PART ELEVEN: DOUBLE TROUBLE

Chapter 52

Translated by Qtjinla15

Trunks and Goten hurried into one of the small rooms within their space in order to prepare for the merger. The room was rather small, with a few couches and a table in the center. However, there was enough space to perform the fusion dance, the same one they showed to Trunks of Universe 12, who informed them that he was from the future.

"Hurry and get into place," Trunks urged Goten as he positioned himself on one side of the room, stretching out his arms and lifting his left leg.

Goten followed suit, mirroring his movements. With a serious expression they shared a look and nodded. Just like that it was done. Just as Son Goku had shown them twenty years ago, during his visit from the afterlife when Buu and Babidi were their enemies, the two made a few small steps on their tiptoes, pronouncing the first syllable of the magical words, while doing a semi-circle with their arms from one side to the other, arcing towards a common center.

"Fuuuu ..."

They were closer now, making sure their movements were always coordinated. The palms of their hands were open, almost touching, but it was not time for the fusion to be completed just yet.

"-sion..."

The two performed the second step of the dance, their legs mirroring each other, and their concentration at its peak.

"...Ha!"

When they first completed the dance in the past, they had merged into a rotund man, who faltered after three steps. The funny thing was they looked a little like the large Buu with a comically round belly. Subsequently, another failed merger resulted from their second attempt to do the dance: this time they were a skinny, weak, and frail old man. Weak coughs escaped his mouth, signaling someone incapable of fighting.

For this tournament between different universes, Trunks and Goten had no right to fail. Their fingers touched, light invaded their bodies and the room for a few seconds. When the intense light disappeared, a new warrior stood in their place. One who looked like he was created for combat. Gotenks, the fusion of Goten and Trunks, was in place of the two teens, his power signified by his muscular, athletic shape.

"Fusion successful!" said the warrior.

His muscular body was perfect, cut out for combat. He wore white pants with a blue belt falling to his knees on one side. He also wore a jacket, made of some sort of strange material, flexible but yet not completely soft as fabric. The tunic was largely black and burnt orange at the shoulders. This was the garb of the fusion dance, a strange, magical occurrence. One could only wonder where those clothes came from. Where were Goten and Trunks? It was unlike the total fusion of the Potara earrings done by Goku and Vegeta. Moreover, another difference between the fusion was the voices. While Vegetto’s was a mix between the voice of Goku and Vegeta, Gotenks seemed to speak with two voices, those of Goten and Trunks. This gave the fusion another strange and unique difference.

"Let us prove our mettle to everyone! I will succeed where others can only hope to fail!" Gotenks was hoping to find the ring was large enough to accommodate his battle; victory would be easier if this was the case. Gotenks liked to win, that much was obvious. He also liked to draw the attention of people...and this opportunity gave him the chance to show off to hundreds of thousands of people like never before. He did not have much time left, officially, to appear in the ring, but more than enough to give his lines. He had patiently waited for this with a childlike glee.

"A Universal First! Before your very eyes!" Gotenks shouted for all the stadium to hear. "The idol of all the girls regardless of their planet! The greatest warrior of all universes!"

Gotenks quickly appeared outside the corridor in his space. Just as quickly, he jumped into the ring to be the center of everything. Arm raised, he finished his reply:

"The magnificent Gotenks!"

A long pause followed the boisterous introduction. No applause had followed, only silence. Everyone wanted a fight, not theater, or someone who believed they were the center of the world or the universe. And there Gotenks had nothing to say either, because it was not to be that he would end up at the center of everything. There was another like him. Right in front of him there was another, like a mirror image. Gotenks from Universe 16 was there; the fusion had worked for him too. Worse, he had released the same reply, and found himself in the same position.

"Well, " Began Bra of Universe 16, already upset by the attitude of the four teens.

One Trunks and Goten was annoying, but another pair? Nothing interesting would come from this match. Bra continued:

"I'm going to eliminate the both of them immediately; they’re already starting to annoy me!"

"Bra no ... " her half-brother Gohan cut in. "Let them have their fun," he insisted.

"They are useless ... they better hurry up or I'll knock them out now." she argued.

"We will be removed from this tournament if you intervene." He scolded her.

