Newfound Strength - Invited

Antisense / PL: 28,000

Hazel had gone missing for two days after scoping out one of the city ruins, a off band of saiyans had managed to overpower and surprise the demoness, taking her deep into enemy territory. She wasn't highly concerned at first, figuring she'd be able to escape from the cell at night easily. Yet she was very panicked when she realized the cell she was placed into was inscribed with containment sigils, they had to have been expecting her, even off earth she wouldn't be able to escape the reach of whoever wanted her dead.

She refused to eat, hoping to use her ravenous form to gain the upper hand of even for a second, it was a faster form, with more honed animalistic instincts. Little did she know it was what they hoped for. Even no longer offering her anything other than water, within two days she was ravenous.

How could she let this happen? She let her guard down for a moment, she shouldn't have wandered off alone after everything that had happened. She hoped Derry was safe, praying he wouldn't be near when she unleashed her unbridled rage on this band of monkeys.

Her form was no longer recognizable to any mortal that knew her, her frame now elongated, thin, and twisted, black leathery skin stretched tight over her bones, except for her head. Which more closely resembled a skull of a fanged great horned elk, eyes sunken in the point only the glow of her irises was visible in the deep black eye sockets. She roared out in tormented agony from the pain of hunger starting to make her mind blank, then filling with rage.

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Just when he thought he could get some peace and quiet, he could sense Derry's power level. Here? of all places?!! He wondered why the hell he was here to begin with. Then again, the agreement with the tuffles wouldn't be now of all times... Yet when he arrived, he didn't even realize that it was him... Of course he wouldn't be able to tell it was him, Derry was a human who didn't have ki sensing which was strange and something that Yangcong would probably have to teach him down the line. 

"Look no further then..."

Yangcong would removed his helmet and reveal his serious like demeanor towards him, mixed with a slight with of sorrow. The last time he had met with Derry was the meeting... and it didn't go as well as he planned.. Considering that he had essentially lied to the boss that nothing was going on. He decided to be upfront about it and sighed after he heard the screech. Even though this screech was rather new, he had assumed that it was Hazel due to her crazy antics before...

"Derry um... You wouldn't happen to be looking for Hazel would yea?"

He had his hand to his chin, thinking about his last encounter with Hazel and how she was put in a very dangerous situation before. Yangcong wasn't sure how many snakes were on this planet, all he knew is that if Hazel was on this planet, that means that the crazy demon got herself in trouble. He scanned the region where her scream had came from, even though he wasn't sure that it was her, it helped either way to check it out just in case. 

"Come with me..."

He flew to the sky and headed towards the direction, while flying there he placed his helmet back on and decided to tell Derry to truth.

"Listen Derry, I know what I did wasn't right.lying to you about Hazel and myself. We had a fight and I was intimate with her. I didn't want to tell you because I didn't want you seeing me in a different light."

Yangcong was always a serious man that always saw work as the priority and everything else became second. The last time he ever put work on hold was when he was with his wife and newborn son. War could really change a man. Then he thought about the armor that he was wearing and briefly sighed to himself, not wanting to lie to Derry yet again. 

"Also.. I had acquired this armor from a pair of demon goat girls...It was through a contract... now, before you get mad, it was a one time agreement. I would get this armor and sword, in exchange, I vowed to never kill again."

 

Once Derry attempts to relax himself, the stranger in the armor reveals himself to be none other than Yangcong. He takes off his helmet to reveal his scarred face, and Derry breaths a sigh of relief. "Ah, never been more glad to see ya, Yangcong. Look, I need your help I-" The screeching cuts him off, and Yangcong comments about how Derry is looking for Hazel. He shifts his panicked gaze towards the hybrid and comments, "You know?" He assumes it's a safe guess considering the fact that Hazel wasn't with him and how much of a walking disaster he was at the moment. Both Yangcong and Derry were looking all over the place looking for where the source of that screaming was coming from. It sounded like some sort of wild beast, one that Derry has never heard before.

The two take off and head towards the source of all of the hellish screeching, Derry's eardrums pounding from both the sounds and the stress. If that thing is running around while Hazel is lost, he could only imagine the amount of danger she might be in. A part of him almost wishes that she wasn't there so long as she was away from whatever this creature is. Whatever it was Yangcong was talking to him about, Derry almost completely ignored what he had to say. He mentioned something about what was going on between the two and how there were two other demons that gave him something, but listening to whatever Yangcong has been up to was not his priority. 

"Yangcong, we'll talk 'bout this later... Right now I need... To find her..." Derry waves off while breathing heavily. The past few days have taken a bit of a toll on Derry's, but he didn't care in the slightest. All that mattered to him was finding Hazel and making sure she was alright. After flying around for a while, Derry spots what appears to be some sort of warehouse and a cart just outside its entrance. It appears to be guarded by a handful of saiyans judging from the tails, and they were guarding... Well, Derry wasn't quite sure how to describe what he was seeing. At least he found the source of all of that screaming.

"What the fuck is that thing?" Derry comments as he slowly lands near a pile of rocks, attempting to keep himself somewhat hidden from the saiyans. He hopes that Yangcong would have some idea as to what that thing is given the fact that he came from Plant, though he also gets the sneaking feeling that he too doesn't know what that is. It would be real easy for Derry and Yangcong to just blast the saiyans apart, but he didn't want to put in the effort given how his body has been behaving for the past few hours. 

He gives Yangcong a quick glance before raises his pointer finger at the door to the cell the creature was in. "I'm too tired for this shit," Derry attempts to jest as he launches a small pink fireball at the cell door, landing dead center on the lock. It begins to slowly melt, and half of the saiyans look for the source of the fireball while the other half begin panicking about the beast potentially getting out.

