Chapter 40: Travail
Author: Rocket (a.k.a. Roketto/RyunoOhi); Editors: Elbadj, Devilman337, & Renalto
Be sure to check out & add to the Savior of Demons TVTropes page; & please visit the SoD Special Forum on & my DeviantArt page for even more SoD! I'm also accepting fanart for Savior of Demons, particularly chapter covers & specific scenes. PM me for details!
I don't own DBZ or its associated franchises. That's Akira Toriyama's product & pride. I only tenuously own my own O.C.s created for this fandom, & my speculative theories on Arcosians & other things DBZ never delved into. If you would like to use either, feel free, as long as you give me credit & a link back! I'd love to see my ideas become accepted fanon. So with that, welcome back to the action!
He felt as though he couldn't breathe. Suffocation, so crushing and absolute that his lungs burned. But above that, an even worse, more terrifying sensation, that of being invaded by another's ki, spurred him to react and continue to struggle. Upon sensing that enormous, malicious energy sweep over him like a hunter's net, his every instinct and raw nerve screamed into action as he put up a dense psychic barrier. As the malicious curtain fell thickly, blocking out all, Frieza squeezed his eyes shut. He waited, senses straining, for one heartbeat. Two. Three. As his own heart finally stopped hammering in his chest, he eased his eyes open cautiously. All around him, that vile, fleshy shade of pink dominated, shot through with red and purple veins here and there. As he watched, the walls around him pulsed, like a living thing, the veins working grotesquely.
'What the hell is this? Where am I?' the Arcosian thought, scanning the surroundings with disgust. He was alone within some kind of chamber, which reminded him not so much of a room in any architectural sense, but a living body. 'It's like that monster took me into his being...but the others were caught too, so where are they? Maybe I'm the only one who...' He grimaced, not daring to finish that thought. He eyed the fleshy walls warily, as he slowly dissolved his psychic barrier. Nothing. No reactive movement to suggest that Buu was aware of his survival and continued autonomy. Good. The vesicle he stood in had two branches that forked and curved away out of sight.
Frieza sighed, taking the right fork. "I may not be dead yet, but if I cannot find the others, I may as well be..." he growled to himself. Suddenly, the vesicle shuddered, and Frieza tensed, his barrier rearing up around him again. A monstrous, distorted sound echoed throughout the place, and the Arcosian shook with rage when he deciphered its nature. "That bastard...he's laughing! As though he's beaten us all in one fell swoop!" He curled his fists, resisting the urge to try to punch a hole in the walls. If Buu was as durable on the inside as on the outside, that would only serve to alert him to his position. Instead, he moved on, pointedly ignoring the triumphant laughter that permeated the space.
"Ahahaha! Yes! I got them all!" Buu crowed, doing exuberant cartwheels in the air. His appearance had changed, with the addition of his prey, to include more defined facial features, as well as some new clothing. His antenna had gotten longer, and now swung back over his head until it nearly touched his feet. He wore Goku's gi, with some spots of purple from Gohan, and his eyes were hard and angular like Vegeta's, but his nose and face were soft like Videl's. "This power...fufufufufu, oh, it's glorious!" The Majin formed an energy ball in the palm of his hand, marveling at the ease and control he now exerted. He could think so clearly now too. 'Oh what a fool I used to be,' he reflected, 'but never again. I will never be contained or commanded by any other. This world...no, all worlds...will be mine to do with as I please!' He smirked, already pondering what his next move would be. He had taken care of the strongest fighters of this world for sure...but the plebeian masses could provide their own entertainment, surely…
He reached down and plucked up the Z-sword, which had clattered out of Gohan's hand when he was taken. He held it up and turned it over in his hand. "Ah...the weapon of the Kaioushin," Buu said, "You gave me such a fright. What shall I do in return? Shall I shatter you?" He paused, and then a big silly smile creased up his face. "Ahaha! No! I think I'll use you. How fun to use the Kai's weapon to destroy the mortals they love and protect so much!" He pulled the sword up and slapped it onto his back. His back moulded outwards, forming a sheath that sealed the sword. Gently, Buu lifted himself into the air. "Although, you'd think if they loved all these mortals they'd do a better job at protecting them..." he cackled as he shot through the air, the shockwave blasting apart the ruins of the city behind him.
"No! No, no, no, no, nononono—!" Shin had his head in his hands and was moaning with despair. The sight was too terrible. Buu had absorbed them all. The strongest fighters in the world...no the universe, even the Heavens, were absorbed. There was no one who could possibly stand up to Buu now. Behind him Piccolo closed his eyes and ducked his head, anger at his own inability to do anything rising within him.
"Kaioshin! We can't give up now!" Kibito said with force, standing up, "We can contact Kooler, he may be able to put a force together. With sufficient volume..."
"No, that won't work." Shin shook his head and sat back, defeated. "The five of them were able to wear Buu down, even though they weren't as strong as him, because of the Z-sword's properties and also Buu being overbalanced. Even bees stinging a human could win if there are enough of them. But this wouldn't be bees stinging a human, it would be like bees stinging a planet. The scale isn't even comparable."
"Ugh… Then we use the fighters in the Heavens! Some of the most glorious warriors in history! And even those in Hell maybe! Perhaps if we were to offer them pardons they might..." Kibito stopped, the desperation in his own voice halting him. "I guess there really is nothing we can do..." he murmured. He let out a small chuckle and sat down. "Typical, I become Kaioshin for five minutes and my only act is to oversee the end of the universe."
Shin laughed weakly. "It's not your fault. I should have done more...we, the Kaioshin of old, should have done more. But we got too complacent, underestimating mortals both good and evil, and now..."
"Hold on..." Piccolo squinted at the crystal ball and the image of Buu in it as Kibiot and Shin turned towards him. "There's something off about Buu...something isn't..." He looked closer and he let out a gasp when he saw it. "Frieza..."
"What?" Shin asked looking back at the ball.
"Buu has taken on an aspect of every fighter he's absorbed...except Frieza..."
"What?!" Shin grabbed up the crystal ball and stared at it, eyes wide. It was true— an aspect of all of them was present except for Frieza. "But then...that means..!"
"He's not been absorbed..." Kibito concluded, in awe.
Frieza trudged down another seemingly endless, twisting hallway. He wasn't sure where he was in the scheme of things, but it made sense to keep moving upward. The intermittent laughter and earthquake-like shaking no longer unnerved him as much, but he couldn't help but keep his guard up. Though his senses couldn't confirm it, he felt like he was being watched. "I've got to find the others," he reminded himself, "The longer we're stuck in here, the more unmitigated damage that monster is doing without us there to stop him." He came to another fork in the path. "Damn it..." he cursed, "If only I could sense them!" Though it had been what initially saved him from Buu's sneak attack, now his oversensitivity was wasting precious time. 'Calm down,' he thought, 'Think. Maybe I can try to find them that way.' He closed his eyes, calming his breathing, and concentrated. Buu's ki was omnipresent, but...there was something else there. A little flicker of the familiar, frightening Saiyan aura. 'That way,' Frieza decided, taking the left fork. He shivered unconsciously, as his base instincts screamed at him to avoid the dangerous ki, but continued to press forward. "Keep it up wherever you are, monkeys," he hissed, "When this is over, you're going to owe me dearly."
"N...no..." Trunks breathed. He couldn't believe it, couldn't process it. But if what he was sensing was correct…
"Trunks, what's going on?" Goten asked. Chi-chi stood behind him, hugging her son tightly. "I can't... I can't sense Dad or Gohan... Are they..."
Yamcha dropped to the ground as Dende hung his head. "I'm sorry guys..." Yamcha said softly, "It looks like they lost..."
Trunks and Goten stared at him as if the whole world had fallen away.
Buu slammed to a halt above the city, the sonic boom leveling the mountain behind him and causing a minor earthquake to topple some of the buildings below. The blast threw the citizens up into the air and then slammed the hapless humans back onto the ground. Buu grinned. "Yes, this will do nicely for fun!"
His ears picked up a mechanical rumbling. On the outskirts of the city, tanks flanked by legions of soldiers came to a stop. He heard a faint command given by some important-looking human at the front of the display, then a whistling. 'What is that?' he thought, as something hard and fast shot at him. He grunted as the thing struck him, popping through his chest and out his back. "Oh...they want to play with me, do they?" Buu chuckled, "I do hope they brought better toys than that." He blitzed down to the ground in an instant, right in front of the leader. "Helloooo..." he chirped darkly, as the man flinched backwards and fell to the ground.
"M-monster!" the man cried, "He...how'd he get here so fast?!" The troops around him circled Buu, fingers twitching on the triggers of their guns. Buu noted, however, that none were brave enough to come any closer, not even to pull their commander out of his way.
'Tch...weaklings and cowards. I suppose I've killed all those with any bravery.' A brief flash in his mind, of blue eyes narrowed beneath a blood-stained brow, a rough voice shouting up at someone beside him as he stood on a balcony... He blinked, frowning. "I didn't kill that brave human..." he muttered under his breath. 'Why not?' Something about that situation seemed muddled, obscured in his mind somehow. After that, his mind had been clear, but that moment...what had been the catalyst for his transformation? Was it just that he had been fed up with taking orders from Babidi? His previous self couldn't have possibly conceived of such an offense.
"H-he's not moving...isn't he gonna attack?" a young soldier asked, eyes flicking to his commander. He took one tentative step forward, his boots crunching on the debris underfoot. At the sound, Buu's left hand stretched out, fingers in a knifehand, and decapitated the man. His body twitched, falling to its knees and then, sprawling to the ground.
"Stand down! Stand down!" the commander yelled, as the panicky soldiers shrieked in horror. "Don't go any closer! Retreat to the tanks and use them for cover!"
All the while, Buu continued to mumble to himself, frowning and staring off into some middle-distance. "What was it?" he said aloud, straining to recall, "What was the catalyst?" The sudden din around him was bothersome. Made it hard to think. With an annoyed growl, he flung his hand up, carelessly lobbing a ki blast towards the worst of the noise.
