1333/AWftF: The Second Dragon Ball

AWftF: The Second Dragon Ball
Date of Scene:	14 January 2015
Location:	WMAT Arena - Gizard Wasteland
Synopsis:	The second Dragon Ball is found in the nest of a pterosaur family. Terrible Dactyl has a clever plan for retrieving it -- but not everything can go as planned...
Cast of Characters:	37, 38, 83, 114, 140, 385, 486, 546, Lezard Valeth, 663, 674
Tinyplot:	A Wish for the Future

---

Serori (37) has posed:
Let's keep this short.

It's a canyon. There's stone spires sprouting up in all directions. The wind is high and dry and sandy, and the stone ranges in hue from pale gold to burnt orange, colors layered on top of one another in a flowing geological pattern. It's beautiful, except for one thing -- it's full of goddamn dinosaurs. That's right, this place is the major hunting ground for a number of dinosaurs, from the giant t-rex-looking-guys to the more dragon-looking guys to the great big giant-winged pterasaurs.

It's two of these the camera zooms on today. Waaaay at the top of one of those biiig stony spires has been set a cartoonish-looking mess of a nest. In the nest is an unknown number of baby pterasaurs, but they can't be seen right now, because the two pterasaurs we'll focus on are snuggled into the nest like a pair of lovebirds. One's red, and one's blue, and then red one almost looks like it has eyelashes, so it's probably the mom.

Their bodies take up the entirety of the nest. Not a single speck of what's inside can be seen.

NOT TOO FAR AWAY, Serori's hanging out on a flat plateau, glaring at the nest through a pair of binoculars. The Confederates in the area would be standing around this place waiting to take action, except perhaps for Genghis Rex's team, who'd be off to excute Terrible Dactyl's.../plan/.

That a Confederate ship is in the area is hard to miss! Union scouts are all over that. Serori's agitated enough that her energy signature can probably be sensed by anyone looking for it, too. Even if you can't sense energy, though, you've got that report to hook you to this location.

There's gotta be a Dragon Ball here somewhere...

TODAY'S FORECAST: Clear blue skies and warm sunshine at right around eighty-five degrees fahrenheit.

Raditz (486) has posed:
    Raditz was never able to figure out when and where Serori was going to snag that first Dragon Ball, and he had been quite annoyed at the fact that it was already grabbed. He'd been keeping his senses reaching out for her ever since, and he wasn't going to slip up this time.

    So when he picked up on Serori's energy, her smirked a bit, and tilts his head to pop his neck joints some. "Heh. Here we go again... Haaaaaaaaaaaaa!" He begins gathering his own energy, powering up briefly before his hair flashes gold, and he grins before rocketing into flight, making a bee-line for Serori.

    "Heh, so many dinosaurs... Gonna have to catch one for dinner later."

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
This time yesterday, Yuna was on planet Ruliezes, finding out why Ryudia hadn't wanted to try training her in combat. The lesson was not a pleasant one - Yuna's added another difficult question to her list to wrestle with, and it's still weighing on her mind as she and Elner approach the canyon.

The sight of the Confederate ship prompts Yuna, as grateful as ever for her Flight Form armor, to dive *into* the canyon, hoping to avoid being spotted by either the ship or by Serori herself. Elner is depending more on its tiny size to go unnoticed ... but the little robo-faerie does take the precaution of flitting under an overhanging ledge. The rock shouldn't be too much of a barricade to Elner's sensors, though, and it's busy sifting through the incoming data, picking out energy signatures and other signs of life and/or activity, matching them up where possible with radio traffic from the other Unionites - or any Confederates who are inclined to make themselves known besides Serori herself.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard Valeth is present and waiting beside Serori with an expression of mild impatience on his face. "I do hope that these... beings... see the light of reason and move out of the way. Should they continue to delay us much longer, I would recommend simply destroying them."

As it stands, he turns away from the nest and lets the Plan go to work, idly standing around and watching the air.

And then he pauses, noting the arrival of Radits. "Miss Serori, it appears that we have company already." He gestures towards the approaching Raditz. Not that she needs it, but who is he to assume?

"Be away, foolish heroes." He calls, withdrawing a ruby-topped scepter. "Continue to interfere and you will face death and worse."

Genghis Rex (114) has posed:
Terrible Dactyl floats and alights on the plateau near Serori. He eyes her coldly and nods.

"If we are in agreement to my terms of no harm coming to this pterosaur family, then I shall explain how we will retrieve your 'Dragon Thingy.'"

He pulls off his goggles and mask and begins explaining, "Members of the pterosaur family have deep rooted maternal and paternal instincts. So much so that other flying egg laying animals will deposit their eggs in a pterosaur nest, which the pterosaurs will often raise as their own."

"However, do not mistake this as a lack of intelligence. While a mated pair will accept and raise outsiders, they are extremely protective of their nest. The male and female will take turns patrolling the area, scanning for food and potential threats, while the other will stay at the nest and look after the young"

Terrible Dactyl pulls off his scarf and coat.

"THey likely have mistaken the object of your desire as one of their eggs."

He pulls off his pants, "Fortunately for you, these pterosaurs are giants ones and I'm roughly the size of one of their young. All I need is for the patrolling parent to be distracted, while I infiltrate the nest and collect the Dragon Ball."

"I can pretend to be a hatchling if the remaining parent notices me."

Terrible Dactyl is ... naked.

Ryuko Matoi (140) has posed:
    Considering how potentially important the thing Ryuko scouted out, last time, might be? No way she's passing this up. Not like she hasn't thought about fighting Serori, either. The decision, for her, is an easy one. Not like she doesn't have an ace up her sleeve, either. One she's been holding onto, since the end of the WMAT. She's not rolling solo, either. She has Senketsu, of course, but her Abstractum, too.

Scissor blade in one hand, the bright red-and-white electric guitar in the other. She's holding the instrument by the neck, like a club. And, for now she's on foot, down at the bottom of the canyon, where she's a little less likely to be spotted. And, well.. she does have a plan, believe it or not.

Dracula Vlad Tepes (83) has posed:
    Sunshine. The bane of vampires everywhere, and Dracula Vlad Tepes, despite all his power, certainly isn't immune to it. Fortunately, he has several minions at his beck and call who can handle these sorts of situations in his stead. Whether they're any /good/ is yet to be seen.

    Two such minions today are Slogra and Gaibon, a pair of demons of imposing stature and build. Slogra is some sort of emaciated lizard-beast, standing a good twelve feet tall with a humanoid form, slick grey skin, a thick, lashing tail, and a long, spindly neck supporting a head resembling the skull of a long-beaked bird. In his hands he holds a spear easily as long as he is tall, the head branching off with two curving blades flanking the central point. Gaibon, meanwhile, is nearly the opposite: a lumbering blue mass of rock-hard muscle, he stands a little shorter than Slogra in his stubby-legged squat. In place of arms, he has broad, slim wings, and the head perched on his short neck is that of a bestial demon with two forward-curving horns.

    "So," Slogra croaks, staring off at the pterosaurs, "remind me why we don't just, you know, fly up there, stab them, and take the ball we w-"

    Terrible Dactyl answers that question very quickly, and somehow, both Slogra's and Gaibon's faces twist into expressions of pure, unrestrained horror. Fortunately, there's a distraction coming up.

    The golden streak rushing toward them is impossible to miss, even for these two. Slogra immediately braces, lifting his spear in a combat-ready posture, while Gaibon turns to face Raditz's approach with wings spread, ready to take off and blast fireballs if needed. "'Course they'd show up," Gaibon grumbles. "They always show up. Hey, birdbrain, try blinding them so they crash land!" He's probably talking to Dactyl there.

Eighteen (674) has posed:
Some people are completely incapable of stealth. They power up and go charging towards the enemy without any thought for tactics or planning. Sometimes that is actually a good move! Because it gives those who ARE capable of stealth the means to get in close, possibly undetected. So it is that a certain blonde woman is dashing along, utilizing the cover that is the local terrain to alternate running and short bursts of flight to try to sneak into position. She has no energy signature to detect. She is also dressed exactly like the Eighteen who serves Vegeta. But she is not that Eighteen. She is a cyborg from years in the future, after she switched sides.

And yet her cold, ice-blue eyes remain just as sharp as ever. She did some research on the other Eighteen, though there wasn't much information to examine. She at least got a visual record of her clothing, and descriptions of behavior from those who encountered her in the past. And Eighteen knows what she used to be like all too well. Pretending to be herself?

Easy, right?

She just hopes she won't be spotted, however, and be forced to 'prove' who she is. Because though the Confederacy has no idea there's another Eighteen unified yet, this ruse is only going to work once. Better not to waste it if she doesn't have to.

Genghis Rex (114) has posed:
Terrible Dactyl drums his fingers on his jaw, "Where is that moronodon?"

He picks up the radio attached to his jacket, "Quackpot! WHere are you!?"

Quackpot quacks, "I'm coming! *QUACK* It isn't quite dry yet!"

Terrible Dactyl frowns, "Not optimal, but it will have to do."

A duck shapes spaceship shows up, from its cargo hold drops a ... giant paper mache egg.

Terrible Dactyl nods and says with a flourish, "Confederates, I give you the vessel of my delivery!"

The egg sets down and Dactyl opens it and steps inside, "One of you will need to drop me off in the nest."

Quackpot radios, "It'd have been nicer if you'd given me more time! QUACK!"

Dactyl touches the egg and ficks his hand a bit, "Egh ... I'm going to be scraping paper mache and paste off my scales for the next two weeks"

Noble Six (38) has posed:
    So really Noble Six has no idea what a Dragon Ball is. But she knows that if Serori and the Confederates want it, then she has to make sure they don't get it. She can't fly herself, save short distances with a jetpack, so she has opted to bring something with a little bit more firepower to the table.

