04-03-2010, 10:50 PM
"Your desire is irrelevant. Your assertions are misguided. We are your genetic destiny." The Harbinger stepped closer as it 'spoke,' many eyes glowing. "Your petty human fears will be wiped away."
"Fears?" Belle scoffed. "I'm not afraid of anything."
The ringing surged louder. "Stop that," Belle growled, putting her hands over her ears. "Stop that, or I'm going to - "
She didn't finish. The Harbinger had stopped moving. Its form blurred even worse than before until it was completely obscured, as if there were a piece of very dirty glass between them. Even like this, however, Belle could tell that the Harbinger's form was ... shifting. Changing. A mass of indistinct shapes and blurs piled and slid across one another, then stopped.
Slowly, the shape began to take form. The image focused, and when it did, Belle's mouth fell open.
The woman before her was fairly tall, standing at roughly six feet in height, her back straight and shoulders thrust back. Her onyx-black hair had been pulled back into a bun secured by twin hair needles, the latter's glossy surfaces painted with elegantly drawn Chinese dragons. She at first appeared young, but one look at her black eyes betrayed the weight of many years. Although she wore a thick kimono over it, Belle could tell that her body would be thoroughly muscled, worked to a hardened perfection - a deadly weapon. Waves of confidence and raw power washed out from her like warmth from a noonday sun.
It had been ten years since Belle had seen her mother; a decade of growing, fighting, and learning... And yet, even as Belle grew, she remained the same, as indifferent to the passage of time as she had been to Belle herself. "Your fears," Belle's mother breathed, "are weak."
The woman's form flickered. A moment later Belle doubled over, gagging as pain exploded through her body, the image of her mother's fist slammed deep into her gut. Grabbing Belle by the throat, the woman bodily shoved the crimson-haired girl back against the pile of mixed rubble, then pulled her clear off her feet, grinding Belle against the uneven, chitinous plating. She squeezed.
Belle gasped, hands flying up to the katchin-hard grip on her neck and yanking at it.
"All of this time, and this is all you have to show for it?" The woman sneered. "My 'son'?"
This was crazy; impossible. How could she be here?!
Belle pulled her legs up, braced the bottoms of her feet against the wall, and pushed out, thrusting her hips forward. Raising one leg, she jammed her foot against her mother's collar, tensed, and gave a heavy shove. The fingers around her neck momentarily tightened, nails biting like claws into her skin, before coming free with a loud hiss from their owner.
Belle dropped to the ground. landing roughly on her ass. She grimaced, but looking up, she realized that the pain would have to wait. Tucking her arms and legs in, she rolled to the side just as the woman's foot slammed through the rubble with a deafening crunch of cracking steel and crumbling stone.
Rolling to a safe distance, Belle slapped her hands against the ground, using the force of the impact to launch herself into the air. She span twice before twisting, landed on her feet, and then wobbled as the still unfamiliar balance of her new body threatened to send her back over. "Mom?! What the Hell are you doing here?!" she demanded, rubbing her throat, her voice hoarse. "Don't tell me you've been working with this Gamer guy."
"Is that how you fight now?" the other countered, assuming a familiar martial arts stance, the same Master Akiha was fond of using when she wanted to beat Belle senseless. "With words?"
She came again, but this time Belle was ready. As her mother went for a straight strike to the neck, Belle leapt into the air, tumbling head over heels. She flipped once as she soared over her mother's head, then swung out her foot to catch the woman at the back of her shoulders. Belle was hoping to knock her over, not hurt her, but her mother had other plans.
Lowering her body and moving her head to the side, the woman let Belle's foot cut empty air an inch from her ear. Before Belle could fully register the miss, her mother's hands snapped up and clamped around her ankle.
Belle had just enough time to say "Shit!" before her leg was lifted above her mother's head and the woman's muscles tensed. The twitch of her opponent's fingers was the only warning Belle got before she was violently swung into the ground. The motion was less like a shoulder throw and more like an axe man cutting wood, and Belle's face hit the chamber wall first, splitting it open.
Something in Belle's face snapped, and a moment later warm, sticky wetness clogged her nose. Blood, she realized, as the copper taste poured down to her lips.
