Dragon Ball GT: Maximum

by Kensh3h

GT is bad, goes without saying. Not nearly as much as Granolah, but still a work of very poor quality that's cemented itself as a contentious topic. To rectify this, in 2021 I decided to rewrite GT to a better standard of writing quality, hopefully living up to the quality of the original manga, with an expanded universe. Constructive criticism is welcome. 17 chapters remaining.

10. Life or Death Battles On M2, Part I

Chapter 10: Life or Death Battles on M2, Part I

About a month after the Dragon Trio's stop at the desert planet of Rudeze, OctoPUS 9000 was in pursuit from a series of alien militia forces.

"Geez! I keep shooting them and shooting them, but they just won't give an inch! Bam! Bam! Pow! Wow!" yelled Pan as she barely managed to pilot the spaceship to avoid enemy fire by a hair and prepared to counterattack.

"Pow! Wow!"

A cannon installed onto the top of the OctoPUS 9000 spaceship fired away at the enemy forces, only to run out of ammo.

"Sheesh! I fought so hard up to this point, too-"

Before Pan could finish this sentence, the enemy ships closed in on OctoPUS 9000 and then activated a self-destruct function, taking out the ship.

"NOOOO!" yelled Pan as the scenery went completely dark, at which point a screen lit up in front of her and read: Scoreboard: Gill – 50, Pan – 0.

"Gill! Gill! Absolute victory achieved! Opposition crushed, affirmative-"

"Just what's affirmative, you! Let's go another round, I swear I'll bet you this time-"

"Pan, you've been at that virtual reality game for a month now, I think it's about time to give it a rest," said Trunks as he walked in the room, "there are some things in life that are just too far out of our reach. My father has been challenging me to beat him in a sparring match since I was ten years old, and thirteen years later I've still never beaten him once."

"Perhaps you would have succeeded in it if you had been a bit diligent in your training, hm?" said Piccolo as he also walked in the room, "or more importantly, in your case, Pan, you might have also made some progress in your training if you were not playing LOUD VIDEO GAMES IN THE PRESENCE OF A NAMEKIAN WITH ENHANCED HEARING! Half of my meditation sessions for the past month have gone awry because you just can't keep yourself off these useless video games."

"It can't be helped, Piccolo-san. She's just a kid," said Trunks, "more importantly, a few days ago I saw on the Super Radar that we should be en route for the fourth Ultimate Dragon Ball within a day from where we are now. I'll open Gill's radar component and show you-"

As Trunks grabbed onto Gill and tapped his back component to activate his radar function, he saw that no signal could be detected from the planet in question.

"Huh? That's strange," said Trunks as he raised his speed and took the Super Radar out of the pilot seat and activated it to show that there was indeed the fourth Dragon Ball within a day's reach, "it says there should be a fourth Dragon Ball not far from here…"

"I am willing to bet that planet is safeguarded from nearly all means of radar detection," said Piccolo, "the Dragon Radar that Gill absorbed was the older, obsolete copy that could only detect Dragon Balls when active. I imagine there is some kind of force field shielding the planet from being detected in any form from the outside."

"T-Then…"

"Yes. We've at last… most likely come within range of Doctor Mu's planet. With the Freeza Force long gone, I can't think of any other civilization that would be capable of masking a whole planet in this manner."

"Right. But it's as you said before, Piccolo-san. It's better that we face them sooner than later, because if we were to have the majority of the Dragon Balls already, they could easily steal them and make their wish and throw a wrench in all our plans to gather the Dragon Balls before the six months are up."

"Planet M2! Planet M2! Gill's home planet, Planet M2 is within range!"

"So I guess Gill was manufactured on this 'M2' planet… it still honestly bugs me that he couldn't detect the Dragon Ball that's clearly located there on his radar, if his technological makeup originated from that planet…" said Trunks.

