Epilogue

Frieza had no idea how long he'd been waiting. Time became a nebulous concept in King Enma's domain. It could have been a few hours or a few days. Nevertheless, when the ogre in charge of monitoring the line cleared out an old cobwebby room and told him to stay there while his case was audited, he knew it had been too long.

He couldn't decide if this bland place was better or worse than the garden. On one hand, there was no pastel, no upbeat music, no forced participation in tea parties, and the air didn't smell like allergies incarnate. On the other, the walls were beige, the furniture and floor a slightly darker beige, the overhead track lights a slightly paler beige, and there wasn't a sound to be heard; not even the ticking of a clock, since it would have been a worthless way of tracking that kind of time. Frieza was beginning to wonder if any distraction might not be welcome, even if it meant a toy bunny playing I Stepped on the Cat on a slide whistle.

That wasn't exactly the distraction he got, but the door did open to admit a visitor: the little garden gnome who'd overseen his hell and had met him beyond the mirror.

"So the whispers I heard were true," She said. "They did open up one of the waiting rooms. I didn't believe it. I don't think we've used these for a millennium."

"Why are you using it now?"

"The line has to keep moving. We've only got so much staff we can devote to digging through the archives looking for forgotten rules and precedents. I don't think we've had such a hard case for a long time."

"I'm not a hard case. I thought last-minute sacrifices had no bearing on placement."

"It's not how you died," The gnome said. "It's where you died. The garden's an earthly hell. You expired on Ketchyn, so I'm sorry; we really wanted you back, but you aren't in our jurisdiction anymore."

"Whose jurisdiction am I in, then?"

"We don't know. Ketchyn doesn't have its own hell. Its inhabitants live so long, and the Prismasphere absorbs some of the dead for itself, traffic isn't high enough to merit one. Normally, wicked dead who make it here from Ketchyn are sent to the Bloody Pond, but you're considered too high-risk; so the next step would be throw you into the hell of the world where you caused the most trouble, but because you caused so much trouble on so many worlds, it's hard to determine which one has the most legitimate claim to you. We've been stuck for days trying to figure out whose problem you are."

"Bureaucracy," He mumbled. "Bane of my life, and apparently, my afterlife. Now it's gotten me stuck in an office with nothing to do."

"You could reflect."

"On what? Beige?"

"I think that one curtain might have faded to a golden custard."

"Really?"

"No, it's beige. It's in my nature to be optimistic," the gnome said. "Hey, Grumpy Gus, you've been in here too long. You're starting to look beige yourself. Either that, or you're turning see-through."

Frieza held a hand in front of his face. "If you're seeing things after being here a few minutes, there's no hope for… say, I think you're right."

His hand had adopted a translucence. It wasn't that it matched the horrid color of the walls, but that he could see those walls through it.

"What's going on?" He asked.

"Uh, oh," The gnome said. "King Enma's going to be mad. He hates it when people take up space in the line, make him go through the process of booking them, and then just go back to living again. But at least he can recall the staff from the archives…"

Frieza distinctly heard the voice of Cooler saying, "Stand clear."

Then he felt like he was drowning, inside and out. He was submerged in viscous liquid, and it was in his throat. He couldn't decide if this was better or worse than the beige room, but then he recognized it as a regeneration tank. A moment later the door opened and the liquid drained. A hawk-man in a medical uniform pulled him out of the harness, and Frieza was so occupied with getting the gunk out of his throat, he didn't take any special care to miss him.

From across the room, Cooler rolled his eyes at the drenched medic. "I told you to stand clear."

Frieza looked around, trying to figure out where he was. The room was white, sterile, and small, the wall concave. A second tank sat next to the one he'd just left, and several cots lined the walls next to it. The wall curved slightly, and there was enough window to see black sky and stars outside. It was the infirmary of one of his flagships. They were in space.

