Chapter 12

“And so I realized that even evil can masquerade itself as good,” Buu said. “If given the right circumstances.”

“You make me sick!” Goku shouted. “Evil that disguises itself is far worse than evil that has no pretension at all! It’s utterly filled with lies!”

Buu glared.

“Is that why you wish to wipe out life?” he asked. “Because you recognize yourself to be evil and merely wish to be honest about it? You prefer malice that is open rather than malevolence that has the appearance of benevolence?”

“I am not evil!” the Super Saiyan shouted. “I do not wipe out life for the sheer sake of pleasure. I do so because good and evil cannot coexist. And when I remake the universe, I will fill it with good and good alone…where no evil can touch it!”

Majin Buu glared at him.

“I see you have missed the point entirely,” he replied. “Maybe this will convince you…”

The third time Buu woke up, he was more ready to leave the Womb of Evil than he ever had before. He felt restless, ridden with anxiety and itching to go wild. The memories of freeing the blue brench-seijin from their oppressors and leading them for several decades made him ready to do so once again.

How has the universe changed since then? He wondered. Has the brench-seijin empire remained? Do Casseral’s ancestors lead it as I wanted them to? Will they even remember me?

He could tell that he had been asleep longer now than his previous two hibernations. Leaving his egg-shaped prison was slightly harder as the shell that encased him had hardened considerably. Majin Buu felt weak at initial struggle to push the curved, ovular wall in his way.

Huh…He thought. I must have been sleeping more than I thought. I’m still too tired to break out.

However, just as the egg surrounding him cracked from the pressure he was exerting, the entire front of the structure collapsed. Black liquid poured from the gray husk of what had once protected him as Buu emerged. His eyes hurt for a moment as they strained to adjust to something that wasn’t absolute black. Then, he found the territory around him to be somewhat unfamiliar.

The Womb of Evil still had the thick spider webs stretching all across the realm. And various creatures still crawled on it. However, their appearance was far in a way different.

The creatures that had normally been mostly pitch black were rather gray looking. Some were so light in color they almost looked like a cloud. Instead of the rather menacing looking abominations that Buu was familiar with, these were less outwardly reprehensible. In fact, there was a certain elegance to many of them.

I don’t sense near as much evil here as I did upon first waking up. He thought. This place is still filled with great sin and malevolence but…but nowhere near the levels I am used to.

They were taller and far more human-like than the Majin Buu had known during his first and second awakening. One creature was light gray with the body of a giraffe and the face of a young boy. The child’s silvery hair waved in the non-existent wind as it walked along the thick strands of web.

Another creature flew above the platform of spider strands on its large, eagle-like wings. However, its body was exactly like that of a beautiful woman dressed in silvery strands of bandage-like material. The only portion of her body aside from her wings that was avian was a large, black beak fixed above her lips but below her eyes.

The animal walking to Majin Buu’s side was a very oddly shaped creature. The portion of its body that Buu first saw was a blackish simple cyclops. It was like most of its kind were, more than ten feet tall and rather hideous looking with its single eye fairly ugly to look at. The top of its head was fitted with a single, crude horn as black as tar.

But then Majin Buu looked at the other half of its body. As it came walking past him, he saw that the cyclops’s thick, leftmost leg was the only one truly carrying the thing’s weight. Its right leg was in complete contrast to its left counterpart, gray and very thin. It was so much shorter than the right that it was lifted off the ground by quite a few inches, only occasionally pressing against the web-like ground.

The cyclops’ rightmost arm was the same way, gray, thin and far shorter than its black arm. Buu walked toward the cyclops to find its entire left half didn’t look like it was a part of the same creature as the right. It looked as if the cyclops had its body cleanly severed down the middle and then the grayish, gaunter, left half had been melted on with high heat. The center between its two disproportionate halves was a perfectly straight line of smelted flesh whose color was an undetermined mix of black and whitish-gray.

This unnatural duality was most prominent when looking at the other side of the giant’s face. While its right half was perfectly cyclops-like, with a single eye and wrinkled, rough skin, the other half was that of a fair-skinned boy. The boy’s face was a pristine pale, more white than the rest of its body, and he had a single blue eye.

With both halves, the cyclops had two eyes but with each made up of two halves of different faces glued together. And like its other extremities, the face of the right was so much larger than the left half of its face. It disgusted Buu to look at, so much that he faced the creature in such awe.

“Excuse me…?” Buu said.

“Yes?” the monster’s left mouth and right mouth said as they moved out of sync.

