A/N: No chapter on the 22.05! I will be back on the 29th of May. I apologize, but I have been sick for the past week. I need a break to organize my thoughts for the future plot and to rest a bit. Again, sorry for the inconvenience! Of course, if you still want to read more in the meantime, you can check out my pâtréon. com /Draugzel. Either way, see you in a bit.
------------------------------
"The what crystal?" I glanced at what he was holding before turning my sight back to my 'brother', while still gathering energy.
"One half of the Omnificence Crystal. After it fuses with the other half, Zahha described it as a prototype of the Super Dragon Balls. It can grant any wish as long it's supplied with enough energy- Now, brother calm down. Don't." He added that last part when I pointed my index and middle finger at him and directed the accumulated energy into them.
"So, what? He somehow placed them inside us and then told you about it? Why would he reveal his plans to you?" After seeing that I wouldn't attack him right away, he began to explain.
"Zahha attacked our planet and captured us during our fight with the evil Saiyans. He erased our memories and placed these into us to be nourished by our divine ki when we fought each other. After arranging a tournament of time, he was able to get enough energy to fuse the two halves and create the complete Omnificence Crystal. With it, he was able to nullify the powers of Beerus and Kakarot before annihilating his former allies with just a wish."
"The tournament of time?"
"Long story. What's important is that after he almost succeeded, our reality clashed with this one, and some of us were sucked into this world. You and I included."
"When exactly was this? You know, these events are spotty memories for me."
"A few years back, when we were 15."
"...So, he fused the halves together. Then why is it divided again?"
His expression was solemn. "I don't know."
"Great answer. You said that guy placed these halves into us. What about yours? Show it to me." He nodded affirmatively. His hand slowly drifted in front of his chest before a red-blackish crystal moved out of his chest and landed in his hand. Just as the second crystal landed in his other hand, both of them began to shine brightly before snapping toward each other like magnets.
Giblet seemed to be surprised, but he wasn't able to continue his acting as I was already in front of him. I held the shining fused crystal in my hands before blasting Giblet with the accumulated energy in my fingers.
It slammed into his shoulder. Giblet shouted before twisting his body out of the way of the beams' way. The beam faded as it headed into the deep dark space. He gritted his teeth and instinctively reached to his shoulder as the pain must have flared up, considering the minor burn the attack caused him.
Honestly, if I hadn't gathered that much energy, I could have reduced the impact area to pierce through his shoulder. However, any less energy probably wouldn't have damaged him at all.
"What are you doing?!"
"Two can play the game of ambushing." The shine of the crystal faded slightly to reveal a familiar look. It certainly looked similar to a dragon ball, so I could see the part with it being a prototype of them. It was just missing the star shapes inside of it. I could also feel a rather deep connection to it and instinctively knew how to use it.
"Your story is quite convincing. You just messed up one detail. I am turning 19 soon and have been in this universe for a couple of years now. So, either you were making this shit up to get your hands on this or your story is true. If your story was true, it would mean that during the clash of realities, someone divided the crystal put them back into our bodies, changed my memories, reversed the aging process of my body, and all the strength I must have had as a god, and I am not sure about you, but former sounds a bit more realistic."
He grimaced slightly. "I should have known this would happen, you stubborn dickhead-"
"It's simple really. All I got to do is use this, right?" I channeled the focus on the crystal and whispered my wish in my heart. 'Giblet shall speak the truth about his motives.'
"Everything I said was true. From Zahha's manipulation to the loss of our memories. I don't know what happened after we were separated, but I am almost certain that you have to be My brother. I am just trying to make sure that you are fine and return to our reality with you." I clenched my jaw and was about to whisper another wish to know what had happened. It was the easiest way to sort this out, but before I could Giblet shouted and held his hands up.
"Don't. You might need the energy to return to our universe. If you use it all up now, it's possible we won't have enough left-"
"You dumb or something?" I looked at him strangely. Did he forget the story and reasoning he had just a moment ago? "Didn't you want to use the dragon ball to restore my original memories? Why not do it now? After all, Kakarot and Vegeta will use the Super Dragon Balls to return you to your universe. If what you have said is true it might change my mind and make me more inclined to join you, no? Or do you not know about them trying to use the super dragon balls?"