The shriek of metal twisting and curling in on itself briefly drowned out the clamor of the troops. The commander hunkered down behind a tank tread, shaking with terror. Then, silence. At first he thought he'd been deafened by whatever that thing was the creature had thrown — a bomb, or grenade, maybe, but like nothing he'd ever witnessed. Then, sounds started coming back: moans of pain, garbled cries for help, for mercy. He poked his head out from behind the tank, gasping at the aftermath. Only a few tanks had been spared, and those only by chance. The rest were barely more than shrapnel and fire; beneath and among the twisted metal, broken bodies lay like discarded dolls.
The commander quaked with fear, stealing a glance at the creature's last position. 'It...it hasn't even moved! That enormous blast didn't even affect it!' he thought incredulously. Then again, the upper command had warned them that this Buu thing had strange powers. They had not, he recalled, told them it was immortal. "The nerve..!" he growled, "Sending us into a one-man meat grinder like this..!" He unholstered his service pistol. If he was going to die, which seemed pretty damn inevitable now, at least he could go down trying to put a dent on it...or even a mark on it. Breath trembling, he took aim at the creature's temple.
'What was it? What was the trigger for such a change?' Buu thought, futilely trying to retrace his mental steps, back past the haziness of awakening his newfound consciousness. He heard a small bang, followed by a slight pressure against the side of his head. Reaching up, he found a still-warm, flattened lump of metal. He rolled it thoughtfully between his fingers, searching for the source. 'Oh. I must have missed one of those noisy humans,' he realized, finally zeroing in on the puny ki. Now discovered, the human bared its teeth at him, stepping out into the open, brandishing that toy of a weapon. Why? It wasn't as though it could hope to hurt him. These humans were so infuriating in their hurry to die... So bold, in the face of a virtual god. His frown deepened. Why did that bother him so? Why should it? This was all infuriatingly frustrating. With a dismissive sigh, he pointed at the man's chest, drilling a weak ki blast through it. The human choked, taking a few tottering steps, then collapsed, writhing on the ground for a moment before going still. Something about that was familiar too, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was.
A fighter plane screamed overhead and launched a set of missiles at Buu. They detonated, taking half the street with them. Inside, the pilot whooped. "Got him!" he shouted, "Direct hit!" There was a thump outside and he looked up. His eyes widened in fear and snot dribbled from his nose. Buu stood outside the cockpit, unharmed, holding a sword up. "Shit shit shit!" he babbled, throwing the plane into a spin to try to get the monster off his wing.
Buu laughed with glee, his booted feet remaining planted on the plane wing as it swooped and rolled. "Oh how fun!" he chortled, "Now this toy, I like!" The terrified pilot continued to pull the plane into ever-more dangerous maneuvers, but Buu stuck like glue to him, unaffected by the multiple G's and whipping wind. "Hmph... Well now this is getting repetitive," Buu said, just barely using his ki to stay with the plane through another barrel roll. He stabbed the sword down, slicing through the pilot's head, and then casually leapt off the plane as it spun to the ground and exploded. Buu grinned at the sword. "Ah, the first mortal life lost to the blade!" he giggled, "I wonder how the Kaioshin liked that?" He paused and then pouted. "Although I did kill the Kaioshin so it's not like he can see...darn it, I should have thought that through!" He put the sword back in its organic scabbard and then twitched his head, one of his ears expanding. There was a faint sound of sniffling coming from somewhere.
"Aha! Sounds of distress, which means...sounds of fun!" Buu curved his body back like a spring and then shot downwards, smashing through two walls in a building to come to an abrupt halt in front of a small girl, bawling and clutching her teddy bear tightly. "Hello little child," Buu said warmly, "How would you like to die today?" The child froze, backing up against the wall, clutching the bear tighter. Buu grinned and stepped forward.
A flashing image: Another child, helpless, about to be killed and then a figure leaping in front—
Buu halted and clutched the side of his head. "Grrr..." he growled, "What is that...memory?"
More flashes: a jumble of different events; a fight going on as a child escaped; a flash of light coming towards him and another figure stepping in front; the whisper of words, unintelligible and...a man…a bold man standing up, helpless, but doing so anyway…
Buu shook his head. "This is annoying!" he shouted, swinging a fist and knocking through the entirety of a wall. He turned back... And saw the child had run away. "Pffft," he glared at the crumbling foundation of the wall, then narrowed his eyes in the direction of where the human child had run. He could still hear it, gasping and sobbing, stumbling along. 'Pathetic...that prey wouldn't be any fun anyway,' he reasoned, stalking away in the opposite direction.
Frieza crested a rise. He looked back over his shoulder and around him as the sense of...wrongness...and the heaviness of Buu's ki kept throwing him off and making him jumpy. Every one of his 'flight' nervous systems was screaming at him to run, but of course he couldn't. There was nowhere to run to anyway. He paused and wiped off some sweat from his forehead. Then he looked down and his eyes widened. They were there. Five cocoons hung suspended between two cords of Buu's body, connecting them to the top and bottom of the chamber. He could see their faces poking out of the cocoons, held in sleep. 'At last!' Frieza thought, and then paused. There should only be four cocoons not five, as only four of them were absorbed. 'Was there someone else..?' He stepped forward to the last cocoon and looked upon it. He froze.
The face of Majin Buu stared back at him.
The earlier incarnation, the fat one, not the current one. Frieza panicked for a moment before realizing that Buu was, like the others, asleep. He touched a finger to his chin and pondered. "Doesn't make any sense..." he muttered, "Why would he absorb himself? How? Unless this body is meant to be someone else that became him?" He shook his head. It was a question he didn't have time for. He turned back to the other cocoons and thought. 'Safe to assume that cutting them off will remove Buu's power...safe to assume as well that he'll notice it fairly quickly. So I'm going to have to do this fast and hope everyone wakes up...' He raised his palm and fired an energy blast at the cocoon containing Goku, vaporizing it.
After having left the child due to that strange, unsettled feeling from that...vision, or whatever it was, Majin Buu was having second thoughts. 'This is ridiculous! Nobody commands or controls me; I can do whatever I want, kill any of these insects on a whim!' Buu snarled at the sight of the lost child, his plaything, and stomped towards the door. "Little brat!" he shouted, "Don't think you can hide from me! I could just destroy this whole building so come out and—"
His body lurched.
He recoiled and clutched at himself, as if someone had physically struck an immense blow from within his body. "What the...what was tha—" His eyes widened. The orange of Goku's gi had disappeared from his body, leaving behind Gohan's... "No!" he shouted as he lurched again, and the purple of Gohan's gi vanished from him.
"Yes!" Shin shouted, "It's happening! Frieza's freeing them!"
Piccolo smiled. 'Well, you've made a liar out of me. Self-serving or not, looks like you turned out to be a reliable ally after all,' he thought, 'Now all we can hope is that this will unbalance and weaken Buu enough to finally defeat him for good.'
Videl spluttered and hauled herself up, before feeling strong arms behind her that grabbed and drew her in. "Argh!" she cried, swinging her elbow back. A familiar cry of pain halted her further attack, as she spun around. "Gohan!" she said, hands flying up to her mouth. "Oh my gosh...I'm so sorry, your nose... What is going on?"
"It's okay, you're safe," Gohan said, pulling back and smiling with relief at her, "We're okay. Sorry for grabbing you like that, I was just so relieved to see you oka—" His words were cut short as Videl met his lips, embracing him.
"Don't you dare scare me again like that, Wonder Boy, and we'll just call it even, 'kay?" Videl smiled, tears in her eyes.
"If you're quite finished with the touching reunions, we have a bigger problem at the moment," Frieza muttered, looking around as Goku and Vegeta got to their feet, "We still don't know how we're getting out of here."
"What do you mean, 'here'?" Videl stepped back and put a hand to her head. She took in the surroundings, eyes growing wide. "What happened...and where are we?"
"We got absorbed by Buu," Frieza said, "Some dirty trick he employed. I managed to use my psychokinesis to escape from it and didn't get absorbed. Then, I found and freed you." He looked around, agitated. "But now we're stuck. There's no obvious way out of here and Buu almost certainly knows that something is going wrong by now."
"But we were handling him before though..." Vegeta grunted, "How did this all go sideways so quickly?! Well, at any rate, we should be able to repeat our success, and now we can rip the bastard apart from the inside out!"
"Yeah, but this is inside Buu's body," Goku mused, "We don't know what sort of weird advantage he'd gain from this."
"What about this one?" Vegeta asked, looking at the Majin Buu cocoon, "Should we free this one?"
"I don't know..." Goku said, thinking, "We don't really know what might happen if we do that."
"You all have much more important things to worry about..."
Everyone snapped their heads around at the seething voice as a furious Buu emerged from the floor.
"So that's what was going on," Buu snarled, as Vegeta, Gohan, and Goku ignited their Super Saiyan auras, "One of you must have escaped somehow and freed all the others." Buu leapt out of the ground and formed himself into a complete body. He grinned. "Rest assured, I will not be making that mistake again."
"Well we're not going to give you a chance to try it again," Goku said. He raised his palm to one of the walls. "An' we'll give you some problems of your own to deal with!" He fired an energy blast that slammed into the wall. To his surprise, the wall simply absorbed it and returned to normal.
Buu laughed and scratched at a place just above his ear. "There, problem dealt with," he sneered, "Right now you are all tiny creatures inside of me. I have all the advantages."
A harsh chuckle emanated from the Saiyan Prince. "Really? Then let's say we take one of those away."
Buu's eyes bugged in alarm as Vegeta gripped the tube on the Majin Buu cocoon. Vegeta smirked. "I don't know what will happen if I cut this, but you'll certainly get weaker, like you did when we escaped," he said.
"No, don't touch him!" Buu shouted, panicked, "If you cut him off I won't be myself anymore!"
Frieza squinted at him. 'Not himself anymore...that's a very strange response to have...'
Vegeta laughed. "Oh really? Sounds enticing!"
"No!" Buu leapt forward, shooting towards Vegeta. Too late. The Saiyan ripped the tube out, severing the cocoon. The effect was immediate. Buu collapsed to the ground with a scream. As he did so his body melted, seeping back into the floor he'd come from. The area around them began to shake and rubble, parts of skin dripping apart like great globs of syrup.
"That...doesn't look good!" Gohan shouted.
