A yellow orb of energy shines through Piccolo's clenched fingers. Cui readies himself knowing he can dodge it easily. He keeps an eye on Goku as well, confident that he can block whatever attack the man is preparing even if it uses the Saiyan's maximum battle power.
And it probably will. Cui knows the obvious strategy when facing a more powerful enemy is to hit him with your strongest attack and see if it can penetrate their defense. None of their tactics will surprise his vast combat experience, though.
Instead of throwing his grenade-like attack, Piccolo's eyes twinkle with ki as a white laser shoots out of each. Not expecting the green skinned combatant to be able to use two separate energy attacks simultaneously, Cui's own eyes widen in shock as he takes both shots to the chest. The sharp thin rays nearly puncture his armor as the impact sends him stumbling backward. Piccolo hurls the explosive ball he holds and follows after it to complete his approach.
The orb erupts in Cui's face, consuming him in light and concussive force. With his opponent's sight and hearing impaired by the blast, Piccolo launches himself into a flying kick with one outstretched leg. The heel of his foot rams into the gut of his foe. Cui buckles forward from the impact.
Observing the diversion Piccolo is enforcing on their enemy, Goku charges his attack as quickly as he can.
"Kah, meh," he recites, stressing each syllable intently. He feels the ki swelling in his body as it flows like an ocean tide to his hands.
Piccolo tries to slash his adversary's exposed neck area with the sharp fingernails of an open palm strike hoping to hit a vital blood vessel. Cui's own hand grips his with a crushing force that bends his wrist harmlessly back, disabling the attempt. The alien's other arm punches him hard in the stomach returning the favor from earlier twofold.
"Hah, meh," continues Goku as he watches the momentum of the fight slip out of his Piccolo's favor.
Cui's scouter goes off alerting him to a dangerous power level.
"What? Where?" asks Cui, bewildered. "850 and still growing!"
His scouter points him to Goku who is now glowing in a bluish white aura that wisps away from his body like ribbons in the wind.
"It's not possible!" Cui says. "His top rating was only 416. He shouldn't be able to generate anything above that! I can't possibly block it if it hits me!"
Cui levitates off the ground in order to gain more dodging options for the threatening attack, ignoring Piccolo entirely.
"Where do you think you're going?" asks Piccolo through gritted teeth from the previous vomit inducing hit.
He attempts to strike his foe. Before he can even initiate it, Cui slams his palm into Piccolo's chest, pushing off of him with a pulse of energy to accelerate his ascent. Piccolo staggers backward as Cui moves quickly into the air ready to dart in any direction.
"HA!" shouts Goku thrusting his palms forward with wrists together. The ki amasses itself there for just a moment before exploding forth in a beam as big as himself.
"Not fast enough," says Cui dashing in an upward angle from the ground. His body jolts to an instant stop as the blast screams towards him. "Huh?"
He looks at his ankle to see Piccolo's somehow elongated arm tethering him to the earth. The arm sways at the strain from the tension of holding him back while nearly five times its usual length. He cannot spare even a second to wonder about this bizarre biological feat as Goku's incoming energy attack demands his full attention. Piccolo remains safely out of the way while Cui puts both arms out in front of him to brace for impact as his scouter reads off 924.
The cylindrical beam of blue and white ki smashes into him. It breaks straight through his attempted defense. The attack carries his body upward and away from the battlefield.
Goku drops to one knee as the ki finishes leaving his body. The beam begins to thin until it disappears entirely. The target of the blast falls from the sky without any attempt to slow his fall. Cui crashes onto the meadow with a dull thud.
###
"Did they do it? Did they win?" says Krillin, almost too afraid to ask.
"It sure looks that way. But how did Goku do that?" says Yamcha. "I thought neither one of them had enough active ki to use an attack strong enough to take that purple guy out."
"That's true," says Master Roshi. "But Goku didn't use any ordinary Kamehameha. He has long since evolved it beyond the original technique I created. Normally a ki ability is designed to use a specific percentage of your power. That way you can use a weaker or stronger skill depending on the situation and avoid wasting ki.
"Well I designed the Kamehameha to have versatility built in. It's unique because you can use anything from zero to one hundred percent of your ki. Once I could do that, I really had no need for any other offensive techniques.
"But Goku has invented a superior version to even mine. Instead of limiting himself to just his active ki, he is now able to draw on his passive ki once he has channeled everything else into the attack first."
"Wow, that's incredible," says Krillin.
"Yeah Goku's the man!" says Yamcha.
Master Roshi discreetly frets to himself, but if you two knew the consequences of such a powerful technique, you wouldn't be celebrating just yet. For everyone's sake, I hope this fight truly is over.
###
"Is he dead?" says Bulma.
"No, I can sense his power rising a little," says Chichi.
She advances her position and stands her ground. A sign of movement from the space warrior gets their attention. They all turn to see the purple man struggle to his feet.
His armor has been almost completely destroyed with his black jumpsuit in tatters. Every instance of exposed skin blisters with burns. The effort necessary to reach a somewhat hunched posture leaves him gasping for air. The rest of his armor crumbles away as rigid pieces after losing any elasticity from taking the attack.
"This can't be happening," Cui says. "How could I have been brought so low by these weaklings? If it wasn't for my armor being designed to handle blasts from power levels up to 500 and absorbing that much of his attack, I wouldn't have survived a hit like that."
