A cascade of loud shouts and grunts spread from a flat hill across a small village. A young lady with long, black hair and a sports attire comprised of white shorts and a red tracksuit with a logo of number "8" on both her arms moved around a titanic man with arms that looked like they could crush boulders without much supernatural assistance of his inner power and donning a frightening helmet of gold and bull's horns sticking out from the side. The stalwart titan withstood the relentless flurry of the swift assailant and thrust his palm onward, hitting the poor teen right in the chest and sending her flying.
"Oh, sorry, Chi-Chi! Hope I didn't hit you too hard!" the monstrous man lost his cool and loomed over the fallen girl, extending his arms to assist her in getting up.
"Stop hand-holding me, dad!" the young lady threw her hands around and slapped the help away as a result. "Jeez, I don't understand how you know exactly where I'm going to be!"
"That's because I don't track the battle with just my eyes, I perceive it by sensing what's inside, your Ki. There's no need to push it, you're making excellent progress! You're much stronger and faster than your old man was at your age!" the Ox-King laughed out, looking chipper and smacked his belly. "Honestly, I don't even know why you're training so hard anymore – Demon King Piccolo is gone, no more bandits are attacking our village. The world's finishing up with the repairs already, soon nobody will remember it had all gone to hell for a day…"
"It won't do!" Chi-Chi threw her hands down and exclaimed at her father. "I need to become strong so that Son Goku would fulfill his promise already. At this pace, it's like he doesn't even remember I'm alive, or something. I won't be young and energetic wife material forever, you know."
"You know, now I kind of regret suggesting that the only thing that boy recognizes is strength…" the Ox-King scratched his cheek. He looked up at the sky as if asking someone he loved dearly who has since passed away for assistance in this matter. His daughter seemed to have inherited her mother's beauty and grace but her father's temper. "Oh, look, Chi-Chi, a shooting star!"
"Hmm? Beautiful! Quick, shooting star, I want to be…"
"No, you can't say it out loud, Chi-Chi!" the Ox-King warned his daughter. "Or else you may become as strong as a dozen of Demon King Piccolos, Son Goku won't ever even look your way. Wishes made to shooting stars are fickle things!"
The young lady closed her eyes, grit her teeth and concentrated on her heart's deepest desire almost as if she was trying to force a turd out. The Ox-King observed the falling orb of fire with a bit more worry, focusing more on the falling star itself and not on what it might have granted him. The giant observed the falling star a bit longer until at least he was certain of his worst fears.
"Chi-Chi! Get away from that, it's coming right toward us!" the Ox-King pointed at the falling object and the two started bolting from the location of the star's crash. Luckily for the pair, it was no star at all, just a mere spaceship crash-landing near their peaceful training spot and forcing a pulse of quakes across the nearby village. Living down the hillside to the Ox-King made the villagers used to occasional natural disasters though so while a few of them did leave their homes and observe the distant fire and felt the settling rumblings of the disturbed ground, most of them just braced through the initial impact and went along with their day.
"That's no falling star at all…" Chi-Chi pointed at the object that made both the father and daughter to fall down from the force of impact despite being at least 250 m. away from the impact zone. "What is this?"
"A spaceship?" the Ox-King scratched his head. "What's that doing here? Doesn't look like one of Bulma's or Roshi's."
"Damn! Landed in a whole wrong place! Can't count for shit when I'm mad!" a loud grunt made both Earthlings turn for a curious sight that stood atop of Ox-King's mansion and stared off into the distance. Wondering where she was and staring at the horizons of the Diablo Desert far off in the distance was a girl of messy, black hair and cool, half-shut eyes. Matching the typical description of an alien, she wore a fitting black bodysuit underneath white, bone-texture armor.
"She's got a tail, just like Goku!" Chi-Chi pointed out while one of her hand smacked herself on the cheek in disbelief.
"Goku!? That's Kakarot's Earth name!" Chayote looked back and down, noticing the colossal man and his teen daughter staring right back at her. In a blitz, the Saiyan moved down from her improvised observation platform down to where she could talk with the pair, she didn't have much time.
