The ring of Otherworld shook violently, squares of cement lifted from their hard-matted spots and floated in the air supernaturally, wondering the stunned crowd who had previously been engaged in the battle between Son Goku of the North and Pikkon of the South.
It wasn't just their world, dead they be, as the Leaf village itself began to shake. Invisible to them, invisible to the blond-haired sixteen-year old Genin, Naruto Uzumaki sitting balanced on the small wooden surface, the inner walls of his chakra-formed prison rumbled.
More than that, a third presence, detected by the sea swordsman, Mihawk, began to rupture the blue world. Another, Rorona Zoro, found himself helplessly distraught at the sudden change of wind, something evil, something diabolical. Yet he couldn't pinpoint it's origin.
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Prologue
A New Danger! Son Goku Back In Action!
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"Strange....I've never felt ANYTHING like this before. It's like a whole new groove...." the Grand Kaio Of All Things Kai, or simply Grand Kai, scratched his chin as he surveyed the galaxies. With each Kai that passed him, he patted their head with a hand, examining the various rifts. South Kai checked out okay, other than a massive number of missing planets since his last inspection, and the West and East Kais checked out negative of any suspicious energies or powers. But of course, when the North Kai, King Kai, approached him, a dissembler flux of energies bubbled from his forehead, even sparking a miniature flame in Grand Kai's hand that he immediately put out by simply blowing on it.
"What is it Grand Kai?" King Kai asked, nervous as he had just burned his superior Kai's hand and biting at his light blue fingernails. For so long he had kept his hands behind him, he'd almost forgotten he even had them.
The Grand Kai, licking a finger where tiny burn marks remained, clicked his tongue and spat away from his throne into a pot underneath him. He checked his ear, wetting his finger and then pulling it out, a tiny golden egg was in his hand. Suddenly, the egg imploded into a colorless cylinder, and resized to the size of a scroll. The Grand Kai raised his pinky and pointer fingers, letting the scroll unfurl as King Kai stepped back, and then back further as it continued to unwind. It rolled and rolled, scaling walls and returning to the floor after a quick diagonal turn, flowing outside to the front stoop and steps of the Grand Kai's palace, surprising the two similarly-dressed warriors, Goku and Pikkon, who entered.
"Mh, Goku! Do not enter the Grand Kai's chambers UNANNOUNCED!" King Kai harked, before throwing both hands over his mouth, thinking it wrong to yell loudly in the Grand Kai's presence.
"Forget about it, listen Goku, Pikkon. I summoned you two here because you're the best fighters I've seen here in epocks." the Grand Kai dragged his hand over the scroll, pulling it up a few inches and directing them towards a paragraph that started with the emboldened letters "KYUUBI" with two heavy dark spots staining the material and blurting out the K and the B, "There's a mysterious power brewing in YOUR galaxy, but it's species is completely unknown to even me. In fact, I don't think it was originally even a PART of your galaxy, it may be something new entirely. The point is, I've deduced that it spurns somewhere near the edge of East Kai's Galaxy, I'm not certain but it's our best offer. I'll warn you, its so strong that it nearly burned my hand just detecting it."
"Woah, it must be-" Goku stopped, turning around, as did they all.
A star winked in the bright pink sky, before exploding into a blue flame and dying. They gasped, and the Grand Kai snapped his fingers, instantly rewinding the entire scroll and transforming it back into a golden egg. While everyone gazed at the star's destruction, he nonchalantly tossed the egg in his mouth and swallowed it. Then, with everyone's attention back on him, he continued, "I can't remember the thing's name, but look for a being that resembles a flaming element or whatever. Its big, it has nine tails, and it would give that Cell guy a run for his money."
"Alright, I'm on my way." Goku said cheerfully, pointing two fingers at his forehead. A hand grazed his shoulder and he turned to see a disappointed Pikkon shooting him a nasty glare, "What!?"
"Don't think you're leaving me behind." Pikkon grabbed his shoulder, making the Saiyan shrug.
Grand Kai stared between the two of them, although through his sunglasses it was hard to tell if he was in deep thought or simply staring at the ceiling. He tried to imagine the possibility that whatever was causing the power fluctuations would truly upset the cosmic timeline, a rift in which the Supreme Kaio themselves would have no power to contain, let alone control. It would have been best to consult with them immediately, but the sound of thick, size 9 boots stomping angrily against the marble of his front steps drew him from his pondering, and made everybody present turn around at the sound of some spitting outside, the force of it equal to a gunshot.
