“You hungry at all?”  Krillin asked once I’d finally backed away from the window.

            “Not at all actually.”  I shook my head, I hadn’t eaten in almost a day, but I really wasn’t hungry.  “Even though I haven’t eaten for a long time.  Weird.”

            “Not really, that senzu bean that you ate, it’ll keep you full for almost a week.”  A week?  That sounded nice, but I found it a little hard to believe.  It was a strange day though, so I didn’t bother to ask if he was serious.  The ship was now speeding past another planet, mars I assumed, and I wondered how long it would be till we got to where we needed to go.

            I studied Krillin silently, as he rummaged through a backpack bag leaned against the wall.  His power was mind boggling, but now he seemed near normal.  He pulled his head out of the bag and exclaimed “Ah, that’s where I put it!”  He shot up off the floor and raced to the pilots’ controls.  There he rummaged around a bit more, and as I moved to get a better view of him, he pulled a small object from under the desk-like control panel.

            “Here it is.”  He turned to face me, and I stopped in my tracks.  In his hand was what looked like a phone headset with a few altercations.  It had a white earpiece with a small blue screen attached.  He put the white part on his left ear so the screen covered his eye.  He then pushed a small button on the white part and suddenly the screen sprang to life, emitting beeping sounds and showing yellow figures and numbers all across it.

            “What’s that?” I questioned.

            He replied after pressing the button a few more times “It’s called a scouter.  It’ll let me see your power expressed as a number.  It’s just a way to find an approximation of your power level.”  He then pressed the button a final time, and then dropped his hand.  I couldn’t make out the number on the screen, so I asked him “What does it say?”

            He bit his lip slightly and then replied “304.”

            I hesitantly asked, “Is that good?”

            He looked at me sideways faced and then replied “Compared to a normal human being, you’d be incredibly strong, but the people we’re fighting have power levels anywhere from ten thousand to a hundred million.”  I gasped when he said that, and I didn’t know exactly what to say.  I stood there in stunned silence, and doing some thumbnail calculations, figured out how much I’d have to improve to reach even the weakest of them.

            “You mean I’ll have to get 30 times stronger than I am now to be able to take one of these guys?”

            He nodded slightly, and then turned to face the unconscious Triono.  “Let’s see what his power level is at.”  He pushed the button again, and then after a few seconds said “270.  Probably a bit low because he’s unconscious.”

            In order to get an idea of how powerful these guys were I asked “What’s your power level at?”

            “Last time I checked, it was near 500,000.”

            I didn’t know how to take that, but I knew what it meant. It meant that Krillin was a weakling compared to the more powerful guys coming towards Krillin’s Earth.  If I’d known what I was getting into, I might not have been so eager to volunteer.  “Please tell me Triono and I aren’t the only guys going to fight these guys.”

            He responded quickly enough to put my mind at ease “No, don’t worry, there were at least four humans that were training for the androids on earth when I left.  Plus if they got the fighter I was going to find on Namek that makes a total of seven.”

            Even with the answer he seemed a little off set.  “What’s wrong?”

            “Well, see they’ve been training for a while already, when I left, the human’s power levels were around 3,000 each.”

            I smacked my lips and said “Great, so ten times stronger than me?”

            “Basically yeah.  But all that means is that you and Triono are going to have to train a whole lot harder to catch up to them.”

            “Well I know I’ll try my best, but I can’t speak for Triono.  He despises training of any kind, he just fights.”

            Krillin grinned slightly, showing off his sparkling white teeth “That’s because he’s a saiyan, it’s in their blood to fight and do nothing else, but even Vegeta learned that training can help you out a lot more than fighting sometimes.”

            A voice startled both of us, causing me to almost jump onto the roof.  “What the hell are you guys talking about?”  It was Triono, who was now out of his seat, the restraints thrown askew across the ship’s floor.  “What the hell is this?”

            We both turned to Triono, then looked at each other, both wanting the other to explain.  “Well?  Where am I?  Cris what are you doing here?  How did you survive?”  He was focused on me for a little while, and I could see his shoulders heaving, his blood rushing quickly, but then he spotted Krillin and turned to him.

            “You!!!”  He rushed full force at Krillin, and attempted to spear my newfound friend. 

I yelled hoping to stop Triono “Wait Triono, we can explain everything.”  And it seemed to work, he pulled up just feet from Krillin, and suddenly his breathing was shallower, and I could sense the anger leaving him.  Then I saw Krillin in front of him, his palm was out-stretched towards Triono, and I could hear Krillin whispering softly “It’s ok, no one’s here to hurt you.  Just take a seat, and the answers will come.”

