Chapter 23: The Decisive Final Battle, Part II: To Fight Against A Friend of the Soul
As Trunks and co. neared the base of Dende's Palace, Trunks abruptly returned to his normal Super Saiyan form.
"Trunks-kun! What gives? You can't be tired out after just that short battle against Oob-kun, why lower your power? It isn't like we need to hide our presence or anything," said Goten.
"Remember what I said about how we need to keep calm as much as possible? Whether we've grown more accustomed to this form the past few months or not, Super Saiyan 2 is a form we both unlocked through intense rage. Baby may be a devious sneak, but after acquiring Gohan-san's body and the strength of a Hakaishin, he's not going to ambush us and weaken us before the fight begins. We won't be able to take him without fusing anyway, so it's best to stay in our weakest battle-ready form, and keep calm."
"Hmm. I see your point. Still, if we need to punch through another barrier like the one you encountered at West City, we don't dick around with those paltry Grade forms, we turn Super Saiyan 2, alright?"
"Right. But still, I need you guys to follow my orders more or less to the letter. If you need to deviate from my command, please make sure to give off appropriate signals. We can't afford to allow Baby to divide and conquer us, combining our strengths is of utmost importance. Coordination and unity are virtues we can't afford to lack, here."
"Coordination? Utmost? Quit usin' these big words, I'm anxious enough as it is after those energy drinks Uncle Goten had me take!"
"Basically, we can't afford to fly off the handle and act on our own, I am the leader, and you will follow my command… However, while my command is of the utmost importance, my life isn't. As I said in our battle with Baby on Planet Reito, the Dragon Balls can bring me back even if I am killed, so don't hesitate to throw me under the bus if it means saving Gohan-san and killing Baby, alright? Bra and my mother will be sad… but it will be temporary grief. If I'm not prepared to throw everything away, we can't possibly hope to ever topple Baby. Got it?"
"T-Trunks! Y-You can't say that, you… You can't die! I've already suffered too much, my grandpa… My dad… Piccolo-san… The other you… If I were to lose you, too…" said Pan while weeping, "I-I wouldn't have anythin' left to lose! W-We're like family to you, aren't we?"
"We ARE family!" said Goten, "But you can't afford to make decisions that screw up everything for everyone for the sake of a single person. A person's life can't outbalance the fate of the Multiverse… I'd rather it be me than Trunks-kun, but if anyone's Baby's primary target, it's Trunks-kun, the rightful heir to Vegeta-san's bloodline. If his life were to be forfeit for the greater good… I-I don't think I could stomach it, but I will try… I-I will. I've seen my mother crushed to death before my very eyes, I have shouldered the experience of losing people dear to me. I-I can…"
"Don't mull over this tangent too much, Goten. You are a more mature man than me, but we've known each other since we were little kids, and fate brought us together. We've both grown immensely along the way of this journey… But we've yet to suffer the loss of losing a friend of the soul. That's what you are to me and I can imagine that's what I am to you, too… But no matter what the struggles we may face, we need to be able to overcome it. If nothing else, think of the people who've died along the way… Their sacrifices should mean something, and for that meaning to never die, one of us… No, perhaps all of us, might need to die… But we will take Baby down with us. We will succeed. We just need to be strong and be prepared for the worst."
"The time for idle chatter is up, boys!" yelled a familiar voice as two outstretched limbs emerged from the courtyard of Dende's castle and pulled the three Saiyans toward the top of the Kami Palace, where a heavily modified roof resembling the throne room of the original Tsufurian King's castle rested in Dende's throne room's stead.
"I-I guess I should've seen this coming… Piccolo-san's body was the first one Baby stole from our group after the fight on Planet Reito, after all… B-But this force… this grip strength… Even considering Baby's eggs augment strength, it's completely unnatural! Even if we were fused before he pulled us in, we may not have been able to resist his power!" yelled Trunks, "Baby! What have you done with Piccolo-san?! You think you can crawl under my skin by disfiguring my beloved mentor?! Y-You have Gohan-san's mind and body welded into your being, don't you feel the tiniest shred of guilt for the things you're doing to him?!"
