Boomstick: Silver the Hedgehog, secret Freedom Fighter from Archie's Sonic.
Wiz: While these two temporal warriors may be well-known, today we're looking at their counterparts from alternate universes.
The first combatant the hosts look at is Trunks Briefs, one of the more popular characters of his series who famously made short work of previous major villain Frieza. Hailing from a dark future where Goku had died of a heart virus and most of the world's population had been slaughtered by the murderous Androids 17 and 18, Trunks used his mother Bulma's time machine to travel back to an era where he could aid the Z-Fighters against Cell and the android menace. And having successfully completed his task, the half-Saiyan hero returned to his time and destroyed the android duo, though he would have no time to rest as Chronoa, the Supreme Kai of Time, arrested him for his alterations to multiple timelines. Thus, Trunks would be pulled into the Dragon Ball Xenoverse, a multiverse where every story has its own canonical timeline, to serve his sentence as a member of Chronoa's secret Time Patrol and guard the Xenoverse against any threats to the timelines.
Besides the various Saiyan ki powers, the half-Saiyan swordsman also wields the Brave Sword, a blade handed down to him by Tapion, the Hero of Time. As it's implied that this version of Trunks has experienced the events of Dragon Ball Super's Goku Black saga, it can be assumed that he has access to all the powers his main counterpart has, including the golden-haired Super Saiyan transformations and the ability to gather ki given from others to empower his sword with the Sword of Hope technique. However, he has also undergone a ritual to gain access to godly ki and assume the power of a Super Saiyan God, which has proved useful against foes such as Mechikabura, the ruler of the demon realm revived by the Time Breakers, Towa and Mira. These dastardly foes would cause all sorts of trouble across the Xenoverse and provide no end of grief for Trunks and the Time Patrol, who are able to travel throughout time themselves with special bracelets that prevent breaks in the timelines... though this doesn't prevent any rogue members of the Time Patrol from messing with time themselves, as when Sealas attempted to rewrite the reality of both the world and the arcade game of the far-off future known as Dragon Ball Heroes. The arcade game serves as a means of time travel in itself, allowing avatars of future warriors to revisit iconic moments of the past and summon copies of well-known fighters using collectible cards, and it just so happens that Trunks himself is an avid fan of the game, able to use the cards himself with his Hero Switch.
However, all these powers, weapons, and gadgets would prove to be insufficient against one of such might as Mechikabura, who was strong enough to withstand even the might of the ultra-powerful Super Saiyan 4 Vegito, and created a black hole to consume every timeline in the Xenoverse. To defeat him, Trunks had to unlock the power of the ultimate blade known as the Key Sword, which has the ability to nullify an opponent's abilities and, thanks to being empowered by Chronoa, can summon the power of the Eternal Time Labyrinth to trap foes within the Crack of Time, a space outside the timelines with crystals scattered about that offer glimpses into said timelines. Besides this, it was also powerful enough to allow Trunks to defeat Mechikabura with a single swing of it, firmly placing him within the higher ranks of Dragon Ball power levels. This would be enough to even surpass the main timeline's Goku, who attained power enough to potentially destroy the universe 13 times over upon initially channeling the might of a Super Saiyan God, pushed through Hit's time stops, and travelled to Hell from Grand Kai's planet in base form in under a minute, this last feat being even more impressive when taking into consideration the sheer size of the Dragon Ball universe. And many of Trunks's allies are just as impressive as he is, including the future warriors who battled Demigra and Chamel, both of whom could be considered to be the viewer yourself.
Wiz and Boomstick then jump from the Xenoverse to the planet Mobius in the year of 3437 PXE, where an age of darkness has overtaken the world; from raging fires and massive monsters to biological disasters and general dystopia, the people live in fear and despair. In this bleak age, only one hero remains: a silver-quilled hedgehog aptly known as Silver the Hedgehog. And while his Archie Comics incarnation may look and act similarly to and even have similar powers to his video game counterpart, this is where the similarities end. Without any family to speak of, Silver was adopted by the elders of his time, including Mammoth Mogul, the immortal wizard of Chaos, and the young esper eventually settled on the goal of becoming a Knight of Chronos: one who could save his broken future by changing the past.
