04-03-2010, 01:47 AM
Even from a young age, Belle had known that she was different.
It wasn't the fact that she lived in the woods, that she could snap trunks in half, or that she was so much stronger than her friends. No, what really told her how she was different from others was that trouble always had a way of finding her.
And not just any kind of trouble: strange trouble. Weirdnesses that stretched the boundaries of the human imagination were, for her, almost everyday events. Belle had met dragons that could make a man's wildest wishes come true, fought primeval nature spirits left over from the creation of the world, and battled extraterrestrial computers bent on world domination. Over time Belle had grown accustomed to these events, and in most cases even welcomed the challenges that they presented. Some people had chalked up her attitude to her bloodline - half saiyan, half human.
But she knew better.
Her experiences had given her a kind of intuition, a sort of sixth sense for the extraordinary. So when the mechanical monstrosity loomed over the platform and opened its mouth, Belle knew without thinking that the creature had no intention of speaking to them.
"Get down!" she shouted, grabbing Juno by the arm and throwing him to the ground. She dove to the plating, and a half second later the beast's mouth was wreathed in pinkish-red flame. A burst of raw energy roiled outward from the mechanical gullet in a scorching sweep, tracing from one end of the platform to the next.
Belle waited behind the low wall until the sound of the blast had dissipated into the distance, then paused for another handfull of seconds before risking a peek over the edge.
The machine was waiting for her. Another blast of charged fire lanced out, and Belle had just enough time to pull her head back into cover before the energy raced through where her head had just been. Close calls were another thing that she was used to; she doubted that many could claim to have dodged fatal shots to the cranium as much as she had.
She looked up from the ground and met Juno's eyes. "How are we going to stop that thing?" she demanded over the roar of the Reaper's blaster fire. Another burst rang out, and this time slapped just short of their cover, sending a hail of super-heated shards into the air. Belle winced as they fell and one brushed her cheek. "Any ideas?"
Juno frowned, his eyes going distant. "It sounds like it pauses after every shot for a few seconds," he said. "Maybe we could fire then?"
"The last time I tried that, I almost got my face torched off," Belle pointed out.
"You got a better plan?"
Belle considered. "Not right now," she admitted. She hefted the rifle in her hands, which still felt distinctly odd. What she really wanted to do was run over there and start wailing on the thing, but she somehow doubted that Gamer would allow her to fall back to her usual standby. He seemed to delight in putting people out of their element, and the creature's armor would likely be too thick for her to damage. "Ready?" she asked, waiting for Juno's nod before perking her attention towards the sound of the raging Reaper. Its current blast faltered, waned, and abruptly cut out. "Go!"
Belle pushed up, aimed at the massive form overhead, and pulled the trigger. Juno's fire joined her's a moment later, and the loud report of Zaeed's rifle was the deep, rhythic beat of a drum to their rapid-fire duet.
Their rounds spattered ineffectually against the metal. The Reaper seemed more annoyed than anything, as if their efforts were no more significant than the nibbling of a couple of ants. Juno's rifle tracked to the side, sweeping its line of fire across the machine's face, and then abruptly it blanched back, letting out a synthesized howl of rage as the mass-accelerated rounds crashed agaisnt its glowing eyes.
"That did something!" Zaeed shouted. Then added: "Oh shit."
All three dived back into cover as the machine retaliated with another furious blast of energy, rocking the entire platform like a skiff in heavy seas and threatening to send it toppling towards the ground. Belle reached out and grabbed a nearby protuberance in the wall and held tight. "It looks like its eyes are its sensitive spot."
"Maybe it's chest, too. I saw another glowing spot there," Juno said, then hissed as the Reaper fired again. The metal of the wall heated, then rapidly cooled. "It's going to chew through this if it keeps doing that, though."
Belle went quiet, frowning. If the beam was energy ... And it was the same kind she usually used ... "I guess we'll just have to take it out before that happens, won't we?" She swept her eyes over the top of the chest-high wall that seemed to have been included in the platform's design just for this situation. Maybe it had. "I'm going to draw its fire. You go over with that dude - " she motioned towards Zaeed " - and start firing when it goes after me."
Juno's eyes widened. "But that's - ..."
'Crazy,' he probably meant to say. "It's just going to keep shooting until we're fried crispy, and we need an opening. I can give you that. Besides," she looked down at her weapon, "I suck with guns." She dropped the rifle to the ground and settled into a more comfortable crouch. "Don't worry. I've got this."
