Chapter 22: It's Never Over

The day after Break's visit to the past, and Cooler and King Cold's defeat, there was a large gathering at the Capsule Corporation facility. It was early morning, and mist curled around the outside of the building as the sun made its first peek over the horizon. Inside stood the assembled inhabitants of Capsule Corp (Bulma, Dr. and Mrs. Brief, Zarbon and Nail), Kame House (Master Roshi, Krillin, Launch and Raditz) and Mount Paozu (Goku, Chi-Chi and Gohan), also joined by Tien, Chiaotzu, Yamcha and Piccolo. Goku had just finished repeating what Break had told him about the androids. Despite numerous people pressing him for information about Break herself, Goku would say no more—he'd given his word, and that was the end of it.

Raditz (now wearing another replica of the outfit Bulma had made for him, minus the body armour) spoke up. "Well anyway, I've been gone for a while, and to be honest ever since Vegeta and Nappa arrived on Earth we've been in non-stop motion. So I never got the chance to ask…Tien, uh…"

"Krillin," the bald former monk-in-training replied.

"Right, Krillin. What was King Kai's training like? I've seen that it had outstanding results, but what actually happened?"

"Well, we've already told the others this while you were gone," Tien said, "but anyway, it was…strange."

Several months after Tien's death during the battle between Raditz and Piccolo…

Tien staggered on a few more steps, his vision swimming, and collapsed face down. "I'm done! That's it, I'm taking a rest!" he wheezed. "I can't go on any longer. When that ogre said Snake Way was a million miles long, I thought he was exaggerating…" He rolled over onto his back, gasping for breath, and something appeared at the edge of his vision. All three eyes rolled upwards to look at the mysterious object, which turned out to be a very small planet, floating a couple hundred metres above and behind him. Could that be…?

Waiting until he'd caught his breath, Tien stood up slowly, walking a few more steps to discover, just over a small bump in the road, the end of Snake Way. It tapered off into a serpentine tail, and seeing this he looked back up at the tiny planet. "I guess that must be it—King Kai's place!" He lifted off into the air, soaring in a graceful arc up to the planet, and then as soon as he was inside its gravitational field plummeting in an extremely ungraceful flop to the ground.

"Ow…" he rubbed his head, trying to stand and finding it extremely difficult for some reason. "What's with this place? It feels like I weigh a ton!" He gritted his teeth, straining to stand on his feet. "I guess training here must really toughen you up…" He saw a hunched-over figure that appeared to be watering some flowers. That must be King Kai's caretaker or something, he thought to himself. Still, I expected more—this just looks like, well, a house and garden! Oh well, Kami recommended it and I'm not going to doubt him now… he struggled over to the figure, sweating just with the exertion of walking a few steps on this strange planet. "Excuse me? Do you know where King Kai is?" he asked politely.

"Of course." The small blue-skinned man, with long black antennae extending from his forehead and wearing perfectly round sunglasses, straightened up, laying his watering can down. "I'm right here. Can I help you with something?"

"Oh…uh, I mean, yes, please!" Tien bowed. "I come to seek your help, King Kai—a great evil is threatening my home planet, and I need to become powerful enough to defend it!"

"I see, I see…" King Kai rubbed his chin. "Well, I suppose I could help. But first, you'll have to pass a test. An arduous challenge, which will prove your worthiness to train here!"

"I'm ready!" Tien smiled. "I've already died today, nothing can compete with that!"

King Kai nodded. "All right. Your test is...to make me laugh."

"M…make you…laugh?" Tien gulped. "I came here for martial arts training, not comedy…"

"Well, if you're going to be spending a lot of time here, you've got to at least have a sense of humour, or we won't get along at all!" The deity grinned, awaiting Tien's response.

"Um…can I ask you a question first?" Tien shrugged. "Why do I feel so much heavier here?"

"Let me see…" King Kai's antennae wavered a little. "Ah, you come from the planet Earth. Well, the gravity here is ten times that of your home planet. Now, are you going to make me laugh or not?"

Tien began to grow angry. "The fate of my planet's at stake, damn it! I'm here to do serious training, not to monkey around!" As it happened, King Kai's pet monkey Bubbles happened to hop out from behind the house just as he said that, the perfect accidental comic timing causing King Kai to collapse in hysterics, laughing out loud. Tien just stared, dumbfounded.

The present...

"And so, apparently, I passed." Tien grinned. "Luckily, after that King Kai got serious. I had to chase the monkey around, though, to get used to the high gravity, before I actually began the training, but once I was familiar with ten times gravity I pretty much got started on the Kaioken technique right away, and the Spirit Bomb followed."

