Gohan's wobbly feet refused to move any longer. It wasn't exhaustion that prevented the youngster from moving but instead fear. Wherever the young one turned his head there were just the same views of oriental walls of a castle. A room filled with a tiger-shade haze and pillars of burgundy decorated in gold.
"This is horrible…" Gohan muttered to himself as he looked around, hyperventilating. "I want mommy… Where's dad?"
The adolescent had been just now told what happened to his mother and his father in some sick attempt to juice out every semblance of torment from his brother's family that Raditz could squeeze out. Despite that knowledge, young Gohan still denied himself the total collapse that accepting this fact that the two people that brought him up and were always there to watch and guide him were now gone and that he was all on his own.
It all happened in an instant. A stony tail slammed Gohan to the pillar he held his back to and pressed him tighter to it as the stone serpent squeezed tighter and tighter. More and more of the protracted true body of Princess Snake wrapped around the pillar where Gohan had found shelter as the Deity of the Snake Way had caught up to her prey and marveled at its struggle as the snake clutched and tried to crush the child. By now Princess Snake had completely abandoned its blue, humanoid form and had become identical to the Snake Way itself as she reared its open jaw to gobble little Gohan up whole.
"Impressive, most hardened men would pop like grapes in your place…" the Deity of the Snake Way commended the child before slamming its head right at Gohan while it loosened its grip. Despite its unmatched speed and majestic power, the Deity only bashed its head against a solid wall of golden, protective Ki bubble hard enough to make it spin in a wobbly daze.
When the Deity of the Snake Way shook off its contusion, its bright eyes widened in surprise at the sight of Gohan having completely escaped her grasp as the boy floated in mid-air, his body stiff as a little bar of iron as he roared in a wild battle cry and formed a seemingly impenetrable Kiai barrier around himself. The escalating power of this child seemed too great even for the serpentine princess herself to break through but she could feel that this was less a feat that the boy could do and more like a show of desperation, an unexpected last resort of the boy being so terrified that his rational mind hid its head in the sand and let something much more primal take its place by the wheel.
"Enough!" the Deity hissed and slammed its tail against the golden protective bubble, shattering it and sending Gohan across the room, smashing through multiple pillars and disappearing into the hazy atmosphere of the castle. In one, nimble slither the Deity of the Snake Way had homed in on the child's position only to find an empty spot where little Gohan was meant to be. "Boy!" the snake hissed with enough volume to raise shockwaves. "Oh well, taught me a lesson about playing with my food."
The serpentine divinity slithered off, disappearing into the mist of the inebriating atmosphere of the castle as only it was capable of and continuing her hunt for the fleeing, terrified, little boy.
Chi-Chi screamed out as her leafless body got shot out from a water spout that helped a lovely fountain maintain its appearances. She picked herself up and scratched her aching sides and the back of her head, feeling her wet and loose hair falling over her extremities and only then realizing that she was not given a chance to dress up before the Royal Flush Spring lived up to its name in the most ironic way imaginable and flushed her into the mightiest whirlpool that Chi-Chi had witnessed.
"More of you…" a stern, feminine tone distracted Chi-Chi. The young woman dived down into the waters of the fountain so that she could hide from the sole witness of her shame though this witness appeared to be a fellow young woman in an oriental, ceremonial-style dress and a hat that almost looked like some sort of a crown as it was decorated with colorful, fluffy accessories in a ring around it. "Well, are you a demon or an unfortunate soul, lost on your way?" the woman inquired of Chi-Chi.
"I'm not sure what this place is and what's my relation to it," Chi-Chi admitted. "But one thing's for sure – I'm no demon!" she replied, still hiding in the foam and waters despite the woman in a ceremonial attire being a fellow female.
"I must admit, I'm confused as to why you're completely bare. Though since the Fortune Furnace has been stolen, weirder things have happened…" the dark-haired young woman in ceremonial garbs admitted. "Rise from the fountain, I don't wish you to soil your new clothes, young lady."