"Oh, no I knew they were gathering them... you are right. I just thought you wanted to kill me with it or leave this place." He then made a gesture to say go ahead.
"Wow. You don't have a high opinion of your brother, do you? Besides I wouldn't need something like this to kill you..." I rubbed the surface of the crystal in my hands as I looked at him. Wondering if there was more to it. He dropped out of his god form again, though this time I didn't have any intentions of dropping out of my transformation. I was not going to get blitzed again, screw that.
I was about to wish for it to restore my memories, but I stopped before making it. What if I was his brother and everything he told me was true? What if it wasn't some other close variant of another timeline? What if I was truly his brother? If I wished for my memories back, I might change into someone I wasn't.
Chronoa had merged me with my other split self that was in another timeline. However, it didn't affect me fundamentally. I had gained emotions towards people I had a different relationship with and I had the memories of an attitude where I treated every person around me as people that would stick with me for the rest of my life. It gave me a new perspective of someone I could be or had been and a new worldview.
The same couldn't be said with the Saiyan side of mine. His, potentially altered, memories hadn't affected my decision-making. It was mostly his body that affected my attitude. The sheer lust for battle and desire to fight. It shaped me deeply physically and mentally. However, compared to my split soul that was practically me just put in a different situation, Shallot was another person entirely. He didn't have the same human values that I had and thought of things from a Saiyan perspective.
I glanced into the crystal and saw my reflection inside of it. I swiped my thumb over the surface of the crystal, over my reflection, and for just a moment the orange color of the dragon ball-like crystal made it seem like the green aura around me was a fiery red instead. Not only that, but it almost looked like I was trapped inside of it.
At this moment, Chronoa's voice flashed through my mind. '...You know, it's bad for souls from our reality to be split into different timelines like that... In this region, the other timelines aren't created the same way as they are in our world...' From our reality? In our world?
...Were my memories truly a lie? Was I never a human? My family, my time in prison, all a lie? I breathed out heavily before pressing the crystal against my forehead as I closed my eyes, thinking about her words, and the way she merged my souls back together. She even mentioned that I wasn't the Shallot that they knew. Did she not mean the fact that I was a human or did she mean something else entirely? To be honest, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to know the answer to it.
After a moment, I opened my eyes again and looked at Giblet, who looked expectant. "I am not going to restore my memories." It was obviously not something he wanted to hear and before he could complain. "Not for now, at least. I will keep this until then." I clenched the crystal inside my hand before it disappeared into my body again.
It felt weird as on hand, it felt like a missing piece had returned to me, but now that I knew of it, I was painfully aware of its existence. "You will have to wait until I make a decision."
"You can't be serious! You know that the others could get to the last super dragon ball at any moment! If you don't want to be stuck here, we will have to decide sooner rather than later." He looked exasperated, though I had no intention of giving in because of him pressuring me. I would need to discuss it with Kara, Raven, and Diana. At least, they should know something happened before I did something like this.
"Yeah, no. Didn't you say that the Zahha guy used our ki to fill this up? I could just give it more energy if I needed to use it in the future." If my guess was correct, this would be a useful tool. No, useful was a bit of an underestimation. It would be nearly an omnipotent tool. Something that would make me rise to the top of almost all realities in one fell swoop.
He gritted his teeth and I could feel how frustrated he was with me. "...Maybe, he used both of our divine ki, I don't know if it will be able to be charged with just your energy." After he said that I mobilized my ki and tried to let it flow inside, but as soon as it did, my ki was rejected. My ki just washed over it like water over a stone.
"My ki doesn't... It probably needs to be divine ki." I realized as I turned my sight to my brother before pointing at him. He held up his hands as if he waited to be struck again. "You. You are going to teach me how to use divine ki."
