1 Day Inside
When Gohan woke up in the chamber for the first time, he was rather surprised to find that Master Roshi had gotten up before him.
Granted, although he hadn't had a lot of time to interact with him since the Saiyan invasion, he at least knew that Master Roshi was far from the average old man who might object to an early rise. Somehow, Roshi had found a way to live for centuries, along with his sister and his hated rival (not that any of them seemed especially willing to share just how they managed that), and he moved with a nimbleness that defied his old age. When Gohan finally had the chance to properly ask him about how he'd remained such a capable fighter for so long, Master Roshi had chalked it up to his far greater combat experience and left it at that. Gohan figured that made sense from a certain point of view, but...he suspected that it didn't tell the whole story.
From the look in Roshi's eyes as he approached, it seemed he wasn't the only one.
"Master?" Gohan asked, startling the old man out of his thoughts.
"Agh, Gohan, what-what can I do for you, son?" Roshi asked with a slight hint of nervousness in his voice, causing Gohan to look up at him with a concerned expression.
"Nothing, I just...wanted to see what was wrong, is all," Gohan answered softly. "You seemed like you had something really important on your mind." Roshi nodded slowly.
"Yes, you could say that," Roshi replied, deciding to be transparent. "The truth is...well, you remember how you asked me about how I moved so fast last night, over dinner?" Gohan nodded in response. "After we turned in and I thought about it some more, I remembered something odd from my time with King Kai which I haven't been able to explain so far."
"What kind of 'something?'" Gohan asked, his curiosity piqued.
"Well, it was just around when the others first started training, after me and Chiaotzu had a bit of a warm up period by ourselves," Roshi said. "I guess it hadn't come up before since me and Chiaotzu were so similar in power, not to mention he was my student, so me being able to dodge his attacks made sense. When I managed to keep up with Yamcha and Krillin as well, despite how much stronger they'd gotten since the last time we fought, King Kai took notice...and pulled me aside."
"What'd he say?" Gohan asked before pausing, wondering if perhaps it was rude to ask. Roshi chuckled and answered the boy promptly.
"He wanted to know more about who had trained me; I guess I had been so focused on mastering the Kaio-ken that it hadn't come up," Roshi answered, thinking aloud. "When I told him I'd been trained by Master Mutaito, he seemed to relax and told me that he had been mistaken, but wouldn't tell me what it was that he had been mistaken about. I'm not sure whether it's because he's a god or because he has such potent telepathic abilities, but I couldn't read his mind, and since he quickly found an excuse to leave the conversation before I could ask him for clarification, I figured it'd be best not to rock the boat while I was there. In any case..." Roshi got up from where he had been sitting cross-legged on the floor of the habitable chamber to ponder the curious incident. He gave Gohan one of his usual breezy smiles. "I'll have plenty of time to think about it later. For now, it's better for us to focus on what we came here for, huh?"
"If you say so," Gohan said with only a bit of reluctance as he moved to sit down across from where Roshi had sat and prepared to clear his mind, only for an idea to come to him. "Maybe once you've mastered Instant Transmission, you could go see King Kai and ask him again?" Roshi chuckled in a way that he hoped would hide his slight nervousness at how King Kai would react.
"That sounds like a splendid idea," Roshi replied. "I think I'll do just that."
And so, Roshi turned his thoughts towards their meditation lesson and away from the unusual circumstances he had found himself in, just as he would for many nights to come.
3 Months, 5 Days Inside
It would take a lot longer than Gohan thought for the real training to begin.
Partly out of necessity, yet partly out of residual concern for the young Saiyan child, Master Roshi had strictly forbidden Gohan from attempting to refine the Oozaru transformation until Roshi himself had mastered Instant Transmission. Although he chafed under the restriction, Gohan wasn't exactly in a position to argue, and so the boy agreed to follow Roshi's rules. Fortunately, because sorting out the finer points of the technique from Future Vegeta's memories didn't take up the entirety of Roshi's concentration, he was still present enough to guide Gohan through a series of meditation exercises and keep him active with a simple enough challenge on paper: landing a hit on the old man while limiting himself to only using half of his strength. As Gohan would repeatedly find out, this was far easier said than done.
