08-15-2016, 12:32 PM
“You should have stayed with your sister.”
Goku’s reply brought an angry snarl to Drisnolu’s lips.
“You killed my sisters! One with your weapons, the other with your words!”
The saiyan couldn’t help but smile at that. “So she did decide to stop being evil. That’s great! She should have stayed with us!”
The Priestess wrenched her whip backwards, and lashed out with it a second time, intending to double up on the amount of venom now working its way through Goku’s veins. This worked to the saiyan’s advantage just fine, as he threw his palm out to meet the unfocused, rage-induced attack, and the poor snake closed its fangs tight into an energy ball instead, before it exploded into a gory mess.
“You should be more careful with those.” Goku said, chidingly. “They look expensive.”
”KILL THEM!
The second drow attack was far less successful than the first, mostly because the element of surprise was now proving to be firmly on the side of the defenders rather than their assailants. The melee resumed, and this time the bodyguards did what they did best; they closed ranks to make sure that no enemy could come close to touching their ward. It didn’t matter how swift and graceful the drow were, their elegant poisoned blades found nothing but firm shields and stoic resilience to match them.
With two more of their number dead, a cold hatred had settled into the hearts of the bodyguards. With Rosalia’s miracle burning in the sky above, there was nowhere for the drow to hide and no angle so unexpected as to catch the experienced warriors by surprise. Refocused in their efforts, they were cautious to a fault; striking only when there was no chance that it would break their shield wall. The fighting style was not flashy, it would not have won them accolades in the arena or moved the hearts of bards to sing… but it was effective, plain and simple.
It was the complete opposite of Goku, who threw himself into the battle as though he were born to it. Where they were the stolid rock face against which the drow struggled to find purchase, Goku was the crashing wave which smashed them to pieces against it. The lesser drow were not a great challenge, despite the increasingly-shrill threats being laden upon them by their Priestess. Before long, they lay in various states of injury and distress about the swamp.
The expression on Drisnolu’s face was one of the purest expressions of rage that Goku had ever seen. Goku paused to mop some sweat from his brow, and turned to face her. For some reason, the half-smile on his lips didn’t seem to improve her mood at all!
“Okay so, that was a fun warmup.” He said, “Are you ready to get serious now?”
Drisnolu let out a furious shriek, and brilliant purple light erupted about her – which seemed to really shock the bodyguards, although Goku took it in his stride.
“Is this some sort of game to you!?”
Goku scratched behind the back of his head, “Well, not really, but, this didn’t go so great for you last time, remember? No dirty tricks to save you now.”
The purple light grew more intense, power spilling out all around her as Drisnolu’s shriek entered whole new octaves – painful ones.
As they watched, the drow grew. Bones snapped and muscles stretched as she screamed, her body warping as new legs sprouted. Her armour buckled and broke, her clothing unable to contain the enormous arachnoid thorax bloating into existence to bear her above them.
Drisnolu would have hated this under any other circumstance. To have been judged so unworthy that she would be transformed from her pure drow state to a drider would have been too much to bear. But as the demonic power of her Goddess filled her, Drisnolu felt new strength entering limbs which would have been too spindly to contain it before.
When the transformation ended, the Priestess towered over her prey on six great legs, each wickedly sharp and yet somehow able to distribute her weight perfectly on the marshy terrain. Two more legs, sharper still, projected from the front, barbed and vicious. Her hair – freed from the intricate braiding that she had previously enjoyed – now blew behind her in a vivid, blinding white mane.
“Pitiful mortals!” She crowed, “Do you understand, now? You have offended me, and for that, you will die!”
Skittering forwards on all eight limbs, she was like some great, terrible spider-centaur, packing an incredible amount of momentum to slam bodily into her hated prey. Goku did what he could to ready himself for the impact, but even so it was impressive, and he was sent hurtling back through the air to crash against Gabriel’s shield.
“Do you want a hand, friend?”
Goku paused only to shake his head, “Not yet. You protect Justin. I’ll take care of her.”
“Take care of me?” Drisnolu crowed, “Look at you! You can scarcely take care of yourself!”
It was true, the earlier bite was causing Goku to favour his left hand a little more than he ordinarily would, and he could already feel the bruising begin to form from the impacts he’d received, but he was excited more than he was intimidated! Last time, her weakness had been obvious – she was speedy, but brittle. This time, he couldn’t immediately see it.
