Chapter 16: The Return of an Old Face
A few hours after Baby left Planet Reito in Piccolo's body, the only uninjured member of the Dragon Team, Pan, awoke in the middle of a pile of debris left in the wake of the series of battles that had occurred only a short time prior.
"O-Ow… I feel like I finally understand what Satan-jiichan means by that 'hangover' thingy… what just happened? All I remember is beating up that perverted monkey that felt me up…"
As Pan looked around, struggling to regain her balance, it dawned on her that the environment of the planet had completely changed. The snow and ice-laden mountains around her had completely collapsed, with some even shooting lava, and she was completely covered in dust and mired in sand. She tried to take a step, but found herself stumbling back onto the ground.
"J-Just what happened… while I was out? W-Wait…" said Pan as the blurry memories of what happened in the battle against Baby returned to her, "I-I was possessed! Inside the monkey pedo, there was Baby! A-And I remember now, while he was in control of my body, I said and did terrible things to Trunks! W-Where is Trunks?! And Uncle Goten… And the hottie Trunks from the Future?! A-And… Piccolo-san! G-Gosh, I don't feel any of their Ki at all! Just w-what did Baby do to them?!"
The sheer shock of this realization unearthed a sudden burst of strength that Pan couldn't muster before. Pan ran in the direction of any kind of Ki she could possibly locate, coming across Dolltacki's unconscious, barely-breathing body first, which she ignored in her desperation to find her dear teammates. Crying uncontrollably, Pan's memories of Trunks, Piccolo, Goten and what little she remembered of Future Trunks flashed through her mind as she ran at least five hundred miles before she collapsed and reached her limit. She eventually tripped and fell off a cliff, upon which she fell into the ruins of a lake where the once-completely frozen water had dried. In desperation, Pan cried out, "U-Uncle Goten! Trunks! Piccolo… Piccolo-san! You always… You guys always knew what was best… W-Where are you?! You can't just leave me alone out here!"
Overcome with intense loneliness and raw emotion, Pan transformed again to a Super Saiyan, causing a figure heading toward the ruined Planet Reito to remark in his spaceship, "Hm. It appears I am heading in the right direction after all. I must hurry. If I can't make this landing, all that my people sacrificed for will have been for naught…"
This sudden burst of energy awakened the unconscious and battered Goten, who then placed his index and middle fingers on his forehead and homed in on Pan's location. Goten appeared directly above Pan, and then fell on her shoulder. He said, "P-Pan… I-It's you… Y-You're alive. I'm so… so glad."
"U-Uncle Goten?!" said Pan as she turned her head around and cried tears of joy, upon which she embraced Goten with all her strength, prompting him to say, "O-Ow! N-Not so tight, you'll just make my wounds worse…"
"U-Uncle Goten! W-What happened here?! Y-You're in terrible shape! A-And I don't sense Trunks' Ki, the other Trunks' Ki… Not even Piccolo-san's Ki! T-Tell me, tell me what happened, please! W-We can't be the only ones left alive! C-Can we?!"
The battered and woozy Goten, who had been absent minded from the oxygen deprivation he suffered when Baby choked him, came to a sudden realization, and immediately stood his ground on his two feet through sheer willpower and said, "P-Pan! Just after Baby took possession of your body, he entered Trunks-kun's body and then moved to the future Trunks-kun! A-After which… I-I'm ashamed to say, he killed Vegeta-san, took Piccolo-san's body… and he killed… he killed…"
"He killed… He killed who?! U-Uncle, tell me, please! Nothing… nothing you say can surprise me anymore, please tell me! I-I promise I won't cry, I… I won't! I-I'm a big girl now, I'm strong! I-It can't possibly be worse than… than what I thought when I couldn't sense you! T-Tell me, this silence is killing me! P-Please, tell me! Tell me, please!"
Goten said, while holding back his tears, "M-My father, your grandfather… who was already dead and had returned to the living to help us take Baby down… He was killed. H-His soul… is no more. He can't even watch us from the afterlife anymore… and the future Trunks-kun… he lost his life in the skirmish."
