Videl and Trunks looked at each other from the top of a tall Central City skyscraper. The teen adopted a balanced fighting stance while Trunks opened himself up with an offensive one. Videl had taught the preschooler all about the importance of stances and how much they played into the mind games of a martial arts bout, though she had a feeling that this lesson entirely flew over her pupil's head. It was tough to teach someone who thought they were leagues above your level, so Videl had to teach Trunks the only way he would take her seriously–through sparring.
Trunks took off, blitzing toward Videl like a hypersonic missile, cutting through the immense layers of clouds and shattering windows with the tunneling air pressure forming around him, but his charging fist only sliced through a vanishing afterimage trail. Videl appeared in Trunks' field of vision rolling through the air, directly above him as she drove a flip kick into his side and staggered him, in the same way, she opened him up.
The young lady vanished again, shooting in from the side with a flying kick, yet Trunks thrust his arms forward and shot out a Ki wave. It only dispersed another afterimage while Videl rocked the boy in the back of his head and sent him rolling and scrambling through the skies above Central City. The martial artist pressed her advantage, delivering a flying knee that Trunks blocked, then rolled with her right arm aiding her balance, sweeping both legs and tripping Trunks up. A roundhouse backhand slam sent Trunks flying while Videl spun through the air and crashed into him with a flying kick that escalated Trunks' flight.
An elbow strike from above made Trunks aim his arms up and let out a Ki wave that crashed with Videl's elbow and detonated after a brief power struggle. Videl scrambled behind Trunks and pummeled him with a chained barrage of standard karate-style punches, kneed him in the stomach, then vanished behind him and kicked Trunks away to slam through the trees and crash into the wild prairie nearby Central City where their intense sparring session transported to. Videl panted her shirt and her skirt, calling it quits with a hand gesture.
"That's not fair!" Trunks emerged from the trees with branches sticking out from his hair and a whimpering gesture of a spoiled and whiny brat. "I'm way stronger than you and faster!"
"That may be so, but I don't need to see you move if I know every move you'll make. That's why you need to learn how to fight rather than just tighten your muscles all the time," Videl waved her finger.
"I thought that was what we were doing all the time we were training!" Trunks threw a fit, throwing his arms up.
"Well, it's clear that you're not taking our lessons seriously. I don't teach you how to fight for you to sneer and make fun of me, treat me like my lessons are just cute nonsense you have to sit through while in a sparring match you ignore everything I've taught you," Videl scolded the boy.
"I'm… Sorry…" Trunks sniffed. "I didn't mean to make you mad. I just… I've never actually had to work hard to learn things. Fighting and science just sort of came naturally to me. And… I didn't want to hurt your feelings too. I just… Acted how I always do during training."
"With Vegeta-san…" Videl sighed in realization. Trunks nodded while wiping his sniffles with the back of his hand and scrubbing his tears away. "Well, what works with your father won't work with anyone else. You shouldn't treat other people the way your father treats them. You should try being more honest and truer to yourself around people you care about. I'm sure that your father wouldn't want you to copy him, either."
"Alright," Trunks nodded before clenching his tiny knuckles together. "I didn't brush your lessons off, Videl! Look…" the young man began channeling his Ki with a loud grunt before striking a wide-open, flashy pose. "Let's go… Afterimage!" he yelled out, forming a dozen of see-through clones of himself while the real Trunks used his incredible speed to vanish and shift in between the clones, becoming nearly untraceable in their midst because of his speed of movement.
"Great, so you have been paying attention!" Videl smiled with an approving nod. "Don't just rush into danger and try to power through. You need to use your head sometimes too. I know you're really young to be fighting and going out into the world and that kids your age emulate their idols, but you should try emulating your mother as much as you do your father and be a little craftier in battle too."
"Ew!" Trunks stuck out his tongue. "My mom's a girl!"
"And what's wrong with that?" Videl placed her knuckles on her hips with a nervously twitching eyebrow.
"Nothing… If you're a girl…" Trunks squinted.
"Man…" Videl rolled her eyes, slipping her hand into the backpack and pulling out the Dragon Radar to look at it. "Sometimes I just want to fix everything you are as a person, without realizing just how immature you really are and how apt that is given your age. I guess I won't instill maturity in you overnight…"
"Is the Dragon Ball nearby?" Trunks wondered.
"N-No way!" Videl gasped. "The signal's gone again!"
"What!? You mean Destron Gas is accumulating in the atmosphere like in Penguin Village?" Trunks exclaimed in surprise.
"It must be…" Videl clicked the Dragon Radar to turn it off and slipped it back into the backpack. "We should head back to Central City and try to find where the Destron Gas spreads from. Lucky for us, this time we'll be ready for it."
"We better be, it's not like we've got the option to go back in time and fix everything again…" Trunks aptly pointed out.