Confused, Frieza patted his chest. Nothing hurt. Nothing felt out of place. "This must be some new torment. There has to be life left in the subject for the regeneration process to work, and I know I was dead. They could have at least told me who was in charge before booting me out of the office."

"I'm in charge, and at your request. Did you forget what you said before Chilled attacked us, or are you merely reconsidering? I'd keep that to myself, if I were you. It would be no trouble to send you back to the hell I pulled you from."

"This isn't a trick?" Frieza asked. His blood raced through his veins at a speed that threatened to open them, and that confirmed his body was intact; he was really alive. "Then where's Pan? I didn't see her in the afterlife queue. Does that mean she made it off-world before Ketchyn was destroyed?"

"Ketchyn wasn't destroyed. Pan won. Chilled is dead. His mirror is in pieces."

Frieza slumped on one of the cots, exhaling hard. That was good news, so he didn't know why it took him a few breaths to calm down.

"I never doubted her for a moment," He said. "Good riddance to both."

"I'm astonished to hear you praise the loss of a power source as potentially infinite as Chilled's Mirror. Our ancestor really did come close to creating a Ketchian equivalent of dragon balls. Incendria was able to wish herself invisible and Sulfuri genuinely invincible through its glass. Its only flaw was in its scale and mercurial nature. It could only grant wishes that affected one person, to one person, and only if… for lack of a better way of putting it… if felt like it. Perhaps that weakness could have been subverted given enough study."

"Enjoy speculating," Frieza said. "I, for one, plan on treating it like every other defeated foe and pretending it never existed. In fact, I've already forgotten what we were talking about, so let's not talk."

"You'll want to hear this part. She called for you."

"What?"

Cooler said, "Through the Vile Wave. Just after the mirror was destroyed, just before the Vile Backlash cleared, there was a massive Prismatic surge. Perhaps it was one final bid to defeat her. I heard her voice amidst all the others. She wished you 'had more time' in front of the fragments of a mirror that can grant wishes. Not a minute later, I returned to the wheat field for Magmast and discovered you had the faintest of heartbeats. I don't know if Chilled forgot about our regeneration technology and wanted to play a cruel joke, or if he had one last shred of decency tucked away somewhere and decided to waste it on you. Either way, here you are."

Weak as he still felt, Frieza left the cot and forced his way to the door. He opened it, picked up as much speed as he could on his way through it. By the time he made the hall, he was recovered enough for a full run. Cooler had given him much to think about, and he wasn't thinking about any of it. He had one refrain playing in his mind: getting to the bridge and ordering them to change course.

Cooler caught up with him and wrestled him to the wall. Frieza tried to wriggle away, and if he were at full power, he probably could have succeeded. As it was, his brother was able to hold him in place long enough to speak.

"We're already en route to Earth. That was where you meant to tell the captain to go, correct?" Cooler asked.

Frieza relaxed.

"I assumed that would be the case." He released him. "Good riddance to you."

Cooler continued to the bridge and left Frieza to his own devices.

"Thank you, brother," Frieza said, but if Cooler heard him, he didn't acknowledge it.

ooo

On a plaque in the gym, there hung a picture of the tournament grounds as they had once been: a modest two-story temple, a square of dirt with a mat and some paint for boundaries, and a wooden fence cobbled together from whatever was on hand.

Pan turned away from it and could hardly believe she stood in the same place. Where there was once a small stone building and mat, there now rose a massive stadium, and she had never seen it so packed. The paved roads that tangled through the skyscrapers beyond it had been backed up for miles, the crowds shoulder-to-shoulder, all on account of the World Martial Arts Tournament.

"I remember when we used to sneak around the top of the wall," Goten said, warming up with a punching bag. It wasn't so much to work out his muscles as to remind him how much he had to hold back in the ring. "Now people are using it for seating because the bleachers are full."

"There's a lot we pulled off back then we couldn't get away with now," Trunks said. "But you're right. It seems like every time Hercule puts out a new film, we get a few thousand more spectators."

