Staggering and crashing into a distant plateau, the beast trembled and gasped for breath. Blood spewed out of its mouth and the hole in its neck, showing just how effective the attack had been. But just when it seemed like it would succumb to the obviously fatal blow, it instead recovered and turned its attention towards the Namekian.
Before it had a chance to exact swift retribution upon its attacker, the forest to the north suddenly exploded upwards in a golden flash of light, one that drew the attention of the wounded alien. When it looked in the direction of that part of the country, it saw a glowing bolt shoot up from the trees and suspend itself in the air. Bathed in light and crackling with electricity, the wounded but still fighting Gohan glared angrily across at the extra terrestrial. With his fists held firmly at his sides and his orange top completely gone, the young warrior huffed furiously and focused his energy.
"Let's end this!" His aura kicking up fiercely, the teen then charged forward with a clap of thunder and a yell of rage.
Zeru, its target established, spun towards the approaching half-Saiyan and prepared for combat.
Due to its eyes being fixed squarely on the powerful warrior, the extra terrestrial missed the sight of the ocean bursting upwards and Vegeta rocketing out of the water towards it. The Saiyan Prince roared out as he charged the creature from its left flank, intent on finishing the titan once and for all.
Knowing the final attack was on, Zangya, whose body was still riddled with half a dozen lances, powered up and took off from the ground as well. Heavily wounded like the other two, she shot towards the creature from its blind spot and converged on it from below, sweeping across the valley at breakneck speed.
The invader bellowed with rage as it swung out with its remaining arm at the advancing Gohan, hoping to take him out with a single hit. But the fast-moving warrior managed to evade it, slipping under its strike and, giving his aura a violent burst, shot up towards Zeru's chest with a war cry. Vegeta and Zangya ducked in at the same time and, all three of them forming together, rocketed straight into the alien's stomach.
Continuous thunderclaps rang out when the three super charged warriors began attacking the creature from below, driving continuous, earth shattering blows into its abdomen and pushing it off the ground. Every hit they threw lifted Zeru higher and higher into the sky, drowning out the region with the deafening sounds of super powered punches and kicks impacting a solid surface. The clouds parted under the force of their blurred attacks striking the creature's stomach repeatedly, and the entire country shook when the shockwaves generated by their blows reverberated across the whole region.
Piccolo, Krillin, Android 18, Videl and the other wounded but still conscious Z-fighters watched on in astonishment as the three warriors pummeled the creature into the upper troposphere and stratosphere. The naval and army forces that remained intact, the entire population of West City, and even Bulma, who'd managed to regain consciousness shortly after Gohan's arrival, were also looking on in awe as the behemoth was lifted further away from the planet.
Soon reaching the mesosphere, just shy of the outer reaches of space, Zeru continued to receive the beating of a lifetime. As a result of the attacks so far, its carapace front had caved in under the assault, and blood was gushing out of its mouth from the internal damages it had and was still receiving.
Eventually, after pushing the creature high enough above the earth, Gohan, Zangya and Vegeta, their hands glowing brightly, cocked them back and drove them straight into the beast's face. Their blows impacting with a frightening shockwave, they sent the creature spiraling into the thermosphere. When it slowed, the three fighters super sped around and appeared behind it where, loading their fists once again so that they crackled with bolts of electricity, drove them straight into the alien's back in a single, decisive blow. Their cries were drowned out by the impact of their combined attack, which bent the creature's spine and sent it plummeting back down to earth.
When the wounded Zeru began to burn up on reentry, Gohan, letting out a mighty roar, powered up and threw his hands over his forehead. A storm of lightning bolts shooting off of him, prompting Vegeta and Zangya to leap out of the way, the teen then thrust his body forward and unleashed a fully charged Masenko down onto the alien. His gargantuan blast left his hand with a crack of thunder and shot towards its target like a comet, eventually striking it and pushing the wounded beast through the mesosphere and towards the planet's surface at a greater speed.
Seconds later, the creature crash-landed atop an island floating just off of the continent's shore, where it flattened the mountain in its center and caused a geyser of rubble and dust to blast into the air. The impact was also intense, shaking the entire region nearby and generating massive waves over the ocean.
The Z-fighters watching from the sidelines were stumped at the assault.
But just when everybody thought it was over, Gohan, Vegeta and Zangya suddenly dropped down from the sky and landed on the beach side-by-side. As soon as they touched down, the trio slid into wide fighting stances and prepped themselves for a final attack.
While Gohan and Zangya cupped their hands at their sides, the one-handed Vegeta held his good arm forward and began to charge a crackling sphere of golden energy. A yell left his lips when his golden aura burst up around him, kicking dust into the air and alerting the other two of his intentions.
"You don't waste time, do you?" Zangya exclaimed with a grin as a blue sphere of energy formed between her palms.
The Saiyan Prince snarled, "Shut up and let me concentrate, woman!" Energy spiking, he continued to pour energy into his hand and mold it into his most powerful blast.
