Family Matter [AT SPLIT - Blight be Purged]

There was something different about Dion. Something... more serious. Kabe had hoped, due to their shared kinship of Zhalla and the fast bond they'd forged in a bar on the same planet beneath them, that this would be a friendly jaunt. Not to say they wouldn't beat each other senseless, but there would be fair play involved and no ill will.

But Dion was already on the offensive, leaving little room for banter and discussion. He could see the resemblance between Zhalla and her brother more clearly now, as a blustering whirlwind flooded the room, simulated grass and ferns ripping up from the artificial earth beneath them, flying around wildly. The simulator held up, and the slice travelled onward, faux trees lopped and falling, as Dion laid bare how seriously he was going to take this fight.

If serious was how he wanted it, serious was how he'd get it. The power gap wasn't immense, but it was noticeable. With his own blade brandished the opposing saiyan rushed in, closing the gap before Kabe could disappear into the remaining greenery and slicing toward him. With the difference it speed, there was a razor thin distance between the blade and his flesh as he danced through it in a blur, a select few stubbled bits of hair floating down as Kabe eventually appeared behind his frienemy. "You're going to have to try harder than that, if you want to hit me."

Knowing he needed more of an edge than this environment would give him, he threw a few heavy swings Dion's way as he reached out through the open link he had with Kay Bee. "Things are getting tight in here, bud. I think I need some help. I need you to do the thing."

In the helm, an insectoid boy's attention was snapped back from the playful game of ship command he was enjoying, looking puzzled, then excited. Both internally, and to the helm, he shouted. "Give hell!" He began commanding, only to be responded to by a sudden thought. "No you goblin, eat yourself."

There was a moment of puzzlement, then of realization, and Kabe pulled back from his assault. "Now!" He shouted, the crew at the helm watching in horror as the insectoid creature folded in on himself like a black hole, and Dion watched as Kabe's mouth glowed for a moment before his own child emerged into the space, firing a heavy energy blast toward Dion with all of his might!

---

WC: 414
TWC: 2211

Dion was not the same as his sister. At all. The diversionary tactic he'd employed, of bringing in his own cloned dopple-child for backup, was one that had it been used on Zhalla would have plucked at a soft spot she held toward children, and thrown her off balance and set her on the back foot all while prompting her to waste energy diverting the blow. Instead, Bee's blast had been totally endured, which made sense due to his lacking power. But what followed was a blast of energy, forceful and aimed directly at Kay Bee.

Kay Bee was sent hurdling through the distorted space of the combat simulator, moving fast enough that he struck an invisible physical wall of the dome, before plonking down, his red-green blood oozing from a snapped bit of chitin and some torn skin where he'd hit the wall, pooling and mixing with the false earth beneath him. Though Dion had not thrown any sizeable amount of his energy into the blast, it was still clocking in at over four times the fledgling warrior's power.

"Bee!" He shouted, shock and a quiver of fear running down his spine as his playful demeanor dropped entirely. The distraction was such that Kabe didn't even begin to dodge the energy attack that was ravaging the simulacrum of his jungle home. He flickered gold for a moment, the pot in the pit of his stomach boiling out of control, before reducing down to a sizzle as the energy burned past his form.

One thought filled his mind in that moment. Attacking his kid was a step too far. It didn't matter how pulled the punch had been. It didn't matter to him that he had been the reason Bee had been in harms way in the first place. It didn't matter to him that in the long run, no real substantial damage had been done.

It was something he could not allow to happen without retribution. Kabe would no longer be pleasant, or funny. His reaction was visceral. Instinctive. Furious. Charged with the kind of deep, pitted rage that only a saiyan could draw forth. No... that only a Bonewood could summon.

A line had been crossed that no enemy had crossed before, and that Kabe decided would never be crossed again.

"This," he shouted, lunging at Dion with his blade whirling in a frenzied dance of slashes and cuts, an emulation of Dion's own opening attack, refined by the fury of a parent and the sanguine thirst of a starved animal seeking any means to draw blood. "is for hurting my kid, you fuck!"

