The beams rained down from the sky like a volley of heavy artillery.
Nappa crossed his massive forearms with a booming laugh, letting the blasts detonate against his thick skin, but Escallion didn't bother taking the impact. With sharp, minimal twitches of his heels, he fluidly stepped between the falling ki beams as if casually navigating a crowded room. One beam slammed into the ground directly beside his boot, obliterating the remaining Saibamen in a shower of green goop, but Escallion barely blinked.
He reached down and casually flicked a piece of smoking Saibaman flesh off his knee.
"How pathetic," Escallion said, leaning his weight onto his back foot. "Your friend died because he celebrated early. Burning your remaining energy in a blind rage isn't going to bring him back; it just makes you easier to kill."
Krillin dropped to his knees, panting heavily, his eyes wide as the smoke cleared. "He... he dodged all of it..."
He tossed a thumb over his shoulder toward Nappa, who was currently dusting soot off his chest.
"Case in point," Escallion added, a faint, sarcastic twitch at the edge of his mouth. "Nappa here just stood there and ate four direct hits to the chest just to look tough. It's sloppy."
"Hey! Who are you calling sloppy, kid?!" Nappa barked, snapping his head around with a scowl. "I didn't feel a damn thing!"
"You think you're clever, don't you?" Piccolo growled, his fresh arm tensing. "Reading our moves, picking apart our mistakes like you're giving a lecture."
"It's not a lecture, Namek," Escallion said, dropping his hands to his sides, his stance shifting into something deceptively relaxed yet ready to spring. "It's just observation. We spent a year in tiny pods listening to Nappa complain about space food. I'm just enjoying the warm-up before things get messy."
His eyes flicked past Piccolo, scanning the horizon where the distant sky remained quiet.
"Though I have to admit...Kakarot is taking his sweet time. Are we actually going to fight, or are you just going to stand there until he gets here, Namek?"
"You keep referring to me as Namek or Namekian. Whatever that is, you are mistaken; I am a demon." Piccolo says as he takes his fighting stance.
Escallion paused, his foot hovering an inch above the ground before he planted it firmly. He blinked once, looking at Piccolo as if the alien had just claimed to be a potted plant.
A short, dry chuckle escaped Escallion's lips. He shook his head slightly, reaching up to rub the bridge of his nose.
"A... demon?" Escallion repeated, his tone laced with a mixture of amusement and exasperated disbelief. "Right. And I suppose the green skin, the antennae, and the rapid regeneration are just a coincidence?"
He crossed his arms over his chest, rolling his shoulders back.
"Look, 'Demon' or whatever fairytale title you've given yourself to sleep better at night... I've been to your planet, fought your people. You are a Namekian. Specifically, a Dragon-type or Warrior-type offshoot."
Escallion gestured vaguely toward the scorched horizon, where the sky was clear.
"I don't know what kind of backwater isolation this planet suffers from, but you're not a magical creature from the underworld. You're an alien. Just like me. Just like Kakarot."
Piccolo's jaw clenched, his eyes widening slightly as the words hit him.
An alien? A Namekian?
The concept felt alien to his very core, cutting straight through the centuries of mythology he had built around his own dark heritage. But deep down, looking at the cold, matter-of-fact certainty in the young Saiyan's eyes, a sickening knot tied itself in Piccolo's stomach.
"It doesn't matter what you call me," Piccolo spat, his voice dropping into a dangerous, guttural rumble as his aura began to crackle with dark purple electricity. "Alien, demon, whatever... my fist through your skull feels the same!"
Krillin didn't wait for a signal. Driven by a volatile mix of grief for Yamcha and pure, adrenaline-fueled survival instinct, he let out a harsh roar and lunged. He tore across the dirt, trailing a streak of orange light, and threw a desperate, wild right hook aimed straight for the young Saiyan's jaw.
Escallion didn't even shift his footing.
