#but no like Again when people call yamcha weak it’s Whatever to me at this point

[tenshindon]

what makes me the most mad abt people hating on Yamcha for "being weak" is that none of his friends think that. no one has ever been like "Yamcha youre too weak to fight x" or "you should train more" or anything they have respect for him as a warrior still. in fighterz he puts himself down and without missing a single beat Goku and Krillin tell him thats not true and hes strong and a great fighter....like nothing but respect here anyway sorry this is longer than I intended

Bro no keep talking I agree !! I’ve been into DB and ergo have adored yamcha a good chunk of my life- everyone belittling him is honestly white noise to me at this point. It’s when the show and franchise start to play into that is when my feathers get ruffled; the fact goku never considered yamcha (let alone tien but that’s a post for another day) for the TOP is so disheartening to me to this day like. Really? GOKU? The guy who loves and values his friends above all else? Never considers them for a second? When he’s seen them Up Close And Personal about how capable they are of fighting? And instead his first instinct is to choose to seek out his mentor who retired twenty-seven years ago and a genocidal space q-tip over them?

Like goku has stood up for and praised yamcha for his strength before and just defended him in general ? Why didn’t he ever consider asking him to join ? Not to mention yamcha and chiaotzu’s exclusion from the res f saga; as much as I love tien Apparently making yamcha stay behind for his own safety, looking at it from a meta perspective it’s like... why? Yamcha might not be on krillin or Tien’s level, but he’s still a powerful fighter (definitely stronger than roshi which- Again, another post for another day)- he should have been allowed in the mix alongside chiaotzu (as for in-canon explanations tien the accident wasnt your fault you can let your homies fight PLEASE)

Thats not even to mention that in X2 krillin and yamcha have an interaction where yamcha proposes they spar a bit, to which krillin sincerely asks him to go easy on him. I’m very iffy about game content and it’s portrayals, but at the very least the acknowledgement that yamcha is a strong and worthy-enough opponent still rings true here! Like krillin’s genuinely worried yamcha might be too rough on him like ??????

The most you get from someone saying ‘you should train more’ is from tien in fighterz- but not only does tien say that to all his friends if he defeats them, he says it to yamcha so lightheartedly. As if it’s more so of a friendly invitation than actual advice you know?

TL;DR - yamcha dragon ball- even if he’s not the strongest character- is still a capable fighter in his own right and should be treated as such by canon opposed to as a walking punchline who’s never fought a day in his life

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball 101 :(

This is it!  The finale of the Tien Shinhan Saga and the 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai!  We got a lot to cover, so let’s get moving.

Tien’s final gambit to win the tournament was to destroy the entire ring.   Since he can fly and Goku can’t, Goku will have no choice but to land out of bounds, thus giving Tien the victory.   Unless Goku was destroyed along with the ring, of course.  No one can find the li’l guy.  

Which is why I love Chiaotzu’s ominous “He’s alive...”, accompanied by the bead of sweat on his face.   Sometimes, Goku is like this movie monster in the form of a little kid.  You can run, you can hide, you can beat the crap out of him, you can kill him, but then he keeps coming back for more.

Tien’s mistake was in thinking that Goku would only jump high enough to avoid the destruction of the ring.   It didn’t occur to him that he would jump even higher than Tien was floating.   So he flies up to meet him.

You gotta hand it to the tournament announcer.  He came prepared.   There were a few midair battles in the last tournament, but I don’t think any of them required binoculars.   Even so, he brought a pair with him just in case.

Tien is ecstatic to find Goku survived the destruction of the ring.   This might be the happiest he’s been, probably because he’s starting to think ahead to the day he can Goku can fight again.  

As for this fight, the only thing Goku can do is fall, and as soon as he hits the ground it’s all over.   And yet, Goku insists that he has one more attack to secure a victory.  

Goku starts charging up a Kamehameha, putting everything he has into it.   Tien doesn’t see what good that will do, since it won’t save Goku from getting eliminated from the match.    Master Roshi takes that reasoning one step further.   When Krillin suggests that maybe Goku can make a really BIG Kamehameha, Roshi says that it won’t matter, because Kamehameha waves simply don’t work on Tien, regardless of size or potency. 

I’m not sure I understand that.    The only time Tien took a Kamehameha was when Yamcha tried it on him in the first round, and he deflected it, sure, but that’s no different from anyone else blocking any other energy attack.   If Yamcha had been stronger, or if Tien had been tired, things might have gone differently.    At least, that’s what I always assumed.  

Roshi seems to be suggesting that you could shoot a Kamehameha at Tien while he’s asleep and it still wouldn’t hurt him.   If this is true, then Goku seems to have intuited this as well, since he never actually tried it.   The only Kamehameha he’s deployed in this match was to save himself from a ringout a couple of episodes back.

The reason I bring all of this up is because there’s a power-up item in the Xenoverse games called “Haaaaaaaaah!” that just makes your character immune to any Kamehameha moves from any opponents.   It’s especially handy in this one bullshit stage where you have to fight Goku, Gohan, and Goten, and all they do is spam Kamehamehas over and over.   But it’s a Tien thing, and I never understood why it was a Tien thing until now.    I think whoever came up with the item must have been referencing Roshi’s dialogue here. 

In any event, Goku doesn’t use the Kamehameha to attack Tien directly.   Instead, he points it the other way, which drives him head-first into Tien’s gut, which knocks the wind out of him and sends them both falling to the ground.   

So now it’s just a question of which one of them will hit the ground first.  Tien was exhausted from destroying the ring, and he only had enough power left to stay aloft, so taking that headbutt has left him in the same predicament he planned for Goku.    Once again, the World Tournament Announcer came prepared, and he has a little air-cycle that allows him to follow the boys and track their descent.

For a moment, Goku’s actually at a slight disadvantage, but he fires one last Kamehameha, and it’s incredibly weak because he used up all his power on the last one, but it’s just enough to give him a bit of altitude

But that all gets shot to hell about six feet before they hit the ground.   The boys fall over a road, and a truck just happens to crash into Goku, which changes his trajectory enough to knock him to the ground a split second before Tien.   

So there it is.   Your winner and World Champion of Martial Arts, Number One Under the Heavens, Tien Shinhan.   Give him a minute, folks, he’s still kinda groggy.

Everyone at the arena goes nuts and rushes out into the street to find the fighters.   

Huuuuuuge babyface pop for Tien when they find him.   The spectators congratulate both Tien and Goku for putting on such an awesome match, but Tien has no idea how to process this.   Then he sees Master Roshi nod to him and it starts to come together.

