Dimensional Hoppers

Chapter 2

"You see anything?"

I looked down towards Derek giving him a slow nod. "No, seems like I gotta get a little higher, the tree's here are still blocking my view."

After the whole commotion with the dog-like living jello, I decided to stay quiet on the matter, truth be told I was still reeling from the shock of it all. I mean this is just insane, sure I could accept Derek's teleporter somehow teleporting us to another country altogether, but this? Living jello and weird metal all around the forest around us, I'm sure that there's no place on earth with anything this ridiculous.

In our own shock, we agreed to find a high point, to see if we could find something to work with. A city, settlement, ruins, anything could help us right now.

"Chester look, I know what we saw was insane but I feel like we gotta talk about it," I looked down towards him seeing a look of sympathy. "Maybe we could get some clues into where we are."

I gave a look of annoyance at that. "How could we possibly find out where we are? For all we know we're on an entirely different planet, hell, we could be in an entirely different universe!"

Derek shook his head before giving a look of confidence. "I have an idea, and before you fucking shut me up, it's a good one, trust me."

Crossing my arms over my chest I urged him to continue. "Fine, say your piece, you're the guy who worked with teleporting tech, not me."

A smile spread across Derek's face. "Glad your listening, now before we start, you catch anything weird about that slime you punched earlier?"

I frowned at that. "Weird? Well other than it being a living slime, no I didn't notice anything else. It kind of ran away after."

Derek shook his head. "You must have been distracted by the shock, cause it didn't run away. You killed it you know?"

My eyes widened at the suggestion. "Wait, that doesn't make any sense. After I punched it, it was just gone!"

Derek smirked at that. "Well from what I saw, after the punch it quite literally disintegrated into ones and zeros." A look of disbelief crossed my face, before I could call him out on the insanity of what he's implying he continued. "Before you say anything, I wasn't seeing things, hell my vision is ten times better than before."

I calmed down a little before giving a suggestion of my own. "So what your saying is, that slime wasn't natural?" Derek nodded at that.

"Exactly, it's probably artificial, some sort of technology that we can't understand. But other than that, you know what this means, right?" My face lit up at the suggestion left in the air.

"There's probably civilization somewhere near here, if that's guaranteed then we might not be that far from home!"

Derek shook his head. "No, we're still probably on a different planet or dimension. What I was implying was that there's probably civilization wherever we are." Derek gave a reassuring smile to my returning sadness. "Before you say that doesn't help, think about it."

Derek started climbing up the hill towards me. "If there's civilization, then we have a way higher chance of actually going home. With the promise of potential materials, I can whip us up an amazing fucking teleporter." At the end of his explanation, he reached where I was standing on the hill.

Putting his hands on his hip, Derek gave a look of confidence. "Now, let's get a little higher, I bet with the enhanced eyesight we have, we could spot a city out there." I sighed smirking in his direction.

"You're a real piece of work you know that? Being so calm in this situation, kind of absurd honestly."

He smirked back before shrugging. "Well, what can I say? Having experienced what I thought would be my death minutes prior, this honestly doesn't compare."

With that, we continued scaling the admittedly huge hill, but after a couple of minutes, we reached the top. After some looking around I spotted something in the distance, and honestly, I don't know how we missed it.

I tapped Derek's shoulder getting his attention, before pointing towards the huge city in the distance. "Would you fucking look at that? How in the multiverse did we miss something that huge?" I held back a laugh at his comment but agreed all the same.

"Yea I'm not sure either, although I guess you were spot on with your prediction." Derek had a face full of mock disappointment.

"Aw, even after that whole speech of mine, you still doubted me? I thought we had something going there! Oh, the betrayal!" I playfully punched him in the shoulder, before laughing a bit.

"Shut it, I don't want to hear it alright? We've got an objective ahead of us. Reach the city of whatever-the-hell"

Derek laughed a bit at his own antics before calming down. "Yea your right, although that is pretty far," Derek started stretching his legs before continuing. "I guess this is a good opportunity to test our endurance, seems like that city is at least half a day away by foot."

I started some stretching of my own too, getting the idea. "Yea but I wouldn't worry, we're way faster than even Usain Bolt in his prime," I popped my neck a bit before continuing. "I'd even say we could go about 150 miles per hour if we sprinted all the way."

Derek whistled at the suggestion. "Well then, that's fucking fast. Not to rub it in though I might be able to go even faster than that."

