Just as Chayote and Goku lit up with a transparent, sparkling aura, looking to head out toward the Puri & Co headquarters, Android 17 swung his hands out in front of him, creating a crescent-shaped field of emerald, electric crackles that resonated with a chain of explosions. Both Saiyans stopped in place and felt the resonance rustle their hair. Lapis didn't put too much energy into it, but he didn't want anyone to leave.
"Piccolo and Krillin?" Android 17 ran his hand through his shoulder-length hair and sighed. "We didn't come here to fight Piccolo and Krillin. We came here to fight the best two that Capsule Corps has to offer. Don't think you're going to just take off and leave us for a disappointing fight."
Piccolo vanished from behind Goku. The Saiyan weaved aside to let his blitzing ally rush right past him and collide with Android 17 mid-air. Piccolo threw his fists in a flurry before kicking Android 17 aside and began whipping with his elongated arms. 17 evaded the lashes with an apathetic expression on his face before locking his grip around Piccolo's arm and swinging him around to toss him aside. By the time Android 17 turned back to focus on Goku and Chayote, the pair were already gone.
"What the heck, Lazuli?" Lapis raised his hands, looking at his sister. "Why didn't you stop them?"
"What do I care?" Lazuli shrugged. "I'm actually fine bullying this bald punching bag around for a while."
"Heh, I'm not sure if I should feel thankful for the compliment or terrified…" Krillin broke a sweaty smirk even through a desperate face.
"Compliment? I don't want to fight you because I see you as equal. I wanna beat you around like a sock puppet because it'll be that easy," Lazuli corrected her opponent. "Unlike my brother, I don't care too much about wanting to prove something or test the power of an Artificial Human. I just like the fact that I'll be living and staying young forever. The best days of my life will be the entire rest of my life…"
"Geez, Lazuli…" Android 17 sighed and took a speedy boxing stance, preparing himself to take on Piccolo as his consolation prize. "Now the old hag's going to kill those two and we'll never know who's truly the strongest…"
"If you want the strongest, you have him right here," Piccolo cracked his knuckles and stretched out his neck, levitating up to Android 17's level from where the Artificial Human had flung him.
"Oh? You're saying you've surpassed Son Goku?" Android 17 cracked up. "Don't be ridiculous… You've struggled to keep up with Android 19 and One-Nine."
"Then it should be easy for you to beat me up and prove it, right?" Piccolo teased Android 17 by making a mocking invitational gesture with his hand and assuming a fighting pose.
Lapis dashed across the space between them with a lazy jab. Piccolo leaned over and raised his arm up to guide it aside, but the crafty Artificial Human dashed forward with a knee strike that crashed into Piccolo's chest. With the Ultimate Namekian blanked out and flinched, Artificial Human 17 turned around in a twirl, delivering a roundhouse double ax handle slam into Piccolo's jaw that sent him flying. Pursuing his opponent across the West City outskirts' skies, Lapis pummeled the Namekian with a flurry of fists before knocking him crashing down into the hillside down below.
"What's up with this guy? It's like punching a brick wall…" Lapis waved his twitching fingers and caressed his knuckles before plunging down to challenge Piccolo on the ground level.
Just as the Artificial Human landed his feet on the ground and rushed toward the empowered Namekian, Piccolo vanished and appeared directly over Lapis' head. Piccolo jabbed a quick stomp of his foot that flinched his opponent up and made him drop his guard. Switching to a horizontal plunge, Piccolo went for an elbow dive that left Lapis whirling in mid-air horizontally. By using his grip, Piccolo slammed Lapis into the ground to make him bounce off of it before pummeling his opponent with a flurry of punches and driving his right into 17's jaw that sent him off toward the rocky mountains.
Before Lapis could crash through the stony natural structures, Piccolo's elongated arm grabbed hold of his face and dragged him back to where the Ultimate Namekian could continue his beat down. Piccolo shoved his palm into 17's gut, malforming it up and nearly plunging his entire limb clean through, then lashed about with his extended limbs and crashed his elbow into the back of Artificial Human 17's head. Using his extended arm, Piccolo dragged Lapis through the shattered dirt and raised him up closer to him. An elbow shot staggered the Android on wobbly legs while Piccolo kicked in the side of 17's knee joints and slammed his elbow into Lapis' head again.
Returning the favor, Piccolo soared with a knee that punted Android 17 aside while Piccolo jumped off the ground, expelling a halo of dust and rubble from underneath him. With a flurry of sharp and swift stomps, Piccolo decimated his airborne opponent before finishing him with a flying punch to the face and leaving Lapis to plummet in a freefall.
The grace of slamming back into the ground wasn't something that was meant for 17, however, as Piccolo vanished again and appeared standing on the ground, cracking his neck with a bemused expression as he lifted his arm just in time to catch Lapis by his face as he fell through the air. A Ki blast shimmered in the Ultimate Namekian's hand, detonating point-blank in 17's face and sending him soaring into the air with dirt and grazing all over his face. Piccolo extended his hands into the air, catching Lapis a few more times with Ki blasts forming in his hands and detonating point-blank. With a loud and grisly grunt, Artificial Human 17 flew out from a cloud of dust spinning wildly with his black T-shirt lightly torn up and dirtied.
