2. Earth's Guardian is gone!

Firipipu slammed into the ground, but shot straight back up into the air. Pi-Ta, who was floating directly above him, raised his fist and swung straight at the charging Firipipu's head. He connected but Firipipu faded out of site. Pi-Ta was then struck on the back of the neck, knocking him forward. He turned to see Firipipu grinning and his new manoeuvre. Pi-Ta clenched his teeth and began to fire hundreds of energy balls towards him.

Firipipu braced as the balls smacked into him. He suddenly burst out into a fireball and with an almighty roar, all Pi-Ta's energy balls dissipated. He then shot further into the air and held his hands in front of him, palm over palm. He then yelled

"MASENKO!!"

And an energy wave erupted from his hands, engulfing Pi-Ta. Firipipu cancelled out the beam and floated down to the ground. The smoke around Pi-Ta blew away and he was left floating there, his clothes ripped and burned. He then floated down to the ground as well.

Gohan walked over to them, clapping his hands. He said

"Well done Firipipu, you managed to control and use your energy then, and even rip off one of my manoeuvres. And you Pi-Ta, that was great. That flash cannon of yours is pretty impressive."

He turned and began to walk away. Firipipu was beaming from the comment he had received from his grandfather.

Pi-Ta on the other hand was not. A 12 year-old and a weak one at that had just beaten him with a pathetic energy blast. And he seemed to be learning new techniques by the day.

~ Why wouldn't Gohan teach him any moves ~ He thought ~ He even taught Jiani one or two. ~

"Oi, Gohan"  He yelled, "When are ya gonna teach me something, or are you too obsessed with small fry there?"

Gohan turned and smiled. "So ya wanna see some techniques eh? Well, I'll be happy to oblige." He turned to face Pi-Ta and began to power up. Pi-Ta reached into his pocket and removed a small bag. He opened the bag and placed his hand inside. He drew out a Senzu bean and swallowed it. He then replaced the bag in his pocket and began to power up. Fireballs erupted around them both, their energy increasing. Pi-Ta's died down as he reached his full potential. Gohan's however, continued getting larger as his energy spiked dramatically. Suddenly his hair flared up and turned a golden yellow.

Firipipu's jaw dropped in amazement at the Chi he was sensing from him. It was incredibly high and the speed it was increasing was impossible for a human. The room began to shake as Gohan powered up. Plaster was falling from the roof and the walls were crumbling. This distracted pi-ta and prevented him from seeing Gohan shoot forward and strike him in the face with a mean right hook. He was sent flying backwards and connected with the wall, and the wall behind it, and another. Gohan powered down and peered through the gaping holes he had created. He looked back towards Firipipu and said

"Whoops, don't know my own strength. Just like dad"

He turned around to go find Pi-ta but was hit dead on with a bolt of energy. He flew backwards and scraped along the floor. He sat up but was kneed in the face by Pi-ta. After shaking the cobwebs away he leapt up and faced Pi-ta. He was breathing heavily and was slumped forward. Gohan said

"Ok, stop right there. Look at you, you can't fight"

Pi-ta just glared at him and swung his arms to the side. He gathered all his remaining energy in his arms. Two balls of energy formed in his hands. He yelled out "FLASH CANNON!!!"

And brought his arms together. A blue beam leapt forward and hurled towards Gohan. His hair exploded into a golden yellow again and he held his hands out towards the blast. They met and a massive explosion rocked the whole building. Firipipu had already left to avoid it but watched on as Gohan's dojo collapsed in front of him. He covered his face as a dust cloud swept towards him.

He removed his arms from his face and looked around. Where Gohan's Dojo once stood there was now a pile of rubble. He walked towards it, trying to sense if anyone was there. Firipipu floated up into the air and looked around. There was still a lot of dust floating around so it was hard to see, but he could still sense two life forms down in the rubble.

A hand came to rest on his shoulders and he leapt forward in fright. He spun around to see Jiani and some Namekian kid floating there. He sighed in relief and said

"Oh, its you. Who's the Namek?" Jiani replied "Um, I dunno, he kinda followed me here."

The kid moved his head out from behind Jiani and stared at Firipipu. He eyes lit up and he flew towards Firipipu, arms outstretched. He then flew right past him and hugged Gohan, who was floating behind him.

"Master Gohan, thank goodness I found you. I bring terrible news about the earth. Dende has died and there's no guardian. Without a guardian earth's in trouble."

