Chương 458: Vanishing Act

*CRASH!*

*SMASH!*

*KABOOM!*

High in the skies over Pangea, three figures were battling so intensely that they created shockwaves that buffeted the area around them for hundreds of miles. Caught between two of the figures was Goku, his hair long and blond as it stuck straight up, with lightning arcing around his body.

Fighting the SSJ2 Goku was of course Bardock, who had also acquired the SSJ transformation, and Raditz, who had yet to ascend to become a Super Saiyan.

"TAKE THIS KAKAROT!"

Raditz shouted as he created a sphere of Ki and shot it at his little brother, only for Goku to literally flick it away while simultaneously blocking a punch from his father with just a finger.

"To think there's still this much of a difference between transformations!" Bardock growled, though the edges of his lips were curled up in a smirk as he said so. Though Goku smiled back his father with humor, he then said to him,

"Yeah, but it's still not enough. I haven't even began to make my way up to the SSJ3, and Alex is way stronger than that..." As he said that both Bardock and Goku canceled their transformations, while the former shook his head and stated,

"Stronger than the rest of us and still whining about not being strong enough.... That's my son for you!" Bardock then slapped Goku on the back and laughed boisterously at the situation, while Raditz glowered at them from a distance.

"With the tournament coming up soon maybe I should go ask Alex for some tips on getting the SSJ3..." Goku mused to himself. Though he would typically never ask someone for help in getting stronger like this, he also knew that there'd be plenty of powerful people participating in the tournament that he probably wouldn't match up to without the SSJ3 transformation.

Bardock was silent for a moment as he considered things, before finally saying,

"Maybe we should use one of those space-time thingys? Then we can train for even longer before the tournament starts." Goku looked at his father and exclaimed excitedly,

"Yeah! That's a great idea dad!" Goku then laughed awkwardly from how he was still getting used to saying things like 'dad', as he never even knew he had parents until a few months ago.

As they prepared to take off Goku then turned towards Raditz and shouted,

"You coming bro?" Raditz however sneered as he responded,

"So now you two recall that I'm here?" Goku looked at his brother weirdly as he asked,

"What do you mean? I always knew you were here." Raditz however scoffed before he turned and took off in the other direction, away from them.

"What's eating him?" Goku asked confusedly as he watched his brother leave.

"He's probably sore that he's the only one who can't transform into a Super Saiyan yet." Bardock replied while shaking his head. By this point not only was he able to make the transformation along with their former king, but even Gine, who was doing her training with some of Alex's wives, was able to make the transformation.

Deciding to leave Raditz to his own devices, Goku and Bardock both began to head back to the only place on Pangea that could be settled permanently, the gate leading to Asora. With how large Pangea truly was though, it took them nearly an entire day at their top speed to finally arrive there.

When the father/son duo finally arrived, they found that the area around the gate had grown into an entire city. Dozens of species from all over the universe walked the streets, the vast majority of which possessed powerful energy levels that made both Goku and Bardock's skins crawl.

"Wow! They made a whole city while we were gone!" Goku exclaimed as he excitedly took in the sights around them, particularly the people who had high powerl levels.

"I didn't think we were gone that long...?" Bardock muttered in confusion, as it should've taken a lot longer than this for an entire city to be built.

Rather than worry about it though, the two Saiyans quickly headed for a place filled with familiar people, Bulma's new house.

...

"That hit the spot!" Present Bulma exclaimed happily as she put down her cup and relaxed into her comfy chair.

"It does indeed..." Gine agreed as she relaxed the soreness in her muscles from training with Shia all day.

Currently both Bulmas, Gine, Launch, Chichi, Shia, Moka, and Erza were all gathered in the lounge of Bulma's new home on Pangea, which she moved to in order to be closer to the gates where she could establish connections with high ranking officials from all over the universe. The fact that she also had immediate access to technology from all over the universe was a major plus as well.