"His body must be changing!" Videl said, leaping into the air, "We need to get out of here!"
"Yeah, she's right Vegeta, let's go!" Goku cried, "I dunno what you did, but it's either gonna save us or make things a whole lot worse!" They took off, streaking down the closing and rumbling corridors of Buu's insides.
The Buu in the crystal ball suddenly reacted violently and his body contorted, pulled in different directions as he clutched at his head and let out a scream. Piccolo and Kibito stared at it in wonder. "What's going on?" Kibito said.
"It looks like he's changing, but that wouldn't make sense," Piccolo said, "All of the people he absorbed were removed..." He looked down and he saw the look of horror on Shin's face. "Kaioshin," he asked, "Do you know what's happening?"
Shin nodded, mouth dry. "He's changing...he's becoming like he was before..."
"Before..? Before what?" Piccolo repeated, with a growing sense of dread.
They shot through the weave of corridors that jiggled and closed, moving closer and then expanding.
"What the hell is going on?!" Videl shouted as yet another promising pathway suddenly closed off.
"I guess his body must be changing!" Goku replied, "Though into what, I don't know!"
"There!" Gohan pointed towards a small opening up ahead. They raced towards it desperately.
"I hope we go back to normal when we get out of here, or this is gonna be a really short fight!" Goku said as he charged through.
To everyone's unspoken relief, they popped back to their normal size as they fell outside. The suddenness of the shift caught them off guard and they crashed to the ground. Still on high alert, they just managed to get themselves under control with enough time to settle themselves, landing with control. The Z-sword had fallen off of Buu's back and it skittered across the ground, Gohan reaching out and grabbing it, before leaping backwards to stand some distance away with the others.
Buu stood on top of a building, which crumbled and disintegrated beneath him, only the place where he was standing maintaining some structure. Buu was contorting, his body warping around him as he stretched and screamed, energy crackling about his body. As they watched, the Majin's chest began to cave in, almost as if a black hole had opened somewhere within him. The malleable pink flesh swirled in a vortex, Buu's limbs becoming shorter as more of him compressed into that central point.
"Hey...is it just me or is he...getting...stronger..." Goku said, Vegeta and Gohan slowly nodding in agreement.
"What?!" Frieza snapped, "But...we removed part of him, his very self, how can he be getting stronger?"
Suddenly Buu's body bulked up, muscles expanding, before he suddenly retreated back and snapped together. It was quiet. Deathly quiet. Slowly, the small, childlike figure of Buu raised himself back up. He looked like he did in his previous form, only smaller. He stood stock still, but there was something radiating from him. A power unlike before. A focus unlike before.
"What is that..?" Vegeta said, "It looks like he's regressed but..."
Suddenly Buu grinned, raised a hand and fired an energy blast towards the ground.
Vegeta reacted quickly to fire a blast of his own to knock Buu's blast away and into space. At this, Buu looked over, puzzled, only seeming to notice or remember the five of them now.
"That attack, that could have destroyed the whole area if it had made contact!" Gohan exclaimed, "Maybe even the entire planet!"
"What is he now?" Videl wondered.
Buu grinned sadistically at them, his eyes devoid of anything but malice.
"This is...this is his original form," Shin said, voice shaking.
"Original form?" Piccolo said, "What does that mean?"
"The Buu you saw was the product of absorbing the original Supreme Kai," Shin said, "There were five of us originally; I was the Kaioshin of the East. But Bibidi created Buu as a weapon to destroy us." He looked down. "He couldn't control Buu. His power, his malice, his lust for destruction was too great. But then, when he absorbed the Supreme Kai he took on the form you knew. He became...calmer. Easier to control. This is the original Buu, the one devoid of that."
"The one devoid of any restraint..." Piccolo breathed, the full horror of what Shin was saying hitting him.
Buu raised his hand and an enormous energy ball appeared above his head.
"This again?! That attack'll destroy the planet!" Gohan yelled, sensing the energy.
"Wait Buu! Don't you want to fight us?!" Goku shouted, desperate.
Buu laughed and threw the ball forward with zero hesitation.
"Shit!" Frieza fired a Death Beam at it, striking the ball, which detonated in a ferocious explosion, knocking all of them back with a deafening roar and blinding light.
The blast detonated in a white light that streamed out of the epicenter to cover the hemisphere, the fierce light so powerful that to the other half of the world it appeared as though the sun was rising.
On the Lookout they saw the explosion in the distance, and within seconds it had raced towards them. "Everyone hold on!" Yamcha just had time to yell before the blast wave struck. Karin's tower below was vaporized, the explosion ripping it to shreds. It caught the base of the Lookout, smashing it apart and knocking it off of its balance. The heat of the explosion rippled over the sides, causing the plants to catch fire. "Back!" Yamcha shouted, throwing Dende backwards as the heat rippled along the surface igniting the flora as it went. Everyone streamed inside and hid behind the pillars, which superheated to the point of beginning to melt. Everyone screamed as Trunks, Goten, and Yamcha used their ki as best they could to shield the others.
Finally the wave passed...and then the Lookout began to tilt, until with a groan, the structure plunged from the sky.
Before anyone could react they were thrown against the wall as the Lookout streaked towards the ground. "Get ready for impact!" Yamcha yelled, grabbing Dende to shield him, as Goten held his mother tight. The Lookout punched into the ground, crumpling and distingrating on impact, the force of it sending out a shockwave that traveled for miles and spewed a line of dirt into the atmosphere.
Half of the world was on fire.
The buildings lay smashed to pieces from the shockwave, and whatever wasn't knocked down was set alight by the following heatwave. Virtually all life was extinguished, ripped apart and melted. The tectonic plates slammed together, briefly forming a mountain that stretched up to touch the exosphere, before flattening down, adding another enormous shockwave to the mix. Magma spewed out of the ground and plumes of ash exploded into the air.
The other half of the planet was not spared.
Most areas were knocked to the ground as immense earthquakes hit, toppling buildings and mountains. People screamed as they were thrown into the air and sent crashing back to a ground that rippled beneath like waves to swallow and crush them. Volcanoes all along the hemisphere erupted, spewing ash and magma out into the world. The heat from the blast was such that the oceans instantly evaporated. Suddenly, enormous thunderheads covered the planet, lightning blasting from the sky and tearing apart the earth. The swirl of heat saw enormous tornadoes descend from the sky and begin to tear through whatever was in their path, people fleeing and screaming as debris smashed into them or they were plucked from the ground and hurled through the air. And back at the epicenter of the explosion, where the earth had turned into a huge sheet of glass, Majin Buu reformed from his own ashes with a diabolical laugh.
Goku opened his eyes, and his face fell at the devastation. 'No...the Earth...all those people...' He'd never seen anything like this. Never felt that many ki signatures just disappear almost instantly. Even Namek hadn't been like this, not until the very end, and even then there were no people left to fall victim to the forces of planetary destruction. Beside him stood Gohan, Videl, and Vegeta, all unharmed, all just as stunned. "How are we..." Goku looked forward and gasped.
Frieza stood in front of them, arms held out. He'd used his psychokinetic powers to divert the blast around them, evidenced by the small patch of ground they stood on being the only earth left. However, the toll on Frieza had been immense, and the Arcosian collapsed to his knees, blood streaming from his nose and ears. His ki dropped like a leaden weight, evaporating in an instant.
"Frieza!" Goku shouted, running forward.
"Dad, watch out!" Gohan yelled, pointing, "He's not done!" Goku looked up to see Buu begin to raise his hand again, still laughing.
"Oh no you don't!" Goku shot forward, igniting his Super Saiyan 2 aura, and slammed into Buu, knocking the creature off balance. A moment later Vegeta slammed into Buu from the other side and the two proceeded to pummel Buu with attacks. The creature merely laughed though and suddenly slipped around their attacks and slammed a kick into both of them, sending them crashing through the ground. The two Saiyans groaned in pain as the weight behind the creature's attacks caught them completely off guard.
"Kibito, get them out of there now!" Shin shouted, "Bring them all here!"
"What?! Even Buu?!" Kibito exclaimed.
"Yes! If the planet is destroyed they'll die. At least here they can fight at full power without worrying about that happening." Shin clenched his fists. "Ours is a sacred world, unique in its otherworldly composition. It can take it."
"But if Buu gets here then—!" the red Kai gaped.
"Buu can already make it to Kaioshinkai. And if those five die then all our best hopes of stopping him are gone. I would prefer it if the vacuum of space didn't take out four of them in an easy win," the shorter deity hissed, "Now do it!"
"R-right!" Kibito said, seeing the logic of Shin's point. He focused for a moment and then disappeared.
Gohan flew in and struck with the Z-sword, but Buu leapt out of the way and cracked his left fist into the side of Gohan's head, knocking him down. A kiai wave struck him, wiping out half of his head, and Buu turned his gaze to Videl, who stood over Frieza's body. Buu grinned, regenerated his head, and threw a punch towards Videl, his arm extending.
"No!" Gohan leapt forward and severed Buu's arm. The hand flew forward and then halted, turned around, and slammed into Gohan, reconnecting with Buu's severed arm. Vegeta and Goku dove forward to attack Buu, the three Saiyans moving in sync with each other, as they pressed the small Majin back.
"Damn it!" Videl cursed, "They can barely keep up with him!" A hand dropped on her shoulder and she shrieked and whirled around.
Kibito ducked her punch hastily. "Urgh! Nice to see you again too," he muttered.
"You!" Videl breathed, "Don't sneak up on people like that!"
"There's no time," he replied, "I'm taking you all to Kaioshinkai."
"The Gods' planet? Are you serious?! What about your sacred rules or whatever?" Videl exclaimed, her blue eyes narrowing critically.
Kibito shrugged stiffly, his teeth gritted. "This is...a special circumstance, alright?"
"Fair point; normal rules out the window. Got it," the human nodded. She glanced back over at the swirling battle, leaning down to hold Frieza's head up. His red eyes were unfocused, glazed over. "But how are you going to get them disengaged?" Videl asked.
Kibito turned, assessing everyone's positions in space. "I'm taking all of you."
