A/N Sorry for the long wait. Hope you enjoy this long chapter at over 36k words. The war between the Saiyans and the alliance between the Capital 50 and the Rogue Ravagers reaches it's climax as the Ant King and Saiyan King meet in battle.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the media that the characters and settings you may recognize in this story are from.
Nexus HWR 12.7 Meruem vs Bardock:
"This is Royal Guard Shaiapouf to the Capital 50!" Thirty-seven communications' devices around the Saiyan Mountains beeped and this message came over them. Some of the Capital 50 had been killed, others like High Commander Ginyu and Zarbon had broken their scouters during battles past. Only Savitar had fled, but the right side of his battle suit where his comms were linked had remained intact. He heard from all the way back at the Capital, while the others in the Capital 50 who could hear the message received it around the Saiyan Mountains. Pouf continued to those who could hear him, "Come to my coordinates! The King has begun his battle with the Saiyan King, but another Super Saiyan God intends to get in the way of that! Come! Assist your King!"
Monsters, men, vampires, demigods, aliens, and demons looked at their scouters or various comms' devices and saw the coordinates that Pouf sent them. Many of them turned and shot off in flashes of white light, others sprinted back to vehicles and lifted off to fly away. Some just turned and sprinted up the nearest slope to them, like Rob Lucci, transforming into his more slender, quicker form as he did. The Leopard Man reached the top of the slope and did not stop, leaping high up in the air off of it. Lucci shot up, and then he kicked the air behind him without even calling out "Geppou." He made shockwaves in the air with every kick, and he sped faster and faster towards the location he was given. Lucci had on a scouter with a red lens to it, and he focused near the area that Pouf had given him the coordinates to. Numbers raced up on the scouter, until a point that the numbers covered the entire top of it with 9's. The scouter had reached its limit, but luckily it did not explode thanks to certain editions made to it by the Capital's scientists.
Their power is immeasurable, by our standards. The King can beat those Saiyans though, as he is another of those beings whose power I cannot measure. Lucci's claws extended, as he rose up higher towards a mountain much too large for him to go over. He decided to go to the south of it instead in order to get around to where the fight was taking place. His breathing sped up as lightning dropped from the sky around him, as a dark reddish purple haze filled the air and bright golden and red flashes ignited on the other side of the mountain he flew towards.
Two miles away, Jeice shouted down at a group of his soldiers surrounding a cluster of over four hundred humans they had gathered up. There were no fences keeping them in, but those who had dared stray from the group after being brought over were met with swift, brutal retributions. The people were staying quiet since speaking out or crying were also met with some pretty messed up punishments. Jeice yelled down at his men surrounding those quiet prisoners, "We're heading to the King's position! Everyone on me, we'll come back for them later."
The people in the huge group, pressed together and short on breath, dropped their jaws at the sound of Jeice's command. One of his own men looked at the prisoners next to him in confusion, like he wondered how they were going to get all these people back after leaving. Many of them figured the prisoners would flee right away, only for the man who yelled down at them to prove them wrong. Jeice pointed both of his hands down and fired ten red blasts of ki from his hands. The energy blasts hit around the people who screamed and backed away from them, pushing even closer together and squishing each other inwards. Jeice's soldiers flew up, and they realized what he was doing as they looked down to see thirty foot steep drops on all sides of the prisoner cluster they had created.
"Let's go," Jeice said without any more hesitation. He turned and shot off in a white aura, and twenty four of his men turned and flew off after him. Even if they do find a way down, by the time they start lowering each other, we'll be back… hopefully. Jeice gazed towards the direction Pouf sent him the coordinates of, and he grimaced at the 9's at the top of his scouter. "Damn thing must be broken," he mumbled, even though he himself did not believe what he said. Just gotta keep the weaker ones off the King, 'cept the King's Voice said there's a Super Saiyan God trying to barge in. Doesn't seem like Saiyan style. "Heh," Jeice scoffed, though a bead of sweat was rolling down the left side of his face and flew off in the fast wind he was flying through. Bastard's probably facing off against one himself, calling in the cavalry to save him. Makes more sense than one of them trying to team up with Bardock against the King.
Shaiapouf stood twenty feet in front of Tora. The Super Saiyan God's hair was spiked up and red inside his giant flaming aura. He turned his head left and looked at Pitou who eased back but could not move her legs. He turned back to Pouf who tried to keep a steady expression despite the intense fear he was feeling. "You think, I would interrupt Bardock's fight?" Tora questioned.
I doubt it! Pouf thought in a panic. But if you kill myself or Pitou, the King would be in just as much harm! Foolish Saiyan, you do not understand how much we mean to him! Pouf could not say any of this aloud though and risk giving Tora valuable information on the King. Instead, Pouf began, "To protect your King, would you not?"
"If I wanted to be the next one on Bardock's kill list, I'd interrupt that fight. For any other reason, I'm leaving him alone," Tora cracked his neck to either side and then smirked in a menacing way. Both of the Royal Guards in front of him felt chills down their spines at the bloody smirk Tora gave them. He had some bad wounds on him, especially on his head where a lot of blood had washed down over his face. It still looked wet, and Tora could feel Savitar's attacks still eating away at him. The wound on his head was open, closing, but still leaking blood and not healing very fast thanks to him moving around so much. "As for you two though," Tora said, and his aura flared more wildly.
THUD A shadow fell over Tora's face. He felt the vibration on the ground and could see darkness in the corners of his eyes. The red-haired Saiyan turned his head sideways and looked behind him, then lifted his gaze up to the face of the giant monster behind him. It was getting bigger by the second. It was covered head to feet in red skin that was getting bumpier, and its human-like face was distorting and looking more monstrous every second. "RAAAA-" Youpi's roar got cut off as Tora's right hand wrapped around the front of his face and covered his entire mouth.
"Shut up," Tora said, squeezing tighter and pressing Youpi's face in at the center. The Royal Guard's eyes were bulging out the front of his head, and then Tora's hair stood on end and he darted his eyes to the right. In the corners of them he saw Pitou soaring at him. He spun while still gripping the largest Royal Guard around the face, and he spun so fast that he swung Menthuthuyoupi's legs straight into Pitou's face as she was approaching him. He batted Pitou away in the perfect direction that she slammed into Pouf who had just flown off the ground.
Pitou and Pouf went flying before Pouf flapped his brightly colored wings out behind him to stop their momentum. He grabbed Pitou by the arms, and he leaned his head in towards the side of her head and started whispering. Tora did not like the surprised look on Pitou's face as he looked up at them, so he formed a ball of blue ki on his right hand, right against Youpi's face. Youpi screamed into his hand, then he screamed into the energy as Tora sent it and him flying up towards the other guards.
"Shit!" Pouf shouted, ceasing his talk with Pitou. He threw her straight up as hard as she could, and she looked down in shock right before Youpi exploded into him in a giant sphere of blue.
"Pouf! Youpi!" Pitou shouted down to her comrades. She spun her head towards Tora who was grinning at her and running towards where she was arcing down to. Right before I touch where he expects, I'll start flying. Pouf, if you're still alive, work fast.
Pitou kept dropping until she was right above where Tora started punching, then an aura surrounded her body and she stopped moving all at once. The fist flew beneath her, but before Pitou could counter like she had planned on, the force from the punch slammed into her much harder than she was expecting. The force surrounded Tora's punch alone slammed into her and took the wind out of her, pressing her skin in and throwing her through the air and out of her aura. She spun around in the air and tried returning the aura to her body, but a leg slammed into her stomach while she was in mid-spin, her aura only halfway returned around her. Dark bluish-purple blood splashed from Pirou's mouth, and she went flying at three hundred miles per hour straight into the side of Mount Gine near them.
"RAA!" Tora turned and saw the giant red Royal Guard dropping towards him with both hands held together as one large fist over his head. Tora punched up at Youpi's chest while the Royal Guard slammed his arms down, and then Youpi's arms froze in place as the fist imbedded deep into his body. His eyes bulged again, bloodshot, and he could feel Tora's fist tearing through his muscly flesh. "RAGE EXPLO-" His body started glowing, and Tora spun his right leg around into Youpi's side. He sent the Royal Guard flying off a second before he exploded in a giant mushroom cloud that rose up into the sky. Tora had to cross his arms and he let out a whistle as the heat of force of the blast slammed into him. That one's got a kick. He's not going down easy, and that blast was pretty nice. Tora shook his head around and wiped some blood out of his eyes. He narrowed his gaze into the explosion, I'll finish him off first.
Tora felt something behind him and he spun around. He wanted to take on Youpi first, but he spun to see Pouf floating not far behind him. Shaiapouf was grinning at him, grinning in an animalistic, and victorious fashion. "I changed my mind," Tora snarled, as he did not like the look on Pouf's face one bit. "I'm killing you first." Something was off about Pouf other than his facial expression, and Tora finally put his finger on it as he spotted something in the corner of his eye.
Pitou coughed up some more blood and leaned her head up from where she lay in the snow on Mount Gine. Youpi came out of his explosion, panting heavily and looking towards Tora and Pouf in confusion. Tora glared at the small object he saw in the corner of his eye, then he darted his gaze back to Pouf. He's shorter. Tora shot across the air to the spot where the tiny object was moving, and he clenched his fist around it, making Pouf's eyes widen in surprise as he did not think Tora saw that. Tora opened his clenched fist and the tiny clone of Pouf the size of a fly that he had grabbed was crushed and turning to dust as it fell from his hand. "What were you trying to do with that?"
"Oh, oh ho ho," Pouf started laughing, his voice getting higher-pitched and sounding even more cocky. "I have a certain technique, called Beelzebub, which allows me to break my body into many smaller versions of myself. I used to only be able to create enough that the smallest were the size of insects, like the one you just crushed."
Used to? Tora thought, having a bad feeling as his eyes started darting around. Right as he started looking around, he got a searing pain in the back of his head and smacked his right hand back on it. He winced in pain as he smacked right over the still-open wound that Savitar gave him.
"You're much too late," Pouf began, and his fellow Royal Guards started smirking as they realized what was going on. Tora started feeling strange, feeling itchy all over his head. He grabbed at his temples, as Pouf continued, "I have advanced my power to a point that I can make my clones the size of grains of sand, dust, and several dozen of my clones have already entered your bloodstream." Pouf chuckled darkly, then said while Tora looked his way with eyes filling with blood, "At any time I can make them merge back together into a larger clone."
Tora's face started twitching and his whole body trembled. His mouth twisted in rage and he opened it to shout, but nothing came out. Blood started seeping out of his ears and out his nostrils. His red aura vanished and his hair turned black again. A huge bump protruded from the left side of Tora's head, and then a tiny hand punched through the Saiyan's skull. A tiny version of Pouf the size of a small bird dug its way out of the Saiyan's head, leaving mashed brains behind him. Tora fell from the air as Pouf's miniature clone flew back towards the original, and re-absorbed straight into Pouf's body, making him a little bit taller again.
Pitou's head fell back on the snow behind her. She was exhausted, and her body felt so broken after all these fights with Saiyans more powerful than her. She had some broken bones and blood dripping out the corners of her mouth. Youpi flew over to Pouf using large red wings that had spread out of his back, and he and Pouf looked over towards Pitou who was not doing so hot. Youpi opened his mouth to say something, and then he and Pouf snapped their heads up and their eyes opened wide.
"Oh no," Pouf whispered, suddenly remembering the new orders he gave out a minute ago. I didn't expect him to fall for that. Either his injuries dulled him, or he was a brute who relied on strength. Either way, I fucked up. A tiny version of Pouf flew out of his back and shot towards the second tallest mountain in the range. The little Pouf clone flew right up to Pitou's face while the cat Chimera Ant tried sitting up. "Stay here, you'll be killed in seconds out there." The tiny clone said in a higher-pitched voice than the original. The little Pouf then flew up and punched the snow right above the indent that Pitou was lying in, and the snow fell down and covered her body up.
Damn you, Pouf, Pitou thought, while getting covered in a mini avalanche.
Youpi and Pouf's main body just stared up in the air as Pouf's clone tried helping Pitou. Pouf thought about sending out new orders, but it was too late. He was going to say that the Super Saiyan God was dead and no one needed to come anymore, but the sight of Ginyu and Deus flying around the side of the mountain was immediately followed by two red glowing Gods chasing them around the slope of Mount Gine. There were some other Capital 50 members with the High Commander and his fellow Guardian, and Pouf shouted up at them, "The Super Saiyan God is dead! Focus on your fights!"
Deus and Ginyu spun back towards their original opponents right away. They re-charged at Fasha and Shugesh, while the two Super Saiyan Gods were staring down in shock at the body below Pouf lying face-down in the snow. "Tora," Fasha whispered. Her head snapped back up and her red eyes turned a darker shade as she glared at Deus. Her teeth sharpened, and she let out a scream that turned into a roar halfway through. Fasha shot at Deus twice as fast as before, punching at his face with her right hand. Deus leaned away to dodge it, but Fasha just kept flying forward and smashed her face straight into his. With her forehead pressed against his, she screamed, "RRAAAAAEEEEE!" The air around them quivered, and then Fasha leaned forward and bit down on Deus' nose.
He reeled back in pain, then both of Fasha's arms came in at the same time and clapped him on opposite temples. She double-kicked with both legs into his chest, then she did a barrel-roll in the air and dodged a speak of ice and a huge red energy blast fired from other members of the Capital 50. She turned her head and snarled, lifting hands to point at them. Lightning bolts flew at her in a giant beam, and Fasha was thrown backwards before she could attack the other powerful enemies.
Deus looked angry. Both sides of his face covered in orange energy, and his entire body sparked lightning violently in every direction. He had blood dripping down the center of his face from the gash on the bridge of his nose, and he was still bruised up from fighting Dyspo earlier. Fasha stopped flying backwards and she glowered back at him, but her eyes darted cautiously to her sides. She was like an animal, keeping her eyes on every opponent in front of her and snarling like a beast to keep them all back. Deus could not actually tell if the woman was thinking coherent thoughts, but then he saw the corners of her lips curl up and he had a bad feeling in his gut.
Eight beams of yellow light shot towards Fasha's back, passed her on her sides, and flew towards the other allies Deus had around him. Deus looked behind the woman, while Ginyu snapped his head that way as Shugesh started chuckling darkly through his snarling teeth as well. Pouf thought for a second that maybe he was wrong to dread the fact that more battles had been brought here, but Ginyu and Deus' fight was not the only one. All at once it seemed, a hundred Saiyans and a hundred of their own allies came flying around both sides of Mount Gine's slope. Beams and flames flew in every direction. Explosions rippled through the sky, on the slopes and peaks of smaller mountains around them, and the ground started shaking worse than ever. The war compressed, finally focusing in on a single battleground.
"Where the Hell do you think was he off to in such a hurry?" Rutabega asked the man on his right side.
"Doesn't really matter now, does it?" Another Super Saiyan floating past the man next to Rutabega replied. Dirru had much longer blond hair that spiked out behind him instead of straight up above his head and to the sides like Rutabega.
The man in the center had the longest and spikiest blond hair. He clenched his right hand into a fist and fully crushed the throat of the man he had already choked the life out of. "No," Raditz said, as the man's body and head fell in different directions. "Guess it doesn't."
Four Saiyans were flying towards the three Super Saiyans hovering above the northern slope of the Training Mountain. They were pretty far down the mountains, but not as far as Raditz would have liked. He glanced up as the other Saiyans approached him, then back down and to the southeast. His eyes narrowed in that direction where so many different colors were swirling, The fucker I just killed was heading that way too. Strange, to have come this far up only to turn around, he must have new orders to go that way.
"All the enemies on the south slope are dead or fleeing," Apragus called out as he neared the group of three Super Saiyans. Raditz looked forward and nodded at the Saiyan whose hair was a similar length but a pitch black.
"Sure they're fleeing?" Rutabega asked. "Or were they heading that way?" He motioned with his head in the same direction Raditz was just looking, having had the same idea that their leader did.
The other two men and the woman behind Apragus glanced at each other with frowns. They were all bloody and bruised, unlike the three Super Saiyans who did not look to have an injury on them. As they thought about it, the four of them realized that the enemies were not running away, only regrouping. "We'll go after them," Raditz said. He stopped himself though, and he gazed back up where he spotted something. His eyes narrowed, and the other six looked up as well to see a group of over fifteen figures flying down towards them. None of those figures had forgotten to put on their Power Blockers like many of the seven floating there did, but Raditz noticed them anyway.
An older Saiyan man was descending with a cluster of Saiyans young and old behind him. None of them looked all too damaged despite a war going on around them, and the Saiyans who were taking part in the battles all over the place got annoyed or angered looks on their faces at the sight of them. "Edamamu," Dirru growled up. His golden hair waved around behind his head and he growled in a deeper voice, "What do you want? Can't find any enemies?"
"Raditz," Edamamu greeted as he lowered down. He dropped down straight in front of Raditz, surprising the others with his actions. Apragus glanced up, but the fifteen still above him all had serious and intense looks on their faces just like the older man. It was strange though, despite their intensity, none of them had the sheer looks of bloodthirstiness as the rest of their race. They looked almost, calm.
"What?" Raditz asked, lifting his left eyebrow to show he would hear the old man out.
"This is the moment we have been waiting for," Edamamu began. "This war, it's the chance we needed. The chance you've been looking for." The two Super Saiyans at Raditz's sides glanced in at each other with a knowing look. Apragus got a dark look on his face, but the three behind Apragus looked up to see their comrades nodding down at them with serious expressions.
"Now is the time to get Prince Vegeta," Edamamu continued. The others behind Apragus went wide-eyed, and the two men looked in at each other. One of them nodded at the other who grinned wide and nodded once back. The woman glanced to her right at the two of them, an uneasy feeling stirring in her chest. She looked back forward to see what Raditz thought, while Edamamu continued to the younger Saiyan, "You know the procedure. If you get Prince Vegeta now, you can turn him into a Super Saiyan God."
Raditz's frown grew deeper, but Edamamu was not finished. "We have all seen you quarreling with Bardock. You spoke against him in favor of Prince Vegeta. This is the best moment, while he is distracted by this war. You have all of our support, and when Vegeta becomes King he will reward our services, yours most of all."
Raditz looked up at the group above Edamamu. "You all feel this way?" Rutabega wondered as he looked up at them too. All of them kept their steady looks, some of them grinned, most nodded to Raditz.
"We're with you too," one of the men behind Apragus said.
"Let's go get Vegeta," the other said.
Apragus darted his eyes to the side. "Sukuwashi, Gourudu," he muttered with a shake of his head.
Raditz looked back down and into Edamamu's eyes. "Did I just hear you correctly?" The old man had lifted the left corner of his mouth up a small amount, looking more smug than the rest of the Saiyans around. He was one of the two elders who Raditz always saw contending his father at meetings, at gatherings, every time he turned his head. Edamamu looked confused at the younger man, and Raditz floated forward, floated closer to him and closer until there was a small two foot gap between their bodies. Edamamu leaned his head back a small amount, not wanting to float backwards and show how afraid he was. Raditz looked down with crystal blue eyes and asked, "Do you plan on taking my father's life?"
Edamamu's mouth shot open, but Raditz spoke first, "Because to me, this seems like a coup. It seems like you are taking advantage of a crisis where all Saiyans should be working together, to try and overthrow my father." Raditz's mouth twisted into a snarl and he roared, "Do you think so little of me that I would turn on my own father?!" His fist shot forward and through the chest of the old man in front of him. The Saiyans above got confused and terrified looks on their faces, and that terror only intensified as Raditz snapped his head up with is arm still imbedded in Edamamu's chest. Half of them let out screams as Raditz's blue eyes turned red.
Their screams did not last long.
Eighteen bodies fell out of the sky over the northern slope of the Training Mountain. Raditz's hair turned from red back to gold, but the Saiyan whose arms and entire body were covered in the blood of his own race kept panting with his teeth bared. Apragus shook his head again as he looked down at the two men falling below him, while the woman behind him had her eyes opened huge and was trembling where she floated. She could not even think coherently enough to thank the gods that she was not stupid enough to join with the others.
"Would say it's a shame we lost so many fighters in the midst of a battle, but those fuckers weren't doing shit anyway," Rutabega said and chortled.
Raditz spat down towards the bodies falling beneath him. "Traitors, the whole lot of them."
"Looks like the movement to make Vegeta the King just lost a lot of steam," Apragus mentioned as he floated forward towards his mate. Raditz nodded, a slightly annoyed look on his face. "Whatever, we'll deal with that later," Apragus said, getting everyone to refocus on what was really important. The air around them got thicker and lightning dropped all at once from a hundred different places in the air around them.
"Later," Raditz agreed.
"For now," Rutabega said, and he turned as did the other four Saiyans towards the darkest purple any of them had seen before. "Guess it's time to get over there."