"So do the two of you know when Goku and the others will be back?" The currently blue-haired Launch asked Chichi and Gine suddenly, making the former snort as she cut off the latter,

"Please! Do you really think those no-good husbands or sons of ours ever give a care about any of us? All Saiyan men care about is themselves!" Even as she huffed and puffed about how horrible Saiyan men were, Chichi blatantly ignored the numerous dirty looks she was receiving from the trio that were Alex's wives. One of the Bulmas was even convinced she heard Shia mutter "cunt' under her breath, but it was so quiet that she might've been imagining it.

Needless to say that none of Alex's wives thought highly of Chichi or her opinions regarding pretty much every Saiyan man, her own husband and Alex specifically. Their opinion of her dropped even more when they heard the story of how Goku and Chichi got married, being that Chichi essentially tricked him into promising to marry her as kids, and then guilt tripped him when they became adults.

What made matters worse was that, despite being the one to basically force Goku into marrying her, Chichi openly complained about him and his desire to train every chance she got, and would even insist that he get a normal paying job to occupy his time like a 'regular' husband. While normally the girls would agree about a husband needing to spend more time it's his family, as Alex always made time for every single one of the hundreds of women and numerous children he had, they also couldn't blame Goku for wanting to be away from home all the time if Chichi was what he had to come back to.

They had also learned that trying to debate or even argue with her regarding her extreme behavior was a moot point, as the insane woman never even considered the possibility that she was wrong.

Thankfully though, before one of them(Shia) lost her patience, Goku and Bardock both arrived from their several months of training.

"Hey everyone! How's it going?" Goku asked as he walked in with a smile on his face, followed immediately by his father.

"Kakarot! Bardock! Welcome back!" Gine immediately said as she rose to greet them, before recoiling at the smell that radiated off of them.

"Go and take a shower right now!" Gine yelled at them while plugging her nose, making both Goku and Bardock sniff themselves before chuckling awkwardly. Thankfully though, the Bulmas readily offered their guest bathroom for the two men to clean up in.

A short time later, the two Saiyans reemerged looking refreshed and presentable for the first time since they disappeared for training several months prior. Nodding in approval, Gine then said,

"Much better! I swear, it's hard to think that the two of you are seriously adult men. And then there's Raditz....speaking of which, where is he?" Looking around curiously, Gine expected that Raditz would show up shortly after his brother and father did, but he never did. Instead, Bardock sighed in exasperation as he said,

"Don't know. That brat took off somewhere after throwing some kind of fit." Seeing the look Gine gave him from hearing, Bardock then added, "He'll be fine. Raditz may not realize it, but he IS on the cusp of become a Super Saiyan. Maybe this alone time will give him the push he needs."

Though Gine still glared at Bardock for leaving their son out in the winds of Pangea alone, she also couldn't help but to accept the situation, as she knew how Saiyan men were the best out of anyone else there. So, rather than continuing to gripe about something she couldn't change, short of going to get Raditz herself, Gine then said to her husband,

"Well, speaking of sons, did you know that our second grandson was born while you three were out there?" That caught both Bardock and Goku by surprise, before Chichi then rounded on her husband, and demanded,

"That's reminds me! Why weren't you here when I gave birth to our second son?! Huh???" Goku immediately adopted a look of fear on his face as he quickly asked,

"Wait, how'd that happen?! I thought you said that the baby wouldn't get here until AFTER the tournament! Does that mean we missed the tournament!?!" As Goku despaired at the idea of them missing the tournament, Chichi seized his ear and snarled at him angrily,

"Really?! You missed the birth of our second son, and all you care about is some stupid tournament?! Some father you are!" She then dragged Goku away by his ear while giving him a piece of her mind, to which Erza asked the Bulmas,

"Didn't she enter the space-time orb and speed up her pregnancy ahead of time?" With both Bulmas, Gine, and Launch all nodding in confirmation, Shia then said in a much louder voice than earlier,

"Yep, she's definitely a cunt." The sudden profanity caught everybody present off guard, making the lounge erupt into a fit of coughing and sputtering.

