For a woman who had just given birth, Miguel was bursting with strength as she attempted to muscle past Bulma and get to the arena.
"I just want to talk to the man who hurt my husband, that's not too much to ask, is it?" She said, smiling lightly. "I mean, it's just a short conversation."
"Miguel, I understand." Bulma pleaded, "But please let go of the gun."
Launch shook her head. "I mean, I understand how she feels, if that bastard touched even one eyelash off of my Tien, I'd be spreading his ashes between here and the ocean."
"That's all well and good, if not for who we know he is!" Bulma growled, sweat dripping from her forehead.
"Oh so what, you saw how close Hercule was to taking him out, there's no way my Tien would lose to that sucker."
"And what's that supposed to mean?" Miguel stopped struggling and turned to look at Launch.
"What do ya think it means? You're the cultured ones over here!"
"I wish I had a girlfriend…" Oolong muttered in annoyance.
"Feh, who'd want to date a pig like you!" Puar retorted. "By pig," they clarified, "I'm referring to your attitude, not your appearance."
"By pig," Roshi quipped, "I'm referring to both your appearance and your attitude."
"Like you're one to talk!" Oolong grumbled.
"What was that?!" Roshi questioned dangerously.
"I'm saying that at the least the girls I went after were my age or older, unfortunately, you'll be hard-pressed to find anyone, being the only geriatric super-predator on the planet."
Their bickering, much like the bickering of the girls just a few rows away, was cut short by the explosive boom that rocked the arena.
"IT LOOKS LIKE LAZULI AND PAOPAO ARE GOING ALL OUT, THEY MAY BE FAMILY BUT THIS FIGHT FEELS PERSONAL!"
'Oh, shove it' Lazuli thought with annoyance, she was well aware that even if she was going all out, there was no way her mom was. She used the pump up to her limit yet PaoPao seemed to barely break a sweat. Instead, as they fought, Lazuli wondered when it was that she considered PaoPao a mom-like figure, and when she began to think of Jazz like a dad, it certainly wasn't when they were first playing with them to keep them distracted from how shitty their dad was, nor was it when they were saved and officially adopted. Looking back on it, she remembered some time during elementary school in West City, they were approached by some middle schoolers while waiting to be picked up. While the twins could take care of those would-be-bullies, they were still a little shy and skittish around strangers. A Doberman nearly twice the normal size came bounding over, growling and barking, scattering the kids, when it got close enough it exploded into a cloud of smoke, turning into Jazz, who had winked and apologized for being late and escorted the kids home. PaoPao had taken them out for ice cream, and while Jazz and Lapis were busy fighting over Jazz's last scoop of ice cream, Lazuli had overheard PaoPao's heated discussion with some school official about delinquent punks messing with her kids. The warm feeling she was hit with at that time remained with her even now, it was one of the reasons why she couldn't understand why her brother was so agitated all the time. It was okay that they weren't the strongest yet, or that they might not be the strongest ever, they kept improving, after all, and they had friends and family who cared for them who were way stronger. To put it bluntly too, they, at their ages, are way stronger than any of those same friends and family were when they were their age. So for them, it was nothing but up, power-wise. She wished her brother would be more patient about it and stopped acting so…
"Pay attention," PaoPao said simply, fist coming dangerously close to the back of Lazuli's neck. The blond girl dodged at the nick of time, flying back in order to avoid a flurry of weak but fast blasts of ki.
"Oh! S-sorry!"
PaoPao did not respond to Lazuli's embarrassed outcry, instead, she charged forward, unleashing an unrelenting flurry of punches and kicks, just enough to somewhat overwhelm the young girl's defenses. "I had already asked you before if you still felt like fighting. If your heart isn't in the fight, you don't have to continue." PaoPao's face was impassive as she said this.
Lazuli shook her head. "N-No!" She swiped away an attack, then cupped her hands to fire a Kamehameha. "I'm alright!" She allowed the blast to push her back and up in the air, wincing as PaoPao batted the beam away with a two-handed haymaker. Lazuli willed the beam to remain in the air and PaoPao watched in interest as the blast she redirected began careening back towards her. She extended her hand to knock it away only to jump back as she felt Lazuli's energy spike up once more.
