Chapter 1 - 'Prelude To Danger'

-- My Two Cents - Before You Read... --

Before you begin, please take a quick look at this, it'll help you understand the story better...

I guess, before we begin, I should explain the motivation behind this story. Well, when I was more actively watching the show, the relationships that interested me weren't always necessarily romance-based. Gohan and Picollo was one of my favorite ones, as was the relationship between Goku and Vegeta (not in the way some people see it, mind. Browsing this site I saw a fanfic about Goku and Vegeta expecting their first baby(!!). That kind of stuff really confuses me). But anyway, the relationship between Goku and Krillin is the one I'm focussing on in this story. It always seemed to be a very prominent friendship throughout the show, but to be honest I don't think was tested in the same manner that say, Vegeta and Bulma's is. There is rarely any kind of tension, or strain or serious argument between the two. That's why I wrote this story, I thought it would be very interesting to see what would happen if they did have a full blown argument...

Anyway, I'm rambling too much, I better get this thing started. By the way, it's set just after Dragonball, but well before Z. At the moment I'm kind of deciding whether I'll wrap up the argument so it fits into the show, or do an alternate version of events with the two at constant loggerheads. My starting point allows me to do both, so if anyone has a view on the way they want me to do the story, let me know. Oh and don't worry! I won't be saturating you with the same two characters for the whole story. LOADS of characters, (three you may not have expected), will be turning up. The actual 'argument' itself won't be the focus of the story, rather the aftermath and how it links in to another plotline running alongside it.

I will let you know, before you start... you'll be seeing sides to a few characters you might not have expected. I really want people to be able to connect to the characters in the story. Trust me, by the end of it, you just may think this actually happened...

Enjoy the story,

criticx...

(Oh by the way, the A/Ns will not be anywhere NEAR this long in the future)

Chapter 1

It had been a few months since the last tenkaichi budokai. The dust had settled on Picollo's defeat and everybody involved had returned to their uneventful, perfectly normal lives. For one man however, 'normal' life, wasn't usually on the menu. Strange then, that he had found it to be the main course for last few months. He was a man used to never-ending fighting and training. As it was now, he seemed to get very little of either. Not that he didn't enjoy his new life though. He had finally found his true love. Something much more meaningful than any amount of training, food or battling. He'd found Chi Chi.

Admittedly, it began in a most uncanny fashion. His bride-to-be had met him in the ring as a fellow competitor. Masked. Hidden. Her true identity only mere minutes away from discovery. Her heart and mind set on only one goal. The fight had, of course, been over quickly. Heck, she was battling the guy who was said by so many to be the most powerful man on the planet! There was little doubt in anyone's mind of his victory. After that, however, the real revelations began to unfold. Chi Chi reminded him of the pledge he had made her in his youthful innocence, his promise of marriage!

Goku could only absent-mindedly stare back, clueless as to what this whole 'marriage' thing was. With haste, he'd turned round and asked Krillin for clarification, a question so embarrassing that his bald-headed counterpart could only balk at his ignorance as he pathetically tried to blurt out the answer. Looking back on it, it was a funny situation, but it could have been very different. Krillin could've easily made fun of his friend's ignorance, laughed at his inability to grasp the most simple of things. Equally so, Goku could've burst into a fit of laughter at his friend's familiar stuttering as he struggled to answer the easiest of questions. Lucky for both of them, that their friendship was a solid as concrete. Neither would ever make a malicious comment about the other. Or would they? As Goku sat back and reflected on his experiences over the last few years, he could never guess that in a few hours time, one of his most treasured relationships would be in tatters... and nobody, except them, would know about it...

MEANWHILE...

'Errrrgg... well that plan was absolutely terrible! It was never going to work from the start! I can't believe we actually went through with it! What an idiotic and ill-thought, illogical and imbecilic idea!'.

'Err...sir...'

'What is it Mai?'

'You're the one who came up with it.'

