A Glimpse Behind the Scenes
Tear it down, Start Over Again.
Mysterious Manor – The Room of Eden
The sight of Zenta’s panic caused Spina to soften his approach. Normally, as of late, the old Saiyan would’ve lashed out at Zenta for daring to lay hands on him. Yet, his killing instinct and obscured dark aura nearly vanished. No longer unhinged and his mind cleared, Spina instead let out an annoyed grunt after Zenta sobbingly tried to explain. At first, the old Saiyan was baffled at such explanation. Not once, after entering the manor, did they encounter anyone else. Once Bage starting to apply pressure on his wound, the old Saiyan thought about Roya. Did she managed to follow them to the manor without them noticing? But Zenta mentioned that this woman was in a dress—something he don’t see Roya wearing such attire.
Upon hearing sets of footsteps coming to their direction, Spina tensed in preparation for battles. It could be possible that it’s the woman that Zenta was talking about, or the horde of Xy’phers that picked up on the commotion. Yet, any attempts to move made the wound on his right shoulder worse. “Argh…” Spina grunted and fell on his knees, feeling the burning sting throughout his body in waves. His quick regeneration, oddly enough, was not active.
Thankfully, it was Team Stealth that arrived on the scene. It seems that the pathway of both towers led them to the same room. As Berserk and Bernkastel explained what transpired, Spawn stared at Zenta for a while. He looked around afterward, observing if he can sense anything deeper than usual. As opposed to those that can sense or see energy, Spawn can see souls. If any presence of a person was here, a lingering string of their soul will still be left behind, to indicate that there were others. But there was none. Either Zenta was making it up to cover up his aggression, or there exist a being so great that they can erased even their own existence to escape detection.
Naturally, Spawn was skeptical. Only until the Detective noticed a tinge of white in her dull eyes. “Is that…?” He mumbled to himself, making no mistake. Those were the same eyes that Detective Goku had during their bout.
“Hardly,” Lucifer joked. “A couple of beatings here and there, but I say we managed to leave without too much damage.” He pressed his hand on the face where he sustained an injury in that room. “Indeed, that this manor contains some mysterious properties that goes beyond our understanding. The room held Xy’phers, but they were all petrified as they stood. So much that it sends false signals to Nia… perhaps that’s why we were unable to find the source of their hive.” He peered through the dozens of walls that Zenta smashed through and briefly look at History’s room from afar. “Upon stepping into it, it rendered our natural abilities useless, and flooded our minds with paranoia, fear, and aggression.” He said, expanding on what May stated. “But what stood out is the reason behind those petrified Xy’phers. Creatures that held no distinct personalities exist in that room. They were malicious—brutal even and attack without mercy. Killing Aura was the only thing that lingered from them, as if they were merely machines with a single purpose.” Lucifer explained. “Beautiful, honestly.”
The angel turned to Spina and nodded his head. “A similar aura that you were firing off lately, Spina. Now? You seem to be in good spirit. As if that aura of destruction ceased. I don’t know how that happened, but…” His eyes locked onto the cowering Zenta. “It was just as suspected…”
“Huh? There’s no such thing as good spirit.” Spina said, missing the point. “I am… calmer now…” The older Saiyan felt his left arm going limp and numb, as if it was no longer capable of operating anymore.
“Huh…?” Spawn snapped out of it after staring at Bernkastel longer than he should have. “What are you—”
“Now that the nuisances are out of the way, there will be actual growth. Even you could tell that that the killing aura is no longer apparent. Though, Bernkastel’s aura also changed slightly… but it seems incomprehensible to me… curious” Lucifer said. “Unfortunately, Zenta proved to be a thorn. Tsk. Tsk. Maybe we should put out down now that you tasted blood of a mortal, hehe. Even Berserk’s hair was tarnished.” He joked. The shadow behind Zenta morphed and broke away from the beast. Instantly, it latches onto Lucifer’s shadow, absorbing within it. “Ah, Lilith. Something to report?”
Briefly, Lucifer nodded to everything Lilith reported. “Brilliant. Thanks as always, my dear.” He turns to the others with a devilish smile on his face, clearly looking at Zenta the most. “I supposed there should be reasons to believe that Bernkastel and Ba—Zenta are expressing truths here. There could be someone in this manor that escape our detection.” Lucifer walked around this strange room that they were in. Unlike the rest of the rooms that both Team Distraction and Stealth ventured off too, this was the only one that did not contain any supernatural elements. Rather, it was simply just a room with a single portrait of a man and a bed.