"Not if the Vargas don’t see me." She countered.

"Do not take the risk Bra," their father sternly intervened. Leave your brothers alone. Would you want them to interfere in your own fight?

Bra said nothing in response, not even rolling her eyes at Vegetto. She would not intervene, but it didn’t stop her from being irritated.

In the space 18, Pan wanted to encourage the fighter of her world:

"Go Gotenks!" she cried, raising her arms.

"Which one?" Bra asked as she was suddenly beside her.

Pan did not move for a few seconds, staring at the ring above.

"Well, ours ..." she finally answered without much conviction.

"And do you see the difference? Where is ours?"

Pan looked back to the ring. Both Gotenks had just run against one another, swirling around the ring trying to kick each other, both were dodging and parrying the others' attacks. At the moment Pan could not distinguish which one was of universe 18...she would have to wait until the fight ended.

"In the worst case scenario," Bra of Universe 16 commented to her father and Gohan,"... it could last the full thirty minutes. After that, they'll most likely be eliminated."

Indeed, after thirty minutes, the fusion would fade. Both Gotenks would return instantly into two sets of Gotens and Trunks. A dual battle was not planned by Vargas, with the way the tournament was set up, it had to be one-on-one. They would be eliminated. Bra had hoped for this outcome rather than an outright winner. It made sense that everyone who was important could advance quicker if they were both out of the running.

Both Gotenks were obviously equal in power. Their techniques were the same. Among them, the spectators could see the Aero Mega Punch Mega and its variant the Aero Two Punch, Surprise Laser Gun, Kick'n Bang, Bang Kick'n back, Super Kick Boomerang, the Tactics Bear, Super Direct Law, the scope of the Whipped Cream, the technique of Missile, the Brain Cake, The Rain Fisticuffs, the Whirlwind Kick ... Techniques as ineffective as their names were ridiculous.

In addition, each of these flashy attacks were executed at the same time. When the two strikes did not cancel, nor was each fighter constrained against the other, the two Gotenks took flight. Neither took advantage of this. Piccolo, be it the Universe 16 or 18 iteration, could have made more of the situation. Though Gotenks had grown, he kept the same lousy techniques used against Buu from twenty years previously.

The Namek was exasperated - those techniques were just as terrible then as they were now, that much he was able to gauge clearly now that the threat of death wasn't looming over his head.

Initially, the mirror battle had entertained the spectators who were intently watching the match. But after mirrored technique after mirrored technique and similar battle strategies went on for six or seven minutes the battle was becoming too repetitive. For the two warriors, it was fast becoming dull.

"I'll surprise me by immediately transforming!" Gotenks thought! 'I must crush him soon.' He mentally added, before the fusion’s time limit kicked in.

Gotenks distanced himself from the other who strangely reacted with the same motion. Then he concentrated all his strength. He would not transform into a Super Saiyan 1 or 2. No, like Son Goku did against Broly, who sped towards him when he was awakened, Gotenks would directly go to Level 3. For sure it would astonish the other him.

And indeed, it astonished him as well. Gotenks deployed his force, suddenly changing from a normal Saiyan (or almost, since he had hair both black and purple), into a Super Saiyan 3. A bright light surrounded both Gotenks, while their lengthening hair became blond. A golden aura surrounded them while their muscles took the volume. Their eyebrows disappeared along with the bright light almost blinding the spectators.

"This is the end for you, pale copy!" Gotenks screamed.

Before the words fully left his lips, he realized that the other Gotenks had become a Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks as well, making it a battle of two Super Saiyan 3 Gotenks.

"It's not possible!" Both commented, wide eyes filled with shock at the situation. Was there no way to surprise the other? Did everything they do or would do be the same every time?!

"Amazing, they are exactly the same every time!" Goku stated, finding himself amused at how the fight was going.

"This is pathetic!" Vegeta retorted. Like the Universe 16 Bra, he was bored. "They have a tremendous power and do not even deserve it!"

"Do you think the fusion is cheating?" Pan asked innocently.

Vegeta stared at her, but said nothing. It was clear that he indeed thought this. Especially since it involved Goten and Trunks, who he regarded as lazy.