Gohan, his back still burning from an attack that had effectively melted away a good portion of his skin, generated a blue sphere of energy between his hands and took aim with it. As the ball of light pulsed and charged in his grip, the teen clenched his jaw tightly and continued digging deep for every last bit of ki he could muster. "This is it, guys! We need to hit it all at once, so don't hold anything back!"
Blood dribbling out of her mouth, Zangya nodded, "Right."
As per the half-Saiyan's instruction, the trio's auras burst outwards and expanded to an even greater size, molding and transforming into a tornado of energy around them. Bolts of lightning also shooting off of their glowing forms, the three fighters entered the final stages of their build-up. The sound of densely packed energy gathering reverberating across the countryside, the Z-fighters watching from the sidelines braced for one hell of a blast.
Goten, Trunks, Android 17, Tien… everyone held their breaths as they sensed the warriors' attacks reach critical mass.
However, while the three were still in the process of forcing energy into their hands, across the water, they saw the smoke on the ruined island violently part and the thoroughly beaten Zeru rise up from the rubble of the mountain. Its eyes glowing with rage, the creature snarled furiously as it set its sights on the enormous collection of ki building on the other side of the channel and spotted the cyclone of energy whirling around on the shoreline.
Unwilling to get hit by whatever attack was being mounted, it prepared to deal with them accordingly. But just when the alien was in the process of gathering energy of its own, a flash of light from above had its head snap upwards, before a powerful golden blast crashed into its hexagonal barrier. The ground trembled as the attack ground into the creature, pressuring it and drawing everyone's gazes towards the source of the attack.
When all eyes looked up into the clouds, they saw Piccolo floating there, out of effective reach of its shockwaves, with both hands extended and fingers interlocked. The beam gushing out of his hands drilled into the extra terrestrial's force field, the Namekian growling as he put everything he had into drawing its gaze and forcing it to waste its energy against him.
"Stay right where you are!" Piccolo shouted, powering up and giving his blast another kick, a mass of energy traveling down the length of the beam and striking the barrier with a loud 'crack'.
Pissed off, Zeru quickly turned its attention away from the green warrior and to the three charging their attacks on the coast. Recognizing them as the far greater threat out of all the tiny humanoids it'd been fighting so far, the wounded alien quickly lifted its ribbon arm from the floor and whipped it through the air. When it did, the appendage quickly morphed into a long, deadly spike, which it then fired at the three with the intent of impaling one of them.
The three warriors standing side by side looked up in alarm as Zeru's arm shot towards them at blinding speed, its tip primed to cut right through them in a single stroke. The Z-fighters, Piccolo included, could only watch helplessly as its primary melee weapon rocketed towards the super powered fighters along a straight and narrow path.
As it stood, there was no way any one of them would be able to stop an attack moving that fast and was capable of dicing up a Super Saiyan with one hit.
In a matter of milliseconds, it was right on top of them.
But just when the enormous limb was only feet from striking the group, a shadow suddenly descended from the sky and dropped into the attack's path. A loud 'squelch' sound filled the air a second later, followed by a splatter of blood across the ground as the figure was effectively impaled, yet managed to stop the attack dead in its tracks.
Not expecting such a maneuver, the Z-fighters were gob smacked. Gohan, Vegeta and Zangya especially.
When the three warriors got a good look at the person who leapt in the way of the attack that was clearly meant for them, their eyes widened in disbelief when they saw the battered form of Paprika standing there with the spike sticking out of her stomach. They'd initially thought she'd been killed earlier on, as they'd been unable to sense her presence, and after Gohan had surveyed the area and found her body lying in the middle of a large trench, he thought she was a casualty too.
Her body was still covered in burns from the blast she'd deflected when protecting Goten and Trunks, but they looked to have been healed over and replaced by new flesh. On top of that, her blood had also dried up and her hands, which had previously been disintegrated in the assault, had regenerated as well.
As their attacks achieved critical mass, the question that came to the three warriors' minds was how the heck the Makyan was still alive.
The answer came gargling out of her mouth moments later as the white haired teen, who was currently slumped over the spike sticking through her with blood dribbling out of her mouth, gave the three warriors a bloody grin before glancing over her shoulder. When she saw Zeru staring at her across the channel in disbelief, Paprika chuckled harshly.
"Next time… you want to kill someone… make sure you finish the job!" the girl hissed, before bringing her newly grown hands around and grabbing the spike from the front. She then dug her feet into the ground and gritted her teeth. "As long as my Makyo Heart remains intact… I can regenerate from any injury! So give me your best shot!" When the enormous alien screeched out in a rage, she spun around and faced the three charging their attacks. "I'll hold it down! Just hurry up and shoot it!"
Gohan, quickly recovering from the shock, steeled his face and nodded. A split second later, the energy gathering in the team's palms grew larger as more lightning bolts crackled off of them.