Pilaf, stuttered, slightly embarrassed at the harsh criticism he had inflicted on his own failed plan, 'Well... errr... quite. ANYWAY THAT'S NOT THE POINT! The point is we have once again failed in one of our evil schemes!'

He turned round with a mock sadness on his little face, 'I'm beginning to think we should just give up being evil and live honest and good lives...'

'Aww, sir... do you really mean it,' said the henchman on his other side, a little dog, clad in a ninja suit named Shao.

'NO OF COURSE NOT!!,' he screamed in both his henchmen's faces, 'WE JUST NEED TO FIND A BETTER WAY OF DOING THINGS! Everything just seems to be going wrong...'.

They all sighed and looked down at the floor. They were in the middle of a field, having run from the nearest town after their attempt at a bank heist had turned ugly... for them. Everything had just being going wrong for them for a while. Since their whole involvement with King Picollo had turned sour, they'd kept to themselves, engaging merely in petty crimes and leaving their hopes of world domination on the backburner for a while. But even these small conquests were beginning to go wrong. And with each feeble attempt at a bank heist, or a robbery or any other smaller crime, things had just not gone their way. Okay, the three were 'villains', or a better way to put it, 'villainous', but none of them were truly evil, they'd just wanted complete control of the world. Was that really too much to ask? 'Err... probably, ' thought Pilaf as he again sighed down at the floor.

After ten minutes of silence, Mai was the first to speak, 'you know emperor. This kind of reminds me.'

'Reminds you of what?' he replied only half-interested.

'Of, you know... the old days.'

'The old days? What old days? Are you saying I'M OLD!!' he snapped at her.

'NO EMPEROR!!, ' she said withdrawing very quickly, 'I'm just saying... remember, whenever we were trying to do something and... he would get in our way?'

''He'? Who's 'he'?!'

'You know... the little boy...'

'Goku...,' he scowled as he spoke his name, 'ah... yes. The little brat. The one who stopped me making my wishes on so many occasions. The meddling fool who smashed my desert fort to bits! THOSE THINGS ARE EXPENSIVE Y'KNOW!!' he screamed wildly into the sky half-expecting 'the meddling fool' to hear him.

'Errrgg...' he continued, 'I still have yet to get my revenge on that brat'.

'Hey I've got any idea!' Shao wildly shouted, 'why don't we... get revenge on him... while he least suspects it. Y'know... get some cannons, some tanks, some guns... We could ambush him... heck... he'd never see it coming! We'd finally get him back...'

Pilaf smiled slightly at the thought, but Mai quickly interjected, 'sir... with all due respect. Remember what happened the last time we faced him, he made mince meat of our robots. The most we managed to do was singe... a few areas of his clothing...'

'Yeah... I remember...' Pilaf sighed.

'And you mustn't forget, that little 'brat' isn't exactly a brat anymore! Remember, a few months ago. He was the man who won the world martial arts tournament.'

'Yeah...' he said, defeat etching its way into his voice.

'He is arguably the strongest man alive, it's hard to believe he's human.'

'Maybe he's not...' suggested the also defeated Shao.

'Well it doesn't matter what that freak is because as it stands we don't have a chance in HELL of ever having our way if he's just going to stop us,' Pilaf angrily growled.

'Well actually... we may just have a chance.'

Pilaf and Shao both looked up.

'Remember that girl that was with him, apparently she was the one that set him up on his adventures.'

'Yeah...'

'Well, the last time we saw him, she was no-where to be seen.'

'What are trying to say Mai?' Shao quickly questioned.

'Maybe... just maybe. He ISN'T looking for the dragonballs anymore. Maybe... we could find them... without him getting in our way ths time...'

'And what if HE IS looking for them...' Pilaf angrily snapped back.

'Well then...' she gulped at the thought, 'we lose... again'.