"Damn, our king sure knows how to pick em." Bardock muttered approvingly as he appraised Shia, making her sit up straighter and puff out her chest proudly. Gine however began pouting at the looks her husband was giving Shia, even though she knew for a fact there was nothing suggestive about them.

"Eh-hem! So, how come you and Kakarot came back in anyways? I expected the three of you to stay out right up until the tournament started." With everyone else also looking at Bardock curiously, the man quickly answered,

"Kakarot was wondering what the trick was to obtain the SSJ3, so we came in to ask Alex about it. We also wanted to use one of those space-time things to get more training in before the tournament started." With everyone making faces of understanding at the typical reason, Bardock was surprised when Erza said to him,

"While I don't think Alex would mind helping you guys out, there is a small problem with that at the moment." Cocking his head in confusion, Bardock asked her,

"What's wrong?" Instead of Erza though, it was Moka who answered as she said,

"No ones seen or heard from Alex in three months."

***

"Pathetic." The cold voice of a certain silver haired maid echoed within the massive underground chamber, sending shivers down the spines of everyone else within.

Even as they outnumbered and surrounded her, a thousand to one, none of the other maids could even begin to try and gain an edge over her.

"I could've sworn that Grayfia wasn't even close to being this strong..." One of their newest members, Katerea, the descendant of the original Leviathan, muttered to herself in anger.

"You should've realized THAT already!" Exclaimed one of the other women dressed in a maid outfit, with her dark blue hair pulled to the right in a long bushy ponytail with numerous rings in it.

"You should have already realized that she isn't the brightest bulb in the box Rana. But instead of talking about that, let's try to think of a way to defeat the head maid." One of the other maids, Satellizer L. Bridget, growled as she retook her offensive stance.

After her everyone else began standing back as they started to surround Grayfia once more, the Dragonrace Venri, Elizabeth, Arnett, Creo, Attia, Chiffon, Ticy, the rest of the Pandora that had joined her, the necromancer Eri, Tracy, the demon Francesca, the elf Altina, Noint and the other twelve former apostles, the Oni Routier, Gyokuro Shuzen, the human weapons Nemesis and Mea, and then the goddess of night and darkness, Nyx.

"Go mama go!" Shouted the little girl watching on the sidelines, with her pure black hair and matching monkey's tail, while sitting next to her was another little girl with long silver hair and a red tail.

"You're too loud Nocta..." The other little girl said while putting her fingers in her ears, to which Nocta practically shouted,

"Shut up Lana! Today my mom will beat your mom!" Lana just gave her sister a blank look at that, before turning her attention back to the match before them, even as her mama used her magic to heal all of her opponents, including the hundreds of monster corpses that Eri used. Lana may still be really little, but she knew that no matter what, unless it was her papa, then her mama would never lose to any opponent.

As if reading her mind, Grayfia herself then said as the rest of the maids surrounded her,

"Pay attention Lana, this is the power of the Lucifuge." Grayfia then summoned a sword in her right hand, while a magic circle appeared in her left.

"Dammit..... It seems like the head maid is really intense today." Tracy, the former princess of the Hoelscher empire of Tortus, muttered in frustration after Grayfia sent her flying back with her sword.

"Well of course." Answered Noint, before adding as if it were obvious, "It's been three months already."

Anyone who heard couldn't help but to nod in agreement, as they were all starting to get worried by this point. Meanwhile, in Grayfia's mind, she was thinking to herself,

'Where did you go? Since when were you THIS irresponsible?'

At that moment the Oni Routier tried to hack Grayfia in half with her personally modified chainsaw, but Grayfia blocked the spinning teeth of the blade with her bare hand before tossing her away like it was nothing.

'Where are you Alex?'

***

"Saya! Look at grandpapa!" A handsome middle aged man with a nasty gash-like scar on his cheek said, earning him an adorable giggle from the black haired toddler before him.

"No! Look at great grandpapa Saya!" Cried out the elderly looking man with similar features to the previous one, completely destroying his image of a serious old man to those who were watching. But then again, that wasn't too strange compared to the numerous men and women also trying to play with the little girl.