I hope.
Juno hesitated, then nodded and started to make his way back towards Zaeed, stopping every so often as the Reaper continued to pound the area with concussive blasts. It seemed to have given up going for direct hits and had decided to settle for pulverizing their cover to rubble instead. The male half-saiyan waited for a break in the fire, took a deep breath, and threw himself over the gap separating his cover from their partner's.
He made it with just a few inches to spare. Another pink-red burst sizzled by his feet close enough to scorch the soles of his boots. Pushing himself up onto his hands and knees, Juno skittering across the remaining distance to Zaeed, then looked back at Belle.
Belle nodded and peeked around the wall. It was a gamble, she knew, but it seemed like the best option available. She honestly had no clue, however, whether or not it would actually work. "Oh well," she muttered, "I was getting tired of this body anyway."
She took a deep breath and let it out, willing the tension to go along with it, clearing her mind, just as Master Akiha had taught her. Her thoughts were taken back to those long days on the stone, meditating for hours on end under pouring rain, and then again in the emptiness of the room at the top of the Lookout - that featureless void that stretched on for an eternity. She closed her eyes, took another breath, and ran out from safety.
"Hey asshole!" she screamed, lifting her hands and waving them in the Reaper's direction. "Hey, is that your face, or did a bulldozer take a shit!?"
The Reaper roared in fury. "Oooo, yeah, that's scary," Belle continued. She put her finger under one eye and pulled down while sticking out her tongue, then blew a loud raspberry in the machine's direction. "PBPBPBPBPBPB!"
The blast came quicker than before. There was only the briefest swirling of energy around the Reaper's maw before the shot lanced out. Belle dived for the floor and dodged, her breasts smacking the plating first and throbbing. "Oooo," she sprang back up after a moment's recovery. "Mister Cripple is pissed off! Everyone run! He might spit at you! Say, how about we have a foot-race? Oh wait - YOU CAN'T!"
That did it. Smashing its enormous fists against the platform, the Reaper almost lost its hold completely, fingers snapping open and scrambling for a hold. It secured itself, then leveled its unblinking stare at the pink-haired girl below it. She had successfully gotten its undivided attention - and fury.
Its mouth opened. WIthin, Belle could see that the creature didn't have a throat at all. The gap only extended a couple of meters back before terminating into a smaller aperture. Belle could see metal moving within, and had the sudden impression of a furnace as it churned with fresh waves of brightly colored energy. The heat began to build, wafting against Belle's face as the aperture heated to a molten glow, then disappeared completely as the power reached its apex. Ribbons of energy seemed to appear out of thin air, swirling into the swelling mass.
"I'm tired of playing this your way," Belle said, as if to herself, then shouted: "Bring it on!"
The Reaper's shoulders hunched as it braced itself, tgeb jerked forward and fired. Belle brought her hands up as the burning torrent raced towards her, teeth gritted as she focused with all her might on the memory of that Hellish room, that feeling of complete and total emptiness. She grabbed it in her mind, concentrated, and mentally pushed it outward, through her fingers.
The blast hit her with so much force that she slid several feet back, only stopping when her legs smacked against another low wall behind her. She yelped, then forced down the painful sensation in her calves as the beam continued to shove against her with all the determination and stubborn inertia of an out of control locomotive. She trembled, every muscle straining, then began to bend back, like a reed of bamboo caught in hurricane winds.
Raw power was rushing through her, flooding her veins like hot lava. The feeling was beyond description, and for a moment Belle thought that, despite her focus, she might pass out on the spot. And it kept coming - wave after wave pulsing into her. It was as if she had grabbed a bolt of lightning.
The sound of the tumultuous energy filled her ears. The energy... and nothing else. "What the Hell are you assholes doing!?!" she screamed, risking a glance to the side. "Shoot it, now!"
Her two companions abruptly snapped out of their shock, apparently having been distracted by the display, and began to fire again. Belle winced as the Reaper responded to the assault by pushing more energy into the beam. The fire swelled larger, and for a moment almost overtook Belle completely. She redoubled her efforts, but the blast still pushed her back another few inches.
