Chapter 3

Vegeta and Piccolo prepare to fight against their nemesis, the clone of Piccolo. The Namekian clone is covered in cuts, and grazes from the battle, but is somehow still standing. He is wearing a black costume, just like the one his counterpart is wearing, but the clone wears no weighted clothes. His black blood oozes down his face, and a cold, icy wind blows across the battleground, propelling small clouds of dust into the air. Drops of rain fall from the dark clouds that fill the sky, and the clearing where everyone stands, soon turns into a darker colour, quickly getting waterlogged. Flashes of lightning illuminate the sky, and clashes of thunder boom through the air, as if huge titans were fighting in the heavens. Vegeta’s hair blows ever so slightly in the wind, but keeps its spiky posterior. His trousers are sticking tightly to his leg, because of the rain. Piccolo on the other hand is hardly wet at all. The drops seem to slide right off him. His weighted clothes are the only things that are damp. They must be twice as heavy as they were before now. Piccolo takes a step forward, and Vegeta follows. The clone steps back. Piccolo and Vegeta advance on him further, then Vegeta soars through the air, and delivers a fist, hitting the clone of Piccolo hard in the face, and causing a nasty bruise. Vegeta continues the relentless assault, attacking evil Piccolo with everything he has. Vegeta knees Piccolo’s clone in the stomach, and he is bent over in pain. Vegeta charges up a ball of energy, and forms it into a ball on his hand. He then starts to punch with it, causing mini-explosions every time he connects with a punch. The evil Piccolo goes flying through the air, and knocks down a multitude of trees, of all sizes, before he can regain control of his flight. He is as mad as a hornet now, as he gets up, and wipes the fresh blood from his face. He limps back to the battleground, holding his arm, which was injured as he shot towards the trees. The clone of Piccolo gets back to where Vegeta, and the real Piccolo are, then looks them both straight in the eye. He powers up to full strength, then roars out “It is time for this to come to an end!”

The clone of Krillen jumps forward, and gets into his fighting stance. “It looks like you need a lot of help! Lets finish these guys off!”

“I don’t need your help!” answers Piccolo, obviously not grateful from the intrusion.

“Too bad.”

“Alright, just for this battle then.”

“Heh heh, lets do it then!” said the clone of Krillen, as he powers up to full. ‘Evil’ Krillen creates a black aura around him, as to does the ‘evil’ Piccolo. The surrounding energy gets bigger, and bigger, until it is of colossal proportions. Vegeta and Piccolo power up too, with both of them clenching their fists hard. ‘Man! how did that freak clone power increase so much! We were destroying him earlier, and now it is like he has a new burst of life. And his friend, the cue ball, he has an incredible power too!’ thought Vegeta.

Vegeta and Piccolo are at full power now, and they don’t give the clones any more time. Piccolo goes for the dark Krillen, and Vegeta resumes his assault on the evil Piccolo. Dark Krillen is managing to dodge all of Piccolo’s blows, but he can’t get any of his own in. Piccolo swipes for his face, but misses, and then catches evil Krillen with a kick in the stomach. Krillen’s clone bends over, holding his stomach, and is met with a harsh fist to his lip, which causes spit to fly out of his mouth. Piccolo then throws a ball of dark yellow energy at him, which causes an explosion. The Namek then holds out his forefingers, and slowly starts to charge up his most powerful attack. His power level rises as he does so, and after a short pause, a beam of energy is on Piccolo’s fingers. He shoots it at the evil Krillen, but the short, bald headed fighter saw it coming, and dived out of the way.

Meanwhile, Vegeta and dark Piccolo are exchanging blows, with neither getting the upper hand. No matter how hard Vegeta tries, he can’t land a punch. Every time he gets near, dark Piccolo either disappears, or uses his speed to fly away. Vegeta is full of anger now, as he misses blow after blow. The dark Piccolo gets tired of playing games, and delivers a tightly clenched fist to the stomach of the saiyan. Vegeta’s pupils roll to the back of his head, and he stops dead in his tracks. His armour has been decapitated by that blow, leaving cracks all over it. Vegeta falls to the ground, holding his gut, and coughing up more blood. He is having trouble breathing, and everything is pitch black to him. The evil Piccolo starts laughing insanely, then charges up his special beam cannon. It comes onto his fingers in twice the speed as it did with the other Piccolo. The beam cannon is thrown straight towards Vegeta, as a huge explosion follows. The thick, grey smoke takes a while to clear, but when it does, a shadow is seen. It is of a figure holding its arm, and badly hurt, but still standing none-the-less. The smoke goes completely, and there is the figure, It is a VERY miffed Vegeta. HE is covered in blood, and breathing very heavily. His face has been completely destroyed, and is covered in cuts, grazes, and even bruises. He limps over to where the stunned clone of Piccolo is. He falls on his way, but climbs back up. He laughs menacingly at his enemy. “Every time…………..you attack me………….I become stronger!” Vegeta stated patronizingly. “Every punch you throw, every energy beam you use, makes me stronger! I am going to tear you limb from limb!” Vegeta charges up, and a gigantic blue aura forms around him, and it rips a big crater in the earth that he is standing on, and the intensity of the energy makes the majority of the trees around them blow away. Vegeta has a fury in his eyes which has not been seen many times before. Despite the beating that he has taken in this battle, he has kept coming back. He charges in at the evil Piccolo, who is still stunned, and gets a particularly brutal shot in on his face. The evil Piccolo falls back, then regains his composure, and gets back to his feet. He looks around for Vegeta, but can’t scout him out. Vegeta suddenly appears behind the clone of Piccolo, and kicks him in the back of the head, then quickly gets a knee to the gut in. ‘Evil’ Piccolo falls to one knee, and looks up at Vegeta, as if pleading with him. The merciless saiyan prince charges up a ball of energy in his hand though, and says cruelly, “Time to send you into another dimension!” He then blasts a beam of energy straight at the evil Piccolo’s face, and watches as the clone drops to the ground, with his eyes shut, and his power level down to 0. Another one of the clones have been defeated.