“We’ll see.”
Erupting back into the fray, Goku’s flight back across the swamp kicked up a trail of water droplets in his wake. Before they could touch the ground again, he drew his hand back and smashed his fist forward with all the strength he could muster.
The impact sent out a small shockwave of force, the drow’s front legs defending her as she brought the rapier down in answer. Goku barely managed to twist to the side, and then it was a flurry of complex blows and counter-blows, neither seeming to gain much ground on the other.
The Priestess let out a sharp hiss, and her hand was suddenly aglow with the same malevolent red energy which had almost claimed Goku’s life before.
“Wow!”
The woman’s hand passed harmlessly through where he had been mere moments before, his heart pounding as sweat poured down his features. This fight really was a lot more difficult than the last one, and Drisnolu sneered up at the fighter.
“What’s the matter?” She growled, “Afraid? Fight me properly!” Her hand, still glowing, motioned towards him, and Goku blinked as the realisation struck him. Hovering as he was in the air, the idea that she couldn’t follow him… well, he was so used to that being ubiquitous in his home, it really hadn’t occurred to him!
“Oh, I get it now!” He exclaimed, “THAT’S your weakness! You can’t fly!”
Drisnolu’s expression soured, even as Goku’s grew more triumphant.
“Okay!” He exclaimed, “Now I really do know how to beat you!”
Both hands cupped at his side, and he started to gather his power. Phew, this really was a lot more exhausting than it used to be – but he could afford to make sure it was big enough it wouldn’t miss, at least.
“KAAAAAAAAAA!”
Bright blue light began to emanate from between Goku’s hands, the martial artist suffused with a brilliant white energy as he poured himself into it.
“Don’t you know how spiders deal with flies?” The newly-minted Drider spat, not that Goku could really do anything about it right now – it took a lot of concentration to put his all into this technique, even if he’d done it a thousand times before.
Juliet was quicker on the uptake, and there was a startled gasp from the gathered bodyguards.
“MEEEEEE!”
“Goku! Look out!”
It was too late. The drider spat, and thick webbing shot out to ensnare the saiyan. Goku’s eyes widened, and he tried to brace himself as best he could. She was strong, though! Far too strong!
With a whip of her head, Goku found himself being dragged down to meet her, and that bright red hand was brought forward to slam into his gut. Again, the sensation of his body being thoroughly assaulted by the dark force filled him, and he let out a startled cry – he couldn’t dodge when he was bound so tightly, and his head was swimming. Damn, this could really – be the end! The woman’s forelegs coiled about him, and she raised her rapier up high, features set in a vicious snarl of triumph.
“Any last words before I send you to meet your maker?”
It was a risk, Goku knew that. It was one of the hardest techniques he had ever mastered, but he couldn’t find the power of the Super Saiyan – no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t feel it. That meant there was only one option. If he was going to break out of this.
He smiled, and coughed. “Just one.” He said, the woman’s blade hovering before his eyes as she prepared for the killing strike.
“Kaio-ken.”
Her brow furrowed, “Kaio-what?”
And then the world erupted into an inferno of bright scarlet power.
Goku’s body screamed at him for daring to do something so stupid. It felt as though he were tearing himself apart – because, really, that was exactly what he was doing. If the Omniverse was going to put limitations on his body, he was going to do everything he could to break through them! As it turned out, breaking through barriers placed on you by a God was incredibly painful.
The Kaio-ken was a heightened state of being. All at once, he could see every line in those cold, beautiful features. He could hear the thundering heartbeats of his allies close at hand. He could smell the festering swamp with incredible clarity, and taste the coppery blood in his own mouth.
In that moment of shock, however, the Drider’s grip loosened just a tiny amount – and he could feel that too. Goku flexed, pushing his arms out to either side and throwing the woman back. She was enormous; she had to weigh at least a ton, but she was sent stumbling by the power now erupting around Goku’s floating body.
Already, he could feel the limits there, burning at him. He couldn’t keep this up forever. He couldn’t keep this up for more than a few seconds. That meant he had to make this count.
She came back at him, determined not to let him do … whatever it was, he was now preparing to do. The rapier whistled through the air, determined to skewer the saiyan straight through the heart.
And Goku was simply not there any longer.