“Wh-What has happened to this place?” he asked. “The creatures…they’re different in soul and flesh. What overcame them? Has…someone…has someone tampered with them so they are not as evil.”

“Hmm…” the cyclops said, only its right mouth moving while its left did not. “I see that the pride of the Womb of Evil cannot see much when he is sleeping.”

The half-cyclops chuckled to himself as he looked down at Majin Buu.

“What a shame,” he said. “How you cannot see the world beyond you in your hibernation.”

“I have dreams,” Buu replied. “But in them a split second can account for a decade or longer. They are too rushed for me to understand the history between then and now. What has caused such drastic change in this place’s inhabitants? Have this universe’s inhabitants become…become more moral in nature.”

He chuckled again, but this time it came from the left mouth.

“I understand your confusion,” he said with the voice of a child. “In a way yes…but not really.”

“I don’t understand,” the Majin said. “How can a people, all the people become both worse and better?”

“It has to do with the Kais,” the cyclops’ more robust and loud voice said. “And their interference with mortal matters.”

“The Kais?” Majin Buu asked. “Yes…I am aware of their existence. And I know of their wish to control the galaxy and suppress its more…unsavory inhabitants.”

“Well, with you gone,” the cyclops’ child voice said. “The Kais figured it was their best opportunity to swoop in and truly control the universe.”

Anger shot through Buu as he realized what the Majin was telling him.

“What do you mean?!” he demanded.

“I mean they have instituted their own government on multiple different planets and outposts in space,” the cyclops' childish voice continued. “Each Kai has taken up a different place in the universe to watch over. They have each chosen warriors to act as their champions and enforce the policies the Kais create.”

Majin Buu leered at him, his fists curling up as he heard this.

“Tell me,” he said. “Has this limited the freedom of the universe’s inhabitants?”

“It most certainly has,” the cyclops' childish voice continued. “Many, if not most, governments and kingdoms in the galaxy have been toppled or directly taken over by the Kais. They now answer directly to the Kais, travel and trade are restricted by the Kais’ orders and each citizen is subject to tests of morality at a moment’s notice at the Kais’ arbitrary time of choosing.”

Buu growled at this, shaking his head furiously.

“That is not what I freed the blue brench-seijin from!” he said. “I gave them the power to defeat their red oppressors so they could choose their own destiny and forge their own path! I didn’t free them just so they could be dominated by a bunch of moralistic tyrants!”

“But that is precisely what the Kais have done,” the cyclops male voice said. “The age you ruled the brench-seijin under was one full of tyrants instilling order one after another. This revolving door of evil made the Kais extremely scared for the fate of the various galaxies they looked after and so sought to suppress these oppressive dictatorships by becoming direct heads of the governments. Freedom is at such an all-time low that mortals are forbidden from unauthorized training and traveling.”

“You mean you are not allowed to grow stronger or even move locations without express approval from the Kais?!” Buu shouted.

“Anyone caught without direct permission is jailed or punished,” the cyclops said. “The Kais are more serious than ever about preventing crime and destruction.”

“That…” Buu breathed before collapsing.

He was brought to his knees at the thought, landing on his hands as tears stung his eyes.

“No…” he shouted as he slammed his hands against the webs that upheld him “I wanted a world full of freedom! Where people were freed of the meaningless boundaries called good and evil!”

He gritted his teeth, unable to think what kind of misery the blue brench-seijin were experiencing.

“To know the universe is being held hostage under some kind of dictatorship-led babysitting…” Buu said. “I won’t allow this!”

“But it has happened whether you like it or not,” the Majin replied. “The people are always on edge, wondering if they will be moral enough to avoid imprisonment and reeducation. They despise their Kai emperors worse than the tyrants that came before. I can tell you this would have never happened had you been awake but in your absence…”

His voice changed again.

“Monsters like me have spawned.”

He looked up at the cyclops that was staring down at him. Ever confused by his appearance, Buu focused hard to sense the mish-mash of a creature’s energy. What he found was surprising.

“I now understand…” Buu said. “Your monstrous side is your true nature. The nature of the being who spawned you. While the weak child…”

You leered at the Majin, attempting to accentuate his qi sensing ability by concentrating.

“Is the lapdog facade you presented before your progenitor’s master,” he said. “It was the personality they used as a mask in order to survive. And the frustration your progenitor had with trying to balance their true wishes and ambitions and how they were forced to obey their master-”

“Created me,” the monster and child said in unison. “I was a strong warrior who would have otherwise made for a strong ruler and formed my own empire. However, through the Kais’ sealing ability, they captured me in a star and absolutely refused to let me out until I promised to serve them. Knowing they could seal me if I rebelled, I had no choice but to live as their lapdog.”