Son Goku had two black eyes. He had a shallow gash on his left cheek that matched his father's face. The cuts on Goku's forehead and the sides of his eyes were bleeding a lot, and some of the blood was getting in his eyes even as he blinked his eyes fast to try and keep it out. The Super Saiyan floated next to his father, both of them around six feet tall, and both over a head taller than the Ant King who floated before them.
"Kakarott," Bardock began. "I won't leave…" This boy- no, this man. "Because these are my people too, because my dad is the Saiyan King!" Kakarott, you, the corners of Bardock's lips started to curl back up. "Look behind us," Bardock said to his son, while keeping his own eyes on Meruem. Goku took his eyes off his enemy, but Meruem did not take that moment to fly forward and attack. Bardock's stance told him that he was ready for Meruem to try just that, and Meruem would rather take the lead in the rhythm of the fight instead of doing what Bardock wanted him to. Bardock continued while he kept his eyes on Meruem, looking for the smallest movement, "The war is coming this way. The only way the Ant King beats me is with assistance. It's why he allied with the Rogue."
Goku got a confused look on his face and spun back to his father. "Turles is here?"
"Listen to me Kakarott," Bardock snapped. "Get back there and help our people." The way Bardock worded it made Goku happy considering a minute ago Bardock told him that this fight had nothing to do with him. "Our," Goku thought, but he did not grin, because what his father said went against what he wanted to do.
"I want to stay," Goku countered. He stayed in his fighting stance even while looking behind him, and he stared back over at Meruem's face. "I want to help you," he said.
"You can't help me defeat Meruem, but you can keep those pests off my back. Give me my fight without intrusions, Kakarott. It is the best thing you can do to help me." Goku ground his teeth after hearing his father's words, but he knew what Bardock said was true. Goku nodded once with a serious expression on his face and Bardock grinned at the sight through his peripheral vision. Goku started floating backwards, and Bardock's grin lowered down into a flat lip. His fists clenched harder in front of him, and just clenching them created shockwaves in the air. "And Kakarott," he said, before the other man could fly off. Even though one was son and the other father, Bardock looked no older than the man at his side. He did not turn to the man next to him and back a few meters, but Goku looked back towards the back of his father's head.
"I'm proud of you," Bardock said. Goku's eyes shot open huge, and a deep feeling of dread filled his body as the other man finished, "My son."
Goku's mouth could not have dipped lower. What his father told him were words that he should have been so happy to hear, as he had been trying to impress his father since he arrived on the Saiyan Mountains yet kept falling short. He could not beat Bardock in their fight, he could not turn Super Saiyan 3 when his father asked him to, even now he could not take part in the fight against Meruem because of his smaller power. Despite all that, Bardock was saying that he was proud, and Goku could hear it in the man's voice that he was telling the truth. As much as it should have made him happy though, Goku could not help but feel dread eating away at him. "I'm proud of you, my son." I, said those words once.
In his head, Goku saw Cell's body getting fatter and fatter. He saw the monster about to self-destruct, and recalled teleporting in front of it and saying those same words to his own son. Right before he died. He can win! Goku shouted at himself in his head. He turned away and shot towards Mount Gine in an aura of gold light. He flew towards the hundreds of powers and presences he felt coming around the slopes and the extremely powerful ones already in front of him. He thinks he can win, Meruem is cautious around him, more so than he was with me! I fought both of them, and I felt like, no- I know! Bardock's power is stronger! So then why? Why do I feel so… afraid? Goku looked back over his shoulder, but Meruem and Bardock had vanished from sight. He darted his eyes around, and he caught a glimpse of something fast moving high in the sky above him, but by the time he focused in on it, a shockwave ripped through the air much farther down.
As much as he hated it, Goku turned from the fight that would determine the course of the war, and he shifted his gaze back towards Mount Gine. He pushed the annoyance from his mind, an intensity replacing it on his face. His father gave him a task, but even if Bardock did not ask it of him, the Saiyan Mountains were under attack. Goku had no idea how many people had died so far in the battles around the mountain range, but he knew the number was high. His golden hair spiked up harder and lightning bolts broke off of his body, and he shot across the sky in a blur of golden light.
At the eastern slope of Mount Gine, several beings turned their heads as they felt Goku's power approaching. The ki was speeding towards them fast and not being blocked since Goku no longer wore a PB-6. Three of the Capital 50 floated in the air behind forty of their lower soldiers in the middle of one-on-one fights with Saiyan grunts. The blue-skinned woman in the center of the three had long orange hair and three small red dots glowing on her forehead in a triangle. Indigo snapped her head up from the fights below, and the Jeice and Burter looked up as well from her sides. "What is that?" She questioned, her eyes narrowing before shooting open wide as a man shot through the air like a rocket and appeared right in front of her. She rose up a guard, but Goku's fist towards her chest was a feint, and the man's right leg slammed the woman in the side of her head and sent her crashing back into Mount Gine.
Jeice and Burter were still in the middle of turning inwards, and both of them opened their eyes huge as they saw the person floating there. "Bloody Hell! It's Son-" Goku's right fist flew out and slammed Jeice right in the middle of his face, sending the red-skinned man spinning back through the air, thinking, He broke my fucking nose!
"Jeice!" Burter shouted.
I know these guys, Goku thought, while he kneed up into Burter's stomach so hard that his knee was visible on the blue alien's back. He pointed his right hand towards Mount Gine where he saw the woman he hit first who he felt was the strongest of the three getting back up. Goku fired twenty yellow beams of light at her in rapid succession, while Burter fell from the air in front of him with his eyes rolled back into his head.
Jeice righted himself in midair, blood pouring down his face from his shattered nose. What the Hell?! We weren't prepared for this! No one said anything about Goku being- Goku's gaze shifted back to Jeice, and the alien with long white hair spun around to flee. Goku was already in front of him by the time he was fully turned, and then Goku chopped both of his hands on the sides of Jeice's neck, dropping him from the sky unconscious.
Jeice and Burter's men looked back in horror as their leaders were dropping unconscious from the sky, one after the other. The Saiyans fighting these grunts got their chances and powered through the nervous enemies, while Goku shifted his gaze down to the actual slope of Mount Gine farther towards the base. Two fighter jets were flying towards the mountain from the north, and they fired two lines of heavy caliber bullets across the slope where several men and women were charging up. Half of the figures took the bullets straight on, most of them without even flinching at the strong blows. The other half swerved and weaved between every single bullet, and then one man pointed his arm up in the air and fired a blue beam.
One of the two fighter jets pulled off from the other, but the blue beam followed after it. It started doing tricks in the air, and it finally shook off the energy beam, only for a Saiyan to fly up to the ship in midair and rip the pilot from the cockpit, then rip him in half. The ship started spinning out in the air and crashed down right on top of two men who had just clashed fists in between them with snow pushing away from their collision. A huge explosion blew up around them, and then the two came flying up out of the top of the fireball, kicking and punching each other with blood splashing from either of their bodies.
Standing near the bodies of two Saiyan women, a man of almost seventeen feet tall stared up at a single glowing light in the sky. He did not focus on the two Super Saiyan Gods in the middle of fights against the Capital's strongest fighters, but on the Super Saiyan man who made his eyes open huge and sweat form all over his face. The muscular man had three vertical red lines tattooed down his chest and stomach, a red skull tattooed on his left arm, short and spiky crimson red hair, and he wore a white fur coat over his black special armor made by the Capital's best scientists. Charlotte Katakuri, otherwise known as Dogtooth, shouted, "Everyone focus on that man!"
A half dozen other members of the Capital 50 on the slope behind their ground forces facing off against Saiyans followed Dogtooth's point up into the air. The man he pointed at finally chose where he was going though, and as far ahead as Dogtooth could see with his Observational Haki, he knew they were far from ready to face this man. "He's coming!" Dogtooth shouted. His fists turned black with Armament Haki, and his skin started to goop with the power of his Mochi Mochi Fruit.
Seeing how serious Dogtooth was getting before the man had even gotten to them, Gorilla Grodd sent out a message with his telepathy. "The golden one. Focus on him." Eight gorillas in heavy plated armor ahead of Grodd lifted their heads, and then wings shot to the sides of the backs of their armor, and jets fired out of them shooting them up into the sky. The gorillas soared at Goku, and Goku swerved between each and every one of them without throwing a single punch.
A wall of sand twenty meters thick rose up between Grodd and Goku, while the telepathic gorilla in command of the others jumped backwards. Flint Marko emerged from the top of his giant sand wall, his body fifty feet taller than the top of the wall below, but just as thick. He rose a giant hand made of sand, but Goku started flying again. He had stopped when the sand rose out of nowhere, but Goku sped up and shot straight through the Sandman's chest. He found the sand got denser towards the middle and harder to push through, but a simple yell expelled enough force from his body that Flint screamed and his giant sand body pulled apart, his real form falling away from this.
Dogtooth spun around and shouted, "Back us up!" The two he shouted at were easing backwards themselves though.
Angila and Medamatcha had left Wings behind when they received their new orders. They had come to the battlefield and were bloody from fighting some Saiyan grunts, but the sight of the person flying towards them made both demons feel fear so intense they could do nothing but back away. "I-I-It's him!" Angila screamed.
Medamatcha turned and flew away as fast as he could, the sight of the man who had killed him in his previous life too much to handle. Angila gulped as he thought about punishment for running away, but then he watched as Goku landed between two of the other Capital 50 members on the slope of the mountain, and dispatched of them with ease. He spun and flew away after Medamatcha, but the smaller toad-like alien ahead of him was too scared to think straight. Angila saw it before his comrade, and he shouted, "Medamatcha! Above you!"
The smaller demon lifted his shaky gaze, and he let out half of a scream before the stray ball of ki slammed into his body. The alien crossed his arms inside the explosion, but he was too late to prevent his entire body from being covered in burns. He kept screaming in pain, but Angila shouted, "Move!" The taller demon flew forward and tackled Medamatcha through the air as a red ball of ki flew towards them that was no larger than the last one, but felt much more powerful. The stray ki passed them and Angila kept flying, before letting out a yell himself as the explosion from that blast was a hundred times larger than the last one. Shugesh did not even notice that he almost blew up some of the Capital 50 below, he was too focused on Ginyu's strange attacks that were faster than he could keep up with. The Super Saiyan God sported a single bloody cut on the right side of his lips, and he had bloody knuckles on his left hand, but he was not too damaged from Ginyu's Nen attacks.
Shugesh darted a glance into the distance where he knew Bardock was facing the Ant King. That Meruem has a lot more power than the last time Bardock beat him. Don't know what he did to get that strong, but it won't be enough to beat the boss.
Bardock and Meruem were clashing more than thirty times a second across the sky above the Saiyan Mountains. Bardock's moves were faster, but somehow every move he made, the Ant King had been preparing for long enough to be ready to block or evade it. Meruem's counterattacks came from different angles every time, and his pattern never stayed the same for more than a second or two. If the pattern lasted any longer, Bardock knew Meruem was just luring him into getting accustomed to that rhythm so that the ant could catch him unawares. Each time Meruem tried it though, Bardock was prepared and did not flinch or miss a beat with the change in pattern.
Meruem's three right kicks in a row while spinning his body changed right at the third kick, when his leg was about to slam Bardock in the open palm he actually got up this time instead of leaning his head back. Right as the foot was about to hit him in the hand, Meruem's tail lashed up at his palm. Bardock grabbed the tip of the tail and pushed forward right into Meruem's foot that was going to slam into his own tail and try to push forward into Bardock's face. Bardock slammed both his tail and foot back, and Meruem did a backflip, his head easing out of the way of the red beam of light Bardock tried firing at him with his other hand. As Meruem dodged the beam though, Bardock's right leg kicked forward towards his chest.
Meruem was already flipping backwards, so the force of the blow was lowered thanks to his momentum. The kick was still a kick from a Super Saiyan God though, and the Ant King went flying over a hundred meters backwards before spinning around and crossing his arms, blocking the punch from the red-haired Saiyan who appeared behind him. Bardock growled as Meruem blocked his next punch, and his growl got even deeper as despite pushing into it, Meruem was pushing so hard forward that he did not go flying away. The Ant King's tail snapped around the side of his body towards the left side of Bardock's face. Bardock had punched forward with his left hand, and he just started making a ball of red ki in his right hand. It looked like Meruem caught him, as Bardock started easing his head to the side but would not get it far enough to dodge the thicker part of Meruem's tail. The thin part passed Bardock's face, and then the tail stopped short and Meruem's eyes opened wide for an instant.
Bardock's own red-furred tail had whipped around the side of his body and wrapped around the end of Meruem's tail. It was not enough to stop the force of the Ant King's attack all at once, but he was able to push Meruem's tail even further to his left so that even the thick part missed hitting him in the face. Bardock's tail pulled back using Meruem's momentum against him, pulling the Ant King forward in that instant that his eyes opened a little wider. Bardock still had the glowing ball of red light on his right hand, and he was faster than Meruem who could not make a single mistake in his fight, and he knew it. Meruem did not let his shock get the best of him, and in the same second that Bardock's tail that had always been unimportant during their previous fight and this one redirected his attack, Meruem recovered and kneed upwards towards Bardock's stomach to keep some distance between them.
The Saiyan King lowered his left hand that he punched with originally from Meruem's still-crossed arms, and he pushed Meruem's knee to the side while the Ant King started lifting his freed arms to try and block the blast now. Bardock's red energy grew bigger as Meruem lifted his arms to stop it though, Too powerful, Meruem realized. He leaned his head away, but Bardock's arm curved to follow his dodge. Meruem's arms kept raising, but he could not just put them in front of his face as he knew the blast would go right through them and into his head. Bardock grinned while looking into Meruem's purple eyes, and he yelled, "DIE!" The red ball of ki on his hand turned into a beam of light that shot away from him right at Meruem's face.
The Ant King had no other option. He reached straight into the beam with his left hand, found Bardock's open palm, and pushed it to the side just enough that the edge of the beam only grazed the side of his face. Only a graze of such a powerful attack still ripped off a chunk of the dark green crown attached to the top of his head, his left ear and long earlobe, as well as his entire left arm that he pushed the beam away with right before it incinerated in the blast. Meruem went flying away from Bardock but off the side of his beam out of the air. Bardock lost his grin after shouting 'Die' at his opponent, thinking about how he felt Meruem's hand push his own away right at the start of the attack. Did he evade it enough? Bardock thought, while looking over and watching purple blood come out of the Chimera Ant falling from the air.
Meruem stopped falling after a few seconds, and from a position twenty meters below Bardock and twice that in front of him, the Ant King started floating straight up again. Meruem was panting, and his eyes darted to his left side to see the extent of the damage. A chunk of his left shoulder was gone along with the entire arm off of it, but the left side of his torso had remained mostly unscathed. The worst damage was to his head though, and Meruem was panting less because of the pain, but because of how close the beam was to going straight through his head.
"Haha, hahaha," Bardock chuckled, as he lowered down the twenty meters to get back on level with the Ant King. The two of them had stopped not far from Mount Gine, and a few dozen Saiyans and their enemies flying around in the sky nearby came to stops and looked over. The sight of the Ant King in such a state made the members of the Capital 50 and their subordinates drop their jaws. They filled with fear, while Saiyans started laughing and hollering insults in the Ant King's direction. "Focus on your own opponents," Bardock snarled in a deep voice. He was not necessarily close to any of the other Saiyans, and he did not speak very loud, but every one of them heard him and stopped laughing. They spun back to their terrified enemies who were losing morale at the sight of their injured King. Bardock stared straight forward with his red eyes and growled at Meruem, "I'm finishing this. Your last move saved you a few seconds, but you can't win now."
"I wonder about that," Meruem said, and he clenched his right hand into a fist, a massive dark bluish-purple aura erupting from his body and filling the sky. Black wisps came off of his body, and Bardock growled but clenched his own right fist and prepared to charge at the Ant King. "This is the end," Meruem growled, staring into Bardock's eyes in a bloodthirsty way. He shot forward, and Bardock flew forward as well.
The Saiyans and their enemies were going to attack each other again, but they saw their leaders shooting towards each other and everyone held their breaths as it seemed like a final attack. Meruem let out a yell and punched his right fist forward, and Bardock pulled his head to the side in a quick movement right before he punched his own right fist forward. As Bardock was punching his right fist though, his eyes darted to Meruem's left side and his eyes shot open huge. The Ant King's skin all around his destroyed shoulder was rippling, and then out of his destroyed tissue shot a green arm, fully grown, with a ball of dark purple energy at the end of it. The arm regrew so fast right over Bardock's arm that kept punching beneath it. Meruem saw Bardock's shock though, and he was planning on it which was why he acted so rashly like he was preparing a final charge. His body turned sideways, and Bardock's fist passed in front of it, while Meruem fired the purple beam of energy from his palm straight into Bardock's face. It looked more like Meruem just slammed the attack into Bardock's head, but he pulled away a nanosecond early in order to save his arm from being re-destroyed only seconds after it had regrown.
Meruem flew backwards, but he was still hit by the huge dark purple explosion that sent him flying on the edge of a giant sphere of light through the sky. The spectators watching the fight from nearby switched expressions. The King's men started cheering and spinning back to their Saiyan opponents with renewed intensity, while the Saiyans had nervous looks on the faces at the sight of such a powerful explosion. It was so massive that many of them had to fly backwards just to get away from even being close to the edge, as bolts of dark lightning were shooting out of it and hitting everything in sight. Meruem's arm had regrown, and as the Ant King stopped moving backwards, those who looked his way could see the left side of his head start reforming as well. Meruem did not need to regrow it as fast as it was not pertinent at the time, but he needed his left ear back, and he regenerated his entire body before gaining a small grin as he looked towards the explosion.
"The King did it!"
"King!"
Meruem did not say a word to the subordinates behind and above him. A weird, dark aura came out of his back and surrounded some of them though, and those men filled with fear. They spun to the Saiyans, rage-filled looks of fear spreading across their faces. They charged at the Saiyans who did not know what became of their own King, and they pushed the Saiyan warriors back.
Goku glanced into the sky in the distance where the huge explosion was settling down. The light was fading, and Goku nodded as he saw a shadow inside it becoming more visible. He turned back to the man in front of him whose white fur coat was stained in blood. Goku did not know how he felt about the man who was so much taller than him, almost three times his height, but the man was fighting Saiyans and he was on the Saiyans' side right now. "Son Goku," the man began, and he lifted up his blackened arms into a fighting stance. "I never saw this coming, that I would face you in battle today."
Dogtooth narrowed his gaze and in his head saw a scenario play out with his Observational Haki. His Kenbunshoku Haki was better than anyone else he had ever heard of, so good in fact that he not only saw opponents' moves coming, but could see entire scenarios play out in his head before fights. It was as if he was looking into the future, and he did not like the future he saw when he lifted his fists. In his head, he turned his skin into mochi with his Devil Fruit power, but Goku's fists turned black a moment before they collided with his face, and he was unconscious in a single move if he tried fighting that way. Charlotte Katakuri lifted his right arm, and Goku shot forward in that moment.
Dad's going all out up there. He didn't use this much power when fighting Raditz, and dad said that he had to go all out against him. Goku punched forward, but right as his arm was about to go over Dogtooth's lifted forearm for the man's face, a blue shield appeared out of a gadget on Dogtooth's wrist. Goku slammed his fist into the blue shield anyway, and Dogtooth lifted off the ground and was thrown a hundred feet backwards. He hit the ground and dug through the snow, then kept skidding up the mountain before losing his footing and starting to roll. The entire time, he kept his shield risen and made sure that it did not touch the ground. Finally, Dogtooth flipped up and landed on his feet, only to skid another thirty feet backwards.
The Super Saiyan down below on the mountain looked up in semi-surprise that the shield held on through his punch. Dogtooth felt his entire right arm trembling after that blow, his bones shaking at the force of it. He started running back down the mountain though, a different scenario playing out in his mind now. Goku lifted off the ground and flew up towards the man above who did not seem all that fazed from his last attack. A grin tugged at Goku's face at the idea of it, Twice the strength this time! The shield won't be able to hold. Goku slammed his right fist forward while Dogtooth leapt towards him and pushed the shield out.
After punching the man so strong that he was sent flying, Goku knew something was up for the man to leap at him shield-first like that. He wanted to test the light shield's strength though, so despite knowing that something was up, Goku slammed his fist forward. Instant regret. All the force of Goku's fist punch was redirected straight at him, sending him flying the opposite direction as his opponent while flinching. Dogtooth's eyes opened wide though as Goku's head snapped back towards him in under a second, a more intense look in his eyes. That's it, the former pirate thought. He was holding back so as not to kill me with his first punch, so an attack with only that much force would hardly faze a man like him. Damn, Dogtooth had planned on following up on the redirected blow right away, but instead he flew backwards and landed back up the slope of the mountain they were on.
