With an overhead smash, Garlick Jr. closed the distance between him and Trunks and hammered his oversized arms down, smashing the entire district of the Penguin Village down to bits and sending rampant earthquakes throughout the entire island. Trunks appeared nowhere to be seen, having used his hi-speed movement to get out of the way. Clutching his ribs, Trunks panted, wondering just how many more of these hyper-fast movement escapes he had left in him.
A police car flipped over nearby the young boy with Penguin Village police spilling out. Polly Buckets grumbled as she pulled out her submachine gun and let it rip at the Destron Gas monster. The bullets bounced off of him with tiny sparks while the rest of the police became emboldened by Polly's lack of success since they were far less trigger-happy to open fire on the monster before. With Garlick Jr. having turned his attention to the police, Trunks finally had his chance to regain his breath.
The police chief aimed his shotgun at the approaching Destron monster with a quiver in his legs. Before Garlick Jr. could obliterate the police officers taking cover behind their cars, Trunks flew in from the side with a flying kick and kicked Garlick Jr. away. Garlick Jr.'s eyes gleamed red, but Trunks maneuvered around the eye beams and positioned himself above the Destron Gas demon. The young Saiyan delivered a punch to Garlick Jr.'s jaw before vanishing and appearing behind the buff monster and kicking him in the back.
With his opponent stumbling in a stagger, Trunks saw an opening, so he flew forward with a jumping kick, spin-kicking Garlick Jr. in the back and the front three times as he passed the monster by with hi-speed movement. Backflipping, Trunks spin-kicked the Destron Gas behemoth away, crashing through some buildings while the young boy descended on the ground with a pant and waited for the invincible monster to burst out from the sarcophagus of Penguin Village debris that the young Saiyan left his opponent in.
"I'm all done!" Videl chanted with a pumping fist as she swooped down by Trunks' side. "Nice work holding out!"
"I had a little help... Honestly, these guys aren't as useless as I thought," Trunks turned back to the police officers that trembled behind their flipped-over vehicles but continued to observe the situation and assist any ridiculous-looking denizen of the Penguin Village.
"They're not useless. It takes a lot of courage to stand up to a monster like this one when you're nowhere near as strong as him," Videl noted while observing a man with a pink stormtrooper helmet pulling a housewife with a ridiculously pear-shaped face and massive round eyes from the house rubble and leading her to a Charlie Chaplin lookalike further in the safe zone.
Scarlet beams of energy burst forth from the rubble and in a blink, Garlick Jr. obliterated it all, emerging in a wrathful and confident strut, yet slowed down because of his ceaseless production of different colored poop-swirls. With the entire village becoming cluttered with the poop of the Destron demon, there didn't seem to be a chance that Arale could ever join them in battle since she was too engrossed poking poop while the Gatchans laid on their backs with swollen bellies full of Capsule Corps merchandise they devoured.
"Well, at least the calamity from the future won't be happening this time around..." Videl sighed, realizing that while their situation wasn't ideal, they at the very least prevented the end of all of existence as they knew it and a lot of what they had no knowledge or understanding of.
"This has to be the most ridiculous that success has ever looked. Come on, let's destroy this monster and get Penguin Village rid of Destron Gas forever!" Trunks took a fighting stance as the two martial artists prepared to eliminate the last trace of Destron on Earth.
Rolling through the air, Trunks flipped upside down and kicked Garlick Jr. in the head several times before spreading his arms out and bringing them back together in front of him, mirroring his father's movements when he used the Final Flash. It just so happened that young Trunks' energy blast paled in comparison, but it did well enough to knock Garlick Jr. down on his back.
Trunks plummeted down with a kick that was meant to cave Garlick Jr. into the ground, but the Destron monster grabbed the young boy's heel and smacked him into the ground nearby him. Holding on to Trunks' heel, Garlick Jr. rose to his feet only to be greeted with Videl's dashing smash to his face. Another step in cross, then another quick jab that resulted in Trunks slipping from the monster's grasp.
Using the momentum of a backward roll, Videl flipped Garlick Jr. over her back, but instead of merely flipping him, she thrust both her feet into the monster's chest and shot him high into the sky where he couldn't have hurt any more locals. Engulfed in a crystal-clear burst of aura, Videl pursued the monster and pummeled him with her elbows and knees before vaulting over her front and driving her elbow into the top of Garlick Jr's head. The stunned monster grabbed hold of his malformed head that had a grievous indentation on the scalp and thrashed about for a bit in pain.
