Chapter 12: The Big Ghette Star

"Run!" Dende shouted as the alarms sounded.

He and Avien had just found the Dragon Balls deep within the confines of Cooler's fortress moments before. Unfortunately, even before they had picked the things up, something had set the alarms off around the complex.

"What set them off?" Avien screamed as she grabbed one large, orange orb.

"It doesn't really matter at this point!" Dende exclaimed as he picked up the other torso-sized Dragon Ball. "We just need to get out of here now!"

Together, they bolted down the corridor. At the junction, Dende led them left, but they stopped in their tracks by more Cyclopean Guards.

"Oh, shit!" Avien cried. "What now, Dende?"

The Namekian stood silent for a moment, calculating their risks. His eyes moved from each section of the four-way junction. Three robots stood in the way of any path they chose except for the way they had come.

"They're after the Dragon Balls," Dende concluded. "Give me the one you have, and I want you to find your own way out of here. I'll keep them busy."

"No!" Avien argued. "There's so many; they'll kill you! And if that happens then the Dragon Balls are useless!"

"I'll be fine," Dende promised. "Just use this diversion to get out of here. Go!"

"Men!" Avien shouted as she dropped the Dragon Ball and turned to run back down the corridor they had come from.

One of the guards began to chase after her, but the leader used a hand signal to stop him. It would take all of them to bring down Dende. The leader was aware of this.

Dende immediately dropped the Dragon Ball, and fired small, piercing beams out of his eyes into the leader in front of him, and, simultaneously, he fired congruent beams from each of his index fingers to his left and right. Three guards down, six to go. Before they had time to react, he gathered both large Dragon Balls, one in each hand, and kicked his way past the guards in front of him. He charged down the hallway with all six guards following close behind.

Elsewhere, Avien's first thought was to suppress her power level as far as she possibly could. There was no way that she wanted to draw attention to herself in such a sinister environment. As she darted from hallway to hallway, hiding behind wiring and any large metal cover she could find, she reached a point where she heard heavy, metallic footsteps. Instinctively, she hid behind the largest clump of machinery should find.

Peering out, her mouth dropped open in horror as she saw Cooler carrying Trunks' lifeless, beaten body on his right shoulder.

"Trunks!" she cried in her mind. "Oh, no! What did he do to you out there?"

Cooler paused in his tracks. In reaction, Avien quickly ducked back behind her cover. Cooler looked over his shoulder at Avien's hiding spot. His red eyes squinted, but then he moved on. With him out of the room, she exhaled deeply. She would have to be more careful. She thought for a moment. She knew Dende had told her to get out, but even though Trunks was a jerk, she couldn't leave him at the mercy of Cooler. She had almost stepped out from behind her cover when she saw two more Coolers step past her across the room and stop.

Extremely startled, she jumped back behind the large machinery, making a minor noise. Frightened that the Coolers would have heard the noise, she covered her mouth. The two Coolers looked back at where the noise had come from and turned around. Avien was petrified; she couldn't have moved if she'd wanted to. Before the twin Coolers could investigate, they were interrupted.

Inside each Cooler's processors, this message was broadcast from the main chamber of the Star:

"Attention all MetaCoolers, sensors indicate that the Namek and the girl have separated but are still within the hull of the Star. MetaCooler with the prisoner shall report to the main chamber, and the other two shall separate and search for the Namek and girl respectively. Reports indicate that their power levels are far inferior to current models'. They should be apprehended and brought to the main chamber as well. Orders effective immediately, out."

Immediately, the two Coolers forgot the sound they had detected completely and turned and moved briskly down the opposite corridor the first Cooler had moved down.

When she was sure they were gone, Avien cursed herself aloud for her carelessness and moved silently down the corridor after Cooler and Trunks.

Meanwhile, Dende had problems of his own. After reaching a dead end, he dropped the Dragon Balls and turned and fired an energy beam into the following guards. The guards scattered, the large, purple explosion detonating behind them. When the first two robots reached him, he put his fist into the small, blue orb in the center of one's head. Once in, he launched a quick energy attack, exploding the head of the robot.

With one down, he turned to the other one. The robot punched, but Dende dodged its blow and caught the robot's arm. He swung it around himself and threw it, releasing the robot into one of its brethren that flew in for an attack. Together, the two robots crashed into the ceiling, crumpling their metal bodies. The last three landed directly in front of him. They paused for a moment, likely calculating their best opening attacks, Dende figured.

Dende didn't have time to wait on them. He extended his arms far out, grabbing hold of the robots on the left and right of the middle one. Instantly, he retracted his arm length, pulling himself forward at blazing speeds. When he reached the robots, he launched his lower body forward, kicking the middle robot hard in the face. As it flew backwards, he let go of the robots on either side of him and landed in between them. They both swung their inner arms at him, but he ducked and uppercutted each hard under their arms. As their metallic arms dislocated with a loud clank, Dende grabbed each of their arms and pulled hard, ripping their arms off. With the robots "disarmed," the Namekian quickly fired beams from each hand into the robots, destroying them.

Hearing the robot he had kicked away flyng up behind him, Dende charged a powerful energy attack, and turned just as the robot reached him, firing his beam at point blank range. He had charged the attack so much that it instantly incinerated the robot and continued down the long corridor and through several rooms within the Big Ghette Star. Once the beam had penetrated as far as it could, it exploded most conveniently in an auxiliary power cell room. Unknowingly, Dende had just destroyed the Star's backup and emergency power, and effectively weakened Cooler's hold on the planet New Namek.

He searched the Star for Avien's power level, but felt nothing. He was sure she must have escaped by now, and he knew she'd return to Trunks' ship. After he gathered the other Dragon Balls he would find her there. He turned, blasted a hole in the hull of the Star, gathered the two Dragon Balls and flew out the hole towards his hidden cave.

Once he was nothing but a distant object in the sky, Cooler peered out the hole the Namekian had made in the wall of the Big Ghette Star. The monster looked back at the short work the Namek had made of his Cyclopean Guards and the Star. His face was serious and dark, and he looked back out into the sky at the Namek as he flew off. He floated through the breach in the hull slowly, assessing the damage, and once he was outside, Cooler shot off after the green adversary.