Goku landed in front of him, and he opened his mouth to say something about the man's attack, when he felt a pinch in his head. "Son Goku. You will listen to- AHH!"Down the slope and to Goku's left, a gorilla in strong armor fell backwards while gripping at his own head in pain. Goku did not take his eyes off of Dogtooth while he interrupted Grodd's attack, but it did keep him from speaking for a few seconds. "That shield is pretty great," Goku said to the Capital 50 member in front of him. "You seem really strong too. It's a shame you fight for a monster."
"You fight for the Saiyans," Dogtooth replied in a serious tone, an intense look on his face as he prepared for Goku to attack at any second. "Their war with the Kryptonians devastated Aebrith. Meruem put a stop to that pointless war." Goku's eyebrows lifted up, and Dogtooth finished, "Who is it who fights for monsters?"
"I fought Meruem because he was eating a child," Goku said, not backing down from what he said before. The Super Saiyan man with black eyes and a gash on his left cheek continued, "I do not fight 'for' the Saiyans. I fight for what I think is right. And whether or not the Ant King has done good in the past, what he is doing today is evil. If you are going to help him, then I am going to stop you."
"Hmph," Dogtooth's body started turning into mochi again, and he punched his fists forward so fast that it looked like he had dozens of them.
Farther towards the base of Mount Gine than Goku and his opponent, Sora trekked up through the snow with a bloody boy on his back. Even after all the cure magic he could muster, Dash's body looked weak, his skin stretched, his hair was longer and a mess all around his face. He had broken bones, but some must have been shattered because Sora's magic did little to help him. He could hear quiet, pained moans of the unconscious boy he was carrying, and Sora could not tell if they were from his own physical pain, or from what the boy saw earlier that he was having nightmares about while unconscious.
This battle, it's out of my hands, Sora thought. He gazed up the slope of the mountain, and in a few seconds he saw over twenty explosions, a few of which started rock slides that he was going to have to avoid. Sora was panting, but he lifted off the floor and floated up to avoid the rocks and the snow sliding down with them. I might not be able to help Goku very much up there, but I can help Dash at least. Sora looked to his right and around the slope a little where an earlier rock slide had carried away an entire destroyed town. Dash's brother's body should-
As Sora looked that way, a stray ball of red light from the most intense fight high up in the sky fell where he was looking. Sora reached a hand forward, fearing what was about to happen, and then he snapped backwards with his head pushed away, his whole body bathed in red light from the enormous red dome coming out of that side of the mountain. He lowered his hand while the dome kept growing in size, and Sora clenched his teeth in anger and regret. He glanced up to his right shoulder where Dash's chin, covered in dried blood, rested. "Sorry Dash," he whispered.
Meruem looked down as one of Bardock's attacks flew towards the remnants of Azalea Town. The King frowned as a snack he wanted for later was likely incinerated with a chunk of the base of Mount Gine, and then Meruem's eyes popped open wide as a knee imbedded up into his chest. His head snapped back up and he punched a fist forward, but Bardock did a spin to dodge it. Bardock put both of his fists together halfway through the spin, and when he finished coming around, he slammed both of them together into the side of Meruem's head and sent the Ant King flying across the sky.
Bardock smirked as the Ant King went flying. He smirked, a mouth full of bloody teeth. He had two trails of blood coming out of his nostrils, and there were some bad burns over a lot of his face from Meruem's attack right when he regenerated his arm. Bardock's power did not take a dip though despite the powerful blast that he took straight to the face, and he was even angrier than he was before. He smirked and laughed in a more taunting way than earlier on in his fight, "Is that all you can do?! What use is that regenerative power if you're so weak?!"
Meruem steadied himself in the air, and he wiped an arm across his lip to get some purple blood on the left corner of it off. "Over my time spent on Nexus, I devoured the brains of many regenerative species and humans who could heal themselves, but nothing seemed to work." Meruem cracked his neck to either side, then smirked right back at Bardock, though Bardock's smirk did not leave his face after that happened. Meruem continued while looking into Bardock's bright red eyes, "Recently, there was this green creature with antennae though, a Namekian. It was the first step, and the second was science. With enough knowledge in science, and magic, anyone could gain this ability. Even you, Saiyan."
The way Meruem referred to him made Bardock's smirk go away and a snarl to escape his lips. "I will never be hurt by the same move a second time," Meruem stated, and Bardock knew this to be true from their previous encounters. "Your godly energy is depleting," Meruem claimed. "Are you tired, Bardock? What could have happened to make you so worn out?"
Bardock stopped his panting already, but he was breathing heavily out of his nose and his breath was hanging in the air because of the cold. He snarled more, ignoring the pain in his face and the fatigue from fighting Turles right before this, and one of Turles' powerful subordinates for a few seconds after that. The Ant King was wearing him down too, but he was still raring to go. Bardock shot forward, and Meruem flew back, making Bardock fly twice the distance to reach him. Meruem took the defensive, watching Bardock's every twitch and movement of his eyes, seeing exactly where Bardock was going to attack every single punch and kick. He dodged and blocked masterfully, to the point that Bardock could not even tell that he was faster than the Chimera Ant anymore.
Bardock changed up his attack tactic, but Meruem changed up his own tactic just as fast, and then changed it a second time before Bardock could adapt to the first one. Meruem fired fifty green beams at Bardock, then he flew through them with a fist pulled back before any of the attacks hit, then he stopped flying at Bardock and dove down below the Saiyan King while spinning around with both of his hands pushed in front of his chest with purple light growing on them. Bardock focused on the purple light, but he forgot about all the green beams and got slammed by a few of them before flying up to avoid the rest. As the rest were passing through where he just floated, a purple beam of light bigger than any of the small blasts flew straight up and engulfed all the smaller ones, then collided with Bardock's front right in his crossed arms.
He's getting better. He knows my moves, knows how long it takes me to change up patterns. I hate to think it, but he's a better fighter thanks to that mind of his. Time to pull out the trump card, Bardock flew backwards off of Meruem's beam, then spun and kicked at the Ant King who appeared behind him. Meruem lifted his right arm to block, but Bardock's kick was too strong and pushed his arm back, then slammed into the Ant King's head that almost pulled far enough back. The nick was still enough to shatter Meruem's nose though, and then as the Ant King reeled backwards, Bardock vanished from where he floated entirely. He did not just start moving faster, he completely disappeared from sight.
At the same time, Shugesh was not far from the fight between Bardock and Meruem. His own fight had just shot across the sky after one of Ginyu's giant golden hands from the statue that kept appearing behind him smacked Shugesh away. Ginyu flew over and stood in midair in front of Shugesh only thirty meters away, a smug look on his face as Shugesh was not fast enough to dodge his attacks. The alien who looked like a young Isaac Netero crossed his arms and said, "Is this all the power of a god?"
The fat Super Saiyan God snarled, then he opened his mouth to shout something derogatory at Ginyu. When he tried to say something though, nothing came out of his mouth. Shugesh could not find any breath to speak with, and he reached his hands up and grabbed at his throat. What the Hell is this?! Shugesh thought, glaring forward through squinted eyes at Ginyu as he thought the man must be doing something. Ginyu was standing still with a look of surprise on his face, but then the High Commander of Meruem's forces started smirking again which Shugesh could see now only through blurry vision.
At the same time, Deus was flying forward at Fasha who was knocked off guard by his last massive burst of lightning. He whipped around his nunchaku and a bright light glowed at the end of them, and then Fasha's wincing face snapped forward and she opened up her mouth so wide it looked unnatural. Her jaw unhinged and inside her huge mouth formed a red light that grew larger and fired from her mouth as a giant beam. Deus tried swinging his weapons forward, but the woman's beam was too strong and slammed into him.
"Lord Deus!" Wyzen shouted from down on the mountain's slope where he was fighting a group of three Saiyans. He watched his Lord get thrown into the distance by the beam of light, then he himself got slammed by a foot in the side of the head and sent him rolling down the slope.
The Saiyan woman who kicked him scoffed that he took his eyes off of them for even a second. Okara looked up at the giant red beam of light and smirked at the most powerful Saiyan woman high above her. Fasha was not admiring her own powerful beam though, her eyes had darted to the right where Shugesh was struggling against seemingly nothing. Her gaze shifted more, and she spotted a figure floating in the air far behind Shugesh, his arms lifted up towards Shugesh, and a cloud of pink gas around him.
"Shurorororo!" The man with pale white skin and brown horns was laughing his head off as the Super Saiyan God choked without any oxygen around his head. Fasha shot across the sky in an instant and appeared in front of Caesar Clown, making the laughter catch in the man's throat. He eased backwards, then he let out a cackle as Fasha's leg swiped through his body with no effect. He reached down and lifted up a strange circular device that's top half was blue and bottom half was red. Caesar opened it up and yelled "Gasta-" Fasha swiped forward and pulled the weapon out of Caesar's hand before he could clamp it shut and create a massive explosion.
Caesar pinched his fingers anyway, then his eyes looked over to his own hand in confusion as his weapon was no longer in it. Fasha crushed the gastanets in her hand, then she chuckled, "A Logia? You're pathetic," her fists turned black, and Caesar's body covered in sweat. His face started to get wrinkled, as the woman in front of him appeared fifty times larger than she really was. The look of murderous intent in her eyes, the smirk with some blood on her lips, her aura alone made Caesar feel like curling into a ball and crying. Instead though, he did the only rational thing that came to mind, and he exploded in every different direction as a giant cloud of pink smoke.
Fasha would have attacked that huge cloud of dispersed enemy, but she heard a roar to her right that sounded too familiar. It was not a good sign, and Shugesh, who was recently released from the mysterious choking, spun his head around too. Ginyu would have attacked his distracted enemy, but he smirked as well and turned towards the sound of the scream. Goku froze over the wounded, bloody, and broken Charlotte Katakuri. He was panting just a little, with eight other powerful enemies either moaning or unconscious on the ground around him, and four others still standing and ready to keep fighting. The sound of that pained roar made Goku freeze though.
"Never let out a scream of pain during a fight." Goku turned his head towards the sound of the agonized roar. "Don't let your opponent hear it! You don't want them knowing you've made a mistake. In a fight, you never make a mistake. Every hit you receive you must lean back into, yell as you counter like you accepted the hit just to get them close." Father, Goku thought, his face full of panic because he recognized the voice behind that loud scream of pain. Goku knew Bardock would not have let out a yell like that easily, not without being pushed to a point that meant the fight was no longer in his favor. Goku looked up, and his eyes shot open wide, his heart rate speeding up.
Five Seconds Ago
Bardock vanished from in front of Meruem after the Ant King reeled back from the previous blow. Meruem's lips curled up as the Saiyan King vanished without moving too fast. Bardock simply, disappeared. He fell for it.
Meruem's right hand formed a ball of red ki in it, and his wrist twisted around so his palm was pointed behind him. He did this in an instant, and when Bardock appeared behind him with his left fist punching forward, the Super Saiyan God's face filled with shock at the sight of a huge ball of red ki forming in that same moment. It was pointed at his gut, and Bardock redirected his punch down towards the beam to push it away. In the corner of Bardock's eye as he punched down for Meruem's ball of energy, he saw the side of the Ant King's face, a smirk rising on it and his eyes darted backwards like he knew Bardock would be there for some time. HOW?! Bardock thought, right before the ball of energy he was about to punch shot off of Meruem's hand.
The ball of ki did not fly at Bardock's stomach like the Saiyan thought though, instead it flew straight up as a beam into his fist coming down at it. Bardock let out a roar as the energy surrounding him was too strong. Even his red aura could do nothing to stop it, and Bardock flew backwards to escape the red beam, pulling his left arm with him. As he pulled back, screaming and grabbing right above his left elbow, blood was splashing out of his burnt forearm as most of his arm from his elbow down had been shredded away in the light.
Bardock flew backwards fifty feet to widen the distance between him and Meruem. He kept grabbing at his own arm right above where the blood was spurting out, but he stopped screaming and focused his squinted eyes towards the Ant King. "'How?'" Meruem asked, saying it as if repeating a question that Bardock was asking him solely with his gaze. "I had Pouf attach one of his microscopic clones to Turles before your fight. I understood your spacial disruption from a single description." Bardock's teeth clenched in anger, and he crushed in with his right hand to seal his bloody right arm. It was painful to do, but he knew he could not risk losing much more blood. Meruem continued while Bardock sealed his left arm, the same arm that Bardock had blown off of Meruem's body earlier, something that was not lost on either of the fighters. "It is an impressive technique," Meruem admired, "and I would have been caught off guard if you could suddenly teleport. Even knowing your ability, it would still be troublesome, if you could continue using it."
Bardock's eyes narrowed more and his right fist clenched in front of his body. How does he know?
"Because," Meruem started, making it seem like he was reading Bardock's mind simply because of how easy it was to read the man's expression just then. "If you could have used it more, then you would have used it right away a second time against Hit. You were cautiously preparing your second attack, and in doing so you allowed the Rogue to escape. I knew you would only let this happen if there was a limit to the number of times you could teleport."
Bardock's expression darkened. His eyes did not fill with rage, or regret, but he looked much more serious all of a sudden. Meruem felt confident, he felt like he had just dealt a devastating blow, but he did not like the look that appeared on Bardock's face. Behind the Super Saiyan God, Meruem could see Isaac Netero floating among his other soldiers and enemies. The sensation he felt from Bardock was similar to when he fought that man on his own world, which made him hesitant considering how that fight ended for him. This feeling was different from the time he faced Netero in battle though, as Bardock did not have the same feigned confidence or cocky attitude and remarks that the human did. Bardock just glared into Meruem's eyes in a way that told Meruem the fight was far from over.
Bardock lifted up his right fist and it opened into a palm. His bright red eyes darkened, and above his palm formed a ball of white light that Meruem stared closely at. What is he- Meruem's eyes shot open huge as the black pupils in the centers of Bardock's eyes disappeared.
Shugesh started chuckling in a deep, dark way that made Ginyu turn back to the Super Saiyan God in front of him. "So Bardock, it's time to get serious?" Shugesh lifted his own right hand and opened it into a palm, and Fasha did the same not that far from him.
Fasha did not hold the ball of light on her hand though. The strongest Saiyan woman pulled her hand back, then she threw the ball of white light up into the red and purple sky above. The light flashed and stayed in midair as a strange glowing ball of white.
Bardock was the first to look at the energy though, the strange energy in front of him created with the planet's atmosphere as well as Blutz Waves. In the palm of his hand, he created an artificial moon that he had stared straight at. Bardock's purely dark red eyes stared over at Meruem, and he smirked in a way that looked unnatural. The corners of his lips spread all the way to his ears, and several of his teeth started to sharpen much longer than the rest, turning into giant canines. His mouth started stretching outwards, and Bardock yelled, "DO YOU THINK YOU'VE WON?!" His elongated jaw opened up wide as he shouted it, and fur started appearing all over his body as he started getting larger.
Meruem lifted his right and left hands, and two balls of bright purple light formed in them. The spheres of energy grew twice their size, then quadrupled from that larger size to a point they were pressing against each other. Bardock's body was doubled its original size now, and Meruem decided not to wait any longer after creating a ball of energy as large as his own body.
Everyone could feel Meruem's attack. Most of the Saiyans had not started staring at the artificial moon Fasha threw into the sky yet, but all of them, even the ones who had, started flying away as fast as they could.
Goku saw the strange balls of energy and remembered Vegeta using one back during their fight on Earth. He darted his eyes away from it though, thinking about the tail sticking out of his waist, and remembering how he was the one who crushed his Grandpa Gohan long ago. Most Saiyans though, Saiyans like Vegeta, and my dad, they can control it! Goku looked up again towards his father, and then his eyes popped open wide and he flared his golden aura while crossing his arms and putting up a powerful guard.
The sphere of bright purple energy slammed into Bardock, and the entire planet below shook from the blast. The man in mid-transformation inside the sphere of purple let out a roar that sounded half-human, and half-beast. The momentum that was growing for the Saiyans with the introduction of this new attack, it stopped in an instant as a ball of bright purple light changed the color of the sky around them, tinting everything purplish-pink for a thousand miles in every direction. The explosion was a hundred meters in radius, and then all of a sudden it shrank down to a ball only ten meters in diameter total. For a second it looked like the explosion had vanished, and then it finally erupted in every direction in a blast so strong that hundreds of Saiyans and other warriors lost their control while flying and were thrown into the distance. They slammed into mountains or crashed into the ground and tumbled away. Men and women unconscious or dead on the ground were picked up by the force of the blast and thrown aside, and some who were not thrown far enough were caught in the edge of the explosion that tore apart their bodies at a molecular level.
Goku pushed forward into the force of the explosion trying to throw him away. He fought against winds so powerful it was like someone pushing him in the face. He struggled against the heat of the explosion even from outside of its blast radius, and then he inched his eyelids apart to try and look forward into the attack. The blast was massive, the top of it pushing up towards the sky in a huge pillar of purple light. Goku looked straight at it, but in the corners of his eyes he could see so many powerful warriors around him. There were another dozen Saiyans nearby who managed not to get tossed aside by the blast force, and he spotted his father's friends high above, looking towards their King and leader with shocked expressions as he was caught off-guard in mid-transformation.
Meruem had a green bubble forcefield around his body to protect from his own explosion, but he was still pushed back all the way to the edge of it over a mile away from the epicenter. He was staring with wide intense eyes into the edge of his blast, unable to feel anything inside of it because of how powerful the explosion itself was. Where is he? Meruem thought, his eyes darting back and forth over the purple explosion. Dead? Alive? Badly wounded, or still ready to keep going?
The giant explosion started to settle down. The light got less and less bright, and hundreds of people stared into the center of the explosion to see what had become of the Saiyan King. There was a lot of smoke around the light, and a pillar of it went high into the sky in the same path as much of the explosion traveled, all the way into the dark purple and red swirling colors above that were getting darker now than ever. The sky had no clouds in it, yet the strange colors filling it started swirling in a circle as if a hurricane was forming above them.
Shugesh and Fasha smirked. Meruem narrowed his gaze further, and his arms started moving in a way that made them look to be lagging behind themselves. His body surrounded in a clear aura, his muscles tensed as he clenched his fists and turned into a fighting stance. Goku stared in absolute shock into the center of the explosion where a monster floated so massive that it looked twice or even three times the size of any Oozaru that Goku had seen before.
"RRAAAAAAAAA!" Bardock's mouth snapped open wide and his roar pushed all the smoke near him away so fast that the force alone pushed Meruem, his fellow Super Saiyan Gods, and everyone else still in the vicinity away. Some of the Saiyans and Capital 50 who managed not to get tossed away by Meruem's explosion could not hold on after that roar, being torn from their holds and thrown back towards the others who had been on their way back to the battle only to be sent flying again. A hole opened in the sky above him showing bright blue in the center, the real sky hidden behind all of the monstrous energies swirling around up there. That blue started to shift colors though, turning a bright, very bright red in all the dark purple around it.
The huge monster had red fur surrounding its entire body. The same dark red irises that Bardock had at the start of the transformation now filled the entire eyes of the beast, each one twice as tall as a man. The Oozaru stood three times the size of any other Goku had seen before, and he floated backwards in awe of the creature before him that closed its roaring mouth and turned its body to face Meruem. It still wore Bardock's green-plated Saiyan armor that stretched to his new size. Its face was black while the rest of its body had bright red fur, and clouds of steam came out of the Oozaru's muzzle as it breathed out into the cold air of the Saiyan Mountains. "Meruem," Bardock growled. "This is the first time I have ever taken this form."
Bardock's massive body matched his voice, and his words echoed around the nearby mountains where his warriors and their enemies had been scattered. Everyone could see Bardock's body over a hundred meters tall, possibly closer to a hundred and fifty. He continued in a booming voice for all to hear, "The Great Ape transformation of the Saiyan race, mixed with the power of a Super Saiyan God. I am the Oozaru God!" His shout caused ripples in the sky around him, the atmosphere actually trembling from his shout. Cracks formed in the ground around his huge feet, cracks formed in mountains all over the range.
Cracks formed hundreds of miles from the Saiyan Mountains. A hundred and fifty miles away to the east of Bardock's location, six bears came running out of a forest. "Keep running Koha!" Kenai shouted. The grizzly reached to his right and grabbed the smaller bear by the scruff of his neck, tossing him forward to give his adopted younger brother more of a lead.
"Ah!" Lusa shouted, curving to her right as two of the giant trees at the edge of the forest they just ran out of fell to her left side. They slammed into the ground, and then the crack that ran under them that caused them to fall shot out of the forest and towards them as well. Lusa outran the widening crack, then the black bear leapt up towards a ledge as the ground beneath her started lowering.
"Lusa here," Kallik said, the polar bear reaching a paw down and grabbing her friend's arm with it. She tugged Lusa up on the higher section of earth, but when she turned on all four paws, she saw the four grizzly bears ahead of her had all stopped running. The ground they were on may have been higher than the ground to their left, but there were walls to their east and south.