"There's no use becoming unnecessarily tense," said Piccolo, "if Mu were sabotaging his radar function, he had plenty of opportunities to do so on Planet Lood. Get a good night's sleep, you two, and make sure to suppress your Ki to be as inconspicuous as possible when we land! We don't have a chance against an army of machines like Lood if we were to charge at the heart of their empire head-on, but with the three Senzu I brought from Earth and Trunks' Super Saiyan 2 power, there's a chance we could assassinate Mu and claim the fourth Ultimate Dragon Ball!"

"Right! I'll get in a light workout to warm myself up before we land, and then we'll strike!"

Hours later, the trio's spaceship was making its way into M2's atmosphere.

"Now, Trunks! It's time to suppress our Ki!"

"Say, Piccolo-san, how about we split up when we land, so that even if one of us is found, it won't ruin our whole mission?" said Trunks.

"No, that isn't a good idea. Remember, quick flight is not something easily achieved while suppressed, and there's a possibility that our Ki being lowered would cause the other two to confuse your Ki with the natives of this planet. We stick to each other for now."

"Roger."

The three took extra care to land in a part of the planet that was particularly devoid of metal, thinking that the farther they were to go from an obviously mechanized part of the planet, the less likely they were to run into opposition. Once there, they saw what appeared to be a perfectly normal tropical forest in the outskirts of a futuristic city, where Pan climbed a tree to pick an apple.

"Hey, this thing looks like a fruit, but it's really completely made of metal. I'd break a tooth or two trying to chomp on this!"

Gill snatched the metal fruit from her and chomped on it, saying "Energy replenished! Extra nutritional meals are a commodity on Planet M2, DB4649T2006RS's home planet! Gill Gill!"

"DB4-what? Gill, I thought we agreed to just go by the name Gill over a month ago-"

Just then, four robotic creatures rose out of the ground and made their presence known.

"Hehehehe… DB4649T2006RS, good work bringing the three rogues from Earth to this planet. It appears the Dragon Balls they have gathered are inside that spaceship as well. Doctor Mu-sama will be most pleased," said Nezi, the leader of the quadruplet Machine Mutants.

"Doctor Mu-sama? Th-they knew we were coming? I-Is this just a trap? Gill, I should have known! You were just pretending to be unable to find the Dragon Ball to try and mislead us, weren't you?!" said Trunks angrily.

"I sense a considerable amount of Ki hidden in these four robots," said Piccolo, "don't let your guard down, Trunks! Pan! Since they know our location, at this point we have no choice but to cut loose! Transform right away, Trunks! We must lessen our opposition at once before we proceed-"

"Hehehehe… Quite the crafty one, aren't you? It's just what we'd expect from the former Kami of Earth," said Ribet, the second-in-command of the four Sigmas.

"Since an all-out bout is in order, we've no reason to hold back. Release our inner power at once!" yelled Nezi as he and the other Sigmas released a huge maelstrom of power, completely leveling the forest and destroying parts of the city. Trunks, who was in the process of trying to turn Super Saiyan 2, was knocked back by the huge power surge.

"S-Shit! I guess when most of your body is robotic, going full power is basically like flipping a switch! They won't give me the half a second I need to transform!"

"Half a second? You don't have the luxury of a millisecond!" said Bizu, the third-in-command, as he dissolved his body into hundreds of tiny fragments, which then expanded and changed form into a series of metal stakes that launched themselves at Pan.

"Pan-chan! Watch out!"

Trunks threw himself in Pan's direction and knocked her away, at which point the metal stakes caught him completely in their grasp.

"Hmph! That's a miscalculation you've both made, you forgot I have no need to transform to access my full strength!" yelled Piccolo as he powered up and destroyed his weighted clothing, and then charged at Trunks' direction, at which point Bizu's spiky form released sleeping gas.

"Sleeping gas? Talk about the oldest trick in the book!" said Piccolo as he stretched his neck far upwards into the sky before blasting Bizu's spike stack, at which point Bizu mockingly replied, "Ha! You fell for it! With your friend caught in my spikes and rendered asleep by my gas, I knew you wouldn't blast him with enough force to destroy me completely! And that will be your downfall!"

The innumerable pieces of Bizu's shattered body turned into a series of sharp disks, which then cut Piccolo's arm while releasing a potent toxin. Piccolo felt the effects of the toxin immediately, falling to the ground paralyzed.

