"King Pilaf, please calm down. We also uncovered an important piece of information, but we haven't had a chance to report it yet."
Seeing their king shock even himself when he lost his temper, Mai and Shu panicked. They hurriedly tried to earn his favor, talking over each other.
"Exactly! Mai's right! King Pilaf, we found out that those two little brats with tails might be the grandsons of someone named Son Gohan!"
"Shut up, Shu! King Pilaf, don't listen to his nonsense. The real news we uncovered is that those people competing with us for the Dragon Balls are heading to Mount Fry-Pan next. There's a Dragon Ball there, isn't there?"
"King Pilaf, they already have five Dragon Balls. Once they get the one at Mount Fry-Pan, we can steal it from them. Add that to the one-star ball we have, and we'll have all the Dragon Balls!"
Hearing them out, the charred Emperor Pilaf smiled and let them down. "Good. Keep watching them, and look for a chance to steal all the Dragon Balls back!"
The two hurriedly agreed and promised they would.
"Crash! Clatter!" Just then, the window shattered, a gust of wind rushed in, and a figure suddenly appeared, staring coldly at the three of them.
"Hand over the Dragon Balls, and I'll let last night's business slide." With the air of a great villain, Wuchen glowered at them, bearing down on the trio.
"It's him! What's going on? Didn't we lose him?"
"Yeah, why is he here?" Mai and Shu blurted out, enraging Pilaf. "Useless! You led the enemy right here!"
"Hold it!" Wuchen waved a hand, signaling them to stop arguing. When the three looked his way, he took two steps forward, pressing them with his presence once more, then asked, "You should have a Dragon Ball. Where is it?"
"D-don't come any closer!" The three retreated in unison to the corner. Once they recovered from their panic, each took out a Hoi-Poi Capsule and tossed it onto the ground. BOOM! A cloud of smoke billowed, and three mechs of different designs, each seven or eight meters tall, appeared out of thin air.
Fortunately, the castle had been built with future renovations in mind, leaving plenty of space. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been able to fit these three hulking mechs.
As one of the top inventors in the Dragon Ball world, Pilaf was no slouch.
"Puppets? Interesting." Wuchen smiled at the three towering mechs but made no move, simply waiting for his opponents to attack.
"Mai, Shu, circle around him from both sides and surround him. Don't let him escape." Pilaf quickly devised a plan: form a triangle, with each mech supporting the others, and pin Wuchen down between them.
When Wuchen didn't move, Pilaf assumed he was intimidated. He immediately ordered Mai and Shu to attack, while he waited for a chance to strike a fatal blow himself!
"Kid, no matter how capable you are, you're no match for the battle mechs King Pilaf developed in secret!"
"Right!" Mai and Shu charged at Wuchen from opposite directions, as if they meant to smash him into a pulp.
But Wuchen merely shifted slightly, and both mechs' attacks missed. They turned in time to avoid crashing into each other, but still wrecked most of the furnishings in the room.
"Idiots! Idiots!" Pilaf hopped furiously. Those two useless fools! The kid had barely even moved, and they still couldn't hit him. What a pair of losers!
Before he knew it, Pilaf was thinking, If I go in, I can do it too. He spotted an opening and charged at Wuchen in his mech. Its enormous arms spread wide, then the mech brought its palms together around Wuchen, using a technique like pressing meat into a patty.
SMACK! The mechanical palms slammed together. Before Pilaf could even laugh, Wuchen appeared right in front of him, outside the mech's cockpit window, raising his fist.
To capture the bandit leader, one had to capture the kingpin. A golden gleam flashed as Wuchen struck the window with a Diamond Fist. It shattered on impact. He grabbed Pilaf and yanked him out, gripping him by the neck like a chick. Wuchen was only half a head taller than him.
"Take one more step, and I'll snap his neck!" Wuchen used Pilaf as a hostage to warn Mai and Shu. "Get out!"
Mai and Shu saw Pilaf's face turn red, but he couldn't get a word out. With no one to lead them, they climbed out of their mechs and begged Wuchen for mercy.
"Please let King Pilaf go."
"If you have to kill someone, kill me! Don't hurt King Pilaf!"
"You're pretty loyal." Wuchen was a little moved, but tightened his grip all the same, turning Pilaf's face a deep purple.
"King Pilaf!" Mai and Shu cried out together, but didn't dare make a move.
"Turn those puppets behind you back into capsules, then hand over the Dragon Ball!" Yes, besides the Dragon Ball, Wuchen was also quite curious about those "puppets" and wanted them for himself.
The two didn't understand what he meant by "puppets," but they got the gist. "Let King Pilaf go, and we'll give you the mechs and the Dragon Ball. Otherwise, you won't get anything."
"You're no threat to me. I could kill all of you, then take my time looking for the Dragon Ball. I simply don't want to waste time, so stop wasting mine!" Wuchen was growing impatient. He kept Pilaf gripped in one hand while a fireball gathered in the other.
Whoosh! Flames blazed, and Pilaf's mech was reduced to wreckage.
After Wuchen demonstrated his firepower, Mai and Shu didn't dare hesitate. Their opponent really had just wanted to save time rather than search the place for the Dragon Ball.
The two immediately turned the mechs behind them back into capsules. Then Mai went over to the chair Pilaf usually sat in and felt around before pressing a button. A platform rose from the floor, with a delicate little box resting on it.
Mai opened the box and took out an object: a golden sphere marked with red stars. What else could it be but a Dragon Ball?
As soon as the Dragon Ball appeared, Wuchen released Pilaf and walked over to Mai. He wasn't afraid they would go back on their word. His concern was failing to find the Dragon Ball, not their strength or resistance.
Mai made no attempt to go back on her word or resist. She handed Wuchen both Hoi-Poi Capsules and the Dragon Ball.
Mai and Shu immediately ran to Pilaf's side and helped him up. "King Pilaf, are you all right?" Pilaf seemed mostly unharmed. He only murmured weakly, "My... Dragon Ball..."
"I'll let you off this time. Remember, don't let it happen again!" They'd cooperated, saving Wuchen a lot of trouble, so he was in a pretty good mood.
After warning them, Wuchen leaped out the window. There was only one Dragon Ball left. It was time to meet up with Goku and the others.
Then Wuchen began sensing the marks he had left on Goku and Oolong.
"They've split up?" He hadn't expected to find that the two marks had separated, though they weren't far apart. But one of the marks was already difficult to sense, so faint it was about to disappear!
"What on earth happened?"
Before you continue