Though Silver has enhanced strength and speed, he is not as proficient in either of these fields as their respective masters, Knuckles and Sonic. Instead, his specialty is in psychokinesis, able to lift and manipulate himself and anything else with a mere thought; rocks, skyscrapers, and even mountains are all within the realm of possibility for him. Though he also keeps a Super Warp Ring, a power ring which allows him to teleport wherever he likes even across dimensions, on hand, he can also access the insight, resistance to corruption, and power boosts that other Mobians can attain with ordinary power rings. With these powers at his disposal, he was a natural selection for Mammoth Mogul as a student, who taught him two other abilities, the first of which being Chaos Control, the magic Mogul created himself granting usage of Chaos energy and access to a Super transformation. The mammoth mage would later discover another kind of magic that he would teach to his young disciple: Chronos Control, allowing one to travel through time using a gem known as a Time Stone. Through much time spent performing research, both teacher and student would come across a revelation: their dark future had been caused by a member of the Freedom Fighters of ages past betraying their former teammates. With a goal now in sight, Silver traveled to the past of Sonic's age to eliminate the traitor and fix his broken world. However, the silver-quilled psychic would soon discover that his task was complicated by just how complex his world's multiverse was; the Archie Sonic multiverse is comparable to the DC Comics multiverse, having multiple layers with infinite universes with infinite timelines and characters each, even reaching beyond the Sonic franchise. With this in mind and considering the transportation abilities provided by Warp Rings, Chaos Control, and Chronos Control, no world is out of Silver's reach, and traveling so often through time has had the side-effect of "decoupling" himself from it, ensuring that he won't suffer adverse effects from messing with time and only needs to learn what's different in his current era. Though even with this benefit, Silver's job was not made any easier, especially with him not being very bright at times.
Fortunately for him, this version of the ashen-quilled esper has much more impressive feats to his name than his mainstream counterpart, having fought various powerful foes across time and space, such as Enerjak, a godlike echidna who stole the souls of every living being on Mobius and threw the entirety of Angel Island at the psychic savior. Yet despite the immense gap in power, it was Silver who emerged victorious by turning Enerjak's own attacks back towards him. This result becomes less surprising when considering the abilities Silver's psychokinesis grants him, including teleporting instantly, disrupting technology, closing tears in reality, and even preventing time from being pulled out of him. And this version of the silver-quilled psychic still experienced some version of the events of Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), where he fought the time-eating monstrosity Solaris alongside Sonic and Shadow, and first attained the power of Super Silver. This near-invulnerable golden form gains a boost in speed and power to match that of Super Sonic, whose base form, while transformed into Sonic Man, was fast enough to move while Flash Man had stopped time, thus meaning that Super Sonic (and Super Silver by extension) can move at literally incalculable speeds. Though this is hardly the most impressive feat a Super form has achieved, as the universe had been destroyed on multiple occasions using the same Chaos energy Super Silver possesses, most notably when Super Sonic and Super Mega Man fought to counter the Super Genesis Wave, which completely rewrote all of time and space. Despite being at the epicenter of the Super Genesis Wave, both heroes were immune to its reality-warping effects, giving them the time needed to save the multiverse. And even in the new world born from the aftereffects of this multiverse-spanning crisis, Silver was still nothing less than a hero.
One advertisement for the episode's sponsor Bespoke Post later, and these two time-travelling titans have both been given their due. With nothing left to cover, it's time for a death battle... through time!
The scene opens on our two combatants in hot pursuit, as ki blasts fly past the silver-quilled psychic, who dodges around buildings to evade them before lifting a skyscraper out of the ground with his mind, which is swiftly sliced apart. Emerging from the dust of the wreckage, Trunks calls out to his quarry that he is under arrest for unsanctioned time travel, only for Silver to protest that it's what he does, before raising up cars and rocks to launch them at his pursuer.
FIGHT!
The Time Patroller successfully avoids the barrage and unleashes a series of slashes that ends with the Knight of Chronos sent towards the ground. Silver dodges a follow up attack before throwing his Warp Ring past his Half-Saiyan opponent, distracting him long enough for Silver to ram him through it into a ruined version of the city they were fighting in. Trunks recovers before firing a Masenko at Silver, only for the Mobian psychic to return the attack back to its sender who dodges it while noticing debris flying past him, revealing that Silver combined the surrounding rubble into a building-sized boulder to launch at him.
