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

Chapter 29 - Full Metal Capsule (part 2)

Now

The wind howled ferociously, drowning every sound, and the snow, falling from the sky or lifted from the ground as a fine white powder, scattered all light into a single uniform greyness. Blind and deaf, an army slowly trudged through the storm, cooped up into treaded trucks inside which heat, light, and relative silence were restored.

"What rotten luck," spat Colonel Silver, who sat next to the driver, arms crossed. "It's not even autumn yet - the sun is still above the horizon, yet we get this kind of snowstorm. Someone really loves us up there."

Goku was observing from one small porthole, fascinated. Even the double glazed glass felt cold under the touch of his fingertips. "I had never seen this kind of weather," he said. "People really live around here? How can they survive these conditions?"

"Oh, they can't." The officer shrugged. "We used to hold the Muscle Tower, south of here, and it's a massive base. But when the weather's like this you usually have to lock it all down. You stay cooped up, keep the heating up, and don't stick your foot outside for days at a time. I spent a whole winter there, once - I thought I'd go certainly don't go out fighting like we're doing now. These circumstances are a bit exceptional."

The driver was navigating by instrument more than by sight. A sonar produced a map of close obstacles, and a satellite navigator tracked the route up to a point.

"We're almost at the checkpoint," he said to Silver.

The officer nodded. "Just a minute." He consulted his tablet, then typed in a series of coordinates in the driving system. A new checkpoint appeared on the map. "Send that to the rest of the column as usual."

"Yes, sir."

"I could run forward and look for the Dragon Ball," suggested Goku, turning his attention to the commander. "I would be faster, and I think I can withstand the weather."

"Yeah, you probably could do it, but no," replied Silver. "This is our job too, and right now there is no reason to think our destination is compromised. I would rather stay together than divide our forces if it's not necessary."

Goku nodded. The Colonel seemed a practical, sensible kind of man. He did not care much for the sort of combat these people fought, but still, he could see the reflection of what he himself had learned in their strategies. When to attack, when to defend, when to conserve one's strength, avoid overstretching oneself or go in for the winning blow.

The column kept advancing, slowly, towards its objective.

Fighting was usually done on relatively plain terrain. Hills could already present some difficulty, especially if you weren't the one on top.

Perfectly vertical cliffs and the rocky flanks of mountains above the vegetation line were usually not an option at all.

"What a ridiculous place to pick as a battlefield," sighed Colonel Violet. "Rock climbing, just what I signed up for."

They were flying high in a series of dropships, staring at the mountain chain below from open hatches that almost five hundred soldiers were ready to parachute from. Unfortunately, there was nowhere to parachute on. The landscape was as inhospitable to any sort of landing as they come.

"You can stay behind if it's such a bother," said Giran, with a snarl. "I can do this by myself. But then again, I have wings."

"Yeah, rub that in our face, will you," she replied, annoyed.

"Can't you just lower these planes and climb down by ropes?"

"They have vertical jets, so normally it would be possible, but here? No, we can't. Terrain's too irregular and we're getting some very strong air gusts from below there - we can't get close enough and stay stable enough."

Colonel Violet shook her head and sighed.

"Very well, I guess there's no way out of it. We'll have to be creative. Major, how many mecha units do we have with us?"

The attendant shook himself from a moment of stupor as he'd been looking very worried at the mountains below and gave the answer with a moment of delay. "We have thirty units, and twice the qualified pilots, ma'am."

"Hm, five hundred divided by thirty... actually, make that three hundred, we want some people to stay in reserve... yes, that works, I think. So, here's the plan-"

She quickly explained her idea to an increasingly horrified Major, who nevertheless at the end stood on attention and went to pass on the orders. Then she checked her parachute and went to grab a capsule from a nearby locker. She approached the hatch again.

"You're doing that yourself?," asked the ptero next to her. "I'll give it to you, you've got guts."

"If I don't show theem how it's done, they won't trust me it can be done," she replied, matter of factly. "And I'm not taking any risks. You get down with me and grab me if anything goes wrong."

"If my claws don't slip," replied the other, with a cackle.

Colonel Violet took a deep breath, looked down, pushed the button of the capsule she was holding in her hand, and tossed herself out of the hatch. She had perhaps twenty seconds before impact. She immediately let the capsule go, tossing it below her. Giran jumped out too, following her closely.

One, two, three.

The capsule exploded into a puff of smoke, turning into a four-meters tall mechanical exoskeleton with a single pilot cockpit in front. The pressure from the blast slowed down Violet, who immediately turned herself headfirst to reduce air resistance, diving for the mecha. The mecha's systems on their part were programmed to immediately seek a stable stance and a soft contact with the ground upon being freed from its capsule, and so its jets turned on, stabilising and straightening up the machine, as well as slowing it down. What they weren't programmed to do, of course, was make it land on a harsh terrain after being tossed out in free fall several hundred meters above the surface.

Four, five, six, seven, eight.

Colonel Violet managed to reach the mecha, grabbing the handles behind it. She pushed a button, opened the cockpit, and pulled herself inside.

