#trismegistus

[3 December, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Luffa had become the Legendary Super Saiyan at the age of nineteen, after being captured and tortured for months by merciless alien enemy. At the time, the transformation was a mixed blessing for her, giving her the power to take revenge upon her tormentors, but also changing her into something she neither knew nor understood. At first, Luffa feared her new ability, and even after she accepted it as a natural function of Saiyan biology, she worried about what might happen if she lost control of such immense power. For this reason, she resolved to never again transform into the Oozaru form, in case the combination of the two transformations might be more than her body could handle.

Unlike the Super Saiyan transformation, which was so rare that it had been nearly forgotten, any Saiyan could become an Oozaru. All they needed was the tail they were born with, and the light of a full moon. Somehow, sunlight reflected off a lunar surface had just the right wavelength to trigger a horrific change in a Saiyan's body, turning their humanoid forms into enormous, bloodthirsty apes. There were myths and folk tales, and even some genuine scientific research on the phenomenon, but all anyone knew for certain was that the transformation was real. The moonlight had to be above a certain intensity to work, but that seemed to be the only criteria. And so, whenever she went to a planet with a large enough moon, Luffa always took the precaution of checking the local calendar and wearing sunglasses when needed.

Over time, as Luffa grew accustomed to being the Legendary Super Saiyan, she mostly forgot about the Oozaru power. Many Saiyans did the same, even going so far as to deliberately cut off their own tails to avoid the inconvenience of an unwanted transformation. Weaker Saiyans couldn't even retain their identity in the giant ape form, so they didn't want the hassle of losing control of their actions without warning. For stronger Saiyans, the giant ape form had certain tactical advantages, except that it could only be achieved once in a lunar cycle. Come the dawn, the power would be lost. Most Saiyans considered it more trouble than it was worth. In Luffa's case, she had to deal with the additional concern that the extreme power increase might tear her body apart.

But now, on Planet Nagaoka, deep inside enemy territory, bereft of all allies, friends and family, and with nothing left to live for but a vendetta against her own species, Luffa didn't care about any of the drawbacks. She now stood as a Super Saiyan and an Oozaru at the same time, a form that looked like a 150-foot giant ape with glowing golden fur. Nagaoka's moon was full, and would sustain this new form for another ten hours before morning, when the moonlight would became diluted by the sunrise. But ten hours was more than enough time to tear the entire planet to pieces. And if the strain of it killed her before then, it wouldn't matter.

She roared and beat her chest for a moment, furious at her enemies, and grateful for the glorious violence she was about to unleash upon them.

"You can't do this!" Rehval protested. His true self was on the opposite side of the planet, but he had sent his proxy, an avatar made of earth and stone, to lead his followers into battle. The rock-Rehval was actually a little bigger than Luffa, but its slender form paled in comparison to her splendor.

"I just did," Luffa growled. Her voice was lower, louder, and more primal than before, but there was no mistaking her identity. Unlike lesser Saiyans, who couldn't control themselves in the giant ape form, Luffa was in full command of her faculties.

"But the power is unstable!" Rehval said. "I can sense it from here! I never expected you to actually try to-- No... No...!"

"Yes!" Luffa snarled. "You were the one who gave me the idea, Rehval! You and your constant gloating! Always going on about how you had tapped into the energy fields of this star system. You married your power with this planet, didn't you? Which means you need its moon to keep that arrangement in tact. Too bad. Otherwise, you could destroy the moon right now, and then I'd change back to normal!"

"I don't have to destroy the moon!" Rehval shouted. "Not when I can destroy your tail!"

"Oh, that's your solution to everything, isn't it?" Luffa scoffed. She reached out her left hand, and curled the fingers of her simian paw, beckoning him to come after her. "Well, come on! let's see you try it!"

Rehval commanded his warriors to attack, and they did, only hesitating slightly. There were thousands of them, but Luffa stood her ground. She reared back and howled, then took a deep breath, and spewed what looked like yellow fire from her muzzle.

The Saiyans flew away from the path of this attack, but instead of exploding or damaging anything, the energy formed a massive globe in the air, which separated into white blobs. There were dozens of them, twisting and contorting in mid-air, and then they all sprouted arms, and heads... the heads of ferocious apes.

As the Saiyans quailed in terror, Luffa howled with laughter. It was a childish prank, at least when this sort of technique was employed by a normal Saiyan. The "ghosts" produced by such ki would explode on contact, but when the ki was that of a Golden Oozaru...

