Difference between revisions of "Zann and the Golems"

Latest revision as of 05:06, 14 June 2006

The Story

It all began shortly after Ginjo and K-9 had been slain. Just as the humans were beginning to rebuild, one of the observatories caught sight of an enormous meteor the diameter of a large city, spiralling down to crush Earth. The ki fighters of the world, acting as one, rose to destroy the meteor, but it was fruitless ... not even the strongest fighters could even phase the beast of a planetoid. Eventually, it crashed in Dragon Forest, within sight of Korin's Tower. Strangely, such a crash should have destroyed the whole planet, or at least caused the world to be so contaminated with dust that nothing could exist. However, instead of crashing with tremendous force, it simply hovered for a moment, and then slowly sank into the ground, as if the ground were water. The Earth swallowed the meteor whole, leaving nothing to show its presence besides a few crushed trees.

That mysterious event began a long era of peace. For eight months, nothing happened to threaten the world. Life, for once, went on. Little did many notice that the life force of the world was slowly ebbing away. Plants were withering, crops were dying, animals were becoming more and more belligerent and violent towards people.

Eight months after the meteor landed, the chaos began. A small town was attacked ... by a horde of animals. Though many ki fighters attempted to protect the town, the weaker and unwary humans were slowly slaughtered. During the fight, a strange, black orb appeared, which sucked the souls of the dying into itself. It seemed to be invincible, and upon being attacked, the animals responded and attacked the ki fighters. Finally, the animals turned on one another, until the entire town became one great blood bath, with only the ki fighters left to stand for it. The orb had fled and disappeared into the ground, much as the meteor had done.

Later, another attack ensued, much like the first. This time, there were even more animals, including insects, and the orb appeared again. This time, instead of just being a ball floating in air, it had become the belly of a great, wooden, tree-like golem. While the populace of the town was slaughtered and their souls milked from them, the golem dealt with the ki fighters soundly, taking very little damage from their attacks. Once the population had been killed, the orb seemed to be sated, as it exploded its golem husk at the ki fighters as a final offensive before zipping off and disappearing into the ground again.

From there, the orb seemed to get smarter. It began attacking random townships across the world, without any pattern in particular, striking with great force and suddenness and even organization, such that the towns were completely sacked and drained of souls before a single ki fighter could arrive. More and more research was being done, and just when it seemed that the scientific community was beginning to understand the black orb phenomenon, its attacks began to grow deadly close to West Capital.

A military force was mobilized. Ki fighters from around the world gathered in West Capital for the imminent attack. Tanks, helicopters, and fighting jets, along with millions of infantry from the Imperial Army, lined the outward border of the great city. Even Capsule Corporation was getting into the act, providing high tech plant and animal exterminating devices. Finally, the hordes came... the animals all came forth, everything from dinosaurs to mosquitoes, and even the mythical Wyverns and Griffins were seen along the front... the army, now called the Anti-Nature Army, numbered in the billions. The ki fighters fought long and hard, and this time, though the golem came stronger than ever, the good prevailed. It all ended, at last, when a mysterious wizard (Atyhtan Ator, pictured at left), bearing a scythe, appeared and attacked the golem with a special spell which used its own power against it, and caused such a huge explosion that a quarter of the entire city was destroyed in the process. The orb endured, however, and once again retreated into the ground. Much of the Imperial Army was killed and destroyed, but almost all of West City's civilian populace survived.

A week later, science had made a breakthrough. Portions of the orb had been captured as it tried to escape, and the orb's substance was analyzed. After thorough research on the behalf of Capsule Corporation's rival, Growing Thoughts, Inc., the source of the attacks was discovered. The orb had been tracked to the locaton where the meteor had crashed just 8 months prior, in the thick of Dragon Forest. Where the meteor had crashed, there was now a massive tree that had somehow escaped everyone's notice, which was the most black, wretched, and ugly tree that one could imagine. It's branches were spindly and tightly woven and full of thorns, shaped like a great globe, holding who knows what. It had sprouted endless seas of vines that enwrapped everything, and were slowly making their way up Korin Tower.