"Where am I!? I need to get to Kami's Temple, quick!" Chayote pointed at her spaceship. The Earthlings seemed to baffled to understand a word she was saying so Chayote just ran up to the wreckage and burrowed in it for a couple of moments before pulling out a torn up sash holding more than a handful of treasures inside, treasures that gleamed with an orange light through the holes in the cloth. "I need to get these to Kami's Temple soon, or else the whole Earth is gonna blow up!"
The young lady seemed to be the first to understand the gravity of the situation, she gasped and covered up her mouth before turning to her father in horror. The much larger man seemed completely paralyzed in the gravity of the situation.
"Dad! The Earth can't blow up yet, I won't be able to get married if the Earth blows up!" the young lady shook and pulled her old man before getting sick of it and slapping him across the face a couple of times. Chayote's glare sharpened when she sensed some neat wallop being packed in the seemingly puny arms of this girl.
"Y-Yes… This is… Well… This is the Ox Village by the Frypan Mountain, you said you need to get to the Kami's Temple… I'm not sure I'm familiar with that location…" the Ox-King scratched his chin. "Do you maybe have any more details to go with that?"
"It's in the Sacred Land of Korin, to the north of the Fortuneteller Baba's palace and far north-west from Muten Roshi's island!" Chayote jumbled her way through words, for how long has she been gone, exactly? With her having replaced her ship with one that wasn't designed to keep a solid grasp over time, she couldn't have been sure. Her heart calmed down a solid couple of paces just after seeing the Earth still floating where it was supposed to be.
"Oh… You know Muten Roshi!?" the Ox-King's face beamed with an energetic smile, "That's amazing, how is that old man!? I was one of his pupils, you see!"
"Dad!" the teenager shook the lumbering giant.
"Oh, right, the Sacred Land of Korin is to the north-west from here, I'd say you're at about a halfway point from Muten Roshi's island and the Sacred Land of Korin." The Ox-King pointed at the approximate direction.
"I see, thanks!" Chayote nodded and turned to the far-off location. She was alarmed when she couldn't sense any familiar Ki signatures so the help from this giant might have been just what she needed to save the Earth.
"Wait!" the giant's daughter yelled out, making Chayote turn back and begin jogging in place. Time was one luxury she didn't have right now so any time spent here talking threatened to swallow the entire Earth up in flames at any moment. "You're going to see Goku, aren't you? I know these orange orbs and wherever they are, Goku's always not too far away."
"Yeah, I might bump into Kakarot, I suppose." Chayote shrugged. "I really need to hurry up though so if you wanna come, jump on my back and we're off. I warn you, I'm not gonna hold back so I won't be to blame if you fall off! I'm in a hurry to save the world here."
"Okay!" Chi-Chi nodded with an enthusiastic dip of her chin and jumped onto Chayote's back. It looked way weird given how Chayote was just half of a head taller than the teen girl but, with a powerful burst of Ki, Chayote blasted off toward the location where the Sacred Land of Korin was.
"How do you guys know Kakarot anyways?" Chayote asked while Chi-Chi struggled to keep her arms locked around Chayote's neck. Had the two been anywhere near in terms of power, the Earthling would have posed a serious threat of outright choking the Saiyan out but now her grip didn't seem all that much stronger than that of a tie.
"My name's Chi-Chi and that was my father, the Ox-King, we've one met Son Goku when we were both children and he was looking for the Dragon Balls. He ended up helping us with the Frypan Mountain situation." Chi-Chi shouted out from the intense air pressure slamming right into her face. Chayote wasn't exactly subtle with her flying methods but the brat knew what she was getting into. "I don't understand… Why are you calling Son Goku that?"
"Oh, that's his Saiyan name, his real name. Son Goku is the name that his Earthling grandfather gave him. Given how I'm a Saiyan just like Kakarot, I'd rather call him by his real name." Chayote explained.
"Saiyan?" Chi-Chi wondered.
"He's an alien, I'm an alien too. Demon King Piccolo is the evil of another alien personified." Chayote broke it down in layman's terms.
"Wow! That might pose some problems…" Chi-Chi cried out.
"Huh? Why's that? Are you racist, or something?" Chayote turned her head back.
