Chapter Hundred-forty
The Death God Rises! Don't Miss the Party!
Beerus opened his other eye and yawned loudly, his mouth opening disturbingly wide as he rolled over onto his stomach. First, he arched his back up and then he arched his back down while stretching his arms far out in front of him and raising his butt into the air, his tail swishing from side to side as his ears flickered.
With his morning stretches complete, he rolled out of bed– naturally landing on his feet– and put on his slippers. "Whis!" Beerus shouted while rubbing several decades of sleep from his eyes, "I'm going to take a bath. Then, how about we get some breakfast? You can catch me up on anything important I missed!" He didn't think it was likely, since he hadn't even been asleep for a century. Honestly, what could have even happened in less than fifty years? King Vegeta was probably still alive, right? Maybe he'd pay him a surprise visit and give him a swift kick in the pants.
"An excellent idea, Lord Beerus!" Whis told his master cheerfully from the gardens. He watched Beerus fly up into the sky and toward the sun, humming idly to himself as he returned to his gardening. There was that nice little bistro on Crembrulon-III that his Lord liked so much, as evidenced by the planet's continued existence. Maybe they'd go there for breakfast. They made an excellent espresso that Whis had been craving recently.
'Of course it was an excellent idea,' Beerus thought to himself as he flew toward the planet's sun, 'I thought of it.' Then he plunged himself into the surface of the sun, unfortunately burning his jammies. That was disappointing but they could always harvest some space silk for more. Beerus washed in the heat and fury of the star, scrubbing it over his skin and stretching in the sun, swimming through its plasma. He gargled some of it and spat it out into space, creating new pinpricks of light in the sky that created miniature stars. As he licked and washed himself, Beerus couldn't help but think about the strange tickling of thought in the back of his brain. He'd had a dream just before he'd been woken up, and it was so good… but when he tried to focus on it, it would slip through his paws like sand. It was maddening! He'd yell at Whis about it later. As Beerus flew back to his planet, he wondered if King Vegeta was alive. It had been a while, right? How long were Saiyan lifespans, anyway? But then that brat of his was probably king by now so Beerus could give him the kick in the pants. He'd gone without one for several decades, he had it coming. 'Come to think of that,' Beerus reflected, 'Isn't the son's name Vegeta, too? And the planet!' Complete nonsense, either way. His own father hadn't been named "Beerus", after all. 'My father…' Beerus thought for a moment, his mind falling back across the eons. Then he pushed those thoughts away as he returned to his bedroom and started getting dressed.
Whis appeared once Beerus had finished dressing, humming to himself as he twirled his staff in his hand. "Ah, finished already, Lord Beerus?" he asked. It was a pleasant surprise. Sometimes, Beerus could spend a week in the sun when he awoke from his nap, mostly because he was lazy but partly because it would take him a little bit of time to adjust to the flow of time and reassociate himself.
"Of course I am," Beerus said haughtily as he dusted off the ceremonial collar as it rested over his collarbone. "I'm the Hakaishin. I take my role very seriously!" He was so preoccupied with his posturing that he didn't notice Whis's little chuckle. "So, how about that breakfast?"
With a quick tap of his staff upon the ground, a bright and shimmering bubble surrounded Whis and Beerus and the pair rocketed off into the sky, the stars stretching out and blurring as they surpassed the speed of light in moments.
"Maybe after breakfast, we can go see what Shengda is up to?" Beerus suggested. "It's been a while, hasn't it? He knows how to have fun." There was an awkward silence and Beerus's ear twitched before he turned back to look at Whis. "What? What did I say?"
"Lord Beerus," Whis replied with practiced cheerfulness, his jaw clenching slightly, "Shengda has been dead for several million years."
"What?! Why didn't you tell me?!"
"I did. Several times."
"Well, then you should have written it down!"
"I did. You said 'A God of Destruction has perfect memory, he doesn't need anything written down' and then you hakai'd it."
"Well… it's still your fault!" Beerus exclaimed with a huff, crossing his arms and pouting. "So who's the Daikaoushin now? It's not that lunkhead Nan, is it?"
"No, Lord Beerus," Whis said with a sigh. He'd told his master this several times over the eons as well, "It's Xī, the former Western Kaioushin."
