[Quest] Ben Weeks redwizardb@yahoo.com I don't care if in the Manga or Series Tienshinhan was the strongest human, this is my story by God and I'll do what I want, dammit! So Kurillin's the strongest! ----------- Chapter Six ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gokou frowned. The plateau was empty. He scanned the area warily, sensing traces of Ki, but he could see nothing....there was a crater in the ground, some dirt thrown up here and there, but other than that, there was nothing... "Gohan? Piccolo???" Silence. "Hey, is anyone here?" Gokou waited shiveringly a few minutes for a reply, but when there was none forthcoming, he walked forward. Tramping around the area of the fight and hopelessly crushing any traces of evidence he might have used, Gokou finally saw a single thing that made his heart skip. He gulped and bent over, putting the substance in his mouth, then spitting it out, horrified. Blood. He lifted into the air and began to concentrate intently with his mind in all directions. Gohan...Piccolo.... He searched harder, farther, hoping against hope that what he feared, what every father's nightmare was, hadn't happened. But there was nothing to reassure him, only to make the chill creeping down his spine slowly spread cold fear to his veins. Breathing faster, he surrounded himself with red Ki flames, sending snow far below hurling in all directions away from him, and roared off into the distance, moving to the west, towards France, Germany, and the other ancient lands... Gaining rapidly on Sol's Dogs. "You do it!" "No, you!" "You!" "You said you'd do it first, Kurillin!" "Yamucha, I'm trying to drive, so how do you seriously expect me to do it?" "Very carefully!" Tienshinhan rolled his eyes and sighed, leaning out against the window, Chiao-tzu hovering at his shoulder. "Actually, I don't think either of you should." Chiao-tzu nodded slowly, speaking in his high-pitched voice. "I agree with Tienshinhan, it's far too risky.." "Aw, gimme a break, you two! You have got to be kidding me. You think that it's risky to make a pass at several women in the car next to us whom I'M SURE winked at me?" Yamucha said. "But Yamucha, she was trying to get something out of her-" "And besides, you guys, like, NEVER get any action! I mean, I could find a sweet little sugar for you, Chiao-tzu, and Tienshinhan, what woman could resist a big guy with an extra eye?" "Yamucha, it's not that it's the women, it's that we're going 90 mph on the Autobahn and they're obviously the daughters of some big potentate of some sort.." "So they're rich!! All the better!" "But you're missing the point; they're probably well guarded!" "Bah, only playing hard to get; all women do that." "But-" "So it's agreed; Kurillin's going to hang out the window and ask for their numbers while I look charismatic and charming, right?" Kurillin, doing all he could do to keep the car in the right lane while going much faster than he was used to, growled. "Wrong! Yamucha's going to lean out the window and get all their numbers, or Yamucha's going to be WALKING to Paris!" "Alright, sheesh, if you're too shy, I guess Yamucha-sama will hafta take iniative like usual." Yamucha rolled down the window, and leaned out while Kurillin gulped worriedly. Tien watched silently. The car and the limo were going side-by-side on the wet and slick road, but Yamucha wasn't scared. "HEY!" The girls, talking among themselves, suddenly stopped and looked out the window at Yamucha, arching their eyebrows in perplexion. "HEY, ROLL DOWN YOUR WINDOW!" The girls motioned to their ears and shrugged. "I KNOW YOU CAN'T HEAR ME, ROLL DOWN THE WINDOW!" One of the girls, after listening to him intently, started chatting animatedly with the other five. Finally the window came rolling down and Yamucha smiled. "HEY, DO ANY OF YOU LOVELY LADIES HAVE PHONES?" The girls replied in a gibberish of German words that nearly made Yamucha go crosseyed. After a few minutes of hard thinking, he finally came up with the all-purpose dumb phrase that any dumb tourist who doesn't understand a word of the native language in the land uses: "DO ANY OF YOU SPEAKA DA ENGLISH??" They only replied more animatedly in the same language. Yamucha sighed and leaned back in the car, rolling up the window and shaking his head. "What a fool idea to come to Europe without girlfriends..." Kurillin was about to reply but the clouds, saturated with water, decided at that moment, with a crack of lightning, to bless the mortals below with a flurry of rain. Kurillin cursed and flipped on his wipers, rolling up all the windows and slowing down his car. The fashionable black limo sped up and signaled a turn, moving off onto an exit. Yamucha looked forlorn. "There they go, gone forever..." Tienshinhan rolled his eyes and leaned back against the window, watching out the window as the German countryside rolled past. Chaio-tzu yawned and closed his eyes, falling