Snow blanketed the northern landscape, endless and untouched—until now.
The Capsule Corp jet cut low through the clouds, its matte-black frame nearly invisible against the swirling storm. The engines were quiet, barely more than a whisper over the howl of wind. Inside the cockpit, Bulma sat hunched forward, brows furrowed in focus, fingers flying over the control panel.
"Almost there," she said under her breath. "We'll come in low, right over that ridge. Radar shadow, minimal surveillance coverage... unless they've changed something."
Behind her, Onigiri stood in the cabin, his hands resting lightly on the support rail above. No inhibitor rings. Just calloused skin, calm breath, and eyes locked on the mountain ahead.
He hadn't said much since they'd taken off. But there was something different about him now. Focused. Steady. Like the hesitation that once lived behind his eyes had been burned out.
Yamcha, strapping on his gloves, leaned forward. "So we land, get in, break their toys, and get out, yeah?"
Onigiri didn't look at him. "We won't have that kind of time."
The jet dipped lower, angling toward a flat stretch of snow just below the facility's outer ridgeline.
Bulma glanced at the readings. "Still no ping from their sensors. If they haven't seen us yet, we might actually—"
The mountain screamed.
Sirens erupted, sharp and metallic, bouncing off the cliffs like a banshee's wail. A dozen red lights burst to life under the snowpack, revealing embedded turrets, sealed bunker doors, and rising antenna arrays. Spotlights pierced the storm and locked onto the jet before it even touched down.
"They already know we're here!" Bulma snapped, flipping switches to power up the jammers. "They were waiting for us!"
The landing gear hadn't even finished deploying when Onigiri hit the hatch release. Cold air and light hit him like a slap. He jumped, landing in a crouch, his boots punching into snow and ice.
A blast scorched through the space he'd just vacated.
Yamcha cursed and bolted after him. "Yeah, okay, so much for stealth."
The base exploded into motion. Red Ribbon soldiers surged from hidden bunkers—half of them enhanced, eyes glowing, limbs stiff with cybernetic weight. Automated turrets rotated into place and started tracking.
Onigiri didn't wait.
He moved like a storm through the chaos—no wasted steps, no flashy moves. Just clean, efficient violence. A soldier lunged at him; Onigiri sidestepped, grabbed the man's vest, and slammed him into the snow hard enough to crater it.
Another opened fire. Onigiri was already gone.
Yamcha flanked right, blasting a drone out of the air with a sharp flick of Ki. "You could've said it'd be this bad!"
"Didn't need to," Onigiri called back. A soldier leveled a missile launcher at him and fired.
Onigiri turned his body with the incoming blast, caught the missile by its casing mid-flight, and spun. Using the same momentum, he redirected it with a clean, explosive arc—firing it straight into a turret cluster embedded in the ridge above. The detonation rocked the cliffside, sending snow and steel raining down on the advancing Red Ribbon soldiers.
Yamcha blinked. "Okay, never mind. You win."
Bulma's voice crackled in their earpieces. "East side! I can override the auxiliary hatch if you keep them off me!"
"We'll clear the path!" Yamcha answered, ducking behind a snowy ridge as another turret opened fire.
They pressed forward together, two figures carving a line through metal and flesh and storm. The snow didn't slow Onigiri down. If anything, it made him faster—no traction meant no resistance. He flowed through them like he'd been born in it.
Behind them, the jet stayed low, humming with energy as Bulma worked to block outgoing transmissions and scramble internal defenses.
But it was clear now:
This wasn't an ambush.
This was an invitation.
And they had walked straight into it.
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The auxiliary hatch wasn't much to look at—half-buried under snow and rust, a narrow metal rectangle set into the rocky slope. But the moment Bulma's override pinged through the base's system, it hissed open with a hydraulic groan, loud and mechanical in the still air.
"Door's open! Move it now, before they lock it again!" Bulma shouted into comms.
Onigiri didn't hesitate. He slipped through first, Yamcha right behind. The hatch slammed shut behind them with a heavy metallic thud, sealing out the storm like a vault.
The air inside was dry and cold, humming faintly with power. The lighting was dim—soft white strips ran along the ceiling, flickering every few seconds like the place hadn't seen real maintenance in months. But the floors were clean. Too clean.
"Looks abandoned," Yamcha said, his voice echoing slightly. "But something tells me it's not."
Onigiri didn't answer. He was already moving, steps slow and quiet.
They followed the maintenance corridor deeper into the mountain. Pipes ran the length of the walls and ceiling, some leaking faint steam. The smell of oil and cold metal hung in the air. Each corner they turned felt like a trap that hadn't been sprung yet.
