Long ago, in the very first Saiya-jin’s Club, there was a battle. It began when the bartender Spud punched Frieza after he ordered a meal. A fight between Frieza and the rest of the bar quickly broke out. Among the masses of warriors, one echidna by the name of Ace seemed to stand out. He had taken the vanguard of the attack, and the two were beginning to enjoy each other’s performance. Unfortunately, before the battle could progress to a satisfying level, Cooljerk abruptly ended it with a Genke Dama. Later, after the formation of the S.P.A, they agreed that they should have a rematch. This time there would be no outside interferences or sudden interruptions. They would settle once and for all which of them was the mightier. This is the story of that rematch.

 

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The bar fades away in a green glowing mist that consumes the whole area around the two from sight. Finally the fog lifts and they are standing in a wasteland of broken glass sharps jutting from the earth and a dark red sky. The sun is blood red .
Ace's hands blur for a second as a set of bladed fighting gloves appear on them.)
Let's do it!

 

Frieza: Hm. Nice choice.

(Without further comment, Frieza generates a cutting disk, then clutches it with his cold hand, refining it into a pinkish energy sword. In a burst of speed that causes small avilanches of glass in the distant hills, Frieza is upon his opponent. Blade meets fist in a sparkling display of skill and might. Ace blocks a horizontal slash and counters with a deadly punch [forgive minor controling. It won't amount to anything but flashiness]. Frieza dodges, and retaliates with a downward slash. But while Ace is ocupied with the sword for this brief instant, he is slapped across the face by a long, pointed tail, sending him flying toward a hill of glass)

 

Ohh, a challenge...
(Ace gets up from the broken glass while wiping some blood away from a minor cut on his face. He proceedes to shatter the remaining other shards around him to dust.)
Here's the fun part.
(Ace closes his eyes for a moment and concentrates his mind on the glass dust and shards all around him. As if moved by an invisible wind, the glass floats into the air and launches itself straight for Frieza...)

 

(Frieza instincivly dodges right, but not fast enough. The dagger wind screaches by, gratting a small portion of Frieza's left arm. Violet blood trickles over the wound, though Frieza has no time to savor the pain. Noticing the cloud comming back for another pass, Frieza extends his arm and creates a well of gravity upon the attacking mass. The dust, along with much of the surrounding glass, is swept up and pressed together in the mini-blackhole. The result is a finely polished sphere of multicolored glass. Ace is unsure of what to expect, and hightens his guard. Frieza floats the bauble straight into his hand, and darts toward Ace. Barely dodging Ace's fists (actually getting by with a minor cut to his thigh), Frieza slams his free hand across Ace's face, cracking his jaw slightly. Frieza compliments this with a diagonal spinning kick to the Echidna's abdoman, driving him harshly into the ground. Frieza floats a short distance away, the strange glass trinket in his hand, smirking)

Frieza: This looks promising indeed.

 

(Gets up off the floor and sheds his weighted gi, revealing the dark red red fur and green guardian ring beneath.)
Welcome to hell.
(Ace's ring begins to glow and flash with energy. His eyes become pools black as ink with no pupils. The rest of his body except his ring and eyes begin to blur and vibrate. The air begins to grow dense and cloudy with the soil and glas peices that fly up, devoid of any other sort of gravity. Ace lifts his right arm as the vibrating aura moves to that appendage.)
Chaos Control!
(A near invisible orb of energy envelops Frieza and begins to swell and pulse. Each time Freiza's wounds begin to reopen and bleed as new burns and scars appear.)
Choas Control isn't just to be used for teleportation and time manipulation, but for the very manipulation of matter itself. I am recalling injuries from any fight you've ever been in throughout your long worthless life. Your healing factor can't keep up with that kind of stress for long and something lethal will come up sooner of later.
(To punctuate that fact a narrow cut begins to form in Frieza's chest.)
And it will keep growing as your body tries to heal the newer wounds. So what will you do now, MAN!!!? Hahahahahaha!!!

 

(Frieza cringes slightly as minor gashes begin opening in his skin, gradually maturing into more severe ones)

 

Frieza: Not bad. Very creative, but I've been through worse.

 

Ace: That's the idea.

 

(Something worse comes up, leaving Frieza curled over. He descends from his airborne outpost and casts his glass trinket aside)

 

Frieza: Grr...very well! I can manipulate matter too!

 

(Frieza clenches his fists tightly, and upon each doth space fold, wrenching from the darkest depths of space two black holes. Blood permeates Frieza's scaly reptilian skin, and his eyes become bloodshot as he struggles to control the massive anomalies possessing his hands. Loosing his grip, Frieza throws his head back and screams, trying to summon enough power to execute the attack. The resulting waves exile the surrounding hills of glass to the farther corners of the battlefield. Ace struggles to keep his feet on the ground. After gathering a comfortable amount of raw ki, Frieza focuses on the condensed matter in his hands. In an indistinguishable display of twisted light, he holds his hands to the heavens as physics bends around him. With a muffled "crackle-rip" sound, the energy of the surrounding glassy field is absorbed at light speed. Aces stomach rears as foldspace once again opens, where Frieza discards the deadly black holes. A vibration of relief seems to sweep the course ground below as he does so.

 

The warriors now find themselves in a dimly sparkling valley. Frieza's increased heartbeat has caused his bleeding to intensify, though he feels it of no consequence. He floats his glass bauble from the hillside it had been blown to, and begins gently fingering it, and rolling it in the palm of his hand)

 

Frieza: You know, were I a lazier man, I would have pulled a piece of master emerald from pseudo-space, and simply neutralized that. But where's the fun in that?

 

(Frieza ceases his thoughtless play, and clasps his hands together over the orb, in a praying position. A blinding light blue glow quickly develops between them. A cold gust runs through Aces body as Frieza's even colder eyes rise to meet the echidna's.

 

Frieza: <b>BLIZZARD!!!</b>

 

(The icy monster opens his palms to his opponent, revealing the glass ball to be charged with cold energy (they're at absolute zero, to be precise). Under the stress of the energy and heat transfer, the ball of meshed glass shards explodes into the miniscule particles from whence it was born. But upon contact with the atmosphere, the surrounding moisture (there's a surprising amount of moisture in this hell hole) instantly condenses around each, forming massive chunks of ice, each speeding in Ace's general direction at tremendous speeds. The first wave is upon him before he can react, tearing pieces of flesh from his small body, and leaving him with a bit of a headache, though he cannot occupy himself with the pain, as more seemingly endless waves of ice are closing fast)

 

Frieza: You know, there's nothing quite as nice as ice...with wine. (forms makeshift wine glass and sips it...well, not really)

 

Ace braces himself against the onslaught of ice shards that cut and pound against him. His arms are a bloodied mess from the elbow down to his wrists as sharp chunks of ice protrude from his arm.)
Is this the best you can do?
(Ace's ring glows once again, yet almost can't be seen through the blizzard. His eyes glow a bright shade of red and the area in front of him becomes super heated only allowing a steaming rain to get through his shield.)
Not that that's taken care of, I suppose I should do something about you!
(The invisible shield of heat begins to flame and grow white hot as it expands outward. Each second it pulses and grows as more ice touches it. Ace flings his arms out from his body and suddenly the shield grows out into a great glowing dome. If you were a mile away, you could have sworn it was the sun. Frieza is caught up in the blast furnace of flame and napalm and can no longer be seen beneath the screen of fire and light. Even through it all the crimson echidna perched on a diamond shaped sharp of glass can be heard cackling evilly.)

 

 

 

To start with a quote from my favorite sim battler and opponent, Nido "Ace's sadistic laughter of inner demon and devil alike chorus into the living hell of this once prosperous planet of arena." The brilliant radiance of the star-like fire dome blinded the unworthy spectators, as wave upon wave of passionate infernos incinerated their impudent eyes. The distant mounds of glass had long since been reduced to puddles of ethereal potpourri, and presently sought to meet the skys as they took on gaseous form.

 

But Frieza wasn't able to enjoy the splendor at the moment. He had managed a defense, but not as quick as he'd hoped. An aural shield now repelled the fierceome tempest from his charred body. Small beads of flesh and violet essence dripped from his extremities and into the hellfires. The stench of napalm and the strenuous amount of energy his protection was consuming began to wear on Frieza. Summoning what strength and will would come, he spread his body like a solar sail, and allowed himself to be pushed to the edge of the field. Once out of the immediately damaging range of the attack, the changeling prince caught himself and began a counter. Before Ace could expand the horizons of his mini-sun, he found an infamous deathball plowing through the unfocused conflagration, straight toward him. The heat served Frieza's offsprung sphere well, preserving its original energy, and adding to it. The echidna's blurring motions ceased as he quickly evaded the impending kismet (you can tell I used a thesaurus for that one, can't you?). The blast hurtles the small woodland creature several yards away, sending him skidding harshly to a stop on the hard, scorched earth. Minor scrapes and burns cover his already crimson fur. A trail of blood follows him, stemming from his shredded arms, now beginning to bleed more profusely with his increased heartbeat and energy usage.

 

<i>Shock to the system</i>

 

High above, Frieza's reptilian features seem very unnatural to the sky's dominion. Without a word, save the silently piercing blaze of a warrior's eternal battle in his eyes, he immediately and mercilessly excersised the secret ability of his ancestors. In the blink of an eye, concealed by a flash of light, the one monster was two. Each gathered energy of a separate alignment and origin.

 

Frieza2: (whispering) Yes. This world is the perfect place. There's such an abundance of pain and turmoil.

 

A terrified feeling passes through Ace, but he isn't sure why. A spiraling mass of contrasting forces drain into the horrific twins. A quickly as it had begun, this display was concluded. The figures exchanged a glanced and grinned downward at the helpless world they saw beneath.

 

Both: Mon Oh Ir Ros!!!

 

A green aura erupts over the beastly creatures, and to all but Ace, they appear to vanish. With speed far beyond anything he had anticipated, the Frieza twins streak circles about him. But rather than following through with this trick, they halt and release their attack.

 

Frieza2: Spiritual force of-

 

Frieza: Ionic-

 

Frieza2: <b>Death!!!</b>

 

Frieza: <b>Tempest!!!</b>

 

A "Mother of Pearl" colored beam races at light speed and crashes into Ace's chest, while a stream of electricity consumes his body simultaneously. The souls of the tormented past inhabitants of this world are manifested into a spectacular beam, while thousands of mega volts of electricity leap through him. Any lesser fighter would be crushed by the very force, but Ace persists. His spiritual alignment is off-balanced, and any mechanical devices, whether operated by electricity or spiritual energy, are most likely damaged, if not fried (but I'll leave that for you to decide).

 

Two become one as the land is once again consumed in a white light. Ace's charred and melting form looks painfully at his opponent, before being interupted by a sinister voice ringing in his head. "What a very interesting device you have there" it says, "I'll have to steal it from your courpse, assuming you still have one when I'm through with you!"

 

 

 

(Ace rolls over on his stomach and moans futilly. His body is nearly broken and his mind is reeling from the loss of blood. He stands defiantly against his opponent and looks up with a nearly broken neck. The alien and his twin look down on the blasted wretch of a creature and smile cruelly. Each one starts to focus their energies for the final blow.)
Dark Para...LordZeusGoku...BigtheCat500... each once learned of a horrid creature that I unleash when the circumstances become desperate. And they don't 'koff,koff' get more desperate than this. Prepare yourself for your trip to the next world beast! It'll be a painful and horrible one...AAAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!
(Ace's body becomes dark and black as his emerald ring glows brighter than the sun. No one can look directly at the spectacle of a transformation the echidna goes through lest they become blind. One person indeed does look too long and finds his skin become way to hot for comfort and a red spot permanently upon his vision. Suddenly it all stops. The metemorphesis is complete. The creature stranding where Ace one was is human in shape. A black cat-like tail whips around his legs, swishing back and forth. His skin is a hue of violet that one would consider unhelathy if he didn't seem to permeate a feeling or mood about him that was confident, strong and in no way weak or feeble. His hair is still red and woven into dreads at the back of his head while the rest seems to spike outward as if by static electricity. Resting at his side is a katana strapped from around his back. The rest of his body is hidden beneath a black cloak except his right arm, which grips his sword. On it can be seen six tatooed jewels that seem to be real if seen in the right light.)
I am Spades. And if Ace saw fit to call on me then I assume that he wants you (he points at Frieza) to bleed. I only issue one
warning to my opponents: Don't scream, it doesn't do you any good...
(All at once he seemed to disappear, leaving his cloak to fall to the forest floor. Frieza and his duplicate look about in confusion before the duplicate seizes up very suddenly. With a blank look in it's eyes it's head rolls neatly from it's shoulders. Spades is seen on a tree nearby with photon-edged sword in hand.)
Your move...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frieza clutched painfully at his back, reflexevly trying to close the wound with his hand. The speed with which Spades had moved was naught short of spectacular, or unexpected to say the least. After a moment of shock, Frieza decends to the ground, leveling his searching eyes with the beast's malice glare.

 

Frieza: Ah, if it isn't spades, the very creature I came here to see. Not quite as I'd remembered you. Now then, let me think. What was that weakness of yours? Something about effecting the portal from which your power stems?...oh, never mind. It'll come to me. Now, to deal with that speed of yours...

 

Frieza's face takes on a refined, arrogant disposition. The surrounding desolation adapts a sense of foreboding, realizing the terrific might about to descend upon it. With passionate grace, Frieza reveals his natural talents. With a stifling explosion of raw energy that pushes Spades back on the ball of his heels, and a cosmic rush of spiritual ki that smothers his soul, Frieza’s body becomes an instrument of the supreme mortal power. The earth quakes; the ground cracks, any glass that could plausibly still remain is hefted into the air, creating majestic clouds of radiant artificiality. Frieza’s natural speed and shear strength finally reveal themselves.

 

Frieza: Full power. Sufficient. You know, friend, they have a saying along the south side.

 

Frieza mutters something completely inaudible. A lavender aura surrounds him as a crimson energy sword materializes. Frieza clasps it in his imperial hand with a killer instinct, and marches menacingly toward his opponent. With a flash of colorful sparks, a short sword duel ensues. However, finally deciding to utilize his speed, Frieza blindingly dashes around behind Spades; preparing to split him in two with a vertical slice between his legs, while rapidly forming small ellipses of condensed air with the other hand, and releasing the blade-like formations swiping onward into in their deadly archs.

 

 

 

 

 

Spades: Same tired old tricks...
(A shield of air erects around him as he bounds away from his enemy and the swarm of deadly projectiles. He fully unsheaths his katana and holds it oput in front of him.)
Spades:Let me show you how to use that thing.
(In the blink of an eye the purple demon rushes forward and relentlessly cuts at Frieza at an amazing speed that he manages to stay a second ahead of each of his opponents strokes. Spades swings his blade sideways and then feints a swing to the legs. Frieza falls for it and falls back just as the word edge rushes past his throat. If he hadn't moved he wouldn't have had a head. While off balance Frieza feels the hard hammer-like weight of the katana's hilt as it smashes against his hand. A distinct crack is heard as Frieza flinches and drops his sword.)
Spades; if you held that thing any looser the wind would have taken it from you.
(Spades focuses his ki into a wall in front of him and then shatters it. The orbs of solid light rush outward in all directions. As they hit other objects around the battlefield the orbs explode with great rainbow mushroom clouds that spew choking black smoke. Frieza wisely blocks the attack and floats into the sky to plan his next attack. Spades falls back as well and focuses his attention on regenerating his severed hand. He steels himself against the pain as the limb begins to grow back after being cut off after Frieza's initial attack.)

 

Spades is looking quite pleased with himself. Frieza had completely underestimated his speed, as he'd anticipated. Now he floated high above in his sky sanctuary, where Spades was yet to trod, blood and flesh moving in a motion which could be described as pouring, onto the earth below, as a spectrum of mushroom clouds below drifted away with the blood-soaked dust of battle.

