Ch. 15: Core Troubles

There was only a week left before Vegeta and Nappa arrived on Earth. Shay was getting really needy at this point, but I couldn't just jump over to King Kai's world and spend time with her to cheer her up, and she wasn't quite at the point where she was going to abandon her job to run back to Earth quite yet, so she spent just about every second she could talking to or watching me via telepathy. She still gave me hourly updates on my dad's progress, but I'm pretty sure that he and King Kai were starting to wonder when King Kai had put in the new statue.

Meanwhile, I wasn't watching over Gohan anymore. After I picked up Pigero, Piccolo had begun his real training with my brother, so I had decided to spend the rest of the year training Pigero, even though it was really only two months.

Pigero himself wasn't a disappointment, at least in terms of drive. I'd never expected him to become strong enough to go up against the Saiyans in the time that we had, but he'd already mastered the basics of Ki control.

Right now, I had him meditating, working on his flight skills. In terms of pure strength, he was probably weaker than Master Roshi by this point, but he had a tangible goal, which Yamcha especially was lacking. Pigero was driven almost to madness by the chance of being able to help people with this new power.

Unlike Krillin and Yamcha, I couldn't see Pigero giving up on martial arts in the near or far future. Eventually, he'd become a worthy candidate for learning Silver Mode. Unfortunately, that didn't mean that I'd allow him anywhere near the battle with the Saiyans when they arrived.

(Pigero's POV)

My new master, Gohan's sister, was an incredibly harsh, but effective teacher. She taught me things that I didn't know that human were even capable of, and she never seemed to run out of new techniques. Currently, we were sparring in midair. She was going easy on me, but she wanted me to get acclimated to flight. So, she kicked me through a mountain. Harsh, right? Luckily for me, she held back so that I was able to take it and keep fighting, so after a moment to catch my breath, I flew back at her as quickly as I could, unleashing a devastating flurry of kicks, none of which hit home. 

Then, she smacked me back into the mountain. It and I were starting to become closer than either of us wanted to be. 

Just as I got ready to rush back at her, something happened. I could see it in her eyes, something was wrong. Instantly, the air grew thick. I couldn't breathe. Her bloodlust was so terrifyingly palpable that I could have sworn that I was going to die on the spot. Then, her figure blurred and vanished.

(Raditz's POV)

Kakarot and I had been doing real training with King Kai for a while. As much as I hated to admit it, Kakarot's strength had managed to far surpass not only King Kai's, but mine as well. While he soaked every new technique and training method up like a sponge, even from a Saiyan's perspective, I could not figure out the Spirit Bomb. I'd learned how to sense the life-force of the planet, the precursor for learning the technique, but according to King Kai, my soul wasn't quite 'pure' enough yet. So, while Kakarot trained, I meditated beside the girl who had brought me back to life. 

That was why I was the first to notice. In an instant, the calm flow of life around us ground to a halt, before scattering as though something had attacked the planet itself. The source of the disturbance was a terrifying bloodlust coming from the girl. A bloodlust that had caused the very air to flee in terror. An instant later, like a mirage, the girl was gone.

(Hanna's POV)

"Is she okay? Where is she." I asked Chelsea. I was back in my home in the Core, angry beyond belief. A moment later, Shay appeared by my side, but, as irate as me, she didn't even greet me, tuning out the world around us like she tended to do. This matter was serious.

"Calm down, she's fine. She's just sleeping of excessive energy use. Kelsey was one of the newer girls, so she was able to resurrect herself without any help from us." Chelsea told us. That's right, one of the girls had died. Naturally, since the girls were connected to me, I'd immediately learned of it and informed Shay, and we'd both gone back to the Core as fast as we could.

"How'd she die?" I asked. My girls in their natural state could take on a Destroyer on equal footing. Their training was intense, sure, but it was designed to make them stronger, not dead. Luckily, I'd created Kelsey after I'd taught my energy to revive me without needing a body, but if Kelsey hadn't been able to do that, her mind would have immediately been absorbed back into my body and her personality would have been more-or-less lost.

There was a chance that if another of my girls were nearby, they'd possibly be able to revive her from her spirit in the instant after she died, since that was how I'd learned to revive myself. The problem was that my girls didn't have human souls, so much as a part of a human soul, mine. The moment that they died, their souls would make a beeline to return to their origin. It was actually pretty similar to how Otherworld worked. 

"We had an intruder. They killed her in a surprise attack, but we managed to catch them."

"How did someone manage to surprise Kelsey?" Her reflexes should have been equal to an Angel's, even in her natural form.

"It was Whis. He found the Arlia breach as Kelsey was opening it, and decided that we were a threat. Kelsey couldn't react in time." Chelsea told them.

"Arlia breach?" Shay wondered. I already knew what Chelsea was talking about, since I'd been the one to create it, but I let Chelsea explain instead.

"Arlia's got a fairly high population, which means that a bunch of them die per day. So, once a day, one of us opens a breach to allow the souls from Arlia to go to their part of Otherworld." The Core was separated from the rest of reality, after all. If someone died in the Core, their spirit would just dissipate, but Arlia had its own otherworldly checkout desk, complete with their own version of King Yemma. Since I'd taken Arlia into the Core myself, it was the girls' job to take care of that sort of thing, so we'd decided to open a portal once a day, keeping our energies low as to not attract Whis's attention. Apparently, it hadn't worked.