"Everybody dies!" shrieked the ghost apes as they flew out in every direction. Their task was simple: chase down a Saiyan and explode in their faces. They swarmed across the basin in a frenzy, and their quarry scattered in a desperate attempt to escape them. Within seconds, the skies lit up and the ground quaked from massive explosions. Even Luffa was amazed by the power she had unleashed. An ordinary planet would have been rendered uninhabitable by just one of these explosions. But Rehval's powers had made Nagaoka much sturdier than any normal world, and so the devastation was merely catastrophic. The crust of the planet was scarred with craters and fissures larger than entire cities, and hundreds of Saiyans were wiped out without a trace. The explosions were so bright that it almost seemed like daylight for a few seconds at a time, but the full moon continued to shine down over the carnage.

Against this backdrop, Luffa charged straight for the enormous likeness of Rehval, tackling it to the ground. That it was larger in size than the golden ape made no difference. At best, the earthen creature could only bring up its arms to protect itself from some of Luffa's thunderous blows. Nevertheless, she persisted, drumming her massive forearms down on Rehval's, and chipping away fragments of his avatar with each second. Rehval's power allowed the dirt and rock to be more durable than either Rehval or Nagaoka would have been alone, but even so, Luffa's onslaught was too much for it to handle.

"You can't be doing this!" he said. "It just can't..." And then one of his giant arms crumbled into rubble. Then the other.

Luffa raised her head up and roared, then slammed her monstrous face into the avatar's exposed chest. As the rock-Rehval screamed, it broke apart into pieces.

*******

On the opposite side of the planet, Rehval... the part of him that was still a Saiyan man, sat upon his throne, and clutched painfully at his chest. That had hurt. It had actually hurt. This was not supposed to happen. His bond with the planet and its mass was only supposed to share power, not pain.

He stumbled out of his seat and paced around in a tight circle, fighting the wave of panic that accompanied the pain. He couldn't retreat from this. With his avatar destroyed, Luffa would surely turn her fury against his followers, and he couldn't afford to lose more of them than he already had. He needed to pull himself together and deploy his avatar again, only this time with more power, but he soon found he couldn't do it as quickly as he had before. His symbiosis with Nagaoka's geological energy gave him vast power. A Saiyan could easily destroy a planet, but only because a planet lacked the will to defend itself. Nagaoka now had a will--Rehval's--but it still took time and effort to bring its immense power to bear.

"Damn it all," he muttered to himself as he gasped for breath. "She was waiting for this! Past two weeks... she was just biding time... None of her attacks were meant to accomplish anything! She was just keeping us busy until the moon was full!"

And then he sensed another pain, this time in his right shoulder blade. It felt like something had struck him, but how?

*******

At the battlefield, Luffa had completely routed her foes. With her ghost apes all destroyed, and the Saiyans in full retreat, she charged a Gallick Gun and fired it in the direction of some of her enemies. Most of them managed to avoid the gigantic purple blast, but it continued on its path, eventually carving a mile-wide trench in the ground. Luffa continued to attack, even when there was no target to hit. There was simply no respite. The Saiyans would sense a ki larger than anything they had ever imagined possible, and then they would immediately sense an even larger power than that. Luffa's battle power just kept rising, again and again and again.

Endive had led a small group to a safe distance-- if the word "safe" could still have any meaning-- and they watched the colored lights from Luffa's rampage. It was apparent that the Golden Ape's attacks were damaging the planet's surface, in spite of Rehval's boasts that this was impossible. At best, his followers believed that this was the ultimate test of their master's power. If Rehval could survive this battle, then he would truly prove his invincibility. His most faithful servants would trust him to rise to the occasion and slay Luffa as final confirmation of his teachings. Endive thought this way, or at least she wanted to, very badly.

Her faith in Rehval was rooted in denialism. She had obeyed him, even to the point of humiliating herself and betraying her most cherished principles. If he were truly divine, then she could at least tell herself that it was all worth it, that the things she had cast aside had never had any real value in the first place. But if Rehval lost, then it had all been a lie, and she would know for certain that she had allowed herself to be enslaved by a fraud. All those nights in his bedchamber would have no spiritual purpose at all.

On some level, she wanted Luffa to prevail, and expose the truth that Endive already knew but could never admit. And then Luffa would kill his followers in short order, so at least there would be little time for Endive to endure the shame.

"What should we do?" asked one of the other Saiyans who was with her. Of this group of survivors, she had the highest rank. And it was this authority, more than loyalty, truth, or shame, that guided her.

