Chapter Text
"Alright, I've got the diapers, the baby powder,..." Vegeta mumbled the rest of his way through the shopping list given to him by Bulma. For the past hour, he scoured the West City Mall looking for every single item on it. A grueling task made all the worse by the fact just the mere act of walking around was a chore. The crowds were massive, slow, and endlessly irritating. The lines to buy anything at all stretched on for what seemed like an eternity. The whole place was having some mega sale with massive discounts in more than half of the stores and naturally, the Earthling's swarmed around it like bees to a hive.
Earlier that day, Bulma barged into the gravity chamber during a break, shoved the list into his chest, and told him to get a move on, Vegeta pointed out the obvious and asked why does someone as rich as her care about discounts. A bad move on his part since her response was to threaten to blow up the chamber if he didn't start pulling his weight around the house again. Something he'd admittedly gotten lax about since Bra was born and something he probably should've known would come back to bite him in the behind.
And so there he stood at one of the intersections of the mall with six bags in one hand, the crumpled letter in the other and a temper ready to explode at any moment if another blind moron decided to bump into him.
"Looks like I've just to get some cigars for her father," Vegeta said looking around for any place to buy them. The general store was out of the question, the horde was very concentrated there and just looking at the lines was enough to deter him away. The longer he looked around though, the horrifying realization he'd have to go there anyway became stronger and stronger.
That was until he spotted a tobacco shop, and not just any shop but one without a line there. Grinning from ear to ear that even some passers-by stopped in their tracks, Vegeta rushed forward, dodging the other shoppers without thinking about it. He very nearly reached his prey when a sensation stopped him dead in his tracks. It was an overwhelming, high-pressure power bursting out of nowhere but Vegeta had spent enough time in its presence to detect it anywhere.
"K-Kakarot?!" His head snapped to the ceiling, letting his ki sensing hone in on where exactly the energy was coming from. It was most definitely not Earth, hell, it wasn't even likely inside their solar system. For a reason Vegeta understood quite well, Kakarot had left the planet and gone off to fight against some opponent strong enough to warrant Super Saiyan Blue. An opponent he'd purposefully neglected to tell him about and hog it all for himself.
"T-That bastard..." Vegeta grit his teeth, fighting the urge to blast off into space and intervene before the fight ended without him. There was nothing for it: he had to get the damn cigars, deliver everything home and then bolt before Bulma decided she needed something else. It was a perfect plan until Vegeta looked back to the tobacco shop and saw a line already forming there. Not just any line, but one with thirteen people in it and growing by the second...
Sometime earlier, somewhere very far away...
"Looks like we got here in time, he's still wrecking the place." Jaco flew his ship toward what Goku could see was a giant alien city, about the size of a big town from Earth. The buildings there reached up high into the sky and they were curved into weird-looking, white-colored spirals. There must've been hundreds of them, probably even more and zipping through the air, he could see even more flying ships of all sorts of shapes and sizes buzzing around. Mostly away from the explosions going on what Goku guessed was this planet's east in a stretch of the city pretty close to a big yellow-ish ocean.
They spotted smoke rising from the planet all the way back in what Jaco called the upper atmosphere, it and the fires didn't get any smaller the closer they flew. But that was fine by Goku, it meant Seventhree was giving away his position and they wouldn't have to waste time trying to hunt him down.
"Alright!" He shouted, popping the hatch open. Jaco shrieked from his right side, wobbling the ship left and right. "Time fer some fun!"
"D-Don't do that! Do you have any idea how strong the wind when I fly this fast?!"
"Oops, sorry! I'll just get im outta town so we can fight, alright?"
"That's fine! Just try not to blow up the city by accident or something! The Galactic King'll have my ass-"
Unstrapping himself, Goku spotted where the newest explosion was happening and blasted off, pushing his flight to its limits. At least, without transforming that is. He zig-zagged in and out of the spiral buildings, avoiding them and incoming cars, lowering himself to just above ground level. In his peripheral vision, Goku caught a look at the weird, crab-looking people this city and probably the rest of the planet belonged to. They barely noticed him and the feeling was mutual, he only had eyes for the guy sticking out amidst the crowd.
