Videl and Trunks soared through the devastated wasteland that was the closest to the initial impact zone. Instead of the skyscrapers, parks, and budding construction projects, there were now only different rear ends of alien ships sticking out from the ground, with the tallest Destron tower looming on the horizon. Their objective towering within sight didn't let the two adventurers become distracted.
"Trunks…" Videl turned to her companion with a dire expression.
"Yeah…" Trunks nodded.
Almost immediately after the two warned one another, Videl swerved off to the side, avoiding an incoming Rocket Punch that turned a full circle around, only to be caught off the air and reattached by its sender. Without hesitating after one failed attack, the mound of muscle swooped down with a devastating right only for Trunks to dodge it at the last second which led to the assailant's fist digging into the crashed alien ship, demolishing the whole skyscraper-sized ship in one blow.
"There's no use trying to sneak on us! We can sense your Ki!" Trunks barked out while pointing at the pile of smoke smoldering from the wreckage.
"Is that so…?" a chuckling light blue titan appeared from the smoke. This one looked different from most of the Machine Mutants that the two adventurers had seen in that he didn't look like a giant mech, a living piece of heavy military equipment, or a robot. This assailant was tall and incredibly burly, though humanoid. He looked more like what Videl would've imagined an alien to look–a blue-skinned humanoid with futuristic armor that, oddly enough, only covered his chest with his waist being coated with blue tights. He also had spiky, elf-like ears and a gold plating for hair. "Given what I've seen thus far, it's a sign of a puny species. A bunch of primitive and cowardly herbivore mammalians that need to know when a powerful predator approaches so that they can run away."
"We're not running away!" Trunks growled, clenching his tiny fists with an angered expression full of false bravado. Videl turned to her companion with worry. "And, for your information, I'm a Saiyan!"
To be entirely honest, Videl would've rather tried to escape and shake off this meathead. His Ki felt strange and the sensations they got from sensing his energy were unreliable at best. It was like staring at a staticky radar screen that only relayed a beeping sound–you knew something was there, but you couldn't quite pinpoint what the numbers were and where they were, other than the general area covered by the radar. Just like with the rest of the Machine Mutants, one could track them, but the only way to determine their true strength because of their unique Ki signature was to engage them in battle.
"Was that meant to be surprising to me?" the mysterious blockhead dropped the cocky façade and sneered at Trunks with solemn disgust. "We knew your lot took shelter in this backward world after running that you stole from the Tsufurians to the ground. You Saiyans are even worse than Earthlings. Earthlings are meek, but they don't act like anything else but dirt under the shoe. Saiyans, meanwhile, bark and growl, bite and rip those smaller than them and pretend they're the big cheese, but the moment something larger comes and starts bossing them around–they whimper and whine like submissive little bitches they are."
"What was that…!?" Trunks seethed, grinding his teeth with so much pressure they may have shattered at any point while the boy's face warped with wrath and his hair began swirling up and flashing gold. He was switching between the base and Super Saiyan states in a millisecond. A sign that he was doing so unwillingly.
"You heard me just fine, whelp. You pretended like you were the top dogs of the universe against Tsufurians, conservative weaklings with technological and cultural advancement leagues above your own, but the moment Frieza Army came and put a leash on you, you rolled over and stuck your tongues out. We Machine Mutants don't have any personal reasons to despise the Saiyans since our race was built long after you exterminated the Tsufurians. Still, this kind of wimpy attitude disgusts me to my core and makes me loathe you on a very personal level," the armored, blue-skinned Machine Mutant said.
"Calm down, Trunks. We've spent too much energy fighting off those Sigma goons. This one might be stronger than them, if we fight him–we'll be wiped out," Videl mumbled to Trunks, who seemed to simmer with a shiny crystal-clear aura around him and electrifying the surrounding air.
"I don't understand the word you just said, but nobody gets to disrespect the Saiyan race and walks away without a beating!" Trunks barked out.
