Consciousness returned to Marcus Chen like a slap to the face.
Actually, no. That wasn't accurate. Consciousness returned to Marcus Chen like being thrown out of a peaceful dream and into the middle of a hurricane while someone screamed circus music directly into his brain.
Wind.
So much wind.
It howled past his ears, tore at his clothes (what clothes? Were these clothes?), and sent his vision spinning in a kaleidoscope of blue sky, white clouds, and the distant brown-green smear of land far, far below.
He was falling.
He was falling from what appeared to be the upper atmosphere.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!"
His scream ripped from his throat, but it sounded wrong—higher, more cartoonish, like someone had pitch-shifted his voice in post-production. His arms windmilled frantically, trying to grab onto something, anything, but there was nothing but air and clouds and the rapidly approaching ground.
"Oh, you're awake! Wonderful!"
Marcus's scream cut off in a choked gasp.
That voice. It wasn't coming from outside. It was inside his head, echoing around his skull like it owned the place. Warm, ancient, bubbling with barely contained laughter—like a grandfather who knew the punchline to a joke you hadn't heard yet.
"WHO—WHAT—WHERE—"
"So many questions! I love questions. Let's see... WHO: I am Nika. WHAT: You are now me, or I am you, or we are us—semantics are boring. WHERE: Falling! Obviously. Very fast. Ground approaching. Might want to focus on that."
"FOCUS ON WHAT?!" Marcus shrieked, still plummeting. "I'M GOING TO DIE!"
"Die?" The voice sounded genuinely confused. "Why would you die? You're rubber now. Rubber bounces. It's literally the first thing rubber does."
"I'M NOT—"
Marcus finally looked at his hands.
His brain short-circuited.
His hands were white. Not Caucasian-white, not pale-white, but cartoon white. Pure, unblemished, impossibly smooth white, like someone had dipped his hands in paint or he'd become a living animation cel.
And they were stretching.
His arms, caught in the updraft, had extended behind him like taffy being pulled, flapping in the wind like rubber noodles attached to his shoulders. Ten feet. Twenty feet. Thirty feet of arm, waving lazily in the hurricane-force winds.
"What... what the..."
His reflection caught in a passing cloud's moisture—just a glimpse, just a flash, but enough.
White skin. White hair that flowed upward like flames, like smoke, like it was made of something other than hair. A grin stretched across his face—he wasn't smiling, why was he smiling—too wide, too wild, too full of teeth. His eyes were circular and gleaming, pupils sharp with an energy he didn't feel.
He looked like a cartoon.
He looked like a god.
He looked like—
"Gear Fifth," Nika supplied helpfully. "The peak of Devil Fruit awakening. Liberation in its purest form. The power I wielded 800 years ago, before they sealed me away. Isn't it WONDERFUL?"
"DEVIL FRUIT?!" Marcus's mind raced, memories of late-night anime binges crashing against the reality of his situation. "GEAR FIFTH?! AS IN—AS IN ONE PIECE?! AS IN MONKEY D. LUFFY'S—"
"Ah, Joyboy's successor! Yes, he was fun. Very fun. Good laugh, that one. Shishishi~"
"I'M NOT LUFFY! I'M MARCUS! MARCUS CHEN! I'M AN ACCOUNTANT FROM DENVER! I DO PEOPLE'S TAXES!"
"Boring."
"IT'S NOT—wait, boring?!"
"You did taxes. Now you're a god. Significant improvement, yes?"
Marcus wanted to argue. He wanted to scream that this was insane, that he was probably dying, that this was some fever dream from bad sushi or a stress-induced hallucination from the Henderson account—
But the ground was getting very close now.
Through his panic, his impossible eyes zoomed in on the landscape below—again, without his permission, like his body had functions he hadn't unlocked yet. He saw a wasteland. Craters everywhere, scorch marks, plumes of dust rising from impacts. Tiny figures locked in combat, moving at speeds that should have been invisible.
One figure—bald, third eye, bleeding—crashed into a rock formation and didn't get up.
Another—short, noseless, orange gi—was sent flying by a casual backhand.
