Goku stops cold. A chill raises the skin on the back of his neck in a series of goosebumps. They spread across his shoulder blades and down his exposed arms. The tiny hairs of his body erect themselves as antennas sensing for danger. The threatening life force he feels grows in strength as it approaches him from the direction he needs to travel.
Goku watches the horizon for an aura. The ki signature is bigger than the one from the alien who killed him. Not by much, but bigger just the same. Knowing how the last battle ended for him, his instinct tells him to run. But it is also telling him to fight. He breathes in a meditating breath. For a moment, he holds it. As he expels it, he spreads his feet shoulder width apart bending at the knees. With a firm stance, he stands his ground. Enduring the monotony of the past month makes him almost welcome the looming presence.
A figure zooms into view. In a matter of seconds, the person is close enough for Goku to make out the face. It is a face he recognizes all too well, his own. The shock takes Goku aback and off balance as the duplicate of himself sets down on Snake Way mere yards ahead.
His mimic is not a perfect copy however. A Saiyan tail flicks back and forth behind him. He is also wearing armor in the same style as the alien who kidnapped his son except with greater girth. It is a blackish green around the pecks and down the sides. The ribbed guards protruding from the shoulders and waist to cover the upper legs are dark blue. There is no jumpsuit either, just bulging arm and leg muscles. Instead of the thin gloves and boots of the previous foe's attire, the clone wears robust gauntlets and stout sabatons. The gauntlets are especially intimidating as they spike passed the elbows.
The resemblance is uncanny. Aside from a slightly darker complexion and some bigger biceps, everything from the hairstyle to the facial features are exactly the same as Goku's. The demeanor is different though. Scowling eyes, frowning lips, and crossed arms make him standoffish in the imposing armor. The only redeeming factor is the softly glowing halo hovering above his head.
"Man, and here I was hoping things were going to stop looking the same around here," says Goku greeting the new arrival. He cannot shake the weird déjà vu of seeing a living reflection of himself. "This place sure is strange. I never expected to meet a copy of myself."
"You've got some nerve!" shouts the lookalike. He steps forward uncrossing his arms and shakes a fist at Goku. "Accusing me of being the copy when you're the imposter, bah!"
Goku braces back into a fighting stance at the aggression.
"I'm no imposter," says Goku. "So who are you and why do you look like me?"
"I can't believe it's this bad," says the man. "The Kai told me a kind hearted man was passing himself off as me, but you actually think you're the real one. I thought for sure deep down you knew better. Before coming here, all I could think about was taking out all of my hatred on you for what you've done to me. But now, I almost pity you. I mean honestly, how can I feel good about beating the shit out of someone so delusional?"
"I'm not delusional. I don't know why you have my face or think you're me," Goku says, "but I'm not you. I'm Goku. I always have been."
"Goh-coo? What kind of stupid name is that?" asks the man. He laughs as if told a joke.
"It's mine. I assumed you'd have the same if we're copies like you say," says Goku.
"Of course my name isn't Goh-coo. I have a proper Saiyan name. It's Kakarot."
"Kakarot?" exclaims Goku.
"Sorry is there an echo?" says the tailed warrior.
"That's the name of the Saiyan the alien I met was looking for," says Goku.
"Now you're getting it," says Kakarot. "And because of your bleeding heart bullshit, the Galactic Empire thinks I'm a soft handed priss. I must be the laughing stock of my peers and fellow Saiyans. Just thinking about it gets my blood boiling. It makes me FURIOUS! And I can't rest until I destroy you for ruining my reputation as a battle hardened soldier."
"I can see now how I was mistaken for you," says Goku. "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, I really am. But your empire is at fault not me. Now please let me pass. I don't want to fight over this."
"A Saiyan passing up the opportunity for combat? What could be so important you would avoid facing me in battle?"
"I need to receive training from the master who lives at the end of Snake Way, and I don't have a lot of time to get stronger."
"You fool. You can't increase your power level with training. Saiyans can only get stronger by being on the front lines of battle, by pushing ourselves to the brink of death. But maybe you lost your love for fighting when you lost your tail. What a pathetic Saiyan you are."
