"Girder Bumblebee to HQ. Scouting the perimeter. The Red Ribbons are moving in with force. A full-on military engagement is necessary!" a chubby pilot in a bomber jacket yelled out into the microphone attached to his helmet while turning circles over a formation of troops in black trench coats with Red Ribbon insignia and gas masks. "Shall I open fire and provide a distraction for the primary force to engage?"
"Negative," a voice muzzled in from the other side. "They've come too close to the city. Engaging them now would mean waging war inside the city's borders. The civilian casualty count would be too high. We don't want another Devil sign scenario…"
"Roger that. Pulling back to base." The pilot replied with a tad of disappointment in his voice as he grabbed the stick with both his hands and pulled a sharp U-turn. A vigorous shake rattled the fighter jet, making the pilot pull his oxygen mask off so that he could breathe easier as the limited oxygen it provided no longer satisfied the airborne soldier.
Ironically enough, while his human instinct suggested that pulling it and the goggles he used to operate the plane gear from within the cockpit would have helped, instead the man in the twilight of his military career years gasped for air instead. Despite not needing to breathe through a single tube, the air this high above had been so rare that he was infinitely worse off than with the rubbery oxygen mask.
The source of the quake that nearly downed his jet became apparent when the lid covering up the cockpit from the elements ripped right off, spitting sparks and whipping torn wires about while shattered metal and glass pelted around, unable to cope with the air pressure. The pull from the outside nearly yanked the pilot with a single swoop, but the safety belt kept the pilot firmly in place even though it put the squeeze on his round belly.
"You've had your fun," an apathetic, masculine voice of a young man with slick, shoulder-length black hair and a cocky grin on his face declared as he grabbed hold of the pilot's seat. "Mom says it's my turn to fly now."
Lapis pulled the pilot's seat right out, flinging it over his head and firing the pilot out of his jet like from a catapult while the young man slipped right in and settled down in the pilot's place that he had just ripped out from the cockpit. Sitting in a vacant spot wasn't comfy per se, but Lapis was an Artificial Human so it wasn't like comfort too bothered him. A blonde of about his years in age leveled with the plane and rubbed her finger at her temple, suggesting what she thought of her brother's mental state.
The young woman tried speaking, but Lapis pointed at his ears, telling her he couldn't hear his sister from inside the plane as they flew side by side. After a hefty sigh and a roll of her eyes, Lazuli swooped up and landed on top of the plane. Lapis tried operating the plane's control panel to let his sister in, but it didn't feel like anything worked how it was intended to because of Lapis' own less than graceful entry. Only more sparks and red error screens lit up.
"Oh, for Pete's sake!" a golden, ethereal shimmer filled the cockpit as Android 18 blasted the lid sideways, blowing it away into a storm of scrap metal with just a meaningless fraction of her power. "What are you doing?"
"You shouldn't have blown the lid off!" Lapis yelled out as the air swooping at them at high speeds and rustling their hair made it difficult to communicate from within the ruined cockpit. "It was so peaceful and fun before you yanked it off. You need to learn to apply a softer touch sometimes. You can be like a barbarian jeez."
"What are you doing, you dumbass?" Android 18 pressed her knuckles to her waist as she leaned in on her brother from behind him. "These military planes are a nuisance. There's no reason for us to bother with them. Any of our converted soldiers could have taken care of it."
"Yeah, but don't you feel like it's more fun like this?" Lapis wondered before realizing his dream had been going up with wild flocks of sparks and flames and abandoning the cockpit. While the Artificial Human sustained flight over the cold, mountainous areas below, the plane spiraled down and crashed into a ball of flames below.
"What are you on about?" Android 18 crossed her arms with a pout on her lips.
"We're headed to kill Son Goku, right? That's just about the only thing worth doing besides capturing Chayote. The entire world's ours, but anything less than that would be too boring," Lapis reasoned with his sister.