"Oh, don't remind me," Marron said, hugging the wall. "I'm nervous enough as it is, fighting in front of all these people."

Pan stretched across a bench, tucking her hands behind her head. She'd brought Frieza's cloak and was resting on it, folded up like a pillow. "When we train on Kame Island, you fight in front of birds and squirrels, and you don't mind them watching."

"That's not the same!"

"I know, but maybe if you pretend the bleachers are full of birds and squirrels, it won't be so scary," Pan said.

"Those birds and squirrels are wearing a lot of Papayaman gear," Goten said to Uub, who was still trying to pull on the last boot of his Papayaman costume. "I found Krillin and Vegeta in the nosebleeds. The others are probably in the surrounding bleachers. We won't be able to see them unless the match creeps into the air. Speaking of which, why didn't either of them sign up?"

"Dad was going to, but he had to break up a bank robbery the day before his preliminary match, and conceded because he was too burned out. Mom didn't push him as hard as she usually does because I'd already made the competition," Marron said.

"And my dad hasn't been interested since Goku died," Trunks said. "He says there's no point."

A large man whose head barely cleared the ceiling stalked by. His hide boots shook the floor, and when he sat on a bench, it creaked and bowed under his weight. Nothing of his face was visible behind his legionnaire's helmet save his glinting eyes.

"Let me guess; that's your opponent, right?" Goten asked Pan.

Ever since she'd first entered the competition at age four, Pan had somehow always wound up fighting the biggest man there in her first match. "Believe it or not, I broke the curse this year. That's Augustus Stercus Maximus, and he's up against Marron. I'm fighting the guy beside the window. I think his name's Kendrick."

She pointed to a young boy with chunks of spiked hair, a leather jerkin, and a bandage on his left cheek.

"How are either of them getting away with armor? Isn't it against the rules?" Trunks asked.

"They've narrowed down the definition of 'armor' so much, it might as well not be," Goten said.

"At least my opponent is following the rules."

"Who are you fighting?"

Trunks pointed. "Hydei."

Hydei relaxed against the doorframe, both arms tucked behind her tousled pink hair. Her pose highlighted every curve, even the ones her clingy halter top and short bloomers barely managed to cover.

"That's one of Ran Fan's students, isn't it? I heard she accepted a few," Goten said. "Be careful not to lose to her. You promised me a rematch, remember."

The announcer's voice boomed outside. With the crowds' applause forming a black hole from which no sound could escape, his was probably the only voice that could be heard.

"And for our next match, returning fighter Pan faces off newcomer Kendrick!"

Pan hopped off the bench. "I'm up. See you guys in a few."

"Good luck!" Marron said.

The cheers became deafening as Pan stepped into the light. It was a perfect day, sunny and without even a feather of a cloud in the sky. In the very first row, in a VIP box, Pan spotted her gramps, Hercule, wrapped in his flamboyant white cape and championship belt. Beside him sat his new girlfriend, who Pan thought was named Pershing, but honestly, it was difficult to keep track sometimes.

"A privilege it is, to fight so fair a maiden," Kendrick said stoically.

Pan tried to gauge his strength. She started with a right hook, pivoting into the strike; he blocked and absorbed it with his forearms. He moved to return the uppercut without fully dismantling his block, and that gave her room to slip one hand beneath his arm and the other over his shoulder, rolling him over her hip. He rebounded easily and took to the air. Pan wondered if he could fly, but it was only a well-executed jump, and she had plenty of time to spin out of the way and deliver a kick to his back that sent him teetering on the edge of the ring.

He might have righted himself, but his armor did him in. A ladybug flew down his collar, and he had the double job of trying to regain his balance and itch at the same time. In the end, Kendrick wasn't up to that kind of multitasking. He fell into the grass.

"And the winner is Pan!" The announcer said. "We'd expect nothing less from one of the Network's most popular trainers. It's no secret the Champion means for her to take full ownership of his academy some day! Next up…"

The sky went black and the arena was plunged into shadow.

