Goku charged forward again, attempting to maintain his fierce assault, but his movements grew visibly sluggish. His golden Super Saiyan aura flickered violently, like a candle flame struggling against a gale.
"What's... happening to me...?" Goku gasped, his vision blurring as a searing, agonizing pain tore through his chest. It felt as if a fiery vise was clamping down on his heart, starving his muscles of oxygen and power.
Android 19's cold mechanical eyes processed the sudden drop in Goku's performance instantly.
"Energy efficiency declining," 19 droned flatly. "Initiating full counter-offensive."
Before Goku could bring his arms up to defend, 19 slammed a heavy, iron-like fist straight into his solar plexus. The impact knocked the breath entirely out of Goku, sending him flying backward. 19 blurred through the air, appearing above him, and brought both hands down in a brutal double-axe handle that crashed Goku straight into the rocky earth below.
BOOM!
Dust billowed into the air as Goku hit the ground hard. He rolled onto his back, gasping wildly for air, his golden hair fading back to its natural black. Completely incapacitated, he clutched his left chest with both hands, his body trembling violently from the sheer agony of the heart virus.
"DAD!" Gohan screamed, rushing forward, but Piccolo caught him by the shoulder, holding him back with a grim, horrified expression.
"It's the heart disease..." Piccolo gritted his teeth, his eyes wide. "Trunks warned him, but it's hitting him right now, in the middle of the fight!"
Android 19 landed heavily beside the fallen Saiyan, a cold, eerie tilt to his head as he stepped toward Goku's squirming body, extending his pale hands with the red absorption palms exposed.
"Target vulnerable," 19 declared coldly. "Commencing total energy extraction."
Android 19 reached down, his red palm-orbs glowing as his hands hovered inches from Goku's chest.
BOOM!
Before the machine could clamp down, a green-and-black blur tore through the air. A massive, steel-hard boot connected straight with 19's head. The force of the kick caved in 19's jaw and sent the pale android skidding hundreds of yards across the canyon floor, tearing a deep trench through solid rock.
Escallion landed heavily between Goku and the machines, his cape snapping violently in the wake of his own shockwave. Dust swept around his boots as he stood tall, his dark hair casting a shadow over his face.
"Gohan!" Escallion barked, his deep voice slicing through the chaos without him even turning around. "Get your father out of here. Give him the medicine."
"R-Right!" Gohan gasped, scrambling forward alongside Piccolo to hoist Goku's trembling form off the ground. Goku was gritting his teeth, his fingers digging into his gi over his heart as he struggled to keep his eyes open.
"Escallion..." Goku choked out through the agonizing pain, his vision swimming. "Be careful... they absorb..."
"Save your breath," Escallion grunted coldly, his yellow-rimmed irises locking onto the distant mound of rubble where 19 was slowly climbing back out. "I don't plan on giving them anything to absorb."
From the sidelines, Dr. Gero's eyes narrowed into furious slits. His internal computer scanned Escallion, but the scouter readouts flickered wildly, unable to pinpoint the strange, compressed density of Escallion's suppressed Ikari Ki.
"Interfering fool," Gero sneered, his raspy voice dripping with arrogance. "It matters not who steps forward next. 19, destroy him!"
Far down the trench, Android 19 snapped his bent neck back into place with a sickening metallic click. His cold yellow eyes flared with mechanical rage as he locked onto Escallion, his internal thrusters roaring to life.
As Android 19 scrambled out of the rubble to face Escallion, Dr. Gero stepped forward, his cold red eyes gleaming with disgust as Gohan and Piccolo helped the writhing Goku to his feet.
"You think you can just retreat?" Gero sneered, raising his hand toward Gohan and Goku. "No one leaves this canyon alive!"
Before Gero could take a single step toward the fleeing Saiyans, a towering green silhouette cut through his line of sight. Piccolo dropped his heavy white turban and cape to the dust, stepping directly into Gero's path with a vicious, sharp-toothed grin.
"Your opponent is right here, old man," Piccolo growled, his deep voice dripping with malice as he cracked his knuckles.
Piccolo widened his stance, and a blinding, jagged white aura erupted around him. The sheer pressure of his Ki caused the surrounding stone spires to crack and shudder, the air pressure spiking as he unleashed his full power.
Without waiting another second, Piccolo vanished in a deafening sonic boom, tearing across the canyon floor straight at Gero.
Gero raised his arms just in time to block a devastating right hook. The collision sent a violent shockwave through the air, shattering the ground beneath their boots.
