Disclaimer: Akira Toriyama and Toei Animation own DRAGONBALL Z. El Hazard is owned by Pioneer and VIZ. Oh yeah, I wish I owned this stuff…

Chapter 2: Things Fall Apart

"Simplify, simplify."
--Henry David Thoreau, Walden

"Wouldn't it have been simpler to just say it once?"
-- Soap on a Rope, the webcomic

"Come back here and fight like a man, Gohan!"

Gohan grit his teeth. Secret identities are such a pain… Here he was; one of the strongest men alive, powerful enough to vaporize the world a hundred times over, and he was being chased by some little nothing by the name of Jinnai. The two were taking a circular path around the campus, and Gohan's annoyance grew more by the minute. You are so lucky you're Nanami's brother, or you would be eating through a straw right about now.

Piccolo and Nanami were watching on the sidelines. The latter was exasperated by her brother's behavior (to such a degree that she didn't notice that the former was green), but Piccolo seemed to find the situation very amusing.

Jinnai was not the most athletic student at Shinonome High, but he ran with a manic speed. "Thanks to you, I'm impeached, you jerk!"

Gohan called back over his shoulder, "You made your bed! Now lie in it!"

Jinnai screamed in response, "YOU EXPECT ME TO LIE IN IT ALONE!?"

Gohan muttered, "Aw crap. I suspected he swung that way…"

Jinnai ignored Gohan's comment. "I have always been the best at everything! I've always had the best grades! I won every science fair I entered! I was the millionth customer at the Kwik-E-Mart!"

Gohan replied, "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Ever since you came here," retorted Jinnai, "you've been outdoing me in everything! I got a 1590 on the SAT's, but you just had to go and get a 1600! I used to be the valedictorian, but now you've stolen that spot from me!"

Gohan's eyes turned a shade of teal. Nobody seemed to notice. Urge… to kill… rising… "Look, you little twit, I don't care if I've hurt your precious ego! If you don't stop this right now, I'm going to…" Gohan was cut off in mid-sentence as a massive earthquake rocked the campus. "Yipe!"

Jinnai glanced around. "Now what are you doing, Gohan?"

Gohan didn't respond, as the very earth beneath his feet crumbled and fell away. Such was his surprise that he didn't think to use his flight powers. He hit the stone floor hard, barely avoiding injury. Glad I was powering up, or that could have hurt…

Piccolo and Nanami raced to the side of the gash. Nanami said breathlessly, "Where did he go?"

Jinnai was too busy crying tears of happiness. "At last! The heavens have finally stepped in to reinstate my greatness! They have sent that upstart Son Gohan into the very depths of h--urk!"

Piccolo was not amused by Jinnai's sentiments. He lifted the gloating egomaniac by his throat. "Tell us where he is -- now, -- before I give you the beating Gohan should have given you!"

Nanami looked down the chasm. She cupped her mouth and called, "Gohan! Can you hear me?"

Gohan dusted off his uniform. His enhanced Saiyan hearing picked up the voice. "Nanami? Is that you?"

Nanami was overjoyed. "Yes! Are you all right?"

Gohan did a quick check of himself. "I'm a little shaken up, but everything seems to be intact."

Piccolo had set down Katsuhiko and was peering into the gloom. "Gohan! Just fly out of there!" This statement earned him a very odd look from Nanami. He sweatdropped. Secret identities are such a pain…

Jinnai shook his head. "That lucky SOB! I'll have to finish him myself." Stooping, he picked up a chunk of rock that had yet to fall and hefted it above his head. "DIE!" He chucked it down into the darkness, hoping against hope that he would strike his intended target.

Gohan could hear Jinnai's rambling. "What the hell is he talking about?" He didn't understand until he saw the projectile headed his way. "Yipe!" He blurred away from the stone at the last moment. The rock slammed into a wall of rubble, which rumbled ominously.

Gohan's eyes widened. "Crap!"

By now, Nanami had grabbed hold of her brother's shirt and was shaking him like a rag doll. "What the hell were you thinking?!" That was when the ground shook beneath their feet as Jinnai's attack set off a landslide. Both Jinnai siblings screamed as the hole widened, sending their perch tumbling towards the chasm beneath them.