"Everyone really loves Saya, huh?" Shizuku said as she watched everyone try to play with her daughter.

"Well of course." Replied the woman across from her, Shizuku's own mother, Kirino. "Saya-chan is like the little princess of the Yaegashi family now." Shizuku smiled at that, as that had been her until Saya was born. Even now her family refused to acknowledge Alex, and would try to attack and poison him whenever he came to visit due to him 'stealing' her.

As if to express her continuing dislike for the man in question, Kirino then added while cupping her cheek,

"It's too bad her own father left her and her siblings behind to go off and have fun somewhere. I feel so sad for Saya-chan." Shizuku's brow twitched when she heard that, while even the great black dog siting behind her lifted its head to look at Kirino.

"Mom. I will ask you to not talk badly about Alex in front of me, and doubly so in front of Saya." She said in a deathly calm voice. Shizuku then looked her mother in the eye and said,

"You know as well as I do that Alex would never disappear like this without good reason, and Saya doesn't need to think her father took off simply to 'have fun'." As she said so Kirino flashed of look of surprise before saying with false despair,

"Oh my adorable daughter has turned against her mother, whatever shall I do?" Shizuku just gave her a deadpan until Kirino added,

"Oh fine, I suppose you're right Shizuku. No little girl should hear someone badmouth their father, even if it's true." Though Shizuku still stared at her mother for adding that last part, she just sighed in exasperation before giving up on the subject. But then her mom added,

"So none of you know where he is at all?" Shizuku shook her head before saying,

"No, and not for lack of trying. We know he's ok at least, because so is Elaine, but not even the magic compass or Shia's Future Sight will show us where he is. All we got was a note saying he'll be back as soon as he could, and not to look for him. Of course we still did after the first month." Kirino cocked her head elegantly at that, before saying,

"Well, at least you know he's somewhat ok. But I wouldn't worry, that boy of yours is tenacious if nothing else. I'm sure he'll come back any time with a woman or two in each arm like usual or something." Though Shizuku felt like her mother was dissing Alex again, she decided not to harp on it as she replied,

"Yeah... You're probably right." The duo then continued to elegantly sip their tea while watching the entire Yaegashi dojo try to play with Saya, while the great black dog Jin watched on protectively.

***

"Ok! Let's go before Chichi gets ahold of me again!" Goku declared as he used his Instant Transmission to appear right next to his father.

"Right." Bardock nodded in agreement, also not wanting to get caught in Chichi's path. "Your friend Bulma told me where the space-time orb things are kept, and apparently they even have different ones with different training environments and levels of gravity."

"Right! Let's go!" Goku exclaimed eagerly at the thought of getting more training in.

*...*

"Huh?" Goku suddenly uttered as he looked around confusedly.

"What's up son?" Bardock asked when he realized Goku wasn't following him.

"I just thought I heard something...?" Goku responded while tilting his head in confusion. He then looked around for the source of whatever it was he heard, but found nothing. Instead,

"WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING!!??" Chichi's angry voice roared out, drowning out anything else as panic gripped Goku's heart.

"Let's hurry dad!" Goku exclaimed while rushing away as fast as he could, followed by Bardock as he slowly shook his head.

...

"Dum dum dum, bang the drums! Dum dum dum, bang the drums!" An alien child sang happily as he walked beside his mother on one of the many planets within Universe Seven, making his mother giggle as she commented,

"That's a funny song, did you just make it up?" The child shook his head though, as he told her,

"I'm just singing with the drums!" The mom cocked her head confusedly, and listened intently, but couldn't hear a single thing.

"Silly boy, there aren't any drums." This time the boy cocked his head in confusion, and said,

"Yeah there are! Torry and Halla heard them too!" The mom looked even more confused at that, but, deciding that it must've been some children's game, smiled and said,

"That's lovely, I'm sure the drums sound really nice." The child glared at his mother when he heard that, seemingly realizing that she didn't believe him.

"I do hear them! The drums are real!"

"Of course they are." The mother said with a smile as they walked back to their home.

...

