"496…497…498!" cheered Bubbles and Gregory as they sat on the grass of King Kai's planet. They had little flags and ribbons waving around in the air as they called out the numbers in time with Goku's handstand push-ups. "500!"
Goku pushed off of the grass with enough force to send him into the air after his final push up. A quick round of flips and the hero dropped back onto the ground with a bright, cheesy smile on his face. "Oh this is awesome!" he cheered and gave the peace sign to the monkey and grasshopper, both of which cheered him on. "The new gravity on this planet is really refreshing! I can't wait to start coming up here to train!" Goku declared and then turned to look upon his former mentor.
However, the second he looked across the grass at the portly kai, he frowned when he saw that King Kai wasn't even looking in his direction. Goku pouted like a child and spoke up again to get the kai's attention and was only greeted with more silence.
"Now he's just being rude!" Goku pouted as he folded his arms in a huff.
Gregory then appeared on Goku's shoulder and looked over at King Kai as well, but with more of a look of concern as he watched the deity. "He's been like this for a while now, actually," the grasshopper announced, his words making Goku rethink his pouting.
Bubbles soon joined the group discussion of King Kai's odd behavior and while the trio stood there to ponder over the situation, King Kai stood far away, his body practically trembling with the telekinetic news he was receiving. It was that time of the century that essentially every kai feared, a time when destruction would reign across the universe on a whim. Even the most supreme celestial administrators had no immunity to this deity's rule. This would surely prove to be a time of tension for the entire universe, for the God of Destruction had risen again, and Beerus was sure to bring his divine might on many a civilization.
"KING KAI!" Goku suddenly announced right into the kai's pointy ears, making the deity launch into the air upon shock. Like an innocent child, the hero watched his former mentor shoot into the air and then crash back into the dirt as if he'd had absolutely nothing to do with, and then smiled brightly when King Kai sprung up with anger written all over his face. "I'm glad I finally got your attention," Goku mused with a child-like smile that did nothing to mute King Kai's anger.
"Goku! Have you lost your ever-loving mind scaring me like that!" King Kai barked, a vein threatening to pop from his skull as he yelled. "And right when I'm thinking of Lord Beerus of all people! Are you trying to give me a heart attack!"
The second the words rolled from his mouth, he quickly slapped his hands over to keep them shut.
"Lord Beerus?" Goku questioned with a confused tilt of his head. "Don't think I've ever heard of him. Who's that, King Kai?"
The portly deity swallowed thickly as he openly gaped at Goku, his mouth dry of words as he tried to think of what to say next. The VERY last thing that Goku ever needed to know was that there was a God of Destruction. King Kai had seen Goku's Saiyan instincts spark far too many times to allow Goku to run out and pick a fight with a god, of all people. The poor fool would get his entire quadrant of space annihilated if he did something so foolish. "Ummm…" King Kai pondered and then quickly spun on a heel to turn away from Goku. "…he's my cousin!" he lied, horribly.
"Cousin?" Goku parroted, not at all seeming to buy that, but took it for the moment anyway. "If you say so," the Saiyan hero crooned and then also turned his back on King Kai with his arms now folded behind his head as he walked away.
"Did he really buy it?" King Kai questioned to himself, inwardly unable to believe that Goku could actually be so gullible. But then, a thought struck the kai that made him straighten his back and chuckle with pride! Who am I kidding? I'm the master of evasion! Of course I could fool Goku!
"Hey, Gregory! Who's this Lord Beerus that King Kai's afraid of?" Goku called as he walked into the house to speak to the grasshopper.
The second the words hit King Kai's ears, he froze all together, completely dumbstruck, and then broke the speed of sound to rush after the Saiyan and stop Gregory before he could speak. "NOOOO!" King Kai yelled as he rushed for the doorway, but by the time he'd reached the opening he could see Goku's body trembling with excitement. The Saiyan slowly turned to look at King Kai with his eyes positively shining with delight. "No, Goku! No way! Absolutely n –,"
"WaaaHooo!" Goku yelled as he jumped right through the roof of King Kai's home! "I'm going to fight the God of Destruction!"
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"A god?" Frieza spoke aloud, the weight of the very word still sitting heavily on the group upon the kai planet. "You can't see our future because, at some point, a god crosses paths with us?"
"That is correct," Jiran assured with a nod of her head. "Gods can be quite unpredictable and so it is often impossible to decipher a timeline when they are present. And ordinarily, I wouldn't even bother with sending anyone out to deal with a disturbance during a time in which a god is present, but…" She stopped, a flash of disdain rolling over her face. "…it is the man that we're dealing with that has me very nervous, ESPECIALLY with a god around. With a trickster like him, there's no telling what he's planning."
