A vicious fusillade of shockwaves ripped through the sky. Friezas and Coolers flew off in all directions like plush toys thrown aside by an impetuous child. Bardock's roar, which stressed his chest and vocal cords to the point where his artificial enhancements had to kick in and augment his voice by a pitch, echoed through the crash site of the central Destron Tower.
With handfuls of Friezas and Coolers swatted aside or ripped to pieces and collapsed into Destron clouds that the Capsule Corps drone quickly slurped up, Bardock froze in between the largest, terrified mass of Frieza Clan Ghost Warriors and the hover car of Bulma, Yajirobe, Launch, Hercule, Trunks and Videl. Bardock turned his head half sideways, showing a red dot in the center of a black artificial eye.
"Scram outta here," Bardock grumbled to the crew in the hover car. "Nurse the kids back to health and find the final Dragon Ball. I'll deal with this bunch, then see if someone else needs some help."
"You don't need to tell me twice," Yajirobe began fiddling with the hovercar. "There ain't any demons here to eat, nothing but machines. What's a robot without even a patch of human flesh on it? Not food, that's what it is…"
"Are you sure, Bardock?" Launch stood up in the back seat and placed her submachine gun over her shoulder. "You've spent a lot of time reflectin' on yerself and becoming a changed man. Stopped swingin' fists as your first option. Yer gonna go right back to that after all this time? After swearin' on Gine's grave?"
"Don't get me wrong," Bardock fixed the sleeves of his shirt, rolling them back to expose beefy forearms with cybernetic patterns riddling armored skin plating around several patches where cybernetic augmentation clashed with Saiyan biology. "I ain't ever going back to that mad jerk yelling at the world and swinging fists at everything, but some stuff is just worth fighting for. Right now, I'm surrounded by hated enemies and that makes my heart sing and my fists itch. No amount of self-reflection is gonna change the man I am, all I can do is focus that in the right direction, and right now, pounding these goons is the right thing for everybody."
"We're in total agreement there, buddy!" Yajirobe croaked after finally starting the hovercar and shooting off. Bulma and Launch tracked Bardock standing alone, surrounded by hordes of Friezas and Coolers and a lone Ghost Warrior King Cold chuckling to himself from the top of the Destron Tower ruins.
Friezas and Coolers began swarming Bardock, wrapping around him in a massive body pile that loomed like a tiny moon above the devastated city grounds. Another handful of Friezas surrounded the orb of limbs and appendages doing their best to punch, claw, and squeeze all semblance of life out of Bardock and extended their hands, forming a telekinetic sphere around the body pile and pressing the complex geometrical shape together with invisible telekinetic barriers to crush it to can-sized chunks.
A golden nova rag-dolled the limp and whited-out bodies of the duplicates of some of the most infamous galactic tyrants, sending them crashing down like a meteor shower while more and more took their place. Extending their hands, they fired fuchsia energy waves at Bardock, but the cybernetically augmented Saiyan finally had a body of stamina that could carry him the distance necessary to satisfy his infinite hunger for a heart-pounding battle.
Enveloped with a golden aura around his body and with his hair all spiked up, Bardock shot off to drive a fist through the nearest Frieza, avoiding the hail of Death Waves and Death Flashes coming his way. The penetrated Ghost Warrior twitched with an ajar mouth and a terrified expression for a few more seconds before dissolving into Destron Gas and getting sucked up by the bunch of drones doing a fine job of cleaning the battle site up one ton of gas at a time.
Flying past another Frieza, Bardock back-handed his head, crushing it into a shapeless blob and utterly devastating the Ghost Warrior's skull. For a few more moments, the undulating Ghost Warrior's body contemplated if it was to carry on existing or if it was better off giving way. In a blink, it surrendered its mortal coil and dispersed into Destron. Preceding the attack with a chilling roar, Bardock crashed his elbow into the gut of a Super Cooler, making the tyrant slump onto Bardock's elbow and utterly collapse. Not feeling content to wait until this Ghost Warrior decided to die, Bardock kicked its head off before stomping his foot through the Ghost Warrior and quartering the headless body with savage punches and kicks.