The dark Krillen bounces back at Piccolo after being thrown away, but is met by a huge slice from the claws of the Namekian. Piccolo floats into the air, and throws down a ball of energy. He then charges some more up, and keeps on throwing them down. The explosions roar, and smoke spreads for miles, slowly getting higher as more energy is use. Piccolo takes a little longer charging up the final ball of energy, then throws it down onto Krillen, causing an absolutely epic explosion, which makes the whole planet shake.

Piccolo is panting hard, trying to catch his breath after using up all his energy. Even Vegeta is impressed by the Nameks display. The smoke eventually clears, and dark Krillen is standing there, with his face covered up, shaking. His arms are black, and burnt, and he seems to have been hurt quite badly from blocking it all. “What! He blocked all that! How!?” roared Piccolo disbelievingly. Vegeta floats down to Krillens level, and eyes the warrior. “Sense his power Namek. You will see that there is nothing left inside him.  He is spent.” Piccolo closes his eyes, and moves his head in the direction of the dark Krillen, who is no longer blocking, but is looking at his two opponents. Piccolo smiles upon sensing the power level. “This guys mine!” He then swoops down, and goes for evil Krillens face. The clone smiles weakly as Piccolo charges, then raises one of his hands. A disc forms, and slowly gets bigger, as the clone struggles to maintain the balance of it. He throws it at Piccolo, who shouts as he can’t stop. the disc cuts through the air at an awesome speed. Piccolo tries to slow down, but his efforts are futile, as the disc approaches. Piccolo tries to avoid it, but he is too slow, and gets both his legs sliced off. Piccolo falls straight down to the ground, making a huge thud. Krillen then takes advantage of the Nameks carelessness, and shoots a beam of energy out of the end of his hand, which explodes on Piccolo as it makes the impact. Vegeta soars in, and smacks evil Krillen in the face, before floating up, and charging up his trademark final flash. He is laughing hysterically as he shoots out the blast, and connects with Krillen, causing an instant death, and a totally immense explosion, as well as a titanic rupture in the ground. Vegeta smiles, then looks down at Piccolo, who is in intense pain. He lets out a cry of agony, then a new pair of legs shoot out from the stumps, which made up his thighs. Piccolo climbs to his feet, with purple blood all over him, especially where he had regenerated his limbs. He is breathing heavily, and looks across at a very smug Vegeta. They walk over to the rest of the ‘Z’ soldiers, and fall flat on the floor. They are both totally spent after giving the battle everything they had. “Goh...Gohan, listen to me. You need to beat these guys for us. Me and Vegeta haven’t got anything left. We can’t take another sensu, because we need to save some for later. The worst is still to come. You….You need to take on the Chaozu clone, otherwise you have no chance of winning. The Tien and Goku clones will destroy everyone. And try to stay away from the Yamcha one too. He should be fairly tough. Go on then Gohan. Do it for me….” Piccolo then stops moving, and collapses.

“Mr. Piccolo!” roars Gohan. “You! Your friends hurt Mr. Piccolo, now I will make you pay!” Gohan points at the clone of Goku, the apparent leader of the bunch. Gohan walks towards him, ready for battle.

Goku only laughs. “Kid, you really think you could so much as touch me with that power level of yours! Tien, Yamcha, get the kid!” Tien and Yamcha’s clones step forward, and clench their fists. Gohan backs off a bit, but stands his ground. Krillen steps forward to help him, as do Tien and Yamcha. Chaozu watches from the side, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to do anything anyway. The fight is about to start.

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Back at King Kai’s place, there is not a cloud in the sky, and the diminutive planet seems calm. King Kai is polishing his car, and Gregory is playing around with Bubbles. It seems so peaceful. Then there is the figure of two people running across the planet at an incredible speed. King Kai looks up as he feels something brush past him, and he sees Goku. “Well done Goku! You have perfected the entrail move! Now hurry, I sense that Vegeta and Piccolo are suffering, and that you are needed!” splutters King Kai.

Goku puts his forefingers onto his forehead, and close his eyes. A few seconds later, he opens them. “What happened? Why am I still here?” said Goku, sounding very confused.

“The weather…….the weather on Earth is terrible because of all the energy that has been shooting everywhere. The lightning bolts interfere with your teleportation powers. You can’t get a lock onto the battlefield. You must travel all the way across snake way!

“What? But that’ll take about half an hour! I haven’t got that long!” replied Goku worriedly.

“You have no choice. Go now, quickly!”

“Ok, tell Karin I’ll be stopping off at his tower to get some sensu beans!”

“Good luck Goku!” said King Kai, as Goku powered up, and flew away almost at the speed of light. King Kai then closes his eyes, and establishes a psychic link with Karin. “Prepare some of your beans Karin, Goku is in need of them, and he has no time to waist.”

Goku roars along snake way, upturning many of the spiky scales that line the road. He jumps over the road cleaner, and resumes his run, getting faster all the time. The dark clouds underneath snake way have shadowy hands coming out of them, trying to grab Goku’s ankles as he runs, but they aren’t fast enough, and Goku is already out of site by the time they manage to touch the road. 

What will become of the ‘Z’ warriors without Vegeta and Piccolo to help? Can Goku make it back in time to assist Gohan, Krillen, Tien and Yamcha? All will be revealed.