Piccolo drew his stance wide, bringing his two fingers together.
"Special!"
His voice was a shout of thunder.
"Beam!"
Lightning blasted across his body, and lightning blasted from his fingers, and Piccolo struggled to not be pressed down by the density of his ki, the forking arcs of pure, dazzling hatred that clawed toward him were enough to scorch his skin. The smell of burning ozone and blood wafted through the area, filling his nostrils as he watched Goku and Kukyo getting battered.
The air crackled and hissed as he channeled his ki, focusing it, compressing it, imagining it in his mind's eyes. A yellow sphere rippling with blue electricity surged over his fingers, and it took all of his control not to fling it about in great arcing bolts of blue-violet. Piccolo stood within the center of the maelstrom. Fierce wind gusted around him, tearing at his tattered clothes and his bloodied body. It rocked and shook the ground, sending spider web cracks rifling through from his feet.
The air itself was charged with electricity.
In the midst of it all, Piccolo laughed, homing in on his triumph and rather than launch the blast, only for it to ricochet off the far mountain, Piccolo grounded himself down and attained total mental concentration. Each time the lightning flared, the intensity of the flash burned into his retinas, but he didn't look away, his eyes were wild with the rush of power.
The thunder was almost deafening, and the storm of ki was still building. If he wasn't careful, the faint echoes would reach the levels in that man's strange device, that would lock onto and relay his ki back to the man, revealing their secret strategy to the burly brute. More lightning surged, surrounding his entire body, but Piccolo continued to compress and control it, and became even more settled in his powerful stance. He could feel the power beginning to reach its crescendo, compressed, and sharpened to its near limit.
Rather than lessen the intensity of his ki, Piccolo only let it continue to rise, the blue lightning slowly surging with a silver indigo color, the only thing keeping the super-heated energy from cooking him alive being his superior ki control.
Piccolo glared at Raditz.
Let's see you stop this one...
Kukyo staggered, but the blistering pain that poured from Raditz's hands only intensified.
"Kukyo!" Goku called.
His voice sounded distant, as if it came from the bottom of a well.
"This is our chance!"
Kukyo felt Goku's leaps from the ground to the air, felt his approach right behind her.
And, Raditz was not afraid. He wasn't worried the slightest.
"Come on!" Raditz's voice raised over the howl of wind.
Now Goku was in Raditz's face, firing off thirty punches, howling over the burning pain in his muscles. Raditz decided to make no offensive move, instead he ramped up the speed of his hands, bending the line of Goku's attacks back toward his face. Empowered by righteous fury, the duo was able to attack thrice in a single second, integrated by combat experiences from their past, each of the twenty strikes came from a different angle with different speed, timing, and intensity.
Not one touched Raditz.
After all, he had often walked unscathed through swarms of blasts on assignments, defended only by the might of his ki. Countering sixty blows was easy pickings. His arms wove with sharp angles and curves, always just fast enough, each motion of his strikes interfering with three or four of the duo's strikes, his precise, minimal shifts of weight and stance slipping them by centimeters.
Kukyo ramped up the intensity and velocity of her attacks. Twenty. Forty. Sixty. Until finally, nearly eighty strikes, she still struggled to overload Raditz's defense. So he used his defense to attack. A subtle shift in the angle of a single block brought Raditz's elbow in contact not with the leg of the oncoming kick, but with the side of Goku's head.
Goku managed to move just a hairbreadth before it would have cleft through his skull. Raditz moved forward, following through on the next strike, a stiff stabbing chop into the shoulder that sent Goku spinning backwards. Kukyo rammed her fist into his gut, she spun around for her next strike, but Raditz's hand rammed itself against the middle of her neck and seized her. He yanked her upright against him, his face coming within a centimeter of her nose.
He snarled. "Do you think you can really crack my armor?"
