Crash the Castle

Everyone's attention focused on the device next to Sasuke. It was the same device that Pilaf gave Team 7 in order to allow them to contact him, the voice came from that very same device. Sasuke recognized the voice and said, "Pilaf!" A high-pitched laugh came from the radio followed by congratulations, "Congrats you fool, I've got all the Dragon balls now. I'm one step away from attaining from making each and every one of you my thralls and obtaining my wish. I will become emperor of the entire world and there isn't a single thing you can do to stop me." Naruto yelled at the radio, "You short bastard, like hell I'm gonna be your thrall, I'm gonna be Hokage one day, no Hokage would bow to you!?" Anger rose from his voice as Pilaf yelled out, "Watch your mouth you stupid brat, I'm the one about to be emperor. When I'm emperor there will be no need for a "Hokage" anyway!" Naruto yelled back, "like hell I'm gonna let that happen!" Sasuke interjected, asking, "What happened with Sakura?"

Pilaf grumbled for a moment and finally said, "If you must know my incompetent minions made an emergency landing right when she was passing by. They blabbed about my plan at the wrong moment and so she had to be detained for the sake of my future plans as emperor." In the background everyone could hear a pair of voices spit out a quick apology, "Sorry Emperor!"

Bulma suddenly yelled, "Are you the creep that took my dragon balls with that robot?" Pilaf let out another laugh and said, "That's right, I even bugged this radio so I could listen in on those little Ninja's plans. Your little ambush was the best time to get the Balls and get you to try and kill each other." Pilaf cleared his throat and then said, "You can do whatever you want now, crawl back to your puny village if you want. It won't matter, by the time you even get there I'll be Emperor of the world! They'll be erecting statues in my image before too long." Pilaf began to laugh maniacally before hanging up the radio. Sasuke grabbed the radio and threw it onto the ground and then crushed it with his foot. Sasuke angrily said, "Damn it, there's nothing we can do and it's all our fault!" Yamcha spoke in a confused voice, "What are you talking about?" Sasuke looked to Yamcha and said, "You heard him, he had the rest of the balls. All we can hope for is for the story about their power to be wrong." Yamcha let out a laugh and said, "No we've got plenty of time." Naruto spoke up with a confused tone of voice, "What do you mean?" Goku chimed in, "I still got my grandpa's ball." Sasuke and Naruto looked at his waist and realized it was indeed still here. Yamcha then showed them the Dragon Radar which showed it in Goku's pocket.

Back in Pilaf's castle Pilaf was currently screaming at his subordinates, "You morons, not only did you let one of them in on my plan, you also told me you got all the balls but guess what!? You counted wrong!" Pilaf began to panic, "If they head back to their village like I told them to, then I'm screwed! They'll send an army, they'll put my head on the chopping block!"

Back with Goku and friends, they were celebrating this wonderful revelation. Sasuke and Naruto immediately started untying Goku and his friends. Naruto immediately while scratching the back of his head nervously said, "Sorry about the whole stealing from you and tying you up thing. We shouldn't have done that." Naruto then lightly elbowed Sasuke whispering, "Come on you too." Sasuke looked surprised for a moment before he averted his gaze and said, "Y-yeah that was our mistake." Goku just smiled and said, "That's alright, since ya apologized." Yamcha then stepped in and said, "We'd better head out." Bulma spoke in a confused tone of voice and asked, "How come?" Yamcha immediately answered, "Even if he doesn't have the last ball, he still has your friend. When he figures out he doesn't have all seven he might use her as leverage to get the last one."

Naruto chimed in with enthusiasm in his voice, "Yeah we need to get to her right away, ya know!" Sasuke shook his head and said, "He's afraid of the Leaf finding out. If we alert Konoha they could pressure him into releasing her and with the ball in the Leaf's possession he'll never get his wish." Yamcha put up a rebuttal, "There's the chance they will give up the dragon ball for your friend." Bulma then asked, "Why would they do that?" Yamcha immediately replied, "I doubt their leaders will instantly believe in the ball's power, it's a difficult story to sell especially since we don't even know if they work. It's not as if we have concrete evidence." Puar chimed in, "The longer we take to decide the greater danger your friend is in." Sasuke was stuck in thought, he didn't like the chances Sakura had but he wasn't sure charging the castle was a much better plan.

Naruto suddenly said, "Come on Sasuke, shouldn't team 7 be the ones to save her? It's not like you to act so uncool!" Sasuke paused on Naruto's words and finally came to a decision. He smiled and said, "Yeah, we should make him pay for screwing with us!" Bulma suddenly said, "We're coming too!" Oolong nervously spoke in a higher tone, "We are?!" Bulma turned to them and said, "There's no way we're sitting this one out after coming all this way!" Goku raised his fist and said, "All right, let's go!" Naruto looked at Goku and said, "You too?" Goku began tying his power poll to his back as he said, "Yeah we gotta save yer' friend and I want to see the Eternal Dragon." Naruto smiled back and said, "Right, let's go!" After this declaration everyone packed their things and flew off on Yamcha's sky car.

