Chapter 2: Dragon Balls
Jeremy turned around in the darkness and saw Eleanor and Chris standing there. Almost immediately, everything returned to normal. "What was up with that?" asked Chris
"Yeah," said Eleanor. "What are you hiding from us?"
"I'll tell you, but let's go inside first," said Jeremy.
"Okay, said Eleanor. They all walked into the house and into Jeremy's room. Eleanor had never been there before; they usually didn't even go into each other's houses. The bed was in one corner, stretching diagonally towards the center of the room. There was also a bookshelf, closet, and computer desk.
Jeremy sat at the edge of his bed, Chris sat in Jeremy's chair, and Eleanor sat beside Jeremy.
"Well?" said Eleanor. "What's been going on?" Jeremy went over the entire situation, explaining how he had found the map and lamp, then made the wishes.
"Now, to the real reason we are all here. I believe there is a conspiracy going on with some sort of higher powers, which involves all of us."
Chris and Eleanor looked at him strangely. "What are you talking about?" Eleanor asked.
"Well, we all have been having strange visions lately, as if there is something that we don't know that we should. And then, there is also this thing with Buu being a genie. First of all, most people don't believe in genies, and second of all, why Buu? There is also the fact that I did not mean to make that last wish. I probably would have just accounted it for my own fault if the genie had not been Buu."
"So what are you saying?" asked Chris.
"Someone planted a magic lamp and forced me to wish my last wish. Look at what happened with the first wish: the sky merely flashed pink. With the second wish, everything went dark except for us three. Someone wanted to get rid of us."
In Jeremy's yard, the friends stood flabbergasted.
"What the hell just happened?" exclaimed Robert.
"I don't know," said Hailey, "but it sure was weird."
"I agree," said Daniel.
"What the…!" exclaimed Jared, looking at his shirt. They all turned to see Jared wearing a shirt saying 'Mr. Satan is My Hero!'
"Dude!" said Matt. "It's like we've been sucked into a different universe! The DBZ universe!"
"It does seem that way," said Hailey as she looked around. "Things look a bit different, but I can't place what."
"Wait," said Rae. "If we're in a different universe, then we don't really know anything about what's going on. I think we should pretend like what we in this universe would have acted like."
"Hmm… I don't think there'd be that much difference," said Robert. "I guess we should all act like we owe our lives to Mr. Satan, but that's about it."
"Seems good to me," said Daniel.
"Alright, then that's what we need to do. We don't know if we're in the same universe as Jeremy, Eleanor, and Chris, so let's not reveal it to them till we figure out for certain."
Everyone agreed. For once.
In the house, they heard a door open and close shut then someone thumping down the hall to Jeremy's room. The door swung open to reveal a short pudgy teen from the youth group wearing a 'Mr. Satan is my hero!' shirt. "Hiya, guys!"
"Hey, Jared," said Chris. "What's with the shirt?"
Jared looked mortified. "Chris! What are you talking about! Mr. Satan is the coolest person on this planet!"
Jeremy interrupted their conversation. "Jared, could you excuse us for a moment; we were talking about something important."
"Sure," Jared said, casting one final death glare at Chris before shutting the door.
"Now listen," Jeremy whispered. "When I made that wish, I guess we were thrown into another dimension, so Mr. Satan is everyone's hero since he has save the world so many times, or so they think." At this, they all laughed.
Jeremy opened up his door. "Alright! Let's get this party started!"
It wasn't really a party, just a friendly get-together with cake, ice cream, and Super Smash Brothers (with various other multiplayer games, of course).
"Goodbye, Ganondorf!" yelled Jeremy as he charged up one of Sheik's Smash attacks. "Heeya!" Ganondorf flew off the screen, exploding into a large puff of dust.
"Noooo!" yelled Chris as he dropped his controller in the agony of defeat.
"I'm the man!" Jeremy said as he threw Young Link off the platform.
"No!" Jared yelled as he watched his character fall into oblivion.
"Ha ha ha!" laughed Jeremy as he set his sights on Peach.
"You'll never take me alive!" yelled Eleanor as she attacked in a flurry of kicks and punches. Jeremy put up his shield and slowly watched it drain. Suddenly, it busted, leaving him vulnerable to attacks.
