Hail Satan

A Dragon Ball Fan Fic by MJTR

[[Author's Introduction: This one's sort of been a long time coming. It's one of those ideas that's been stuck in the back of my head for a year, maybe even two. Despite that, there's still some stuff I'm trying to figure out about it, I'm not exactly going into this one with as much planning as I sometimes give my work. But when it's Akira Toriyama's stuff I'm covering, that seems appropriate. I hope you enjoy nonetheless.

Timeline-wise I'm not really sure when this is supposed to take place and I'll admit outright there's a small contradiction with the canon timeline right here in the first chapter. I'm only changing things where it serves to fit the story and only after some careful consideration. If I had to take a stab at when this is set, I'd guess after the Champa arc of Super, but before the Future Trunks arc, but since this is meant to emulate the style of the old non-canon movies, that's just a basic guide.]]

"Why… you ignorant oafs! Now that's enough out of you! Quit yappin' and start helping, or would you dare ignore the request of the great Mr. Satan?!"

In the remains of a long-rusted ship that had crawled across the distant reaches of space, this transmission had played over and over again.

"Yeah, that's right! I wasn't going to say anything, but now my secret's out! I'm kind of in the middle of defeating Majin Buu right now, so the sooner you send your energy, the better!"

Across the side of the ship, long faded by time and travel, was its name: The Dufon. The crew of four aboard the beaten vehicle had discussed the meaning of the words time and again. The debates were long held by the two who had been the senior-most officers back when the ship still recognized ranks. On opposing sides of the table were a large, burly man with a Mohawk and a slight woman with a pixie cut.

"It's impossible," The man, Shedda said. "We're talking about Majin Buu here. You can't kill that wily glob, at best you can just seal him away."

"If Majin Buu was still alive, the rest of the universe would probably be toast by now." The woman, called Zerella, looked back and forth between Shedda and a dim, unlit corner of the ship. "And if there's someone out there who could really defeat Majin Buu, then we may have finally found exactly what we're looking for."

Between the two a woman, Issa, both taller and more muscular than even Shedda, who took all their words in with reserved silence. Her old uniform was more battered than the others and showed off the physique of her crimson skin. Shades of deep red showed in all members of the ancient Fro race.

Near the bay windows of the ship sat the last of the quartet, a squat, bald and nasally Fro called Acho. "He didn't come out of nowhere either." He looked over the screen of text in front of him. "Seven years before, on that backwash planet of his? He apparently beat this crazy bug man who was said to be strong enough to destroy the whole planet. Hell, I heard Frieza was brought back to life, trained so hard his ki went golden and went to that planet. If he didn't destroy it, someone must have stopped him. This is Frieza we're talking about here!"

Shedda scoffed. "Someone that powerful, we'd have felt something, I'm telling you."

Issa breathed a heavy sigh and clenched her muscles. "We can't sense divine ki. It's probably like that."

Shedda glared first at Issa and then toward Zerella. "I don't want to be the one to tell the boss we went to the mudhole corner of the galaxy and woke him up all this time with nothing to show for it."

With a poof, Acho disappeared and an exact replica of Shedda sat in his place. He spoke with Acho's same nasally voice. "I don't want to be the one to tell the boss we wasted his time. I'd rather keep driving around the universe like an idiot because I'm paranoid! Wah wah wah!"

Shedda punched the table and snarled. "Turn into an ass, Acho, so I can kick you all over the place!"

Zerella laughed. "Oh calm down. This is why he left me in charge of this ship, little brother." She stuck her tongue out at him and looked again toward the darkest corner of the ship. There, upon a platform, sat a small, onyx pot run through many times over with a set of skewers upon its top. Though it was an object of reverence for the crew aboard Dufon did not dare approach it without good reason. Something had remained in the pot longer than any of them could even remember anymore. The thing contained within was restless and moved at all hours of the day. All it wanted was to be free of its confinement. It was the duty of the Dufon to find it a new, more suitable place to go.

The rest of the crew nearly threw Acho out of the airlock when they learned he'd spent much of their repair money on a transistor radio that could pick up telepathic signals. But when they first picked up on word of some warrior battling Majin Buu, they could stop listening. The signal had come from far, far away, the journey toward Earth began nearly two years before. Shedda argued with Commander Zerella the entire trip, but she would not be dissuaded. Earth bore the warrior they had searched for for so long.