---

WC: 436
TWC: 2647

While Dion grappled with his own demons, Kabe had no time for such things. For a moment, the young boy who had found family for the first time aboard a starship full of strangers brought himself forward, and Kabe felt more concern and empathy for the stuttering Dion as he begged for apology... but very quickly, the bubbling rage consumed it, and he had moved forward with his attack regardless.

While he had copied the moves of his opponent with a raw edge, it seemed he had learned how to counter his own fighting style, and in a display of skill that served only to further infuriate the pirate lord, the saiyan and his instincts had with no effort other than simply snapping his fingers.

"grRAAGH!"

Kabe screamed at his failed attack, leaping back into the wrecked green jungle behind him and stared his foe down he doubled down on his want for Kabe to take a fight seriously for the first time in his life. But this was not the first time Kabe had needed to fight seriously. He'd had eight long years of that, facing every unimaginable horror the planet they now emulated could throw at him.

Dion's words began to draw forth something in him.

"He didn't force shit," Kabe spat, rejecting the notion that Bee — his flesh, his blood, who was barely recuperating his energy as he bleed onto the dirt nearby — was nothing more than collateral that stood in the way of some grand battle he had been owed. "I fought you as I would have your sister, but if games aren't your speed..." Kabe began to latch onto that feeling, that animalistic hunger that had burst forth when Bee had first been harmed. That rage he had so long supressed. That instinct that had earned him his name.

"Do you know where we are, Dion?"

He didn't give his opponent a chance to comment. "There are many legends among our kind. Of our strength. Of the beast. Long ago, we were at peace, until our hunger for power drove us to steal the primal light for ourselves. For our insolence, we were punished, and that greed, that hunger for power was caged inside of us in the form of the Oozaru. It's a monster we all must face."

"This is where I faced that beast, Dion. I know you've heard the rumors, the stories of where I got my name. This desolate rock is where it was earned. A population of seventeen thousand, reduced to zero to keep that primal beast abated." He threw his sword aside, dropping his stance low, leaning forward on one palm like an animal waiting to strike. "No more games, Dion."

"You face the Devourer."

His words were monotone, rage no longer remaining. Only the hunger remained. From the husk of Kabe, a frenzied warrior emerged and pounced forward aiming to grab Dion by the shoulders and bite a hunk out of his neck.

---

WC: 495
TWC: 3142

Blood had satiated the hunger, as Kabe felt the rip of flesh beneath his teeth, crimson spilling out of arm used to stave off the savage attack Kabe had pounced forward with moments prior. Kabe swallowed what he could of the blood, fighting to keep his instincts in control, the learned man, the facade he'd developed for years attempting to inch its way back into control.

The beast was so afraid of this, that it copped the double kick to the ribs without hesitation, and his winded meat flailed into a side flip, landing on all fours with cat-like grace. Though the hunger piloted the husk, Kabe's mind was still dulled in the back, chewing on Dion's words as he spoke them.

Unyielding focus? A joke. Were he his usual self, Kabe would find it ironic that Dion would say something so laughable, after demanding a battle without jokes or humor.

Focus was an obstacle. A distraction. Focus had never helped him to survive in the jungles of Duria... it was no spear, or shield. It could not save you from the gnashing teeth of a predator three times your size baring down on you, nor could it strike down your pray. It was a weakness.

But there was something to these words though that touched something in what humanity remained in the meat shell of man that fought tooth and claw for victory in these moments. Dion had faced an endless onslaught of defeat. That was enough to drive a man to fight like this. But to say Kabe had triumphed? That brought forth a bubble of rage.

He pounced once more, recovered from his winding, reaching from within his own throat and spitting up an unscratched car, sadly hoisted overhead in it's mint condition and lobbed towards Dion with the kind of speed only a warrior of their caliber could project it at.

