Chapter 4: Psychofemme

There was Yamcha, usually so cooly confident in himself, looking ill. His look were shared by Gohan. Goten was gone, asleep, being watched over by his girlfriend, what was her name, oh yes, Marron. But Erik had taken a look at him, and he hadn’t like what he saw. From his crazed ramblings. Goten appeared to have completely lost his mind. Erik hoped he was wrong, that Goten could recover, but at the same time, he knew that those who survive a fight with Agony, and those were very few, rarely return with any semblence of sanity. Agony was so inhuman that her mere touch could bring about this curse.

He knew that all too well.

And if Goten was now hopelessly insane…there was nothing he could do about it.

Chi-Chi, Goku’s wife was asleep. Videl and Pan weren’t there. Goku had lost his usual goofy innocence, something that made Erik feel saddened. Goku, through all he had seen, always seemed to be able to delight in a few certain pleasures. This was a new Goku, his face hardened as stone. He’d lost his friends before, some of them multiple times, but it had always been in battle, where there was always some semblence of honour, and the few times it hadn’t been battle, it had been quick, like a jolt and then they were heading to heaven. Even when Majinn Buu had killed every human on Earth and then later blown up the planet, doing it again, it had been instantaneous.

There was no honour, no speed, and utterly no rationality in the crimes Agony had commited. It was simply butchery, made even more horrible in the fact that Agony REVELED in it.

After their previous meeting, Erik had expected there to be some trouble with Vegeta. Even if he had forgiven Erik for the tazer zapping, Erik had claimed he had sent Agony to this world. After losing both his children to her diabolical lust for death and destruction, Erik had expected that Vegeta woul think he had PURPOSELY sent Agony to this world. Nothing could be further from the truth, indeed, it had been a horrible accident, but he had sent her here. Vegeta might decide to take out his rage on Erik, and Erik knew if that happened he was pretty much dead.

But Vegeta had changed most of all. Indeed, he wasn’t even listening to Erik. He just stood off in a corner, not moving, not speaking. Erik didn’t have to be Agony to feel his pain, but what bothered Erik most of all was that Vegeta had not shed a tear for the entire ordeal.

But Erik didn’t have time to give Vegeta lessons about grief. He had to tell the Z Fighters a great deal of things, even if they might not help them.

"Ok, Mr. Ravensky…"

"Erik please…Son Gohan, isn’t it?"

"Yes, but just Gohan will be fine. Now, you’ve come here after skulking around, looking at Bra’s body and Bulma’s computer records, and you say you brought Agony here. How?"

Erik sighed and brushed back his long black hair. His metal arm was completely concealed, covered by an amazing artificial jelly he had developed that looked and felt exactly like skin, right down to the tiny hairs on the arm. It helped him look more human, and after what had been done to his body, he definitely needed it.

"It’s a very long story. Shall I start at the beginning?"

Gohan nodded.

"Scientists and writers have often put forth the theory that the existence we live in is just one of many. They suggest that there could be parallel existences, other dimensions, so to speak, running at the same time as ours, perhaps even side by side. And the popular theory is that these existences are different from the one you live in. These new worlds might be slightly different, or they might be radically different."

"Oh yeah! I used to watch a show about that all the time! This group of people had to kept warping and they kept ending up on different Earths every time, and each Earth had some new quirk, like Hitler won WWII, or children were ruling the planet, or something like that. It was called Sliders!" Yamcha piped up. Erik looked over to him.

"Thank you Yamcha. That’s a good example. Because the theory of parallel worlds is no theory. It exists, and I am living proof. I come from another Earth entirely."

All the Z Fighters looked in shock at Erik. Yamcha looked at him like he might have a few screws loose.

"Yeah, I know it’s unbelieveable, but it’s true. My world has no Z fighters, indeed it doesn’t have anyone who’s even close to you guys in power, but on the other side, it didn’t have anyone like Freiza or Cell. But it had something just as bad."

Slowly, Erik told a long story, how the powers that created existence, or his existence anyway, had long ago used the Earth to seal away an evil omnipotent messiah known as Xaxargas. He told how humans had eventually taken over Earth, how Xaxargas had watched and grown fasinated with the little creatures that had conquered his prison, even as his power grew and the powers that be scrambled franctically to find a way to completely destroy him before his seal of a billion years broke. How they had failed and Xaxargas had been unleashed with enough power to destroy everything in the universe.

"But if they didn’t have anyone like us, how did humanity defend against this…god, wasn’t he?" Gohan asked.

"Yeah, I’d say Xaxargas was a god. But all his eons of watching humans had influenced him greatly, indeed, he had taken on many of their qualities, mostly their bad ones. So after he was freed, he came down to Earth and decided to play with it awhile before he embarked on his destruction of the universe."

Erik told the Z Fighters of the Change, the way Xaxargas had swept across it and destroyed civalization in one fell swoop, how he had twisted the lands and the very fabric of reality into shapes he found amusing. And how he had asked every human their fondest wish, so he could grant them the exact opposite, or grant the wish to them for his own devious purposes. But his ultimate goal was to play with humanity in this new world he created until the species broke.

"He infested our world with terrible creatures he had dreamed up, creatures from the legends in the religions and stories of all the culture across out planet, legends from the past and present, and all sorts of other monsters. Looking back, I think he must have been very fond of RPG games." Erik said, a faint smile tugging at his mouth.

"Wait, you say he granted every human a wish?" Goku asked.

"Yes, but his wish was a trick, Even if he gave you exactly what you asked, it meant he either had other plans for you that would make you regret the wish, or he knew eventually the wish would cause diaster and death on it’s own."

"What was your wish?"

Erik did smile this time.

"I didn’t take one. Instead I swore I would hunt Xaxargas down and destroy him. He was the most evil creature I had ever seen, and I wouldn’t let him threaten my planet…"

"Wait a minute, you were your planet’s defender?"

