Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ The Anime Margin: 108 Stars of Destiny ❯ Ki Story, part 1: Who Stole the Dragonballs? ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer:
This fic uses characters, places, themes from franchises that are the property of others. I do not own these franchises.

Special Thanks to:
Charles Xavier, Fanfiction.net author: For writing an awesome crossover with anime and Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Suikosource website: for providing great information that made this fic possible.

The Anime Margin: 108 Stars of Destiny
By: RB3

Chapter 2, Ki Story part 1: Who Stole the Dragonballs?

The two warriors faced each other with fists raised and eyes filled with intensity. Only one of these fighters would walk away from the battle, and each warrior intended that person to be him. The two were as different as night and day, as their reasons for engaging in this battle couldn't be more different. One sought to annihilate the planet on which he stood; his first step being to eliminate resistance to this goal. The second wanted to preserve the world, which put him at odds with the warrior across from him.

The destroyer was known as Cell. The green-skinned, almost reptilian Cell was not a natural creature of the Earth. He was a mighty android grown in a vat from the genetic material of the Earth's greatest warriors. His first goal was to achieve perfection, a goal that could only be accomplished by absorbing his android brethren; a goal he had achieved. Now as Perfect Cell, his face gained a chalky white, but more humanoid appearance. He now moved on to his second goal; to annihilate the Earth and its pitiful inhabitants.

The Earth's preserver and the hero of the battle was Trunks Briefs. He was the son of the prince of the Saiyans himself, Vegita, and learned everything about the martial arts from him. The violet haired teenager was a muscular boy in peak physical condition. His muscles tensed in preparation for a great battle against the greatest threat the Earth has known yet. Screaming loud enough to wake up an entire country, he channelled his rage into achieving greater heights of strength. The sheer power transformed him into a Super Saiyan.

All of sudden, Cell made his move. He darted in with preternatural quickness and landed a powerful, solid blow to Trunks' chin. That sudden attack launched the boy into the air. The biological android suddenly appeared above and slammed him with a kick to the gut, planting him firmly into the ground. The landing ruptured a gaping crater in the process. Trunks leapt back into the action and charged at Cell, suddenly popping up behind him and nailing in the back of the head with a kick. The android went hurtling into the ground, puncturing yet another crater beside the first.

Cell picked himself off the ground and entered into a melee with the Super Saiyan. Back and forth the punches and kicks went. They were so fast that they were merely blurs to the naked eye. The two traded blows back and forth until Cell claimed the upper hand with a shot to the gut. He pressed his advantage, pummelling Trunks with fast and furious blows to every part of his body. The sheer force of the fighting pushed Trunks back. Cell followed with a mighty kick, and then a finishing Ki shot that sent Trunks on a one way trip into the dirt.

Though bloodied, bruised, and battered, Trunks was not about to quit. The fate of the Earth was as stake and he couldn't give up, not at such a critical moment. He picked himself off the ground and channelled his rage again. His muscles bulged greater than ever before with similar exponential increase to his strength. "You think that will you help you any?" taunted Cell. Trunks charged at his foe with rage and fury, but Cell weaved past the blows, evidently with greater speed than ever before. Trunks couldn't even land a single, measly hit. After weaving past several blows, Cell countered, nailing the Saiyan squarely in the chin. The Saiyan attempted to counter, but only caught air as Cell had moved out of the way of the kick. Trunks located his quarry in the sky and charged up and released a massive Ki beam into the sky. It burst with devastating force, filling the world with a blinding light. When the smoke cleared, Cell was nowhere to be seen. Had Trunks really won the battle?

"Bam!" went the sound of Cell's foot, smashing into the back of his target's head.

Trunks went tumbling into the ground, digging a long groove into the dirt on his way down. "Damn! Why can't I hit you?"

"Don't you get it yet?" asked Cell. "All you did was pump up your muscles. Without the speed to back it up, it means nothing."

Trunks now realized his grave error. "So that's why father always thought the training wasn't enough!" said Trunks. "That's why he thought he had reached a plateau!"

"...And cut!" cried an off-screen director.

"So how was it?" asked Trunks as he dusted himself off.

"Beautiful my friend, beautiful!" replied the director.