    The Pelican Gunship crosses a mountain on the horizon and drops low to the deck. The olive drab vehicle might very well blend in with it's surroundings, depending on the angle someone is looking at it from. Six is actually not at the controls, and is instead in the back, surrounded by weapon crates of various sizes and shapes. She's waiting until the pilot gives her the green light to leave the dropship, once the Confederates have been located and engaged, that's when she'll deploy.

Genghis Rex (114) has posed:
Terrible Dactyl slips down into the 'egg' and seals it up. It's up to y'all now.

Serori (37) has posed:
First things first -- let's get up to the enemy's level. Serori senses Raditz coming in hot and fast, and she knows what his power signature /means/. He's gone Super Saiyan already! Planting her feet on the plateau, she quickly powers up to match him, her black hair shifting into vibrant gold and her power signature skyrocketing to obscene levels. Well, obscene by Earthly standards, anyway. It's not like Mister Satan can hope to compare...

She takes to the air, and awaits Raditz's arrival, prepared to distract him the instant he appears. As soon as he shows his face, he'll have a stream of energy blasts headed his way!

Dracula Vlad Tepes (83) has posed:
    Well, there are people approaching, but Slogra and Gaibon have to default to the orders of the one really in charge here. That person currently being Serori, who's ordered them to go start distracting the hapless lovebirds in their nest. They both turn to her, then simultaneously nod with determination and gusto. "Right!"

    They both know what to do already. Gaibon flies up, then grabs Slogra's shoulders in his talons. For his size, the bird-lizard is awfully light, and Gaibon takes off only a moment later toward the pterosaurs.

    Their attempted distraction starts only a few feet out from the pillar they took off from. Slogra starts shouting at the top of his lungs, cawing such heckling statements as "GO GET A ROOM" and "YOUR KIDS ARE UGLIER THAN YOU ARE" and "YOUR MOTHERS WERE PARAKEETS". As mortally wounding as Slogra's words are, Gaibon's efforts are slightly more direct. Head lifted as he flies away from the Confederate party pillar, he belches fireballs into the air, aiming them close enough to the pterosaurs for them to be threatening, but far enough away that there's no chance of them accidentally setting the nest on fire or something. They're not /that/ incompetent, after all.

Genghis Rex (114) has posed:
Quackpot hangs out nearby, watching the proceedings, frequently looking at the egg like it's a fragile master work of art, "I really wish I'd had more time to work on it *quack*, it could have been so much better."

Nox (546) has posed:
    Having been at the site of the last dragonball recovery, Nox seems to be making a habit of showing up to these operations. For whatever mysterious reason, he has gone out of his way to help Serori with something that doesn't directly benefit him, at significant personal risk and expense of energy. Though Terrible Dactyl's . . . 'plan', actually seems like a safe bet to grab the dragonball and leave without causing any kind of scene whatsoever, it seemed likely that someone would stick their meddling nose in here if only because there had failed to be any interference last time.

    Nox remains a significant ways up in the air, where he can look down on the spire housing the two pterosaurs in everyone's sights; visually linked to a small number of noxines scattered around the canyon in various nooks and crannies where they likely won't be noticed, but can still look out for intruders.

Raditz (486) has posed:
    Raditz growls a bit as he senses the Confederate presenses making themselves known, particularly that of Lezard, whom he hears the usual, 'Interfere and die' warning business, at which the Saiyan just can't help but groan in annoyance. "Are you freaking kidding me..? I don't have time for this.."

    Then comes Serori's attempt at pre-emptive striking him. Well, that's always fun. Raditz growls as he considers his thoughts, before just continuing his flight, not altering his course except a little. Raditz maintains his flight speed and shifts his trajectory just a tiny bit...

    In so doing, Raditz finds himself pounded into by the energy blasts, but he doesn't stop. Not yet. Not until he spins about and sweeps his leg around in order to smash his boot right into Lezard's face. His goal is two-fold. One: Send Lezard flying into a mountainside or something. Two: Use him as a speed-brake so that he can pointedly focus on Serori.

    Having already tanked some of Serori's shots, he's certainly sore, but he hasn't even begun, as he grins and greets, "Keep an eye on the birdy, will you?" With that, he charges up a suffiently big ball of purply energy and flings it at Serori.

Serori (37) has posed:
Both the blue and red pterosaur pick up their heads at the first sign of trouble. Slogra's YELLING inspires the blue pterosaur to get an angry look on his face (down to a beaky scowl), and for the red pterosaur to SCREEEEEECH. The red pterosaur looks to her mate, and makes a few frantic gestures at Slogra and Gaibon; then, in response, the blue pterosaur unfurls his wings with a concussive SNAP, and takes to the air to chase after Slogra.

Red, meanwhile, hunkers down in the nest, taking up a defensive, bristling pose. She squawks after Blue, who starts snapping after Slogra and Gaibon.

Eighteen (674) has posed:
The sound of Ki blasts in the distance, and the illumination of both those and fireballs, indicate clearly where the action is taking place. Which is good, because - aside from those scout reports - Eighteen has no real way of finding the Confederates otherwise. She can't sense energy, just as others can't sense hers. As she runs along the bottom of the canyon, closing the distance, she may or may not be spotted by Nox's noxines, depending on where they are pointed. Or perhaps Nox, looking down from above, might see her instead. Or maybe, since she is using the terrain as cover, and specifically trying not to be spotted by ducking behind the stone pillars and keeping the canyon walls between her and others in the area whenever possible, she might go unnoticed entirely.

Who's to say? But she is likely pretty close now. And considering options. It seems Serori has already been engaged by Raditz - or vice versa. Ambushing her while she's distracted is an option - but a poor one. Eighteen is more interested in finding out why the Confederates are here. The idea of it being a Dragon Ball has already been proposed, but WHERE the Dragon Ball is located is the bigger concern. What are the Confederates defending? Are they trying to draw attention and opposition away from any particular location?

Eighteen's eyes scan for such indicators, as well as keeping a watch on anyone who might be in a position to see her in turn.

Noble Six (38) has posed:
    The aircraft in question pulls in low, near the base of the mountain where the pteradactyls are, and the back hatch opens. Once it slides open, Noble Six kicks two weapon crates out of the back and then jumps, jetpack slowing her decent as the ship takes off, flying high up and hanging out on the edge of the battlefield.

    Once safely on the ground, Six begins setting up the equipment she brought in those crates. She's not engaging any targets yet, which means she might not have spotted anyone. Or more likely, she has something in mind and needs to finish the setup on it first.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
There's a saying in the Fraulein Sector - the part of the Multiverse where Yuna's Earth is, among other planets - to the effect of 'Words are a maiden's weapons.'

It's a saying which has proven both true and useful in Yuna's experience; a well-chosen insult can be almost as debilitating as a punch in the gut or a beam-shot to the anything. And it's considerably easier to heal from, to boot ... well, usually. But if you're trying to take the fight out of somebody without leaving permanent marks, words can be very useful.

Which is probably why Slogra's yelling at the pterodactyl pair gets her attention - as if the size and bulk of those demons hadn't already earned her notice. Insults and fireballs being launched at the pterodactyls bring the battlesuited blonde out of hiding, and she flits up behind Slogra specifically.

"I don't know where you learned to throw insults, but you didn't get your money's worth out of the classes," she calls out to Slogra. "You should go back and ask for a refund - or did they give you your diploma just to get you out of the classroom?"

Genghis Rex (114) has posed:
A massive Tyranno spacecruiser, with an equally massive foot roars into the area. It comes to a halt near the plateau, and a gigantic sauropod leaps from its canopy. He glances around at the nonsense going on around him "Heh, I can dig it."

Terrible Dactyl says in a muffled tone from inside his hiding place, "Brachio? Is that you?"

Brachio picks up the egg, rather roughly, "Yeah. Just hold tight."

Quackpot screams, "QUACK! NO! THat's not how you do iittttttttttttttt!"

Dactyl, "Umm, Brachio, what ARE you doing?"

Brachio hoists the egg over his head and lines up his shot with the nest, "He shoots!"

With that, the Titanic Tyranno launches the egg into the air, toward the nest, as if trying to sink a basket!

Quackpot and Dactyl in unison, "AIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!"

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Raditz comes in swinging, but Lezard is already in motion. A purplr portal opens before him as Raditz begins to move. The boot of Raditz crunches not into Lezard, but a minor undead, who is obliterated from the strike. Midgard is not prepared for Saiyans on their low end undead.

However, that's okay. Lezard believes in ablative minions. There is a sudden surge of Power around him that might resemble one of the Saiyans themselves charging up. "You may live to regret that." He states simply. He holds out the scepter, and calls out, "MYSTIC CROSS!" A barrage of gleaming lights surge forward, tiny fragments of divine power swarming out towards Raditz. Like most magic, it tries to home in on him.

But that's not the end of it. "You have the misfortune of catching me in a bad mood today, Saiyan." Lezard says. "I would apologize, but to be honest, I will take pleasure in dragging your corpse home for study."

It's at this time that the light around them seems to dim as the power arouns Lezard grows to phenomenal levels, a massive magical circle expanding beneath him. The clothing around him ripples and waves, but nothing seems to happen as he incants. The air begins to fill with... feathers? Bright and gleaming, the wind seems to gather them all up, sending them high.

"YE MUST DESIRE RESPITE FROM THY EMPTY EXISTENCE!"

The feathers begin to gather, combining into bursts of brilliant white-gold energy.

"THOU SHALT HAVE IT! CELESTIAL STAR!"

The energy beams come striking downwards, shearing through the air towards Raditz in a bombardment of holy power. The ruby tip of the scepter detonates as he channels the power, the barrage lasting for a short time before ending.

Dracula Vlad Tepes (83) has posed:
    Slogra is abruptly distracted from his hurling insults by Yuna's sudden appearance behind him. The strange demon cranes his lanky neck around to peer at her, a sort of frown apparent on his beaked face. "I will have you know, I'm the /best/ insulter in Hell! And you know what? You're-"

    Gaibon suddenly interrupts, his own fireballs halted. "Uh...Slogra?"

    "No, hold on, I got a good one," Slogra snaps up at the gargoyle before looking back at Yuna. "You're a fine one to talk, 'cause I didn't-"

    "Slogra!"