Instead of waiting for an answer he spun around, heaving Kukyo with effortless strength, whipping her over his head to slam her to the ground. Goku could barely make Raditz let go, only a well-timed punch by him allowed her to angle her fall into a stumbling roll. Raditz sprang after them both, swinging his heavy leg around and slamming it across Kukyo's flank before the woman could retract her strike. The impact sent her tumbling sideways and she leapt off the ground with a discharge of ki, flinging herself upside down.
She cupped her hands, bringing them to her side. "KA...ME...HA...ME..."
Meanwhile Goku recovered quickly, spinning out of the way when he followed up with a high, snapping straight punch meant to break Raditz's nose and buckle him at the knees. Raditz retaliated with a quick jab toward his face, but he ducked his head to the side and came back with a high reverse kick at face level. Raditz intercepted the kick with one of his own, angling it so that the momentum of Goku's attack was redirected to the side, sending him flying off target, angled towards the ground.
This should have exposed him, but he was already reacting, driving his entire body forward into the ground with a handspring, launching himself skyward before Raditz could get his hand up.
Goku cupped his hands, bringing them to his side. "KA...ME...HA...ME..."
"Eh?" Raditz tapped the button on his scouter, his eyes widened as the device honed-in on the two detected powers.
From the corner of his eye, he seen that Goku and Kukyo, had taken similar stances as each other, their power increasing rapidly. The stance was one he would have blown off or even scoffed at if it wasn't for the power surging to a focused point. Cupped hands, drawn to their sides. The energy streamed, like blue supernovae.
That level of concentration wasn't normal.
"Impossible! They can increase their attack power by focusing it to a single point! Kakarot is at 924. Sarpa is at 915..."
Raditz's words stuck in his throat, his scouter making its distorted sound as another power caught his notice, the surge of lightning made him snap his head to the side so hard he could have broken his neck. He took note that Piccolo had taken an even wider stance, and right on his head was a massive surge of energy in the form of lightning bolts.
Raditz had only seen something like this from his comrades. His brawny comrade could clothe himself in a lightning aura, his female comrade could ignite her ki like a star, and the strongest out of them could cause storms when he powered up.
They were elite, though...
"Impossible! 1,480! Combined power of 3,639! I can't block that!"
"HAAAAAAAAA!"
Raditz watched in fear as the white-blue beams of energy approached him. He ran to one side, then another, and then another, sprinting as fast as he could, but the beams held him in place firmly. Knowing he was unable to avoid the attacks, he turned around lifted both of his arms to brace for the attack. The intensity of the blasts and their flash was more than enough to nearly blind Raditz, huge chunks of the ground snapped apart at his feet as the two blue beams morphed into a single white, massive beam, forming lattices and crystalline extensions against the spiraling, yellow electrical blast by its side.
Lightning blasted the ground, it blasted the clouds above, and it ripped across the terrain, striking the nearby mountains and landscape.
Raditz screamed as the light began burning into his retinas, forcing him to bring his hands up to shield his eyes, slowly coming to grips with the fact he was trapped. The massive shock wave shook everything around him and inside of him. The concussive blast had more than enough power to shatter every bone and burn his flesh into dust.
He threw up a shield to protect himself from the attack. Unfortunately, he couldn't shield himself from its power or the area around him. Everything exploded into great chunks of rubble. The ground collapsed in a shower of devastation, burying Raditz beneath tons of rock. A second later the rest of the nearby terrain caved in, devoured by the blast. Raditz's roar above the endless blast of lightning faded away. The lightning and destructive beam swallowed themselves, leaving only the battered terrain, rain, debris, and three combatants who crumpled to their knees.
The area Raditz had been, was completely disintegrated, revealing nothing but a mountain of rubble, a crater, and Goku recognized what was about to happen just in time to throw himself backward, shielding himself from the worst of the explosion aftermath. He was thrown clear as the entire mountain of rubble collapsed in on itself, sending huge chunks tearing loose that tumbled to the ground.
Choking on the cloud of dust and smoke, Piccolo dragged himself towards the area slowly and placed a hand on the wreckage, closing his eyes, reaching out and focusing.
He searched for a sign that the long-haired fool was alive.
