Author's Note: Sorry this chapter isn't as long as you might have been hoping for waiting this long, I'll try to get the next chapter out quicker to make up for it but I'm not making any promises.
Chapter 6 Space: The New Terror
Approximately two years have come and gone since Trunks and Goten's friendship fell apart. The z warriors and their families didn't understand what had caused the Demi Saiyan duo to split up. When questioned, Goten as usual feigned ignorance as to the reason while Trunks being immature and irrational about it all gave a vague yet fierce response stating that Goten was no longer worth his time. Most of them assumed that Goten must have messed something up again and it was the last straw for Trunks, the few that didn't come to that conclusion didn't care about it enough to have an opinion. Although Goten with Zach's help sometimes attempted to convince Trunks not to hate him and that he was overreacting a few times, every time was met by either an angry scowl from the boy or a slamming door. Eventually Zach persuaded Goten to leave Trunks behind and divert more of their time and energy into their other pursuits such as training, simply having fun and most importantly getting dirt on Xavier. Despite this however their investigation and spying didn't yield much more than Xavier disappearing for longer periods of time and his clothing occasionally having peculiar odors.
At The Son Family Household Backyard In The Afternoon
A now eleven years old Goten could be seen outside fiddling with some wires on what appeared to be a spherical gravity chamber not unlike the ones built by Bulma. One notable difference however was the addition of a gravity gauge showing the different levels of pressure one would be subjected to under alternating gravity settings. It also went up towards the number one million, indicating that the device was a vastly improved version of Bulma's original design as that one could only reach four hundred times earth's gravity. Evidently another big difference was that the contraption was looking pretty banged up and in need of repairs and maintenance. The spiky haired child also bared a slight change from his previous appearance, namely in the muscle and height department. Thanks to a combination of simple aging and intense training, his previously thin and somewhat meek looking body had toned out a bit and he stood about as tall as his older brother was at about the same age though a lot of his gains were hidden at the moment by a pair of dirty jeans, a white tank top and gloves he was wearing. "Ok now I just reattach the matter densator to the magnetic field and...there!" Goten shouted triumphantly having just fixed a major component to his biggest training asset signified by some lights within the wiring lighting up and a whirring sound starting up. "Ok! Two parts down!" Goten's excitable assessment was interrupted by a part of the walls of the chamber breaking off and falling to the ground with a thud and the computer in it sparking with electricity and flashing with glitchy images, "ten more to go Heh heh..." Goten concluded dryly laughing nervously to himself a sweat dropping down his face. Just then in a burst of light and particles Zach appeared a few feet away from Goten having used his teleporter. "Hey buddy I got your message saying you needed my help?" Zach asked curiously. "Thanks for coming Zach! The gravity chamber needs some fine tuning. The walls need to welded back together, the energy modulators need realignment, the computers need to be reprogrammed with some reconfiguration and a whole bunch of other miscellaneous stuff that allude me at the moment" Goten explained breaking down his situation expertly his intelligence and vocabulary clearly having grown quite substantially over the course of the years he has spent around Zach. "Gee I wonder how all those components could have possibly broken" Zach playfully teased Goten sarcastically. "He he he!" Goten laughed mischievously expressing the classic son grin while scratching the back of his head. "I know I can do all of this on my own now but you still do it faster than me and I wanna try and get it all fixed before my parents or Xavier get back from whatever it is they're doing" Goten explained. "I wish we could find out what the hell that bastard is up to. I mean I'm glad he hasn't been around to hurt you as much but I can't shake this feeling that he's planning something" Zach lamented worryingly as he began walking towards one of dented falling walls. "I know I'm really scared too" Goten said shakily having flashes of Xavier's countless beatings in his head. "W-what do you think he's doing?" Goten questioned nervously. "It doesn't matter what he's cooking up bro, whatever it is we'll stare it down and then kick its ass just like...like..." Zach's encouragement was cut short when he suddenly felt woozy and then collapsed to the ground. "Zach! Zach! What's wrong?! Wake up!" Goten panicked getting down on his knees screaming and shaking his friend's unconscious body frantically fearing that Zach had gone into a coma or maybe even died. "Can you hear me?! Come on Zach! Wake...up...please... I uhhh..." Goten fell asleep succumbing to the force that made Zach lose consciousness. A few feet away from the pair, the cause of their abrupt slumber was revealed to have been a strange gas tier like object except it was black and appeared to be somewhat organic with many holes pot marking it. It was spewing out fumes that could not be smelled or seen very easily but one could see it coming out obscuring the air if they were to look hard enough. Foot steps were heard as a shadow came and partially covered the fallen duo. It was Xavier wearing what looked like a gas mask of some sort. He proceeded to pick up the object and push something on it which seemed to cease the output of the fumes, clearly indicating that he knew how it worked. "Well, you both did say you wanted to know what I've been doing right? Well guess what, your about too Heh he heh" Xavier said smirking devilishly giggling to himself. "Oh I just know you'll love it Goten, it'll be...out of this world..." Xavier told his unconscious twin brother his evil grin widening as he picked both boys up and began flying away to a yet unknown destination.
