Videl thrust both her hands out, expelling a large droplet-shaped Ki blast from her palms. The Ghost Warrior leaned to the side and avoided the incoming blast before reaching out toward Videl with his elongated arm. While it secured a lock on the teen's face, a painful flash stunned Slug in place and surrounded him with rubble. The Ki blast Videl had flung earlier had changed direction and slammed right into Slug's exposed back.
With the Destron Gas construct staggering out from the wall of smoke, coughing up more by the mouthful, Videl moved her arms gently around her body, forming two more identical copies of the homing Ki blast she performed earlier and letting Slug have them one at a time. The Ghost Warrior turned and flipped to catch the gracefully maneuvering Ki blasts with a backhand or a kick and deflect them, but Videl clenched her open palms into fists and moved them with controlling gestures, navigating her attacks around Slug's defenses and aiming for his blind spots.
While the teenager had no proper sparring partner to test her new moves against, except her imaginary foes, she could have never even dreamed of mere Ki blasts being as effective against an opponent as skilled as Lord Slug. They'd have packed an even grander wallop still, had her opponent a conventional Ki circulation system which would've allowed Videl to home her attacks directly toward the weak spots where their Ki defenses were the shoddiest.
Trunks swooped down with a diving kick from the side, knocking Slug away. Though when the furious boy pursued his opponent in mid-air, the Ghost Warrior navigated around Trunks' rage-driven power blows. It came with enough effort though, as Videl caught the feeling of her opponent panting with hefty breaths. Instead of responding with something dangerous, Slug threw a punch to Trunks' gut and then turned around with a backhand slam. Trunks moved out of the way of the shoddy attack, but the resulting gale that came as an aftereffect and likely the intended method of attack with this motion blew him rolling aside.
"This guy's stronger than the last one," Trunks noted. "I'm just glad you're keeping up with him, somehow. I don't think I would've been able to hold him off by myself while mom's drone did its thing."
"Don't worry, I haven't even begun to show everything I've learned," Videl winked at her little companion's side. "This time, you can leave the heavy lifting to me."
Slug's mean grimace of heavy breathing shifted to a malevolent show of sharp fangs as he lifted the index fingers of both hands and pointed them at Videl and Trunks. Sparkling crackles of energy lit up around the fingertips and beamed off toward both martial artists in the shape of yellow finger beams. Videl dashed in front of Trunks, feeling her Ki skillfully navigating to her hand as she smacked the finger beams left and right with her empowered right hand.
Instead of letting himself be caught off-guard, Trunks rushed out from behind Videl's back and went at Lord Slug, thinking him defenseless with both his arms occupied with recovery after his finger beam move. With the Ghost Warrior's eyes blinking with yellow light, the boy was proven wrong, though he flew up and spread his legs to dodge the resulting eye beams. With the eye beams having bought Slug some more time, both the tyrant's fingers and his eyes began blasting wild barrages of eye and finger beams in all directions, hoping to fry either of his opponents.
Trunks clamored out with pent-up fury, expelling a mighty explosive wave from his entire body that took the brunt force of all the incoming energy beams while flashing Slug with enough light to make him flinch while the concussive shockwave of the explosive wave made the Ghost Warrior stagger on his back foot.
"He's defenseless now!" Videl stated the obvious while moving in for the assault and battery. Her body burst with a radiant energy aura while her fists let loose upon her opponent. Slug raised his hands and absorbed the flurry of fists. The teen's knee caught him slacking and made him stagger back while cracking his space traveler's helmet. With the helmet shattering and exposing Slug's withered face, the antennae of the Super Namekian became free to whip at Videl and catch her in an electrical field that made her grunt in pain and locked her in place.
"You may have locked me out of Super Saiyan, but no way you're taking away my Final Flash!" Trunks spread his arms to the sides and charged his Ki until it erupted with a golden aura around him. Slug didn't seem too worried about the boy's technique. The Ghost Warrior shocked the teen he had caught in his bio-electrical field instead. "Fine, it's your funeral!" Trunks barked out while bringing his arms together and shooting a golden energy wave that consumed all the aura leaking around him into a single destructive energy wave.
With a quick smirk, Slug turned the energy field to move Videl in the attack's way. Trunks' eyes widened for a moment but then severity reigned on his face once more and he turned his arms to the side, navigating the energy wave to curl around Videl's electric entrapment to slam into Slug's side and send him flying like a rag doll. The considerable blast that caught Slug freed Videl too, giving the teen some time to back up and nod at Trunks as a compliment.
"That wasn't Final Flash…" Videl said in observation.
"If it was–you'd have been a goner. I figured that emulating my dad will only lead to me chasing after him all the time. I need to step away from the path he walked out for me and start walking in my own direction," Trunks straightened his back with smugly blown-out cheeks. This was one of the few times he was justified in feeling cocky.
"Restricting the power you put into the technique to help you better control it, trading destructive potential for the ability to curve your blast, was a clever move. I don't recall teaching it to you. Did you come up with it on your own?" Videl wondered. If it were true, she'd have truly been stunned as while many of her tutors considered her a natural talent at martial arts, she couldn't have even dreamed of being anywhere near this innovative at just almost five years old.
