Goku's image flashed and materialized in a singular sonic shriek. The Saiyan had barely noticed that the end of the Snake Way was before him and that the tail signified that the only path onward for him would have also led him plummeting back down to Hell. With a baffled look, Goku scanned the massive array of clouds in front of him before the idea dawned on him to look up.
And there it was. A tiny, green planet with a house, what seemed like a garage and a lone, round path that went right around it. It was quite high up though Goku didn't feel like it would have inconvenienced him at all. He had dashed through much vaster distances in one leap before. Even traveling the very Snake Way that got him to this place. In a blink, Goku vanished from the tail end of the Snake Way.
A dancing monkey turned its head and spent a fair couple of minutes staring at Goku with a blank look before approaching the Saiyan with the same, dance-like strut. Goku scratched his temple, wondering what this was about. It was only now that it dawned on the young man that there was not really a signifier that told him that this indeed was King Kai's tiny planet so he very much might have ended up on another curious sightseeing detour.
"Are you King Kai?" Goku pointed at the monkey. Looking interested in the finger pointing its way, Bubbles grabbed Goku's wrist and bit his index, forcing the Saiyan to jump back and howl in pain while he shook his hand to ease the pain. "You're no ordinary monkey, that's for sure. Got some speed and bite to you…"
"Hey, hey… Who's raising this ruckus here?" a tired voice came from the little house which might have been just about the only notable attraction to the place, alongside the garage that belonged to it and stood right beside the house. A short, broad-shouldered, cricket-like blob of light blue skin emerged from the house. One side of its teashade sunglasses tilted upward so that the being could rub its tired eyes though Goku couldn't get a glimpse at the eye of this curious thing.
"Yo! I'm Goku! Are you King Kai's servant?" Goku introduced himself before pointing at Bubbles while still keeping his gaze fixed on to the emerged blue-skin elder in a black, oriental robe.
"Servant? I am King Kai, Bubbles here is my pet and my friend," the blue-skinned elder nodded as if he had to affirm this truth to himself in addition to clearing it up for Goku. "I'm not sure why you'd have thought Bubbles to be the great King Kai. You should stop… Monkeying around…"
King Kai covered up his mouth as he began cringing, barely able to withhold the laughter at his own silly pun. Goku's face shriveled up like a raisin as he struggled to comprehend what was so funny but, never being one to trouble himself with confusing things for too long, he shrugged it off and ran up to King Kai, teeming with hype.
"Hey, hey, Upa said that you were this amazing martial arts master and that you were looking for pupils. Could you then maybe train me while I'm dead?" Goku wondered, already beaming with excitement and cheer as if King Kai had accepted his request.
"Hmph… So it was Kami that allowed you to keep your body after death, was it? Well then, mind if I clear that up with him?" King Kai wondered, leaning at Goku as if he had some suspicions about him.
"That's gonna take a really long time! It'll take years for you to run the whole Snake Way with those short feet," Goku complained. "If it's really that big of a deal, I can carry you all the way back to King Enma and he'll call Kami for you."
"There will be no need for that, amusing as that might be," King Kai chuckled, fixing his shades as he whipped his antennae forward. Goku sensed a faint Ki-based signal rippling through space from the tip of King Kai's antennae. "Hey! Kami! This stiff guy just arrived on my planet, some Goku guy, he says that you sent him here to train."
King Kai stood there for a brief moment, Goku assumed that Upa had been talking to King Kai somehow through his mind. It seemed really confusing though the concept of learning a similar communication technique made Goku a bit pumped, even if he couldn't quite figure out any immediate uses for such a technique on the fly.
"I see, well then, he might be one of the Earth's strongest and I might be desperately short on apprentices but I will still test him as I see fit," King Kai concluded and tilted his head up to stare at Goku with a strict expression on his face.
"That's amazing! You can just contact anybody with those antennae of yours?" Goku wondered, pointing at the oversized appendages that hung bent up in an arc.
