The Meadow, Big Gete Star
It had taken much longer to teach Tien the time freezing technique. Apparently it was a special trait of Guldo's species, who on the whole used it to make more time in the day to eat food. Guldo was actually one of the more ambitious members of his fairly sedentary species, although he got offended when Bulma compared his family to sloths. Regarding Tien, he had limited success with his technique when he tapped into his third eye - he and Guldo had determined that there must've been some sort of connections based on their both having extra eyes. Bulma thought that was a load of baloney.
"Okay, I give up." Guldo said as he purposely fell down on his butt. Tien raised an eyebrow, opening his eyes and his mouth. He had spent the last several minutes holding his breath. This had been just what Bulma thought - with Tien's experience as a monk and spending long periods of meditating, he could hold his breath for a long time. Of course, even Bulma could hold her breath longer than Guldo, but Tien could hold his breath for an amount of time that some would consider inhuman.
"We have to figure out how long I can hold my breath so that we can plan our escape accordingly." Tien said simply. Bulma hopped up from her spot in the meadow, where Goku was leaning against a tree for support.
"Well, it will probably differ based on how much you exert yourself. You're going to have to carry us all through that hole." Bulma explained. Tien smirked.
"It won't affect me." Tien replied. Guldo laughed.
"It won't matter if you can't master my technique. That door is open for one second and not a moment longer. You need to stop time - " Guldo began to explain.
"And so far I've only been slowing it down." Tien cut him off, frowning. He didn't like to admit that he had a hard time learning a new technique. Goku opened his eyes slightly, smiling at the sun in the distance.
"Maybe you could try sparring while using the technique?" Goku offered, voice hoarse. Even multiple days later, he was still on the mend. To be fair, such an onslaught would've put a normal person in the hospital for months, so all things considered he was recovering pretty well. Tien and Guldo looked at each other and shrugged.
"I would have to go easy on him, but yeah we could try it." Guldo said, sucking in a big breath in preparation. Tien didn't gather much breath at all. The grass stopped swaying, the sun became still, and Goku and Bulma looked like statues. This held for a moment or two, and then everything began moving again - only very, very slowly. Guldo bounded the small distance between himself and Tien, hitting Tien half-heartedly on the shoulder. Tien's eyes went wide with intense pain and his arm would've broken if he didn't roll away from it. Still, he continued to hold his breath and bounded away as Guldo waddled towards him.
Not wanting to be bothered with chasing Tien, Guldo began charging up a very small energy blast. Even with the little effort put into it, the blast felt like a small star as it sailed over Tien's shoulder - he barely dodged it. He rolled away from the mass destruction caused by the blast and finally opened his mouth to breath. To Goku and Bulma, it appeared as if Guldo and Tien moved faster than the eye could see and blew up half the meadow within a second. Luckily, nanites poured from the walls and quickly reconstructed the meadow.
"Wait a minute." Goku thought aloud, a little more awake now, "Why don't you use the Multi-Form technique with this one?" Tien paused, pulling himself up off the ground and wiping off his tacky green pants.
"The strength and speed cut wouldn't really matter as long as my lung capacity isn't reduced. Even if it was divided by four it might still be enough." Tien offered. Bulma nodded, smiling.
"Then it wouldn't matter that you only slowed down time - three Tiens would be more than enough to carry us through the air pocket!" Bulma explained with a smile; while the Meadow was a nice place, ultimately it was a prison. Unfortunately Gete could never see that.
"What about once we get past the film?" Guldo asked the important question for the first time. They hadn't yet considered what would happen if they succeeded.
"Well, I have a way of tracking our ship, so getting back there won't be an issue." Bulma offered, "Besides that, I'm not sure."
"We could always fight our way out." Goku offered listlessly. Tien and Bulma looked at each other, shaking their heads.
"Yeah... that's not happening buddy." Tien told him. Goku seemed to nod in agreement, but quickly fell asleep.
"How strong are you, when you use this multi-form technique?" Guldo asked. Tien shrugged.
"I could probably still carry everyone. Maybe in twos." Tien said. Guldo nodded.
