"Goku, you've arrived."
Kami's nod carried the deep, abiding warmth of long familiarity. Then the ancient Namekian's gaze shifted to Jordan, and something far more careful entered his dark eyes. It wasn't suspicion, exactly. It was the heavy, measuring attention of a Guardian who had been watching a volatile storm develop from a high altitude and was now standing directly in its path.
"And this powerful figure from another world."
"Hello, Kami. Mr. Popo." Jordan offered a polite, casual nod. "Jordan is fine."
The Guardian of Earth and his attendant exchanged a fleeting glance—a silent, high-bandwidth communication between two beings who had spent centuries in each other's unbroken company. Whatever unspoken question had been hanging between them resolved quietly. Assessing someone through a planetary mind-network was one thing; seeing them in the flesh apparently satisfied a different criteria.
"Hello, Jordan," Kami said, his voice like dry, ancient parchment.
They moved inside.
The interior of the sanctuary was exactly what the pristine exterior promised: ancient, serene, and maintained with the meticulous care of a space that served a divine purpose. Sitting on the smooth tile, Goku laid out the situation with his trademark bluntness. Two more Saiyans were arriving in under a year. Their power levels eclipsed anything Earth's fighters could currently handle. The million-dollar question was whether a single year was enough time to violently close that gap.
Kami listened without interrupting. When Goku finally finished, the old god sat in silence—not to process the information, which he'd already known, but to organize his response into something actionable.
"Your instincts are correct, Goku," Kami said finally, leaning on his wooden staff. "Earth's environment has a hard ceiling. Training here, no matter how relentlessly you push yourself, will eventually hit a fundamental biological limit." He met Goku's eyes steadily. "But I know of a place where martial arts exist far beyond anything taught in the mortal realm."
Goku's attention immediately sharpened. The single, stubborn sprig of hair at the crown of his head physically twitched upward—a bizarre biological tell Jordan had noticed whenever the Saiyan heard the word 'training.'
"Really? Where?"
"The Other World."
A brief silence settled over the hall.
"The Other World." Goku's expression cycled through several distinct phases of processing. "That's... that's where people go after they die." He paused, a new thought visibly lighting up his face. "Hey, Grandpa should be there!"
"Yes," Kami confirmed patiently. "However, the master you would be seeking resides much further in. A deity named King Kai. He lives at the very end of a road known as Snake Way. It is a journey of approximately one million kilometers."
Goku stared at him, practically vibrating with excitement.
"If you are prepared, I can send you there right now."
"I'm ready!" Goku said instantly, already hopping to his feet.
"No, you're not."
Jordan and Kami spoke at the exact same time. Jordan caught the faintest ghost of amusement tugging at the corner of the ancient Namekian's mouth. Jordan gestured smoothly for the god to continue.
Kami inclined his head. "Snake Way is a million-kilometer trek with absolutely zero outposts for resupply. You will need substantial food stores. Korin has been cultivating Senzu Beans at the tower, but the current yield won't be nearly enough to sustain you for the full duration of that journey. You need heavy provisions."
Goku's manic enthusiasm dimmed slightly at the injection of logistical reality. "How long will the run take?"
"That entirely depends on your speed."
"What if the Saiyans touch down before I even reach King Kai?"
"Then," Kami said, wielding the heavy, pragmatic honesty of a god who intimately understood his own limitations, "that would be a problem you would have to solve using whatever strength you currently possess."
Goku slumped slightly, chewing on that bleak reality.
"So, Jordan." He turned, looking at his new ally. "What were you going to say?"
Jordan kept his expression perfectly pleasant. "I was going to say that I highly recommend calling Chi-Chi before you banish yourself to the afterlife to train."
The effect was instantaneous and devastating. Goku's face rapidly cycled through realization, sheer panic, and the visceral, physiological terror of a married man who has just remembered exactly how deep his grave is currently dug.
"I... I forgot to call her yesterday," he whispered to no one in particular.
Kami politely examined the ceiling architecture.
Mr. Popo's face remained a mask of absolute neutrality, which somehow felt louder and more judgmental than if he had actually spoken.
"Don't catastrophize," Jordan said dryly, adopting the exact tone of a man currently catastrophizing on someone else's behalf. He clapped a heavy hand onto Goku's shoulder. "Look at the bright side. You've only been missing for a full day and night without contact, immediately after kidnapping your son into a warzone without explaining anything. And now, your brilliant plan is to tell her you're permanently relocating to the land of the dead for an unspecified amount of time." Jordan patted the shoulder firmly. "You'll be fine. Just be prepared for the very real possibility that she tries to murder you on sight. Which, honestly, solves your Snake Way food shortage."