Jazz shook his head, smiling at Lazuli's ingenuity, she used a technique similar to Yamcha's spirit ball, controlling the trajectory of the Kamehameha with a greater level of control than simply curving the blast, she then, while still controlling the blast, fired off a second Kamehameha, hoping to catch PaoPao in the center. Without relying on his psychic abilities Jazz didn't yet have that control when utilizing ki techniques that required a majority of his power.
PaoPao was likely equally impressed as she observed Lazuli, who was gasping for air, the power of both beams having winded her.
"That was excellent practical application." PaoPao began, "You're really great."
Lazuli smiled brightly as she began to gently float down to the grass. "Thanks, Mom!"
"By Voluntary Ring Out! The winner is, PaoPao!"
As the team moved to congratulate the two for a good fight, Krillin, who was up next, turned to look at his challenger, Mei Lin. To his discomfort he noticed her staring hard at the young girl, who was held in an embrace by PaoPao. He found both Lazuli and Lapis aggravating at times, but he still had a soft spot for the kids.
"Hey." He shouted, catching Mei Lin's attention. "Our fight is next, no getting distracted."
Mei Lin's gaze moved from her sister and adopted niece to Krillin. "Are you jealous?" She said simply.
"...What?"
"Looking at Jazz, Hercule, Goku, even that stick in the mud Tien. Are you jealous of their lives? How happy and fulfilled they are, all the training they do, yet they have women to come home to. Do you have anyone?"
Krillin sighed, "Can we please just fight? These head games are starting to irritate me." He made his way to the tiled arena.
"Perhaps I can kill one of them, then you can swoop in and be a hero to the lady in mourning." Mel Lin grinned, "All three-and-a-half-foot of you."
Krillin's eyes snapped open. Just as the announcer called the battle's beginning, Krillin's power exploded outwards, shocking everyone, Jazz included.
"...What the hell did he do in the little bit before the tournament…" Jazz wondered aloud.
Mei Lin's smile twisted wider as Krillin flew forward, the tile floor breaking apart at his speed. The announcer and tournament watchers could only look on, mouths agape as the tiled floor seemingly shattered as the two combatants disappeared from view, the air shimmering and shaking with the force of their attacks and movements.
Jazz narrowed his eyes, Krillin was stronger than he had given the man credit for, but the fact Mei Lin was still keeping up bothered him, her power level, while higher than it used to be, didn't seem nearly enough to keep up with the former Shaolin monk.
'Perhaps…' He began to think, 'this is the work of Dr. Gero…'
Mei Lin giggled maniacally as Krillin's fists inched closer and closer to her with each punch, kick, and blast. Krillin, despite seemingly charging her in a rage, was calm as he attacked methodically. Despite Mei Lin barely escaping his grasp he maintained his combat discipline. It wasn't the first time he fought someone with exemplary evasive techniques, though it was disconcerting that she could keep up despite her ki being so…
Krillin winced in pain as a thin beam of ki pierced his leg. In his distraction, Mei Lin kicked him hard, catching him in the jaw and launching him towards the grass. Krillin caught himself mid-air, dodging Mei Lin's next attack.
"Where the hell did that come from?!" Krillin looked around in confusion. He glanced at Mei Lin, only to wince as another beam of energy struck his arm. "Darn!" He shouted in anger, looking about. "Where the hell did that come from!"
Mei Lin smiled, "a girl can't reveal all her secrets now, can she?" Krillin coughed out blood as another hole appeared in his stomach.
Cursing, the bald monk charged forward, deciding that if he couldn't identify the hidden attack he would instead attack Mei Lin before she could strike again. Unfortunately for him, another invisible beam pierced his foot, slowing him down enough for another strike to nearly send him to the ground.