"Not exactly. Be patient, I’ll explain it all in time. Xaxargas was amused by my defiance of him and left me. But eventually he brought me his idea of a "gift"."

"That woman…"

"Her name is Agony."

Agony was back in the woods and bored again. She’d ripped up a few people she’d found camping, but individual deaths were starting to have less and less of an effect on her. She needed more…or something far stronger…

So she pushed on, slowly growing closer to an isolated cabin deep in the woods…

"You see, for part of his amusement, Xaxargas decided to see what humanity would do to defend itself from him, once their minds had finally gotten around the fact that their world was being ruled by an invicible god. In order to make it more fun for him, while he was initiating the Change, Xaxargas also charged the air with a special power. This power…well, let’s just say it was an external ki that Xaxargas taught humans to tap into for power. Before he came, we had martial artists, but none like you. They were all more like Mr. Satan. We didn’t have people who could fly, or throw destructive energy, or have buildings dropped on them without a scratch. We just had humans. And that bored Xaxargas, for our technology wouldn’t be able to do anything to him. So he granted this power to us. He knew that there would be people who would use it to try and oppose him. But while he found it amusing for humanity to come after him, he also felt it was below him to fight them himself. So he took eight humans he had found, who had hearts and minds that only thought evil, and he granted them incredible power, and they became his Elite. Agony was the last of the Elite, and his crown jewel."

Erik stooped. It was obvious the words stirred some emotions in him. But he went on, and in a long story, he told of a warrior named Ash Merseric who took hold of an ancient destiny and formed a group of warriors that was dubbed the Legacy. He spoke of their many battles, and how eventually he himself became one of them. He told of the battles in which the Elite died at their hands, one by one, and how, in a miracle beyond miracles, Ash somehow, within himself, the human race, and all existence, found a power, at the end of a battle that nearly tore the earth apart, destroyed Xaxargas.

"Whoa! A human defeated a GOD?" Goku said, amazed.

"Yes Goku. Just like you beat Freiza, or your son beat Super Perfect Cell, Ash found a power that defeated the seemingly unkillable Xaxargas. But it wasn’t over. The world had changed and would never change back, and creatures still walked on it. And while Xaxargas had been defeated, the power he created for humanity remained. And while it could be used for good, it could also be used for evil. And the Legacy knew there would be others who tried to conquer or destroy this New World, as Ash called it. So they, and I, became the planet’s guardians. That is the story of the Legacy…"

"But how does Agony tie into it?" Yamcha asked.

"I’m getting to that. Two of Xaxargas’s Elite survived his death, and one was killed soon after. But Agony remained, and ever since then I have been hunting her, trying to stop her slaughter…but she has always escaped every single attempt I have made to kill her, mocking me all the way. But I wouldn’t stop…and in trying to kill her once more…I sent her here."

"Yes, but I just have one question. Why do you hate her so much that your whole life is devoted to trying to kill her?" Gohan asked.

"Because she killed my whole family."

Seventeen was annoyed. The rabbits had been eating his carrots again, despite the snares he had set out. For a moment he thought of going into the forest and killing every one he saw, then he decided he would be easier if he just left some food they could easily get to, so they wouldn’t eat his crops.

Seventeen brushed her hair back, doing a reflexive check to see if his hair was greying yet. Nope, still the lovely black colour that so many females swooned over. Maybe Dr. Gero’s transformation of him into an andriod would keep his hair from greying forever. Probably not, but a guy could dream.

Seventeen pulled out the half-eaten vegetables the rabbits had munched and tossed it in his compost heap, and then turned around and headed back into his cabin. He was thirsty.

From the woods, Agony watched the andriod head into his house.

"What have we here?"

Even after everything the whole room had seen and heard, there was still a shocked silence.

"But why…?" Goku said.

"Because she loves to kill! She thrives on death and pain and the way the body can break and bleed! It’s her whole goddamn life! She eats, breaths and sleeps PAIN!" Erik suddenly yelled. He quickly got control of himself.

"Sorry."

"It’s understandable. But why did she kill…?"

"It happened years before the Change. I was nine years old. My family was taking a vacation in a cabin we had up in the mountains…"

As he had before, Vengeance told his tragic story, how Agony and her cult had attacked his house, how they had killed his parents, how they had raped his younger sisters and made him watch, how they had cut their throats, and then how Agony, while drinking his mother and sister’s blood, glass by glass, had sat in the cabin and laughed as her men, on her orders, tortured Erik for weeks before she grew bored and threw him off a cliff.

"Agony took everything from me. My family…and my humanity."

As he spoke, Erik looked up.

And then suddenly it seemed like his skin was melting, and Gohan recoiled as grey metal was revealed underneath. Practically the whole left side of Erik’s face was mechanical in a hole that started at his forehead and ended with his jaw.

"She did this to me with a mace. She also destroyed my right arm and left leg beyond repair, so they had to be…replaced…as well." Erik said, as the jelly slid off his arm to reveal the whirring clicking motors and devices beneath.

"Oh god. Please, put your face back on!" Yamcha groaned. Erik looked at him and complied. In seconds the jelly had re-formed, leaving Erik looking like a human again.

"That’s amazing stuff you have there." Gohan said, horrified but fasinated as well, being a scientist.

"I developed it myself. I call it FS-X. It allows me to look in a mirror without shuddering each time, but it hasn’t made me forget who did this to me…and why."

"Why?" Goku asked.

"Why did she do this to me? BECAUSE SHE LOVES IT!" Erik yelled. Again he calmed himself down and apologized.

"How I became a cyborg is another story. Let’s just say it had to do with the government. But it kept me imprisoned for eight years and turned me into a living weapon. Once I was free, I started hunting for Agony, but she had disappeared. I chased her for years, following every clue I could. In the end, the Change happened, and she came to me…with the most horrible power."

"Her power…what is it?" Goku asked.

