Dragon BAll- Hermit Shen[A Human Story]

Tao is slowly losing consciousness. However, before he can fall, he is grabbed by Shen. He completely collapses in his older brother's arms.

"Here, eat this… it's a senzu."

With his last bit of strength, Tao manages to do as he is told.

Crunch!! Crunch!!

At a visible rate, his injury starts healing.

"So that is how you were getting back up again and again!" Turles knowingly exclaims. "Such an effective medicine. I'll have to make sure to get my hands on them before this planet is absorbed by the seed."

"You won't get the chance." Shen states.

"What?... Do you still not understand my power? Now that I am in my great ape form, no miracle is going to save you. Your friend over there is the prime example of the horror that's befallen you."

"Look!!" Shen says

? ? ? ? ? ? ?

"Look where??" Turles is puzzled by the word.

"Up!" Shen points his finger at the sky.

A realization strikes. "You don't mean…" As the great ape turns his head to look up, his eyes widen. "The artificial moon!! When did…?"

While he was distracted by Tao, the artificial moon had disappeared. Nothing remains in its place, eluding what must have happened… its destruction.

"Now's the right moment! Begin!" Shen shouts. He can't let the Saiyan create a brand new moon.

Similarly, Turles also shouts, "The effect of my Power Ball (artificial moon) will last a little longer. You insects are still doomed. From now on, I won't be holding back."

Turles shouts, but just before he is about to go all out on his enemies, something unprecedented happens: a thick, glowing red, tube-like substance quickly wraps around his body, tightly binding his arms and his whole upper torso like a partial cocoon.

In front of the bewildered Turles, Giran reveals himself from thin air.

Unlike Earth's fighters, most aliens, including Saiyans, haven't learned to sense ki. Shen's plan was to precisely exploit this weakness. The plan succeeds; Turles wasn't able to evade the attack from an invisible Giran. This is his latest magic trick.

"Fools! You are mistaken if you think this weak substance can hold me."

"Ha! This is the super merry gum I created after consulting with Kami-sama… it won't crumble that easily." Giran doesn't say it, but his super merry gum won't be able to hold the alien in place for more than a few seconds. 'there is no time.'

Just then, Bora rushes toward Turles with startling speed, holding his ki sword in his hands, intending to cut the huge ape's tail.

Before the sword can cut his tail, Turles wraps it around his waist. "Phew!!" He thinks he is safe for the time being.

He is sorely mistaken.

"Oh mighty Goddess of War, please lend me your strength!" someone chants.

"Now what?" Again, Turles has to dejectedly turn his head up to see the voice's origin..

"?????" Above, he sees what appears to be a bright projection of a woman made entirely of light. wholly confusing Turles.

A multi-armed goddess carrying a plethora of weapons with her multiple arms: swords, shields, axes—everything. Her eyes are fierce, with a fiery glint, as her epithet, goddess of war, suggests.

"What am I seeing?" Naturally, Turles fails to comprehend what is happening.. this struggles is even greater than his struggles to break free from the physical constraints.

Inside the projected avatar is a young man, unmoving. He is just standing there, joining his arms together, forming a namaste pose. His eyes are fixated on his enemy, below.

Naturally, the young man is Namu.

A year ago when he was brainstorming ideas to improve his ki projection technique, he got a stroke of inspiration from the Goddess statue in the hideout.. it was placed there by the pirates, who originally owned that place.

Namu practiced day in and day out, meditating and focusing his ki to shape it into the form of the fierce goddess. Over time, his skills improved. Although during a fight this is a one-time-use technique, as it rapidly exhausts his ki, nonetheless, its advantages of amplified power and defense outweigh its disadvantages.

Every second, Turles is busy exerting all his might to break free from his constraints.

Crack! Crack! His efforts pay off as Turles successfully breaks free from Giran's magical gum.

Just in the nick of time, he avoids a huge ki sword falling at him from above.

Immediately afterward, another sword falls. The rain of sword-shaped ki projectiles doesn't stop for a while. Turles is forced to be constantly on the defensive. This is happening while he is already in a strength-depleted state.

From continuously fighting against the combined strength of four enemies, to using up a large portion of his energy during his ki exchange with Tao, to being forced to exert all his strength while breaking free from the hardened gum—because of these factors, it is hard to surmount the strains he has endured.

Turles catches Bora and Giran about to launch yet another simultaneous attack at him. He crushes their bones and quickly flings them far off into the distance. He isn't taking any chances, not even with small fries.

Never again is he making the same mistake of leaving himself open to any kind of attack. Earlier, he almost got cut in half by the giant sword.

Immediately following his recovery, Tao, along with Shen, also joins the battle. They don't fight the ape in a head-on challenge; instead, they take Namu's approach by throwing huge ki blasts from afar.

With their combined efforts, the balance is tilting in their favor. Only a scant few senzu beans remain with them. The situation is dire. It's victory or death.

Turles is truly shaken for the first time since arriving on Earth.

His confident attitude has long since disappeared as The battle has turned into a war of attrition: who can overwhelm the other before they are exhausted?

"I won't be defeated this easily!" the Saiyan loudly proclaims in defiance. In rapid succession, he launches four energy blasts at his enemies, two of which strike Namu's avatar, destroying the ki projection, and one other strikes Tao, incapacitating both fighters.

While the last of the four attacks is fortunately dodged by Shen, immediately afterward, Shen makes a triangle with his hands. "Our victory is only a matter of time."

"KIKOHOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"

The sky falls as the pressure from Shen's ki forces the great ape onto the hard, rocky ground.

"Y-you!"

"KIKOHOOOOOO!!!!"

"KI KO HOOOOO!!!"

Only when Shen is almost sure that Turles cannot get back up again does he stop the assault. "Three should be enough; I have used a lot more than the usual ki in each of those attacks. This is nearly reaching the limit for the current me."

Tri-beam is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, techniques in Dragon Ball. Goku's Kamehameha against his fight with Raditz had just doubled his power level, while Tien's tri-beam against Cell increased his power level by hundreds of times.

This is not to say that anyone can easily match the feat Tien reached... it will probably take a lot of time and effort to master the technique to such an extent, and there is also the inherent risk of exhausting one's own life force if used multiple times in quick succession.

A bloodied Turles lies on the floor, his body still, his eyes dazed. Every cell in his body is throbbing. Blood rushes out from his orifices. The once unbeatable alien is now defeated.

Shen kneels near the Saiyan. "It's our victory, Saiyan," the human calls out to his unresponsive adversary.

Time and again, Turles was too caught up in power levels, making the same mistake as his henchmen. And besides, the fact of the matter is that power levels are not the true indication of Earthlings' actual strength; they are more so an approximation.

[A/N: I won't be using power levels that much going forward. They are a bother to keep track of.]

"Why did I lose?" Turles weakly questions his fate.

"This is the human spirit for you…" Shen nonchalantly responds.

"Is that so!!!"

"Let me give you a painless departure." As Shen slowly raises his hands, about to finish off his enemy, Turles too suddenly raised his own arm, ahead of the human. "Wa?—" Before anything could be said, the alien releases his last remaining energy, creating a large explosion at point-blank range of Shen.

A last-ditch effort of a dying man. Maybe It worked.

.

.

.

[ Ugh! My head hurts, what happened??... Ooh, that's right!! I, along with Master Shen and Master Tao, were attacking that giant alien ape... suddenly, I remember seeing a bright light and sonic boom; after that, everything went blank.

I struggle to get up from the ground; only after putting in a lot of effort do I succeed in standing on my two feet. Looking around the area, I find someone lying on the floor, so I walk up to them. It was Master Tao. He seemed to be doing fine, only unconscious. Seeing this, I don't see it as necessary to wake him up immediately.

I don't sense the tailed alien. That means either he is dead, has left the area, or is close to death. Whatever may be the case, he doesn't pose a threat at the moment.

Spotting Master Shen's ki, I then walk up to that place. There I find my teacher lying on the ground. He has some injuries on his body, but he seems relatively fine. His breathing is normal.

I was about to wake him up when suddenly I hear some footsteps. The sound was low, but my ears picked it up. It helped that this place is quiet, with no other sound other than the infrequent whistling of air.

Turning back, I encounter its source: the red-skinned alien cyborg that came along with the tailed one. I probably couldn't sense his ki because he is a cyborg.

I immediately go on guard, not moving, waiting for the enemy to make the first move.

Nothing came.

First, the alien lurks around, close to the huge spaceship; it looks like he is searching for something.

He doesn't pay me any heed and continues searching around the ship, but I know better than to be careless around a stronger enemy.

I remain vigilant.

A short while later, he stops.

We both look into each other's eyes.

Then he gradually turns and walks toward the tailed alien, who is on the floor some 80 or so meters away from me and teacher. He probably gave up on the search or whatever he was doing earlier.

He carefully carries his leader on his back. I notice small traces of ki in that tailed alien, meaning he is alive.

Yet the whole time, I don't attempt to start any fight, as saving my teacher is my main priority. He does the same; he enters the big ship and takes off with his leader on board.

First things first, I attend to Master Shen. Eventually, when he regains consciousness after being fed a Senzu bean, he is shocked to find that the aliens and the ship they arrived on are nowhere to be seen.

I explain everything that happened to him. In the end, he just sighs.

He praises me, saying I did fine. I, however, am unsure about that.

"At least if nothing else, Turles got some useful henchmen," my teacher exclaims.

He then also adds, "On second thought, was it really loyalty or common interest that compelled his decision? it's hard to really knows?"

Master Shen laughs aloud. Subsequently, we heal the others by feeding them a Senzu bean each. Our stock is nearly finished. There are some at headquarters, but that is all.

Elder brother Bora and Giran were particularly injured. Their condition wasn't looking very good, but at least nothing unspeakable happened to them after being thrown so far away.

It could be said that we were easily able to heal them, though it was complicated to feed them the medicine. we had to first grind the Senzu beans, and only after mixing the resulting powder with some water, could they swallow the liquidly paste.

After that, led by master Shen, all of us searched the area where the battle had taken place. Teacher was wondering about the thing that the red-skinned alien was looking for.

His hunch turns out to be correct as we find a strange seed.

Even when teacher and brother Giran applied it with a lot of pressure, this weird seed doesn't break. it is abnormally durable for it to be a natural seed from any plant belonging to Earth, and in the first place, how can there be a seed in this rocky desert, where no flora is to be see for miles?.

It is thus concluded by master to be the Shinseiju(Tree of Might) seed mentioned by the aliens... Master Shen further speculates that this seed could have dropped from the tailed alien's tattered clothes during the fight. ]