"Pilaf-sama, we might not be able to beat this man like this, he's a friend of that brat, after all!" Mai, seated inside by far the largest and weightiest mech turned toward the smallest and the most round, blue mech in the middle.
"An excellent idea, Mai, let's fuse!" Pilaf ordered and, judging by loud thuds from inside his mech, smashed one or two switches in the process. Shu's green robot suit took a quick 360 turn before posing on the bottom, streams of intense jet fire launched Mai's pink mech suit up in the air where the sturdy legs that held it upward folded inside the suit and the pink body of the combined mech landed on top of Shu's mech.
Pilaf's mech rolled into a ball and began bouncing about, finally building up enough force to jump up and aim to land on top of the conjoined pair of mechs. The airship let out an agonizing shriek while the back of the ship took a strong nosedive downward, forcing Tenshinhan to levitate up into the air while Yamcha struggled to stay attached to the top deck of the airship.
"Disengage, disengage immediately!" Mai yelled out, upon which moment Pilaf released the magnetic bonds holding the entire fusion of mech suits together, dropping the trio of would-be rulers of the world down on their faces, scattered all over the deck.
"It appears that the ship cannot support all of us when we fuse, where the spread out mass of all three of us separately doesn't cause such tension…" Pilaf stated while his round ball of mechanical wonder pulled itself off the ground.
"What now? Maybe we should let Demon King Piccolo take care of them after all?" Shu wondered.
"Hmmm… You were crafty opponents indeed… Fine, for the sake of keeping our precious mechanical suits intact for when we take over the world, we will let the three of you face Demon King Piccolo himself!" Pilaf declared and erupted into a fit of maniacal laughter while the platforms on which the three mechanical suits stood on descended into the inner part of the airship.
"What just happened?" Yamcha turned back to Tenshinhan.
"You've won your match, you should be proud. Because I'm not letting you meddle with mine…" Tenshinhan shrugged his shoulders at Yamcha, looking content with the way that the things had transpired but acting regretful about it.
The two looked around for the most favorable entry point to the inside of the ship, managing to find only a door that could open on the sides as the platforms that Pilaf and his gang descended with sealed those entry points off from being used again. Tenshinhan floated up and around the ship, easily hovering by the door while enjoying the sight of Yamcha struggling to get around and having to risk his life scaling the zeppelin-shaped airship.
Just after Yamcha's feet touched the floaters on the bottom but before Tenshinhan could break, rip the door out or kick it down, the entryway to the inner area of the airship opened up with a prolonged mechanical squeak. At last, the pair would end up before the Demon King Piccolo…
"Who would have known that finding a Dragon Ball in such a public place would be so difficult…" Oolong complained as not even the quest to find one of the seven magical wish-fulfillment orbs managed to keep his eyes from squinting and his voice from sounding whiny.
"It's true, with buildings and alleyways in the way, things are far more difficult…" Bulma noticed while the pair made their way into a dark alleyway "We're just asking to get mugged, walking around this place like that…"
"That's what ya have me for!" Launch, in her blond hair form, cocked her submachine gun which was comically too drastic of a measure to deal with a mere alleyway mugger.
"It's in here!" Chiaotzu declared, floating over a bunch of toppled trash cans the contents of which laid in a massive mountain. Sadly, it wasn't such an unusual sight to see in larger towns. Puar floated about, trying to locate the Dragon Ball with a mere visual inspection.
"Don't bother, may as well have old man blast this mountain away with a Kamehameha!" Oolong pulled a sip from his juice box while kicking the massive mountain of trash only for the mountain to rumble, finally making Oolong's gazers snap open while his entire body shook from the surprise of having moved something living underneath the massive pile of trash.
"Who wakes Bacterian from his slumber!?" a rugged-looking giant stood on two feet, throwing the garbage that he laid buried down under about to his sides, revealing that the true layer of trash was far smaller than it initially seemed, it was just that the amount of flesh resting on the giant bones of the man lying underneath that made the natural structure bloat for a moment.