Immediately, the attacks on the tree began. The Imperial Army regrouped and attacked again, enforced by the ki fighters, who fought further in. It was a great battle raging on for the entire day. However, by the end of the day, the tree began to hum and glow oddly... and just as the golem had been felled, a new horror was unleashed.

After the glowing and humming stopped, a terrific force ripped outward from the evil tree, uprooting every tree for ten miles all around, and toppling even Korin Tower. Every man, woman and animal in the area was tossed so far that often when they landed, they had no idea where they were. Many did not survive the fall. Even the remains of the golem had been tossed into the sea. What could have caused such a powerful force?

Their questions were answered as the ki fighters regrouped and attacked again. With the reinforcement of the Imperial Army's greatest weapon, a colossal robot, the ki fighters took on the tree and the golem. It seemed that they would win, when suddenly, from the globe of the tree, burst a most frightening, horrible, massive black dragon. Wielding extreme speed and endurance, along with his powerful spells, the dragon swept up and nearly finished many of the ki fighters. All would be lost, if not for Ator, who, despite a crippled state he had received from earlier reconnaissance on the dragon, summoned up the last ounces of his strength he could and made one of the dragons own deadly attacks turn on its caster. The dragon died instantly, and with the combined attack of a Destructo Disk from Jade and a powerful blast from the Imperial Army's robot, a great, acidic gas exploded from the belly of the corpse, quickly sweeping outward to consume the valley in a gaping cloud of death. Luckily, nobody was killed.

So now, the entire Korin valley was filled with acidic death. Surrounded by hills and an inward-blowing wind, the acid would not dissipate, and still the tree remained. It seemed like the terror would only continue, unless something was done about the sulfuric gas.

Both problems were solved when the great celestial warrior, Shin Strife (read the below miniplot for more information), stepped forward to placate himself of the Earth's people's mistrust, sacrificing his mortal body to finish off, once and for all, the Anti-Nature's Seed Tree. With unprecedented force, the warrior ripped forth a beam of force that completely destroyed the tree, and with the force of its destruction, cleared the acid from the area. When it had all passed, the souls and bodies of the absorbed were released, and Shin Strife was no more.

But, there was still more to come. With the tree destroyed, there was still a hole in the ground, that seemed to go infinitely far into the ground. What of the meteor? Had it spawned this terror? If so, where was it now? The suspicions of the ki fighters were revealed when someone kicked a rock into the hole, and the rock hit a forcefield.

Angered, Crimson decided to put an end to the threat once and for all. Powering up into Super Saiyan, he let down his signature attack, Crimson Dawn, upon the hole, and opened up a crater nearly a mile deep, where it struck and collided with the meteor's force field. The beam beared down hard on the forcefield, but, alas, it did not even budge. The hole still remained at the bottom of the crater, protected by the forcefield. That was when the mastermind behind the entire crisis showed his face.

He called himself Zann, and seemed like nothing more than a regular person, wearing excessively royal clothing and armor. He acted very silly and made a mockery of Crimson and his friend, Shao Lung, as they tried to attack him. Zann treated it all like it was some kind of game, referring to the ki fighters and the golem as pieces.

Both fighters were forcibly removed from the area. Shortly later, a set of four strange looking statues were seen to be guarding the hole. On the return of an amnesiac and strangely chronologically reversed Crimson and his new adoptive mother, Violet, several ki fighters, including Crimson were shrugged off by powerful blasts of psionic force, from the newly animated statues. However, they seemed to actually goad Violet into fighting one of them without the use of psionics, and the woman won, despite her relative weakness to the other fighters.

