Even as I witnessed the fight between my un-known protector and Triono, I saw it as if I was watching it on TV.  I’d never seen such power or speed in a single entity before, but this bald headed man possessed skill far beyond either Triono’s range or mine.  I found it incredibly hard to believe how strong the man was, single punches had left Triono badly beaten and hanging onto life.  Even a Kamehameha from me wouldn’t have put a dent in Triono while he was transformed like that.

            I looked at my defender, he was holding over the naked and used up body of Triono, looking over it like a mother protecting its young.  Pain rocketed through my left shoulder and arm, causing me to clasp them with my right arm and grimace.  My vision was becoming blurry, so before I slipped into sleep, I gimped over to my nemesis’ body.  The bald fighter had landed back on the ground when I arrived and was now checking Triono’s pulse.

            I came up from behind him, but right before I reached him, he turned his head and looked at me.  “How are you?” He asked.  I didn’t reply, I was still in awe of the way he dispatched transformed Triono.  When I didn’t respond he completely turned and questioned me again.  “Well, you ok?”

            His voice, somewhat high pitched, set me off even more.  I looked at him through squinting eyes, summing him up even more, before finally I replied, “I’ll be ok, I just need to get to a hospital.”

            “Don’t have time for that.” He flatly stated.  I would’ve shown the surprise I felt from his remark, but a wave of pain placed a frame of agony on my face.  I’d run out of energy, completely, I suddenly had trouble standing, and I almost collapsed into the ground when the man caught me by my injured arm.  I screamed out as ripples of pain that dulled my mind shot from my arm, his hand was like a vice-grip.

            “Oh shit, sorry.”  He said, but still held onto my arm, supporting me.  “Let me see what’s the problem.”  He then took his free hand and passed it slowly over my arm, from shoulder to wrist, and I felt a sort tingling sensation through the arm, replacing the pain for a short while.

            When he finished with whatever he was doing, he released my arm, and the tingling disappeared.  The pain came back, quite a bit duller though.  “Broken fore-arm, bone chips in elbow, dislocated shoulder.” He said it like a doctor reading a chart. Then continued in a sympathetic voice “This could hurt a little.”

            He then grabbed my fore-arm and without a second thought, shoved it back into place, the pain that he’d help to go away came back with a vengeance, and I screamed again, but it would only get worse, as he then moved up to my elbow and with a single hand, crushed my elbow, I clamped a fist with my right hand and almost swung it at him, but then I remembered Triono’s beating and thought better of it.

            After what seemed like an eternity crushing bone fragments in my elbow, he moved up to my shoulder and using both hands crammed my arm back into it’s socket.  When he finished he let go of me and I fell to the ground in a heap of pain.

            My new MD then proceeded to drop a small green bean in front of me.  “Eat that, it’ll help, I promise.” He said.  My adopted momma didn’t raise no fool though, I didn’t take food from a stranger.

            “What is it?” I asked as I stared up at him.

            He looked at me like I was a kid who had just said no to his parents for the first time.  “They call it a senzu bean, it’ll give you your strength back and speed up the recovery process quite a bit.”

            I picked up the small bean, and felt its smooth, hard surface before I popped it in my mouth.  It was much harder than expected, like a small candy, but I’d finished it off in a few seconds.

            At first nothing happened, the pain remained in my arm, and I still felt weak as a puppy, but then there was a huge rush of energy, like I’d just gotten my second wind.  My muscles regained their strength; my arm stopped throbbing with pain, reducing to soreness.  I hopped to my feet; eyes wide open, and asked him “What are in those things?”

            “Don’t know.”  He replied, then shrugged and grinned slightly “I don’t grow them, just eat them.”

            “Right.” I nodded and looked down at my doctor.  Indeed he was short, maybe 5 feet at the most, I was 5’11”, so I was towering over him, he didn’t mind though, I was sure he was used to being the short one.  He was still focusing on Triono, shaking his head and mumbling to himself.  “What happened to him, how did he transform like that?” I asked.

            “He’s a saiyan, they all have the ability to transform, as long as they have a tail.”  Hold on a second, I remember thinking, a saiyan, what the hell was that?  Triono was different, I knew that, but how did this guy know this about Triono?

            “What’s a saiyan?  Plus who are you anyways?” I sternly questioned.

            He turned to face me, and stuck out his short, stubby arm.  “Name’s Krillin, glad to meet you.”  I shook his hand tentatively, and then introduced myself.  “I’m Cris, and he,” I said, looking down at my lifeless opponent, “is Triono.”

