The plates of his armor sporting various scratches and burns as if he'd just been run through a blender, with an entire side portion and arm charred black, Vulcan's heavyset form ground to a stop in front of his exhausted victim. Suit sparking in an irregular manner, the shaken and scarred soldier sitting inside the unit growled and, lifting one of his enormous metal boots up, slammed it into the teen's stomach. The impact caused a loud 'crack' and drew a pained cry from the demi-Saiyan, who clawed at the ground as the pilot proceeded to crush him.
Taking a deep breath, while simultaneously ignoring the freshly made burn marks visible on the exposed parts of his face, the now notably pissed of soldier sneered at his quarry, who lay helpless beneath his heel. "I can certainly agree with you on that. It was definitely a stupid plan."
Gasping for air, Gohan gritted his teeth and, slowly and painfully, smirked up at the battered warrior. "But it worked… didn't it?"
"Oh, yes. It most certainly did." A grin then tugged at the corner of Vulcan's mouth as he reached for his belt and drew the handle of a new weapon. It was one that'd been concealed by his leg waist plate. "You destroyed my suit's neutron core; an incredible feat for a man of your background." As soon as he had the device in his grip, Vulcan struck it and revealed it to be another red energy blade about the size of a dagger, which he then brandished at the wounded Saiyan's face. "But you did so at great cost… and now you've lost." He then loaded up the weapon and took aim, watching the twisted expression on his opponent's face contort into more pain as he ground his foot further into the teen's ribcage. "Victory is mine."
Unwilling to give in just yet, Gohan, mustering up all the strength and fortitude that he could, chuckled weakly, "Congratulations."
Vulcan snorted at his half-assed response. "Any last words before I carve out your heart?"
Taking a few deep breaths in an effort to suppress the pain, the demi-Saiyan then looked his opponent square in his one visible eye. Then, after glancing down at the dagger a couple of times and taking note of its unique composition, looked up at the soldier inquisitively, "That blade… how sharp is it?"
Raising an eyebrow at his rather odd choice of last words, the soldier considered his inquiry for a moment. Being a proud soldier and figuring he could honor this last question with an answer, the man reluctantly gave the boy the information he wanted. "The blade is made out of laser-induced plasma outfitted to a magnetic stabilizer, and powered by hellion crystals. It's sharp enough to cut through almost any substance."
Gohan then smiled in a relieved manner, baffling his opponent with the mischievous glint in his tired eyes. "Good to know. Thanks."
Just before Vulcan could question what his opponent meant by that laidback reply, a sharp hiss followed by a loud 'squelch' filled the air when a red blade suddenly shot out of the left side of the mech's chest. The appearance of the energy blade caused the soldier to stiffen suddenly and gasp in shock as the section of plating the weapon stuck out of burned and sizzled. This prompted the pilot to drop his dagger and stumble away, revealing to his opponent that he'd been stabbed right through the back by the machete he'd dropped earlier all the way to the front.
And the person responsible for doing so turned out to be the raven haired prodigal daughter of Satan City herself. Standing there with her hair all a mess and holding her arm tightly, the tired and beaten-looking Videl smirked at the gasping soldier as he dropped to his knees before then collapsing onto his back, his energy sword still sticking out of him like a skewer through meat.
As he lay there with his organs failing one by one, the short-haired crime fighter stepped up to the stricken fighter and spoke in a loud voice, "And for the record… I would've kicked your ass the first time if Erasa hadn't stopped me."
She said that just seconds before blood came gargling out of Vulcan's mouth and his head finally lolled to the side. His final resting place ended up being the stairs directly beside the crater Gohan was lying in, the latter of whom was now staring across at his opponent with a serious look on his face and an unflinching gaze.
When the half-Saiyan eventually looked back at his girlfriend, and saw both Piccolo and Erasa standing behind her with varying levels of tiredness, the demi-Saiyan then let out a long breath of air and gave an exclamation of sheer relief. "Woo. Man… that was close." He then threw his girlfriend a cheerful and victorious grin. "Thanks, Videl."
The crime fighter smiled back, "It's what I'm here for." Plucking another Senzu bean out of her pocket, she then tossed it towards him and watched the boy catch it in his mouth.
Biting down and swallowing a couple chews later, Gohan soon felt life return to his body and slowly got back to his feet. Dusting his pants down and feeling crumbs of concrete fall out of his spiky black hair when he shook it out, he then turned to face Videl and shared a grin with her.
"You managed to find his sword?"
"Yeah. I just saw it lying out there in the open glowing like a flare. Since the guy was practically walking through everything we were throwing at him and was absorbing all of our attacks, I decided to take a chance," the raven haired fighter replied with a shrug. She then looked down at the man's lifeless body with a rather disturbed look in play. "Guess this would make this my first win."
"And a big one at that. The guy would've killed me if you hadn't shown up at the last second and stabbed him," Gohan said with a grateful look on his face. "That's twice you've saved my life."
Shooting him a warm smile, Videl then gestured over her shoulder. "If I'm not mistaken, I believe you owe her one as well."