"Hello, my name is Bulma, you may know me as the president of Capsule Corps. I'd like to talk to you about something very important to you and me. Some leaders are always trying to build and finance apocalyptic death machines. Abuse their power in ill-thought tyrannical oversight and use these deadly automatons to bully extraterrestrial minority groups. That's just one step away from using their strength to intimidate society that murder robots have oppressed in the past. With Hercule as King of the World, you can rest easy knowing that…"
An energy wave blasted through the monitor blaring political ads in the election season, blowing it up and leading to it plummeting down below. With a couple of separate explosions, the falling lump of technological debris reduced to a storm of menial scrap. An energy wave engulfed the plummeting scrap heap and reduced it to dust while Trunks rushed at the one causing havoc in the city.
"Trunks! We literally just had the conversation about being smart!" Videl scolded her travel companion for rushing straight at the Destron monster while ignoring the people that could get injured by the falling, burning debris. Trunks made an apologetic cackle, scratching the back of his head, and stopped while Videl hovered up to his level and the two could confront the one attacking Central City from the cloud of black gas accumulating in the sky.
"W-Wait a second!" Trunks stumbled back, terrified by the appearance of this foe. "Isn't this…?"
"Wh… What?" Videl shook her head, rubbing her eyes in disbelief. The man they saw in front of them had an excited and mean grimace to be certain and wore gray and black Saiyan battle armor with a red scouter and a white cape, similar to Piccolo's. "Why is Gohan-kun's father here? Was he an enemy trying to take over Earth once?"
"No way! Father says that Gohan's father hit his head as a child and that it made him into a "hick dumbass"," Trunks pointed out, looking baffled by the specific terminology employed by the King of Saiyans.
Indeed, this Destron construct looked exactly like Son Goku, save for a darker skin tone and a slight variation in hair that had a pair of spikes distinctive to this particular Saiyan. While the two martial artists bickered about this foe they'd encountered, Turles charged on ahead, seeking to knock the little child away with a headbutt, though Trunks put up his arms and stopped the advance of the Destron Gas construct with his hands.
"No fair! We weren't ready yet!" Trunks scowled in silent wrath. The boy slipped his hand into his pocket, pulled out a small capsule case, and flung a capsule that produced a whirling drone that took off to work on absorbing the Destron Gas and sending the data back to Bulma at Capsule Corps so that she could work on tracing the source of the gas. "Alright, now we can kick your ass!"
"Careful, Trunks, remember what we spoke about," Videl tried calming the young Saiyan down, but he threw himself at the taller Saiyan opponent without being wary. Turles blocked Trunks' attacks and extended his arm to shoot a Ki blast, only for Trunks to backflip out of the way and plunge down with a charging punch that knocked Turles away, crashing through a building and making Videl groan.
"We need to be more careful. There are still people around in this city. We need to take this battle elsewhere," Videl said.
"Good luck with that," Trunks pouted. "Look at the Destron cloud. It's hanging directly above the city. That means that the construct will stick to this location. Our best bet is pummeling him into the ground as fast as we can and minimizing the damage that way."
"That's your plan for everything…" Videl squinted while Trunks took off to attack Turles with his newly awakened Zenkai strength again. Before Trunks could crash into Turles, a thin yellow energy beam flew off from the building, slamming its brunt force directly into Trunks and leaving the young man plummeting down in a smoldering pile of smoke. Videl rushed to help the boy, but Turles burst out from the building Trunks sent him crashing into and aimed all five fingers at the city, expelling a five-finger beam barrage that became shifting rays of destruction. Videl scooped Trunks away from harm's way but received a brush of a finger ray that scorched her back and led to her slamming down on the street level.
Before Videl could even turn around, Turles came soaring with a charging punch to her cheek that made her drop Trunks. With a knee strike, Turles knocked the teen into the air before ax-handling her down and aiming his hand down at the ground where Videl had just fallen. With a malicious grin, the Destron Saiyan warrior channeled a white energy sphere with a violet crackle of energy around it and released a storm of homing Ki blasts that decimated the street area and left Videl torn and pummeled in a crater.
Hearing the cries of pain of his companion awakened Trunks while still in mid-fall. He clenched his fists by his sides, his eyes rolled back and whited out while his lavender-colored hair washed upward with a golden aura bursting around him. Letting out a mad battle cry, Trunks shot straight for Turles. The Destron Saiyan leaned to avoid Trunks' rush, but the infuriated boy backflipped and stomped at Turles' face, turning around and charging downward while throwing a barrage of vicious punches that decimated Turles' defenses and smashed him into the ground while Trunks drew his arms back and formed yellow energy spheres in each hand.
Thrusting his arms forward close together, the young Saiyan-Earthling hybrid produced an awesome yellow energy wave that drilled Turles through the street and into a central sewer system where many sewer trails intersected and washed with a green, frothing stream down into an unseen abyss where all the muck converged together and the stench of ammonia lingered in the air.
