Disclaimer: the idea and characters of Dragon Ball are owned by Akira Toriyama. This is a simple non-profit fan parody.

Chapter 30 - The thin Red Ribbon

Yesterday

"As usual with injections, I'm going to need you to purposefully lower your defenses here as much as possible, or the needle won't even pierce your skin."

Goku nodded, closed his eyes, and concentrated. The feeling of withdrawing all his ki from an area of his body was always slightly uncomfortable, and he had to fight against his urge to do the exact opposite. It made him feel far more naked than having simply removed his shirt did, and his skin crawled a little. Bulma wetted it with a cotton tampon imbued in disinfectact. It felt cold, and didn't help.

"Oh, look, you got goosebumps," she noticed, with a chuckle.

"Letting myself get hurt doesn't come natural," he said. "It's an ingrained habit."

"Yeah, I know. Well, it won't be much. If even I could take the pain..."

The needle went in and out, leaving the Mark II HEP microchip well lodged inside his flesh. Goku barely noticed the sting - but it was an interesting sensation, the kind of sharp, localised pain he'd almost never feel. Anything that could usually cause him pain at all needed to be a bit more impactful than that.

"Done!," exclaimed Bulma, getting up and tossing cotton and used needle in a trash bin. "Still, I'm surprised you wanted this. Outside of the Ribbon soldiers, only Yamcha and Spike accepted it. Most martial artists, it seems, are too proud or not trusting enough to get a bit of technological help. Though honestly, for someone like you, it's hardly much help at all. This thing works by using the data we acquired at the Tournament, and you were at the very top of the strength tiers there. It can't help you summon much more ki than you already can anyway."

The boy was putting his gi back on. "I know," he said, "but I can use it to use my full strength even if my body is damaged or tired, right?"

"Yes, in short bursts, but you really shouldn't do that," replied Bulma with emphasis, "unless it's literally do or die. You have far more options than us weaklings even if your power is inferior to that of your enemy. You don't want to wreck yourself unless you'd get wrecked anyway if you didn't."

Goku nodded. "I just wanted the option. It would have been unwise to pass it up."

"Well, I'm glad that you're taking this so seriously," said the girl. Her eyes made an annoyed expression. "Because being around here, sometimes it doesn't look like everyone is."

"I don't want to risk not giving my all now and regretting it later. I've trained with master Muten now, and I can tell he's not the kind who would get scared easily. But when he told us that story at the King's council, he sounded scared."

Goku was looking at his own fists, and he muttered like he was almost talking to himself more than with Bulma.

"People are going to die," he added.

Bulma sighed. "Yes, they are," she replied. "Even if everything goes well, and no matter what we do. Some will."

"Even so then, if I can do something to limit the damage and stop the danger in its tracks, I have a duty to. And there is no point if I don't take it as seriously as possible from the beginning, when I still have the most power to do something about it."

"That is a tremendously sensible position, Goku," Bulma laughed, a bit bitterly, "and thus, of course, a horribly uncommon one. Half of the people around here sound like they already think we've won; and half of those are already busy thinking about how they'll divide the spoils afterwards."

"So you don't trust them to be useful?"

The girl thought a bit about it, and shrugged. "I trust them enough, I guess. I trust they'll act in their best interest, which right now aligns with ours. And I trust they know what they're doing when it comes to fighting. I just don't think they fully appreciate the danger King Piccolo could represent. Not that I do either - but I think I can guess it, at least."

"But that may not be enough."

"It may very well be. I sure hope so. But just in case-" Bulma bumped lightly her fist against Goku's chest. "-I'm glad that you are our trump card."

Now

The news from Purple team raised a lot of hubbub in the control room at Red Ribbon HQ. When the situation finally calmed down enough, explanations were asked, and the story slowly got clearer. Unfortunately, that didn't make it any better - if anything, it sounded worse by the minute.

There had been a major miscommunication issue between the RDF and the Red Ribbon, as the secrecy and compartmentalisation of information in the latter had led to the former not knowing anything about its movements. This would not have been an issue if not for the coincidence that led to one of the Dragon Balls being located in Cilantro Town, one of the municipalities the RDF was protecting. Bulma felt like she wanted to strangle everyone involved as she heard, increasingly dumbfounded, the account of how things had unfolded, with pride and prickliness on both sides escalating the conflict almost to the point where Ribbon and Royal soldiers risked firing on each other. She got the impression Commander Black must have thought the same; if the King harboured any similarly violent thoughts, though, he hid them well behind his usual peaceful, slightly saddened expression. Still, while the RDF had not done much to improve the situation, it was undeniable that things had been made that bad mostly by the late Colonel Purple, whose loss at this point sounded frankly like a net positive for the Red Ribbon and humanity at large.

"The King's soldiers really were aiming their sights at us," explained Bandages, "and then one of Purple's aides, who'd been consulting with some of the squad leaders that seemed less happy about that whole situation, whispered something in his ear, and he suddenly softened. Methinks they basically told him he'd better take it down a notch or they'd remove him from command by force, as they were not about to fight a battle that stupid."

