For the disclaimer, see Chapter 1.

Note #1: The horizontal line seperates dimensions, three stars seperate scenes within a dimension.

The Portal to Beyond: Chapter II

"You're doing good kid, real good!" Kakarott told his student. It has been only a week since the training began and already she could call her ki upon will. Luckly, she had been previously trained in some form of martial arts or there would have been problems.

ChiChi wondered, as she concentrated on making one beam split into three seperate ones, why she had never noticed he was so young, not much older than she. Then again, she couldn't have guessed that she would be here, out in the middle of no where, practicing ki-controlling techniques with an alien! That's another thing that puzzled her. The alien race of 'sayian'. So much different than herself, yet so much the same. The tails, the transforming at a full moon, and the superior strength were just a few differences, but they didn't outweigh the sames. Not one bit and that was good.

Kakarott ofter wonndered why he hadn't anhialated the planets inhabitans by now. His mind told him it was because it wasn't worth it, but his heart said a totally different thing. His heart informed him that it was becuase of the girl.

He stopped his demonstration and turned to her. "Brat, I think you're now ready to spar with me. I need to see where you're at before we continue."

ChiChi frowned, annoyed. She hated when he called her that and made no show of hiding that fact.

"Excuse me, but my name is not a cursed thing you know! Kami will not strike you down if you say it and besides, calling me brat does not work when the one you are speaking to is the same age as you."

Kakarott looked at her with a weird expression on his face. "And just how do you know that then br-," she gave him a look, he sighed, "ChiChi?"

"I know because of 3 things: (1)Your voice hasn't gotten deep yet, (2)You look young, and (3)I just know!"

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever. Let's just get back to work, okay?"

"Fine."

They started to circle each other each keeping eye contact on the other. Abruptly, Kakarott blurred out of sight leaving ChiChi to wonder where he had gone.

"Hey! That's no fair! You're too fast for me!"

"Giving up so soon?" Kakarott's voice seemed to come from everywhere at once. "If you focus, you will be able to find me. Don't look for my body, look for my ki, my energy."

ChiChi concentrated hard. She squinted her eyes and looked all around, but could not seem to locate him. Suddenly, she spotted a faint light and turned towards it. If she tried hard enough, she could pinpoint his exact loccation.

"Ha! I found you!" The next time she got an exact spot, she leapt out and kicked him making him fall onto his back on the ground.

"How do you like that?"

Kakarott sat up, surprised. He didn't think she had that much power.

"It was good, but you couldn't do it again."

"Try me."

This time Kakarott took to the air. Again, ChiChi made her protests heard.

"Hey! I can't fly! How am I supposed to catch you?"

That stopped him cold. "How can you not know how to fly? Bukujutsu is the most common and easiest skill to master!"

ChiChi, more than a little annoyed, made a sharp retort. "For you maybe. It's not a normal thing, here on Chikyuu, to see people zooming through the air like birds or airplanes!" She sat down on the ground in a huff and folded her arms across her chest.

Kakarott sighed and landed next to her. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm sorry. I should have asked you if you knew how instead of asuming." He laid down, gazing at the clouds.

After a couple of minutes of silence, ChiChi spoke. "What was life like back on Vejiita-sei?" she asked suddenly.

Kakarott sat up. "Do you really want to know? It's not a very nice story."

"It's alright. Go ahead." she responded.

"On Vejiita-sei, you were relatively on your own. You parents didn't force you to do things, you could basically do what you want, heck, there were barely any rules at all!"

"That sounds great!"

Kakarott shook his head sadly. "No it's not. It's the worst thing in the world. You're lucky to have parents to show that they care for you, take care of you, on Vejiita-sei, showing your true feelings was frowned upon."

"I only have one parent." ChiChi said quietly.

"At least you had that one."

"Do you have any siblings?"

"One. An older brother named Raditz. He mostly took after our mother. I take after our father, Bardock."

"What is the society like?"

"There isn't one."

"Oh come on! Be serious!"

"I am." he replied flatly. "All we do is be born, fight, and die early, if we're lucky. There's no love, no friendship, nothing at all. You are looking at a rare saiyan. A saiyan who thinks differently from the others, a saiyan who has emotions and isn't afraid to show them, a saiyan that wants to do more with his life than fight." he paused. "I'm the living definition of different." he added bitterly.

"What's so bad about being different? I'm different than most other humans, with this power I have and all. Being different should be a good thing, not bad. Just think, if you were just like all the other saiyans, your race would just be full of cold-hearted killers. Instead, your race has been given hope. There has to be others who feel the same way as you." She glanced at her watch. "Oops. I have to go home. I'll see you tomorrow."

