Chapter 7: The Lord Lood War, Part I

A few hours after the mysterious stranger that identified himself as one of the "Para Para Brothers" took off with the six-star Ultimate Dragon Ball, Trunks and the others were giving chase to the thieves in outer space.

"Piccolo-san, can't we catch up to them any faster than this?" asked Trunks, "we have their signal on the Super Dragon Radar, don't we?"

"Yeah, Piccolo-san! Kaiba said this spaceship was state of the art! It's supposed to rival Saiyan spaceships in speed!" said Pan, "so why is that ugly mushroom looking thing outspeeding us everywhere?"

"I should've figured this would happen sometime," said Piccolo, "although the Attack Balls ridden by the Saiyans and Freeza's men were incredibly fast for their time, Dr. Brief was able to build a spaceship exceeding their speed with reverse engineering, decades ago. It appears that after the death of the universal emperor Freeza, various planets in the cosmos have managed to get their hands on his empire's technology… and improved upon it in the time since. This spaceship simply can't keep up with their speed!"

"Grr… my father told me that when Freeza came to Earth looking for revenge in his cyborg body, I- or at least, the future me, made short work of him! Is their technology so advanced?" moaned Trunks, "#18-san is a cyborg too, and I would've definitely beat her as a child if I weren't stuck in a weird costume with Goten!"

"Technological advancements progress differently in differing directions," said Piccolo, "Gero's specialty simply wasn't space travel. But you raise an interesting point, Trunks. If their spaceship is so advanced, then it stands to reason that whoever is commanding them could have up their sleeve a robotic menace beyond our imagination."

"B-Beyond our imagination?!" said Pan nervously, "D-Do you mean we might come across something scarier than the Majin Boo that blew up the Earth?"

"The important thing right now is to catch up to them! Trunks, I see asteroids up ahead! Get outside in your spacesuit and blast them out of our way, or they'll outmaneuver us and leave us stuck trying to skirt our way out of the range of those rocks!"

"Got it, Piccolo-san!" said Trunks as he put on a spacesuit and turned Super Saiyan, after which he stood on top of OctoPUS 9000 and formed a barrier surrounding his body.

Piccolo then said telepathically, "Now, Trunks! They've begun to lead us within range of the rocks! Destroy only the ones in our way, and make sure to leave the rocks impeding their pathway intact!"

"I've got it! Haaaa!" said Trunks as he shot a series of finger beams while making sure the Para Para Brothers' pathway was properly impeded by asteroids blocking their way, allowing the trio to slowly but steadily catch up to the dastardly thieves.

"D-Dammit!" said Dan Para, the medium-sized brother of the three, "Whoever is commanding that inferior Earth spaceship, he's good! That other Earthling is precisely blasting away rocks in their way while preventing us from making our escape!"

"D-Despite our spaceship being more advanced, at this rate they'll catch up! What do we do, Bon Para?" asked Son Para, the shortest of the three.

"Don't worry, if they can catch up to us with obstacles blocking their path in a straightforward fashion, then we just have to up the ante!" said Bon Para, the largest and apparent leader of the three, "Central computer! Activate Function Log Pose! How far are we from Planet Bihe?"

"Planet Bihe is within 100,000 Kilometers to the southwest! Calculating odds of pursuing spaceship escaping the environment of Bihe…"

"This should be good." Said Bon Para.

"0.00000000012%! Odds of pursuers escaping Planet Bihe calculated at 0. 00000000012%!"

"It's a good thing the scientists of Mutchi Motchi-sama have mapped out the known universe," said Bon Para, "central computer! Head to Planet Bihe, at maximal speed, now!"

"Affirmative."

The mushroom-shaped spaceship quickly changed directions to the southwest, and headed toward a large asteroid-looking planet

"S-Shit! I didn't expect them to change directions so fast," said Trunks, "but at least the asteroid problem has been taken care of, and it seems they're not making any last-minute direction changes! Piccolo-san, do you want me to get back in the ship?"

"We're not out of the woods yet, Trunks," replied Piccolo telepathically, "stay outside for the time being, but suppress your Ki so that you don't eat up too much oxygen! Stay in Super Saiyan mode, though, as they may still have tricks up their sleeve!"

"Why does Trunks get to do all the cool stuff? I want to smash some rocks open, too!"

"This is no time to complain, Pan! They seem to be slowing down! Trunks, prepare to blast their ship, but not strong enough to obliterate it or otherwise leave the three to suffocate in space!"

