Chapter 100: Hero
Music for this chapter is, as you may have guessed, Hero by Flow. And when you finish that, if you want a second track, remember Gohan's theme is Archangel by Two Steps From Hell.
…I've waited SO LONG to write this chapter specifically.
Oh, and just a quick note: For Even Further Beyond, you'll notice each chapter will have two titles; the first will be exactly like the current ones, which'll be the listed titles in the chapter list thing, and the second, more of a subtitle really, will be a Japanese phrase in the style of shonen anime titles (you know, with two excited sentences, for instance "Prologue to battle! The return of Goku!" or whatever.). Just a little thing I'm doing for fun, in case anyone wonders what that's about in a couple of weeks. Roketto/Ryu no Ohi has agreed to help with the translations, so here's another thank-you for that. Anyway.
They faced each other across the wrecked green; the ancient God of Destruction, and the newly-awakened Super Saiyan God.
Gohan simply stood there for a second, revelling in the feeling of his new form. Unimaginable power welled around him, with no strain at all required to bring it to the surface. This all taken in, he turned his attention to Bills, raising a fist and taking a step forwards.
"Hold on a second." Bills raised a cautious hand. He clearly hasn't figured it out yet…his mindset isn't quite like a normal warrior's. If he goes all-out here… His mind scrambled for an excuse to relocate. "I want to test your speed. You people are familiar with the Northern Kai, I believe—we will begin our fight at his home."
"Wha…?" Goku blinked. "You can just fly all that way?"
"Of course," Bills replied. "It's actually not far from here—I won't even need Whis' staff's long-distance flight capabilities." With no more than that, he took off, leaving a fiery slipstream behind him as he cleared the atmosphere in seconds, still accelerating.
"Uh, Gohan? You gonna head after him?" Raditz prompted. "It will avoid collateral damage to West City…"
"Sure…" Gohan's eyes narrowed. "Just searching for King Kai's energy. Heh…you always said that only a Yardrat could teach Instant Transmission—you never could think of how to go about it." He grinned. "But when we combined our abilities to move the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, it was like experiencing it for myself. The rest was just replication and study, and that's my specialty." He raised his index and middle finger to his forehead, and was gone.
"Did…you know about this?" Raditz looked back at Gohan's family.
"Uh, no," Chi-Chi admitted. "But then, he only lives with us half the time now anyway—he probably did most of his practicing at Videl's."
"Huh…who'd have thought." Raditz folded his arms sulkily. "I didn't learn Shifting from that, for one thing."
"That's because you're not an academic," Chi-Chi countered. "Like he said, replication and study—see? All that schooling is coming in useful in saving the world too—and I don't remember the last time martial arts helped anyone out at school!"
Videl shrugged. "I don't know…after I convinced him it was okay to show a little of his strength, people stopped picking on him pretty fast."
"It was a rhetorical question!"
"It wasn't a question."
"I…you…aagh, whatever." Chi-Chi threw her hands up in verbal defeat.
Otherworld…
Bills landed on King Kai's small planet to find the Super Saiyan God already waiting for him. "I'm certain you didn't pass me…"
"Instant Transmission. You might've heard of it," Gohan replied curtly. "It also let me get the Kai and his monkey out of harm's way a second ago, so I'm free to go all-out now—and to find out what 'all-out' means in this form."
"I guarantee it'll be a surprise," Bills agreed, tail waving impatiently.
Gohan mockingly mimicked the God of Destruction's movements with his own tail. "Sure. Now, if you're just going to float there…I guess I'll come to you."
"Go ahead…" Bills raised one hand in a high guard, keeping the other tucked back by his chest.
Tensing for a second, Gohan shot forward like a spring released. The distance between them was swallowed up quicker than he believed possible, and when his fist struck Bills' block—
Well, a lot of things happened at once.
First of all, back up for a minute, to before the impact. As Gohan got closer the world started to warp before his eyes—in fact, before he was even up to his opponent, it had gone completely mad; he could see nothing but a jumbled swirl of flashing colours. His new and improved ki sense, however, took over seamlessly, and he knew exactly where Bills was, reading the energy radiation like a radar image.
