Tommy lay on the cold, rocky ground of the lighthouse outcrop, gasping for air. His body was aching from the impact of the fall and the strain of anchoring himself to the Nimbus. He was out of Ki, but he was alive, and the Dragon Ball was safe.
His immediate problem: the Pilaf Gang.
Mai stood over him, holding the useless laser pistol. Shu, in his mechanical dog suit, stood ready to kick him. Emperor Pilaf, however, was fixated on the Fragment of the Unknown protruding from Tommy's pocket.
"The aura... the subtle power!" Pilaf squealed, rushing forward and trying to snatch the black crystal fragment.
Tommy instinctively recoiled, grabbing the fragment and pushing himself back against the lighthouse wall.
"Don't touch that!" Tommy warned, his voice weak but firm.
"It is not yours, human!" Pilaf shrieked. "That artifact contains a purer energy than any Dragon Ball! I can sense it! Divine Ki!"
Pilaf's instant shift in focus was Tommy's chance. He had inadvertently presented the villain with a shiny new objective, potentially diverting his attention from the Dragon Balls entirely.
[System Notification: Host's possession of the Fragment of the Unknown is drawing attention from non-canonical sources. New Secondary Quest unlocked!]
[Secondary Quest: The Divine Gambit]
Objective: Escape Emperor Pilaf's capture and prevent the Fragment of the Unknown from falling into his hands.
Reward:Divine Ki Mastery Technique, 150 KP.
Failure Condition: Pilaf obtains the fragment. (Minor PL loss, Major Reputation loss.)
"Divine Ki Mastery," Tommy whispered, the reward promising exponential power gain. He knew he couldn't let Pilaf, the perpetual comedic failure, gain access to anything linked to a Goddess.
"Give it to me, and perhaps I will spare your pathetic life!" Pilaf commanded, stamping his small blue foot.
Tommy slowly began to channel his will, forcing his empty Ki core to pull energy back from the environment.
[Ki Energy (KE) Recovery: 5/20]
He needed 10 Ki to pull off a basic, disruptive Ki Blast. He wasn't there yet.
"Emperor Pilaf," Tommy stalled, wiping sweat and ash from his glasses. "This fragment is a curse. It belongs to the Gods. You can't control it. It is what destroyed your plane's engine."
This was a bold lie, but Pilaf, seeing the smoke still rising from the engine, looked startled.
"A curse?" Pilaf hesitated, but his greed quickly overcame his fear. "Nonsense! A curse to the unworthy, perhaps, but I, Emperor Pilaf, am worthy of the stars!"
Mai, however, was less convinced by curses and more by practical violence. She raised the empty pistol like a club.
"Enough chatter! Get up!" Mai yelled.
As Mai lunged, Tommy pushed off the wall with a desperate surge of physical strength (PL 9). He sidestepped the attack, channeling the full 5 Ki he had recovered into his feet and sprinting directly toward the disabled plane.
"He's going for the plane!" Shu barked, trying to intercept, but his mechanical suit was slow and cumbersome on the rocky terrain.
Tommy didn't try to repair the engine; he sprinted past the plane and kept running, heading for the edge of the outcrop where the cliff face dropped into the sea.
"Catch him!" Pilaf shrieked. "He's running back to his allies!"
Tommy reached the cliff edge. The drop was easily 100 feet. The sea below was turbulent and dark. He stopped at the very brink.
Mai and Shu arrived just behind him, cornering him. Pilaf wobbled up seconds later.
"Well done, my minions! The foolish hero has trapped himself!" Pilaf cackled. "Now, hand over the fragment!"
Tommy took a deep breath. He had 10 Ki now. Just enough.
He didn't look at them. He focused on his hands, channeling the cold Ki energy into his palms.
"I won't let you have this power," Tommy said, his voice quiet but steady.
He extended his hands, not at them, but at the ground behind them.
"Ki Burst!"
He fired two small, concentrated Ki blasts right into the ground just feet from the lighthouse structure.
KRAK! KRAK!
The blasts didn't hit the villains, but they struck a structural weakness in the old, centuries-old lighthouse. The stone foundation, already weakened by years of erosion, cracked violently.
The sudden structural damage caused the immense, heavy stone top of the lighthouse to groan and tilt, swaying precariously over the heads of the Pilaf Gang.
"What was that?!" Mai screamed, looking up in panic.
"The structure is unstable!" Shu's mechanical voice warned.