A third—green skin, pointed ears, cape fluttering—was struggling to stand, one arm hanging limp.
And at the center of it all, two figures in white armor. One absolutely massive, bald, with a thin mustache and muscles that made professional bodybuilders look malnourished. The other shorter, compact, with hair that stood up like a black flame and eyes that radiated pure, unbridled arrogance.
Names surfaced in Marcus's mind. Not memories—knowledge, implanted there by whatever cosmic nonsense had put him in this body.
Nappa.
Vegeta.
The Saiyan Saga.
"Oh no," Marcus whispered.
"Oh YES!" Nika cheered.
"This is Dragon Ball. I'm falling into the Saiyan Saga. I'm about to crash-land in the middle of the most iconic battle in anime history and I don't know how to CONTROL THIS BODY—"
"Control?" Nika's voice turned thoughtful. "Why would you need control? Just DO. Feel the rhythm. Hear the drums. Let go of everything else and MOVE."
"WHAT DRUMS?! I DON'T HEAR ANY—"
And then he did.
Dum-da-da-dum-dum.
Dum-da-da-dum-dum.
A heartbeat. But not his heartbeat—something deeper, older, resonating in his very soul. It pulsed through his rubbery body, through his bones that probably weren't bones anymore, through every fiber of his cartoonish being.
The Drums of Liberation.
"There it is," Nika whispered, and for once, the ancient voice wasn't laughing. It was reverent. "That's you now. That rhythm, that beat—that's your heart. The heart that has never stopped beating in 800 years. The heart of the Sun God."
Marcus's grin widened.
He wasn't making it widen. He wasn't in control. But somehow, impossibly, it felt right.
"Okay," he breathed, wind screaming past, ground approaching at terminal velocity. "Okay. Let's... let's DO this."
His body moved on instinct.
His right arm shot backward.
Not a few feet. Not a dozen feet. Not even a hundred feet.
Miles.
Marcus's consciousness split in a way that should have driven him insane—one part of him remained in his falling body, aware of the wind and the ground and the approaching battlefield, while another part of him followed his arm as it rocketed across the landscape at speeds that made sound look like a drunk turtle.
His fist—still attached to him by an impossibly long rubber arm—flew over the wasteland. Over craters and corpses of Saibamen. Over patches of scorched earth where Yamcha had made his last stand. Over the distant plains where the battle had first begun.
The arm kept stretching.
Forests whipped by below—his fist passed over trees that bent in its wake, leaves scattering from the shockwave of displaced air. A flock of birds exploded outward in panic, their tiny minds unable to comprehend the rubber appendage that had just violated every law of nature.
Mountains rose in the distance.
His arm passed over them too, rubber flesh gleaming white in the sunlight, stretching and stretching and stretching without any sign of stopping.
"This is the beauty of liberation," Nika murmured in his mind. "No limits. No restrictions. The body becomes what the spirit needs it to be. And right now, your spirit needs..."
Marcus's perception followed his fist as it crested a familiar mountain range.
Mount Paozu.
A small house sat in the valley, nestled against the forest, smoke rising from a chimney. Laundry hung on a line outside—orange gis, purple training clothes, a child's outfit. A woman stood there, back turned, reaching up to pin another shirt in place.
Black hair tied up in a bun. Muscular frame barely hidden by a domestic dress. A wooden sword leaning against the laundry basket, because of course she never went anywhere without a weapon.
Chi-Chi.
Wife of Goku. Mother of Gohan. The most terrifying non-powered human in the entire Dragon Ball universe.
Currently completely unaware that her husband and son were fighting for their lives hundreds of miles away.
Marcus's rubber hand—still very much attached to his still-falling body—did something he absolutely did not authorize.
It waved.
Cheerfully.
"HI THERE!" his mouth shouted, the words somehow—SOMEHOW—carrying across the continent to reach her ears. "LOVELY WEATHER WE'RE HAVING!"
Chi-Chi dropped her laundry basket.
Her head turned. Her eyes widened. Her mouth fell open.