"That's right, anybody in the entire universe and even some places beyond just our universe, the very macrocosm that encompasses our universe too," King Kai nodded, looking mighty proud of his own telepathic abilities and somewhat softened up to Goku with the martial artist thinking his abilities amazing. "You might have a sweet tongue, mister, but you will still have to pass my test. I have some amazing zingers to teach you, both in comedy and martial arts, and I won't reveal my best humdingers to just any country hick, you see!"
"Hm? A test?" Goku wondered.
"That's right, first of all, I will need to know if you, someone who grew up on Earth, will even be capable of taking my grueling training. You might have been able to hide it quite well, but the gravity of this planet must feel intense for you, so you will have to be able to catch someone who lives around it, someone like Bubbles so that we know that you've got the heavy kicks…" King Kai continued to postulate before covering up his mouth again and beginning to spray through his lips. As if prompted by the old martial arts master, Bubbles ran off to the other side of the tiny planet and began dashing around as wild as only a dancing monkey could pull off.
"You may begin whenever you…" King Kai was about to inform Goku that he could have started at any moment though Goku vanished in his sight and re-appeared with Bubbles in his hands in an instant. King Kai's jaw dropped and his shades began hanging very uneasy over his tiny nose, dangling close to revealing his enigmatic eyes underneath. The martial arts master quickly regained his composure and corrected them however, taking a more dignified pose and closing his jaw at once.
"That was easy, the Room of Spirit and Time feels very similar to this planet and I've trained there a whole bunch!" Goku grinned while holding the struggling monkey in his hands.
"I see…" King Kai breathed out through his mouth. "In any case, while your body might be ready for the trials ahead, your mind might be anything but. If I am to declare you a worthy inheritor of my prized martial arts techniques, I will have to see if your wit is as sharp as your speedlines."
"Huh?" Goku scratched his head while King Kai continued to cringe at his clever wordplay.
"I'll have to hear a pun from you that can make me laugh. A comedic nugget worthy of my attention," King Kai explained with a grumpy tone when his self-supposed brilliance smashed against a brick wall in Goku.
"A pun? What's that?" Goku wondered.
"You know… Why do you think I wear sunglasses? It's because all of my students are just too bright!" King Kai raised his index finger as if he was about to teach Goku an important life lesson but it served to only leave the Saiyan more stumped.
"I… I don't quite get it…" Goku admitted in embarrassment.
"What the matter, don't you like skiing at all!?" King Kai shook his hands over his head, desperate to hammer the concept into Goku's brain but the Earth-raised martial artist was just in over his head with this one. "Tsk, forget it, what's the use of a photographic memory if you can't develop it?" King Kai crossed his arms and looked away, cringing to himself on an occasion as he thought of his own unleashed zingers.
"Can't you just show me your techniques? All that pun stuff doesn't really seem all that important to fighting, maybe I'll get it better as we go on?" Goku asked.
"Forget it, you're as sour as a spider…" King Kai cringed to himself before walking away and looking up. He appeared to have completely lost all interest in Goku. "If you like joyrides you can stay, I could use a driving companion but I will not teach you martial arts, not now, not ever. I could never entrust my martial arts techniques to such a stifferson. I don't want a boring wife, I want a star."
"Seriously!?" Goku freaked out and deflated. "Man… To think that I got all the way up here to learn from the heavenly master of martial arts only to be stumped by some weird words… Wait a second…"
Goku jumped up and ran up to King Kai, turning him around and shaking him by his shoulders, beaming with excitement. Almost as if the shiniest of all zingers was about to flow off of his tongue.
"You can contact anyone with your antennae, right?" Goku asked. "Contact them with your mind, that is?"
"That's not a… Oh… You were asking seriously, yes, yes I can, why?" King Kai wondered.
"There's someone really smart with words that you might be able to teach. A talented, budding martial artist too though he's still alive, do you think you could teach them?" Goku inquired.
"Huh? I mean… If they can make me laugh and can handle the gravity of this planet, sure…" King Kai nodded.
"Okay, I need you to contact Kami then, I'll want him to bring someone here," Goku nodded to himself as his confidence returned to him.
The lemon-colored clouds underneath the King Kai's planetoid began bubbling and whirling as they turned black. Crackles and tiny jolts of electricity ran over their peaks before a solid thunderbolt formed and smashed against the southernmost pole of the planet, leaving a trio of companions stranded on King Kai's planet and looking around it.