Triono did exactly as he said, and that’s when I felt some sort of ki stream coming from Krillin straight towards Triono.  Krillin must have had the ability to calm people’s minds, or something along those lines, because Triono’s previously tense body relaxed and he sat back down in his chair.  His angered expression was replaced by one of restlessness.

Krillin walked up to him, and placed his hand on Triono’s forehead.  “I’ll pass over my memories now, the ones that will clarify everything.”  He then closed his eyes and Triono did the same.  I stood there dumbfounded at how easily Krillin had settled the saiyan down.  Within a few seconds, Krillin slowly took his hand away and they both opened their eyes in unison.

Triono calmly asked “So are we almost there yet?”  I was amazed at how coherent he seemed, but whatever Krillin had done had kept him calm and alert at the same time.

“We’re almost there.” Krillin replied, as he sat back down in the pilot’s chair.  I looked out the window, and we were going past Uranus and I was still astounded at the speed of the ship, like something out of Star Trek or something.  When I turned back to the ship, I caught Triono staring at me.  He didn’t say anything, just looked me up and then down.  I returned the favour, not one to let him get the best of me, as I examined him thoroughly, he was nicked up, but looked none the worse for ware considering the beating he took from Krillin.  Something wasn’t right though, and then I realized he was clothed again, this time in a tunic and loose fitting pants.  After the transformation he was as naked as a Donald Duck, but now he was clothed, as he was when he got up from his seat, I’d just never noticed it before.

“Where’d you get those?”  I wondered aloud.

“I put them on him, right after take-off, you were looking out the window still.”  Ah, that was probably it, but back then Triono was still buckled up. I was going to ask how Krillin got them on him, but he cut me off.  “We’re almost there, just around the corner basically.  You guys wanna come up here and take a look?”

Triono and I both walked towards where Krillin was seated.  He was busy fidgeting with the controls, but Triono and I both looked out towards the scenery.   Without looking up, Krillin asked, “Can you see it?”

We both stared, squinting into the starlit darkness.  I was scanning the proverbial horizon, when suddenly one of the brighter stars seemingly dimmed out of view.  I quickly pointed and wondered aloud, “Is that it?”

Krillin looked up and grinned, then nodded and hunched back over the controls.  “Very good Cris, it has about the same effect as a black hole, only a bit less powerful, you can see through the gate to my dimension, but not very well.”

“So are we gonna make it?”  Triono asked with a slight hint of tension in his voice.

“We should get to it in time, the problem may be piloting this bulky ship through the narrow gate-way, it’s getting smaller every second.”  I sighed, there wasn’t anything I could do.  We continued to move onward, to where Pluto was even getting small in the rear view window.  The “gate” was now dimming more and more stars as we came closer to it and it took up more of the front window.  Soon it was completely encompassing the view outside, and I began feeling a lot of tension coming from Krillin, I directed my attention to him.  He was sweating heavily, his fingers racing across the controls at light speed, literally I couldn’t see his hands move they were going so fast, they just appeared as sort of a blur.  I blinked a few times to make sure I was seeing it correctly, then I tapped the nearby Triono on the shoulder, and nodded towards the pilot.  Triono’s jaw dropped when he saw Krillin at work, as we both stared at his amazing hand speed.  He then broke our concentration by saying; “Hold on,” tension was straining his already squeaky voice “almost there!”

Suddenly a sort of gray wave went through the ship, and for a split second my whole life flashed before my eyes, like if I was going to die, only I was very much alive.  As we passed through the gate, I turned away to my left and looked out the window, across from us, not ten metres away was another ship, almost identical to the one we were in, only it was slightly smaller.  I could see right through its side window, and I could see its occupants.  There was only one, a tall, youthful looking man.  He was extremely muscular, but not to an extent that limited his movement, he was clothed in a gi much like Krillin’s, his hair was red and springy, kind of like Triono’s, except it was less symmetrical and even taller.  His eyes were a light tint of green, and then I realized he was staring at me, his mouth hung open in disbelief, he just stared at me, and I stared back.  Our eyes locked, but only for a moment, for as soon as I saw him and his ship, we were through the gate, and into the other dimension.  I didn’t tell either Krillin or Triono what I saw; I almost didn’t believe it myself.

After we had passed through the gate, and the gray tint that had engulfed the ship faded away, leaving the yellowish colour from the on-board strobe lights.  Krillin fell back onto his seat, almost exhausted, and then looked to the both of us before saying “We made it, not by much, but we did it.  Now we just gotta head back to earth, and then you guys can get started.”