Chi-Chi appeared from the fountain, still using her loose hair to protect her dignity though this ceremonial woman revealed herself to be someone special when she snapped her fingers and materialized a qipao around Chi-Chi's body perfectly suited to the woman's body and even tier her hair in an oriental style as well, skewering them with plastic pins to keep them in place.
"What are you?" the ceremonial woman inquired. "Do not lie to me, it is my sworn duty to prevent those from Hell from escaping into the living world."
"My name's Chi-Chi. I… I'm not sure what this place is or how I've ended up here. I and my family were visiting the Princess Snake Castle by the Snake Way and… I was taking a bath and… I seem to have ended up here after the hot spring swallowed me up. Princess Snake did mention that the spring was being used by divine beings all this time so maybe a mortal wasn't supposed to bathe in them?" Chi-Chi began pondering on theories as to how she might have ended up wherever she now was after her immediate concern of being butt-naked was taken care of.
"Princess Snake Castle? You mean the illusionary front that the Deity of the Snake Way put together to attract weary travelers? Interesting…" the ceremonial woman stroked her chin in deep thought before taking a stout pose before Chi-Chi. "My name is Annin, I am the protector of the sacred Fortune Furnace. If you were visiting the Deity's stomach, that means that you are a dead martial artist of grand skill, though, given that you fell for the illusion and walked right into it – not too bright one."
"Stomach!?" Chi-Chi freaked out. "You mean Goku-sa and Gohan-chan are inside the stomach of that snake!?"
"That is correct, that which you know as Princess Snake is just an illusionary front. Her entire castle is the same way. You've merely stepped into the Deity's stomach from the moment that you've entered the castle and the Deity wants to keep its visitors inside it long enough to digest them. You must have been especially tough to digest if she directed you right for the springs – those are the most intense pools of her stomach acids," Annin explained.
"That's terrible!" Chi-Chi cried out. "My little boy!"
"Calm down, something about your tale sounds odd… For example, the fact that you've ended up here somehow, an entirely different dimension from the one you were in. Also… Your name – Chi-Chi, it sounds awfully familiar for some reason…" Annin kept on pondering, looking around for inspiration to recall the exact reason why the name Chi-Chi made her feel uneasy.
"There's no time to wait, my good for nothing husband's thinking he's havin' a bath while our boy is being digested! We're no demons, I swear, all of us are alive! Goku-sa's been resurrected by the Dragon Balls and both me and Gohan-chan have been alive the whole time, just allowed to visit King Kai!" Chi-Chi tried to explain something to the woman that would make her help her return to the Princess Snake Castle and save her family. "Wait, that name, you said Fortune Furnace, didn't you?"
"That's right, it is the sacred artifact where demons from Hell roast for all eternity if they try to escape. It is the border way between the world of the living and the Otherworld," Annin nodded.
"It wouldn't by any chance be related to the Fortune Springs, would it?" Chi-Chi wondered. "Princess… The Deity of the Snake Way said that she had one in her castle, though, perhaps it was just an illusion too?"
"Fortune Springs? There's no such thing but… Why would she call it that?" Annin pondered. "What a total disaster, demons trying to break free into the world of the living and mortals popping into Hell for no reason, now you just appearing before me like this. Were you bathing in that Fortune Spring too?"
"No, the Deity sent me to the Royal Flush Spring," Chi-Chi pointed out. "Honestly, if all of it's just pools of her own stomach acids, how come she has to make all those dumb names up?"
Annin began subtly cackling into her own hand before erupting into wild laughter. Seeing Chi-Chi staring at her all confused, the deity in ceremonial clothes just shook her head and rubbed her forehead with her index finger and her thumb to numb the tension in the area.
"There's no such thing either. The Deity just sent you to her… Toilet… So to speak. She does call herself princess after all so calling it "The Royal Flush" spring was just hilarious, I must admit," Annin explained, leaving a tiny bit of it for Chi-Chi's imagination to fill in the blanks. The poor mortal woman went pale once she plugged up all the holes and clenched her fists while her mouth twisted in fury and lines of pearly teeth began grinding against one another.
"Just wait 'till I go over there and pound her face in good for that!" Chi-Chi threw her fist out.
