A power surge like the one I felt that night could not go unnoticed.  I’m sure that far below me on the mainland, children were waking from their sleep, screaming for their parents.  I didn’t blame them, in fact I almost felt like doing the same.

            I was jolted out of my bed by the sudden jump in power.  I sat up in silent terror, the power was almost five times as strong as Gideon, if somehow the Caprians had landed early, we were in deep shit.  I searched frantically with my mind to make sure we were all still here.  I quickly accounted for Gideon, Arsenia, Nikita, Karnai, and Kennard.  I tried to fill in the blanks, but it took me a second to realize that I hadn’t picked up Cris or Phoenix.

            I searched harder, not wanting to admit any sort of loss yet.  After a few seconds I registered something that vaguely resembled Phoenix’s ki signature, only it was far more powerful than normal.  I realized it was Phoenix who was the extremely powerful one.  I darted to my window, and brushed the curtain aside.

            The full moon shone back at me in the dark black sky and I cursed several times before heading outside.  Once I brushed open the door, the darkness of the night made it nearly impossible to see the other forms roaming about in the courtyard.  I knew who they were of course, if only by their ki signatures.

            Gideon, Kennard and Karnai had already assembled in the center of the courtyard.  I rushed to join them, simply gliding across the cold tiled floor Sky Palace.  When I met with them, I realized they’d all changed into their training clothes, while I was still clothed only in the shorts I slept in.  Before I embarrassed myself heavily, I zanzokened back to my room and quickly changed the clothes.

            When I got back to the courtyard, everyone was there, except Kami, Cris and Phoenix.  Nikita, without the use of a shower, was forced to let her beautiful blonde hair blow freely into the wind.  I looked at her in silent awe for a second, before I realized she was staring back.  I embarrassingly turned to face Gideon, but how could I help myself?  She was so beautiful, how could a man not stare at her?  Of course she was probably pissed at me for staring like that.

            I didn’t have much time to worry about what she thought though; Gideon brought me back to reality.  “We’ve got a situation here.”  He stated, his voice coming out hoarsely because of his sudden awaking.

            “No shit Sherlock.”  Came the reply from Arsenia.  We all looked at him and Gideon gave him a dirty look.  There’d been something going on for a while now between those two, since Krillin died.  Arsenia seemed to resent everything Gideon said, and Gideon didn’t seem to take any notice of Arsenia at all, which just fuelled the hatred even more.

            Nikita walked over to Arsenia, and using her feminine powers, guided his cone of vision away from Gideon.  She and the black haired warrior whispered back and forth.  After a while, Arsenia seemed to relax, and then both he and Nikita turned back towards the group.  Gideon continued.  “From what I can tell, Phoenix has turned Oozaru and either accidentally or intentionally killed Cris.”  He paused for a second, letting the information soak in.  “Now we can wish Cris back, but we have to do it soon, because we also have to wish his friend Triono back, both within two years.”  This would be easy, but getting the dragon balls within a week wouldn’t be easy.  Capsule Corp. protected the dragon radar very tightly, and it took Kami himself to pry it from their hands, peacefully.

            “So,” Gideon proceeded “Nikita, you and Kennard head off to Capsule Corp to get the radar, and get at least one ball before you head back.”  Nikita nodded, and turned to Kennard.  He smiled, nodded, and together they ran full speed to the side of the palace, hopping off in unison, and firing off, ki’s flaring up around them.  I couldn’t help but watch her move, total elegance.

            “Yukia, Arsenia, Karnai.  Let’s go see if we can stop Phoenix.”  A daunting task to say the least, but something had to be done.  Phoenix was powerful enough to probably destroy the entire surface of the planet if he was allowed to roam free.

            I covered myself in my white-glowing ki, as those around me did the same.  When we were adequately immersed, we all shot off into the sky in unison.

