Piccolo:
Still looking slightly sleepy, Goten and Trunks trotted out to the large area in front of the palace.
Piccolo and Kera were waiting for them with Goku. Reyak and Menka were also with them. The others had retreated inside the palace or positioned themselves so that they would not disturb the training.
"Dad, what's going on? Where are we?" asked Goten, looking from Goku to Kera and back again.
"You're in the palace of God."
Trunks and Goten's eyes widened in astonishment, looked at each other and murmured, "Cool!"
"I'm afraid the occasion is anything but 'cool'," Goku brought them back down to earth. "The demon Buu and the mage Babidi are still alive and have started killing people and destroying cities. You must stop them."
"We?" cried Trunks. "Why doesn't my dad do it? Or you?"
Goku looked to Kera. Was he going to put her in charge of telling the two of them that Vegeta was dead?
Kera sighed silently and knelt down to be eye-level with the boys. "Trunks, I'm sorry. Your father was killed fighting Buu."
"What, no! It can't be!" Immediately, tears streamed down Trunks' face.
Panicked, Goten looked around. "Wait, where's Gohan? I can't feel his aura."
"Neither do we. We fear he is no longer alive either," Goku replied sadly.
Goten began to cry as well. The two boys seemed to be goading each other to higher and higher frequencies that Piccolo's ears were soon hurting and he was tempted to put his hands over them.
"Stop crying!", Goku harshly drove at the two.
Immediately the crying stopped. Sniffling, the boys looked up at the adult.
"Thank you. I know this seems heartless to you now. We need you with our full attention. You will work with Reyak and Menka to learn a technique that will enable you to fight the demon. With it, you can avenge Vegeta and Gohan. Do you understand so far?"
Nodding was the answer.
"Menka, Reyak, please stand with them." The siblings complied and stood next to Goten. Attentively, they all sat looking at Goku.
Piccolo's gaze drifted briefly to Kera and he saw what he too felt, despite the threatening situation. Pride. Their children were strong and perhaps the last resort. They had saved a seemingly hopeless situation once before. What if they had more children? Piccolo quickly shooed the thought away. Now was not the time for that.
"The technique I will now teach you is called fusion. In a fusion, two fighters become ..." Piccolo cleared his throat. Goku looked to him. Piccolo gestured with his head to Menka. Goku nodded in understanding and continued speaking. "... A new warrior is created from two male or female fighters. A whole new force is created. However, a fusion only lasts thirty minutes. That means you only have a short period of time in which you will have this advantage. Now transform into Super Saiyans!"
Before they could comply with his request, however, they heard Babidi's voice in their heads again.
"Don't close your eyes!" shouted Piccolo to the children, but they did so anyway and saw Buu transform the inhabitants of another city into chocolate, eat them and then raze that city to the ground as well. When the broadcast was over, Piccolo looked into four scowling but very determined faces.
"Can we start now?"
A smile flitted across Goku's lips. "Alright, transform into super saiyans. Give it your all."
The four of them all got down on their knees slightly, tensed all their muscles and, except for Menka, screamed out loud. Like a laola wave, first Trunks transformed, then Goten to his right, then Reyak and finally Menka, whose hair did not change colour from one moment to the next. Her scalp first turned blonde and the colour slowly moved into her two braids.
Now Piccolo was smiling. She had copied that well from her mother.
"Goten, Reyak, switch places, please." The two did so. "Trunks and Reyak and Goten and Menka, you will now match your energies to each other. Reyak, you need to reduce your energy a little so it's at the same level as Trunks'. Goten, you reduce your energy to match Menka's."
"Like this?" asked Reyak. The shimmering aura surrounding him diminished somewhat.
"That was a bit much," Goku said.
"Are you saying that's stronger than me?" grumbled Trunks.
"That's what it means. You're older. You should have just trained more."
"Hey, Goku, don't talk to my son like that!" shouted Bulma from the side, watching the training from the shade of a palm tree.
"Calm down, Bulma. We're in training!", Kera tried to placate, but Goku didn't seem to mind at all. He studied the auras of the four children intently.
"Very good, Goten. Reyak, that's it. Remember this energy level very well. It is important for the fusion. Now transform back."
A collective exhale accompanied the transformation back.
"The next step now is to raise your energy without transforming into a Super Saiyan. Can you do that?"
Menka nodded eagerly while the boys exchanged uncertain glances. Again, all four children bent their knees and concentrated.
