"I don't honestly see why you guys even need this…" Goku scratched his head as he took it to the air, evading a barrage of plasma bolts fired from futuristic tanks of an alien world. Planet Fasbel was an iron planetoid that its inhabitants coated with grey gravel and cement and built meaningless blocks of indistinguishable spiky buildings.
It was tough to see just what kind of people the Fasbellians were as the entire species, dressed in long leather coats and wore bodysuits with filtering masks. Even if their weaponry and intense military technology didn't really seem like it could hurt Goku, the recovered Saiyan did his best to avoid getting rocked too hard so that his spacesuit didn't take the beating for him and force Goku to breathe in the air that the locals considered so toxic.
"You don't even know what this is," Goku showed the Ultimate Dragon Ball to the armies accumulating down below as he tried luring them as far away from their bigger cities so that he could then blast off in one big shot toward the ship.
A handful of mechanical tanks merged together, colliding and connecting into a technological marvel of destruction and military might as it launched a red energy orb from a tube crackling with pink electricity. The energy ball was rather slow, but Goku felt its weight affecting his movements and actually drawing him closer to it.
"Sheesh, it's like you guys don't care about your own planet at all!" Goku grunted as the gravitational field around the energy ball began weighing against his ability to fly freely. One by one, a merciless fusillade of energy blasts began finding its way toward the Saiyan, who braced for impact. "I bet you guys ruined your planet's air all by yourself. We've searched your planet high and low and we couldn't find one tree in the entire thing. It's all one big city. One big barrack."
Feeling incapable of escaping this heat without cutting loose, Goku lit up with a golden aura, his hair spiked up with bright white light before settling for a golden gleam, and his black eyes turned turquoise. The Saiyan punted the super-powered fusion energy ball off Planet Fasbel and vanished in a golden flash, appearing in the midst of the warmongering Fasbellians.
While the Super Saiyan wore a calm and collected face at first, his wrath exploded suddenly as Goku extended his hands to the sides and lowered his center of gravity. A rampant golden orb of energy formed around him as if Son Goku's shout had resonated and became physical, wiping the brunt of the Fasbellian military away. The exploding shock wave sent the soldiers slamming through buildings and their super heavyweight tanks flying like a hurricane swatted cardboard about.
"I didn't really wanna cut loose like that on you guys, but you will destroy your own planet just to get your hands on this thing, even though you've no idea what it is. I think that makes you guys too reckless to ever be allowed to use the Dragon Balls," Super Saiyan Goku looked down at the Ultimate Dragon Ball in his hand.
"B-But… It has a black star on it…" a single Fasbellian crawled through the wreckage toward his plasma rifle. The soldier's leathery bodysuit and overcoat had been torn up, revealing violet skin with cartilage armor plating underneath all those military uniforms. "It is the symbol of our great military power!"
Confused, Goku looked up at the tank that laid on its back to his side and saw a black star shining on its side. He could see similar decorations on the futuristic rifles that the Fasbellians used as well. The Super Saiyan gritted his teeth, pocketing the Ultimate Dragon Ball. He hadn't noticed that since all the Fasbellian military uniforms were all black. The only feature on their uniforms standing out was a round, white circle with a black star on it they carried on the side of their upper arms just below the shoulder.
"You would level this whole city just for that!?" Goku shouted out, swiping his hand aside and forming a weak wall of air in a soft Kiai blast that sent the beaten soldier willing to fight on until his final hour just for a meaningless symbol of a black star crashing into the wall of a wobbling building and through a glass panel.
Before the Fasbellians could recuperate and send their reinforcements after him, Goku took off in a golden dash toward where Chi-Chi watched over the ship. He canceled out his Super Saiyan glow, wondering if it had some sort of draining effect on him. Chi-Chi had been dealing with her own troubles lately as an entire body pile of unconscious Fasbellians and a wreckage of aerial military vessels, mechanical suits, and tanks laid sparking and smoking by the warehouse that the husband and wife had hidden their ship to avoid being noticed.