"What!" Jeremy yelled in horror. Eleanor grinned evilly as she charged up her frying pan.
"So long, sucka!" The frying pan slammed into Sheik's skull.
"Nooooooooooo!" Sheik exploded in a flash of light.
"Yes! I've finally defeated you three!" Eleanor grinned over her fallen enemies. From the TV came the annoying voice, saying, "Oh, did I win?"
"I think I'm gonna cry," said Jeremy.
"Look on the bright side," said Matt. "Now that you three have been defeated, you can give up your controllers and let others play." Everyone else nodded.
"Fine," Jeremy said, loathe to give up his seat, let alone his controller. With heavy steps, he walked over to the pool table where Daniel and Robert were playing. "You can play Smash Brothers now," he said, a hint of sadness in his voice.
"Prepare to meet thine destiny!" said Robert.
"We'll see about that," said Daniel. He and Robert sat on the couch in the basement. "Now, what are the controls again?" Everyone facefaulted.
"Cool," Jeremy thought as he stood back up and rubbed his throbbing head. "Now that we're in this Z dimension, we can all facefault. It might not always be a good thing, though." He looked at Chris, whose neck was a peculiar angle.
"Hey!" yelled out Daniel, a few minutes into their game. "If you pause the game and move the camera, you can look up Peach's dress!"
"How dare you look up my character's dress," Hailey said as she slapped him across the face.
Jeremy snickered. "Daniel, I thought I told you not to be so perverted."
"You did, but it's just something you can't help but notice!" Jeremy simply shook his head.
"Just keep playing," said Rae, sort of annoyed since Samus, her character, was balancing on the edge about to be knocked off by Marth, a.k.a. Robert.
After about ten minutes, the basement door opened and Jeremy's mom came down. "Food's ready!" she announced.
"Cake!" yelled out the teens as they made a mad dash for the stairs. Jeremy's mom's eyes widened as she scrambled to get out of the way. Jonathan, who had been with their mother getting the cake, was unfortunately coming down the stairs during this stampede, and was almost trampled to death.
Jeremy was the first up the stairs. He ran into the kitchen and skidded to a stop. His eyes opened wide at what he saw: his birthday cake. It had a portrait of Mr. Satan on it in his famous pose: mouth wide open, hands on hips, and cape trailing in the breeze. Then, Jeremy's dad set 18 Mr. Satan candles aflame, Afros bursting into flames and quickly disappearing. Jeremy stared at it in shock. The others quickly filed into the kitchen, smiling when they saw the cake on the bar.
"That is so cool!" yelled Jared as Eleanor and Chris rounded the corner. They glanced at the cake, wavered, and finally fell over.
Soon afterwards, everyone had had his or her fill of cake and ice cream. Jeremy had received Mr. Satan's head and had mutilated it with his fork right before he ate. For some reason, he had gotten a sort of satisfaction out of it. "Mmm," he said. "That was good."
"Well, what's next?" asked Hailey.
"Let's give Jeremy the presents!" said Jared. Eleanor and Chris' eyes grew wide as they realized that they had totally forgotten to bring presents.
"Open mine first!" yelled Jared as he shoved a 'The Official Mr. Satan Gift Wrap' wrapped package into Jeremy's face.
"Okay…" Jeremy said as he slowly ripped the gift-wrap off. It revealed a box that said 'JCPenny's' on it. Jeremy opened it up to reveal a shirt. He held up the shirt and looked at it, then at Jared, then back at the shirt.
"Jared, it's the same one that you have on."
"Yep," said Jared, proudly.
"Aw, mine's better than that!" said Daniel. He gave Jeremy a crudely wrapped package. Jeremy tore it open to reveal the 'Fight Between Mr. Satan and Cell' tape.
"Is that the best you could do?" asked Matt. His present turned out to be a Mr. Satan doll that when you pulled a string on its back it said, 'I'm the man!' and various other phrases.
Hailey gave Jeremy a Mr. Satan plushy. "Sorry, I didn't have time to wrap it," she said.
"That's okay," he replied, smiling. He actually liked this present; he could throw it against walls when angry.