Piccolo didn't give him room to breathe; he immediately followed up with a furious barrage of rapid-fire strikes, his fists blurring into a storm of white-hot air pressure that drove the Red Ribbon creator backward through the canyon wall.
Gero dug his synthetic heels into the solid rock, countering with a sharp eye-laser beam that sliced through the dust.
Piccolo ducked beneath the searing red light, swept Gero's legs out from under him, and slammed a heavy knee straight into the old android's midsection, sending him crashing through a towering stone spire.
Android 19 stood forty yards away, his head tilted at an awkward, unnatural angle. Where his pale white cheek and jawline used to sit smoothly, the synthetic skin and sub-dermal metal were caved inward from Escallion's boot. His lower jaw hung uselessly by a single severed hydraulic hinge, twitching and swinging in the desert wind like a broken gate.
A faint, high-pitched whining sound emanated from 19's exposed internal neck wiring, accompanied by the static crackle of failing diagnostic routines. His cold yellow optical lenses flickered violently, struggling to process the target in front of him.
Across the dusty plain, Escallion didn't move an inch.
He stood tall and immovable, his dark arms folded tightly over his chest. His hair whipped in the wind generated by Piccolo and Gero's distant, earth-shattering clash, but his eyes, flashing with a faint, lethal yellow ring around the irises, never left the broken machine. His Ikari energy remained tightly compressed inside his frame, radiating a heavy, suffocating pressure that seemed to weigh down the very air around them.
He didn't take a combat stance. He didn't raise his hands. He simply stared down at 19 with utter, chilling indifference, as if watching a malfunctioning toy slowly break itself apart.
"Is that all?" Escallion asked, his deep voice carrying over the roaring wind, completely devoid of heat or effort.
19's hanging jaw twitched once more. The fat machine dug his feet into the earth, his remaining eye flaring with cold, mechanical hostility.
The broken hydraulic piston in Android 19's hanging jaw whined piteously against the dry wind. The machine was calculating probabilities, but it was already too late.
Escallion's stoic expression cracked. A sudden, sharp smirk ghosted across his lips. He wasn't going to drag this out; he was done watching a broken toy struggle.
He widened his stance, taking a deep breath that seemed to pull the oxygen from the canyon. His dark eyes, the golden-yellow rings pulsing brightly, snapped to the malformed android.
"HAAAA!"
Escallion's scream shattered the desert silence. The earth erupted beneath him, tectonic plates groaning as a massive shockwave tore outward, pulverizing the stone spires within a fifty-yard radius into fine powder. In a flash that blinded the valley, his dark aura ignited into a blazing, violent pillar of emerald gold. His massive frame stood cloaked in radiant energy, his spiky hair glowing gold, and his teal eyes burning with terrifying focus. The air pressure became crushing.
Even with his corrupted diagnostics, Android 19 staggered back, his sensors screaming catastrophic overload warnings as Escallion's power level spiked beyond measurable limits.
SWOOSH!
Escallion vanished. He reappeared instantly, not a single movement perceived, floating right in front of 19's distorted face. His golden Super Saiyan aura roared like a confined sun.
Before 19 could even process the displacement, Escallion reached out with impossible speed, gripping 19's thick left forearm.
"Let me ask you something, machine," Escallion said, his voice echoing with dual resonance, his deep bass laced with the raw power of the Super Saiyan. His teal eyes stared directly into 19's panicked yellow optics. "Built into your little servos... has your creator ever defined despair for you?"
With effortless, terrible force, Escallion yanked the arm backward while driving a heavy elbow straight into 19's bicep joint. A sickening metallic crunch and the high-pitched shriek of tearing hydraulics tore through the canyon. The left arm ripped cleanly away from the shoulder socket, showering the rock in sparks and dark fluid.
19 let out a high-pitched digital shriek, scrambling backward as his hanging jaw twitched wildly. He frantically tried to raise his remaining right arm, in a desperate last defense.
Escallion didn't hesitate. He brought his open palm down like a guillotine.
THWACK!
The strike cleaved straight through 19's remaining elbow joint, shearing the forearm cleanly off and sending it tumbling uselessly across the dirt.
The twin stubs of 19's shoulders sparked violently, hydraulic fluid spraying across his vest. The fat android was helpless, limbless, and completely cornered.
Escallion drew his hand back, cupping a dense, crackling orb of emerald-gold energy in his palm. The sheer heat radiating from the attack scorched the bedrock beneath their feet, turning the sand to molten glass.
