001: "Smoke on the Water! Don't Eat Too Much Jello!"
Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own Dragonball.
Some notes:
I'm sure everyone that would read this has already come across my explanations several times, but just so everyone's up to speed...
This story started back around the premier of FUNimation's season three on Toonami, when I had a dream featuring a relatively complete storyline (with a hint at another), characters, Etc... somehow set in the DBZ-verse. Many crappy attempts at developing a fanfic from this ensued.
Time passes, and this story has several incarnations, including crappy cartoons (which no longer exist, sorry...), crappy action figure movies, paper versions, and a version (adapted from the movies) that finally found its way to the internet in late 2002/early 2003.
... Fast forward to 2006, and I have another dream set in this continuity. Suddenly, I start trying to gather all the source material I can (that being various DB-related dreams, and anything else that seems like it could fit), and try to reorganize all of it into a story that makes a lick of sense. And this is the result.
So, there's my notes. If there's anything else in need of explaining, I'll explain it when the time comes. In the mean time... We Gotta Power!
--
It wasn't the sunniest of days, but the glows of gold and gray that hovered over South City were a welcomed contrast to the cloudy skies of the previous week. (Apparently a lot of moisture had risen from the sea and had a disagreement with an omenous sand-cloud that was moving in from the nearby desert areas... but no one really cared. Well, before today, anyway...).
Of course, this partly sunny day was another workday, so all the towers and capsuly buildings were bustling with people coming and going--some doing what they loved, most doing what was necessary to pay for the necessities of city life.
But in a relatively small building not too far from Dr. Mustache's Pizza Clinic, the half-dozen or so laborers had somehow gotten themselves into a situation where they had paid the man who currently had them scrubbing, waxing, sweeping, vacuuming, and whatever else he could think of to his already clean--and relatively empty--chamber. Although, these disgruntled workers were helping to deal with the empty part as well, dragging various piles of gymnasium mats, various kinds of weights, and crates of extra sodas into place... only to have to move them again when it turns out they left them at a spot that hadn't been waxed. So for the moment, the local reputation that Yamcha had earned as "South City's Great Wolf" wasn't enough to make the gi-clad students--some as young as seven, others as old as their late teens (ok, so maybe that one guy is like twenty something...)--doubt their continued enrollment in his martial arts lessons.
Despite all this, their forty-five year-old instructor/tormentor was able to watch with a relatively calm--and some imagined pleased?--expression. Even when one of the frustrated, panting students paused for a moment and demanded from behind a waterfall of sweat, "What does this have to do with martial arts?" If anything changed outwardly, it might have been a twitch of a grin on Yamcha's harsh, unrelenting face.
"Why don't you ask the winner of the twenty-third world tournament how he trained?"
"...Mr. Satan?" Ok, so Yamcha couldn't quite mask his amusement at that one. Maybe he recovered before anyone noticed?
"This was before Mr. Satan took over... The reason there was a break in the tournaments..."
"I heard," another student spoke up, "That the tournament just became a big magic show, and everyone left because of the special effects..."
"Even Mr. Satan does things that you find impressive," Yamcha said, stern sensei tone back under his control, "Don't underestimate what you're capable of. You might find yourself impressed with how the channel seven tower sparkles once you're done there tomorrow."
Even the students who had tried to remain dedicated to their work during the complaining sweatdropped at the last word.
"... Tomorrow? You mean we have to do all of this, for a big tower... in one day?"
"Of course you don't have to," Yamcha answered, "But you will, especially if you want to learn the way of the wolf fang."
Further conversation was halted when two sounds infiltrated the dojo from outside. The first was an enormous, though distant, crash, as though a demolition crew had started work a couple blocks away. The second was the echoing whine of an emergency siren.
Most of the students dropped what they were doing and looked toward the door, then to each other, then to Yamcha. Yamcha was motionless for a long moment, an eerie tingling dancing about the hairs of his neck. Then he turned toward the door, and inwardly let himself combination sigh/smirk. It wasn't like his life hadn't had enough excitement already...