 

Spades curiously leaned back against his tail, waiting for Frieza to get up the nerve to face him. He had no problem waiting, and was infact enjoying the time he'd been granted in this plane.

 

But Frieza would not move. He merely stared, sporting a maniacal grin. As his essence rains down from his body, he floats and grins. Spades looks closer. No! Not just grinning, but on the verge of laughter!

 

Spades: What's he smiling about?

 

Spades is becoming worried. He doubts that Frieza has simply lost it. He begins to perspire, seeking what advantage Frieza may gain through this ruse, and finding none. He reflexively itches his chest, a small tingle beginning to form. When it persists an instant longer, a look close to what one might consider fear possesses his face. The beast looks down, but finds nothing. Instantly, the tingle becomes a sharp pain, as gashes begin to form across his abdomen. The malicious gleam in his eye shines brightly as he cackles mercilessly, choking on his own blood.

 

Life essence flows from the many lacerations in Spades' chest. He almost cries out, but is silenced by a 2 inch deep slice in his neck. The placement of these wounds seems quite familiar, and it suddenly dawns upon Spades that these are the blows he'd just dealt to Frieza. This thought is reinforced as the bones in his remaining hand shatter. A voice sounds in his head.

 

Frieza: It's called Martyr's shield. It gives back a good percent of the damage I receive. I only regret having used it against such a menial front. I'm not used to so much mercy from an opponent at this stage. I took as much damage as I could without getting killed, but you just weren't swinging hard enough.

 

This thought disturbed the monster. Was Frieza's lack of skill and speed intentional? Had he truly been struggling, or was he in control all along? Spades decided not to entertain such thoughts any longer. He merely took the lesson to heart: Watch Frieza's movements very carefully.

 

Frieza: Now what was it you were saying before? Are my attacks boring you? Well then, I'd be glad to bring it up a notch. But don't say I didn't warn you.

 

Flame of o_ (Des)

Frieza enters his battle stance, preparing for another attack. He points his head toward the sky, as if looking to it for help. An aura of frightening Ki surrounds him. After he feels sufficiently powerful, Frieza chants the runes.

"Mon Des Ful Gor!!!"

The sky rumbles. The falling midday sun becomes obstructed by waves of purple. The battle field takes on a sudden stillness. The calm before the storm. The purple waves become thicker and thicker, until they cover everything in sight; sovreigns of the sky. The temperature can be felt rising. It becomes smothering. Frieza does not appear immune to this, but doesn't let it stifle him. He raises a glowing green arm to the sky, and makes a throwing gesture toward Spades.

Had there been any specators left, they most certainly would have fallen to their knees and cryed out to their God for mercy, as the Heavens and the bouls of Hell appear to have changed places. The sky roars with unrelenting anger and hatred, condeming all it can grasp. Flaming brimstone falls from the sky. Spades glances up, unsure of what in God's name this is.

But he realizes too late the true nature of the attack. Him and the entire battle field are engulfed in a purple flame. The sixth element, DES o_ . Like the barren wasteland it represents, this symbol invokes destitution, desolation, hatred. For the first time, Spades knows what it is to be burned in hell, and not just physically. His soul is set aflame, corrupted with a spirit of destruction and vengance. It puts him into an agony which no man should ever have to know. He tries to gather his strength, but the flame has off-balanced his spiritual energy field. The more he struggles against the pain, the further in he sinks. His body suddenly combusts in the purple flame. His flesh bubbles and begins to flake off in black curles of dead skin. His blood boils, and begins to seep out through his newly exposed muscles.

Frieza's mad laughter is heard roaring through the Hellfire. He stands protected in a sphere-shaped portal surrounding him. The flame falls into pseudo-space, where it waits for future use in the form of raw energy.

Finally, after what seemes like an eterinty to Spades, Frieza makes a cutting motion with his arms, stopping the onslaught. Spades falls limply to the ground, insides bubbling and twitching spasmaticly; his mind running hopelessly in circles, trying to make sense of the incomprehendible pain he just experienced.

Frieza stares at the vegetable for a moment, wondering how he might recover.

Frieza: I've been to hell and back, my friend. And when this is over, I'll take pleasure in devouring your soul!

 

(Spades lies still on his side, still and placid to his enemy's delight. Suddenly the silence on the battlefield is broken by the most unlikely of sounds. Spades stands up and openly cackles into the sky, which turns dark and booms with thunder as if to join in his laughter. He takes a good look at the stunned Frieza standing across from him and shakes his head, ashamed of his behavior.)
You had me worried there for a moment ya know that. It hurt about as much as a paper cut once ya get down to it. I guess I should take you more seriously now that you've put a little more 'oomph' into attacks.
(Suddenly heavy rains begin to fall and lightning scorches the battlefield. Cold winds begin to kick up and bite at Frieza's skin.)
Frieza: Cute trick.
I'm just getting started...
(A guitar materializez in Spades' left hand. As he touches it the burns and sores that have covered his arms fade away into the rest of his skin. He tightens the bass knob on the end and pulls the string taught, smirking as he does so. As he lets it vibrate the land shakes with an explosive note that almost makes Frieza's ears bleed.)
Are there any requests? Perhaps 'please don't kill me!'? Hahahahaha!!!
(He jumps into his song just as the last remnants of his laughter fill the air. He plays the haunting melody of Dracula's Castle from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The sky grows ever darker and the rains kick up into a torrent of water that seems to come in sheets rather than drops. As each note leaves the guitar the earth shakes and thunder bolts fly from the heavens to strike as a screming Frieza. His skin burns in agony as the electrified rain boils the battlefield. As the song ends so too does the rain. Spades strikes his instrument yet again and plays the charasmatic sound of Wandering Ghosts. A creaking cry is heard over the battlefield as moving shapes begin to fill the darkness around Frieza. Impressively he is still standing. As a sharp bassdrop echoes from the instrument two blows hack at either of Frieza's sides. He retaliates immediately with his tail and hears a shattering sound. A hulkin beast of an animal strikes him in the face as his fellow viciously kicks him in the small of his back. Frieza cries out as three gashes appear in his chest. Another more lithesome spectre has flown past and has slashed him across the chest with a jagged clawed arm. A wave of blue energy erupts from the villian and the remaining beasts explode. He floats into the air to discover than more of the shadow are taking form from
the glass on the battlefield. So shocked is he at this turn of events that he doesn't notice that the ones he'd vanquished have resurrected and taken new shape, those of birds of prey. Each Harpy and Eagle takes wing after Frieza and readies their talons. The guitar is struck yet again to the familiar rythyms of Live & Learn. As Spades sings the words in heavy barritone The mention of life and pain bring about sensations of each in he and his opponent. Frieza convulses and falls to the ground, mysteriously unable to maintain his power throught the sharp stings of pain and energy that course through him with every note. He stands up and begins to fight his way through the horde of glass monsters that protect their master. The numbers are overwhelming and still he fights on through the blood loss and the beatings he is recieving through blows of his own.)
When you can't help but follow
It puts ya right back where you came!
(As Spades sings the end of the second chorus the battlefield shifts back to the bar. The glass creatures in tow, the madness ensues once again. Spades finishes the song and whips the axe across his back. He removes a gauntlet from his pocket and puts it on his right hand. An electric hum sounds from it as the Aegis shield is fastened on tightly. He blinks twice and gets a good look at his new surroundings.)
It puts ya right back where you came...I hate spellsinging sometimes, too freakin' unpredictable.
(He once again unsheaths his sword and leaps into the fray with two large glass creatures flanking him on either side.)

 

Frieza lay, shocked to the core, struggling to get off the bar floor. Precious essence leaked freely, cascading in vigorous streams from all over his body. It wasn’t so much the pain that bothered him, but the ease with which his enemy had recovered; how callously he had shook off the soul splitting hell fire.

 

Frieza: Does it even have a soul?

 

Frieza struggled with an invisible assailant, one all human kind is forever doomed to fall victim to: forgetfulness. And though he wasn’t human, Frieza shared in their weakness. He clenched his fists in blinding rage, barely noticing his coming demise.

 

Frieza hadn't bothered to heal at all since the battle had started. He'd never felt the need. To the pain, he was numb, and was yet to find a muscular handicap. However, dizziness had begun to consume his mind. Though this could be rectified easily enough, Frieza's pride had held him back. He wanted to give Ace every advantage he could. But this new opponent-this Spades-could not be taken lightly.

 

But Frieza had been to over confident. He’d waited too long. There was no time to heal AND save himself from the fatal blow which drew ever closer. With no time to think, Frieza’s hand leapt into pseudo space, praying to God for something useful. His prayers were answered beyond what he could have expected.

 

Clasping the first thing he felt, Frieza withdrew his bounty. It took a moment to register what he was looking at. In his arms he held a mass of crystalic plates, held together by an unseen force, in the ancient Lambdoma harmonic configuration. Its weightless interior, designed to facilitate perpetual motion, began resonating with the aura of the room, taking in trace and residual energy alike. It vibrated ever so slightly in his palms, reacquainting itself with its master. It had been a gift, a remembrance of parting, from an old friend. It all rushed back to him.

 

Frieza: Demitrium…thank you.

 

With no time to check the Augmentation of the mechanical elements, Frieza simply hoped that it was still calibrated, and dramatically ripped his hand across the face of the strange instrument, blasting an E minor chord in 6 simultaneous octaves across the bar, following it with a spirited C major, and resolving to a powerful D minor cadence. The glass harpies shatter to dust, but Spades careens on. With but a split second left, Frieza spun the stringless guitar to form a jagged glassy shield, from which erupted a massive energy beam. Spades was pushed through the far wall, but unharmed.

 

Streaks of spiritual ki leap through the space between plates, resonating as one with all energy. Spades grew wary as darkness fell upon them. The guitar absorbed this to. It feasted of every alignment, emotion, and soul in the room, reverberating with it, while similarly modulating the beauty to its master’s whims. Frieza grinned, ever arrogant, menacingly advancing.

 

By this time, the enchanted glass had reformed itself, and was taking flight once again. The natural sounds of the room were broken by the heart-wrenching cries of the ominous birds of misfortune. Frieza’s mouth opens, generating his voice dubbed over itself several times.

 

Frieza: All is naught;…naught but matter and energy. Om Zo Ir Ku!!!

 

The specteral vultures screech as they are sucked into a gravity well, melding into a ball of condensed glass. As Frieza recites the runes, he extends his palm and releases a luminous blue Zo ball. It collides softly with the crushed monsters and is gone without warning. Not a sound is heard, nor energy felt. Both attacks are gone. Frieza’s face suddenly broke with a pleasant smile. A distorted, yet agreeable chuckle filled the air.

 

Frieza: You just couldn’t resist Live and Learn, could you? Though you masked it with deadly manna, which not moments ago rung clear through my mind like a white-hot dagger, you couldn’t avoid the true nature of the song. You gave me enough spiritual amplitude to survive; a mistake I’ll make you regret.

 

Frieza bounds forth in a wide arch, hefting his guitar above him like a sword, and came down with a violent thrash. Spades dodged with considerable ease, and prepared a counter. Before he could, however, he found that the crystalic plates had separated and were now dashing at him like 100 razor disks. Though he was swift, Frieza knew that Spades couldn’t evade them all. But it seemed, at first, that he was quite wrong. The beast hadn’t even been nicked after the first 5 seconds. But as he was devising some sort of clever way to rectify his situation, the plates began to harmonize. Intimidatingly soft, then almost immediately ear splittingly loud. All focused on the alter ego. His body quaked with sound, creating lacerations both inside and out. The prismic plates fed on his beautiful pain, as they continued absorbing the room’s energies and modulating them into focused sound beams. Then they resumed flight.

 

Spades swiftly ignored the internal bleeding and sensory agony which would have brought other men to their knees, and moved. Though his speed was admirable, even Frieza had to admit, he fell victim to a spinning block through his chest, spraying crimson fury across the floor. It glides gracefully off the flawless quadrangle. He reflexively puts his chest out, giving Frieza the opportunity to send in a small cutting disk. He quickly preserves his neck with a simple twist, but loses his cat-like tail to a plate in the process. Not letting this moment in time hinder him any longer, Spades smacks several of the assaulting projectiles away with his Aegis shield, but before he employs his next keen strategy, he is soon confronted with a new problem.

 

Frieza: Very well then, how about this?

 

The pieces cease their forward advance and withdraw, forming an open sphere. They begin to harmonize again, resounding the voice of the battle, the spirit of survival, which now courses so very feverously through their veins. Aligning themselves in the ways of the soul, bursts of frighteningly aggressive ki leaps from each plate. Faster and faster they vibrate, sealing Spades in the ball’s vacuum interior. With a rush of color and a soar of power, jolts of fierce energy blast through him, constantly rotating their frequency to match their prisoner’s. Spades’ joints are sprawled into overload. The open wounds covering his body exploded in blood, splattering Frieza and spectators alike. His muscles flail, and slowly begin deteriorating as his body temperature exponentially excels.

 

Frieza, finally finding the opportunity to rest, grabs a nearby bottle of wine and chugs, restoring matter to his form. He focuses this matter into healing, reduceing the most pressing wounds to paper cuts. He turns his blood-drenched eyes to Spades and smiles, the resonating energy of his pain flowing through him.

 

 

 

Spades hurls his weapons into the air and screams,"Enough!!!"

Each of the disks shatter and vaporize from the sound of his voice. He lurches a bit and begins to murmur under his breath. Slowly but surely each of his injuries begin to disappear. When the 'Calm Litany' has ceased, Spades grabs his weapons and strraps them to his back.

"I hadn't counted on you finding out the finer points of spellsinging like you had," Spades says as he floats into the air. "But there are about a hundred other things I can do with it. A million other spells to use and a hundred variations on each."

Spades claps his hands together and begins to delve into the far reaches of his mind. Fears, admiration, memories and even strategies from adventures long forgotten are revealed...and so are all those involved in them. From the earth around Frieza rumbling and distant hissing is heard. On the horizon barking, yelling, and chittering is heard. And for the fisrt time in perhaps months three individuals stand at Spades' side.

"I was beginning to waonder when you'd get that stick outta your butt, man," Nack says as he levels his rifle at the alien.

"I was starting to get a cramp from standing around that bar, not saying anything," Yuffy yawns.

A particularly large Patalchu stretches and snarls as he limbers up his arms for the battle ahead.

Ace's sidekicks begin to move out toward their enemy just as backup arrives. Five Zergling and a Hydralisk stream frtom the ground to Frieza's right and begin the charge. To his back is a group of Bronze wolves followed by a Malboro. And what's worse, comin over the horizon is a platoon of Covenent Hunters and Grunts in their wake, all firing their plazma weapons indiscriminately. Frieza smiles happily at the coming challenge of creatures and his opponent floating above the battlefield psionically directing the combat.

"Let the battle begin," Spades sneers as he gives them the direction of their target.

 

 

The sky shone contemptuously upon the S.P.A. bar. A heavy, humid wind rushed through the blasted walls and crumbled roof. The gray clouds cast a dim light over the wasteland to which the bar had been moved (after that whole ’12 police shooting’ thing in metro city).The crowd of drunks cheered for either side and watched with great excitement, playing drinking games with every move. A look of shear aggravation fell on Frieza’s blood and sweat drenched face as Spades’ wounds sealed up effortlessly. He clenched his fists in frustration, struggling to find a reason, the words lost to time.

 

Spades hovered coolly overhead, not a concern on his face. Frieza’s rage pleased him. "I hadn't counted on you finding out the finer points of spellsinging like you had," he said. The reptilian prince smirked at this. “I didn’t ‘find out’ anything, my friend. I’ve known THAT since I was born!” But Spades didn’t appear to be listening. After a moment of what appeared to be silence, the ground quaked with the force of a thousand footsteps. Frieza looked with a start on the legions of creation marching menacingly toward him. Though weak they were, their shear numbers and plasma weapons could pose a problem. Two familiar figures flanked Spades, looking quite dangerous. “<I>I don’t have the energy to waste on this</I>” he thought, but didn’t see another option. However, much to this opponent’s surprise, as Frieza saw the look upon his face, he crossed his arms, closed his eyes, and chuckled softly.