    "Shut up, this is going to be good! I didn't know badly-dressed showgirls were enlisted in the Union-"

    "SLOGRAAAAA!"

    The lizard demon finally gives an intensely annoyed croak and looks back in the direction Gaibon is still facing, just in time for his vision to be filled by the sight of an angry blue pterosaur. "Oh come on, man, /what is it/ - OH GOD WHAT ARE YOU DOING, /FLY YOU FOOL/!"

    Gaibon wheels around swiftly as both he and Slogra scream in terrified unison, just barely missing the snap of the pterosaur's beak as they barrel on past Yuna...with said pterosaur hot on their tails.

Serori (37) has posed:
Hey now, that blue pterosaur's not about to miss everything else happening in the area! Convinced Slogra and Gaibon have been driven off, it wheels around to see what else is up...only to see his mate, the red pterosaur, making frantic calls and gestures at the egg flying through the air. Big sweat drops are running down her head, and it looks like she's about to burst into tears! The poor, frantic thing stretches out her red wings, and makes grabby-hands with her wing-claws in the egg's direction.

Behind and around her, two baby pterosaurs poke up their heads. A third egg can be glimpsed, and a flash of orange glinting in the sunlight...

Ryuko Matoi (140) has posed:
    Ryuko's made her way to the base of the canyon, and once she's there? It's party time. Raditz is being a nuisance, which is totally fine. This might not work, if he wasn't. Hell, she's been really sneaky, about this. The payoff might totally be worth it, though.

"Ready?" Ryuko asks. <<Naturally. I've been wanting to try this, for real.>> Ryuko just smiles, nodding, and traces her lips with her tongue a bit.

"SENKETSU SHIPPU!!"

With that, the Kamui's form shifts, taking on an appearance that makes it look like some sort of jet fighter. And boy, it's about as fast as one. With exhaust wash pouring out of the huge skirt, that takes up all of Ryuko's legs, as well as the oversized fins coming out of her shoulders, a streak of red and black and bright pinkish-neon-red goes up the side of the canyon and straight at Serori, what with her pal the wizard being occupied.

Eighteen (674) has posed:
A gigantic spaceship of some kind!? Crewed by... Dinosaurs!? ...Okay, neither of those things is really THAT unusual on this planet, though the combination of the two is pretty unique thus far. But it's still a highly noticeable vessel, and it's that which Eighteen starts abandoning her cover for - though she doesn't just rush out all at once. She floats up out of the canyon, engaging her equivalent of the flying technique to ascend while still sticking close to the multi-hued walls. She has had to make several detours on her route thus far to avoid running into any of the many dinosaurs that inhabit the area, but she has more or less a straight shot now.

Speaking of shots, Brachio just made one. And it seems to be not quite the intended delivery method for the strange screaming egg. Or is the egg screaming? SOMEONE is yelling in dismay. Eighteen has outgrown a lot of her impulsiveness, but sometimes an idea just comes to her and she has to act upon it. Especially when it's so delicously convenient.

As the papier mache egg goes sailing through the air, it suddenly comes to a - rather gentle, all things considered - halt, as someone apparently catches it. And just like that, Eighteen is there, holding the egg like it weighs nothing. "Hey," she offers to whoever or whatever is inside the egg (she's pretty sure she heard someone yelling within) with amusement in her voice. "I'm guessing you'd like a less bumpy landing?" She glances in the direction of the pterosaur nest, easily putting 2 and 2 together and figuring out that's probably where the 'egg' is supposed to go. But she has to play this right.

"Let the Colonel know my radio's busted, by the way." she tacks on casually. That should provide some small amount of credibility if people start wondering why she isn't talking on Confederate frequencies.

Serori (37) has posed:
Serori whirls around in a golden flash to follow Raditz's trajectory. He has to shoot past her to strike at Valeth, and this leaves him open to her energy barrage -- a very satisfying result! Tinged by the slight echo characteristic of the Super Saiyan transformation, Serori's laughter chases after Raditz, up until the moment he quickfires his Birdy attack in retaliation.

"Predictable!" she chides him, but it's not much more than a tease. Serori musters her own energy blast in return -- opting to fight fire with fire -- and unleashes a broad yellow cannon on an intercept course for Raditz's purple beam. The resulting explosion shakes the surrounding canyon to the core. It quickly washes back to consume Serori in bright light.

She emerges on the other side trailing smoke...

...and collides right into Ryuko. BONK.

Rubbing at the side of her head and wincing in pain, Serori recoils to figure out what the hell's just hurt her. "What the -- eeeh? Matoi?!"

When did that girl learn how to fly?!

Serori grumbles and shoots off after Ryuko, determined to chase her off, too. "Mind your own business!"

Raditz (486) has posed:
    In all fairness to Raditz, he wanted to get on with getting information from Serori about the Dragon Balls as soon as possible. So he was about ready to continue his focus, after having kicked the undead out of exhistence with a single booting that it takes the sudden gathering of energy from elsewhere to get his attention again.

    Raditz blinks a bit, "Wait, what..?" Before he looks up and spots the beams from the heavens glowing, and he can't help but say, "Huh..."

    A moment later, the Saiyan finds himself smack dab in the center of a gigantic magical laser barrage from the sky, which would almost end as soon as it began, and when the smoke clears, Raditz is laying in a crater. It's almost like he's dead, as he doesn't move for several long moments.

    "You're right... I regret that."

    With that comment from his spot in the crater, Raditz gathers energy which blasts away the dust around him, before shunting himself up into the air and flips back over to the edge of the crater to put him at a standing level. "I regret ignoring you, because now you're going to be annoying. I gotta pull out the stops with you, huh? Fun."

    With one last smirk, Raditz shifts his stance and begins gathering energy once more. Not just gathering for another strike, since all sensors in the area read that the amount of energy he's going for is off the charts, except for those charts that are made to record that high. "HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!" He roars out, the aura of energy eminating from him pushing all the dust and starting to strain the mountain-sides nearby, as cracks begin to appear.

    He continues to gather energy for a good several seconds before roaring and releasing another shockwave around him, as he shifts to another level, going Super Saiyan level 2.

    With that, Raditz glares Lezard down, and says, "Don't make any promises about killing me that you can't keep." And with that, he rushes into super fast movement to close the distance between himself and Lezard damn near instantly, and proceeds to swing his arm out to chop at the back of the wizard's head.

Genghis Rex (114) has posed:
From within the egg Terrible Dactyl attempts to regain his composure.

"Uhhmmm, yes? Hello? By the great egg, thank you for catching me. That ruffian nearly ruined everything! Please put me in the nest! I'm sorry, I don't have a radio ..."

On the ground, Brachio FROWNS, "EY! That's travelling and anyone'll tell you travelling is bullshit!"

The Sauropod reaches into his space cruiser, apparently having forgotten that this is a mission, not a Basketball game, and pulls out a Tyranno rifle, "I'ma hafta foul you!"

The titanic dinosaur takes careful aim at Eighteen.

Quackpot screams frantically over his radio, "Brachio stoppiiiiiiiittttttt! QUACK Eighteen is on OUR side!"

Brachio hrumphs, "I didn't ask for no rebound!"

Grudgingly, Brachio holds his fire ... for now, "Put it in d'a nest, you Jabroni!"

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
That's the problem with falling back on verbal combat: your opponent might aim as low as she - or in this case, *he* - can think of. And for all Yuna's not-quite-feigned amusement, folding her arms and smiling as Slogra tries to get his insult out ...

When he actually *DOES* get it out?

Her smile vanishes like it was never there, a dark flush of red creeping up from her collar as she clenches her fists. "Badly-dressed ..." Yyyyyyyyyeah, that left a mark. The sight of the two demons being chased away by one of the pterodactyls they were beleaguering does bring a slight quirk to her lips; on the other hand, there's still quite a bit of trouble going on around the nest itself. Like that egg, which looks like it must have been pretty uncomfortable for the mother to lay ...

Still a bit flustered, Yuna flits closer to the nest, holding her hands up (empty) as she approaches the ptera-parents, half-noticing Eighteen catching the egg. "Ah ... hi?" she greets them. "I don't mean any harm to your nest or your kids; I just wanted to make sure you all are okay and that the Confederates don't make any more trouble for you."

Somewhere, Elner is wishing for hands so it could properly facepalm.

Serori (37) has posed:
And here comes Daddy, right at Eighteen. Soon as she gets her hands on that egg, Blue's focus shifts, and, with an angry SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, Blue comes diving at Eighteen from above! His claws are outstretched to rake her, and his massive wings are ready to blast her upside the head!

Nox (546) has posed:
    After catching sight of the pelican, it's a trivial task for a couple of noxines to follow after it; carefully avoiding the jet exhaust as the buzz along in hot pursuit. As Noble Six lands the craft, one hands on the outer hull to serve as a tracking beacon, while the other breaks off to follow the spartan instead, making a wide circle over her head as it begins snapping pictures and readings of her setup site. The process makes several noticeable flashes of light, which gives her a few seconds to prepare before Nox receives the coordinates, and teleports straight in.

    Suddenly appearing a short distance away from her, directly in her line of sight, Nox looks down from his hovering position on the weapon crates; glancing between each piece of equipment to try and determine her function, before 'clearing his throat' purely for effect and speaking in an entirely irreverant tone. "Bonjour sir or madam. You seem to have picked and inconvenient place to set up your bird watching station. I assure you, the creatures will still be here when you get back, so for the meantime, I would like to ask you to leave." Already knowing full well that there is basically no chance Noble Six isn't with the Union, Nox throws out his hand and snaps off a handful of explosive bolts of blue energy, aiming them as a wild scatter around Noble Six in an attempt to destroy her equipment.

Serori (37) has posed:
The red pterosaur, meanwhile...sees Yuna as a big glowy threat. Though Yuna is talking nice enough to give Mom pause, in the end, she gives out a screech that'd make Rodan envious, and starts flapping her wings to try and drive Yuna away. Yuna, of course, gets a full view of the nest, including two baby pterosaurs, one white egg, and one orange egg made of glass and dotted with two red stars from within.