“Nevertheless, you guys found a bottle that could explain the supernatural elements in this room, hmm?” Lucifer turned to Bage. “Let’s hear the contents of the letter, hmm?”
The Snowy Mountains of Rogue City
Clark soared downward to vanquish the last wave of Xy’phers. “The Red King tends to send an alarming amount for capture, but this is ridiculous.” He observed. “The Air Dancer is a brilliant fighter on its own right, why excessive amount of backup?”
After thinking about it, Clark remembered how the Xy’phers were usually just regulated to small, infrequent bouts to force Vegetto and himself into the defense. Once cornered, desperation will often slip out unconsciously, the Air Dancer will react to such emotions. “If we can destroy those Xy’phers and—” The apparent memory projected onto the real world from Vegetto was starting to lose form. Clark perked up in response to Vegetto’s faint warning, seeing the Air Dancer rushing towards his direction.
Naturally, Clark fired an eye beam towards the Air Dancer in reaction. Just as the Air Dancer readied itself to deflect the attack, the memories stabilized and materialized once more in a more apparent fashion. As the memories of Kassava and Vegetto collided into a barrage of blows and closed in between Clark and Air Dancer, the latter once again became troubled to focus on the variety of intense emotions ringing around it.
The Air Dancer tried to deflect the blows launched by the memories—but remained ineffective. The highly concentrated air bullets phased through them; Clark’s eye beams struck it with devastating effects since his focus was shifted towards the memory. In reaction, it tumbled back until it crashed against the ground. Only a moment did the Air Dancer stood on its feet.
Clark landed on the ground in kind to observe the Air Dancer’s next move. “Keep hitting… it? Easier said than done.” The Kryptonian was all too familiar to how the Air Dancer operates. “A problematic opponent…. It’ll latched onto any sort of hostility or bursts of emotions. Especially those who don’t control it well…” Clark eyed the Air Dancer, who was moving erratically now as the memories played out. “If I recalled… it constantly attacked Zenta without warning. It gotten so bad; Doctor Doom had to separate two because it’ll be impossible to do anything otherwise. Even a hint will cause it to go completely bonkers… take that way, it’ll just stand there and do absolutely nothing.”
Narrowing his eyes, Clark noticed that not only the Air Dancer slowed its erratic movements, but its body was also changing to a different color: a brilliant shine of gold. “That color… reserved for the strongest…” But more, despite the alarming rate of emotions overflowing from the memory, it did not attack. “It used me as a means to escape Vegetto’s memory… and now this? It is adapting to its situation?”
Clark turned his head slightly to see what Vegetto was doing—it seems that he was unable to pinpoint the creature exactly. Turning back to the Air Dancer once again, the Xy’pher creature was coated in gold and its erratic movements had stopped.
Crossing his arms, the snow around him started to melt in an alarming rate. Any nearby Xy’pher that tried to close in were simply caught on fire. “It’s risky… but I need to force it to react.” His body released steam from the increased temperature; his hair slightly spiked; his aura billowed around like a raging star. His eyes glowed bright red as energy flowed out of his mouth. “Super Flare… Stage 1” He said with a soft tone, before ending it when a mighty roar. An explosive amount of solar energy erupted from his body into a gigantic burst of explosive force.
The Air Dancer crotched down as the rain of fire tore through the earth towards it. Its natural instincts to attack anything with explosive emotions remained unchanged; but it seems its methods had changed.
Brilliance Air
From the Air Dancer’s perspective, everything phased into darkness. Pouring everything into a particular object or living thing, until the one thing that stood our are the real Vegetto and Clark, tuning everything out to avoid its instinct from reacting to other bursts of emotions.
Golden Wind
A barrage of destructive swings collided against Clark’s Super Flare; Air Dancer attempted to force its way in to get to the Kryptonian. It was a brilliant show of movements, to the point that it managed to bypass Clark, hurling blows towards Vegetto right behind.
“Damn….! But don’t think I can’t push this even further…!” Clark, agonizing from the effects of the Kryptonite and Super Flare burning through his cells, he attacks the Air Dancer head on to keep it at bay.