A white rubber arm waved at her from the sky, stretching off into the distance, attached to nothing she could see, waggling its fingers in a friendly greeting.
"What... what in the..."
"SORRY, CAN'T CHAT!" Marcus's voice continued, completely beyond his control. "GOTTA GO PUNCH A PRINCE! TELL GOKU HIS SON'S DOING GREAT! BYEEEE~!"
The arm began its return journey.
Chi-Chi stared at the retreating rubber appendage, watching it zip back over the mountains, her brain desperately trying to process what she had just witnessed.
"...I need to get to that battlefield," she muttered, already running for her car. "And then I need to KILL whoever that was for scaring me."
Marcus's arm was coming back.
He could feel it—the tension building, the rubber contracting, his fist accelerating as it retraced its continental journey. What had taken seconds going out was taking less time coming back, the arm snapping toward him like the world's largest rubber band.
"Now," Nika's voice dropped lower, more serious, though still bubbling with anticipation, "let's make this INTERESTING."
"What do you—"
Marcus felt it before he saw it.
His will. His spirit. His very soul reaching out and grabbing onto something inside him—something hard, unyielding, indomitable. It felt like iron wrapped in determination, like confidence given physical form.
Armament Haki.
Black coating rippled up his arm.
Starting from his distant fist, racing up his rubber limb like oil spreading through water—pure, gleaming black that somehow shone in the sunlight, hardening his flesh into something beyond mere rubber. Miles of arm turned obsidian-dark, and Marcus could feel the difference. His rubber was still rubber, still flexible, but now it was also unbreakable.
"Holy shit," he breathed.
"Language. Shishishi~"
"I have Haki. I actually have HAKI."
"You have ME. Which means you have everything I have. The Gum-Gum Fruit at its peak. All three types of Haki. And..." Nika's voice turned gleeful. "The flames of the sun itself."
"Flames? What flames? What do you mean flames—"
His fist caught fire.
Not metaphorically. Not a little bit. His Haki-coated rubber fist, still rocketing toward him from across the continent, ignited. Flames erupted around it—brilliant orange and red, roaring with heat, leaving a trail of fire across the sky like a comet.
"Gum-Gum Red Hawk," Nika announced dramatically. "First demonstrated by Joyboy's successor in Fishman Island. The combination of Armament Haki and the friction of a high-speed rubber punch, creating fire hot enough to burn even underwater. Isn't it BEAUTIFUL?"
"IT'S TERRIFYING!"
"SAME THING!"
Marcus's falling body finally entered the battlefield's airspace.
Below, he could see everything with crystal clarity. Krillin, struggling to stand, one arm clutching his ribs. Piccolo, regenerating his wounded arm with visible strain. Tien, unconscious in a crater. Gohan, barely four years old, shaking with fear and exhaustion but still standing, still fighting.
And the Saiyans.
Nappa had just backhanded Piccolo, sending the Namekian skidding across the rocky ground. "Pathetic! You call this a fight? I've had more trouble with insects!"
Vegeta stood apart, arms crossed, watching with cold amusement. "Finish them already, Nappa. Kakarot will arrive soon, and I want to enjoy crushing him without distractions."
"Sure thing, Vegeta! Let me just—" Nappa raised one massive hand, energy gathering at his fingertips. "—blow away the brat first. Kid's got some fight in him. Might be annoying later if we let him live."
Gohan couldn't move. His legs were locked, his tiny body trembling.
"Are you going to let that happen?" Nika asked quietly.
"No," Marcus growled. "No, I'm NOT."
His fist—miles of Haki-coated, fire-wreathed rubber—was almost back.
He could feel it approaching, feel the tension reaching its peak, feel the moment crystallizing into something perfect and right.
"Hey." His voice boomed across the wasteland, amplified by something beyond mere volume. "BALDY."
Nappa paused, hand still raised.
Vegeta's eyes narrowed.
Piccolo, Krillin, and Gohan all looked up.
A white figure was falling from the sky, grinning impossibly wide, one arm stretched out behind him in a direction that made no sense, connecting to... nothing? Something beyond the horizon?
