Goku was drifting through the asteroid belt permeating the space between Mars and Jupiter. Long Days training in the vast openness of space had taught him how to hold his breath for hours at a time. He didn't really understand the science behind how that worked. Gohan had tried to explain it to him once, something about using ki as an oxygen replacement or something along those lines, but to Goku it didn't really matter how it worked. What mattered is that it did work. And thank kame for that.

Without space to train in, Super Saiyan 4 training was completely impractical. The slightest misstep, the slightest miscalculation in accuracy and even his weakest attacks risked splitting Earth in half. Sure he could train on other planets, but they wouldn't fare much better in wake of the unreal power of Super Saiyan 4. Goku still had trouble coming to grips with just how incredibly powerful Super Saiyan 4 made him. Each time he used it, he felt as powerful, as untouchable as when he unlocked Super Saiyan for the first time. Even so, he knew he couldn't be apathetic. Super Saiyan had seemed untouchable all those years ago as well, but there had been near constant reminders that Super Saiyan, no matter what level, never seemed to be enough. He almost wished he could be naive or conceited enough to believe he was the most powerful person in the universe, but everyone who ever made that claim always ended up eating their words, and he wouldn't be one of them. So long as there was room to improve, room to get stronger, he wouldn't stop.

He wasn't masochistic enough to train like Vegeta, but that didn't stop him making his way out here almost daily, constantly mixing up his Super Saiyan forms and routines. The lack of gravity had thrown him off at first, but at Gohan's advice, Goku had learned to use his ability to accelerate at a significant fraction of the speed of light (even in base form) to easily overcome that. While Goku was grateful for all the "sciency stuff" (as Goku so eloquently put it) Gohan was able to apply to fighting to help Goku get stronger, he still wished Gohan had kept up his training. Goku's youngest and Trunks were quite the scrappers and Goku loved fighting them - The two of them at Super Saiyan 2 were almost an even match for him at Super Saiyan 2, but their frequently unorthodox tactics and nearly flawless teamwork really kept Goku on his toes. Even so, Gohan was the only Saiyan who had ever REALLY surpassed Goku.

Maybe Trunks and Goten just needed more time. After all, they were far stronger then Goku was at that age, and Goku did have an extra 10 years over them versus Gohan. "And hey" he thought "they did manage to beat SS2 Vegeta last night, albeit just barely."

Even Uub seemed to have mostly forgone his training, as he hadn't shown up at Goku's house for sparring in quite some time. Goku had a feeling that Uub had been greatly discouraged by his fight with Baby – his first real test as a warrior and he had failed. Goku decided that paying Uub a visit would be a good idea. He might just need a little encouragement. Every warrior failed sometimes. Kami knows he had.

Thinking about the younger fighters brought Goku's thoughts to Bra and Pan as well. The only two female Saiyans left. Pan was a natural born fighter, but even after sparring and fighting with himself and the rest of the Z-fighters for years, she was still nowhere near the level he thought she'd have been capable of. Even Bra, who Goku knew behaved much like a perfect storm of attitude between her mother and father and hardly ever trained, was stronger than Pan. He absolutely loved his granddaughter, but he really had hoped he'd get the chance to see a female super Saiyan out of sheer curiosity.

Goku hummed softly to himself as he continued thinking, moving past the previous thought stream. He was feeling like Super Saiyan 3 today. Goku somewhat lamented the demise of Super Saiyan 3. That form had taken him far more effort and time to master than any other super saiyan form. He'd only been training with super Saiyan 4 for a few months, and he was already almost as natural with it as he was with Super Saiyan 3. Super Saiyan 3 was now really only useful when Vegeta wanted to fight him. They both knew it was merely a show match. At any time Goku could go SS4 and end the match almost instantly, but in the name of good sportsmanship, Goku would stick to SS3. He had to admit Vegeta was getting pretty good with SS3.

