Chapter 7: Double Time
Trunks looked at the three men standing before him. Vegeta, Raditz, and Son Goku, the last pure-blooded saiyans in the universe. The two brothers were dressed as they had been the day before, though Raditz had also added a paired of what looked like armoured gauntlets; Vegeta wore what Trunks recognised from his Gohan's stories as saiyan armor. Trunks himself was decked in his usual clothes.
The three had taken him to a deserted rocky area well away from civilization after breakfast (which had been an interesting affair in itself (walking into the kitchen to find Yamcha trying to cook and fend off the kitchen robots at the same time was a memory that was going to stay with him)). Now was looking him over with eager curiosity. "So, who gets to fight him first?"
"Fight me?" Trunks asked, surprised. He'd thought they were going to teach him to use the Oozaru form…
Raditz smirked at him. "Of course we're gonna fight you, brat – how else are we supposed to find out how good you are? And Vegeta gets to go first."
"Aw, how come?" Goku looked sulky.
Raditz's tone was firm, "Because he's the prince and because he's the brat's father."
"Aw…" Goku drooped but stepped back again.
Vegeta, for his part, glowered. "How come he listens to you?"
Raditz shrugged with one arm, letting his chin rest on the knuckles of his other hand with a vague smirk, "It's a gift. So, you gonna fight the brat or not?"
The saiyan prince rolled his eyes but stepped forward to stand in front of Trunks, arms folded. "For the sake of this fight, I'll ignore your tail, since you can't control it and I want to see your full potential. Be warned, though – if I think you're holding back on me even a fraction I'll squeeze it right off!"
Trunks swallowed and glanced at the other two saiyans. Goku gave him a cheerful thumbs up. "He is completely serious!"
"Don't worry about it, though," Raditz added, "If he tears that one off, we'll grow you a new one! I'm on my… I think it's my seventeenth, personally."
"That's not something to boast about!" Vegeta snapped before turning to glare at Trunks again. "Well? Power up already!"
Trunks jumped, then nodded, quietly glad he'd left his sword and jacket at home. His father was turning out to be… different than he'd pictured him. Taking a breath, Trunks reached for the golden ki inside himself and flared into super saiyan.
Vegeta stared at him for a moment, expressionless, then turned to Raditz and raised an eyebrow.
The long-haired saiyan huffed and rolled his eyes, "Yeah, yeah, we see him. Dagore's teeth, Vegeta, he told us he'd ascended yesterday! Just fight him already!" he flapped a hand in an annoyed 'go on' gesture.
Vegeta smirked and turned back to Trunks, flaring super saiyan as well. "All right, boy. Let's see what you can do."
And, with no further warning, he attacked.
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Yamcha looked between the three people standing before him. Tien Shinhan. Krillin. Lunch. Legends that he'd never heard, masters who had risen during his eye-blink journey across a decade of time, people who seemed closer to gods than mortals from his perspective. And they were going to teach him the secrets of their power.
He was honestly a little torn between jumping for joy or throwing up from sheer nerves at the prospect.
"How much formal training have you had?" Shinhan asked, watching him with an appraising expression.
Yamcha swallowed and answered honestly. "Almost none, sir, a little kung fu when I was younger, but I'm mostly self-taught. Mir- Trunks has been teaching me about ki for about awhile now."
"What do you know so far?"
"He's taught me how to sense and gather it – I haven't managed anything more than that yet."
"Mm," the triclops glanced at Krillin, "You should probably be the one to spar with him."
"What? No! I'm closest to him in size," Lunch protested from where she stood. Only blonde her was here today, in a short-sleeved black gi with a white sash. She scowled at Shinhan, arms folded, "I should get to fight him first! It'll be the best demonstration of what he can do!"
"Normally, I'd agree with you," Krillin said from where he stood beside her, "However there's a few important things in this instance that work against you."
"Which are?" Lunch turned to him with narrowed eyes, revealing as she did so the character for 'turtle' emblazoned in white on her back.
