Heart of the Wolf! The Devil in the Pale Moonlight!
There was much snickering about "The Devil's Toilet" before they entered the eponymous room. Baba attempted to defend the name before she admitted that it was "on the lease" and couldn't be changed. Though the room was fairly ominous- being enormous and having two giant devil statues whose tongues made a bridge- the snickering returned when Krillin noted the giant stone toilet paper roll on one of the walls.
"Wait a sec," Yamcha said as he peered out over one devil's mouth to look down at the roiling green liquid far below. "Is that acid?" Baba grinned smugly and nodded.
"A-yup," she said as she crossed her arms over her chest. "Not so funny now, is it?"
"Nah," Goku said with a cheeky grin. "It's still pretty funny." Baba huffed and uncrossed her arms.
"Well, fine, then!" she grumble before she turned her attention to Suno. "Do you want to keep going?" Suno nodded.
"I'm fine," she insisted. The weariness might have started to catch up with her now but she figured she could handle it. The first two guys had been pretty sad. All in all, this adventure was a pretty easy ride compared to fighting the Red Ribbon Army.
"Very well!" Baba said as she gestured as dramatically as her tiny arms could manage towards the other devil's mouth. The bridge under them shook and they all scuttled back into the mouth of their devil as something walked out of the shadows. The creature that came towards them appeared to be a very large mummy. A mummy with a completely undecomposed face, however, so perhaps he was just a man wrapped in toilet paper.
"That," Roshi muttered, "is a big fella." Suno and Goku shrugged. They'd seen bigger. He was about the same size as Bora and a little leaner besides.
"Behold!" Baba cried out as the mummy cracked his knuckles, sending a curious dust out from between his bandages. "Bandages the Mummy!" Bulma rolled her eyes.
"Really batting a thousand with names today, aren't we? Or did these guys come with the lease, too?" Baba glared down at her.
"You wanna fight him, missy?!" she snapped. Bulma threw up her hands defensively.
"No, no," she assured with her eyes wide as she shook her head rapidly, "Noooo, nononono!" Baba chuckled to herself and smiled smugly.
"S'what I thought," she muttered before turning her attention back to the fight. Suno walked out to meet Bandages and took up her guard stance. Being so large, he would probably be slow like Eighter or Sergeant Metallic so she'd have to rely on outmaneuvering him while her physical strength was still recovering. That was her game plan until Bandages charged towards her like a freight train. He swung a bandaged foot forward to punt Suno but she put both palms out to block the kick and let the momentum lift her up to hit Bandages with a spinning kick to the face. He took a step back and then immediately returned to the attack with a knee before Suno had regained her footing and caught her square in the face to send her sprawling. Suno rolled to her feet just in time to see Bandages bringing a fist down on top of her and rolled forward to avoid it. She came up behind Bandages and threw all her weight into the back of his knee with as much force as she could muster to stagger him before running up his back to stomp on the back of his head and drive him face-first into the concrete. She hopped away and got back into her stance. That should have taken some of the wind out of his sails, Suno figured.
Then the mummy stood up with his hands on his face. Suno wondered if he was holding bruises or something until she heard some unsettling popping and snapping sounds. She wasn't sure what to expect as she couldn't see around Bandages to see the expressions of revulsion and horror on everyone else (although Goku thought it was pretty neat, actually) until he turned around to face her again. Judging by the puncture holes in Bandages' face from the inside-out, it was clear that he'd been pushing his skull back into place.
"Huh," Suno muttered as she paled slightly. "D-definitely a mummy." She shook off the unpleasantness of that spectacle and charged forward at him once again. She flipped gracefully over him with a little twirl and then slid under his legs to come out in front of him again to confuse him before hammering his chest with a series of rapid fire jabs and then a knee square in the chest. Everyone cheered and encouraged Suno with the exception of Goku who only watched with growing concern, her arms folded over her chest as she cocked her head to one side.
"No good," she muttered. "Suno is slowing down!" Suno was coming to that conclusion herself as she continued her struggle with Bandages. The ki that Roshi had imbued her with when he'd repaired her chakras was running out fast, sapping her speed and power. The longer the fight went on, the smaller the gap between their speeds became which would take away Suno's only advantage. Suno realized she had to end the fight as soon as possible. The idea made her uncomfortable but she consoled herself by remembering that Bandages was technically already dead.
