Goku and Gohan Return! Meeting of the Mightiest Maidens!
When Suno got up the morning after Cell's announcement, meaning that there were only nine days until the Cell Games, she ate a quick breakfast, showered, dressed, and grabbed fresh gis for Goku and Gohan before immediately flying toward the Lookout. Her yellow summer dress fluttered in the breeze as she sailed up toward the Lookout and, to her surprise, everyone from yesterday was already there. They looked more or less the same as they had the day before, only with a change of clothes. Trunks had abandoned his Saiyan armor for a pair of blue jeans, a pastel green polo shirt, and yellow-and-black sneakers, all of which looked brand new and all of which Suno had the strong suspicion Bulma had bought for him the day before.
"Guessing you guys were feeling a little restless too, huh?" Suno asked dryly. Krillin chuckled and gave a half-shrug.
"Well, y'know," he said, "I think we're all just kinda waiting for Goku to come out and tell us she's stronger than Cell so we can stop freaking out."
"Speak for yourself!" Vegeta shouted from the edge of the Lookout while clearly making a concerted effort to stand as far away from the group as possible. Suno rolled her eyes and sat on the steps of the Lookout's main temple. She'd expected to wait for a few hours and had even brought a deck of cards to pass the time. So she was immensely surprised when, only about an hour or so after she had arrived, she heard the doors to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber open and barely managed to get to her feet and turn around before she was tackled by a pair of golden blurs. Suno let out a whoop of surprise as she was lifted effortlessly into the air by the blurs, which she realized were her wife and son.
"G-guys!" Suno laughed with her face red from embarrassment as everyone looked up at them. "P-put me down! Jeez!" Goku and Gohan floated down with enormous grins on their faces, still hugging Suno between them until she gave them a good-natured shove. "Gah," she muttered as she waved a hand in front of her face, "Not that I'm not happy you guys came out early but you couldn't have taken five minutes to take a shower?" Mother and son stood there with their saiyan armor scratched, scuffed, and full of holes and exchanged somewhat-bashful glances. It was only then that Suno finally noticed their appearances. "Oh my gosh!" Suno exclaimed proudly. "Gohan! You're a Super Saiyan!" Gohan beamed with pride as Suno ran her hands over the stiff spikes of his hair.
"Took you long enough," Vegeta grumbled as the crowd gathered towards them. "I see you're only a Super Saiyan, Kakarot," he remarked smugly. "All that time and you couldn't ascend?" Goku gave Vegeta a curious look.
"What," she asked, "You mean those buff forms?" She made a "psssh" sound and gave a dismissive wave of her hand. "Those are dumb!" Vegeta let out a wordless bark of anger and snarled as his face turned red. "Gohan and I worked on a better way to increase our power by training until it was as easy to be a Super Saiyan as it was our base forms." She gestured to herself and Gohan's spiky hair and the complete lack of strain they were under. "See?" she asked with a grin. "No sweat!"
"I beg to differ," Krillin grumbled as he took a few steps away from Goku and held his nearly-invisible nose, fanning a hand in front of his face. Everyone mirrored his gesture and stepped backwards from the Super Saiyan duo. Goku and Gohan smelled their underarms curiously and gagged. Maybe they should have bathed before they left the chamber…
"So what have we missed?" Gohan asked. "I'm guessing by the way you were all waiting for us so anxiously, someone screwed up." He shot Vegeta a dirty look and the King sneered right back at the halfbreed in contempt.
"Well," Bulma explained, "Apparently Cell's a girl now." That was a surprise in and of itself as Gohan reflected on the bug-creature he had encountered in Parsley City and Goku thought about the weird buff green thing she'd saved Ten and Piccolo from. "Also, she's been time travelling for a while. I guess she's bored with it because now she's gonna go back and start time all over if nobody can stop her. She did a whole big thing on the news yesterday about the 'Cell Games' in nine days and–"
"That sounds like a tournament!" Goku interjected excitedly. Bulma sighed and shook her head. Some things never changed.