"WHAT?!" yelled Pan as she was so shell-shocked, she reverted to her base form and her eyes completely lost focus, and she covered her eyes with her tiny hands, which were soon flooded with a torrent of her tears. She very nearly collapsed onto the ground and lost consciousness, at which point Goten sped into her range and shook her back into a degree of clarity. He then said, "The reason we can't give up now is because… because as long as us two are alive, as long as we have hope… Hope to rescue Trunks-kun, we can manage something! B-Baby… he took Piccolo-san to make sure he wouldn't end his life to stop his plans with the Ultimate Blackstar Dragon Balls, but he left us alive! T-Trunks-kun… Trunks-kun… He's our last hope! If he, you and I… the last three outside of Earth who carry Saiyan blood… can combine our strengths, and find the final Ultimate Dragon Ball, we can stop him! D-Dad said before he died, when he and Vegeta-san still had the strength to speak, that we have to control our anger… Our sadness… And turn it into strength! I-If we survived this for a reason… IT'S BECAUSE IT'S OUR DESTINY TO STOP BABY! AND WE CAN'T LET TRUNKS DIE, GOT IT?!"
"*S-Sniff* I-I get what you're saying, Uncle Goten! I'll share my power with you, guide me there! If Baby didn't kill Trunks, we still have a chance to find him! We can make things right! T-The Ultimate Dragon Balls, they can grant any wish, right?"
"Right! If this planet's geography is anything like Earth's, when Baby was fighting my father as he was fused with Vegeta-san, he was sent flying straight toward a collection of icebergs in the coldest region on this planet! And this means, we head south! Let's pull ourselves together, we can't let Trunks-kun die in this bitter cold!"
"I-I got it! Take my hand, Uncle Goten!" yelled Pan as she went Super Saiyan with a renewed conviction and shared her strength with Goten while holding onto his shoulder, and Goten, too, mustered a strength from his deepest reserves to turn Super Saiyan in his injured state. The two flew at lightspeed toward the ruins of the South Pole of the freezing planet, where all they could see was a never-ending landscape of what used to be a frozen underwater. Goten, in a willpower that drove inordinate amounts of adrenaline into each fiber of his body, desperately tried to remember where Vegetto was trouncing Trunks-Baby, eventually managing to home in on a Ki on the verge of fading out of the living world, a Ki he was familiar with yet simultaneously barely recognized due to how close it was to being extinguished.
"There! I sense him! W-We weren't too late! It's as Future Trunks said, we managed to grasp onto… onto HOPE!"
Goten, with Pan in tow, teleported instantly to the battered and dying Trunks, gently placing him onto a flat surface they could find. He felt Trunks' neck for a pulse, which was steadily weakening. Mustering all the Ki he had, Goten pumped every ounce of his Ki into the hypothermic Trunks, causing him to start breathing again. Trunks coughed and spat blood, but again began moving, at which point Goten collapsed, having spent what little power he had, and said, "P-Pan… That burst of Ki I just donated to Trunks… That was the last of my power. I-I won't die, but I no longer have the energy to even lift a finger. Trunks-kun is breathing again, but his pulse is weak, and I'm afraid that he sustained such a blow to his head, his brain can barely regulate his vital functions! Y-You're gonna have to apply a shock to his heart, and give him mouth to mouth! Y-Your mother used to work for the police, so I'm assuming y-you know CPR, right?!"
"Y-Yeah! She used to teach me to fight crime, and to bring near dead people back to life! I-I never kissed a boy, but this's no time to get embarrassed! A-Anyone I can save, I'll… I'll save! T-Trunks, I won't let you die!"
Pan almost started crying again, but slapped herself back into clarity and then applied a couple of Ki shockwaves to restart Trunks' heart, upon which Trunks spat more blood and nearly lost his breath, and Pan kissed him in the mouth, steadily supplying air to his lungs, and kept massaging his heart with kiais until Trunks' pale skin began to be restored to a rosy color, and Pan's mouth was completely dyed in his blood from multiple CPR transfusions of air. After five minutes of this, Trunks fully regained consciousness and muttered, "P-Pan…? Is that… you? Y-You're bleeding from your mouth, did someone get you?"
