gone in less than thirty seconds as if she never existed. Something far, far worse stands in her place.

"It IS alive," exclaimed the Kai, "The Demon Time Ring is sentient!"

Gohan takes a deep breath and grits out, "I don't suppose you will release Potara?"

Ring tilts Potara's head. "I don't think there would be much of a point even if I did. I've already consumed over half of her soul. Soon enough, there won't be enough left to even be considered a husk."

"Thought not," muttered Gohan bitterly, "Can we never get a break?"

Vegeta and Goku turn Blue a second later, all three adopting ready stances.

"Her beautiful, delicious, broken soul," murmurs Ring, "Filled with such power, at such a price, and now... its the base for who and what I am."

Ring laughs and spreads Potara's arms to the sides, stretching out. Her hair stands on ends, flashing red and black. Her eyes morphing to change to that color. Her power skyrockets, and she ascends. Except it's not Blue she ascends to. Power rolls from her in a tidal wave of twisted energy, the same colors fills her aura, her hair, and eyes. The feeling she gives off is so sickening Vegetto clutches at his stomach and tries not to puke his guts out. Reality darkens and twists around them. Grass withers and dies. Capsule Corp's walls twist and bend. Objects all across the area distort into odd shapes.

The Kai chokes in horror. "What are you?"

Ring vanishes in a twist of dark energy, reappearing and lashing out, grabbing the Kai by her throat. The Kai swiftly curls a fist and slams it into Potara's face...

An explosion of white energy rips from the impact and throws her off. Ring hisses in pain, letting the impact carry her away. "That ring of yours is a nuisance."

"It was made to help stop this mess Towa made!" snapped the Kai, levitating backward at the other three took point, "In a way, it's your opposite."

"I suppose it is," mused Ring.

Vegetto does the smart thing when they are all stupidly battle-chatting with eachother, instant-transmitting behind Ring and two-hand smashing her into the ground while she's offguard with as much power as he can back into the blow without killing the body. The impact rends the earth, brings Capsule Corp and all the surrounding buildings to their knees. He'll trust Bulla and Trunks to keep their mother safe in the disaster. He surges downward and reaches for the ring...

Only for the girl to roll, not stunned in the slightest, hands glowing with red energy. He instant-transmissions out of the way as she obliterates the spot where he had been. He reappears next to Goku, a little tense, but grits out, "That thing coupled with Potara's power is stronger than all of us combined. We get it off Potara's hand, or we're all dead. Got it?"

"Yeah," agreed Goku uneasily, "That was unguarded and she just..."

He yelps and throws both himself and Vegetto out of the way of a black and red beam of energy. He pushes Goku off him and readies himself, only to pause when he sees the energy left a kind of... red stain spreading through the air? "The heck is that?"

"Its energy is eating away at the timeplane!" exclaimed Kai, "If it causes a collapse we don't want to be here."

"And what about my family and friends?" snaps Vegetto, "All too ready to have us die a second time because it's convenient for you?"

The Kai purses her lips. "One. Pick one other person and I will take them to the Time Nest along with you if it collapses. Any more is too much of a breach of the rules."

He can't believe her audacity. To ask him to pick one single person and leave the rest to die. Damn her rules. If this bitch doesn't die here then he is going to kill her one day with his own two hands. "My daughter."

It feels like something in him died, to condemn Bulma, Trunks, and everyone else to death. To most likely cease to exist. But if he must be forced to choose, call him selfish but he will choose his flesh and blood.

The Kai nods and vanishes.

"Oh Vegetto," comes Ring's voice, "You could so easily do the reverse. Pledge yourself to me, bind yourselves to me, and you will continue to exist as an extension of myself even when I finish here."

Vegetto glares down at the red and black godlike Saiyan. "Pretty sure that falls under a fate worse than death category, so no thanks."

Ring gives him a ghoulish smile. "Then you already suffer that fate Vegetto, or do you not recall that I created you? My energy is a part of every single being in this timeplane."

He grits his teeth. "I'm trying really hard to not think about it."

"Trying not to think of fate doesn't do much to deny your reality, you belong to me as much as Potara does, now... kill them."

Agony rips through Vegetto's mind, and he screams as he feels vile claws in his head. "GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!"

"Big Bang!"

The pain is gone in a second, Vegetto takes a ragged breath, blinking rapidly to clear the spots out of his eyes. He sees Vegeta, Goku, and Gohan going after Ring, forcing her concentration on the fight. Dammit, that thing is in his head. In the heads of everyone of this timeplane. Its taint is on everything it touches, that it made. He swallows thickly and hopes that something can be done about that for him and Bulla, and hopefully the rest of them...

