Goku shoots directly from the plane towards the soon to be battlefield on his Nimbus cloud. Krillin and Yamcha ready themselves to jump next in order to fly in from opposite sides and flank their enemy. Just before doing so, Bulma turns back from the driver's seat with a concerned look on her face.
"Krillin, be careful out there okay. We don't want to lose you again," she says. "Yamcha, I…" she pauses for a moment. "Make sure you come back too." Then she whips around to face front to hide a blush that reddens her cheeks. Yamcha smiles.
"We will," he says. "You guys play it safe too. Don't act until you know we've got him where we want him." Then to Krillin, "let's do this."
Krillin nods and watches Yamcha jump from the back of the plane. His wild hair catches in the wind, and he curves off to the right. Krillin gulps and leaps forth gliding to the left.
He looks back over his shoulder at the plane wondering what he is getting himself into. He sees Bulma adjust the plane's course to move into position for her part of the plan. He turns his head to find Goku who should be engaging the enemy soon.
Goku drives the Nimbus cloud down at a steep angle towards the crater made by the inavder's ship. He can just barely see the alien kidnapper now and wills his transport to fly faster. The golden cloud increases its angle of descent until it is almost perpendicular to the ground. Just when it seems like it will crash into the grassy field, it levels off several feet before impact and heads straight for the target. Goku leaps from the cloud and lands about thirty feet from the deplorable opponent.
"Where's my son? Give Gohan back!" he says.
"I must say Kakarot, your resolve to run directly into battle is impressive," says Cui. "You're more of a Saiyan than I gave you credit for. But I won't let you off easy this time."
"You're the one that won't get off easy," says Goku, flicking off his weighted wristbands. He next grabs at his shirt to remove the weighted vest. Finally he drops to a sitting position to take off his heavy as iron boots.
Cui watches the spectacle with amusement as the scouter on his face ticks up to 416.
"Training with weighted clothing huh," laughs Cui. "Well if you're going to die, you might as well be comfortable when you do!"
"Alright, here I go," Goku says to himself, focusing his ki with a quick martial arts body movement.
He charges forward with great agility to combat his foe. Before he can close the distance, the earth before him explodes open as five new enemies rise from it to stop him. Little green men about Krillin's height leap from their burrows to attack him.
Goku defensively blocks the first blow unsure of what they are capable of. He manages to avoid getting slashed by the razor sharp claws at the end of the leading monster's hand by bumping its forearm aside with his own. The appendage feels like a plant rather than a human arm, like he had been slapped by a thick vine.
The four other green warriors surround him in a bid to overwhelm him as a group. He is more than fast enough to avoid being hit by the following onslaught of scraping punches and kicks but completely unable to retaliate.
He charges a large amount of ki in the center of his body. It is more than he wants to use on minions but knows he will burn through the same amount trying to keep up the current tractionless situation. He finds a small window to retract his arms and legs to his body, focusing the energy just a bit tighter before thrusting his limbs straight out. His ki expands outwards to his hands and feet before escaping the body in a spherical burst of pressure.
The full body Kiai blast pushes the strange plantlike creatures back in a gust of air sending them tumbling. With the minions divided and vulnerable, he leaps toward the closest one with a heave of breathing from the exhaustive technique.
I can take out one, he thinks, but that Kiai took a lot out of me and the others will recover before I can draw out any more ki. Will I have enough energy left to take out the other four?
As he unloads a powerful combination of strikes, he sees Yamcha swoop in to assist.
"Rogafufuken," he howls as his aura begins to give off an animalistic bloodlust. His signature attack tears into one of the goblins like a wolf's teeth into its prey.
Krillin witnesses the display of his friends from his hiding spot behind a tree on the edges of the battlefield. When the green plant men disrupted the plan with their unexpected appearance, he froze up. They reminded him of King Piccolo's henchman Tambourine. Along with the memory came the paralyzing fear of death. But seeing two of them recovering and about to strike his friends who are distracted trying to finish off their current targets rouses him to take action.
Not wanting to get too close, he summons ki to both hands in the form of yellow orbs as he makes three elongated strides towards the fight. He fires them as beams at the two foes about to counterattack. The fifth one notices his attempt and lets out a warning screech. The two in his sights turn to see the beams bearing down on them.
One manages to dodge by jumping over it while the other evades to the side. After regaining their composure from the sneak attack, they turn their attention solely to him. They rush at him with claws at the ready. The warning screech comes again. They both look back to find the beams Krillin fired have looped around straight back at them. There is no time to avoid the attack which connects in an explosion. Their smoking bodies crash to the ground.
Goku and Yamcha finish the beatings on their respective adversaries leaving them in motionless heaps in the dirt. The remaining creature looks to Cui for assistance.
"Well?" Cui says, crossing his arms clearly not intending to offer any help to his underling.
"I'll take care of the last one," says Yamcha, immediately dashing to the remaining enemy.
Hm, thinks Cui. This guy is quite the go-getter. I'm surprised he took out a Saibaman when his power level is a pitiful 177. That technique of his must allow him to channel all of it into a single attack. That's a dangerous tactic though as it leaves nothing left to defend himself with.