"Pain. Her power is pain. Her pain and others. Every wound inflicted on her, every injury she gives, she sucks down the pain. She loves pain, her whole existence revolves around inflicting it…and getting it. And through it…she can do anything."

"Anything?" Goku said, his gorge rising.

"Maybe not anything, but I’ve seen telekenisis, pyrokinesis, the ability to make a body’s own cells rebel, superhuman strength…and god knows what else she can do with it. But you’ve all seen her greatest talent, her greatest power from pain." Erik said

"Regeneration." Gohan replied, starting to feel sick as his mind made connections. "But if pain gives her power…does that mean…?"

"Yes. Every blow anyone inflicted apon her didn’t hurt her, it just made her stronger. It just thrilled her, gave her a charge. Every cut, every injury, all it does is please her."

Suddenly, out of his corner, Vegeta spoke.

"How do I kill her?"

Erik looked over at the shattered saiya-jin. A lump rose in his throat. He didn’t want to tell Vegeta, but it was the only answer he had, the only one he had after years of battles, years of planning, and years of failure.

"I don’t know."

Vegeta’s head snapped up as his eyes blazed.

"YOU DON’T KNOW?"

"I-I…I don’t know. After all I’ve seen her do…and come back from…I don’t think…it’s possible."

"NO!" Vegeta screamed as he reared back and punched a hole through the wall. "NOTHING IS INVINCIBLE! NOTHING! SHE HAS TO DIE! THERE HAS TO BE A WAY!"

Erik grimanced.

"There has to be a way! I know! We’ll poison her! There’s gotta be some neurotoxin that will destroy her nervous system instantly! And if there isn’t, we’ll make one!" Vegeta said in a ramble.

"Vegeta…I’ve tried that."

Vegeta was snapped out of his ramble by Erik’s whispered words.

"What?"

"I’ve tried that…she doesn’t need her nervous system to live."

The next second Vegeta’s hands slammed down on the table, crushing it, as he stared at Erik with mad eyes.

"That’s impossible! No human could…"

"Vegeta, SHE’S NOT HUMAN!" Erik said, standing up. He was taller then Vegeta but Vegeta has a more imposing prescence. "She wasn’t human before she got the power to absorb her sole reason for living: pain! And now she’s something else! The power has mutated her entire body! She feels pain even in ways that no human would feel pain! If you tickle her it hurts her! Even if you disable her nervous system she can still feel pain! I’ve tried everything! I’ve tried to drown her, crush her, poison her, rip her apart, I EVEN THREW HER INTO MOLTEN LAVA!"

Vegeta didn’t back away, but in the end Erik walked away from him.

"Yeah, lava! How did she survive that? Her body kept giving her pain and the molten rock couldn’t burn away her cells faster then her power could regenerate them! She’s a living paradox, because she lives for kill people, to destroy life, and yet she is the ultimate example of survival! She’s a blasphemy! Cut her, it heals. Cut off a limb, she can re-attach it, and failing that, she can grow a new one! Every single one of her cells, mutated by her damn power, contains a blueprint for her, and all she needs is one cell, just one cell, to fully regenerate herself. And since destroying her cells will cause her pain…"

Erik struggled with the next words, never believing them but unable to deny the apparent writing on the wall.

"I don’t think you can kill her."

Erik looked at Vegeta.

"God forgive me, Vegeta, I don’t think anyone can."

"This is INSANE! How do we defeat a foe who just gains strength from anything we can do to her? It’s impossible! We may as well kill ourselves, it will be quicker that way." Yamcha yelled. Erik’s final rant had driven him into a panic.

"Yamcha, listen to yourself! Muten Roshi would be ashamed to hear you giving up so easily, after all he taught you!" Goku said. He had drawn all the remaining fighters into another meeting. Erik was off studying the deaths Agony had caused in the hopes of learning something, and Vegeta had wandered off, back in his daze.

"He has a point Goku. How do we defeat a foe we can’t hurt?" Krillian said. He looked scared, and after listening in silence to all the stuff Erik had told them, he was.

"Oh, we can hurt her. She just thrives on being hurt! There must be a way to get around it…" Gohan said, sitting on the table. He was constantly cleaning his glasses, which was a sure sign he was worried too.

"First we have to find her, again…" Eighteen said, sitting next to her husband.

"I’m sure she’ll leave trails. She always does." Yamcha said bitterly.

"Yamcha! You disappoint me! Muten Roshi taught us never to give up, and most of all, to never give in to despair! What would he think of you, talking like that?" Goku said.

"Goku, weren’t you listening? Agony killed Trunks like it was nothing! Everything he threw at her just gave her power! How do we defeat a foe like that?" Yamcha asked. He was practically on the point of tears.

Goku was silent, worry lines creasing his face.

"I don’t know."

Goku clenched his right fist.

"But I’m not giving up, especially not to a monster like her! She killed my friends, and Kami help me, she’s not going to get away with it!"

Erik sat, studying the map Gohan had made of Agony’s path. He tried to see a pattern, but there was none. He sighed and rubbed his temples.

"Erik?"

"Yes, Gohan?" Erik replied, as the hybrid was suddenly next to him.

"In our haste to discuss…the situation, you never told us how you somehow sent Agony here. What happened?"

Erik sighed. He’d let his feelings carry him away and he had neglected that information.

"Agony attacked this scientific demonstration. She had no reason, she just wanted to kill people and eat their hearts. Did I mention she’s also a cannibal?"

He hadn’t, and the news shook Gohan.

"She eats hearts?"

"She doesn’t have to. Her power gives her all the energy that food would provide. But she loves to devour humans, especially the hearts."

"So you’re saying she took the hearts of Bra, and Trunks, and all the others so she could…" Gohan couldn’t finish.

"Eat them."

Gohan was stunned into silence, and Erik continued.