Then the air in front of him turned solid. He was used to this—going at supersonic speeds, after all (which they'd been doing for decades), produces a sonic boom from the air not being able to get out of your way fast enough and being smacked aside—but now it felt like the air was not just slow, but completely frozen. It didn't hurt him or slow him down, especially not as a god, but it was disconcerting.
There was a sucking sensation behind him as he left a vacuum in his wake, and so sped up were his perceptions that he had enough time before making contact with Bills to notice the empty void he'd left behind, the air not even begun to move to fill in the gap. In case it hadn't quite sunk in yet, it was now clear that Gohan was moving pretty damn fast.
The air in front of him wasn't done acting strangely yet, though. As he pushed through it, it heated up, and he felt a multitude of small tingles as tiny bursts of energy were fired off in front of him from the area where the air touched the edge of his flame-red aura. This wave of self-igniting air raced on slightly ahead of him as he neared his target. The whole area around him, in fact, was now on fire, an almost liquid flame sprung up as if from nowhere. Had he been a lesser being, the backblast of this process would have slowed him down, but Gohan barely felt a thing.
The wave of preceding energy washed over Bills like a wave breaking over a fortress, and then Gohan's fist met Bills' forearm. The preceding fireworks were nothing—as soon as contact was made, what was quite literally a nuclear blast exploded outwards from them, engulfing and chewing up miles of Snake Way, the great road burning and falling in disintegrating fragments, scorching the grass off King Kai's planet and reducing his house to rubble.
As the roar of the blast died down—though the flames still raged around them—Bills lowered his arm, stepping back and hovering confidently in front of Gohan. "Well? Are you satisfied?"
Gohan stared at his trembling hand, mystified. "What…did I do…?"
Bills' eyes narrowed. "You just felt what it's like…to exceed the velocity of light. God."
"What?!"
"This is what it means to be a god," Bills continued. "A more experienced fighter would've known they'd unleash something —they'd have known to do as I do, and direct the full force of the blast towards the opponent with careful application of ki. I wouldn't have had to explain this to one of the others, like your father. But I wanted you to find out for yourself…which is why I suggested this remote battleground." Gohan still stared uncomprehendingly. "When you move at anything like the speed of light, the particles in the aura that shields you fuse with the air—and as you humans know, nuclear fusion is a dangerous force. A wave of…plasma, I think it is…spreads out and devours everything in its path." He paused. "In addition, the faster you go, the heavier you become. At that speed, for an instant, you possessed infinite mass. Had I been anyone else, I would've been smashed to atoms."
"I…!" Gohan looked around at the devastation. If I'd done this on Earth…! Thanks, Dad. He realised something. So, that's why my vision went strange just then! I was outracing the light that was letting me see—instead, just running straight into a random jumble of photons. Guess I'll have to rely on my other senses… What Bills had seen was interesting too—just as a sonic boom follows supersonic travel, faster-than-light movement is followed by a 'superluminal flash' as the light emitted by Gohan followed hot on his heels (and indeed, while moving at that speed he was truly invisible)."Hold on. If my mass was infinity…doesn't that mean it would take infinite energy to move myself…? I can feel my own power level—and it's enormous, but not infinite."
"Divine ki doesn't follow the rules of energy as you know it," Bills muttered. "I don't understand it myself. Try not to think about it." In actual fact, even this was a simplification; if you moved at exactly lightspeed, you'd gain infinite mass—Gohan had been going faster. However, different-sized infinities is another subject that should really be filed under 'don't think about it'.
"Anyway…the solution is directing the blast, you say? I can do that."
"I hope so." Bills clicked his neck. "That first blow lacked the stopping power I was hoping for. Maybe if you focus all that destructive force on me, I'll break a sweat."
"Don't try and play tough with me anymore." Gohan clenched his fists, preparing to attack again. "I can sense your power now…and I'm not intimidated."
"Then I guess I'll have to try harder!" Bills suddenly yelled, kicking off the air and rushing Gohan. He blocked a punch cross-armed, lurching forwards and headbutting Bills in the centre of the face. Bills grunted but didn't flinch, grabbing Gohan's head between both hands and throwing him down at King Kai's planet. Despite being dense enough to create a gravity ten times that of Earth's while being small enough to circumnavigate in minutes, Gohan ploughed through it, shattering the entire 'world' and only coming to a halt half a mile or so behind it.
