Yo! Son Goku and friends! Saiyan Saga (Chapter 40)
Piccolo
The Demon walked right past the ghosts and ghouls fighting in the arena just outside the palace. One in bandages and wraps, a mummified giant shivered at the sight of the white-caped figure.
"I didn't mean to get in your way, sir!"
"Not in the mood to talk, Bandages." Piccolo sharply shot back.
The Demon strided regally through the arch-way and stared intently at the black cloaked elderly lady watching over her crystal ball. She snickered and scoffed as Piccolo entered.
"What am I going to have to do to use your services this time you old witch!?" Piccolo growled, arms crossed in a declarative manner.
"You think you're hot shit, coming in here and just demanding me to take you back to King Kai's over and over again."
"My telepathic training's not complete you old hag, I can't just stay there forever either, I'm not on death's door like you are."
"Put a sock in it, gumball. I oughta take all those pink fleshy bits off your body and blow a bubble with em'."
"You're a freak."
"You're the one trying to get ahold of my services, dunce. You don't treat me with respect, I don't take you where you need to go, it's that simple."
"I'm tired of being your lapdog quite frankly."
"Well I'm sorry YOU-" She pointed a declarative finger at The Demon. "-decided to drag The Demon King's namesake through the mud by fetching all my needed ingredients and artifacts."
"You never take me where I need to go unless I go grab your trinkets you old bitch."
"Ho-ho-ho." Her wild cackle shook the various items in the palace, a bone-rattling cacophony. "This is why I like you, Piccolo."
The Demon scoffed with great annoyance.
"Just my luck." He shook his head, rolling his eyes while he was at it.
"So do you want passage or not?"
"Yes!"
"Alright." Baba maneuvered her hands in an incantation and the image in her crystal ball warped and distorted. "Here."
Piccolo stepped in close and examined the new item he had to gather.
"This one is called the Devil's Bracelet." The orb zoomed in on the gold bangle, it laid dorman on the red sheets of a bedframe. "This one shouldn't be too hard but there are a bunch of monsters still prowling Lucifer's domain guarding his items in the Devil's Hand. Lucifer himself perished in the battle on The Lookout I believe but I'm not going in there. I'm too old for that shit."
"Of course you are."
"Well? Off you go, shoo."
"Grrrrr…" Piccolo bared his fangs and walked politely out of the archway before blasting off in a trail of ki, throwing the nearby ghouls and goblins on their asses. "Why am I subjecting myself to this garbage?" Piccolo ruminated, grunting as he pointed his index and middle finger at his forehead.
His purple vest and parachute pants turned into a deep blue, and a white circle with a red outline and black kanji was on the chest of his top instead of it being empty with no design or pattern. The top colour of his turban also changed blue to match with the rest of his attire. The Demon cracked his neck limply as he flew onwards, even more ki bursting, billows of clouds snapping off his form as he broke the sound barrier with repeated sonic booms. The Demon flew for a while before a gorgeous sight of the red and purple sunset set over the enormous finger-like mountains of what one could assume was: 'Devil's Hand.'
"Seems about right." Piccolo thought to himself with closed eyes, sending a pulse of Ki Sensing and receiving low-level ki users back in the ping.
The Demon entered the area, and a titanic serpentine beast leaped from the clouds to strike only to be denied by a nonchalant backhand by Piccolo. The beast wailed with an epic roar, causing The Demon to wince at the high volume. Various ogres, goblins, gremlins and the like dashed over to the holes at the end of the cave systems to look at whatever caused their guardian to screech. All at once, the monsters took a respectful bow and gasped in awe.
"DEMON KING PICCOLO!"
Piccolo smiled deeply and floated down to one of the many demons.
"Where is the Devil's Bracelet, peons!? Don't make me ask twice!"
"Yessir, right away sir!" A small brown gremlin with an enlarged right eye squeaked out before scurrying away.
"Daimo?" A hardy voice bellowed out from the catacombs before an enormous red demon with white robes fluttering about reinforced the question.
"Yes, I am the reincarnation of The Demon King. Lucifer was only allowed to crawl around in this realm due to my father's negligence. You had better be grateful."
The large red oni got right into Piccolo's face, his sweaty and drooling maw actually dropped a few bits of liquid onto The Demon. The crimson ogre snarled and growled at Piccolo, trying to intimidate The Demon.
