"You're Videl, right?" a tall and bulky man with a bald head and a traditional martial arts uniform asked without moving his focused glare an inch away from the Sigma Force.
"Y-Yeah…" Videl nodded after Yamcha helped her stand up on her own. The teen let her gaze drift away as she realized that all the distress, all the pent-up wrath just flat out vanished from her heart and now all she could feel was hope and inspiration to fight on. Now that she saw the lined up and unwavering backs of all these amazing people, ready to fend off whatever incursion was to plague Planet Earth, Videl felt like everything was going to be alright.
"Nice work holding your own this far," Tenshinhan said bluntly. "I've heard from Kami Upa that you are studying martial arts. After all this is done, it would be my honor to give you a crash course alongside my students."
"The honor would be all mine, sir!" Videl tried bowing though her sides still ached from the mean beating she took earlier. Wincing, she pressed her hand to ease the aching from a little pressure. It was then that Videl's eyes met with a platinum blonde who stood beside Krillin. "Y-You're… An Artificial Human."
"Huh?" Lazuli turned back with a confused look. "What are you on about, kid? We've seen each other during that oaf's failed wedding, didn't we? What are you getting freaked out about now?"
"W-Well… Back then, you had your hair done and wore an evening dress. Now that I see you in casual clothes, it finally reminded me of all the stories about the two Artificial Humans plaguing the world and hunting down civilians," Videl admitted. "What are you doing here?"
"Don't worry, Videl-chan," Krillin snickered with a thumb up. "Lazuli's on our side now. Honestly, you should get used to fighting alongside people you once fought against. It's kind of our thing. Tenshinhan, Yamcha, Piccolo, even me up to a point, we've all started out at each other's throats. Just leave this thing to us now. You've got a search to complete, don't you? We could use a little of Chayote's crankiness right about now…"
"Right," Videl nodded and turned to Trunks, who still laid on his knees with a mean expression and teary eyes. Because of his radiant, reignited Super Saiyan aura, his tears went up, completely defying gravity. "Trunks, let's go. We need to find the 7th Dragon Ball."
"What!? But I've finally become a Super Saiyan! My place is here on the battlefield! I've got to fight! I'm not done fighting yet!" Trunks stood up with an uneasy sway to his dizzy steps.
"Good. Because there's a bunch of Ghost Warriors all over Planet Earth," Yamcha gave the rash kid a winking smirk. "We've got this, kid. Go finish what you've been up to all this time."
"We hate to ask you to do this, Videl-chan, we know you've been through a lot, but… Please, we're kind of short on hands," Krillin clapped his hands together and winked his right eye with a pleading request.
"Got it, I wouldn't have it any other way. Collecting the Dragon Balls is my rite of passage as a martial artist! It's my responsibility to prove to Chayote-san that I'm capable enough on my own," Videl nodded in agreement. "Trunks?" she turned to her companion.
"Okay…" Trunks sighed and let go of his Super Saiyan luster. "Let's go."
"Oh… Before we go, do any of you know if my dad and Navy are okay?" Videl wondered.
"Yeah, don't worry, we all got an invitation from Bulma to the election evening at Capsule Corps. From what I've heard, ever since the election campaign ended, Satan… Erm… Hercule, his staff, and Navy all moved to Capsule Corps, helping to prepare them for the big evening," Krillin waved it off.
"I see, that's a relief to hear!" Videl exhaled a full chest of air, forcing the boulder that was crushing it to roll right off. Now that she knew all this, Videl could breathe freely again without that despairing pressure weighing her down.
The two took off at once, flying in an arcing trajectory to the west until they could find a safer place to check the Dragon Radar for where the 7th Dragon Ball was. Almost immediately, the Sigma Force blitzed to intercept the pair, but together, the Dragon Team flashed on their way to obstruct their path. Seeing that capable opponents have confronted them, the Sigma Force stopped without colliding with the Dragon Team.
"What's the meaning of this, Commander?" Ribet turned to Commander Nezi with his entire body. "Where did these Earthlings come from, and how did they survive the initial hit on the planet?"
"They must have been outside of the landing zone," Bizu surmised. "Still, they're either very brave or idiotic, rushing toward the invasion force rather than running as far away as they can."
"Hmm… I'm not getting any intelligence from three-quarters of our forces. There has to be some sort of interference or something," Natt clapped the right side of his head hard enough to cause sparks.
