Yamcha stands outside the Capsule Corporation headquarters building. A greedy smile spreads across his face as his green shirt and the orange bandana around his neck flutter in a gentle breeze. The big kanji in the middle of his chest meaning 'easy comfort' ripples with the wind. An assault rifle hangs by a strap from his shoulder.
"So this is the kind of place those stuck-up Briefs live in," he says. "After this, we'll be the ones living in luxury. Let's go Puar."
He walks along the paved path across the lawn with a cat hovering in the air behind him. The sounds of conversation and laughter from behind the building draw him away from the front door. Pressed against the wall, he peers around the curvature of the round structure to find a lunch party.
An older gentleman with fading blue hair and a white mustache sits in a lawn chair alongside a middle-aged blonde in a tube top. Sitting at a folding table nearby is a young woman about his own age. She is beautiful, and on any other occasion, he would be quite smitten with her. But now is not the time to be a womanizer. He is here for a job.
"Alright!" he says loudly stepping out from his vantage place and pointing the rifle muzzle at them. "Hands where I can see them."
Disorder sets in for a moment as the three realize how dramatically their family lunch has turned from its relaxing setting. Their faces contort through a series of horrified expressions as they process the sudden shift.
"Who are—" the older man says finally finding his words. Yamcha interrupts him immediately.
"No talking. I'm just here for your money. Take me to your safe where you keep it and no one will get hurt."
"But—" the old man tries again with the same result.
"Now! All three of you start walking inside. Stay together and no funny business."
The three do as they are told, and Yamcha follows leaving some distance between them and the gun he aims. They head inside and down a set of stairs to a basement level. Yamcha hears whispering from the old man to the two women directly ahead of him.
"No talking or I'll shoot," Yamcha says.
They come to the end of the hall where they can go right or left. The man suddenly darts forward passed the women down the left hallway. Yamcha springs forward to get around the corner. The man is barely ten yards away as Yamcha opens fire. The spread of bullets fills the corridor with a dozen of them finding a place in the target's back. Blood and cloth rip away from him as he falls to the floor.
"Stupid old man," Yamcha says to himself.
He turns around to see the women running back the way they came.
"Stop!" he says raising the weapon.
The older lady twists her head to get eyes on him. When she sees the gun pointed at them, she instinctively moves behind her daughter. The bullets fly and her body spasms before falling forward. She lands on her daughter as they collapse to the floor.
The young woman stares in shock at the dead body upon her. She struggles out from under it to continue running.
"I guess it's going to be a no survivors kind of day," says Yamcha pulling the trigger one more time. The gun makes a few empty clicks. "Hmm, looks like I'll have to finish this the old fashioned way."
He takes a stance raising his hands like the paws of an animal ready to strike. Pouncing across the tiled floor like a wolf after prey, he swiftly moves in.
"Rogafufuken," he says laying his hands into the last family member.
She is ripped to shreds by his palms and fingers leaving her mutilated on the ground. He looks at her untouched face only marred by the spatter of blood.
"It's a real shame. She was a good looking girl."
A bit of empathy almost cracks through before his greedy desires wash it away.
"Come on Puar. Let's find that safe."
Yamcha stiffens into a sitting position. He is on a bed in a tiny one room Capsule house Bulma set up on Kami's palace. He frantically throws back the blanket covering the woman sleeping next to him. Her body is intact with no signs of physical trauma. He cups his hands on his face for a moment, breathing into them. They run up his scalp and down the back of his head. He lies down but cannot get back to sleep.
…
Krillin is twelve years old again at the Orin Temple where he trained as a child. He looks down at his feet as his fellow monks stand over him.
"Why are you even here?"
"You're just a weakling and a coward."
"Aw, is little Krillin going to cry again."
The familiar voices of his childhood bullies batter him worse than any of their sparring punches. Then he hears a voice he does not expect.
"You'll never be strong enough to fight the Saiyans."
Krillin dares to lift his head to confirm who spoke. He looks passed the three faces of his bullies with their incense burned foreheads. Behind them stands Tien with all three of his eyes glaring at him. The group begins laughing. Krillin spins around and runs away. The sound of footsteps chases after him.