"What the—" Nappa started.
Marcus's body moved.
His falling descent twisted, his rubber torso spinning, his arm winding up like a spring being coiled past its breaking point. His perception of time seemed to slow as he fell the last hundred feet, his fist—burning, black, unstoppable—finally completing its journey.
"GUM-GUM..."
The name of the attack erupted from his throat, and it wasn't his voice anymore. It was older. Deeper. The voice of a god who had been imprisoned for eight centuries and was finally free to laugh again.
Vegeta's scouter beeped.
Then it screamed.
Numbers scrolled past faster than the device could process—10,000, 50,000, 100,000, 250,000—before the display simply showed OVERFLOW ERROR and the entire thing exploded against his face, showering him with sparks and shattered glass.
"What—" Vegeta's eyes went wide. "NAPPA, MOVE—"
But Nappa wasn't Marcus's target.
"RED HAWK!"
The punch connected with Vegeta's face.
Every ounce of continental momentum, every mile of stretched rubber snapping back, every fragment of Armament Haki and every degree of fire—all of it focused into a single, world-shaking impact.
The shockwave blew Nappa off his feet.
The shockwave made Piccolo's cape billow backward.
The shockwave created a crater beneath Marcus's feet as he landed, the ground simply yielding rather than trying to absorb that much force.
And Vegeta—Prince of All Saiyans, Elite Warrior, Pride of a Dead Race—went flying.
He rocketed backward so fast he broke the sound barrier. Seventeen times. Marcus counted the sonic booms as the Prince of All Saiyans crashed through one plateau, then another, then a third, each impact creating a new explosion of dust and rubble.
Vegeta finally stopped somewhere near the horizon, buried in what had once been a mountain.
Silence.
Complete, absolute silence.
Marcus stood in the center of the battlefield, his fist still extended, smoke rising from his knuckles, his grin so wide it was almost concerning.
"Beautiful," Nika whispered. "Absolutely beautiful."
"What," Nappa said slowly, his voice a mixture of confusion and growing rage, "the FUCK was that?"
Marcus lowered his arm. His body was still doing that thing—that permanent Gear 5 thing—where he couldn't stop grinning. His white rubber skin seemed to gleam in the sunlight, his flame-like hair dancing without wind.
"Uh." Marcus tried to come up with an explanation. "I can explain?"
"You just punched Vegeta." Nappa's eye twitched. "You just punched the Prince of All Saiyans."
"Yeah, about that—"
"ACROSS A CONTINENT."
"Okay, when you put it that way—"
"WITH YOUR FIST ON FIRE."
"In my defense," Marcus said, raising both hands placatingly, "he seemed like he was about to do something bad? And I just kind of... reacted?"
Piccolo stared at the newcomer, his regenerated arm hanging limp at his side. "Who are you?"
"Great question!" Marcus said brightly. "I'm Marcus! Marcus Chen! I'm an accountant from Denver, Colorado, and about three minutes ago I woke up falling from the sky in a body that isn't mine, with a voice in my head that calls itself Nika, and I'm pretty sure I'm having the most elaborate mental breakdown in human history!"
Beat.
"...What?" Krillin managed.
"Don't tell them the truth," Nika chided. "That's boring. Tell them you're the Sun God."
"I'm NOT telling them I'm the Sun God—"
"Too late."
Marcus's mouth moved without his permission: "I'M THE SUN GOD NIKA!"
His hands slapped over his mouth. His eyes went wide. His grin somehow widened even further beneath his palms.
"Did he just say Sun God?" Gohan whispered.
"I think he did," Piccolo muttered.
"Okay, look," Marcus tried again, lowering his hands. "I don't fully understand what's happening, but—"
Nappa moved.
The massive Saiyan blurred forward, fist cocked back, absolutely done with this strange white creature. "I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU ARE—YOU'RE DEAD!"
Marcus's body reacted on instinct.
His torso bent backward at an impossible angle—like his spine had simply decided to become a wet noodle—as Nappa's punch sailed over him. His rubber flesh stretched and compressed, turning his dodge into something that looked physically impossible.