For a moment it seemed like he simply vanished, and even the bodyguards couldn’t see him. Goku’s power flared even more brilliantly as he struggled to concentrate it. For a moment, he had entertained the idea of trying to use the Kamehameha to finish her off – but right now, it felt like even the power needed to form a simple energy bullet would be far too much for him to cope with. He had to keep this as simple as he possibly could!
“HYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
Propelling himself at the Drider’s back, Goku drove both feet down at the point where her torso met her new arachnoid enhancements. The impact drove her into the ground with a sound like a series of twigs being snapped all at once, her legs buckling and breaking under the impact. The Priestess’ eyes bulged, her spine faring no better than her legs had, and she could not even find the breath in her lungs to scream.
The bright fire which had surrounded him flickered and died out, and Goku hopped backwards to land in front of the crippled Priestess. Her lower body was now rendered entirely useless, her eyes closed in merciful unconsciousness.
“That… that was amazing.” Gabriel said, at Goku’s side. Now certain that the battle was over, he stood next to the saiyan to regard the downed drider. “Why didn’t you do that before?”
Goku laughed, and scratched behind the back of his head, shrugging a cheerful shrug. “Well, it isn’t like I was trying to hold back.” He said, “I wasn’t sure if it would work! If I mess it up, I’d just explode, so…”
Gabriel clapped Goku on the shoulder, and he might have imagined it, but it certainly looked like Goku flinched at the impact. The shorter man tried to hide it, though, and drew himself up.
“Okay!” He declared, “If you guys don’t mind… I think it is time we stopped taking it so easy!”
The bodyguards, to a man, stared at Goku as though he had completely lost his mind. Goku merely clapped his hands together and beamed from ear to ear.
“Time to break out the torches! We should get moving!”
“Oh, I see!” Gabriel said, “Every monster and predator in the swamp will have seen and heard that. Good thinking, Goku.”
That wasn’t, exactly, what he’d been thinking of – but as the torches were handed out anyway, Goku didn’t see the point in correcting his friend. The truth was, he was absolutely certain that the biggest threat would be the one that had managed to get ahead of them, rather than following in their footsteps… and now that he knew he could use the Kaio-ken, he was eager to see whether that was a threat he was ready to meet!
Goku’s reply brought an angry snarl to Drisnolu’s lips.
“You killed my sisters! One with your weapons, the other with your words!”
The saiyan couldn’t help but smile at that. “So she did decide to stop being evil. That’s great! She should have stayed with us!”
The Priestess wrenched her whip backwards, and lashed out with it a second time, intending to double up on the amount of venom now working its way through Goku’s veins. This worked to the saiyan’s advantage just fine, as he threw his palm out to meet the unfocused, rage-induced attack, and the poor snake closed its fangs tight into an energy ball instead, before it exploded into a gory mess.
“You should be more careful with those.” Goku said, chidingly. “They look expensive.”
”KILL THEM!
The second drow attack was far less successful than the first, mostly because the element of surprise was now proving to be firmly on the side of the defenders rather than their assailants. The melee resumed, and this time the bodyguards did what they did best; they closed ranks to make sure that no enemy could come close to touching their ward. It didn’t matter how swift and graceful the drow were, their elegant poisoned blades found nothing but firm shields and stoic resilience to match them.
With two more of their number dead, a cold hatred had settled into the hearts of the bodyguards. With Rosalia’s miracle burning in the sky above, there was nowhere for the drow to hide and no angle so unexpected as to catch the experienced warriors by surprise. Refocused in their efforts, they were cautious to a fault; striking only when there was no chance that it would break their shield wall. The fighting style was not flashy, it would not have won them accolades in the arena or moved the hearts of bards to sing… but it was effective, plain and simple.
It was the complete opposite of Goku, who threw himself into the battle as though he were born to it. Where they were the stolid rock face against which the drow struggled to find purchase, Goku was the crashing wave which smashed them to pieces against it. The lesser drow were not a great challenge, despite the increasingly-shrill threats being laden upon them by their Priestess. Before long, they lay in various states of injury and distress about the swamp.
The expression on Drisnolu’s face was one of the purest expressions of rage that Goku had ever seen. Goku paused to mop some sweat from his brow, and turned to face her. For some reason, the half-smile on his lips didn’t seem to improve her mood at all!
“Okay so, that was a fun warmup.” He said, “Are you ready to get serious now?”