Videl charged at Garlick Jr. but a gleam in his eyes created a solid cage around the martial artist that imprisoned her and prevented her from pummeling the monster any further. Just as Garlick Jr. began channeling a Death Impact on his right hand, Trunks swooped in over Videl's magical cage with his arms spread to the side, channeling two golden energy spheres. Startled, the Destron monster fired the Death Impact at Trunks instead, but Trunks connected the two charged energy spheres into a single energy wave that swallowed up Death Impact and engulfed Garlick Jr. whole.
Garlick Jr.'s shape began stretching out and becoming more abstract as his limbs severed from his body and vaporized into noxious gas. The monster's jaw elongated as the flowing golden energy wave felt too intense to withstand. Yet, when Trunks' latest attempt at mimicking his father's signature technique subsided, a pleasant hum of an energy barrier spread from the smoke. In just a handful of seconds, the horrific injuries that Garlick Jr. had suffered were repaired by the gas merging with Garlick Jr.'s shape and becoming one again.
"Damn it, if this was the real Final Flash, he'd have been obliterated..." Trunks said in desperation. "Third time's gonna be the charm. Just give me some time to get a breather."
Garlick Jr. extended his hands forward, shooting off ten golden energy beams from each of his fingers that made Videl and Trunks flee for their lives as the skies became cluttered with chain explosions. The pair just barely seemed to flee out of the way but, as they recovered from their terror, a thought occurred to both fighters that maybe splitting them up was the whole point. Garlick Jr. blinked up behind Trunks with a malicious smirk on his face.
Before he could finish the boy off, however, Videl flew in with a kick to the jaw that knocked the behemoth aside. Then she thrust her leg into Garlick Jr.'s gut and knocked him further before transitioning into a flying kick to the chest and vaulting over him for an elbow slam from over the monster's head. Violet energy bursts lit up around Videl's fists as she threw a rapid barrage of punches, each of whom emitted a pulsing energy wave that beamed clean through Garlick Jr's body though left no holes or physical injuries, despite debilitating pain. Appearing beneath the chin of the stunned and battered monster, Videl drove her foot into Garlick Jr.'s chin, nearly beheading him at once while a purple energy pillar engulfed them whole in a resonant blast.
"Thanks," Trunks smiled at Videl when she drew back from the smoke and the debris to return to his side.
"No way I'm letting you get hurt on my watch. You may not like it, but I feel responsible for what happens to you while we're looking for the Dragon Balls together," Videl smiled back at the boy.
"He has to be getting soft now. One more good blow and he'll turn to Destron Gas, I can feel it!" Trunks pumped both of their hopes up with his tiny fists, cheering for them. A nasty snarl came from the settling explosion zone as a handful of yellow energy balls began chasing the two fighters around. As Trunks struggled to outrun them, he noticed that more and more of them began switching on to chasing Videl around. Seeing this as his chance, he vanished.
A dashing elbow smash to Garlick Jr's face made the giant stumble, leaving the energy spheres to no longer home in on Videl and just blast off into space and detonate by dyeing the skies in a golden shine. Videl gulped, realizing that she could've been on the other side of either of these detonations. Trunks attempted to spin-kick Garlick Jr. away to charge up another one of his imitated Final Flashes, but his kick phased through an afterimage, surprising the little boy.
A kick to the back sent Trunks flying away, the Saiyan boy clenched himself and stopped his fall, turning around and lashing out with a full-power energy wave but it once again only went through an afterimage. Another painful shock to the back as Garlick Jr. began toying with young Trunks, realizing he couldn't see through afterimages. More and more see-through doppelgangers intimidated young Trunks into attacking while Garlick Jr. exploited the openings.
"What are you doing? He's using the Afterimage technique, you need to sense his Ki!" Videl scolded the boy for failing to see through one of the simpler Ki techniques that Chayote and Gohan showed her.
"I can't, I've never seen this technique before!" Trunks cried out with tears in his eyes while his opponent toyed with him in what resembled malicious bullying. "Ugh! Why can't he go back to hyper-speed movement?"
"Vegeta-san must not have taught him much in terms of basics..." Videl realized. If the father and son just continued to strengthen their bodies, building up power and speed but failing to learn much in terms of seeing new techniques that weren't just more powerful energy blasts, it would explain why Trunks was struggling against a basic martial arts technique of an equally strong opponent. "Just follow my movements!"
"Okay!" Trunks nodded, covering up from Garlick Jr.'s beatdown. Videl aimed her hands out and fired a full-power energy wave that hit Garlick Jr.'s head-on, although he was hiding behind an afterimage. The blast was lacking in power, though it dragged the monster away from Trunks and gave the young boy a bit in terms of breathing space.
