"Recoome-san, this person is wearing Frieza Army gear, but he doesn't have a tail and we cannot identify his gear identification on the registry," a Frieza Army soldier turned to their superior while the rest of the pursing squad flooded the building and prompted Krillin into action.

Krillin launched himself into a dashing flight, ramming a Frieza Army soldier pursuing the Saiyans like an arrow. The soldier with purple skin and oval-shaped head croaked out in pain and fell limp on the ground with whited out eyes. Krillin's eyes raced across the room, scanning the troublesome situation he found himself in. All around him there might have been as many as several hundreds of soldiers, some of them still waiting outside for some space to free up so that they could move in.

One thing that the martial artist wanted to prevent at all costs was letting even a few small-fry slip away and begin eradicating the fleeing Saiyans. With an aerial, spinning low-kick, Krillin sent a few soldiers spinning out before dispatching them with backhanded strikes. Krillin formed a pair of Ki blasts in his hands and fired them at a pair of soldiers just before forming another and blasting below him to form a bright, flashy wall that blocked off the especially passionate about genocide soldiers off.

A methodical clap broke Krillin out of his desperate daze. The terrifying giant with orange hair and a Ki signature that left Krillin in the dust was clapping with a goofy smirk on his face. Had he not shown signs of utter madness in his eyes, Krillin might have tried including him in his brave stand protecting the Saiyans as well. The way things were, he felt too terrified to even approach this guy up close.

"You're fighting marvelously, snippet. You're no compatriot of ours, that is for certain. I believe that field commander Zarbon may have mentioned something about some Earthling interlopers and you do not possess a Saiyan tail so I'd reckon you must be one of those," Recoome spoke with an utterly dopey tone though the content of his words sounded almost eloquent. Krillin had heard no one speak in such a manner, which only added to the psycho atmosphere that this person radiated around him. An aura of pulsing air that made one choke up.

"Get out of here, I'm not going to let you guys hurt my friends that are recovering here. I'm not going to just stand and watch you eliminate the Saiyans either!" Krillin replied with bravery and crudeness in his tone that, honestly, he felt a little proud of himself.

"Huh? You won't join us then? That's peculiar. Perhaps field commander Zarbon's intelligence was counterfactual? Oh, in that case, you are standing in the way of Lord Frieza's direct order!" Recoome pointed to Krillin, never dropping that airheaded smile for one blink. The muscular leader of the platoon dashed toward Krillin, enveloped in a violet aura. He was incredibly fast, but Krillin could track him.

That was odd. Given the notable difference between their power levels, Krillin would have thought himself a goner the moment that Recoome took a genuine swing at him. Could Recoome have been fighting half-seriously and goofing off?

As punishment for looking down on Krillin, the Earthling raised his hands up and unleashed a storm of Ki blasts at the oncoming giant. Recoome stopped instantly and raised a cross-shaped block. Krillin's Ki blast barrage mostly slipped around the Ginyu Special Squadron powerhouse, only a few flicks collided with him just to keep Recoome grounded while the most aggressive outburst curved around him and decimated handfuls of soldiers behind him.

With a smoking pile of unconscious bodies laying on the ground before him, Krillin huffed, lowering his arms down. He had dispatched a bunch of soldiers, but from the looks of it, his situation didn't seem like it had improved all that much. The soldiers stopped standing around and waiting for orders from their field leader that may not have come at all. Like rabid dogs, they began rushing Krillin with the boldest flying right at him while the more careful ones stayed in the back and pelted him with Ki blasts and channeled more powerful Ki waves to launch at him.

They didn't care at all about the integrity of this facility, Krillin, however, cared. Fighting here was a massive disadvantage for him, but it wasn't like he could have done anything about him. Not unless he truly kicked it into a high-gear with the King Kai's Fist, but then he'd strain his body needlessly dispatching of soldiers and applying pressure and gamble away even more of his stamina on what already were unfavorable odds of victory.

Krillin dashed aside, avoiding the blizzard of Ki blasts while he cupped his hands beside him. "Ka!" he chanted out as it just couldn't have been helped. "Me!" he'd be doing nothing more than wasting his energy but he had to deal with as many of these soldiers as possible and then try focusing on the big one who, for now, still didn't take him all that seriously and just seemed to get entertainment out of all of this. Out of Krillin's desperate struggle to protect his best friend while he was recovering, and a bunch of injured, weak or old or a bit of both Saiyans that fled their ruthless execution.

