Co-written by SuperSaiyan2Link.
Goku, having left the hospital and flying his way towards Capsule Corp, seeing Dr. Brief with his wife Panchy and the spaceship he had created for Goku...
...as well as a strange visitor in Saiyan armor whose hair was not unlike Goku's from the back.
"Is that you, Goku?" inquired Dr. Brief. "You look... different from before. Did you get a tan?"
"That's an interesting costume you're wearing," added Panchy. "Is that one of those space monocles?"
The two got no answer from the stranger, who only grinned as he knew who was coming.
"Dr. Brief! Panchy!"
They saw Goku landing right nearby.
"That you, Goku?" Dr. Brief asked until he saw that it was unmistakably Goku. "How strange. This man looks just like you."
"Are you okay, Goku?" went Panchy, seeing how serious Goku was acting.
"Get inside! Now!"
After Goku shouted this warning to them, the two did as he said and ran into their home.
"Ah, how noble of you, Kakarot..." began Turles. "...but utterly pointless."
"Another Saiyan?"
"Perhaps I am your brother, Kakarot."
Goku looked over at him in utter disbelief at the notion.
"... I have another one?"
After hearing the shock in Goku's voice, Turles couldn't keep himself from laughing.
"I jest. I am not a son of your father... though we are both low-class Saiyans."
"Is that why you look like me?"
"And you, me."
Turles began to crack his neck as Goku asked "Did you come here to talk... or to fight?"
"To fight, of course. Thought it would be nice to kill some time before killing you."
Goku hopped back as he saw Turles taking on a stance, a massive amount of ki surging around this new Saiyan.
Namek
Six days later...
Burter, Jeice, and Recoome looked over at the defeated Krillin, Gohan, and Vegeta. Goku had not arrived to turn the tide in this critical moment.
Gohan, after watching Vegeta and Krillin be no match for Recoome, was now lying completely helpless as he approached. He couldn't move a muscle or make a single sound as his impending death was a stomp away.
"Sleep tight, little guy."
Recoome lifted his foot into the air, about to finish the son of Goku...
...when time stopped. Frozen completely with a teal hue across everything.
Chronoa was using her power to stop the alteration of history, which thus far was being carried out successfully due to Goku's delay in the past.
"How long can you hold this?" asked Trunks.
"Hours at best."
"But you stopped a change for six days."
"Yes, but that was me simply stopping a change in the moment. This change is occurring from far away and is still in motion. It's effects are already apparent, making the strain far greater."
Even with her estimate of hours, Chronoa was clearly straining even as she spoke.
"If this keeps up, then Goku never arriving will become the new history. Krillin, Gohan, and your father will perish at the Ginyu Force's hands."
Trunks looked over at Pan, who was still in bad shape from her battle earlier, and was now being looked over by the Saiyan medic Beetro, as he realized...
"Neither of us will be born."
Pan looked over as Beetro crouched down by her knee, the bone still sticking out from before.
"Senzu bean won't cut it?"
"It will... but first, I need to put this bone back into place."
Putting on a pair of gloves, he slowly moved his hands toward it.
"Let me know when you're ready."
Pan gulped at how painful this was going to be, then closed her eyes.
"Okay, I'm ready."
Beetro began to slowly press down on the bone as Pan gritted her teeth trying as hard as she could not to make a sound even as small ones escaped her.
In the midst of this, Pan turned over to Trunks and Chronoa.
"That Saiyan... fighting my grandpa... who... who is he?"
Chronoa, while not looking over at Pan, answered:
"Throughout the nearly infinite number of timelines, the smallest of differences may result in someone existing or not existing. In the case of Turles, he was not born in the main timeline, but exists outside of it."
"It would seem Towa found him and recruited him to her cause," Trunks speculated.
"Is he related to my grandpa?" Pan inquired.
"Both Goku's father and Turles were bred from a low class template, so they do share some physical qualities... but no, they are not of the same bloodline."
Finally, Beetro had finished: the bone was back in place below the skin and muscle of her knee.
"Now, Trunks."
He gestured Trunks over, who walked over to Pan, handing her a senzu bean. After crunching it in her mouth...