Hmm. I'm starting to get used to this…even detecting divine ki. And I'm not quite using my full power—better change that, no need for a warm-up. This is serious. He didn't have to power up, scream, wave his arms around—his aura simply expanded a bit, and there, just like that, was his full power. That's more like it.
Bills was charging down at him, and he dodged the first tail-swipe, elbowing the Hakaishin in the face and following up with a spinning kick that flung Bills away, landing him on the jagged, broken-off end of Snake Way. He picked himself up, shaking the dizziness out of his head. "Ah, you're a serious one…powering up that much from the start…I hadn't been using more than half my power, you'll have to excuse me." His own purple aura expanded slightly. "All right, now we can continue."
"Oh, I have your permission, do I? I'm so glad." Sighing, Gohan flew back up at Bills, throwing an energy blast from each hand. Bills jumped, letting them pass underneath him, and Gohan flew into him fist-first. He spun with the blow, using the momentum to propel a hammer-fist into Gohan's side, then grabbed him by the forearm and tossed him upwards into the golden clouds that surrounded the heavenly road.
Gohan, immersed in the clouds, lost all sense of direction; so in the end, he simply picked a random direction and set off that way, finally emerging in front of a large, mostly green planet with dots of blue. He sensed a familiar ki coming from the surface, in fact.
Below…
Kibitoshin paced anxiously. "I don't feel Gohan's ki anymore…has he been killed? Or just injured to the point where I can't sense him from this distance?"
"No, no…" Old Kai answered. "He's just transcended your ability to sense him."
"What are—"
A blur of red and purple hit the ground like a meteor—Gohan and Bills were trading blows far too fast to follow, appearing to each have hundreds of arms and legs as the light reflected off them only occasionally, capturing small snapshots of their fight—and even those were breathtakingly fast.
"Hey, kiddo!" Old Kai yelled, scrambling towards his descendant. "Get us out of here before this place becomes a warzone!"
"R-Right!" With a concerned look at Gohan's blurred form, Kibitoshin teleported them away.
Bills blocked an uppercut, tripping Gohan and staggering him away with a couple of quick jabs. Gohan jumped back to avoid any further follow-ups, pausing to recover his breath. "You're skilled…and you might be slightly stronger than me, too."
"Don't tell me you're giving up," Bills pouted. "You must've faced a superior foe before. At times reality…or god, if you like…" he grinned at this, "…hands you down these trials."
"I know…" Gohan grinned. "It's annoying, heh…I guess I'll have to step it up a bit. Your advantage is only for pure physical combat." He threw a straight punch directly to the right, Shifting it through a portal towards the back of Bills' head. The Hakaishin tried to duck, receiving a glancing hit, the brief stunning effect allowing Gohan to plant a kick in his stomach, knocking him back. Gohan made an Instant Transmission jump to directly above him, a double-fisted hammer smashing him into the ground. Gohan charged down at him, and Bills rolled away, Gohan's fist striking the ground directly and blasting a three-metre-wide crater right through the planet. "Damn it!" he growled, as Bills ran back in at him.
"Interesting techniques!" Bills complimented the Super Saiyan God, blocking and countering, giving Gohan a bloody nose. He blocked a kick with his knee, landing another elbow hit. Trying to recover, Gohan formed a cluster of energy blasts in one hand, throwing them into the air and scattering them around the pair of them. Focusing, he opened up several portals and Shifted the blasts back towards Bills, firing energy bullets at him from all directions.
Bills grinned as he dodged through the rapid-fire attack towards Gohan. "Nice one! But—you had to focus on too many at once—the attack pattern's too predictable!" He sent Gohan flying away with a running jump-kick.
Gohan, after accidentally turning a backwards somersault in the air, managed to skid to a halt, forming an energy-sword around his arm. I should be able to extend the range when I swing and hit him from over here… He swung, the sword lancing out for miles, but Bills sidestepped and it merely carved through layers of rock. Strangely, he then stood still for a while, looking smug. Gohan was just trying to work out what he was so happy about, when with a deep rumble, the pieces of ground they were on began to grind apart. Showers of molten lava sprung up through the crack between them.
