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

Chapter 48 - Do not go gentle into that good fight

"He's anxious. He's afraid."

"Good. But not dead yet. Moving to Plan C."

Bulma had been hoping it might not come to this, and known it most likely would. It did not matter - she was prepared. She had plans, she had always plans. Her enemy was a dumb, angry, ignorant beast who from his perspective had been dumped into an incomprehensible future three centuries ahead of his time and had not bothered studying any of it. She was the foremost expression of that time - the first human to transcend completely her limits by power of technology alone. It wasn't enough to go toe to toe with Piccolo in a direct clash, but she would be stupid to do that. Her personal hand to hand combat experience was limited to the one time she'd scuffled with a bitchy little girl called Becky in seventh grade, and she couldn't even apply those lessons here because the Demon King had no hair to pull. So, hit and run tactics it was.

Piccolo had stopped trying to regenerate, and seemed now resigned to his newly diminished condition, one arm and one leg down. Bulma didn't think the poison would work forever, but it did not need to. If this wasn't over in a few minutes on her terms, it wouldn't matter - she and everyone in West City would be dead. It would be up to Goku then, and hopefully he could hold his own against this enemy without any need for handicaps. But that was no way to think now - having backups helped in the planning phase, not on the battlefield. Here, Bulma had to look straight at her opponent, summon all of her rage, the memories of the monstrosities this thing had inflicted on humanity, and let her pride and indignation fill her heart to the point of bursting. And brimming with all of those feelings, she had to absolutely, positively, without a shred of doubt know that victory was going to be hers.

Piccolo knew anger and hatred very well. Piccolo was not acquainted with fear.

There had not been much occasion for it, after all. He had never been truly threatened, let alone defeated fair and square. He had been tricked once because he'd been taken by surprise; he could not be afraid of the Mafuuba before he suffered its consequences. Perhaps the closest he'd come was when he'd believed the Crane Master might use it on him as well, and that problem had been... swiftly solved.

On the battlefield of West City, standing below a young girl with a defiant smirk on her face, Piccolo knew fear.

It was an unusual feeling, but not an extraneous one to his mind. After all, he was the centre of his own world, the only thing that mattered, and what could be more important than preserving that continued existence? If someone had been merely trying to kill him, he could have felt outraged by the arrogance, but now that things that he didn't understand were happening to his body, he had to contend with the possibility that this girl couldn't merely try, but succeed. And that was unbearable.

In fear, Piccolo found something he usually had a hard time achieving: focus. There was a clear objective in his mind now, and it was to kill the girl. Not for pleasure or revenge, but for pure utility. She had to die, quickly, efficiently, as soon as needed so that the danger might end.

He really put all he could in the jump. Pushed off his remaining leg with a burst of ki that sent him speeding like an arrow on a straight line towards the girl, claw outstretched, ready to tear through her body.

He did touch her - barely. She slid out of the way in an uncanny motion, and only the very bottom of her calf was close enough that one of Piccolo's fingers ripped the fabric and left a single red line of blood on its skin. Then, before the Demon King could recover from the surprise, something hit him in the back of his head, and everything went dark.

Bulma's eyes widened as she realised just how close she'd come to instant defeat - what the fuck was that? She'd never seen Piccolo act in such a direct and efficient way. She could not have dodged on her own, one of her many defences had kicked in. A little script installed in her cybernetic system detected oncoming ki signatures and sent out enough energy to push her out of the way in the optimal direction. The resulting feeling was very unpleasant, akin to being grabbed suddenly by the hand of an invisible giant and shaken around like a ragdoll, but it ought to be better that whatever would have happened if that had hit her, thought Bulma. Her arm was still outstretched, the Nyoibo extended and piercing through Piccolo's brain. She retracted it, letting the blood gush out, and decided she had time to get another hit in before regeneration kicked in, so she extended it in rapid succession a few more times, aiming at heart and other vital organs, leaving a hole in each. The pole was piercing the demon's stomach when she felt a tug - she retracted it right in time before Piccolo spun around and snatched it out of her hand with the torsion. The hole in his brain, the only one that would stop him moving or thinking for a while, had closed itself already. That was faster than expected from his previous regenerations.

Piccolo attacked again, but this time, Bulma knew what to expect. A straight charge, a speed burst with lots of power behind it but very little ability to turn. She saw it, and while she could not match it in speed, she didn't need to. She merely dodged to the side again and repeated the move from before. Piccolo raised his arm, the pole got stuck into his palm and deflected enough to not reach his brain. This time, she could not hang onto it or retract it in time, decided Bulma, and she simply let go of it, cutting her losses. Uninterested, Piccolo merely shook it off and tossed it somewhere to the ground, pursuing her a third time. Faster, more precise, with less time between each attempt. His ki control was growing finer by the second, Bulma could see. A feeling of dread started mounting into her, but she quickly swallowed it down.

No, fuck it. He was getting a little better, so what? She'd planned this with ample error margins. It would only be a bit closer. There was no point going with her original plan. She'd thought she could keep her ki output to the kind of level she could sustain indefinitely, and clearly, that wouldn't be enough. It didn't matter. The battle had to end quickly anyway. She pushed her emissions higher. It would burn and hurt in a few minutes, but for now, she felt the rush throughout her body and mind. Her thoughts got faster and clearer, her sight more acute and reactive, her muscles stronger, her skin harder, her flight faster. When Piccolo moved again, she could follow him much more clearly, spin out of the way with a graceful pirouette of her own accord, and even punctuate that with a kick to his back, which sent him off balance and messed up his next attempt at turning. A bit more time earned.

Since she'd lost the Nyoibo, she trusted her allies would be setting another bit of the plan in motion right about now. A new weapon would be here in seconds - Colonel Silver was in charge of tossing it to her. But that was the thing. At the speeds at which they were fighting, at which her and her enemy's thoughts ran, even the few seconds it would take for that one object to fly in a parabola from a nearby roof to her hand would last ages. That was the fundamental truth of fighting at heightened speeds in a duel of superhuman feats, Bulma had already realised days ago when planning all of this. Some of her technology could keep up with her, but her allies, the city that supported her and ardently believed in her victory, would be left hopelessly behind. It was like fighting in a silent bubble, isolated from the world by a barrier of time. Here, in the heart of battle, she was alone, victory in front of her and Hell at her back.

For now, it would be simple. She thought of those times she'd played videogames in which she had to dodge every single one of the boss's attacks until it exposed its vulnerability. She thought of the times she'd played tag with other children, or as some called it in the eastern areas of the world, the Demon's Game. It would be just like that, with her life on the line, until she could strike back.

She ripped off her shirt with one hand, revealing under it the kind of practical outfit a girl like her would bring to a deadly fight - a black sports bra and a double bandolier crossing her chest with capsules loaded in pockets. She swiftly slid six of them out in succession, holding three per hand between her fingers, ready to be loaded and tossed.

Very well, she thought, with a wry smile. Let's play the Demon King's Game.

He was getting closer, Piccolo had been sure of it, and then the girl had accelerated further again. Was she toying with him? Was she holding back, absurd as the thought was?