As the boulder collides with Trunks, a golden pillar of light shines, showing that the son of Vegeta has gone Super Saiyan after catching it before sending the boulder back to his opponent. As the attack comes his way, the seven Chaos Emeralds surround Silver before he enters his own golden form of Super Silver in response to destroy the boulder. While Silver taunts his opponent for the futility of his attack, he fails to notice the unimpressed Trunks behind him noting the unoriginality of his form before being punted into the air and being sent to the moon by a subsequent Burning Attack. While the Time Patroller reaches the upper atmosphere, green energy surrounds the moon until a large chunk explodes from it, much to Trunks' chagrin before his opponent fires the fragments towards him.
As Trunks evades the fragments, he pulls out a Dragon Ball Heroes card pack, hoping for a decent pull for the situation before opening the pack to see his results. Accepting of his less than stellar pull, he tosses the cards forward before activating his Hero Switch, revealing the cards to be the GT Timeline's version of Son Goku and Pan (and a uselessly floating Oolong) who assist him in avoiding the fragments before the trio charge up and fire a Double Kamehameha\Galick Gun combo towards the Mobian, who like before, returns the attacks back to sender, forcing Trunks to block with his Brave Sword while Goku and Pan are destroyed by their attacks before Silver uses the Kamehamehas to reinforce the redirected Galick Gun, destroying Trunks' Brave Sword as he takes the brunt of the attack.
Crimson light flares as Trunks powers through his own attack, now in his divine form of Super Saiyan God, and punches Silver through what's left of the moon as he unleashes a flurry of blows ending with a Final Flash, stunning the time-traveling psychic long enough for the Time Patroller to draw and unseal his second blade, the Keysword, before striking Silver with it. Both the Mobian's super form and the surroundings glitch out as the Chaos Force works to try and resist the Keysword's sealing ability long enough for its wielder to try and employ Chronos Control to escape, forcing Trunks to send both of them to the Eternal Time Labyrinth.
As Silver acknowledges his new location multiple Keyswords surround him as they produce chains to encircle him, before the Keyswords merge together and return to their owner as Trunks gathers spirit energy to create the Sword of Hope in order to end the fight. Unfortunately for the Time Patroller, Silver summons forth his Time Stone to send the Sword of Hope back towards its wielder who tries to hold it back, only for the Knight of Chronos to use his psychokinesis to forcibly impale Trunks on it, the Keysword's sealing ability reverting Trunks to his base form and his glitched-out screaming serving as a prelude to a massive explosion that Silver warps away from as it consumes the Eternal Time Labyrinth, while the Mobian floats triumphantly over the ruined city they fought in earlier.
KO!
Though Boomstick expresses outrage at the result, he and Wiz begin to break down the tale of the tape to reach their conclusion on the match-up. Trunks may have been absurdly powerful to the point of thinking that he'd meet his end would be folly, but out of the many possibilities this battle could come to, Silver simply had far more going for him to secure victory.
For starters, both Trunks and Silver possessed readily available means of traveling through time, like Trunks' arm band and Silver's Time Stone. While this meant that neither could really claim it to be an advantage over the other, Silver had the edge of being able to shut down Trunks' ability to do so via telekinesis. This also had the added bonus of preventing Trunks from relying too much on summons to back him up.
In terms of brute strength, base form Silver had no chance of stacking up to Trunks in a straight fight. While going Super Silver lets him keep pace with Trunks' various Super Saiyan transformations, trying to find proper quantifiable limits in this field would be difficult. That said, even if Trunks were to be deemed physically stronger, it would matter little as Silver's telekinesis allowed him to manhandle foes far more powerful than he is, such as Enerjak and Super Scourge - both of whom have proven themselves equal to the reality-warping Super Sonic.
As far as speed goes, Trunks would certainly upscale from feats that pegged characters from the original Dragon Ball canon to be several factors faster than the speed of light. As impressive as this may seem, Wiz notes that Trunks must have some kind of upper limit to his speed as per the rules of the Dragon Ball franchise, and regardless of whatever number it could be calculated at, it would undoubtably pale in comparison to Super Silver considering that Super form characters in Archie Sonic have repeatedly been stated to hit speeds that are outright immeasurable. It may be argued that Trunks could achieve these same showings as characters like Goku have moved within stopped time, but time stops and other esoteric powers in Dragon Ball primarily succeed only if the caster is equal to or stronger than its intended target, and unfortunately for the Time Patroller, his potential limit in this area is lacking in comparison.
