“Fine, If you want a chance, I’ll give you one,” Note smiled as she shook her head and removed her hand from Beat’s shoulder. “If you can land a single blow against me in thirty seconds, I’ll give you a small peek at my true power.”
Hal returned the woman’s smile with a grin of his own. The Saiyan blood in his veins burned around his heart, an eagerness for combat that he’d never experienced before. The old him approached battle as a vital necessity for improvement, not a pleasure in and of itself. Now, he itched to trade blows with this dangerous opponent, though his mind remained focused and calm.
“Deal!” Ki exploded from his body, a spire of yellow-red that competed with the light of the sun. His vision slipped into his three-minute-sight, endless variations of the battle ahead that played out before him. “...fifty times isn’t enough.”
A frown twitched at Hal’s lips as he drew in a deep breath. The flames of his ki burned hotter, biofield pushed to its limits as he increased his kio-ken. Higher and higher, until his power shook the space around them.
Sixty, seventy… still not enough. The Notes in his visions dodged him without effort, eyes half closed as she picked at her nails. Hal roared, kio-ken extended to one-hundred times. A path flickered, half-realised at the edges of his future sight. He was almost there…
Seconds ticked by, each one an eternity as he maintained his three-minute-sight. Ten, then fifteen, his time was running thin. Hal focussed his infinite potential future selves on the one path that brought him a hint of what he wanted.
“I’ll have to use everything…” Hal’s eyes hardened as he stepped forward, gaze locked with Note’s. The symbiote under his skin twitched, reshaped and smoothed from its regular armoured form. “All my tricks and abilities, everything…”
The white mask that covered his face expanded to surround his head. Muscles swelled under his skin, enlarged and fortified by the symbiote's power. Thin bands of white sprouted from his back and shoulders, bladed tendrils that hummed with deadly vibrations.
“Sorry, this form isn’t the prettiest,” Mouth replaced by a shark-toothed maw, Hal smiled at the wide eyed Note. His fingertips sharpened to bladed points as the storm of his ki began to pull back under his skin. “But it’s much more durable!”
Yellow-white flame danced over his body, solar flares from pure white skin. Hal pushed off with a foot, teeth bared as he released an ear shattering sonic scream. The ‘S’ on his chest flashed, filled with the concentrated flames of his ki.
Note winced at the sonic assault, before her face returned to neutrality. Hal grinned as he reached out with the combined effort of his biofield and the symbiote’s gravitic control. As the Saiyan woman danced backwards, he heaved against her efforts with all his might, bands of sharpened tendrils extended to wrap around them.
A wave of his hands tossed out several pitch-black orbs, micro-black holes that hemmed Note in from above and below. Her body twisted in grateful arcs, smooth as silk as she avoided his efforts.
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The fire at Hal’s chest grew to an eye-piercing brilliance, an eruption that fused into a concentrated beam and rushed his target from point blank range. A laugh spilled from his throat as Note frowned, her body now surrounded by his attacks.
“Very impressive, if a bit disturbing,” Note rolled her eyes, finger extended to divide his blast in two. The same finger danced around her, a series of deflections that shredded his extended blades and evaporated the micro-singularities. “You managed to force me to act or take a hit, a well laid series of traps.”
Her lips curled in a half-smile, a trace of interest in her eyes. Hal continued to gloat internally, as she opened her arms wide and took a loose combat stance. A ripple of horrible ki echoed from Note’s body, a fragment of power revealed.
“Your movements are impossibly precise, clockwork efficient,” space trembled and the nearby stars flickered. A white light bloomed from her skin, a luminance that faded to reveal a translucent blue aura and silver-grey eyes. “Even your ability to control your energy is the same, an eerie perfection… it reminds me of my early days in training with Teacher Kusu.”
Note’s voice carried a double echo, resonant waves that clashed against Hal’s ears. Both his main consciousness, and the duplicate within his symbiote, dived into his three-minute-sight. The sheer pressure of her energy was enough to force blood from his lips, boundless and insurmountable.
Hal used the time within his visions wisly. His many potential selves sank into a meditative state, focused on the quality of Note’s ki. Battle would only lead to his death, but study would help him improve his own energy control and refinement.
“This is Ultra Instinct…” Hal muttered between his trips into the future. Whoever Note was, she’d walked far on the path of power. “You’re ki is almost shifted from mortal and into divine… its structure is mildly unstable.”
“I haven’t mastered it yet, this is just its Omen state,” Note’s resonant voice carried a hint of surprise as she tilted her head. “How do you know about Ultra Instinct? This timeline is many years away from its first appearance in universe seven.”
“I have some knowledge of the Gods and those who train them,” Hal shrugged, eyes unfocused as he continued to mine his future selves to study her ki. Not only was it similar to his own - held almost completely within the body - but it was compressed. “You’re not the only one who can name an Angel or two…”
The ki under his skin began to shift, pressed tight by his biofield before more was drawn upwards from his core. If Note’s energy was like syrup, his own was akin to the sparcest gas. It would take him a vast amount of time to match the density and volume that she’d displayed, unless he could get a more active look at her ‘semi-divine’ ki.
“You know of the Angels, curiouser and curiouser,” Note shook her head, before she appeared before him. Her speed was beyond his eyes, so fast it might as well be teleportation. “Now this match is over… we’ll meet again, Hal-EL.”
A finger extended, placed against his forehead before he could react. Thunder roared through his body, a ravenous force that silenced his kio-ken and forced his symbiote under his skin.
The world spun, dragged past in a blur as he rocketed backwards through space. Blood arced from his mouth in a fountain, turned to ice as it trailed behind in the vacuum of space. His vision narrowed, all paths but one lost in his three-minute-sight.
Note appeared above him, a second flick aimed at his chest. Shadow spun in from the edge of sight, darkness that stole his thoughts and pushed him toward a dreamless sleep. A voice echoed through the abyss, before his mind was taken by the black.
“I hope that next time, you can surprise me once more…”
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“The energy is gone…” A vast, mechanical star decelerated as it entered the target system. It had detected an impossible amount of raw power from around this star, but now all was still. “Trace elements of an unknown energy type have been detected… scanning… scanning…”
Its rounded surface extended into thousands of metallic tendrils, awash in sensor waves as they stretched towards a freshly shattered world. Countless drones launched from the planetoids appendages, a robotic swarm that blanketed the rest of the star system.
“Biological, high energy remnants have been found…” one drone emerged from the remains of Cooler’s Planet, a length of tail in hand. Another took hold of a frozen column of blood and carried it towards its master. “Scanning… scanning… integration with energy sources is deemed possible, beginning preparations…”
***Power Levels and other notes***
Hal: 9,500,000 (95 million with symbiote armour enhancement, 190 million with symbiote transformation, 19 billion with Max kio-ken: 100x)
Note: ???
Beat: ???
A Big Gete Star has appeared!