"C'mon, just-! AGH!" Gohan cried out as he once again failed to hit Roshi even without him using the Kaio-ken to boost his speed. "I still don't understand how this is so hard!" he protested, causing Roshi to chuckle as he took on a tone he hadn't found himself using in a hot minute: the tone of a master helping to guide their latest student towards learning a valuable lesson.
"As far as I know, it's all in the experience, my boy," Roshi said. "It's just like when I dodged Vegeta, even though he was way more powerful than I was at the time."
"But the difference between us is nothing like the difference between you and Vegeta was!" Gohan argued. "How can you still dodge me so easily?!" As he felt himself getting increasingly heated due to his frustration, Roshi put up a single finger, a signal they had developed which told Gohan that it was time for him to calm down a little. Gohan growled under his breath before he eventually complied, taking enough deep breaths that he was able to relax, more or less, at which point Roshi finally saw fit to answer his question in a calm and encouraging manner.
"It is certainly true that you have far, far more power than I do, Gohan, but while you have improved, your techniques are still that of a very new fighter," Roshi began. "Although Vegeta was simplistic in his tactics, he also possessed far more combat experience than you do, so I had to put more effort into dodging his attacks...and didn't always succeed." The old man rubbed his shoulder right where Vegeta had torn part of it off during that battle which already felt so long ago. Although the injury had been repaired when his body was transported to the Other World...it was still sore sometimes. "Don't be too hard on yourself, son. You've certainly improved in that regard compared to how you fared when we first started these little bouts," he added, causing Gohan to sigh in response to Roshi's attempt at encouraging him.
"I guess, but getting used to higher gravity and better at fighting slippery opponents like you isn't going to help me if I end up having to deal with someone like Vegeta. Not without the raw power I need," he countered before glancing at Roshi with a somewhat desperate expression on his face. "It's already been over three months, please tell me you've mastered Instant Transmission at this point," he said, causing Roshi to smirk as he thought of a new way to test his latest pupil, one that he executed immediately when he put two fingers to his forehead and briefly vanished from Gohan's view, only for the boy to sense his presence right behind him.
"I believe I have," he said as soon as he appeared, flicking Gohan's nose with his other hand before teleporting to Gohan's back as soon as the boy turned around, attempting to snatch at him in response only for his hand to pass through thin air. "But just to make sure I have a good enough grasp to use it in combat," Roshi continued with a smirk as he laid out his plan. "Why don't we up the stakes on our little sparring match, hm?" he asked, making his intentions clear to Gohan when he powered up to Kaio-ken Times Two and entered into a combat stance. "No more holding back," he finished simply, and Gohan was happy enough to oblige as he powered up in turn.
"Alrighty, let's try this again-!" Gohan cried out as he flew towards Roshi at top speed, only to find that Roshi had successfully teleported out of the way just before he arrived at his position. "Oh, come on-!" he said, flying at where Roshi had appeared only to once again be stymied, albeit not without grazing part of Roshi's gi before the older man teleported. "Agh, why you-!" Gohan barked as he tapped into just enough of his pent up frustration that he actually managed to catch Roshi in the instant before he could teleport away. He sent Roshi falling to the ground with enough force to leave the man winded for a moment before he shakily got up, with Gohan having already flown to his side with an apology on his lips. "Oh Dende, Master, I'm so sorry, I didn't-!"
"It's alright, m'boy," Roshi said consolingly. "It's my fault for getting you so riled up. But hey, the important thing is, you got me!" He gave his youngest pupil a bright smile at that, causing Gohan to hesitantly respond in kind. "You've gotten a lot better at using your rage in battle without going overboard...exactly the kind of control you'll need for what you have in mind." At this, Gohan's eyes widened, and he looked up at his mentor with hesitant eagerness.
"So, does this mean I'm ready?" Gohan asked, only for Roshi to smile at him apologetically.
"Almost," he said. "I'd still like you to take a bit more time refining what we've been working on before we start to tackle this new challenge. Keep up the meditation, keep up the training, and after we've had a few more weeks to really iron out what you've learned today...then it'll be time for the real test." With that, Roshi coughed a bit as he turned towards the time chamber's living quarters. "But, uh, until then...I dunno about you, but I could use some grub." Gohan giggled at that.
