Interlude-1 week after the Tournament, in the wilds north of East City
Son Goku was excited to once again be looking for the Dragonballs. It'd taken him a while to get to where the radar said the next Dragonball was due to resolving not to use Nimbus to travel. Now he overlooked a walled encampment just north of East City. The radar said that there were 2 dragonballs in that encampment. From what he could see from his position up a tree near the encampment, the place was crawling with men with guns. Training in Martial Arts, marksmanship, there was even a small group of vehicles with big cannons on them parked in the encampment.
"Huh, there sure are a lot of soldiers here, but it doesn't look like any of them are too strong." Wondered Goku.
He looked at the encampment, then at the radar, and said, "The radar says the dragonballs are in that building though, so that's where I gotta go."
The building in question was a large, prefabricated, metal building in the center of the encampment. Goku climbed down the tree and started heading towards the camp gates. There, two soldiers with rifles were standing on guard. They noticed Goku as he approached and one of them said, "Hold it, kid! That's far enough."
Goku stopped and cocked his head to the side, did these two really think that they could stop him? They must be strong if they thought they could, but they didn't look strong. It puzzled him.
"Kid, if I were you, I'd turn back around. This here's an encampment of the mighty Red Ribbon Army!" Exclaimed the Other Soldier.
"Red Ribbon Army? Are you guys strong?" Asked Goku.
That took the two soldiers aback, one of them, red in the face exclaimed, "Of course we're strong! We're the strongest fighting force on the face of the earth!"
Goku looked at the two doubtfully, "You don't look very strong." He said.
One of the guards lost it at that, "Alright kid, looks like somebody needs a lesson in manners!" He growled, putting down his gun and cracking his knuckles before advancing on Goku.
Goku, ready for a fight now, was excited. If these guys were hiding their strength as Master Roshi did sometimes, this might be pretty fun! Unfortunately, the punch the one guard threw was really slow and Goku easily blocked it and returned a punch of his own that hammered through the soldier's guard and sent him hurtling backwards to crash into the gates. The other soldier was shocked at this and pulled his gun, but before he could shoot the kid, he blurred forwards and the soldier felt a flash of pain and his breath leave him, as his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out.
Goku frowned, "Aww man, I thought you guys were supposed to be strong? That was a letdown." He sighed.
Goku walked over to the gates of the encampment and struck out with a punch. The heavy steel gates shuddered with the force and their locking mechanism creaked before a second punch broke the gates open. A siren began to sound throughout the camp and men with guns started to rush the gates. Goku, bored with the slow movements and seeing that these guys weren't going to put up a good fight, bounced around the camp, evading bullets with ease and knocking out random soldiers with well-placed strikes. A kick to the solar plexus, a knife-hand chop to the back of the neck, elbows to the temple, that sort of thing. The soldiers had no hope of even drawing a bead on Son Goku, let alone winning the battle.
A few bright sparks got into the small number of tanks and tried to compensate for accuracy with high explosive tank shells, the most advanced weapons they currently had. After the first explosion knocked Goku off his feet from the simple expedient of annihilating the ground he had been standing on, though, he quickly picked up on what had caused it and began evading the explosive shells by jumping high into the air rather than sticking to the ground. The Tank Crews didn't have any of the new shells that had proximity fuses as they had at Headquarters, and so couldn't use the concussive force of an explosive shell to knock Goku around in mid-air. Goku, after seeing where the shells were coming from, quickly leapt from tank to tank, tearing through the hatches with his hands and knocking out drivers and gunners, before jumping off the now disabled vehicle and landing on the next one. Finally, after about 2 minutes, he'd managed to knock out most of the soldiers around the base.
"I thought these guys were supposed to be strong?" He asked to no one in particular.
When he got no answer he simply shrugged and said, "Oh well, I guess I'll grab the two dragonballs from the building now."
Goku found yet another heavy steel gate as he tried to enter the building. This posed little trouble for him as he managed to knock down these gates with two punches as well as he had the gates to the encampment in general. As he entered the building, he found an emplaced heavy machine gun staring at him from behind a concrete barrier. It opened up on him with a ratta-tatta-tatta noise and he felt a number of impacts his body before he jumped and crashed through the concrete barrier, knocking out the machine gunner and turning the machine gun into scrap. Looking down at his arms and chest, Goku frowned at the slightly red welts that showed where he'd been marked by the armor-piercing rounds of the heavy machine gun. The Flattened bullets of which lay scattered across the doorway where they had stopped after failing to penetrate Goku's skin.
Son Goku shrugged as he continued on through the building, knocking out 4 more soldiers who attempted to ambush him before he came to a room that was locked with another heavy steel gate. Once more he punched the gate open and inside the room he found a man in a blue coat with a red Bandana standing between him and a table with the dragonballs on them. The man frowned as he saw Goku enter.
"I don't know who you are or how you got in here, but the Red Ribbon Army doesn't forgive slights like this. Even if you beat me, we'll be coming for you, kid." Said the man as he shucked his coat and took up a boxing stance.
Goku grinned, "You look pretty strong." He said.
The man snorted and said, "I am Colonel Silver of the Red Ribbon Army, a boxing champion and Red Ribbon Super Soldier. I am strong!"
Colonel Silver inwardly cursed, his collection of the 2 and 6-star dragonballs had left him with little time to get any but the preliminary super-soldier treatments. He was still much stronger than he'd been a week ago, though not on the level of someone like General Blue who'd gotten a full suite of Wheelo Treatments. Still, he figured he could beat a kid.
Goku for his part, simply grinned as he was about to fight a decently strong opponent. He took up a fighting position and waited for this new guy to make the first move. Colonel Silver rushed forwards and launched a one-two punch combo at the kid, who dodged his jab and parried his cross, then counterattacked with a kick that Silver barely managed to get his arms up in time to block. It sent him skidding back towards the comms unit. Who was this kid, and how did he have so much strength? His arms hurt just blocking that kick and he didn't know what would happen if he had missed that block! Goku for his part channeled his Ki into his hands and prepared to strikeout. "First comes rock!" He shouted. Colonel Silver tried to dodge whatever was coming next, but the Kid's strike was so quick that it caught him in the stomach anyway. The breath left Colonel Silver as he fell to his knees and clasped his arms over his stomach. The Red Ribbon Army Colonel wanted to throw up, but couldn't do so, as he gasped for air.
Goku nodded and said, "You were pretty strong, but it looks like I'm way stronger. I'm gonna take the dragonballs now ok?"
Colonel Silver didn't have the strength left to stop him Goku collected the 2 and 6-star ball and looked at the radar. "Huh, it looks like the next one is north of here." He said, shrugging.
Colonel Silver tried to get up, but only succeeded in getting to his hands and knees before Goku just walked past him and said, "I'm gonna go now, bye!" Then he disappeared through the door.
10 minutes later, Colonel Silver finally got his breath back and stumbled to his feet, breathing hard. That kid's strength was unreal! He might even be as strong as General Blue. And he was going for the dragonballs? "North, he said he was going north." Muttered Colonel Silver between breaths.
Stumbling over to the comms unit he picked up the radio mic and punched a few keys. "Muscle Tower come in, this is Colonel Silver!" He called into the microphone.
If that kid was going north after dragonballs, General White had to know. . .
XXXX
Author's Notes:
Power Levels for this interlude only
15-25: Silver Platoon Soldiers
40: Silver Platoon Tanks
175: Colonel Silver (1st round of Wheelo Enhancements)
210: Son Goku
215: Son Goku's Janken Attack