Piccolo almost let anger take over again at such an outrageous thought, but then the cold necessity of fear washed over him at the thought of what that would mean. She might have gotten faster, but she still was not fast enough to outfly him. Her only advantage was her agility. All she needed to do was make one mistake. All Piccolo needed to do was keep on pursuing her, relentless, like death itself.

The girl had taken off her shirt now, and was holding something. No matter - her previous weapon was surely her most dangerous one, and he'd managed to force her to drop it. Piccolo pushed forward again, this time leaning towards her right side. As he flew, he built up ki for a burst to the left. As soon as she dodged, he'd follow up, and that would be the end of her.

She swiped a hand, something flew forward. Piccolo plunged onwards relentlessly. The thing exploded in a cloud of smoke, and Piccolo smashed into a crate, metal giving way before his claws like paper, and then-

The burst of light was blinding, and exploded right into his eyes. Confused, stunned, unable to see, Piccolo let the energy out for that turn he'd been preparing, but ended up gracelessly tumbling into the air. The girl wasn't there; she hadn't moved one inch from her original position.

Piccolo was about to pursue again when he noticed the girl's eyes flickering for a moment upwards. He followed her gaze to spot something in the distance - a tiny metallic object flying towards them. The girl immediately focused her attention on him again, but it was too late - she'd betrayed herself. Piccolo now knew where she was going to go. With that knowledge, she was as good as dead. He grinned.

Piccolo noticed, realised Bulma. She'd not been discreet enough and now he knew about her goal and before she could reach it he'd be on her. But she couldn't afford to cut her losses this time, which meant it was time for a riskier play. She could see him preparing for a new burst of flight. She would have to do the thing he least expected, the one that would catch him the most by surprise.

Bulma raised her ki flow once more. This time she could feel the strain on her body, the hair beginning to stand on end on her arms from the slight static charge build up. She focused and prepared to do the craziest thing she'd ever done in all her life.

And then she attacked.

She was right, Piccolo didn't expect that. She flew straight at him, as fast as she could, and before he could react, she kicked him in the chest, right in the diaphragm. Not much damage, but she did kick the breath out of him, it seemed, from his bulged out eyes. But there was no time to take satisfaction in that - using the enemy as a trampoline, Bulma pushed off him and flew in the opposite direction, straight towards her goal, the little shiny metallic ball. She hoped that the surprise and pain would keep Piccolo off guard for long enough that once he started in pursuit, he'd be too late to catch up to her.

She was wrong.

He did lose some time, true, and she was almost two thirds of the way when he flew forward, but it still wasn't enough. Bulma twirled another one of her capsules between her fingers; this called for another stun bomb. She tossed it behind her, without even looking. The bang and light washed over her from behind, and she thought this must have bought her just a little more-

Her dodging system kicked in again and she was wrestled out of her trajectory just in time to avoid Piccolo's charge. He had not been stopped at all - he had learned from the previous time, it seemed, and was unfazed this one. Having missed her, though, he didn't stop to try and hit her, and simply went straight for the prize. He wanted to grab and destroy the little metal ball before she could catch on to it. He was ahead now, and Bulma couldn't hope to reach him.

She gritted her teeth, readied a third capsule, clicked the button and tossed it forward as fast as she could. Piccolo was right below the little sphere, ready to grab it, when the thing transformed and a crate weighing almost 100 kg hit him at the base of the neck. Not enough to hurt him the way the railguns did, but sure painful enough. That was only part of it, though. As Piccolo bucked forward, the crate exploded, this time not in a flashbang but in a dense cloud of thick, sticky smoke. The Demon King still relied only on sight, which would be his downfall. He grasped upwards blindly, looking for the little metallic sphere, but didn't find it.

A few metres above, where the explosion had projected the object, Bulma finally grabbed it safely. The metallic sphere, obviously, wasn't just that. As she grasped it, it burst in a puff of smoke and reshaped itself as a sword; the handle fitting snugly in her hand, the curved blade gleaming with strange rainbow diffraction patterns in the sunlight. At the base of the hilt was a tiny, creepy little pair of lips.

"This better work," said Oolong.

"Shut up and watch," hissed Bulma.

She dove down, into the cloud of smoke that still had Piccolo confused, holding her breath to avoiding being choked, her eyes closed since they would be useless anyway. There was nothing else other than her enemy that she needed to see, and he glowed bright as day on her HUD due to all the energy he leaked. He must have felt the changing pressure because he turned around to hit her, but missed miserably as Bulma didn't even need to rely on her scripts to dodge a blinded opponent. She ducked, then swung the blade upwards.

She had known what transformation magic was capable of since her little tussle with Puar. All it had taken was teaching Oolong the ropes; it was much safer anyway, given that he wasn't able to hold his form for more than five minutes, nor was he merged with Capsule Corporation's AI mainframe. A blade with a perfect monoatomic edge, the sharpest possible sword that she could never have forged by other means, sliced cleanly through Piccolo's forearm, cutting flesh and bone alike.

The Demon King remained dumbfounded for a moment, then immediately tried to segue with a kick with his right leg, but Bulma was ready for that too. She swirled around, cut again. Another limb gone, and now Piccolo was just a head on a torso, lost in a cloud that robbed him of his sight.

And Piccolo did something that made Bulma's heart dance with joy. Piccolo fleed. Suddenly seeing his disadvantage, and surely looking to regenerate, the monster flew upwards, as fast as he could. Fast enough that Bulma couldn't hope to catch up. But she didn't need to.

She wasn't born or trained a swordswoman. But she wasn't fighting one either. All she had, all she needed, were little nudges and assists from her own cybernetic energy system, optimising and refining her movements to maximum efficiency, so that each cut was true. Dr. Gero's dedication on creating the perfect cyborg warrior had crossed well past the line of sanity, and she got to reap all the benefits of that now. So the next move came as natural and felt as safe as every other to her. She tossed her sword in a perfect line, faster than she could fly, faster than Piccolo could fly. It jammed itself right into his skull, impaling it upward from chin to top. The creature stopped, his eyes glazed over and lost focus. One moment later, Bulma was up, grabbing her sword's handle and slicing it out of Piccolo's head with more splattering of blood and brains. His body was twitching, and now was time for one last blow. She turned the blade horizontal, swiped it towards the neck.

The head flew.

With an incoherent scream, Bulma extended her left palm, and from it let out a burst of energy. It was like pure pain flowing through her arm and out of her hand, and to be sure, it wouldn't have damaged Piccolo regularly, but now that his head was detached from the rest of his body it didn't have the benefit of the spiritual energy it would receive from it. It reacted like any old lump of organic matter, and was incinerated.

The rest of the Demon King's body fell down, flopping in the wind, without control. Bulma finally lowered her ki flow, heaving from the effort.

"Holy shit," muttered the weapon she'd just done all of that with. "You really got him."

"Taste," she said, still needing to catch her breath between one word and the other, "taste, the edge, of, the Hogblade."

The Hogblade loudly groaned.