"Tell me about it, I'm starving!" he remarked. "Race ya!" he called out, flying to the building at such dizzying speeds that Roshi didn't even have time to fully process it. Once he did, he chuckled to himself, marveling at how quickly such a young child had managed to pass all of them by. From what Future Vegeta had told all of them, Gohan could quite possibly become the oldest of a whole new generation of potential fighters, assuming his students' future children would hold as much interest in martial arts as their fathers did. As hard as it was to imagine Launch as a mother, Roshi hadn't missed the change in her expression when Future Vegeta described her kids to her, and Roshi knew it was only a matter of time before Krillin and Yamcha followed suit with their own prospective partners. He had once thought that his days as a teacher were long behind him, but now, a part of Roshi wondered whether he would have the same opportunity to train the children of his pupils that he had been enjoying with Gohan, a true credit to his namesake.
The idea was certainly appealing to him, provided he was lucky enough to see it realized.
4 Months, 22 Days Inside
"Focus, Gohan, focus! Remember: you are the only one in control!"
Although Roshi did his best to call out encouraging words to his latest pupil while flying at eye level, he knew that Gohan wasn't exactly in the right headspace to fully process them. Indeed, the massive ape of a boy was doing his best to remain calm with his giant legs wrapped around his body in a meditative stance. This was far from the first time Gohan had attempted this, as the growing pile of completely shredded clothes and the quickened shrinking of their year's worth of rations attested to. Indeed, he had been at this every day for precisely one month, and while he was demonstrably making progress in figuring out how to control himself in this state through repeated exposure, Roshi feared that the boy might not make enough progress before he was forced to turn to even more extreme rationing to ensure that Gohan had enough food and water for himself.
Judging from the growing look of anger on his bestial face, Gohan was fully aware of this.
With a booming roar, Gohan angrily slammed the ground as the overwhelming frustration and rage he felt became uncontrollable yet again. Roshi gulped nervously, knowing that all it took was one stray blast of ki from Gohan in the direction of the distant living quarters to leave them trapped forever. With a set of movements that had been carefully practiced over many such incidents like this, Roshi brought his hand down and prepared to dissipate the Artificial Moon that was allowing Gohan to stay transformed...only for something unexpected to happen.
"NOOO!" Gohan screamed, loud enough that the force produced by the first word he had managed to speak in this form actually managed to knock Roshi backwards in the air. Beyond leaving him disoriented for a moment, and thus leaving the Artificial Moon intact for the time being, the word also served to stun Roshi in an entirely different way. Roshi had never heard either Gohan or Goku speak when they were in the throes of this transformation, and so he knew that Gohan managing to retain that ability was the first step in accomplishing what he set out to do.
"Gohan?" Roshi asked hesitantly, making a placating gesture with his hands in order to communicate that the Artificial Moon wasn't going away just yet. Gohan took a deep breath.
"Not...yet," he got out in his deep, monstrous voice, the words evidently taking effort. "I...I can do it," he insisted, returning to his meditative position and doing his best to continue his calming breaths from earlier. Roshi, in turn, continued to keep a close eye on the boy, hesitant to accept that the boy had enough control to restrain himself for the next hour that the Artificial Moon would sustain itself on its own. And yet, while there were many instances in which Gohan grit his pointed teeth and screwed his eyes shut, clearly struggling to maintain that control...he didn't act out again until he finally transformed back into his normal form once the Artificial Moon dissipated.
For the thirty-first time, Roshi carefully walked to the boy lying on the featureless ground of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber and draped a blanket over his body, but he wasn't nearly as resigned about it as he had been the previous thirty times. Because, unlike those failed attempts, Gohan had managed to keep himself under control. He even remained conscious once he was done!
Well, somewhat conscious, at least.
"Did I do it?" Gohan asked, a concerning question that Gohan really should have known the answer to, but which nonetheless caused Roshi to smile.
"Yes, Gohan. You did it," Roshi said, more proud of the boy than he could put into words.
"Hooray..." Gohan said, right before he finally passed out from exhaustion. Roshi chuckled as he scooped up the boy with the blanket and flew back towards the living quarters. They'd managed to clear the first hurdle, but they were still on a well-worn path by now, one presumably traveled by the majority of Gohan and Goku's people since their early history. What Gohan sought to do, however, flew in the face of all of that. It was a path walked by no one else before him. A path that the young child would have to forge entirely on his own.
"Then again, if anyone can..." Roshi muttered to himself, right before he fondly tucked Gohan into bed and allowed the boy some well deserved rest.