"N-No way! Trunks and Piccolo-san… they took them both down so fast!"

"Ha! Hahahahaha! I had heard you two had avoided killing anyone so far in your journey, but to think that you would be so naïve and sentimental in the face of an enemy!

"Now it's time to finish off the last runt! Hahahaha! Mu-sama will reward us handsomely for this!" said Nutt as he launched a series of missiles at Pan, who destroyed them with a Kiai. She then said, "I-I'm really mad, you know! You four won't get away with this!"

"Wait, Nutt," said Gill, "she can't get away from this planet anyway. I have infiltrated their ranks for the past couple of months, and I have taken care to confirm that she is incapable of piloting their spaceship. More importantly, we should simply shrink their spaceship to capsule form and bring the three Dragon Balls to Rild-sama, rather than risk severely injuring or killing her here and depriving Mu-sama of one of his coveted research subjects."

"Hmph. Fine. We'll just have patrol robots take care of her. We've already neutralized the two greatest threats."

"G-Gill! You were in league with them all along, weren't you?! I-I won't forget this, you'll all pay!" said Pan as she quickly grabbed hold of the poisoned Piccolo and flew away, with Gill blank-faced in face of her anger.

"You've lied to us all along?! I've misjudged you, Gill! B-But this isn't over!" yelled Pan while crying, and feeling Piccolo's pulse continue to weaken as she searched for a suitable spot to land and rethink her strategy.

Pan found a lake not far from the spot where the trio had suffered their humiliating defeat, at which point she generated a thin Ki blade out of her index finger and cut a metal coconut in half, filling it with the water and feeding several mouthfuls to Piccolo.

"Cough! Cough!"

"P-Piccolo-san! Are you awake?!"

"Y-Yes, but this is quite the potent poison. It appears to be non-lethal, no doubt for Mu to capture the three of us alive, but my five senses are totally paralyzed, and the most I can do is breathe!"

"T-That's not good… I don't think I could sneak in their metal fortress while carrying you on my back…"

"Search in my pants pocket. Do you see a mechanical band inside?"

"Yeah, there is one! What do you want me to do, Piccolo-san?"

"Put it on my wrist, and activate the switch! It's called a Micro-band, one of Bulma's early inventions! Normally I would be able to adjust my size myself, but with this poison numbing my senses, this will have to do as substitute! With this, you can carry me inside your pocket when you infiltrate their lair. Since they had such a deadly poison and it appears Trunks was affected by it too, there is a good probability that they have the antidote inside! If we're to succeed in rescuing Trunks, we may even be able to turn this disadvantage into strength! My shrunken size would also mean that I would consume almost nothing, if we were only to find enough of the cure for one person!"

"Wow! You thought of all that in this short amount of time?"

"We are dealing with a sneaky, conniving bunch, Pan. No amount of thinking is overthinking when dealing with Mu."

"I've got it, Piccolo-san! In my pocket you go!"

Pan then stretched for a bit before running headfirst into the central M2 fortress, where she broke into the storage room and found parts that fit her size and allowed for her to disguise herself as a purple patrol robot.

"I shall now award DB4649T2006RS this medal of honor for his excellent services in furthering our cause of converting Universe 7 – no, this entire multiverse into Machine Mutants!" said a projection of Rild that appeared on a television screen in a hallway that led to the conference room, "DB4649T2006RS! For your contributions that have gone above and beyond the call of duty in capturing our greatest threat, the Super Saiyan Trunks and bringing in our grasp three Ultimate Dragon Balls, I award you this medal!"

"You shut your fat mouth!" snapped Pan as she punched the screen in uncontrollable fury over Gill's betrayal, unwittingly giving away the fact that she wasn't who she appeared to be to all nearby machine mutants.

"Defect! Defect!"

"Defective unit! Defective unit!"

"Uh-Uh…Oh… I think I've blown my cover, Piccolo-san! What do we do?"