The soul was a mysterious thing. Piccolo's entire world went dark, and he felt yanked in an alien direction, perpendicular to reality itself. But then, suddenly, he stopped.

He saw but without eyes, heard but without ears. Free from the furious raging of the flesh, the adrenaline and quick beating heart and firing neurons, he experienced uncanny clarity. He was floating, yet not free. There was a tether still anchoring him to the material plane - no, there were two. One was broken and flapping in the wind, but the other still held. It led somewhere in the distance, to a far away place that Piccolo only felt contempt for. An utterly disgusting abyss he could not imagine sinking into.

But here, here he could think. Flashes and bits of knowledge bubbled up to his awareness suddenly, things he'd all but forgotten, learned in a life that was not his life. With them came different notions, different thoughts too, but he did not care for those. While the hatred and fear were not wracking his mind any more, his desire to kill the girl stood.

She had an advantage because she played on her home turf. She had all her machines, and her weapons, and all the little tricks she knew inside out and he'd never seen. Three hundreds years of accumulated cunning were a lot, even for puny humans. But that could be made use of. Fighting at home had advantages, sure, but it could also turn out to be a big mistake.

It meant you had a lot to lose.

As the broken tether started to reform, pulling him back to the material plane and its endless grind of misery, Piccolo's soul could only smile, but without a mouth.

"He's not dead."

The news reached Bulma through her internal radio; it was unwelcome, but not unexpected. A girl could hope, but reality was a different matter.

"Guessed he'd be basically immortal, at this point," she concluded, still heaving from the previous effort.

"It's more than that," croaked Baba's voice, dismayed. "Something weird is going on inside him. I can't make sense of it!"

She looked at the distant body of the Demon King, still falling down at terminal velocity. It twitched, and she saw his flesh bubbling with activity at the neck stump.

"This was expected. We continue as agreed. That should have taken a toll, anyway."

She could go after him. Inflict more damage on his mangled body while he was regenerating, anything that would burn up his ki faster, get them closer to their goal. She could try to - no, she couldn't risk it yet. And coming close was bound to end badly if he regenerated any sooner than she expected. One wrong move, and the game was over for her. That made sense, but she desperately hoped it wasn't also her fear and desperate need for a bit of time to breathe and recover that biased her judgement.

"Should we hit him with a railgun?," suggested helpfully Lapis.

"No," replied Bulma. "We'd waste ammo for little benefit and toss his body far away. We want to keep him within the safety bounds."

There was an invisible circle drawn around the stadium where the battle had started, something like 100 metres in radius. It included the stadium itself, a nearby multi-story parking lot, a few other low buildings. Within that area the railguns had the best line of sight, and they'd made sure to evacuate all non combatants. That was the area designated for fighting. If Piccolo ever managed to leave it, things would get uglier.

The falling body of the Demon King stopped in mid air. Strands of nerves and muscle wormed their way out of his neck wound; a spine and skull began reforming.

"Here we go," muttered Bulma, steadying her breath. She held the sword at the ready.

Eyes grew like bubbles in their orbit, teeth and tongue sprouted on a horribly slacked lower jawbone before cheeks and lips tied it and pulled it up; ears and eyelids grew back last. Piccolo stared at her now, silent, waiting.

"You grabbing my handle real hard, huh?," said the Hogblade.

"Oh, shut the fuck up," muttered back Bulma.

That there was time for that stupid exchange was what worried her. Piccolo was fully conscious and healed, yet he wasn't acting. Was he thinking something? Was he trying to test her, trying to provoke her into making the first move? Was she failing the test by waiting, exposing herself as tired and afraid, if she didn't dive in, or was that the trap? In fact, since when did Piccolo play mind games at all?

She was about to ask Baba for her insights when Piccolo moved. He thumbed his nose and blew out some of the green goop he secreted when regenerating from his nostril. He surely noticed when even that tiny, inoffensive gesture caused Bulma to raise her guard.

He looked at her and grinned.

And then, suddenly, he flew away. He flew at maximum speed in exactly the opposite direction, away from Bulma, and for a moment she was puzzled as to whether that staring context was just a preamble to him fleeing again, until it hit her what that despicable monster was going for.

"DIRECT CONTROL OF THE RAILGUNS TO ME!," she shouted. "NOW!"

She flew in pursuit as the order came through and her heads up display started showing up thin red lines of fire and targeting solutions, and little spots on her arm tingled, ready to accept instructions she could send by directing the right amount of ki to them. The weapons were still operated by a mix of computer tracking and human assistance, but now she could send the order to fire directly. Still, she should have asked for that system to be turned on earlier; the order was slow, slow to come through. It felt like forever as she flew towards Piccolo, the gap still widening anyway, and as she saw him come closer and closer to the edge of the safe zone, straight towards the city. It had been all of one second when the system finally came fully online. Piccolo was about to cross one of the red lines.

Directing her energy with a single thought, she gave the order.

The shell arrived one instant too late. It barely nicked Piccolo's foot and went down to crash into the ground. Piccolo was flying faster than she'd anticipated; even from such a distance, the turrets' tracking systems could hardly keep up. She felt desperation mount inside her - she could see the margins of safety they'd drawn whittle away every instant, as the enemy came closer and closer to the edge of the safe area. Beyond, the city had not been evacuated, and he was aiming straight for the most populous residential area he could find. Bulma remembered too well seeing what he had done to the Capital. It would not happen again, not here, not in front of her, not to the people she had sworn to see safe through the other end of this battle she'd led them into.

Piccolo slowed down. Energy started building up in the palm of his hand.

Hope gave Bulma renewed strength. He'd made a mistake. She aimed a railgun, just barely at the edge of what she could get away with before the line of fire ended up in an inhabited area. She gave the order in the same instant in which she called everything she had for a single burst of flight.

The energy flared up within her, and she let it, without regard for her own safety. It burned like molten lead in her veins, it made her muscles twitch like electricity flowing through her; the girl felt like she had to fight it just not to have her own strength burst every bone in her body and her heart pump her blood out of her veins. She willed it out, instead, pushing it away from her feet. As she got rid of that painful charge, the boost it gave her projected her forward. Piccolo was still loading his attack; the supersonic capsule fired from the railgun morphed in mid air, turning into one of the massive shells he'd been hit by before. It was not in his blind spot, and even though the air's vibrations couldn't possibly have reached him, he must have seen it, because the demon stopped focusing on his attack and moved a bit backwards.

I got him!

Bulma caught up, sword raised, ready to hack away. But Piccolo didn't just stop; he slightly turned, instead, and revealed a thin slice of a devious grin on his face, before raising his leg, spinning it backwards. The foot aimed straight at Bulma's sternum in a perfect, unavoidable kick.

Oh, shit. she thought, in a strange, long moment of calm awareness. It was a trap.

The kick hit her perfectly in the middle of her chest, crushing the remaining capsules she still wore, cracking her bones, rattling her organs. Bulma was projected backwards, like a lifeless ragdoll, sent hurling to go crash into the ground below. She hit it, bounced, fell again on her head, remained there, arms and legs splayed around in an unnatural pose.

She didn't move any more.

