"Shenlong? The dragon god! But why…?" Dad asked once everyone was aware of what happened.

"Bulma had the dragon balls, right?" Kuririn pointed out, which confused me. I had not thought that anyone had any recent need of them. "They don't know what's goin' on, so why…?"

"Vegeta killed all those people…!"

"Wait… He did what!" That was news to me. When and where would he have done that? And, why? I mean, he had not done anything so vile in years. My only assumption was that it must have happened sometime before I was able to get to their earlier location and that something more had happened while I was at the tournament than I had originally assumed.

Dad just ignored my question as he continued. "They're bringing the back to life!"

"Oh, dear… If they use the two wishes now, the balls will turn to stone for a year!" Dende exclaimed.

"I've gotta stop 'em!" Dad then placed two of his fingers against his forehead. He was going to use his teleportation technique. "Rrrg… Bulma's chi is so hard to find… There-!" He then disappeared.

As Kuririn, Piccolo, and Dende waited for news as to what was going to happen, I saw my chance to make my escape. With them being distracted by both the dragon's presence and his chi, I would be able to get away from the palace without anyone noticing.

Since I had no idea when Dad would return, I slowly backed away from the others and made my way to the far edge of the platform. After looking over my shoulder to see if they had noticed, I jumped off the edge and let myself fall for a little before I took the risk of catching myself. After checking to see if anyone had moved, which they had not, I began to fly.

I was not going very quickly, mainly since I wanted to be as low-key as possible, but it worked out. The slow speed would give me the needed time to examine the situation and figure out how I should approach it. Although I really wanted to go to one of the cities and see if I could get the residents to evacuate, there would be no real chance of that happening. In the last few years, the people had gotten so skeptical of potential threats that it was unlikely that I would be able to just walk up to them and explain the situation. The only person who might be able to do that was Hercule, and I wanted to stay away from that liar as much as possible. Unfortunately, I might have to resort to that, so I could not rule it out.

I could attempt to scare the people out of the cities, but that would make me little better than Boo. I could also wait for Boo to start the killings and then go from there, but that was not very appealing either. Although, no matter how I looked at it, any potential result I got would probably come from whether or not the people viewed Boo as a threat.

It was then that I noticed that the sky had cleared again. It would not be long before Dad saw that I was missing, so my best bet to avoid him locating me was to land and continue on foot. Before that could happen a voice rang across the sky: "Can you hear me, earthlings? I am Bobbidi the Warlock! Don't bother looking for me! I speak directly into your minds by magic! Forgive this intrusion into your peaceful lives, but I had a terrible day, thanks to four idiots. And now I'm looking for them… Close your eyes and see. I'll send you a vision."

Although I was shaking with rage, I complied. When I did, I saw an image of Goten, Trunks, Piccolo, and surprisingly, myself.

"See them? These are the four I want. Come out! You know who you are! Or else… "

I immediately began to move to where Boo and Bobbidi were situated while the warlock sent another image, this time, of himself. "Oh. Allow me to introduce myself," he said, "I am Bobbidi, the fearsome warlock!" The image then changed. "And this is Boo the Djinn, my even more fearsome servant! No one can defeat Boo! No one!"

The image then changed to that of a city. "Heh heh heh! Watch this city! If the fools don't show themselves immediately… Warlocks hate to be messy. Let's kill them all very neatly. Now, Boo!"

"HEY!" I shouted as I finally got to the scene. I had really pushed myself, even in the ascended state, to get there before anything had happened.

Bobbidi was rather startled by my sudden appearance, but quickly recovered and seemingly became amused. "That was rather fast. I didn't think I'd be able to lure you out so quickly." He then looked around. "Where are the others?"

"I'm the only one who came… or could come, for that matter." The words came from between my teeth. Bobbidi was seemingly able to sense the tension and rage emanating from my body; he smiled at it, but at the same time, he moved just enough so that Boo was between him and me.

"But, that's not really important, is it?" I asked him rather harshly, even though excitement coursed through my body. "I'm here. Turn your attentions towards me and away from anything else."

The warlock just chuckled. "If that's the way you want it, fine, but once you're dead, we'll just go back to proving how determined we are in finding your friends… That is, unless, you want to take us to them."

