"While I live, I want to shine. I want to prove that I exist. If I could do something really important... That would definitely carry on into the future. No... Not just into the future. In my friends' future too... My spirit has become part of them, I believe. In them, my spirit is alive. And that spirit could be passed along to others. And so, if I were to disappear...I think all that I have accomplished will go on. That is... That would mean...that it's living, right?"

Grovyle to Dusknoir, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky

Piccolo Junior Saga - Part 1: The Glue Breaks

There was nothing he could say. Nothing he could do.

His best friend's body hit the floor, lifeless, with a gaping hole in his chest. There would never be another word spoken by Son Goku in this life, and the green demon laying just outside the ring was responsible for it.

Rage coursed through his being. Anger fueled him. He could barely hear the ring announcer(feebly) announce Piccolo's being rung out, but he knew that Piccolo was nothing short of the winner in this encounter.

"GOOKUUUUUUUUUUUU!" Krillin cried, slamming his fist into the pavement. No one knew what to say, paralyzed just as he was.

But they couldn't understand. The bond he shared with Goku ran deeper than friendship, deeper than his own soul. When he died, Goku had been there for him, to avenge him.

Krillin knew he had no choice but to do the same.

With a battle cry, he lunged toward the half-conscious Piccolo and threw his leg into the side of the demon's skull. The monster recoiled, howling in pain, as he was sent tumbling even further out in the barren wasteland once known as the World Tournament site.

Krillin didn't give Piccolo a reprieve. He was at his side in an instant, firing off continual strikes to Piccolo's already injured ribcage. "You! Killed! Him!"

He was glad none of the others joined in. He needed this kill all to himself.

"Hrgh!" Piccolo retched up a spew of red blood, nearly choking on it as Krillin rained down all of his anger on him. He knew he was about to die a pitiful death at the hands of the bald midget, but at least he would go to Hell knowing that his father was avenged.

'Avenged…' Piccolo thought, an idea turning in his half-conscious mind. 'That's it!'

"You'd… best… stop…" the monster breathed out, coughing all the while.

To his delight, Krillin did just that. He kept a fist balled right in front of his heart, however, skeptical of him. Piccolo couldn't blame him. If he had the energy, he'd have taken out his heart the same way he had Goku's. "Without… me… you won't have… hgn… the Dragon Balls…"

Krillin froze in terror. "W-What do you…?"

"The… old man…" Piccolo struggled to speak, "Kami… he and I are held together. His life force… is my own. And without us… your Dragon Balls… are all gone…"

Piccolo blanked out for a moment, the injuries to his body much too severe. However, he awoke almost immediately to the sound of Kami's angered voice calling out to his adversary.

"Don't listen to him!" Kami roared. "He's lying to you, Krillin! Kill him and end this now!"

"Heh… heh... " Piccolo faintly chuckled, just barely managing to sit up. "He's… bluffing. Go ahead… kill me. You'll never see… Son Goku again…"

Krillin, just as he'd hoped, looked hesitant. He looked between the two counterparts, wondering who to believe. But Piccolo knew where his feelings resided. 'He won't let Goku be gone for good. I know it.'

"I-I…" Krillin uttered, nearly trembling. 'This is it. I can kill the biggest threat to the world… but I might lose my best friend. And I… I can't just… do that…'

"Krillin!" Yamcha called out. "Finish him, now! Why would Kami lie to us?"

"Y-You fool!" Piccolo cried out, just barely managing to get to his feet now. He nearly tripped over himself as he began to walk backward. "He'll kill himself… and your Dragon Balls! Do… you really want that?!"

Krillin wanted to kill him. He really did. But his body just wouldn't comply, no matter how much he wanted to take his revenge. 'Goku… what would you do? I can't just let you vanish forever…'

If it wasn't for Krillin's quick eye, the decision might have been taken out of his hands forever. He swiftly rushed past Piccolo, who gasped in surprise, and tackled Tien down with all his might.

"Krillin!" Tien gasped, trying to prevent the ex-monk from pinning his arms down. "What are you doing?!"

"The only thing I can!" he responded righteously. "I'm saving Goku!"

"If you don't kill him, we'll all join him! Goku wouldn't… want that!" Tien summoned his inner energy, and with a firm "HYAH!", blasted Krillin off him. He landed with a pained grunt back in the center of the now-destroyed ring, gasping for air.

The next thing he knew, he was being picked up by the scruff of his neck by Yamcha. He couldn't bear to look into his enraged eyes, instead choosing to look at the wasteland below him.

"What do you think you're doing?" the ex-bandit roared. "You let him get away!"

Krillin felt an intense pang of guilt. 'He… he couldn't have… Kami would've…' He mustered enough courage to look up, and realized that there was a faint trail of white glimmering in the sky. He really was to blame.

