AN: Baby monkey is an adorable way to imagine Goku. And yes, Blue is an entertaining villain. It's a shame for him he's not likely to stick around quite as long as he did when he only had Goku to worry about.
Blue is a 'just in case you doubted the army is Dragonball's version of Nazis' character.
Power levels are so unreliable that Silver is 200 and Blue is 180.
So, I just thought of a future possible saga and came to a horrifying conclusion about how it will go down in this current timeline. See if you can figure out which one.
The Next Dimension Over
Chapter Thirty-nine
Dead.
"Now, goodbye!" The man lunged forward, fingers curled slightly on his striking hand.
Maybe she'd been in this world too long, playing in martial arts tournaments and tag-team fights against singular opponents barely worth her notice. Had she really gotten so lax in her training that she allowed a teammate to die right next to her?
Anger flared as blonde filled her vision, and she caught his hand out of the air. The impact of his blow rocked through her arm, fracturing one of the finest bones in her hand. Her teacher would be disappointed in her - his attack would have been easily dodged and her injury would have been avoided entirely. Her captain would be unimpressed as well, the way she allowed her emotions to interfere with her reason and cloud her judgment.
She clasped her fingers tight and sent a surge of chakra through her hand, crushing his into an unusable mess even she might not have been able to heal.
His scream echoed off of the mess of trees surrounding them, almost as if a hundred of him were suffering at once. Honestly, it was enough to quell her moment of rage.
The priority of a medical ninja is the welfare of her team.
He stumbled backward, clasping his ruined hand with the other and she moved toward the crater she'd left her small companion in.
Dealing with an enemy threat is secondary to ensuring the survival of an injured teammate.
The man's expression twisted to one of fury, and he took a step toward her as if to stop her again. She made no attempt to hold back her strength when she backhanded him away. His injured arm lifted to block her. Uselessly.
The trunk of a nearby tree exploded into splinters of wood as his body crashed through it, and she broke into a sprint.
Maybe...if it wasn't so bad, if he were lying, if the injuries weren't quite fatal...
Maybe she could get to him in time.
(*)
'Look out'. Now, that...that is a singularly unhelpful phrase. There were many things a person should have to look out for, and honestly, that warning just didn't prepare someone sufficiently for every possibility it opened up.
Mostly, it just distracted him right before the Colonel shot him.
The good thing about that was...he actually wasn't aware until that moment that he could handle being shot. By a shotgun, in fact. Clearly the man must have opened up a weapon's capsule when he wasn't looking and shot him while he was distracted by his good friend and girlfriend.
The impact wasn't fun: it successfully knocked him off of his feet and onto the ground. That was maybe due to his own level of distraction. At least he could confirm what he'd never really worked up the gumption to test, though: the manipulation of ki that he'd managed to master working on his Wolf Fang Fist kept the bullets from actually penetrating his skin.
They'd probably bruise like hell, though.
He shook his head slightly, trying to knock out the ringing that had started up in them, and stumbled back to his feet. "Okay...now that's just cheating. Bringing a gun to a martial arts fight?"
The man looked...pretty unsurprised that he was unharmed, for being the one that shot him. "There are no rules in a war."
That...sounded a little like a line he might have used before meeting Goku. A lamer version of one, anyway. It felt a little bit weird to be on the receiving end of it, now. That wasn't really something he ever anticipated for himself when he was scraping together a life of violence and theft for himself and Pu'ar. But...actually...he kind of liked it.
It felt kind of good not to be the one resorting to dirty (and unsuccessful) tactics.
For as long as he could keep the Colonel from finding a way to take hostages of his two companions, anyway. Then it would be somewhat less of a good feeling. Considerably less, in fact.
He shook his head slightly, and started toward the man. It was a subtle attempt to maneuver the fight further away from Bulma and Pu'ar to get them out of sight. "Well, if you were gonna cheat, you should have brought something that packed a bigger punch."
The man's lips twitched up into a smirk. "Now that you've made me angry, I wouldn't want the battle to end so easily."
"If that's the case..." He jumped toward the other man and swung out his leg, hoping to kick the heavily muscled soldier away from the others by force. "I'll have to make you regret your decision!"
And, more importantly, keep him from using whatever bigger gun he had still locked up.
Silver caught his leg, but when he dropped back to the ground, he caught a flash of pain in the other man's eyes. Furthermore, the Colonel's arm dropped back to his side like deadweight. So. The blow hadn't been entirely deflected without injury at least. He didn't have to feel completely inadequate in front of his girlfriend.
He ducked as the man's good arm sliced through the air, and delivered a quick uppercut into exposed (and actually pretty well built) abs. Silver choked, and stumbled backward out of his range, gripping at the injured stomach.
"Sorry, did I find a weak spot?" He couldn't help a bit of a smirk. "If it is, I'll make sure to hit harder next time."
The colonel glared up at him, lips curling into a snarl, and lunged forward with both arms outstretched. "Boy!"
Rage clouded the man's judgment, leaving him blatantly open all over the place, and stripping him of whatever strategy he'd had before. Honestly, when the man lumbered at him with all of the skill and tact of an angry bear, it was an easy matter to just step in and strike.
Up until that became a really...bad idea, and the man's bulging arms clamped down around his back. Like a bear. An angry bear.
"Guh-!" He grunted in pain as the man clasped his arms tight...and something creaked rather ominously from inside his body.
Yeah. Okay.
So maybe the colonel was thinking things through a little better than he gave the guy credit for.
Maybe.
"Yamcha!"
Okay, so it was petty, but it felt pretty good to at least hear Bulma show a little bit of concern. Considering the way she kept blaming him over those capsules, and how she just now ogled some other guy in front of him. Not good enough to ignore how much his position currently hurt, but...
