Yay! Another chapter is finally here, and it's the conclusion of Part 2! It seems that after defeating the alien, our hero has some second thoughts about what he has to do. This chapter is another of those crazy, very dark and dramatic chapters. Oh, and if you remember the two boys way back 5 chapters ago that were based partly on Trunks and Goten, well, they are coming back…in a way…

Aw, just read it! Thanks to my reviewer:

trunks and goten – Yep, ding dong the alien is dead…but is Jake really happy with himself? (dun dun duuuuuuunnnn) ! Anyway, I hope you enjoy this…

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Chapter 7: December 4, 2002 – Beyond

When I finally awoke, I didn't first remember all that had happened. It was like I was still out cold or something, and sleeping, or something, because everywhere I looked I saw things that were just so surreal.

I sat up, feeling as if I had been run over by a sizeable train, or maybe a whole planet or two, and I was bleeding from everywhere I thought I could and even some places I thought I couldn't. I heard lots of noise, too, frantic shouts, sirens, and large crashes of metal and concrete falling down. There were huge craters in the ground and anything that wasn't completely destroyed was something close to it and on fire.

Standing up, I looked down at my shredded clothes and shredded skin and wondered what had happened, holding my head since it hurt so bad. I took a few steps forward and heard a soft crunch, looking down I saw a burnt newspaper that someone must have died on because it was bloody…and in an instant it all hit me.

I could suddenly see the entire history of my life flashing in a second before me, and I remembered it all. I remembered my childhood, my happiness and sadness, and then…the great change; the Dragonballs and the Voice and the Kalltorraiya-jin life and destiny; the aliens, the attack, the killing and the transformation. The green. The fight and the battle – the war… The hard-won victory… I looked down to see myself not as what I used to be but what I had become. I was beat up like a fierce fighter, not a plain human, and I still had my tail.

But my entire circumstances in that moment, that particular moment seemed just so horridly familiar and I couldn't help but realize exactly why that was.

It was just like that dream I had!

I remembered it like it was just a moment ago; the sights of dirt and the blood, the burnt and broken buildings and thousands of dead people lying around; the sounds of screaming, of sirens, of death and destruction; the newspaper, under my foot, black with dirty footprints and stained with blood.

Right now was just like that dream that I had had of what would have happened if I had failed. The only thing that was different was the date on the newspaper: December 4th and not December 3rd.

But it couldn't be! It wasn't supposed to be this way, I had won the fight but everyone around was still dead or dying. It didn't matter a bit that I had beaten the alien, blown him to bits, the end result was still just as I had foreseen it.

I stood, like a piece of broken stone, trying to understand why I had won and yet lost so much. My family and my friends were still dead, and I was still alone and ever so confused. I stood, and didn't speak, as I heard footsteps – running footsteps – coming toward me. It was a news-crew, a man with a microphone and a woman with a camera and some sound equipment; behind them, their van, with its broadcasting antenna pointed toward the smoke-filled sky. The logo, emblazoned happily on the side, reading 'Channel 12: Your World, Your News' it was the same one that had first reported on the invasion just a couple days ago; the man holding the microphone and asking me questions that I had no answer to looked just like the reporter who had been killed, he might have even been his brother.

Only now did I realize the irony of my situation. It was just the same thing as had happened before! It was the Channel 12 news team, the man with the microphone and the desolate landscape. The only thing different this time was that instead of questioning aliens who would kill millions, they were questioning me…who had…also…killed…

This difference, did it even exist? Was I really so different? We were both aliens with powers that did not belong on this world, powers that had never been seen before and might never be seen again. Looking around, I knew half the craters were made by my own blasts, half the crushed buildings broken by my own Ki.

Half the bodies…were my fault.

I didn't have to do it this way. I could have lured the aliens off of the planet and fought out in space, as I knew I could with my transformation. It would have spared the planet, spared all these lives. Spared the children. I just wasn't thinking. I just wanted everyone in the school and the city I grew up in to see me for what I had become. I wanted everyone to know that I wasn't a freak but a savior. But I had not done that, I had to stay here where the intense battle had gotten them all killed.

"…so now that you have saved the world and possibly the universe, what is going to be your next course of action?" said the reporter.

"I-I…," I tried to speak but couldn't.