"Ha-Me!" Krillin hadn't focused this much on a Kamehameha for a while. The martial artist buzzed around the hectic battlefield, kicking and swatting worrisome soldiers of all shapes and sizes all around him while Recoome pumped his hands in anticipation of Krillin's light show. The lives of his own soldiers didn't seem like all that to this massive oaf, all he cared about was the dazzle and joy of fighting. It was unfortunate that this lug found joy in all the worst aspects of combat.

"Ha!" Krillin shot out a diagonal, resonant, and mighty wave of energy from his hands that overwhelmed the gloomy building interior with bright, azure light and enveloped all the soldiers still finding themselves inside of the hall. Krillin's military boots touched down on an upper floor platform as he examined the powerless bodies on the ground filling up and more and more soldiers smelling blood in the air and sensing their moment of glory and promotion coming up filling the entrance hall.

A snap sound all too familiar to Krillin made his heart sink down to the soles of his heavy boots. Krillin's sight whited out when Recoome's chop hit him square in the back, and the thoroughly entertained giant continued his ruthless smashing. Desperate for a breather, Krillin intensified his Ki control and vanished in an outburst of speed, appearing right behind Recoome with a pump kick ready to put some space between him and the goofy brute. Recoome turned around with a back chop, forcing Krillin to switch stances and raise his arms to block the impending strike instead. The force of the attack was something else as Krillin slid back more than just a few meters.

The lights of a long hallway that Recoome's assault forced him into activated the lights that turned on based on motion sensory input. As the room gained some illumination, the sight of Recoome slowly walking toward him as soldiers flooded the hall filled with treatment facilities on each side made Krillin gasp and then clutch his fists and grit his teeth again. Just as Krillin rushed to attack and block the influx of soldiers, Recoome's backhanded smack sent him flying back while the big lug himself vanished a short distance hop forward, and pumped a push kick that blasted Krillin away even further.

"You should focus more on Recoome and not worry about those puny primates being liquidated," Recoome advised Krillin with a waggle of his finger while the Earthling rose back to his feet with wobbly legs and blurry vision. The taste of blood in his mouth was still prevalent, but the screams filling the air of Saiyans being murdered in their stasis. Inside of their healing pods woke Krillin right up like a cold shower.

"Stop that!" Krillin screamed out like a madman, clenching his fists by his sides as a red aura enveloped him. "King Kai's Fist!" he yelled out, forcing his dwindling Ki to soar back to around the same size that it had when he had started the fight and before he overextended fighting the platoon of Frieza Army hit squad and Recoome himself.

Like a cannonball rolling through the air, the Earthling martial artist flung himself from one soldier to the other, delivering brutal and incapacitating kicks to their vital regions, dispatching of a soldier with a single strike each time and making sure that they'd need long months of recovery before hurting anyone else. Krillin snapped from one ward to the other, ignoring the sights of destroyed and smoking healing pods and the dead Saiyans inside them and focusing only on the task at hand, kicking and punching and taking down as many of these monsters as possible.

There was just no use to it! No matter how much Krillin punched and kicked, no matter how hard he tried, there were always more soldiers just around the corner. Whenever he dispatched of a bunch more and more of them filled their ranks and Recoome must have known that workforce was one thing Frieza Army would never lack. Each one of those soldiers incredibly strong, each one of them possessing extraterrestrial strength that seemed to baffle Krillin when he saw it in Goku or Chayote years ago.

"You'd make for a feisty little compeer," Recoome laughed out as he entered the ward where Krillin finally ran out of breath and King Kai's Fist aura to keep fighting on and grabbed hold of his pecks that twitched in a painful impulse of muscles being torn apart. "I don't think I understand why you're tearing yourself apart trying to protect these commiserable simians, though. Regardless, you're putting up quite the extravaganza!"

"Don't you have any sympathy for your own troops? You're much stronger than me, you could intercept every attack I make, but you're just standing by as your men fall by the dozens!" Krillin took a fighting stance, swiping his fist aside as he directed it to guard him down low. Sweat ran down the martial artist's forehead and mixed in with the blood from his bruises where Recoome opened him up.