Beerus stopped pouting for a moment to see if he could remember that this 'Xī' ever even existed. He didn't, so he shrugged. "Huh. Alright," he muttered. "We'll introduce ourselves after breakfast." Whis was surprised to see his master actually seemed to be taking some initiative, which was rare, especially after one of his naps. Something put a pep in his step and he certainly wasn't going to question it, in case drawing attention to it would break the spell. He was simply going to let this keep going on for as long as it would make his job easier for a change.
OoOoOoO
It was yet another day of hellish battle on Crembrulon-III between the forces of the Arcosian Empire and the Galactic Patrol. Searing bolts of energy sung through the air, which hung heavy with the stench of ozone. The once-bustling, lively, idyllic city was a worldwide warzone. Once, it had been a haven of art, science, and culture. Now, from space, it appeared to be on fire.
In what had once been a lively downtown square, the struggle seemed to have come to a standstill, two battalions of each side were locked in a deadly struggle, neither giving ground– when their battling was interrupted by a glowing blue bubble appearing in the center of the square. The bubble dissipated and revealed two strange beings, one blue-skinned man with a tall tower of white hair and a purple feline, both wearing strange clothes. The absolute absurdity of the sight brought the battle to a screeching halt.
The feline looked around, one of his ears twitching curiously. "This doesn't look right," he remarked. "Whis, are you sure this is the right planet?"
"Yes, my lord, this is Crembrulon-III," the blue-skinned man assured him. 'Or,' he corrected to himself, 'It was.' With no bistro in sight, he doubted it would remain Crembrulon-III for long.
That certainly seemed to deflate Beerus's mood as his ears visibly drooped. He pointed one of his sharp black claws at one of the Galactic Patrollers. "You there," he said casually, "There was a bistro here. What happened to it?"
"I'm– uh– I'm not really sure," the Patroller, a flame-covered pyronite admitted. "We've been fighting for months. It probably got blasted into rubble." With that, Whis started counting down on the fingers of his free hand, holding it behind his back.
'Ten… nine… eight…'
"I see," Beerus murmured, his eyes narrowing in disapproval. "And does anyone here know how to make a decent deviled egg?" he wondered. He had his doubts but it was impolite not to ask.
An Arcosian Empire soldier stole a sideways look to his commanding officer, who gave him the thumbs-up. "I've got your deviled egg right here!" The longheaded purple alien cried as he hopped to his feet from behind cover. He leveled his cybernetic arm cannon at Beerus and fired, launching an egg-like silvery-blue projectile that caught Beerus right in the mouth. He stared for a moment and blinked before swallowing it, leaving the soldier shocked. "Th-that was a crystallizer detona–" With something that might have been a roar or maybe a burp, Beerus opened his mouth and gouts of blue flame erupted forward. He swung his head around in a wide arch, the blue flames covering everything around him for half a mile in all directions, hitting everyone but Whis. Everything that was touched by the flames was frozen in place and turned into bright, sharp blue crystal as all of its atoms came to a screeching halt. Bemused, Beerus pounded his chest and coughed before wiping his mouth.
"Well, this was a disappointment," he mused. "Ah, well." Then Beerus gathered an infinitesimal droplet's worth of Godly Ki on the tip of one of his claws and dropped it onto the crystalline ground. At the second of impact, the golden-orange ki spread across the planet like wildfire, making the entire planet look like a sun for a few seconds before it erupted, sending ripples of energy that spread across the galaxy, making planets and stars caught in those ripples burst like over ripened fruit.
"So much for that," Whis agreed with a disappointed shrug. He had so been looking forward to having one of those little pastries. "Where did you want to try next, Lord Beerus?" When no reply came, he asked again. "Lord Beerus?" Then a third time, poking the God of Destruction with his wand. "Lord Beerus?"
But Beerus was transfixed and had forgotten Whis was even there. Staring into the golden inferno that had once been the planet they'd just been standing on. His eyes went wide and his pupils dilated and went round as he focused on the blossom of blood-red crimson that had once been the core of Crembrulon-III. He'd never seen such a shade of red before.
Except… no.
He had. Beerus had seen a shade of red like that before. He'd… he'd seen it in a dream. The perfect dream. "Whis!" he cried in a moment of epiphany. "Take us back home right now!"
"What?" Whis asked in a moment of genuine surprise. "But what about breakfast?"
