The Boy In The Woods
The only sound that could be heard for miles around was that of nature. The running streams, the sound of birds chirping and flying, pterodactyls gliding through the sky, tigers hunting, monkeys rustling through the trees; a giant wooden wheel rolling downhill with an eleven-year-old balancing on it, wielding a giant sword, the blade of which must have been about twice his height alone.
On second thoughts, some would question whether or not that last one was nature or not.
The child had an almost unreadable expression on his face, beyond the corners of his mouth being pointed ever so slightly down. He was wearing a blue martial arts gi that looked like it had seen better days, as there were at least a dozen holes covering the outfit.
Although, if someone were to spot this child, they would probably be more focused on the monkey tail swishing around behind him than his face or outfit.
The wheel hit a bump and flew into the air, the extra momentum sent the child into the air himself. Without missing a beat, he flipped in the air, and landed back on the wheel, tail flicking behind him for balance.
He sighed, "Same old, same old."
Several times after that point he would find himself flipping or speeding up on the wheel. This was almost an automatic response to him at this point.
After a fairly short trek through the forest, the child forcefully stopped the wheel in front of a small building, made of bricks and with a blue tiled roof.
The child hopped off the wooden wheel, and then he did a quick stretch for what he was about to do. Running down hill on a wooden wheel was the easy part, the next step required a more focused effort.
He pushed the wheel till it was flat on the ground. He took a deep breath, and with all his might he jumped about ten feet into the air. At the highest point of his jump, he flipped in the air for some extra energy, before stretching out his left leg in a kicking pose. He was about to perform a stomp of sorts, on the wheel of wood.
After a brief moment his foot made contact with wood, and said wood exploded into several randomly sized shards.
For a moment, just one moment, he smiled at his work. Hitting things brought a strange sensation, sort of like adrenaline rushing through his system on his command.
This amazing feeling only lasted a moment, then he returned to being basically unemotional.
Before he could gather the wood up, he felt his stomach start to rumble. He glanced down, before nodding to himself.
"I guess it's dinner time." Without another thought he dashed towards the forest, his nose trained on the smell of wild animals and tasty fruit.
/
About a mile away from the wild child, there was one lone car driving up a narrow road that curved around the mountains. It was the only car for miles, and the driver must have known this, because she stopped the car.
She'd been driving for hours straight; she figured that a quick stretch was allowed. She got out of the car and made good on her plans.
It might be relevant to note that this girl was dressed to stand out, wearing a short cut pink dress that showed off her legs. There were also letters running across the chest, BULMA.
The fact that she had teal hair didn't do anything to help her blend in to any sort of crowd.
After her stretch, she found herself reaching into her hip bag, where she pulled out a strange device. It was like a pocket watch, but it was the size of her hand. She pressed the button on the top and the device made a ding noise for a second, then the screen lit up with a green grid and five yellow dots scattered around.
Two dots were together, one dot that was pretty close to the first two was flashing, and the last two were miles off her current location in different directions. This information caused her to smirk; a mild thrill overcame her for a moment.
"You're as good as mine, you little jewel." Feeling a renewed eagerness, she got back into her car and set off again, following her device's readings.
/
The child hadn't realised how hungry he had really been. The moment that his nose located some apples that were just coming into season, he homed in on the aroma until he found the tree. He wasted no time jumping up the tree's branches, until he found a nice spot to sit that had easy access to the apples, and he began to devour them.
The fruit was sweet, and the boy loved sweet things, but he was quickly running out of apples. He was going to need something more substantial if he wanted to last to tomorrow.
For a second, he stopped. His nose had picked up a new scent. He glanced down towards the ground, only to spot a sabre-tooth cat prowling around. It was giant in size, and appeared to be in good shape. The child found himself staring at the cat's mouth. His head could fit in there.
The feeling of adrenaline that the boy craved came rushing through his system once again, and he suddenly felt at peace, despite the crazy idea that was forming in his mind.
He plucked a fresh apple from the tree, and then with all of his strength he threw it at the sabre-tooth cat. The apple, being quite fresh, was very hard. It made solid contact with the feline's head, and the thud that resulted seemed to silence all the sound in the forest as it reverberated through.
The cat stumbled around for a moment, clearly dazed from the assault. The child allowed himself a rare laugh.