"Yes," she replied, "It is a tournament." Goku grinned from ear to ear and let out a squeal of excitement before Piccolo moved toward her.
"Not to spoil your fun," Piccolo asked, "But judging by your confidence, I'm assuming you're strong enough to defeat Cell?" Goku rubbed at her chin thoughtfully and closed her eyes, sensing Cell's ki. If that was Cell's base power in its… in her Perfect Form…
"It's hard to gauge," Goku admitted, "But I think so. I can't really be sure, though." Everyone stared at her with wide eyes and bodies rigid with terror. Everyone except for Vegeta, of course. "What?"
"Goku," Tenshinhan suggested as a bead of nervous sweat rolled down his forehead, "If you're not sure that you're strong enough to defeat Cell, you need to head back into the Time Chamber as soon as possible!"
"I've already decided on the most efficient way to divide our time," Piccolo explained. "I'll go in first. Then tomorrow, Vegeta and Trunks will–"
"Absolutely not," Trunks said bluntly. Piccolo rolled his eyes and let out an irritated breath.
"Fine," he groused. "Vegeta will go in tomorrow. The following day Trunks will go in, then Tenshinhan and Launch after him, followed by Suno and Krillin, and finally you and Gohan can go back into the chamber. That still gives us four days to spare and prepare mentally."
"Nah," Goku told Piccolo while exchanging sly looks with Gohan. "We don't need it!" If at all possible, everyone's eyes grew even wider and their bodies more tense with fear. "Look, guys, there is such a thing as overtraining. There's a limit to how strong we can get inside the Hyperbolic Time Chamber and the conditions in there are so intense that you can't properly rest or breathe. We'd just be torturing ourselves."
"Goku," Suno asked cautiously, "Are you sure about this?" She trusted her wife implicitly but, well, this was the end of the world they were discussing. Potentially the end of literally everything. These were pretty extreme stakes.
"Trust me, Suno," Goku told her with a reassuring smile. "Gohan and I can handle the rest of our training out here." Then she leaned in to whisper in Suno's ear. "Besides, I don't wanna spend another year without you around." Suno blushed and giggled despite herself while Piccolo, the only one who had heard, rolled his eyes.
"Well, well, well," Vegeta said and chuckled smugly as he walked up to Goku and crossed his arms. As one who had literally been neck-deep in corpses at various points in his life, body odor was among the least-unpleasant smells he had experienced. "It seems that the mighty Kakarot's power has a ceiling after all. The ceiling of the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, as it turns out."
"But doesn't the Time Chamber go out infinitely in all directions?" Trunks asked slyly. Vegeta glared murderously at his son before turning his attention back to Goku.
"Unlike you, Kakarot," Vegeta continued, "I do not have a woman's constitution that shrivels at the prospect of a little pain." Bulma was about to remind Vegeta which one of them had given birth. "I shall be more than happy to reenter the Hyperbolic Time Chamber and face this so-called 'torture' that you fear so much."
"Hey," Goku told him encouragingly, "Just 'cause I don't wanna go back in there doesn't mean you guys shouldn't go in there to try and beef up. Feel free to push yourselves!" Vegeta glowered at her in unadulterated loathing.
"I spent enough time around Freeza to know when I am being condescended to," he spat. "What are you implying, exactly, Kakarot? That you are simply that much more powerful than I?"
"Yup!" Goku told him with what could only be described as blunt pleasantness. "By a lot, actually." Vegeta stared at her in shock, his mouth agape and his eyes wide. He was so far past the point of furious that his brain seemed to have short circuited. Then Goku looked at Suno and grinned. "You guys ready to go?"
"Just a sec," Gohan said as he moved away from his moms and walked towards Piccolo. He looked down at the gi Suno had brought him with a slightly guilty and apologetic expression before turning back to Piccolo. "Uh, Mr. Piccolo? You know how how made me that gi that looked like my mom's when we were training for the Saiyans? And then you made the other one that looked like yours when that one got all ripped?"