"Breakfast can wait!" Beerus assured him as he grabbed fiercely onto his attendant's arm. "I must speak to the dream fish!"
"You mean the Oracle Fish?" Whis asked, still trying to comprehend the idea of a Beerus who prioritized things other than food.
"Whatever you call it! Less talking, more flying!" With that, a still-befuddled Whis twirled his cane and they were surrounded again in a bright bubble that rocketed off into the stars.
OoOoOoO
Across the infinite expanse of space and outside the bubble of the normal universe, in the peacefully idyllic realm of the Kaioushin, Xibito was broken out of her concentration. She'd been carefully plotting out the next thousand generations of evolution for a race of mouthless, telepathic, blue-furred quadrupeds when something far more urgent ripped through her consciousness. The feeling of dozens of worlds torn asunder and reduced to ash.
"Ohhh, I'd recognize that chill running down my spine anywhere," she muttered to herself. "Pracya!" she cried out, cupping her hands to her mouth. "Pracya!" With the gift of Instantaneous Movement, Pracya was standing in front of her in an instant, wearing a wide-brimmed fishing hat and with a fishing line and lure tied to the big toe of his bare left foot.
"You really know how to ruin a fishing trip," he grumbled as he shot his superior a look. Maybe he should have taken the position of Daikaioushin when she'd offered it to him. "So, what is it? Where's the fire?"
"It's Beerus the Destroyer," she told him, grabbing his shoulders in an iron grip. "He's awake!"
"Oh," Pracya replied nonchalantly, using Instantaneous Movement to remove himself from her grasp. "Is that all?"
"What do you mean, 'is that all'?!" she asked in horror. "We have to do something!"
"Like what?" Pracya asked. "If we confronted him, he could blast us into atoms with a thought! And even if we were strong enough to face him, we can't. It's just the way the universe is built. The way they all are!"
"But there's got to be something we can do!" Xībito insisted. "He's already destroyed a dozen planets!"
"Almost as if he were some sort of destroyer God?" Pracya pointed out, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Xibito shot him an almighty glare and he rolled his eyes. "The multiverse needs the Hakaishin," he tried to assure her. "They're like… gardeners. Pruning worlds that are sick, dying, or empty; stars that are gutting out, so that the universe has room to grow and that new life has a chance to blossom. Whether you like him or not, Beerus is a necessity."
"But Beerus doesn't do that!" Xibito protested. "He can go centuries without destroying a world, and then when he does, half the time it's because they've done something to cause him some personal slight!"
Pracya just shrugged. "Just… keep an eye on him. If he really does something that terrible, we'll beg an audience with Zenou. He's the only one that can really put fear into him."
Xibito just huffed and waved Pracya away. "Go back to your fishing," she grumbled. Pracya did so without protest and she pinched the bridge of her nose. She hated feeling so helplessly powerless again. She had to be able to do something!
OoOoOoO
Beerus looked down into the fishbowl with a look of mild concern. "...Is he dead?" he asked.
"No," Whis assured him, "I think the Oracle Fish is merely asleep, Lord Beerus."
"He can sleep on his own time," said the God who'd been asleep for more than a third of a century as he grabbed the glass bowl, "I want my answers! Hey!" he barked while shaking the bowl violently. "Wake up, you little bastard! Tell me my future before I get really hungry!"
The Oracle Fish, a small blue creature with large, glowing eyes, saluted Beerus with one of its fins. "At your service, your Mercilessness!" Beerus smirked at that.
"I had a dream," he explained, "Of a warrior wreathed in flame! A being who might finally give me the challenge I've been looking for. Interpret it for me! And I haven't had any breakfast yet, so you'd better not screw around with me, got it?"
The Oracle Fish gave another nod, trembling slightly. "Don't worry, O Indomitable One! I never fail!" Then the fish leaped out of its bowl and suckered onto Beerus's forehead, drawing a startled sound from the God of Destruction before his eyes also began to glow with a bright yellow light and his mouth went agape.
"Huh," Whis remarked in amusement, "I forgot that was how he did that." After a few seconds, the Oracle Fish dropped off of Beerus and fell back into its bowl, swimming around for a moment as Beerus rubbed at the angry red circle on his forehead.
"This had better be good," he grumbled while waiting for the fish to surface again, "Or I'm going to Hakai the crap out of this thing."