I smirked in his direction. "Is that a challenge?"

Derek returned a smirk of his own. "You bet it is!"

At that, both of us got into a sprinting stance. "Alright on go," I pumped myself up before counting down. "3… 2… 1… go!" With that we blasted off down the mountain, it was a miracle that we didn't trip on the way down.

Surprisingly we kept on sprinting for a full 2-3 minutes before slowing down. At this point we were taking a breather from the intense activity, a minute later I spoke up. "Alright… maybe… that was too fast… oh boy."

Derek took a big breath before giving his own take. "Yea… your right… let's just jog… the rest of the way… agreed?"

I shook my head. "Yea… agreed"

With that in mind, we took an extra 5 minutes before we jogged in the general direction of the city. Let's just say I was surprised at how fast we could go by just jogging, when running we somehow were able to hit speeds at around 200 miles per hour, but now? Even if it's just jogging, it seems we're above 100 miles per hour in terms of speed.

Derek seemed to take notice of this and whisted. "Man, this is still crazy to me you know? Going this fucking fast just by jogging, honestly, I think we would get pulled over back home." I laughed at that.

"Getting pulled over for jogging? Now that's just ridiculous, I mean, what would I say? 'Sorry officer, I won't exercise ever again!'"

Derek snickered a bit before joining in on the fun. "Yea and then he'd say, 'Good to hear, I'm still going to have to give you a fine for insane jogging! Sorry pal, I don't make the rules, the fucking government does.'"

We continued making jokes back and forth until the tree's around us starting clearing up. "Hey wait, look ahead of us," Derek caught my attention and what I saw made my heart drop a bit. "If what I'm seeing is correct then there's a lot more of those slimy fuckers waiting for us ahead."

A lot more wasn't doing the numbers justice. There must have been hundreds of those dog-like slimes ahead of us, almost looked like a wall of goo blocking our path. Even stranger I could have sworn from here that they're giving us the stink eye, that can't be right, right?

I frowned at the situation ahead of us. "I don't like our chances of fighting all of those slimes, you think we should just blast past them?"

Derek had the biggest smile at that suggestion. "Blast fucking past them? Now you're speaking my language!"

I nodded with a smile of my own. "Alright, then we're in agreement. When we get close enough I'll give the signal and we sprint full force."

Keeping that grin on his face, Derek gave a little salute. "Aye aye, captain Chester. Just say go and I'll blast through those little shits!"

Keeping our current pace we got closer and closer to the horde of slimes. From this distance, I could definitely say that yes, they were giving us the stink eye. Maybe they knew I killed their friend earlier? Who knows really, all that matters now is to give the signal.

"Alright, go!" Right after I gave the signal we started to sprint dramatically increasing our speed. Surprising the slimes to the point that their beady eyes went wide. There wasn't a single slime that slowed us down, every single one that tried to block our path just got steamrolled.

Derek was loving every second of it. "Yea! Take that you little shits, none of you can stop the queen train baby!"

Reference aside I started to sing in between breaths. "Don't stop, me, now!"

Derek joined in on the fun, arms in the air. ""Cause I'm, having a good time, having a good time!""

We kept steamrolling the slimes before eventually leaving them behind in the dust. When I looked back I could have sworn I saw people behind us. Although we were too far at this point for me to really know. Plus we were too distracted in the moment anyway.

Slowing down Derek pumped his fists in the air. "Yea! Now that was fun, really makes you forget about any worries hm?"

I slowed down to his pace, before agreeing. "Yea now that you think about it, it really does, guess this isn't all too bad, I mean with you here we can get back home in time."

Nodding his head, Derek gave a smile. "Exc-fucking-ctly, I mean you're usually a 'in the moment' kind of guy anyway. So don't let this whole situation get you down, you hear?"

Nodding my head reluctantly I responded. "Yea, yea. I hear you, Derek, don't go trying to be my therapist now."

Waving it off Derek looked on ahead. "Nah, I think I'll stay on the crazy side of things, thank you very much."

Looking on ahead with Derek I saw our destination. "Well, enough of that. Looks like we're here."

Words really couldn't describe the scale of the city in front of us. I mean it was quite literally out of this world. A huge futuristic-looking wall stood in the way of the city, it was coloured white with purple accents. The wall's size was at least as tall as a 5 story building, impressive given the size of the city it's encasing.