A man in a dark, almost royal blue gym shirt and pants with white, size 9 nylon boots pushed open the giant doors of the Grand Kai's palace with ease, stomping towards Goku and Pikkon with a determined, pestilent glare. His hair was raised in spikes, something the Grand Kai had recognized as an upside-down vegetable put on a human-like body, much to the Saiyan's annoyance. His eyes were laced with a strong black color, and his features by tell would have imagined him as a mortal in his 20s at the least, despite the fact that in life, the Prince Of All Saiyans had kept himself kicking for over one hundred years. Never did the Grand Kai ever expect to see a feat like that come off of the Planet Earth...
"Kai, you have GOT to be kidding me!!! You find a decent challenge in some faraway galaxy and you send a CLOWN and his FROG to take care of it!?" even in death, or even after fifty years of it, Vegeta Briefs, otherwise Vegeta as he would never admit to having accepted that as a last name and would completely deny marrying Bulma Briefs for all it's worth, was just as stubborn as he was back when the Z-Fighter has first met him. That didn't mean he was to be underestimated, no, for in fifty years, his power had grown tremendously, and with every small increase, he was even more enthusiastic about a fight with "Kakarot", the saiyan name that in an act of superiority Vegeta always addressed him by.
"Oh, come on Vegeta, don't ruin MY fun." Goku pouted, trying to focus and teleport Pikkon and himself away before Vegeta could have any chance at a rebuttal. It failed, however, as the Grand Kai focused his own special technique to negate any form of teleportation within the room.
"Vegeta, prince of All Saiyans my foot!" the Kai laughed, "You know, your father's down there in Hell right now. I don't think he's ruling over anything more than a few bowls of dirt by now. Why haven't you tried calling yourself KING OF SAIYANS by now, I mean, you've already married, so why are you still a PRINCE."
"Grr...SHUT UP." Vegeta yelled, snatching one of Goku's arms hastily, "I'm GOING. Try and stop me!"
Goku merely shrugged haplessly, while Pikkon shut his eyes, trying to imagine the entire situation away. King Kai and his peers remained quiet, simply hoping to not incur the temper of the Grand Kaio. But the beard-grown Grand Kai merely continued to snicker with other devious jokes and thoughts in his immortal, all-powerful mind as he released the room from it's temporal seal. He clapped his hands together and waved Goku off, declaring, "Find that Nine-Tailed Fox and bring him back here, you three. Do it under ANY means necessar-"
"WAIT." Goku stopped him once more, an act of rudeness that would have befallen all the Kais were they in his position, "DID YOU JUST SAY WE THREE!? GAH, COME ON. THANKS A LOT VEGETA. YOU JUST COULDN'T LET ME HANDLE IT!!"
Vegeta didn't respond, letting a confident smile droop from his face as he closed his eyes and held Goku's arm tightly, bracing himself for the nauseating feeling of all of his molecules being broken apart simultaneously and transported light years, across galaxies and quadrants of them, all the way to the east. With a final sigh, Goku exhaled focused, the Instantaneous Transmission technique took hold a bare second later, making all three of them disappear into thin-lined slits of air as they vanished. The world around him became a tangent shade of purple, mixed with green and blue and red, spreading in every direction. Pikkon had his hand on his shoulder, still in view, while Vegeta mercilessly clamped down on his left arm, cackling to himself as he forced Kakarot to take him with him.
Now was that perfect opportunity to broadcast his newfound Saiyan power that he had been dreaming about every night in Hell's deathly cushions. He thought of it for so long as space thrummed through his muscles and space blanketed his inverted flesh, his very own mind seemed to tickle itself as the universe, for one of few instances, was truly unveiled to him. And in such a beautiful manner, it would have pacified him had he not known that there was a slight chance the Grand Kai had almost made him miss it.
The journey ended in a minute of silence, Pikkon was quiet and Vegeta felt no better in the present company either but they weren't able to speak during instantaneous travel regardless. Telepathy was an option, but also an ability none of them possessed. When Goku materialized, the light blue fabric of his gi returned from the cold, drab frost it had when they'd been traveling. Pikkon's light purple skin became the toad-like green with dark brown warts once more, and the inverted orange of Vegeta's sleeveless shirt transformed back to it's deep blue shade.
