"You guys are in big trouble now that Burter has joined in on the action," Jeice taunted the combined forces of Yamcha and Tenshinhan. "Together with Burter, we are the No 1 Tag Team in the universe!"
"That's right, with Jeice's devastating Crusher Balls and my breakneck speed, no one can match us. We're so overwhelming when fighting together that it is not something we do all the time, breaking it out on very special occasions!" Burter took a flashy pose and shifted from it to a more balanced fighting pose.
The two Ginyu Special Squadron warriors took off at the same time, racing and interchanging between one another as a red, blazing arrow of aura blitzed alongside a blue one. Tenshinhan put up his knee, blocking Burter's cross chop charging attack while keeping perfect balance on the ground with just one leg. Yamcha weaved back to avoid Jeice's crushing blow and then leaned aside, evading the following up barrage of strikes.
A resonance of exploding airwaves littered the sky as Yamcha and Jeice clashed repeatedly, flying back from the kickback of their clashes before vanishing in and out all over the landscape as the battle. Tenshinhan and Burter vanished altogether, colliding with another through subtle vocal booms that sent sonic shock waves, but otherwise not a trace of the two speedy combatants became apparent. Chiaotzu observed the battle from down below with a hint of worry on his face, turning his head to where the battle moved. The short ghoul took off and followed the tide of battle as it moved into the industrial backyard district of the Meat Processing Plant.
"All this boasting and you've failed to land a single punch," Tenshinhan twisted his face as if he had swallowed something bitter before allowing the repugnant taste in his mouth to become more lukewarm. "Not to mention your horrendous fighting stance that leaves you wide open when you fight."
"Huh? Act all cool and strong you want, three-eyes, you haven't landed a hit either," Burter hissed with a rich grin, having taken Tenshinhan's failure at a successful attack as an unspoken compliment to his speed.
"Still with me?" Jeice taunted Yamcha as the two combatants panted one before another, both worn down by their previous clash with Yamcha's body suffering from both the beating he took and the aftereffects of King Kai's Fist burning up his body and tearing his muscle tendons apart with grisly, twitching strain. Like a grand voltage of electricity running down the martial artist's body with each passing phase of blood circulation being completed.
"Surprisingly so, I'd have figured your moves would have put me to sleep long ago," Yamcha faked a cocky smirk while clutching at the right side of his chest where his pectoral was acting up with rampant, painful twitching.
"Burter, enough dawdling already, let's show these guys our premiere tag team moves already and shut them up!" Jeice glanced at his right side to his partner, who widened the glare that he returned and couldn't tense his lower jaw up again to close it for a moment.
"What? Are you sure you're in the right shape for that?" Burter wondered.
Without answering directly, Jeice leaned his body forward, as if preparing himself for a shoulder charge, which prompted both Yamcha and Tenshinhan to take their defensive fighting poses to prepare for a big attack. Burter was slow to set himself up for the rushing combination attack, but he did it, nonetheless.
"Purple Comet Hurricane!" the two chanted out in sync with one another before taking off. Jeice had a heated tail of a red blaze trailing behind him, while Burter's was a cool blue. The two whizzed right past and in-between Tenshinhan and Yamcha at an alarming speed that took both martial artists by surprise, though what confused the two even more was that it didn't appear that their opponents intended to hit them at all. Both warriors avoided the team rush attack by simply stepping aside, but both alien soldiers performed a drastic U-turn, looking ever as confident in their abilities as before.
They whizzed right past Tenshinhan and Yamcha again, this time from the outer side of both warriors, which made Tenshinhan realize just what sort of combination attack this was. It wasn't that the opponents had intended to rush into them imbued with a gigantic amount of Ki radiating from their body–they meant to move past them and entrap them in an impenetrable barrier of trailing energy left behind them. The realization might have come a tad too late as the two Ginyu Special Squadron elites halted in mid-air and turned back at the trapped fighters.
