The New Age Empire v2: Book 3

June 20th, AA 001

~Chapter 2: Departure~

The early morning light was just barely filtering through the blinds when everyone was woken up by Goku so it was no surprise it took everyone almost an hour to get ready. Trunks was sharpening his katana when someone knocked on his door.

"Can I come in?" Goten asked. Trunks nodded and cleared a spot on his bed among the clothes and other stuff. "I wanted to talk to you before we left. I might not ever get another chance."

"If you say something like that it might come true," Trunks told him. "I rather like my existence thank you."

"I have something for you." He reached into his shirt pocket. "It's not much but..." A golden heart on two chains glittered in his hand. "I'm going to keep one half of it and you get the other." He handed it to him with a smile. Goten's half had the ending part of a word. "When you join both halves together..." "They form eternity!" Trunks said, eyes wide.

"If we get seperated somehow just call for me. I'll find you, I promise."

Trunks nodded, trying not to show too much emotion. "I promise as well."

There was another knock on the door this time followed by Goku peeking. "We're meeting downstairs in a few minutes. Be ready."

"Sure Tousan," Goten responded and the door closed once more. "Nothing bad is going to happen. Nothing at all."

Smiling, Trunks said. "You don't believe that. I know you."

"Shouldn't that be *my* line?"

"We're leaving now!" Mia shouted as she passed their door. "With or without you!"

"She's not even here yet!" Came V.J.'s voice. "Be patient."

"We should go," Goten said quietly, trying not to think of what *could* happen to them all. He helped Trunks put on his necklace and the older young man did the same. "The sooner we leave, the sooner we can get back."

Two words, unspoken, hung in the air but both were thinking them. 'I hope...'

***

The main hall was filled with somberness when Trunks and Goten finally joined them. Everyone noticed their new jewelry but no one commented on them. Time passed slowly and slower still with each glance at the clock and finally, with a burst of light, a portal appeared in the same spot as before and Katrinka stepped through. This time she was clothed in not her previous outfit of black tunic and leggings but a deep blue jumpsuit with silver stitching. There was a loop at her waist for her Time Key and a small zippered pouch for her Soul Blade orb. She twirled once to show off her new outfit and the kids all clapped in approval.

"Time Warrior gear," she explained. "They made me wear it since this is an official mission from the High God himself."

"They?"

"My kaasan and tousan. Kaasan invented the Time Key and tousan created my clothes. They're really proud of me. Kaasan's the guardian of the death and tousan was kami. They're very important people themselves." She waved the Key at them. "We really should get a move on. The Thief is stationary right now."

There were hugs and tearful farewells all around. Magori had to be pried from Mia's legs by force and he reached out to her from Gohan's arms, begging her not to leave him. Bulma hugged both of her oldest and made them all promise to take care of each other while ChiChi just stood by and observed. She refused to say anything to anyone and Goku was worried about her.

"We'll be back," he said to her.

"You say that now, Goku-sa, but you don't know what's going to happen! If a lose you a third time I don't know what I'll do!" She turned away from him. "If you go now, don't ever think about coming back again."

He was sad but he walked away from her anyway. "I have to go. Saving the lives of others is what I do. It's unfair that I would have to choose between keeping you and saving the lives of billions of people." He sighed. "I had thought that you were better than that but I guess that I was wrong."

She spun around to glare at him, tears glittering in the corners of her eyes. "They can do this without you! You are *not* the deciding factor in this battle!"

"How do you know that?" His voice remained level and calm. "How do you know that the universe won't end with me not there? You don't, ChiChi, and I'm making sure that we never have to find out."

She ran up the stairs with tears flowing down her cheeks. Gohan moved to go after her and Goku held up his hand. "Let her go. She has to understand that sometimes there are more important things than her happiness."

"You've finally decided to stand up to her," Vegeta commented somewhat inappropriately. "I'm impressed."

"I'm tired Vegeta," Goku said wearily. "She does that every single time I have to fight. I should have done this years ago." Abruptly changing the subject, he walked over to Kat's portal. "We need to leave." She nodded and ushered them through.

"Don't step off the path because I haven't linked the other side yet. It's between worlds right now." She bowed to the rest of them and waved goodbye. "I'll bring them all back in one piece hopefully." She raised an eyebrow at the startled looks. "What? I'm not going to lie to you. The chances are still very slim that we'll win but they're a hell of a lot better than they were before."

No one spoke for a moment though the question was just waiting to be asked. "What was it before?" Someone finally spoke. It was Pan.

"Zero percent."

She gulped and spoke again, this time in a shaky voice. "What is it now?"

"Twenty-five."

