Let the Future Live

Years before, a conversation between Cheri, the oni Qarinah, and the questionably-loyal Yangcong had opened up the possibility of interdimensional magic as a method of clean energy generation, of finding space for arbitrarily large calculation engines, and calling on the power of the famed ‘blood rubies’. Ever since, the tuffle thaumatological division had been looking into the possibility, virtually breaching into other dimensions under slow and safe directives and at a cautious pace— so cautious, in fact, that these experiments could only ever go wrong if something on the other side of these dimensional barriers was smashing their way through on the other end.

Beyond what was known to mortal ken, two different machines, distinct in method and intention of purpose but alike in base countenance, were reaching out towards each other… and, like two fishing hooks snagging upon each other instead of finding the mouths of any fish, they’d well and truly caught each other in a combined dimensional meltdown.

Tuffle scientists and thaumatological arcanists were in a panic, quickly setting off alarms. Nothing seemed to be immediately wrong, not at a glance, at least not in the sense that there were any dimensional monsters invading the laboratory. Instead, everything shook, people’s hairs levitated as if subject to a strong electric charge, and the portal to another world was not only not responding to any input, but it was slowly growing larger over time, creeping outwards!

They’d tried sending in a drone through the portal to investigate, but it didn’t have the structural integrity to survive the warp between worlds… no, the thaumatologists quickly realised, the only way they could end this was to send someone powerful enough to survive the trip to the other end and destroy whatever it was forcing the connection open. And, at times like these, when it would be too slow to politely ask a Super Saiyan who’d just as likely disregard their concerns… Cheri was the only option.

She arrived promptly, understanding the seriousness of the situation: without even needing to greet anyone there, she was already powering up, covering herself in a defensive aura of pink ki… before she took a step into the unknown.

”Now… Where’s…?”

Cheri was dressed in her battlesuit, with blasters, lasers, and missiles all at the ready. But then, her scouter alerted her to a massive, familiar, and nearby power signature! ”That can’t…” She looked around, seeing the malfunctioning otherworld device and, most oddly of all, Yangcong, who seemed like he’d sure been through a lot since last the two had seen each other. ”Yangcong? This is your doing?!” Her voice was stern, fully prepared to fight to end this potential dimensional calamity.

Yangcong, all the way out here? It’s true that she hadn’t heard about what he’d been up to for a while, yes, but she assumed that he’d simply retired from his dangerous lifestyle to take on smaller, more joyous pursuits, or even that he’d died of some mix of old age and destron-related sickness. And quite possibly he had, considering where Cheri knew they were! No, this wasn’t the Demon Realm, or one of those inexplicably candy-filled dimensions that majins crawled out of for some reason, or one of the many truly empty quasi-dimensions so utterly empty that no one had any evidence to try to ascertain how they came to be; this was Hell. The afterlife! So, either Yangcong had done something remarkably foolish indeed and was trying to invade Hell, or he truly had died somewhere along the way and was trying to— ah, yes. No, right, that explained everything.

He was covered in his war suit, his power roughly matching her own. He was angry, too— did he think her presence was preventing him from breaching dimensions and breaking out of Hell? Given all appearances, it wasn’t an unreasonable assumption to make. But… no. No, there was more to what was going on here, wasn’t there?

”Revenge? That’s not why I’m—”

Wait.

What?

”... You… you did what?” The rate her heart beat doubled over the span of a second flat. Her ki fluctuated, with her burning pink aura gaining momentary wisps of white ki. If only she had just a bit more raw power: if only her body could support such a thing, this information alone would have pushed Cheri over the edge to attain the next stage in tuffle evolution. Yangcong sure was an enigma, even after all this time.

”I didn’t intend to stop your little escape plan, but I’m glad I did,” her words were spat with a timbre of venom she rarely employed as her aura flared up taller than it usually could, ”You deserve every moment down here, and so much worse.” Despite the intensity of her emotion, her volume remained contained… concentrated.

Certainly, though, something didn’t add up. Cheri had spoken to her daughter quite recently, so either there was a resurrection somewhere along the way, Yangcong was simply mistaken, or this murder was quite recent. She looked straight ahead, even as Yangcong circled around her. ”I’d like to perform an experiment.” Her tone was controlled, but clearly dripping in anger. ”I want to see what happens if you kill the dead. If you, for whatever reason, do not wish to participate, simply tell me everything you know, and your input will weigh into our wider decision-making process. So, please…”

Barely taking an instant, a laser blaster mounted over her left shoulder adjusted its aim slightly and shot a pink, concentrated beam of light that, being light, traveled faster than could be reasonably dodged out of the way of! Its target? Yangcong’s centre of mass.

”Elaborate.”

”You know, I don’t entirely disbelieve you.” That is, in regards to how Yangcong was in a whole other league of power. ”From memory, last time we met, you were a whole me-and-a-half in terms of sheer power. Though you don’t seem to have yet figured out how to use it well.” Yangcong’s head became that of a lion, aquiline wings burst from his back, his arms became ursine and clawed, and his legs started looking like they came from something that said ‘ribbit’! It was awesome, in the classical sense of the term, but Cheri didn't seem impressed. ”... No, you’re certainly right in that, too. You’re already dead. All that power of yours, all of your shortcuts to power,” she said, disgusted by the bestial transformations he seems to have immediately resorted to, ”and your ‘whole other league’ of power still couldn’t save you.”