Tien would probably have gotten a very different reaction if he had cheated and killed Goku as Crane Hermit had wanted.   But by repudiating the Crane School and embracing his own fighting spirit, Tien has won over the people.   Instead of fearing him, they respect and admire him, and he’s overwhelmed by it.  

Two huge dudes carry Goku and Tien over to each other, and they do the whole mutual respect thing, and Krillin gets all verklempt.   

So does Puar, but he’ll cry over anything really.

Yamcha starts doing the slow clap, and everyone joins in and applauds.   Man, how much would it suck if you did this in real life and no one joined in?  I saw a TV show where that happened and I thought it was funny, but it also filled me with dread.   I’d never dare do the slow clap in real life.   The risk of it backfiring is too great.

Goku doesn’t even mind losing, even though it was so close.  

Goku’s clothes are all wrecked from the fighting, so Krillin gives him his own Turtle Uniform to wear, just like the last tournament.   Tien shows up and offers to split the prize money with Goku, because as far as he’s concerned, their match was a tie.   But Goku doesn’t know how to spend money, so he declines the offer.   What a guy.

Then Yamcha shows up and congratulates Tien on winning the title.  Tien apologizes for breaking Yamcha’s leg, and Yamcha’s like “No worries, bro.”   Yamcha’s a class act all the way.

Roshi asks Tien and Chiaotzu where they’ll go next, and invites them to stay with him, which leads to this moment:

So yeah, Launch (the blonde one anyway) is in love with Tien.   This is not a filler scene.   She says this in the manga too.  But here’s the funny thing I learned.

I had fallen behind on the manga, but I went back and checked to see how things played out with Bulma and Launch, because in the comics, the tournament was done in a single day, while the anime stretched it out into four.  So in the anime, it made sense for Bulma, Launch, and Puar to eventually go back to the stadium to watch the rest of the matches.    In the manga, there wouldn’t have been time for that.   So whenever they show Goku’s friends in the audience, it’s just Oolong and Turtle, because they were the only ones who didn’t go with Yamcha to the hospital.  

That means all the scenes of Launch watching Tien fight after the Yamcha match were filler scenes.   She was in the hospital the entire time, although we do have these panels from the comics showing them listening to the tournament on the radio.   Launch apparently sneezed at some point, since she was Blue during the Tien/Yamcha match, and Blonde here. 

I guess what I’m driving at is that, if you go by the manga, Blonde Launch never actually witnessed Tien’s character arc.   She only got to hear play-by-play of Tien vs. Goku, and maybe Tien vs. Jackie Chun.    At first I wondered if she admired the way Tien broke Yamcha’s leg, except she was Blue Launch when she saw that fight. 

So I’m not entirely sure what Lanch is referring to when she says she’s fallen in love with him.   We in the audience have seen Tien’s “wildness”, so when I first watched this episode, it didn’t surprise me at all.  But in the original story, Blonde Launch missed most of it.   

You know, maybe I’m looking at this all wrong.    Maybe what really got Launch’s attention was Tien’s contrition in the aftermath of the tournament.   She sees him offer Goku half of the purse, and she sees him apologize to Yamcha, and she sees Roshi invite him into his home, and maybe it reminds her of how she got accepted into this group.    She knows of his savagery, but mostly indirectly, and what she sees in person is the other side of his savagery.   Maybe that’s what she connects to.   I’ll have to think about that some more.

Anyway, Tien says that he and Chiaotzu cannot join the Turtle Hermit, although I don’t understand why not.    They’ve already betrayed the Crane Hermit, and I get why that’s a big deal, but that line has already been crossed.   I guess Tien feels that turning against the Crane Hermit was necessary, but dishonoring him further would not be, so he won’t.  

Tien doesn’t say no to being pen pals with Launch, though (sly goku face).

So with all that out of the way, Roshi suggest they all go to dinner, and Tien offers to pay for it.   The only trouble is that Goku left his Nyoibo and Four Star Dragon Ball back at the arena.   Krillin offers to fetch them for him, since he knows Goku’s exhausted and hungry.

Then there’s this super weird lull where Goku watches Krillin run off, and he calls out to him, and we pause on every character’s face while they wait for Goku to say whatever it is he’s going to say, and then he admits that he forgot, and they all sort of laugh it off.   This whole sequence is still ominous to me, after all these years.

But Krillin is late getting back, and everyone’s tired of waiting for him, so they agree to start without him.   Look at Turtle’s little kiddie table, that’s great.   How’s he gonna use those tiny salt and pepper shakers?    That’s adorable.  

Goku gets this weird feeling, and he bolts out of the restaurant without even touching his plate.    He gets to the arena and finds Krillin and the World Tournament Announcer down on the ground.   The Announcer is dazed, but okay.   Krillin, on the other hand...

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU---

This image of Dead Krillin still haunts me.   I watched Z first, and I’d seen Krillin die on that show.   I even half-expected Krilln to die in this show, because in DBZ Goku said that Krillin couldn’t be wished back since he had died once before.  But I never knew when or how, or why it happened in Dragon Ball.

I’m just imagining what a crappy 4k!ds style dub would be like for this scene.  

GOKU: Kevin!  What happened to you, friend?

KRILLIN: (without moving) Land’s sakes, Goku!   Ah was just mindin’ mah own beeswax, when alla sudden this monster moseys on in and grabbed yer Four Star Dragon Ball!   Ah tried to fight the low down dirty varmint, but he was tougher’n a Mississippi mule!  He even spilled some ketchup on me!

GOKU: It’s okay, Kevin.  The important thing is that you weren’t hurt.

Well, this ain’t no 4!kids production.   Krillin’s dead, and someone’s got to pay...

[dragon-ball-meta]

Ohhh boy... -cracks knuckles- Let’s do this, shall we?