"Alright!" exclaimed Trunks, as he and Cell high-fived. "I'm going to hit the showers and then head home."

Trunks entered the changing room and ripped off his sweaty, smelly clothes. He had worked up quite a big sweat while filming the latest episode of Dragonball Z. The water felt soothing as it fell onto him. It helped Trunks to recover from the soreness caused by the stunts in the filming. Trunks shut the water and began to soap up his body, leaving not a single place uncovered. After washing off the suds, Trunks returned to the dressing room and changed into street clothes.

His favourite attire consisted of Capsule Corp. brand clothing. In particular, his jacket was a key part of his ensemble and featured the circular logo emblazoned on its shoulders. His mother was a high ranked person, giving him great access to free products from the company. Trunks finished his ensemble by slinging his sword onto his back. "Okay guys, see ya later!"

"Bye Trunks!" called his friend Gohan from deeper in the room.

At that moment, a young green alien boy burst into the room. He was but a young child who had a hairless head, a pair of antennae jutting from the front, and ears that tapered to a point. The young child was in robes, marking him as a kind of religious figure. Trunks recognized this child as Dende, the guardian of Earth. A Namek, Dende was of the same race and had a similar style of dress as the one who rushed to greet him, Piccolo. The young Namek was very agitated.

"Guys come quickly! Someone has just stolen the Dragonballs from Namek!" cried Dende.

"Hurry up and get dressed!" called Piccolo to the rest of the room.

The Dragonball Z cast made haste to the Planet Namek to investigate the robbery. Upon arrival at the Dragonball holding shrine, they found a smouldering crater where it once stood. There was no sign of the Dragonballs, nor who had committed this heinous act. This crime was a serious one due to the nature of the stolen property. The Dragonballs were a set of seven amber spheres with crimson stars in them that marked their number. Once gathered together, the user can summon a dragon who would grant them three wishes, much like the genie of a lamp.

"What did you see?" Piccolo asked a Namek witness.

"They were a bunch of humans. One of them scurried up a building like a spider and was gone before I knew it," reported the witness.

"Okay, thanks for your help," said Piccolo.

The cast of Dragonball Z continued their questioning and effectively heard the same thing the witness told Piccolo. The only thing the people saw were the explosion and some humans quickly fleeing the scene of the crime. Some of the humans climbed over houses and other buildings like they were spiders. That was something no ordinary human could do. Though seemingly a far-fetched idea, everyone that saw the thieves corroborated the story of the original witness. The Dragonball Z cast didn't know what to make of this. They wondered who these thieves really were.

"I don't get it," remarked Goku. "How can a normal human climb up walls like a spider can?"

"Beats me," said Piccolo. "Something about this just doesn't add up, but I don't have time to play detective. I still have filming to do for the second season."

The cast let out a chorus of agreement with Piccolo, with the lone exception of Trunks. "What about me? I'm practically done with my filming. What if I take over the investigation for you guys?"

The others didn't know what to think, but had little choice about it. "That's a good idea. Trunks can keep us updated on what he finds. I vote that we let Trunks handle it," said Gohan, the young son of Goku. "Who else is in favour?"

The Dragonball Z cast began a vote. The fighters had voted unanimously in favour of Trunks taking over, with the exception of one person. The only person that didn't say a word was a single Saiyan. This lone Saiyan, a relatively short man with his arms crossed, was known as Vegita, prince of the Saiyans. Everyone was waiting for his approval to make the vote completely unanimous. "Go get'em," was all he said.

The entire cast was happy, especially Trunks, Vegita's son. "I'll keep in touch with you guys. Whenever I find something new, I'll let you know."

With the approval of all of his friends and relatives, Trunks began his mission in earnest. The young half-Saiyan searched through police reports and recorded witness testimony to find out anything that could shed light on the Dragonball theft. He managed to find recorded feed from security cameras installed on nearby buildings. As Trunks watched the video in a police video room, he kept a watchful over anything that looked out of the ordinary.

Three minutes into the video, the Dragonball shrine exploded, and a trio of humans ran out in different directions to flee the blast. Trunks watched as one of the robbers turned her head briefly enough to allow the camera to get a good view of her face. The woman was in her early to mid twenties and had shoulder length black hair. In the video, she wore a tight jumpsuit that accentuated her curvaceous body. Trunks acquired a photo of this woman and pocketed it for future reference. He called his friends and gave them a report.

