Chapter Seventy-six
Freeza's Revengeance! Who is this New Hero?
Suno and Gohan were leaving their school after an ordinary day of class had let out and were getting ready to head home. Suno had papers to grade and Gohan had homework to do. After that, they were going to spar for an hour or two before dinner. Those plans were suddenly dashed as they felt an incredibly powerful and nightmarishly familiar ki pressing down on their minds.
"Oh no…" Suno muttered weakly as she and Gohan turned their heads to the sky.
"That's not good," Gohan added. His mother nodded and they quickly changed into their gi before taking off into the sky and toward the direction of the ki.
OoOoOoO
Several miles away, Tenshinhan, Launch, and Chaozu had been enjoying some downtime in their mountain home, playing a video game.
"DIO is so broken!" Launch protested sourly as she furiously worked the controls.
"That's because you're just mashing buttons," Ten retorted calmly as he carefully worked his way through combos and kicked Jolyne in the face. Chaozu was waiting to play next.
The good times came to a stop when they, too, suddenly became aware of the massive power level rushing toward the Earth.
"That's probably Freeza, isn't it?" Tenshinhan surmised. They'd never actually sensed Freeza's ki before but there weren't many other beings that could be so incredibly powerful and malevolent. Or at least, so they hoped.
"Yeah," Chaozu agreed glumly. It looked like it was time for death number three. Meanwhile, Launch had taken advantage of Ten's distraction and won the game.
"Launch!" Ten barked angrily as he turned his focus back on her and glared at her in irritation.
"Aw, c'mon," Launch said with a laugh, "I had to!" Then she sighed and turned off the machine. "C'mon, we better get going." The three went out the door and flew off toward the massive ki. They didn't know what they could do but they weren't just going to hide and let others deal with it.
OoOoOoO
"Did you sense that?" Krillin asked Roshi as he walked out of the Kame House kitchen. He'd been trying one of his licensed protein shakes and had had to wash his mouth out in the sink. He really needed to do that before he agreed to put his face on things.
"Yep," Roshi replied as he idly flipped through a women's Taijutsu magazine. Apparently Ranfan was World's Champion. Good for her.
"The others are probably going to check it out," Krillin remarked after he walked into his room and changed into his gi.
"Yep."
"Guess I'd better join them," Krillin said as he walked out the door and flew off the beach.
"Yep," Roshi muttered several moments after Krillin had left. He kept his keister firmly on the couch. What was he, an idiot?
OoOoOoO
Vegeta was getting out of the shower of his quarters in the Capsule Corp building after a long workout in the gravity chamber when he felt Freeza's unmistakeable power bearing down toward him. He stood in the bathroom, naked and dripping wet, with a steely expression on his face as his fists balled tightly at his sides. This time, he swore to himself, he would win.
"Woman," he called down the hall, "Where is my combat outfit?"
"Still in the pile of dirty clothes you left it in!" Came the reply from Bulma's lab. Vegeta's eyes widened and a vein quivered in his temple.
"You mean you didn't launder them?!" he asked irritably.
"What do I look like," she called back, "Your slave?!"
"YES!"
"FUCK YOU!"
Vegeta sighed and grabbed a drying cloth to dry himself before leaving the bathroom and going into his sleeping chamber to rummage through the closet. It was getting rather sparse so he'd have to just wear whatever the first thing he found was. He pulled out… a pair of yellow pants. He stared at them for a moment and gave serious considerations to burning the entire building to the ground. Then he sighed and pulled them on. Hopefully whatever shirt he grabbed wouldn't clash too garishly.
Bulma, for her part, was testing the first batch of scouters she'd been commissioned to make by the Royal Government. There were many uses for scouters for law enforcement and disaster relief purposes; they could be used to find hostages and criminals or those caught in collapsed buildings, avalanches, and other natural disasters. Between Raditz's scouter and the specs she'd dug out of Krillin, Gohan, and Suno's armors; Bulma was going to make a killing from all of this alien stuff in the last two years.
It kinda made up for all the actual killing that the aforementioned aliens had done.