"You notice how clean it is?" Yamcha whispered. "No dust. No mold. Someone's been keeping this place running."
"Not someone," Onigiri said. "A system."
They reached a junction. One path led down a narrow hallway flanked by vent shafts. The other opened into a square chamber—what looked like a staging room. Low ceiling. Two thick doors. Storage lockers lined one side, equipment racks the other.
Yamcha crouched beside a crate near the wall. "Red Ribbon issue. Look at the markings." He popped the lid. "Still stocked."
He pulled out a data slate and powered it on. Lines of schematics scrolled across the screen—combat programming, limb diagrams, internal core configurations.
"This isn't outdated tech," Yamcha muttered. "This stuff's live. They were here recently. Maybe still are."
Onigiri opened one of the lockers. Inside: a half-assembled exosuit, the Red Ribbon insignia freshly stamped across the chestplate. A folded uniform sat beneath it. And at the bottom—a sealed case labeled in bold black letters: BETA-CORE DATA.
He stared at it, jaw clenched. Then shut the locker again.
A hum drifted through the walls. Low. Resonant. Not mechanical. Not entirely organic. It sounded like breath—deep, controlled, waiting.
Lights overhead dimmed slightly.
Yamcha looked at him. "We're not alone down here, are we?"
Onigiri shook his head. "No. We're in the heart of it."
A loud hiss echoed from somewhere ahead. Then a clunk. A door unlocking.
And whatever had been watching them from the moment they landed—wasn't waiting anymore.
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The heavy door ahead slid open with a hiss of compressed air, revealing a wide, dimly lit chamber lined with cables, reinforced panels, and mounted monitors displaying biometric scans. The temperature dropped noticeably, a sterile chill clinging to the air. At the far end of the room stood a cylindrical containment pod surrounded by thick cables and glowing interface panels.
Something inside shifted.
The lights above flickered.
Yamcha stepped forward cautiously. "What is that... a tank?"
Onigiri didn't answer. His eyes were locked on the pod.
A warning alarm trilled from one of the consoles. The pod opened.
The hiss of depressurization was slow and deliberate. Steam vented into the room. And from within, a figure stepped forward. Humanoid. Tall. Heavy. Its skin was pale gray with a faint blue sheen, layered over an armored exoskeleton. Its eyes were glowing, expressionless. Limbs perfectly proportioned. Too perfect.
The Beta Unit Alpha.
It scanned them both.
Yamcha raised his hands. "You seeing what I'm seeing?"
The machine moved.
Not clunky. Not robotic. Smooth. Fluid. Fast.
It charged.
Onigiri was already moving, meeting it halfway. The clash was instant, metal against flesh, the shockwave rattling the walls. The Beta Unit swung a heavy arm at him—not just brute force, but calculated. Onigiri blocked with both forearms, slid under the next swing, and delivered a blow to the unit's midsection that dented armor.
It didn't slow down.
Yamcha fired a blast from the side, drawing the machine's attention. The unit dodged it effortlessly and hurled a crate at him in response. Yamcha barely flipped out of the way.
"This thing's learning," Yamcha shouted. "It's watching you in real time!"
Onigiri gritted his teeth and adjusted. He wasn't just fighting muscle—he was fighting programming. Predictive counters. Measured reaction time. The Beta Unit was adapting.
It caught his wrist mid-strike, twisted, and forced him to the floor.
For a brief moment, Onigiri felt that same pressure from before. Measured. Cold. Curious.
He shifted his stance, dropped low, and used the unit's own momentum to break free. Twist. Crash. A full-bodied strike slammed into the Beta's torso, sending it skidding across the chamber floor.
It scrambled back to its feet.
Onigiri was breathing heavier now, but focused.
"It's not a weapon," he said. "It's a mirror."
The Beta Unit's eyes flashed again.
And the fight was far from over.
The Beta Unit blurred forward again, this time switching tactics. It didn't go for brute strikes—it feinted left, twisted around Onigiri's guard, and slammed a knee into his side with a metallic crack. Onigiri grunted, stumbling, and barely rolled away before a downward punch cratered the floor where he'd stood.
"It's getting smarter!" Yamcha shouted, launching another Ki blast. It hit the Beta's back, barely scorching the surface.
The machine turned its head toward Yamcha—not in annoyance, but in recognition. It was logging threats.
Onigiri grabbed its arm and pulled it into a throw, slamming the machine against a steel wall. Sparks flew. It rebounded instantly, driving a punch toward his chest. Onigiri caught the fist—barely. The weight behind it was increasing. Adjusting.
"It's recalibrating after every strike," Onigiri muttered. "It's testing how much I'll give."