"So we walk into town, just a small squad, and only bearing small arms, with a huge escort of Royal soldiers. Me and Spike were with them, Purple was too, and the rest was all soldiers who'd gotten the special package, you know what I mean. Guess Purple was mollified thinking he'd still be walking around with a much stronger force than it looked like. As for us two, Major Jan seemed pretty okay with us as we'd been trying to play peacemaker during the whole situation, and we were civilians in the end. He thought it was a good compromise."

"Anyway, that was when trouble started. We decided there was no hidin' where the Dragon Ball was any more, and to overlap our radars with a map of the city so we could figure out if it was in someone's house or what. Turns out, when we checked the radar again, the Ball was gone."

"When was this?," asked General Copper.

"About twenty minutes ago, I'd say."

"Does the Command for Experimental Operations confirm?"

Bulma quickly summoned a historical series of radar images. She ran it backwards in time, comparing it with the first measurement after the activation of the Dragon Balls.

"Confirmed," she said finally. "The Dragon Ball in Cilantro Town seems to have disappeared around thirty minutes ago."

"And we did not know of this because...?"

Bulma bit her lip. "Because we did not consider implementing a system to warn us instantly in case something like it happened."

Because it was not supposed to happen, damn it. Such a stupid thing to overlook, and what she hated even more was having to admit the mistake to that windbag.

"I see. It seems like book smarts and strategical thinking don't always go together," the General smirked with superiority for a moment, before returning to an appropriately concerned frown. "Continue your report."

Bandages huffed, clearly annoyed. "Well, we guessed there must be enemies around who somehow grabbed the Ball and shielded it. We used historical data to identify the place, but once we were there, all we found was a bloodbath. He was a collectionist of antiquities, probably thought the Dragon Ball was something of value when it was just a ball of stone and him and his whole family had been offed. Wife and children, no witnesses. The house was-"

He coughed, looked away.

"Anyway. We got after them, following the shortest road to leave the city, and Major Jan told his troops to blockade the entire place. But they had too much of a headstart, and they had left a couple soldiers behind to slow down our pursuit. They sniped us, forced us to take cover. Started a firefight in the middle of a suburban road. We cleaned house quickly, but those bastards blew themselves up like the guy at the Tournament before we could interrogate them. And with their first shot they'd already taken down the Colonel. One of his aides took over, but we're in a bit of a mess now, so they left calling you to me. We're looking to rat out any other enemies, but it might be that was all of them."

"Very well," Commander Black intervened from his own remote link, "then continue the search. Try moving as fast as possible, and see if you can track the enemy down. Coordinate with the RDF, His Majesty authorizes that too. Let us know once you have something."

Bandages gave a curt nod and the link closed down.

There was silence in the room for a moment.

"We have a mole," said General Copper, indignant.

"What? That is not-" started Bulma, but she was immediately blocked by Commander Black's far more autoritative voice, amplified by the speakers.

"Be careful with any such accusations, General," he said. "We do not want to fuel even more instability and mistrust. We're already in a precarious enough position."

"May I speak freely, Commander?," asked Copper, and then, barely waiting for his assent, "Surely you thought too this was a possibility. Otherwise, why would we have taken so much care?"

"I did," confirmed the other. "And yes, that was the reason."

"But for all the care we took, the positions of the Dragon Balls still were leaked to the enemy - at least two of them! You said it yourself, if it happened in more than one position-"

"It's suspicious," confirmed Black. "But there could still be other explanations. Not to mention, there could be an unforeseen flaw in miss Bulma's own security plan, or the Instruments may be in possession of technology we did not foresee them having. We do not know for example if they did any improvements to the Dragon Radar technology they stole from Pilaf since last year. The important thing right now is to be prepared. I gave you an order, General. Inform the other squads. Tell them to be extremely careful. They might be attacked too."

"What if one of them is the mole?," asked the officer, angry. "We could just provide them feedback on the success of their own actions!"

"We will have to take that risk. It is far more important to avoid any other attacking forces having the advantage of surprise. Do it now."

Major Ocra and master Muten stood side by side on the edge of a cliff, a drop of almost fifty metres that fell vertically into the ocean. Little distinguished it from the rest of the coast, except for the signs of a recent landslide, nearby. A chunk of the edge had crumbled, leaving behind naked rock and dirt instead of grass. Below, the detritus was hardly visible, having already been submerged and partly dragged away by the sea currents.

Ocra tapped his visor with a finger, quickly pushing buttons. He followed its indications with his gaze to a spot that was somewhere in the ocean, right below them, and a few meters away from the coastline.

"Rotten luck," he said, dryly. "Good thing they were supposed to fall on land."

"Well, this one did," commented Muten, jovially. "It's not its fault if then the land fell into the sea."