"Oh dear," Bills said cheerily, "you really should be more careful with other people's planets. I think you cut it clean in two."
"I…" Gohan grimaced as fully half of the planet fell away, slowly drifting off from his half and trailing oceans of molten rock, Bills remaining hovering where he'd been. "All right, come on!" Gohan charged in, but Bills caught his fist, punching him high into the air and catapulting him into one of the several moons that had until just now orbited the Sacred Kai Planet.
Gohan felt rock crushing in all around him, felt cuts opening up all over his body. Even with all my techniques, he's still handling me like it's nothing…was I really the right choice?
I've never been like you, dad… you were always so self-motivated…for me, it was only the sight of you still fighting that drove me on.
I know I had a busy childhood, but a lot of it I don't remember anymore. One thing stands out, though. I vividly remember…your receding back, as you ran ahead to the fight. No fears or reservations.
Unless I was just mad with rage or something, though, that's never been me.
Outside, Bills was getting bored, and began to form an energy ball to blow up the moon and force Gohan out into the open.
"You're our hero now—Earth's hero."
You were the hero, dad…never me. Maybe you should've become God. I could never be like that…could I?
Bills' attack crashed into the small moon, blasting it into atoms. The God of Destruction smiled. That ought to make him—uh? He heard the telltale hiss of Instant Transmission, the crackled of energy. "KA…ME—" Bills whipped around, a pair of flat-handed chops smacking Gohan's hands apart. "That technique takes too long—it's useless at this range!" He drove another punch home, the impact throwing Gohan back. "Think, will you? At least make this fun!" His next punch, however, was caught at the wrist.
"You think…this is fun? You threaten my family and friends, my world—and expect me to play your games?"
"Go…han…beat him!"
"Do it, son!"
"Get him…Gohan!"
"I still don't know if I was the right choice." Gohan's grip tightened, making Bills wince in pain. The felinoid tried to tug it away, but found he couldn't. "But I do know that I believe in my father—and he thinks it has to be me. You want a challenge?"
He'd been containing the force of his attacks up until now and directing them entirely at his opponent, as instructed—but the force of this rising haymaker was too great for him to contain. Reality stretched around it, and another nuclear blast accompanied Bills tumbling uncontrollably back through the sky. Gohan pursued him, grabbing ahold of his shoulder and putting Instant Transmission to good use, locking onto his father's energy and taking them both back to Earth. They materialised a few feet off the ground, the battered party guests looking up in shock at the pair of gods who suddenly appeared, still fighting with focused intensity, just above their heads, superluminal flashes punctuating each move.
All right, that showed me how hard I can hit…I can control it next time. "Now I'm not in danger of killing everyone in the backblast…" Gohan hissed, dodging a sweeping kick. "…I'd like to be able to see what I'm fighting for."
Bills snorted. "Foolish. You saw what happened to everywhere else we've fought. Do you want the same thing to happen to Earth? You'll be doing my job for me!"
"It won't happen here," Gohan said firmly. "I didn't want to use this technique—I haven't had the chance to test it in battle yet. But I still haven't done much damage to you, so here goes."
He breathed in deeply, concentrating. "If you'd seen me fight Majin Buu, you'd know about my Dimension Step—it's the ultimate expression of the Shifting technique I've been using on you. This is an improved version—I've actually been trying to think of a name for a while now, but now I think I've got it."
"Are you done?" Bills idly flicked his ear. "I don't care what your technique is, just use it already."
"If you insist." Gohan took one step forwards, spreading what seemed to be ripples through the air, almost as if he was walking on water. Quietly, he said, "God Step."
"God…?" Bills raised one eyebrow.
Gohan's outline blurred, and immediately after he disappeared.
"God Step—" An arm materialised, punching Bills in the back of the head before vanishing. "—is a combination—" A knee caught him in the side. "—of Shifting and—" An energy beam knocked him to the ground. "—Instant Transmission."
Gohan fully reappeared, raising his guard as Bills stood. "Using my Dimension Step ability to phase in and out of the fifth dimension, and my normal Shifting ability to open portals—then applying them both to the Instant Transmission dimension."
"Hmm. You're actually able to stay in the pocket dimension for extended period—that is impressive," Bills admitted.
