Chapter 102: Monster Reborn

Because title references are hilarious, right? Shut up, I'm sleepy.

Ten minutes until midnight or not, it's still technically Sunday, damn it! This counts as on time! (For this reason, if there are any errors, expect them to be corrected within a day or so.)

Note on Pan and inevitable question in regards to her at the end.

"You're joking."

"You know I'm terrible at jokes."

"It's April the 1st or something."

"It's May."

"Wait, you know the date—I mean, hmm…how much did Bulma pay you?"

"I'm serious!"

"Come on, Goku!" Raditz rounded on his brother. "You expect me to believe there's a human we've never heard of or seen before who's just going to randomly turn up at this tournament—and he's as strong as us?! You don't think that sounds a little suspicious?" Goku just gazed off into the sky and started whistling. "Aaagh! You're impossible!"

"I just wish this queue would hurry up and get moving," Pan grumbled. Now nine, she was currently wearing a copy of the orange gi that had, over the years, gone from being the symbol of the Turtle Hermit's teachings, to the trademark of Goku's family. She was also extremely bored, as nine-year-olds are wont to be, and pacing in ever-faster circles around her grandfather and his brother, kicking up clouds of dust. Another item of note was the tail snaking back from her waist, twitching impatiently; the ever-unpredictable combination of human and saiyan DNA had shown itself again in that her tail hadn't actually grown for a few years after her birth. While a surprise, as Earth was still lacking a moon it was hardly a problem.

"What's the holdup, anyway?" Goku wondered, trying to peer over an extremely large wrestler that stood directly in front of them.

"It's the Wonder Twins over there," Raditz sighed. "Listen."

Indeed, as Goku focused his hearing he picked out the raised voices of Vegeta Jr. and Goten, and the defensive, placating tones of a quite frightened organiser.

"…and I'm telling you, Gogeta can't come here right now, we're signing him up for him!"

"I'm afraid all contestants must sign up in person…"

"He'll be here! Look, just have one of us go instead if he isn't!" Goten pounded the table, managing to restrain himself from breaking it. "Aargh, why do we have to go through this every time?! We've won this damn thing once, is the concept of fusion that hard to explain?" He and his fellow fusee made a strange contrast; messy, floppy hair (though no longer exactly like Goku's) versus vertical, unbending spike; T-shirt and jeans versus faux-military wear with touches of saiyan royal garb; a default facial expression somewhere between confusion and exasperation versus an aura of grumpiness.

"Yes, this 'fusion' you keep mentioning…" The organiser hazarded. "Could you perhaps demonstrate it to me? If that really produces your fighter, he could then sign up himself…"

"Hell no!" Vegeta growled. "It only lasts half an hour, and I'm not using up half of our fight time just to satisfy some pen-pushing flunky!" And so it went.

Raditz clutched his head in his hands, eye twitching. "Goku. Hold me back, I think I'm going to murder them."

Quite some time later…

"All right, everyone," the announcer—the same World Tournament announcer as always, at that—declared, gesturing wildly with his microphone, "the preliminaries have concluded! And please welcome our eight finalists with a big hand—that's Pan, Raditz, Nareg, Uub, Son Goku, Wild Tiger, Marron, and…Captain Chicken…? Captain Chicken, everybody. I could not make this up."

"Hey Grandpa," Pan asked Goku as they lined up in front of the ring to draw their match-ups. "What happened to Break and Gogeta?"

"Break had the misfortune of coming up against her old man in the preliminaries," Raditz answered with a grin. "In case you were wondering, yes, we both went Super Saiyan 3."

"Oh, so that's what that repair crew was about," Marron commented, leaning in to hear their conversation—Eighteen and Krillin's daughter definitely took more after her mother than her father in appearance, apart from a slight wide-eyed, round-faced touch that hinted at Krillin's influence.

"Yeah, with that much force behind each of our punches I managed to force a ring out pretty quickly," Raditz finished, folding his arms and exuding smugness.

"And as for Gogeta," Goku continued with a snicker, "he defused right before a match, so he couldn't show up in time and got disqualified—the preliminaries are held pretty close together." He paused, his smile growing warmer and less joking. "I'm actually kind of relieved…his power's grown enormously since last time, and I don't think I could beat him anymore. Those kids have really grown up…I'm proud."