Toklo, the largest grizzly bear in the group, turned his head and saw the forest behind them crashing down. Even the trees that were not toppling over were still falling as the ground beneath them collapsed into the planet. He spun back to the east and saw the wall in front of them getting even higher up to a point they no longer had any chance of climbing. It was not that the earth in front of them was rising, but the ground beneath them was sinking down. A crack shot through even their lifted platform, and Lusa and Kallik had to run forward and leap over it to get to the others. Toklo and Kenai reached out and grabbed them both near the ledge, pulling them the rest of the way to safety.
The half they all stood on was unstable, and Lusa spun to Ujurak, a grizzly bear only a little larger than Koha. "You have to transform into a bird!"
"I won't leave you all here!" Ujurak shouted back.
"Then don't," Toklo snapped at his best friend. He looked into the shapeshifter's eyes and said, "Remember that dragon we ran from a few weeks ago?" Ujurak nodded quickly, while the walls around them started crumbing, and the ground beneath them cracked some more. "Picture it!" Toklo shouted. "And get us out of here!"
"Kenai, I'm scared!" Koha shouted.
"Just hold on," Kenai shouted back, as he scampered up the tilting ground to get closer to the others. They were all huddling together on a single chunk of earth now as everything around them collapsed. Ujurak's fur started to ripple right as a giant crack shot through their footholds, and all the bears let out screams as they fell into the crumbling earth below.
An entire square mile of planet crumbled around them, with new mountains pushing out of the ground and ravines just as deep as the mountains were tall forming at their sides. Out of one of those newly formed ravines, a black dragon flew up into the air with five bears riding on its back, digging their claws in for dear life to try and hold on. The dragon let out a roar, and it flapped its massive wings while flying away to the east. Even over a hundred miles away from the battle to determine the fate of Aebrith, and maybe all of Nexus, the ground ruptured and the entire geography shifted around.
Three quarters of the way up the slope of Mount Vegeta, the demigods of Camp Half-Blood watched from the main path cutting through their camp as the last of their cabins collapsed. They were so high up in the atmosphere that the mountain they were on had never come close to cracking before. The ground there was so hard that it seemed unlikely anything would ever cause damage to it, but that was not to say anything on top of the mountains was as protected. The snow covering the slopes was coming down in avalanches, and it was taking most of the demigods to prevent their camp from crumbling and falling down the mountain as well.
Percy Jackson stopped using his powers for a second as he needed to catch a breath, and a dozen others ran forward to take his place. His powers as a son of Poseidon made him one of the strongest demigods there, able to redirect the snow much better than his comrades could. He needed to stop and take a breath though, and he turned his head to the east where the sky was filling with such a bright color red that the air around them was now dyed the color. Everything was tinted red, so much so that it felt like his vision was the problem and he wound up rubbing his eyes a few times to see if he could get his vision back to normal.
Annabeth glanced backwards from where she stood ordering around the others. As a daughter of Athena, she was a great strategist and yelling at the sons and daughters of certain Gods and Goddesses what their jobs should be to protect them all. She looked back though as the ground shook so hard beneath her that she actually saw a small crack form on the dirt path she stood on. Nexus won't hold up at this pace.
Bardock's giant eyes narrowed in at Meruem. "What's wrong, King?" Bardock asked in a thundering voice. "Is that fear I see on your face?"
"RAAAA!" Shugesh roared, his body covering in fur and getting larger every second. Ginyu snapped his hands up and smacked Shugesh out of the air with a giant golden hand, but the Super Saiyan God did not even hit the floor before stopping himself and snapping his gaze up to the man who hit him. Shugesh looked more beast than man, and he grew a hundred times his size while screaming up at Ginyu who backed away through the air with a fearful look in his eyes.
Fasha yelled at the top of her lungs, "FOLLOW YOUR KING!" The woman looked at the glowing fake moon above, and her body started changing at a rapid pace.
"I know you have seen the transformation before, but not like this. A Super Saiyan God as an Oozaru, it will be too much for even you to handle." Turles' warning echoed in Meruem's head, and he knew now that the Saiyan's words were not merely out of his pride. If he was not this strong though, Meruem thought, a purple aura re-surrounding him with a much darker shade to it. His power grew more and more, to a point beyond his strongest earlier that made Bardock's Oozaru eyes widen in surprise that the Ant King had anything hidden in reserves. Meruem powered up to the full extent of his abilities. Photon, he thought, and a large orb of clear Nen flew forward and into Bardock's chest.
Bardock glanced down as the energy entered his body, but he felt no change at all from it. Meruem's eyes snapped open though and he grinned, a bloodthirsty and ravenous expression spread across his face. The long range En technique was less of an attack and more a support move to help Meruem. It told him the size and quantity and shape of objects it collided with, but other information as well such as emotions. "Which of us, is the fearful one?" Meruem asked in a knowing voice, only for Bardock to roar at him and shoot forward in an instant.
One would think that such a massive beast would be slower than a Saiyan in their humanoid form. One would be wrong in that assumption. Bardock's massive furry fist flew at Meruem, and though the Ant King tried dodging to his left, the fist was just too giant to escape fully. The last of Bardock's fingers collided with Meruem and the force was the same as if Meruem had been hit straight on in the center by the punch. Meruem shot backwards so fast that he hit a distant mountain two miles away, and he tore a hole straight through that mountain and out the other side. Bardock lifted off the ground and flew after the Ant King, and then a green figure dropped out of the sky with both legs extended and slammed straight into Bardock's back.
Meruem was above him, Bardock's giant body arcing up on either side of Meruem's legs. The Ant King tried to break the beast's spine, but there was too much flesh and fur and muscle and fat between the outside of Bardock's back and his bones. Meruem pointed a hand down to blast into him, but Bardock shot away from beneath him, then back-handed his right arm through the air. Meruem lifted over the arm fast, and he knew that if Bardock still had his left arm, another fist would have been flying right over his fist punch to slam into him. Instead, a giant red tail was whipping around and snapped down at him, nailing him out of the sky and into the ground a mile below. Meruem hit the ground on his feet and bounced back up in the sky, rolling to dodge the kick Bardock sent at it.
Even without his regenerative powers, Meruem had impressive durability to the point that even powerful attacks like Oozaru God Bardock's could not faze him for more than a few seconds. He shot back up in the air with a small tear in his left knee and right shoulder, and by the time he punched towards Bardock's face, his small wounds were already sealing up. Bardock opened his mouth, and for a moment Meruem considered flying straight inside and blasting his way out from where Bardock could not attack him. He was wrong to think this though and knew it the second he saw the white light glowing in the back of Bardock's throat.
Meruem shot straight up, and an enormous beam larger than any attack so far during the war shot out of Bardock's mouth and up into the sky right below Meruem's legs. The end of the Ant King's tail curled up at the last second to prevent being shredded away, and then the beam that passed him flew all the way into the atmosphere and caused ripples of purple to vibrate around the planet. The end of Bardock's beam pressed so hard against the barrier in fact, that instead of ripples, for a few seconds the entire atmospheric boundary above the Saiyan Mountains just glowed purple. It stayed a bright purple color that was thicker right at the point that the beam pressed against it, getting thicker every second until Bardock's beam stopped pushing as hard and the ripples could start again.
As Bardock and Meruem started flying around in a fight that shook the whole world, Sora sprinted up the slope of Mount Gine with a serious look on his face. He pushed the fear to the back of his mind, and he ran through a war zone with a small unconscious boy tied to his back. Sora had taken off his shirt and ripped it into pieces. He used those shreds of cloth to tie Dash around his waist and shoulders so the boy would not fall, and so his hands could be free to wield Keyblades as he ran through a battlefield of warriors who all wanted him dead.
"Die!" A Saiyan shouted, pointing his right hand forward and firing a beam of blue light at Sora. There were two members of Meruem's army to Sora's left, and the alien who fired the beam was on Sora's right, but Sora knew the blast was not headed at those aliens. He could see the Saiyan looking straight at him, and he could also see the look of recognition on the hateful Saiyan's face. The man knew who Sora was, recognized him from the top of the Saiyan Mountains where Sora had been staying, but he was using the battle as an excuse to say that he was killing all non-Saiyan warriors in the battle. Sora understood the excuse, and he expected that he was not safe from either side as he sprinted up the slope.
First, Sora leapt up in the air in a front flip, allowing the beam to pass beneath him and hit the two charging aliens on his other side. One of the aliens grabbed his comrade and threw him forward to intercept the blast, and only one alien exploded in a bright white light. Meanwhile, Sora twisted his flipping body and threw the Keyblade in his left hand at the surprised Saiyan who did not think the human boy would be able to dodge his attack from that close. Sora did not have his shirt on, but if he did it would have been yellow considering he went into Master Form before starting his charge up the mountain. While one Keybade hit the Saiyan in the face and knocked him backwards, the alien with a furry brown tail stunned that a blunt weapon had so much power behind it, Sora twisted his wrist and held his other Keyblade sideways at his side to block the claw from the less humanoid-looking alien.
Although Sora blocked the claw, the force from the attack while he was in midair with no hold on anything sent him flying. He shot over the stunned Saiyan who lifted his gaze to watch Sora, and then the Saiyan gasped in even more shock, mixed with pain this time though. There was a blue fist going straight through his chest and out his back, the claws on the end of it soaked in blood. As the member of Meruem's army swung his arm to the side and discarded the dying Saiyan's body from it, his face took on a look of shock as a boy was flying straight towards him with two Keyblades crossed in front of his body. Sora stopped on the alien's other side, his Keyblades extended to either side of him after uncrossing them in a slash. Sora's bloody yellow pants turned back to normal, but he kept dual-wielding Keyblades while turning and sprinting up the slope, an alien collapsing to the ground behind him with its eyes rolled back into its head.
Sora was sprinting up a stone slope, as all the snow had long since slid away or melted. The stones below him were darkened from being wet and because the suns were all hidden behind the strange sky, but when they got darker Sora knew a shadow had cast over him. He dove to his right and rolled, and he bounced up while apologizing in his head to the boy on his back who he just had to roll over. It was the better option to the giant brown foot stomping where he was just running though. Sora kept sprinting up the mountain, while giant furry gorillas were dropping down all around him. A massive golden one dropped down straight in front of Sora and let out a roar, "WHO DARES?!"
The challenge was immediately accepted by five flying figures who dropped out of the sky and tried tackling the golden Oozaru. They made it skid backwards, and Sora had to sprint forward and leap up right in between the giant's legs. The Oozaru's feet never left the ground, and it clapped in front of its body, catching one of the slower fighters who was not able to dodge him in time. He flattened the fighter like a pancake, then let out a roar of pain as a swordsman slashed his right Achilles' heel, taking him down to one knee. The Oozaru created a red ball of energy in his right hand, and Sora glanced behind him only to pick up his speed and start flying as fast as he could up the mountain's slope.
The swordsman who cut the Oozaru's leg jumped backwards as the Super Oozaru punched his energy attack down. Even though the swordsman dodged though, as soon as the giant red sphere touched the ground, a dome of red light a quarter mile in radius just as high blew up the ground. Sora let out a scream of panic as the force of the blast hit him, and he sped up even faster while swerving back and forth to dodge Oozarus that lifted off the ground and were flying through the sky around him. "GOKU!" Sora shouted.
Son Goku turned his head at the sound of a shout not far from him. He looked back and saw Sora flying up the mountain with explosions going off all around him. The teenage boy with spiky brown hair did a barrel-roll in midair and dodged two swordsmen flying towards each other and slashing at him. One sword passed over the top of his body, the other passing beneath him, both only missing by inches. The sword that passed beneath him almost cut Dash, and Sora spun in anger and threw one of his Keyblades at the man. The figure turned his sword, and Sora's weapon slid down the side of it before the man twisted his hilt and parried the weapon off into the air. Sora rose his hand though and the Keyblade flew back to his right hand, and he turned it sideways to block the swordsman who tried to counter when Sora had released his weapon. He intended to make Sora block with the other Keyblade, opening him up from behind. Sora was able to block with the same Keyblade he threw though, while swinging the opposite direction and smashing straight through the other person's sword and slamming the man in his chest. Sora then pulled back his first Keyblade, smashed it down, smashed it again, and every time it felt like he was closer to breaking through the first opponent's blade and hitting him. Sora did not notice, but the first man whose sword he broke did not fall after the single hit to his chest by the Keyblade, but instead had pulled out a dagger and was bringing it in towards the side of Sora's throat.
The teenager caught a glimpse of it at the last second, and fear filled him as the blade glinted with the red light of some nearby explosion. A hand wrapped around the dagger when it was an inch from Sora's neck, and then Goku punched his other fist into the surprised swordsman's face and knocked him out of the air. Goku pointed the hand he had wrapped around the dagger at the other man who tried composing himself when Sora was distracted by his comrade, and a kiai hit the man so strong that he hit the floor in under a second. "Sora, are you okay?" Goku asked the panting teenager who lifted a free hand and rubbed the side of his neck where he felt the wind of the approaching dagger when Goku suddenly stopped it. That would have killed me, Sora thought, fear filling his body. Now that I think about it, I've been in so many life-threatening situations since coming to Nexus. The Gods can't save me! Maybe they want to, but, but that's why they had Magnus and the other demigods save me from that blizzard, because they can't just do it themselves! I'm not invincible! I can die at any moment!
"Sora?" Goku asked the boy who did not respond to him. He had stuff he wanted to get to right now, but he could not leave Sora and Dash if he did not feel like Sora would be able to protect them. "Stay near me," Goku began. He looked to his left where he spotted some members of the Capital 50 gathering for some reason. "I'll-"
"Goku," Sora said, coming to his senses as the man started talking to him. "I'm getting out of here." Goku spun back to Sora in surprise, thinking back on how Sora wanted to protect the Saiyan Mountains with him earlier. Sora had had enough though. "Everyone here is trying to kill me. I don't know why I'm in this battle. I-I want to think that the Saiyans are in the right, but I can't see them as good guys here. Everyone's just, they're all slaughtering each other! If I don't get out of here, me and Dash are gonna die too. And if we do, I can't even come up with a good reason of what it would be for!" Sora yelled. "We're not strong enough to do anything, and Goku, neither are you."
Goku stared at Sora in surprise, and his eyes narrowed a little at what the boy just said. "I'm sorry," Sora said, and his voice showed he really meant it. Goku was his friend, his strongest friend, but that's why he felt like he needed to tell him this. "You know it's true though. I have never seen a fight like this. It's, out of your league. And if Meruem wins," Sora continued, and Goku frowned even more at the idea of it. That look that appeared on Goku's face when Sora said it though, that scared Sora more than anything happening around him. "If he wins you can't go try to avenge your father!" Sora shouted. Goku looked into Sora's eyes and saw so much fear, all directed for him. "At the power he's at now, he'll destroy you in an instant! You're going to let your emotions get the best of you though, I know you will Goku! You'll charge him, but this power we feel from Meruem, it's so much more than he faced you with earlier, and he was crushing you back then!"
"I know that!" Goku finally snapped. He felt so angry all of a sudden as Sora shouted this at him. He had been pushing it from his mind, because all these other fights he was getting in, he was the stronger fighter. He was ignoring his pain, and fighting with all his strength for his own people, but Sora's shout reminded him that he was not important in this war at all. There were a half dozen stronger beings within a two mile radius of him, possibly more. "But, I can't leave, Sora," Goku told his friend. "This is my fight. I'm a Saiyan, these are my people," he made the declaration without hesitation and Sora could tell that Goku really meant it. As much as he saw Goku frowning at the Saiyans and the ways they acted at the peaks of the mountains over the past few weeks, Goku still thought of them all as his people.
"Go on and get out of here," Goku said, while turning back to the enemies he had faced originally. "Save Dash. Find our friends. And save Kairi." Goku powered up and a much larger golden aura surrounded him.
How could I leave you here, when you're talking like that? Sora thought. "Save Kairi?" You promised to help me with that. If you're telling me it like you won't be there, then you don't expect to be there to help me. I don't know if you expect to die here, but I know only one way to make sure that you don't. "If you're staying, I'm staying to help you," Sora said, swallowing his fear and lifted up both hands to return Keyblades to them. Goku's eyes widened in surprise, and he became confused as Sora's declaration after reaching him was that he and Dash were getting out of there. I have to put my life on the line. Goku, you can't die. Not while me and Dash are here. I know you wouldn't leave us here. I know you'll act smarter, take less chances, if you have something you need to protect. Sora's teeth clenched to keep from chattering, as he was about to throw himself into the middle of a tornado full of razorblades for his friend. I'll stay here for you to protect me, so that I can protect you. Because Goku, I don't trust your father, or the other Super Saiyan Gods. Meruem, Luthor, they're monsters. This world can't go on without you. If we don't have you to save it, everyone's going to die. That's what I feel… but even if the world didn't rest on your shoulders. Even if you dying here didn't mean a damn thing for the rest of the world, I still couldn't do it. I can't leave you here to die Goku, because you're one of my best friends.
"CURAGA!" Sora shouted, waving both of his Keyblades in the air.
A dome of green light surrounded Goku. His black eyes vanished, and the open gashes and cuts all over his body scabbed up. There was too much damage for it all to vanish in an instant, but Sora's magic did stop the bleeding at least. Goku lifted a hand and brushed it across his left cheek to feel the dried blood and the pain from touching the recently-sealed wound beneath. "Sora, I don't-" Goku began..
"Let's do it!" Sora shouted, and he flew forward towards the enemies he saw Goku looking at. Goku's eyes filled with surprise, but he shot after Sora and powered up as much as he could which was actually a little stronger now that Sora healed him.
Grodd got up from where he lay dizzy on the ground. The gorilla twice the size of normal gorillas looked up at the giant Oozarus all over the place, then he put both hands to the sides of his head and send out telepathic communication only to Meruem's own soldiers. "The Saiyans have used their trump card. Now, activate the new editions to your suits." Grodd reached his right hand over to his left wrist and tapped a button on a wristguard he had attached there. Hank Pym's inventions will even the tide of this war.
Rob Lucci jumped backwards from two Saiyan women who had yet to take the time to look up at the artificial moon. After Meruem's preemptive attack on Bardock during his transformation, the smartest of Meruem's soldiers were all following his lead and keeping up constant attacks to prevent more Oozarus from emerging. At the sound of Grodd's telepathic message though, Lucci paused his attack and backed away. He was in his muscular Leopard form, covered in yellow fur speckled with black dots.
His opponents wondered what he was doing as he floated away from them and then stopped moving completely. Lucci had two bloody gashes going vertically over his left eye and down his face, and his left arm was limp at his side. Finally, he thought. Lucci's right fist clenched, and then he struggled to do so but clenched his left fist as well despite the pain. Lucci bared his teeth, and the armor he had on started bulging out as if something was trying to burst out of it. The Saiyan women were not going to wait any longer, and they looked up into the sky at the artificial moon. Lucci did not attack them though, the transformation he was undergoing was too intense for that.
"GAAAA!" He yelled in pain, a pained scream that turned into an animalistic roar as Lucci's Devil Fruit reached its most powerful form. Lucci's body grew and grew, while the women in front of him covered in brown fur and started growing as well. Lucci's claws extended, the teeth in his mouth sharpened more, and his eyes looked more animalistic than ever. His shoulders got even more broad as he doubled, tripled in height. Lucci grew to a form over eighty feet tall, making him just about as tall as the shorter of the two Saiyan women once they transformed into Oozarus.
Angila and Medamatcha had fled when faced with Son Goku, but they heard Grodd's message and nodded at each other from where they stood on the slope of Mount Gine. "Don't know why we waited so long for this," Medamatcha said, an annoyed look on his burnt face as he pressed a button on his armor. A ring popped out of the wrist on his left sleeve, and that ring flashed blue on the inside on Medamatcha's wrist.
"If we had all started turning into giants, the Saiyans would have transformed into Great Apes earlier," Angila countered, while he himself started getting much taller like his shorter demonic comrade next to him. "And unlike us, they get a power boost with their enlargement disproportional to the increase in size."
Sora and Goku stopped charging at the group of five enemies in front of them, as all five of the humans, aliens, and demons they were charging started to grow. Sora did a slow three-sixty where he floated, and the boy gulped in fear as every single fighter near him turned into a giant. There were only about sixty or seventy of them within his eyesight, but many more were appearing on the slopes of neighboring mountains as well as the slopes of Mount Gine that Sora could not see from the east side. The forces had been scattered to make the battlefield much larger during Bardock's transformation, but the battlefield felt smaller as every fighter took up a hundred times more space.
