"Damn, our chance's blown…" Yamcha thought to himself. Now that Commander Blue had finished his broadcast and could focus his attention on his captives, any chances of overcoming his psychic technique would have been completely tossed out the window.
"Bouncing around like fleas…" Commander Blue ground his teeth with his fists clenched beside him. The cerulean aura emanating around the man intensified to the point where it was almost impossible to miss, there was nothing spiritual and subtle about it. The psychic energy was raging, blazing around the man. "Pretty inventive, should have dispatched of you sooner…"
A flash of bright light coming from a hair-thin beam made Commander Blue drop his concentration for a moment, blinding him but also overwhelming his upper body as the miniaturized version of Muten Roshi's Kamehameha wave hit him head-on. Had it not been cast on such a reduced scale, it might have settled the battle then and there. All it did now was send the man down, his head thrown back as if a bullet had just hit his forehead. A motion so sudden and violent that it would have snapped the neck of any weaker man outright.
"Now, Krillin!" Yamcha looked at his sparring partner who had a pair of bleeding bruises over his head where the bullets had hit him earlier. Both blooming martial artists concentrated their Ki on prompt. Yamcha had never felt quite this strong before, it was like every tiniest cell in his body had blossomed with all of its inherent potential, keeping nothing back and producing every tiniest droplet of energy that it could have. It was of no use, it was like the taxation on his own body merely damaged his arms and legs that desperately tried to break the unbreakable bindings.
A thunderous snap made Yamcha cease his efforts and look to his side at his friend, shock and great pride in his friend's abilities and progress took over the Sisyphean labor of breaking out of Commander Blue's psychic binds. Krillin appeared far more capable in the area of combating psychic powers than Yamcha as telegraphed by the pint-sized martial artist dropping the demolished into tiny strings ropes beside him and checking his wristbands, letting the general feel of his muscles return to his body before he proceeded to beat Commander Blue down for his transgressions before him and his friends.
"Don't keep me waiting too long, Yamcha," Krillin muttered with a serious tone. "That's one dirty bastard we're facing and I might need some aid."
"Don't get all cool on me now, Krillin, we're merely even now. I've picked up the Kamehameha faster, remember?" Yamcha answered Krillin's call with a cool remark of his own while he closed his eyes and prepared to try again.
"Y-You…" Commander Blue was shaking in fury before he even raised his head off the ground. The Mini Kamehameha that Muten Roshi had used against him had messed up the man's hair, tore his military hat to shreds, busted a few teeth, landed a few busted veins around Blue's bloodshot eyes and messed up the collar of his shirt. "My face… You've damaged my face!"
"C-Calm down, Commander, don't lose your… Cool!" another masculine boom thundered from the other side of the beach while Silver rose to his feet, clutching at his dislocated jaw. The thick and bony surface had risen far higher up than it was normal, resulting in a rather disturbing appearance of a rounder face emphasized by a bony lump that had almost disfigured the ex-Commander's face. Krillin had done a number on this military official with just one headbutt, that made Yamcha believe that they should not have surrendered hope just yet.
Blue's eyes shimmered with blue once more. Krillin tightened his entire body, prepared himself for a paralyzing offensive but as he prepared to do his best and counter Blue's paralysis, he realized that he was not the intended target. That disturbed the fledgling martial artist, making his eyes shift around the battlefield for potential targets but he could find none.
That was when a boom of a firearm going off cut the silence like the blade of a ruthless manslayer. Silver's eyes widened in a wild expression of pain before the man collapsed on his back, his body completely shutting off mere moments after it had been crippled by a paralyzing gleam of Blue's eyes.
"Don't presume to be able to speak to me with a tone like that, you ugly bastard. The Blue Ribbon Army has no tolerance for ugliness." Commander Blue muttered to himself, so mad that he still used a controlled tone as if he still had any control over the situation. The recovered commander took a fighting stance, prepared to attack Krillin now but a loud thud disrupted the upcoming heated battle. Blue looked around, searching for the source of this noise but a cascade of follow-up thuds assisted him in that venture.
His soldiers were dropping like flies all around him. They weren't injured, nothing on them suggested that they were attacked in any way and their expressions seemed so… Peaceful… As if they just… Succumbed to deep, hypnotic sleep in a blink of an eye.
"That must be… Roshi-san's technique!" Yamcha looked around, trying to locate where his miniature mentor may have been casting his technique from. "Nice work, Roshi-san!"
Blue's eyelids started faltering, it was as if the man felt heaviness over his own consciousness as well, the draw of gravity pulled every harder yet never seemed more graceful and loving than in that moment. It would soon become too difficult to combat this unusual martial arts technique from where Blue was standing and the commander had undoubtedly realized that. Yamcha felt the psychic grip around his bindings completely fade away, detached his ropes fell to the floor, devoid of any supernatural vigor and clinginess they'd just displayed.
"Alright, punk, you're through!" Yamcha entered his Wolf Fang Fist stance but a shimmer of cold, cerulean stars in the eyes of Commander Blue made the martial artists halt in their pressure of offensive.
