Ch. 194: Cooler and the King

"I won't let you touch a hair on Hanna's head! I'll stop you right here! RAAAH!" Pigero knew that even with Silver Mode at full strength, he didn't stand a chance against Cooler, so he didn't need to hesitate to unveil his newest technique. Developed by King Kai, but perfected by Pigero himself. Pigero called it:

"SPIRIT KING!"

The technique was based on the one that King Kai had once used against Yamcha, modifying the power of a spirit bomb and taking it into your body, but the Spirit Bomb wasn't a technique that you can use every day. It took a toll, no matter how small, on everything around it. So Pigero had the idea to store his energy in a sort of 'power cell,' which he could then draw on whenever he needed it. Drawing on this 'power cell' now, Pigero's aura changed drastically in an instant as his body took in more power than it would normally be capable of handling. His eyes turned a blinding white, iris and all, the silver in his hair dissipated, and the veins under his skin rose to the surface under the pressure of the incredible force running through every cell of his body. He'd become something removed from human now, more than twice as strong as he'd have been if he'd maxed Silver Mode out. 

"BOOM!" With an earth-shaking rumble, the battle began on two fronts. While Tien punched one of Cooler's henchmen into the ground, Pigero's fist and Cooler's foot met in midair. 

Immediately, Cooler realized that he'd made a mistake in judgement. Concern for his henchmen flashed across his mind for a small moment before he remembered that they were easily replaceable, allowing him to focus on the battle at hand while they did their job and distracted the enemy behind him. 

Matching fists with Pigero made Cooler realize that, as little as he wanted to admit it, they were fairly even in power. He may have had a slight edge, but it was nowhere near enough to allow him to be complacent. But the warrior inside Cooler didn't want to take the human seriously yet, for that would ruin the fun of the battle. So instead, he matched Pigero fist for fist, neither of them losing an inch. Finally, Pigero let his guard down, having one less limb than Cooler did, and was kicked into the ground similar to how Tien had kicked Cooler's henchman.

"Die! Hellfire Barrage!" With a shout, the sky above Pigero seemed to fall, raining hundreds upon hundreds of small energy blasts down on the fighter over the course of seconds.

"PIGERO!" Tien screamed as the forest below him quickly turned into a barren wasteland, Pigero still down there and likely disoriented. Concerned for his friend, Tien immediately stopped holding back, splitting into two Tiens using the multi-form technique in an instant. 

"Dodon Ray!" Both Tiens shouted in unison, blasting one henchman each with a full-powered Dodon Ray, one of his weaker, but easily his fastest technique. Luckily for him, the 25X energy multiplier from Silver Mode was more than enough to cover for the weakness of the technique and the weakness that came from the usage of the multi-form technique in the first place. Both Dodon Rays pierced straight through the chests of their respective targets before continuing into the sunset while Tien's focus shifted to the real threat. 

"DUAL TRI-BEAM!!!! TIMES 30!" Realizing that his current power level was nowhere near enough to do any real damage to Cooler, Tien decided to turn his energy up a notch, only for a single moment as both of his copies shot Tri-Beams at him with all of their strength. Both of his forehead eyes flickered black for a moment as both energy waves hit the distracted Frost Demon simultaneously.

"GRAAH!!!" Not expecting Tien to be capable of harming him, Cooler had been pointedly ignoring him up to this point, tossing as many energy blasts at Pigero as he could in a single-minded effort to turn the forest below into a hellscape. But not even a Frost Demon could take two simultaneous tri beams at that level without being harmed, which Cooler proved by screaming in pain as he fell out of the sky. 

After a moment of eerie stillness, two energies flashed in the hellscape below, one pure, brilliant white and the other red, like a dwarf star, with about the same amount of energy. Colliding, Cooler and Pigero fought once more, ripping up the landscape around them even more as the power they threw at each other was too strong to contain. Unhesitating, Cooler's tail slapped the earth, digging out a hole the size of five grown men, before all the rocks and dirt that were inside the hole went telekinetically flying at Pigero as he retreated from Cooler's fist, blocking his vision as Cooler shot energy beams at him through his eyes.

"HAA!" In response to the attack, Pigero flared his energy, destroying the rocks and dirt before it reached him, giving him the leeway to dodge the eye beams. But with that single, small exchange, Cooler's victory over Pigero was assured, without him even needing to take the Spirit King seriously.

"You've lost." Cooler breathed quietly as Pigero's fist passed his face. Pigero only barely heard it, but it resonated with him nonetheless. His eyes went wide. His breathing quickened as his heart rate shot through the roof. Jumping back to a safe distance, Pigero gathered his energy once more. 

"I won't let you anywhere near Hanna! I'll end you right here, brother of Frieza! SUPREME KAMEHAMEHA!!!" 

Impressed, Cooler's eyes went wide for a moment as he beheld the technique that Pigero had once learned from Hanna. He hadn't managed to fully master it, back when he'd first learned it, before his first death, but now he had a better grasp. White energy flowed from his chest to his shoulders. From his shoulders to the palms of his hands, then to his fingertips before being expelled. From there, the energy would hit the palm of his other hand, before flowing into a swirling ball of power. Though the stance was almost exactly like the Kamehameha's, the energy flow was close to that of Hanna's Supreme Wave. Essentially, it was an easier version of Hanna's Supreme Wave. Easier to use, slightly less devastating, but still terrifyingly powerful. And the horrifyingly condensed amount of energy inside of that wave was unleashed in all its majesty right at Cooler.