Majin Buu stood up, now understanding everything.

“The Majin are much less evil than the ones created during my previous awakenings because the Kais forcibly prevented more evil deeds from being committed,” the cyclops said.

“And why the increase in your power was not as great this time as in times past,” the Majin’s child voice said. “You are still stronger during this reawakening than last time but you could have been even stronger had the Kais not intervened. Evil still exists in the heart of almost every being in the universe but the ability for them to act on it was prevented. Like a wolf in a cage, the hearts of the people instilled with wrath, selfish ambition, crude lusts and perverse desire for revenge. I stand before you as possibly the best Majin representing that.”

“So what do you do now?” Buu asked. “Do you tempt the hearts of men as Majin did in the past?”

He shook his head.

“I am not able to,” the cyclops’ monster voice said. “If my progenitor had been able to act upon his true nature I would have the desire to. However-”

“Because I was limited in the evil I could commit,” the child voice said. “I cannot tempt men. I would like to, but then I think of all the sorrow that would bring. I think of how that would hurt other people. I think of how it would destroy the fragile balance of the universe and…and-”

“I keep feeling as if I would displease someone by doing so,” the monstrous voice said. “And then circle endlessly in my desire. Wishing to, but afraid of the consequences. I was born from a very particular sin. Not a sin of doing evil but wishing to do evil and having to look over my shoulder, afraid if someone was looking at me, waiting for me to act out. My evil nature-”

“Is neutered from a fear of punishment and retribution,” the child’s voice said.

“Well…” Buu said as he searched out the qi of a Kai in the mortal realm.

After locking onto the qi of the Kai, he willed the featureless black ceiling above him to open up. He floated up to the cavity he formed between the realms as he left the Womb of Evil. His search for the qi signature brought him to a place he had conquered as ruler of Brench.

He found Planet Arlia to no longer be a grassland. A hundred years ago the area was savanna. However, the city Majin Buu arrived in was nothing like he’d previously encountered. When he conquered Bas during his reign as Planet Brench’s ruler, the Arlians were a mostly rural people with farms with some of the lowest grade technology of any sapient race.

Buu found himself in a gigantic city with tall, white skyscrapers that reached further than he could see. He floated above the streets to look down to find bustling streets. Pedestrians and cars raced between the buildings faster than they did in Buu’s time. But there was an oddness to their movement.

It was too uniform. The people moved so robotically, not a single person out of step with another. Each walked with the same speed, the same gait and their arms so straight side-to-side they were as stiff as wooden planks. Buu drifted further down to find that the more he watched, the more his fears were vindicated.

To the sides of the marching pedestrians were red and blue-skinned workers with horns who were not Arlians. The Arlians were an insect-like species that looked like humanoid grasshoppers. The Arlians all wore gray, clean robes that covered most of their body, as opposed to the homespun garments Buu had seen them in almost a hundred years ago.

The blue and red-skinned creatures were slightly shorter than the Arlians and wore white shirts and shorts. Buu knew they were not native of this planet. It took him a minute to recognize them but after sensing their qi he figured it out.

Ogres of Other World. He realized. Servants of the Kais.

They had black radar like devices with blinking lights. When an Arlian passed by, the black bars would blink differently depending upon the individual. The radars seemed to change depending on the individual walking in front of them.

The devices were black bars that had as many as ten glass pieces which would periodically blink as Arlians walked by. If only four or less glass pieces blinked when one walked by the ogres seemed to not care. However, if five or seven blinked, the ogres pulled them away to give them a stern warning. More than seven and the Arlian would forcibly pull them away from the street and take them away. It enraged Buu.

Those are devices meant to measure the evil currently coursing through that person. He realized. Truly a dictatorship of morally uptight hypocrites.

Buu launched a ball of purple qi below, killing two of the ogres. The people below looked up in surprise to see Majin Buu firing more bolts of qi at the ogres. The servants of Other World were vaporized as the Arlians scattered. The uniform marching through the street and seamless traffic was instantly brought to an end as the panic ensued. All anyone cared for was getting out of the city alive, Arlian and ogre alike.