The hands on her ankle tensed and yanked her off the ground, swinging her over the woman's shoulder as she prepared another chop. Blood flowed upward into Belle's nose and she gagged, hanging upside down, dangling across the woman's back like a limp rag doll. Her head was spinning and ringing worse than ever, but she forced it to the back of her mind. Reaching out as her mother's hands clenched once more, she grabbed the woman's ankles and held tight.
Her mother tugged, then stopped as her movement was brought up short. "What - ?"
Belle's free leg hooked over the surprised saiyan's shoulder and to the side, snugging around her neck. She quickly switched her hands from the woman's ankles to the ground and tensed her body, pulling herself into an upside-down curl and yanking her mother off her feet in one smooth motion, pulling her back and over onto her head.
That had been the plan, anyway. Reacting faster than Belle would have guessed, her mother let go of Belle's ankle and threw up her arms to stop herself. Her palms slapped the ground, her body curled over, and she landed easily in a crouch, then rushed forward to slam her foot between Belle's legs before the hybrid could finish the motion.
Belle rolled forward, narrowly avoiding a toe to the groin by a measure of centimeters. She somersaulted to her feet, swayed, and turned around.
Her mother was standing there, proud, tall, eyes burning with an inner fire. It was exactly the same look Akiha used to give him - the look of supreme confidence. "You haven't improved at all," the woman said. "A total waste of time. I should have told them to let you die when you were born instead of letting those disgusting humans save you. Idiot."
Belle froze. There was something about what the woman had just said just now that seemed strange. "What did you say?" she asked slowly, her voice muffled by the ebbing flow of blood as she touched her nose. It smarted, but it didn't feel like it was broken.
"I said you're a waste. A wretch." She sneered, and again, Belle was reminded of Akiha. "A total idiot."
And then Belle realized what was wrong. "I can't believe I fell for this shit," she muttered softly, feeling her cheeks coloring as the reality of what was happening hit her.
The woman launched forward, one fist cocked back to swing. She brought her arm forward, aiming for Belle's reddened face, her fist whistling like a comet through the air.
Belle's hand snapped up to catch the blow, her fingers closing around the knuckles with a heavy grunt. Hauling back her own fist, Belle threw a hook it at the onyx-haired saiyan's jaw only to be stopped by her hand as it grabbed Belle's wrist. "Now I get why this has been feeling all wrong. You're way too weak," Belle snarled.
"What did you say to me," the woman hissed, "you little brat!?"
"You look like my mom, and you talk like my master," Belle said, grunting as she fought back the saiyan's fist. "But you're nowhere even close!" Her back foot trembled against the ground, then sank through it. "You want me - ngh! - to show you how strong I really am?!"
Almost before the words were out of Belle's mouth, the chamber started to shake. The tremors started slowly at first, barely a whisper in the ground, but grew with each second the two remained locked together. The broken shards of the wall danced and skittered across the ground. The light that had once poured into the chamber from high above had dimmed, and Belle's skin glowed as if suffused with a ghostly radiance all its own. The light overtook her, and she let out a scream. The ground opened up beneath them, the power unleashed gouging a crater into the cavern floor. Ripples of unbridled force rhythmically pounded the walls and shook the linked platforms that floating in the sky above.
The light from Belle swelled to blinding, illuminating the shocked expression of her 'mother' an instant before obscuring everything completely.
And then the quakes stopped, and just like that, the light began to fade.
Belle stood where she had been before, holding her opponent's fist in one hand, her other frozen in mid-strike. Her face was stern, her golden brows knotted with anger and golden locks waving in the air around her small-featured face. Where her mother had once been stood the Harbinger, its permanently wide eyes still somehow managing to reflect its shock.
"I don't like people digging around inside my head," Belle snarled.
The Harbinger stared.
Releasing the avatar's fist, Belle drew her own back. "Collect this."
She swung.
The punch was basic - no flash, no flare - but the power behind it was anything but. The Harbinger flew through the open air, spinning like a tumbleweed in a dryer, and crunched into the wall before falling in a broken heap amongst the rubble.
Belle turned and started to walk away. "Next time you copy someone," Belle called over her shoulder. "Try someone I don't really, really hate."