As if on cue, The Oracle Fish rose once again from the water. "The figure you saw in your dream was the Super Saiyan God," it intoned. "Find the Super Saiyan God and you shall find your greatest rival!" Beerus gave a laugh of triumph and pumped one fist into the air.
"Aha! Excellent!" he declared. "This couldn't be easier! To Planet Vegeta!" Whis hissed awkwardly and Beerus turned to him. "What is it? What's the matter?"
"Lord Beerus," Whis explained delicately, "Planet Vegeta was destroyed nearly forty years ago."
"What?!" Beerus exclaimed in a rage. "Who the hell's destroying planets around here other than me?!"
"That would be Freeza, the younger son of King Cold."
Beerus scoffed and cracked his knuckles. "I think it's time that I finally paid that brat a visit. His daddy was saving him from groveling before me for far too long."
"Oh, I wouldn't bother," Whis interjected. "King Cold is dead and Freeza's in no real position to be worth your time."
"Well, then what am I supposed to do?" Beerus demanded petulantly. "If all the Saiyans are dead, how am I supposed to fight a Super Saiyan God?"
"Now, now, Lord Beerus," Whis chided, "Just because Planet Vegeta is gone doesn't mean all the Saiyans are gone." Beerus shot the angel a look of annoyance that would have caused nearly any other being to turn white with fear but only made Whis chuckle. "There are a handful of Saiyans still living in the universe," he went on, "But I think to start with, you might want to focus on the one who defeated Freeza: a Saiyan woman called Son Goku." He tapped his staff on the ground and the crystal ball on the top glowed brightly. Beerus looked into the ball and saw the image of a humanoid woman with bright glowing golden spiked hair fighting Freeza on a planet that looked like it was on fire.
"Huh," Beerus muttered as he rubbed his muzzle. "So that's what she looks like. So, where do we find this Son Goku?" he asked.
"We should start with the Northern Kaiou," Whis suggested. "He trained her extensively. If she has the potential to be this 'Super Saiyan God', he'd be the one to know." The mention of Kaiou made Beerus rub his paws together in sadistic delight.
"We'll see if he still remembers me and is willing to fall in line or if I'll have to blow his planet up even worse than last time!" He let out a devious cackle as Whis formed a bubble around them and whisked them away.
OoOoOoO
Yamcha hated this. There weren't enough words to describe how much he hated this. He'd rather go back in time and fight Nappa again than do this for five more minutes.
"God, I hate traffic," he grumbled, leaning forward to rest his forehead on the steering wheel of his car.
"I told you we should have left earlier," Chi-Chi reminded him, poking her head out the passenger side window and frowning at the unmoving sea of cars in front of them. "This is what happens when you have your birthday party on a cruise ship when everyone wants to go to the beach."
As Yamcha was leaning into the steering wheel, he was suddenly struck by a thought of panic. "Tell me that we remembered the gift or we might as well just not bother going."
"I've got it!" Asuka assured her father with a smile, holding up the pink-wrapped package. It had been pretty tricky to figure out what to get a woman who almost-literally had everything but Yamcha was pretty sure he'd figured it out.
"Are you sure this is something Aunt Bulma will like?" Shouronpo asked while Yamcha and Chi-Chi sighed in relief.
"It's an old joke," Yamcha told her as he looked back over the seat at them. "But one I think she'll appreciate. Assuming we get there before her next birthday," he grumbled under his breath when he looked at the traffic again.
"...Hey," Asuka said after a moment, "Why don't we just fly?" The family stared at one another for a moment, as if they'd forgotten that flying was just a thing that they could do. Then they quickly piled out of the car as the other cars around them honked their horns indignantly, Yamcha pushed the capsule button to put the car back in its capsule, tucked it into his pocket, and then they flew off toward the coast.
"How–"
OoOoOoO
"Old is Bulma, anyway?" Lazuli asked as she and Krillin flew across the sea with Marron riding piggyback on her father.
"I dunno," Krillin confessed, "She won't say." He had a pretty good guess that she was in her forties. She had to be, right? But whenever he tried to look it up, his internet just shut down as soon as he hit "enter." No matter what browser he used. It was baffling.
"Are the other kids going to be there, daddy?" Marron asked excitedly. "I wanna show Ocha and Shouronpo how strong I am!"
