ANNOUNCEMENT: If you guys didn't catch it before, but after months of labour I finally COMPLETED my GohanXZangya doujinshi on my paetreon. You can find the fully coloured copies on my paetreon and through DLsite – GohanXZangya: Fiery Lake. I also have two short comics of GohanXAndroid 18 and GohanXChi-Chi posted on my paetreon for anyone interested in checking them out.

For anyone wondering why I've been away from fanfiction for a while, my comics are my reason. But I'll still be posting as best as I can.

This is it, the final chapter of the Lord Slug Saga.

DRAGONBALL Z

Alter Age

Victory or Bust

(Meanwhile)

High above Lord Slug's war planet and currently in orbit inside the massive asteroid field tumbling around the world's curve, the battle between Gohan, Lucoa, and the fighters they'd dragged up into the vacuum with them was finally entering its final stretch. And what a banging stretch it was turning out to be.

After having a large asteroid the size of a mansion get thrown right into her face by the Golden Oozaru, which sent her tumbling through the field and smashing through several more rocks in the process, the massive dragon girl landed against a significantly larger asteroid and decided to return his attack with an even bigger one. Ruffling her wings and spines in frustration- and creating a very rocky platform for Dore and Wings still fighting on her left shoulder in a heated punch-up- the battle-damaged dragon roared and sent the flames gushing off her hide in a flashy display of rage.

As Gohan- crouching down on his large space rock in a defensive stance- felt the dragon's energy spike drastically, then noticed behind the lizard's form the enormous chunks of the nearby moon, which had been smashed to pieces by the Cosmic Storm, suddenly light up a hot orange. Its remains transforming into burning, intact masses of magma, the Giant Ape then felt his jaw drop when he saw Lucoa fan her wings out, draw them back, before telekinetically pulling all the remains of the distant satellite towards her.

The moment she did, Lucoa then slammed both her forward feet into the meteor in front of her, crouched low, and wilfully hurled every single piece of the moon she'd set alight straight at Gohan- literally dropping a meteor shower right on top of him.

When burning rubble, the size of islands, and massive, lava-heated rocks began blasting through the asteroid belt, smashing into more rocks and sending them on a collision course towards the Golden Great Ape's position, Gohan responded in kind. Inhaling deeply, the Super Saiyan leaned forward and unleashed a Blitz Cannon right into the incoming shower, firing a massive golden beam into many oncoming rocks and incinerating them. Cutting through several more and smashing them into smaller pieces, the giant ape then leapt off his platform when the rest of the shower finally reached him and obliterated the asteroid he had been standing on.

As mountain-sized chunks of burning rubble barrelled through the asteroid field, Gohan spent the next minute dodging the flaming debris and leaping from asteroid to asteroid through the hail. Punching through an oncoming lava plate and smashing right through it like a glass window, the boy then landed on another incoming rock and grabbed hold of it with all fours, making sure to keep his form steady atop it so that Myra- who was on his right shoulder fighting Zeeun- didn't fall off.

Flying backwards atop the mobile flaming asteroid as it fell towards the planet below with the rest of the shower, the Golden Ape then glared through the debris field in frantic search of his opponent. He eventually spotted her when the Giant Dragon came ploughing her way through the meteor shower and dove right towards him, screeching loudly.

Telegraphing her approach, Gohan gave a roar, extended his hand, and opened with a blast at her through the cascading debris. But due to falling with the asteroids towards the ice planet his attack missed, exploding behind her when it hit a random meteorite. As a result, the dragon ploughed right into him with her massive form, knocking him off his meteorite and sending both of them falling with the flaming asteroids.

The battle from there transformed from an explosive exchange in space to a freefall battle, in which the two hulking opponents began plummeting towards the planet below with the falling asteroids. Being entirely dictated by gravity, the pieces of the moon fell with the curvature of the planet, traveling across its thermosphere before eventually hitting the upper layer of its atmosphere. As soon as it did, the meteorites began to burn up, lighting up the sky with a wall of fire as they breached the planet's defensive range and towards the clouds.

As everything burned around them, Gohan and Lucoa continued their fight. The two titans, grappling with each other, continued to slug one another with punches that generated massive shockwaves and caused thunderclaps to echo across the upper mesosphere. Ignoring the fact that they were both on fire, the dragon and the ape tumbled head over heel over each other, grabbing hold of their opponent and laying into them with one punishing blow after another.

As for Myra, Dore and their opponents, all four of them were taken for the ride of their lives as their surroundings became engulfed by fire, with each and every one of them grabbing hold of their mobile platforms with all the grip strength they could muster. While Dore and Wings fell down Lucoa's body and caught hold of her tail to stop from flying off into space, Myra and Zeeun got entangled in Gohan's golden hair, with both warriors holding onto the locks as they were pulled back down to the planet along with the two giants and the broken up moon chunks.

"GAAAAAAAAH! FUCKING HELL!" Zeeun swore profusely, his armoured body whipping about like a streamer on the wind as he held onto Gohan's hair like it was a chain. "

During the fall, Lucoa, being the tenacious lizard that she was, grabbed Gohan from behind, swung him forward, and used his body as a heat shield during their re-entry sequence through the mesosphere. Thanks to her arm lock, the boy ended up catching all the heat as they ploughed through the opening layers of the planet- at least for a little while.

After having his face scorched for several seconds against the winds of their violent descent, a frustrated Gohan- using all his strength and his free arm- swung his limb back and began repeatedly elbowing Lucoa in the face. Hitting her four times in the jaw with murderous precision, he managed to force the dragon to loosen her grip, before eventually grabbing her in a headlock, spinning her around, and using her body as a heatshield instead. Both warriors roared and screamed at each other as they spun through the dense layers of air racing up to meet them- their velocity building up to the point that it was a miracle both hadn't been incinerated from how much fire was gushing around them.

Eventually, after a harrowing journey through the mesosphere, the two titans and the asteroids broke through into the upper stratosphere, the flames once engulfing them eventually ebbing away, and allowing whatever debris remained from the falling moon chunks to plummet freely into the Eclipse-I's sky. As this was going on, Gohan- who'd previously been on top- found himself beneath his opponent when she pivoted them around and managed to bite into his neck. Letting out a scream of pain, the Super Saiyan Oozaru reached out, grabbed a chunk of rock falling nearby, and smashed it against her head.

He hit her with such force he not only shattered the rock but forced her to let go of him with a yelp. The two fighters separated as a result and, as their angle of descent continued to hold steady with the field of debris, the pair began falling side-by-side towards the first layer of clouds.

When they eventually reached the first cloud layers, both the falling Gohan and Lucoa took shots at each other- with Lucoa unleashing a fire breath on the boy, who shielded himself with his arm before pitching a golden ball of ki into her. The explosion knocked her tumbling back, stopping her attack, and knocking both Wings and Dore off her. The two bulky fighters fell alongside their larger partners, with the duo diving towards each other to continue pummelling each other while falling through the heavens.

As for Myra and Zeeun, thanks to the quick exchange of attacks, the two fighters were also knocked out of Gohan's hair and separated, both immediately taking control of their dives and dodging the rocks that fell around them. After falling for several seconds through the debris, watching Gohan and Lucoa tumble around as well to return to the fight, both the Hera and her demonic tank of a foe decided to reengage. So, after Myra landed against the side of a falling meteorite and sprinted down the side of it, she then sprung off it and dove towards Gohan's back.

Gohan, managing to give himself a kick of ki toward his feet, shot towards Lucoa and threw a punch at her, the dragon reciprocating his action and slamming her fist against his. The moment their knuckles connected, a massive shockwave rang out that sent vibrations running up their bodies and shattered some of the surrounding rocks. Continuing to fall together, Lucoa then threw a slash at the Oozaru's face, only for the golden giant to catch it and hold it.

With both warriors holding onto one another, Myra and Zeeun landed atop them. The instant the former dropped down onto her partner's back, the redhead then sprinted up his back, over his shoulder, and down his arm. The demon did the same, leaping over Lucoa's shoulder spike, landing on her arm, and charging towards his foe.

"HRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" Myra screamed, running straight towards Zeeun and greeting him with a punch the instant both arrived at the fists where both Gohan and Lucoa were still connected.

"GRAAAAAAAAHHHH! DIIIIIEEEEE!" Zeeun screamed, also throwing a hook at the woman, which resulted in both the Super Hera and the demon general hitting each other across the face at virtually the same time.

Both being knocked back by their respective blows, the pair then skidded back along their giant partner's forearms, before rushing back in to continue. When the commander lunged in with a left jab, the Hera-seijin slipped under it, got behind him, and struck at him with a kick. Getting struck, Zeeun yelped in pain and spun around with a back fist, feeling the woman block it before countering with a one-two cross to his face- the blows crunching against his nose. From there, the pair began a vicious exchange of blows atop their partner's massive knuckles, with Gohan and Lucoa continuing to grapple furiously as they plummeted past clouds and falling rocks- the ground of the ice planet below rapidly approaching.

Dore and Wings meanwhile, after both smashed through a meteorite with each other, continued to spin and tumble through the sky while the two main heavyweights battled in the centre.

The situation looked quite perilous. With the two titans trading blows amidst a meteor shower, it was reasonable to suspect that any collision with the planet at this stage would result in an impact of apocalyptic proportions.

But then, as the duo fell, the final round reached its decision.

After crossing her arms over her face and blocking a haymaker from Zeeun, which knocked her sliding down Gohan's extended arm, the Hera glared up to see the armoured warrior sprint forward and swing his arm back.

"You're done, pixie!" the man shouted.

The moment he yelled, Myra- cracking a smile- swung her right hand forward and pointed two fingers. "Oh yeah?!" she shouted back, before a loud hum followed by a red, crescent-shaped arc of energy suddenly flew up from behind Gohan's overgrown shoulder, shot down his arm, and flew towards the Hera-seijin.

As it turns out, the giant bow of energy that Myra had created- which had apparently been left behind when the group was unexpectedly shot up into space- was still around and active.

Zeeun was caught completely by surprise.

The moment Myra ducked, her giant bow flew over her head and slammed head-long into the approaching demon. Hitting him square in the stomach, the man had all the wind knocked out of his lungs as he was picked up by the energy arc, sent screaming down Lucoa's arm, before being lifted and sent rocketing up into space. A cry of terror left the demon commander's throat as his body remained pressed flush against the front of the bow, during which time Myra guided her energy-made construct up into the sky and back out of the planet's atmosphere.

Once she was sure the man had cleared the stratosphere, the woman retracted her fingers and made a fist. "Boom," she said, a split second before a red flash and an explosion in the distance marked the detonation of her bow- and Zeeun along with it. Upon seeing the flash of her blast fade away against the sky, Myra dropped her extended arm and chuckled. "I win."

Before she could fully indulge in her victory, the Hera-seijin realized that she was in a rough spot and quickly leapt away. At that exact time, Gohan and Lucoa retracted their hands from one another to take another swing at each other. While the giant dragon managed to take a swipe, the demi-Saiyan giant was able to time her swing and duck under it, before yanking himself forward and ramming into her snout with a headbutt. Following the loud clap that resulted from his impact, the golden ape then sprang over her, twisted her arm and wing behind her, and landed right on her flaming back. While keeping the lizard's appendages trapped, the giant ape snapped his arm around her neck from behind and crushed himself against her, grinning broadly as they continued to fall together.

"COME HERE, LU-CHAN!" Gohan shouted, his arm swelling as he kept the dragon girl's head firmly trapped in his grip. "I'M GONNA SQUASH YAH!"

When Lucoa attempted to shake herself out of his vice-like grip one last time, the giant lizard then recoiled when she noticed, through the wind and perspiration, that they had fallen through the last layer of cloud and were just a few hundred feet above the ground. Golden eyes widening, all the trapped dragon could do in that moment was shriek in alarm and writhe violently, a split second before her massive body impacted the planet's surface… with the Oozaru Gohan using her as a cushion.

What happened next happened almost in an instant… and was about as catastrophic as things came.

Amidst the heavy meteor shower, a massive shockwave in the form of transparent dome of highly concentrated air, detonated from Gohan and Lucoa's point of impact, which then rippled across the entire face of the planet. Dore, who was still engaged in battle with Wings atop one of the asteroids plummeting towards the ground, was just in the process of choking out his burly opponent when a blast of wind several thousand times more powerful than the fiercest gale tore through their asteroid and ripped it to shreds. The blast was so sudden it knocked the green fighter flying across the valley and sent Wings screaming out of his grip- effectively separating the two beefy warriors and putting an end to their match right then and there.

As the pair tumbled through the cyclone of dust and rock, every single asteroid and mountain within a fifty mile radius was instantaneously turned to powder as the outward travelling blast of force caused the ground to warp, and sent a tidal wave of earth and ice tearing across over half of the world's surface.

Much like his earlier body slam, the force generated by Gohan's impact with Lucoa could be seen from space- travelling across the mobile planet in the form of a rapidly expanding ring of white, which not only left multiple, visual fractures in its wake, but also cleared every remaining cloud in the atmosphere. What's more, the force the Golden Oozaru managed to land with was so pronounced that the entire planet literally cracked in two, as noted by the enormous chasm that split along the equator of the world from north to south.

From a distance, the cracking planet looked like an eggshell breaking. That more or less gave anyone who was watching an idea of the amount of chaos going on down on the surface.

Myra- despite having been well over five miles above the impact- was knocked spiralling back up towards the stratosphere. When she managed to correct herself and stop her ascent amidst the turbulent winds, she was able to look back down through the now clear sky to see the whopping crater left behind by the blast and the enormous tear running along the entire curvature of the planet. Gaping in shock for several seconds at the flattened landscape and the gaping chasm, the Hera quickly collected herself, powered up, and dove back down towards the planet's surface.

When she reached the very heart of the crash site, the Super Hera discovered to her astonishment Gohan- back in his normal form and clad in his tattered purple spandex, boots and gloves- standing upright and over the body of his opponent.

Having also been knocked back to her base form from the landing, the barely conscious and miraculously still intact Lucoa, her wings and limbs splayed out in the dirt and ice, was lying on her back, in the ground, covered in multiple bruises, cuts and burns. Her head and fingers twitching, the maroon lizard's form was laid out for the entirely world to see- her top and thong having been completely incinerated in the battle and leaving her naked.

Understandably, her current state of dress was not what had Gohan so transfixed, but the fact that even in this defeated state, she still posed a potential threat. That was why the demi-Saiyan remained at her feet, poised with his fists clenched and his glare fixed squarely upon her mug.

Tapping down behind her teammate, Myra quickly walked up to the boy and stood by his side- joining him in his squaring off with the now seemingly defeated dragon girl. "Is it over?"

Gohan, relaxing a little when he heard the Hera's voice, nodded his head slowly. "Yes. She's done. Her stamina finally cut out."

In response, the teal-skinned warrior breathed a heavy and well-earned sigh of relief. "Finally. Thank the Gods…"

OOO

(Meanwhile)

(Several miles away)

After being sent careening clear across the continent amidst the curls of the shockwave generated by Gohan's landing on top of Lucoa, Dore had found himself in the rather awkward position of being lodged into the side of a very steep hill. The ridge, having been formed as a result of the tidal wave of rock and ice that'd been sent rippling across the planet, sat amidst an utterly decimated field not too far from the valley where Slug's forces had been engaged with the armies of Cooler.

His landing had not been a gentle one by any stretch of the imagination. Being sent tumbling through a vortex of ice and dust had not only fucked with his mental compass, but his collision with the rocky landscape had been enough to rattle both his head and organs. As a result, the helmet-wearing wrestler was left lying sprawled out in a rather sizable crater of his own, half his armour gone, head protector cracked, and a rather dazed look on his face.

Upon blacking out for a full minute and regaining consciousness, it took a little while for Dore to regain his bearings- as well as feeling throughout the rest of his bulky form. Despite being powered up to his absolute maximum in his gigantification state, the landing had still hurt like a bitch.

The shock of the whole situation had left the man at a bit of a loss… and gave him cause to wonder as to whether his opponent faired better in his landing. Doing a quick scan with his scouter of the vicinity, Dore was soon given his answer when he saw Wings' ki signature was no longer registering on the planet and that there were no other signs of the demon commander. This told him the guy was either dead or he had been knocked out cold.

Either way, he had won.

"Ha… take that, you fat fuck," Dore groaned, pulling himself out of the human-shaped dent he'd formed in the rock and moaning as the bits of rock crumbled down from his neck and shoulders. "Heheh-heh… aaahhh… man… I'll definitely be feeling this in the morning," he sighed, wincing when he felt the sting from his muscles shout back at him.

By his calculations, the amount of fatigue and damage he'd accumulated would not be easy to shake off. However, just as he was beginning to think he'd be stuck trying to crawl out of his ditch he'd created for the next half an hour, a sudden warmth followed by a renewed sense of vigour flooding through him woke the man from his stupor.

Feeling his senses, nerves and muscles come back to life amidst the gradually spreading heat, Dore gave a few blinks of surprise before quickly glancing to his right. There, crouching beside him on the ice, he saw the familiar brown, furry form of one of Gohan's three kitsune girlfriends- Riko- kneeling beside him with her dark hands extended towards him.

Still wearing an intact set of purple spandex and boots, the little kitsune with the short orange tail and rounded ears smiled when she saw her trainer look up at her as waves of light, golden energy left her palms and flooded over him. During which time, a high-pitched humming sound could be heard ringing through the air around them.

Riko smiled when she saw Dore's eyes fix on her. "Hold still, Dore-sensei. I'll have you back on your feet in a moment."

Staring at her for a few moments as the golden light continued to course over him, the man then looked down at his body. There, from his fingers to his toes, he saw every injury and wound he'd received over the course of his fight with Wings slowly fade away under the light, which not only healed all his scratches, but also seeming washed away all his burns. At the same time, the numbness and fatigue that had once been racking his form was also lifted, sending a new wave of strength coursing through the stunned wrestler.

His brain quickly running circles over this development, Dore then choked out. "You… can use healing magic, kit? Since when?"

"Kida, Rei and I have been working on new skills between our lessons with you and the squad," Riko informed, grinning proudly as she saw the astonishment fill the man's eyes. "This is so that the three of us can become more effective members on the team and help you guys out on your future missions. Though we've gotten better at using our magic over the last few weeks, we still have a lot to learn and master. I'm sorry, sensei, but this will take a few minutes."

Nodding in understanding, Dore then put on a serious air once again as he sat still and allowed Riko to do her thing. "Tell me… what's the status of the troops at the front? Has the army made it to the citadel yet?"

By his calculations, thanks to the stiff resistance put up by Lord Slug's ground forces, the assault across the western plains should've taken about an hour or so to successfully complete. After everything that'd happened so far, the soldiers must've made it to their objective.

It was at that point an incredibly anxious look came over the brown kitsune's face. "The attack was going well. The first and second groups had come to within a hundred meters of the main building and were just about to storm up the hill to surround it. But then Cooler-sama ordered a full retreat."

Eyes widening, Dore's gaze snapped back to the fox as her hands began to shake. Obviously concentrating on keeping her technique going and talking at the same time wasn't an easy thing for her to do at this stage. "Lord Cooler ordered his forces to pull back from the objective? Why?"

"I don't know, sir. Commanders Gray and Raino radioed all the officers at the front of the advance to pull their men back to the drop ships. My friends and I were covering the division's retreat when another massive storm suddenly dropped down right on top of us," Riko said shakily, her eyes narrowing as she continued to feed mana into her technique. "The lightning tore through our flanks and cut across our back before we had any time to react."

"Damn it," Dore cursed. "What are the casualties?"