"Such potty-mouths, these Fasbellians!" Chi-Chi clenched her fist and waggled her finger over a writhing and battered soldier that still shouted out offensive remarks though Chi-Chi had punted his mask one too many times for anything vocal to come out of it. "Have you no respect for your mothers and wives? It's as if you don't know any values at all…" the martial artist crossed her arms and ran up to her descending husband, jumping into his embrace before Goku had to pull her off of him and show Chi-Chi the Ultimate Dragon Ball.
"I've found the Ultimate Dragon Ball. I tried making a deal work with these guys but they seemed really rude and just wanted to kill me for no reason at all…" Goku scratched his head as the two made their way into the spacecraft and took off their spacesuits, preparing for takeoff.
"I'm glad that you're all better, Goku-sa!" Chi-Chi cheered for her husband.
"Yeah, I even tested out becoming a Super Saiyan for a little bit, just to see if my chest won't hurt. Whatever the Divine Dragon did for the Heart Virus–it's all gone. I'm back to full power, though I could use some training to get back to shape," Goku patted his hands before striking a pose of excitement for a return to form and a more extreme training schedule.
"A Super Saiyan? My, my… Soon I won't be able to be any good as your training partner!" Chi-Chi smiled even though her joy carried a spice of bittersweetness to it.
"Huh? That's nonsense!" Goku waved it off before walking straight to the fridge and collapsing in his chair. "Anyway, now that I'm back to full strength, I think I can take care of everything. Thanks for watching over me and covering for me out there!"
"Goku-sa!" Chi-Chi yelled out, grabbing Goku by the ear and dragging him to the table. With one crude wave of her hand, she seated the Saiyan down and grabbed the massive, juicy radish with large bite marks on it from his hand. "I will not let you eat like some cave dweller! Let me whip you up some proper lunch!"
"But I'm hungry now…" Goku whined out like a kid before dropping all of his caprices in a snap and stretching out in the space chair. "Oh well, I guess I can wait for a bit as long as it's one of your lunches!"
Chi-Chi collected a pile of ingredients from the freezer and hauled all of them to the kitchen quarters at once. The words of gratitude that her husband had offered her rang in her head and just couldn't leave it. She wanted to reply to him immediately after he said it. Tell him that watching over and protecting one's family was the crux of what a family member had to do for their family, as explained in every TV sitcom, magazine and told to her by all of her friends who were also wives and who took care of their own families.
Though just like Goku's gratitude resonated through the deepest corners of Chi-Chi's mind, the words of his father also rested rent-free inside there and had set their roots deep. Goku's gratitude and pleasant words may not have cut it to pull those weeds out with their roots. Those things that Bardock told her before beating her down and leaving, those things that crushed Chi-Chi's will long before her father-in-law broke her body…
The reason the roots of those words festered so deep in was that they were true. Chi-Chi had lived her whole life idolizing family values, but she never asked herself for a second if she truly knew what they were. As Chi-Chi placed the noodles to simmer and began cutting into onions the size of a human's head, the woman wondered long and hard about where she drew her knowledge from. The longer she worked herself up about it, the more corners and exits Bardock's words blocked off for her.
It was as if she was in a maze and outside that maze laid the true understanding of what family was and how it was meant to be. Only whenever Chi-Chi turned a corner or thought to finish a hallway of that maze, Bardock's titanic image loomed in the background. Standing with his arms crossed and watching from above, judging her. She's never seen her father-in-law like that before. What did he know about anything? A Saiyan brute who only knew violence his entire life. How dare he lecture her about family?
Tears ran down Chi-Chi's cheeks. Were they from the emotions boiling inside her or was it a result of the oversized mutant onions that the Capsule Corps stacked their frozen storage rooms full of? Her tears tasted salty, though sweet and sour at the same time. Bardock was right. She was basing her entire life's ideals on some stack of magazines and sitcoms, tales of spinster wives who did not know how to throw a proper punch but the thing was that neither Chi-Chi nor Gohan or Goku were a normal family.
