With a ground-shaking grunt, the ancient beast turned ponderously, its spiked tail carving a furrow in the soft earth. It gestured with its moss-draped snout towards a hidden fissure obscured by cascading vines and luminous fungi. Marvin followed, his rubbery limbs bouncing lightly with each step, the rhythm in his chest unconsciously syncing with the rhythmic thuds of the creature's armored limbs striking the ground. *Thoom... thoom... thoom.* It felt like walking beside a living drum struggling to match the tune playing deep within his own sinews. The air grew thick with damp moss and the sharp tang of ozone as they approached the cave entrance. Tendrils of shadow seemed to recoil from his Gear Fifth aura—not fearfully, but like servants bowing before returning royalty. Inside, darkness swallowed the jungle glare, cool and vast.
The turtle-creature emitted a soft, resonant humming sound. Glyphs along its back ignited, bathing the cavern walls in soft amber light. Marvin froze. Every inch of the stone was carved—not scratched, but *flowed*—with scenes of impossible freedom. Figures stretched like warm rubber, faces split wide with joyful grins, launching themselves towards stylized suns pulsating with energy. Explosions weren't violence; they were bursts of celebration. Trees bent willingly, bridges formed from snapped limbs, seas parted not through force, but pure, elastic exuberance. And everywhere, the symbol: the sun with ringed rays, laughing. Beside a massive depiction of Nika dancing amidst celestial clouds, Marvin saw another carving: an armored turtle, much like his guide, bowing before the Joy-Bringer. The sheer *intention* in the art vibrated through the cave air. It wasn't history. It was scripture. A hymn carved in rock. He stumbled forward, drawn to a section showing warriors wielding shimmering energy—not Ki blasts, but *Haki*. Instinctively, his clenched fist slammed against the stone beside the carving. *CRACK!* Not pain. Resistance. And then, a ripple of obsidian-black energy surged up his arm—solid, unyielding, and impossibly real. **Armament Haki**. It coated his knuckles effortlessly, drinking the glyph-light, humming with newfound density.
The visual feast continued: depictions of warriors foreseeing strikes from impossible angles, their eyes wide and knowing. Marvin mimicked the posture, fixing his gaze on a cluster of phosphorescent beetles flickering high on the ceiling. He *felt* the beetle light patterns *before* they shifted. He knew the precise trajectory of dust motes swirling in the amber-lit gloom. The cavern's silence amplified a thousand tiny sounds—the drip of distant water, the scrape of turtle scales on rock, the frantic pulse of his *own* wild heart. Colors sharpened impossibly. Then, a faint echo pulsed from the cave entrance: high-pitched chirps, frantic wingbeats. A flock of giant dragonflies fleeing a shadow above the canopy. Marvin saw their panic *before* he heard it, witnessed their evasive maneuvers unfolding like slow-motion blueprints painted on reality. **Observation Haki**. His vision blurred momentarily, sharpened, anchored him impossibly within the intricate web of life surrounding this sacred place. Awe swallowed him whole.
The final glyphs showed Nika laughing amidst a throng of warriors and beasts—all frozen mid-roar, mid-lunge, mid-flight—their faces contorted in expressions of rapturous reverence. The carving pulsed with implied sound: a crashing wave of unified will. Beside it, his turtle guide bowed lower, its own glyphs flickering urgently. Understanding washed over Marvin—cold clarity beneath the joy. This was the culmination. **Conqueror's Haki**. The air crackled. Not with ozone, but with pure, oppressive *potential*. He stood taller, steam hissing faintly from his now-blackening fists. His grin softened, replaced by fierce, unwavering focus. This wasn't mere survival. It was inheritance. The drumbeat inside him swelled, resonant and undeniable, thrumming through the cave stone. He inhaled deeply, tasting freedom etched in millennia-old stone.
From the cave entrance, piercing sunlight vanished abruptly. Shadow fell thick and absolute. A crushing pressure blanketed the clearing outside—cold, alien, and utterly devoid of joy. The scent of scorched ozone vanished, replaced by sterile metal and decay. Marvin's Observation Haki screamed **DANGER**—a jagged shard of pure malice slicing through the jungle's natural rhythm. His turtle companion shuddered, a low growl rumbling in its chest. Glyphs flared crimson. Above the canopy, silhouetted against the bruised sky, three figures hovered. Their armour gleamed dully—pitted and scarred. Scouters glowed blood-red over eyes cold as vacuum. Recognition slammed into Marvin like a physical blow: Frieza Force. *Early*. Before Raditz. Before hope.