Nine, ten, eleven, twelve.

The ground was scarily close now, but the mecha was already ready to be used straight out of the capsule. Violet turned on the HUD, closing the cockpit's windscreen, grabbed the control sticks, and pulled with all her strength.

Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.

Wrenched from the automatic stabilisation system's control, the jets behind the mecha's back redoubled their power. Their powerful roar completely drowned all other noise inside the cockpit; but ultimately, the fall was broken. Canceling out its momentum, the mecha landed gracefully on its feet on a small rocky platform.

"Look what I have to do to earn my pay," said Violet in the radio, still short of breath for the effort, eliciting relieved laughter and cheering on the channel. Giran landed right next to her, who could now stare him down from the mecha's window. He acknowledged her triumph with a disgruntled thumbs up.

Around them, now, other pilots were repeating the Colonel's crazy feat. All around the mountain, like elementals spawned by some deep vein of metal, the steel giants were sprouting. Some of them started putting in action the next stage of the plan - either clearing promising surfaces of rocks and irregularities to ready them as landing areas for the others, or drawing open large life nets over ravines and chasms to create landing spots where there were none. The rest of the troops started joining them with their parachutes soon after.

"Here's the thing about wings," said Colonel Violet, winking at Giran from her cockpit. "We don't need them."

June

The package delivered to the lab was small but heavy. Bulma brought it to a table and started unwrapping it, and finally pulled a black, shiny cubic box out of its packaging of cardboard and foam peanuts.

"Laz, you'll want to see this," she called, admiring the item.

The blonde girl walked up from her desk without a word. As soon as she glanced the cube though she seemed to show some interest.

"Is that the thing you were waiting for?," she asked. "From Capsule Corporation?"

"Yes. You're going to work with it a lot, so best to make friends now."

"Just pipe it down, you two!," snarled Dr. Gero, from the other side of the lab, "I'm trying to work here!," and then went back to punching violently his keyboard.

The two girls sighed and shrugged in unison. Bulma drew an envelope with some cables inside from the box, opened it, and connected the device to a power plug. Some green LEDs turned on, and a cooling fan whirred.

"Seems like all is in order," she said, satisfied. She was tapping her phone, browsing through the available wireless networks; the cube had created its own, as expected.

Lazuli lifted the box, weighing it on one hand. "Are you going to explain me better how it works?"

"Ah, yeah, sure. That box contains a small hard drive on which all the data I've acquired from the Tenkaichi Tournament, not to mention all the parameters of the machine learning models I've trained on it, are stored. You're going to need those when we program the Mark II chips."

"But this isn't just a simple external hard drive, right?"

"Obviously not. The data is encrypted, and the encryption key needs to be authorised and requested from Capsule Corporation itself. Basically, what you're going to do is you'll use the names of various models when programming the chip - here's the manual with the full API documentation, by the way - and then you'll connect your computer to this, send a request for a decryption key to our central server, get it, and the data will be uploaded in the chip already in compiled form. Meanwhile the box re-encrypts everything with a different key, so it's single use."

"That seems awfully complicated. Why not just send the data over the internet from your server?"

"We thought this was, ah, safer. Physically carrying the data here, I mean. Less risk of interception, though that was marginal to begin with."

"Couldn't someone have just stolen the box in transit?"

"Oh, if they managed to get through the squadron of fighters that escorted it here, sure."

Bulma looked around and found a nice corner out of everyone's way and close enough to a power plug to place the cube in. She left it there and admired it, satisfied like a decorator that has just found the perfect place for that certain piece of minimalist artwork that would complete the room.

One instant later, one of the green LEDs started blinking red, and the device produced an unpleasant buzz.

"Doctor!," snapped Bulma, furious. "How is it that as soon as I connect this thing, I get an alarm for an unauthorised access attempt?"

July

It was the high pitched squeaking that drew Bulma's attention when she entered the lab on that day. She followed it until she found herself bending over Lapis' workbench, where he was lightly prodding a cute little white mouse with a small tool that had a tiny hook at one of its ends. He would grab and raise its leg in a way that the mouse tried to wrench itself free unsuccessfully; then he would push a button on a device next to him, observe the reaction, take some notes.

"Oh, good morning, Bulma," he greeted, cheerfully, as soon as he noticed her behind him. She nodded and looked intently at the mouse.

"Is that it? Does it have the chip installed?"

"Sure does," replied Lapis. He tapped the little hook on the mouse's back, where indeed one could see a slightly balder patch, and the skin having a stiffer shape than normal. "It's a bit too big for it since it's human-sized so it looks quite awkward, but I implanted it a week ago. Now it's healed and I'm running tests."

The girl looked on, interested. She stared at the mouse, who in turn seemed to stare back with its little red eyes.

"Can I touch it?," she asked, moving a finger closer.

"It's safe, but I'd rather you not. Less risk of contamination," he said. "Not that I'm implying that you're anything but clean, of course."

Bulma rolled her eyes. "Of course."

"So, is it working?"