From what we could see here the city itself held the same colouring and futuristic-looking athletic. With what skyscrapers we could see it was truly breathtaking. I could barely hold my inner sci-fi nerdy side from coming out at seeing all of this.

I took a huge breath before speaking. "Man, this is just crazy, I've never in my whole life seen anything like it."

Derek seemed to share the same feeling. "You could say that again, holy fucking shit. How many people do you think even live here?"

I cringed at the numbers I thought of. "My best guess could be reasonably in the millions, but, I've honestly never seen a city this big, so it could even reach hundreds of millions." I took a look to our left and right seeing the wall seemingly stretch out for eons. "Looking at the wall itself just tells me that this goes on for way more than just miles."

Derek scratched his head at that. "Well, that's another world for you, everything and anything is a surprise."

Frowning at a thought, I spoke. "Speaking of another world, do you think we could even understand the people here? Let alone even fitting in a society that's supposedly different to ours."

Derek seemed to get where I was going with this but shrugged nonetheless. "Well we'll come to that when we try and get in, and no matter how cool it would fucking be, let's not try and sneak in."

I nodded my head in agreement. "Yea, I don't want to cause any trouble right now, wouldn't benefit us at all." Letting out a tired breath I continued. "Let's just get on with it, seems like there's a huge line of people."

With that, we walked towards the line, before we could approach I suggested we try and hide our tails, so with some difficulty we wrapped our tails around us like a belt of sorts. As we got closer I released a breath I didn't know I was holding, the people here look exactly like humans, although all of them seem to be shorter than the American average.

Breathing a sigh of relief I whispered to Derek. "Looks like we won't stick out like sore thumbs, other than our height of course."

Derek whispered back with a frown. "You know the chances of a different world having humans?" I shook my head.

"No, what are they?"

Derek's frown seemed to deepen. "Pretty much fucking zero, it's more likely now that we're in a different universe altogether, rather than just a different world."

When I realized the implications of this I frowned. "Guess it's going to be a lot harder to get back home than we thought huh?"

"A lot fucking harder, hopefully, there isn't a language barrier, it would just add to the difficulty." Derek looked on ahead-looking a little pissed. "I think I truly hate April fools now, so much for it being fun and joyful." Before he could get any madder, Derek let out a breath. "Oh well what's in the past is in the past, lets get in line, shall we?"

With that, I agreed and we processed to the back of the huge line. Honestly, I thought it would take a long time before we even reached the checkpoint, but surprisingly it was fairly quick. Looking around us it felt like I was in Japan all over again, small people all around me with few having some wild hair colours. We really stood out to them seeing as not only we were giants to them, it seemed like they couldn't understand us either.

Once we reached the checkpoint what looked to be a guard with tech I couldn't even begin to understand around him, spoke to us. It honestly sounded like what an alien language would sound like, complete gibberish.

I frowned at the now confirmed language barrier. "Well great, a worst-case scenario is now in effect."

Derek also frowned at that. "Fan-fucking-tastic," Derek continued from there to try and speak to the guard in the best way he could, exaggerated speak and really bad sign language. "We, cannot, understand, you!"

I laughed a bit at his antics before he quickly turned around flipping the finger at me. "Fuck you, Chester, this is serious business here!"

Before things could get out of hand the guard caught our attention, nodding in understanding he signalled us to wait where we were.

I tilted my head in confusion. "You think they have some sort of advanced translater? Would be pretty convenient."

Derek calming down and copied my confusion. "Well I never thought about it but, maybe they do? I mean this another world after all," Smiling in thought Derek continued. "Probably got some cooler shit than we could ever think of." I nodded in agreement at that.

It took a few minutes but eventually, the guard came back outside of his booth with 2 bracelets in hand. We both looked confused when he handed them to us before he pointed to a bracelet on his right wrist.

Holding the bracelet in hand I raised my eyebrows at the command. "I guess we just put these on? Don't know how this could fix a language barrier, but, oh well."

Derek following my lead put on the bracelet at the same time as me, immediately I felt a rush of information go to my brain. Widening my eyes in surprise I clenched my head. Derek beat me to the bullet with surprise laced in his voice. "Did we just learn an entire fucking language?! How in the fucking hell does that even work?!"

Trying to comprehend it I gave my own bit on it. "M-maybe it's nano-bot technology? I mean I did feel a little prick when I snapped on the bracelet." Derek seemed to calm down at my admittedly clever explanation.