"Do you feel that?" Krillin whispered to Vegeta, but he needed no answer. Vegeta's face told him everything.

Pan had just been thinking how cloudless the sky was, and now it had grown so shadowy the temperature dropped. She looked up for the source of the change. The announcer said it at the same time she saw it.

"Ladies and gentlemen, it appears a UFO has stopped over the tournament grounds."

"UFO, nothing!" Vegeta said. "That's a Planet Trade flagship!"

The hatch opened and something jumped.

Pan didn't trust her eyes. She thought the lighting might be playing tricks on her. He landed on one knee, stood in one quicksilver motion, just as she remembered. She almost tripped on her way to him. She reached out to touch his face, but stopped less than an inch from his skin, afraid to make contact for fear she might find this all some illusion.

"Frieza?" She said. "How?"

"The usual," He said, with that cocky inflection of his. "Heaven didn't want me, hell was sick of the paperwork."

Pan wanted to speak, but the moment felt so fragile. She'd been so sure she'd lost him, and here he was alive, and that choked off any possible coherence in her head or response from her throat.

"I don't know if this is part of the show, but what appears to be an alien has emerged from the UFO," The announcer said. "It's confronted the winner of the match. She's approaching it… they're speaking, but I can't hear what's being said… perhaps it's a challenge?"

"We have to do something!" Vegeta said to Krillin, clenching his fists at his side.

At that point, Hercule leapt from his VIP box and charged the arena floor.

Vegeta's hands relaxed, and he mumbled, "But maybe not right this minute."

"That's a terrible thing to say," Krillin said, although he wasn't exactly stumbling over himself to reach the champion's side, either. "There aren't any dragon balls. If Hercule gets killed, we can't wish him back."

"I have no intention of letting this escalate to the point we can't fix it without the dragon balls. But I brought some senzu beans with me…"

The champion's voice rang out, squelching the conversation.

"Listen up, you costumed freak!" Hercule said, jabbing his finger directly under Frieza's nose, "We've got a rule around here: no evil alien boys! And you, sir, are the evilest-looking alien boy I've ever seen!"

"What stunning powers of observation you possess. I hope you haven't taxed them too much," Frieza said. To Pan, he whispered, "Stagger."

"Huh?" She asked.

Pan figured out what Frieza meant when he gave her a push that wouldn't have knocked a gnat off-course. After a half-second's confusion, she faked a stumble, and without so much obvious thought or delay the audience would have noticed.

"It can only mean one thing. You must be Hercule, Earth's famous champion."

"If I'm famous, you should know not to make your landing in my arena! Didn't they tell you on whatever evil alien planet you came from I'm the strongest man on Earth?"

"They could have told me any number of things," Frieza said. "I must confess, I stopped paying attention to you once I caught sight of your charming granddaughter."

"I can't believe what I'm hearing!" The announcer said. "The alien has been enchanted by Pan!"

"Really?" Someone in the audience said. "She's such a tomboy. There are a lot of girls on Earth prettier than she is."

"Maybe evil aliens think tomboys are pretty," Someone else speculated.

"But she's got those scary bride-of-the-monster eyebrows."

"WHO SAID THAT?" Pan yelled, but the crowd was chatting too loudly to hear her.

"I've come to make her my empress, so stand aside," Frieza said. "You may be the strongest man on this planet, but that means nothing to me. I am Emperor Frieza, the strongest man in the universe."

Pink energy glinted in Frieza's hand. He hurled a death saucer at Hercule; or rather, at the ground before Hercule's biggest toe. It made an impressive grinding sound as it sawed over the tiles, and when Hercule jumped back a few seconds too late, it still looked like he'd dodged it.

It was difficult for Hercule not to break character, though, when Frieza materialized out of nowhere next to him, fist pulled back. Hercule didn't move in time and got cuffed, but he caught the next punch and held it in place.