"Y-You… J-Just try to attack me, see what happens to your precious Bulma now!" Commander Blue threatened the martial artists that were getting closer to their victory over the Blue Ribbon Army with each passing second. Something suggested to all three martial artists that this was no vague threat.
"Oy, where do you think you're going!?" Launch's rude yell interrupted Commander Blue who had turned away with heavy and sinking muscles and began creeping back into his studio. She aimed a submachine gun she had picked up from the ground and was dangerously close to firing before Yamcha blitzed up to her and gently lowered the barrel of her gun to aim to the sandy floor of the beach instead of the man that had a scary ace up his sleeve that none of the martial artists could yet quite put a finger on.
Within seconds, Commander Blue emerged from his studio shirtless, having ditched the tattered on the upper body uniform and holding Bulma over his left shoulder. While the commander of the Blue Ribbons should have had little problem in handling a subdued and tied up young woman over his shoulder, his current, sleepy state made him struggle with the venture to a tremendous extent.
"I'd… Not get in my way… If I were you…" Commander Blue muttered with pauses for momentary snoozes that very nearly claimed him with the strain of each completed sentence. In between a couple of random sentences, the man had to yawn and smack his own cheeks to dismiss the sleep that was about to claim him even though Muten Roshi must have ceased his hypnotic technique already.
It was the sight of Bulma that reassured the martial artists that their approach of halting their attack was the right one – the poor girl was no longer unconscious but instead her eyes were bulged out wide and she was wriggling like a worm with her skin pale as snow and in the process of turning azure – she was choking up despite not having her airways restricted in any way.
"That's right… You dirty worms… I have restricted her pathways with my psychic powers… Unless I cancel my technique, she'll choke up for good… I'd make sure that nothing gets in the way of my escape if I were you…" Commander Blue managed to slip in a grin while he slurred and staggered to the nearest submarine and slumped Bulma over it. He was in a rush, likely realizing quite well that a normal girl had a very poor lung capacity compared to a battle-hardened martial artist. It barely took any time at all for the submarine to start and blast off into the horizon, Bulma still onboard.
"Damn that bastard!" Yamcha clutched his fist in front of him and ground his teeth. "He just had to make it personal… Hold on, Bulma, I'm gonna come after you!"
Krillin looked at the horizon and the rising wave of water that came from when Blue's submarine had submerged underwater for a couple of seconds with a determined glare but then turned his attention at Muten Roshi, it took the boy a couple of seconds to even find his mentor who was dangling his feet and resting on a nearby pile of sleeping soldiers. Roshi was gesticulating with his hands but Krillin had little to no way of understanding what it was that his miniaturized mentor was trying to say.
"Oh, for Pete's sake, don't rush off after the enemy recklessly!" Roshi spoke to Krillin and Yamcha mentally at the same time. "The enemy has revealed a frightening technique to us and Blue has his hands on Bulma as well, meaning that at any time he can just threaten her life and escape once more. Pursuing Blue now will require a better plan than just rushing ahead."
"But, Roshi-san!" Yamcha objected, yelling out loud. "Commander Blue has kidnapped Bulma, I can't just sit around doing nothing while my girlfriend is in his hands, Bulma would never forgive me that!"
"He has a point there, Bulma can hold a grudge…" Krillin squinted his eyes. "His hands are sort of tied… Get it?"
"This is no time for jokes, Krillin, what if Commander Blue uses his breathtaking psychic technique on one of you? Are you two sure you can break out of it? You've struggled greatly to break out of a far inferior in power psychic technique… You two might be Blue's superiors in terms of combat but he can kill you with just an intense stare, you're outmatched. It is best if you wait for Chayote and Goku, they are after the Ribbons themselves, it is only a matter of time before they go after Commander Blue and rescue Bulma. They may be even bigger blockheads than you two but they have an unnatural level of Saiyan toughness that might just pull them through." Roshi warned the pair of his students.
"I'm sorry, Roshi-san, but I cannot do that." Yamcha shook his head and looked on ahead. "If there are any who seek to terrorize me, Bulma or anyone else decent with undeserved power, I must strive to defeat such people with one mighty blast! That's what you taught us martial arts mean so this is something I have to do as a martial artist."
Without waiting for a reply or words for validation, Yamcha tread onward and leaped into the nearest submarine, running through its panels and buttons with an almost casual mastery over its controls. The man just stopped for a brief moment to glare at Krillin with curiosity in his eyes.
"Are you coming or not?" he wondered. Krillin took one mighty leap and covered the distance between himself and the submarine with the grace that seemed almost effortless. With a mighty roar of the engine and a booming blast of the blazes coming from the exhaust, the submarine darted off to the ends of the horizon and went down under to follow wherever Commander Blue had gone.
"Old-timer!" Goku yelled out while flipping over the air and landing onto the soft sand with both his feet. Despite his fancy moves, there was little of his usual goofy mood in Goku's eyes or his mind. He was ready to go from the very first moments. The eyes of the infuriated Saiyan shifted around the island, tracking the signs of engagement all over such as the riddled with holes Kame House, dozens of footsteps all over the sand and entire platoons of leftover military gear.
