章節 33: Performance

BANG!

Debris was tossed in the air as the burly Dr. Kochin blocked Vegeta's fist with his forearm. Kochin smirked, raising up his free arm as its shape twisted and morphed into a chain-gun. The weapon's barrel whirled around rapidly firing a stream of lasers towards Vegeta's face. The Saiyan performed several back flips to avoid the high powered laser blasts.

"I'm surprised you avoided that. You are performing better than our data would indicate." Kochin praised. "You should just stay out of my way. I want the so called Emperor."

"You think I'm less of a threat than Raditz!" Vegeta roared.

His golden aura surged in a fit of anger at the perceived insult to his strength. He was going to prove that no mere cyborg could ever hope to be his equal.

Kakarot moved around the battlefield using his full speed to avoid the twin beams Gero was firing from his eyes. The Saiyan was attempting to make sure none of the stray blasts found their way over to his friends. Kakarot enjoyed the challenge of fighting an opponent without a Ki signal to track, it made the fight more unpredictable. He knew dodging the entire time wasn't going to win the fight, but closing the distance was difficult. Kakarot decided to use a long range attack to catch Gero unprepared for the follow up attack.

KAMEHAMEHA!!!

Raditz watched Kakarot perform his go to attack against the cyborg. He tried to communicate to his brother that he shouldn't try that tactic, but his Scouter wasn't functioning. Raditz was beginning to sweat as the beam raced towards Gero. What Raditz imagined came to pass when the beam was absorbed by the cyborg.

Unaware of the possibility of his attack being absorbed, Kakarot was already in the process of getting into striking distance of his foe. Gero's speed sharply jumped as he turned around to greet his sneak attacker face to face. Kakarot stopped dead in his tracks upon seeing Gero turn to face him. He barely managed to react in time to block a kick aimed at his midsection.

BOOM!

Despite blocking the kick, Kakarot was sent flying through a rock formation, causing it to crumble, before finally coming to a rest in a plateau. After creating a sizable distance between himself and Kakarot, Gero turned his head to observe Kochin in action. He was still curious who had the superior ideas towards the creation of enhanced warriors. Gero personally only used his own technology in the creation of his body along with some modified designs based on Gren'dir technology Capsule Corp. released.

The Bio-Warrior research brought by Kochin and Wheelo was a significant step forward. Gero knew Kochin's body was grown from the Ebifurya01 genetic material strain. Edifurya was the name given to one of the Bio-Warriors Kochin was originally growing. After the collaboration one research he ultimately scrapped his Bio-Warriors, but kept samples of their DNA.

Kochin's chain-gun arm returned to its normal form and he was trading blows with Vegeta. Every spot Kochin managed to land a hit was covered in a layer of ice. Vegeta was slowly being pushed back while he was attempting to raise his Ki to shatter the ice. Kochin pressed the attack further from seeing he was pressuring the Saiyan.

Dr. Wheelo remained stationary, observing the battlefield, while his eyes gave off an eerie yellow glow. No matter how much he tried, Raditz couldn't see a weakness in the cyborgs. He remembered when he fought the Bio-Warrior Kishime, he could see its weakness. Even if the enemy was too strong to for him to capitalize on their flaws, he could still see them. He didn't understand why he had that ability, but he has never encountered a situation like this. His guess was that they were too mechanical in their design to be read.

After Kochin had encased all four of Vegeta's limbs in ice, Gero started to approach them. When he noticed this, Raditz knew Gero had no interest in fighting one on one if he didn't need to. The brawny Kochin kicked Vegeta in the direction of Gero.

"Here, I have a different target in mind." Kochin glared up at Raditz.

Dr. Gero caught the Super Saiyan by the back of his neck. Vegeta knew something was off when he felt his Ki draining from his body.

"This energy is incredible." Gero praised before he was blown away by a fierce kick from a recovered Kakarot.

"Reiss, go help them." Raditz order his son.

Reiss was snapped out of his fixation on the battle by his father's voice. He was about to head down to the battlefield when he noticed his father's face was covered with sweat, and his Ki was circulating in a chaotic manner.

"Are you ok?" Reiss asked. He also knew if everything was fine, Raditz would fight the battle himself, rather than ordering him to help.

"No, I'm dying from the heart virus." Raditz stated. Aware of his position he tried to appear as calm as possible.

Reiss's eyes widened in horror from hearing his father's nonchalant declaration of impending doom. He hesitated about what to do, but a look from his father told him it was under control. Reiss flew from the plateau to intercept Dr. Kochin.

Even though the pain in his chest was unbearable, Raditz remained standing. Big Gete analyzed the cure, allowing it to synthesize more. As painful as the virus was now, Raditz really didn't want to know how the mutated version felt. Unfortunately, he would need to. Because of the nature of the cure, he would first have to eat a Panacea bean to cause the mutation before consuming the cure.

"I haven't been to Earth in three years and I get infected." Raditz groaned to himself before eating the bean. "Why couldn't it be Vegeta or Yamcha?"

The moment he ate the normally lifesaving bean, his body was wracked with pain. The others gathered on the plateau saw Raditz drop to the ground. They ran over to investigate what happened to their comrade. When they arrived, they saw that the galactic emperor was doubled over, shaking in pain, very pale, and soaked in sweat.

"What's going on?" Yamcha asked in a panic.

"I don't know!" Tien was at a loss to what could have happened to damage Raditz to this extent. He knew there was no way someone as strong as Raditz could've been sneak attacked this badly.

