Disclaimer: I do not own DBZ in any way, shape, or form.

Note: My first attempt at a serious story. It's probably didn't work. It starts off a little confusing, but after a while, it should become clear. I apologize in advance for any grammar or spelling errors this may have.

The Portal to Beyond: Chapter I

Space is dark. Dark and very boring. This is what the warrior, Kakarott, was thinking as he zoomed by a planet in his space pod.

Oh why couldn't I have stayed on Vejiita-sei? The tournament was coming up! I was sure to win first place in the third division this year. But instead my father sends me to some out-of-the-way, backwater planet no body has ever even heard of before. Life sucks.

Suddenly the mist that keeps you in a state of sleep while nourishing your body poured out and his silent complaints were ceased as he was swept into a dreamless slumber.

"Goku! Goten! Gohan! Dinner time!" Before ChiChi could barely finish her sentence, her two children and her husband pratically flew to the table. She shook her head as she set the dishes in front of them, narrowly escaping losing an arm in the process.

"The least you could do was to wait until after I put them down!" She paused. "Goten dear, chew your food before you swallow. Goku, you shirt is most certainly not an napkin. Gohan, good table manners!" she turned to Goku and Goten, "You two can learn a thing or two from him, you know." They rolled their eyes and resumed their piggish eating.

Soon, everything was comsumed and three satisfied sayians rubbed their stomachs. Goten and Goku burped loudly. As they moved to leave the table, the phone rang.

"Moshi Moshi?" pause. "Oh hi Bulma!" pause. "You what? You want Gohan to come over and take a look at something? I'll ask him." Gohan nodded yes. "He says okay. Alright, bye!" ChiChi pressed the end button and placed it back onto the table. "That was weird. Gohan, why don't you take your brother along? He can play with Trunks while you're there."

"Okay, 'kaasan. Come on Goten." The two boys exited the house.

The pod crashed into a hillside of a deserted area. Dirt and dust particles were flung into the air from the impact.

"Arrived at destination. Initiating waking sequence." the onboard computer droned.

Soon Kakarott stretched and yawned. He pressed the button to open the hatch and stepped out. There was a sound like distant thunder and he grunted when he discovered that is was his stomach. He went off to a nearby forest to hunt.

Not far away from where Kakarott had landed, there was a teenage girl out in a field picking wild flowers. She was a rather lonlely girl, for no one would ever socialize with her and the few friends she did have lived too far away for daily visits.

"ChiChi! Time for lunch!" Ox King called. He was all she had left since her mother had died.

"Coming Papa!" She started to run in the direction of home, when a gust of wind picked up the hat she was wearing and carried it away.

"Oh! Come here!" she cried as she chased it up a small hill. It deposited her belonging on top of a medium-sized bush. "Got ya!" She gasped when she spotted Kakarott's pod by an oak tree. "What the heck is that thing?" Being the curious person she was, she decided that one little peek wouldn't hurt anything.

***

Kakarott had finally found a deer big enough to satisfy his hunger and was currently gnawing on a bone when his scouter picked up something with a rather strange power in the direction of his pod.

"There better not be anyone messing with my ship or there'll be hell to pay." He dropped the bone onto the ground and took to the air, hoping to catch the offender.

***

ChiChi's head jerked up. There was someone headed in her direction! She started to run and hide, but something stopped her. How in the world did she know that? It was strange. But there wasn't any time to stop and ponder, she had to find someplace.

She ran about 200 yards, until she discovered a large boulder. She ducked behind it just in time because Kakarott had just came into sight.

"I know I'm not crazy, that's Nappa." he snickered at the thought. "Why isn't anyone here?" He took a seat next to the space ship to think.

Oh kami! He's not going away! I don't want to die, not now anyway. ChiChi panicked, her heart pounding. She started to breath easier when the man had gotten up and prepared to fly away. That was another thing! What's with the flying anyway? Her relief was short-lived, however, when Kakarott turned and looked dead at her.

ChiChi muffled her scream as best she could, but still some sound was emitted.

"Alright, whoever you are just come on out and maybe I'll spare your life!" Kakarott shouted.

ChiChi didn't know what to do. Should she stay where she was? Then he would probably flush her out, killing her when he did. Should she surrender? The aura around him was just tainted with evil.

He'll probably kill me anyways. I might as well get some answers before he does. She noticed it again. How do I know these things? It's just not normal!

"All right, all right! I surrender!" She stepped out into plain view with her hands held in front of her body. When Kakarott saw her, he burst into peals of laughter.

"You're just a little brat!"

"I am not little and I am not a brat!" she yelled angrily going off into a very harsh tirade.

Kakarott's scouter started to beap and he noticed that the numbers on the lens kept going up and up.

"Why is your ki so high?! It's just not possible!" he took the scouter off. "This piece of junk must be broken! That's the only explanation."

During his speech, ChiChi had stopped ranting and was looking at him strangely.