"You've spent all this time training to be faster and stronger and all you want to do with it is run away," Tien says from behind. "You pretend it's for defending your friends but really you're just hoping to survive one more pathetic day of your life."
"Shut up," says Krillin with the shrill voice of a child.
"Remember when you ran from Orin Temple to find Master Roshi. You told yourself it was to become stronger but really it was because you couldn't stand up to the other monks.
"And then you met Goku who you thought was just some punk from backwater nowhere. You assumed your time at the temple would mean you were much better than he was. But you were wrong. A simpleton living in the wild ended up being stronger than you. You've never measured up to Goku and you never will. You couldn't beat Piccolo or the alien and fighting the Saiyans will be no different. You're a loser. You always have been and you always will be."
Krillin looks over his shoulder at his pursuers. The incense burns on the foreheads of the three monks bulge and rip open as eyes blink into existence. Tien and the others laugh hysterically as they all deform into amalgamations of all the monsters he has fought in the past.
He tries to run faster, but the more effort he puts into it, the slower his legs seem to move. An unseen resistance grips his legs bringing him to a crawl as the monsters close in. His steps become shorter and shorter with his legs refusing to extend to their full length. The horrific things pile on top of him.
Krillin wakes with sweat running down his forehead across his six incense burns. He searches for any signs of the monsters and makes sure Tien is still asleep where he went to bed.
…
Tien watches from within himself as his body acts of its own accord. He wills his mind to take control and stop the horrors his physical self is wreaking on the innocents around him. Again and again he points at one person after another. Each time a Dodonpa shoots out of his finger and pierces straight through every victim killing them instantly.
He follows a woman and her son into a clothing store. He stalks after them at a casual pace as she flees for her life, child in her arms. She is nowhere to be seen among the racks of shirts and pants. From inside his mind, Tien can feel his body sensing out their life force. He tries to interfere with the process, tries to scramble the incoming sensory information. He detects their presence and slowing zeros in on it. Despite his best efforts to stop, he cannot prevent himself from doing the now innate technique. It is like trying not think about something when someone tells you not to think about it. It just gets harder and harder until the thought finally emerges into your consciousness.
He puts it off for as long as he can, but inevitably pinpoints their location. His body moves towards them. He knocks aside a wooden shelving unit the mother and son are behind. She screams and runs still holding her child. He raises his hand and points at her as she moves in a straight line for the back door.
"No!" he yells but unable to get the word to escape his mental prison.
A Dodonpa fires from the end of his finger, and the laser slices clean through her back and into the child clutched to her breast. They fall to the floor in a heap of their own clothing. He feels the last of their energy fade away.
"Heh, heh," his body begins to laugh. "Ahahaha."
A maniacal laughing takes hold of him. He cannot stop himself from indulging in the sick gratification of such a violent act. From the peripheral of his vision, he sees a mirror. His reflection reveals a chilling appearance. A long braided ponytail hangs from the back of his otherwise bald head. He also wears a familiar pink chang pao with black sleeves over his body. The symbol for 'kill' is written across the left side of his chest.
The laughing does not stop as it follows him into his waking consciousness. Tien sits up from the simple mat he rests upon on Kami's palace. Krillin is standing nearby and jumps back a couple yards at his sudden awakening.
…
Chiaotzu pursues a group of screaming teenagers through a series of rickety and rotting wooden hallways. His body is rigid and cold with his arms stretched straight out before him. He is only able to move in this stiff standing position by means of levitation. He does not make a sound as he hovers atop the creaky floorboards while the teenagers thunder across them.
One of the adolescents catches his foot on a nail sticking up. He tumbles to the floor. The others look back for a moment but Chiaotzu is already upon the fallen victim. His dead eyes stare unblinkingly in their dried out sockets. The boy screams as the tiny pair of bloodless white hands from the small levitating man grab the sides of his face.
His screaming intensifies as a light green aura appears around his body and begins to flow up the arms of the floating corpse. The boy ages rapidly. His skin wrinkles and his hair turns white starting from the end of each strand and working down to his scalp. The leathery flesh tightens against the bones beneath.