Raditz, hearing this, groaned. "You mean the kid only got Instant Transmission a year or two ago, and he's already better at it than me? Man, maybe I should've gone to school after all…"
"Did saiyans even have schools?" Break asked him.
"Er…we had the training grounds, I guess…used to spar a lot there…" his face fell. "I, uh…didn't win very often."
"You were a late bloomer," Launch reassured him. "I mean, you went from relatively weak to your race's messianic figure in, what, a year?"
Raditz's reply was drowned out by Bills shredding the ground as he tumbled wildly past them. He stood unsteadily, and was immediately knocked a couple of steps sideways as Gohan appeared, swinging a high, powerful kick before retreating back into the Instant Transmission dimension again.
"All…right…" Bills growled, failing to block another attack, which scratched out a graze on his shoulder, "I've had…ENOUGH OF THIS!" This last part was punctuated by a wordless scream.
A tunnel of twisting ki flew out from his wide-open mouth, spiralling into a focused point and seemingly shattering the air itself in front of him, revealing through the jagged hole that opened up a very startled Gohan.
"Wha…how did…" Gohan mumbled.
"Found you!" Bills dived through the gap into the multicoloured maelstrom, beginning another determined offensive even as the breach closed behind him. Gohan fell back, trying to put some distance between them. "How did you do that?!" he spluttered.
"Well…" Bills shrugged. "You might know it's possible to break through dimensional walls with enough power…"
"Well, yeah," Gohan replied, warily. "Dad got out of the Time Chamber like that…but that was getting out of a pocket dimension. How did you…for want of a better word, find this Instant Transmission dimension?"
"Simplicity itself. You kept jumping in and out in such close proximity to me…I began to recognise the 'trace' and sense your energy, even across dimensions. I can't locate this dimension anytime I want like you can, but now I can follow you in if you teleport here right in front of me. All right," he concluded, cracking his knuckles, "enough talk!" He began to launch a rapid-fire volley of ki blasts, detonating where Gohan floated and leaving large smoke trails in the air (if, indeed, it was air).
"Heh…" Bills smiled, arms still extended, as the smoke drifted away, waiting to see what kind of damage he'd inflicted.
"I suppose you thought I couldn't Shift in this universe," came a voice from behind Bills, startling him. "But apparently the same laws of physics apply here, including access to the fifth dimension. Oh, and also?" Bills turned, noticing the build-up of divine ki and raising a cross-armed guard, almost too late. "KAMEHAMEHA!"
"Gyaaaah!" Bills was sent sailing away as the energy beam smacked into him, spinning and tumbling uncontrollably. Gohan appeared above him, swooping down for a flying kick, but Bills twisted out of the way, grabbing his leg and wrenching it. Hissing in pain, Gohan brought his other leg around, driving a knee into Bills' face with a gratifying crunch, then wrapped an arm around the god's neck, taking off at faster-than-light speed through the vast expanse of swirling colours with Bills in tow, as if executing an aerial piledriver.
"What's…the point…of this?" Bills choked, tugging on Gohan's arm and trying to break free. "There's nothing…to land on here…!"
"No, but nobody said we had to stay here," Gohan replied, smiling and raising his free hand to touch his forehead.
Earth…
"So…" Kuriza glanced around awkwardly at the assembled group. "They're gone again. Should we—"
"Noooooo—!" Came Bills' strangled cry as the two gods materialised in the air, several dozen metres away, hurtling towards the ground. They hit the ground with Bills underneath and just carried on going, burrowing down out of sight.
A few seconds later, a low rumbling became audible. It grew louder and more distinct, until it was not a single flat noise, but a staccato rhythm of thousands of simply insanely fast punches, kicks and blocks. Gohan and Bills rose out of their crater, still fighting, tendrils of red and purple energy arcing out and throwing up a gale-force air current when one of them missed or dodged.
This deadlock was eventually broken when Bills finally landed a kick, winding Gohan, then a two-handed swing knocked the Super Saiyan God down to Earth. Bills hung in the air, trying to catch his breath, as Gohan lay on the floor, groaning.
Whis came strolling up to Gohan's friends and family, smiling sweetly. "Please resist the urge to go help him. Lord Bills wouldn't take kindly to that at all. Anyway…I'm sure he'll find time for all of you." They all bristled at this, but knew all too well that getting in Bills' way at their current level would be foolish.