Eighteen (674) has posed:
So she was right. She thought as much, but wanted to be absolutely certain... As Eighteen starts flying towards the nest, she looks over her shoulder with a rather lethal glare at the dinosaur aiming the rifle at her and rumbling about shooting her. Thankfully, the 'friendly fire' is called off, and she turns her attention back on the destination. Unfortunate that the egg's inhabitant has no radio, but she at least acknowledges the fact with a 'hm'. As the big red dinosaur reaches out towards her, eager to receive the egg without leaving the nest, the cyborg glances from the egg, to the... Mom-asaurus?

Eighteen has an idea as she floats just out of reach, but the giant blue member of the dino-family comes surging down at her suddenly! She grunts and flies backwards out of range suddenly, her hair flying out from the sudden movement. "Your landing is going to be delayed a bit!" she warns to the eggman as she has to focus all her efforts into dodging lethal-looking talons and powerful wings, WHILE carrying the egg. Maybe if she didn't have to do both at once, she'd be better off. But this is still an awfully large and angry dinosaur.

Dracula Vlad Tepes (83) has posed:
    "Fly faster fly faster THIS WASN'T PART OF THE PLAN!"

    "I'm flying as fast as I can with you weighing me down! This is what you get for breaking open all the walls and eating all the-"

    "Wait, hold up!" Slogra quickly looks back to find that their former pursuer isn't actually pursuing them anymore. With some awkwardness, Gaibon wheels back around to face the nest again...and see that Yuna is trying /negotiations/! "That hussy," Slogra growls, gripping his spear in both hands. "That was an insult /at least/ worth a screaming angry chase! I'm so /insulter/ out here today."

    Gaibon, wings flapping to keep them both aloft, just sighs with a puff of flame. "Your priorities are really messed up. But hey. I got an idea, and you'll be able to get back at that girl for ignoring you! Now just hold onto your spear, and..."

    A few moments later, Yuna might hear the steadily approaching battle cries of both Slogra and Gaibon as they go barreling down toward her, Slogra still clutched in Gaibon's claws. Only this time, it's a direct charge, and Slogra's spear is aimed straight for the girl's back! "Let's see you try diplomacy WITH A SPEAR UP YOUR REAR," Slogra caws in righteous fury.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Super Saiyan Level 2 is no joke, as Lezard quickly finds out. There is a terrible-sounding SNAP as Raditz comes striking in, and the body collapses like a puppet with its strings cut, a series of bright sparkles washing out of the body.

Raditz gets to stare at the corpse for approximately five seconds before he hears Lezard's voice. "Was that your best shot? I am disappointed." The sparkles coalesce into a ghostly form, Lezard appearing irrirates as he hangs in the air, no longer bound by gravity. "But, I suppose that is the best I can expect from a grunt such as you. Allow me to introduce you to a new project of mine."

He gestures, and a much, much larger portal opens. From it comes a terrible, rank odoe as a hulking beast slougs from it, a noxious miasma hanging around it. Once, it might have been called a dragon, but the flesh has long since begun to decay, brittle scales flaking off and muscles begun to puretfy.

What makes this different are the thin plates of iridescent crystal apparently fused to it, forming spiked armor that seems to be intended to protect the beast.

Lezard laughs, adjusting ghostly glasses. "Kill for daddy, now would you?" He says, and the Crystal Zombie Dragon inhales, breathing a toxic haze towards Raditz in a gale of vileness.

Genghis Rex (114) has posed:
From inside the egg, terrible Dactyl says, "What's that? I hear screeching! Have you angered the Pterosaurs?"

He waits a bit, "Hello? if they're after you, just give the egg to them. THey won't harm me! Running will only get you killed, or worse yet, THEY could be injured!"

Ryuko Matoi (140) has posed:
    Ryuko is able to hover there, in place, with both her weapons in hand. "Nah. Think I'll stick around. Whatever you're after, seems important. If I don't have a use for it, bet I can sell it to someone who's not you, and make a killing, either way."

She shrugs, and seems more than willing to stand in the Saiyan's way.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
"Eep!!" Yuna might or might not be bowing to Mommy Pterosaur as she doubles over and dives for the canyon floor, getting *AWAY* from the nest for now.

This appears to be somewhat precognitive on her part, since before she stops diving she has a pair of demons chasing her. She looks over her shoulder ...

Then pulls out of her dive and flies A LOT FASTER, her vambraces popping open and a scattering of pulse blasts being released from the normally-concealed emitters there, spreading out behind her - but the pattern is too diffuse to actually threaten Slogra or Gaibon. "Yeah, you *must* be from Hell!" she calls out. "Nobody above that would think your insults were any good to start with! And you boys are too big and fat to keep up with me, either!"

She wouldn't usually comment about somebody being overweight, but the demon pair *DID* hit her in a tender spot - not necessarily a weak one, but what girl doesn't care about her appearance? (Not that she had a say in the Light Suit's appearance in any form, mind you.)

Genghis Rex (114) has posed:
Brachio turns his head from the radio conversation he's just had and tosses Eighteen a severe look, "You're fuggin' wit me, Roody Poo. I don't like that."

He aims his rifle (which in anyone else's hands would be a cannon) at Eighteen, and the flips the sights up, taking careful aim, "Now you're gonna eat some dirt."

The Sauropod squeezes off 3 successive blasts at Eighteen.

Serori (37) has posed:
Serori scoffs at Ryuko. "Something like you won't be in my way for long. I'm here to win." Losing patience with the whole affair, she lunges at the girl with the jet pack, and lets fly a flurry of punches, kicks, and knee-strikes meant to push Ryuko's defenses and reflexes to the limits.

Meanwhile, the big red pterosaur dips out of the nest, snaps out her wings, and joins her mate in pursuing the missing egg. With Eighteen now being harried by Blue, Red, AND Brachio's fire, she's going to have to do...something.

The massive beats of Red's wings no doubt play havoc with Yuna's operation, too!

Noble Six (38) has posed:
    Great, spotted already. She supposes that it's too much to hope for that she wouldn't get spotted until she's set up. The SPARTAN kicks the weapon crate out of the way as the energy blasts come in, and rolls to the side, catching the last one a bit to close for comfort, as her energy shields flare up.

"Suppose it's too much to ask for you to just hand over Serori and let me be on my way." Noble Six offers to Nox. She's not sure who this particular Confederate, or at least she assumes they're Confederate alligned, so she won't bother to mince words. She reaches up to her back and grabs the weapon there, the Ravinican lightning rifle coming to life and launching a bolt of electricity upwards at Nox, intent on striking him out of the air with the power of Zeus himself.

Raditz (486) has posed:
    Raditz blinks a little as the body falls over dead instantly, and huhs, "Wow, that was easier than expected. Can't remember the last time someone just dropped dead from a chop..."
    And then Lezard proceeds to do a ghostly taunt, which has Raditz spinning around looking for him, "Where--... You're going to be one of those annoying fights, aren't you? That's okay, as long as I blow up whatever you've got planned for me, Sorcerer, you can promise doom and death -all you want-."

    Raditz spins around and goes wide eyed at the Dragon Zombie, and there's a moment where he's actually surprised and in awe at the thing. That moment passes by as the grin on his face grows, "Oh, a present? For me? You shouldn't have."

    Upon the Dragon's breath, Raditz flies off into the air in order to avoid the toxicness of it, and he takes his time considering how to deal with it. "Well, who needs to breath anyway?" With that, he zips right back down, zipping down to its back and shoulder areas, and wraps grabs for the undead's wings, and proceeds to grip rightly before roaring as he yanks at its wings, with intent to RIP the damn things off.

Eighteen (674) has posed:
Her ruse has been discovered. Now she's being pursued by a flying dinosaur AND being shot at. AND then the other parent joins in! There's really only one option here. "Hey, sorry about this," Eighteen says to the guy in the egg. Then she pulls back one arm and throws the egg as hard as she can - which is pretty damn hard, especially in this universe - right between the two parents, and turns to try to block the shots from Brachio with her forearms. The impacts are unexpectedly painful, but not immediately lethal. And, assuming the parents go chasing after the egg, the nest should be momentarily unguarded.

Unfortunately, Eighteen can't do much about that while she's being shot at. Meaning it's up to somebody else. She is actually more sorry for putting the dinosaurs through such distress than whoever is in the egg. As a parent herself, she knows how much she'd be freaking out if someone had kidnapped Maron.

Nox (546) has posed:
    "Madam it is." Nox remarks at the sound of Six's voice. "Unfortunately, even were I of the inclination to 'hand the general over', it would not be within my power to begin with. I'm quite sure she would, hmmm, 'forcibly object' to whatever it is you have in mind." The Xelor's head swivels with sharp mechanical clicks to keep his gaze tracking the third wave spartan, resulting in a short teleport as she comes to a stop; reappearing on the exact same spot, but now turned to face towards her new position.

    "You're swift. Especially for someone wearing so much armour. But . . ." As the lightning ball launches towards him, Nox shifts his arm to aim at the projectile with his hand rather than Noble Six, letting off a short ranged wave of intangible energy that ghosts through the space around it, instantly bringing the bolt to a fizzling stop; arcs of electricity and flying sparks now frozen in mid-air. "Speed is only a measure of distance over /time/." Perhaps still not taking Six seriously, Nox readjusts his aim and opens fire again, aiming directly for the spartan rather than her equipment this time, spraying her with a continuous salvo of bolts; shattering the ground where they strike and kicking up an advancing line of smoke, gravel and dust.

Ryuko Matoi (140) has posed:
    Ryuko just spits, "You sure can try." She's fast, in this form. She was before, but with basically jet engines, she's /fast/. And she's able to match the Saiyan, blow for blow. Maybe not hitting her as often as she'd like, but definitely meeting her punches and kicks with both of her weapons. Parrying them, and trying to sneak a hit in, when she thinks Serori's defenses might be slipping just a bit. Likewise, she's having to watch she doesn't do the same.