"The Dragon Ball!" Puar pointed at an orange crystalline orb rolling down the moving layers of garbage while Chiaotzu floated down to pick it up.
"So that's a Dragon Ball…" he muttered to himself. Before he could let his hands wrap around the Dragon Ball, however, a rude smack sent him hitting the wall on the other side of the alleyway after Bacterian decided to protect his property.
"Don't touch my property, shorty!" Bacterian warned Chiaotzu not to try anything of the sort again, the smelly bastard even went so far as to snort some snot back to his throat and prepare for a nasty spit from his mouth that was sure to pack some lethal wallop, more powerful than even his already knockout-inducing smell.
"Watch out, Chiaotzu, the naturally repugnant body odor of this man even gave Chayote trouble when she fought him in the World Martial Arts Tournament!" Muten Roshi warned the ghoulish boy from a distance farther back.
"It's okay, I don't have a nose to smell him with!" Chiaotzu declared and pointed two of his index fingers at the cranky giant.
Bacterian twitched and froze in an awkwardly sprawled out pose. His face morphed from the expression of rage into a pathetic cocktail of wiggly eyes, twitchy nose and a twisted mouth that continued to wave and waggle in the sense of daze that befell him. Chiaotzu's telekinetic powers appeared to have little to no trouble subduing Bacterian and even lifting him up into the air to where the alleyway was completely free for the Dragon Ball to be removed.
"Bulma, grab it!" Muten Roshi pointed.
"No way, I'm not burrowing through garbage!" Bulma grabbed her nose and stuck out her tongue, "Not right underneath that stinky fool! How did he rebuild all that stench after Chayote forced him to bathe just three years ago anyway?"
"It's for Yamcha-san's sake!" Puar declared and nodded as his eyes brimmed with great determination. The flying cat swooped down under and picked the Dragon Ball up from underneath Bacterian's floating bottom while Chiaotzu flicked his fingers and slammed Bacterian through the wall right behind him, leaving him lying down in his drunken, dirty stupor.
"What a chump… We were lucky he was drunk or else he'd have offered more of a fight…" Oolong noted while the Dragon Team rushed for the jet they left parked in the middle of the street a block back.
"Welcome, martial artists…" a strong and masculine yet oddly alluring voice of authority invited Tenshinhan and Yamcha to tread a little bit bolder into the area inside Pilaf's airship and into its main room, located right at the front by the control room.
"Demon King Piccolo!" Tenshinhan grit his teeth and clenched his fist up by his chest. "We've come to destroy you!"
"Oh? It's too bad that Cymbal, my dear son is gathering the Dragon Balls as we speak, starting with one not two hundred meters from our current location… I like to test my challengers for my strength these days is too valuable to waste on braggarts and imbeciles." A giant in a dark blue gi and a flowing red cape with a kanji of his own name gracing his uniform. The Great Demon King was a giant, goblin-like creature of shriveled, mossy green color in skin, sharp and pointy features. A true devil of the swamps except instead of horns the slug-man donned a pair of antennae.
"Are these by any chance the terrifying enemies you spoke of after releasing the Great Demon King Piccolo?" a short, salad-colored pterosaur-like demon in formal clothing addressed Pilaf and his gang who hid by Demon King Piccolo's side.
"N-Not quite…" Pilaf fumbled his way through words, trying to seem mighty and valuable to a Great Demon King and his valued cohort while being an utter fool oneself was no easy task, after all. "This man in the turtle gi is someone we know. He is part of the group but this three-eyed man is all new…"
"Worry not, for the strength of Demon King Piccolo is peerless and he will undoubtedly smash these detestable martial artists to…" the demonling sung his lord's praises before a bright beam pierced his abdomen and sent him slumping down with whited out eyes and completely powerless.
"Piano!" Demon King Piccolo roared out, seeing his treasured spokesperson disposed of by the three-eyed martial artist.