"It appears that with your Ki as suppressed as it is, they haven't yet realized that you are an enemy infiltrating this fortress yet. They'll throw you in some kind of scrap heap, which is still better than Rild or those Sigma Cannon robots coming after us. For now, just pretend that you are a defect and comply with them. We'll think of what to do afterwards," said Piccolo through telepathy.

Minutes later, Pan found herself thrown in a scrap heap with two defective robots amidst a heap of broken machine parts.

"Where is this?! Where am I?! Who am I?!" said a green, miniature robot repeatedly. A larger, pink and silvery robot bonked it in the head, and then replied, "this is the room that reject Machine Mutants are thrown into! Doctor Mu has created all of us Machine Mutants! His dream is to fill all of existence, all twelve universes with his Machine Mutant army!"

"Yeah, I kind of heard that over the radio with that blue freak Rild rambling about it when he gave Gill the medal," replied Pan, "but Lood's core was definitely living! So that means all the machine mutants here were organic at some point, right?"

"Yes. The planet's original populace, a population of accomplished, powerful swordsmen, is no more! Mu-sama, who acquired and enhanced the technological advancements of the Tsufurian race and the Freeza Force Army, invaded this planet 30 years ago and converted most of this planet into his loyal Machine Mutant Army! Only a small, several-thousand force of underground resistance members now are the organic populace of this planet!"

"Geez, you sure talk a lot… but I take it we're not alone in fighting Mu and Rild, is that right? Maybe if we can find these 'Resistance' people, we could get some help trying to rescue Trunks and heal Piccolo-san…"

Just as Pan was musing about possibly finding help, two compressors came at the defective robots and Pan at lightning speed, clearly intent on disposing of the unnecessary trash.

"Sheesh, they won't even let me get in a moment to think to myself! Haaaa!"

Pan blasted the compressors and then kicked the door down. She and the defective Machine Mutants escaped the reject heap afterwards.

"Go straight, and you'll see an elevator!"

"Thank you! This place frankly sucks and Mu is a jerk for trying to flatten you guys, so if I were you I'd go side with these resistance folks instead! Take care, okay?"

Pan, still in her robot disguise, ran straight for the elevator when she finally spotted the elevator that leads to Rild's control room.

"Right there! If we can save Trunks, we could at least do some major damage to this place and then maybe get help from those resistance folks-"

Just then, a missile emerged from the wall, striking Pan and destroying her purple robotic disguise.

Nutt emerged from the wall, saying, "Ha! Hahaa! You can't beat me, you might as well surrender now! Do it, and I'll make sure to put in a good word to Mu-sama so you can keep your life when we make you a Machine Mutant!"

"No way!"

Pan flew straight to Nutt's direction with blinding speed, and he just barely avoided her by melding himself into the wall and then emerging from the other side of the corridor.

"You little piece of turd!" yelled Pan as she blasted the spot Nutt was in, at which point Nutt emerged from the ground floor and said, "Fool! DB4649T2006RS has analyzed all of your attack patterns, I know every move you make before you'll make them-"

Just as Nutt was in the process of saying this, Pan suddenly cried two streams of tears from her eyes, powered up and yelled, "Don't mention that long-ass name! It makes me sick just thinking about how he tricked us!"

"W-What?! This level of power was not in our records! W-We can't have miscalculated-"

"Your miscalculation…" said Pan as she quickly sped at Nutt before he had even an instant to react, "WAS SERIOUSLY PISSING ME OFF!"

Pan busted a hole in the wall, destroying Nutt completely and flying straight into the bottom floor, where she could sense Rild's massive Ki.

"Pan! We mustn't attack Rild head-on, yet! Nutt was just the weakest of the Sigmas, it would be better to seek out the Resistance that they spoke of and reconsider our strategy afterwards!"

"Pfft! We do that and what do we have on our hands when they've already turned Trunks into a machine mutant thingymajiggy by then, huh?"

"T-That is an interesting point you raise…"

"I'll beat all the Sigmas, get Trunks, and then worry about how we'll meet up with the Resistance later! I've never felt stronger in my life than I'm feeling right now! It's as Uncle Goten and Trunks always said, rage really is a Saiyan's greatest weapon!"