"You might wanna have a chat with Kiryuin. I ain't a pushover. I don't do anything, unless I'm sure I can win, either."

She might very well keep Serori's attention tied up, at the moment.

Serori (37) has posed:
Blue and Red twist around together to try and grab the egg.

Blue and Red end up flying right into each other. Crunch. It's a stunning impact, and both parental pterosaurs are left hovering for a moment, dazed. The nest is open.

Dracula Vlad Tepes (83) has posed:
    Slogra and Gaibon are about to dive down to rush for Yuna, but the situation develops in such a way that Gaibon's particular talents seem to be needed right now. As the egg is hurled up into the air, Gaibon abruptly lets go of Slogra, letting the lizard-bird-beast go hurtling down toward Yuna in a vaguely-controlled fall. "I got it! I got it," the gargoyle shouts, barreling up to the egg past the stunned pterosaurs. With his talons lifted, he aims to snatch up the egg in his claws, heedless of the damage it will undoubtedly cause to the poor paper mache, and hurl it into the nest immediately after with a powerful full-body twist!

    Slogra, meanwhile, is still hurtling down at Yuna, his spear leading his descent, her pulse blasts whizzing past him and occasionally grazing his grey form. "I'm not fat! I'm the opposite of fat! YOU TAKE THAT BACK! I refuse to be insulted by someone who would even /think/ to wear /that/ shade of blue with /that stupid hair/!"

Vegeta (663) has posed:
There's a sudden clapping as an entirely different Eighteen descends from the sky, floating there and watching the Union's Eighteen from above. "Well, at least she got the outfit and the hair right. Though I think she might be fat. Is she fat, brother?"

Then, down comes Seventeen, carrying an entire tour bus of people over his head with both hands. "Yes, she's fat. Don't worry, I brought the hostages. Now, what was this about the Dragon Ball? I can't hold both, of course." He smiles, then lets the bus slip from his hands, which is making a good 100 foot drop.

Noble Six (38) has posed:
    When you wear your armor as much as Noble Six does, it becomes like a second skin to you. You learn how to move in it like you were wearing nothing at all. Of course this probably doesn't help when you're fighting against somebody who seems to be able to violate the rules of space and time. Still, Noble Six doesn't like to be taken lightly.

    One of the blasts manages to strike clean, despite her running, and it knocks her off her feet. Her shields flare again, and she rolls a couple of times before coming to a stop in the dirt. Pushing up to her feet, she grabs something off of her side, and moves towards Nox, "Neat trick. Lets see what you do with this one." She levels the weapon at him, and pulls the trigger. This is no lightning bolt, that's for sure, as the grenade lobs through the air. However once it gets within range, she releases the trigger, letting the grenade airburst instead of reaching it's final destination.

Raditz (486) has posed:
    Just as Raditz is ready to continue to wail upon the Dragon, he blinks as he hears an alert about an innocent bus full of bus riders being dropped by Seventeen, at which point Raditz growls, "GOD DAMMIT! I'm trying to fight a dragon!!"

    With that, SSJ2 Raditz zips down at ludicrous speed in order to catch and save the passangers! Yay! He narrowly catches it before it splats to the ground, and sight a bit before setting it onto the ground, "Alright, you guys find Union peoples and run. RUN LIKE HELL!"

    Satisfied, Raditz shoots back up into the air and growls, "Now where did he go..."
    Wide open for any sudden attacks.

Serori (37) has posed:
It's because Serori's keeping such a close eye on the nest that Ryuko's able to land more than a few good hits. By the time the two come to a hair-pulling, eye-scratching stop, Serori's got a bloodied nose and lip, and her jaw's very sore and bearing the red imprint of Ryuko's fist. Her chestplate looks like it's taken a few good hits, too, if those flaking bits are any indication.

Okay, so there's a bus 'flying' at the ground -- no, Raditz has it. Is that Dactyl going for the nest? And the parent pterosaurs are dazed, right? Serori takes quick stock of the scene, then tries to sock Ryuko right in the gut with a punishing sphere of electric-like energy and magnified force. It's kind of an off-the-cuff attack, since Serori's more concerned with going after the nest.

She zips away, diving hard and fast for the unguarded Dragon Ball, and the Tyranno who's trying to collect it.

Genghis Rex (114) has posed:
From within his paper mache shell, terrible Dactyl is spun around and around, losing all sense of up and down. Suddenly, the spinning STOPS, as talons poke into the egg, coming dangerously close to the Tyranno's throat. Dactyl stare wide eyed at the talon for a moment before he finds himself hurling through the air once again, hearing muffled yelling from outside!

*WHUMP*

The spinning container stops and comes to a rest. Dactyl shakes his head, dizzy and disoriented. Suddenly he feels his lunch rising to the back of his throat.

"Oh dear ... mmmpph ..."

He can't take this anymore. He HAS to get out, and kicks wildly at the 'Egg Shell', emerging to the face of a ... baby Pterosaur.

Relieved he exhales, "the did it ... they actually did it .... HWAAAAARRRRFFF! ..."

His head spinning, Dactyl falls backwards into the egg, twitching slightly.

After a moment he pokes his head back up and looks to the hatchling he'd just encountered. The hatchling is busy eating something at dactyl's feet. Dactyl winces, "Oh dear ... sorry about that ... I guess you're used to that aren't you ... anyhow ..." The second hatchling squawks at him!

"Umm, Hello. I'm sorry, I don't have anything for you, heh heh heh ... cough."

He spies the Dragonball.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard watches Raditz struggle with the dragon. He grips onto the beast and pulls with titanic force. A lesser man might have found the reinforced joints impossible to break, but for Raditz? He just makes it /more painful/ when he does so. With n ear-splitting CRACK, the wings shear off of the beast's body, and it recoils in remembered agony, shrieking with horrid noise.

At a call from Serori, however, Lezard looks over towards the nest. "Of all of the complicated issues..." He grimaces, and holds up his hands. A magical circle appears both beneath himself and the Zombie Dragon, and they fade out...

Moments after Raditz asks where Lezard went, there is a shadow over the Super Saiyan. He might look up just in time to see the massive Dragon on a meteoric descent, having been teleported above the man with no means of flight. The collision will be impressive, messy, and most definately not non-toxic or safe for children under 5.

Or over 5.

Lezard's spirit, however, appears within the nest, and he begins looking about it for the Dragon Ball.

Keep your eyes on the prize. Or the birdie, as it were.

Eighteen (674) has posed:
The nest is available to be pillaged of Dragon Balls! And no one is really available to do the pillaging who isn't with the Confederacy. And now the egg bearing Dactyl is being thrown right towards it. Eighteen is too far away to prevent that from happening even with superhuman speed. With the arrival of other-Eighteen, and other-Seventeen, the older version of the former has plenty on her plate. In combination with her brother, she would have been a real terror. But he's not here, and she has been training in a different way over these past years.

And she has learned a certain technique that she is certain her 'other' self doesn't know. Because she clearly hasn't met HIM.

Eighteen dashes through the air, ignoring the threat posed by the other cyborgs/androids, and puts one hand above her head, palm flat.

A blue and white disk forms over it, rotating rapidly. Then she yells, "KIENZAN!" And she lets fly with her husband's most powerful technique...

Aimed about mid-way down the pillar the nest is on, with the intent to cut it down in such a way that the nest slides off... And right onto Eighteen's raised hands. If timed right, Dactyl might miss his landing. If not... Well, there's plenty of people who are going to be gunning for her shortly.

She's actually trying not to injure the occupants of the nest. She HAS gone a bit soft over the years.

Damn it, Krillin.

Nox (546) has posed:
    Nox lets out an unimpressed sigh, tinged with that hint of tinny reverb that his mask colours everything with. A grenade is well down on the slowest end of the scale of ranged attacks people lob at him, and thus he has no trouble intercepting it as well. Another, barely audible thump sounds out as the grenade is caught in a field of temporally slowed air, left spinning in ultra slow motiong next to Nox rather than directly impacting him. "How disappointing. I thought you'd at least-"

    Whatever else he was going to say is cut off by the ensuing explosion. Since he hadn't slowed down Six's weapon, the electronic trigger still works perfectly fine going one way, and the huge amount of energy suddenly applied inwardly against the low-powered stasis field causes it to fall apart completely, taking the Xelor head on with a wave of flame and a blast of concussive force. Nox goes flying in the opposite direction, trailing black smoke from the crevices of his armour, before coming to a jarring halt a few meters away, dropping down from high velocity as he reasserts his suspension in mid-air. The blast marks are visible across his chestplate and helmet.

    "Ahaha! Someone with a brain that wouldn't fit inside a /teaspoon/! How very refreshing!" Nox makes as if to launch another spell, surrounding his hand in a steadily intensifying haze of blue-white energy with a brief, bass whine. Just as he goes to release it however, he instead curls that hand into a fist, and disappears in a flurry of blue static; reappearing directly behind Noble Six and swinging a punch at the base of her spine. The moment it hits anything, the spatial distortion wrapped around his fist will collapse; exploding outwards with a negative gravitational acceleration fit to snap somebody's back.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
"You're one to talk about color coordination, Mr. Thundercloud!" Yuna ripostes. "Seriously, is there ANYTHING that goes with your shade of gray? And can you even read the scale when you step on it, or do you just figure out how far the pieces went and get somebody to crunch the numbers?"

This is probably getting more personal than she wanted to - but more importantly, she doubles back, trying to zip under Slogra and back *towards* the pterosaurs' nest. It's hugely risky, and her Light Suit won't protect her much if the spear hits her anyway ... but she can control the path of her flight. With the winged Gaibon flying in an entirely different direction, Slogra's path is largely up to the laws of physics ...

Or so Yuna is hoping.

Raditz (486) has posed:
    Raditz looks up, and goes wide eyed, "Oh that's where he is..."

