(Sometime later - Elsewhere)
Across the plains of Mount Paozu, floating peacefully beside a large waterfall, the familiar form of Piccolo had decided to fill in his free time with some much needed meditation. With his arms and legs crossed and his cape bellowing gently on a breeze, the Namekian warrior suspended himself quietly, while the sounds of nature echoed all around him.
He made sure to compress his hearing solely to this one spot, as any form of outside noise would upset the state of emotional symmetry he'd been able to achieve. Even though the cry of his student could be heard for miles around due to a possibly embarrassing comment by his mother, Piccolo paid it little mind and allowed time to pass by as normally after that moment. The little foibles and everyday shenanigans of Gohan's social and home life didn't concern him so much, since he knew the boy could cope with it.
'Shake it off' he would always say to the demi-Saiyan. It was a fine combination of words he hoped would stick with the youngster for many years to come.
So far, it'd proven fruitful, as was the hours he'd already spent out here.
"Ah… now this is relaxing," the former guardian of the earth thought, a small smile pulling across his lips. "I haven't had such a peaceful meditation in a long time." After all the things that'd happened with the androids, Cell and Bojack, the earth was due for a long period of downtime. Hopefully the days would stay like this and the world would be able to keep on turning.
But then, just when Piccolo was settling in for another bout of silent contemplation, the Namekian's eyes suddenly shot open and he spun around. Disengaging from his seated position, the green skinned warrior fixed his gaze upon the sky, where he sensed an incredibly powerful force heading their way.
"W-What is that?" Piccolo thought, unable to comprehend what the hell he was feeling.
It was an alien presence. That much was certain. However, unlike the times he was able to pick up the approaching meteorite that was Lord Slug's craft or Frieza's saucer, this one was somehow different.
It was like he could feel the sun approaching them…
XXX
High above the planet's surface in the empty vacuum of space just a few clicks off of the moon's orbital path, a vessel of unknown origin and make suddenly broke into earth's reach. Oval in shape and looking as though it'd been assembled together from specially crafted plates, not only was it sleek in design and silver in color, it also had a series of orange lights running up and down the channels on its outer hull. Flying into view propelled by three thrusters on its back, the spacecraft shot past the moon's current position before suddenly beginning to slow on its final approach of the planet.
Upon arriving into satellite distance of the earth, the ship's velocity continued to reduce until, in just a few short seconds, it came to a perfect stop. Once suspended in view of the cities dotting the continents and islands far below, the ship remained hovering in place for several minutes, motionless and drifting through the cold expanse of nothing. The flickering lights along its shell making several beeping noises as they flashed more erratically, the craft from another world seemed to just float there, eyeing the planet like it were some kind of wounded prey before, without warning, something started to happen.
The front of the craft emitted several small bursts of hot steam before the plates broke apart and separated, like it was disassembling itself. The sections fanned out like they were still attached to the craft, even though they weren't, and held their positions around the tip. When the compartment opened, it revealed a tiny, sphere-shaped pod contained inside the nose of the craft. But that wasn't the only part to open up.
A plate from the side also detached too. However, instead of exposing another separate portion of the vessel, it revealed an open space with several other kinds of flashing lights. More steam escaped the vents and the ship started to hum loudly again. As the sound of engines revving grew in volume, a speck orbiting the planet in the distance started to drift towards the main craft. When it came into view, it revealed itself to be a highly advanced Capsule Corp. satellite that eventually got drawn into range of the much larger vessel. Once in close, it got sucked into the side compartment, becoming attached to the foreign machine.
More beeping and more steam shot off of the vessel after the satellite plugged into the alien craft like a USB. After several seconds, the open compartment at the very front of the ship emitted a bright orange light, which shot towards the very polar north of the earth. As soon as the light reached the top of the planet, it began to expand and scan the whole sphere.
The beam of light stretched over the earth and ran down all the way to the southern pole, a process which took a whole of a minute. Once it was done scanning the planet, the light switched off and the vessel gave another loud hum.
XXX
(On Earth)
In the astronomy department of the West City industrial super giant known as Capsule Corp, the original founder of the business and former head of the empire Doctor Briefs could be seen looking through the facility's primary telescope. Murmuring to himself as he gazed into the main optics fixed upon the skies above like a massive, planetary gun, the man with the bushy mustache, square rimmed glasses, lab coat, and little black cat sitting perched on his shoulder, gave a contemplative grunt as he adjusted the sights.
"Hmm… yes… this is vexing," the scientist remarked out loud. His cat meowed in response, earning a nod from the man. "I know… but where in the world did it come from?"
While the man busied himself with trying to solve their current problem, he was then interrupted from his investigation by a clearing of a person's throat. Looking towards the walkway circling the interior of the dome-shaped building, Doctor Briefs spotted his daughter, dressed in regular work clothes and a lab coat of her own, gazing down at him from above.
She wasn't alone either, as she was also accompanied by a concerned Vegeta and Mirai Trunks, both of whom were staring out through the telescope dome's main hatch towards the sky.
