The dissipation of Chayote's transformation provided her with a newly gained sense of clarity in her mind. The screaming voices that demanded blood and violence that usually took hold when Chayote entered the Wrathful State and the all-encompassing destructive tendencies of the Type-C Super Saiyan were nowhere to be seen. Chayote felt calm, yet that serenity couldn't have been any more deceiving.
The Saiyan's eyes glimpsed at the lamps spreading the suppression rays throughout Dr. Puri's fighting stage room. The woman had spent entire years working alongside them as part of Capsule Corps and being Bulma's assistant. She knew everyone's strengths and weaknesses and she had both the scientific mind, ingenuity and the motivation, psychopathic tendencies, and the right frame of mind necessary to exploit those weaknesses.
And yet, Chayote couldn't just target those lamps directly. If she did, Dr. Puri would just counter her because of her immense advantage in strength and speed. The only straw Chayote felt like she could hold on to was her martial arts training, but… Even that part felt shoddy. It was more than likely that Dr. Puri had combat profiles and movement patterns running through her system constantly. There must have been programs running algorithms, analyzing move patterns, and devising perfect styles, moves, and combinations necessary to counter everything she encounters.
Android 21 truly may have been invincible at this point.
"What's the matter? Where did that hysterical berserker rage go?" Dr. Puri teased Chayote while crossing up her arms and approaching the Saiyan. Chayote growled and charged onward with an attempt for a running clothesline, but Dr. Puri's foot whipped Chayote in the shins, stiffening her and flinching her up.
Puri's leg shot high, slamming the calf of the artificial woman into Chayote's face and nearly flattening it with a bloody shower. Just as Chayote staggered back, trying to grip to her awareness and consciousness while her essence felt like it was about to slip off and lose grip on both, the artificial woman grabbed hold of Chayote and pulled her in while repeatedly flashing her free hand into Chayote's face with near hydraulic precision and relentlessness.
Having had enough of this battery, Dr. Puri flung Chayote toward the ceiling, enveloping herself in a crimson aura with washing, black, inky undertones and rushed toward the airborne Saiyan, slamming her knee into Chayote's chest and driving the overwhelmed Saiyan into the ceiling at an awkward and tormenting angle. Android 21 rammed Chayote, pinning her to the ceiling with her knee while slapping her face left and right with enough force to where each smack felt like it would soon unhinge Chayote's head from her neck and send it rolling aside.
Just as Chayote got to enjoy a feeling of weightlessness, Artificial Human No. 21 vaulted over her back with an overhead kick, sending Chayote bouncing about like a rag doll and testing the integrity of her skeletal substance against the adamant laboratory floor. Seeing her hated enemy face down, Android 21 strut up to her with clacks that became a beacon for Chayote's fleeting consciousness to hold on from drifting to. Just as it felt like enough air had entered her lungs to push herself off the ground, a crushing slam from above made Chayote's head feel like splitting–Dr. Puri stepped on the back of Chayote's head, almost as if looking to drill her heel through her skull out of sheer hatred.
"Do you know what's the most infuriating about all this? That despite being the smartest and most innovative Artificial Human that technological advancements of the entire universe can assemble, I lack the imagination necessary to create torture suitable for you. It drives me mad. I want to kill you right now with every fiber of my being, but I know it wouldn't be enough. If you ended up dying right now, it would ruin decades upon decades of careful planning and a higher dimension chess game the likes of which this universe has never seen. And yet… Every imaginable way of causing you profound hurt feels insignificant compared to what you've done to me and my family," Android 21 seethed while stomping and dragging her heel across the back of Chayote's head, rubbing and slamming the Saiyan's head against the ground.
Something long and metallic extended and wrapped around Chayote's neck. The Saiyan gargled in pain as she could no longer breathe in or out, just drool and thrash about helplessly while a metallic, segmented tail lifted her off the ground while Android 21 stared and marveled at the agony of the target for her vengeance. This manner of sadism and this metallic tail, it could've only been the traits of Frieza. Could it have been that… 21 had already gobbled up Mecha Frieza's parts into her and that it was already too late to save Future Trunks timeline and that Chayote's timeline was headed toward the same doom as its future counterpart?