In a flash of golden power, Belle catapulted into the air and raced like a rocket towards the platforms.
"Fears?" Belle scoffed. "I'm not afraid of anything."
The ringing surged louder. "Stop that," Belle growled, putting her hands over her ears. "Stop that, or I'm going to - "
She didn't finish. The Harbinger had stopped moving. Its form blurred even worse than before until it was completely obscured, as if there were a piece of very dirty glass between them. Even like this, however, Belle could tell that the Harbinger's form was ... shifting. Changing. A mass of indistinct shapes and blurs piled and slid across one another, then stopped.
Slowly, the shape began to take form. The image focused, and when it did, Belle's mouth fell open.
The woman before her was fairly tall, standing at roughly six feet in height, her back straight and shoulders thrust back. Her onyx-black hair had been pulled back into a bun secured by twin hair needles, the latter's glossy surfaces painted with elegantly drawn Chinese dragons. She at first appeared young, but one look at her black eyes betrayed the weight of many years. Although she wore a thick kimono over it, Belle could tell that her body would be thoroughly muscled, worked to a hardened perfection - a deadly weapon. Waves of confidence and raw power washed out from her like warmth from a noonday sun.
It had been ten years since Belle had seen her mother; a decade of growing, fighting, and learning... And yet, even as Belle grew, she remained the same, as indifferent to the passage of time as she had been to Belle herself. "Your fears," Belle's mother breathed, "are weak."
The woman's form flickered. A moment later Belle doubled over, gagging as pain exploded through her body, the image of her mother's fist slammed deep into her gut. Grabbing Belle by the throat, the woman bodily shoved the crimson-haired girl back against the pile of mixed rubble, then pulled her clear off her feet, grinding Belle against the uneven, chitinous plating. She squeezed.
Belle gasped, hands flying up to the katchin-hard grip on her neck and yanking at it.
"All of this time, and this is all you have to show for it?" The woman sneered. "My 'son'?"
This was crazy; impossible. How could she be here?!
Belle pulled her legs up, braced the bottoms of her feet against the wall, and pushed out, thrusting her hips forward. Raising one leg, she jammed her foot against her mother's collar, tensed, and gave a heavy shove. The fingers around her neck momentarily tightened, nails biting like claws into her skin, before coming free with a loud hiss from their owner.
Belle dropped to the ground. landing roughly on her ass. She grimaced, but looking up, she realized that the pain would have to wait. Tucking her arms and legs in, she rolled to the side just as the woman's foot slammed through the rubble with a deafening crunch of cracking steel and crumbling stone.
Rolling to a safe distance, Belle slapped her hands against the ground, using the force of the impact to launch herself into the air. She span twice before twisting, landed on her feet, and then wobbled as the still unfamiliar balance of her new body threatened to send her back over. "Mom?! What the Hell are you doing here?!" she demanded, rubbing her throat, her voice hoarse. "Don't tell me you've been working with this Gamer guy."
"Is that how you fight now?" the other countered, assuming a familiar martial arts stance, the same Master Akiha was fond of using when she wanted to beat Belle senseless. "With words?"
She came again, but this time Belle was ready. As her mother went for a straight strike to the neck, Belle leapt into the air, tumbling head over heels. She flipped once as she soared over her mother's head, then swung out her foot to catch the woman at the back of her shoulders. Belle was hoping to knock her over, not hurt her, but her mother had other plans.
Lowering her body and moving her head to the side, the woman let Belle's foot cut empty air an inch from her ear. Before Belle could fully register the miss, her mother's hands snapped up and clamped around her ankle.
Belle had just enough time to say "Shit!" before her leg was lifted above her mother's head and the woman's muscles tensed. The twitch of her opponent's fingers was the only warning Belle got before she was violently swung into the ground. The motion was less like a shoulder throw and more like an axe man cutting wood, and Belle's face hit the chamber wall first, splitting it open.
Something in Belle's face snapped, and a moment later warm, sticky wetness clogged her nose. Blood, she realized, as the copper taste poured down to her lips.
The hands on her ankle tensed and yanked her off the ground, swinging her over the woman's shoulder as she prepared another chop. Blood flowed upward into Belle's nose and she gagged, hanging upside down, dangling across the woman's back like a limp rag doll. Her head was spinning and ringing worse than ever, but she forced it to the back of her mind. Reaching out as her mother's hands clenched once more, she grabbed the woman's ankles and held tight.