That thought made Goku smirk. He wondered when the hell Vegeta was going to hurry up and get to SS4 so they could have real sparring matches. He was certain Vegeta had some genius master plan to do so, and Goku was looking forward to whenever Vegeta got that plan to work. In fact Goku wouldn't have been surprised if Vegeta's master plan included some crazy notion of a Super Saiyan 5 as well. Vegeta's mind always seemed to be two steps ahead of what he was currently capable of.

But Goku quickly dropped his thoughts, refocusing in on his physical surroundings. He paused for a moment to gather the necessary energy to go to Super Saiyan 3. He had done this so frequently, the only visible sign that the transformation was about to take place was a look of slight discomfort on Goku 's face. It took him barely a second to gather the energy to power past SS1 and 2 straight into 3, and in a tensing of muscles and a blinding flash, Goku stood amongst the meteor fragments, a full power Super Saiyan 3. So natural had the transformation become, even the smallest meteor fragments were only slightly disturbed from equilibrium by it. Goku recalled during his time mastering Super Saiyan 3, how he'd spent 3 whole days in the form. He recalled ChiChi constantly bickering at him about the ludicrous volume of his hair and even threatening to cut it off while he was sleeping if he stayed like that for too long. The thought made him chuckle. It'd been an empty threat after all. No scissors could hope to cut through his hair, but he'd still taken the threat to heart, promising not to be a Super Saiyan 3 for more than a day at a time.

He wasn't sure how ChiChi would react to him lauding about the house as a Super Saiyan 4 (something he intended to do at some point), but he hoped it would go better. His hair wasn't quite the spectacle Super Saiyan 3s was, and, properly dressed, he likely wouldn't stand out in a crowd. He had his doubts on going that far with SS4 though. No matter how hard he tried, he hadn't been able to control and scale SS4's power back nearly enough to allow proper daily interaction with his friends and family, but he felt confident that was merely a matter of practice. If he could get the kind of control he wanted out of SS4, he could actually picture himself permanently staying in the form. But he decided it was time to get down to training and he turned his attention to the innumerable potential targets around him.

As Goku exerted himself, blasting and grinding the countless meteors that surrounded him to dust, he was blissfully unaware that his was being watched, his technique and power scrutinized. The watcher had been watching Goku for many years, first drawn to the Saiyan and the other Earth bound Saiyans when they achieved Super Saiyan. Though he had found their power laughable at that time compared with the Saiyans of old, he had been intrigued by Goku's seemingly exponential growth. From generations devoid of Super Saiyan, he alone had risen to the level of power the observer had expected from the Saiyans he had known in his time. For many millennia he had watched the Saiyans, attempting to piece together their fall from universal prominence and power. His gaze was long and wide, but could not reveal the unobserved past. Goku was but the third Saiyan his observations had seen achieve Super Saiyan 4 in the some 500,000 years he had been watching the Saiyans in the eastern galaxy.

Despite his long solitary vigil of the Saiyan race, and particular interest in Goku, the observer's influence had thus far been completely benevolent. Even if he wished to intervene and indulge his curiosities by physically meeting Goku, he could not - Though his sight spanned the galaxies, his physical body had long been trapped, tightly bound within his solitary prison.

His prison laid deep in the center of the western galaxy cluster; the opposite end of the universe from earth and the eastern galaxies. The western galaxy cluster was a group of some 6 major galaxies and several smaller satellite galaxies. These galaxies had long been forsaken and forgotten by most, having descended into chaos and anarchy following the death of the western Kaioshin some 5 million years ago at the hands of Majin Buu. The other galaxy clusters had thus far been spared a similar fate. Prevailing forces had brought order to the Northern and Southern galaxies - though the draconian and iron fisted rule of those bodies made their right to rule questionable at best.

The eastern galaxies were peaceful, and had been for many years. While Frieza's rule had certainly upset the balance, Frieza's influence had never extended past the southern half of the milky way galaxy. Though the observer had initially associated the survival of the Eastern Kaioshin with this peace and prosperity of the Eastern galaxies, he quickly came to realize that it was, in fact, the rise of powerful warriors that had kept those galaxies peaceful.