"Is Hercule beating Frieza?" Krillin asked, dumbfounded.

"No, you idiot! Frieza's telegraphing his punches," Vegeta said. "He's losing on purpose!"

And Pan was grateful they'd had that silly coffee fight, because now Frieza knew what Hercule's moves looked like. He could tell which one was coming his way and make a spectacular show of taking it; or, in some cases, evading it. After that buildup, the 'most powerful man in the universe' couldn't lose without putting a few marks on his opponent. There were plenty of times Frieza broke free of holds, counterattacked with perfect form (if a fraction of his power); to the spectators, it would have looked like Hercule was in the fight of his life and struggling to keep his head above water.

But the fight had gone on long enough, and it was time for the hero to win. Frieza had picked exactly how that victory should occur.

"Psst," He whispered. "Megaton Punch."

"Are you telling me how to…"

"Yes. Now. I'm giving you a shot, and if you don't take it, you'll end up with a broken jaw. Possibly worse."

There was no more negotiation. Frieza kicked.

Pan knew from experience Frieza's kicks hurt when he meant them, but this one, he didn't. He'd left his mid-chest wide open, guarding too high with his right hand and too low with his left. Hercule saw it. With a slow windup that must have been agonizing for Frieza to wait on, he thrust his fist into the breach.

"Megaton Punch!"

Frieza sailed out of bounds, landing hard enough on his back to carve a hole in the dirt. The flagship must have been monitoring his progress, because it departed, letting rays of sunlight fall into the stadium once again.

Silence reigned in the arena.

Then someone shouted, "Hercule singlehandedly stopped an alien invasion!"

"Did you see that?" Another spectator exclaimed. "Mr. Satan defeated Frieza!"

"Hercule's saved the Earth from the Emperor of the Universe!"

The divergent cheers jointed into one voice as the crowd chanted the Champion's name over and over again. They grew louder and more enthusiastic, and as it did, Hercule grew more confident. He thrust his arms into the air in a victory sign.

"And now, mister Emperor, I hope you see Earth isn't a planet you want to be invading… not while Hercule is here to defend it! Bwa ha ha!"

Krillin and Vegeta stared at the disgusting scene, and then each other.

"I don't care how you do it, but it's long past time you got your tail off my planet," Hercule said, jumping off the floor and rolling up his sleeve. "Otherwise I might have to…"

Pan squeezed between the two of them. "Okay, okay, Gramps, I think he's had enough," She said. Louder, so the announcer could hear, she added, "Besides, he came all this way just for me. That's kind of romantic. Maybe I should give him a chance. After all, if he gets out of line, I've got you to protect me, right?"

Out of words, Pan threw herself over Frieza and kissed him. It was the first genuine thing to happen since he landed.

"Incredible!" The announcer said. "Even though he lost the fight for her hand, Pan is still agreeing to a date with the alien emperor! I can't tell you how this is going to turn out, folks… but I will remind you Pan's late paternal grandfather proposed to her grandmother in this very venue!"

Chi-Chi didn't need the reminder right now. She fainted, and Bulla had to not only catch her but also look like she hadn't.

"All right, you two," The announcer said, as Frieza held Pan and kissed her harder, "There's plenty of room for that in the gym. We need the mat back now. The Augustus Stercus Maximus-Marron fight is about to begin."

Pan broke free and made a show of 'helping' Frieza back to the gym.

And when she held him there, she didn't have to let go.

Even though Uncle Goten said, "Did I eat too much cheap vendor anpan, fall asleep during the Kendrick fight, and dream all this?"

Even though Trunks said, "I shouldn't have left my sword at home."

Even though Marron's nerves got the better of her and she knocked Stercus Maximus out of the arena.

There would be a lot of explaining to do. There would be adjustment. There would be moments that felt suspiciously like work. None of that mattered right now. All that mattered was that he was here, he was alive; and if they'd survived everything that had brought them to this point, they could survive anything.