Growling, Bardock punched the ravaged body of Super Cooler, leaving a golden sprinkle sizzling in the gut as the limbless body trailing with Destron flew off toward the other Coolers and Friezas, causing a devastating golden explosion that obliterated dozens more Ghost Warriors at once. Like a man-possessed, Bardock raced across the destroyed battle site, kicking, punching, and throwing any Frieza, Cooler, or Super Cooler he could lay his eyes on. He grabbed a Super Cooler and spun it around, thwacking a handful of other Ghost Warriors rushing after him aside before flinging the body away and blasting it to bits with a single Ki blast.
Flying into the very heart of the Destron shroud that was raring out bit by bit, Bardock's cybernetically enhanced eyes relayed to him a warning. The augmented Super Saiyan turned over and grabbed a Death Saucer out of thin air, turning around and releasing it into a fray of Friezas to slice one of them up into twin halves that burst into Destron upon being split. A Super Cooler wrapped his arms around Bardock's back in a Full Nelson while a whole platoon of Friezas began charging up Death Saucers with ecstatic chortling.
"Hmph… Not even the least bit worried about slicing up your own brother alongside me, huh? I guess when you're all Ghost Warriors, your brain's all rotted out. Then again, I don't think the real Frieza would've cared much either!" Bardock flexed his muscles and powered out of Super Cooler's hold by tearing his arms out from the sockets and kicking the disarmed body aside. At the last possible microsecond, the cybernetically augmented Super Saiyan vanished away and left the decimated Super Cooler to get sliced up by a hail of Death Saucers.
"This really is a dream come true for me, you know that?" Bardock stared at his clenched fist. "I used to get myself worked up about the fact that someone else got to do all of you in. The only thoughts that gave me solace at night were based on the fact that it was Kakarot who caved your psycho face in and that the fate that befell you in the hands of the Artificial Humans was worse than death. Now, I get to deal out some deaths to all of you of my own…"
Friezas and Coolers began rushing in like flies again. They wrapped their entire bodies around Bardock's arms and legs, doing their desperate best to restrain him as even their innumerous ranks were growing thin with the deadly combo of Bardock ripping them to pieces by the dozen each millisecond and the Capsule Corps drones pulling the Destron Gas to prevent the Ghost Warriors from re-forming or evolving further or getting new powers and techniques. Chuckling, King Cold hovered in front of the Frieza and Cooler body pile with a lone index finger raised over his head.
A teal sun-like energy bomb grew out of control rapidly at the tip of King Cold's finger. Laughing it up while imagining the rampage he was about to cause, the Ghost Warrior version of King Cold launched the teal supernova straight at the rumbling pile of bodies. Friezas and Coolers howled as the out-of-this-world energy ripped them away to tiny shreds and disintegrated them into black shrouds of Destron immediately.
King Cold's eyes spread out wide as the teal supernova energy bomb punted off into the sky unexpectedly. He looked around, finding not a single one of his sons remaining to assist him or to sacrifice for an upper hand. With his left foot still stuck in kicking position, Bardock slowly brought it down and covered up his face with the back of his hand to prevent breathing some Destron in while the drones worked their sci-fi magic tricks.
"Caught you slipping now, haven't I?" Bardock mumbled before erupting into a wild spin and crashing his spinning elbow into King Cold's head, smashing the gemstone on his helm in and shattering its shards all over the place while spilling blood and brain fluid in gushing splashes only for the phantom guts to evaporate into Destron fumes. With King Cold's defeated body flying off in the air, Bardock drew his right hand to the side and channeled a crackling blue energy sphere.
"Take a hike!" he bellowed, thrusting his hand out and shooting off a Rebellion Trigger after the King Cold's body with a caved-in forehead to completely obliterate him into Destron and leave it to the Capsule Corps drones to finish the job. Calmly, Bardock landed atop of the pile of rubble of the collapsed Destron tower and looked around the carnage his rampage had wrought and the fine job that Bulma's drones had been doing in covering it all up.