With the casual precision of someone swatting an annoying housefly, Escallion snapped his left hand up, catching Krillin's wrist mid-strike, and redirected the Earthling's momentum into a sharp, backhanded cuff across the face.
CLACK!
The force sent Krillin skidding sideways through the dust, his knees scraping deep tracks into the cracked stone. Coughing up spit, Krillin scrambled back up, wiping his bleeding mouth with the back of his hand, and ducked right into a defensive shoulder-to-shoulder stance alongside Piccolo.
"Damn it... he didn't even blink," Krillin panted, his breath coming in short, ragged hitches as he kept his eyes glued to Escallion.
Escallion barely lowered his arm, his fingers flexing softly. "Is it my turn?"
Beside Krillin, Piccolo's chest heaved. He didn't look at Krillin, but his side-eye flicked toward the smaller martial artist, his teeth gritted.
"Don't rush him alone," Piccolo grunted under his breath, his voice thick with strained exertion. "He doesn't fight like the big one. He is stronger and fights with more technique."
"Don't you know, it's bad manners to ignore someone?" The air exploded behind Escallion as he closed the distance in a fraction of a second, leaving a shockwave in his wake.
The kick came first, a lightning-fast sweep aimed straight for Krillin's temple. Krillin barely managed to throw up a desperate cross-block, but the sheer force hit him like an incoming train. The impact snapped Krillin's arms back against his own head, sending him tumbling violently through the dirt in a cloud of dust.
Without losing a fraction of momentum, Escallion pivoted on his heel, seamlessly flowing into a heavy, Ki-infused right straight aimed directly for Piccolo's chest.
"Got you!" Piccolo growled. Instead of backing away, the Namekian stood his ground, crossing his arms to absorb the blow.
THUD!
The strike rattled Piccolo to his core, cracking the stone beneath his boots, but he held his footing. Using the shockwave to mask his movement, Piccolo lunged forward, throwing a rapid volley of furious jabs and knee strikes.
Beside him, Krillin sprang back to his feet with a battle cry, diving back into the fray to press the advantage. Together, the two fighters unleashed a synchronized barrage, Piccolo coming high with wide, devastating strikes, while Krillin darted low, aiming quick, piercing jabs at Escallion's flanks.
Escallion was seemingly forced onto the back foot, his arms blurring as he deflected, parried, and slipped through the incoming assault.
He ducked under a lethal hook from Piccolo, caught Krillin's flying sidekick on his forearm, and twisted his torso just enough to let a devastating Ki-blast graze his shoulder armor.
'Their synergy is impressive,' Escallion noted, his dark eyes tracking both targets simultaneously as sweat began to bead on his forehead. 'The human provides fast, chaotic distractions, allowing the Namekian to load heavy strikes'
"What's the matter, kid?!" Piccolo snarled, driving a brutal elbow down toward Escallion's collarbone. "Running out of options?"
Escallion caught the elbow in his palm, his boots digging deep trenches into the earth as he absorbed the immense pressure. A sharp, dangerous smirk broke through his calm demeanor.
"Hardly," Escallion replied, his voice strained but brimming with adrenaline. "I was just waiting for you both to get into range!"
A blinding flash of golden light exploded from Escallion's palms as he threw both hands outward, channeling a high-density, raw Ki blast at point-blank range.
BOOM!
The blast tore up the bedrock, sending a concussive roar echoing through the canyon. Piccolo and Krillin didn't even have time to scream; the volume of the blast engulfed them both, blasting them backward like ragdolls through a thick curtain of pulverized stone and smoke.
Escallion skidded backward a few feet from the recoil, his boots kicking up dust before he settled into a relaxed stance. He lowered his arms, exhaling a slow, steady breath as the golden glow around his hands flickered out.
For a moment, the battlefield fell dead silent, save for the crackle of burning rubble.
Escallion narrowed his eyes, peering into the dense, settling dust cloud where two faint, heavily flickering energy signals remained. He rubbed the back of his neck, a subtle, dry scowl touching his face.