The lead soldier sneered, voice metallic through the scouter. "Primitive life signs. And… an anomaly." His scanner whirred, focusing on Marvin's steam-wreathed form. "Energy signature… chaotic. Worthless." He raised a hand, palm igniting with crackling violet energy. Below, Marvin's fist clenched impossibly tight. Obsidian-black Armament Haki surged upwards, coating his entire arm. The drumbeat roared *NOW*. He didn't leap. He *snapped* upwards—a living slingshot—tearing through the cave ceiling like paper-mâché. Stone rained down as he blurred past the hovering soldiers, stopping ten meters above them. Steam billowed in furious plumes. His eyes blazed white rings, locking onto their stunned faces.
A grin shattered Marvin's focused fury—wide, unhinged, and dripping with rubbery defiance. "Hey," he called, voice echoing across the canopy, absurdly cheerful amidst the tension. "Delivery for… Frieza!" His fist drew back slowly, impossibly, stretching kilometers behind him, coiling potential like a monstrous spring. The violet blast streaked towards him. Marvin didn't dodge. He laughed—a sound like shattering glass and chiming bells—and unleashed the coiled storm. "**GOMU GOMU NO…**" The world warped. Steam exploded. "*...KING KONG GUN!*" His fist slammed forward, not punching space, but *obliterating* it, trailing obsidian-black Haki and pure, world-bending liberation. The air screamed. The soldiers' eyes widened behind their scouters a nanosecond before impact.
The fist wasn't merely large. It was geological—a mountain forged from darkness and elastic fury, dwarfing their hovering forms like insects beneath a crashing comet. Armament Haki surged over its impossible surface, drinking the weak jungle light, transforming it into a weightless singularity of pure, crushing force. Sound vanished, replaced by the visceral *thrumm* of tearing reality. Then, impact. The violet blast vaporized instantly against the sheer mass and Authority-infused surface. The fist plowed through the soldiers' formation. Their armor didn't crumple—it disintegrated into metallic dust. Scouters shattered. Bone cracked like dry twigs beneath an avalanche. The shockwave ripped outward. Trees half a mile away snapped backwards. The mirrored pool below leaped upwards, slamming back down in muddy chaos. Silence descended, thick and shocked, punctuated only by the faint *hiss* of steam rising from Marvin's colossal, slowly retracting limb.
He descended lightly, landing amidst the settling dust and pulverized foliage where the soldiers had hovered. Wisps of oily smoke curled from scorched earth—all that remained of Frieza's advance scouts. His normal-sized fist dripped wisps of obsidian-black Haki, slowly fading. He surveyed the devastation. Cratered ground. Shattered trees. Utter annihilation. A low chuckle escaped him, echoing strangely. Not triumph. Disbelief. The sheer absurd scale of it—a delivery driver's fist, guided by pirate-god power, obliterating intergalactic killers. Below, the ancient turtle-creature emerged cautiously from the cave fissure. Its chartreuse eyes, wide with etched ancestors' memory, fixed on Marvin. Then, slowly, deliberately, it lowered its horned head again, deeper than before, a sigh whispering through its moss-draped plates. The glyphs upon its back pulsed—not amber, but pure, warm gold. Recognition. Confirmation. He was *Nika*. Not a wielder. The *source*.
From the shattered canopy above, a single, pristine capsule drifted down, landing silently amidst the wreckage—oval, gleaming chrome, impossibly untouched by the destruction. Bulma's logo—Capsule Corp—gleamed faintly. Marvin stared. The drumbeat in his chest surged—*thoom… thoom… thoom*—louder. Wilder. Synchronizing with the turtle's resonant hum. His grin returned, softer now, edged with terrifying possibility. The Frieza Force were early scouts. This capsule wasn't coincidence. It was a marker. A signpost in the void. His hand stretched out, impossibly long, plucking the capsule from the mud before it could vanish into the jungle's hungry dark. The jungle grew silent. Waiting. His adventure hadn't begun. It had just detonated.