He presses the button on his scouter to measure the remaining strength of his adversaries. The lens is cracked and chipped and hums with a low static sound in his ear.
"So the green guy is about 200 and Kakarot is stuck below 50," he says. "Then it's time to end this."
Cui grits his teeth as an expression brimming with anger takes control of his face. His stamina appears to be inexhaustible as he starts making swift strides to reach his depleted opponents who can only watch hopelessly.
Along the way, he raises his hand so his palm aims at Bulma and Chichi. A violet orb appears within his reaching fingers as he wavers his whole arm back and forth between the two possible targets. Upon settling on one of them, the ki bullet shoots off, pushing his wrist back from the recoil.
"Bulma!" says Goku, lurching forward with what little strength he has left.
His wobbly legs hobble him towards his very first friend. He leans his upper body forward so the awkward amount of weight pulls him faster. His arms dangle uselessly at his sides as every spare ounce of stamina drives his straining leg muscles. He tries to draw out more from his reserves, but none comes to his aid.
He crashes his upper arm into the side of Bulma's body causing her to buckle to the ground. A hot searing pain tears through his abdomen.
Goku hits the grass hard as any semblance of balance rips out from under him with the energy shot puncturing his body. Face down in the dirt, he heaves for air but the pain keeps him from inhaling too deeply. His breaths come in coughs and wheezes.
"Goku!" says Chichi and Bulma at the same time.
Bulma crawls over to him to see if she can alleviate any pain or manage the wound. The injury looks to have torn through his right side just below the ribcage and out the back damaging flesh, bone, and organ. Blood pours everywhere.
###
"I don't get it Master Roshi," says Yamcha. "Shouldn't Goku's ki return quick enough to defend against that attack, even if just a little."
"I'm afraid not after a Kamehameha like that," says Master Roshi, hanging his head.
"But why not?" asks Krillin.
"Because pulling directly from your passive ki for a technique instead of your active ki has one major drawback," he says. "Doing so dramatically lowers how quickly he can refill his active pool since it comes from the source he just depleted. He has to build up his passive ki again before he can do anything else."
"Oh man, this is bad," says Krillin, still only able to watch.
###
"Goku, you fool," says Piccolo. "I told you not to waste your efforts on these worthless friends of yours. Now who's going to save your son?"
"You monster!" says Chichi, charging forth.
The anger in her voice silences Piccolo as he worries it is directed at him. The spike in her life force leaves him agape as she dashes past him.
"First you kidnap my son. Then you injure my husband!" Chichi says.
Cui's scouter goes off racing from 130 to 243.
"Not another one with a fluctuating power level," he says, preparing for the unexpected challenger.
Chichi opens her assault with a right cross straight punch brushing his cheek as he barely dodges. She fluidly follows with a left hook he manages to duck. As her left arm comes through, she drops her elbow and shoves Cui with her shoulder, driving from the legs. The alien waves his arms for balance as she twists from the pushing motion into a roundhouse kick pivoting on her left foot. The ball of her right foot catches Cui squarely in the jaw forcing his whole body to move with the inertia of the strike.
Gohan watches his mother through the glass of the space pod he is locked in. He can just barely see them over the crater's edge. He follows along with a few mock punches of his own as he cheers her on.
Chichi throws another punch, but Cui catches her forearm with a tight grip and jabs her in the face with the same hand. He smiles and takes a full swing with his other arm to smack her across the opposite cheek. With his victim stunned, he knees her in the stomach staggering her back a few steps. Cui continues to relish the moment with a few more hits.
Gohan watches helplessly as his mother is beaten. Each hit she takes feels like a punch to the gut for him. Again and again she is struck and again and again his stomach clenches. And then something snaps. Anger surges through him with every hit making his rage grow. A red aura begins to glow around his body as the electrical components of the spacecraft start to spark and short circuit.
Cui stops his attack in a cold sweat as his scouter rockets up to a reading of 1,307. Before he can even follow the arrows indicating its source, metal debris explodes from the crater of his landing site as his vehicle is blown apart. The small boy previously trapped inside leaps from the expansive basin. He lands in the grassy field seething with fury.
"Leave my mommy alone!" Gohan cries out.
The shout alone is laced with ki as a current of it washes over the space warrior, filling him with dread. Cui starts to take a step back, and that is when Gohan launches straight at him enveloped in a rage fueled crimson aura. The child streaks through the air with fully extended arms ending in clenched fists.
There is no time to react. The boy plows directly into Cui's torso. Defenseless to stop it, Cui's body seems to break at the point of impact as it bends unnaturally far at the waist. Gohan is surrounded by the limp arms and legs that buckle together above and below him. As the attack finishes, the two bounce apart and land several yards away from each other. Both are still.
Author's Note 2/19/2022: Follow up to the note in chapter 5 for older readers returning to this chapter. New readers can ignore this note. The original draft of this chapter had Bulma landing the plane on the battlefield after Cui gets blasted. I ended up hating this idea because Bulma is too smart of a character to do something so dumb without being sure everything is safe. So instead, I made it so Cui shot her plane down in chapter 5 to avoid the character assassination I committed when I first wrote these chapters long ago as a new writer. I know it's a minor change, but I think it's important.