Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ A Shadow in the Twilight ❯ Chapter 41 ( Chapter 41 )

Author's note: Sending a belated, but heartfelt, shout-out towards the other side of the globe to kugayaku no hoshi, who sent me not one, but two (!) truly lovely fanarts of Bardock and Lluvia! Who knew that, by creating this little a/u tale, I'd gain so many wonderful side-benefits, especially by way of very kind and supportive cyber-friends? ::blows several kisses in gratitude::

Chapter 41

Within a matter of moments, it had become obvious to all watching from outside the dome's main arena that the tide of the battle had shifted irrevocably into Lluvia's favor.

"Fuck!" cursed one of the amazed warriors hovering just to the rear of the king's group. "How can the prince defend himself against something like that?"

"He can't," answered another, in a voice filled with awe and fear. "I know of no defense against such a technique."

In a fraction of a second, a blinding light filled the dome, as if someone had suddenly dropped a thousand flares, and any hint of color suddenly bleached out. Blinking and squinting into the stark brilliance, Zarbon and the Saiya-jins could only make out the fighters' outlines in a faint light blue against the harsh yellow-white brightness filling the dome's interior. This time, the scouters' high-pitched whines on the outside were matched in volume by a hair-raising, continuous scream emanating from the inside. After the passage of a few angst-ridden minutes, all sounds, within and without, abruptly ceased. With the ensuing, awful quiet, the blazing light died out and normal lighting returned below, allowing the onlookers to see inside clearly again. What they eventually saw shocked them all into a horrified stillness.

The dancer still held the prince within her outstretched grasp, as gray wisps of smoke plumed off of his shorn hair and charred clothing. His head drooped forward and his limbs twitched in little, jerky spasms.

Turning his head slightly away from the sight of his wounded son, King Vegeta caught the questing eye of a distraught Apio. Struggling to keep his outward expression as unaffected as possible, the monarch took in a deep, trembling breath and nodded once. The captain immediately broke the silence with a shout into his scouter.

"Attention, all units! This is Captain Apio of the Royal Guard speaking! Form attack positions around the main training dome immediately!"

"What are you doing?" demanded Zarbon, pushing closer to the King and Apio. The captain of the palace guard shot him a cold look in reply. "This situation is no longer your concern, Lord Zarbon," Apio answered in a flat, dismissive tone. Frieza's representative glared at him in fury.

How dare this…this monkeyaddress him like that? "What the hell do you mean by that remark, soldier? Explain yourself!"

"Let me spell it out in terms even you can understand, Lord Zarbon," said the Saiya-jin captain, no longer bothering to mask the dislike in his voice. "Should any member of the Vegeta-sei royal family be killed during a battle on home soil, our law mandates that the slayer must follow him or her immediately into the afterlife."

"This is…INSANE!" shouted an angry Zarbon into Apio's impassive face. "You know as well as I that Prince Vegeta instigated this fight!"

Refusing to get pulled into an argument over one of Vegeta-sei's oldest laws, the captain folded his arms and turned his countenance away from the ranting alien. Seeing that he would get no satisfaction from this Saiya-jin flunkey, Zarbon flew around him and addressed the king's stoic profile. "King Vegeta! This has gone on for far too long! You must intervene!"

The king took a second to pull his purple cape tighter around his body before replying with a simple, "I cannot."

Unsatisfied with the answer, Zarbon pressed further, "You can't….or you won't?" That made the Saiya-jin king wheel around as he fixed a death-worthy glare onto the recoiling Zarbon's face. "Perhaps I didn't make myself clear earlier, Zarbon!" he angrily snarled. "Saiya-jin rules of engagement regarding a private fight specifically state that, unless the evidently dominant fighter calls upon me, as the final arbitrator, to declare him or her as the victor, I am forbidden by law to intervene!"

"But, your majesty…what about the prince?" The king closed his eyes briefly before turning away from Zarbon to face the questioner, Puerro.

"Sergeant," he replied in a voice that was less angry, and more resigned. "My son has valued his sense of pride over everything else in his life, and I mean everything. That pride has sustained him, spurred him, and driven him with an unparalleled impetus to achieve; to push his mind and body beyond their limits, to become the best, most powerful warrior born of Saiya-jin blood. Even though he might very well be on the verge of his first, and quite possibly his final, defeat in battle, any interference on my part would strike into the very core of his Saiya-jin pride." With a rueful smile curling his mouth, he added, "And, knowing my son as I well as I do…he would never forgive me."