Piccolo responded quickly, grabbing them both in mid-fall and flying them to safety. Piccolo picked up Jinnai by the scruff of his jacket and glared into his eyes. Jinnai scarcely avoided wetting himself. "If he has one scratch on him, I'm going to rip off your arms and beat you with them!" Nanami was already at the new edge of the hole, calling Gohan's name.

There was no response as Gohan cursed, digging himself out the rubble. "Damn that Jinnai…" Gohan had instinctively flown deeper into the cave to avoid the hail of rubble, which had closed off the tunnel that he had sought shelter in. "It would be easy to blast out, but if Jinnai's pebble could do that much damage, I might collapse the whole school. I'll have to hope that I can find another way out…"

Gohan raised one hand and used a small pulse of chi to illuminate the tunnel. He was quickly surprised to see odd hieroglyphs etched into the walls. "What the…" He tracked his glowing hand across the wall, revealing an intricate carving, containing triangles and human eyes. "This isn't just a cavern… I just discovered a lost civilization!" Visions of himself on the cover of dozens of scientific periodicals danced through his mind, but he suppressed them. "First, find a way out, then become famous beyond your wildest dreams."

He continued down the tunnel, taking time to study the hieroglyphs. Despite untold years of neglect, the carvings were still very much intact. Gohan quickly noticed a pattern. All of the carvings were a pair of triangles, one superimposed upside down over the other, with the human eye in the center. Around these carvings were what looked to be a written language. To Gohan, it looked like he was traveling backwards through the tunnel, based on how the writings looked to him. He couldn't read the carvings, but they were oddly familiar… like it was something from a former life.

Finally, Gohan reached a well-illuminated chamber, where the motif changed dramatically. The human eye was still present, but now massive stars, moons and s-curves dominated the style. Gohan wandered in, forgetting his plight. "It's… beautiful. It's like a temple of some sort… who were these people… it doesn't look like anything I've ever studied before… definitely not Japanese, though…" He turned off his Chi-lantern and briefly wondered where the ethereal light was coming from. His search for a source came up empty, though.

Finally, his eyes came to rest upon a wall that lacked the geometric figures of the rest of the temple. It was bare, gray stone, except for the figure of a woman that extended from the rock. Gohan's breath was taken away at the sight of her. She was perfect. Centuries, perhaps millennia of neglect had not taken their toll on her as they had the rest of the temple. And no flaw was apparent in her form; carving such a figure must have taken ages to hew from the rock. "Especially the way they did it… they had to cut away the rest of the stone on all sides of her before they could even begin…"

Gohan's eyes fell upon the perfectly carved lips of the figure. Suddenly, a very odd impulse hit him. After verifying that no one else was in the chamber, he leaned over and kissed the stone goddess upon the lips.

After a few seconds, he leapt back, his face beet red. "What the heck was I thinking… I really need a girlfriend…" He turned away from the carving, briefly wondering why her lips felt warm…

Then, Gohan heard a cracking sound. "Eh?" He turned around and saw that the stone goddess was starting to crack. "Crap! I broke it!" No sooner had he uttered the curse than an explosion enveloped the figure, sending dust and shrapnel in all directions. In his imagination, he saw his Nobel Prize crumble to dust in much the same way. Gohan covered his eyes, yelling, "I DIDN'T DO IT!"

Although dust hung in the air, the strange explosion had ended as quickly as it had begun. He could not see through the thick cloud, but he felt something familiar. Gohan's eyes widened. "A Chi signature! And a pretty big one, too! Where the hell did that come from?"

As the dust cleared, Gohan's jaw dropped. "The statue came to life?!"

While encased in granite, the goddess had been beautiful. But now… Gohan could scarcely believe his eyes. She was gorgeous; except for a large burn on her right leg, there was no flaw on her body. He knew because her exotic robes left little of her figure to Gohan's imagination.

And then her eyes slowly opened, revealing eyes the same color as her hair. Tears rolled down her cheeks, and Gohan realized that she was looking straight at him. With a choked voice, she said, "Gohan… it is you…"

Gohan's eyes widened as she flew forward and embraced him. He stuttered, "M-Ma'am, I think you might have me confused with someone else. I don't think I would have forgotten you…"

The woman, never releasing her embrace, plainly said, "You cannot know what is to happen, Son Gohan. All you need to know is that you are the replacement for one who should be here, but isn't, but I love you as much as I could ever love him."

