A/N: So I've had this idea for a while now and decided I'd give it a shot, will probably continue my other stories later but really wanted to write this. Also if anyone is interested in being a beta reader for either this or another story, PM me. So I think that about covers it, so let's begin.

For reference

"English dialogue"

"Japanese dialogue"

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 1: Collision Course

The black hole. Easily an icon of space itself, the immense power and mystery of these bodies has inspired countless stories since their discovery less than a century ago, and their properties continue to baffle physicists to this day. An object of infinite density, where more matter than would be contained in over ten of our suns compressed into a single point, a singularity. Its gravity so vast, not even light can escape, no signal can possibly travel into a black hole and return with even a shred of data. Within the boundaries of this colossal structure, theories like General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics fly out the window, and one fundamental force trumps all others, the strong, weak, and electromagnetic force alike falling subservient to gravity. Due to its incomprehensible density, the mere presence of a black hole creates a hole in the fabric of spacetime itself. So what if two black holes collided with one another. The ripples in reality, much like when a drop of water hits the surface of a pond, would radiate across the universe, and, for a fraction of a second, weaken spacetime itself, creating countless possibilities. Such is the nature of the largest objects in all the cosmos.

The Pacific. July 8, 1943

Blue. As Tom gazed out, watching from the back of the B-24 he was currently assigned to, that was the first impression of his surroundings. The dark blue of the ocean, and light blue of the sky, mixing in a haze far off in the horizon. If he looked closely, he could just make out the forms of the other planes as they too sped towards their destination, each loaded with several pounds of bombs of their own. But aside from them, the skies were empty, calm, waiting almost. As if they knew what was to come.

Tom took a deep breath, attempting to calm his nerves, and shut out the images of what he knew was to come, but it was no use. Visions of the war flooded through his mind, of machine gun fire strafing their vulnerable planes, as they dropped load after load of bombs to spread hellfire below. Soon the sky would be black with smoke and fire, and explosions would ring out in the now calm air. Such was the nature of war.

But now wasn't the time to think about that. He had to be brave. For his parents. For his brother, who had been killed aboard the Arizona a little over a year ago. Tom was doing this for him. When he had received word of his brother's death, on that dreadful day that would live in infamy, Tom had been first in the recruitment lines, first to answer Roosevelt's call to arms. He could pursue his dreams of being a translator after the war, his country needed him. His brother needed him. The free world needed him. After all, what was a single life in the war or end all wars?

And now, the moment was at hand. Tom had yet to see front line combat before today. He'd been assigned to a military base, where he received and sent coded messages. Supply routes, troop movements, that sort of thing. He spoke multiple languages, and as Japanese was one of them, Tom had been asked to help with the effort to crack Japan's code. But it wasn't enough to help behind the scenes. Tom wanted to fight, like his brother would have, had he not died on the first act of the war. So he'd asked to be transferred, to be allowed to see frontline combat. To fight and die, like his friend Peter had at Midway. And one day, his superiors agreed. So here he was. But in the moment, he was beginning to regret it. Maybe it would have been a better idea to stay with intel.

"Losing your nerves, Tom?" the tail gunner, Joe, said from beside him, grinning, "we're all going to die eventually, but this way we get to take those dirty Japs with us!"

Tom shook his head, "I'm not ready to kick the bucket just yet, I'm sure there's a way we can survive this day. It's just one raid."

Joe chuckled, "Well, you know what they say. When there's a will, there's a way. And we've got two Wills…"

"And therefore two ways." Tom finished, unable to hide the smile on his face. At least his friends were there for him in this dark hour.

"Hey!" Will Sakowitz called from the middle of the aircraft, "I don't care if you're the only radio operator on this hunk of scrap metal, one more pun on my name and I pushing the both of you out with the bombs!"

"Yeah!" agreed Will Baker, "Will you please cut it out?"

"Dammit Will, you're supposed to be on my side!"

"Hey, I'm just on whatever side gives me more entertainment, no offense."

Joe turned back to the expanse of the sea, the grin never leaving his face as he did so, and pulled a cigarette from his pocket, lighting it and taking a puff before glancing at Tom for the moment.

"You want one? Helps with the nerves."

"No thanks. I don't smoke."