The trail led to a series of portals that connected the Dragonball world to others. The portals were a set of silvery floating rings of metal suspended by an unknown force. Each had a roadway leading directly into it for travellers. Some of the roadways were wider and had cars lined up all the way back to a ramp. Others were shorter and had people coming in and going of them. "Have you seen this woman?" Trunks asked of a Namek guard as he showed the picture. "She's a suspect in a robbery case."

"Ah you must be the guy they told me about," said the guard. "We matched this person to a video captured by our surveillance cameras. Our logs indicated that she had entered the Shaman King world. The authorities there are looking for her as we speak."

"Send me there," demanded Trunks.

The guard agreed and ordered special portals used by law-enforcement to be fired up for the Saiyan detective. In the centre of the portal, the image shifted to that of a bustling, Anime metropolis. Trunks walked through and looked around. The city looked like thousands of others strewn across the anime worlds. Unlike that of his world, this world was not as technologically advanced. Its level of technology was the equivalent of the human world's Japan, with fossil fuel cars and rectangular skyscrapers in the distance. It was a version of Tokyo, one of many that existed in the vast number of Anime worlds.

Trunks found a newspaper box and reached into his pocket. He pulled out some coins and paid the machine, which coughed up the paper with a clanging sound. Trunks sat on a nearby bench and began to read. Down the street walked a trio of people, a young man and two young boys, who were having a conversation. The coated man was a blond who had a creepy, gothic look to him. The first boy was young Japanese kid in sandals, slacks, and had a pair of headphones on his head. The second boy was the shortest of the three. He had brown hair and wore a fine white shirt and tie.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," said the first kid, Yoh.

"We have to be careful, Yoh," said the shortest kid, Morty to Yoh. "There've been a lot of thefts lately in the Anime worlds. The guys over at Dragonball Z just had their Dragonballs stolen the day before. We have to keep our eyes open." Morty looked over to where Trunks was sitting. "Hey, isn't that..."

"Who are you talking about?" asked the man, Faust VIII.

"Him!" said Morty pointing to Trunks. "Isn't that Trunks of Dragonball Z?"

"Come to think of it, yeah, that does look like him..." admitted Yoh.

"I'm going to ask him!" stated Morty, who ran up to speak to Trunks. "Hi, you wouldn't happen to be Trunks, the same one who beat up Freeza in that episode of Dragonball Z?"

"Why yes, that's me," replied Trunks.

Morty was so happy that he could faint. "Wow, I'm talking to a star, a real star!"

As the four talked with each other, a dark figure was watching them from the roof of a building. In his hands was a powerful long range rifle trained on the head of the young half-Saiyan. Once he lined up the shot, he pulled the trigger that would end the young man's life. The bullet soared through the air, right into Trunks' view in the slowest motion. "GET DOWN!" cried Trunks as he tackled his fans into the ground.

The bullet whizzed into the bench and tore a chunk off of the top. The sniper had missed his mark, alerting his target to his presence. He now had no recourse but to escape retaliation. Trunks glanced at the direction of the shot and flew in that direction as fast as he could. He found a discarded rifle on the ground and heard the attacker's feet clang against the metal of a fire escape railing. Trunks followed and spotted the attacker leaping down the side of the building with speed greater than a typical human could muster. For some reason, Trunks could not sense this person's Ki, despite the incredible physical exertion he was making to move at this pace.

The attacker pulled a gun and fired. Trunks dodged the bullets with ease and shot the gun out of the assassin's hand. The man's hand began releasing sparks of electricity. This fact revealed the true nature of the enemy to Trunks. He was an android of some kind, here to stop him from getting closer to the Dragonballs and their thieves. Trunks tackled the android to the ground of an alley and began a struggle with it. The two got up and entered into a martial arts brawl. The assassin threw a kick which Trunks caught in his hand and countered with a sweep to the legs.

The assassin threw a punch only to have Trunks weave past the blow and land one of his own to the gut. Trunks pummelled the assassin with a flurry of punches before kicking the punk onto the street. As the assassin tried to recover, Trunks was already flying towards him with a devastating final punch to the gut. The sheer force ripped the android in half, igniting a complete failure of its systems. The assassin's head popped off and rolled along the ground, its wires still dancing and sparkling with electricity. Morty rushed up to check on the situation.