"Noisy whelp. Why don't you come here and deliver it to me then?" the blue-skinned Machine Mutant smirked with a sign of certain malice that Videl didn't trust. He had no facial hair whatsoever, instead, bony ridges covered his white eyes decorated with crosshairs that connected at the point of a single red dot in the eyes. Despite the outlandish facial features, Videl knew a trap when she saw one.
"Trunks! We don't have time for this! The tower!" Videl tried reminding her partner what they were here for.
"Oh… You mean the Destron Tower?" the muscular assailant leaned to the side to give the pair a clear view of their objective just sticking out over the horizon. "I'm afraid my task in this invasion is protecting it. It's flooding with those Ghost Warriors and they're completely mindless, so I can't protect it from a closer distance, but I'm not letting interlopers anywhere near me. I'd lose my rank as the general of the Machine Mutant army if I let some brats foil our plan."
"General?" Videl's eyes widened in surprise. "You mean you're in charge of this entire incursion?"
"I lead the Machine Mutant forces to battle, yes," the general struck a confident pose.
"Damn it… So all of this destruction… It's because of you?" Videl clenched her fists, feeling her own body shake and boil and her reason drowning away in the broth of rage.
"Don't be ridiculous. If it were up to me, I'd have blown this planet up from space. The doctor is interested in the wish-granting orbs on your planet. That's the only reason we bothered landing here," the general of the Machine Mutants replied.
"There's no other way, Videl. If we want to get to the tower, we've got to go through this guy!" Trunks took a fighting pose and burst with a clear aura. Unlike before, when he flashed gleams of gold, the boy didn't seem to be able to access his Super Saiyan form willingly now.
"If this guy is the military commander of their forces, there's no way we can beat him. Don't tackle him head-on, dance around him and look for openings," Videl advised.
The two dashed off at the Machine Mutant military commander, only for the general to take off with boundless confidence on his face. His speed was incredible, and it felt from the get-go that he'd just whizz right past them and snap both their necks in a blink or simply shove his fist through the closest opponent to him. That was when an ironclad fleshy thud interrupted the battle. A hand locked around the golden gauntlet of the Machine Mutant commander, halting him in place.
White cloth rustled in the air as the mysterious interloper pulled the general in for a gut punch, then flung him aside and aimed with an open hand while he wrapped his free hand around the wrist.
"Explosive Demon Wave!" an authoritative and low-pitched, almost demonic voice filled the air before a flash of bright light drowned the whole area in an electric energy field. Thunderous crackles of rampant thunderstorms filled the air as the ground underneath shifted with rumbling quakes and continued to spew squalls of pebbles into the air long after the flash of light subsided.
"You're… Piccolo…" Videl blinked a couple of times, pointing at the Namekian she saw conversing with Kami Upa a few times during her training.
"That Ki… Amazing!" Trunks flipped out with a dropped jaw, tangling his childish fingers in his unkempt hair as he kicked around in mid-air like a rebellious horse.
"I'll take care of this piece of garbage. Shut off the tower, you've got Bulma's machine with you, right?" Piccolo turned half of his face to glance at the two adventurers. The strictness in his eyes made the two freeze up from the tips of their hair to their feet. It was almost like this guy could flip the switch on a whim and obliterate both of them if he decided to. Just being stared at by Piccolo in this state felt life-threatening.
"Y-Yes…" Videl nodded. "Let's go, Trunks."
Trunks neither objected nor hesitated. He took off and quietly followed Videl on their dash for the tower while the lightly bruised commander of the Machine Mutant forces appeared from the smoke, wiping his charred face with the back of his hand.
"You… You're a Namekian, aren't you? I thought space pirates and the Frieza Army drove your species to extinction," the general grumbled. He didn't like the thought of those two brats taking off for the tower, but in that one punch and a Ki blast, this Namekian showed that if Rilldo looked down on him–the Namekian would undoubtedly destroy him.
