AN: Hmmm-hmmm-hm-hm-hm-hmmmm...
Tt-tt.
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*-si-i-i-ip-* ts, ah. Hm. *-clunk-*
*-tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap-*
*-click -* *-click-click-* … … … *-click-click-*
*-tap tap tap tap tap-* *-click-*
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Snff. Snfffff! Mm. Need to vacuum in here.
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*-click-* *-click-*
*-sip-* *-clunk-*
*-click-*
Hmmmbuh-buh-buh-buh-buuh...ppbit ppbit ppbit...
*-click-*
Deh deh deh deh~! Deh deh-deh deh deh-deh-
Wait...
IT'S BEEN OVER A YEAR!?
Not quite two weeks after what rightfully should have been the end of the world, Trunks decided it was high time that he return home. Even though he would be returning to within hours of his departure from his native time (SCIENCE!), he was unwilling to leave his mother alone for very long without any means of protection against the rouge androids.
With the Time-Machine decapsulized on Capsule Corps' backyard, the warrior was saying his goodbyes. Besides this timeline's version of Bulma and her parents, the Son family had come to see him off as well, joined by a somber Piccolo, a slightly awkward Tien, a casual Yamcha and a cheerful Krillin. They each said a few words of parting, or clapped him on the back in a casual salute. He had promised to come back and visit, but the parting was still a bitter-sweet pill to swallow.
When he got to Bulma he accepted her hug, his infant counterpart resting in her arm between them. "You take care of yourself kiddo. Your world needs you to be the hero you've become." He smiled and nodded, trusting that she knew his mind without having to say anything else. He smiled at infant Trunks, who was playing with a bracelet and staring up at him with an unimpressed air.
He moved to his vessel, collecting his sheathed sword from where it lay propped against one of the Time-Machine's struts, and hopped up into the pilot's seat. Settling down behind the controls, he inputted the simplified startup procedure his mother had drilled into his head, getting the tachyon engine revving and the transparent canopy to close with a hiss of pressurized air. Looking back to the people who had become his second family, he gave one last wave and smile before the Time-Machine rose into the air, and then vanished with a bluish light.
They remained there for a few more seconds, staring at where and when he'd just been, before slowly breaking off, silently believing that this might very well be the finale of the Z-Fighters. There was reluctance in their farewells, but all too soon they were departing to resume their separate paths. Bulma watched them go, and felt an empty feeling in her gut. While losing Vegeta had been like losing a half of her world, seeing this mismatched group of martial artists disperse slowly held a much subtler pain about it. She'd been there for the very beginning of it all, and through all of the insanity that had become their lives, she had had never really thought about what would happen if the adventures ever ended. Well, logically she'd known it was inevitable (if they weren't all blown up first), but the full emotional implication was only just now hitting home.
Looking at her infant child, who hadn't cared one whit about what was happening and was contentedly jamming a whole fist in his mouth which would later be introduced to her hair, Bulma allowed herself to mourn the passing of that past life. In the very next second, she was brightly looking forward to this new one that promised a whole bevy of challenges, problems and questions that begged to be answered. She may not be an adventurer anymore, but she was the best looking genius on the planet and would remind everyone of that fact by blinding them all with science of the scienceiest kind!
"Come on baby Trunks," she cooed as she wheeled about and took them back into the half-sphere of her home and work space. "Let's miniaturize fission!"
Trunks gurgled wetly around his fist.
Trunks wrapped tape around his fist.
It wasn't all that necessary a precaution, but he'd seen a kung-fu movie in Past Earth where a bunch of pit fighters had prepared in the same way and he couldn't help but like the aesthetic.
He was standing on top of a not-completely-demolished high rise building in the uptown districts of the ravaged West City, dinged up portable radio at his feet and broadcasting the sparse news and updates from the survivors that maintained the station. His cerulean eyes scanned the horizon for any sign of the androids, Cell, or the bandits that roamed the outskirts looking for easy prey. All of them very real threats, and certainly worth shutting down immediately, but he was most anxious for the cyborg twins to rear up and grant him his opportunity at avenging everyone who had died in the past two decades.
He'd greeted his mother warmer than he ever had before, sweeping her up in a tight hug that brought her toes off the ground, emphasizing his growth spurt. She cried, he'd cried, and they'd sat down and had tea, enjoying the few minutes that they could be a family again. He'd told her an abridged account of his adventures in the past, shocking and amazing her with reports of fights, deaths, and impossible saves. She was hugging him again by the end.
Though he would have liked nothing more than to just spend the whole day with the mother he appreciated and respected even more than ever, he couldn't in good conscious take any more of a rest when innocents could be dying at that very second. He'd hugged his mother one more time, shrugged out of his jacket and snagged the radio before making his way to this building in preparation.
It felt surreal, getting ready to face the threat that had dominated his entire life and taken so much away from every person on Earth. For so long he had been afraid and angry, powerless against the twins as the legendary Z-Fighters had been before him, unable to make a difference.
But now, here, today, he was finally ready. He had seen the very real dangers lurking beyond the androids, had faced down an unbeatable enemy with his heroes, and he understood that he would always be fighting, always striving for that next level of power like his father had. He couldn't take for granted the strength he possessed because there could always be someone or something stronger just waiting in the shadows.
He was the Earth's first and last line of defense, and he swore that he would never again be found wanting.
Goku had quite probably deluded himself into believing that, when Sel was defeated and the androids were no longer a danger, everything would go back to as normal as it could. And for the most part it did, but the few things that didn't were all too evident.
The major issue was his relationship with Gohan. Ever since Vegeta had died, there'd been a rift forming between them, a fissure where before there had been an easy bond. They had bridged that gap for a time in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, getting closer over the months than they had in the years prior, but then...then he'd turned against all of his friends and his own son because Sel had played on his hero complex (Bulma had been all too willing to explain that terminology to him later). He knew that he had messed up big time, and he wanted nothing more than to make it up to everyone, but he didn't know if Gohan would even give him that chance.
Ever since his revival, the half-saiyan had been keeping to himself, both at home and in the wild. He spoke rarely and often in as few words as he could. Chi-Chi was stressed out as it was with the new baby on the way, and this dramatic shift in behavior from her firstborn wasn't doing her any favors. Goku promised her that he'd talk to their son. That might have been a poor choice.
Knocking on the door he remembered carving himself, Goku waited a minute in silence before cracking the door open and peeking inside. Gohan was at his desk, textbook laid open to a page somewhere around the beginning, but he was turned towards the opened window, chin resting in his hands. He didn't look any different, so Goku grudgingly accepted that this wouldn't be that simple.
"Hey there champ, mind if I talk to you for a bit?"
Gohan shrugged. Goku deliberated for a second before walking over and sitting down gingerly on the bed, the only other place to sit in the room and incidentally putting him directly in Gohan's eye-line. He made sure to position himself to the side of the window.
"So, uh..." With that great start, Goku realized that he'd never actually had a heart-to-heart with someone before and he had no idea how to approach the matter. This wasn't going to be easy or enjoyable, but he was set and determined. "We haven't really talked lately, and I know that there's a lot of...I..know that I messed up. Big time. I hurt you, and there is absolutely nothing I could ever say that would make that alright. As both your father and your teacher, I failed you."