"You're done."
Escallion thrust his hand forward, unleashing a massive, roaring beam of destructive Ki that engulfed Android 19 whole. His new move: Nova Annihilator, a dense, fiery core of energy that bursts outward in a massive sphere upon impact. The blast tore through the canyon, carrying the screeching android straight into the base of a towering rock plateau.
BOOM!
A gigantic, fiery explosion mushroomed into the sky, sending a violent shockwave rolling through the badlands and reducing Android 19 to absolute ash. Escallion lowered his hand, his golden hair fading back to black as the dust began to settle.
Witnessing the complete, horrifying atomization of Android 19 in a blinding column of emerald fire, Dr. Gero's mechanical heart nearly seized. His red optical lenses dilated to their absolute limit as his internal logic processors spiraled into total panic.
'19... destroyed?! In seconds?!' Gero's mind raced, his eyes flicking frantically from the smoldering crater where his creation had been reduced to ash to Escallion, whose golden aura was quietly fading back to black. 'The Namekian is far beyond my calculations... and this monster killed 19 without even breaking a sweat! I need to retreat... to the lab!'
Piccolo stepped out of the dust cloud, wiping a trace of purple blood from the corner of his lip, his sharp eyes locked onto Gero. "Your turn, old man," Piccolo growled, taking a heavy step forward. "Or are you going to stand there and wait for us to tear you apart, too?"
Knowing he was completely outmatched against both Piccolo and Escallion, Gero's hand darted behind his back.
"Don't mock me, alien!" Gero shrieked, his raspy voice cracking with desperation. "You haven't won anything!"
Before Piccolo or Escallion could close the distance, Gero's eyes flared with a blinding, high-intensity red light.
BOOM!
Dual crimson laser beams erupted from Gero's eyes, slamming directly into the dry, unstable canyon floor at his feet. The extreme thermal shock detonated the surrounding rock formations, triggering a massive, blinding dust storm mixed with superheated steam and shattered shale. The entire canyon section collapsed into a thick, impenetrable fog of dust, obscuring all sight and scent.
"Tch!" Piccolo shielded his face with his arm, leaping back as boulders cascaded around them. "A smokescreen?!"
Escallion didn't flinch. His eyes narrowed as he tried to pinpoint Gero's signature, but without a readable Ki, tracking the machine in the dense, silent dust cloud was nearly impossible.
By the time the heavy dust settled and the howling wind cleared the air, the plateau was empty. Gero had already plunged deep into the jagged, winding mountain passes, fleeing north toward his hidden mountain laboratory as fast as his synthetic legs could carry him.
Piccolo spat onto the scorched earth, his knuckles turning white. "Dammit... he slipped away into the mountains! We can't track him by his power level!"
The two fighters gave pursuit, flying overhead as Gero ran, ducking and weaving until he sped far ahead.
A sharp sonic boom tore through the sky as a dark silhouette streaked overhead, turning on a dime to match the flight path of Piccolo and Escallion.
Vegeta pulled up alongside them, his white armor gleaming in the high-altitude sunlight and his arms folded tight across his chest. A smug smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he looked down at the distant, scorched crater where Android 19 had been atomized.
"I see I missed part of the show," Vegeta sneered, his dark eyes cutting sideways through the wind. "Where's Kakarot?"
"Goku suffered some kind of heart failure in the middle of the fight, Gohan and Krillin took him back to take his medicine," Piccolo shouted over the roaring wind, his white cape snapping violently behind him. "The other android ran off into those mountains ahead. He doesn't have a Ki signature, so tracking him down is going to be a pain. But Escallion handled the white-faced one easily."
Vegeta's eyes flicked over to Escallion, taking in the towering Saiyan flying effortlessly beside them, his suppressed energy locked tightly inside his frame. Vegeta scoffed, adjusting his trajectory as they banked over a jagged mountain ridge.
"Tch. Kakarot always finds a way to ruin the fun," Vegeta muttered. He shot a sharp side-eye across the air gap at Escallion. "Speaking of missing things... where the hell have you been all this time, Escallion? Floating off in deep space for three years while the rest of us were down here preparing?"
Escallion didn't bother turning his head, his dark eyes locked firmly on the snow-capped peaks ahead where Dr. Gero had vanished.
"I was off-planet training," Escallion answered, his deep voice cutting through the rush of the atmosphere with cool, unbothered weight. "And I wasn't about to miss this fight."