    Followed by smashes into by dragging and dragged down into where ever it is he's pinned down at, where he brawls the dragon zombie epicly in the off-screen.

Ryuko Matoi (140) has posed:
    Ryuko blinks as Serori disengages, looking about as worse for the wear, herself. She sees it now, too. Ryuko thinks quickly, and.. throws her scissor blade. It soars past the Saiyan, and embeds itself into the cliff face, and from the handle, there's a thin black string. "No you don't."

Her intent wasn't to hit Serori. Not with the sword itself, anyway. That string is looped around Serori's tail, instead. And it might hurt a bit, when she comes to a sudden stop. That thread is a hundred-percent life fibers, after all, and it's pretty damn tough.

    Ryuko, in the meantime, tries to swoop past the saiyan, down at the nest, making a grab for the Dragon Ball.

Serori (37) has posed:
Okay so here's what happens THERE.

Dactyl lands all topsy-turvy in the nest, horks up his breakfast and/or lunch, and makes a wobbly search for the Dragon Ball. Thanks to his overwhelming nausea, his doubled vision fails to help him land the prize.

At the VERY SAME INSTANT, Eighteen's kienzan slices through the stone pillar; however, nothing happens right away.

Maybe it's the weight caused by Lezard's arrival -- maybe the forces just needed a moment to get in action -- but whatever the cause, the pillar doesn't start to slide until after Lezard's starting to grab for the Dragon Ball, himself. Everything starts to slip down at an angle...

...until the nest, Lezard, and Terrible Dactyl all land in Eighteen's ready hands.

The parental pterosaurs are not too happy about this. Blue and Red come shrieking after their children.

The nest's shifting position affects Ryuko's trajectory. She's swift, but having to compensate for the movement AND for the parents? Probably a bit confusing. So, she lands in the nest just fine, but the Dragon Ball's just out of her reach, having shifted from where it was when she took off after it.

Vegeta (663) has posed:
Evil Eighteen suddenly flies down when the civilians are running away. She doesn't bother firing at them, she instead just grabs one, a man wearing a business suit, then she lifts him high up into the air and holds him by the collar, watching his feet dangle. "Copy me, look at this man I have up here. My fingers might slip..."

Seventeen's eyes linger on Raditz for a long few moments. "Well, we have orders not to kill saiyans. So... I'll just prepare this for an appropriate moment." He holds up a single finger, then starts to create a large blue ball of energy from a singularity. What's he going to do with it? Who the hell knows.

Serori (37) has posed:
Poor Serori.

The string draws taut, snapping her tail out in a savage YANK. The shock is immediate and intense, and sends numbing fire all the way up from her toes to her head, stunning her with an instant and painful form of paralysis.

She clings to the rockface for a moment, unable to do anything as literally everyone else ever goes after the Dragon Ball. It's going to take her a minute to shake off that fog, and by then, she's way behind the action --

"Nox! I need a speed boost!"

Genghis Rex (114) has posed:
The nest now imperiled, Dactyl's tone changes, "NO NO NO! You fools!"

He leaps for the air, catching the air under his wings and grabs one of the hachlings by the shoulders!

"TYRANNOS! HELP ME!" He screams, but has no radio at his disposal, so all he can do is yell at the top of his lungs.

Fom his ship, Quckpot watches the situation start to deteriorate and stabs at his radio, "Brachio, lets go help him. He'll die before he lets any harm comes to theo hatchlings!"

Brachio growls, "Awh, for all the needles on the tree!" he hurreis for his own ship, "On mah way!"

Quackpot speeds ahead to assist in salvaging the nest and its occupants.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
The good news is that Lezard is trying to get the ball. He's in a good position for it.

The bad news... "Why is everything rotatiing- WAAAAAAH!" Lezard yells, taken off guard for once as the large nest collapses down towards Eighteen. However, since this is the kinder, gentler Eighteen, she is forced to be occupied as the spiritform Lezard skids along the ground.

"Meddling...! Just hold still for a while." He turns and runs back into the nest. You know, for a mage he's in astonishingly good physical condition...

Or maybe it's just his spiritual form not needing to do things like breathe.He's still after the ball, trying to take advantage of the short time he has before things get truly ugly and confusing.

Serori (37) has posed:
The Dragon Ball remains frustratingly elusive. Lezard's fingertips juuust brush its gleaming surface, but Dactyl's frantic scramble to save the hatchlings proves more disruptive than helpful. And there's also Ryuko to consider...

Dracula Vlad Tepes (83) has posed:
    "At least I'm conscious enough about my appearance to not wear clothes that make me look like a bad Halloween costume!" Slogra's retort is no doubt biting, but Yuna has a severe advantage. She can move in midair. Without Gaibon's aid...Slogra can't. When she darts off, his furious expression changes to one of surprise, then panic. "Hey! Hey, wait, that's cheating, come back-"

    Slogra is abruptly silenced in the dust cloud that bursts up with his impact against the ground.

    Gaibon, meanwhile, looks utterly triumphant as Dactyl lands in the nest...and then looks completely baffled the moment things go terribly wrong. The nest is in someone else's hands. The pterosaurs are coming. Everything is /doomed/.

    But the gargoyle steels himself. Face contorting in a hard frown, Gaibon...turns bright red. The once blue demon is now a glaring crimson, and with a terrible roar, he brings his wings in and dives for the nest. Streamlined as he is, and weighing as much as he does, with his temporary flare of power in action to boot, Gaibon shoots through the air like a giant bullet straight for the dragonball, aimed to snatch it up in his claws and dart off with it in his clutches!

Ryuko Matoi (140) has posed:
    So close! Ryuko overshoots, and she tugs on the thread. It snaps, and the fibers return to Senketsu, and her sword to her hand, and tries to make a swipe at Lezard with it, as he comes close. She reverses her direction, and zooms upwards to give the grab another go.

Hopefully this time, she won't be interrupted!

Serori (37) has posed:
Gaibon's claws and Ryuko's fingers briefly brush. There is an electric shock at the contact. Is that love on the air, or just static?

Noble Six (38) has posed:
    Well Noble Six does aim to please, and she seems pretty pleased when the grenade trick catches him off guard. Too bad it didn't do enough damage to take him out of the fight. Not that she expected it would anyway.

    She gets ready to intercept him as he looks like he's about to launch another blast at her, only for him to reappear behind her. She starts to turn towards him as soon as he pops back into reality, but she never gets the whole way around as he strikes her. The blast is enough to collapse her shield as it sends her flying through the air, the heavy armor smashing into a rocky structure nearby and causing the whole thing to collapse on top of her.

    Of course a few moments later, she mule kicks one of the rocks that's on top of her, sending it flying back in Nox's direction. It's a pretty big rock, and it's moving pretty fast. That's probably not a huge issue for him, but the plasma grenade that's trailing behind it might be.

Serori (37) has posed:
It's at this point that Red gets ahold of the stony pillar, and Blue gets ahold of the other side of it. Both pterosaurs strain to keep the nest aloft, and both snap at Eighteen, trying to get her to drop it. Since no one really interfered in their charge, this is a pretty easy feat to accomplish, outlandish as the whole thing may be.

Genghis Rex (114) has posed:
Brachio flies in and nudges the nose of his cruiser against the pillar, to assist the pterosaurs in steadying it.

Quackpot flies in from above and enforces a tractorbeam to further stop its decent.

Terrible Dactyl flies up toward Quackpot's ship, carrying a squirming hatchling in his claws. As he approaches, Quackpot's cargo hold opens.

Dactyl drops the hatchling in the hold and lands, looking to Quackpot, "Fossilizer, now!"

Quackpot tosses his sidearm to Dactyl.

"Get this thin as straight as you can, I'm gonna try to reseal the break!"

Quackpot nods, "Got it."

Ryuko Matoi (140) has posed:
    Ryuko curses, as she touches something other than the ball. What the hell was that? She shakes her hand out, and tries to pull up and around, diving at the next again. This is kind of a threatening thing, to have some crazy looking creature diving straight at your young. The parents might not like it, but Ryuko wants to snag that thing, now, just so she can wave it around, at this point!

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
One demon down, but probably not out; Yuna allows herself a small sigh of relief - as well as a mutter of, "My armor doesn't look THAT bad, but I didn't have a choice about the color scheme ..."

Gaibon turns red and puts on a massive burst of speed, his roar snaps Yuna's attention back to the immediate problem at hand - namely, there's a nest which a lot of people are wrestling over, and nobody seems to have gotten the Dragon Ball out of it yet. "Elner," she says under her breath, "please tell me you can find a vector for me to pop in and try to snag the ball ... ?"

/Nothing convenient,/ Elner transmits back to Yuna. /You'd have as much luck as I would at this point./

And the ptero-parents are struggling to keep their nest from plummeting to the bottom of the canyon, on top (haha) of everything else. Eighteen seems to be trying to help with that, to the pterosaurs' irritation ...

There's really not much Yuna can do to help protect the nest; she'd need El-Line to support its weight at all, and two-thirds of the Matrix Figure aren't even *here*; there's no time for Jiina or Marina, either. On the plus side, it seems like that might not be necessary - she can hear enough, as she approaches, to piece together that Genghis Rex's crew are trying to mend the damage.

Rather than messing things up even more, Yuna flies up to ground level along the top of the canyon, and lands somewhere that she can watch what's going on. There's a chance she might be able to make her own dive for the ball, but not with so many others in the way and an attempt to save the nest itself going on at the same time.

Eighteen (674) has posed:
This chaos is really hard to process. At least for those who think at 'human speeds' instead of 'computer speeds'. Eighteen's reactions speed up until the world around her seems to be moving in slow motion - or not moving at all. She has the pillar-fragment, with nest, but there are at least two people wobbling around on top of it, plus two hatchlings, plus a Dragon Ball, plus the dinosaur parents are snapping at her now, and an ally is flying alongside the nest. Strength allows her to carry them all relatively easily, but balancing them all as they teeter back and forth, while under attack, is another matter. Eighteen herself has no use for the Dragon Ball. It's mainly denial of Confederate acquisition that is the objective here. And the douchebag behavior of that psychotic 'other Eighteen' who is so intent on proving how evil she is is not helping.