This was enough to get Gohan to look straight at him, and Goku almost wished that he hadn't. Instead of the bright cheerfulness of a kid, or even the fiery anger he was entitled to, there was nothing in his eyes. Not resentment, not hope, not love, not understanding. Gohan was unreadable, masking whatever emotions dwelt under the still exterior.
"We...I understand that I don't deserve your trust so soon after I broke it, but please, give me a chance to earn it back again. I would rather die than betray you or anyone else depending on me again." Goku couldn't quite keep the note of pleading out of his voice.
Gohan turned away for a moment, deliberating with himself. There seemed to be a terrible moment where Goku could have sworn that his son was about to curse him out and force him out of the room, but it passed as soon as it came and he wasn't entirely certain he hadn't just imagined it. The young boy looked back at his father, and there was a hint of tiredness in the way he nodded. "Okay, dad. Okay."
A month after the showdown with Sel, it seemed that life really would just settle back to normal. People drove to and from work, there were weddings, divorces, births, deaths, reality television, political scandals, sunsets on the beach, stubbed toes, sandwiches, tea breaks, flat tires, money found in laundry, static shocks, sinus infections and all the countless other things that were completely taken for granted by the people of Earth.
Piccolo marveled at how fast humans and the other inhabitants of the planet could heal from or ignore the trauma and confusion of dying and returning to life without explanation. In a way, they were incredibly lucky not to have any memories of the afterlife; nothing that bridged the two most shocking moments of their lives. Many thought it had been a bad dream and never spoke of it again, not wanting to embarrass themselves by recounting it to others. Some did confide their recollection of the event, whether to friends or therapists, and they were quickly prescribed with medication to help ease the anxiety attacks and probable delusions. A couple even networked together and became adamantly convinced that some government or another was behind the mystery and created vast conspiracies to explain it.
None of them would ever know that this was a peace bought for them by a handful of martial artists with blood and lives, or that it was likely not to last for all that long. If the namekian warrior had learned anything in the past decade, it was that there was usually some new problem just waiting for them in a few years time. But that was just fine with him: so long as there were Z-Fighters breathing, the Earth was in good hands. Come what may, whatever alien overlord or genetic aberration, they wouldn't let anything stop them from fighting to the last and taking whatever-
Something entered Earth's atmosphere and streaked across the sky to crash land in the north.
"Oh god DAMNIT! That wasn't a challenge!" Piccolo snarled as he untwisted his legs from the meditative pose he'd been holding and took off from the Lookout towards the landing site, leaving a surprised Dende and Mr. Popo to scramble to observe the situation.
Mount Pouzu was actually reasonably close to the unidentified falling object, within five hundred kilometers as the crow flies. Goku wouldn't have taken any interest in it at all if Bulma hadn't called him within seconds of the landing to tell him that something small and very fast had appeared on her satellite detection system, course corrected, and then landed rather close to him, so could he pretty please check it out?
Chi Chi, only knowing that something from space had interested Bulma and never having been told about PTO attack pods for some reason, thought that something small wouldn't really be much of a problem and green-lit Goku's request to bring Gohan along under the assumption that it would prove to be a valuable learning experience for their son. She had also been uncomfortably aware of the rift between the two of them, and hoped that some together time might prove beneficial in the mending process.
Goku, wearing the Turtle school gi he frequently used as casual wear, and Gohan, in actual casual clothes, flew at an unhurried but efficient pace toward the open plains where Bulma had tracked the unknown celestial missile. Goku wasn't at all miffed that his oldest friend was basically using him as free labor. He fully expected to find a meteorite, a.k.a. a rock, with nothing interesting about it except its origin. There had been a few meteor showers on Yardrat when he and Vegeta had been stuck there for a few months, and he'd seen his fair share of the ones that had missed open space and hit planets. Not much to tell.
Unlike the attack pods the three saiyans had arrived in years before, the crash site wasn't a clean crater with the meteor at the center. Great gouges had been scraped from the earth as the object had collided and bounced across the surface like a stone across a lake. The path of destruction was easy enough to follow, and the two of them quickly closed in on the final location. Piccolo was there waiting for them, standing quietly at the lip of the elongated wound in the dirt with his mantle flapping at his heels in the brisk wind.
"Heeey!" Goku greeted as they descended to meet the namekian. He nodded to the full-blooded saiyan and spared a smile for Gohan. "Came to see what the fuss was about too?"
"Just making sure nothing sinister is at work. I didn't sense any ki from it, but then you can't really sense a bomb."
"Ah, lighten up. We'll just take a look, haul it to Capsule Corp and call it good! C'mon." Goku led the way down the new incline, sliding carefully where the dirt was too loose for stepping on. It only took a minute to be level with the blackened lump, and that's when they started really noticing the peculiarities about it. For one thing, it looked to be perfectly spherical, again calling back to the attack pods. But this object was far too large to be one of those – the top coming up to Piccolo's eyes – and under the scorch marks they could easily see that it was made up of a strangely polished green-silver metal. Finally stopping a few feet away, they could see that it was covered in deep lines and grooves, forming ninety degree angles and apparently random patterns in the surface.
"This...isn't quite what I expected," Piccolo admitted in a soft voice, trying not to notice the sense of foreboding that was creeping up the back of his neck. "I'm going out on a limb, but I'll hazard that that is not naturally formed."
"Pretty sure you're right," Goku agreed, crouching down to see if there was anything of note on the lower half. Gohan took a few steps forward, the heat emanating off the object making his face feel dry. The three of them were lost for course of action – unsure whether they should indeed cart it back to Capsule Corp, leave it, or chuck it back into space.
That decision was taken out of their hands when the metal did something that no metal should ever do: it shifted. And not the shifting of a loose piece resettling into place. The orb expanded outward at irregular areas and contracted a second later, just by centimeters, and it looked remarkably like the alien metal was...stretching. Getting ready...?
What happened next happened very quickly and with so many details that none of them could have been able to properly give an account of it.
The multitude of lines across the sphere moved about as the previously still components of the object began to rotate, turn, twist and realign like no device they had ever seen. The curve of the orb was instantly shattered as countless protrusions extended or swung out from the surface, and the whole mass shifted onto one single point of balance. Everything was moving at a rapid speed and it was almost a few seconds before it became clear that the previous hunk of space metal was creating a rough humanoid shape, standing close to eight feet tall. When the general shape was mostly complete, the components continued to whir and shift as the figure became clearer. Sharp corners became properly rounded and limbs emerged from the mess of moving parts.
A stretch of white cloth spilled from an inner compartment and automatically formed a pair of loose pants about the legs that tucked into the calves as a smaller swathe of red draped about the waist. The arms that were rapidly gaining definition were enormous, as was the chest that connected everything, and it seemed that whatever form the object was creating was that of a being that could inspire awe and terror from anyone who-
A hand, not two seconds after being recreated, shot out with terrifying speed and grabbed Goku about the throat and lifted him effortlessly into the air. Gohan and Piccolo immediately tried to launch an offensive rescue, but they were swept away by the other hand like crumbs off a table. The full-blooded saiyan, struggling for breath, found himself looking at the shifting mass that was the metallic being's head and the last section to form properly. But, as metal greener than the rest crested out to make a head of spiky hair, something finally clicked in the back of his mind and he couldn't help it when his mouth opened in shock.