            He nodded again, and then looked back to Triono.  I wish he paid me a bit more attention, but he healed me, what more could I ask for?  Still, I wish he’d answer my question about saiyans.  I was about to ask again when he cut me off with the answer.  “You asked what saiyans were?”  He asked rhetorically “They’re a race.  A race of warriors, unparalleled by most species of the universe, they strike fear into their enemies.  They used to act as sort of planet brokers, clearing all sentient life off a planet to allow it to be used by their clients.  They are all born with tails like Tri-ono,” He sounded out the name. “Whenever there is a full moon, if they have a tail, they can look into the moon and they will transform into a beast like the one that attacked you.”  I tried to take this all in, but most of it was just bouncing off me, all I cared to hear was Triono was an alien.  All the time I’d known him, he seemed completely normal (well, as normal as people as strong as us could get), but now it made sense.  He never seemed to care much about talking out problems, just fighting to solve them, even if they didn’t solve anything, like most of our fights.  Krillin continued, but I didn’t really pay much attention, I just stared at the motionless body of Triono, wondering why I’d never seen it earlier.  “Triono must not have trained a whole lot, if he had, you wouldn’t have stood a chance.”  I nodded absent-mindedly, and was about to say what Triono did to get stronger, fight, when Krillin said something that caught my ear.  “Thing is, there’ve never been any saiyans in this dimension.”

I wasn’t sure I heard him right so I shot him a strange look and asked “This dimension?”

            He nodded and then tried to explain.  “This dimension, the one we’re in right now, is just one of many.  I come from a totally different dimension, where powers like yours, mine, and Triono’s are common.  I’m surprised to find powers as strong as yours in this dimension, I’ve been here five weeks, and not in all the galaxy have I sensed powers as strong as your guys’.”  He paused, and then took a look around the street, like he was looking at it for the first time.  “I’m also amazed at how similar your planet is to the earth from my dimension.”

            He’d lost me again, “Hold on a minute.  You mean to tell me that there are other dimensions parallel to this one?”  Science always was my worst subject.

            “Some are parallel, like yours and mine.  They’re nearly exactly the same, except something happened in this dimension,” He said as he stared into the moon and stars “that changed it dramatically from mine.  In my dimension there are literally millions of different sentient species, but here, it’s limited to only a few hundred, something must have wiped the early stages of them out or something.”

            He breathed deeply, and a moan came from Triono beneath us.  “He might wake up pretty soon.” I stated.

            “Yup, we better get a move on.”  With one hand he picked up Triono’s body and slung it between his arm and torso.  “If you want to come with me, I’ll explain what I’m doing in your dimension and you can decide if you want to come with me.”  He stuck out his free hand, palm outstretched

            I considered telling him no, just thanking him for the healing bean, and then catch a train back to Canada, see Seana for the first time in two months.  It’d been hard to go that long without even talking to her, but something inside of me told me to just take his hand, and hope he wouldn’t kill me.

            After a few seconds I took a deep breath and then latched onto his arm.  He smiled slightly, and then suddenly we were off.  I’d flown before, but only in planes and helicopters, this was totally new.  No engine, just his own power, which was increasing with each second, propelled him.  My breath was gone in a few seconds, by that time we were at least five clicks above ground, and the apartments were suddenly small dots in the distance.  A rush of adrenaline pulsed through me; I dug into his arm with my nails, and looked up at him.  He turned to me and smiled.  “Never flown before?”

            “Not like this!” I replied, and to calm myself I closed my eyes and practised a relaxation technique I’d learnt as a kid.  Trying to take long, deep breaths, I gradually pushed down the anxiety building inside me.  The air rushed by us so fast it roared in my ears like I was standing next to a rack of stereo’s going full blast.  I opened my eyes again, and then looked to Krillin.

            He was concentrated on, steering I guess is the best way to say it.  I didn’t want to interrupt him, so I tried to catch a glimpse of Triono across Krillin’s body.  He was still knocked out, his black hair covering his face, pushed by the wind.  Millions of thoughts passed through my mind about Triono.  Who were his parents?  Why was he on earth if he was an alien?  What was his child-hood like if he had a tail?  All of these and many more whizzed through my head, and I suddenly felt sorrow and pity for my enemy.  I wish I knew him a bit better, but I had a feeling we’d be getting to know each other very soon.

            Suddenly Krillin’s voice startled me. “So, what do you want to know?” He wondered.

            I didn’t know where to start, but since I had been thinking about Triono, I said “Tell me about saiyans.”

            He shrugged and then said, “Well, I don’t know a whole lot, just what I’ve picked up from my friends.  You can read up on them if you come over.”  I didn’t understand what he meant, but before I could ask him he said, “I guess I could give you an outline though. First off, their home planet was called Vegeta.  It was a huge planet, almost three times as big as Earth, and it also had gravity 10 times that of Earth’s.  There were originally two races on this planet, I can’t remember the name of the other one, but eventually a war broke out between the saiyans and the other race.  The war was going evenly, until one night there was a full moon on Vegeta, and as you know now, when the saiyans look into the full moon they transform into those huge apes.  The other race was over-run and the saiyans took over.  They were stuck on Vegeta though, which was now damaged badly by the war, and in order to get technology and money, they struck an alliance with another race on a far off planet.  This alliance called for the saiyans to take over planets that were suitable for habitation or farms and give them to their new allies.

            “This mutually benefited both species, so the saiyans began taking other clients, garnering wide masses of riches and power from their clients.  Eventually one client, an evil being named Freeza, monopolized the saiyans, and used them for his own personal wishes.  Soon though, Freeza saw that the saiyans, and their ever growing numbers and strength, might pose a problem to his personal power, so he destroyed the planet Vegeta and with it almost all of the saiyans.” I gasped when I heard this, a single being able to destroy an entire planet and its inhabitants, and if they were as strong as Triono, this Freeza must’ve been pretty damn strong.  “Only seven saiyans were off the planet when it was destroyed.  I guess eight though if you count Triono.  And that was 200 years ago.”

