Chapter 14: The Return of Ultimate Gohan

Gohan's breathing slowed to a controlled rhythm as he finished his transformation, with the sheer magnitude of his power blowing out an enormous crater beneath and around him. The air stilled calmly and the shockwave of dust dissipated.

"T-That power!" Piccolo stammered, "It's unreal! I've never felt anything like it before! H-He's even stronger than a super saiyan four!"

Gohan's eyes slowly opened to reveal a focussed glare at his enemy, who was still stood in his fighting posture.

"Big deal." Octavius sneered, apparently not taking care to scan Gohan's new power level, "You've changed your clothes and healed your injuries; the result will still be the same."

"It's true," Gohan admitted, running a hand through his now slickened hair and brushing aside the single strand, "the external changes for this form aren't as noticeable as the super saiyan transformation. The eyes or the hair don't change colour, and in all honesty I don't look all that pumped up. But I'm still beyond your level right now."

Angrily, Octavius sent forth two of his arms, causing Gohan to drop into his fighting posture and warp into thin air. None kept up with his movements, but they didn't have to, in less than a second he reappeared, stomping down on an elasticised arm so hard that it buried its way into the ground and severed cleanly under his boot. With one down he quickly twisted his body to where he'd been just a moment ago to see the second arm retracting, and without hesitation launched one of Piccolo's special beam cannons right through it.

Octavius shrieked in pain like a wolf who'd stepped on a shard of glass. Two of his arms were now gone, one sword and one fist arm were out of action, reducing his attack power by a quarter.

"It's the same as last time!" Gohan stated loudly, "You underestimated my power at the start of our fight and you just did it again. That move was sloppy; your fault, not mine."

"But how!? How!?" Octavius wheezed as curiously green blood trickled away from two stumps to form a pair of thick puddles in the earth. Finally he'd noticed Gohan's change in power, "How did you acquire such strength!?"

"In the last fight your buddy mentioned that you located us from us visiting the Kai planet. Vegeta and his team didn't go there, only Goten and I did, only hours before our meeting, which kind of makes it our responsibility to take care of you guys showing up. While we were there the Elder Kai explained to me that last time, I lost my ultimate form from not training for almost twenty years, which I guess is understandable. It didn't take long for him to reawaken my power, and believe me I'm never letting this form slip away from me again. It's a shame; I was hoping to save this till later, but I guess there's no helping it now."

"But your fight against the Majin! We have records; that form barely surpassed a super saiyan 3 in strength – now you've gone past the fourth level!" protested Octavius, noting that the saiyan's logic made little sense.

"Well I've had time to train and master it now and I suppose it might've helped a little that the Elder Kai has gotten used to his own powers again, I guess he made me a little stronger this time around."

"Arghh!" snarled the Vicis, but Gohan merely waved his finger cautiously, warning the man not to get angry and try another rage-blinded attack.

Octavius hesitated for just a moment in wondering what to do, but a moment was all Gohan needed. In that time he'd bounded forwards and with four steps he'd landed a three hit combo on his enemy, first a jab to the face, then a high kick to ribs followed up by a final right hook to knock the man off balance. Gohan smiled, knowing that with his long arms Octavius would be at a disadvantage at such close range, though something told him that the Vicis would not let him stay close for long. Out of the corner of his eye he saw an axe bladed arm and a fist twitch to his flank, and so he leapt up and into the sky as the two arms made a move for him, trying to make the fighter hit himself with his own attack. It didn't work, as he'd expected; this man was no Freeza, and wouldn't fall for such a cheap trick.

Instead, Octavius launched up another fist-like tree trunk arm into the sky after Gohan, but only one arm; this was his chance. Dodging nimbly, Gohan spun away from the incoming attack and seized the massive arm with all his might, pulling up as he did so. Due to the excess weight of six thick arms, Octavius was colossally heavy, though it was nothing Gohan's new strength couldn't handle. He lifted the Vicis right off the ground and up over his head before swinging him around comically like he was an Olympic hammer thrower. Octavius tried to start attacks at the saiyan, but completely missed thanks to him being spun at high speeds. In fact it made the creature so dizzy that he didn't notice Gohan had let go of him until several seconds later, by which time he could do nothing to stop himself ploughing uncontrollably through a rock face into the caverns below.

"Alright! Go Gohan!" cheered on his little brother from the sidelines, with the Z-Fighters realising in astonishment that Gohan was winning.

"You knew about this transformation of Gohan's, didn't you Goten?" accused Piccolo suddenly, "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Ehh, because he asked me not to!" Goten protested, "To be honest I didn't know he'd become that powerful. But I'm sorry Piccolo; I suppose he just wanted it to be a surprise."