"Now, remember, sweetie," Lazuli told her daughter gently, "Ocha's name is Asuka now and she's a girl."
"Oh," Marron said simply, "Okay."
"Besides," Krillin added, "Do you really want to fight today in that nice dress your mom bought you?" Marron looked down at her mint-green summer dress with cherry blossoms printed on it and let out a slightly defeated whine.
"I promise the other kids will be there," Lazuli assured her daughter, "And there'll be plenty of games for you all to play and have a good time. You can spar with them another day."
Krillin was glad that his daughter was so proud of her skill and strength and he was proud of how well she'd taken to his teachings. He just hoped that she'd never have a reason to use them outside of sparring with her friends or entering the occasional martial arts tournament. He really wanted to believe that they were finally in a new age of peace.
OoOoOoO
"-and with that, this Senatorial meeting of the Galactic Federation is adjourned," the Galactic King declared, lazily banging his gavel with one of those– Bulma hoped they were tentacles.
"God, I thought that was never going to end," Bulma muttered as she poured herself a cup of coffee in the Senate cantina. She put in some sugar and some cream and took a sip with a satisfied sigh. Whatever other problems she might have with this job, it came with a damn good cup of coffee.
"I have to admit, the King could step in a little more often and cut short some of these diatribes," Tarble agreed as he poured his own cup. "Sometimes, I feel like his insufferable lethargy is why this war has dragged on for so long." Bulma looked at her brother-in-law curiously for a moment. When she'd learned he was Vegeta's younger brother, she'd been shocked. Vegeta had never mentioned having a brother, for one thing. For another, he was even shorter than Vegeta was. He was probably, if she had to hazard a guess, about the same size as Krillin. His voice was also quite a bit deeper than she'd expected. As a Saiyan, he was undeniably one of the most powerful beings in the entire Galactic Patrol, if not the most powerful. Even on a rare occasion when he'd step away from the battlefront to fill his senate seat in the Federation, he was always dressed in his patrolman's uniform, the pale purple half-cape over his left shoulder a symbol of his rank.
"You know," Bulma offered as she had many times in the past, "You could always ask for Goku, Vegeta, or Gohan to step in and help. They'd probably end this whole mess in, what, five minutes?"
And, as he had done many times in the past, Tarble shook his head. "I keep telling you, Bulma, that's not necessary. The balance of power within the Federation is delicate enough as it is with the power of Earth's fighters being unspoken knowledge. If they were to actually step in and act, with the rest of the Federation indebted to Earth, it could risk causing a panic. It's a mess we don't want to deal with and that we don't need to. As long as we can strategically evacuate planets that we know Cooler might target and keep the fighting contained, there's no need for it. Cooler's health is failing," he assured her with a smirk, "And we've got him on the ropes."
"Well, if you're that confident," Bulma replied with a smirk of her own, "Why don't you and your wife take a little time and come to my birthday party back on Earth?"
"Will Vegeta be there?"
"I mean, he's my husband, so yeah, but—"
"No."
"Oh, come on!" Bulma huffed. "I keep telling you, he's changed. How can you even remember what he was like when you were kids?"
"I'm not a child, Bulma, this isn't some infantile sibling grudge," Tarble told her bluntly. "Even if I don't know Vegeta, I know about him. For years, I heard tales of his rampaging across the galaxy under Freeza's orders. Destroying planets, killing countless innocents. He was everything I hated about my race bottled up into one being. I don't want anything to do with it or with him. Ever."
"He's not like that anymore, Tarble," Bulma assured him. "I swear, he's changed. He's a good man," she tried to insist. Which was a weird thing to say about Vegeta, even she was willing to admit, but it was true. In the last four years alone, Vegeta had changed a lot. "Don't you at least want to meet your nephew?"
Tarble was silent for a moment and rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. "...It's not black tie, is it?" he finally asked.
OoOoOoO
"That's funny," Suno remarked sternly with her arms folded as she walked out into the backyard, finding Goku standing in her new blue-and-white tracksuit and running shoes, "That doesn't look like what you said you were going to wear to the party…" she shot her wife a look as Goku chuckled nervously.
"I mean, the party's not for a while, right?" she pointed out. "I was just gonna… go see Kaiou for a bit. See about getting back to training with him and stuff."