Of all the forms those Ghost Warriors could've taken, it left Bardock overjoyed that they took these.
"Videl… My poor daughter… It's all my fault, I should've never gone off campaigning and left you all by yourself!" Hercule seethed in the back seat, caressing Videl's beaten body. He wouldn't let anyone even near the body he cradled, not until Bulma smacked him on the side of the head and left the candidate to become the King of the World, rubbing his head with watery eyes.
"Calm down, drama queen!" Bulma grumbled while gently slipping a Senzu in between Videl's lips. Even while slipping in and out of consciousness, somehow Videl's body chewed the magical bean up, almost as if compelled to do so, and swallowed the sea-weed-tasting mulch in. "A Senzu is all these two need."
"How can you be so calm? Your son's just three years old and he's been beaten, kicked around, and trampled by these alien robots and monsters…" Hercule pulled his hair, nearly tugging two whole handfuls of it out before pulling his knees up.
"For starters, Trunks is almost five now. Also, he's half-Saiyan. He'll actually become much tougher after recovering after these injuries, so it's not that big of a deal, honestly," Bulma crossed her arms and rolled her eyes while Yajirobe drove the hover car, hurrying as far away from the battle zone as possible. The mass casualties amongst the Ghost Warriors and the grand activity of Bulma's mass-produced Destron vacuuming drones decimated the Ghost Warrior population plaguing the world.
"Eek! What a sadistic woman!" Hercule hissed with enough bitterness in his thoughts to make him wince.
Now, all that the racing and swerving hover car had to worry about was Machine Mutant soldiers. They were relentless but blond Launch kept them occupied with hi-tech barrage gunfire from the back seat, answering each Machine Mutant drone, tank, or foot soldier turning their guns at the scrambling hovercar.
"H-Huh?" Videl's eyes slowly fluttered open. She looked around and then examined her body, finding no visible injuries except her torn and singed-up clothing and dirt and dried bloodstains. She felt stronger than ever too despite her final memories of being overwhelmed and beaten to a pulp by Ghost Warriors being so grim. "What's going on?"
"Hmph…" Trunks jumped up on top of the front window of the hovercar with his arms crossed, blinking off from his mother's lap as if he had never been there and any memories anyone had of his dire condition were false. "Mother… You've proven yourself useful. At least you brought Senzu with you."
"Sheesh, the little brat's all like his father…" blond Launch winced and shook her head before a vehement explosion rattled the car.
"Ey! I hear a whole lot 'a my drivin' but none 'a yer shootin'!" Yajirobe barked out, turning the wheel left and right in a drastic struggle to wrestle control of the vehicle again.
"Machine Mutants…" Videl gently slipped from her father's grip, completely ignoring his unintelligible stuttering and shock at her swift recovery. This wasn't the first time that the newly re-named Mark Hercule had seen Senzu and he knew all too well why they were taking the magic beans from Korin Tower on their trip here, still, he never stopped getting shocked after seeing his daughter just jump back to her feet and radiate fighting spirit in an instant. "Leave them to us!"
Trunks and Videl jumped up and took off from the vehicle, dashing off to tackle the Machine Mutants and make a scrapyard out of the entire place. Both moved far faster than the mass-produced foot soldier quality radar technology could trace and they both could demolish any ordinary foe, colossal or man-sized, with a single attack.
"You're lagging!" Trunks declared with a smug expression while tripping up an eight-legged walking Machine Mutant fortress, then snapping up to its dome and kicking it off with one blow before flying up directly above it with a blazing white aura and ripping through it vertically with a barrage of chain punches that utterly obliterated the walking fortress and flattened the remains. "After recovering from my injuries, I've become way stronger than I was before, so I can understand how you'd struggle to keep up!"