"Regroup," she said. "We must stand and fight for our lord, and die, if we must."

If there was any chance of victory, Endive would cling to it. Whatever Luffa stood for, the golden ape would only bring death. If her master really was a fraud and a liar, then Endive's only choice was to fight to make his lies into truth.

*******

Other Saiyans reached the same grim conclusion as Endive, but taking the fight to Luffa was easier said than done. Before, there had been a reasonable assumption that Luffa could be attacked en masse and overpowered. Now, she shrugged off ki blasts from hundreds of Saiyans without even bothering to dodge. The Jindan cultists were the mightiest of their species, empowered by Rehval's alchemy, but against the Golden Oozaru they were like ants battling a dinosaur.

Occasionally, Luffa grew annoyed with their constant distraction, and swatted them aside, but the focus of her offense was directed at the planet itself. Luffa fired energy blasts from her mouth, hands, and eyes, assaulting the ground until there was only bare rock. And then, finally, she broke through to a magma chamber, releasing a torrent of molten lava into the air. Elated by the destruction, Luffa threw her arms over her head and roared triumphantly, the hot magma splashing around her like blood from a wounded animal.

"No! I won't allow this!"

Luffa turned to find Rehval, in the form of another of his avatars. This time, he rose up from the lava itself, forming a body of rapidly cooling igneous rock. "You're not strong enough to destroy this planet! You can't be!"

He leaped toward Luffa, determined to restrain her somehow. Instead, she slipped around him with a speed that belied her bulk, and struck his back with a double axehandle.

"Too bad," Luffa growled. "You shouldn't have cut off your tail, Rehval. Maybe if you'd kept it, you could have become powerful enough to keep up with me!"

"Shut up!" he screamed.

"Some of the Free Companions still have their tails, right?" Luffa asked. "You probably couldn't *wait* to cut theirs off, but you wouldn't have had the time. Maybe some of them could-- oh, that's right!"

He charged at her with a ki blast in hand, but she sidestepped it and reversed his attack into a throw. His blast misfired, and while it was immense, it was also passed harmlessly into space. Luffa ripped a piece of the planet's crust and slammed it down onto Rehva's avatar.

"You don't have any of those Free Companions sitting around, do you?" she said. "The ones who still had their tails, I mean. No, they're all dead, because I made sure to kill them all while I was waiting for the full moon!"

"SHUT UP!" Rehval screamed. He rushed at her again, desperate to connect with any sort of offense. "I won't be defeated this way! Not by your tail, not by a primitive... vulgar... transformation. Not by my own moon!"

Luffa humored him for a moment, allowing his fists to strike, but they did no damage at all. She lifted his avatar over her head and threw him down into the geyser of lava nearby. Then she aimed her finger at him and made a low, guttural noise.

*******

The Vengeance Cannon was Luffa's finishing move. In terms of technique, it wasn't terribly special. She simply focused a a great deal of ki energy into a thin, intense beam, which allowed it to penetrate deeper than more conventional ki attacks. Her name for the attack had been chosen at a whim. At the height of her fame, alien fans somehow decided that she already had a technique by that name in her arsenal, and so she decided to indulge them. Over time, she came to decide that she rather liked its brutal simplicity. What made the attack so fearsome was the user. Powered by Luffa's Super Saiyan form, the Vengeance Cannon could tear through nearly anything. Powered by Luffa's Super Saiyan Oozaru form, the word "nearly" was placed in grave jeopardy.

In his fortress, Rehval felt searing pain once more. He had felt each attack Luffa had made on the planet's crust, but this paled in comparison to the sensation of Luffa's Vengeance Cannon drilling through his avatar's eye. He clutched at his own face and doubled over in pain, and then he felt another agony in his torso. Without seeing or hearing, he knew that Luffa's beam had passed through the avatar, and down into the ground, and all the way through the planet itself. The damage to the planet was echoed in his own body.

His defenses were collapsing. There was no escaping the conclusion anymore. Each attack weakened him a little more, making her next attack that much more effective.

There was no longer any other choice. He would have to go on the offensive while he still had the chance. He forced himself to stand upright, then hurried to the bench where he kept his elixirs. He had prepared certain formulations in advance, in case things didn't work the way they were supposed to. But these were experimental, and meant to be used on others. He had never anticipated that he would be so badly pressured, especially here, at the height of his greatness. As he raised the decanter to his lips, he briefly considered summoning one of his followers back to the complex, but a shooting pain in his leg reminded him that there simply wasn't time.