Videl blinked at him, and then understood. Her eyes widened. "No! You can't be serious, you're not—"
Kibito vanished with her and Frieza—
And reappeared above the melee, reaching out to grab Buu's head—
"—taking Buu—" Videl screeched.
Kibito disappeared as Gohan, Vegeta, and Goku connected with Buu, vanishing all of them with him.
"Mom? Mom! Mom!"
Chi-chi groaned and opened her eyes. Goten let out a sob of relief and hugged her. Chi-chi winced and attempted to raise herself up, but found that she couldn't move her lower body. She glanced around. She lay in the wreckage of the Lookout, shattered earth and broken pieces of the sacred structure everywhere. Across from her Yamcha was pulling Dende up, the Namekian bleeding badly from a cut to the forehead and a broken arm. A dazed Trunks stumbled across the way with Mr. Popo close behind— the genie was miraculously unscathed. Looking down Chi-chi could see that her legs were splayed straight, but a dull throbbing pain came from her lower back. Her spine was broken.
"I'm so glad you're okay," Goten cried, "I thought I didn't manage to shield you enough!"
"It's okay sweetie..." Chi-chi said, trying to keep the pain from her voice, "You did really well."
"Can you get up?" Goten asked, his lower lip trembling.
Chi-chi looked at the boy's wet black eyes, and forced an apologetic smile. "I...I don't think so sweetie. I think my back is..."
"Oh no!" Goten pulled back and looked around wildly, "Dende! Mom— y-you have to heal Mom!"
Dende looked up, confused, eyes struggling to focus. Trunks looked over. "Goten, I think Dende's in a bad way," he said, "I'm not sure he'll be able to help."
"No! He has too! Mom is—"
"Hold on a sec..." Yamcha said, stumbling over. He sat down in front of Dende and examined the Namekian. "Can you follow this for me?" he asked, producing a tiny, bright ball of ki on one finger. The Namekian dutifully followed the light, but his movements were sluggish. "I think he's concussed. Might take a bit of time to pass, but until then I'm not sure he'll be able to heal anyone."
"No…" Goten bit his lip and tried to choke back on his tears.
Trunks floated up and took a look at the surroundings. "What the hell was that..?" he wondered, "All the devastation that's been caused...it's so much..." He stretched out with his senses and recoiled at what he felt. "Ugh..! There's so many people in distress! Their ki signatures are all over the place!"
"Buu likely did something; it seems he caused significant amounts of damage," Yamcha said, "I'm not sure there's any life on this side of the planet, bar ourselves and the other guys."
"Those other people..." Trunks pondered something and his expression hardened. He dropped down beside Goten. "Hey Goten...we have to go help everyone. My Dad and your Dad would do the same, if they weren't fighting Buu."
"Huh?" Goten looked over, "No! I can't leave Mom, not—"
"Your mom'll be okay, Goten. Dende's gonna recover, and Yamcha and Mr. Popo are both here to keep them safe. But those other people don't have anyone. We need to do something." He held out his hand. "Come on. We have to do this."
"Yeah, but..." Goten looked back at Chi-chi. She gave him a smile and a small nod. Goten paused a moment and then he nodded in determination. "You're right, Trunks. There's more people we can help." He took Trunks' hand and the lavender-haired boy smiled. They both floated up into the sky. "Mom! We'll be back soon!" Goten called.
"Okay. Be careful!" Chi-chi replied.
They gave her a thumbs up, then ignited their Super Saiyan auras and shot into the distance, heading for the other side of the world.
Chi-chi laid back down with a wince. "When did they get so grown up..?" she wondered.
"You raised a good kid Chi-chi," Yamcha said, sitting down beside Dende, "Heh, make that two good kids. Shame about the third, the big one. He's nothing but trouble, or at least he attracts it."
Chi-chi cast him a wry look and they shared a laugh.
And they reappeared in Kaioshinkai.
"—with us!" Videl finished in a shocked scream, before crashing into the ground. She leapt up and backwards, hauling Frieza with her, as the battle continued to rage. Goku struck a solid kick on Buu and knocked him backwards, Buu furrowing across the ground.
"Huh?" Goku looked around him, "What is this place?"
"It's Kaioshinkai!" Gohan said, "The Gods' realm. It's where we went to train after Buu stomped us the first time!"
"I had Kibito bring you here," Shin said, stepping forward. Piccolo was beside him, keeping an eye out on Buu.
"Hey! Shin and Piccolo! You're both here!" Goku cried, pleased to see the Namekian.
"Careful Goku," Piccolo warned, "He's getting back up."
Goku, Gohan, and Vegeta immediately returned their attention to Buu. The creature lifted himself up from the ground and then spun out into a handstand. He grinned and stuck his tongue out at them, clapping his feet together.
"Keh...he's mocking us, the little bastard!" Vegeta scowled.
"You'll be free to fight at full power here," Shin called, "Kaioshinkai is not easily destroyed."
Goku smiled. "Good. That's a relief. Kibito, can you heal Frieza like you did with Gohan?"
"Uh, sure. I can restore his energy to him, but he won't be fully healed," Kibito said.
Goku narrowed his eyes, keeping them locked on Buu. "Do it. We're going to need all the help we can get."
"Stay back Videl!" Gohan shouted and then shot forward, Goku and Vegeta following behind. Buu giggled and then leapt off of his hands, swinging out to meet them. The clash ripped a hole in the ground from the shockwave.
"We should pull back a little," Shin said, "Heal Frieza and then keep clear." There was a thud, and Shin looked over to see Piccolo removing his turban and reaching for his cloak. "Stop, Piccolo!" Shin shouted, holding up a warning hand, "You can't fight! If Buu kills you, you'll be dead forever - your spirit destroyed! Not even Dragonballs could bring you back."
Piccolo paused and growled. "But if he kills us all here then there's nothing that can be done to stop him or revive any of us. Either way, I'm definitely dead if I do nothing, and I'm not the type to stand on the sidelines when the stakes are this high."
"Let's wait until Frieza is healed," Videl said, trying to calm Piccolo. She knew how much he meant to Gohan and had no desire to see him leap into battle. "If they're all fighting without restraint they should be able to handle him. After all, they could do that with the other Buu." Shin nodded in agreement, as Kibito rested a palm on Frieza and restored more energy to him.
"No...this is different," Piccolo said. He pointed to the battle and Videl looked over. The three Saiyans were whirling around Buu, attacking from all angles, but the creature was barely slowed down, and responded easily to their attacks with blocks and counters. "Buu is a little stronger, but that's not what's making the difference. There's an intensity to him, a ferocity, that wasn't there before. He's like a wild animal going on instinct. I doubt they can keep the pace with him for long."
Videl studied the battle and she could see it too. The momentum was turning in Buu's direction. The Saiyans' attacks were getting wilder and less focused as tiredness crept in, whereas Buu was keeping on at the same pace. No...worse. He was upping the pace slightly, ramping up his attacks so more and more of his counters were landing and striking. It wouldn't be long until he was fully on the offense, and by that point, they'd all be even more exhausted.
"What can possibly stop that monster?!" she said in exasperation.
"I can give it a try..."
She looked over to see Frieza clambering to his feet. "Are you even okay to fight?"
The Arcosian put his head in his hand for a moment and then focused on the battle. "Probably not, but an enemy like this doesn't care about a sporting fight, so I can't afford to be an easy target just sitting here." He chuckled. "Then again, I tend to do better when I'm desperate, so we'll see if that pans out for me this time, or it finally gets me killed."
"I've restored your energy, but you're not fully healed," Kibito cautioned, "So be careful."
"Hah. You didn't hear a word I said. Caution never gets me anywhere." Frieza smirked and then shot forward to join the fight.
"So, this is the fight to decide the fate of the universe huh?" Videl said, looking on with the others.
Kibito sighed heavily. "Let's see, we've got three Saiyans with supposedly-legendary transformations, a Namek who is somehow an incarnation of both pure good and pure evil, an Arcosian with another legendary transformation into a demon, and a...very spirited human." He slid his eyes sideways to Videl. "All up against an evil that predates most of your civilizations and worlds, that all we Kaioushin together could not defeat. The sense of irony is certainly thick enough to qualify for the end times..."
Frieza powered into his Fifth Form as he flew and then let loose with an energy blast, the Saiyans scattering with startled curses and yelps. The blast slammed into Buu, obliterating the lower half of his body, and the top half spun in the air for a moment, Buu letting out agonized cries, before he instantly restored his lower half with a 'Ta-daaah!'
Frieza grimaced, appeared behind him, and punched at Buu's back. Buu slithered around the punch and slammed a leg into Frieza's head, knocking the Arcosian to one side. Gohan shot up from below and sliced Buu in half. The two halves turned into two seperate Buus that blocked the attacks from Goku and Vegeta as they dove into the fray. A furious flurry of punches and kicks rained down on the two Buus, but they blocked every strike, before one delivered a punch to Vegeta's gut and then smacked the winded Saiyan aside with a kick, sending him smashing into the ground. That Buu then joined the attack on Goku, overwhelming him and then kicking him into the onrushing Gohan, sending both of them spinning away in the sky. The two Buus celebrated, hugging one another and jumping up and down, until they grotesquely melted back into one.
Suddenly Buu froze, his body held in stasis, as Frieza used his psychokinesis to hold him in place. "I've got him!" he shouted, "Quick, hit him while you can!"
From below, Vegeta aimed his hands, yellow energy crackling around them. "Final Flash!" he shouted, the enormous beam of energy hurtling towards Buu.
Buu smirked and fired a kiai wave at Frieza that snapped the Arcosian backwards, breaking his hold. Buu then whirled around and caught the Final Flash in his hands. Vegeta's eyes widened as Buu resisted the attack with seeming ease. How?!" he shouted, trying to pump more energy into the attack. "He can't possibly be—"
Buu laughed and then fired a blast of his own, which pushed back Vegeta's attack at a rocketing speed, the Saiyan screaming in rage, sweat pouring down his face from the heat of the blast, and his own desperation. He was starting to slip...
SHHFFT!
Goku appeared behind Vegeta and then teleported them away. The beam slammed into the ground, destroying a huge chunk of the area and kicking up a large cloud of smoke. Goku and Vegeta appeared beside Shin. "Damn him!" Vegeta shouted, standing up and shoving Kakarot off him. "He just keeps going! He doesn't seem to be running out of stamina at all!"