Suno waited for Bandages to throw another kick at her and ducked low to sweep his leg out from under him. The mummy pinwheeled his arms through the air as he desperately tried to regain his balance and Suno threw out a kick as hard as she could to catch him right in the shin and send him toppling towards the acid below. Everyone cheered and Suno fell backwards to sit and catch her breath.
Then a strip of bandage flew up to loop around the tongue bridge. Suno crawled to look over the edge in disbelief to see Bandages with one arm thrust out and the wrapping up to his shoulder cast off to grab the bridge, revealing an extremely decayed arm. He squeezed the wrapping in one fist and it yanked him back up as it rewrapped around him.
"Incredible," Bulma muttered in astonishment with a hand under her chin. "So he's definitely dead but still moving with a speed and articulation far beyond that of what any reanimated corpse should be capable of- to say nothing of his durability or the condition of his ligaments and tendons." Meanwhile, Bandages jumped into the air and landed in front of Suno as she picked herself back up and got back into guard with a weary determination. "I wonder if Baba would let me study him." Yamcha stared at her incredulously.
"That's what you're thinking about right now?!" he asked in a mixture of shock and anger. "What the hell is wrong with you?!" How could his girlfriend be thinking of science when Suno was in jeopardy? He knew she'd manipulated Goku when they first met but at least Goku's life had never been in danger! Had she really changed so much in just a year? Or maybe he was finally getting to know the real Bulma…
Suno tried to hop away to avoid a rising knee to the gut from Bandages but she was too slow and it caught her just under the chin. The blow sent her up into the air where she was met with a powerful right jab and a left handed chop that slammed her down into the stone bridge. As Suno struggled to get up, Bandages callously stomped down on her back. She cried out in pain and tried to push him off with what little strength she had left but to no avail. Instead, Bandages took his foot off of her and reached down to squeeze Suno in both hands. She screamed in pain as the mummy tried to crush the life out of her. She had nothing left to fight with and she knew that there were more important things than this one fight and her pride. There was so much that still needed to be done and she still had to see her mother when it was finished. How would she react to find out that Suno had been crushed to death?
"I… I give up!" she gasped out in defeat. Bandages squeezed her for a few seconds more before dropping her. Goku was there to catch her before she hit the ground and glared up at Bandages as she took Suno back to the others. She made a move to take Suno's place when Yamcha put a leg in front of Goku and stepped forward instead.
"So, tough guy," he said as he advanced towards Bandages, "You think beating up tired little girls makes you a big man?" He whipped his shirt off in perhaps an overly dramatic fashion and tossed it away where it landed between Bulma and Launch. "Why don't you give me a try?" Bandages chuckled as Yamcha took a stance and spoke for the first time.
"You gonna die, little man!" he taunted in a rumbling voice. Yamcha sprinted towards Bandages and the mummy met him head on. They crashed together in a knuckle lock and Yamcha could feel himself giving ground to his undead foe's superior height and weight. He let Bandages push him back and picked up his legs to shove his feet into Bandages' chest and flip him overhead before releasing the knuckle lock as he flew. The mummy landed on his feet in a surprising show of agility and met Yamcha as he rolled to a knee with a shin to the jaw. Yamcha skidded backwards but got to his feet in time to block a punch from Bandages and slam the point of his elbow up under Bandages' chin with an audible "Crunch!" as his neck jerked up unnaturally and he was stuck looking at the ceiling. Everyone winced as Bandages grabbed the back of his head with one hand and his jaw with the other and wrenched it back down with an even worse "crunch".
"Oh, that's gonna take getting used to," Yamcha muttered before ducking under an attempted bear hug. This turned out to be a feint, however, as Bandages brought his fists together and slammed them down into Yamcha's back. He hit the ground painfully and rolled away to barely avoid a punt that would have caught him right in the teeth. He rolled backwards and handsprung onto his feet before charging forward and battering the mummy's chest with palm strikes. Bandages staggered backwards and Yamcha threw out a kick to hook behind his leg and tripped him down. He jumped up to drop a knee on Bandages' face but the mummy showed great strength when he grabbed Yamcha by the knee and tossed him back up into the air. Yamcha came back down on his feet just as Bandages was barreling towards him. Yamcha suppressed the urge to cry out in surprise and did a front flip, smashing his heel into the back of Bandages' head. He staggered forward and Yamcha jumped up again to drive a knee into his jaw. Yamcha finished it off with one last palm strike and his fingers ripped away some wrappings to expose the necrotic flesh beneath. The mummy took a few steps back as the wrappings around the exposed skin were discolored with a strange liquid and smiled. Yamcha charged, undaunted, right into an uppercut that caught him in the stomach hard enough to lift him off the ground.