"Hm, half and half," mumbled Lapis. "As far as health goes, he's doing great, there's no rejection, everything is fine. Well, the chip was made using an existing one as prototype so that's expected. Slight inflammation in the surrounding tissue, but I suspect that's more because of the surgery. The final product will be implanted in a less invasive manner."

"Then which half is not working?"

The other shook his head. "The actual chip. It's strange but we don't get any response at all. Now of course it's not a human so I would have been surprised if it did work right out of the bat, but I've been trying slightly different ways of stimulating different nerves, at different intensities, and so on, and nothing."

Bulma frowned. "Do you mean the chip is a failure?"

"I doubt that," replied Lapis. "It does exactly the same thing as your electrostimulator. No, I think, rather, perhaps for animals the rules are completely different. Or perhaps they just can't access that sort of energy at all."

"Is this you saying that only humans have souls?," she asked.

"I will never utter such unscientific words, that was all you," he laughed. "But I suppose you could put it that way. Perhaps."

She looked at the animal. It looked pretty, well, alive. Responsive, taking in the environment and all the strange things that were being done to it, and Bulma knew, probably smart enough to solve small problems, like finding the exit of a maze. Not like a human, but why would there be such a massive qualitative difference rather than just a quantitative one? She'd expect it to have simply, well, less soul.

Lapis tapped the side of the cage with his too, attracting her attention. "I would not get too attached if I were in you," he said. "After all the tests are done, I need to perform an autopsy, to check for any signs of neural damage or such. So you can guess what's going to happen to it."

"Oh." Bulma made a bit of a disappointed pout. "Do you never grow attached?"

"Eh, I've learned not to, I guess," he replied. "Which is kinda hard because I actually like animals a lot, weird as it may sound considering what I have to do. But farmers often like their animals too, I suppose. It's just how it goes. And in this case, I doubt mouse has ever died for a worthier cause."

"I don't think it cares much about that," pointed out Bulma.

"True that. Anyway, I'm very skilled at this, so at least it's going to be quick and painless. Not like whatever happened to the other mouse I had implanted with the chip, which disappeared from the cage, and then I found in a corner, still alive, cut open and with the chip ripped out straight from its-"

"DOCTOR!"

From:

To:

Date: August 12, 750

Subject: Progress!

Hi dad,

how are things back in the city? I hope it's all fine. Do you check on mom too now and then? You know, last time I left I hear you just forgot to talk to her for an entire week, so. Just asking.

Work's going well here. The HQ isn't the best place for a summer holiday but then again, this is not a holiday anyway, so hey, nothing to complain, right? Dr. Gero is still an ass, but his assistants are much nicer people. We get along well, though it's still only a work relationship. Because that's basically what we all do in every single waking hour anyway.

Anyway, glad to hear that the deliveries of the you-know-what packages are under way. And all the new equipment you built in CC has started arriving too. Really like the design - were you involved directly? It looks a bit like the kind of stuff you'd do.

As for the other thing that you know... it's going well! We have a working prototype. We've carried animal tests and are almost ready for a human trial run. We couldn't get it to really work for animals, but we tried adjusting the DOCTOR I KNOW YOU'RE READING THIS, DID YOU REALLY THINK I'D JUST DISCLOSE SENSITIVE INFORMATION IN THE OPEN LIKE THIS? OR NOT REALISE YOU WERE SNOOPING ON MY E-MAIL?

SERIOUSLY, JUST FUCKING STOP.

Now

The desert light was blinding, and the sand only compounded that, reflecting it in an almost white glare. The wind was just a breeze, but as usual, it was as hot as the breathe of a dragon. Not enough to cool you down, but enough to lift a few rogue grains of sand and push them in your eyes if you didn't pay attention. Not the most hospitable environment, nor one he really missed.

Still, standing in the Red Lizard Desert somehow felt like being back home after a long time away.

"Are we close to the Dragon Ball?," asked Yamcha to the tall woman in a military uniform standing next to him. She was inspecting the horizon with a pair of binoculars.

"Not very close," she replied. "The planes are too visible from the distance. For the last bit, we're going to be stealthier."

Major Cobalt snapped her binoculars close and handed them to an attendant. She replaced them with a pair of visor glasses, the same kind Yamcha wore. They doubled as protection from the sun and as a useful battlefield HUD, with all sorts of information visualised on it, like a compass on the top, temperature, windspeed, and the positions of the closest Dragon Balls detected by the radar. Though it was not able, of course, to tell between fakes and real ones, so there were a few of those showing.

Behind them, the soldiers were getting down from the air transports and unloading small crates containing their equipment. Once everything was off, they turned the planes back into capsules and put them in the crates; then they pulled out more capsules from them and tossed them on the sand. One after another, massive off-road cars with paddled and grooved tires, fit for travelling on the desert's sand, started popping up around them.

"Hah, sorry to break it to you," said Yamcha, snickering, "but those won't be stealthy at all. The clouds of sand they lift behind them makes them visible from very far. When I was a bandit here I-"

Cobalt flashed him an offended glance, and suddenly, he judged it more fitting to shut up. This woman reminded him a bit of Bulma, and it wasn't just the hair colour.

