"You just don't know how to use your own power yet. I'll train you properly and turn you into an outstanding God of Destruction." Merus ruffled Kale's hair.
"I…I'll try." Kale thought about it, then nodded timidly.
…
Universe 6, Earth.
Capsule Corporation Headquarters, Bulma's home.
"A spaceship, huh…" Bulma rubbed her temples, already getting a headache.
"Bulma, you still haven't found the materials for a spaceship?" Krillin asked.
"You think it's that easy?" Bulma snorted. "That big bald guy's spaceship got badly damaged during Goku and Vegeta's fight. Its core power unit is ruined. Such a waste."
"Without a spaceship, we can't go to Planet Namek…" Krillin shook his head.
"Oh, right, I know Merus. He can take us to Planet Namek, can't he?" Goku raised his hand as he spoke, still stuffing his face with food.
"Can you get in touch with him?" Bulma turned to look at him.
"Eh? I forgot to ask for his contact info!" Goku groaned, scratching his head.
Just then, Mr. Popo arrived at Bulma's place, standing on his flying carpet.
"Eh? Isn't that Mr. Popo?" Goku said in surprise and delight, hurrying over to greet him. He quickly gave Bulma a simple introduction about who Mr. Popo was.
Bulma had nearly jumped out of her skin when she first saw Mr. Popo. Only after hearing that he was Kami's attendant did she finally let out a small sigh of relief.
"Kami said you've been troubled about a spaceship. Please come with me. He told me that thing might be a spaceship," Mr. Popo said.
"Bulma, maybe you should go take a look," Krillin suggested.
"You want me to go? …Fine." Bulma nodded and climbed onto the flying carpet.
With a gentle lurch, the carpet vanished from where it had been.
In the blink of an eye, the carpet soared into a stretch of green highlands.
"Where is this? It feels freezing! Where's that spaceship supposed to be?" Bulma hugged her arms, shivering from the cold.
"We're already here," Mr. Popo explained. "This is Yunzabit Heights."
"Yunzabit? We're practically at the South Pole, no wonder it's so cold." Bulma gasped. "I didn't think we could travel this far in an instant."
"The spaceship is over there." Mr. Popo pointed into the distance.
"Hold on, why would a spaceship be in a place like this?" Bulma frowned. "Bringing me all the way out here… I'm getting a bad feeling about you. I'll say this in advance: if you so much as lay a finger on me, Ken will never forgive you."
Mr. Popo: "…"
He didn't bother arguing. His gaze shifted to the massive spaceship looming ahead of them.
Bulma followed his line of sight and immediately widened her eyes in surprise.
"Is that a spaceship?" Mr. Popo asked.
"I'll have to inspect it first." Bulma stepped up and tapped her fingers lightly against the hull. "I've never seen this material before… It doesn't feel like metal."
Mr. Popo stayed quiet.
"Where did Kami get this thing? Could it be the spaceship he used to come to Earth when he was a kid?" Bulma asked.
"Kami said that when he was very young, he used to live here at Yunzabit Heights," Mr. Popo explained. "I asked him how he survived in such a harsh place. Kami said he didn't know why he'd been living here either, only that he'd lost his memories after a blow to the head. I also asked if he had any parents or siblings. Kami said he had no parents, only a letter that said: 'Someday I'll come. Wait for me.'"
"I still don't really get it…" Bulma shook her head.
"As a boy, Kami waited for his parents the whole time. He never did find out what happened, but he kept waiting patiently," Mr. Popo said with a sigh. "It's just that he waited and waited, for a very long time, and they never came."
"And what does any of that have to do with this spaceship?" Bulma was speechless.
"Don't rush. The important part comes after this," Mr. Popo replied.
Bulma: "…"
"So everything you just said was the lead-up?" Bulma muttered, at a loss for words.
"Kami said there was a very strange house at Yunzabit. Round, with four legs, almost like some kind of insect. There's no handle or lock on the door, and you just say a single phrase to open it," Mr. Popo continued. He then spoke two soft syllables: "Piccolo."
"Clack!"