30. HIS DESTRUCTO DISC WAS THE STRONGEST KI ATTACK IN THE SERIES How does that not make sense? You’re starting your list off by not even framing your complaints correctly, as your beef isn’t the attack’s power, but that it’s underused. But even that’s explained. In short, the Kienzan takes up a LOT of energy. To form, to get it spinning fast enough, to throw, takes a bit out of the user. It’s also got several drawbacks, including, but not limited to, being quite loud. People can hear it coming and adjust accordingly. One can make a slightly weaker version they can steer, but that reduces its effectiveness.  Really, the Kienzan is only feasible in certain scenarios, at least until Krillin managed to gain the ability to control it without sacrificing power. 29. HE THOUGHT ANDROID 18 WAS DATING HER TWIN BROTHER Uh... ok? I mean I’m not sure how that ‘makes no sense’ but yeah, he made a mistake. Whoops? 28. HIS BODY MEASUREMENTS Bear in mind a few things here. Namely, that while Toriyama does depict these characters as “muscular”, it’s also lean. So the idea he should be ridiculously jacked is also a bit off. I believe the weight estimate also originally came back when the “Z” arcs started, so there’s that. Otherwise, this is probably one of the only legitimate points on this list. 27. THE REASON WHY HE SHAVES HIS HEAD ...again, how does this make no sense? He shaves his head as a sign of dedication to his practice of the martial arts and because he was taught it aided in the flow of ki in one’s body. That’s explained full well. Just because he ASSUMED Roshi shaved his head doesn’t make this not make sense. 26. HIS ABILITY TO BREAK THE FOURTH WALL It’s a comedy manga at heart. There’s jokes like this throughout. In Goku’s rematch with Yamcha, Goku hits him so hard that he actually breaks one of the borders between the panels and bounces off of it. It’s a thing in the series. Also, Idk why you’re referencing movies when they’re clearly not part of Toriyama’s continuity, but I’m reasonably certain that “lasted a season” was meant in terms of time passed, not “seasons” of a show. Especially as DB never had “seasons”. 25. HE NEVER TRAINED WITH WITH KING KAI Now this is what annoys me about this article. Y’all will take the anime and even movies into account when making this list... and yet with this complaint, you even have a screenshot of where he trained with King Kai in the anime. Yet you say he didn’t do it. Also, “with all the time he spends in the afterlife”? lol really?  24. HIS HEAD DOTS You... you literally explain this in full. How is this something that makes no sense? Literally how? 23. HIS REDUCED FIGHTING PRESENCE IN THE CELL AND BUU SAGAS Again, you explain this in the first paragraph of this entry. Yet you also talk about his activities in both arcs. So... how does this not make sense other than the fact that complaining about it makes no sense? I mean he still has a role, it’s just primarily non-combat. He carried the meat of the story in the Cell arc. 22. HIS BIZARRE CHILDHOOD "A lot of the pasts and families of Dragon Ball’s characters have been shown before (including Frieza's), but Krillin’s remains a mystery.“ Actually, no. They’re not. By and large, we learn very little about the pasts of any of these characters. We have only the vaguest details about anyone not Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, or Bulma, discounting the people we actually see born during the series. Kami’s past, even his name, is a complete mystery. Tien? No one knows his background outside being taken in by the Crane Hermit and training alongside Chiaotzu. This is not uncommon. But we actually do know a bit more about Krillin’s past in that he was raised at Orin, and he was abused. Daily. Frequently. It left him with a complex that lasted well into his adult life. He ran away one day in tears, determined he was gonna prove he wasn’t weak or worthless someday. That’s a good sight more than we’d gotten about most characters til recently. 21. HE NEARLY BECAME AN ANDROID You guys are reaching into arcade path endings from video games. Why am I not surprised? 20. HOW HE DEFEATED GOHAN DURING TOURNAMENT OF POWER PREP This is easily one of the worst offenders on this entire list if only because this is very, very easily explained. Hell, it was the point of them doing it. Gohan was operating with the wrong perspective, that Krillin going one on one vs a powerful opponent would, by necessity, be outclassed and overpowered and thus couldn’t be an asset. He was also under the assumption Krillin had gotten much weaker, unaware he was stronger than ever. Couple these things with both the fact that Gohan himself wasn’t near as strong as he used to be, and Krillin simply out-planning Gohan and beating him by using the rules of the arena against him vs trying to actually overpower him, and Gohan losing there makes perfect sense. Krillin simply overwhelmed all his senses, dropped out of sight and detection, and then simply knocked Gohan off-balance and shoved him out of bounds. Simple. Literally nothing hard to understand about that. 19. HE’S THE FIRST PERSON FROM UNIVERSE 7 TO LOSE IN THE TOURNAMENT OF POWER He’s the first one out because he actually ditched the safety of the group strategy and rushes out to rescue his wife, who was nearly eliminated first herself. He then teamed up with her for a bit and even took out a particularly skilled enemy himself by using his head. Then he was tripped out of bounds because he was distracted by (sadly) rare praise. It happens and it’s not indicative of “strength” or “power” at all. 18. HIS BATTLE STRATEGY AGAINST FRIEZA'S SECOND FORM Lord, here we go. Imma say this again: The Kienzan takes a LOT of energy to form and use. Krillin had just thrown like, twenty of them in a row and then had to run at top speed. The odds of him being able to produce a Kienzan in time are slim to none This is why, upon blinding Freeza, he was yelling for Vegeta (who was still FRESH, mind you) to attack Freeza now. But Vegeta was too paralyzed with shock and fear to act. I’d also like to point out that blinding Freeza wouldn’t have been super effective with an attack that Freeza could easily HEAR coming. He heard it at the last minute even over Gohan’s screams of agony, pretty sure he’d have heard it off to the side where it was just them too. 17. HE LEAVES HIS DAUGHTER IN THE CARE OF KIDS Yes. Apprehensively. At the insistence of his wife, who assured him she’d be ok and could take care of herself. Y’all really tried to use this to imply he’s a bad dad, wow. 16. HIS REGRESSIVE PTSD IN THE FOREST OF TERROR I’m not sure if I’m happy someone finally admitted it’s PTSD (#DragonBallAintDeepBro) or pissed off someone called this “regressive”. Wait no, I know exactly what I am, and frankly... WTF is wrong with you? How on God’s green earth is that Regressive? Are you, by the body of this entry, implying PTSD is a thing that exclusively happens to people who aren’t strong or “strong enough”? Either way, you missed the entire point of the episode, which you simultaneously admit was good character development. A development arc hinted at since the Buu arc really, but really kickstarted back in the BoG arc. The Forest of Terror was never about just strength or ability. Truly, the enemies seen there were only as strong or weak as Krillin empowered them to be by his fear and the ki he poured into them as a result. The point is they were a personification of Krillin’s own fears. His self-doubt and self-loathing. The condition was slowly killing him, his confidence was next to nothing, and it was affecting his life. His job. His family. It’s why 18 gave him the kick in the butt to start training again, to try to regain some of his confidence. It’s why Roshi sent them there; he saw the lack of confidence in the man. He saw his student in anguish, hating himself for not being more than what he was, but also fully believing he never could be. That he just wasn’t good enough. It’s why, even when facing enemies that his rational mind KNEW were weaker than himself, to say nothing of dead, he still panicked. His PTSD was triggered, vivid memories of what they’d done to him, the pain he suffered, came rushing back. And