"It is true that without training, they still managed to raise a lot of power," Son Goku replied. It is thanks to their adult body. They gained strength with age. The fusion makes them a formidable warrior. Few people would be able to beat him.

Above them, the two Gotenks had resumed their fight. The shock-waves of their attacks were even more violent than before, in thanks to their multiplied power. Everyone felt the shockwaves of the parried attacks. From time to time, the Gotenks used their ki for more powerful attacks such as the Kamehameha. Their battle raged well over the whole stadium as every one of their attacks met its mirrored counterpart. But whether the attacks were a huge ball of blue energy or not, it didn’t matter, the two attacks always had the same power.

Since neither would give in from ki attacks the other made they descended down. Moving quickly, they found themselves in the ring throwing punches, while above them exploded balls of energy which were once Kamehameha the fighters fired. Blue light dazzled the spectators and Gotenks, who both gave the other a hook punch, one giving a right hook and the other landing a left hook.

But while everyone was expecting another big shock, there was almost nothing. Fists collided with a lot less violence than they should have. And the reason soon appeared obvious: the bodies of the two Gotenks had thinned a little, lost muscle mass. Their hair had shrunk to regain their size and their original color. Super Saiyan 3 was finished.

"What? Already?" the two warriors exclaimed, surprised, because they barely sustained the form for two minutes.

They knew that turning into Level Three reduced their fusion time and their energy would exhaust quickly, which made them lose their transformation once during the battle against Buu all those years ago. But this was much shorter than back then, shorter than the five minutes of that time. Why..?

"This is the reality of level three ... " Vegetto gently remarked. "It takes all your power quickly and changes the time limit... Now that you are an adult and even more powerful, it is even worse! The more powerful you are the less Super Saiyan 3 holds out! I thought you boys would have understood this by now."

"That's what you did at the end of the battle against Broly right?" Gohan was turning to his father.

"Absolutely. I will not be held ten seconds. My power is so great that the time is accelerated. When I was Goku, I could easily take ten or twenty minutes in Super Saiyan 3. Especially when I was dead, as my body didn’t have to worry about the strain as much. Level 3 transformation is not like the other two. It’s like channeling all that power into the force of a single a blow. The power of the Level Three I used on Broly might be a hundred times more powerful than that which Goku of the Universe 18 would have been capable of, but in comparison it would have been a much shorter blow."

So once again, both Gotenks did not concede defeat and bore down on each other, while a command center Varga meanwhile asked one of his relatives:

"Don’t you get a headache when their head-feathers change color all the time?"

"No more than their faces wolfing down all those dishes ... They are all very ugly if you ask me."

"I pity their females."

"I pity yours too."

The first Varga laughed, and then after a few seconds, stopped and looked at his friend:

"Wait, why did you say that?"

And from the ring, suddenly, there were not two, but four warriors.

"Huh?" All four young men gasped as they found themselves looking at their mirror image.

They did not understand. They remained well within the time frame of the merger, in fact they had fifteen minutes left before it should have ended, even with the Level Three drain...This was not normal. Again, time was shortened more than expected.

"Yes..." Vegetto was still explaining to Gohan, Piccolo, and Bra what happened. "The time of the fusion is also shortened by level 3... Especially since the power is...massive, you understand."

"Aha! These morons will be eliminated for cheating!" Bra whooped in a joyful fit, pointing up to the sky.

Both pairs of Goten and Trunks felt ill, embarrassed. They waited for the verdict of Vargas soon:

"In...incredible!" The facilitator commented without turning his microphone to his beak.

"Hey, you forgot to press the button that lets them hear you," another Varga beside him commented.

"Oh pardon... Incredible!" he cried then. "Both fighters have split their bodies! What a turnaround!"

"What? They’re not removed then?" Bra asked, beginning to lose hope.

"Only one person entered the ring ... replied her father. They followed the rules even though they are two now."

In the Command center, both Vargas resumed their discussion:

"Odd that the two bodies resulting from this duplication are so different, right?"

"Bah, they all look the same to me!"

"You think they look like us?"

"No, but are you blind? We all have different heads! As if we were the same size or have the same beak..."

"Hm..."

