A spiraling blitz of two beams, a bright amber one and a gloomy dark one attracted the attention of a little boy doing his best to chop down a young tree with his fun-size tomahawk that would have been more suited for use as a projectile weapon rather than a chopping tool. The boy flipped his axe over his shoulder and ran off towards his camp. His face was full of determination and hope to see a familiar face. Upon forcing his way through a thick bush and entering the campsite, the boy's face burst with joy.
"Chayote!" he yelled out with teary eyes.
"Wipe your snot off your face, geez, Upa, you're such a crybaby…" Chayote smirked and hopped off her cloud, letting Upa to run up to her and wrap his arms around her leg. It hardly seemed like something she should have bothered doing but the Saiyan liked the warm and puny feeling of this brat around her leg so she just looked away to try and look distant instead of confronting the boy's action head-on the way she was expected to.
"And who is this young man?" Bora wondered, looking up at Goku who just stood atop of Kinto, squat on his knees and observing the curious encampment and the odd inhabitants of these lands with curiosity.
"That's Son Goku. He is also an alien, like me. From the same planet in fact, hence the tail." Chayote explained. "Say, we're looking for a Dragon Ball, this orange crystal orb with stars on it. Our radar says that it's around these parts…"
"Father, do you think that it might be…?" Upa turned to Bora who just nodded with a stern face and went into the tent to scrounge through the wooden chests where all the tools and spare gear were being kept. Not a few minutes later, Bora left the tent with a Dragon Ball in hand.
"This orb has landed from the sky, heated like a meteor. We wondered if it might have been a fallen star, either way, we considered that it was a gift from God of the Korin Tower. I suppose if it is you who seeks it, a chosen one of the God of Korin Tower himself, we can grant it to you." Bora explained, extending his hand and loosening his grip to let the Dragon Ball roll around in his massive hand and gleam with its orange shine, letting his four stars see some glitter as well.
"Hmmm…" Goku turned his head before jumping up in ecstatic glee and wrapping his limbs around Bora's arm like a little monkey grabbing a tree branch as he examined the Dragon Ball in Bora's hand. "This is it, this is the Four Stars!"
"Hmph… Too bad, huh? You've been looking for it all this time and now you'll have to part with it just because the old geezer couldn't help it but perv over Launch…" Chayote chuckled to herself. Upa turned to Bora with some questions but the seasoned native warrior shook his head with a blush on his cheeks. "Anyway, you two are idiots, this is nothing what a star looks like, stars are massive balls of fire and gas, if one did fall to Earth, it would get incinerated and destroyed in an instant."
"Say, say…" Goku landed on his feet with the Four Stars in his hands and looked up at Bora. "What's this about the God of Korin Tower?"
Bora turned toward the Korin Tower behind him and pointed at it. "This is the Sacred Land of Korin. I am the protector of this land and Upa will inherit that honor after my passing. We are granted longevity and strength by the God of Korin Tower to protect his sacred grounds. Chayote fell from the sky, just like this curious ball one day, even more, she has climbed the tower and trained there with God himself. She can be rash and immature at times but God must have chosen her for a reason."
"You can climb up there and break a leg training…" Chayote shrugged. "I don't see there being much point to it, you're too strong at this point for the training to have any point."
"Then why did you climb there?" Goku raised a suspicious eyebrow. "You're not trying to hold back training from me so that you could remain stronger than me, are you?"
"Young man, the honor of training with the God of Korin Tower is the most treasured privilege granted only to the most powerful and spiritual individuals, it is not a gem that is to be hidden away and withheld, it is unlikely that a little one like you would even survive the training, even if you are as tough as Chayote." Bora interrupted the two.
"Alright!" Goku tightened the belt of his uniform, "Now I definitely am going to climb up there!"
"Suit yourself…" Chayote shrugged after a sigh. "It shouldn't take more than a day or two, I'll wait here until you come back."
