Doomed planet
Shards of stone exploded as Gohan flew towards Beerus, his fist connecting with the feline god's face. A massive shock wave caused the entire surrounding area to crumble, and the force of the strike launched Beerus backwards.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Gohan said, trying to keep his anger in check, "but if you continue attacking I will defend myself." The god's powerful attack earlier almost caught Gohan by surprise, but he managed to block it in time and avoid any real damage.
"Defend yourself?" Beerus sneered. The god of destruction raised a hand to his face, feeling the slight bruise that appeared there after Gohan's strike. With blinding speed he leaped towards his mortal opponent, engaging the half-saiyan in furious hand to hand combat. Beerus appeared to have the edge in speed and power, forcing Gohan to fight defensively.
"Better tell me now," the angry god told Gohan while attacking again and again with fists, kicks and knee strikes, "before I pulverize you completely. How did you know?!"
Gohan was focusing on avoiding Beerus' attacks, and answered slowly between blocks and dodges. "Know what? I have no idea what you're talking about!"
Suddenly Beerus extended himself too much with a heavy fist, allowing Gohan to duck under his arm, grab the god and throw Beerus over his head and down towards the ground. The god of destruction hit the gravelly, broken surface with a mighty thunder, forming a large crater in the barren, rocky land and ending up embedded in its center. Gohan found himself hovering, alone, a few dozen feet above the prone form of Beerus and the new crater floor.
Beerus stood up and stared at his opponent angrily. "I can't destroy any more gods! You knew it, so you caused new guardians to appear on every planet in the galaxy. Now I can't destroy any of them!" Beerus propped himself up and shook away the dust covering his body with a small telekinetic burst. "Don't pretend you didn't know it, boy."
Flying in place above the god of destruction, Gohan processed this new information as quickly as possible. Beerus couldn't destroy any more gods for some reason. That included guardians. And now that all the planets in the galaxy had guardians, Beerus couldn't destroy any of them because the guardians would also be destroyed. With his anger rising once again, Gohan remembered that Beerus wanted nothing more than to destroy planets full of people. He craved it.
"It's true, Gohan," Whis said helpfully. "Lord Beerus has destroyed too many gods and souls already, his standing with the grand priest is very low. Any more offenses and he will be punished."
"Thank you, Whis," Beerus growled in annoyance at the talkative angel, "now don't let anyone interfere." He extended his arm towards Gohan, gathered a gigantic orb of flaming, angry energy and shot it towards his half-saiyan opponent. Gohan dodged the massive blast, only to find Beerus had used it as a diversion. While Gohan was dodging, Beerus flew behind him and grabbed Gohan in a painful head lock. Gohan could do nothing but hold on to Beerus' arm and pull as hard as he could in an attempt to free himself, while both god and mortal spun around in midair.
As the flaming energy orb exploded further out in space, the struggling Gohan and Beerus cast dark red shadows on the broken surface. The god had the advantage now, slowly suffocating Gohan. "This is only the beginning, boy," Beerus whispered into Gohan's ear while choking him mercilessly. "If you don't tell me how you know, I will go to Earth and I'll find your precious wife and daughter. They'll pay the price for your silence, brat."
Gohan struggled harder, his white aura flaring around him. The titanic struggle and Gohan's strengthening aura caused mighty winds to blow all around the doomed world, but Beerus was unimpressed. "You think I won't do it? Because Bulma likes to pretend I'm your friend? Do you think I won't incinerate your wife where she stands and burn little Pan to ash?" Beerus sneered with malice. "You all seem to forget, I'm not your friend. You're all worthless insects to me. I will crush you all, beginning with your family, unless you tell me how you know, RIGHT NOW!"
With a flash of brilliant light, Gohan's aura flared to its full extent. In one moment of rage, Gohan's strength was enough to break out of Beerus' head lock. "Enough!" Gohan shouted in anger, spinning around as he freed himself and aiming a deadly kick at the god of destruction's neck. Beerus barely managed to block the kick with his left arm, but the force of Gohan's strike knocked him away a considerable distance, causing another shock wave to spread all across the tiny world.
While the feline god was flung away, Gohan concentrated on a deadly attack taught to him by his old mentor. Two fingers touching his forehead, he charged the attack almost instantly, focusing an unimaginable amount of ki.