            Phoenix’s overly powerful ki signature was off to the northeast, and I recognized the place as where Cris and Phoenix often sparred when not in The Arena.  How could they be stupid enough to not realize the moon was full tonight?  I shook my head as we flew off at a few hundred kilometres a minute.  Phoenix should’ve known his tail was bound to grow back at least once in his life, he was really only a few years old, his body seemed to have the regenerative ability of a young child too, he should’ve seen it coming.  It was too late though, Cris was a goner, and we’d have to go through hell to bring him back now.

            We reached the island in maybe twenty… thirty seconds, but landing on it was a whole different story.  The island was shaking violently, causing waves to form heading outwards.  It was really a sight to behold, but at the same time, it was really scary.  I was sure if I wanted to I could’ve done that to the island, but Phoenix was just walking and shaking it, I really didn’t want to be around right then.

            I didn’t have a choice though; Gideon and Karnai headed low to the ground, and shot off towards the center of the island, where Phoenix was located.  Arsenia and I exchanged looks, before joining the two warriors in pursuit of the renegade saiyan.  It wasn’t hard to locate him; he was stomping around near a mountain range at the heart of the island.  Just to get an idea of our upcoming opponents power, I asked, “Does anyone know what Phoenix’s power level was within the last week or so?”

            “I think I measured it at about 12,000 two days ago.”  Karnai replied from a little bit ahead of me.  I did the math in a heartbeat.  120,000.  That’s what we were going to face, someone with a power level over 3 times that of Karnai’s.  We had no chance to beat him, that much was certain, but I knew we might have a chance to cut off his tail.  If all else failed, we could simply blow up the moon.  In that instant I really despised Kami’s idea to wish it back a few years ago.

            I didn’t have time to think of bitching out Kami, we reached Phoenix and saw for the first time the extent of his power.  Where as he could shake the entire island by walking, the epicentre of his earthquakes caused the land to almost literally tear itself apart.  Rocks were falling off mountainsides, and often the mountains themselves were splitting apart.  The sky had turned black from the smoke of several fires burning in the small forests near the mountains.  The sounds of the crackling fire, the roaring of Phoenix, and the crashing mountains assaulted my eardrums, forcing me to cover my ears and try to block out the emissions.  We crouched behind a small rock formation about twice as high as me.

            The air had a pungent smell, mostly from the raging fires, but there was something else, something I couldn’t put my finger on.  I’m sure everyone else smelt it too, it was overpowering, almost a stench.  Gideon looked at me and gave me a confident head nod.  I returned it, and then repeated the procedure with Karnai and Phoenix.  None of us were bailing, not now.

            The large brown, Oozaru form of Phoenix was seemingly unaware of our presence, he just continued to trample the ground and fire huge ki beams from his mouth in seemingly random directions.  Gideon noticed it too, and made sure we took advantage of it.  “He doesn’t see us yet.  Let’s set up a plan.”  Arsenia muttered something, but Karnai and I just looked at Gideon.  “We have to get his tail, we get that, he reverts to normal.”  Seemed simple enough, but I knew it wouldn’t be easy.  “He’s not going to just let us chop it off though, he has a natural instinct to protect it, so we need to set a trap and catch him in it.”  We all nodded, waiting to see what the ambush would be.

            Gideon pondered for a few seconds, before finishing the idea.  “Yukia,” he said, turning to me.  “you know the Special Beam Cannon right?”  I nodded an affirmative, and he grinned.  “I heard Piccolo used that to blow up the moon a while back.”  Karnai smiled at the mentioning of his famous ancestor.  “I also heard it takes a while to charge up.”  I nodded again.  It was true; I’d need almost three minutes to charge up enough power to take out the moon.

             “All the better.”  Gideon replied, a smile spreading across his dark face.  “You’re going to be the bait, ok?”  He asked.  Of course he gave me no chance to think of any answer other than ‘yes’ continuing on “While your powering up your Special Beam Cannon, Karnai and I will head behind him and try and make a run for his tail.  Arsenia, you go above him and if we miss, you go for it.”  Arsenia nodded, and Gideon looked at each of in turn.  He patted me on the shoulder and gave another small nod.

