AN: He has been the target of much suffering since he decided to come along on the dragonball mission. Yamcha needs a six month vacation in a fighting tournament on a planet without Saiyans. (so a saibaman-)
Surely it will be for the best eventually?
You may have noticed update is slightly slower in speed. The reason for this is because we've ended up in the second half of Dragonball, and all of the things that happen here have very big consequences. I must be careful of what choices I make.
The Next Dimension Over
Chapter Fifty-two
She'd give the general, commander, soldier-whatever he was-one thing: he had good reflexes.
He managed to just barely lunge out of the way of her initial strike, air from her punch slicing through his shirt even as he moved. He also did a decent job of dodging the splinters that exploded outward from the table that she contacted with instead. If she wasn't already so angry, she'd have been impressed by his abilities, including his recovery time.
Before she'd even turned, he'd shrugged out of his jacket and attacked her in response. She narrowly ducked his downward punch as soon as she turned her head, hair fluttering up into the air as she moved out of the way.
His reflexes weren't good enough to escape her next strike. Her fist sank squarely into his stomach, and he had barely a moment to choke out a gasp before the impact sent him flying back into the far wall. She'd held back somewhat, just to ensure she didn't punch right through him in front of a noncombatant civilian like Bulma, so...he simply slammed into the wall with a painful sounding crunch, rather than going through it entirely.
She straightened up again and cracked her knuckles.
He had good reflexes, but he was hardly any more threat than the other soldiers she'd encountered in the base so far. Maybe that first tower had been a fluke. Or, maybe she really had been holding back too much, letting her guard down, and letting Goku do all the work through it.
"The dragonballs are up above, right?" She turned toward the stairs again, glancing down at her passenger. Bulma's hair looked messy, and the woman herself looked a little bit rattled...but there weren't any obvious injuries. Which was good, because jumping into the room the way she did could have been a problem if something went wrong.
"Ah..." The woman glanced down at the tiny device in her hands. "...No, they've moved on now. Wherever he went, he must have escaped through it."
She sighed. Of course he did. Hiding out the next room up would have been too easy, wouldn't it?
(*)
His face hurt.
His pride hurt considerably more.
He only stumbled back a few steps, but the woman used the time and opportunity expertly...to run right past him. Maybe he'd impressed her by crushing her gun before, but...part of him was a little bit surprised that, yet again, she made no attempt to press the opening her surprise attack gave her.
She really wanted that money, apparently.
By the time his vision cleared again, she'd crossed the hall over to where he'd thrown the bag of money, and stood with one foot in the window sill. When his gaze found her, she froze, tensing and ready to...either ready to fight again, or to jump. He couldn't read her, and he was somewhat tired of trying to understand her. Or...interacting with her at all, honestly. His face hurt everywhere.
He tapped into his ki, ready to strike with Wolf Fang Fist and...if he couldn't get the information he wanted, at least end the fight.
A moment passed.
She was a soldier-probably officer, given her skill-of the Red Ribbon Army. She'd broken into the army's vault and packed about as much zenni and valuables as she could into her bag, and then avoided all conflict with him that didn't involve getting out of conflict with him. And it sure looked like she was about to bolt from the base with all that money.
Did...it even matter if he let her go? She wasn't among the people who destroyed the village at the base of Korin's tree tower pole. She'd...okay, she'd done a good amount of things to piss him off, but she hadn't done any direct harm, despite being his enemy. And she was deserting the army.
Attacking her now, while satisfying, would have been a waste of his effort. Effort necessary to deal with the rest of the army that wasn't running away right now.
He clenched his teeth in annoyance, and finally relaxed once more, straightening and frowning at her. She hesitated a moment, processing his actions...and then tossed him a flirtatious wink and jumped through the window.
...If he had to excuse his facial bruises with running face first into a wall, he was never going to tell anyone about that encounter.
Ever.
(*)
"What direction did he go?" With Goku and Yamcha out there, he must have found some stealthy way to escape, or he'd be caught by the two of them long before he ever made it out of the fortress with the dragonballs.
She couldn't risk assuming he wasn't smart enough to have a back up plan, when he carried the dragonballs.
"He must be in a plane...or something." Bulma huffed lightly. "He's moving East at high speed."
"Got it. Try to hold on." She'd be able to catch up to him, but the speed she'd need to go...there wouldn't be much room for mistake when she had a passenger. Leaving her with Goku or Yamcha would just mean leaving her in the middle of the chaos of an assault. It wasn't an ideal situation...but the safer of the two situations was with her.
Air rushed past her, sending too-long hair out in front of her, as the soft sound of a capsule deployment filled the room.
She spun immediately toward the person she'd thought was unconscious, at least. A tall metal...thing stood slightly in front of where he'd been.
Bulma gave a soft gasp. "...Oh no..."