"MAKANKOSAPPO!" Gohan roared, pointing towards Beerus. The spiraling beam that came forth was so powerful, so focused, that the local fabric of space-time itself screeched in protest, causing cracks of rainbow-colored light to spread around it. The cracks remained in the path of the beam even after the energy vanished, veins of frozen light hovering in space.
The god barely had time to shield himself when the beam struck, an attack violent enough to force even Beerus to take it seriously. A bright, hellishly hot explosion bloomed around Beerus as he resisted the spiraling ki beam, two arms crossed in front of his face. Gohan could sense his enemy's ki waver.
"Oh, my," Whis sighed while the explosion died down, concentrating on the damage done to the universe and repairing it with a quick wave of his staff. The rainbow cracks vanished.
Blood, blood and pain. Rare sensations for Beerus, leaving the god confused for a moment. After the exploding ki vanished, Beerus was left hovering in the air, a nasty, piercing wound open and bleeding on his forearm.
"You think you can threaten my family?" Gohan shouted angrily and charged, not giving his opponent time to focus. "You won't hurt anyone ever again, Beerus!" The half-saiyan hit Beerus with an incredibly powerful kick to the ribs, flinging him further away. Unrelenting, Gohan flew behind his opponent, brought his hands together above his head and smashed them down painfully on Beerus' back. The god was flung down towards the ground, but managed to stop himself in midair. Crimson energies flickered across Gohan's aura as the half-saiyan's rage intensified, but Gohan forced himself to focus his anger. His savage attack on Freeza still disturbed him, and he didn't want to lose control like that ever again.
"Fool, you actually think you can win this fight?" Beerus looked up at Gohan and sneered in contempt, despite holding his arm awkwardly, obviously feeling the pain of his wound.
Beerus launched himself head first at Gohan, hands held tight against his sides, intending to ram the half-saiyan and break Gohan's body to pieces. Gohan, however, was faster. As the god approached, Gohan dodged sideways and aimed a powerful upward kick, focusing his ki into the movement and connecting with the god's midsection as Beerus flew by.
The thunderous shock wave from the impact caused powerful hurricane winds to spread out, disintegrating towering cliffs for hundreds of miles around them, causing the cliffs to collapse into mounds of rubble.
Beerus was flung up, spinning and out of control, and Gohan fired a barrage of energy blasts at him. Even in this state, wounded, weakened and not in full control of his trajectory, Beerus managed to dodge or deflect most of the attacks. A few, however, connected with painful explosions and damaged him even further. Eventually Beerus stopped his uncontrolled flight, righted himself and once again sneered at Gohan.
"Is that all you got?" Beerus said with a confident half-smile despite his bruised midsection and bleeding arm, "You think you're strong enough to defeat me, boy?"
"Don't you get it, Beerus?" Gohan shouted angrily, "I don't care about defeating you or winning this fight." The half-saiyan's aura became even more intense, responding to his rising anger. "I'm here to stop you from murdering any more people!"
His hands reaching out, Gohan launched another barrage of energy blasts at Beerus, this time missing him by a wide margin.
"Stop me!? You?! Ha! Looks like you're tired already!" The feline god laughed through his pain, then hesitated. Looking around in sudden alarm, he realized all of Gohan's energy blasts, the same ones that missed, were still hovering around in the air under the control of their creator. Beerus was surrounded. In his stunned state he simply failed to notice them.
"Yes, ME!" Gohan roared, his aura flaring even further. The half-saiyan brought his arms together, muscles bulging with effort, the simple movement apparently much more strenuous than normal. In an instant, all the hovering spheres of ki converged on Beerus, spiraling around him and finally closing in with an overpowering explosion.
Beerus flew at Gohan through the expanding flames, his body leaving behind a trail of sparks and smoke. The god snarled in anger as he came close and launched a heavy fist aimed at Gohan's head.
The half-saiyan dodged under Beerus' extended arm and the two continued fighting at incredible speed. Beerus' wounds barely seemed to affect his speed and strength, Gohan realized. Beerus was hiding reserves of untapped power, this fight wasn't going to be easy.
"Why," Gohan asked in frustration as he dodged, blocked and retaliated with his own attacks, "why do all this? Why all the murder? is it because you enjoy it?! Are you just another overpowered lunatic like Freeza?"