"Fufufufu… That's what you've got wrong, Trunks!" yelled the possessed Piccolo in a booming, unearthly voice, "Baby-sama's egg modifications are not the source of my power, the source of my power is something you should be very familiar with, after the detour you took before you arrived here on Earth…"
Piccolo then powered up in an intense, galaxy-shaking and tumultuous quake-like maelstrom of pure Ki, which completely reshaped the Earth and caused buildings the world over to completely crumble. Baby himself shielded the civilians whose lives were in danger from the side effects of Piccolo's power up from imminent death, but the damage was done. Even the people of Earth who could not sense Ki normally were completely frozen in terror from Piccolo's power up, and the majority of the universe was frozen in the same fear. Piccolo's aura was one of such intensity that it momentarily blinded the trio, and even his sharp, Namekian talons and fangs were lengthened from his Ki being unnaturally high, perhaps too high for even his own body to stand. Goten, upon regaining his sight, then said, "T-This Ki… It's exactly like Redjic-san's, and like Majin Boo's, a Ki that feels like a lie, and like multiple, no, countless people's powers and spirits are residing in one body! T-This means…"
"Yes! The Mightiest King had me travel to New Namek, beat all of the Namekian Fighter-types into submission, and then convince them to merged with me after maximizing their powers with the divine blessings of his majesty's own eggs! With it, I have obtained power unimaginable… I am the single most powerful mortal to ever live, other than the great Tsufurian King himself!"
"Y-You bastard! Y-You forced the Namekians to surrender themselves to you by force?! T-That's worse than slavery, you've forced them to give up their own individuality!"
"Not at all. The Namekians were not goaded or forced into surrendering themselves, they were in such awe of the power that the King's eggs could gift me, and surrendered their so-called individuality of their own free will! Lest you forget that the King had said to you all that he has no intention of having his subjects surrender their freedom?! The multiverse will be unified under his banner, and insurrections will be curbed, but not eradicated, and taught to submit! His majesty is such a merciful king, do you not agree?!"
"Like hell! That meanie practically left them no choice! First he takes my dad's body, and then he forces a bunch of innocent people to be merged permanently into a freak of nature?! Y-You'll pay, Baby!" yelled Pan as she suddenly flared up her Super Saiyan aura, causing Piccolo to remark, "Ho… This aura is one that is a marker of the mastery of the Super Saiyan form… Gohan would be proud that you've made this level of progress."
"YOU TWO ARE THE ONES WHO ROBBED HIM OF HIS MIND AND BODY! I'LL KILL YOU!" yelled Pan as she focused all her Ki into her right hand, which then projected the image of a golden-colored dragon resembling Shenlong, and she yelled, "Ryu-ken! This is for my grandpa!"
Piccolo simply repelled the dragon manifestation with a finger and crushed it, after which he defeated Pan with a mere finger flick, causing a huge gash to appear in her stomach simply from the force of Piccolo's finger coming in contact with her. Seeing this, Goten abruptly went Super Saiyan 2 and said while grinding his teeth, "B-Baby… You'd do this to my brother, Piccolo-san, and to my niece… I'm normally the last person to lose his temper and flip out, but you'll die, and you'll die a miser – "
Trunks grabbed Goten by the shoulder in Super Saiyan Grade 3 form and said, "Calm down, Goten. I said before we came here that we can't afford to lose our temper and our cool and fly off and disregard my command, didn't I? Take a deep breath, keep calm… I want Baby dead as much as you, but hate and anger clouding our judgment creates myopic thought process, we can't afford to make any costly mistakes. Calm your ass down, take a deep breath, we couldn't take either of them the way they are without fusing into Gotenks. Just power down to regular Super Saiyan, with your anger and anxiety we might screw up the Fusion Dance, and then we'll all die for sure!"
"R-Right…" said Goten as he understood the legitimacy of Trunks' command, and powered down to regular Super Saiyan as Trunks did the same. Piccolo crossed his arms and said, "Good. I've always wondered how it would feel to fight the first successful Saiyan fusion. I will grant you the window of opportunity to perform your little dance, now. Do it quickly before I change my mind and decide to torture you two slowly."
Trunks and Goten were both visibly agitated by the words coming out of their mentor's mouth, and then glared angrily at Baby, but then took deep breaths and regained their calm, and then said, "You asked for it! Prepare to be Gotenks-sama's first victim, ever since the two of us completed our training on New Namek!"