6 Months, 8 Days Inside
"Say, Gohan? Can I ask you something?"
The question was spoken so casually in the middle of their latest sparring session that Gohan couldn't help but laugh, a booming sound which echoed throughout the void and which seemed, to Roshi at least, to be slightly higher-pitched than he would have expected of Gohan's monstrous Oozaru form. Perhaps that also correlated with how the last few transformations seemed to be getting ever-so-slightly smaller each time, and with it ever-so-slightly faster. It definitely made it difficult for Roshi to keep up during their last few sparring sessions, that was for sure. Where he had previously been able to easily leap out of the way of Gohan's lumbering strikes with the Kaio-ken Times Two, now he was finding himself having to focus almost entirely on dodging in that state just to avoid being flung across the void accidentally. Thankfully, Gohan paused his attack mid-swing as he registered his master's question.
"Yeah, what's up, Master Roshi?" Gohan asked, his booming voice a little closer to how he sounded normally and roughly as articulate, a massive improvement compared to his halting efforts almost two months ago. Roshi chuckled a bit to himself before clarifying his intentions.
"I feel like I ought to make sure: do you know how to perform the Artificial Moon technique yourself?" Roshi asked, causing Gohan to cock his simian head in confusion. "You've had months to watch me use it, of course, and your father learns techniques pretty quick, but then again, you've been understandably focused on mastering this transformation of yours, so..." Roshi trailed off, allowing Gohan to answer the question after a moment of thought.
"I'm, uh, still having trouble remembering certain things after transforming, but...I think I can use it, yeah," Gohan said, mulling over an idea that had recently popped into his head. "Say, Master Roshi, do you know how to do the Solar Flare?" he asked, causing Roshi to stumble as he picked up on what exactly Gohan was thinking about.
"Unfortunately, not really; that was one of Shen's techniques, after all, and you know how I feel about him," Master Roshi said bitterly, and Gohan nodded. The old man had explained the whole story once, when they were both exhausted from training and had nothing better to do than for Gohan to ask a million questions and Master Roshi to answer them. That centuries of animosity and hatred all started over a simple martial arts rivalry left Gohan feeling many different things, sadness and sympathy chief among them. He suddenly found himself thankful that the rivalries his father had found himself embroiled in over the years were more or less friendly now. Mostly.
"Still, I think I've got an idea of how it works," Gohan reasoned. "It uses ki to create a blinding projection of light that hits everyone but the user, right?" he asked, to which Master Roshi nodded. "And the Artificial Moon uses ki mixed with air to duplicate those 'blutz waves' found in moonlight. Given that they both produce light...it's possible..." Gohan trailed off as he slowly made up his mind, leaving Roshi concerned as he gleaned the boy's thoughts.
"Um, Gohan, perhaps we should-!" he began, but Gohan had already managed to more or less duplicate the gestures used in the Solar Flare, with one notable difference: his hands were inverted, focusing the technique towards his face rather than outwards. Before Master Roshi could stop him, Gohan focused his ki into his improvised technique...and came up with a name for it.
"LUNAR FLARE!" Gohan cried, expecting a blast of moonlight to prolong his transformation...only to instead find himself temporarily blinded by a redirected Solar Flare.
With a cry of anger and agony all in one, Gohan began to grow larger and lose the tentative control he had been working on for almost two months, causing Roshi to panic as he found himself dealing with a rampaging Oozaru Gohan yet again. Although it took him longer than it should have taken him, Roshi nonetheless snuffed out the artificial moon and watched guardedly as Gohan continued to thrash about while transforming back into his tiny, normal self. By the time he was done, he was barely coherent and weakly thrashing around on the ground of the void, causing Roshi to sigh as he draped a blanket over the boy. For all of his strength and maturity...he was still a kid.
"We can workshop it," he said consolingly, patting Gohan on the head with a wizened smile.
9 Months, 15 Days Inside
"MASTER ROSHI!"
The cry, uttered by a booming voice that was becoming less and less monstrous by the day, rang out across the void as Gohan's attack unexpectedly connected with Master Roshi and sent him flying beyond sight. Although he obviously hadn't intended his strikes to be lethal, he was nonetheless still using his full power to train per Roshi's instructions, leaving the boy quite concerned for the old man's safety. Although it was harder for him to do than it was for Roshi, he managed to destabilize the Artificial Moon he had created earlier, causing him to slowly revert back to his normal form. No sooner had he shakily gotten back to his feet, however, than he saw Roshi use Instant Transmission to appear before him, blanket in hand and evidently bloodied, but still very much alive as Gohan hugged his leg once the blanket was on.