"H-Hah! T-Trunks! Y-You came back!" said Pan as she grabbed onto the half-dead Trunks, who said, "I-I can barely feel my body, but that still hurts… P-Pan-chan…"
"Y-You dummy! Y-You had us so scared! Waaaah!" screamed Pan as she fell on her knees and started crying again, at which point the memories of the things that happened while Trunks was under Baby's control came back to him in an overwhelming sense of epiphany.
"I-I remember! I-I was possessed by Baby, it felt like he was manipulating my very soul, like I was a prisoner in my own body! I-I did terrible things! I knocked out the other me, almost killed Goten… almost killed Piccolo-san! A-And then my dad came and fused with Goku-san… and very well beat Baby out of me! T-They were unstoppable! V-Vegetto, as they called themselves! T-They defeated Baby, right?! T-They must have won, their Ki was out of this world!"
Goten, who had only the strength to crawl to Trunks' direction, put his hand on Trunks' shoulder and said, "No… Our fathers… They combined their bodies, but then Baby moved to the future you's body… And tricked us into losing our composure because he had another form up his sleeve. And when Vegetto-san rushed at him… Baby pulled out a metal blade and cut his neck. O-Our fathers… They are no more. And in the process of trying to protect us from Baby, he had to destroy the body of the future you. They're gone… my father, your father…. The other you… And then Piccolo-san's body was taken."
"WHAT?!" yelled Trunks as the shock of this realization hit him like a tidal wave, and the devastating surge of anger drove a power he didn't know was inside him through his body, forcing him to his feet. Trunks, in unrestrained, raw despair and rancor, went Super Saiyan and grabbed Goten by the collar, and then said, "S-Son Goten! Y-You've got to be joking, right?! B-Baby… He was completely outmatched, t-there is no FUCKING WAY THAT HAPPENED! T-This isn't funny, our fathers probably… They probably… They just probably teleported back to Earth to explain why they were fused with the Potara now, that has to be it! And they just whipped you into shape so we wouldn't slack anymore, t-that has to be it! I-If you keep bullshitting me, I'll never forgive you!"
"T-Trunks… It's all true. Uncle Goten was half dead too when I found him. Baby beat him up and took Piccolo-san's body… I think he took our spaceship too, with all the Dragon Balls in it. He… He… He…"
Pan couldn't bring herself to finish her sentence, at which point Trunks realized his teammates weren't joking, and yelled at the top of his lungs, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Trunks threw Goten aside and fired off a volley of Ki blasts, completely wrecking the ruins of the South Pole, and then punched the ground dozens of times, twisting both his elbows from the damage that had already been done to his body. He snapped and started stomping the ground repeatedly, completely cracking the crust of the planet before nearly firing a mouth blast, during which Goten gathered the Genki remaining on the ruined planet and used the energy to transform back into a Super Saiyan and restrained his friend, saying "Calm yourself down! If you were to lose your life here from exhaustion, there's no more hope for any of us! Not the people in this universe, nor any other universe! Baby… Baby plans to turn everybody in all of the multiverse into Tsufurians! His subjects! Once that happens, he'll probably try to kill us and then come after us in the afterlife to erase us like he did my father! I-I understand more than anyone how you feel, I even went Super Saiyan 2 for the first time from the trauma of our loss! B-But our loss can't define us, we have to keep moving forward! Baby took our ship and our mentor, he may have taken our families' lives… But he doesn't have the final Ultimate Dragon Ball! That Dragon Ball… That Dragon Ball is a symbol of our last hope! We must get it before he does, and prevent his plans! A-And from what my brother told me of his travels on Namek, the Namekians are able to build a spaceship that can go from Earth to Namek in under a month! H-Hope… the hope that your other self believed in, the hope that our fathers entrusted in us before their death… It's all we can do to believe in it! And we… WE WILL TAKE BABY DOWN!"
Trunks realized the truth in Goten's assertion and reverted back to normal, at which point he collapsed again to his knees, finally feeling the recoil of his rampage. He then said, "G-Goten… Y-You… You're absolutely right! If my father and the other me… Goku-san and the universe… All their hopes ride on our victory, I can't just fall over and die here! We have your Shunkan Idou, we have each other! B-Baby… He'll regret not brainwashing me, not brainwashing Pan, and he'll regret leaving you alive! Us three… Us three… We're the last hope of… of everyone!"
