Yamcha couldn't help but pace nervously. "Is he going to be okay?" He turned to Annin. The goddess smiled, "he will be alright." She said reassuringly. "The flames would be harmful normally, but as he has my child's essence, it will do him no harm." She frowned, "rather… the real danger is upon whether or not 'they' notice."
Yamcha turned to look at Annin, but she made no other comments.
"Just have faith." Pongitsune began. "Jazz has always been able to pull through, no matter the obstacle."
…
Jazz believed this was the feeling a snake experienced when shedding its skin. First, there was pain, then there was the feeling of relief, a feeling akin to being covered in dirt and washing it all away after a hot shower and thorough scrubbing. He felt his essence split into 4 distinct parts. A silver aura in the shape of a wolf howled, while a phoenix screamed out with a shriek akin to the cry of a red-tailed hawk crossed with the keen of a peacock, the last was his spitting image.
"Woah… freaky." Jazz was shocked, raising a hand to his mouth, he sounded younger. "What the…" He whispered to himself, "there, again, I sound… I sound…" Before he could continue the thought, the distinct parts rushed back into his body and everything went black.
He awoke in the middle of a dark room. As he looked around, his eyes began to adjust, revealing the inside of a hospital room. He walked over to a mirror and looked at himself. He looked no different than when he first arrived in the world of Dragon Ball, at least, that was what he thought, at first. Then, he observed his eyes, and his memories of fighting and killing the demon king's minions filled his mind. Unable to control himself, he rushed over to the bathroom and puked his guts out. Every single memory he had experienced in the world of dragon ball came rushing back into him all at once, as he gasped and stood there, he eventually quieted down. "Okay…" he began softly, looking around. "Where the heck am I…" He hoped he was on Earth, but he didn't know for certain. He tentatively walked over to a hospital door and turned the knob. The door opened with a deafening creak, causing the red-head to wince. He looked around, eventually, he decided to step out. He looked around the dim halls, then heard a woman call out to him.
"Hey!" He looked to see a beautiful-looking woman in a nurse gown walking over to him. "You!" She shouted, "did you just get up?!" She asked.
Jazz took a step back, "who are you?" He asked, preparing to run or fight.
The woman shook her head and kept her distance, "sorry, I don't mean to spook you, I was just worried." She said, smiling, "I thought you'd never wake up."
Jazz raised an eyebrow, "wake up?" He asked.
"Yeah." She giggled, "you were supposed to wake up 5 minutes ago, normally when someone fails to meet the threshold, it means they died and their body would remain in a comatose state indefinitely, so it's good you're awake, we were all worried."
Jazz nodded, "uh… yeah…"
"But still, you're in good shape." The woman giggled, "you work out a lot in your place?"
"How long was I gone?" Jazz asked,
"Who knows, time is a relative thingy, one minute could be decades, or it could be a few seconds, but at least, in the real world, you've been gone for 6 months."
Jazz blinked in shock. "Holy crap, I'm 15."
"Of course, you're 15." The nurse giggled, "Are you disappointed you didn't leave later?"
Before Jazz could respond, the woman beckoned him forward and walked towards the hall. "Come on, I'll take you to the others."
Jazz raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Others?"
"Yes." The nurse giggled. "Others."
…
Jazz was taken into a large round room, the bright white light was almost blinding and the ambient noise and chatter in the room almost deafening in comparison to the dark hallway he had been in before.
"Here he is!" The nurse said, bowing.
Jazz saw 15 men and women, sitting in a circle. They ranged in age, gender, and size, but none were older than their mid 20's or younger than 10-12.
"Welcome back, it's good to see you're amongst the living again." A man in his late teens spoke. He had dark brown hair arranged in a ponytail and had an easygoing smirk on his face. "I take it you had fun on your trip, right?"
"Trip?" Jazz asked, playing dumb.
"Don't pretend to be dumb kid, I'm talking about your journey, what was that location called? Dragon Ball or some shit."
Jazz felt his face drain of color.
"Why are you acting so surprised?" The man asked suspiciously, "do you mean to tell me you failed your mission?"
"My…mission." Jazz repeated.
The man sighed, "goddamnit, you know the mission, you're supposed to find the 'hero' or 'heroes' of a story, once you kill them and/or take their place you open up the world to everyone to explore and take part in." He laughed, "unless, was your mission too hard? I mean, there's no other way you'd be back here again."