asleep on the back seat next to his best friend. Tienshinhan frowned. Something's not right.... [T-11: Someone is approaching.] [T-34: Who?] [T-11: Scanning......scanning.....scanning.......done. Identified Snag 3.] [T-14: Alone?] [T-11: Affirmative.] [T-12: Does he have a primary target?] [T-11: Negative; but I'm picking up three due southwest, lat. 234', lon. 65', azimuth a clean 27', appx. 520 klicks.] [T-34: Interesting. Let's meet Snag 3 first to see if we can find out what happened.] [T-11: I'm also picking up T-13 returning over Kazakhstan; he should arrive soon.] [T-34: Excellent. Dogs, stop here and form up. Hide the bodies of Snag 4 and Snag 5 below in the hills.] [All: Affirmative.] Gokou flew through the dawning morning air silently, his thoughts upon what could have possibly happened. Gohan and Piccolo must have got in a fight...but then why weren't they there? They went this way, I'm sure...why'd they leave? And why weren't there any dead bodies or anything like that? He came to the conclusion that they must have chased their opponents into this area..but then why couldn't he sense their Ki?? Something strange was certainly going on.... And I wonder who's trying to get the dragonballs? One of Freeza's family, maybe? His thoughts were interrupted, however, when he saw a group of some sort of robots floating in the air ahead of him. He blinked in perplexion, then with a screech, stopped in midair, the red Ki flames disappearing all around him. The clouds above were raining with a slight drizzle, and it was annoying Gokou to no end. Normally he found rain refreshing and clean, but not now... Gokou's eyes narrowed and he looked forward. They were robots, definitely...but robots that could fly. And they were all staring at him, in a manner that was most certainly not going to earn them any points from Mrs. Manners. Gokou's mouth was curled in a slightly suspicious frown-smile that only he can do, his eyes searching over them warily. They were humanoid, with a head, two arms, two feet, chest, abdomen, neck, etc, and they had two 'eyes', a 'mouth' which was really just an audio speaker, two 'ears', and other miscellaneous instruments that Gokou couldn't have made heads or tails of if his life had depended on it. He waited a few moments, trying to think of something intelligent to ask other than the cliche "Who are you?" Unfortunately, after a few moments, he realised that "Why?" would be stupid, as well as "What?""When?" Where?" and the unique "How?". So he decided he'd plunge ahead. "Who are you?" Although Gokou didn't know it, the robots were getting just a little annoyed to be asked that question everytime they met someone new. There was no reply. Gokou frowned. That hadn't worked; there were only a few other questions he could think of. "Um...are you the people trying to gather the dragonballs?" The lead robot, a machine with the bold black characters "T-34" printed mechanically across his chest, spoke back in a suprisingly deep and smooth voice. "That is correct." Gokou frowned and spread his feet slightly, slipping into Yellow Alert. "Why are you collecting them?" "Our Master Sol has commanded us to; nothing else is important." "Who's Sol?" "The second most intelligent organic being ever to be born; he's the head of the most successful merchant-nation in all of galactic history." "Really?" "Yes." "So he built you?" "No. That would be the most intelligent organic being ever to be born, Master Diteroc." "Who's that?" "First tell us where you and Snag 4 and Snag 5's Primary Targets are." Gokou felt that he had been doing rather well up until that point, but when the last sentence came out of the robots mouth, he felt that little annoying voice say inside his head "What?". Gokou, however, didn't want to give anything away, and so nodded wisely. "Oh yeah, the Primary Targets. They're where we last left them." "Where is that?" "....ah.....When you say Primary-" "My apologies, the Dragonballs." "OH! Well for the love of Kami you should have said that instead of all the gobbledygook earlier. They're...wait a sec...why should I tell you? I'm not going to let you gather them up!" The robot sighed in vexation, an interestingly organiclike-trait, and with an imperceptible transmission to the others, he told them to form up behind T-34 in a solely defensive structure. They complied, forming a loose V to the direct rear of their mechanical leader. T-34 stared at Gokou menacingly, daring him to make an attack. Gokou analyzed their combat position. There's only four of them and that formation's obviously made for five; there's a crucial link missing right there. That guy's left is open.. his head could fall victim to a Ki blast from there.... However, none of them knew that his genius fighting mind was working out every little schematic of every little detail in milliseconds; they only saw a figure clothed in a glaring Orange Gi that was soaking