The victim withers away to a skin covered skeleton in clothes now too large to fit. The rest of the teenagers hurry off in confused shouts about which hallway to turn down. Chiaotzu bobs through the air after them, his arms still outstretched to feed on the next source of vitality.
Chiaotzu opens his eyes to find himself floating in his sleep. He quickly checks his pulse and shivers off the cold from his nightmare. He twists himself upright from his horizontal orientation and sees Tien and Krillin facing off. Yamcha steps out of Capsule room he went to bed in.
…
"What are you guys all doing up?" says Yamcha looking at this three comrades. "You're not training are you? The sun won't rise for another couple of hours."
"I, uh, was just doing some early morning meditations," says Krillin.
"Then what were you doing so close to me?" says Tien.
"Oh sorry, did I wake you up?" says Krillin.
"Yeah, I guess so," says Tien. He looks at Chiaotzu who floats down to his side.
What scared you so bad? says Chiaotzu telepathically to Tien.
Nothing, just a strange dream.
Yeah me too.
They look at one another for a moment longer sensing out each other's feelings.
"You boys sure are noisy," says Bulma through a yawn. She steps out from behind the door to her Capsule room.
"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you," says Yamcha.
"That's okay. You were tossing and turning all night, so I was sleeping pretty lightly," she says. She yawns again and examines the night sky. "Hmm, I knew it."
"Knew what?" says Yamcha.
"Haven't you noticed? You guys have been up here longer than I have."
"Noticed what?" says Krillin.
"The moon," she says. "It's missing. It should be nearly full tonight if I'm not mistaken."
"You're right as usual," says Kami. The five of them turn to see him standing before his temple not far away.
Does this guy ever sleep? thinks Bulma.
"I removed it as a precaution for the arrival of the Saiyans," Kami continues. "After observing Goku's transformations during full moons of the past, I only agreed to put it back in the first place if he was willing to part with his tail. Now that more Saiyans may wish to use it against us, I decided to remove it once again."
"So Goku knows about his transformations? We always tried to keep them secret from him," says Bulma.
"No. He is still unaware of them," Kami says. "But now that he has a son with a tail, I had been meaning to remove either the moon or Gohan's tail. Circumstances dictated the former."
"Speaking of tails," says Yamcha. "Goku's was always a weakness for him. Whenever someone grabbed it, he would lose all his strength. We may be able to use that against our enemies."
"I don't know about that Yamcha," says Krillin. "Remember when I fought him in the 22nd World Martial Arts Tournament? I tried to win by grabbing his tail, but he trained himself to no longer be affected by it. I think we should assume these new Saiyans have done the same given how much stronger they are."
"That's a good point I guess," says Yamcha.
"Well that settles that then," Bulma says. "But I have one more question. Since you seem to have influence over planetary bodies around Earth, can you tell us what that thing is?"
She points to a blood red dot now the biggest object in the night sky with the moon gone.
"My dad has been observing it but can't figure out what's bringing it closer to Earth. He says it's a planet, but no planet should behave the way it does."
"Ah yes, the Makyo Star," says Kami staring at the faint crimson glow. "None of you would have been alive three or four hundred years ago when it last came by Earth. Technology wasn't advanced enough yet either for it to be perceived as anything other than a superstitious event now noted in many mythologies around the world. But I can assure you it's a perfectly normal occurrence."
"So there's nothing to worry about?" says Bulma. "It's not going to crash into Earth or anything? Because it has defied all of my dad's attempts to predict its movement. The only certainty he has is that it's heading towards us."
"No. It won't crash into Earth," says Kami. His eyes never leave the object in question. "But I do have a secret weapon you can all use against the Saiyans. Bulma's insight into their scouter technology has inspired the idea and since you're all up so early, we can begin now."
"Really? What's that?" says Krillin. He cannot hide his enthusiasm at the news.
"The scouter devices our enemies use are able to locate and measure what they refer to as power levels, or as we call it, ki," says Kami. "I want you all to become masters of suppressing your ki to both avoid detection and be able to surprise them with unexpected power they are unaware of."