"Whoa!" Marcus yelped, watching Nappa's fist pass inches from his nose. "That was close!"
Nappa's eyes bulged. "How did you—"
"GUM-GUM..."
Marcus's arms shot backward, both of them this time, stretching thirty feet behind him before snapping forward with devastating force.
"BAZOOKA!"
Both palms slammed into Nappa's chest simultaneously.
The impact created a thunderclap. Nappa's armor cracked down the center, and the massive Saiyan was launched backward, crashing through the already devastated landscape.
Marcus stared at his hands.
"I... I can do that?"
"You can do ANYTHING," Nika laughed. "That's the beauty of awakening! Reality is a suggestion! Physics is a guideline! The only limit is how FUN you want to make it!"
Nappa burst from the rubble, bleeding from a cut on his forehead, absolutely furious.
"YOU LITTLE—"
He charged again, faster this time, ki exploding around him.
Marcus's body moved on its own.
His leg stretched backward, coiling like a spring, muscles—did he even have muscles anymore?—tightening with stored energy.
"GUM-GUM STAMP!"
His foot shot forward, sole-first, and caught Nappa directly in the face. The Saiyan's nose crunched audibly as he was sent tumbling backward.
But Nappa recovered mid-air, catching himself with his ki, wiping blood from his face.
"Lucky shots," he growled. "Won't happen again."
He raised both hands, energy gathering between his palms—a technique that Marcus's implanted knowledge recognized immediately.
Bomber DX.
"DODGE!" Piccolo shouted.
Marcus didn't dodge.
Instead, he inhaled.
His chest expanded. And expanded. And expanded. His rubber body inflated like a balloon, growing rounder and larger until he looked like a white sphere with a head and limbs attached.
"Oh, you're going with THAT one," Nika said approvingly. "Excellent choice."
Nappa unleashed his attack—a massive ball of destructive energy hurtling toward Marcus with world-ending force.
"GUM-GUM BALLOON!"
The energy ball hit Marcus's inflated body.
And bounced off.
It ricocheted away, arcing up into the sky before detonating harmlessly in the upper atmosphere, the flash visible for miles.
Everyone stared.
"He... he just..." Krillin's jaw was hanging open.
"Bounced it," Gohan finished, equally stunned.
Marcus deflated, returning to his normal (relatively speaking) size, and cracked his neck.
"Okay," he said, and for the first time, some of Nika's confidence had started bleeding into his voice. "I'm starting to get the hang of this."
"The drums are beating stronger," Nika observed. "You're hearing them now, aren't you? The rhythm of liberation. The heartbeat of freedom."
Marcus was hearing them. That dum-da-da-dum-dum pulsing through his very being, synchronizing with his movements, making everything feel like a dance.
Nappa screamed with rage and charged again.
"GUM-GUM..."
Marcus's arm stretched upward, twisted, and coiled like a spring.
"RIFLE!"
His rotating fist shot forward like a drill, spinning with enough force to create a visible vortex in the air. It caught Nappa in the solar plexus, and the Saiyan doubled over, spit and blood flying from his mouth.
But Marcus wasn't done.
His other arm was already stretching, already coiling, already preparing.
"GUM-GUM..."
He leaped into the air, his rubber legs launching him higher than any normal jump should allow, his body twisting and turning with cartoonish flexibility.
"WHIP!"
His leg swept around in a massive arc, stretching impossibly long, catching Nappa across the face and sending him spinning like a top.
Marcus landed in a crouch.
Nappa crashed into a boulder, shattering it.
"Beautiful form," Nika praised. "But you're holding back. You're scared. Don't be scared. Let go. FEEL the joy of combat. EMBRACE the absurdity of existence!"
"I'm trying!" Marcus hissed internally. "But this is INSANE!"
"OF COURSE IT'S INSANE! SANITY IS A PRISON! BREAK FREE!"
Nappa rose again, slower this time, his armor crumbling, his face a mask of blood and fury.
"I'll... I'll kill you... I'll KILL you..."