Launch, trailing smoke and looking rather dejected, made her way to a seat with Videl and Gohan on one side and Bulma's family on the other (including her and Zarbon's daughter, whose name, Bra, would have been the mockery of the playground if it were not for her terrifying and overprotective parents), lifting Oolong out of the seat and tossing him in an unsuspecting man's lap behind them.

"What happened to you?" Bulma asked, coughing and waving the smoke away.

Launch sighed. "Gogeta happened. I entered without telling the guys, and wanted to surprise 'em in the finals…guess not…"

"Ah," Trunks replied, nodding in solidarity, "that sucks."

Launch raised an eyebrow. "Say, you didn't enter? I mean, I know your dad's a lazy sod, but—"

Zarbon put a hand on his son's shoulder. "—and Trunks here follows in my magnificent example, of course!"

"Right," Trunks agreed, giving an abashed grin. "I haven't really done any fighting for years now…mom's been letting me help run the company, though, so I've been pretty busy."

Launch hummed, shooting him a sidelong glance. "You sure you didn't even have the slightest interest? Break entered, after all…"

"W-What does that have to do with anything?!" Trunks burst out, gesticulating frantically. "We're friends, that's all! Just what are you implying?"

"Oh, nothing…I mean, you're both 18 now, you shouldn't need me to imply anything for you…"

"Will you stop?!" Trunks yelled, face a pastiche of green, red and blue. Before he could continue, however, Break approached, in a similar charred state to her mother, before falling into a seat, not noticing that Gohan was currently occupying it.

"Er…" Gohan asked, tactfully trying to shove her off, with no success. "What happened?"

"Dad happened," she grumbled. "I almost had him, but his stupid Instant Transmission…"

"I see…well, there's always next time…" Videl said, patting Break's shoulder.

"Right!" Break stuck a clenched fist into the air. "Like in an hour or two—as soon as he leaves the building, I'll jump him! He'll be weakened from all the fighting!"

"Not…really what I meant…"

"Vengeance will be mine!"

Raditz dusted off his hands, stepping out of the ring. "That 'Nareg' actually had a pretty high power level…humans really are coming a long way…" He hadn't changed much since the great battles of the past decade, other than becoming more casual in his appearance, adopting an entirely human dress sense, barring a couple of touches (one of his old gauntlets, for instance); this in contrast to his brother, who aside from changing to a darker shade of blue, accompanied by yellow pants, looked just about the same as always (it helped that saiyans aged considerably slower than humans). "You ready, Pan?" Raditz asked.

The quarter-saiyan girl grinned. "Yup!" She half-skipped, half-floated up to the ring, bowing to her opponent, the impressively-built, ridiculously-costumed Captain Chicken. Yes, Captain Chicken. Apparently he was completely serious.

The battle was short, but far from dull. The preposterous man strutted around for a bit, declaring his intention to rise to greatness and fight evil and so forth, and after a minute or so Pan waved a hand across his face, snapping him out of it.

"Ah!" He yelped, jumping back slightly. "My apologies! I do get carried away…now!" She may be young, but I must not underestimate her…she did make it through the preliminaries… He held both hands out facing her, beginning to hum tunelessly. "Hoooooo…Super…Ultimate…Destructive…"

"Uh…" Pan scratched her head, standing still. "Are you done…?"

"…Chicken…"

"Seriously, any day now?"

"…WAVE!" He finished, triumphantly firing a decent-sized energy beam. "Hah!" He bellowed, watching it seemingly hit his opponent dead-on; however, a moment later her afterimage faded and vanished. Floating behind him, Pan tapped the self-proclaimed superhero's shoulders.

"So…" she asked. "…was that it?"

"I—" he began, but before he could finish she gave a gentle shove that slammed him back into the arena wall, earning him a ring-out and nearly a concussion.

Marron's match with the slightly (slightly) less outlandishly named Wild Tiger was equally short-lived, and equally memorable. Once the blonde teenage girl had finished chasing her opponent (who looked like he was born of an illicit coupling between Genghis Khan and a brick wall) around the ring and finally delivered the knockout blow, the final match of the first round could get underway.

"So…none of our opponents have been up to much…" Raditz observed as Goku walked past him, stretching. "…that means this kid is the one? This superhuman of yours?"