            I smiled back, and took in a deep breath.  There were butterflies quelling up in my stomach, and a whole lot of fear racing through my heart.  I really didn’t want the job of human bait, but I guess I was the smallest, and could make a quick escape if I had to.  Right before Gideon left, he purged the thought of running from my mind.  “If we don’t make it, just fire the beam cannon at the moon and blow it up.”

            I dropped my head and shuddered, it was all or nothing I guess.  Arsenia floated up slowly, keeping away from the direct line-sight of the raging Phoenix.  Gideon and Karnai headed left on opposite sides of the rock we were behind, one heading to the left, the other to the right.  Rather than flying and giving off ki, they stayed on the ground, running a wide flank on Phoenix.

            The large Oozaru beast was “walking” away off to the west, crashing another mountain with his gigantic fists.  Once my three partners were in position, I closed my eyes, and tried to visualize what I was going to do.  I couldn’t, I was too tired to think clearly, so I just hopped up onto the rock formation I’d previously been hiding behind.  I brought my index and middle fingers from my right hand up to my forehead, spread my legs, and began charging the necessary energy.

            The Special Beam Cannon was unlike most other attacks; it required a special form of ki manipulation to perform.  The energy from the Cannon didn’t just come from inside the user, but from all around them as well.  It also required the complete focus of the user to direct and control the energy into just two fingers, which is why the beam takes so long to power up.  If I was to use three or four fingers for the Cannon, it could produce an erratic beam that could end up incinerating everything within a two-mile radius, including me.

            My mind was already clear from lack of sleep, so I just began powering up.  I used a small trick I’d learned from Karnai to use the pores on my skin to suck in ki from the living things around me.  My muscles began bulging, simply because of the energy that was rushing through them.  Sparkles of pure energy visible only as yellow light went off all around me, until it seemed like I was a live wire sticking out of a wall.  That’s what finally got Phoenix’s attention.

            He caught me out of the corner of his eye, and almost instantly he stopped roaring and turned his huge body to face me.  My heart started pounding seemingly through my chest, until I was sure it was going to pop out of my body.   I stared right into the furry mug of my friend, and just kept charging.  I was pulling in energy at a very slow pace, but it couldn’t be helped.  Phoenix stared at me for a few seconds, and I thought he might’ve recognized me for a second, but then he just roared and began trampling off in my direction.

            His heavy, crashing steps rattled the rock I was standing on, and I lost my concentration for a second in order to balance myself.  I could see Gideon and Karnai around Phoenix, and almost felt like shouting “Hurry up and try it already!!” But I restrained myself for a while at least.  Phoenix covered the kilometre distance between he and I in an amazing time considering his size.  In fact, his speed seemed only slightly hampered by his huge form, his legs still moved incredibly fast.

            When he was about a hundred feet away from me, Karnai tried his luck.  He shot from the ground behind Phoenix and to his right, flying full speed, his white ki gathered in a circle around him.  He had his right hand enveloped in slicing ki energy, no doubt to sear the stub of Phoenix’s tail when he got in range.  He shot straight at the base of the tail, at an amazing speed; I don’t think either Karnai or I thought the target itself (the tail) would be what caught him.

            Right as Karnai was raising his hand and closing in on the tail, a brown swirl of fur appeared out of nowhere and caught him, stopping him dead in his tracks.  It was the end of the tail, which no one had bothered to look for.  It had wrapped itself around Karnai’s body, and was crushing the life out of the Namek warrior.  Phoenix immediately stopped running and turned his head to face Karnai, letting out a slight roar while doing so.  Karnai struggled to free himself from the tail, but had no luck, it was simply too strong.  Phoenix continued to close the tail tighter and tighter, devastating Karnai’s seemingly weak body.

             Once Gideon saw Karnai had been stopped, he went to work.  He ran full speed from behind and to the left of Phoenix, gliding along the ground effortlessly at an amazing clip.  Instead of trying to get in close to slice the tail though, he had a small ki ball ready in his right hand, and when he got a clear sighting of the base of the tail, he let it fly.