The wound on her shoulder had healed, as had the burning wounds on her back. Pan sat up, looking over at her knee, then feeling it with her hands.
"Pan, I know you've been through enough today..."
Despite what Trunks was trying to say, Pan interrupted, "I'll go fight Turles".
Back on Earth by Capsule Corp, Goku had been battling Turles for some time and already realizing the difference in power between them.
"He's even stronger than Vegeta... but he's holding back. Why would he do that if he said he wanted to kill me?"
So far, Turles only attacked Goku with minimal power, just enough to keep the Saiyan raised on Earth on his toes.
In mid-fight, a voice came to Turles through an earpiece.
"Turles..." began Towa...
...watching over the events on her screen.
"You're toying with him, Turles."
"The objective is to delay Kakarot, is it not?"
"Delay or kill, Turles. You're not taking this seriously."
"I could tell you what I'm doing is tactical, to wear him down... but in all honesty, I want to enjoy myself before I get my wishes. And since it fits with your objective at hand, I do not see the issue with..."
Towa noticed Turles pausing, then caught a flash at the corner of her screen...
...and Pan, emerging and standing next to Goku.
"The patroller..."
Mira was just as stunned.
"She is back already? And they have found us?"
"Not surprising, what with their medical tech. And I knew it would only be a matter of time until they did."
Mira then caught a sigh escaping her lips.
"What is it?"
"This is why I wanted the Ginyu's to target the three on Namek: to keep her at bay to allow Turles as much time as needed."
He began to realize the initiative he took earlier had put Towa's entire operation into jeopardy.
"I did not see the full picture of what you were doing. If I had, I wouldn't have..."
"Mira, that discussion can wait. Let us focus."
Goku and Turles both stopped what they were doing upon seeing Pan enter, her grandfather particularly stunned at something different about her.
"Whoa. Your power's gone way up since last time. You must've trained a lot since I last saw you."
Pan simply nodded.
"Heh. He's technically right."
As for Turles...
"Ah. More prey!"
He fired a blast at Pan, which she responded to by firing a counter-projectile. The explosion that resulted knocked her and Goku back.
"No, Turles!" shouted Towa over her communications.
"What is the issue?" asked Turles.
Mira saw Towa quite concerned.
"You may kill Goku, but you are not to kill her."
"You did not tell me there would be interference, Towa."
"I didn't say there wouldn't be."
"Well I won't let her just run free. The cost of her transgression is death. "
"Wait."
Mira watched as Towa went from panicking to recomposing herself.
"Put her out of commission, but I want her alive."
"This wasn't part of our agreement."
"It is an alteration I'm making."
"And here's my alteration: I will get this girl to you alive... IF you give me a fourth wish."
Towa groaned, turning around and pacing for a moment.
"It is no issue. I still have three wishes guaranteed for my service. I'll just go ahead and..."
"I'll do it!"
At first shaking in her response, Towa then composed herself once more.
"Spare her life and another wish will be yours."
"Ah. Good. Then I'll have her gift-wrapped for you once I'm done here."
With their conversation over, Towa watched the battle closely, ensuring that Turles kept to his word. But Mira grew concerned over how much leeway he perceived Towa to be giving Pan.
"Do not take this as an objection on my part, but isn't Turles not trying to kill the patroller a threat to your operation?"
Towa tried to rationalize her decision.
"Turles will alter history. Then once the patroller is brought here, she will have no reason to return to the Time Patrol. She will join us."
"And if she still refuses..." began Mira, looking over at a mask, one to cover the forehead and eyes of the wearer with a green gem on its top. "We have other means, do we not?"
Towa saw the mask and immediately covered it with a sheet.
"No, Mira. She will join us of her own free will."
Even as Turles' mind seemed to be elsewhere, neither Pan nor Goku felt he was truly vulnerable to attack in that moment. Goku especially knew his capabilities from all their sparring so far...
...and even then, Turles seeming to disappear in front of him caught him off-guard. Pan was struck with deja-vu of Raditz seeming to do the same at the start of her battle against him, but then she focused, ducking underneath a swing.