"Huh?" Uttered a blue skinned figure with his hair pulled back in a style reminiscent of long brown dreadlocks, pointed ears, and a string of what appeared to be long pointed teeth tied around his forehead. He was also shorter than the other three with him who possessed similar physical features, one man who was significantly taller than the rest, another man who was considerably fat, and a short woman who was barely taller than he was with dark pink dreads.

"What's up Gas?" The fatter man asked curiously, as Gas rarely ever spoke unless it was necessary.

"I thought I heard something." Gas replied to his brother, Oil, who then similarly cocked his head as he tried to listen for whatever his brother might have heard.

"I think you're imagining it, I don't hear anything." The girl, Macki, said after a moment of silence as she too tried to listen intently, but heard nothing.

"You need to stop focusing on such useless things Gas, and focus on becoming stronger to defeat the Dragon Emperor... Damn, and when we were so close too." The tallest man of the bunch uttered angrily from their current situation.

They were the Heeters, a group that were in a business partnership wth the tyrant Frieza until he met his end on the planet Earth. With Frieza dead, the leader of the Heeters, the tall man named Elec, had tried using his numerous connections, vast wealth, and wide net of information in order to absorb the Frieza Force army into own to become the dominant force in the entire universe.

At least, that had been the plan before 'he' showed up. The Dragon Emperor.

With even the terrifying Lord Beerus apparently wiling to do his bidding, powerful fighters from all over the universe were coming out of the woodwork to prepare for his so-called tournament, and many of them were more than happy to target both the Heeters and the remnants of the Frieza Force to pass the time and test their strength until then.

"Gas, you need to make sure to become even stronger before this tournament starts, and while we're there, you need to kill the Dragon Emperor!" Elec then said to his little brother with a malicious sneer, drawing the other three from searching for whatever it was that Gas had heard as he obediently said,

"Very well, I will go train."

"Excellent." Elec stated as Gas walked away, but even as he left the shortest of the four Heeters was still looking around curiously, thinking to himself,

'I could have sworn I heard some drums...?'

***

"Are you having fun Edith?" Gabriel asked her daughter as the duo walked through the streets of this new Earth, dressed in long dresses that, along with Gabriel's beauty, drew nearly every eye to them.

Edith, who was currently busy licking her ice cream cone and getting numerous drops of it on her nice blue dress, happily said,

"Yep! Earth is so much fun!" Gabriel smiled warmly as she recalled everything they had done that day, from getting their pictures taken together with some costumes and backdrops, to going shopping to buy Edith some new and interesting clothes, and even stopping at a candy shop where she got her ice cream. If there was one dampener on their fun day, it was what Edith gave voice to next, as she said somewhat sadly,

"I wish daddy were here though..." Gabriel winced as Edith brought up Alex, and wondered for the ten thousandth time where he was.

It was completely unlike Alex to just bail and leave behind everyone for so long, especially his children. They had even stopped brining several of the kids, like Edith, into the space-time orb at night just so the time until their father returned wouldn't be extended from their point of view.

Just as Gabriel was wondering what she going to do about this, as part of the reason she took Edith out to begin with to take her mind off of Alex's disappearance, the little girl suddenly heard something and looked up curiously.

"Daddy?" Edith asked suddenly, making her mother look back to her curiously right as she lit up and cried out happily, "Daddy!"

"Huh? 'Daddy'? Where?" Gabriel asked confusedly as she looked around, seemingly thinking that Alex would be just randomly walking up to them in the middle of the shopping district. She then looked up, like Edith, but even as she expanded her senses to their limits she couldn't detect Alex anywhere.

"Where's daddy Edith?" She asked worriedly, making her daughter look at her with a wide smile.

"I can hear daddy!" With no further explanation, Edith continued walking with a spring in her step that wasn't there before, as she happily sang,

"Dum dut da da! Dum dut da da! Dum dut da da! Hehehehe!" With her confusion and worry growing with each passing second, Gabriel immediately contacted Anne to let her know what was going on, before turning her attention back to Edith, who was having a much better day now.