He could not sense anything.
Meanwhile Goku and Kukyo watched the spectacle of the explosion from the safety of the ground, holding back harsh coughs as billowing clouds of dust and debris rolled out from the wreckage towards them. Exhausted by the long battle and drained by the sudden unleashing of so much ki, they simply laid there until they were covered in a layer of fine powder.
Eventually, Kukyo began reaching out, she sought some sign that Raditz might still be alive beneath the mountain of debris.
She couldn't feel a trace of the evil ki.
Goku only laid on his back, staring at the dark, rainy sky above them while he gasped air back into his spasming lungs. He barely managed to roll over far enough to get a breath, before he writhed in agony, teeth gritting. Despite the pain he simply enjoyed being alive. There was neither time nor reason to mourn Raditz's death. He had made it clear he'd purge the earth of all life. Yet his simple arrival on Earth had prompted them to action. It had prompted all of them to action.
Piccolo began the long trek through the jungle on foot, following the same path Raditz had taken only hours before. He could have used ki to glide himself along, but he wanted time to think about what had happened.
And, how he would deal with the Saiyans...
According to Raditz, Goku and Kukyo disgraced their Saiyan heritage, transforming themselves into mewling bleeding hearts. He had made no qualms about the fact, even combined, they could not achieve victory over him through sheer might, but Piccolo knew better. Goku and his allies gained strength when united against a common foe. That was their nature. The key to defeating them wasn't armies or sheer might.
Secrecy and deception were the weapons to bring them down.
Victory could only come through subtlety and cunning.
Subtlety was something he lacked. It was something Raditz lacked even more. If he had been smart, he would have come in the guise of an alien challenger. He could have arrived with a tale of how he wanted to prove he was the best. Goku would have accepted him as an ally in the end after the competition. He would have been suspicious, of course, but over time his vigilance would have faded.
Sooner or later, he would have let his guard down.
Raditz could have killed him.
Assassination was quick, clean, and effective. Instead, Raditz had come and wanted to outright obliterate everything, not even following the rules of some foolish code of honor. There was no honor in his end. There was no such thing as a noble death. There was no greater goal or ideal, it was only mayhem and carnage.
Piccolo stopped at the end of the forest, narrowing his eyes as he glanced back at the duo still leveled on the ground, his expression fierce. "I'm going to destroy what he came in. Your friends will tell me where I can find it. Those other three Saiyans will be here in something just like it."
"Wait Piccolo!" Goku cried.
"Don't destroy the ship!" Kukyo gasped.
"Where would that get us?" Piccolo asked.
"Don't get rid of something that may hold the weakness to these Saiyans. Bulma can salvage this pod and use the technology." Kukyo said.
"I should destroy it." Piccolo remained firm.
But Kukyo, staring at the myriad of scenes, at the many battles and explosions all about the region, was shaking her head before Piccolo could begin to argue his reasoning. "I get the feeling we're going to need that technology in the future. With more Saiyans coming, we will need a way to defend ourselves."
Piccolo looked towards Goku.
"I'll be okay..."
Kukyo clenched her hands tightly, frowning as she considered the words of Raditz and the coming devastating scenes of battle flashing across the landscape.
"They will be here. They will not let us get away with this."
The Crusader, Bulma's ship, was easily the fastest vessel Krillin had ever been on. A small, personal attack cruiser, she required a crew of four to operate. Fortunately for Krillin, there were four others with him onboard, not all clad in a gi.
Bulma, a brown skinned woman with long purple hair, she was five feet and five inches tall, and weighed one hundred and ten pounds. She had the muscles and physique one would expect of someone who was acclaimed by many to be the greatest scientist of her time. Bulma had spent her life honing her skills and studies so that she could one day surpass everyone else on earth in her pursuits.