"She’d butchered half the people who’d come before I showed up to stop her. Oh god, she was laughing, such a horrible sound…I’ve heard it so many times and it still chills me to the bone. Anyway, we fought, I hurt her, she healed, I hurt her more, and she healed again. In the process, we wound up smashing the machine that was the main focus of the demonstration, causing it to overload. I’m not sure what the machine was supposed to do, I think it was some kind of experimental matter transportation system being developed to get goods to certain places instantly. Anyway, the machine was somehow turned on and activated from the damage we caused, and it ripped this strange hole open in the air. I saw the hole, knew that wasn’t right, and then hit apon the idea that maybe if this thing could transport matter, an overload could cause the transportation to screw up…"

"So you threw Agony into the rip thinking it would blow her into her component molecules or something simular."

"Yes." Erik said, his voice cracking. "I realized I had made a horrible mistake when I could see through the rip. I saw Agony lying in some grass in the forest, but before I could follow her, the rip vanished. I had to shut down the machine so it wouldn’t blow up on me, and then with some help, I fixed the machine and reinacted the situation. Sure enough, it opened another hole, and I found myself here…and Agony had immediately unleashed herself onto your world and I’m so so sorry…"

As Erik leaned over, clutching his face, Gohan put a friendly hand on his back.

"Don’t blame yourself, Erik. If I was you, I’d have probably do the same thing."

"But all this death…is my fault! I gambled, thinking the unknown could seemingly do the impossible, and lost, oh god all the deaths she’s caused I lost so badly…"

"Erik, you can’t change the past, but you can try and change the future. Let’s not dwell on whether you should have thrown Agony into the rip or into the machine or the wall or anything. You did it, and that’s that."

Gohan watched. He could feel the torment this man from another existence was going through, the way he blamed himself for not being able to stop Agony, stop her from taking so many lives, the way he tried to take the whole world’s weight on his shoulders. He found it honourable.

"I was going to ask you Erik, is there any LIMIT on Agony’s power?"

"Limit?"

"Yes. I’m assuming this…Zazergas or whatever his name was had to put some limit on them, if he was stronger then her…so what is it?"

Erik sat up and thought it over.

"There’s only one I can think of. She can’t hurt herself."

"She can’t hurt herself?"

"No, she can feed off the pain others cause her, and she can feed off other’s pain, but she can’t feed off any pain she inflicts on herself. If she could do that, she would be unstoppable, because she could just keep hurting herself…"

"…until she got so strong…I really don’t want to think about it. I don’t see how that could help us…but it’s worth noting. Did you find anything from these maps?"

"No. There’s no pattern at all. She’s just going in crazy zig-zags killing whoever she runs across. I don’t have a clue where she’ll turn up next, and I know her better then anyone."

"Well, I’m sure something will happen. Now excuse me, I have to go put my little girl to bed. Will you be ok?"

"Yeah, I’ll be fine."

Gohan left, and Erik studied into the night.

"Are you sure you’re all right to stand, Goten?" Goku asked his younger son. Morning had come, and his son had finally woken up.

"Yes Toussan. I’ll be fine. I want to speak with this Erik guy. I want to know everything. Trunks must be avenged, will be avenged." Goten snarled, his hair flaring into SSJ. He may have been asleep ever since the fateful night a day and a half ago, but all he could dream about was Trunks’s brave sacrifice and Agony tearing his head off, over and over.

"Ok. He’s staying at the Capsole Corp. Be careful Goten."

"I will, Toussan." Goten said. But Goku noticed him reach into a drawer and remove a bag of Senzu beans, which he tied to his waist before he left.

Marron had been happy. Goku had phoned her dad and told her that Goten had woken up and was all right. But her joy was quickly replace with sorrow and worry. Instead of flying right back to her arms, he had gone instead to see the strange man who claimed he knew the woman who had been commiting the mass murders. Agony, she was called. The name fit her well.

Marron understood the situation. Agony had to be stopped. Goten was the only one so far to have survived an encounter with her, and his input was needed.

But still…

Agony was perhaps the greatest foe they had ever faced, and without a doubt she was the most evil creature Marron had ever seen or heard.

But still…

More people would die if she wasn’t stopped.

But still…

Marron couldn’t make sense of her feelings. She understood Goten’s actions, but at the same time she wanted an answer to her question of commitment. She loved Goten. She’s given her virginity to him. She’s watched over him as he groaned in whatever horrid nightmares he was having as fear flowed through her veins over his condition. And yet he hadn’t immediately come back to her. He would come back to her, she knew, but she felt she should have been first.

Was she being selfish? She didn’t know. She didn’t feel comfortable speaking about her conflicting feelings to her parents, even if they understood.

So she had decided to go speak to her uncle, Seventeen. She’s been very close to him as a little girl, and she’d gotten a lot of advice from him when she was growing up and faced with feelings she didn’t understand and questions she just couldn’t answer. They’d grown apart a bit, but she still spoke with him regularly and saw him in the cabin he lived in deep in the woods.

She walked along the path, trying to hold onto the cell phone her mother had given her. If there were any more murders reported, Eighteen wanted Marron home as soon as possible, no matter where she was. Every step she took, Marron expected to hear it ring.

"I hope it pans out." She muttered to herself, speaking of how she had heard her dad mention a plan to wait at a city that Agony’s path might intersect. "We might not know how to stop her…but at least we can stop her."

Leaving crackling underfoot, Marron walked on.

Erik sat, listening, as Goten poured out the whole story of he and his late best friend’s battle with Agony. When Goten got to the part where had Trunks sacrificed himself for him, he broke down in sobs. Erik comforted him as best he could, and eventually Goten was able to continue, all the while clutching a small bag in his hands.

"I thought I’d got her with the Kamehameha. I couldn’t see her anywhere. But she tricked me, she’d flown behind me and…"

"Excuse me, did you say flown?"

Goten looked confused.

"Yeah, flown. She flew up behind me. It nearly got me killed, would have if it hadn’t been for the guitar I was holding, because she never did it before. It was just out of the blue."