A round platform dropped down from the ship's entrance, then stopped to hover about ten centimeters off the ground.
"Ah? This must be the entrance!" Bulma's eyes sparkled in delight.
"Let's go up and take a look," Mr. Popo suggested.
The two of them stepped onto the platform together.
"Say 'Piccolo' again and it'll close," Mr. Popo added.
As he finished speaking, the lift began to rise slowly, carrying Bulma and Mr. Popo into the interior of the spaceship.
"Take a good look around. This should be a spaceship, right?" Mr. Popo asked. "Kami thought it looked a lot like one too."
"Yeah. Kami is a Namekian," Bulma nodded. "Ken once went to Planet Namek. He said the climate went haywire there and almost all life died out. So it makes sense that someone would have taken this spaceship to come to Earth…"
"Kami remembered that house and asked me to bring you here," Mr. Popo said.
Bulma glanced around and quickly spotted a strange-looking control console.
"Let's see if I can operate it." She frowned in concentration. "If the entrance is moving, that means there's still power… This doesn't look like a start button… Weird. But if it were that easy to start, Kami should've figured it out when he was little. If it doesn't activate by a button, then maybe it's voice-controlled?"
"Voice?" Mr. Popo's eyes widened. "What should we say? Is it 'Piccolo' again?"
"That's just for opening and closing the entrance." Bulma shook her head, then turned toward the ship. "Fly! Take off!"
Nothing happened. The ship didn't move an inch.
"No good. Maybe it's a language issue. We probably need Namekian," Bulma mused. "Go back and bring Piccolo here. He can speak Namekian, right?"
"No need. If it's Namekian, I, Mr. Popo, can speak it too." He smiled.
"You can?" Bulma blinked.
"'Piccolo' means 'different world,' so it's used for the entrance," Mr. Popo guessed.
"You could've said that earlier. So Demon King Piccolo is actually 'Demon King Different World'?" Bulma muttered, half thinking out loud. "All right, try telling it to take off in Namekian."
"Fly where?" Mr. Popo asked.
"Anywhere. Let's start with somewhere around Jupiter," Bulma said offhandedly.
Mr. Popo immediately turned toward the main console and issued a command in Namekian.
"Beep beep!"
A line of Namekian text appeared on the main screen.
"It says it understands," Mr. Popo translated.
"Whoosh!"
The spaceship powered up, blasting out of the atmosphere in an instant and shooting into outer space.
In just a few seconds, Bulma could already see Jupiter hanging in the starry void through the ship's window.
"This is amazing, absolutely amazing!" Bulma exclaimed. "We finally found a spaceship!"
After that, Bulma had Mr. Popo pilot the ship back down and land in the yard at her house.
The hatch opened, and Bulma and Mr. Popo stepped out, explaining everything about the spaceship to Goku and the others.
"Let me try it!" Goku walked over curiously and called out to the ship, "Piccolo!"
"Clack!"
The hatch gently lowered.
"Piccolo!" Goku called again.
"Ka-click!"
The floating platform rose back up.
"Piccolo Piccolo Piccolo Piccolo!" Goku kept saying it over and over.
Piccolo's face went completely dark on the side.
The platform kept going up and down faster and faster.
"Goku, will you knock it off?" Piccolo roared.
"Thud!"
Bulma strode over and socked Goku, knocking him flat.
"Do you want to break the spaceship before we even use it?" she snapped.
Goku rubbed the sore spot on his head where she'd punched him.
"With this ship, we can reach Planet Namek in about a month. I'll make some modifications inside first," Bulma announced to everyone.
"Bulma, I want a gravity training room," Goku said, stating his condition.
"A gravity room? Then we'll leave in ten days," Bulma thought for a moment, then told the group.
"Using Kami's spaceship to go to Planet Namek… that's pretty incredible," Krillin said excitedly. He turned to Piccolo. "Are you going, Piccolo?"
"Of course," Piccolo nodded.
Gohan opened his mouth, then closed it again. He glanced back at his mother, unable to summon the courage to speak.