Piccolo felt the energy rise in his daughter. The boys' energy increased as well, but they seemed to have difficulties not to change into the status of a Super Saiyan in the first moments, because their hair flickered blond a few times.
Silently they watched the children's travails until Goku nodded in satisfaction. "Wonderful. Now ..."
"Hello, it's me again!" he was interrupted by Babidi's voice. "A kind fellow citizen has informed me that the wanted Trunks is in the Western Capital. I will go there one day, then." With a nasty grin, he finished the transmission.
"Goku, my parents are still here!" cried Bulma, rushing towards them.
"Do you think they'd come now?"
Abruptly, Bulma stopped as she remembered that her parents had said they wanted to stay in town since they might be revived anyway. "I don't know," she admitted contritely. She was already turning around again, then something else seemed to occur to her. "The dragon radar!"
"What about it?" demanded Piccolo.
"It's in my lab," she whispered.
"I told you to take the most necessary things," Goku snapped at her.
Piccolo raised an eyebrow in surprise. He hadn't known Goku could look so punitive.
"I can't think of everything all the time either," she returned in the same tone.
"Hey, we don't have time for you to be barking at each other here," Kera intervened.
It was always amazing how little height could tell about a person's charisma. Kera was shorter than Bulma and therefore a lot shorter than Goku, but standing between the two of them like that, she radiated an authority that silenced both brawlers right away.
"Kakarrot, can't you just teleport to Bulma's lab and get the radar?" asked Kera.
Goku's eyes twitched back and forth. "I could ... but I'm afraid I wouldn't find it fast enough."
"Then why don't you take Bulma with you," Kera suggested.
Piccolo guessed what Goku was about to say when he saw the gleam in the latter's eyes.
"Other suggestion. One of you get the radar. I'll buy you time by distracting Buu."
Kera's thoughts seemed to have moved in that direction as well. "You just want to test the demon's strength for once. Not without me!"
"Stop! You hotheaded Saiyans must be out of your minds!" yelled Piccolo at her. He couldn't believe these two still couldn't let it go.
"What?" asked Kera and Goku together. They didn't even seem to have understood what Piccolo was getting upset about.
"See you in a minute," Goku said, put his fingers to his forehead and was gone.
"You rotten ..." Kera cried out in frustration, raining a wave of curses on her half-brother. Piccolo cleared his throat several times to alert Kera that there were children present.
Only slowly did she reflect, took a deep breath, and then looked at Bulma.
"Where exactly is the dragon radar?"
"In my lab, middle desk, top drawer ... I think."
Threateningly, Kera took a step towards Bulma. "Does your father know where it is?"
Intimidated, Bulma nodded.
"Fine, then I'll fly and get him."
Kera was about to jump up when Piccolo called after her, "Take care!"
She turned quickly once more for a quick smile and hissed off.
Kera:
Throughout the flight, Kera clenched her teeth so hard that her jaw ached after a short while. The palms of her hands already had marks from her fingernails, so hard did she clench her fists.
What did Kakarrot think he was doing? That only he had the right to fight? He just took everything he wanted. At the same time, he would leave the earth again after 24 hours and they would most likely still have the problem with the demon and the mage. Kakarrot could then float around on his cloud again in peace. And the rest would then have to see how they cleaned up the earth.
She had fought Buu before, it would only have been to her advantage to go with Kakarrot, but the stubborn one thought only of fighting alone. In that respect, Vegeta and Kakarott took nothing from each other.
Kera saw the foothills of the Western Capital, but a great aura made her falter. Kakarott! He gathered his energy. She concentrated. This was clearly more power than he had shown in their sibling fight. Kera's anger rose. He had only been fooling them! This ...!
She felt her power rising. Like a bullet inside her, eating through her guts, her rage rose too. Her hair changed colour, her eyes turned white. She was feeling screwed.
'Please, get the radar!' she heard Piccolo's voice in her head.
His bass calmed her down a bit again, so she remembered what her real job was. With one last look in the direction Kakarrot was, she flew further into the city and finally landed in front of Bulma's house.
Piccolo:
Even before Kera landed, Piccolo knew that her anger had not faded. Not one bit. Her anger was palpable.
Wordlessly, she handed the dragon radar to Bulma and trudged to the edge of the platform to fixate on Goku's aura. If she saw how he had changed his appearance, she would surely become even angrier.
No sooner had he finished the thought than he heard her groan in frustration.
"What does he look like? Like a primeval creature! And that hair!" she raged.