Of course, I could wish for the crystal to give me divine ki or at least the knowledge to gain it, but who knew how much energy a wish would need? What if I still couldn't charge it afterward? I would need to rely on Giblet. There were just too many unknowns for me to blatantly use it, so I would just keep it and only use it once I knew how to charge it or if I desperately needed it.
Giblet crossed his arms as he looked at me. "Fine. You are too weak, anyway. I will have to prepare you properly if you want to survive our enemies." He finally uttered after thinking for a moment. "Let's go meet my allies. I am getting hungry and I need to get this treated." He stated suddenly, making me remember that he had teleported us away.
"Yeah, no offense, but I would rather leave for now and leave you to it. I have to notify a few people of my unexpected leave and whatever you told me just now." Kara was probably going to be pissed if I stayed away for longer without letting her know where I went to. I flexed my ki and tried to feel space to rip it open and disappear into that space-time storm, though even after pushing my strength further and further, it seemed too far away.
"Hmph." Giblet snorted as he looked at me. "Not that easy as in that other universe you were in? This here is the first universe I had entered and the restrictions are a lot harder to overcome than most other universes I had entered afterward." After saying that he looked around for a moment, before turning his entire body in one direction. "Despite the fact that you are probably too weak, it's best to drop out of that state of yours, otherwise we might attract them."
I glared at him still being empowered by my legend form, though unfortunately without the pressure he put on me by using SSG, I was barely getting any stronger. I would need a high gravity or a strong opponent to let my body know I needed more power. After all, power comes in response to a need, not a desire.
My chaotic and violent ki suddenly calmed down as I dropped out of my legend state and turned into a mere Super Saiyan. "For someone that just used Super Saiyan God to try and overwhelm me, you are awfully scared. What? Does 'our' enemy not know how to sense divine ki?"
"You have no idea what you are talking about. My ki isn't as uncontrollable as yours. I can keep it contained and they won't be able to sense it outside this universe. You, on the other hand, signal it out like a beacon in the dark. Fortunately, most won't leak out of the universe as your power is hardly enough to penetrate outside. If you had some control over it and it didn't leak out of you as much as it does now, perhaps you could have a shot at beating me."
"Do you really think you won?" I asked with a smile. If he hadn't talked so much, I would have completely wrecked him. Once my momentum had peaked, I could have blasted him into oblivion.
"Do you? Humble yourself. The only reason why you are still conscious is that I didn't want to accidentally kill you."
"Yeah, right. That was why you repeatedly wanted to stop our fight and talk it out. We wouldn't be having that conversation if I let loose."
"Indeed. You probably would have accidentally killed yourself with that abomination of a transformation. Now, try to keep up with me." With a white aura surrounding him, he blasted into the dark space.
I didn't like that asshole, did he think I would follow him just because I was in an unfamiliar universe and couldn't teleport out of it? I would also never acknowledge that his powers, his divine ki, were a bit out of my depth at this point. It would be a struggle, but I could definitely obliterate him if I wanted to!
I glanced around into the empty space before glancing at the star system we were in just a moment ago. I couldn't help but sigh and turned around to follow him. I quickly caught up to him. He glanced over my shoulder as I approached before sneering.
I dropped out of Super Saiyan and returned to my base. My body relaxed slightly and then started screaming for some nutrition. After I had put that much strain on it, it was no wonder that I needed to get some energy. Something to eat and a good rest would be nice about now. Perhaps have Raven massage me with her magic, let my body melt underneath her touch.
"Why not teleport there?" He glanced over his shoulder to look at me again, which kind of ticked me off as it almost felt like he was looking down on me, so, I flew next to him.
"I would rather take the time to fly there, so you can calm down a bit more." He made it sound like I was a maniac and would just go berserk from one moment to the next. I wasn't the one that attacked the other on sight.
"Whatever you say, 'bro'. What were you doing in that place anyway?" I asked as I tried to loosen some stiffness in my muscles. I had a feeling that we would fly until he figured that I had 'calmed down'. My mind lingered on him almost instantly transforming into a god to attack me. With me in my base, it would be the perfect opportunity to try ambushing me again.