So what can Eighteen do? While everyone else struggles in the nest, she can take off flying at high speed towards the other-Eighteen, still carrying the nest-and-pillar-and-occupants. She doesn't know that the other Eighteen won't drop the guy. But she knows how she - and Seventeen - sort of broke down when things didn't go as expected. Battle data they had on opponents that didn't match up. New opponents like Cell. They just couldn't comprehend what was happening.

So using her own past selve's psychology against her, she does the unexpected. She releases a pair of potent red laser beams from - of all places - her eyes, aimed at the other Eighteen's hand. It's not a very damaging attack, but it's a very quick and accurate one. Is she TRYING to make evil-Eighteen drop the guy in the suit!?

Yep, actually. Because she's hoping to catch him in the nest with everyone else. Which may not be the safest place, but it's safer than falling through the air.

And hey, that change in direction and high-speed flight might make even more chaos up above!

...Great!

Her flight path will hopefully also take her closer to Noble Six, but even though Eighteen has mad multi-tasking skills thanks to Computer Brain, even she can only do so many things at once without actually being in multiple places at once. Trying to avoid the snapping of giant dinosaurs while carrying a pillar without toppling it and all the rest is taking up her attention entirely. She can't even make an attempt on the Dragon Ball right now.

This is utter madness.

Dracula Vlad Tepes (83) has posed:
    For a fleeting moment, the blazing red Gaibon turns to see Ryuko hurtling past him and the dragonball. For a moment, there seems to be a connection; something deep and powerful, yet all too fleeting. Gaibon's life seems to have reached a strange pinnacle, and somehow, everything else feels so...shallow by comparison. Is this it? Is this what his life has been moving toward all this time, all those years of being an expendable lackey in Castlevania?

    Or maybe not. Gaibon ends up crashing into another pillar a few minutes later, spreading a spiderweb of cracks through its surface before he tumbles down to the ground, dazed.

    Slogra, meanwhile, has finally recovered from his own jarring impact. The bird demon shakes his head clear, then looks up to assess the situation. This...this is something he can do!

    Burning with the fires of determination, Slogra leaps high into the air, landing on one of the tall pillars nearby. Another massive bound sends him to a different one, closer to Eighteen's, and it's there that his final leap hurtles him toward the nest! Assuming it doesn't move out of the way, of course, but knowing his luck...

Nox (546) has posed:
    "Hmmm, you're a lot heavier than you look." Nox remarks as Six goes flying at significantly less of a speed than he had assumed. The armour he's used to is generally no more than plating, not a densely woven, multi-layered, powered exoskeleton. Seeing the rock coming flying at him, he decides against stopping this one as well, instead firing a precise beam of uneven temporal acceleration straight through it, slicing it from top to bottom with a flick of his finger like a high powered particle beam. This has the entirely accidental effect of hitting the plasma grenade behind it, and thus setting it off prematurely; blasting the boulder into a high speed shower of molten fragments.

    Caught off guard, the spray superheated shards smash against the Xelor like a grotesquely oversized spread of buckshot, sending pieces of shattered metal flying every which way as they dent, crack and snap almost every piece of his armour. Growling with dissatisfaction, he begins the preparations necessary to cast more powerful spells. The Xelor's Dial goes out; firing a full set of cyan glyphs containing glowing roman numerals in a rotating ring around him, face pointing towards Noble Six.

    Just before he can cast however, he hears Serori's request over the radio, and far be it that he would deny such a reasonable demand. Rapidly selecting the two, five and eight with flashes from the spell circle, Nox extends one hand towards the spartan III, and one hand towards the super saiyan, both palms radiating a steady stream of light. There aren't any fancy visual effects to follow what happens next, other than the fact that Noble Six is suddenly moving as though through stop motion, and Serori moves as though she'd exceeded reality's frame refresh rate. He's stealing time from one target, and redistrubting it to another.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
There is a slash from Ryuko towards Lezard, which forces him back for a moment. "You scrabbling child! Back away before I remove you from that ridiculous outfit!" He fistshakes for a moment, but then he realizes that Eighteen is hefting up the next and /flying around with it./ "You fool!" Lezard calls out, quickly diving into the nest to try to shoulder and clamber through the eggs. He must have the Dragon Ball or else that was a waste of a good dragon!

Vegeta (663) has posed:
"Ow! What's your problem?!" Eighteen shouts as she drops the man from her hand, definitely having no idea where that was going. "Using eye lasers to save a man. If that isn't a disguise, I have to find out who made me so boring."

Seventeen's energy ball quickly bursts into nothingness when he's ordered over the radio to -not- blow up the nest. Then he grunts and crosses his arms, looking frustrated. "You do realize, sister, that we're being forced to be boring as well."

Serori (37) has posed:
THIS IS MADNESS.

Okay, so the Tyrannos make their move, right? Dactyl hoists one of the hatchlings into the safety of Quackpot's ship, and remains inside the nest to protect the second hatchling and the unhatched egg. Meanwhile, Quackpot's ship ejects a steadying tractor beam to try and help the parental pterosaurs haul the nest back up to the pillar where it belongs. MEANWHILE, Brachio's ship comes along to also help nudge the pillar into its original position.

This is all working against Eighteen, who's trying to save that falling dude's life. She's got a lot to contend against, including the fact that the parents are still struggling to get her and everyone else away from the nest. Blue snaps after Ryuko. Red snaps after Valeth.

Fortunately, Serori is struck by a space-defying burst of speed so INCREDIBLE it goes way beyond her usual limits! But...rather than use the advantage to grab the Dragon Ball, she does something incredibly stupid, and diverts with a growl to go save the falling man. This liberates Eighteen from the task, who can get back to grabbing Dragon Balls.

Bad Eighteen and Bad Seventeen are left to their own devices, until Serori snaps: "Seventeen, assist Nox in driving out Noble Six! Eighteen -- get your /other version/ away from that pillar!"

The Dragon Ball continues to be a bouncing target amid all the chaos. The nest is starting to fall apart, too.

Ryuko Matoi (140) has posed:
    Overshooting again, Ryuko tries to adjust. It's too hard a turn, and she hits the side of another cliff, and has to shake off the impact, a little bit. Nothing out of her for the moment, though she is trying to get back into the scramble.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
Lezard gets clamped on by Red and bitten in half. "ACK! GET AWAY FROM ME YOU STUPID BEAST!" He yells, flailing as he falls away from the beast, sparkles running out of the things mouth as he forces himself to reincorporate.

I guess that snack was just...

EMPTY CALORIES.

The Necromancer rolls and bounces along the eggs, but the interference from the pterodactyl has caused him to momentarily lose track of the Dragon Ball.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
Yuna crouches a bit, her armor's flight engines warming back up as she watches the dynamics of bodies in motion around the nest - and around the Dragon Ball, which isn't exactly sitting still either in the course of things. She takes a deep breah, watching for a split second longer, judging relative movements -

And takes flight, accelerating towards the nest, trying to grab the Dragon Ball on her way past. There's a substantial chance that somebody will slam into her, or vice versa; she DOES have noticeable wings jutting out from her 'backpack' engine, although she tries to roll enough that they won't hit anyone or anything ...

All she can do is offer up a quick prayer and go for it.

Genghis Rex (114) has posed:
Dactyl, in all his naked glory (yeah, he's still naked) steps to the edge of the nest and cocks his borrowed fossilized, aiming directly at Eighteen, "Let go ... NOW. I'll not ask you again."

This is as serious as Dactyl has been all evening. He and his crew are trying to save this nest and its occupants and eighteen has made herself out to be the biggest currrent threat. This is no bluff.

Dracula Vlad Tepes (83) has posed:
    Slogra snatches...and misses. The odd demon tumbles in the nest with a dismayed caw, clawing at air and nest alike to try and keep from tumbling right off. Unfortunately, what he ends up grabbing for support is none other than the foot of the red pterosaur. Still, he's not picky: claws dig in as he nearly tumbles off the edge, still clutching firmly onto the pterosaur's foot as me manages to keep himself from hurtling to the ground a second time.

    Even then, the demon is a flailing mess of limbs where he is now. He's going to need a few more moments to get himself oriented again, if he's going to make another grab for the ball.

Eighteen (674) has posed:
Eighteen has to veer sharply to the side as a huge whatsit monster leaps towards the nest, lands in it, and adds even more weight. She sinks a bit in the air from the impact, but acclimates. Fortunately, dinosaur spaceships are tractor-beaming the nest and pillar back to safety, and rescuing the hatchlings, and protecting the eggs, and that was the main thing keeping Eighteen from taking any action. That and the guy she intended to rescue, who it seems Serori is now rescuing. Well, that's fortunate. Though with her sped-up reactions she has plenty of time to think about that - and whether Serori is as bad as she had been led to believe. She's clearly better than the androids she commands, and most likely better than Vegeta as well. If the Confederates want to save the same targets as Eighteen does... Well, fine. Let them. She does her part to get the pillar and nest better under the control of those attempting to seize it.

She hears Dactyl, and again wonders if everyone here is as bad as she thought they were. Then she calls up, "Absolutely. I don't want to harm this family any more than you do." Then, not deigning to respond to the other-Eighteen who can't understand why she would be attacked by another version of herself, because seriously, she lets go of the pillar.

Then she zips up and over the edge of the nest, right in front of Dactyl, and tries to locate, and then grab, the Dragon Ball.

Of course, there's 'Evil Eighteen' aggro incoming, so who the hell knows how this is going to work out. But as long as someone is protecting the innocent bystanders... Oh, and then there's adult-osauruses. Eighteen has several scratches from their beaks and claws already. She is not eager to receive more. Maybe if she's just FAST enough...