In some small part of her brain, Bulma was still thinking science. Did Bandages have a beating heart? What was the fluid that was leaking out of his body now? It didn't look like embalming fluid. Was that what was keeping him so alive and mobile? For the most part, however, Bulma wasn't focusing on any of those minor details. All she could focus on while she held Yamcha's shirt tightly to her chest was the fear in her stomach that this… awful thing was going to kill her boyfriend.
Bandages hammered Yamcha with a series of vicious body blows that drove the wind from him and covered his torso in painful bruises. Yamcha tried to fight back with right and left hooks across the face but Bandages shoved them off and grabbed Yamcha's head in both hands to deliver a sickening headbutt. Yamcha's legs buckled when he was disoriented and Bandages drove Yamcha's face down to meet his knee before letting go of his face to let him tumble away.
'I could just lay down,' Yamcha thought. 'Goku's here. She's stronger than me. No need to get myself killed against this guy. Right?' Then he stood up and got back into his guard. 'Not a chance,' he thought before he spat out blood and charged again. He ducked under another strike from Bandage and came behind him to hammer punches into where his kidneys had been when he was alive. There must still have been something there because it was having an effect on the mummy, causing him to gasp and sputter in pain. Bandages spun around with a hammerfist blow that Yamcha again ducked under before smashing both fists as hard as he could into his thigh to give the undead man a limp. He hobbled away and Yamcha pressed the attack with punches and kicks until Bandages threw out his arm and one of his wrappings caught Yamcha around the ankle. He yanked Yamcha down hard onto the floor with an unpleasant "Thud!" before pulling him back up into the air and doing it again. Yamcha didn't scream or cry, he only gasped out in pain as the wind was driven out of him and sputtered as he attempted to catch his breath. Bandages retracted his wrapping and grabbed Yamcha to bring him up onto his shoulders and wrench his back over him. Yamcha screamed out in agony and tried his best to kick and struggle but to no avail. Bulma cried out and buried her face in Yamcha's shirt, unable to watch any longer. Yamcha's help would come from an unlikely source.
"I can't take this anymore!" Puar screamed as he flew out onto the bridge. He transformed into a woodpecker and pecked savagely at Bandages' face to make him drop Yamcha before turning into a snake and wrapping around Bandages' neck and squeezing as hard as he could. Bandages growled and gripped Puar in one hand to savagely rip him away from his neck and slam him into the ground hard enough to render him unconscious and make him change back to his cat form.
"Puar…" Yamcha whispered as he rolled over onto his stomach and looked at his closest and oldest friend.
Puar was his best friend. His only friend for years. He'd always promised the little guy that he'd look out for him. Now, when Puar had stuck his neck out for Yamcha, he'd gotten hurt and there was nothing Yamcha could do about it. That filled Yamcha with an anger that he couldn't begin to describe, an anger that burned away the aches and the pain and forced life back into his beaten limbs to make him stand up again.
"Hey!" he snapped at Bandages, who'd been celebrating as if the fight was over. "We're not done yet!" Something was happening that only Suno and Roshi could see as Yamcha slid into his guard. As his eyes glowed red and an invisible wind whipped through his hair, they saw his ki surging to life like a great flame, even brighter than it had been before, defiant in spite of his injuries. Yamcha opened his mouth to roar with fury and something in the way he opened his mouth highlighted his canines as he charged the mummy. "Wolf Fang Fist!" he cried as he battered the belligerent Bandages with a series of blindingly fast blows that were nothing more than a blur to everyone watching, save for Goku. Yamcha drove both palms into Bandages' chest with a howl of fury that sent the big man flying across the bridge to disappear into the shadows of the mouth he'd come from. There was a thud, a groan, and then a louder thud before Baba threw up her hands.