            I absorbed all this data rather quickly, the history of Triono’s people.  “Eventually though, Freeza met his match.  A saiyan, named Goku, defeated the murderer by turning into a Super Saiyan.  In this form, Freeza was no match for Goku, and eventually he was defeated.  That basically sums up the history of the saiyan race.  No one has ever heard of a saiyan since the last of the race died.  Triono might change everything, a saiyan that may very well be able to bring back the species.  And if he’s a full-blooded saiyan, it’s even better.

            “Anything else?”  He asked as he continued looking onward.  I began thinking, and looked around for some ideas. We were far out of the city now, in-fact when I looked back, I couldn’t even see the lights from it, we must have been going at extremely high speeds.  I remained silent for a while, searching for a question, when one popped in my head.

            “Why are you here in this dimension at all?”

            “Simply put, I came here to find people just like you.  You see Cris, there’s a war coming.  And it doesn’t involve you or Triono at all, but it will if my dimension loses this war.  I’ve come to your dimension to bring new warriors back to my plane.  All the greatest warriors of my time, the Z warriors we called them, have died of old age.  Vegeta, Gohan, Piccolo, Trunks, Goten, the list goes on and on, I’m the only remaining Z warrior left, and soon I will have to pass on too.  We were the protectors of our dimension; our universe relied on us to keep it free of evil.  Without us to keep the peace in the universe, evil has risen again, and there are no fighters powerful enough to destroy the evil army heading towards Earth.  In just a few years, they will arrive on Earth, the breeding ground of the most powerful combatants in the universe, and if no one stops them, they will have complete domination over all life in the universe.  I was sent here by chance really, I was on my way to a planet called Namek, as I’d heard of a good fighter from there, when I hit some sort of rift in space and time.  Don’t ask me how, but I was sent here, to your dimension.  So I did the job I was supposed to, find fighters with potential to be the next Z warriors.  My search led me to Earth, where I found you and Triono.”

            Great, so Krillin was some scout from the major leagues coming down to my level to seek out new talent.  “You said something about the upcoming war affecting my dimension.  What do you mean?”

            “We’re pretty sure this army has a device that will allow them access to any dimension that is relatively similar to ours, that means yours.  The problem they have is it requires power of more than a thousand stars combined.  They have no way to harness this power, except if they wish for it with the dragon balls.”

            “What are dragon balls?” I asked, I felt like a stupid little kid who was learning his multiplication tables.

            “Ah, the dragon balls, really the source of all our problems on earth.  The dragon balls are a creation of our Kami, or god.  They allow anyone who has all seven balls to make any wish they want, and it will come true.  There are limits to the dragon balls power, but the harnessing of the power needed to work their machine could be wished for.  So we can’t let them get all seven dragon balls, if they do it would mean domination of every type of life everywhere, not just limited to our dimension.”

            I swallowed heavily, if I got the message right, Krillin would want me to come with him to his dimension, and fight this evil army.  I wasn’t afraid of any fight, especially not if it was for all the right reasons, but I had to know one thing.  “Are these guys as powerful as Freeza?”

            He looked at me solemnly and then almost whispered “Freeza’s a pip-squeak compared to these guys.”  He saw the look of fear on my face, but instead of letting me voice my concerns he said, “We’re here, my space pod’s right down there.”

            I couldn’t see anything now, the night was dark, and clouds had covered the moon where we were.  Suddenly we dove, headfirst at suicidal speeds towards a farmer’s field.  All my blood rushed to my feet, and I almost passed out, but right before we hit the ground, we slowed to a nice slow glide before touching down.

            It felt good to be on land again, but I was disoriented and almost fell to the ground.  Krillin looked at me funny and said “We’ll teach you how to fly like that if you come with me.”  I didn’t know who he meant by ‘we’ but the thought of moving that fast sent a thrill up my spine.

            “If I go with you, when would I be able to come back?”  I asked, the whole time the thought of moving at such amazing speeds held control over my mind.

            “They’ll arrive in three years, after it’s all over, this dimension could use a good protector.”

            I looked at Triono, and wondered “What about Triono?”

            “He doesn’t belong here anyways, he must’ve somehow arrived in your dimension from ours, maybe in the same way I did.”

            I pondered the thought of going with him, the chance of a lifetime, go to save the universe from pure evil.  I didn’t know how I’d explain this to Seana, I’d have to talk to her, somehow.  Let her know what was happening.  “Could I go see someone, before we leave?”

            “Sorry Cris, the dimensional warp or whatever it is I came through is disappearing as we speak, we might not even make it as it is, so we have to go now.”

            I didn’t know if I could just leave her like that, but I’d be fighting for her, for everyone on my planet, for my universe itself.  A kind of pride arose in my heart, but I quickly quelled it, no delusions of grandeur for me.

            I stood there for maybe a minute, Krillin shifting impatiently from side to side, before I finally made up my mind.  “Let’s do it.”