He slammed his forehead into the bridge of the other man's nose. Colonel Silver's arms immediately dropped away, and the larger man stumbled backward, hands clasped to his face.
Seriously, what kind of a martial artist did this Colonel think he was? A soldier? Some kind of a wandering hero?
He was a bandit.
If the soldier didn't want to fight like a soldier, then bandits didn't fight fair either.
The air whistled around him, howling through the branches of the trees around him. and from the white (now somewhat filthy) sleeve around his wrist he drew out a capsule from a band on his wrist and released it into his hand.
Metal glinted in the dim light of the forest, and dark red sprayed across silk. He didn't really mind. It was for good reason he didn't ever bother to steal silk when he was a bandit. It never really lasted in such a rough lifestyle.
Colonel Silver stumbled back another step, and hands clasped over his stomach. "Ugh..."
"I guess you're right." He'd grabbed the wrong capsule, ended up with a dagger and not a sword like he'd used to carry, but he had more than enough speed and strength to make the shorter blade work anyway. "Battles for life and death don't have any rules. Thanks for the reminder."
The man collapsed to his knees, pressing his hands against the cut along his abdomen. He wasn't that much of a threat anymore, though, as if he used his hands to do anything else, those precious things inside of himself would immediately fall across the grass. One way or another, the Colonel would probably bleed out on his own.
"Now..." He turned back toward where Bulma and Pu'ar stood, leaning out from behind a tree. "Can the radar tell where he's got the dragonball on him?"
Bulma's eyes widened suddenly and she gave a shout. "Yamcha look-!"
Something heavy crashed into his back, and sent him flying off of his feet. Something crunched as he slammed into one of the thick tree trunks nearby, and a cry of pain ripped from his throat before he crashed to the damp grass below.
The Colonel stumbled toward Bulma and Pu'ar, one hand sloppily holding his gut, trailing blood across grass, and the other fumbled with a capsule. "You have a radar...give it to me."
His girlfriend gave a scream, and bolted toward where he...couldn't quite feel the whole of his body just yet. She only made it a few steps before the man intercepted her, using speed he'd barely seen during their own battle. The hand that had held the capsule instead gripped her throat and lifted her into the air.
"Bulma..." He groaned in desperation, and struggled to summon strength to his stunned limbs. The impact of that blow...had it been to some kind of pressure point, or was the man that strong? He yelped in pain when he managed to shift, and jarred his broken arm.
Damn it...
"Give me...this radar." The man growled. "It's more precise than the Red Ribbon Army's radar, isn't it?"
His fingers clenched around her throat and she made a pained, choking noise, hands coming up to claw uselessly at his wrist.
Pu'ar transformed into a large, muscular man, and charged at the Colonel, hands outstretched. "Get your hands off of her!"
The Colonel batted Pu'ar away with his other hand, sending the small creature back into a tree with a pitiful whimper and a burst of smoke. The man swayed on his feet slightly, as something slipped free from the gash in his stomach and hung down about his thighs, before he pressed his hand against the wound again.
At this rate...
He dragged himself away from the tree with his fingers, crawling across the grass, forcing feeling back into his limbs. He had to get back into the battle. No matter how mortal the wound, the man could kill Bulma and Pu'ar before he dropped dead himself.
The man growled in impatience, shaking Bulma slightly with the arm holding her up. "Speak, or I will kill you and search you myself."
"Y-...you..." She grit her teeth and glared down at him, defiant.
Move...
His entire body burned, felt like he'd been electrocuted by something, and protested every movement he demanded. But he had to. He had to get there in time.
"If that is your choice..."
The Colonel's words cut off sharply as she suddenly drew back her foot and delivered a vicious kick between his legs. And then another, just a moment later.
Yamcha couldn't help a slight wince, as the man stumbled and jerked slightly in pain. Not that...he wasn't rooting for her success, but he knew how hard she could hit when she got angry. Muscular determined soldier or not. His grip seemed to loosen slightly, and she twisted, kicking at his gut, instead, right into his injury.
The man flung her away from him into the tree she'd been hiding behind, and his legs gave out. Even as he crashed to the ground, though, he still fought. He'd landed right next to where that capsule he'd been holding before fell, and with some unsteadiness, he reached out to open it.
A huge rocket launcher appeared.
A rocket launcher.
"Damn it-!" He gave a scream of frustration and a burst of energy welled up in his limbs. He lurched up to his feet, and lunged onto the top of where the man was sprawled out on the ground. "Get!" He punched into the man's jaw, knocking his line of sight into the dirt "Away!" He ripped the man's hand away from the launcher, and slammed it to the ground. "From Bulma!"
Images flashed through his mind of Bulma held by her throat. Of Pu'ar unconscious against a tree, of himself just lying on the ground, unable to protect either of them. Forced to watch the people he cared the most about killed for nothing. Of being so careless he'd turned his back to an opponent before the man was actually dealt with.
His fist slammed down into the man's throat again and again, after no more noises came from the Colonel, after it became the only movement in the forest around them at all.
Someone gripped his wrist. Fine, painted fingernails filled his vision, broke through the guilt and anger that burned through his limbs, dispelled the images of what almost was.
"Yamcha!" Bulma's voice was firm. It held just the slightest scratch to it from the abuse her throat suffered. "If you don't stop it right now, I'm gonna be scared!"
Pu'ar floated next to her, expression concerned but...unharmed. They were both bruised, but unharmed.
That's right. He shook his head slightly and struggled unsteadily to his feet, wincing at the jolt of pain from his arm that reminded him of the impact it suffered a few moments before. It had been a close call, but...nothing was actually wrong. He'd just have to be more careful next time. That's all.
For now, at least, everyone...everyone other than his arm, was fine.