"Woman, you seem to be a martial artist, are you any good?" Annin wondered, flicking her fingers and having a polearm fall into her hands from the area over her head and taking a stance suggesting that the guardian knew all too well how to wield such a weapon.
"What's this? If you're planning to stand in my way as I crawl back to Otherworld to save my husband and my son – you've got a pounding coming too, missy!" Chi-Chi clenched her fist.
Annin charged at the woman, thrusting the tip of her polearm in a ruthless manner without a warning a few hundreds of times in a flurry that left no food for doubts that the guardian of the Fortune Furnace wanted Chi-Chi dead and skewered into mulch. This deity was quite powerful but all she could muster up was a few cuts and scrapes on Chi-Chi's fancy, materialized by magic dress and the thrust that went narrowly over Chi-Chi's head and disrupted her hair, cutting them loose once more.
"Amazing, you move light like a feather…" Annin couldn't stop admiring Chi-Chi's movements but, in her moment of gawking, she skipped a stiff kick to her chest that sent her flying and down on her back with her weapon popping away just as quickly as it materialized. "And hit like you're looking to move mountains…" the guardian grunted as she stood back up.
"That's just a fraction of the beating that I'll give that rotten snake!" Chi-Chi intensified her look while remaining in a strict pose if the newly met deity planned on pulling out some new technique or to continue their brawl, even though to Chi-Chi it seemed pointless as the deity possessed a mere fraction of Chi-Chi's Ki after the woman spent the last month training at King Kai's.
"I see… So you're a worthwhile warrior then. Perhaps you are just the best person for the task," Annin chuckled to herself while she pressed her knuckles to her waist. Chi-Chi broke her stance in shock but she could swear that Annin began growing rapidly but once her growth rate escalated and the guardian loomed over the mortified martial artist, making her Ki signature boost at the same rate as her size did, Chi-Chi found out what the anger an determination she had in her heart was worth when faced against something utterly majestic and divine. "But fail me and know that you'll be facing a whole afterlife of hurt!" the guardian warned Chi-Chi by shaking her fist at her.
"What are you talking about?" Chi-Chi wondered as Annin returned to human size.
"As the guardian of the Fortune Furnace, I cannot cross between the different dimensions. My duty is to remain here and protect Hell from mortals and demons from running off to haunt the Earth. But you, you may just venture back to the Deity of the Snake Way and recover what that harpy stole from me – the Fortune Furnace. I swear, I'll make King Enma listen to such a howl that he'll sentence his own fury of a wife down to cook in the furnace for what she's done," Annin raised her fist up with a determined look on her face, a look that imbued Chi-Chi with all of Annin's trust.
"H-Huh? So you want me to kick that snake princess lady's ass for you? Well, I was going to anyway, since I'm doing that and saving my husband and my son, might as well recover your furnace too. Fending off demons every day is no foundation for a healthy and fun childhood for Gohan-chan!" Chi-Chi nodded.
"I knew I could count on you, I've got a little gift for you too since you're my chosen champion and all, follow me," Annin said and turned around, walking off into the bleak wasteland covered with dead and dried-out trees that seemed to have been reduced to a coal-like state with the entire afterlife being thrown into disarray. "I planned on using this with my demon hiney steak but you can chow it down."
Chi-Chi lifted off an old, stone lid from a jar to which Annin pointed to, looking inside and slipping in her finger to rub some golden, goopy substance off of the jar's walls. Given how it was placed on a table with cooked body parts of roasted demons, Chi-Chi just assumed that it was food and licked her finger off.
"Honey?" she muttered.
"Not just any honey, dear, this is the nectar from the Immortal Peach tree. It is what deities eat to build up their strength. It's part of a balanced god-diet, you see," Annin explained as Chi-Chi picked up the stone jar, feeling its massive weight in her hands that might have been comparable to an entire mound as the martial artist peeked inside continuously, wondering if it was good for her to eat.