Goku looked over. "Kibito! Could you restore our energy too? We need to get back in there; I doubt Frieza and Gohan can handle Buu by themselves for long."
"O-of course!" Kibito said, running over to Goku.
Vegeta pondered their situation, clenching his fist.
"Oh no!" Videl screamed. They all looked over to see the smoke clear. Buu held Gohan by the throat, his other hand poised to attack. Frieza lay sprawled on his back in a cracked crater.
"Gohan!" Piccolo and Goku shouted at once. Piccolo shot forward, his white aura flaring, an energy ball forming in his hand. Goku broke off from Kibito and was about to charge out, as was Videl, when Vegeta caught both of them by the shirt.
"Vegeta! What are you doing?" Goku shouted. Piccolo's energy blast took Buu's head off and his subsequent kick knocked the creature away, allowing Gohan to fall to the ground. Frieza groaned, stumbled to his feet, and moved to join Piccolo in the attack.
"This is getting us nowhere Kakarot!" Vegeta said, "He's too powerful and we can't keep going forever. We need to have a new way of solving this, one that he can't just bounce back from!"
"What new way? What else can we do?" Goku yelled, glaring past Vegeta towards the battle.
Vegeta sighed. "Kakarot...how many times have you saved the Earth? Don't you think it's time that the Earth returned the favor?"
Goku looked confused. "What are you talking about?"
"There's one thing that can stop Buu: the Genki Dama. I remember its power; I've felt what even a small one can do. A bigger one? Well, that might just be our saving grace."
"The Genki Dama!" Goku's eyes widened. He shook his head. "That won't work Vegeta. The energy from those here wouldn't be sufficient, and it takes too long. Against Frieza—"
"We're not getting it from those here. We're getting it from the people and life of Earth. Or further out, if you can manage it." Vegeta said grimly, "As for time, we can buy you as much as you need, but don't dawdle."
Goku smiled. "Ah! Now I've got you! You know, that might just work..." He paused. "Although I can't get the power without people giving it voluntarily...we'd have to ask, but I don't think they'd do it."
"Funny, you're always the eternal optimist; I would have thought you'd trust those human ingrates immediately," Vegeta scoffed, "That's why you and I aren't going to be asking," Vegeta said. He pointed at Videl. "She will!"
Videl's eyes widened in shock. "What? Me? Ask all the people of earth?"
Vegeta smirked. "What, you thought I lived on Earth all these years and didn't study the hierarchy? You're the daughter of that loud buffoon at the top of the pecking order in terms of popularity, aren't you? That's got to count for something, unless I'm mistaken."
Videl looked nervous a moment, but then her eyes hardened with determination. "Alright. When you put it that way..." She nodded. "You're absolutely right. I'll do it. You guys prepare what you need to and I'll speak to the people of Earth. Guess those public speaking lessons Dad made me take are gonna come in handy after all."
"It might take a while though to gather the energy," Goku warned, "You'll need to keep Buu busy for that whole time, and I'm a sittin' duck while you're doin' it."
Vegeta nodded. "The four of us can handle it. We'll give you the time."
"I hate to interrupt," Shin said, stepping forward, "but how do you plan on speaking to the people of Earth?"
Vegeta looked confused. "With your power, of course," he said, a slow dread creeping on him. "You gods can speak to people, right?"
Shin shook his head. "I can do that with individuals, but I can't do it with whole groups of people."
"No!" Vegeta snarled, "But then we can't—"
"Fear not everyone!" a voice cut in, "Speaking to groups of people just happens to be my speciality!"
Goku laughed. "King Kai! You were listenin' in this whole time?"
"Yes indeed!" King Kai said with delight, "At this point, I can't very well sit back and watch the universe be destroyed, now can I? After all, I live here too! Hahaha...ha... ...That was a joke; you were supposed to laugh." An awkward pause ensued. "Well, erm... Tough crowd at the end of the world, I get it. Anyway, with my power you can speak to the Earth, or indeed the whole galaxy! Just let me know."
"The Earth please..." Vegeta ground out with a mix of annoyance and relief. "...thank you," he added in a mutter. He looked at Goku and Videl and nodded. "Make it count. And be quick." He ignited his aura and charged back to the battle.
"Alright Videl, give it your best shot; we're countin' on you!" Goku said. He flew up into the sky and raised his hands above his head. "I know you can do this!"
"Yeah...haha…no pressure..." Videl swallowed. She took a deep, long breath and sighed out. And then she started to speak.
Hello my loyal SoD readers! It's been a crazy few months, huh? Hope that all of you are safe & sane, and not succumbing to cabin fever. I'm an introvert, so this is like heaven for me, but it is annoying that no thrift stores are open. We're coming up on the end of the Buu Saga, & from here it's gonna get a lot more interesting. There'll be some new faces, some old allies & enemies reappearing, & some forgotten threats shall reveal themselves... On to the Q&A!
Q: I really liked mr satan here
A: He's getting to be a real likeable dude, huh?
Q: I get the feeling Mr Satan's more terrified than both of you. He's just hiding it and trying to stay calm, or at least not let his fear paralyze him. Wait, IS ki a type of tea as well? Yeah, I called it. He's (quite naturally) scared out of his wits. It IS possible that the sword is naturally made of a very dense metal, and considering that it holds a soul in it, that might add extra weight. And if combined with the Kaioshinkai's gravity being ten times that of Earth's? I fully believe that it's very hard to so much as lift. That's right, Gohan DID have a sword. Though I imagine that if he were to go up against a proper swordsman in terms of pure skill, he'd likely lose since I doubt Piccolo is a master swordsman either. Swordsnamek? Whatever. "You and your friends are kinda crazy." You have NO idea. Yeah, Goku and Vegeta are terrible at teamwork. Frieza, isn't really much better. Even Piccolo ships it. Glad to see Shin being humble/smart enough to know when he owes someone an apology. I was going to point out the difference between a martial artist and a street brawler for Videl's ki, but then you beat me to it. See, with Shin being smart like this, he's not leaving me with a lot to say other than "Yes, I agree with what you're saying." Yamcha is never living down being killed by a Saibaman, is he? Well damn. That's, actually a good reason to not fear Vegeta. If he dies, he knows he's going to Heaven and can be brought back, and if they ALL die, well, Vegeta's going to go to Hell. He might be better than in the Saiyan Saga, but I wouldn't consider him a 'good person' until Super rolls around. ... Wow. Go Yamcha. I'm really glad you're giving the humans a chance to shine on their own. Not even just in combat, but with moments like this. Mr Satan's best stat is Charisma. He's a very convincing actor. Krane saw through it. But, Babidi didn't because he's kind of an arrogant jackass. Come to think of it, a LOT of Wizards are arrogant. Yeah, I'd rather deal with Buu than Babidi. Buu isn't exactly difficult to fool. Babidi, is another story. Buu has incredible physical stats, but rock bottom mental ones. Fat Buu is a child. He doesn't understand that he's hurting others because he himself has likely never felt pain, so the very concept of it is alien to him. I wonder what the extent of Buu's healing is? Besides healing injuries like Dende can, but probably better since he likely has more magic, he can cure blindness, so presumably similar afflictions, but could he theoretically restore a whole limb or restore someone's energy? Could he be a nigh immortal Cleric if he tried/was convinced to be? Seeing Goku being a Dad is something the world doesn't have enough of. Beating up death itself, eh Goten? I kinda want to see him try. And seeing Goku and Chi-Chi be a married couple is also great. Apparently her usual My Beloved Smother and Hair Trigger Temper aren't as bad in the manga, it was just exaggerated in the anime since they didn't have any other ideas of what to do with her. Mr Satan's got a good plan. Babidi is a formidable Wizard, certainly, but like a LOT of wizards, he's physically squishy. After years upon years of derision and abuse from Frieza, having a kid who unironically looks up to him and idolizes him, and that's HIS flesh and blood, that's gotta be an incomparable sensation. It's just that due to the way Vegeta is, he can't properly process it, much less react 'correctly'. ... DAMN Goku. That's, harsh. Sadly accurate, but still. I see Goku's appetite is unaffected. "Kill him." You say that like it's going to be so easy. That said, glad to see Mr Satan being unwilling to even consider letting the kid die. He let himself get beat up to give the kid a chance to escape. Well played indeed. He no sold Babidi's spell! DAMN that's some willpower! And some self awareness! I don't think I've ever genuinely wanted Mr Satan to win more than right now. He exploded his heart. Well, that, is a TERRIFYING spell. Super Buu is here to play. And he seems nettled. And Buu has now gone full Chaotic Evil. This is why you should never bully a dragon. Vegeta smiling? Can someone check on how Hell's doing? I think it may have frozen over. Goku's emblem and Piccolo's emblem. Perfect. I wonder though, what are the limits of the Clothes Beam? He can make clothes and a sword out of nowhere so, does it just ignore physics? I wouldn't be shocked. Yeah, that's what I figured. The Z-Sword can negate Buu's regeneration. Oh. So, Buu has now absorbed Goku, Vegeta, Frieza, Gohan, and Videl. Oh, holy shit that is very bad.
