Eyes clamped shut with pain, Takira tried to form an image of the battle above by sensing the movement of ki. Trunks' power level had shot up suddenly after she'd gone down, but Denatu was still putting up more of a fight than expected for someone so outclassed. He was hiding something for sure, but why?

Bright sparks of pain flashed through her, distracting. She fought to stay in control of her rapidly failing body. The bleeding had slowed somewhat, but she'd lost too much already. Agony kept her awake, but she could sense the blackness encroaching on the edge of her vision.

'Why not just give in to it? I'm no good to them now, I can't fight anymore. Goten's dead, Gohan's getting there, and I'm nearing it, too. If Trunks can't win this--it's all my fault. I tried to tell you to stay away, why wouldn't you listen?' She ground her teeth, refocusing her concentration on the fight at hand.

As Trunks dove in to attack, Denatu surged away, trying to distance himself from the bolts of electricity that circled his opponent. Abandoning his attempt at hand-to-hand combat, Trunks raised his hands above his head, charging an attack he'd learned from his childhood mentor.

"Masenko!" he howled, throwing it forward. Denatu held his hands before him, throwing up a ki shield. Trunks' attack hit the shield, slowing but not stopping as Trunks willed it forward. Denatu grunted, straining, as his shield began to break down. The shape-shifter roared and deflected the attack to the side, throwing himself the other way. Quickly, he formed a ki sphere in one hand, then with the other, squashed it flat. He released it to hover over his head, then with a swift flick of his hand, directed it at Trunks.

'Kienzan,' Trunks thought as he shot away from the speeding disc. 'I wonder where he learned that.' He glanced over his shoulder; it was slowly gaining. Banking tightly, Trunks reversed direction, flying directly for Denatu.

Denatu looked faintly amused as Trunks hurtled towards him. The Saiyan was less than a yard from Denatu's face when he sheared upwards and away. The Kienzan careened toward Denatu, who flicked it away with a casual gesture.

"That's an old trick, boy!" he shouted to Trunks. "You'll have to do better than that!" Trunks smiled to himself as he aimed for Denatu again. Denatu didn't flinch as the young warrior drew closer. 'Stupid kid's going to do that same thing again--' He looked beyond Trunks to the disc, preparing to deflect it again, when suddenly he realized that Trunks wasn't dodging.

Trunks plowed his fist into Denatu's face, flinging him backward. The Kienzan shattered as Denatu's concentration broke. He came to his senses just as Trunks' kick caught him in the back. Denatu bellowed in pain and nailed Trunks in the shoulder with a ki blast before he could dodge. Trunks fell back and Denatu whirled to face him, breathing hard. The standoff lasted only a moment before Denatu lifted a ki-charged hand.

"Fire Slash Attack!" he snarled, his arm slicing downward. A red beam of ki streaked toward Trunks. He threw up a shield, only be engulfed in flames as Denatu's attack struck it. Denatu grinned as Trunks screamed, then in a sudden explosion, all went still. The broiling smoke dissipated slowly, and Denatu prepared to meet whatever attack the young fighter had left. As the last wisps of smoke drifted away, however, Trunks was nowhere to be found.

"The hell," Denatu muttered. "I obliterated him." A soft chuckle behind him made him turn, just in time to catch Trunks' elbow squarely in the face. Then came a kick to his gut, another cracking ribs in his side, and finally an upward-sweeping blow to the chin before he could so much as react. As Trunks moved in to strike again, Denatu lashed out with an unexpected ki blast that pitched Trunks backwards. By the time Trunks had regained his bearings and lunged forward to attack again(which took less than a second), Denatu was ready, this time surging forward to meet Trunks halfway.

*****

"Wake up, damn it, I know you're alive," came the voice again. Someone shook his shoulder roughly, then lightly smacked him across the face with a clawed hand. Dolmit groaned and forced his eyes open, looking up into Azher's perturbed visage. Dolmit choked back an involuntary cry of surprise. 'Shit, I'm dead--'

"About time you woke up," Azher snapped. "Let me guess. Somebody that just happened to look like me led you out here and knocked you senseless. Right?" Dolmit winced and nodded, struggling to get up as Azher stepped back. Dolmit looked him up and down, noting the bruises, cuts, and the crudely bandaged tail. He managed a crooked smile.