"I wasn't there for nearly as long as Tien," Krillin said, "although I did find his 'test' much easier. I just dazzled him with my famous celebrity impersonations…"

"He was probably just laughing at how bad you were!" Roshi chipped in. "You do the worst Humphrey Bogart I've ever seen!"

"Quiet, old man, I'm trying to tell the story." Krillin pushed Roshi out of the way. "You try going to the afterlife and back and training with the mystical deity and then maybe we'll start listening to you. So, anyway, I figured if Tien could do it, there's no reason I couldn't, and that kind of thinking really helped me learning the Kaioken. I didn't get around to the Spirit Bomb, though…" he shrugged. "It would have been nice, I guess. Anyway, I'm not sure how well I did compared to you, Tien."

"Well, let's do a little sparring soon," Tien suggested. "I'd like to see how well you can handle the Kaioken."

"All right." Raditz nodded. "Sounds like a…unique experience." He wondered if King Kai's training would be useful to someone on his level.

"Well, if we can get back to the point of this little meeting—" Bulma folded her arms, frowning. "—which is taking place far too early in the morning, if you ask me, let's get to the point! Two deadly androids are going to appear in three years' time, and we need to be ready. Some of you, I think it's safe to assume will be training in preparation to fight them when the time comes. But—" she glanced back and forth. "I'd like to know: Raditz, Nail, Piccolo, what are your plans?"

"I'm living on this planet as of now," Raditz answered. "I'll defend it against any threat. Don't ask more, I don't feel very talkative."

Nail was next to speak. "And I was going to stay here and train anyway. Wherever an evil force appears, I'm honour-bound to fight against it."

Piccolo grunted half-heartedly. "If these androids take over the planet or destroy it, I'll never get my chance. I'll turn them into scrap metal."

"Sounds good!" Bulma smiled. For one reason or another, it seemed all of Earth's warriors were going to assemble to fight the menace. She already knew Zarbon was staying, but the others didn't.

"Ah, Zarbon, what about you?" Yamcha asked. "Are you gonna stay and fight?" Some people had expected him to have an instant dislike for Zarbon, since Bulma had taken a clear liking to the alien over the last few weeks. But actually, the ex-bandit didn't feel any hostility. He and Bulma had broken up over a year ago (or was it two or three? Time passed so quickly). He was over it. Mostly.

"Well, I don't plan on fighting, however…" Zarbon inclined his head. "At first I was going to leave, but then I thought—where to? The former empire of the Planet Trade Organisation is going to be in chaos. It's not going to be particularly nice. Besides, this is such a beautiful world." He gave a knowing glance at Bulma, who grinned a little—evidently, the feeling was mutual. Yamcha rolled his eyes, sighing. She was the one, you gigantic idiot. And you let her go. Why is it that all the nice ones hook up with aliens around here?

"Absolutely not!" came the (not unexpected) resounding answer from Chi-Chi, when Gohan begged to be allowed to fight the androids. Due to his persistence, however, she did agree to let him help Goku train—she also wanted someone to keep Goku company and look after him, as he was set on training himself harder than ever and it certainly wasn't going to be her. It's not that Chi-Chi wasn't a fighter—she easily outclassed 99% of the planet's population, and could probably take on Master Roshi—but even that wasn't enough to keep up with her saiyan family when they got into the rhythm of battle (and as for the other human fighters, well, they'd all had magic otherworldly training and power-unlocking rituals, and she wouldn't stand for that sort of thing in her house).

And so, without any declaration or ceremony, the training began. Raditz would use Instant Transmission to jump over to Mount Paozu every day and train with his brother and nephew, then return to Kame House in the evenings. Raditz and Goku's sparring matches were all intense, close-fought affairs. Raditz never transformed, of course—it would make the whole thing pointless—but in his normal state, he was at first significantly below Goku. However, something about becoming a Super Saiyan seemed to have raised his 'ceiling', even in his base form. Whereas Goku's power had peaked and stopped growing as quickly after a while, Raditz just kept on improving, and it didn't take too long for them to become about equal. Gohan did his best, and also improved a lot, but when the two adults got serious he would always be left behind, and wander off to train on his own. Raditz, for his part, wished that Goku could somehow become a Super Saiyan as well—he desperately wanted another chance to exercise his real power, and if they could train while transformed, they'd be able to make huge advances. However, knowing the kind of emotional trauma it had taken to trigger his own transformation, he resigned himself to the fact that it was unlikely to happen anytime soon.