The sensation had rapidly shifted from pleasing to uncomfortable, and Belle could feel her body starting to tense with the effort of trying to absorb it all. She was like a balloon being filled beyond capacity, stretching at the seams. Her body visibly swelled with the force of it, and large veins throbbed beneath the skin-tight suit.
Her vision started to blur. The warmth turned to fire, and she could feel her control fraying at the edges, the beam ballooning out before her...
And then the energy suddenly stopped. Belle tried to blink away the hazy afterimage, as if she had been staring into the sun for too long, and saw the Reaper reeling back, smoke pouring from one smoldering eye socket.
Juno shoved another round into the grenade launcher that Zaeed had handed him, lined up his shot, and pulled the trigger.
The Reaper reeled again as the explosion smacked against its left shoulder. Screaming in synthesized anger, it pulled back, seemed to slip... And then was gone.
Belle trembled. A few more seconds of that, and she probably would have gotten her wish to have her body taken away. She lifted her hands and stared at the reddened flesh, then flexed her fingers a few times.
"Are you alright?" Juno asked, panting as he jogged over. "How did you do that?"
"A little trick I learned. I was saving it for someone else, but..." She trailed off. Kaden had been the intended audience for the unveiling of that particular technique. Unfortunately - or perhaps not so unfortunately - things had not quite played out in the way Belle had seen in her visions. "Nice shot."
"Thanks." Juno beamed.
Belle nodded. "Now I'll handle it."
Juno's smile faltered. "What?"
Belle smirked. "What, you thought it was over? Of course it's not done. That thing's still got a lot of fight left in it. Don't worry, though." She took a slow breath, feeling the rushing tingle of power as it seemed to ooze from every pore in her body. "It's time to give Gamer a little taste of what he's up against - Hibiki style."
The words were barely out of her mouth when the hexagonal platform shuddered. Metal fingers the size of telephone poles slapped across the close edge of the platform, crunching into the decking. The Reaper gave a shout of triumph, and hauled itself over the lip.
The switch was clever. Now on the opposite side of the platform from where it had been, there was no cover between it and its prey. Juno was scrambling to leap over over the nearest wall as the Reaper started to open its mouth again...
Then crunched shut as Belle's fist slammed into the tip of its jaw with the force of a bomb. The Reaper's 'teeth' clanged together, ringing like bells as its face suddenly pointed towards the ceiling. Belle flipped back, pressing her energy out from her body to stop herself from falling, and sailed up, flying through the air and positioning herself just in front of the machine's immobile expression.
"Hi," she quipped, then crashed down in a burst of pinkish-red ki, moving so fast she she blurred out of vision as she drove her knee into the center of the Reaper's forehead. The metal armor buckled and dented inward, ripples of concussive force whipping out from the impact point and across the platform.
The Reaper's fingers slipped. It lost its grip, and it started to fall. "Bye," Belle grinned, then blinked as the massive form began to swing. Belatedly she realized how it had managed to switch positions so easily: its spine was wrapped around a long, column-like protrusion that extended from the bottom of the platform like the neck of a nail.
"Oh Hell no you don't," Belle snarled, rocketing after the penduluming Reaper in a burst of speed. Belle had fought many fighters from all around the globe, and there had been no one yet who could match her in a contest of pure physical prowess. She caught up to the machine in the blink of an eye, extended her foot, and rammed it into the creature's side with a sound like clapping thunder.
The Reaper screamed. The power of the blow added to its uncontrolled momentum and it misswung, crunching painfully against the underside of the platform with a sound reminiscent if a train wreck. The machine reached out and managed to get a grip on the lip of the platform before it could start falling again.
"I don't like hitting kids," Belle said, and the machine looked around to find the half-saiyan hovering right beside its ear. "But you need a spanking!"
Belle's fist clanged against the machine's temple. The Reaper howled in anger, jerking to the side as another dent blossomed on its previously smooth surface. Letting out a mechanical growl, it released the platform with one hand, still dangling by the other, and bodily swiped at Belle.
She swooped back just enough to dodge, smirking as the displaced air whipped through her hair. "What's the matter?" she taunted. "How's that depth perception, Cyclops?" She started to laugh, but stopped as the Reaper's hand abruptly changed direction, heading back towards her at full speed.
The movement was so quick and unexpected that Belle didn't have time to react. The backside of the Reaper's hand crashed against Belle's front. Air wheezed out of her in a whistle and she doubled over, trying to suck air into her lungs like a gasping fish. The machine's tail uncoiled from the central spire and snapped like a whip towards her, coiling around in an instant.
