Liari found herself continually impressed by the sheer stubbornness of these humans. When all else failed or when the strange need arose, these people were content to simply pack up their things and set up shop in some of the most inhospitable environments in the world. She had seen some houses at the base of the mountains as she flew up here, long trails like ant-lines snaking their way up and down the mountainside as if waiting for humans set up shop alongside them. She would have been impressed, had their constructs been built to be as hardy as their spirit. She sometimes wondered if the humans understood how completely boned they were in the grand scheme of things, these little insects weaving between the toes of giants as they walked upon the civilization of which they were so proud. Perhaps they understood and continued their lives in defiance, refusing to let the paralyzing fear of their insignificance take hold in their hearts. Maybe it was in acceptance, realizing that, in the end, every weapon they had ever thought of was less than a minor irritation to the forces that be. Of course, there was always the chance that they didn't understand at all and that they were living their lives oblivious to the multiple genocidal threats walking around them on a daily basis. That last one, Liari wouldn't have put past them... after all, they spread across the world as brazenly as a spilled glass of water across a tabletop.

    Liari had noticed that more and more of these philosophical musings have been intruding upon her thoughts recently. Before this long-winded chain of observations into the nature of humanity had invaded train of thought, she had been wondering about which ghost of the past would she meet today. Last time, it was Kombu, the first Sayain she had consumed. He was a proud sayain, if a distinctly human one, all of that ending when Zero had snapped his neck. When he had attacked her just yesterday, Liari's first thought was that he had been an illusion of some kind.... Now she was certain it had something do with herself in particular. Ever since she had consumed those cretins, Liari had been struggling with their personalities, grappling with them as heroes grappled their monstrous rivals. Their thoughts, their impulses, their bloody personalities reached into her brain and played it like a piano, like an invasive musician sitting beside Liari and playing their own tune overtop of hers. When she killed Kombu with his own, improved technique, Liari had felt something open into her mind, a freeing sensation as if a layer of muck had been washed from her pipes. It was as if she had shed weights she didn't know she wore, suddenly feeling a hundred pounds lighter as one of her internal voices fell silent! 

    ...Perhaps that fight had been her brain's way of shutting him up, finally putting Kombu's "morality" and "mercy" in its place. As far as she was concerned, if he wasn't dead before, he certainly was now. He was just another nameless, faceless battery resting inside of her head. That was the key reason why she was out here today, somewhere where collateral, no matter the magnitude, would have been more acceptable than in other places. She expected another face to show, one of her old teachers she had eaten right after Kombu. A sayain, both like him and not, one renowned for his patience, his fighting talent... and the warrior he kept locked away inside. 

    "I see I am expected." A voice echoed from behind the majin. Liari turned around and smirked as the man she had predicted stood before her, black monk-gi and wild hair just as she had remembered them. "...Well...? Aren't you going to greet your old friend?"

    "Callion is dead." Liari sneered, raising a finger to tap at her head. "He's in here, feeding me power. You are nothing but a shadow of who he was." The illusion let out a soft chuckle and shook his head.
    
    "Perhaps... Perhaps I am dead..." He then tapped his own head and smiled. "...But if that's true, why are you seeing me now...?" 

    "Wow, You're way more talkative than Kombu was." Liari scoffed. "What, are you going to tell me next about the third ghost of Christmas now?" Again, Callion softly chuckled and shook his head.

    "In a lot of ways, you are exactly how I remember..." Callion reminisced. Liari frowned. "...Loud, confident, strong... You believe in yourself so much. It's inspiring." Liari's frown deepened. This wasn't the direction she had wanted this to go.

    "Oh, geez. My chest." The majin swooned sarcastically, clutching at her breast with both hands. "You're so sweet, I think my heart just exploded." Collin's gentle smile gave way to a more serious scowl, Liari... blinking at the sudden transformation. Indeed, she felt a change in the air as if the air-pressure had increased a dozen times in an instant. A chill ran up her spine and down her neck as the shorter sayain glared up at her. The look reminded her of the stare Ayu gave her when she was a child. A sharp TWINGE of pain arched through Liari's chest at that name... Blast it... WHY did that name cause her so much PAIN!? She was just another earthling, weak and FOOLISH, green or NOT! If Callion noticed the struggle in Liari's heart, he said nothing about it. In fact, he said nothing for a time, merely staring at Liari as if he were reading a billboard. 
    
    "...I must ask you something before what happens next." Callion said after a time, shifting into a battle stance. "...Do you regret at all what you've done after you consumed me?"

    "NO." Liari snapped, almost cutting Callion off. "Of COURSE I don't! I AM power! I can do WHATEVER I want! Nothing in the world compares to what I am right now!" She jabbed a thumb at her chest. "...Not Athren, Not Ayu... Especially not Quash. And certainly not you." She paused, letting her declaration sink in. "...And why should I? I did what I promised and I killed those changelings. I ate them, JUST as I ate you. You were all fools to think you could control me, make me like you. Who did you think you were? Offering me companionship only to put a collar around my neck... make me your PET." Genuine anger spat from her voice, surprising the sayain out of his stoic seriousness.

    "...We never intended to control you..." Callion protested. Liari held up her hand to silence him. 

    "Please SPARE me your insipid, 'I never meant to hurt you' spiel. I am not child anymore. I see through you. I know what you and this blasted planet have done to me from the moment I woke up here and I'm sure it feels just fine to you Earthling fools now that the shoe is on the other foot." She expected Callion to grow enraged, spring into action like Kombu... Callion just sighed and shook his head. 

    "You are wrong, Liari. You're more deluded now than you have ever been before." 