Vegeta smirked, a dangerous, competitive gleam flashing in his eyes as he surged ahead, his white aura flaring brighter. "Hmph. Just make sure you don't fall behind, or you'll be watching me dismantle this so-called android."
Without another word, the three warriors poured on their speed, streaking through the clouds together as they closed in on Dr. Gero's mountain retreat.
--------------------------------------------
Deep within the northern mountain range, the Z-Fighters gathered outside the heavy, iron-clad blast door of Dr. Gero's hidden laboratory. Bulma had deduced Gero would retreat to his secret base and relayed the coordinates, allowing Tien, Krillin, and a newly arrived Future Trunks, his denim jacket scuffed and lavender hair whipping in the wind—to rendezvous with Vegeta, Piccolo, and Escallion outside the jagged cliff face.
Vegeta stepped forward, scoffing at the heavy steel barricade. "Move aside," he barked, raising a hand as a crackling sphere of golden energy condensed in his palm. He fired a point-blank blast directly into the entrance, blowing the massive steel doors completely off their hinges in a fiery roar of smoke and twisted metal.
Inside the dimly lit lab, surrounded by flickering monitors and banks of mechanical equipment, Dr. Gero frantically spun toward the smoking entryway. The pale, withered old man turned android stood clad in a black vest bearing the Red Ribbon logo, his brain exposed beneath a clear dome on his cap. His emergency activation sequence was already complete. Two tall metal pods hissed open, releasing Android 17 and Android 18.
17 stepped out first—a lean young man with striking dark eyes, shoulder-length black hair, and an orange scarf tied casually over his black shirt, denim jeans, and dark sneakers. Beside him stood 18, a sharp-eyed young woman with sleek blonde hair tucked behind her ear, wearing a denim vest over a black long-sleeved shirt, a blue denim skirt, black tights, and brown boots.
Lined up along the shadows of the far wall stood four distinct pods: 17, 18, and two additional units labeled 16 and 21.
"A good morning to you, dear Dr. Gero," 17 said mockingly, stepping over the hiss of venting coolant. "Even more cordiality than 17 here, no less than is called for."
"How very obedient my weapons have become," Gero rasped, pointing a clawed, synthetic finger toward the blown-open doorway. "You two have become androids since last I was active. Well then, time to start earning your keep! Goku's allies are heading towards this laboratory as we speak—go eliminate the lot of them! Let none survive!"
"Right, as you wish," 17 replied casually. But before Gero could celebrate, 17 snatched the emergency shut-off remote right out of the old man's pale hand.
"What do you think you're doing, 17?!" Gero shrieked, his voice cracking. "Give that back!"
"You know, this sure does look like a switch you could use to deactivate us anytime you wanted to," 17 smirked, tossing the controller casually in his palm. "But you'd never do that, would you?" He squeezed his fist, crushing the small remote into a mess of sparking circuits beneath his boot.
"Is this your idea of a joke, 17?!" Gero screamed in pure panic. "Because it's not funny!"
"You're never putting us to sleep again, you stupid old bastard," 18 added, her cold blue eyes fixing Gero with absolute disgust.
Outside the broken doorway, Trunks gasped as he caught sight of the pair. "A young man with long black hair and a scarf, 17, just as I described! And 18, female, blonde."
"Are these smirking children the androids who traveled back in time to warn us about, Trunks?" Vegeta sneered, eyeing them up and down.
"Yes!" Trunks yelled frantically. "Just because they look harmless doesn't mean you can let your guard down! Those are the worst villains the Earth will ever know!"
17 glanced over at the intruders, a slight, arrogant grin playing on his lips. "They destroyed Number 19 and almost got me as well," Gero grumbled behind them.
"There was a 19? Did you build that one after us?" 17 asked, chuckling. "And then Number 19 converted you into an android, I'm guessing? Was it an energy absorption model?"
"Yes, that's correct," Gero snapped.
"Why use the older tech on a more recent android?" 17 mocked. "Maybe you found perpetual energy models like us too powerful to boss around. Maybe that's why they beat you; you're weak."
"What I built and why is irrelevant now! Destroy them before they wise up and try to escape!" Gero commanded.
"How about you shut up? We will fight when we feel like it," 17 scoffed, waving him off.
18 walked past Gero toward the remaining pods along the wall, her boots clicking softly against the metal grate. She stopped in front of the massive pod labeled 16, while her eyes flicked briefly toward the fourth pod labeled 21, which sat dark and quietly humming.