Goku watched as Pan seemed to be keeping pace with the Saiyan who had thus far been completely overwhelming him. He then noticed her turning to him as she trapped both of Turles' arms.
"Goku! Get on that ship, now!"
In spite of her advice in regards to keeping to history, Goku not wanting Turles to go on a rampage combined with continuing a battle that was pushing him led him to stay instead.
"...well, it was worth a shot."
Turles managed to fire in Goku's direction, forcing Pan's grandfather to hop backward. After a quick headbutt to daze her, Turles seemed to disappear once again.
Goku hopped upward, finding it hard to see through the dirt and debris launched from the last attack. In what seemed like a flash upon seeing Turles headbutt Pan to break out of her grip, he lost sight of the evil Saiyan...
...then felt something tripping him. Turles caught him by his feet before he could recover in midair, then Pan saw Turles swinging Goku around not unlike her grandfather's dragonthrow technique. After Goku was flung towards a building at high speed, she intercepted and caught her grandfather, preventing the collision.
Unfortunately, by the time she could sense Turles' location, she felt a ki blast striking her back.
"Heh! I counted on that!"
She was rocketed to the ground, letting go of Goku upon impact, who was left to roll across the ground and recover on his own. As she tried getting back up, Turles landed on her back with one of his legs with as much impact as he could muster, then proceeded to put more pressure on it.
"You're going to kill her!" shouted Towa. "You promised she'd be...!"
"You're the one who neglected to give me specific guidelines." Turles answered more calmly by comparison. "Whether unconscious or an inch from death, I'll bring her to you alive as promised."
Even while still conversing mentally with Towa, he nonchalantly stopped and caught a kick towards his head from Goku.
"Now leave me to my work."
As he got ready to swing Goku back down to the ground, a brief stumble: Turles was no longer standing on Pan. Goku managed a punch to Turles' right cheek, his first successful hit against him since they began, and Pan followed up with a sweep kick. As Turles saw himself upside down, Pan had her hand out to his face, charging ki.
The resulting blast sent him back a ways, but Pan saw that his face, while given some bruising, wasn't seriously harmed by it. He floated upward, then began formulating a plan:
"Let's test your two bleeding hearts..."
Turles fired in two opposing directions:
One blast was headed for a building, which Pan and Goku could sense was filled with people. The other, right for the spaceship Goku needed to get to Namek.
In that instant, as Pan headed straight for the spaceship to prevent its destruction, she saw Goku fly right into the path of the other blast.
Both blasts were powerful, more than capable of tearing straight through their intended targets like paper, forcing Pan and Goku to exert more and more power to stop them and keep themselves from being flung back.
But then Goku saw Turles turn and fire with both hands at the Capsule Corp building. He realized he was too far back and at the rate the blasts were going towards Dr. Brief and Panchy's location...
"No!"
Pan saw Bulla's grandparents looking over at all that was transpiring from their doorway. As she was growing up, she remembered Dr. Briefs' hair thinning and Panchy's hair graying. But with Turles' next attack, they wouldn't live to reach that age...
"I'll save them, Bulla!"
She intercepted the blasts intended for the two, the strain on her shield greater than before compared to the singular intended for the ship seconds ago. Pan fell to one knee, that and her standing foot being pushed back, and her jacket's sleeves began to sear. Stopping the blasts was out of the question.
"No...! I won't let them die!"
If she couldn't stop them, she had to redirect them. With an upward swing of her arms and a shout, Pan saw the blasts only strike bits of wall as they were forced into the sky.
Turles came down with a crashing chop, forcing Pan down even as she stopped it with her wrist, then his other hand aimed right for the nearby spectators.
"Like a bug on the kitchen floor..." he thought in amusement.
"That's enough!"
Goku shouted this as he then tackled Turles away to prevent the deaths of Bulma's parents. As Goku hopped backward, Turles could tell that the Saiyan raised on Earth was furious at him for the deed he had attempted twice.
"Unless we take this elsewhere, I'm done fighting you!"
He had tolerated Turles sticking to fisticuffs and basic blasts, but now that he was trying to wipe out others around him including the parents of his oldest friend, he refused to allow Turles to carry on in this fashion in the city.