Curious, the demi-Saiyan then turned his attention to Erasa to see the girl was standing nearby and looking at him in awe. As people started to spill into their area and return to the streets, the hybrid slowly moved towards his blonde haired friend. The moment she got a full frontal view of his bare upper body, the bubbly teenager blinked in astonishment and took her time in looking him over, admiring him in his full, chiseled glory.
"Whoa." Thank goodness she had the right sense of mind not to drool.
Rolling her eyes, Videl crossed her arms and looked at her friend in amusement. "Really? Now?"
Hearing her friend's exclamation, Erasa quickly scrubbed her head of her stupor and grinned sheepishly at her classmate. "Sorry. Just… enjoying the view." While Piccolo was busy minding his own business in the background, figuring that this was a conversation he didn't need to get involved in, the blonde girl quickly looked back up at Gohan and, with a cheerful grin framing her pretty face, stared at the boy with a happy glimmer in her eye. "You came to rescue me."
The demi-Saiyan beamed, "Not just me…" He nodded toward his girlfriend and his mentor of many years, "All three of us did…"
"And we'd do it again in a heartbeat," Videl added from the sidelines, hands still comfortably crossed.
Smiling around at her closest companions, the blonde bowed her head to each of them and stepped towards Gohan with her hands behind her back. "Thank you. Really. I owe you two everything…"
"Hey. There's no need for that. To be completely honest, I'm the one that should be thanking you," the demi-Saiyan remarked, placing his hands on his hips and looking down at Erasa with his usual, cheerful disposition. "If you didn't come up behind the guy and whammed him over the head with that pole, I probably wouldn't even be standing here talking to you right now."
Erasa giggled and gazed fondly at her best friend. "Don't be so modest. You're the one that did all the heavy lifting." Not to mention the grinding and the iron punching. That fight was just monstrous.
Now she could see why he was the one that actually beat Cell. The stuff that he did in that battle was out of this world.
"True. But it's the way the heavy lifting is done that really counts. I had way too many close calls in that fight to call this any kind of a win for me. There was no way I could've won against this guy fighting on my own." He added to this by sparing a quick glance down at Vulcan's corpse, which lay sprawled out under the morning sun.
"So it was a team effort then?"
Gohan nodded affirmatively, "Oh yeah. A lot of our hardest fights were won through teamwork." He quickly spared a glance over at Videl and Piccolo, both of whom also shared a similar look with him. Upon which the teen gazed back at his inquisitive classmate, "That and a lot of luck. That's why I think I'm right in saying that I owe you big time for distracting the guy before he could put a fist-shaped hole through my head."
Raising an eyebrow at his reasoning, the blonde then spared the boy an amused expression. "How about this? Since you saved my life and I saved your life, I'll call it even between us if you do me one little favor."
Her sudden offer for parlay had the demi-Saiyan give his merry friend a curious once over. "What… kind of favor?"
At that, a sly smile formed across the girl's face. "Hold still."
Just before Gohan could say anything or throw a question her way, he then froze when the blonde suddenly stepped towards him and, leaning up on her tippy-toes, kissed him full on the lips. It was a gesture of affection that not only had the warrior teenager blush to the roots of his hair, but it also have a shiver run up his back when Erasa promptly wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips in further.
Then, after several moments of awkward and tender silence, she then peeled away to find a very startled Gohan staring back at her, his eyes wide and face practically glowing. The sight of his deer-caught-in-the-headlights look drew a playful laugh from the girl and had her step away with a victorious spring in her step.
"Oh yeah. I think we're even now," Erasa said, her own cheeks glowing as she stared up at her stunned crush. "What do you think?"
"Uhh…" Gohan didn't know what to say. He was so stumped and shocked by the girl's actions that his tongue seemed to have been stricken with rigor mortis.
Just as he was in the process of recovering though, the pair then heard someone clearing their throat next to them and turned to see Videl standing by with her arms crossed and a deep frown on her face. When the demi-Saiyan saw his girlfriend tapping her foot at him, his face almost instantly turned from red to white and the young man started freaking out. Piccolo meanwhile, remained an abstract observer, looking upon the scene with a raised eyebrow and a moderate degree of interest, as his student was just now going through what he could only describe as a human-related crisis.
"Oh Kami… Videl… I uh… uhh… I can explain!" the demi-Saiyan exclaimed in panic, whereas Erasa remained completely calm, despite the boy's obvious distress and her other friend's expression of irritation.
After glaring across at the pair for a solid minute, the young crime fighter then uncrossed her arms, marched over to her boyfriend and, after looking him square in his terrified eyes, smirked and shot a look at her blonde classmate. "Erasa… didn't I just say to you yesterday to be patient while I took a couple of weeks to think about it?"
The blonde then gave the crime fighter a sweet smile and replied in a cheeky voice, "Think about what, Videl?"