Jazz looked around now, alert for any changes in the audience, he could barely see the first few beams, but now he couldn't make out even a single one of them, Mei Lin's ki didn't fluctuate in a way that denoted she was using a ki technique either, so he had no idea what was going on. The others in the dragon team seemed just as confused as he was as they watched the fight go on.
Krillin knew he was in a pickle, somehow, some way, Mei Lin was able to unleash an invisible, or nearly invisible beam of energy that packed enough punch and was thin and focused enough to pierce through him. She seemed capable of firing it from any angle and it was too fast for Krillin to determine where it came from.
"I planned to use this on piccolo…" Krillin began, charging up a massive ball of energy that quickly engulfed his body. The ki began to rotate rapidly, creating a nasty grinding sound in the air, like a rotary saw against steel. Sparks began to fly as the invisible beams crashed against Krillin's technique, seemingly unable to strike through his newfound defense.
Jazz looked at the technique with interest, it felt like a mix of the destructo disk and Frieza's nova strike, the technique where the tyrant wrapped ki around his body and charged through Goku's Kamehameha. He noted with interest Mei Lin's frown upon witnessing the technique and slowly backed away from his friends. He prepared to transform into an eider duck, which he hadn't used in quite some time, as he wanted to test out a possible theory as to Mei Lin's strange technique.
Oblivious to Jazz's movements, Krillin charged forward, he noticed the invisible blasts were occurring less and less frequently, but that wasn't a concern of his, the real issue came in hitting Mei Lin, who still continued to dodge him nimbly. He didn't want to admit it, but her attacks exhausted him and he was going off fumes, this ki technique, which worked as both a shield and sword, was meant to fight against someone overwhelmingly more powerful than him, like Piccolo, or Tien, or Goku, they would burn and cut themselves against his technique, whilst also having to produce an extreme amount of force to get to him. He was upset that he revealed it so early, but at the same time, he was thankful he could see its weaknesses front and center. The technique was difficult to maneuver, he needed to constantly concentrate on the ki he gathered around him, lest it stray from the direction he was flying, this also meant he had to move slower than normal. It might have also been due to his injuries and blood loss, but he had a terrible headache. All of this combined caused him not to realize when his technique, which he dubbed the buzzsaw armadillo, smashed into Mei Lin, slicing through her clothes and forming a nasty gash between her breasts.
"BLOOD ON THE BATTLEFIELD! KRILLIN'S NEW TECHNIQUE'S NO JOKE! IS THIS THE END FOR MEI LIN?!"
Mei Lin for her part silently fell to the ground, landing on the tile. Her face was one of shock as she glanced around as if confused as to her whereabouts.
…
As the battle continued on, Jazz waited until more of those invisible beams smashed into Krillin's new technique. Based on the angle of the miniature explosions, he calculated where the attacks came from, and transformed, mixing his momentous ki techniques with his form's already quick natural flying speed. In about half a mile he found his target. A group of five, three men and 2 women, wearing red ribbon uniforms and wielding strange contraptions strapped to their arms. On each of their foreheads were the tell-tale talisman signs belonging to Mei Lin, and due to their bluish complexion Jazz determined that they were jiangshi of hers.
Upon witnessing the eider duck fly towards them at supersonic speeds, the three all fired quickly, scattering.
"Shit! The transformer found us!" One of the men shouted as the rest began to fly in different directions.
Jazz took no time to split into 5 separate entities. Their contraptions were very odd, hooked up to their arms, seemingly drawing energy from all over before concentrating it in tiny beams, naked to the eye and for some odd reason undetectable. Actually, as Jazz looked at them, he realized that he couldn't detect their energy at all, which shouldn't happen, unless…
"More artificial humans?" Jazz wondered out loud as he smashed the group leader into the dirt. The other four clones also spent little time dismantling the defenses of the other Red Ribbon army warriors.
"Man…" One clone said, yawning, "that was kinda too easy, y'know?"
"A little… too easy." Another clone said, taking out a communicator and notifying PaoPao's men of their discovery.