Rae gave him a Mr. Satan wristwatch. It was okay with Jeremy because he always seemed to lose his watches.
Robert gave him throwing knives. "For self-defense of course," he smirked.
Finally, his brother gave him a novel called The Many Adventures of Mr. Satan. "Well," Jeremy thought, "Once I've seen how horrible it is, I can use it to light fires!"
Later, after more cake, ice cream, and a couple movies, Jeremy noticed that it was 10:30. "Hey, what times are your parents going to pick you guys up?"
"My parents are picking me up at 1:00 tomorrow!" said Jared. Most of the others nodded in agreement. Jeremy's eyes widened slightly.
"What!" he thought. "My parents have never let girls spend the night here! Things really have changed."
"Um… well, it is kinda late, so I guess we all need to go to sleep. You girls can sleep in my room and we boys will sleep here in the living room.
"Ok," said Hailey. Jeremy walked over to Chris, who Jared was telling all the reasons why Mr. Satan was the coolest person ever.
"Hey, you two might want to get your stuff out of my room before the girls move in," he told the two. They all went back to Jeremy's room, the boys getting their stuff and the girls settling in.
Soon, everyone was settled in. Rae and Hailey had given Eleanor Jeremy's bed, a sort of subtle joking on their part. They were already asleep, Eleanor getting close to it. Jared and Daniel were asleep on the sofas, Matt was nodding off on the recliner, Robert was curled up on a couple of beanbags, Chris was snoring in a corner, and Jeremy was relaxing in an area between the couch.
After about 15 minutes of tossing and turning, Jeremy finally gave up. He sat up and thought about going for a short jog around his yard to tire him out and cool him off.
He stood up and opened the door, closing it softly behind him. The night air was cool, and there was plenty of light because of the full moon. He jumped off the porch and started jogging around his three-acre yard, humming to himself as he went along. He decided to step it up a bit and see how fast he could go. He was soon going much faster than he ever suspected he could go. He slowed to a stop and paused for breath in front of his house. "Hmmm…" he thought. He then tried jumping. He crouched down and sprung back up, going a good five feet off the ground. "Whoa, that was interesting," he thought as he landed. "I wonder why I'm changing?" He shrugged and turned to continue his jog, but some movement at one of the windows caught his attention. He stared for a couple of minutes, then continued jogging.
As he approached the end of his jog, he felt extremely fatigued and dropped on the ground to rest. He closed his eyes and almost fell asleep, but heard some soft footsteps coming towards him. Instinctively, he jerked up. He saw Eleanor coming towards him.
"Oh," she said to him. "I didn't mean to startle you."
"Nah, it's okay," he said as he propped himself up with his elbows. She sat down about half a foot away from him and looked up at the stars.
"I hope they always preserve the country; it's so peaceful," she said.
""Yeah," he said as he looked lazily at the stars, too. He then looked back at her and sat up. "Eleanor…" he trailed off as he stared at her.
"Huh?" she asked, looking back at him.
"I… I know that something is going to happen soon. I'm not sure what or when, but it's going to change our lives, and I think that we need to be together when it happens." At this, Eleanor cocked her head forward and to the side a little, giving him a 'what are you suggesting' type of look. "No, I don't mean romantically together, I mean… well…"
Eleanor laughed. "I understand what you mean. I have that same feeling."
"I think that everything is balancing on one event that is soon to happen, and that it will at the very least change our view of things. But what I want to ask you is, well, will we stick together, no matter what happens?"
Eleanor smiled. "Don't worry, I will be with you know matter what happens ahead of us."
"Thanks. Well, I guess we need to go back inside before someone wakes up and realizes that we're gone."
They turned to each other as they were getting up and locked eyes. Then, something seemed to pass between them and the moon; everything was much darker. Jeremy turned to look at Eleanor, but she was gone. He blinked slowly, and, while his eyes were closed, he started to feel different. He opened his eyes and revealed himself floating inside a green liquid of some sort. He saw that he was attached to a machine of some sort. He reached out into the liquid and felt a wall of glass. For some odd reason, it cracked and broke at his touch. He fell out of the tank and onto a cold stone floor. He then realized that he was much younger, and nude. Around him were hundreds of other tanks with something floating in green liquid. He looked at the one next to him; someone was floating inside of it, someone familiar. He reached out to touch it, and the glass shattered, along with the rest of the room. He was in a void. After what seemed like minutes, he slowly fell asleep.