"Let's just get on with this," I hissed. "You know my type, yes? That should give you my answer."

"Of course, have it your way." The warlock then looked over at Boo, who had been staring at me in a rather childish way for some time, "Okay Boo, show that fool what you're made of!"

Boo laughed and moved towards me. "Me get to kill you!" it chanted happily. In the background, I could just hear Bobbidi telling his captive audience to pay attention so that they can see what will happen to those who oppose him.

I watched it move towards me as I tried to weigh my few options. He was definitely stronger and faster than I was and was able to regenerate. Hand-to-hand fighting was definitely out of the question; that would definitely result in death. My best bet was definitely to use ranged attacks, seeing as I was still hoping that I could be enough of a distraction that those in the nearby city would be able to escape. If I could stay behind Boo, it would be even better, since it appeared that it could not sense chi.

Before it could move close enough to hit me, I fired a low grade chi blast at it so that I could give myself a bit of a smoke screen. As soon as it hit, I immediately flew behind it and slammed it as hard as I could in the head. I followed it and was able to bounce it back to the sky. My next move was to hit it with my signature attack, Ritsuzen.

I held my breath as the smoke cleared. Boo's chi had not decreased, which I had a feeling it would not, but I wanted to see how effective that particular type of attack was. There were other attacks that I had hidden up my sleeve, but I really did not want to use them unless necessary.

"Hee hee hee!" When Boo emerged from the smoke, I could tell that its malleable skin was slightly misshapen and that there was a decent sized hole blown into part of its upper body, but that meant nothing, and within a moment, it had corrected the problem. That gave me my answer, that attack was nowhere near strong enough.

"My turn!" Boo then rushed forward with a speed that I had not expected. There was no time to react as it punched my face, which sent me flying backwards. What pain! I had been hit pretty hard before, but nothing in the past compared to this. As I attempted to right myself, I was glad that there was no asphalt beneath me. If there was, I probably would have landed face first on it, just like old times.

As soon as I caught myself, I sensed that there was something coming towards me. I had just enough time to look up and see that there were several chi blasts coming towards me before I moved out of the way. I was rather surprised to see that Boo continued shooting the blasts at me as I moved. That was rather shocking; just the way it was executed reminded me of how Vegeta attacked.

A sudden realization then hit me. This thing had learned Vegeta's attack! It had only seen it once! That meant that it was able to learn attacks just by watching them, which was not a good thing. Since it was almost a given that I would not be the last person to fight this creature, I would have to try to minimize the chance it got to learn any of my attacks. The way to do that would be to attack it from behind. It was not a very ethical way to fight, but there really was no other choice.

I then realized that Boo's chi was behind me. I had allowed myself to become so distracted by my thoughts that I had allowed myself to be caught off guard. Needless to say, I was cursing at myself for being so stupid.

There was just enough time to turn and partially block myself before I was hit again. This time, I was able to catch myself a bit faster, so when it tried to come at me again, I used an older technique, zan-zo-ken (1), to move behind it and prepare another attack. If this one did not do any damage, nothing I could do would.

As I had thought, Boo could not sense my chi, so it looked around in confusion as it tried to figure out where I went. I smiled as I watched him, seeing as its playfulness and innocence reminded me of when Goten began training, in a weird sort of way.

There was no time to really dwell on that though, I was going to lose my chance to attack. "Kokugen…" I said as I formed a condensed ball of chi in my right hand and threw it, "MEIBATSU!" The ball then exploded into hundreds of smaller ones that created two different spheres around Boo, who was surprised by it. The spheres then imploded, for lack of a better word, and exploded upon hitting Boo. (2)

The explosion was rather intense, due to the condensed chi that was used. I was unhappy, to say the least, since I had designed that attack so that I could use it against Rildo, but it was a good test of the attack.

"Ahh…! WHAT DID… YOU… DO!" Bobbidi shouted at me when he still unable to see Boo from the smoke. The sound of small objects falling was rather noticeable. "BOO…! …You couldn't have…!"

I said nothing as I turned back towards the smoke; it had begun to dissipate. It was clear that the attack had done something, seeing as Boo looked something like a piece of chewing gum that had been chewed, spit out, and had a shoe step on it. Also, it looked like at least part of it was missing, which probably had been decimated or was what I had heard falling after the attack. It was not the most attractive site.