"I hope you've enjoyed the time you stole, Kakarot," Broly chuckled as his face set into place and the Legendary Super Saiyan was whole once again. "But I'm afraid you won't be getting any more."
"...crap..."
Tien and Chiaotzou had been meditating in their simple mountain hut when they'd felt the sudden rise in power from the three fighters. From the suddenness and sheer amount of energy they were releasing at the same time, there was no way it was just a friendly spar. What was worrying was that no energy could be detected from whatever their opponent was.
"I'll go and see if they need any help." The three-eyed human rose quickly and opened the door, a burst of frigid mountain air invading their living space and making the small fire gutter dangerously. He looked back over his shoulder at his best friend, a slight smile breaking his usual stoicism. "If I'm not back in an hour, come bail us out."
Goku went flying like a javelin when Broly punched him and smashed headfirst into the opposite side of the oblong crater, not quite bursting through the rocky dirt and compressing his neck to a dangerous degree.
Gohan, already tightly wound, exploded into Super Saiyan and charged at Broly a bare second after being knocked aside. He collided with the side of the metal monstrosity with sufficient force to stagger him, something nobody had been capable of doing against the saiyan when he'd been flesh and blood. Seizing the opportunity, the young hybrid wailed on the metal skin with kicks and punches like a lunatic as Piccolo recovered his bearings and started heading back to help. But the physical attacks didn't seem to be having any visible effect on the robo-saiyan beyond pushing him about mildly.
One enormous arm sliced downward and crunched Gohan in the top of his skull. It felt exactly like what running headfirst into a metal wall would feel like, so no description was necessary to emphasize how scrambled the boy was immediately after. He dropped to the splintered ground and cradled his bruised crown, doggedly maintaining his transformation through the migraine.
Piccolo jumped at Broly with a roar, spinning about twice in midair as he went and throwing his weighted turban and mantle with both revolutions. The training gear hit Broly like a literal ton of bricks, but he seemed completely unfazed by them; if anything, he grinned even wider. The namekian launched his attack in earnest with a kick straight to the face, eliciting no more damage than his clothes had, but following with sharp jabs into the natural weak points of a humanoid body. 'A' for effort, but a fail for result. A blisteringly fast sweep kick sent him careening through the air with no control, muscles locked up in pain.
In less than ten seconds, Broly had knocked down three of the strongest warriors in the galaxy without any real concentrated effort. He grinned to himself, pleased with how events were playing out. He'd allowed himself to fantasize about his long awaited reunion with the miserable vermin that had nearly killed him years back, and he had to admit that the sense pf satisfaction was even sweeter than he'd thought it'd be.
Premature though it was.
Goku sprang back at him, transforming without hesitation, and driving a punch straight into Broly's chest with enough force to liquefy most organics. While it didn't succeed in damaging the mechanical monster outright, Broly nonetheless took a step back or risk toppling over. He had to recognize that they had in fact gotten stronger since their last encounter, and he wouldn't be able to simply bulldoze them as he had then.
With Goku still in front of him, Broly slammed both hands together and clapped them around the other saiyan's skull, rattling it like a nut on a drum before he brought a knee up and into his ribs. Goku made a choked noise, but recovered startlingly fast – pushing away and avoiding any followup attack as he loosed a blast of blue energy that merely left a sooty streak on Broly's chest. He weaved under and around several punches and hopped away from a snap kick before flipping forwards and driving the heel of his own foot down onto the extended leg.
The reaction was hardly anything worth celebrating over, but Goku did notice that the former Legendary Super Saiyan did stagger a degree and that was something he could work with. Crouching for a precious second, he rocketed upward with a rising uppercut that connected squarely with Broly's jaw with a sound not unlike a multi-story building collapsing at high speed. The metallic head snapped back from the attack just long enough for Goku to marvel at the effect before Broly launched his whole body forward, tackling Goku and crushing him into the side of the elongated crater he'd been introduced to a few seconds before.
With the saiyan pinned between metal bulk and compacted soil, Broly laid into him with an explosion of rapid-fire punches that forced Goku further and further into the ground, creating a brand new tunnel around them. With a final shot to the the gut, Broly filled one hand with the same clear green energy he had gleefully wielded on that nameless planet and slammed it flat against Goku.
The detonation fragmented and incinerated the hill above them and a good deal more around it, leaving the two at the epicenter of a fresh crater. Goku lay still on the ground, barely seeming conscious, but Broly was yet unscratched, and he only seemed to be having more and more fun as the seconds crawled by for the Earth's defenders.
"You're disappointing me, Kakarot," the metal-saiyan jeered, placing a foot on the fighter in question and grinding down. Goku let out a pained shout, eyes clenched shut as he struggled in vain to free himself. "And after I went through so much trouble to come see you."
Broly turned his head as Piccolo flew straight at him.
Krillin's head snapped up from where he'd been resting it on an open book. Drool had stuck a couple pages to his lower lip but he swiped them off as he stood up, his chair clattering across the wooden floor. He looked to his right, eyes not seeing the walls of Kame House but instead focusing on the group of alarmingly high energies that were all gathered at the same spot.
Shaking his head to try and clear the grogginess, he ran to his open window and jumped out, flipping several times in the air before taking flight and blasting off towards the location of the fight. Master Roshi sprinted into his room a second too late, his apprentice's form vanishing quickly on the horizon. The old hermit watched him go from behind his shades with worried eyes, fingers curling tightly around his gnarled staff.
Piccolo hit like a freight train, delivering a devastating blow at the point between shoulder and torso. There was a metallic grinding and the enormous limb moved in a wrong way half an inch. Broly glanced in annoyance at the mild damage before slamming his elbow into the namekian's neck, though he was blocked with crossed arms.
Piccolo twisted his hands so that one was grabbing onto Broly's elbow and the other cupped a hastily grown ball of energy. He fired the blast directly into the ersatz saiyan's head and followed immediately after by a flurry of a dozen more. Broly wrenched his arm free and pivoted in place, swinging his entire arm like a club, intent on leveling the namekian into the dirt. Piccolo jumped, angling his feet upward so he was completely inverted as the attack just narrowly missed him and giving him the opening to swing back down with his legs to slam onto Broly's crown with significant force.
Of course, the metal-saiyan barely even budged, but Piccolo hadn't really thought he would; he had just wanted to keep the goliath's attention while Gohan got into position behind him.
Bellowing with anger, the young half-saiyan propelled himself fist first into Broly's back, unleashing a pent up ki charge that exploded like a compressed landmine. The metal skin was blown apart around his hand, glops of liquid metal falling away like wet tissue. Gohan wasn't too surprised by the development, but he was stopped dead in his tracks when the pliable alloy closed around the injury, and consequently his wrist, and refused to yield.