A: Ki is not a type of tea that I am aware of. Puer & Oolong are, though. ;^P People always forget about Gohan's sword prior to the Saiyan Saga. I kinda wonder what happened to it, myself. I love little glimpses of how bonkers the Z Senshi's lives are, & Videl is wonderful for being the Everyman here because she's not too polite to comment on it. I think at this point in his life, Yamcha has made peace with his past mistakes, & ever since Kid Goku knocked him down a peg, he's never been as arrogant as his first appearance. If Mr. Satan had a stat sheet, he'd have Charisma almost maxed out, & a tiny little sliver in Strength. That's it, that's his whole schtick. Buu as a Cleric is an interesting thought that I haven't seen anyone bring up in any fanon. That's a cool thought! I'm super-bad at writing relationships & anything domestic, so all credit for Goku, Chi-chi, & Goten being heartwarming goes to my team. You can't write what you don't know... Goku being genuinely stressed & doubting himself is something that brings him back to being a relatable character, & he's not perfect; he's selfish, flawed, & makes the wrong decisions just like everyone else. Everyone tends to ignore all that even in-universe because his triumphs outbalance that, but he's well aware of his shortcomings even if they aren't. It's not so much that Mr. Satan pulled a No Sell on Babidi's Majin curse, because all he was trying to do was invade his mind. He doesn't even consider Mr. Satan worthy of wasting that spell on. Instead, he shook off Babidi's attempt to break his spirit, which is just as impressive. Hell was getting a little chilly the moment Goku, Vegeta, & Frieza joined forces. Now, I think you could skate on the Blood Pond. We have yet to see the limit of the infamous Clothes Beam, but my theory is that it transmutes existing materials by default— changing Gohan's Kai outfit to a gi— but if there is nothing to transmute, it might leech ki from the user to summon things like fabric & metal from raw environmental elements (e.g. when Piccolo made clothing & a sword for Gohan after he transformed back from an Oozaru).
Q: Somewhere in a hidden base, Gero is watching the events pan out and just going 'See, this is why I don't meddle with magical bullshit... that said, I should really figure out a way to ensure that my Cell project can't do this before I deploy it.'
A: Lol, yep. With Gero still alive to consciously tinker away at Cell in conjunction with his computer, you can bet he's going to make adjustments that we didn't see in canon.
Q: And thus we have the tale of Earth's Champion, Mr. Satan giving his life in an effort to save one child, and teach another a valuable lesson, it's easy to mock the man as a showboating attention seeking idiot, but the fact of the matter is while I never thought I would say this, at least in this one case he actually lived up to his legend and was the hero the world sees him as, nicely done Rocketto, nicely done indeed. Also love Supreme Kai helping to refine Videl's technique and the concept of why it was needed, I can completely see Gohan being so used to being an overpowered hybrid that he never needed to learn that kind of precise control and efficiency to even be aware of them much less able to teach them. Overall an excellent chapter...but that cliffhanger was just cruel
A: Well, he is an attention-loving Glory Hound. It's just that under all the bravado, he does have a heart, & some semblance of morals. Otherwise I seriously doubt Videl would've turned out the way she did, even in canon. You can tell from her first appearance in canon that she has a very strong sense of justice, & isn't just in it for the accolades. I think she wanted to distance herself from her father's fame & forge her own path, but still help & inspire people.
Q: Okay. First off, I do like this story. It's not strictly speaking an original concept, Freeza surviving post-landing on Earth, but the execution is fairly original. Your characters are intriguing, their interplay is entertaining, and the expanding of canonical concepts in this "what-if" style AU is, for me at least, quite enjoyable to read. Your writing style itself is eloquent, but rarely superfluous. Furthermore, I think this is a very good chapter. I find Mr. Satan's (and Videl's) more integrated role(s) with the main cast to be refreshing, and like seeing Hercule's character more fleshed out and less one-dimensional. I also enjoyed Yamcha's conversation with Vegeta. It did come off a little preachy at the end (which I can't help but imagine would've drawn a more immediate and antagonistic response from Vegeta), but it wasn't too hammy. And Hercule Satan's defiance and self-sacrifice was very well done; I caught myself smiling and nodding along as he gave his final speech listing his flaws and petty failures, yet ending with a note of pride and dying a free man with a subtle smile still on his face. Well done. That being said, there was one jarring moment that brought this read to a halt and, truthfully, almost saw me close the story in disgust. "I'm a woman on Earth: believe me when I say that being underestimated and dismissed is more or less a daily reality." Okay. One of two distinct possibilities, here. Either you're projecting your own insecurities, or you're virtue-signaling because that kind of nonsense is trendy these days. I'm going to be charitable and assume the former. Speak for yourself, sister. If your peer group is in the habit of making you feel this way, you're hanging out with the wrong crowd. Get some better friends. And if it's co-workers or employers treating you this way; good. Hopefully they'll still be underestimating and dismissing you right up until the point you take their job and leave them with a stupid look on their faces. Underestimating somebody based off of ANYTHING superficial is a mark of stupidity, and it isn't confined to any one race, sex, creed, or denomination. Superiority is a state of being earned by oneself, not some entitlement granted by fiat of any kind. A person is as great or small as they choose to be, regardless of popular opinion. "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." It was true when Eleanor Roosevelt said it, and it's still true today. This single line from your story, so casually accepting inferred mediocrity, not only goes against my own personal beliefs (which I am aware means nothing, really), but also flies in the face of the established lore and characters of the story you're drawing from. Bulma Briefs is the single most important character in all of Dragon Ball. She invented the Dragon Radar, and it was her quest to find the balls that started this whole thing. And Videl Satan would likely want to beat the living crap out of somebody for treating like she didn't matter, or dismissing her out of hand (and in all likelihood, she could do it). The world of Dragon Ball (and our own, for that matter) is full of strong, intelligent, and massively important women. I really hope this kind of deprecation doesn't become a trend for this story. It would be a terrible pity, and would pretty effectively end my interest in following.
A: Thank you; I think I've mentioned before that I started this story because I wanted to read one like it, but none existed that truly fit the bill. I try to give characters much more personality & depth of character where possible, & readers seem to appreciate my characterizations, so I guess I'm doing okay. The line from Videl is actually one that one of my editors added in — I am neither insecure nor do I condone virtue signaling. However, we were in a bit of a time crunch to release on time, so I shrugged & left it in, rather than come up with something different for that point in the conversation. Regardless, I'll concede that the line is a little OOC, & this mistake will not be repeated.
Q: Awesome chapter as usual! Mr. Satan's last stand was heroic and noble, though I really didn't expect it to be his *last* stand... ah well. I am a little confused on one thing- is it Evil Buu(the grey one) or Super Buu they're fighting at the end there? Seems more like Super Buu, though I can't help but wonder why he transformed in that particular way. Interesting fight at the end too, though I'm not sure Buu losing bits of himself actually matters much- though I could be wrong. I know Vegeto proved his can be fatigued and this does effect his regeneration, though I imagine it's going to take a lot for that to happen. And a scarily effective cliffhanger too. Great chapter as always, and I'll see you next review.
A: I am known for murdering perfectly good, relatable characters, keep in mind. (•̀ ᴗ •́) To clarify, in this universe Buu skipped straight past Evil Buu & went straight to Super Buu. His description in the next chapter should help with the visualization. Buu is inherently unstable in any of his forms, so that's why his transformation occurred in a very different way than in canon.
Q: The avian military support guys and Mr. Satan make for an interesting group. I like this take on "someone rationalizing away Mr. Satan's actions" because it mixes truth with the facade, at least to some degree, and of course because he actually warned them in advance that he might seem to act differently. Just like using the dead Shin, using the dead Piccolo is similarly perfect. And I love Shin's approach to training with Videl. Teaching her the gods' methods of controlling ki in a far more efficient manner is a good way to give her a power boost without basically just making it a deus ex machina, especially considering that his decently high strength has no canon explanation - if they aren't just born extremely strong compared to most mortals, but are strong through sheer mastery of ki, it makes them a lot more interesting. It's sort of similar to the "god ki" idea from Super, only, y'know... sensible, rather than "unlocked by deus ex machina group power up". Yamcha's really matured in these years, hasn't he? Not that long ago he was still extremely bitter about Vegeta, but it looks like he's left that behind. Probably has something to do with the way he doesn't seem to consider himself an active fighter anymore - he's stopped working so hard to try to prove himself equal to people he just can't catch up to. Mr. Satan's talk with Buu about pain is quite good. I can't remember for sure, but I don't think his talk with Buu was quite so potent in any version of canon. Of course Buu has nearly no concept of pain. And that extra touch about emotional pain, possibly hinting at the fate of Videl's mother... excellent. Goten and Chi-chi interacting with Goku is something canon desperately needed. But nah, just say that Goku has never kissed his wife, LOL. (Goku's character assassination in Super is just so disappointing.) Even TFS Goku has done better than that. Mr. Satan's plan to take Babidi out, if he gets a chance, is fairly solid, and if he had gotten that chance he would have actually been the complete hero this time. Ironic that Videl is in Otherworld believing she can't depend on her father for help there. Of course, not only is Babidi aware that he's lying (finally showing a hint of real competence), he doesn't get that chance because he's forced to step up and defend that child. And damn, does he get his moment of badassery. No split between two Buus, huh? That makes some kind of sense. It's never quite clear what exactly the Grand Kai does to make his absorption sacrifice affect Buu's mind the way it did, rendering him childlike and playful when none of the absorptions in Z affected his personality anywhere near as much, but it isn't surprising that a moment of unbearable rage manages to finally overcome that and draw Buu's true strength and murderous attitude to the surface. And, of course, there's no split, because Buu isn't trying to fight it to protect the people around him - he gives into it entirely. The plan to cut and blast Buu to pieces, wearing down his regeneration, is quite solid. Too bad it gets Frieza a poke in the eyes. Nice to see that Gohan and Videl joining the fray tips the scales - Buu goes from being able to fend off three fighters at once to barely being able to fend off five. It helps that the Z Sword seems to cause extra damage. And Videl's improved ki focus certainly seems to be extremely effective here. Too bad the paralysis couldn't hold - for Buu to panic must mean that he seriously fears the Z Sword. This matchup seems very possible in canon, too - Buu losing when he's getting too swarmed by multiple SS2-level powers to effectively fight back while also having to deal with the Z Sword's bonus damage AND someone firing highly efficient ki attacks from a safe distance. And then a mass absorption! Way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat there, Buu. That leaves almost no one left alive and free - it's just Trunks, Goten, Kibito, Yamcha, and Chiaotzu now, none of whom are going to be able to pull it off. And the Z Sword is most likely being absorbed along with Gohan, so there isn't even an Old Kai boost waiting to happen for anyone. My guess is that one or more of the five being absorbed will either be able to escape or be able to keep conscious and free inside Buu's body... that, or, with no other options, Gero will have to emerge from hiding and try his hand at saving Earth from destruction with his newest android creation. Maybe that's it? Maybe you're building up to Dr. Gero as the savior of humanity? I guess we'll see in another couple months... You mentioned that you've had some feedback from people upset that SS3 isn't looking to appear any time soon. Honestly, I think that's the right call. So many aspects of the Buu Saga - SS3, the Fusion Dance, Potara Fusion, the Mystic boost - were just unnecessary bloat. And none of them mattered in the end, because Buu was defeated by a Spirit Bomb being pushed by a Super Saiyan 2. It's not just that it narratively makes sense to cut down the bloat (allowing you to save it for later if you so wish), and it's not just that it canonically makes sense for a not-dead Goku to not discover all the same things he only discovered in the afterlife, but literally every single one of those concepts could be removed from DBZ and have no effect on the ending anyway, so why introduce them now? Gero is still out there, Ratsura is still out there, and it's implied Baby is out there somewhere too. There are plenty of major villains left to raise the stakes with over time. Why go overboard with unnecessary power boosts now?