"ChiChi?" Kakarott began.

She turned to face him. "Yes?"

"Thank you. Thank you for listening to me go on and on like that, thank you for just being a friend."

"No problem. In this life, you need all the friends you can get."

Gohan came over daily to see how the project was coming along. Every time he did, Bulma shooed him out as soon as possible. Life was pretty boring until the incident early Wednesday morning.

***

It was early. No, early isn't a good enough word to describe how early it was. It was so early, one could swear that the dew wasn't even on the gound yet. This is when Goku decided that sleeping, like people normally do at this hour, just wasn't enough. So he got up and got dressed and went into the kitchen for a snack. That was where he decided that he would go and train after he finished eating. That's not all. It wasn't enough that he wanted to go out and excercise at this un-godly hour, but the fact that he thought Vegeta might enjoy it also. Putting his index and middle fingers to his forehead and locating his reluctant friends' ki, Goku teleported right into the Vegeta and Bulma's house. And right into Vegeta's and Bulma's bedroom. To make matters worse, he landed right smack-dab in the middle of Vegeta and Bulma themselves while they were, shall we say, expressing their love for one another.

Bulma was the first to scream, "AHHHHHH!", followed closely behind by Vegeta himself, "AHHHHHH!", Goku screamed last of all (and only because it seemed to be the trend), "AHHHHHH!".

"Goku!" "Kakarott!" Vegeta and Bulma said at the same time. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE?!" Bulma pulled the sheet up over her body.

"I wanted to ask Vegeta to come and spar with me." Goku replied in a little baby voice, with the look that just makes people melt into little puddles.

Bulma looked at the clock. "At this un-godly hour?"

"I didn't feel too much like sleeping so I thought I would come over here to get Vegeta so that we could spar."

"Kakarott, just get out. The mighty Prince of the Saiyans needs his sleep! I command you, begone dim-witted baka!"

"I knew I was going to regret telling him about the Knights of the Round Table ten hour marathon on television last night." Bulma muttered.

"Fine, fine. I'll just go back to bed." Goku climbed over Vegeta, knocking him to the floor in the process. Goku picked him up and placed him back on the bed. After taking one look at his face, he decided that it would be best to escape as fast as he could. Locking on to ChiChi's ki, he teleported home and right into bed.

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Note #2: I couldn't resist with some humor. I got to thinking and decided that this would be incredibly funny. I should have saved for Once Upon a Dragon Ball, but I didn't. Oh well.

***

Now that was funny! I guess I could go home and study or something, but I'm all ready at the top of my class, so I wouldn't have a goal in mind. I know! I could go and see Videl! I haven't seen her outside of school in a while now. Knowing her, she's probably mad at me. I guess I'm going to have to stop off at the gift store and pick up a box of chocolate's or something.

***

Gohan arrived right on schedule for his now familiar routine of coming over, asking Bulma how her work was coming, whining we she told him it wasn't done, then moping all the way home. It was depresing. One day when he came though, Bulma was waiting for him at the front door.

"Uh Bulma-san? Why are you here and not in your lab?" Gohan asked her.

"I have some important news! Then dimension shifter machine is ready for a test run," seeing Gohan's eyes light up she continued, "but don't get your hopes up. You're only going to be there for five minutes."

"It doesn't matter. I'm still going into another dimension!"

"Yeah, well. I need to proceed with this test a.s.a.p. When are you available?"

"Today! Now in fact."

"Gohan, it's 7:00 a.m. in the morning, on a week day, and you have school in thirty minutes."

"The test takes five."

"You've got me there. Okay. This is what you do..." After explaining how the protective suit went on and showing him how to work the buttons just in case, Gohan was all set to go and as excited as could be.

"Now you be careful and try to observe everything!"

"Okay Bulma-san!"

Bulma moved over to a console and picked up a clip board. "Checking charge gauge,"she paused, "battery at maximum capacity." She glanced at the clipboard. "Checking equipment", she paused again, "everything's in perfect order." She set the clipboard down, moving over to an area that seemed to have the most buttons. "Initializing start sequence in T-minus 5 and counting, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. We have dimensional shifting!" She looked up. "Come back soon!"

The world around him faded to a pale gray as everything flashed by at a dizzying speed.

Next stop, an alternate reality. The way things could have ended up. What if I see something that I really shouldn't or don't really want to see? Gohan was starting to think that maybe, just maybe, he should not have went after all.