"That's right! But first things first, we have to give your father and the other you a burial… And engrave their sacrifices in our hearts forever. The loss of their lives will drive us with a drive we've never had before! Pan, grab onto Trunks and grab onto my shoulder! We're heading back to where the battle ended!"
Goten then teleported his two comrades toward the location of the near-dead Dolltacki and the injured, green-haired boy, and not far from them were the corpses of Vegeta, and the pile of meat and bones that Future Trunks had been reduced to.
"Hey! This monkey, he's a tenacious little bastard twat! We gotta save the kid, but I say we just leave him to die!" said Pan, at which point Trunks forced his twisted elbow joints back in place, placed his hand on Pan's shoulder, and said, "No. A pervert he may be, but he's still a victim in Baby's vendetta against us Saiyans. And… enough people have died this day…"
Realizing Trunks' solemn resolve to not let anyone else die, Pan reluctantly agreed to spare Dolltacki and then started a fire, into which they threw Future Trunks' remains and then gave his ashes and Vegeta's body a burial. Trunks then took Goten's hand and gave him the rest of his energy, saying "So how is it, Goten? Can you home in on any Ki nearby? Anywhere we can take these two and recover from our wounds?"
"N-Not quite. This planet's too far from any planets with significant life for me to catch onto anything, and if they had been here, Baby seemingly took their energy when he teleported from planet to planet all over the universe. Maybe I could catch their Ki if they had the time to recover from Baby's possession and from the small amounts of Ki I took to form a Genki Dama, but for now I can't track any Ki."
"H-Heh… This is pretty hopeless. At this rate, Baby will get the final Ultimate Dragon Ball before us…"
"Gill! Gill! Maybe I can help with that!" said a familiar, monotone voice as Gill flew in their direction, obviously badly damaged from the shockwaves generated in Baby's fight with the heroes, but still willing to help. Pan jumped in joy and remarked, "G-Gill! I-I'm so glad you made it alive!" She then embraced him and opened his radar component, which still couldn't track any Ultimate Dragon Ball nearby. However, Gill then jumped out of Pan's arms and said, "Gill! Gill! An extremely huge power is heading in this direction! Gill! Gill!"
"A-An extremely huge power?! A-And I think I've felt this power before! W-Who could be in possession of such a power?! Don't tell me Baby found a new host and he's come to finish us off?!" screamed Trunks in panic, at which point a ship that looked like an inverted-colors version of OctoPUS 9000 crash-landed into the plains nearby, and caught fire. From the flames, a familiar shadow emerged, who then said, "Well, well… If it isn't the Super Saiyan I fought on Imegga. It seems you've seen better days."
"R-Redjic?! H-How are you here?! And what's with that spaceship?!" yelled Trunks and Pan both, as Goten was dumbfounded, not having been present for the battle on Imegga.
"Long story short, to ensure that I would get to finish our bout if you were to escape, I had the scientists who took and fixed your spaceship make an exact replica, right down to the advanced radar contained within. That way, I could always keep track of the Dragon Balls you three were gathering, so that I could challenge you once your journey was finished and we could finish our fight without reservations. But I see that you have a new fighter among you… and the Namekian is gone. I can infer something happened on this planet, in fact I tried to greet the Namekian when I caught the reading of six Dragon Balls gathered in a single spot, but upon seeing me, he projected a foul aura, as if his Ki had been mixed with some possessive monster… and nearly wrecked my ship. I crash landed here, the closest planet where I could track the presence of souls. You will inform me of what happened at once."
Trunks, Goten and Pan explained what had happened next to the funeral pyre of their deceased teammates, at which point Redjic said, "I see… So this 'Baby' creature, the last survivor of the Tsufurian race, had been manipulating Mu and Rild… and took Piccolo, and killed your family members. I have to say I have heard better news."
"Needless to say, our rematch will have to be put on hold, especially since Piccolo-san can't exactly fight you now. Redjic, that replica OctoPUS 9000… can it still fly? Baby did leave a spaceship he took from the Mochans here, but I'm afraid it's completely out of fuel, and it's dysfunctional after the damage done to the surface of this planet."
"Afraid not. My specialty is in battle, not in mechanical engineering. There is nothing I can do to fix this ship… But there is something you two can do, from what you've told me."
