Chapter 40: Judgement

Because I've been having computer troubles, this is going to be kind of a short chapter, so treat this and chapter 41 as a sort of extended two-part chapter...sort of...thing. For the same reason, chapter 2 of Best Served Cold will take a while.

Also, some people have been telling me that canon SSJ Gohan was stronger than Goku at the Cell Games. Yeah, my bad. Okay, so just take that number I gave for BTtL Gohan, then. Not that it matters too much-I'm not going to venture any guesses at actual power levels or anything, and any important information you can probably pick up from the story itself.

Oh! One more thing. The thing in this chapter about Hercule's name was actually something Akira Toriyama (the creator of DB and DBZ) said in an interview, so I didn't just randomly come up with it.

Actually, make that two more things. I really don't like the way this site makes my double dashes single dashes, so sorry if that's a little annoying, but my computer kept deleting files so I started just writing BTtL directly onto the site.

The media had been frantic the last few weeks, and today was no exception. A special arena had been set up at extremely short notice using Hercule's considerable funds, a giant 'ring' made from dozens of perfectly-cut stone slabs, topped off with four huge spikes of the same grey rock, one at each corner of the ring-a feat of high-speed, large-scale engineering made possible by a combination of near-limitless cash and cutting-edge Capsule Corp technology.

News crews swarmed around the site like angry insects, cameras whirring and flashing, microphones waving frantically as they chased down even the most minor functionary who showed themselves outside. The two fighters, or possibly one fighter and one man with a moustache-Goku and Hercule-were safely hidden from the media attention in tents on opposite sides of the ring. Goku sat in his tent, talking with Chi-Chi and Gohan.

"I don't like this whole set-up," Chi-Chi muttered.

"Oh, don't worry about it!" Goku gave his usual carefree smile. "They just need a little proof, that's all."

"Well, you just wipe the smirk off that big jerk's face, all right?" she asked.

Her husband laughed. "Hey, that's not so hard. You could beat him yourself, you know. The fight-if you can even call it that-isn't what's important. What's important is that people see the fight."

"Yeah, that's about it." Gohan stood up. "I'm going for a walk. I need some fresh air..."

"You sure?" Chi-Chi asked. "All those annoying journalists are out there..."

Gohan shrugged. "Don't worry. I can outrun them in my sleep." As he left, Goku and Chi-Chi heard gunshots from outside. They looked up, curious, as Erics-the prime minister they'd met earlier-rolled into the tent, breathing heavily and holstering a smoking revolver. "Oh, hey there!" he said, with a friendly wave. "Just had to fire a few warning shots. I got swarmed by reporters."

"Right..." Goku nodded.

An awkward silence followed, and as he mentally floundered, Chi-Chi tried to make conversation. "So, uh, Mr. Erics, what do you predict...who do you think will win?"

Erics grinned. "Aw, c'mon, don't treat me like an idiot. We both know Hercule doesn't stand a chance. I mean, he's a skilled wrestler, but it's still like Bruce Lee trying to take on Superman..."

Goku blinked. "Sorry, I don't know who that is." That Super-guy sounds tough...bet I could take him, though.

Erics scratched his head. "Wow, you must have been one sheltered kid, huh?"

"You have no idea," Chi-Chi agreed.

Gohan idly whistled to himself as he zipped along at speeds faster than the reporters could follow, eventually finding a spot-up on top of a hill-within view of the ring, but far enough away that no news crews would spot him. However, as he sat down on the other side of the hill, he realised with a start that someone else had beaten him there, probably with the same intention-he must not have been paying attention, as he hadn't noticed their ki signature. "Oh! Uh, I mean, hi."

The girl looked up. She was about his age, with shoulder-length black hair in pigtails and large, staring blue eyes. She wore a long white shirt that came down to her knees, contrasting sharply with the black of her pants and fingerless gloves. Seeing this neat, almost uniform-like appearance, Gohan suddenly felt uncomfortable with his scruffy, asymmetrical hair and loose orange gi. "Hi," she said. "You're his kid, aren't you? The guy my dad's going to fight."

"Your dad...Hercule Satan's your father?" Gohan asked, surprise.

"Yeah. My name's Videl," she said.

"Okay...I'm-"

"Gohan, I know." She looked up into the cloudless mid-day sky. "You were on TV...I have a good memory for names." After a brief pause, she added: "My dad's going to win, you know."