Bulma pushed that out of her head as she affixed one of the scouters to her right ear and tapped a button to turn it on. It gave her the Battle Powers of all the Capsule Corp employees, which were all in the single digits, and Vegeta's, which was 120,000. She expanded the range and was hit with another rush of single digits, which was all of the people in West City. She also noticed several high Battle Powers, which she figured were her friends, all heading toward one direction. Then, without warning, she got one number in particular that skyrocketed higher and higher. The scouter started to flash red and she quickly threw it across out of her open window where it exploded harmlessly in the courtyard down below
If you ignored the screams of Brett from R&D. Seriously, the guy was cursed. You couldn't throw a paper airplane without it hitting him in the eyes.
The row of scouters behind Bulma started to flash red as well and she immediately capsuled them and flung them out the window as well. The capsule blew up and that hit Brett, too. Bulma sighed and slipped on her jetpack to fly out the window toward the direction the others had been heading in.
"Probably gonna get a call from the King's people for this," Bulma muttered irritably under her breath. What the hell did Giran expect her to do about it?
OoOoOoO
"And then the monkey girl and all her friends defeated the evil demon king with the ultimate techniques: teamwork and friendship!" Yamcha closed the picture book and listened to the applause of entertained infants. It sounded a lot like snoring. As Yamcha tucked his children in for their afternoon nap and kissed Shouronpo and Ocha on their heads in turn, he reflected on how weird it was that he was technically a character in a storybook. Although his character's name was different and was a literal wolf boy, just like how Goku was a monkey, Krillin was a tiger, and Roshi was a turtle.
Then again, the publishing company that made the "Legend of the Monkey Girl" series was owned by Capsule Corp so Yamcha supposed he shouldn't be too surprised.
Yamcha walked out of his children's room and shut the door gently behind him before walking into the living room to find Chi-Chi on the couch going through their mail.
"Anything interesting?" Yamcha asked as he swung his legs over the back of the couch and sat down beside her. She smiled and sifted through a few of the letters.
"There's a thank-you note from that Sultan whose daughter we rescued last month," she began while handing the elegant stationery to Yamcha. To his surprise, the words were written with a literal gold ink. "And there's a letter from Hercule's manager asking us to get in touch with the 'Bald Tiger', since he isn't returning their calls to promote a fight between the two of them." Yamcha chuckled and tucked the letter into his back pocket. He'd show it to Krillin later and they'd laugh. "Then we've got bills and…" Chi-Chi paused, setting the envelopes down and smiling at Yamcha.
"What?" he asked and leaned back slightly as she continued to stare. "Do I have something on my face?" Chi-Chi giggled and shook her head.
"I just… I still can't believe you cut your hair." Yamcha laughed as Chi-Chi ran her fingers through his much, much shorter locks. On her own part, Chi-Chi had changed her hairstyle into a huge mane of curls.
"Hey," he reminded her, "Ocha's a puller. It was either I cut it off or he ripped it off, y'know?" They shared a laugh that was cut short by the sudden surge of ki that raced through their minds like a lightning bolt. They looked at each other forlornly for a moment and Yamcha started to get up off the couch.
"Wait," Chi-Chi pleaded as she reached up and put an hand on his shoulder. Yamcha sighed and reluctantly pulled away.
"I can't," Yamcha told his wife apologetically. "I don't know how much good I'll do but I… I just can't sit here and hide. I couldn't hide from Piccolo or the Saiyans and I won't hide now." Chi-Chi nodded and stood up next to him.
"I know you can't," Chi-Chi said softly as she cupped Yamcha's face in both her hands and looked down into his eyes. "What I meant was 'wait for me'." Yamcha smiled up at her and gently pushed her hands down.
"I couldn't ask you to do that," Yamcha said even as he held her hands in both of his.
"I wasn't there for you last time," she replied sullenly, "But nothing's going to stop me from being there now. So I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. I'm going." Yamcha smiled up at his wife and stood up on his toes to kiss her on the lips.