Gravity seemed to warp around him. The capsule's cool chrome warmed against his rubbery palm. Frieza soldiers this deep? Impossible before Z's saga. Unless… Chronology fractured in his mind. Not Resurrection F's carnage—no Golden Frieza, no Super Saiyan Blue streaks painting the sky. Those were decades away. This felt… preordained. Primordial. A claw scrabbled at his thoughts: Galactic Patrol Whispers? Time Breakers meddling? Or Frieza's own paranoia hunting ancient legends like Namek's Dragon Balls… or *this* cave? The turtle-creature's glyphs pulsed gold beside him, illuminating a path deeper into the fissure. Dust motes danced in eerie patterns where the capsule pointed—westward. Toward mountains that scraped bruised heavens. Toward answers written in starlight and conquest.
Dread coiled cold in Marvin's gut. Before Raditz meant Piccolo Daimao's terror painted Earth crimson. But this capsule… this jungle… this drumming cave… Earth felt galaxies away. No towers choked the horizon. No cities pulsed with Capsule Corp pride. Just primordial wilderness echoing with cosmic drums. Perhaps this wasn't Earth at all. Perhaps Frieza's reach stretched further, earlier. His Observation Haki prickled—a phantom echo of violet blasts raining on villages unseen. Names surfaced: Planet Plant's agony. The Saiyan purge. Cold certainty settled. This wasn't Resurrection F's curated chaos. This was the *beginning* of Frieza's shadow stretching across the stars. Hunting treasures. Hunting power. Hunting… *him*.
His knuckles cracked. Obsidian-black Haki rippled up his forearms like living shadow. The turtle-creature nudged his leg—a gentle, insistent pressure toward the cave's humming depths. Frieza knew. Somehow. Scouts scoured forgotten worlds for sparks before they became flames. And Marvin? He wasn't a spark. He was a wildfire fused with liberation's sun. His laugh tore free—sharp, defiant, shredding the jungle's terrified hush. Let Frieza hunt. Let time unravel. He'd carve his own damn arc through the cosmos.
The chrome capsule weighed cool and dense in his palm. Bulma's logo gleamed—a tiny Earth-bound star in the gloom. But Bulma was years away. Decades. His fist clenched. Impossible. Unless… Time wasn't a river here. It was shattered glass. Fragments drifting. This capsule—sleek, untouched—felt older. Primordial. Older than Capsule Corp. Older than Bulma's brilliant smirk. It hummed faintly… vibrating in sync with the turtle's glyphs. Not a marker thrown carelessly… a seed planted deliberately. *Planted where?* Marvin's grin sharpened. One stretchy thumb jammed onto the activation button. ***HISS.*** Smoke erupted—thick, oily green… smelling of ozone and wet limestone. A folded printout drifted down: blocky alien text wrapping a holographic star-map projection. And beneath it—gleaming faintly cobalt under glyph-light—a single, thumb-sized Dragon Ball.
The turtle rumbled deep, chartreuse eyes fixed on the holographic map flickering above Marvin's palm. Seven pulsing dots glowed—one impossibly close… others scattered across continents. Jagged mountain ranges scarred the projection… but not Earth's Rockies or Himalayas. These peaks clawed upwards like shattered dragon spines beneath twin moons Marvin hadn't yet glimpsed. Rivers snaked molten crimson. Deserts glowed radioactive violet. This planet throbbed—wild, unstable… singing to Gear Fifth's chaotic rhythm. No oceans choked in Capsule Corp waste… no cities crawling with Nimbus riders. Just primal rock screaming beneath Frieza's shadow. Recognition hammered Marvin's ribs harder than King Kong Gun. Planet Vampa. Planet of exile. Of Broly's tortured screams. Of legends forged in savage dust… before Frieza stamped them out.
The Dragon Ball pulsed cobalt warmth against Marvin's calloused thumb. Not Earth. Never Earth. But Vampa? Perfect. Savage freedom suited Gear Fifth like shattered shackles. He'd find the other six. He'd summon Shenron right under Frieza's smug horned nose. And his wish? Sky's the limit. Maybe… a permanent pit stop in Luffy's crew? Or something wilder? The turtle nudged him again—westward. Toward mountains that scraped bruised heavens. Toward Broly's echoing roars… and Frieza's next pawns. Marvin stretched—arms elongating impossibly high, snagging thick vines dangling from the cavern's ceiling. His grin returned… wide, unhinged… dripping with cosmic audacity. *"Gomu Gomu no…"* The vines snapped taut. Steam hissed furious jets. *"...ROCKET!"* He *shot* skyward—a rubbery comet trailing cobalt starlight and planet-shaking laughter… leaving reverence, glyphs, and one ancient turtle sighing softly in his wake. Adventure? Strap in. Vampa played rough.