"Unknown. But most of the soldiers managed to get to cover before that huge shockwave rolled in over the battlefield. My friends and I were able to protect the people near us with a shield, but most of the army still wound up getting tossed across the valley," Riko informed, before shaking her head and tensing up. "Commander Raino has ordered all units to regroup at the drop site."

Clicking his tongue, Dore placed a hand atop his knee and squeezed it tightly. "I have to get back to the others. No doubt they're going to need my help." A bead of sweat then trickled down the side of the man's head. "Especially if the fleet is in trouble…"

He would get moving to where Gohan and Myra currently were, who he could feel standing on the edge of his current sense's range. Just as soon as he got strength back in his legs.

OOO

(Meanwhile)

(Back at the crater)

Approximately a few minutes after Gohan had given confirmation of his opponent's defeat, Myra- having spent that time catching her breath- glanced up towards the sky when she sensed another presence pop up on her radar. Tracing the horizon briefly for a sign, she then spotted Captain Salza fly in from over one of the distant ridges and blast towards them while coated in his purple aura.

Seconds of waiting later, she then watched as the elite team's leader touched down on the edge of the ditch with a light thump. His arrival, coupled with the gust of wind he gave off on landing, was enough to rouse the semi-conscious Lucoa out of her slumber. Groaning as her eyes blinked open, the anthropomorphic dragon then took note of the cold floor she was lying on, as well as the blurred figures that were standing over her.

By the time Salza marched over to where Gohan and Myra were positioned, the maroon dragon girl's vision had finally cleared. When she saw the trio looking down at her, her yellow eyes blinked wide and, in that instant, she froze.

Glancing between their faces at a frantic pace, not only did the dragon notice the serious and incredibly intimidating glares they were fixing her with, but the look in the newly arrived Captain's eyes was one of anger and loathing. It was an expression that she was all too familiar with and one that had the weakened girl's chest clench tightly with a horrid, sickening feeling.

Fear.

Upon narrowing his gaze on the now wide-awake dragonoid, Salza turned his attention to Gohan and addressed him as any good, attentive officer would. "What's the matter, kid? Your target is defeated. Aren't you going to finish her off?" he asked, gesturing to the winged female lying in front of them. Upon uttering those words and waving in her direction, he and the other members of the squadron saw the lizard girl push herself off the ground, and shakily try to back away. From the way her body was now starting to twitch and shiver, it was clear that she was frightened. "Come on. She's getting back up."

"W-Wait… please…" When she attempted to back up, her arm gave out and the dragon girl fell back into the ground. The instant she did, she then weakly curled up and crossed her arms over her bare chest. "P-Please… I… I… don't hurt me anymore… please…"

Sighing when he saw the girl's response, Salza took a step forward, raised his hand, and aimed it towards her. "If both of you are out of energy, I'll take care of it. Don't worry, I'll make this quick." He then extended his trigger finger and pointed it towards her head.

Gasping, Lucoa then shut her eyes and curled up even more, her tail swinging around to drape over her body. "N-No. Please…"

Salza, flicking one of his long bangs out of his significantly longer hair, frowned deeply. "You won't feel a thing, dear. I promise," he said, the tip of his finger beginning to glow. However, just as he was training his aim on her forehead, the man then recoiled when his view became blocked by Gohan jumping in front of him and standing his ground. The Captain quickly retracted his hand when he saw the fierce look reflected on the boy's face. "Gohan? What the hell are you-?"

The demi-Saiyan promptly shook his head at the Brench-seijin. "She's beaten. There's no need to kill her, Captain."

Blinking, Salza slowly lowered his arm. "Huh? And why not?" He then nodded to the girl over the boy's shoulder. "You saw how powerful she was… how much damage she's done. If we don't take this chance to finish her off now, she could get a second wind and come back to slaughter every single one of us. Including you!"

Gohan, quickly looking behind her and at Lucoa, who he could see was gazing up at him in disbelief, then turned back to his captain. "She won't, sir. Please. You… you have to trust me."

Salza, clenching his teeth, stepped towards the boy and spoke to him. More firmly this time. "I'm sorry, Gohan. But our orders are clear. Cooler-sama has given our squad the task of crushing Lord Slug and his forces and rescuing his nephew from the hands of that mad despot. And that's exactly what we're going to do."

"And we will, sir," Gohan replied quickly, puffing his chest out and looking straight up at the man standing before him. The boy's glare hardened when he saw his superior's glare intensify. "But I've bested Lu-chan. She will not harm anyone else anymore. I promise you."

"Oh yeah? And how can you be certain she won't?" Salza asked, at the same time sensing Myra step around them as the tension between the pair started to tighten. "How do you know she won't try to attack our troops? Destroy our fleet? Or transform into a giant monster and start wiping out everything in her sight again?"

"She won't," Gohan answered quickly, his expression unwavering as he looked back into the team leader's gaze. "I can see it in her eyes. I can sense it. Whatever was wrong with her before… whatever was forcing her to do all those things… it's gone now. And she's free." He then turned and looked back at the dragon, who he saw had uncurled herself and was staring up at them with a look of uncertainty on her face. "She won't attack us. Will you?"

When Salza saw the girl shake her head, the Captain scoffed. "And how can WE be sure this isn't some ploy by her master to try and fool us? To let our guards down and then hit us when our backs are turned?"

"We don't," Gohan answered, quickly turning back to his superior and speaking with calm assertiveness. "But I trust my instincts. The bad stuff in her… it's no longer there. I'll bet my life on it."

Understandably Salza was left both hesitant and doubtful, with Myra also appearing somewhat conflicted. Both members of the squadron shared looks with one another, with the Hera-seijin giving a shrug to the officer and an apprehensive glance towards Gohan. However, when the pair looked back at the demi-Saiyan, saw the expression on his face, and then watched as the battered Lucoa slowly and timidly crawled over to hide behind his leg- gripping hold of the spandex with her fingers for good measure- the pair of older fighters felt the tension in their bodies and their suspicions of the enemy combatant slowly ebb.

Looking at the dragon girl now- taking note of her scared face, her trembling shoulders, and the way she was attempting to hide her larger body behind Gohan's noticeably smaller one- gave off all the signs that she no longer posed any sort of hostility or aggression towards any of them. It was a fact that was reinforced when she leaned against the Saiyan's leg and started to shiver and sniffle against him, something that had Myra relax and a sigh of defeat leave her lips.

"I think Gohan's right, Captain," Myra said, placing a hand on her hip as she faced her superior in earnest. "She was his opponent and he beat her fair and square. He's had enough time to suss her out. If he says she's no longer a threat, then I believe him."

Analysing both the demi-Saiyan and the dragon girl for several more tense moments, Salza- against all convictions and discipline fortifying his body and spirit- twitched and trembled as he strained his gaze skywards. His mind working a thousand miles a minute, the man felt every facet of his very being rally to coerce him. To tell him that sparing this girl was wrong and that he should finish the deed Gohan had started. However, upon considering the unshakable words of both his subordinates and seeing the pleading look in his youngest soldier's eyes- staring up at him all wide and pleading- the man eventually let out a groan of resignation and rolled his gaze over.

Immediately thereafter, the Brench-seijin swung a hand up and ran it through his extra-long bangs hanging over his forehead. "Uugghh… I know I'm going to get my ass chewed out for this later, but fine. Fine! Have it your way," the man groaned, before dropping his hand and pointing down at the surprised Gohan. "But once all this is over, you and I are going to have a good, long talk about this insubordination. Understand?"

Sensing the Captain's hostility lift, Gohan perked up and nodded his head happily. "Yes, sir." When he then saw Salza take a step back, the demi-Saiyan then glanced down at the dragon girl hanging off his leg. Seeing the reptile glance up at him, the boy smiled warmly.

In response to the youngster's gaze and grin, the once shivering girl felt a soothing feeling wash over her, and an odd sensation tickle in her chest. Staring for a bit, the maroon girl blinked before smiling as well, before then resting her cheek against his thigh in a rather affectionate manner.

After Myra chuckled at the sight of the once volatile dragon girl cosying up to her opponent's limb, the redhead then turned her attention to the massive crater surrounding them and began to look around. Her gazing passing over the enormous cliff towering over them to the gaping chasm behind, the Hera-seijin shook her head at the sheer amounts of damage they had done.

"The battle at the front must be in shambles. We have to go help," the woman answered, before quickly turning her attention to Salza. "Do you think everything is alright?"

"Are you that concerned with how other soldiers are dying?"

Jumping in alarm at the voice that cut through the air, the trio wheeled of squadron members wheeled around and focused on the cliff several hundred yards away. There, up at the top of the incline, they saw the tall, caped, and imposing form of the very person that had started this whole mess.

The leader of the invaders.

The head of the snake.

Lord Slug. His black eyes glowing like a pair of hot coals from his yellow irises and his fangs glinting through the upward curve of his grin, the leader of the demonic rebels glared down the steep towards the group standing in the centre of the newly formed crater.

At first glance Salza, Myra and Gohan had no idea who this newcomer was. However, upon quickly gauging his energy signature and sizing him up, the trio quickly realized that this stranger was the big man himself. This quickly became apparent when, joining the man on top of the ridge, two bodies suddenly levitated into view. The trio felt their eyes widen when they recognized one of the two as their force's leader, Cooler- now reverted to his Final Form and looking as though he'd been tossed into an oven.

Salza stepped forward with a stunned look on his face, "COOLER-SAMA!"

"He… He defeated him?" Myra stuttered, at the same time Gohan let out a dog-like growl and Lucoa froze up.

As Lord Slug stood front and centre on the cliff overlooking the fissure, Cooler and Zangya's floating bodies twitched and shook. When the limp form of the purple alien let out a choked cough and the woman beside him let out a groan, it quickly became clear to Salza and the others that the two warriors were still alive- albeit barely- and that the warlord holding them had the pair at his mercy.

This realization prompted Salza, Gohan and Myra to take their stances, with their next motivation being to rescue the two from the monster's clutches.

However, when he saw the trio throw their guards up, Lord Slug raised a hand and wagged his finger. "Now, now," the leader spoke, his voice firm and deep as he eyed the group at the base of the slope. "Let's not do anything the three of you will regret."

Gnashing her teeth, Myra barked up at the green-skinned devil. "Release him! NOW!"

Completely ignoring the girl's aggressive shout, the warlord chuckled, "In a minute. But first, I would like to offer you three my personal expression of admiration on account of your performances… and congratulate you on your victories." The man's eyes glinted as he lifted his head and inspected the trio of aliens at the base of the crater. "Were you lot just an ordinary group of scrubs, my henchmen would've mopped the floor with your guts till you and your friends were nothing but slurry. However, since you were able to go the distance with my elite and come out ahead, you've shown me that your team has a great deal of promise." When he saw the three below balk a little at his words, Lord Slug's grin only seemed to widen. "Such talent should not be allowed to go to waste. In fact, it needs to develop, and to make sure it develops… it needs to be generously rewarded."

With the stakes set, a brief pause quickly followed. As a tense silence quickly fell over the squad in the crater, Gohan and his friends then took the moment to analyse the person they were now dealing with.

Still adorned in the black cloak that he'd been decapitated in, but with the hood now fully removed, the group of Cooler's elite saw, for the very first time since their arrival, the true face of the individual that'd assaulted Frieza's forces and challenged the Cold family to battle. Striking a form that was as girthy as he was towering, one that was clearly outlined despite being concealed beneath his shawl, the senior members of the squad assessed what they could see and sense.

Upon inspecting his skin tone, the scar over his left eye, his pointy ears, and the antenna protruding from above his brow, both Salza and Myra made a rather startling discovery.

"Hey… isn't he a-" the Hera began.

"A Namek," the Captain whispered back, his brow creasing nervously as he looked the warrior up and down. "So… that explains why those subordinates of his were so powerful."

While an extremely rare species, Namekians were regarded as an immensely strong race by many across the cosmos. Resting in the upper tiers of alien classes and boasting incredible longevity, the people of this breed possessed a wide array of potent abilities, ranging from energy control, hypersensitivity, and accelerated regeneration. Considering there were so few of them left in the universe, coming across a living member of their race anywhere in the four quadrants was like encountering a green space unicorn.

However, it wasn't the warlord's species or class that was the group's main concern at the moment.

After getting a good bead on the leader's energy signature, both Salza and Myra were almost bowled over by how much power they could feeling oozing off of his body. The fact that his aura wasn't at full blast already also gave them something else to think about, because the amount of energy he had while in a passive state was absurdly high, even by their standards.

Gohan meanwhile, also having sensed how high the creep's power was registering on his scales, could feel the hair on the back of his neck and tail bristle in warning- a low snarl leaving his lips as he watched the cloaked figure continue to hold Cooler and Zangya at metaphorical knifepoint.

Myra, managing to collect herself following their quick assessment of the main antagonist, shot her next question at the warlord. "What do you want?"

Snickering, the alien slug raised his right hand and extended two fingers. "I'll cut straight to the point." He then flicked his digits forward, telekinetically sending the floating bodies of Cooler and Zangya flying forward. As a result, the pair plummeted side by side down the slope before crashing into the crater's base, where they then slid along the jagged rock and ice, and came to a grinding stop just a few feet in front of the three members of the Armoured Squadron. The moment the pair stopped sliding in a cloud of frost and groans, Lord Slug lowered his right arm and smirked. "I want you to kill them."

Salza, eyes widening, looked up from his master and towards the Namekian. "What?"

"You heard me," Lord Slug answered, his grin fading back to a smile as he leered down at the group. "The reign of the Cold Dynasty has come to an end. The great autocracy once founded by Emperor Blizzard millions of years ago, no longer possesses the strength and presence it once had over the universe. The monarchy that he and his children built during the twilight of the gods has fallen from its lofty pedestal, and descended into a warring state between cartels, where two of its current heirs are constantly fighting one another for control over the dominion's territories and resources. The father who oversees their activities has taken no action to stop them. Instead, he fuels their conflict, perpetuating an endless cycle of hatred, death and destruction across the stars that is rapidly eroding his kingdom from the inside out." The warlord then puffed his chest out and concluded his rant with an assertive statement. "I believe it's time to put an end to this madness."

Hearing all this loud and clear, while at the same time watching as both the stricken Cooler and Zangya struggled to get back up, Myra then stepped forward. "And how exactly do you plan to do that?" She then swung an arm out and gestured across the massive crater they were standing in. "Your planet-destroying warship has been wrecked beyond repair. Your armies have been completely wiped out. And your greatest generals are either dead or out of action. How do you intend to end anything in this universe now that all of your pawns and assets have been swept off the board?"

Hearing the woman's retorts, Lord Slug chuckled before slowly raising both his arms and holding them out- taking a stance that was similar to a preacher's. "I have travelled the unknown regions of space. I have ventured far beyond the stars and the void… past the precipice that lies on the edge of our creation. The worlds that I've seen, the lifeforms I've encountered, and the truths I have discovered… they are far beyond the comprehension of mere, weak-minded mortals like yourselves," the warlord said, taking a deep breath before exhaling deeply in relief. "Through the threshold of space and time, between the physical and the astral… I heard him call out to me. Beckoning me to his side… showing me the way."

This completely threw Myra off- the Hera blinking in confusion. "Him?"

"A Great One, shaped and formed out of matter that has no name in any tongue. The one born of the fumes of stars- he now lies deep in eternal slumber… though ever conscious of everything going on around him. And from the throes of his death-like sleep, his voice whispers endlessly between the cracks of our reality, touching every mind of every living creature in existence. From the abyss he reached out to me… and through his words I was given the gift of sight," Lord Slug spoke, his words causing Salza and Myra to look at one another worriedly in confusion, before they turned back to the warlord to see his eyes shut and a calm expression fall over him. "That is not dead, which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die." Opening his eyes once more, the Namekian looked back down at the crater and grinned. "Through his wisdom I glimpsed the future. I know what death awaits you all. Soon, I shall become the Great One's vessel… and with his might I shall strike down every last dominion dwelling amidst this cluster… and reshape the stars in my glorious image. THAT is the future he has shown me. THAT is my destiny." He then lowered his arms before pointing a finger down at the group below. "This war is my test. My trial to please him. Pledge your loyalty to me… and all of you shall have a chance to share in the riches and become part of this great, new world I intend to create."

By the time Lord Slug reached the end of his sermon, both Salza and Myra were unable to stop gaping up at him. Beads of sweat running down their heads, the pair shakily exchanged one last look, before the Captain of the Squadron stammered out.

"You're insane," the blonde retorted, watching as Lord Slug lowered his arm and smirked.

"If you believe sanity led to the creation of all life, then you are sorely mistaken. Thanks to the treasure I was bestowed by the Great One, I have risen from the depths of the dark abyss to cleanse the universe of the filth that is King Cold's bloodline. I shall burn him and his family's legacy to the ground… and from the ashes of their failure a new regime shall be born. An Eternal, Dark Empire, ruled by sorcery and mysticism- where every creature will be able to achieve what only the most disciplined and worthy have ever accomplished. Freedom of the mind… all under MY enlightened rule." Once his piece was said, Lord Slug allowed his grin to tug back full force as he began blasting the group with waves of killing intent and bloodlust. The sheer amount caused the air to tremble and a cold, sickening feeling to wash through Salza and Myra, as the pair took a cautious step back. "I won't prattle on with my divine knowledge any further. Kill the prince and his father's slave. Kill them and the three of you can take your rightful place at my side." When his eyes shifted to Lucoa, who he could see was lying behind Gohan, the Namekian paused for a moment before smirking. "And kill her too."

While Salza and Myra both recoiled in alarm, the demi-Saiyan, with wide eyes and a slack jaw, looked back at the Ryujin lying behind him, before turning back to the warlord in shock. "She's your ally! Your soldier! Why would you want us to kill her?"

Lord Slug grunted while smiling darkly. "She is weak. Broken. A decaying relic of a past era whose worth expired the moment you brought her to her knees. I have no patience for useless, broken things, and I refuse to suffer her presence any longer. Kill her… and prove to me that you, my boy, have the strength of spirit and body to stand beside my throne as my servant."

At first the trio said nothing, leaving the entire area drowning in dead silence. During that precious minute, both Cooler and Zangya had managed to push themselves up onto their hands, with the emperor looking up at his subordinates to see them all standing and gaping towards the top of the ridge.

Initially it seemed like the three of them were considering the warlord's offer… or were they were just so stumped by his rant that their brains were still trying to wrap around what he'd shared with them. However, all questions as to what was going on were answered shortly afterwards when, stepping forward expressions mixed with anger and outrage, Gohan, Salza and Myra moved in front of the wounded Cooler and Zangya.

The Emperor, able to see the trio standing behind him and in full view of Lord Slug, blinked at their backs and shoulders.

"Can it," Gohan snapped, his response causing the warlord's smile to disappear.

"Like hell we'd ever take orders from a scumbag like you. You're vile, cruel, and out of your bloody fucking mind!" Myra followed up, clenching her fists as she glared up at the Namekian at the top of the ridge.

"We're Cooler-sama's most loyal and trusted soldiers! The best of the best! His elite!" Salza added, standing to Gohan's left and projecting his heavily accented voice across the valley. "You don't get a title like that from being a weak-willed, treacherous dog! Our fidelity can't be bought! Not by you. Not by anyone!"

Cooler, his bludgeoned, swollen, and burnt face showing his astonishment and admiration, let out a groan as he finally got himself up until his elbows. "W-While I appreciate your unshakable devotion to me and my cause, fellas… m-maybe you should really consider taking his offer…" After all, this guy was no joke.

Hearing this remark made by her master, Myra spoke back to the emperor in her usual, tomboyish manner. "Shh. Quiet, sir. You're ruining the moment."