"Agh-!" Belle managed to get out, sucking in a greedy breath of air just before the metal coils clamped down like a vice, squeezing her. The Reaper eased its hold after a moment, tension filling the long prehensile spine, then snapped again, releasing her in the same motion.
Belle was suddenly spinning like a dust-devil through the air, her world a mass of twisting, swirling dark colors. She barely managed to get her bearings before she crashed into - and then through - the chamber wall with a deafening CHOOM, crying out in pain as rubble crashed down around her. A tangled mass of tubes and plates filled her vision, and then things went dark, and she saw nothing at all.
Damn, she thought, her head still spinning and her stomach feeling like it was going to start ejecting tenants, that was careless.
Maybe she was getting a little too used to the weirdness that was her life. She shook her head and felt around in the darkness.
She estimated that the weight on top of her was probably only a few tons - not easy, but definitely not impossible. At least the bottom of the pile seemed to be a single, large plate. Summoning her renewed strength, Belle made sure she had caught her breath, then pressed her hands against the cool steel and pushed. The load shifted one inch, then two, and then four, swinging ponderously out and up. Belle sat upright as pipes and smaller rocks rained off the sides of the plating. She paused, shifted twice, and then bodily heaved the plate to the side.
Belle stood up and cast her gaze towards the platform far overhead. The Reaper was back at it, perched on the edge and blasting. She had to get back up, and fast; Juno and Zaeed probably wouldn't be able to hold the thing off for too long by themselves.
She crouched and gathered her power, preparing to take to the air once again, but then stopped. Her vision blurred, and the world seemed to slow to a crawl. The attacks of the Reaper sounded like the deep, throbbing boom a drum somewhere very far away. She staggered on her feet, and then she heard it: the ringing.
The Harbinger was there, standing before her, its skin a mass of glowing, molten cracks, as if its very body had been ripped to pieces by the forces contained within it.
"I know you feel this," the voice shivered into her ears from all around her.
"I don't know what you're doing to me or how," Belle hissed, fighting past the sudden feeling of nausea. "But this ends.
"Now."
It wasn't the fact that she lived in the woods, that she could snap trunks in half, or that she was so much stronger than her friends. No, what really told her how she was different from others was that trouble always had a way of finding her.
And not just any kind of trouble: strange trouble. Weirdnesses that stretched the boundaries of the human imagination were, for her, almost everyday events. Belle had met dragons that could make a man's wildest wishes come true, fought primeval nature spirits left over from the creation of the world, and battled extraterrestrial computers bent on world domination. Over time Belle had grown accustomed to these events, and in most cases even welcomed the challenges that they presented. Some people had chalked up her attitude to her bloodline - half saiyan, half human.
But she knew better.
Her experiences had given her a kind of intuition, a sort of sixth sense for the extraordinary. So when the mechanical monstrosity loomed over the platform and opened its mouth, Belle knew without thinking that the creature had no intention of speaking to them.
"Get down!" she shouted, grabbing Juno by the arm and throwing him to the ground. She dove to the plating, and a half second later the beast's mouth was wreathed in pinkish-red flame. A burst of raw energy roiled outward from the mechanical gullet in a scorching sweep, tracing from one end of the platform to the next.
Belle waited behind the low wall until the sound of the blast had dissipated into the distance, then paused for another handfull of seconds before risking a peek over the edge.
The machine was waiting for her. Another blast of charged fire lanced out, and Belle had just enough time to pull her head back into cover before the energy raced through where her head had just been. Close calls were another thing that she was used to; she doubted that many could claim to have dodged fatal shots to the cranium as much as she had.
She looked up from the ground and met Juno's eyes. "How are we going to stop that thing?" she demanded over the roar of the Reaper's blaster fire. Another burst rang out, and this time slapped just short of their cover, sending a hail of super-heated shards into the air. Belle winced as they fell and one brushed her cheek. "Any ideas?"
Juno frowned, his eyes going distant. "It sounds like it pauses after every shot for a few seconds," he said. "Maybe we could fire then?"
"The last time I tried that, I almost got my face torched off," Belle pointed out.
"You got a better plan?"