This renewed Magori's crying. They had just begun studying fractions and percentages in school last school year. He knew it meant that the odds were definitely *not* in their favor. "MIA!" But it was too late. With a final wave, Kat stepped through the portal and closed it behind her.

***

"Keep together people!" She shouted as she led them through the misty on a colorful ever-changing path. "I'll be *really* pissed if I have to go looking for you."

"What would you do exactly?" Vegeta asked. "Would you kill me?"

"It won't come to that, Veggie, if you keep your damn mouth shut!" She glared at him briefly and then continued marching down the fall. Letting out a small exhalation of breath, she apologized. "Being this close to the Thief always makes me tempermental. I think it gives off some kind of mental thing that plays with my emotions."

"Or," Vegeta said underneath his breath, "it could be the fact that you're an onna." Both Trunks and Goten moved away from him and just in time. Katrinka was there with an enraged look on her face, katana in hand. The tip of the long blade was against Vegeta's throat before he barely had time to blink.

"Do you care to repeat that?" she asked very sweetly. He shook his head slowly so as not to accidentally cut himself. "Good." Then she became cheerful again, running ahead to the portal. "We're almost there!"

The landscape was blasted and barren, desolate and dusty. Kat immediately put up a protective barrier around herself and her helpers so that the blowing sand wouldn't choke them. Her crankiness was becoming stronger and she knew that they were getting closer to the Thief. 'Please don't make me mad,' she silently begged the people following her. She had no idea what she would do.

"You can't feel it?" she asked, her hand above her eyes to shade them from the harsh glare of the noon sun. She wished that she knew enough magic to send the heat away. "Its energy I mean."

"I feel nothing," Vegeta admitted. "To me there's no one, or nothing, out there."

"I feel something very small and not evil exactly," Goku frowned in concentration. "Feels lost to me."

"Lost? Of all things you could say Tousan you pick lost!" Mia rolled her eyes. "I say we just find it and kill it. No thought, or sensing, required."

"Planning first, killing later." Katrinka motioned them to her. "The Thief isn't stupid so you guys don't attack it at all. That means you Vegeta. No, 'I can do this without anyone's help' behavior. You will die that way."

"I am not a baka." He told her. "I don't do kamikaze missions."

Trunks snorted. "Not anymore."

She silenced them all with a look. "I will attempt to distract it so that no dread armies will be called. If this doesn't work prepare for the worst battle of your lives." Vegeta started to say something and she interrupted him. "This *will* be the worst battle of your lives. Believe me on this." Goten edged closer to Trunks, worried look on his face. It was not lost on Kat. "Just stay together," she told them. "You're a team, I understand that. Goku and Vegeta will fight as a team and so will Mia and V.J."

"I *always* get stuck with him!" She instantly complained when he gave her a smirk.

"I'm only grouping people by similarities in power. You're not getting married, you know." She pointed in the direction where the Thief was currently located. "Over there is the Time Thief. Remember: Let me handle it and you guys watch out for any of its people." Crouching down behind a sand dune, she slowly began to move around so that the Thief wouldn't see her.

"I don't see anything," V.J. whispered.

"The Thief's invisible dumb ass," Mia replied with no small amount of annoyance. "Bulma's intelligence genes must have passed you over. You are the dumbest, most retarded-"

"It sees us!" Katrinka hissed. No one else saw any difference in the appearance of the desert until the sand suddenly began to part and flow to the sides like water. The Thief was passing through it, shoving the sand aside with minimal effort. Kat ran towards the trench, her katana in her hand. The air shimmered like water and suddenly she was frozen in her place. In less time than it took a ningen to blink she was unfrozen. But that was all the time the Thief needed. It was gone.

"New power," she muttered as she went back to the others. "It can halt time for only specific people."

She had not been the only one stopped in her place by the Thief's power but she was sure the only one moving around after it had gone. It hadn't known who, or what, she was or it wouldn't have bothered. Kat controlled time it did not control her. The bad thing was that the Thief did as well. She waved her hand once and her companions were once again mobile.

"It's gone!" Mia blinked. "I lost some time there. That can't be good."

"Don't worry about it for now," Kat said to calm her worries. "You all lost around sixty seconds."

"Excuse me?!"

She sighed. "A power I hadn't known about. It stopped time for you guys. It tried the technique on me but I am Time's master."

"What *do* you know about it besides the fact that we can't see it and it steals time?" Trunks asked.

"Nothing except for the freeze thing. We're all going into this pretty blind." She ran her fingers through her hair. "Look on the bright side: If Time *does* stop, I can start it again."