"No, it's just… How will we have kids when he's an alien!?" Chi-Chi seemed to be getting quite upset at this news, just an inch away from a full-on tantrum.
"Wait… Kids?" Chayote wondered. "You intend on mating with Kakarot?"
"D-Don't say it so bluntly!" Chi-Chi yelled out making Chayote have to loop around to maintain her course and flight stability, this girl was way weird and Chayote was an alien who had some of the roughest adaptation period anybody could expect someone to have. Even by Earthling standards, Chayote was sure this brat was way off. "Yes, Son Goku promised to marry me, we're going to get married when he comes back for me and then, if it works out, we will have children together and have a happy family!"
"Your temperature is rising, are you sure you're not having a fever or something?" Chayote wondered while looking back at the hot-red passenger she was carrying on her back.
"Umm… Say… You're like… Son Goku too, right? What is your… Relationship with him exactly?" Chi-Chi wondered with a mutter so quiet and drowned out by the howling wind and the rustling of passing-by mountains and occasional buildings or trees that Chayote had to reform the sentence halfway in her mind to translate it to something she could understand.
"Oh, I guess we're cohorts of sorts. I'm not gonna mate with him, that's for sure so you can have him all to yourself…" Chayote laughed out. "I'm holding Kakarot up to train with me so that we could get real strong alongside one another. I don't care about anything else but getting strong."
"Oh…" Chi-Chi hummed out. Chayote felt really glad that this girl wasn't aware of Chayote's earlier intentions about rejoining the Frieza Army. She'd have no doubt inquired all about that and having met Frieza Army in space and shut that path down so definitively, Chayote no longer felt certain about that part of her intentions. The odd part was that her Ki control has been on point ever since she made that decision. "Aren't you planning on getting married? You're older than me, what if you never get married at all?"
"Huh? I don't think I quite understand this whole "marriage" thing you Earthlings talk about. Saiyans just sort of take what they want, you know, we don't plan those sorts of things ahead too much, everything's kind of a spur of the moment thing, you know. It's not for me to initiate that sort of thing. You're weird, you've got weird things in your head, I'd rather talk about fighting, honestly." Chayote shook mid-flight. She was unfamiliar with this discomfort. It must have been something of Earthlings that had rubbed off on her. Like a virus, almost…
"R-Right… I think that a husband should be the one to propose too but… Son Goku… He promised to marry me and he hasn't come back in years. I'm… I'm afraid he forgot about me. That's why I asked you to bring me to him, I want to remind him of that promise he made." Chi-Chi yelled out.
"Hmm… You're a real weirdo for sure. If you want to do that marrying thing with Kakarot, why are you waiting for him to do it? Just punch him in the face and marry him all over the Kami's Temple… Maybe not on Kami's Temple though, Upa and Mr. Popo are gonna be really mad at me if they find out. Still, show some initiative. That's how Saiyans do things, even if Kakarot hit his head as a kid, I'm sure he'll understand such a thing." Chayote gave the best advice she could give.
"Ah, that tower, it's huge!" Chi-Chi gasped.
"Yeah, that's where we're headed, come on, now! Just a few more seconds, don't blow up for just a few more seconds!" Chayote chanted to herself like a mantra while she kicked her flying speed up to as much as she could. Flying speed wasn't all about one's power, it had just as much to do with the mastery over the flying technique as well so the drastic increase in power and speed in combat that Chayote had undergone in space didn't translate all that well in flying speed.
"Chayote!" Upa's familiar shriek met Chayote's ears when she landed down onto the Kami's Temple and placed the torn up sash with the Ultimate Dragon Balls down on the ground, letting the orbs roll around freely within arm's reach of one another.
"You did it!" Mr. Popo smiled. "And with thirteen whole days to spare!"
"Huh? I had thirteen more days? That… Sort of kills the tension…" Chayote squinted in disappointment. "What's going on anyway? I couldn't sense anyone's Ki, where is everybody?"
"Oh, you need to catch-up, I guess…" Upa smiled at Chayote and dragged her hand before Mr. Popo pointed at Chi-Chi and turned to Chayote with a bland face.
"Who's this?" he asked.