"Wow, you're incredible!" he exclaimed.

"Who was that guy?" asked Faust.

Trunks took possession of the severed android head for safe keeping. "I've been searching for the Dragonballs, which were stolen from a shrine in my world. It seems I'm getting close if they sent an assassin to try to stop me."

Suddenly, a call came on the cell phone for Yoh. "Hello?" answered Yoh.

The caller was his fiancée Anna. "Yoh, come quickly! Someone stole the 1080 beads!"

"Okay, I'm coming back now," replied Yoh.

"Trunks, we have to go. Sorry we couldn't be of any help," apologized Morty.

"I'm coming with you," demanded the young half-Saiyan. "I have a gut feeling that this something I should check out."

"Well, the more the merrier," remarked Yoh with a smile.

Trunks followed his newfound buddies to a modest Japanese holy shrine. Normally, such a shrine would be filled with statues of Buddha and other religious icons. There would be incense perfuming the air and wards dangled all around to drive away evil spirits. Instead, the building had been defiled by the actions of a disrespectful gang of violent criminals. The wards had been burned by the heat of energy weapons. A hole had been punched into the back wall of the shrine and used by the crooks to make their escape. The caretakers were sprawled on the ground with serious injuries that rendered them unable to move. Medical personnel had to carry them out on stretchers.

The team of Trunks and the Shaman found the chief caretaker of the shrine, Anna. She was a just a girl, but had an air of great authority and dominance that went beyond her years. The young girl was actually quite an attractive blonde. As a priestess, she wore a set of ritual beads around her neck as though it was jewellery. She was concerned about the break-in and ascertaining the condition of her caretaking staff.

"What happened here?" asked Faust.

One of the injured caretakers had the answer. "Some crooks broke in and took the 1080 beads. We tried to stop them but they were too strong."

"What did they look like?" asked Faust.

Trunks showed his photo to the man. "Did any of the robbers happen to look like this?"

"Yes! She was one of them!"

"You were lucky. I think these thieves may be androids. Be glad that you're alive," remarked Trunks, who showed everyone the head for emphasis. The young half-Saiyan turned to Anna. "It looks like we have a common enemy," remarked Trunks.

"That's right. That's why Yoh and Morty will help you find the thieves," announced Anna.

"What?" objected Yoh.

"Did you say something?" asked Anna.

"Oh nothing..."

"Faust, please go with them," requested Anna. "They need an adult around to keep an eye on them."

"Sure," replied the creepy Shaman.

"I'm not sure you guys should be coming with me. This will be a dangerous job," warned Trunks. "Someone has already tried to kill me earlier in the day. Are they up for this?"

"Oh yes, they are up for it," replied Anna. "Yoh, Morty, and Faust are all Shamans. They can help you more than you realize."

Anna proceeded to explain what a Shaman was. In the Shaman King realm, there was a class of people who could see spirits and interact with them. By doing so, they gained access to superhuman abilities. These abilities were based off of spiritual possession of some kind. Such tricks included Yoh putting a spirit into a sword to create a katana with an energy blade. These people were known as Shamans. To fuel these powers, Shamans had an energy known as "Furyoku" which came directly from the Shaman's own stamina.

"Hmm, sounds very much like the Ki I use, only I don't work with ghosts," commented Trunks.

"I guess you could put it that way if it helps you to understand our abilities," said Faust.

Trunks' three Shaman allies proceeded to introduce their partner spirits. Yoh's spirit was named Amidamaru. This samurai was a young, grey-haired man wearing crimson Japanese shoulder armour. Morty's spirit, Mosuke, was a blacksmith and friend to Amidamaru. Both men had worked for the same master while in life. However, their master betrayed them, eventually leading to the deaths of both men. Amidamaru tried to fight back, but had gained a terrifying reputation as a butcher for killing countless of the master's soldiers.