"So you think we could completely hide ourselves from the Saiyans?" says Killin. His smile turns into a toothy grin.
"If you can fully master this technique, then yes. Otherwise you will merely be blending in with the lifeforms around you by lowering your ki to their level. As an added bonus, this training will greatly improve your ki control as you learn to transfer it faster and faster between its passive and active states."
"Right on," says Krillin. "A two for one deal."
"To begin with," says Kami, "I want the four of you to lower your active ki as quickly as you can while Bulma measures the speed at which you do it."
"Okay let me get my equipment," says Bulma.
After she has set up a stand for a laptop and a tripod with a radar gun type deceive on it, she asks the warriors to stand across from her. She gives them the okay, and the four of them close their eyes to focus on their life forces. The computer screen starts to show some readings from the radar gun. Krillin's ki lowers the fastest while Yamcha's is the slowest.
"Come on Yamcha, you can do it," says Bulma. "Try to go a little faster."
His face changes from a calm expression to one wrinkled in agitation.
Bulma watches as all the numbers slow down to a stop. Tien's is the lowest followed by Krillin and Chiaotzu. All three are reading around a quarter of their max power levels. Yamcha, however, is still over half of his.
"Okay, Yamcha try to go lower," says Bulma.
"I'm trying if you would just let me concentrate," he says. His face contorts even more.
"You're still hovering around the same number. Can you try something else."
"No alright, I can't! That's as good as it gets."
"Don't snap at me!"
"Well don't expect me to be good at something I've never done before."
"I was trying to encourage you."
"Yeah well it's not helping. So can you keep your comments to yourself?"
"Oh, pardon me if I don't want to see you die in a few months because I didn't do everything I could to help."
Bulma stomps away swearing something under her breath. Yamcha crosses his arms and turns his back to her.
"Obviously this will take some time to get used to," says Kami.
"Honestly it seems like a waste of time," says Yamcha jerking his head to look at the Guardian. "We should be working on getting stronger not purposefully weakening ourselves. I mean so what if we can lower our ki. Won't we just need to bring it back out again?"
"You're right. And being able to do that quickly will also be part of the training," says Kami.
He pauses for a moment but his pupil's frustration does not subside.
"Would you like a moment to speak with Bulma before we continue?"
Yamcha's eyes soften as they find their way to Bulma who is slamming the door to her Capsule room.
"No, it's fine," he says. " Let's keep going for now."
Author's Note: I haven't really discussed story arcs before, but this chapter to me marks the beginning of a new arc for our heroes! I am calling chapters 1-8 the Cui Arc and chapters 9-19 the Training Arc. For those of you who have enjoyed the extra attention I have given the actual preparation for the Saiyans, don't worry, there is still a little more of it to go. But from here on out, the way it connects to the story will be different. Chapters 9-19 have all been about how ki works in my version of the Dragon Ball world and developing character motivations. I won't name the new arc just yet, but I'm sure many of you know where we're going next. I'll see you in the next chapter. Take care!
Author's Note #2 02/15/20: This note is only for my readers who have read through chapter 18 before this chapter goes up. Some of you pointed out to me that it felt like an inconsistency for Kakarot to have the tail weakness when Goku didn't anymore. And the truth is I didn't provide enough context in chapter 15 or 18 for it to make sense. Because this is a topic I address in this chapter (and probably future chapters involving Saiyan tails), I have made some dialogue changes to chapters 15 and 18 as of posting this chapter.
During the first conversation between Goku and Kakarot in chapter 15, I added some new lines of dialogue. And during their final conversation in chapter 18, I changed one line of dialogue. If you don't want to reread those chapters for just a few different sentences, the explanation is simply this: Kakarot only believes in getting stronger through fighting not training and so would never have trained his weakness away like Goku did during Dragon Ball.
Sorry for the confusion and having to fix it. And a big thank you to all of my readers, especially those who provide feedback like this. I want to be a better writer and could not do that without your input. Whether it is encouragement that keeps me motivated or critiques that help identify what I need to work on, your thoughts and comments push me towards that goal. Thank you all so much!