Dragon Ball: After the End

You close your eyes, tilting your head in a slight nod. "I thought you'd say that." Your aura begins to die down. "We don't really have to fight, Dazarel."

You are a child and a fool, snarls the dragon. This transformation shall run its course in due time, and we will be right back where we started. Any victory you now win will. Be. Fleeting.

"I have the strength right now to win any victory I want," you say, your eyes opening again as the aura dies back -- still holding all that power, but completely at peace. "But I guess that it was always going to come down to this. You don't talk much, do you, Dazarel? I remember what you said when you landed. Power is the only thing you respect, isn't it?"

It is the only thing that stands, when all else falls, he replies. Once, saiyans understood that.

"Maybe," you murmur, light beginning to stir around you again. "Or maybe we understand more now than we ever did."

A halo of golden light flares around you. In your ki sense, you hear the echo of billions of voices behind that last word.

"No saiyan of Planet Vegeta could have learned this technique," you say, looking down at your enemy. "And I doubt that you could. This is all us. All me. All one." You spread your arms wide. "Maybe you don't understand that. That's fine by me. Right now, you don't deserve to know how this feels. Right now, you're a monster. A monster I have to fight." Your aura bursts free again, surging out over the landscape. "But when I win, I won't win on your terms, Dazarel! I do this my way; even if I have to pound you into the ground to make it happen!"

tsew

WHUMP

Dazarel howls in pain as you dart forward, slamming into his jaw and hammering his skull into the ground. Air turns to plasma in the wake of his head's passage. The ground shatters open for miles.

You move again.

tsew

BANG

You punt Dazarel into the air and-

vip

There is no pithy onomatopoeia to describe the noise that transpires when you intercept the drake in midair and smash him back into the ground. It is a continuous outpouring of undifferentiated sound as megatons of rock vaporize, fragment, and clash off of each other. It is the bone-chilling impact that results of a being the size of a mountain smashing the sound barrier and taking a credible tilt at the speed of light. It is the screaming of ki expended to keep these physics-warping acts of destruction from scouring Garenhuld to its core in a heartbeat, denying both of you your prize. And it goes on for minutes, the sheer energy expended keeping the bones of Garenhuld heaving themselves to shreds even once Dazarel pulls himself up and out of the hole you make with his body.

When he comes out, he looks up and sees you, floating in the middle of the golden glow that has enveloped the world, you hands overlapping each other. You breathe in. "KIHOHO!"

If what preceded that defied description, the sheer racket of that blast defies comprehension. Dazarel doesn't even scream as the power of your ki bears him into and through the ground, digging a massive crater out of the earth.

With all of the power raging through you, you dismiss that hellish cacophony with the barest effort of will, glide through the crushing wall of Dazarel's telekinesis as if it was a cobweb, and shove his head into the ground, holding him there as easily as you would a child.

It's...so easy. You could do anything with this power. You could smash Dazarel like he was a fly. You're spending more mental energy on avoiding killing him than you are physical energy on actually defeating him.

He thrashes under your grasp, to no avail. You lay your other hand on his jawline in a soothing gesture. "It's over, Dazarel. You lost. You can stop fighting now."

Let me up. LET ME UP NOW OR ELSE END THIS!

"You know that I'm not going to do that," you say. "Now shush. We have a lot to talk about, and I don't want to have to shout."

He screams in near-mindless rage. I AM NO TOY FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT, APE!

"No," you say, as the other nobles and the assembled sorcerers land around you. "But you aren't a threat, either." You casually crush his efforts to reach out with telekinesis and pop the sorcerers' hearts. It's just a matter of countering everything he does, as fast as he can even begin to do it -- and that, you can do easily. You look over your shoulder. "It's funny, but with this I don't actually have to kill him if I don't want to, and I have some questions to ask him. That said, we need a long-term fix. I don't know anything about magic. Can it help?"