The other sent back an irritated stare. Muten shrugged and started humming a folk tune about a drop that plink, plink, plink, pierces a rock. Of course, he knew he was getting on his nerves. But the man was so strung up he couldn't help but feel it was a bit too fun to not indulge it.

Ocra's earpiece chirped, and one moment later, it was whispering something in his ear. Muten couldn't quite make out the word, but Ocra's own deepening frown told the story well enough. It certainly wasn't good news.

When it was over, he was about to ask more, but he wasn't even deigned of a glance. The officer simply strode to where his aides were gathered around an impromptu tactical meeting, using a picnic table and a map of the area. Muten followed him at a slight distance, enough to hear their chat.

"-I'm not sure, Major. I think if they tried something like that they could come from pretty much anywhere. Depends on where they started from. Perhaps this hill would be-"

"Then point some guns at it. Also, start working on a second, smaller round of fortifications to fall back onto if the first one falls. Do we still have those concrete barricades in capsule?"

"Enough for a fifty meters perimeter."

"Use them! I want the entire area surrounded in a half circle, machinegun nests close enough to cover the whole thing. Also, use the scatter mines."

"What about the sea, Major?"

"How many capsuled boats we have?"

"Only two."

"Put them on patrol. But have the planes do most of the scouting and patrolling. If the enemy comes in force by sea, we're not in condition to stop them properly, so we just have to know as quickly as possible. Now-"

Master Muten stepped into the circle of soldiers, quite casually. He took his time admiring the map and all the little crosses and arrows drawn on it with red and blue markers while everyone stared at him in surprise.

"This is a private meeting, and civilians are not invited," hissed Major Ocra.

"Quite so, quite so," said Muten, nodding. "But are you not forgetting a powerful resource, there, when laying down your plans?"

"I am not." Ocra tapped the map in one spot marked with a circle and a star inside. "Have you forgotten what are we here for?"

The old martial artist raised his eyebrows. "Oh, but sure you have better uses for a powerful combatant like me."

"Now listen-"

There was a distant explosion, and a cloud of dirt sprayed into the sky from a spot not too distant from their current position. Then, closer, the sound of gunfire, answering to whatever had caused the first sound.

"Major!," came the call through his earpiece, loud enough to be audible even from the others around. "We were just starting work on the second perimeter, and suddenly they came out from behind a ridge and started a shelling! It's like they were just waiting for their chance, and they knew what we were about to do. They only have small field artillery pieces, luckily, but-"

"Put up a defence, hold the line. I'll be with you presently. Ocra out."

The officer fixed his gaze on Muten.

"I do not know what is going on here, and don't much like it," he hissed. "But the thing is, I know how to fight better than I do spelunking, or scuba diving, or whatever is needed to find that damned Ball. You can hold your breath, I trust, master Muten?"

"Longer than anyone else in the world," he replied.

"Good enough. Get in your trunks and go for a swim. Me and my men will buy you the time you need. Try to need little."

"We have reports from multiple teams. Ocra team has been attacked as soon as they received our warning and started acting on it."

General Copper cursed and said something about what end would eventually await traitors. Commander Black merely frowned.

"Cobalt team acknowledges the warning and says they'll advance with caution. As for Colonel Violet, when I mentioned the possibility of an enemy attack, her answer was, I'm quoting, tell me something I don't know, then she closed the channel. Given that and the gunfire sounds in the background I imagine they too were under attack. She sounded quite busy."

"That is no excuse to refuse giving a report!," blurted out Copper, indignant. "Discipline has never been her forte. Get in contact with someone else within her team if you can, we need the specifics of their situation. We need to know if the Dragon Ball has fallen into enemy hands or not!"

"It still registers on the radar," intervened Bulma.

"Good, good. But still. We need that report!"

"On it, General."

"Two more teams," said Commander Black. "At this point I think it's fair to assume our stratagem has failed. I'd like to ask our scientific minds, here, any idea on how this might have come to pass?"

Bulma flushed under the rather self-satisfied stare of General Copper, who seemed way too pleased considering it was his underlings who were being shot at right now. But she didn't need to give an answer, because her father immediately jumped to the rescue from over the link.

"I've been considering it, and there was a worry," he said. "In theory, if the Instruments had been monitoring their Dragon Ball closely enough, they could have calculated backwards which were real and which were decoys by verifying the simultaneity of their activation."

"I see. And you have not addressed this?"

"There was no way we could find to do it," continued Bulma, typing away at the computer to recall the data she needed, "but we thought it was unnecessary. The time window to which we'd narrowed the possible activation was very small anyway - barely a few fractions of a second. Now that I'm checking, the real Dragon Balls activated exactly in between two groups of fakes, less than one millisecond apart. Adding in the uncertainties due to the different distances, the travelling times of the signals themselves, and the disturbances due to weather conditions, it seems unlikely they could possibly pinpoint which were the real and which the fake ones. That would leave them with eighteen possible candidates, at the very least."

"They couldn't have spread their forces so thin," observed Commander Black.