"But you're such a convivial guy, like a rodent inside of a circular entrapment. It would be cruel to punish your commendable efforts, playmate. Please, wiggle and struggle some more!" Recoome clapped as he let out a hearty, off his chest laugh. Krillin might have achieved what he had wanted with this effort–most of the troops hearing this exchange looked to Recoome with freaked out looks. They froze in mid-air and stopped their execution. Afraid to aggravate Krillin's wrath again, knowing that Recoome wouldn't move a finger to stand in between the bald Earthling and them.

"I'm going to give you more struggle than you can handle, just you wait, King Kai's Fist X2!" Krillin yelled out, bursting with vibrant red aura as he took off and dashed like a pinball, bouncing off of petrified soldiers like the play ball hopped off of obstacles on the table, dispatching of one soldier after another with decisive chops, kicks to their heads or necks and attacks from the back that broke their backs in a snap.

The scouter on Recoome's right side activated and began beeping as numbers counted upward wildly. Observing the bright lights going up and up, the ridges over Recoome's eyes that lacked any eyebrows went up in pleasant shock while his plump lips formed an "O" shape. "The power level of 40 200? My, my! This is getting menacing!"

With the dispatched soldiers hitting the floor, Krillin landed for a breather too, turning himself to Recoome and hiding away his exposed back, turning it toward the soldiers that hadn't yet entered the ward. An influx of still fighting soldiers flooded the entire facility and even though Krillin's efforts to hold them off were valiant, handfuls of them still spread out widely across the place. It had been nothing compared to the momentary obliteration of an entire cradled race that would have occurred had Krillin not interfered, nor would these scumbags reach Goku and Vegeta on the top floor in time before Krillin got to them first, but Krillin still cursed himself for letting them whizz past him while he struggled here.

"Is there no end to them?" Krillin huffed to himself. He would have had an absolute banger fighting all of them without having to contend with and monitor Recoome or without needing to protect the helpless Saiyans at the same time. The smarter ones concealed themselves, having waited this out instead of immediately hitting the medical pods, but nobody accused most of the Saiyan race to be too bright.

"Oh... Your power's back to measly 11 457. The scouter must be malfunctioning..." Recoome took off of his scouter and smashed it in his hand before leaning up to pick one up off the ground from a soldier that Krillin had dealt with like a surgeon. Without putting as much as a scratch on the little blue glass that the unconscious soldier wore.

"He doesn't realize my Ki's fluctuating when I use the King Kai's Fist and that I'm bleeding it out here," Krillin realized. Using this momentary distraction, he stiffened his body again. "King Kai's Fist X3!" Krillin yelled out, exploding in a vibrant red aura as he dashed out of the ward and began a mad, spinning dash full of brutal flurries of fists and feet the whole way through as he romped through the remaining soldiers, chasing after the stragglers that slipped past him.

Just as the violet glow of Recoome's aura resonated behind him, Krillin turned around and reached to his face with his hands. "Solar Fist!" he yelled out before activating his King Kai's Fist X3 again and blitzing away in a fit of successive snap vanishes as Krillin raced against time to dispose of every Frieza Army soldier he could sense before he took his last stand against Recoome. By the time that Krillin fell on his face and had to peel it off the floor, he could sense just two remaining Ki signatures from Frieza Army soldiers but also Recoome who had been closing in on him based on the reading his scouter gave him.

Krillin suppressed his Ki as he took a rolling dive behind a sharp hallway turn and pressed his back against the wall. Maybe he could have taken this gorilla by himself, but with the constant desperate need to chase down boogies and protect the injured Saiyans and fend off soldiers off of the chamber where Goku and Vegeta were, this was just hopeless.

"Humph... Not here anymore, huh?" Recoome pressed the scouter a couple more times, looking around but failing to register Krillin's power level anywhere. Given that he could only register specific power level readings, it made it impossible to attribute them to specific targets. The only way that Recoome had of recognizing Krillin was looking for a power level of either around 20 000 or one at around 11 000. The problem with that was that Krillin's battle power might have skyrocketed to several times the biggest indicator or plummeted to less than half of the lowest.

Still, there was no way for Recoome to find him now. With how delicate Krillin was in suppressing his Ki, the goofball's scouter wouldn't pick him up from background noise.

"Huh? Whose are those battle powers?" Recoome looked up. "This one is quite exuberant. Could it be... Vegeta-chan!? Bingo!"

"Shit!" Krillin hissed out.