Gohan chuckled. "Sorry, but he isn't. Almost everybody I know could wipe the floor with a hundred of him...uh, no offense. He just hasn't had the chance to learn the proper-"

"Hmph." She frowned. "Say what you like. My dad's the strongest person in the world. He can punch through solid rock."

Wordlessly, Gohan picked up a rock lying on the ground next to him, and gently crushed it between two fingers.

"There you go again. I bet you picked a cracked rock just to trick me," she said firmly.

Gohan shook his head, resisting the urge to repeat the process with a boulder or a mountain. "You'll see." They sat on in silence.

"Hey..." Videl eventually said. "You want to know something?"

Gohan looked up from his internal musings. "Huh? What?"

She leaned in close and whispered, "My dad's name isn't really Hercule. That's just his stage name." She smiled. "He's actually called Mark." She leaned back as Gohan giggled, for once acting like the child he was.

"Hehe...Mark? Really?" Gohan grinned. "I guess that is a bit less impressive than 'Hercule'..."

Raditz and King Kai appeared in the main portion of the afterlife without ceremony-King Kai had provided the location, and Raditz had used Instant Transmission to speed up the transport process. He tapped the halo above his head with a small measure of disbelief, remembering the fateful judgement which had allowed him to keep his body at all and progress here.

(An indefinite period of time after Raditz was killed by Cell, undefinable due to the slowed-down way time passes in King Yemma's room of judgement, a necessary feature to allow him to judge all the souls of the dead within a short time of their demise)

Raditz stood in the large wood-panelled room, first taking in the circumstances of his death, then his location-several ogres in business suits were positioned around the room, and at a gigantic desk (also wood-mahogany, perhaps) in front of him sat a huge specimen, red-skinned and with a bushy, angry-looking beard which juxtaposed the friendly expression on his face. "Ah, here we are," he said, shuffling some papers. "Greetings..." he eyed a sheet of paper. "Raditz, saiyan, North galaxy, died defending his brother...ah yes, I remember you. I am King Yemma, judge of the afterlife" He leaned forwards, steepling his fingers in front of him. "Now, we've given you your body on a temporary basis for this judgement, but please don't try anything unruly as we can just as easily take it away...usually we just judge the incorporeal soul, but I wanted you with full awareness and mental capacity..."

"Why?" Raditz asked, still looking around. I honestly don't know what I expected from the afterlife, but it sure wasn't this.

"Well, you see...I'm not entirely sure what to do with you. I wanted to hear what you have to say for myself."

"What I..." The deceased saiyan paused. "This is...my final judgement...? You're going to decide what happens to me, in the afterlife...for eternity." His voice cracked as he added, quietly, something he'd never have admitted to under normal circumstances. "I...I'm afraid..."

"And well you should be," King Yemma replied, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he peered at Raditz. "I'm sure I don't need to tell you there's a lot going against you. However, the latter years of your life were spent engaged in...somewhat nobler pursuits than the first part. So you're not damned for certain...go ahead. Make your case."

"I..." he didn't know where to begin. So he just talked, anything that came to mind. "I don't want to go to Hell. Or whatever you call it. I won't lie, I desperately want to go to...that other place. But I'm not sure if I can plead with you, if I can argue that I should be allowed. I don't know if I deserve that. I've only just got over this in life...justifying myself. Everyone around me was always telling me it was fine, that I'd changed. Does that matter? How do you judge these things?" he choked. "How many people have I killed? Innocents?" He looked up at King Yemma. "That's not a rhetorical question. You should know this kind of thing! How many?"

King Yemma shook his head. "I don't think you want to know. But it is a very large number. I'd say millions, but that'd be a few orders of magnitude off...'cleansing' a planet is a lot of lives, you know."

"Yeah...I know..." he sighed. "I guess I've done good things since then. I've saved people, helped those weaker than me. But only a couple of planets. What I've given the universe is nothing compared to what I've taken away. And even so, does it bring back anybody I've killed? They're still dead because of me!" he realised he was shouting, and tried to calm down. "I...I guess what I'm trying to say is, I don't know. I don't know what you should do with me either. And for what it's worth...I'm sorry." He put his head in his hands. "I wish none of it had happened. Maybe everybody'd be better off if I hadn't been born in the first place. I just...I don't know what I can say...I'm so sorry..." he trailed off.