Krillin gulped but stood his ground, "One, Blonde is a little bit more excitable than Blackie, and you're more likely to get too into it and beat him up. Two, you're only half here today, so Blackie can't come out instead. And three," he gestured at Yamcha, "He's been backing up and turning red since we mentioned the prospect of you fighting him."
Yamcha froze in mid-step and blushed darker in embarrassment as attention shifted back to him. Lunch sighed.
"Right, the girl phobia thing. We'll need to work on that," she grumbled, backing up, "Argh, Blackie'll probably need to do that, too."
Shinhan put a hand on her shoulder, offering a small smile when she looked at him, "Don't worry, you'll get your chance," he looked at Yamcha with his third eye while the other two stayed on Lunch (which was… kinda really creepy), "He'll meet a female opponent eventually, one he can't get out of fighting, and you're the you better suited for that. And it would be remiss of us not to address this problem if we're going to whip him into a decent warrior."
Yamcha bristled at this slightly – he was a great warrior! Sure they were stronger than him, but it had been a couple years since his last defeat, and that counted for something, surely!
Krillin must have noticed his annoyance, because he walked over to him with a friendly smile, "Hey kid, cool down. Let's spar and find out what you've got before we start fighting, okay?"
There was a moment of silence.
"Uh, Krillin?" Shinhan asked, "When you say 'spar before fight,' you do realize-"
"You know what I meant!" Krillin snapped, embarrassed himself now. He backed up again and settled into a stance. "Come on, I'm ready – attack me whenever!"
Yamcha nodded, crouched into a stance of his own, and sprang.
He couldn't even land a hit on the guy. Every punch, every kick, every feint was either blocked, evaded, or seen through, and Yamcha got the strong impression that the only reason he wasn't taking more damage was that Krillin was pulling his punches and drawing the fight out to get a proper grasp of Yamcha's abilities.
It was, needless to say, a somewhat humbling experience.
It was also inspiring. Trunks had openly admitted that part of the reason for his vast strength was his alien heritage. But these people, they were fully human, and the amount of ki they were displaying… it was staggering, moreso because it had the same feeling to it Trunks' did when he was supressing his power, like a banked fire, waiting to burst into flame at a moment's notice. And if they had gone this far, why shouldn't he?
A good fifteen minutes into the spar, Yamcha got definitive proof that Krillin had been holding back and working not to hurt him, because Yamcha himself got distracted. He'd been trying to get in close again, get the shorter man in a grapple, when a familiar ki presence brushed the edges of his awareness. Mirai. His attention only flickered for a few seconds, but that was enough time for the punch Krillin had intended to be a feint to actually connect. Yamcha went flying, managed to correct slightly in midair, landed on his palms, did a handspring to his feet, then staggered and sat down hard, one arm around his ribs. He rubbed them with a wince, "That's gonna leave a mark…"
"Shit, are you okay?!"
Yamcha looked up as Krillin hurried over, expression concerned. "I think so."
"That's good," the short man looked relieved as he helped Yamcha to his feet, "What happened? That should have been an easy dodge for you!"
"Er…" Yamcha scratched his neck, embarrassed, even as he glanced around, "I felt Mirai- Trunks' ki, and it surprised me. I thought he was off training with the saiyans, but I can still feel him nearby – and someone else as well, I think?"
Krillin blinked as Shinhan walked up, then exchanged a glance with the triclops. "Yamcha, Trunks isn't here. He's over fifty miles away, with Goku and the others."
"What?! No, that can't be right," Yamcha shook his head, "My range isn't anywhere near that good yet-!"
"He's gone super saiyan, along with Vegeta," Shinhan cut him off, "It's not that they're that close, it's that their ki is that great."
Yamcha gaped at them, then turned in the direction he could feel Trunks' energy coming from. It felt like he was only a few yards away… The bandit swallowed. Trunks had told him that saiyans and demi-saiyans outpaced humans, but Yamcha had been entertaining quiet thoughts of one day catching up to his- his boyfriend (shit, he had a boyfriend (he hadn't really thought of it in that term before…)), but catching this… it would be like trying to snatch the stars from the sky with his hands…
Abruptly, he turned back to the three masters with him. "Show me!"