Just like the rest of the escape crooks, Seventhree wore an orange jump-suit. His actual body was pretty Earthling-looking, two arms, two legs, just one head but there were big differences too. His skin, or whatever he had for skin, was a thick purple color, two big spikes stuck out the side of his head and his eyes were totally black. Goku kind of thought he looked like a meaner version of Hit.
The robot stood on top of some smoking car or trucks, opening laser fire from his eyes down onto the closest people. He was just about to gun down some small looking lobster folk, maybe kids, when Goku flew past his head, yanked him by the left horn and hoisted Seventhree off the ground. The robot tried to punch through Goku's grip and shoot him mid-flight but his attacks were too weak and slow respectively to do anything. Not a good sign.
That is what Goku through at first until Seventhree grabbed his hand just above the right wristband and a weird, electric jolt, the kind he hadn't felt since the last time he tried to fix the TV ran from there, up through his arm and made his brain spazz out. Before he even realized it, Seventhree managed to stop Goku's flight by turning on his own and used the built-up momentum to start spinning Goku around and around above the pee yellow ocean.
It whizzed past Goku's eyes as he flew away, leaving Seventhree as nothing more than a shrinking dot while he flew away from the sea and started smashing the back of his whole body against hard, canyon rocks. Goku smiled through it, spinning in-mid-air and landing on top of the rocks. This was much, much more like it.
He kept smiling even as he ducked under the overhead hammer strike swung by Seventhree teleporting behind him. Goku spun around with a sweeping kick which Seventhree flew away from. Goku counted on that and charged a one-handed Kamehameha, firing it and managing to nail the robot. The blue ki beam propelled him through the air and it didn't stop until a burst of yellow ki exploded out, overpowering Goku's attack.
Powering up into his own Super Saiyan, Goku's right hook met Seventhree's, the attacks so perfectly mirrored he could swear they'd practiced it a million times before. The same happened with his left punch, then right kick, left kick, headbutt, elbow strike, each and everyone pulled it off with the same level of applied force, speed, and precision.
"Looks like Jaco wasn't kiddin'" Goku shouted during the exchange of attacks, smiling from ear to ear. "Ya really can learn everythin' a guy can do!"
Seventhree said nothing, just looking on blankly which was pretty creepy with those eyes of his. But that was fine too, Goku didn't come there to yammer on. Switching gears to a move Piccolo used to dodge Kurilin way back when, Goku bent his body down to avoid the latest swing and nailed Seventhree in the chin with a kick. Then, he handled the power of a God through his Super Saiyan and activated Super Saiyan Blue mid-jump.
He zipped past and around the robot, flying around him in randomized patterns while moving in to punch, kick, knee, and elbow him all over the place with the constant build-up of speed and momentum. Just like before, Seventhree didn't let out a peep, even as all the hits started ripping away at his jumpsuit and taking chunks of his fake skin out, revealing metal and wiring running underneath.
If it was bothering him, Seventhree didn't show it. Wordlessly, a flash of blue came out of his eyes a second before his aura changed into the very same color. Goku's kick to the side of his head didn't make the robot budge even an inch, instead leaving him vulnerable to a punch in the gut. Goku immediately returned the favor by smacking the copycat across the face with the back of his knuckles.
"Kaio-Ken!" The follow-up attack was twice as strong and fast as the one just before it, causing the robot to spin through the air like a man-shaped yoyo. Goku grabbed hold of him from behind and immediately boosted the Kaio-Ken increase to a time fives and blasted off toward the ground, throwing Seventhree right into the canyon down below. The whole place transformed in less than a second, the massive jutting rocks were either sunk into the newly formed hole or exploded from the sheer force of the wind on impact.
Goku barely got a seconds rest before an elbow socked him precisely in the left air hard enough for him to lose almost all hearing in it. Seventhree's copy Kaio-Ken was already twice as strong as Goku's, forcing him into a times ten increase or else let more of himself get busted right away. Just like they did a little while ago, the two of them deadlocked one another in the sky, sending perfectly timed attack after perfectly timed attack.