Just as Buu continued killing the ogres from above, he was body slammed by an unseen force from behind. He hurtled through the air to find him being confronted by a Gelboan, a creature that looked exactly like a human, save for pointed ears and a bowl-cut crop of black hair. He wore a blue tunic and stared at Buu with a stoic anger. Flying behind him was the being that Majin Buu had locked onto.

Behind him was a fat pink being with a mohawk of purple hair. He was dressed in dark blue robes and a purple cape. He looked at Buu with a very stern expression.

“I see the culmination of evil known as Super Buu has arisen,” Grand Supreme Kai said. “I take it you were not fond of us Kais’ improvements to the state of matters.”

“Improvements?!” Buu shouted. “You’ve put these people under a harsh yoke, forcing them to comply with your self-righteous standards of morality! You have denied them the essence of what life is!”

The Kai’s glare only harshened.

“And what is that essence of life?” he asked. “Committing nefarious actions? Stealing from your neighbor? Making wars? Pursuing ambition by stepping on those beneath you? Destroying all that is sacred for fun and enjoyment?”

“YES!” Majin Buu cried. “ALL THAT AND MORE!”

He pointed at Grand Supreme Kai accusingly.

“Morality is nothing more than a barrier for the powerful to impose onto others to prevent them from getting in the way of his own fun!” Buu shouted.

He sneered at the Kai.

“All those who wish to do good and live righteously…” he said. “Are fools who have fallen for the schemes of conmen. There is no good, no evil…only pleasure! I will not allow your prudish sense of entitlement get in the way of my fun!”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Your fun is killing those in your way and conquering other worlds to cement your vain pride,” Grand Supreme Kai replied. “In your own time as Planet Brench’s ruler you conquered many worlds.”

“But I also freed the blue-skinned brench from their oppressors,” Buu answered. “I am still a warrior looking for his next dose of excitement. I won’t let the squealing of lesser beings get in the way of my happiness. I free those when it pleases me, and stomp on them when it doesn’t. To do anything more would be to deny myself the pleasure of being…just as you have done to the galaxy.”

“Of course a being of evil would see it that way,” Grand Supreme Kai said. “Well…I hate to burst your bubble but I estimate Millm here is stronger than when you awoke your first time.”

He pointed to the Gelboan in front of him.

“I know that the evil committed throughout the universe empowers you during your cycles of sleep,” he said. “However, us Kais have eliminated evil since you’ve been gone.”

Buu laughed.

“Then how did I reawaken?” he asked.

“For the most part,” Grand Supreme Kai stated. “And now with so little evil being committed, you have had little in the way of a meal for your next awakening. So I am certain of Millm’s victory.”

The Kai gestured for Millm to attack.

“Destroy him!” Grand Supreme Kai shouted.

The Gelboan formed balls of yellowish qi in his hands before launching multiple strikes at Majin Buu. Within seconds, Millm replaced the bolts of energy thrown at Buu with another wave of qi. For a full minute, the Gelboan sent a flurry of one attack strong to destroy multiple planets after another, all of them exploding on contact before Buu was surrounded by smoke. He found Grand Supreme Kai to be looking pretty smug at the sight.

However, once the smoke cleared, Majin Buu stood unscathed. Both Millm and the Kai screamed in panic as they watched the Majin remain unharmed. Grand Supreme Kai screamed in defiance.

“How?!” he shouted. “How, how, how?! The evil that once fed you we shut off! We have controlled the government and movement of every sentient species we could get our hands on! More than ninety-five percent of the universe is under our control! How can you have gained this much strength if your powersource has been shut off?!”

Buu chuckled.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “I don’t merely draw strength from evil actions…”

He released his full power level. As Buu became surrounded in a pink light, the wind from the aura blew back Millm. As he was flung into the air, Grand Supreme Kai shook in fright.

“I draw power from evil itself,” Buu stated.

“N-No!” the Kai said. “We did everything in our power to stop evil! Everything! We took all precautions and measures to reduce crime and tyranny to near zero! How can so much evil still be prevalent?!”

Buu tapped his head with his index finger.

“Think,” the Majin said. “If the only way to keep all these vile creatures from committing evil is to monitor them, track their every move and punish them for even minor infractions, do they stop being evil?”

Majin Buu laughed as Grand Supreme Kai’s eyes widened in realization.

“No,” he said. “They do not. They are still evil. They are merely caged in a prison of moral-do-gooders, unable to act on their true instincts and secret wishes.”

He sneered at the Kai as the Supreme Kai’s expression went aghast with realization.

“You have caged wolves,” Buu said. “Wolves who would rip you apart at the very seams if they could. And you know that, which is why you felt forced to police them at every stage of life.”