Of course, the saiyans were not by any means the only ones training. Piccolo and Nail regularly met in the wilderness for vicious, fast-paced practice bouts. Both often left bearing significant injuries, their enmity for each other no secret. Often, though, Piccolo would prefer his own company and train on his own, spending great lengths of time in deep meditation. When this happened, Nail would train with Yamcha and Zarbon at Capsule Corp (Zarbon had been perfectly content to lead a peaceful existence and not train or fight at all, but it is a physical impossibility to win an argument with Bulma Brief, and he soon surrendered to the immovable object). Krillin mostly trained on his own or under Master Roshi's guidance, and when Raditz came home in the evenings he'd sometimes have a match with the human warrior—it wasn't much of an effort for even an already-tired Raditz, but gave Krillin a good workout.

Deep in space...

A smile spread across his face. The avenger's ship would be entering the Earth's solar system soon. They'd have no problem with most of them, but the Super Saiyan could pose a problem. Well, he decided, he'd just have to lure the monkey away. His unwitting pawn would then dispose of the rest of them, while he took care of the real threat. It was just a matter of timing. Well, being the feared ruler of most of the known universe helped too, thought Frieza.

Meanwhile on Earth...

"Raditz!" King Kai's voice woke Raditz from a daze—he'd been staring out at the sea from the doorway of Kame House. Blonde Launch, seeing him standing there, shuffled over and leaned on him. "Raditz, it's early, come back in…"

"Just a second, Launch, King Kai just contacted me…" he propped her up, waiting for the deity to respond.

"Oh, so you are listening. That's new," King Kai grumbled.

"Look, what do you want?" Raditz sighed. "Launch has a point, it's early and going back to bed seems a really nice idea right now…"

King Kai snorted. "How about you two continue your epic romance of the ages sometime when the new planet Namek isn't under attack?"

"Huh?" Raditz started paying attention. "Can't they look after themselves? Who's attacking them?"

"I'm not sure, there's some kind of...thing...attached to the planet…Look, can't you just Instant Transmission yourself over there and help them out?"

"Why should I? It's not my problem. In case you haven't noticed, Earth is going to have its own troubles soon enough." Raditz had just about made up his mind to accept Launch's invitation, but King Kai wouldn't be defeated so easily.

"I'm going to keep annoying you until you agree. I haven't got a great deal to do around here, so I can just stand here bugging you all day…" This wasn't entirely true—he managed to find himself an endless supply of little activities and pastimes from only his tiny planet.

"Damn it, fine! But if I'm not back by this evening, having transformed some would-be conqueror's life into a smoking ruin, I'm going to kick your ass from here to Yardrat and back…" He raised two fingers to his head. New Namek is quite far from here…I'll get King Kai's help locating it, he can make himself useful…
Launch, only half paying attention, wasn't expecting his sudden departure and promptly collapsed, falling asleep there on the floor.

A few minutes later, after a brief stop at King Kai's planet, Raditz appeared on New Namek, standing on a small island dotted with trees (much like the rest of the planet). The first thing he noticed was that all the Namekian power levels he could feel were grouped together at the other side of the planet. Maybe they've been taken prisoner, but…I can't sense any attacker…they must be hiding their energy. I'll have to be careful. He leapt into the air, setting off through the skies of New Namek. The dragon had chosen this planet well—it was almost identical to the original Namek. Which, in Raditz's mind, meant it was incredibly boring and nondescript…

Earth...

Goku jumped out of bed with a start. "Ah, not again!" He pulled his clothes on, racing out into the hallway, where he was met by a bewildered Chi-Chi. "Goku, what are you doing up so early?" she asked, yawning.

"Sorry, Chi-Chi—there's another big evil power heading for Earth! Gotta run. Don't tell Gohan, okay? He'll just try to follow me." He ran out the door, taking off.

Chi-Chi smiled a little. "Well, at least he has some sense…he'd be in serious trouble if he tried to get my Gohan involved in another of those horrid battles…why do people always have to threaten Earth on these nice, sunny days?"

Goku alighted on a mountaintop, near the mysterious approaching power. He noticed Tien already there, waving to the three-eyed warrior, his long-time rival. "So, where is everybody?"

"We're all here." Tien indicated another mountain behind him, upon which stood several fighters. Piccolo was standing on his own peak, set aside from the rest, and Zarbon wasn't there at all (he had sensed the incoming power, grunted, rolled over and gone back to sleep).

"All right. Here it comes—it doesn't feel too big, but be ready—it feels an awful lot like Frieza and his family." Goku watched intently as an insect-like ship became visible, descending through the atmosphere towards a spot a few miles away. Without warning, Piccolo let fly a charged energy blast that tore the ship in two, then blew the halves to pieces.

Well, there goes the element of surprise, Krillin thought, shaking his head in irritation at Piccolo's arrogance. A small humanoid figure became visible through the clearing smoke—the power they had sensed. Piccolo's attack evidently hadn't harmed this one, although there appeared to be no survivors from the ship's crew.