"This is for Krillin…" Tenshinhan stated with an outraged face, it was not tough to see that the martial artist couldn't remain calm long enough to count the seconds before his impending clash with the Great Demon King.
"You three…" Yamcha looked at Pilaf and his gang. "You three unsealed Demon King Piccolo!? Why would you do that!? Just to defeat us?"
"It's not just to defeat you, it's to rule the world! I mean… One-fifth of the world…" Pilaf declared boldly at first before feeling the escalating threat of absolute death from his side and turning to the Great Demon King who was utterly boiling in the darkness emanating from his body. "One island… Maybe?"
"You sought out the Demon King Piccolo's cage for power? Don't worry, your hour for penance will come soon enough too…" Tenshinhan scolded the group of bumbling idiots crouching by the Great Demon King Piccolo's side, frightened by the power of their own ally, even if neither of the three could sense Ki or any sort of fighting potential whatsoever, the strength Demon King Piccolo let flow through his body made one's innermost instincts of self-preservation light up with popping streamers.
"You loathsome martial artist scum!" Demon King Piccolo slammed the right side of his own throne of skulls while some mystical, telekinetic power raised his body off the ground and placed him standing in front of Tenshinhan on the opposite side of the airship. "I'd have killed you all off regardless but… Even the mind of the Great Demon King Piccolo struggles to come up with fitting punishment for the murderer of my precious son."
"Growing soft in your old age, Piccolo!" Tenshinhan taunted the shriveled, mossy demon while refusing to take any sort of fighting position, doing so as a taunt for the supposedly frightening power of the Great Demon King.
"You will address me as Great Demon King Piccolo by the time this is done!" King Piccolo growled while his eyes emitted light, gleaming with two pointy beads lighting up like flares. Tenshinhan hopped back lightly to avoid the near-invisible blitz of an ocular beam that might have broken or outright removed his leg. The body of the three-eyed martial artist blurred and moved too fast for the aged Demon King to respond.
Piccolo's neck extended to a frightening length to compensate for the power that Tenshinhan's left hook snapped his head back with. The strength of Tenshinhan was more than sufficient to lift even the giant Great Demon King Piccolo off his feet and send him crashing back down in his throne of skulls.
The eyes of the Demon King were whited out while a long and droopy streak of purple blood hung from Piccolo's nose and colored his busted lip. Pilaf, Mai and Shu shrieked out in horror that the mythical figure on which they bet all their chips got sent into a knockdown so easily, seemingly for good.
"P-Perhaps we haven't made it clear… We found Demon King Piccolo's rice cooker by accident…" Pilaf chuckled as if he and Tenshinhan were just two old chums messing around.
"Th-That's right… We were just salvaging for treasure and we found an old rice cooker, we only meant to cook some rice in the beginning, honestly…" Mai followed the example set by her superior but upon seeing the chill-inducing stare that Tenshinhan gave them she quickly shut herself up and hid behind the comically undergrown Pilaf, almost having to lift him off the ground and shield herself with the shrimp for him to offer any sort of cover for her.
"You pesky little shits… How strong you've grown…" Piccolo's voice interrupted Tenshinhan trying to come up with something to do about Pilaf and his gang. The brought down Demon King managed to crack and wriggle his body back up on his own two feet while he dragged his withered fist across his shriveled up jaw to wipe the blood off of it.
"Heh… I guess it was naïve to assume that one punch would be all it would take…" Yamcha smiled to himself, just trying to build up courage in the case if the Demon King unleashed some frightening power and defeated Tenshinhan after his return.
"Perhaps I would have been wiser to preserve my strength and not create any of my sons at all… No. I don't think that would have been enough to match your spry bodies either…" Piccolo grumbled before reaching for his collar and removing his red cape, then throwing aside. For the mere moment it took for the red drape to float past Pilaf and his gang, the trio enjoyed the improvised cover that it offered.
"There is no need for Mafuba! Come, Piccolo, I will take you down myself!" Tenshinhan declared and took his own offensive fighting stance. It was a stance that a martial artist took when they were confident of their advantage and attempted to go all-out in order to capitalize on it with full-on aggression, nothing spared for defense.