Giant soldiers wearing similar armor to the Saiyans charged forward as a massive Isaac Netero pointed his arm and yelled, "Attack!" High Commander Ginyu then leapt up in the air towards Shugesh who was diving towards him, and he lifted his hands in front of his body while curling a leg in. He curled his thumb and index fingers on both hands into circles while lifting up the other three fingers, then he slammed one hand forward while yelled, "Ninety-Ninth Hand!" The giant golden statue appeared behind him again, but this time, instead of one of the hands behind him slapping forward at his opponent, every single one of the giant Nen statue's hands started pushing forward. The statue had grown in proportion to Ginyu's size, so considering it was already a hundred times taller than him, it now stretched so high up that its head was lost in the dark colors of the sky above.
Shugesh slammed his fists forward rapidly into the palms of the statue as they flew at him. Ginyu's eyes opened wide, and he let out a roar while pushing forward harder. As a regular Super Saiyan God, Ginyu's attacks could still knock Shugesh backwards. As he was now though, Shugesh's punches were knocking the golden statue's arms back, something that had never happened to Ginyu before. Since taking over this body, not a single person had ever been able to stop the hands of his Nen statue's attacks. They had been able to dodge on rare occasions, but to punch one of his attacks away was unheard of. Shugesh charged forward right through all the smacking hands of Ginyu's attack, and he punched forward a giant furry hand of his own. Ginyu-Netero lifted up his hands again in front of his chest, a motion too fast for Shugesh's fist to hit him first, and then Ginyu punched his right fist out from that position in front of his chest. He collided his fist with Shugesh's, and they each roared as they pushed into the attacks. Shugesh stopped roaring after a second though, a smirk spreading across his face. "Just kidding," he growled in a deep voice, and then he fully extended his arm and bent Ginyu's back the wrong way with a loud snap. Ginyu screamed in pain, and then Shugesh's fist slammed into his gut and sent the High Commander of Meruem's forces flying.
Giant gorillas with black fur charged at giant alien gorillas with brown fur. They leapt up at each other and the brown ones mainly tackled the black ones, though one of the black ones larger than all the others lifted his hands and stopped three charging Oozarus in their paths. Grodd slammed his hands forward and telepathically threw the three Oozarus high into the sky where they disappeared in the swirling bluish-purple sky. A red flash illuminated that dark sky, and then a purple swirl dropped out of it and cut a new ravine through the top of a smaller mountain's peak three miles from Mount Gine.
Flint Marko staggered up to his feet, blood covering the left side of his face. The super-villain once known as Sandman looked around, and he nodded as he saw the giants in every direction of him. When Son Goku flew towards him, he had started turning into a giant himself to try and fight the Legendary Super Saiyan, but he never reached even closer to the maximum size he could hit. Flint's body turned to sand and he grew larger. The ground beneath his feet dried up and lifted up into his legs, rising up to his torso and his huge beige-colored head. He rose out of the ground right behind two Oozarus facing the other direction, and one of them noticed something rising out the corner of its eyes. It started to turn, then it lifted its head with widening eyes as the Sandman grew twice as tall as he was before punching forward a huge fist made of hardened sand.
Fasha gazed around from where she floated a hundred and fifty meters up in the sky. She was about a hundred meters tall herself, and she was looking down as the shorter Oozarus started fighting their growing enemies. Damn Turles, he prepared them for this. Then again, it is that fucking Ant King we're facing. He would have had countermeasures like this with or without the Rogue's help. Fasha turned her head and watched as a man not even up to her shins lifted up towards her.
Deus stared straight up into Fasha's eyes, and he did not look afraid of the Oozaru God in front of him. "Wyzen," he commanded in a voice that echoed down to the ground below.
Fasha wondered what her opponent was doing and why he was not turning huge like everyone else on the mountain range was doing. She was about to attack anyway, when she spotted something down below Deus that made her stare in surprise and then utter shock as her head snapped up.
Wyzen chuckled as Deus gave him the command. The fat man had large arm muscles, though his right arm was hidden underneath a giant golden armored guard that stretched from his shoulder to his hand. This guard extended along with the rest of his body as he grew. Fifteen Oozarus near him turned their heads, and almost as many of Meruem's soldiers looked that way as well. Every one of them, even Wyzen's own comrades who had never seen this before, dropped their giant mouths and backed up. Fasha flew backwards in the air and snapped her head up, her eyes following the head of the huge man as he rose up so high he neared the dark colors of the sky above. "Don't want to get any higher," Wyzen said, his voice so loud that the mountain below shook under it. He was over a thousand meters tall, and half of that wide. He chortled in a guttural way that made the ground shake below him, then he lifted up his right foot into the air.
Three Oozarus saw Wyzen's eyes dart to them and his mouth curl into a menacing smirk. They started to run, but Wyzen stomped down with a foot too large for them to dodge, crushing them into the base of Mount Gine where he left a massive footprint. Fasha snarled as her comrades were crushed, and she charged forward towards Wyzen's fat stomach. She pulled back a huge fist covered in red aura, and she slammed it straight into the giant's gut. Ripples shot around Wyzen's stomach as Fasha's fist pushed in, and the giant oofed and skid backwards over two of his own comrades. Fasha pulled back her other fist and slammed an uppercut for the same spot on Wyzen's gut that was now a much redder color than the dark gray of his normal skin tone. Right before her fist was going to hit, Fasha saw a spark in front of her eyes. They started to widen, and then she let out a scream of agony as a pillar of lightning larger than her own body engulfed her.
"HAHAHA!" Wyzen laughed as Deus surrounded his opponent in lightning. Wyzen pulled back a fist that was two hundred by two hundred meters large, and he punched it down through the pillar of lightning into the woman frozen inside it. Fasha had her eyes clenched when she was hit by the lightning, but she heard the attack coming with her Haki and tried to fly away. Just like the other Oozarus before her, Wyzen's attack was too large to dodge and she was slammed by a fist so large that the force behind it made even the Oozaru God gasp and blood to splash out of her mouth.
"Fasha," Shugesh growled, turning from a very injured Ginyu who was struggling to stay standing on the slope of Mount Gine. He looked towards her and in his head heard what she said when they first faced off against Ginyu and Deus. "You watch my back, I'll watch yours." Hah, like I thought, I didn't need her watching mine. Though Shugesh laughed in his head, externally he snarled and shot the opposite direction as his opponent. It would have annoyed him more, and he probably would not have stepped in normally, but this was not a one-on-one fight. He figured Fasha could take either of these enemies on her own, but teaming up on his comrade, he was not going to let that happen.
"Lord Deus!" Wyzen shouted down, and Deus turned to see a massive Oozaru larger than Fasha, maybe even larger than Bardock's form, flying straight at him.
"YOU'RE MINE!" Shugesh roared. Then, he opened his mouth huge and fired a blue beam out of the back of his throat. Deus shot high into the air to dodge it, and Wyzen went from shouting for his lord's safety, to screaming in pain as the beam passed where Deus was just flying and hit him in his giant gut instead. Wyzen's massive form was hit so hard that he actually lifted off the ground, and as he lifted up into the air, everyone behind him started sprinting or flying as fast as they could away from where he could possibly come crashing down.
Wyzen fell on top of a mountain directly next to Mount Gine, as well as on top of thirty fighters still duking it out on top of it. After two seconds of him laying there, eight beams shot into Wyzen's back and threw him back the other way where he landed on his stomach this time instead of his back that was now covered in burns. About half of the fighters Wyzen landed on were crushed immediately, half of the other half were moaning with bones crushed and bodies unable to continue fighting. Six Saiyans were still standing though, and two of Wyzen's comrades also contributed to helping throw him off. They were not concerned with hurting the beast, as much as they just wanted to survive. As soon as Wyzen was off of them though, the other Oozarus charged at their two remaining opponents and overwhelmed them.
The King's three Royal Guards stood high up Mount Gine right below the darkened sky. One of Pouf's clones had brought Pitou up to a safer location when the fight below got too wild, but now Pouf's main body as well as Youpi were meeting up there. Youpi growled as he watched a group of Oozarus take down a squad of their giant fighters, and he snarled, "I'm going."
"Good luck," Pitou said in a weak voice, sitting up with bloody wounds all over herself. She looked down at her right arm and a gash on it that she had been using as a reference to check her injuries. Still not good enough. The formula to give the King his regenerative powers did not work as well on us as it did for Meruem-sama. Pitou could see her wound was no longer bleeding, but she was not recovering as fast as she had hoped she would.
"Where is Savitar?" Pouf muttered, while examining the battle down below. He was watching carefully and keeping an eye on every aspect of the war he could follow. His eyes darted up towards the Ant King every second or two, but he was unable to see where Meruem was the majority of the time anyway.
Pitou dragged herself to a kneeling position and leaned forward over a sharp slope of the mountain. She shook her head and whispered, "I don't know, but looks like the last Guardian has arrived. Wonder where he's been all this time?" Probably ignored Pouf's summons, knowing it wasn't the King he was called to assist. Pitou watched the man's flight pattern, and her eyes opened wider as he soared right between Saiyans and their own allies. "Where is he…" She began, and then she saw the two he was flying straight towards.
Pouf stared at the two far below who their final Guardian was heading towards. "He knows one of them," Pouf said, reading the expression of their ally as he flew towards the spiky haired men who just finished taking out another group of their allies.
"On to the next ones, Sora," Goku said, looking up from the unconscious monster he just defeated. He looked behind him to a panting boy who lifted his Keyblades and covered himself in some more healing magic after that last fight. While Goku took on the majority of their opponents, Sora fought one of them and defeated the giant in the same amount of time it took Goku to defeat all the others.
Can't we take a break? Sora thought, but he stopped panting and nodded at Goku to show he was alright to keep going. He took a step towards the older man, and then Sora felt a pit in his chest and his entire body coated in sweat. "Goku," Sora said in a serious voice, while spinning to the left and lifting up both Keyblades in a fighting stance. "Stop," Sora said. Goku thought Sora was telling it to him to keep him from flying off, but as Sora said it, a figure flying through the sky stopped twenty feet in front of Sora, appearing there in an instant so fast that Goku's blue eyes opened wide.
The man who floated in front of the two had a black coat covering most of his body. It was open down the middle only connected in front of his chest, and the back of it was loose around him so that it flapped in the wind. He had black gloves and boots on, and at the top of his coat over his shoulders was a set of silver pauldrons. In his left hand was the hilt of a katana that looked longer than the man was tall, and he was over six feet tall. He held the seven-foot-long katana at his left side with the end pointed behind him.
"Goku," Sora said. His breathing had fastened, and he clenched his Keyblades tightly in his hands. Goku looked at Sora out the corners of his eyes, and Sora continued in a quiet voice, "Before I faced Luthor, I have never fought a stronger opponent, than him."
The man standing in midair in front of them lifted his right arm, and a black-feathered wing pressed against his back flapped out to the side. His silver bangs waved in a gust of wind, and his long hair falling far behind his back and even below his waist waved out to his right side in front of his wing. His eyes were thin with small green irises in them, and he was staring straight into Sora's eyes with them. "Sora," he greeted.
Sora took a deep breath, then strengthened his fighting stance and replied in a harsh tone, "Sephiroth."
"I am surprised to see you here, Keybearer," Sephiroth said. "What of the cosmos? You risk all existence by coming here." Goku got a confused expression on his face, wondering why people were always so interested in Sora's Keyblade.
"I wouldn't need to be here," Sora retorted. "If people like you weren't invading countries and slaughtering the people in them." How much does Sephiroth know? He and Cloud were always fighting, but he never really helped out Ansem or Xemnas. When we fought in the Coliseum, I thought he was unstoppable. The time when he heard my weapon was called a Keyblade, he only fought me to see if it might choose him as its wielder. Both times the fights didn't have much on the line, and even when I won, he never looked injured after them. "Last I saw of you," Sora started in a low tone, "you and Cloud vanished to go somewhere else and continue your fight. What happened to him?"
"Why should I tell you that?" Sephiroth asked. He slashed his sword in front of him and a dark purple veil of light surrounded his body.
Sora shot forward and rose up his Keyblade, then slammed it down so strong that he did a full front flip and the slash off of his Keyblade created a yellow circle around his body. Sephiroth slashed his sword into the slash of Sora's, then he brought it back around the right side. Sora leaned back and the flat edge of the Masamune passed over his horizontal body. Sephiroth spotted a man flying towards him from next to where Sora was just standing, and he rose his right hand while slashing again at Sora.
Goku did not care what the man was doing, but Sora was going all-out against him and still looked to need some help. He would not have cut in usually, but he could not sense the man's energy and Sora had Dash tied around his back, there was no time for watching it play out. As Goku charged though, the Super Saiyan's eyes opened wide as out of nowhere in the air behind Sephiroth, meteors started flying down towards him. "Where did these come from?" Goku wondered aloud while dodging in and out of the falling flaming rocks. There were too many of them to dodge, and Goku punched a fist forward into one of the rocks just a little larger than his own body. He smashed a fist into it and the meteor exploded out in every direction, and Sephiroth finally looked closer at the man fighting with Sora.
"Who are you?" Sephiroth questioned. He did not recognize the man from any of the reports before the battle.
"Son Goku," the Saiyan replied, standing in a fighting stance twenty feet in front of Sephiroth, while Sora backed up in the air to get closer to Goku. He eyed the front of the unconscious boy's head behind his right shoulder, and he shifted the kid's weight on his back to reposition him.
"You are the Legendary Super Saiyan?" Sephiroth questioned. "In that case," the aura around his body grew darker and more defined, making Sora's eyes pop open huge. Fire started rising from the ground in four thick pillars on his sides, and blue lightning sparked off of his body as the wind picked up speed around them.
Goku could not help it. A grin came to the Super Saiyan's face at the appearance of what looked like such a strong opponent. He let out a yell and forced out some more of his golden aura, but Sora noticed something as he glanced next to him at his older friend. Goku's mouth stayed open after his shout, and there were short breaths coming out of it. He would not have noticed if not for the cold air making Goku's breath hang for a second, and it almost did not catch his gaze as the air was already so thick with steam from explosions going off all around them.
Sora looked around after noticing that Goku was feeling the effects of the battle as much as he was, and he examined the battleground in a quick second. It was all he had before he had to spin back to Sephiroth and Goku who shot towards each other and created a massive explosion in front of him. In that second though, Sora saw what looked like wrestling matches all over the Saiyan Mountains. The giant fighters on both sides were beating each other senseless, and all the fighters that he saw at least, were covered in blood both their own and of their enemies. The war had been going on for so long, but Sora still could not see a side with a clear advantage. Sora had no time to think on the war though, as he was in the middle of a battle of his own he had to charge straight back into.
Down the slope of Mount Gine and around it more on its northern side than its eastern edge, a man with long black hair and a goatee stood alone in front of three Oozarus. They had been thrown by Meruem's explosion and Bardock's power-up, and they transformed far from where they were originally. On their way back though, they spotted this man who did not look Saiyan on the side of their mountain. The man had on a black jacket but with golden cuff-links and a golden collar, and in his right hand he held a tall golden staff with a glorious bird carved at the top of it.
"You have chosen your opponent poorly," Vandal Savage said, while the Oozarus all opened their mouths with glowing lights coming from the backs of their throats. All three of the brown giant gorillas started laughing while charging their attacks, as the man in front of them had not even transformed into a giant like so many of his comrades. A member of the Capital 50, a member of the Light- the leaders of the Umbrella Corporation, Vandal Savage rose the Staff of Horus and grinned up at the transformed Saiyans before him. They fired their beams, and Savage slammed the butt of his staff down on the ground. A blue dome of light surrounded Savage that all three of the huge white beams of light pressed into.
The dome around Savage stopped expanding for a second, and then the Oozarus who fired their attacks gained confused looks on their faces as all three of their attacks exploded. They could not see past the ends of their attacks, but it did not look like their beams had traveled all the way to the slope. Their beams vanished, and then the blue dome of light kept expanding from Vandal Savage's body in every direction, hitting the monsters and making them roar out in agony. They reeled backwards, but the hair and flesh was melting from their bodies, and they incinerated in the explosion that kept going for miles away from Savage, killing everything in its path. The immortal man just kept smirking as he transformed the landscape around him into a wasteland.
Fasha flew backwards through the air, and she took a few deep breaths in through her giant mouth. He's so big, but this bastard's not as good as Deus. Fasha darted her eyes from the giant Wyzen who was more than ten times taller than her even in her Oozaru God form. She shifted her gaze to Deus, then she shot through the air to intercept Ginyu as he tried to catch Shugesh off guard. Shugesh was facing Deus straight-on, but it was not a fair fight as another of Deus' subordinates had shown up. That sixth man in their battle slammed a fist into Fasha's furry back as she charged at Ginyu, and when he hit her, Ginyu got a powerful blow on Shugesh who thought he saw Fasha coming to handle that.
Augus laughed loudly as he slammed Oozaru God Fasha through the air. "Now this is living!" He roared, before bellowing out with more laughter. The man was around eight feet tall and covered in dark reddish-brown skin with brighter red markings all over it. Like Deus he had not transformed into a giant as Ginyu and Wyzen had. His eyes were pure white, matching his spiky white hair, gloves, and the white pants he was wearing. Fasha snapped her head up and roared at the man, and Augus shouted right back down, "Come! FIGHT ME!" He reached down to his waist and pulled off the sheathed sword he had resting there. "I have not enjoyed a war this much in all my time on Nexus!"
Augus lifted up Wailing Dark in front of his body horizontally, and Deus glanced over out the corners of his eyes at the man. He is drawing his sword. It cannot be helped against a Super Saiyan God. He refocused on Shugesh and charged at him as the man spun towards Ginyu in fury for that last attack. As Deus attacked him with Wyzen and Ginyu, Augus drew his sword and pointed it up in the sky above him. "HAHAHA! Fight me, you beautiful Saiyan woman! Fight me to the death!" Fire shot out of Augus' body in every direction, but it focused up around his sword and into the sky in a giant pillar above him.
Fasha snarled up and started rising to her opponent, then something entered her head and she grabbed either temple at the feeling of a pounding in it. Gorilla Grodd also had his hands to his temples from where he floated three hundred meters away from the battle, focusing his mental powers on the female Oozaru who let out a scream at the attack. Augus charged at her as she screamed, and he pointed his sword forward and slammed it straight into her chest. Fasha let out a roar, and she brought one of her hands down to grab the sword pressing against her body without breaking through it. The sword slammed her out of the air and into the ground, extending into her body as Augus laughed and pushed down on her.
She could not find the focus to snap Augus' blade nor to find the one attacking her mind. Too much was happening around her, and the assault inside her head was taking its toll on Fasha's thought process. Gotta, fight, someone, her eyes snapped open and darted up from Augus to other beings floating around the sky, looking for the one trying to bust open her head from the inside. As Fasha's eyes shifted around the slope of Mount Gine though, her body filled with dread and then screamed out in pain as Augus' blade broke through her skin. She punched a fist into the side of his blade and knocked it aside, though dragging it across the left side of her chest and causing buckets of blood to splash out of her. Augus kept laughing as his sword was pushed away, then he grunted in pain as a massive red fist slammed into his body and sent him into the atmosphere where he collided with the barrier.
Wyzen glanced up, thinking, Was that Augus? The man flew by him so fast that it was hard to tell. When Wyzen looked back down though, he spotted what Fasha had seen which made her step into overdrive and push past her own limits. Fasha let out a scream so powerful that the air around her vibrated, and she glared up around the slope of Mount Gine where she spotted a man with hair very similar to her King's.
Turles floated side-by-side with Hit, and as he saw Fasha look at him and roar, he smirked. "Bergamo, Lavender, Basil, go."
The Trio De Dangers nodded from behind Bardock, and then the three shot forward in blurs of blue, golden brown, and red lights. The three brothers shot at Fasha and started attacking with beams that shook the mountainside below them. Turles chuckled at the sight of the female Super Saiyan God falling backwards, then he added, "The rest of you, move."
Shugesh glanced over as Fasha became swarmed by enemies. Not only the three wolves, but dozens of other Rogue Ravagers started flying around the north side of Mount Gine. They flooded over, swarming the Oozarus in the middle of fights with other giants on the Ant King's side.
Wings flew over towards Angila and Medamatcha, yelling out in confusion, "How did you two get so big?!" They looked back towards their old comrade who used to be the biggest of the three, and the five Oozarus facing off against the two of them gained nervous expressions as the tides suddenly shifted. Behind Wings were twenty other Rogue Ravagers, all flying their ways and charging beams in hands.
Turles looked around from close to the haze line on Mount Gine where any higher he would not be able to witness the war below. Not far from him he could see two of the Royal Guards of the King watching him from the slope, but he did not look their way. So Meruem found a way to counter the Great Ape, as he said he would.