A: Mr. Satan is an interesting character, & you have to wonder why in canon, nobody questioned his sometimes obvious lies. I think we've managed to establish a plausible way to paint him as a guy who's created a cult of personality around himself, which is the most likely explanation. Interesting that you make a parallel between Kaioushin in SoD & Super's "God Ki" concept...& I agree, I like ours much better. Fewer ridiculous plotholes. Yamcha is one of those characters who showed frustratingly little development in canon, so we took the liberty of letting him grow & mature. The nature of pain, & its different facets, is an important concept, made all the more poignant in this universe, where you actually have characters who can take ridiculous amounts of damage, or who seem to have very different ways of feeling, both mentally & physically. Poor Goku suffers from a lot of bad or just flat characterization, as most writers only think he's good at punching things. Like every other character, he's still a person with faults, flaws, strengths, & triumphs that have shaped him. Same goes for Mr. Satan, & you're right, he is, at his heart, a heroic character under a very shiny, scummy showman's facade. Videl dismisses him as being useful merely because she's surrounded by superhumans — reasoning that he can't possibly have an impact unrelated to fighting. The final fight of this chapter was a blast to write from a coordination standpoint — I love doing melee battles with multiple opponents, each with different fighting styles & modes of attack. As for the Z Sword...what makes you think Buu would want to absorb something that can hurt him? ಠ‿↼ Gero becoming the reluctant savior of humanity is a fun idea, but alas, he won't touch anything magic with a ten-foot pole, so don't expect him to step up any time soon. People upset over SSJ3 are just fans clinging to canon, & I respect that. I try to keep to canon in many aspects, but SSJ3 just won't work in SoD because I'm all about realistic limitations. Also, you're right, there are many villainous forces still lurking in the SoD universe, & Goku may have to raise the stakes when they finally raise their ugly heads.
Q: I LOVE the Mr. Satan shenanigans, they really got to me lol. But also, holy moly, you just ended the chapter by getting rid of ALL of the viable heroes, it feels like the story just accidentally got the bad ending. I'll have a good time coming up with theories as to how they could possibly do much at this point.
A: Everybody loves Mr. Satan in SoD, haha. I swear, he's quickly becoming a dark horse favorite. Yep, all the heroes have had their tickets punched...or have they?
Q: Yamcha gave a badass speech, I must admit XD But his speech couldn't even live up to the absolute madness of Mr. Satan here. Because honestly, that was awesome. That was the most awesome he's ever been in his entire life. I had to cheer for that blowhard because he was a literal hero here (even if his death meant the transformation to Super Buu, who is giving our heroes a tough time) There were many other amazing moments here, from Vegeta giving Trunks a smile (which, in the true fashion of the show, was quite the impact for quite the minimal sentence/showing) to the power trio reuniting (no matter how dark and depressing the reunion was) to Piccolo giving Gohan encouragement and Videl being wonderful (and getting training from the Kai, I love it!) to their big moment returning to help in the battle...but still, the part I remember most was Mr. Satan giving his 'you suck' speech to Babidi, going hand to hand with the human fighters, and not cowering at all at his inevitable death even though he's usually quite scared- by the end, I was channeling Seagul a bit in being impressed. That's what I love so much about this story- it takes characters I either disliked (like Mr. Satan, though granted it was only mild dislike) to those I find forgettable (like Pansy or Yamcha) and making them have depth and impact and complexities. Kudos to you, as always
A: Mr. Satan is a true Mad Lad in this story, between this & standing up to Broly. I do believe he may have actually grown a spine. Vegeta & Trunks were pretty poignant in canon, so I had a lot to live up to writing that scene. I'm glad it had the same impact. I'm all about letting every character shine, no matter how minor or overlooked they were in canon. Thank you for all the compliments; I'll strive to continue deserving them.
Q: Oh well,Buu's character development is always inspiring...but always fatally falls to his ambiguous nature and the plot direction...if I didn't knew the core plot this could be the end of the fanfic...with another zenbuu...kkk...will fat buu be stronger duo to the bigger influence Mr Satan had on him
A: Well I mean...Frieza doesn't have to be the main character. ò‿ó That said, Mr. Satan influenced Fat Buu enough to affect his transformation. He skipped Evil Buu & went straight to Super Buu.
Q: Sorry for the month-late review, but I just wanna say that I absolutely LOVE your portrayal of Mr. Satan and how you kept his whole arc where he was teaching the childish tool about morality and the concept of pain. It really works with your overarching theme of being more than fate made them out to be. In any case, I hope you're doing well.
A: Shoot, is it too late to change this to a Mr. Satan redemption story? Y'all love him. xD
Q: ...well shit, I just binged this in like 5 days and it is easily the best DBZ fanfic I've read in a very long while. I love that you can take so many things that were throw away details or super under utilized and make them actually good. While I definitely think the expansion on Frieza and his family is easily the highlight given it's kinda the whole point the characterization of Mrs. Briefs and the villains are also stellar! Only real thing I'm wondering besides the big important stuff is if Ginyu is ever gonna factor in, or Launch?
A: Huzzah & welcome, new reader! So glad to have you, & I hope you'll continue to review with each coming chapter. Ginyu is pretty content being a big frog in a little pond, & without anyone taking interest in the weird dancing amphibian, his days of being plot-relevant are pretty much done. Launch is just kinda...robbin' banks & doin' her own thing. Probably taking advantage of the chaos right now with Buu to line her pockets.
Q: Good luck with the virus. Stay safe.
A: Lol, everyone freaking out right now, & I'm a very happy introvert. I don't have to commute to work, I don't have to wear shoes all day, I don't have to make polite small-talk with coworkers...I'm happier than a Namek in a tank of filtered springwater right now. (≛ヮ≛)
Q: MR. SATAN NOOOOOOO! D8 Buu feels WAY more terrifying here than he ever was in the source material. I'm really liking this since I believed the conflict with Super Buu kind of dragged itself out in the original. Here, we're thrown into the fray. Also, Buu's got our heroes... well shit. 8) Can't wait to see what happens next!
A: If Buu is terrifying to readers, I'm doing my job right. No matter how you slice it, he's a magical Eldritch Abomination, & that's scary even without the childlike personality & faux innocuous mannerisms.
Reviews from Previous Chapters:
Q: Another few chapters, and time for another review! There is something I didn't think of until recently, however, and it's that there's a bit of a plot hole when it comes to the legends of Majin Buu. In the flashback to Buu's creation, it ends with North Kai being killed, then his spirit form in Otherworld being destroyed while he's in the middle of warning the other Kaioushin about Buu, West being killed AND her spirit destroyed, and then East killing Bibidi before he can leave. There is a mention of something nonspecific happening to planets in the time between North's death and his appearance in front of the others, and I could even buy that Kid Buu was distorting Bibidi's warp spell or something, causing the destruction of several planets before Bibidi was able to successfully teleport them to Otherworld, and that North was too ashamed/guilty/shocked to immediately run to the others, but neither of those should have taken more than a minute or so - certainly not enough time to kick off a legendary rampage across the galaxy that leaves detailed legends about Buu's name and abilities. At best, a few scattered survivors might have had enough time to see a flash of magic, the color pink, and an explosion of energy. Shin also says when talking about Buu to the main crew that he killed Bibidi "here" (on Earth). Dunno if it's really my place to make suggestions, but if that's something to fix - maybe North Kai only ever tells Bibidi about the four directional Supreme Kai, fails to mention Grand, and Bibidi mistakenly thinks that since Buu has killed or absorbed four Kaioushin, he's gotten them all. He warps out with Buu, leaving East there, hidden behind a rock, barely clinging to consciousness. East spends whatever amount of time watching, waiting, hoping for any kind of chance to interfere, and finally gets it when Bibidi seals up Buu for goofing off and disobeying too much. Then, there's also a plot hole in 41/36: Recusant. When Goku explains that the Dragonballs can be used to revive his corrupted allies, he mentions that with Piccolo's death, they'll have to travel to Namek and use their Dragonballs instead, even though Dende is the current Guardian, not Kami. I'm not sure if that's intentional - Goku either forgetting that they're no longer linked to Piccolo or deliberately lying because he's not sure how much Babidi knows/cares, for example. Also, you mention in your last response that Gohan's transformation into Super Saiyan 2 after Videl was turned to stone has little buildup compared to other first time transformations because he first went SSJ2 against Broly - that seems unusual. That was his first transformation (for a whole half-second) into any form of Super Saiyan at all, and there weren't any signs of sparks or electricity in his flickering aura.
A: I attribute any & all Buu-related plotholes to the unreliable aspect of legends; they're a game of culturally-transmitted Telephone, so details get garbled or changed the more the story is told. Even in canon we get different versions of events after Buu is first released. The plothole you mentioned in Ch. 36 is in fact, Goku trying to be sly, not mentioning Dende because he's already seen what happens when a villain (Slug) catches wind of his existence & targets him. Gohan's transformation, I'll admit, was only to regular SSJ against Broly, so I misspoke. However, my headcanon is that once you break through to SSJ, going to the second level is only difficult if you're getting in your own way. With Goku alive to train Gohan without guilt or fear that he'd lose control, SSJ2 was easier to achieve for Gohan, so he reached it offscreen in the interim leading up to the tournament.