Piccolo watched for a moment, then he gleefully erupted in mad laughter, satisfied with the success of his little stratagem. It didn't last long, though. There was more to do, more to hate. Slowly, he turned back to the city, to its weird towers of gleaming glass and pearl-white cement, and all those people crawling inside.

"Bulma is down! Repeat, Bulma is down! Emergency containment!"

Piccolo's sensitive hearing, now that he had recovered some of his cool, expanded his perception to the nearby buildings. Humans were scampering up and down the stairs; he could hear the metallic rattling of weapons, the rapid fire of orders sent through the crackle of those things they called 'radios', and the voices shaking with anxious determination.

They would all need to be taught despair, decided the Demon King.

They did not see him coming; they couldn't. He flew and tore through a cement wall like paper, and blood splattered his face as human bodies were burst and torn in the same breath. He emerged in the room from the dust, covered in red, claw ready to tear. The humans shouted something and unloaded their weapons at him. The bullets tickled, some even stung; Piccolo realised how much the fight until now had drained him. His renewed anger at the memory of that offence rekindled his blood lust. He walked straight through the crossfire, grabbed one of the guns and clenched its barrel with his hand, squeezing it close. The weapon exploded, and the shrapnel mangled the body of its user. Standing above the man's corpse, Piccolo felt a tingle at the height of his left thigh. He looked down to realise that whatever cursed poison the girl had used on him earlier was finally wearing out. With a bubbling of flesh, his left leg grew back, and as he put it on the ground, he stomped through the skull of the enemy he'd just defeated.

Piccolo turned to the others. He was taking this slow, allowing them to fully wade in their fear. They had emptied another magazine at him, to no effect, of course. His right arm followed his leg, growing from the stump in a single burst. Piccolo felt keenly the energy that cost him; he felt tired, his body sluggish and unresponsive. It had taken blowing up a whole city for him to feel anything like this before. But it didn't matter; for ants like these, even a tenth of his usual powers would be more than enough.

*He slowly and inexorably walked towards another group. He saw hope leave their eyes, he saw some running out of ammo, another telling a friend or lover to run away already, trying to shield them. Piccolo took it upon himself to catch one of the bullets that they were firing at him in mid air and throwing it precisely at the escaping fighter, just to make a point. He then proceeded to tear them up, one by one, with his bare claws.

"Sniper squad! Mobilize! He's in sector A3!"

Another fruitless attempt from the humans, he decided. He flew upwards, through the ceiling and multiple floors, to emerge on top of the building. He had manage to take it slow for a while, but now he could hardly hold back. He pointed his hand down and built up energy in it, then let it go. A globe flew and hit the building, cracking it from the inside, spraying rubble, and then exploded, and with it the entire block was vaporised in a scorching fireball, heat washing over his face. Piccolo felt it again, the tiredness. Should he not have done that? But no, the humans needed to pay, and they wouldn't be able to do much anyway.

A tank hit him from the side. Not the cannon of a tank; a literal tank, flying through the air. It sent Piccolo recoiling, and a tooth flew from his mouth. It was nothing compared to the artillery he'd been hit with before, but it was enough to make him feel pain, and force him to regenerate another bit, use up more of his energy. He turned sharply towards the direction the bullets had come from. Far away, there were humans on multiple roofs. They seemed to have arranged themselves so that he couldn't reach them all in a single sprint, fanned out in formation. A deadly lottery game. They knew some of them would die; but for everyone who did, the others would have time to get another blow in. Piccolo wished to blast them away all in one go, but he could not stand still, and he could not spare that much energy.

He flew to the first. It was a man; Piccolo swatted away at him carelessly, and off was his head. He could see the weapon the man was holding; it seemed a long, more elaborate version of the rifles he'd seen in use by his own soldiers. Coils were wrapped around the barrel, and the entire device was connected by a cable to a large box. These weapons weren't very mobile; those who set them up would have to stand their ground and fight, or leave them behind as they fled. A second hit slammed Piccolo, crashing the roof and destroying the weapon he was observing in the process. He growled, then flew towards that. He could see the shooter. A woman, with long dark hair. She was holding her rifle single-handedly with what looked like a metallic arm, and the other was reloading it. Piccolo had moved at speed so high that she must have been unable to even see him, and yet, right before he could strike her, the barrel was lined up at his face again. Another tank materialised at supersonic speeds. It smashed his nose and brow, crumpled his antennae, and sent him flying backwards. Piccolo screamed and spat blood and a piece of his own tongue he'd bit off, blinded. The woman didn't waste any time; another shot was going up the barrel as he turned to her. Her speed was more than human, but not a match for his, or even for that girl he'd fought earlier.

Piccolo dodged to the side, and this time, the shot missed. All he needed to do was focus, something that was coming remarkably natural to him after that out of body experience. It was like something of those memories, that past life, still lingered in him, allowing him brief flashes of clarity. The woman hadn't been deterred; no sooner had he turned away from her rifle's barrel she was already trying to follow him. But it was hopeless. His claw grasped her neck, closing tight around it; the other crushed her weapon into crumpled steel. He waited for a moment, because clarity also allowed him cruelty. This little one had been a bit too defiant; she needed to know defeat. Besides, now that he saw her from up close, he had a flash of recognition.

"You're that woman," he said, with a grin. "Piano's little pet."

The woman stared back at him with eyes so hateful, they wouldn't have been out of place on the Demon King himself. "I'll be fucking damned," she spat, "if I get killed by you after she fought you to a standstill."

Her cybernetic arm let go of the now useless weapon, and her palm opened up towards his face. An energy attack?, wondered Piccolo, amused. She didn't have the power to-

The sound was atrocious, unbearable. A high pitched screech that felt like a drill planted straight inside his brain. Piccolo's hands let go of his enemy and grasped at his ears, trying to cover them, then, failing that, trying to grab them and claw them off. How did she know? No, of course she would. He'd executed at least three men for daring to whistle in his presence. And she had always been there, silently on the side. Watching. Listening. Learning.

Something exploded in Piccolo's face, and he was too busy to care. The grenade didn't do him any major damage, but it tossed him completely off the building, and down into the street. The whistle still pursued him, but now it was more tolerable, and Piccolo managed at least to rip his ears off for good. Without them collecting the sound and channelling it straight into his eardrums, any further attacks would be more tolerable. He got up on his feet from where he'd fallen, ready to jump and shut that woman up and her annoying cybernetic arm for good.

He had just managed to stand when his left leg gave up under him. It was sliced clean at the calf.

It could not be, screamed internally Piccolo. It could not be. She ought to be dead. He swept an arm to his left side, but of course, she had already scampered away, the nimble cowardly thing she was. He should have been angry, but instead, he felt again like he had at the beginning of the fight. That disgusting, unnatural sense of fear. He turned slowly, rose up again to his feet as the one he'd just lost regrew, sapping yet more of his already drained energies. There she was, of course. She was battered, bruised, and one of her legs seemed mangled beyond repair, bloody and bent the wrong way. But her sword was still in her hand, her heart still beating, her face, even covered in dirt and burns, still looking at him with that same defiant stare, that self-satisfied fucking grin.