"Indeed, it seems unlikely. And if they only attacked six random positions among them, that they already anticipated us on four of them, is, well-"

"Impossible," shut her down categorically General Copper. "Not to mention, it is not the only information they seem to possess! They were ready to act against team Ocra too, as soon as they received notice from us!"

"But that is not possible either!," exclaimed Bulma. "General, the data-"

"That is enough." Commander Black's tone was perentory. A glance ran between him and Bulma, and she bit her lip and shut up. Then his darkened expression turned to Copper. "Careful to fling accusations, General. Do not overstretch your assumptions. For all we know, that could have been just good scouting on their part."

The General harrumphed at that, and said nothing else, but the tension hanging over the room did not go anywhere. Commander Black had muted his channel now, and seemed to be talking with the King, perhaps reassuring him about the current course of events.

"What were you about to say?"

Bulma turned to her side to see Lazuli, who had casually moved closer with her laptop. She didn't look worried or afraid; rather, she looked wary. Alert. Bulma knew she'd always been the least enthusiastic of the two siblings about their current work environment, and she could not blame her right now. The way suspicion was being flung back and forth and had poisoned the atmosphere, even while unspoken, made her deeply uncomfortable too.

"Why do you think it's impossible for there to be a mole? Do you have a good reason?," whispered the young woman.

Bulma didn't hesitate. "I do, but-" She considered it for a moment. "Sorry, it's better if I don't say. The Commander seems to have another plan."

Lazuli tossed back a thin strand of her hair, annoyed by it. "The Commander always seems to have a plan. But I don't know if he always actually has one."

The girl shrugged. Right now, though, there was also another thing that weighed on her thoughts.

"If I may ask-" her voice rang in the room, and drew another annoyed stare from the General. "What happened to team Silver?"

"Right!," Copper immediately jumped on that, his eyes darting to the radio operator. "What happened?"

"Ah, we've been trying to contact them for a while now. The weather is not favourable, so we've been having some difficulties, but we should get through any moment-"

"...so, when his mask fell, I realised he really was my grandfather."

Colonel Silver laughed, and a couple of other men in the vehicle too. "Man, we've been wondering so much what the hell was that about!," he said. "We even made bets. You just cost me one fifth of this month's pay."

Goku winced. "I'm sorry."

"Well, what's money for if not that?" The officer grinned. "I'm just happy to know, it was really irking me to be left hanging. Imagine watching the whole Tournament and it ending it that way. Then all that nonsense happened, so it's not like we could really focus on that stuff any more. It got messy, that day. And, well, some of those wagers will be going to widows."

There were some solemn nods, but no more acknowledgment than that. Goku wasn't a stranger to death, but he still found unsettling how much these men seemed to be acquainted with it. Like it was little more than some kind of inconvenience.

"But now the real question." Silver grabbed one of the boy's shoulders with a strong grip. "Who won, in the end?"

"Uh. That would be him." Goku looked down. "He was really insistent about it, too."

More laughter. "Seriously? You let grandpa beat you?" hollered the man.

"Yes, but he's the one who taught me, and he's really strong, and-" replied Goku, getting defensive. He somehow felt much less comfortable with his defeat now than when he'd been accepting it in front of grandpa Gohan. But then, he'd never given much thought to the fact that there were people watching him fight - rooting for him, even, and betting on his victory. That was a strange feeling.

The Colonel seemed to have something else in mind though. "Hmph." he huffed. "If he's that strong, he should be with us today too."

Goku saddened. "It's not like that." he said. "He's dead."

"Oh? Just in these four months?" The man frowned. "I'm sorry to hear that. He seemed very lively."

"That's not it, he-"

Something interrupted the moment - something that only Silver could hear, apparently. He brought a hand to his earpiece. Then signalled to someone, and after a switch was flipped, the message he was receiving was put on loudspeaker for the entire car to hear.

"Repeat... risk of enemy attack... stay on guard..." said the voice, heavily distorted and mixed with static.

"I hear you, loud but not so clear," said the Colonel. "Why do you say there's a risk? What's happened?"

The call paused a moment. Clearly the operator was asking someone else advice on what to say. Then the static came back.

"Classified... risk of attack is high... stay on guard..."

"Roger." Silver made a cutting gesture with his hand, and the communication was interrupted. "What the hell was that about? Now they can't even trust us with why we might be shot at?"

"I imagine some of the other teams have been attacked," suggested Goku.

"Doesn't take a genius to guess that," snapped the Colonel back. "So why the secrecy? Damn buffoons, the lot of them. Tactical, what's the status?"

A sergeant standing in front of a map screen answered that. "We've just entered a valley a few kilometres long, along a west-east direction. Relatively straight, with two mountains with very steep flanks on the sides, impassable for wheeled or treaded vehicles. Our next waypoint lies approximately at the exit of the valley, which is also approximately fifty kilometres away from the outer edge of the Muscle Tower base. The storm is still going strong, but the valley itself is repaired from most of the wind, as they are blowing from the north and one of the mountains blocks them."