"I've never claimed to be one of you," says Goku. "And if starting unnecessary violence is what it means to be a Saiyan, then I'm happy not being one. I just want to live peacefully on Earth."
"Don't you get it?" says Kakarot "There is no Earth anymore. I destroyed it when I was sent there as a child. Their strongest warriors, their most powerful armies, all obliterated by me and conquered for the Galactic Empire. It's nothing but an empty wasteland waiting to go up for auction and be inhabited by the highest bidder. That is a proud Saiyan legacy. And you took it from me. You're just a tailless freak who shies away from a fight. That's why I'm going to eradicate you. Make sense now?"
"You're wrong," says Goku. "I've saved Earth several times, and I'll keep doing it no matter how many times people like you threaten it."
"Enough blather," declares Kakarot. "The sight of you sickens me. Saving planets? Bleh! You're no Saiyan, but I'd be happy to show you what it means to be a real warrior and not some tailless imposter before I end your existence. Now prepare for battle!"
The dark reflection pulls his arms back, and Goku naturally readies himself. His enemy's ki presence is huge. And yet, despite the mass he feels bearing down on him, something keeps him calm under the pressure. Something has felt different since arriving in Other World. A new strength he did not understand. Maybe it is just a side effect of being dead. Either way, the urge to test this new strength puts him at ease.
Kakarot opens with a hail of hand sized ki blasts. The bullets shine with a light purple pulsing forth to their target. Goku infuses his forearms and hands with energy and begins swiping them aside. They fly harmlessly off into the distance.
"Looks like you have more than just my good looks," says Kakarot. "I'm glad. I'd hate to think you've been portraying me as a weakling as well as a soft hearted fool."
"Of course, they're basically just ranged punches," Goku says smirking a little. "Nothing to worry about."
That said, he thinks, this guy's active ki feels like it's more than my total ki if I could draw all of it out at once. Probably more. I need to be at my best. I have no idea how much of it he can use all at once.
"A little attitude after all," Kakarot says. "Well allow me to punch that grin off your face!"
Kakarot lunges forward with a full body tackle. Goku gracefully takes to the air in a spiraling flip over the rushing attack and lands facing his opponent. The tailed Saiyan takes two lumbering steps to halt his momentum after being outmaneuvered. A purple aura spouts forth from him as he pushes himself backward from a deep squat. He drives an elbow behind him, hoping to impale his target on the spiked gauntlet.
This charge is moving too fast for Goku to leap over again. Sidestepping is not an option either because of the narrow path they are on. Though he could leave the road to hover above the golden clouds, one good hit could drop him into the Hell below. He would be trapped forever.
Goku decides to test his might against his adversary's. He twists his body to slide his right shoulder inside the sharp spine of the foe's gauntlet. His upper arm takes the brunt of the pointed elbow. A painful pinch squeezes the limb between both of their weights. Despite blocking with his full power, the strike knocks him off balance. He regains it quickly enough with three tiny steps, backpedaling for some distance. A quick glance to his throbbing arm confirms an already forming bruise.
Though it was only a brief movement of the pupils, Kakarot sees it. He smiles knowing his target expected its defense to withstand that blow. If that block is the extent of his opponent's power, then this fight is already won.
Man, this guy will definitely out muscle me hand to hand, Goku thinks. I'll need to change tactics.
Kakarot charges again.
"Kamehameha!" shouts Goku firing a hasty beam.
Though there is not enough time to gather ki for a powerful wave, the blast only needs to catch his foe by surprise and create a small opening. However, Kakarot shifts out of its path by leaving the security of Snake Way. Without fear of eternal damnation, he continues forward in an arcing path around the beam to Goku's right side.
The kind Saiyan barely gets his guard up. His ruthless counterpart purposefully targets the bruise on his arm like a bullseye for a stomping heel. The kick sends Goku reeling out above the heavenly veil head over heels.