removing it was what finally allowed him to reach into his truest potential, and become even stronger than he’d ever been before. I also love the realistic way the series handled the condition, in that even as he tries to improve himself, he still has moments where it starts to kick in and he has to fight it off, will himself not to lose it. His wife knows it too and takes extra care (for the most part) to not let him slip back into it. But he refuses to allow it to control him anymore. How the hell that’s somehow a negative, let alone something that “doesn’t make sense”, is a mystery to me. 15. HIS "FULL POTENTIAL" THAT THE GRAND ELDER NAMEKIAN GURU UNLOCKED How is this really confusing? It simply allows him to tap into potential, power, that was blocked off. There are many factors that can contribute to it, be it limitations on time, plateaus, mental blocks, etc. The Grand Elder removed those and awaken that potential. It’s why Gohan and Krillin started to make the gains that they did at the rate they did, going from only about as strong as Goku had been on Earth to strong enough to help Vegeta overpower and potentially kill Freeza in his first form. 14. HIS YOUNGER CHARACTER TRAITS Y-you do realize you’re literally complaining about character development... right? Krillin grew up in an abusive environment where he felt he could trust no one, everyone was out for themselves, and that he had to do whatever it took to get ahead and be accepted as one of Roshi’s pupils so he had a chance to be... anybody, really. And yes, over time, between the influences of his friends and general maturing and growing up, he became a very kind, compassionate, and caring individual and a true friend. THAT’S. CHARACTER. DEVELOPMENT. And to present these traits as a “mistake” is to somehow suggest they came later. They were his original traits. 13. HIS BULLET INJURIES DURING HIS POLICE JOB Literally explained in Resurrection F, both the arc and the movie. Emptying one’s body of ki leaves it vulnerable. It should be his instinct to do so right away, but he doesn’t. He’s becoming careless and distracted. It’s part of his PTSD. Hell, Goku’s clearly not getting “that weak” and yet he also  got lightly bruised by a bullet because he didn’t keep his energy up, a sign he was falling out of practice due to his inability to find a training partner, or to leave to a place that would really push him in his training due to work. Also, if one being vulnerable to gunfire means they shouldn’t be a police officer, or any like job where there might be danger... well...  That’s dumb, my friend. 12. HE CAN PERFORM THE SPIRIT BOMB AND KAIO-KEN ATTACK Stop using video games to pad your list! SERIOUSLY! And how does “performing the Spirit Bomb” make no sense? Goku and King Kai both instructed him how to do it, and Krillin’s always been especially gifted at both energy manipulation and learning on the fly. Besides, it’s not as if he knows how to summon said energy himself, just wield and form it. 11. HIS ROMANTIC NATURE NEARLY DESTROYED THE EARTH Hot Take Time: Krillin’s decision not to kill 18 stemmed from general compassion, not just the fact that she kissed him, and his decision would have had NO impact on Cell had Vegeta followed through, done what he was supposed to, and killed Cell. Even if Vegeta, by some bizarre chance, failed? Trunks was there, and just as powerful. There were two people there capable of killing Cell. No, what nearly destroyed the Earth was Vegeta’s VERY conscious decision to actually HELP Cell reach his Perfect Form, something Krillin never imagined Vegeta would be stupid and selfish enough to do. And even then, Krillin told her to get lost and hide, and even offered to help her move 16 so she could. 10. HIS EARLY DISMISSAL IN FORTUNETELLER BABA'S TOURNAMENT ...IT’S A COMEDY AND HE GOT HIS WHOLE HEAD BIT INTO BY A VAMPIRE, WHAT’S HARD TO UNDERSTAND? FFS He’s still weaker than even Yamcha at that point. His quick thinking is also all that saved Yamcha’s ass from getting whupped into submission. 9. HE PASSES AWAY THE MOST... EVEN THOUGH HE’S EARTH’S STRONGEST HUMAN Oh lord here we go... a. He wasn’t at the time of his first death. b. That kinda doesn’t mean much when you have to fight an alien lizard or ancient demon who could dust you with their pinky. This only makes no sense if you utterly ignore any and all context. Vegeta, for example, has actually died just as many times as Krillin now (Freeza, Buu, Freeza again)... and he’s the second strongest in the roster. Goku has also technically “died” just as many times now too (Piccolo, Cell, Hit), as well as Piccolo (Nappa, Buu, Freeza).  Mr. Satan and Bulma have died the least of anyone. Hardly an indicator of power. 8. HE LIVED WITH HIS FAMILY AND MASTER ROSHI IN THE KAME HOUSE It’s housed Roshi, Oolong, Krillin, Goku, Yamcha, Umigame AND Launch in the past. Housing Krillin, 18, a baby/toddler, and Roshi is hardly filled to capacity. That said... they move. They move as soon as they can afford their own home, which is shortly after 18 gets her fall money from Mr. Satan. 7. HIS FUSION WITH PICCOLO I’d just like to state for the record that this is literally complaining about a fun drawing Toriyama did of what Krillin and Piccolo would look like Fused. That is all. 6. HE CAN ABSORB SPIRIT BOMBS AND USE THEIR ENERGY Aaand we’re back to video games. 5. HE’S THE STRONGEST HUMAN ON EARTH Ok now this one? This one is utter BS. Krillin outpacing Tien makes perfect sense since it’s been happening since Tien first appeared. When everyone came back for the 23rd Budokai? The gap between those two shrunk. A lot. Krillin had not only taught HIMSELF how to fly, how to steer energy after firing it, and more, but he’d improved to the point of Piccolo not only using his true power to beat him, but he managed to survive a blow Piccolo assumed HAD to have killed him... and made Piccolo question whether or not he was even strong enough to conquer this world even if he DID beat Goku. When the Saiyans came? Even smaller gap with the exact same time to train. And Tien even had the benefit of having Chiaotzu as a partner, Krillin was off finishing his training solo. And the Grand Elder awakening his dormant potential, as well as the combat experience on Namek, finally sealed the deal. After all, Yamcha was still intently training at that time too, and Krillin surpassed him. Why then is it so hard to believe he could surpass Tien? It also doesn’t help that Tien doesn’t actually train nonstop, despite what anime filler would have you believe. He runs a dojo and a farm to boot. Tien is also demonstrably still weaker than Krillin in Super and lasts longer in the Tournament because he and Roshi are taking cover and surprising targets to knock them out while they’re off-guard. So there’s that. 4. HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE EXCITING FOIL TO BORING GOKU He was created as a rival character to play off Goku and give Goku something to measure himself against. That doesn’t exactly mean he’s meant to be “more exciting”, but to bring an element of entertainment to the series that had been missing, as well as give Goku someone his own age to grow with. Nice dig at the character at the end though. Top notch. 3. HE NAMES HIS DAUGHTER AFTER HIS EX-GIRLFRIEND For the last time: Maron. Is. A. Filler. Character. Toriyama did not create her. Toriyama did not name her. Toriyama named Krillin’s daughter “Marron” because it’s French for “Chestnut”, which is a play on the fact that the first syllable in Krillin’s Japanese name, “Kuri”, also means chestnut. It’s not at ALL indicative of “lingering feelings” for a character that Toriyama didn’t even make, let alone doesn’t appear in his manga or continuity at all. 2. HE NEARLY ALLOWS VEGETA TO GAIN IMMORTALITY Well, it was more or less that or let the kid he’d sworn he’d keep safe die. I don’t really blame him for at least entertaining the idea at that point. An ultimately bad idea? Yeah. But one born of desperation. Hardly the first for characters in this series. And finally... 1. HIS MISSING NOSE ...wow. It’s... it’s a physical deformity. I’m not sure what about that doesn’t make sense? This list was even more of a dumpster fire than usual.

