Chapter three - Chaos in West City

Gohan's eyes hadn't moved in twenty minutes and Krillin had noticed exactly where they were planted, right on Videl. The young woman, head of the resistance since her father died the year before, was helping Bulma work on her computer to try and get it running. Krillin inched his way over to the young man with a big smile on his face. "So, have a girlfriend in your world?" he asked sitting down beside the Sai-jin teen.

"Huh?" Gohan asked not really noticing. Suddenly his face paled. "Um... uh... I.... uh...."

Krillin laughed softly. "You know, she's probably in your world too... once this is over you should look her up."

"Uh.... w... who?"

"Don't give me that Gohan, I may have only known you a week but I know that look."

"Uh, what look?"

Krillin grinned. "That twenty minutes stare you were giving Videl. Come on kid, go for it! There is a chance you wont get home, should make the best of things. She's one of the strongest people on this planet, not that it's helped much in the fight... I still can't believe the power you put out fighting that Android."

Gohan sighed. "I can't believe things are this different here, it seems dad's the center of things... but how could so much change with just him missing? I mean, if this Supreme Being is so strong then... how come he's not in my world? Could dad have beaten him?"

"I don't know. It don't make much sense to me either..." Krillin sighed looking across the room. "If you dad did beat this guy, then he must have been strong..."

"That's the thing." Gohan said looking at the ceiling in frustration. "He was, he was amazing. He and Piccolo fought in the 23rd Budokai, and he won, just. Then when Vegeta arrived, he won but again it was just barely. You said that this Supreme Being beat him with ease... how could something have improved that much? And what happened to stop dad from beating him in the first place?"

"We've got it!" Videl cheered as Bulma's computer roared to life. It had been damaged by the energy overflow caused by the Teleporter's overload. The two women had spent much of the week fixing it, while Gohan watched them... or more precisely, watched Videl. Not that she hadn't noticed of course.

Everyone rushed over to Bulma as she began to run through the data files from the overload the week before. "Wow... this is... just... wow." said the bluette in shock as she watched the data scroll by.

"What is it woman." Vegeta demanded, as Yamcha glared at him. "Some of us can't read Geek."

"Right, right." she said still reading. "Here's the energy surge Trunks caused." The little Sai-jin flinched before she continued. "The spike of energy from the overflow caused a tear in the fourth and fifth dimensions. The that bubble formed... a small section of space-time that wasn't affected by the overload.... wait! That bubble was the transportation field! Of course, the teleporter was preparing to send us to where Trunks programmed!"

"So we are in another universe?" Gohan asked.

Bulma shook her head reading the screen. "No, don't think so..." she changed the screen and read a little more. "See, here's where the energy spike slipped through the tear in the dimensions. It started to travel across the universe and backwards in time... It was literally everywhere at the same time as it went back." She squinted at the screen as a graph appeared that showed a number of lines, some of which merged as they traveled the length of the graph. Below it was a chart of numbers starting low and building.

"The energy seemed to be attracted to high powers, strong beings... It looks like, at some points on it's trip back, the energy condensed down into one single point in the universe. Then, after that instant, it spread out again and kept going back... carrying some knew unknown energy signals with it...

"The computer can't tell the exact dates... or any dates for that matter. It wasn't designed for time travel. But some of these coordinates are familiar... Most are places are here on Earth... but here, see this one? That's Namek, I'm positive of it. I haven't got a clue where these four are from." she said in wonder. "And here's another one from space, but I don't know where this is either.

"Then, look, it came back to Earth again carrying a lot of extra energy... the signature looks like... knowledge? I don't get that... Well, whatever it was it settled somewhere here on Earth sometime ago... though like I said I can't tell you when. If you give me a moment I may be able get a time frame..." She stared at the screen a moment longer. "It's no good, this chart has no concept of time at all. The best estimate I can give you is thirty to fifty years ago."

"That's the right time frame for the Supreme Being." Videl said straightening up. "Do you think this energy became The Supreme Being? It might explain it's power... and it's knowledge of everyone."

Bulma shook her head. "No chance. It's just loose energy. The only way it could have stopped is if it found a being of immense power strong enough to hold it... that is your Supreme Being."

"And explains what happened to dad." Gohan said. "Whatever being it landed in would have known what kind of power dad would have, so he would have sought him out!" he froze suddenly realizing what would have happened when this thing found his father. "Oh no... dad." he choked.

Videl walked over to him and put her arms around Gohan. "It's okay Gohan." she said softly. "We'll set things right okay? We'll stop this guy and fix everything, right Bulma? You can find a way to fix all this right?"

"I don't know... I honestly don't know." she sat silently staring at her screen for a moment. Suddenly her face brightened as she re-read everything. "I may not be able to fix this Gohan, but you and the others can!"

"How mom?" Trunks asked wanting to fix his mistake.

"Destroy the Supreme Being. Once he dies there will be another distortion in time and space, the energies in him will tear away from his body and in doing so rip apart. The distortion will cause the different energies to split apart, but not just in our time here and now! The effect will go backwards following the energy all the way back to the origin stopping this from happening!" Bulma smiled. "We won't be transported this time though, we'll be shifted along with everyone else. Anything we do here will be undone, any knowledge we gain will be lost, we wont remember a thing, but the world will be fixed."

Gohan stood, a determined look on his face. "Then let's do it."

"I agree with the brat." Vegeta added. "The four of us will be more than eno..."

"No Vegeta." Bulma said. "You don't understand the kind of power it would take to hold this energy in place. That's why it sought out power as it went back, looking for an end to the energy circuit."

"So?"

"Ugh, you can be so thick headed Vegeta!" she yelled. "It broke free from my teleporter! It uses a modified version of scouter technology. You remember that right!"

"Yeah, so?"

"SO! Alright, let's put it this way, if you were to read this power with a scouter it would have come in at fifteen million when it caused the tear! Now think about the fact it tore back through time, passing through several powerful beings along the way, picking up a copy of all their knowledge and ALL of their POWER! It had to increase by more than ten fold along the way! To be held it would have needed to find a being with the ability to hold that much power!"

Vegeta snorted. "Then why'd it go so far back?" he demanded. "It only needed to enter me."

Bulma sighed. Vegeta was somewhat right. If he'd not been in the lab he'd have been hit by it, unless Gohan was outside too. Of course neither of them were, and she swore Vegeta never listened to a word she said. "Get this through your head Vegeta!" she shouted. "We we're TRANSPORTED! It sent us nowhere, yes, but we were still transported! That means we were outside of time and space while this happened so the energy couldn't find you!"

Vegeta scowled but before he could say anything someone else come running into the room. "Videl, Videl! Checkout the news!"

She turned and flicked on the news. "This is Frank Nano at West City! Androids Fourteen and Fifteen arrived here moments ago and are demanding the appearance of a young man named Gohan or they'll destroy the entire city!"

Videl switched it off angry. "Damn them!" she yelled.

"No matter." Gohan said standing. "I've got a fight to finish with that purple midget."

"I'm coming with you." Vegeta said uncrossing his arms for seemingly the first time all week and walking toward the exit.

"Can we come too?" Goten asked. "Pleeeeeease?"

"Yeah, can we?" Trunks asked. "I want to help fix this."

Videl knelt down beside them. "I don't think that's such a good idea." she said. "You might get hurt."

Vegeta snorted. "Sure brats, just stay out of our way."