"Hey Puar," Yamcha called as he made for the door, "Hold down the fort for us, okay? Gonna go battle some aliens!"
"Sure thing!" Puar called back. Then as soon as the door shut, he flew over to the phone and dialed. "Hey Korin, it's Puar. Yeah, the humans left. Wanna come over and play poker?"
OoOoOoO
When Suno and Gohan reached the area that Freeza's ki was coming from they were surprised to find Piccolo was already there, standing on a high plateau that overlooked the ravine that Freeza's ship had landed in.
"Jeez," Suno mused as she and Gohan landed beside the Namekian, "You got here fast."
"Well I already live here," he reminded them casually.
"You can move in with us if you want," Gohan offered as he had several times before."Our couch has a foldout bed." Piccolo rolled his eyes and gave Gohan a good natured smirk.
"I think I'll pass." Bulma landed a few seconds after and was in the middle of a conversation with King Giran by the sound of things.
"-Am aware that a giant spaceship has landed, your majesty. Yes, I'd say the safest thing to do right now is to keep quiet about this, your majesty. My friends can handle it. No, I highly doubt it's Freeza, your majesty." Then she turned off her earpiece and turned to the others. "It's Freeza, isn't it?"
"Yep."
"Uh huh."
"Mmhmm."
"Well good," came the voice of Tenshinhan. "I was beginning to wonder if I'd wasted all that time training with Kaiou." The others looked up to see Ten, Launch, and Chaozu flying down to meet them.
"Besides," Launch added, "I've wanted to see what this Freeza bastard looks like for almost two years now since no one would shut up about him."
"If any human's getting a shot at Freeza," Krillin called from high above, "It'll be me!" He landed in the center of their group dramatically and the sun glinted off his shiny bald head. "I still owe him a receipt from last time." Before Suno could say what they were all thinking, Yamcha and Chi-Chi arrived, still in t-shirts and jeans, and said it for them.
"This is great and all," Yamcha observed casually after he and Chi-Chi touched down, "Real nice that the gang's all here. But do we have any kind of, y'know, plan?"
"Well, I could–" Krillin began to say before the voice they were all dreading butted in.
"Whatever your plan is," Vegeta cut in tersely as he landed behind the group, "It will get you all killed. My plan, conversely, is much better." They all turned slowly to look at Vegeta… and immediately had to call on all of their martial arts skill to restrain their instinctive reaction to laugh their heads off. Except for Bulma, who lacked any such training and did laugh her head off. Vegeta was dressed in a pair of bright yellow pants, a bright pink button-up shirt, and a pair of black dress shoes. Vegeta merely rolled his eyes at their snickering. "If you're quite done," he muttered dryly as he pushed through them to stand at the edge of the plateau and look down at Freeza's ship, "As I was saying–" He was interrupted by everyone bursting out into laughter once they saw the back of his shirt. "WHAT?!" he snapped while keeping his back to them.
"V-Vegeta," Krillin stammered out, "Have you seen what it says on the back of your shirt?"
"Obviously not," Vegeta growled. "What is it?" Bulma had managed to compose herself to snickering and took a picture of the back of Vegeta's shirt with her phone and showed it to him. Across his back, in bright red block letters, it read "BAD MAN". To their surprise, Vegeta chuckled. "Well," he mused, "It's not wrong."
"Okay, 'Bad Man'," Suno breathed out once she'd regained her composure, "What's the master plan?"
"The Namekian, the Brat, and I are the most powerful ones here," Vegeta began, "Obviously Freeza came here looking for Kakarot so he won't expect anyone else. If we all attack at once and use the element of surprise to our advantage, we might be able to seriously injure him." There was a long pause.
"Seriously," Krillin asked drily, "That's your plan? Just everyone charge in at once?"
"Do you have a better one?"
"Yeah. I blind him and cut him in half!"
"Uh, excuse me," Chi-Chi said suddenly, "What about that other large ki? The one that's not as big but is still giving me a headache to try and focus on?" Before anyone could say anything, the ship opened up. Two dozen armed and armored PTO soldiers came marching out of the ship, followed by a heavily-cyborgified Freeza and, as far as Suno, Gohan, Krillin, and Piccolo could tell, a second, purplier Freeza in his second form.