Gohan managed to half-sit up, hearing movement above and knowing Bills was now standing right in front of him. I feel like…I've got nothing left…
I wrote about this in Groundbreaking Science…Ki is composed of…Genki—vitality, the body's energy—Yuuki, courage, determination, willpower—and Shoki, clarity of thought, focus. My body's drained…amazed I can even remember this stuff after all these blows to the head…guess I'm running on Yuuki now.
Bills raised a fist. "You fought well, but you don't have the experience with this kind of power to match me." He swung, but then Gohan was gone, putting on a burst of speed and leaping up off the ground at Bills, right arm swinging around.
Willpower. Fix it in my mind—if I can still move, I won't stop.
Something changed, however—the feeling of ethereal lightness, the red glow, the unfathomable power vanished, and Bills hastily caught Gohan's punch, holding it back without much effort. "Hey. You lost your god form." Still, his ki…it's definitely divine, even now. He must've absorbed that 'world' of power into his body…
"You think I care?" Gohan turned Super Saiyan, a burst of strength allowing him to shove Bills' block back, following up with a jumping spin kick. Bills ducked under it, however, throwing an uppercut that made Gohan's field of vision spin. Bills pressed his advantage, hammering Gohan with a succession of quick attacks. Hundreds of hits impacted his body from all directions. And yet…his power's…rising…?
"Fall, damn you!" Bills screamed, a heavy finisher sending Gohan skidding back into a wall, which crumbled behind him.
Gohan said nothing, but his energy continued to grow, slowly raising his head and forming fists.
Yuuki…give me power!
Bills shrunk back as Gohan's eyes opened. "Are you immortal?! Fall!"
"You…first!" He became a streak of light, rocketing into Bills and battering his defences with ever-faster hits.
Yes…Bills thought. His power hasn't dropped much at all from when he was the Super Saiyan God. What exactly…is he?!
(spaceship crash-lands) I'm back, bitches!
But yeah, my Internet's properly back now.
O generous and wonderful readers, wilt thou treat me to an updated TV Tropes page as a hundred-chapters-present?
On that note, I was kind of wondering if I'd be able to finish the Battle of the Gods bit at chapter 100, but it seems not. Well, at least 100 was something suitably epic.
…So it turns out a load of anime was on while I was a kid, including things like DBZ and Yu Yu Hakusho, but aside from, say, Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon, I MISSED ALL OF IT SOMEHOW.
Aaaagh. My childhood could've been so much more awesome.
Anyway, that might be why I'm more of an enthusiastic DBZ fan than any of my real-life friends; they grew up with it, I only discovered it a couple of years ago.
The Comic
Okay, so it's pretty much all coming together: Zeron will be the main artist, with Nassif providing digital lines and colours. Trent will be doing a bunch of fanart as 'snapshots' of cool moments from the story, and will also act as backup artist if one is ever required. I was actually really worried about how to tell him I'd prefer Zeron as the main artist without upsetting him, but he was pretty cool about it, so…yeah, that was a relief.
The comic will begin who knows when. Whenever we can put it together. It'll feature a couple of changes, but just minor things I wish I'd done in the first place.
Q: Hey, I've been reading this for a couple of months now, but I've never really taken the time to sit down and write a review for you. So, here we go.
This is good. This is really good. Ever since I first sat down to begin reading this I've just been repeatedly blown away by how good this is. At first I thought it was simply going to be nothing more than "Raditz becomes the new main character and does everything Goku did hurr durr", but boy was I wrong. You managed to take Raditz, someone who I thought always had ton of wasted potential as a character, and turn him into a likable, convincing protagonist.
But that's not all you did. I really expected the story to focus solely on Raditz, but you managed to do so much more than that. You gave Tien (my favorite DB/DBZ character ever, by the way) much more time in the spotlight. You actually included Launch in the story, and transformed her from generic pretty girl with a weird personality quirk to an actual compelling character. You took Android 18 and made her way more human, and by extension way easier to relate to, while in canon she was little more than a b**** with sex appeal.