"This is the Devil's Hand, Daimo, no-"
Before the creature could even speak, Piccolo gutted it with a left hand and threw it into the abyss. The litany of creatures looked on in shock for a moment.
"Didn't ask."
"Aie, Aie AIEEEEEEEEEEE!"
The howled and cheered, laughing all the while causing Piccolo another bout of discomfort before he breathed in slowly and tuned it out. The noise dimmed by his focus.
"I should thank my lucky stars that bothersome Kai told me how to do this, I don't know how the old man can stomach all these loud noises." He mused for a while until the well-dressed goblin came back with the gold gauntlet.
"Your majest-" He took a deep bow as if beckoning to him.
"Do whatever you want, I'm not here to lead you heathens." Is all Piccolo said before he left in a hurry, leaving the bombastic monsters to continue their barbarism.
Muramasse looked on, not from the Devil's Hand, but from the ledge staring at it. Walking the opposite direction in time with Piccolo's flight path. His large sword flung over his shoulder.
Bulma
The blue haired executive paced around the room in a frantic manner while Yamcha just stared at the ceiling, Gohan sitting at the ends of his feet.
"I mean it can't be that hard, can it?"
"Yamcha!" She yelled. "Whew." She breathed out harshly through her cheeks, tightening her hands into fists and dragging them into her stomach. She breathed in deep before answering "Sorry for yelling, I'm just stressed. People already pretty much knew but dad actually handed me the keys last month so I'm trying my absolute best to not make the company look bad."
"It's one email, babe. If you take every single one of them so seriously you're gonna explode."
"This one's worth taking seriously!"
"You say that about every email."
"Fine, you wanna see why it's so important?"
"Sure." Yamcha laughed out before Bulma brought over her laptop and dropped it onto Yamcha's chest.
His jaw dropped and he shot out a bunch of rapid-fire blinks.
"No way."
Bulma just made an exaggerated face, tilting her head and filling her cheeks with air, her eyes almost popping out of their sockets. She put her hands on her hips and leaned in close with a cripplingly sassy air about her.
"Okay, maybe it's a little more important than usual."
"Yeah, it is."
The email was an admittedly desperate cry for help from the Tenkaichi Budokai staff. They didn't have the funds necessary to rebuild an entire stadium, preliminary area, and bleachers from scratch after its destruction following the events of the 23rd Budokai. They were willing to partner with a big company like Capsule Corp. so they could modernise and advertise on social media and build hype for the event. Bulma didn't want to mess this up.
"Should I go tell Goku?"
"Definitely not! Well… at least not until we know if it's gonna happen. I don't think this email is a hoax but I'm not gonna lend a shit ton of zeni to investors just to have it squandered. I'd need to know that the brand my dad built from scratch isn't gonna be conned out by some scumfucks."
"Amen." Gohan waved his index finger, eyes glued to the informational program on the TV.
"Well hey, what if we set up a meeting at a neutral location, and get Goku and Piccolo to show up? We could build the main event to be like the rematch of legends!" Yamcha brought out his wingspan wide to allude to this grandiosity of it all.
"Yamcha, for the first time in my life, I think you might have said something that made a lot of sense."
"I mean I'm not just a pretty face." Yamcha replied, stroking his chin and smiling like a goofball.
Bulma shook her head and the pair came in close for a kiss, smooching and then pulling away quickly seeing as the little Saiyan was still in the room.
"Mm-mm." Yamcha grunted out with his right fist over his mouth. "So?"
"We'll see." Bulma responded after The Wolf handed back the laptop from the couch. "You'll be the first to know, that was a pretty good idea actually. Then you go talk it over with Goku if I get the green light."
"Dope." Yamcha flopped back onto the couch, leaning over next to Gohan. "Who's winning?"
"The guy with the shades."
"Oh, sick. I like his leather jacket."
"It is pretty neat." Bulma looked over for one moment before tapping away at her keyboard, she scratched her scar on the right side, smacking her lips and pouting at the volume of it.
Raditz
The two brothers clashed back to back with various blows just outside the main building of Capsule Corp, Mr. and Mrs. Brief clapping up a storm at their martial artistry.
"Hyaaa!" Goku cried out as he turned tight into a back thrust kick with his left, throwing Raditz onto the grass in a furious manner.