A rare smile came to the green lips of the namekian, showing his pearly white fangs that Goten presumed were natural, and then in thinking that he chuckled at the thought of Piccolo brushing his teeth in the morning. "It's alright," Piccolo finally said, "I'm proud of him. He's grown a lot since I trained him all those years ago. But we can't let it get to our heads, Gohan hasn't won yet!"

"Right!" The fighters averted their attention back to the brawl.

"Come on I know you're down there!" Gohan called from above down into the man-sized hole Octavius had smashed through to land in the caverns.

As if on cue a pair of bright orange ki beams poured from the cave simultaneously. Two at the same time; now that was something Gohan had never seen before. He supposed it was due to the funnel shaped arms that spouted energy that Octavius owned, though the result was still the same. He met the first with a blast of his own to detonate it midflight and zipped away from the second, and then something else strange happened. In a clearly Vegeta-inspired move the Vicis started to spew out thousands of small ki spheres from the cave to meet Gohan, which he toyed around with, ducking and weaving between most of them, batting away the ones he couldn't avoid. It was a trying ordeal, keeping him on his toes to never stop dodging from place to place, yet he knew it must've been tiring on Octavius too. Finally the flurry ceased and the tattered body of Octavius glided up majestically into the open once again, causing Gohan to smirk.

"I wouldn't think you've won just yet!" Octavius cried, making the saiyan realise too late the nature of his enemy's attack. Rather than spray misguided shots in all direction, Octavius had organised a guided scatter shot; the ki spheres that Gohan had avoided had stopped behind him, hovering around him in midair, ready for the Vicis to reclaim control of. He did so, clenching his remaining fist arm to guide the countless surrounding energy balls to Gohan's spot, swarming him with a whole manner of tiny explosions, laughing manically as he did so.

"Gohan!" cried the brother of the saiyan, as he began to become engulfed by the smoke of thousands of attacks. Without waiting for the aftermath Octavius flew up into the dust and extended all four of his remaining attack arms into the chaos, smiling with grim satisfaction as he felt one sear into flesh. A cry came from the smoky cloud before Gohan fell out of it towards the floor, bleeding profusely and making pained grunts in clear agony. With a lucky shot Octavius had slashed one of his axes right across Gohan's abdomen, not deep enough to require surgery, but at least enough to set his torso ablaze with pain. He landed to the floor and Octavius mirrored, though both were hurt: leaning forwards and each a hand clasped to their injuries they gasped for air and steadied their stances. Neither had the energy to keep fighting now and they knew it as well as the observing Z-Fighters back at the room.

"You barely have the strength to stand." Gohan said, not quite managing to string together a full sentence without pausing for breath in between some words, "How about you give up?"

"Never!" Octavius spat, "This is just the beginning! You don't look in too good shape either! That last attack I did seems to have done more damage than you let on."

As though upon his words Gohan winced in pain at being reminded of his slashed gut that still gushed saiyan blood onto the ground like a waterfall. "Then I'm going to put all my energy into this last attack I've been working on! You should too if you want to survive it!" Gohan proposed, taking a wider stance, digging his heels into the ground to brace for it.

"Suit yourself!"

Suddenly the two identical funnels atop Octavius's arms glowed into bright orange light, swirling around him before he bonded them in the middle a foot or so away from him. Gohan's hands became surrounded in a bright blue flame-like ki as he flowed them into some sort of sultry dance-like manoeuvre. Finally they met in the middle in a cup shape, where a ball of iridescent blue formed in his palms. Octavius's reddish aura flared out angrily with the concentration of power going into the attack, and Gohan's own of silvery white did the same. Rocks rose from the rubble, separated by the raw mass of energy, and the craters around them widened to bring the surrounding cliffs crumbling to the ground. All the while they stared intently across the distance at one another, trying to psych the other out, preparing themselves for what was to come.

"Ultimate!" Gohan cried out, shuffling his frame into a sturdier position again for the final time. "Kaa," more rocks were ripped from the ground and up into the sky upon his words. "Meyy," the tiny, blue, tennis ball sized sphere in his hands widened and thickened into the size of a small football. "Haa," light spewed out in all different directions, bounding of the earth and dancing across Gohan's look of grim determination like a strobe light at a nightclub. "MEYY"

"Your time's up Gohan!" Octavius snarled, charging his own attack, "You'll never survive this!"

"HAA!!!" Gohan unleashed his attack with the well practiced thrust of his arms.