They all landed in the backdrop of a portrait painting of Earth's moon against the space that now surrounded them freely, unhindered by atmosphere or stratosphere or some biological confusion paradox. Of course, from their point of view, they were now on an invisible crater, pale to the sight that lay before them: a planet with an amethyst surface, shining brightly and brightening the space around them like a light bulb.
Goku was the first one to complain, "Wow, I didn't think the Eastern Galaxy looked so...dull."
"You shouldn't talk, your galaxy is a primitive pool for barbarians to slaughter each other."
"Is that some kind of joke?" Vegeta jumped in, realizing Pikkon had obviously been referring to the Saiyan race and their countless invasions of planets and eradication of alien races. He was almost about to take Pikkon by the throat, which would have certainly result in him being blasted away by a proper blast of focused Ki, but the conflict ceased when Goku shouted to them, pointing at another star above the planet's surface.
Like an atomic bomb, it exploded, releasing a large field of energy that made the crater they stood on tremble violently in fear of the astonishing power of it's destruction, the surface of the crater rippled and formed small dents and holes, like the Earth's moon only in less concise or standard patterns. Without warning, a shockwave knocked all three, the two Saiyans and the Paiporiokian, to their feet with no such consideration of a struggle. Pikkon bounced, landing on his back as the forces seemed to stop. But just then, like a recant, the crater spun, the quakes fissuring even further until the crater itself was split in two, Pikkon on one side, Goku floating off on a small rock, and Vegeta on the other side. They called out to each other to no avail and began fleeing in their own directions.
Goku charged his Ki and focused, making a white, periwinkle aura of energy around him, propelling himself upward, smashing through an incoming sediment of rock, broken off. An orb flew past him at breakneck speed, forcing him to cover his ears from the earth-shattering sound before dancing away off another rock to avoid being crushed by two imploding ones. Vegeta ran above him, charging blast after blast of Ki through rocks and, to his chagrin, creating more of them. Goku stopped him, spotting Pikkon amidst the debris, sprinting across them for an escape. He powered up once more, and cupped his hands. The Prince of Saiyans backed away, knowing full well what Kakarot intended to do.
The first "Ka..." brought on a huge wave of energy. The second "me..." drew a couple of small chunks of gravel towards him. The third "ha..." forcibly dragged the lightest layer of rock up from it's resting position, some crackling as htey smashed into each other. The fourth, and most blood-cooling "ha..." pulled Vegeta forward with a slight jerk, pulling a surprised gasp out of him as he witnessed the amassed, light blue energy Kakarot had collected in his hands. Finally, as the gravitational pull of the attack began to summon larger rocks towards him, Goku launched both of his still cupped hands forward like he was trying to catch a ball, but stopped half-way, bending his arms toward his chest before screaming "HAAAA!!!!!" towards the black catalogs of space.
An explosion of energy rocketed from him in a focused loop of energy, tearing open the rocks that dared to cross it or were simply unfortunate enough to have been far away enough to avoid the blast. The very yolk dots of space seemed to be paralyzed at the power and rush of Goku's Kamehameha Wave, intensified by the dire of their situation, blasting apart, opening, and utterly obliterating the molten, boulder-like remains of the exploded star, until after less than half a minute the raw electric blue beam thinned, winked, and shook itself apart until skin-like cells of it's being flapped away into nothingness, dying as Goku pulled his hands back. Space continued it's silent waltz, but the Saiyans fled, covered in their respective auras, at mach speed before the molten debris could return to it's proper...floating.
Pikkon, amazed by what he had just seen, stared before turning and taking off himself. Goku snatched Vegeta's arm and teleported, right next to Pikkon. The rock he had shattered rebounded off of an invisible channel, returning it to the original point of the explosion. Goku pulled Pikkon towards him, with an affirmative cry as Pikkon shot a winding yellow rocket from his palm, blasting apart the leftmost rock to molten slag. He slanted his two fingers and teleported, the group tumbling back into the same nether strand of hyperspace they had exited from earlier.
He didn't know where they were going, he simply targeted the highest and closest energy source he could sense, the giant Amethyst Planet they'd witnessed from above. Goku braced himself, while Vegeta and Pikkon were recovering from the near-death circumstances of the previous situation. A silvery light flashed him, as did it all three of them, and he could the air around his head heat up as well as a feeling of plummeting.
"Oh shit..." he whispered.