"Master Yamcha... what is it?" One of the younger students broke the silence in the room.
Yamcha broke the stillness in a blur that left the students gaping, disappearing out the door faster than the eye could track. Once they had all blinked and realized that they hadn't imagined Yamcha's feat of speed, the students were quickly at and out the door as well to witness the impending action.
The noise of the alarm was already overshadowed by the yells of pedestrians and the honking of horns as civilians fled the source of the destruction. Unfortunately, this left little room for traveling through the flood of fleeing people toward the disturbance, which is just what Yamcha was interested in doing at the moment.
... Well, ok, maybe he tried to ask someone what was happening first. But that didn't work, either, considering that everyone continued running for their lives. So Yamcha turned his attention in the general direction of the next resounding crash. Metal and glass fell like confetti from a building that had been smashed only a hundred meters or so away, but it was the cause that captured Yamcha's attention.
Really, all he could see were the legs, and the fist that had just punched a hole through expensive architecture. He couldn't make out anything resembling a head, or... anything else, really. It appeared to be nothing more than a ten-story pile of lime-green jello with limbs. It was almost luminescent--though maybe that was because of the lighting.
"Master..." Yamcha looked to see one of his students--a dark-haired, pale-complexioned preteen--standing patiently beside him. Another quick glance told him that the rest of his charges were gathered at the door of the dojo, watching in anticipation. A couple stepped back when the jello giant took a booming step down the street in their general direction.
"Get back inside," Yamcha said, looking back up toward the slowly advancing monster.
"... There's no way out," the preteen at his side finished, "I checked the back door; the traffic is just as crazy on that side."
"Get back inside," Yamcha reiterated, "Take the mats and crates and build something to protect everyone if the building is crushed. And be quick." The student nodded and disappeared into the dojo. Once the door had closed, Yamcha looked up to the beast--now just sixty or so meters away--and jumped into the air, rising up and forward until he could make out the hill-shaped top of the walking dessert malfunction.
"Do you have ears in there?" The giant didn't respond to Yamcha's call, just took another earth-shaking step down the street. Yamcha held up a hand, keeping the same firm demeanor he had shown to his students minutes earlier.
"Look, I don't care what you are, but either you stop, or we fight." There was another boom as the monster's foot slammed into the pavement, its other already raised for the next step. It was easily in striking distance, now, and Yamcha had already seen that it had far greater reach than his human arms. So, he smirked, drew back into the best battle stance he could conjur in midair and shouted:
"All right, then try my Wolf Fang Fist!"
There was something like the sound of fireworks launched from a cannon at Yamcha's charge, followed by a brief, but wet crack as he slammed into the giant's gelatenous body... and bounced off. Yamcha didn't stop there, though, as he could still see the deep indention his blows had made in the jello, and the ripples that traveled along the giant's body at the impact. Yamcha drew back his fist and lunged again, but this time when he was sent back by the bouncy flesh, the giant's fist came in from the side and slammed into Yamcha, tossing him into a nearby building.
Yamcha held out an arm and caught hold of an exterior windowceal, pulling himself up onto it and renewing his stance. By all means, the giant's attack should have been slower, but it still hadn't been enough to do noticeable damage. (Well, so it did leave splotches of color down Yamcha's left side...).
"That's how you want to play, huh?" Yamcha gripped his wrist with the opposing hand and held out his first two fingers as he locked his eyes on the giant. "Ok... Spirit Ball!"
The large bullet of light spun into existence in front of Yamcha's hand, and in a flash he sent it flying into the giant's "shoulder", and straight through to its other side. The attack exited, spun to in front of the beast, then made another pass to attack it just above its center, when the giant swung its fist in Yamcha's direction again. Yamcha prepared to jump, but the fist never reached him. Instead, an enormous ball of smoke came at him at an impressive speed, and Yamcha recoiled against the building before losing his footing and slipping from the narrow ledge where he had been standing. Yamcha coughed involuntarily, failling to reach the ledge in time to avoid a not-so-graceful collision with the sidewalk at the building's ground entrance.
