After two months of training with King Kai, he and I had reached a sort of unspoken agreement.  As long as I did whatever he wanted, no matter how stupid it sounded, he would cook me large meals and allow me time to meditate.  This worked for both of us, as long as I didn’t argue with him, I didn’t have to put up with his super corny jokes, and he didn’t have to put up with my “surly attitude”.

            I’d managed to catch bubbles after about three weeks, and after that I was forced to hit a small cricket called Gregory.  That took about a week and a half, I found the large green insect was far too cocky, and I easily managed to nail him with the hammer King Kai gave me.

            After that, King Kai pretty much let me do whatever I wanted.  Of course he made me practice a bunch of new attacks, like the Triple Strike, the Nirvana Attack, and the Manaba (sort of like the Tasaranko), but he never made me do any serious hard exercise, instead opting to leave me under the shade of the tree and allow me to meditate.

            I spent several hours a day under that tree, sometimes visualizing my attacks, but most of the time spent there was used to reflect.  I reflected on everything, my life, Cris, Krillin, anything that had an impact or influenced me.  When I was dying on the ground there nine months ago, only one thought flickered through my mind, the hope that I would maybe see my mom after I died.

            Unfortunately people who died in my home dimension didn’t come to this one after they died, so I tried to forget about her.  Instead I threw myself into my training, for the first time in my life, I knew I was getting stronger, I was much stronger now than I was before I got to King Kai’s planet, and still under the ten times Earth normal gravity.

            I didn’t mind life on the small green planet, there was no one to talk to really, but that didn’t bother me, I never talked very much anyway.  The only problem with the lack of wildlife was I had no one to fight.  I sensed King Kai was an amazingly powerful man, despite his appearance, and to fight him would be foolhardy.  So I was forced to work my ass off, mastering techniques that were based upon attacks I hadn’t even heard of.

            One day after my first two months I walked up to my master an asked him how many moves he could possibly teach.

            “Well,” he began, slumping his head in concentration “there’s the Triple Strike, Nirvana Attack, Manaba, Tsuihidan, Kaioken, Spirit Bomb, Yakaran, and the Ioni Cannon.”

            That was an impressive list, but I had to ask “Are you going to teach me all those moves?”

            He chuckled, and I was worried he was going to go into another laughing fit, but he cut himself short, answering “Oh heavens no.  Half of those moves I can’t even perform myself.  Although I did master the Kaioken a few years ago.”

            I was slightly shocked, King Kai was supposed to be the best Martial Arts master in the universe, how could he be so good if he couldn’t even perform half his own attacks?  I stood there mind-boggled, as he continued on “There’s just one man who mastered all my attacks.”  He said with a sigh, and shook his head.

            I knew it was Goku, I’d picked up that much from Krillin back on the ship, but what I didn’t know was why Goku was the only one he ever tried to teach the Spirit Bomb and Kaioken too.  I decided to find out.  “King Kai, why don’t you teach all your students the Kaioken attack, and the Spirit Bomb?”

            He looked at me quizzically, almost like he thought I was joking.  He smirked slightly before answering, “To learn the Spirit Bomb, one must have a heart so pure, that no evil has touched it.  Goku, and possibly his son Gohan were the only two beings like that.  As for Kaioken, it allows a person to multiply their power, which in the wrong hands could cause someone to un-knowingly commit suicide.  That’s why I’m not teaching it to you, and I may never teach it again.”

            I nodded, but I wasn’t sure if my master was fully aware of the situation.  The Caprians coming towards Earth could destroy the universe, if he could do anything to help us out, he damn well should!  I dropped the subject though, not wanting to start an argument or anything.  I turned to the “south” (away from the house) and decided to try and perfect my zanzoken technique.

            The zanzoken technique required everything; a strong body, a calm mind and complete ki control.  Under the heavy gravity of King Kai’s planet, it was near impossible to perform.  I’d had to use it to hit Gregory with the hammer, but other than that, I hadn’t spent much time on it.

            So after conversing with King Kai about his attacks, I walked over to the side of the stone road and began to practice.  I cleared my mind, bent my legs, and immersed myself in my ki.  I aimed myself towards the tree, I pushed with everything I had, and I instantly knew I correctly zanzokened. I lost all my senses, but regained them within a split second.  I was now about ten feet away from the tree, so I ran back to the side of the road and tried it again.

            Each time I performed the move I got closer and closer to the tree, sometimes changing my stance, the angle of my body, or some other little nuance.  After about thirty minutes I reached the tree from the side of the road, and was instantly proud of my small accomplishment.