Once I noted the appearance, I realized that there was no way that this fight was going to end well for me. I could attempt to do my best attack again, or try a mixture of that and some of my other ones, but that would minimize the chance that Boo would not learn one or more of them. Also, since I have a tendency to put more into those sorts of attacks than the normal fighter, I was very limited in how close they could be used together and how often they could be used.

"But, no matter how I look at it," I said to no one other than myself, "my best bet is to keep blasting that thing… even if it does completely drain me." As I watched Boo reform, I began to concentrate my chi again. When it looked like it was about to move again, I began to fire blast after blast at it.

A sudden blow to the back caught me off guard and sent me flying into the smoke from my attacks. I could not believe how fast Boo had moved! I knew that it was fast, but I had no idea that it could move that fast! I could not even sense its movements. The next thing I knew, there was a hand around my throat. Boo had grabbed me from the front and was beginning to squeeze.

"That's it, Boo!" I heard Bobbidi happily yell. "Break her neck!"

Boo laughed in reply. "Buh-bye!" it told me as it opened its eyes a bit and grinned evilly. The pressure on my neck increased.

It was a very bad situation. I attempted to wrestle out of its grasp, but I could not even move its arm as centimeter. My air supply was definitely being cut off, and there was only a limited amount of time before I passed out. The only thing I could think of doing was cutting off its arm, which I did. The amazing part of it was that its hand was still squeezing my neck after it had been removed from its body. It did take some effort, but I was able to remove the hand from my being, and for good measure, destroyed it before I focused on catching my breath.

Boo's hand quickly regrew, and its owner just laughed and playfully taunted me. I gritted my teeth. How the heck was I going to be able to attack it if it pulled another stunt like that? Boo decided to answer that question for me; I wasn't. It decided that it was going to replicate the attack it did early in its fight with Vegeta. It sent out a major shockwave combined with chi on all sides. There was no way that I was going to be able to escape from it so I just braced myself for the explosion.

Just before the blast hit, I felt something touch my shoulder, and in the next instant, the scene in front of me disappeared.

…

When the scene reappeared, I fell forward in relief. That was way too close! It then occurred to me that I was not in the same place as before, so I looked up and realized that I was back in front of Kami's palace. That meant that the only way I could have gotten there was because of Dad…

Crap! I looked over my shoulder at him, and almost shuddered. His expression was one of the angriest that I had ever seen.

"Goshi! Are you alright?" I was surprised to see that Kuririn was talking to me.

"I could be better…" I admitted. I was rather surprised to hear the embarrassment in my voice.

"What were you thinking? You saw what that thing did to Vegeta!"

"…All I wanted to do was…"

"I specifically told you not to go down there," Dad told me in a very harsh voice, making me jump slightly.

"And I told you that I can't sit back and watch people get killed! But what about you!" I nearly yelled at him, my momentary hesitance was forgotten. "What happened to the man who laid down his life to protect his planet and its people! What happened to the Saiyan who would take on an opponent as soon as possible, even if he was not completely sure that he could beat him! What happened to my Otou-san! Or, had I deluded myself with the legend of the man instead of his reality!"

Dad's expression shifted from anger to a softer one that I could not quite place. "Goshi, I no longer exist here. It wouldn't be right for me to interfere. Just let the boys take care of it."

I began to shake with rage. "HYPOCRITE! THAT DIDN'T STOP YOU FROM FOLLOWING THE LORD OF LORDS TO STOP MAJIN BOO BEING RELEASED!" I took a breath to calm down, slightly. "Besides, we all know how reliable trusting young kids with little experience have been in the past! Gohan ran from some of his battles, and became arrogant in the one that cost you your life! I've been too scared to move before, and my Sensei got severely hurt when I refused to follow him once. We don't know how they're going to act!"

Dad placed his hand on my shoulder in order to calm me down slightly. "Goshi, trust me. Everything will be fine! Just watch!" It looked like Dad was about to say something else, but he was interrupted by another broadcast from Bobbidi. Apparently, he had broken off his original one when Dad took me from the battle.