Piccolo stood next to her. He quickly dropped the grin on the way. He didn't want to provoke her unnecessarily.
"Seems like a new level," he said dryly.
'Ridiculous,' she grumbled.
'It wouldn't suit you,' he said in her mind and to his relief saw a tight smile on her lips.
"How did he fight?" asked Kera aloud.
"Good, I'm not sure Goku could have possibly defeated Buu either."
"No, I couldn't have," a voice sounded behind them. Goku had reappeared on the platform. He had assumed his normal form and was panting heavily. Was this new transformation demanding a lot of his strength?
"Kakarrot!" With a snort, Kera stomped towards him. "What was that about?"
A questioning look was thrown her way.
"You hid your true power from Vegeta and me. You lied when you said we would fight at full power right away!"
"Did you fight at full power then?"
Abruptly, Kera stopped.
"I ... well ..."
Goku closed the distance between him and Kera and placed his hands on her shoulders. Kera stared stubbornly against his torso.
"Look at me, please, Kera," Goku pleaded. Kera lifted her gaze. "You saw the transformation, didn't you?" Kera nodded. "I call him Super Saiyan 3. I learned that in the afterlife. There, I can hold it longer. Here, on Earth, it uses too much energy. Then I wouldn't have lasted very long against you."
Kera grinned. Piccolo guessed that she had lifted the corners of her mouth against her will.
"Did you find the dragon radar?", Goku changed the subject.
"Yes, after some searching with Bulma's father. Bulma has it."
"Very good. Buu and Babidi know that the three wanted will face him and are in the process of training. We should do that as soon as possible now, because I don't have much time left."
"Why? You must have more than half a day left," Piccolo said.
Sadly, Goku shook his head. "Unfortunately, being a triple Super Saiyan takes so much energy that it has cut my time on Earth short."
"What?" exclaimed Piccolo and Kera simultaneously.
"But ..." began Kera.
"Enough. We need to train," Goku nipped any question in the bud. "Get the children."
Popo, who seemed to hear every word wherever he was on the platform or in the palace, suddenly stood beside them nodding and then disappeared again to let the children know.
"Did you feel that?"
Questioningly, Kera and Goku looked to Piccolo.
"Babidi's energy is gone."
"That's right," Goku confirmed. "Then Buu has rebelled against his master. That's what I was hoping. Maybe that will buy us more time."
"I'd like to have your optimism sometime." Piccolo sighed.
"Dad, was that really you earlier?" Beaming with joy, Goten ran towards his father while Reyak, Menka and Trunks followed a little slower.
Goku went to his knees and caught Goten, who jumped into his arms. He laughed. "Yes, that was me."
"And that was quite impressive," a high-pitched voice purred behind them.
"Fortuneteller Baba?" cried Goku in amazement.
"I'm here to tell you that you have thirty minutes left on Earth. Then I must take you back to the afterlife. See you soon."
Before anyone could say anything, she was gone again.
Piccolo briefly considered asking Goku about the little old woman, but decided against it.
"Quick, show us the fusion."
"Alright, line up."
The children now seemed to have understood the gravity of the situation and lined up without argument.
"Reyak and Trunks, you form one team and Goten and Menka, you form the other team. The first step is to match your energies, which we have already practiced. The second step is a sequence of steps that must be done in reverse, exactly the same. If everything is done correctly, the fusion will succeed."
Goku stood with his arms splayed out and his legs wide. Then he took three sideways steps to the right, tightening one leg while turning his arms to the other side, then lowered the leg again and stretched his arms sideways across his body.
Panting, he straightened up again. The triple Super Saiyan had cost him more strength than he cared to admit.
"This sequence of steps must be followed exactly. The tips of your index fingers will touch at the last position. They must not slip."
The four children looked at him somewhat irritated. They didn't seem to be sure if Goku was serious.
"As I said, the movements must be exactly symmetrical and mirror-inverted."
"Uh, what does that mean?" asked Goten.
"Well, one does it like me and the other does it the other way around," huffed Goku. "Piccolo, can you show it with me?" he finally asked as he looked at the continued confused faces.
"You must be out of your mind!" he snapped at the other.
"I'll do it," Kera said and stood next to Goku.
Together, Kera and Goku demonstrated the fusion technique. Piccolo, despite Kera's elegant movements, couldn't get much out of the technique.
"And you really wanted to do this technique with Vegeta?" asked Piccolo sceptically.
"Yes, of course," Goku replied innocently.
Kera chuckled.