"Say what? We tried everything to home in on some nearby planet with life, we haven't managed anything…"
"How quickly we forget. Baby wrecked my ship beyond repair, but the Super Radar replica that I have kept on me is still intact. In less than a day, there is no way that Baby has managed to land on Earth nor found the final Ultimate Dragon Ball that is so far away. Meaning, any place where six Dragon Balls are concentrated, is where he is located inside your spaceship, and the remaining one is more than likely within the range of this radar… and the places that have seven Dragon Balls… are Earth and Namek!"
"T-That's right! Unless the final Ultimate Dragon Ball landed on New Namek somehow, wherever we can track down one Dragon Ball has to be where the Ultimate Dragon Ball is! And then we can just teleport to New Namek and get their spaceship, since it's way closer to where we are than to Earth, which is on the other side of the universe! Y-You're really smart!" yelled Trunks.
"Hmph. One tends to learn a thing or two, traveling across the universe for as long as I have in search of an opponent I could call my equal. I will place my hands on you two, you must stay still for about ten minutes. My healing powers will restore you both to full health," said Redjic as he placed his palms on the backs of Goten and Trunks' necks, and then surrounded them both with the same green glow that he radiated when he meditated in Don Kee's palace to heal his own wounds. Before long, the two were as good as new.
"Now! You must perform your Fusion Dance! If we cannot find life on the location of the final Ultimate Dragon Ball, we'll simply shoot a blast that will travel all the way there, and then use your teleportation ability to reach the location of your blast, and repel it! And make sure to shoot it at a level of power just shy of your full strength!"
"Got it!" yelled Goten and Trunks both as they both powered up to their Super Saiyan 2 states, prompting Redjic to remark, "Ho… You've made a lot of progress yourself, Super Saiyan. Is that a form beyond the wall of the regular Super Saiyan form? Your powers are exactly equal."
"Feh! Only because Trunks-kun's been through more near-death experiences than me on this planet thanks to Baby!" said Goten, at which point Redjic said, "Silence! Time is of the essence, your petty rivalry is unimportant at the moment! Perform your Fusion now, and I will guide you two toward the location of the final Ultimate Dragon Ball through the reading I found on this radar! Then, channel the pathway of your blast precisely, and deflect it away at full power upon teleporting us all there!"
"Alright! Fu-Sion… HAAAAAAA!" yelled the half-Saiyan duo, merging into Super Saiyan 2 Gotenks. Gotenks then began charging a Kamehameha and yelled, "HAAAAH! My blast is massively faster than the speed of light!"
The blast was precisely guided through Redjic's telepathic instructions, until it was within range of the planet that housed the final Ultimate Dragon Ball. Redjic then said, "Now! The female Saiyan, grab onto those two unconscious bodies, and we'll all escape this dump together!"
The quadruplet alliance, together with the unconscious Dolltacki and injured boy, teleported to the location of the blast, which was miles away from blasting the planet to pieces. Gotenks then went Super Saiyan 3 and yelled, "Piss off!" The blast was repelled light years away by Gotenks' double backfist, destroying a cluster of asteroids in the far reaches of space. With Gill's help, the team then found the One-star Ultimate Dragon Ball before Gotenks' fusion expired, upon which Redjic found the location of New Namek.
"Now! You know what to do, right? Revert back to your previous form, and fire another blast! Then, we shall track the blast's Ki signature and teleport to New Namek!" yelled Redjic, as Gotenks did just that, and directed another full-power Kamehameha toward the location of New Namek, where they then teleported and repelled the blast once more.
"Whew! Firing a blast that flies at that speed really takes it out of ya!" said Gotenks as he reverted back to Super Saiyan 2 and grabbed his stomach, which growled.
"W-Who are you people? What sorcery did you use to arrive here?" asked Muri, a Namekian elder. He examined Gotenks and Pan, and then said, "Wait… This energy… it is vaguely similar to that of Son Goku, that Super Saiyan who saved us from Freeza! A-Are you people from Earth? If you've arrived here through such unconventional means, it must mean another threat has befallen us!"
"I guess that saves the need for introductions," said Gotenks before his fusion then expired, and he reverted back to Goten and Trunks.
To be continued…