"It doesn't matter where they were when the invasion hit. We've already seen that Earthlings can be very capable and intelligence suggests that this planet hosts Saiyans and even Namekians on it. Also, it's become abundantly clear that, despite the low battle power of the native species, a select handful of Earthlings possess sufficient battle powers to fend off Machine Mutant soldiers and drones," Commander Nezi struck a flashy pose, preparing for combat. "It doesn't seem like ordinary drones will exterminate this lot. Let's go to work, Sigma Force!"
"Oh humbug," Bizu rattled with sparks flying off in all directions from spots of significant structural damage. "And here I thought I'd be getting a fix-up…"
"These guys look different from the other drones we've scrapped," Yamcha noted, examining the bickering and the posing of the Sigma Force prepping for battle. "This might just be a proper fight."
"Yeah, we sure could use Piccolo's help right about now. Is he still chasing his little pet project Kami Upa's put him on?" Krillin wondered, patting himself down to toughen and warm up before taking a fighting pose and readying to tackle the Machine Mutants.
"Who knows, but his Ki signature is moving somewhere in our direction. He might join us soon enough. It doesn't matter though. I, for one, don't plan on leaving him any alien invaders to deal with. My pride wouldn't be able to stomach having him deal with our enemies for us," Tenshinhan declared with his arms behind his back. It was a curious fighting stance that seemingly only left openings for the opponent, yet the Machine Mutants were hesitant to attack.
Seeing how none of the enemies attacked first, Tenshinhan vanished, moving forward in a gale to follow his invisible trail. Commander Nezi attacked first with a power blow, but Tenshinhan casually slid in and around from the left side, his hands still behind him. Then, like a striking snake, Tenshinhan's left grabbed hold of the Sigma Force commander's arm, and his right thrust a sharp jab of the index and middle fingers into a softer spot underneath all the heavy metal plating.
Spinning around his axis and positioning himself just right, Tenshinhan thrust his left arm too into the softer area underneath the armor plating on the other side, then exploded with a flurry of sharp, jabbing thrusts before completing the combination with a palm strike that sent Commander Nezi flying. Tenshinhan pressed his arms to his sides, letting his Ki unfurl, then he charged in pursuit of his airborne opponent while Yamcha, Krillin, and No. 18 collided with Ribet, Bizu, and Natt.
Commander Nezi slammed his forearm, clashing with Tenshinhan's, taking flight above his opponent, Tenshinhan sharpened his palms into cobra-like jabs while unleashing a combination of thrusts that forced Commander Nezi on the defensive, deflecting, dodging, and weaving the barrage of strikes carefully. Tenshinhan turned around with an equine back kick that slammed into Commander Nezi's cross-arm guard and sent the Sigma Force leader gliding backward. The moment Commander Nezi's radar sensors returned to peak activity, they could no longer pick up Tenshinhan's vitals.
"Above you!" Tenshinhan stunned his opponent, appearing from above and behind Nezi and shooting an overhead haymaker that sent Commander Nezi crashing down. Stuffing his hands inside the baggy sleeves of his long coat, Tenshinhan descended nearby with a calm expression, tracking his opponent's every move.
Meanwhile, Lazuli glided across the battlefield, evading the storm of Ki blasts that Bizu had unleashed while lulling him into a trap. By the time he realized that the alluring Android was moving in on him, Lazuli vanished and appeared directly in front of him with one high-speed skip. Kicking his shins with little skill but tremendous force, Lazuli folded her opponent's defenses and crippled his agility. Seeing the mechanical giant crumbling on his own weight, No. 18 moved in from the side with a side palm strike thrust that sent Bizu flying.
Pursuing after him, Artificial Human No. 18 drove her flying knee strike that sent Bizu flying at hyper-speed that rendered everything around him black with flashing, blitzing lights. Matching his hyperspace speed, No. 18 tackled the flinching and collapsing Machine Mutant with a rushing headbutt before positioning herself close to Bizu, punishing the heavyweight Machine Mutant with perilous but slow and methodical jabs before driving a rolling eagle kick into his head that positioned him horizontally and finishing the beatdown off with an overhead double ax handle slam that leveled Bizu into the ground right back where they've started, having circled the Earth around three-thousand times during the brief pummeling.