Yamcha rolled to his feet, blinking to try to get the smoke out of his vision. It was then that he noticed two things. First, the smoke was still hovering around him--it wasn't just slow to discipate, but it seemed to be atracted to him. Second, he was aware of a strange, sickening weakness throughout his body, and realized that he couldn't bring himself to fly... and his spirit ball had long since vanished. He swatted at the smoke around his eyes, glaring through the haze to see the monster's foot collide with the front quarter of his dojo and leave the front entrance as a twisted pile of metal. Yamcha gritted his teeth, finding that just trying to run was suddenly more difficult than it had been moments earlier. Whatever the smoke was, it left him more useless than usual... and it was entirely possible that his students were the ones to pay for it.
"You're not getting away so easily!" Yamcha shouted, reaching for something in his pocket. He first drew out a capsule, which he quickly threw to reveal a shiny new hovercar, ready for use. Before he had even pulled himself aboard the vehicle, Yamcha had retrieved another item, one which he held to his ear as he sent his ride humming after the lumbering giant.
Yamcha wasn't the only one having troubles because of the random giant monster attack. A couple thousand kilometers away, far above the earth in a bowl-like palace, a small congregation had appeared around a tall, caped Namekian who was currently passed out on the tiled floor.
"Piccolo... What happened to him?" The smaller Namekian, who was currently crouched over Piccolo's body, stood and regarded the speaker grimly.
"He was observing something somewhere on the Earth," Dende explained, "Then his face... turned like that"--Everyone's attention was then drawn to Piccolo's expression of shocked strain and horror, eyes still opened, though narrowed--"And just collapsed. I think he'll be ok... but... this is bizarre."
"Do you have any idea what caused this?" No beating around the bush--that spiky-haired, orange dougi-wearing speaker could only be the one called Goku. Dende closed his eyes for a moment, then recoiled as though struck, reaching out a hand for a support when he remembered he had a staff... which he'd managed to leave on the ground in his hurry to tend to Piccolo.
"Dende... are you all right?" Gohan this time.
"Yes..." Dende steadied himself and addressed the group. "Yamcha's in trouble as well. Some kind of monster is attacking South City. But it's unlike anything I've encountered. It's as though its ki gives off smoke... if you try to focus on it, the ki-smoke will start to choke your spirit..."
"... So Piccolo gagged on it and passed out?" This question came from nearly ten-year-old Trunks, who was in his customary position next to Goku's youngest son, relatively ignored by everyone who was more concerned with the present crisis.
"Essentially, yes," Dende replied, "I don't think teleporting to it is an option. You'll just have to find the city and track it down."
"So that means we're going to fight it?"--Goten.
"Absolutely." Gohan's determined gaze fell on Piccolo's still motionless form, then he touched the device on his wrist as a ... "super hero costume" replaced the casual outfit he had been wearing.
"All right," Goku said, turning toward the edge of the lookout, "Let's go!"
"Yeah!" Goten and Trunks simultaneously leapt into the air, auras blazing out around them as they took off into the sky. Goku, Vegeta, Gohan and Videl--the latter two both clad in Saiyaman garb--followed suit.
-- O.O --
Unfortunately for the people of South City, the saiyans+1 were pretty far away from their fare metropolis. Not that this seemed to bother the walking mass of jello, as it was having a perfectly relaxing stroll through the streets--though it often had to widen them for the passage of its bulk.
Yamcha could only snarl in frustration as he caught up with the giant. He knew full well he wouldn't be able to do anything to it until the smoke around him lifted. He put away his celphone and halted his hovercar, jumping from it and landing in front of the debris that had been the front of his dojo. He was weakened, but maybe he was still ridiculously strong...