"Got it, Piccolo-san! It'd be a drag to try to find the Dragon Ball in the middle of some space debris anyway," said Trunks as he took a breath and flared up an aura at 50% of his maximum strength, at which point the Para Para Brothers' mushroom-shaped spaceship suddenly sped up and went inside Planet Bihe at its highest possible speed.

"T-This fast?!" said Piccolo, "Are they risking crashing into the inside of that planet just to evade our pursuit?!"

"C-Crap! Now I can't see where they are at all, Piccolo-san! I-I can't just blow up this whole planet, then we'd kill them for sure, and I don't even know if the Dragon Ball will survive an attack so massive!"

"I've no choice but to use this Super Radar!" said Piccolo as he split himself into two bodies, one zooming in on the other Ultimate Dragon Ball's signal.

"The way this radar is showing the signal, it looks like they're going in all directions, zigzaggy and squiggly! I can't read them at all, Piccolo-san!" said Pan.

"A-And they're still managing to speed up at the highest possible velocity! Damn it! We've been had!" said Piccolo, "They managed to lead us into an environment where their technological advancement made all the difference! We've lost them!"

The Para Para Brothers were dancing in joy as their ship, on autopilot, deftly escaped the treacherous labyrinth of Planet Bihe.

"Ha! Hahahahaha!" laughed all three brothers, "Their ship was never a match for the state-of-the-art technology of Planet Lood! Now we'll deliver the ball straight to Lord Mutchi Motchi and claim our prize!"

Within hours, the Para Para Brothers, having evaded the pursuit of the Dragon Trio, landed on Planet Lood and headed for Mutchi Motchi's castle. There, a band of Mutchi Motchi's followers were chanting an ominous chant, while Mutchi Motchi was whipping followers of his.

"Fools! I've given you all more than a week and access to one of the universe's most advanced spaceships, and you've still found no Dragon Ball?!" fumed the angry, masked and merciless cult leader.

"L-Lord Mutchi Motchi, please give us another chance! W-We'll bring you all seven if you just give us but a year -"

"A year?! A year?!" screamed Mutchi Motchi, "Where you'll be going, you'll have eternity to regret your mistake!"

Mutchi Motchi strangled all of his veritably worthless followers as they lied kneeling at his heel using his whip, and then flashed a ray of light from his eye and turned them all into dolls.

"Now, these useless cretins who were no use to our Lord, Lood-sama's cause… shall have eternal bliss in joining the Lord and master, the Hakaishin Lood-sama!"

As Mutchi Motchi said this, he psionically levitated the shrunken dolls and put them inside a tube that led to their idol statue, at which point they turned into specks of light and were absorbed inside.

"Lood-sama is joyed to accept our offering!" said Mutchi Motchi as the Para Para Brothers nervously walked up to him, muttering to each other, "B-Bon Para, are you sure this is okay? W-With Mutchi Motchi-sama's temper, do you not think he might… you know, say our offering isn't good enough and turn us to dolls too?"

"Y-Yeah, that's right! You think maybe we should hightail it and come back when we have at least three of them?" said Dan Para.

"I-Idiots! It hasn't even been ten days since the grand oracle foretold of the fact that the Ultimate Dragon Balls were scattered around Universe 7," said Bon Para, "if we end up taking a month or two to get some of the other Dragon Balls, others might beat us to the rest! Leave it to me, I can take care of this."

"M-Mutchi Motchi-sama, we Para Para Brothers are proud to humbly present this offering!" said Bon Para as he knelt down to give Mutchi Motchi the six-star Dragon Ball.

"Ho… this is indeed the Dragon Ball I told you would be found on the planet I sent you three to," said Mutchi Motchi, "but where is the other Dragon Ball possessed by the three who left off from Earth? The oracle foretold that they would have procured their first ball before they'd cross paths with you."

"T-They had another Dragon Ball?!" stammered Bon Para nervously, "I-I didn't know that! If I had, I'd have paralyzed them with our Para Para Dance and raided their ship-"

"YOU INCOMPETENT LITTLE WORMS!" yelled Mutchi Motchi, "You mean you let the other Dragon Ball escape your grasp?! Where are those three?!"

"I-In Planet Bihe, sir! But the whelp that was with the Namekian had a huge level of power, and would make a great offering to our Lord Lood, sir!"