"Hmm… My one's broken. Does anyone want to change?" Lazuli teased the fallen Machine Mutant with a playful stroke of her hand that put an unruly strand of hair back into place behind her ear.
"Don't play with your food, Lazuli," Krillin tried giving sage advice to his fiancée before Ribet slammed into him with a flying headbutt tackle. Reeling back with a stagger in mid-air, Krillin stroked his aching head. Seeing Ribet flying with a head-first tackle again, the bald martial artist thrust his open palm, creating an aerial Kiai shockwave that sent Ribet flying back.
Dashing up to his opponent, Krillin threw a jab before lashing a swinging side kick and punting Ribet away like a football. Pursuing after his soaring opponent, Krillin threw a flying haymaker before beating down on Ribet and slamming him back down with an overhead double ax handle slam. After dealing with his persistent opponent and leaving him a cloud of dust and underneath a pile of debris, Krillin turned to see how the others were doing.
Yamcha was sweating, throwing stray Ki blasts at an illusive opponent that seemed to possess unnatural phasing abilities, liquifying and becoming one with all sorts of scrapped debris and ruin. The scarred martial artist was working up a sweat trying to pin Natt down. Meanwhile, the slippery phasing Machine Mutant gave Yamcha the slip and appeared from behind him, shooting off from the ground like a flying fish and slamming its head into Yamcha's back before beginning to beat on the flinched martial artist. After a brief stint of pummeling Yamcha with its stubby arms and legs, Natt opened up its belly, revealing a lone missile that took off and detonated straight in Yamcha's face. Grunting and coughing, Yamcha swatted the smoke away with a stroke of his hand without a scratch.
"Have you been keeping up with your training, Yamcha? You really must've let it go for ordinary rockets to be hurting you," Krillin scratched his bald head.
"There aren't your ordinary missiles. They're not packing normal explosives, they're loaded with pure energy, similar to the energy produced by Artificial Humans!" Yamcha grumbled, hating to make himself look bad in front of his friends who barely seemed to struggle against the Sigma Force at all.
"Oh? Not bad…" Lazuli teased the Sigma Force. "Still, you guys seem like a pale imitation of my Infinite Energy Reactor technology."
"Indeed, these aren't ordinary Earthlings," Commander Nezi rose from the ground and vanished in a crimson and white-trailed blur. In a flash, the Sigma Force regrouped together and began transitioning through all sorts of flashy poses. "We have to take them super-seriously, or else General Rilldo will get mad at us and have to get involved himself!"
"Right! Full-Power, Let's Go Combination!" the Sigma Force struck a combined, super-exuberant flashy pose and took off together, racing and shuffling into the air while spewing smoke colored after their armor from their rear venting pipes.
"Mega Cannon Punch!" Commander Nezi turned into a red and white blur, appearing before Tenshinhan with incredible speed that seemed to catch even the stoic martial artist completely off-guard. The indomitable commander of the Sigma Force slammed his right hand into Tenshinhan's gut with a merciless hydraulic slam that indented Tenshinhan's waist and nearly punched clean through. With his opponent stunned and suspended in mid-air, Commander Nezi spread his arms and legs to the sides.
"Super Explosive Wave!" Commander Nezi chanted out in a robotic voice, expelling a radiant bubble the size of an entire city from all around him. Scorched, bruised, and trailing with smoke, Tenshinhan hovered in mid-air where the commander's explosive wave had flung him. Nezi's long vizor dyed bright red and flashed with crimson light, emitting a focused eye-beam that engulfed Tenshinhan and flashed with blinding red before dropping him down on the ground face-first. This commander's assault left Tenshinhan topless, bruised, and bloodied, laying on his front with only slight tormented twitches to relay that he was still alive.
"Tenshinhan!" Krillin cried out, worried about his friend's well-being when he should've been worried about himself.
"Ribet Rocket!" Ribet reported, sliding back his upper lid to reveal a golden missile almost the size of Ribet's entire body. With the smoke emitting silver smoke, it took off racing in a flash toward Krillin and slammed straight into the stunned martial artist with a devastating blast that ruined Krillin's orange dogi and left him with a torn-up weighted shirt and tattered trousers, covered with bruises and bleeders.
"You little runt! That's my money bag you've just tried to blow up!" Lazuli seethed, preparing to attack Ribet before Bizu slammed with a flying headbutt on his way past Lazuli and stunned her momentarily, only to position himself high in the sky and make a flexing pose.