Dandeer is absent -- you feel her flying off home in a ball of sullen resentment and frustration.

She still gave you ki for the Genki Dama, though, so haha, you win this round.

That said, even without her, almost every other sorcerer on Garenhuld is present. Well over ten thousand of them in a great mass around you in their dark robes.

And the woman who took charge of them just flew off. They all start trading uncertain glances, save for those several thousand who immediately begin talking over each other, straining even your ability to multitask. You sigh and shoot your dad a pleading look.

He nods. "SILENCE!"

It is granted.

He looks at you. "How...how long can you hold that?"

You consider that for a moment. "As long as I keep not having to do anything hard? Probably over an hour."

Dazarel snarls at you in indignation.

Dad nods, open relief on his face. "If you can keep him down, then that gives us some time to-"

Yammar, covered in (his own) blood and busy sealing several of his more critical wounds, limps past your father and bellows, "PAIR OFF AND FIGURE OUT SOMETHING WORKABLE! ONCE YOU'VE DONE THAT, FIND ANOTHER PAIR AND FIGURE OUT WHO HAD THE BETTER IDEA! CONTINUE UNTIL YOU HAVE A FUNCTIONAL PLAN!" He winces as he tugs a shoulder muscle back into place. "WORK FAST! AM I UNDERSTOOD?!"

There's a general, terrified noise to the effect of, "Yes."

"GOOD!" He returns to his injuries, hissing in agony.

You look down at Dazarel, pulling your aura back in. "He's very handy for stuff like that."

...what are you hoping to accomplish here? The dragon rolls his eyes towards you.

"Ready to talk now?" you ask.

I admit to some curiosity. I am beaten, yet I am not dead. What schemes do you have in mind?

"I did have some questions," you ask.

Hmph. A curious use for such limited time. Ask. If I wish to, I may answer.

"Why the change in tone?" you say, genuinely off-balance. "A minute ago you were screaming."

He sighs. I lost. You won. And you have all the time and leisure to do to me whatever you wish. He looks ahead, gaze unfocused. What do I gain by continued defiance in the face of a superior being?

You hum quietly. "And earlier? You called yourself, 'King of Endings.' 'Wyrm of the Void.'" You shove his jaw into the ground a little harder. I don't like to hear that right next to somebody talking about the Enemy. Explain.

He growls quietly at the pressure, but remains limp. It's...nothing. I eat planets. What do you think the names mean?

You mentioned the Enemy right afterwards, you reply. I See things, Dazarel. Remember that.

He huffs. I don't know any more than you! Somehow the galaxy found out that your Enemy keeps on talking about himself as an agent of the void. Void this, void that! I...hoped to borrow some menace, secondhand.

You peer at him, frowning. He isn't looking at you. "Are you...embarrassed?"

I HAVE BURNED A DOZEN WORLDS! he yells, shrieking. I WILL NOT APOLOGIZE FOR TAKING A NAME THAT ACCURATELY CHARACTERIZES MY DEEDS!

You chuckle to yourself. "Sure, sure." You look at him for a moment. "You know, that's really clever."

He blinks. What?

"You can't beat me, so you're trying to be relatable and helpful so I'll go easy on you or slip. It's clever." You smile at him.

He glowers at you, wordless.

"It might even work a little better if you didn't get insulted so easily," you say.

He growls.

You sigh. "What am I gonna do with you?"

You have an hour to decide, he replies, his lips pulling back from his teeth.

"We have ideas."

You blink, looking over your shoulder. You had lost yourself in the feeling of the Genki Dama, honestly -- countering Dazarel's increasingly-token efforts at escape demanded virtually none of your concentration. To let the time pass swiftly, you lost yourself in the swirling sensation of the system's ki coursing through your body.

"How much time has it been?" you ask.

"A little over half an hour," says Yammar, standing in front of a more manageable cadre of sorcerers and still -- still -- closing up some of his injuries. "I told them to stop talking once it because clear that they weren't going to come to a firm agreement on any one plan."