Belle considered. "Not right now," she admitted. She hefted the rifle in her hands, which still felt distinctly odd. What she really wanted to do was run over there and start wailing on the thing, but she somehow doubted that Gamer would allow her to fall back to her usual standby. He seemed to delight in putting people out of their element, and the creature's armor would likely be too thick for her to damage. "Ready?" she asked, waiting for Juno's nod before perking her attention towards the sound of the raging Reaper. Its current blast faltered, waned, and abruptly cut out. "Go!"
Belle pushed up, aimed at the massive form overhead, and pulled the trigger. Juno's fire joined her's a moment later, and the loud report of Zaeed's rifle was the deep, rhythic beat of a drum to their rapid-fire duet.
Their rounds spattered ineffectually against the metal. The Reaper seemed more annoyed than anything, as if their efforts were no more significant than the nibbling of a couple of ants. Juno's rifle tracked to the side, sweeping its line of fire across the machine's face, and then abruptly it blanched back, letting out a synthesized howl of rage as the mass-accelerated rounds crashed agaisnt its glowing eyes.
"That did something!" Zaeed shouted. Then added: "Oh shit."
All three dived back into cover as the machine retaliated with another furious blast of energy, rocking the entire platform like a skiff in heavy seas and threatening to send it toppling towards the ground. Belle reached out and grabbed a nearby protuberance in the wall and held tight. "It looks like its eyes are its sensitive spot."
"Maybe it's chest, too. I saw another glowing spot there," Juno said, then hissed as the Reaper fired again. The metal of the wall heated, then rapidly cooled. "It's going to chew through this if it keeps doing that, though."
Belle went quiet, frowning. If the beam was energy ... And it was the same kind she usually used ... "I guess we'll just have to take it out before that happens, won't we?" She swept her eyes over the top of the chest-high wall that seemed to have been included in the platform's design just for this situation. Maybe it had. "I'm going to draw its fire. You go over with that dude - " she motioned towards Zaeed " - and start firing when it goes after me."
Juno's eyes widened. "But that's - ..."
'Crazy,' he probably meant to say. "It's just going to keep shooting until we're fried crispy, and we need an opening. I can give you that. Besides," she looked down at her weapon, "I suck with guns." She dropped the rifle to the ground and settled into a more comfortable crouch. "Don't worry. I've got this."
I hope.
Juno hesitated, then nodded and started to make his way back towards Zaeed, stopping every so often as the Reaper continued to pound the area with concussive blasts. It seemed to have given up going for direct hits and had decided to settle for pulverizing their cover to rubble instead. The male half-saiyan waited for a break in the fire, took a deep breath, and threw himself over the gap separating his cover from their partner's.
He made it with just a few inches to spare. Another pink-red burst sizzled by his feet close enough to scorch the soles of his boots. Pushing himself up onto his hands and knees, Juno skittering across the remaining distance to Zaeed, then looked back at Belle.
Belle nodded and peeked around the wall. It was a gamble, she knew, but it seemed like the best option available. She honestly had no clue, however, whether or not it would actually work. "Oh well," she muttered, "I was getting tired of this body anyway."
She took a deep breath and let it out, willing the tension to go along with it, clearing her mind, just as Master Akiha had taught her. Her thoughts were taken back to those long days on the stone, meditating for hours on end under pouring rain, and then again in the emptiness of the room at the top of the Lookout - that featureless void that stretched on for an eternity. She closed her eyes, took another breath, and ran out from safety.
"Hey asshole!" she screamed, lifting her hands and waving them in the Reaper's direction. "Hey, is that your face, or did a bulldozer take a shit!?"
The Reaper roared in fury. "Oooo, yeah, that's scary," Belle continued. She put her finger under one eye and pulled down while sticking out her tongue, then blew a loud raspberry in the machine's direction. "PBPBPBPBPBPB!"
The blast came quicker than before. There was only the briefest swirling of energy around the Reaper's maw before the shot lanced out. Belle dived for the floor and dodged, her breasts smacking the plating first and throbbing. "Oooo," she sprang back up after a moment's recovery. "Mister Cripple is pissed off! Everyone run! He might spit at you! Say, how about we have a foot-race? Oh wait - YOU CAN'T!"
That did it. Smashing its enormous fists against the platform, the Reaper almost lost its hold completely, fingers snapping open and scrambling for a hold. It secured itself, then leveled its unblinking stare at the pink-haired girl below it. She had successfully gotten its undivided attention - and fury.
