They drifted around the corner.
Forget the physics! I don't have time to figure out how his body works, I just have to catch him!
Goku was ahead of her. He was closing the distance with terrifying ease.
"I got him!" Goku shouted, his hand outstretched, mere inches from the cat's tail.
Down on the ground, Oolong was panic-stricken.
His paws scrambled against the floor.
This kid is a monster! Oolong thought, glancing back with his wide, green cat eyes.
I'm in my fastest form, and he's jogging! If he grabs me, I'm finished!
He darted under a fruit cart, weaving through the legs of pedestrians, but he could hear the slap of Goku's shoes right behind him.
He needed a distraction.
Then, he saw it.
Up ahead, the alley opened up into the main village square.
It was packed. Dozens, maybe hundreds of pigs were gathered for the evening market, milling about, buying vegetables, and gossiping.
A dense, chaotic sea of bodies.
Oolong's whiskers twitched.
A wicked, nasty idea formed in his brain.
Perfect... He thought.
The cat's mouth curled up into a disturbingly human, malignant grin.
Goku and Bulma burst into the square, slowing down as they hit the wall of bodies
"Dammit!" Bulma cursed, standing on her tiptoes to see over the crowd.
"That little son of a bacon! He blended in! Stay close to me, Goku."
They pushed their way through the mass of villagers.
"Excuse me! Coming through!" Bulma shouted, shoving past a group of elderly sows.
Suddenly, a heavy hand or rather, a trotter tapped aggressively on Bulma's shoulder.
"Hey! You!"
Bulma turned around.
A large female pig in a floral apron was glaring at her.
"You have a lot of nerve showing your face again! You're going to pay for the damage!"
Bulma blinked, completely baffled.
"Excuse me? I don't know who you are. We just got here."
"Don't play dumb with me! You just overturned my entire fruit display five minutes ago!"
"I did what?"
Before Bulma could defend herself, another angry voice shouted from the left.
A male pig in a baker's hat grabbed
Goku by the collar.
"And you!" the baker yelled.
"You little thief! Give me back my buns!"
Goku looked up, wide-eyed and confused.
"I didn't steal anything. They smell good, though. Can I have one?"
"He's mocking me! Get them!" The baker roared to the crowd.
"This is a mistake!"
Bulma grabbed Goku's arm.
"We didn't do any of this! Come on, Goku, let's go!"
She started to drag him backward, trying to retreat, when movement caught her eye.
Twenty meters away, standing in front of a vegetable stand, was... Bulma.
The other Bulma was wearing the exact same clothes.
She held a tomato in her hand, looking at it with a sneer of pure disgust.
"This produce is garbage! It smells worse than a pigsty!"
SPLAT.
She threw the tomato directly into the vendor's face.
"Hey!" The vendor bellowed.
The fake Bulma let out a cruel laugh, turned around, and sprinted away, disappearing behind a wagon.
The real Bulma stood frozen.
He... he's framing us. He's using his shapeshifting to turn the whole town into a mob.
She looked around.
The mood in the square had shifted.
The murmur of the crowd had turned into an angry growl.
Dozens of pigs were turning toward them, rolling up their sleeves and picking up improvised weapons.
"Goku, we need to leave. Right now."
She turned to run, but three burly pigs blocked their path, cracking their knuckles.
"You're not going anywhere, troublemakers."
Bulma and Goku stepped back, but their heels hit a solid wall of bodies. They spun around. More villagers had poured out of the side streets, cutting off every escape route.
They were completely surrounded.
"You think it's funny? Coming into our town, wrecking our shops, mocking our hard work?"
"No! You don't understand!" Bulma shouted, her hands raised in a placating gesture.
"We didn't do any of that! It's a trick! There is a shapeshifter among you! He's disguising himself as us to frame us!"
The crowd went silent for a split second, then erupted in even louder outrage.
"A shapeshifter? Oh, that's rich. Blame the locals. Blame the freaks."
"Typical pure-blood humans," another sneered, his eyes narrowing with deep-seated resentment.
"You think you're better than us. You come here, trash the place, and then try to pin it on one of us? You think we all look the same to you?"
The mood shifted from angry to violent.