"Yeah…" Goku nodded, tightening his belt. "Check out his name…try spelling it backwards."

"What? Why?!" Raditz exploded, but reluctantly glanced at the list of competitors. "Let's see, what was his—Uub…Buu?! You can't be serious…"

"Sure I am!" Goku grinned. "When we killed Majin Buu, I made a half-serious request that I'd see him again someday as a good person…well, somebody—Kaioshin, King Yemma, who knows—saw me helping save the universe and threw me a bone, so here he is; Buu reincarnated in human form."

"Unbelievable…" Raditz muttered. "I just wish I'd known about this before you…"

"Why, so you could beat me to fixing the match order?"

"Well, I—wait, you did what?!" Raditz burst out, but Goku was already gone, heading for the ring. Come to think of it, it was a little suspicious that he's facing Uub in the first round like this…I suppose telekinesis isn't exactly a rare feat for us, but I didn't know he had the kind of precision to fix drawing lots like that…

Uub gulped, the intimidating sight of the cheering crowds giving him pause—even the preliminaries, with dozens of other fighters shoving by, hadn't prepared him for the sheer mass of humanity on display here. Before today, he'd never seen more than a hundred or so people in one place before. It's fine…just ignore the crowd, Uub. You did fine in the preliminaries…this'll be exactly the same.

Right. I can do this. I have to. He took slow, deep breaths as he climbed into the ring, glancing nervously at his opponent, a wild-haired, blue-and-yellow-garbed man, currently doing warm-up stretches and acting like the thousands-strong audience wasn't even there. Come on, I can win…everyone's counting on me getting this prize money!

Goku watched Uub approaching, pretending not to notice his presence and weighing him up—supposedly he was from a tropical island only just south of where the tournament was being held, and it seemed from his outfit that they weren't very well-off. His hair curved up and forwards in floppy spikes from the back of his skull, hanging over his forehead—almost like Buu's antenna in reverse, which couldn't have been a coincidence. His power's impressive—I've felt it from far off recently—but he's hiding it now, intentionally or not.

The announcer cleared his throat, having finished introducing the contestants to the audience. "Son Goku…Uub…ready, and—begin!"

"All right…" Goku took a step forwards, but grimaced as Uub immediately flinched back, trembling. Huh…stage fright, I guess…that's no good. He can't fight properly like this. Maybe if I rile him up… Unfortunately, this being Goku, subtle emotional manipulation was not exactly his specialty. "H…Hey, you!"

"Uh?" Uub blinked, warily raising his guard.

"Yeah! You gonna fight me already? Or gonna go home and cry to mommy? Um. Who's fat."

"What…?"

"Your, uh…mother…fat, and, uh…" He frowned. Man, Frieza made this insults thing seem easy… "…and your father smells of…elderberries—"

Oh for the love of—Goku! Raditz's telepathic voice cut Goku off. Listen, ass-clown!

See, you can do it! Goku observed. Why is it that everyone else finds this so easy…?

Shut up! Look, just hit him. If you want to draw out his true power, put him in danger.

Uh…sure, but that might be a little dangerous…

Oh, he'll be fine. He's the reborn Majin Buu, he's not going to be easy to kill.

If you say so…

"Excuse me?" Uub asked timidly. "Are you all right, sir? Do you need a minute?"

"Ah!" Goku grinned. "Sorry about all that earlier. I was trying to make you mad, so I could see your full power. But I think—" In a blur of motion, he was in front of Uub, kicking at the young fighter's head. "—I've got a better way!"

"Gahh!" Uub felt an impact on his forearms and skidded back almost to the edge of the ring, then paused—he hadn't realised he'd moved his arms up to block. I've never moved that fast before…

"There you go! More of that, and you'll be fine!" Goku settled to the ground, grinning. "You'll probably never have fought like this, but you'll find you've got a lot more in you than you realise…"

Goku dashed in and punched at Uub, who dodged, catching the second punch and throwing one of his own. Goku jumped back, feeling it graze his nose; his smile grew wider. "Yeah, that's it!"

"You were right…" Uub mumbled. "I'm the strongest in my village by far, but you're really something else…I can't believe I'm fighting you like this…how did you know all this, anyway? Who are you?"

