#renso

THE HERO Cabba aka Spider-Saiyan

"My name is Cabba. I was bitten by a radioactive spider and for the past (x amount of time), I've been Planet Sadala's one and only Spider-Saiyan."

Rather than being the Sadalan Defense Force's prodigy fighter, Cabba lives a more domestic lifestyle as a high school student, planning to enlist in the SSDF post-graduation or at least pursue criminal justice- at least until the spider event occurs. Cabba is the type to go into hyper-anxiety, so he's desperately trying to disinfect and treat the spider bite, all while Googling his symptoms and being none the wiser on the "radioactive" part.

He's trained in jiujitsu and is very limber and agility-focused. He also has an interest in tactile and textile skills, so his Spidey-Suit is handmade.

Design: Similarly to AtSV's Pavitr Prabhakar, his iconic Saiyan spikes stick out of the top of the spider cowl. While the peaks end up slicked down into a waved side part, his front bang remains distinctive. In terms of the coloration, the suit's color scheme reverses the color distributions in the palette, prioritizing shades of blue over reds, and adds some gold accents, particularly on the spider symbol. There is a red headband pattern along the brow resembling Bardock's bandanna. Additions to the design incorporate elements from the main canon's SSDF uniform, including a reddish x-crossed double belt, the four lavender skirt tails (unintentionally completing the "eight legs" spider theme), and ankle boots in black rather than purple.

THE GAL PALS Caulifla and Kale

Caulifla and Kale serves as this AU's equivalents to Gwen Stacy and Mary Jane Watson respectively. Close to Cabba's age and grade in high school if not in the same year. Since Cauli is the Gwen Stacy equivalent, there is an alternate DBU6B where she receives the spider bite instead of Cabba.

Having this pair in play explores the fun what-if of Gwen and MJ getting together in the end. As a result, this means that Cabba doesn't get either end-game gal and he doesn't have a problem with that- love is love.

It's debatable whether Cauli will suffer the same fate as your average Gwen Stacy- she seems the type to be able to take care of herself.

THE POLICE CAPTAIN Captain Renso

"Sadalhattan"'s resident police chief and Caulifla's older brother and caretaker due to their absentee parents. Unfortunately, if you've been picking up on the Spiderverse patterns, he ends up being Spider-Saiyan's canon event and loses his life.

Caulifla, who is normally apathetic about her brother, starts to become even more hostile and spiteful against the world. She acts particularly distrusting and vengeful towards Spider-Saiyan, putting him to blame and believing it was negligence on his part that got her brother killed.

If she's not gone completely moodily silent, Cauli will rant on and on to Cabba and Kale about her plans to bring Spider-Saiyan to justice- and Cabba just has to nod along.

Spider-Saiyan is bound to encounter typical street thugs, generic evildoers, villains of the week but...

THIS ONE The Lizard

Villains of the week and your standard commonplace criminals come to pass but Cabba's recurring villain by moonlight manifests in the form of a scaly creature known simply as The Lizard. It only appears at night and resembles a draconic reptilian with sharp horns yet is oddly humanoid in build. It's colored in shades of blue, dons a mask over its mouth, and has piercing red eyes that glow in the dark. It communicates in mainly hisses and grumbles and is rarely verbal.

The Lizard always manages to elude capture and vanishes into the night.

Who knows where this creature disappears to once morning breaks? Perhaps there is another side to the beast.

THE CLOSEST COMPANION Frost

In this AU, Frost has a more humanoid appearance, practically a human AU design. He has blue hair and pronouns tied up in a messy bun and green and hazel heterochromatic eyes, though there's reason to suspect they're contacts.

He's not a Saiyan, obviously, but he's from an immigrant species family, somewhat of an Ellis Island type situation, about second or third generation. His family lives in an area of the city similar to Chinatown.

Frost has been described as "cool as cucumbers and gay as sunshine". He's one of Cabba's closest friends and they share a high level of trust. They occasionally have talks after school, usually while Frost is working part time in his family's small-business cafe.

"Do you think if you ever had to keep a secret... about who you are... you'd ever just want to tell someone just to ease a bit of weight from your shoulder?" Cabba's hand tenses on the strap of his bag, lightweight and flowy yet heavy with problems, fingers self conscious about whether the zipper is shut to hide the Spider-Suit he quickly stashed inside.

"An oddly specific hypothetical, my dear Cabba," Frost simply chuckles a bit, yet there's an odd twinge in his throat. "Even so, there is quite the risk in doing so... could you even do it without causing yourself more stress? Putting yourself in more danger?" There's a beat of silence, Frost still smirking but the corner of his lip still twitching. "But I digress, drink that tea you ordered before it gets cold~"

However...