 

“My dear friend”, he began, as the air about them began warping in the ways of the soul. “I’ll not have this a musical battle!!!”

 

From the space betwixt them came the reverberation of a strange oscillating sound. Twisting waves of blue light warbled vigorously, then died, to be born again. Within seconds, the familiar sheen of crystalic plates filled the air.

 

Harmony forming matter, not the other way around.

 

Frieza examined the instrument as it drifted softly into his hands. It had been badly damaged. The calibration was thrown completely off, and some of the finer mechanisms were wrecked. Though the air tight interior (wide open) had remained intact, the instrument would not play again as it had before. But glancing about them, and into the depths of the beast’s eyes, Frieza still found a use for it.

 

Focusing as best he could, the icy king opened a minuscule foldspace rip within the vacant core of the shimmering mass. Telepathically altering one of the only intact devices left, a chain reaction is started.

 

Frieza: Whether musical illusions, or allies summoned from your past, I care not.

 

I came here for you.

 

Frieza violently casts the crystalic apparatus downward. Upon impact, it disperses, guided by purpose. In the blink of an eye, Frieza and Spades are surrounded by the convex blocks. With a burst of light, they implode, and are no more.

 

Spades finds himself surrounded by darkness. Beneath him rests a barely visible translucent surface, reflecting luminosity from within itself. He finds that other such surfaces surround him, coming together to form a dodecahedron. The air is cold. But Frieza doesn’t seem to mind.

 

Frieza: Welcome to the space between the forgotten spaces. We are now cut off from everything. Neither of us can draw on any kind of power that isn’t within ourselves. I’ve courteously provided you with a small air supply. You can waste it on breathing if you’d like. The only way out of here is to kill the other. But I’m sure we won’t have any problem with that.

 

Energy bursts from within Frieza’s hands, surrounding them. Swiftly, it shapes itself into spinning razor-disk halves, which cling to their master like a pair of brass knuckles. He lunges forth, ready to have another go at his deadly opponent.

 

 

 

 

 

"Why waste the air on breathing," Spades said maliciously. "When I can use it for a finer, more interesting purpose."

Spades began to wonder why he even wasted his magic calling on minions to do his dirty work when his enemy came only for him. He started the incantation slowly at first and then picked up pace on it by chanting fifty words or so every three seconds without so much as missing a syllable. His guitar floated from his back and crystalized before shattering into hundreds of shimmering shards. Spades waved his hands out before him and the shards began to reform. They swirled and melded into an orb like shape. The dark swordsman mentally began to push the air around his body into the sphere via microscopic holes. The inside shifted into a honeycomb of cavities and tunnels that the air flowed through, slowly the oxygen began to change composition.

The air became superheated and the light given off by the crystal trapped within the shelll solidified to become photons. Each cavity within the shell filled with the solid light and the flam,es that grew ever hotter. Spades could feel that his strike was almost ready, he could also feel the light headedness overtaking him. The darkness was pressing in further and further each time the sphere breathed and made more plasma from the air. Finally Spades couldn't take any more and smashed open his prize.

Outside, a blazing light erupted from the darkness and a roar of thunder and flame filled the air. Frieza shielded his eyes as the wave overtook him. It burned and also froze him to the core at the same time. Every bit of Spades' life energy had been encapsulated within the sphere and had erupted upon the battlefield. The darkness was driven back. Frieza sat in the air, shuddering from the shock. Finally he opened his eyes to see a leather clad hilt smash into his face.

Next came the blade, again and again as it cut rivets of black blood upon the alien's chest. The katana flashed six more times and each time Lightning flowed along it and the arm of it's weilder. Spades finally slammed his foot into Frieza's face and let him fly straight down. A loud thud later and he was upon him again. A flurry of kicks and swordstrikes junggled Freiza in the air. While managing to block more of the onslaught than would ever be expected, Frieza was caught unprepared by the hand which gripped his face and squeezed it with the utmost pressure.

"Be happy, Frieza," Spades rasped as he spit a bloody tooth on the ground. "You survived my Hurricane Bomb. But don't be so quick to judge the plasma weapons I've discovered in the past few months..." He produced a handheld plasma pistol from his other hand and charged it. The sparking green energy heated up the gun and made a sizzling sound as the swordsman pressed it to his opponent's bleeding chest. "You'll love the plasma burn."

He let off a full burst of green plasma at point blank range and blew the two warriors in opposite directions. Frieza flipped upward and regained his footing, while Spades shoved his sword into the ground and leaned on it for support. He dropped the smoldering remains of his plasma pistol and smiled, knowing full well he couldn't stay on this plane much longer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two pairs of fierce eyes swam through the sea of sub-light. Like pearls set ablaze, they burned endlessly with the fires of combat. Dark shapes and colors flitted by, enchanting the already supernatural arena with a newfound insecurity. It was a place of silence. A place of darkness. A place of death. Now the silence had been broken, and retribution was demanded. Two had crossed the threshold; but one could be spared.

 

Frieza landed on his feet, but struggled noticeably to keep his footing. Finally, he collapsed to his knees, spraying lavender essence from the charred, gapping wound in his abdomen. His tail inadvertently twitched, still recovering from the hurricane bomb. His whole body shook, infact. A pleased look crossed Spades’ face as he beheld the torment he’d caused. But this joy was short lived. It wasn’t shock that shook the mighty tyrant. Frieza was chuckling uncontrollably. A great smile of relief overtook him. Spades thought he looked almost as if he might cry with joy. The battered, bleeding figure rose again to its feet, struggling, quivering with pain and pleasure alike.

 

Untainted crimson eyes rose to meet their destiny. They found Spades. Deeply, the warrior stared into the icy gaze, and then he knew. There was no need for words. He knew that Frieza knew. His desperate gamble had worked.

 

Frieza knew that if he had been wrong, he would have trapped himself with a lion, and sealed his fate. But he sensed Spades’ energy had changed. Somehow it weakened. And his wounds, though small, did not heal. It had worked all too well.

 

Frieza imagined he looked rather childish now, but he didn’t care. Still, he took control of himself and arose. His mockingly cheerful smile turned instantly to a fearsome, commanding expression, condemning Spades’ very being. He opened his mouth to let the blood out.

 

“My my”, he said telepathically, “aren’t we full of surprises. But then…”

 

Frieza painfully moves his hand to the crater in his chest. With considerable effort, he plunges his hand in, only to remove it seconds later, dripping with blood and organ tissue. And an amber jewel.

 

“the same might be said about me.”

 

Frieza knew that in this world, he’d be cut off from his pseudo-space arsenal. So before warping, he’d decided to take something with him. However, having no pockets, he’d put it inside himself. And since he was already open, this seemed a convenient time to use it.

 

The chaos emerald glistened like a tiger’s eye in the dim, unearthly luminance of the dodecahedron. Despite the gore covering it, Spades could clearly see it shine through the darkness. He felt its energy reacting with that of his own. The amber chaos emerald.

 

The emerald of soul.

 

Pushing his pain aside, Frieza stood erect and held the emerald before him, like a guiding light. Summoning the light from within, he charged his prize with his most true essence. Likewise, it reflected its own energy, delivering new power to its master. Spades felt the intensity rise, as did his dreads, blowing in the small amount of air still remaining.

 

But it was not enough. Frieza needed more than just energy. He needed spirit. But in so dark, lifeless a place as this, one would hardly think it possible to find such a thing. But such things had never stopped Frieza before.

 

He stared into the silence of the void, through it, to its very being. Within it, he saw the nature of the dark, the eyes of the beast amidst a starry sky, the spirit of survival. He saw the mirror, and he saw through it, all glowing amidst the ethereal glass of the gloomy world, and beyond to infinity.

 

Even in darkness, there can be found beauty.

 

Beauty instills power; power derived from the soul. As his spirit came alive in response to the nature of the scene, this dark, this light, this love, Frieza fed on it, drinking in the grandeur, while simultaneously driving it through the chaos emerald, magnifying it, seasoning it.

 

Spades could feel his own spirit vibrating in rhythm with something all about him, yet nowhere to be found. He began to sense a change in Frieza’s energy. Still Frieza, but…different…brighter…certainly stronger, as was demonstrated by the violently quaking walls. Sweat poured down both faces. The temperature of what little air remained was swiftly rising, but neither fighter seemed to notice.

 

The perplexingly prismatic walls grew ever brighter, refracting the invisible light waves Frieza was emitting. It’s colors mingled in torpidly swirling pools, like those on the face of a soap bubble, vividly contrasting the endless void behind.

 

Fiercer and brighter still ascended the light. Crimson flecks of radiance streamed from Frieza’s eyes as tears, flashing deeply, as a shattered mirror in a liquid sea of light. Spades braced himself, for he knew the time was near. All that remained was the awakening. Frieza’s eyes fell callous upon his mortal foe, upon creation. He who was weak could find strength. He who burned inward could be born. He who’d known hate could know love.

 

To justify,

To magnify,

To realize,

You will always get it back.

 

Frieza reached deep within, grasped the light, and became himself. A vociferous cry roared voicelessly through the vacuumous hollow as he turned his head to the sky. A windless tempest lifted Spades from his feet, though the warrior fought it unrelentingly. He had no idea what Frieza was doing. But in the blink of an eye, it all surfaced. The walls of the Dodecahedron became a field of blinding white, and within their abyssal focus, there stood an immaculate figure of gold.

 

There would be no more darkness. Frieza would not bear it.

 

A dazzling white snake stood amidst a gilded shade. Its previously violet features now sported a pristine, deep golden-yellow color. Its wounds were gone. Its eyes were narrow, but bright. It stood with faultless confidence, firm and unmoving. Its small mouth carried no expression, stolid as the sun. It held before it the amber chaos emerald, now arcing wildly with power.

 

NOW.

 

His aura was enchanting. Had it been anyone but Frieza, Spades might have mistaken it for holy energy. Frieza remained motionless. He stared through the emerald to his foe. Its shimmering facade reflected an expression of astonishment, perhaps even fear, but above all else, excitement. Spades would enjoy this challenge to its end, whatever end- it mattered not. Frieza showed no such passion. He bore neither joy nor remorse.

 

Shadows played across the room like goblins. The maelstroms of colors swelled restlessly, madly, fearfully. Beams of light and arcs of energy exploded from the gem, searing all in their path. Spades was forced to dodge and defend, taking several minor burns. But something stopped him dead in his tracks, a feeling deep inside, a tightness within his breast. The chaos emerald in his body was reacting.

 

The scene was as spectacular as it was deadly. The heat alone had become intolerable. The dim worlds beyond the glass had long since faded in the radiant glow, absorbed by the gleaming being at the heart, and the erupting jewel of the Spirit. Motionlessly, Frieza forced himself upon the crystal, overwhelming it. It began to spire turbulently, lashing out wherever it could, but the prince held it tight; frozen. Again, the warriors’ gazes met, hard and fearless. Spades stood firm, ready to deal with whatever came, and Frieza was ready to give it to him. Finally, his glistening crimson lips formed a word.

 

CHAOS…

 

Two icy, soulless crimson eyes peered still through the pulsating emerald. This time they beheld a stern face, focused and braced for the coming power. From the creature’s body came a faint green glow, an amassing of power. Frieza’s hand tightened around the amber chaos emerald, shattering it to dust. In an instant, all of reality seemed to shatter with it, and was sucked into the void.

 

DESTROY!!!!!!!!!

 

Frieza’s stance was finally broken as he drew back his arm and threw it forward, opened his palm, and unleashed a massive beam of amber. Spades stood paralyzed; the emerald within him had been unbalanced. The world before him wavered menacingly. He could do naught but brace himself. In a roaring furry, he was consumed by the beam and pressed into the scorching wall. The onslaught continued for a moment, then was silent. The mighty beast Spades lay motionless on an inclined plane. Smoke billowed from his melted, mutilated form. The glow within him was faded. His core, his chaos emerald, had cracked.

 

 

 

 

The smoking remains of the fallen Spades shuddered for a few moments before he finally faded away out of existance, into whatever realm he'd been summoned (Go to Fanfiction.net and find my author profile, Crimson Redstreak, for bg info on Spades). The shattered remnants of the gem within him levitated into the air and made and oval. Smoke floated from the crater that Spades had occupied and condensed into a familiar form.

"I don't believe he failed, MAN!!!" Ace screamed as he finally manifested back in this reality. The dark echidna took a look around the damaged remains of the street the fight had spilled into. "Seems Spades used his Hurricane Bomb."

He looked over at Frieza, who confident as ever seemed to be waning a bit. Clutching to a stone in his hands.

Knowing his own power source was gone for now, Ace resolved a new way of breaking his foe. One that didn't need his Emerald ring.

 

The blackish echidna looked up into the sky and an inky shade of night overcame the area. His gloves began to pulse with a bluish glow as he gazed upon the stars and the moon above the skyline of Metro city.

The twelve cannot see...

The soles of his boots started to glow with his thoughts focusing on the task.

The twelve cannot feel...

His body began to blur around the edges as he began to take on a new form.

But the nine shall preserve me...

The thing that Ace had become flexed his muscles and brought day back into the world once more. His echidna body stayed the same in essence, yet harbored much more unearthly strength than he'd had, even as Spades. One eye had dissapeared beneath the blackness of his new skin and the other had become an Egyptian all-seeing eye of gold.

Another specter wandered the area mumbling to itself, a strange mixture of turtle, fish, and aborigine. A tattooed blue eyed Tonberry.

"Who the hell is this," Frieza thought, eyeing his opponent up and down.

"Shardshatter," the Tonberry said from right behind Frieza, eliciting a shudder from the alien. "He doesn't talk much, so I talk for him."

 

"By the way...Everyone's Grudge..."

"What," Frieza said before he saw the strobe of energy flaring from the little creature's lantern.

EVERYONE'S GRUDGE!!!

The pain of thousands of souls who'd fought Frieza before slammed onto the alien's mind like a poodle from 200 stories up, embedding itself in his psyche. Frieza was momentarily stunned, jusdt enough for him not to notice the black life-form simply appaer in fron of him.

His emothionless mask fleed before he delivered a bone cracking punch to the alien's jaw. Though Frieza knew it was supposed to hurt, he felt the force, yet not the pain. The shadow dealt him blows more than a dozen times, before he relented and let him writhe and contort from the physical and mental anguish that he(she/it?) had caused to him.

Shardshatter as it was now called, flew up to the highest building in the city and called up into the heavens.

'Brethren of the 2nd sphere, bring him no movement!'

Golden razor wire eruptd from nowhere and incapacitated Frieza.

'Brethren of the 1st, Lend me your wind!'

A freezing blast of air came upon Frieza's body and created around him a prison of ice that encapsulated half his body.

'And now for your extinction...'

The ice seemed to open up around Frieza's mid section, still holding his limbs away as he stayed in mental shock from the Grudge. In his left hand he still clenched the gem...big mistake. Shardshatter screeched out of the sun at an unearthly speed, his fist outstretched. A plume of fire and blue aura surounded the arm as it finally connected with Frieza's splayed frame.

 

A thunderous clatter raised up for miles, deafening hundreds and hurting others with broken window shards. The shockwave, held up by Frieza's quickly shattering bones and nervous system.

SS leapt away from it's foe and landed in a crouch, eyeing him through his golden emblem.

"Comet Punch," the Tonberry said, as he strolled past with a Carona.

That's when the pain of Shard's initial strikes caught up with Frieza. The pain almost too much, threatening to push Frieza into a realm of pain and anguish that even he couldn't return from. His mind on a precipice, teetering from sane to insane every few seconds. Being nudged towards insanity by the physical strikes of Shardshatter and the mental assaults of his Tonberry.

 

Shard's skin shimmered in the dim light as the Tonberry marched randomly around the area. he looked down at Frieza and stuck out his tongue while the alien battled with the souls in his mind and the pain of his nearly broken body.