"The Namekian race lives on through me. The Ultimate Namekian. A fused champion of all surviving Namekian warriors," Piccolo pointed to himself with a thumb, flashing a sharp-fanged grin before removing his turban and cape and tossing them aside, only to crash and burrow into an abyssal crater from their immeasurable weight. "You're General Rilldo, right? My hearing is quite impressive these days. I can hear even what your lackeys are talking about in the ruins of a different city if I focus on it."
"It's good that you know the name of the Machine Mutant that will end the legacy of the Namekian warriors! The warriors of your race still have esteem across the universe, so it will be an honor to give you a proper warrior's sendoff," General Rilldo laughed before putting his dukes up for the upcoming clash.
A straight fuchsia-colored beam that drilled through the narrow space right between the two adventurers stopped Videl and Trunks near the Destron Tower. It came from a massive, pink-skinned alien donning the Frieza Army battle armor that was black. This alien must've been a high-ranking officer in the force since he wore a red cape attached to the shoulder pads. A white bony helmet wrapped around most of the alien's head except for the pink face. A black gem rested in the center of the alien's forehead while grey and bent horns rested from the sides. The alien was sitting atop of a platform on the Destron Tower and only flexed his finger to fire the fateful beam that halted Videl and Trunks in place.
"Who is this guy now?" Trunks exclaimed while staring at the armored and horned alien. "His armor kind of looks like dad's old armor that he has stashed in his gym. He won't throw it away even though mom's improved it several times with new Capsule Corps versions."
"That armor is just like that of the space pirate that looked like Gohan-kun's father, whom we faced as a Ghost Warrior," Videl pondered. Still, despite her best attempts to put her finger on this strange alien, she couldn't do it. Gohan told her some stories about his toughest fights during their training, but he wasn't particularly descriptive during them, so he didn't describe the people he spoke of except for dropping names around.
"Waaah!" Trunks cried out while his arms and legs sprawled out to the side. Slowly, he began elevating to the air as a mustard-colored energy bubble became transparent around him. Distressed, Videl looked around the place only to lock her eyes on a white-skinned alien with violet gemstones decorating his entire body. Beady red eyes staring with sadistic glee chilled Videl to the core and the strange new opponent twisted his plump black lips to a mad smile.
"Tsk…" Videl bit her lip and flexed herself for battle. The energy bubble encasing Trunks shot into the air while the white alien held his arm up and raised it proportionately to Trunks' swift rise. Not wanting to find out what happened when the alien's hand clenched, Videl took off, charging toward the pale alien with a wagging white tail.
Another goliath with deep purple-colored skin and swollen with muscle, sporting white armor carapaces on his chest, shoulders, shins, and head and decorated with ivory spikes on the wrists, greaves, and all over his head, similarly adorned with night-blue gemstones on his wrists and forehead drew a line with lime-sparking fingers and created a salad-colored energy rift in front of him. A cascade of needle-thin green energy projectiles shot off in a blizzard toward Videl, detonating with pesky blasts but forming a mighty combination of chain explosions.
Covered with dirt stains and bloody bruises, with messed up hair and torn clothes, Videl plummeted from the smoke cloud and crashed on the ground. With a sadistic smile, the pale Ghost Warrior imitation of Frieza clenched his hand and detonated the psychic bubble he trapped Trunks in. The area filled with a pain-ridden childish shout while a limp pre-schooler's body was quickly dropping toward the ground. Videl's eyes shot open, and she kicked back up on both feet, charging forward to scoop Trunks from mid-air and soften his fall before positioning him on the ground.
"We're outnumbered here," Videl mumbled while beginning an elementary headcount of the Ghost Warriors before blanking out in absolute shock. One by one, the white and purple aliens appeared from all around the Destron Tower until they comprised solid platoons of each.