"Heart... virus." Raditz's voice was barely audible.

Reiss landed in front of Dr. Kochin, stopping the cyborg in his tracks. Kochin examined the boy, checking his data for the child's information. The fact that Reiss was the son of Bulma and Raditz was the only relevant information on the boy.

"I was watching your fight. It looks like you have to touch a person to freeze them." Reiss stated confidently.

"Well, since you are Raditz's son, I'll kill you like he killed Kishime. Then I'll show him your corpse before killing him too." Kochin threatened.

"AHHH!" Reiss cried out, charging his Ki.

His output of energy caused the others to look in his direction, amazed by the child's power. His muscles expanded, increasing his size. Reiss's hair took on a untamed look while his irises gained a golden color. A cascade of green aura violently raged around the screaming child while his Ki continued to rise.

"Ok, let's do this!" Reiss was ready to go.

Vegeta was momentarily caught off guard by the energy Raditz's son was putting out. The prideful Saiyan was surprised that the boy wasn't a Super Saiyan, but still had a tremendous level of power. He wanted to know how Raditz and his son obtained their Ape power. Vegeta was under the impression Saiyan Earthling hybrids were naturally more powerful.

BOOM!

A hammerblow from Kakarot sent Dr. Gero tumbling down out of the air. Dust and debris filled the air from the cyborg's impact. Kakarot followed to try and finish his opponent, but lost sight of him in the dust. While he was searching, Kakarot failed to notice the shadowy figure behind him emerging from the cloud.

Kakarot was unable to react to Gero grappling him by covering his mouth and holding him around the chest. The energy drain was immediate. Kakarot felt his Ki disappearing into Gero's power conduits. Kakarot knew the longer Gero held him, the smaller his chance of escape would be. He needed to take a gamble to free himself.

KAIO-KEN!

The Kaio-ken aura burned around Kakarot for only an instant before vanishing. Dr. Gero was fed the excess Ki the instant Kakarot used the Kaio-ken technique. The golden Super Saiyan aura around the captured Saiyan faded, along with his golden hair and emerald eyes.

Dr. Gero tossed his foe into the air, followed up by a red energy ball which pushed Kakarot some distance away before exploding. The force of the explosion created a shockwave which could be felt all the way back on the battlefield.

"Kakarot, you weakling!" Vegeta scowled while summoning more Ki. "Losing to a machine is an embarrassment for a Saiyan!"

Vegeta flew towards Gero performing a whirlwind of kicks and punches at the cyborg. Gero was blocking the strikes with minimal effort. The energy drained from Kakarot powered the cyborg well over the level he was at before.

Reiss was too busy dancing around the attacks of Dr. Kochin to pay attention to what was happening with his uncle. Training in the Hell Room was perfect for this battle, especially since his father drilled avoiding grapples into him. He now wondered if his father knew about how the cyborgs worked ahead of time.

The boy ducked to avoid one of Kochin's kicks, and went into a handstand, forcefully planting his heel in Kochin's torso. Reiss followed the attack up by spinning on his hands catching the large cyborg in the gut with several more kicks.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Reiss flipped forwards, landing back on his feet, to the annoyance of Kochin. Everytime the cyborg attacked, Reiss would avoid the strike and counter with his own. In his anger, Dr. Kochin released an aura of frost in a three foot radius around his body.

Reiss jumped back to avoid the freezing aura released by Kochin, only to come face to face with Kochin's chain-gun. The Saiyan child had no problems avoiding the laser blasts Kochin fired towards him. It was very similar to the hellish training he was already forced to endure.

Frustrated by his targeting algorithms inability to hit the child, Dr. Kochin changed tactics. His arm morphed once more, modifying itself into a very large cannon. He fired a blue strafing energy beam at the infuriating child.

Reiss ran while Kochin directed the sustained beam at him. The boy noticed as he moved around, that the beam froze everything in its path. A small wall of ice was created in the wake of the blue beam. Reiss was unsure of how long he could avoid the beam, because Kochin's accuracy seemed to be increasing.

As the beam drew closer, Reiss decided he should stop playing defensive and go on the offense. After spinning around, narrowly avoiding the freeze ray, Reiss returned fire with a beam of his own. It was a thin, red, piercing beam similar to Frieza's Death Beam. The beam raced towards Dr. Kochin, piercing through the top of his beam arm, and causing it to spark violently. Kochin was forced to revert his arm back into its normal state.

Raditz managed to sit up in order to retrieve the capsule that contained the viral cure. After pressing the plunger on the DynoCap, the small vial containing the cure appeared in his hand. It was an incredible chore to even try to open the medicine vial.

"Is that a cure?" Bardock asked. He never would have believed a Saiyan as powerful as his son would be brought low by a disease.

Raditz could only weakly nod in answer to his father's question. Bardock took the vial from his son and opened it before passing it back. Raditz was trying to keep his hand steady as he lift the vial to his lips.

SMASH!

The vial was kicked out of Raditz's hand, causing it to break against the hard rocky ground. Everyone was shocked that the cure would be knock way. Even more shocking, was the fact that it was Yamcha that did it.

"Yamcha, why?" Krillin asked. He was stunned by his long time friend's action. There was no reason for Yamcha to take the course of action that he did.

"Why? Because I learned all I needed to." Yamcha's eyes glowed the same yellow color as Dr. Wheelo's.