"Y-yea, I guess so, that makes it a lot less unbelievable, nano-bots can do some crazy shit."

Before we could continue on about the amazing tech given to us the guard coughed, grabbing our attention. "If you two could calm down, I'd like to ask first, can you understand me now?"

We both nodded our heads. "Good, now, I would usually ask for identification but it doesn't seem like you two are from around here."

Testing the strange language on my tongue I spoke. "Yea, you could say that. We come from a place that's quite far from here." Derek nodded while crossing his arms.

"Really fucking far, too far to really describe."

The guard sighed at that. "Well great, this makes this whole situation a whole lot more complicated." Rubbing his head in frustration the guard looked back up at us. "Look, usually we'd do some questioning to see if you're a spy from one of the 3 other nations or some fugitive, but, I need to keep the line moving here."

'3 other nations?' With that thought lingering in my head I went to ask the question before the guard stopped me.

"Don't go asking me questions about all this alright? I have a job to do and it doesn't involve teaching. If you have any questions leave it for the basilicom, other than that if you don't report to said basilicom in 24 hours we'll mark you as a fugitive of the nation."

Derek sent a questioning glance at the guard. "Alright we get it, you want us out of your hair. One more thing though, where the hell is this 'basilicom'?" This time the guard sent an annoyed gaze at us before answering.

"You can't miss it, once you get past the gate there are directions through maps and all the like. Now is that all? You two are holding up the line here." Before Derek could start a contest of who has the foulest mouth I stopped him, answering instead.

"That's all sir, we'll get out of your hair now, good day to you." Walking away while trying to keep Derek in check I heard the guard give his regards.

"Fucking better not cause trouble for me down the line. Alright, next!"

Walking into the gates into the city, we really saw the city for the first time. I'm guessing Derek was also taking in the sights since he stopped struggling against my hold. Skyscrapers were all around us, being right below them really put them to scale. Almost all the skyscrapers around us were at least 30 stories or higher, with designs that honestly put City's back home to shame. If I looked further down the line of skyscrapers I could see what I could only describe as super skyscrapers, these were legit giants, seemingly miles high.

Taking my view from above to the ground level it somehow was even more jam-packed than New York City back home. The streets were filled to the brim with people, all small to us but with wildly different clothes and hair colours. If I looked to the sides of the street I could see tubes with people seemingly travelling in them through the streets, not a car in sight. Bright lights everywhere and honestly at this point there's too much to say. Neither the less it was quite the sight, some seriously cool sci-fi stuff.

A smile that I didn't know was there was plastered on my face. "This is too much, I can't even describe how hard my nerd boner is right now."

Derek forced himself out of my hold before laughing. "First of all, fucking gross, second, language Chester."

I scratched the back of my neck in embarrassment. "Yea, sorry. Just love sci-fi and all."

Crossing his arms Derek sighed. "Fucking hell man, anyway. The kind and lovely guard, who had a stick up his ass, said directions were near the entrance." With some searching, Derek found it. "Yep and it holds true, look there a map for all to see."

With that we walked over to the map to check for directions, problem was the number of people around us, wasn't all that easy to get by.

Once we reached the sign with a map on it, Derek sighed. "You know I really wish we could fly or something, even back in New York the streets were a fucking hassle sometimes you know?"

I smirked at that while looking at the map for directions. "Flying huh? What if I told you that we could learn how to actually do that now?"

I didn't need to turn around to know the look of surprise on his face. "Wait, you're saying we can fucking fly?! Chester, why haven't you told me this!?"

I kept the smirk on my face after finding out the directions. "Well," I turned around to face him. "It's not like we could do it as of right now. The whole flying concept is what the 'life energy' I talked about can help us with."

Calming himself down Derek looked in confusion. "Wait, you mentioned that before. What the hell is that anyway? You said you'd elaborate on that."

Waving my hand I tried to hold the topic off for now. "I'd rather speak about this with less attention towards us," Derek looked around seeing stares of confusion in our direction. "So, if you wouldn't mind, let's speak about this in a more private place. Even if they can't understand our language it's still troublesome."

Nodding his head reluctantly Derek agreed. "Fine, but you better give me the best fucking explanation I've ever heard."

Giving him a reassuring smile I nodded. "Don't you worry, you'll be more than satisfied."

After finding the directions we tried to push past the many people around us. It really was a chore and with how far the bacilicom was on the map we tried to find another alternative than pushing past streets of people. While searching I saw the tubes again, transporting people around much quicker than we could go in such a crowd.