"Purple Spiral Flash!" Jeice and Burter chanted out in synchrony before charging red and blue energy shields around their bodies respectively and joining in a rotating spiral which allowed a massive, spiraling purple vortex of sheer energy to form. Just as the galactic-like splendor of the vortex stopped being dazzling and became a tad stale, a monsoon of purple energy blasts flew crashing from the rotating vortex disc toward the entrapped Earthling warriors, looking to decimate them utterly and overwhelm them through sheer numbers and combined valor.
A luminous and bedazzling myriad of colorful flashes burst forth of domes of erupting energy of an entire spectrum of colors. Pillars of penetrating, violet highlights pierced through the devastating barrage like swords busting out of a wooden box and cut the colorful firework show to tiny slices as Yamcha fell down from the smoky aftereffects without a sign of consciousness, only a painful scowl on his face to telegraph that life and all its painful disadvantages still rustled somewhere inside him.
Life sprung back to Yamcha's face when his eyes shot wide open and his body stiffened, halting his fall before shooting back up to join his friend back in the formation. Tenshinhan looked stunned by Yamcha's return to life. The ever-vigilant third eye on the martial artist's forehead didn't skip a beat and was quick to notice Yamcha cranking up King Kai's Fist up to X10 to withstand the devastating combination attack, even though it aggravated the perilous effects on Yamcha's body right after.
"Saw something that you like?" Yamcha smirked with the right side of his lips, even though the rest of his face looked appeared to remain stuck permanently in an agonizing frown.
"Yes, I never thought to use King Kai's Fist defensively like that," Tenshinhan nodded with a look of excitement illuminating the bruises and dirt decorating his face. "Let's show these guys some of our own combination attacks too."
"Right, King Kai's FistX10!" Yamcha clenched his fists by his sides, erupting with a violent glow of red before an eruption of matching intensity evened the outburst of energy out as both martial artists took mirroring back-leaning postures of the Wolf Fang Fist.
"White Tiger Wolf Fang!" the two exclaimed before splitting the skies separating the two tag teams in a blink. The overflowing crimson energy aura burning brightly behind Yamcha's back took the shape of a red wolf's head as the martial artist ran rampant with swiping slashes with palm positioned like a wolf's paw while Tenshinhan, accompanied by an aura shaped like a tiger performed an almost identical rush attack on Burter. The two warriors rolled in mid-air, delivering rolling kicks to the sides of their opponents and slamming them against each other before Tenshinhan vaulted over both of them with a knee strike that forced the tiger-shaped aura construct enveloping him to unleash a thunderous roar while Yamcha thrust his cupped hands together in a double palm strike.
A vertical ring of howling air pressure sliced out from the singularity of the point of impact where the tension was the largest. As both Earthling martial artists hastily retreated from the resulting devastation, a mountain-crumbling explosion shook the entire planet and forced hot chemicals to burst in boiling showers from the intricate valve system down below. The fiery atmosphere of the battle ignited them at once, creating a cage of flames that surrounded the two tag teams eager to prove themselves against the enemy.
Jeice and Burter both fell down into the raging fires below, utterly lifeless. Tenshinhan tried dashing after them to save at least Burter whose Ki still showed a possibility of recovery as opposed to Jeice who died instantly, but his third eye raced to glance behind him and thusly prompted Tenshinhan to catch Yamcha instead, who appeared to have lost his ability to stand right after the infernal battle had concluded. Pushing adamantly through the raging chemical flames, Tenshinhan charged out and landed nearby Chiaotzu on the faraway luscious jungle.
Soon enough even this green patch of untouched life would burn away as the hellish whirlwind of inferno behind them threw its hot tongues and forced them to latch on to the jungle, swallowing up the traces of almost Jurassic flora and prehistoric fauna in an all-consuming chemical blaze. Tenshinhan winced and stumbled, dropping Yamcha as he fell over on his knees and clutched to his pectorals before reaching up to every other muscle in his body that twitched so hard that they felt like they were trying to rip each other to shreds through the power of intense, involuntary flexing.
"What's the matter, Ten-san?" Chiaotzu extended his hands, catching Yamcha with his telekinesis and manipulating the falling body to touch the cool jungle floor subtly.
"I hadn't used King Kai's Fist X 10 before. I didn't think I'd need to crank it up higher than X5…" Tenshinhan chuckled through the pain, laughing at his own recklessness. "Something in this blunt buffoon brings out the worst in me."
