Sweat breaks out on Goku's face as the once green creature, now a blinding white, is about to explode from the unstable energy building within its core. Fleshy fissures start to tear the Saibaman apart from the inside so the ki can escape as rays of light stream in every direction. The heat radiating from the little monster's body feels like it will burn a hole through his chest cavity. Goku shuts his eyes as a futile last act of defense when the brightness is finally too much to look at any longer.
The expected end does not come. Instead, the piercing white light penetrating through his eyelids subsides along with the heat as the death grip on his body loosens. Goku slowly opens his eyes, still seeing spots as his vision adjusts to normal sunlight. Before him lies the headless body of the fiendish goblin with a dark green liquid pooling beneath it from the stump.
"Honestly Goku, you're pathetic," sounds the familiar yet hideous voice of Piccolo. "Risking your life for these weaklings is a waste when you should be focusing your efforts on the real issue. I was planning on ambushing him if you guys had actually managed to distract him for a minute instead of struggling with this trash."
He drops the head of the minion he clinically severed with his scalpel-like fingernails.
"Piccolo?" says Goku turning his head and shoulders back to look at his rival. The tall green skinned man shakes gooey blood from his hand. "You saved me?"
"Don't get the wrong idea Goku," he says in a raspy voice. "I only did it because, and it pains me to say this, I need your help taking out our purple friend over there. In fact I just recently recovered from an encounter with him and was on my way to enlist your assistance. Imagine my surprise when I came across this little party of yours."
"Gee, it's nice to see you too," Goku says. "Sure, yeah, shoot, why not. Let's team up and rescue my son. But don't think this means I'll forgive you for endangering my friends during our last battle."
Heh," scoffs Piccolo. "Like I care about getting in your good graces or about your son. And when we're done, I'll resume my plans to conquer this world because you don't have the stomach to do what it takes to stop me. Without me, you don't have any Dragon Balls, and you wouldn't want that now would you?"
As he says this, Piccolo removes his turban and casually drops it to his side. It hits the ground almost immediately after leaving his hand because of the massive weight it conceals. Then he pushes the cape draped shoulder pads up over his head and lets them go on the opposite side. It thuds to the ground even faster with its much greater mass. Goku watches as his nemesis massages his neck and shoulders now free of the burden. Cui's scouter bleeps out a reading of 408.
Goku smirks thinking, I wonder if he started wearing weighted clothing because of me or if he'd been doing it in preparation for our match in the last World Martial Arts Tournament?
Interesting, thinks Cui after overhearing the conversation. I'm honestly surprised the green man's still alive but he seems to have some connection to these Dragon Balls. Lucky me. Maybe there's something to this legend after all.
Then he addresses the squabbling duo directly. "Alright you two. I don't exactly have a lot of time here to listen to the two of you bicker. Whether or not you work together is of no concern to me. Personally I'd prefer if you did as that will make things go quicker. So what's it going to be?"
"You ready Piccolo?" asks Goku.
The reincarnation of the Demon King roars and charges toward the foe. Goku storms off right behind him. Together, they let loose a barrage of punches and kicks to put Cui on the defensive. Their attacks are swift and precise making their opponent look clumsy by comparison. But the alien blocks and dodges their blows by compensating with sheer power and greater speed.
With the final battle beginning, Master Roshi slings Yamcha over the back of his shoulders as carefully as he can while still using haste. He knows they have no place in this fight and gets his student and himself away from the action. He heads towards Krillin to check on his condition.
Cui catches Goku in the face with a right hook and then unwinds to roundhouse kick Piccolo in the side with his left leg. The two combatants fall away before swiftly regaining their balance with a couple yards distance to regroup. The whole time, Cui's scouter is measuring their battle prowess.
What's going on here? he thinks. A frown creases his face in frustration. Their power levels have barely dipped at all after exerting such effort in their attack. They should have at least dropped considerably from the hits I landed on them. And what little power they did lose is already recovering back to its maximum. How can this be? They seem to have more battle experience than their power levels let on. I should be more cautious.
Cui whips his hand up towards Piccolo and fires an energy blast. The acceleration of the violet sphere warps it into an oblong bullet gunning for its target. Piccolo twists away from the attack, recoiling just enough to tilt his body out of the way. Goku's eyes instinctively follow the movement of the ki bolt giving Cui the half second he needs to slip in beside him.
The purple humanoid unleashes a flurry of knuckles and shins Goku cannot keep up with on his own. Cui breaks through his defenses, knocks his stance off balance with a heavy palm to the chest, and then raises his right arm over his opposite shoulder to deliver a devastating elbow to an exposed vital area.
Piccolo charges in hoping to catch the foe off guard with an outstretched arm to punch with. Cui smirks as his feint lures in his second adversary. A reddish purple aura forms around his raised hand and forearm. It hums with a sharpness as it cuts downward through the air in a karate chop. The slicing attack bisects Piccolo's right arm at the bicep, removing it completely with a spurt of purple blood. The detached limb flops about in a useless attempt to carry out its final command.
