Dragonball Z: Saiyan Saga [3]

Up in Snake Way, Goku is still on his way, struggling in defiantly as he continues on. He gets to a road cleaner who agrees to give him a lift along the road, and allows Goku to sleep on the back. Appreciative of what the cleaner is doing for him, Goku settles down, and gets some sleep. The small vehicle chugs on, but one of the wheel’s flicks against the side of the road, knocking Goku off the back, and plunging into the depths of the underworld, below Snake Way. By now, Goku is fast running out of time, with the saiyans looming ever closer.

The usual training is being maintained back on Earth, with everyone trying to get their power levels up as high as possible. The biggest exception though are the exploits of Gohan. Piccolo has dumped him in the wilderness to survive on his own, and while at first he is running all the time, and scared out of his mind, he soon gains power, and fights off the savage beasts that think he shall be their pray. Slowly over time, a T-Rex that was chasing him starts to run from him, with Gohan chopping off his tail with a sword after every encounter, so that he can eat. Piccolo watches all the time, making sure that Gohan survives, and he seems somewhat………passionate towards the little kid.

When Piccolo goes to do his training, it is very impressive, as he can move pyramids with his mind (Though just barely). Gohan is amazed at Piccolo’s power when he sees him doing it. Piccolo gets a slight scare when Gohan looks at the moon for the first time, transforming into a huge beast, with incredible power. Piccolo is unable to stop him from his rampage, but works out that the moon is the source, and destroys it. He finds out that Gohan shrinks back to size, then he plucks his tail from out of him, trying to get rid of the risk of Gohan killing him.

Gohan’s tail somehow grows back though, and once again he transforms, even though the moon has been destroyed. He finds out that there is a device projecting it though, and destroys that, making Gohan transform back to normal once again. Piccolo plucks out the tail once again, but it grows back. There is no more transformations from Gohan though.

Gohan is stranded this time though, as he has injured Piccolo unintentionally when he was a giant ape. Piccolo has no idea where the kid is, but he knows he’s alright, so continues his training.

Back in the other dimension, Goku is recovering from falling off Snake Way, and is trying to figure out a way back up. He meets two ogres, one blue, and one red. He asks them how to get back up, and they agree to help him on one condition – They beat them at the thing they are best at. First up is the blue ogre, who challenges Goku to a wrestling type match in a circular ring, where the first one to exit the circle loses. The ogre starts off by charging into Goku, and succeeds in driving him back a little, but not taking him all the way out of the circle. Goku stands his ground, making sure he stays inside the perimeter. He asks the blue ogre if it’s his turn yet, and when told it is by the puzzled ogre, Goku pushed him back, almost knocking him out of the circle, then begins punching the thin air. The speed of it improves, getting faster and faster all the time, until it is so fast that it knocks the ogre off his feet, out of the circle, causing him to be defeated. Goku, being gullible as he is, believed the ogre would be telling the truth.

The ogre surprisingly agreed to help him by setting up a kind of flying machine, where there was a plank on a balance which had Goku standing at one end weighing him down. The ogre jumps onto the other side, launching Goku into the air, but he slams his head against some sort of magical, invisible wall, blocking him from everything that is above. He falls back down, and with a crash, he lands. When he asks the ogre what happened, he merely laughs at Goku, pointing out his idiocy. Goku doesn’t give up though, and starts jumping as high as he can, slamming his head into the invisible blockade each time. The red ogre sees his patheticness, and says that he really will help if Goku can catch him. The red ogre speeds off as Goku agrees, then pursues. He gets close to the ogre, but can’t quite catch him. When the ogre is getting tired, Goku still has lots of energy. He hatches a plan, then runs off to a tree baring golden fruit. This is the tree of King Yama. The fruit is enough to give a person energy (And allow them to go without food) for three months. Goku peers up into the tree, and the red ogre runs over to him. Goku runs round for a bit, with his opponent panicking pretty badly. He then stops, turns, and jumps onto the red ogre, catching him. The red ogre reluctantly agrees to show Goku the way out. He leads him to a passage with stairs that descends to a huge height, which is so great that light cannot be seen. Goku is about to go, when he stops, and pulls out a golden fruit from his pocket, and takes a bite from it. The ogres go mad at him for taking King Yama’s fruit. Goku waves bye, and starts running up the staircase. He scoffs the rest of the fruit, and leaves the ogres laughing to themselves. When Goku gets to the tops of the staircase, he pushes something out of the way, and then jumps out, to find that he came out of King Yama’s draw. Seeing what had happened, Goku ran paste everyone, and back out onto Snake Way, realizing how much time he has lost, and how much he has to make up for. The fruit seems to have given him a lot more energy though, se he easily sprints along, annoyed at the ogres.

