Sneering at the two martial artists, the super-sized Destron Gas abomination opened his hands and created what may have seemed mere Ki blasts to him in both hands but, to the pair of ordinary-sized martial artists that have found themselves at his mercy, they seemed like massive energy bombs. With a vicious smile, the gigantic Lord Slug extended his hands, hurling the two energy bombs at Videl and Trunks.
Videl vanished and chose the evasive path. Her incredible speed that would've rendered her outright invisible to most foes let her race against time in evading the blast but, unexpectedly to her, the energy star curved and hit her in the back while Videl was fleeing, sending her flying with smoky trails smoldering off of her burnt and grievously grazed back.
Gritting his teeth, Trunks exploded with Ki radiating off of his entire body as he vanished and charged to collide with the energy sphere instead. By focusing his Ki and putting some effort into it, the young boy produced a shoddy energy barrier directly in front of him that helped him stop the attack of the Darkness Star in mid-flight and enter a struggle against it without touching it or detonating it directly.
Trunks grumbled and groaned as the energy barrier in front of him sizzled up into nothingness and he found himself coating the palms of his hands with energy and plunging them onto the surface of the energy sphere in a power struggle. Closing his eyes and surrendering control to the desperation and the do-or-die instinct swelling up inside him, little Trunks burst with a golden aura and opened his eyes that were now whited out while his spiked upward with a brighter shade reflected from them. This was the exact form that young Trunks adopted when fending off the Destron Saiyan.
In this re-awakened form, Trunks let his bottomless Ki explode and produce a horizontal swirl of energy that detonated in a vertical pulse and reflected the Darkness Star to veer off into space and destroy the nearest space object in its path. Earth itself trembled from the aftereffects of this massive energy bomb leaving its atmosphere.
Slug's eyes shimmered with utter madness. He extended his colossal hand to scoop up and devour Videl's knocked-down body but young Trunks vanished and appeared in front of the hand's path, extending his own arm and emitting a Kiai blast that stopped the reach in its path and made the giant Destron Namekian stumble back. Videl's eyes fluttered. The young woman slowly regained her consciousness before sitting up and seeing Trunks' shiny aura illuminating the murky wasteland skies. It took her a few more blinks before she realized their enemy pushed Trunks into taking the False Super Saiyan form he transformed into against the Destron Saiyan.
Videl scrambled and peeled her body off the ground, shooting up in the air and taking her place alongside Trunks. With a worried look, she gazed at the transformed kid, realizing that he didn't turn at her or acknowledge her presence in any way whatsoever. Even if Trunks could sometimes act bratty, this was completely unlike him as they both showed great care for each other's well-being and considered each other friends. It seemed as if in this form only the fight existed in Trunks' mind if there was one left at all.
"Hmm… It seems I might need to pull all the stops too. I'd have liked to spend more time practicing this, but…" Videl muttered to herself before bringing her arms up to her sides and tensing up her entire body. With fleshy grunges of tightening muscles, a burst of clear aura washed up her body before settling on a bright ethereal outline around her body. Videl's muscles pulsed and pumped up slightly, nowhere near the extent of where Muten Roshi had taken this transformation, but notable nevertheless. The teen grunted from the strain that the process of moderate bulk-up put her body through, but once it settled down, she turned her eyes up at Slug with a stern look and punched an open hand.
The old Turtle hermit referred to this power-up as Max Power. Videl wasn't quite at the same level as the old man, but she certainly felt like the best, Full Power version of herself right now. Truth be told, she felt several times stronger than even the best effort she could show without this power-up.
Videl vanished in a snap, appearing before Lord Slug with a high kick that snapped downward and caught the giant in the cheek. The crack left a gruesome dent in the side of the titan's face. It was as if Videl moved so fast that she vanished again, even though she stayed in place, just shifted the position of her body. The teen plunged her foot into the front of Slug's face and sent the giant flying into the air. Vanishing again and blinking all throughout the wasteland with bright blue flares, Videl appeared in front of the airborne giant and delivered a roundhouse into his gut.