"Actually," Marcus said, tilting his head, "I don't think you will."
He inhaled again—not to inflate, but to prepare. His arm stretched backward, past the Z Fighters, past the craters, fifty feet of rubber extending behind him.
"GUM-GUM..."
Black Haki coated his fist once more.
"JET PISTOL!"
The punch was faster than before. Much faster. Marcus's arm contracted with such force that his fist seemed to simply appear in front of Nappa's face, no travel time visible to the naked eye.
The impact created a shockwave that knocked everyone off their feet.
Nappa's head snapped back. His eyes went white. His massive body crumpled like a puppet with cut strings, collapsing to the ground and staying there.
Out cold.
Marcus stood over the unconscious Saiyan, breathing hard—not from exhaustion, but from adrenaline, from the sheer impossibility of everything that had just happened.
"I... I did it," he whispered. "I actually..."
"Of course you did," Nika said warmly. "You're me now. And I NEVER lose when I'm having fun."
A slow clap echoed across the battlefield.
Marcus turned.
Vegeta stood at the edge of the crater zone, having somehow made his way back from the distant mountain range. His armor was gone—completely disintegrated—leaving him in the black bodysuit beneath. Blood dripped from a cut on his forehead, and one of his eyes was already swelling shut.
But he was smiling.
"Impressive," the Prince of All Saiyans said, his voice carrying across the wasteland. "Truly impressive. I haven't been hit that hard since... well, since ever."
"Uh." Marcus's grin flickered slightly. "Thanks?"
"I wasn't complimenting you." Vegeta's smile widened, becoming something feral. "I was expressing my anticipation."
Ki exploded around him.
The ground cracked. The air itself seemed to scream. Vegeta's power rose and rose and rose, his black hair standing on end, his muscles bulging, his entire body becoming a beacon of destructive energy.
"This power," Vegeta laughed, "this FORM of yours—I will CRUSH it. I will prove that no matter what you are, no matter what god you claim to serve, NOTHING surpasses the might of the Saiyan race!"
Marcus's grin returned full force.
Because despite the terror, despite the uncertainty, despite being an accountant from Denver who had absolutely no business being in this situation—
He could feel it.
The drums.
The rhythm.
The joy.
"Now THAT," Nika whispered, "is an opponent worth fighting."
"Shishishi~"
The laugh escaped Marcus's lips, not entirely his own, but not entirely foreign either.
"Alright, Your Highness," Marcus said, settling into a stance that his body seemed to know instinctively—legs spread, arms loose, rubber muscles coiling with potential energy. "Let's dance."
Vegeta's power was overwhelming.
Even in his base form, the Prince of All Saiyans radiated enough ki to make the air thick and oppressive. Marcus could feel it pressing against his rubber skin, trying to force him to his knees.
He refused.
"That's the spirit," Nika encouraged. "Never bow. Never submit. You are the sun—you illuminate, you warm, you BURN. You do not kneel to darkness."
"Inspiring," Marcus muttered. "Really helpful. Any tactical advice?"
"Hit him hard. Hit him repeatedly. Laugh while doing so."
"...I was hoping for something more specific."
Vegeta moved.
The Saiyan Prince crossed the distance between them in a blur, fist already swinging for Marcus's head. It was faster than Nappa—significantly faster—and Marcus barely twisted out of the way, his rubber body contorting at an angle that would have shattered a normal spine.
"Too slow!" Vegeta crowed, following up with a knee strike.
Marcus's body reacted on instinct, his torso stretching around the blow like water flowing around a stone.
"GUM-GUM..."
His arms stretched in opposite directions, then snapped together.
"MALLET!"
Both fists slammed into Vegeta from either side, catching the Saiyan in a pincer attack.
But Vegeta caught them.
Both fists, frozen in his grip, his arms trembling with effort but holding.
"Interesting technique," Vegeta grunted. "But predictable."
He yanked.
Marcus was pulled off his feet, his stretched arms becoming a liability as Vegeta used them to swing him in a wide arc and slam him into the ground.
CRACK.
The impact created a crater. Marcus's rubber body bounced once, twice, before he managed to flip upright.