"You look almost as shitty as I feel," he croaked. Azher nodded and gestured toward his waiting airspeeder.

"Get in. We have places to go." Dolmit moved to the small craft, then hesitated, frowning pensively.

"Azher, I don't know how long I've been out, but I daresay that shape-shifter's nearly at the battlefield, if he hasn't arrived already. It's too late to warn the Earthlings, and it's not like either of us is in any condition to fight." Azher stiffened.

"What are you suggesting?"

"That we return to the palace and attempt to contact King Deoge. There's bound to be more than one communications board in a place that large, if we can just find one."

"To what purpose? What's King Deoge going to do about it?"

"He could send troops--"

"From our non-existent army? Half of our best warriors went out on Shael's ship, and somehow I don't think they're going to be much help." Azher sighed. "We'll just have to hope the Earthlings can handle it."

"I don't want to sound fatalistic, but you place too much faith in people you've never met. There's nothing to say we can trust them." Azher looked confused, then horrified.

"You think they'd turn on us?"

"No; they were never on our side, Azher, don't you see? They got dragged into this through that girl, but they're on neither side of the conflict, and it would be pitifully easy for them to take over if they're capable of destroying Proteas' spawn."

"There's no reason to believe they would do that."

"There's also no reason why they couldn't. What would you do, faced with two planets ripe for conquest?"

"That's assuming they win," Azher pointed out gravely.

"Well, if they lose, at least we can be fairly certain of the outcome," Dolmit said. Azher turned away and climbed into the airspeeder.

"There's one way to find out," he said grimly. "If death is all we can look forward to, we may as well meet it head-on." Dolmit stared for a long moment, then backed away and rose unsteadily into the air.

"You go, if you must. I'm heading back to the palace. If death truly is my fate, it'll have to find me first." With a half-heartedly mocking salute, he left the way he'd come.

*****

Cordec skimmed low over the ground, watching his father and the Earthling with more than a little apprehension. He'd not seen Degradu yet, but it was just as well; Cordec had no desire to meet his former employer. He hid behind a rock as the action moved momentarily closer, then drifted away. Cordec winced at the sounds of flesh hitting flesh. One of the two was taking quite a beating; they were moving so fast, though, that he couldn't discern whose punches were connecting and whose weren't.

Creeping from behind the rock, Cordec nearly tripped over a body. He paused a moment to inspect it: fairly young, with spiky black hair and a loose-fitting orange uniform. He didn't look that badly beat-up; Cordec shook his head, puzzled as to what had killed the young warrior, then shrugged. He had more important things to worry about, his own life being one.

Scanning the rest of the area, he sensed(beyond the two airborne fighters)two other ki signals. Both were fairly weak, one still fading further. Looking around, he spotted the first; he bore a vague resemblance to the dead boy, only quite a bit older. He struggled to sit up, clenching one fist while his other arm dangled limply, wrapped in blood-soaked cloth. Cordec mentally dismissed him; he'd cause no trouble. The other signal was even a bit weaker, and harder to locate precisely, but when he found it, Cordec's jaw dropped in surprise.

It was the girl Degradu had sent for, he was sure of it. Cordec had only seen her for a moment as she'd breezed through, unannounced, to confront Degradu, but her appearance was fairly distinctive. She looked different now, pale as chalk, her hands coated in a crumbly sludge of half-dried blood. The ground beneath her was darkly soaked. For a moment, Cordec though her dead, but in a barely discernable movement, her chest rose and fell, and her bloodied fingers twitched a fraction.

Cordec grunted contemplatively: she was still alive, if only barely. She could therefore prove very, very useful. Glancing skyward to assure himself that the combatants above were too engaged to notice him, Cordec made his way over to the prone Earthling. He knelt beside her, and to his surprise, her eyes flew open and fixed on him.