Just then, Nezi appeared alone to confront Pan, emerging from the wall to punch her in the face.

"Owww! That's dirty, hitting someone in the dark when they're flying in your direction! I'll beat you up!"

Pan powered up and flared a huge aura around herself, and then fired a powerful blast at Nezi. He avoided the blast by a hair, and then planted his arm in the wall, which then emerged next to Pan's leg and grabbed her ankle. She was thrown violently headfirst into a spike in the wall, which she narrowly avoided being impaled by blasting it. It broke into thousands of pieces, which then reassembled into the mutant Bizu.

"Three's a company, I guess!" said Pan, "But I don't see the third one that was with you! Let me guess, you have him stashed in the wall just waiting to catch me by surprise, right?!"

"Fu…Fuhuhuhu… There's no need for that," said Bizu, "thanks to DB4649T2006RS, your attack patterns have all been read and analyzed! DB4649T2006RS has ensured that no matter what you do, chances of victory for you are slim to-"

"I… SAID IT BEFORE!" yelled Pan in a tremendous fury, "AND I'LL SAY IT AGAIN! DON'T EVER MENTION THAT DISGUSTING NAME WHEN I'M AROUND, GOT IT!?"

Pan flared up an aura, her eyes blanked out with rage and clobbered Bizu into a smoldering mess before he could even react quickly enough to convert himself into spikes, and then hurled a massive Ki sphere at him, erasing him completely.

"S-She really is Gohan's daughter…" said Piccolo nervously from inside her pocket, "In any case, we've rid ourselves of one of the threats! If things go smoothly, we may be able to rescue Trunks after all!"

"Hmph! I wonder about that," said Rild as he emerged in a metallic, shiny, sleek form devoid of clothing from the wall, at which point he snapped his fingers, causing the defective machines that Pan released to be captured by claws of liquid metal and be transported to his location.

"R-Rild's power is nothing like what we felt when he was in the conference room! Is this his true strength?!" said Piccolo, clearly shocked at his adversary's power.

"Nezi! Ribet! I give you another copy of Bizu! Merge into your Super Sigma form at once and capture these two promptly! I am busy dealing with another intrusion, from the pesky Resistance leader! I expect you will bring Pan and Piccolo's heads on a platter within the next half-hour!"

Rild converted the defective robots into liquid metal and then released from the pile of metal a brand-new copy of Bizu, which then merged with Nezi and Ribet, creating the Super Sigma machine mutant.

"Huuuuuahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" yelled the combined Super Sigma, releasing a power rivaling even Redjic's and destroying everything in the vicinity, before punching Pan with enough force that she was thrown all the way out of town. She crashed head-first into a building, ripping her headscarf, the impact leaving her motionless on the ground. She tried to muster up the strength to stand, only to spit blood out of her mouth and collapse to her knees.

"H-He's just too strong!"

"You've got that right," said the Super Sigma as he emerged next to the building in liquid metal form, "ordinarily assuming this form would not even be necessary for the likes of you, but it appears that Rild-sama wants your defeat to be a quick one! I will beat you within just an inch of your life and have you taken to be converted… just like your friend Trunks."

"Just like my friend Trunks?! Does that mean you've already converted him?!"

"Well, there's no way I'd know that, but with Mu-sama's superior intellect, I wouldn't doubt it."

"Y-You'll pay! You'll pay!" yelled Pan as she flared up another aura and punched the Super Sigma repeatedly, prompting him to reply, "Ha! Hahahahahaha! DB4649T2006RS's information is unnecessary at this point, there's just too much of a power gap for you to do any damage whatsoever to my superior Sigma Cannon body!"

"Shut up! You won't stop me from trying!" yelled Pan as she concentrated all of her energy into her fist and punched the Super Sigma combination, only to barely dent him. He then began spinning his arm and said, "A real punch… is what you call THIS!"

The sigma cannon blasted Pan lightly with a Kiai, knocking her back about ten feet, and then stretched his arm and punched her straight into the spot where OctoPUS 9000 first landed. Pan broke several of her ribs and lost consciousness before spitting blood that soaked her face entirely in red.