"That's right. 21 said that the entire universe would end if we tried to kill Chayote and that would kind of suck. Plus, I don't care too much if the old man died because of her. It's Son Goku's fault that we had to go back to the beginning and spend entire decades in hiding before 21 could get her stupid plan ready. He was the one that destroyed most of our bases and killed most of the other generals. It's because of him we had to wear those monkey suits and attend boring business meetings all those years. You better believe I'm breaking every bone in his body for that." Lazuli simmered, clenching a wrathful fist out in front of her chest.
"Right, see? That's just about the only worthwhile thing to do. We can't even kill Chayote, so why bother fighting her at all? It's just another bout where Puri is telling us what to do. Nobody wants any of that after all those years. But if we just fly in and kill Son Goku, just like that–it'll be too quick. We'll be bored again in a snap!" Lapis said.
"Okay, so what's your suggestion, exactly?" Android 18 leaned forward, looming over her brother with hands on her hips.
"I wanted to hijack a plane or something and fly there. Try getting to our destination without relying on our powers too much. Obviously, we won't be able to kill Son Goku without fighting with our full strength, but maybe we can shoot his wife and kid with ordinary guns too? They can't be too strong, right?" Lapis shrugged.
"You're an idiot, Lapis…" Lazuli turned her nose up and looked away with a scorned look. "We'll just waste our time for no reason. Plus, his wife's no slouch either. She took part in the Tournament of Doom and fought demons alongside Son Goku and she fought Lord Slug too. Was I the only one actually reading those reports that Puri told us to study thoroughly?"
"You were reading those?" Lapis scratched his head. "Anyway, I think there's like a little private airport around those parts. They have to have one of those propeller planes to take nosy tourists on sightseeing flights around the mountain ranges. We should totally snag one of those."
"Are you dense? I told you–it's a dumb waste of time! We can actually fly and it'd take us no time at all to circle the entire Earth. Let's just get there and kill that bastard!" Android 18 threw a fit, seeing that she wasn't getting to her brother at all.
"That's the whole point, Lazuli," Lapis turned around to search for the private airport that he mentioned earlier from his vantage point. "It'll be a real pain in the ass and it'll take forever, but that's exactly why I'm doing this. Just think about how much cooler it'll feel when we blow his head off after we take an entire day to find him."
"You have all the worst ideas, honestly…" Lazuli sighed, rubbing her eyes while her brother swooped down head-first toward the airport. After a few moments, she joined in on his dive, leveling shoulder-to-shoulder to her brother. They always had a moral sense for one another and their movements. Synchronized to the core. Even their hearts used to beat in the same frequency back when they still had organic hearts to measure the frequency of their beats by.
"What are you talking about? I have all the best ideas, that's why I'm the leader," Android 17 muttered out an apathetic response before flinging a few energy balls in random directions to send resonating blasts through the place that would have sent the meaningless insects scurrying beneath them to run for cover and scream for their lives. The Artificial Human didn't particularly aim toward anything. He didn't much care if he killed anyone or not with his attack. He just wanted to see some action, to see the windmill turning.
"There, there's a plane in that hangar," Lazuli pointed to one hangar at the other end of a long road that people running for their lives had obstructed. The blonde looked up to thunderous growls around her, seeing foams and blizzards of miniscule ice particles dancing in the air–17's rowdy attack had caused an avalanche. "Better hurry if you're planning to jack it."
"That's it, sis, there's the cohort spirit I've missed!" Lapis smirked before plunging down and changing his trajectory just a meter before he would have flattened against the runway. With his hands stretched wide open, the Android tackled the hangar gate, sending it flying aside like pieces of cardboard from the point of impact. Sheets of solid steel folded and unraveled from the mere touch of the Artificial Human as he pressed his open hand to the locked plane door and heard the lock shifting from inside as emerald light washed over Lapis's palm.
The two Android hurried up to get into the plane while 17 tried flipping all the right switches and press the right triggers and buttons to get the plane rolling so that they could take off before the avalanche consumed the entire port and made them look for another way of reaching Son Goku's house in the most inconvenient manner imaginable.