Joining in by Trunks' side, Videl and Trunks roundhouse kicked Garlick Jr. away before pummeling the Destron Gas demon together with a matching combination of punches and kicks. Letting out a proud battle cry together, the two drove their feet into opposing sides of Garlick Jr's cheeks while they dive kicked the monster down onto the ground, and skidded him across the whole Gengoro Island. As Garlick Jr.'s body hurled over the ocean, it began breaking down into ethereal gas that barely resembled the way the monster looked earlier.
"Okay, let's finish this together in one go!" Videl turned to Trunks before copying Gohan's movements from memory and focusing Ki in her hands. "Ka... Me...!" she chanted.
"Alright!" Trunks spread his arms to the sides. "Third time's the charm! Final..."
"Ha... Me... Ha!" Videl thrust her arms out.
"Flash!" Trunks followed Videl's pacing flawlessly.
Just a pair of harmless puffs of smoke escaped both of their hands. The two stared at the embarrassing fiasco for a few seconds, blinking once in a while until the pause became awkward and Garlick Jr.'s body began sizzling and reassembling bit by bit to regain a more solid form.
"It's no use... I'm beat!" Trunks collapsed on his knees in an excessive fit of panting.
Figuring that maybe she bit off more than she could chew, attempting a Kamehameha from the get-go, Videl tried channeling an energy wave, once it failed, a mere energy blast in her hand, but nothing worked. Just like Trunks, she was completely out of gas after having spent the same day twice running around Penguin Village and looking for the Dragon Ball as well as fighting this invincible monster twice in a row. It was of no use–the two of them really were all tuckered out.
"I'm sorry, Sir," a polite voice made Videl and Trunks turn to the space in between them where a young boy with large blue eyes and short black hair with horn-like spikes of hair on each side stepped in between both of them. "The mayor is busy poking poop at the moment, so it's up to me, the secretary, to deal with you right now!"
"Obotchaman?" Trunks smiled through cheerful tears as he realized that all would be okay now.
Obotchaman took a deep breath, bloating his body like a balloon from the influx of oxygen he took in. Yelling out the signature greeting of his wife from his mouth with the volume set to maximum, "N'cha Cannon!" A fiery golden energy wave shot out from Obotchaman's wide open mouth and obliterated the last traces of Garlick Jr., reducing him to just puffs of Destron Gas. Scrambling back to her feet, Videl slowly hovered over to the area and slipped off the Destron vacuum off to finish vacuuming the last of it.
The Destron Gas calamity that plagued Penguin Village was over. Panting and seated on his rear, Trunks pulled out the Dragon Radar and began laughing with joy after seeing the Dragon Radar picking the signal for the Dragon Ball up again.
With Penguin Village totaled, the residents gathered together in the square. Despite the calamitous damage, they seemed lively and eager to build their village back up and repair what still stood tall and survived. Both the many of Arale's friends and the people that were jailed but escaped after the police headquarters crumbled gathered together while Arale, Obotchaman, Dr. Senbei, and his family took the stage.
"Are you sure you don't need a rocket to bring you home to West City?" Dr. Senbei, wearing a tuxedo and a top hat for some reason, turned to the two visitors. Arale, Obotchaman, Videl, and Trunks both had golden medals that proclaimed that each of them got "1st Place" for something. From what Videl gathered, these were leftover medals from all the sports competitions and races that would have to be postponed until Penguin Village was rebuilt.
"No way, it'll be much faster if we fly home. After eating some, I feel good as new!" Trunks patted his chest, feeling his body getting tougher from the injuries he sustained fighting Garlick Jr. healing up slowly. In the sash attached to his belt hung a four-star Dragon Ball.
"After the Dr. Slump finale, maybe it's better that you don't build any more rockets, Doctor," Arale noted.
"Oh, well... I would've felt like a jerk not having offered it," Dr. Norimaki scratched his lower eyelid with a goofy smile.
Videl and Trunks slowly hovered above ground and waved goodbye to Penguin Village while Arale turned back to the villagers with pumping fists.
"Hey, everyone! C'mere!" Arale encouraged everyone to do their best together and see off their unexpected visitors that helped save the Penguin Village. "Listen up now... And-A-One-And-A-..."
"BYE-CHA!" everyone yelled out together while Videl and Trunks took off heading north. Since Gengoro Island was closest to the Red Sea and Kame Island, the two decided to make a brief pit stop there and call Bulma to let her know about the Dark Planet, the Destron Gas, and what happened in Penguin Village before recovering and resuming their quest for the Dragon Balls.