"This will work to our advantage," Turles thought. "More time to kill."
He broke off his fighting stance and crossed his arms, nodding.
"Very well, Kakarot. I will oblige. If only so we can both go all-out."
Pan already knew Goku had been delayed enough just from fighting Turles prior to her arrival, but now...
"No, Goku! You can't...!"
Seeing the two flying away side-by-side into the distance, Pan could tell her grandfather had already made up his mind.
"If you keep wasting time like this... my dad... your son... will die."
Trunks, overlooking what was transpiring, was just as frustrated at the development.
"Damn it, Goku! You're playing right into Towa's hand!"
His first thought to himself was to join in and stop Turles himself, but he already knew that would be exactly what Towa would want. Instead, he communicated with Pan directly.
"Whatever you have to do, protect Goku and defeat Turles as quickly as possible. The sooner he's stopped, the sooner Goku can save your father."
"Okay, but neither one's making it easy."
After hearing Pan's reply, Turles turned to Chronoa, seeing her visibly sweating from stopping the impending change on Namek.
"You can't keep this up forever and Goku's getting further delayed. Is there anything else we can do?"
Chronoa collected her thoughts, but then she had the spark of something, a light bulb over her head.
"I might have an idea. Trunks, take the scroll."
He didn't understand at first.
"But if Goku sees me before we first meet..."
"Goku won't see you because you're not going to meet up with him. You're going to Capsule Corp."
Goku and Turles touched down at the closest uninhabited desert region with Pan right behind them.
"There. Is the location of your grave to your liking, Kakarot?"
Goku didn't say a single word in response to Turles' taunt and neither did Pan. Turles received word from Towa.
"Now will you stop playing around with Goku?"
"My, aren't we demanding? If you really must insist upon it, I will kill Kakarot the moment I lay hands on him again."
As Goku saw the slightest movement of Turles' feet, he lost sight of him again, then saw Pan stepping in front of him...
...stopping Turles from striking Goku's face with his palm by catching it, then booting him back.
Having just arrived at Capsule Corp, Trunks hid from the view of Dr. Briefs and Panchy, who stood outside overlooking all the damage outside their property.
"Okay, now what?"
"Tinker with the ship's engine to increase its speed."
"Oh, I got it. So regardless of Goku's delay, he'll still touch down on Namek right on time."
"Yes... but it's critical that what you do be as slight as needed. Too fast and he'll arrive a day early, but too slow and he'll be too late."
As Trunks began opening a panel and taking a nearby wrench to begin his work, the severity of the task hit him.
"No pressure, then."
Goku tried participating in the fight time and time again, but found that Turles always vanished on him and Pan kept Turles from attacking him.
"I can barely keep up with either one of them right now."
Finally, he saw Turles clear as day firing a projectile at Pan. Instead of avoiding or blasting it, Pan covered one hand in ki and struck the projectile, tearing through it and flying through it to Turles before it detonated.
"In all that time I spent in the hospital, she's gotten that strong. Amazing."
After feeling a brief gust from behind, Goku turned to see Turles lifting both fists upward, then finding that Pan held them so he couldn't swing downward. Goku struck Turles in the gut, then saw Pan lifting and slamming him behind her.
"She's been at my side since Piccolo at the 23rd tournament, and while she looks about the same, she's grown with each battle."
Turles hopped away, firing a barrage of weaker blasts numerous enough to keep the two at bay while he recovered. He realized a drop of blood escaped one of his nostrils.
"You'd better deliver on that fourth wish, Towa... because I'm starting to get annoyed with her."
"You should've taken this seriously from the start," entered Mira's voice. "She wouldn't even be a factor if you had."
"Insinuate that again and I'll tear you apart with my bare hands when I'm finished up here."
"Well, then by all means, finish up there."
Turles didn't care for Towa's companion openly talking back and down to him. Seeing through the fading dust that Goku was waiting for him, he reached into one of his armor's side pockets.
"I suppose one can never be too careful..."
Goku gasped at the item Turles was holding in his hand:
"What... what is that?!"
The Fruit of the Tree of Might.