I swallowed deeply, as the ship banked to the right, and shot straight around this universe’s Pluto.  I was amazed that they had a Pluto here; in fact I was stunned, which brought up an interesting point.  “So when are we going to be able to learn the history of yo—“ I stopped myself short “of our dimension.”

Krillin stood from his chair, as Triono and I rose to our full heights, Triono being slightly shorter than me still towered over Krillin.  “When we get to earth, you guys can have a few days to read up on our history, on the Z warriors, on the dragon balls, on everything.  Once you’re finished that your training can begin.”

Triono didn’t try to hide the disgusted look on his face, I didn’t know if he’d ever agree to train.  If he did though, I had a feeling not many people would be able to match up to him.  I looked forward to the challenge of preparing for these incoming aliens, even if we were a little behind everyone else power wise.

“You two should try and relax, it’s going to be a hectic first few days before you get into the routine of it.”  Ah, routine the trademark of long days of training, just routine and repetition, the same things over and over, but to get us up to even Krillin’s level, we’d have to go beyond just repetition.

Suddenly a thought popped in my head “Who are we going to train with?”  I asked.

Krillin was going to answer, but Triono cut him off with a stern voice “Kami.”

I then retorted by asking, “Who’s Kami?” the whole time wondering how Triono knew that, probably through the link he and Krillin had made.

Triono turned to me, arms crossed, a firm look on his face “He’s the guardian of their, of our, earth.  Kind of like god, except here they know he isn’t all-powerful, now and days his only job is to train warriors like us for the battle ahead.”

“That’s right,” Krillin continued “he was originally a sort of Z-warrior, he helped us fight against Freeza, afterwards, he went with the rest of his species to their new home world, when our Kami fused with a warrior named Piccolo, we called on him to come and be the next Kami of earth.”

“Ok, so how long will we train under him?”  I asked.

“Probably until they arrive at earth.  You’ll probably gravitron train for a while, I don’t know how well your bodies will be able to stand up against the higher settings, but if we prepare you well enough, you should do fine.”  I didn’t fully understand what he meant, but I kept my mouth shut.

Suddenly I was getting very tired, so I through myself into one of the chairs closed my eyes and relaxed.  I tried replaying the days events in my head, but I couldn’t, the order was all screwed up, so I ditched the idea and picture Seana again.  I was instantly calm, and for several minutes I just sat there, her face a vigilant reminder of what I was doing on this ship, hell, in this dimension.

Krillin suddenly snapped me out of my serenity, calling for seatbelts on all seats to be activated, suddenly my restraints wrapped themselves around me, and I opened my eyes, Earth, a brand new one, with a number of different land masses, took up the whole front view, and again my breath was taken away.  This Earth was unlike mine, there was virtually no hint of pollution or anything like that, just the greens, blues and whites it was supposed to be, not a hint of gray.

“We’re going in!”  Krillin exclaimed, and no sooner did flames begin to dance across the front window, and in just a few seconds, we were covered in flames, doing a nosedive through the atmosphere.  The ship remained cool even as we passed through the intense, metal smelting heat of the Earth’s atmosphere.  The flames now took up the entire view, and the inside of the ship was tinted red from the flames, and I was sure we’d blow up.  Technology proved me wrong though, and in just a while we were clear of the intense heat, and coming down towards earth at a suicidal speed.

“Can’t you slow this thing down?”  I yelled to Krillin over the roaring of the engines, which were now struggling against gravity.  Krillin tried saying something but I couldn’t hear him.  We continued going full speed towards the earth, and a little piece of green, an island towards the top of the planet, was suddenly becoming very big in the front window.  I asked again “We gonna slow down anytime soon?”

No sooner did I yell it out then we began to slow down, but there was no time for just slowing down, we had to stop now, the island was all I could see, and the ground couldn’t have been more than five kilometres down, and we were still moving at 500 m.p.h. I didn’t think we’d survive the crash landing.  One time I’d been on a ride at a carnival with Seana, where you rise about 200 feet and then come plummeting to the ground just to be stopped a few feet from the ground, she was screaming so loud I got scared, I still had a bit of a scar where she dug her nails into my hand.  Anyways that landing reminded me so much of that ride I almost pissed my pants, I could’ve sworn we weren’t more than five feet from the ground when we slowed to a crawl and then silently touched down on the ground.

My seatbelt came off, and then I took another deep breath (I seemed to be having a lot of them), before I got up and headed for the doorway.  Triono and Krillin quickly came behind me, and Krillin moved to a control pad to the side, punched a few buttons, and then the doorway to a brand new life opened in front of me.