They all stayed in silence for a moment, but without realising it, they had all come to the same conclusion in their minds. The way it was going, there was no chance in hell for them to ever accomplish anything. They had to give it a try if they were going to make something of their existence.

'Well... eh-hem... sir? What are we going to do?' Shao asked nervously, knowing of his master's violent temper.

'We're going to find them...' he replied shortly.

Mai looked at her boss, concerned for him. After his last statement he just stared forward, angrily at the ground. It surprised her greatly when he unexpectedly burst out laughing, building up to his trademark manic outburst, 'HAH HAH HAH HAH!! YESSS!! This is my chance to show that brat just WHO he's dealing with! MASTER OF THE WORLD. THE GREAT, THE WONDERFUL... the... the...'

Shao, 'the handsome...'

Mai, 'the slightly insane?' she suggested, slightly baffled by his sudden turn in demeanor.

'THE RULER OF THE PLANET EARTH!! EMPEROR PILAF!!'

He continued laughing, and at the site of their master, Shao and Mai couldn't help but join in. They had renewed hope for the future. But what would that mean for everyone else? Nobody could know...

--

'Yeah... I'll come. Be great to see you again Goku... see ya!'

'Bye...'

Goku put the telephone down, delighted at his two accomplishments. One, he had managed to use a telephone by himself for the first time in his life without causing injury to people in immediate vicinity. Indeed, the untold time of when he took the words 'hang-up' a little TOO literally came to mind here. But also, he'd managed to convince Krillin to travel to his house for a quick spar in the afternoon. Krillin, of course had acted apprehensively, but he too was delighted to spent a bit of time sparring with Goku. It wasn't clear who needed it more. Goku had been too tied down by family life and looking after his wife to do a lot of training, and needed somebody to practise with. For Krillin, however... well, it was a different case. He owed a lot his confidence and fighting ability down to Goku's encouragement and felt good when he battled alongside him.

For both of them, however, there was a stark seriousness about this encounter. Three and a half-years ago when Krillin had been killed, it was an early end to childhood for both of them. Goku was forced to mature incredibly quickly and tackle one of the most evil foes ever to be unleashed upon the planet. Indeed, Goku had suffered greatly during that conflict, not just by the physical injuries that had been inflicted on him, but the loss of his mentor and his best friend. One can only imagine what that kind emotional torment does to somebody, especially since part of him had attributed Krillin's death to the fact that he had ran an errand that he, himself, should have done. As for Krillin... well. Dying, coming back to life and finding it was your best friend who'd saved you. That just isn't a normal part of childhood is it? Either way, ever since that day, Krillin had this over-hanging sense of debt to the one who'd saved him. Goku had shrugged it off, of course, but this was a matter that hung on both their minds.

This spar, would offer them an invaluable opportunity to talk these rather serious issues over. Or at least it would have. If things hadn't gone so wrong. Neither Goku or Krillin or anybody else for that matter, could have predicted what was to come next. But in a few hours time, a friendship would be in serious jeopardy, a few painful truths would've been told, and an evil trio will have found just the bait they need to make their devious plan work.

Well then? I hope you found that at least mildly entertaining. Granted, not much happened in this chapter but I felt I had to do two things. I had to establish the two main plotlines, one, Goku and Krillin's fued throughout the story, and two, the evil plan of Pilaf and co.. The reason I lingered so long on describing Goku and Krillin's past is because I wanted to really relay to the reader how close the two are, before I (somewhat evilly) rip them apart with the upcoming plot. All I can say is that if you enjoy fanfiction, because you like to see how characters react in situations not found in the anime/manga, then you're in for a treat. If you're expecting lots of fighting, well, you'll have to wait until Pilaf's plan kicks into high gear, which I don't expect to happen for a few chapters. Anyway, reviews would be much appreciated. I really want to know what you think. Do you like the storyline? Do you like the inclusion of Pilaf? Any feedback would be appreciated. I update very quickly, so please be as quick as possible. Till next time. Chao...