"Perfect. Piccolo speaks Namekian, so the two of you can go together," Bulma nodded. She turned to Krillin. "Krillin, what about you? Are you going?"
"I don't really feel like it," Krillin said, shaking his head.
"Come on, Krillin, let's go together," Goku urged. "You're my best friend. Going on a trip to another planet with you sounds fun."
"Goku…" Tears welled up in Krillin's eyes. "Fine, I'll go! Besides, I was the one who beat Nappa!"
"Yeah, Krillin, I didn't expect you to be able to take down that guy Nappa," Goku said, patting Krillin's bald head.
"Bulma, you think I should go too, right?" Krillin asked with a grin.
"It's not what I think. Ken specifically told me before he left that for this trip to Planet Namek, you had to go," Bulma said.
Krillin: "???"
He looked confused.
Goku and the others all wore similarly puzzled expressions.
Why had Ken specifically named Krillin as someone who had to go?
"Hahaha, must be that even Ken thinks I'll be really useful on Planet Namek," Krillin said with a carefree laugh, not overthinking it.
"All right then—Goku, Krillin, Piccolo, the three of you will head to Planet Namek together," Bulma said, looking at them one by one.
Goku and the others nodded in unison.
"I want to go too! Please take me with you!" Gohan suddenly gathered his courage and shouted.
"Gohan, don't joke around!" Chi-Chi panicked, immediately trying to shut him down.
"I'm not joking—I really want to go," Gohan said seriously.
"Don't say something so silly. The round trip takes two months." Chi-Chi's anger spiked; she clenched her fists, her whole body trembling. "He's already been away from me for over a year! How is he supposed to keep up with his studies? He's already falling far behind other kids! I absolutely won't allow this! Gohan, you're still a child, you should be acting like a child!"
"Enough! Please don't say any more!" Gohan suddenly yelled.
Chi-Chi froze, staring at her son in shock.
Piccolo really had turned her boy down the wrong path.
After almost a year apart, he'd become like this!
Chi-Chi glared at Piccolo, face full of anger.
But Piccolo's eyes were even more intimidating than hers.
She jumped, quickly looking away.
"Mom, this isn't the time to be saying those things. So many people died in this battle… We have to bring them back," Gohan said through gritted teeth, clenching his fists. "I hardly did anything during the fight. I'm not okay with that! I can't stay as timid as I used to be… I need to do my part too! Do you understand, Mom? I'm sorry…"
As he spoke, tears spilled from his eyes.
Chi-Chi lowered her head, suddenly at a loss for words.
"Chi-Chi, Gohan's right. See him off with a smile and let him board the ship," Ox-King said gently from the side.
Goku stepped up next to Piccolo and patted him on the shoulder.
Piccolo shot Goku a sidelong glance.
"Not bad, Piccolo. How exactly did you teach Gohan?" Goku asked curiously.
Piccolo didn't answer.
"Then it's settled—ten days from now, we meet at Kame House," Bulma said. "By then the ship will be fully modified. Do your best, everyone."
…
Ten days passed in a flash.
The spaceship was fully refitted.
Master Roshi's little island.
Krillin stood there in travel gear, a cap on his head and a travel bag slung over his shoulder. Looking up at the refurbished spaceship, he couldn't help but sigh. "Bulma, you really are a genius. You managed to remodel this spaceship so fast."
"Krillin, are you going on vacation or what?" Bulma wiped the sweat from her brow. "You're underestimating space travel way too much."
"Huh?" Krillin blinked, not getting it.
"I've been to Galactic Patrol HQ before. The universe is way bigger than you can imagine," Bulma said, shaking her head.
Krillin kept quiet.
So it's not a sightseeing trip?
I've never even left Earth before…
"Goku, Gohan and Piccolo aren't here yet?" Bulma asked.
"They should be here any minute," Krillin guessed. Then he looked at Bulma again. "Bulma, do you think I should bring an umbrella? Didn't you say the weather on Planet Namek isn't very good?"
Bulma: "…"
She suddenly didn't feel like talking.
She'd said the climate there was bad, not that it rained all the time.