It would've made sense. It would've explained why throughout all this time Android 21 could control her converted and engineered soldiers and drones so flawlessly despite the Dragon Team having disrupted her communications, her productions facility, and the control facility for each type of military unit that Dr. Puri employed to keep her stranglehold over the world. So this was what Artificial Human No. 21 meant when she told Chayote they were fighting at the wrong time. All this time, they've been fighting to counter Dr. Puri from a year ago, the way she operated a year ago when, during all this time, she's reinvented herself and her entire operation.
The only thing the rest may have achieved was to give the survivors that still were trapped all over the world a sense of reprieve, destroy the Androids in charge of those facilities and deprive Dr. Puri of assimilating them into her own body like she did Mecha Frieza. Still, that meant that someone had to stop Dr. Puri and as Chayote's obstructed airway was choking up, her entire body was going numb and feeling unresponsive.
With a move resembling Yajirobe's sword drawing skills, Android 21 swiped both of her arms aside with her hands extended into a position of knife-edge chops. The sharp slam drew blood with a wet and fleshy splash while her tail's grip loosened to prevent Chayote from actually getting snuffed out for good. Proceeding with methodical precision, Dr. Puri slashed her hands like blades. Without the aid of the Ki blades she employed earlier, she didn't quite achieve as perilous of a laceration, but the chopping smacks still robbed Chayote of any agency or even dreams of resistance.
Chayote's own scream nearly deafened her. A Ki blade lit up over Android 21's hand when she thrust it into the Saiyan's calf, in between the tibia and the fibula. Just as Chayote slumped forward after a heavy stagger, Android 21 turned around with a spinning knife-edge chop that didn't employ the Ki blade but crashed into Chayote's throat, almost caving it in while it sent the Saiyan flying and bouncing off of the wall on the other side of the laboratory. Dr. Puri glided across the room, spinning like a whirligig with a black and scarlet Ki blade around her with both her hands as she sliced Chayote up. In her slashing, the doctor was savage but also careful. Never before Chayote had faced something that hated her quite this much, but also cared nearly as much about her survival at the same time.
The nasty snapping noise of a hi-speed vanishing movement didn't help Chayote snap out of her pitiful state of serving merely as a punching bag as Android 21 appeared behind the Saiyan and raised her hand over her head. The scarlet leaking Ki from Android 21's aura converged into a singular blood-colored sphere while an inky black outline and energy crackles decorated it and showed the boiling chaos within the energy sphere that was brewing.
"All this time, you've made me wallow in my suffering and my hatred. I relish this opportunity to give some of it back to you right now. Sharing is caring, after all…" Android 21 cackled to herself before lowering the channeled energy sphere and aiming it at Chayote, who still lingered in the air after the bounce off the laboratory wall. "Absolute Release Ball!"
21's eyelids widened in surprise when she found her Absolute Release Ball to be suffering from some form of resistance that met it where Chayote was supposed to be and clasped it in place. Just as she began pressing her advantage in power onto the overwhelmed Saiyan, wondering how she could've recovered or where she got this second wind of power from, an emerald green aura burst forth from behind the energy ball and Chayote's bulked up hands wrapping around the edges of the ball became visible.
"Sorry…" a growling voice came from behind the energy ball and its thunderous struggle against the recovered Saiyan. "Your caring sort of borders on obsession and that's way too much for me!" Chayote thrust her bulked-up fist into the core of the Absolute Release Ball, sending another and another haymaker its way until the ball began rolling back faster and faster and then spiraled back at its mistress with full intensity.
Android 21 covered up and winced in pain, her expressions of discomfort dissipated in the vast detonation of her own energy sphere, contained entirely throughout the testing room meant to keep Chayote's powers suppressed. After Dr. Puri's tail sliced and waved the shroud and the dust and the flames away, she saw Chayote's body bulked up once again with her hair spiky and her eyes of amber color.
