The Wheel Turns Over, Part 3
The portal fails.
Shin blinks, looking at Whis. "What happened?"
The angel peers at the head of his staff, tilting it back and forth. "The energies they were giving off destabilized the portal." He shrugs. "It would seem that the show is over."
"What? So just make another one!" snaps Beerus. "I want to see how it ends!"
Whis shrugs. "Very well, Lord Beerus, but I honestly don't see the point. It'll just happen again." He tilts his staff, and a portal springs into being.
Shin gasps, doubling over as the feeling of Goku and Vegeta's powers slams into his skull. He grabs at his head, trying to modulate his senses -- failing-
The portal fizzles out, and Whis sighs.
Beerus growls. "Damn. I wanted to watch."
"No," says one of the Zenos.
"It's better this way!" says the other.
Piccolo hums, nodding. "They wouldn't really care if we watched, but they wanted to do this for them, not for anybody else."
Shin grimaces, staring at the air where the portal once hanged. "...still, I feel like we owed it to them to be there. I don't like just leaving them."
Beerus sighs. "Well, we'll just have to live with it. Frustrating as it is, we can't watch without being in the way. And I know they wouldn't thank us for that." He folds his arms. "I suppose that it doesn't matter. Either way...there's only one way it ends."
* * *
Goku and Vegeta clash a thousand times in a single heartbeat.
To the rare observer strong enough to actually somewhat vaguely track their movements, it would look like a spectacular, shifting light show. Streaks of blue rebound off of one another, describing mirrored half-circles over and over across a dozen arcs before repeating, shifting the pattern, repeating
again, and on.
Those powerful enough to pick up a little more than that would see Goku and Vegeta circling, dashing back and forward, their limbs and bodies flickering as they close or throw blasts. They blur from place to place, only truly visible in still frames describing frozen moments of the fight -- Vegeta catching a strike here, Goku slapping away a blast there.
To Goku and Vegeta's eyes, it is actually very deliberate.
The two men drift at what feels like an almost lazy pace through the void they've made, trading shots and strikes. Powerful though they are, they are old, and fighting is always difficult. They both are sweating. Their breath comes quickly, inside the protective shell of their auras. It has been a long, brutal brawl. Vegeta's left leg is broken; Goku is missing a fair amount of skin down one side of his chest. They both are laboring. They both are exhausted.
At long last, Goku puts his fingers to his forehead and-
vip
-departs, leaving Vegeta stumbling in his rival's sudden absence.
Vegeta looks around, taking the moment to slump and regain some amount of energy. He pans around with his ki senses, searching-
His eyes widen, and he turns to the source as Goku begins to gather power for one last transformation. Vegeta nods once, and begins to mirror it without a word. As his ki begins to spike one last time, he half-turns and draws his hands back over his shoulder.
* * *
On the very edge of the universe, there are places which survived the cataclysm Vegeta and Goku wrought. On one such lonely planet, orbiting a massive star, Goku raises his hands overhead before drawing them down to his waist.
"Ka...me..."
* * *
Vegeta, surrounded by a storm of ki, takes a deep breath to bring himself under control. "Galick Gun..."
* * *
"
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..."
Goku shakes under the strain of so much power, but he keeps it under control. As the planet begins to shake itself to pieces beneath him, he opens a line of telepathy to Vegeta. '
Just like old times, right Vegeta? We had a good run.'
* * *
Vegeta smiles, closing his eyes for a moment. '
The best. What we have done will never be forgotten. People will judge us as they like, but nothing will ever be the same again. I would have it no other way...Son Goku.'
His eyes open.
His hands snap out.
"
FIRE!"
* * *
Goku's arms come up in a motion as natural to him as a breath. "
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
THE END
In a place where no light has ever shone, a being in a cloak made out of eye-twisting shadows opens his eyes.
"
Finally."