"T-to the future," he gasped before drinking. It was his traditional toast when using alchemy to enhance his powers. After draining half of the bottle, he poured the rest onto the ground, letting it soak into the soil at his feet. Then he stumbled toward his bedchamber to lay down.

He collapsed after five paces.

*******

Xibuyas saw his chance and was determined to take it. Less than a mile away, the monster that claimed to be his mother was ripping up whole chunks of the planet's surface, while lashing out at any warriors who dared to interfere. They were like mere insects to her, beneath her notice. And this, he decided, would be her downfall. With her back to him, he had a perfect shot to end this nightmare once and for all.

He had never used the Star Seax in battle before. The technique was incomplete and took too long to gather energy, and it was only useful against a single opponent at a time. There was simply no practical use for it. Other enemies could be killed with less powerful techniques. He estimated that the Star Seax could kill Luffa, but he knew she was too nimble to score a direct hit with it.

Now, however, the situation was ideal. Luffa had become stronger--stronger than Xibuyas had ever imagined possible-- but she was also a much bigger target, and much more stationary. And with her attention focused elsewhere, he had the opportunity he had dreamed of for most of his life. As soon as he had finished preparing the attack, he fired without hesitation.

The Star Seax was a thin wafer of ki that flew out from his hands like the blade of a guillotine. It would cut right through Luffa's tail, reversing her transformation. It was strange to think of the humanoid Luffa as an easier opponent, but right now she was surrounded by Jindan cultists, and without her ape form, they could overpower her if they all worked together.

As the young Saiyan guided the Star Seax toward its target, he realized that this was the moment that fortuneteller had told him about! He would surpass Luffa, not by exceeding her power, but by becoming the instrument of her downfall. Once she was dead, he would take his rightful place as the strongest Saiyan of all! He watched as the white energy blade streaked ever closer, and awaited his destiny.

And then Luffa jumped into the air, and the Star Seax passed harmlessly underneath her.

"No..." was all he could say. His eyes went wide with shock. And so, when Luffa moved towards him, faster than he ever imagined possible, he had no other reaction. He didn't even think of trying to escape.

"Nice shot, Katem!" Luffa roared. Her voice was even more horrible than before. With a demonic speed, she snatched him up in her hand and raised him up to her face.

"You were going to die anyway!" she shouted, her hot breath blasting him like a monsoon. "But you had to take your best shot, and face me one last time! So I guess you take after your mother after all! Too bad for you that you chose the wrong side!"

She tightened her grip, and Xibuyas cried out in pain. He could feel his ribs cracking under the pressure, and he knew that this was only the slightest sample of Luffa's full power.

"Then again, you remind me a lot of your grandfather, boy!" she snarled. "He made the same mistake you did. Thought he could stab me in the back and live! Well don't say I didn't give you a chance, son! I tried to show you what you were dealing with, and you wouldn't! Take! The hint!"

Xibuyas felt as if he might black out soon, but somehow he remained conscious. He almost wondered if this was some sadistic trick of Luffa's. A way to keep her victims awake and prolong their suffering. He couldn't stop screaming long enough to ask.

"Well that little stunt you just pulled was the last straw, Katem. You want to be my enemy? Fine! Then you can die like my enemies! Anything for you, son! Anything for you!"

There was a moment of clarity, where Xibuyas began to accept death as the only escape from his fate beneath the long shadow of Luffa, this horror that demanded his birthright. Even if he had managed to kill her, the memory of such a monster would forever stain his honor. And then, just as he expected to breathe his last... Luffa dropped him.

Xibuyas lacked the strength to sit up, but luckily he landed on the ground in a position that gave him a view of what was happening. It felt like an earthquake, and as Luffa turned away from him, Xibuyas could see a figure rising up from the molten lava. He wondered if it was Rehval again, returning in another one of his avatars. But this seemed different somehow. Xibuyas didn't know why, but he could sense something dreadful about this. His instincts begged him to run away, far away, but it was all he could do just to roll over on the ground.

"I forbid it, Luffa!" It was Rehval's voice that Xibuyas heard. What he saw looked nothing like the Saiyan King who had raised him. It was enormous and yellow-hot, like molten metal, with globs of lava solidifying upon its surface. The head of the figure resembled a skull with skin stretched across its features, but no muscle or flesh.

"Well, look who decided to fight back!" Luffa scoffed. Xibuyas couldn't believe her tone. He could scarcely comprehend the horrible energy he sensed from this new form Rehval had taken. All he knew for certain was that Rehval was now pulling out all the stops, and Luffa was still unimpressed. Was she bluffing? Or was all of this truly just a game to a monster like her?