Back with Pilaf he was still panicking until Shu said, "Hey emperor is it me or is the last Dragon Ball coming this way?" Pilaf rushed to their locator and smiled after seeing what Shu said to be true. He said, "Those fools are heading right for us. They're literally delivering the ball to us, we'd better greet them appropriately." He then pointed to Shu and Mai and said, "Prepare the defenses and the traps, I'm going to be emperor soon!" Back with Team 7 and Goku's friends, the Anbu Shinobi were making their own plans on what to do. Fox-1 said, "So it seems the "collector" paid for this mission in order to make collecting the balls easier." Fox-2 added, "It seems the kid's not a target but what should we do with this news?" Fox-1 immediately said, "Lord Third already knows about the dangers the balls represent. It would be best to inform him on these new developments."

Fox-1 then said, "Fox-2, Eagle-1 I need you two to report to Lord Third and inform him on the current situation. The rest of us will follow the kid as instructed. He then said, "Don't miss any details." Fox-2 and Eagle-1 nodded in unison and fled the area leaving the rest of the squad to continue their assignment. The two Anbu jump from tree to tree as they head back to the Leaf. Eagle was in the front while Fox-2 was to his right but lagging behind by a single step. Suddenly Eagle felt a sharp stabbing pain all over his back, he suddenly fell to the ground below. Several Kunai had been stuck into his back as he spoke through a hoarse voice, "Fox-2 w-we're under attack." He was abruptly cut off when a Kunai made its way through his throat and above him stood Fox-2 who said in a dry tone, "I know." Back with Goku, Naruto and their allies they were already in the air heading to Pilaf Castle.

Yamcha wanted to talk strategy and so he said, "Let's talk strategy, what are we going to do when we get there?" Sasuke was the first to join the conversation, "I'll need to conserve my Chakra so we'll just walk our way through his castle. If we find Pilaf we can threaten him into giving Sakura back and get the Dragon Balls." Naruto immediately asked, "What do we do if he finds out we're coming?" Sasuke says, "I think sneaking our way in will be impossible." Naruto looked at Sasuke and asked, "Why not?" Sasuke immediately replies, "They have a radar too, remember the one they gave us?" Naruto nervously scratched the back of his head and sheepishly said, "Oh right… I forgot." Bulma then threw out a suggestion, "Hey since we all just met you all should talk about powers and stuff."

Yamcha added, "Yeah, if we know what each other can do, that would make teamwork easier." Knowing the importance of teamwork Team 7 started the explanation with Sasuke, who said, "Naruto and I both graduated from the ninja academy, we learned all the basics of being a Shinobi. This included Taijutsu and Ninjutus." Sasuke then started a short explanation on Jutsu Taijutsu and Ninjutsu, "Jutsu is what Shinobi use to utilize our Chakra, our inner energy, in order to produce techniques. Taijutsu is basically close quarters combat for a shinobi, it's different from Shinobi to Shinobi so I guess it's the same thing as the West's Martial Arts, it doesn't require Chakra. Ninjutsu is the most common Jutsu category, we use hand signs to gather our Chakra and manipulate it into several ways." With the general explanation out of the way Sasuke says, "I am proficient at Fire-Style Ninjutsu, I know the Fire Style Fireball Jutsu. My Taijutsu was top of the class at the academy and I'm very skilled with Ninja tools like Shuriken and Kunai."

Goku chimes in speaking in a dejected tone, "Yeah you blew nimbus up with that." Feeling a little guilt creeping up his back, he finishes his explanation, "Lastly I have a unique Jutsu, that only members of my clan can use. I have the Sharingan which allows me to see Chakra clearly which allows me to see through illusions and through seeing the Chakra of a standard Ninjutsu I can copy it. The downside is that my Sharingan costs me Chakra so I'm only going to use it if we need it." Naruto jumps in saying, "I know the Shadow Clone Jutsu, with it I can create perfect copies of myself but if you hit them hard enough they disappear."

Goku suddenly says, "Oh that's what was going on with all the other you's." Naruto continued, "Despite Sasuke being top of the class, I can still beat you to a pulp If I can get close to you." Oolong then added, "And with all those clones you can make, you can easily overwhelm anyone with numbers." Oolong recalled being surrounded by Naruto clones before being captured. It was now Yamcha's turn and he said, "My martial arts is more self taught but I've based it on more well known Martial Artists. My wolf fang fist is a fast, hard hitting combo and is the only technique I know." Goku then took his turn, he said, "My grandpa and Old Man Hiruzen trained me pretty good before Grandpa died. After that I lived on my own and thanks to Grandpa I knew how to take care of myself." Naruto stopped him there and said with clear surprise in his voice, "Wait the old man trained you?"