"Really!?" Upa got hyped up to the point where he hunched over and squatted.
"Sure, do you have any food?" Chayote shrugged.
"Sure, I've been hunting dinosaurs lately, just like we used to!" Upa jumped up and dragged Chayote into the tent to show off the fruits of his latest hunt. "I didn't have nearly as much training though since we can't preserve the meat so we only hunt as much as we need to and with you gone we no longer need so many dinosaurs to feed ourselves…"
"Food? I could eat too before taking on the tower…" Goku scratched his belly. He had been complaining long before returning to Roshi's island about how hungry he was and he barely grabbed a thing to eat before the two Saiyans departed to the Sacred Land.
"Sure, oh, and don't take the Kinto up to the tower, that asshole Mr. Popo will appear and kick you back down. He might be pretty strong cause his kicks hurt a decent deal…" Chayote warned while warming up. She was certain that Goku would want to burn off some of his calories as usual after eating. He always stuffed himself too much and had to burn some of the food off.
"Hey!" Goku yelled out, landing on the Kinto from over the clouds. "I'm not sure if you were right… The training was pretty fun, even if I did catch the cat pretty easy…"
"Really? Go figure…" Chayote sighed. "Guess you were more of a weakling than I thought."
"That's not a nice thing to say, Chayote, you must be getting unruly without me to reel you back…" Upa flicked Chayote in the forehead while the Saiyan was sitting on the grass by the fire and scratching her teeth.
"Yeah, Korin taught me more about Ki control and gave a bunch of the Senzu for the road." Goku showed Chayote the tiny bag that looked ancient enough to be given by Korin up the tower. "He also gave me some bells, I'm not sure what those are for…"
"Really? He didn't give me any bells…" Chayote stood up and stretched out, preparing to return to the road-trip for the Dragon Balls now that Goku's training expedition was complete.
"I must have been really good!" Goku gave Chayote a peace sign with his fingers and that monkey-like grin of his that he loved to employ. "Though Korin did give me some slack for peeking in his jars of water, I thought there might have been more food that he was hiding but there wasn't any."
"Really?" Chayote raised an eyebrow, "What did you see?"
"I saw some green, slug-guy laughing by some large tower, I saw another slug-guy but all shriveled up with a cane and then I saw a man with odd armor that looked exactly like me but had a scar on his face and looked really angry. He had a tail too, just like us." Goku scratched his head, clearly, he had some trouble recalling anything that happened more than a few hours ago…
Chayote's eyes twitched in surprise. Another man with a tail and appearance similar to Goku, pissed off and wearing armor… That must have been another Saiyan. What could that mean? Would Saiyans return to Earth to pick Son Goku up? Maybe his parents dumped him here on purpose, they sure as hell would be pissed off finding the planet completely untouched by their wayward loser of a son… They'd probably kick Goku's ass and blow this planet to smithereens. Then again, this flash of the future to come was the third one, by now Chayote had not even experienced the second one of hers so it must have been way ahead in the future.
"I see… Well… I guess it's best that we get going. Muten Roshi must not like being tiny and I want Bulma to get on building my spaceship as soon as possible." Chayote declared. If Saiyans really were to come here to Earth, if she could take Son Goku with her and leave to space, she might prevent the unfortunate outcome that would befall this planet in the future. For some reason, Chayote didn't feel like seeing this planet as sad and lifeless space dust.
"You're leaving already?" Upa's lip whimpered.
"Don't be a nuisance, I've played with you for a whole day, that's more than I'm willing to grant most. Nobody likes a crybaby…" Chayote sneered at the boy.
"That's rude!" Upa pressed his tiny fists to his sides and yelled out at Chayote. "That's it, I'm coming with you and fixing that nasty attitude you have! You must be hurting Son Goku and his friends a great deal and who knows how many good guys you're killing without me to rule you back!"
"Upa…" Bora expressed his worry, he squatted on his knees and pressed his massive hand that enveloped the boy's entire head. "Are you sure about that?"