"Is that so?" Videl panted, vaulting above a twin-propeller Machine Mutant drone and forcing it to crash with a single overhead kick. A strident, piercing Ki burst fired from a straight flying kick she collided with a rumbling Machine Mutant tank and left it in a smoking mushroom-shaped cloud with. "Well, from what I can see, I still have superior control over my Ki and better overall martial arts training!"
Just to illustrate her point, Videl thrust a punch and released a concussive airwave shaped vaguely like a human-sized being that crashed into a faraway Machine Mutant foot soldier carrier and blew it up, flinging ripped robotic body parts of the soldiers it carried in all directions. With a lively Kiai shout, Videl thrust both her hands out, bursting with a white pillar aura around her, and channeling her Ki mastery into an all-encompassing aerial shockwave that neutralized the entire army of Machine Mutants that pursued their hover car with one forceful push.
"How's that?" Videl pulled her right eyelid down and stuck her tongue out, teasing her traveling companion.
"Whatever… You had to try, I didn't. If I even tried flexing one finger with my true strength, I'd have wiped out all the Machine Mutants in an instant!" Trunks crossed his arms and turned away, raising his nose. With his left eye, he checked if Videl was still looking at him. Laughing it up, the two bumped their fists, congratulating one another.
"Giru-Giru! Surrender or I'll eliminate the core piece of your plan!" a mechanical voice made the two turn their attention back to the hovercar. Standing in between the front and the back seats was a round, white-coated Machine Mutant that looked a bit like the lowest-class Machine Mutant foot soldiers. Though colored differently, this guy had the same orbicular body with short and meek mechanical arms and legs sprouting from the side of the round body and the bottom with a lid-shaped head covering the top side and wrapping all the way to the center. The tiny, red-eyed Machine Mutant had its body unraveled, with a missile easily the size of the orbicular Machine Mutant itself resting in its center pointed straight at Bulma's head.
"Wha…! Mom!" Trunks gasped. In an instant he tightened his wristbands, preparing to charge the tiny Machine Mutant at hypersonic speeds and crush it to bits before it could trigger the missile release and blow up the entire hovercar by blasting Bulma with a missile point-blank.
Launch jumped up and tried aiming at the round, white Machine Mutant, but a pink bling in its red eye caused her hi-tech pulse rifle to backfire. With blond Launch reaching for the gun in her inner pocket that, unlike the hi-tech Capsule Corps rifles, couldn't possibly scratch even the meekest Machine Mutants, the white infiltrator jumped on top of Launch's head while retaining the aim of its missile at the back of Bulma's head.
"Ya asshole!" Launch grumbled, yelling at the indifferent back of Yajirobe's head. "Can't ya help us out just this once? Korin said ye've been eatin' demons in the Demon Realm for years now! You must've gotten crazy-strong after all that demon dieting!"
"Already told ya, toots. Can't eat robots. Don't like 'em, won't fight 'em!" Yajirobe waved his hand in dismissal.
Videl placed her hand on Trunks' shoulder after noticing something interesting in the Machine Mutant's red eye. Enraged, Trunks turned to Videl and pulled her hand off of his shoulder, insisting on his daring rescue of the hovercar and the precious family and friends held at missile point.
"Don't. This guy's different from those soldiers we fought. His radar system's more advanced. As are his cloaking abilities. He was there with those Sigma goons, remember, yet somehow, he slipped away and got all the way down here. That means he could've finished us off at any point when we were weakened but didn't. If you attack and threaten it, it might just freak out and attack though," Videl advised Trunks before waving her hand in the air. "Yoo-hoo, Mr. Machine Mutant Scout Guy! We'd like to negotiate!"
"Giru-Giru! Too late, I'm executing my plan!" the white and round Machine Mutant declared. Trunks gasped and prepared a charge that he knew would be too late as the Machine Mutant missiles were both infinitely faster and much more destructive than the normal Earthling missiles. Though, shocking everyone, the Machine Mutant infiltrator shut its body and swallowed its missile up, instead shooting out a grappling hook. Bulma yelped and covered her head up, begging whatever listened that the robot wouldn't hook her head clean off the shoulders, but the grappling hook plunged into the purse by Bulma's hip.