... The seconds it took to make a path through the rubble still felt like hours. When Yamcha finally swept the last chunk of structure aside, he gazed into a room that now hosted a small fort of gym mats and coolers. He only saw one person outside the makeshift shelter--and was surprised when he realized it was the same boy to whom he had given the order to build the thing.
"Sejes... why are you still outside?" Yamcha panted, trying to slap away more of the thinning smoke so that he could be clearly seen.
"A couple people were still watching at the door," the boy shrugged, "I had to move them..."
"Is everyone all right?"
"I think everyone's in there," the boy indicated the shelter.
"Good..." Yamcha supported himself against the closest stable piece of wall he could find. "Now listen. This monster has strange powers. The only reason I failed to stop it is because I attacked before knowing this. So here's your lesson for today: you can't face every challenge as though it's a normal battle. That monster is doing a lot of damage; but I should have been able to stop it. Majin Buu outpowered everyone that fought him... but was turned from destruction by kindness."
"... Majin Dew? Is that some kind of evil soda?"--Oh, right... that little "erase everyone's memories" wish.
"... Yeah... just... do you get the point? Know your enemy!"
-- O.O --
"Hey, guys, let's stop for a second," Goku called to the formation that was flying at top speed--well, top speed for their slowest member--to the south.
"This had better be good," Vegeta said, shooting Goku an expectant scowl. (Well, either that or a "Please tell me this isn't because you're hungry" glare, but "expectant scowl" is way easier to read.)
"I think I sense Krillin flying pretty fast," Goku explained, "I'll bet Yamcha called him for backup!"
"So what?" Trunks demanded, "Let's keep going!"
"Wait," Gohan cut off the impatient half-saiyan, "So he's closer to the trouble than us, right?"
"I think he is," Goku answered, "Which means I could take us to him and save lotsa time!"
"Well, what are we waiting for?" (How about a non-awkward way to segway into the next scene?)
-- O.O --
The figure that was rocketing over the antsy waves off the coast wasn't alone. Flying alongside the fuchsia-shirted monk was his blond-haired wife, known only as Number Eighteen. She wasn't alone, either, as the couple had decided it would be in their young daughter's better interests to witness a violent struggle with a city-ruining giant rather than hang out with the old turtle hermit while her parents were out. So naturally, the little girl was expressing her excitement at the speedy flight--sure, she had been with her parents flying before, but they were presently traveling faster than usual, what with a dire emergency as their destination.
But that super-fast flight suddenly halted when half a dozen colorfully-clothed examples of "only two of them use a hairbrush" materialized in the air around them. At first, Eighteen was content to ignore the congregation of Earth's strongest and keep flying onward, but finally slowed and watched impatiently when Krillin stopped to greet the new arrivals.
"Goku! What brings you out here?"
"Well, we're on our way to stop a giant in South City... how about you?" Krillin's mouth twitched uneasily as he forced a grin.
"Well... what a coincidence! Eighteen and I were just on our way to help Yamcha deal with a giant in South City, too!"--Ok, he's hiding something. Something being that Krillin and Eighteen were sort of hoping they could pull this one off without the saiyans hogging the glory. Ah, well...
"Oh, hey..." Krillin suddenly realized something, "Why'd you come to me instead of Yamcha?"
"It's too dangerous to focus on that monster he's fighting," Goku explained, "Piccolo already passed out 'cause of it!"
"Woah, no kidding... Thanks for the warning! But we shouldn't waste any more time..." The others agreed, and the group was quickly a fleet of lights zooming over the sea (much to the perplexion of a bird watcher or two).
But wait, yet another flying fighter managed to rendezvous with the group as they reached shore. So naturally there was more conversationing!
"Oh, hey Tien; haven't seen you in a while!"
"Yamcha and Lunch convinced me to open a dojo," Tien explained, "Yamcha gets more students than me... but mine stick around longer."
