The Battle Approaches! Strange Visitors from Another Planet!
In the early morning hours, just before the sun broke over the horizon, two far-off lights twinkled and flashed across the sky. They looked like shooting stars and so many people took them as a sign of good luck or another good omen. They could not have been more wrong.
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The Saiyans' arrival in Earth's upper atmosphere caused those who had been training with Kami to sit up in their beds, yanked awake from their dreams by the incredible power pushing on their minds. It was far beyond anything they had ever sensed before. Chi-Chi took Yamcha's hand in hers and squeezed it tightly. She was so new to ki sensing that the power of the Saiyans was practically overwhelming. Yamcha squeezed her hand gently back and kissed her cheek.
"It'll be alright," he promised in a whisper. "We can do this." Then he got out of bed and started getting dressed. Despite his better judgement, he put on his white-and-gold gi. When he finished dressing, he noticed that Chi-Chi was still sitting in bed. "Hey," he said softly as he sat on the edge of the bed beside her, "C'mon, we gotta go, hon." Chi-Chi shook her head slowly and Yamcha frowned. "Chi-Chi? What's wrong?" Chi-Chi looked at Yamcha and cupped his face in her hands before kissing him softly on the lips.
"Nothing's wrong," she said, "It's just… something's happened. I'll tell you when you come home. After you win." She smiled at him and Yamcha smiled back before kissing her again.
"I am coming home," he assured her as he sat up and made his way for the door, "I promise." Chi-Chi watched him walk out of the house and waited until the door clicked shut before hugging her pillow fiercely to her chest.
'Please, God,' she thought, 'The real one, not the green one. Please bring him home.'
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Launch, Tenshinhan, and Chaozu stood on the front deck of their cabin and stared at the beautiful morning sunrise as it crested over the mountains and the mist clung to the peaks like draperies, drinking in what they knew might be the last time they saw such splendor. For Chaozu, the stakes were highest of all. He'd already died once. Chaozu started to fly off and Launch began to follow after him before Ten took her hand and pulled her back down.
"You go on ahead, Chaozu," Ten told him. "We… I just need to talk to Launch for a minute." Chaozu gave his friends a knowing smile and flew off while Launch turned her attention to Tenshinhan.
"What's up?" she asked and was surprised when Ten took her hands in his and looked down at her with a softness in his three eyes she'd never seen before.
"Launch," he said as he looked into her eyes, "Being with you has changed my life for the better, more than I ever thought possible. I… I know what we're up against. I know there's a very real chance we won't make it out alive. So I want you to know that I–"
"Shhh," Launch took her hands out of his and silenced him with a finger on his lips, "I know. I do, too. But don't get all mushy on me now, alright? You're gonna jinx us. There'll be all the time in the world for flowers and kisses and all that junk after this is over. Let's go kick some ass." Ten smiled at her and the two flew off after Chaozu, hand-in-hand.
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Krillin stared out at the ocean from the shore of Kame Island with his katana gripped tensely in both hands. This was it. No more waiting, no more training. They were here. He could feel the Saiyans' power like a constant pressure. He was sweating, his knees were weak and his palms were shaking. He could die today. He probably would. If he did, there'd be no coming back. It'd just be the end. He tried to push those thoughts out of his mind, though, as he strapped the sword to his back and flew off. He could do this. They could do this. He had to believe in himself and his friends.
'Besides,' Krillin thought to himself as he flew off to meet the gathering of ki, 'Better to die fighting than in a hospital bed like last time.' Muten Roshi watched Krillin fly away and shook his head sadly as he turned from the window and sat down on the couch in shame. The greatest martial artist who ever lived. The invincible old master. The fighting genius. Yet he could do nothing to help his students. His children. He had never felt so… old. So weak.
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Korin looked up from reading his morning paper to see Kami's manservant, Popo, staring at him. He gave a cry of shock and the surprise of the djinn's random appearance startled Korin so severely that he nearly fell out of his chair.
"This one is only here on God's orders," Popo announced. "This one would not be here otherwise." Where did Kami find such a rude djinn, anyway? "This one requires your current senzu crop. It is time."
"So the Saiyans are here, eh?" Korin asked as he hopped down from his chair to go pick the beans from his senzu stalks. "Alright, alright. Don't need to–" He was surprised to see that the beans were already gone. He looked back over his shoulder to see that Popo holding a small brown bag.