It was not long afterward when Mr. Popo, retainer to the Earth's Kami, made an address to the entire world, requesting that all ki fighters capable of flight to report to the lookout. There was a large, disorganized discussion about how to deal with Zann. It had been revealed that he has been building up power, possibly to lay huge strikes on each of the world's major cities. The nature of Zann was revealed in that he actually was the player of a game with real implications. It was explained how Earth was a rare player, in that the pieces (the people) have a mind of their own and do not have to follow the instructions of their player (the Kami, Oracle).

After Mr. Popo brought out the rule book, everyone was thoroughly confused by its elaborate, and redundant language. It was something like reading a very legal contract. It would take years to read over the entire text. However, Raimei, the martial arts master of Shao Lung, entered the man's mind and had him flip to a particular part of a text. The text gave him an idea, and a new plan was launched from the headquarters of the Kame House.

Raimei Roshi-ni, who was now the owner and proprietor of the Kame House, and who claims to be the grandson of the fabled Mutenroshi (the turtle hermit), had been training a student of magic, Mike Jones Jr., for some time. Mike was extremely intelligent for his very youthful age, and Raimei felt that he would be best suited for the task of defeating Zann, using a fluke in his transportation spell that allowed him to go into even magically shielded places, if done correctly. Using what time he had available, Mike studied his head off, until at last he felt ready. Then, the golems were four, and attacked all the harder.

It was chaos in North, West, East, and South Cities. In each, there was a new Anti-Nature Seed Tree, and each tree with its own golem. Some cities had greater success than others, defeating the golem several times, only to watch him respawn each time, good as new. The metropoli were being smashed into the ground at an alarming rate. Even Crimson's superior strength could not save the day so easily when destruction was occurring in so many places on the world at once.

Then, Raimei's plan was unhatched. He transported Mike Jr. to a particular place above an expanse of ocean, and used his psionic powers to create a massive fright in his mind, causing him to instantly teleport inside Zann's base. Though it didn't work the first time, they tried again, and this time caught Zann completely off guard. Mike was in the Battle Chamber. There would be no ejecting him, now.

The battle ensued for quite some time, both wizards gaining unheard of powers, more than any ki fighter on the planet. They heaved massive objects about the room, shot thousands of projectiles, and created supermagnets. They warped and twisted reality to suit their own needs, and when it all came down to a show of power, the two wizards created unprecedented power streams that they fired at eachother, colliding with a force like a nuclear bomb, and when it was all said and done, Mike had barely survived, and Zann no longer had any clue who he was, or what he was doing there. Mike was declared the winner, and as the boy took Zann's Staff of Lazarus, the meteoric base completely powered down, becoming little more than a well built hole in the ground.

As the battle finished, the statues, golems, and Anti-Nature trees all crumbled into dust, blowing into the wind. Earth was liberated, at last.

Miniplots During This Saga

Shin Strife

Shin Strife, the Kami and Guru of a distant planet called Taeria, and revered celestial warrior, has been searching for the past several decades for the fabled Third Plague of Taeria, who would bring destruction to Taeria itself. According to prophecy, all signs point to a Taerian necromancer named Miyamoto Shugen as the core of this plague. Finally, Shin has located the one last place where Miyamoto could still reside -- Earth.

During the guru's investigation of Earth, and learns that it is a prime destination for the exodus of the Taerians, their own planet being corrupted and polluted beyond repair. First, however, he knew that the Third Plague had to be dealt with. Shin found himself in a tangle when he encountered his arch-rival, the demon lord Trenobel, razing a village to the ground. When the ki fighters arrived to protect the town, Trenobel quickly made Shin out to be his master, framing him for the mass murder of the entire town. The guru's reputation had been tarnished.

Nonetheless, Shin Strife continued his search. Through his way, he managed to eradicate a small city accidentally, when he abruptly evolved into a legendary Ascended Taerian, completely levelling everything for 20 miles, and leaving only the demigod himself in an extremely confused state. He wandered on chaotic whims until he arrived at South City, when he could no longer restrain his emotion, and released an enormous amount of power, devastating the urban sprawl into little more than rubble. This time, the ki fighters responded, and a great fight ensued, during which both sides took considerable damage. The damaged but victorious guru fled in horror of the pain he had caused.