[cerastes]

HEY DRIMO it's been a while since you did a big myth post so how about you tell me a cool story about my boi karna

Oh dear me, Hindu mythos, damn, ok, so, first rule of Hindu mythos is that you all have to wear your seat belts while reading this. If you don’t, you are susceptible to immense physical and spiritual damage, enough that it might kick you right out of the cycle of reincarnation, and then the Mythos Retelling Collective (MRC) will revoke my license due to Irresponsible Sharing of Intense Tales (art. 23847). Are you all strapped in? Y’all got your helmets? Alright alright, let’s get this show on the road.

SO, KARNA. I assume most of you are familiar with Karna having Big Strength and being god damn unkillable. Ok, so, it goes beyond that. It goes at least three Milky Ways in width beyond that. Originally known by his other name, Vasusena (and this dude has like 14 different names), Karna is the main protagonist of the Hindu epic, Mahabharata, and–

Oh, right, before I can tell you anything about the Mahabharata, or about Hindu mythos in general, I need to explain power levels. So you know how in Dragon Ball Z Abridged, Vegeta and Nappa use “Raditz” as a unit of measure for power levels and ki? “My power level is 500 Raditz.” “My power level is 23000 Raditz”, the joke being that Raditz was such a weak grunt that his meager total power can be used as a unit as you would with centimeters? Ok, this is actually canon in Hindu mythos. They have a scale of power levels, referred to as “Levels of Warrior Excellence”. The levels are:

Ardha-rathi: The lowest level, meaning literally “Half of a Rathi”. Read the next section for a more elaborate explanation, but this is Yamcha-tier, basically, the weakest of the badasses.

Rathi: It almost sounds like Raditz, doesn’t it? Well, Rathi is the unit by which all the other levels of Warrior Excellence are measured, as well as a rank by itself. A Rathi is an individual so powerful and skilled, that they can do battle with 1000 regular warriors simultaneously. This is the “Dynasty Warriors Playable Character” tier: Strong, but still susceptible to frames per seconds drops and getting stunlocked by arrows.

Atirathi: HERE is where things get spicy. An Atirathi is a warrior that can fight with six Rathi simultaneously. This is the level of strength possessed by Kevin by the time of Home Alone 2.

Ekarathi: You thought six was impressive? TRY EIGHT RATHI SIMULTANEOUSLY. We are entering Popeye-with-spinach levels of world-ending strength now.

Maharathi: The top level, the cream of the crop, the true definition of “Fuckhouse”. Those who reach this level are immensely powerful, and can do battle with 12 or more Rathi simultaneously. That is 12000 asses worth of whoopings. This is where you favorite Touhou is, obviously, and fuck what everyone else says.

Their measure of unit is basically “How many thousands of dudes can this person fight, or how many people that can fight a thousand people at once can this person fight?”, which, in other words, means that India has not fucked around a single day in it history.

So you might be wondering, “where’s Karna in all of this?”. Well, Chili Con Karna is SO MINDBOGGLINGLY STRONG AND SPICY that he is, literally, a Double Maharathi. Karna is stated to be “in terms of strength and skill, equal to two Maharathi warriors”. These peak jokers made this elaborate power level chart just so they could say “AND KARNA IS DOUBLE AS STRONG AS THE STRONGEST”. He is Two Gokus. Karna could literally look at you, without the laser, and you would just be atomized, restructured, and atomized again in the span of minus three seconds, and you would thank him for it. And damn RIGHT you would thank him for it, because he probably didn’t mean to do that to you. That’s because Karna, despite having more powers than Superman and God combined, is the Ultimate Good Boy. This dude is Puppy Kiss Central, this dude chips in on Pizza Thursday every week, and makes up for those who didn’t chip in. Karna lets you take the last chicken nugget. Karna lets you use Player 1 when you hang out at his place. Karna tells you to text him or call him once you get home after hanging out and he gets worried if you don’t. That dashing guy you saw doing volunteer work at the homeless shelter the other day? Probably Karna. The owner of Old Friends Dog Sanctuary? Definitely Karna.

He’s GOOD.

And that’s why the Mahabharata is so painful: I don’t speak Hindi, but I am pretty sure “mahabharata” translates directly to “Karna Has Bad Day :(”. Today, we’ll be talking about Karna’s Three Curses, with a little bit of his childhood for context on the first one, and because I just want to talk about his dumbass mom. Also that one time he clowned Arjuna and Planet Fucking Earth got mad at him.

SO, there was this lady named Kunti, princess of the Kunti Kingdom (yeah), and this one time she was the host to a sage named Durvasa, who was visiting. She is a most Excellent Host, and provided Durvasa with the best of services, the most delicious food, the most luxurious of drinks, and every volume of Detective Conan, and Durvasa was so stoked at this 10/10 Would Come Again service, that he gave Kunti a special boon: With a mantra he taught her, she now had the amazing power to get knocked up by any deity of her selection. Kunti was really happy with her new pregnancy powers, and couldn’t wait to try them out, so she did to call upon the Sun God Surya, and guess what fucking happened: That’s right, fucking happened. It was a violent and intense cyclone of sex so kinky that the baby was born with armor and earrings (in some versions, Surya “handed” the child to Kunti, but in others, which I opt to believe, Kunti bore his child, and his fat solar load was so powerful that the fetus was armored). And then Kunti was like “oh fuck it worked lol but I am not wed” and since she didn’t want to be an unmarried mother (refer to Hindu tradition for this one), so she did like many other Mothers In Mythology and she put Armor Baby on a basket and set him afloat on the rivER LIKE A REAL KUNT, IT WAS IN HER NAME ALL ALONG, WHY DO YOU ASSHOLES KEEP DOING THIS.