"Run, you fools! It's going to fall!" Pilaf panicked, completely forgetting the fragment and the capture.
The Pilaf Gang scrambled away from the toppling structure, tripping over each other in their haste to escape the massive stone turret crashing down.
Tommy didn't wait. With the villains distracted by the self-induced structural collapse, he turned and jumped straight off the cliff.
The Escape
WHOOSH!
Tommy plummeted toward the dark, churning ocean. He had risked everything on this move.
[Ki Energy (KE): 0/20] [Host Status: Freefall. Impact imminent.]
A few feet from the water, he forced his body to snap rigid, trying to minimize the surface area of impact.
SPLASH!
The impact was like hitting cement, even with the minimal streamlining. The cold water shocked his senses. His glasses were ripped from his face.
He sank quickly, his lungs screaming for air. He was a terrible swimmer even at full strength. Now, battered and exhausted, he was drowning.
This is it. I escaped the villains, only to be beaten by Earth's gravity and lack of swim training.
Suddenly, his System blared a critical warning:
[Critical Failure Imminent!] [Divine Ki Mastery Technique is at risk!]
A surge of cold, uncontrollable energy burst from the Fragment of the Unknown in his pocket. The black crystal, reacting to the extreme danger, activated.
The cold energy—the Divine Ki—didn't heal him or give him strength. Instead, it coated his entire body in a thin, shimmering, sapphire-blue cocoon, like a membrane of pure, contained cold vacuum.
The cocoon forced the water away from his face and pushed his body upwards with an intense, localized Ki repulsion field.
POP!
Tommy breached the surface of the water, floating effortlessly in the Ki cocoon. He coughed violently, dragging air into his lungs. He was safe, buoyant, and completely enveloped in a field of unknown power.
[Anomaly!Fragment of the Unknown has temporarily activated Host's Divine Ki Affinity. Duration: 5 minutes.]
"It... it saved me," Tommy gasped, shivering uncontrollably from the cold Ki field.
He looked back up at the lighthouse. The top portion of the turret had crashed onto the platform, obliterating the wreckage of Pilaf's plane. The Pilaf Gang was nowhere in sight—they were likely scrambling among the debris.
Tommy had his window.
He used the repulsion field to gently glide himself toward the shore, moving slowly but surely out of the immediate danger zone.
He reached a small, isolated beach, the Divine Ki cocoon dissipating the moment his feet touched the sand. He collapsed onto the shore, retrieving his intact, glowing fragment.
He checked his inventory.
[Ki Points (KP) Remaining: 81]
He was still out of Zeni and miles from Fire Mountain. But he had escaped, and he had learned something critical: the Fragment of the Unknown was tied to his potential Divine Ki Mastery and could act as a life-saving escape tool in emergencies.
He slowly stood up, retrieving his waterlogged glasses.
"Okay. Time to walk back to Fire Mountain," Tommy sighed, looking up at the now-morning sky.
He focused his Ki Sense. Goku's signature was steady and approaching Fire Mountain.
But as he started walking, he felt a new, incredibly strong, and highly localized Ki signature appear near the lighthouse. It was immense, far stronger than the Ox King (PL 90) or even the unsuppressed Master Roshi (PL 139).
[Ki Signature Detected: ??? (PL 200). Location: Lighthouse Outcrop. Status: Annoyed. Searching.]
The signature was pure power, focused and deadly. It was far beyond anything known on Earth at this point in the timeline.
"PL 200... at the lighthouse?" Tommy stammered. "That's three times Roshi's strength! Who is that?"
Tommy instinctively dove behind a cluster of seaside rocks, minimizing his own PL 9 signature to its absolute lowest level.
He focused his Ki Sense on the new threat. The powerful signature moved, searching the debris of the lighthouse, then scanning the horizon.
Then, the PL 200 signature spoke. Its voice was rough, distorted, and heavily mechanized, broadcasting across the coast.
"The Divine Fragment... it was here. Pilaf's incompetence has led the artifact to slip away. Report to the Red Ribbon Command immediately. The hunt for the celestial anomaly begins."
Tommy's eyes widened behind his wet glasses. It wasn't just Pilaf he was fighting for the fragment.
The Red Ribbon Army, who shouldn't be a major concern for years, was already hunting him. And they had a PL 200 operative already active on Earth!
Tommy was no longer just dealing with the timeline; he was dealing with a massive, catastrophic pre-canon threat that the System had introduced. He had to reach Roshi and begin real training, or he wouldn't survive the week.