He retreats screaming in agony gripping the stub of the missing appendage like a vice with his remaining hand to stem the bleeding. Goku uses the opening to disengage from the battle for a moment's reprieve.
"How you doin' there Piccolo?" asks Goku, not taking his eyes off Cui.
"Hurahh!"
Piccolo grunts out the rest of the initial shock of the trauma before steady breathing takes over. "I can still fight. I'll just be a little less effective."
Cui glares through the lens of his scouter as it continues to monitor the battle status of his opponents.
"This is absurd!" he fumes to himself. "Kakarot barely lost any power from my attack again and it's steadily rising back to its max, albeit slower. And the green guy only lost ninety points from having his entire arm chopped off and even his power is slowly returning!
"I've never heard of anything like this before. My power also starts to return when I get a breather during battle but nowhere near as fast as these two. Just how much do they have in reserve? I'd estimate I've almost dipped into the triple digits. If they are somehow able to keep this up, they could actually outlast me! I need to end this now."
###
On the sidelines, Master Roshi, Yamcha, and Krillin watch anxiously. Yamcha and Krillin lie on their back and stomach respectively, both propped up on their elbows to see the fight. Their teacher sits cross legged between them.
"Do you think they can win?" says Yamcha with a grimace.
"It looks pretty bad now that Piccolo took such a serious injury," says Krillin.
"Hm," ponders Master Roshi. "My guess is that the only reason those two are still alive right now is because that warrior doesn't know how to turn all of his active ki into a single attack or defense like they can. If that's the case, and they are very careful and incredibly lucky, they may just be able to win."
"Uh, active ki?" asks Krillin. "Is that different from regular ki?"
"Usually such a distinction doesn't have to be made with regular martial artists," says Master Roshi. "But Goku and Piccolo are far from normal. Ordinarily, martial artists train to raise the amount of ki they have access to. This is known as your active ki. It's a pool of energy readily available to perform superhuman feats. It's the aura that you feel surrounding your body and can sense surrounding the bodies of other martial artists.
"How much of this ki a user puts into an attack or defense determines how strong that technique is. If you're as well disciplined as Goku and Piccolo, you can use the full amount for any action like attacking or defending. Less practiced individuals like that purple dude can only use a certain percentage of their ki per technique instead of all of it."
"So if that alien was twice as strong as Goku and Piccolo," says Yamcha, "and he could only use up to fifty percent of his ki at a time, then they can use their ki control to match his half powered attacks with their full powered defenses and use their full powered attacks against his half powered defenses?"
"In a perfect world, yes," says Master Roshi.
"So if there's an active ki, is there a passive ki?" asks Krillin.
"There is indeed," says Master Roshi with a gleam in his eye at his perceptive pupil. "One's passive ki pool is the total amount of life force one has, and it is drawn from when filling one's active ki pool. It is imperceptible even with the greatest of extra sensory awareness. The better your ki control, the quicker you're able to shift ki between these two reservoirs that can hold it. Theoretically, someone could mask their presence entirely by keeping all of their ki in their passive pool and instantly drawing it out for a single powerful strike and thereby catch their unsuspecting opponent by surprise."
"Wow," says Yamcha in awe. "So those two not only have high active amounts of ki, but can produce even more when that runs out?"
"Precisely," says Master Roshi.
They look on as the battle continues.
###
"So Piccolo, any good ideas?" asks Goku, smiling despite the dire situation.
"Heh, yeah I've got something that might work," says Piccolo. "It's a new technique I've been working on. It'll put your little Kamehameha to shame."
"Oh really. I'd like to see someth'n like that," says Goku.
"Well the problem is I haven't perfected it yet. It'll take me a few minutes to charge. And I can only do it once. Given how fast this guy is, it's likely I won't even hit him with it."
"Hm, that does sound risky, and I don't think I can hold him off for more than thirty seconds by myself. But if you could handle him that long, I should be able to hit him with a Super Kamehameha. You know, like the one I used against you?"
Piccolo ignores the verbal jab. "It might be tough missing an arm, but I think I can manage. Just make sure you give it everything you got. Don't get soft on me and hold back like you've done with past enemies. Remember, he kidnapped your son. He needs to be stopped with any force or means necessary."
"Right. This is for Gohan, not me."
"Good Goku. There's hope for you yet," Piccolo says with a raw smile. "Now get ready, I'm going in!"
Goku prepares his ultimate attack by calming his mind with a tranquil flowing movement of the body as he takes his stance. With his hands cupped at the hips away from the target, he begins channeling all of his ki to the compressed space between his palms.
Piccolo charges ferociously forward on stampeding legs. He raises his remaining arm while pumping it with power. His shoulder bulges followed by his upper arm as the ki works its way down his limb to the palm for an explosive blast.