"Huh," Vegeta muttered as he rubbed his chin. "That complicates things."
"Why?" Krillin asked. "Who's the other guy?"
"Freeza's father," Vegeta explained, "King Cold."
"That doesn't sound good," Gohan observed with his mother's dry sarcasm. Bulma, meanwhile, was looking at Freeza through her binoculars.
"Huh," she muttered. "So that's what he looks like? I've got a box full of him at home."
"That's what I said the first time I saw him like that!" Suno replied with amused astonishment. Bulma turned to her in surprise.
"Wait, you have a box?"
"Well, yeah, how else do you buy them?"
"Wait, what're you talking about?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Oh will you both shut up?!" Vegeta snapped. "I need to think!" He tried to blot Bulma out of his mind as she got another call from King Giran.
"He did WHAT? Well, yes, your majesty, I know I said Freeza was dea– yes, I know, but… no I don't know where Goku is, but we can handle–" Before Vegeta could try and formulate a new plan, however, Chaozu pointed down into the ravine.
"Uh, hey," he observed, "Who the heck is that guy?"
OoOoOoO
"Must we really wait for her to show up, my little prince?" King Cold asked wearily as he looked up at the baking yellow sun in the blue sky above. "The air on this planet feels so horribly greasy. Can't we just blow it up and be done?"
"No, father," Freeza objected sternly, his voice reverberating slightly with a mechanized tinge from the cybernetic reconstruction of his throat and lungs. "I told you! I have to have my revenge! I want to see the look on that stupid monkey's face when I kill this planet she loves so dear before I kill her!" Although Freeza himself was already getting bored. Where the hell was she? She seemed to have a scouter buried in her head back on Namek so he knew she could sense his Battle Power! Was she not here? He'd soon find out. Using his superior Arcosian cybernetic enhancements, Freeza assumed control of every satellite and video feed on the planet, broadcasting his face all over the globe. "Attention, feeble cretins! I am Freeza, the Dominator of the Universe! I understand that your hero, Son Goku, calls this planet home! She has one minute to appear and face me or I will destroy this world!" Freeza then ended the transmission. No sooner had he said that, however, than a blue-haired, young, pink-skinned humanoid seemed to appear from nowhere in front of Freeza's soldiers.
"Is this Son Goku?" Cold asked his son. Freeza groaned and rubbed at his temples.
"No, father," Freeza muttered, "This is obviously a male." Then he took another moment to examine this stranger who had appeared from nowhere. He wore a blue half-jacket over a black shirt, black pants, yellow boots, and had a sword strapped to his back. All in all, he looked very strange. "Who are you?" he asked. To his surprise, the young man chuckled.
"My name isn't important," he said as he began to unsheathe his sword. Then, before the blade was entirely out of its scabbard, he put it swiftly back in. Before Freeza could even ask what the hell the point of that had been, every soldier's head rolled off their shoulders, a moment before their bodies crumpled to the ground. That was… impressive speed. "But it's a Super Saiyan you're after, right?" The young man smirked and brought his hands down to his sides. "Well then, you're in luck." Freeza laughed.
"Oh, how droll!" Freeza quipped as he continued to laugh. "I must say, my good man, I don't think I've ever heard that kind of a bluff before! You must have quite the death wish to mock the mighty Freeza!" He continued to laugh but his underlying fear turned it into something of a bray. He… he had to be bluffing! No Saiyan had blue hair! There… there couldn't be two of them! Then there was a flash of light and the young man's smirk turned into a scowl. Bits of gravel floated into the air, followed by his minion's corpses and huge chunks of earth.
He never screamed. He never roared. He just… started to change. His hair flitted upward and flashed golden and his body was cascaded in a yellow flame. His eyes turned steely and teal.
"They… do exist," Cold muttered in numb shock. Freeza began to back away slowly, his body trembling with fear.