Piccolo dashed across the cracked ground like a water-strider with a kick that flung 17 aside like a rag doll. Keeping up with his airborne opponent, Piccolo punted him a few more times before tiny red dots lit up in his eyes, and a crimson eye-beam overwhelmed and washed over Lapis. Piccolo slid in under his falling opponent and pushed his body off the ground with one arm, driving his foot in the back of his fallen opponent and leaving him dangling in an unnatural and painful pose on Piccolo's foot. Driving his foot over his own head, Piccolo bounced Lapis off the ground before lighting up his antennae with electric crackles and lighting up the entire area in black and white shine. As an added insult to injury, Piccolo roundhouse kicked his opponent as he fell from mid-air smoking and burnt up. Lapis trailed through the dirt in a deep ridge covering an entire field.
"Holy crap…" Artificial Human 17 wiped the slobber and trail of blood off his lip as he raised to his knees before gathering the strength to stand up on wobbly legs. "You actually ain't half bad, are you? I've fought no one as strong as you. You're definitely leagues tougher than Chayote and Trunks from before."
"That's what I've been trying to tell you, slacker. That way maybe you'd have treated this fight seriously and avoided taking so much damage by fooling around," Piccolo cracked his knuckles and neck in stretching exercises meant to ease the numbness in his knuckles and neck. He had been down and resting for a long time. Out of combat and still recovering from the intoxication that his entire race had suffered in Dr. Puri's hands. "Whatever you told to us about wasting your time here is also true for me."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Android 17 widened his gaze in confusion.
"You said that your skill is wasted in this bout. That you'd much rather be fighting who you perceive as No. 1, right? Well, I actually really don't feel too good about wasting my time with a cocky runt like you either," Piccolo snickered. "By fusing with the entirety of the Namekian survivors, I've become the Ultimate Namekian. My business is to avenge the grave transgression done to my people and yet here I am wasting my time with an immature slacker brat instead of making his she-devil boss get gone."
"No way am I letting you slip away now!" Android 17 clenched his fists by his sides. "You're the closest person I've ever met to truly test the limit of this artificial body's power! Ever since that old hag converted me and Lazuli, I've been itching to get into loads of fights and see how powerful I truly became, but all she had us do was dress in monkey suits and attend boring business meetings! I would have killed her myself for that boring slog, but we suspected she might have some hidden aces up her sleeve to keep her Androids under control. Just to be safe, she didn't convert us until she made sure she's updated herself past our point by eating up a bunch of old geezer's old defunct Android models and Capsule Corps tech."
"Humph… So she might even be more powerful than you two… A pity," Piccolo closed his eyes, accepting the fact that the closest he'll come to putting his true abilities to the test would be against Android 17 and not his boss. By the time that Chayote and Son Goku catch up to him, he'll have fully recovered and on a whole different world of power to them.
"Okay, so now that I know you mean business, how about we kick it up a notch?" Lapis smirked while drawing his arms by his sides and drawing them back as he leaned his entire body into the incoming collision with his opponent. Both fighters meant to enjoy this test of their true abilities to their fullest.
Android 18 and Krillin split the puffy layer of clouds like two hot knives slicing through butter from different sides of the tray. Upon their collision in the middle, a ring-shaped shock wave cracked through the skies, dispersing the clouds at once and clearing the heavens up for their exchange of blows. Krillin and Artificial Human 18 exchanged punches and kicks, each blocking and answering the challenge of the other before Krillin's kick found a gap in Lazuli's defenses and caught her in the head.
Diving from down under, Krillin drove his sliding foot into Android 18's shins before transitioning into a soaring uppercut and taking her off into the lower layers of the atmosphere as he chased right after his opponent. Krillin's scant feet worked miracles, kicking his opponent from each side before the martial artist rolled in mid-air with an overhead kick to send Lazuli down.
Snapping away to appear below his opponent, Krillin extended his hands and fired twin Ki energy waves that rotated around each other and formed a single, more powerful energy wave that blasted 18 in the back and flung her diagonally in the air again. Krillin drew his arms back, lighting them up with crackling golden shimmers before thrusting them rapidly one after another and expelling an entire barrage of Ki blasts to drown Android 18 out in a myriad of exploding energy domes that molded together into one mighty blast.
When the smoke and the flares cleared up, Lazuli stood in the middle of it, floating upright with her arms crossed up in front of her and her hair dangling down. Her moves to lower her guard again looked stiff, and she definitely felt it, but Krillin looked frustrated by the lack of visible damage he inflicted on his opponent with a serious attack. He'd have to tap into his King Kai Fist and Hot-Red reserves to do anything meaningful here, even if he outclassed his opponent in terms of technical martial arts skill.
"Geez, shorty, you're actually going to make this difficult on me, huh?" Lazuli sighed in frustration. "I swear, if I find one hole in my outfit after this, I'm going to make this hurt a lot more than it has to."