"Oh, that's Chi-Chi, she helped show me the way here. She wants to see Kakarot, she says she's gonna marry him, or something." Chayote rubbed the back of her head, trying to explain things to others that she herself could sparsely understand.
"M-Marry, Son Goku!?" Upa's jaw dropped.
"Y-Yes! Son Goku promised to marry me almost ten years ago already." Chi-Chi pointed out. "I'm not sure what this place is but I would like to see Son Goku and remind him of the promise he made."
"I kinda said that she shouldn't bother and that she should just show initiative if she wanted to mate with Kakarot but she doesn't get it…" Chayote leaned up to Upa and whispered to his ear. With a rampant blush on his face, the native young man stumbled back and clenched his fists.
"This is the Kami's Temple, a holy place from which countless guardians have overseen the order and protection of Earth, Chayote!" Upa seemed to object about as much as the Saiyan thought him to object.
"Son Goku and the others are training deeper within the temple, that's why you couldn't sense them from down there." Mr. Popo pointed out. Of all the people to object with Chayote bringing Chi-Chi here, the Saiyan had counted on Mr. Popo objecting the most but the genie just seemed more interested in bringing the Ultimate Dragon Balls away for safekeeping, he seemed to completely ignore Chi-Chi which was unlike Mr. Popo.
Didn't he kick Chayote off because he thought she didn't belong here?
"Well, we'll deal with that when it comes to it." Upa smacked his forehead and shook his head. "Young lady, please come with me, I'll show you two to where the others are training."
"The others?" Chayote wondered.
"That's right. When you flew off, Son Goku and Krillin collected the Dragon Balls and brought everybody killed by Demon King Piccolo and his demons back to life. The Dragon Balls will probably turn active again in a month or two. Then everybody had agreed to train here, on Kami's Temple to become as strong as they could so that they could prepare for such a day when Piccolo Jr. makes his way out of the Room of Spirit and Time." Upa pointed out and led the two young women to a dark room with rough, golden outlines of clocks hanging all over the shrouded, black oblivion. With a bright blink, Son Goku, Krillin, Tenshinhan, Chiaotzu, and Yamcha all returned to the center of the room, confused as to why they've been pulled back from their training.
Judging from their damaged clothes and bruises all over them, they've been hitting the gym pretty hard these last thirteen days short of a year.
"Huh? Why are we back?" Goku looked around before his face turning grim and serious. "That Ki, amazing!"
It took the confused bunch a fair bit of time before they turned to Chayote and realized that she was standing right in front of them alongside Upa.
"Chayote!" everybody yelled out in unison and rushed to the returned space cowgirl.
"We were starting to get worried, you know, this whole last month was getting really tense…" Yamcha laughed out while everybody took their turns raising their fists up for a bump.
"As you can see, while you were away working with the Dragon Balls, we've been training really hard, so don't be surprised if you get a bit outmatched by us. I'm sure you'll be able to keep up with us, eventually, if you work hard…" Krillin shrugged, teasing the Saiyan.
"Hmph… You've become quite the comedian…" Chayote smirked.
Krillin's face turned pale when he tried sensing Chayote's Ki instead of making rough estimates with his reasoning. He must not have expected the Saiyan falling just an inch short to dying under multiple occasions while out in space as well as spending most of her free time doing image training.
"I've got to admit, I lucked out that a scary space tyrant had found three Dragon Balls and I ended up swiping them away from him. I might not have made it in time otherwise…" Chayote sighed. Recalling that nightmarish encounter now it seemed like a stroke of good luck for her, there was no way she'd have been able to gather two more Dragon Balls and return home in just thirteen days. Although, back then, it seemed like anything but good luck…
"Say, who's this cutie?" Krillin pointed his thumb at Chi-Chi while examining her, trying to recall if they had ever met because it wouldn't have made sense for a complete stranger to be so deep inside Kami's Temple. "She's pretty strong but I don't remember ever meeting her…" he summarized his examination.
"I am Chi-Chi, I've come to marry Son Goku…" Chi-Chi replied with a shy expression, embarrassed by Krillin's rather bold examination of her face and features.
"M-Marry!?" everybody leaned back in shock.
"Awesome!" Goku pumped his fist into the air. "I could use some food right about now!"