"Well," A young woman began, "he could have used that world's dragon balls, we don't know how powerful the stuff is in a metaphysical sense, but it could maybe bring him back, that might be why he's acting all brain dead." She had purple-dyed hair, green eyes that seemed almost bioluminescent, and tanned skin. Though her most unusual feature was her extremely scantily-clad appearance, as she wore what could only really be described as a spandex dominatrix suit with fishnet stockings and gloves. "Well," She eyed him up and down, "judging by the shape he's in, he had to have done at least a little bit of the pointless grandstanding that fucking anime puts itself through.
Jazz's mind raced through the possibilities. They were talking about a mission and about replacing the hero? Perhaps, he thought to the brown saiyan, how did he know Jazz's name?
"Come on, Troy! Why're you acting so brain dead, did you kill Goku and replace him, or not?"
Jazz froze, they thought he was Troy? Troy was the third boy at the sleepover, but that didn't make sense, Troy was mixed like him, but much more black-looking and had dark, curly hair.
"Yeah, I did." Jazz said, smirking. He needed to pretend to be Troy, for now if he could get them to think he was a friend, he'd be able to collect information from them, and maybe escape and find his mom and brother. At the same time, he felt his internal timer, telling him he had only a few hours before he would be forced back into the Dragon World.
"Really?" The man smiled, narrowing his eyes, "then, let's test some things out."
The man stood up, he was taller than Jazz had expected, standing a good 6 foot 5 inches tall, he was also extremely muscular, scarily so.
"So…" Jazz began, "where did you guys all end up going?"
The girl who spoke up giggled, "you're pretty forgetful then? I went over to Teen Titans, it took a little doing, it's technically the same as the extended DC universe, but can be considered its own universe, it took a bit, but after caressing Lex's balls enough you can get that bald man to do anything you want. I told him I'd give him a shot at killing superman, and he couldn't help but splice my DNA with the mix of Kryptonian, Tamaranian, Amazonian, and Atlantean. It was tough, but I certainly survived." She giggled, "unless you can go 'Super-Saiyan or whatever, you ain't nearly as tough as I am." She giggled hysterically, "but man, did your target cry when you killed them too?" She asked.
"What?" Jazz asked, hiding his growing revulsion.
"Did your target, did Goku cry when you killed him?" She asked, "Star Fire surprisingly didn't cry, I thought she of all people would cry, but it ended up being Raven and Beast Boy, Cyborg just got angry. I saved killing Raven for last because I wanted to see whether her powers amped up by Trigon could kill me." She pulled part of her outfit, revealing a wicked gash, "I got that one from her, surprisingly, Robin lasted the longest, good old Dick Grayson, as smart as he is handsome, but I broke his spine pretty easily, the second I got a clear shot, I didn't play around like a stupid villain."
Some of the others laughed.
A 14-year-old blond boy with a clearly British accent giggled. "My job was the easiest, just had to attend the Wizarding World, once Harry keeled over with his fight with Voldemort it was a quick little Imperio into another Imperio, and all of a sudden, Harry, Hermoine and Ron died after getting into a 'fight'." He giggled, "my god, seeing the look on their faces, I was lucky the transfer back into Earth was so fast.
So after completing their objective, they get home.
"I'm glad you were so lucky." The brown-haired man, the apparent leader of the group, said, scowling. "My challenger was fucking ridiculous, she took the Venom, Carnage, and Toxin symbioses in an attempt to finish me off." He sighed. "I still don't get why we need their sacrifice."
"Hey." A black teen began, he had close-cropped curly black hair and surprisingly light-brown eyes. He was holding a yardstick like a sword and carried it on his back. "Isn't it like the boss said? We need at least two sacrifices, both need to know the story intimately, then we have one assassin, whose job is to eliminate the 'hero' of the story or take their place fully. They can choose to survive, or they can try and stop you." The kid smirked, "my guy gave me quite a bit of trouble honestly."
"Says the person who can barely conjure a fireball without gasping for air." The 14-year-old, evidently someone who journeyed through the Harry Potter series, smirked.
"Hey," Jazz asked suddenly, "you said you went to the world of Teen Titans, right? But that's a part of DC, isn't it?"