Entire boulders were torn from their resting place underneath the enormous ki pressure of the two enormous, dazzling beams homing towards each other, creating a straight line track of littered debris from Octavius to Gohan as the attacks collided. They stayed put at dead centre, with both fighters holding fast as the entire place around them caved in with the intense atmosphere. Octavius's orange beam of pure hatred and Gohan's blue flaming 'Ultimate Kamehameha' seemed neck and neck, and the Z-Fighters watched with nail biting anticipation for the finale. Brightly coloured bloom fanned out in all directions to make the fighters shield their eyes to make out the struggle.

Octavius sported a frenzied cackle over the roar of the attack and began to pour in even more energy, tapping into even his very own life force. The struggle weakened, and soon the orange beam had overtaken Gohan's, who gritted his teeth and struggled under the incredible intensity his body hadn't fully gotten used to yet. Soon Octavius's attack had taken up almost three quarters of the gap; Gohan was losing.

"Come on Gohan!"

"Yeah you can do it!"

Gohan and Octavius turned; Goten and Trunks were cheering on their fighter, as was Raditz behind them. He looked to them, thinking of his family, his friends and his entire life, and then something strange happened. A man suddenly teleported in behind the crowd, who were oblivious thanks to their watching him intently. It had been so long since he'd seen him that he'd forgotten what he looked like, but there was no mistaking it. It was Goku, waving goofily like an idiot with his boyish smile to cheer him on. Speaking of boyish, he wasn't that anymore – he was back to the appearance of his old self, a twenty-something man with a thickened body chiselled from marble.

Octavius laughed again and closed the gap even further, which made Gohan snap out of his trancelike state and avert his now furious look back to the Vicis.

"HAA!!!" He screamed again, drawing himself up to full height to further open up the wound in his stomach and unleash every last vestige of power within him. His aura was set ablaze with ki as the beam re-intensified to vomit out more harsh azure light around the battlefield. In a matter of seconds it was over. Octavius's expression warped to one of surprise and the new kamehameha raged back to the centre before overruling his own quickly. With a final push the attack overwhelmed him, disintegrating the Vicis and half the world behind him, whatever uninhabited planet they were on. But Gohan didn't care. Completely drained and lacking any remaining ki to speak of Gohan hobbled back over the veranda to meet a merry party of Z-fighters, but not Goku.

"Dad! Where's Dad?" he asked worriedly.

"What do you mean?" Goten quizzed, "Dad's not here."

"He was! He was right there I saw him!" Gohan pointed with a trembling right arm over to the spot where his father had stood behind the crowd of fighters, his taller form just about peering over Vegeta's crazy hairdo.

Piccolo looked back with the others into nothingness, "Goku was here?" he asked, "Did anyone else see him?"

As expected, a chorus of 'no's went around the room, much to Gohan's dismay.

"But he was right there. . ." he repeated.

"Could it be you just imagined it?" Raditz posed.

"No! I'm telling you he was there!"

Vegeta eyed Gohan suspiciously, seeing that the boy truly believed his own words.

"Or. . ." the man hesitated, letting his arms sag to his sides in defeat. It had all happened so fast, could it have just been wishful thinking? "Maybe. I don't know." he admitted, "Maybe all this power's going to my head."

"Yeah well don't count us as safe just yet, we've got company!" Raditz cried, pointing over to the horizon.

Six of them; six Vices headed their way. With their strongest fighters out for the count they had to get away right now.

"It's alright I've got a plan." Piccolo revealed, and without divulging into it he made his way across the porch. Since they had each lost an hourglass and their rooms had combined, they now had two remaining in total. In both cases destroying the hourglass had succeeded in dislodging them from time, so it was worth a shot to try again; there were still eight or nine minutes left, and the six would reach them in under two. Piccolo took his place a few steps away from one of the hourglasses, placing two cackling forefingers to his antenna propped forehead.

"No!" Raditz complained as he flapped his hands hysterically, "Piccolo! What are you doing!?"

"Special Beam Cannon!!!"

JTX1000 fills in crappy GT plotholes so you don't have to. So yeah I just realised this whole time I'd been spelling Piccolo wrong: I usually spell it with two 'l's and one 'c' like it's pronounced, but for some odd reason apparently it's spelt the other way around. I fixed it in this chapter and the last but going through the whole thing just seems pointless, you all know who I'm referring to anyway. So yeah, Gohan is Ultimate (or 'Mystic' if you prefer), Piccolo is being drastic and Goku in his odd, mysterious appearance is full size again! Yaaay! Seriously, why the hell did they make him a child in GT? Did ANYONE see any point to it? Don't even get me started, I could write a whole damn chapter about it. And I would've put this up days ago but was being a goon.