An Indiscernible Amount Of Time Later
Goten layed motionless on a metal floor. One could hear a faint whooshing sound radiate throughout the mysterious chamber like room that had one shut sliding door. The boy began to stir awake only to shield his eyes from a brightly lit white ceiling. "Ugh, where are we?" Goten asked very groggily rubbing his eyes to wake himself up. "Uhhhh Goten?" Zach's voice was suddenly heard, revealing himself to have accompanied Goten looking out a window. "Zach! Oh thank goodness your alright! What happened?!" Goten inquired relieved that his previously unconscious friend was once again up and about but also really curious as to where they were right now. "Uhhhh I'm not certain but come take a look here and you'll get a clue" Zach told Goten gesturing for the Demi saiyan to come towards him. To say what the unlikely duo saw was baffling would be putting it mildly. Out the window, their eyes captured the sight of what appeared to be countless dots of lights with varying colors zipping through a black void, almost like, outer space. "Zach...are we...!" Goten muttered stunned while slowly turning to look at Zach, already knowing the answer but was still gonna ask just for confirmation. "Space...yep... we're in space..." Zach answered equally stunned eyes and head fixated on the cosmos. "Why does it look like everything is moving? I know things in space move but not like this" Goten questioned having read and seen enough of space from the many times he and Zach or Trunks looked at it through each other's advanced telescopes. "It does if we are traveling at the speed of light or faster" Zach reveals. "Huh?! H-how did we get here?! Who or what brought us here?!" Goten asked half freaking out. "I was hoping you know!" Zach exclaimed now also beginning to panic. Taking deep breaths the young preteens darted their eyes around to spot any clues as to where they were, how they got there and hopefully find a back to Earth. "Alright let's see if we can't open that door" Zach proposed beginning to look for some kind of button, switch or keypad to unlock the door. As Goten wearily scanned the door, he noticed the capsule corp logo engraved just above the door. "Zach! This ship belongs to Capsule Corp!" Goten exclaimed in shock. "What?! Oh my god your right!" Zach reeled in a matching surprise tone looking up to see the logo for himself. "You don't think that Trunks put us on this to get rid of us do you?" Goten pondered despondently believing that his previous best friend had gone to the extreme. "No Trunks is a jackass but he's not that much of a jackass" Zach reasoned though right after he said that his eye's spring open wide as his mind abruptly recalls one of his encounters with Trunks when he was trying to mend his and Goten's friendship.
Flashback To Sometime A Few Months Back
"How bout it man? I give you this and you be Goten's friend again!" Zach proposed cheerfully to Trunks right outside his bedroom door at Capsule Corp presenting the lavender haired Demi saiyan a gift/peace offering. Said gift/peace offering was a very intricately designed music player with many different buttons on its sides and it was in the shape of a prince's crown. Etched onto the player going around the bottom were drawings of Trunks and Vegeta holding hands wearing crowns and other royal looking attire to depict them ruling together. Zach pushed a couple buttons, the first triggering some laser lights to start coming out of the player and the second making it play the song "Second Chance" by Shinedown. Trunks stared emotionlessly at Zach and his extravagant gift. The lavender haired boy then reached over, grabbed Zach by the back of his shirt, turned him around, stuck his hand into the back of Zach's shirt, put a small stable ball of ki inside it. He then removed his hand and with his mind and middle finger shot the ki ball and Zach along with it through the ceiling and into the air then simply retreated back inside and shut the door. "Ahhhh!" Zach screamed in terror as he soared through the air going in multiple different directions until eventually the ki ball descends down to the street with a tiny explosion. Neither the explosion or the crash down were intense enough to seriously hurt Zach but he was covered in scratches and bruises and his intended gift was nothing more but a pile of smoking bolts and wires now.
End Of FlashBack
"Then again..." Zach reconned himself after the memory finished playing in his head gaining a numb expression. Suddenly there was an abrupt halt to the ship the inertia of which caused Zach and Goten to fling back to the side with the window. "Well guess this is our stop...ow" Zach remarked jokingly trying to find some levity in their predicament and to ignore the pain of his head that banged on the wall. Once the pair regained their bearings, they both gazed out the window and their jaws dropped at the sight before them. There was a very dimly lit planet, most of its surface too dark to see anything but there a few dots of light pot marking it. Some were bright enough that you could see some of the natural surface of the planet and it was all white. The planet appeared to be an ice world. Surrounding the planets atmosphere were a series of ufos, clearly belonging to some kind of alien civilization as they weren't like anything the boys ever saw on earth even from Bulma. Some of the ufos were small oval shaped scout ships going to and coming from the surface carrying only the pilot. Others were much bigger blimp looking ships that were sending out or receiving the returning scout ships. "What do you make of this Zach?" Goten asked his friend both awestruck and nervous as to what was going on. "I'm not hundred percent certain what this is but I know that this is really bad" Zach surmised. "What makes you say that?" Goten turned to question Zach not understanding why he was so certain that this was something bad. "I don't think that world was naturally frozen like this. Did you see that?" Zach answered moving his eyes upwards. Goten looked where Zach was looking and he his eyes widened. It was a spherical starship that was literally the size of a star and it just so happens that the ship is blocking a star, presumably the mysterious planet's sun. The only part of the star anyone could make out was the corona, it was like a solar eclipse, only it was artificial and permanent as evidenced by the ship moving slowly in tandem with the planet's rotation so that the sun was always blocked. Goten couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Holy cow! Their blocking the sun!" Goten exclaimed in realization. "Yeah, whoever these people are, their intentionally freezing that world" Zach deduced. "W-why would they do that?" Goten asked Zach stuttering now starting to really worry about who or whatever lives on the mysterious planet, wondering if they were ok and if they had anything to do with this strange situation. Suddenly the sliding door finally opened making Goten and Zach look back to see who or what was on the other side. And wouldn't you know it, it was their favorite person in the whole world. Xavier. "Xavier?" Goten said surprised by his twin brother's appearance. Zach tensed up fearful of what was gonna happen next. Xavier bore a knowing sly grin with a dark look on his face his hands behind his back as he stepped forward a few inches closer before he leaned his head forward and asked in a professional manner "Ready to meet the boss?".