Catching Derek's attention I pointed to an elevated tube that seemed to go in the direction of the bacilicom. "We might get there quicker using that." Signalling for him to follow we went to the tube.

Stopping at it I was confused as to how to work it, was it like an escalator or something? In the midst of my confusion, Derek beat me to the punch and just winged it. "Come on, nothing ventured nothing gained, don't be such a wuss." Before I could say anything a pad appeared at his feet levitating him into the tube and through it.

Looking at him in the distance, I saw him waving at me to come on. So, I took a careful step, a platform appeared at my feet taking my weight with it. As it lifted me into the tube, it caught up with Derek's platform.

Derek had a smug grin on his face at my surprise. "Neat enough for you sci-fi lover?"

I looked at him pissed off at the look he was giving me. "Yea it's neat, now can you stop with the face? It's not like you knew what was going to happen."

His grin turned into a smirk. "Maybe, maybe not, maybe you should really take advantage of your enchanted eyesight more."

Waving off his teasing I sighed. "Yeah whatever," taking in the sights around us I marvelled at the people all around, with billboards full of advertisements on any surface it could take. This city must look absolutely stunning at night, with all this stuff around us. Taking my eyes off the eye candy sight, Derek caught my attention.

"You think this is a private enough place to talk?"

Letting out another breath I nodded. "Yea, private enough, seems like it will take a while to get to the bacilicom anyway." Crossing my arms I started on my explanation. "Where to start? Well as I've said before, because of our saiyan biology we can effectively harness a source of energy known as life energy or ki for short."

Closing my eyes I recalled as much as I could. "This 'ki' can be used in several ways, one of its more used uses is in combat. A being that has access to this energy can enhance their physical prowess multitudes over depending on how much they have. They can use the energy in them to create constructs of energy, such as swords or spears."

Opening my eyes I looked directly at him with a smirk. "But for your question on flight, well you can also harness said energy in the body and shoot it outwards in a direction. Those types of attacks are usually ki blasts and can come in many shapes and sizes and can have varying functions. From sharp blades to beams of energy, it's quite literally endless on the possibilities."

Derek's face spelled confusion throughout my explanation. "Sure, that's cool and all, I could probably figure out how you could fly with the stuff. But, how in the fuck are you meant to 'harness' this shit?"

My face copied his at this. "That's where stuff gets complicated, I'm not sure exactly how we're meant to harness it but I have a theory," holding up my hand I went to relay 3 things. "One, a strong body, two, a strong mind, and three, strong willpower."

Putting my hands down I sighed at my dulled down explanation. "It sounds simple enough, our saiyan biology can take care of the body and willpower part since our mental states seem to have changed a little." Scratching my head I continued. "Plus the mind part is already handled because of our own genius. But…"

Derek raised a brow. "But what?"

I rubbed my frow in frustration. "But, I can't say for sure those are the requirements, plus there's the actual process of harnessing it, which doesn't make much sense to me." Looking back at Derek I frowned. "All I've ever found on it is, finding your center, which is where your energy will be, then harnessing it through your hands, once you've created a light out of thin air, you'll know that you've harnessed ki."

Derek frowned at the vague instructions. "Man, that doesn't explain too much huh?" Shrugging Derek turned around to see the bacilicom rapidly approaching. "Well I wouldn't worry about it too much Chester, they might be vague but you did say it would be easier for us since we're Saiyans right?"

I nodded in confirmation. "Then there isn't going to be a problem. For right now though, let's deal with this whole bacilicom business and find out where the hell we are. Maybe find something to eat, I'm starving fucking starving right now."

Rubbing my own stomach I could only agree to that. "Yeah, seems like we're here."

Getting off the tube transport, we headed towards a building that looked like a chapel. "Exactly how the map displayed it, kinda didn't believe it at first."

Derek whistled at the sight. "Yea no kidding, not only is this sucker big but looks to be seriously fancy." Getting his metaphorical shit together Derek went on ahead of me opening the huge double doors. By opening, I meant to say he quite literally busted the thing kicking it open.

"Alright, can someone tell me where the in fuck we are!?"

I put my hand to my face, embarrassed at his actions. "Oh great, we're in for it now aren't we?"

Hello, first-time and returning readers. If you've made it this far, congratulations, I hope you're enjoying it so far.

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