The sound seemed to bring the sabre-tooth back to its senses, it glanced up at the boy with a primal fury in its eyes, before it pounced towards the boy with intent to kill.
Time seemed to slow. The cat was in the air, flying towards the child. The boy sat perfectly still, waiting. As the cat got closer, its mouth wide open ready to bite the poor boy's head off, the child's last thought before reacting was, 'My head can fit in there.'
After that thought the child swung back, falling as the cat went over head. The child didn't meet the harsh ground, however, as his tail had wrapped around the tree branch.
He hung there upside down, watching in a twisted sort of amusement as the cat landed on its side. As it got up it appeared to be in pain, and the sound of childish giggling coming from the strange monkey boy wasn't helping.
"What's the matter, is the widdle kitty hurt?" Apparently, the cat could understand him, because it charged again, the rage in its glare was quite ferocious. The child started to swing like a pendulum, and as soon as the cat got too close, the child used that extra momentum to chop the cat's neck.
There was a sickening crack, and then the sabre-toothed cat skidded to a stop, dead.
The child dropped; landing on all fours like a cat. He wiped his hands on his trousers, before walking in front of the massive cat, his prey.
"You could've made it more fun for me, you know." Without another thought on the matter, he reached underneath the cat, and with minimal effort lifted it off the ground.
Then he started trek back to his temple at a calm pace. Cats were harder for him to cook than something like fish, but he had been hungry for some proper meat, so he wasn't complaining too much.
As he walked through the forest he thought about what he'd need to cook his prey: a knife, some flint, possibly some hooks to hang it...
He eventually found himself back at the little temple where he'd been staying. Everything seemed in order, the fire wood was where he left it, and the temple was left basically untouched since he left. He could smell what he believed to be a monkey, but keeping the wild life away was too difficult so he hadn't really bothered.
He continued towards the temple. When he got to the door he rested the cat against the wall. Fairly sure that there wasn't anything around that would steal his kill, he stepped into the temple.
The temple was basically a single room. He wasn't even really living in it; he usually slept outside except when he felt too scared to. Beyond the knife that he sometimes used for cooking, he didn't really move much in this room. Against the wall farthest from the door was a small table with a red pillow resting on the top.
On top of the pillow rested one of the few things in this world that he cared about. It was a perfect sphere that seemed to be every shade of orange imaginable all at once. The sphere had four dark orange stars floating in the centre, that which never seemed to lose their shape no matter how the sphere was turned.
The boy had seen the strange item many times before, but he couldn't recall a time where he'd ever seen it glow.
Which it was doing right now. F
or about three seconds, before it stopped.
He blinked once, then twice, "Okay, that was weird."
The item's strange behaviour was interesting, and the boy wanted to figure out what had caused the event, but it would have to wait till after he'd eaten.
He found the knife he was looking for, and then left the temple.
The boy took the sabre-tooth cat by the back legs and dragged it a fair distance from the temple, as precaution. He intended to start a fire, and he didn't want it to spread to the temple.
The boy let out a happy sigh, the boy was whelmed by the thought of finally eating something filling. The anticipation was becoming unbearable. He was interrupted before he could start skinning the cat, by something he couldn't possibly have predicted.
He was hit by a car.
To be fair, the driver had tried to stop, but it was of little use. He went flying, till he made a sudden stop against the temple's wall, face first.
"Oh my god, are you okay?" A worried voice rang through the air. The voice sounded different to anything the child had ever heard before. He couldn't quite place the difference, nor was he in the right state of mind to care.
He got up from the ground, a glare present on his features.
"Okay, I don't know what that machine is, but I do know that it's never going to work again!" In the blink of an eye, the boy had appeared by the side of the car. The woman inside the car could have sworn he hadn't moved, but he had.
With a strength that only pure rage could give, he lifted the car overhead and tossed it. As was to be expected, the woman inside screamed murder. A moment passed and the car landed on its side, smoke rising up from the engine.
"Hey, if you're still alive in there, come out so I can kill you myself!"
He heard a whimper, and it annoyed him further. What kind of person was he dealing with?
The head of a teal haired woman rose from the window, and suddenly it all made sense. He also felt pretty bad now.