"Yes, I am aware. The oracle described him as the warrior of legend," said Mutchi Motchi, "I am tempted to dump you three in that tube and have you join Lood-sama as our newest sacrifice, but in light of the fact that you have brought home the six-star Dragon Ball, I will offer just one chance! Kill the girl that is among them, incapacitate the Super Saiyan and the Namekian, and bring them both to me with their other Dragon Ball in hand! If you succeed at this task, you will live to see Lood-sama's resurrection at my side."

"I-It would be our great honor, sire! We will leave off for Bihe right away!"

The Para Para Brothers handed Mutchi Motchi the Dragon Ball and set their coordinates to Planet Bihe, where Piccolo and Trunks were fighting off giant worms that were infesting the beehive-like planet of mazes.

"S-Shit! There's too many of them!" said Trunks, "And they're really pretty sturdy! We could just split up and beat them all at full power, but I'm afraid Pan might not be able to defend our ship!"

"In that case, I have a plan." Said Piccolo as he took off his weights, powered up and raised his right hand, "This is an attack I learned from watching the Evil Majin Boo! Demon Assault Rain!"

Piccolo raised his power to the highest possible extent and then shot innumerable blasts from his palm that rained a downpour of Ki bullets on each of the Muma worms that were within the Planet Bihe, cracking their protective shells and leaving them injured.

"Huff…. Hufff…" said Piccolo, tired from expending his energy, "Now, Trunks! Repeat my attack after me!"

"Alright! Die Die Missile Barrage!"

Trunks raised both his hands and sent a number of tracking bullets from his palms to deal the finishing blow to the Muma worms, returning to his normal state afterwards.

"I guess that takes care of them, but we let them escape, Piccolo-san! They could be god knows where in the universe by now!"

"No, they'll definitely be back," said Piccolo, "remember, they forgot to take into account that we had a second Dragon Ball that we found on the giant planet."

"T-That's right! They won't just let us starve to death here, because if we were to die, we could just destroy this whole planet with the Dragon Ball! They'd much sooner come here for the Dragon Ball than go finding the rest in space!"

"So we play dead or something until they get here, Piccolo-san?" said Pan as she stepped out of the spaceship.

"Not dead, but it's probably best that we revitalize one of these worms to give them the impression that we're distracted from fighting it," said Piccolo, "now's as good of a time as any to use this!"

Piccolo took out a Senzu from a bag that he fetched at Karin's Tower on Earth before taking off on the journey, in which there were four beans. He fed one to the smallest Muma worm that was attacking them, before splitting in two.

"My main body will stay inside the ship, recuperating! I used one of our very limited Senzu to put this plan in motion, so you have to make this count!" said Piccolo as he headed inside the spaceship, "Trunks, Pan! Do some superficial damage on my clone, and then suppress your Ki enough that you two seem fatigued!"

"Got it!" said the two partial Saiyans as they blasted the clone Piccolo before then blasting themselves lightly to give the impression that they were banged up, at which point they started fighting the Muma worm in earnest. Before long, the mushroom spaceship belonging to the Para Para Brothers made its way near their location.

"Ha! Haha! It appears they beat most of the Muma worms, but the last one has them cornered! This is our chance! Move in, Son Para and Dan Para! This job will be easier than we thought!" commanded Bon Para, as the three suppressed themselves and snuck inside OctoPUS 9000. Once there, however, the real Piccolo knocked all three of them out swiftly and tied them in Katchin-ko infused ropes.

"It's a good thing I kept in occasional contact with the two Kaioshin-sama the past fifteen years," said Piccolo, "Trunks! Pan! Finish up with that thing!"

"We will! Big Bang Attack!" said Trunks as he flared up his aura in his normal state.

"Masenko!" yelled Pan as her blast combined with Trunks' Big Bang Attack defeated the last Muma worm, at which point Piccolo reunited with his cloned self and took the three miscreants out of OctoPUS 9000.

"P-Piccolo-san, they're not waking up…" said Pan, "We're not feeding them all Senzus too, are we?"

"Don't joke, those are the only ones Karin could harvest on short notice. If I were intending to waste them, I'd have given you two the beans earlier in the journey."

"Let me beat them senseless until they wake up from the pain! Don't worry, I won't kill them." Said Trunks as he rolled up his sleeve.