"If I eat it, will it make me a deity too?" Chi-Chi wondered. "Being a mother and a wife is plenty of hard work already, I've no need to have to worry about some far-off constellation or something…"
"Oh, I don't think that much will be enough for that sort of transition but… Even if a mere weakling mortal eats it – it will just taste like mere honey to them. It is only when one that has undergone trifling, divine training that will see a use in this honey drawing out their latent powers. It is an aide, not a mean," Annin explained, sliding off the sleeve of her own dress as she flexed her muscular arm before Chi-Chi, revealing a bicep that emanated with divine power. "It also will have a nasty side effect of prolonging your natural lifespan to infinity but unless you keep eating it – you shouldn't worry about that because it'll wear off eventually."
Chi-Chi looked at the dark contents of the stone jar and then gave Annin a worried look before remembering what it was that gave her no reason to hesitate as she slid the stone jar under her armpit and began pulling the honey out by her handfuls.
Gohan cried out in fear as he jumped through a loop in between two rings of Deity's body and continued to navigate her massive body like it was a maze of some sort. Running around her body made it more difficult for the Deity to eat him up as she threatened to bite into her own colossal tail so the snake was wary to snap its jaws around its own elongated body hanging all over the place.
"You're a snake deity, right? You look like a massive snake…" Gohan stated as he flew away in evasive action from the snake's strike, throwing a Ki blast in return that seemed to have little to no effect on the terrifying snake. "This Snake Way, was it built just for you?"
"I'm about you eat you whole and digest you longer than insignificant humans like you would grow up to be live. Is that really your main concern!?" the Deity of the Snake Way hissed in wrath. It had a competent advantage in toughness and strength and it could shrug off any pitiful attempts from little Gohan to attack it in retaliation but it couldn't quite gobble him up with the feisty little brat moving around so swiftly and navigating around her own body.
"I'm just curious…" Gohan sniffed, having managed to restrain his pathetic crying fit and learned to stare right back at the snake. It was just like his father taught him – he had to look at his opponent to see where they would attack him from. Once he learned to do that – all he had to do was move out of the way. Father told him that he was fast and strong enough to do that and he was right all along. He was strong, just like mother and father were.
"You can think about that while you're dissolving in my stomach acids, brat!" the snake deity hissed as it lashed out at with a swift strike but once again it only hit an impenetrable wall of a Kiai shockwave. This one was far mightier however, the blast sent the Deity of the Snake Way actually flying through the wall of her castle.
"M-Mom!" Gohan cried out, pressing himself to Chi-Chi's backside and rubbing his face into his mother's lap as Chi-Chi stared at the hole that she had made after sending that abominable snake flying.
"Hang on, Gohan-chan. Things aren't over yet, this isn't the real Deity of the Snake Way but I'll finish her off soon enough and then save your dad and everything's going to be alright. Wipe those tears, you don't want grandpa to think you're some crybaby when we meet him back home," Chi-Chi gave Gohan an encouraging smile while keeping half of her attention toward the illusionary castle around her.
"Huh? Well, that's an unexpected development…" the voice of the real snake – Raditz echoed through the halls as the escapee from Hell revealed himself to be roaming the hallways looking for Gohan as well. "If it isn't Kakarot's mate? Well, you useless snake, what are you going to do about that!?"
"I'm working on it, Raditz, my dear!" an ear-penetrating shriek filled the illusionary halls of the castle as the image of the monumental head of the real Deity of the Snake Way, ten times the size of her illusionary form appeared through the hole inside her illusion and focused its moon-sized eyes right at Chi-Chi and Gohan cowering behind her. "Please don't be mad at me!"
"Hmph… Typical, don't leave a man's job to be done by women," Raditz scowled and tightened his gauntlets as he prepared to battle.
"I… I will fight!" Gohan stepped out from his mother's shadow and out in front of her. "Mother, you just take care of the Deity of the Snake Way, I will defeat uncle Raditz! We can then save father together."
"Hmph, the little hybrid finally grew some balls then?" Raditz smirked, feeling confident about his chances of pummeling a child that was only half-Saiyan. "I'll make you curse and loathe your weak, human side in a second."
Chi-Chi didn't look like she fancied the idea of her son fighting on his own but Annin only counted on Chi-Chi mustering to defeat the true Deity of the Snake Way with her gift. If Goku really did have a brother and he truly did escape from Hell, she might just need Gohan's help to save her family.