Will Sakowitz, who had come over to them over the course of their conversation, answered that, "Heh. Trust me kid, after a while in the navy you'll be smoking too, we all do."

"You're not that much older than me. I'm nineteen, and I've been in the Navy just as long as you have Will."

"Perhaps, but while you were working behind lines cracking codes, I've been on the front lines, this whole time. Seen things most men don't dream of in their lifetimes. War ages you kiddo, in one and a half short years I've matured more than in my entire lifetime."

"Well, that's a… pleasant thought."

"Men, stop bickering!" John called from the cockpit, "We're only a few minutes out from Wake Island, get to your stations, enough idle talk! You're in a war, act like it. Now move it!"

"Yes sir!" the men replied as they scurried off to their positions. Joe adjusted his seat slightly, putting out the cigarette he was smoking as he placed his hands on the trigger of the gun. Tom stashed his code book in its compartment and climbed down to the belly of the plane to man the gun located there, and what he saw there made his heart skip a beat.

"I've got three Zeroes, incoming!" he yelled as the sound of gunfire began to fill the air, the first thuds echoing as planes reached their targets, but all of this Tom filtered out as his focus locked on the three fighters converging on their plane.

"Three?!"

"You heard me!" Tom shouted over the roar of his own turret firing, pouring rounds at the three planes each time they came in range on their arcs. But they were just too fast. He watched with anticipation as a Wildcat detached itself from a group of bombers to their right to help them, desperately trying to outmaneuver the faster Japanese planes.

"Gah! I can't get a good hit on those bastards!" Joe shouted up from above, recoiling slightly as machine gun fire ripped through the floor just to his side. That was too close.

Outside, the battle was heating up, as a second Allied plane, this time a Mustang, joined the dogfight. Tom cursed as his shots flew wide, each missing their targets by mere inches. He swung his gun, his fingers growing white as he squeezed the trigger, firing round after round at the much faster fighters circling their craft. The planes circled again and again, but even if Tim managed to hit one, it was only ever a glancing shot. One a foot behind the cockpit, another on the tip of the wing. Nothing that could bring the planes down, nothing that could even slow them down.

"We've reached our target!" He heard Will say from above him, "Now let's drop these bad boys and we're home free!"

From Tom's position below the plane, he had a bird's eye view of the bombs as they fell to their destinations below, lighting up with a sickening boom as they tore through the Japanese airfield. He allowed a smile to cross his face. Now all they had to do was return back to Midway and the whole ordeal would be over. Until the next raid, of course, but that wasn't important right now. There was only his surroundings now, only the battle at hand.

One of the Zeroes flew into his sight, the Mustang in close pursuit. Tom held his fire this time around, swinging his gun in a similar fashion to what a hunter would do when shooting at game. And then, when the enemy fighter was lined up in his sights, he fired. A barrage of bullets tore through the plane. They ripped through the front section, and in a ball of fire the engine ceased and the propellers stopped, the plane tilting downward into a nosedive as it plummeted down to the Pacific below.

"Yes! I got one!" Tom shouted, pumping one fist into the air in his excitement, momentarily forgetting the dire situation he was in as relief overcame his adrenaline filled system. Maybe, just maybe, they stood a chance.

Tom's glee was interrupted as another voice rang from above, this time John's. "Agh! I'm hit! They've strafed the cockpit!"

"How bad is it?" Will shouted in response, struggling to be heard above the sounds of the war around them.

"Pretty bad, I took a bullet to the shoulder! I'm better off than Charlie though, he's down for the count. A few bullets in the gut and legs, it looks like. I'm going to dive lower and see if we can shake these sons of a-"

He never got to finish what he was saying, as an explosion ripped through the midsection of the plane, a spray of gunfire having set off one of the bombs in the bomb bays. The plane shook, its momentum ceasing and beginning to stall. And then it began to fall.

"Shit!" Tom swore as he raced back to the main section of the plane as it buckled, being torn apart as it fell from the sky down to the sea below.

Up above it was a mess, the floor littered in shrapnel, a gaping hole near where Will Sakowitz had been, the man himself nowhere to be found. Tom looked around frantically, clutching to a wall for dear life as the sea grew closer and closer.

"Joe!" He called to the only other man he could find near him as the tail section broke completely from the rest of the plane, "what are we going to do?"