"Number 16... huh, it's another perpetual energy model, right?" 18 mused, resting her hand against the frosted glass. "It's different from 17 and me somehow. It's much bigger than the two of us."
Through the condensation on pod 16, the silhouette of a colossal, heavily armored figure with a dark mohawk could be seen.
"Get away from that container! I'm warning you, 18, step back!" Gero yelled in absolute terror, staggering toward her. "Don't even touch it! Don't do it! Stop, you fool!"
"Hey, watch where you put your hands on a young lady," 17 warned, stepping in and shoving Gero back onto the hard floor.
"I'm surprised you've held on to 16 for so long considering how dangerous he is," 17 said smoothly.
"Look, if you reactivate Android 16 now, you have doomed us one and all!" Gero pleaded desperately, his artificial eyes wide with panic.
"We're all doomed, are we? I think I'll be the judge of that," 18 smirked, reaching for the release lever on 16's pod.
"I forbid you to press that!" Gero roared. "You little brat, how dare you! You are mine, you're my creation, obey me!"
Before Gero could finish his tirade, 17 stepped up behind his creator with terrifying, silent speed. In one swift, brutal motion, 17's hand drove straight through Gero's back and out of his chest, severing his mechanical core. With a fluid spin, 17 kicked Gero's head clean off his neck. The old android's head bounced off the wall and rolled across the metal floor, electrical sparks showering from his neck as the red light in his eyes flickered out.
"Look at what you've done..." Trunks gasped, horror dawning over his face as 18 pulled the lever with a heavy mechanical click, unsealing Android 16 while pod 21 remained quietly humming in the background.
With a heavy mechanical hiss, 18 pulled the main release lever for Android 16's container. Pneumatic pressure vented into the dusty air of the lab as the massive glass casing slid upward, revealing the towering, dark-armored frame of 16.
17 didn't pay attention to the gentle giant stepping out. His dark eyes drifted over to the fourth pod tucked away in the darkest corner of the lab, the container labeled 21.
"Hold on a second, 18," 17 said, a faint, curious smirk touching his lips as he walked past Gero's decapitated, sparking head. "What about this one?"
"Don't!" Trunks yelled frantically from the doorway, stepping over the scorched debris. "You don't know what else Gero built in here! Stop opening those pods!"
17 ignored him completely. He wiped a thin layer of dust off the frosted glass faceplate of pod 21.
Inside, illuminated by a faint pink internal light, sat a young woman with long, voluminous auburn hair, dressed in a two-tone blue and red dress. She wore heavy black-rimmed glasses, a golden ring on her finger, and had a silver-and-red Red Ribbon emblem pinned to her chest. Her eyes were closed, resting peacefully as diagnostic lines scrolled across a small sub-screen on the side of her unit.
"21..." 17 read aloud, tapping his fingers against the glass. "Looks like the old man was keeping a few secret projects under wraps. Wonder why he never mentioned her."
"17, leave it alone," 18 warned, leaning back against 16's empty pod with her arms crossed. "We don't need another giant or some unfinished prototype dragging us down."
"Come on, where's your curiosity?" 17 chuckled. "Besides, if Gero was terrified of 16, I want to see what he was hiding in this one."
Without waiting for an objection, 17 reached up and slammed the manual override switch on the side of pod 21.
CLACK-CHUNK!
The hydraulic seals on the fourth pod popped open with a high-pitched release of pressurized pink vapor. The front glass canopy rose slowly into the ceiling.
Across the room, Piccolo and Escallion instantly shifted their weight, their eyes narrowing as a strange, strangely layered Ki, part mechanical, part organic, and deeply buried, flickered to life inside the chamber.
The auburn-haired woman blinked slowly, her soft blue eyes adjusting to the harsh sunlight pouring through the destroyed doorway. She adjusted her thick glasses with a delicate finger, looking at 17, then at the headless body of Dr. Gero sparking on the floor, and finally at the group of Z-Fighters standing in the entryway.
"Diagnostic sequence... interrupted," 21 murmured, her voice smooth, polite, and surprisingly gentle. She looked up at 17 with a faint, uncertain expression. "Where... where is Dr. Gero?"
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A/N: Baddie 21 has touched down, and I had to tweak her a bit; she is a faux Cell now, having genetic material from all the Z-fighters and being made using Vomi's body. And yes, she is strong enough to fight the entire group -Escallion fairly easily. But more on that later.