In the gunner chair across from the pilot was Tien. He was fair skinned and bulky standing at six feet and two inches. He weighed one hundred and sixty five pounds. His most prominent feature was his third eye. Another noteworthy trait was the large scar on the right side of his chest, starting at his collarbone and running all the way down to his abdomen. He wore a green togga-like top, a pair of baggy green pants, red-and-green wristbands, black boots with yellow covers, and a red sash.
Handling the navigation in the back of the vessel was Yamcha. He was six feet tall and weighed one hundred and fifty pounds. His long, spiky black hair flowed like a mane around his shoulders and wedged off into several bangs that folded over his eyes. He had been one of the fiercest fighters during the battles with King Piccolo and the Red Ribbon Army, and a key to victory in many of those battles, even though he wasn't always the strongest in the group.
Located beside the navigator in the rear of the vessel, was the fourth member of the crew, Sho. Tan skinned, his hair was like a bushy mane, with several bangs covering his forehead. His eyes were intense, and his jaw was sharply angled. He was six feet and five inches tall, weighing one hundred and seventy-seven pounds. He provided support for the pilot, gunner, and navigator. He called up stores of charts, engine readings, weapons status, scanner reports, and anything else the others needed to do their jobs.
Krillin was seated up front in the cockpit with Bulma and Yamcha, occupying the passenger seat, his only job was to stay out of everyone else's way. While not the strongest or most tactically sound in their group, he made up for it with sheer determination and an uncanny creativity that had even Piccolo backing away at times.
Using the abandoned air route indicated on her data sheet Bulma discovered recently, the Crusader penetrated forward. Bulma had expressed her concern at the start of the voyage. According to current readings the way they were traversing had been known to momentarily just vanish into electrical fields. A ship traveling anywhere along the corridor during the nanosecond before a ki blast went off would be lost, the instability and danger of the route had led to it falling into disuse and finally being forgotten.
Sho had calculated the risk of a ki blast or one causing such a collapse during their journey at just over twenty percent, more than enough to make Krillin breathe a sigh of relief when they emerged unscathed a few hundred kilometers away from their destination.
"Weapons primed and ready. Anyone we have to worry about being here other than the guy Goku and Kukyo ran off to fight?" Tien's stern tone cut into everyone's ears over the intercom.
"Nothing within our vicinity." Sho reported. "The worst of the ki blast is gone. Looks like we're clean."
"I'm taking us in." Bulma told them. "See if you can find them."
"I'm picking something up in the distance." Sho said as they neared the ground.
"Looks like we're right behind it." Krillin commented.
"Locking onto the object." Even over the crackle of an intercom, Sho's deep voice resonated through the ship.
"I'm engaging the autopilot. Get ready." Bulma said.
The autopilot dropped them down into the rain drenched wastelands, and for several seconds the only thing Krillin could see through the cockpit viewport was a wall of rain. Below them was a flat landscape, with mountains that were visible just miles away, the only significant structures in sight that remained intact.
"Picking up a small vessel on the ground." Sho told them as they drew nearer.
They were close enough now that Krillin could make out two receding towers of smoke rising upon either side of the landscape.
"Looks like there's only two people." Sho noted.
"Only two? Are you sure?" Yamcha asked.
"According to this ship's scanners and my own sensory capabilities."
"Hopefully nothing happened to Piccolo. Even if he is bad news, we still need him for the Dragon Balls." Bulma said, clenching her steering yoke a little tighter.
Yamcha scoffed. "I bet he ran off the first chance he got and left Goku and Kukyo there. That cocky attitude of his for no damn good reason. He's the master of cheap shots."
Bulma rolled her eyes.
She set the ship down in the cover of a small range several kilometers from the towers of smoke. She would draw less attention approaching on foot, and she wanted to keep the Crusader's location secret in case she needed it to make a quick escape. They disembarked and began the long hike to meet up with Goku and Kukyo.
The feel of this area was far different from an area even ten miles away. This was tired, weary, heavy and spent with the endless battle that had been being waged across its surface. There was malice in the air, like some haze that clouded the mind and spirit. The ki of the trio had always been strong, but Bulma sensed their ki was waning, a maelstrom of exhaustion, fatigue, and pain.