Just then, Goku, Gohan, and Piccolo streaked in from the distant sky and landed on the island.
"Goku, where's Chi-Chi?" Bulma asked.
"She said she'd just cry if she came to see us off, so she stayed home," Goku replied.
"Then let's get going. The gravity room is already set up for you," Bulma told him. "I've already shown you how to use it when you came by my place before. I don't need to repeat it, do I?"
"No, no, I got it," Goku laughed.
Before this, Bulma had already taught Piccolo how to operate the spaceship.
It was simple—just a set of Namekian voice commands.
Piccolo already knew Namekian, so it took him no time at all to learn.
"Oh, right, Piccolo—there's a voice lock on this thing. Make sure you lock it," Bulma reminded him again and again. "Your name is 'Piccolo,' after all. If someone shouts your name and the hatch opens by accident, somebody could fall out. And with the difference in air pressure, you could get sucked straight into space."
"Got it…" Piccolo wiped a bit of sweat from his brow.
The group boarded the spaceship together.
"Set course for Planet Namek!" Piccolo issued the command in Namekian toward the main console.
"Beep beep!"
A line of text appeared on the console, confirming the command.
"Whoosh!"
The spaceship lifted off, heading out into space in no time.
Piccolo immediately activated the voice lock.
This way, even if someone blurted out "Piccolo," the ship wouldn't suddenly open up on them.
Once they were in space, Goku led Piccolo, Krillin, and Gohan over to the gravity room's control panel.
"So I just press this button to turn on the gravity?" Krillin asked. "You trained under ten times gravity on King Kai's planet, right?"
"Yeah. So you guys need to adapt to ten times gravity as fast as you can," Goku nodded. "With your current power, ten times gravity shouldn't be that big of a problem."
He stepped forward and pressed the ten-times-gravity button.
At once, Piccolo, Krillin, and Gohan all felt their bodies grow heavy.
Krillin went straight down, plastered to the floor.
Gohan dropped to one knee.
Only Piccolo managed to stay standing through sheer willpower.
"Not bad. Keep at it. I'm going to go work on Ultra Instinct," Goku said with a smile, jogging off to train on his own.
And so, the group began a new round of training out in the depths of space.
After they'd flown a long distance, Krillin suddenly thought of something and cried out inside the ship.
"What's wrong, Krillin?" Goku asked.
"I just realized there's a really serious problem…" Krillin scratched his head with a bitter smile.
"What problem?" Goku asked.
"Ken said so himself—we're in Universe 6 right now," Krillin replied. "Vegeta should be in Universe 7…"
"Oh? When you put it that way, you're right," Goku said, nodding slowly. "So Universe 6 has its own Planet Namek too."
"I heard our two universes are mirror universes, so there's probably a Planet Namek here as well," Krillin guessed.
"So we're heading to Universe 6's Planet Namek? Not the one that's my home planet?" Piccolo groaned, his head aching.
"I wonder if the Namekians there can make Dragon Balls," Goku said.
"They probably can…" Krillin said, scratching his head again.
"As long as they have Dragon Balls, that's all that matters. Our goal this time is to revive all the comrades we lost," Goku said.
"You're right," Krillin nodded. He then glanced up at Piccolo. "Piccolo, even if it's not your original home… just treat Universe 6's Planet Namek as your home, okay?"
Piccolo: "…"
…
Universe 7, Planet Frieza No. 79.
It had been eighteen days since Vegeta left Earth.
Inside the planetary base, two aliens in the middle of a board game suddenly received a signal.
"Hm? Someone's coming?"
They immediately looked up toward the main console and hurried over to operate it, checking the incoming spaceship.
"Is it Frieza-sama?"
"Can't be. Frieza-sama just stopped by from another planet for supplies and left immediately."
"Got it. It's a spherical combat-type ship, belongs to a warrior."
"The signal is Vegeta's… That's odd. We didn't get any notice he was coming back."
"This is the control room. Vegeta-sama has returned. Go out and welcome him immediately," one of the aliens ordered the staff outside.
"Whoosh!"
A bright streak of light shot in from the distant darkness of space.