He laughed as Millm charged back at him. The Gelboan was putting his full strength into charging at Majin Buu, his fist held forward as he attempted to punch Buu’s face. His fist bounced off Buu’s face harmlessly, Millm screaming in pain as the density of the qi empowering the Majin was far greater than the qi enhancing Millm. Buu then punched the Gelboan in the gut, causing Millm to cough blood before Buu beheaded Millm with a single swipe to his neck, the man’s head and body falling below.

“You succeeded in controlling them,” Majin Buu went on. “But you failed to change them! Which is why the Womb of Evil exists! Evil is a force that only accumulates and distorts reality the more you try to suppress it! I am just as much made of the secret desires and unfulfilled ambitions of the denizens of the creatures of this universe as I am the ones they act upon!”

The Grand Supreme Kai screamed in fear as Buu held out his open palm.

“So,” he said. “You accomplished nothing in the end.”

And with a wave of purple qi, the Grand Supreme Kai was vaporized. With nothing but his ashes remaining, Buu looked down to find his newest victims. He laughed at those scurrying below.

Now to destroy the remaining ogres before the Kais sense me and try to do me in. He thought. I still can’t tell if I’m doing this to free the Arlians or because this will allow me to grow stronger in the future. But…

He smiled as soared toward the city below, firing upon the ogres.

I don’t care for motives…Buu thought. I just want everyone to have fun!

As Majin Buu flew through space to meet more Kais, he stopped by planet after planet to empower the inhabitants with his qi. While they grew more menacingly, they also grew more powerful. This way, they were strong enough to resist the ogres or other forces of the Supreme Kais. This way, Majin Buu didn’t have to fight every single one of them.

That will surely show those uptight, prudish stiffs. He thought.

Majin Buu then sensed a strong qi signature on a nearby planet with a Supreme Kai nearby.

Ooh. He thought. Company. This should be interesting.

Buu quickly arrived on the planet, traversing its atmosphere in a matter of seconds. The planet was Ulqora, a place he had heard of, but had never been to. The planet had no vegetation he could see and was full of red plateaus. Buu had seen quite a bit of it in his dreams as it had once been home to a race of beings that waged a bloody civil war against one another.

On one of them was the Supreme Kai, Shin, a humanoid being with pink hair, a white mohawk and bluish green robes. As Buu landed atop the flat rock formation, he began to recognize Shin from the dreams he had while the Majin was asleep. However, he did not recognize the warrior standing in front of Shin.

His skin was dark green with large pink lips and red eyes. He had white robes with a blue undershirt and a large black hat atop his slightly elongated head. While Buu did not initially recognize him, he seemed familiar, as if the Majinn had seen his shadow before but not the one who cast it. He glared daggers at Majin Buu.

“We were waiting for you to arrive,” Shin said. “I felt a great evil awaken on Planet Arlia as well as the disappearance of Grand Supreme Kai’s qi as well as his champion’s. Tell me…did you murder them in cold blood as you have many others as you have others in your previous life?”

Buu laughed before his smirk vanished and he glared back at Shin.

“I see you have a very incorrect idea of murder,” he said. “You suppress the galaxy’s freedom to the point improper thoughts are punishable and you act as if I have done something wrong?”

The Majin held his fist up, radiating purple qi from it as he smiled.

“I don’t care what you call good and evil,” he said. “The only thing that means anything is freedom. It is just the kind of irrational and oppressive corral you pen others in when you believe that those two words have any real meaning. Merely fetters for authoritarians like you.”

“Answer the question!” the green warrior cried.

His qi flared up and surrounded his body, eliciting a growl of surprise from Buu. Shin’s champion was stronger than he realized. However, attempting to save face, he laughed at the green man’s question.

“Did you or did you not kill Grand Supreme Kai?!” Shin demanded.

Buu laughed at the Supreme Kai.

“How could I not have?” he asked. “Planet Arlia under his reign was just like it was on Planet Brench with Tasco! Denying people freedom and pleasure just for the sake of power! Except with Grand Supreme Kai, he was deluded into thinking he was helping those under his yoke. Killing him was the greatest thing that has ever happened to Arlia!”

“You fool!” Supreme Kai shouted. “You have killed one of the most important beings in the universe! And all because you wish to rule the universe instead!”

Buu laughed again.