            Up till then, I thought Phoenix in Oozaru had been fast, but what he did to avoid Gideon’s attack was beyond my comprehension.  Right as Gideon’s blast was just feet away from it’s target, Phoenix jumped up in the air.  Not just into the air, but high in the air; at least 500 metres, and while doing so he performed at least four back-flips, moving backwards as well, so when he landed, he had Gideon in front of him, right in his sights.

            Gideon floated in the air, amazed, a dumbfounded look on his face.  I too was stunned, but I didn’t let it stop me from charging up the Special Beam Cannon some more.  Gideon though, let the amazing performance get to his head, and as Phoenix was prepping his energy, Gideon just continued to float.  Phoenix roared and exhaled a huge pink energy blast from his mouth.  The strike was perfectly aimed, and it hit Gideon at full force, hurling the black skinned human into the ground; destroying a large portion of the land around him.  The beam held for nearly a second, but once it detracted, there was a gigantic smoking crater where before there had only been green grass and dirt.  Gideon lay in the fissure, unmoving; a smouldering piece of human flesh.  I sensed his ki still though, so he was alive at least, but that blast nearly ended the muscle-laden warrior’s life.

            So both Gideon and Karnai were out of the picture, and it was up to Arsenia now.  The whole time Gideon and Karnai had gone at Phoenix, he’d been prepping one of Krillin’s old moves, the Destructo Disc.  I smiled, that attack would cut through the tail like it was nothing.  The attack was now ready, resting on Arsenia’s outstretched hand, and Phoenix didn’t seem to notice while Arsenia slowly floated down from the sky towards Phoenix’s saiyan appendage.  When Arsenia was within twenty metres, he hurled the yellow circle of energy towards the tail.

            Either Phoenix had been playing with Arsenia the whole time, or he was quick enough to see the attack and dodge it before it struck.  In any case, he simply hopped forward, away from the Disc, and the yellow attack simply drove itself into the ground, shredding the rocks, dirt and grass that lay on top.

            Arsenia floated in the air stunned, just like Gideon.  As he hung there, Phoenix turned around to face him, and stared straight at Arsenia before firing another huge ki blast from his mouth.  This one was badly aimed, and Arsenia easily dodged it, causing it to go hurling into a mountain.  Ground zero on the mountain was actually incinerated by the blast, while the rest of the rock-face was simply shattered into a million pieces.

            Phoenix screamed an unearthly holler, and was about to try again when Arsenia came to his senses and shot off away from Phoenix, at full speed.  Phoenix trotted off after the human, keeping up with Arsenia fairly easily.  I’d nearly forgotten about Karnai, being crushed by Phoenix’s tail, but the saiyan certainly didn’t.  He stopped his running, letting Arsenia think he’d given up, wound up his tail for a few seconds, and then pivoted his hips, getting a ton of momentum, and releasing Karnai from his tail’s grasp.  The Namek warrior went flying at speeds nearing sub-sonic, and was on a direct crash-course for Arsenia.

            The human spotted Karnai coming though, and flew straight into the Namek’s travel path.  He prepped himself against the air, straining his ki, and when Karnai came, he was ready.  The green-skinned fighter collided with Arsenia, and sent them both flying a few metres, but Arsenia fought it, and managed to stop them both within a second or two.

            Karnai’s body was nearly limp, so Arsenia was forced to hold onto it in mid-air.  Arsenia shook Karnai a few times and yelled at the Namek repeatedly in an attempt to wake him up.  While he was doing so though, Phoenix pounced, jumping forward faster than I could fly.  He was on Arsenia before the Z warrior could react.

            The giant ape brought up a humungous paw, and swatted both Arsenia and Karnai downward, into a formation of boulders.  Their bodies crashed into the blocks of rock at suicidal speeds, and I winced when I heard the cracking of the rocks and the breaking of the bodies of my friends.

            I felt Karnai’s already weakening ki signature fade even more, while Arsenia’s took a run for the worse as well.  A cloud of smoke went up where the two had crash-landed, and shrapnel was sent all over the island.  Phoenix roared at his seeming victory, and stomped forward a few paces towards Arsenia and Karnai.