Without a scouter to verify their exact life signs, he had relied purely on instinct, and his instinct had reacted to the pressure of two capable martial artists pressing him at once.
"Huh," Escallion muttered under his breath, tilting his head as he watched the smoke slowly drift away. "I was hoping the Namekian's resilience would hold up a little better than that. If I just wiped them both out in one shot, Vegeta is going to complain about me ending the show early..."
Before the smoke could fully clear around the crater, Tien let out a sharp, guttural yell. "Chiaotzu! Don't let the big one jump into their fight!"
"Right!" the small warrior cried out.
In a split-second shift of momentum, Tien and Chiaotzu bypassed Escallion completely, darting with lethal synchronization straight toward Nappa. Tien threw a blinding solar flare burst of Ki to draw Nappa's attention, forcing the giant Saiyan to throw his massive arms over his face in annoyance.
"Hey! What are you little pests doing?!" Nappa roared, turning his towering frame toward them. "You want to die first? Fine by me!"
"Keep your eyes on us, monster!" Tien shouted, drawing Nappa's full, furious focus away from the center of the canyon.
With Nappa distracted and Piccolo and Krillin struggling to push themselves up from the rubble, a sudden, deafening static filled the air. The temperature around the battlefield plunged, and the loose pebbles on the ground began to float upward, defying gravity.
Escallion's eyes snapped to the right.
'The hybrid.'
Gohan stood amidst the rising dust, his tiny hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. Tears of grief and rage coursed through the grime on his face, but his pupils were wide, shaking with raw, unbridled fury.
The sheer volume of Ki surrounding the boy was dense enough to crack the earth beneath his small boots.
"YOU HURT THEM!" Gohan screamed, the sound echoing off the canyon walls as a blinding, golden-white aura exploded around him.
THWACK!
Escallion's forearms snapped up just in time, catching Gohan's furious, Ki-enveloped flying kick inches from his chin. The strike blew a ring of dust outward, forcing Escallion's boots to dig deep ruts into the earth as he was pushed back five full meters.
'What is this force?!' Escallion thought, his eyes widening in genuine astonishment behind his locked guard.
Before Escallion could counter, Gohan rebounded into the air, his face twisted in pure, tear-streaked rage. The boy spun mid-air, throwing a wild salvo of heavy, aura-boosted jabs. Escallion ducked, parried, and swept his head back, the air popping with sharp sonic booms as their fists blurred in high-speed combat.
They vanished from the ground, reappearing thirty feet in the air as a flurry of flashing sparks and colliding shockwaves.
Gohan drove a lethal right hook straight for Escallion's ribs; Escallion deflected it with a swift forearm slap, only for Gohan to immediately follow up with a vicious headbutt that barely missed the Saiyan's nose.
'He's wild, completely unrefined,' Escallion marvelled, his mind racing to keep up with the boy's explosive shifts in speed.
He caught Gohan's wrist, twisted, and threw a heavy palm strike straight to the kid's chest, but Gohan absorbed the hit, using the momentum to kick off Escallion's shoulder and loop back around for another charge.
'This kid is Kakarot's spawn, a low-class warrior lineage.' Escallion gritted his teeth, parrying another blinding kick that rattled his wrist bones.
'His baseline shouldn't even be a fraction of this; hell, he is stronger than Raditz ever was.'
Escallion slipped past a wild left hook, grabbed Gohan by the front of his gi, and spun mid-air violently, hurling the boy downward into the earth with full force!
CRASH!
Gohan slammed into the canyon floor, kicking up a massive cloud of dust and shattered bedrock.
Escallion floated above, panting slightly, his heart hammering in his chest—not from exhaustion, but from sheer, surreal disbelief. He stared down at his own tingling, bruised forearms.
"Unbelievable," Escallion muttered, a dangerous, thrilling spark finally lighting up his dark eyes. "A low-class brat... forcing me to actually take him seriously?"
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A/N: Escallion is taking a liking to Gohan's rage boosts and his potential. Wonder what that will lead to?