Fasha was panting, blood coming out of her nostrils and ears. Grodd's attack on her mind stopped as an Oozaru comrade of hers attacked the weird giant black gorilla just floating in the air. The wolf-men surrounding her in a triangle formation were so much more powerful than most of the enemies she had been facing today, and she cursed in her head. Damn Turles, where did he get, allies like these? Fasha growled, and a dark red aura surrounded her giant body and flared like fire.
"The military might of the Capital 50 and the Rogue Ravagers," Ginyu said, crossing his arms and smirking his giant mouth wide. He chuckled in a low voice that thundered over the mountains, then narrowed his eyes at Shugesh who he was around the same height as even though Shugesh was one of the tallest Oozarus. "What hope do you have?"
"You're the one without any hope, GINYU!" A voice roared from the southern side of the second tallest Saiyan Mountain. All the battles around the warzone that had just become one-sided paused, and everyone spun their attentions to the southern slope of Mount Gine, where the eldest son of the woman the mountain was named after floated. He had long spiky hair that was tinted red like his bright red flaming aura. Raditz glared straight over at the giant High Commander of the King's forces, and he yelled, "Against the might of the Saiyan race…" As Raditz shouted it, two Super Saiyans shot around the edge of the mountain, trailed by fifty, a hundred, nearing two hundred Saiyan warriors fresh from other battles all around the range. Raditz charged forward and as a giant gorilla with black fur was turning its head towards him, Raditz punched forward straight into Grodd's chest. The black gorilla's back pushed outwards, and then Raditz flew straight out of Grodd's exploding back while finishing in a bellowing roar, "…THERE IS NO HOPE!"
Some of the newly arrived Saiyans looked at the artificial moons floating around them, and they started transforming and dropping down into the battles. Others just flew straight at the Rogue Ravagers who had not transformed into giants, and those Ravagers left the battles they had entered to make them one-sided, deciding to instead fight their fresh new arrivals. The sky's colors swirled darker, and all new colors mixed in as strange fighters powered up all over the place. Their swirling green and blue auras mixed with red and purple ones, golden lights occasionally mixed in as a Super Saiyan shot through the sky, but mainly the sky was a dark purple only really shifting colors with a dark red.
The war picked up again, this time more intense than ever before. All the fighters scattered across the Saiyan Mountains had gathered. The Rogue Ravagers, the Saiyans, and the Capital 50 were all meeting on a single battlefield. The battlefield stretched for several miles in every direction, and dozens of explosions went off in the air and on the ground every second. Super Saiyan Gods, the Guardians of the Capital, monsters who alone had the power to take control of entire nations faced off at full power.
Even with all those powerful beings fighting each other though, the sky was mainly just a dark swirling purple with some dark red lines cutting through it. Bardock and Meruem were fighting higher up than most of their soldiers. They were above the haze, inside the swirling dark auras high in the atmosphere. Despite the dark colors swirling around them that made it feel like they were not even flying through the same dimension any longer, the two Kings were focused straight in on each other. Oozaru God Bardock shot forward and spun his left leg around. Meruem had to dodge hard and fast to be able to dodge. He just lifted over the top of Bardock's leg, then he slammed his own right fist forward to punch into Bardock's right fist flying at him. The two of them pressed their fists into each other's for half a second, then Meruem's arm bent back and he was thrown away into the distance.
Bardock chased after him, while Meruem thought, Dodging his attacks when he was a man took peak concentration. His moves have only gotten faster, and though I can still see through his moves, his body is so much larger that it is no longer viable to continue dodging every attack. Each one of Bardock's strikes took so much more to dodge when the Saiyan King was himself a giant. Counter attacks do so much less now as well. Breaking through his thick skin will be nearly impossible without a long charged attack, and he will never give me that time to prepare. I can feel my peak energy wavering, it will start to decrease soon. He looked fatigued before, but he has not slowed down at all.
Meruem finally snapped out of his horizontal position that he was flying through the air in, flipping up and swinging his tail down at the top of Bardock's right fist. Bardock's fist pushed down, and the Saiyan King's momentum took him farther forward so that Meruem who flew over his arm was right in front of his face. Bardock started opening his mouth to fire a beam at Meruem from point blank, but Meruem flew up and rose both of his hands. Bardock thought a beam attack was coming, but Meruem just opened his hands into palms and they glowed bright white. They flashed so bright that Bardock reeled backwards, slamming his eyes shut in pain. "Grrr," he growled aloud instead out yelling in blinding pain. He snapped his jaw wide open and fired a beam of white light blindly in front of him where he thought the King would be capitalizing on that last attack.
He did not hear the King get hit or feel his beam slow down at all, and Bardock started spinning around, searching for the Ant King who suddenly vanished from in front of him. All signs of the Ant King's presence were gone, and Bardock started squinting his eyes open to get a better look. Where is he…
Meruem was a few hundred meters below Bardock, just out of the bottom of the haze. He was taking a risk dropping his aura to hide inside a Zetsu for a few seconds. Inside this stealth state, any attack would damage him much more than if he was just blindsided or unprepared. He had put down his own subconscious guard so that he could escape from Bardock for a short time. When Turles explained the Saiyans' transformations to me, I could see he was hiding something about the Great Ape. I knew it immediately, there is a weakness. Turles would not have hidden it unless it was such a powerful weakness that he feared it being used against him once he took control.
The Ant King's eyes scanned the entire war below him. He panned over Saiyans fighting his men, Saiyans fighting the Ravagers, and he even spotted a few strange figures who were not Saiyans involved with the fight also fighting his and the Rogue's men. He knew beforehand that many would try to stand against their invasion, but he did not expect there to be many of those fighters still around this late in the war. His gaze passed over Son Goku and Sora facing off against Sephiroth. Son Goku has not transformed into an Oozaru. Is there a reason for this? What could it be? Meruem's gaze continued shifting around, darting so fast that everything below him seemed to be moving in slow motion.
THERE. Meruem's eyes locked on to one of the Saiyans in particular. It was a young man with short spiky black hair going straight up above his head. He was muscular, and covered in the blood of his enemies. He looked very strong for a Saiyan in his base state, but he had not transformed and was facing off against two giants on Meruem's side. There was an artificial moon not far above his head, and Meruem could see the angle of the man's eyes as he fought the giants in front of him who he was at chest-level with. He can see the fake moon, yet he does not transform. Meruem's eyes shifted to the man's back, then to his waist where something the other Saiyans who had not transformed all had something wrapped. His tail. Meruem's eyes darted around once more in an instant, Every Oozaru has one. That man does not, and he does not transform when looking at the fake moon.
Meruem's eyes shot open wide, and he got out of his Zetsu fast and covered his body in as much protective aura as he could. KEN GOU- "Agh-" Meruem was only half-turned, his body surrounding with a defensive coating of Nen, when Bardock's giant fist came out of the air above and slammed into him. Meruem did not even have time to think about how Bardock found him, as he slammed into the ground and broke through it for a hundred meters. A giant monster slammed down on the floor at the surface of the hole he was in, and the entire ground between the bottom of the hole and the top exploded upwards. All that debris lifted up, while a giant red ape stomped forward towards an ant covered in purple blood, partially stuck in some rocks that had not lifted up yet.
Meruem ripped his right arm up through the floor, then his left, then he got up and started walking straight towards Bardock. His wounds started healing, but he did not wait for them to finish. He shot off the ground straight at the Saiyan King, and Bardock punched at Meruem, knocking him back into the floor. I've never been hit so hard, Meruem thought, while getting back up and bouncing to the right to avoid the stomp from Bardock's left foot. He landed then kicked himself forward towards Bardock's right leg that just started lifting.
What is he doing? Bardock thought, while stomping down twice as fast with his right foot and planting Meruem into the dirt. He pressed down harder on his right leg, then started focusing energy down there on the being he felt below him. Meruem is too smart to die like that. He is plotting something. Does he see a flaw in my attack pattern? Bardock shot straight up into the air while pointing his right hand down at the ground where he was just standing. "Die, King of the Ants!" A huge red sphere formed on Bardock's right hand.
Meruem looked up at the red ball of ki, and then he shot straight up towards it before Bardock could fire.
WHAT?! Bardock thought, as Meruem approached his attack even faster. This would kill him, but he's flying straight at it?! Bardock clenched his right hand into a fist, then slammed that fist down at the Ant King and planted him back in the planet's surface at a few thousand miles per hour. Four giant cracks shot off from the hole Meruem made in the floor this time, and one of those cracks stretched three miles into the distance where it split the earth between Sephiroth and his opponents.
Sora stumbled backwards as a crevice opened up in front of him. He spun his head to the right, as did most people around him. Sephiroth and Goku stopped fighting as well, and so did so many who were in the middle of fighting nearby. The Oozaru having only one arm was an easy way for everyone there to know who it was, though Raditz' eyes opened wide as he spotted his father missing an arm. Ginyu tried getting the drop on his new opponent when everyone turned towards Bardock, but Raditz turned his head sideways and let out a low snarl at the giant man flying his way. "If you want to die before your King, be my guest-" Raditz froze with his mouth open at the end of that threat, staring past Ginyu at something else while most of the other Saiyans started watching their King.
Meruem flew up at Bardock again, and Bardock kicked him back into the planet. Meruem flew up again, this time slower, and Bardock flew down and body-slammed him into the ground. All of Meruem's soldiers stopped fighting at the sight of their King getting smashed into the floor like that. Bardock's massive body got lifted up in the air, then Meruem tossed straight up. Bardock shot fifty feet up in a quick burst, but he stopped himself just as fast and then dropped back down again. Meruem flew out from beneath Bardock to his right side, looking exhausted with blood coming out of gashes and cuts all over his body.
"King!" Pouf shouted in horror as he got the first good look at the Ant King for a while.
A giant Youpi stared down with shaking eyes, and he started running forward while ignoring all the Oozarus around him.
"Meruem-sama?" Ginyu wondered aloud, ignoring the fact that Raditz flew towards and straight past him for some reason.
Pitou stumbled down the slope of Mount Gine, unable to find the energy to fly away like Pouf had to rush to their King's side.
"This is the end for you, Ant King," Bardock said, while staring down into Meruem's eyes with his giant glowing red ones. He brought back his right fist, and he started forming a ball of red light at the end of it.
Goku stared forward with huge eyes. Like everyone else there, it looked to him like Bardock had the Ant King trapped. Bardock's moves were faster than Meruem's, and the Ant King was too tired to try to move as Bardock charged an attack that would be too massive to survive. "Stay back!" Meruem yelled, and three figures flying towards him came to short sudden stops with wide eyes.
Pouf trembled, his entire body shook with the urge to charge to Meruem's side. Youpi skid to a stop and his bottom lip lowered a little. Pitou stopped stumbling down Mount Gine, a terrified look in her eyes. King! They all thought in fear. His shout was in concern for them, they could hear the tone in his voice that meant it was so. It actually sounded like he was accepting the blast would be too large to survive, and he did not want to get them caught in it as well.
"Meruem," Deus whispered, staring over carefully at the Ant King.
Sephiroth stayed silent, but his eyes narrowed and his left hand clenched harder on the hilt of his Masamune.
Sora kept staring at Bardock and Meruem, but in the corner of his left eye he spotted Raditz fly down not far from him. He glanced over, and his eyes shot open even wider at the sight of the man at Raditz' feet. That's…
The sphere of red light on Bardock's right hand doubled in size, and many of the Saiyans and their opponents backed away. Turles and Hit stared down from higher than anyone else. The Rogue stared at Bardock's right hand, How much energy is that? Enough to kill the Ant King for sure, but enough to tire him out? Is this where we lose? If Bardock can still fight after this, there is no chance for us.
Goku's eyes snapped open huge. His breath caught in his throat. All sound around him dimmed to nothing. What if he knows? Goku thought. The thought was so simple, yet it only came to him because of Goku's intense desire to face his own father in a battle of this caliber. He watched as Meruem stood before Bardock with seemingly no chance of victory, and subconsciously his mind decided to think up a way to defeat Bardock. As soon as he thought it though, fear filled his mind, because he had faced the Ant King in battle and knew how smart the creature was. While every other alien, Chimera Ant, demon, gorilla, Saiyan, and human on the mountain looked on expecting this to be the final blow from Bardock, only Goku felt the greatest sense of dread for Bardock.
Bardock started punching his right arm forward. The wounds all over Meruem's body healed in an instant. Bardock saw those wounds heal and his eyes started to widen. Meruem's injuries had been healing slower and slower over the last period of their fight, but it was shown to be a bluff in that single second as Meruem healed his wounds as fast as he made his left arm reappear earlier. Bardock's right hand kept punching forward, but he fired the beam from it early. Meruem was fast though, much faster than he had been for the past minute or so. It was not just his healed injuries. The purple aura that expanded from Meruem in that moment was more monstrous and powerful than any he had shown through the entire fight. It still was not as strong as Bardock, but it showed the Saiyan King that the entire time, Meruem was saving a burst of power for a trump card. Even when Meruem was getting tired and sluggish, he did not dip into this extra reserve, saving it for exactly such a moment.
Part of the reserves of energy Meruem released as Bardock started punching forward, extended from the tip of Meruem's tail in a long, thin, bright purple beam of light. Meruem flew forward, and the beam firing at him passed right over his head, so close that the top of his dark green crown started to sear off. He was making it without any time to spare. Timing was everything, and if he had gone even a fraction of a second later, it would have been his entire head that melted off instead of just the top of his skull. Meruem ignored the pain and kept flying as fast as he could, because it was not just about not leaving too late, but too early as well. He chose the exact moment where Bardock was most vulnerable. Bardock released his attack early in order to try and hit Meruem, but Meruem planned on that. He had hoped that Bardock would not just abandon his attack, and considering how much energy the Saiyan King put into it, Meruem knew the man would not be eager to waste it all. By not wasting it though, he took the moment to fire the beam instead of just punching his fist straight into Meruem's path. The right hand that Bardock fired his attack from early was moving into Meruem's path, but it was too slow. The end of it neared where Meruem was flying, but the Ant King passed right below it.
Meruem shot towards Bardock's gut, and Bardock expected a powerful blow about to slam into him. He did not expect to get out of this one without any damage, but when he tensed up to try and put up a guard, Meruem stopped and did not fly straight into him. Instead, the Ant King changed his trajectory just a little to aim down below Bardock's stomach, and right between Bardock's massive thighs. The Saiyan King realized it as soon as Meruem changed his path, and he started squeezing his legs together while curling the end of his tail around. Turles wouldn't have, which means he figured it out on his own, the end of Bardock's tail shot back towards the point on Bardock's lower back that it was sticking out of, and Meruem saw the tail shooting straight towards him. He was not going to change his plan to protect himself from it though, and he just swung his own tail in a circle as soon as he passed Bardock. The thin beam of purple light extending from the tip of Meruem's tail flashed bright right before it touched Bardock's furry red tail, Meruem flooding the beam with his immense power to make the blade of energy as strong as possible.
The end of Bardock's tail slammed into Meruem with such force that the Ant King was thrown back between Bardock's legs that had never closed since Bardock realized that Meruem would make it through them before he could. The Ant King shot like a rocket down into the ground on the eastern slope of Mount Gine, and he bounced once, twice, and kept hitting the ground on a destructive path down the mountain. As Meruem bounced away, dozens of miles away a red explosion erupted from the ground where Bardock's missed attack landed and incinerated everything for a four mile radius. Although for a second, Meruem's forces thought that their King was bluffing all of them and really had this under control, they all re-became panicked at the sight of their fearless leader bouncing away. Then they saw something else that made every single person in the war stare in utter shock.
A giant red tail, the same one that just slammed Meruem through the air, was falling out of the sky away from the giant Oozaru God it belonged to. "Fuck," Bardock said, instead of screaming in the incredible pain of losing his tail. First my arm, then my tail, Bardock thought, while his body started to shrink. His enormous form shrank to half its size, a quarter, and it kept decreasing in height and width until he had finally returned to his normal size.
"The King did it," Deus said with a nod of approval.
"That Ant King, cut off Bardock's tail," Lavender said. The wolf-man with golden brown fur turned to his brothers on his right, "Hahaha! Basil, Bergamo, we just-"
Everyone watching Bardock stared in shock as the Saiyan King vanished. Basil and Bergamo had not yet looked away from Bardock to turn to their brother who started speaking, but the sound of his voice cutting off like that terrified each of them. The two Rogue Ravagers turned and stared in horror at Lavender who was himself staring down in horror at the hand coming out of the front of his chest. Bardock ripped his hand back out of the mercenary's body, and then he roared at the top of his lungs, "It is not over! Keep fighting until-"
Meruem appeared back in front of Bardock in the middle of a front-flip, slamming his left leg down at the top of Bardock's head. Bardock leaned backwards, and Meruem's tail whipped around and crashed into Bardock's right side. "It is over," Meruem said. His tone was not just confident, it was assured. The King was speaking as a matter of fact, and he flew down towards where he just sent Bardock flying. No one could move as Meruem shot through the air in an aura of purple. Bardock roared and surrounded in a veil of red, but when the two clashed, it was the red blur that was sent flying from the other and down into the ground.
Meruem pointed both hands down and fired, he fired so many consecutive red blasts of energy that the ground covered in red domes of light that kept compounding on top of each other and spreading farther and farther out. The Ant King stopped firing all of a sudden, then he dropped down and reached up, grabbing Bardock's right leg that was kicking where his head just was. Anyone able to follow the fight could only see this much, as they were not able to see Bardock flying up through the explosions with his body covered in burns, nor could they see where he went a second later as Meruem chucked him sideways into the slope of Mount Gine again. This time, Meruem flew straight after him, and he grabbed Bardock by the front of his armor as soon as the Saiyan King stopped in the side of the mountain. He pulled Bardock out of the mountain while Bardock was still in the middle of gasping in pain, flew backwards a hundred feet so he was in plain view of everyone, and then his tail shot forward and pierced the front of Bardock's armor, the skin behind it, and shot out of his back.
Silence fell over the mountains.
Goku stared up with eyes that started shaking. Sora spun from the horrific sight in the air, to the man next to him, and then back to Goku's older brother not far from him. He looked back at Goku, then to his shoulder where he caught a glimpse of Dash's unconscious and wrinkled face. We are so screwed, Sora thought, panic filling his entire body, his heart rate skyrocketing.
Raditz lifted his eyes slowly to the sky and stared at the tip of Meruem's tail, dripping blood on the other side of his father's back. Raditz looked back down, and he lowered down to his right knee next to the dead body of a Saiyan with spiky black hair almost as long as his own. That hair was shorter than his than it usually was, as from midway down his back down, it had all been cut off by the same thing that cut halfway through the man's body, leaving a giant slash going through his armor and his body beneath. Apragus lay on his stomach with his face sideways, looking at Raditz with half-opened eyes that were glossy and unmoving. Raditz kept staring straight at his mate for another second, then he stood up and stared back into the sky with such a dark expression on his face that the air around him got colder, darker, and made some of the people nearby remember that they were still in the middle of a warzone.
Raditz lifted his right hand and pointed it at the floor in front of him, and he fired a red ball of ki that incinerated the body in front of him without even casting a glance at it. His teeth bared as he glared up at the two floating in the sky on display for everyone to see. A growl escaped Raditz' lips. Apragus. Father. "Grrr," a menacing look spread over Raditz' face, his body started shaking from it, and then it just stopped. The growls simmered, and Raditz stood up straighter, an even darker look appearing on his face than before which did not seem possible to those close enough to see him before it happened. The dark look changed though this time, as Raditz no longer looked angry at all. The corners of his lips curled up, a truly evil appearance arising.
"Dad," Goku whispered, the shock of what he was seeing disappearing. He took a step forward, his eyes as wide as plates. One second the fight looked so even, and suddenly Meruem's tail had his father impaled right through the chest. The end of the Ant King's tail was not very thick, but Bardock was not moving at all, a clear sign that something vital had been hit. That, and the blood spilling out of the corners of Bardock's mouth and pouring off his chin like a faucet as he floated there in front of Meruem, still holding himself up instead of being limp of the tail. The tail pushed farther into his body, and Bardock coughed up some blood all over the thicker part of Meruem's tail. Goku took another step, and Sora reached forward and grabbed the Saiyan man by the right wrist.
"You never should have shown me mercy, Bardock," Meruem said, refusing to call him the Saiyan King. At this point, there was no longer a doubt in his mind, there was no longer any debate. "I am the King. Did you really think you could keep living on this world, calling yourself the King of the Saiyans?" Meruem leaned forward, putting his face closer to Bardock's while looking straight into the man's flickering red eyes. Bardock's eyes shifted back to black, his aura vanishing, his hair keeping its strange spiky shape but turning black as well.
Goku's breath sped up at the sight of his father's godly aura vanishing. "Goku," Sora hissed. "We need to go!" He said it in a whisper-yell, his eyes darting up to Meruem and back every second.