The oversized Destron Namekian gasped for air and blurted out masses of thick, noxious sludge from his mouth while his eyes and mouth began leaking Destron emissions. Diving like a human drill into the air, Videl positioned herself directly above the stunned and battered giant and pointed her elbow down, delivering a downward elbow slam so intense that the aura coating the outline of her body emitted a booming white pillar of energy that slammed into Slug's face and flattened him as if he had been hit by an energy hammer from the sky.
Snapping directly in front of her flattened foe, Videl pulled her fists back and brought her mind back to her karate training back in the mansion's dojo. When she opened her eyes again, the Full Power aura was focused solely around her fists while the teen delivered a rapid combo of chain punches into the air. While it may have seemed like Videl was just shadowboxing, her fists beamed out waves of energy from the punches that dented into Slug's body and sent him flying across the wasteland, decimating whatever brushes and rocky debris was still left in it before leaving a deep ridge in the ground where he dragged his bruised, super-sized back on.
Trunks spread his hands out, forming energy spheres in each hand, before thrusting them in rapid succession and creating a cascade of energy waves that rained down on the overwhelmed and downed Destron monster. Neither of the two expected Lord Slug to let out a deafening roar and explode with a yellow nova of energy that leaked Destron trails wherever the gaseous fumes found their opening to break through. Videl and Trunks braced for impact, but the apocalyptic Super Explosive Wave engulfed the entire northern region of the planet and reduced it to a black crater, plagued with vicious thunderstorms and rumbling with rocks spewing in all directions.
"We won't win if we destroy his body…" Videl realized after lowering her arm she used to shield herself from the explosion and feeling the aching resonating throughout her whole body. Trunks was still stuck and bracing for impact near her. He had taken a worse blow since he didn't seem to at all care about his well-being in this disturbed state. "With the drone broken, we don't have many options left and my boy genius is currently going berserk…" she bit her lip, summing up the entirety of her predicament.
Even if they managed to apply some pressure on the Destron Namekian right now, if the Destron Gas rebuilt him from scratch again, fresh and almighty, they may not have what it takes to put the hurt on him anymore. Besides, with enough Destron stacked up in the atmosphere, Earth itself will be doomed. Videl approached Trunks and waved her hand in front of the young boy, trying to get to him and snap him out of his False Super Saiyan state.
"Trunks! Can you hear me in there?" Videl pleaded. "I need you to make a dash for West City and ask your mother for another drone! I'll do my best to hold Slug off for as long as I can. With this power, I think I can do that, but I need you to leave now or else the Destron will consume the Earth by the time we get ourselves together!"
Maybe she could've left Trunks here and gone by herself, but that'd have been risky. She had no clue what Trunks would do in this state or if he could rival and hold off Slug long enough. The last time Trunks entered this state, it didn't last too long. If she left him alone in this state, she may as well have doomed him to take Giant Destron Slug on after he exhausted the transformation and went all tuckered out. He could've died all by himself. In terms of risk, they'd have been better off hitting Slug with their best attack and shooting him off into space…
That presented another problem. Could they even pull something like that off? They certainly had the power for that, but did they have the right technique? Something like a Super Kamehameha wave could've done the trick, but Videl didn't feel confident in trying that technique yet. Maybe Trunks had a blast like that, but… Coordinating it with him in this form was a waste of time. Despite being in a winning battle, they were set on losing the war in the end.
Snapping away from sight, Trunks appeared behind Videl and dashed off to collide with the giant Destron Namekian. Videl sighed and shook her head. What was she going to do with all this Destron leaking out into the atmosphere? By now, things were going critical. Soon enough, the imaginations, deepest feelings of spite, jealousy, and despair of every Earthling will realize themselves onto the material plane and devastate the planet. They could've definitely used some help here but… Nobody must have been tuned to sensing the energy of a Destron construct because it didn't feel like a conventional Ki signature. You had to know what you were looking for and have had the experience of encountering a Ghost Warrior before.
