NOVEL NEXT Chapter 4: The pirate base
Like how Turtle School is known for its physically strong fighters, Crane School is known for its weird supernatural abilities. One of those abilities is flight or levitation. Being the master of Crane School, Shen obviously has a very high level of mastery over it.
He soars through the sky using a technique called Sky Dance. Utilizing his ki, he can keep flying for hours on end, and the only reason he would even need to stop would be because of mental exhaustion.
He flies over mountains and reaches the vast ocean. Taking a short break, he stops at a small seaside town to replenish his body with some food and drinks.
"Now let's pick up the pace," he mutters, rushing over to Kame House, where Master Roshi, his supposed archrival, lives. "Hehe! All those treasures are mine for the taking."
He knows the general location of Kame House, but finding Master Roshi's tiny island home proves more challenging than he had anticipated.
Finally, after searching the surrounding ocean for nearly two hours, he finds the house. However, dusk is already nearing.
The sun is a bright orange in the west. "Sigh, it's impossible for today. I'll have to steal the map tomorrow." He decides to camp on a nearby island for the night.
The next day, right from the break of dawn, he keeps an eye on everything happening at Master Roshi's Kame House.
An opportunity presents itself when Master Roshi heads out to the ocean on his motorboat, perhaps to complete some personal errand.
This is the perfect opportunity to search for the map, as the old pervert has even taken his pet tortoise along with him.
Rummaging through every likely place where the map could be kept, he leaves behind a trail of mess, with no care about keeping the break-in a secret.
Fortunately, he finds the map after only searching for a few minutes. It was kept on top of a bookshelf.
"I should have searched here first," he mutters. Unrolling the map, he spots the underwater cave where the treasure is hidden, hard to miss with a distinct red cross mark over the location.
"The cave is northeast from here, and it's considerably far... Hmm! I should first get out of here."
Leaving Kame House, he flies off at rapid speed, reaching his destination in a short one hour of travel time.
"This is the place; the cave must be somewhere down here." He takes out a tiny capsule from his coat pocket, clicks it, and throws it at the water. Poof! It transforms into a small yellow submarine.
"These Hoi Poi capsules are pretty handy, huh! Hope this submarine is also good enough." After all, a fortune was spent buying this brand-new, recently released product from Capsule Corp.
He enters the submarine and dives deep underwater in search of the elusive cave.
Finding nothing on the ocean floor as expected, he dives further down a deep ridge wide enough to be called a valley. He remembers the cave entrance being somewhere around the walls of the ridge.
The ridge reaches unknown depths, so it's nearly impossible for him to search its every nook and cranny, but thankfully he doesn't have to. The entrance is somewhere along the upper section of its enormous cliff face, and he's sure of that much.
Knowing where to look, he quickly finds the cave. Capsule Corp's advanced sonar definitely comes in handy.
"Here I come, my treasure! Full speed ahead!"
The submarine goes through the massive cave opening... "Wait a minute, this isn't massive at all. Wasn't the opening supposedly large enough to fit a massive military submarine?"
"At least the initial portion should have been that wide. It's supposed to get narrower the further ahead we go. This one is a tight fit from the get-go. Hope it doesn't get any narrower than this."
His hope isn't scattered as the submarine is able to pass through the whole length of this watery tunnel. The narrow cave even connects to a wider one.
The tunnel opens up to a large body of water. He has reached a massive cavern. "Light! Yes! I have reached the harbor. So this route was the one Bulma used when getting out of the cave."
He maneuvers the submarine to the surface of this underground lake, finding a pocket of air at the surface.
He opens the top hull of the submarine and takes in real air after a long, congested ride.
"Now I have to hurry. The pirate robot protecting this place should be coming any time now."
He didn't want to fight the robot and risk damaging the cave. Goku and the team, having done that, had to make a quick exit from the collapsing cave, leaving all the treasure behind.
He spots the stone underpass leading further into other sections of the cavern, but to reach it, he has to walk on open land, which will take some time he can't spare.
"I could defeat the robot, but that could cause an explosion. What to do?..."
"Hmm?" He looks over to his side. There's an antique battleship docked in the harbor. "Maybe, I could."
He jumps out of his submarine and onto the old ship left behind by the pirates. He glances around the ship and finds what he was looking for: a long iron chain with medium thickness and great personality. [A/N- yes]
Wrapping one end of the chain around his left hand and carrying the remaining with his arms, he drops down the ship, landing on the harbor's concrete floor.
Looking like a chained criminal, the old Master Shen waits for the robot to show up.
The pirate robot doesn't make him wait long. Creaking and cranking its rusty old metallic body, the skull robot that resembles a xenomorph, due to its enlarged skull, greets him with its sword.
Master Shen avoids its sword swings easily by creating some distance from the robot.
Noticing this, the robot is about to rain some bullets with its other arm when...
"Oh my, I can't let you do that."
Shen quickly spreads his arms, dropping the middle section of chains and swinging the remaining end with his right hand like a cowboy about to catch a horse.
He flings the chains at the robot, ensnaring its head. Then, in a flash, he approaches the robot.
Up close, he starts making circular rounds around it, further wrapping the alien-looking robot and, while he's at it, destroying its weapons in the process, especially its electric tail. He had to completely tear off this troublesome part.
With its limited movement capabilities, the robot is helpless.
Finally, the deed is done. The robot has been immobilized. To further ensure that it can't cause any harm, he binds the robot with the old battleship's anchor and tosses it into the ocean.
"Thank you for your continuous service." Wiping aside an imaginary drop of tear, he gives the pirate base's guardian a final—"I will make good use of you when I take over the computer system."