"You're a thing of iron, Luffa!" Rehval announced. "Strong and resilient, but vulgar nonetheless! You golden glow is nothing more than the heat of the forge, where mine is drawn from the very core of the world!"

The Rehval-thing rushed toward Luffa, and the two titans struggled against each other. At first, it seemed like an even struggle, and then Rehval actually shoved the ape off her feet! She responded with a furious blast from her mouth, which spilled across Rehval's body harmlessly.

As they fought, Rehval continued to rave, shouting one final lecture before one of them was destroyed. "The universe teaches men to prize gold. The heavier elements only form in the dying ages of a star's lifespan. Iron is common because red giants fuse it in vain, generating less energy than the cost of the reaction! Gold is formed near the end, but only some, interspersed with so many others! Supernovae spread it across creation! It accumulates in meteors, which crash onto newly born planets, still hot with the fires of genesis! The gold and other heavy metals sink into the mantle, until eventually the planet cools enough. The crust forms, and when meteors impact afterward, they leave deposits of gold, but only in trace amounts! Man finds it in streams, and the purity of it entices him to seek out its truth!"

"That truth lies in the center!" Rehval screamed. "I have concentrated the gold from the interior of Nagaoka! This is the purest, most perfect expression of the bond between myself and this world! You mock me for cutting off my tail, Luffa? Well now I've cut off my entire body to become your better! I do it gladly, for the good of the Saiyan race! For the good of the future! For everything that you are not!

"We're better than you, Luffa! The Saiyans have evolved beyond your brand of thoughtless violence and selfish independence! Beyond the hypocrisy of compassion and honor! Gold needs no such bonds! It dwells among the lesser matter, but remains apart, and always supreme! And I alone know how to teach those lessons to the Saiyan people! I am the master of our destiny! It must be me! And it will be me, for ever and for ever!"

He had been punching Luffa repeatedly with his fists, which now seemed to be made of gold, now that they had cooled off somewhat. Xibuyas understood none of it, but he supposed that what Rehval said must have been true enough if he was winning. And then he heard laughter...

"You really are something, Rehval," Luffa said. "You put everything you had into that."

The gold-Rehval hesitated as she pushed back against him. She slammed her own fists into his gilded body and broke most of the dross off of him. There were dents left in his body from each strike she made.

"You really did it, didn't you?" she asked. "I can sense your power, I can tell it's you, Rehval, but there's nothing Saiyan in there anymore. You really did merge yourself with the planet, didn't you? And that's why you lose."

She struck him again and again, much the same way he had battered her. Each blow sounded like a bomb going off overhead. The difference was that when Luffa took a hit, her body was bruised or bloodied, at worst. Whenever Rehval was struck, his metal body was deformed by each impact.

"I don't get all the details of what you've done to yourself," she roared. "I don't much care, but I've fought enough weird enemies to learn how to figure out what I need to know. You can reshape that body of yours. Add mass to it, pull it back together, or even make a new one if you need to."

She put her hands together and blindsided him with a double-axhandle that twisted his torso into a right angle.

"But you need power to do that stuff, and right now, you're using all the power you have to match my strength. You can't fight me and defend yourself at the same time. Arrrghhh!"

Rehval had contorted his left arm into what looked like an enormous length of wire, and drove the end into Luffa's shoulder like a spear.

"I'm not the only one who's let their guard down, Luffa!" Rehval cried.

"Cute," Luffa said. She reached for her shoulder, as if to pull out the offending object, but instead she pointed at the ground and fired a ki blast. The resulting explosion engulfed them both, and flung Xibuyas through the air like a rag doll.

As the youth tumbled through the air, he marveled at the sheer chaos that surrounded him in all directions. Luffa and Rehval's combined power was so intense that it was difficult to notice anything else. Around him, the ground was cracked and pulverized like the surface of a giant lump of burning charcoal. Orange light shone through the cracks, like open wounds on the back of some impossibly large creature. Xibuyas couldn't sense his Saiyan comrades, but he could hear their terrified screams, and he could smell the familiar odor of death.

In that moment, Xibuyas knew that he ought to be afraid, but he was too overwhelmed by the situation to really feel anything. He seemed like a helpless observer, a passenger in his own body.

When he finally hit the ground, the pain of the impact was almost a relief, since it confirmed that there was at least still a planet left to land upon. As he lost consciousness, he wondered whether he would ever wake up again.