Gohan, looking back at the alien prince, smiled broadly. "It's okay, Cooler-sama. We got this." He then wheeled back around and returned to glaring at Lord Slug, along with his friends.

Seeing this not only had Cooler give a pained smile, but also had the observing Lucoa blink in wonder at the boy's and- by extension- the squad's show of bravery.

Lord Slug, feeling a stiff wind ruffle his cloak and send a wave of frost across the plain, then allowed a vein to form across his brow before his smile returned. Unlike before however, his grin was far more forced and intimidating. "I urge you three to reconsider. I promise you won't regret it."

Murmuring to himself, Gohan then shrugged. "Not a chance. My friends and I aren't going anywhere with you, you demented old crow. So, you can take your offer and shove it," the boy answered, before clenching his fists and sending a surge of energy through his body. His ki spiking sharply, the boy's body was then lit up by a brilliant flash, which dissipated a split second later to reveal a torrent of golden flames billowing around him like an inferno, and his black hair now shining a bright gold. As a howl of wind ripped from his body, the boy's now teal eyes fixed upon the Namekian, giving the man a full taste of his Super Saiyan form.

Zangya, feeling the kid's energy levels spike to a rather incredible height, stared at the child in awe while Salza stretched his wrist and Myra cracked her knuckles- both clearly keen for a brawl.

As for Lord Slug, upon seeing the youngest of the troop throw his offer back into his face while simultaneously flexing on him, breathed a sigh of disappointment before shaking his head. "Hmm… such a disappointment. And here I was hoping I would have at least one taker. But no matter." The moment he said this, he then flicked his coat back, swung both arms forward, and extended his fingers. When he did, orange sparks began to zap down his arms and off his nails. "Pride is the true downfall of the strong. Now all of you will experience the full power of the void." His grin then returned full force as a bolt of orange lightning zipped across his chest. "Death is no disgrace."

Before Salza, Myra and Gohan could so much as blink, a bright flash followed by a torrent of orange lightning suddenly shot out of the Namekian's fingers and flew towards them in a stream. The trio took stances, preparing to receive the attack and defend the trio behind them. But just before the vortex of crackling energy could hit them, a tall shadow suddenly dropped down from the sky, landed in front of them, and caught the attack with his bear hands. Deafening thunderclaps rang out as the storm of electricity struck the newcomer and got sucked into his body- receiving the sky scorching blast in its entirety.

Realizing his attack was rapidly being absorbed, the grin on Lord Slug's face vanished, moments before he cut off his output. Arms dropping, the green warrior then watched the wall of smoke lift from between him and his targets. The moment it did, he immediately spotted the tall, crackling form of Neiz crouching defensively in front of his friends- his hands extended and bolts of orange and purple lightning zipping about him like fireworks.

Veins pulsing, the brown-skinned warrior with the big yellow eyes and intact armour grinned as he slowly lowered his steaming palms. "Heh. Thanks for the free recharge. I was starting to run a little low there," the Armoured Squadron member exclaimed, obviously taking a stab at the Namekian's attempt to fry his friends.

While grins and smiles of delight appeared on the faces of Salza, Gohan and Myra, Lord Slug was less than pleased. Eye twitching, a snarl left the man's lips as he flung back his cloak and swung his arm out. "Why you-" He then raised a finger and prepared to hock a ki bullet down at him.

Unfortunately for the Namekian he was unable to get that chance. The instant he brought his hand into charging position, a loud whoosh from the side followed by a flash marked the impact of a massive warhead suddenly slamming straight into Lord Slug's side, which detonated with the force of several thousand pounds of TNT.

KA-DOOOM! The deep thunderclap and echo of the combusting projectile split the cliff and sent a shockwave of debris and frost tearing in multiple directions.

As a massive fireball from the proton torpedo engulfed its target, a stream of blaster fire from the sky heralded the arrival of The Comet- its pilot having tracked the energy signatures of her boss and teammates to the crash site, and appearing just in time to make some much-needed noise.

The loud roar of the frigate's engines deafened the people in the crater as the ship dove down from the clouds and unloaded all its ammunition on the exposed Lord Slug. After firing the last of its torpedoes into the billowing mushroom cloud and watching the ground crumble beneath the chaos, Shira yanked back on the stick and pulled away. The streamlined arrow that was the assault ship soared clear over the fiery dome and rocketed off into the sky.

Flicking her hair back, the red-skinned beauty of a lieutenant standing behind the helm looked back through her dome-shaped window and shouted over the ship's loudspeakers, "Eat that, creep!"

Having carpet bombed the shit out of Lord Slug's position, the Comet and crew quickly made itself scarce. Once Gohan and the others watched the ship disappear over the horizon, the crew was soon joined by Dore and Riko floating down from the sky, with the green warrior in the crumbling armour touching down alongside Myra and allowing the little brown fox-girl to hop off of his back and duck behind the rest of the squadron.

While the kitsune squatted down beside the wounded Zangya, Cooler- who'd watched the whole bombardment from where he was lying- sat up and spoke through gritted teeth. "That won't even put a dent in him… not one…" Taking a deep, steady breath, the prince then raised a trembling hand and directed it at Salza. When the Captain and the others turned to ask the Emperor for instructions, the leader of the squadron received one heck of a surprise when the alien ruler fired a purple ball of energy straight into him. The sphere struck his chest and enveloped his entire body in a pulsing, pink sheet of light. When the glow faded into the warrior's skin seconds later and Salza patted himself down, an exhausted-looking Cooler smiled. "That's… *cough*… everything I have… left to give…"

Feeling his body had now become super-charged by his boss's energy, the astonished and fully recharged Salza tested his hands before glancing down at the emperor with a serious look in play. "What are your orders, sire?" Almost on cue, the fully powered up Gohan, Dore, Neiz and Myra turned to their leader.

In response, the now considerably weakened Cooler chuckled. "Do you even need to ask?" the prince replied, his right eye shutting as his consciousness teetered dangerously on the edge of blacking out. "Destroy that bastard… and save my nephew. Those are your squad's orders."

Smiling together, the group of five elite soldiers nodded. "Yes, sire."

While Riko crawled over to Prince Cooler and inspected him, Zangya- after observing the young emperor pass his energy on to Salza- decided to follow his lead and reached over to grab Myra's leg. The moment she did, the woman in white armour gave a grunt and sent a surge of bright red energy into the younger girl's body. As soon as the ki rushed up Myra's leg and enveloped her, the elite squadron member let out a squeak of surprise and looked down at her colleague.

"Take it, cousin," Zangya gasped, before looking up at the short-haired Hera with a bloody frown and a noticeably burned face. "Smash that creep… and bring him to his knees."

Myra, feeling new and potent energy flood through her, inspected her hands before nodding back to the stricken Blizzard Corp guard. "I will."

Before she and her friends could turn away, the winded Zangya quickly spoke. "Be careful. He uses magic and telekinesis to a ridiculously high level… and he can absorb energy right down to the last cell in your body." She concluded with a simple nod and a 'good luck' in her race's language. "Va fail."

While the group quickly processed the information given to them by the two wounded fighters, after pottering between Zangya, Cooler and Lucoa a handful of times, the crouching Riko looked up at the team from beside the prince and spoke to them in a hushed voice. "I can heal them… but it will take a while."

Dore, nodding to his little subordinate, grinned and nodded to her. "Don't worry, kit. This will be over before you can say noodles."

"Keep an eye on them, will you?" Gohan replied, looking from both Riko to Lucoa, the latter of whom the others acknowledged and saw she was sitting there, still curled up and looking curious.

Realizing she was being addressed by the Super Saiyan, the dragon girl perked up before nodding her head vigorously in acknowledgement. A rather timid response, but one that the hybrid appreciated.

With one last round of looks and smiles, the five members of Cooler's Armoured Squadron- now fully assembled, healed up and ready for action once again, turned and began approaching the collapsed cliffs. Watching the smoke and frost rise up out of the newly reshaped slope, which had effectively been brought down several stories, the members of the elite spread themselves out as they marched across the cold field.

Along the way, each of them began making final preparations for a scrap. While Dore ripped off the remains of his now barely recognizable chest armour, leaving him in only his boots gloves and spats, Salza sliced off the broken shoulder accent on his left with a quick swing of a blade, Myra stretched, and Gohan tore off the remains of his shirt- leaving him in a state similar to his large, green comrade.

Upon removing his shoulder guard, Salza then looked down at his palm and wiggled his fingers. "Wow. Is this the amount of power that Cooler-sama possesses? Incredible…" From what he could feel, his energy levels had easily doubled from what they were before.

Myra, having removed her on armour also and leaving her in only a purple spandex tank-top and thong, shot a smile towards her Captain. "Our emperor has given you his strength with his blessing. You must be honoured."

Clenching his fist and sending a surge of energy rushing through his muscles, the long-haired officer and leader of the commandoes smiled back at the Hera. "I am… more than you know."

While the others stripped and flexed- warming up for their inevitable clash- Neiz activated his scouter and did a quick status update on the team. He then looked across at Gohan, whose aura was still beating around him like a fiercely burning flame. "Damn, kid. Has anyone told you how scary you are when you're excited? Your battle power is pushing past three billion right now."

Gohan, swinging his right arm across and stretching his shoulder, chuckled back at the Zalt-seijin's comment. "I'm still amped up from my fight with Lu-chan. And I still have some reserves left from my Great Ape form."

"Nice. That extra-boost should give you the edge you need," Dore chimed in, at the same time grinning across at the boy walking front and centre of their formation. "Your kitsune friend healed me up, so my fists are feeling twice as sharp as before. She did good."

"You can thank her and her friends for that later," Gohan answered, at the same time cracking his neck with a quick stretch. "But right now, we have some unfinished business to take care of."

With his sweep done, Neiz then held the hologram of his scouter on pause by holding down the button and glanced over at his teammates. "Our opponent's battle power is registering over five billion right now. In contrast, each of us is averaging over two billion each. Think it will be enough, boss?"

Myra, quickly working out the math in her head, grinned broadly while her Captain nodded. "It's more than enough."

"Remember our battle on CP-179?" Salza asked, earning glances from the rest of his team. "Let's change it up a little. Attack formation Theta. I want three bodies on him at all times. Got it?"

"Sir!" Gohan, Myra, Neiz and Dore all answered in unison.

With the five now halfway across the crater and up the battered slope, the team was able to watch the air clear and the results of Shira's bombing run unveil itself. The cliff section that Lord Slug had been standing on had completely caved in- adding to the already substantially large crater's depth. However, the man who'd been the target of the Comet's assault was still alive and well.

In fact, after the frost and smoke lifted, it revealed the Namekian crouching down atop the rocks, his cloak singed and a rather annoyed expression in play. When he rose up however, he revealed only a tiny bit of soot was covering his skin and clothing, which prompted him to reach up and carelessly brush a lump of dust resting on his collar.

Spotting the group of five fighters approaching, the warlord then gave an undignified grunt and proceeded to unbuckle his cloak.

"I suppose it… can't be helped," Lord Slug groaned, allowing his cape to fall from his shoulders, revealing his thick yellow tunic buckled at the front by a large jewel, which was draped over a purple top and trousers, and brown leather boots. Upon removing his ruined shawl cape, the leader of the demonic forces immediately took off his gloves and both of his tops. Once the heavy items had been removed, the man was left wearing only his boots and trousers, allowing him to swing his arms out freely and unleash a blast of orange electricity from his skin. "Hmm… that'll do."

From there, Lord Slug proceeded to conjure up an enormous amount of energy at an alarming rate, which caused not only a bright blue aura to start radiating off his body in the form of a dense mist, but also began to alter the structure of the Namekian's form. As stiff, throbbing veins began to appear all along the alien's exposed flesh and ribbed muscles, his limbs and torso started to expand- popping and groaning as their fibres were stretched to the point of snapping.

Bulking up in the shoulder and chest areas, as well as the prominent masses in the calves, biceps, and thighs, a low growl left Lord Slug's throat as he underwent a state of gigantification of his own.

By the time Gohan and the others were about a dozen or so yards away from the madman of a tyrant, Lord Slug had managed to double in size, to the point that he towered over even Dore. It was certainly an imposing state, one that was ever magnified by the crackling of orange lightning around his body and the blue steam rising from him.

Seeing the hulking foe now standing before them had Gohan and the others frown deeply. Yet it didn't stop their approach.

"He can increase his size and mass too?" Salza whispered.

"Hmph. This guy is just full of surprises," Dore followed up, moving off to the side so that he and the other began to encircle the Namekian stomping towards them- his enormous bulk causing his footsteps to thud against the ground as if he had a couple of boulders strapped to his feet.

Myra, upon sizing up the now newly empowered Lord Slug, then addressed the others with an updated breakdown of their adversary. "He's altering his battle strategy on the spot. He must've realized his magic won't be able to hold off all five of us at once, so he's switching up his style for more close quarters combat." This meant that he was transforming from a long range, caster-style fighter to a now more unorthodox, medium range hybrid fighter. It was probably the worst kind of type imaginable.

A smirk tugging at his lips, Gohan then spoke, "Good. That means he's scared."

Their footsteps all crunching to a stop, the five members of the Armoured Squadron found themselves formed into a semi-circle around Lord Slug, who was now standing in their crosshairs and within dashing range. From there, the two sides faced off, with the Namekian glancing from left to right between all five of his targets. Electricity zapping off his body, the now significantly larger and intimidating warlord allowed his bloodlust to seep out in an attempt to throw off the squad's focus.

Sadly, for him, his efforts amounted to jack squat. All he did was cause the five members of Cooler's elite to tighten their fists and raise their power levels.

Watching from their position a hundred meters back, Zangya, Lucoa, Riko, and the young ruler of this quadrant all braced themselves as they watched the five guards square off with the boss.

Then, after a gust of wind cut across the field, the Armoured Squadron took action.

Ki spiking in unison, the five warriors then charged forward in five separate blurs, all of which blitzed a lap around Lord Slug's position before converging on him at once from multiple directions. The Namekian, reacting in kind, spun around and swung his arms out defensively, his boots sliding across the ground as he tracked all the fighters simultaneously in bullet time.

The loud roar of jets filled the air as Gohan and his friends lunged forward, a split second before a deafening thunderclap rang out when all of them struck the Namekian in perfect sync.

The squad's impact caused bolts of lightning and a gale of wind to tear out across the crater in all directions, fracturing the floor and sending frost gushing into the air in a cyclonic cloud of fumes. When the tremors stopped moments later, amidst the wall of smoke and bolts of electricity dancing across the ether, the five members of the elite group could be found with their fists extended towards Lord Slug and the Namekian tyrant standing in the heart of their kill circle- guarding against them.

How he was doing this was incredible. Not only did he manage to stop Gohan and Salza's fists from the sides by crossing his arms over and catching them with his palms, but he'd also managed to stop Myra's attack from the front against his forearms, and block Dore and Neiz striking at him from behind with a pair of densely packed plasma balls that he'd conjured out of thin air. The result was the five warriors being locked in place, their knuckles grinding against the objects stopping them from landing a clean hit on their target.

As bolts of orange lightning ran down his swelling muscles, Lord Slug- grinning broadly- then let out a chuckle of amusement.

"This is going to be fun," he remarked.

Eyes narrowing, Dore then felt his own grin appear as veins appeared along his massive arms. "Let's teach this asshole a lesson, fellas!" the man boomed, his helmet cracking before finally exploding from his head, allowing his black mane of long hair to burst free.

Similar expressions crossing their faces, Gohan, Myra, Neiz and Salza then shouted back in a gutsy response, "YEAH!" When they did, all their auras exploded to life around them and expanded so violently that the flames of their energy almost reached the edges of the ten-mile wide crater.

The instant their ki levels skyrocketed, the group made their move. In a series of golden, green and purple blurs, the five smashed Lord Slug off his feet with a combined attack and sent his body tearing out of the crater and across the icy landscape of his dead, war planet. Chasing after him at breakneck speed, the glowing warriors converged on the Namekian as he cleared the crater's perimeter, smashing into him multiple times before from various angles with a series of hit and run blows.

With use of his arms and the two plasma balls floating just behind his shoulders, the fast-retreating Lord Slug blocked and deflected the group's attacks with superb and masterful precision. While his arms fended off simultaneous attacks from Gohan, Myra and Dore from the sides, the twin energy spheres he was controlling spun around him in a blur, striking Salza and Neiz, and keeping them occupied when they attempted to swarm him.

A grin remained plastered on the Namekian's face as he swatted aside punch after punch and kick after kick, before eventually retaliating with his own strikes. Chopping out at Salza's head when the Captain switched places with Gohan, the warlord saw the officer duck before spinning in and landing a swift spin-kick squarely in his torso- or so his attacker thought.

A loud sonic boom rang out from the Captain's blow when his foot struck Lord Slug's forearm, knocking the Namekian back even faster and out of his team's kill circle. The moment the man went flying, the squad split up and blitzed across the battlefield in multiple directions to confuse him.

Performing a recovery flip, Lord Slug slammed down on the ice with both his feet. Crushing the rock and punching a crater into the floor, the Namekian stylishly swung his arms about before locking them into one of his race's signature fighting forms- one that was reminiscent of the Shao Lin's Tiger Fist.

Claws formed, the grinning Namekian rotated one hand around and beckoned the five fighters towards him. "COME!"

Converging on their target once more at breakneck speeds, Dore and Neiz charged in low across the ground, while Gohan, Myra and Salza dove down from the sky from three sharp angles. Auras blazing, the group reached their target and attacked at once.

What followed immediately afterwards was a furious yet elegant display of martial arts prowess between six experienced warriors, as the massive, buffed up Lord Slug- moving across the ground with terrifying speed and dexterity- began deflecting and countering multiple foes from all sides, while the members of the Armoured Squadron assaulted him in groups of twos and threes. Tremors and shockwaves rang out as the team darted around the Namekian in a vortex of blurs and shimmers, moving in and out with repeated hit and run attacks as they attempted to break through the Namekian's defences.

Amidst the fury of the assault, Lord Slug unleashed his diverse arsenal of skills. This took the form of not only precise and powerful hand to hand techniques, but also magic spells and telekinetic pushes. When Dore and Gohan came at him from behind, the man wheeled around, extended his hand, and threw up a barrier. A loud crack of a sonic boom rang out when the pair's fists collided with the invisible barrier of energy, which absorbed their attacks and stopped them dead.

The moment they were stopped mid-air, the Namekian pivoted around and swung his massive right leg into the airborne pair, hitting Gohan across the body and catching both him and Dore in his swing. With a loud boom, he smashed both warriors tumbling across the valley. He was about to chase them with a blast to stack up the damage but was forced to block a diving kick from Neiz.

With his forearm holding back the electrified Zalt's foot, the warrior called back one of his plasma balls to catch Myra charging at him from behind. His sphere of energy caught the woman's fist and bounced it back, before it flew into her and forced her to block. When he tossed Neiz away from him with a violent shove, he then spun around to see Salza charging in at him from below. Expecting his telekinetic barrier to stop him, the Namekian grinned, only to have his smirk vanish when he saw his barrier shatter and the blonde Captain power through it with an energy blade, which he then attempted to stab him with.

Slipping to the side and dodging his lunge, Lord Slug struck at the man's back with a palm strike, pushing him away, before then blocking attacks from Gohan and Neiz coming at him from both his flanks. Dore immediately followed.

The frenzy that came afterwards followed this exact same pattern.

