"Incredible, and to think that such a place existed so close to Kame Island…" Muten Roshi stroked his beard while observing a faraway assemblage of mushroom-shaped steampunk-style towers surrounded by mustard clouds from all directions. "It's got a powerful field of corruption around it, mirroring the field on the God's Temple that prevents from sensing Ki. Once something or someone enters these tainted clouds, they must be completely untraceable in terms of their Ki, just like if they would ascend to the God's Temple."
"It is difficult to imagine that demons would possess the same power as Kami himself," Nam observed.
"That nasty little dwarf Garlick Jr. always wanted to be a Kami, his father may have been a potential Kami candidate, it's no surprise that he has a few similar tricks," Chi-Chi looked the calmest out of everyone aboard on the inside though she still felt anxious about what they would crash into once they reach the Garlick Castle.
"Alright, I'm going to see where I can put it down…" Artificial Human No. 8 said as he had the jet do a sharp swerve before noticing a patch of luscious gardens that seemed prime for a landing as most of the castle was filled with scrap towers and rocky, high-rise pathways that were far too narrow to land on. The android had to navigate through a few of these naturally formed bridges to get into a splendid position for landing already.
The moment that the feet of the arrived warriors touched the ground, murky blurs began flashing around them, telegraphed signs of rapid movement that were impossible to ignore. From the looks of it, only Chi-Chi's eyes could keep up with the shuffling demons that toyed with the lagging perception of their prey before lining up in front of them.
"Couldn't wait until your lord and master Garlick Jr. takes over so you've come here looking for your deaths?" Spice, the commander of Spice Boys, beamed a mocking glare at the arrived humans. "That's too bad, someone like you would have made fine servants to Garlick Jr."
"Maybe if we bully them around a bit, they'll tell us where they're holding Salt?" Mustard turned to his commander.
"Humph… It was Salt's own damn fault for getting caught. Why should we pull his sorry ass out of that fuel container now?" Vinegar crossed his massive arms, looking away in discontent.
"Now, now, Vinegar. Our rankings have felt unnaturally short since we've lost Salt. The Spice Boys feels like the name of a four-member group. It's the name of the whole bunch, three members just don't do the name justice. I agree that we should make these humans hurt until they tell us where they are keeping Salt's container." Spice nodded his chin to Mustard, breaking into a chuckle after Vinegar's remark, suggesting that he might have agreed with the powerhouse member of his group to an extent and that the visual integrity and presentation of his group mattered more to Spice than the well-being and freedom of his ally.
"Nam, let's stick to the plan," Muten Roshi mumbled in a dire tone to his voice. "Our odds at victory are too slim to rely merely on beating the enemy. We may need to lose a battle to win the war here."
"Understood. It hurts to admit it, but I wouldn't be of too much help in this fight and would just hold you back." Nam nodded. "My skill in martial arts could win us some time at best. I don't think the enemy would even register my blows."
Nam might have been selling himself short a bit, but the Dragon Team had discussed their plan thoroughly on their way here. It made the most sense that Nam would be their hidden ace. He was a warrior who relied on striking sensitive weak points of the human body, chops to the throat and the nape of the neck, pinches, and cross-arm dives that put people to sleep and crumbled their bodies, their consciousness, and their will to fight. With these demons, Nam's style was the least efficient. Not only did these enemies possess an alien anatomy with a unique set of pressure points, but also, they had the unnatural resiliency of a demon that made their own pressure points more hardy to target.
The madness broke out all at once as all three Spice Boys snap-vanished up into the air and extended their hands down. Red dots lit up at the tip of their fingers before they fired ethereal strands of energy strings that unraveled like an unbreakable web. With multiple Spice Boys performing the same technique, its complicated network of webs seemed near-impossible to evade and overcome.
Chi-Chi crossed her arms together, drawing them to her sides and unleashing a powerful resonance from her entire body with a Kiai bubble that rattled the web and made it dangle in the air for a few more seconds than it would have normally, giving some time for those closer to its edges to flee. Chi-Chi lit up with a red aura and dashed outside of the web's range while Nam vanished alongside her.