"Come on, Demon King," said the girl. "It's time for our second round."

Act confident, thought Bulma. Play the badass who shrugged it all off like it was a scratch. Channel your anger and make that fucker afraid. It's the way you survive, and the way you win.

It wasn't a scratch of course, and she had hardly shrugged it off. She had a fraction of a second to focus as much energy as she could to her chest, to absorb the impact of Piccolo's foot. Then, even as she felt her ribs crack and dangerously close to break, even as the pain and insane acceleration from that kick rattled her body, she had to maintain enough consciousness to shift that energy around to her back so that she could not be killed by the landing instead. After that, she couldn't help but black out.

She woke up who knows how much later, coming to her senses with a start, alarmed at what might have happened in her absence. She heard the relieved voices of the people back at the control centre screaming into her radio.

"You're alive!," shouted Lapis. "I mean, I knew you were, because we're monitoring your vital signs, but I was afraid you wouldn't get back up from that."

"Whether I'll get up remains to be seen," groaned back Bulma, still laying on her back. Her left leg was in a state she'd rather not dwell upon, but for now the adrenaline still seemed to dull the pain. "What's the situation?"

"Bad. Piccolo has moved to the city grounds. We've dispatched the sniper squad."

"Well, off I go then."

"Wait, you can't just-"

"Know anyone else who can? Because I'd love to take five right now."

She tried to hop to her feet, but the pain she felt when exerting any pressure on her left leg made her almost black out again. She decided instead to simply levitate upright, and then use just about enough energy to keep herself balanced, so that the legs wouldn't be needed to support her. She took a swing with her sword arm, only to find that the weight was oddly balanced. When she turned to check, she realised she wasn't holding a sword any more, but literally swinging around a little pig-man.

"You seemed out for good, so I thought I'd book it," said Oolong. "But your grip was really strong."

"Back into sword form, now," hissed Bulma.

"Yeah, no, that guy will just kill us both. You're half dead already! Let me go or I'll-"

"I don't have the fucking time for this," sighed the girl. "You transform and take your chances or I swear that whatever you try to run away, I'll just kill you myself here and now."

She stared down at him in a way that left very little room for doubt. Oolong seemed about to object, but then, resigned, exploded again in smoke, and back in Bulma's hand was the Hogblade.

And so here she was now, facing Piccolo again after he'd been knocked a bit around by the snipers. By Mai, of all things. Bulma had to grudgingly concede that that woman had both guts and skills. Had she been worthy of a bit more trust she could have given more than just a railgun rifle using old discarded Red Ribbon ordnance capsules as ammo. Not quite as much of a punch as the tungsten artillery shells, but it seemed to have done some damage too.

"You were lucky," hissed Piccolo, stepping forward. "This time, you'll be dead."

"You're talkative, now," she replied. "What happened? Need to catch your breath?"

Of course he was. Her sensors could tell her everything about his energy levels, and they were barely at 30% of what they used to be at the beginning of the fight. They'd forced him to use up a good amount of his strength. Now they needed just a little more push, and then it would be time for the finishing move.

Bulma took in her surroundings. They were standing in the middle of what had been a fancy street, one littered with high end shops and restaurants. It was mostly still intact, except for the fact that it was hauntingly empty, and for the Red Ribbon tank that had crashed through a shop window and lie half sunk inside the building after being fired at Piccolo earlier. If they fought here, it would not stay that way. She needed to bring Piccolo back into the control area as soon as possible, but now that he had realised, it would be harder to do. Her options were limited, and he knew he could exploit her desire to protect the city to lure her into giving him an opening, like he'd done before. And Bulma really couldn't survive another blow like that one.

She took a breath. Since coming to her senses and flying here, she'd analysed the situation, reflected on her own feelings and limits, and taken a decision.

We still have the Dragon Balls.

They trusted me with their lives.

They knew the risks.

It didn't feel right. It never could. But she didn't have time or leeway to consider anything better, now.

With a thought, she deftly directed energy to the spots on her arms that controlled the artillery railguns all around the city. The air around her became woven by the red lattice of lines formed by their firing trajectories, now knitting a tight cage around Piccolo's position, while he still seemed to hesitate to attack. A small popup warning in the corner of her vision provided a painful reminder that she had just lifted all safety locks, and the new trajectories were not guaranteed to not hit any populated areas of the city. She waved it away. The pattern she wanted was ready.

One more little twist of her will, and she gave the order.

The shell slammed into Piccolo from the side, and the impact created an explosion that vaporised the asphalt and rattled the nearby buildings, breaking windows and probably eardrums. Bulma had braced herself for it, and was ready for what she expected would follow. She had identified three possible directions Piccolo was most likely to take; he went for the third one. The railgun was already aiming at the spot where he would be an instant later, and a second hit nailed him dead on, leaving a streak of destruction as it dragged him along, and crashing into the side of a building.

Bulma raced towards it, focused only on the energy signature of the enemy. He was weakened, but still conscious, she could see. She weaved through the people who were running away - those equipped with HEP II chips helping the others by jumping off from the windows with them and landing safely on the road below - and pounced like a beast on Piccolo, who was still surprised and partially mangled by the attack. Before he had a chance to regenerate, Bulma stabbed her sword right up his open mouth and into his brain; then, as she saw him blanking out, she risked grabbing him by an arm, flying outside, and flinging him into the distance, right towards the stadium. He regenerated and regained consciousness in mid air, stopping his trajectory. He looked at her with eyes that looked aghast.

Bulma slashed the air with her sword to wipe the blood from it and concentrated on aiming the railguns again.

The girl was still alive. This should have been impossible.

She was also trying to act tough. Like she didn't care, like she'd cut out all her concern for everything but the kill. This, thought Piccolo, was even more impossible.

*The onslaught continued mercilessly. Now, there was no hiding any more, no escaping. The artillery blows would come as fast as they could, with barely enough time in between to allow Piccolo to waste more of his energy regenerating his lost flesh, just to start the cycle anew. Piccolo tried flying away, but another hit caught him from the front and knocked him back, towards the stadium again.

*"You've gotten slower, Demon King!," taunted him the girl, who had flown up in the sky to face him. "You've gotten easier to hit."

Piccolo gritted his teeth, and for a moment was about to jump to that girl's throat. But he still had enough presence in him to tell that was a mistake. The girl was out in the open, and she had no qualms shooting at him regardless of what was behind him now. She had decided to throw it all away in a last ditch effort; or at least, to play the part. The best thing he could do was test that supposed resolve.

She wanted to wet her hands with blood? She could damn well choke on it.

Piccolo flew downwards, diving into the city, blows still following him. He managed to be missed by one, and the other only lobbed off his foot before crashing into another nearby building. The demon landed like a torpedo inside a large complex, crashing through one of its walls and two floors before finding his footing in its basement. When he raised his head, he found he was surrounded by heavy machinery, steel hulks made of strange parts he didn't understand nor need to. He'd crashed down here guided by something else; the faint echoes of voices he could still hear, even with his ears ripped off. Down at this level, in the large empty space of what must have been some kind of factory floor, were gathered hundreds of citizens, using it as a shelter from the battle. It would have worked if all they had to worry about was stray bullets and flying debris.