"The Wrathful State? How?" Android 21 wondered. Her eyes then wandered behind her and gaped in a sudden realization that the suppressing lamp over her head had been busted. The modified scientist scanned the room, calming herself down somewhat after seeing that only this one lamp had suffered the aftereffects of the detonation of her Absolute Release Ball from up close, but the shock of seeing her suppression efforts begin to crumble shook the artificial woman back to the reality of the fact that she was in a battle against a worthy foe and not just bullying or torturing Chayote without a purpose in mind.
"I see…" Android 21 fixed her glasses that had slipped off her face and hung over the hump of her nose slightly. "You've been holding yourself back for a bit, preparing to explode at once and bust this lamp at just the right moment. Then, when you saw it, you've unleashed all of that suppressed power for a blink and blasted it away. Commendable, yet futile in the long run."
"Shut up!" Chayote bellowed out, stretching and flexing her arms while she roared into the air and trembled the entire suppression chamber with the violent expulsion of Ki from her body. With one of a few dozens of lamps down, Chayote could almost sustain a transformation and a meaningful power-up for a little while by putting all of her strength into it. She had little time before she'd have to reset this process over again and weather the storm of agony once more. Chayote better put this time to good use.
The Saiyan woman drew her hand back, creating a green energy ball in her hand, and thrust it forward toward the enemy. Android 21 blocked it by extending her hands and forming an invisible energy field around her that kept the Ki blast at bay. What the scientist didn't expect was for Chayote to charge through and kick at the other end of her own ball like a football, smashing her leg through and forcefully detonating it right up in Dr. Puri's face. The wrathful Saiyan grabbed hold of Puri's hand and whirled her before shooting her foot up like a horse into the Android's chin, then scooping her out of the air and driving her with a shoulder charge into the ground.
Chayote grabbed hold of the legs of the prone Android woman under her arms, like a human catapult, and spiraled Android 21 into an emerald and silver-colored twister. The hysterical Saiyan woman let go of her opponent without warning, sending Dr. Puri crashing into the laboratory wall headfirst and bending her perfectly engineered body in a severely awkward-looking angle.
Just as the rattled Android began recovering, the sight of Chayote soaring from the mid-air and taking a diagonal plunge toward her while her Wrathful State blinked in and out came into view. Just so she had the strength necessary to oppose the suppression field, Chayote ignited the Hot-Red aura and swelled her entire body up before planting her open palm into Android 21's gut while she was still laying flat on the ground. This smash sent resonating ripples throughout the laboratory, making the floor wobble like an uneasy water surface as it struggled against the overwhelming tension looking to break it.
"Lima Spear!" Chayote roared out, forming a purple energy sphere in her hand while it was still ramming Android 21 to the ground and detonating it immediately. Its purple light seeped into Dr. Puri, beaming out from the Android's eyes and jarring mouth as she twitched and writhed against the overwhelming mass of energy overflowing throughout her entire body. The resonating blast flung Chayote back like a rag doll. The Saiyan skid across the ground with her arm drawn back while her Wrathful State blinked out and left her meek and scrawny again while her tattered clothes flapped about like a flag on a significantly meeker body.
Dr. Puri must have thought herself safer now that Chayote's Wrathful State had tuckered out. That was why she didn't expect to protect herself from Chayote snapping up to the Android and stomping on her foot, which promptly re-stood the artificial woman up so that Chayote could drive her elbow into her chest, then turn her entire body around for a spinning elbow slam and a jumping knee strike into Dr. Puri's gut. With her base state lacking the wallop necessary to blow the Android off of her heels, Chayote needed to focus on power strikes to leave a dent. It felt like Chayote just needed to never stop swinging, because when she stopped, Puri would inevitably start swinging back.