Chris was floating in a void, all alone. He looked around himself and saw nothing. "No, wait a second," he thought. "There is something there." He squinted and tried to make it out. Dim forms were all he could see, but they were slowly becoming solid. Arms. Legs. Clothing. Chris was confused. Before him stood three people, all cloaked and hooded. They all seemed very familiar, but he had never seen them before. "Who are you?" he asked.
The one in the middle shifted a little bit. "We are your past." Then, they faded back into the void.
"Wait!" Chris yelled out, running to where they had been. "Where are you?" He then heard the laughter behind him. He turned to see the raven-haired lady. "You!? Who are you?"
She threw back her head and laughed again. "You don't remember me, do you? 'Tis to be expected. Well, you shall know soon enough." She laughed again and faded out.
"Come back here, you bitch!" Chris screamed out. But all was silent.
Jeremy felt a weight of some sort across his chest. He slowly opened his eyes, seeing that it was still nighttime. Eleanor seemed to have collapsed across Jeremy's chest. He wondered what had happened, what time it was, if anyone had seen them, and whether or not he should wake Eleanor up. Since he was slowly suffocating, he decided to wake her up.
He nudged her. "Hey, Eleanor," he rasped. Her eyes slowly fluttered open, and then went wide when she saw her position. "Could you please get off me?" Jeremy wheezed.
She jerked up and said, "I'm sorry. Are you alright?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," Jeremy replied after catching his breath.
"C'mon," he said. "Let's go back in before anyone misses us."
A short while later, Eleanor drifted off to sleep in the bed. At that moment, something underneath the bed let out a dim glow.
Jeremy awoke at around 7:00. He wasn't very tired, but still a little sleepy, so he went outside to do a few exercises to waken up. He stretched a little bit and did a few jumping jacks, then threw a few punches and a couple of kicks to loosen up his joints. He then walked back inside the house and found his mom up and drinking a cup of coffee. "Good morning," she said in a cheerfully.
"How late did y'all stay up last night?" she asked. "Your friends are still like rocks!"
Jeremy smiled evilly. "Not for long!"
Chris awoke to Jeremy saying, "No, Chris! I'm not Mr. Giggles! Let go of me!" Chris' eyes widened and he let go of Jeremy's head, which he had clasped in his sleep.
"Good morning to you, too, Jeremy," he mumbled. He looked around at the other boys. Daniel and Jared had been rolled out of their sofas, and Robert had had the beanbags pulled out from under him and seemed to be pondering whether or not to pull his throwing knives out on Jeremy.
"Now it's Jon's turn!" Jeremy laughed as he ran down the hall. Chris stood up and stretched.
"I hope no one else heard me say anything about Mr. Giggles," he thought. "No one should have ever known about him!" He looked at the others, who seemed to have been busy complaining at the time of his awakening. Hoping no one had heard him, he walked over to Jeremy's mom. "What's for breakfast?" he asked.
"Whatever you want, she replied, holding out a small bucket of hoipoi-capsules.
"Capsules!" he thought as he reached into the bucket and pulled one out. He examined it and read the tiny print. 'Waffles' it simply read. He decompressed the top and tossed it on the table. There was a small explosion and, after the smoke cleared, there was a warm plate of waffles topped off with a huge slab of butter, which was starting to melt. Beside it was a small container syrup, a cup of milk, and a cup of orange juice. Mrs. Kush brought him a fork and he started to dig in.
Soon afterwards, after everyone had eaten in likewise fashion, Chris stood up from the table and walked to a window, staring outside, thinking. After a few minutes of this, he came to a conclusion and went back to the table.
"Hey, Chris," said Jared. "What'cha thinking about?"
Chris smirked. "I was thinking about how badly I was going to defeat all of you today in Melee!"
"Oh, yeah?" said Eleanor. "Need I remind you of your agonizing defeat yesterday?"