"Don't worry, I've come to better understand this planet's definitions of good and evil over my time here. If you chicken out, I won't hold it against you, but if you come, you'll have to pull your own weight." Chayote crossed her arms over her chest and jumped up onto her Kinto.
Upa looked a bit intimidated by the fact that his decision was so easily allowed into the rotation. This may have been the first time that his calls mattered and were considered alongside those of his father and Chayote's. He was not used to being in so much control over his own fate and that freedom, that overwhelming breath of fresh air was beginning to choke him up.
"Y-Yeah! I'm coming with and raising you right!" Upa nodded with determination flaring up in his tiny eyes of his oversized for his puny body head.
"Well then, this will be your first test, can you keep up with our traveling speed?" Chayote wondered with a mocking tone, raising her Dark Kinto a bit higher up in the air.
Much to her surprise, Upa took it into the air and flipped over his front, sadly, he phased through the Dark Kinto and planted onto the floor face and knees first. The boy got off the ground with a sniffy nose and watering and dirty face, Chayote could smell the weakness and the desire to run and hide behind the leg of his stronger father in him but much to her repeated amazement, Upa jumped up and went for Goku's Kinto this time.
"Good luck, brat, even I can't ride…" Chayote was about to laugh at another one of Upa's faceplants when the boy's bottom bounced off of Kinto's soft and cottony surface, Upa wrapped his arms and legs around Goku and yelled out some native battle cry.
"I can keep up, just like this!" Upa declared.
"Alright then, off for the last Dragon Ball we go…" Chayote smirked, feeling some pleasant swarm of butterflies buzzing in her stomach and tiny goosebumps accumulating over her body. She had never felt that feeling before, this joy with somebody else than herself but lately she's been feeling a whole bunch of new and unexplored emotions around those Earthlings.
Something odd that she noticed was the feeling of her power swelling up as those strong feelings came up. This planet… The more Chayote let it seep into her, the more it surprised her with undiscovered secrets and ways to become stronger.
The two Kinto took off and spiraled out of control, taking it to the skies.
"Heh, this sure takes me back…" Goku noted while the two were buzzing up in the air beside one another at a controlled and steady travel pace.
"What do you mean?" Chayote turned at the boy.
"Looking for the Dragon Balls, meeting new people, getting stronger in the process…" Goku clutched his fists by his side, Upa looked at the mimic swelling with determination in Goku's eyes with a proud smile.
"So you've gotten stronger by just seeking for those wish-granting orbs?" Chayote wondered.
"Yeah, if it weren't for the Dragon Balls, I'd have not met Bulma and Yamcha and Krillin, Muten Roshi knew my Grandpa so who knows… Maybe I'd have run into him at some point but… Those Dragon Balls tend to bring people together, except when bad guys like the Ribbons are looking for them." Goku's face turned more serious at the mention of the Ribbon Brigade as the collective of all the different Ribbon Armies was called, apparently.
"But… Beating all those guys up is a manner of training of its own." Chayote brought up to which Goku's attitude brightened up.
"Yeah, you've got it!" Goku raised his fist up with a determined expression. "Can't wait to see who's got the seventh Dragon Ball… Maybe it's some really strong guy and we won't get it without beating them!"
"Keep dreaming." Chayote shrugged. She had long since taken note of something that the Attendant of the Gods Whis told her way back about the Earth being a planet of irrelevant power levels, a safe place for her to grow stronger until the measuring of the worth of their Universe finally comes. "It will likely just be stuck in a tree or something, I mean we've already found the one at the bottom of an ocean."
"Don't lose your adventurer's spirit, Chayote." Upa cheered, his one hand reached for his belt and removed a tomahawk that he swung wildly over his head, the boy almost lost his grip on Goku's waist and slipped off a few times but he then reattached his tiny weapon back to its place and maintained a steady grip. Goku looked somewhat entertained by the spirit of his backseat passenger.