"He's out, you win," she muttered in aggravation. "You wanna–"
"No," Yamcha cut her off as he returned to his guard and fought an inclination to stagger. "Let's go." He still had some fight left in him. A sudden and sinister laughter bounced off the walls of the Devil's Toilet as a dark blue tornado swirled into existence. The spinning slowed and finally stopped to reveal a tall, blue-skinned man in a skintight, dark blue bodysuit with wings, a tail, and horns.
"Spike the Devil Man," Krillin whispered in shocked awe. "The only man to ever win two Tenkaichi Budoukai in a row!"
"The warrior straight from Hell!" Suno added in a hushed tone. She didn't know how much of a chance Yamcha would have against Spike when he was fresh, let alone now that he was so beaten down. Why wouldn't he sub out?
"I thought he was your strongest fighter?" Roshi asked his sister suspiciously. Baba chuckled.
"He was," she said coyly, "but let's just say that I've had a bit of a change in the lineup." That gave Roshi pause. If Baba had acquired a new fighter, how dangerous must he be to bump down Spike the Devil Man?
"Come on already!" Yamcha called out as he dug his feet into the ground, "Let's go!" He, too, knew of the legend of Spike the Devil Man but he wouldn't show fear. He could beat him. Spike chuckled and brought two fingers of each hand to the sides of his head and pressed the black-painted fingernails to his temples.
"Negative Energy is the most powerful destructive force in the world," he said suddenly, "And it is mine to command. With my Devilmite beam, I can attack the very evil in your heart. Every man, no matter how good he is, has some evil inside of him. Even the tiniest pinprick of darkness in a soul of light is mine to control! I can find that darkness and make that Negative Energy grow and grow until they explode!" Spike threw his head back and cackled as a chill went down Yamcha's spine.
"I… I'm out." He muttered sullenly as he dropped his head. He might be a better man than he had been but he still doubted whether or not he was good. He took three steps before his legs gave out under him and Goku and Krillin rushed out to prop him up. They let Bulma wrap her arms around Yamcha and lead him back off the bridge.
"You idiot!" she scolded even as she stroked his arm and kissed his bruised face tenderly, peppering him with affection. "Why did you have to do that, huh? Why did you have to be so… so stubborn and brave?! Are you trying to give me a heart attack you big, dumb, stupid, wonderful…" she buried her face in Yamcha's shoulder and sobbed out a relieved breath as Yamcha gingerly put an arm around her. Krillin carried Puar away as Goku glared up at Spike and put up a guard.
"Foolish girl," Spike cackle with his fingers still at his temples. "Even one as young and innocent as you can–"
"Shut up!" Goku snapped as she balled up her fists. Spike blinked before scowling at her, the embarrassment turning his cheeks a strange shade of purple.
"Fine, you little brat!" he snapped as he dropped his veil of courtesy. "Let's see how you like this! Devilmite Beam!" Spike thrust out his arms and a pink spiral of energy flew out between them to strike Goku dead on. Everyone stared in shock. She hadn't even had time to block or dodge! Spike cackled as Goku was bathed in a strange pink light. "Now you'll pay for your insolence! The Devilmite Beam will find whatever evil there is inside of you until you explode! Explode! Exploooode!" The glow grew brighter and brighter… until it faded away completely, leaving Goku very much un-exploded. "Wh… what?" Before Spike the Devil Man, most feared warrior on Earth or in Hell, had time to formulate a plan; Goku ran across the bridge, jumped into the air, and delivered a left hook with such force that it shook the dust from the walls of The Devil's Toilet. Spike flew away and slammed into a wall in the darkness with a loud enough crash to imply that he went through the wall, rendered unconscious with a single punch.
"What?!" Baba croaked in disbelief. No one could be so completely pure as to be immune to the Devilmite Beam!
"What?!" Roshi called in shock as he moved his glasses to rub his eyes and make sure he wasn't seeing things.
"What?!" Krillin and Yamcha cried in surprise. They knew Goku had gotten stronger but still….
"What?" Launch asked in her small, shy voice. She still wasn't entirely sure what was going on. Goku turned back to them and smiled as she gave them a thumbs up. Suno smiled back and returned the gesture.