I could go on and on about all the great things you've done with this story, but It'd take way too long. Just suffice it to say that I'm extremely impressed with all the improvements you've made the the DBZ story. In response the the third question you asked at the end of this chapter, I think that DBZ written by a more mature Toriyama would have looked something like this, if he decided to continue it after Frieza that is.
So yeah, you've done extremely well with this story, and I can't wait for more! Keep on doing what you do best!
A: …Whoa. Thanks.
Q: Also note that for your power levels for Hirudegarn, in your story Kaikoen x3 mystic boku was equal in power with half of Hirudegarn, so the whole of Hirudegarn should clock in at a 12 or something.
A: Half of Hirudegarn didn't have just half of the full Hirudegarn's power level. It could still kick with full force and so forth.
Q: Is Super Saiyan God Gohan stronger than Super Saiyan God Goku from the movie?
A: Hum…canon Goku's more SSJ3 experience probably balances with Gohan's hidden power deal, so probably they're about even initially. Though as we've seen, Gohan's power isn't fixed or stable at all.
Q: Great chapter! Wow, one hundred chapters! How does it feel? Did ya ever think you'd go this far with this fanfic?
A: I did not, but I'm happy the support was enough to get me this far!
Q: Shouldn't it be that Daoi Enma's room is way faster than the living time? This allows him to do way more things in one living second.
A: I just always thought he had paperwork-related superpowers or something.
Q: First, I read most of your story in about 2 weeks, and its a really good one.
Now, about this chapter: It was a good idea to make Gohan SSJG, its a long time since he had an important role in the story. But, i think you made Bills to strong, I mean, when he said that he was using 10% of his power, Gohans power level was at least 5 time bigger than that of a SSJ3, this will make Bills 50 times stronger than a SSJ3, and Weis even stronger than that.
A: I was under the impression that divine ki couldn't be measured in normal terms, and couldn't be beaten my any amount of normal ki…
Q: Did Gohan tap into the tip of SSJ4 power? It would make sense since SSJ4 apparently has some demigod Ki (as you stated in the note of this chapter). Anyway, it was cool to see him be a badass again.
A: Not quite, but interesting thinking.
Q: The mystery of the 'Dragon Fist' continues. Since it contains demigod Ki and always has the same amount of power regardless of user, perhaps it is a technique that borrows power from a Shadow Dragon (or even a 'good' Dragon that we haven't heard of)?
A: Ooh! You—(claps hand over mouth)
Q: I hope that most of the villains in "Even Further Beyond" aren't as strong as Bills, otherwise it'll be like GT all over again (with only 1 or 2 characters able to combat the main villains).
A: Have no fear, plenty of characters will get their chance to shine—as I said, no longer just letting the saiyan brothers do everything like in those very early previews back in what, the Countdown Saga? Maybe even earlier?
And yeah, that's partly because most of the villains aren't going to be god-level.
Q: Captain, Chapter 100 is next, and you have introduced Son Gohan as the champion of Earth, the Z Fighters' last hope, THE Super Saiyan God. Seems as good an ultimate battle as any to do your 100th chapter to right? Or...you could have a giant bikini babe throw down with a giant energy beam firing penguin over Neo-Tokyo! Robot Penguin? Deathbot Killguin? Hm...no no, definitely stick with Gohan vs Bills.
A: Sure, why not.
'The skyscraper-sized penguin squawked in anger, firing its signature energy beam. However, Bikinya, the gigantic warrior with a questionable dress sense especially considering how it was November, managed to dodge the attack, suffering only a moderate wardrobe malfunction, causing the camera to henceforth be coy about showing her from certain angles in order to keep this PG-13.
"Cease this evil rampage of evil, you evil creature!" She commanded, pointing dramatically. It didn't answer, since it was a penguin. "Very well! You have foolishly chosen the foolish path of combat with me, you foolish fool of a fool!" She declared, knocking the giant penguin clear out of Neo-Tokyo city limits with a flying kick accompanied by blurry action lines and a heavy metal remix of her theme song.
Will the penguin continue its laser-related path of destruction?
Will Neo Tokyo survive this clash of the titans?
Will Bikinya ever put a shirt on?
Find out…probably never!'
Sorry, forgot to make it a robot.
All right, with that randomness done with, see you next week for the epic conclusion of this story arc!