Its mouth opened. WIthin, Belle could see that the creature didn't have a throat at all. The gap only extended a couple of meters back before terminating into a smaller aperture. Belle could see metal moving within, and had the sudden impression of a furnace as it churned with fresh waves of brightly colored energy. The heat began to build, wafting against Belle's face as the aperture heated to a molten glow, then disappeared completely as the power reached its apex. Ribbons of energy seemed to appear out of thin air, swirling into the swelling mass.
"I'm tired of playing this your way," Belle said, as if to herself, then shouted: "Bring it on!"
The Reaper's shoulders hunched as it braced itself, tgeb jerked forward and fired. Belle brought her hands up as the burning torrent raced towards her, teeth gritted as she focused with all her might on the memory of that Hellish room, that feeling of complete and total emptiness. She grabbed it in her mind, concentrated, and mentally pushed it outward, through her fingers.
The blast hit her with so much force that she slid several feet back, only stopping when her legs smacked against another low wall behind her. She yelped, then forced down the painful sensation in her calves as the beam continued to shove against her with all the determination and stubborn inertia of an out of control locomotive. She trembled, every muscle straining, then began to bend back, like a reed of bamboo caught in hurricane winds.
Raw power was rushing through her, flooding her veins like hot lava. The feeling was beyond description, and for a moment Belle thought that, despite her focus, she might pass out on the spot. And it kept coming - wave after wave pulsing into her. It was as if she had grabbed a bolt of lightning.
The sound of the tumultuous energy filled her ears. The energy... and nothing else. "What the Hell are you assholes doing!?!" she screamed, risking a glance to the side. "Shoot it, now!"
Her two companions abruptly snapped out of their shock, apparently having been distracted by the display, and began to fire again. Belle winced as the Reaper responded to the assault by pushing more energy into the beam. The fire swelled larger, and for a moment almost overtook Belle completely. She redoubled her efforts, but the blast still pushed her back another few inches.
The sensation had rapidly shifted from pleasing to uncomfortable, and Belle could feel her body starting to tense with the effort of trying to absorb it all. She was like a balloon being filled beyond capacity, stretching at the seams. Her body visibly swelled with the force of it, and large veins throbbed beneath the skin-tight suit.
Her vision started to blur. The warmth turned to fire, and she could feel her control fraying at the edges, the beam ballooning out before her...
And then the energy suddenly stopped. Belle tried to blink away the hazy afterimage, as if she had been staring into the sun for too long, and saw the Reaper reeling back, smoke pouring from one smoldering eye socket.
Juno shoved another round into the grenade launcher that Zaeed had handed him, lined up his shot, and pulled the trigger.
The Reaper reeled again as the explosion smacked against its left shoulder. Screaming in synthesized anger, it pulled back, seemed to slip... And then was gone.
Belle trembled. A few more seconds of that, and she probably would have gotten her wish to have her body taken away. She lifted her hands and stared at the reddened flesh, then flexed her fingers a few times.
"Are you alright?" Juno asked, panting as he jogged over. "How did you do that?"
"A little trick I learned. I was saving it for someone else, but..." She trailed off. Kaden had been the intended audience for the unveiling of that particular technique. Unfortunately - or perhaps not so unfortunately - things had not quite played out in the way Belle had seen in her visions. "Nice shot."
"Thanks." Juno beamed.
Belle nodded. "Now I'll handle it."
Juno's smile faltered. "What?"
Belle smirked. "What, you thought it was over? Of course it's not done. That thing's still got a lot of fight left in it. Don't worry, though." She took a slow breath, feeling the rushing tingle of power as it seemed to ooze from every pore in her body. "It's time to give Gamer a little taste of what he's up against - Hibiki style."
The words were barely out of her mouth when the hexagonal platform shuddered. Metal fingers the size of telephone poles slapped across the close edge of the platform, crunching into the decking. The Reaper gave a shout of triumph, and hauled itself over the lip.
The switch was clever. Now on the opposite side of the platform from where it had been, there was no cover between it and its prey. Juno was scrambling to leap over over the nearest wall as the Reaper started to open its mouth again...
Then crunched shut as Belle's fist slammed into the tip of its jaw with the force of a bomb. The Reaper's 'teeth' clanged together, ringing like bells as its face suddenly pointed towards the ceiling. Belle flipped back, pressing her energy out from her body to stop herself from falling, and sailed up, flying through the air and positioning herself just in front of the machine's immobile expression.