As Gohan hurriedly tried to yank his hand back, Broly grabbed Piccolo by his legs with one over sized hand, pulled him down and gave him a boot to the face. Gohan was jerked about by the movements of the cyberized saiyan and he had to keep repositioning himself or risk having his arm snapped. Whatever material the metal was, it had somehow toughened up after the brief damage it sustained without impeding Broly's mobility one bit.
"Didn't your precious father ever teach you that attacking an enemy from behind is cowardly?" Broly hissed, head rotating an impossible degree on his neck until he was staring straight down at Gohan, who couldn't help but gape at the bizarre display. "In any event, this body will only get stronger and stronger whenever it's wounded. It learns, you see, and becomes increasingly impervious to whatever you throw at it." He reached back/down, shoulder rotating grotesquely to accommodate the action, and grabbed Gohan around the head. He was pulled free of the constricting metal skin without any resistance and was flung away like a stone.
Broly created another ball of energy in his hand, ready to throw it at the small figure. He was delayed when a incredibly dense wall of yellow ki slammed into him, leaving the ground around him with a square indent. Looking upward in annoyance, he was met by several more of these blasts, each succeeding in driving him a little further into the ground, though little more.
Tien hovered about a dozen meters overhead, hands primed to fire off another Tri-Beam, aura burning Kaioken red already. He wasn't taking any chances against this guy a second time around. He fired several more energy projectiles before abandoning the sky, flipping repeatedly on his descent until he landed on earth in a ready stance. He knew from hard won experience that engaging Broly directly at his own level was near suicidal for anyone who wasn't a Super Saiyan or had a healing ability, and not even Kaioken could even that playing field, but he could definitely be distracted and whittled down from a distance.
Pointing a single index finger, the former assassin fired off a short barrage of Dodon Rays before launching himself to the side and repeating the procedure. Broly, while undamaged by the assault, was becoming increasingly irritated by it and tried to throw several of his overly destructive ki blasts in retaliation but missed each time. Growling, he tracked Tien's movements, watching for just a few seconds before abruptly vanishing from sight to leave several beams to pierce the ground harmlessly.
The tri-clops had time to blink in surprise before the towering saiyan was behind him. There was a thunderclap of noise, a brilliant pain, and the Tien was flying away, spinning head over heels and completely out of control. If he hadn't been as augmented as he was, that single blow would have killed him outright.
"Pests everywhere," Broly muttered to himself before turning back to where he had left Goku. He was still there, but standing up now and charging a Kameamea wave at his side with white-knuckled focus. "Give it your best shot Kakarot, you'll only get the one!"
Goku didn't react to the taunt outwardly other than to further secure his footing, the harnessed energy starting to shake under the pressure he was keeping it at. If he remembered right, Vegeta's first Final Flash had had less power than he was mustering up now, and it should have enough juice to destroy the planet killer now so long as he got in a direct hit. There was no margin for error here.
Gohan reappeared and threw a left hook that deformed Broly's cheek almost comically before it corrected itself like the damage had never been there to begin with. The demi-saiyan jumped away to avoid being grabbed once again, but he had to block the knee strike that almost jammed his nose back into his skull. He traded blows with the powerhouse for several seconds, all the while marveling at how much faster Broly was than he had been in their first encounter. With this new body there was some expectations for improvement, but it seemed like he was getting faster the longer the fight went on, adapting to all of their high-speed maneuvers and attacks. It was impossible to tell if he was also getting stronger as time went on, but he wouldn't rule that out.
Piccolo roared through the air and joined the melee, adding his strikes to Gohan's and likewise doing his best to keep away from Broly's retaliatory swipes. Teacher and student moved in tandem, styles blending nicely despite the disparities, and they managed to keep Broly stationary long enough for Goku to finish charging his ki blast.
But the moment that he did, Broly stopped playing along. In a single movement that far eclipsed anything he'd done up to that point, he snatched namekian and half-saiyan in either hand and smashed them together with enough force to bounce them apart again like they were made of rubber. Goku saw his chance and threw his hands forward, firing off a pure and concentrated beam of azure energy that frenzied the air around it into a miniature hurricane. It crossed the distance in a heartbeat...
...and Broly backhanded it away with insulting ease.
"Oh dammit," Goku groaned, shoulders slumping.
"Garbage," Broly declared, extending a hand to fire a simple emerald ki blast that knocked Goku off his feet in a relatively small explosion. Then his arm fell off at the elbow. "Heh?"
The Destructo Disk that had caused the damage skimmed the ground for a few seconds, slicing a razor thin gauge in the dirt before it arced upward and dispersed quietly. Krillin was hanging in the air several meters above everyone else, looking mildly panicked but otherwise sound enough for a fight.
"This is incredibly old," the metal-saiyan spat, annoyance turning to actual anger.
In West City, about as far from the battle zone as you could get without leaving the continent, there weren't any indications that yet another battle for the survival of the planet was raging heatedly except a few spiking seismographs that were attributed to a little orbital wobble. Everybody got on with their daily lives without a clue in the world. Except for one.
Inside a steamed up bathroom, the shower curtain was swatted away without mercy as Yamcha stumbled out from the steady spray and retrieved his rumpled fighting gi from the hamper -scattering a weeks worth of other laundry across the floor in the process- and tried to wrestle the pieces on, the dry fabric sticking to him like glue.
"Just ONE month without some crisis, is that so much to ask!" He shouted at nobody, hopping madly on one foot while tugging a sock onto the other. "If it's not this, it's that! And if it's not that, it's some other damned thing that wants to kill us!"
Dressed enough to not embarrass himself while flying over the city, he threw the window open, cracking the pane without a thought, and dove through, free-falling for several seconds to pick up momentum before flaring his power and swooping upwards at breakneck speed. He activated the Kaioken technique immediately, knowing he'd have a hell of a time getting there on time without it.
Tien brought locked fists down as hard as he could onto Broly's head, not even scuffing the finish. A punch was thrown blindly at him, but this time he managed to turn his shoulder and absorb the blow with his side. It wasn't a good idea at all, but the best at the time, and he was knocked a few feet away. Broly twisted at the hip to chuck a ki blast after the three-eyed human before straightening and catching Krillin's entire leg in his remaining palm.
Dashing forward, he dragged the small fighter in the ground after him and smashed his body through several boulders in the process. The abuse was bearable enough for Krillin to throw out a hand and fire a yellow beam of energy into the sky as they went. It went up a short distance before looping back around and hurtling at the towering devil. Broly reacted by throwing Krillin underhand at his own ki blast to absorb the damage, but it split apart at the last second into six smaller beams, danced around the former monk, and impacted against him in barely noticeable detonations.
Broly stomped his foot into the ground, sinking it in a few centimeters before a veritable geyser of green energy spewed upward from the ground in a chain-reaction, repeated eruptions crossing the space in a brief second and catching up with Krillin in a significantly larger explosion that knocked him away in a shroud of smoke.
Goku pushed himself up on his elbows, head ringing from a possible developing concussion, and looked up in time to see the severed metallic limb seemingly melt into a puddle of goop that slid across the ground until it contacted against the metal-saiyan's leg and merged back with the main body. Instantly, synthetic tendons shot out from the damaged joint before being encased in more of that metal liquid which shaped and hardened back into a perfectly identical arm. In seconds, he'd effortlessly erased all damage without breaking stride.