Gohan frowned and thought a little. He then said to the others "Right, this is bad. Now there's no Dragonballs on earth so you can't get wished back. Were going to have to go see Enma."

Jiani scowled and said "Not that fat ass again, it was bad enough when we got here." Firipipu smirked and giggled "That's only because you tried to cut him in half and he broke you're arm."

He began rolling around with laughter, remembering the sight of Jiani screaming uncle over and over while Enma held his arm behind his back. Jiani drew his sword and yelled

"YOU THINK THAT'S FUNNY, WAIT TILL I SHOW YOU WHAT BEING CUT IN HALF FEELS LIKE, SHRIMP BOY!!"

He shot forward and swung at Firipipu. He only just saw him coming and just got out of the way in time. But he still lost a large portion of his hair. Firipipu clutched at his newly shaved head and glared at Jiani. Just as it looked like world war three was about to brake out Gohan got between them.

"Guys, don't make me beat some sense into you. Come on now, the sooner we get to Enma, the sooner we can get back to earth. On probation of course."

Jiani and Firipipu stopped staring daggers at each other and settled down. The thought of going back to earth was too good to pass over. But they couldn't help wondering why they were going back to earth. And if they could get back to earth, why were they waiting to be wished back? Gohan and the Namek had had already set off, so they flew off in pursuit of them.

A battered and bruised Pi-ta pushed away the slab of rock and gazed around. The others were already halfway down serpent road, completely oblivious that they had forgotten him. He stood up, dusted himself down, cursed Gohan's name and began to run after them.

* * *

Luna woke up in the back of a car. They were moving exceedingly fast, as if escaping from something. She sat up and noticed another person in the car. She sighed with relief when Kurisutopha looked at her and said

"About time. Roshi forgot to mention he had no money so when we had to pay for the hotel rooms we ran. And of course he and that no good Zeon took the car and split, leaving us there."

Luna looked puzzled and asked "If they have the car, where did we get this one from?"

Kuris smirked and said "Locks get easier and easier to pick every day."

Luna's jaw dropped and she said "You stole this car! Where from, and where are we?"

Kuris pointed out of the window at something. Luna looked out and saw a large white tower in the distance, surrounded by miles of forest. The tower seemed infinitely high, surpassing every known man, made structure. Luna asked "Umm, what is it."

Kuris replied "Its called Kami's tower. I found a map in Roshi's bag and followed it. That's where we're headed. Atop it the guardian of earth is supposed live. Roshi was taking us there to get trained by him."

Luna nodded and gazed out of the window. After a while they drew near it and parked at its base. They both got out of the car and gazed upwards. The tower reached far above the clouds, with no conceivable way of getting up there. Kuris stood at its base and studied the tower carefully, While Luna sat down on the bonnet of the car and put her headphones on. Kuris then shot straight up in the air, parallel to the tower. Luna stared up after him until he disappeared from sight. She then returned to her thumping music.

After a while Kuris returned and landed near the car. He walked over to it and opened the door. Luna was nowhere in sight. He called out her name and heard her voice yell

"I'm down here, by the lake. Do me a favour and bring my clothes down please." Kuris' eyes darted around and he spotted a pile of clothing lying on the floor, including her underwear. He picked them up and closed his eyes. He then walked towards where Luna's voice had come from. On the way he tripped several times and after walking into a tree decided to open his eyes. Unfortunately for him he was about a meter away from the lake, and a soaking wet, naked Luna. He dropped the bundle of clothing and went bright red. She also went bright red and dived into the lake in an attempt to cover her self up. She yelled

"Kuris you perverted bastard, get the hell out of here!!!"

Kuris quickly retreated back to the base of the tower, and was soon joined by a very disgruntled Luna. Despite his best efforts to apologise, he still ended up with a knee to the groin. Luna asked

"Well, did you find anything up there? Or were you too busy spying on me?" In an unusually high voice Kuris replied

"Yea, there's a deserted building half way up and a platform at the top. But the only way up there is to fly."

Luna scowled at him and said "Well, you're just gonna have to carry me and everything else up there."

Once the swelling had subsided Kuris preceded to pack everything back into the car. Unfortunately he was significantly weakened by Luna's blow and needed to rest. Night had fallen anyway, so they retired to car. Luna set up a bed on the back seats, but she forced Kuris to stay on guard that night. He sat out on the bonnet, nursing us aching groin. Night came and went, and he was awoken by Luna's yells.