THE REST IS UNDER THE CUT BECAUSE THIS IS TURNING LONG.

Like many other Babies In Mythology, Armor Baby was found by someone, this someone being a charioteer named Adhiratha, but not just ANY charioteer, this was the chief charioteer of King Dhritarashtra, who I hope will forgive me if I wrote his name wrong, and was adopted by the charioteer and his wife, Radha. Armor Baby was given a name, Vasusena, and his pet name was Radheya among the locals. Being born an armored baby, it should come as no surprise Vasusena was interested in the military arts, and so he approached this really cool dude named Dronacharya who taught princes about warfare, BUT Drone told the armor kid to fuck the off because he only taught Kshatriyas (the military social caste in Hindu culture), but he was very impressed by Vasusena’s guts because this shit ass kid more or less just strolled into his house and said “HEY TEACH ME HOW TO BE A BADASS”, so he suggested to his father to change his name to Karna, which means “one who peels his own skin”, as a reference to his guts and totally not any sort of foreshadowing to anything NO SIR WHY WOULD YOU THINK THAT.

So ok he got a cool name and whatever, bUT SEE, he still got told to fuck off, which he DIDN’T LIKE, so Cartman, not one to be daunted, sought out Dron’s own teacher instead, because fuck you, that’s why. So Kane finds him, name of Parashurama, and asks him BUT FIRST he disguises himself as a Brahmin, because Futurama only teaches Brahmins, and Karlos was not gonna make THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE. Panasonic agrees, seeing potential in this Double Goku kid and so begins the training arc. Result: Parashurama proudly announces that Karna is his equal in the art of warfare and archery. All this heaving and hoing gets my man Parmesan tired, though, so Karna, ever the good boy, offers his sensei his lap so he can sleep, sensei says fuck yeah and he uses his lap pillow. While he is sleeping, however, a very angry bee goes and stings the hell out of Karna’s thigh, but he’s got his sensei on his lap, which is like when you have a cat or a puppy on your lap and it falls asleep and you do not DARE move. So he didn’t, and this leads to a very important lesson to be learned in the Mahabharata: NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED. When he woke up, Parashurama saw the wound and the blood that flowed from it (and from this, I take bees in India are Cazadores from Fallout New Vegas) and immediately realized that Kane was NOT a Brahmin. This lie meant he had ILLEGALLY STOLEN INFORMATION, and so he cast a curse on Karna that made him forget everything about how to wield the divine weapon Brahmandra-astra, an immensely powerful divine weapon he learned to use, but Karna pleaded to please be reasonable, at which point Par realized, hey, maybe this is kinda excessive and impulsive, so he reduced the curse to make it so Karna would only forget it when he needed it the most against an equally powerful warrior, which IS NOT ANY FUCKING BETTER, and then he felt EVEN WORSE because Karna had basically been his best student ever and is a Good Person, so he gave him his own divine weapon, the Bhagavastra, as well as his bow, Vijaya. I mean, you could’ve just. Undone the curse. But hey. New weapons!

So Karna, a dedicated and excellent archer, was VERY HYPED to try out this new legendary bow he had come to own! There’s a thing in Hindu martial arts called “Shabdavedi Vidhya”, the art of hitting a target by detecting the source of the sound. What Karna didn’t consider is that shooting things by just detecting their sound, you know, means you are not REALLY LOOKING AT WHAT YOU ARE SHOOTING, but hey, like eager-to-try-new-toys mother, like eager-to-try-new-toys son. Three guesses as to what happened. You are RIGHT, HE SHOT A FUCKING COW. And it’s not with a little arrow or a harmless stick, this was with the Vijaya, which means that cow was obliterated off the face of this god damn planet. My dude was practicing “shooting at sounds” with a tactical nuke launcher. What the tits did he expect to happen. SEE, I’m sure you know, but shooting cows in India is not exactly something you just apologize about. But Karna, albeit not the brightest crayon in the box, was still Ultimate Good Boy, so he went to apologize to the owner of the cow, who happened to be an actual Brahmin who had performed the Agnihotra rite daily, which made him extra holy. Brahmin, of course, was pissed, and since apparently people in India just have a full moveset of curses ready to sling at a moment’s noticed, cursed Karna AGAIN, with this curse being “fated to die a helpless and callous death”. Not the best series of days for Karna. He could’ve just walked away, but he’s a Good Boy, so he had to take responsibility. NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.

So I want to call attention to this bitch of a life for a second: Baby is born because some cunt used her super pregnancy powers to see if they worked without considering the consequences of, you know, getting super pregnant, Baby is chucked into a basket and sent to fuck off on the rapids, is picked up, immediately tries to enroll with a fighting master, instead enrolls with a SUPER fighting master that taught the previous fighting master, and gets double cursed for being a good boy and having bad trigger discipline.

Now, let’s skip a couple of chapters, and we arrive at the moment where the Pandava princes, all demi-gods, hosted a “tournament” of sorts to show off their skills to the people and to their guru, Drona. They were all having a good time, being badass and superpowered WHEN SUDDENLY Karna shows up and arrogantly challenges them because he knows he can do better, from what he has seen. One of the princes, Arjuna (kept you waiting, huh?), who was regarded by Drona to be the most powerful and skilled on the Pandava, told him to maybe fuck off, and that they couldn’t compete because they were above him, as his caste was no doubt lower than theirs. A certain pair of ears DID NOT LIKE THIS and jumped to Karna’s defense: Duryodhana is the name of the owner of said ears, and he’s got Authority. How much of it? Well, he just up and named Karna King of Anga then and there, just so he could compete. Holy SHIT. Now, see, Duryo hates the Pandava. Duryo REALLY, REALLY HATES the Pandava, and he was 100% behind supporting this random stranger if it meant he could possibly maybe humiliate these ugly sumbitches. Maybe. Ok, see, here’s where it gets a bit weird, but depending on who tells the tale, Duryo and Karna actually already knew each other and were childhood friends, but most tellings make this their first meeting, and I am absolutely on board with that, because it only goes on to show how much Duryo hated the Pandava, and divine people in general. He just fucking HATED gods, man. Can relate. So Karna goes and UTTERLY OUTDOES AND UPSTAGES the Pandava princes. Outright beats all their highscores and writes “ASS” in the 1st Place billboard on each entry as his name. They are all FURIOUS at him, especially Arjuna, who had aced every single event, and now had to wear a nice 2nd place on all of them because this absolutely nobody (no one knew Karna was the sun’s son yet) showed up and utterly pulverized them. This also starts his relationship with Duryo, with whom he’d become fast, and eventually, best friends.