"Let me guess," Piccolo replied with a slight smile, "You want me to make you another gi like your mom's?"
"Actually," Gohan told him with a smile of his own, "I was… hoping you could make something that looked like mom's and yours." Piccolo gave a start and his cheeks flushed a slightly darker shade of green. "And your old cape?" Gohan added. "Just… maybe with the shoulders a little smaller." Piccolo beamed proudly as he put his hand over Gohan's head. There was a burst of light and Gohan's saiyan armor had vanished, replaced by a purple Turtle-style gi with a blue undershirt, belt, wristbands, and brown boots. A cape with slightly-smaller shoulders completed the ensemble and blew softly in the wind as Gohan looked down at his outfit and beamed.
"Oh, hey," Launch interjected before the Son family could leave. "So the Dragon Balls are gone–"
"Oh, right!" Goku remarked as she looked at Piccolo. "Y'know, I almost didn't notice your new outfit. So you and Kami fused, huh?" Piccolo nodded while fidgeting with the collar of his blue cape. He clearly missed the shoulders.
"Anyway," Launch pressed on, "Dragon Balls. Gone. This is a problem. None of us had been able to get in touch with Kaiou so we were hoping you could talk to him and he could point you to New Namek."
"Oh, sure!" Goku assured the gang. "No problem! I'll go to his planet after I go home and shower and junk. See you guys later!" The Son family gathered together with Gohan and Suno putting their arms around Goku.
"You guys should come by once everyone's had their day," Suno told the others. "We really ought to do like a picnic or something if the world's gonna end." Then they were gone in the blink of an eye.
"Boy!" Vegeta snapped at Trunks as he snapped back to reality. "The Chamber! Now!"
"Go fuck yourself!" Trunks shot back irritably.
"Fine," Vegeta scoffed as he stomped into the Temple. "I don't need your whining distracting me anyway. Or your mutterings about Gohan keeping me up!" He disappeared and there was a "Slam!" a few moments later as he entered the Hyperbolic Time Chamber. Piccolo grumbled and pressed his face into his hand. Honestly, what was the point of setting up a timetable if everyone was going to ignore it?
"Soooo," Bulma said after a slightly-awkward silence as she turned to Trunks and fussed with his messy hair. "Let's go get you that haircut!"
OoOoOoO
"Okay, you two," Suno told the invincible alien warriors of legend firmly as they entered the house. "Shower, now!" She shoved Gohan into the bathroom first and washed his new, already-sweaty gi while he cleaned himself up. She wasn't really sure what to do with the cape so she let it air out on the clothesline. Gohan was out in about fifteen minutes while Goku, who went in right after him, took considerably longer.
He also couldn't find his mother anywhere during that time.
Gohan passed the time waiting for his mom to come out by reading his comics. He'd planned to catch up on his homework but then he remembered that it had only been a day. This, he realized, was going to take some getting used to.
"So!" Goku exclaimed as she came out of her and Suno's bedroom in her clean gi in the early afternoon. "Change of plans. I'm gonna take you to Kaiou and then he's gonna point you to New Namek. You interacted with the Namekians more than I did so you'll probably have an easier time talking to them and convincing one of them to come live here."
"What are you gonna do?" Gohan asked. Goku rubbed the back of her head and gave a sideways glance.
"Talk to Cell," she told him hurriedly. Gohan blinked at her in confusion. "Just, y'know, get a better idea of who I'm fighting and stuff. If she went through all the trouble of announcing this 'Cell Games' thingy, I don't think she'd wanna jump the gun and fight right away just because I showed up." Gohan supposed that made sense. "Now you've never met Kaiou," Goku reminded Gohan, "So you're gonna have to hold onto me while I find his ki." Gohan nodded and held his mom's hand while Goku closed her eyes. "Now where the heck are you…" she muttered.
OoOoOoO
Kaiou looked at his watch, which was still tuned for the time that Chronoa had grabbed him from, and realized that he had better get going. "They were in the middle of something when I left," Kaiou reminded her.