He eyes the taint spreading through the air and quietly pushes that last hope away as pointless. He hardens himself for what is to happen and eyes the fight. Ring evades all three of the godlike fighters, taking quick attacks when she can, but there is a clumsiness to her movements. Worse than Potara's youth. It's not Ring's body, and the thing doesn't seem to know how to do anything more than throw its power around.

Which is very effective when it waves a hand and unleashes a tide of energy that wipes out half the damn city in a split second, staining the landscape red. He swallows thickly, watching as his world literally begins to end. He looks down at the battle, decides that getting into the mix is pointless compared to a well-timed strike. He knows his target and begins funneling energy into his hand, forming a blade of intense ki around it...

Right there.

Ring sends the three flying from her with a nova of energy in all directions. She points a finger on her ring hand right at Goku, he recognizes Freeza's death beam as it starts. He begins to swing with one hand while the other touches two fingers to his forehead. He reappears next to Ring, his arm already in motion, and severs Potara's arm off at the shoulder, searing the wound closed as he does.

The backlash is instant.

The death beam goes wide as the arm falls off. Red and black lightning rips from the space between arm and shoulder, sending Vegetto crashing to the ground and writhing in pain. Potara herself gives one awful scream and falls to the ground and does not move, the ring arm falling a ways away.

"You... you cut her arm off!" exclaimed Gohan.

"Better her arm than her life," snaps Vegetto, sitting up, "You can wish her a new one."

Vegeta grunts and aims a hand down at the severed arm. "Get her away from the blast zone."

Vegetto hauls himself to his feet, grabs the unconscious Potara, and flies away as Vegeta launches another Big Bang attack and blows the area to bits. He sets Potara down a ways away and looks back... only to see the severed arm rising into the air out of the explosion, coated in a red and black energy field.

"For fucks sake," roared Vegetto, "What now?"

What now turned out to be the ring flashing with energy. Flesh and bone and muscle and clothes sprouted from the arm, forming a body similar to Potara's, but in a darker color scheme, the merged clothing of a Kai almost demonic in appearence. When it's finished, red and black lightning cackles across it, an aura of similar energy flowing around it.

"Ahhh," exalted Ring, lifting her arms into the air, "I suppose forming my own flesh and blood works as well. Better than merely eating her soul out and puppeting her living corpse I suppose. I don't need to be in her after all to finish my meal."

Vegetto grits his teeth and yells out, "We have to obliterate the Ring itself."

"I figured," snapped back Vegeta.

-zip-

The Kai re-appears next to Vegetto, "I took Bulla, kicking and screaming, to the Time Nest."

She blinks and stares up at Ring, then down at Potara. "Oh."

"Yeah, oh," said Vegetto flatly, "Thanks on Bulla, any ideas on this mess?"

"I... I might be able to use the White Time Ring and weaken it," says the Kai cautiously, "I'm wary to do so though. Bardock warned me against using it directly against the Demon Time Ring."

"Why'd he warn you against it?"

"He said it would rupture time itself."

Vegetto blinks. "Okay... how were you considering using it then?"

"Rather than directly fighting it, energy against energy I could try to pull away power from it and...," began the Kai.

She never got to finish.

"Look out!"

As he had mentally chided the others for, Ring takes advantage of his own lapse and appears next to them, and before they can react, punches its fist right into the Kai's chest in a brutal spray of blood like she did Towa. "Now now, none of that."

"Shit!" exclaimed Vegetto, lashing out and blasting the infernal thing away from them.

The Kai collapsed, gasping for breath and clutching at herself. There is a sickly red taint rimming around the bloody hole that isn't blood, slowly spreading. "N... no... no no no no... I... I'm the Supreme Kai of Time... I'm tied to... to..."

"Tied to what?" he demanded.

The Kai shook her head and placed a glowing hand against her chest. "I'll... stall the taint. Kill it... kill it before I die... or there is going to be... big problems."

He clenched his jaw, nodded, and looked to the sky, watching briefly as the other three went at Ring. He sucks in a breath and lets it out. He'll continue his same strategy as before, let them keep it busy while he prepares for a timed attack rather than get in the thick of that mess. He's not Vegeta or Goku, he doesn't much care about glory or fighting these days as much as keeping what he loves safe. He rises into the air and waits...

Potara gasps awake as a surge of energy flows over the area. She reflexively curls herself for protection, a shimmer of energy blocking the worst of it. She groans, feeling cold and sickly, reaching up her hands to clutch at her head...

