"Whoa! Look at this place, it's like outside but… Inside!" Goku marveled at the green garden with little creeks and bridges. Further in the distance Chayote could make out a little wooden house unlike any she's seen lately. The last time she'd seen something like that was before the tournament, while she was traveling the countryside.
"Wait a second… This doesn't make any sense at all!" Chayote got worked up over something she should have for all intents and purposes not minded whatsoever. "The tower didn't look nearly large enough from the outside to fit something like this inside…"
The lights went out in an instant, catching Chayote and Goku by surprise. With the artificial lighting seeping into their eyes, the total disappearance of lighting made adapting in the new environment a bit of a woozy. A loud yell echoed in the darkness, Chayote moved her glance to her backside, where she felt a light pinch and heard the insufferable rustling of the fake grass. The lights went up again, revealing a writhing in pain purple ninja on the floor, his eyes were wet with tears while his expressive face twisted to exquisite proportions in his current, pained state.
"Wh-What the hell are you made of?!" he shrieked while rolling around on the floor. Once the man realized that he was making a fool of himself, he rolled backward and stood back on his feet, revealing a rather short stature for a fully grown man. No matter how hard the master of this floor tried to look tough and brush off his fiasco, he still had glistening wet crystals of tears drying out at the corners of his eyes.
"Why did you turn the lights back on?" the lips of the purple man extended to hilarious lengths but it did not appear to be due to any supernatural ability. It just looked like the soldier guarding this floor had one of those kinds of faces. The man spoke to some black gadget in his hand, likely something like a communicator like the ones built into a scouter. It didn't look like the Earthlings managed to integrate multiple gadgets into a single device just yet.
"What are you talking about?! I thought you were supposed to be guarding your floor in total darkness, utilize the shadowy embrace of the oblivion to take out your enemies in the cover of darkness!" a growling voice came out from the other end of the gadget.
"Look, I was a bit late to return to my post, the plan was going great until you turned on the light!" the purple man kept on yelling at his communicator.
"Great!? You tripped and fell over the girl. You can't even take a damsel in distress hostage, you incompetent nincompoop, to think you're my most deadly assassin shows how desperate the White Ribbon Army truly is!" the man on the other end replied.
"Say, say… Are you gonna fight us or not?" Goku wondered. "The guy on the other floor looked pretty strong but he couldn't take any of my punches at all. I might have overdone it with a Kamehameha…"
"Showoff, you're only this strong because I helped you." Chayote sneered at her tiny companion.
"Really?" Goku wondered, looking at his hands. He must have noticed the massive increase in his own strength the moment that he recovered from the injuries sustained during the World Martial Arts Tournament. "Now that you mention it, I really do feel like on a whole different world from before…"
"Yeah, I've fought those Metallitrons while raiding the headquarters and trust me, you'd have had your hands full with one." Chayote shrugged.
"W-Wait! You destroyed the Red Ribbon Army's headquarters?!" the purple man freaked out, shifting about the muscles of his face and bulging out his eyes in shock. The rather serene garden began reeking of the sweat that the assassin put out.
"Why does everyone keep saying that? The red midget did that himself. I just beat the army." Chayote sighed. "Then again, I suppose I was going to do it anyway…"
"Oh… Ow ow ow ow ow ow!" the purple man began writhing on the floor while his previously overwhelmed with shock face turned to a pain-ridden expression at the snap of the fingers. "Commander White, I have suddenly been taken down by the vapors! I've caught some sort of disease, must be the fish! My tummy just hurts!"
"Murasaki, you damn coward! Stand up and fight them like a true ninja!" the man to whom Murasaki referred to as Commander White ordered through the communication link.
"I guess he's not gonna fight…" Goku sighed in disappointment. "Let's go up, the top floor can't be that far away."
"Whatever, I wasn't going to fight this dweeb anyway. He doesn't look like a robot, I will only destroy a robot for its parts and then I'm out of here." Chayote shrugged and was about to turn to follow Goku but then Murasaki leaped back up to his feet.
"Ha ha ha ha! You have fallen for my trap, you imbeciles! I see that this is the first time any of you meet a real ninja in battle. Judging from how my Commander spoke to me, he sees me in action for the first time as well. I can't say I blame him, for I have taken out every one of my foes concealed, from the shadows. What we have here is a unique opportunity for me to stretch my legs out and show two grasshoppers what's what!" Murasaki laughed out with a buffed out chest while brandishing a pair of kunai knives.