Diving with a low, aerial slide kick, Chi-Chi lunged right at Spice who vaulted over her, canceling out his part of the energy webs that entangled and restrained Muten Roshi and Artificial Human No. 8. As she returned to an upright position, she threw a quick back elbow to Spice's mid-section which Spice absorbed with his crossed hands. The fierce martial artist unleashed a flurry of whipping kicks all over, yet Spice seemed to be amused by the relentless barrage attack as he swatted the kicks aside with a content expression.
A strong left jab threw Chi-Chi for a loop, sending her dashing back with a dazed expression while Spice rushed in with another handful of light strikes, attacking her head. The demon's offensive wasn't anything too much, just rushing punches to the head, yet his speed and power made even blocking these strikes profoundly painful. After more than a handful of these tolling shots, Spice whipped his own leg for a kick that sent Chi-Chi rolling back in mid-air.
Spice split the distance between them like a speeding arrow, rather graceful in his charge, crashing into Chi-Chi with a flying cross to her face that rendered Chi-Chi's eyes dull and sent blood pouring down her nose and cracked lip before Spice kicked her away into one of the Garlic Castle towers, smashing into it with sufficient force for the entire structure to explode with the pent up force of the shock wave and peel its walls apart with ravaging fissures from its foundation to the roof as the tower began crumbling down.
"Chi-Chi!" Muten Roshi grumbled. "We must break out of this technique, Artificial Human No. 8! Chi-Chi has a chance to defeat one of them if she fights at full power but not all of them at once!"
"It's useless, old-timer!" Mustard mocked Muten Roshi as the two entangled combatants struggled against the weaving webs. "This technique absorbs the energy you spend resisting it, which only adds to its power. By resisting it, you are only making it harder on yourselves!"
"King Kai's Fist X10!" Chi-Chi's shout resonated through the garden as the woman burst out from the tower that Spice sent her crashing into, sending the piles upon piles of rubble restraining her flying like weightless feathers as she burst out and snapped away from vision. Spice hissed as Chi-Chi appeared right before him and drove an elbow into his jaw before vanishing again, appearing behind Mustard and driving a knee into his back, forcing him to cancel the energy web technique. The rampaging martial artist then vanished again, appearing before Vinegar and hooking his head with her thigh before she bent her free leg and drove her knee into Vinegar's restrained head, opening it up with pouring Prussian-blue shade blood.
"That's it! You've earned yourself a pounding!" Vinegar grumbled, dragging the back of his knuckle across his jaw to wipe the traces of blood off of it before wiping his forehead too. Just as Vinegar took off rushing head-straight toward Chi-Chi who still kept up her raging crimson aura that was so intense it seemed to swell up her own skin inside it, Artificial Human No. 8 appeared in between the two with his arms spread open.
"I will not allow you to hurt Chi-Chi!" Artificial Human No. 8 bellowed. "I'll… I'll fight you if I have to!"
"Get out of my way, you patched-up lump of meat!" Vinegar roared as he charged right at his newly introduced opponent, who matched the powerhouse of the Spice Boys in size and bulk. The brawny demon cut down at Artificial Human No. 8's gut, stunning the large android with a devastating body shot that nearly put Vinegar's entire arm through his enemy.
The hooked right of Vinegar soared free, smashing into Eighter's face with brutal precision and forcing the mighty android to stumble back before another uppercut left Artificial Human No. 8 rolling diagonally upward with his savage opponent not too far behind him. Vinegar halted Artificial Human No. 8's rotation with a kick to the side of the bulky android before softening him up with another kick from the side, but Eighter lashed right back with a vicious headbutt. Vinegar stumbled back, noticing, to his surprise, that his opponent's eyes had been whited out and his face twisted in a wrathful expression.
Artificial Human No. 8 became engulfed in a vibrant, azure aura that formed an ethereal outline around his silhouette. The android shook his fist out in front of him before charging straight for his opponent. Eighter's fist crashed into Vinegar's gut, bending the ruthless giant over only for the Artificial Human to grab Vinegar by the neck and lift him up above him. Eighter's fist seemed to tremble as he prepared to send his opponent flying, but this only added power and focus into it as the aura that surrounded Eighter's body became focused at his fist, crackling, sharp, and vibrant.