Chi-Chi collapsed, feeling her back rubbing against the heater as her head sank into her hands. She just couldn't pull her head out of her hands and face reality anymore. The reality was that the noodles were boiling and the tasty and nutritious juices of the vegetables were spilling over from the cutting board and being wasted when they would have been best suited making the broth taste just right and spicing the noodles up with a fresh punch.
"Huh? Chi-Chi? Are you okay?" Goku peeked before freaking out and rushing up to his wife. He picked Chi-Chi off the floor and seated her down by the table as he up to check on the slices of salmon and the caviar soaking in the artificial spacecraft's air. The oaf kicked the heater and picked up on himself to work on everything all at once as he tried calling out desperately for Chi-Chi to get herself together and help him.
What a cute idiot. He understood nothing; he had not even the faintest clue about even a single dish that Chi-Chi was preparing, yet he dauntlessly jumped at manhandling the process of preparation of all of them at once. Chi-Chi finally pulled her head out from her hands, feeling her untidy hair sifting through her fingers. Her bun had been a mess, and she had to push her messy black locks out of her way to look at her bumbling buffoon of a husband blundering his way through the kitchen, freaking out every step of the way but never faltering in his conviction that this task he had no control over had to be done.
That was right. She was the same way lately, wasn't she? Even when Bardock revealed to her that she had not the faintest idea about what family truly was, Chi-Chi still stood up from the bed and fought to protect it. Taking up on herself to accompany Goku and fight alongside him. Protect him when he was hurt, watch him recover, and scold him when he took up too much on himself. Help him in finding and retrieving the Ultimate Dragon Balls so that countless families, just as fumbling as theirs, could keep on their wonderful, absolutely clueless journey together.
"Huh! Chi-Chi…!" Goku cried out when he felt his wife's hands wrapping around his waist from behind. "I can't move this way… Wait… Let go… Where do I need to put this dinosaur thigh?"
"It's okay. Thanks for checking up on me, I'm taking over again," Chi-Chi said softly and gently guided her husband away from her domain, all covered with splattered eggs, dragging a crushed milk carton that he had stepped onto and pieces of bacon sticking out from his pockets while his gi had been powdered with flour. Half of those ingredients Chi-Chi hadn't even opened up or planned on using.
That was right, she may have been lost before about what family was and how it was meant to be, but now she'll work on protecting and fostering her family by just winging it and seeing how it really is. Instead of pushing and shoving those dear to her into imaginary, ideal frames, she'll just do the best she can to support them and see them grow into the best version of themselves that they could. Even if it's daunting, even if she has no idea what she's doing sometimes, just like her goofy husband didn't waver to step in and do his best, she owed her loved ones nothing less than the same thing they were willing to do for her.
At that moment, the half-ruined kitchen filled with dozens of potentially wasted dishes, this idea felt more like what a family was than the vague words that sounded meaningful but, given the context had been absolutely pointless, and stock pictures of actors that barely knew each other before posing for them ever could. Their family was unique and nothing other than gut feeling and their love for one another could make it work.
"There!" Goku pointed at an Ultimate Dragon Ball stuck on top of a stalagmite on Planet Rally that had been stuck in a perpetual rain of salt and minerals that hardened and made pelting blizzards of stone a constant source of peril on its surface. Nothing but edgy, carving ridges of rock as far as the eye could see. Chi-Chi vanished and moved in a precise blitz, dancing around the pelting barrage of perpetual stalactite downpour and thrust her palm into the rocky formation.