"Don't hold back on me!" Krillin yelled at his opponent. "Martial arts is about both fighters giving it their best. If you hold back, you're disrespecting the other fighter. There's nothing wrong with pacing yourself and not using your best techniques right out of the gate. If that's part of your battle plan, that is, but if you're holding back out of laziness or disrespect, you're disrespecting both fighters involved. You're disrespecting your opponent and you're disrespecting yourself."
"Huh? You're gonna go ahead posturing me after landing a few lucky blows?" Lazuli said while correcting herself to the right side up position. "You're not my boss, my owner of my old man, so keep your sage advice to yourself, got it?"
Artificial Human No. 18 attacked without warning, vanishing and blinking in and out of Krillin's vision while misdirecting him which side she'll attack him from. The madwoman dashed in from straight up above Krillin with a double ax handle slam to the top of his head. A knee strike flinched Krillin up and broke through his meek attempts to raise his guard. A quick roundhouse kick with little weight or feeling to it flipped Krillin over backward while the sassy mechanical warrior dashed onward, throwing Ki blasts right up in his face and forcing Krillin to hunker down with a cross-shaped block over his head and weather the painful storm.
Just as she closed in to a near point-blank range, the Android flipped backward, crashing through Krillin's block and flinching him up again while dashing backward with her palms open and aiming right at her overwhelmed opponent. Violet shine formed one large energy sphere around Lazuli's open palms that then expelled a barrage of hundreds of smaller Ki blasts to home in on Krillin and wear him down further. Krillin felt painful grazes all over his body as his limbs began feeling heavy, but he gnashed his teeth and persevered the beat down with his guard up, lest he skips a really mean blast and takes too much damage from this punishment.
As Krillin recovered, he realized he couldn't see his opponent anywhere. The bald martial artist flailed his head around, trying to find her anywhere, but he only got the sight of 18 again when the Artificial Human dived from over his head with a double foot diving stomp at the back of his head and sent Krillin crashing down into a mountainous river down below. With his teeth gritted, Krillin dived back out from the water with a crystal river water bursting around him, but Lazuli was already in front of him, a sharp elbow strike to gut numbed Krillin's entire body.
"That's better…" Lazuli ran her hand through her hair before forming a pair of shimmering golden gleams around her hands and expelling more energy flashes from her hand that detonated on touch and kept Krillin floating in mid-air and at the complete mercy of his opponent. "It's more fun this way, don't you think?" she mocked Krillin while firing at him until she got bored with her opponent's torment and just stopped to check on the state of her clothes while Krillin flopped like a sack of bricks onto a nearby road on the mountainside.
Artificial Human No. 18 hovered in closer to Krillin, kicking an oncoming truck aside and turning it over on a slide before the truck bumped into the mountainside but by the point of collision it had lost so much of its speed that the crash didn't seem too severe. Worried about the wreckage, Krillin sprung to life on both feet and flew off to pull the driver out before placing him on the mountain road and directing him to find the nearest way to get clear of the area.
"Huh? You saved that nobody? Why?" Lazuli wondered. "Your back was open the whole time. I could've killed you, you know…"
"Maybe, but you didn't," Krillin snickered, rubbing the back of his bald head. "I'm beginning to feel like you and your brother aren't really nasty guys and aren't out to kill anybody. Even now, you could have blasted that truck to bits to show off your wild power, but you just stopped it and moved it aside so that it didn't get in your way. I think your brother would've done the same thing."
"My brother and I are different," Lazuli ran her hand through her hair dismissively. "That oaf would have left that fatso alive because he's no fun for him to kill. There's no game, no challenge in it for him. I didn't kill him because it's not worth the hassle. Even with infinite stamina at my command, he's not worth the energy to kill him."
"You say that, but… I think you care more than you like to admit," Krillin took a fighting stance. "You're actually making this pretty difficult on me. I can't allow myself to hold even an ounce of strength back or else I'll get murdered in a heartbeat here, but I also don't feel like destroying you and your brother is the answer, either. I've killed my opponents before and it never feels right."
"What are you on about now?" Lazuli formed a shining energy field around her right wrist and raised her hand into the air over her head, ready to devastate the entire mountain road but Krillin lit up with a bright red aura and vanished in a blink, appearing in front of her as he thrust both his feet into Lazuli's chin and sent her flying into the air. Away from people she could have hurt.
Soaring in pursuit, Krillin slammed his head right into Lazuli's own forehead before transitioning into a knee strike and then a flying knee strike. The martial artist caught two handfuls of his opponent's hair and pulled her in for a repeated pummeling of her head at his knees before delivering an uppercut and sending 18 into the stratosphere. Overwhelming the artificial woman with stiff kicks to both her sides, that even when she blocked it looked like they resonated with her, Krillin wrapped both his thighs around Lazuli's head and neck and vaulted over, flinging her down as he cupped his hands together.
"Kamehameha!" he yelled out, firing a quick, azure, destructive energy wave at his falling opponent and pushing her down into the forest on the other side of the river running beneath the mountain roadside. Lazuli caught the brunt of the blast and slid almost the entire way down to the old forest before kicking the energy wave aside and flicking her hand through her hair as she breathed out easier.
"Even that's no use, huh?" Krillin panted out. "What will it take to finally get to you?" he lamented to himself.