'Alright, so at least we know that he can be hurt, even if not for very long.' Goku stood up slowly, not taking his eyes off the seemingly invincible monster. 'Either he's more vulnerable in this new body or we're just strong enough to be chipping away at him. Already, this is looking better than the first time around. Need a plan...'
Gohan landed in a crouch in front of Broly, a fury flickering in his eyes. Throwing his arms out and yelling into the sky, his ki exploded around him in a dazzling corona as he powered up to his absolute limit – and then kept pushing it. He was struggling against a seemingly immovable obstacle, but he gave it his all, trying to reclaim the power that his body had harnessed only once before and under unique circumstance. Broly indulged the boy, watching with scorn and amusement to see what ultimate technique he'd spontaneously produce. Gohan was shaking uncontrollably as he tried to surpass his limits through determination alone and finding that it was fighting back. Despite already having achieved the next level, something about him was different enough that it eluded him now.
With an abrupt noise, not only did Gohan's aura vanish, but so did his Super Saiyan transformation. He staggered back, dazed and feeling as though he was burning up from the inside out. He opened his mouth to speak, but a torrent of vomit came forth instead and he crumpled to his knees, entirely drained of strength and reaping the consequences of his reckless gambit. Broly laughed heartily, unsure what had almost happened but finding the results satisfying. He lifted a hand up to head level and created a small but condensed ball of his energy, ready to eradicate the incapacitated youth permanently.
Goku dashed in, hooked an arm around Broly's waist, acquired a grip on the opposite side and heaved, bringing the Metal-Saiyan up, over, and then headfirst into the ground.
Piccolo dropped from the air at an angle, skidding on his feet right up to Broly before springing into a cartwheel over him and firing a pent up blast of orange ki from his mouth that propelled him several feet higher and obscured the saiyan in a dense explosion. Goku held a hand up to cover his face as small rocks flew through the air like shrapnel, and he never saw the hand until it had grabbed him by the leg. Yanked clear off his feet as Broly jumped straight up, Goku was disoriented a moment too long to prevent himself from bashing heads with Piccolo on the way, spun in a full three-sixty arc and then hurled back to the ground. Broly landed on his back a second later with both feet, drawing out a protracted scream from his nemesis that sent a jolt of sick glee through the Metal-Saiyan's mind.
For a second, the only sound was the tortured scream stretching out across the battlefield. Then, far away, a sonic-boom sent a shockwave through the earth. Then another. And another! Broly glanced up in time to acknowledge the scarlet missile before it hit him in the abdomen so hard that it blasted clear through him and took a great chunk of his body with it - knocking him off of Goku. Yamcha tumbled and rolled across the ground, momentum all but gone in a second and skull ringing from the impact. His Kaioken flickered away even as the displaced metal returned to Broly and repaired the damage. The Metal-Saiyan took a moment for himself before turning his head to glare over his shoulder. "What the hell was that?"
"Not my greatest plan ever," Yamcha slurred, wobbling dangerously even on hands and knees. Broly sprang forward, twisted around, and brought one hand chopping down onto the former bandit like a meteor, burying his face into the ground and probably knocking him out.
"I almost forgot how incredibly annoying the lot of you cretins could be," Broly groused. He seemed no less invigorated than he had at the outset, whereas all of the Z-Fighters were broken, beaten and battered with nobody left to offer assistance. He saw Piccolo starting to rise and threw a ki blast that detonated in his face, blasting him limply away. Krillin too was trying to get back up, but Broly appeared over him in a screech of movement and stomped on the monk's skull. Tien was faking unconsciousness to launch a fresh assault on the Metal-Saiyan when his back was turned, but the ruse was somehow detected and he was punted away without a second glance. "Never knowing when to quit!" With the last word, he reached down and grabbed Goku by the back of his gi and hoisting him into the air.
"I might almost miss having somebody to hate more than everyone else," he hissed, closing a huge fist around Goku's throat and constricting it slowly, picking up where he had begun. The saiyan from Earth tore at the metallic fingers without result and kicked futilely for purchase, vision already starting to turn black at the edges. "But I'll probably be having too much fun destroying the Universe to notice!" Broly cackled as he went in for the kill.
Goku couldn't even make a noise anymore, all oxygen stolen from his lungs as his trachea collapsed under the strain. Death approached swiftly, hurtling towards him with a shrieking noise that almost seemed to be reverberating in his ears. Almost like-
Something collided with Broly and he went flying backwards, dropping Goku in his surprise.
The Earth-raised saiyan choked down unimpeded breaths, eyes burning with liquid and limbs suffering thousands of phantom pinpricks. From just out of sight, he heard a disapproving sigh.
"Honestly Kakarot, I'm gone for barely a month and you're already being defeated by this joke."
Goku completely froze, but he didn't yet have the strength to look up.
"Do you think I would have remained in Otherworld if I hadn't fully believed that you were up to the task of defending my family in my stead? You were always this planet's defender and you always rose to whatever challenge threatened it, so why is this any different? Get back to your feet and show this mechanical abomination why there is no substitution for the real thing."
"He's...too strong...I can't even scratch him...," Goku managed to rasp, only half expecting a response.
A bemused chuckle. "So was Cell."
For as banal as that simple statement was, it was all it took for the final tumbler to click inside Goku's mind. It was as though the key piece of a puzzle had been filled in and he could easily complete it now, enlightened. Body damaged but well enough to stand, he did just that, holding a hand to his throat as each breath still stung both ways. He wasn't surprised to see that he was standing all alone.
Broly quickly picked himself up, both infuriated and confused. "I don't know how you just did that, Kakarot, but I'm done playing around with you! Now DIE!" He lunged forward, flying over the ground like a bullet, intent on stabbing his fist through Goku's chest.
But Goku just watched him, eyes narrowed with anger of his own, aura flaring up around him fiercely. Where Gohan had failed was that he had been following a desire and not answering a need. There had to be no doubts, no second-guessing, and no concern for yourself; what mattered from here on was only the fight, and the primary drive for victory. Victory was everything and there would be no cause for failure when there was a scrap of life left in his body - and at the moment it felt like he was an inferno of life!
Broly neared, a heartbeat away from ending the other saiyan, and that was when Goku finally felt himself plunge off the mountain and into the ocean.
Throwing his head back, he roared like a monstrous storm unleashed and given form, new power surging through him and increasing his aura to a terrifying extreme. Broly found himself slowed to a crawl, pushing against a physical wall of resistance that hadn't been there a split-second before. Lightning bolts, originating not from the sky but rather from the ascended saiyan, danced wildly across the pitted and charred land with heedless abandon. The ground shattered under Goku's feet, fracturing like glass but maintaining its form.
Slowly, Goku looked down to lock eyes with Broly, a blue arc of electricity crackling through his energy. He took a step forward, and like that the torrential outpouring of raw power stopped, giving Broly the opportunity to finish his attack and punch Goku with more than enough force to kill him outright.
Goku weaved his head around the fist and countered with an uppercut that tore Broly's entire arm off at the elbow. The abruptness of the strength was what stunned Broly in that moment, not the damage inflicted, and he didn't avoid the follow-up which sliced through his body in a spray of fragmented metal and sinewy wires. A narrow hole had been punched clear through his chest, successfully putting his natural defenses to shame in an instant.
