The palatial stronghold of Kami's Lookout was torn to shreds, great wedges of the floor and walls simply blasted away and leaving the scorched rooms within bare to the gale force winds raged around it. Several fires raged unchecked across its surface, the results of ki blasts that had missed their target, and cast everything nearby in a haunting glow. In short, it had become a battleground.

A pile of rubble exploded outward as Tien Shinhan managed to free himself before collapsing onto hands and knees, breathing raggedly as a crosswork of scrapes bled pinpricks of crimson. His shirt was little more than shredded rags, hanging limply from one shoulder without any enthusiasm. But though he looked a state, he was far from beaten, doggedly pushing himself back onto his feet and wrestling his breathing back under control. His body was trained for this, and he wouldn't let anything less than a crippling injury keep him from the fight.

Turning his gaze upward, he could see the furious flurry of bodies that were the Z-Fighters and their enemies, shadowy beings that took the form of past adversaries ranging from Nappa to Majin Buu. Though they did not have the same strength as the originals had, they made up for it with seeming invulnerability – every attack leveled against them proved no more than a momentary delay before the wounds closed up like water rushing to refill a gap. They were relentless, pushing even Goku, Gohan and Vegeta to their maximum for all the good it did them, and the weaker members of their group were floundering terribly.

Tien barred his teeth, a vein standing out along his strained neck. This was more than just a threat against them; it was a humiliation! For as fiercely as they had trained their minds and bodies, becoming some of the strongest beings in the Universe, they were being ground under the heel of this nameless enemy without any true competition of might! It was infuriating to have skill be so readily trumped by a singular gimmick!

Well shit on them!

He knew that desperation was the mother of invention (or something), and there were a few desperate measures they were capable of, but only one really stood out to him: Fusion.

The year before, when Goku and Vegeta had fused in their fight against Buu, Tien had felt the impossible power from them even while unconscious and had recognized that the technique had produced something many times greater than the parts that had gone into it. If they could create another fusion warrior then perhaps they might be able to pull something miraculous and really cool out of their asses.

The problem was enacting the fusion. To his understanding, there were two separate methods about it; the Dance and the Earrings. He didn't know the Dance and he didn't have any earrings. Damn.

"Goku!" The triclops shouted up into the furious melee. "Do you know where we can get those fusion earrings?"

Goku kneed Copy-Slug in the gut and followed with a brutal uppercut that blasted the namekian facsimile's head off and forced the rest of him away. Then the earth-raised warrior looked over at Tien and his face lit up, expression at odds with the fierce countenance of a Super Saiyan 3. "Yeah, that's a great idea! Wait here a second." He placed two fingers to his forehead and vanished.

"I...I didn't mean right this second," Tien mumbled to nobody, but it didn't matter at all as Goku reappeared just moments later, twin Potarra earrings held gingerly in his fingers.

"Here ya go!" And then Tien was hastily catching the magical accessories as they dropped through the air a second before Goku launched himself back into the fight.

Again, Tien was caught flat-footed. He'd intended for Goku and Vegeta to fuse again, or maybe another combination of the saiyans that wasn't Gotenks. Anything but Gotenks. But it seemed that he'd be participating in the fusion himself, so he now needed to pick his partner from his comrades. Going through them in his head, he almost picked Piccolo outright based on his power and knowledge, but he didn't know if they would blend very well at all, or if an already merged being could fuse with another.

If he was going by who he knew the best and was on a relatively similar power level, then really the only option was Yamcha, possibly the sanest Z-Fighter when taking into consideration the hell they regularly got into. Fortunately, the former bandit had shown up to this fight, currently decimating a horde of copy-saibamen that were a decade and a half late in being a threat to anyone. It might have been cathartic, but Tien didn't really care at the moment.

Taking flight off of the Lookout, he crossed the distance between them in a flash and arrived to kick one of the little green bastards in the chest, exploding it quite completely. "Yamcha, I've got a plan; we need to-"

"To fuse, yes, I know," Yamcha interrupted, creating a spirit ball and directing it into Copy-Jeice of the Ginyu Force. Tien looked openly shocked. "Dude, you were shouting at Goku literally forty feet away, I heard. And I actually spent time at the Warrior's Paradise and learned a thing or two about those earrings, so can we please skip the dramatic exposition?"

Tien considered for a moment before nodding and dropped half of the pair into Yamcha's waiting palm. "I don't suppose I need to remind you that the fusion is permanent?"

"Are you kidding?" Yamcha grinned crookedly, head tilted to the side as he blindly affixed the earring with unpracticed fingers. "We're gonna be relevant again! Sign me up Mr. Clean."

"You're a dick," was all Tien bothered to say before he clipped his own earring on. Seconds later, the magic took hold and they were thrown without their volition at each other, grandly closing the space of about two feet. A shapeless luminescence expanded to enshroud them while also catching the other Z-Fighters' attention, but they could barely spare a second as the copies hadn't stopped for an instant.

Perhaps not as impressively presented as Vegito had been, the fused human stepped forward, backlit spectacularly by the fading remnants of the magic mumbo-kumbo. Since the two fighters had been pretty similar physique wise there weren't any noticeable changes there, but his clothes had blended the green of Tien's usual garb with Yamcha's traditional Turtle School gi as well as added strips of green cloth that circled around his palm, wrist, forearm, elbow and biceps.

His face had the sharp lines of Tien, but the mischievous smirk of the bandit along with his lighter eyes. Where Tien had had a third eye, there was now a clearly defined scar in the shape of an eye, like some sort of ritual mark. A bit of a surprise was that he had a full head of hair, but it was slicked back and revealed a prominent widow's peak that Yamcha certainly hadn't had.

The newly born warrior rolled his shoulders and worked his muscles to get accustomed with the power than now resided in his mortal form. He grinned a bit wider, taking in the pandemonium that was raging around him, but his head snapped to the side as Copy-Bojack soared toward them with arm cocked back. Instead of unleashing a ki blast, the fusion warrior waited until the last second before spinning like a top, left foot brought up high and glowing with white energy to catch the fake pirate full in the cheek. There was a moment of one great force meeting another before Copy-Bojack was blasted backwards, a sizable hole in its head.

It got back to its feet immediately, but the wound refused to close, the white energy still burning away at the edges. Whatever the fusion had put into his counterattack seemed to target the copy's very being, like acid through metal.

Cracking his knuckles, the merged human fighter grinned just a bit wider still. "I'm not sure the world's ready to handle someone like me, but we'll just make the best of it. I'm not going to be content until I've wiped all of you off the face of the planet, so let's get started!" This last bit was shouted, drawing the attention of all the copies, most of them suffering some temporary damage from the Z-Fighter they had been fighting. "When an assassin and a bandit put their heads together, you can be damn sure they'll come up with some way to beat the hell out of you and look damn cool doing it. In this case, that's me: Yaen."

Several copies had turned fully and were flying straight at him, intent on bull-rushing this new warrior and crushing him under sheer numbers. Yaen didn't budge, raising a hand commandingly and summoned a circle of six, full-sized Spirit Balls that rose up around him, all burning with that white energy.

"This'll be good," the fusion commented to himself before launching into his assault, grin still in place.

DBZ DBZ DBZ DBZ DBZ

AN: Pronunciation: (Yay-n)

Being that I am one, I have a tendency to support the humans in the series and give them opportunities that, quite frankly, stretch belief dangerously thin. But that's a good thing.