That was what Chayote was most invested in. The young woman let the Dark Kinto take her all over the various military-grade vehicles left by the army while she tried to determine their worth for the goal of building a fine spacecraft vehicle.
"Huh? What's that?" Goku returned to his usual, contained self all of a sudden, making Chayote focus her attention back at the boy, she was beginning to like how focused and aggressive Son Goku had become all of a sudden and in a snap of fingers it was all gone.
"I said that the Blue Ribbon Army attacked us. We have managed to repel them but Commander Blue escaped with Bulma. Yamcha and Krillin gave him chase." Chayote heard mental signals in the back of her mind, ones that rung with Muten Roshi's disembodied voice. By now she was somewhat used to the experience, given how he interacted with her that way during the World Martial Arts tournament.
"Really? Yamcha and Krillin took those guys down? That's amazing!" Goku crouched forward with his fists by his sides, looking hyped about the possibility of witnessing the growth of his friends and perhaps being challenged by them in a way he's not been challenged before. He was in for a rude awakening, Chayote felt. After the beating she gave him, Goku would never again be challenged by anyone from this planet and that was just one measly training session. After a world of hurt, Son Goku would turn into a great asset for Lord Frieza and the Saiyan military force.
"Nevermind that, where are you, old man?" Chayote hopped off of her cloud and wondered, looking around the island and playing with her hair. She felt a slight bump in her chest. A glance down revealed that Muten Roshi had clutched her chest and held tightly to it like a ledge of a treacherous mountain, the analogy was apt given the size of the old martial arts master and Chayote's bosom. A puny eruption of her aura sent Roshi flying with cheeks of blood-red like the liquid pouring out of his nose. Perhaps it was for the best that the old pervert was reduced to the size of an insect.
"Hm? Wow, how did you get this small?" Goku yelled out in surprise before leaning over the fallen martial arts master and poking him with a small stick he picked up from nearby. One of plenty torn off with the violent force of the rushing propellers from the army vehicles used in the takeover of Muten Roshi's island.
"Who cares, where's Blue?" Chayote objected to Goku focusing on trivialities. If the Blue Ribbon had accidentally stepped on the old pervert, the universe would have hardly lost anything virtuous and worthy of existence. Recalling how the attendant of the Gods, Whis, had judged Earth's value the Saiyan could not help but wonder perhaps it was because of the fact that the planet's mightiest protector and ally was a dirty old man that the value of this planet was so insignificant.
"It was Bulma's Micro-Band. It must have malfunctioned after Launch-san flushed me by accident and now I'm small. No worries though, I'm sure Bulma will fix me when someone brings her back." Muten Roshi informed both Saiyans mentally before proceeding to the far more important part. "I've no idea where they are. Maybe one of these submarines can trace the others with its radar function but there aren't all that many islands around these parts – just an Archipelago to the west, an abandoned steam fortress to the south-east… Penguin Island is the only meaningful settlement in miles."
"It is likely that the enemy will be seeking a better and untraceable meaning of transportation." Chayote nodded, affirming her own assumption. "For that Blue will require to visit a Capsule Shop. If what Muten Roshi is saying is true, then Penguin Island will be the only place with a Capsule Shop."
"Hmm… You could hop into one of these submaroos and check out where Blue is, can't you?" Goku pointed at one of the abandoned "submaroos" of the Blue Ribbon Army.
"Submarines…" Chayote fixed it. She may not have been a genius but at least she could name the military weapon of the local intelligent species of the planet after hearing its name. "Also… I could, but then we would be too far behind to catch Blue. Have in mind that he left with one of these submarines before us. Even Yamcha and Krillin must be long gone by now. We'd arrive too late that way. I cannot risk any harm befalling Bulma, she is my only hope to get off this rock of a planet."
"Teehee…" Goku smirked with an apish grimace and gave Chayote a nasty facial gesture. "You don't know how to work any of the submaroos, do you?"
"Shut up and follow me!" Chayote yelled back at the boy, taking it to the skies with one mighty leap and letting the Dark Kinto catch her mid-fall. Still chuckling and clutching at his tummy, Goku followed. It was not long before the focus and the need to kick Commander Blue's ass once again graced the eyes of the childish Saiyan. It was not a moment too soon for Chayote was about to bring up the useless bonds of kinship he felt with his Earthling pets just to quench this spirit of buffoonery that defined Goku at times.
"Oh, by the way, I wouldn't count on Bulma fixing you, old man." Chayote turned back to look at the Kame House and Muten Roshi, who was still hanging around there somewhere, "I wouldn't fix the state of a filthy old geezer that fondles breasts instead of brushing up on his martial arts, getting his students and innocent Earthlings into this sort of predicament, to begin with. Seems a fitting punishment for you."
"That's a bit harsh…" Goku pouted right before the two flying clouds took off and spiraled across the oceans, heading straight for the Penguin Island based solely on the vague directions provided by Muten Roshi. Perhaps Goku might have brought him along but he was too dull to realize it and Chayote wanted exactly none of the old man's chicanery in her presence, plus, as a tiny, bothersome dwarf, the geezer would just get in the way in any case…