Q: -42- Surprisingly, Frieza manages to resist obedience even more strongly than Vegeta, who himself was already a notable anomaly, yet Piccolo kills himself because he feels he can't fight off the spell for long. I would have expected his fusions with good-hearted Namekians to help him in that regard, but I guess his fused nature actually hinders him here, and Babidi's magic is able to reach back to the part of him that is nothing but an incarnation of evil, bringing it up to dominate over the rest of his personality, whereas Vegeta and Frieza were always whole people from the start. Ah, poor Krillin. Still, despite the cruelty of this scene, I just can't help but picture a hypothetical TFS version of this: Krillin being slightly surprised by the way they appeared on Namek, but happily and obliviously babbling away to Frieza for a time before going "oh man, and you know, being here reminds me of that time I cut your tail off. I still can't believe I managed that, hahaha! Seriously, everybody else just dodges it. You were the only one dumb enough to ever actually take any real damage from it. Hoo, boy, you were SUPER nettled back then. Good times, right?" I don't know what it is about that scene that makes my mind immediately jump there, but it does. Ah, Videl. Good on you for trying to rush the final boss and speedrun this saga, but you definitely have too much of your dad in you to just grab Babidi's head from behind and give it a sharp twist. Shoulda picked up that Silent Attack skill so you didn't flub the sneak attack bonus damage. Sadly, none of the rest of the gang, even the few who do know it, ever really use that skill, either, so you never had a chance to see how useful it could be. Still, at least you managed to convince Babidi that if a lone teenager was able to sneak in, he'd be better off... completely out in the open and away from all his guards...? I guess your dad at least taught you how to max out your Luck skill. Speaking of Babidi, you can definitely tell he got the majority of his power and skill as a result of Bibidi's dying inheritance spell. He certainly acts with all the tact and intelligence of a spoiled trust fund baby believing that they're better than the rest of the world thanks to inheriting the benefits of their parents' work. No wards around his personal chamber? No wards on his own self? No personal guard on hand at all times, in this critical hour? Failing to block Videl's ki signature when he imprisoned her? Poor, stupid Babidi. One of these days his luck is going to run out, and life is just going to grab him by the throat and blow his mind.
A: Yep, Frieza taught Vegeta everything he knows about all-consuming pride. Of course he wouldn't just let Babidi use him as a mindless goon. Haha, if I do an SoD!Abridged chapter up to this point, I'm definitely including your suggested scene. Poor Frieza had no ki sense nor common sense in the face of the Kienzan, lol. Mr. Satan's Luck stat definitely got passed to his kid, haha. She'd be well-suited for being the Hero of Another Story in a universe void of Saiyan-level threats. Also, yes, that is EXACTLY the vibe I want readers to get from Babidi! He does little to none of his own work, is much less clever than he thinks, & treats his underlings like garbage because he's on a 24/7 power trip. Spoiled brat is practically a compliment.
Q: -43- Good job on Ten's part, recognizing that Frieza broke character and realizing what it meant. A risky move, especially if Babidi had been watching closely and could have poured more energy into the mental suppression, but it sure paid off. It also sounds like Ten's made a lot of good progress filling in the gaps in his memory in the years since his last resurrection. As for Frieza, it seems like killing Krillin disturbs him a lot more than most would have expected. I know he's more or less discarded his old sadism, now that he's finally able to get some measure of real contentment rather than just fleeting, empty satisfaction by abusing his power over others, but it seems like he's even recovered a glimmer of morality, too. Videl baiting Buu into taking a dual Kamehameha is awesome, and I just love the imagery of her standing by Gohan's side. It says a lot about how determined she is, that she works so hard to make a significant contribution to his power that it actually burns the flesh from her fingers. That's a level of commitment that really doesn't ever appear in Dragonball, but would make perfect sense as a consequence of pushing yourself too far past your limits. Makes sense that it wouldn't appear on any other occasion, though - in most other fights, no one can risk sacrificing the use of their hands, but Videl knows she's just barely above useless in any other capacity due to the power gap. Videl being taken along to the sacred world of the Supreme Kai makes too much sense. Even when referring to canon DBZ I often say that it should have happened at least after her death - why build her up as such an important (if not powerful) character only to cut her out of the entire rest of the plot? Especially with the later power boost from the Old Kai; it would have been trivial to add in the idea of linking her power level with Gohan's (and would have fit the rampant theme of fusion), justifying not doing so with Goku by saying that it also links life energy (so the dead Goku can't be part of it) or saying that it wouldn't work as well if the two power levels were close together. So the Goku and Vegeta fight ends sooner than in canon - not much of a surprise considering how much extra energy was being pumped out. And it has the benefit of keeping both of them conscious and alive following the loss to Buu. Beautiful way of keeping Roshi involved in the plot, there. And it's absolutely perfectly fitting for the character. His familial tie to magic, his experience dealing with cruel masters manipulating their pupils (not to mention his experience at turning those manipulated pupils back to the side of good), and even an attempt at the Mafuba. It's SO perfect I have no idea why it never went that way in of course Babidi is too stupid to outmaneuver him. Once again, you can really tell he has no real experience in... anything, really. He plays right into Roshi's hands despite killing him with a gesture. Shin being dead and yet still a part of the plot is perfect as well. I mean, why have such a crucial location set in Otherworld and basically never really make use of the fact that the dead can be present in it? And Vegeta overcomes the curse... probably impossible if he wasn't in another dimension, otherwise Babidi would surely be able to feel it and just make another headsplosion.
A: Hey, at this point, Tenshinhan knows Frieza better than anybody, even Goku to some extent. Yeah, Frieza has managed to grow a conscience in his time on Earth, & he's learning the hard way why he threw it away before — guilt friggin' hurts. Writing Videl as being much more ingrained in the plot & involved with Gohan's inner circle is so cathartic, compared to her canon treatment. Roshi is also a character who got shafted by canon a lot, & if nothing else, I'd have hoped that he & Baba would have a role to play against Buu...but it didn't happen. Boooooo. So in SoD, he gets to play a crucial role, nudging Buu that much closer to rebellion.
Q: -43- Interesting that Goku believes he's just about hit his body's limit for strength. But it makes sense, given your prior commentary about how Frieza's Fifth Form is the final one he can reach without his ki destroying his own body - any more Saiyan transformations and that gap would be truly insurmountable. Plus, it makes sense - SS2 is not only really about where the series peaked when it came to consistency with general power levels, with later transformations or nonsensical training power ups just making a mockery of the idea of power in DB entirely, but it's the level that actually managed to end DBZ, despite all the fusion and SS3 and Ultimate power ups. And, of course, if there isn't some kind of near-insurmountable limit, it seriously breaks suspension of disbelief that someone so comparatively weak as Namek saga Frieza could actually rule any part of the galaxy. A mob going after Capsule Corp makes too much sense, unfortunately. Desperately trying to save themselves by offering up the sacrifice of the people Babidi is after. And Frieza recognizes the manipulation and control, too. It's a little surprising that he doesn't draw the conclusion to his own relationship with his father, but I guess it isn't surprising that he's come across other beings being manipulated or forced to fight on the behalf of others to try (and fail) to challenge him. Setting them free of their leash and pointing them back at their master was probably much more amusing for him than just batting them aside with a Death Beam. The horrifying idea of the Candy Beam triggering nearly-forgotten childhood fears, forcing Frieza to flee with his tail between his legs, is... powerful. It really does a lot to sell the half-baked (in canon) idea of Majin Buu being a threatening legend told amongst older, more established races in the galaxy. And that's even before getting to the point of using it on an entire city's population at once - holy crap. Not the first time an entire city (or more) has been destroyed in DB, but this is honestly one of the first times it's ever actually been written with a real impact to it. Kibito really doesn't like the idea of Videl trying to free the Z Sword, does he? Is he going to be the next Zamasu? Hah. Nah, I think that would be a massive break from his established character, and not in a good way, so I doubt that's what you're up to - but this really foreshadows Zamasu's attitude towards humanity to some degree, even if you have no intention of ever using him. It's a very nice, subtle touch of worldbuilding. Though it speaks volumes as to Kibito's (the Kais'?) unfair prejudice - ki usage may be mostly rare knowledge on Earth, and Earth may be isolated from the rest of the galaxy, but if you look at what DBZ's human cast is capable of, they're the fourth strongest known species in the galaxy, and that's including Super (or fused) Namekians and mutation-based transformed Arcosians, both of which are arguably cheating. And of course Videl makes him absolutely eat his words. Gloat away, Videl, you definitely earned it. Trunks confronting Vegeta is, once again, something I can't believe wasn't included in canon. To be fair, I guess there wasn't really time for it - I mean, it could have been written a bit differently to make time, but Vegeta going straight to the sacrificial explosion was a strong enough moment that it wasn't really necessary. I guess that's my way of saying that this is a very fitting alternate take on the consequences that I could 100% see happening in canon if it weren't for that sacrifice.
A: I'm really not a fan of Power Creep as a trope, & DBZ is the worst offender by far. I say that with love, of course. Regardless, we don't need a zillion transformations to show the strength of characters, or the threat of an enemy. I realize that many fans aren't a fan of it, but the Garlic Junior Saga did a fairly good job at making the Black Water Mist a credible & terrifying threat that had little to do with power levels. I really wish we saw more like that in canon. Writing the mob attacking Capsule Corp. was a really harrowing deal, because I live in Florida, so I've seen first-hand how crazy large groups of panicked people can be during Hurricane Season. Frieza does subtly make the connection between himself & Buu, but it's not stated outright. It's probably at the back of his head in any interaction with an obviously abusive authority figure & their puppet(s). I can't be the only one who thinks Buu's Candy Beam is the most terrifying attack in DBZ, right? Depending on whether you're still conscious after being turned, which Vegetto proved is possible in canon, that's got to be the most horrifying way to die — unable to fight back or even scream, eaten alive. Kibito's subtle bigotry is to be expected — the Kaioushin don't interact with humans, & only observe the silly little mortals from a distance. Of course he'd be a little offended that one is not only on his sacred home planet, but acting like an equal to him. This is pretty much a textbook realistic portrayal of anyone who has only vague conceptions of a people/culture & hasn't experienced it for themselves or talked to an actual individual.