            Since I was already at the tree, I sat down under it, crossed my legs and arms, closed my eyes and began to meditate.  I tried to find even more ways to perfect the zanzoken technique, but came up empty.  So instead I tried to visualize the Triple Strike, the one move I hadn’t been able to master that King Kai had taught me.  I knew you had to use your ki to fool your enemy into thinking you were behind them, and then attack, but I had no clue how to create the false ki signature necessary.  So instead of actually trying to understand the attack, I concentrated on the fake ki presence.

            I meditated for about two hours on the subject, coming up with the start of an idea, when suddenly I felt a huge, and I mean HUGE, ki signature heading towards me.

            I opened my eyes, shot up from the ground, and turned towards the source.  The ki signature felt familiar, but I couldn’t tell who it was, definitely not Cris.  It was coming from Snake Way, but was heading at speeds far beyond anything I could reach.  I ran towards the tail of Snake Way, hoping to see what was coming.  King Kai walked calmly up behind me, Bubbles in tow, while Gregory was nowhere to be found.

            I turned to King Kai and asked in a tense voice, “Who is that coming here?”

            The blue skinned teacher just smiled and replied, “You’ll see.”

            I figured it was no one bad, so I calmed slightly, but I was still somewhat nervous, although I didn’t know why.  We waited, but not for long; soon enough a small dot appeared in the orange skies horizon.  I squinted, but couldn’t make out whom it was.  The figure was flying along the path at amazing speeds, his ki left a large trail of white energy behind him.  Unless one of my future teammates had died, I was pretty sure I knew who it was.

            My thought was confirmed, a bald head and an orange gi came clearly into view, and I realised it was Krillin.  A thought came soon after; if Krillin was here, that meant he couldn’t be in his dimension.  That meant he’d died, but as strong as he was, I wondered how he could’ve died.  A hideous thought popped in my mind, and I pictured another Nacran killing Krillin and going on to destroy the Earth.

            But I looked to King Kai, he was still smiling, and he hadn’t said anything, so I figured the Earth was fine, at least for now.  I turned back to Snake Way, and Krillin was almost right in front of me, in fact he was less than two metres away from me, standing comfortably with a huge smile on his face.

            I grinned and walked alongside King Kai towards the short fighter.  “Hi King Kai,” Krillin exclaimed in his high pitched voice “Hi Triono.”  He finished as he turned to me.

            I opened my mouth to welcome him, but King Kai cut me off “Hi there.” He almost shouted back.

            I gave my master a side-ways glance before stepping in front of Krillin and asking, “What are you doing here?”

            He looked into my eyes, took a deep breath and then shut his eyelids.  When he opened them again, he replied “I came here to see how you were doing.”  That wasn’t what I meant, and he knew it, but King Kai cut me off again.

            “So how are you doing?”  He asked, his fishy voice reaching its maximum annoyingness.

            “I’m ok, but I’m kind of worried about, them, back on earth.”

            King Kai nodded, his smile fading slightly.  He answered back “Well, we just gotta hope they work hard enough to be prepared.”  Krillin nodded slightly, but still seemed doubtful.  I inferred that the training back on earth wasn’t going so well.

            “Speaking of which,” Krillin said in a loud voice, cutting off my train of thought “how is your newest trainee doing?”

            King Kai and Krillin both turned to me, a smile on both their faces.  I don’t know why, but I blushed slightly and dropped my head.  Maybe I didn’t like the idea of being a “trainee”.  King Kai shrugged and said “Pretty good, I guess.  He’s learnt some difficult manuevers in his time here.”

            “Yeah, he didn’t even know how to fly when I first caught him.”

            King Kai giggled slightly, so I gave him the dirtiest look I could manage.  He just giggled even more, so I turned to Krillin and asked, “How’s Cris doing?”

            “He’s alright, but he was still way behind everyone else when I left him.”  I was kind of sad, I was getting really strong here, and Cris was still slaving away but barely getting stronger.  “In three months though, he’s going to start gravity training, along with everyone else.”  This didn’t hit me as a shock, I’d already taken the information from Krillin’s mind a while ago, but I had a jump start on everyone else, I’d already started my gravity training, and trained under the greatest master in the universe.

            I smiled at the thought, for the first time in my life, I was getting the advantage.  Krillin studied me for a few seconds, then continued “Just wondering, but how do you think your doing?”  I didn’t know if he meant training wise, or on the inside.  He cleared it up quickly.  “Are you listening to King Kai and doing everything your told?”  I nodded, and so did he.  “Good.  He may not seem like it,” he pointed towards the now hysterically laughing King Kai.  “but he’s a really good master.  If it weren’t for him, I don’t know where any of us would’ve been against a lot of our enemy’s.”