"If you couldn't handle it, then why do it at all?" Yamcha wheezed out through paralyzing pain spreading all over his body.
"You were doing it so haphazardly that I wouldn't have forgiven myself to do anything less than that. Plus, if you're too dense to realize it yet, our combination attack would not have worked without evening up our effort," Tenshinhan shook his head with a softened expression.
"What will we do, Ten-san? Yamcha needs help, and it's not like we're in prime fighting shape either…" Chiaotzu expressed his worries.
Tenshinhan looked up and behind him at a towering point far away beyond the horizon where he felt Goku's Ki, but also that of Vegeta's as well. Krillin's Ki was also in the vicinity, and there was no sign that those three were involved in a conflict. Quite the opposite, Goku's Ki and that of Vegeta's were slowly growing, whereas Krillin's stayed the same. There could have only been one explanation for all of this.
"Let's head toward Goku's Ki signature. It appears that Krillin joined up with him and found a way to rejuvenate from our wounds somehow. We can use that method to help Yamcha too. I'm curious what that method is, though I'd reckon that Vegeta has something to do with that," Tenshinhan said.
"Vegeta?" Chiaotzu stumbled back. "I do sense his Ki there…"
"It's odd, but it doesn't seem like he's opposing us at the moment. It must be because of what Frieza's forces are doing to his people and his planet. Vegeta must have rebelled against his master. As much as I don't like it, we might find his cooperation useful in the upcoming battle," Tenshinhan wasted a precious moment turning to his right where a booming tower of overwhelming Ki appeared to bash against the very upper layer of Planet Vegeta's atmosphere as if attempting to break free. Nightmarish might like that could have only belonged to Frieza himself.
"Krillin might be in trouble," Chiaotzu pointed out with a blank facial expression that he returned to once the novelty of Vegeta's involvement faded away. "There's another large Ki headed that way, and it's not friendly."
"Yeah, based on the surrounding smokescreen of weaklings, it's another Ginyu Special Squadron commander and a bunch of goons. That commander is every bit as tough as the two we faced here, meaning Krillin will have his hands full, let's hurry!" Tenshinhan clenched his fists and stretched his stiff neck out to ease some inherent tension.
He would have to deal with not fighting at full power until he has time to rest up after using King Kai's Fist. The technique was just that wearying and perilous, though not necessarily leagues and bounds more than the Hot-Red mode. Quite the opposite, familiarity with one might have helped the martial artists better adapt to and master the step-up technique.
The oncoming Ginyu Special Squadron member and a Frieza Army platoon weren't all that was hovering in a scoop over Krillin's plate. There was another large cluster of notable Ki nearby, in between the Ginyu Special Squadron and Krillin's location. While they moved much slower than the Frieza Army party, the mysterious cluster would still reach Krillin sooner. Even if carrying Yamcha around slowed them down, Tenshinhan counted on reaching the site before Krillin gets more than a few licks of the battle ahead.
Krillin sighed, sitting on top of a staircase of a rundown building with shattered windows and power sources that only worked in a few select wings of the facility. It was an old, rundown medical site, according to Vegeta, one that had become obsolete and was long set for demolition, though his father hadn't authorized it for years, as if he was never aware that such a site even existed somehow. Goku and Vegeta have been inside those healing pods for a while now.
With the crazy sparks of conflict lighting up and dying out all over the planet, the bald martial artist couldn't help but wonder just what sort of hectic mess they've gotten themselves into. The original plan was to swoop in, scoop up Gine, and bolt. He was perfectly fine with that plan, but somewhere down the line, it all went downhill. Yamcha, Chiaotzu, Tenshinhan, and Piccolo all have shown off their Ki and undone their suppression at various periods, though none did it sooner than he did. What if it was all because of Krillin that this all went to hell like that?
The Earthling jumped on his feet, sensing a group that was about as large as a platoon closing in on the building. There weren't any outright dangerous Ki amongst them, and even those that exhibited fighting potential weren't at their full power. Perhaps someone had fled here looking for sanctuary just like Vegeta chose this rundown facility? More Saiyans? Krillin's initial suspicions proved correct when he peeked out from a corner to see the entryway flooding with injured and growling Saiyans.