"Is this it?" Chi-Chi looked around as if she expected a demon to jump out at her from any corner of the tiny place.
"It is, I've never been here and I didn't even think to teleport Goku here because King Kai would have refused to train anyone that didn't run the Snake Way properly first," Upa nodded.
"There!" little Gohan pointed at the western edge of the planet where, from the horizon, a pile of smoke was beginning to form as something sped right at the curious array of travelers that moved to King Kai's planet from the God's Temple.
A red 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air Hardtop screeched as it came to a halting and sudden stop. King Kai alongside Goku jumped out of the car and approached the travelers. King Kai nodded his head at the new Kami whom he had not yet gotten the chance to meet since Kami took over from the old in greeting, Upa bowed before his superior, looking beyond intimidated to be on his planet.
"So, this is the boy then?" King Kai looked at Gohan who looked petrified of the blue-skinned elder and hid behind his mother's skirt. Both Chi-Chi and Gohan looked awkward in their movements though their strength allowed them to maintain some decent control over their movements. The concept of greater gravity was a novelty for Gohan to the little boy continued to tumble and wobble as he walked while Chi-Chi looked like she knew these conditions well though just hadn't experienced them for a while.
"Yeah, Gohan is really smart, I'm sure he'll get your pun stuff and knock you off your shoes with it!" Goku gave his son a thumb up as he approached Chi-Chi and pulled Gohan from behind his mother's skirt and placed him on his shoulder.
"Just what do you think you're doing here, Goku-sa!?" Chi-Chi roared out, rearing her teeth like a wild puma. "How dare you get yourself killed right now, at such a crucial time of our son's development!? Did you intend on leaving him to grow up some little wussy, without a father? Just how am I supposed to reel him back from deviant ways when he grows stronger and keep him focused on becoming a well-rounded adult?"
"It's alright, Chi-Chi, my dad ended up killing me by accident. The others are gonna gather the Dragon Balls and bring me back. It's actually really good that you came. I didn't think about it, but we can all train here together and raise Gohan here until I'm brought back to life," Goku stroked Gohan's head as he continued to goof around with his son at the same time as he was fending off the well-deserved flack from Chi-Chi about getting careless.
"My planet isn't a hotel, you know. Also, I never agreed to train anyone that didn't make me laugh," King Kai reminded Goku that he was getting quite carried away with his plan.
"That's fine. You said that I could stay even if I didn't plan on training. You can just train Gohan while we continue to train and raise him as his parents," Goku answered.
"That's right, you old geezer, you didn't plan on kidnapping our child and training him without our supervision, did you!?" Chi-Chi turned her ire to King Kai who just shook his hands out in front of him, flabbergasted at how quickly the focus of the woman's wrath turned to him. He then caved in and deflated from the pressure.
"Fine, if your little boy can pass my test, I'll show him my techniques and whether he chooses to pass them down to you in the process, that's his own business. You two can stay and oversee his training, make sure he eats right and behaves, and whatnot…" King Kai caved in. "But that's still a very big if…"
"If I may be excused, there is a big battle brewing on Earth. I might be needed to confront the Saiyans," Upa butt into the conversation.
"Ah… The Saiyans are causing Earth more trouble then? That's too bad. I was never the one for such nasty measures but perhaps Frieza would have been better off controlling those brutes with a stricter hand in the past…" King Kai pondered out loud.
"Yes, though we have some of our own to assist us. Somehow, even the foul Piccolo who has once strived to take over the Earth now fights alongside us to protect it though. These are odd times and that is exactly why I must be there on Earth to protect it," Upa explained.
"Very well, Kami, you might leave," King Kai nodded without paying much attention to the rising beam of sizzling lightning that boomed Kami away from his little planet and back to his own domain. Once this business was over, King Kai turned for little Gohan who had begun getting a bit used to the place and even began chasing after Bubbles in some odd game of tag, despite still tripping and fumbling over himself once in a while.