"What!? How!?" Broly reeled, unused to the feeling of surprise that had ignited his thoughts.
"We found out that there are greater heights than we ever imagined," Goku bit out, trying to keep his newfound energy from bursting free wastefully and finding it a near impossibility. Super Saiyan had been an ordeal to master, and he suspected that this form - Super Saiyan 2 as it were - would be a totally different beast. "We will never stand by and let evil threaten innocents again!"
Broly stared with widened eyes at the empowered saiyan from Earth for a second, perhaps taking in the full implications of this latest development, before bringing the underside of his arm in to strike Goku in the temple. The blow hardly managed to budge his head. Goku jumped up and slammed his knee into Broly's chin and then immediately drop-kicked him as he fell back. The metal-saiyan tumbled once before rolling back onto his feet, the damage on his body repairing itself faster than previously seen, but it was quickly replaced when Goku appeared just a few feet away and laid into him with a barrage of punches to Broly's midsection, each impact enough to dent the alloy flesh.
Emitting a shortwave blast of ki from his whole body, the Legendary Super Saiyan put up a momentary buffer between them, again giving his body just enough time to rejuvenate before Goku's next assault quite literally knocked his face off - and half of his head along with it. Broly staggered back a few steps, hands held open at his side. Goku lunged after him with a single, focused punch, but Broly proved to be less blind than appearances would suggest by grabbing Goku's fist in his own, twisting in place, and flinging the other saiyan away with his own momentum.
His head regrew, but not before he'd started talking without it. "This body only resembles my original out of preference and familiarity, Kakarot. I could be a shapeless blob and I would still be able to see you from any angle!"
"You sure do talk a lot more than you did before," Goku muttered as he flew back in to unleash a fresh onslaught, intending to pulverize the Metal-Saiyan into sand and grit. Broly threw up a defense and was actually able to block several of the blows thrown his way, but they were mere drops in the bucket. He took another hammering before he blasted into the sky, gaining a second or two of reprieve before Goku appeared directly ahead of him and slammed him back to earth with a two-handed swing. Instead of crashing violently, Broly flipped around and landed on his feet, body already absent the damage just inflicted. The Metal-Saiyan grinned.
Goku charged at the ground at top speed, changing course just before he hit it and rocketed straight into Broly. The other saiyan staggered and spun with the impact, but he recovered far quicker than he had moments before and the oblong dent from the collision had vanished the second it had appeared. Goku didn't notice that something had changed as he landed in a crouch for the briefest of instances before springing back at Broly, leg swinging in with a wide kick.
He was intercepted by a punch that caught him square in the stomach, stopping him dead and knocking him senseless for a heartbeat. He recovered and dashed a space away, unable to erase the feeling of pure surprise that floored him almost as effectively as the punch had. Broly grinned even wider now, standing tall and unblemished, as fresh as ever while Goku flagged.
"I can hear you asking yourself 'how can this be?' The short version: a continuously evolving Artificial Intelligence called the Big Gete Star allowed me to cheat death!" He sauntered casually towards his nemesis for a second before disappearing from sight and reappearing behind Goku with an open palm slap that actually took the Super Saiyan 2 off his feet. He righted himself in the air, on guard. Broly continued. "It found my charred and inert body in space and tried to absorb it for energy. But it woke me up instead, and a simple computer was unable to stand up against my sheer rage, and I became the dominant mind among billions." He held his hand out and fired a clear green shot at Goku, who dodged it by ascending, only for the Metal-Saiyan to clench his fist and detonate the ki blast directly under him, a disproportionately large explosion catching him point-blank. "For the first time in my life, my mind was clear. The insanity I inherited with my Legendary transformation unable to survive the process of digital integration as the rest of me had. No longer would I be a base animal slavering for blood. I am now something far greater than anything the Universe has or will ever see!"
"I almost miss when all you did was shout my name," Goku growled, sinking into his trusted Kame style ready stance.
"Well, not unlike then, my current body grows stronger and stronger each time it repairs itself – learning and adapting to counter anything you throw at it." He rushed at Goku, crossing his arms and then bringing both elbows down onto the other saiyan's guard to leave him vulnerable to a knee strike. Goku attempted to buy some distance with a series of high-speed movements, but the titanic monster followed at his heels, impossibly fast despite his bulk, and grabbed him by a leg to throw him. Goku went with the motion, twisting about to fire a blast back at the Metal-Saiyan only to find him absent. Then a huge hand grabbed his head and smashed him into the ground yet again. Before he could pry himself free, he was lifted just enough for another hand to enter his field of vision and fire a ki blast. The detonation threw Goku across the ground raggedly, thin ribbons of blood dotting the ground in his wake. "You really should have destroyed me the moment you got that transformation, Kakarot. That was your one chance."
Goku tried to push himself back to his feet, but his body was sluggish and he couldn't maintain his focus any longer and the new form vanished as his hair darkened and fell back into place. What power he had gained from it had been too handicapped by the damage he'd already sustained up to that point. But he wasn't done yet, he just needed a plan, something that would undermine Broly's technology. He got one foot underneath him and pushed, only just rising off his knees...
...but somebody behind Broly was also getting to their feet. Broly noticed his gaze and looked over his shoulder with deliberate disregard for the saiyan. He frowned, slightly, when he saw that it was the namekian that had roused himself, seeming to have recovered greatly. "You can wait your turn, Green Bean; I'll kill all of you in time."
"Actually," Piccolo began, dangerously calm, "I think I've heard enough of your nonsense, so I'll put an end to it right here and now."
Broly sneered. "What, are you about to show me some new power you've unlocked? Some great ability you've been saving? Well by all means – amuse me." Goku launched himself at the Metal-Saiyan, ki enclosing one fist, but Broly spun around so fast as to leave a perfect afterimage as he clobbered Goku in the jaw, grabbed a fistful of his hair, swung him up overhead, and then rammed an elbow into his back. Goku was once again smashed into the ground, one hand clutching at his back as he tried to blink the spots from his eyes.
Piccolo hadn't moved, keeping his eyes locked on the Metal-Saiyan. "Actually, I've got nothing new at all." He narrowed his eyes and bared his teeth. "Just something old." He hunched forward and started to strain, as if powering up. Nothing at all happened for several seconds, irking Broly and worrying anyone still conscious and listening. And then, little by little, Piccolo began to expand.
"Oh yeah, he can do that..." Goku breathed, the only thing he could think to say.
Piccolo's entire body grew explosively, raising him above Broly's head in seconds and then kept on going. While his proportions remained the same, the namekian warrior quickly capped off at somewhere around twenty feet. He stood up from his stance, cracking his neck with noises like a volley of cannon blasts and fixed Broly with a glare fit for a Demon King.
"So you're bigger." Broly all but shrugged. "Just means there's more of you I can bleed."
Piccolo scoffed, a quiet gust of wind starting to pick up around his feet. "You may have beaten Goku's new level, but I promise you won't get to enjoy the feeling."