The sound at which Artificial Human No. 8 pounded Vinegar's face and sent him flying off and the resulting shock wave from the impact caused all the surrounding windows, glass and ice statues, and other fragile objects around the vast fortress isle to break at once. Furious jets of energy burst forth from the android's boots as he rushed right after his opponent, ready to resume his relentless offensive. As Artificial Human No. 8 surrounded himself with his furious, blue aura again, it expanded drastically, becoming a bubble instead. With this powerful coating of energy around him, Eighter slammed into Vinegar, causing a violent explosion to resonate throughout the area.
A lavender-colored grazed and dirty hand emerged from the smoke and grabbed hold of Eighter's head, securing it in place as not even the greatest attempts of the android let him outmaneuver or escape this most elementary of holds. Vinegar's brute strength was simply on a whole another level. Like the thuds of a jackhammer, rapid and resonant fists began turning Artificial Human No. 8's face into mulch, testing the integrity of Eighter's engineering. The android still tried resisting the beat down at first, but then his arms weighed down, twitching and looking too heavy for the lug to move.
Lavender wrapped his massive arm around the armpit of his opponent and flung him over his own shoulder, sending Artificial Human No. 8 crashing down while the savage alien demon aimed his open palms down and formed two spheres of shroud-colored Ki that had reddish jets surrounding them. The spheres went straight for his fallen opponent and sunk the battlefield in flashing red light before reducing the majestic garden to smoke.
A low-kick robbed Muten Roshi off all his sense of balance as the veteran martial artist began rolling in mid-air uncontrollably only for Mustard to drive a resonant right cross and knock Muten Roshi flying away before vanishing and pursuing his fleeing opponent with a stiff soccer kick that sent Muten Roshi soaring upward before Mustard vanished again and drove his elbow from the top down, knocking Muten Roshi into the ravaged garden below as he lowered himself back down to prevent his enemy from having time to recover. The bull-horned, sideburn-donning alien demon looked rather cocky, and all but assured of his success in breaking this feeble human he ended up facing.
"What incredible power. If you took part in the Tournament of Doom, the Earth would have had no chance at all…" Muten Roshi wiped the blood off his face as he slipped out of his robe and prepared to engage his opponent with his full power from the get-go, even if this would all but ruin his body in a prolonged fight and it was unlikely that Roshi stood a chance at beating Mustard even with his full-power.
"Heh, you loathsome humans lucked out that Planet Makyo was too far away back then for us to cross over and arrive on Earth. Then again, I wonder if Garlick Jr. would have even asked us to fight alongside him…" Mustard chuckled to himself, closing his eyes as he seemed to relish the idea that he knew something that Muten Roshi and the rest of these puny humans didn't.
"What do you mean?" Muten Roshi asked. His tone demanded a straight answer. What he received instead was a vanishing stomp kick in the face that forced Muten Roshi to roll backward in the dirt before Mustard vanished and appeared right in front of him and drove a knee to Muten Roshi's face. The horned demon grabbed hold of Muten Roshi's bald head and delivered a strong, right uppercut from a grappling position and then, when Roshi shook all dazed and wobbly, knocked his senior opponent down with a left cross.
"It wasn't Garlick Jr. who instigated the Tournament of Doom, right? Garlick Jr. only joined, siding with the demons. I wonder if Garlick Jr. was ever truly okay with sharing rule with some self-righteous fop like Demon King Shura. I'm more than certain that Garlick Jr. only pretended to care about his team's victory, while he played the long game. Testing the might of Earth's resistance, breaking its most powerful warriors and sending them into the Dead Zone, finally getting his long-coveted immortality. Even if being sealed away inside the Dead Zone himself was nothing resembling Garlick Jr.'s original plan, there's no way in hell he'd have been okay being just a figurehead Kami while someone else reigned supreme over him. Garlick Jr. is the one, strongest being above all!" Mustard answered with a shrill tone, stomping over Muten Roshi's head.
A resonance of violent, electric shock waves resonated through the field as Chi-Chi parted with Spice. The commander of the Spice Boys was struggling to keep up with Chi-Chi's drastic power-up and his pristine battle armor had been ruined, with the elegant commander remaining only in a torn, black bodysuit as his entire body had been riddled with bruises. Chi-Chi's King Kai's Fist aura had been blinking in and out. She had been burning through her stamina resources, and her body had begun breaking down. While she was wailing on her opponent and crumbling his body just as well, there was no way that she'd be able to keep up with the other demons, even if she beats Spice.