The sorcerers shift uncomfortably. You glance at them. "So? What do we have?"

They dither for a moment before Yammar growls and points to one of them. He steps forward. "La- Lady Scion." He offers you an unpracticed bow. Yammar snorts in disgust.

You ignore him.

The sorcerer gives Yammar a nervous look before focusing on you. "Well, we have a few ideas, but any of them are going to require your help. We can make whatever spells we want, but even all together we can't be sure that the dragon's strange abilities won't burn straight through them."

As if to demonstrate, the dragon makes another effort at exploding the sorcerer's heart. You squish it, easily.

The sorcerer shudders. "See, like that. I don't know what he just did, but you stopped it. Anything we do, we need you to donate power to. With that much energy, with the...Genki Dama...we can have enough power to effortlessly shut down anything the dragon could ever try, in a foolproof seal."

You raise your eyebrows. "Foolproof?"

"I'd swear to it," he says. "We're working with very simple, well-understood concepts here. Loopholes aren't really a problem, with this kind of magic. If we can stop him burning his way out, we can stop him forever."

You nod. "Alright. And what are the plans?"

He takes a breath. "Well, one solution proposed is simply sealing away the dragon's powers. If you help us, we can do it, easily. The trouble is that he'd still...be...um. A dragon."

Dazarel lets out a grinding chuckle.

You nod. "And the other plans?"

"We could also imprison him in some kind of container," he replies. "Like the Mafuba did. We could also seal his powers and his body into a less impressive form."

"Like a Masque?" you ask.

"Similar principle," he says, regaining some composure now that he's on more familiar ground.

"Could you seal him into human form?" you ask.

His eye twitches in irritation. "No. It doesn't work that way." He sighs after a moment. "I...sorry. We get questions like that a lot. Masques are a form of sealing; we seal away our saiyan parts, and thus all that's left is human. The dragon doesn't have any human. We can't make him a human. We could make him a much smaller dragon, though."

You look at Dazarel consideringly. "...how much smaller?"

Girl...

"Maybe the size of a house cat," says the sorcerer.

Don't you dare...

You giggle quietly. "That would be funny."

Dazarel roars in protest.

You tap him hard enough to jar his senses. "Stop that." You look back up at the sorcerer. "Going back a bit...what would you define as a container?"

He blinks, pulling his hands away from his ears. "WHAT?"

You frown. "What's a container, for seal-"

"WHAT? I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

...you glower at Dazarel. "Now look at what you've done."

Do you expect regrets?

You sigh, slipping into Vegetan protocol. "Honored Patriarch, may I impose-?"

"Of course," he says. The sorcerer flinches back as Yammar approaches, but the Vegetan snags the other man's head without any trouble, ki healing flaring up. He releases the sorcerer after a moment. "HEAL YOURSELF THE REST OF THE WAY. GOT IT?!"

The sorcerer nods, looking dazed. Yammar stalks off to help the others.

After the sorcerer mends his hearing, you again ask, "What kind of container would you need to seal him up?"

"It could be anything, really," he says, warming to the topic. "Doesn't even really need to be a container, although it helps, for visualizing purposes. But a sufficiently skilled sorcerer -- and even with Lady Vegeta leaving, we still have experts here -- could work with anything. Piece of paper? Check. Floor safe? Easy. I could even lock him inside of an actual house cat." He points at Dazarel. "Well, I couldn't. None of us could. Again, we'd need you donating power."

"Inside of a house cat..." you murmur, looking at Dazarel. The dragon snarls at you, by way of reply.

"Of course, that'd be one mean house cat," says the sorcerer. "If we gave him control, anyway, and I don't see why we would. But if we're doing that we may as well seal him into an inanimate object. If we do give him control, we might as well just seal him into a smaller body. Sticking him in solitary confinement with nobody to talk to but a cat would just be extra steps to take for no practical gain."