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The saiyans quickly reacted to the damaged cage, using long poles with lassos to attempt to maintain control of her monsterous form. They reacted quickly to Yangcong's surprise assault but his rush to react exposed Derry's location. They saiyans holding the poles attached to Hazel called back the others fighting Yangcong, once they were behind the cell, one of the bigger saiyans speaks up, "Looks like your friends finally came for you, too bad you can't recognize them."

The group chuckled before forcing Hazel to look in the direction of Yangcong and Derry, her animalistic senses only focused on feeding and relieving herself of her pain, the twisted form charged them once the poles were released. She swiped at Yangcong while lunging over Derry, but the chaos paused suddenly.

The gaping elk skull mouth hung seemingly frozen over Derry's form, her hot breath rolling over him, her jaw shook as if being restrained by an invisible force. Her head was chaos in the quiet moment, like fighting a wild mount with the strong pull of the reins. Her elk skull head inches away from Derry, the jaws only snapping shut once he was clear of them. She tilted her head, eyeing him like a curious bird, under the dry dark skin there was a soft red glow in her sternum. With the last strenuous mental pull she could muster, her neck snapped around facing directly behind her body.

The group behind them flinched from just her gaze, slowly she turned her body with her head as she began manic gurgled laughter, " kill ya, told ya. Kill you, kill you!" From that moment it was a frenzy of blood and violence when she turned on her captors. After a time the laughing became more feminine and less gargled, the area in front of the warehouse painted red from the violence, and Hazel emerging from behind the cell dragging a body by the hair, still laughing when she knelt down to continue smashing in the saiyan's face. She was still recovering from the animalistic state of mind.

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While fighting the saiyans head on, the cage beast was quick and had unexpected impacted Yangcong's helmet  as it flew off his head and caused him to fly back against the grown. He felt dazed for a moment as the beast itself was quite strong to say the least. He also had reverted back to his normal form from the hit considering that he lacked sleep severely at this point. His heart raced miles and as the rest of the saiyans were being killed by Hazel, his focus was mainly on fixing his sudden daze from being impacted by her. That swipe definitely had some punch to it. As his eyes had refocused, he got up from the ground and looked to see that the beast was gone and now Hazel had shown up out of nowhere. As he smirked and walked towards Derry hugging her and seeing tears drop down his face, he was rather confused at the moment. He had never seen the boss cry like that before and folded his arms briefly. 

"Hazel there you are. Looks like I had lost you again after you delved in your experimentations or whatever you did back in your old house. Seems like you had met up with Derry."

He smirked with confidence and holding his helmet in his left arm against his body, he placed his helmet back on afterwards. 

"You know you shouldn't be running off Hazel, I can't always be around when something goes bad."

It was as if Hazel didn't even recognize Derry when he firsts moved in and wrapped his arms around the demon. After a few moments, however, he could see Hazel slowly remembering what was going on. The demon moves Derry a bit and pats him down as if looking for a wound. When Hazel asks if he's alright or if she hurt him, panic starts to overtake her. Derry reassures her, "I'm fine... I'm fine, Hazel... We should be... Worrying 'bout you..." Derry might not have been injured by Hazel during the rampage, but it wasn't as if his body was in perfect condition either. The stress caused by Hazel's disappearance took a bigger toll on Derry's body than what her ravenous form ever did.

A part of Derry really wants to punch Yangcong in the gut for taking this whole situation so nonchalantly, but he was too focused on Hazel's current condition to worry about getting his frustration out. "Not... Right now... Yangcong..." Derry replies as he maintains his focus on Hazel. Noticing his tears, she questions why they would approach her when she was ravenous. Through his tears, Derry replies, "I mean... To be fair... You did come after me..." He staggers ever so slightly as Hazel brushes her hands through his hair, staining it with the blood of the saiyan captors. She cups her hands around his face and reassures him that she's alright, but Derry just couldn't stand for it.

"I... Failed..." Derry mutters, his eyes looking down onto the ground, "I wasn't looking after ya... This was all my fault... I'm sorry..." His breathing was becoming more and more heavy, both out of relief that Hazel was okay and from his body starting to give out. He places his own hand and brushes it through Hazel's hair before placing it on her shoulder for both comfort and support. 

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Hazel looked mortified when Derry stated she came after him, "H-How?" She was shocked he was in one piece if she had come after him. She pulled away slightly, but quickly supported his weight as Derry seemed unsteady and quick to snap at Yangcong but that wasn't new. She started realizing how ragged he was, was he genuinely this much of a mess over her missing?? "Whoa, hey hey, I'm not your responsibility, I can take care of myself when needed," She was trying to say anything she could think of on the spot to comfort him. She guided Derry over to where Yangcong was doing her best to force the mob boss to sit, they needed to find some sort of shelter for Derry to rest.

Although after sitting between Derry and Yangcong she could see he was equally exhausted, for some reason she actually felt embarrassed they went through so much to find her. She rested a hand on Yangcong's knee, to get his attention from his meal "Were you hurt?" She pulled back her hand to cover her mouth trying not to gag a little bit from seeing him eat, it's not that she found it disgusting she was just so terribly full she couldn't even look at food. "Oh gods I can't even look at food right now,"

She was trying to maintain some sort of composure but in truth her mind was in a chaotic panic. She had charged at Derry in her starved form and he was perfectly okay? Was he able to fight her off? Was she able to resist? But what if she hadn't been able to? What if they weren't so lucky next time? And she…..

The thought made her outwardly flinch which she tried to mask as her standing up again, "We should probably find better shelter…" she looked around in mild confusion, "Where are we?"

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