In the first few seconds, as the fighters tore up the ground with every charge, dash, lunge, and hit, Lord Slug managed to parry their assaults and keep the five warriors from landing anything clean or debilitating. The plasma bullets he'd produced circled his body aggressively, fending off and smacking away any attackers who tried to blindside him, while also creating a second obstacle for the group to overcome. And yet, despite their presence on the field, the group of five fighters continued to hammer him, coming in with so many attacks and flurries that the self-proclaimed tyrant had barely any time to breathe or think.

Keen to break them up, the now slightly annoyed Slug upped his countermeasures. After blocking a kick from Gohan and a punch from Dore simultaneously, the Namekian shoved them back with a quick blast of ki that knocked them skidding across the ground. The moment they were pushed away, the warlord spun around, opened his eyes, and launched a pair of bright, narrow beams from his pupils, which slammed into an approaching Salza.

Despite the speed and proximity they'd been launched, Salza managed to engage his energy blade on his right arm and receive the eye beams point-blank, which not only broke apart against his blade but also pushed him back across the valley. Slamming his feet into the floor after about a hundred yards, the Captain ground himself to a stop, all the while forcing back the two lasers now drilling into his forearm.

With the Captain preoccupied, Lord Slug sent his two orbiting plasma bullets flying at Gohan and Myra, both of whom either smacked away or leapt clear over the golden orbs to evade before charging towards their foe.

Just as the bullets started arcing back around to pursue them, Gohan and Myra were right on top of Lord Slug, opening with a swift barrage of simultaneous attacks that forced the warlord to stop his eye beams. Punches and kicks flew towards the Namekian, who quickly got pushed into the defensive. Swinging his arms around, the green warrior began deflecting and parrying their attacks as they rushed him from in front, leading to a furious trade-off between the three fighters.

Gohan struck wildly, leaping into the air with a series of furious punches and kicks that rained down on Lord Slug erratically from above, while Myra aimed towards the man's body with pressure-point hits and palm strikes.

Thanks to both warriors working fluidly with one another, they were able to wipe the smirk off of Lord Slug's face as their assault suddenly picked up speed. It was after he attempted several counter attacks when a particular barrage of blows suddenly snaked through. When Lord Slug blocked a kick to the head from Gohan, Myra smacked him across the face with a right chop, with the demi-Saiyan immediately following up with a left hook that smashed his face the other way.

More hits came in and- despite Lord Slug's best efforts to defend himself- the pair managed to rattle his head around several times. This inevitably led to the Namekian swinging around and cocking his left fist back. "WHY YOOUUU-GUARGH!" He was suddenly cut off by Neiz suddenly darting in from the side and nailing him with a flying side kick- an act that had Gohan, Myra and their third companion grinning broadly.

Upon being sent off his feet, Lord Slug quickly performed an aerial spin before landing hard on the ice. With his two plasma bullets finally returning to him, the warlord snatched them out of the air with his hands and slammed them together. In a blast of electricity, he fused them together and stretched the plasma into a extra-long shaft, with the ends of them transforming into the blades of a halberd. As soon as the lance-like weapon had formed in his grip, the Namekian swung it around him and took a stance, growling as he saw the five elite warriors come charging at him from multiple directions once more.

Auras exploding around them as they powered up mid-charge- Gohan's gold, Myra and Dore's green, Salza purple, and Neiz his lightning- the group all converged on Lord Slug at once. Dodging the opening swing of his massive halberd, the group began tagging him from every angle and side, with Salza activating his energy blades on both his arms and taking swipes at every opening he could see, only to have his attacks swatted away by the shaft of orange energy spinning around the Namekian's body.

Amidst the sparks, Gohan coated his arms in his golden gauntlets to block and strike at Lord Slug's weapon, a series of loud clangs ringing out as the green tyrant danced across the icy field and fended off all his foes. Myra also joined in the fray by generating a red staff of solid energy, which she began slamming into the Namekian's weapon whenever she dove in for an attack, only to be driven back by the heavy swings from the warrior.

Dore and Neiz meanwhile continued using close combat, mixing up their ranged comrade's assaults with determined attacks from up close that forced Lord Slug to block at impossibly tight intervals. As a result of the five of them sprinting circles around the giant of a man and attacking him with such murderous precision, the pressure started to mount.

Following a vicious exchange of staff blows with the armed Squadron members and the unarmed ones, Lord Slug spun his orange halberd around his body with a series of graceful spins and twirls between each hand, before then swinging the blade skyward and striking down at Gohan and Salza when they were directly in front of him. This forced them to split up to avoid the weapon crashing down on them and killing them, which instead ended up cutting the valley clean in half from the force of its impact.

As the ground shook and the Squadron separated, Gohan- having leapt back to a safe distance, threw both his arms overhead before through them forced. This caused the golden gauntlets around his arms to suddenly extend like whips and fly towards Lord Slug at light speed. In the blink of an eye, the two shafts of solid energy coiled around the warlord's shoulders, causing him to stagger forward before the Super Saiyan gave a hard tug and sling-shotted himself towards his target.

"ORAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" Gohan screamed, his body flying towards Lord Slug and slamming into his chest with a full-power shoulder tackle. His impact, which carried the force and weight of a space locomotive, not only knocked the wind out of the Namekian's lungs, but also generated an explosion that sent the Namekian flying off his feet and towards the horizon trailing smoke.

The moment Lord Slug lifted off like he'd been shot out a cannon, Neiz- his lightning aura blasting around him- darted after the green warrior's body in a blur of movement and, in a flash, reappeared directly in his path. Bringing both hands overhead, the Zalt-seijin let out a mighty yell and slammed his fists down into the Namekian's hapless form, sending him towards the valley floor and burying him into the ground.

When an explosion of icy chunks and rocks gushed into the air from where Lord Slug ended up colliding, Dore dove down from the air with his fist alight with green flames. Letting out a roar of his own, the man slammed his knuckles into the ground the instant he reached it and generated a shockwave so devastating it sent a wave of rock, ice and earth rippling towards the spot Lord Slug had crashed. In a matter of milliseconds, the wave reached the Namekian's crater, throwing up both a wave of rubble and the stunned warlord's body, which spiralled into the air from the tsunami.

"GRAAAAAAGH!" Lord Slug bellowed, not expecting to get tossed about so violently amidst a wave of debris and an upheaval of wind.

The instant they saw the Namekian get flung back up into the sky like a ragdoll, Salza and Myra acted. Kneeling and taking aim, the Hera-seijin transformed her staff into a bow, pulled back on it, and launched an energy arrow at the Namekian, whereas her Captain gripped hold of his right arm, extended his fingers, and fired a purple blade of energy. Both projectiles bolted towards the airborne warlord and connected, slamming into his chest, exploding with concussive force, and sending him screaming into the distance.

With their target now shooting towards the horizon, the five warriors gave chase- dashing or flying across the countryside in pursuit of their missile of a target. Covering a distance of roughly fifty miles, the group arrived at the top of a flat-top mountain- an ice structure towering over the rest of the landscape. When they arrived at the edge, they saw Lord Slug spin through the air and land, slamming his feet and hand down to grind to a stop.

Once his momentum ceased, the battered and slightly singed warlord looked up and gritted his teeth angrily. "Tsk! Insects!"

Spacing out their positions, Gohan and his squad mates all assumed defensive stances as they squared off against their foe. With Salza and Myra standing front and centre, the pair of fighters quickly initiated their next attack- the Hera-seijin charging up the bow she'd formed so that it increased in size, drawing back on it, and then aiming it towards the sky.

"I'll hit him high, you hit him low, Captain!" Myra shouted as the red, glowing bolt she was drawing on increased in size and started sparking like crazy.

"Right," Salza answered, drawing back his right hand, producing a golden disk of energy above his palm, before then hocking it forward. With a shout of effort, his spinning blade loosed from his hand and arced across the flat of the mountain top, humming loudly on its approach.

At the exact same time, Myra released the arrow she had created and sent it soaring into the sky. In a flash it disappeared above the clouds. Then, following a bright glint, hundreds of red energy arrows began raining down from the heavens, which immediately converged directly on Lord Slug's position.

Upon gaping towards the sky, the Namekian then noticed the golden disc Salza had thrown suddenly flicker before splitting into multiple discs mid-flight, the entire cluster of which broke apart, spread out over the top of the mountain, and began tracking him. The Captain meanwhile guided them, using both his hands to send his energy projectiles towards their target.

Reacting quickly, Lord Slug dashed to the left in a blur, avoiding the barrage of discs and avoiding the arrows that began raining down on him from above. While the blades whizzed past and into the distance, the arrows embedded into the floor and started detonating one after the other. The Namekian spun as he ran, avoiding the blades and shafts that streaked too close to him, and for a moment it seemed like he was doing well. That was until the main body of the two attacks closed in on him and started slicing into his skin- creating multiple cuts and scratches that sent purple blood splattering across the ice.

When one of Myra's bolts landing ahead of Lord Slug cut off his retreat and detonated, filling his face with fire and debris, the tyrant had had enough. With a mighty roar and a spike of ki, the Namekian unleashed a shockwave from his entire body that tore outwards in every direction- deflecting the small discs and arrows dropping down from the sky. Sparks and explosions rang out as the wind ripped from his body and annihilated the energy barrages, clearing the air and carving a large, circular crater into the rock around him.

Once the shockwave dissipated and the cloud of frost thinned, it revealed Lord Slug kneeling in the centre off the fissure with his hands extended and an irate expression in play.

Catching his breath, it seemed as though he was the warlord was in the clear. That was until he suddenly noticed the floor at his feet crack and the rock split. Reacting instinctively, Lord Slug leapt backwards as hard and as fast as he could, a split second before the floor directly in front of him exploded and Dore came flying up at him with a surprise jumping uppercut from underground.

While Lord Slug had been distracted, the big, beefy fighter had used that chance to tunnel beneath the floor and try for a sneak attack. Unfortunately, the Namekian's senses were far sharper than the warrior had anticipated.

The two of them shot upwards with such force that they leapt clear off the ground and into the sky, with Dore shooting past Lord Slug, the wrestler threw himself into a recovery spin to slow his ascent. When he did, Myra- using quickness typical of her style- darted into Dore's path with an energy staff in hand and swung it forward like a bat. This allowed her teammate to land with his feet slamming against the shaft, the warriors aiming themselves down at their opponent before, with a mighty heave and a battle cry, Myra swung her staff and catapulted Dore down towards their target.

Having stopped mid-ascent, the Namekian saw the muscular, brawny member of the squadron dive towards him at supersonic speed- his fist drawn back and glowing for another powered up haymaker. However, instead of letting himself get caught off guard, Lord Slug saw an opportunity and capitalized on it.

Grinning smugly, the warlord swung his right arm forward and- drawing on his race's abilities- stretched it. His hand whipped forward at blinding speed, spun around the approaching Dore, and tied him up. The tyrant's limb constricted around the wrestler and stopped his charge dead, causing the man to blink in surprise as the Namekian yanked him forward and pulled him in.

"YOU'RE MINE!" Lord Slug barked, loading up his other hand and preparing to nail the hapless and trapped Dore as he reeled him down to him.

But then, just as Dore was coming into range, something unexpected happened.

Both the target and attacker's bodies blurred and flickered. Then, in the blink of an eye, the two of them suddenly switched places- Dore being freed from his opponent's rope of an arm and Lord Slug ending up trapped in the binds of his own limb.

"WHAT?!" Lord Slug exclaimed, realizing his own arm was suddenly wrapped around him. Looking over his shoulder and down, he saw the now freed Dore smirking back at him. "How the fuck-?" Before he could finish his alarmed question, the wrestler suddenly noticed a residual, magical aura perforating the air.

Eyes darting towards the ground a few hundred meters below, the Namekian hurriedly searched the landscape- before eventually spotting a tiny figure situated atop a distant plateau. Zooming in, he saw another of the three fox girls. Crouching down with her hands extended and crossed over, with her tail wagging behind her, Lord Slug's jaw dropped when he saw the blue, furry form of Kida smirking up at him- the kitsune having cast a teleportation spell that caused both Slug and Dore to switch places in an instant.

"A short-range body switch technique? Those little rats can use magic?!" Lord Slug thought, unable to believe that there was a race on Cooler's Force that had these kinds of abilities. "When did she…?" Once again, he was unable to finish his question.

Gaze widening, Lord Slug's attention snapped back towards the sky. There, diving towards him at an even greater velocity than Dore, the Namekian saw the glowing, golden form of Gohan blitzing towards him. "GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" The air trembling around him, the tiny, half-Saiyan child let out a bestial roar as he drew back his right fist and threw it into the stunned warlord's face.

The boy's knuckles collided with Lord Slug's cheek with a deafening thunderclap, caving in the side of his jaw before launching the entangled Namekian towards the flat mountain top below. A sonic boom rang out when the warrior was sent plummeting, a split second before his body collided with the mountain, ploughed through it, and into the crust beneath it.

A loud rumbling echoed across the sky as the entire planet shook right down to its mangled core- the force of Lord Slug's impact not only causing the mountain to cave in on itself, but the entire countryside to split right down the middle. An enormous chasm formed fifty miles over the stretch of icy ground in an instant as Lord Slug's hapless body powered through the planet over that entire distance. Seconds later, the Namekian's body came flying out the other side of the fissure, bouncing off the top of a miraculously still standing glacier before spiralling across the curvature of the war world.

Despite being knocked clear out of the park, Lord Slug still wasn't given any reprieve by his enemies. As soon as he cleared the planet's crust and re-emerged in the sky, Gohan, Salza and the others came in right behind him. Streaking across the sky in a scattered 'V' formation, the demi-Saiyan led the charge after the stricken Namekian and powered towards him. When the five glowing bolts of the Armoured Squadron homed in on the warlord, they surrounded him and began beating the crud out of him while he was still flying.

Moving in a blur around the bound and tangled up Lord Slug, the five warriors pounded him with a storm of punches, kicks, and slashes from energy blades. While Dore used good, old-fashion haymakers and jabs, Neiz electrified each of his blows with his lightning, Myra took to using a red simitar, and Gohan coated his fingers with golden brass knuckles, which he used to lay on the abuse. Salza on the other hand spared no effort in slicing into the hulking Namekian with his energy blades, cutting into his flesh and even carving multiple scratches across his face.

Over the sound of loud humming and crunching echoing all around as the five warriors beat up the spinning and continuously moving Namekian, Lord Slug's grunts and shouts of pain rang out in rapid fire. As blood sprayed through the air amidst the rain of unending blows, the trapped warrior then let out a growl of impatience as a slice from Myra carved across his cheek and over his eye.

"WRETCHED FLIES!" Lord Slug bellowed, a telekinetic shockwave ripping from his body and smashing into the five squadron members- sending them all flying off in random directions.

When Dore touched down on the ground, the topless warrior aimed his right arm up, gripped his wrist, and fired off a highly concentrated beam of golden energy up at Lord Slug. At the exact same time, Neiz- who'd been sent up into the sky- gathered an enormous amount of lightning around him, before unleashing it upon their target in a flash.

Despite the speed at which they were launched towards the now stationary, airborne warlord, they were to prove useless. Slamming into Lord Slug's invisible barrier, the attacks effectively dispelled as the Namekian wrested his left arm free of his own binds, gripped his extended right arm at the shoulder, and ripped his limb clean off. In a spray of blood and gore, the tyrant managed to rid himself of the uncooperative limb binding him, before winding back his stump of a shoulder and throwing it forward. "I WILL SLAUGHTER YOU AAAAAAAAAAALL!"

Then, in a display that was as bloody as his self-mutilation, an expulsion of blood from his stump heralded the regeneration of his missing limb. However, instead of having one arm pop out, from the cloud of blood that shot from his stump, over five dozen arms to a hundred suddenly tore out from his right shoulder, stretched, and shot towards the scattered Armoured Squadron members in a brash attempt to ensnare them.

Sending his attack out in all directions over a spread of several miles, Lord Slug's multitude of right arms and slicing hands fanned across the sky like a web, with several sets quickly pursuing the scattered elite and forcing them into a retreat. Dore, Neiz, and Gohan each bolted in random directions as the limbs locked on and gave pursuit- extending to impossible angles and distances, while simultaneously smashing through everything in their path. Salza and Myra meanwhile, as they retreated from the limbs snaking across the sky, sliced away at the arms that swung in close with their respective energy blades. The duo effectively made short work of the first wave, filleting them like fish, but ultimately had to speed up and change course several times when more arms grew back to replace the ones lost and pursued.

Gohan, having managed to evade the first strikes and smash his way out of a handful of them- obliterating a swath of said limbs with several charged ki shots- eventually had his ankle snagged by a lucky whip from one of the limbs and was stopped. Before he could take a shot at the one at his ankle, he suddenly felt someone grab his arm and looked to see his friend Kida floating beside him.

"Watch out!" the blue fox girl shouted before their bodies flickered and vanished together. Just in time too, because the instant they popped out of existence a cluster of hands slammed into the spot where they had been floating and mashed together into a wriggling mass.

Reappearing where Dore was after being snagged by several hands from all sides, both Gohan and Kida grabbed hold of the wrestler and teleported out of there quickly, with the trio reappearing a safe distance away atop a plateau. When the two men dropped to the floor with Kida hanging off of the demi-Saiyan's shoulder, all of them were able to look up and see the entire sky and area in front of them filled with Lord Slug's arms- all of which were whipping about the sky like some sort of mutated, spaghetti titan from a nightmare.

While the warlord continued to send his limbs after Salza and the others, Gohan looked across at the kitsune beside him. When he saw the girl drop to the floor and gasp in exhaustion, his expression immediately became concerned, "Are you okay?"

When Kida took in several deep gulps, she quickly looked back up at the squadron members. "I-I'm alright. *Cough-cough* But I… I still haven't gotten the hang of it yet."

Dore smiled gratefully down at the girl. "Heh. Riko wasn't kidding. It seems you and your friends have picked up some interesting skills over the past couple months."

Kida responded with a wry grin. "Yeah. I can teleport objects and people just by looking at them, Rei can use telekinesis… and Riko-chan can heal us. But… we're still nowhere near the level we want to be. I can only use my technique… ngh… over short distances and only a handful of times. Any more than five or six and I'll pass out."

Gohan, after looking her over and then glancing down at his hand, then smiled broadly and looked back up to where the battle was still raging. "Don't worry, Kida-chan. I've seen how you did it. I think I figured out the trick."

This comment not only had the young kitsune look at Gohan oddly, but also earned a surprised glance from Dore. "Uhh… come again, kid?"

"Later. Let's go!" the demi-Saiyan shouted, pouring up and taking off into the sky to support his teammates. Doing the same, the buff, green warrior also took flight and bolted after his squad mate, allowing Kida to catch her breath.

Just as the pair were re-joining the fray, Lord Slug was just in the process of unleashing another wave of his continuously regrowing limbs after Myra and the others. Understandably, the other squadron members weren't just about to sit back and let the mad tyrant force them into a corner or wrangle them up like cattle. So, they started fighting back against his freaky assault with a lot more gusto.

While the Hera-seijin took the high ground and began unleashing arrows into the incoming hands from the peak of a plateau and Neiz began frying them with blasts of lightning, Salza had grown fed up with flying in circles and decided to take action. Charging up the energy blade around his right arm, the blonde warrior extended its length and increased its size- to the point that it stretched over two to three hundred meters through the air. Its hum growing to a deafening drone as a result, the bright, purple sword filled the sky as the warrior dove towards the wave of incoming hands from a high angle and took a swing at its centre mass.

Due to the monofilament quality of his laser, the man was able to carve through the approaching arms like he was cutting through air. With only a couple of slices and reposts, the Captain of the elite managed to fillet dozens of arms in an instant, before eventually reaching Lord Slug himself and dropping down at him with a downward slash.