 

 

 

 

Trillions upon trillions of desolate souls barraged the snake-like wretch, the one who had blasted them into this miserable existence ages ago. A tempest of pure loathing raged among them. Each damned the tyrant with all their being, forcing their pain into his black heart. Frieza’s consciousness raced in circles of torment, reliving the agony he’d caused again and again, his world becoming the pain itself. Surly, there are few in the universe who have caused more suffering than Frieza.

 

Men and Women, children and the elderly, cowards and warriors, a million species, a million races, a million faces, all wishing nothing more than the grisly destruction of the once heartless emperor. Yet somehow, through the madness, Frieza had managed to remain conscious enough to feel the blinding sting of Shardshatter’s merciless onslaught. Yet, it had seemed but a twinge compared to the haunting cries of the cursed lives still consuming his mind.

 

Struggling against their tragedy, the pure heartache that could drive a man into the darkness of the abyss, Frieza began to take control. “No, no!” he told himself, “That was another lifetime, another Frieza! No more, no more!” A tremor ran silently through the barren ground. The frequency of the pulsing glow beneath the ice began to rise.

 

“I am set free!!!”

 

With a burst of golden-yellow light, the ghosts are dispelled, returned to the peace from which Shardshatter had pulled them. And as Frieza’s soul broke free, so too did his body. His left arm exploded from the ice, the golden wire tearing at his flesh like nylon. His bloodied, frozen hand opened, grabbed the Tonberry’s outstretched tongue, and callously tore it out. Blood splattered onto the moonlit earth as the remaining bonds were relieved of their existence.

 

The resplendent figure arose, eyes transfixed on their opponent’s dark form. Its obsidian features flashed in the light of the stars as well as the shine of the warrior opposite it. Frieza had not anticipated this new development. It seemed that Ace’s power ran deeper than he had ever let on. But this creature was not an unwelcome challenge. Such a fighter was a rare treat indeed. He would enjoy it to the last.

 

The many wounds across his delicate body began at last to bleed, now exposed to the warm night air. But it was not to last, as the void where flesh should be was filled with a fierce white glow, and replaced with new, flawless skin. The few escaping drops of glittering essence trickled off his body.

 

The air about them became still. The lights in the heavens twinkled with eagerness. Frieza stared into Shardshatter’s being with his snake-like eyes, so fiery red, yet so very cold. A hubris grin blossomed on his lips.

 

“Black.” He said, “How tacky.”

 

The dim sky became covered in the shadow of Frieza’s growing light. With a sudden rush of wind, Frieza vanished from sight, as did the foreboding form of Shardshatter. In an instant, the silence was banished by the booming din of exchanging blows. The sound of their every meeting echoed endlessly across the otherwise dead wasteland. The earth shook, and the skies were parted. A roaring crash, a mighty thud, then silence.

 

Frieza tested the new being’s power, using varying combinations of fist, feet, and tail, specifically designed to locate strengths, weaknesses, and tendencies. Learning as much as he could without risking another devastating move from the mysterious creature, the refulgent emperor wrapped his tail around its left leg, swung beneath it, emerged behind, and realized a burst of energy.

 

“Mindstab Thrall!”

 

Two glowing fingers extended before the obsidian face. As a strangely warm wind howls around them, a flaming ‘V’ blazons itself over Shardshatter’s forehead. Its awareness is suddenly overcome by a smothering blanket of obscurity, and its senses fade away. As its consciousness is forced from its body, it becomes paralyzed, and its all-seeing eye droops reluctantly closed.

 

Satisfied that the attack has taken its effect, Frieza wastes no time in unleashing a merciless assault. He begins with a fury of icy punches to the head and arms, freezing the point of impact, then slamming it with mighty force, tearing brittle skin and shattering bone. These changed quickly to piercing jabs, breaking several holes per second through its body, reducing its abdomen to Swiss cheese. Noticing the brazen symbol beginning to wane, the golden snake delivered a grand hammer strike to the back of Shardshatter’s neck, dispersing its vertebrae, and plunging it face first into the dust.

 

Carefully eyeing the Tonberry for any tricks, Frieza covered the pale, fading moon with a bloody sphere of energy strong enough to demolish a small world, and with all him cosmic might, drove it into his fallen sometime-friend. Its exposed insides quickly rose to a boil and began to vaporize. Its tattered flesh was torn from it, rising with the earth in the crater around it. And just as it seemed its body would be entirely destroyed, the beast finally regained control…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Tonberry staggered around the field clutching it's bleeding mouth for a minute before pulling out a butcher knife from within it's robes. It slid the blade along it's tattered tongue with a sizzling sound before yelling out. His tongue restored, Shiro was fénally allowed to scream.

"Argh! Owww! Damn! That hurt!" Shiro eyed his associate as he fried in his own juices. "And you," the monster screamed angrily, his fins/hands glowing white hot. "What good are you if you can't even stand up! FULL-LIFE!!!"

A shudder went through Shardshatter's body as his skin melded back together. Even though he was still in shock, the ebony fighter mechanically stood up. His egyptian symbol eye, glowing an odd red. He seemed to be whole again, if somewhat more drained than before.

Shardshatter looked to the heavens and screamed," Second brother, give me your strength!" His skin flashed white and then dulled to a golden hue. He looked like a gold metallic version of himself.

Shiro darted faster than any Tonberry should be able to move to the oother end of the plane, opposite of his friend. In the middle was Frieza. The alien smiled with glee at the challenge before him.

 

"HASTE!" Shiro commanded as nearly flew over the ground towards Frieza.

In the epic style, the Tonberry matched his taller opponent blow for blow. He kicked, punched, and used a flurry of knife slashes. Yet each time, Frieza would block, parry, and counter the hyper fast attacks. It didn't even seem that he was giving half of his effort to the little creature.

Soon, Shiro had had enough. Something happend to Frieza suddenly, as if every once of ki in his soul was inverted and turned to weakness for a second. That second was all that Shiro needed. A green shining aura surrounded his knife and an orb of red in his other hand. He swung both at Frieza at the same time and collided them on his chest and blocking arm.

Both combatants were thrown apart. Frieza drifted to the ground, holding an apparently sliced up arm. The wound was burnt around it's edges, a numbing feeling began to drift up and down the damaged appendage.

'The knife,' Frieza realized as he looked at the Tonberry's weapon. 'I've seen a blade like that before.'

Shiro looked at him quizzically before taking notice of his stare. "Yeah, that's right. We get 'em from Him. I'm sure you seen him down in Hell once or twice, Death itself with one of it's symbolic lil'scythes. I'm a Master Tonberry, pal. We summon death to annoint our blades with his essense. You got lucky, but I'd say that your arm is out of commission. Dead flesh. Oh and I'd look behind if I were you..."

Frieza blanched and his eyes opened wide with surprise. During his tussle with this...creature, he'd forgotten about him. About Shardshatter. He turned around and was bombarded with rays of golden light. Each one impacted and exploded against the warrior's pale skin. His pain was intense, but only a prelude. The spray of beams stopped coming and Frieza knew enough to get out of the way, jetting high out of reach before it came. A large wave of energy tore away and inverted the ground Frieza had set down on. The tossed up debris twisted into helixes of matter and then shrunk away into nothingness.

"Argh, you were too slow," Shiro yelled. "If ya want something done right..." Frieza didn't look at him, but felt and saw the Tonberry's intentions as all visibility and light in the area vanished. "I'm finished playing," Shiro said right next to Frieza's ear. "Before this is over, you will know fear..."

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the fusion of body and soul, Frieza’s arm was instantly revivified with a faint white glow. As Shiro prepared to unleash his hell sprung power, he was taken by surprise as the dead elbow rose to greet his face. In a fraction of a blink, the hybrid-like creature opened its eyes to find a glowing white hand millimeters before its dented face. A point blank ki blast, orange in shade, sent the Tonberry rocketing toward his waiting ally, clutching his melting face.

 

Frieza’s other hand opened toward them. With no apparent effort, the light waves appeared to bend around him. As Shardshatter prepared to (either catch the Tonberry, dodged him, smacked him away, I can’t be sure), the image of the battlefield seemed to contort. But as quickly as it began, this phenomenon disappeared…as did the approaching Shiro. Shardshatter felt nauseous. It felt blood beginning to rise in its throat. It glanced down at its body, and found its Tonberry. He was lodged through its gut and out the small of its back, their molecules occupying the almost-same space at the same time.

 

It hurt.

 

The golden misanthropic-featured being remained above them, radiating a feeling of truth. Something had changed about it. Its eyes, red without pupils, sheened like a snake’s, yet somehow more human than before. They no longer seemed as cold. An aura wholly unfitting of the Frieza Ace had come to know filled the sky, as did its light. It addressed Shardshatter with a serious tone.

 

“My dear friend, I’m surprised at you. Relying on that mistake of nature to fight for you. You could be dead right now if it weren’t for that…thing,” He spat out. “I would have thought much higher of you.”

 

Frieza’s condemning face grew darker still as he raised his bloodstained hands to perpetuate the terrible deeds that must be done. Dark with remorse, dark with the past, but never colder. He could no longer hide beneath the ice. It had melted away, and now the sun was clear.

 

His luminance touched beyond the horizon.

 

With a flash of motion from his hand, the triangular section of earth under the fused monstrosities broke off and began to disintegrate with a mighty tremor. A pillar of magma came roaring from the dead land, revealing the life hidden beneath, bringing death to all in its path. Despite the weight and loss of balance from Shiro, Shardshatter easily evaded so slow and obvious an attack…and leapt right into Frieza’s grasp.

 

His hands felt cold in the searing air.

 

Swiftly and mercilessly, he plunged its back into the plume of molten rock, fully immersing the Tonberry’s upper half. It struggled to break free, but it felt strangely drained by his grip. And as its tail end was being burned up, its face became mockingly cool as the gilded Tyrant began radiating waves of cold.

 

Void of the cosmos

 

Something was changing again. Frieza’s eyes went black, as black as the starry realm from which he’d descended. His fierce glow began to wane and retreated inward; his golden color remained, though dimmed. His grip began to tremble, as though holding some great pain. Despite this, the beast could not free itself from his influence.

 

The already faint area disappeared into obscure shadows. The lava spire hardened in mid-flight. The only light came from the pale moon and flickering stars, casting a dull blue glow across the field. The night was dead again.

 

There’s not a reason why; you’ve come undone

 

Frieza freed one of his quivering hands, blood glistening on it. He squeezed it into a fist. Suddenly, all heat was gone; it was as cold as the depths of space. The air became thin. He opened his hand again. Some shapeless mass began to form in its bleeding palm.

 

There’s nothing left to justify; this can’t go on

 

The night itself seemed to flow down his body, collecting into a ball in his hand. The object was void of any distinguishable characteristics. It appeared to be a black hole, contained completely within the emperor’s hand. Earlier in the battle, one much like it had been used to absorb an attack, but this one was different; it was far more terrible. The first black hole had been summoned from space. This had come from Frieza’s body.

 

There’s nothing left inside; as I walk this broken land…

 

With a stolid expression, he plunged the abyssal core into Shardshatter’s heart. The violent quaking of its body instantly shattered the rock wall encrusted on its back. Beams of darkness exploded from its ornate eye, accentuated by the macabre scream running uncontrollably through it. Shiro, too, felt the suffering overtake him. His mind’s eye was starting to see things.

 

The instant Frieza had released the horrible burden, his golden glow returned three fold, gradually subsiding to the same dazzling aura as before. It seemed somewhat drained, though all the cleared. But his opponents couldn’t see.

 

As the mass was absorbed into Shardshatter and the Tonberry, life returned to the battlefield, including the magma burst behind them. With a light shove from Frieza, they were engulfed. But even if there had been something other than rushing fire to see, they would have found themselves blind to everything.

 

All at once, it was upon them. It almost became their existence. The pain of centuries of people, the suffering of untold lives, the death of innumerable civilizations, the tragedy, the atrocity, suffering, agony, despair…and they felt none of it. It was like being a dead star. They couldn’t see a thing outside of their own bodies.

 

And then they could.

 

Immeasurable guilt consumed them. Though they had no reason to feel guilty, though they probably didn’t care one way or another about what had happened, they felt it, perhaps for the first time. It was intense. It were as though a train had been allowed to gather momentum for several lifetimes, then unexpectedly collide with them. A lifetime in the cold darkness, blind to all the damage done, to the truth, and then to turn around and see. Most beings would have destroyed themselves in the remorse. It burned. A voice ran through Shardshatter’s head.

 

 “You’ve heard the term void of the cosmos?”

 

But the voice was barely distinguishable. It was lost somewhere between the wrath of the gushing earth that boiled him alive, and the burning despair that continued to rape his mind.

 

“I was that void.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shardshatter screamed in pain as the images and feeling within it's dim mind flashed in and out with more feeling. If you looked closely enough, you could see it's skin lightening a bit. The black creature gave one heart wrenching screech echoing across the battlefield. The entire dark world gave a shudder and then began to break down. Shiro exploded into a cascade of white light and then broke down into ashes. A single star shape above it's head floated away into the darkness. Shardshatter himself was still finally, a black corpse with oozing black blood and entrails slipping out of him.

The whole of the creature's body finally gave way and collapsed into a black orb. It floated up above the ground and then popped. In a splash of ink Ace sat on the ground, sputtering and cursing. Rays of light began to spill in as the sky peeled away like cheap paint. The background and the floors spilled away like sand on the wind. Soon enough, both combatants were back where they had began the fight, the real world. (In other words Metro.)

Ace hacked and spit out the horrible black bile that was left in his system. "What do I have to do," Ace yelled. "Destroy a planet! Dismember ya! Why won't you die, MAN!!!"

 

Ace shook with restrained fury. The alien warrior before him showed more power and imagination in his technique than any before him... he's gotta die.

Ace went into his gi and pulled something out. It was a small disk of gold and silver metallic color. He pressed his fingers into a few unseen points on the circular object and held out his right hand. If one blinked, they would have missed the appearance of his weapon. A red stained sleek blade weapon with razor edges adorning the hilt and a dagger at thje other end. Ace didn't have a name for the weapon, he'd stolen it from Spades before their little accident. But that was beside the point. He pressed one more command into the disk and his steel fighting guantlets were back in place. He looked up at Frieza, who floated in the air with a power the echidna had never before felt.

'Now or never, punk,' Ace thought as he charged forward. 'No fear. Nothin' to lose.'

A red aura surrounded him as he bounded thirty feet off the ground and took a slash at his alien opponent. Ace yelled with each thrust and slash of his blade, but hit nothing but air. Frieza finally had enough of this repetitive play and viciously kicked him in the side of the head. The echidna was slammed into a building headfirst and through to the other side where he lay planted in a brick wall.

"Oh, that is it," Ace yelled, his aura flaring.

He hopped down and stabbed his sword into the concrete. Ace screamed in fury and focused his strength like never before, trying to finally understand his power instead of letting it control him. He held his hands behind him and in a fluid motion clapped them together in front of his sword.

"COMET BEAM!!!"

The small blast of energy hit the hilt of the sword and flew skyward from it as a large blue ray similar to a kamehameha. Frieza took notice of the phenomena as it curved into an arc and then began it's descent toward him. That's when he noticed Ace flying alongside it. The echidna punched the ray and shattered it into smaller showering beams of energy that cut through the area and bombarded Frieza with a hot shower of pain.

It was enough of a disctraction for him to fly in close and use a double fisted strike over Frieza's head, sending him falling into a crater on the ruined city street. He quickly got back to his feet and blocked a blow from one of Ace's steel shod fists. They traded blows in the normal 'Burst Zone' fashion for a few minutes until Frieza jumped back on his tail and caught the echidna's fist in his feet, clutching them tightly. He looked Ace in the eyes for a moment, trying to get a feel for whatever new power he'd tapped into. His eyes opened in shock with the strange change that had occurred.