wet from the rain and contrasted harshly with the stark gray background around him; they only saw small droplets of water running unheeded down his face, a little wistful that they'll never know what that feels like. Gokou's fists were clenched at his side. Wind rustled his wet hair, his face grim, a figure of muscle and solid build in the middle of all this wet mushiness. The clouds, instead of emptying because of the rain, were gathering strength from warm currents moving up from here and cold currents moving down from there and hell let the meteorologists worry why; all that's important is a big storm is building directly above them. Neither side made a move. The rain continued to fall. [T-34: He's too confident; there's a thousand openings and weaknesses in his stance. We should take the iniative.] [All: Agreed.] Suddenly, there was a flash of movement, a loud crack, and then silence. T-11 fell back from Gokou, his metal face dent and his ego bruised. Gokou kept his hand up in the post-punch position calmly, watching as T-11 righted himself. [T-11: That was impossibly fast! I cannot believe it!] [T-34: He's stronger than he looks. Open up!] Suddenly, with a flash, all of the robots began to click and screech inside, making widely-varying vaguely mechanical sounds and moving different mechanisms and parts. Finally, with a flash of white Ki power, each one's hands opened up, revealing a large chute leading directly to the Heat Sink located inside each robot's chest. There was a final screech, some more clicking sounds, and all four of the 'Dogs' abdomens opened to reveal several more nasty- looking barrels of several more not-so-friendly-looking laser guns. There was a flash, and each robot stood in front of him, prepped and ready. Gokou blinked. As if on cue, there was a lightning flash and each robot started pumping out Ki energy from their Heat Sinks for all they were worth and then some. It was such a barrage of energy that for a moment it seemed as if there was a pure wall of death advancing faster than sound towards Gokou, dragging the toll of doom. Gokou saw the energy coming towards him, and he knew he didn't have time to dodge. He didn't panic, oh no, but he sure made some pretty good decisions VERY quickly, and he realized a few things; i.e., that if he didn't do something within the next, oh, say billisecond, he'd be severely crippled, possibly killed. With his already limited options shrinking rapidly, he finally flung his arms in front of him in an 'X' position, guarding his face, and gathered all of his silently prepped potential energy to bear in his body. Screaming out the "KIIIAAAAIIII!!" at the top of his lungs, the wall hit him, and he wavered...it was stronger than he'd expected.... There was an invisible area of safety that surrounded his entire body and protected him from the Ki like a bubble of safety, but the bubble's source, his supercharged arms, were not strong enough to hold off all of the energy, and this invisible bubble was growing thinner and thinner, and sweat began to form on Gokou's brow as he felt heat starting to hit his skin. There was only one thing left he could do, but he'd have to do it quickly, and doing it while holding off a blast and not gathering energy to prepare your body for the change was dangerous, especially since it'd been quite a while since he'd last changed to participate in the Tenkaichi Buduokai. But he didn't have a choice, or, well, he did have a choice, I mean, he could just let the barrage of blasts get through, but that's not really a choice, insomuch as it is, so far as....let's just say he didn't have a choice and show my complete lack of literary skill, 'kay? 'Kay. The four 'Dogs kept the beams going full blast, because they could sense his Ki was still there but weakening, and for full effect T-34 finally threw in all his power, and the pure light evaporated rain in midair like lightning. But the whole wave suddenly convalesced, moving back slightly, and they heard an incredible scream of Ki power, and oh yes, they recognized that scream, that particular brand of yellow light streaming out in all directions brilliantly like the presence of God, that Ki power.... The barrage ceased and the wave of energy, a solid wall of power, bent backwards in a sphere away from the center of the yell, a loud yell, a yell that was still going on, and the power, the Pure POWER, made T-11's high quality, extremely durable sensing instruments abruptly shatter like cheap glass, exploding one by one inside his metal exterior. An invisible wall of energy that made their own barrage look like paper against a hammer slammed into them and hurled the 'Dogs far into the distance. Finally, the scream ended, and the power faded away like smoke on a windy autumn's eve, burned permanently into the memory chips of Sol's Dogs. Gokou let his arms fall to his side and stood tall, straight, a living, breathing powerhouse