“No…” he said. “No…I don’t. I just want to have fun. And become the strongest. Life is about freedom…the freedom to pursue anything you want! If what you call fun is frowned up because it seems immoral or violates your own or another person’s sensibilities of good and evil…you should do it anyway! Good and evil are just chains that are in place to hold you all back from having fun and becoming your greatest self! Whether it's murder, adultery, theft or common decency, you shouldn’t be worried about breaking those rules and do it anyway! If no one catches you than you’ve done nothing wrong!”

“I have never heard anyone else say that in my life,” Shin said. “Only a being made of pure evil would even suggest something like that.”

“You Kais wouldn’t understand!” Buu said. “You’re too focused on justice…morality…righteousness…all that boring stuff!

“How?!” Shin shouted. “The Grand Supreme Kai was the most righteous man I ever knew! There was nothing evil about him at all!”

“Again you’re wrong,” Buu said. “There was evil in his heart. Remember, Shin…I am formed from the heart of every single being in the universe. Literally…and I can tell you that the Kais’ idea of this universal government did not come from a sense of altruism.”

“What are you talking about?” Shin asked.

Buu’s grin widened.

“Knowing the hearts of every being that has formed me,” he explained. “I know the secrets of their hearts as intimately as the back of my hand. And I can tell you this little project came from the Kais’ prideful and narcissistic belief in their own superiority. It’s the strangest, worst type of oppression possible…that which is masqueraded so well as benevolence it fools even the oppressors themselves.”

“How dare you!” Shin said. “This is the greatest amount of peace the universe has experienced in its entirety! History has never been more free of war, poverty and hunger!”

“Oh that’s true,” Buu said. “You’ve eliminated many things mortals bellyache about. And you believe it came from a good motive. But in reality the desire for all this came from a dark corner of heart to oppress other beings. It came from the desire to conquer others…the belief that mortals were so stupid and helpless without the strong and wise hand of the Kais that they’d never survive. Every being in this world wishes to grow in prosperity, in power and wealth. And this is the manifestation of your desire to gain more.”

Shin’s expression was breaking like glass thrown against stone. Buu knew he would have denied what the Majin was saying but both of them could see it. The purple stream of energy flowing from both Shin and the green warrior told all.

It was only a trickle compared to most beings but it was there regardless. The green warrior was unaware of it as he was not perceptive enough of qi to observe the evil qi. But Shin was staring directly at it, obviously embarrassed at the sight.

“You see that?” Buu asked as he pointed to the purple qi. “That is where your desire to control mortals comes from. It is the same thing that creates me.”

“Well I don’t care where it comes from!” Shin said. “I’m not letting a monster like you continue to live in the state you are! I need to send you back to the Womb of Evil where you belong!”

Shin pointed to Buu.

“Pikkon!” the Supreme Kai shouted. “Kill Majin Buu!”

Buu shook his head, snickering as the warrior flew towards him, his fist raised high. Majin Buu merely flared his qi up when he faced the Gelboan, expecting Pikkon to hurtle away. Instead it deterred the warrior very little.

Buu screamed in pain as agony exploded along his jaw and he was hurtled into a nearby rock formation. He was flung deep into the plateau to form a tunnel halfway through its width. Angered, Buu flared his qi to destroy the red rock surrounding him so that he hovered where he once stood.

As pieces of stone floated around him, Pikkon leered at him as he floated from above. He extended his qi as much as possible, letting Buu feel the weight of his energy. As Buu felt the other warrior’s energy, he then realized this was the strongest fighter he’d ever faced.

“I am not a warrior weak enough that you can hold back,” he said. “A simple deterrent like that is no defense against me.”

Majin Buu then laughed. He realized where he’d felt this energy from. Buu growled before smiling at him.

“I’ve met the Majin you created before coming here,” Buu said. “You’re nature is divided, your ambitions are suppressed. You wish you could conquer worlds and show the universe your true might but the Kais have threatened you with imprisonment if they do not fight for you. I know your true self, Pikkon. And it is sad you have become someone’s errand boy.”

Buu could see the green man’s expression wavering. He thought that would break him, like it did Shin. Only, that did not happen and Pikkon merely shot the Majin with a beam of yellow qi. Buu cried in pain before rushing towards Pikkon, smoke still pouring from his body.

The green alien cried in pain as Buu’s fist connected with the warrior’s jaw, causing him to hurtle into the plateau that Shin stood on. The Supreme Kai quickly fled their battleground, as Pikkon formed a man-shaped crater on the flat rock formation. Just as Buu fired twin beams of purple energy at him, Pikkon jumped from the hole he’d formed in the stone to deflect blast away with a slap of his right hand. However, the second hit him square in the chest to form a cloud of brown smoke.