"Fighting evil between classes, eh? Sounds like me and Videl..." Judging by the brief eyebrow-raising reaction that Tien gave to Gohan's costume, it was the first time the wandering warrior had laid eyes on the Great Saiyaman.
"So Yamcha called you, too?" Goten asked.
"You might say that," Tien grunted. By now, the skyline of South City was in view, along with a few large structures that shouldn't have been swaying.
Within seconds, the enormous green thing was visible to the army of heros, and they descended to the undestroyed portion of the street down which it was stomping.
"Let's just blow it up," Vegeta suggested. Wait, that wasn't a suggestion--he just raised his hand and unleashed a large explosion of light at the giant's hill-head-thing. The blast did little to slow the beast; instead, it caused an enormous fireworks display of green and gray, followed by several buildings and civilians being pelted with globs of jello that were flung into the distance by the explosion.
"Great job, Vegeta!" Krillin chastized, "Now we have to clean up those mutant chunks of jello!"
"I'll handle it," Tien said with a sollemn tone of duty, then floated off toward the side of the street that had taken the worst jello rain.
"Goten, Trunks," Gohan ordered, "Help Tien."
"What?" Trunks' looked as though he had just been grounded for a year.
"Hurry and maybe you'll be done before the fight's over! Now GO!" The capitalization of the last two letters was all that the boys needed to disappear behind some buildings and start blasting any splotch of unnatural green they could find.
This left Goku as the first to drift up to the monster's level as it approached the group.
"Well, we could try talking to it?" The room-sized fist that collided with Goku's face was the answer. "... Or not." Goku unleashed a battlecry (Because apparently those things have to be kept on leashes) and charged the giant, only to bounce off just as Yamcha had, and likewise get punched into a building.
Below, Vegeta had pulled back from his blind attacking strategy, and was now looking the giant over intently. The monster's coloration seemed constant--it's limbs and body were uniformly opaque and of the same shade. It was clear, though, that the jello wasn't entirely solid just based on the impacts, and the earlier blast had hit high...
"... The green stuff is just an exoskeleton," Vegeta declared, "Locate the true body and blast it!" He continued to regard the monster, seeking out its center, when he noticed his senses going hazy... "... Ki-smoke... Better make this quick..."
Vegeta took a leap into the air, gathering a small cloud of energy aimed for the giant's "chest". The monster retaliated by punching a tower before Vegeta could fire, the building toppling over and knocking Vegeta out of the way. Vegeta unleashed the blast anyway, only managing to blow the tower in half before falling to the ground and rolling between the monster's enormous feet. Gohan had already taken flight, and quickly caught the broken top of the tower--though he didn't seem to know what to do with it at the moment.
"Eighteen, can you stop the bottom half of that tower?" Videl asked, looking on in horror at the few civilians that were still trapped in the wreckage. Eighteen casually walked over and shoved the tower back toward a standing pose, while Videl attempted to dodge the giant as it kept walking, finally maneuvering in to catch a man that had slipped from a window of the tower.
"Let's see how it likes a destructo disk!" Krillin was pretty much the only one left in the monster's path, so he held up his hand and an amorphous mass of ki (never mind that ki isn't supposed to have mass...) flattened itself into a spinning disk. In one swift motion, Krillin sent the disk screeching through the giant's chest.
The giant kept walking.
"... What? Oh, come on; it went right through him!" The monster's foot made a particularly long step, and Krillin jumped out of the way, only to meet its fist and be sent flying toward... a cliff face? (Well, the giant apparently made it to the city limits...). A depressing complaint of "Why me?" testified to the monk's lack of serious injuries.
"Krillin!" Nearby, Goku had already recovered (quite a while ago, actually...), and rushed at the giant's back upon the blow against Krillin. Goku's path soon turned upward, bringing him to hover above the giant--a clear shot to take out the whole thing without missing its vitals.