Faust's spirit was that of his late wife, Eliza. The woman was an attractive blonde in a pink nurse's attire and also the man's late wife. Before her death, the couple was happily married and about to start their own medical practice. A robber broke into their home and killed Eliza, which drove Faust to research his family's necromantic secrets in an attempt to bring her back. Though he didn't succeed in resurrecting her, he did succeed in recalling her spirit. Faust is now trying to make up for lost time and renewed his medical practice while honing his shamanistic powers with Eliza's help.

"So you can see, this matter is very personal to me and to Eliza," said Faust.

Trunks shook Faust's hand. "Glad to have you on board."

"So, where do we go from here?" asked Yoh.

"You guys can take this picture and start searching for clues," replied Trunks. Trunks handed the photo as well as contact information to Yoh, who pocketed it. "I need to take this head to my mom so she can examine it for clues. I'll join up when I'm done."

Trunks soared into air with the android head in tow and vanished into the horizon. This left the three Shamans still trying to figure out what to do next. They decided to inquire within their networks of friends, who were mostly Shaman as well, for information. They came across a few of their friends coming out of a local convenience store. The first was a foreign boy with blue hair. He wore a windbreaker and headband with strange designs that seemed almost Chinese in origin, but not. The second was a girl with shoulder length blue hair, and a style and appearance similar to the boy.

"Hi Trey, hi Pilika!" greeted Morty.

"Hi dudes, whassup?" greeted Trey.

"We're were wondering if you've seen her?" asked Faust, showing them the picture of the robber.

"No sorry I haven't," admitted Trey.

"Me neither. Who is she?" asked Pilika.

"She broke into my family shrine a few hours ago," informed Yoh.

Pilika was shocked by what she heard. "Oh!" she gasped. "They didn't hurt anyone did they?"

"A few of the caretakers got hurt. They had to be taken to the hospital," informed Morty.

"Man, that's rough. What could they have wanted so badly to do such a thing?" asked Trey.

"They took the 1080 beads," said Yoh.

"Why would they want those things?" asked Trey. "It wouldn't be worth any money to the robbers."

"That's what we intend to find out," stated Faust. "Somehow, I don't think these are ordinary robbers we're dealing with here."

"Maybe you should try asking Ryo," suggested Trey. "I bumped into him a while back. He said he was going to hang out with the boys at the warehouse."

---

Meanwhile, a devilishly handsome young man approached his warehouse and favourite hang out. The man was a person who really stood out in a crowd. He had a large, pompadour hair-style cut in the shape of a heart at its tip. It was the same hair style popularized by 1950's rock stars. He also had a goatee. The man carried around a wooden sword used by Japanese swordsmen to practice their craft. The young man opened the door to be greeted by adulation from his gang, the Dead Enders.

"Hey, Ryo's here!" cried one of the gang members. The gang members crowded around to greet their boss.

The agenda for the night was a marathon of Hollywood action films. The gang watched the film, which moved into an exciting car chase scene. A band of bank robbers had hit a bank and hopped into their car to escape. The protagonists, a pair of detectives, were in hot pursuit. The chase led the cops down busy city intersections filled with cars and trunks they had to dodge. As the chase spilled over onto the high way, more and more police took to the roads in pursuit. In the chase's conclusion, the crooks came upon a barricade made by the cops lining cars along the width of the road. They accelerated to top speed and ploughed through the narrow space between two of the vehicles.

"I'm going to the bath room if anyone needs me," informed one of the gang members.

The gang member ducked behind a stack of tires and began to urinate while out of view. After zipping up his fly, he noticed a strange man entering an abandoned building nearby. From his vantage point, the gang member got only a side view of the man. This strange person cast a very unpleasant aura. He had bushy black hair and an electronic eye piece over his left eye. He was very muscular and had an unusual tail jutting from his behind.

Driven by curiosity, the gang member peeked into the warehouse to see what was going on. The man struck a conversation with a second person, an attractive, dark-haired woman. "So, do you have it?" asked the muscular man.

"Of course," replied the woman, who opened a suitcase.

Inside this case were the 1080 Asakura prayer beads and a set of amber balls fixed into slots. Each had a crimson star in the centre, numbering each ball from one to seven. The muscular man looked over his loot and was delighted by what he saw. "Good work, Gillian. The boss will be pleased with this."

At that moment, the gang member had a bout of bad luck. He accidentally bumped the door, causing a squeak which alerted the thugs to his location. "Get him!" cried the muscular man.