Several of Frieza's underlings stood waiting outside the launch facility to receive Vegeta.
The ship descended from the sky and settled onto the landing pad.
Creak…
The hatch opened, and Vegeta stepped out.
"Welcome back, Vegeta-sama!" the group of Frieza's soldiers bowed together.
"Hmph." Vegeta just grunted and strode wordlessly into the rejuvenation tank area.
In about ten minutes, his injuries had completely healed.
Vegeta stepped out and changed into a fresh set of battle armor.
"Looks like Vegeta-sama went through quite a lot," one staffer muttered. "Even that high-durability armor got shattered."
"Where's Frieza?" Vegeta asked coldly. "Is he on this planet?"
"Frieza-sama came over from Planet 85 just to get some supplies for his ship, then left again," the worker answered truthfully.
Vegeta fell silent.
"Oh, right—Cui-sama said that once your treatment was done, he had something to say to you. He asked you to go to the training room," the staff member added.
"Oh? That guy Cui came to this planet?" Vegeta raised an eyebrow, then gave a faint, mocking smile. "Tell him I've got nothing to say to him."
With that, Vegeta turned on his heel and walked away.
"You forgot your scouter," the worker called after him, holding the device up.
"I don't need that toy anymore. Keep it as a souvenir," Vegeta snorted, striding out of the room.
He had already made up his mind—he was heading for Planet Namek right away.
Ken said there was a huge opportunity waiting for me on Planet Namek.
I'll see what kind of opportunity it is.
And that bastard Kakarot is going to Planet Namek too.
This time, I'm going to grind Kakarot into the dirt.
I'm going to gather all seven Dragon Balls on Planet Namek and wish for immortality.
But before that, I need to find a place to train. I have to see if I can draw out the power of the Ultra Ego.
As he was thinking this, a figure suddenly stepped into his path.
Vegeta paused and looked up, his gaze landing on the bizarre-looking alien blocking his way.
Standing opposite him was an alien with pale purple skin covered in spots and a head that looked disturbingly like an upside-down butt. His name was Cui.
"Hey, Vegeta, looks like you took quite the beating. Where are Raditz and Nappa? Dead already?" Cui sneered, his tone dripping with mockery. "I'm really curious—who could humiliate the 'invincible Saiyan' this badly?"
"You're not qualified to talk to me," Vegeta said with a cold snort, not even bothering to look at him as he tried to walk past.
"Hey, I'm not done!" Cui reached out and grabbed Vegeta by the armor.
"Take your filthy hands off me," Vegeta growled, frowning.
"You listen to me. Frieza-sama is furious about your little unauthorized mission," Cui said with a cold snort.
"Hmph. What I do is none of his business," Vegeta laughed icily.
"But Frieza-sama is very magnanimous. He's already forgiven you—because he discovered something very interesting," Cui suddenly grinned.
"What 'interesting' thing?" Vegeta's brows drew together, a bad feeling twisting in his gut.
"Frieza-sama is delighted. He might be able to gain immortality," Cui said, his laugh growing more grating by the second.
"What did you say? Don't tell me Frieza's heading to…" Vegeta's face changed color.
"That's right—Planet Namek," Cui said, positively gloating.
Vegeta's expression grew darker and darker.
That bastard must've overheard our conversation through the scouter.
How could I be so careless?
I can't let him become immortal.
If he does, there'll never be a way to beat him!
"Seems you wanted to use the Dragon Balls to wish for immortality yourself, huh? You might as well give up on that," Cui laughed even harder. "Frieza-sama plans to make his wish and then wipe out every last Namekian on the planet!"
"Hmph. Cui, you shouldn't have picked a fight with me," Vegeta said, a murderous glint flashing across his face.
"What's that look supposed to mean? You planning to kill me?" Cui scoffed. "Do you even know what your power level is right now? You went to Earth and your power went down instead of up. It's hilarious!"
"Hakai!"
A tiny purple-red point of light suddenly bloomed in Vegeta's palm.
It was only about the size of a sesame seed.
(End of Chapter)
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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