"You will not be going anywhere," Meruem said, his voice loud enough that everyone could hear. Sora's face turned blue as the King spoke to him without taking his eyes off of Bardock. "You are next, after all," Meruem said, and finally he turned and looked straight down at Sora and Goku. He was smirking, the moment of victory at hand. Meruem turned back to Bardock and could see the look of despair on the former Saiyan King's face as he saw where Meruem just looked to. "Yes, that is right. I have not forgotten about Son Goku, nor the other two with him who I have decided to kill."
Bardock stared down at his youngest son. He was glad he said what he needed to to the man before he started his fight with Meruem, but it seemed now like it would not matter. His son would never be able to live on and recall on those words down the line in life. Bardock thought this way for a moment, and then something strange appeared in front of his eyes. He blinked and once again he was looking down towards his son, with Meruem blocking up most of his vision straight in front of him. Then, the two he could see most clearly moved. Oddly enough, he could still feel Meruem's tail impaling him, but he was no longer floating above the Saiyan Mountains. Meruem kept speaking, but Bardock was seeing something as the King did. He saw his son, floating in front of Meruem, challenging him. He saw his son reach something he had never seen before. "Ha, hack-ack," Bardock coughed up some blood, but Meruem stopped speaking, because to him it did not sound like coughing at all.
Meruem stared forward, and his eyes grew wide at the sight of Bardock's bloody lips curling up. Meruem's moment of victory, the triumphant feeling filling him at the moment, it was all replaced by confusion. The shock of seeing this again made Meruem want to pull away right then and there. He recalled the moment that his fate was sealed in his previous life, when Isaac Netero was on the verge of death, and started laughing. The smile on Bardock's face is not a smile of resignation, it's not a smile that should be on this dying man's face! Meruem was already panting, but his breathing sped up as Bardock started smiling. Everyone watching started to get confused too, as Bardock chuckled some more and more blood spattered from his mouth.
HE'S GOING TO KILL ME! Meruem thought, and then he heard Bardock's heart stop. Meruem released a breath he did not realize he had started holding. What was that? Meruem thought, examining Bardock's face closely. Bardock's eyes closed though. He was being held straight up, and his eyelids had nothing holding them up anymore, slowly closing and shutting the smiling Saiyan King's eyes one last time. "Now then," Meruem said, ignoring the unnerving feeling that he got from the end of Bardock's life.
As soon as Meruem said it, Pouf, Youpi, Ginyu, Deus, and Sephiroth flew towards Meruem and spun so that their backs were to him. They faced away from the Ant King in every direction, though Ginyu, Deus, and Sephiroth were the three closer to the majority of the armies who were gathered to the east of where Meruem floated over the slope. Pouf floated on the King's left side facing everyone to his south, while a massive Youpi who was already on the King's north side moved closer to the King and faced anyone to the north as well as to the west in case anyone was trying to get the drop from the west, though he figured Pitou could probably handle it. She was too wounded to get there in an instant, but she was not far above the King any longer, keeping guard in every direction around her. Her epithet, The King's Eyes, was not for nothing. An aura of En radiated from her body and stretched for a two and a half square mile radius, enveloping everything in its bloodthirsty feeling.
The King's Voice slammed a fist to his chest and proclaimed at the top of his lungs, "No one is to move, as the King devours the brains of the Saiyan, Bardock."
The three Guardians eyed around, checking to see if anyone was going to try and make a move after Pouf's shout. This was one moment of the war they had been prepared for from the start. Ginyu darted his gaze over the mountains, Still no sign of Savitar. Was he killed? The God of Speed should be here to stop any attempts on the King while he feasts!
"Devours…" Goku's eyes opened wide, and then a pissed-off look formed on his face. He watched as Meruem's tail pulled out of his father's chest, and Meruem grabbed him by the shoulders to hold him up while his tail lifted to slice open the former Saiyan King's skull.
"Goku," Sora pleaded, pulling back on Goku's arm harder as he felt the resistance against him. "You heard him, he's coming after us next," Sora did not care about whispering, since it seemed like the Ant King could hear them no matter how quiet he tried to be. The King was distracted though. Meruem was going to eat Bardock's brains, then he was going after them, and Sora did not want to be around when that happened. "We need to leave, while we still have the chance."
"The war isn't over yet," Goku said seriously.
Fasha and Shugesh thought the same thing. The two of them shot through the sky, enraged expressions across their Oozaru faces. The giant red gorillas flew forward, and Ginyu lifted his giant arms, creating a massive golden statue of Nen behind him between him and the Ant King.
Two Super Saiyans moved forward from where they stood not far from Raditz, but Raditz held up his right hand in an open palm. Rutabega and Dirru looked at Raditz' back in confusion, because the way he held up his hand was a clear motion for them to stop moving. Although they were confused, and angry, they listened to Raditz' command and stayed where they were.
Ginyu smacked his giant golden hands forward, and Fasha and Shugesh pushed straight into them as hard as they could. The giant body of Isaac Netero started to skid up the mountain slope, then Deus and Youpi shot forward on the sides of Ginyu's Nen statue. They punched inwards, and between their punches created a massive explosion confined between the three of them. Youpi's entire right arm glowed dark red before exploding, while Deus fired a concentrated beam of lightning that hit Youpi's explosion right on the end of Ginyu's golden hands.
Other Oozarus charged forward, only for long horizontal and vertical slashes to tear through them as Sephiroth vanished from where he had floated near the King. Only Pouf stayed where he was, sticking closest to Meruem and making sure that no one got close to the Ant King while he started ripping away at Bardock's brain with his teeth.
"Goku please," Sora begged, tears coming to his eyes. He had one hand on Goku's wrist, and he held a Keyblade in the other that he put right up to the side of Goku's head. "Don't! Don't do it Goku!" His Keyblade was shaking, and Goku did not believe that Sora would try attacking him. The Saiyan man pulled his arm hard forward, tugging it out of Sora's grip. Sora's hand clenched into a fist the air, grasping at nothing. "Please," Sora whispered again.
"He killed my father," Goku said in a low growl.
Raditz looked over as he spotted Goku walking forward. "Kakarott," he said in a low voice. His teeth bared again, but then he just scoffed and lifted his head so he could look down his nose towards his younger brother walking away. "Your pride is impressive, but you're a fool. Get yourself killed for nothing for all I care," he said, though his eyes did narrow and his fists clenched at his sides, not matching the calm smirk that stayed plastered on his face.
Other Saiyans nearby Raditz spotted the eldest son of Bardock standing still while the other two Super Saiyan Gods were fighting all out against Meruem's guards. As one of the Oozarus looked towards Raditz in confusion, a giant Medamatcha spotted him being off guard and smirked. The demon was short originally, but he had risen almost to the same height of all the other giants in the Capital 50. "Go my Medas!" He called out, the green demon spreading his arms to the sides. Three smaller versions of himself tore out of his chest and dove forward towards the Oozaru three times taller than any of them. The Saiyan started turning back with widening eyes, and then a man with long red hair appeared in front of him. The three small Medas, clones of Medamatacha, opened their eyes in horror right before they were incinerated in a flash of red light from a single flare of Raditz's aura.
"What?!" Medamatcha exclaimed, and then he tried flying backwards. He was far too slow though to avoid the giant beam of white light that Raditz fired from his left palm. "AhhEEEEE!" He screamed as the beam shredded away his green skin and the flesh underneath. The toad-like demon died in agony, and Raditz lowered his arm before darting a glare around in the sky at all the fighters near him. All the members of the Capital 50, all the Rogue Ravagers, anyone still floating in the same place they had been when Meruem killed the Saiyan King, they lost their confidence that the war had just ended in their favor. Their bodies filled with fear, and confusion, and they did not know what to do. Raditz was not protecting himself right there, he saved just an average Saiyan warrior. That meant that if any of them tried fighting, they would be fighting a Super Saiyan God. Whatever Saiyan was closest to them no longer mattered, because Raditz would get to them before their first attack could even connect.
Turles looked away from where Meruem was ripping Bardock's brains out with his teeth. He shifted his gaze to Raditz who was keeping the rest of the war on pause while a small group of Saiyans, getting smaller every second, tried to save the former Saiyan King's body. Damn him, Turles thought, a dark look coming to his face and his eyes narrowing in at Bardock's eldest. If he would just charge in with Fasha and Shugesh, the strongest in the Saiyans and the strongest in the Capital's forces would all be weakened before my final move. Is he anticipating this? Or does he have something else in mind? His father was just killed in front of him, but that man, he's… smiling.
Raditz kept a calm, evil smirk on his face while looking around into the eyes of every enemy around him. His glare told them that he was going to kill them if they moved a single muscle. The only ones who his glare would not work against were all protecting the Ant King at the moment.
Bergamo and Basil stood on the slope of Mount Gine, their middle brother laying lifeless between them. Bergamo looked up first, the eldest of the Trio De Dangers glowing a dark blue with a carnivorous look in his eyes. The sight of Bardock's eldest son, the son of the man who killed his younger brother, it made him furious, but he was not an animal despite his appearance. His gaze moved over towards Meruem, the creature who immediately avenged his younger brother's life, and who likely saved him and his youngest brother from death only a minute ago. "Basil," Bergamo said in a deep voice. Basil looked up with watery eyes, and Bergamo snarled, "Mourn later. We owe a debt to the Ant King. Let's go settle it." He shot up in the air straight at Shugesh's back while the Oozaru God was punching towards Deus faster than the Guardian could dodge. Bergamo flew right into the path of Shugesh's fist and took the blow head-on, getting smashed through the air and into the slope of Mount Gine.
Everyone who saw this stared in shock that Bergamo would do such a thing. Do I know him? Deus wondered, not understanding why the wolf-man would sacrifice himself. His confusion was replaced with surprise, as was Shugesh's and everyone else's, as a dark red glow came from the hole in the base of Mount Gine where Bergamo was punched into. Something blue started growing out of the hole, breaking the earth around it as it got too big for the hole to contain. Bergamo's body grew with the amount of damage he took, and that single blow was enough to make him grow over twenty times his original size at once. Bergamo rose out of the ground, a bloodthirsty and vengeful expression on his face. He charged at Shugesh and dove at the Oozaru God who punched at him again, only for Bergamo to dodge the fist by turning his body sideways, and then uppercutting straight under Shugesh's jaw, breaking some of his teeth and snapping the Oozaru God up into the air.
While most people stared in shock at this, Basil the Kicker followed his brother's lead and flew up after Shugesh. He created red balls of energy at the tips of his feet and bounced them up, before spinning and kicking them at full force towards the lifting Super Saiyan God.
As massive red explosions filled the sky, some others were not watching the two remaining Trio De Dangers as they started fighting Shugesh. They did not look towards them, because the man who was keeping them all in place had not moved. Even more confusion filled the faces of so many of the warriors on the mountains as Raditz stayed where he was. Some considered that he did not attack the Trio De Dangers because he knew that they were incredibly powerful, but that did not give those people any consolation.
Why us, and not them? Flint Marko thought, while staying absolutely still in his giant sand form.
What is Raditz thinking? Rutabega thought. The Saiyan with spiky blond hair going straight up above his head and out to the sides glanced to his left. He looked towards the Saiyans trying to take on Meruem, and he saw a couple of Oozarus get close to him. He tssked and shook his head as Sephiroth appeared behind those Saiyans, and their tails started dropping from the air. The Oozarus roared in agony and started un-transforming, and then Youpi ran over while they were halfway back to their original size, and out from the front of his body shot fifty red spikes of his own flesh that pierced the Saiyans who were unprepared from the pain filling their minds.
"Damn," Dirru muttered as he spotted the same thing his fellow Super Saiyan just did. "Raditz, what are we doing? Let's-"
"Shut up, Dirru," Raditz snarled. It did not sound like Raditz was saying it to him as a suggestion, but as an order, or even a threat. It made sweat form on the sides of Dirru's face, because the tone of Raditz's voice made it sound like his comrade would kill him if a single other word left his lips. Anyone looking towards Raditz who saw him shut up that Super Saiyan and make fear fill his face, made all of them even more intent to just stay where they were. Even the Saiyans now who thought Raditz was helping them, realized that they were being held just as much hostage as their enemies. The man who Raditz first saved was considering turning and rushing to Bardock's side since Raditz saved him, but a look down at Raditz's face told him that that was not what the Saiyan King's son wanted him to do, so he stayed put instead, thinking that Raditz had a plan of some kind.
Goku was not one of those who stayed in place. He flew up towards Meruem, finding a path right as Deus shot off to keep fighting Fasha with Ginyu, and Youpi lifted up to help Bergamo and Basil fight a still-kicking and furious Shugesh. He made a bee-line towards the Ant King, and when Sephiroth appeared in front of him, Goku spun to his right while bringing his hands down to his sides. "Kamehame," he said, while the Masamune slashed behind his back, so close that it cut through the back of his Saiyan armor. Goku finished spinning and Sephiroth turned towards him with widened eyes, right as Goku yelled, "HAAAA!" He pushed his hands forward, and a huge beam of blue light shot out of them and at the swordsman who pulled his sword back and held it against the end of Goku's beam. The beam kept pushing into him, and though Sephiroth stopped it from enveloping his body, he was taken by the Kamehameha Wave and sent flying into the far distance.
Pouf's eyes opened huge as Sephiroth was shot into the distance, and he backed up even closer to Meruem while Goku flew towards him. Goku stopped when he was twenty feet in front of Pouf. "Meruem," he said in an angry, passionate voice. "Stop what you're doing. Put down my father's body now, and fight-"
"YOU INSOLENT SAIYAN!" Pouf screamed at the spiky haired Super Saiyan in front of him. He could not hold it in the way Goku was speaking to the King. Goku looked surprised at the outburst, and Pouf kept screaming, "This is the King! He is destined to lead the world, the universe, everything! For all time! You dare to give orders to such a superior being like that?!" Pouf trembled in rage, veins popping all over his very humanoid body. His eyes were red and his fists clenched furiously at his sides.
Meruem reached his right hand from Bardock's shoulder into the open skull in front of him. He reached down and grabbed the last bit of brain still left in there, and he pulled it back and stared at it closely. Pitou stopped running down the mountain where she was, and she looked carefully and fearfully at the King as he stared at the last bit of brain in his hand. "Don't do it, Meruem-sama," she whispered. He either did not hear her, or ignored her, because he lifted his hand and took the final bite of the Saiyan King's mind. Pitou clenched her eyes shut and then shook her head around to rid herself of the fear. Believe in the King. He says he will not let it control him, so it will not!
"I am already finished," Meruem said, and he dropped Bardock's body from his hands. This only made Goku angrier though as the casual way in which Meruem dropped his father's body. The thought of rushing down and catching him vanished from Goku's mind though, as did all other comprehensible thoughts, as Meruem clenched his fists in front of him. Every single being for a thousand miles in every direction felt the pressure on their bodies. The sky darkened to a deep dark purple darker than anything else had been the entire day. A power beyond anything Goku had ever felt appeared in front of him at this moment. Pouf floated backwards and out of the path between Meruem and Goku, while staring at the King with sparkling eyes of awe and wonder.
The entire Saiyan Mountain range, all of Aebrith, and all of Nexus shook from the feeling of Meruem's new power. "The strength of a Super Saiyan God," Meruem said, a grin on his face as the power he obtained shook everything. The barrier above the planet started rippling purple, the earth trembled down beneath him, and he knew that his power could be felt on all corners of the globe. "As well as the DNA of a Saiyan," he added, and Pitou lost her gleeful smile at the King's power-up as he mentioned it. Meruem turned his head and looked at Goku, and then his gaze shifted a little to Goku's side.
Goku saw it out the corners of his eyes, and he turned with a shocked look on his face. "Sora!" Goku exclaimed. "What are you doing?!" Goku shouted. When he tugged his arm away from Sora, he intended to leave Sora behind while he went to face the King alone. Meruem released his new power and every single fighter in the war stopped in place, with only one person daring to move. Sora was shaking, sweat covered his body, but he flew right past Super Saiyan Gods and Guardians of the Capital to get to Goku's side. Goku's eyes darted from Sora to the younger boy on Sora's back, and regret and anger filled Goku even more that Sora was here with him. He refocused back on Meruem, Sora was right, there's nothing we can do to beat him. Not now. There's no chance. This is just like back then, Goku realized, and he clenched his teeth in more anger as he figured out what happened on the third day he was on Nexus. After I left the fight with Boros, Meruem's power rose. I remember looking back, because his power suddenly got a boost higher than what it used to be, closer to what Boros' had been.
The idea that Meruem had even more power, after easily handling him earlier, after defeating his father, it told Goku that no matter what he tried, he would not win. Sora, why did you come here? Why didn't you run? Why, didn't I listen to you?
Sora rose his shaking hands, and he steadied them while slapping them together in front of his stomach. A flash of white light appeared in midair, and all the Saiyan warriors who had for weeks now despised the idea of a human on their mountain realized why Bardock was allowing him to stay. Sora no longer cared about the respect of the Saiyans though. He did not care about how they looked at him, or whether or not he would be allowed back on top of Mount Vegeta without Bardock there to ensure his safety. All Sora cared about in the moment, was surviving. A thousand thoughts raced through Sora's mind as they had been since he arrived on this crazy battlefield, but he was still at a loss for an escape route. Meruem's huge aura more powerful than anything any of them had ever felt pressed against him and made it hard to breath. His skin was paling as Meruem's eyes bored into his own.
"That looks like a Keyblade," Meruem said to the younger man in front of him. Goku's eyes opened a little wider as Meruem knew what Sora was holding, but Sora was not surprised that the Ant King knew. The look on Sora's face did confirm what the King said though, and he nodded while examining the human in front of him. "Disappointing, if you had not stood in my way earlier, I would have let you live." Meruem's tail swung behind his back, some blood splashing off the tip. Goku's eyes followed the drips of blood as they flew from Meruem's tail, and then his gaze shot back to Meruem as the Ant King was half the distance what he just was. Neither Goku nor Sora could move with the knowledge that Meruem was fast enough to end both of their lives before they even knew what had happened.
Despite all the other emotions Goku was feeling: anger, hate, despair, regret, guilt, those were all pushed to the side as fear finally hit him. He rushed at the King without being afraid, but an emotion Goku felt so rarely hit him stronger than he had ever felt it before. His other deaths had meant something. His sacrifice had saved the world not once, but twice, but here- here his death would mean nothing. He had rushed in without a plan, and he was now faced with imminent death. What made it so much worse was that Sora and Dash were with him, and if it were not for him, he knew they would have been far away already. It was the most frustrating feeling, and he was terrified that he was going to die with that being the last thing he felt, with actions that resulted in the deaths of his friends being his final ones.
"I was not surprised to hear that the legendary Son Goku was the son of the Saiyan King Bardock," Meruem said while looking into Goku's teal blue eyes. "It was in part thanks to you that I survived this long. If you had not saved my life on the third day, today's war never would have happened." Goku's frustration increased even more, and it showed on his face while Meruem kept talking, "I believe that given the opportunity, you would easily surpass your father in time. You will not have that opportunity. I wished to speak with both of you longer, but there are more pressing matters. This is a bad time, so you must all die here at my hand. You, the Keybearer, and the older brother…"
Sora knew it was coming. When Meruem started speaking to Goku, he knew that these were the last words the King was choosing to say to Goku. The tone of the King's words, the expression he could see on the side of Goku's face closer to him, he knew he had seconds to live. His mind was not fast enough to think up solutions with this much time to live. All his thoughts were jumbled as every idea tried pushing itself to the surface all at once. None of those ideas came out coherently, but instead Sora's subconscious, his instincts, and his reflexes were working together instead. A million options flew through Sora's mind in an instant as Meruem neared the end of his sentence listing those he was about to kill, finishing on Dash. Every single option Sora considered also came with the same result: his death, and the death of his two friends. The idea to fight was long since discarded, but he considered it again with his fingers twitching on the hilt of his Ultima Weapon. He held the most powerful of his Keyblades, a long sword-like weapon with a strange web of yellow lines going over the blade and curving out off of it in the same direction as the prongs, with a golden heart at the end with three spikes sticking off as the actual key part. Even with the Ultima Weapon in hand though, Sora knew he was too slow to even get a chance to dodge or parry the King's next attack. That idea vanished as soon as it came, Sora's twitching fingers getting sweatier and loosening around the weapon's hilt. Running was another idea that he had to discard because of being too slow. He also knew that if he even showed an inkling of wanting to run, Meruem would kill him on the spot. He would not be able to get back far enough to maybe have the Super Saiyan Gods help him, they were too close to the King at this point. Talking his way out sounded like a great option in his head, but he instinctually knew from the feeling of Meruem's aura, what he was saying, and his general expression, that Meruem was done listening and would not be convinced to let him live no matter what he said. Sora considered bargaining with information about the universe, just to give himself more time, but the King already knew about the Keyblade and Sora had no idea if the King was already so knowledgable that nothing he could say would matter. What made that option even less feasible was the fact that Sora himself did not really know any of those huge secrets, despite being the one who needed to know them the most. Time was running out, Meruem finished his sentence and was going to kill them. Goku knew it was coming, Sora could see regret taking over every other emotion on Goku's face as the Saiyan's eyes shifted once more in his direction. The idea to create a portal and get out of there once again came to Sora's mind, but Meruem was allied with the Organization. Meruem knew Xemnas and the Nobodies, Sora had no doubt that the second he tried to make a portal, Meruem would kill him. He was not great at making them in the first place, so it would definitely take more than a second to make, much longer than the fraction of a second it would take the King to kill him.