He opened the door cautiously, not wanting another incident like the other day. He discovered that she was watching a news bulletin on the built in television. The newscaster spoke

"Once again, our top story today. Gondoro City was levelled last night by an unknown force. Eyewitness's descriptions tell of a tall woman with unnatural powers launching fireballs from her hands. We have the only picture of this mystery woman and we would like anyone who knows her identity to inform local authority's immediately."

The T.V then proceeded to show a picture of the afore mentioned person. Kuris leapt back in shock when he recognised her.

"That's the alien girl, Rea isn't it. So she's still here on earth. That means that other guy could be here too. We better get moving. Gondoro City's only ten miles away, she could be heading this way."

Luna nodded and turned off the television. Kuris slammed the door and motioned for Luna to get her seatbelt on. She did so and held onto the steering wheel as tight as she could. Kuris Reached under the car and powered up. He slowly raised the car above his head and began to fly upwards. He still wasn't fully powered after last night, so he struggled at first, but soon they passed the clouds and reached the middle building. Kuris flew past it, and continued to head upwards. After a very short while they reached the Platform atop it. Kuris set the car down in between two rows of trees and dropped to the floor. He was exhausted from the flight, not realising how much the car and its contents weighed.

Luna stepped out of the car and looked around. At the end of the row of trees stood a building. It had an elegant marble archway in front of the doorway, and two large buildings jutted off from the main one. Giant, glass domes rose from the top of each building. Kuris had caught his breath by now and was standing next to her. Something told him that there was something very wrong about this place. He began to walk towards the main building. Luna said

"Kuris, where are you going, don't leave me on my own. Wait, please!"

She ran off after him, both unaware of what was about to unfold.

* * *

Gohan, Jiani, Firipipu and Pi-ta stood in front of an unusually large desk, with a very frustrated Enma sat behind it.

"Come on Enma, let us out for one day. Our home planet needs help and we are the only ones strong enough to help out. Pleeeeeeeaseeeeee!!!!!"

Enma replied

"Stop whining Gohan, you're worse than my wife. All right, you can go down." Four massive grins (And I mean goku size massive now), spread over the four warriors faces.

"However, there is one condition. Its only for 1 week and if you go, Gohan loses his place as Northern Kai and most of his strength."

The quartet's massive grins suddenly disappeared and Firipipu yelled out.

"That's not fair, Gohan's the strongest person in all the afterlife, that's really unfair."

Enma sighed and said "Tough luck. Take it or leave it guys."

Silence fell over the quartet. After a minute or so Gohan broke it by agreeing to Enma's offer. Despite pleas by the others, Gohan handed over his drivers licence, Kaioshin licence and bus pass. He then let two afterlife workers to apply a power drain to him. However, because of his immense power it took half an hour to drain a fifth of the required amount. By the time they were done, Enma had lost seventeen games of poker, including a strip poker match. Jiani and Pi-ta picked up their winnings and followed Firipipu over to the main doorway. Gohan shrugged off the effects of the energy drainer and pursued them through the door. They had entered a seemingly infinite corridor with an attendant standing next to a large white door. He pointed towards it and said

"Here's the door to earth. Remember you have to be back here in exactly one week or you'll fade away from existence. Have a nice trip."

Gohan opened it and stepped through, followed closely by Firipipu, then Pi-ta and finally Jiani. When they were all through the attendant shut the door behind them and said to himself " There goes the greatest Kaioshin we ever had; hope he remembered his overnight bag."

* * *

A blinding white light shone down upon Jiani's face. He held his hand up to it to block it out. Looking around he could see the others close by, doing the same as he was. Noticing a doorway to his left he left the group and opened it. On the other side was a bright blue skyline. He stepped out onto a balcony and looked around. The building seemed to be onto of a plateau, with many trees and plants scattered around it. There were two more buildings to his left, the closest one being the biggest. There were two rows of trees in front of the large building, with what appeared to be a car at the end of it. By now he had been joined by Pi-ta, who remarked

"Someone's here, I can sense them, over there." He pointed to the base of the central building, where a rudimentary camp had been set up. Gohan and Firipipu had joined them now and had also spotted the camp. Gohan said "Better check this out. I don't know how they got up here, but it might be bad."

Firipipu then yelled out "I know one of them, it's Kurisutopha. He's here!!!"

He then launched off the balcony and flew straight towards the camp. Jiani and Pi-ta followed him but Gohan hesitated. Something was wrong, but he couldn't figure it out. He then followed the others down. Unknown to anyone, two people were watching them, one male, one female and both unknowing of each other.