"That's an understatement of the century…" Trunks grumbled with a desperate expression. "I don't know who these guys are, but they must've had quite the chip on their shoulder to give Destron Gas enough negative feelings to manifest this many Ghost Warriors. Even one of either of those guys would be a massive problem…"
"We don't need to defeat them," Videl declared, ripping off a bit of her sleeve and tying it around her busted forehead while she struggled to change her terrified expression to a determined one. She couldn't flee now. All she needed was to shut down this tower and then pick up the final Dragon Ball, then she'd be able to heal Chayote and with Chayote grumping it up, they'd all be okay. Videl genuinely believed that. "Ghost Warriors by themselves without the Destron shrouds don't jam the radar. We just need to destroy that tower. Then, we just need to hold out while Bulma-san's machine does its thing and scoops up the Destron they've brought here. It's okay, Trunks, you should go back home to your mother…"
"What!?" Trunks turned to Videl with genuine bewilderment. "No way! We started this together! Even if neither of us stands a chance, you'll surely mess it up on your own. You won't be helping anyone by getting yourself killed. Let's just blow that damn tower up and be done with it."
"Right!" Videl nodded. The two took off into the skies, blitzing around while producing dozens of afterimages and dancing around the area, shuffling between the countless Ghost Warriors of Frieza and Cooler and looking for their opening to attack the Destron Tower.
"Eat this!" Trunks cried out, shooting from the air with a diving kick that made a Ghost Warrior cross his arms with a block only for the phantasmal afterimage to vanish immediately after coming into contact with Frieza's duplicate. From a wholly different side and angle, like a speeding arrow, Trunks slammed into the Destron Tower, feeling the forceful reverberations but, much to his surprise, the blow that would've kicked a moon out of the solar system failed to budge the Destron Tower one bit.
"Okay… We need you to work your magic now one last time," Videl smacked her hands together for a little drone that came out from a capsule she flicked aside. Buzzing with whirling wings, the drone took off to slurp up the leaking Destron shrouds. "Now…" Videl became serious, employing a myriad of snap vanishes to trick the much faster and stronger but utterly mindless Ghost Warriors until she closed in on the Destron Tower.
Videl unloaded a combination of straights, spreading noisy clamors throughout the area but failing to break the titanic tower. Filled with desperation, Videl kneed the tower with a rising knee strike before swinging a left kick, then a right roundhouse, but all for naught. She could see dents on the tower's hefty frame, but her legs were bursting open with grazes and bleeders too, so she was scoring little solid success with this approach.
"Keep at it!" Trunks clenched his fists, gnashing his teeth and working up to willing himself through this ordeal. A swarm of Friezas surrounded him before the area he was just in became a hellish mosh pit of limbs and tails, snap-vanishing and tricking the mindless drones with afterimages, Trunks tried getting a solid look at the tower. With open palms, Trunks produced twin energy orbs in each hand and began thrusting his palms, spewing out a Ki blast barrage that bombarded the Destron Tower.
This valiant assault proved to be of moderate success and several adamantine panels of the tower blew out and the side of the construction bent out of shape. Many more Ki blasts bounced off of the tower's side and careened off to the edge, detonating way off to the side and leaving yet another wound on the flattened wasteland of the Machine Mutant landing zone.
With their bodies being severely drained after the grueling match against the Sigma Force, neither of the two adventurers could switch on their advanced power-ups or employ their strongest techniques just yet. It might have taken some willing up until either of them would even attempt any of their ace techniques in their current state of wear and one thing was clear — the strength and numbers of their enemies just won't let them rest for a second.
And yet, despite how torturous this challenge was, all of this was for Chayote. In Chayote laid everyone's hopes for Earth's safety. Without her, things looked rather shady right now. Chayote represented hope, at least to the young woman who started as a sassy and snotty teen and in whom Chayote saw the budding potential of a great martial artist. To Videl, bringing Chayote back meant everything and made all of this arduous struggle worth it.