"That’s because she can’t fly."

Goten stared at Erik.

"Oh yeah. Well I think your info is wrong buddy, because she was flying, and it nearly killed me."

"That is impossible. I’ve fought her dozens of times. If she could fly she would have! I threw her into a volcano, she didn’t fly out, she fell in the lava!"

"Well she was flying…"

"But how could she fly…"

Erik rose from his chair, looking at the young hybrid as he continued to sit and squeeze the bag, while trying to puzzle out this mystery.

"Where’s your father? I need to speak to him." Erik asked.

"He said he was going to Syu City. The only definate path Agony is following is that she’s going down the map in a zig-zag. We’re hoping that maybe she’ll show up in the city or near it…keep her from killing people…maybe take her measure…"

"Shit." Erik said. "Are you strong enough to give me a lift?"

"Uncle!" Marron called. "It’s your favorite niece!" she called again as she walked onto the cleared away section the path to the woods emptied out. She waited for his reply, which was always "You’re my only niece!"

But it didn’t come.

"Uncle? Uncle Seventeen?" Marron called. She came to his crops, but he wasn’t there.

"Uncle?"

Coming to his cabin, Marron circled it, but he wasn’t anywhere around it. She came around to his front door.

It was jammed.

Marron tried to open it. It wouldn’t budge.

"Uncle? Are you in there?"

No response. Marron tried the door again.

Suddenly, it burst open, and she fell into the cabin.

Marron quickly got to her feet and looked around. The cabin was deserted, neat and tidy the way her uncle liked it. It looked like he had just stepped out.

Confused, Marron looked around the cabin for a note or something, but there was nothing. Confused, Marron walked out of the cabin, shutting the door behind her.

"Where is he?" she said. Maybe he’d gone fishing, or food shopping…?

Then she felt something drip onto her head.

"UGH! Stupid birds…" Marron’s voice trailed off as she lifted her fingers up to brush the birdshit away. But she didn’t feel any sticky goo that signaled a bird had crapped in her hair. Instead she felt a sticky liquid.

She brought her fingers down to her face.

Blood.

Marron glanced up.

And then the body of Seventeen landed on her.

Marron screamed and hurridly threw the body off of her as she tried to get to her feet so fast she fell down again.

"Oh kami…oh my kami…oh Jesus…" she said in pure fear as she tried to get away. Her uncle’s mouth was locked open and his eyes, now glazed over, blazed with terrible pain. He had died screaming.

The rest of his body was a mess of broken bones and tissue. His blood was all over her, and as she finally got to her feet, she saw his chest was ripped open, the heart gone.

"Well well well."

Marron looked up at the woman now standing on the roof. Hey eyes widened even more. It was her. She knew it. The killer. Agony. And Agony had killed her uncle, one of the best fighters in the world.

"Oh kami oh kami oh kami…" she said over and over as she backed away from the horrible woman with the demon eyes, as she stared at her in pleasure of another kill. Oh god her eyes her eyes I have to get away…

"I was in the mood for a girl after all the men I’ve feasted on. And what do you know, one comes right to me." Agony said, as she lifted and took the last bite of Seventeen’s heart.

"OH GOD! HELP ME!" Marron screamed as she turned and ran for her life.

"Go ahead and run little girl. I let one soul get away. I’m not about to let another." Agony whispered, his voice as cruel and cold as an icicle.

Krillian was doing pushups while his wife spoke on the phone with Videl. There had been no sightings according to Gohan, but the day was young…

A beeping sounded on the phone itself.

"Hold on, will you Videl? I’ve got another call." Eighteen said, and pressed the button. "Hello?"

"MOM!!!!!!!!!" Marron’s voice came screaming from the phone. It was so loud Krillian could hear it across the room. He leapt to his feet as Eighteen stood up, her eyes wide with fear.

"Marron?"

"HELP ME! GOD HELP ME! SHE’S AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"

Marron’s voice cut off in a hail of static as something caused the phone to cut off.

A second later both Krillian and Eighteen were out the door and in the air, blasting with desperate fear towards the woods where their daughter had gone.

Marron didn’t know what happened. She was running along, screaming into the phone, her hand shaking so bad she was afraid she was going to drop it, when Agony suddenly materialized in front of her.

"Going somewhere?"

Marron put on the brakes so fast she fell down again. The phone flew from her sweat soaked hand. Agony reached out, caught it in mid-air, and crushed it with a crackling snap.

"Running for your life and you’re still talking on the phone. You teenagers these days." Agony mocked, smiling her twisted, lopsided grin. Marron got up and took off the opposite way, fear and adrenaline driving her to speeds she didn’t think were possible.

"Oh god oh jesus oh buhhda oh zeus oh anybody help me, help me!" Marron wheezed as she ran from Agony. She burst back into the clear area her late Uncle’s house was in, not knowing what to do or where to go but only knowing she had to get away from Agony and those eyes…

Then Agony materialized in front of her again. This time, she couldn’t stop as Agony reached out and grabbed her sweater, yanking her off her feet.

"Oh please oh please don’t hurt me don’t hurt me..." Marron stammered, her jeans suddenly obtaining a spreading damp patch in the front.

Agony smiled.

"Your fear is delicious. But your pain will be better, so…no."

Fangs grew in Agony’s mouth and Marron’s eyes opened as wide as they could as Agony brought her other hand up and transformed it into a barbed pair of scissors.

Agony licked her lips and drew back the scissors.

And then Krillian dove out out of the sky and smashed Agony with a kick, which hit her so hard it sounded like a rifle shot. Agony was hurled backwards and crashed into Seventeen’s cabin, which collapsed on her.

"Daddy." Marron squeeked as her father landed next to her as she fell to her knees. Then Eighteen landed next to her daughter.

"Mommy!" Marron cried, grabbing her mother. "It’s her…she killed Uncle Seventeen…oh god KEEP HER AWAY FROM ME!" Marron sobbed.