"This one was not making a request," Popo told him, "Merely an announcement." Then he was gone again. Korin sighed and went back to reading his paper.
"I liked the last Kami's Popo better," he muttered.
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Suno had felt the other strong ki gathering towards an abandoned clearing several miles from the five major cities on the continent and flew to meet them, not bothering with her weighted clothing when she dressed that morning. Despite the fear that she felt spreading through her chest like chips of ice, there was at least one good thing coming out of today. She'd be seeing Gohan again! And Goku, she reminded herself, if she could live long enough.
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It was a perfectly normal morning in East City. It was practically noon and all the office workers were getting ready to go on their lunch breaks, looking forward to talking about the sports games or the TV shows or why so many Capsule Corp shops had suddenly popped up and replaced some of the local East City businesses. All perfectly normal and perfectly pleasant.
Then two fireballs dropped out of the sky and wiped out a city block. First there was chaos, dust, and screaming as people ran in panic from the source of the explosion and alarms blared inside buildings and sirens wailed from all manner of emergency vehicles coming onto the scene, news vans following swiftly behind them. Had it been some kind of attack? Was the Red Ribbon Army back? Was Piccolo? Had that black-haired girl who'd beaten up Piccolo those two times finally gone nuts? Finally the dust settled and the police and SWAT teams moved to keep the civilians pushed back from the crater while emergency crews moved to remove the wounded and put out fires. The two fireballs down in the crater had turned out to not be fireballs at all but some kind of round spacecrafts. The officers drew their weapons as the pods hissed open and a giant bald man and a short, spiky-haired man stepped out of the pods. The crowd gasped and gawked at the strangely-dressed men, taking pictures and videos with their phones.
"P-put your hands up!" one of the officers demanded as he gestured with a pistol that was clattering in his shaking hands. "The pair of you are under arrest for committing an act of terror on this city! Do you understand?!" The short man held up a hand and the murmuring crowd fell silent.
"My name," he said, "Is Vegeta. I am King of all Saiyans. You will all die–" that was all the officers needed to hear before they opened fire, the air filling with bullets that bounced harmlessly off the strange men. Vegeta looked down at the bullets with a puzzled expression before he sighed and shook his head, "If you do not give us the Dragon Balls, is what I was attempting to say." Then he turned to his giant associate. "Nappa," he said, "Kill them for me." Nappa grinned and cracked his knuckles.
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"We aren't entirely sure what's happening," the rabbit-woman reporter said on the scene with a microphone gripped tightly in one hand, fear clearly evident in her wide eyes and twitching nose, "But some sort of beings have emerged from the pod and–" then there was a deafening roar and everything went white. Bulma stared at her television screen in shock as it quickly turned to static before switching to the somber face of a moose-man reporter as he solemnly folded his hands over his desk.
"That was the last report received from East City," he explained. "While we're still trying to discern what exactly happened there today, we know one thing for certain: East City is gone." His face dropped down into his hands and he let out a shaky, terrified breath. "God help us all." Bulma found herself in one of those rare moments where she wished she wasn't so smart. She knew that God wouldn't be any help now.
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An acrid wind blew across the blackened, smoking, burning oblivion that was once East City. Vegeta and Nappa stood on an untouched peninsula of earth that was just wide enough for the both of them to stand on and were completely pristine.
"I was referring," Vegeta grumbled as he pinched the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger, "To the ones who had shot at us."
"You should have been more specific, Your Grace," Nappa said defensively. "You said them. Besides, all the sirens and the squabbling and the screaming was bothering me."
"Quite," Vegeta said wearily as if speaking to a child rather than a man thirty years his elder, "But now I cannot threaten anyone into telling us where these Dragon Balls are. What if you destroyed one of them?"
"Ah," Nappa muttered before chewing the end of his mustache in an awkward and apologetic silence. "I beg your pardon, Your Grace." Vegeta let out another sigh and suppressed another daily urge to kill him as he tapped at his scouter. If Nappa weren't the closest thing he had to a companion in the universe, and the only other Saiyan he knew, he would snap the man's neck like a twig.