My power was still boiling underneath the surface, though I had to acknowledge that I would be hard-pressed to react before I was hit. Still, that didn't mean I would instantly lose if that happened.
Currently, my power was on the verge of transforming me if it weren't for me controlling the power to stay contained. If my mind went blank again, the power would just flow out and transform me again. At that point, I would heal and we would have our rematch. I just have to keep a little flame ignited and contain it. Once not contained it would become a raging inferno on its own. It was something I had discovered during training. Almost died back then, but it was a neat trick to make sure one could survive almost all sneak attacks. It was just a bit tiring to keep it in that state between transforming and resting.
"Obviously, I was searching for you. Didn't expect to find you there, but good thing I did, otherwise you might have fallen into their hands."
"So, in the countless universes, you found me in the space-time storm in the middle of buttfuck nowhere?"
He frowned strongly and gave me a side-eye. "I just knew you would be there and possibly in danger."
"Ominous. Some kind of special ki sense or something?"
"No, just my brotherly instincts."
"You detected me because we are... twins. Is that what you are saying?"
He nodded affirmatively as if that was a natural thing.
"I just want to let you know, but everything you said until now sounded completely made up. Are you chronically lying or are you just a dick?"
He sighed heavily, clearly annoyed. "Didn't remember that you were always that arrogant... or is your ego bruised because you weren't able to beat me? Perhaps your inability to go Super Saiyan God?"
"..." Yeah, I couldn't stand him. I was going to wipe that dumb smirk on his face at some point.
"What were doing you there anyway?"
"What? In the space-time dimension? Just wanted to take revenge on some asshole new god."
"A new god. Hm. They are quite tough. Did you kill them? It's best to get rid of them. They are quite good at scheming."
"...I was about to when you interrupted me. I messed up his brain and destroyed his Mobius chair. His body should be eroded by the space-time by now or our ki blast obliterated him." I actually completely forgot about him as soon as Giblet appeared. The only thing I remembered was that I tossed him aside. I glanced at Giblet who frowned heavily before he shook his head and schooled his expression again.
We continued to fly with him glancing at me a couple of times until he changed direction again with a sigh and said that we were close. We were already on the way for 30 minutes before I could see a distant star.
I squinted my eyes and looked at the star system that we were approaching. During my training in the past month and during my time in the other universe, I had visited a couple of planets to endure hostile environments, so I immediately knew what star system we were heading towards.
"Of course, you're allies are the Justice League." Guess we are twins after all. He looked surprised that I knew them and nodded with a slight smile on his face.
"Yes. Over the years, they have been helpful in my quest to find you. The only thing they asked from me was to beat some of their foes into submission a couple of times. You met them before?"
"You could say that." He hummed slightly at my non-answer and headed towards a satellite that was orbiting the earth. It looked like an alien space station built into a meteor. It had a triangular shape like it was the head of a spear with smooth walls, windows, and lights. The wider lower part was the rough meteor part. Although it was unlike the Watchtower that we had built or the one that the other Justice League planned to build, it looked familiar.
Giblet approached the side of the Watchtower and released a simple pulse of ki. The side wall of the Watchtower was hit by it and responded quickly as the ki pulse washed over the surface. The stony surface suddenly shifted to open and reveal a hangar. Not going to lie that was pretty neat.
Not having someone to open it manually was pretty nifty, though they would need one's ki signature or at least know how to detect it. "It's based on pressure and energy detection. They were tired that I would just teleport inside the Watchtower without their magical defenses being able to block me and kindly asked me to use this entrance instead."
"Why do their magical defenses not block you? Shouldn't they be able to block any type of teleporting?" It had taken him some time, but Raven could create some areas where I couldn't teleport into.
He gave me a weird look. "No, it's because our teleporting uses spirit energy and ki to transport oneself through space. If their runes were an active energy-based barrier it might be able to block me. Does the magic you encountered manage to block you?"