"Hi," she quipped, then crashed down in a burst of pinkish-red ki, moving so fast she she blurred out of vision as she drove her knee into the center of the Reaper's forehead. The metal armor buckled and dented inward, ripples of concussive force whipping out from the impact point and across the platform.
The Reaper's fingers slipped. It lost its grip, and it started to fall. "Bye," Belle grinned, then blinked as the massive form began to swing. Belatedly she realized how it had managed to switch positions so easily: its spine was wrapped around a long, column-like protrusion that extended from the bottom of the platform like the neck of a nail.
"Oh Hell no you don't," Belle snarled, rocketing after the penduluming Reaper in a burst of speed. Belle had fought many fighters from all around the globe, and there had been no one yet who could match her in a contest of pure physical prowess. She caught up to the machine in the blink of an eye, extended her foot, and rammed it into the creature's side with a sound like clapping thunder.
The Reaper screamed. The power of the blow added to its uncontrolled momentum and it misswung, crunching painfully against the underside of the platform with a sound reminiscent if a train wreck. The machine reached out and managed to get a grip on the lip of the platform before it could start falling again.
"I don't like hitting kids," Belle said, and the machine looked around to find the half-saiyan hovering right beside its ear. "But you need a spanking!"
Belle's fist clanged against the machine's temple. The Reaper howled in anger, jerking to the side as another dent blossomed on its previously smooth surface. Letting out a mechanical growl, it released the platform with one hand, still dangling by the other, and bodily swiped at Belle.
She swooped back just enough to dodge, smirking as the displaced air whipped through her hair. "What's the matter?" she taunted. "How's that depth perception, Cyclops?" She started to laugh, but stopped as the Reaper's hand abruptly changed direction, heading back towards her at full speed.
The movement was so quick and unexpected that Belle didn't have time to react. The backside of the Reaper's hand crashed against Belle's front. Air wheezed out of her in a whistle and she doubled over, trying to suck air into her lungs like a gasping fish. The machine's tail uncoiled from the central spire and snapped like a whip towards her, coiling around in an instant.
"Agh-!" Belle managed to get out, sucking in a greedy breath of air just before the metal coils clamped down like a vice, squeezing her. The Reaper eased its hold after a moment, tension filling the long prehensile spine, then snapped again, releasing her in the same motion.
Belle was suddenly spinning like a dust-devil through the air, her world a mass of twisting, swirling dark colors. She barely managed to get her bearings before she crashed into - and then through - the chamber wall with a deafening CHOOM, crying out in pain as rubble crashed down around her. A tangled mass of tubes and plates filled her vision, and then things went dark, and she saw nothing at all.
Damn, she thought, her head still spinning and her stomach feeling like it was going to start ejecting tenants, that was careless.
Maybe she was getting a little too used to the weirdness that was her life. She shook her head and felt around in the darkness.
She estimated that the weight on top of her was probably only a few tons - not easy, but definitely not impossible. At least the bottom of the pile seemed to be a single, large plate. Summoning her renewed strength, Belle made sure she had caught her breath, then pressed her hands against the cool steel and pushed. The load shifted one inch, then two, and then four, swinging ponderously out and up. Belle sat upright as pipes and smaller rocks rained off the sides of the plating. She paused, shifted twice, and then bodily heaved the plate to the side.
Belle stood up and cast her gaze towards the platform far overhead. The Reaper was back at it, perched on the edge and blasting. She had to get back up, and fast; Juno and Zaeed probably wouldn't be able to hold the thing off for too long by themselves.
She crouched and gathered her power, preparing to take to the air once again, but then stopped. Her vision blurred, and the world seemed to slow to a crawl. The attacks of the Reaper sounded like the deep, throbbing boom a drum somewhere very far away. She staggered on her feet, and then she heard it: the ringing.
The Harbinger was there, standing before her, its skin a mass of glowing, molten cracks, as if its very body had been ripped to pieces by the forces contained within it.
"I know you feel this," the voice shivered into her ears from all around her.
"I don't know what you're doing to me or how," Belle hissed, fighting past the sudden feeling of nausea. "But this ends.
"Now."
![[Image: Bellesig6-1.jpg]](http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff137/catseye543/Bellesig6-1.jpg)