Now, Suno found something about that hard to believe. "Really?" she asked. "What could you possibly learn from him at this point? It's not like he has much to teach you. Would you even feel the change to ten times Earth's gravity now?"
"Not really," Goku admitted with a bit of a shrug. "But there's something different about his planet. I guess 'cause it's… outside the normal universe or however he explained it?" she shrugged again. "When I was training there, it was like there was nothing else. I could totally focus, without any distr–" she sucked in her lips when Suno fixed her with a bit of a glare. Clearly, she didn't like the implication that she and the rest of their family were a distraction. "No, hey, that's not what I meant!" Suno's expression didn't soften yet. "It's just… I can feel the energy of everyone, all the time. Ever since I learned Instant Transmission, I've become more and more aware of the ki of everything on Earth. It buzzes around me and all over me like electricity. It can just… be a little much, you know? Even going to the Lookout doesn't help. I just need somewhere to clear my head for a little while sometimes."
That was enough to earn her Suno's sympathies. As a teacher, she could understand getting overwhelmed from time to time. If Goku wanted to use Kaiou's planet as her personal teacher's lounge, Suno guessed that wasn't so bad. What's more, she was starting to get an idea as to exactly how her wife felt. Goku had idly been teaching her Instant Transmission and that expanded level of consciousness could be disconcerting at times. In Suno's case, it helped that her skill with ki sensing was to the point that she could pretty easily block out all of the noise. It was during this that they discovered that Suno was actually better at ki sensing than Goku was. The alignment of her chakras probably had something to do with that.
Suno's expression softened as she gave Goku a sympathetic smile and cupped her wife's face in her hands. "Alright," she agreed, "But don't be too long, alright? You still need to come back and get ready for the party." She leaned in to give Goku a quick peck on the cheek, her smile growing against her wife's skin before she pulled away. "And don't go starting fights with anyone dead, alright? We don't have time for you to be goofing around. Never mind how mad I'd be at you, imagine what Bulma'd say if her oldest friend was late to her party." Goku gave a smile and a thumbs-up, winked, and disappeared.
Suno sighed and shook her head. "What am I going to do with you?" she asked. Before she could start preparing herself for the party, though, there was another ki she sensed in the house. A ki that, Suno couldn't help but notice, was trying to suppress itself. Unfortunately for Goten, she was simply too powerful to lower her ki enough to be beneath the notice of someone like Suno. That was not an issue for Suno, both because she had much more experience lowering her ki to sneak around and her ki was simply lower to begin with.
The idea of being absurdly weaker than her ten-year-old would have frustrated Suno once upon a time but she'd long since made peace with it. At the moment, she was perfectly happy to take advantage of her "stealth mode" and silently follow her daughter's ki which was coming from, of all places, Goku and Suno's bedroom. Without making a sound, she gently nudged the door open and had to put a hand over her mouth to keep from giving herself away at the sight that greeted her.
Goten at least had the forethought to bring a chair into the room, since flying would have generated too much ki, and she was standing on that chair to look into the bedroom mirror to apply what would normally be an upsettingly expensive amount of makeup… if it wasn't all gifts from Bulma, anyway. Suno was pretty sure Goten was the first person to use most of these things. Or, more accurately, the first to overuse them. She was using such a heavy hand with the lipstick, blush, and eyeshadow that she looked more like she was putting on clown makeup. Despite her best efforts, Suno couldn't hold it in for more than a couple of seconds and let out a burst of laughter that startled Goten right out of the chair, sending her crashing to the ground. Suno fell down on the floor with her, laughing so hard she had to hold her stomach.
"Go… Go… Goten!" she gasped, wheezing out words between laughing fits. "Wh-what in the world are you doing?!"
Even though she was able to fly faster than the speed of light, Goten was still a child, so her first instinct for escaping this situation was to dive under her parents' bed. "Nothing!" she cried in embarrassment. "Stop laughing! Don't look at me!"
After a moment, Suno was able to compose herself and contain her laughter, fanning her face to calm herself down. She hadn't meant to hurt her daughter's feelings, after all. "Goten, come out here," she asked gently as she stood up, taking a pack of makeup wipes from the same dresser drawer where all the makeup had been. "I'm sorry, sweetie. I didn't mean to laugh. Let me help you." With a sniffle and a bit of reluctance, Goten lifted up the bed and walked out from under it. Suno gave her daughter a smile and sat down on the floor to be at height with her and started wiping the makeup off her face. "Now, Goten, honey. What were you doing?"