"Master Roshi, I'm so sorry! I shouldn't have-!" Gohan began, only for Roshi to shush him.
"Ah, come now, accidents happen during sparring all the time," Roshi replied, evidently not thinking much of it in spite of his slightly wheezy speech. "The important thing is...I can't dodge you anymore," Roshi said, leaving Gohan confused for a moment as to what he was getting at.
"Um, yes, I think that's kind of apparent? And again, I'm really sorry-" Gohan said, only for Roshi to cut him off yet again.
"Gohan...have you taken a good look at yourself while you're transformed lately?" Roshi asked, causing Gohan's eyes to widen. He'd never really considered it while he was busy training, but now that Roshi mentioned it...his fur had felt like it was thinner this time around. His fangs and simian facial features felt less pronounced, his voice sounded more like his own than ever, and he hadn't missed the fact that his monstrous form was getting shorter bit by bit. Roshi watched as the gifted child quickly put all of these things together until his face broke out into a wide grin.
"It's really working," Gohan said breathlessly, taking a moment to reflect in order to get a good sense of just how strong he was now. "At this point, I can probably-!"
"-Go toe to toe with the twins? Good guess," Roshi said with a smirk on his face. "Based on...this," he said, wincing when he gestured towards his injuries, "I'd say you've gotten the transformation down to a ten times power increase while only halving your speed, and your progress with each transformation has been growing at an exponential rate. You could probably accomplish your goal before our year in this place is up, were it not for-" At this, Roshi paused as they both heard a rather distinct sound: Roshi's stomach grumbling in protest.
"Master?" Gohan asked nervously. He knew that Roshi had been rationing as much food as he could to compensate for how much Gohan needed to eat with each transformation, but every time he asked about it, the old man insisted that he was used to this sort of thing.
"Fasting is a common practice among martial artists, you know!" Roshi had said to him the first time he asked. "Why, I once walked from one side of the Diablo Desert to the other without any food or water, and I turned out fine!" he had boasted. He had begrudgingly admitted that he was younger then, but he had insisted that that didn't make a difference whatsoever.
As if being fifty-five was the same as being three hundred and thirty-three.
"I can make it, son," Roshi said hoarsely, even as the continued rumbling of his stomach insisted otherwise. "I might need Dende and a Senzu bean or two by the time we get out, but I'll make it. Honestly, you might have to miss a meal or two on the last day, too, but I'm sure your mother's spent the whole day out there making a big feast for you back home." He chuckled weaker than he would have liked to in front of Gohan, who naturally started tearing up.
"No, I can't-you said you were fine, I don't want to-!" Gohan said in a choked up protest.
"I'm sorry, kid, but I don't see any other option," Roshi replied. "Between taking over on Artificial Moon duty and transforming in the first place, you tucker yourself out every single day and need the rations of two people just to recover enough for the next time around. The simple fact is that your body wasn't designed to transform this often, not when the whole thing is based on a lunar cycle, and whether you like it or not, it's taking its toll on you. We can manage that with the food we have left, but only if I fast completely for around the last month or so. Like I told you a while back, I've done this sort of thing before, I can handle it. Just let me-Gohan!" Roshi cried as he saw Gohan once again put his hands out in front of his face.
"I'm not going to let you keep doing this to yourself, Master," Gohan said firmly even as Roshi awkwardly flew towards him in his weakened state.
"Dang it, kid, it's been three months and we still haven't gotten that thing to work right, what makes you think-?!" Roshi protested, instinctively screwing his eyes shut as Gohan used his experimental "Lunar Flare" technique and began to transform all over again. "Gohan?" Roshi asked hesitantly, standing on his guard as Gohan grew back into the half-Oozaru that he had become in his last transformation, slightly less controlled than usual...but nonetheless peaceful.
"Ha-hey, it actually worked!" Gohan said happily, sounding very much like his father at that moment. Roshi let out a chuckle of appreciation before realizing what Gohan had done.