"Let's go," she said, simply, jumping on top of one of the cars.

Yamcha followed her, and saw that the soldiers were also drawing something else out of the capsules. Massive cylindrical tanks, which were now being fitted and hooked to the cars, connecting them with tubes to... something behind them he couldn't quite figure the use of.

They started. The column of vehicles begun its march in a disordered patter, without much in the way of formation. Still, Yamcha could tell that the ones on the flanks were lighter in transporting supplies and heavier on armaments. A few were more like pickups, with machineguns mounted on their cargo beds, and a soldier behind each.

And now the purpose of the tanks had become very clear. Each car was equipped with a sprinkler of sorts. As they ran through the desert, they sprayed water in a large, thin blade behind them. The water wet and trapped the sand they lifted off, thus keeping it down on the ground. There was almost no cloud to speak of.

"Well, sure, if you're willing to waste water like that...," commented Yamcha, annoyed. He had never even imagined someone might escape detection with such a trick, yet it was pretty obvious in hindsight.

"The fate of the world might be a stake here," replied Major Cobalt, turning the wheel sharply. The rest of the column followed her lead obediently. "Worrying about waste would be a bit strange. We're professionals, not bandits."

"I can see that," mumbled the boy. "How long are we going to keep this up?"

"A while. We need to reach the position of the Dragon Ball, and not by the straightest path. Once we're there, we'll establish a perimeter to control a decent sized area, and start our search. That's going to be mostly your job, but we'll all help."

"Why would the search be a problem? The radar-" said Yamcha, but then he caught himself. "Oh. I see. The Dragon Ball has been here for a year now, and sand in the desert moves around fast."

"Exactly right," said Cobalt. "So we're almost certainly going to need to dig. And then sift through all that sand to find it."

Yamcha groaned and tossed himself back on the seat. As far as acts of heroism went, this sounded like it would be the most boring one in history.

"I fear this will make things quite a bit more complicated, my friend."

Bandages nodded and made a grunt. Behind them was the main column of Red Ribbon vehicles and soldiers, led by Colonel Purple. In front of them was their destination, the location to which the radar pointed inequivocably as the source of the Dragon Ball's signal. Unfortunately, the location happened to be Cilantro Town, one of the small municipalities existing right at the outskirts of West City's metropolitan area.

"Are we sure we're not tracking one of the dummies?," asked Bandages. "That dumbass leading the soldiers looks like he might make the mistake."

"Please, Bandages, keep it down; we don't want to get on his bad side," pleaded Spike. "And, well, I see your point; but I think we are in the right location. It may be that the Dragon Ball has fallen here by chance, or it may be that someone found it in the surrounding countryside and brought it back. They could have thought an interesting curiosity, or perhaps an archaeological rarity."

The mummy snorted. "So what, we gotta raid a museum to get it back?"

"I would hope not; but that's the least of our worries. I see someone coming towards us, and it's going to be a headache. Look at their insignia."

Bandages squinted, following Spike's pointed finger. When he spotted the vehicles he was referring to, he groaned in displeasure.

Towards them were coming a handful of cars with the royal crest printed on their flanks and weapons mounted on top.

"Well, what's going on here!," blurted out Colonel Purple, catching up to the two men.

"King's men giving us a visit," replied Bandages. "Guess they don't much like us bringing a small army to the gates of an inhabited area."

The other huffed and his face reddened. "Well, this is preposterous! We have complete license to do whatever is necessary to complete our mission."

"I'm afraid this might be a communication failure, Colonel," said Spike, smiling. "Due to the secrecy of our movements, the Royal Defence Force has not been informed of our arrival; they already see the Red Ribbon with a certain degree of suspicion, so it is understandable they would be worried. If we only-"

"It is not understandable at all!" At odds with his short, stocky appearance, Colonel Purple's voice could raise to the shrillness of a soprano. "They know today we are carrying out the most important operation of this entire conflict! They should just move aside and let us do our job! Suspicion - they are just envious of members of a real army, rather than a bunch of glorified security guards, bureaucrats and meter maids..."

The cars stopped at a dozen meters of distance, and out came a few officers and many soldiers. They didn't take a hostile stance immediately, but they also did not appear completely off guard either. The soldiers all kept their rifles in hand, and discreetly fanned out, forming a line that shielded the cars. Meanwhile, the officers walked up to Colonel Purple. One of them, a tall man with broad shoulders and gray hair, wearing sunglasses, seemed to study him for a while before speaking up.

"I'm Major Jan from the Royal Defence Force," he introduced himself, talking slowly while chewing a gum. "Who do I have the pleasure to be speaking to?"

The other puffed up. "My official codename is Colonel Purple," he replied. "I demand that you let us pass. We have business in that little town behind you."

"Yeah, see, that's a problem." Jan shook his head. "The municipalities and all urban areas with population density above one hundred people per square kilometer are under our jurisdiction and protection, by royal decree. And that means protection from anyone, mate. If you require assistance, well, we can discuss that. But you can't just roll into town, tanks and all."

The other scoffed. "Believe me, Major, we can."