"Okay," he wheezed. "That hurt."
"Did it?" Nika asked curiously.
"...Actually, no. It didn't. Why didn't that hurt?"
"You're rubber. Blunt force is essentially meaningless. He could hit you a thousand times and you'd just bounce back. The only things that can truly harm you are..."
"Cutting attacks," Marcus finished. "And Haki. Which he doesn't have."
"Exactly. So why are you fighting defensively? ATTACK! OVERWHELM! MAKE HIM REGRET EVER CROSSING YOUR PATH!"
The drums pounded louder.
Marcus grinned.
"GUM-GUM GATLING!"
His arms became a blur. Not just fast—impossibly fast. Hundreds of punches per second, each one stretching and retracting so quickly that it looked like he had a thousand fists.
Vegeta's eyes widened.
He blocked the first ten. The first twenty. The first fifty.
But no one could block forever.
Punches started slipping through. A hit to the shoulder. A glancing blow to the ribs. A direct strike to the chin that snapped his head back.
"GRR—ENOUGH!" Vegeta roared, his ki exploding outward in a spherical blast that forced Marcus to disengage.
When the smoke cleared, Vegeta was panting. Bruises were already forming across his body.
But he was still standing.
And he was still smiling.
"Good," Vegeta breathed. "Good! I haven't had a workout like this in YEARS. But you know what? Playtime is over."
He reached for his hip and produced something small and spherical.
A Power Ball.
Marcus's eyes widened. "Oh no."
"Oh YES," Vegeta laughed. "Blutz Waves—the trigger for our most powerful transformation. You might have been able to fight me as an Elite... but CAN YOU FIGHT A GREAT APE?!"
He threw the ball into the sky, where it expanded into a miniature moon, bathing the battlefield in artificial moonlight.
Vegeta's body began to change.
Fur erupted across his skin. His muscles swelled. His face elongated into a snout. He grew and grew and GREW, until a massive ape loomed over the battlefield—fifty feet tall, covered in brown fur, eyes glowing red with primal fury.
"HAHAHAHA!" Vegeta's laugh boomed like thunder. "NOW, LITTLE WARRIOR—LET'S SEE HOW YOU HANDLE THIS!"
His massive fist swung down.
Marcus leaped backward, the impact creating a crater where he'd been standing.
"Okay," he said, looking up at the Great Ape. "Okay. This is fine. This is completely fine. I can handle this."
"You seem nervous," Nika observed.
"HE'S A GIANT APE!"
"And you're a god. Size is irrelevant. You know what to do. You've seen it before, haven't you? In your memories. In your dreams. The technique that makes giants into playthings."
Marcus's eyes widened.
He had seen it. In the anime. When Luffy fought—
"GUM-GUM..."
His arms shot upward, grabbing onto the Power Ball itself. His rubber body stretched, becoming thin and flat, like a sheet of white rubber spreading across the sky.
And then he started to pull.
"BALLOON!"
But not just any balloon.
This time, Marcus inhaled everything. Air, ki, the very essence of the atmosphere. His body expanded to match the Great Ape's size—maybe even exceed it—becoming a massive white sphere with his grinning face at the center.
"WHAT?!" Great Ape Vegeta roared. "HOW ARE YOU—"
"GUM-GUM..."
Marcus's massive inflated body bounced forward, slamming into the Great Ape with the force of a falling moon.
"GIANT STAMP!"
His enormous foot—proportionally inflated with the rest of him—crashed into Vegeta's simian face.
The Great Ape stumbled backward, arms pinwheeling.
Marcus deflated, returning to his normal size, and immediately went on the offensive.
"GUM-GUM JET PISTOL!"
A Haki-coated punch to the kneecap.
"GUM-GUM WHIP!"
A sweeping kick that tangled around the ape's ankles.
"GUM-GUM RIFLE!"
A drilling punch directly to the tail.
Great Ape Vegeta howled.
"THE TAIL!" Krillin shouted from the sidelines. "CUT OFF THE TAIL AND HE'LL—"
"I KNOW!" Marcus shouted back. "BUT I DON'T HAVE A SWORD!"