A coy smile curls the corners of his lips.
"Rogafufuken!" shouts Yamcha.
Goku senses a shift in the Saibaman as it hunches down in preparation for Yamcha's attack.
"Yamcha! Wait!" says Goku, but his friend has already committed.
The Saibaman's bulbous head splits open vertically down the middle to between its eyes. A bubbling grayish green liquid giving off steam and a strong odor sprays forth from the opening. It sizzles through the air at the charging Yamcha, covering a wide area. His feet trip over themselves as he uncertainly tries to decide if dodging to the side or backwards would be better. He attempts to dive back the way he came as the chemical substance rains down upon him.
Yamcha lies on the ground screaming in pain. The grass around him instantly vaporized into fumes by the acidic liquid. Nearly his entire left leg and his right one from the knee down burn from it. His light orange gi becomes a patchwork of holes as the skin below reddens with second degree burns.
The Saibaman wastes no time pouncing on the wounded man. It gallops on four legs to pick up speed before launching into the air to drop on him with its clawed hands and feet. Before it can reach its target, it hears a voice from overhead.
"Kamehame…" chants Master Roshi as he falls through the sky charging his ki wave. Bulma's plane flies by having made a pass in order to drop off the old man.
"Hah!" shouts the turtle hermit on the last syllable before releasing the destructive ki blast.
A beam of blue light shoots from his cupped together hands directly down into the green underling. The force smashes the foe into the dirt and presses down on it with continuous concussive waves. The power of it actually slows Master Roshi's fall while digging a hole into the soil. When he is a safe distance from the earth, he finishes the beam with a backflip to the ground and lands in a fighter's stance.
Cui glares upward at the plane. He raises a hand and shoots a magenta colored energy ball from it.
"Is Yamcha okay?" asks Bulma from her pilot seat.
"Yes," says Chichi, panning the battlefield from their vantage point. "But I don't see Gohan. Oh no! Brace for impact!"
"What!"
The energy ball hits one of the engines under the wing and explodes. The plane drops at a steep angle.
"Hold on Chichi, we're going to make a crash landing."
Bulma pulls hard on the steering wheel while Chichi buckles herself into a seat. The plane scrapes the ground twice before sticking to it and sliding to a stop near the crater.
Goku watches with terror unable to stop the crash. He rushes towards the wreck but stops when the cargo hatch door falls open. Chichi stands with Bulma at her side. She holds Bulma around the waist while Bulma slings an arm over Chichi's shoulder. They hobble to a safe distance from the plane. They both wave at him to show they are okay.
Goku sighs in relief. He flinches when two ki signatures rise up.
The Saibamen Krillin struck down get back up on their feet after being stunned. They rush down Krillin hoping to take him out in a two on one scuffle before any of the other fighters can interfere.
"Krillin!" says Goku, fleeing to his friend. Realizing he will not make it soon enough, he throws out an instruction. "I'll be right there, hang tough for just a few seconds."
Master Roshi attempts to follow Goku only to drop to one knee on his first step.
"Darn it," he says, breathing heavy. "I must have put more stamina into that blast than I realized. Sorry Goku, Krillin. I can't help this time."
Krillin shuffles a retreating foot behind him, opening his stance to an attack. His skin breaks out in bumps as a cold sweat chills him with fear. Goku senses a significant drop in his friend's ki as the fighting spirit drains away. Krillin is in even more danger than he imagined.
The assault is swift and brutal. The Saibamen batter Krillin back and forth between themselves leaving him bloodied and bruised in an instant. The sight of his friend being beaten forces Goku to ready his signature ranged attack to try and prevent a fatal blow.
"Kah. Meh. Hah. Meh. Hah!" screams Goku hoping the technique will get there in time.
The wave of energy tears over the grassy field creating a furrow of churned dirt along its path. The biggest concern now is not hitting his friend while trying to save him. He manages to curve the beam just enough to accurately make contact with one of the plant men. In a flash of light, the Saibaman deteriorates into a smoldering husk missing various body parts.
The amount of concentration necessary to perform the precise shot leaves him no attention to spare for the other one. It flanks him from the side as his previous attack finishes. With no time to react or recover his stamina from the beam attack, the goblin latches onto his torso by wrapping all four of its vine-like appendages around him, pinning his arms to his sides.
Goku stares with horror as the creature smiles impishly into his face and begins to glow a hot white. In panic, Goku begins struggling with all the ki he has left rather than taking a moment to draw out more for a single bigger burst. The creature responds by clamping its grasping hands and feet together in a double lock as its body gets hotter and brighter with the crescendoing energy in its body.
"Heh heh," laughs Cui. "The kaboom is always my favorite part."
Author's Note 2/19/2022: A quick note for my older readers revisiting this chapter. New readers can ignore this note because their experience will not be affected by this edit. I changed this chapter a bit so that Cui shoots down the plane Bulma and Chichi are in. This was not in the original draft. This changes chapter 7 just a little as well which I will make note of then.