"About whether or not I was interested in sharing him," the tomboy replied, quickly hopping over to stand beside her boyfriend and, wrapping her arms tightly around his, pulled the hunk of a male towards her. By this point in time, Gohan was so perplexed by what was going on that he was looking between the two girls as if they were both about to chop his head off. He also had the most innocent look of confusion they'd ever seen on him, making approaching the lug all the more tempting. "Right now, Gohan is my boyfriend. That means we're officially a couple. And if you think I'm going to let my childhood friend take him away from me so easily, you're sadly mistaken." Not only did she say this in an overly challenging tone, but she also grinned confidently and winked in her friend's direction.
At first puzzled by her friend's declarations, Erasa then responded to her subtle message with a grin of her own and, taking appropriate action, moved towards the demi-Saiyan and latched onto his other arm. Gohan soon found himself sandwiched between both girls and was unable to stop the shade of red returning to his face, as he could now feel their ample chests pressing into his forearms.
In that one moment, he couldn't have been more confused and more bewildered even if he tried.
"Oh? And do you think I'm going to give up on him so easily? Well, think again, sister," Erasa shot back at her friend, grinning across at the crime fighter to meet her challenging glare head-on. "When I set my eyes on something, I'm in it to win it. There's no way I'm going down without a fight."
"Really? You think you can win Gohan's heart from me?"
"I don't think I can… I know I can," the blonde responded with a smirk, electricity crackling between the two classmates as their blue eyes locked on to one another. "Let the best woman win."
"Bring it on," Videl replied, similar auras forming around the pair that had the demi-Saiyan between them shiver.
Sweating up a storm as he looked between his girlfriend and his best friend, the spiky haired warrior swallowed nervously while a rather awkward thought passed through his head. Despite having gone through the worst hell imaginable, he couldn't help but dawn on this situation for a moment as the two teenagers played tug-of-war with his arms. "This is almost like that dream I had a couple of days ago," Gohan murmured as the pair's grips tightened around him and their breasts squished further against his arm.
He tried his best to ignore them. But in spite of his terrific fortitude, he just couldn't.
Looking down at his girlfriend, the demi-Saiyan gave the raven haired crime fighter a nervous stare. "Uhh… can I ask you why you're not angry with me right now… or why you're not trying to kill me? What's going on between you two?"
Videl quickly gave her boyfriend a smirk, "This is between me and Erasa, Gohan-kun. This has nothing to do with you."
"Yeah. Keep your cute nose out of this," the blonde girl also added with a nod.
The boy chuckled nervously. "I seriously doubt that…"
After what'd just happened a couple minutes prior, you could see his concerns. His anxious comment had Videl and Erasa give him mischievous grins, and left him feeling more uncomfortable than ever before.
Before the trio could get too wrapped up in their personal affairs, Piccolo, who was now shaking his head at the ridiculous scene, stepped forward and cleared his throat. "As entertaining as it is to watch you three kids bicker back and forth, I think we should focus our attention on the more pressing issue of where the hell this guy came from and why he attacked us." When he drew the group's attention over to him, he then directed his gaze towards the pilot lying in the battered hunk of metal at their feet. With the blade still lodged in his back and sticking out of his chest, the Namekian frowned. "We've fought against people enhanced by earthling technology before, but nothing as advanced as this. This man was able to take on a Super Saiyan 3 and still have enough energy to stand."
That was a feat no other fighter had been able to accomplish, even their worst enemies. While the androids had been ridiculously powerful at one stage, this man was able to trounce them all through a new level of tech that was considerably more advanced than anything they'd ever come across.
It was this realization and this thought that had Gohan and Videl frown apprehensively.
As the damaged suit sizzled away, the female crime fighter moved away from her boyfriend and looked up at him. "What do you think? Could this guy have something to do with the androids?"
The young Saiyan shook his head, at the same time Erasa also stepped away to gaze worryingly at the soldier's corpse. "No. This guy is part of something else. The way he fought and came after me was way different to anything I was expecting. He knew how to take us on and he exploited all of our weaknesses with ease."
Gulping, the blonde next to the demi-Saiyan looked towards him as well. "Is there a chance he's working with someone?"
This was a question Gohan was easily able to answer and he did so with a troubled air in his person. "While we were fighting, he mentioned something about bringing me back to his 'boss'. That means he's taking orders from somebody who's obviously developed an unhealthy interest in our group." He then looked between both girls standing on either side of him before directing his gaze towards Piccolo. "I have no idea who it could be, but until we get to the bottom of this I think we should keep our eyes and ears open, and tread a little more carefully from now on."
The Namekian warrior nodded. "I agree."
Videl then crossed her arms and glared at their kebab of an opponent. "We should take this guy to Bulma's… see if she can figure out where this guy's tech came from and discover who's really behind this."
That was a suggestion both Gohan and Piccolo could easily get onboard with. So then, just as civilians starting pouring back into the streets and began approaching the spot where the final showdown between the Z-fighters and the unknown assailant took place, the demi-Saiyan grabbed hold of his friends and their corpse, and vanished in a flash of golden light. By the time the authorities arrived on the scene and the residents of that part of town got close enough to see the very spot the battle had ended, the heroes were long gone… as was their quarry.
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