"Who needs a sword?" Nika asked. "You have something better."
Marcus's eyes widened as knowledge flooded into his mind.
A technique he'd never used. A technique that shouldn't even exist yet, wouldn't be invented for years and years in the One Piece timeline. But Nika had used it. 800 years ago. Before he was sealed. Before Joy Boy was forgotten.
"GUM-GUM..."
His arm stretched backward—far backward—and began to rotate. But this time, the Haki coating was different. It didn't just cover his fist.
It covered his fingers.
Black, gleaming, hardened rubber fingers that looked less like a fist and more like—
"SCYTHE!"
His arm whipped around in a massive arc, the edge of his Haki-coated hand slicing through the air with enough force to create a visible shockwave.
It hit the Great Ape's tail.
And cut through it.
The furry appendage fell to the ground, severed cleanly, and Vegeta screamed.
His massive body began to shrink. The fur receded. The snout flattened. Within moments, the Great Ape was gone, replaced by a battered, exhausted, furious Vegeta lying in a crater.
"My... my tail..." Vegeta stared at the severed appendage in horror. "You... you cut off my TAIL!"
Marcus landed in front of him, still grinning, still white, still very much not in control of his own facial expressions.
"Shishishi~ Yeah, I did."
Vegeta's eye twitched.
"I am the Prince of ALL SAIYANS. I am the ELITE of the ELITE. I have conquered WORLDS. And you—YOU—"
He tried to stand.
His legs gave out.
He tried again.
Same result.
Marcus tilted his head, watching the Prince of All Saiyans struggle to rise, his power depleted, his pride shattered, his tail—his precious Saiyan tail—lying in the dust.
"Finish him," Nika said quietly. "He will never stop coming. Never stop fighting. Never stop trying to destroy everything you care about. End it now, and save yourself the trouble."
Marcus raised his fist.
Haki coated his knuckles.
Vegeta looked up at him, defiant to the end.
And—
"Wait."
Marcus lowered his arm.
"What are you doing?"
"He's beaten," Marcus said. "He can't fight. He can't even stand. Killing him now... it wouldn't be right."
"Right? What is 'right'? He would have destroyed this planet. Killed everyone on it. Laughed while doing so. He DESERVES—"
"Maybe," Marcus interrupted. "But that's not who I am. That's not who we are, Nika. You're the Sun God, right? The Warrior of Liberation? Well, liberation means freedom. And killing someone who can't fight back... that's not freedom. That's just murder."
Silence in his mind.
Then, slowly, Nika began to laugh.
"Shishishi~ Oh, I LIKE you, Marcus Chen. You might just be the best host I've ever had."
Marcus turned away from Vegeta, walking toward the gathered Z Fighters.
"You're letting him go," Piccolo said flatly.
"Yeah."
"He'll come back."
"Probably."
"Stronger than before."
"Almost certainly."
Piccolo stared at him for a long moment. Then, incredibly, he smirked.
"You're an idiot," the Namekian said. "But you're also the strongest idiot I've ever met. That counts for something."
"Thanks?" Marcus rubbed the back of his head. "I think?"
Krillin stepped forward, wincing at his injuries. "Seriously though, man—who ARE you? Where did you come from? And why do you look like... that?"
Marcus looked down at his white rubber body, his flame-like hair, his permanent grin.
"Honestly?" he said. "I have absolutely no idea. But I think... I think I'm going to be here for a while."
Behind him, Vegeta dragged himself toward his space pod, too beaten to fight but too proud to accept help.
Somewhere in the distance, Chi-Chi was speeding toward the battlefield in a hover car, ready to demand answers about the strange rubber man who had waved at her.
And in Marcus's mind, the Drums of Liberation continued to beat.
Dum-da-da-dum-dum.
Dum-da-da-dum-dum.
"Welcome to your new life, Marcus Chen," Nika whispered. "It's going to be a WILD ride."
Marcus couldn't stop grinning.
But for the first time since waking up in freefall, that felt okay.