"Th-those eyes," he muttered, "He… he has the same… the same eyes!"
OoOoOoO
"Okay," Suno muttered to Gohan as they all watched in stunned amazement, "When your mother gets home, she and I are going to have a serious talk." Vegeta, meanwhile, was somewhere between stunned disbelief and blinding rage. Who the hell was this brat?! Where had he come from? How was he a Super Saiyan?!
OoOoOoO
The Super Saiyan cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders as his smirk returned. "Looks like you've seen a ghost," he called in a mocking challenge. "I guess that makes sense, since you're about to be one." What blood there was in Freeza's veins that hadn't been replaced by coolant boiled and he seethed with rage.
"You will not mock me!" he bellowed as he charged. The Super Saiyan met his charge with a flying kick that sent Freeza crashing through their ship and ripped it in half. King Cold tried to attack while the Super Saiyan's back was turned and swung down with a chop that was sure to crack his skull in half. The Super Saiyan brought his arm up to block and, in a seamless motion, unsheathed his sword and cut off Cold's arm. Then he spun around and kicked the King in the chest to send him flying back. Freeza came roaring out of the wreckage of the ship and ducked the Super Saiyan's sword as he flung it at him, attacking with a barrage of relentless punches and kicks. The Super Saiyan dodged and blocked them all before driving his elbow into Freeza's gut. Freeza coughed and sputtered as the wind was driven out of him before the Super Saiyan jumped up and drove his knee up under Freeza's chin, cracking the cybernetics that held together his jaw. The Super Saiyan was behind Freeza in a flash and kicked him in the back to send him careening into his father, causing them to collide in a tangle of limbs. They hopped to their feet and retaliated with a twin energy blast from their three remaining palms. The Super Saiyan held out his hand and the sword sailed back dutifully into his outstretched fingers like a boomerang. The Super Saiyan swung the sword forward and held it out in front of him, causing the blast to diverge in two directions along the edge of the blade. He charged through the blast, literally cutting right through it, before he emerged between them.
"I-impossible," King Cold protested, aghast with horror. "No metal should be able to withstand our power!" The Super Saiyan smirked as he hung in the air between them.
"You don't know my mother," he retorted. Then he hit father and son with a split kick that sent both sailing in opposite directions. The Super Saiyan followed after Cold and effortlessly avoided his desperate, flailing kicks. He grabbed Cold's cape and wrapped it around his head before effortlessly slicing it off. The cloth muffled the King's sputtering gasps before the Super Saiyan flip-kicked his severed head into the sun.
"Father!" Freeza cried out as he watched his father's corpse slump to the ground. He snarled and fired a barrage of energy blasts at the Super Saiyan but he held his sword out and spun it quickly in his fingers, scattering the blasts in all directions.
OoOoOoO
"Look out!" Krillin cried as the pink ki blasts sailed just overhead. As everyone dove to the ground, Krillin looked down at the battle with growing worry. This new Super Saiyan was on their side, right? ...Right?
OoOoOoO
"Sorry you won't get to see Goku again," the Super Saiyan called over the whine of his spinning blade and the din of reflected blasts, "But I'm just about bored with you!" Then he hurled his sword at Freeza as hard as he could, who deflected it with his metal forearm to send it stabbing into the dirt where it quivered on the spot.
"You dare to trivialize the mighty F–" was as far as Freeza got before the Super Saiyan was on him and slugged him across the jaw with a right hook. He hammered Freeza with a relentless barrage of punches that kept him off-balance and snapped his head this way and that, making his eyes spin around in his head.
OoOoOoO
'Huh,' Piccolo thought curiously as he watched the strange warrior's onslaught, 'That looks like my fighting style.' He didn't know it but Vegeta was thinking the same thing.
OoOoOoO
The Super Saiyan finished his attack with a twisting uppercut that sent Freeza flying high into the sky.
"Now to finish it!" the Super Saiyan called up as he brought his hands in front of him, weaving intricate patterns in the air. Freeza managed to gain control of his ascent and raised one hand overhead with a finger pointed in the air.