"Humph… Not bad… I didn't expect there to be someone this strong amongst humans. You're really putting us at a rough spot here with this insane strength for yours. Planet Makyo is now moving farther away from Earth, meaning that we'll only grow weaker. How you are, only Garlick Jr. himself could handle you, woman, and that is unacceptable. It's too bad for you, but your fate is death rather than servitude." Spice pointed at Chi-Chi.
"Garlick? He's a measly weakling little shrimp. We've bullied him around over a decade ago when he first showed up, we've grown much stronger since then. Even the others would have no problem handling someone like him." Chi-Chi observed.
"That might be true if you were to fight him how he was back then. However, back then Planet Makyo was much further from Earth than it is now. Garlick Jr. will be exponentially more powerful and fearsome once we free him from the Dead Zone!" Spice laughed out before something snapped in his head and he began frantically looking around. "Wait a second… Where is the other human?"
Holding the battered body of Eighter in hand, Vinegar looked around. Mustard did the same while keeping a firm foothold over Muten Roshi's face that he stomped into the dirt. Neither one of the Spice Boys could find Nam, which made them realize what had happened all at the same time. Spice clenched his fists, seething in wrath.
"You slimy snakes! You had one puny insect slip away and try to steal our Dragon Balls, didn't you?" Spice showed his fangs.
"We figured you wouldn't notice it so soon…" Chi-Chi smirked, forming a contrasting expression, mixing pain from her fractures and scrapes and the glee of having tricked her opponents. "Nam seems to be taking some time with the Dragon Balls. You must have hidden them well. We didn't expect your power to be this overwhelming either…"
"Change of plans, boys." Spice turned to his Spice Boys. "Use all your power and eliminate these insects as quickly as you can. Then, we'll snuff out the pathetic rat snooping around our castle too."
"Sure thing," Vinegar chuckled with glee, raising Artificial Human No. 8 over his head and choke-slamming him down on the ground. The demon powerhouse grabbed a firm hold of the Eighter's head, pulling on it in a valiant attempt to rip the android's head off with a crude yank. While initially it made Artificial Human No. 8 bellow and writhe in pain, yelling unintelligible whines. After just a few more pulls, a deafening thud telegraphed that Artificial Human No. 8 punched Vinegar square in the face and knocked his opponent down clean.
"Wh-What's the matter, Vinegar? Can't you handle some small fry by yourself?" Mustard hissed as he began driving his foot down with more and more power, looking to crush the old martial artist's head like a watermelon. But it didn't seem to budge either. Muten Roshi's hand stiffened, grabbing hold of his stick that he tripped Mustard up with while the martial arts master returned to his feet.
Chi-Chi and Spice vanished together, in an extravagant, crane-like position, Chi-Chi kicked in Spice's shin making the commander of Garlick Jr.'s demonic forces howl in agony while Chi-Chi transitioned her crane stance into a straight into Spice's gut that drove all oxygen out of his lungs. Chi-Chi rotated around, switching her kicking leg as she spun around and delivered kicks with the other leg, creating a mad combination of high and low kicks as she switched the dominant and kicking leg non-stop. This relentless attack sent Spice crashing down and dragging across the ruined garden in a large ridge of dirt while Chi-Chi clenched her upper body in pain and panted.
"This is strange… I've run out of King Kai's Fist just now, but my kicks seemed to register just fine. If anything, they had more oomph to them than usual. I didn't notice I've dealt this much damage to him…" Chi-Chi wondered to herself.
"Wh-What's going on?" Spice barely returned to his feet, his bodysuit tattered and ripped, his muscles tensed up to their limits. The commander had been trickles of blood running down the many cracks that decorated his body. His spiky hair had been a hectic mess, and his bones felt like Chi-Chi had dusted them inside his body. "How did… How did these humans become so strong suddenly…?" Spice wheezed out a complaint.
"You've said that you that the Planet Makyo and its distance from Earth gives you strength, is that correct?" pupils returned to the eyes of Artificial Human No. 8 for a few seconds of intelligent speech before they disappeared again as the android's eyes lit up bright blue as he gazed into the sky. "The closer the planet is to Earth, the more powerful you become, correct? The Earth's astronomers do know of your planet, apparently, it closes up to Earth and then goes right back to its farthest point every 5000 years. However… Right now, there is no trace of Planet Makyo in the universe."