"Bizu Needle!" Bizu reported, dissolving into an immense swarm of hundreds upon thousands of tiny metal balls that made Lazuli gasp in confusion. She flashed with a desperation explosive wave bubble to fend off the rushing metal balls, but the balls turned into elongated metal spikes in an instant, puncturing through the energy dome and slamming against Lazuli with a thud.
Because of the natural toughness and might of the artificial woman, the spikes couldn't penetrate much deeper than her skin, but their sheer number and the brutality of the maneuver still left her grazed in a few sore spots where the metal spikes punctured the skin. Also, the myriad of metal spikes left Lazuli completely entrapped and barely able to struggle against their raw numbers.
"Natt Wire Arm!" Natt exclaimed, extending the length of his arms to slam them into Yamcha's face and knocking the martial artist rolling through the air.
"Heh, is that all you got? You must be the weakest guy from this group," Yamcha snickered, dragging the back of his fist across the corner of his lip to wipe the small trace of blood on it.
Trembling with tension, Tenshinhan dragged himself off the ground and took a fighting pose, breathing in and out calmly. Krillin and Yamcha gasped while turning to their battle-worn ally, who opened his eyes with a completely different disposition toward the battle and a solemn expression.
"Huh? What just happened? Tenshinhan's battle power skyrocketed dozens of times over but I can't see anything!" Krillin blinked a few times, staring at his long-time friend and ally who appeared to have been completely reborn just now after getting back up off the ground and returning to battle.
"This is it, isn't it?" Yamcha smirked with confidence. "The Spirit Cultivation Method that Tenshinhan learned. That method of Ki control nullifies the disadvantages of any sort of technique that puts stress on the body and turns it into energy reserves to be recycled by one's body. It's on a whole different league from Spirit Control of a technique like the Instant Transmission or Multiplication…"
"What's that? Some sort of ace technique?" Commander Nezi wondered, running the readings on his vizor radar. "Stay sharp, Sigma Force!"
"I guess it's time we cut loose too, Krillin," Yamcha cracked his neck and rolled his knuckles. "How about I show you the heights to which I've taken the Instant Transmission too?"
"Come to think of it, I've been polishing my Multiplication as well…" Krillin snickered with confidence brimming from within. "I wasn't sure if we'd ever encounter an enemy strong enough for me to show it off, my best hope was if they hosted another World Martial Arts Tournament…"
"Oh, no!" Trunks exclaimed with a pale, terrified expression while staring at the Dragon Radar. "We're so screwed!"
"What's going on? What are you on about?" Videl shook her head, leaning over Trunks' shoulder to look at the radar's readings herself since her companion didn't feel like letting her in on what he saw. "What is this? Did you turn the Dragon Radar on? Did it get banged up during the battle or something…?"
"No! It must be the Destron Gas again!" Trunks pulled on his hair, freaking out. "The radar won't show us where the 7th Dragon Ball is! What are we going to do?"
"The only thing we can do at this point," Videl declared, turning to the sky-scraping, sharp, and angular Destron Tower far away on the horizon that the Machine Mutants erected immediately after landing and built back up higher and higher without a limit in sight. "We need to bust that big thing down. There's no other way!"
"That!? But that's got to be where the Machine Mutant forces will be the thickest. That's the whole nexus point of their invasion! Ghost Warriors, more crazy Machine Mutants… Who knows what else will guard that tower," Trunks deflated and collapsed on the ground.
"I know you're feeling tired and everything's hurting, but… That's what becoming a real martial artist is. Standing back up when you don't think you can go anymore and fighting on! We've come this far, collected six Dragon Balls, and we're nearly there. If only… If only we can call forth the Divine Dragon and heal Chayote, I know… I just know everything will be alright!" Videl clenched her bruised and dirty fists and made a determined face that gritted and ground through the bruises, the dirt, and the bloodstains. "Just one more. Just one more Dragon Ball and we'll have completed our test. We'll have become real martial artists!"
"Yeah!" Trunks nodded, tightening his belt. "We started this whole crazy adventure. Now it got out of control and everyone got involved to help us and it's really embarrassing. We need to finish it. I'm the ultimate, legendary warrior, a Super Saiyan, and I won't crumble before the fight's over or turn away from a challenge!"
"Atta boy," Videl nodded with pride and trust in her companion. "Now, let's get that final Dragon Ball!"