Hunted by ki fighters and the remnants of the Imperial Army, Shin Strife decides that the only way to clear his name and the name of the people he stands for to the people of Earth is to sacrifice himself for the cause that troubled them most ... the Anti-Nature Seed Tree. As previously stated during the main saga's description, Shin Strife plunged into the sulfuric gases that surrounded the tree and obliterated it, casting his legendary sword into the ocean and submitting his mortal body to the dissolving effects of the cloud of death. Shin's celestial spirit still resides, now, with the Kais, waiting until his time comes again.

Meanwhile, what of Taeria? What of the Third Plague? Miyamoto still lives on Earth, and as long as he lives, the Taerians have something to fear. What will they think of Earth and its inhabitants when they hear of their Kami's defeat? Only time will tell...

Majin Loki

Majin Loki was the weaker cousin to Majin Buu, who ages ago had been defeated by powerful ki forces. Following in his stead, Loki sacked dozens of small villages, eating their people as candy and moving on, constantly growing in power and consuming the ki fighters who were not strong enough to withold the beast's wrath. One of the most titanic struggles occurred in East City, as Loki proceeded to make beaten playthings out of the helpless ki fighters.

Deciding that the time for play was over, Loki travelled to North City, and in the span of 15 minutes, devoured every single person in the entire city, levelled the buildings, and formed the debris into a statue in his own likeness.

Humanity quaked, as two of their five cities were crushed as if they were nothing. Were the humans doomed? It all seemed bleak, even the strongest Saiyans from Sarada-shi proving no match to the monster, until Loki fell in with Kim, the sister of Jade. The childish Kim made Loki his first friend, and for some time he did not devestate the Human race further.

Then, one dark day, Loki's evil side split from his good side. The two had a battle of epic proportions, ending with one Planet Killer attack that destroyed Evil Loki instantly. After the attack, the Good Loki was nowhere to be seen, and has yet to be seen since.

The Second Arrival

Some time after the meteor landed, a sect of refugee Saiyans landed upon Earth, seeking a planet to create a magnificent city of their own without fear of persecution for their refusal to help pirate planets.

At first, the Saiyans were greeted warmly, though their customs and behaviors were crude and distasteful to their Human hosts. With time, though, the strife between the two races grew, as ungrateful Saiyans became troublemakers and one particular sensationalist journalist provoked the humans' fear for the muscleheaded men. The cake was frosted when Lord Kyabetsu, head of House Akanasu, ordered several small attacks against Human villages outside of King Damion's will. Deciding to preempt an attack on their proud city, the mad King took two other lords out to East Capital and leveled a large portion of it, though defending ki forces kept them busy. King Damion was ejected from power and from the city in general by Kabu, who became the next King.

By this time, the Human Salvation Front, a group dedicated to the purging of the Earth of all sentients not human, had been mobilized. Equipped with powerful technology that allowed their guns to equal the Saiyans' ki strength, the two forces finally met in an all-out slaughter outside of Sarada-shi. The thousands of human troops were squished like bugs, their eyes unable to follow the superior Saiyan speed. However, the alien army was no stranger to casualties, either. As the fighting drew down to a few ki fighters and their Saiyan Lord counterparts, King Kabu and the new governor of Central Capital arrived and called a cease to the battle. The human troops and their allies were shamed for following the fanciful, sensationalist words of a man whose only fuel was hatred, and who knew only violence and not peaceful negotiations.

King Kabu made a public announcement shortly later, calling for peace with the humans, the ejection of Ex-lord Kyabetsu and his followers from the city, and a submission of half of each Lord and Lady's energy to a crystal which would keep the gravity generator in their city maintained for many years to come.

Since then, the Saiyans of Sarada-shi and the Humans of Earth have lived in relative harmony, the Saiyans agreeing to repair the damage they had done to the cities, plus other damage that had occurred in the past.