Then the monster threw up a fist, and Goku was enveloped in a cloud of smoke. As Goku toppled out of control toward the ground, the giant punched him toward the same cliff where Krillin was now getting to his feet, leaving both warriors as sitting ducks to the giant's approach.
"Goku... can you teleport us out of here?" Krillin asked, looking around for a place to regroup.
"... No good..." Goku panted, now struggling to his feet, "Somehow, that smoke keeps me from using my ki..."
"Ok, I'll fly us out," Krillin offered, reaching out to grab Goku's arm.
"Krillin, look out!" It was Gohan, who was rushing toward the giant from behind. The giant made a wide arc with its fist, and the last building on the edge of the city went flying to smash directly between Goku and Krillin. Gohan dove for the building, but wasn't in time to stop the giant's foot from landing smoothly on top of his father. The giant kept walking, leaving Goku's dougi... and a pile of feces? in its wake.
-- O.O --
Once he had been assured of his students' safety, Yamcha had gotten back aboard his hovercar and drove quickly after the monster's trail of destruction. The smoke around him was beginning to fade, and he could feel strength returning, but he wasn't ready to try rushing it by air again. Yamcha had to sigh to himself and stop, however, when he caught sight of a woman stuck in the collapsed window of a multi-story building. Yamcha decided to try his legs first, jumping out of his car and up toward the window. It took considerably more effort than it should have, but Yamcha propelled himself through the air and managed to catch the woman's arms, pulling her from the wreckage and carrying her safely to the ground.
"So, the smoke is temporary?" Yamcha looked toward the opposite side of the street to spot Tien, who was standing a distance from a group of children who had apparently just been spared a horrible fate as well.
"I think so," Yamcha answered, heading over to stand closer to Tien, "It's still tougher than it should be just to fly, though."
"The others are dealing with the giant; it doesn't seem like they've won, yet."
"Well, let's join them!" Yamcha said, now wearing a cocky grin. He leapt over to his hovercar and pushed the button that returned it to capsule form, then took off after Tien along the ruined highway.
... They arrived in time to see Vegeta, Goten and Trunks gaping in awe at something on the edge of the city, while the giant steadily walked to the southwest.
"... Daddy?" Yamcha then caught sight of what Goten was referring to--what appeared to be Goku's outfit, crumpled up at the bottom of a cliff... with no sign of Goku amid them. Actually, it seemed like the clothes were being worn by a pile of...
"... Did he just get turned into poop?"--Well, Trunks confirmed that Yamcha wasn't seeing things (or at least that they were sharing in the same halucination).
Vegeta let out a groan of disgust, then took flight, charging for the monster--though not before those around him noticed that his face was far paler than usual.
By now, Eighteen had landed atop the cliff where most of the recnt action had ended up, and fired a large explosion at the giant that managed to sever its left arm, which fell to form a giant pool of green jelloten off the highway. The giant ignored this injury and kept walking; at least, it kept walking until Vegeta flew in, ignited in a golden aura, and created an enormous shockwave that blew through the giant's back. The giant's forward motion stopped completely, and it collapsed into a great green lake on the countryside.
Vegeta's Super Saiyan aura faded shortly after his blast, and he fell out of the air, landing face-first on the dirt below with smoke coming from his ears. Apparently, focusing his attack on the living part of the monster had exposed him to too much ki-smoke.
Gohan and Videl were first at the scene, and in moments, everyone was gathered at the chaos-ridden battlefield.
"So... I guess we should clean up this sea of jello?"
--
A/N: Well, that was lengthy. And Gohan wasn't useful enough. Umm... he was... saving people. Yes.
So, whatever: There's our first chapterpisode! How horrible was it?
No idea when the next one will be ready. Hopefully really soon, but if there's anything we can be certain of with regards to me and scheduling, it's that something is bound to go wrong. Fret not, though--things will continue! And there is actually a coherent plot... I promise! (Though the general idea might wind up being rather lame... :D. Hopefully the execution and details and stuff make up for it...).
05/27/2008