He throws out his arms and legs to slow himself with extra drag. In an upside down position, he comes to a stop and reorients himself. He is now floating over the dangerous barrier he dare not cross while Kakarot is now standing safely on Snake Way.
He darts at an angle to get back to the road, but his adversary charges and launches a ki ball with a circumference greater than that of the fully extended fingers from his palm. Goku barely pulls back in time as the orb whizzes by him. The power radiating from it is far greater than anything so far.
Wow, could that ki blast really be as strong as his melee attacks? he wonders. Usually it's far harder to match your ranged attacks to your physical ones because it takes so much more control to manipulate ki outside the body. But he seems to have no trouble with it. If one of those things hits me in a vital area, I'll be in serious trouble. At least he doesn't seem to be able to do it as rapidly as he punches. I'll need the preparation time to react.
He tries a couple more times but the result is the same. Kakarot smiles in enjoyment at preventing him from landing. Goku cannot keep this up, especially with the weighted clothes he is wearing. Every second spent flying is him losing more ki than his enemy.
Goku decides to race along parallel to the road heading towards King Kai's planet. Kakarot frowns at the change of strategy but chases after him running along the path.
"Come on," yells Kakarot. "Don't be a sore loser. I'll let you back on, I promise."
"I don't need to," says Goku. The spikes of his hair bend behind him as he increases his speed. "You can't hit me out here anyway. So you're really not a threat."
"Not a threat?" repeats Kakarot
"Sorry did you hear an echo?" calls Goku.
Kakarot grits his teeth and whispers, "well then I guess playtime is over."
Still running alongside Goku, he grabs his right wrist with the opposite hand and opens its palm upwards. A white hot orb with a dark purple fringe grows to a size bigger than his head. Goku observes the demonstration hoping his goading does not end up backfiring.
"Sadonsutomu!" Kakarot cries shoving his summoned energy toward Goku.
By way of fission, a multitude of orbs the same size and color as the original pull free of the main body and drive through the air with glowing trails in their wake. They expand quickly as a wide cone to fill the sky around Goku. Each one closes up safe space to move in as they fire in random directions towards his general area.
"Oh man," says Goku. "I can't believe he has a technique that can volley so many ki blasts just as strong as a single one. This guy is way more dangerous than I imagined."
His eyes widen as they try to follow every individual movement. Each one of these spheres emanate with enough strength to knock him out cold leaving him to fall to Hell. The attack would undoubtedly leave his foe exhausted but that does not matter if it ends the fight. So he either needs to weather the entire storm to win or succumb to the massive barrage.
He heads away from the source of the rapid fire assault for more time to react. He moves upward to reach the edge of the target area. Kakarot merely adjusts his aim to keep Goku at the center by holding his hand over his adversary's body. The blasts cut Goku off leaving him stranded in the eye of the storm once again. The blasts begin shooting more rapidly tightening up the already limited space between them.
He tries to block one of the blasts with his left forearm. The heavy impact pushes him backward as he diverts its course. His bones buckles as he bruises from elbow to wrist just the same as his right arm did earlier.
Like I thought, he thinks. If I try to block all of these, they will just beat me down.
He weaves in between them. Forward and backward, side to side. His breaths grow heavier with each high speed movement, dashing and stopping and then dashing again. Without anything like the ground to push off of, it just takes more ki to he get started quickly from each complete stop.
He cannot keep this up. He cannot draw out ki anywhere near fast enough to match how much he is using to move around. And with his active ki limit being lower than Kakarot's, he will run out first. Goku, still zipping about within the dangerous bombardment, moves his hands to his side with one cupped over the other.
"Kah, meh," he chants. Collecting the energy is tough while also spending it on movement. "Hah, meh. Ha!"
He fires a beam towards his opponent strong enough to match the level of the ki balls being thrown at him. Its progress is impeded every time it runs into one of the orbs, slowing it down with each impact. But it plows on clearing a path towards the target while simultaneously defending him as a physical barrier.
Kakarot responds by narrowing the focal point of his discharging projectiles. More and more blasts run into Goku's blue cylinder of energy as they swarm closer together. Each of them eat away at it while beginning to push it back.