Goku broke into a cold sweat. He was clearly visualizing it. Chi-Chi with a frying pan. Chi-Chi in high-speed motion. Chi-Chi with a justified motive.
"This... this isn't good," Goku swallowed hard.
"No," Jordan agreed cheerfully. "It really isn't. Which is exactly why we're going to handle it right now, before you disappear into the ether."
Kami, who had been observing the exchange with the quiet fascination of a man watching a train derail in slow motion, gently interjected. "There is no immediate rush on the training, Goku. Settle your domestic affairs first. We can arrange for you to travel back down to the surface—"
"No need." Jordan's eyes flashed with azure light as his Herrscher spatial authority flared to life. "I can handle the taxi service. And as for the food, Bulma can synthesize a batch of high-capacity storage capsules. I'll take care of it."
"Thank you, Jordan!" Goku cried out, already frantically waving at Kami and Mr. Popo with the panicked energy of a man desperate to rip off a band-aid. "We'll be back soon!"
The ambient air warped, folding inward around them before snapping them out of existence.
Back in the quiet serenity of the palace, Mr. Popo stood with his hands clasped neatly behind his back. He did not immediately speak.
"What is your assessment?" Kami asked softly.
"He does not feel like a wicked person," Mr. Popo stated. He considered his next words carefully. "And given the reality-bending abilities he just demonstrated, he could shatter the Earth with trivial ease if he so desired. If conquest was his intention, there would be no logical reason for him to involve himself in Goku's affairs like this."
Kami nodded slowly, leaning on his staff. "The planet's fundamental weakness is the true threat. Goku carries the real responsibility here." A heavy pause. "I only hope he can grasp the power he needs from this journey."
"I believe in Goku," Mr. Popo said simply.
"As do I, Mr. Popo."
Outside, the sky above Kami's Lookout remained the pristine, untouched blue of an atmosphere that had never been breathed by anyone who wasn't welcome.
The transition was instant. The Gobi Desert materialized around them—a flat, endless expanse of baked tan earth that stretched aggressively in every direction without apology.
Goku spun in a circle, scanning the empty horizon before looking at Jordan in utter bewilderment. "Where are we?"
"Give it a second."
Jordan's smirk suggested he knew exactly what was about to happen, and was going to thoroughly enjoy watching it unfold.
Goku tilted his head. His ears twitched, catching a frequency riding the dry wind just at the edge of his superhuman hearing. An engine. Smooth, high-pitched, and whining with the distinct strain of an accelerator being pushed dangerously past its redline.
Goku's brow furrowed. "Is that...?"
On the hazy horizon, a black speck that had been rapidly growing for the last thirty seconds finally resolved into a discernible shape. A sleek, shark-profiled maglev car. It was hovering inches above the dirt and tearing across the desert floor with the terrifying, floor-deep acceleration of a driver who had somewhere to be and viewed the speed limit as a personal insult.
Jordan calmly clasped his hands behind his back and waited.
In the driver's seat sat a woman with dark hair swept up into a severe bun. Her brow was locked into a furious, razor-thin line that hadn't relaxed since yesterday afternoon. Chi-Chi. She was piloting the hovercar with the manic, focused energy of a mother who had been driving since before dawn on a tip that her husband had been spotted in the sector.
Crammed into the backseat, filling the rear cabin with his sheer mountainous mass, was the Ox-King. Despite his horned helmet and thick glasses, he looked entirely like a man held hostage by the situation—a concerned father-in-law who had agreed to tag along simply because trying to stop his daughter would have been suicidal.
Goku's face underwent a catastrophic structural collapse in the span of two seconds. It settled on the expression of a man who loved his wife unconditionally, but in this specific, frozen moment, feared her more than any alien invader.
He started waving. Frantically. Both arms slicing wide, desperate arcs through the air—the universal, panicking signal of a husband trying to broadcast friendly intent to a threat that was closing the distance much faster than he was comfortable with.
Several kilometers out, the pitch of the maglev engine changed. The aggressive forward pitch of the chassis leveled out. The terrifying acceleration finally plateaued. The vehicle's posture shifted from a predatory chase to a measured approach.
She had spotted him.
The silence that followed stretched out across the flat, baked earth. It was the heavy, pregnant silence of the Gobi Desert, of a decelerating maglev engine, and of a woman who had been boiling with rage for twenty-four hours finally deciding exactly how she felt about that frantic wave.
Jordan watched the scene play out from a highly respectful distance, his hands still casually clasped behind his back.
Let the car fly a little longer, he had told her over the comms earlier. It had been very good advice.