"Gohan!" Videl cheered after burrowing through heaps and piles of extinguished wreckage until she found the battered young man panting heavily underneath. Trunks shivered in his boots after seeing the miserable state that the Ultimate Artificial Human left the young man in. Videl scooped Gohan up and hoisted him on her back in a comfortable carrying position and hurried through the door.
"Mom, we've pulled Gohan-san out," Trunks pressed his hand against the control panel by the door and reported it to Bulma, at which point the Capsule Corps Star's hallways began shifting and rotating like a mechanical puzzle and, instead of rushing to the office room where Bulma was working from, the room turned to the stationary youths.
Immediately upon entry, silver wires flung down from the ceiling and stuck to Gohan, suspending him in mid-air and wrapping around his entire body. The wires entered through the wounds and expanded with a coating of medical gel over the bruises, beginning emergency treatment that should've gotten him back on his feet in just a few minutes.
"Thanks, Videl, you've been a tremendous help in dealing with all this. If you ever decide that you want to work for a living, I could use an assistant that takes charge of things like you. You should probably head home now," Bulma thanked the young woman, who just straightened her back and bowed her head respectfully before turning to Gohan. She looked a bit worried about the grim-looking situation of the young man dangling suspended by some wires that sparked and entered his body wherever they saw fit, performing hundreds of surgeries on a microscopic level in an instant, mending broken bones and spreading medical gel throughout the entire body with mechanical precision.
They relied so heavily on technology when technology-based entities were some of their most persistent and toughest foes yet…
"Thank you, Bulma-san, but I'd like to make sure that Chayote-san is okay. What happened to her? Why isn't she back yet?" Videl pressed her knuckle to her chest, trying to reach the tech mogul's line of sight as Bulma seemed to avert her gaze ever since the topic came up.
"I've… I've lost contact with Chayote. I can't seem to reach her. That rotten asshole Dr. Gero must be flooding the atmosphere of the planet I've sent them on with his electromagnetically charged photons. The planet was on a whole different galaxy already, I intended to send Dr. Gero far enough away that he wouldn't be able to threaten us but… It seems like our plan backfired as I'm unable to reach her or beam her back," Bulma pointed out.
"This is… So we're just going to leave her there to die?" Videl exclaimed.
"Don't be ridiculous! I don't think that Dr. Gero would go that far. If he has the records Dr. Puri kept on us and is aware of Chayote's history, he won't kill her. She's quite literally the only person he can't kill in the entire universe… Even if it may end up more painful for Chayote short-term, this might end up saving us long-term," Bulma turned around her chair, staring at the ceiling as she tried formulating a plan to pull Chayote out of her perilous situation. A compartment opened up on the side of the computer panel she's been operating on, gently tossing out a squishy, rubbery ball that Bulma had been so accustomed to using that she caught it without looking and began smudging in her hand to appease the desperate rush of her emotions.
"I don't… Understand…" Videl scratched her cheek, feeling a bit embarrassed that this woman she's only just met appeared to know more about her mentor than Videl herself did.
"Oh, you don't know about Chayote's death and resurrection?" Bulma gasped. "I'd have thought that Chayote would've told you…"
"Huh? Don't know what?" Trunks jumped up and down. "What do you mean by death and resurrection?"
"Wait, you don't know either?" Bulma scratched her head. "Jeez… I guess it just felt like such common knowledge amongst us veterans that we just don't talk about that stuff anymore… I wasn't aware that the kids were so out of the loop on this."
Chayote extended her hand, blasting a shapeless expulsion of energy from her open hand that picked up heaps of icy diamond dust. Rushing through the blizzard, the Saiyan turned around for a flying solebutt before transitioning into a spinning roundhouse. Each of her impacts just bounced off of the monstrous Artificial Human. Dr. Gero swung his hand in a jab that howled with volume but Chayote's tail wrapped around his arm and helped Chayote swing around it to dodge the attack.
Flipping around, Chayote landed on both feet behind the Ultimate Android and turned around with a knife-edge chop to the throat. Seeing her opponent flinching, the Saiyan warrior dived at the inner side of his knees, looking to bring him down with a technical takedown rather than brute force. No matter how hard Chayote pushed, her opponent didn't budge. The Ultimate No. 20 scooped Chayote up from the ground for a powerbomb slam, but the Saiyan turned her body around to swing the titanic opponent of hers away into a stumble.
Seeing him stumbling, Chayote rushed ahead with a lime-colored energy blast shining in her open hand, slamming it point-blank into the Ultimate Android's face and expelling a thunderous energy beam from it as it detonated in the face of the Ultimate Artificial Human. When the light show settled down somewhat, it became apparent that the blast took him off his feet. Seeing an opportunity, Chayote leaped with a cannonball spin to it before sending the airborne Artificial Human down with a webster ax kick.