The two quickly performed the dance in under a second to form Super Saiyan Gotenks, who yelled, "HAAAAAH!" and caused a similar shockwave to the one caused by the release of the abominable Piccolo-fusion's power up from simply entering the full power of his regular Super Saiyan form. Baby then grinned lightly and said, "Not bad. You've both made progress since the first time you battled that Redjic fellow on New Namek as your petty little Gotenks fusion. However, if you are thinking of starting small and saving your strength for me, you'll be in for a rude awakening."
Piccolo powered up another notch and then rushed head-first at Gotenks, who had trouble guarding against his flurry of blows, which were made doubly unpredictable by Piccolo's limbs outstretching repeatedly and maneuvering themselves in whiplash motion. Gotenks, realizing that going Super Saiyan 2 was inevitable, decided to allow Piccolo to charge him directly and concentrate his two claws on his torso, at which point he went Super Saiyan 2 nanoseconds before the point of impact and grabbed Piccolo's arms tightly, blasting him with a point-blank mouth blast that would have defeated even the likes of Redjic. However, Piccolo simply regenerated from the impact upon tearing off his arms, with his Ki not decreasing even slightly.
"D-Damn. I was too naïve, killing Piccolo-san is impossible when he's connected to the Ultimate Dragon Balls… And with dozens of Namekian Warriors merged into his being, his stamina is as infinite as the likes of Majin Boo or the Red Ribbon Androids… D-Do I have to kill him? The very man who allowed my existence to even begin? The man who taught us… the Fusion Dance?!"
"I can sense you two's dilemma, you know all too well that nothing short of killing me will put a stop to this fight… And you know that sacrifices must be made to stop the Mightiest King's plans as you two obviously desire, so what are you waiting for?! The Ultimate Dragon Balls should not hold any true sentimental value to you, are you still so obsessed with returning the balls to Earth in time for your little promise?! Bwahahahaha! The objective, and what must be done to achieve it must be so clear to you, yet you can't bring yourself to do so even when leaving me alive is something you would come to desperately regret! You'll never be among the elites of this universe, you who carry the blood of the Saiyan King!"
"Fufufufufu… Perhaps I had my expectations of your resolve too high for my own good. I've presented you with a clear solution, and you know that those more dear to you two such as your fathers have been lost in this war… And yet you still both hesitate! You two are weak! You will never emerge as a true success until you learn to discard these petty attachments, what it means to be a king is to set aside these juvenile feelings and do what must be done for the greater good! Even if it means surrendering the lives of comrades of the soul!" yelled Baby, "In life, in this neverending circle of life, death, and reincarnation, there are those who are truly destined to be among the elite, who are keys that set the Macrocosm of all Existence in motion! You, the grandson of King Vegeta, still fall far too short! You are weak! And you will never succeed in saving your sister or your mother!"
"You shut your worthless fucking mouth!" yelled Gotenks as his Trunks side took control and yelled in a singular voice, "This is Trunks, the heir to Capsule Corporation and the royal bloodline of Crown Prince Vegeta, speaking! I will find a way to drive you out of Gohan-san, save Piccolo-san… and end your madness! Your reign of terror ends tonight, Baby! I swear it on the name of my own destiny! My destiny, manifest to stop you!"
Gotenks, with the two halves back in equal control, then powered up his Super Saiyan 2 form further, as though Goten resolving to be resolute in the same goal as the infuriated Trunks doubled their resolve. Gotenks concentrated his Ki into both his fists until the apparition of twin dragons appeared on the both of them, in a similar manner to Pan's Ryu-ken attack. He then charged at the possessed Piccolo, and struck his head and chest with extreme precision and power, only to discover that Baby's eggs had been so thoroughly fused into his being through so many Namekians being possessed by the eggs at once that they were beyond such an easy method of removal.
"I guess I should've seen that coming… Well, here's Plan B!"
Gotenks shot a large amount of Kamikaze Ghosts from his mouth and shot them at Piccolo repeatedly, destroying his four limbs and leaving his main body in tatters. Gotenks deliberately waited for Piccolo to regenerate and then repeated the process, until Piccolo's Ki had finally begun to decrease slightly but noticeably. However, the strain of creating so many energy ghosts wore Gotenks out faster, until he thought to himself, "I-I can't turn Super Saiyan 3 now, I must save my strength for Baby himself… And if I were to power up that much, I might really kill Piccolo-san by accident… D-Do I really have to do it?! Kill… A friend of the soul… By my very hand?!"