The observer had long since abandoned his watch of his own galaxy cluster, becoming disgusted and disgruntled with the senseless killing and destruction that pervaded it's every corner. Countless renegades, empires, and movements were engaged in perpetual conflict with one another over domination of the western galaxies.

In the midst of all this chaos, deep in the most remote and sterile region of the western galaxy cluster laid his physically bounded body. How long his body had been bound there, the observer could not say; time has little meaning when one has been condemned to eternal imprisonment. Time had only regained its meaning when the observer learned to pierce his prison, staring out from his eternal abyss into the physical universe. Even so, he was not sure how long it had been since his prison walls had ceased to contain his minds' eye. His best guess put it at some 15 million years. He was grateful for this small pittance of fortune, knowing his sanity would have long since left him had he not been able to occupy his mind watching the universe unfold and mastering knowledge of some of the universes' more subtle qualities. He longed for the day his body could rejoin the physical universe and he could apply his vast repertoire of gained knowledge to the real universe. He wondered how his body had held up over the years – he could not see his body, and when his minds' eye returned, it was only to blindness and to be physically restrained to the point of immovability. His body had developed certain hostilities towards his mind; a mixture of the rage his mind had refused to process towards his imprisoners, and a resentment of his mind's willingness to abandon his body. In truth, he had ceased to be one entity, one being, many years ago. Being trapped with the anger and resentment for so long had made the creation of this shadow-self inevitable. If he hadn't, his mind would have been lost to the pent up anger and hate his other half manifested itself from.

Although his wandering mind still exerted control, his shadow-self would not be silenced, and had continued to gain sway over his primary mind and body. Though the observer was aware of the spreading of his shadow-self, he remained confident he could control it.

Before his imprisonment, the Observer had been called Lunex, though that name no longer had meaning to him, he still found it convenient to refer to his primary self by that name. In his time, Lunex had been the Kai's greatest champion – a being with unimaginable power and skill even by Super Saiyan 4 standards. He was curious if his body had retained this level of strength throughout his long imprisonment.

But he digressed, returning his attention to Goku. Goku's technique was excellent – Lunex surmised this was primarily due to the fact that until his mid-20s, Goku's powers had been absolutely pitiful. He was forced to make due and learn to accomplish great feats with limited power, something that gave him much more control then his fellow Earth bound Saiyans, all of whom had been born with much greater power. They didn't earn it like Goku had. That's not to say Lunex found them uninteresting or unworthy of their power, but none intrigued him like Goku. Lunex had high hopes Goku's strength still had much room for growth, if only so Lunex could once more fight a worthy adversary.

Amidst his observations of Goku, he felt the most curious sensation. Although bewildered at first, Lunex realized the sensation was originating back as his body. It'd been so long, he'd almost forgot what physical sensation felt like, so for a few moments he was unsure what it meant. Upon realizing what it was, his mind dropped his observation of Goku, immediately snapping back to his physical body. When he returned, he saw something that made him gasp – starlight. Although hazy and distant, he had deep and fond memories of starlight, and there could be no mistaking what it was. Had his prison been breached? Although his initial reaction was that it was impossible, his mind quickly recalled that the strength of his prison bounds were currently far less than they had been eons ago when he was first imprisoned – maybe it had been weakened enough to allow an external influence to pierce it borders. Whatever the reason, there was no point in considering it further. If his eyes could see past the veil of his prison and into the universe, then it must be possible for him to escape his prison. His body was slow – ages of lethargy needed to be eroded before he learned to properly use his body again – but so powerful was his urge that his body had to obey and his bounds could not restrain him. Recalling ancient muscle memory, he fired a ki blast at the fading opening. It widened slightly, and Lunex found a slight smirk crossing his face for the first time in millions of years. He reached his still heavy arms through the opening. He would be free any second now…