of energy that made a Heat Sink look like an old Apple Computer to a Cray. (For the majority of those who have no clue what a Cray is, let's just say that if you bought one of these million- dollar comp's you'd never ever have to buy another computer for the rest of your life) His hair waved a shining, brilliant gold in the sky, rivulets of water running down his entire body and making him shine like wax, his eyes a deep green, his muscles superpowered. He was a Super Saiya-jin, the strongest fighter in the universe, and the only person who could defeat Vegeta in a head-to-head match. He had made friends with nearly every enemy who fought him, including Kurillin, Yamucha, Tienshinhan and Chiao-tzu. He also reached agreements with Piccolo and Vegeta. So, he is not real familiar with killing. Killing a person changes you, irrevocably, for good or for better. It's interesting that I mention Kurillin & Co. because at that precise moment, in that precise area, far, far below the clouds where the rain hit the Autobahn's pavement and turned it into a slick deathtrap, these very same people were riding in a car. We've already seen the car, but since I'm such a whiny and terrible author I didn't describe it to you because I'm lazy. I'll describe it now. One word: E-X-P-E-N-S-I-V-E. This car was obviously designed for one purpose and one purpose only: To make the beholder green with envy. It made a very provocative statement: I'm so rich I can afford a ridiculously expensive car, and not only that, but I'm also so rich that I don't even have to take it seriously. Like, for instance, letting my certain extremely sexy daughter loan it to a particular bald, noseless Buddhist monk for his vacation through Europe. Yamucha had taken one look at the car and nearly had an orgasm. "Listen here, although Dr. Briefs was nice enough to loan us the car, he would be EXTREMELY pissed if he found out we so much as breathed on it wrong. So, in answer to your question, no, I will NOT speed up!" "But Kurillin, we can't let that arrogant BMW beat us!" "Not only will I let it beat us, I'm not even going to enter the race. We're here to see Europe, not race on the Autobahn!" Back up in the clouds, the four robots formed together quietly, plugging back up their open weapons and moving into fighting stances. Yamucha sighed. Tienshinhan laughed quietly in the back as the two argued. Kurillin continued to speak. "If anything happened to this car, Dr. Briefs would kill me. My life as I know it would be over. The world would stop spinning and there would be a plague of locusts o'er the land, so nothing, NOTHING, is going to happen to THIS CAR!" "Alright, Kurillin, let's imagine, for a moment, that this hankerchief is the car...no, wait.." Yamucha fumbled around in the back. "Imagine...lemmee see..ah, here...imagine this half-eaten sandwhich is the car-" "Hey, gimmee that." said Tienshinhan, snatching it up from Yamucha's hands and chowing it down. "Okay, um......imagine....this pop can is the car. Okay?" "Why a pop can?" "Why not a pop can? Doesn't matter." "So you say." "Okay. Okay. So..okay. Imagine...no, wait..okay..imagine that.." Yamucha fumbled with the pop can while Kurillin arched an eyebrow. "Imagine that the car is going along the autobahn like this. Okay...so it's going.. no, actually, it'd go more like this. No, it doesn't matter. Like this or like that. Okay. Doesn't matter." "So you keep saying." "Okay. This or that. Okay. It's driving along..doesn't matter how fast. The driver...no, the passenger...the...no, I'm sure it's the driver. Okay. The driver is driving the car, right?" "I guess." "Okay. So he's driving the car. So far so good. But then, okay, he hits the brake. I mean, no, he's not going fast enough." Yamucha stopped there and cracked open the pop can, drinking greedily. Kurillin drove on silently. Finally, Kurillin burst. "And!!!??" "And what?" "What the hell was the point of that entire story?" "Oh...you're not going fast enough." Kurillin growled angrily. "I'm gonna-" Unfortunately or fortunately, depending on who you are, Kurillin was interrupted by a blast of Ki energy that smacked right in the middle of the road most inconveniently. Yamucha shrieked while Kurillin yelled, Chiao-tzu continued to sleep while Tienshinhan goggled. Kurillin swerved, barely avoiding the huge exploding crater and coming out the other end of the cloud with a screech, sliding several feet in the rain. The explosion was starting to fade, and dirt was falling with the rain. Kurillin leapt out of the car with the air of man clutching at a piece of dental floss which is attached to a cliff he would entirely prefer to be on top of. The short bald guy, wearing a pair of tan khakis and a denim sweater stained dark by the rain, frantically inspected the car while the others got out. Chiao-tzu was asking many questions, but no one noticed, because everyone else was asking many questions as well, and most of these questions were remarkably similar. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT??" Kurillin ignored Yamucha's very pointful query and continued to search the car for the slightest scratch. Finally, as the dust cleared in the rain, Kurillin shrieked. Everyone ran over to see what he was so worried about. "YAA! Dr. Briefs is gonna kill me!" He pointed to a tiny, insignificant scratch along the bottom of the handle. "I can't believe the car got scratched! This is terrible! Maybe.. just maybe he won't notice." Kurillin and the others stepped back several feet to look. Kurillin was busy thinking of ways to cover up the scratch when suddenly there was a loud screech, and he watched, detached, as a large boulder, thrown up into the air by the explosion, landed directly on the roof of the car, smashing it in onto the top of the seating, which was then horribly crushed, cut, ripped, and destroyed. The hood popped open, the engine let out a few sparks, and then the gas tank exploded, gutting the interior and burning it charcoal black. Then there was nothing but the sound of gas-flames and rain. Kurillin watched it burn silently for a moment, not really believing what he'd just seen, not yet registering. Yamucha stood there for a second, open-mouthed, resisting the temptation..but finally falling. "I think he'll notice that." Kurillin let out a whimper and fainted. Tienshinhan gasped, noticing something they'd all forgotten in their worry about the car. He turned his head and looked up into the sky, shielding his eyes from the rain. Flashes of light, of Ki power. Someone was fighting up there. The first thing Gokou had noticed about the robots was that when they fought, they seemed to be able to all attack at once and never hamper the movement of another. That was annoying. The second thing he noticed was that their Ki blasts were unusually strong. One had been shot and he deflected it to the ground, but it drained him of more of his Ki than it should have. And the final thing he noticed was that he was losing. They moved in a ballet of metal, orchestrating a song of terror, all landing a fist on Gokou's soft fleshy exterior sooner or later. Gokou flew up in the sky and brought both his hands forward with a rush of energy, then in a flurry of hand movements a hail of Ki beams fell to the earth, the deadly Renzoku Energy Dan. The robots flew up after him, their metal hulls gleaming powerfully in the rain, flashes of lightning making them look like evil demons. Gokou finished his beams and right as T-34 arrived first, he phased from his spot. T-34 looked behind himself and kicked back, but Gokou caught his foot and, keeping a firm grip on it, rapidly and smoothly slid to his side and knocked T-34 into the distance. However, the other three then arrived, and though he could block one, and he could block two, the damned third one managed to hit him, and finally, T-34 came roaring back, and with a flash of Ki power, Gokou was sent hurtling towards the earth. The robots immediately opened up on him as he fell, a rain of Ki blasts falling down after Gokou and catching him in the back, burning skin, cloth, and hair. Some of the faster Ki blasts hit the ground ahead of him, and he was caught in the face violently with huge rocks that were thrown up from the earth like destructive rockets, then smashed in the back by the Ki beams, then he fell to the hard dirt admist more Ki explosions, falling rocks, red- hot rivers of lava from melted stone, and the force of his own descent. That's nothin'. Gokou leapt up from his back deftly, spit out a tooth in a trail of blood, then, patting the dust off of his pants, screamed back into the sky with Super Saiya-jin power. Kurillin shook his head, waking up and moaning about pains in his chest. Chiao-tzu watched as a flurry of explosions hit the ground several miles behind them, then watched as a yellow figure, looking more like a comet than a person, hurtled up into the higher atmosphere with more power than any manmade weapon. Yamucha gasped. "That's Son Gokou!" Kurillin's eyes popped open. "Son Gokou!? Where?" "Over there, where the flashes of light like lightning are." "What's going on!?" "I dunno, but we gotta help him!" Kurillin nodded and lifted into the air, flying off into the distance. The others followed. The battle raged between Gokou and Sol's Dogs. Piccolo and Gohan were hidden below them, somewhere in the rainy hills. Kurillin, Yamucha, Tienshinhan, and Chiao-tzu all flew as fast as they could towards the fighting. Chi-chi was in the hidden fortress of Sol and his minions in Nanga Parbett, secret home of The Sunstar. And Vegeta waited impatiently in the miserable cold of Egypt's Sahara desert for the thieves to come and try their luck. The earth continued to spin through the silent void..... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- End of Chapter Six ------------------