The gang member went screaming as he tried to escape. Gillian ran as fast she could, scurrying up a nearby warehouse and dropping in front of the gangster. The muscle man approached from behind and began cracking his knuckles. "Here I was thinking this would be a boring job..." he commented.

Gillian held the man while her partner proceeded to deliver punch after punch to the gang member. She released the gangster, who fell onto one knee in a wreck. It was at this critical moment that Ryo and his posse appeared on the scene. "Let him go!" stated Ryo.

"...Or what?" asked the man in a confrontational tone. He laughed as he kicked the downed hostage, intentionally trying to provoke Ryo and his gang.

"That's enough!" cried Ryo. "Tokagero?"

The spirit of a green, long faced bandit appeared. "Right!"

Ryo assumed Spirit Unity with Tokagero, allowing the bandit spirit to possess his body and guide his actions. Ryo charged at the muscle man with his wooden sword drawn, ready to pummel him into oblivion. As Ryo's sword came down for a chop, the muscle man disappeared. Suddenly, Ryo took a devastating knee to the gut. The sheer power behind the move surprised him and knocked the wind out of him. The muscle man delivered a kick which sent Ryo sailing into the warehouse where he had been watching movies.

The other Dead Enders were terrified. "Whoa, did you see that? He took out Ryo in just two hits!"

Before the gang members could do anything, the muscle man descended on them. He flattened them all through sheer superiority of power and martial arts prowess. "Enough Korn! We have to get out of here!" cried Gillian.

Korn took to the skies while Gillian disappeared into the night. A few minutes later, Yoh and his friends entered the scene, but the attackers were long gone. The young Shaman tended to his friend's wounds. "What happened here?"

Indeed, the whole room was a mess. There was a hole in the warehouse wall, the same one Ryo crashed through after being kicked by Korn. The TV set had been knocked off its stand and was showing static. There was popcorn and soda spilt everyone the floor. Worse of all, Ryo and his gang were sprawled on the ground outside having suffering a grievous injury. They were victims of a brutal, heinous attack.

Yoh helped Ryo get back onto his feet. "Are you okay Ryo?"

"I'm fine," replied the Dead Ender chief.

"Who did this to you?" asked Morty.

"Me and the boys found some guys beating up one of my buddies so we went to teach him a lesson," replied Ryo.

"What did they look like?" asked Morty.

Ryo proceeded to describe the face of the man who had attacked him. After questioning the gang members, Yoh learned that the woman who stole the 1080 beads had been in this area as well. "If only we came here sooner..."

At that moment, Trunks came in to check on his allies. He was stunned by what he saw. "What happened here?"

"The crooks were here and attacked some of our friends," replied Morty, as he helped a gang member recover.

"Damn, that's not good..." remarked Trunks. "Did you find anything out about them?"

Morty told the half-Saiyan everything he learned about the attack. It was at this moment that the Dead Ender who went for a bathroom break chimed in with more detailed information. "I saw those guys! I saw them when I went out for a bathroom break. The woman's name is Gillian. I saw her hand some stuff over to this big muscle guy. He had this strange looking tail coming out of his rear end. After they beat up the rest of us, I heard that woman call him 'Korn' just before they left."

"You guys are lucky to be alive. From your description, I'd say that 'muscle guy' was a Saiyan," informed Trunks.

"No way! You mean to tell me he's one of your guys?" asked Morty.

"Yeah, we Saiyans just love to fight. Some of us aren't above killing someone in the process," warned Trunks.

Morty gulped. "Relax," said Yoh. "We can beat him. We'll get our stolen stuff back in no time."

"Right now, we should worry about helping these people," stated Faust, who began to apply ointment to a Dead Ender's bruise.

END OF CHAPTER 2

New Stars of Heaven/Heavenly Leaders:
#5 Tenyu, Star of Bravery: Trunks (Dragonball Z)
#17 Tenan, Dark Star: Faust VIII/Eliza (Shaman King)
#18 Tenyu, Guardian Star: Yoh Asakura/Amidamaru (Shaman King)

New Stars of Earth/Earthly Warriors:
#88 Chiko, The Lonely Star: Morty & Mosuke (Shaman King)