"...I'm not sorry," he breathed out, after several long moments. "This was the only way… we had a shot at reviving Goku."

He braced himself, expecting Yamcha to hit him. He wouldn't have blamed him, truthfully. But instead, Yamcha turned him toward the rest of the group.

"Look at this," the long-haired warrior growled. Chi-Chi had fainted in near synchronicity with Goku; the martial arts tournament announcer and Launch were trying to handle tending to her. Bulma could no longer suppress her tears for the fallen warrior, letting out shrill shrieks while Chiaotzu tried to tend to her. Kami, for his part, could not stop staring at the corpse of his former student.

"You could have helped them," Yamcha continued to press on. "You could've made Piccolo pay. But now, he's flying around scot-free and we still have a crisis on our hands!"

"Goku is our only hope at stopping him, Yamcha…" Krillin wanted to cry at the sight of his friends' torment, but he couldn't. He had to be strong, just as he knew Goku was when he had passed on. "He had Piccolo beat. If he was one second faster, Piccolo's attack would never have hit him at all. And besides… we all need him with us."

Yamcha sighed, letting Krillin stand on his own two feet. "I know, Krillin. But that doesn't make this right." His face hardened. "We have to get the Dragon Balls. And we have to hurry. I don't think our battle with Piccolo is over yet…"

Little did he know, Yamcha's premonition was quite true. Although Piccolo hadn't been able to fly long, having crashed down in some unknown forest, he was already scheming of how to continue his plans for world domination. He had already killed Goku, his biggest obstacle to that goal, but he knew it wasn't permanent. Not yet, anyway.

"I need a Dragon Ball. Just one will do…" An evil smirk crept up Piccolo's face. "If I can play cat and mouse with the Earthlings for just one year, I can permanently keep Goku in the Other World. And when that happens… the Earth is all mine! Bwahaha!"

Hello, everyone, and welcome to my newest project(I'd normally say the title, but in truth, it's not permanent as of now). This is my first update of 2017, but in reality, it feels like years since I've written something seriously. And if you're a previous fan of mine, you know just how I've felt over the past year about FanFiction. With that said, I'm going to put that in the past and look toward the future.

This fic stemmed from my realization that every prominent story of mine on this site has been about Son Goku. In some way, he was changed, and often not for the better. The main reason I would use this approach in my stories was that I felt the Goku character was perfect, and that I never wanted to change a single thing about him.

So the only logical progression for me was, in this story, to kill him straight off the bat. That's not to say he'll be dead forever - that's something you'll need to read more of to find out what happens to our favorite hero.

Furthermore, I wanted to create a story that completely relied on jumping into Z in general while still leaving a bunch of possibilities open for me to tweak the timeline. This was the best opportunity for me to do that, I think. I will, unfortunately, miss out on writing one of my favorite(and, from what I understand, best-written) characters in King Piccolo, but hopefully my portrayal of both Piccolo Junior and Kami can make up for that. To that end, another thing about this particular tale is that I'll be working with characters that I hadn't really gotten the chance to before. I'm definitely excited about the bits and pieces I've got in mind, and should this story continue, you should be too.

As with my previous update, I'm not promising a full return to FFN. I've changed a lot as a person over these five years, and so have my interests and priorities. I have a lot of ambition for several different projects, most of which will take precedence over this(I'll discuss this in a later update or something, when it's more relevant to what happens in the story). I really only want to write when my muse will allow me to take pleasure in it, and sometimes, even when I DO have the free time to write, I'm just not invested in it. That's part of the reason I suffered from burnout originally.

I would also like to formally announce that I'll be taking somewhat of a writing and planning role in Bringer of Death. I've been in contact with npberryhill - he and I are good friends - and, truthfully, with this idea in my mind and the offer in place, I did feel that drive to return again. For those of you who haven't written before, or have only done so solo, I want you to know that there's a major motivator in sharing your creative energy with someone else. They will give you someone to depend on, give you something to strive for, and most importantly, bring out the best in you. This project will most likely remain a solo endeavor, but I'm hoping that working on Bringer of Death with two esteemed writers like npb and David will help me transition back to a healthy dose of creative work on FanFiction again.

I don't want to be someone who updates too much, or someone who updates too little. There is more to life than FanFiction, but there's also a part of me that truly does miss it and wants to enjoy it in moderation. I hope that all of you can understand where I've been the last few months and hopefully come to accept me as an author on this site again.

I'm still working on figuring out myself, and this story is admittedly part of that process. It should be obvious that the main theme behind this story is finding oneself and finding meaning within one's life.

I know I've ranted a lot, and that's usually something that I don't want to do in an opening chapter, but I want to let everyone reading this story, fan of mine or completely new, where my heart is right now.

Thank you all for reading this installment, and I hope to see you in the next chapter.