Before her opponent could recover, Chayote clenched her fists and began rapidly vanishing with a confusing trail of afterimages, disappearing into the blizzard of powder snow with just the rampant lightning storms illuminating brief flashes of her shadows in confusing muck of shimmering diamond dust pelting at one's eyes. It took little time for Dr. Gero to recover at all, the vengeful Ultimate Android scanned the environment with a trail of laser beams from his eyes that sliced all the afterimages Chayote left behind in half as the titan scrambled back to his feet to look for his elusive opponent.
"Not bad, you've realized the difference between our power, so you only emphasize power blows when I've got no footing to take them well. You make sure to maintain a safe distance and use your deceitful martial arts trick for a safe retreat when you're at a disadvantage in speed. There's so much I can learn about martial arts by observing a lifelong practitioner!" the Ultimate Artificial Human commended Chayote. "I've stumbled onto some curious bit of information in Puri's archives that Capsule Corps had preserved, it would appear that I cannot kill you or else the entire universe will end somehow. It sounds like absolute hogwash, but I know my wife and if she took it as a certainty, I'd be a real fool not to take that bit of intelligence seriously."
"Then how about you stand down? If you kill me and the universe is destroyed, you can't make that new project you're drooling over," Chayote's voice echoed from somewhere within the diamond storm of a hyper-accelerated cosmic blizzard.
"You're not wrong," the Ultimate No. 20 shrugged. "However, nothing denies me the right to snap your back and keep your brain alive to feed martial arts information straight into the processor of my solution to the omnipotence paradox."
A myriad of afterimages appeared from the blizzard, rushing in right toward the titanic Artificial Human who stayed on the defensive. In a blink, the titanic warrior turned his back to the cascade of afterimages and tossed his oversized hands down in a hammering smash. Fissures of shining red split open in the fractured ice core of the alien world the two clashed on, Chayote grunted and felt an expulsion of Ki throw her off-balance.
"Gohan already showed me that trick plenty, I can see right through it now," the Ultimate Artificial Human laughed out before rushing ahead at his airborne opponent, who still struggled to regain her composure after the burst of Ki from underground threw her airborne. Like a tempestuous gorilla, the Ultimate Android took it to the skies with a bountiful leap and smashed his hammering arms down a couple of times, stomping and hammering Chayote flat into the ground.
The heat of battle and the need for more space tore Chayote's skirt open vertically, giving her legs a bit more room. It also left nasty grazes over her clothes while the fists smashed mean bruises into her face when they found it. Grabbing Chayote by both legs, the Ultimate Artificial Human spun and released her while chasing after the Saiyan with a rich smile that curved his brushy mustache upward on his face.
Chayote dragged her bruised knuckle across her bloody nose and drove a mad punt into the crotch of the rushing titan, freezing him in place. It didn't seem like the usual sensitivity of the region demanded the Artificial Human to pay his toll, though the strongman surely believed it would, which was the cause for his temporary painless flinch.
Burning up with the full shine of her emerald aura, Chayote jumped ahead and turned her rear end in the face of her opponent before slamming it. The Saiyan's eyes whited out as the force of impact tossed her back and landed on her wobbly feet, caressing her poor bottom and stressed tailbone as it felt like planting her buttocks against an armored space cruiser.
"In that case, stop me if you've heard any of these before…" Chayote yelled out through the pain, shelving it for some time later when she'd have the time to feel pity for her poor rear. The Saiyan charged ahead, encased with radiant jade aura, and slammed her stiffened and extended arm in a lariat charge at the Android's gut before vanishing to appear in front of his face and unleash a full flurry in his face, then, just as the Ultimate Dr. Gero tried grabbing her with both hands, vanished back down to repeat the same flurry at his crotch region.
Quickly adopting the fighting pose she had nicked from Tenshinhan back during their budding rivalry days, Chayote vanished in hi-speed movement again, appearing before Dr. Gero's face while slamming her elbow to bounce off of Dr. Gero's face. The ice underneath the Ultimate Android's feet ground as the forceful impact shoved the musclebound juggernaut back to dig out a couple of ridges in the ice with his heels. Repositioning her body upside down, Chayote thrust both her feet up and expelled Ki blasts from her open palms, becoming a living, upside-down rocket and slamming her heels against the Ultimate Android's chin.
It didn't lift him off the ground too far, but his boots left it nonetheless. "Pinto Spear!" Chayote bellowed out, vanishing again to the uppermost layers of the planet's atmosphere and shooting down like a crashing meteor. She slammed with a shoulder tackle, though an invisible force field stopped her before she could collide with the back of her opponent. It'd have simply been rich if she broke his spine right after he announced he'd go for hers.
The invisible force field quickly became bolstered with the Ultimate Android's energy, shoving Chayote away, crackling with electricity as a shock pulsed down the barrier and ended up tasing Chayote pretty bad. At the slightest twitch of her immovable opponent, Chayote moved her fists to her sides and expelled her mightiest explosive Ki wave from her entire body that crashed into the Ultimate Android and forced him to struggle against its push momentarily.