"Are you threatening an RDF officer, and the security of the King's territories? Because if it's a battle you want-"

"No one wants a battle here!," interjected Spike, waving his arms, then turning to Major Jan. "I apologise on behalf of our overenthusiastic friend. What he meant is that we have certain information that one of the items that the enemy is looking for-"

"I wasn't informed of any item, not in my city," interrupted Jan brusquely. "I was only told to keep anyone who could be a threat from getting too close. And I mean everyone."

"Well, of course they wouldn't know yet, we just found out, but if you could only ask your superior, I am sure that-"

"I don't need to ask anyone." replied Jan, sending a challenging stare at his Red Ribbon counterpart. "You need to motivate your presence here, or scramble. Or I'll make you."

"That is somewhat reasonable, yes, though a bit too inflexible. But I believe Colonel Purple can perhaps concede something, such as at least ask for permission to disclose the information about-"

"I will not concede a single thing!," proudly rebutted the Colonel. "I have absolute authority to carry this operation as I see fit, and I have my orders to not disclose classified information about my exact objective to anyone. This is not subject to negotiation. And if you want to make us 'scramble', as you say, you only have to try."

The two officers stared at each other, evidently trying to pierce each other's skull with the sheer power of their eyes. Behind them, their soldiers were starting to get fidgety and sort of uncomfortable.

"I'm not saying I want that to happen," grumbled Bandages, "but if King Piccolo got free and killed these two, they would totally have it coming."

"Alas, the darkness of human nature never truly leaves us," sighed Spike, shaking his head mournfully.

There were many models of exoskeleton available to Red Ribbon troops, thanks not in small part to the indefatigable work of Doctor Gero during the past years. Some of them were closer to full mecha suits, with closed cockpits, and carrying multiple weapons. Other were more intended for fast and agile movement on difficult terrain, and mostly consisted of an enhanced pair of legs. The latter type was the one that Colonel Green's troops had deployed to move among the thick tree cover of the northern forest. Each soldier wore one like a backpack - or rather, was secured to it. The exoskeletons had long, tall legs that bifurcated at the end for a last joint, and moved fluidly, giving a spider-like quality to their gait. They functioned almost as stilts, and the soldiers who commanded them by moving their real legs hung a good metre above the ground, with their arms free to grip and aim weapons. This force advanced through the forest without formation, relatively silently, at great speed, and perfectly covered by the leafage and tree trunks for any observer who were looking from above or far enough.

There was one man who did not use their contraptions to walk around. Despite his mole, he didn't have a problem keeping up with their speed; if anything, they had trouble keeping up with him. He didn't need to put much effort into walking on the difficult terrain either. He simply ran in a straight line. When a tree happened to intersect that line, too bad for it; the man would only swing his axe, chop it at its base, and sweep it away with a backhand strike. Whether this caused any collateral damage was not his concern.

"Shit!," shouted someone in the radio channel, and Colonel Green turned fast enough to see one colossal sequoia - a centuries old tree, cut off in a single instant - ruinously crumbling down on top of one of the men in the forward guard. The man managed to avoid the worst of it, but three round slices of the trunk, cut precisely like wheels, ended up rolling under the feet of his exoskeleton, causing it to fumble and fall badly. One of the metallic legs creaked, bent, and finally came apart at the joints, leaving the soldier on the ground, to curse his bad luck and the loss of a very expensive piece of equipment.

"Green-3, Green-4, help him!," shouted the Colonel, while trudging forward to avoid the risk of losing completely sight of the Ox King, who kept advancing relentlessly. "We should have still a few spares, give him one and catch up with us quickly!"

The two acknowledged the order and ran to execute it, separating from the main group. Green would not have acted like that normally - speed of execution required that he leave the soldiers with damaged units and recover them later, once the mission was done. However, their numbers were already dwindling, and worse, the soldier who would have to be left behind was one of those. The few chosen ones who had been blessed with Dr. Gero's and that civilian girl's latest invention, besides himself. And given how intemperant their 'support' was being, he could not leave behind such an advantage lightly.

"Ox King!," he shouted, hoping his voice would be loud enough to arrive clearly even at the speeds they were running at. "We do not need your collaboration, but at least stop undermining us!"

"I can't think of every little pest around!," was the response. "Told ya to fuck off! I can do this alone!"

Green gritted his teeth. There was no coming through to this guy; he was stubborn as a mule. Commander Black had ordered to still try and make use of his strength, which was admittedly amazing. But that meant they would have to find a way to coexist, and the Ox King wasn't exactly making it easy.

"Ok, Green Team, change of plans," he said, less loudly, in his radio, so that the King wouldn't hear him. Of course he had refused to carry any communication devices too. "Steer clear from that brute. We split and converge on the Dragon Ball in a pincher move. It means he gets to grab the Dragon Ball almost for sure, but the Commander said that's okay, so this is the next best thing. We can simply protect his flanks."

"Why do we have to protect his flanks?," protested someone who Green guessed must be the latest downed soldier, from the pain in his voice. "He's not exactly protecting ours."

"Because I say so! Now stop taking things personally and just do your job."