If only Muten Roshi would be here, he'd know what to do…
"Muten Roshi…" Videl snapped her fingers, releasing her power-up and diving. She sat on the scorched and coal-black floor and crossed her legs, preparing herself for the most vivid session of image training she could pull off under the conditions.
Trunks' grunts and shouts from Giant Slug beating him up and shooting colossal finger and eye beams everywhere, keeping the False Super Saiyan at bay, didn't help her concentration, but with enough focus and a bit of time, Videl found herself submerged in her subconsciousness. Since she knew exactly where she was and what she was doing, she became a lucid dreamer in a snap. Now all she needed was to imagine the person she wanted to see before her.
She could've asked for Gohan or for Chayote, but raw power wasn't what they needed. They needed experience. They needed strategy and a way to figure things out. They needed Muten Roshi. Of course, he'd have only manifested inside of Videl's imagination, normally, but with Destron being rampant all around them, Videl counted on creating her very own Ghost Warrior to fight off Slug. Trunks hurled through the skies, halting himself from a beatdown. Half his clothes had been torn off and hung awkwardly scrapped beneath his waist while his childish body had been littered with scrapes and bruises.
Despite a mean and swollen shiner on his right side, Trunks kept his False Super Saiyan form and rushed back at Slug. The boy navigated around Slug's colossal arm, throwing Ki blasts to break it in multiple spots and create venting Destron fume breaks all over the oversized limb while the False Super Saiyan plunged down and then shot back up, enveloped in a golden aura. Slug's eyes became flushed with static as the giant stumbled back from a devastating crash at the bottom of his chin that flipped him over. Positioning himself above Slug, Trunks brought his hand back and formed a white energy sphere of his own size and lobbed it at the fallen Destron Namekian, engulfing him in a blinding flash of light.
The expanding white dome engulfed the entirety of Slug's body as Trunks' Brave Cannon obliterated the gigantic body of the Ghost Warrior and released all the pent-up Destron into the atmosphere at once. No longer having an opponent to fight, Trunks blinked a few times and found his eyes back to normal as his hair rested down in its usual state and his aura became transparent, losing its golden twinge.
"Huh… Whaaa! This is bad!" Trunks realized, looking up at the murky black sky. "Where's the drone… Where's the drone!?" he frantically began looking around for the only saving grace that could've helped them right now. Instead, jets of Destron washed down from the sky-choking cloud and swirled around Videl. Trunks grabbed his head, recalling that Videl had accidentally busted the drone, at which point he dived into the capsule briefcase to look for spares.
"What are you doing? Come help me look! Now's not the time to daydream!" Trunks scolded his friend before freezing up in mid-search for the capsule containing spare drones. In front of him stood the old Turtle hermit, emanating black and purple miasma from his body. He stared up at the cloud of Destron that was spreading out to engulf the drown out the entire planet before lifting his hands up to the sky.
Trunks gasped and jumped up, startled, throwing hectic looks all around him as the entire planet became enveloped by a green energy field. Emitting incomprehensible static, Ghost Muten Roshi thrust his arms down toward the discarded containment unit of the busted drone and the green energy field, along with all the Destron Gas in the atmosphere, all thrust toward the containment unit. Refusing to believe his eyes and worrying if the broken containment unit could hold this much Destron, Trunks spectated the old man absorbing the entire black shroud over their heads into the containment unit before becoming pure Destron and swirling after the cloud he had sealed off into the containment of the busted drone.
Crackling with purple electricity, the cracked containment unit rolled around the ground. Videl recovered from her imaginative session and flipped her bag, emptying all of its contents on the floor before grabbing hold of the cracked Destron containment unit and stuffing it down her backpack while falling over the misbehaving unit with her entire body. The uneasy Destron rolled around for a little while before a loud and satisfying pop signaled that the Destron had been safely sealed away for now.
"Phew…" Trunks wiped the sweat off his forehead. "I can't believe you used the Destron Gas to seal Destron Gas…"
"Let's not push our luck and directly deliver this to Bulma-san right now," Videl lifted her backpack off the ground and stared at it with light worry on her expression. With Trunks nodding in approval, the duo took off to West City with haste.