"Oh, so you are going to fight!?" Goku turned back and leaned forward, his hands clutched by his sides in excitement while his tail waggled about like a wild whip.
"I've never met a ninja before. Fine, I'll watch Son Goku beat the crap out of you and see what of your martial arts can be adapted into my fighting style." Chayote turned around with a smirk.
"Very well, prepare to have your senses overwhelmed and to doubt your own mind!" Murasaki exclaimed while lifting his hand up in the air. Goku took up a fighting stance in response to Murasaki's sudden motion. "My ninjutsu will lull you and be your end at the same time, brats."
Murasaki swiped his hand to the floor, making smoke burst from underneath, completely shrouding his presence. Something suggested to Chayote that had she managed to learn to sense Ki like Korin claimed to be able to, she'd have picked Murasaki's signature up like nobody's business. The ninja disappeared from the cloud of smoke, dashing to the trees. His movements looked sloppy enough for Chayote to notice he was moving and where to but the sharp sting at her eyes from the smoke prevented her from following the ninja as effortlessly as she should have been able to.
"What now!? Behold, the Art of Invisibility!" Murasaki's voice came from up above, just about where Chayote had lost his movements because her own eyes were getting watery.
"What a useless technique. What good is hiding? Every Saiyan I knew as a kid could hide when we played hide-and-seek." The teenage Saiyan sighed in frustration of her time being wasted.
"There!" Goku picked up a stone and chugged it straight into Murasaki's forehead. The ninja fell out of the tree with his eyes whited out and fuzz coming out from his mouth. His landing did not do his unconscious state any favors. This mockery of a battle was over.
"Oh… I think I overdid it…" Goku smiled while brushing the back of his head with a smile that gleamed of innocence. "I'm still getting used to the power-up," he snickered.
"Whatever, let's just go already…" Chayote hurried her tiny companion to leave this pointless and nonsensical garden behind them.
"Murasaki! Master-Sergeant Murasaki! Murasaki!" Commander White's voice beamed from the communicator gadget. "This is getting out of hand, activate Artificial Human No. 8 immediately! Do you hear me!?"
Chayote froze in her place as if a destructive Ki wave that had freezing properties hit her in the back that instant. She turned toward the communicator and ran up to it, picking it up from the ground and raising it to her face just like she saw Murasaki do before.
"What did you say? About the Artificial Human, are you saying there are robots on this floor?" Chayote demanded to know.
"Huh? What are you… I mean… Why yes…" Commander White faked a sincere and well-intending laughter. "There is, just find a remote control on Master-Sergeant Murasaki and you should be able to activate Artificial Human No. 8."
"Say, say, what's Artificial Human?" Goku climbed up Chayote's shoulders to peek at the communication gadget in her hands as if he could not have just peeked from the side. The fact that the communicator was not a television set eluded the pint-sized Saiyan as he tried to catch a glimpse of something interesting in the functioning of the purely auditory device.
"It is a different way of saying Robot." Chayote surmised. "Think about it, what did Metallitron look like? A fake human. That means that there are more like him. You'll teach me how to do it, you hear me?"
"Sure…" Commander White replied with uncertainty. "There's only one button on the remote, even an absolute idiot could operate it."
Chayote let her hand burrow underneath the purple gi of the unconscious Master-Sergeant and withdrew a single steel remote of hilarious proportions. Just like Commander White said, it had a single, red button in the middle and seemed to be designed to be operated by an imbecile. Chayote had some questions though…
"This panel has only one button. If it activates the Artificial Human, how does one de-activate it?" the Saiyan wondered after approaching the lying communicator gadget.
"Y-You… You just press it again…" Commander White mumbled, baffled by the fact that he had to explain something this simple.
"Say, if you just need the parts, why do you need to activate that robot at all?" Goku wondered, bringing up a fair point.
"If he's active, it will save me the trouble of looking for it…" Chayote grinned. "Plus, a Saiyan relishes in the opportunity to fight. If there's even a possibility that the Artificial Human will give me a fun fight, however slim, I'll take that bet."