"Don't get carried away, Trunks," said Piccolo, "you may not realize it, but we've both wasted a fair amount of stamina fighting those worms. A smarter use of the time we have before the three wake up would be spent recuperating. Pan, go inside their spaceship and see if there's any food or water there! Since we've subdued them, we may as well take their food as well."

"Got it!" said Pan as she flew inside their mushroom-shaped spaceship along with Gill, at which point the central computer read, "Planet Lood, 1.3 light years from present location" in an alien language.

"W-What does this say? Gill, can you read this?"

"Planet Lood, 1.3 light years from present location! Our location at present is Planet Bihe!"

"Planet Lood? Is that where they're from?" said Pan as she read aloud what was on the monitor. The central computer then replied, "Affirmative! Planet Lood is the destination! Closing doors and actuating flight in 3-2-"

"W-What?! I-I didn't tell you to do this!"

Before Pan could do anything in her fatigued state, the mushroom-shaped spaceship went on autopilot and went straight for Planet Lood.

"Wh-Wha?!" yelled Pan as the spaceship quickly escaped Bihe's atmosphere and sped so fast, Pan was paralyzed motionless on the ground, before the spaceship then entered a zero-gravity state.

"Initiating artificial gravity field. Stabilizing to 2G in 5-4-3-2-"

"Yowch!" said Pan as she then fell on her bottom along with Gill, at which point the spaceship's autopilot went silent and did a logistics analysis before her eyes, displaying a series of statistics that she couldn't understand.

"Geez, all of this stuff is in moonspeak to me," said Pan, "I-I've been stranded away from Trunks and Piccolo-san! I-I'm not going to be a lost child out in space, am I? Gill, you're made of machine, you connect to this ship's computer and figure something out!"

Pan tried and failed to insert Gill into the spaceship's power source, and while rummaging through the ship's various buttons found herself plunging into the garbage compartment as the floor below her opened up.

"Owww…. This stuff is just nasty! Great, I'm gonna be stranded out in Planet Lood!"

Meanwhile, at Planet Bihe Trunks stared absent-mindedly into space observing where Pan left off on the mushroom-shaped spaceship and said, "Uh-oh… there's definitely no catching up to that speed, especially with this planet sized maze obstructing us. Piccolo-san, you don't think we've made a huge mistake sending Pan off, do you?"

"Hmph. Don't worry, I have another plan," said Piccolo, "interrogating these three will not be necessary, and we can get the rest we need while on our own ship."

"Really? What is it?"

"It's simple. These three don't have the Dragon Ball on them, and the six-star Dragon Ball they took from us earlier is likely closer to our present location than to any other Dragon Ball. If the other ones were closer, I'd wager they'd have made a detour there to get as many Dragon Balls as possible since us starving to death would take many days."

"I-I see! So we just need to find the nearest Ultimate Dragon Ball on the Super Radar!"

"Exactly right. These three may prove useful in possibly infiltrating their lair or in finding more information about them, so we'll take them with us! Trunks, suppress your Ki and have yourself a full course meal! We may be in for another big battle like on Planet Imegga!"

"You don't have to tell me twice! Let's go!"

Trunks and Piccolo zoomed in on the six-star Dragon Ball's location, Planet Lood, and gave chase to the mushroom-shaped spaceship.

Within hours, Pan and Gill landed on Planet Lood, at which point the mushroom-shaped spaceship shut down, having exhausted its fuel supply from two round trips to Planet Bihe and back.

"Great, now we can't even use the autopilot to make it back to that big worm planet…"

"Gill! Gill! Dragon Ball found in direction of the south! 90 kilometers is the approximate distance!"

"Oh well, while I'm here I might as well find the six-star Dragon Ball those Para Para munchkins stole. Guide the way, Gill! It's about time I get some action!"

Pan grabbed Gill and took off straight for the direction of the six-star Dragon Ball, while making sure to keep her power suppressed because she knew all too well what announcing her presence could lead to. The Dragon Ball's signal, which they found to be contained in an archaic looking castle where legions of hooded followers of Lood were dancing around encircling a fire, was next to a large statue.

"There! I see the Dragon Ball!" said Pan, giving away her location.

Two Mutchi Motchi guards with swords surrounded her, at which point Pan flared up an aura and knocked them both out. She then pointed her hand out toward the crowd of Lood followers and let out a soft Kiai, which knocked most of them out.

Pan then landed near Mutchi Motchi and said, "That six-star Dragon Ball is mine! Didn't your momma tell you stealing is wrong?"