I looked up, into the camera, saw the red blinking light indicating that it was picking up my image and transmitting it to the van, which was transmitting it the station, and sending my image across the world. Possibly millions of humans were looking onto my blood-stained face right now, looking onto me as he who had freed them from certain doom at the hands of the evil aliens. I wanted to tell them that it was all going to be okay, that they could tuck their children in bed tonight and not fear for their lives like they had done before. But I couldn't speak.

What am I doing! I thought frantically. I'm NOT the savior of the Earth! I'm just…I'm just a boy…

"I-I'm sorry…," was all I could get out, and I staggered off, pushing the reporter aside and moving away.

"But you saved the world! You're the hero!" he called after me.

"Don't call me that!" I screamed, starting to cry as I broke into a run.

I'm not a hero! I didn't do anything!

I just kept on running, barely able to avoid running into a few cops standing by in case of looters, almost falling over a crater in what had once been a beautiful grassy field, almost crashing into a pair of paramedics placing a body onto a stretcher. I ran on and on, not able to stop, dodging the living and the dead, and not caring about any of it. I stopped only when I saw something that caught my eye.

Where am I? The elementary school?

What was left of it anyway, which wasn't much to say for all the crushed and scorched classrooms, and the dead children at my feet.

I bent down, crying, looking into the blank eyes of two young boys. They were the ones that had been next door to me, the ones that had run off in fear when they saw me practicing using my Ki in the backyard. I could see what had happened, through the mess and the gore, how the younger boy lay on the ground, his black hair covered in blood and how the older boy lay on top of him, his arms cradling him, and his once crystal blue eyes clouded over, both their faces marked with fear. His last act was to throw himself on his younger friend to try and shield him from the fiery death that claimed them both.

I reached down, wanting to hold them both even in their death, only managing to wipe the blood from their faces with a scrap of clothing that I tore from me. I ran my fingers through their hair, their soft, beautiful hair, and wished fervently that I could see their eyes as they are supposed to be, sparkling and full of life.

I had failed them too, and I couldn't take it any longer – not one second longer.

I stood up, screaming, filling the air with my tortured screams to add to those of the dying and those left behind all across the world I had helped destroy. I took to the air, flying as fast as I could, flying to what remained of my house, trying not to see more dead children around me as I pulled new clothes out of the wreckage, removed my burnt and bloodstained clothed and put on the new ones. The clean clothes on my dirty and bloody body didn't make sense, but little did right now, and I could not allow myself to think, only to act.

Flying up into the air I recalled what had been spoken to me in those last moments of the fight, that there was another, that I had won the battle but the last of the war was yet to come. I wasn't strong enough to spare the world so much pain, but it would be different the next time. I had to do it right the next time, and I knew somehow that I needed to be more powerful.

Much more powerful.

Feeling myself transform into super Kalltorraiya-jin, I let out all my power, screaming out into the cold reaches of space, not needing to breathe, out as far as I could and as fast as I could. I left the broken world of my birth and my semi-death behind, far behind, and set out for more training.

I would not let myself fail like that again. I would not let so many children die like that again. If there was to be another fight, another battle, another facet of my ever-changing destiny, I was going to do it right.

Millions of miles past the Earth, somewhere between the red planet Mars and even further, where I was surrounded by asteroids the size of cities, where I could see the massive gas giant Jupiter a half inch wide in the distance, with its four largest moons, as off-white dots, I found my training ground, where I would remain for years.

There was a higher level, a higher power that I had to attain, and I would never, never quit until I was there. The greatest fight was going to be soon upon me, and I had to be ready for it; I was going to ascend, or die in the attempt.

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So that's the end of part two, and it seems that there may be much more to come…and, well, it's called part three! Anyway, I just want you all to appreciate the little "gas giant Jupiter a half inch wide in the distance" thing, because it took me an hour and a half of careful calculations to determine how big Jupiter would appear to someone floating in the asteroid belt. They went something like this:

I had a picture of part of Saturn in a magazine, which, using a formula from geometry, I found was 35 cm in diameter, at a distance of, according to the caption, 13 million kilometers. I then divided it by the number of times Jupiter is larger then Saturn to determine the size Jupiter would appear from the same distance, and then converted it to inches. After that, I took the average distance of the asteroid belt to Jupiter, in miles, and took the distance of 13 million kilometers, converted then to miles, and divided them to get a factor by which I divided the number of inches Jupiter would appear at 13 million kilometers - converted to miles - to get a final answer…which was 0.52 inches…whew…

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