"Run, Marron." Krillian said in dead seriousness.

"NO! Daddy, she’s the devil himself! She’s a lunatic! She’ll kill you!"

"You heard your father, Marron. Run. We’ll distract her until you’re a safe distance." Eighteen said with the same voice. But Marron wouldn’t let go of her mother.

"There is no safe distance from her! Oh god oh god oh god!" Marron screamed as the cabin began to move.

"Marron, you can’t fly. We can. We’ll lead her around until you’re far away, then we’ll follow you." Eighteen said in her best mother assuring tone.

"You promise?" Marron asked.

"Yes, I promise. We’ll be fine. Go."

Marron took a last look at her mother and father as they stood together, and then she was running, fleeing, grateful that she could run and yet hating herself for leaving her parents.

Agony stood up from the wreckage, non-chalantly yanking a hunk of wood out of her shoulder and then pulling another hunk out of her thigh.

"One flees, and instead I get two souls. Not a bad deal." Agony smiled.

Then her smile and her face were broken by a combined punch from Krillian and Eighteen. Agony staggered back as her face began to heal, but then Krillian and Eighteen attacked again, launching a merciless assault on Agony and tag-teaming her as they kicked her all over the wooded area. They were relentless, but eventually Agony’s wounds began to heal faster and faster from their blows, and she began to laugh as they hit her each time.

They flew up into the air and let loose with a combined blast. Agony vanished in explosions.

The couple waiting, panting,

And then Eighteen screamed and suddenly clutched her shoulder as blood erupted from a wound. Agony suddenly blurred into existence above them, her hands having formed into knives again. Before Krillian could react, she dove at him, tearing a long twisting wound down his leg. He screamed and grabbed it as blood began to pour out, exploding from his shin in ten-inch squirts.

"How can she move so fast? She couldn’t before!" Krillian yelled. Eighteen grimanced.

"AH HA HA HA!" Agony laughed. "You thought your little gang up would save you? No way! Your fate is no different from the others: you’re mine, heart and so-gurrk!" she gurgled as Krillian threw a Kienzien right through her neck. Her head cut off, it started to fall off before black energy leapt up and grabbed it, sealing it back on. She looked as Krillian, laughing.

"Nice tr-ARGH!" she screamed as Eighteen smashed into her from behind. Krillian blurred into existence in front of her and kicked her straight up into the air, feeling bones snap that would mend instantly as she zapped towards the sky like a geyser.

""Krillian, NOW!" Eighteen screamed, and Krillian put his plan into action. As Agony flew into the air, and as his wife zapped above her, Krillian pointed to a good sized tree. Effortlessly, though his ki, he pulled it from the ground, stripped the branches from it, and then shot four rapid-fire Kienziens at it, sharpening one end and turning the tree into a gigantic spear. Holding the spear mentally, he flew upwards with it.

Eighteen laced her hands together and brought them down on Agony with as much force as she could, sending Agony back first into the ground.

"You dare to try and kill my daughter? No fucking way, get my POINT?" Krillain yelled and hurled the spear at Agony. She was getting up as the spear lanced right through her chest, the tree being so big it carried all her organs out the back with it as the point burst from her back and imbedded itself into the ground. Agony screamed, the huge tree pinning her.

"Let’s get out of here, honey!" Eighteen yelled, and the couple took off as Agony pulled herself together and yanked her body to the side, ripping herself right off the giant spear. As she looked at Krillian flying away, she smiled and pointed her finger at him.

Krillian stopped in mid-air, unable to move. Eighteen stopped and turned around, surprise in her eyes.

"Krillian? Come on, we have to…oh no, what’s wrong?"

"I can’t breathe!" he gasped, holding his chest. "The air…it feels like I’m trying to breathe cement! Oh kami, I CAN’T BREATHE!"

Krillian gasped as his lungs tried to take in air that seemed to grow heavier by the second as Agony, even as her organs flew back into place and her bone and muscle structure began to reform, flew up into the air.

Eighteen was panicking, as the man she loved began to turn blue from lack of air he just couldn’t seem to get in his lungs and his skin suddenly seemed to start pressing on his bones.

"STOP IT!" she screamed, turning to Agony "STOP IT RIGHT NOW!"

Agony smiled.

"Ok." She said, and snapped her fingers.

Then Krillian began to scream in horrible pain, and Eighteen turned towards him as blood erupted from his nose, mouth, and ears.

"NO!" she screamed.

"OH GOD! THE PAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!" Krillian howled as his blood literally boiled in his veins. His white eyes suddenly turned red as all the blood vessals in them exploded and he fell to the ground.

"NO!!!!!!!!!!!!" Eighteen screamed as her husband fell to the ground in a racking spasm of sheer torture. So wrapped up was he in trying to get rid of the pain he never noticed where he was falling.

His head struck a rock and Eighteen heard a sickening crunch as his neck twisted so hard the muscles ripped. His cartariod arteries were ripped open from the strain, soaking the ground with blood.

"Nooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!" Eighteen wailed as she landed and cradled her husband in her arms. Tears sprang in her eyes as she felt for a pulse. There was none.

"Krillian." She sobbed. She’s never throught that simple kiss given as a joke would have given her such happiness she had had in life, and most of it had revolved around the man she had grown to love.

"AH HA HA HA HA HA! OOPS!" Agony laughed as she landed next to Eighteen. Eighteen turned eyes full of fury and the desire for revenge on the woman as she laughed at her husband’s death.

"YOU…BITCH!"

Eighteen flew at Agony, screaming her rage, as she slammed an energy covered fist right through Agony’s chest.

And realized, as her arm suddenly went numb and she looked in horror into Agony’s soul-shredding eyes, that was exactly what Agony had wanted her to do.

Then Agony reached out and grabbed Eighteen’s head, and she screamed as something jolted her and her insides suddenly felt like they were on fire.