In a spray of blood, Salza cut the Namekian at the shoulder, slicing off all the arms from the stump they were growing from and causing the warlord's network of overstretched limbs to stop dead and drop from the sky.

Jumping back as purple blood gushed from his newly reopened wound, Lord Slug grinned as he then fell out of the sky and landed on the icy rock plain below. Seeing Salza pursue him with a vengeance, the Namekian decided on an appropriate counterattack and wound up his sliced off shoulder. Upon which he then thrust it towards the ground while simultaneously regenerating a bunch of tendrils from his stump, all of which tunnelled into the floor before busting out directly beneath Salza and seizing him mid-charge.

The mass of tentacles quickly entangled and ensnared the man, wrapping around his arms, legs and torso, locking him in place and preventing him from following up with his running slash.

"Quoi dans le-!?" Salza yelped, his sword arm getting snapped back by the tentacles that'd suddenly jumped in his path and caught him. Clenching his teeth, the man's gaze snapped back towards the Namekian, who he saw was just a few dozen yards ahead of him. "Hyper body mutation? You can that?"

"Hahaha! One of the many abilities I have accumulated over the decades!" Lord Slug exclaimed, smirking at the shocked look on the Captain's face as he then attempted to wrestle himself free. But unfortunately for him, as the tendrils binding his limbs and body began to constrict, he was unable to budge an inch. "I'll kill you first, pretty boy!"

He then drew back his free arm and prepared to nail the leader of the squadron with a blast, only to then use it to smack away a couple of red bolts that suddenly came shooting at him from the side. Looking across, he saw Myra land nearby with her bow drawn and her arm pulled back- the former of which she had aimed squarely at him.

"Eat this!" she bellowed, before launching another, highly concentrated arrow towards the Namekian.

Grunting in annoyance, Lord Slug waved his hand across, summoned three plasma orbs, and sent one of them flying towards her approaching projectile. When the orange sphere impacted the red bolt, it got impaled, stopped it, before detonating with a fiery blast. As the flames engulfed the area and blocked out Myra's view of her target, the other two plasma balls flew through the wall of fire and towards the Hera-seijin, who quickly crouched and sprang upwards to avoid them as they screamed past her position.

Smirking as his plasma balls homed in on the retreating Myra, the Namekian's grin dropped when he sensed someone coming from above and looked up, where he quickly spotted an airborne Neiz load up his right arm before pitching a pink lightning bolt down at him with a loud clap of thunder.

"HAVE IT!" the Zalt-seijin shouted, which prompted the warlord binding Salza to react.

Swinging his free left hand around, the warlord unleashed a blast of orange lightning of his own, which slammed into the warrior's incoming electric wave, tangled with it, and began a heavily charged tug-of-war match between the pair. Almost immediately the physically more powerful warrior slowly started pushing back Neiz's lightning stream, which caused the sky-locked warrior to gasp before pouring more electricity into his blast to push back the Namekian's approaching wave.

Growling as he forced back the incoming lightning bolt with his own stream, Lord Slug slowly tightened the tendrils he had wrapped around the trapped Salza and began increasing voltage into his blast. That was until a shadow in the corner of his eye caught his attention, which took the form of Dore darting towards him from behind with his left fist drawn back and a haymaker aimed at his skull.

"ORAAA!" the man roared, swinging in and attempting to clean Lord Slug's clock. It was a valiant and smart move, until Dore was suddenly stopped in his tracks by a third arm unexpectedly popping out of the Namekian's well-toned back, catching him by the throat and holding him in place, causing his attack to be cut short. "GAAK! The… fuck…?!"

Having sprouted an extra-arm literally out of his blind spot, the Namekian- keeping his lightning stream going and his tentacles constricted- glanced over his shoulder and grinned up at the Beppa-seijin. "Close, but no dice, welp!" the warlord chuckled, his eyes glinting as he charged up an eye beam to launch at Dore, now gasping and struggling to wiggle himself out of the clutches of the newly sprouted limb.

Meanwhile, Myra, who was flying in circles outside of Lord Slug's gaze, trained her arrow on the Namekian while carefully avoiding his plasma bullets. As she attempted to aim while in continuous motion, the woman cursed when she saw the Namekian shift Dore's body around so that her friend was in the way. "Damn… I don't have a clean shot!" she growled, before speeding up and diving to avoid one of the plasma bullets coming from behind.

Lord Slug chuckled, "I applaud you fools for managing to last this long. But I'm putting an end to this right-huh?" Cutting himself off, the Namekian snapped his gaze the other way, back to where Salza was floating, where he saw the Captain suddenly curl up before shooting multiple arcing blades from his body in an instant. The act of doing so sliced up the tendrils binding him, freed him, and allowed him to rush forward with his sword- now shortened to about a meter's length- blazing brightly. Despite seeing his tentacles get cut to ribbons in a burst of energy, Lord Slug merely smirked before slamming his right foot into the ground. "I don't think so!"

The moment his boot buried into the ice, the ground in front of him unexpectedly melted before splashing upwards in a wall. Salza, being so close when this happened, could only gawk in shock before the wave of liquid ice and rock splashed over him and swept him upwards. A split second later the wave of molten ground hardened, transforming into a wall of ice that locked the Captain in place, and allowed Lord Slug to retract the tentacles he had in the ground.

"Shit!" Salza cursed, watching as the Namekian's tentacles protruding from his right side healed and regenerated.

Lightning starting to crackle around his right tendrils as he continued to hold back Dore, Neiz and Myra, the Namekian then let out a huff as he concentrated his energy into his right side and took aim towards the trapped Salza. At that exact same time, as Dore was still being throttled behind the warlord, a fourth arm suddenly sprouted from the Namekian's back, levelled its palm at the choking warrior's face, and began rapidly gathering ki for an energy ball to take off his head. The Beppa-seijin felt his jaw drop when he saw the orange sphere of plasma suddenly start gathering in front of his eyes, which prompted him to kick and struggle even harder.

"All of you are going to die here… and I'm going to watch it happen," Lord Slug chuckled, preparing to unleash his electrified tendrils whipping beside him upon the Captain frozen in the block of flash-frozen ice, with his head being the only part of his body still exposed.

As Lord Slug's lightning began to overwhelm Neiz's, it seemed like all was lost. That was until a golden flash from above alerted Lord Slug to approaching danger and caused him to look off to his right.

Shooting down from up high, the Namekian spotted Gohan tearing a path towards him from another blind spot, his right hand drawn back and ki rapidly gathering in his palm as he dove headfirst towards him. Realizing that the child was going to get to him before he could finish gathering energy to finish off the bound Dore, Lord Slug quickly redirected the tentacles he was holding up towards the sky and shot them towards the approaching child. The bands of thin flesh arced and twisted around one another as they extended towards their target at blinding speed, who looked as though he was gonna run right into them.

"I HAVE YOU, PEST!" Lord Slug barked with a grin, watching the lightning dance around his stretching tentacles as they opened outward to ensnare the youngster.

However, the moment they snapped down around the boy in a pincer-like fashion, something odd happened.

Upon seeing the multitude of newly regenerated limbs converge on him at once, Gohan's expression turned momentarily serious, a split second before his body suddenly popped out of existence. When the tentacles slammed together, they ended up catching nothing but air, causing the Namekian's grin to drop and his eyes to widen in disbelief.

"Huh?" he unintelligibly blurted out, a split second before something tiny and scolding slammed into the side of his face, caved in his cheek, and lifted him off the ground.

With a deafening clap and a monstrous boom, Gohan rammed the golden ball of energy he was charging in his right hand straight into his target's mug at point-blank range. Having teleported out of the path of the electrified tentacles, the child got right up into the warlord's side and hit him with everything he had. Letting out a scream of effort, the demi-Saiyan let loose the energy in his hand and engulfed the top of Lord Slug's head with a gargantuan beam of raw energy that gushed outwards like a geyser- not only sending the Namekian off his feet, but scorching him badly in the process.

Letting out a horrified scream of his own, Lord Slug was sent shooting off to the side, his extra arms simultaneously releasing Dore as Gohan sent his target into the distance amidst a stream of golden fire. After about several hundred meters of violent travel, the warlord eventually slammed into the ground, which exploded because of the blast making landfall and causing widespread, dramatic damage to the vicinity.

As the golden dome of energy formed on the horizon, Dore dropped to the floor on all fours and gasped for air, rubbing his throat in shock as Gohan also tapped down in front of him. Glancing up, the wrestler let out a relieved whimper. "Man… for a second there… I thought I was gonna be a head shorter," he wheezed.

While Gohan kept a glare fixed on the explosion in the distance, Myra came down and fired an arrow into the mass of ice binding Salza, shattering the wall of jagged crystal and freeing the Captain from his imprisonment. The moment he was liberated, he, the Hera, and Neiz re-joined Gohan and Dore on the spot where Lord Slug had been standing, and quickly looked out to where the wall of fire formed by Gohan's attack slowly dissipated.

Neiz, having witnessed the whole thing from above while he'd been trying to push back Lord Slug's electrical storm, looked across at their Super Saiyan teammate and blinked. "You just popped right up in front of him. How did you do that?" the lanky warrior asked.

In response, the hybrid smiled. "Kida showed me. I'll tell you later."

Dore, taking in deep breaths as he stood up, also glared into the distance, where the group saw orange bolts of lightning begin shooting up into the sky. "For crying out loud. This guy just isn't gonna give up, is he?"

Sensing their foe's energy spiking, Salza clenched his teeth and thrust his arm out. "Careful. He still has a lot of power left."

As the group formed together, with Kira watching them from a distance, at the epicentre of the lightning storm, Lord Slug was fuming. Bolts of orange lightning rushing up and down his body and shooting off in every direction, the tentacles protruding from his right shoulder quickly merged together to form into a new arm, while the two extra arms he had protruding from his left shoulder sunk back into their host and disappeared. Face and chest burnt on one side, the seething warlord and mage clenched his fists tightly as veins pulsed over him.

Panting and sneering, the man then growled through fang-like teeth before screaming at the top of his lungs. "DON'T UNDERESTIMATE MEEEEEEEEEEE!" he bellowed, swinging his arms overhead before then unleashing all the energy he'd been building up into one massive blast.

In a blinding flash of orange light, Lord Slug thrust his arms downwards and allowed a Cosmic Super Storm to gush forth from his body in every direction possible. With the Namekian at its centre, a dome of highly concentrated, highly charged lightning ripped from his body and expanded across the countryside at an alarming speed, the subsequent shockwave tearing up the surrounding land and levelling everything in its path.

As rubble, debris and frost was sent hurtling every which way, an explosion several thousand times more powerful than a thermonuclear blast began rolling across the planet and roaring towards the grounded members of Cooler's Armoured Squadron.

Seeing the dome-shaped lightning explosion thundering towards them, Salza and the others felt their jaws drop in horror, a split second before its most able members acted. While Myra jumped ahead and erected a Spartan-like red shield in front of her and Dore, Neiz also leapt forward with his lightning imbued hands and Gohan jumped in front of Salza, stretched out his arms, and generated a dome-shaped barrier around him and his friends.

"HOLD OOOOON!" Myra shouted, moments before the tidal wave of lightning from the dome smashed into them and began tearing up everything around the group's shields, as if a hurricane had just made landfall.

The noise generated by the blast waves was deafening. The howling winds battered the heroes to the point their feet dug trenches into solid rock. And the roar of the storm rolling over the group was so violent that every single mountain, plateau, and ridge left standing around them was ripped asunder and sent bouncing across the landscape as if they were nothing but cardboard cut-outs on the wind. Due to the amount of force being unloaded by the Namekian, all five warriors felt their bodies get pushed back across the ground as their foundations disintegrated around them.

Kida, meanwhile, who had been watching the entire thing from afar, was forced to jump off her mountain ledge, drop behind the tor and hide in a hole. It was a good thing she did too, because the second she went underground, the entire precipice she'd been standing on was smashed to pieces and sent scattering across the burning countryside in the form of dust by the storm.

The Cosmic Super Storm stretched across the entire face of the planet the Armoured Squadron had been fighting on. Any allied forces and troops stationed nearby had already been evacuated by drop ships and saucers sent to collect them, so the fear of anyone getting caught in the crossfire of the final battle was effectively mitigated. The only people who were forced to hunker down as the result of the dome of lightning stretching over the northern hemisphere of the world were Cooler, Zangya, Lucoa and Riko- all of whom were in range of the blast and forced to cover behind protective barriers thrown up by the former.

The prince, having been healed by Riko a couple minutes earlier, was able to protect his three companions against the nuclear shockwaves that roared over them, and would've undoubtedly killed them all had he not been prepared to receive the tsunami.

By the time the catastrophic explosion ended and the lightning storm lifted, on top of being warped into an ovular shape and missing an entire chunk from its eastern hemisphere, the ice planet had also been blackened on one of its quadrants.

The fact that the planet was still holding together after all the punishment it'd taken was a miracle.

OOO

(Meanwhile)

Back over on the war world's Western Plains where the invasion had taken place, the citadel of Lord Slug had remained practically untouched. Sitting just close enough to the action to see the explosions but far enough away to avoid being damaged by the resulting shockwaves, the metallic, saucer-shaped dome of a building continued to stand proud above a wasteland that was pretty much desolate and lifeless.

The only living creatures in the area- Kuriza and the members of the Ginyu Force, who were still magically bound and trapped on the roof of the black fortress that was the Namekian's base of operations.

Drumming his fingers against his arm rest, the diminutive, First Form Frieza look-a-like with the nut-shaped cranium murmured uneasily as he saw the flashes of the lightning shaped explosion in the horizon fade away. At the same time, he and the members of his father's elite hit squad kept a close eye on the live feed of the battle between their captor and his opponents continue to play out before them on the hologram screen in front of them.

Though the picture was a bit grainy and jumpy due to the signal cutting out from the amount of energy and radiation being exerted by all the fighters involved, they were still able to keep up with everything that was going on. And, needless to say, it was pretty fantastic.

"Damn…" Burter breathed out, his arms still sticking out to his sides in a crucifix position while still resting on his knees, just like the rest of his teammates.

"That guy just scorched everything around him in an instant. He didn't even hold back," Recoome followed up, shaping his head in disbelief. "Not even all of us working together could've cleared a field like that…"

Guldo, swallowing nervously, glanced across at the rest of his friends. "Do you… think Salza and his team… will be alright?"

"Fuck if I know," Jeice responded, his face dripping with sweat, which seemed to bite at the burns he'd suffered at the hands of their opponent. "They've been fighting non-stop, back-to-back opponents since they arrived on this planet trying to save the young prince."

"Yeah. And what've the five of us been doing this entire time?" Burter asked, glancing over at his compatriots with a displeased frown. "We've just been sitting here, holding in our piss, and trying not to say anything to annoy the big, bad, boss man. Honestly, just thinking about it is making me super depressed."

"Agreed," Recoome sighed, his eyes casting downwards in disappointment and grief. "Damn… if only we'd worked out some more. Hit the gym a few more times. Maybe then we could've made a difference…"

"Chin up, fellas," Ginyu spoke, drawing the attention of his squad mates and Lord Kuriza, all of whom fixed the purple, horned warrior with looks of intent. "Now isn't the time to dwell on our failures. Instead… let's take this as a learning experience. A lesson for the future."

Jeice blinked. "What do you mean, Captain?"

Sucking in air, the charismatic leader of the Force glanced up with a far-away look and expressed his thoughts for all his friends to hear. "Failure. The greatest lesson and teacher in the history of civilization. What we learn and experience today- the pain, the suffering, the embarrassment- we will use to grow and make ourselves stronger tomorrow… and the day after. We must shoulder the burdens of our mistakes so that the next time we find ourselves pressed into a situation like this, we will be able to overcome these obstacles and achieve victory." He then looked from left to right, eyeing his teammates carefully and giving them his most serious glare, he could muster. "I do not know if we will all make it out of this alive. But if we do, I want the four of you to remember this moment… and use it to empower you, to encourage you to develop your skills… and to become even better men than you are today."

Ginyu's speech, while cheesy and spoken in his very gruff tone of voice, helped to bring tears to the eyes of his squad mates, all of whom had to hold back sniffles as their second in command practically wept with sadness and joy.

"Y-Your words… are bloody inspiring as always, sir," Jeice exclaimed, shaking his head, and flicking his bangs of white hair out of his face. "You… *sniff*… truly are… a man amongst men."

Closing his eyes, the horned warrior nodded his head in acceptance. "Thank you, Jeice. I am… humbled by your kindness."

Burter, blinking away his own emotions, put on a stiff upper lip before speaking out with a slightly croaky voice. "So… uhh… since we're still alive and kicking… how the heck do we get out of this mess?"

"I can help."

Eyes widening all around, the five Ginyu Force members plus Kuriza looked ahead of them to suddenly see a white, anthropomorphic fox girl in purple spandex, white gloves and boots suddenly drop down from the sky and walk through the hologram in front of them. When she stopped before the group and looked between the prisoners, she revealed herself to be none other than the third and tallest of the kitsune trio- Rei.

White tail wagging behind her, the pale-furred fox put on a smile as she then strolled over to Kuriza and stopped before the child, who looked up at the vixen in surprise.

"W-Who are you?" Kuriza asked, as he saw the furry humanoid inspect his throne.

"I'm Gohan-kun's friend," Rei answered, looking back at the boy, and seeing the royal's confusion flash across his gaze. "Uhh… I'm… the Saiyan boy's companion. The one fighting with Cooler-sama's squad. I work for him."

Ginyu blinked across at the fox child. "You're on the Cooler Force?"

"Yes. I came here to rescue the little prince," Rei replied quickly, raising her hand, and holding it over the prince's shoulder. As she slowly moved it across just a few inches from the boy's carapace plate, her expression quickly became one of seriousness and concentration. "Hmm… the six of you are being held in place by a powerful restraining field. Something like this will be incredibly hard to break."

Jeice, blinking a couple of times as he observed the girl work, frowned. "Can you do it?"

"Of course. Just… hold still," Rei answered, ignoring the glares from the Ginyu Force members watching her for her little joke, before stepping back and proceeding to concentrate mana into her palm. As blue flames slowly began wafting off her hand, the girl then turned her attention to Guldo and the others. "It's an extraordinarily strong telekinetic field. I'll have to do this one at a time, so please be patient."

Feeling a warm glow fall over him, the seated Kuriza gulped as he looked up at the tall girl that was around his age. "W-Will your Saiyan friend be able to stop that monster? Can he defeat Lord Slug?"

Rei, glancing back at the alien boy in surprise, quickly but on a cool grin and nodded. "Of course," she replied without an ounce of hesitation. "After all, he is the one who saved me and my friends when my planet was attacked by pirates. If anyone can put an end to this enemy's leader, I know Gohan-kun will."

Ginyu, looking the girl up and down as she proceeded to prod and pick at the invisible barrier surrounding the young prince with her magical aura, had a thoughtful glint pass through his eyes. "This Saiyan child… who exactly is he?"

Quickly glancing over at the elite team's leader, the fox girl smiled. "All you need to know is that he is a very kind, good, and strong person… someone who will give his all and won't rest until his job is completed and all his friends are safe and sound."

This caused the Captain to blink, "I see…"

From there, the white kitsune got straight to work, pouring her magic into the invisible binds holding the prince and the Ginyu Force members hostage…

OOO

(Meanwhile)

(Back at the battlefield)

Several minutes following Lord Slug's lightning eruption, the members of Cooler's Armoured Squadron quickly found themselves thrown into a rather perilous situation. Not only did they have to contend with an enemy who was fully enraged and oozing with copious amounts of bloodlust, but one that was also boasting a newly mutated and transformed body.