Buu smiled, thinking that he’d killed Pikkon before realizing he could still feel his energy. When the smoke cleared, the green alien stood levitating in front of the crater Buu punched him into, mostly unfazed. Buu laughed.

“Good to know I’ll have some fun killing you,” the Majin said. “You’re tougher than any opponent I’ve fought up to this point.”

He shook his head.

“But you’re still not quite as strong as I am,” Majin Buu stated. “The time I’ve spent absorbing evil throughout the universe…it’s made me too great for any mortal.”

As Pikkon levitated in front of the plateau Buu threw him into, he took the tall black hat off to reveal the black spots covering his bald head. The Majin leered at this, confused at this gesture before notice his energy increased. After taking his hat off, Pikkon took the belt with a golden buckle at his waist and tossed it to the ground. Finally, he took the white robe that doubled as a cape and shirt from his chest and flung it away. After these gestures, he flared his qi again for Buu to see it increased significantly.

“Weighted training gear,” Pikkon stated. “A unique technology my race created. It allows us to surpass most everyone in the universe.”

Buu ground his teeth together, angered at this.

“By my estimate…” the green alien said. “My true power isn’t too different from that of your own.”

The Majin growled at this and formed a ball of bright pink qi in his hand.

“You’re lying!” he shouted.

Buu flung the ball of pink energy at Pikkon before the green warrior dodged it and closed the distance between him and the Majin in less than a second. Buu punched the warrior square in the face, Pikkon screaming in agony as a result. Buu then aimed a kick at his enemy’s side before Pikkon grabbed his foot and threw him to the dry ground below.

Buu shouted in pain as his back slammed into the ground before Pikkon unleashed wave after wave of qi balls. The shots of yellow energy caused Buu to continue shouting in agony as he crossed his arms over his face, feeling his skin burn from the power Pikkon was unleashed at him. Most of Buu’s opponents fell to one, maybe two attacks but this was different. This scared Buu.

This will be more difficult than I thought. He realized.

Buu was bleeding all across his body. He was gasping for every bit of breath as he crawled across the desert. He tried to muster up strength to fly away but attempting to gather his qi felt like swimming with lead weights. Buu felt on the brink of death.

That fight…He thought. It was like nothing else I’ve felt before.

“Pikkon!” he heard Shin cry in the distance. “Pikkon! Are you alright?! Speak to me!”

Buu occasionally looked back to find Shin standing over Pikkon’s battered and bleeding body. Pikkon groaned and screamed in agony, rolling in his own blood. The last Buu saw of Shin, the Supreme Kai was healing his champion with his own qi.

The energy spread out in waves from the Kai’s outstretched fingers. Buu was glad of this as it meant that Shin healing Pikkon from so much damage meant he would lose the strength to kill Buu in his weakened state. It gave the Majin hope for escape.

I just need to get off this planet as fast as possible…Buu thought. I need to fly…

“Majin Buu!” Shin screamed.

He turned in fear, watching as the Supreme Kai glared at him. His eyes glowed as his qi welled up from anger. Only about half of Pikkon’s wounds had healed, most of them scabbing over but the green warrior still looked like he’d been hit by a truck. Supreme Kai’s qi further expanded around his body before he held up his arm, forming a ball of light in his open hand.

“Gah!” Buu screamed.

Any thoughts of flying away had disappeared from his mind once the Supreme Kai switched his focus from healing Pikkon to destroying Buu. He tried to think of a way to escape before realizing how many cracks there were in the stony ground. Dry areas like this had plenty of small fissures and crevices that various animals slipped into. Buu knew from his travels and dreams that small rodents even bore extended tunnels into already made spaces in the ground.

Buu took a deep breath before reshaping his body. His form was malleable and very stretchy, allowing him to fit into nearly any shape. After forming into a semi-liquid substance, Buu fled into the crevice nearest to him and flowed down like water. He immediately found a tunnel that a rock mouse had made, a kind of rodent that loved dry habitats like Ulqora and could burrow down further than a hundred miles.

The Majin could feel an explosion rock the surface above as Buu fled deeper into the tunnel with every bit of speed he had left. He could feel Shin setting more and more explosions off on the surface with his qi blasts, each one shaking Buu’s jelly-like form. He did not feel safe until he reached the very bottom of the tunnel, more than two hundred miles down. Upon arriving at this depth of a destination, Buu rested in his gelatinous state and sighed in relief. He suppressed his qi signature as low as possible to prevent Shin from sensing him.