The two clouds accelerated and split a massive cluster of cloud cumuli.
"Move aside, you chaff, make way for Emperor Pilaf!" a pint-sized, anthropomorphic Shiba with a ninja uniform and a katana on his back shoved a handful of tough-looking brutes standing in his way, grabbing the handle of his blade on his back.
"What was that, you little shrimp!?" a sumo wrestler the size of a small house turned around while a bald muscle-head with a manly mustache cracked his knuckles by the side of the chubby martial artist. Before their fists could be put to work, a thunderous rattle of bullets by the side of their feet sent the handful of martial artists lined up in front of a small entrance hall building scatter to the sides in fear for their lives while a tall and slender young woman with a military uniform and long, dark hair approached them from the back, followed by a tiny, blue dwarf with a nefarious grin.
"Move aside and make way for Emperor Pilaf, are you deaf?" the woman let her submachine gun rest by her shoulder while she smirked with her lips dyed so red that they clawed at one's eyes.
"Y-Yes ma'am… I might be just a little bit deaf…" the sumo wrestler gestured with his fingers while laughing in fear and showing how little bit deaf he was while he and his crew shuffled aside, letting Emperor Pilaf and his goons pass.
"Nice work, Mai, if getting all the Dragon Balls will be this easy, this will go smoothly like a knife through butter!" the tiny, blue man snickered to his hand and proceeded with his goons toward a very confused pink ghost in a straw hat.
"Greetings, my name is Emperor Pilaf and I have come here to claim the Dragon Ball that is in this location!" Pilaf approached the ghost, extending his hands at the two goons enforcing his will. "These are my most trusted enforcers, Mai and Shu…"
Mai cocked her gun while Shu drew and re-sheathed his sword upon being introduced just to show off that the two meant business.
"I'm sorry but you guys must wait in the line if you wish to challenge Baba's fighters." The Ghost Usher informed the trio. "You don't look like much of a fighter so it's fine if your two goons do the fighting but you will still need to wait."
"Fight? We're not here to fight anyone, but we will hurt you all if you don't hand us the Dragon Ball!" Pilaf declared, looking offended that he was spoken down to in such a manner. The offense was so transparent in the face of the blue dwarf as his blue skin blushed just like that of anybody else's did.
"Oh, so you're paying customers? Sadly, only divination services are for paying customers. The Dragon Ball you spoke of is reserved to someone who will be visiting Fortuneteller Baba in the future." The Ghost Usher informed the trio.
"What was that?! You ignorant bastard, we're gonna light this place up!" Emperor Pilaf rolled back his sleeves but Mai stepped up and moved the pint-sized Emperor of something aside.
"We might be able to come to a consensus about a price, Emperor Pilaf used to be immensely rich, he owns property in the Diablo Desert and he used to own the castle in said property too, still, the property is still invaluable..." Mai reasoned. "Surely you don't want all this trouble for somebody who might or might not even show up…"
"Oh, but they've already shown up…" the Ghost Usher pointed at the door where Chayote, Son Goku and Upa stood, obstructing the intense sunlight bursting in from the outside.
"It's that blasted kid!" Pilaf flipped out, pointing his finger at Goku. "The monster that destroyed my castle! Kill him now!"
"B-But, Pilaf-sama, our combination transformation must be used outdoors…" Mai reasoned with the tiny Emperor.
"Very well, monster brat, let's take this fight outside!" Pilaf pointed at Goku with a twisted expression of a yakuza boss who was about to cut someone bothersome.
"Huh? You want to fight me?" Goku pointed at himself confused. "Are you sure? You guys are pretty weak…"
"Now you've done it, outside, now!" Pilaf yelled out while taking a hilarious dash with his short legs outside. It appeared that Goku had a unique ability to pick fights without even doing a single thing, it was something Chayote had admired about the young man as she usually had to work her best to piss people off to such an extent… Either way, she'd observe this fight for what it was worth.