"The real issue," a third clone piped up, "are those weird arm cannons…"
The weaponry, odd and rudimentary as it appeared, was a little too similar to the appearance of the tech used for Frieza force grunts. The men all wore helmets that seemed partially hooked into their spines, green glass-like lenses covered their left eye, with charts, radar, and other sensors showing up.
"Who gave you this technology?" Jazz demanded.
"Scum!" One of the men retorted, earning them a smack in the back of the head from one Jazz clone.
The fourth and final clone, who had been silent, piped up suddenly. "I scanned their talisman magic, Mei Lin relayed orders to these guys to aim at Krillin, it's not just them…" He looked around, "15 miles away and rapidly escaping in several directions is a second group, I can't sense their energy but I can sense the magic." He looked at Jazz, "If we destroy the talismans, it will cause backlash to Mei Lin."
"Fuck her." They all said in unison as Jazz chased down the other Red Ribbon army agents. As Jazz closed in on the enemy, he couldn't help but think about the gear once more, it couldn't be a coincidence that it looked like Frieza tech, but the answers he could think of bothered him. At the same time, the radio he kept on him talked about the several meteors that were hurtling through space, and how they seemed to have slowed compared to previous recordings.
…
…
Afterword:
Jasper(Jazz) Duncan
Age: 21 and 11 months
Hair color: Red
Skin color: white
Race: "Human"
Height: 6 feet 0.5 inches | 184.15 centimeters
Weight: 195 lbs | 88.4505 kilograms, currently weighs 1200 lbs | 544.3108 kilograms
Skills: Advanced Staff Technique, Advanced Kinjutsu (sword technique), Advanced Hand-to-Hand technique, Advanced Ki techniques, Mastered Magic Materialization
Capable of creating: Conventional Weapons, Food, and various tools (limited by his knowledge of the materials, craftsmanship, and scientific knowledge)
Weapons that can be created: Long Ruyi Jingu Bang, Long Bansho Fan, Ryu Kusanagi, Wyvern's Wind-And-Fire Wheels, Dragon's Flame-Tipped Spear, Fafnir's Gungnir, Leviathan's Trident, Jorgumandur's Svalinn, Hydra's Ancilla
Powers: Elemental Magic Materialization, Capable of summoning and freely manipulating fire, water, wind, earth, lightning, ice, smoke, and steam, capable of manipulating and stirring the growth of plant and animal life. Mastered Telekinesis.
Mastery of General Magic Concepts and abilities. mastered understanding of intermediate-level magical techniques, and an advanced understanding of advanced magical techniques.
Shapeshifting: Mastered Skill level (indefinite)
Transformation Power Techniques
Noble Werewolf: True Awakening: 6.25x power
Ultimate Full Power: 6.4x
Talisman Magic: Body Enhancement: 5x Power, drains magical energy over time, lasts 30 minutes at full, before then draining ki,
1.5x level: can be used for 12 hours straight
2x level: can be used for 4 hours straight
3x: can be used for 2 hours
4x: Can be used for 1 hour
Emissive Techniques: Kamehameha, Don Don Pa, Solar Flare, Tri-Beam, Thunder Shock Surprise, Barrage Ki attack, Magic Fire Kamehameha, Thunderfire Kamehameha. Ki-Flame Sword, Marshmallow Meteor, Sovereign Rain
Body Techniques: Four Witches Technique, 12 Eyes Technique, Fusion Dance, Wolf Fang Fist, Mafuba
Blessing from a "Friend": Enhanced strength, speed, stamina, durability, and senses, capable of surviving a 2 fold fusion without extreme backlash.
Powerlevel: 4260 (suppressed)
Power of Noble Werewolf: 26,625
Power of Ultimate Full Power: 27,264
Power of Talisman: 21,300
Noble + Full Power: 170,400
Noble +Full Power + Talisman: 852,000
Fusion Dance (10x)
Double Fusion Dance (100x)
After Afterword:
I wonder why Gero would have access to this tech, or why it feels so similar to Frieza tech, perhaps it's just a prototype of the energy sensor's Android 16 used. Find out, next time!