"Careful, Gohan, all of your clothes are back home and we could not be any further away from Mt. Paozu right now!" Chi-Chi asked that her son was more careful and didn't get dirt all over his Hanfu-style uniform. Gohan nodded and patted his top to dust it off and wipe any traces of dirt left over from his stumbles.
"What an amazing child!" King Kai observed, "Barely even a minute here and already chasing after Bubble like he's grown up in augmented gravity."
"That's right, we've trained little Gohan a little bit so that he grows up a rounded up young man. Smart, well-behaved, and strong. Everything that the magazines say a man needs to be…" Chi-Chi nodded her head in affirmation of King Kai's observations.
"Yeah, Gohan is a great deal stronger than I was in his years…" Goku laughed out. "He's a great deal smarter too because he's hitting those books when he's not training. Go ahead, Gohan, do a pun for King Kai so that he can teach you martial arts."
"T-Teach?" Gohan looked up at his father, intimidated.
"Yeah," Goku nodded. "This is King Kai, he's a heavenly master of martial arts. The only way he'll teach you is if you manage to catch Bubbles and make him laugh with some pun-thing."
"B-But… Father is teaching me martial arts…" Gohan sobbed in a whiny voice, looking a bit scared of the blue-skinned shorty with cricket-antennae as many little boys his age would have been.
"That's right, but King Kai knows way amazing martial arts that not even your dad knows! This is your chance to learn martial arts that nobody in the universe actually knows. You know, nobody except your dad and King Enma ran all the way here over the Snake Way," Goku pointed out. This prospect of learning something that nobody had ever seen before appeared to drive some new life into the young kid as he began pumping his little fists and a tiny smile began wriggling its way up to his face.
"Oh, that's right, I guess you'll have to run all the way through the Snake Way too…" Goku approached Gohan and hoisted him up underneath his armpit as he prepared to dash all the way back to the beginning of the Snake Way, freaking out both Chi-Chi and King Kai.
"E-Enough! That's enough, Goku!" King Kai yelled out. "That's fine, he doesn't need to do that, you've traveled the Snake Way and I'm sure the boy could do it eventually too. Let's not subject him to it though, just this once, I'll train little Gohan if he can make me laugh and he can chase Bubbles during his playtime. He has playtime, right?"
"I guess we can squeeze in some thirty-minutes of that, if necessary…" Chi-Chi crossed her arms looking bemused. "After all, he won't be wasting that time, it seems."
"Alright, Gohan, go ahead, make King Kai laugh, I know you can!" Goku put his son on the ground and hurried him ahead toward the elder martial arts master.
"Umm… You like puns, right, sir?" Gohan looked up while he butt his fingers together, still anxious about the entire premise of his life flipping over on itself in a snap.
"Correct, puns illustrate a mature and witty mind. A sharp intellect of premiere martial artist that is worthy of receiving my training. While your father isn't quite western style but he's still strange-looking…" King Kai covered up his mouth while he chuckled at his own pun.
"Ummm… I see… The futon was blown away," Gohan mumbled out.
"Nice try… You can't get me with that one. It's a classic, overused, dragged down and under… It's the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of a pun," King Kai continued to cringe but covered up his mouth and pressed his arms over his cheeks while he convulsed in a hopeless attempt to restrain laughter.
"I see, that's the reason why you didn't laugh. It's a good reason…" Gohan nodded his head, looking happy.
"Good reason!?" King Kai finally burst. "Good reason… He says… Honestly!"
"Hm… That's a nice tree over there. Is it a pear tree? No… There is no pear…" Gohan pointed at a tree further to the north prompting King Kai to fall and begin rolling on the paved road in a total guffaw.
"There is… No pear… What a killer! A regular comedian!" King Kai couldn't control himself.
Chi-Chi turned to Goku while the two parents shared a smile. The wife pressed her head against her husband's shoulder, observing as Gohan proceeded to exceed in his comedic test as he had begun enjoying the comedic massacre that he was enacting upon the ancient martial arts master and continued to torture King Kai's waist with a relentless stream of puns.
"I still honestly don't get it..." Goku admitted quietly to his wife. "This pun stuff, that is."