And then she was on fire, a horrible fire that erupted from inside her body. As her flesh fried and her organs cooked, Eight opened her mouth even as her tongue exploded from the heat and said her final word.

"Marron."

Then her brain was cooked, and her burning body fell at Agony’s feet, twitching. Agony rolled her eyes and sighed heavenly as she sucked in Eighteen’s horrendous pain from her death.

"Don’t worry about blondie. She’s next."

Marron was utterly frantic as she flew with Goten. She’s run all the way home, a good two miles, not even noticing the fact that her lungs were on fire. From there she’d found Gohan, who had been sent by Videl to check things out when her mother hadn’t come back on the line. Marron sobbed out the story, Gohan got on his phone, and within minutes the whole gang was there, even Yamcha, who was scared but not going to back down. The last one to arrive was Goten with the stranger, Erik, and they had all taken off, looking for her parents.

"They said they’d come back. They said they’d come back…" was all Marron could say, trying to keep down her fear with her mother’s promise to follow her.

They landed in the clearing where Seventeen had lived. Goku, Vegeta, Ubuu, and Yamcha all spread out, looking for any sign of Agony, while Erik went to examine Seventeen and Goten stayed with Marron, holding her as she repeated her mantra over and over.

"Oh Jesus." Erik swore when he saw Seventeen. He knelt and examined that nature of his mutilation as Gohan came up behind him, looking ill.

"What killed him?"

"From the nature of his injuries…it looks like Agony…grabbed his head and feet…and then began twisting each part in opposite directions…" Erik said, sickened. Realizing that Agony had killed Seventeen by grabbing him with energy and then wringing him out like a dishtowel, Gohan promptly threw up again. Erik was thankful he had enough sense to turn away to do it.

"HEY!" Came Yamcha’s voice. "OVER HERE!"

Goku was the first to arrive at the horrible scene. He saw it and froze.

"Oh no……"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Marron sobbed, suddenly breaking past him. She fell to her knees between her dead father and mother and cradled the body of her father in her hands. More blood got on her, mixing with her uncle’s, but she didn’t care.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! PAPA! MAMA! PAPA! MAMA!" Marron sobbed, as if her cries could somehow bring them back to life. One by one, the Z fighters arrived, gaping at the horrible sight. Goten looked the worst, but he immediately went to Marron’s side and held her, and she turned into his shoulder to sob.

"They said they’d come back! THEY SAID THEY’D COME BACK!" Marron cried, and then broke down and could only wail. Goten held her, feeling her tears soak his shirt and swearing that what Vegeta was going to do when he got his hands on Agony was nothing compared to what he was going to do.

"She is a monster." Vegeta said solemnly. The fresh deaths brought back horrible memories of his son and daughter and he bit down on his tongue to repress the pain. His pain swiftly mingled with the rage that he had just missed her.

"WHY DIDN’T THEY RUN? WHY!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!??!" Marron wailed.

"Because child, no one escapes from Agony unless she wants them too. No one." Erik whispered to himself.. He lowered his head and let his rage build at the woman who had no right to live.

There was a sudden crackling, and everyone looked up as Goku screamed and exploded straight into SSJ3. He was so mad he was able to skip the first two stages altogether.

"FIRST TIEN, THEN TRUNKS, AND NOW KRILLIAN! NO MORE! YOU’RE DEAD, AGONY! DO YOU HEAR ME! YOU’RE DEAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Goku roared.

His scream echoed throughout the forest, mixing with Marron’s sobs.

"How did they die?" Gohan asked. At Erik’s request, they’d taken the bodies to Capsole Corp, where Erik had examined them. Only Gohan and Goku remained. Yamcha was off somewhere else, Goten was trying to comfort his hysterical Marron, who hadn’t stopped crying for hours, and Vegeta was visiting Bulma, although there had been no change in her condition.

Erik looked haunted, a terrible look for someone as strong as he was.

"As far as I can tell…Krillian died from a broken neck. But what’s worse is that his body shows that even if he hadn’t…he would have died of "the bends"."

"The what?" Goku said, looking confused.

"The bends, Dad, is a condition that divers can get if they rise to the surface too rapidly. You see, there’s a certain amount of air pressure that’s always pressing on you, but your body is built so it doesn’t affect you. But if you do certain things, like, go deep underwater, the pressure on you begins to increase. If you do something while under the increased air pressure that causes the pressure to rapidly decrease, part of your chemicals in your blood and body tissues forms into a gas and starts to…bubble." Gohan said as a sick feeling came into his stomach. Goku looked like he had trouble understanding, but apparently he got the general gist.

"What can this bubbles do?"

"They damage tissues. The worse the air pressure, the more violent the bubbles…" Erik said, shaking his head. "Krillian’s body was an utter mess inside."

"But that’s impossible! Krillian was nowhere near any body of water! He couldn’t have been exposed to high pressure…unless…" Gohan said in horror.

"Unless Agony somehow willed the pressure around him to increase." Erik concluded

Goku got it now and his face went pure white again.

"So Agony…" he began. Not wanting to believe that this could happen, no wanting to believe that someone could actually do this.

"Agony somehow increased the air pressure around Krillian to something like a hundred times normal. It must have been like trying to breathe tar. But that wasn’t her torture. It was suddenly dispelling the pressure instantly. Krillian’s own blood reacted so violently it tore his own body to shreds from the inside. If he hadn’t broken his neck, his heart would have exploded, it would have been so bad. But I can’t check the condition of his heart. Agony took it."

Goku sat down with a thump.

"How can someone be so…" Goku said. His mind was gone, his inability to understand or grasp the depth of Agony’s insanity or evil completely overwhelming him.

The door opened, and Goten walked in.

"Marron cried herself to sleep, finally. Oh god, I feel so bad…" Goten said. "What happened to them?"

Erik repeated the Krillian situation. Goten turned a simular shade of white his father sported as he listened.

"And Eighteen?"