BUT, SEE, HE KINDA GOT MADE A KING, SO HEY, HE HAD TO GO, UH, TEND TO THAT. He was checking his brand new sudden kingdom, when he came across a WEEPING CHILD. If there is one thing Ultimate Good Boy can’t stand, that’s the tears of children, so he approached the girl and asked what’s wrong. See, the girl had accidentally dropped her ghee (kinda like butter but less dense) and she was going to get her ass whooped by her step mother. Karna kindly offered to buy her new ghee, but she said it had to be THAT SPECIFIC ghee with the dirt on it, and that she didn’t want any other. Karna, in his infinite kindness, said “oh, sure, lol”, so he grabbed the dirt and squeezed it with all of his extremely godly might, extracting the ghee back into the jar as if squeezing water out of a sponge, because that’s just the kind of solution you come up with when you are the strongest person in Ever.

hey

hey

you guys remember what I said a while ago?

WHY YES

NO GOOD DEED GOES UNPUNISHED.

Guess what happened. Guess whose anger he incurred. He got Bhumi Devi/Mother Earth herself pissed at him. And what was her beef, you ask? Well, see, Karna squeezed that soil SO DAMN HARD that she took offense. Yes. Really. And guess whSHE FUCKING CURSED HIM TOO, OH MY GOD, CEASE THIS, YOU CAN’T JUST HEX A DUDE FOR SQUEEZING DIRTY, COME ON. The curse this time was that she would one day trap his chariot’s wheel during a crucial moment in his life. All because that little girl wouldn’t make do with a new jar of I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.

WORST. WORLD. EVER.

And guess how Karna dies.

Yes.

His chariot’s wheel gets trapped on the earth (third curse) during a crucial confrontation with Arjuna, he attempts to defend himself with his astral weapon, but forgets how to conjure it (first curse), and is decapitated by a shot of Arjuna’s Gandiva as he helplessly leans against the chariot’s wheel, unable to free it (second curse).

The moral of the story is don’t fucking help anyone, ever, and don’t own up to your mistakes, because if you do, you’ll be triple cursed.

                                                                                       Karna deserved better.

[petite-neko]

Nexus of Time - 04

Fanfiction: Nexus of Time Story Summary: Gohan trapped with in the depths of time! Now, Trunks needs to save Gohan and allow him his three years of training… for yet unknown to both of them, Gohan is the future saviour of Earth! But how can Trunks save somebody whom he doesn’t know needs saving? Fandom: Dragon Ball Z Characters: Gohan, M!Trunks, M!17&18, M!Bulma Pairing: Gohan/M!Trunks, M!Gohan/M!Trunks Rating: T Warnings: Violence, Character Death, Angst, PTSD, Universe Alteration Author’s Notes: Whhhooopps. Here comes more angst.

(I set up a ko-fi account guys! Feel free to donate! Link in blog description!)

(Check source for ao3 link!)

I am sorry to put this here, but due to people who have been stalking and harassing me for a certain type of content:

THIS WORK WILL NOT CONTAIN SHOTA.

NO, I AM NOT GOING TO WRITE YOU A SELF-INSERT FANFICTION.

Leave me alone, you are not welcome here.

Chapter 3 || Chapter 4 || Chapter 5

He hurt.

That was the first thing that Gohan had noticed. That he hurt, everywhere. His head and stomach were the worst though…

The next thing he noticed was that he was wet. Wet and cold.

He pulled himself up – and out of the river. It seemed that he had either subconsciously grasped onto land, or the river had just drifted him over here.

Luck was, at the very least, on his side.

(Not on his front for sure though… And when he laughed at his dark humour, he only winced further. That wasn’t a smart idea Gohan...)

He took his in his situation: he was soaking wet, cold, hungry and injured. He needed to get food, and then heal up.

He wouldn’t dare to fly in this state.

There was heavy breathing above him, and a drop of large saliva slid down his shoulder. Gohan glanced up to see a very familiar face.

Apparently it recognized him too and panic filled its face. It picked the wrong prey today.

Gohan’s stomach growled and almost comically, the gigantic T-Rex turned tail (well, whatever was left of it anyway) and ran. Gohan let out a short laughter, but halting the once again his stomach muscles protested before he ran after the dinosaur. He hadn’t eaten dinosaur tail in awhile…

.+++.

It took Gohan a few days to recover, but he was glad where he ended up. He knew this land like the back of his hand; it was the place Piccolo took him training after his dad died. And now was he ever glad that Piccolo left him alone for those six months. Today, he should continue on, go to where Trunks was. Yet… Gohan knew that he had to be cautious, for if he was caught by the androids again, he knew that he wouldn’t have a second chance. Seventeen wanted to face him as a Super Saiyajin, and yet, Gohan didn’t know if he could achieve it right now. It took Krillin’s death for his dad to become one, it took the death of everybody he knew for his future self to become one. What did it take for Trunks? Was it his future death? Gohan shuddered at the thought of his fate being absolute. He was going to lose his left arm… he was going to die… all at the hands of these androids. Gohan glanced down at his left limb and let his right arm caress it. What would it be like losing a limb? What would it be like dying? Gohan didn’t want to know, he didn’t want to find out.

Yet, it almost seemed that he would. The world, it felt so empty… before he could sense all of his father’s friends – Krillin, Yamcha, Vegeta… – his father, Piccolo, and now… virtually nothing. Although now, now he knew just what that familiar energy from Capsule Corp was. Trunks…

Gohan sighed as he drew random shapes in the ground beneath him. How could it have come down to this? Just him left, then this Trunks fellow? How could those androids be so powerful? He knew that he should get going, should try to get back to his own time, but he was afraid. What if he ran into the androids again? Gohan needed to get stronger, he knew that, but how? Every time he attempted to become stronger, he sparred with a friend, an ally. How could he do it on his own? His father had done it, he had traveled the lands facing enemies… he used gravity chambers… Yet what could Gohan do? He was out in the middle of nowhere, with nobody around, nobody strong enough that is, and completely clueless.

What would his father do?

He would train as hard as he could, he would reach the androids’ expectations and above, he would challenge them and then go back in time to do it all over again.

But Gohan wasn’t like his father. He didn’t like fighting. But what he liked to do and what he had to do didn’t always coincide with one another, that he did know, and it was proven by his future self. He fought for Earth, tried to protect it as best as he could… even with the distaste for fighting.

And he died doing it.

And Gohan knew that he needed to go home. His mother probably missed him, she probably was worried sick, and without him… Trunks would never even stand a chance against these androids, the one yet to be born. And in order to go home, he had to fly and risk running into the androids… which meant he needed to achieve Super Saiyajin. He could do it, Gohan knew that, yet could he do it, right now, without the others dying?