"Is this another one of your tricks?" Beerus growled in anger as he fought, a purple aura beginning to develop around his body, "you know why, your actions against me prove it." Gohan narrowly avoided an ultra-fast side kick aimed at his knee, enraging Beerus even further.
The two fighters were now engulfed in their auras. Gohan's clear aura clashed with Beerus' purple flames, mirroring their physical confrontation in a fiery dance of energies.
Beerus suddenly kicked low, his foot connecting with Gohan's thigh. The painful leg attack caused a mighty thunder and sent waves of sickening pain throughout the half-saiyan's body. Almost losing his focus, Gohan barely managed to block another fist as Beerus came closer, then grabbed Beerus' leg when the feline god launched a relatively slow high kick aimed at Gohan's head. Perhaps he overestimated the effect of his earlier strike, thinking Gohan was more stunned than he really was.
Still holding his opponent's leg, Gohan somersaulted above the raging Beerus, spinning the god over his own body and launching him head first towards the ground. The already massive crater below them shattered when Beerus hit, growing even larger and deeper. A terrible crashing noise rumbled across the entire world, cracks in the ground spreading out in all directions.
"You know what," Gohan shouted from above, looking at the now prone form of Beerus, "I don't care anymore." The warrior from earth raised his arms, elbows bent and the back of his hands touching his forehead. "Take your secrets to grave, Beerus, you're not going to hurt anyone else!" Gohan shouted, gathering a massive amount of deadly ki in his hands. "MASENKO, HA!" aiming his hands at Beerus down below, Gohan unleashed a massive beam of blinding white energy.
The beam hit Beerus and time seemed to slow down. Space closed in on itself and distorted Beerus' image, making him appear much smaller, as if the god lay at the end of a deep tunnel. A moment later and the distortion ended, time resuming its flow and space blooming out in a cosmic explosion. Waves of furious energy expanded outward from the point of impact, reducing a sizable chunk of the planet into nothingness and sending mountain-sized rocks hurtling into space. Gohan swatted aside a few shards of rock that flew by, focusing his senses on Beerus. Was his attack enough?
No, there he was. Beerus hovered below, still prone relative to Gohan. No longer at the bottom of a large crater, now he was hovering at the center of a massive void in the planet, a monstrous, continent-sized fissure, looking like a large bite taken out of an apple. Electric discharges from clouds of dust and rubble filled the fissure with colossal lightning bolts, momentarily casting shadows across the feline god's form.
To his dismay, Gohan could sense Beerus' energy rising higher and higher, even as the god lay there, apparently stunned. An angry aura of deep purple flames surrounded Beerus, feeding on any lightning bolts that came too close and growing larger by the second.
He had to end this, now. Hovering far above the god of destruction, Gohan once again touched two extended fingers to his forehead, charging a deadly attack as fast as he could. Moments later he pointed his fingers, now laced with energy, and fired a spiraling beam down at his enemy.
Beerus opened his eyes almost lazily and deflected the beam into space with a swat of his hand. Now fully surrounded by a more furious aura than Gohan had ever seen, the prone Beerus rotated in midair and rose up, reaching Gohan's altitude and staring into Gohan's eyes in silence. Gohan could see that Beerus still suffered from his earlier wounds, and the god's entire body was now covered in bruises and burns. It was as if they didn't bother him at all.
"I admit, boy," Beerus began menacingly, his words almost drowned out by the flaming sounds of his own aura, "I didn't expect this to be this much a challenge." He crossed his arms and continued, "I haven't been hurt this way in… millions of years."
Gohan hovered there in silence, observing Beerus. The god's energy was constantly rising, his power unimaginable. Somehow he had access to a huge energy reserve that was totally hidden, available to be tapped at will.
"Did you really think you could overpower me since you managed to destroy Freeza?" Beerus smiled mockingly and tilted his head, "I was born eighty million years ago, you naive fool. I've seen hundreds of generations of gods grow old and die. I've seen your ancestors when they were still tiny apes, perching on trees and howling at the moon. You and your pathetic band of warriors are nothing to me. You'll always be nothing, no matter how strong you get."
Beerus' smile expanded into a full, sadistic grin. "I planned on simply torturing your family, you know, but I see now it wouldn't be enough." Beerus raised his left arm, palm open, and gathered a massive orb of fiery ki. "Oh no, an opponent like you deserves something special."