"Fool, the Dragon Ball is but an offering to the great Lord God of Destruction Lood-sama! You'll be in grave error to think that your intrusion will be forgiven! It is perhaps too much of an honor that you will be integrated into our lord and master Lood-"

As Mutchi Motchi was in the process of rambling, Pan had already grabbed the six-star Dragon Ball and was in the process of leaving.

"Y-You! Insolent worm, take this!" yelled Mutchi Motchi as he threw his whip in the direction of Pan, who blasted it with a one-handed blast. The whip did not even falter from her blast however, and quickly pinned her down into the ground.

"W-What is this?! Is this whip… alive?!"

"Yes. However, you soon won't be," said Mutchi Motchi as he then chanted, "enyaka yaka yaka Lood-sama-sama… Enyaka yaka yaka Lood-sama-sama…"

This chant activated the giant statue, which then levitated the whip ensnaring Pan and zapped her with a powerful, electric ray. Pan was instantly shrunken into a 5-inch long doll of her likeness.

"F-Fuhuhuhuhu! We may have not captured the Super Saiyan or the Namekian yet, but this hostage will serve as an excellent distraction to capture them as an offering to Lood-sama-"

Again while Mutchi Motchi was in the process of rambling, Piccolo and Trunks arrived and blitzed Mutchi Motchi.

"The Dragon Ball is here, and this statue contains within it a number of life energies. I'd wager this is the pinnacle of this planet's technology that I predicted would be here," said Piccolo.

"We've got you now, you hooded, self-indulgent prick! Where is Pan?!"

"I-I'm right here, Trunks! C-Can't you guys hear me?!" thought Pan to herself, still sentient despite being reduced to a doll.

"Feh! It's only all the more convenient for me that you're both here! Lood-sama, we present you your greatest meal yet!" yelled Mutchi Motchi as he had Lood's statue shoot another ray at Piccolo and Trunks, which they easily avoided. It instead struck the three Para Para Brothers that Trunks and Piccolo brought with them, turning them into dolls, which Piccolo then threw in the tube to observe Lood's change afterward.

"It's as I thought. The life energy contained within the statue went up by a far greater amount than the combined Ki of those three. Trunks, go Super Saiyan, now! If we are hit by that ray and either of us ends up absorbed, we'll have a major problem on our hands!"

"Got it! Haaa!"

Trunks turned Super Saiyan and then spent a few seconds powering up to full power, at which point Mutchi Motchi took the opportunity to attack him from behind with a ray gun. Trunks was knocked back, but then said, "Pfft! Surprise attack or not, you can't hurt the legendary Super Saiyan with that pitiful attack! We'll sadly have to torture Pan's location out of you, but after that this statue is toast!"

Left with little he can call an option, Mutchi Motchi pressed a button which released a 15-foot tall robotic lion out of the ceiling.

"This is my precious prototype robotic chimera machine mutant Lelon! Your fates are sealed-"

Before Mutchi Motchi could even finish his sentence, Trunks and Piccolo blasted the lion into a thousand pieces.

"N-No way! In that case-"

Desperate, Mutchi Motchi threw his sentient whip at Trunks, which then latched onto him and zapped him with a billion-volt electric shock. Piccolo tried to free Trunks, only to feel the shock as well.

In the middle of this distraction, Mutchi Motchi grabbed Pan's doll form, kicked Gill away from her, and fled.

Trunks was still ensnared by the sentient whip, at which point he took a deep breath and said, "I-I'm tired of this stupid crap! HAAA!"

Trunks mustered all of his Ki and greatly enlarged his muscles, first entering Grade 2 of the regular Super Saiyan level before then going into Grade 3, allowing him to break free from the whip's hold.

"Trunks! You can use the enhancements of Super Saiyan?"

"My dad told me about my future self's mistakes so I wouldn't repeat them. I was curious if I could manage the same feat, so I spent a day or two practicing these forms. They're not good for much and drain too much Ki, but raw power was all I needed to break out," said Trunks as he then reverted to his normal Super Saiyan state.

"Fuhuhuhuh… not bad," said the sentient whip as it then changed forms into a yellow, feral looking creature with red sclera.

"I am Mutchi, the high priest of the Hakaishin Lord Lood! I shall be your opponent."

"H-He's got a massive Ki!" said Trunks nervously as the battle was about to commence…

To be continued…