            He was almost upon them, and I considered ditching the Special Beam Cannon to aid my comrades when suddenly a huge ki ball came out of nowhere and struck itself straight into Phoenix’s back.  The Oozaru took a few dazed steps forward before regaining his composure.  He turned to face whatever it was that had struck him, and he came head on with Gideon.

            The human floated in the air, and I realized it was Gideon himself who had rushed into Phoenix.  He’d covered himself in his ki and flew full power into Phoenix’s back.  It was a technique we liked to call a power ram.  Gideon had used almost all his power in the attack though, and was hanging in the air like a sitting duck.  He was only about 20 metres away from Phoenix, and had no power to move.

            Phoenix took advantage of Gideon’s weakened state, bringing his massive hands together high in the air, and then dropping them down on Gideon.  The hammer-blow sent Gideon crashing into the ground again, a circle of dust exploding from the ground upon impact.  Gideon laid on the ground again, immobile for a second time.

            Phoenix roared in triumph yet again before raising his foot a good twenty yards and holding it there.  He looked straight at Gideon, then turned his head and looked at me.  Our eyes interlocked, and for a brief moment, I could see the rage in his heart.  Phoenix didn’t want to do all this destruction, he needed to do it.  The saiyan side of him needed to fight, to kill, to destroy, and he’d been suppressing that.  Until this night, Phoenix had been trying to live like the rest of us, when in fact he wasn’t one of us at all, he was something much more special.

            Just as soon as all this hit me, Phoenix bellowed and brought his foot crashing down towards Gideon’s unmoving body.  I closed my eyes, waiting for the crushing blow to hit, when suddenly there was a flare of ki and a rush of air blowing by my face.

            I opened my eyes, and saw Phoenix stepping down with all his weight, but he wasn’t touching the ground or Gideon.  There was a white light, like a burning fire under Phoenix’s foot, and I recognized it as Arsenia.  He’d surrounded himself in ki and was using all his strength to push Phoenix’s foot up and away from he and Gideon.  I understood now, Arsenia had flown away from the wreckage of his crash with the rocks, and saved Gideon’s life.

            I smiled again; Arsenia had put aside his petty differences with Gideon to save a teammates life.  I cheered him silently as he pushed with all his power in an attempt to stop Phoenix.  Arsenia screamed, so loudly I heard him even though we were at least a few hundred metres apart.  With one gigantic surge of power, he hurled Phoenix’s foot to the side.

            When the ape foot touched the ground, Arsenia collected Gideon’s body in his arms and flew off.  Phoenix wasted no time in keeping pursuit, trampling off after Arsenia’s glowing white trail of Ki.  The Oozaru beast fired several ki beams from his mouth, but Arsenia was far enough away to dodge most of them.  The human zigged and zagged over the island, often making a circle so that he wouldn’t lead Phoenix too far away from the Special Beam Cannon and I.

            After a while, Gideon came back to life and Arsenia let him go fly by himself so Phoenix would have two people to chase.  The saiyan was split between the two targets, and roared in anger.  As soon as he did, a large yellow ball of ki appeared out of the sky.  I thought it would strike Phoenix, but instead it stopped right in front of his face and hung there.

            The big ape looked quizzically at the ball of energy, like a baby stares at their mobile above their crib.  The ball of energy darted left, then right, and Phoenix’s eyes and body followed.  The ball moved away and Phoenix followed it.  Arsenia and Karnai flew away, and set down on a pair of rocks in order to rest for a while and regain some energy.

            Phoenix tried grasping the sphere with his paws, but it shot away and the beast strode after it again.  I sensed that someone near me was controlling the ki, so I searched around.  It couldn’t be Arsenia or Gideon, and I hadn’t picked up Nikita or Kennard heading our way, so that left… Karnai.  I looked back to the rocks he’d been embezzled in, and saw him standing near the rubble, his right hand outstretched, his left grasping his right wrist.  I recognized the attack instantly, the Tsuihidan, which Karnai had perfected just a few months ago.  I still was unable to perform the attack, mainly because I’d been practicing the Special Beam Cannon the whole time.