"Enough of these pronoun games!" Cell demanded heatedly as he drew everyone's attention. "Who exactly are we dealing with here and why is he such a threat?"
"Why?!" Jiran yelled back, her level of intensity matching Cell's. "Because, Cell, he's a god, too!"
The level of shock that smacked Cell, Frieza, and Shin across the face could've been comical if the situation didn't seem so dire. Yet, they still stood there, rigid, without anything to say as the girl turned away, looking lost.
"His name is Demigra," Old Kai spoke, collecting the trios' attentions as he, too, looked off into the distance. Flashes of fire, smoke, destruction, and utter chaos ran through the deity's mind as he briefly remembered the horrors Demigra brought the last time he attacked. "And Jiran is right to be concerned, for he too is a god indeed," he went on to say. "Demigra, the God of all Demons, and as I'm sure you can tell by his name, he is a ruthless demon. One-hundred times worse than Dabura, the so called King of Demons. I don't even think that hell-spawn, Jabura, that you'd all fought in HFIL so long ago could hold a candle to the fury that Demigra brings."
"You're joking," Cell marveled, actually taken aback by the mere thought of such a creature.
"I'm afraid not," old kai mused and then sighed audibly as he shook his head. "You wouldn't know much about him, youngster."
Kibito Kai shook his head in the negative. "No, I don't," he said. "I don't even know a whole lot about the current gods that reign, but this Demon God is completely foreign to me."
"Yeah, he was before your time," the elder replied and slowly moved over to a small rock so that he could take a seat. A beat passed before he said, "Long ago, before Majin Buu drove the kais to extinction, was Demigra, one of the gods. Now, it is important to note that gods cannot be classified as good or evil. They are divine, and their decisions are such, but Demigra was a special case. He was selfish, malicious, and sought to be sole ruler of everything." A brief flash of Demigra destroying countless planets flew through his mind, a wave of chills brought on by the thought. "The other gods didn't care much for Demigra's 'temper tantrum' as they'd called it, so the job to stop him fell to the Supreme Kais. It was an awful fight. So many of us fell by his hand that I thought we'd never stop him, but at last we'd cornered the monster and sealed him away in the sands of time. And that is where he's sat for eons, so long that I'd nearly forgotten him entirely. So much for wishful thinking, I suppose."
"I don't know how it happened, Shin," Jiran spoke up to take the attention away from a reminiscing Old Kai. "But somehow, Demigra has been set free and he's been running amuck in the timelines, causing so much havoc and chaos that my time patrollers can hardly keep up. I don't know what he's seeking in this timeline, but I fear it has to do with whatever god arises. Amongst the wild array of powers he wields, the power to control others is his most lethal. If by some means, he manages to take control of another god, I can't imagine the destruction that he will unleash upon the universe!"
A stiff breeze suddenly whipped past everyone, as if the very climate of the planet feared what could arise next. And there, the guardians stood, processing the information carefully. "Demigra, the God of Demons, huh?" Frieza mused, head dropped as he looked upon the grass.
"A being with power that is even greater than Jabura's, a monster that we weren't even able to completely defeat ourselves," Cell added, his gaze lingering in the sky.
Jiran looked between the two guardians before she focused in on Shin standing in between the two. "I realize this is a lot to drop upon you all so suddenly, but we're all that's left of the Supreme Kais and it is our duty to do whatever it takes to bring Demigra to an end once more," she said. "Take whatever time you need to think things through, but know that I'm ready to –,"
"We'll do it," Cell and Frieza both announced, effectively cutting off the Supreme Kai of Time and shocking her so much that she took a few seconds before responding.
"Y-you will? J-just like that?" she replied hesitantly.
"Um…yes?" Cell said, looking positively confused at the girl's behavior. "We're guardians/unofficial kais. It's kind of our job to do things like this, right?"
"Besides, I'd fight Majin Buu, Jabura, and Goku's wife all at one time if it meant that I didn't have to do any more reading," Frieza added with a sly smile.
Kibito Kai looked between the two and then beamed a bright smile of his own. "Then, it is settled!" he cheered. "We will bring Demigra to an end, once more!"
She looked at the enthusiastic smile of Kibito Kai and then to the more devious looking ones of Cell and Frieza. She then looked over at Old Kai, who looked timidly calm as he watched the exchange. "You guys really have no idea what you're getting into," she said once she'd turned back to the trio, but still, she offered a weak smile and nodded her head. "But I suppose a bit of enthusiasm is just what we need!"