He started it with a rather evil laugh. "Sorry for the interruption, but it appears that the foolish warrior who was fighting Boo went and got herself killed. Now, where were we?" From the way that was stated, I guess he and Boo had looked for me once Dad pulled me from the fight. "Ah, yes, I was about to demonstrate Boo's power so that the fools I want to kill would come out. Well… since it worked for one, maybe it will work on the others."

He gestured towards the city once again. "Now, Boo!" I watched in agony as Boo somehow managed to lift the people of the city up into the air, change them into candy, and eat them. "Do you begin to understand?" Bobbidi then paused for a moment and looked back towards the city. "Tsk! Tsk! So messy, leaving this empty city lying around. I suppose we'll have to clean up ourselves. Boo, clean this up! But don't scrub too hard, or you'll destroy the earth."

Boo happily complied, leaving an area of flat ground where the city once was. "Ah! How helpful!" Bobbidi laughed once Boo was done. "Oh, no… Did we make more of a mess? I'll show them again…" Images of Trunks, Goten, and Piccolo came into our minds. "Since they didn't show themselves like the girl did, I'll need you to tell me where they are! Oh, and if you don't, you'll be turned into candy and eaten! We'll finish up with everyone on earth in, oh, five days. So you better turn them in soon!" He laughed again. "Oh, I almost forgot! How to contact me… Just call for me in your mind. Think of me, and I'll hear your thoughts. I'll gladly accept calls from the three fools, of course! Oh! We've gotten news already!"

A new voice sounded and claimed that he was one of the people who were working at the Tenka'ichi Budokai. He gave Bobbidi the names that Piccolo, Trunks, and Goten had registered under. Bobbidi was rather unimpressed since he was unable to give him an address and killed the person who 'wasted his time'. Although we could not see the death, we heard his screams.

"No more crank calls!" Bobbidi told us. "You don't want to die like that, do you? I'm much too busy traveling around the world killing humans. I might be coming to your town next. It's no use hiding. In a few days you'll all be gone! I'll be waiting!" His call then ended.

Immediately after he finished, everyone on the lookout erupted into angry conversations. Dad once again placed his hand on my shoulder. "Now do you see how useless your fight with Boo was?"

"…I had a feeling they'd destroy the city, no matter what I did…" I explained. It was true. Bobbidi was the kind of person who would do something like that just to scare the answers out of people. Psychological warfare is a very powerful weapon.

"Huh? Then why did you…!"

"You've never seen genocide close up before… so you wouldn't really understand. I was hoping that I could just by those people some time to escape… Even if just a few did, it's better than nothing…"

That seemed to drop that particular conversation. It then shifted to training the boys, although it was more than a little bit later when they finally woke up.

…

Dad rather sternly explained to Goten and Trunks what had happened to Gohan and Vegeta, which caused both of them to cry. "We don't have time for crying! Learn this first if you want revenge! GOT THAT?" Dad then softened his voice. "Sorry, but we don't know when Bobbidi will find us. We've gotta start now."

"Will you use the room of spirit and time?" Piccolo asked rather hesitantly.

"No. They can only use it for two days in their entire lives, right?" I did not remember anyone explaining that to me when we used it before Cell (3). "They might need it later. I'm sure they're going to learn this quick. Let's start. You've gotta remember this too, Piccolo…"

…

Now that Bobbidi is searching for our heroes, will they be able to prepare themselves before he and Boo find them? Or will one of the residents of earth rat them out before they can? And what about the fusion? Will it really be able to defeat Boo? Find out next time on the next thrilling episode of Dragonballz!

1 Kan-zo-ken means shadow attack. We Americans have affectionately dubbed this as the after-image technique.

2 Kokugen Meibatsu approximately translates to "Instant of Retribution". Yes, it could be said that it is an arrogant sounding name, but it's supposed to represent the idea that it is extremely difficult to escape from it unharmed. Also, the attack is very similar in respect to Piccolo's "Hellzone Grenade" (I'm unsure of the Japanese name), only with several more chi spheres.

3 Yes, this statement very much contradicts information that we've received earlier on in the series. From what was mentioned during the Cell saga, it appeared that the Room of Spirit and Time (the hyperbolic time chamber, for those who forgot) could be used frequently without restrictions, seeing as it was hinted that Goku used it a lot when he was younger. This could be a mistake from Akira Toriyama, but it could also be a translator mistake (it does happen).