The wincing, airborne Android was up for a shock when Chayote grabbed hold of Puri's wrists and pulled her back from the air for another jumping knee strike at the bottom of Puri's chin. This finishing touch left the Android rolling on her back. Even someone as tough and prepared as Android 21 needed a few seconds before spinning her feet up and hopping back up. Puri's mechanical tail lashed for a bit like a tail of a mad animal tamer before disappearing back under her white lab coat.
"Fascinating…" Android 21 broke into a gentle chuckle while caressing her numb and damaged chin. "That Saiyan vitality together with the unnatural Type-C evolution in the middle of the battle… You've jumped a heap ahead in just a few seconds in that form to where I can feel even blows in your base form now."
"I bet I wasn't fighting back in your wet daydreams, was I?" Chayote moved her right hand to the back of her head to stretch out and ease the tension in her body to prevent stiffness, overexertion, and premature fatigue in this vital fight. "This whole time you'll have to fight with one eye counting those lamps, hoping that I don't bust any more of them. Why don't you check them right now?"
Android 21 scanned the ceiling, looking relieved that she could count up all the lamps, but then the glint of shattered glass caught her eye. Every single lamp on every opening on the suppression chamber floor had been absolutely wrecked by the impact from Wrathful Chayote's Lima Spear earlier. Only sparks and wreckage surrounded by shards of glass as far as the eye could see.
"You seem to have gotten a second wind of sort, I wouldn't quite like you getting too hopeful. Why don't we smash all that to bits so that I can enjoy that delectable despair you dyed your face with earlier?" Android 21 sighed in an admission of defeat, realizing that by now too many suppression ray lamps had been wrecked to rely on them keeping Chayote down for the count. The Saiyan would not manage to unleash more and more of her latent powers, and that Dr. Puri seemed to be able to deal with.
Another opening screeched out on the ceiling. Chayote twitched, fearing another platform of suppression lamps or maybe an entire suppression beam that sapped her of all strength to come out, but it appeared to be just a flat monitor screen.
"Are you going to show me a movie or something? This isn't one of those instances where you'll flash some family pictures trying to guilt-trip me into letting you wail on me, is it?" Chayote squinted her right eye, looking at Android 21.
"Oh, I'm about to show you a movie alright, a real thriller at that…" Android 21 cackled, snapping her fingers as the vision of the God Temple observed by a buzzard drone from afar, a safe distance before the Kami Upa's sacred barrier kicked in, came into view. Even without Dr. Puri having to show anything else, chills already began creeping up Chayote's blood vessels and the chills climbed all the way to her heart.
Just as the Saiyan was about to ask her opponent for clarification, the evening sky lit up with blazes of flames or re-entry of a planet-sized object that moved in toward the God Temple. When one squinted harder, the initials of Capsule Corps came into view. The Capsule Corps Star had been speeding up toward the God Temple from its skyward position.
"Stop! It won't work, the star will just bounce off the barrier!" Chayote yelled out, reaching out helplessly at the screen.
"Then why are you so bothered by it? Isn't it grand what I've managed to do by hacking into that thing? Though, I'm afraid your measly, walnut-sized Saiyan brain is thinking far too small, as usual. I'm not just going to kill Bulma by smashing that thing into Kami Upa's barrier. As tempting as it is to ask that forest hick to lower that thing by threatening Bulma's life, I've got a much more fun experiment in store. I can always kindly ask the Capsule Corps Star to self-destruct at a later time whenever I want to. With full control over the Star's systems, there's nowhere that Bulma can go to and no way she can escape the Star with anyway…" Android 21 shrugged.
"Bulma had nothing to do with your family's death. I'm the one you want to submit to you, remember?" Chayote cried out with a much less intimidating and much shakier tone than she'd have liked herself to sound.
"Dr. Brief and his family were staunch supporters of the West City military when it repelled the Red Ribbons before your accursed arrival to Earth. They have plenty to answer for. Bulma's support for you and your little crew of friends notwithstanding…" Dr. Puri dismissed Chayote's attempts to call out Puri's worst instincts. "My goal isn't to blow up that self-righteous, vain drama queen, it's to lower that stupid barrier. One way or another, it will go down, those poor people you've snagged away from the conversion will be converted whether or not they like it. I just wanted you to see how good I am at multitasking–saving the world while whooping your ass at the same time. Face it, I'm way better at protecting this beautiful little planet than you could have ever hoped to be."