"Nah, I picked it up after seeing that Ki blast trick you pulled. Thought it was pretty cool, so I used it on my Double Buster too," Trunks shined a full-teeth grin at Videl while shyly rubbing his itchy nose.
"Double Buster?" Videl smiled.
"It ain't Final Flash, so I have to call it something else. I didn't have time to think of something cool but it uses two hands and "Buster" has a real "Kapow" to it, you know?" Trunks nodded to himself, having settled on the name for his technique that started out as a pale imitation of his father's knockout technique.
"I think your father will be really proud after seeing it," Videl's look softened when looking at her companion and considering how far he had gone during the few days they'd been traveling together.
"Seriously!? You think so!?" Trunks put up his dukes under his chin, pumping his little fists in excitement. Their conversation was cut short by a rising beam that split the space in between them and prompted them both to back away from its range before turning to face the returned Destron warrior.
Slug had minor tatters all over his space suit while his old and wrinkled skin had accumulated a decent handful of scrapes and burns from a direct collision with the brunt of the Double Buster. The emulation of the Super Namekian conqueror raised his fists to his sides and hunched over, opening his fangs to grunt and yell, but only unintelligible static came out from his mouth. Noises of filtered space junk and stuff that the Destron flows had picked up from the atmosphere on their trip to Earth.
"Uh-oh… What's this now?" Trunks looked up and pointed at the circulating mass of Destron that expelled violent tendrils. The tendrils swirled around Lord Slug and infused his evil aura, surging within his body and pumping him up, full of power and vigor. It was, in a way, similar to how the Destron Saiyan had used the gas to amp himself up, but also different. While it did amp Lord Slug's musculature and power up a decent bit, it also appeared to iron out and brighten the shade of his skin. Not only did the flowing Destron empower the Ghost Warrior, but it also made him young again.
"If the Destron Gas is what makes these warriors, it only makes sense it can transform them into stronger versions of themselves too…" Videl sighed in disappointment that they couldn't catch an easy break with these ever-evolving Destron warriors.
"Man… With each following Destron guy, there's a new ability…" Trunks' face shriveled down before the boy jumped back to his youthful vigor and punched his open palm with the left hand. "It doesn't matter if he's young or old, I'll kick his ass and get my Super Saiyan back all the same!"
Videl reached out to warn Trunks not to underestimate their foe right after he used the Destron Gas to power himself up, but the brat took off swinging. She'd have preferred to let the enemy make the first move and establish the degree of danger he now represented, demonstrate what exactly this Destron infusion had wrought, but, evidently, Trunks had different ideas.
Slug's eyes shimmered with yellow light, sending an intense double eye laser toward the trigger-happy Saiyan boy, but the beams pierced Trunks' chest and merely dispelled an afterimage. Putting his high-speed movement to good use, Trunks appeared directly above Lord Slug with his hands cupped together and expelled a yellow energy wave that shaped a sizeable dome after leaving Trunks' reach and slammed into Slug. After a brief power struggle, the roaring energy wave drove the Destron warrior crashing down into the canyons of Yunzabit and lit the cracks up with bright yellow light.
The rippling shockwave sent the split mountains and rocky plateaus flying as the concussive halo sliced their bases in its expanse and the blast flicked them flying into the air. This created a temporary battlefield of airborne mountainous pillars that would take a handful of seconds to catch the pull of gravity and plummet, crashing back down into the devastated canyon region like a heated meteor storm.
Lord Slug vanished from the ground level, appearing on top of a floating mountainous pillar as he scanned the rocky chaos around him for traces of his opponents. Roaring with a brave battle cry, Trunks swung in with a roundhouse kick to Slug's side that knocked him flying off the platform and crashing through the floating mountainous debris while Trunks chased after his foe and continued to roundhouse him to punt him through every rocky obstacle in their path. The revitalized Slug coughed up puffs of Destron gas while his space suit began to rip up and his body began showing mean scrapes that betrayed the damage he was taking.
"Give me my Super Saiyan back!" Trunks demanded as a price for his beatdown to stop, but the Destron warriors weren't known for their bargaining capacity. Slug's eyes flashed, emitting a telekinetic pulse that sent Trunks hurling away through the same field of rocky debris he had just pummeled Slug through. Just as the Ghost Warrior shoved his back out from a mountainous platform and dashed at Trunks, Videl intercepted him and the two collided with their elbows before exchanging a rapid combination of mirrored blows and kicks.
Ducking under a few of Slug's strikes, Videl came in for a gut punch that'd have opened the Destron Namekian up for her, but Slug didn't hunker down at all. Instead, he extended his arms to the sides and formed an impenetrable violet energy field around him. With a yell of unfiltered space noise and static, Slug expanded the energy field into becoming an explosive energy bubble that consumed and crumbled the floating mountains to dust, forcing Videl and Trunks to flee from its devastating path. The spewing chunks of rocks hit Videl in the back and caught Trunks too, engulfing the pair in its glow though at the farther away reaches of the blast zone.