Within the opening of his gi, Frieza saw that Ace's collar ring was just green instead of a shimmering jewel. He also took note of his animalistic gold eyes that he'd sworn he'd seen before. Ace struggled vainly against his grip until he stopped struggling and smiled.

 

A star appeared over his head. The echidna winked at the shocked alien and screamed," THUNDAGA, MAN!!!"

Frieza let go of his hands just in time to avoid the explosive electricity that came forth from them. The alien backflipped and set blast after blast of ki at him, which Ace let hit him blindly. Smiling through the whole ordeal. The echidna chuckled lightly as he gathered the pain in his body together all in one place and said," Everyone's grudge..."

A barrage of ki blast exactly like those thrown at Ace landed all around Frieza. The smoke and haze of pulverized concrete blinded the warrior to his opponent's location.

"All Seeing Eye!!!"

A blast of gold energy similar to one he'd almost been blasted with earlier pummeled his body as Frieza retreated back into the sky to plan his next move. Down below he could see Ace. The echidna was laughing in mad glee with glowing egyptian painted left eye, blasting the area indisciminately.

"I never understood until now," Ace said. "I think I know what to do now. I know everything. And still nothing. It's all there, but yet still hidden from me. I get it... you wanna get it too, Friez?" He smiled devilishly, his new sword appearing again in his hand. "Me an' Redstreak here are willin' ta teach ya. And we can wait all day." (Hint: Ace now knows the sword's name. Now how is that possible when he didn't know before?)

 

 

 

 

The dusty city eve was alive with unnatural life. The moon neared the peak of its accent, a foil for the faint starry curtain of night behind it. But flourish as it did in the heavens, the moon became itself a foil for the brilliant light of the warrior below.

 

Ace stood at the edge of the large valley they’d just created. Shards of buildings piled themselves into dunes around the perimeter. Shattered streets below them billowed with the choking scent of disintegrated stone. Frieza had gotten off of the golden beam and now floated arms crossed, smiling delightedly down at his old drinking partner. A wonderfully exciting feeling filled the air.

 

“Hmhmhm. My my, what a show.”

 

There was a slight mocking tone in his voice, but it felt somehow more reassuring than insulting. The menacing glower he wore stood somewhere between the arrogant Frieza Ace had come to know, and the new persona which had recently emerged. And yet there still remained no trace of cold in his eyes, sparkling like blood rubies.

 

“So you can see at last, ay? Is that so.” he chuckled, “Could it be that it was not merely a bizarre coincidence that you were the linking element of so many powers? Are you then no longer slave to them? Do you now realize that you yourself were the greatest of these powers all along?”

 

Frieza’s amusedly knowing expression seemed to blossom suddenly into one of true elation.

 

“I’m proud of you, Ace.” He gently whispered, with a voice so warm it seemed to fill the awakened Echidna with new peace and strength. Frieza’s eyes fell gracefully closed, as his glow grew quietly brighter. “And I thank you. If for no other reason, that makes it all worth it.”

 

Suddenly, the ground began to tremble. Chunks of earth drifted skyward and were quickly reduced to dust, as Frieza’s aura fiercely spiked.

 

“But have you truly awakened?!” he roared with a frightening din. “How much farther can you go? How much more can you see!?”

 

He threw his hands to the heavens, pulling lightning from the cloudless sky. It visibly coursed over his body, arcing across his fingertips, over the whites of his eyes.

 

“Come, Ace, let us find out…together!”

 

The sky shook as Frieza burst through it at sub-light speed. Ace prepared his mighty sword to taste the alien’s blood. But despite the menacing way he hefted the blade, Frieza continued his mad assault, ramming his head into Ace’s abdomen…and passing right through it.

Ace was so caught off guard that he hardly had time to dodge the tail swipe which almost decapitated him. With a swift and skillful turn, Ace was back on his toes and prepared for another face off with the kingly serpent. But Frieza leapt away, back into the air for another swooping attack. Ace grinned and readied himself. This time, he wouldn’t miss. Whatever trick Frieza was playing, he would see it this time. And he would DEFINATLY make him regret it.

The street ground itself away under the sonic boom of Frieza’s earthbound assault. This time the golden warrior positioned himself into a more upright stance than before. Redstreak jumped eagerly into battle. Frieza dodged this time, evading the first few swipes, but with a little-expected upward cleave, the blood-shaded weapon drove through Frieza’s armpit, sectioning off his head and right arm from his body.

At least…that’s how it looked.

Before Ace could distinguish the damage done, Frieza flew through the blow, passing behind and catching the echidna’s left ankle with his tail. Its furry face dragged along the cracked and jagged asphalt for a yard or so, then Newton’s first law took over as Frieza came to a stop.

Ace swung right into a fist, propelling him through nearly two blocks of parked cars. He rose from inside the dashboard of what felt like a Chevy; he couldn’t be sure what model. The only reason he decided it was a Chevy was because of the shape of the emblem embedded in his backside. He rose to his feet in a flash, ready for more. The dust that had gathered in his wake had caught up with him, clouding the area in a fog of gray and brown. But the wily warrior didn’t need his eyes to know that Frieza was right there with him.

Using his extra senses to pinpoint Frieza’s energy, Ace began a masterful advance which no being could easily avoid, even less so in this haze. But all that his slashing combos produced was the sound of rock particles against metal. Ace stopped the hopeless attack and gathered himself, though he wouldn’t have the chance. A hum within the darkness alerted him to an incoming attack. Ace blocked, but the blast didn’t come from where he’d expected. The ki beam exploded on the side of his face, throwing him again across the battlefield. He arose with a ringing in his ears. Dust blew quietly from his dreads.

 

“This is gettin’ old,” he realized. “A’right then. If I can’t hit him directly, I’ll frag the whole area!”

 

Ace began an appropriate attack, but there was no time. Frieza emerged from the gloom and began to attack for real. Ace nimbly dodged and blocked, but the hits seemed to move around his defenses. Finally, Ace had had enough. Absorbing the blows without so much as flinching, he moved forward with vigor and control that brought surprise and wonder to the emperor’s royal façade. On and on, with a flurry of attacks he didn’t even know he could do, but he never once made contact. Frieza grinned viciously. He wasn’t even trying.

 

Ace could swear he was cutting right through him. It couldn’t be a ghost attack; it hit solid enough. And it wasn’t an afterimage because his energy was right where it should be…could he really be that fast?…Ace was beginning to feel dizzy, perhaps from the exertion, or perhaps from all the blows to his head. He was beginning to feel strangely displaced.

 

…displaced…

 

He leaped back with a start. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t seen it sooner. The majority of his attacks had come from the left side. But could he really displace even his energy? Ace’s fangs sparkled in the moonlight.

 

“Only one way to find out.”

 

Ace sped forward for what looked to be another bout, but as he moved his sword to attack, he swung at the empty air to the left of Frieza’s body.

 

His aim was dead on.

 

Unfortunately, Frieza was no longer displaced.

 

“…****.”

 

There was a faint chuckling in his ear just before he felt the ground hit his face.

 

“You see, I can read you like a book, my friend.”

 

Ace stirred in the crater he’d found himself in. He heard the sound of his enemy’s claw-like feet against the loose soil approaching, and saw its light getting brighter.

 

“And it’s time to finish the last chapter with a bang!”

 

Frieza looked down at his handiwork. His glowing arm was outstretched, prepared to deal a devastating blow. His eyes were fixed on the noble echidna’s. There was no joy in his face. There was no pride.

 

He stopped.

 

 

 

 

 

Frieza stood there with his hand out, yet nothing was happening. It was as if his ki was...gone? How was this possible? Ace’s blank look gave way to a smirk and then outright laughter as he stood up and grabbed Freiza’s hand. Frieza felt Ace’s essence override his own along with a few others he couldn’t identify, and then began to rush back into him like it was a wave upon the beach. Ace then let the alien warrior go and performed a roundhouse kick to his face. Frieza recovered and felt his ki return.

“Yo, Frieza,” Ace yelled from across the ruined street. “Check this out.”

The echidna planted his sword in the ground and held his right hand out over it. It suddenly glowed a bright shade of purple and then shot out a pinprick of light. Frieza felt a prick of pain in his arm and yelled out in surprise, seeing it was no longer there, just tatters of pale flesh and purple blood. Freiza backed away and flew up into the air behind a building. He wasn’t afraid, mind you. Only wary of the new talent Ace had acquired...his own.

“What’s the problem, Friez? I was just exhibiting one of Spades’ abilities: Energy manipulation and acquisition. I just pulled about an ounce of your own ki and started multiplying it.”

His statement was punctuated with five more minuscule death beams shooting out of the concrete Freiza had put between him and his opponent. Each shot was accompanied by a poof of pulverized stone. Frieza moved a bit higher to avoid the row of increasing attacks and with a bit of concentration, regrew his arm.

“Don’t worry, I’ll start reading your energy better once it’s fully integrated. It will then become one with my own energy. As an added bonus I’ll know wherever you are at all times.”

 

Annoyed at being talked down to in such a way, Frieza powered up and tore through the building, heading right for the red fighter. Another fight ensued between the two, trading blows back and forth. Yet with each attack, Ace seemed to getting stronger somehow. Freiza winced slightly, unnoticed by Ace in the heat of battle. His last landed blow was like stinging acid, the pain spreading out. The alien attacked more viciously, putting more effort into his attacks.

Ace began a pattern of attacks that Frieza recognized. Two short jabs with the right arm, move inward beneath the enemy’s defenses, kick to the abdomen and a strong left hook...?

Frieza jumped back suddenly as an aura similar to his own materialized over Ace’s body. The alien shot out a massive burst of energy that blew the glowing echidna back, flipping head over heels to land face-down at his sword. Yet, the aura hadn’t vanished. The echidna stood up and grasped his stolen blade. The aura pulled away from the sword hand as if it was afraid to touch. Ace turned to his opponent and looked at him with blank soulless eyes.

“Masut!”

Ace’s only words before he swung his sword in a quick arc over his head to hit the earth in front of him. The point of Ace’s sword seemed to gather up the aura on his swing and gather up the eerie light in a minuscule mote on the end. The ground cracked open under the stress of such energy and finally erupted in a plethora of Ace’s red death beams aimed in front of him.

Frieza began to gather ki from within him in order to deflect the attack when he felt something hit him. It didn’t feel as though it were from without, but inside his own mind. It writhed and scratched away at him. And somehow, it was able to draw away his ki. It pulled at his strength more and more as he tried to gather it to block Ace’s attack. But in vain. The beams seemed to be a wall of red that advanced on the dictator. When it hit, his body was wracked with unimaginable pain. It burned from his bones all the way out to the very tips of his extremities. The world was nothing for a few moments but pain, weakness, red, and Ace’s insane laughter. The beams finally blew past, leaving Frieza a half mile from where he was and a twenty meter trench of scorched earth pulled up for miles behind him.

The echidna took his time walking up to where Frieza had landed. On his back, the alien gritted his teeth and weakly turned his head toward his opponent. Ace took a second to hack off his tail (muttering a curse after doing so) and then kneel down beside him. He was taking no chances this time.

“Something wrong,” Ace said condescendingly. “I see that you can’t tell me. I guess you’re paralyzed. While I was in your head I left something I’ve been dying to get rid of in it. I think it’s a Guardian Force or something. It was guarding this thing.” He motioned toward the green collar ring on his chest. “It managed to trap my mind inside of it, drain my energy away and kill me. I don’t know how I was brought back, but when I was...that thing and all the other people inside me were there in my head and in the ring. But that thing gave me the most trouble. Now you can have him. Personally I thought you would have noticed it when your ki stopped flowing for a second.” The echidna shrugged. “Oh, well. You can either win or die... I’d understand perfectly if you wanna give up the will to live.”

Frieza’s mind began to shut down further. Ace’s talking soon became a faraway warble of sounds, like bass on a speaker turned up too high. Frieza had been down this road before...and he damn sure wasn’t going back to hell!

“MAN!!! Looks like someone wants to live...”

 

 

 

 

 

Frieza’s world was quickly fading to black. His physical senses were giving way to his spiritual ones, instinctively readying him for his impending journey to the next world. Well instinct could kiss his ass as far as Frieza was concerned. His body was going to do what he told it to do, not what it was programmed to do. It wouldn’t even have come this close to accepting death had it not been for the entity strangling his grip on his mind.

 

Blazing against the peace of death, begging the pain of awakening, Frieza’s eyes came back into focus. Ace was already in a defensive position, alerted by the waning snake’s twitches. Redstreak was ready and eager.

 

Frieza felt like baked Swiss cheese. His blood was almost boiling in its smoking wounds. It cascaded down his body, sparkling like a cloudy river in the twilight of the moon, and of his body. His right arm wouldn’t move. The hole in his shoulder told him why. He struggled to get up, but his legs didn’t respond either. As the numbness subsided, he found that his spinal cord had been severed just below his chest plate. Finding little other recourse, Frieza began a maneuver he was rarely forced to use. Using his spirit to lift himself, he propped his sagging body on his feet. He didn’t bother to hide his impairment from Ace, as he was no doubt already aware of the damage he’d wrought. Using his ki was somewhat strained, he began to notice, but apparently he was only inhibited from projecting it outside his body. Now on his feet, the stellar prince allowed his most pressing wounds to mend. With his body now supporting itself, Frieza locked eyes with the fiendish moon-bathed animal. They exchanged sadistic grins.

 

“I dare say Ace, I’ve never met another warrior quite like you before” he started. Somehow his eyes seemed brighter than the rest of him. “But don’t let it go to your head. You may have sealed my energy, but as always, my clever amigo, the true depth of my power escapes you. There is far more to me than just matter and energy.” In one fluid motion, he was in his ‘power-up’ stance. “Allow me to demonstrate.”

 

Ever since Ace had planted the Guardian Force in Frieza’s mind, his Golden-yellow aura had been noticeably dimmer, but as he watched his regal opponent focus himself, its radiance returned to its former majesty. Ace stood ready for whatever was coming, when suddenly a familiar sensation ran through him. Ace didn’t recognize it, but the consciousness of Spades within him did. Ace looked at his own hand, then back up at Frieza. The light was getting stronger by the second.

 

Frieza growled under the strain on his soul. His delicate reptilian body tensed reflexively, but he hardly noticed. All of Frieza’s focus was inward, on himself and on the universe. The serpentine sheen in his eyes was now an exploding luminance. His crimson pupils seemed to vanish amid the blinding gleam.

 

Ace’s spirit continued vibrating in harmony with his enemy’s. He shielded his eyes with his sword. It hadn’t been this bright since Frieza first transformed. He looked like he was powering up, but he wasn’t getting any stronger. Ace briefly pondered what this strange display might yield, but knew that it didn’t mater. He’d know soon enough.

 

Soon quickly became now.

 

A heartening climate of pure truth beset them. Frieza’s empty eyes peered through the nothingness. Night became day as the light flooded the streets like water. Behind the blinding glare, Frieza let out a vigorous cry, rendering avalanches of the weakened buildings. His hand swept skyward, like a leaf on a stream. A brilliant flash blocked any further viewing. As the dark spots cleared from Ace’s vision, he distinguished a gilded figure, keenly smiling, holding a dull green sword.

 

The sword looked like a single, wide blade that had been split in two. The front blade, the thicker of the two, ran up from the hilt at a 90 degree angle and curved back toward the top. The slimmer piece came up to where the first started to bend, but cut sharply inward, forming a point. They were joined by two narrow bars. The hilt was simple, the same deep dull green as the rest of the sword, with a wide, serrated hand guard.

 

“Your ‘Guardian Force’,” Frieza motioned at the sword. “Well? Aren’t you gonna thank me? Oh, it put up quite a fight, I assure you. I see now why it took you so long to get rid of it.” Frieza let the light reflecting from the blades play on the warrior’s furry face. “Actually…well I’m a little embarrassed, you see.” He put his blood-covered hand to his chest in a sardonically feminine gesture. “It’s so flattering that you trust me enough to share your demons with me.”