Goku sweats as the strain to maintain the technique burdens his stamina. His active ki limit runs out, and he dips into his passive reserves like he would for the super variation of his signature move. Except instead of power, he pushes for longevity. He can feel his wave coming to a standstill with his opponent as the two sides tug back and forth. One of them is about to exhaust. One of them has to.
Smoke and steam build into a cloud with every collision of energy. Eventually the cloud thickens beyond visibility. Kakarot finally tires and relents his aggressive attack. No laser punches through the cloud above him, so he must have outlasted his impersonator. Something drops out of the dirty black cloud. He assumes the body of his victim is falling either unconscious or dead to the golden sea below.
Once the object fully exits the obscuring screen, he sees it is just a boot and realizes it is coming straight for him. He deflects it with the gauntlet of his right forearm but the unexpected weight of it pushes him back one step. His own arm slaps him in the cheek. Looking back from the disrespectful tactic, he finds a second boot hurtling down as well. He barely manages to deflect this one with his opposite arm and again gets pushed off balance by the heaviness of the footwear.
What are these made of? Why would anyone wear them? They would just slow you down, he thinks.
As he stumbles backwards towards the edge of Snake Way, he tries to focus on the cloud one more time. And now it is Goku flying straight at him head first. He is moving faster than before, the massive boots no longer holding him back. With both of Kakarot's arms knocked aside and still staggering about to find his footing, he cannot defend himself.
Goku slams his forehead into the center of his enemy's face. The crack of a breaking nose sounds. Goku flops onto the pathway while Kakarot falls over the side of it, blood spraying from his nostrils. The tailless Saiyan stands up awkwardly from exhaustion and flicks off his wristbands to free himself up even more. His mimic struggles to pull himself back onto the road having just barely caught the lip of it with one hand.
Released of much of his burden, Goku sprints down Snake Way to buy some time to draw out the remainder of his ki. He feels it resurface from its latent state inside him as if carried on the blood pumping from his heart. Kakarot is not far behind flailing like a madman through fatigue and anger.
"Get back here!" shouts Kakarot. "I'm going to tear you limb from limb."
Goku looks up and to the right to respond.
"I don't want to hurt you. Turn around for your own good."
"Never. A warrior who doesn't want to hurt anyone is no warrior at all."
Blood still runs from his nose forming a crimson goatee as it flows around his mouth. Refusing to slow down, Goku presses on.
He puts one hand over the other, palms facing each other in front of his chest. A tiny white light sparkles there. Kakarot races after him. Each step brings him closer to his prey. When he can almost reach out an arm and grab his victim's collar, he pounces forward to pin him to the ground. The entire time he is unaware of the trap Goku is funneling him into. As the aggressor falls upon him from above, Goku spins in place to reveal what he has been preparing. Unable to fly from a lack of ki, Kakarot knows there will be no dodging this wave
His face changes from satisfaction to despair. A bluish white energy fires straight into his chest. A hot force envelops his body. The plasma presses against him imprinting an outline of his silhouette into the malleable material. It burns against his skin as he rushes in the opposite direction of his charge.
Goku gives the Kamehameha everything he has left to carry his foe away on the edge of the blast. The beam streaks along the top of the serpentine body towards a far off horizon. Goku drops to one knee continuing to exert himself. His technique starts to waver and thin as it runs out of fuel. It slims down to nothing. He looks for any sign of the strange enemy, but there is none to be seen. No indication of ki either though it had probably been completely depleted.
He sits down cross-legged to rest and slips his arms inside the shirt of his orange gi. They pop up through the neck hole of the gi which slides down his sides to his waist. Both of his hands grab the base of his weighted blue shirt. He wriggles the heavy fabric over his elbows for some extra lifting leverage. It does not come off easy and catches his ears on the way up, but he manages to remove it. His arms collapse to his lap still wrapped in the garment.
He shrugs his shoulders a few times to shake the shirt from his forearms. He stands up, puts his arms back through their proper place in his gi, and hurries off to keep distance between himself and his evil twin who may still be chasing after him.