The girl smirked, "yes and no, we don't actually go to those worlds, we go to the multiverse's equivalent to the closest thing to that universe as possible, infinite possibilities and all that. Interestingly enough, many of these worlds are locked away via something stopping them from being accessed, be it God, some demon, magic, science, or any other means, that's why we have to do all that stupid stuff, once it's done and we're back home, it takes another year, and boom, we get to go there and plunder." She grinned.
They reached a large room with various targets. "Alright, then guys." The man said, "stand back and let Troy show you guys the fruits of his effort." He smirked at Troy. "Since you're from the world of Dragon Ball Z, you should be the second physically strongest to return, right after Hellspot." He turned to the girl, who giggled and blew a kiss at Jazz. "But you should also be capable of planetary destruction outside of simply physical strength, unless, have you unlocked the Super Saiyan?"
Jazz spoke immediately, "no, my challenger gave me some trouble, he nearly trapped me in a Mafuba but ended up keeling over. I got pretty weakened from the technique and had to recuperate before I could kill Goku. But I can still demonstrate my abilities a little." Jazz lied through his teeth and pointed a finger at one of the targets. He felt his heartbeat quicken just as a shot of energy burst from his hand, shooting and destroying the target. 'What the?!' He screamed in his mind. He didn't think he could do it, in fact, the words he had just spoken didn't feel like it was all him talking. Luckily, no one seemed to be paying attention to his shocked expression.
"Nice, good one, Troy." The leader of the group smiled, "With this, we can return back to the boss, the world's ours for the taking, and as a group, we can hit the other worlds one at a time." He laughed, "I kinda wanna try my hands at those dragon balls, or… maybe that one idiot who died in the 1001 Arabian Nights, maybe we'll go and avenge him."
"Slytha." The people all except for Jazz, the nurse, and the black teen collapsed.
Jazz looked around in shock, and the nurse hissed, revealing terrifying fangs. "You!" She hissed at the boy, who had spoken the words.
"Why are you so angry?" The teen smiled, "they're just asleep." His black hair and brown irises began to morph before Jazz, turning blood-red as if dyed. He raised his hands and a burst of light emanated from them, the nurse screamed as the light burned her skin, then groaned as the ground around her rose up and buried her.
Jazz looked at the boy, shock on his face. The black teen winked. "I know, you aren't a piece of garbage like these fellows, you're probably a victim, and you're on borrowed time, so you need to return back home and say hi to your family before you get sent back."
Jazz noticed how the boy gripped a piece of quartz. "Left gasping after shooting out a burst of fire?" Jazz asked.
"You remembered that out of all the useless soliloquies and nonsequiturs those people spouted?" The kid laughed, "I would have ignored it."
"What did you do?" Jazz asked, curiosity taking over his alarm.
"Well, let's just say you aren't the only guy who got sent somewhere without any idea." The teen shrugged. "You can call me Orpheus."
"That's not your real name, is it?" Jazz asked.
"No, it's not." Orpheus laughed, "anyways, I don't feel the need to talk too much, we're not enemies, but we have very different goals."
Jazz raised an eyebrow.
"You wanna return back home, and to do that, you were told by… Porunga, was it?"
"Yeah, don't you know?" Jazz asked.
"I don't watch anime," Orpheus replied.
"What the?!" Jazz asked, "but… how old are you?!"
"16." Orpheus shrugged. "Couldn't watch it, my parents and the butler wouldn't let me."
"What?!" Jazz asked, "you're a rich guy?"
"My old parents do well for themselves." Orpheus shrugged.
"Old… parents?" Jazz asked.
"Well," Orpheus shrugged, "it's a long story."
"Enlighten me." Jazz forced open a door at the older teen's discretion.
"The world I went to, has magic that allows one to read someone else's mind, sort of like the psychics, mind readers, and such from comic books like Jean Grey or Professor X."
"Okay, cool." Jazz felt freaked out, "so you've just been reading my mind? That's not cool man."
"I read everyone's mind," Orpheus responded. They made their way through twisting corridors, pausing at odd times and sitting for minutes on end. "Anyways, I fought against one of their guys, and when I killed him, I tore his memories out before he died, and learned their plan." He raised a finger, "it's really simple, use people who really, really, really like a story, do some magic ritual, kill them or get them to die, then they wake up in an alternate universe as close to the story as one can conceivably imagine."
"That… shouldn't be too hard, doesn't that mean that a lot of people are sent over." Jazz said, worried about the idea.