 

Frieza was quite a sight to behold. His tongue was sharp and frigid, but his scarlet eyes and his flowing aura seemed warm and embracing. Sometimes he appeared to be enjoying himself, but other times he had seemed almost reluctant to continue. No doubt this was meant to confuse his fuzzy-tailed foe, but why would he bother with such a charade? Didn’t he know Ace would never let his guard down no mater the emotional state of his foe? He started marching forward.

 

“So, how long did you say it was with you?” He hefted his sword with a menacing scowl. “How well did it know you?”

 

Ace suddenly realized what Frieza had in mind, but there was nothing he could do. Immediately, Frieza was upon him. The stolen Redstreak and the manifested Guardian Force danced briefly, when Frieza nearly fell flat on his face. He’d forgotten about his tail. Ace wasted no time in seizing this opportunity by ramming his hilt into Frieza’s temple, following quickly with a vertical slash that would leave the frosty tyrant with more than just a tail missing. Frieza quickly spun his body to face upward and narrowly blocked, but this defense wouldn’t help him for long, as the Redstreak glanced gracefully off the side of its counterpart, spun around its master, and returned with an upward sweep. Frieza jumped to avoid loosing a leg, but could not avoid the fist quickly following the sword.

 

His aural shield had protected his nose from breaking, but it still hurt considerably. As he landed in a pile of concrete and jagged metal, Ace was already approaching. He wasn’t about to give Frieza any time to regenerate his tail, and Frieza wasn’t about to try. After all, it was Ace who was at a disadvantage in this exchange.

 

It would only take a few moments for Frieza to adjust to this new balance. After all, it certainly wasn’t the first time he’d lost his tail. Already he was on his feet and matching the echidna blow for blow. During this particular clash, however, Frieza’s attack pattern was different. He seemed to anticipate Ace’s every move. This didn’t surprise Ace. He’d almost been expecting it. Quickly, he strayed from his usual style and began using combos that even he wouldn’t expect, but somehow, Frieza seemed to account for even this. The Guardian Force had known Ace well.

 

Frieza’s graceful assault soon turned vicious. He began attacking with no regard for himself, avoiding only critical blows, taking lesser damage for just a chance to score a hit. Ace tried to use this to his advantage, but he was overwhelmed by the precision of the sword, and the fervor of the mighty emperor behind it. Finally, a wound was made.

 

As the blade passed across his belly, he felt the presence of the Guardian Force in his mind. Over the years, Ace had learned its tricks, and it had become almost an instinct to block it out. Though it came with some of Frieza’s influence pressing it on, it was a simple mater to deal with it. However, it caused the slightest moment of hesitation. It wasn’t enough time for Frieza to connect, but the delay quickly caught up to the echidna in the form of a diagonal scissor kick to his face.

 

Ace soared painfully through the choking night air, to be met with another kick to his side. He came to a stop in the exposed foundation of a fire station. He redoubled his efforts and met the approaching Frieza with terrifying vehemence. Frieza was put on the retreat in the face of this new drive. But even in this fury, Ace could not avoid taking small wounds, giving his foe a brief opening, which the Guardian Force knew exactly how to exploit. Ace landed on his feet. Frieza landed in front of him. Neither would relent.

 

After another short duel, the display of swordsmanship was ended when the Redstreak was caught between the blades of emerald weapon, and twisted from its master’s hands. With the same motion, Frieza thrust his sentient sword into Ace’s chest. The force brought them to the floor, driving the tip through the dirt, pinning him to the ground. He felt the Guardian Force’s influence enter his psyche, stronger than ever. With renewed vengeance, it ran through the passageways of Ace’s mind like the blood running down his fur. Ace pushed it back as he always had, but its power had been magnified by Frieza. Like an open book, it knew which pages to bring up to send Ace into a nightmarish realm of darkness. He struggled to stay awake as he began choking on the blood. Frieza gazed into the fallen fighter’s battling eyes, and saw the torment. He ended it.

 

“Kaboom.”

 

With a stunning flare, the Guardian Force exploded, and was no more. Amid the spray of hellish red, pieces of flesh and clots of organ tissue could be seen scattering across the ravaged street. Frieza wiped the rivers of blood from his eyes, and licked them off his face. With a small white shine, his tail regenerated.

 

 

 

 

 

Ace sat within his own mind, wondering how he could have not seen it before. The one thing that GFs did when they found a stronger opponent, their survival trait. However, that mind was red and white goo on the pavement...oh, well.

Each of the echidna's gore splattered pieces suddenly broke down into an inky black red substance and dashed aweay from Frieza and the sword pinning Ace's body to the ground.

The liquid piled onto itself and then reformed into a black manaquin-esque version of Ace. The right eye blazed with a golden light and Ace's normal colors resurfaced. The red creature fell to his knees in exhaustion, monsters like Slimes and Majin Buu made this reconstitution thing look easy.

"Nice one, Friez," Ace panted tiredly. "Very clever, turn that thing back on me. Very nice. However, you may have done me a favor by slapping it around like that. GFs don't die, they've gotta be vanquished in their own etheral world for that. However, there is one thing a GF is good for in the real world."

Suddenly Ace's eyes rolled back into his head and his body began to shake and jerk uncontrollably. The moon seemed to go behind the clouds as the ground began to quake. Something was coming...

 

A shadow passed over the earth. With each step the gargantuan creature made craters in it's wake. Each clawed stomp bringing it closer to it's target, the puny light creature in the center of it's vision.

Frieza saw Caleb barreling down the delapidated street with ease. It was an abomination of scales, fur,and teeth that tore through anything in it's way. Frieza held his sword in front of him and prepared to deal with the nuisance Ace had called upon.

When his creature wasn't more that four meters from Frieza, Ace stopped feeding Redstreak the energy it needed to stay a solid shape. The seemingly metal sword exploded in a shower of sparks and electricity no more than two feet from Frieza. The conqueror was caught off guard by the sudden explosion and prompty was burned on his side.

Caleb launched onto and grasped at the alien's flailing limbs. Somehow he was able to grasp onto the powerful dictator and hold him in a spread eagle position. Frieza struggled with his hideous captor, but to no avail. His grip was like an iron vise, getting tighter with every passing second.

"Hey, Friez," a voice said from above. Ace had somehow gathered enough strength back to achieve flight and was shooting up into the air at an alarming speed. "I got one word for ya: JUNCTION!!!"

Ace's battle aura appeared around his body as a white halo of glittering particles. Another Comet Punch...

The echidna's fist slammed once again into Frieza's torso and shattered a few of his ribs, making many of the fragments shoot out like yellowish shrapnel from his ribcage.

 

Ace jumped away and sat down in indian style position, trying to catch his breath. 'You may have integrated with my energy, but I've got a few more tricks ta pull out on ya.'

"Caleb, Ixion Polaris, please."

The monster grunted and then suddenly gripped harder onto Frieza's limbs.

"You think it was funny to tear me apart, Frieza," Ace said.

Caleb then stretched out all of his gripping limbs at once, stretching Frieza to the limits.

"Then enjoy life as a torso...uh, again."

The GF began to glow a hot white as he finally wrenched his body one last time and tore away Frieza's arms and legs, leaving them conected to him like a torn rag doll. Caleb then, like Spades' sword, erupted in a cascade of burning light. The light show lasted for fifteen minutes before Caleb was gone and Frieza lay on his side like a bloody dissected worm.

'That won't keep him down forever,' Ace thought. 'I gotta find a way to finish him.'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frieza was blasted away from the erupting Caleb long before it finished its fireworks display. He collapsed on the ground like a broken and lifeless toy. Blood soaked the forsaken earth, washed away in a pillar of water spraying over his body, apparently the remnants of a water main. A nettle of ground steel and concrete dug into his already smarting back. His torn limbs stung him, but the creature had been kind enough to leave them hanging by a thread. There would be no need to generate new ones. But something hurt more than his body. Something he’d once thought himself free of.

 

He was trembling.

 

The GF’s approach had created yet another silhouette in the sea of buildings. The battle was at the intersection, the heart. The fallen prince was off to a side, resting between two falling towers, each leaning on the other. Looking up through a hole in the bricks, he stared at the immaculate stars, bestowing their light gloriously across the cloudless blue night. They reminded him of so many things. So many terrible things.

 

A vociferous roar rent the heavens in twain. A fearsome explosion cast the mighty towers in opposite trails. The already broken land screamed desperately skyward, forced away from the shimmering warrior below. Buildings as far as the eye could see rose up, slowly crumbling to dust as they conquered the horizon. There was a sudden flash, then a darkness, as the suspended buildings came crashing down.

 

In a blink, Ace found himself in the air, blood oozing through his jaw. Frieza met him above and smacked him back down. He stopped inches from engoring himself on a parking meter. He turned around and quickly dodged a claw-like foot. One more fist fight ensued. Frieza fought with passion the likes of which this battle had yet to see, but Ace would not be taken so easily. On they went, each blow containing an eternity of purpose. Infinitely they soared through the now-moonless night, one bouncing comet under the streams of twilight. They stopped simultaneously, each drifting on the currents of the soul behind the battle’s voice. They landed face to face, eyes awash with combat’s flame, bodies as one with all its motions.

 

A drop of water fell from Frieza’s fingertip. Somehow it was free of the blood of either the echidna or himself, which now mingled turbulently across his face. His snow white fists were firmly clenched, bathing in the waning glow now hardly apart from his body. His mouth was a scowl. Ace saw his eyes and almost took one step back. Menacing, malevolent orbs of unbounded condemnation. Wave upon wave of venomous fury ran over him, raising the fur on his back like static. They seized him in their bloodthirsty, animalistic pupils, black unlike anything this world had ever known. They shone a blazing red, scorching all within their gaze. Yet somehow they were cold, almost as cold as the empty cosmos themselves. In spite of his unfaltering control, Ace’s heart could not help but feel a vice of pressure. The blood drenched despot trod mercilessly forward.

 

“I hope you’ve thoroughly enjoyed this little game, because now it’s all over.” He spoke with a firm and confident voice. His movements were precise and commanding. He appeared in total control, but his eyes seemed to dictate otherwise. He stopped approaching. “You see, I’ve been holding back the lion share of my power for your sake. I thought you might enjoy some time to test out your newfound power, but now it’s time, time to end this pathetic display once and for all” he decreed. Somehow, there still seemed to be a touch of heart in his voice. Some restraint in what he said. “While you did put up a good fight, the bottom line, Ace, is that you are just as STUPID as those other halfwits. You never really had a chance, you miserable rodent! How do you think I’ve kept my empire for so long? Did you think that you were the strongest warrior I’d every faced!? YOU FOOL!!! RRRRAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

 

The planet was shattered for miles around as Frieza’s rage erupted. Columns of lava ascended from their world of fire below, forming a lake and adjoining rivers all around them. Ace leapt up to avoid a hotfoot. The flowing rock simply avoided Frieza. Even nature’s inferno was afraid to touch his searing anger.

 

The sky trembled as the vacuum created by Frieza’s sudden assault tore it down. Ace blocked the incoming fist with his own, annihilating the earth below. Again they fought through the ancient medium, as men have through all of history. The struggles of forever were remembered with every blow, awakening in their very beings.

 

Frieza’s power was tremendous, but it wasn’t what Ace had expected. It had grown to be sure, but not by much. If Ace pushed himself hard enough, he could manage a sufficient defense. But before long, he fell victim to the tyrant’s superior speed, and found himself in his own little crater, a glowing hand above him prepared to blow him to pieces.

 

But the hand did not come.

 

Frieza had stopped once again. His eyes were firmly shut, his head turned away. His other fist was clenched so tight that it was bleeding. Ace wasted not a moment in unleashing a combo of gloved punches and kicks. Frieza was sent skidding across the field in a corkscrew. He rose immediately with icy fervor. His hulking muscles shook with inner conflict. His faint golden light was raging wildly. The night air was so cold.

 

He rose, riding on a frigid drift, and cast a powerful ball of energy at the waiting echidna.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The entire world stopped like a tape suddenly being put on pause. Frieza snapped his head back and forth not-understanding the quick phenomena. It seemed to his point of view that everything was flickering in and out in-shimmers and motes of sparking light. From one place to another the harsh battlefield that was Metro City was giving way to shimmers and soft glowing. The silent beat in which the light was playing soon died down and then stopped entirely as someone cursed under his breath and then said one statement that the cold fighter heard clearly.

"Aw, jack! I broke a damn string."

"Think he's figured it out?"

"Ya damn skippy he has," Ace said not far away, trying to raggedly crawl to his feet. "You guys can drop the-illusion. Playtime's over. It's time to rock."

And with that the whole of the field changed from a devastated city back to the glass and crystal battlefield. Except everything was repaired and new looking. As if nothing had happened before. Frieza suddenly blanched. For the first time in a long time he was confused. He looked behind him to see that Spades and Shiro had been playing a couple of regular instruments with cords connected to the crystals like a web network of power cords into fragmented amplifiers. The little tattooed turtle monster stuck his black tongue out at Frieza again.

 

"I guess the jig is finally up, huh," Shiro said nonchalantly.

"What the hell is this place," Frieza said, still scanning around the area. "Why are we here again?"

"The dream field, man," Ace said. " Another world where reality is fragmented and time really ceases to exist. Where you could have your greatest desires fulfilled with enough willpower(about a planet's worth). This place serves as a boundary between many worlds. We were trying to find a way to kill you with me out there in metro and them here reviewing the evidence."

"How did you fight with all that extra power if they weren't lending it to you?"

"The crystals here are Kaydharin crystal," Spades admonished, replacing the broken sub-harmonic string on his redstreak ax. "A power source. All I had to do was integrate my and Shiro's energy with them since we can operate as different beings now and jack into the energy with our spell-singing. It was a simple enough affair to project our powers to Ace and vice versa if we all exist on the same layer of reality. In the ring or just in the same dimension."

"Which we did until Spades broke a string playing so hard," Shiro said, idly tapping on one of his drums. "This field
just existed about twenty light years from you until the little mishap. Not there, but still in the same reality. Since that happened we ‘all' got pulled back here. Oh well. The gang's all here and I'm bored. Hey Ace, you wanna finish
this?"

"More than you'll ever know."

The little monster smiled evilly. "Good. Spades, you know what to do. Find Frieza's UEF and encapsulate it."

"UEF," Frieza asked.

 

"Universal Energy Field," Ace elaborated. "A field of energy that exists on another plane of reality that we can't see.
It's what separates a rock and a comet or me from a normal (terrestrial/real)echidna. It's what identifies you in time
and space. A line in time that touches everything that you've affected in this reality. Spades there'll find it in less
than ten minute since he knows your signature already and then cut it off from everything else in this world or any
other since you don't wanna die."

Frieza watched as the symbols on the Argonian's body lit up white a blue glow around the edges and then invert into
a dark red shade as his body faded away. The alien could no longer see him or feel his ki, because he no longer
existed in this reality, in this time, in this existence. He darted his gaze in the direction of Shiro, who was
mysteriously no longer there. He finally looked back toward Ace to see he was standing tall again with that same
burst of energy that was short lived before he tired himself out. His collar ring was blazing green again along with
the tattoos that had adorned the Tonberry's body moments ago.

"Think of it, Friez," Ace said. " In ten minutes, you'll be torn from this coil of existence and trapped outside of time
for eternity." He snorted. "Well, unless you kill me before Spades discerns your pattern from everything else. Can
you kill me in ten minutes? Ten minutes with an echidna with enhanced psionic and magical abilities? Ten minutes
with a man who possesses more than 50% of your skills right now? Ten minutes with the MAN!!!? Well, lets just
find out. HASTEGA!!!"

And suddenly from right behind Frieza. "ULTIMA!!!"