"You didn’t tell me she was an andriod. But Agony knew. I don’t know how. And she zapped Eighteen with an EMP."

Gohan instantly understood and turned green at the realization. Goten took longer but when it came to him it came to him hard.

"OH GOD!" he said. "THAT FUCKING BITCH!"

Goten reared back and left a dent in the metal wall with his fist.

"What’s an EMP?" Goku asked.

"Electromagnetic pulse. It’s an invisible wave that knocks out anything electrical it touches. Actually, causes anything electrical to violently destroy itself would be more accurrate. Since Eighteen was an andriod…"

"…Agony fried her from the inside with her own systems. Oh dear Kami…" Gohan shuddered, trying to imagine how horrible it must have been for Eighteen, her own systems lighting her body on fire from inside her as they went up in flames themselves. No wonder her body had been so badly burnt.

"But how could she do that? EMP’s are usually only produced when nuclear bombs go off. Even if she could generate one with her ability, those things spread out for miles and knock everything out! There’s been no reporting of any power outages at all!" Goten said.

"Unless Agony somehow just willed one into existence through her power that would just kill Eighteen." Goku said quietly in a rare burst of intelligence.

"No! She couldn’t do that! She couldn’t do that any more then she could increase the air pressure around just one single thing! It’s impossible, even for her! She can’t defy the laws of physics!" Erik said in a torrent.

"Well, the writing is on the wall, or more precisely, the bodies are in the morgue! If she can morph her body parts into weapons, why can’t she do what killed our friends? Do you really know the scope of her abilities, Erik?" Gohan argued. All the death as starting to get to him, and tempers were starting to flare.

"Yes! I know her better then anyone! Her abilities are terrible, but they are limited!" Erik retorted

"Well, she appears to have scaled back those limits somehow!" Goten said.

"How?"

"Maybe she figured out how to use ki." Goku suggested, still sitting on the floor.

"Nuh uh. Ki would never serve such a corrupt soul. Even it has its limits! Agony makes Freiza look like an angel!" Goten said.

"Unless…"

And then the puzzle pieces began to fall together, and a great fear filled Erik’s heart.

"Goku, you claim you can speak with the god of this world, right?"

"You mean Dende? Yeah, I can just contact Kaiou-sama and speak to Dende through him. Why?"

"Call him. But before you do, I need to know something. What kind of force is ki?"

"Ki? It’s a life force. It’s part of the whole structure of living things." Goku replied. "Why?"

"I don’t know. Call Dende, I need to speak with Marron!"

"What? No! She just fell asleep!" Goten protested. But Erik was already out the door, and Goten chased after him, protesting that if he was gonna wake Marron up Erik should at least speak to her through him.

Some time later, Erik returned with Goten, looking even more ill.

"What’s wrong?"

"Nothing. Do you have him?"

"Yes. He wants to know what you want."

"Ask him how Krillian and Eighteen’s souls are doing."

"Oh, you wouldn’t want Dende, you’d want Emma. But Dende can speak with him. Just a second." Goku said. A conversation took place inside his head.

"Ok, Dende has spoken to Emma. Emma says…."

Then Goku heard the message, and his face fell.

"Emma says he hasn’t seen Krillian OR Eighteen. And he’s seen Krillian twice, he says he would recognize him if he saw him."

The sick feeling in Erik’s heart reached an all time high as his terrible theory looked to be coming true.

"Ask him about the other souls of the mass murdering sprees, including Trunks and co, how they’re doing." Erik said.

Goku relayed it and listened. His face went into shock.

"He says there haven’t been souls from a mass murder spreed. He hasn’t seen Trunks, or Tien, or anybody Agony has killed. He doesn’t know anything about a mass murderer killing a bunch of people and he says that if that many souls showed up sent by one person, he’d know…"

Erik fell into a chair behind him, his eyes wide and horrified.

"Dear god."

"What?" Goku said, breaking off his communication.

"It’s true. I didn’t want to believe it, but it’s true."

"What’s true?" Gohan asked.

"She’s taunted me with it for a long time, but I wouldn’t believe her. Agony said that she could steal souls…"

"WHAT!?!??!?!?!?!?" Goku yelled.

"It’s true. She taunted Marron about it, and Marron also heard her taunt her parents about it as she ran away. And if their souls, or any of the others haven’t come to Emma’s, then that means…"

"…She imprisoned them in HERSELF? HOW CAN SHE DO THAT?" Goku said.

"It’s worse then that, Goku. You say ki is a life force. Well, what is the strongest part of life in a person?"

Goku was stunned silent again.

"The…soul."

"Yes. And if ki is a life force, that means that the ki must be linked to the soul. And that means that Agony didn’t just take their lives, she took their kis as well."

Goten stared in horror. That’s why Agony didn’t fly before. She couldn’t…UNTIL SHE STOLE THE ABILITY FROM TRUNKS!

The whole process was barreling out of control in Goku’s mind. He didn’t want Erik to say the next words, didn’t want to hear them, didn’t want to accept it, it was just so wrong.

"Which means that Agony has absorbed the powers of everyone she’s killed. And used that power to scale back the limitations what she can do. She’s now even stronger then the last time I fought her, and if she keeps killing people…people with such power…like you and your families…"

Erik lowered his head.

"Then God help us all."

Goku’s next words were a mere squeek.

"But besides us, who else had that much power that she can kill?"

Far away, Agony ripped the heart from the chest of a giant Indian, of all people, she had found camping with another man and woman, apparently man and wife, at the foot of a strange structure. They’d died easily, and been quite tasty. Agony sealed away their souls for eternal torture along with Krillian’s, Eighteen’s and Seventeen’s.

Munching on Bora’s heart, Agony looked at the structure, a strange pole that seemingly went on forever into the sky.

Karin Tower.

"Well, what have we here?"

And back at the Capsole Corperation, the realization hit Son Goku like a bolt of lighting.

"DENDE!"