The steel-tough minerals cracked and shattered into minuscule pebbles upon impact as the skyscraper-sized stalagmite collapsed. Goku swooped in and scooped up the Ultimate Dragon Ball. Chi-Chi turned her head up and dashed over her husband's head, thrusting her arms upward as she expelled shock waves of Kiai blasts at the down-pouring spikes from the sky. The blizzard of stone exploded into shrapnel that irritated a bit on touch but didn't as much as carve the layer of either of their skins.
Once Goku regained his motion after having to stop and examine his prize, he could once again freely evade the hurt of down-pouring rocks. The two took it to the skies, dashing toward the spacecraft with the Ultimate Dragon Ball in hand. Goku smirked, turning to Chi-Chi.
"Thank you for having my back. That could've been pretty annoying to deal with," he chuckled.
"We're family, Goku-sa. Plus, I won't let you get sand and rocks all in your clothes. You're careless enough to bring all of that filth to bed. Sleeping in space has been one of the most tranquil experiences ever and I won't let sandy sheets ruin that!" Chi-Chi while waggling her finger. "Now go hit the shower!"
"You're dirty and stinky too…" Goku pouted his lips while crossing his arms.
"I'll go right after!" Chi-Chi shook her fist over her head. "Although, if we went together, we could save some water…"
"Huh? Do we really need to do that?" Goku wondered, scratching his cheek. "Sorry, I didn't know. I was just drinking from the tap the whole time when I didn't feel like drinking Bulma's soda. Plus, those cabins are awfully stuffy. Are you really sure we should cram in there together?"
"We might need to flex a little," Chi-Chi smirked, with her eyes closed. "It'll be a sort of training…"
"I don't really get it, but if you say so…" Goku pondered for a second before joining his wife in the airlock and slipping out of his spacesuit while depositing the second Ultimate Dragon Ball in the storage compartment.
Goku rushed toward his wife with a quick jab to throw her off-guard. Chi-Chi put up her hands, absorbing the shock of his rushing impact. His transition into a rising knee strike was flawless. Even while Chi-Chi was just as swift at moving her butterfly-shaped block down, the force of it sent her flying and broke through, regardless. Just as she looked down to read into the following move of her husband, knowing most of his move patterns well enough by now, Chi-Chi couldn't see him at all.
"Right here!" Goku yelled out from right up in front of her, instead of rushing in from below. Before Chi-Chi could muster up a surprise guard, he thrust his hands aside, knocking her aside with a Kiai shock wave before rushing in pursuit. Chi-Chi grunted in pain as she worked against the tremendous gravity. That was the only way to make it at all challenging for her husband.
Goku's fist dug into her abdomen but she had stiffened her whole body to stop her weightless flight to take rather light damage from it. One thing that Chi-Chi still couldn't get used to was how her husband could just turn off his mind and throw mindless flurries of fists and kicks that she just couldn't read for the life of her. It didn't matter! No matter how hard he hit her, how tough it would have been to help her husband prepare for the fight for his life against an enemy that threatened not only the entire planet but her family personally as well, Chi-Chi would persevere.
A double ax handle slam sent Chi-Chi overtaxed and battered from relentless training body down. Just when Goku freaked out that he might have overdone it, Chi-Chi's eyes snapped wide open and she thrust her hands to cut her fall short, vaulting over her back under 500X Earth's gravity to land on her feet and take a fighting stance.
"What's the matter? Are you tired already, Goku-sa?" Chi-Chi asked her husband directly with a face determined to continue not only to aid him in his training but also build up her own strength to fight and better suit her duty of protecting and caring for her family as her family would care for her in a time of need.
"Huh? I thought I hit you too hard, sorry…" Goku excused himself while floating in mid-air. "It's just that you're getting so tough, I can actually kinda lose myself in all the action!"
"If you can still go, then let's go!" Chi-Chi scolded her oaf of a husband, just like she'd have scolded her son for slacking off during the time of his studies.
"Right, here I come!" Goku pumped himself up to prepare for the upcoming clash before husband and wife charged at one another, colliding in mid-air to exchange blows again.