"You can show yourself, there's no use in hiding!" a crude, feminine voice yelled out, forcing Krillin's blood to exhibit a critical error in the circulation process and stay down at his feet. With a skin turning progressively paler and paler, the martial artist stepped out of the cover and stood in front of the tomboyish, wounded Saiyan.
"What are you guys doing here?" Krillin figured that if he thrust his accusations first, he wouldn't have to answer those same questions himself.
"Huh? You've got some nerve to ask us that, baldy, how do you even know about this facility? Frieza Army hadn't ever used it, and I don't see a tail around you! Plus, that suspicious attitude, trying to hide and sneak around us!" the female shook her fist over her head. This caused the semi-conscious Saiyan hanging on her shoulder to bellow as his life slowly began fleeting away.
"You're just another one of Frieza's lackeys out to kill us, aren't you?" a Saiyan with a mohawk yelled out, pumping up the angry yet battered mob to grow unruly.
"That's right, Frieza must have left this baldy behind to watch this facility and snuff any wounded soldiers stumbling in its direction!" a bald-headed but large and muscular Saiyan with busted armor proclaimed.
"N-No way, his power level's over 23 000!" an elderly female Saiyan exclaimed as she slipped out from the hold of another Saiyan and fell flat on her bottom in terror. "It's the end, the end of the entire surviving Saiyan race!" she began muttering in delirium.
"23 000!? We're doomed! Our odds were better trying to fend off the regular soldiers!" rebellious outcries began spreading from the mob of wounded Saiyans, fleeing for their safety in an unmarked and abandoned, half-functioning medical facility.
"Shut up!" Krillin rose over the glass railings so that his yelling reached and overpowered the frightened crowd. "I don't care about killing you guys. We're not working with Frieza, in fact, I'm pretty sure we're going to take a swing at that guy once Vegeta and Goku recover."
"Vegeta? You mean Prince Vegeta?" the tomboyish female Saiyan exclaimed, her eyebrows switching from a desperate downward slope to a round tilt.
"Sure, somehow we ended up working together, so I guess we'll end up helping him take this Frieza guy down too," Krillin shrugged. "Point is, I don't care about you guys, as long as you don't disturb Goku and Vegeta's recovery."
"Damn it, there aren't enough pods for us all to share them," the tomboyish Saiyan female showed her teeth. "Prince Vegeta's been a cocky prick but with how things turned out, I guess he was right all along–we have forgotten our ways and that's why we've grown soft and complacent. The fighters are all dead, only the humble earthworms survived and fled. In this state, can we really call the Saiyan race as still surviving?"
"Huh? You mean Frieza's decided to kill off all Saiyans?" Krillin scratched his chin, wondering.
"That's right, bald Earthling, that's why if you know what's good for you, you'll stay out of our way, or, if you truly want to join the Frieza Army–help us out!" a tall and muscular humanoid with human-like skin and appearance and spiky, orange hair stretched his back out and put his arms over his head together while bending his left knee in front of himself.
"The Ginyu Force!" someone of the surviving Saiyans gasped, pointing at Recoome posing atop of a busted medical facility window. As the posing powerhouse switched positions and turned to his right, staying on his right foot as he bent himself in a horizontal stretch and pressed his hands beside his waist like a tutu, the cracked but present windows of the facility burst in shatters as well, letting in a horde of bloodthirsty Frieza Army soldiers.
"Go! Find yourselves pods to recover the gravely wounded in!" Krillin waved at the terrified Saiyan survivors as he landed in between the rushing Frieza Army and the Saiyans seeking sanctuary for their lives. The bald martial artist raised his hands up, firing off a pair of weak Ki waves that enveloped the rushing Frieza Army soldiers and sent them falling unconscious as he prepared to take on the murderous extermination squad all alone.
It was time for Krillin to be the hero who watches Goku's back this time, to protect Goku's people and his planet, just like Goku has always watched out for the humans and the entire Earth.