With Paprika holding the alien's arm and Piccolo continuing to fire on its shield, Zeru quickly found itself being backed into a corner. It quickly turned its attention to the Namekian to knock him out of the sky, but just before it could shoot at him, more blasts from the side slammed into it and began drilling into its flesh. When it turned, it saw the other Z-fighters had assembled and were now shooting at it as well.
Videl, Tien, Yamcha, Krillin, Android 18, Chiaotzu, Android 17, Goten and Trunks, all barely standing and on their last legs, hit it with a combined beam attack that bore into its side like multiple drills, throwing off its concentration. Wanting to get rid of them, Zeru howled out and unleashed a powerful shockwave in all directions to strike them down. But due to the distance they were standing at, the scattered team withstood the powerful blast of wind and continued to hit the creature it with an ongoing stream of energy from all angles.
This was their last chance!
Their effort eliciting a snarl from the extra terrestrial, the beast writhed and flailed uselessly on the spot, before attempting one last ditch effort to kill the three charging their final moves. It whipped its arm and attempted to extend it through the Makyan teenager obstructing it.
Its spike pushed through her a couple of inches, Paprika jerked forward, vomited up blood and screamed out in agony. "GAAAUGH!" Holding her ground, the girl looked up at the three desperately, her eyes filled with pain and an enraged shout leaving her mouth. "DO IIIIIIIIITTT!"
They didn't need to be told twice.
Attacks finally reaching stability, Gohan, Vegeta and Zangya thrust their hands forward and, with three simultaneous battle cries, unleashed their attacks in one go.
Their blasts exploded from their hands with a deafening roar, filling the region and sky with a blinding flash of blue light. The three massive beams, two of them Kamehamehas and the other a Final Flash, formed into one the instant they left their user's hands, fusing into an attack that was larger and more powerful than anything the Z-fighters had ever produced before. Like a comet, the blast rocketed past Paprika and shot towards the alien pinned down on the island, which spotted the approaching wall of death and gave one last screech of terror. A split second later, the enormous mass of energy collided headlong into the alien with a tremendous shockwave, before engulfing it in a gargantuan stream of death.
The trio's blast continued to travel across the planet's surface as it burned away the hulking form of Zeru, who cried out one last time before its body succumbed to the inferno consuming it. Within moments, its entire body broke apart inside the blast and vanished in a flash of light, while the group's attack shot off of the earth and rocketed out of the solar system. It traveled billion of miles to another part of the Milky Way, where it struck a distant moon and wiped it out of existence in a terrific explosion.
When the blast eventually faded minutes later, it revealed a smoking island with its top shaved completely off and a calm blue ocean spread out around it. Gohan, Zangya and Vegeta, their hands still extended, could be seen standing side-by-side on the shoreline, with Paprika kneeling in front of them, panting heavily and glaring across the water.
Emerging from the cloud hanging over the area the enormous attack had made landfall, Zeru's ruined body slowly bled into view, revealing it standing hunched over in a state that was easily close to death. Limbs and armor plates gone, all that remained of the once invulnerable creature was a skeleton, parts of its torso, and half a face.
Twitching and groaning as it stood before the stunned Z-fighters, the alien glared up towards its attackers. Giving the three one last look and a snarl, its glowing red eye flickered one last time before, with a loud shriek of defeat, it raised its head up high before self-destructing in a glorious red flash of light.
The dome-shaped blast wasn't powerful. But when it subsided seconds later, it dispelled across the West Coast in a halo like shockwave and rained down on the land in a shower of sparkling moon dust. With its final moments marked by a single firework created by its combusting form, the creature's remains scattered across the planet and the skies soon cleared.
The Z-fighters and all the military forces in the area awed at the sight of the dust cascading over the countryside. Even Captain Smith, who'd managed to survive the terrifying explosions that had riddled the coastline, extended his hand and caught some of the specks falling from the heavens.
As all this was going on, the three warriors who were instrumental in dealing the final blow to the beast, powered down where they stood and, overcome with exhaustion, collapsed on the spot.
Zangya, with spikes still sticking out of her body, dropped to her side. Vegeta, still missing an arm, fell flat onto his back and heaved deep breaths of air. And lastly, Gohan, with his back completely charred, fell to his knees and face-planted the sand. Paprika, who was kneeling directly in front of the teen with a gaping hole in her body, did the exact same thing and crashed onto the beach.
All of them reverting back to their base forms, the completely spent fighters panted and rasped where they lay, motionless and drained of all their energy. With the demi-Saiyan cracking open an eye, he looked across at the Makyan lying directly alongside him, who reciprocated his actions and stared back at the battered teenager intently.
Smiling amidst the agony and fatigue racking their bodies, the spiky haired teen laughed a little before singing cheerfully, "See. We can do anything by working with each othe~er…"
"Just shut the fuck up, Gohan," Paprika groaned, a smirk slowly forming across her face.
===============================
If you want to support me and also access 30 advance chapters, join my patreon with the link patreon.com/EddyHazArd Or just search "EddyHazArd" in the patreon searcher.