It required anger… and anger was something that unlocked Gohan’s powers. He knew that. Anger and if something threatened his life. He unlocked it a few days ago, once he was angry at how Seventeen acted. He remembered his words: playing with you is like playing with those humans all those years ago… fun for a few minutes, but quickly boring.

He would use that, he decided. Gohan closed his eyes and entered the meditative state Piccolo taught him. In his mind he imagined the two androids, imagined them with clarity now as opposed to uninformed ponderings. Then he imagined everybody.

The first thing he imagined was the mockery. The pride. The boredom. Taunting them…

He imagined his friends – their expressions of pain. Of hopelessness. As they watched one another fall – die – one by one…

He tried – tried to see it as if he were there, feeling their ki slowly diminish. As if it was him who was watching this doomed fate…

He felt the anger, he felt the dread. It was crawling up on him, coiling within him, filling his being. There was fear – horror – at observing their strength, their brutality, their boredom. He felt helpless, he felt weak. Sadness and sorrow crept up in the background, because he knew that they would never win, that eventually they would die.

And it was unfair! It was not right! It was… it was...

No! His eyes snapped open and he fell towards the ground on his hands and knees, his heart racing, his chest heaving.

It was too much!

.xxx.

Trunks felt that niggling again, he thought he felt that familiar ki twitch, he thought he felt a disturbance, but he had to ignore it. It wasn’t true, it wasn’t real. It was just his emotions getting in the way again. It could have been hunger too, for each time he thought the ki spiked into existence was when he had to eat.

Kami… I’m really out of it! His name can also mean rice, and here I am thinking about him when it’s time to eat! Trunks thought and groaned. Was he really that lovesick?

“Trunks! It’s time to eat!” Bulma yelled out from the kitchen. Trunks groaned. He really needed to stop this.

“Coming Mother.”

“So, Trunks, it seems that the charge is going to take while… it’s only one-sixth full.” Bulma said as she sat down. “Probably another five more months. Why don’t you go out to train? I mean… you’ll be facing the androids in the past…”

“But Mother… I can’t just leave you here!” Trunks said with wide eyes. “What if the androids attack? Who will protect you? What about the time machine?”

“I survived on Namek when Gohan and Krillin left me alone, I’m fairly certain that I, and the time machine, can find a safe enough hiding place until then.” Bulma said with a smile. “Besides, you need to train anyway; you need to keep up your body.”

Just as Trunks began to eat, he felt it. No, not Gohan’s ghostly ki, but others fading. They were close and the warrior’s head snapped up. “Mother, I need to go.” He said and stood up, running to where his sword was.

“Trunks! Wait!” Bulma called after her son before tossing a square box of capsules at him. “A month’s worth of food.”

Trunks gave a soft smile. “You always know what I’ll say, don’t you?” He said before disappearing into his room to grab the weapon and flying off to Parsley City.

.+++.

“Why, look who’s here…” Seventeen said with a smirk as they floated above the wreckage they caused.

“Indeed, maybe this time I can have some fun.” Eighteen responded pompously.

“Tch.” Seventeen spat out. “Just ‘cause I got to play with the brat doesn’t mean you can have the pupil! It was hardly a fight!”

“You know the rules Seventeen! We always take turns. Don’t worry, you’ll get him next round.”

Trunks glared at the two artificial humans who were clearly mocking him. From what he could tell, he was going to be facing Eighteen. Why? He didn’t know, and he really didn’t care. He just wanted to get this over with. And so, without hesitation he powered up completely – not letting an ounce of his power be withheld. Distract them. Save as many lives as he could…

And he charged at her.

“Talk about rude. I thought Gohan had pounded some manners into you.” She said, blocking his attack. “We were in the middle of a conversation you know.”

“Does it look like I give a damn?” Trunks countered and smirked, firing a blast towards her as she held his sword.

“Why do you get the yellow hair!” Seventeen seemed spiteful almost. “Hey! Eighteen! Don’t kill him! Maybe he can teach the brat to do that!”

Eighteen kicked away the ki blast with the tip of her boot before letting it connect to Trunks’ head, sending him flying in recoil. “Are you stupid or something? We killed Gohan for a reason! Or are we going to do away with this one once he lives out his usefulness too?” She said, turning her back to Trunks.

As Trunks collided into the building he stared up at them. What…. What were they talking about? Curiosity almost got the better of him as he moved to sheath his sword. No! It didn’t matter! They had to die! Now! He charged towards Eighteen with the blade.

“Maybe we should let this guy breed as well, then his kid will try to exact revenge on us too.” Seventeen said as he relaxed in the air.

“Ugh!” Eighteen said in disgust as she blocked Trunks’ sword with her forearm. “You disgust me Seventeen!”

However, Trunks’ eyes widened in shock, and he didn’t even attempt to dodge the blow aimed at his stomach. What did Seventeen just say? Too? As well?

“Oh dear, I think you just spilled a secret brother… he didn’t even try to protect himself from my punch.” Eighteen said with a laugh. “Apparently he didn’t know his mentor had a kid.”

Gohan had… no way, that’s impossible! Trunks thought and held his stomach in physical and emotional pain.

Seventeen joined in on the laughter. “Look at that expression! It almost makes me want to cry! He looks like you just crushed his heart, not his stomach!”

“Technically, that was your doing Seventeen. I just reinforced it.”

“I suppose.” The black-haired android said before he floated down in front of Trunks. “The brat even acknowledged it. He’s the spitting image of Gohan. In fact, he almost looks exactly like Gohan did when we killed all of his friends.”

“And… you left him alive?” Trunks grunted out, but this time the pain was metaphorical and not literal.

“What use is a toy if you break it early on? I told him to learn that funny skill you Saiyajins have to change your hair colour before he sees me next, or else I’m going to kill him. He’s stronger than the rest of the humans though, I’ll give you that.”

Trunks was filled with mixed emotions. He didn’t know what was more painful – the fact that Gohan had… betrayed him, or the fact that Gohan hadn’t told him. Yet, regardless of all of this, Trunks felt the need to protect Gohan’s son, to train him, to raise him. If Gohan had really left something in this world, then it was his job as his pupil to protect it! And it… it was something of his mentor’s… Even though… even though…

“Now…” Trunks didn’t notice that Seventeen had backed up, and Eighteen took his place. She lifted his head with her index finger. “Are you going to continue our fight or just float there in your own head?”

Trunks’ eyes hardened. If he could defeat them now, then perhaps Gohan’s son could live the rest of his life in peace!

He charged once again.