The teenage Saiyan pressed the button with both of her thumbs even though there was no need for two whole limbs to be employed. Both Saiyans watched the remote as if it was supposed to give off some sort of signal about its function being performed. After a few moments, Chayote caught her sight wandering and then a single, boisterous clang demanded her full attention.
The being was on the second floor, a massive and thick looking fellow, bit of a blockhead, not too much different from the Metallitrons but compared to those guys it seemed a bit like a step-down, at least in terms of the appearance. He was muscular and giant but… Quite plain too. He also looked a bit patched together, what with the sewing lines covering his forehead and his hair shaved on the lower parts where his head was operated on.
"Whoa!" Goku lost his cool, taking a step back and letting his jaw drop. He acted out of the defensive instinct when he entered a fighting stance and prepared to attack the giant.
"Hmm…" the Artificial Human rumbled before reaching out for his head and then twisting and bending his neck around so hard that his body let out a chilling, metallic crack. "Thank you for releasing me. I am Artificial Human No. 8."
"Huh?" Goku broke his stance. "He seems nice…"
Leave it to him to form first impressions about people in a snap. It was not like Chayote trusted Goku's impressions all that much, he did keep telling everybody she was nice when in truth she was just a warrior trapped on a desolate planet, wishing to grow strong enough so that her corps approve of her and let her join. While there was nothing wrong with any of that in Chayote's handbook, it was not what Earthlings typically referred to as "nice".
"Don't get too attached. I am busting it." Chayote handed the remote to Goku while walking out and slowly approaching the confused giant. She needed to work through a whole floor of metal steps to get to the imprisonment cells where the giant was held before his awakening.
"H-Huh? Please… I do not wish to fight you." Artificial Human No. 8 shook his hands out in front of himself.
"Oh? This pissing your pants look doesn't suit a big fellow like you…" Chayote grinned, leaning her head to the side like a delinquent in an attempt to lure out an attempt at a cheap shot from her opponent, one that would have justified a full-force retaliation.
"It's not that. I don't like fighting, at all!" Artificial Human No. 8 clapped his hands and fell to his knees, the scary looking brute shook his head and pleaded like a little sissy. Seeing him beg for his life like that… It made something about this feel… Wrong.
"Shut up and die!" Chayote roared out and lunged forward. Something was wrong, she knew that the whole time. A sharp and blunt force bashing at her side from the left knocked her off her intended goal rightfully with how sloppy her movements were. It felt like her own body was conflicted with its very actions.
"Stop! He doesn't want to fight you." Goku yelled out. It appeared that the brat had some Saiyan blood in him, it took some Saiyan guts to attack one's own kind and attack them regardless of the knowledge of just how much stronger they were.
"I hear a whole lot of his problems and not all that many of mine…" Chayote expressed while leaving back through the hole she just busted through, one leading into another storage room that was walled off by multiple layers of solid titanium. Titanium that peeled apart like paper when two Saiyans danced with each other.
"W-Why are you doing this?" Artificial Human No. 8 cried out. Chayote turned to him in bemusement, actual tears were bursting like a gazer stream down from his eyes. Why would a legitimate military organization install this watering mechanism into their lethal weapon? Then again, there may not have been that much legitimacy on an interplanetary scale to the Red Ribbons or any of their daughter armies.
"It's simple. I need your body parts to return home." Chayote explained.
"There has to be another way, the White Ribbons must have more robots, ones that are actually bad guys!" Goku insisted before redirecting his attention elsewhere. His nose twitched again and again. The boy raised his arms up to block a barrage of knives plunged his way. Chayote kicked up a plate of titanium she had busted down and let the knives bounce off of it. She had to hand it to Goku, while his ability to react to attack was still green, his instincts were second to none. His nose seemed almost uncanny in its ability to tell all sorts of useful things.
"You thought you have seen the last of Master-Sergeant Murasaki, did you!?" another Murasaki chuckled with his arms crossed over his chest.
A thundering sound of Earthling gunfire made Chayote's eyes turn to the north-eastern wing of the floor, she did not bother to react to the gunfire as it left not even a single graze on her. It was the fact that another duplicate of Murasaki attacked her with the said gun that piqued her interest much more.
"Go on, Artificial Human No. 8, eliminate them!" yet another duplicate of Murasaki demanded, this time, one stuck to the roof. This one had sandals that were black and not the wooden ones shared by the other duplicates or the unconscious original Murasaki.