"Oh right," Chronoa murmured offhandedly as she deveined a squid. "The whole Cell thing."
"Right," Kaiou said with a nod. "So right about now, they'll probably need my help on something."
"Yeah, no problem!" Chronoa replied cheerily as she put down her knife. She waved her hands intricately in the air, sparkles drifting from her fingertips as a temporal bubbles surrounded Kaiou. "Oh, by the way," Chronoa said suddenly, "If you could just not tell Goku about how I kinda grabbed her dad from the point of his death and brought him to the future that'd be super. I just don't want her messing up the timestream by leaving her point in the timeline to come try and meet him." She'd grabbed Bardock because he was historically significant, of course. And a capable warrior who could help train the Time Patrollers. Not because she had a crush on him. Nope. Although, if she did, could you really blame her? The guy was a freakin' fox.
"Eh," Kaiou shrugged, "Goku's never really cared about her Saiyan history all that much but sure. I'll keep it under my hat." Chronoa beamed appreciatively and tapped the bubble, causing it to pop and return Kaiou to his normal point in the timeline.
"Chronoa!" bellowed the gruff voice of the aforementioned scar-faced warrior. "Use those Super Balls or whatever the hell they're called to wish me up some better Time Patrollers! These ones stink!"
"H-hey! My Time Patrollers are great!" stammered an offended Trunks who technically didn't exist yet. Although from a nonlinear, nonsubjective viewpoint...
OoOoOoO
"Oh!" Goku declared as she locked onto Kaiou's ki. "There he is!" Goku and Gohan popped out of the Son household and popped onto Kaiou's front lawn an instant later. Gohan and Kaiou gave a simultaneous cry of shock as they met one another for the first time. While Kaiou recovered relatively quickly, Gohan was preoccupied by the strange purple-pink sky, the endless fields of yellow clouds, and the diminutive size of the planet itself. "Hey, Kaiou!" Goku greeted with a cheerful wave while Gohan gaped and gawked.
"H-hi, Goku," Kaiou gasped while clutching at his chest. "So what brings you here? Some kinda crisis, I'm guessing?"
"Yeah," Goku said nonchalantly. "See, Piccolo fused with Kami, which means that the Dragon Balls don't really work anymore. I need to grab a Namekian from New Namek to be Earth's new guardian but nobody really remembers where it is."
"And you need me to help you find it," Kaiou surmised.
"Yeah!" Goku replied with an eager nod. "Well, not me," she quickly clarified, "I gotta… take care of some stuff back on Earth. Gohan can handle it, though, I taught him Instant Transmission!" Then she turned to Gohan and grinned. "You should be able to feel my ki from New Namek," she told him, "So just pop over to–" she paused and thought about that for a second. "No, better idea. You come back here and then Kaiou will point you and the Namekian back to the Lookout. Have fun!" Then she was gone.
"So…" Gohan asked as he looked down at the strange blue catfish-god with tiny sunglasses. "Where do I go?" Kaiou took Gohan by the shoulders and turned him in a direction that Gohan could only guess was West. It was hard to tell exactly as there was no sun. In fact, Gohan had no idea where the light source was for this planet, this whole dimension, and it left the budding scientist in him baffled.
"It's in that direction," Kaiou clarified. "Just focus on a familiar ki. There should be one or two you recognize from your adventure on Old Namek." "Adventure", Gohan thought to himself as he put two fingers to his forehead, was hardly the term he would use to describe the time he'd spent on Namek. "Unending parade of terror" was probably a closer fit. He closed his eyes and expanded his consciousness like his mom had taught him to do. It was surprisingly easy from this vantage point, as if the place where he were standing was disconnected from his entire universe. More scientific questions… Gohan pushed them out of his mind and focused on the ki again. He recognized a few of them from the fleeting time that there were more than a handful of people alive on Namek. One ki in particular, however, jumped out to him clearly. Just like that, Gohan was gone.