A great green glow exploded from Ace's bare red hand and a ring of ancient text shot around Frieza, He was soon
caught in a chain of explosions that tore and rocked at his body. It took him some time to get loose, but when he did
Ace was nowhere to be seen. Experience told him what this meant already and he jumped to the side just as the
echidna slammed down from the sky with both of his fists into the ground in a corkscrew drill. When Frieza looked
back at the spot, there was nothing but a small sinkhole and a small puff of dust. How could he have gotten that
quick?

The echidna burrowed through the earth and came up twenty some feet away, shooting straight into the sky. He
turned to look at his opponent and glared. Frieza was thrown sprawling backward, smacking into the unbreakable
crystals like a doll being dragged through it with invisible string by a car. He finally came to a rest when he slammed
into a jagged nest of the invulnerable protrusions. He sat there pinned up by the knife-like shards sticking into his
back.

____
8:53:20 |Time Until Encapsulation|
- - - -

 

 

 

A lavender shock of unnatural lightning fell on the horizon, foiling the perpetually scarlet heavens and the jewel-encrusted earth, covering it with a sheet of black. For one brief, terrifying instant, all that Ace could discern was that bolt, and Frieza’s eyes.

 

A shudder ran through him.

 

Frieza’s sporadically racing mind could barely grasp what was going on, but that just brought more fury. Another flash of discolored energy fell from above, and Frieza was gone. Ace blocked the blows exploding from the darkness and countered with his devastating new speed. The blind Frieza roared in pain as the serrated fists dug into his chest, streaming cascades of blood from the puncture wounds in his back. The pain was extreme, but not nearly so terrible as the torment that drove him to ignore it, threatening to consume him.

 

Frieza countered instantaneously by clasping Ace’s ankle with is tail, pulling him underneath himself, and firing a point-blank crusher-bomb into his neck. The blast accelerated Frieza skyward, where he waited, staring down the flashing horizon contemptuously.

 

Ace was up, immediately appearing behind the terrible tyrant’s unseen scowl. But Frieza knew he was there. A commanding, unrelenting voice filled the horizon, with such stern passion as to make the world undone.

 

MON OH EW ROS!

 

Ace’s attacking hand was met with the incorporeal nothing to which he sought to banish his foe. He turned with pseudo-shock to behold the night-cloaked demon and his venomous eyes so red they made folly of the sky’s shade. Another burst of light rent the sky as Ace plummeted, face beginning to match the pigment of the clouds.

 

As the crimson overhead reregained the foreground, the crashing echidna made out the shape of a talon swooping up at him. He tipped his head to keep it from coming off, and struck back with speed almost beyond the reach of reality. But the dark shape was gone, and soon the bewildered beast came to a stop as an unmoving surface implanted itself in the base of his spine. He curled back over the knee, a red mist exploding from his between his teeth. It settled on the face of the being so stained with blood that it was lost upon its cold, callous skin.

 

A series of agonizing blows beset the crimson-furred warrior, finally blasting him across the shimmering world where it had all started. He rolled roughly to a stop on a garden of small knife-edged crystals, his lungs burning for relief. He quickly rose in defense, but fell paralyzed by the searing gaze of the snake’s eyes.

 

Red. Everywhere.

 

A thin aura beyond the recognizable spectrum of vision fit gracefully about him. It would have looked somewhat green had Ace been a hornet. The golden glow of his body fluttered wildly in all directions, like a living candle in a midnight draft. Unending rage and undying malice seemed to physically press against Ace’s body, striking at his balance, grasping at his heart. His every cell burned and was frozen with the desert’s heat and the mountain’s cold.

 

But Ace had crossed that desert. He’d climbed that mountain. He would never, never stop. Through death and beyond. Never.

 

Though clouded and bemused, Frieza could still see clearly enough to tell that Ace had increased his speed. With that rectified, Frieza had the upper hand once again, or so he thought.

 

“Encapsulation.” The word rolled from his icy tongue with the grace of a viper’s strike. “A time limit. You miserable rodent, you would mock me with irony while I hold your life in my hands?!” His voice stung, its venom arose. “Just who do you think you are? You may think you’re strong, but I go on and on. I am lord of the universe! Nothing can stop me! Nothing! I remain untouched. You, them, you crumble, you die! But I live on…grr, do you hear me you flee-ridden beast!?!? Do you still think you stand a chance?! FOOL!!! HOW DARE YOU CHALLENGE ME?!?!?!”

 

The ground beneath Frieza seemed to fall away. Suddenly, Ace realized that he was looking upward.

 

Blood dripped into puddles below, unseen in the vermilion light from above. Frieza’s body trembled; his eyes shook madly with torn emotions. With his head to the sky, he proclaimed the torture of his soul. An inhuman cry laid low the bloodstained heavens, and rose up the crystal earth. The planet itself moaned with the pain of the cosmic emperor as it was torn asunder.

 

Mindlessly, recklessly, Frieza flared his power for all to see. Ace was unsure whether he was powering up or just venting. But as the anguish din of Frieza’s tormented roar fell silent, and the frozen ground could stop its terrified shaking, he realized that it hardly mattered. The airborne monster turned its gaze away from infinity, looking down at the warrior he knew so well. He focused the entirety of his contempt, confusion, rage, and hatred onto one spot.

 

It was the eye of the storm. The eye that cannot see.

 

One last quake ran beneath the echidna’s feet. Though he felt the pressure building in the air around him, there was nowhere he could go. It was all around him. All he could do was look up at Frieza, and his cold, glaring eyes.

 

 

Deep Red Sea.

 

 

In a rising tempest of malevolence, the world spiraled around Frieza and exploded outward into a fearsome array of endless twirling fragments of shimmering crimson. They flew past Ace, reflecting a tunnel of pure blood red. Suddenly, Ace was airborne. He fell helplessly backward through the passage of his shattered world, flying in all directions, his mind racing with confusion. He screamed as pain began to tear across his body, but his voice was muffled by the blood in which he drown, his own or otherwise he could not tell.

 

His vision raced about sporadically, hardly knowing what he saw or expected to see. His thoughts became muddled and incoherent. But his pain grew ever clearer. As the hellish river carried him onward, his vision, all vision, became an endless torrent of red.

 

The blood was covering his already scarlet fur.

 

He felt fire licking at him from the infinite ruby column that dragged him onward. It seemed to pass through him, burning him inside as well. It ran through his veins, filling him with passion’s inferno. He began sweating heavily. But the sweat was blood.

 

The shards flying past began tearing vile lacerations throughout his fur, adding to the endless pool of nightmarish vermilion. Everywhere he wasn’t guarded, they streaked past and were gone before he could see them. But worse than the trials of his body where those of his mind. He felt consumed by an overwhelming force, crushing his existence. It wanted him to worse than dead. It surrounded him with hate too dark for words, too horrible to exist. His lungs were filling with blood. It felt warm. So warm.

 

Death. Every spinning piece of glass was death.

 

Ace raged against the tidal storm, but only to further his suffering. His fragile body began to tremble, and soon he felt himself being torn apart. He gargled in beleaguered struggling, on the verge of passing out, but he would not let himself. He fought on and on, but the blood would not leave his mouth. It just wouldn’t stop coming.

 

Frieza’s wordless voice, his presence was everywhere, yet Ace felt alone. It pushed him deeper and deeper into the maelstrom.

 

Finally, Ace turned around to face the ocean of red through which he was drawn like a leaf on the water’s surface. His eyes went wide as he found nothing. It was all gone. Nothing was there.

 

With rising vehemence Ace was cast downward, sailing through wave after wave of pain. The sea was now gone, but the falling echidna still saw red. He continued sinking until he descended at last into darkness.

 

He awoke as if from another life, finding his head no longer attached to his body, and Frieza standing over his shredded form, his rage as potent as ever.

 

“There can be only one…see? I haven’t forgotten.”

 

Hardly giving Ace a second to pull himself together, Frieza mercilessly begins bombarding him with energy blasts, all the while struggling against himself to find a reason why.

 

____
7:02:93 |Time Until Encapsulation|
- - - -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Each attack made the earth shudder and crack under the strain of Frieza’s fury. The sky boiled over into darkness and gave way to pinpricks of light. Thunder crackled and roared over the endless horizon of crystal and earth as the mad fighter launched burst after burst of ki into Ace’s decimated body. The air grew cold and still, almost like the cold vacuum of space. Frieza concentrated his rage into one last huge ball of energy, the very same kind he’d used to destroy planet Namek so long ago and hurled it down onto the last ashes of Ace the echidna. With a resounding explosion, nothing was left but scorched Kaydharin crystal. The maniac smiled, knowing that without the echidna the others would fade out of existence.

Before he could turn his attention to the intangible runes that Spades had left behind Frieza heard a sound. A crunching, pounding sound. With a shower of pulverized dirt Ace erupted from the ground. His body was lit from within somehow surrounded by a great multi-hued aura of ki that he now produced. Ace flew straight up to a surprised Frieza and grasped one of his huge hands to his face. The supercharged echidna flung Frieza around at a dizzying speed. A small whirlwind formed on the ground beneath him.

“Is that all you’ve got, murderer,” he taunted. “You think I’ve learned nothing. Half this battle has been in your head! I never came up from the ground that last time. One doesn’t need to see his opponent to use high class telekinesis!”

And with that he threw the pale alien down into the unbreakable crystal below. Frieza landed right on his face, breaking most of the bones in his skull. Ace focused his thoughts into one plane of existence beneath him and began chanting, rolling his head back and forth as if it were only held on with flimsy string. With one final exultation Ace flung his hands south and cried out to the heavens: “DEMI!!!”

Gravity seemed to increase a million fold within ten feet of Frieza’s prone body. He could feel his blood and organs ripping through his body to pull themselves closer to the ground. A sick and twisted mix of mentality and magic allowed Ace to let gravity tear at his insides and leave his flesh alone. Frieza was in effect being torn apart from the inside out.

“And to make the effect last a bit longer,” Ace sneered. “Overdrive Execute: CHAOS CONTROL!!!”

 

Ace’s green collar ring exploded with a cascade of white hot light. It almost hurt to see. The space around him blurred and the world became a huge grid of black, blue, and green that stretched on for eternity. Everything contracted all at once and the world was as it once had been. Only the Demi spell still persisted and Frieza’s body continued to pull and burrow into the ground from the inside out.

“Now,” Ace said in Shiro’s voice. “Let’s see what that spell that the Don taught me will do.”

Ace held out his hands and a knife and a small clay doll of Frieza appeared. He let the two objects float in the air before grasping the knife and viciously stabbing the doll through the mid section. Frieza screamed as his intestines spilled out of a large open gash and preceded to pull on the rest of his digestive tract. Ace slowly pulled the blade out of the clay doll and began chanting again. “En-bri-oh-nan-coh, En-bri-oh-nan-coh, En-bri-oh-nan-coh, En-bri-oh-nan-coh, En-bri-oh-nan-coh, En-bri-oh-nan-coh...” (Yeah, I know I’m wrong. First person to tell me what the chant really is get’s a treat.)

The echidna’s hands became red and black blurs in the wind as the doll began to whittle away to nothingness. Finally with one last scream, Ace switched his hand once and held the knife by the blade. He quickly smashed the doll to dust and shattered the knife into equally small fragments. He yelled out in pain as blood poured from his left hand. When the red stream touched the ground, fissures formed all around the writhing Frieza. Out of the pits black smouldering magma rushed out and covered each of the alien’s shattered limbs. When the substance receded and cooled, the dictator found himself damn near enshrouded in chains. Chains that completely paralyzed him.

“Chains of Karma. Each link has the weight of countless souls and sins. The shackles are comprised of the people we’ve killed in this fight alone. It would have been a while before you could have sloughed those off...before we shattered every nerve and bone in your body. Now with the extra gravity, the Chaos Control keeping you from healing, and the incredible weight of those chains. The six or so minutes left will feel like eternity as you struggle. Know the way of the Tonberry and despair, Frieza. Hahahaha!!!”

Ace vanished again into thin air cackling like a maniac. And as he sat the fighting not only his incredible anger and the pain that threatened to overwhelm him with every slight movement, Frieza was overcome by the hellish screams and moans that the Chains had begun to import upon his psyche. Indeed, Ace had shunted him into his own personal hell. Frieza looked up into the night sky above and wondered...would it be like this? By himself in Ace’s prison.

____
5:55:32 |Time Until Encapsulation|

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blind and absorbed in chaos, the bewildered prince could bear no more. He poured out one final howl, forcing all of his pain and frustration into the abyss that was his perception. Manifested into a rational form by magic unseen, his energy shattered the demi spell and lifted the chaos control, much to Ace’s astonishment. The chains, however, remained firmly in place. The horror in every link continued to push him deeper into confusion. Using the dream world’s malleable nature, they brought him back to Metro City to fill his sight as well as his thoughts with the destruction and death brought of his hands. But as his terrible bellowing became an echo in the distance, the madness subsided. He grew suddenly deaf to their voices, to his pain, and his body fell limp…

 

Rivers of lavender essence gently whispered repentance to the silent night. The muddy earth accepted them with pity. Their source lay on its back, unable to move, unable to try. It could only stare helplessly into the endless realm that we call the sky. Its wide, twinkling eyes reflected uncountable others. They returned its gaze, but it did not understand. It merely looked lifelessly into an endless void, its past falling through its eyes.

 

But all was not dark.

 

The rivers became stagnant pools in the mud. Their movement had frozen; they stunk of death, but not nearly so much as the soul they poured from. Its heart pleaded at the emptiness.

 

How can it be?

 

A wind arose, but he could not, scarcely breathing, eyes so still. The wind was heavy and cold, befouled with the redolent dust of the blasted lives of unknown innocents. So was he.

 

The echidna warrior watched from behind a curtain of illusion, a hint of pity in his expression. His enemy has been still for several minutes. At this rate, death would take him before Spades got around to it. Ace couldn’t help feeling disappointed, even somewhat saddened. For such a grand battle and such a worthy opponent to come to such an undignified end left him empty inside. He never thought the relentless emperor would give up so easily after enduring for so long. Oh well.

 

He looked around at the dead city. The scene was almost nostalgic. It reminded him of when he’d first arrived at this place, when he’d first met that lifeless pile of meat in the distance. His feet led him aimlessly forward. He looked down at his dying friend, but turned away quickly. “Don’t look in their eyes”, he reminded himself, and paced slowly back to his watch point.

 

Frieza lay in complete shock. He could scarcely believe what he’d done. He had once thought himself free of this weakness. He thought that he had taken control of his pride and his anger, able to don them as a mask for his amusement while retaining perfect clarity of thought. But this attack seemed so random and mindless. From whence had this blind rage come?

 

How…could I…?

 

Was it even possible? In this form, could he really…?

 

It finally dawned on the dying tyrant that he was no longer emitting light. His golden glow had long since faded, save the core of his chest plate. A small spot in its center still shone like a candle in a dark room. Frieza was unconcerned, however. He had forgotten about his friend Ace and the battle entirely. His thoughts were consumed with shame, anguish, and despair.

 

His eyes were fixed on the stars. With all the city lights out, they seemed especially bright; even without a moon, they flooded it with enough light to see. He looked up at them, as though for the very first time. The universe suddenly seemed much bigger than he’d ever imagined. Amidst the grandeur, he began to think about his empire and all the wrongs that he had done.

 

I’m so weak. I am unworthy of my own power.

 

Frieza’s skin burned, and his body ached. The wet ground beneath him felt cool and soothing. At last he let his mind relax, and began to sink in the mud. A warm feeling filled his chest as the cloak of death wrapped around him. It was so peaceful, so inviting. Slowly, he let his eyes drift closed. He almost died.

 

 

Meanwhile, far away from the battlefield, a crystalline instrument quietly resonated…

 

 

Starlight rained gracefully from heaven. The haze of the battle’s dust even seemed to part around the two warriors, making it unnaturally clear. The light seemed to truly touch every point in the air, leaving it brighter than it was before. It flowed across the bonds dragging themselves below. It trickled down the face of the dying. It ran through the fur of the victor. It covered everything to the skyline in a radiant dew. The sky itself took on life, the eyes of the ages shedding tears of light on a fight between friends that was about to turn fatal. A trick of the world, perhaps.