"Well, I'm glad you're able to trigger it more easily now, but transforming twice is only going to make things even worse as far as our rations are concerned," Roshi chided the boy, only to find himself perplexed by the optimistic thoughts running through Gohan's mind.
"I wouldn't be so sure about that, Master!" Gohan retorted with just the slightest hint of smugness in his lower-pitched voice. "I figured that the Lunar Flare wouldn't be quite as effective as the Artificial Moon when it came to transforming me, since it's just one blast of moonlight instead of a concentrated source of it. Considering this was my first time actually getting it to work, I'd imagine that it's gonna run out...yup, right about now." As Gohan spoke, he slowly fell out of his transformation once again, seemingly none the worse for wear.
"And you...you're alright after all that?" Roshi asked, to which Gohan shrugged.
"I'm a little bit hungrier, yeah, but nothing like keeping up being an Oozaru for a whole ninety minutes," Gohan replied. "Plus, I still got a bit smaller than last time, didn't I?" Roshi paused as he thought about it for a moment and realized that Gohan was right.
"It would seem so," he conceded, causing Gohan to smile somewhat tiredly.
"So, if I transform like this from now on, and we switch the training over to focus on extending how long I can transform with the Lunar Flare and the same stuff we were doing before...it should all work out! Right?" Gohan looked at Roshi with a hopeful expression, one that Roshi quickly found himself unable to say no to even if he didn't wind up agreeing with the boy. For someone who didn't like fighting, Gohan certainly had a head for working out problems with his training. Another thing he seemed to have gotten from his father, Roshi thought to himself.
"It's worth a shot, at the very least," Roshi said with a smile, a part of him secretly relieved.
1 Year Inside
By the time the Hyperbolic Time Chamber finally became unsealed, it opened to reveal two figures: a haggard Master Roshi that was quickly tended to by Dende and Mr. Popo...along with a Gohan that was very much unlike the one they had seen off on the previous day.
Where he had once retained most of the Oozaru characteristics roughly two-thirds of the way through his training, now they were far less pronounced. The red, pupiless eyes remained, as did sharper fangs and extra fur growing all throughout his body, but the rest of his face was left more or less unchanged. His tail, having miraculously been left unharmed throughout all of his harrowing experiences, appeared to be somewhat bushier and wrapped around his waist like a belt, just as Nappa and Vegeta's tails had been when they attacked the Earth. His hair had also become longer and spikier, almost like a halfway point between how his hair normally looked and how it may have potentially looked if he were a Super Saiyan, albeit rather unkempt and still retaining its usual black color. He had grown bigger, wider, and noticeably more muscular as a result of the transformation, but only to where the growing boy was maybe a few inches shorter than most of the adults present and a fair bit taller than Krillin. It was a far cry from the building-sized height he had internally lamented at the beginning of his training, that was for sure.
All in all, while most of the onlookers watching were very much apprehensive and nervous about what exactly Gohan had become over the course of his training, they couldn't entirely equate his new transformation to the monstrous Oozaru that many of them had seen. He wasn't some big great monkey creature, and he wasn't a Super Saiyan either, although the immense power level he gave off certainly seemed to match one on a surface level, even if it was ultimately an inferior transformation. He was, as was perhaps fitting for the first Saiyan-human hybrid, something in-between, one of a kind...
And entirely unprecedented.
"So," he began in what was now only a slightly deeper voice, a voice which betrayed his reluctance to speak at all. "I imagine you all have questions."
Alright, another chapter done, and getting a bit further on track after last month's was mostly just additional setup.
With this chapter, we now see the fruits of Gohan's efforts at developing his own version of what I'll be calling Wrath State after all. "Great Saiyan" was clunky and I wasn't really feeling the other suggestions, so while I'm not the biggest fan of "Wrath State" either, I did realize it lends itself better to a distant future development than anything else, so "Wrath State" it is. Besides, it's basically the same concept as canon Wrath State while being a bit more grounded in the actual mechanics of the Great Ape transformation, so it helps in that everyone already knows what it's talking about if they've watched Super Broly. Making the user actually have to refine the Oozaru transformation to that point instead of just somehow drawing on that power in base form just works better in my opinion, plus it makes for a way better design: not quite within the Super Saiyan 4 aesthetic, but definitely evoking some elements of its design.