"If Jeremy hadn't of decided to go against us first, you would have been history, not to mention you only got lucky while fighting him! Right Jeremy?"
Jeremy was snapped back to reality by his name. "What? Oh, sure; whatever you say, Chris."
"You know," said Hailey, "I get really depressed when everyone is in a thoughtful mood and won't talk to me!"
"Fine!" said Matt. "I challenge all of you to a tournament!"
Everyone stood up at the same time and said, "BRING IT ON!"
They spent the rest of the morning playing SSB and various other multiplayer games. After about 12:00, though, the parents started coming to pick up their children. Only Eleanor, Jeremy, and Chris were left. They were in Jeremy's room.
"Well, now that we're alone, let's put our heads together and try to figure out this mess that we're in," said Jeremy.
"Well," said Chris, "Let's look at our first clue, the map. You do still have the map, right?"
"Sure, I do," Jeremy said. He pointed at a piece of paper on his desk. "That's it right there." Chris picked it up and looked at it.
"Jeremy," he said, "I don't think this is the map."
"Huh?" said Jeremy as he walked over to where Chris was standing. He looked at the paper. "Oh my!"
Eleanor started walking over to where they were standing. "What are you two looking at?"
Jeremy tried to grab the picture from Chris. "Nothing! Nothing at all! Give it to me Chris!"
Chris smirked as he gave it to Eleanor. "No, I think she should see it."
Eleanor looked at the picture. "I remember this," she whispered. "I… this was in my vision last night, sort of."
All three were looking at it by now. The picture was of a cold, sterile room filled with rows upon rows of some sort of containers filled with a green liquid. Two were broken and two figures were huddled on the ground, covered with the green ooze.
"Well, this is very interesting, but it might help if I understood what you two are talking about," said Chris. Eleanor told him what happened the night before as Jeremy searched his desk to see if there was anything else of that sort on it. All he found was the map.
"Here it is," he said as Eleanor finished up. He handed the map to Chris, who opened it up and looked at it along with Eleanor. A grave look came across his face. "Jeremy do you have a magnifying glass?"
"Sure, he said as he handed it to Chris. Chris tried focusing on a corner, but then gave up.
"I need more light," he said. "Let's go on outside."
As they got outside, Chris again looked at the map. "Aha!" he cried out as he pointed at the corner he had been looking at. "Look at this!" Jeremy and Eleanor both looked through the magnifying glass. Jeremy saw a few strange markings.
"What is that?" he asked. "It's no language I've ever seen."
"I don't know," said Chris. "It seems very familiar to me, but I can't tell."
While the two had been talking, Eleanor had been studying the map. She adjusted the glass to try to get a better picture. As she was looking, it suddenly burst into flames. "AAAHHH!" she screamed as she dropped the flaming map. By the time they had put the fire out, all that was left was ashes.
"I'm really sorry guys. I didn't mean to catch it on fire."
"I know. Anyway, it's really Chris' fault."
"WHAT!" Chris yelled out.
"Yeah. I mean, everyone knows that magnifying glasses, paper and sunlight don't mix very well."
Chris simply shook his head and they went back inside.
As Jeremy walked into his room, he noticed a glow underneath his bed. He looked at it curiously as he walked over to his bed and looked underneath. His eyes widened.
"Jeremy," said Eleanor, "is something wrong?"
Jeremy didn't reply, he simply reached underneath his bed and pulled out an orange ball with a red star imbedded in its core; it was one of the magical dragonballs. Then, Jeremy pulled out the other six.
"I believe I now know why this has happened," he said. "I, or he, was about to discover the very thing we want to, so someone had us switch places. He was going to wish for knowledge of who he was."
"Which is what we are going to do right now!" said Chris.
Eleanor said, "These are Dende's dragonballs, which means only two wishes. I've got a great idea! Let's give the other one to Jeremy since we didn't get him a birthday present!"
Chris shrugged. "I don't care."