The man grinned in triumph as he settled himself in a seat atop the vaguely humanoid metal..puppet, and a glass dome around him sealed shut. A tinny version of his voice echoed out from inside it. "It's a shame you had to go against us. The Red Ribbon Army could have used talent like yours."
Talent.
What a ridiculous person.
She flexed her fingers, turning herself fully toward the man. The last person she'd fought hidden in a puppet was far more impressive than him even with his metal puppet. It wouldn't be nearly as difficult even protecting someone. "You wouldn't be worth my effort."
"Is that so?" The man bristled in his container. "Then...let me save you it." The arm of the puppet lifted, and a brilliant beam of energy filled her vision.
(*)
So he was back to square zero. Square zero with a bruised face and a sore jaw, running through buildings and taking down what few soldiers were dumb enough to still be present while Goku destroyed everything in his path outside.
...Honestly, the only reason he hadn't given up on the armory as pointless in its entirety was that it might have something dangerous and unknown in there that someone desperate (or in charge) could use at any time.
...So it was half of the reason he didn't give up. If he did give up before finding it, then he'd have just wasted a colossal amount of time while everyone else did useful things. And that would just be aggravating.
When he skidded around a corner, his gaze fell on exactly what he was looking for. Right behind a tall and imposing looking tiger person. Well. At least it was a guy. He might actually have just turned around and walked out of the base if he'd crashed into another woman. (...He'd have been strongly tempted to.)
"Sorry...but I'm pretty irritated right now." He shifted into an aggressive stance as the tiger-man turned toward him with a surprised expression. "I can't promise I'm not gonna beat you up a hell of a lot more than I need to."
(*)
The place on the floor where she'd been standing no longer existed. Charred paint gave way to heat-smoothed metal and stone, and a large chunk of the floor itself opened up into the floor below. The air above the hole twisted and danced with the heat left over from the blast.
For being an instantaneous attack, it packed a surprising amount of power.
So, she was glad to have leapt out of the way before it was too late. She might have been able to endure it with minimal to moderate injury...but her passenger wouldn't have fared nearly as well. So, she'd have to do her best to fight the rest of the battle without letting any of its blows hit, just in case of Bulma.
She reached next to herself, and flung the leather loveseat there at the beast of a puppet. It lifted its arm and blocked the piece of furniture. The impact caused a slight dent on its wide arm, and it stumbled back a step into the wall. Once the object crashed to the ground, though, it simply started toward her again.
"Just try to stay hidden if you can." She spoke quietly to Bulma as she readied herself for the next attack. "I'll try to finish this quickly."
"You'll be finished quickly." The man had, apparently, gotten close enough to hear the latter part of her statement. He shook his head and laughed, before one of the arms reached up and struck down at her, attempting to backhand her right off of her feet.
She flipped over it at the last moment, and then dropped to the ground to dodge the fire that erupted from its palm as soon as she landed. A roll dodged his clumsy attempt to stomp her into the ground, and she kicked his other leg out from under him.
It teetered and crashed to the ground almost immediately...but despite its egg-like shape, it seemed neither too damaged to stand again, nor too ill-equipped. After only a moment of lying on the ground, white-hot fire jetted out of its palms, and pushed it back up to its feet.
She punched the arm that swung at her this time, and the metal crunched and snapped apart under the impact of her fist. The arm dropped uselessly to its side, and he glared through his glass container. The strangest part about that was...why would he have chosen glass to house himself in? Just who did he think he was going to face in that thing?
The puppet shot backward, lifting its working arm, and shot something solid and...different looking at her. She couldn't immediately recognize what it was. She'd never seen anything like that in her memory...but then, there were plenty of things she'd only just seen while hunting down the dragonballs. Compared to the tree that was also a tower, something like the thing shooting toward her in the air wasn't all that remarkable or memorable.
She ducked and slid out of its way, closing the distance that he'd gained with his backward scramble.
Before she could do anything, though, the projectile that missed her contacted with the couch near to where she'd been.
And exploded.
The room rocked violently, bits of ceiling raining down upon them, and knocked both herself and the overbalanced puppet onto the ground, knocked a short distance further away from the original sight of the bomb.
Her ears rang loudly, and she shook her head to clear the sound and her thoughts. Better prepared for it (and better shielded), the man recovered somwhat earlier than her, stumbling back up to his feet in the machine while she still held one side of her head.
A moment later, it rose into the air...and smashed right through the ceiling.
"That's enough playing around!" The voice bellowed from its tin cage. "Failing to stop three invaders...the Red Ribbon Army will accept nothing so weak! Such failure is a disgrace!"
She made her way closer to the hold it created through the roof, and craned her neck slightly to watch it go up.
"I've had enough! With this...I'll destroy every single one of you!"
"Goku..." Bulma muttered, staring up at the puppet as it began to charge its attack. Was it concern? A cry for help from him? She couldn't quite place what it was supposed to be. "Goku!"