In space, the two saiyans decide to take a detour, stopping off at a near by planet. They are ambushed, but instead of fighting, they surrender, and allow themselves to be taken in, obviously having something up their sleeve. When they are bought before the king of the planet, they are made to fight other warriors. The two saiyans destroy their opposition, then destroy the soldiers of the planet. After taking out most of them, the two saiyans call their ship, and get in. The smaller one of the two then charges up an attack, and shoots it down at the planet, destroying it. He laughs manically, and shoots off away into space, going back towards Earth.

On the coast of a faraway place on the physical plain of Earth, is a boy, who has been washed up by the waves. He is wearing red robes, like Goku’s, and is unconscious. A couple of kids poke him with a stick for a while, before deciding that they should take him over to their leader. The washed up kid turns out to be none other than Gohan, and he soon gets nursed back to full health. He is with a small colony of orphans, who have been abandoned by their parents. He is about to leave when the authorities come to take them away. They fight their hardest, and drive them away. Gohan doesn’t join in, but instead lets them do whatever it is they do.

Again the authorities attack, a little later on. This time, they are with police, who get their ass kicked by Gohan. The leader lets the kids get captured though, and tells them that it would be best for them to go, as they will probably enjoy it with the authorities, if they give them a new home. Gohan escapes easily, and goes with the leader, begging him to go back and help them. He refuses though. He gets in his car with Gohan, drives off, then drops him off next to a hill. Gohan begs with the leader of the small gang of outlaws to tell him why he did what he did, but instead of an answer, Gohan gets a punch in the face. He falls down to the ground, but quickly gets up to his feet. The leader apologizes, and rives off telling Gohan that he is one mean dude.

Gohan then turns to the hill, and runs up it. We see that he is running towards his house. He stops short though, and thinks. He then thinks to his mom that he will be back soon, and as if Gohan transmitted the signal by psychic powers, Chi-Chi stares out the window. Gohan is long gone though. He runs through the woods, crying, but ready to train. He sees Piccolo who has been waiting for him. He tells him he wants to continue training, so they do.

Back on Snake Way, Goku is making excellent progress, and is nearing the end. He sees a giant palace, and decides to stop off there to rest. When he goes in, he is greeted by a green lizard-like being, who introduces herself. She feeds Goku, but when he says that he’s got to go, she manipulates him into having a little more to eat. He agrees, but this time, his food is drugged so that he falls asleep. He does just that, and the lizard women transform into horrible little minions, who are sneering, and preparing to do something to Goku. Before they can though, he sits up, forcing them to quickly transform back into their normal form. The queen of the lizard people talks Goku into having one more bit of food, which is heavily drugged this time, but again Goku wakes up, and this time he notices them transforming. He speaks to them of what he saw in a dream, and realizes that they are bad guys. The halls change shape, and the people disappear. Goku seems to be trapped. He manages to escape though, and sees that the room was actually a giant snake. It starts to move, then takes itself from its normal pose, and goes after Goku, breathing fire at him. He manages to dodge it, and flies up into the air. The snake follows him, and Goku cunningly manages to make the snake tangle itself up by going after him, then he flies away, towards King Kai’s place.

The training goes well for everyone, and Goku finally arrives at Kai’s place with 2 months to spare. He jumps, and reaches the island floating in the air. As soon as he lands though, he crashes down to the floor. He can’t seem to stand up, and is having incredible trouble getting to his feet. After a while though, he manages it, and struggles over to a monkey standing on a path. Goku assumes this is King Kai, and begins talking to him. After a short while, King Kai comes out of his house, and introduces himself, making Goku look stupid (as usual). He informs him that the only way to get him to train him, is to make him laugh. Goku tries a few times, and fails miserably. In the end, he delivers joke so badly, that it makes Kai laugh at him. He agrees to train him, and tells him that his first time is to catch Bubbles the monkey. It is now that he is informed that the gravity is 10 times on Kai’s planet than it is on Earth.

>>> Continue on to page 4 of the Saiyan Saga