Unfortunately for them, it wasn't.

Piccolo was tired, but not so much that a few weak humans, armed as they were, could pose a threat to him. He begun tearing into them before they could even react; then, as he massacred one after the other, the crowd caught up, and panic spread like a wave, as they rushed away from him. Not all of them - a band of men and women stood in front of the others, shaking but with something of a determined stare on them. They were unarmed, but took on what looked like a fighting stance. Piccolo grinned.

Something crashed behind him and immediately moved in. He didn't need to check to know what it was, and punched backwards with his left hand to hit the girl. He felt the hit connecting with something - her arm blocking it? - and she flew right into the crowd to her right, crushing bodies as she tumbled. But she was still conscious; she spun, jammed her fingertips and feet in the concrete below, and came to a stop, having bled her hands and dug four parallel furrows in the floor to stop her momentum. She was heaving, now, drenched in blood, not all her own, and looking at him with the wide eyed stare of a wild beast who was at the same time predator and prey.

"Can't shoot me here, right, girl?," snarled the Demon King.

No, she fucking couldn't.

Bulma's mind was a haze. The pain in her left arm, which she'd used to block Piccolo's punch, made it throb like crazy, but it was still in one piece. She had seen, she had felt the bodies give way when she-

She caught her breath before it stopped in her throat, forced herself to think about the battle, the enemy, nothing else. He was still here, he was still deadly. Her hand clenched the Hogblade tighter.

She couldn't shoot him, no. The people around weren't even the only reason why she couldn't. She couldn't shoot him because they were in a basement and there were several layers of reinforced concrete between him and the nearest railgun, and even though the rounds might manage to crash through, they'd do so loudly announcing themselves and losing a lot of speed.

So she had to fight, and mutilate him bad enough that she could then drag him out of here, and back to the stadium.

She had to-

Bulma's heart rate shot up, she felt like the adrenaline in her was rampaging out of control. Her breath shortened. Energy had been coursing through her body for the whole duration of the fight, but now she really felt like her muscles were about to snap like so many ropes pulled a bit too taut.

Shut the fuck up, she told her body. You don't get to complain. You have no right to complain. Not yet.

We win this first.

She jumped forward. She had certainly done more damage than she'd taken, until now, and as Piccolo used up reams of his power simply to heal the damage, she'd almost caught up. Almost, not quite. She could see his movements clearly, but dodging them, ah, that was another matter. She planted her foot on the ground and swerved, ducking under a flailing right arm, but then saw a left coming up to hit her, and it was all she could do to twist her sword so that it would hit the cut of the blade. Piccolo's own strength cleaved his forearm in two, but the sword now was jammed inside it. She pushed on it, kicked forward with her right leg towards the other's crotch, but when it landed it didn't seem to do much damage. Piccolo grinned, clenched his legs and trapped her foot there. Then he leaned forward for a headbutt.

It was all Bulma could do to steel herself to take it, but it was still like having an asteroid slam on her face. She screamed, her nose broken and blood dripping down on it, and then the follow up came when the blow crashed her in the ground, and her spine managed to barely stay together. An injury like that would have been game over for her, forever. Theirs was an undignified brawl; there was little style to it as neither of them was anything like a fighter, she because she'd never thought to learn, and he because he'd never needed to. But still, brute strength made all the difference, and Piccolo still had reams of it.

He was about to stomp on her with his foot and finish the job when two men and one woman from the crowd tackled him. They must have been outfitted with HEP II chips, because they did at the very least manage to budge him, thanks to the fact that he was out of balance. They immediately let go, but it wasn't fast enough - one of them had their head grabbed by the monster. Bulma had to watch as he squashed it with a simple squeeze, see the gore dripping-

"RRRRAAAAAGH!"

Her scream was powered by all she had bursting inside now, the need to not think, to drown it in the outcome of the fight, whether it be revenge or pain, life or death. Piccolo had lost a moment focused on the wrong enemy. The Hogblade sliced again, and the arm he'd just extended dropped to the ground. He turned to her, swinging a fist he didn't have, and as his body twisted the arm regrew and the speed of the process added up with that of the punch, and it was all Bulma could do to roll away, letting the blow smash into the ground. Cracks spread from it, making her lose her footing, while a splinter of concrete hit her head. She blacked out for an instant, then jolted herself back to her feet as soon as she regained consciousness. Wondering how she was still alive.

Piccolo was standing in front of her. He hadn't finished her; he had used the time for something else. He held a hand extended in front of him, and the palm was sparkling with energy. The hand glowed, barely holding in the power. Not enough to destroy a city; clearly this Piccolo was too exhausted to have that in him. Bulma could see on her own display that the sensors gave him only 10% of his original power. But still, power enough to blow up the basement they were inside, and every person inside it.

"You could have done me in there," said Bulma, gasping for air. "Big mistake."

"I told you," he growled back, "that your death would be slow and painful."

"I'm not," she panted, "I'm not going to be hit by that."

Piccolo smirked. "Yes, you will. You will take it on and try your best to deflect it, and you'll give it all and waste all your remaining strength on it. Or everyone in here will die from it."

Bulma gritted her teeth. "Or I just slice your arm in time and you just wasted all that energy, and then I take my time fucking you up for good."

"This is crazy," mumbled the Hogblade.

Piccolo rose his eyebrows at that. "Even your weapon has more sense than you, it seems," he snarled.

"Oolong, you fucking asshole," mumbled Bulma, "we're almost done! If this is the last thing you do with your useless life-"

"You know what?," squeaked the voice, alarmed. "I'm out of here!"

And the Hogblade exploded in a puff of smoke, turning into a small missile, that Bulma was gripping by the tail. Its engines came to life, and the hot exhaust forced a yelp out of her and made her let go. The missile swerved towards the hole that Piccolo had made when he crashed into the building, aiming for the sky.

It exploded before even reaching the first floor. Piccolo lowered the hand he'd used to flick a small bit of rubble at it, turning back to focus on Bulma.

"Not that much sense, it seems," he said, with a cold laugh. "Come on, girl. I thought you were tough. Show me what you've got."

Bulma stared down the blazing death facing her. She knew what the answer was. She just… couldn't stop that. She didn't have the strength, not any more. Maybe at the beginning of the battle, maybe, she could have tried. But down here, with no tricks, no support, no weapons, she was powerless.

No, it was worse than that. She had lost. Without even her sword, she couldn't hope to make Piccolo unconscious and drag him back to the stadium for the final stage of her plan. If that was the case, then she was dead.

The thought was strangely liberating.

She didn't need to worry about strategy any more. She was done for, and the thought of it was horrifying, but that meant she could just - just do what was right. Not some cold calculation or rational sacrifice. Just face the fire blazing in front of her. Just take it in, so that she could save as many lives as she could, right here and now. Piccolo was exhausted. She'd wear herself down and make sure that she could take as much of his strength as she could down with her, and then, what would happen, would happen. He couldn't destroy the city in his state. The people would flee, they would live. Goku would eventually face the monster. Humanity would be saved. It wasn't her job any more, this unbearable burden she'd willingly taken on in her insane pride.