"Well, we're still flying half a ship." he said with a morbid grin, "I guess this is where it ends, huh," casting a glance to the fire streaking from the sides of their fragmenting plane.

"Dammit!" Tom cursed to himself as he faced his death, "I did all this just to make my brother proud, and I can't even survive my first combat mission…" a tear rolled down his cheek, "I'm sorry Sam, I failed you…"

And then something odd happened. There was a slight shift in the air around them, barely noticeable, the air they were plummeting seeming to change in an indescribable way.

Tom's life flashed before his eyes, oblivious to the peculiarities around him, moment after moment playing like a movie as he watched all the highlights of his life. All the good. All the bad. Everything in between. In those few short moments Tom saw every waking moment of his short, nineteen year long life. And then it was over. Or so he thought.

As the aircraft, now no more than a rapidly deteriorating shell, impacted the water, everything seemed to shift, to sway, and then they were somewhere else entirely.

Mt. Paozu. Age 761

Atop a hill surrounded by the wilderness, a father and his son lay on the grass, looking up at the stars above. A gentle breeze blew across, rippling through the grass and cooling them in the calm summer night.

"Hey dad," the boy spoke up, his eyes never leaving the starry expanse above.

"Yeah Gohan?" his father replied.

"What do you think is out there?"

"Out where?"

"In the stars Dad. You know, like other planets. Aliens, that sort of stuff."

"I dunno Gohan, I've never met an alien before."

"Of course you haven't Dad. Why would an alien want to come all the way out to Earth?"

"Yeah, I guess that's true. But come to think of it, Piccolo does look pretty different from most animals and people here, but I'm pretty sure that's because he's a demon."

"Didn't you tell me Kami is green too?"

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that. I wonder why…"

They fell silent for a moment, both gazing at the cosmos that surrounded them. Far from any cities, the stars shone without interference, blanketing the sky with their lights in various constellations.

"Hey dad, you wanna make a wish on a shooting star?"

"Sure, what kind of wish?'

"Anything, really."

"You mean like with the dragon balls?"

"Yeah, but this is more fun."

"I dunno about that Gohan, Shenron is pretty cool…"

"Come on Dad, do you want to or not?"

"Sure, let's find one! Hold on, I think I see one! Wait…"

"Yeah?"

"I'm not sure, but it feels like there's two ki signatures in that star!"

"You mean, like, people are in it?"

"Yeah, that's exactly it, it's gonna crash too!"

"You think they might be aliens?"

"I dunno son, but I'm gonna go help them out"

And without another word, Goku took to the skies towards the rapidly plummeting "star". What he saw when he arrived there confused him even more. Two men, a few years younger than himself, were lying unconscious inside a hollow piece of metal, each clutching to it as they did so. He wasted no time trying to figure out what was going on (not that it would have helped, the entire situation had Goku utterly confused) and flew below the hull, catching it with difficulty and began slowly lowering the wreckage to the ground.

When Goku touched down, he found his son already waiting for him , having followed on foot.

"What is it Dad?"

"I dunno son, you tell me. If it's some kind of spaceship it's an awfully strange on, and it looks like it took some pretty bad hits too."

"Are those two guys alright?"

"They're alive, I can still sense their ki. It looks like they hit their heads or something, so I think they'll be awake soon."

And right he was in that regard. A few minutes later, while Goku and Gohan were still discussing the possibilities of what had happened, Tom and Joe woke up, groaning as they regained their bearings.

"Tom… what happened?" Joe moaned while he struggled to pull himself to his feet, using his broken turret as leverage.

"I don't know Joe, I could've sworn we were about to crash into the ocean, but now it looks like we're on land. It's night too, but I could've sworn it was daytime."

"Yeah, it wasn't even noon yet when we reached Wake Island."

"I don't get it, this is all confusing, we should be dead, and yet, here we are… somewhere."

"Tom, you're pretty good with languages, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Those two guys are trying to say something to us in some other language. I don't know what they're saying, but it sounds awfully familiar. Please don't tell me it's what I think it is."

"That's… that's Japanese."

"Oh fuck"

A/N: Well that about concludes the first chapter of this idea I had. Please review to tell me whether this is good enough to keep going with, or if I should just scrap the whole thing.