Unlike his previous form, which he had altered with multiple, unorthodox appendages that stretched ridiculously long distances and allowed the Namekian to stop them from multiple directions at once, the warlord had undergone a new mutated where instead of increasing his range, he had shortened it, while simultaneously boosting his defences.

The result was the enlarged Namekian's enormous body buffing up and becoming covered in hardened, bony carapace plates, which not only formed in places that protected his vital areas, but also on limbs with which he could attack. By coasting his knuckles, shins and fists in the same green shell pieces as he did his shoulders, back and torso, his punches, kicks and knee strikes had a great deal more bite to them, which for the five elite members of Cooler's army was a very bad thing.

The instant they saw Lord Slug stomp out of the burning crater he'd formed following his landscape reducing outburst, the group quickly went on the offensive. They'd charged in and swarmed the Namekian, who in turn rushed at them and began duking the group out in close quarters.

Though the squad did their best to play to their strengths and kept their distances, fighting the infuriated warlord had now become a heated battle of endurance. It was all a matter of whose stamina would run out first.

After watching her friend Dore get punted across the valley to crash through an ash-covered hillside a mile away, Myra let out a loud battle cry as she practically sprang across the battlefield with her massive bow Manaa flying right beside her. With it, as she flew towards the hulking Lord Slug, she launched a cluster of red bolts towards him, watching the green warlord smack them away with his forearms and hands, with only a couple of the projectiles managing to land embed themselves into his shoulder.

"Grrrr…" The moment he got knocked staggering back by the two large bolts lodged in his shoulder plate, the Namekian conjured up to golden plasma balls behind him, which lengthened into a pair of spears before flying towards the incoming Hera-seijin.

Dodging them, the woman slammed her feet into the side of her massive energy bow and, using it like a sail board, flew straight towards her target and crashed it straight into him. Despite the incredible force of which she slammed the head of her weapon into the tyrant, which managed to pick him up and send him skidding along the ground for several yards as she drove it into him, the thirteen foot tall Lord Slug managed to catch it with his hands and stop it from crushing him.

Growling as Myra pushed the bow into him with all the strength she could muster from her legs, the Namekian managed to halt his backward momentum and slowly force the arc of pulsing red energy in the opposite direction. As he did so however, Salza came charging at him from behind with his arm coated in purple energy and, with a scream of effort, slammed into his back and drove his arm through his spine.

"GRAAAAAAAGH!" Screaming as the elite Captain's sword impaled him and came out his chest, Lord Slug snapped his eyes behind him before unleashing a telekinetic blast from his body. The sonic boom that occurred smacked Salza away from him and sent the leader of the squadron bouncing across the countryside, allowing Lord Slug to concentrate all his efforts in pushing Myra's bow back.

Eventually, with a loud grunt of anger, he managed to shove the red bow away from him and fired a concentrated mouth blast up at the Hera-seijin surfing on it. When the orange blast gushed out of his mouth with a howl of wind, the woman managed to use her legs to swing her giant bow in front of her body and catch the beam. The moment it collided with her weapon, it pushed her straight up into the sky and away from her target, with Myra doing everything she could to try and hold off the blast.

As energy was spilling from his mouth, Lord Slug suddenly felt a pair of long arms snap around his neck and tighten sharply- not only yanking his head back, but also cutting off the power to his mouth blast. "What?!" letting out a strangled shout as a result, the warlord then glanced over his shoulder, where he saw the slightly battered form of Neiz riding his back and choking him from behind.

"FRY, MOTHERFUCKER!" the Zalt-seijin shouted.

The moment the Namekian reached up to try and grab him, the tallest member of the elite squad unleashed all the lightning stored in his body in one go- a field of purple electricity exploding from him and engulfing them both. The rolling thunderclaps that occurred deafened the area as streams of energy gushed out in all directions, not only frying to spot where the massive Namekian was standing but carving up the ground in areas a hundred meters from them as well. A howl of pain ripped from Lord Slug's throat as he was hit square-on by an attack he'd used on countless other warriors before him, his body seizing up as torrents upon torrents of electricity rushed through his muscles and began to incinerate him from the inside-out.

Crying out as he writhed beneath the lightning storm Neiz was pouring into his body, the Namekian attempted to fight it off. However, as the Zalt-seijin continued to hit him with everything he had, Gohan came bolting in from the side and smashed a haymaker across the giant Namekian's face.

With a sickening crunch, he managed to knock the electrified warlord's face to the side, drawing blood, and sending him stumbling. Upon which, the demi-Saiyan then set upon Lord Slug with a vengeance, his fists coated protectively with golden gauntlets of energy, which he then used to beat the ever-living shit out of the miraculously standing giant of an opponent. Sonic booms and cannon fire rang out as Gohan laid into Lord Slug's stricken and paralysed body with a storm of blows, hitting him across the head and torso over and over with charged-up punches. All the while Neiz continued to electrocute the fucker, lightning and sparks shooting off the Namekian like some kind of freaky, mobile Tesla coil.

As Gohan continued to wail on the warlord, Dore managed to fly back into the scene and dove right into it. With his knuckles also glowing with green, protective energy, the wrestler joined his younger and smaller cohort in beating up the Namekian as he was electrocuted. The pair worked in tandem, coupling their hooks and haymakers with each other as they struck every vital point they could on the giant's body. When his carapace plating began to crack and fracture under the violent storm of blows, they knew they were getting somewhere.

Unfortunately, Lord Slug wasn't willing to just stand there and suffer this abuse. After several more punches to the gut that left him reeling, the self-proclaimed tyrant let out a mighty bellow, lifted his foot, and kicked Gohan square in the chest, sending the Super Saiyan blasting towards the horizon and smashing through the terrain. Upon which he then caught one of Dore's punches, pulled the wrestler in and smashed him across the face with a hook that knocked the man into the ground a few yards away- burying him in a shower of rubble.

"GET OFF!" Lord Slug shouted, reaching up, grabbing Neiz by the head, and throwing him off of his shoulders- sending the man hurtling into another ridge that caved in under the impact of his body.

Before the Namekian could set upon any of the Squadron members he'd just dispersed, Myra suddenly came diving down from behind. Riding her giant energy bow like a surfboard, she flew right into the back of Lord Slug's legs, caught him by his heels, and knocked him off his feet while she blew past. The result was the warlord being lifted into the air before dropping onto his back with a loud crack.

As the floor caved in under his weight, the Namekian barely had time to blink when Salza suddenly came diving down at him from above- his sword arm drawn, and blade extended to an incredible length. Taking aim, the blonde Captain gave a mighty yell as he thrust down at Lord Slug, only to watch the armoured warrior roll out of the way and leap to his feet. This caused Salza to miss and run his blade into the ground instead.

The second his energy blade impaled the rock, Lord Slug thrust a hand out and hit the determined Captain with an orange burst of light, which slammed into Salza, engulfed him, and sent him screaming into the distance- while simultaneously scorching him. As the Namekian was about to give the stream of electricity another burst to finish him, the equivalent of a charging locomotive suddenly slammed into his side when Myra's giant bow flew in and collided with the big brute.

A loud sonic boom rang out as the bow picked the warlord up and carried him across the battlefield, before eventually slamming into the floor a mile away and detonating with the force of a nuclear warhead. A blinding flash, a sonic boom, followed by a red dome of energy engulfed a significant portion of the countryside, as yet another fallout was inflicted upon the battered planet.

Myra, having thrown her weapon from an airborne position, kept her hand extended as she watched her strongest construct level the area. But just when she thought she may have done some significant damage to her foe, the Hera-seijin's eyes widened when she saw two orange beams shoot out from the fiery dome and fly right at her, forcing her to produce an impromptu Spartan shield on her extended hand a split second before the eye beams impacted it.

A loud bang rang out as the beams exploded and her shield shattered, causing the woman to let out a scream as she was shot out of the sky and sent to the ground, where she collided with a loud thud.

As the scorched Super Hera pushed her hands into the ground and forced herself back up, the woman's eyes widened when she saw the black cloud formed from her exploding bow in the distance part, a split second before Lord Slug crashed right into her with his massive hand.

Grabbing the woman by the face, the scalded Namekian dragged the female along the floor for several dozen yards, tearing a trench through the scorched rock before eventually stopping a few seconds later. His steaming head pulsing with veins of pure rage, Lord Slug grabbed Myra by the neck with both his hands and proceeded to strangle her, a second before Gohan suddenly landed on his shoulders, wrapped both his arms around his neck, and began crushing his windpipe for all he was worth.

"RAAAAAAGH! LET… GO… OF… HEEERRRR!" Gohan practically screamed, his golden aura exploding around his tiny body as he slammed both his feet into the Namekian's girthy back and pulled on him hard.

Eyes bugging out as he felt his airway get blocked, Lord Slug was only able to let out a few strangled noises as his grip around Myra's neck quickly loosened. This allowed the woman to gulp in whatever air she could, before she drew back her left hand, formed a long, red spear of energy, and drove it into the Namekian's gut from below.

The moment her lance buried into the Broly-sized warrior's flank, Lord Slug choked out a cry of pain. Unable to take it anymore as he was being impaled and strangled from two different enemies, the man then removed his right hand from Myra's neck, threw back his head to hit Gohan in the nose, before then elbowing the boy in the side. This caused the demi-Saiyan to relinquish his grip, before the warlord swung around, grabbed him by the neck with his hand, and began choking the Super Saiyan as well.

As soon as he had the boy in his grasp, Dore then leapt into the fray. Landing on the Namekian's left shoulder, he wrapped both his arms around his head- effectively taking Gohan's place- and started trying to choke the warlord out as well. This left all four warriors in a very precarious position, in which each of them was either fighting to get out of their opponent's grasp and choke the other person out.

Growling angrily, the Namekian with the armour plating around his face, torso and limbs then growled out to the three elite warriors he was wrestling with. "Why… Why can't I absorb your energy?!" Lord Slug growled, veins pulsing on all his muscles as he struggled to choke Gohan, choke Myra, resist the bolts of pain from her spear in his gut, and force Dore off his shoulder. "I learned this magic… from the tomes of Planet-Eater Moro's ancient home world! The monster that forced even the Gods themselves into a corner! There isn't… a single life-form in the universe… that should be able to resist it! So how?! HOW ARE YOU ABLE TO RESIST MY MAGIC?!"

Myra, growling as she plunged her spear further into the Namekian's stomach and out the other side, joining the first hole made by her Captain's sword through his back, choked out in anger. "What… the hell… are you talking about…?!"

Snarling in frustration while Dore yanked back on his neck even harder, Lord Slug gave a grunt of rage. "Not only insolent… but naïve and ignorant too." He then switched his attention to Gohan, who he saw was clawing and kicking away at his forearm in an effort to loosen his grip. The Namekian narrowed his eyes on the child and huffed. "What secrets are you hiding! Show them to me! NOW!"

He then activated his telepathic ability and dove into Gohan's memories, causing the boy's eyes to widen when he felt Lord Slug's influence begin tunnelling through his head. Almost immediately the Namekian was given flashes of the boy's past, revealing to him not only all of the battles he'd fought and worlds he'd visited with the Armoured Squadron, but also his battle on CP-179.

In the images that followed, Lord Slug's eyes widened when he saw the young Super Saiyan and his team face off against Turles, his near death experience, his rescue at the hands of Kida and her friends, and the reason why his team had been sent to that world in the first place. He saw the enormous Tree of Might jutting into the sky, the fruit it bore, and felt the power it possessed.

This immediately gave the Namekian his answer.

Shaking his head, Lord Slug let out a growl as he glared back down at Myra, "So… you ate from the Sacred Tree of the Kais!? The legendary divine tree! The forbidden fruit… consumed only by the Kais themselves!" the Namekian growled, saliva dribbling down from his lips as he tightened his grip around Myra's neck, only to have the woman drive her spear in deeper. "AAAGH! The fruit of the sentient tree… is resistant to magic! By eating it… you and your friends… inherited that exact same trait! All of you… are cursed!" He then grinned and leaned in further, attempting to force Dore to release him. "No matter… even if I can't steal your life energy… I can still kill you with my own hands! Starting with YOU!" he barked down at Myra, his fingers tightening around her throat and causing her to gasp in pain.

Sensing Myra was in danger, Gohan, struggling in Lord Slug's grip, felt his eyes widen before a fierce, burning rage swept through him. Hearing his friend's choked cries and feeling her pain, the demi-Saiyan began to growl and pant heavily in the Namekian's grip. His knuckles whitening and fangs sharpening, the child felt a great heat begin to radiate from every pore in his body, seconds before he snapped.

"HRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"

Letting out a cry of rage, the boy's body became engulfed in a pulsing red glow that gushed out of his skin. Along with the red flames, his golden aura also ignited, his energy taking on a crimson hue as he grabbed Lord Slug's wrist, yanked himself forward, and delivered a savage kick to Lord Slug's jaw the moment he was in reach. The blow landed with a sickening crunch that not only dislocated the warlord's jaw, but also knocked him off of Myra and out of Dore's grip- releasing all of them from the vice of death.

"What?!" The moment Lord Slug's massive form slammed into the ice, Gohan dove down and dropped right on top of the Namekian- burying both his feet into his chest cavity. Caving in his ribs and causing all the wind in the tyrant's lungs to get the fuck out of their host, the boy let out a scream and began hammering his fists into the man's face over and over again in a furious blur of movement.

The act of pounding Lord Slug's face into the floor formed a massive crater beneath them, which became wider and wider with each devastating impact of the boy's knuckles. The winds also generated from Gohan's rage-filled barrage sent Dore and Myra tumbling away, with both eventually stopping themselves to watch as their glowing, golden boy continued to bury his foe into the ground.

Even Neiz and Salza, both of whom were just picking themselves up following their own hard landings minutes earlier, watched with slightly slack jaws as their star pupil laid into Lord Slug.

After a full minute of doing this, Gohan then sprang off the warlord's chest, grabbed him by his massive leg, picked him up, and began to spin him. Yelling as he rotated his much larger opponent round him several times, the Super Saiyan then let out one final scream as he threw Lord Slug into the distance, sending him crashing through an entire hill before he exploded out the other end.

Bouncing a couple of times from ridge to hill, Lord Slug eventually slammed both feet into the ground and skidded to a stop. Purple blood gushing from his mouth and stab wounds, the Namekian roared as orange lightning bolted around him and his energy skyrocketed.

"RAAAAGH! WHY… WON'T… YOU… DIIIIIIIEEEE!" the warlord bellowed, his eyes and mouth igniting a flaming orange as he gathered all his energy into his orifices and took aim at the child and his friends half a mile away.

Gohan, aura still burning around him, pulled back his head, inhaled sharply, and filled his chest with ki. After which, he then took a step forward, opened his mouth, and unleashed a golden geyser of a blast that tore across the land and rocketed towards Lord Slug. His Blitz Cannon deafened the area with a loud roar as it thundered towards the Namekian, who in turn countered with his own attack.

Bellowing loudly, the Namekian opened his mouth as well, before launching both a mouth blast and a pair of eye beams simultaneously. The attacks fused as they tore through the air and roared towards the oncoming wall of energy, before the orange and golden attacks collided and began pushing against one another with such force that the ground between the two opponents split.

Chasm forming as the entire continent splintered and shook violently from the clash, the energy pouring from Lord Slug's face-laser increased drastically as the Namekian doubled his output and sent even more ki roaring down his beam. The column of energy swelled and powered forward, pushing against Gohan's blast, splitting it, and slowly forcing its way towards its young user.

Gohan, feeling his body get shunted back against the strength of his opponent's beam, roared as he increased his own technique's intensity in an effort to hold it off. But little by little, even after adding more energy into his attack, the warlord's own beam gradually began to overwhelm his.

That was until his teammates decided to step in.

Noticing their squad mate was in trouble, Myra, Salza, Dore and Neiz sprang forward. Landing on either side of the boy and closing ranks around him, the injured elite rapidly gathered their energy, engulfed themselves in their auras, and locked stances. Upon drawing back their hands and charging their attacks, they took aim at Lord Slug's blast tearing its way towards them. Then, after concentrating all the ki they could, unleashed their power at once.

With a mighty heave, every single member of the squad thrust their hands forward- with Dore and Neiz throwing both their hands, and Salza and Myra their one. The second they did, blasts of red, gold, and purple left their hands respectively, filling the air with a terrifying howl as their beams converged on Lord Slug's and slammed into it with enough power to wipe out several planets at once.

Sparks flew and the air trembled, as the group's beams joined Gohan's blast and began pushing the Namekian's attack back. A tremendous gale kicked up as a result of the clash, sending rubble and debris hurtling across the sky, and slowly beginning to separate the damaged plates of the mobile planet's surface.

For several tense seconds both the warlord and his enemies continued their intense tug-of-war match, with neither side showing any indications of backing down. But eventually, after the Namekian attempted one last time to force his adversary's unified attack back, the five members of the elite then gave their attacks one last kick and, with a cry of effort, all of them sent an enormous surge of energy rushing down their five separate beams. When it reached the point where they met Lord Slug's attack, their blasts all fused into one and, in a mighty show of force, tore down the Namekian's attack and crashed headlong into the green tyrant.

With a scream of horror, Lord Slug was picked up by the wall of energy when it slammed into him before sending him soaring over the curvature of the planet. After traveling a hundred miles he eventually came in contact with the ground, and shortly upon impacting it an explosion followed. What followed during that cataclysmic collision was like the sun itself rising over the hills, a massive, golden flash filling the entire horizon as a fireball spanning the size of a mountain picked up a large plate of the ice planet and sent it blasting out of the atmosphere in a cloud of debris.

The shockwave was also quite outstanding, not only covering the entire planet and shaking it right down to its barely stable foundations, but also pushing the Seventh Fleet slightly off course of its original orbit of the satellite. All the ships, which had moved further away from the ice planet and the battles taking place on it, had to sound emergency alarms as the blasts from the elite's exploding attack practically rocked all of them, forcing Kikono and Berryblue to order the crew to correct their course.

When the light and the tremors eventually faded, all that remained of the explosion was a massive black cloud hanging in the distance. The magnitude of the attack caused the weather in that region to change drastically, as the fumes from the exploding blasts caused a thunderstorm to begin sweeping over the enormous crater formed from the technique's impact.

Gohan and the others meanwhile, were spent. After holding their stances with their hands extended for a full minute, the group- with the exception of their youngest member- collapsed to their hands and knees.

Both his arms dropping, Dore fell forward onto his hands and gasped in shock. "Great Kai… that… *gasp*… took everything out of me…"

"Y-You said it…" Neiz also stuttered, purple sparks of electricity leaving him as he dropped to one knee and took in deep, heaving breaths of air. "Ah, man… that sucked…"

With Myra also doubled over and unable to speak on account of her breathing so heavily, Salza- who was using a rock to try and prop himself up- looked up through a slightly lidded gaze and double-vision. Observing the black mushroom cloud spreading across the sky on the horizon, the man swallowed nervously before smiling victoriously.

"On the bright side… it's finally over…"

And on that the senior members of the team most certainly agreed, all of them smiling weakly at one another and sighing in relief.

However, as the four older soldiers of the elite were in the process of catching their breaths, Gohan- still on his feet and still in his Super Saiyan form- then felt his hair bristle. Immediately after which his face twisted into a more furious one and a growl left his throat, alerting his companions and causing them all to wake up.

Upon seeing the child drop to his hands and take his feral fighting stance, Myra and Dore hurriedly stood up.

"What is it, little buddy?!" the latter asked.