"The waypoint's the Dragon Ball," replied Silver. "I can tell you as much at this point. And what you've just described sounds like a freaking death trap. If they've been waiting for us, this is exactly-"

As if to punctuate that statement, the sound of an explosion shook the vehicle.

"REPORT!"

"Artillery shell, sir, most likely. To the front of the column. No damages reported, it fell short of our front truck."

"Dang it! Give the order to backtrack. We must be at the edge of their effective range, but with such a bottleneck, they can pummel us at their convenience."

"Yes, sir. Should they turn around?"

"No! Not enough time for that, and we can't expose ourselves if they come in attacking from that side. Just travel in reverse. Enough to pull out of their artillery's attack range."

"Acknowledged, sir. To everyone in the column-"

The treaded trucks came to a stop. They were built as massive armoured vehicles, solid like bricks, with very little concessions to aesthetics or even simple aerodynamics. In addition, they had slit-like windows and simplified backup driving controls on their backs. For the drivers it was as simple as walking across their vehicle and taking command from there to start backtracking. Seamlessly, the column that had been moving forward started going the opposite way, like a movie playing in reverse. Two more shells fell in front of it, spraying great amounts of dusted snow and mud, as the ice liquefied and mixed with dirt under the violence of the impact and the hot metal blasting it away. But neither hit came any closer to hitting the vehicles than the first one.

"Seems like we're safe on that side," commented Silver, dryly. "But the way is closed."

"Are we giving up on the Dragon Ball?," asked Goku. "What if the others are also being attacked and prevented from reaching theirs? We can't just surrender to-"

The man reacted with barely controlled anger. "This isn't a goddamn Tournament! Tactical, what's the situation at our back?"

"It seems like everything is quiet, sir. The last vehicles still haven't started backtracking."

"Tell them not to do that. They should load all the long range ammo they have and start firing. Missiles, cannons, machineguns. I want a single salvo aimed at the entry of the valley, where the snow from the storm gets thick enough that we lose visibility."

"Right away, sir. Though I must point out that the risk of avalanches or landslides is-"

"I know the risk. Do it."

He turned to Goku.

"Now is the time where we need your help," he said. "I'll explain it quickly to you. The barrage in front of us comes from artillery cannons. They have plenty of those at Muscle Tower base, and all they need to do to keep us stuck here is to fire them in sequence at the same spot, which even accounting for the wind is pretty simple. But behind our back-"

"-would be their army," finished Goku for him, frowning. "They force us on the defensive, then attack our blind spot. Like in any martial arts fight."

Silver nodded. "Glad you're getting the hang of this. The difference with one of your fights is, if we don't find a way to react fast, we're all dead. And then, no Dragon Ball, and no seeing another day to fight for it."

The truck came to a stop with a sudden jerk, and the driver shifted to the back. Like a wave, the change in direction propagated through the column and had reached them, just in the middle. Soon, the truck restarted, marching towards the western end of the valley.

"So, be ready to help. Our lives depend on it."

The order to fire back at the entrance of the valley was accompanied with a warning to be ready for any enemy response that might come. The immediate answer to this was puzzlement - weren't their positions supposed to be completely unknown to the enemy? - but no soldier in the Red Ribbon was so inept they wouldn't know how to follow an order when they received one. The trucks stopped and soldiers dropped out of them, decked completely in thermal clothing, eyes covered with snow goggles, and weapons at the ready. They formed a semicircular perimeter, aiming at both the entrance of the valley and the least steep parts of the mountain flanks. Others set up machine guns and pulled out anti-armour weaponry, or manned the turrets on top of their trucks.

"Fire!," came the order through the radio, and a simultaneous barrage of rockets and bullets was sprayed across the access point to the valley. The silent valley, only perturbed by the sound of the wind whooshing around it, crashing on the mountains that shielded it like a raging sea on a line of breakwaters, became awash with both the echoing explosions and the yellow-white light of tracer rounds. The sound was deafening, like the ground itself was roaring in pain, and many soldiers looked uneasily at the snow and ice surrounding them, fearing they might just give way under its continuous assault. But in the end, they held, and the barrage finished. Once the effect of surprise wore out, firing without anything to aim at would be just a waste of ammo.

"Stay on guard!"

The soldiers who had fired clutched their weapons more tightly, or reloaded in a hurry if needed. The cold had gone away now - the heat of their weapons and the exertion were enough to make them sweat. Their eyes looked at the blank space they'd fired on, half hoping that nothing would come out of it, and that exercise would reveal itself as only a futile waste of ammo.

Then the first tank rolled out of the whiteness that was the snowstorm outside of the valley, and the second, and the third. From the flanks of the mountains, emerging out of creviches or the side that they couldn't see from inside, came dozens of mechas, crawling around the steep rocky wall on all fours, like giant metallic spiders. The first shots were fired. One passed all armoured shields put in front of a machine gun, and with incredible luck (or misfortune), hit the gunner straight in his forehead, sending his dead body tumbling down from the truck.