 

The pensive stare of Ace captured the scene. He pondered the battle and the being he’d just felled. He wasn’t sure why Frieza had chosen to die rather than face his past one more time. He wondered why his opponent had fought so hard if he’d just meant to give up. He watched in wonder, and wondered further as he watched. But not even the multi-planar eyes of Ace or those of his allies could see what was happening before them.

 

The starlight began to dance unseen above the disappearing alien. Pale spots of blue and pink and white moved around and through each other, crossing over and together, gently forming a living pattern. From within the twinkling luminance, the image of a man emerged. His unkempt brown hair hung softly over his black cape, unmoving in the still night air. His silver garlanded leather gloves were tucked under his crossed arms. He looked down at the sinking mass of blood with concerned and friendly eyes. A voice, firm but gentle, arose from the twilight.

 

“Frieza.”

 

The fading red eyes burst open, almost shaking in fear. The shackles dragging them down came undone, and were absorbed into the earth. Their mouth hesitated open, trying to find the words and the power to speak.

 

“I know your fight has been hard and unforgiving, but you mustn’t despair.”

 

After his long slumber, Frieza had to adjust to the glare from the starlight. But as his vision cleared, burning tears filled his sparkling eyes. He lay paralyzed, his shredded muscles trembling only slightly. A gamut of feeling overwhelmed him, but his mind was empty. He raised his arm desperately, struggling weakly to touch the apparition.

 

“Da…Demi…tri…”

 

“I feel your pain, but you must never give up.”

 

Frieza let his arm fall limp. The tears began to flow down his face, picking up the slurry of blood and gore as they fell. Looking away in shame, he spoke with childlike awe through the death in his throat.

 

“But…I…how could I…”

 

The spectral man’s gaze intensified.

 

“Have you already forgotten all that you learned?”

 

The muddy, beaten body stared blankly at the phantom, as though looking at a wall.

 

“Never forget what you saw that day, Frieza. Never forget what you found inside yourself.”

 

The already dazzled eyes grew wider as they suddenly found themselves overcome with sight. His mind came to life again. Memories flooded into his consciousness, frightening at first, but then edifying. Confusion was chased away by reverence as he began to remember at last what had been lost.

 

He saw it. The anger, the confusion, the despair, and finally, the realization. The first time, when he turned and saw the truth. When the lies could no longer delude him. The moment everything joined in one supreme, undeniable cadence. The first time he saw the light.

 

“Never forget.”

 

The tears had vanished. Slowly, Frieza began to understand what he saw.

 

“He who was weak…”

 

The ethereal figure smiled, and faded away amongst the stars.

 

Ace watched this exchange, but could only perceive half of it. Had he driven Frieza into some kind of delusion? If so, how had he broken the Chains of Karma without exerting any noticeable energy? There was no way, unless…nah. Not Frieza. Not THAT monster. The weight of just one link of his bonds could crush a lesser man. There’s no way a heartless killer like him could…

 

The former tyrant edged closer as strength began returning to his motionless body. Disbelieve still possessed him, but a different kind. Now there was hope. No, more than hope, truth.

 

Frieza’s gaze returned to the glittering lights above, entranced. As awareness flooded in anew, they relaxed his eyes and opened his spirit. Though they had not moved, Frieza saw them from a completely different perspective. He no longer saw the suffering and despair of his forgotten kingdom. Now the blazing lights sang of not the past, but the present. They shone down lovingly, truthfully, personifying the wisdom of all the ages. Now, free from his delirium, he began to hear their message.

 

The stars of unfathomable worlds silently heralded understanding. As Frieza remembered how to listen, the milky white constellations glowed one by one. Amidst the deep blue night, it began to resemble a river. Yes, a river of stars.

 

The many-voiced song of the river echoed softly in the mind of the spellbound observer. Frieza looked deeply into the flowing streams of light and saw pictures drifting across their surfaces.  He saw his father, regretful, battling the pain of his lost son. He saw himself, regretful, also battling feelings of despair. He saw Ace, who would feel regret for what he might have to do to his friend, also with bonds of pain. Each one concentrating on his goal, each one suffering. The river’s voice was full of yearning and sadness, flowing towards its goal.

 

The picture of his father, his own picture, and the picture of Ace all flowed into each other. Vegeta’s picture arose, and Nemo’s, and all the others. They became part of the river. Their voices, their desires, their weaknesses, and all their pain joined the harmony of the starry river reflecting the sky. More pictures followed; joyful ones, lonely ones, soaring ones, suffering ones. Everyone Frieza had ever met passed before him; and the river flowed on, towards goals, many goals, to the Earth, to the sky, to the void. And all goals were reached and each one was succeeded by another. The light changed to vision and was absorbed, became heat and rose again. It became energy, light, and river once more, changed anew, flowing anew. And each voice changed continuously, though always the same. Agony and elation played like alto and bass, drifting beside the many tenors and sopranos of life. Some voices sang together, some dynamically apart, angry voices and peaceful ones, loving voices and hateful ones. Each was different, yet they were ultimately one; one body, one song, one river.

 

Frieza listened intently. His body had begun to rise, though he did not notice. He was oblivious to the pain of his organs dropping out of his body, transfixed in the refulgent flow above. He listened, and could no longer tell the voices apart. He could not distinguish between the laughing voice and the weeping voice, between the cry of the dying and the whisper of a child, the outraged call and the indifferent shrug. They were the same, interlocking and connected in infinite ways. And when Frieza listened clearly to the river, to the song of uncountable voices, when he did not bind his soul to any one particular voice and absorb it in his self, he heard the whole. The union of every voice, every heart, and every song throughout creation consisted of one word.

 

As Frieza’s confusion vanished, Ace’s arose. All he saw was a blood drenched body floating slowly upward. But he decided to let his enemy be. I’d be all over in a minute anyway. Let him enjoy his freedom while he still has it.

 

Frieza continued to ascend, finally reclaiming the understanding he had lost not just during this battle, but through the aimless years. He could feel his heart flourish again. He could SEE it. It filled him with amazement and disbelief, just like it had the first time.

 

All throughout the battle, Ace had plagued Frieza with the sins of his past, but no more. Long ago, Frieza had awakened to a truth he’d never dreamed possible. Despite his malevolent deeds, even in his despair and self-loathing, beyond any hope he had left, he’d found forgiveness in the stars and the hearts of the universe. More than just forgiveness, love.

 

Frieza understood at last that they had been right. It was folly to chase the demons of the night. He had stumbled this day, and he could easily stumble again. He could never remove this thorn under his own power, for he was weak. But he neither growled in frustration, nor brooded in hopelessness. He knew.

 

Power is made perfect through weakness.

 

To justify…

 

The radiant crimson eyes turned at last away from the glowing expanse and stared straight out. The stars grew brighter and sprung to life. This time their movement was real. Incipit flashes of energy fell from each one, projected at the awakening being. Their spirits, the spirits of the countless worlds, even those destroyed by Frieza’s odious passion, came to him now in love and support. What he was did not exist. The souls were unconcerned with it. There was only here.

 

NOW.

 

The stardust began to fill him, washing away the anguish of his past, empowering him with new strength and purpose. Even Ace could feel them, all sending their love to the wanderer above. Each spirit gave its whole self to the once-icy warrior. Likewise, he gave himself back to them, augmenting the flow with each exchange. An implacable vibration swept across the battlefield, stirring in every living thing for miles. Ace’s spirit syncopated with the motion instinctively. The horizon was beginning to glow. It was happening again.

 

To magnify…

 

Ace could no longer deceive Frieza, nor could Frieza deceive himself. Even the weakest of men could not turn from truth so clear. The illusions of Ace and his counterparts, as well as the dark illusions covering Frieza from within, began lifting as their foe regained his clarity. Knowing the unity of all things, he could now become one with himself. His TRUE self. His eyes left the physical world and turned inward. His heart was trembling. All that remained was to grasp it.

 

To realize…

 

The sky brightened as dawn approached. The silent morning was alive with a symphony of music beyond ordinary comprehension, playing to an audience of two. The horizon ignited as the sun suddenly appeared. It ascended magnificently, frightening in its beauty, hiding the smaller stars beneath its brilliance. It scorched a path straight through the darkness until it stopped directly behind Frieza. To Ace it appeared as though Frieza was that sun.

 

That everything is love!

 

The animalistic warrior shielded his eyes as the ball of light burst, scarring his vision with a field of white. A vociferous gale strewed his dread locked fur behind him, as the ground seemed to shift beneath his feet. When the glare subsided, he quickly returned his attention above, and was met with eyes unlike any yet seen in this competition.

 

Metro city was gone, restored to the endless field of Kaydharin crystals now flashing brilliant golden-yellow tones in harmony with the light clad figure above. The sky, however, had abandoned its bloody hue in favor of a faded vanilla. It was almost uncomfortably bright to stare at, though the sun itself was nowhere to be seen.

 

Ace bathed in the wonderful sunshine flowing abundantly from his adversary. He felt something coming from it, something he never expected. That couldn’t be the same creature he’d come here with, he thought. It couldn’t be that same monster who’d carelessly slaughtered trillions for his own amusement. There was no way.

 

But it was. It always had been.

 

The resplendent Frieza stared deeply into the eyes of the fur-clad fighter below. His countenance was an unearthly blend of might and compassion. It was mantled with an aura of serenity and peace, which spread to everything that beheld him. His still-misanthropic features now projected comfort and familiarity. Truth itself seemed to nestle in his ruby eyes. He was; everything about him flowed endlessly in one perfect state of being. There was no need for words, but he spoke for his opponent’s sake. His voice, while unchanged in frequency, felt completely different.

 

“What a painful choice you’ve left me with, Ace”

 

Ace took a step back as a wave of energy ran through him. His ferocious glower showed neither fear nor hesitation. His path was chosen, and he was resolved not to look back.

 

The gilded warrior peered at his friend through shining eyes. He glanced over at the runes left by Spades. He looked back at Ace. He raised his arms to his sides.

 

His path was clear.

 

A ferocious explosion of energy filled the sky behind Frieza as he raced down toward his goal.

 

Ten seconds left. It was gonna be close.

 

No longer able to escape into illusion and incapable of overcoming Frieza’s new speed, Ace resigned to stand and face him one last time. He braced himself for the final exchange.

 

Not only the air, but the ground below parted in the presence of the awakened alien. Ace could feel Frieza’s energy swiftly rising to fantastic levels. His fur rose up, gravitated toward the impending torrent of power. Even the dazzling sky seemed dim behind to him.

 

Spades was mere seconds from isolating Frieza’s universal energy field. He hastened his motions in anticipation. The fusion of music and magic drove his perception through the fabric of reality, showing him each individual thread. The storm called syncopation was clearing away the other threads, revealing the one he sought. It was almost clear. He began finishing the encapsulation.

 

Warps of light began materializing and dematerializing all around Frieza. His world began to fade in and out of obscurity, but he paid no mind. He was clear; he knew; he saw. His golden shade grew ever brighter.

 

For Ace, there was no choice. His gambit had landed him here, and he had no regrets.

 

The Kaydharin crystals angrily flared with wild, fearsome luminance. The sky was rent in twain, finally catching up with the sudden release of energy. The dirt was compressing itself away from the imminent impact, forming a crater beneath them. Ace’s balance was tested, but he maintained his stance. He had no doubt that the shear strength of the oncoming attack could kill him instantaneously, but he did not flinch. Perhaps he could have found a way to avoid it-perhaps he could have escaped-, and indeed a part of him was hoping that Spades would finish before Frieza connected, but another part of him yearned for one last resounding clash to give their battle a suitable ending. Whichever desire was greater perhaps not even he knew. Whatever the case, he did not tremble or flee. His wild animal eyes were ready.

 

The already blinding body of the descending force became outlined in an aura of white, resonating a rich, high-toned hum that shook the quaking dream world. The vivid singing of the flashing crystal orchestra reached its final decadent cadence.

 

As Frieza’s speed exploded suddenly to the edges of Ace’s comprehension, he realized that he couldn’t move his arms in time to block. Abruptly overcome with desperation, he struggled vainly to defend himself. As the erupting squall of energy reached him and death became plainly imminent, the last thing he saw was the look in Frieza’s eyes, possessing neither pleasure nor pain, neither joy nor remorse.

 

But there was love. There was always love.

 

Joushou Genki

 

Spades’ hand stopped in mid strum. He paused for a minute, unsure of what he saw.

 

Frieza’s UEF had vanish.

 

It was gone! Not a trace was left! His hands disappeared into blurs as he frantically searched around.

 

Still nothing.

 

Could Ace have killed him? It was possible, but he should still be able to detect some part of the UEF.

 

He paused again for just an instant, then resumed his playing with even more vigor.

 

Ace’s UEF was gone too! And Shiro’s, and Caleb’s!? Had that maniac destroyed them all!? Had they all been erased from existence?! No, wait, Shiro and Caleb were still there somehow, but they were unconscious, barely breathing. What was going on down there?!

 

Hysterical racing through the tapestry of space and time, Spades followed the course of events back a few seconds. Mercilessly plucking away at his instrument, the minstrel gained clairvoyance over reality. From his perch in another level of consciousness, he watched as Frieza streaked down toward his helpless ally.

 

Frieza collided head on with Ace.

 

Frieza started to pass through Ace.

 

Their bodies exploded into pure light. The surface of each crystal reflected the image of a mass of white expanding outward, contorting violently, then contracting. And then their UEFs…

 

Spades’ redstreak slowly dropped. His eyes widened and his jaw fell open.

 

“Invincible Spirit” said a voice he’d never heard, but knew all too well.

 

The bewildered Argonian had followed the path of their UEFs up to the moment the light contracted, and then they’d…joined. But not where one strand entwined itself around another, as in conventional fusions. Each thread, both UEFs had become one.

 

Spades quickly turned behind himself (if one could really say there’s a ‘behind’ in such a place), and beheld the result. A fur and crystal adorned creature met its gaze with fiery amber eyes. It stood erect at Frieza’s height. It had a tail, slightly longer than Ace’s, but round. Its sunny hair flowed freely behind its neck. It had features from both, and features found on neither. An aura of golden light still surrounded its loving form, still projecting mercy and might.

 

Spades didn’t even have time to let out a gasp. He never saw the blow that felled him. He landed back in our reality, no longer able to maintain his presence in the higher existence. The remainder of his energy had been expelled. He lived, but barely. It would be days before he could awaken of his own power. His body glowed, then dissipated into energy and was absorbed by the green collar ring.

 

The new being appeared at the edge of Metro City. Here the dawn had not yet come, but the horizon was bright. He watched the skyline and waited. There was no need for words, or even thought. It stood bathing in its own existence, a pure state of being.

 

But no state can last forever.

 

At last, just as the top of the sun poked out from beneath the barren earth, its time expired, and the being ceased to exist. In a small flash, Frieza and Ace returned to the world. The latter tumbled to the ground, his amalgam of strength disbanded, and his own body exhausted. The reptilian Frieza landed on his feet, still shining an endless golden-yellow. He turned to his downed companion, looking at him through pupil-less red eyes.

 

Slowly, he extended a glowing hand…

 

And clasped Ace’s.

 

He helped his friend to his feet. They looked deeply into each other’s eyes. Their wordless expressions said it all. At last, they truly understood one another. They were amazed at how much they had assumed about their comrade just earlier today, and how little of it had been right.

 

They almost started laughing at the irony of it. Through the whole battle, neither of the two, despite their ruthless facades, had actually wanted to kill the other. Fate was like that sometimes.

 

As the sunlight crept over to them, they turned away from the city where their battle had raged, and began walking hand in hand.

 

Echoing over the distant horizons, the sound of a crystalline spirit guitar playing ‘Hearts’, by Yes, accompanied them on their long journey back to the bar.

 

< S.P.A.      Hearts >