"Awfully confident, aren't we?" Broly jeered as he summoned a ki blast to his hand. The wind was starting to become more noticeable, blowing about dust wantonly in an expanding arc around Piccolo.
"When I merged with my other half and was made whole, the two souls within me clashed and were at odds."
Broly pulled his arm back.
"But now that they are finally in harmony..."
Broly threw the Eraser Shell with unerring accuracy for the namekian's center of mass.
"I can at last go all out again!"
The wind fell quiet for one instant, as though afraid of what came next. Goku couldn't help the startled gasp as he felt what was happening to Piccolo's energy. Broly blinked.
Piccolo threw his arms out wide and planted his feet. "KAIOKEN!"
A cacophonous explosion of power blew outwards, knocking the Eraser Shell away and briefly paralyzing anyone with ki sense. Broly didn't look away as the wind and heat bull-rushed into him, scowling mightily at yet another aggravating interruption.
Piccolo, radiating with crimson light and power, let out a breath, affirming that his body was handling the strain. "Now," he barked, voice seemingly booming louder than it had before, "show me what you're made of!"
Broly was all too happy to grind the over-sized warrior into a smear on the ground, leaping at him with a savage roar. Piccolo crossed his arms and absorbed the punch, but it slid him back slightly and he grunted with the effort. Broly kept on the offensive, doing his best to put the namekian down as quickly as possible, but he was blocked at every turn. Improbably, Piccolo was managing to keep up with the insanely powerful Metal-Saiyan's movements, even if he wasn't throwing a single counter in return. His enlarged body was allowing him to cover larger areas at once, and wasn't proving to be a detriment to his speed. What strain it and the Kaioken had on his body was mitigated under the discipline of his honed mind – a balance and calm being maintained despite the circumstances.
Broly was in a halfway place between being really pissed off and mildly confused. He had assumed he would simply stomp down on the namekian's last ditch attack and kill him in seconds. But he was being carefully kept at a distance and every attack was blocked or dodged. He tried to ramp up his speed and strength, but Piccolo matched him by increasing the intensity of his Kaioken silently. No matter from what angle he attacked from, Broly just couldn't find an opening. He switched things up, spontaneously firing simple ki blasts amid everything else, soon escalating that with instant Eraser Shells that did buffet Piccolo and produce a bit of blood, but not even that could topple the giant.
Goku was on one knee, keeping himself steady while watching every move of the engagement, hardly believing it even as it happened. He had thought that his new transformation would have been too high a level for any non-saiyan to approach, but he had learned - just over ten years ago now - that Piccolo was hardly someone to let technicalities determine how he could fight. He was more than just another fighter: he was the very greatest of his own race, and the spirit of the Earth's defenders.
Piccolo was maintaining his defense, but internally he was focused on his Kaioken, tracking its reaction to his body and power. He had tried using it once, shortly after fusing with Kami, but the result had nearly torn his body in half and he'd been forced to shelve it until his merged soul had found its balance. Now, he was using his giant form to act as a buffer, allowing himself to ease into the Kaioken's effect without having to first contain it in a smaller body. No easy task, using the two techniques in junction with each other, but it was a necessary step.
But now was the time to cut loose from all restraints! He had survived Broly for this long, but he would need to act fast if he wanted any chance of victory. Absorbing a staggering blow with the palm of his hand, he took careful hold of both the Kaioken and Giant form inside himself and allowed the latter to fade. He shrank so rapidly that it actually caused him to dodge another swipe from Broly, but he didn't wait to be normal size again before he focused entirely on the dangerous amplification and felt it burn in his body like liquid fire, igniting him.
"KAIOKEN TIMES THIRTY!"
The enormous surge of strength was both mind boggling and excruciating, but the namekian grinned savagely as he mustered control and readied himself. Broly shouted in annoyance and vanished from sight. Piccolo hardly reacted before twisting around and slamming his forearm into the Metal-Saiyan's punch, halting it dead for a split second until a conic burst of wind exploded from the impact. Namekian and synthetic pushed against each other with world breaking strength for a moment before jumping apart and leaping back at each other just as quickly with a renewed storm of attacks.
Defense was eschewed and hits were landing with devastating force as they demolished the land around them from unleashed power alone. Piccolo was receiving damage that would have probably killed him seconds before, knowing he couldn't keep this up as long as Broly could. The Metal-Saiyan had regenerated his body from injuries without evident effort or strain several times already, but Piccolo had noticed a weakness.
Rolling with a hook to his jaw, the namekian warrior snapped a kick to the inside of Broly's right leg, buckling the limb at the joint involuntarily. With the second of imbalance, Piccolo grabbed the arm that had hit him and brought his elbow driving down onto it. With a shriek and snap of metal the arm was broken off, leaving a jagged and crooked wound in the material. Without hesitance, he held the extremity in both hands and fired a wide blast of ki into it, disintegrating it beyond recovery.
Broly retaliated in kind, grabbing hold of Piccolo's arm with his remaining hand and crushing it between metal fingers with a meaty crunch! Piccolo roared in pain, but he didn't let himself be stopped. Without freeing his arm, he jumped and spun around to smash the heel of his foot against Broly's head while firing another burst of ki at his own arm. It was obliterated with a jolt of agony that nearly stunned him, but it also took several of Broly's fingers with it. They both began regenerating their lost arms, but Piccolo was pleased to see that the Metal-Saiyan was slower now than he had been before. The loss of material meant his body had to use a diminished pool of resources to repair the damage rather than just reconstituting it, bringing his former invulnerability crashing back down to the mortal level.
They laid back into each other, a renewed purpose in one and the inkling of worry in the other. Piccolo's experience gave him the edge to deflect the majority of the blows, but he couldn't avoid all of them and the pain in his body was mounting perilously closer to his limit. Leaning back to slip just under a horizontal chop, Piccolo spun into the air and slammed the heel of his foot against Broly's mouth, warping it as hairline cracks appeared and repaired themselves almost instantly.
An elbow cracked him in the collar and he only narrowly managed to land on his feet. Crossing his arms above his head, he caught Broly's ax handle blow in the crux between them and created for himself a gap in the Metal-Saiyan's attack flow. Slipping along underneath the blocked arm, Piccolo smashed three hooks against Broly's side, the first two warping the metal and the third tearing away a strip entirely. Dodging away from a retaliatory sweep, the namekian slashed his hand and sent a lance of energy into the opening and incinerating a swathe of the metal.
Broly bellowed and rushed at Piccolo, his fist catching him in the chest and propelling him into the sky, former saiyan in close pursuit. They renewed their melee even as they both flew further towards the horizon, blows sending a cascade of thunderclaps across the lands beneath them. Piccolo blocked with his forearms against a savage hurricane of punches until he could rocket his leg almost straight up and smashed Broly's bottom jaw in, the joints of the material buckling and shattering into glinting splinters. Piccolo spun around, flinging several ki blasts as he did to decimate the independent fragments, but leaving himself vulnerable to the return Eraser Shell.