In the midst of preparation for the 27th Tenkaichi Budokai, the citizens of Papaya Island did not give particular heed to smash of a beaten spacecraft when it made contact with the ocean a few miles offshore. How could there be time to pay attention to that when the greatest battle in all the world was about to take place?

Acho was given the duty of recon and eventually the task of slipping his companions in unnoticed. Despite his prowess in shape-shifting, the small Fro was never much of a fighter. So when the best he could do to slip the rest of his crew into the arena past ticket-counters was stow them away in the back of a delivery van while he wore the face of its driver, they knew better than to complain. Shedda did a little anyway.

When the tournament began a week later, no one gave particular mind to what looked to be a crimson-skinned family of four. At most, with their bad haircuts, were assumed to be fans of "Ramon," a greasy-looking punk in leather who was eliminated in the second round. And no one even gave much mind to the small black pot that Zerella clutched close to herself at all times. Surrounded by hundreds of screaming fans, they just beheld as, every few fights, they beheld Earth's greatest savior as he made quick work of his first opponent: a weighty sumo perhaps twice his weight.

Zerella held herself to try to contain her excitement. "Did any of you feel that?"

Shedda was less impressed. "No."

"I didn't either! It's insane, absolutely insane!"
As the first round came to an end, however, the four beheld a sight that filled them with both dread and awe.

"And up next—" the blonde-haired, eye-shaded announcer called, "We all know him, we all love 'im, he's four-hundred pounds of fun, it's Mr. Satan's very own apprentice, Majin Buu!"

Zerella's heart began to race, an uneasy but satisfied smile cross Shedda. Acho sputtered in disbelief, "But it can't be! He's—he's primordial chaos! He can't have tamed him, there's no way!"

Even Issa glared down and her normal, stoic expression seemed somehow graver than usual.

Against the demon they had heard so much about stood a muscular warrior in a white gi and red headband. The warrior shouted as he ran, but the demon didn't even seem to pay attention as the fight began. The warrior sank a punch that could crack concrete into Majin Buu's face, which seemed to retract back into his head upon first contact. With a flurry of high pitched shrieks the warrior sank strikes into Buu's massive, gelatinous body. If the jinn had pressure points at all, he probably wouldn't even be able to stand by the time he responded to the punishment laid upon him.

Majin Buu took ahold of the warrior's face mid-strike and held him still for a moment. The pink demon's face popped back out from his head as he met his opponent with a disapproving glare and pulled back his fist.

"Shouty shouty! You annoy Buu!"

With one punch the demon threw his opponent across the ring and directly into the grass outside the ring. The match was called in seconds, all four of the Fro sat in fear and anticipation as the tournament went on. Mr. Satan battled with a ferocious lion-man, a well-toned giant who wore an eyepatch, and a mighty luchador with near-unmatched grappling skills. Mr. Satan fought and defeated them all, but the Fro could not sense the enormous power reserves he was surely tapping into. But even as impressive as Mr. Satan was, Majin Buu dispatched all of his opponents even faster and with far less care or interest.

"Something's rotten here," Shedda said. "I can just sense it."

Zerella laughed. "It's only the pot. It's always the pot."

"Bull," Shedda said. "Satan might be good, but there's no way he's actually going to defeat Majin Buu."

A drunken patron a row up from the Fro shouted, "You're new around her, ain't you?"

Shedda crossed his arms and sighed. "Yes, I suppose I am."

"Buu's a monster, buddy, but there's no way he can beat the champ. He never has before!"

Zerella smiled and elbowed her brother. "See? Don't underestimate the champ."

As the day was coming to an end and the sun just began to set, Mr. Satan stood in the center of the ring against his student.

Before the battle could begin, Buu shouted, "Mr. Satan! Buu's tired."

The champion laughed as he took his stance. "Yeah, well, I'm tired too Buu. Let's get this over with now!"

Majin Buu frowned. "No. Buu wanna go to bed now."

The cheering crowd slowly began to quiet as Majin Buu turned toward the edge of the arena, as if he intended to walk off.

Zerella frowned again. "What? He's just walking off?"