The trio walked outside and laid all seven of the balls down on the ground. The balls started blinking in unison. "Arise! Eternal Dragon!" Jeremy cried out. Thunder rolled in the distance, lightning lit up the darkening sky as pitch black clouds quickly covered the entire sky. The dragonballs started glowing brighter and brighter until they could no longer be seen. Jeremy backed away as lightning struck the balls and shot back into the sky. It twisted and turned, slowed down then lunged forward, looped-d-looped across the sky. Jeremy's skin started tingling as it always did when he started getting excited. The lightning slowly faded, leaving the Eternal Dragon, Shenlong, staring down at them.
"Who has awakened me from my slumber?" rumbled out of the Dragon's enormous maw.
"We did," Jeremy, timidly stepping forward.
"What is it that you wish?"
"Do you two mind if I go ahead and make my wish first?" Jeremy asked as he turned around to look at the other two.
Chris and Eleanor were still staring at the immense Dragon looming in the sky. Chris offered no response. Eleanor simply nodded her head.
"Dragon! My first wish is… I wish to be able to control my chi!"
"So be it!" said the Dragon as its eyes widened and glowed red. An aura surrounded Jeremy and he felt a warm sensation deep inside his spirit. The aura died away, but something did not feel right.
"Dragon, I do not feel any stronger."
"Your wish was to control your chi. You now have free access to it, but you must train in order for it to grow."
"Oh," he said. Chris then stepped forward.
"Dragon! Our second wish is…"
Suddenly, Jonathan jumped out from behind a tree and ran up to the balls. "A fully loaded, red Viper GTS! The Dragon's eyes glowed red.
"Your wish has been granted. I now bid you farewell." The entire Dragon then started glowing brightly and disappeared. The dragonballs flew high into the sky, then shot off in different directions, where they would turn to stone for, unusable for 365 days.
Jonathan stared at the Viper sitting in front of him; his dream car, finally his! Unfortunately, though, Chris, Eleanor, and Jeremy were not exactly pleased that their last wish had been stolen from them. Chris glared at Jon for a moment, then screamed like a banshee and ran at him.
"AAAAHHHH!" Jonathan screamed as Chris jumped on his back and started pulling his hair. Jeremy sighed and walked over to the two, separating them.
"Jonathan, do yourself, and us, a favor; leave for a little while before we kill you." Jonathan simply nodded, dashed to the car, and sped off to the road.
"I always thought your brother was annoying," growled Chris, still clutching fistfuls of Jon's hair.
"Let's go back inside," said Eleanor. "We just need to cool off. Besides, we can always wait a year or go to Namek and use theirs."
As they walked back inside, Jeremy's mother and father stopped them. "Hey, what happened out there?" asked his dad.
"Uh, I guess a sudden storm must have blown up or something," Chris lied.
"Oh, well, okay. But Jeremy, your mother and I know that you've been vigorously studying Japanese, so your mother and I got you a little graduation." They handed him three airplane tickets. "Three round-trip tickets to Satan City. It's only for a day, though. We also have tickets for us and your brother, but those other two are to give to whomever you want to give them to." They then left the three teens dumbfounded.
"Jeremy, I find it hard to believe that your parents are rich enough to afford this trip," said Eleanor.
"Chris, go ask my dad where he works."
"Okay," said Chris as he walked down the hall.
Jeremy held out one of the tickets to Eleanor. "This is the time I was talking about," he said, looking into her eyes. She smiled and took the ticket from him.
Chris came back, a look of astonishment on his face. "Jeremy, I have a lot more respect for your dad. He is President of the American Branch of Capsule Corp."
Jeremy's eyes widened. He walked back to his room and looked in his closet. He noticed that he was wearing the only set of clothing without the Capsule Corp. logo on it.
"This… is… so… cool!" he exclaimed as he rummaged through his Trunks-like wardrobe.
"Well, let's just get ready to enjoy the trip to Satan City," said Eleanor. "I mean, we can always pay a visit to Capsule Corp. Bulma might have a good idea of what's going on."
"Vegeta!" yelled out Chris, realizing he could finally meet the Prince of all Saiya-jins.
Jeremy smiled evilly. "I wonder if Jared would like to go?"
"You wouldn't!" exclaimed Chris. Jeremy simply laughed.
"Okay, Chris; you can come." He handed him a ticket.
"Yippee!" yelled out Chris. Eleanor wondered if Bulma or ChiChi would want to go shopping with her.