"Enemies at twelve, two, ten! Fire!"

The valley lit up again, the guns roared once more, and this time, it would not stop.

"Hurry up! It's started!"

Colonel Silver, Goku, and a dozen of other soldiers were running in the snow, towards the battle. Among them was the entire team who had received the enhancement chip, and that Silver had kept as a personal guard of sorts, close to him at all times. Running wasn't easy, except for Goku, who sliced through the snow like a knife through butter, but it was still much faster than to wait for their vehicle to get unstuck from its place in the column and move back. Goku had even tried using his spiritual energy to melt the snow and open the way to the others, but that only had led to puddles of messy, watery, boiling slush and clouds of steam, which if anything made the going worse.

The explosions and sparks of the battle got closer. Goku had set his visor on to detect spiritual energy signatures, a feature Bulma and her father had just provided to the entire army. There was no one above average human strength among the attackers, and the traces were so faint even the storm before had hidden them well enough. But now that the enemy had revealed itself, and that everyone was fighting and worked up, which significantly increased their emission of spiritual energy, he could use it to get an idea of where any attackers might be.

There was a blip that drew his attention on the mountainside. In a single motion he slid the Nyoibo out of its scabbard, on his back, and had it extend by various dozen metres while spinning around. He felt a crunching sensation through it as the end sunk into the metal of a mechanical unit that was climbing down, slicing its torso, which separated it from its legs and crushed its computer and main battery. The pilot would be left stranded amidst the rocks, unable to go anywhere, in the cockpit of what now amounted to little more than a couple tons of metal ready for recycling.

"Form around me, and protect our flanks! They've gotten in deep!"

Two more mechanised units climbed down towards them, perhaps guessing the group might be important prey. Goku took out another one in a similar way, while the other was tagged by the tracers of the men in the escort and brought down by a bazooka fired by someone else. Not before it had a chance to fire at them, though; but luckily its target had been equipped with the Mark II HEP chip, and had reacted fast upon seeing that he was in the enemy's crosshair. The bullets ricocheted off his skin, ripping only his uniform. After that, though, he was out of commission due to excessive exhaustion, and had to withdraw in one of the truck they were passing.

"We'll stay back here," said Colonel Silver, coming to a halt. "If I got taken down the forces would be left without command. We'll act as spotters for you. I think it's time to show your training isn't just for the sake of tournaments."

Goku nodded and stared at the battle ahead. He'd been in fights to the death before; this one would not be the most dangerous by far. He'd trained since the day in which he had endured sustained damage in a duel with Mai, armed only with a sniper rifle. Now he was faster, more focused, and sturdier. Almost four months spent with master Muten had given improved his physical conditioning to a degree he'd never experienced, and his ki control was better than ever.

"I'm going," he said, and he leaped forward.

The battle was pure chaos. Goku was used to staying focused, capturing every single sound or vibration in the ground, and reacting in consequence, but it was impossible there. It was a cacophony; if he let his senses get that keen he could only end up overwhelmed by the sheer power and diversity of inputs that assaulted them. Instead, he had to purposefully shut down most of it, and only focus on the most basic of notions. Identify the closest attackers visually, go in, neutralise them, move to the next. He saw one of the enemy tanks that had breached the first line of defence and was spreading mayhem throughout the ranks of the Red Ribbon soldiers. He jumped in, dodging all machinegun fire with left and right sidesteps. On top of the turret, he used a single kick to bend its cannon downwards. Then he slid to the side, lifted the whole thing, and slammed it to the ground upside down, leaving it defenceless like a turtle flipped on its shell. He jumped away from it right before a rocket could hit him - the tank's own treads and part of its hull were blasted apart instead. It seemed like the Instruments thought it more important to end his threat than to avoid damaging their own disabled vehicle, and its crew. Goku only spared an instant of loathing for such wanton disregard of comradery between his enemies. He zoomed forward to the man with the rocket launcher before he could even start reloading, kicked it out of his hands. The rockets, which were in a cache nearby, he grabbed and tossed aside, quickly and systematically breaking each of them mid-shaft with a precise chop, so that they would become useless. He realised with some surprise a second later that the second soldier, who helped the first one reload, had shot him twice with a handgun in the meantime. He didn't even feel that any more if he didn't focus on it. As an afterthought, he sent the soldier to sleep with a chop, while he was still staring horrified at those two bullets that simply bounced off the skin of a little boy.

"Goku, can you hear me? There's more of those mechas coming down the flanks!"

"I hear you, Colonel," replied the boy to the voice speaking in his earpiece. "I'm going."

He jumped again, long and tall, towards the mountain. He looked back for a moment, saw that the men he'd just spared by simply stunning him were being viciously stabbed with a bayonet by a crazed Red Ribbon soldier, who seemed to think they were not still enough to feel safe. He paid his distraction soon enough, when another of the Instrument soldiers who was far more awake caught him by surprise and shot him before he could free his rifle from the body he'd jammed its pointy end in.