Her mother tugged, then stopped as her movement was brought up short. "What - ?"
Belle's free leg hooked over the surprised saiyan's shoulder and to the side, snugging around her neck. She quickly switched her hands from the woman's ankles to the ground and tensed her body, pulling herself into an upside-down curl and yanking her mother off her feet in one smooth motion, pulling her back and over onto her head.
That had been the plan, anyway. Reacting faster than Belle would have guessed, her mother let go of Belle's ankle and threw up her arms to stop herself. Her palms slapped the ground, her body curled over, and she landed easily in a crouch, then rushed forward to slam her foot between Belle's legs before the hybrid could finish the motion.
Belle rolled forward, narrowly avoiding a toe to the groin by a measure of centimeters. She somersaulted to her feet, swayed, and turned around.
Her mother was standing there, proud, tall, eyes burning with an inner fire. It was exactly the same look Akiha used to give him - the look of supreme confidence. "You haven't improved at all," the woman said. "A total waste of time. I should have told them to let you die when you were born instead of letting those disgusting humans save you. Idiot."
Belle froze. There was something about what the woman had just said just now that seemed strange. "What did you say?" she asked slowly, her voice muffled by the ebbing flow of blood as she touched her nose. It smarted, but it didn't feel like it was broken.
"I said you're a waste. A wretch." She sneered, and again, Belle was reminded of Akiha. "A total idiot."
And then Belle realized what was wrong. "I can't believe I fell for this shit," she muttered softly, feeling her cheeks coloring as the reality of what was happening hit her.
The woman launched forward, one fist cocked back to swing. She brought her arm forward, aiming for Belle's reddened face, her fist whistling like a comet through the air.
Belle's hand snapped up to catch the blow, her fingers closing around the knuckles with a heavy grunt. Hauling back her own fist, Belle threw a hook it at the onyx-haired saiyan's jaw only to be stopped by her hand as it grabbed Belle's wrist. "Now I get why this has been feeling all wrong. You're way too weak," Belle snarled.
"What did you say to me," the woman hissed, "you little brat!?"
"You look like my mom, and you talk like my master," Belle said, grunting as she fought back the saiyan's fist. "But you're nowhere even close!" Her back foot trembled against the ground, then sank through it. "You want me - ngh! - to show you how strong I really am?!"
Almost before the words were out of Belle's mouth, the chamber started to shake. The tremors started slowly at first, barely a whisper in the ground, but grew with each second the two remained locked together. The broken shards of the wall danced and skittered across the ground. The light that had once poured into the chamber from high above had dimmed, and Belle's skin glowed as if suffused with a ghostly radiance all its own. The light overtook her, and she let out a scream. The ground opened up beneath them, the power unleashed gouging a crater into the cavern floor. Ripples of unbridled force rhythmically pounded the walls and shook the linked platforms that floating in the sky above.
The light from Belle swelled to blinding, illuminating the shocked expression of her 'mother' an instant before obscuring everything completely.
And then the quakes stopped, and just like that, the light began to fade.
Belle stood where she had been before, holding her opponent's fist in one hand, her other frozen in mid-strike. Her face was stern, her golden brows knotted with anger and golden locks waving in the air around her small-featured face. Where her mother had once been stood the Harbinger, its permanently wide eyes still somehow managing to reflect its shock.
"I don't like people digging around inside my head," Belle snarled.
The Harbinger stared.
Releasing the avatar's fist, Belle drew her own back. "Collect this."
She swung.
The punch was basic - no flash, no flare - but the power behind it was anything but. The Harbinger flew through the open air, spinning like a tumbleweed in a dryer, and crunched into the wall before falling in a broken heap amongst the rubble.
Belle turned and started to walk away. "Next time you copy someone," Belle called over her shoulder. "Try someone I don't really, really hate."
In a flash of golden power, Belle catapulted into the air and raced like a rocket towards the platforms.
![[Image: Bellesig6-1.jpg]](http://i238.photobucket.com/albums/ff137/catseye543/Bellesig6-1.jpg)