"Wh… What are you saying!?" Mustard cried out in terror. "You mean… You mean that our planet… Planet Makyo… Is… Destroyed!?"
"This is impossible!" Spice hissed. "We've been overpowering you just moments ago. That would mean that Planet Makyo has only been destroyed in the last few moments. Who could have done that?"
"I do not know, however, such are the facts. The planet that provides you with this strength is gone. You can never threaten or hurt anyone ever again." Artificial Human No. 8 raised his fist up as if informing the Spice Boys that if they do not accept defeat now, they'll have to taste it once more.
"This is ridiculous!" Vinegar growled, taking a fighting stance and lashing out at Eighter. With little effort, the android locked his grip around Lavender's neck and lifted off to leave the powerless and asphyxiating demon dangling in the air. Artificial Human No. 8 smacking him repeatedly with a front-hand and back-hand fist, leaving the shrunk down and de-powered Vinegar limp and lifeless as he crumbled down on the ground.
"I'm afraid that leaving you Makyans alive is not an option right now…" Muten Roshi stretched out, picking up his staff and spinning it around from each side before flinging it up in the air and catching it behind him as a demonstration of his regained senses. "Garlick Jr.'s lackeys have already collected the Dragon Balls and provided him with immortality. You have nearly collected the Dragon Balls once more and freed your master as well."
"You wretched roach, just try to destroy us if you can!" Spice growled, charging at Muten Roshi but the old martial arts master answered the demon's charge with a sliding kick and a soccer kick up before taking it to the air and beating the commander of the Spice Boys to the point of a complete collapse of his body. Once Spice looked absolutely battered and lifeless, Muten Roshi kicked him away and cupped his hands together, expelling a Kamehameha wave that threw him soaring backward and smashing head-to-head into Mustard, which turned off the bull-horned alien demon as well.
With his ancient body bulking up, Muten Roshi whirled his open palms out in front of him. "Ka… Me!" he chanted as he put his extended palms together. "Ha… Me!" he continued as he drew his hands back and created a glowing mass of azure energy within his cupped hands that overwhelmed the surrounding and sunk it into the bright light of white and cerulean reflections. "Ha!" Muten Roshi yelled out, unleashing the original version of the Kamehameha that took him over fifty years to polish and bring up to this point. The immense energy wave consumed the lifeless bodies of the Spice Boys and disintegrated them into nothingness as it began crumbling and tearing away at the Garlic Castle itself, dispelling the mustard clouds surrounding it from each side.
Nam flew in from a faraway crumbling tower, cradling a handful of Dragon Balls inside the pocket of his robe. Without waiting for Nam to join them officially, the Dragon Team hurried to the jet and took off, elevating off the collapsing Garlic Castle at the last point before the foundations of the island collapsed into the Red Sea and the bottom of its abyssal depths.
"What an unexpected turnout…" Muten Roshi blew a chill stream of air out from his lungs. "I don't think anyone expected Planet Makyo to meet its end like that."
"I wonder what might have happened to it?" Chi-Chi wondered, looking through the jet window longingly into the horizon. Her son and husband had been out there somewhere. Could it have been them to have sensed her despair and helped her out? No, it felt like dreaming.
"Dat was some mighty powerful beam dat cannon shot out…" Yajirobe mumbled as he continued to feast on the cooked remains of Lucifer's wives. "Dat dandy hit it pretty hard. I wonder where it shot off to… Oh well, space is enormous an' all… I bet no one's gonna miss whatever it blasted a hole through…"
The vagabond choked up on a rougher muscle tendon of his devilish poultry, forcing him to cough up and hammer at his own chest until he could slip it back into his mouth and chew it properly this time. Yajirobe flipped up a barrel of wine that he found in the castle basement before spraying it all out and sticking out his tongue.
"What's wrong with dat Lucifer guy? His wine tastes lousy! Oh, good… Now I've got nothing to drink… Like hell, I'm drinkin' dis 'ere trash!" Yajirobe sighed and wiped his sweaty forehead. All that physical exercise against all those monsters and demons made him work up quite a sweat. He'll just have to join the others the next morning and hand the remaining Dragon Balls to them then.