"Well, it isn't but there are a few caveats." He began. "Remember, multiverse, every single individual making an infinite number of choices, people who like the same show might end up going to a completely separate version of reality's facsimile of their favorite fictional universe, of course, this also means how you are reborn or sent over is equally different, 99.99% of the time you appear in the inside of a building, solid rock, or in the middle of the vacuum of space, or if you're a lucky bloke like me and are reborn via reincarnation style, but there's a high chance you'll be stillborn or will die before you turn 3, such an undeveloped mind has trouble handling over a decade's worth of life experience. From what I've seen, 7.3 million people have been sent to another world, only 500 survived the 'jump', and only the 20 or so of us you see have made it this far, at least, as far as I'm aware." He raised a finger, "but, and I have to emphasize a big BUT… any and all people are both likely alive and dead, but simply not alive in this reality."
"You mean like… superpositions? Schrodinger's cat and all that bs?" Jazz inquired.
"Oh? You're a pretty smart kid." Orpheus laughed. "Anyways, what's your address?"
"My… Address?" Jazz asked.
"Yes, your address." Orpheus took out a phone, "I'd prefer coordinates, but an address can help."
They were interrupted by the shouts of men and women, who rushed out of the room they just passed by and began to shoot at them. With a wave of his hand, the majority of bullets stopped before they reached the pair, then the guns jammed. Jazz noted how the men dropped the guns, seemingly exhausted.
Orpheus turned to Jazz, "address, please."
Jazz nodded… oh, "y-yeah…" He began.
They were again interrupted, this time by a trio of angry teens.
"Hey…" Jazz began, "how come I can use my powers?" As he turned to the group, gritting his teeth. Before Orpheus could answer the girl flew towards them before seemingly crashing into a barrier of sorts.
"You don't know?" Orpheus smirked. "You were meant to be a sacrifice for someone else's departure into the world you went to, so you become ingrained in that world's cycle while always being an outsider if they fail their task, you end up taking their place, and thus, if you find a way back into the 'real world', you get to keep your powers." He raised his blade to block a beam of light shot by the young man with the wizard wand.
"Avada kedavra!" The teen shouted again. A wall of rock raised, blocking the killing curse from reaching its targets.
Jazz widened his eyes in shock. "What the hell is going on?!"
Orpheus merely shook his head, "address, please!"
Jazz finally entered the address unto the swordsman's phone, as they were enveloped in red light.
…
"No…" Jazz stared in disbelief at what lay before him. "No…" His home, the place he went to after school, where he could rest his head, the place with the family that wasn't perfect, but that loved him, it was gone. The entire town he lived in, was gone, reduced to nothing, ash and debris filled the land around his home, and as he looked around, every building looked to have received the same treatment.
"I'm sorry…" Orpheus began sadly, "I should have wa-" He was interrupted when Jazz grabbed his neck, aura flaring.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, WHAT HAPPENED TO MY MOTHER, MY BROTHER?!"
Orpheus looked to the side. "A Lot has happened in the 6 months since you left. It's kind of hard to explain, but… let me try."
Jazz attempted to squeeze harder, but he found that he seemed to be losing more energy as he did that, eventually, he let go of Orpheus, and the drain was reduced as if nothing happened. "Fine…" He clenched his fists.
"This started a year ago, a kid by the name of Jeremy, apparently discovered a way to travel to parallel universes, at first, it was just to see how other variations of "our earth" do things, which was relatively easy, as he could go to any world that had a 'version' of him, and he'd swap places temporarily. Eventually, he discovered that worlds, whole universes considered fictional existed in the infinite upon infinite universes. So he decided to test something out, he had an old friend…" Orpheus looked down. "For someone to travel to that universe, there needs to be a version of themselves in that world, but there's no such thing as an alternate version of yourself in a fictional universe unless that piece of 'fiction' already had in its world a version of the specific person. He also realized that to find the type of universe he aimed, for, he needed someone familiar with that genre, who really liked it as I said. And so, he devised a plan." Orpheus looked at Jazz, "if three people die at the same time, and all three share a certain level of love or devotion to a certain world, they would switch places with someone who died in that world."
"How does that…" Jazz began.