"Ah," Vegeta muttered as his scouter pinged to signal a collection of… "high" power levels, "Those must be Kakarot's worm friends. How convenient for us that they have all gathered into one place." Then he and Nappa rocketed off into the sky.
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Gohan turned his head in the direction of the explosion. He'd felt it with his ki senses more clearly than he had heard it. So many people…
"So," Mr. Piccolo said impassively with his arms folded over his chest, "They're here." Gohan nodded and tried to look brave. He was dressed like Mr. Piccolo, after all, and he seemed pretty brave. Nothing bothered him.
"Gohan!" called a familiar voice from up above. Gohan looked up to see his mother flying down towards him and flew up into the air to meet her.
"Mother!" he cried happily as he jumped into her arms. Suno hugged him tight and held him up proudly to look at him.
"Look at you!" she exclaimed. "You've gotten so strong!" Suno hugged him again before setting him down. "You're very brave, Gohan. I'm proud of you."
"If you're quite done" Piccolo asked with a weary roll of his eyes, "This is no time for sentimentality. Focus, boy."
Gohan nodded and put his hands at his side. "Sorry, Mr. Piccolo," he said studiously while Suno gave them a curious look. Mr. Piccolo? And why was her son dressed like him?
"Hey, guys!" Krillin greeted as he touched down to meet them, followed by Ten, Chaozu, Launch, and finally Yamcha. "Hey, where's Chi-Chi?" Yamcha gave an apologetic shrug.
"I tried to get her to come but she said she couldn't. I think something's wrong but she wouldn't say."
"Something's wrong?" Ten asked with clear irritation. "She does understand that there are bigger problems at stake here, doesn't she? The world for instance? Is she a coward?" Yamcha was on Ten in an instant and grabbed him by the front of the shirt.
"That's my wife you're talking about, Triclops," he snarled as he glowered at the other man. Ten was unfazed.
"Launch is here," Ten pointed out. "I suppose I should've made her stay home? Would that be 'safer'?"
"You really wanna do this right now? I figure we've got enough time that I can kick your ass before the Saiyans show up."
"Ohhhh ho ho ho, I would love to see you try!" Before the two of them could come to blows, however, Suno stepped between them and physically shoved them apart.
"Hey, hey, hey, enough!" she said sternly, unintentionally using her teacher voice. "Ten, you were just talking about the the world is at stake here! Is this really the time to get all macho? For crying out loud, keep 'em in your pants!"
"Keep what in their pants?" Gohan asked. Piccolo groaned.
"Guys, guys!" Krillin spoke up suddenly and the others all turned to focus on him. "Uh…" For a moment, whatever Krillin was going to say seemed to die on his tongue with so many eyes on him but he managed to press on. "Look, I know we're all tense right now. I know this looks rough. Heck, it looks impossible. The thing is, I dunno if you noticed but we're pretty used to the impossible, aren't we? I mean, Yamcha, Suno, Launch and I helped Goku take down the Red Ribbon Army! You all fought against that monster Piccolo Daimaou…" The others nodded with slowly-growing smiles as he looked awkwardly at Piccolo and shrugged, "No offense. For crying out loud, Chaozu and I were dead! And let's not forget, Goku is on her way! She does impossible stuff all the time, for fun! All we've got to do is hold the line until she gets here!" He took a deep breath and put a hand on his katana, squeezing it reassuringly, "I know this looks scary. It is scary. But if we stand together, we can do this! We can save our home!" Now even Piccolo gave the scantest of nods. "If we've got each other's backs and we work together, I know there's nothing that we can't stand against!" The others gave a cheer and Piccolo's mouth quirked in a nearly-invisible smile. Someone started clapping and the others joined in… until they realized that none of them had started it. The assembled warriors slowly looked up to see what could only be the Saiyans descending toward them, a small one and a big one. The shorter man was the one clapping.
"What a moving speech," the short man said with feigned emotion. "I must say, though, I'm more than a trifle confused." He smirked as he looked up at the large man, "Nappa, have you ever heard of a eulogy being given before anyone has died? By one of the deceased, no less?" The big one, Nappa, evidently, chuckled and shook his head.
"Can't say I have," he replied with a predatory glint in his eye, like a wolf standing before a flock. And the shepherd was still a lifetime away.