    "Enough of this." Liari growled, stabbing a finger at Callion! "You've already BORED me with your wise-mentor act! ...Hm... say... Do you like chocolate...?" Callion blinked at this.

    "Do I wha- AH!" Suddenly, a pink bolt of energy ERUPTED from Liari's fingertips, arching through the air like an electric current towards the sayain! He leapt to the side just in time to see the ground where she stood FLASH a sharp pink, the section of ground transmuting into a solid bar of chocolate! Letting out a sharp laugh, Liari fired bolt after bolt at the Sayain, pieces of the landscape before her giving way to their sugary counterparts with each blast! Callion had enough, however, LUNGING for Liari between blasts and throwing a sharp punch into her cheek! Liari's head snapped to the side as she jerked a step back... before leaning forward again, revealing barely a scuff across her face! The majin smirked. 

    "...I'm stronger than you know, Callion." Liari boasted, wiping the back of her hand across her lips. "...I have grown leagues beyond the little girl you'd met last." To prove her point, the majin cocked her own fist back, ready to strike him! The sayain raised his arms in anticipation, only for the majin to disappear right before his eyes! A boot would SLAM into the back of Callion's head, sending him FLYING across the landscape! His back slammed into the ground once, then twice as his momentum skipped him like a rock across a lake, Liari's boot finding him again as she teleported in front of him and sent him FLYING into the air! 

    "HAHAHA! TURN INTO A GUMMY!" Liari laughed! A tentacle arched up towards the sayain, firing from its tip another beam, one that struck the stunned monk! He screamed as he was consumed by the blast and, in a puff of smoke... a gummy-version of Callion would collapse to the ground with a rubber-like bounce! Liari would smirk, walking up to her creation and observing it proudly. It had been some time since she had used this technique... since she'd been a kid, actually. ...And already, she had thought of a means of improving it. ...But first... Liari would approach the candi-fied Callion, throwing a sharp PUNCH into his gummy stomach, then another at his jaw! She beat upon the immobilized sayain as if her were a punching-bag, taking her time to make sure not an inch of his sugary form had been left unattended! Just as she threw her last punch, the monk was consumed in a cloud, his body turning back to normal! Swiftly, he ducked under the Majin's kick, raising his own foot up in a MASSIVE rising kick that caught Liari under her jaw!

    "BAH!" She grunted, falling on her rear! "...You should have STAYED like that... How are you able to overcome my magic...?" Callion said nothing, one of his hands wrapped across his side, cradling his ribs. Liari blinked, noting the man's condition! All of that damage, all of those blows she had laid into him... they carried over from his gummy form! Blood ran down Callion's face in uneven streams, bruises both deep and shallow peppering his face, neck, and arms.  Already, his heavy breathing and uneven stance indicated he was wounded... and in the perfect position to partake in Liari's new experiment! 

    "...However you're able to resist my magic... it doesn't matter." Liari insisted, climbing to her feet. "In fact, why don't you sit right there and wait, Callion..." I have a little surprise for you." Liari's arms shot out from her sides, her tentacles raising up and out in a linear fashion around her head! Callion wouldn't wait as Liari requested, LUNGING for her in an effort to stop her schemes! An evil glare from the majin, however, caused the air between Callion and herself to ignite in a ferocious explosion, blowing the wounded monk back several feet, preventing his approach! Liari rose in the air slowly, her tentacles and hands pointing down at the sayain, each beginning to spark with pink magical energy! 

    "Lets try this again, shall we...? TURN INTO CHOCOLATE!" Liari ROARED as a hundred pink flashes engulfed the warrior! The area below the majin erupted in a cloud of smoke, and, once it had cleared, revealed Callion completely transmuted into Chocolate! Liari grinned widely, lowering herself down before the sugary statue!

    "...I'm sure it was all worth you coming back from the dead to haunt me like this, Callion." Liari mocked, cocking a fist back. "...Know your place... and go back to sleep." The majin's fist would CRACK against Callion's face, cracks spider-webbing across the statue moments before it crumbled to a sweet, umber dust. Liari's head twitched as something in her mind fell away, a barrier of some kind dismantling itself within her psyche. she took in a deep breath... then sighed softly, inhibitions melting to nothing as if they had never existed for her to begin with. 

    "Freedom at last..." Liari chuckled... "...Now there are only two more of those pests to silence..."


WC: 2043

Learning: 

[T2OT2] Candy Crash: Liari levels a tentacle or a finger at her target and shoots from its tip an electric-like beam of erratic energy! Upon contact, the subject turns into a piece of candy of Liari's choice! If its an object, it stays that way forever! If a person, they revert back quickly, but give Liari enough time to beat up on them as she sees fit! However, upon reverting back, the individual will find that their blood hadn't quite properly reverted back to normal, VAST quantities of sugar polluting their bloodstream, leaving them feeling borderline poisoned! [ENERGY]





[T3OT3] Candy Eternal: Liari spreads her arms wide to either side of herself as her tentacles raise up, unleashing WILD, sporatic and unaimed ENERGY WAVES of ki, turning everything they touch into one kind of candy or another! From the air being left sickeningly sweet to the ground being twisted into sour-power candy, ALL that touch this beam will be transmuted! NPCS and objects are permanently transmuted. Players are transmuted permanently if killed. If not killed, the player will be beaten up on any way Liari sees fit before transforming back... only to feel... something isn't quite right... Piles of sugar had coagulated in the veins of the player, threatening to block arteries, flood their hearts and leave them generally DYING of a poison-like dose of raw SUGARY EVIL! [ENERGY]