The smoke cloud lingered for several seconds until the winds carried it away, leaving Piccolo and Broly facing each other in the air - damage plainly evident on both of them. With a grunt of exertion, the Metal-Saiyan forced his jaw to be replaced with a sluggish response from the smart alloy, even while the melted edges of the hole in his abdomen didn't rejoin. Piccolo was breathing heavily, shoulders rising and falling steadily as he kept his eyes locked on the monster in front of him, focus precariously divided. He had finally gotten Broly to the point of limiting his self-repairs, but he couldn't maintain his power for much longer either. He snarled, and in a blink they were launching into the final push.
Neither had been paying attention to the ground far beneath, but now they were over water and the coastline was fast receding. A split in the water trailed a second behind. Piccolo was infusing every blow with energy, creating miniature novas for each successive strike landed that chipped further away at Broly's body while the Metal-Saiyan was hammering progressively brutish and hard hitting knees, chops, punches and elbows into the namekian as his rage escalated well past the point of defense.
A massive hand grabbed Piccolo's head and heaved him at a minuscule island directly below. He recovered a split-second before landing on his feet and jumping backwards as Broly smashed the small landmass into dust before just as quickly resuming his flight after Piccolo. They were zig-zagging now, with Piccolo blindly leading them as he adamantly maintained his counter-assault and angled for new openings to deal additional damage against the synthetic being. A mountain reared up in their path but was blasted through without pause, the rock formation standing for a second more before crumbling in on itself.
Piccolo's burning knuckles razed a gash along the inside of Broly's arm, the metal splitting wide to reveal the tiny and constantly shifting mechanisms inside. A city blinked past, windows exploding in a wave after them as the citizens threw themselves to the ground and cried out in fear of the flash earthquake. A gut punch threw Piccolo back a short distance, his feet leaving slipstream trails. In the second he had, Piccolo held two fingers to his forehead and summoned energy at an insane rate and fired a Special Beam Cannon almost instantly. The drilling attack seared through a large segment of Broly's torso, but the Metal-Saiyan barreled through it and kicked Piccolo in the face, launching him once again into the air.
Broly was severely damaged, but he thought that he had Piccolo on his final legs and could finish him without any further delay. He was partially right, in recognizing that the namekian warrior didn't have anything left in him to prolong the battle, but he grievously misjudged the tenacity of Earth's defenders.
Just as he caught up with him, Piccolo rolled so his feet faced away and blasted himself straight at the Metal-Saiyan with every shred of power he still had left! Broly swung to intercept, but the tear in that arm caused it to crumple upon impact and he couldn't stop Piccolo from spearing into the large chest wound like a blade. In the instant where he was more inside than out, Piccolo finally released all of his pent up energy in one, final blast. The alloy bulged and deformed, fighting against it, but the legion of smaller injuries rendered it too weak to cope and, with a terrific shriek of metal, power and rage, Broly exploded in a molten wave of incinerated metal and light!
The shockwave followed a second later, a concussive blast that swept up a curtain of dust and rocks outward in a perfect circle. Everything fell to earth in a scattering of smoking debris. Piccolo landed with a grunt - broken, bleeding, burnt and in considerable pain, but very much alive. He just rested their, sprawled inelegantly and heaving breaths, time dragging by at a crawl, mind blank. A droplet of water landed on his leg; it was about to rain.
Goku, Gohan, Krillin, Tien and Yamcha appeared several feet away in the static crackle of Instant Transmission. They took a second to get their bearings, spotting the namekian and rushing to his side. Piccolo managed what seemed to be the tremendous feat of opening his eyes and meeting the concerned stares of his comrades. "It's over."
Yamcha cupped both hands over his face and exhaled noisily, shoulders slumping. Tien also slumped, but otherwise kept his composure and nodded respectfully. Krillin turned around and threw a fist into the air. Goku put his hands on his hips and leaned back, smiling tiredly. And Gohan knelt down next to his one-time teacher and laid a hand on his shoulder, grinning widely but without the heart he normally would have put into it.
A scraping noise drew their attention.
Broly, what was left of him, was twitching on the ground a few meters away, propped up slightly by a hump in the ground. His head was simply half gone, the jagged edges melted and allowing wires to spill out like artificial gore. His chest was barely more than a thin sliver of metal connecting his neck to the stump of shoulder that remained.
Tien hoisted Piccolo to his feet and pulled an arm over his neck to support him as they all advanced on the Metal-Saiyan.
"You-you-you-you think you've wo-...won?" Broly spat, voice hardly more than static. He couldn't move the remainder of his face, but the snarl was evident in his tone. "I've got news FOR you," voice becoming momentarily distorted and harsh, "this body...was only a drone. I sent it here solely to gauge your-your-your-your strength, so that if I need to, I can improve my true body and crush you all without hope of resistance!"
The Z-Fighters were silent a moment, letting the meaning of the revelation sink in. Then Gohan raised his hand, palm pointing at Broly. "We've defeated you twice already, we can do it a third time."
Krillin aimed his hand as well. "We've overcome certain death too many times for you to try and psych us out."
Yamcha joined in. "We've lost people along the way, but no sacrifice has gone in vain."
"We will never stop fighting," Tien added, hand extended.
"As long as we stand together, we can stand against anything you can throw at us," Goku declared. "So take your time, build your strength..."
Piccolo grinned. "We'll be waiting."
They fired as one, a single blast of searing energy that wiped out the final traces of Broly's drone for good. The quiet of the next minute was unbroken as they each slowly relaxed, allowing the adrenaline to subside and accepting the ungodly pain their bodies were in. The Planet too seemed to take a breath of relief, sunlight filtering through the overcast sky.
"C'mon guys," Goku spoke up, prodding at a split lip tentatively, "let's get patched up."
They all laid a hand on his shoulder and he held two fingers to his brow for a moment or two before they vanished, leaving the remnants of the battlefield to smolder gently until the rain started in earnest and extinguished the remaining flames.
AN: So that happened.
I'm picking the story back up again – breaks over. My dry spell is at an end and I fully plan to work on all my current stories once more.
Quick note, in the time since I started this chapter and when I finally completed it, I went from denouncing Dragon Ball Super to loving it due entirely to the stories of the first FOUR arcs, two of which were unneeded rehashes of the movies. I am...not a fan of either the Goku Black arc or the existence of knock-off saiyans in another Universe. I won't get into my prepared tirade, but I just wish to establish that I. Don't. Like. Them.
Also of note, I should probably admit that while writing this story, starting somewhere around chapter 10, I jumped aboard the "Hate on Goku" train that was sweeping through the fandom. I openly admit that I intentionally wrote him into bad situation after bad situation as a sick sort of payback I felt was deserved.
But it was while watching several tribute videos to DBZ that I started to remember – remember my feelings towards the show when I was younger and just getting into it. I didn't analyze the characters and break them down to their flaws, I didn't judge based on what I was hearing on the internet, and I didn't NEED there to be overarching subtext: I loved the show. I was a fan. I LOVE the show. I AM a fan. I remembered that Goku was a hero, an inspiration, and I had turned my back on him for no real reason. I let my ideals and values warp and mirror those of people I didn't know or respect.
But I have found my path once more, and I will endeavor to never be led off it again.
Goku, you're one of my heroes, and I'll stand with you to the end.
*A quick edit concerning DBS Episode 131*
OH MY GOD YYYYEEEEEESSSSSSSS!