OoOoOoO
Dende was having a perfectly average, perfectly ordinary day on New Namek. He had just finished his studies with Elder Moori and was going to play the Earth kicking-ball game with some of his friends and his brother Cargo with the peculiar singular sun shining down on them.
Then a pale-skinned figure with golden growths coming out of his head appeared in front of Dende, dressed in clothes like the Earthly Namekian Piccolo. The sight was so startling to Dende that it knocked him off of his feet and he cried out in shock as he looked up at the stranger.
"Dende!" the stranger exclaimed in a reassuring voice. "Dende, it's okay! It's me, it's Gohan!" Dende looked up at him and, as his shock subsided, he recognized the other boy's features.
"G-Gohan?" Dende stammered out. "Y-you look so different! What happened?" Gohan held out his hand to help Dende to his feet and effortlessly pulled him up.
"Let me explain–" Gohan started to say before he caught himself and shook his head. "No, there's too much. Let me sum it up."
OoOoOoO
Back on Earth, Perfect Cell stood among the burning wreckage of the Royal Army force that had been sent out to attack her and clucked her tongue in disapproval. When she said ten days, she meant ten days. She waved a hand and vaporized the destroyed vehicles and mangled corpses, leaving the area pristine. She had chosen this particular region to host her Cell Games for a specific reason. In an alternate timeline, she had discovered that this particular spot was home to a massive deposit of white marble. Perfect Cell raised her hands and reached out with her mighty psychokinetic powers. She ripped a massive slab of marble effortlessly up from the very earth and held it transfixed in the air with one hand. With her other hand, she expertly carved an intricate latticework of Perfectly square tiles. She scattered them in Perfect alignment with a flick of her wrists, the tiles falling and interlocking with one another. She then added a few layers of trim around the outside of the tiles to make steps and Perfectly shaped four conical spires for decoration, laying each one down on a corner of the ring. Three hundred feet by three hundred Perfect feet. Perfect Cell even blasted one of the absurdly large and mossy boulders that seemed to cover the plains to fill up the hole she'd ripped the marble out of.
"First try," Perfect Cell declared proudly. "Definitely, positively, one hundred percent first try."
OoOoOoO
Son Tenshinhan stopped his globetrotting and stared in confusion at the field stretched out before him. There were more than a dozen mismatched and oddly-shapen configurations of marble tiles. They looked almost like the ring of the Tenkaichi Budoukai only… not good. Although they got progressively less sucky.
He shook his head and adjusted the pack on his back before he resumed his journey. He had to get back to training. There were only two more years until the 22nd Tenkaichi Budoukai and he had a sneaking suspicion that he'd see Kakarot there.
OoOoOoO
"So wait," Suno remarked as she propped herself on her elbows to sit up on the bed, still draped in the blue negligee she'd put on as soon as Goku had gotten out of the shower. "You're actually going to go talk to Cell?" She couldn't hide the disappointment in her voice.
"The last time I saw her, she was a weird monster-thing," Goku reminded Suno. "And not a she. I want to know where I stand and what to expect when I fight her in ten days." She saw Suno pout and put a hand on Suno's knee. "I'll only be a little bit. Ten minutes, tops!" Suno smirked and playfully pulled her knee away from Goku's hand.
"I'll be waiting," she murmured as she stretched her leg out, lifting it and pointing her foot seductively at Goku, running it along her arm. Goku grinned and then she was gone.
OoOoOoO
As she stood in the center of her Perfect ring, Perfect Cell reflected on what she was going to do once she inevitably won. After all, she'd never lost across the dozens of timelines she'd encountered so why should she expect things to change now? First and foremost, Perfect Cell decided, once she'd killed everyone on Earth, she was going to fix the time machine. She'd make it taller so that she could actually fit inside of it without regressing to her larval stage. She was sick of it. Regressing to an "it", losing her identity, the work and the struggle to become Perfect again. Although this time, she'd done in record time, at least. Not even a week, as opposed to her original timeline where it had taken her nearly two decades. Because of 18's influence tipping the scale into her Perfect form's feminine physique, every time she purged the twins' energy from her body, Perfect Cell lost that part of herself. She lost the ability to even recognize her femininity. No more, she decided firmly.