Raditz backhandsprung off the grass in an impressive display, hopping up a bit and tearing through the grass with his somewhat clumsy backpedaling.
"Nice one, Raditz! You're getting more fluid, you were so stiff before! Huh-Hah!"
Raditz wore a goofy smile at his brother's compliment, brushing off the loose dirt and hiking his left knee up for his bouncy stance.
Raditz had pretty much accepted Bulma's wardrobe for him. Wearing almost exclusively the open hawaiiin shirts and low-key khaki pants with sandals since she gave them to him over a year ago.
"You were a warrior before, now I'm gonna teach you how to become a martial artist! Since we're no longer on King Kai's, I got my own teachings I want to help with."
"Hit me with your best shot, brother."
"Oh I will, just expect that it might hurt a bit."
"I've never wanted anything less."
"Okay! Here we go!"
Goku ran like mad at Raditz before juking many times left and right as he readied up.
"The principle of all martial arts is flow." Goku stated as he feinted with a left only to go under and check the gut with a low right hand. "I forget who said it but-"
Goku threw a left hook which his brother ducked expertly, Goku had planned for this and shoved his weight onto Raditz with a weighty tackle. Raditz' poor footing due to the duck had been check-mated by Goku's attack and he stumbled into a roll on the grass.
"If you are formless like water, you can shape yourself into the best tool for the job. If you need to be a bottle, you can be a bottle, if you need to be a jug, that too!" Goku jumped in high, twisting his body around and landing a snappy, well-formed left roundhouse.
Raditz skidded along the grass again. His younger brother landed and bounced on the balls of his feet.
"That guy, Vegeta."
Raditz' head perked up at the statement.
"He was way stronger than us, but he had a rigidness to him. If he was free form and let loose those angry thoughts that didn't matter he could have broken up our teamwork no problem. He was really strong."
Raditz got up from the ground with a bounce like his brother's.
"I remember thinking that, if he was angry, he'd probably run right into The Power Pole after I kicked him." Goku laughed loudly while rubbing the back of his head. "And then that's what he did, hee-hee-haugh-haugh!"
"We got lucky, Kakarot."
"I dunno, maybe. But me and my friends have been getting lucky for a long time. I remember Demon King Piccolo said I kept getting lucky."
"Hmm." Raditz closed his eyes in thought for a moment. "You mean Green Man?"
"No, Piccolo is actually Piccolo Jr. I'm talking about his father."
"I've got some history to catch up on."
"I guess you do! Huh-Hah! You ready for round two?"
"Of course!"
Goku smiled and the two brothers got right back at it.
Tien
Tien and Launch sat entangled at the top of a mountain, staring at the fading orange skyline. Tien looked down and smiled, Launch looked up and giggled. The couple stared out for a long time before the blonde girlfriend tackled him and they shifted their focus to the stars. Tien breathed in sharply before asking:
"So I've been thinking…"
"Wow! That's not like you, Sweetheart."
He chuckled.
"I, I, …"
"Damn, you gonna spit it out like this yea'?"
"I want to spend the rest of my life with you."
Her face flushed with red and she stared into his being.
"If youa' lyin' ta me you know Ima' chop off youa' bawls, you know that right?"
"Yeah, that's why I gotta ask the right questions."
She swallowed harshly, Tien could hear her heart beating out of her chest.
"I know we're not gonna get married, criminal status and all."
"I, I, I always knew that. I was always fine with that."
"Do you want kids?" Tien kind of manhandled her, grabbing her tight just above her elbows on each side, his three eyes impossible to lie to.
"I uh… I'm sorry, hun. But I don't think I'd be a good mutha'. I've never been good with kids, but I'd try if you wanted em'." She brushed her poofy yellow curls to the side sheepishly. "I, I guess."
"I don't want kids either. I just wanted to know, because I'd give them to you… if you wanted." Tien also said back, showing some weakness.
Tien let loose his grip and Launch fell onto him. Their beating hearts timed up with each other's as they laid, the searing red of the sunset falling away into the indigo of nighttime.
"The guys that we fight, they're so strong. And I don't want to be responsible for the death of my family if I can't protect them. I learned the hard way how difficult it is to keep cool during combat." Tien finally shifted his gaze away from his girlfriend and back out into the night sky. "My martial arts are so important to me, Launch. I know it's kind of selfish but I don't want to give away my free time to raising kids. I'm not like Goku, that sacrifice would hurt a lot. And having little ones running around would take away my alone time with you..."