Her hands...

Her hand...

She blinks open her eyes, feeling a burning agonizing throb near her shoulder, and brings her hand out in front of her.

She gives a small choking gasp when she realizes one of her arms is gone. What the hell happened?

"You're awake then," came a pained voice.

Potara turned and startled, seeing a bleeding Supreme Kai of Time sitting next to her, glowing hand over a hole in her chest. "W-what...?"

"The Demon Time Ring... was eating your soul... and possessing you."

Potara gapes at her in disbelief. "N-no, she wouldn't, she's my friend..."

"It... that thing is no one's friend," said Chronoa, pointing to the sky with her other hand.

Potara swallows thickly, not wanting to look, but forces herself to. She sees Ring as she had been in her dreams, alive, save for the off-clothed arm that... was that Potara's missing arm?! She watches as Ring glows, in her own demonic-colored super saiyan god form. How did she have that? Was it... was it because of Potara? She stares at the battle, feeling nothing but cold. She sees Gohan, Vegeta, and Goku fighting it head-on, trying to come at it at different angles. It's effective in that Ring has trouble handling multiple fighters at once, yet... none of the damage sticks. It's not like a Majin or an immortal where the damage regenerates, it just doesn't seem to even affect her. Then she sees the cruel, almost sadistic smile on Ring's face when Vegetto suddenly comes from behind, she ducks forward, dodging an attempt to skewer her with a ki-blade from his hand. She lashes out with her feet and nabs Vegetto right in his stomach, getting a pained grunt from him before Ring sents him flying away with a blast of Ki.

Potara thinks back to their conversations, the dreams, how she couldn't remember parts of them, and doubt fills her. "She... I... she said I... gave to her willingly?"

Chronoa's lips purse tightly. "You had no idea what you were doing... you put on the ring... you used it. Why?"

"I... I wanted to fix this, to make this timeplane real."

Chronoa shook her head. "Potara...that thing is a demonic corruption of a time ring... there is no safe using it. There was... never going to be... a way to fix this timeplane wholly. Individuals maybe... with careful effort, but... not the timeplane itself."

Potara stares at Ring, wanting to feel fury, feel betrayal, instead..., "I feel cold... numb... empty."

"It said it ate... over half your soul," agreed Chronoa, "There are consequences to that."

"Can it... can I be fixed?" asked Potara quietly.

"A soul can heal over time," answered Chronoa, "But it's... not a quick thing... nor an easy one. Especially not when... she holds over half of your soul... so long as she does I don't... think you will be able to. I know I... won't."

Potara blinks. "What?"

Chronoa removed the hand from her chest, and Potara's eyes went wide to see some kind of red taint spreading from it slowly. She looked up sharply, seeing it in the air, on the ground... covering parts of the ruined city around them. "What... what is this?"

"Taint," rasped Chronoa, "Taint from the Demonic Time Ring... eating away at and corrupting everything it touches. It either has to die... before I do, or... I need to sever myself... from my duty and role. There are dangers... if that thing touches the Time Nest, Toki Toki, or even... even gets to a primary timeline."

"Why... why aren't I like that then? Or Vegetto since he was made by it?"

"I don't know," admits the Kai, "This... this madness is new and unreal. It could be because... you were willing and not forced to take in its power... just like it is woven into Vegetto. That poses a big problem though... if she takes you again, but I... I wonder..."

Chronoa looks down at the White Time Ring on her finger for a long moment before she grasps it and takes it off. "Here."

Potara startles. "What?"

"Take the ring," demands Chronoa, "I... it... it can't be used directly against it... but it should protect you from... the Demon Time Ring's control. Draw power from it... and you will be strengthened, and protected... from time-related dangers. That should be enough."

Potara hesitates before she reaches out and grasps the ring. Hesitant because of the last time she took a ring from someone she didn't trust and put it on it caused this current mess. But the Kai isn't demonic, her nature isn't deceptive. Potara kicks herself for being so trusting (so desperate). She'll chide herself to hell and back later, but for now, she...

She scowls, struggling to even put the ring on with only one hand, putting it between her thumb and pinky and slowly putting it on. The moment she does, a warmth slowly starts to build in her hand, steadily spreading through her body. She gasps in relief at the freedom from the cold... only to look up when she hears a shrill screech from Ring. Tingling in the back of her mind, fury not her own.