She picked herself up, stood proud before the Demon King. A girl facing the end, her face illuminated by the flickering light of fiery death.

And then, through her radio, something arrived. A little whisper, lost in crackle and static as the depth they were at interfered with the waves. A single, cursed line of hope.

She felt herself tremble, as she looked at the people around her. Her heart sinking, her mind growing cold, as she knew again what the situation demanded of her. To be less than human, and yet in some twisted way more. Like a cruel god, playing with lives on a chess board for unfathomable purposes.

"Ah, damn it," she mumbled.

"What was that?," asked Piccolo. "Ready to face your end?"

She looked one moment longer at the people surrounding them, the faces staring expectant, tense, determined, stoic, hopeful, scared. She didn't indulge much more; she couldn't.

We have the Dragon Balls.

"You are free to kill them," replied Bulma, voice as cold as ice. "It doesn't matter. They will be the last bodies you ever leave in your wake."

The Demon King's eyes cycled through a series of emotions. Rage at her defiance first, then disbelief at what had to be a bluff, then perhaps a moment of doubt and fear.

Then he fired.

The glob of energy left his hand, but Bulma knew it would be slow; she'd studied him. She focused all that she had left in this last moment. She ducked under it, and as it travelled past her, towards the crowd she'd been making a mockery of shielding with her body, the girl swerved around Piccolo's feet, levitating close to the floor, and then rose up, grabbing him under his armpits and skyrocketing upwards. The explosion came a moment later, and the basement erupted in a fireball. Before Piccolo could react, they rode the shockwave and were projected out of the building, crashing through the ceiling, out of control. Bulma let go of Piccolo, doing her best to launch him towards the direction of the stadium.

"FINE THEN!," shouted Piccolo, "IT'LL BE THE WHOLE CITY NE-"

His words stopped in his mouth, as did the rest of his body. He seemed to quiver and shake as he tried to free himself of an invisible force that wouldn't let him go. Bulma flew right in front of him, where he could grab her by simply reaching out, if only he was not frozen.

"You wouldn't be able to, you arrogant idiot," she hissed. "Even that little one now can hold you down."

She punched him in the gut, making sure she really drove it in. His eyes didn't quite bulge out as much as she'd hoped to, but she took the win for now. His stare glazed over from her, desperately looking for the source of his paralysis, until he found it.

Hovering right next to them, little hands stretched out towards him, Chiaotzu was using his telekinetic powers on him.

"Tr… ait… or...," he tried muttering, but his jaw barely moved as it strained against the clutch.

"You... you said maybe one day we'll have a better chance to take you down!," squeaked the little warrior. "It's today!"

"I don't know how your power works precisely," said Bulma, flying to him. "Can you move him where I tell you to?"

Chiaotzu shook his head. "Just hold him in place. It's… getting harder."

"We got other plans to move him, miss Bulma!," shouted a rough, manly voice from below. Then up from the ground shot a pair of men - one in a blue Capsule Corp gi, the other completely wrapped in bandages. Having used his legs to power their jump, Yamcha gave Bandages a push and tossed him further upwards. The mummy rose up almost to the level of the others, then he extended his hands forward and sent out the linen strips. Slithering through the air, the white fabric wrapped itself around Piccolo, binding his arms and legs. The Demon King strained himself twice as hard, and the fabric seemed to barely hold together, while Bandages, having lost his momentum, was just dangling from it.

"Gonna need a little help here!," he shouted. Bulma had caught on already, and immediately flew to him, grabbed his ankles, and used her energy to spin him around like a hammer, and behind him Piccolo. After a few turns and enough momentum, Bandages let go. Piccolo's body was thrown off towards the stadium.

"On him!," ordered Bulma. She let go Bandages so that he could land safely on a nearby building and flew in pursuit. Piccolo was still barely slowing down when a light came from below him.

The beam zapped like lighting past him, but Piccolo dodged it, turning with blood-injected eyes to stare at the new enemy.

"My Devil Beam!," shouted Spike, disappointed. "Alas, I missed!"

The Demon King didn't have time to pursue; a different attack, a ball of light, hit him square in the chest, and sent him flying another hundred metres or so. Now he was almost above the stadium.

"Spirit Baseball! West City's hero pitches for the win!"

"Don't get cocky, Yamcha!," screamed Bulma, as she flew past him at speed. "He's not in position yet! We need more!"

"Don't worry Bulma," he reassured her. "We got it."

Piccolo had barely managed to recover his stance, again. The recent attacks had winded and surprised him, but he still wasn't beaten. The stadium now was right behind him - all the territory he'd gained lost to those few, well directed strikes.

He glanced at the parade of enemies in front of him, some flying, some standing on top of nearby buildings. He looked down.

But the attack came from up.

"KIKOHO!"

The beam of light completely engulfed him and knocked him back.

The beam was like a violent wind trying to strip the flesh from his bones. Piccolo had experienced it once already, but back then, he was in full shape, not beaten and worn out. Now, while he still didn't suffer much damage from it, he couldn't resist its concussive force. The sheer violence of the impact tossed him back, tumbling towards the floor of the stadium.

"Youuuuu-" he growled, staring upwards to take a look at the impudent three-eyed boy whom he knew was the only one to wield this power.

"KIKOHO!," attacked Tien again, unyielding.

The pressure was unsustainable, and again, Piccolo was thrown down. This time he landed on the stadium's grounds, not too gracefully. He caught the girl flying closer too, and with her the damn little annoyance that was Chiaotzu, lagging behind. He would take revenge on all of them eventually- he would make sure they would suffer all-

"KIKOHO!"

The beam crashed into him, the ground, the bedrock below, digging a crater. The ground cracked and crumbled, revealing an ample underground space below; Piccolo crashed down again, pushed by the strength of the attack, among flying debris, steel lockers and sports equipment stored down there. And then, as he stumbled up to his feet once more, the girl flew in and faced him.

The girl, the girl, the damn unkillable annoyance of a girl, again.

"We started underground," he growled, "we're underground again. Was it worth the lives of your precious dear citizens, hah?"

"Underground, yeah, but you forget," said Bulma, "this is my home field."

Piccolo spread his arms, claws open, ready to finally tear into her. Bulma took a clumsy fighting stance, her poor knowledge of the martial arts showing in the poor footing. Here, finally, no more tricks would save her, whatever she'd planned.

She must have known that too, because she fled.

She jumped backwards and propelled herself behind a door, which she slammed close behind her. Piccolo looked dumbfounded, before noticing that someone had slammed a huge metal plate on top of the hole he'd made when he'd been tossed down here. The room he was in was now sealed.