The reflected laser beam hit an anticipatory force field surrounding her that, until the two collided and annihilated each other, was entirely invisible. Anticipating the snake attack as well, Cheri caught the thrusting snake’s head in mid-air with her ‘powercatching’ gloved hand. Preventing it from biting her was not sufficient, though: she kept hold the snake and squeezed, before trying to rip it out of Yangcong’s body with a spiteful tug.

”And your ‘revenge narrative’ might not be too satisfying for you, either.” Cheri gave a slight smile, though she didn’t seem any less angry. ”Have you noticed that I have rage for you, but seemingly no grief for Amara? It’s because I’ve spoken to her; and recently, too. She’s alive! For all your power, she made it out, and you’re still stuck here.” Now, sure, Amara hadn’t told Cheri that she’d died in the first place, but that was a more private discussion the two could have later.

Success! The chimeric snake tail was snatched away, detached, in a yank of great force and, Cheri hoped, great pain as well. ”And why should her power matter? That isn’t her worth as a person. Aren’t you meant to be a tuffle, Yangcong?” By Cheri’s estimation, he hardly looked it. ”You should know that. It’s your species’ ethos.”

Speaking of power: Yangcong’s own power only grew and grew, as whatever dimensional meddling or simple shock was keeping his power down was fading away, and he elected to amp up his suit’s own power. This sort of power… if Yangcong kept growing in power like this, even by pulling out all the stops, Cheri wouldn’t be able to compete for long. ”Are you looking for sympathy? We’re long past that point.” Yangcong was focused on power: the power to catch up, the power to win, the power to justify throwing around phrases like ‘whole other league’ and ‘you’re a pebble’. And where did that get him?

Cheri brought her hands out in a cross in front of her as she brought up a force field, braced in anticipation of the railgun she saw ready to fire. The first shot burst through her shield and pierced Cheri’s battlesuit, even drawing blood! And then there was another shot, and another, and another!


Cheri pulled a ripcord made of programmable matter on her suit and jumped up in the air… when a vast mechanical mecha appeared, shunted out of its paradimensional quasiplane, surrounding Cheri! It was thirty metres tall, and seemingly unaffected by Yangcong’s previous attack!  Her silhouette was still visible within the mech's central gem, where her mind directly controlled the suit instead of her own body.


The mech’s right arm moved at surprising speed, pointing at Yangcong and shooting a blue ki blast larger than the entirety of Yangcong’s body!

Yangcong used a flamethrower, the fires of which were so all-consuming that Yangcong could hardly see Cheri’s Ape-Buster Suit— which would have been a hilarious opportunity to teleport away and trick Yangcong into thinking that he was still blasting away at the mecha but, alas, the flame came faster than Cheri could react to teleport away, and now it was too late to teleport away… the best she could do was set up a rudimentary personal shield. While the appearance of damage, much-diminished as it was, was quickly fading away as the programmable matter the suit was made of shifted around and repaired itself, the shock of it was still felt deeply.


The massive right blaster arm moved, again with surprising speed, but this time for a different blast of energy. This one was pink, not blue, and the blast was far more thin, more concentrated: instead of shooting a blast taller than Yangcong and many times as wide, this one was merely tall enough to encompass his head. The most pressing difference, however, was its speed: traveling at the speed of light, this beam was too fast to dodge, and it threatened to blast a hole straight through Yangcong’s torso and suit with a direct blow!

It was another superweapon. Yangcong’s secret tool that could win him the war and defeat the ‘Saiyan Kingdom’... was just another superweapon. Another shot at what became destron. Did he really think that just another superweapon would win this war and solve all of Plant’s problems? Did he really think that the risk this superweapon represented could justify throwing away the peace so many had given so much for?


A pink laser beam with no apparent origin careened into sight, disintegrating Yangcong’s superweapon into less than dust: the virus was split apart into its composite molecules, which were themselves split down into atoms, which themselves disintegrated into their base particles, which were themselves further cut down a soup of quarks.


Besides, Cheri reasoned: he’d only found this virus exploring alien worlds. It was not engineered, it was not designed, it was not a product of technology or science. Chances were, she figured, that ‘war suit’ he seemed so proud of wasn’t made by him, either.


The Ape-Buster Suit rushed forwards, ready to stomp Yangcong if he was on the ground or swatting him from the sky if he was in the air.

It came as no surprise that the tuffle armies had less powerful warriors than the Vegetans, that much was always going to be the case. When you have a culture of warriors and a culture of scientists, you didn’t expect the anthropologists to win the arm wrestling competitions. The tuffles had their edge in other areas… and, from where Cheri was sitting, it seemed like Yangcong had given up on the strengths of the tuffles to chase after the strengths of the saiyans, to beat them at their own game… an effort that seemed doomed to fail.

Yangcong avoided Cheri’s strikes, benefitting from his (relatively) itty-bitty size— this was humorous, of course, as Yangcong was an utter giant by conventional tuffle standards. But of course, he wasn’t 100% tuffle. He leaped back and tried to shoot a massive purple ki blast up at the machine, but Cheri had seen this coming and had a counter: she’d just stomp on him again, faster and with more power, before his attack could get anywhere.


It was the ultimate call back to reality: for all his power, despite Yangcong’s claims that his technology could take on Super Saiyans… where had it gotten him? To Hell.