The group of Red Ribbon soldiers split in two, and Colonel Green took charge of the one going to the right. They diverged slightly from the path the Ox King was taking, witnessing the mayhem he was bringing to the forest from a respectful distance. Then they started advancing in parallel to him, able to move faster thanks to the lack of flying wood pieces - and thus keep up pace with him.

However, the trip would still take almost twenty minutes. When Colonel Green had learned where the Dragon Ball they were looking for was, he hadn't been very pleased. It was much more to the north than he had hoped, and due to the Ox King's attitude, they couldn't just use air trasport without ditching him altogether. But well, if the decoys had worked, that should not matter much. The Instruments could not just catch up in twenty minutes more or less.

"Colonel, look here!"

"What is it?"

"The terrain, sir."

Colonel Green stopped next to his subordinate and made his exoskeleton crouch down, so that he could see better what the other was pointing at. He frowned.

The forest they'd walked throughout until now was covered in a thick, perfectly uniform layer of foliage. Here however the foliage seemed to have been scraped and scrambled, and the bare dirt was visible under it. On the dark ground one could make out the striped outline of a boot's footprint.

"This wasn't one of ours?," asked Green.

"No, sir, I'm pretty sure. No one has gotten down from their exoskeleton, for any reason."

The other nodded and fell in silence. He gripped his weapon and tried to focus and sharpen his senses - to hear, see, smell anything that he had missed. But more than anything, he tried to think where the plan could have failed, where could they have given themselves away.

How had this happened?

"Sir," said the soldier, "should I-"

"No," cut the other short, while keeping a low voice. "At this point they might already have realised we have noticed, which means this is as good as a signal to start the attack as anything. They'll be training their aim on us as we speak. So don't take any brusque movements and don't use the communicator yet. Just get ready to get up and run for cover as fast as you can as soon as I count to three, ok? One... two..."

Before Colonel Green could finish, from the nearby trees the white hot streaks of two rockets pierced the air, aimed straight at them.

August

"I have the most horrible sense of deja-vu."

The experiment setup looked less like a torture device this time, but the way the last one had ended still elicited some bad memories from Bulma. There still was a reclining padded armchair, there were still straps securing her to it, and there were electrodes and other diagnostic devices monitoring the girl's vital signs and brain waves. At the base of the seat there was an opening, and through it, one could see the lower part of Bulma's back, naked, as the only thing she was wearing above her waist was a bra. A circle and a cross had been drawn at the meeting of two vertebrae with a red marker, and now Doctor Gero was treating the area with a gauze imbibed with ethanol to sterilise it. The pungent smell of the chemical reached her nostrils and made her wince a bit. On the sidelines, a bit away from the chair, the twins were witnessing the scene, Lapis visibly enthused and Lazuli with her usual indifferent expression.

"Can you give me a moment before starting?," asked Bulma.

"You want to chicken out now?," grumbled Gero, raising his eyes. "I thought you wanted this."

"No, I do want it, I just need to mentally prepare myself to-OUCH!"

The sting came sharp and sudden, and one moment later, the pain was gone, and only a residual burning sensation was left. Doctor Gero raised from behind her, with the injector gun that had just pierced her back still clenched in his hand.

"No, you didn't, see?," he said, with a sardonic grin. "No better time than now."

"You old bastard! You have all the bedside manner of a butcher! I swear as soon as I get untied I-"

During that whole outburst, Bulma had been pulling hard at the straps holding her down in her anger. She didn't really expect to tear them or anything. What stopped her in her tracks was realising that she just had done that.

"Huh," she said, curiously observing the wrist she'd managed to free with sheer brute force. "It worked."

"Of course it did! It's our work, don't you have any faith in it?," snarled Gero.

"No, I did think it would work of course, I just didn't expect it to be this... natural." Using her freed hand, Bulma untied the other, then her ankles. "With the stimulator I had to consciously turn a knob, but now... this..."

She looked at her hand, started closing it and opening it back again, progressively faster, until she realised she was starting to feel significant strain - and to everyone else's eyes, her fingers must have looked like a blur.

"I could get used to this," she concluded, with a grin.

"Hah. Better not to, girl," Gero said, always the spoilsport. "It still has exactly all the limitations of your old stimulator in terms of what it does to your body. Go overboard and it will wreck you; but now you need to learn where your limits are the hard way, because there is no visible scale."

"Hmm-mm."

Bulma nodded and went for a walk around the lab. She jumped up and down a couple times, ran a bit in circles, all while feeling up her own body, trying small movements, lifting the occasional object to test her strength.

"No, I get it," she said. "It's also all or nothing like the stimulator; nothing close to the sort of finesse and control a natural martial artist can exert. Which is a pity, given how much damage excess use can cause. Still..."

She jumped up next to the twins, and looked at Lazuli with a mischievous smile. Before she could react or say anything, Bulma grabbed her at the waist and lifted her up effortlessly, the way one would a baby, in spite of the fact that she was probably slightly heavier than her.

Even the usually impassible girl couldn't help making a small yelp of surprise.