'Still awake? She's tougher than she looks,' he thought approvingly. Degradu had been right in choosing her; his mistake had been in treating her as a servant, not a slave. Cordec stared her in the eyes, daring her to stop him as he laid a hand over her throat. He couldn't take her with him; she'd never survive the journey without medical attention. He'd take what he wanted and kill her. In this case, it would probably be a mercy--he'd barely completed the thought when something bright, heavy, and extraordinarily painful struck him away from her.

Apparently his presence had been noticed.

*****

Trunks stood over Takira, looking away from the one he'd struck to see Denatu swooping in. Trunks threw a ki shield over himself and Takira, but to his surprise, Denatu landed beside the other shape-shifter, grabbing him by the neck and hauling him to his feet. The two held each others' gaze for a moment, and Trunks swore he saw Denatu's ghostly white hair bristle a little.

"Boy," he growled softly, "I should have killed you the moment you were born. I would have thought you'd be dead by now."

"Sorry to disappoint you, father," the young one snapped bitterly. "I was just leaving." Denatu smacked him hard across the face; he barely flinched.

"The hell you're leaving," Denatu bellowed. "I've had enough of you. You die, and by kami, you die now!" He raised a spread, claw-like hand, and the youth braced himself, staring his death in the eye. Trunks was about to step forward to intervene when he felt a tug at his pant leg. Takira shook her head weakly.

"Nothing--you can do--" she rasped. "Not--your--fight." Trembling with anger and frustration, Trunks held back as Denatu blasted his son backward. He moved in a blur, appearing behind Cordec's speeding body, and kneed him in the back, snapping his spine and throwing him forward to the ground. Cordec blinked uncertainly and propped up on his elbows, head spinning. With a pained grunt, he rolled over onto his back, dragging his useless legs with him. Denatu towered over him again.

"Stand up and fight," he sneered. "Well? What's wrong, weakling?" Cordec sighed.

"I won't fight you, father. I won't have any part in this. I refuse--" A sudden kick in the head cut him off. He coughed and spat blood while Denatu looked on, the same expression of disgust on his face.

"A weakling and a coward. Well, you had your chance to prove yourself, and you just wasted it." Placing a foot on Cordec's chest, he slowly crushed downward; Cordec flinched as his ribs began to snap. Denatu glared down at him. "Any last words, boy?" Breathing shallowly, Cordec managed a twisted smile.

"It's--not--over--" With a shudder, his eyes rolled back and his head thumped softly to the ground. Denatu stomped down decisively, flattening Cordec's chest. He stared balefully at the corpse, looking like he wanted to spit on it. At last he sighed and stepped away from the body.

"I think it's over, boy," he hissed, then turned to face Trunks again. Trunks addressed Denatu, gesturing at the crushed body behind him.

"That was your son?"

"Yes, I'm terribly sorry about that," Denatu murmured sarcastically. "My family do seem to have a habit of showing up at the most inconvenient of times. Rest assured, though; that was the last of them."

"I'm not worried," Trunks answered softly. "You'll be joining them soon enough." He stepped forward, away from Takira. He didn't want to fight with her underfoot; she couldn't defend herself. Denatu chuckled as he approached.

"Such high hopes. As much as I admire your blind fortitude, I'm afraid it's sadly misplaced. You'll figure that out soon, I imagine--" Before Trunks could react, Denatu shot a ki sphere in a sweeping arc, speeding towards Takira.

"No!!" Trunks leaped, only to be thrown back by the explosion. Dust and pebbles pelted Denatu as he laughed. Trunks froze, chest heaving, forcing himself to watch as the dust cleared--

--to reveal a very familiar figure, standing with arms crossed, characteristic frown on his face, and a halo centered over his pointed hair. Takira choked out a gasping laugh.

"About--damn time." The newcomer smirked and glanced down at her.

"I'm glad to see you, too, Taki-chan." His grin faded slightly as he looked her over. "You look like hell."

"You'd know--what that looks like--wouldn't you?" She managed a shaky smile. Vegeta sighed.

"Nice to know you haven't changed. Now," he said, turning to face the slack-jawed Denatu, "what exactly is going on here?"