Fear flooded through Sora. He had to do something. Anything! All these ideas pulsed through his mind and more. Unlike Goku, he did not think last thoughts of regret, did not consider all he was losing, or how the Pokemon he had with him would be left without a master if he died. If he started thinking like that, it would mean that he had given up hope, and Sora never gave up. He had stood at the end of the multiverse, watching as countless worlds crumbled around him, with the knowledge that he might never escape that place, and he kept fighting until he had saved everything, every world. He opened his mouth. Sora's mouth opened, he pulled in a deep breath, he could see the King about to rush forward and murder them. The King saw his mouth open though, and Sora had the instinctual feeling that Meruem would let him start speaking. Although he felt that Meruem would ignore whatever he said, that the King would kill him anyway, he had a good enough read on the King that he figured Meruem might at least start listening to what he said. The Ant King knew what a Keybearer was, so Sora hoped that the King thought he was going to shout a secret to try and save himself, or some wise last words of a Keyblade Master. The idea he had prolonged his life another second, but Sora still had nothing to shout, and he was just about finished taking in his huge breath. Goku wondered what Sora was about to say, the final thing he was going to hear before they died. Everyone stared at the Keybearer, anticipating his final words as the King gave him a moment to speak.
Sora once again remembered that the Gods could not save him. He thought back to when he was on the bridge between Mount Gine and Mount Vegeta, when he considered that he was invincible because the Gods wanted him alive. The major flaw in that which he realized earlier was that the Gods sent their demigod children to save him. They did not just whisk him away to safety, they sent mortals to rush to his side and save him from the blizzard. This subconscious thought told Sora there was no point in shouting for help in the hope that the Gods might save him. He could not fight, could not run, could not disappear into a portal, could not rely on the Gods, could not bargain… there was nothing he could do. His mouth had started letting out noise as the start of the call for help, as he had considered it right at the end of taking his breath it, and for a moment a part of Sora considered just screaming, make his death unsightly. The sound coming out of his mouth started to take form as a word though, while Sora's eyes grew enormous and an idea came to his head so unique, so out of the blue, that he appeared shocked to the people looking at him. Meruem and Goku were confused at why Sora suddenly looked so shocked as he started shouting, and every single being around him had no idea what he was doing as he shouted only a single word, a word that made no sense to any of them there.
"CASTIEL!" Sora screamed at the top of his lungs.
The dark purple sky filled with a white flash of light. It was so bright and blinding that almost everyone had to close their eyes, excluding only Raditz, Shugesh, Fasha, Turles, and Sora. For everyone else, keeping their eyes open burned and they had to put their hands over their ears as a loud screeching sound started piercing their eardrums. Only those who could look on the true body of the angel were able to see it as the entire sky filled with his brilliant bright white light. Meruem forced open his eyes anyway, an enraged expression on his face as he stared forward at the beast that started burning at his eyes. What is that?
Goku put his hands to his ears, and he clenched his eyes shut in pain from the flash worse than any Solar Flare he had ever seen. He stayed still, wincing from the sudden flash and screech, but for some reason he felt the bottom of his feet touching down on something soft. He was no longer floating, but standing straight up on a piece of ground. As he stood there, he felt something touch his forehead that felt so familiar. He had felt it once before, not long after his fight against Luthor. He had been dying and nothing his friends could do could save him. The small amounts of healing magic Sora and his friends had hit him with were not good enough, and he could feel the life draining from him. He felt that touch though, that warm touch on his forehead that woke him up, to see that his stomach had sealed up completely. There was not even a scar left to remind him of what had happened. This feeling, is the same as back then, Goku thought, as all the pain from wounds covering his body faded.
Sora stared straight forward at the figure in front of him whose celestial body started to take a more human form. All the fear that had filled Sora was replaced by immense relief, and his body took on the most relaxed posture he had ever had in his life as all that pressure lifted from him. He dropped down to his butt with Dash still limp on his back, then smiled up at the human vessel appearing in front of him. The screeching that people who could not see his type of angel heard when close to him disappeared, and Goku lowered his hands from his ears. The Saiyan man started opening his eyes, but everything was pure white and blurry in his vision and he had to rub his eyes for a while as it hurt too much to open them. Sora just kept smiling up at the man in a trench coat standing before him, and he finally whispered in a soft voice, "Thank you, Castiel."
In the moment before what would have been his death, Sora recalled an interaction he had had on a field outside of the ruins of Metropolis only a couple of days after the battle that destroyed the city.
"I have been trying to repay my debts while still on this world. I have been having particular trouble helping you though."
"What debt do you owe me?"
"Lelouch. I was controlled under that human's power for over a year's time." The guy in the trench coat continued walking around Sora, and he scratched his stubbly chin a little. "You see, I have already repaid Kirito, by saving him from one of Orochimaru's reanimations, and returning that poor soul to the grave. Goku and Timmy, the other two who also helped you save me, I restored to health when they would have died otherwise. But I do not know how to help the one who released me-"
"You're the one who saved Goku and Timmy?!" Sora asked in amazement. The man talking to him leaned back in surprise that Sora suddenly interrupted him so loudly, then nodded his head a few times. "Wow, thank you. I don't know how to repay you."
"Repay me?" the person questioned him. He shook his head, and said, "I have yet to help you."
"That's not true," Sora said. The teen smiled at the older man in front of him and continued, "By helping my friends, you've already helped me."
The guy in the trench coat stood there in silence for a few seconds. Finally he nodded his head and smiled, "I see why the Keyblade chose you."
Sora finally lost his smile and gained a more confused look. "Who are you?" Sora asked, tilting his head to the side.
"I am an angel of the Lord. My name, is Castiel," the man calling himself an angel saw Sora smile at him like he was skeptical of that claim. Castiel rose up his arms and clouds rolled in above him from out of nowhere. A shadow fell over them as the suns were blocked out by the darkening clouds. Sora's eyes were already wide, but now that they were in the shadows Sora could see why Castiel rose his arms, as lightning struck behind him and large dark wings illuminated in the flashes.
"Wow!" Sora exclaimed. "That's, pretty cool."
Just like that, the clouds started to disperse and the angel in front of Sora lowered his arms. "Sora, you may say my debt is fulfilled, but I still believe I should help you in some way." Castiel rose up his right hand and extended his index and middle fingers together towards the young boy's forehead. Sora rose his eyes to follow the fingers as they started to glow at the ends. "We will meet again," Castiel said, pressing his fingers to Sora's head and making the teenager himself glow bright white. Sora had to close his eyes as he was glowing too bright, and when he opened them back up the angel in front of him was gone.
He looked left, and right, then lifted his gaze up to the sky above. "Then, 'till next time, I guess."
Sora had already considered asking the Gods to help him, but he did not think that would work considering his history with them. An angel of the Lord however, the memory of Castiel offering Sora his help flooded Sora's mind with possibility. In that moment he recalled the storm clouds rolling in, the way in which Castiel appeared and disappeared. He thought of how Castiel healed wounds perfectly that his own healing magic had such little effect on. The angel said that they would meet again, but Sora did not want that meeting to be after he had died. He had figured that Castiel would consider his debt unpaid if he died before the angel ever got to save him. All of this attributed to why Sora chose 'Castiel' as his possible final word, and to how he somehow survived what had seemed like an unsurvivable situation. Castiel nodded once at Sora, then he vanished without a word.
Sora lifted his right hand, opening his mouth to tell the angel to wait because of all the questions he had. "Hold on," he started, but then he lowered his arm as there was nothing in front of him. Castiel was gone, and Sora got up to his feet to figure out where he was. He stood on the white ground, and he looked down at it with a confused expression since he could not make out where the floor started and the air stopped. Everything above him was pure white, as was the ground beneath his feet making it difficult to tell where he was. If Goku was not standing on level ground with him, it would have felt so much weirder, so he had at least one consolation as he steadied himself on the strange ground.
Where are we? Sora wondered. Then, he spun to his right as he felt something approaching.
At that same time, Goku was finally starting to be able to see around him, though he wondered if he was still blinded by the light considering how white everything around him was. The pain in his eyes had subsided like the rest of his physical pain though, and since he could see Sora just fine, he knew his vision was working. The idea of all his injuries vanishing made Goku's eyes suddenly open wide. Goku reached up to his face and brushed a hand over his left cheek, but the scabbed gash on it was gone along with every other injury on his body. In his head appeared his father's face with the same mark on it that had vanished from his own, and it made Goku frown for some reason that the wound was gone. He looked around him and for the first time he realized that he recognized the place they were in. It looks just like… Goku thought with widening eyes, then he glanced up above the top of his head as if to check something.
As Goku looked above his head and gained a confused expression at what he saw, or the lack of something that he thought should be there, someone was walking towards the group standing in the white void. "Who are you?" Sora questioned the man who stopped in front of them.
The armored man had long blond hair and a viking helmet on. He wore a long red cape, and he looked into Sora's blue eyes with blue ones of his own. "My name is Thor. Welcome…" he greeted. Thor stood sideways and held one arm up to his side to reveal the huge expanse of white behind him. Far behind him there were some puffy clouds filling the void, and in the distance near those clouds Sora could see giant golden gates leading somewhere else. The people in front of Thor looked forward with wide eyes, and Thor finished, "To the world of the Gods."
A/N Hope you enjoyed. Thanks for reading. Just edited this giant chapter for 4 hours, then lost all my editions and had to start over :( so I've been editing this for about 6 hours now. Anyway, the war finally hits its climax and Meruem reaches a new peak to his power that shakes the world. Even with this new power though, his next prey escapes him. Goku and Sora (with Dash on his back) travel to the world of the Gods. Chapter 12 is not yet over with two more giant chapters to finish off the first Third of Heroes Will Rise. I had the Aebrith Saga of Nexus split into Thirds in my notes to separate the clusters of arcs between giant events like this, and the next two chapters finish off the first Third with a bang. What awaits our heroes in the world of the Gods? How will the War of the Saiyan Mountains end? What is Raditz thinking? Will Turles make his move? All of these questions and more will be answered in the next parts, starting with the next one: Nexus HWR 12.8 How It All Began. XD Hope you're ready. Here's a quick list before review responses:
DBZ: Goku, Bardock, Raditz, Fasha, Shugesh, Tora, Grandpa Gohan, Dyspo, Medamatcha, Angila, Wings, Turles, Hit, Bergamo, Lavender, Basil, Trio De Dangers, Oozaru, Vegeta, Gine, Jeice, Burter, Ginyu, and a bunch of Saiyans whose names I made up (and all kinda sound like vegetables)
One Piece: Charlotte Katakuri (Dogtooth), Caesar Clown, Rob Lucci
Hunter x Hunter: Meruem, Pitou, Pouf, Youpi, Isaac Netero
Asura's Wrath: Deus, Wyzen, Augus
Final Fantasy: Sephiroth, Cloud
Kingdom Hearts: Sora, Kairi, Keyblade, Ansem, Xemnas
Incredibles: Dash
Marvel: Thor, Flint Marko (Sandman)
Supergirl: Indigo
Flash: Savitar, Grodd
Seekers: Toklo, Lusa, Kallik, Ujurak (a book series I read when I was younger about some bears)
Brother Bear: Koha, Kenai
Supernatural: Castiel
SAO: Kirito
Fairly Oddparents: Timmy
DC Comics: Kryptonians, Luthor
Also starring technology from Black Panther (Dogtooth's shield) and Ant Man (Hank Pym's size-altering devices)
Percy Jackson Universe (Rick Riordan books): Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Magnus Chase, Athena
-Might be some more in there, so let me know if you're wondering where a character's from in the comments below! Review time:
Limit-Breaking chapter 84 . Feb 2
Man I just have so many things I want to say but I don't know what i should say first, ok I will start with goku vs meruem. I honestly thought goku was going to be killed off by meruem in this chapter, no lies from me, I legit thought that was it for goku. But bardock saved him so thank god that happen. Also wow when you said goku was well known in this world you weren't kidding and i never thought goku took part in the cataclysm.
Just curious though after reaching this point so far in the story, from nexus to this story, i just want to know is there any characters you regret killing off after getting this far. Also will you actually be ending this story and continue it with a third volume or will just continue on with nexus heroes will rise like so on.
Also are you aiming for the longest fanficion story ever or no cause i say you should since the longest fanfic is a smash fanic which is probaly 4 million words. Adding both of your stories you are at 2 million words.
Also im just going to say it, goku what can you do at this point. I respect your words but you don't stand a chance against the ant king at this point just let your father bardock take care of the rest.
Also interesting fight with the other saiyans it was pretty damn interesting to see their fights and the way dyspo was handling his fight was badass in my opinion. But i still say ginyu will probably use change now on the super saiyan gods even if he trained netero body and he doesn't want to switch it ,a saiyan god is still way above that.
Also sorry for another long review but i just have so many things to say, Like shugesh and fasha showing up and dodoria actually being there just had me laughing so hard cause dodoria knows he fucked if he get's caught.
Either way calm down with the hype we can only take in so much hype all at once, But either way awesome job with this chapter you really are doing an amazing job with this story and im just getting more invested to it at this point and I look forward to the next chapter.
Goku escapes death once again when it looks like he might just be at his end! Thanks for the review. The Cataclysm flashback will come one of these days, and since I've really been hyping it up with all the references it'll for sure be a good one. Anyway, I think it would be awesome if Nexus became the longest Fanfic out there, kinda disappointed now that I did not just keep it continuous from the first one, but hey, what are you gonna do? The way Nexus is planned out, it would def reach over 4 million words if I continued it all the way to the end, which at this point I still plan to do. Bardock agreed with you and sent Goku away so that he could have his fight with Meruem in peace. Glad you enjoyed the chapter and I hope this one didn't have too much hype for you to handle. XD
chapter 84 . Feb 2
Please make goku ssj4
I wonder... Thanks for the review!
joebob323 chapter 84 . Feb 2
Hahaha, more thanks should go to you for cranking out such long chapters so fast. Your stories are the longest I've ever read on fanfiction, so kudos to you! Do you haaaave to leave us off on such a cliffhanger though?! Also, if Jiren is introduced, what would his powerscale be? Over Bardock? As always though, I cannot wait for the next chapter!
A quick month break between these last two chapters... haha I'll try to get some more out at my usual quicker pace these next couple of weeks, but I just got a new job and I've got school stuff to do too, so no promises. Hope the month long cliffhanger wasn't too bad! As for Jiren, I'd try to power scale him at what he would be at, but I don't yet know his age so I don't know. That's something I always focus on, considering where I took characters from in their universes' timelines. I originally had planned for Hit to not have his Time Skip perfected during this arc, but when I took a better look at his character I saw that he was 1000 years old or something, so it being 10 years before DBS would not really cause that big a difference on his power. Anyway, gotta find a part to add him in on before we can find the answer to that XD. Thanks for the review!
asdf chapter 84 . Feb 2
Fuck yeah! Adult Goku is back baby!
On another note: I don't think you should make Jiren show up yet. He is way too op! So are any God of Destructions with the whole hakai shit and stuff.
Deus appeared in this chapter, so does that mean Asura, the man with more anger than the Saiyans and the Hulk combined, show up? Seriously though that guy gets way too angry.
It's a shame that Frieza died so early in this story especially after seeing him now in the Tournament of Power. Toppo may be a God of Destruction but Frieza is the one true God of Sass. Maybe Majin Buu will show up sometime. Hmm...
If there is anyone I'd like to see appear again, it would be Saitama. I love how you've added stronger enemies to make us forget about him. But you and I both know that he's been training a lot harder since he met Goku. When he does show up, I know he's gonna show everyone just how to throw a punch.
Sorry if my review was too scatterbrained, I was just typing everything and anything that came up in my mind. Anyways, it is good to see you updating again because this story is amazing. Keep up the great work!
Goku returning to normal was the first scene I wrote in all of Chapter 12. I think I had it written before I even started posting chapter 6 or something. I had the idea of the Pirate Queen's crew and allies fighting against the Neo Navy to return Goku back to normal, and I wrote that scene many many months ago, and only a while after that I decided where I was going to put it. Anyway, Asura's Wrath is coming out in full force this chapter with Wyzen and Augus showing up too. They were better fighters than Sergei and Olga in the game, and it showed here as they take on the Super Saiyan Gods with the Guardians. Hope to see Asura soon too... ;). As for Saitama, who knows when he'll appear? Same with Majin Buu? So many great characters hidden away on Nexus with great potential, but we'll see... As for the second review, won't post it above, but yeah Toppo kind of disappointed me too. Thanks for the reviews!
kg833998 chapter 83 . Feb 7
my question was are you planning to add my hero academia and or salior moon too this and also is there gonna be any pokemon from kalos and unova and alola because so far you have only shown the first 4 and only lunala and because lunala is in nexas does that mean lille is on nexas somewhere too ?
Yes, no, maybe, I don't know. Yes Hero Academia. No Sailor Moon (as I have never watched nor plan to). I might add more from Kalos and Unova, if I get into those games or the show any time soon. I don't know who Lillie is, but if I play those Pokemon games/ watch the new show, I might find out.
kg833998 chapter 27 . Feb 13
amazing chapter as usual also WHERE IS MY GIRL AKAME YOU DONT HAVE TO SAY WHERE SHE IS JUST THAT SHE IS ALIVE PLEASE
does sora have all the keyblades that you could get in kh2 including the Ultima weapon
you can hold off the part where grey meets gajeel and Levy again cuz I really don't want to see Levy hear about Lucy cuz we know it's going to be an amazing scene it's also going to be a really heartbreaking scene also can you point out when for miraculous happened during Nexus is it before the ending or is it after the ending also in my last review i said i hope bitch sensei and kayno were sill alive when i said kayno i meant the green haired candy loving girl not a teacher
Thanks for all these reviews. Akame might be alive *smirks evilly*. As for your second question, I believe that was answered this chapter XD. Haven't seen much of Gajeel and Levy for a while, wonder how long it will be before they finally meet up with their fellow Fairy Tail buddies? As for Bitch sensei and Kayano... also not going to tell you. No spoilers! Sorry for all the vague or negative responses, but I hope you enjoyed the chapter anyway!
Jokering chapter 84 . Feb 14
Finally caught up with this story, took me a while. Gotta say, i really enjoy what you've been doing, this is without a doubt THE best crossover story i've ever read; the character interactions, the dialogue, all of that feels loyal to the source material, and when it doesnt I can see it as result of living trapped in a wild and unpredictable world where you have to adapt to survive. My favorite aspect is the pacing, you really take your time setting the plot lines, heck the most of the current plot for this was set and touched upon countless times in Nexus. I really love the over the top fight scenes that are properly described as if they came straight from an anime.
Thank you so much. It's great to hear something like this, as you touched on stuff I focus on when writing every chapter. I tried to make them like themselves from their sources, and if they're not, it's because of living on Nexus for so long. Really, everything you said just made me smile, so thanks again. As for Ginyu vs Dyspo, I agree that it is a bit of a stretch to put Netero's level on Dyspo's, but it was because Netero was from the HxH world and had that speed, that I felt Ginyu taking his body would make the fastest move in all of HxH so much faster. Anyway, don't worry about taking up too much space in here and comment away if you wish, 'cause I'll sometimes just paraphrase it like this^. Thanks one last time, because you really did make my day when I read that comment. Hope you enjoyed the new chapter!
cyber chapter 84 . Feb 13
cool chapter and I knew the some of the seven deities will appear, I wonder where asura is, but mostly I like the chapter, and I'm glad to see captain jack sparrow, cant wait to see whats next.
not trying to spoil anything but if natsu is trying to find igneel, it would be cool if deathwing was involved
i forgot to say happy valentines
Glad more people than I thought have seen/played Asura's Wrath. (I really just watched all the cutscenes one day on YouTube). Asura still hasn't shown, but even more of the 7 deities appear this chapter. Jack comes back and brings Goku back to adult form. And don't worry, I've finished the Fairy Tail manga so no spoilers for me there. Deathwing could be a cool addition and I have added WoW characters before so who knows? Happy Valentines Day to you too, and thanks for the reviews! Thanks again to everyone who reviewed, favorited, followed, or just read this chapter. Big things are happening on Nexus, hope you're ready... and 'til next time!