She couldn't let him gain any semblance of momentum against her. Even if it cost Chayote her entire stamina reserve, she needed to challenge and make him fight for every twitch of his body, or else he'd begin pushing her back. Even if Chayote's collapsing body made its demands to take a breather and stop struggling and choosing pointless battles. Did he notice it? Chayote's brief glance at the starry skies over her head… Could he guess her plan, more importantly, could Bulma? Without communication, even if she slowed the giant down and took it over the clouds and through the atmosphere into the outer layers of space, it'd take pitch-perfect timing for Bulma to pull her out in time.
"You should give up, there is no escape for you!" the Ultimate Android dragged his glove across his face, wiping the dirt and molten droplets of snow off of it and leaving it in a permanent stare of a sadistic and mischievous grin.
The Ultimate Android took off, Chayote tried stretching her body out and expelling another explosive energy wave, but a tight grip locked around her throat and squeezed oxygen and all trace of effort to resist out of her. Tilting the helpless, thrashing, and wheezing Saiyan over his head, the Ultimate No. 20 thrashed her aside with a single smashing hook and a butt of his boot. Racing across the entire planet, the Ultimate No. 20 delivered a lightning-swift and merciless beatdown in a barrage of power blows, knees and kicks before crashing his whole body into Chayote with a shoulder charge and stretching out his entire body.
"Enough of this, the sooner you accept your fate, the sooner you become part of something better than you!" the UItimate Android declared while channeling a crimson ball of energy out in front of his chest that expanded with a handful of rotating energy rings around it and a transparent aura of red radiance. It was the same technique that Android 13 used against Chayote during their fight, except many times stronger.
Chayote let out a wrathful roar and let her eyes white-out for just a flash, creating a wild nova of lime-colored aura around her that she channeled into a one-armed energy wave and blasted toward the imposing mass of all-consuming crimson energy. Almost immediately it became self-evident that even with the deepest bottoms of Chayote's fuel barrel being sipped from, she stood no chance at overpowering the incoming technique. The pushback was methodical, slower than before, but relentless. Unleashing a single, uncontrolled burst of energy from her body, Chayote halted the incoming S. S. Deadly Bomber and vanished over it before it resumed its trajectory and flew off to devastate a system somewhere far, far away.
A lone scarlet dot lit up behind the two fighters that transitioned into a cosmic nova of malicious energy that dyed the entire sky of their host planet white with red outlines. Chayote covered her head and struggled against the torrential forces, pressing her down to the planet's surface and threatening to crumble the entire icy planet of howling space blizzards into nothing more than helpless slush floating in space. Before it could do too much lasting damage, the detonation subsided, leaving Chayote panting on the ground and her opponent looming over her as he descended in front of the humbled Saiyan.
"It took you all of your strength just to survive this one measly attack. I wonder if you find it in yourself to call on that much power next time…?" the Ultimate Android reared his polished, pearly teeth and arced his brush mustache upward while striking some flashy flexing poses over his fallen foe. Seeking an ultimate feat of humiliation, he lifted his boot up to step on Chayote's back, as if she was some downed animal and he was a hunter posing for a picture of his victory over his prey.
With a resonating growl, Chayote exploded into a rising uppercut and a back-flipping kick into the bottom of the chin of the over-assuming Ultimate Artificial Human. She retreated as far as she could in the limited time that she had and wiped the blood off of her busted face while more of it dripped onto her tattered clothes and the fractured ice below them.
"You haven't won yet…" Chayote muttered before being forced to pant for breath.
"Hmph… An Artificial Human holds a comfortable advantage over an evenly matched opponent in battle, doesn't he? Because their infinite stamina lets them fight at peak power for an unlimited amount of time, whereas their opponent weakens over time and becomes just a husk of the fighter they started the brawl as by the end. You've started from a position of weakness, you've survived this long despite my attempts to break you, I commend you for that, but don't foster any false hopes of winning. Your feeble mind is desperately looking for windows to escape, but you've no clue if Bulma will even send another beam your way when you slow me down and hover over the atmosphere where I can't interfere with her quantal matter beam."
Chayote's bloodshot eyes shot wide open and her lower jaw became numb as she could not keep her mouth closed. So, he knew her plan this entire time? The more this struggle went on, the less Chayote saw the point for it. It was exactly as he said it was–even if she was an even match against him, she'd eventually fall short because of the infinite stamina factor. With no hope of winning, no weakness she could exploit, or even any hope of escaping, Chayote truly was hopelessly outmatched here.
Just what time was it back on Earth? When she left looking for Videl so that Mark didn't have a mean shock to his system after not finding her in the morning, ready for school, it was late at night. She told him that Videl lost track of time training again and that they'd be going to bed later. It was hardly the first time that Videl had stretched her training well into the night. Then again, it wasn't Videl who was on the other side of the universe right now… What if Navy gets rowdy during the night and needs something?
Navy. She had to stay strong and come back for him. She couldn't allow getting reckless anymore. This was different from how she's always fought. This time she had to come back, whether it be by destroying this smug, grinning asshole or running away. Survive. Right now, she just needed to survive. Somehow…