Ring waves a hand and releases a nova of energy, blowing everyone away from her. She looks down at Potara coldly, before she flicks her wrist. There's not a chance to react before the area next to Potara explodes. The Kai is vaporized in an instant. Potara staggers away, face going grim. She glares up at Ring, and can't keep the hurt out of her voice, "Was any of it real?"

Ring cocks her head. "Reality is a matter of perspective Potara."

"You know what I mean!"

Ring looks at her with utter disregard. "Your soul was useful to me. Born out of two powerful figures, a part-saiyan with godlike power, the essence of a Kai from the Doll, you being a potara fusion, and having touched the Power of Creation. Better yet, your soul was damaged, and because of this it was so easy for me to slip into and feed off of it. I couldn't have asked for a better base."

Potara's eyes furrowed. "Base?"

Ring smiled widely, creeping Potara out. "I told you before, intent matters for Godlike and Demonic powers. None of the souls I had before were willingly given. You though, you fed to me willingly. So your soul I use as the basis to stabilize an existence outside of the confines of the ring. All given to me to try and mend the unmendable."

"Then what the hell was all of these last weeks?!" she demanded.

Ring laughed. "Oh Potara, we weren't healing this timeplane. We were setting up anchor points for it. To turn it into a parasite that would latch onto a real timeline and devour it whole. Your own to be precise was what I intended."

Potara chokes in horror.

"You're a real piece of work," called out Goku.

Ring doesn't acknowledge him. "And then you had to go on and put that ring on your finger. I don't like being denied what belongs to me."

Potara is warm enough now to feel her own fury. "I'm going to kill you."

Ring hums briefly. "Considering our connection and the ring on your finger, that you are the only one who can for the time being."

What was that supposed to mean...?

Vegetto appears behind Ring and runs her through with a ki-blade. Ring blinks and looks down before gazing backward at him, eyebrow raised.

"The hell?" he exclaimed, withdrawing his hand and levitating backward away.

Despite being run through, there is no damage at all.

"Oh Vegetto," Ring murmurs softly, "I am an aberration, a corruption of time. Save for Potara's and the original Kai I was fed, the souls I've gorged on are from beings that don't truly exist. This body is not quite real, not yet anyway. The only difference between you and I is the basis we originated from."

His eyes go wide, he glances sharply at her ring hand, then moves his hand to blast at it. Ring lashes out with a vicious blast of energy, sending him rocketing away. Potara's eyes narrow in thought, passionlessly flickering between the wary contenders flying in the sky, at Ring, at the Demon Time Ring on the monster's finger, then down at the White Time Ring...

'Considering our connection and the ring on your finger, that you are the only one who can for the time being'

She pulls on her power, feels it ignite, ascending to blue, but so much weaker than she had been. How much of her power had been stolen when Ring took the majority of her soul? Fuck, Pan might have been able to match her now. She grits her teeth at the indignation of it before she feels her finger tingle. She reaches out her senses to it, grasps that tingling, and pulls. Her blue aura shifts to a more white-blue hue, and with the rush comes power, but more importantly...

Peace.

She feels... calm.

Soothed.

Her momentary fury at Pan feels... unimportant.

But with the rush also comes an awful sense of vileness. Like a film peeled back from her, she can feel Ring. Feel her in-depth in a way she's never felt anything. With the Ring, she senses the falseness of the area around her, a wrongness, something that should not be, it ripples everywhere. The taint spreading through the air screams of sickness and makes her want to puke. None of that compares to the pure icy malevolence that Ring emanates. Her presence is cold in a way that leaves a mental frost burn to even brush up against, a shifting, swirling, active blizzard. She doesn't know if that's what she felt like prior to making a body, but it's what she feels like now. Potara has chills of apprehension rolling down her spine.

Most of all though?

Ring feels wrong.

That's enough for Potara to take to the skies, zipping through them in a bright flash and planting her fist right into Ring's face as the demonic creation turns at her approach, and unlike Vegetto, she bruises Ring's face as she sends it flying...

Review Responses:

Doctordan123: I actually agree with that. I'm not quite sure about the logistics of it yet, but I might just delete chapters out of this, make a new story, and put the deleted chapters there as a 'Book Two' kind of thing. I mean, I had Potara planned from the start of this fanfic way back when, but no real long term planning otherwise or other considerations of how it would turn out. Thinking back on it, yeah, she should have been the start of a new book. Though... post the fight VS the gods when Potara leaves, or at the beginning of it would be the question. Some chapters might need minor re-writes as well...

Razorgold96: See my response for Doctordan123 for the split into a different story. As for Odianna, you think she should have stuck around longer?