"If you want to pick a fight, pick it with me!" Trunks cursed at the Saiyan whom he could no longer see as Turles had faded away into the depths of the sewer intersection. The darkened skies didn't emit too much sunlight so seeing him down there was impossible. Destron warriors didn't produce ordinary Ki one could sense, however, their energy had a signature whiff of taint and evil to it that one could sense similarly they felt Ki with enough getting used to it. This changed when a sparkle of white light made Trunks' eyes widen in shock that soon turned to despair.
Videl picked herself up and got back on her rear end, looking up at the sky where Bulma's drone was halfway done cleaning up the Destron shroud, and patches of sunlight began beaming through. Scratching her head and wobbly, the teen martial artist picked herself up and stumbled toward the hole where Trunks blasted Turles through. A massive, hairy fist burst forth from underground, knocking Trunks shooting into the air while the hand opened up and slammed against Videl too. The teen tried dodging out of the way, but the unexpected emergence of the Great Ape's hand and the slam were quick enough to pin down her legs and leave them bloodied and grazed.
"A giant ape monster?" Videl cried out. "What on Earth…!?"
"Damn it! I didn't know he could do that!" Trunks ground his teeth up in the air, trying to find a way to rescue Videl from the Great Ape's press. "It must have been that energy sphere he made underground, shimmering with light. It must have emulated a full moon. I bet I could use it too…"
Hearing Videl's screams and seeing the monster pull himself out from the sewer and crawl back onto the street level, Trunks clenched his fists and shook his head. If he lost control now, he'd only be making it worse for everyone else. He'd hurt the people fleeing for their lives. He'd let down Videl after she taught him so much and trusted him to be of help to her in restoring Chayote's petrified body to normal. Even if as a Great Ape he'd become stronger than the Destron Great Ape monster, Trunks needed to stop fearing being weak and start fighting smarter.
Flying up to the monster's tail, Trunks grabbed hold of it and tried yanking it out, but Turles spun his tail around and flicked the meek boy away, crashing him through a nearby building wall while he picked Videl up in his hands and put the squeeze on her that made the young lady scream out in pain and try her best to thrash her way out before the pain made her pass out in the monster's grip. No longer feeling interested, Turles let go of Videl and grabbed her by the heel, pulling her up to his jaws to eat her up.
Videl's eyes fluttered and opened partway, letting a bit of light in but revealing to her the horrifying truth of a Great Ape monster holding her dangling above his open jaws, ready to chow down. She extended her hands, shooting out a Full-Power Ki Wave, but it bounced off of the monster's hide without inflicting much damage. Trunks flew up to the monster's snout and moved his hands up to his eyes.
"Solar Fist!" he yelled out, making the monster's eyes flash pink as a blinding white flash overwhelmed the Great Ape and forced it to let go of Videl. This let Trunks scoop his hurting companion up and carry her further off to relative safety and place her down on the ground.
"Are you okay?" Trunks turned to Videl. He needed a confirmation to ease his mind since Videl's clothes had been torn and grievous burns and scrapes decorated her body. The girl's hair was a mess and her movements looked numbed and pain-ridden. The squeeze that the Great Ape put on her must've crushed more than a handful of her ribs and the slam of its hand must've done a number on her legs too since Videl looked like she could barely stand on her own two feet, using hovering to sustain holding herself together.
"I've been better…" Videl admitted. "But we need to make this monster return to normal. This way his power's way too big and his size makes it difficult for the citizens to escape."
Up above their heads, Bulma's drone finished absorbing the Destron shroud and began processing the data and sending it back home to Capsule Corps HQ in West City. This left Turles as the only Destron construct in the vicinity that needed to be dissolved. And after the Destron construct was destroyed, the drone could finish off absorbing the Destron Gas before Turles could reform.
"We need to sever his tail," Trunks said.
"You know what this form is?" Videl looked at Trunks in shock.
"Yeah… It's the Saiyan Great Ape transformation. I inherited it from my dad too. My dad once insisted that I transformed at the sight of a full moon so that he could confirm if I carry his royal genes and can control myself in this state. The royal family Saiyans have the uncanny ability to control themselves and other Great Apes in this form. Mother was fully against it, and they had a big fight over it. In the end, they let me decide after my mom explained all about this form to me. I… I didn't want to hurt anyone, so I refused," Trunks prodded his fingers shyly. "But… Maybe… Maybe if I transformed, I'd have been able to beat him and… Maybe you wouldn't have gotten hurt?"
"Nonsense!" Videl brushed it aside and gently patted Trunks head, hugging it in her arms before pulling it away to look the boy in the eyes to reassure him. "You fought with your brain and you saved my life in the process. Now you just need to use your head and understanding of this form to make him revert. Can you do that?"
"I… I think so…" Trunks nodded with tearful eyes. Just glad to see Videl alive. His martial arts teacher, one of the few real friends he'd made, and a companion praising him like this and looking proud of his progress made Trunks feel something. Something profound and amazing deep down. It filled him with confidence that he could do this.
With Videl being proud of him, he could do anything! In time, he'd make his mom and dad proud of him too!