Was this an attempt to imprison him? Piccolo smirked. If this was really their last resort-

The strange barrel in a corner of the room that he had not paid attention to clicked, and then Hell was unleashed. There was a first, small explosion; his sight was fast enough to appreciate the fine mist of something that smelled like gasoline being spread and saturating the entire space before it was immediately followed by a violent, second shockwave, a fire front that burned through the air and fuel, hungrily eating up all it could reach. The room became blazing hot, and Piccolo's clothes and skin flashed alight, as the flames engulfed him. The heat, he could tolerate, though he was worn out enough that it wouldn't be painless; when he'd been ready to destroy the basement, earlier, he was confident he would survive his own attack. But it wasn't just the heat. As the flames burned through and bounced back and forth between the walls of the room, Piccolo felt himself suffocating. He tried to breathe, but the air didn't give him any relief; it was nothing but smoke and fire that burned his lungs but left him wanting. He gasped and keeled over. He felt weak, dizzy, and as he did, his defences weakened, and the fire got to him. Now he was in agony, his skin burning, his eyes blinded and shrivelling, charred fingertips clasping at a throat that couldn't find any air, no matter how much it tried to suck in. Unable to move, his keener perceptions only made the inferno last longer.

And then it was over, finally. The flames burned through all their fuel, leaving behind an unrecognizable room hammered by the shockwaves and covered in soot. Through the gaps in the plate above and the now broken doors, breathable air slowly filtered back inside.

Piccolo was still alive.

He had never thought nor needed to test his regeneration to its utmost limit, but as it turned out, he realised, it seemed that it made him virtually immortal. This, he was sure, must have been the humans' last ace in the hole. The most diabolical weapon they thought they could use against him, and it had been no good. Slowly rising to his feet, Piccolo laughed. Or tried to; all that came out of his burned throat was a rasping sound and some blackened blood.

He dragged himself forward. He was slow, now, and completely burned out - quite literally. No matter. He could outlast them all. All he needed to do was be persistent and implacable, and they'd fall to him, sooner or later. He'd start, of course, with the girl.

He limped through the doorway that she'd ran off through. He was lumbering and clumsy, like a grotesque burnt zombie. He was trying to focus his regenerative energies in his eyes first, but he was left almost dry. They only managed to become barely functional; he saw little more than blotches of light and colour. There was something in front of him, a staircase. He descended it. Walked through another door.

The girl was there.

She was defenceless now, and Piccolo could see her fear. She stood immobile at the centre of the room, not even bothering picking up a defensive stance. He'd reach her. He'd kill her. Small steps. The Demon King dragged himself, one foot after the other, ignoring the pain. The moment of revenge would be sweet enough to forget it all.

He reached the centre of the room, standing right in front of the girl. He could see her eyes now. Her fear. Couldn't smell it - pity, the bomb had completely burned out his nose, it seemed. No matter.

"Remember-" he managed to spit out, his larynx having barely repaired itself. "Slow... and... painful."

The girl shook her head. She seemed on the verge of crying. But she didn't move. It was futile.

Piccolo raised his claw. He looked at her face distorted by fear one last time. Then he sunk it towards her abdomen.

The girl shattered. She broke in a thousand fragments, like a glass window. Piccolo stared in amazement and confusion at the image he could barely make out. Each fragment still seemed to show, to reflect a part of her body. In front of him flipped a large shard on which her mouth was, and he saw the slightly ajar expression of anguish turn into a ferocious smile of triumph.

The room itself shook and rippled like a sail in the wind.

When making plans, very often every answer opens a different question.

The Capsule Corporation Personnel Container was a simple and popular product; a basic and cheap single room housing unit that could be deployed anywhere in capsule form, used often to host workers in temporary camps or displaced people during emergencies. Stripping one of all its contents, or removing the safety limiters that prevented it from turning back into capsule form while someone was inside, was not hard at all.

What might be a bit harder was getting Piccolo inside it, and especially, making sure that he couldn't leave even after the encapsulation process begun; Capsule Corporation brochures boasted that it took only 0.1 seconds, but for someone with enough ki overloading their senses and brain, that was plenty of time to crash through a wall and run away. The conclusion reached had been that Piccolo could only be trapped that way if he was exhausted enough to be unable to react fast enough, and as for how to draw him in, the idea of using Bulma as bait after he'd pissed him off well enough had been flouted as a joke.

It had become much more serious when the idea of replacing her with the diagnostic hologram Dr. Gero used to plan her implants came up. But it was hard to imagine even tech-ignorant Piccolo to fall for that in normal condition. Hence the question had moved to how could one impair him thoroughly enough that not only he couldn't escape, but he couldn't realize he was being lured in by a fake. And that was when Colonel Silver had mentioned these new thermobaric weapons that the Red Ribbon had developed and passed around to its troops.

And so it was that the plan clicked into place, and that a beaten, burned and blinded Demon King found himself inside what he thought was a normal room about to close itself on him.

The walls rippled, folded, shrunk. He tried to escape, sure, but he wasn't able to move even as fast as a normal human any more, let alone fast enough to run away from that trap. After 0.07 seconds, the capsule field engulfed the entire space, freezing in time everything inside it. At that point, any living thing caught inside was to be considered clinically dead.

Then the walls wrapped around, crunched, collapsed, and were sucked into a capsule with a loud pop and a puff of smoke. After what would have been less than a blink for a normal human being, a simple capsule fell on the ground, making a clinking sound on the bare concrete below it, then fell to the side.

An unreal silence fell in the room, punctuated only by the crackling of flames next door. Bulma came out of the niche in which her image had been recorded for the hologram and slowly stepped forward, hesitant, almost incredulous. The air was an irritating mixture of smoke and stench of unburnt fuel that burned her throat, but still, she suddenly felt able to breathe more freely than she had for weeks. She walked to where the capsule was, fell to her knees, cradling it between her hands, almost afraid to grab it.

"We won," she muttered.

She paused a moment, taking it in, giving that simple fact the time to really land, her mind the time to process it.

"We won," she repeated. She felt tears welling up to her eyes, and started sobbing and laughing uncontrollably at the same time. In her radio, she could hear cheers and applause from the control room, the sound of people celebrating victory and life.

"WE WON!," she shouted, again, punching the ground. "WE WON WE WON WE WON WE WON WE FUCKING WON!"

It was over. It was done. She had managed what everyone else would have called impossible. She had surpassed her own humanity, gotten rid of her own body, crushed her own feelings, she had thrown away everything just to prove this one thing, that it would be possible to stand up to power, that humans weren't just some defenceless pawns for gods to play with, but masters of their fate.

And she'd proven it all right.

"WE BEAT YOU, YOU BASTARD!," she screamed at the capsule lying on the ground. "HOW DOES IT FEEL, HUH? LIKE NOTHING, I BET! BECAUSE YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD! WE KILLED YOU!"

She got it all out in a raging scream. After it was over, Bulma relaxed, and suddenly dizziness and pain overcame her. Her left leg was bleeding profusely. Her ability to channel ki must have been in tatters, her whole system half burned by the excessive strain.

"Gonna need help," she mumbled in the radio.

She put her hand to the capsule, lightly touching it with her fingertips, as if to test that it wouldn't react. With a decisive gesture, she swept it off the ground and clenched it tight in her fist.

Then the tiredness, tension and blood loss got the better of her, and she fell down, unconscious.