I opened my mouth to speak before I shut it again. My teleportation was based on my observation from Raven's, Zatara's, and the mother boxes' teleportation coupled with a bit of meta-knowledge from the few panels about the spirit control training which Vegeta had undergone. He rolled his eyes as he noticed I would keep silent.
We calmly entered the hangar with the gate closing behind us. My ki senses finally were able to pick up some ki signature. I was stunned for a moment. It was obvious they were able to block ki sense from the outside, though that wasn't why I was stunned.
"Kakarot had told them a bit about ki and Batman was able to figure out quite quickly how to block it. He didn't enjoy that I was potentially able to know if he was in the Watchtower or not." Giblet casually said as we walked through the hallway. Did he pick up on my ki sense or did he just notice my surprise? Perhaps it was the latter. After all ki sense was actually quite sneaky and couldn't be easily detected.
Either way, even if he knew how to sense my ki sensing, I would chalk it up to him having a few years over me, though I wasn't even sure whether he was actually older than I. It sounded like he had some years on me if one considered his story to be truthful. At least, he didn't look like he had his second growth spurt. Well, the second growth spurt was just a few inches, and the final maturing adaptation that a Saiyan went through once they hit the early twenties.
Giblet didn't seem built any differently than I was. Height was about the same and muscle definition was about the same as well. He looked a bit smaller than I was, but it was almost unnoticeable. Probably, just a difference of training or preferences in style developing muscles in another direction. It could also be the nature of his ki-
"Wait. Kakarot was here as well?"
"Yeah, I had traveled with them for a while to search for you, but their journey was attracted to the super dragon balls. Most of them resided in universes far away, so I decided to stay nearby as I knew you were around here somewhere. I wanted to be nearby in case you were in trouble."
"Hm. Could have visited me earlier then. With your twin sensor, it should have been easy, right?"
He smiled bitterly at my response before it disappeared behind his stoic expression. "It's not something we- I can control."
"Wait, why didn't they come around to pick you up? They were in my universe getting the second last dragon ball."
He shook his head. "Maybe, I had been away for a few weeks."
We walked into what looked like our conference room. The only difference was the table they used. Instead of a round table, it was U-shaped. Generally, the entire interior equipment looked more modern than ours. "What year is it on earth?" I asked as I looked around.
"2009? It could be 2010 already. I am not sure whether they celebrated that festival again." So, they only had a year or two ahead of us? Why did it seem like they had tech a decade more advanced than ours?
"It's called New Year's Eve. Even I know that by now and yes it is already 2010." A familiar voice sounded out from behind us, entering the conference room behind us. Hawkgirl with Hawkboy-Hawkman? Following in behind her.
"I have only visited a few dozen times. The only thing I remember is a fat man running errands around this time."Giblet just shrugged, earning a chuckle from the two Hawkpeople. As he answered a few other familiar faces stepped inside.
The more noticeable were Black Canary and Green Arrow, reminding me of the series Young Justice and the late seasons of the original DCAU.
Suddenly, a red blur ran inside and took a seat, causing it to spin before it stopped in my and Giblet's direction. "Gibby! Finally back. You really need to come by more often than every few months. Oh- shit! Is that your brother?!" He ran towards me to place his elbow on my shoulder, almost too fast for me to react, surprising me for a moment.
It was as I suspected. They were tough. It wasn't like their ki was vast as the oceans, but they somehow felt more threatening. I couldn't wrap my head around it for a moment. I had the problem of overestimating my enemies in the past since many had a lot of ki but didn't know how to use it. Now it felt like they shouldn't be a match for me at all, but I felt on the edge as if they were a lot more dangerous than what I could sense.
First their technology now it seemed like they were a notch more dangerous than my Justice League. If they were to invade us, we might lose out. Not to mention the fact that they had their own Saiyan, one that could go SSG at that.
By now, it was obvious that there was the universe's suppression at work, something I had suspected when he teleported us here. At first, I was distracted and thought I was imagining things since it wasn't the same as I felt in the other universe. Here it felt rather ominous, impalpable.