"I just wanted to look nice for the party," Goten muttered, scuffing one of her feet against the other. "I've never been to a fancy party before and some of the other girls at school told me that's what you're supposed to do if you want to look fancy."
Suno gave her a sympathetic smile, "Why didn't you ask for help, then?"
Goten bristled at that and pouted, turning her head away. "I'm ten, mom, I'm not a baby anymore! Besides, I helped save the world, I can take care of myself."
"First of all," Suno told Goten as she gently turned her daughter's head back to face her, "You'll always be my baby. I'm your mother, that's how it works. Ask Gohan if you don't believe me. Second of all," she continued, "Having power like yours isn't a translatable skill. You could turn Super Saiyan when you were six but who still had to teach you how to tie your shoes?" she asked knowingly.
"...You did," Goten admitted. Suno gave a nod and finished cleaning off Goten's face.
"That's better," she said before taking Goten's hand and walking back over to the mirror. "Now, come on," she told her, sitting in the chair and patting her lap. "Let me help you this time." It was always nice when Suno got to spend a little mother-daughter time with Goten, especially when it had nothing to do with martial arts. Besides, even though Goten hadn't said as much, Suno had a sneaking suspicion that there was more to this than just wanting to "look fancy."
OoOoOoO
Trunks frowned at his reflection, glaring at the ridiculous floral print on his brightly colored shirt and his board shorts. "This is so stupid," he muttered to himself, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
"Oh, I agree," Vegeta said, standing in the doorway. "We look ridiculous." He was wearing an identical outfit to Trunks.
"No, I mean, it looks good on you, dad," Trunks said hurriedly, face turning red with embarrassment both at the worry that he'd offended his father and that he'd been caught. He guessed he must be slacking in his ki sensing training. To his surprise, Vegeta just laughed.
"None of that," Vegeta told him with a dismissive gesture. "At this point in my life, if I can't laugh at myself now and then, I'd go insane." One of the things that he had forced himself to do after the events of Boo was that he would try not to take himself so seriously. After all, that self-serious obsession had nearly doomed all life in the universe. He was making progress. "It's not like I picked out the outfits, blame your mother."
"I can't blame mom, it's her birthday," Trunks pointed out. Vegeta just gave him a grin.
"Exactly," he said dryly. "This beach theme for the party was her idea of 'fun.' Don't ask me why. Gods know, I've been married to that woman for ten years and I still don't understand her sometimes."
"...Wait, I'm eleven–" Trunks started to say before Vegeta hurriedly cut him off.
"The point is that sometimes we do ridiculous things for the ones we love. Our pride, believe it or not, is not the only thing in the universe that matters."
"It's still weird hearing you say stuff like that."
"It's weird for me to be the one saying it." Father and son shared a chuckle and Vegeta tousled Trunks' hair. Trunks frowned again and pushed his hand away, running his own hands through his hair to try and fix it. "But no matter what we wear, a king will always look like a king by how he carries himself," he told Trunks, standing behind him and turning them both to face the mirror. "A king carries himself with confidence." Trunks puffed out his chest and lifted his chin, causing Vegeta to barely hold in another laugh. "Not… not quite," he chuckled. "A king doesn't want others to think he's confident, he stands because he knows he's confident." Trunks looked up at Vegeta in confusion through their reflections in the mirror and Vegeta put one hand on Trunks' back and the other on the top of his head. "Like this," he explained as he straightened his son's shoulders and turned his chin down slightly so it was even with the ground. "You stand as if you are the master of whatever room you're in," Vegeta explained. "A king is never out of place, a king never wonders why he is where he is. When a king stands proudly, it looks as if he was there first, and the entire world formed around him. No matter what you're wearing," he added with a little grin. To demonstrate, Vegeta squared his shoulders, planted his feet, and evened his gaze. The subtlest shifts in his weight commanded attention and respect, creating the perfect image of gallant poise despite his ridiculous appearance.
"Whoooa," Trunks whispered in awe, caught up in the spell of the moment. Trunks looked back at his own reflection and did his best to match his father's posture and expression.