The various opponents Trunks had slain throughout Heroes and Xenoverse have all at some point threatened the infinite timelines of Dragon Ball and even the Crack of Time outside it. Conversely, the Chaos Magic seen in the Archie Sonic multiverse could affect not only the infinite number of timelines for the Sonic series but external realities on top of that, like the Chaos Force itself, Pocket Zones and even universes like Archie Mega Man's, which has its own set of infinite timelines as well. Considering that Silver had been trained since childhood in Chaos Magic by its very creator and that relative newcomers to its power like Mega Man could casually rewrite reality within minutes of attaining it, it could very well be implied that Silver can employ far more creative and deadlier uses against Trunks, especially given that Sonic cosmology dwarfing Dragon Ball's meant that Silver boasted far more power than his opponent when comparing the scope of their universes.
Trunks' ace in the hole was the Key Sword and its ability to nullify power, but such a weapon would likely prove ineffective. As both Super Sonic and Super Mega Man survived the effects of the Super Genesis Wave when it managed to rewrite reality around them and even destroyed the Chaos Force from which their power spawned from, Silver could likely resist the Key Sword's effects to a degree, preventing Trunks from weaponizing the Eternal Time Labyrinth as well.
Overall, Trunks proved himself a very game warrior befitting his pedigree, and would likely win a few scenarios here and there if this battle were to be run multiple times. However, Silver's superior skill set, strength and speed solidified that he would be the more probable victor more times than not, and in turn ensured the Mobian freedom fighter stayed alive to see the future he swore to protect.
Wiz: The winner is Silver the Hedgehog.
This Death Battle includes the following tropes:
- Alternate Self: The versions of Trunks and Silver used here are alternate versions found in Dragon Ball Xenoverse (Xeno Trunks) and Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) (Archie Silver) respectively. Ben Singer has admitted these two were chosen over the canon versions due to the gap in power Trunks has over Silver, with the gap in power between these two being less wide.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Trunks lands a blow on Silver with the Key Sword, the latter starts to flicker in and out of his Super form, implying this will be the killing blow... only for Silver to resist long enough to fully invoke Chronos Control so that he can rewind time, forcing Trunks to move the fight to the Eternal Time Labyrinth.
- Beyond the Impossible: Wiz notes that Super Silver's speed is literally beyond what time says it is possible for speed to be, much to Boomstick's befuddlement. This is a deciding factor, as while Trunks is many magnitudes of times faster than light, he still has an upwards limit to how fast he can be. Silver's speed, however, cannot be calculated. It's also shown with how characters from both series like DBS-era SSGSS Goku and the roboticized Sonic Man could move in stopped time, but while time stops in Dragon Ball could be overcome if the target is far stronger than the caster, characters like Archie Sonic are just too damn fast that they defy the rules of nature itself.
- Big "WHAT?!": This is Boomstick's reaction to learning that Spawn, of all series, is among those included in the Archie Sonic multiverse.
- Broken Win/Loss Streak: Meta-example. In DBX, along with other web animations pitting the two like in 1 Minute Melee, Trunks emerges victoriously. However, this is mostly due to the canon depictions of Future Trunks and Silver being used. Since these are the more powerful depictions of them from sources outside their continuity, Archie Silver's greater use of time manipulation and speed would finally mark the psychic hedgehog a victory against the Saiyan hybrid he's based on.
- Call-Back:
- Trunks in his Super Saiyan form calls Super Silver a ripoff, just like what Vegeta said to Shadow back in Season 1.
- As listed in The Cameo, some of the crystals within the Crack of Time showcase timelines featuring various characters. Some of said characters were responsible for performing time travel related incidents in previous episodes, such as Hal Jordan, Cable and Booster Gold, Archie Sonic and Wally West, and Reverse Flash, as well as Koopa from the Goomba VS Koopa 2 DBX along with the boot that Goomba used too.
- The Cameo:
- Oolong can be seen in the background when Trunks pulls out the Dragon Ball Heroes cards, implying that Oolong was his third pull (And the one that left him disappointed).
- A Cameo Cluster case in this one: Hidden inside the crystals in the Crack of Time in the climax are peeks into alternate timelines with cameo appearances by other characters known for their time travel escapades, such as the Hero of Time incarnation of Link, Crono, Booster Gold, Cable, Blinx and even Archie Sonic himself, as well as Fleetway Super Sonic.