"Show you?" Lunch sauntered up to stand by Shinhan, "Show you what?"
"Your power!" Yamcha demanded, eyes blazing, "You've all got it supressed, I can tell! Unleash it! Please – show me the potential of humanity."
The three exchanged a look, almost a silent conversation, then Krillin nodded, saying "Stay there," to Yamcha as they backed up, "It's safer if you're not too close for this."
Once they reached about twenty feet back, Shinhan held up a hand. And, almost as one, they released their self-imposed limits with mighty kiais.
Even standing back as he was, Yamcha was still driven to his knees by the sheer force of their ki as it blazed around them, his eyes watering at the brightness. Slowly though, he forced himself back to his feet, muscles straining but still standing. So this was human power, was it?
He could feel a wild sort of joy growing inside him again, much as it had when Trunks first offered to teach him about ki. Maybe he'd never reach the stars – but it looked like the moon was still well within his grasp! Straightening, he bowed, feeling them reseal their ki as he did so. "Thank-you."
"You're welcome," Master Shinhan gave him a slight smile, "Are you ready to learn?"
"Yes sir!"
"Good," the tall man adjusted the placement of his feet and brought his hands up, smile gaining a sharp edge, "My turn."
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Supper that night was a… subdued affair for the two time travellers, both exhausted from their rigorous training and testing that day. Afterwards they staggered to their room together, where they collapsed on the bed side by side.
After a moment Yamcha groaned and rolled on his back. "So, how was your day?"
"I fought my dad," Trunks said, still face down, voice muffled by the blankets, "Then I fought Goku. Then I fought my dad again. Then I couldn't hold super saiyan anymore."
"So they stopped?" Pu'ar squeaked as she came to sit between them on the covers.
Trunks shook his head, still not rolled over. "The Raditz ran circles around me for awhile using Kaio-ken."
"Kaio-what?"
"Exactly."
Yamcha let out a tired whistle. "Sounds brutal."
"I feel stronger already…"
Yamcha raised an eyebrow but didn't comment, "How about you, Pu'ar?"
"I was a bird for most of the day," the little shape-shifter announced cheerfully, "Ms. Bulma had me modeling for her- or was modeling off of me? She wanted a better look at how wings and feathers moved together, and it's hard to do that with most birds, since they won't pose however you ask them to and stuff. It was fun! 16 is nice." She scooted closer and patted his arm with one paw, "What about you, are you okay, Lord Yamcha?"
"What she said," Trunks added.
Yamcha snorted, then groaned as he sat up, "I'll tell you in the morning, okay? I'm gonna fall asleep in my boots if I talk much longer."
They did not bother with separate beds that night; they barely bothered changing into nightshirts, and the next morning Trunks woke up back to back with Yamcha, and with Pu'ar's tail draped across his nose.
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"All right, today we start your actual training."
Yamcha nodded, standing straight. They were in the same stretch of wasteland they'd used the day before, the only difference being that Yamcha had pulled his hair back and Master Lunch didn't seem to be there (apparently she was going to be joining them later).
"Trunks is a demi-saiyan," Master Shinhan continued, "He'll gain strength faster than you using normal techniques and be prepared to return to his proper time sooner as a result, so you'll have to train twice as hard in order to get as much out of this as possible."
"Okay," Yamcha nodded, a little confused as to exactly what was going on, but assuming that his teachers knew what they were doing, "How do I do that?"
"Same way we beat Raditz," a voice purred in his ear. Yamcha barely had time to panic over the fact that Master Lunch was right behind him when a pair of arms snaked around his chest. "Lunch-time Special, One Becomes Two, Double Order!"
There was a moment where he felt like he was being pulled in two directions at once, then a sense of extreme disorientation as he staggered sideways. "What- what was-?" he looked up to see black-haired Lunch in a white gi with her arms around the chest of… himself. "HOLY SHIT!"