"So what's the scoop, dad?" Bulma asked, her expression stone cold serious mixed with a tint of nervousness, "Can you make out what it is?"
The man with the unlit cigarette in his mouth nodded, "Your man was right on the mark when he said he sensed something troublesome heading our way."
"Well… what is it?" the daughter persisted, anxious to find out what it was her dad had spotted.
Reaching over to type into his computer, the man brought up the image his telescope was able to capture onto the projector. The specially designed hologram lit up and relayed to the audience an image of the ship in question, which immediately had Vegeta and Trunks's gazes snap towards it. Befuddled by the sight of it at first, everyone on the walkway was soon locked in a glaring match with the unusual object, a ship that was obviously not from their galaxy.
"The extra terrestrial vehicle is a class three. It's a small craft… smaller than a jumbo jet but much larger than a fighter bomber; big enough to transport a couple of people. The lights you see blinking along its hull are what I suspect to be power conduits and sensors, while the gaps between the plates act as vents that eject excess energy and heat. The outer shell and armor seem to be held together by some sort of magnetic energy, able to detach and reattach at a moment's notice. It's what I was able to gauge from my few minutes of observation," Doctor Briefs said, turning away from the projection to continue watching the vessel through the telescope. "It was on fast approach of the planet until a few minutes ago, and it's now positioned itself in geostationary orbit above the earth, just out of effective range of our big missiles."
As the old man adjusted the focus, Mirai Trunks's brow tightened into a frown, "So… what's the deal with this thing? What's it doing?" He saw that the shape it had assumed wasn't its original shape. The very tip of the vessel had opened up and revealed some sort of device that was now pointing down at the planet.
"The computers picked up a strange electromagnetic anomaly that pierced the earth's atmosphere and ran all the way down from the north to the south, which only lasted shy of about sixty seconds before it dispersed," Doctor Briefs stated, glancing up at the time traveling warrior and his family to see them all still staring at the ship. "My guess is that the vessel was scanning us."
"Scanning us?" Bulma parroted, "The entire planet?"
"Yes," Doctor Briefs said, taking a red laser pointer and flashing it at the hologram, where the dot suspended itself around the ship's edge. "Just before the energy reading occurred, a section on the starboard side of the vessel also opened up and sucked in one of our satellites. The orbiter was tractor beamed aboard the UFO and forcibly plugged into their system."
Confounded by this new information, Bulma looked down at her watch and began typing into the keys. A computer image popping up, showing the various positions of satellites orbiting the planet, the blue haired woman balked when she took stock of their equipment. "That was the Type 29 we sent up there a few weeks ago; our latest model." She then looked across at Trunks and Vegeta, the former of which was now looking at her. "It was designed to boost information and communications channels by acting as a conduit for all of the planet's internet activity; that includes all local media and military transmissions."
Trunks was immediately troubled by this news, "Does that mean the ship will be able to access all of the planet's information through that thing?"
"If it has the right hardware and a big enough power source, yes," Bulma replied, shutting off her watch and turning back to the projector. "Considering that thing's alien, I'll bet my money that it's processing all of that information right now."
"Can you shut it off somehow and prevent that ship from accessing the satellite?" Trunks asked, hoping that the world's greatest scientific mind would be able to figure a way out of this and safeguard their planet's history and data.
Bulma gave a disgruntled look, "Not unless you can type over a million lines of code in the next five minutes." Even for someone like her that was a bit of a stretch, despite how lightning fast she was at the computer. It would take somebody with superhuman speed and her brain to actually pull it off. "It takes a long time to completely kill the system. But even if I was able to shut off all of our satellites in orbit it wouldn't help. That thing finished downloading over a third of the planet's information the moment the two craft became connected… and I'm not going to put it past the guy who's probably traveled over a million light years to get here just to give up on the first shot."
Frowning, the man turned to look up at the sky, where he could still sense the strange energy source coming off of the craft. "What do you suppose they want?"
"I don't know. But whatever it is, I know it's going to be bad news…"
Vegeta, having remained silent throughout the entire duration of their discussion as he stared up at the strange ship, suddenly squinted at the image, as if trying to decipher a Rubik's cube by hard. After a few seconds of closer analysis, his eyes then widened in shock, "Wait… I recognize that vessel."
Bulma and Trunks quickly turned to the man, where they saw the look of abject disbelief on his face.
"W-What is it Vegeta?" Bulma asked, giving the man a few confused blinks when she then saw him begin to shake.
Vegeta swallowed, "It can't be…"
Clenching his jaw, the Prince of all Saiyans then spun around and looked up towards the sky. Eyes wavering and sweat starting to break out, he then wordlessly powered up and took off out of the dome through the gap. His sudden vacating of the facility prompted Trunks to follow after him and Bulma to give a concerned look.
"Hm… I wonder what's gotten under his feathers," Doctor Briefs wondered out loud, glancing down at the little cat still lying over his shoulder. "What do you think, Kitty?"
The little feline gave a cute meow.
This subsequently brought an understanding head nod from the founder of the company. "You may be right. Hemorrhoids do seem to be the most logical explanation…"