Each one smashed away leftovers of the canyon around them, every strike seemed to make the crackle with thunder and lightning and every blow shaking the planet to pieces. And they didn't stop powering up, either. Times eleven, twelve, thirteen,... Until eventually, they landed on twenty. The power rushing through Goku was just as exhilarating as it was dangerous. Every muscle in his body was bulging enough to tear through his quickly ripping away shirt, every nerve was on fire from the strain and Goku had to keep it all under control in the thick of this flurry of blows. Even a second lack of concentration could make this combo of his backfire and leave his body annihilated.
His, but not Seventhree's. The robot, as always, showed no signs of fatigue or slowing down. Every hit was just as strong and as fast as the last. It didn't matter he was getting visibly banged up too, even one of his horns was punched off earlier by Goku. And he guessed that robot brain was probably pretty damn good at multitasking so there was no chance he'd let the Kaio-Ken backfire on him.
Slowly but surely, Goku's own attacks started getting sloppier, missing spots he would've hit before, his blocks and dodges leaving him with gradually growing scrapes and bruises when they shouldn't have. More and more, it was getting clear this alien robot had the same feature as 17 and 18 back on Earth: infinite energy. And with their strength levels exactly the same, it didn't take a genius to figure out Goku would eventually lose.
The thought annoyed and excited him all at the same time. But he'd try something first before possibly going down. A move Seventhree wouldn't be able to copy or see coming because Goku himself had never, ever tried it out before or even thought to do it.
Intentionally leaving himself open, Goku took another punch to the side of the face, feeling a bruise already swell on his left cheek and let himself get smashed back to ground level. Then, before the robot could fly toward him and keep the hand to hand contest going, Goku cupped both of his hands and put them on his right side.
"Ka... Ma..."
Silently, Seventhree landed on one of the few leftover solid pieces of ground and did the same, mirroring Goku perfectly again for what he hoped was the last time.
"Ha... Me..." Goku grit his teeth hard enough for his jaw to hurt. If fighting in an even brawl with a times twenty Kaio-Ken Super Saiyan Blue combo was hard enough, then this was hurting his head worse than the driving test studying he did with Gohan and Chi-Chi all those years ago. He could swear something in his brain was gonna pop at any second. Not only did he have to regulate the power he already had, but he also had to collect all of it into one spot all while focusing on another technique needing a couple of steps all on its own.
Opposite, standing about sixty feet away, Seventhree's own Kamehameha was just about ready to fire. Goku, feeling a vein or two pop on the side of his noggin, more or less got his move ready to go. This was it. His crazy stunt would either pay off or he'd blow himself up before Seventhree's attack ever got a chance to vaporize him first.
"... HHHHHAAAAAAAA...!"
Goku thrust his hands forward. So did Seventhree's, his beam jiggling back and forth for a second inside the condensed ball of red and blue ki, ready to burst and take out anyone stupid enough to be in its way. That's what it would have done if Goku tried to beat it beam versus beam in another war of attrition. He did no such thing. Instead, Goku's Kamehameha, at the climax of the arm thrust, vanished into thin air entirely.
But it didn't fizzle out or backfire on him like he worried it would, instead, the concentrated ball of ki did exactly what he wanted it to: it was teleported right under Seventhree's feet. The robot, showing some emotion for the first time, actually opened his mouth and stared at the attack a second before a gargantuan wave of blue and red ki swallowed him up so much he seemed to vanish inside it completely.
A/N: Originally, I was going to do a U6 rewrite where Goku would pull off something like this, teleporting the Kamehameha attack itself at an enemy while he stayed where he was. Since this fic is never happening and I thought it was a cool idea that would fit in with Goku fighting a copycat who knows all his (current) skills, it's having a chance to shine here instead.
Next time, we see the aftermath of Goku's dangerous gambit. Did it succeed? Will Vegeta arrive in time to partake in the fun? And when the Hell will Moro show up?! You'll see in due time.