Jiran then struck out a hand before the three, palm down as she waited for the others. "Touch my hand and we can head out to intercept, Demigra. I've been tracking his dark energy the second I reached this timeline. It shouldn't take much to hunt him down!"
Kibito Kai looked back and forth between the small hand and its owner, a tint of red coming upon his cheeks at the thought of touching her. "Um…okay," he said weakly and stuck out a hand to sit on top of hers.
"A battle against a god? This could be interesting," Cell mused as he stepped over and placed a hand on top of Shin's.
"Perfect time to pull out all the stops!" Frieza cheered and followed suit with a hand atop Cell's.
And just when the four seemed ready to warp away, an old wrinkly, purple hand landed atop Frieza's. They all looked over to Old Kai in surprise that he'd want to join the fight. "You're not leaving me behind on this planet!" he crooned. "I may not be much of a fighter, but I'll be darned if I sit back on my butt while the rest of the kais run off to fight the Demon God! We'll put an end to him, together!"
Jiran smiled wildly at the elder. "You may've lost your youth, but it's nice to see you have lost your spunk, old man!" she crooned, and then outright laughed when he blushed with embarrassment. "Alright, guys!" she cheered as a sparkly aura began to encase them all. "Let's Go!" And with that, they all vanished in a flash of light.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
While Cell and Frieza rushed off to intercept the God of Demons and Goku got excited about fighting the God of Destruction, back on Earth, music and fun was in abundance around the Capsule Corp compound. Balloons of varying sizes, tons of streamers and banners, and decorations fit for a party queen were set up all around the compound.
"So, Bulma," Krillin called as he slid into the chair next to the Capsule Corp heiress, who was on her fourth drink already. She turned to the former monk, briefly taking note of the mop of dark brown hair atop his head before looking him square in the eye, suspiciously. Krillin just smiled wildly. "We're about to do all of this partying for your birthday, but still don't know how old you are. C'mon! Just spill the beans already!"
Bulma clicked her tongue in disdain and then leaned in to thump Krillin across the forehead. "I don't think so!" she snapped right into the man's face. "Don't you know that it's rude to ask a woman her age, Krillin! I mean really!"
"Whoa! Whoa! I was just curious!" Krillin defended, trying to wave off the blue-haired banshee with one hand and nurse the red mark on his head with the other.
Before Bulma could properly rip Krillin a new one, they both turned to the latest newcomers of the celebration. Having arrived just in time to see the exchange, Gohan, who was also accompanied with Chi Chi and Videl, waved weakly to the two.
"It's nice to see you two are having fun," Gohan announced as they came to stand before Krillin and Bulma.
Bulma glanced back at Krillin and turned her head away in mock annoyance. Krillin could only chuckle nervously. "Well, we've known each other this long. It's unlikely that our dynamic would change much," Bulma offered and then beamed with a smile. "Krillin's rudeness aside, I'm glad to see that you guys could make it!" However, she pause before speaking again and then glanced around the trio for the expected fourth member. When she didn't find him, she scowled. "Where's Goku?!" she demanded with a fold of her arms.
Gohan laughed nervously and scratched at the back of his head while Chi Chi took over. "Training," she deadpanned with just as much annoyance as Bulma offered. "I swear that we reminded that knucklehead twice this morning about the celebration, but I think the prospect of going to Otherworld made the information hard to sink in." She then sighed and shook her head. "That husband of mine! If he isn't eating or training OR fighting, he's dead."
Bulma shook her head as well. "I can't be too mad," she said and then nodded her head in the direction of the compound's main building. "Vegeta would rather get in a few rounds of training himself before coming to the party. These Saiyans of ours, Chi Chi. What are we going to do with them?"
"What CAN we do with them?" Chi Chi replied and they both burst with laughter.
And while the ladies wandered further into the celebrations around the compound, Krillin slid over to Gohan's side and nudged the taller man to get his attention. "Women, Gohan. Am I right?" he said and then startled when a rather feminine voice cleared her throat.
"Mind you, I'm still standing right here!" Videl demanded and leaned up to look around Gohan and offer Krillin a chastising glare. She then looked up at Gohan and said, "You'd better not answer that, either!" With that, she walked off to follow Chi Chi and Bulma, glancing just briefly back at the half-Saiyan and then continuing on.
Gohan practically held his breath until Videl was far out of hearing range and then sighed. "Tell me about it," he groaned before he and Krillin also laughed.
"C'mon, kiddo! Let's go have some fun!" the former monk announced as he and Gohan walked along. "With all this money Bulma's put into this celebration, it would take an act of god to ruin this party!"