"There are, approximately, on Earth, 163 thousand deaths a day, and 114 deaths per minute, even if it is a fictional universe, if its planet is Earth-like enough in politics and population, or has an even greater level of death, he can swap someone out, and send a subject to that fictional universe. But he needs to be precise to the attosecond, if he's off by even a little bit, that person simply dies, and no 'switch' occurs. The fact that he has a 50% pass rate is scary enough."
"So, why did he pick me, and what happened to my family?" Jazz growled.
"Someone picked you." Orpheus said, "someone picked you as a sacrifice, not knowing that Jeremy needs three sacrifices, 1 to lead the way, one to sit and wait, and the other to open the door for him to come himself, I'm assuming you were the one to lead the way, as you didn't come back as expected. How did you…" He began, confused.
"WHAT HAPPENED TO MY FAMILY?!"
Orpheus frowned. "They're likely dead, Jeremy doesn't like loose ends, if someone was sacrificed, he stages 'accidents', so that their family can't ask for where they are, he only really does this in first world countries, as usually the government of a third world country can't be bought. I only really learned all this recently, as I came back only three months ago, I'm sorry."
Jazz's angry retort was cut short by an explosion near them. "Oh, great." He growled as fur began sprouting from his arms and legs.
"Super Saiyan 4?" Orpheus asked, taken aback by the change.
"Werewolf." Jazz growled in response, realizing now that the disorienting feelings he had were his body, his original body, slowly acclimating to the power that coursed through his fingertips.
…
…
Jasper(Jazz) Duncan
Age: 19 and 2 months
Hair color: Red
Skin color: white
Race: Quarter Caucasian(White American of English-Irish descent), Quarter Asian (Korean), Quarter Black(African-American), Quarter Hispanic (Cuban)
Height: 6 feet 0.5 inches | 184.15 centimeters
Weight: 195 lbs | 88.4505 kilograms, Using additional weights totaling 300lbs or 136.078 kilo
Skills: Advanced Staff Technique, Advanced Kinjutsu (sword technique), Advanced Hand-to-Hand technique, Advanced Ki techniques, Mastered Magic Materialization
Capable of creating: Conventional Weapons, Food, various tools (limited by his knowledge of the materials, craftsmanship, and scientific knowledge)
Weapons that can be created: Long Ruyi Jingu Bang, Long Bansho Fan, Ryu Kusanagi, Wyvern's Wind-And-Fire Wheels, Dragon's Flame-Tipped Spear, Fafnir's Gungnir, Leviathan's Trident
Powers: Elemental Magic Materialization, Capable of summoning and freely manipulating fire, water, wind, and earth, capable of freely utilizing and creating lightning, ice, smoke, and steam, capable of manipulating and stirring the growth of plant and animal life. Mastered Telekinesis.
Mastery of General Magic Concepts and abilities, a basic understanding of intermediate level magical techniques, a basic understanding of advanced magical techniques.
Shapeshifting: Mastered Skill level (indefinite)
Transformation Power Techniques
Noble Werewolf: Adolescent Awakening: 3.375x power
Improved Full Power: A renamed form of Pump-Up/ Max Power, no longer lowers speed, instead it now grants strength and speed proportional to power gain, due to witnessing Launch's utilization of the technique, the power raised up to 3.6x
Talisman Magic: Body Enhancement: 1.5x Power, drains magical energy over time, lasts 25 minutes at full, before then draining ki
Emissive Techniques: Kamehameha, Don Don Pa, Solar Flare, Tri-Beam, Thunder Shock Surprise, Barrage Ki attack, Magic Fire Kamehameha, Thunderfire Kamehameha. Ki-Flame Sword, Marshmallow Meteor,
Body Techniques: Four Witches Technique, 12 Eyes Technique, Fusion Dance, Wolf Fang Fist, Mafuba
Powerlevel: 740
Without Fusion Dance, While Revved up to full power: 13,486.5
…
…
Afterword:
Things are starting to get weird, aren't they? It looks like the idea that Jazz not being the only person to get Isekaid isn't even the half of it all. Who is this mysterious Orpheus? Who is this mastermind, this… Jeremy fellow, (and no offense to any Jeremy's reading), how come he has like such a non-threatening name?
This chapter was hard to let out lol, but I hope you look forward to the more action packed next chapter, when these two will have to attempt to survive an onslaught of isekai'd teens. Don't worry, Jazz will return back to the world of Dragon Ball, he came here on borrowed time, remember.