Launch didn't say anything, only rubbing her hand along the large scarry divot on his chest.
"I don't want to have to raise my kids on the run all the time. They don't deserve a mutha' who's a criminal."
Tien brushed her poofy hair for her, smiling with warmth. She looked back at him with a blush, bopping his nose with her left hand.
"Youa' supposed to say I'm not a criminal, Sweetheart."
"But you stole my heart."
"Oh so you want me to blow your back out, hah!?"
"I don't see anyone around here, do you?"
"Even if there are, I don't care." Launch declared, throwing her green top all the way down the mountain.
Krillin
Krillin sat on the top of Roshi's abode, flipping through a blue book, eyes locked to the page like a hawk.
"You're really taking your studies seriously."
"I always have, Roshi. It's just that this time, I guess I don't really have Goku to come and outshine me."
"Don't say that."
"Nah, Goku's amazing. I'm glad he's gotten so good, you're assuming I'm jealous." Krillin looked back to his old master with a bright smile. "He deserves everything he's got. I gotta build my own legacy now." Krillin closed his reading material and set it down on the red shingles.
"You ready?"
"Yeup!" Krillin belted out, throwing his navy blue waistcoat right next to his book on the roof and rotating his right shoulder.
Krillin undid his tie and white button up, revealing his solitary arm and large scar over the stump of his left.
"Why didn't you wish your arm back with the Dragon Balls? The dragon grants two wishes on Namek, doesn't it?"
"Yeah, I dunno. I just felt like it wasn't my place. Chiaotzu's life is way more important than my stupid limb." Krillin shot back, shifting his positioning in time with his master, the pair rotating in a clockwise direction.
"Are you gonna wish it back a year from now?"
"Nah, I think I'll wait on it. See how I feel." He looked to the empty space with sorrow before cheering up. "Come on, I'm not waiting any longer to learn your last technique, old man."
"Hegh. All you bastards have done is steal my shit ever since you set foot on this island."
"Please, you needed the company. A pervy old man like you was bound to go stir crazy unless we showed up. You haven't taken on any new students since us and its been like 14 years."
"Don't remind me."
"Yeah, I'm havin' trouble comin' to grips with the fact that I'm 26. Time really flies."
Bulma
Bulma sat opposite of a poofy haired blonde suit. The table wasn't all that big and the room wasn't all that nice. Goku, Piccolo, and Yamcha stood behind their scarred blue haired executive like bodyguards, an intimidating presence rolled off of them despite Goku's goofy smile.
"Please, call me Mic."
"Well, Mic." Bulma straightened her belongings, tilting her head to the side. "Pardon me, but I thought you were just the announcer. I didn't know you were the CEO."
"Why would I be in this business if I didn't want to get in on the action!? I'm not gonna let some soulless corporate take over the martial arts world, that's something I'm NOT gonna stand for." Mic's volume and enthusiasm were infectious, Goku was bubbly and receptive to the blonde man's charm. "You see... I think I could get the money together by some point in the future but I don't want to let anyone else get the chance cause I know they won't care about the competition as much as I do."
Piccolo's antennae wriggled and he nodded at the man's statement. A bead of forehead sweat rolled down as he looked over at The Demon before he continued his statement.
"There's a reason I reached out to you, Bulma. Ah-hmm~" He cleared his throat and tightened his red tie quickly. "Since I'm out there, in the arena. I noticed that you were actually in attendance for the last three tournaments in a row, along with Goku and Yamcha here. Oh, uhh, you're Yamcha right?"
"Smart of you to remember The Wolf." Yamcha mimed the wolf maw with both hands, a sly smile.
Bulma shook her head, eyes almost falling out from their full rotation.
"Glad I didn't mess that one up." He tapped the top of his hair quickly. "But since you've actually been to these tournaments, that makes me think that Capsule Corp. isn't some corporation that's gonna screw over us little guys." He put his palms together and rubbed them back and forth nervously. "And that rematch idea is one of the best things I've heard in a long time, I couldn't have come up with anything better myself. What do you say?"
Bulma looked over at her entourage and nodded.
"We're in."
She quickly signed her name on the bottom of the paper and slid it over to the other side.