Anywho, that's enough of that. On to review responses!
mastercheif1229 says: "Pretty good chapter! Looking forward to the next one! Read this at 12:06 am. My left shift key annoyingly broke recently, making it much more difficult to type." Glad you enjoyed it, although sorry to hear about your shift key; computer troubles really are a pain in the neck, lol.
Critnightnight says: "It's really good how you are developing a character like Yamcha, so mistreated by Toriyama. I'm waiting to read also about Chichi and Marron's training! Good work!" Yeah, I'm hoping this arc will allow me to really showcase the abilities of the human characters like I've always wanted to do through this story. Glad to see the more minor aspects of those efforts are still being enjoyed in the interim, at least.
And finally, Zeon Paralysis Crystal says:
"Interesting chapter and now Marron is a fighter now with a knack for Mimicry. Maron the Blue Mage. Now the Response to your response."
"1. It wouldn't be Roshi if he wasn't a Perv in some degree. We're simply seeing the side that was in the Demon King Piccolo Wars. It's gonna be a trip if anything considering his usual characterization. I suppose the Wingman Grandpa is honestly the most respectful update to Roshi's personality we'll get."
Yeah, that's basically what I was going for. As someone who's actually getting involved in the main plot stuff, Roshi has to maintain that serious mode more often than not.
"2. If anything I get the feeling you might use a GT villain or A Universe 7 Villain since the Multiverse won't be used. So Super's Universe 7 villains are still in the running to be used. Think Plus Ultra Man's Vampa Series if anything. Besides the multiverse or mentions of it should be in a sequel story or in the last arc."
Eh, wasn't really planning on using GT villains or Super villains, necessarily. Super "antagonists," I guess, from a certain point of view, but not outright villains. And when I say I'm not using the multiverse concept, I mean that the multiverse does not exist in the canon of this story. It just doesn't seem to serve much of a purpose to me when I'm not taking this story into the events of Super, and while I'll be using Super elements, I'm still going to put my own spin on them. Beyond that, I just have mixed feelings on how Dragon Ball has handled its multiverse to begin with. It's given us some awesome characters, to be sure, but it still feels like the concept is underutilized thus far. If you're gonna give me all these awesome characters from other universes, I wanna see them more often outside of tournament arcs, Toei. =/
"3. Fair enough and thankfully due to Gohan's first death, Dr. Gero's Reason for Pulling the entire world into darkness, and the Z-Fighter having better communication. Goku can actually pass the torch and realize he can truly trust in his friends to keep their homes safe. Goku's Sucessors: Gohan, Uub, Pan, among others."
Oh, yeah, we'll get to the next generation of Z Fighters soon enough. We've already caught glimpses of their future timeline counterparts, at least, albeit mostly during the time when they were babies and not the "present" of the future timeline where they're in their late teens.
"4. Makes sense if anything I'd recommend heading to Captain Claymore's Dragonball Paradise and Feralgiter's Dragonball Dynasty for extra translation ideas for the cast. Names Great Saiyan, Wild Heart, Infernal State, Sage Ape, Feral Impulse, and Primal Jade."
Appreciate the suggestions, but in the end, I think Wrath State is probably the best option of the bunch.
Anywho, only real power levels at play here are Gohan and Roshi's, so here we go!
Master Roshi: 3 million, or 6 million with the Kaio-ken Times Two. With a year under ten times gravity and having to dodge someone as powerful as Gohan, it makes sense that Roshi would get a fair bit stronger even if he was mostly in there to help Gohan and learn Instant Transmission. Granted, he could probably push himself harder with the Kaio-ken if he really needed to at this point, but he'd rather not risk giving himself a heart attack at his age unless he absolutely has to. He also probably could've gotten stronger if he hadn't been forced to ration so extremely for the sake of Gohan's training, but hey, what can you do with a growing Saiyan's appetite?
Gohan (base form): 18 million; since he was mostly focusing on refining the Oozaru transformation, he didn't get as strong in his base form as he might've if he wasn't devoting most of his time towards that particular goal. Still, a year of adapting to ten times gravity and a good helping of normal training is no joke.
Gohan (Wrath State): 180 million. He's refined the Oozaru transformation into a ten times power increase without sacrificing speed or making himself a massive target, although its limited duration and dependence on his tail are still very big weaknesses which make fighting a risky proposition at the moment.
With all that said, thank you all for reading, stay safe, have yourselves a fantastic night, and take care. See you next month!