"Oh joy!" Vegeta exclaimed sarcastically. "We have to put all of our trust in you. I don't trust people lightly, you know."

"I swear to do my best to kill the Thief and will restart Time if necessary. *My* Vegeta and my husband, Gavin, is counting on me. I'm not the kind of person who does things half-assed." Her blue eyes focused on his dark ones. "I swear by everything created and by the High God that I will do all that I can to stop it for good."

Vegeta nodded. "Good enough."

She opened yet another portal. "Be vewy, vewy qwiet. I'm hunting wabbits." She grinned. "Sorry, too much Chikyuu-jin television. Elmer Fudd always did crack me up."

"If all gods are like her then we're doomed." V.J. sighed.

"I heard that you know!" She looked back at him. "I can act adult. Sometimes." She changed her methods and had the portal fold inward around them instead of everyone walking through. After they once again appeared in the mist realm, her tail reached into her pocket and grabbed a small tape recorder.

"One *does not* have to walk through a portal despite what they say."

"Are you still in training?!" Goten asked in shock.

"No, no it's not like that at all." She could only keep the serious face for a moment. "Okay, it is. I haven't been Time Warrior for that long. Only about a few months old Vegeta-sei time. I know a lot of stuff because they say that I was originally born the Creator." She laughed. "It's actually a pretty funny story. Do you want to hear it?"

"Kat-chan..." Trunks began.

"I'll take that as a 'no'." She began walking towards what seemed like a wall of mist. Another portal began forming as they approached. "Moving on."

Right before they were all about the reach the end of the path, she turned around face suddenly devoid of humor. "There are some ground rules when visiting the Spirit Realm. You don't touch *anything* unless I say that it's okay, Enma-sama is *always* busy so it's not wise to bother him, and you show proper respect to all immortal beings. Including me. They have some really strange feelings about that."

"I remember," Goku nodded. "Kaio-sama was always reprimanding me about the Dai Kaio."

"Who is the highest god?" Mia asked. "Is it Kaioshin?"

"Nope." She grinned at them, humor back full-blown. "I am." Then they were through the portal and there were no more questions.

***

The phone hadn't stopped ringing since Vegeta left and there was only so much that Bulma could do. Currently she was trying to edit a final copy of the Royal Law though it couldn't go to print without Vegeta and Goku's signatures. Every member of the Council had to sign it as well as the members of the Inner Circle. Bulma, Vegeta, Goku, ChiChi, Gohan and over ten others were going to sign. People were calling about something *very* bad and she had three people on hold already.

"Gohan! Get in here!" she shouted from Vegeta's office.

The first, third, and seventh call had been from the Tale-sejin. They were the newest members of the Chikyuu-sei Alliance (Bulma made Vegeta change the name) but they had the most problems. Tale-sei was the closest of them all to the Kamoku-jin homeworld and they were having problems with them. Jas, Taura, and a large group of Death Chasers from neighboring planets were holding them off currently but they didn't know how long they could last.

"We don't want to sink down to their level!" Taura shouted over the explosions made up most of the background noise. "You taught us that, Bulma-ouhi! Killing is not always the answer!"

"Are you past the reasoning stage?" she asked.

He nodded as spoke when there was a brief period of silence. "That was several hours ago. We sent a transmission to their mother ship but received no reply. I don't think they understood us."

"Where is Kallen now?" Bulma asked. She knew what she had to do. There was no one on Chikyuu that she could send to aid them. No one at all.

"She left a few days ago for Alia. Kally said that she wanted to speak with her parents because she was due back to the Army soon."

"The Imperial Army!" Bulma exclaimed. "Hold on for ten minutes, Taura. I may have help for you." She opened another line and dialed up Kallen on her ship.

"Commander Kallen of the Rhistal Imperial Army," she said in a bored voice. "How may I serve you today?"

"Kally! Taura and Jas need your help." The woman's silver eyes instantly went from sleepy to focused and she nodded at Bulma to go on. "The Kamoku-jin attacked Tale-sei and I don't have anyone to send to help them. Goku and Vegeta are unavailable at the moment."

"They've recently promoted me," Kallen told her as she slowly switched to officer mode. "At first I just felt tired because of all the extra work but now it'll come in handy. I'll speak to the general and try to get more than just my platoon over there. I'll contact you with an update soon. Kallen out."

After telling Taura that help would soon be on the way, she finally had a chance to ask the Lyz'da about what they needed. Gohan took the call from her after having entered the room without her noticing and told her to get some rest. He would handle everything else.

"Arigatou, Gohan," she yawned. "You're a big help." She stumbled off to bed worrying about the Tale-sejin and their problem.