"Okay. How about this - each of your copies takes turns holding their breath and moving us up the hallway. These robots are strong - I think if we take even a second to catch our breath they could seriously do some damage." Guldo said. Bulma snapped her fingers, pointing at Guldo.
"That's genius! Let's do it."
----
Soon the group arrived at the part of the meadow with the air pocket - they quickly began sweating as Bulma counted about 10 Gete-robots. Just 1 had been able to wreck Goku and Tien a new one, and a group of three had bested Guldo. Still, it wasn't like they had to fight them! The plan was idiot-proof, or at least that's what Bulma thought. She nodded to Tien, giving him the signal to go.
"Multi-form!" He said and split into three. Each Tien grabbed a buddy - Guldo, Bulma, and Goku; and began charging at the robots. They all turned towards Tien, arms up in defensive mode. Already Tien heard the sucking sound that was the film about to open. One of the robots charging the group of Tiens really really fast. All three held their breath and the machine slowed to a near halt with a claw right in the middle Tien's face. He would've breathed a sigh of relief but, well you know...
Each Tien didn't waste their time or their breath, bounding around the group of robots while holding the unmoving statues that was their friends. Well, unmoving except for one.
"Hurry up hurry up!" Guldo said from his spot under Tien-1's right arm. Tien-1 held up a finger to shush the fat green alien. Things ended up being timed perfectly, as the film inched open as soon as the Tien's approached the door. They looked behind themselves nervously as the robots tried to converge on them, but the film opened just barely enough for them to crawl through the hole.
They quickly let go of their collective breath, but time remained stopped as Guldo held his breath. He hopped out of Tien-1's arm and waddled over to Tien-2, tapping Bulma and bringing her into his time realm. She looked around, a bit bewildered as she experienced randomly changing positions. She tapped a button on her wrist and Guldo opened his mouth for a moment. One second past, allowing the door behind them to close, the Tien's to catch their breath, and a sonar to ping the Capsule Corp ship and give a location to Bulma's watch. This time Tien-1 held his breath, bringing everything to a stop - and not a moment too soon as three robots barely turned the corner. He grabbed Bulma and sprinted down the hallway until he ran out of breath just behind the robots.
Once he ran out of breath, Tien-2 held his and carried Goku, then after him Tien-3 carried Guldo. They leapfrogged like this throughout the Gete star, following the location on Bulma's watch. Of course time wasn't completely stopped, and the last Tien in line was always practically climbing over a swarm of robots in order to continue. The whole time Gete was trying to tell them something, but it was so slow that they couldn't make it out. Eventually the group made it to their ship, having to wait a few moments for the ship door to open.
This is really what screwed them over as the robots got way too close and one jumped over them and into the ship. Still, it was something they would deal with. Just moments after being in the meadow, Bulma found herself transplanted right in the cockpit of the Capsule Corp ship as two Tien's forced the door closed during the gap between seconds. She clicked the blast off button, and found that the ship was overpowered as Guldo sat in the training room and powered up. She quickly became aware of the ship slowing down and began to worry that things hadn't worked. But she turned around to see Tien-1 holding her shoulder.
His mouth was closed, obviously, but he motioned to the hallway. Bulma followed him quietly, passing Goku's prone form on the ground as a senzu bean floated over his open mouth. Once she entered the hallway she saw the Gete-robot holding up Tien-2 and Tien-3, slowmotion slamming them into the ground.
"No one pulls that one my ship." Bulma replies with a stern look as she walks curtly around the Gete-robot and opens a hatch on it's back. She had wanted to do this earlier to help Tien and Goku, but the machines were too fast for her to pull this stunt. But now, that wasn't a problem. Able to watch the Gete-robot's circuit board move in slowmo, Bulma was able to see what made it run. She quickly deduced the right button to hit, calmly ripping a chord out of the robot's back.
Time resumed and the Gete-robot collapsed to the ground, deactivated. The ship shook slightly as it rocketed out of the Gete Star faster than Bulma had even thought possible. All three Tiens fell on the ground, breathing heavily and behind Bulma Goku exited the cockpit now completely fine and with a smile on his face.
"What did I miss, guys?"