Vegeta gave his son a proud, approving smile. "That's much better," he said. "But don't worry if you can't get it exactly right at the party," he assured him. "I'm sure Goten won't mind too much."
"Thanks, Dad– wuh– hey!" Trunks blurted out, his eyes going wide and his face burning red with indignity. Vegeta threw his head back and laughed even as Trunks wheeled around and punched him in the stomach.
OoOoOoO
Goku let out a relaxed breath as she finished her warm-up stretches, which were the same slow practice katas that Master Roshi had first taught her and Krillin so many years ago. She flexed her toes inside her shoes and let the gentle Otherworldly breeze run through her spikes. "Ahhh. This is much better," she sighed, arching her back. "Thanks for letting me stop by, Kaiou."
"You're welcome to drop by any time," Kaiou said idly from his lawn chair, scrolling through GodTube on his phone. It was nice having an actual, full-sized planet to himself again. He'd requisitioned it from the Daikaiou and apparently these were the kind of kickbacks you got when your disciple was responsible for stopping the destruction of the universe on multiple occasions. A beautiful planet with soft, lush grass and crystalline water, the number one seed in the next Otherworld tournament, and a premium GodTube account with no ads! And those were just the kind of freebies he'd accrued in the first decade. "Though, I have to be honest, I don't really understand what it is you intend to do here," he admitted. On top of that, it wasn't entirely allowed for Goku to be here. Since she was, after all, still alive. Otherworld was normally only reserved for people who were dead. But, again, save the universe, special privileges.
"Like I said, I figure this is a good place to keep up my training," Goku reminded him as she bounded from foot to foot, throwing a few practice kicks in the air. "Like the old times!"
"Goku, in 'the old times,' it only took you a few months to get stronger than me," Kaiou reminded her. "In fact, you're one of the strongest beings in the entire universe, dead or alive. The only person you could feasibly spar with is Pikkon–"
"Oh, yeah, that'd be great!" Goku interjected.
"Which you can do somewhere else!" Kaiou told her sharply. "I've just started to enjoy finally having a planet again, I'd prefer if you didn't blow this one up, too!"
"Aw, come on, that was ten years ago!" Goku pouted.
"Do you have any idea how little time that is for me?" Kaiou asked dryly.
"I wonder how much stronger Pikkon's gotten," Goku muttered to herself, looking down at the grass with her hand on her chin. Then she looked up again. "Oh, hey, what about those guys? How strong are they?"
"What guys?" Kaiou asked as he continued scrolling through his phone.
"Those ones," Goku said, pointing over Kaiou's shoulder. Kaiou turned around and let out a shriek as he jumped out of his chair, eyes bulging so wide they knocked his sunglasses right off his face.
"Hello, Kaiou," Beerus said languidly. "I must say, it's been quite some time." Whis was standing behind his master with an amused expression on his face.
Kaiou lay splayed out in the grass, terrified beyond all reason while Goku looked back and forth between him and the two new arrivals. She wasn't exactly sure what Kaiou was so scared about, since she couldn't sense any ki from them at all. How strong could they be?
Z/N: Surprise! We're back! It's been a very, very long time since we last updated, I know, but we're back in the game! We had always wanted to get back to this story since it meant so much to us but life had its way of interfering and other things kept cropping up that demanded our attention. However, with the untimely passing of Toriyama-sama, we knew that we could put this story off no longer. It is literally impossible for us to state just how much we owe that man. He's the reason we even met, after all, and that's just one very small part of a very large equation. We owe that man a debt that we can never repay but, even though he never knew that we or this story existed, we knew that we had to continue this story, we knew that we had to try and see it through to its conclusion. We knew that we had to do our part in taking care of Son Goku. We already have a few chapters written up and will be posting them on a weekly basis. While we started today in celebration of this story's ninth anniversary, we'll be uploading every Friday at 3 pm Eastern!
SSV/N: That's right, bozos, blow the dust off the TV Tropes page! It's been a long time and a lot has changed for us personally. We've grown, matured, developed more as writers, but one thing that'll never change is our love for Dragon Ball in all its forms. There's a whole lot more story for us to tell, and we're just getting started! We also want to thank everyone who's left a review or a comment during this hiatus, every favorite, follow, and kudos, it's meant so much that there are still people reading and enjoying a story that means so much to us. See y'all next week!