"Lunch, we agreed we were going to explain this to him first," Krillin groaned as Yamcha realized he was still being held by blonde Lunch and staggered away from her with a yelp even as his double did the same with black-haired Lunch.
"What's happened to me- to us?!"
"It's my special One Becomes Two technique!" black-haired Lunch beamed, "I originally developed it so I could meet myself and train more efficiently; when you divide in two like this it initially halves all your abilities, so it's a liability in a fight if you aren't used to it. But if you train like this, you get twice as strong twice as fast!"
"And you can't study different things at the same time," blonde Lunch added, circling the Yamchas to join herself, "I specialize in attack, she specializes in defense, and, together, we're Sword and Shield Lunch!"
Yamcha blinked and looked at himself, only to find he was already receiving the same look in return. "Does this mean I'm going to have split personalities now?"
"No, Lunch has always been a two-for-one special," Master Shinhan said, giving her a brief smile, "For the rest of us you just get twice as many memories as you'd otherwise have when you go back."
"You get used to it," Krillin added.
"How do we go back?" the other Yamcha asked, making his counterpart jump.
"Whoa, is that really what I sound like?"
His double shrugged. "I guess so? We still sound good, so why worry?"
"Good point."
"It's not hard," black-haired Lunch said, and both Yamchas started guiltily, "We'll show you how after today's training, but it's tricky to figure out on your own. Especially if you're disoriented from having it done to you unexpectedly, and especially especially if you're in the middle of a fight!"
"You should have seen Raditz the first time we did it to him," her blonder counterpart snickered, "Big brute couldn't sense ki at the time, either, which made it extra confusing when he tried to team up with himself. But at half power, against me, Goku, and Piccolo?" she buffed her nails on her gi then examined them smugly examined them. "It wasn't too hard to subdue him after that. Didn't even need to wish anyone back to life, and we got Gohan home in time for supper."
"And he's been curious about 'Mr. Piccolo' ever since!" black-haired Lunch chirped happily.
"Anyway, next on today's training schedule!" Krillin interrupted, walking over to the two Yamchas, "You're going to spar with yourself!"
"What?!" both bandits asked in unison.
"Yup – best way to find out the weaknesses in your own style! Then, once you've got an idea of your weaknesses, the real training begins."
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"So, I know what the back of my own head looks like now." This time Yamcha was the one face down on the bed, and Trunks lay on his side, passively watching him.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," Yamcha turned his head to grin at him, "I really do look good from every angle."
Trunks huffed a laugh, "Vain."
"What, are you disagreeing?"
Trunks laughed again, "No."
Yamcha smiled as Pu'ar made an approving noise from higher on the bed, "Good. You do, too, by the way."
"Do what?" Trunks asked, puzzled.
"Look good from every angle. Er, that is," Yamcha turned pink, "Every angle I've seen so far. But I'm sure they're all good!"
Trunks turned pink as well, but he smiled back and decided it was worth the effort to reach out and brush Yamcha's hair out of his face a bit. "You're cute when you're flustered."
Yamcha's pink upgraded to red. "I am not cute! Handsome, yes, extremely, but I don't do cute!"
"If you say so," he let his fingers card through Yamcha's hair; it was smooth. "So, how did you see the back of your own head?"
"Master Lunch has this technique," Yamcha explained, finally rolling onto his side as well, keeping his eyes on Trunks, "It's what lets her split her two personalities into two people. And, it turns out? If she's grappling someone else when she does it, or they're grappling her, they get split as well. She found out by mistake, the first time she fought Master Shinhan at the 22nd Budokai," he yawned and squirmed closer, "So they're gonna have me train in two bodies at once, so they can teach me as much as possible. How 'bout you? Learn the Oozaru thing yet?"
"Tomorrow," Trunks replied, "Mom's synthesizing me some clothes that'll stretch with the form so I don't wind up naked when I change back. Raditz's clothes are made of the same stuff, so the material already exists, it's just a matter of making a set for me."