While Android 21 was bragging, the Capsule Corps Star opened up a mechanical crater and extended a cone-shaped rod aimed at a diagonal angle straight toward the God Temple.
"What are you doing!?" Chayote cried out in terror.
"I've run a detailed system analysis of that thing after I took it over. It's a frightening piece of tech, and I still have plenty of its secrets to uncover. Its source appears to be Tsufurian technology, polished and upgraded to a remarkable degree. One thing is for certain–it possesses an advanced weapon system with destructive capabilities to reduce anything in this universe to space dust, ranging from mere moons and asteroids to entire galaxies. It wasn't designed with a functional weaponry system, but its present systems and nanotech capabilities can easily be repurposed into something resembling a weaponry system. I wonder just how well that magical barrier of your puny Kami will hold up against that?" Android 21 beamed a psychotic smile Chayote's way. She savored every little of horror in Chayote's face after hearing that threat.
"Ugh… Don't worry, I'm looking to finish off the entire world or to harm those people. Your loser friends have done plenty of damage to Earth as it is with their pointless fighting…" just as Dr. Puri spoke those words, a bright, silver-colored energy beam crashed against an invisible barrier protecting the God Temple from inside. While the magical force field was invisible initially, upon collision with this unmatched destructive weapon, it lit up with an entire rainbow specter of colors. "My theory is that this magical barrier depends on the Ki of its user. It's so very primitive to call something "magic" and so very reductive. Just because you can't understand its rules, it doesn't mean they don't exist. Just like your cute martial arts techniques, it's energy-based and dependent on its user. There's nothing "magical" about it. But you know us scientists, we love our experiments and no excellent theory can stand without a proper experiment to support it."
Chayote wanted to focus on Android 21 but… Seeing the Capsule Corps Star's energy beam drilling into the God Temple bit by bit, feeling utterly shut out from being able to sense Upa's Ki at all or guess how he was holding up and just how much more time all of those people on that temple had… It just pulled the rug from under Chayote's feet and made her collapse with her head sheltered in between her own hands, the peerless wrath and no one to direct it at, nothing useful that she could accomplish with it coming to mind seemed to do all the work of defeating her for Android 21 who just savored the delicious despair from afar and let her opponent simmer in its boiling bubbles.
Never has fighting felt so utterly hopeless and meaningless.
"Please… My son… My son is in that temple…" Chayote looked up at Android 21. "I know you hate me. I know you want to convert all those people because you think it will save them from a virus that we've already prevented. None of that matters just… Please stop…"
"Your… Son?" the ecstasy vanished from Android 21's eyes and her expression became befuddled with confusion and momentary doubt. She looked up at the bright beam lashing against the magical barrier and threatening everyone on that temple and with her turning her back and looking away, Chayote couldn't see what was going through Android 21's expression. Then she heard a shaky "Is that true?"
"Yes. He's… Future Trunks' too. We've… Gotten closer throughout the last year while fighting to rescue people from the oppressed cities and all and… His name is Navy. He's just a handful of months old… The other survivors, they've got children there too. Please," Chayote tried wrapping her shaking hands into shaping fists, but the cold and unbreakable floor prevented her from clutching them. She hated sniveling before this woman like this, but… There was just no other way. This was the only way to keep Navy safe right now as she couldn't bust out of this room and go to him. He was all alone right now.
The beam stopped, vanished away, leaving just bright sparkles in the air while Android 21 turned around and crossed her arms.
"Well, you got the general idea of the aces up my sleeves, I'm sure. Now back to making you pay," Dr. Puri replied without skipping a beat or waiting for Chayote's shocked expression of the bundle of conflicted feelings she was going through.