His question was answered moments later, when all of a sudden, the ground before them erupted in a geyser of burnt rock and earth, which blasted into the sky in a wall. The plateau the group was standing on shifted from the tremors that washed over it, with the five warriors looking on in shock as a massive green hand as large as an ocean liner unexpectedly reached out off the exploding ground and slammed into the floor on the other side of the chasm that'd formed.

From there a second hand reached up and grabbed the other side of the gorge, dust and smoke rushing out of it and blocking out the sky. Then, with the fingers gripping tight, a shadowy, gargantuan form was hoisted out of the hole, through the clouds, and out of the planet's depths. At first Gohan and the others had to shield their faces from the blast of debris that hit them from the speed at which the giant rose. But then, as the violent winds quieted down and the group was finally able to peer through the dust that hung in the air, their jaws almost hit the floor when their eyes took in the astonishing spectacle that now stood before them.

His body quite literally eclipsing the sky behind him and head poking through the clouds like the peak of a great mountain, the still very alive and very intact Lord Slug had returned to the battlefield for one final bout with the Armoured Squadron. But instead of facing the five elites in a form much closer to their level, the war monger had opted to take a different route and assumed his race's most terrifying and intimidating transformation- one with an added wrinkle to it.

Unlike the conventional Great Namekian form that he'd used to buff himself up in the first half of the fight, Slug had drawn on every last drop of his reserves to boost his size to the point that his body quite literally towered over the entire countryside. From where Gohan and the others stood at the edge of the enormous chasm that'd formed in the planet's crust, the warlord wasn't just as big as a building, a plateau, or even the Oozaru form the demi-Saiyan had assumed during his fight with Lucoa.

By their estimate, the guy had made himself as big as an actual mountain… perhaps even a small moon. It was a fact that was made even more palpable when the crew of the Seventh Fleet on board Cooler's flag ship could literally see Lord Slug standing on the planet below through the vessel's windows, almost like he was part of the planet itself.

The lithosphere barely holding up underneath the warlord's sheer weight, the entire planet trembled as the proudly standing tyrant, looming over them in his Titan Namekian form, let out a booming snarl as he drew back his right hand, formed it into a fist, and took aim at the group of warriors below. His eyes- once white with black pupils- shone with a menacing, golden hue, like two stars high in the sky.

"I grow weary of you, you insolent pests!" the Namekian's voice boomed across the entire planet, the ground trembling beneath the sound waves as orange lightning began to bolt and course around him once more. Thunderclaps ringing out as his energy spiked once again, the titan warlord then growled as he swung his body forward and threw his skyscraper sized fist down at the group. "DIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!"

A roar of wind echoed across the plains as his fist swung down through the clouds and towards the five warriors, all of whom gaped for a moment before they realized they were about to get flattened. Reacting fast, all of them turned heel and bolted, zipping across the battlefield as fast as they could while the giant's knuckles ignited a hot orange as they burned up on approach, before eventually colliding with the very ridge they'd been standing on.

The shockwave that followed was nearly comparable to the one Gohan produced when he crashed on top of Lucoa- a tidal wave of earth, rock and ice exploding from the point of impact, which then rippled across the terrain in all directions. With the Armoured Squadron so caught up flying and running away, they completely missed the wall of rubble thundering towards them, until they were eventually hit by the titanic shockwave and knocked screaming forward amidst the shower of rock and ice.

Tumbling and rolling through the nuclear-like shockwave that created another crater in its wake, the five warriors all grunted and yelped as they were battered by the gale and the rubble that hit them. Eventually, reaching the end of the wave, the elite fighters quickly righted themselves and spun around, landing on the ruined ground, and skidding to a stop. Amidst the dense cloud of dust that hung in the air around them as the shockwave from the tyrant's punch carried on, Gohan and his friends all gritted their teeth and glared up at the colossus of a man still towering before them in the horizon.

Yanking his enormous knuckles out of the ground and leaving an imprint that could've easily match the width and radius of a stadium, Lord Slug snarled as he then swung his left hand forward and extended all his fingers.

"COME HEEEEEEERE!" he bellowed, before all five of his digits suddenly shot forward, arcing and stretching across the valley at an alarming rate.

As the fingers stretched towards the now on guard Squadron, the group watched as the individual digits suddenly split up and separated into smaller appendages. At first not knowing what was going on, the group's eyes widened when each of the multiplying fingers suddenly morphed and transformed into dragon-like monsters- with each beast resembling either Porunga or Shenron. Each of the lizards gave a menacing hiss upon their appearance, before all of them charged towards the five warriors and crashed into them.

Salza and Myra barely had enough time to produce their signature energy blades when Lord Slug's elephant-sized dragon fingers slammed into them- the pair of them using their sword and spear respectively to stop the beasts' talons from tearing them up on the first charge. Dore and Neiz meanwhile had to contend with the beasts with their fists, both of them shouting out in pain when the trio of dragons they were facing down ran them over, picked them up, and slammed both of them into the floor- pinning them beneath their massive claws as their jaws then attempted to take a chomp out of them.

However, with sheer brute force, tenacity, and quick reflexes, both the wrestler and the amphibian managed to hold back the sharpened mouths of the serpent-like familiars, as they used their arms and legs to push back the beasts clawing at them.

"W-What the fuck…!" Dore shouted, ramming his foot into what he hoped was the belly of the mini-Porunga dragon now attempting to rip his neck open, yet managing to keep its snapping teeth away. With his arms he held back the snouts of the other two, though was clearly having a hard time doing it. "How the hell… is he doing all of this… AAAAHHHHH!" He then let out a scream when one of the other dragons wiggled out of his palm and bit into his shoulder.

"Kai damn it… I hate magic!" Neiz also barked, his body becoming surrounded in lightning as he gave off a sharp and sudden burst of power, which managed to throw the two Shenron-like dragons off him and allowed him to spring to his feet. Before he could move however, the twin reptiles lunged at him again, forcing him to catch them with his arms. Though he was able to stop them from biting him, he was unable to stop their claws from piercing his skin, with the third dragon coming at him from behind and forcing him to stop it with the bottom of his foot. "GAAAAAAAAH! FUCK!"

Myra, growling as she rammed the shaft of her lance into the jaws of both the Porunga and Shenron look-a-likes in front of her, stopping them from biting her, the Hera-seijin then shouted. "Damn it! What the hell… *aaah*… are we going… to do now?!"

Hearing them even while being kilometres away with his head in the clouds, Lord Slug's laughter boomed as his fang-like grin stretched across the shadow of his enormous mug. "HAHAHAHA! Soon… you fools will be consumed… just like every other foe I've faced…"

Sadly, his advantage was not to last.

Gohan, holding back the three dragons that'd set upon him with his bare hands, growled and panted beneath the claws and teeth that were sinking into his limbs and torso. Glaring up through the blood trickling down his face and up at the monster of a warlord standing over the planet and attempting to devour his friends, the demi-Saiyan felt his excitement and rage burn all at once with a renewed vigour. His red aura continuing to pulse around him as his body was pushed back through the ground by the three large reptiles biting and clawing into him, the child then shut his eyes and concentrated for a moment, before his energy began to surge through him once more.

As his ki rushed through his body- empowering him and revitalizing him- many of his wounds started to heal and close. The result was his red aura intensifying and a hot, white steam beginning to gush out of his pores and fill the air around him. The dragons biting his arms noticed this and felt their eyes widen, with Lord Slug's smile also dropping when he sensed the child's power skyrocketing.

Huffing several more times as he filled his lungs with sweet oxygen, Gohan then snapped open his eyes, revealing his turquoise irises had now become empty and white, and were burning with so much rage that if he could, he would've killed with his look alone.

Inhaling sharply, Gohan let out a bloody, terrifying scream, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" His voice letting out a shockwave that caused the dragons holding him by the forearms and stomach to wince, the boy then followed up his battle cry by powering up, loading up his arms, and smashing the two Porunga dragons biting into his limbs. Knocking their teeth out and caving in their cheeks from his strikes, the boy then fired a blast at one of them and incinerated their head, grabbed the other when it lunged in at him, and dragged it over to his other arm.

The moment he had it in his grasp, the boy then bit into its neck and ripped it open, ripping up the flesh with several big chomps before tossing the writhing, headless reptile away from him. As for the dragon grabbing and biting his torso, Gohan grabbed its arms, lifted up his foot, and slammed it down into its body- cutting it off from the finger of the titan it was attached to in a splatter of purple blood and entrails.

Upon freeing himself from the three reptiles and spitting out the meat he still had left between his teeth, the boy- covered in purple blood- snarled up at the Namekian and got down onto all fours. His golden aura kicking up around him with such force he fractured the ground, under the stunned gazes of his teammates, he launched himself straight at the titan, whose jaw dropped when he saw the hybrid come streaming towards him with intent to kill.

Recoiling slightly when he saw the child zigzag left and right on his charge to turn his attention away from his companions, Lord Slug huffed angrily before widening his eyes and conjuring up multiple orange plasma balls around his shoulders and body. The spheres forming out of lightning and beginning to orbit him at speed, the Namekian then unleashed them at the approaching child in a hail of blaster fire.

"STAY BACK!" the titan barked, his attacks flying towards Gohan like bullets and threatening to shoot him down.

In a series of sparks and explosions, the demi-Saiyan powered through the plasma balls like they weren't even flying into him- smashing through them with his aura-clad body, dodging them, and even smacking them aside for the hell of it. His expression twisted in rage, Gohan continued to carve a path across the sky towards his target- his fists drawn back for a riot.

Continuing to fire his plasma balls as they were created, Lord Slug gnashed his teeth before thrusting his head forward and widening his gaze.

"NRROOOOAAAGGGGHHH!" The warrior screamed, before firing two lightning bolts from his eyes that streaked through the air towards the child.

Gohan, gritting his teeth when he saw the streams of electricity cut towards him, then powered up before changing directions altogether- a thunderclap ringing out as he teleported out of there. When the two bolts of lightning missed their target, the Namekian balked before quickly reaching out with his senses to see where his little foe had gone.

Seconds later, his attention then turned skyward when he sensed Gohan reappear in the planet's orbit high above the atmosphere.

Reappearing in the vacuum of space, Gohan's aura blazed fiercely as he heaved in deeply and turned his attention toward the nearest moon. Giving himself a good, long face full of the nearest satellite's glow, the child drank in as much of its blutz radiation as he could before the white pupils in his eyes vanished completely. Red aura intensifying and flooding his golden aura with its furious shade, the child then clenched his fists, swung his arms and legs out, and howled at the top of his lungs.

Sending shockwaves blasting across the vacuum in all directions as his energy field expanded tenfold, the child then swung his body downward, loaded his legs, aimed himself toward the planet below, and dove straight towards it.

Shockwaves ringing out as his body picked up speed, the demi-Saiyan's golden and red aura blazed a trail back into the planet's stratosphere- his aura transforming into an inferno as it expanded and intensified on approach. As he plummeted towards the icy world and his target far below, the child, his aura catching fire as it smashed through the uppermost layer of the planet's atmosphere, swung his right foot down and took aim with his heel.

His body trembling as he blew through one level of the atmosphere after the other, Gohan tightened his jaw and poured all his built-up energy into his extended foot. "This is the strongest attack in my arsenal! A blow delivered with every last ounce of power in my body!" the child growled, veins appearing alongside his eyes and across his forehead as his golden hair whipped behind him from the gale of his energy tearing around his body. "The strength of this one kick matches the strength of the cataclysmic event that has annihilated countless lives across the entire quadrant! A super comet that obliterated entire moons, planets, and stars, leaving nothing but space dust in its wake!"

Myra, her eyes widening when she sensed the enormous power level fast-approaching from above, turned her gaze away from the twin dragons pushing against her energy staff and gaped towards the sky. When she saw the space above the planet turn blood red from the bright, golden glow that suddenly appeared, the Hera-seijin turned to her compatriots. "Oh shit… EVERYBODY BRACE! INCOMING!"

Lord Slug, also sensing the boy's ki skyrocket, widened his stance, bared his fangs, and focused all the energy he could into his eyes. "BURN YOU IMPUDENT CHILD!" he screamed, before unleashing a highly concentrated pair of lasers from his pupils that shot up through the stratosphere and towards what he could only describe as an approaching sun.

When the massive golden beams converged and slammed into the fast-moving fireball plummeting through the atmosphere, the attack was split right down the middle. Despite the insane amount of power the Namekian had unleashed, the Super Saiyan powered right through it as if it wasn't even there, cutting the beam in half until he came out the other side- still burning a path down towards his primary target.

Upon seeing his eye beams get shrugged off and the boy's burning form power through it, Lord Slug's jaw dropped. "WHAAAT!" Panicking, the Namekian then did the only thing he had left in his arsenal and threw up as many telekinetic barriers as he could above him. Stacking his shields on top of each other one by one, the man formed a multi-coloured, transparent wall of barely visible energy over his head so thick that he was sure he could stop an exploding star's shockwave with it.

Gohan however was undeterred. His momentum having built up to the point that his aura had taken the form of a shooting star, the child- his skin blazing red and his white eyes glowing a hot gold- gritted his teeth before screaming over the howl of his re-entry. "I WILL SMASH EVERYTHING AWAY… AND BECOME THE COMET THAT KILLS THE STARS! HIGI - GUMORI SUISEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEIIII!" (Secret Technique – Comet Komori)

With one final, deafening sonic blast, the blazing child's foot collided head on with Lord Slug's shield- hitting it with so much force the shockwaves that he gave off sent rings of orange fire blasting across the planet's atmosphere for hundreds of miles in all directions, and fractured the ground beneath the Namekian's feet. The noise and blasts created by the boy's kick was truly biblical, causing the titan towering over the planet's southern continent to buckle, while at the same time forcing the warlord to release the hybrid's trapped friends from the bonds of the serpents he was pinning them with.

As Dore, Neiz, and Salza all bolted from the vicinity and the sky burning above them, Myra- joining them in their retreat- looked behind her and shouted. "DON'T YOU LOSE, GOHAN-KUUUUUUN!"

Focusing all his attention on the Super Saiyan, the Super Namek growled loudly as the first several layers of his shield shattered like glass under the boy's foot, while the plates that remained trembled as they attempted to hold back the cosmic force he had become.

Muscles swelling and sweat pouring down his head, the desperate Lord Slug screamed at the child he could see powering into his barrier. "I'LL SHOW YOU, CHILD! THE POWER OF A NAMEKIAN GOOOOOOD! GRAAAAAAAAAGH!" His arms returning to his sides and bracing tightly, the Namekian sent all the power he could into his shield and fattened it up. The barrier thickened and lit up a bright blue, creating a protective umbrella over the warlord's head as his nose burst a blood vessel and his right eye began to bleed. "YOU CAN'T STOP ME! NO ONE CAN!"

Gohan, his face twisting under the copious amounts of ki lifting off from his foot where the shield was warping, clenched his jaw and screamed back down at the titan before him. "WATCH MEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Then, clenching his fists and sending one last surge of energy into his foot, the boy let out a scream that pierced the sky and gave the flames raging from his body a massive kick. "OOORRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The instant his aura blasted up into the thermosphere like the flames of a planet-sized jet, the final barrier above Lord Slug's head cracked before shattering into a thousand glistering pieces. Seeing the blue shield disintegrate beneath the sheer weight of Gohan's tiny foot caused Lord Slug's eyes to widen in disbelief, before the man watched in bullet time as the flaming Super Saiyan dove towards him and collided with the very centre of his forehead.

A blinding flash of white light and a whole five seconds of silence then engulfed the entire sector. When that moment passed, a thunderous explosion the likes of which only the Great Destroyer had ever been able to conjure, rocked the region as flames engulfed the entire bottom half of the planet and seemingly incinerated it. The blast was so great and so devastating that even the crew of Cooler's Seventh Fleet, which was now positioned on the furthest moon away from the ice planet, felt their ships rattle under the blasts that rolled over them.

The violent tidal waves of fire and wind generated from the point of impact knocked not only the members of the retreating Armoured Squadron hurtling over the curvature of the celestial body, but Cooler, Lucoa and the rest of the group too. Every person that'd been left stranded on that desolate rock was caught up in the seismic tsunami and sent tumbling down a vortex of endless debris, which travelled far and wide over the valleys and stretched the entire circumference of the battered planetoid.

As if a gigantic meteorite had made landfall, everyone watching the scene from afar believed that the Eclipse-I- the once proud and majestic vessel of Lord Slug's armada and his primary base of operations- had met its end in the most spectacular blaze ever witnessed by the Force. It truly was a sight to behold and one worth documenting for the history books.

However, when the blinding flash of the explosion faded and the torrents of flames finally lifted from the planet's surface, Kikono, Berryblue and everybody else on the bridges of the scattered ships saw, to their utter astonishment, that the world was still there.

Well… half of it at least.

The entire underside of the planet had, for lack of a better term, been completely obliterated. Nothing but a field of asteroids could be seen tumbling through the area of space where the bottom half of the icy satellite had once been situated and hanging precariously off the rest of its host. Everything that remained of the mobile battle cruiser was left suspended in place, frozen in the vacuum and seemingly dead to all of creation.

With clouds of smoke and ash blanketing the atmosphere, the once crystalized ice planet had been brought to an apocalyptic ruin. Dust and soot covered every square inch of the scorched planetoid, with even the shining, black citadel finding itself covered by rubble and debris. Due to the sheer magnitude of the blast that'd atomized an entire portion of the planet, it almost seemed like Gohan's ace in the hole had managed to end everything in his path.

However, despite the catastrophic force exerted by his move, the boy had been sharp enough to aim the brunt of his attack away from his friends and allies. When he dove down at Lord Slug, he'd managed to adjust his angle of impact, meaning that upon striking the ground beneath his target, he took out only the empty side of the planet.

It was well-aimed, especially considering what he had to fight to land the killing blow.

OOO

(Several minutes later)

Of course, despite Gohan's careful timing and delivery of his most powerful and devastating move, his team had still ended up getting clipped by a small portion of his attack.

As the dust continued to gently rain down from the atmosphere and settle over the planet's scalded surface, Myra, Salza, Dore and Neiz, all of whom had been separated in the wake of the eruption, ended up pulling themselves out of whatever piles of rubble and rock they'd found themselves buried under or embedded in.

Coughing, spluttering, and spitting up mud that'd gathered on their tongues, the team slowly but surely returned to their feet at their own paces, before quickly taking to the air and making their way in the direction of their compatriots. Using their senses to find each other through the fog and the gas, the four battered teammates- now covered in only tattered remains of what was once their signature uniforms- all met in the centre of a wide open and dusty field. The sand bowl provided them a comfortable landing spot, where Dore- who was gripping a notably dislocated right arm- collapsed to one knee after clumsily setting himself down.

The moment he landed before his still miraculously alive friends, the green warrior clenched his teeth, took a deep breath, and popped his arm back into place. A hiss of pain left Dore's lips, earning a round of sympathy stares from the rest of his mates.

"Ow…" As Neiz stepped over to help him up, the Beppa-seijin groaned as he looked up through the bits of ash and soot still cascading around them. "Bloody hell. Did you think the kid… *cough-cough*… may have overcooked it a little?" the man asked as he hooked his arm over Neiz's shoulders and was hoisted back to his feet.

Shaking out his extra-long locks of hair, the Captain of the squadron huffed. "Hmph. If he got rid of that smug prick, then I'm not going to complain," Salza answered, picking his ear and getting rid of some of the excess rock that'd found its way into it. After banging his chest and coughing out some more dust, the officer then looked behind him and scanned the field. "Well? Any sign of the little runt?"

"None," Neiz answered, watching as Myra stepped away from their circle and began to search the area. "With the amount of power he put behind that attack, the cataclysmic blast wave must've knocked him out cold. He could be anywhere."