The Beta Unit's chest opened slightly, revealing a charged energy cell. It pulsed with blue light before firing a beam point-blank.
Onigiri threw himself to the side, the blast nicking his shoulder, burning through fabric and skin. He didn't scream—but it slowed him for half a second too long.
The Beta seized him by the neck and slammed him through a console.
"Onigiri!" Yamcha charged forward, unleashing a flurry of strikes to break the machine's grip. The Beta shielded its face and released Onigiri, stepping back with controlled retreat.
Onigiri climbed to his feet, coughing once. Blood at the corner of his mouth.
"Okay," he said, voice low. "You want full data? Here it comes."
He charged with renewed force, this time weaving between its strikes—not countering, but disrupting. He stepped into its rhythm, not around it.
A Twist to unbalance the center. A Lift to break the base. A Drop to bring it down.
He drove his elbow into the base of the Beta's spine, then caught it mid-fall and hurled it overhead with a Crash that rocked the room.
The machine landed hard, denting the floor beneath it. Its systems sparked.
It started to rise again—but slower this time.
Yamcha joined him. "Together?"
Onigiri nodded.
Yamcha took a deep breath, crouched low, and launched forward with a shout—"Wolf Fang Fist!" He struck in a blur of fists and claws, battering the machine with speed and aggression. The Beta Unit tried to counter, but Yamcha's relentless rhythm kept it locked.
It turned to adjust—too slow.
That's when Onigiri moved in from the side. A final Twist dislocated the machine's shoulder. Another Drop caved in its knee.
With a last blow—Stillness into Crash—Onigiri drove his fist straight through the Beta's core.
The lights in its eyes flickered.
Then it collapsed.
The chamber went quiet, the only sound their ragged breathing.
Onigiri stood over the broken machine.
"It wasn't trying to win," he said.
Yamcha looked at him. "Then what was it doing?"
"Learning."
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Above the chaos, back inside the Capsule Corp jet, Bulma worked fast. Her fingers flew across the interface, hacking into the facility's local network now that the internal defenses were disrupted.
Lines of encrypted code blinked across her screen. "Come on, come on… show me what you're hiding."
A string of access keys unlocked. A map of the facility's core systems bloomed into view—labs, storage, containment chambers. At the center: PROJECT AVALANCHE.
Bulma's brow furrowed. "There you are."
She tapped into the file.
Data poured in: DNA sequences, muscular composition, combat pattern modeling—layered with footage from Onigiri's Budokai fights, training recordings, even footage from West City surveillance cams. It was all tagged with his name.
They weren't just observing him. They were studying every move. Every hit. Every hesitation.
And replicating it.
Her breath caught. "They're not trying to beat him… they're trying to become him."
A proximity alert beeped.
She swiped it away.
Then she saw something else. Deeper inside the logs. A subdirectory labeled simply: PHASE TWO.
The folder was encrypted with higher clearance—military-grade. Even with Capsule tech, she couldn't get in without triggering something.
Bulma swallowed hard. "Guys," she said into the comms. "Whatever that thing was? It was just the beginning."
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Onigiri and Yamcha stood over the Beta Unit's remains, the glow from its disabled core slowly dimming. The air still crackled faintly from the fight, and bits of debris and shattered tech lay scattered across the floor.
Onigiri knelt beside the wreckage. "It's not going to explode, is it?"
Yamcha gave a tired shrug. "Hopefully not. We've had enough explosions for one day."
Bulma's voice came through their comms. "No, the core's dead. Whatever was powering it is gone. But bring the body back. I want a look inside that thing before they wipe any more data remotely."
They worked quickly. Yamcha helped Onigiri lift the Beta Unit's remains—still heavy as hell despite being deactivated. Together they hauled it back through the corridors, retracing their steps through the now-silent base.
When they reached the auxiliary hatch, Bulma was waiting, already outside the jet in her coat, tools in hand.
"Set it down," she ordered, pulling out a handheld scanner. "I'm scrubbing it for trackers and transmitters before we load it. They're not listening in on this ride home."
Within minutes, she'd yanked three devices out of the Beta Unit's torso and neck. "They were recording everything. Real-time uplink too. We interrupted the stream when you crushed the core."
She took a long breath. "It's clean. Let's go."
They boarded the jet in silence.
As the engines lifted them off the frozen ground, Onigiri looked back toward the facility.
Snow was already starting to fall again, softening the marks of the fight, covering up the signs that anything had happened at all.
But something had changed. Not just in the battlefield—but in him.
He wasn't just being hunted.
He was being copied.
And he knew now that holding back was no longer an option.
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