The air grew heavy with the threat of mob justice.
"Break their legs!" Someone shouted from the back.
"No, snap their hands! Make sure they never throw another tomato!"
Bulma's eyes widened as the circle tightened.
She saw rusty pipes, kitchen knives, and heavy wooden planks being raised.
She grabbed Goku's shoulder.
"Goku! Do something! Handle them! Knock them out!"
But Goku didn't drop into his fighting stance.
He looked around at the furious faces, the baker, the mother, the construction worker. He saw the anger, but he didn't see malice. He didn't see bad guys.
"I... I can't, Bulma." Goku said, his voice was quiet and troubled.
"What do you mean you can't?! They're going to kill us!"
"They aren't bad people, they're just mad because they think we did bad things. But we didn't. They're mistaken."
He looked at Bulma, his eyes pleading.
"Grandpa told me never to hurt innocent people. If I fight them... I'll be the bad guy."
The circle of angry villagers tightened, the shadows of raised clubs falling over them.
Goku looked left, then right. There was no way out on the ground without hurting someone.
He looked up. The sky was clear.
I got it.
He reached behind his back and unslung the Nyoibo staff. He planted one end firmly on the cobblestones between his feet.
"Bulma, hold your breath!"
"What are you—"
"Nyoibo, Extend!"
The red staff shot upward, stretching at an incredible speed. In one swift motion, Goku lunged and snagged the back of Bulma's shirt, his fingers hooking into the collar between her shoulders.
"Eeek!"
Bulma was yanked off the ground.
They soared past the second-story windows and landed with a clatter on the tiled roof of the bakery.
Goku retracted the Nyoibo staff and strapped it back on instantly.
"Run!" He shouted, pointing across the jagged skyline of Oinktown.
"You could have given me a warning!" Bulma yelled, stumbling on the slippery tiles but scrambling to follow him.
Below them, the mob looked up, pointing at the fugitives.
"They're on the roof!"
"Don't let them get away!"
"Smoke them out!"
A dozen pigs reached into their pockets and pulled out bundles of red firecrackers. They lit the fuses and hurled them upward.
BANG! POP! CRACK!
The night air was filled with sparks and smoke.
"Waaaaah!" Bulma covered her head as a firecracker exploded right next to her boot.
"They're throwing explosives! Are they insane?!"
"Keep moving!"
Bulma yelled, shielding her face as another firecracker exploded overhead, showering them in red sparks.
"We need to pull back! We're sitting ducks up here!"
"But we can't leave!" Goku argued, skipping over a gap between two roofs.
"That pig guy still has the Dragon Ball!"
"We can't find anything while half the village is using us for target practice!" Bulma snapped. She spotted a sturdy metal rain gutter running down the side of a two-story house.
"Down there! Go!"
Goku didn't hesitate. He grabbed the gutter and slid down.
Bulma followed, wrapping her legs around the pipe and sliding down.
They hit the alley floor, but they weren't alone.
"There they are!"
Three pigs, wielding shovels and forks, rounded the corner.
They blocked the exit.
"Nowhere left to run, humans."
Bulma's hand flew to her belt pouch. She grabbed a capsule, number 14, and pressed it.
POOF.
A cloud of smoke cleared to reveal a bulky rifle with a wide barrel.
"Bulma, wait!" Goku shouted, stepping in front of her.
"Don't hurt them! They don't know any better!"
"Relax, I'm not going to kill them."
Bulma aimed over Goku's shoulder.
"I'm just going to make things slimier."
She pulled the trigger.
A massive glob of pink sludge shot out of the barrel. It hit the three pigs with the force of a water cannon, exploding on impact.
"What the—?!"
The sludge expanded instantly, hardening into a thick, rubbery foam.
The pigs were glued together, their arms pinned to their sides, their legs stuck to the pavement.
"Mmph! Mmmph!" They to shout, but the pink goo had sealed his mouth shut.
They wiggled uselessly, looking like flies caught in bubblegum.
"Quick dry polymer adhesive. They'll be stuck there for an hour. Come on!"
"Whoa. That's cool."
They sprinted down the dark alley, disappearing into the shadows.