"You need to calm down," Videl turned to Trunks after the light show dimmed down and the two found each other on the ground amongst the shattered debris and a downpour of pebbles raining down from the sky from all the destroyed mountains being claimed by gravity. "The Destron warrior didn't steal your Super Saiyan. You never had it to begin with. That's okay, you don't need it to win. Just like you didn't need to copy your father's techniques. You've got all the tools you need in here, use them," Videl said, tapping at her temple with her finger.
Grumbling, Trunks let his Ki unfurl and blasted off, rushing at Lord Slug. Just when he had closed over two-thirds of the distance, he engaged his high-speed movement and closed up to the Destron Namekian in a blink, slamming his forehead into Lord Slug's. The resulting headbutt clash sent rays of light shimmering in all directions while a concussive rip was slower to catch up, but inevitable all the same. Once the forceful collision was done with and all the forces settled where they were meant to go, Trunks cried out and flew back, dragging across the ground while leaving a deep ridge in the cold and rocky canyon floor.
"That's not what I meant…" Videl sighed, shaking her head. Slug hovered above Trunks' loopy body with his hands pointed downward. A potent yellow burst of energy formed a smashing energy wave that expanded the further it went from the Ghost Warrior's body. Trunks snapped out of the haze at exactly the right time to spread his arms and legs out and catch the brunt of the energy wave before it destroyed him and the planet resting underneath it in one instant.
Before the poor kid could realize he had bitten off more than he could handle, Videl had rushed in from Slug's side and threw a rising uppercut to his right ear. The sudden loss of balance made the revitalized Destron monster stagger while static images began sifting through his eyes like a busted television screen. Having made her opening, Videl delivered a handful of shooting strikes at different targets and levels of elevation to keep her opponent guessing before securing a tight grip around his shoulders.
Flipping backward in mid-air, Videl sent Lord Slug flying with a throw while she rushed in with a backhand and a flawless transition into a couple of roundhouses and a diving elbow slam to the head that shot Slug down on the ground and stretched out flat. Slug picked himself up and prepared to return the favor immediately before a stray Ki blast hit him right in the face and made him stumble back in surprise. A handful more began oppressively terrorizing the Destron Namekian and applying pressure as Trunks stood up and began hurling them at Slug from the ground level.
"Thanks! Now's the time for my Eagle Crasher!" Videl yelled out while coming crashing down like a sky-fall arrow. The teen dug her feet into Slug's face and dragged his head across the ground after a double foot stomp from the air. Having spent out all the force she accumulated from her skydive, Videl pointed her hands down and released a point-blank energy wave that covered the entire wasteland in bright light and burrowed deep underground only to escape with skyward rays while Lord Slug took the brunt of this destructive wave.
"So… How's that?" Videl chuckled after retreating to stand side by side with young Trunks who just faked a yawn.
"The move's good, but eagles are lame. You should work on the name, honestly…" Trunks made a sassy dismissive gesture. "When did you learn that, anyway? You've been skipping out on training."
"Except I wasn't!" Videl corrected her ally with all too much excitement. "I was Image Training with Chayote-san, Gohan-kun, and Muten Roshi-san all this time. I've noticed how powerful and destructive Chayote's Lima Spear was, but it was risky too because she rushed at her opponent with her front, so any defenses or punishment would've really hurt. I took the move and made it much safer while only sacrificing a bit of its power as a result."
"I don't really get it, but… At least you're not that far behind me," Trunks crossed his arms and turned his nose up.
"Danger! Danger! Danger!" a robotic voice distracted the pair from their task of holding the Ghost Warrior off until Bulma's drone took care of the Destron Gas in the atmosphere. Videl exclaimed in surprise after seeing the Destron drone running off and hiding behind them while Destron began surging at such vast quantities overhead that it was actually audible with a howl that made it difficult to hear anything else.
"Wh… What's going on?" Trunks wondered with a shaking voice, no longer able to hide his fear behind his false courage.
"You silly lump of junk, you're supposed to protect us from all that danger by vacuuming it all out!" Videl grabbed hold of the hovering drone and began wrestling it by smacking it and shoving it around. She must not have known her own strength that well, as with one mean crack, the drone's wing cracked off and stayed in Videl's grip and the drone just went out and slammed down on the ground like a brick.
"You savage! You broke it!" Trunks grabbed his head. The drone's containment unit busted open, unloading concentrated Destron in all directions while Videl and Trunks could only jump back and stare in terror as the gas they've spent this long to accumulate all escaped into the atmosphere again. It didn't spend too much time up there as, one by one, howling hurricanes of Destron descended upon the devastated wasteland and began closing in on the decimated and battered body of Slug. They all converged into one turbulent vortex of black gas with violet electrical crackles jolting out everywhere.
Red eyes and a wicked pearly smile beamed from inside the hurricane. A massive Namekian arm busted through and ripped the Destron tornado apart with a single swipe, revealing a towering version of Slug that had grown dozens of times its usual size and had fully regenerated its youthful body as well as exploded with vibrant violet aura his entire body. Slug's eyes and mouth evaporated with Destron emissions as the transformed demon loomed over the taken-aback adventurers with exclusively ill intents.