"What are you doing? The avalanche is going to send us back to square one in a second. Just jumpstart the plane with your technomancy technique." 18 shook her brother's shoulder.
"Calm down. Where would be the fun of that? I've cracked the lock of the door because it would have called for us to rip the door clean out, which would have made flying a real pain. I'm doing the rest myself." Android 17 objected, smacking his sister's hand aside with a crude backhand. Nervous sweat ran down Lapis' forehead as he tried figuring out why the plane hadn't started yet. After pressing the right pedal and pulling on the wheel, the winged vehicle finally began rolling out the gaping hole in the hangar and through the runway.
"Shit! The avalanche is right here!" Android 18 pointed at her window as the rumbling, all-encompassing white drowned everything around them.
"I know, I know…" Android 17 grumbled as he pulled on the wheel, then flipped a switch that locked the wheel in that position and worked the stick, pulling it up and bending it to the side to dive out of the way of the calamitous white peril. As the thunderous avalanche washed the entire mountain plateau and sent the surviving scraps of the airport falling almost two entire kilometers down to their oblivion, the lucky fleeing survivors died from the initial point of the avalanche hitting the open field and not when the flowing mass of snow taught them the absolute horror of a lengthy fall before a splattering doom down below.
Just a lone, uneasy plane still worked to maintain a steady position in mid-air, above the avalanche. Lazuli dragged a strand of unruly hair back behind her air while she sent stabbing glares toward her brother, who was still working on easing his breaths.
"At the last second, huh?" he muttered with his heart pounding with excitement. "Just imagine, if the avalanche washed us off just like those snooty losers and made us have to walk through the forest looking for another mode of transportation… That'd have been a setback, huh?"
"I hate you…" Android 18 mumbled out. The lack of malice in her voice suggested that remark to be of a more playful kind rather than a genuine expression of her feelings.
"And you said I always have the worst ideas…" Lapis let out a subtle snicker, just like a child to whom mother had just handed the world's largest roll of cotton candy. "It's just that you need to have a more open mind to life's challenges, that's all."
"It's because of your idea of going to the old geezer in the abandoned warehouse to ask for candy that we've spent the last twelve years studying and attending board meetings. Not to mention the years of free labor assisting that old bastard that we did for free, just hoping that he would give us more chocolates." Lazuli sighed.
"What's the long face for? You love chocolates and it's because of that we knocked on Gero's door and ask for candy that we got involved with him. If we didn't go through the nuisance of handing him wrenches and wiping blood and brain matter off his lab floor, we'd have never gotten all this power and got to live forever so… You're welcome." Lapis replied, looking genuinely baffled what go into his sister that she would bring that up.
"Ugh… I bet some of those classy secretaries had a backup uniform before you sent that avalanche wrecking the place. That dumbass Bardock ruined my outfit." 18 rolled her eyes, still peering through the side window with her cheek supported by a clenched fist.
"Don't worry, I'm sure Goku's wife will have a full wardrobe and it's not like she'll have any use for clothes after we have our fun," Lapis tried cheering his sister up some. All he got was that she leaned back in her chair and got off, peering through the window, closed her eyes, and sighed.
"I guess…" she said with a submissive tone in a doomed mood.
"Huh, what's that?" Lapis wondered and pointed at a lone figure standing beside the house surrounded by radish, beetroot, carrot, and wheat fields from all directions but west, where a crystal-clear river flowed freely.
"Some weirdo…" Lazuli leaned forward in her seat, wondering just what that bald-headed, tailed creature drooling and stumbling about the area could have been doing beside the house of their target.
The white-skinned enigma turned to the approaching plane and shrieked out, extending its hand and sending a rupturing, fuchsia pulse at it. The landing plane in turned into a grand ball of fire and spat the surviving sheets of steel scrap in all directions while Lapis and Lazuli hovered above the firestorm and observed the curious, tailed creature with bemused expressions, having slipped away from trouble at the last second before the plane went up in flames and scattered in spare scrap.
"Well, well… Who could have guessed, it's Frieza, isn't it?" Lapis pointed at the standoffish alien.