I’ll recover quickly in this state. He thought. I estimate I’ll be back to full strength in a few hours as I rest that quickly. The Supreme Kais will devastate the mantle of this world attempting to find me but I’ll just dodge their every attempt while trying to rest. And once I do…I’ll see what the soldiers I created are doing in my absence…

Majin Buu landed on Planet Bas sooner than he thought he would. His recovery period took less time than he thought it would and since he kept traveling within the tunnels of Ulqora he was able to avoid the Supreme Kais devastating planet. Everytime Buu felt a qi blast rock the tunnels he hid in, he moved in the opposite direction as well as took careful notice of where he felt the qi signature of a Supreme Kai.

They were attempting to destroy as much of the surface of the planet as possible without blowing up all of it since there were still people who lived on Ulqora. Blast after blast made large craters in the rocky ground as Buu traveled through the tunnels to avoid them at all costs. However, Buu was already gone by the time they destroyed the desert region he arrived at. The Majin was traveling to Planet Bas, which he had stopped by in between visiting Arlia and Ulqora.

There, he had seen the fruits of his labor take off. Buu had killed the vast majority of ogres that had governed and controlled the planet as well as additional warriors the Kais sent. As Buu arrived he found the native Bouleans he empowered to be killing the remaining ogres the Majin didn’t bother killing.

The Bouleans were a rather short, weak race that didn’t even come up to the average person’s waist. Most were some shade of green but there were red, blue, pink and yellow individuals amongst their kind. And all Bouleans had at least one eye on the side of their head. The power levels of their average adult was around the same as that of the average child on any other planet. However, that had all changed since they were among the races Buu had shared his power with. Each Boulean Buu saw had a black “M” stamped across their head, the calling card of someone influenced or empowered by a Majin.

Buu walked through a destroyed city of tall skyscrapers littered with dead blue and red ogres. Their machines they used to gauge the amount of evil in a person’s heart were smashed to pieces and some even stuck out of the ogres’ bodies like knives. The Bouleans obviously hated the messengers of the Kais.

The first group of Bouleans he spotted were mounting the ogres’ heads on pikes of makeshift metal poles. They smiled upon seeing Buu. It was a group of twelve lime green ones and three red ones.

“And what do we owe to our new savior?” one female Boulean asked. “What do you request?”

“We will give you anything!” a red male said. “Just…just do not let the Supreme Kais take control of us again! Anything but that!”

Buu smiled.

“Join my army as we fight these tyrannical nannies,” he said. “The universe isn’t a very fun place with them around.”

“Yes!” a green one said. “I don’t want to become their slave again! But…we would have fought them anyway if they attempted to conquer us again. Is there anything…anything else we can give you?”

Buu smiled.

“Candy,” he answered. “And lots of it.”

Buu could still taste the Boulean chocolate in his mouth as he faced down the forces of the Supreme Kais. Thousands upon thousands of warriors commanded by the remaining Supreme Kais flared their qi as they stared down Buu’s army. His army was around the same amount as he had continued empowering other races so long as they agreed to rebel against the Supreme Kais. And every one he asked said yes.

They met on Planet Bas, one of the largest in the solar system where the battle could take place. At the front of the Kais’ army was Shin, the strongest of the remaining Kais and Pikkon, their strongest warrior. Pikkon glared stoically at Buu as the Majin laughed.

“Fight for your freedom!” Majin Buu shouted.

They all charged at his command, the Majin flying at full speed at Pikkon who had taken off his weighted training gear. Pikkon was the first to get in a solid punch, a blow to Buu’s gut that made him scream in pain. This was followed by Buu slamming Pikkon’s throat with a strong kick, hurtling the green warrior into the air. They continued their fight in midair, battling with every ounce of qi they could exert. It would have been great fun if Buu hadn’t realized something too late.

He really is stronger than me.

Buu soon found himself hibernating in the Womb of Evil again. Darkness surrounded him as the last few moments of his third life flashed through his mind. He pitied himself for how short it was.

I think I killed Pikkon. Buu thought as sleep overtook him. He was half-dead before he killed me. But unlike him…no matter how many times I die…I merely come back stronger. And I know for a fact that I will accumulate more strength than I did during my third sleep. I gave so many races the power to defy the Kais that had oppressed them for so long. They will definitely use that strength to spread evil across the universe thus strengthening me…as well as being as free as possible…and making the world that I will awaken to more fun.