"Well…" Dore wheezed, pushing himself away from his lanky teammate and beginning to limp across the dirt. "What are we standing around here for? Let's go find him."

On that the rest couldn't agree more. With Myra leading, the group once again levitated off the ground and began gliding across the battlefield. Ignoring the soot and debris drifting into their faces like hot snowfall, the group switched on their scouters and began working out the most likely locations their friend and teammate could've landed.

They scoured the entire countryside, keeping a tight formation as they arrived at the edge of the still intact half of the planet they were on, before beginning to follow its curve. For the next few minutes, they flew, analysing the landscape from up high while also taking shots of the destruction wrought by their teammate's planet killing move.

It was only when they arrived at the large crater at the edge of the mobile planet's dividing line that the group stumbled across an incredible sight.

The remains of the Titan Lord Slug, poised at the far end of the crater, away from the cliff where the planet's top half ended. When the four elite fighters landed near it and looked upon said remains, they saw that only the two massive legs of the Namekian were all that were left of the once terrifying tyrant. Everything else above the man's shins had been utterly and completely disintegrated in the explosion caused by Gohan's impact with his upper half, leaving only the man's gigantic boots behind as the final decaying shreds of his influence.

Walking around the skyscraper sized shins and the stadium size feet buried into the ground, Myra and the other members of her squad gaped at the incredible display. Taking the statuesque corpse from ground level, the group formed into a very loose line as they inspected the golden relics for but a moment, before their expressions eventually relaxed.

"I think… this means we won. Right?" Neiz asked, at the same time glancing across at his compatriots beside him.

Myra, taking a moment to reset, nodded, "It seems so."

"Oh… I wouldn't count on it, dear."

All at once, the four elites felt their eyes widen in horror at the sound of that voice, which echoed across the field from behind them. Wheeling around at once, the elite warriors all took defensive stances while their gazes snapped towards the source of the terrifying presence that'd fallen over them.

Sure enough, against every sense of logic, reason, and theory known to living kind, the group of warriors saw the dreaded Lord Slug float down from the ash-filled sky and land on the ground behind them. His bare feet sinking into the piles of soot blanketing the entire continent, the squadron watched in morbid disbelief as their enemy then slowly limped towards them, revealing himself in all his miraculously regenerated glory.

However, though the Namekian had managed to recover from the wounds inflicted upon him and had reverted to normal size, the damage done by Gohan's attack had left a very deep impression on his person.

Though he'd regenerated, his regeneration had failed to restore him to proper, fighting finesse. Due to the strain exerted on him and how badly his cells had been affected, half of Lord Slug's body had grown back mangled and emaciated. The entire right half of his upper body was thin, wrinkled, and warped, while the right side of his face looked as though it was melting off of his bones from the way it was hanging from his skull. Even his right eye had been scorched pure white.

Needless to say, this deformed, twisted form of the self-proclaimed tyrant was a far-cry from the bulky, brawling monster he once was. All the same, he was still a rather horrifying sight to behold.

Lips twitching as he threw the stunned group of warriors a sickly grin, the half-baked yet still imposing Namekian spoke in a hoarse and wheezy-sounding voice. "That… hurt like hell. Never in the last three centuries of my life… has someone ever… brought me that close… to the brink of death before. A truly amazing and valiant effort…" His grin then dropped when he saw the group take a shaky step backward. "But a failed effort nonetheless."

Salza, sweat pouring down his face, took a quick stock of the warlord's strength. Though his power had significantly diminished as a result of their prolonged battle, it was still greater than any of them. The man felt his fingers tremble as he stepped forward. "How? How did you manage to survive that?!"

Snickering, the warlord cocked his half-melted face to the side and sneered. "A secret I would've gladly shared with all of you… had you all decided to join me. The five of you could've ruled the universe together by my side." His smile then faded when he saw the group lower their stances and prepare for battle. "But I'm afraid… the only future waiting the four of you… is the dirt."

At once, Neiz, Myra and the others prepared to scatter to continue their battle. However, having grown tired of their little games of Ring Around the Space Mulberry Bush, Lord Slug decided right then and there to put an end to it.

Swiftly raising his mangled right hand and pointing his finger straight at the group, the Namekian stun-locked all four fighters instantaneously with a powerful, telekinetic grab. The second his hand swung up and a loud 'whoosh' echoed throughout the area, each member of the Armoured Squadron's eyes widened as their bodies froze and they were simultaneously picked up by an overwhelming, invisible force. Before they knew it, every one of them was now floating suspended several feet off the ground, with the Namekian glaring heatedly at them from several yards away.

Veins pulsing along his body as blood began trickling from his nostrils and eyes- clearly showing the strain of using the technique in his condition- the warlord panted a few times exhaustedly before growling at the four paralysed fighters.

"The humiliation I suffered at your hands will be returned in full," Lord Slug growled, saliva and blood trickling from the corner of his mouth as his finger shook from keeping his grasp on them. "Your struggles have proven to be a great deal of amusement for me. But I'm afraid your group's reign of victories ends now!" He then brought up his other hand, generated a golden plasma ball, and then promptly formed it into a long, narrow spear. Drawing it back, the man took aim at the Captain of the Squadron and prepared to end him with a single, decisive throw.

But then, the second the man stepped forward and made his throw, a sharp hum followed by a flash was followed by a golden disc flying in from the side- which not only sliced his spear in half, but also cut off his arm. A spurt of purple blood flying from his stump as his attack dissipated, Lord Slug's eyes widened as he stumbled back and looked down at where his hand used to be. "GAAAAAAGH! WHAT?!"

"NOOOOOOO!" the familiar scream of Gohan rang out, drawing his trapped friends' attention across the field, where they immediately spotted the hybrid diving down from the sky and blazing a path towards the warlord.

Lord Slug, his gaze snapping towards the approaching and still alive Super Saiyan, gritted his teeth angrily as veins appeared in his eyes. Not willing to get taken out by the boy as he saw his fist wind up and the distance close to within a literal three meters, the Namekian swung his still good hand around and instantly unleashed a torrent of orange lightning.

The blast being fired at such a close proximity meant Gohan had no time to dodge, the child getting hit square on by the attack and knocked flying back across the valley. Even after hitting the ground and being pushed across the floor, the enraged Namekian continued to fire off a constant stream of electricity into the child, cooking him with everything he had as he stomped towards the fallen child and intensified his blast.

Gohan, his nerves and muscles being set alight by the copious amounts of bolts rushing through his system, screamed out in agony as both he and the ground around him was torched by the concentrated storm.

"You! I will kill you first… boy!" Lord Slug snarled, letting loose another surge of lightning down the stream and causing a loud thunderclap to echo out. As a result, the waves of electricity engulfing Gohan intensified and brightened, smoke beginning to rise off the demi-Saiyan as he writhed and twisted on the ground, unable to fight back against the full and unbridled rage of his enemy.

The four members of the Armoured Squadron, fighting against the invisible binds in an attempt to free themselves and help their comrade, could only watch helplessly as the Namekian stomped towards him, while continuing to fry him with lightning.

"NO! GOHAN-KUN!" Myra cried out, her expression showing her desperation and panic as she heard the screams of her best friend reach her ears.

As the child's cries of terror and agony echoed across the sky and the lightning began to roast his skin, it seemed like the squad's streak had finally come to a horrible end.

But then, just as the grinning and seemingly victorious Lord Slug had closed the gap on the boy and was about to finish him, an orange glow suddenly felly over his green, mangled body, a split second before a blast of magma suddenly rolled in from the side and engulfed him. The roar of the blast swallowing him up stopped his lightning stream short and drew a scream of pain from the tyrant as he was knocked stumbling to the side.

The result of him being knocked off balance not only freed Gohan from his lightning net, but also liberated the four other members of his team. Salza, Myra, Dore, and Neiz dropped back to the ground and looked over at the scene in surprise, watching as the fiery beam dissipated and revealed Lord Slug covered from head to toe in lava-like slurry.

Body simmering, the panting and stunned warlord shook off the lava scorching his skin, before snapping his gaze across the valley. "W-What?!" The moment he uttered his stunned exclamation, he suddenly saw his slave and former secret weapon- Lucoa- leap into view from the furthest hilltop and slam into the ash-covered ground several yards from him.

Wings fanning and spines burning angrily, the dragon-girl bared her teeth at her former master and snarled at him through the steam gushing off her scaled, curvy body. "Leave… my… mate… ALOOOOOOOONE!" she bellowed, sending a shockwave into Lord Slug that smashed him back through the dirt, at the same time swinging both hands forward and unleashing a gargantuan, magma-like blast from her palms upon the warlord.

Eyes widening in horror, Lord Slug threw up his still good hand and summoned a dome shield around him, just in time to catch the lava blast as it smashed into his barrier and split against it. The beam possessed so much force that it caused the warlord's feet to slide through the dirt, sweat breaking out on his now scalded flesh as he now did everything in his power to hold back the girl advancing on his position.

"N-No! Stop this, you insolent beast!" Lord Slug barked over the roar of the girl's attack, his body throbbing as he poured more energy into his transparent blue shield. "I am your master! YOUR MASTER! OBEY ME!" he practically screamed as the anthropomorphic dragon moved closer and unleashed another surge of lava into his shield.

The Namekian, so preoccupied with holding off the girl's attack, he didn't notice a flash occur several yards behind him, before a bright red, narrow beam of energy slammed into his barrier from behind and began to tunnel into it. Eyes widening when he felt the pressure on his body double, the warlord looked behind him to see, to his disbelief, Zangya standing on the ground several yards away and unleashing a concentrated finger blast into him from behind.

The Hera-seijin snarled as she saw the warlord's stunned gaze turn to her. "You're not going anywhere!"

Expression showcasing his rage and desperation, the warlord swung his stump of a left arm around and increased the field at his back- shoving the head of the beam away. But then, just when he thought it was over, a third beam suddenly slammed into his shield above, and the Namekian looked up to see Prince Cooler hovering overhead and launching his signature Death Beam into his dome.

From there, as the three attackers continued to unleash everything they had to crack the field protecting the warlord, everybody else in the area decided to follow suit.

His golden aura blasting up around him, Gohan sprang up from the ground where he'd been lying and landed next to Lucoa. Growling loudly, the child then unleashed his Kosen (Light Ray) against Lord Slug's shield and began to drill into it along with the others.

Myra, jumping to an open area in the kill circle, gripped her wrist and fired a thicker, red beam from two fingers towards the shield. Driving it into the dome, she rattled the energy field and added to the mounting damage. Her teammates Neiz and Dore took up positions from a higher angle, with the former cranking back her hands and launching a dense stream of purple lightning down at their target, while the wrestler began unloading a storm of energy blasts against the barrier in a rapid chain of fire.

As explosions and broken light began to ravage Lord Slug's barrier and cause the man's legs to buckle under the strain, dropping him to his knees, Salza flew around to another open portion of the circle, gripped his wrist, extended all of his finger, and began firing multiple purple energy blades into the centre mass. His attacks crashed against the barrier and cracked it in multiple places, causing the entire sheet of ki to tremble and fracture, weakening its structural integrity.

Lord Slug, his orifices beginning to bleed heavily from the strain of holding up his barrier, panted as his eyes darted around his field in a panic. Watching it crack and splinter all over, the Namekian gave one last push to try and hold back the waves of death bearing down on him. However, it soon became too much when, with a unified scream of effort, every single fighter formed in the circle around him let loose every last bit of energy they could muster down their attacks, with Gohan's finger beam transforming into a all-out blast as he used his entire hand to launch an attack that spread like a geyser and swallowed up the dome along with the other blasts.

With an ear-splitting crack, the shield surrounding the Namekian shattered, moments before his scream of terror was blocked out by an explosion so intense that the shockwave knocked all the attackers off their feet.

Despite the high concentration of energy, the explosion was contained to only a small area. The lowland beneath the towering boots of Lord Slug's former, titan form was subject to a fireball that fractured the ground and toppled one of the enormous limbs over. After a flaming mushroom cloud gushed into the air from the resulting blast wave, the howling winds once rippling over the region finally ceased, allowing the dust and ash being kicked up by the multi-beam struggle to finally settle.

Mounds of ash and dust cushioning their respective landings, the members of Cooler's Armoured Squadron, Lucoa, Zangya, and Cooler himself all rose back to their feet and staggered over to where their enemy had supposedly met his end. Arriving at the perimeter of the hundred-foot-wide crater, the group of warriors all looked down into the centre of it, in a hope of seeing nothing but a pile of ash and bones left of their stubborn quarry.

To no surprise of course, instead of seeing either of those, what they did spot was the absolutely blackened, mangled, and ravaged form of a still breathing and somewhat intact Lord Slug- kneeling in the middle of the crater in a barely conscious state with no arms, half a head missing, and both his feet burned down to two, useless stumps at the knees. The smoke rising off his charred, walking crisp of a body made him look like a piece of steak had been left over the barbeque until all the good bits had been turned as black as the coals that made it.

Hearing the man's ragged breathing fill the air, Gohan, Lucoa, and Zangya decided to hop in for a better look, with Cooler moving in a bit closer for an inspection. The former trio managed to walk to within a few feet of the distorted wreck of a man, with the demi-Saiyan narrowing his eyes hatefully upon the charred warlord to see his one good eye peer up at him through the smoke lifting from his torso.

Wheezing in pain, the Namekian then felt a grin tug at his lips before a sickly cough left his scalded throat. "Heh… *cough-cough*… you… *gasp*… got me…"

While Gohan glared silently at their foe, Zangya, stepping forward, then brought up her right hand and aimed it towards his face. "Now… you've lost…"

Body shaking as the stump that was his right arm crumbled off him and dropped to the ground with a dusty thud, Lord Slug chuckled weakly. "Ignorant fool. I may… *gasp*… have lost the battle. But the war… *gasp*… has just begun." Seeing the Hera-seijin narrow her eyes on him as a red ball of ki quickly began to form in her palm, the Namekian flashed them his blackened, fang-like grin one last time, before his right eye glanced towards Lucoa and Gohan. When he saw the Saiyan bear his fangs at him and the lizard-girl hiss, the man's eye widened manically. "Death… is no disgrace…"

When Gohan attempted to process what he meant by that, the boy's eyes widened before the Super Saiyan bolted towards Zangya and tackled her. "LOOK OUT!" he shouted, pushing the confused and shocked woman away from there as fast as he could.

But it was too little, too late.

In a blinding flash of orange light, Lord Slug's body unexpectedly and violently self-destructed, engulfing the crater he'd been kneeling in, in a dome-shaped blast that forced everyone in the vicinity to spring and jump back as fast as they could to avoid getting swallowed up by it. Unfortunately, Gohan, Zangya and Lucoa had been too close to the warlord when he used his last-ditch attempt to kill them, catching the trio in the explosion and seemingly incinerating them in a colossal wave of fire that stretched into the sky and parted the ash clouds around him.

When the tremors subsided and the shockwave dissipated, a stunned Salza, Myra and co scrambled to their feet and rushed back over to the fissure. Upon arriving at it and seeing that Lord Slug was no more, the members of the Armoured Squadron looked around frantically.

"Gohan!" Neiz shouted.

"Little buddy!" Dore also called out, with Myra diving into the hole when she spotted something lying halfway out of its centre.

When she touched down and sprinted over to the mound of dust, she then stopped when she saw, to her astonishment- Lucoa's body draped over the forms of Gohan and Zangya, both of whom were lying underneath the unconscious and charred dragon with stunned expressions on their faces.

Apparently, at the very last second when Lord Slug's body combusted, the dragon girl had leapt after Gohan and wrapped her body around his to shield him from the catastrophic blast. Since Zangya was being shielded by him, Lucoa had ended up protecting both when her former master's body went up in flames and deepened the crater with a blast comparable to a concentrated nuclear explosion.

Unfortunately, the girl was unable to shield herself, and ended up getting knocked out cold by the explosion hitting her in the back. This left the reptile lying over the pair of warriors as both Gohan and Zangya sat up in the ash.

When the demi-Saiyan rolled the girl onto his lap and saw she was still alive, he then sighed in relief before deactivating his Super Saiyan transformation. A moment after he did, Myra knelt down beside the boy, took him by the shoulders, and wrapped him up in a hug.

As Zangya slowly stood up from under the cover formed by the hybrid and the dragon, Cooler and everybody else arrived. With Dore, Salza and Neiz flanking their leader when he approached the spot where the rest of the fighting force was gathered, the prince took a moment to inspect the battered troop, before quickly turning his attention to where Lord Slug had been kneeling minutes before.

Seeing nothing but a smoking hole and a blackened scar etched into the crater, the young Emperor felt his red eyes narrow before a sharp exhale left his throat.

"Over. It's finally over," the man sighed, a relief that was shared by all of the people there when they realized Lord Slug, the terror, was gone.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Author's Note: FINALLY! Damn… this is the last time I do a battle this big and elaborate.

If anyone hasn't picked it up yet, the longer the battle is, the more dangerous and difficult the foe. Since I was focusing on so many conflicts happening all at once, it took a lot of effort bringing it all together like this. The entire Lord Slug Arc was perhaps my favourite arc to write for this story. Whether the Namek Arc that's coming up next will be as good remains to be seen. 😊

And we haven't even gotten to the Super Arc yet. Imagine how much of a monster Gohan will be when we get up to it. Though if you've been following me on paetreon and twittier, you guys will have a good idea.

Power levels:

During the Lord Slug Battle:

Salza – 27,000,000

Glamourous Salza (Gigantification x35) – 945,000,000

Glamourous Salza (+ Cooler's Energy) – 3,450,000,000

Myra – 26,000,000

Super Hera Myra (x50) – 1,300,000,000

Super Hera Myra (+ Zangya's Energy) – 3,700,000,000

Neiz – 24,000,000

Neiz (Raiken/Lightning Fist x35) – 840,000,000

Neiz (+ Lord Slug's Lightning Absorbed) – 3,040,000,000

Dore – 24,000,000

Buff Dore (Gigantification x35) – 840,000,000

Buff Dore (Magically Healed + Magical Enhancement) – 2,800,000,000

Gohan – 30,000,000

Oozaru Gohan (x10) – 300,000,000

Pseudo-Super Saiyan Gohan (x20) – 600,000,000

Super Saiyan Gohan (x50) – 1,500,000,000

Super Saiyan Gohan (Zenkai) – 3,800,000,000

Super Saiyan Gohan (Enraged) – 7,000,000,000

Super Saiyan Gohan (Comet Komori Kick) – 15,000,000,000

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Lucoa (Base) – 25,000,000

Inferno State Lucoa (x50) – 1,250,000,000

Inferno State Lucoa (Regenerated + Enraged) – 3,500,000,000

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Kida (Blue Fox) - 1,020,000

Riko (Brown Fox) – 1,015,000

Rei (White Fox) – 1,018,000

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Cooler (4th/Final Form – 100%) – 400,000,000

Cooler (4th/Final Form – Healed) – 2,000,000,000

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Zangya (Healed) – 5,000,000,000

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Lord Slug, The Super Namek (Energy Absorbed) – 5,200,000,000

Great Namekian Lord Slug – 6,000,000,000

Titan Namekian Lord Slug – 14,000,000,000

ANNOUNCEMENT: If you guys didn't catch it before, but after months of labour I finally COMPLETED my GohanXZangya doujinshi on my paetreon. You can find the fully coloured copies on my paetreon and through DLsite – GohanXZangya: Fiery Lake. I also have two short comics of GohanXAndroid 18 and GohanXChi-Chi posted on my paetreon for anyone interested in checking them out.

For anyone wondering why I've been away from fanfiction for a while, my comics are my reason. But I'll still be posting as best as I can.