Noble Six (38) has posed:
    Well that's not good. Six suddenly finds herself moving in slow motion. The SPARTAN is angry at this sudden shift, especially since aparently Nox is giving the time he's stealing from her to Serori. Six's transmitter in her helmet sends out a message, and even though it's slow as it leaves her helmet, once it gets past the effected field, it blasts out at full speed to the Pelican orbiting above.

    The pilot gets the message and pulls from her holding pattern, turning around and bringing the ship back down. She sets up a strafing run on Nox's position, even as the effect wears off on Six. The strafing run is really meant to be a distraction at this point, as Six turns towards where Eighteen is headed towards her. The pack on the back of Six's armor opens and jets flare to life.

    She sails up into the air, the intent being to try to pick up the Dragonball inside of the nest with her VISR and then swoop down and grab it. Hopefully she won't end up grabbing the wrong thing while she's going for the Dragonball itself.

Ryuko Matoi (140) has posed:
    Ryuko's now more in range, and picks up a bit more speed. She tries to fly under, and then up from beneath the nest, hand outstretched. She strains, a couple of threads from Senketsu reaching out, as well, in an attempt to hopefully snag the ball, like a lasso.

Vegeta (663) has posed:
Eighteen dives for, well, Eighteen. She actually flies backward for a moment, pulling out a smartphone to pose. Then she points her finger back, firing a thin red laser at Good Eighteen, aiming for her heart. "Murder selfie!" she shouts, before snapping a bunch of photos.

Seventeen, meanwhile, starts flying for Noble Six's ship, rapidly firing balls of condensed energy at it. "I want that ship. I'll try not to blow it up while killing you."

Nox (546) has posed:
    Busy as he is with augmenting Serori's abilities, Nox can't fail to notice the whine of jet engines and the shadow cast by the advancing pelican. He looks up from the all-out brawl and directly up at the sun as the dropship flies over, the eyes of his mask standing out as glowing circles in the darkness suddenly cast over him. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what's going to happen as soon as the chin gun points towards him, and so just as Six wants, he drops the spell and teleports out of the way; fizzling out of existence as the high calibre bullets pound into the rocks beneath him just a second ago, and thus freeing her up to pursue the dragonball.

    Of course this actually frees Nox to do the same thing. Aiming to cut ahead of her with his instantaneous speed, he uses his network of noxines to track the ball's location in mid-jump, reappearing a short distance away from it and attempting to hit it with a 'glove' of compressed space, hopefully snatching it out of the air.

Serori (37) has posed:
Everyone goes for the Dragon Ball at once. The nest is an overcrowded swarm of limbs vanishing away inside a dust cloud, all shooting out stars, pound signs, exclamation points, and various other symbols. But something happens in the midst of all this. Something wonderful and unexpected -- something that defies the odds.

And the odds have certainly been tested tonight.

Ryuko Matoi slithers in past the arms and legs and wings and noise like a noodle escaping a strainer, and comes out on the other side with a Dragon Ball in her hand.

Good news, though! The Tyranno are back on track with the whole nest-saving thing. With everyone so fixated on collecting the Dragon Ball, they haven't even noticed that Brachio and Quackpot have got the pillar back in position.

Now, how long before everyone looking for the Dragon Ball realizes it's gone?

Ryuko would have made a bare escape. Between the heavyweights zooming by -- like Noble Six -- and the unusual space-compressions flung by Nox, Ryuko would have had to take a punishment to get the prize.

The poor nest really is in tatters.

Serori lunges in last, trying to work her way past the pterosaurs to get the nest, too. That's when Red notices that Ryuko's getting away with one of her eggs.

SQUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWK.

"What the -- " Serori's head snaps up. "What the FUCK?!"

Genghis Rex (114) has posed:
As Quackpot's tractor beam pulls the nest back to it's original resting spot (or a rough approximation of it) and the pillar itself is set into place by Brachio, Terrible Dactyl flies out of the nest and hovers in front of the break in the pillar. He points his fossilizer at the break and begins blasting it, over and over again.

Rather than breaking apart, the 'wounded' pillar begins to 'heal' and mend back together. Undaunted, Terrible Dactyl blasts over and over again, strengthening the break and trying to restore the home to as close to it's previous condition as possible.

Twigs fall by Dactyl's floating form and he looks up to see the absolute chaos going on above him.

"STOP BREAKING THE NEST YOU FUCKING FUCKS!" He yells, finally breaking his snobbish sense of decorum. Boy, you all really know how to piss a dinosaur off!

Ryuko Matoi (140) has posed:
    Ryuko tugs the ball into her hand, the threads going back to normal. "Time to go, Senketsu! Turn on the speed!"

<<Right!>>

By the time Serori might be looking up, Ryuko's turned on the afterburners, and a pink streak heading off into the distance, the telltale ba-BOOM of her breaking the sound barrier heard, echoing through the canyon walls.

Dracula Vlad Tepes (83) has posed:
    By the time Slogra's managed to get his footing again, there's a sudden BOOM that rockets through the air. He looks up just in time to see the pink streak of Ryuko speeding off into the distance, and with a wide-eyed shout, he tries to stumble out of the nest and give chase! "Hey, hold up, you little-"

    He forgot, unfortunately, that the nest is still a good distance in the air. He is quickly re-acquainted with his old friend, the ground.

    And just a few moments later, Gaibon finally manages to wake up, groaning and stumbling to his feet. Though, just as he's about to spread his wings and find some balance...the cracked and crumbling pillar finally decides to give in, tumbling down in an avalance of stone and abruptly silencing his bellow of "OH SHI-"

    Truly Castlevania's finest.

Noble Six (38) has posed:
    As soon as the Dragonball has vanished from the nest, Noble Six stops, jets flaring brightly as she stops her momentum. She turns around and jets back the opposite direction, spotting Serori raging about the loss of the Dragonball. With Ryuko getting away with it, Six gets an idea. An evil idea.

    "Hey Serori, I got a consolation prize for you. Catch!" She calls out, before she hucks the small, glowing blue ball down at the saiyan. She hopes that the reaction to catch it will be there, but regardless, she jets away, intent on meeting with her dropship and getting the hell out of dodge.

Eighteen (674) has posed:
Eighteen knew it wasn't exactly smart to ignore the other two artificial humans. But she did it anyway, knowing she had to - if nothing else - play interference by trying to grab the Dragon Ball. Even if it meant taking some hits herself. And BOY does she take a hit. A beam right to the back, directly over her heart. She arches her back, eyes going wide, and lets out a strangled cry as she feels her skin burn from the blast. It can't be TOO powerful an attack, or it would risk damaging the nest/other Eighteen's allies/the objective, but it doesn't have to be strong enough to punch through Eighteen to hurt like hell.

She turns, hissing and glares up at her other self. She definitely has a hole in the back of her outfit, and some char marks on her back, but she's at least as tough as the Confederate Eighteen apparently, because the injury appears not to be lethal and not to have reached her heart.

She just floats there has chaos erupts behind her, people yelling, news that the Dragon Ball is safe, etc. And she glares up at the other Eighteen with a potentially unnerving coldness, not fury, that has been learned and honed over the years. Other-Eighteen might call it 'boring'. Eighteen calls it 'being in control of herself and not acting like a misbehaving child who throws tantrums whenever things don't go her way'. She considers, for a moment, staying behind to fight. But that would simply be stupid. She'd be outnumbered, and she highly doubts other-Eighteen and Seventeen would deign to allow her to fight one-on-one, in honorable combat. These two seem far more sadistic and psychopathic than she and her brother were.

So instead, without even a final quip, though a brief flicker of attention paid to Seventeen... She simply boosts movements and takes off flying in a direction completely opposite from where Ryuko is going. She's still leaving the area, unless stopped. But she isn't going to make it as obvious as going along with the other Unionites. Knowing her affiliation isn't a big deal. But she wants some time to think, by herself.

Yuna Kagurazaka (385) has posed:
And Yuna comes back out of that empty-handed. There's somebody who didn't, though - one of the right people to not leave empty-handed, as far as Yuna's concerned.

That makes as good a cue as any for Yuna to withdraw from the area as well .. and the sight of a natural pillar of rock collapsing on top of Gaibon brings a brief smile to Yuna's lips before she turns and heads for the closest warpgate Elner can point her towards.

Serori (37) has posed:
Yeah so Serori's reflexes take over, and she catches a plasma grenade. They're called 'sticky' grenades for a reason, right? Another reflexive gesture sees her trying to shake the thing off her hand, and it goes...nowhere. A second later, it blows.

Serori goes streaking down to the canyon floor, and craters there, probably somewhere near wherever Raditz and that dragon went down.

She'll pick herself up, don't worry.

It's safe to assume that the pterosaurs will be desperately working to put their nest back together based on whatever the Tyrannos do to assist them. They'll stay non-hostile toward 'their own kind' provided Dactyl keeps friendly.

Lezard Valeth has posed:
As the kerfluffle ends, Lezard ends up empty handed, down one experimental dragon and one body.

He's more than a little irritated.

"YOU!" He points at Matoi as she engages GTFO Engines. This is wise.

Lezard clenches a fist, for once perhaps controlling his tendency to rant in the face of the general anger of the Saiyans present. He doesn't want to get into an anger-off, the planet might not survive. "Tch... Enough of this farce." He turns away, his ghostly cape billowing as he begins to teleport himself out of the area.

The detonation of the plasma grenade in the background just punctuates this.

Vegeta (663) has posed:
Eighteen watches as her other self flies away, then just sort of sighs. "Next time I'd really like to break her arm. I wonder what it's like to hear myself suffer that way?"

Seventeen shrugs, already beginning to float up into the sky. "Probably like the time that jeweler sold you white gold instead of rose gold."

"I really should have checked first." Eighteen admits, chuckling lightly.

Genghis Rex (114) has posed:
Dactyl and the Tyrannos engage in a quick retreat once the pterosaur family makes it way back to the nest. Thay linger long enough to see that neither the union, nor the feds, will continue to harass the Pterosaurs, but that's about it. Dactyl rests in Quackpot's ship, "How is it that this always happens no matter how careful we tryto be? yeesh!"