The figure approached, coming to a halt about a hundred yards away from Goku and Tien (who stood in front of the others). They did a double take as they saw the alien more clearly. "You…" Goku stared at the invader in disbelief. "You look like Frieza!"

"Indeed." The creature grinned, the early-morning mist almost enveloping him. He was somewhat shorter than the other frost demons they had encountered, with a deep chestnut red-brown colouring where Frieza had been purple. "I am Kuriza, and you primates killed my father Frieza! I'm here to take my revenge—by the time I'm done here, this planet will be nothing but a scorched, burned-out husk! If that attack was all the power you've got, then this will be even easier than I imagined…"

"A bit overdramatic, isn't he?" Krillin muttered to Yamcha.

New Namek...

Raditz spied a glint of metal as he passed over a large landmass, and landed hurriedly, glancing about. "Who's there?" he called out. I know I saw something… A sudden impact from behind knocked him towards the ground, but he landed on his hands, propelling himself up and backwards. I still didn't sense anything! It's like they don't have any ki at all… He spun to face his unknown attacker, focusing all his senses in preparation for the next attack. "Show yourself!" he demanded.

"Very well." Raditz turned in the direction of the voice, and couldn't believe what he saw. A gleaming silver metallic being, its sleek tail twisting around its legs, stood on a small hill barely a few feet away. "You might not recognise me…after all, I never assumed my true form in your presence, and anyway I've changed somewhat in appearance of late…" He smiled. "You may know me as Frieza. Ruler of the universe."

Oh, if you don't know who Kuriza is, he's Frieza's son, introduced somewhat comedically in Neko Majin Z and not entirely canon, but I thought the character had potential (and Cooler wasn't really canon either, plus it gave Frieza an excuse to actually plan and time his attack).

Well, some people foresaw something along these lines. I got people asking if there would be a Meta-Frieza. Of course, I don't think if anybody guessed Kuriza would appear. Anyway, on with the Q & A, as I haven't got much else to say here.

Oh wait, yes I do. I-Am-So-Original has done an awesome fanart picture of
Break Through the Limit's Future Trunks! In fact, he's done several (one normal, one of his 100% state, one of both with a cool background, that sort of thing). Check it out on his deviantART page! (I'm still in the half-disbelieving 'wow, I have fanart' stage over here...)

Q: Was there anything between this variant of Trunks & Break? It may be nothing but what they said & did when the androids turned up gave me a bit of a more than friends vibe that could be explored in any "future flashback" or just upon her return to top the future to discover Gohan's fate.

A: Maybe. I will probably do a chapter on the future timeline, but I haven't got enough of it worked out in enough detail to do that yet.

Q: ...Zarbon...and Bulma? I really don't know how to respond to that...on the other hand she did think he was her savior on Namek...

A: That was my main reasoning. Whether or not their relationship lasts, we have yet to see, of course.

Q: At least you didn't name her "Pad" (Launch-Pad) or something

A: Heh.

Q: It's not that I thought Gohan or Goku would be the father; but it just seemed that way. I completely forgot about Raditz, honestly. I'm glad that Zarbon is Trunks' father.

A: Ah, okay, that clears it up. Thanks.

Q: What about vegeta?

A: Yes, what about him, indeed? Find out soon (well, present timeline Vegeta. I'll deal with Future Vegeta later).

Q: Wow-Zarbon x Bulma? Yamcha just cannot get a break. Chapter was pretty good, just missing the explanation about the Red Ribbon Army and all.

A: Do they know that they're Red Ribbon army at all, hmm?

Q: Count me in as one of the people that likes the changes you've made regarding Vegeta and Trunks. It will be intetesting to see how his life goes without him finding peace on earth (or maybe he will eventually?). Zarbon x Bulma is also a refreshing change. Break is an awesome name that fits in her more ways than one. Breakfast, her violent nature in Super Saiyan and how she's basically a broken soul who's had to live through helll... Nice.

A: Hey, that last one I didn't think of. Nice one.

Q: Why is Cold so much stronger than his sons? Frieza and Cooler both had power levels of 120m and 160m respectively at full power. Yet Cold was able to defeat Raditz easily in his third form. And in Frieza's case the difference between his third form and his 100% Final form was HUGE. Is this the same for Cold, or is the difference between his third and final form a lot smaller than Frieza's?

A: I personally believe that it's entirely possible Cold was many, many times stronger in his fourth form than in his third. However, Raditz killed him before he could transform. Really, Cold's full power could have been vastly higher than any character for quite some time (maybe even on android/Cell level, judging by the power jump Frieza's fourth form gave him).

Anyway, that's all for today, see you on Sunday!