Sliding downward beneath it in the same moment, Kabe met Dion's haymaker with a forward slither, aiming to strike him from below with a burble of crackling red energy while he would be distracted with the automobile careening toward him.

---

WC: 355
TWC: 3497

Kabe's blow struck true, and a grizzled chuckle escaped his maw as Dion stumbled backward. Kabe appeared behind him, and allowed himself a few moments to recover the energy spent while his foe spluttered blood and struggled to drag air back into his injured, desperate lungs.

Quickly though, his foe was recovered and a finger aimed at him pointedly. Finality rang in the words, but the beast that was once Kabe did not listen. This battle would be over when he was satiated. When the toll of blood was extracted, and the arrogance that lead Dion to his actions was exhumed and disposed of.

A moment of pause gave Kabe all the time he needed to ready himself for the incoming attack.

And yet, he had not been prepared as Dion raced forward with ludicrous speed, burrowing through the air like a tracking dart homing in on it's victim. Kabe had no time do dodge, and raised up his arm to block as the attack flew forward.

"Papa!" Kay Bee shouted, springing into action in a deseperate act to protect his clone-father. In a burst of speed, he disappeared, and unwillingly Kabe spat up his son into the space between Dion and himself.

All of the things Dion had hoped to achieve with his attack on Kabe had been true. Energy endured, aiming to resist the attack, but the shape of Kabe was thrown around in the sky, and driven into the dirt. But as the dust cleared, the cleverness of the rascal was made apparent. The shape of Kabe in the dirt shifted, and the injured, bleeding insectoid form of Bee lay there instead.

"Bee!" Kabe screamed, reclaiming himself long enough to rush to his son's aid. "Stupid brat..." he whispered, holding him close. "Don't do that, ever again. Let me handle the rest of this." Bee smiled, and once again cradled himself.

Kabe leapt for his blade, and then raced towards Dion in a wide slice.

---

WC: 328
TWC: 3825

Kabe's attack struck true! Except, that it didn't. Dion's form flickered and faded with ghostly imagery that mirrored the horrors of the sickening gas they warred over below, and Kabe last track of him for a moment. Rearing his head to track his foe, Kabe found himself yet surprised by Dion, once again charging straight towards a child of trivial power but a quart of his own, aiming to deliver a blow of finality.

Bee had fought hard to protect Kabe, suffering pain in cost of that bond, twice now this day. He would be berated and coddled in turn for this once they were free of their imminent danger. But now, rather than in revenge, it was Kabe's turn to suffer pain at the expense of protecting his child.

As Dion flattened his hand into a spearhead and struck down toward the neck of the helpless Bee, Kabe signaled the weakened boy to a similar strategy they had employed moments before. Kabe, having never tried this, focused on his strange and unusual power. He pictured himself a great beast, looming overhead of himself and swallowing him whole.

In an instant, he disappeared, finding himself within a vast space, starlit sky and acidic sea stretching in every visible direction, bubbled objects and food floating throughout the space as far as he view. Wild saibamen fought and battled wars in the distance, victims of his vicious hunger struggled for survival on rafts made of salvage, and peculiarities begged to distract him from his goal, but his eye was drawn elsewhere.

A swirl in the sky, opposite where he had entered, like a burning hole in the fabric of space. Kabe leapt for it, and felt the terrible feeling of being regurgitated whole through gullet-space magic, appearing between Dion and Bee, his back taking the decisive blow and stinging down his spine with pain.

Before Bee could argue, Kabe gobbled him whole. He'd be safer in gullet-space. It might help some of his stupidity, if he didn't know what was happening out here. Swiveling around, Kabe stared down Dion, more sense returning to his mind. "Is this the grand battle you envisioned, Dion? Striking down a helpless child for getting in your way? Some victory you hope to earn."

Kabe crackled with energy once more, a blast of golden light surging his form before drawing down into a sizzling coating of ki wrapped on his fists, and he started throwing a fierce barrage of punches at Dion. "You'll have to fight harder for it!"

---

WC: 422
TWC: 4247