Chedda scoffed. "Yes, this is the man who defeated Majin Buu. A man he won't even give his attention."

As Buu approached the edge of the ring, Mr. Satan shouted, "Hey, you big, fat, loser! You're going to walk off and go to bed? It doesn't hurt me any, I just thought you'd be better than that!"

Majin Buu stared at the edge of the arena and slowly turned back toward Mr. Satan.

"I know you're probably afraid of me showing you up again, Buu, but these people paid for a show! Don't go letting them all down!"

After a long pause and a deep sigh, the pink blob turned back to face his mentor. Mr. Satan raised his hand and gestured at him to give it all he had. The audience sat in painstaking anticipation.

Majin Buu rushed at Mr. Satan and threw a punch with one of his fat, balled fists. The champion blocked first one strike and then another. Buu was fast with his hands and short, chubby feet but Mr. Satan saw all of his strikes coming and blocked every one. The feat was so impressive it could be reasonably mistaken for a well-rehearsed performance.

In the center of the ring, in a tone hushed enough the audience could not hear, Buu asked, "Done yet?"

"Aw come on, Buu!" Mr. Satan spoke loud enough to be heard at first but quickly hushed himself. "We've got three more routines to go over! We can't just—"

Buu opened his eyes, just a little, and glared down at Mr. Satan. Despite their friendship, even the champ still found that look unsettling at times. As Mr. Satan blocked another of Buu's punches, he resigned himself, dropped down low and delivered the demon a huge uppercut. The force was only enough to force Buu's head back a little ways, and for a few seconds, the two were totally still.

After a short pause, Buu asked, "Now?"

"Wha—Yes!" Mr. Satan again quieted himself. "Yes, yes now!"

Majin Buu suddenly flew up into the air and landed, dead still on the ground a moment later. As the tournament announcer began his knockout count, the Fro all stared, dumbfounded.

"Was—was that time manipulation?!" Zerella could have screamed. "It's perfect! Acho, get into position!"

The small fro shook with terror. "They're both still in the ring… they'll kill me! I'm a shifter, not a fighter, damn it!"

"Calm down," the embittered Shedda said. "If you can't do this, we'll never even have a shot. If he's not distracted, he'll surely know the master will be there trying to enter his body. We need the distraction."

"But—"

Issa set a hand on Acho's shoulder and looked down at him. "Stick to the plan. I will be there to help you if you fail."

Acho swallowed hard as he rose from his seat. "I'm not worried about what you're going to do."

A whole team of tournament employees was necessary to drag the unconscious Majin Buu out of the arena. With the hand free of his microphone, the announcer raised Mr, Satan's winning fist toward the sky.

"You saw it here first folks!" The crowd cheered with him as he made his proclamation. "Yet again, here he is! The champion of the people, the world's strongest man, the greatest under the heavens! Give it up for our winner, Mr. Satan!"

As the crowd erupted into cheers of, "Satan! Satan! Satan!" a lone figure made his way through the mostly empty back voms of the arena.

With the sun set and the light turned out, only one employee caught him as he skulked around to toward the wall directly opposite the arena's entryway.

"Hey you!" He called out to the figure in the shadows. "You're not allowed to be back here!" As the figure raised one hand, a light began to shimmer from the center of his palm. Confused but still determined, the employee called out, "Hey! Are you listening to me—"

An explosion threw chunks of brick to and fro. Members of the audience screamed and Mr. Satan double-took before he turned around. He didn't remember arranging for anything else that day, he was ready to pack up and head home.

"Well well well, that was an impressive little display right there, Mr. Satan." The voice wasn't deep, but there was certainly a resonance to it. There was something in the inherent bravado nearly everyone in the audience recognized, even if they didn't want to admit it.

The dust settled on a silhouette within the inner hallway of the vom. Within was a tall, winged figure with a pair of rectangular protrusions in his head like a demon's horns. Beyond the shock of anyone who beheld the sight, Mr. Satan looked on, jaw dropped, in abject terror.

The words he dreaded saying most escaped him. "C-C-Cell?!"

With a fist clenched and a flash of light, the insectoid monster's green skin vanished in a glow of gold.

"That's right," he said. "It's time for the rematch of the century!"