"I will not, I don't like fighting!" Artificial Human No. 8 shook his head and insisted through the tears running down his face.
"Then you will die with them!" yet another Murasaki leaped out from one of the containment cells, kicking the barred door open and throwing a pair of kusarigama at Artificial Human No. 8.
"You bastards…" Goku grunted, wiping off the kunai blades that penetrated his arms if only skin-deep. "Stop picking on Eighter!"
"Eighter?" Artificial Human No. 8 looked at Goku with surprise.
"Yeah… Artificial Human No. 8 is a mouthful…" Goku chuckled while showing "Eighter. Yo, I'm Goku, nice to meet you!" the peace sign.
"Dammit, you went ahead and named him, didn't you?" Chayote sighed.
"Face the terror of master ninja assassins, the Murasaki Shadow Clone Technique!" the Murasaki dupes declared in perfect synchrony as they took flight over Goku's head and began dropping little marbles from inside their gi. It only made sense they'd attack Goku, he did take out their master.
Chayote looked at the unconscious Murasaki and wondered how it could have been possible that with the user of the technique completely unconscious the technique still continued without their say. She had never seen any techniques of this sort, perhaps there was still some merit to this ninjutsu martial art?
The tiny marbles exploded into clouds of gas, not too much different from the Kinto clouds except appearing much heavier and more expansive. Goku, being the gullible idiot that he was, fell right for it. It only made sense with his silly experience every technique firsthand, face-first fighting style that he'd breathe a whole bunch of it in. What impressed Chayote much more was that the Murasaki Shadow Clones could create solid gas out of their Ki. It was an ability she had never before seen a martial artist use.
"Don't just stand there…" Eighter pleaded. "Please, help your friend! He was so nice to me…"
"Ha ha ha ha, nerve-paralyzing gas, deadly poison and sleeping gas all working wonders in a perfect, harmonious cocktail! Master-Sergeant Murasaki has never missed a mark and now you will know why, child!" the Murasaki Shadow Clones all showed off to Goku, posing on the railing as the tiny Saiyan choked on his own gullible nature inside the deadly mixture of gas bombs.
Chayote extended her hand. A Ki blast fired off in a full, destructive beam form and disintegrated one of the cocky ninja bastards. The Saiyan grinned, her Ki blasts did not work consistently although this one worked like a charm. She wasn't even trying to achieve her goal with that, her mind and body must have just been truly onboard with saving Goku's life.
"Aka!" one of the Murasaki Shadow Clones yelled out.
A blue, orange and black blur distracted the Murasaki Clones from contemplating the demise of their kin. It was so very unlike artificial constructs of Ki to grieve their own. Chayote, standing atop of the railing placed Goku on the ground and turned around to give the remaining triplets her death stare.
"You losers aren't clones at all. You're all different people, aren't you?" the Saiyan inquired.
"Y-You monster! Murasaki Brothers, disperse!" one of the Murasaki bunch declared but Eighter in an impressive feat of speed, intercepted every single one of the brothers, taking them out with backhanded smacks that all hit the belfry.
"All of you hurt Goku! I won't forgive you! You're not getting away!" Eighter raged, his eyes glowing with cold yet intense light while the large, box-shaped head of the artificial brute twisted with fury.
"See?" Goku chuckled, half asleep and paralyzed. "Eighter's okay. Don't kill him."
"Please!" Artificial Human No. 8 bowed with his hands clapped together.
"Tsk. Whatever… As if I'm gonna have my spaceship built out of such a sissy." Chayote crossed her arms over her chest, looking away with a blush on her cheeks. She had learned a valuable lesson in this tower. One that testified that she was wise to listen to the signs her body gave her, conflicting with her own judgment only made her weak enough for Goku to tag her while working alongside her body and subconscious mind made her Ki blasts work for once. Not just work… Excel.
"Let's just get to the next floor. Hopefully Commander White's got himself another Battle Jacket…" Chayote grumbled. Just because she decided not to take shortcuts in her path to space exploration, it didn't mean that she had to act like her more primitive and external self loved that decision. The Saiyan caught the glimpse of the scattered, unconscious bodies of the Murasaki Brothers, whited out just like their predecessor but... Killing them now seemed pointless. They were evil but they were also weak and, currently, powerless.
Earth was rubbing off on her. She needed to get those parts sooner rather than later...