"What are you talking about? What does 'ki' mean?"

"You don't know what ki means?" Kakarott started in disbelief. "It's your life-energy. Your power reading! You control it and make it do whatever you want." ChiChi just stared on, confused. "I'll just show you." He extended his arm and pointed his index finger. A small yellow beam of light shot out and his a tree no more than 50 feet away from them. ChiChi gasped and ran to it. She saw that there was a hole, no more than 2 centimeters in circumference shot clear through the tree.

"Wow! That's what ki can do? It's amazing!" she said delighted.

"That was nothing." Kakarott went over to his pod where he proceeded to take stuff out.

"Can you teach me how to do that?"

He stopped what he was doing and froze. "You want me to what?"

"You heard me. I want you to teach me how to shoot beams and stuff, how to control my ki. And I You heard me. I want to learn how to shoot beams want you to teach me how."

Kakarott continued his work. "If you really want to learn, be here tomorrow at sunrise, in combat clothes, ready to work."

A smile spread wide over ChiChi's face. She hadn't been this happy in a long while. "You mean it?" Kakarott nodded, faintly amused. "Oh thank you! You won't regret it!" She ran over and flung her arms around the startled saiyan giving him a huge hug, then skipped off towards home.

"I think I already am."

Gohan approached the front door of the Capsule Corporation with his little brother about 20 minutes after Bulma had called with apprehension. He didn't know what could be going on behind that door.

"Niichan, what are you waiting for?" Goten wondered.

Gohan was startled out of his thoughts. "Huh? Oh nothing, Goten." he pressed the doorbell.

"Big brothers sure are weird!" Goten said quietly to himself while shaking his head.

Soon the front door was flung open wide and Trunks stood there in the doorway.

"Hey Goten! You wanna go up to my room and play Pokémon Stadium? I hoped you remembered your gold edition."

"Yup, I did. Let's go!" The two boys raced up the stairs, playfully pushing and shoving along the way.

***

Gohan knew exactly where to find Bulma, so he headed off in the direction of her lab and sure enough, there she was, sitting in front of a computer, pecking away at the keys.

"Bulma-san?" Gohan said softly. No answer. "Bulma-san?" he said a little louder. Still no answer. He walked over to her and tapped her on her shoulder while saying quite loudly "Bulma-san!"

She practically jumped ten feet into the air. She turned around quick with a wild expression on her face. She sighed when she saw who it was.

"Don't do that! Couldn't you have just quietly called my name or something?"

Gohan pulled up a stool and explained paitently. "I did. You didn't hear me." He glanced at the screen. "Is this what you called me over for?"

"It sure is! It's the greatest scientific discovery since," she paused, thoughtful, "since I invented the automatic automobile navigation device with the voice activation system!"

Gohan rolled his eyes. "Could you please tell me what it does?"

"Of course, but it's not a device, not yet." she hurried on seeing as Gohan was about to speak. "I have plans to build a device to get there, to check it out. But not now. It needs more study."

Gohan was hooked. "What is it?!" he asked excitedly.

"I found an alternate dimension!"

Gohan frowned, clearly disappointed. "Is that all? I was hoping for something more."

"That's not all baka yaro, would you just wait a minute and let me finish what I was saying?"

"Oh, gomen."

"Anyway," she gave him a look, daring him to interrupt her again, "there are many, many different dimensions, too many to count. I've created a program that scans for a particular one using given parimeters as a guideline. I found one that is relatively close to this dimension and timeline that we are currently in. It is the only one of it's kind. I want to mount an expedition to explore it." she stopped, looking at Gohan expectantly. When she didn't get the reponse she was waiting for, she cleared her throat loudly.

"Huh? Oh. May I ask how you discovered this?"

Bulma looked sheepish. "Well, that was by accident. You see, I was trying to create something that would revolutionalize tv and radio signals and by goofing on that project, I found something else. It was more or less an accident."

"Only you can find out something monumental by accident, Bulma-san." Gohan said chuckling. "How long until you send people over there?"

"I don't know. I'd say in about a month, three months tops."

"A MONTH!" Gohan screeched. "But I wanna go now! It's sound interesting!"

"Calm down! Be patient. Would you rather go now and get trapped and never see you friends, family, or Videl ever again or would you rather wait and have the experience of a life time?"

Gohan's face fell. "That's a good point. Okay, in one to two months I and- Who else is going besides me?"

"I was thinking about your father, Vegeta, Trunks and Goten."

"I don't know about Goten. 'Kaasan's been on his case, more than usual, about his school work and how important it is to develop good study habits early on in life. She's also constantly comparing him to me! Goten kind of resents me right now."

"Well I hope everything turns out okay." she started to usher him out of the lab. "I need to work on it, bye!"

"Okay!" Gohan said. "Bye Bulma-san." But he was talking to the door. "Nobody treats me right around here. Nobody at all." He moped all the way home to tell his mother and father the news.