Videl wasn't sure if she could feel safe and exhale right now. On one hand, they've beaten the strongest Destron construct yet with the most toxic of Destron emission abilities, also, they've brought the containment unit to Bulma before it cracked and released all the pent-up gas again and Bulma said she had the gas contained "as safe as it is possible in this universe"… On the other hand, they've never come this close to complete failure without having to time travel back to undo all their mistakes.
Just as Videl experienced her most genuine and valiant attempt to calm her own racing heart, it skipped to her heels as Vegeta entered the balcony and leaned over the rails that Videl was leaning over to stare off into the evening lights of West City. With a pale face and an intimidated expression, Videl glanced at the King of Saiyans and gulped her anxiety down.
"Trunks told me he's mastered his own new move and bragged to me about how he's going to surpass me his own way, without having to rely on my moves or even if he never ends up becoming a Super Saiyan," Vegeta said in a grave voice. The man had been staring off into the city lights so Videl just couldn't get a read on his vibe. Was he confronting her about this? Does he not want her to travel and train with him anymore?
"Nice work," Vegeta smirked. "I had a feeling you'd be a handy Earthling to know, and I was right. Thank you."
"Did he just THANK ME!?" Videl thought to herself, bulging her eyes out though she still couldn't muster up a single word to leave her mouth from the shock of hearing something like that coming from the least deserving person of the "Father of the Year" award Videl's ever met. "No one's going to believe me even if I tell them…" Videl looked away, realizing it with a sullen look.
"I couldn't figure out how to make Trunks realize that if he was to become someone worthy of becoming the next Saiyan King, he'd need to carve out his own path and not just follow the Vegeta Bloodline tradition. My bloodline has done many despicable deeds to hold on to power over the centuries we've been in control. I'd like my son to be a different kind of king, even if it is too late for me," Vegeta looked Videl straight in the eyes as he spoke. Despite him clearly not intending any harm to her, Videl still found the man fearsome to be in the presence of. Just something about committing grave, cosmic war crimes and countless genocides gave one an aura that was beyond compare.
"Uh… Okay… Yeah… I just… Was glad to teach your son. You know… If you can teach something to a five-year-old, you probably know that thing pretty well and… I wanted to see if I knew martial arts as well as everyone was praising me for," Videl shrugged. "Your son can be a handful, he's really bratty and stubborn, but… You can count on him when it counts and it's because of those bitter traits that it's so impressive when he surprises you."
"Hmph…" Vegeta looked away. There was no disdain in his expression, but something was making him uneasy about this situation. Maybe it was just him not having the proper words to respond to that and being kind to someone that made him so aggravated suddenly. The door warding off Bulma's lab hummed and opened up.
"Alright!" Bulma snapped her fingers. "I think we got it! This newest batch of Destron is the most intense and unstable sample yet, but I've been able to correctly estimate every possible chemical reaction the gas might have with anything I introduced to the sample."
"That is… Very impressive, Bulma-san…" Videl scratched the back of her head, not entirely sure how she was meant to take this news.
"You're just showing off!" Vegeta barked out, turning his face away from his wife.
"Well, gee… Sorry for enjoying the moment after weeks of hard work studying the damn thing!" Bulma pressed her knuckles to her hips while rearing her teeth at her husband. "What you should feel more excited about is that this news means that I can finally trace the Destron signal back to its source."
Bulma was right with her assessment as Vegeta's look instantly became transfixed on her. With a confident strut, the King of Saiyans approached his wife and got up in her face. "What are you waiting for then, trace the signal and put the coordinates into my ship. I'll shoot up there and blow that damned station, as you Earthlings put it, sky-high!"
"Jeez…" Bulma rolled her eyes. "It's okay, Videl, you can go get some rest. I'll talk this over with my unmanageable husband. Hopefully, you won't need to deal with these Destron monsters soon enough."
Videl nodded and exhaled all of her pent-up worries at last. Here was one for hoping that one of the world's brightest scientific minds and most prolific inventors was right in her assessment.