Goku landed on the mountain flank, on all fours, like the mechas crawling along it. He jumped forward again, spun mid-air, landed foot first on top of the first one, piercing the cockpit. He found himself staring straight into the eyes of a pilot whose leg he'd just crushed into a pulp, face red with anger and pain. He got shot, grabbed the bullet mid-air to stop it from ricocheting, smashed the machine's console with a casual swipe of his arm, then immediately jumped out. He moved to the other robot, then the other.

He tried his best to stop, incapacitate, wound, but not kill. He knew there would be killing; he just didn't like the thought of adding to it if unnecessary. But this effort seemed to him increasingly futile. Often the ones he left disabled on the battlefield were as good as dead anyway; and he could not fight efficiently if he had to stop to drag them out anyway. In one case he couldn't gauge his strength quite well enough, overwhelmed by the need to dodge thirteen different bullets aimed at him, and pushed one of the mechas too hard, sending it to crash on the rocks below, where it soon was reduced to a wreckage so contorted, there was no hope of extracting anything still resembling a human being from it. And the battle was wearing him. Each attack was nearly effortless; but the constant push to jump from one side to the other of the battlefield, to measure his options, to weigh each choice in human lives, was beyond anything he'd ever had to face in a single fight. Sometimes Colonel Silver would relieve him of that pressure by directing him towards one or another objective, for which he was grateful; but the Colonel alone wasn't fast enough to make use of him at the best of his capabilities.

And of course, there was the death. All of the death.

He'd seen dead people before; he'd even killed one (well, it was more of a giant rabbit; but he still counted as people, nor were all the soldiers in both armies human either). But not so many, in such a short space, and in so little time. It was mind-numbing to think that most of these soldiers had lived so much longer than him - and yet those lives, two or three decades long, were all coming to a head here and now, sometimes for the most nonsensical and tiny of mistakes.

Sometimes his mistakes.

"Are you all right, boy?," asked the Colonel through the radio. "You sound tired."

Goku shook himself. His breath had become laboured, uneven. He was losing form, getting inefficient.

"I'm fine," he said, recovering his concentration. "Sorry for that."

"Don't be. We're absolutely in awe here. You're making it seem a lot more likely that we may live to see tomorrow. I thought I was amazing after I first tried this crazy chip your friend and Dr. Gero created, but damn. You make me feel like a fool."

"Live to see tomorrow," said Goku, "but lose the Dragon Ball."

He looked around. The attack seemed to have lost intensity. The mechas on the flank of the mountain had been all picked off one by one, and without that support, the main column of the Instruments had to face the full brunt of the fire from the Red Ribbon units, as well as the wrath of Goku. It seemed like they had decided that regrouping was the wisest course of action, pulling back at the mouth of the valley, and so now there was a moment of peace - although a likely fleeting one.

"I told you, we cut our losses," said Silver. "Best we can do."

"I'm not sure it is," replied Goku. "How many people have died?"

There was a pause. "On our side, a hundred or so, I think," he said. "On the other, I frankly don't care. Hopefully more."

Goku didn't answer to that observation. "Then we should have at least something to show for it."

"What do you mean?"

"You said earlier this is different from the fights I'm used to," continued the boy, "but one thing I know is, if the opponent forces you to do something, you try as hard as possible to do the exact opposite. And I think that applies here too."

"Yeah, well, you think they made me Colonel 'cos I'm pretty? I know that. But this is our only option right now."

"Maybe it's not. They are closing this way off because they think we can't push forward through the valley because of the artillery. But if we could-"

"Oh, well, if we could-" Silver paused a moment. "Ok, come back here. We've got to talk."

Without even answering, Goku ran back through the column. He reached Colonel Silver and his guard, and then together they walked back again, passing the trucks that in the meanwhile had reorganised in formation to cover the flanks of the front as well as put up anti-air defences.

"Now, I want you to understand, these bastards are though," explained Silver as they walked. "Massive metallic shells, heavier than you, loaded with explosives, fired at five times the speed of sound, at an arc of 45 degrees so they have maximum range. The origin point is probably a few dozen kilometres away, we can't even see them from here. Touch their tip, they'll blow up. Slow them down too hard, they'll blow up. This is nothing like any other bullet you may have faced. You think we can mount a defence against that?"

"What happens if I can?," asked Goku.

"Then they won't know what hit 'em," the Colonel grinned. "They surely don't expect that, not even now that they've seen you in action. And because they're shelling so hard, I bet they don't have any troops near that end of the valley, or they'd risk hitting themselves. So if we can overcome the artillery barrage, we just sweep through, grab the Dragon Ball, then we can move south out of this damned valley and as soon as we get some space and find some better weather, we get out our encapsulated airplanes and we go back home."

The boy nodded. "Then let me try."