Drisnolu let out a furious shriek, and brilliant purple light erupted about her – which seemed to really shock the bodyguards, although Goku took it in his stride.
“Is this some sort of game to you!?”
Goku scratched behind the back of his head, “Well, not really, but, this didn’t go so great for you last time, remember? No dirty tricks to save you now.”
The purple light grew more intense, power spilling out all around her as Drisnolu’s shriek entered whole new octaves – painful ones.
As they watched, the drow grew. Bones snapped and muscles stretched as she screamed, her body warping as new legs sprouted. Her armour buckled and broke, her clothing unable to contain the enormous arachnoid thorax bloating into existence to bear her above them.
Drisnolu would have hated this under any other circumstance. To have been judged so unworthy that she would be transformed from her pure drow state to a drider would have been too much to bear. But as the demonic power of her Goddess filled her, Drisnolu felt new strength entering limbs which would have been too spindly to contain it before.
When the transformation ended, the Priestess towered over her prey on six great legs, each wickedly sharp and yet somehow able to distribute her weight perfectly on the marshy terrain. Two more legs, sharper still, projected from the front, barbed and vicious. Her hair – freed from the intricate braiding that she had previously enjoyed – now blew behind her in a vivid, blinding white mane.
“Pitiful mortals!” She crowed, “Do you understand, now? You have offended me, and for that, you will die!”
Skittering forwards on all eight limbs, she was like some great, terrible spider-centaur, packing an incredible amount of momentum to slam bodily into her hated prey. Goku did what he could to ready himself for the impact, but even so it was impressive, and he was sent hurtling back through the air to crash against Gabriel’s shield.
“Do you want a hand, friend?”
Goku paused only to shake his head, “Not yet. You protect Justin. I’ll take care of her.”
“Take care of me?” Drisnolu crowed, “Look at you! You can scarcely take care of yourself!”
It was true, the earlier bite was causing Goku to favour his left hand a little more than he ordinarily would, and he could already feel the bruising begin to form from the impacts he’d received, but he was excited more than he was intimidated! Last time, her weakness had been obvious – she was speedy, but brittle. This time, he couldn’t immediately see it.
“We’ll see.”
Erupting back into the fray, Goku’s flight back across the swamp kicked up a trail of water droplets in his wake. Before they could touch the ground again, he drew his hand back and smashed his fist forward with all the strength he could muster.
The impact sent out a small shockwave of force, the drow’s front legs defending her as she brought the rapier down in answer. Goku barely managed to twist to the side, and then it was a flurry of complex blows and counter-blows, neither seeming to gain much ground on the other.
The Priestess let out a sharp hiss, and her hand was suddenly aglow with the same malevolent red energy which had almost claimed Goku’s life before.
“Wow!”
The woman’s hand passed harmlessly through where he had been mere moments before, his heart pounding as sweat poured down his features. This fight really was a lot more difficult than the last one, and Drisnolu sneered up at the fighter.
“What’s the matter?” She growled, “Afraid? Fight me properly!” Her hand, still glowing, motioned towards him, and Goku blinked as the realisation struck him. Hovering as he was in the air, the idea that she couldn’t follow him… well, he was so used to that being ubiquitous in his home, it really hadn’t occurred to him!
“Oh, I get it now!” He exclaimed, “THAT’S your weakness! You can’t fly!”
Drisnolu’s expression soured, even as Goku’s grew more triumphant.
“Okay!” He exclaimed, “Now I really do know how to beat you!”
Both hands cupped at his side, and he started to gather his power. Phew, this really was a lot more exhausting than it used to be – but he could afford to make sure it was big enough it wouldn’t miss, at least.
“KAAAAAAAAAA!”
Bright blue light began to emanate from between Goku’s hands, the martial artist suffused with a brilliant white energy as he poured himself into it.
“Don’t you know how spiders deal with flies?” The newly-minted Drider spat, not that Goku could really do anything about it right now – it took a lot of concentration to put his all into this technique, even if he’d done it a thousand times before.
Juliet was quicker on the uptake, and there was a startled gasp from the gathered bodyguards.
“MEEEEEE!”
“Goku! Look out!”
It was too late. The drider spat, and thick webbing shot out to ensnare the saiyan. Goku’s eyes widened, and he tried to brace himself as best he could. She was strong, though! Far too strong!