"Must have seen better days, haven't you?" Lazuli teased the half-changed abomination. The biological remains of Frieza had been covered with scrapes and bruises. Half of them were the scars that Son Goku left after his epic and humiliating beat down on the monstrous tyrant while the other half was from 19's and One-Nine's experiments. A cybernetic skeleton composed of spare scrap found around the laboratory decorated the entire right side of the once proud and powerful emperor.
Frieza's eyes quivered, bloodshot and open wide. His mouth let out hisses, animalistic snarls, and drooled all over the ground and its own pitiful body. The hand that he aimed to where the plane once was still stayed raised over the tyrant's head, yet it shook from the tension and because the tyrant hadn't been sure what were the confusing emotions running through his system.
"I guess it's useful to talk to you. You were kind of nitwit already after how Son Goku left you. Knowing 19 and One-Nine, they must not have spared you any trouble, either. That's kind of your own fault, really. Puri isn't too worried about the ethics of experimenting on murderous space alien tyrants that aren't right in the head already," Lapis shrugged.
"Hey, half-wit! What are you doing here? I seem to recall reading that Bardock and Piccolo wrecked our base out at the Glaciers, but there's no way they would have let you live!" Android 18 put her hands up to her mouth and yelled down at Frieza. The terrified tyrant snarled, throwing his head at both approaching Androids like a scared rabbit tried sizing up both the wolf and a fox homing in on its cave, looking for a cheap snack.
"S… Son… Goku…!" Frieza shrieked out, clenching his fists together before extending his hands out and sending a combination of fuchsia energy pulses at both Androids, who just moved out of the way of each successive attack coming at them again. "Revenge… S… Son Goku…!"
"Oh… I see…" Lapis muttered to himself. "That must be the only intelligent thought you still have–your need for revenge on Son Goku for what your humiliation. The rest is all drools and babble, huh? Heh, I guess since you're part-Android, you must have access to our database, so you somehow found the records of where Son Goku lives. Not bad, for an imbecile."
"Too bad for you, though," Android 18 crossed her arms over her chest. "We're here to kill Son Goku so your good luck had just run out."
"Should we just trash this bastard as a warm-up?" Lapis turned to his sister.
"No, Puri wants him alive. She clearly laid it all out in the records you never read. Some of the experimental tech in his converted parts is still worth something to her. I guess we can bring her the technology, but blast away the flesh and bone…" Lazuli shrugged.
"Hmm… Something's wrong here," Lapis turned to the peaceful house standing in the background of the curious confrontation that had been occurring beside it. "Son Goku's not the type to sit something like this out. He may not have sensed Frieza's energy anymore after his semi-conversion, but he'd have been able to see the guy through his kitchen window, let alone hear the ruckus. What if he's not home?"
"All the more reason to get this over with and find him! No more planes, since we don't know where he is, scouting the entire planet from the skies will be challenging enough as it is!" Android 18 warned her brother to cease his foolish games after this is done.
"Sure, sure…" Android 17 shrugged. "You're forgetting something, Lazuli, you were the one to fight Bardock last time. Now it's my turn."
"Oh, for Pete's sake!" Artificial Human No. 18 smacked her forehead and dragged her hand down her face in frustration. "Fine, but if you take too long, I'll pitch in and finish it for you. Remember to salvage the tech. If we have to listen to Puri bitching at us some more, I swear I'll kill that old hag myself."
"Stop acting tough," Android 17 teased his sister while stretching out, hopping, and shadow-boxing in mid-air. "If you could have without her absorbing and integrating you into her own system and powering herself up, you would have long ago."
Frieza shrieked out, grabbing hold of his head and pushing the metallic skeleton deeper into his flesh. This careless act sent waves of thick, cherry-colored goop through the cracks in the flesh where the artificial cybernetics were showing, showcasing just how shoddily the conversion had been integrated into Frieza's body. Artificial Human No. 17 knew this as he prepared to pummel what remained of the once-mighty and proud emperor Frieza into the dirt and do away with him for good.