            King Kai’s laughing slowed to a chuckle, and eventually stopped.  Once he had control of himself again, he asked Krillin “Did you bring the stuff?”

            “Oh yeah, I almost forgot.”  Krillin replied in an exasperated voice, as he un-slung a small duffel bag that had been hanging over his shoulder.  I don’t know how I didn’t notice it before, but it blended right in with his orange gi.  He dropped the bag on the ground, dropped down to his knees, and opened it.  I couldn’t see what was inside, his torso blocked my vision, but I heard the sound of metal on metal somewhere within the bag.  After a few seconds Krillin closed the bag again and told King Kai “Yup, it’s all in here, everything you asked for.”

            He handed the bag to King Kai, who in turn crouched next to Bubbles and whispered something in the monkeys’ ear.  The ape grabbed the bag and trotted off towards the house.  I turned to follow, in a hope to see what was in the bag, but Krillin spoke to me once again.  “So Triono, do you think you’ll be ready in two years and three months for the Caprians?”

            I turned back to face him and answered directly “Yes.”

            King Kai smiled and almost whispered “Confidence, I like that.”

            Krillin nodded, and then added “Well you better be, we’re going to need another Super Saiya-jin for the upcoming fight.”

            I’d heard King Kai use that term before, but I didn’t know what it meant, so I asked.  “What’s a Super Saiya-jin anyways?”

            Krillin and King Kai both turned to face me again, and I felt like a little kid asking his parents about sex.  Krillin replied with a query of his own.  “How old are you now?”

            “14.”

            “You’re 14 and you don’t know about Super Saiya-jin’s?” He didn’t even give me a chance to say no.  “Well, a long time ago it was just a legend, but then Goku made it a reality, in his fight against Freeza.  You see when a Saiyan warrior, like yourself, reaches a certain level of power, they have a pure heart, and they experience an extreme amount of rage, they can transform into Super Saiya-jin’s.  When they do their power is magnified immensely, their hair turns golden yellow and their eyes turn green.”

            I tried to see if Krillin was guessing, but I figured he wasn’t.  I thought it was more funny than anything, I mean golden hair, green eyes, it sounded like a bad Halloween costume.  In any case, I figured you needed to be way stronger than I was right then, so I didn’t really put any thought into it.

            I shrugged and said “Sounds cool, can’t wait till I become one.”  Krillin must’ve picked up the slight sarcasm in my voice and gave me a strange look.  I shrugged it off, and turned to walk back to King Kai.  Krillin followed me and we caught up to the antenna-laden man in a few seconds.

            “So, you wanna stay for supper Krillin?”  King Kai asked.

            Krillin scratched the back of his neck and answered tentatively “Well, thanks for the offer, but I’m kinda going to see Yamcha, Tien and Chao-zu.”  I had a vague recollection of who they were, but it didn’t really seem all that important.  I was glad Krillin stopped by, but it didn’t matter to me how long he stayed.

            “That’s ok, but make sure you stop by again sometime, it gets kinda lonely out here sometimes.”  King Kai said in a sympathetic voice.  I realized it’d been a while since he cracked a joke, in fact almost an eternity for him.  Right after I realised it though, he popped a really bad one liner.  “It looks like I’m going to have to make some… long distance phone calls.”  He started giggling, clamping his hands over his mouth.  Krillin and I stared blankly at him, neither of us got it until he explained it.  “Get it, he’s gonna be far away, and I’m gonna have to call him, long distance.  Plus, I don’t even have a phone.”  I thought it was an all time low, even for him, but King Kai just kept giggling, until finally he broke into laughter, rolling over in the grass, struggling for air.

            “Yeah.”  Was all I said.  Krillin and I turned to each other and I asked.  “So when you coming back?”

            “I don’t know, but it’ll probably be before you leave, don’t worry.  Oh yeah, Kami told me they had all seven dragon balls ready, and whenever you think your done training under King Kai, just let him know, and they’ll wish you back.”

            A question popped into my mind.  “Why don’t they wish you back first?”

            “I died of natural causes, the Eternal Dragon can’t bring someone back who died like that.”

            “Natural causes?  How could you die of natural causes?”

            Krillin smirked and replied “Cris didn’t get it either, but I’m over 70 years old Triono, my body just couldn’t take all the years of training I put on it.”

            I couldn’t believe that Krillin was really that old.  I had a harder time believing that an old timer beat me up while I was transformed.  In any case, Krillin turned, looked towards snake way and said “Well, I’ll talk to you later, make sure you train real hard for the fight.”  With that he shot off into the sky, his ki producing a brilliant light.  I watched him sail off into the distance until I could no longer see him.

            I turned to King Kai, who was still laughing his ass off, and then I went to go practice my zanzoken a bit more.