With a whip of her head, Goku found himself being dragged down to meet her, and that bright red hand was brought forward to slam into his gut. Again, the sensation of his body being thoroughly assaulted by the dark force filled him, and he let out a startled cry – he couldn’t dodge when he was bound so tightly, and his head was swimming. Damn, this could really – be the end! The woman’s forelegs coiled about him, and she raised her rapier up high, features set in a vicious snarl of triumph.
“Any last words before I send you to meet your maker?”
It was a risk, Goku knew that. It was one of the hardest techniques he had ever mastered, but he couldn’t find the power of the Super Saiyan – no matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t feel it. That meant there was only one option. If he was going to break out of this.
He smiled, and coughed. “Just one.” He said, the woman’s blade hovering before his eyes as she prepared for the killing strike.
“Kaio-ken.”
Her brow furrowed, “Kaio-what?”
And then the world erupted into an inferno of bright scarlet power.
Goku’s body screamed at him for daring to do something so stupid. It felt as though he were tearing himself apart – because, really, that was exactly what he was doing. If the Omniverse was going to put limitations on his body, he was going to do everything he could to break through them! As it turned out, breaking through barriers placed on you by a God was incredibly painful.
The Kaio-ken was a heightened state of being. All at once, he could see every line in those cold, beautiful features. He could hear the thundering heartbeats of his allies close at hand. He could smell the festering swamp with incredible clarity, and taste the coppery blood in his own mouth.
In that moment of shock, however, the Drider’s grip loosened just a tiny amount – and he could feel that too. Goku flexed, pushing his arms out to either side and throwing the woman back. She was enormous; she had to weigh at least a ton, but she was sent stumbling by the power now erupting around Goku’s floating body.
Already, he could feel the limits there, burning at him. He couldn’t keep this up forever. He couldn’t keep this up for more than a few seconds. That meant he had to make this count.
She came back at him, determined not to let him do … whatever it was, he was now preparing to do. The rapier whistled through the air, determined to skewer the saiyan straight through the heart.
And Goku was simply not there any longer.
For a moment it seemed like he simply vanished, and even the bodyguards couldn’t see him. Goku’s power flared even more brilliantly as he struggled to concentrate it. For a moment, he had entertained the idea of trying to use the Kamehameha to finish her off – but right now, it felt like even the power needed to form a simple energy bullet would be far too much for him to cope with. He had to keep this as simple as he possibly could!
“HYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
Propelling himself at the Drider’s back, Goku drove both feet down at the point where her torso met her new arachnoid enhancements. The impact drove her into the ground with a sound like a series of twigs being snapped all at once, her legs buckling and breaking under the impact. The Priestess’ eyes bulged, her spine faring no better than her legs had, and she could not even find the breath in her lungs to scream.
The bright fire which had surrounded him flickered and died out, and Goku hopped backwards to land in front of the crippled Priestess. Her lower body was now rendered entirely useless, her eyes closed in merciful unconsciousness.
“That… that was amazing.” Gabriel said, at Goku’s side. Now certain that the battle was over, he stood next to the saiyan to regard the downed drider. “Why didn’t you do that before?”
Goku laughed, and scratched behind the back of his head, shrugging a cheerful shrug. “Well, it isn’t like I was trying to hold back.” He said, “I wasn’t sure if it would work! If I mess it up, I’d just explode, so…”
Gabriel clapped Goku on the shoulder, and he might have imagined it, but it certainly looked like Goku flinched at the impact. The shorter man tried to hide it, though, and drew himself up.
“Okay!” He declared, “If you guys don’t mind… I think it is time we stopped taking it so easy!”
The bodyguards, to a man, stared at Goku as though he had completely lost his mind. Goku merely clapped his hands together and beamed from ear to ear.
“Time to break out the torches! We should get moving!”
“Oh, I see!” Gabriel said, “Every monster and predator in the swamp will have seen and heard that. Good thinking, Goku.”
That wasn’t, exactly, what he’d been thinking of – but as the torches were handed out anyway, Goku didn’t see the point in correcting his friend. The truth was, he was absolutely certain that the biggest threat would be the one that had managed to get ahead of them, rather than following in their footsteps… and now that he knew he could use the Kaio-ken, he was eager to see whether that was a threat he was ready to meet!
![[Image: x1oIYhu.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/x1oIYhu.jpg)