"Tell you later," Goku said excitedly, raising his guard. "C'mon, don't you wanna fight me? To see what you can really do?"

Uub instinctively wanted to say 'no'; he'd never been interested in fighting for its own sake. But something stopped him, the words catching in his throat. A hungry grin spread across his face. "…yeah." He kicked off the ground, leading with a few jabs and pursuing Goku as the larger contestant slowly retreated.

Goku countered with a downwards elbow, but Uub soon recovered and was back on the offensive. "Hey, you're even better than I thought you'd be!" Goku commented, ducking back to avoid a high spin kick.

"I did get training from my uncle…" Uub grunted, continuing his assault. "…and he used to get lessons from someone who'd read some book on this stuff!"

"Oh, Gohan's book?" Goku asked. "Cool, you must already know some of the basics!" He broke away again, rising slightly into the air. "I guess I can cut loose a little more."

"Yeah, I've heard some people like you can fly…" Uub said, nodding. "I never got that one myself, but I can do—this!" He thrust an open hand upwards, sending a ripple of force through the air and knocking Goku back down into the ring.

"Oh…" Goku stood up, rubbing his head. "A kiai, huh? That ki control was pretty good!"

He's not even scratched…! Uub realised. Still, I'm keeping up with him. Though it still kinda seems like he's playing around… "Sorry…I can't let you win. I've gotta get this prize money—I need to buy food for everyone back home!"

"If you say so…" Goku nodded. "Then do your best! But if you're going to attack from a distance…" He brought his hands together in front of him. "Ka…Me…"

Raditz gave a start, before quickly relaxing. Good…he's not putting anything like full power into this…you worried me for a second there, Goku.

"…Ha…Me…"

"Whoa!" Uub took a step back as Goku's building energy ball exuded waves of power, growing brighter by the second. "That's some crazy energy!"

"…HA!" Goku yelled, letting the energy beam fly. Uub jumped, avoiding the attack by a hair, but Goku had been expecting this—extinguishing the Kamehameha before it could hit the stands behind, he leapt up at Uub, a two-fisted hammer launching him down at the ground. However, he seemed to skid to a halt in mid-air just before touching the grass, floating there calmly.

Goku gaped. "Hey…you're flying?!"

"Well, yeah…" Uub laughed nervously. "I mean…you made it look so easy…so I just sort of jumped and didn't fall."

"Whoa…" Goku blinked. He learned it just by seeing it once…just like Buu…

"All right!" Uub charged back up at Goku, renewing his attack. Goku retreated down into the ring, throwing a few attacks of his own. The thunderous noise of their continuing battle drowned out the announcer's hyperbolic commentary, and over in the stands, brought a warm smile to Chi-Chi's face.

"Heh…he hasn't been this happy for a long time…"

Hakaishin temple…

Whis, as he was wont to do, paced the long, dark halls of the temple. It is unusually insightful of Lord Bills to realise that the Super Saiyan God was not the type to want a rematch anytime soon…he chose to have a full-length sleep this time, and will probably not wake again for several decades.

I am thankful, though; it gives me time to think. The signs have indeed been aligning…the Eternal cannot be far away now. However, it lives in time nigh-uncountable, that makes even the days of the Hakaishin seem fleeting. 'Soon' might be a scant few years; it might be centuries.

Why do I get the feeling that those saiyans are going to get mixed up in this business?

Okay, so this is the author's commentary, just in case the continued italics are confusing.

So about Pan and, what I anticipate will be a common question, "why does she have a tail?!"

Okay, two reasons:

1. Because genetics are fairly random. The way I see it a trait like a saiyan tail is the sort of thing that has a likelihood proportional to the amount of saiyan DNA someone has. Therefore a half-saiyan is 50% likely to have one, a quarter-saiyan 25%.

And since Pan was conceived and born at a different point in time here to canon, the exact combination of genes she got was different to canon.

2. This one isn't really as good, but whatever. I mentioned the tail didn't actually grow in for a few years; hence, if she hadn't been born earlier (i.e. if she was four like in canon when this tournament happened), she wouldn't have had a tail and would've looked exactly like canon Pan at the time. But she wasn't, so she did, so she didn't. If that makes sense.

(Also possibly some Lamarckian (spelling?) silliness about the way genetics seems to work in DBZ (SSJ parents and all) and Gohan still having his own tail unlike canon.