Lapis was delighted. "I so want to try this next!," he said.

"Certainly not on me," snapped back his sister.

"Oh, you know what I mean, sis."

"I'd easily declare the Mark II prototype a resounding success," said Bulma, putting Lazuli down with a pleased smile. "Now let's make a whole lot of these."

"Is everyone here?"

Sixty soldiers of the Red Ribbon, among which were six commanding officers, were lined up in front of a wall, standing stiffly, chests bare, arms crossed behind their backs.

"They are the best of their respective units," said Commander Black, gesturing at them, "both in physical conditioning and tactical skill. If you only have to give this thing to ten of each-"

"That's the limit. King's orders, not mine," replied Bulma.

"Yes, I understand well. Not enough to overcome a single natural martial artist in a protracted fight, right?"

The girl looked a bit uneasy. Obviously, that was the gist of it, but she didn't know about putting it so bluntly in front of the chosen few. It didn't feel very motivational.

The Commander waved his hand. "I'm not about to start haggling on that, though if you ask my personal opinion, there's perhaps too much thought given to politics and too little to protecting the world from Piccolo in the way this mission is being organised. Anyway, they are the best we can offer, and realise the importance of their role. Go ahead."

Dr. Gero walked to the first one of the men, carelessly manhandling his body. He grabbed and squeezed his arm, prodded and poked him in the chest and the back, forced a reflexive jerk with a sharp hit to the knee. The soldier tried his best to remain impassible.

"Hmm, yeah, that'll do it," commented Gero. "At least we're not starting from zero here, like with the scrawny girl."

"Hey!," shouted Bulma.

"What? Just stating facts." He didn't even turn to meet her pissed off gaze. "Pass me the injector."

Bulma grumbled and got a device from one of the caches she had carried to the courtyard. She had used a low level of ki emission to strengthen herself, but not beyond the level of a physically fit adult man, so it still had been pretty heavy. Still, she had gotten in the habit of keeping her ki on at all times at that sort of low level, until she got used to it. That should gradually mprove her resistance to more extreme (and useful) emission levels too, in theory; not to mention, it just made life easier in so many little things. Her only worry was that it would affect her muscles enough to show - she didn't exactly feel like sporting a body builder's appearance. But for now, nothing like that was happening.

The device she passed to Gero looked like a small gun. It had a large, thick needle, and a broader cylindrical barrel. Inside was the Mark II Human Enhancement chip, of course, which had been fashioned in a needle-like shape itself.

"Turn," said the doctor to the soldier. When the other obeyed, Gero brought the injector to his back, between the first and second lumbar vertebrae, where the third chakra was located according to the old maps. This part had to be done carefully to avoid causing any damage to one's spine, but Gero's practiced hand - and possibly, his disregard for the safety of his patients - made it look effortless. He just slid the needle in diagonally, grazing the spinal column without touching it, and pushed the trigger. With a hiss, the chip slid inside, and lodged itself right under the soldier's skin.

"Just get ready to get up and run for cover as fast as you can as soon as I count to three, ok? One... two..."

Before Colonel Green could finish, from the nearby trees the white hot streaks of two rockets pierced the air, aimed straight at them. The tops of the trees from which the rockets had been fired were only a couple dozen metres away from their current positions; the rockets themselves could travel faster than 70 m/s, and their shockwave radius was large enough to make it all but futile for a human being to even think of avoiding death from such a point blank attack.

But during the last weeks, through the special training sessions that had drilled the concept into him, forcing him to relearn all he had given for granted, Colonel Green had come to realise he did not have to consider himself strictly human any more.

A mere thought was all it took, like trying to command a limb or organ he did not even realise he had before. Power surged throughout his body, flowing into his muscles as well as his eyes, and his very brain. He could see the rockets flying at him, but they were hopelessly slow, now. He saw the surprised and terrified face of his companion, and realised with chilling calm he could not do much for him. He was not among the chosen for this unit; any pull fast enough to wrench him away from the blast of the rocket would itself destroy his body with the sheer acceleration. Saving his own life was the priority, here. Green did not think he could deflect the rockets. He had not practiced anything requiring both that much control and strength, and again, he would have had to make sure that the sudden accelerations simply didn't make them blow up. So, the only real option left was to dodge. He gathered his power in his legs, and with a single push he wrenched himself out of the exoskeleton's harness and jumped laterally, not very high, but far, further than he had ever jumped in his life, far enough to leave every champion he'd ever seen win a medal for that discipline completely in the dust. He felt the weakness and pain wreak his body already mid-jump - in the urgency of the situation, he'd probably tapped into as much power as his body could take - and urged himself to relax, while making sure to keep enough energy circling to survive the landing of his own jump. One instant later, he was rolling on the soil and dead leafs on the forest's floor, while behind him two rockets exploded, destroying his exoskeleton and snuffing out the life of one of his soldiers.

"Help me!," he shouted, calling to the closest man he could see. He couldn't move any more. The strength had left him, and his whole body was on fire. But at least he was still alive, for now.

Someone rushed next to him and lifted him up. Someone else was shouting orders as well as incoherent rage. Gunfire started all around.

"It's a trap! They were waiting for us!"

"Kill the bastards!"

No, they were getting too fired up, thought Green. This was bad. They needed to keep their cool, retreat as soon as possible, deny the enemy the advantage of fighting on their chosen terrain. What good was being still alive if his unit would be effectively decapitated anyway because he couldn't command?

"Stop them...," he managed to get out, in a hoarse, raspy voice, to the man that had lifted him up. "...we need to... avoid engaging here... draw them into our own pace instead of playing into their hands..."

The man nodded. God, he could barely even see his face. Everything looked like it was just light and darkness, black silhouettes on a white background. Even his eyes hurt.

"Hey, you idiots!," shouted the soldier in his radio. "Move back and regroup! Captain's orders! We're going to make them pay nice and slow for this one!"

Green felt a bit more relieved hearing that. That was good; perhaps not everything was lost. That was as much as he could manage, though. From then on, they would have to deal with the problem on their own. Pain flared up again, and then finally faded away, as the colonel felt himself fall into unconsciousness.

"Green team here!"

The radio feed came to life suddenly in the control room and startled Bulma. It sounded less clean than they usually were - the voice of the operator sounded panicked and panting too, and were those sounds of gunfire in the background?

"We're under attack, repeat, we're under attack!," screamed the voice. "The Instruments had set a trap - they were ahead of us somehow!"

There were many exclamations thoughout the room, but most reacted just with stunned surprise. General Copper was the first one to respond.

"Calm down, soldier! What's your status? Relay your situation clearly and precisely," he said.

"Yes, sir - FUCK!"

There was an explosion and a series of gunshots. Bulma exchanged a worried look with Lapis. Behind her, Gero was mumbling unintelligibly among himself.

"-sorry, sir," continued the soldier on the radio. "Colonel Green was attacked. He managed to escape with his life but he's currently knocked out cold by his excessive ki use. Two more of our enhanced are in the same condition, having helped to cover our retreat. We lost another one in combat. Five non-enhanced soldiers have died too."

"Retreat?," asked Copper, outraged. "Why are you even-"

"That was a good call." Commander Black interrupted from his own feed, live from the capital. The King and Dr. Briefs, next to him, were listening tensely. "What of the Ox King?"

"He's nowhere to be seen, sir. Colonel Green had us diverge from his route because he was damaging our own troops with his recklessness. We lost sight of him right before we were attacked."

Bulma suddenly bolted up from her seat. "Then what about the Dragon Ball!?"

The General threw her a dirty look, but didn't override her question.

"I don't know," replied the soldier. "We're fighting for our life here. We will try to advance on the Dragon Ball's position once we have secured our own, but that might take a while."

"Focus on doing that. Recovering the Dragon Ball would be pointless if you can't withdraw with it afterwards," said the Commander. "General Copper, get in touch with the other teams. Securing at least one Dragon Ball as soon as possible is now an absolute priority. We can afford to lose one, if it comes to that."

"Commander, now that the girl's plan has failed-" started the General, but Black cut him short.

"We can't say that Miss Bulma's plan has failed yet," he replied. "This could simply be a coincidence. Maybe the Instruments happened to have a force waiting in position nearby our own, observed their movements and were quick to react. This was always a possibility. Our safety lies in numbers. In one location, this might happen; but if it happened in all six, or even just another-"

A second radio feed opened with a scratch and some soft white noise. Everyone fell silent. Bulma clutched her hands so tight, her fingertips were getting white. In fact, she could clutch quite a lot, now, and that wasn't really a good thing for her hands on that specific day. Every hope she had for this to go smoothly rode on her decoys - that, she thought, was their most powerful weapon, even more powerful than the Mark II chips. If that failed, the outcome could be far more uncertain.

"Uhm, do you hear me, yeah?," said a familiar grumpy voice. "This thing working?"

"We hear you just clear," General Copper was more than a little annoyed. "Identify yourself."

"Ah, yeah, it's me, Bandages," said the voice. "From Purple team."

"Why are you the one calling us? Where is Colonel Purple?" asked the General.

There was a moment of embarrassed silence, in which it sounded like Bandages was talking with someone else away from the mic. The whole room waited, tense.

"He's kinda dead," said the mummy, finally. "We're under attack."

New chapter, right before the end of the year! I've slowed down a bit because I had to decide some things about the future of the story, but the Christmas holidays helped me think more about it and I think I've got it down now. Thanks as usual for all the reviews! It makes me especially happy to hear that people enjoy the days when a chapter comes out (I'll try to make those a little more frequent, also because I'd like getting to some stuff I'm really itching to write) or that they're even re-reading the story.

One answer in particular to Navarone2013: ki is the spiritual energy; chakras are the seven points through which it enters the body. They're supposedly positioned along the spinal column, from head to coccyx. I see these as contact points between the body and the soul, so to speak, in the setting of the story. Also, it's going to be made clearer next chapter, but no, the chip isn't as good or useful for Goku as it can be for weaker humans. Though for those the principle is indeed quite similar to kaioken.