"Oh, you're a-" Before he could get his words out she was shooting him. Within moments he was flat on the ground screaming in pain.
She suddenly stopped, with a look of horror on her face, "What did I just do?" She hadn't expected this. She had just gunned down a child.
"Those things sting! But don't worry, it'll take more than that to kill me!" As he spoke he bounced up again. Several shades of colour left the girl's face at that moment, 'What is this kid?'
Well she was freaking out, he got closer. He walked around her, studying her appearance: soft facial features, a higher voice, certain physical features that he was lacking, he was pretty sure. He was looking at a girl, the first girl he'd ever seen.
Though, he couldn't be a hundred percent certain of this, as he had very little knowledge of the difference between boys and girls. A smile found itself on his face, a chance to learn was just one more thing that led him to improvement. Or at least that's what he'd been telling himself for the last several months. With that thought in mind he lowered himself to the ground and had a look under her dress. He found a polka dot patterned fabric covering her.
The boy turned his head to the side in confusion, 'Well, that's interesting.'
She chose that moment to regain her senses, only for her to realise what the boy was currently doing. She quickly moved away from him, glaring at him annoyance. He looked at her with a blank expression, before grinning brightly at her.
The sight of his grin caused the girl to immediately feel a cocktail of embarrassment and rage.
"What are you looking at?" They met eyes, and he realised that he had a very small window to respond.
Taking a chance, he said, "Sorry, just admiring a pretty girl is all." She rolled her eyes, but a small smirk found its way to her face.
That was all he needed. It informed him that he'd been right, and the complement had worked its part.
"Glad to see your eyes work, kid." He smiled back at her, it was a false smile. He was pretty good at faking his emotions, or least he thought he was. His brain was thinking, 'If my Mentor didn't have a tail, and she doesn't have tail, then why do I?'
He decided to distract himself from the troubling question that he couldn't answer.
"Excuse me, but I was wondering, that machine I threw earlier, what is it called?" He didn't like asking for help, and she didn't make it any easier on him. She poorly hid a laugh at his lack of common knowledge.
"That's a car, silly!" His face lit up.
"Oh, so that's what a car looks like! My Mentor told me about them, but I've never seen one before."
She seemed interested for a moment, and he wondered if she was pondering questions to ask him like he was for her.
"Hey kid, you're pretty strong for a guy your size." He smirked, something he greatly enjoyed doing.
"Yeah I am. I owe some of that to my Mentor, but most of it's all me!" She rolled her eyes at his boasting.
"You've mentioned that Mentor of yours twice now. Can I meet him? I need to ask him something." That broke his smile for a moment, but only a moment. He sighed, turning away from her.
"Sorry, he's dead."
"Oh." There was silence for a moment, she had no idea what to say to that. Luckily, his stomach rumbled, reminding him of how hungry he was. He blushed as he turned to his guest.
"Hey, seeing as I destroyed your car, could I treat you to something to eat?" She stared at him with a strange look for a moment, before reaching into her bag. She pulled out a strange device, and after pressing a button and looking straight at the temple, she smiled.
"Sure, that sounds good!" Suddenly he was back on alarm. He watched her carefully as she reached into her bag and pulled out a small box. She pulled out a little capsule, pressed a button on top and threw it at the wrecked car. In a poof of smoke, the car disappeared.
He hid his surprise well. She turned to him again, a smile on her face.
"So, kid, what's the agenda?"
"Well, obviously eating first." He looked up in thought, "It's been a while since I've had someone to talk to, so that might be interesting. It could be about anything really, but you might have to explain some stuff to me."
He tilted his head to the side as a thought accorded to him, "After that, I guess we could play together if you wanted."
Quickly her face shifted into a look of mild disgust, "Listen kid, I don't know what you're thinking up, but if it's something improper, then forget it."
He thought about what she said for three seconds, and then a half-remembered conversation with his Mentor crossed his mind. Something about respecting a girl's wishes? He couldn't recall.
"Oh, okay. Tag then?"
She blinked at him, confused by how he reacted. No blush, no disappointment, no denial. He basically shrugged off the rejection, and then asked to play a game. That was pretty weird, as far as she was concerned.
"Ok, that sounds fine. Let's go."
"Oh, just wait here. I've already got lunch set up, sort of." He gestured to the sabre-tooth cat, before running back to the temple. Her mouth dropped in shock. How has she missed such a big, and notably dead, sabre-tooth cat?
She felt nervous as she looked at the boy run towards the temple, 'Did...he do this?'
He came back over with a knife, some flint, and a couple pieces of firewood. She wasn't sure which she found more shocking, that he'd killed a sabre-toothed cat, or that he had managed to carry all that stuff at once.
Oh wait, she knew. Killing the cat was much more shocking.
He made a cut along the length of the sabre-tooth cat's spine, and then started peeling the cat's skin off with his knife. The sight shocked her, and since she knew this was going to be a long wait, she decided that she needed a distraction to make it go faster.
"I should have asked earlier, but what's your name?"
He stopped what he was doing for a moment to stare at the girl, he seemed to be in some sort of deep conflict.
"I'm...Kakarot. K, A, K, A, R, O, T. Kakarot." Her face scrunched up in confusion. That was quite a strange name, and she couldn't for the life of her figure out what part of the planet such a name would have come from.
"That's quite a strange name you've got there, Kakarot." He didn't seem annoyed at the response.
"Yeah, I know. What's your name?"
"My name's Bulma, nice to meet you." Bulma smiled at Kakarot, who smiled back as he absently started gutting the animal. He slashed the knife up the undercarriage, revealing the creature's guts to the world.
Bulma's features slowly turned green with disgust. She liked meat, but she hadn't seen the process before.
Kakarot placed the knife behind him and put his hand inside the cat and started ripping the guts out. And that was when she turned away from Kakarot as he continued.
The conversation didn't start up again for a while. Bulma wouldn't look at him, but she heard noises.
"Hey, could you go inside the temple and grab my spit? I forgot to grab it earlier." Bulma nodded frantically.
Without looking at Kakarot or that poor cat, she made a dash for the temple. It was really small inside.
She forgot what she was doing completely.
Sitting on a pillow, on a table, in the middle of nowhere, was the treasure she'd been looking for.
"I can't believe it. That kid just has one of the Dragon Balls!" She found a sly smirk on her features as she walked closer to the Dragon Ball.
'He probably doesn't even know what that is! He'll never miss it.' With that thought in mind, she picked up the Dragon Ball.
"See, I get that it might have been a tricky task, grabbing a spit, so let me help!" Kakarot said from behind her, with false humour in his voice, "You see, that isn't a spit. Hand it over."
Bulma laughed weakly, and then threw the ball over to Kakarot. He stared at the ball with confusion, as it had started glowing again.
"Really need to figure out what that's about." He mumbled to himself. Bulma overheard him, and grinned, as she had found a work around.
"Oh, that. It's doing that because of me." Kakarot focused on her again with a raised eyebrow.
"Okay, explain."
She reached into her bag, pulling out her two Dragon Balls. Despite himself, Kakarot looked visibly shocked.
"So, you have two of these things." Kakarot quickly reasoned that if his ball had four stars that probably meant there was at least four of them. Where they important?
"They're called Dragon Balls, and I really need yours." She gave him a pleading look, her eyes sparkled, and she smiled at him. Kakarot was interested, mostly because this was the most excitement he'd had ever since his Mentor died.
"Mine? What for?" Bulma looked up in thought.
"Well, if you really want to know, these jewels have the power to do great things. And not so great things, in the wrong hands."
/
A door opened to reveal a dark throne room, along both walls there were rows of suits of armour. At the end of the room, resting on a purple pillow, was a Dragon Ball, with one star. The group that entered the room were quite bizarre, at least together anyways.
In the lead there was a short imp like creature with blue skin, wearing a strange hat. To his left was a young woman, dressed in grey military attire, and to his right was a dog that walked up right and dressed like a ninja.
"It looks dark in there." The dog said, quite frightened of the cold dark room in front of them.
"Shut up, Shu." The imp said, a smirk on his features. He dashed over to the Dragon Ball, the object of his obsession, picking it up.
"Finally! I, Emperor Pilaf, can have my wish!" Pilaf laughed, quite happy with the way his day was going.
"Sorry sir, but you actually need to have all seven of the Dragon Balls. We need to do more searching." The sole woman in the group, Mai, spoke up with a bored expression on her face.
Emperor Pilaf sighed, and turned to the woman, "Mai, I know that. I'm pretty sure everyone reading this as well knows that. Why are we even pretending that I don't know these simple things?"
"Because this is how it happened in the first episode, and we have to reflect that." Mai shrugged her shoulders.
Shu made a noise before joining the conversation, "Weren't we told something about not breaking the fourth wall?"
"Probably." Emperor Pilaf rubbed his eyes, quite tired, "Oh, forget it, yes yes, we'll return to searching."
Pilaf sighed, "Just cut back to Goku already."
"Actually, sir, I think he's called Kakarot now." Shu corrected his boss.
"Do I care?" Emperor Pilaf stared at the dog for a moment, before turning around, and walking towards the door they'd entered through.
/
"So, you're saying that with these I could wish for anything?" All the ideas that rushed through Kakarot's mind. A part of his mind firmly reminded him that it sounded impossible.
"Yep! I want to gather all of them, so I can wish for a boyfriend!" Bulma started making an annoying high-pitched squeaking sound. Kakarot was quite surprised when he heard it, only to be annoyed immediately after.
"I see. Too bad no one's ever going to use the Dragon Balls." This statement pulled Bulma out of her lust filled daydreams. She stared at Kakarot in opened mouthed shock, as the boy in questioned walked past her and grabbed the spit that was resting against the wall.
"What do you mean?!" Bulma's voice was doing that shrieking thing again. Kakarot was contemplating killing her, but then he thought better of it.
"Well, this used to belong to my Mentor. You recall, the dead one? There's no way I'd just let you take it." Kakarot thought that would be enough, but after a moment Bulma was looking at him with a flirty grin.
"How about this, we'll trade!" Trade? Despite himself, he was interested in what she thought she could offer him.
She pulled bottom of her dress up, and turned to him, exposing her panties.
One word dominated Kakarot's thoughts, and that word was, 'What.'
"You let me have your Dragon Ball, and I'll let you have a little peek." Within seconds Kakarot's cheeks lit up like a Christmas tree.
Kakarot took a deep, calming breath. He looked at her with a cheeky smile, "Oh please, if you want this Dragon Ball it's going to take more than just a peek."
Now it was Bulma's turn to blush. She giggled nervously. She was quickly losing control of the situation. She needed a way to convince him to let her leave with the Dragon Ball...her eyes widened as a thought accorded.
"Okay, I have an idea." Bulma said confidently.
"I'm listening." Kakarot sighed.
"You're really strong, but not only that, you're also bullet proof! So how about you come with me, help me get the other four balls, and when we have them all, then I'll reward you." Bulma smiled nervously, and Kakarot's brain rushed into overdrive.
'Is she lying? Probably, I would in her situation. But still, how do I feel about it?' Kakarot looked around the small room, 'I've never really left the mountain, and I feel like there is so much more to see...'
"Okay, Bulma, you've got yourself a deal. But I'm keeping my ball till we have the rest, you got that?"
Bulma nodded, a look of victory on her features.
"Sure, now that I've got you, there's no way I could fail!"
"But, considering our deal..." A light blush covered his cheeks, as he held out his hand, "You gotta shake on it."
Bulma let out another nervous giggle, but she still took his hand. After a firm shake, they parted.
"Great, this'll be so much fun! But first, can we eat?" Kakarot nodded, and they left the temple.
Bulma was pleased to note that the guts weren't anywhere insight. Kakarot started cooking with the spit, and the new partners enjoyed roasted sabre-toothed cat.
Bulma had to admit that it was better than she thought it was going to be. She turned to Kakarot,
"So, ready to go?" He nodded, a satisfied grin on his face.
"Sure, just let me go get something from inside." Kakarot disappeared inside the temple and returned a minute later with a red coloured wooded pole, and a bag designed solely to keep it in.
"We can leave now." Bulma nodded, and then got up. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her capsule case.
"Seeing as you destroyed my car, we're gonna need some different transportation." She pulled out another capsule and threw it, and with a bang and huge puff of smoke there was a white motorcycle. Its windshield reached all the way over and above the seats and connected with the back.
Kakarot stared at the machine with some confusion, Bulma smiled at it fondly.
"Things just keep getting stranger..." Kakarot softly mumbled to himself.