Q: Very nice, very nice, I wonder, I have a few questions about SSG, is it possible for two SSG to fuse by either potara or Dance, are there mutiple levels of Super Saiyan God, like SSG1/2/3 ETC... and is it possible to use Kaiokenw with God ki?

A: Uh...yes, no, probably not.

Q: i dont belive that is the weakness of the beans. after all they can heal holes and internal organs. those that dont have regeneration.

A: A PM conversation revealed that this person may well be right. I guess Goten remembered it wrong (and by the time anyone corrected him, it had been too long; there's presumably some kind of time limit, which would be why the senzu didn't ever heal, e.g., Yamcha's scars. Or Tien's scar for some reason...must not be a very long time limit.)

Q: Are you sure Old Kai is alive in cannon? I've never heard that. Great chapter though.

A: Yeah, there's a panel showing it specifically.

Q: I am a tad upset with Goten and Vegeta losing hearing though, cause... well nerfing. At least from my point of view. And also, couldn't Bulma just create some devices to fix that? Or ARE they actually going to heal over time? That part wasn't very clear.

A: I am a tad upset with Goten and Vegeta losing hearing though, cause... well nerfing. At least from my point of view. And also, couldn't Bulma just create some devices to fix that? Or ARE they actually going to heal over time? That part wasn't very clear.

A: Only in one ear each, don't worry. And yes, probably. And no.

Q: Also, just so I'm clear, that's "God out of the Simian/Monkey" right?

A: Yeah. At least, it's meant to be. I don't speak Latin.

Q: I like how it ended, my only question is with the dragon crisis in the sequel is what role is Gohan going to have since his power was augmented thanks to becoming the Super Saiyan God?

A: Quite a large one, I suppose.

Q: Are you going to post a link to the comic, either in a Q&A or in your bio, when it starts?

A: Probably.

Q: Do you plan to introduce any other gods from the other 11 universes?

A: Yes.

Q: The chapters, while well written and fun, have seemed very... casual? lately. A lot of author asides and rushed scenes. I'm not so much complaining, but more curious as to why? Did Bills just not do anything for you? Or is it *puts on joker makeup* all part of the plaaaan...(?)

A: I think this period always just seemed more light-hearted to me. Perhaps I'm also getting it all out of my system for the more serious story coming up in EFB.

Hey. Comic people. Paying ze attentions to this please:

Q: this is by far my favorite chapter, the description of gohan gripping bills from behind while regaining his god form created an awesomely awesome image in my brain that's awesomer than the ssj3 gohan image i made before...if i had good drawing capabilities, i'd make it right now...i have it created in full detail in my brain XD
oh, and how awesome is it that my favorite chapter from the story so far has been published on my birthday?

check the guy who's supposed to draw the comic, maybe he can draw that scene himself, I'll create a line art and color it the way i imagine it. it'll be awesome :D

A: Happy birthday!

And Zeron? You hearing this? Personally I don't mind if it's not that exact moment, but, y'know, if you were gonna draw something...maaaaybe something Battle of the Gods related? Eeeehhh? Pweeease?

Q: will gogeta ever be able to go ssj3?

A: Quite possibly.

"Q": Just to put things into perspective for you, I've been reading fan-fiction for over a decade now, and this is the first time I've actually posted a review. I am impressed. Your work is outstanding. I've always enjoyed what if scenarios where a single minute change ripples out to create a completely different story. You've done an excellent job of not forcing the characters to fit your story. Instead, you've written the story around how the characters would react in the situations you've put them. I've only recently returned to reading DB/DBZ fan-fiction, (GT never happened as far as I'm concerned) and I've just powered through BTtL. Well done sir, well done. I look forward to reading both your continuation of this story and any other stories you may choose to write.
PS: Try to take other reviewers moaning and groaning about their favorite character not getting the limelight with a grain of salt. It's YOUR story. So long as you're happy with your writing that's all that truly matters. After sifting through the dross of poorly written fan-fiction to find gems like yours, well lets just say I want to give you as much encouragement as I can to counteract the whiners. keep up the good work.

A: Thanks very much!

Looks like I'm...

(puts on sunglasses)

...out of space. For this chapter. Um. This is the end of the chapter. See you next week.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAH