World Tree MUSH

    The mining village of Turpen isn't really much to speak of. About two dozen houses ranging from simple shacks to the townhouse-like lodgings of the 'mayor', all clustered close to the twin openings to the mines. The village and its mine is located at the nothern foot of a mountain, giving it something in the way of natural defenses - but it's still completely open to the north and west, and the east is guarded only by a rather slow river that can easily be forded.

    The villagers are probably wishing they had more defenses, really, given they're currently being menaced by a rather overly-large man riding in a hovering vehicle completely out-of-place in such a medieval world. The vehicle is fitted with what looks to be some manner of cannon, which is pointed directly at the huddling villagers as the man addresses them.

    Beside the overweight villain floats a pair of geometric shapes - a yellow cube and a red sphere.

    "Now, does anyone ELSE wish to resist? I would like to have SOME of your simpletons in a fit state to actually work in the brand new Eggman Mines, after all." He gestures vaguely to a couple of miners, collapsed in a heap, still giving off smoke from their horrific burn wounds. "If you cooperate, I may deem fit to grant these... men medical attention."

    The mustachioed man's eyes are hidden by a pair of sunglasses, but his sadistic grin is easy enough to read all the same. "Well?"

    These last few months, Goku has been wandering the worlds for his training. And hungry young Saiyans need to eat, so whenever he ended up staying in a town he usually pitched in with the local heavy labor for extra trainin'!

    It just so happens that today he was working in the mines!

    But hearing a commotion, the boy comes leaping out of the tunnels, still holding a pickaxe, and absolutely covered in dirt and rock dust. "Whew! Fresh air!"

    But Goku can't be too happy about that what with the state of affairs in the village. his gaze is drawn to the nearby sight of a FLYING MACHINE and one heck of a mustachio'd man riding in it! "Huoah?"

    Goku takes a FLYING LEAP closer to the conglomeration, and slinks through the terrified villagers to the forefront.

    "Who's this?" He innocently asks the huddled civilians... just before he notices the smoldering, burned miners! "...!!" And that's enough to get the boy clenching his teeth.

    He takes stock of the situation. The offer on hand, such as the little boy can grasp it.

    Another question's aimed at the villagers. Just as innocently, and asked as if he really doesn't consider Eggman very threatening. "If I chase this guy off can you still help these two?"

    Yes, the little monkey-tailed boy is smart enough to realize that he has NO idea how to treat such severe burns!

    Before the villagers can respond, a young boy with a monkey's tail has leapt out to their defense! The villain is taken aback for a moment, then breaks into an even crueller grin. "Oho! A hero arrives to defend the weak! Some things never change, I see." He reaches out to tap a few buttons on the dashboard of his hovering vehicle.

    "No, kid, don't..!" one of the villagers tries to hurriedly warn Goku. "He's much more dangerous than he looks..!"

    The villain lets out a boisterous laugh. "Doohohoho! It seems SOMEONE has begun to respect the illustrious Doctor Eggman's power! Now, run along, child," this so-called 'Eggman' says, making a shooing gesture with one hand.

    And then a beam of red light erupts from the vehicle's cannon, firing directly at Goku!

    Goku's UNNERVED by that grin. He's rarely seen its kind before! It's an evil grin. Instantly he's more on guard, muscles tensing. He takes heed of the warning, clearly! His eyes narrow and combat instincts sing to life. "Hrahh!!!"

    ANd both his hands are pushed out at the last moment to 'catch' that crimson beam. Smoke flies from his palms, pain lances through his whole body but he keeps up the defense until the beam dwindles...

    "Hyaaaaaow ow ow HOT HOT HOT HOT!" Goku immediately runs back and forth like a panicked imp, blowing on his singed hands! All until he dashes to a nearby animal trough and sticks his hands in the water.

    Then... *VHWHEEEEEEEOP!*

    Moving faster than most eyes can track, Goku resumes his previous position before Eggman's mobile, now adopting a combat stance.

    "Doctor Eggman, huh? I'm giving you one warning! Go back home or I'll start fighting!"

    This Doctor Eggman character is laughing again. The white, egg-shaped vehicle hovers sideways while turning to keep the monkey-themed superbeing in view. And then... whoosh! He moves faster than most eyes can track and he's back where he was standing again.

    Eggman reaches up to his sunglasses and twists the frame around the right lens slightly. "Hmmm..."

    "My, you ARE fast, aren't you?" He's smirking, as though enjoying some private joke. "I can't see how I could possibly be a threat to a child as strong and fast as you!"

    "That said, 'going home' is out of the question, so I suppose..." Another button is pressed. Two silver cylinders - filled with holes for some reason - pop out of the vehicle just below the headlights. "Fighting it is!" Brrrrt go the machineguns!

    Goku doesn't really appreciate being laughed at. He grinds his teeth, realizing when he's being mocked and played with. Eggman's tone just gives it away!

    And then... the guns. Goku has actually SEEn machine guns before so this doesn't surprise him. Red Ribbon LOVED using those things!

    For some reason Goku doesn't BUDGE even with those things trained on him. Instead he deepens his stance and... and his hands become a blur! Snapping up dozens of bullets from the air at hyper speed! But... he can't catch ALL of them. Eventually his focus slips and he goes from 'snagging them out of the air' to 'guarding his face with his arms.' The force of all those bullets smacking into him bowls the kid over and knocks him backards. They rip at his outfit and dig shallow wounds into his skin once his guard's overwhelmed. When the fire stops... he grunts a few times and dredges himself up to his feet a good twenty feet further back from before.

    "Alright! I gave you your chance!" Now Goku is MAD. So he goes on the offensive, despite being fairly bloodied by all of that. WHOOOOSH! He charges straight for Eggman, zigging and zagging just enough to try and throw off his aim and minimize getting shot at. At the last moment he springs off the ground and aims a FLYING KICK at the Eggmobile's front!

    "Ho, catching bullets! What's the matter, too slow to dodge them?" Or perhaps he was just defending the villagers, some of whom were directly in the line of fire. Eggman is just needling him, really.

    The villagers are trying to get away, but Eggman's gunfire isn't giving them much room to move. He lazily tracks Goku as he zigs and zags about - trying to ward him off but not really putting much effort into it.

    As Goku launches his attack, Eggman pulls back on the controls - CLANG! Goku's foot impacts the hull just under the windscreen, leaving... not as much of a dent as Goku was probably expecting. Man this thing is HARD. It does, however, manage to throw the Egg Mobile several feet through the air before Eggman can get it under control, hover engines whining with exertion. "Ho, impressive!" Eggman yells above the sound of his engines. "Now, get a load of this!" Throttle to full, the Egg Mobile promptly launches itself at Goku - an array of drills popping out from the front of the vehicle as it closes in. Whrrr!

    CLAAAAAANG indeed. Goku's own foot is iron-hard but he only gets a glancing blow on the underside of the EggMobile. It being curved, anything but his intended angle means he's not able to transfer much force into that blow. "Wow..." And he's STILL AIRBORNE when the drill pops out!

    A yelp of panic heralds this develiopment, as Goku's grazed by one of them and sent tumblign to the ground, chunks of flesh scraped from his arm. He backflips just in the nick of time to get back on his feet and backpedal more and more, flipping and ducking and shuffling on a frantic retreat from that whirring deadly metal!

    It's just too darned dangerous for him to approach. If he gets caught in that...!

    But with a glance over his shoulder, the boy realizes he's running out of room to manuever before Eggman and he plow into either a building or the scorched miners of earlier... if not others!

    So he gets risky and brings both hands to his side, palms cupped towards each other as he ducks and weaves, backsteps... "Kaaaaaaaa.... Meeeeeeee..... Haaaaaaaaa..... Meeeeeeeeee..." As the boy chants, blue-white light roils into existence between his palms, growing into a softball-sized sphere of burning energies...!

    "HAAAAAAAAH!!!" And at the last moment, Goku halts his retreat and thrusts his palms outwards together! That sphere expands outwards into a rushing wave of sizzling ki energy, as wide as the whole Eggmobile!

    This attack was more effective than Eggman had anticipated! This sort of thing never usually worked on his regular nemeses... With a chortle, Eggman pulled the vehicle back, before pressing another button on his dashboard - which causes the rocket engine at the rear of the craft to roar with a blue flame, the Egg Mobile hurtling towards Goku with renewed speed!

    Unfortunately for the doctor, the brief retreat before activating his boosters gives Goku JUST enough time to charge his attack! "...What," is all Eggman managed to get out before the wave of ki washed over the entire craft, sending it hurtling backwards and upwards in an arc, tumbling end over end before crashing into one of the shacks!

    There's no movement from the strange egg-shaped vehicle. Or the doctor piloting it!

    A very close call! Goku lowers his still-smoling palms and takes a gander over at the gfallen craft... realizing that though its come to a halt, it also crashed into a building. Oh no!

    With a bit of panic he rushes over towards the crash, guard pretty well down... at least until he nears the Egg Mobile. He is PRETTY CAUTIOUS when he raps on the side of the machine with a fist. Knock knock knock!

    Goku goes looking around to make sure nobody was IN the house when Eggman slammed into it! Well, it's just a shack, but anything could be a house to Goku. His own was Very Tiny.

    "A-all I wanted to do was blast him out of here! I hope he isn't dead--!!"

    There doesn't seem to have been anyone in the shack when the Egg Mobile plowed right into it. It's practically demolished, though, the Egg Mobile upside-down and covered in debris and rubble from the building.

    "Hey!" comes a call from behind Goku as he nears the Egg Mobile. "You'd better not be thinkin' about getting near the Doc if you know what's good for you!" There's a loud -click-.

    Behind Goku there's a... small robot. It has a large head and a spindly body, ending in half a cube instead of legs. It's hovering about two feet off the ground, and is holding a rather large handgun in one of its spindly little hands - which is pointed right at the head of one of the women from the village. "Or what's good for HER, if you catch my drift," Cubot finishes with... well, he'd probably be smirking if his face had any animation beyond the mouth lighting up when he speaks.

    The rubble that USED to be the shack begins to move.

    That click. Goku's heard it before a few times. It has his eyes going wide. He backs a few steps away from the Egg Mobile and looks over his shoulder innocently enough.

    Oh, crap! Goku GRINDS his teeth, balls his hands into fists. "You let her go!" He barks out indignantly, disgusted at this act of hostage-taking!

    For the moment all his attention's focused on Cubot. His tail twitches once or twice as he glares daggers at Cubot!

    "You two shouldn't be here wrecking the place and hurting people! What are you after?!"

    Almost as soon as Goku turns around, Cubot lifts the gun up and then just drapes it over his... well, where a shoulder WOULD be if his body wasn't just basically a thick and two arms. "Well, y'know, the Doc needs stuff to build stuff. Yeah? And it's not like these ones were gonna use the stuff for anything that's any good. So why not just take their stuff to make his stuff instead?"

    Is the robot... intentionally trying to be confusing? Or is it just terrible at explaining stuff?

    "Miserable brat..." comes a voice from behind Goku. The Egg Mobile is lifting up out of the debris! The Doctor appears a bit worse for wear, and the vehicle is hovering slightly lopsided, but... it doesn't look like one kamehameha is going to take this target down. "If you're so worried about these... worthless imbeciles, then just TAKE them, I don't CARE any more. But this mine belongs to ME, do you hear?" He's grinding his teeth, too!

    "Whaddya mean NOTHING GOOD? I was working in the mines earlier! They told me it's how they live here!" Goku takes EXCEPTION to Cubot's cobbled-together explanation, sticking his tongue out childishly at the robot... then whips around when Eggman manages to get his mobile righted again.

    After firing off that Kamehameha and all that fighting... right after a hard day's work though... Goku's strength is in quite a valley. He's hungry!

    Of course with Eggman screaming about all this, people start clearing out.

    Nothing Goku can really say about that. "Why didn't you just go digging your own hole in the ground instead of taking someone else's?! It's not like it's hard to do. You even have all these big drills." Well it seems that the boy does have some amount of sense and intelligence. But all the fury's gone from his voice, replaced with weary exasperation. He's returning Eggman's glare though. VERY unhappy with the self-proclaimed Doctor.

    "Why work hard when you can profit off the labour of others? Hmph. You people are all the same," he shakes his head as the Egg Mobile rises up higher, still listing slightly to one side. "You think just because physical labour is all you're good for then that must mean physical labour is worthwhile! Oh, it 'builds character', it's 'healthy exercise', 'we can't earn enough food to eat unless we break our backs', yadda yadda," Eggman... may have issues.

    "This pitiful town belongs to me. I'm being very generous, boy, in letting you run away with your tail between your legs." A hatch on the bottom of the Egg Mobile opens, lowering a bulbous missile down on a robotic arm. The missile swivels upwards to point at Goku, and the Doctor speaks in a low, eerily calm voice. "Leave. Take these worthless people with you. I won't offer again."

    He may indeed have issues. Goku grinds his teeth yet more at Eggman's disdain for good hard work. "I don't get half of what you just said... but I know you're up to no good! You win this time but I'll be back!." He doesn't seem terribly scared! Because Goku doesn't get scared. He just gets mad. Or excited.

    And just like that the boy shouts up to the sky--- "NIIIIIIIMBUS!!!!"

    -- and takes a soaring leap. Only to land on a small orange cloud that swoops out of the sky seemingly from nowhere. Goku swoops off for a bit at great speeds -- and then stops. As if he forgot something.

    He's probably watching to make sure the people who started to hurry away are left alone.