Yamcha was quiet for a moment. "So… you're going to be dressing like Raditz?"
"What? No!" Trunks glared at him, "It's going to be pants and a tank top!"
"Geez, defensive much? You'd look good in a kilt."
"Sorry," Trunks looked away, "It's just… they showed me how to make a false moon today, and Raditz transformed. The kilt stretches, but it's more, um, more of a sash by the time he's done. And you've seen what he wears under it."
"Yeah," Yamcha turned red, "That man is not shy. Handsome, though."
Trunks glared at him, opened his mouth, then closed it and turned away with an annoyed huff. "I… really want to argue with you about that."
"Ah, come on, the guy's made of sex, don't deny it," Yamcha poked him in the side with a teasing grin.
Trunks couldn't help himself, he snorted and finally got up to get ready for bed. "You know you're pretty comfortable with all this for a guy who only figured out he's attracted to other guys a few days ago."
"It's not like I only started looking a few days ago, I just didn't quite get why I wanted to look. And why shouldn't I be comfortable with it? It all makes a lot more sense now," Yamcha sat up as well, groaning as he did so, then sitting on the edge of the bed and glancing at Pu'ar, who was taking her friends' exhaustion as an opportunity to hoard all the pillows. "Hey, Pu'ar, is what he's taking about a thing?"
"I dunno," she squeaked back from the head of the bed, "I'm a shape-shifter, gender's really just another option for us."
"Aw, come on, Pu'ar, you're supposed to know this stuff! I handle the fighting, the cooking, the mechanics, and the supply stuff, you do sentry duty, support, and data!"
"But human sexuality stuff is weird and boring and too complicated!"
"…okay, you're getting off on the complexity argument, from what Mirai's saying it sounds like you're right. I declare the subject of human sexuality closed on the basis of 'can't be bothered' until such a time as it becomes actively relevant."
"Thank-you, Lord Yamcha!"
Trunks stared between them, then shook his head. "You're so weird."
"Good weird?" Yamcha began to unlace his boots and Trunks came over and kissed his cheek as he did so.
"The best weird."
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This chapter's a little short, but there's a lot in it and this is the best break point for the moment.
In regards to the training techniques and how effective they would actually be: it's freaking DBZ. Also… Toriyama dropped the ball when he didn't make Lunch one of the martial artists. Seriously, she could have had the BEST techniques… Also, just to reiterate, Black-haired Lunch has a white gi with 'turtle' on the back in black and a black sash, blonde Lunch's gi is inverted. When they are one person, the gi is dark and light grey, regardless of which Lunch is in control. Because of reasons.
Raditz does a lot of talking in this. Mostly because Vegeta and Goku are both far too content to let him handle all the wordy bits while they handle all the fighty bits.
In Dragon Ball Goku goes through three tails in about the same number of years. I find Raditz being on his seventeenth tail in his early/mid-thirties (which is the age I picture him at this point in the timeline) to be totally plausible, possibly even impressive, regardless of Vegeta's opinions.
It's a lot of fun to write Yamcha in this fic, he's so different than he is in pretty much everything else I write him in. He finds out so many things about humans and saiyans very early on, and as a result his personal goals are, curiously, higher (because the potential of humanity is even greater than anyone ever thought when he was sixteen in canon) and more realistic (because he's never trying to out-saiyan a saiyan). And all this means that he never really loses confidence in himself or his abilities like original Yamcha does. He's got a swagger and a tempered cockiness that I love working with. He struts where canon ambles. This is not to dis canon – after all, I fell in love with canon him first. But it's also nice seeing him so confident.
Also, it's super-weird calling Tien, Krillin, and Lunch 'master.' I mean, in this context, they are, they're all martial arts masters and that's one of the proper terms of respect, but it's still weird.
Team Four Star is the best, they are the only reference I will allow myself to make in DBZ fics, and I will quote them wherever literarily possible.