Due to a mysterious experimental contamination, Frost experiences almost werewolf-like transformations into The Lizard by night- though these occurrences seem to worsen as of late, triggering more frequently and at less convenient times, making it harder to track the timing. It's a wonder it hasn't happened earlier in the day- or worst of all, in public or at school. His memory of what he does as The Lizard has grown less and less hazy of late.

Frost hasn't been up for sleepovers in ages, and adverse after effects lead people to believe this kid needs serious amounts of lotion on his hands.

Let’s start with Piccolo training Gohan.  They only have about a day to prepare, but Piccolo thinks he can get more out of Gohan.  For one thing, he manages to get Gohan to use his “Ultimate/Mystic/Potential Unleashed” form that he used against Super Buu.  Throughout this series, it’s been implied that Gohan just lost that ability, or forgot how to do it, but this time Piccolo just tells him to go ham and he does it on the first try. 

Piccolo also tells Gohan he has two major weaknesses holding him back.  First, Gohan uses his emotions to drive himself, which is fine to a certain point, but it can be dangerous to tie your power to your emotions.  If he keeps thinking about his need to protect his family, it can make him afraid, or desperate, which can make him prone to mistakes, no matter how strong he gets. 

Second, Gohan tends to get careless when he’s winning.  Piccolo cites the Majin Buu fight, but I think we all know he’s only choosing that battle because the Cell Games are too painful an example.  Of course, we’ve already seen a more recent instance of this when Gohan sparred with Krillin in episode 83.  Krillin proved that he could outmanuever Gohan and score a ring-out, despite Gohan’s superior power.

This is best illustrated in the scene where Gohan manages to chop off Piccolo’s forearm, kind of like how Tagoma ripped it off back in Episode 22.  That pretty much took Piccolo out of the fight back then, but Gohan doesn’t follow through with another attack the way Tagoma did.  He just assumes he’s done, which gives Piccolo a chance to show off his new trick of firing ki blasts from severed limbs. 

So Gohan is still making the same mistakes he did as a kid, while Piccolo is continuously adapting.  He won’t be beaten the same way again. 

Anyway, they plan to keep pushing to see if they can get Gohan to an even higher level before the Tournament, and Gohan suggests they work on some combo moves while they’re at it. 

Meanwhile, in Universe 6, Cabba seeks out his old mentor from the Sadala Defense Force, Captain Renso.  He asks him to join Team Universe 6, but Renso’s got a bum leg, and feels he would only slow the team down.  Instead, he suggests that Cabba recruit his sister, Caulifla. 

Cabba’s not too keen on that idea.  While he’s confident in her fighting ability, they’ve never gotten along too well, mainly because Caulifla is the leader of a bunch of punks on the mean streets of Planet Sadala.  Considering how shitty the U6 team was in the Destroyer Tournament, I’d say anything is an improvement.  All I know is that Caulifla only makes a brief appearance in this episode, and she immediately became my favorite U6 character.

Meanwhile, Krillin and 18 are sparring in their backyard.  18 keeps whoopin’ his ass, and she’s already decided to claim his share of the nonexistent prize money. 

Meanwhile, Trunks doesn’t know how to work a diaper.

But Vegeta does!  Seriously, when did he get so good at this?  I’m pretty sure he had Gohan give him lessons or something.

Beerus is annoyed that everyone is so care free about things, so he considers telling them about their universe possibly getting erased, if only so he won’t have to worry alone.  But Whis warns him that Bulma will give him shit for it.  And he’s right, she would.  I mean, Beerus can blame Goku all he wants but Beerus could have stopped him if he gave a shit.

Meanwhile, Yamcha continues to fantasize about playing hard-to-get when Goku asks him to join the team.  He’s starting to wonder why Goku hasn’t approached him already, but you kind of need to speak up if you want in this thing, man. 

Anyway, fans complained about the terrible state of Yamcha’s apartment when this episode first aired, and I think the bigger issue is that the artists just blew off drawing his apartment.   Like, this doesn’t look like there was any conscious decision to make it look fancy or crummy.  There’s simply no aesthetic whatsoever.  The furniture looks like it came from a motel, the chair looks like a child’s car seat, the bed looks like something out of a 1940′s cartoon, and there’s no door leading to the patio.

It’s the same problem we saw in Future Trunks’ bedroom at Capsule Corp.  They just slapped some stuff together and called it done.