"An opening I spot!" yelled Piccolo as he jumped into Gotenks' range and then greatly enlarged his claw in order to pick at Gotenks' heart, at which point Gotenks teleported himself and cracked Piccolo's skull and ripped out his brain, which then quickly regenerated the rest of his body, only slightly weakened compared to before.
"Shit… It's all or nothing now, dawdling around in Super Saiyan 2 form will waste the rest of my Fusion time! Now's as good a time as any!"
Gotenks concentrated his energy into his heart and then pumped it into his fists, legs, and every fiber of his musculature as huge bolts of lighting shot sporadically in every direction. In a blinding flash that shook entire galaxies, Gotenks entered his full power, Super Saiyan 3. He then yelled, "I'll show you my resolve, yet! Baby, Piccolo-san falls here and you're next!"
Piccolo, sensing Gotenks' killing intent, enlarged himself massively while putting his Ki on overdrive, causing an electric aura similar to the one donned by Majin Vegeta in preparation for his self-destruction to encircle his body. Instead of losing his cool, however, Gotenks simply teleported himself behind Piccolo and then punched a hole through his back, inserting a Kamikaze Ghost in the hole he opened and blowing Piccolo to pieces. Baby, slightly surprised by the drastic measures Gotenks was willing to take, then said, "Well done. I commend you… However, did you really think that I did not plan a contingency measure for you losing the will to spare the Namekian?! His regeneration powers have improved as much as his power, a mere fraction of his brain is all it takes for him to reform!"
"But it will exhaust most of his Ki supply to do it, am I wrong?"
"Fool! It will still take you the rest of the time you can stay transformed in that ridiculous, browless state to finish him off! And what then?! If the likes of Piccolo bring you this much trouble, how will you face the Mightiest King?! Bwahahahaha! I had such grand plans to torment you with your sister and mother's demoralizing fate, yet you – "
"You talk too much, Baby. Look what's behind Piccolo-san," said Gotenks as suddenly, a frenzied Pan who regained consciousness went and wrapped herself around Piccolo's neck with extreme viciousness and snapped it, crying heavy tears from her eyes and muttering, "P-Papa said that Cell did this to him years before I was born, so he should be able to survive this… But between this and that regeneration abuse, he's… He's out of the game. I-I had to do this. I couldn't let Gotenks-san waste any more Fusion time."
As Pan said this, she fell out of Super Saiyan form and threw up before losing consciousness, clearly not having been prepared to fatally injure her beloved mentor. Gotenks reverted to Super Saiyan 2 form and then severed Piccolo's limbs and paralyzed him with the electricity jutting out of his aura to ensure that there wouldn't be any more surprises. Biting his lip so hard that he bled, Gotenks then said, "This is going to be how you'll look in the next five minutes, Baby… Even if I have to surpass my own limits and outlast my 5-minute Super Saiyan 3 time in this fused state, I WILL put a stop to your bullshit, once and for all!"
"Big words for such small vermin. Very well, having defeated Piccolo, and in a manner I honestly did not expect, you've earned the right to challenge me. The Mightiest King must teach you the folly of your mortal efforts, the Prince of Saiyans is nothing to a true God!"
"You're talkin' to the Death God of Justice, Gotenks-sama, right here! It ends now! Everything, the struggle between the Saiyan royal army and the Tsufurians, your warped and twisted goals of altering everyone to fit your megalomaniacal designs, everything! By these hands, YOU WILL FALL! BABY, YOU'RE GONNA BE THE KING OF BEGGIN' FOR YOUR PATHETIC LITTLE LIFE!"
Gotenks powered up to Super Saiyan 3 with a far greater strength of will than what he'd presented when fighting Piccolo, and then fired off a Kamehameha that completely eradicated Baby's throne. Baby, having quickly moved inches away from the blast, then said, "You've made me budge from my throne. An easy victory it will be nevertheless, but try not to disappoint me too much… I want to savor this."
"You shut right the fuck up!" yelled Gotenks as he formed a massive Ki sphere upon raising his hands to the air, and then teleported above Baby and rammed it into his ungodly foe at point-blank range. Galaxies were lit in a massive, blinding flash of light followed by an astronomically large gust of wind, the first of many calamities that this final battle would bring…
To be continued…