As though he weighed no more than a child's plaything, Lluvia shifted her grip to hold the prince solely with her left hand.

Remember, those who reap the wind shall forever sow the whirlwind, she mentally projected. Now, your royal nastiness, you will come to fully comprehend what justifiable revenge is all about!Delving deeply into her anger and hate for the Saiya-jin prince, Lluvia marshaled her energies to repay him in his own coin. She repeatedly drove her punishing right fist up and into Prince Vegeta's gut, chest, and his face. Unable to fight off the effects of the paralysis-strike, his body bent back from the force of each of her retaliatory blows.

For Lluvia, it was bad enough to remember that he'd drugged her and nearly raped her while she was rendered defenseless. He might've even succeeded, had he not made the injuriously crucial mistake of trying to remove the Dragon's Kiss from around her body.

However, in her mind, he had dared to commit a far greater evil against her; he had tried to hurt the people she loved the most: Tristan and Bardock. In the past two days, Prince Vegeta had held both of them hostage to his twisted will. He kidnapped Tristan so that he could bait her into fighting him, and he manipulated Bardock's sworn loyalty as a Saiya-jin warrior to the royal family, to keep a lid on the prince's dirty, little secret.

And the more she thought about it all, the more the furious she became.

At this time, many of the spectators' scouters had been honed in on Prince Vegeta's power level. Their devices revealed that his energy reading was dropping alarmingly with each unrelenting strike that the ningen challenger delivered. Even if they'd wanted to, none could bring themselves to tear away their eyes from the on-going destruction of their prince.

Lluvia took hold of him with both hands and, with a yell, tossed his battered body upwards. Leaping high into the air to meet his ascent, she spun herself into a blurring twirl to release a mighty, whipping fan kick directly into her opponent's midsection. For those who had been witness to her performances at arena on the previous nights, it was a reprise of just how beautiful and ferocious her movements could be.

The power she'd packed into that single kick sent the now-unconscious prince slamming back-first into the far wall, leaving a deep imprint of his form in the curve of the inner surface. After hanging there for a couple of seconds, gravity slowly peeled him downward and off the wall. His body hit the floor facedown with a small bounce or two before laying still.

Lluvia landed a few strides away from her downed enemy, into a less-than-graceful three-point stance.

Screw this shit, she thought wearily, as the heat of her anger began to gradually fade along with her energy level. Taking in a few panting breaths, she slowly rose and tottered a few steps to stand over her opponent's prostrate body.

Tightly clenching his jaw to stifle the urge to cry out, a shaken King Vegeta briefly closed his eyes to block out the traumatizing sight. As his eyelids squeezed together, he sent a fervent mental plea to the dancer below. Lluvia, please…I beg of you….surely, you wouldn't kill Vegeta…my only son. Not in front of me!

She stared down at the prone body of her defeated foe, watching as the ruddy undertones of his tawny skin gave way to the encroaching grayness of certain death.

Don't do it, Lluvia! admonished a tiny voice in the back of her mind. Lluvia thought it might have been either the voice of her beloved soulmate or of her long-deceased mentor, but as bone-weary as she was, she wasn't altogether certain of its origin. The debt is paid, and you have nothing left to prove…not to anyone! In the end, Prince Vegeta was no match for you! You are the undisputed victor! Now, it is time for you to show these Saiya-jins your true colors!

After the passage of a very long second, she nodded. I think I understand.

Apio stared at the readout on his scouter and felt his heart thump in dreadful time with each drop in the numbered display. The prince's energy level was now riding in the upper double-digit range and falling steadily down. It would only be a matter of moments when the readout would flatline. Then he would have to give the signal for his soldiers to rush the dome and kill the female.

Kami! What a bloody waste…on both counts! To stand here and witness the loss of two extremely powerful warriors! A unique fighting resource such as hers would have proven invaluable to us, to help train and enhance the battle skills of all our Saiya-jin warriors. If only her opponent had been anyone else but Prince Vegeta, reflected the captain. If only such things as miracles truly existed…