Sasuke, sounding astounded, said out loud, "No wonder we couldn't beat him one on one." Goku interjected, "I only trained with Old man Hiruzen for a little bit. After Gohan died I stopped seeing him all that often." Goku then said, "Grandpa also trained me with the Power Pole, it's a magic pole that grows and shrinks on command." No one said anything but Naruto and Sasuke had their doubts about it being magic but didn't want to derail his explanation. Goku finished by saying, "It's also true that my tail is my weakness, if you pull it or squeeze it I lose all my strength." After a short moment of silence, Bulma looked at Oolong and said, "You should go next." Oolong waved his hands in front of him saying frantically, "Don't go throwing me under the bus. I'm not gonna be doing any fighting?"

Bulma then yelled, "I'm not asking you to fight but your transformation could help us out!" Oolong was hesitant to say anything when Puar chimed in saying, "Both he and I took part in a Transformation Jutsu Class but he got expelled before he could learn to hold the form for more than five minutes." Yamcha immediately asked a question while pretending not to know the answer, "What did he get expelled for?" Oolong muttered, "I prefer not to say." After this Bulma said, "I'm not a fighter but I do have the Dragon Radar and am wicked smart."

After another shift moment Sasuke noted this, "So we have four fighters and three people who are gonna be watching in the background, I hope you all don't slow me down." Naruto yelled out, "No way, you're the one who's gonna be left in the dust!" Goku jumped in happily saying, "I'm gonna beat all four of you!" Yamcha spoke up after letting out a short laugh, "Now, now guys we're all on the same team." Yamcha saw something in the distance and said, "Sasuke is that the castle?" Sasuke focused on what was far in front of them and recognized it saying, "That's the one." Everyone's expression became serious, Yamcha then said with some oomph in his voice, "Ok everyone be ready for anything, we're coming down on it from above!" Goku put one hand on the side of the car while the other gripped the power pole on his back, Naruto and Sasuke braced themselves for the upcoming battle while Oolong held on tight to his seatbelt, tightening it. Finally Yamcha held onto his steering wheel as he pulled them down toward Pilaf Castle.

Without warning the team's sky car was hit with a barrage of bullets from below, Yamcha yelled, "Keep your heads down, they seem to be expecting us!" Oolong yelled back, "What's going on?" Yamcha yelled back, "They set up air defenses, they obviously knew we were coming by air! Soon their engines began to smoke and Yamcha yelled, "We're gonna have to make an emergency landing, hold on tight!" They nosedived to avoid more fire from below, in a matter of minutes they made it to the ground where the sky car skidded to a fiery stop. Everyone was quick to escape the vehicle before it exploded leading to a rough start to their mission. Goku dashing out of the explosion radius was the first to recover from the explosion and just as everyone else was getting to their feet the source of their bad landing arrived at their crash landing site.

There were several small robots about the size of a beach ball that used thrusters to hover in mid air with two gun barrels per robot at their front, they also had small heads at the top of the body with single eye lenses. Everyone who knew how to fight sprung into action while Oolong and Bulma ran for cover. Goku dodged side to side avoiding fire while Naruto used "Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu" to overwhelm the bot's senses. Sasuke and Yamcha rushed the bots fast enough to avoid fire, one by one the bots were destroyed. Goku smashed two with a single strike each with his power pole while Naruto overwhelmed three with his surviving clones. Sasuke used taijutsu to smash up two more, he took note of how fragile they seemed, while Yamcha's Wolf Fang Fist tore through four other bots.

By the end of it all the bots were smashed to bits and the team gathered to examine the wrecked mechs. Sasuke noted after tearing one of their eyes out with ease, "These things weren't that tough." Yamcha stepped on the body of one, flattening it like an empty can saying, "I'm willing to bet these were the cheap ones. Made with numbers in mind, not quality of materials." Oolong chimed in, "They were good enough to shoot us out of the sky." Bulma took her radar out and got a ping on the dragon balls, she said, "They seem to be somewhere in the Castle, we'll have to track it through the castle." Naruto then said, "Alright let's find that front door!"

Author's Notes: As it may become clear to any OG DB fans, I have made some big changes to this half of the Pilaf Arc. Due to how much stronger the group coming for Pilaf is in this story is, as well as the fact I want to actually write Team 7 and Team Goku working together, I have decided to make significant changes. As it is clear at the end of this chapter, I am incorporating robots into Pilaf's arsenal. This gives the team more to deal with and it means I won't have to rely on the team getting screwed over by silly traps.