- Catch and Return: Silver has the ability to catch enemy attacks and redirect them right back, even if they're leagues stronger than he is like Enerjak. This is a deciding factor of the battle, as while Trunks likely had the edge in sheer power over Silver, Silver's literally beyond infinite speed and ability to turn Trunks' power against him meant that the power edge didn't matter.
- Composite Character: While these are not the canon versions of Trunks and Silver, many aspects of them from their source material still apply. While Xeno Trunks was recruited after defeating the androids and Cell, it's implied he lived through some variant of the arc in Super where canon Trunks fought Goku Black. While Archie's Silver has a different backstory than the canon version, it's implied he still went through events similar to canon Silver's introduction, including the battle with the time god Solaris.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Silver's killing blow sees him teleporting Trunks' Sword of Hope away from him and impaling him with it, which causes Trunks to be erased from existence.
- Like Father, Like Son: In the same vein his father, Vegeta called out Super Shadow for being a Super Saiyan ripoff, Trunks does the same when Shadow's other fellow Mobian Hedgehog ally Silver goes Super too. Unlike his father, though Trunks is the one to strike after the opponent's let his guard down after calling out the not-so-subtly-hinted inspiration.
- Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: While Trunks' Super Modes made him much more physically stronger than Silver's, Silver's ability to restrain and redirect the attacks of vastly stronger beings than himself with his psychokinesis along with his literally infinite speed rendered the strength gap moot. Additionally, Silver being trained in the use of Chaos Magic for years by Mammoth Mogul meant that while in his Super Form he would be capable of all the feats of less experienced Super Form users, like Sonic and Mega Man who could resist the multiverse and Chaos Force affecting Super Genesis Wave and rewrite the multiverse and other universes outside of it, and much more, meaning that Super Silver could not only most likely resist Trunks' Keysword, he was also deemed to be much more powerful.
- The Multiverse: Discussed in regard to how strong Trunks and Silver are, as both Dragon Ball and Sonic operate on this with a near infinite number of timelines inside them and even those that exist out of them like the Crack of Time. While Trunks has defeated foes that can threaten his own multiverse, the Chaos Magic in Archie Sonic can lay claim to affecting entire external multiverses directly unrelated to Sonic's own, such as Archie Mega Man, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and even Spawn, putting it on a broader scale that dwarfs Dragon Ball cosmology at its largest.
- Mythology Gag:
- When Trunks sees Silver blow up part of the moon, he utters "Ah, crap baskets", a recurring line said by multiple characters including his canon counterpart in Dragon Ball Z Abridged. Fittingly, KaiserNeko, who voiced canon Trunks in Abridged, voices this version of Trunks in this fight.
- Silver says "It's no use" twice in this battle, which was an infamous line of his from his game counterpart's boss fight in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006). This comes up again when Silver's voice actor (who is heavily implied to be Bryce Papenbrook) is credited as "Esu Onsti", which is backwards for "It's no use".
- When Trunks draws the Dragon Ball Heroes cards, he gets GT Goku and Pan, a reference to the fact that in Dragon Ball GT, The main travelling party consisted of Goku, Pan and Trunks.
- Not in Kansas Anymore: Upon being warped to the Crack of Time, Silver says "I don't think we're in Mobius anymore."
- Ominous Visual Glitch: When Trunks strikes Silver with the Keysword, their surroundings begin to glitch and warp as the Power Nullifier nature of the sword clashes with the Reality Warper power of Super Silver. It goes on long enough that Silver and Trunks end up invoking Chronos Control and the Eternal Time Labyrinth to move the fight out of their current reality. The glitching happens again when Trunks ends up impaled on the redirected Keysword himself before being wiped from existence.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner: "I told you... It's. No. Use."
- Shout-Out:
- When going over the Dragon Ball Heroes cards, Trunks is described as going "full Seto Kaiba".
- After the battle, an outraged Boomstick denounces Silver as a furry Kyle Reese.
- Super-Speed: Both Trunks and Silver are fast to an absurd degree. Super Silver, however, wins by virtue of Trunks' speed having to have an upwards limit, while Super Silver's speed is literally faster than time allows speed to be, meaning he'd always be faster.