The Machine Mutant reeled in the Dragon Radar and stuffed it down its body like a cookie while Videl and Trunks observed it all ajar in bewilderment. Had what the Machine Mutant spy been pulling any more sense, they'd have possibly interfered, but neither of them had even seen a Machine Mutant pulling anything like this before.
"Now you can't find the Dragon Balls anymore. Only I can do that!" the round Machine Mutant declared, turning around and pointing at its back that opened up a newly formed compartment and revealed the Dragon Radar screen blinking like normal. With the Destron shrouds around the world having cleared up, it now showed the location of the seventh and final Dragon Ball at long last.
"H-Huh?" Trunks scratched his head. "Isn't your mission to kill us all and enslave the Earth or something?"
"Giru-Giru! Negative! The primary objective of unit No. DB4649T2006RS is to collect the wish-granting orbs of Planet Earth, codenamed: Dragon Balls!" the round Machine Mutant declared, striking a flashy pose with widespread legs and pointing at the sky with a flamboyant lean to the right while flexing non-existent muscles for all to see. "While unit No. DB4649T2006RS could have completed its objective without assimilating the Earthling Dragon Radar, the Earthlings are inherently hostile and destructive toward Machine Mutants, so unit No. DB4649T2006RS had to hide amongst them and wait for the perfect opportunity to steal away their Dragon Radar. Now the Earthlings must work together with DB4649T2006RS to accomplish their objective of collecting the Dragon Balls too!"
"W-Wait!" Videl's jaw dropped. "You mean… You're actually planning to help us?"
"Giru-Giru! Affirmative!" the round Machine Mutant switched the side of his pose to the left, prancing around the vehicle as if it had already won. "According to DB4649T2006RS's calculations, the Earthlings have a 94,6 percent chance of collecting the Dragon Balls before the Machine Mutants, meaning that DB4649T2006RS's best odds of accomplishing his prime objective is working with the Earthlings!"
"Hmm…" Trunks scratched his head. "So I guess those nincompoops didn't factor in the fact that you can switch teams when giving you their orders, lucky for us. Anyway, if you're going to stick around, the name DB4649T2006RS is a mouthful. What is it you refer to yourself as? I think I'll shorten it to T2006…"
"H-How did a five-year-old remember all that jumbled sequence of symbols!?" Hercule shrieked out in awe before squinting. "Still, T2006 isn't much better for a name!"
"You're assuming we'll even keep this treacherous hunk of junk around…" Bulma crossed her arms. With a sheepish grin, she opened her right eye and pointed an index finger diagonally in T2006's direction. "You see, a Dragon Radar isn't even that impressive of an invention. I can brew one up in no time at all. I made the original when I was 16 years old, after all."
"Giru-Giru! In that case, if you waste time building a new Dragon Radar, you reduce your chances of collecting the Dragon Balls first to 13,6 percent. If you wish to label me as T2006, that is an acceptable term for our cooperation," T2006 nodded its entire body since its sliding compartment head wasn't built for such a function.
"Hmm… T2006 is still weird. No one should have actual numbers in their name, even robots. Going by Trunks' established naming pattern, I think we should call you Giru," Videl pointed out.
"Giru-Giru! Negative, destroy T2006 now!" T2006 began frantically waving its hands over his head, objecting to the cutesy new name. "Giru-Giru! Our deal is off, Earthling scum!"
"Heh, got you flustered, didn't it?" Bulma chuckled. "Alright then, that does it. You're working with us whether you like it or not and we're calling you Giru, whether or not you like it. You may think that you were being clever by eating up the Dragon Radar, but unbeknownst to you, you've just become a gadget for us to manhandle as we please."
"Giru-Giru!" Giru leaned back, extending its hands out to keep itself as far away from Bulma as possible. "Earthling females! What a sadistic bunch!" its mechanical voice wavered in terror.