"I'll teach you to meddle with me, you filthy monkey!" A massive ball of burning orange ki hovered over his fingertip like a miniature sun. "Now die!" He flung the ball down with every ounce of hate in his being. The Super Saiyan watched the giant ball rushing towards him and brought his hands forward.
"Burning Attack!" he roared. The yellow-orange ki blast shot forth like an arrow and collided with Freeza's attack, puncturing through it and causing it to burst like a balloon. The blast collided with Freeza and sent him hurtling out into space, past his father's severed head, before he crashed into the sun.
'Not… fair! It's… not… Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiii–' and, damning his life's indignities to the last, Freeza was swallowed up by Earth's sun and died. His body was shoved further and further into the heart of the sun until it burnt into cinder and ash.
The Super Saiyan powered down immediately and turned toward the plateau where the others had been perched.
"Hello up there," he called. "I'm Trunks!" Before any of them could say anything, he was standing in front of them. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions–"
"You're damn right I do!" Suno and Vegeta snapped simultaneously. Trunks held his hands up defensively, clearly not having expected such vehemence.
"I'll explain everything," he assured them, "After Goku gets here." Piccolo chuckled bitterly.
"How long do you expect us to wait for answers, then?" Piccolo asked. "Because it's been almost two years and she hasn't come back."
"Oh, that's okay," Trunks replied easily, "She'll be here today!" He paused to look at his watch. "In another… fifteen minutes or so, actually! Right here!"
"What," Launch asked sarcastically, "Are you from the future or something?"
There was a suspiciously long pause.
"Does anyone want something to drink?" Trunks asked as he fished through his pockets. "I know I've got a fridge capsule in here somewhere." They noticed that he hadn't answered the question and ignored it to accept the offer of a free beverage. It certainly didn't help their suspicions that most of the drinks looked unfamiliar and those that did look familiar had different logos. While everyone milled around with the nervous anticipation of the promise that Goku might actually be showing up, Gohan noticed that their mysterious new friend had disappeared. Gohan searched around and found him hiding behind a large boulder with his face buried in one of the sleeves of his jacket.
"Hey," Gohan said softly as he tapped Trunks on the arm, "Are you okay?" Trunks quickly rubbed his eyes in his arm and looked down at Gohan.
"Y-yeah," he breathed out despite the red puffiness around his eyes, "I-I'm fine."
"I'm Gohan, by the way." Gohan said helpfully and held out his hand.
"I know," Trunks sighed and smiled as he shook the younger boy's hand. Gohan gave him a knowing smirk.
"You're from the future, aren't you?" Trunks gawked and Gohan smirked. "My mother's a big fan of that one time-travel show with the guy in the police box. And the movies with the old guy and the kid and the car. So I guess I kinda notice that stuff." Trunks grinned sheepishly and looked down at his boots.
"Guess I didn't really cover my tracks, huh?" Gohan just pointed at his can of HETAP, a drink that did not yet exist. "Heh… yeah. Don't tell anyone yet though, okay?"
"It'll destroy time and space?" Gohan asked.
"Something like that." They walked back out from behind the rock just as Krillin pointed excitedly up at a glint in the sky.
"Guys," he called while practically bouncing up and down with excitement, "Look!" The glint of white grew steadily and steadily larger, turning into a star that streaked across the sky and headed straight for them. Everyone cried out and dove out of the way as the space pod barreled into the ground where they'd been standing only a few moments before. In Trunks' defense, he had said that she'd be landing right there.
Everyone gathered around the crater for a few moments and waited with bated breath as the pod's door slowly opened. A hand came out of the pod and gripped the side of the ship as someone pulled themself out.
Goku emerged from the space pod in a positively ridiculous outfit and grinned from ear to ear as everyone (except Vegeta) cheered.
"Hi, everyone!" she greeted cheerily. "What'd I miss?"
A/N: For those wondering about the blue hair, it's not because of Super. If you can find pictures of Future Trunks from colored by Toriyama, you'll see that he always had blue hair.