"Oops… did I go to far and kill her? Oh well, with Mu-sama's technology we can reanimate a dead body…"

Just as the cocky Super Sigma flew to her location bristly, clearly assured of his victory, Pan's mind was suddenly awakened by a vivid hallucination.

"P-Piccolo-san? Where am I? What are we doing? I-I think I just died, fighting that Sigma robot! I'm sorry, I think I bit off more than I can chew…"

"Pan! You aren't dead, and I still lie inside your pocket! This is my telepathy combined with the increased adrenaline your brain is releasing in the face of mortal danger creating a vision! And I am here to tell you one thing…"

"What?"

"The fist of one who carries another life on their shoulder is one that absolutely isn't permitted to lose. You have the strength, Pan. You've always had it within you. You're now the same age your father was when he first became Super Saiyan!"

"Me… A Super Saiyan?"

"Yes! Trunks and Goten both informed you, and you must carry their message into motion! Anger is a Saiyan's greatest strength! Gill's betrayal, the weight of Trunks and my lives on your shoulders… you must channel it all into your anger! Let it explode within you! The power comes from a need, and your victory is absolutely of the essence!"

"My… victory…"

"Is of the essence! Let your fury explode, and release from within you… THE POWER OF A SUPER SAIYAN!"

"I… I…."

"DO IT NOW, PAN!"

"I HAVE THE POWER IN ME! I'LL WIN!"

Pan's body instantly rose as if she was frantic and she flared up a white aura which then let loose a blinding, golden glow.

"W-What?! T-This power… This wasn't in DB4649T2006RS's data?!"

"Ka… Me… Ha… Me…."

"N-No! At this altitude, there is no metal for me to meld into!"

"HAAAAAAAAA!"

Pan instantly transformed into a Super Saiyan, releasing a massive wave of bluish white Ki onto the combined Sigmas. They were blasted into hundreds of pieces, at which point Pan collapsed, apparently spent from her final attack.

"Hu…Huhuhuhuh! She may have had the power had she not sustained those injuries, but thankfully, she couldn't manage to erase us completely! And with Bizu's power we'll just reassemble our body and bring her to Mu-sama! He'll be most pleased indeed to have two Super Saiyans at his beck and call!"

"I think not," said a towering, giant Piccolo that suddenly revealed himself to be above them.

"W-What?! Y-You were poisoned!"

"The poison took away all of my innate power, but Pan transferred the rest of her power to me just before she shot the blast. That Kamehameha was merely the first step in your destruction."

"N-No! If we get hit by another blast before we reassemble-"

"Yes! You'll die! NOW!" yelled Piccolo as he fired off a massive mouth blast, finishing the Sigmas off and erasing them completely. He then descended to Pan's location, where he, too, collapsed, having spent the remainder of his energy and finally succumbing to the poison's effects. A series of Mu's machine mutant robots then encircled the two, clearly intent on bringing them to Mu. However, a hooded, cloaked figure suddenly cleaved them all into hundreds of pieces, picked up Pan and Piccolo's unconscious bodies, and then fled into a secret passageway that led underground.

At Mu's base, Rild, who had felt the Sigmas' deaths, said "Curses! Not only did we lose the Sigma Cannon Force, but the two got away and were taken by the pesky Resistance leader of all people!"

"Don't fret, Rild. This is all going according to plan," said Mu, "my intent all along was to stir up the Saiyan girl's anger so that she, too, would unlock Super Saiyan and make for a fine specimen. After all, when her body was absorbed by Lood, I found that hidden in her was a potential that rivals even Trunks'. You won't even have to dirty your hands, you see… the energy gathered by Lood months ago has already served to awaken one of my finest creations… Awaken now, my latest Machine Mutant! And wipe out all of the Resistance and bring Pan and Piccolo to me!"

"Understood, Doctor," replied the shadowed machine mutant as he swept his long hair behind his ears and set out at blinding speeds to capture his absconding foes…

To be continued…