Gohan swallowed. "R-replacement? You l-love me? Who are you? What's going on here!?"

The goddess looked him in the eyes. "All shall be made clear in time. But my time is limited. I have been here an eternity awaiting you, and my power is weak, having faded during my imprisonment."

Gohan's eyes widened again. Did she just say that her powers are weak?! She's stronger than Krillin as it is!

The blue haired woman finally released her hold on him, and summoned small bolts of energy into her hands. "We shall meet again in El Hazard. Good bye." As the temple faded from sight, a bright, white light filled the room. Gohan's protestation was cut off as she leaned in and kissed him fully on the lips.

And then Gohan touched infinity.

Meanwhile…

Nanami frantically banged on Mr. Fujisawa's door. "Mr. Fujisawa! Open up! Please! We need your help! Gohan fell down a hole! MR. FUJISAWA!?" She gave up and sat down on his step dejectedly. "Where could he be?"

Elsewhere…

Mr. Fujisawa sat outside O'Flannigan's Bar and Grill (motto: We have all kinds of weird crap on our walls!) in much the same manner as his student. "I can't believe I forgot daylight savings time… happy hour doesn't start for another hour! I should still be at school… I just hope that I don't get fired over this…"

Back at the Ranch…

Piccolo flew out of the hole, landing next to an unconscious Jinnai. "No sign of him. If this preppy bastard killed my student, he will lose a limb… what?" He felt a power unlike any in his experience. "This is impossible! What the hell is going on…" And then Piccolo and the Jinnai siblings were no more.

Gohan moaned as, once again, his brain tried to force his tired body into the land of the living. "Ow… Man, Hiro, I just had the weirdest… dream…" He sat upright as he realized that he was no longer in his dorm. "Where am I!?" He scanned the area, seeing flora and fauna not to be found on Earth. Dragon-like creatures winged their way through the canopy of the unfamiliar trees about him. He stepped forward, and barely managed to avoid squishing what looked like mice wearing hats. "Either Hiro finally talked me into trying some of his LSD, or all of that really happened…"

Gohan, being fairly used to the unusual, decided to assume that the situation with the blue-haired woman was real. "El Hazard, she said… is that the name of this world? She acted like she knew me. Is it time travel, or does time not move in a linear path in these parts? And where do the mice get hats, anyway? Too many unknowns…" He sat down, struggling to take it all in. He looked up and saw some kind of high-speed blimp zoom over head at supersonic speeds. He stood up again as the wet ground soaked the seat of his pants. "Okay, I touched something. You don't feel things in dreams, so much for the dream hypothesis."

Gohan, deciding that he needed more information, stretched out with his chi senses. He tried to put the confusing multitude of creatures into perspective. "Okay… local flora and fauna are part of the local chi, so this isn't some elaborate hoax… I feel two, no, three chi signatures of significant power. Two of them are headed my way, so I'd better get ready for some company… wait… something nearby…"

"LET ME GO!!!"

Gohan reeled as the feminine voice shattered the tranquility of the forest. He followed the source of the sound and peered through the alien brush. He quickly saw the source of the sound. The forest ended very abruptly, with the ground shooting down over twenty feet straight down. On a rough road just beneath him, a very short girl was being hauled away by a band of insectoid aliens. Gohan could scarcely tell if they were biological or robotic because of the arrangement and shape of their armor and limbs. Whatever they were, Gohan could immediately tell that the redhead was not enjoying the ride, as she pounded on the thick carapaces of the insects and screamed for help.

Gohan reached into his pocket. "I don't know what the situation is. I'm an alien on a world I know nothing about. What right do I have to interfere in their affairs?" He finally found what he was looking for. "What if I completely change the fabric of this world?" He slipped his wristwatch onto his left wrist. The girl screamed again. Gohan pressed a few buttons on the watch. "Being diplomatic got me here in the first place. If that girls with the 'bad guys,' then so be it, because," Gohan said, as his school uniform was replaced by his green costume, minus the helmet, "the great Saiya-Man allows no injustice!" He flipped out a pair of sunglass from the pocket of his costume. "And those bugs are just asking for an exterminator."

To be continued.

Webmaster: Larry F
Last revision: January 7, 2006