"And could he talk to the...cat?" you ask, still gazing at the dragon.

"...I guess?" says the sorcerer, pulling out a note pad. "Here, I have my notes...in general, what we'd be sealing with that kind of setup would be his powers and his ability to control the body he's inhabiting. We could also stop him from talking to the cat. I don't know why we'd care to, though."

"This sounds a bit like a Masque," you say.

"It is, in a lot of different ways," he replies. "It's also different, but the idea is that it'd be like a child's Masque. Everything sealed away, and the subject has no ability to control the seal."

"Are kids' Masques easier to make?" you ask.

"Harder, actually," he says, tucking away the note pad. "Sounds weird, but it's true. Magic defaults to being controlled by whoever controls the body it inhabits, so by default, Masques are completely under the control of whoever wears them. Making them permanent the way we do with child Masques is another step on top of the usual process."

You smile, carefully not showing what's on your mind and instead looking amused. "So, by default, the house cat..."

"...would have complete and undisputed control of the seal's functions, yes," says the sorcerer, laughing. "Just by default!" He shakes his head, still grinning. "Of course, we'd take the extra step to seal that off. It'd mean also adding in a layer to seal the dragon, because we don't want the magic deciding to default to the control of the other mind in the cat's body in the absence of the main one, but we really don't want an animal controlling this."

Well, then.

---

The sorcerers have given you their opinions. The other nobles are mostly content to leave this in your hands -- with you being the battery behind any sealing attempts, they acknowledge that you have more right to refusal than anybody else. That said, they have given their opinions. Yammar advocates immediate execution. Frankly, they all do, but Yammar refuses to bend in his advocacy. Grandma and Dad recognize that you're unlikely to consent to that, and have set aside the point. Instead, your father argues for sealing the dragon into a reduced form, while Grandma advocates sticking him in a safe that you dump into the middle of the ocean. Please select one of the following options per vote, although approval voting is, as always, still in effect, and you may as many different votes as you please. Please note that the sorcerers are willing to swear in the highest possible confidence that any option will be enforced by a flawless, self-maintaining ward.

[ ] Seal his powers away. Dazarel will still be a mountain-sized, flying, fire-breathing dragon with the ability to survive the depths of space, but he will no longer have abnormal ki and psychic abilities (least harsh, renders him within your abilities to handle if he gets out of line).
[ ] Seal him into an inanimate object. Sorcerers will be able to get him visitation, so he won't be completely alone, but he will be completely disabled (harshest, completely strips any ability to affect the world aside from talking to willing, un-captive visitors).
[ ] Seal him into an actual house cat, because you think it's funny.
-[ ] With control of the body (middling harshness, Dazarel is restricted to hissing at things and scratching them. Means you could physically carry him during your day-to-day if you wanted without having to explain him to Garenhulders. Sacrifice a poor kitty).
-[ ] Without control of the body (harshest, Dazarel is as restricted as the inanimate object version. But in a cat. Why even?).
[ ] Seal him in a less imposing physical body, with his powers sealed as well (somewhat harsh, renders him almost completely harmless while still giving him physical freedom. Implement chibi Dazarel).
[ ] Seal him in your own head. You will be his prison and his warden, and see what benefits you can gain from having a dragon chained in your body (x1.25, from, "ambitious." Middling harshness, Dazarel is as restricted as the inanimate object version but has you on hand for conversation and interesting experiences, renders him completely harmless, may or may not allow Kakara to exploit him for power).
[ ] Do not pursue a magical solution.
-[ ] Kill him. (x0.1)
-[ ] Try with all the resources at your disposal to convince him to reform.
[ ] As always, write-in.

TWO-HOUR MORATORIUM. THIS VOTE IS NOW CLOSED.

In which the sorcerers are real confident about their chances when powered by a battery this huge. And also in which Kakara is functionally indestructible.

I had fun writing this; I hope you have fun reading it. Bye!