They had reached almost the end of the column. In front of them was the area in which the first artillery shells had landed; the snow was all gone now, and the rock was burnt and blackened. Goku walked forward, breathing slowly in and out, regaining the focus and balance he'd lost. He gazed upwards.

The bullets were too fast to perceive from air vibrations, like they had been that time he'd fought Mai. Except this time they were significantly bigger. That made them more dangerous, but also more easily spotted. He sharpened his focus to perfection, with ki flowing in a closed circuit between his eyes and brain, enhancing his perception until everything else moved so slow it might as well have been immobile. Not the shell, though; that one, when he finally saw it, was barrelling at a sustained speed towards him, punching a hole through the low clouds of snowdust that the wind still lifted from the flanks of the mountain.

Goku broadened his arms and stepped to the side. He could see the fuse at the very tip of the shell, and he needed to avoid touching it, as the Colonel had instructed. So he prepared to grab the sides. The shell was quickly spinning, too, which would make the process tricky. He stomped one foot firmly into the ground as a pivot, left the other more free to move, opened his hands, and braced for impact.

When the shell hit, it was like hugging a chunk of hot iron - the heat of the cannon's muzzle had not dispersed yet, even in such a cold winter. It didn't matter, Goku could take it. The spinning was grinding against his palms, trying to scrape his skin, but his skin was hardier than that. He used his one pivoting foot to do a half circle, shedding part of the shell's kinetic energy with it, gradually, then flipped foot, seamlessly, pushed it again, in a sinuous motion, and every time he took away some of its speed, slowly, dispersing it through his body and then into the ground, that his feet were digging deep furrows into. He finished it almost with a flourish, like he was dancing with the bullet, spinning it around, and then, gently, laying it on the ground, vertically, its nose cone pointing to the sky.

The men witnessing his actions, and Colonel Silver at their head, were beyond stunned, but he wasn't finished. With a hop, he grabbed the bullet again and put it above his shoulder, one hand keeping it steady, the other behind it, like a javelin. Before anyone could say anything he took some run-up, sped up, ran, jumped, and tossed the thing, fast, at the same speed it had arrived with, in the direction it had just come from, barring a few adjustments for the wind. The shockwave from the air pressure alone blasted a few people to the ground, broke one soldier's visor, and blew everyone's hair back in the range of fifty metres.

"Fucking Hell...," whispered Colonel Silver, gaping in sheer awe.

Goku came back to him, slightly short of breath, his winter clothes completely torn to shreds by the friction with the bullet. "Does that work?," he asked.

In the distance, an explosion resonated. The package had been successfully returned to the sender.

"You're asking if it works?," asked Silver, incredulous.

He pushed a button on his collar, turning on his communications to the entire team.

"Men, we're done trying to worm our way out of this!," he shouted. "It's time to teach these assholes they're not the only ones who can do surprises!"

The lookout had been set up on top of one of the tallest trees, a small platform held up with steel cables swung and tied around branches. It was almost invisible from below, but its height meant one could get a good view of the forest below, or at least where smoke and light poured out of it, marking the spots of battle. There were two, at the moment. One, slightly to the east, and moving slowly westward, looked quite conventional. The other, directly to the south, had the distinction of being at the end of a long scar in the tissue of the forest. A trail of cut or smashed trees that disfigured it in an almost perfectly straight line, and that was growing even now, as another tall conifer crumbled to the side. There was gunfire there too, but it had not proven helpful in slowing down the process much.

The man who stood on top of the platform, arms crossed, his blonde hair blowing in the cold wind, looked at the scene below with a slight expression of displeasure.

A radio call came.

"General Blue," said the voice. "We need backup!"

"I've told you, my codename is not that any more," said the man. "It's Flute now."

"Uh, yes sir. Sorry. Force of habit."

"Never mind. This name stuff is silly anyway," replied the general. "What were you saying about backup?"

"Yes, sir. We can't stop him, sir. He's like a running train."

"I understand bullets, but can he shrug off even the heavier ammo? Have you tried mines?"

"We did, sir. I don't think he would survive a direct hit, but we can't get one. On this terrain, it's hard to have a clear line of sight from afar, and if we get too close-"

"I understand."

The man sighed, but it seemed like there was no other way. He was one of the Instruments' strongest fighters, after all.

"Very well," said Flute, smiling. "I'll come down and see what we can do to put down this Oaf King."

Thanks as usual for the reviews and reads! Hope you enjoyed the action in this one, as Goku finally took the spotlight a bit after a few chapters of absence. I didn't originally plan to include General Blue in the story, or at least not give him any relevant role, but then I've changed my mind and decided I could do some good stuff with him. So here he is - and course he's with the Instruments, since he was always pretty evil even for the Red Ribbon.

One quick answer for Unknownlight: using the chip will certainly get your body used to it, but I wouldn't say it'd help you learn how to summon ki on your own. If anything it's a bit of a crutch, as you can rely on it and thus don't focus much on obtaining the right state of mind that you need to summon ki naturally, which comes with concentration and meditation.