"Hey, this is Recoome, I've found where Vegeta's crawled off to. Reporting Vegeta's location. Hello? Is anybody picking this up? Fine, I'll eliminate him myself..." Recoome shrugged and ran off with a comical, mock-like military strut toward the nearest elevator.

Krillin rushed out from the corner and blasted the wall out. Taking a leap outside, he took off toward the signature of the nearest Frieza Army soldiers. The final two remaining ones. Krillin punched the pink-colored alien with a donut-shaped head right in the face before unleashing a flurry of blows to his chest, feeling like a single strike attack would have no longer sufficed before diving underneath the fully charged Ki wave of the second one and delivering a power-cross to the soldier's abdomen that took care of the other one.

Recoome's massive hand bashed against the control panel with fingers that constantly mashed against the surrounding buttons to what the lug had intended to press, forcing him to cancel commands and issue new ones constantly. Before long, however, the mechanical door opened up, activating the emergency power supply and shining a weak light onto the two healing pods inside of the rundown room.

"Found you..." Recoome strut in place before tapping his feet as he erupted into a shadow running exercise and then turned his buttocks toward the entrance to the room while he pressed his hands by his hips like a tutu and made a delighted "O" face. Giggling to himself in profound joy. "Vegeta-chan... Oh... And who is this?" Recoome wondered, observing another Saiyan in a torn Saiyan bodysuit, just as battle damaged as the recovering Saiyan prince.

"Hmm... The battle power of 72 000? Incredible. Another Saiyan powerhouse. Lord Frieza's instincts were impeccable, as always. A bona fide insurrection in the brewing!" Recoome hammered his open right palm with his left fist, nodding to himself as he extended his hand to blast Vegeta's healing pod to smithereens.

"Wait!" Krillin's shriek halted Recoome and made the giant turn back. Where initially Recoome seemed shocked to hear a sharp yell behind him, once he turned to Krillin, the brute's face turned into a sadistic smirk.

"There you are..." Recoome mumbled, cracking his fists.

"That's right, come at me, I'll rip you to shreds!" Krillin bent down and smacked his buttocks, desperate for something that would have distracted the Ginyu Special Squadron heavy hitter from eliminating Vegeta and Goku.

"Oh?" Recoome mocked Krillin with a melodious push of air from his duck-like pressed lips. "But you're all tuckered out, baldy, with a battle power of just 8277 you wouldn't even beat Guldo in an arm-wrestling contest."

"More than enough to kick your sissy ass!" Krillin gave Recoome the middle finger. "Why'd you run away back then, I had you on the ropes!" he stuck out his tongue.

Before Krillin could pick his guard back up, an overwhelming flash of bright light knocked him on his butt. Vision raced and shook like the cameraman recording Krillin's life just couldn't stand still. A tough swelling began pulping up over Krillin's right eye as his body felt like it was made of lead. Recoome bowed his head to fit out of the ward containing Vegeta and Goku recovering in their pods, and he lowered his hand, having flung a hasty Ki blast in a snap to throw Krillin around.

"Okay, now you've done it!" Recoome cracked his neck and extended his hands up and over his head, adopting an almost ballet-like stance. "I'm warning you though. You better be entertaining 'cause I'll kill you off quickly if you'll bore me."

Krillin gulped while doing his best to return to his fighting pose, while all of his body would have much rather caved in and collapsed in on its own weight. By playing around with him the whole time, Recoome had avoided fighting seriously and was still as fresh as they came, whereas Krillin would have hit the bricks if he caved in to his bodily demands even right now. Still, if it was in the cards for him to die here, he'd make sure that he'll win as much time for his best pal to recover as he can.

"Tenshinhan, Yamcha, and Chiaotzu aren't too far away and they're closing in. Chayote and Gohan too... They're really hauling, though. They must be carrying someone that's wounded here, hoping for some help. Oh well, at least if I can't make it, there'll be others to protect you for me, Goku..." Krillin breathed a hefty push of breath out as he mentally prepared himself for a hopeless, limit-pushing battle up ahead that might have been more akin to torture if one weighed merely the Ki signatures of the power levels of the combatants.

Regardless, Krillin would make this the toughest life in Recoome's life if it was for the sake of his best pal's life! Krillin just couldn't forgive himself if after protecting so many Saiyans still recovering in their wards he failed to protect the only one that mattered to him more than anything.