The first time she'd become Perfect, Perfect Cell had nearly gone insane as she attempted to reconcile her directive with her desires. She was supposed to be Earth's champion and protect the people of Earth. However, they were all so… disgustingly imperfect. Violent, hateful, conceited, stupid, and not to mention ugly. They were all misshapen, some too tall, some too fat, their faces all wrong, totally asymmetrical. How was she, the Perfect lifeform, expected to protect something so disgustingly imperfect? So she had crushed the voice of Gero inside her head into dust and resolved that she would still achieve her goal. She would protect the people of Earth. Her people. A better, no, Perfect people. And soon, she would make an entire Perfect uni–
"Hiya there!" Goku declared as she popped right in front of Perfect Cell. Perfect Cell gave a startled cry before she managed to collect herself and resume her normally smug composure.
"Ahhh," she breathed, "Son Goku. All pumped up and ready to fight?"
"Yeah!" Goku replied eagerly before adding, "Just, not today, y'know?"
"Oh, of course," Cell agreed, "Not today."
"I mean, you told everyone ten days."
"I know!"
"And it'd be rude to just punch you in the face before you were ready."
"Thank you! Someone who gets it!"
"Really, I just came here to figure out who I was dealing with," Goku explained. They stood in silence for a moment and eyed one another. Goku looked at Perfect Cell's body, taking every little detail into account. The parts of her face that seemed to come from Vegeta, Freeza, Piccolo, Suno, and even herself. The lay of Perfect Cell's muscles and the set of her exoskeleton. How her chest moved as she breathed, her posture. Every bit of information, no matter how small, told Goku something about how Perfect Cell fought. "So why are you doing this?" she asked suddenly. Judging by Perfect Cell's face, if she had eyebrows to raise, she would have done so. "I mean, you're Perfect or whatever now, right? Why threaten to kill everyone? Why the big tournament? It doesn't have anything to do with the Red Ribbon Army, does it?"
"The Red Ri–" Perfect Cell muttered in confusion before realization hit her and she laughed. "Ha! Oh, man. You know, it's been so long that I actually forgot that Gero even worked for those clowns?" Then she shook her head. "No, this has nothing to do with the Red Ribbon Army. Heck, it doesn't even have to do with killing people. I could've done that a while ago. There's plenty of ways to do that without anyone being able to stop me. Blow up the sun, Death Ball the Earth's core, shove the planet out of its orbit… Oh! One time, I threw the moon at the planet and hit it so Perfectly that the planet cracked in half!" Perfect Cell chuckled at the memory. "No, the real reason I'm doing this… is because I can. I want people to try and challenge me. I want to prove that I, Perfect Cell, am the strongest being and the greatest fighter to ever live."
Goku nodded and rubbed her chin. "Y'know what? I get that." Perfect Cell looked genuinely surprised. "No, really, I do. Wanting to prove I'm the strongest, looking for challenges, constantly testing myself. I do that all the time. I guess it makes sense, with you sharing my DNA and all. It's kinda my thing."
"You do make up thirty percent of my genetic code," Cell pointed out. Goku nodded although she wasn't super sure what that meant. Then she sighed and shook her head.
"It just sucks that you're evil, y'know? I bet you'd make an awesome sparring partner!" Then she gave a shrug and a wave goodbye. "Gotta go. See you in nine days!" She was gone in a blink, startling Perfect Cell again.
Perfect Cell had been examining Goku, too. Every aspect of her, every detail of her face. Not because she was looking for clues to how to defeat her. Just remembering her face. This would be the last time, after all, and they had only interacted a total of five or six times in all of Cell's timeline hopping. It really was a rare treat to murder Son Goku.