              I kept charging the Cannon to its full power, indeed it was almost ready.  The air itself around me seemed almost alive, as crackles of ki and electricity sprayed themselves in every direction.  I almost had enough power, and had taken all I could from the things around me, all the energy I needed now would have to come from myself.  My muscles felt weak and tired from the strain, but I kept charging, nothing would stop me now.

            Karnai continued to lead Phoenix around like a dog on a leash, while Arsenia and Gideon had recovered quite a bit of energy.  Karnai’s energy ball left Phoenix’s back to the two human warriors, and they pounced on an opportunity to strike the tail.

            Both of them rocketed away from the rocks they’d been on, and both had energy blasts powered up and aimed towards Phoenix’s tail.  The saiyan proved himself a worthy opponent yet again though, and right as they were about to fire, he turned and jumped straight towards them.

            Gideon tried averting to the left, and Arsenia directly away, but Phoenix caught one of them in each of his paws and began crushing the life out of them.  I heard both of their screams, but the cries of agony were droned out by Phoenix’s roar.  Fear and anger raced through my heart, I really hadn’t expected Phoenix to grab them like that, and now they were being crushed out of existence.

The turn left Karnai’s attack behind Phoenix now though, so the Namek tried to take advantage, sending the orb flying towards Phoenix’s tail.

            Before the attack could do any damage though, Phoenix’s tail swept the attack harmlessly to the side, crashing it into another mountain and causing it to explode before Karnai could alter it’s direction. 

In the two seconds it took to swat away Karnai’s attack, all hope drained from me.  I could hear Gideon’s bones cracking under the pressure of Phoenix’s grip.  I could feel Arsenia’s pleas for help vibrate through my bones.  I could smell Karnai’s sweat as he flew off in a futile attempt to save his friends.  I couldn’t take it, I couldn’t just watch Phoenix do this to everyone, not in my life.

I screamed.  I just screamed, the loudest I think I ever had in my life.  I screamed for Gideon and Arsenia, for Karnai, for Cris, for myself, but most of all for Phoenix.  I couldn’t stand to see someone I’d gotten to know so well over the last two years turn into a raging beast with no thought but to kill.  Saiyan blood-lust be damned, he wasn’t going to hurt another friend of mine, much less himself.

I screamed loud and long, maybe 20 seconds, before I got Phoenix’s attention.  He turned his head and neck to me first, with seemingly newfound interest.  I ended the scream and spat in his direction.  He dropped Arsenia and Gideon to the ground.  Karnai flew after them and managed to catch them before they touched the ground.

            Phoenix must’ve thought I was trying to match him in a roaring contest, because he screamed right back at me, so loudly the rocks beneath my feet cracked slightly.  He then rushed at me, running full speed.  He closed the small gap between us in no time, but just as he did, I finished powering up my Special Beam Cannon.

            I smiled, then began chuckling, until finally I was laughing my head off.  Phoenix stopped about ten yards away from me and tilted his head, staring at me strangely.  I tilted my head back towards the sky in laughter, my two fingers still on my forehead, and looked at the moon.

            I could see the small craters on it, the small colony of robotic mining depots Capsule Corp. had put up there, the frozen lakes that littered the land; indeed, I could see it all, and then I destroyed it.

            I whipped up the fully charged right hand, fingers extended, and screamed “Special Beam Cannon FIRE!!!!”

            I watched as the thin beam of circular energy made it’s way to the moon, and gazed intently as it tore the hunk of rock to shreds.  Phoenix roared, nothing new, and I just kept laughing.  I fell back onto my rock, and stretched out in exhaustion.

            I craned my neck up, and watched as Phoenix’s large form shrunk.  It took nearly ten seconds for him to reach his regular size, but when he did, a rush of fresh air invaded my lungs.  I didn’t want to move, but I knew a lot of people would need to be sent to regeneration chambers pretty soon, so I sat up, and hopped down to the ground.