Neither the malicious ki nor the good ki whipped away from each other. Instead, they collided and fused, becoming an obscene, indecisive ki that was neither warm nor cold, but felt like submerging into a lukewarm river. Far to the east she could see the edges of great forests. She could sense the native wildlife, chicken ostriches and hawk bats hiding deep within them, though they used stealth to mask their exact location.
The site of battle was to the west, several kilometers away from the forest's borders and the peaceful creatures.
Between them and the destruction was rolling hills and plains. The site of the first major battle that had been fought on Earth in five years. The fighting had been punctuated by three full-scale ki blasts, where each side had brought their full strength to bear in an effort to wipe out the enemy. From the pungent smell of destruction, they knew a confrontation had been recently fought over this territory as well. Their suspicions were confirmed when they crested a hill and came across a scene of carnage.
It was hard to tell who had won.
Goku and Kukyo were sprawled on the ground, bodies bloodied. As they drew nearer, they realized that they were still alive. The duo was not quite dead, though the severe wounds gave stark evidence that if they didn't hurry, they wouldn't be alive much longer.
With a groan, Kukyo rolled onto her back, but couldn't quite bring herself up to a sitting position, leaning her head and shoulder against a nearby stone.
Her eyes cleared momentarily and came into focus. "Bulma..."
Kukyo mumbled, the words hard to hear through the choking bubbles of blood welling up in her throat. A coughing fit cut off what she was going to say next.
"We killed him, but there are three more coming..."
Bulma sighed as she supported the taller woman, not quite the appropriate response, but it was better than nothing. She had to keep Kukyo talking in order to keep her conscious long enough to consume a Senzu Bean.
"Three more? Who?" Bulma asked, though it wasn't clear if the woman could even hear her in her fevered state.
She turned, then paused when she felt a tug on her arm from Kukyo
"Help Goku...Please..."
Krillin lowered his jaw, so it was set. "You both need a Senzu Bean. It looks like some of your ribs are broken."
Yamcha motioned for Bulma to help him, and together they got the Son duo on stable ground. They lowered them gently to the rain-slick terrain, and Kukyo started awaking as soon as Bulma began to attend to her wounds and nudge her throat gently. She blinked wide, her body overcome with a red-hot wave of vigor that consumed the overwhelming pain paralyzing her.
"We really need to learn to grow Senzu Beans." Kukyo remarked, clenching her fists a few times.
"Do you know who it was you went after?" Bulma asked her.
"Some space pirate named Raditz. He didn't leave us much choice in the matter. He wasn't taking no for an answer." Kukyo said. "He wanted us to wipe out everything on this world. When we were finished here, we were going to invade another world because three others besides the man we faced were going to have complications taking it. There will be three more of these Saiyans coming here."
Tough as she was, she ended with a grunt and a groan.
"Goku's wounds are going to need more treatment than I can give here. He isn't conscious so he can't swallow the bean." An obviously concerned Sho explained.
"If that guy was capable of doing this to you two, I'd hate to see what he did to Piccolo." Krillin said.
Kukyo looked towards Bulma, noting she was moving towards the direction Raditz had arrived in. Yamcha meanwhile had carefully gathered Goku and moved him into the Crusader.
"We can pick this up later on. We need to get Goku into a healing tank and I need to get back here so I can find that space pirate's ship. I might be able to find some weaknesses we could exploit. If not, we still have advanced technology that will be very useful for us." Bulma said, voice urgent.
Krillin sighed and looked away. So, they had foiled this attempt on Earth and killed the space pirate. It was clear to him that everyone, and Earth remained in grave danger because three more Saiyans were coming.
"How long do we have?" Krillin finally asked, teeth clenched.
"I give it a year. Maybe less. They are capable of interstellar flight." Bulma replied.
"One year?!"
Sho just regarded Krillin calmly, despite the bald man's increasing fear. "We could split it evenly. That's roughly ten months."
Bulma frowned. That isn't much time.