"YAAHHH!" cried the four warriors in the ring, throwing in every battle technique they knew.

Initially, it was a real two against two, all transformed into Super Saiyan for the occasion. But soon, nobody knew who the other was. It was apparent that the fighters were no longer able to distinguish who was from which universe. Though pride prevented them from admitting that this was the result of an ineffective strategy. At last, one of the Trunks found himself next to a Goten:

"Hey, what's your universe?" Goten warily asked the Trunks in front of him.

"Well, I'm from Universe 18!"

And VLAM! Goten was sent flying with a furious strike.

"You're from 16?" The Goten questioned.

"Obviously!"

"But me too! I said if you were 18 in order to hit you from behind!"

Goten once more fell under the astonished gaze of the other two.

"Sorry, I am 18!" Goten exclaimed as he tried to hit Trunks.

But the latter managed to escape the attack and reach his true friend who was struggling with the other Trunks suddenly; they had realized that they were not of the same coin.

"We need to fight against our double!" Both teens proposed at the same time.

"We have no choice ..."

Without a word, the two walked away, Goten and Trunks both prepared for battle. They were already tired from the fusion. However, they were far from finished. Always equivalent, level minded, none willing to give up; and during eighty-four thousand, eight hundred seventy-five identical shots they traded, they could no longer hold the Super Saiyan transformation. All their hair went back to their base states, black for Goten, and purple for Trunks.

The battle seemed like it was unending until an occurrence tipped the balance in one universe's favor. Following their fight as Gotenks, the ring had suffered some damage and was no longer perfectly round. After stopping a shot from the air, one of the two Trunks put his foot in a hole in the ring, and lost his balance. The other Trunks could not resist taking advantage of this immediately.

"I have the advantage!" he said, flanking a powerful punch.

Caught off guard at the time, his double, unbalanced, fell violently on the ground.

"Aha! It is two against one now!" Trunks exclaimed, making a breathless gasp as he sweated while the other happily pounced, but almost immediately the Gotens made their moves, clutching the T-shirts of the lavender fighters... before stopping not three yards away.

"Uh... Which one of you is with me?"

Both Gotens looked, then let go of the T-shirt of the other. They were clearly tired too.

"Bah, whatever,'' one of the two grumbled.

"Tell me your universe and it wins. I'm tired," the unidentified Goten spoke to Trunks.

"I'm... 18... " Trunks said after remaining silent for a few moments with a touch of suspense.

"Yes!" Goten of Universe 18 cheered with clenched fists, victorious.

"Phew...what a mess," said the other before joining his comrade, who stood up painfully.

Having heard both Trunks and Goten, the leader shouted into his microphone so the result:

"It's Gotenks of Universe 18 who wins this match!" One of the Vargas announced.

Welcoming one another, the two warriors in Universe 18 returned to their room to be welcomed by Uub and Pan, who aided them in flying only to get yelled at by Bra. After all, if she had to stay through the fight until one Gotenks won, then she would have favored that it would have been the Gotenks from her universe. But no, once again, her two older brothers had disappointed her by stubbornly persisting...

By the time they reached the ground Trunks began snapping at his friend for the loss.

"Damn, why'd you suggest such a proposal?"

"It's not my fault! I had hoped that it was you who I was talking to!"

"But you weren’t, it was a risky strategy and now we have lost!"

"Yeah, I know..."

They stayed in the air a few seconds longer than their counterparts of U18, without speaking, without looking. Finally, Goten broke the silence:

"I don't know about you, but I don’t want to go to our space yet..."

"Yeah...chances are our sister still has plenty yelling in her system ..."

"Your sister is really terrible..." commented the Universe 18 Trunks.

"It is also kind of your fault I'm out."

Suddenly, a voice that should have been in a soft voice, a voice of a young girl, called out in a harsh tone:

"Well then, you're back?" Bra cried from space 16. "Losers! Cowards! Band of incompetents!"

The two friends finally bid goodbye and consented to join their families, preparing to receive bad reviews, and insults, from their beloved sister.

"There is almost no recovering from that one, huh?” one of the host Varga said to another Varga, who just shrugged his shoulders, knowing no more than he.