Going around the compound of the time nest was pretty easy. Sure, it was big but it didn't have much in it beside Chronoa´s house and the time vault. After they entered the time fault Chronoa turned to them both and placed her hand on her waist.
"Since you are now working with me. I got to tell you something important.", said Chronoa and started a conversation again. Her tone was actually serious even though her appearance made her look cute and comical sometimes, she does have her moments.
"The ring you threw to me on earth." She grabbed it out of her pocket and showed it to Darc and Arkis again. "Its called a time ring and only leading supreme kai or grand supreme kai of a universe are supposed to be able to use them or know about them. I didn't mention it first because you weren't supposed to know at first but now that you are here to help me, you deserve to know it."
She played around with the ring in her hands and materialized a box where she put the ring inside now.
"Time rings normally are only able to put someone forward in time to look at how certain planets develop in the future for example. That is to see if they are useful and positive for the universe or if they need to be destroyed to avoid catastrophe." She sighed after those words and her face became grim "Going back in time, on the other hand, is an immense crime. Especially if you influence that time. It becomes a time distortion and playing around with the time can result in terrible outcomes."
Arkis listened keenly and realized something about her words and the ones Darc told her. She thought about it and tried to not make it too obvious that she already knew something before she explained this. "You are telling us there is someone under our race that is actively using the time ring in the future to change the past and creating trouble? But how come the culprit could use the ring to go back in the first place. Shouldn't that be impossible with the time ring?", she asked her.
"That is not necessarily the case, Arkis. The culprit is not the one that needs to alter the timeline. Someone else could have already created a timeline in the past or future with a time machine for example...", started Darc to explain before Chronoa said anything and used Trunks as an example.
´Or maybe I should tell that our dear little time loli over here already ignored Bardock traveling back in time. So if she really wanted everything to be normal she could have done that already, but she has been smitten by his bad boy attitude and just let him be...´, thought Darc at the same time but then just threw that idea out of his head.
She would only ask where he knew that fact and he didn't bother telling any more than he needed. If Chronoa really would start investigating him she would know that he knew way too much.
Come to think about Bardock. They should be in one of his created timelines. Darc only needed to ask Vegeta or some other Saiyan if there is a legend about a Super Saiyan.
Continuing on with his words. "With all that, the law of time could get chaotic and vortexes like you saw prior could open up for various reasons until we find out what caused them. Judging from the demeanor that guy had and not knowing about us makes me doubt he wanted to land in our timeline but somehow still did land here.", answered Darc and had his own theory on that.
Arkis wanted to say something about the appearance of the villain at that moment but was interrupted by Chronoa.
"There is a future event that will split our timeline into four different ones. That is why there are five mirrors here in the time vault. Each represents its own timeline. One is our own. But all timeline somewhat were going into a good ending so we didn't bother changing them. They just became more work for us.", she told them with a deep sigh.
´Lying, are we? Well, it is somewhat of a truth, I guess´, thought Darc after her words and looked around only to frown shortly after. "What are you talking about, Chronoa. There are seven mirrors. Not only five...", interrupted Darc after seeing his thoughts were confirmed for some reason witht he amount of mirrors.
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"What!?", gasped Chronoa and turned around and counted the mirrors. "Oh no! This is bad. Why are there so many different new timelines and why are they all black? We can't look into the timelines and see why they were created! This is really bad! And just when I was gone for a while.", said Chronoa in a panicky voice.
Then she charged forth to each and every new mirror that was there and inspected all of them.
"Chronoa, there is a saying: whatever may go wrong, goes wrong. Looks like the time has gone into a more severe chaos than we thought. But we can still change them for the better even if they changed dramatically. They are different timelines after all and shouldn't affect our timeline yet..."
He stopped talking and paused to think about his own words.
"You got that authority, right? I mean the ability to time travel and changing things without creating new timelines. If not, I would wonder how you can even do your job otherwise.", asked Darc with an arched up brow now.
Chronoa sighed after hearing his words and calmed down. But she still couldn't shake of the feeling that this will have bigger consequences later on. "Yes, you are right. Where was my head? There are also time scroll for mortals to use for traveling in time without disturbing it too much. But if we don't know what changed and don't have a time scroll to that timeline, we won't be able to do much against those disturbances. I will have to investigate this. It will take some time. How about we postpone your training for now. Luckily the other timelines seem undamaged and stable just like you figured out. I will contact you as soon as I get news on this matter."
Darc only nodded "Its alright. Then I will keep myself busy with my other jobs. Just call me with your telepathy if something is the matter."
Then he looked over to Arkis. "Let's leave her for now. We should go back to our ship and pick it up and return home with it. While we travel let's push our training to the maximum. We need to become way stronger if we want to do anything later on. Especially with those new timelines. They give me the chills and I don't like it.", told Darc her and started moving out of the vault.
Arkis nodded and followed him outside. She finally could ask him what she wanted to ask. Darc also already knew that she had something on her mind.
"The guy that came back looked like Goku. You said he didn't want to get here but I can't really believe that.", said Arkis.
Darc sighed. "Let's keep that to us. I did tell you that already. And I did not lie about him being in the wrong timeline. He stole Goku his body because it is a special body. Do you remember? You noticed his physique right at the get-go."
Arkis nodded at his words.
"He is a Saiyan. He is not from earth but by circumstance was send to earth before his home planet was destroyed. Goku did lose his memory when he was a child so he won't remember any of this. But what makes the Saiyan race special is that their bodies get stronger after every near-death experience they go through. With that, the culprit would gain a remarkable body with unrivaled strength if he somehow manages to team up with another self from another timeline.", continued Darc on and stopped here.
"I see, but wouldnt our God of Destruction act?", asked Arkis.
"That also probably why he tried to search other timelines. A timeline where there is no God of Destruction for example. Anyway, let's stop here and move on. If the time comes I will explain it further."
She nodded and Darc placed a hand on her shoulder to teleport her and himself away.
-----
Arriving at the ship, the AI Alice immediately activated the lights.
+Welcome back, Darc and Arkis.+
"Yeah, its good to see you too, Alice. I hope everything was alright while we were gone?", asked Darc the AI.
+Everything was nominal. There were no dangers besides the explosion of the last planet.+
"Haha, yeah. That won't happen again. Now, Alice. Please set course to earth. We are going home. And prepare the training room. Its time Arkis and I start maxing out on the gravitation chamber. Where did we stop anyway?"
+Affirmative. Arrival at earth in 7 months. You both were at half the maximum output. At 250g+, replied Alice after checking the database.
"Alright, then let us get to it. You ready, Arkis? This time it's going to be real training. No glove any longer.", he asked her.
"I am always ready", she replied and smiled with a happy expression.
Darc also grinned now. "Oh, and Alice. Do send a message back to Bulma that we are on our way back."
+Affirmative. Message send.+
´Hmm, maybe I should still visit her every week or so...´, he pondered and nodded in confirmation.
After everything was said and done both Darc and Arkis started their training in the gravity chamber again.
And what they did first was to increase the gravity strain since last time. Both started to give their all and only used their base form to train. The was at least what Darc was trying to do since he was already stronger than her in his base form but he wondered how long that would be like that.