"And...genuine remorse, check..." Yemma started ticking boxes. "Acknowledgement of deeds, both good and evil, check..." Raditz looked up, astonished, as Yemma continued. "Desire to continue to do good, that's a big one, check...and I should also add, complete inability to see the bigger picture." The minor god smiled. "Think about this. Who, despite all odds, was the prophecy-fulfilling Super Saiyan who brought about the end of two-thirds of the galaxy's oppressors in a single day?"

"Wha...?"

"And who was sent to Earth to find his long-lost little brother, bringing its warriors into contact with the wider galaxy and causing the fall of the entire frost demon dynasty, thus preventing countless future centuries of bloody repression and genocide, which would have far outweighed any crimes that this man himself might have committed in his earlier years? A galaxy, I might add, which did not in fact collapse into anarchy and is now in capable, and what's more just, hands-a woman, O-something, can't remember, and her robot lieutenant-and is now enjoying peace and freedom for the first time in hundreds of years! And finally, who saved said younger brother from death at the hands of Dr. Gero's creations not once, but twice-the second time giving his own life in the attempt, allowing the defeat of the monster Cell, who if victorious on Earth would have gone on to wreak havoc on the entire universe, as a far more terrible threat than Frieza's kind ever was? Hmm?"

Raditz gaped. "I...I did do all that, didn't I..."

"Indeed. It seems, in fact, that whatever your society drove you to do at first, in your heart you find it almost impossible not to do good deeds when given the opportunity. And now-" he stamped a red seal of approval on Raditz's file, "-I'm giving you that opportunity."

Raditz smiled awkwardly, forcing himself to hold back tears-he could scarcely believe the implications of this. "Thank you...uh, sir. I'm-"

"Yes, yes, you're very grateful, I know, so is everybody who is allowed to enter the happier part of the afterlife. And as a reward for the manner of your death, you'll be allowed to keep your body, in order to continue your fighting career here in Otherworld. Now, go-and don't use up any more of my time! I've got seven million souls to process in the next three living-world seconds! Goodbye!"

The long-haired fighter nodded-he had been lucky. Had the judge been harsher...he didn't want to think about it. "So," he said, "the judge god said I could continue fighting, or something like that?"

King Kai nodded. "As with all great champions and heroes, you've been allowed to keep your mortal form for that reason. They've had millenia to train-you'll find plenty of warriors here who make even you look like nothing!"

Raditz grinned, striding through the tall grass towards the distant group of figures. "Not for long."

So, will there be an Otherworld Tournament arc? We'll see. Will Pikkon exist? Minor spoiler, yes. Will he have a power level that makes sense, rather than leading to madness like weighted Pikkon SSJ Goku Cell weighted Pikkon?! Also yes.

Q: T-that's it? Well, this was an interesting chapter. Is Vegeta ever going to return to Earth?

A: Maybe!

Q: Third off, I'm still wondering what exactly is happening with Kuriza and Zarbon. They're both great characters with tons of potential- hopefully, you'll have something planned with those two.

A: Actually, yes!

Q: I just hope he [Gohan] does not focus more on studies again. That annoyed the hell out of me that he just dropped training even though the Earth gets attacked every year or so.
Well, this seems very interesting and can't wait for more!

A: Well, he is going to be studying...studying fighting.

Q: Haha gohan writing a book about ki control? Someone's been playing DBO. So krillin and tien should open martial arts schools and goten (not sure if trunks) is going to open a sword fighting schook?

A: Not playing it, but that's where the idea's from, yeah. And...well...we'll see. I don't plan on that other stuff happening, but it might be an inevitable result of ki control going public. I haven't decided yet.

Anyway, see you all next week, as we continue this sort of thing, following Raditz a bit more, catching up with Bulma, Break and Vegeta, and maybe getting back to Goku vs Hercule! Because we're all in so much suspense over that one. (Note: all this may change if I change my plans within the next week.)

Raditz: No 'next time' joke?

Nope.

Why not? I wouldn't put it past you to run that joke into the ground.

Well, you know what the most important element of comedy is?

No, actually, I don't know, what's the most-

TIMING!

(Yes, that's an old joke. But I don't think anyone wanted another 'next time' thing, and I needed something to finish the chapter with. And what else would I-

*Remembers I'm supposed to do BTtL Kai chapter 4 at some point* Oh, right.)

Amount of reviewers who have used the 'just saiyan' joke: IT'S OVER 9000*

*(Probably not true.)