CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: REBEL FROM THE GODS

Zarbon and Bojack looked directly in each other’s eyes, each one recognizing the other. Bojack looked over at Zangya and cracked a small smile.

“Oh, shoot,” Zarbon mumbled to himself.

Bojack smirked a bit more, as did his henchmen.

“Shoot is right. Now, please explain to me exactly why you decided to crash in like this?”

Zarbon gritted his teeth. Then he realized something. Salad! She was a civilian, and a plastic outhouse really wasn’t much of a hiding place. If only he could draw the battle away from here before she started pounding on the door or anything...

In a desperate move, Zarbon charged directly at all of them, yelling like an idiot. He turned away at the last moment and flew off as fast as he possibly could. Zangya understood why and followed him. Zarbon looked back over his shoulder.

‘Please, let them follow me!’ he thought to himself right before literally running into Bojack. It felt like hitting a brick wall.

“Hello again,” the huge man said, obviously amused.

“THIS!” Zarbon shouted, throwing an extremely bright Ki blast in Bojack’s eyes, attempting to stun him.

It had no such effect. Bojack simply reached out, grabbed Zarbon by the throat, and tossed him into a nearby building, giving him basically no more thought. He had other things on his mind.

 Zarbon climbed out of the hole in the building and charged for the nearest enemy-Gokua. Gokua wasn’t even nearly facing him, and in fact didn’t seem to notice as Zarbon flew closer, and closer...Zarbon stopped with a jerk as all the breath was let out of him and he stopped moving where he was, hanging in thin air. He tried to move, but he couldn’t even budge an arm. There was some sort of energy net...After hearing a high-pitched laugh nearby, Zarbon remembered how Burter died in the ambush. He turned around to see Bujin holding him in a psychic net.

“Oh, Gokua...behind you!” the little twerp sang out. Gokua turned around and unsheathed his sword.

“Hey, fly, remember this?” he said, brandishing it in Zarbon’s face. “I think it’ll help fix your pretty boy image, eh?”

Zarbon spit in his face.

“Naughty, naughty,” Gokua responded, lifting up his sword before a massive bolt of electricity hit Bujin and sent him plummeting to the ground.

Zangya saluted at Zarbon and flew down toward the short fighter.

Zarbon immediately kneed Gokua as hard as he could in the stomach. Despite their power level differences, Zarbon had caught him off guard. Gokua folded in and coughed up a little bit of purple-ish blood. Zarbon spun around and followed it up with a roundhouse kick to the back-which did nothing.

“Got my guard up now, pretty-boy,” the swordsman said calmly, smiling. He brought up both of his hands and let out a small ki blast. The blast hit Zarbon exactly where he had hit Gokua earlier and burned a hole into his armor, propelling him back. It exploded, nearly taking out Zarbon had he not put up a huge ki shield. It still charred him more than was probably necessary, though. He barely had time to move before Gokua came in with a flying head-butt, sending Zarbon crashing into another building.

“Hm. Got him already. Now I’m going to get bored!” Gokua exclaimed to himself as he powered down completely. He didn’t see Zarbon’s Fire Arrow coming in. It hit him before he could put anything up, and once again hurt him a little in the explosion. Gokua shook it off and saw a transformed Zarbon flying at him.

“Darned pest!” he shouted, “Just like a mosquito. Ah, well...” he fired a barrage of energy blasts at Zarbon. Just enough of them hit to end his little charge.

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 Zangya landed where she saw Bujin fall, but he wasn’t there. She looked around. Not anywhere in sight...probably hiding somewhere for an ambush. She started to back up, And backed into a waiting Bojack. She froze, completely unable to even turn around, toward the nightmare that had plagued her for ten long years. Bojack grinned as he lightly brushed his hand through her hair.

“So beautiful,” he murmured just loudly enough for her to hear. “So beautiful, and yet...” he stopped and smiled a bit more. His hand traced down the side of her face. Zangya breathed in sharply, still unable to move. She might as well have been held in one of those psychic nets for all it was worth. But this time they did not need a net. Sheer terror was all that was necessary. His hand traced down to her neck.

“So beautiful,” he repeated, “I really did like you, Zangya. I really did.”

His hand went down her back, in between her shoulder blades. It stopped right in the center.

“Why did you have to leave us, Zangya? We were together for ten years. Why? You should have stayed longer, much longer.” His hand opened up and drew back a little bit. “Well, it was wonderful. Since you don’t seem to like me anymore, you can relish the fact that I’m going to forget you completely right after you’re dead.”

Bojack shoved Zangya hard, sending her sprawling in front of him.

“DIE!” he shouted, starting to fire a huge ki blast from his palm. Bojack was interrupted as Zarbon crashed into him full force, screwing up his aim. Bojack’s blast hit Zangya on her right side, and burned away most of the flesh on her torso, sending her sprawling in a pool of her own blood.

Bojack wheeled around and belted Zarbon across the jaw, nearly breaking his neck.

“YOU DARN FREAK!” he shouted at Zarbon as he collapsed, “Just what were you trying to accomplish! You know I could kill you with just a touch. I didn’t care about you. In fact, I wasn’t even going to take the time to kill you. But now, that you’ve messed everything up...” he spread out his right hand, pointing the palm at Zarbon. Then he lowered it and stopped smiling.

“Wait. Before I kill you, I want to know this-what did the rat tell you?”

Zarbon coughed up some blood. “What?” he asked.

“You heard me. What did she tell you?”

“About what.”

“Anything concerning me or my group.”

“She told me that you used to be something big, and that now you’re just a mercenary. She told me all your names, and how long she’s been here. Anything else?”

Bojack grinned. “Is that it?”

“What did you expect, a speech? She didn’t want to talk about you much.”

“It figures. Well, do you want to know what I am, what kind of monster you’re dealing with?”

“No.”

“Too bad. I like to talk when I get bored, and frankly, you’re boring.”

Zarbon closed his mouth and listened.

“Zangya told you that I used to be something, did she? She didn’t even scratch the surface. Did you know that I met the gods once? I used to be more than I am today. My power level was over thirty times what it is today. I was more powerful then anything in existence. I was more powerful than the gods. So I challenged them. I, and my assistant, Bido, challenged them. We were more powerful than any Kami, and slaughtered quite a few of them before the Kai’s came in. We were even better than they were...but they had something else up their sleeves. They imprisoned me in a star, but they missed Bido. He freed me, and we returned. North Kai hit us again by taking away most of our power, and by casting us completely out of heaven. Since then, I’ve been recruiting and training for one simple purpose.”

“Revenge?” Zarbon asked him.”

“No. Fun. I hated being in that star. You know, if I still had all of my power, I could have trained all of my henchmen to be at least where Bido was...but, I guess that things were not meant to be that way.”

Bojack raised his hand back toward Zarbon, but then stopped and smirked, saying three simple words.

“Bido. Bujin. Gokua.”

All three of the henchmen flew in and bowed toward their master.

“Have your fun with him, I’m no longer interested. I think I’ll just watch Zangya bleed to death.”

He turned his back from the others and sat down.

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