Piccolo and Tenshinhan took off at the same time, colliding with their elbows in the middle of the room, lightning bolts shot out from the point of their impact as the emanating shockwaves dimmed the room, momentarily shutting down all electrical gadgets and systems onboard before letting the room return to normal.
Tenshinhan's right foot slid back, he suffered some aftereffects from Piccolo's strength whereas Piccolo suffered nothing from the initial clash but even if Tenshinhan was in pain after hurting his forearm, he didn't show it as the two danced one around each other, throwing fists and exchanging kicks like the best of them. No. They weren't just like the best of them, the Great Demon King Piccolo was someone who has eradicated plenty of the best back in his day and Tenshinhan meant to give even the shriveled old slug a run for his money.
"You dare exchange fists with the Great Demon King!?" Demon King Piccolo roared while throwing a backhanded smack at Tenshinhan's jaw that made the three-eyed martial artist skid back with a streak of red on his lip and a black bruise on his cheek. Despite losing this first clash, Tenshinhan looked excited and even appeared to snicker at the blow he took.
"Is that all?" Tenshinhan came to wonder while taking his fighting stance again. Once again, offering nothing in terms of defensive potential and declaring that he was just going to attack his opponent.
"Bark at your own expense, dog!" Demon King Piccolo raged on as he charged with both of his fists clenched by his sides, Tenshinhan blocked the rushing knee strike and defended against a myriad of chops from above, quickly adapting on his feet and switching his stance in mid-engagement to rectify what he needed. No… He used the wrong stance to lure his enemy in on purpose, knowing he'd be able to change it before Piccolo connected with his attacks.
What confidence… What unmatched skill.
Still carrying the bruises over his body after each and every blow from the aged Demon King that he'd blocked, Tenshinhan lashed out at the Demon King when the latter appeared to have run out of steam in mid-rush. Whether his foul imagination had run out of moves to attempt on his staunch opponent or his body had failed him in keeping up the relentless barrage of body-crushing assaults, either way, Tenshinhan chopped at Piccolo's neck with both of his arms right after deflecting a pair of Demon King Piccolo's own chops and shoving his arms to the side.
Piccolo's eyes lit up crimson again, blasting out ocular beams that sent Tenshinhan flying and slamming into the wall at the back, Yamcha moved out of the way or else he'd have been taken out as well. The Great Demon King just cracked his knuckles and smirked at Yamcha, as if challenging the martial artist of the Turtle School to take the place of his fallen comrade.
"He's killed him, the Great Demon King Piccolo killed him with one blow!" Pilaf declared.
"Now I know why you losers use the robot suits to fight… Your instincts are rubbish!" Tenshinhan grunted while he stood from his collapse and dusted off his chest that appeared to carry no significant damage but ashy dust settled down on it.
"Kiai?" Demon King Piccolo wondered. "Such a fledgling form of it I can barely tell…" the slug-man mocked his opponent.
"That's okay if your knowledge is slipping up, I can teach you so you can complete your course before your death," Tenshinhan answered while taking a more balanced fighting stance.
Yamcha stared at the pair with worry, so far, Demon King Piccolo has been dominating this clash but… Something about Tenshinhan seemed so odd. It was as if Tenshinhan was not at all tired or hurt after taking so many nasty bumps and tangling one on one with the Demon King while Piccolo himself breathed extensively and even wheezed and huffed from time to time.
Nothing was decided just yet. The Great Demon King was not outside their reach for certain, he hadn't killed Tenshinhan yet and, judging by the way he was fighting, Demon King Piccolo was someone who was not in favor of a prolonged engagement that measured the stamina of both combatants for one's age had everything to do in such fights.
Even if Yamcha couldn't sense Ki with certainty how Chayote could, something about what he read in this battle suggested that he's seen very few reasons to worry just yet. All was yet to come… They could do this, they definitely could!