*****
An old man with bluish skin and white armor with patches of green shoulder pads and various jewels decorating it, a vein-ridden balding head with grey hair extending from the bottom of his scalp all the way down his back with one whited out eye while the other one glared blood-red hovered in a meditational state. Upon recovering, the man stroke his beard and thick grey mustache and beamed a ray of light from his cybernetic red eye onto the floor in front of him. He had been hovering above marble-sized spheres filled to the brim with Destron Gas swirling inside, located inside a fully cybernetic room resembling the shifting corridors of the Big Gete Star.
A scientist with wrinkly blue skin and an orange mustache, a golden plate coating his scalp, and black tinted shades coating the area around his eyes, appeared in the light emitted through the mediating scientist's beam of light.
"Dr. Lychee, I was expecting to hear from you. Regardless of this, I must admit I cannot say that I can brighten your day yet. For now, Baby, the hope of the Tsufurian race, remains in development, though, I imagine, you have already finished working on Hatchiyack, the ultimate body for Baby?" the blue-skinned wrinkly scientist said in a distorted voice from the beam of light.
"I did not reach out to you because of that, Dr. Myuu. The reason I reached out to you is that there seems to have been a delay in our Four-Stars Plan," Dr. Lychee said in a cybernetically augmented voice. "I've spread some Destron Gas on the sector near where our readings have last picked up the Big Gete Star and it appears that your fears were justified–the Big Gete Star seems to have been destroyed."
"That is awful news, Dr. Lychee. Out of our Four Stars, we ranked the Big Gete Star third in terms of importance. It may have been much better to lose the Luud Star since we have already gathered enough genetic data to construct Baby. Regardless, it could have been worse too–we could have lost M-2 or, I fear to think of it, the Dark Planet..." Dr. Myuu scratched his chin before sighing in relief that it wasn't any of the latter two Stars that have been destroyed.
"I've been picking up some odd readings from the Big Gete Star for a little while now. Needless to say, I'll have to spread some more Destron Gas to monitor the situation in the sector some more. A Destron Gas construct has brought some terrible data back to me. I haven't studied all of it just yet, but a preliminary reading suggests traces of the genetic code of a... Saiyan..." Dr. Lychee noted.
"A... A Saiyan!?" Dr. Myuu leaned over his control panel, looking distraught. "Could it be possible? I thought Saiyans had gone extinct by now. Did Frieza not destroy Planet Vegeta as you predicted?"
"It is possible some scouts may have been away on foreign planets. Even back then, we did not dismiss this eventuality. Either way, there were some irregularities with the data. It may not have belonged to a Saiyan at all, I just noticed chilling similarities, that is all. I'll let you know when I finish studying it," Dr. Lychee said, staring at a blank point of his Dark Planet interior that seemed identical to the corridors and laboratories inside the Big Gete Star.
"Please do, perhaps it would be smart to study the remains of the Big Gete Star to see how it was destroyed? Could you please send me the coordinates, I would have one of the Machine Mutants study the remains and share that data with you," Dr. Myuu pondered out loud.
"That would not be necessary. Focus on completing Baby. He is the hope of the Tsufurian race. A combination of both our research–my tampering with the Tsufurian genetic data to produce an ultimate specimen and your work elevating my work on Machine Mutants to new heights. I'll remind you that, as you have predicted, I have completed Hatchiyack already. This makes two of the Four Stars to have already completed their work, with the Big Gete Star destroyed, M-2 and Baby are the last steps of the Four-Stars Plan. See that Baby is completed before working on anything else, Dr. Myuu," Dr. Lychee instructed.
"Of course, Dr. Lychee. Though I think you misunderstood my report. Baby's genetic composition and incubation are already complete. All that remains now is for Baby to finish his hibernation period and awaken. M-2 is more than available for new research projects and for the Four-Stars Plan to be complete, we will need the Big Gete Star rebuilt," Dr. Myuu pointed out.
"In that case, very well, I'll send you the coordinates of where the Big Gete's last transmission was from. I too shall continue sending Destron Gas to obtain more data from the region. Let us work together and uncover this mystery before it impedes the Four-Stars Plan, Dr. Myuu..." Dr. Lychee nodded.
"I cannot wait, I am honored to serve you, Dr. Lychee!" Dr. Myuu pressed his hand to his chest and nodded before the emanating beam of light relaying the transmission cut short and the glowing red eye of Dr. Lychee's faded back to its ordinary jewel-like state of tranquility.
Dr. Lychee resumed his meditating position as black and violet shrouds of Destron Gas surrounded him and the entire room he meditated in, surging through the hallways of the Dark Planet and shrouding its entire surface, merging with the nebulae located in the region and traveling through them like an instantaneous transmission of information from one side of the universe to another.