Another year passed by, and only more or less three years remained before the arrival of Radditz from the outer space.
Unexpectedly, Lapis and Lazuli didn't give up, even after crying out all the tears they could cry during the inhuman training under Tao Pai Pai. Now they were in the mountains, at the Crane School for their summer vacations.
Gero was now training under ten thousand time gravity but without mercuryfalls. His power level escalated to five hundred thousand just recently and he started over by repeating the basics once again, before switching to the basics under mercury, then switching to the advanced moves again, an endless cycle calculated to perfection, and adjusted if needed. But this time, unfortunately, he would have to stop the training for a while. Tomorrow, the space ship will be complete, and his ambition to get the fruits of the Tree of Might never waned.
And tomorrow arrived very quickly. The spaceship was made for maximum speed and didn't need any consumable fuel. The only storage space was big enough to store the fruits, while the command desk and energy sources would be the pilot himself. Yes, Gero needed just to lay down in the vessel, close it, and go, nothing else. It was min maxed for his use.
After saying good bye to C19 and Mai, the space jet flew at speed under the light in a straight line, continuously using scanners, he was hunting for any forms of advanced civilisation with spaceships, mapping moons, asteroids, stars, and planets allowing life. Gero travelled like that for over a month, and was continuously running simulations and calculations of ongoing projects, taking pictures after stoping in an interesting spot, like near the black holes that displayed various unique phenomenons. He was a space tourist, and the eternal void was his play ground now.
Finally after four other months of exploration, he found an advanced planet with space technology. He tried to hack in it's system and managed to fish the whole civilisation's data in one go, even the shady stuff from the governments and criminal organisations. His advanced cyber brain allowed him to learn the language and all the other information in mere minutes, and was surprised to discover that Kaja, this planet, was under the Milky Way Galaxy's hegemony, and thus was protected by the Galactic King and the Galactic Patrol. Trough the Galactic Patrol's terminals, he managed to hack into the Galactic Patrol HQ, which saved him half of a month of travel using the detailed space routes, that he was not aware of, that allowed some how to travel even faster than he was travelling right now. He even found how to get to Namek in more or less five weeks. However, there was a set back: there were a lot of space pirate related reports, but not any of then were describing a super sayien space pirate or anything named like Space Crusher Turles Army Corps. However, the Mercenary capital planet Fatoma coordinates were now known to him, and this is where he flew for the next six months.
He flew past multiple inhabited planets but he never stoped, as additionally to the Mercenary's headquarters. there were multiple arenas and the main planetary arena. Here he could earn some space Zeni (Blame Toriyama's imagination here, Gammets are from another fan fiction known as Dragon Ball GT, and Pol isn't official...) and get some reputation, that could maybe help him in the future.
"Unknown Ship, what's your business on Fatoma?"
"Fight in the arena." Replied Gero.
"You can dock in Bay 1540970-CNM. Please follow the signalisation." The operative said.
Tiny light markers lite up to guide Gero towards the parking spot, he didn't have to pay as if he died in the arena, by the rules, the government would become the new owner of the ship.
The ship would be left locked up, but if he needed to hire a maintenance crew, he would need to pay. Soon enough after docking, he was led in a mini vessel, which departed to the nearest arena to get registered as a fighter. The fighting scene was crazy on Fatoma, the fights happened non stop, and even special medication was purchasable if one wanted to watch fights for weeks without sleeping. It had severe after effects depending of the species, as it was developed for the natives species of Fatoma, the Fatomites, lizardmen with four arms, known for being belligerent. They weren't widespread and instead of colonising or subjugating planets, they were happy selling their elite forces for ridiculously huge amounts. However it was known as even Freezer's forces would think thrice before engaging them without the Ginyu force.
"Name..." Asked a bored Fatomite clerc, once it was finally Gero's turn. He queued for hours already, as a never ending sea of fighters queued for registration. He discovered something peculiar about the Fatomite culture: they liked queueing, just like the English. They even distributed pamphlets explaining how to queue properly!
"Dr. Gero." Said Gero.
"Species..."
"Child of the Machine God."
"Here's your ID, proceed forward, follow the lights... as soon the gates open you will join the free for all. The free for all even lasts for the next seven days, best of luck." Said the reptile like staying alive for seven days in a free for all nonstop was something normal. Participants were allowed to kill and it was even encouraged, and endure multiple days under this kind of pressure with your life at stake was truly brutal!
"And the Lit exploded! What brutality! And now cheer for the next wave of gladiators!" Yelled an excited MC, whose voice went trough the metallic door in front of Gero. And it opened. He flew in moderately slowly for what he could achieve, the planet was gigantic and it's gravity was thirty times the Earth's. No other fighter dared to fly under these circumstances, they visibly trained, having for goal to achieve fortune and fame of Fatoma, but who in the universe had a gravity training chamber? As soon the scanner's finished their job, meaning as Gero was three meters away from the gate he went trough, one could say it was over. He shot a Giga Dondon Pa in the air, that exploded two kilometres of altitude, and multiple rays of energy hit all the fighters in the arena.
"One shot! Glory! Three thousand killed in one go! This is Dr. Gero of the children of the Machine God!"
The whole arena erupted in a roar of cheer, it was just a tiny arena but there were millions of spectators, and awkwardly Gero mentally processed only now the numbers displayed by the scanners. He acted as soon he entered the fight and it was only now he could see himself the numbers, and admire the view. Even though, he was a bit disappointed that the strongest fighter was only at eighty thousand power level. But well, few people in the universe could boast they are five hundred thousand like him.
"Oh! Every one! Dr. Gero is very fortunate! Fatoma the seventh witnessed the one shot kill! Dr. Gero will head right now to arena number three for the Mortal Tournament!" Said the MC, and nearly afterwards a transport ship landed in the middle of the arena. And this is how Gero took a ride to the other side of the planet. He was credited ten million space Zeni for his very short performance, better than nothing.
Fatoma was really an ecumenopolis, the whole planet was the city. Exceptionally tall sky scrapers were everywhere, and from the data he obtained, they were now at the three thousand three hundred eight's level, the top one. The lower one went, the more ancient and poorer was the environment and population. The arena number three's entrance was a hundred floors down, but he was dropped into the arena directly, which saved him a lot of time.
"Here he is! The killer of thousands! One shot! Dr. Gero!"
If a few millions in the public was a lot, this arena housed billions of spectators. Drones were flying non stop, providing drinks and food, mini rides to the rest rooms, and diffusion of the fights that were happening in the other arenas were projected on demand to every spectator. The Fatomite culture was really over the top and fully invested in the consumerism.
"Take stage now, one shot killer! Who will prevail? Gero or Lord Karosh?"
And the public erupted once again. As he advanced to the middle of the arena, a Fatomite jumped out of the front spectator's sits.
"Shaaaaaaaah" Hissed the reptile before lunging towards Gero, there were no signal to fight, you got there and you fought to death, that were all the rules in this ongoing tournament.
Gero didn't wait long, and dashed right for a frontal jumping roundhouse kick. Not expecting this kind of speed from a non native fighter, who fought for the first time on the planet, Karosh had no choice but cross his four arms to block the kick. He wanted to flex up in front of the seventh prince who decided to bet in this arena, but he started to truly regret it at the impact. The kick broke his four arms and went trough his torso, he got penetrated like a piece of paper by a sharp knife. As Gero tore off the lizard's head for the sake of aura farming, the world around him shook from the vibrations, as the public roared because of the unexpected feat.
"Whose next?" Asked a smug Gero in Fatomite, presenting the head for all to see.