Dragon Ball Xenoverse -- Cosmic Castaway: The Heroes of Time Saga

Chapter 3: Into The Rifts

Roma had just settled into her covers and was drifting off to sleep when the rumbling began. It started as a slight vibration through her bed before crescendoing to bass and spiky trembling. Her eyes snapped open and she sat up, almost hitting her head on the bunk above her.

"Well, that can't be good," she said. That was when both her roommate's and her own Scouters started to beep.

The bright yellow legs of her roommate swung down from above as the Majin woman shuffled off her top bunk and landed on the floor with a slight thud. She dashed over to the dining table where the two Scouters had been left and tossed Roma's to her. Roma put it on and tapped the side, bringing up the emergency message:

CITY-WIDE EMERGENCY ALERT

— CODE RED —

ALL TIME PATROLLERS ASSEMBLE AT

THE DRAGON PEDESTAL

Roma traded a quick look with her Majin roommate and then she swept off the last of her sheets and made a dash for closet.

The rumbling was beginning to subside by now but was still present as a duller vibration as Roma pulled off the shorts and tank top she'd been wearing as nightclothes as well as trying to take off her regular bra and put on one of her sports bras. She heard the door to the bathroom slam shut; her roommate must have gone in there to change. Their apartment wasn't as cramped as Roma had thought it'd be but there were only a couple of places to have privacy and the two of them weren't quite comfortable enough with each other to be mostly undressed, even in an emergency.

Finally pulling the top of her standard issue armor on, Roma backed out of the closet and dashed over to the sliding door that led to the apartment's small balcony. Her roommate was already there, pushing open the door, allowing a flood of daylight into the room. Roma winced heavily against the blaze of light; one of the problems of living in Conton City was that it was always daytime. When you wanted to sleep, you went someplace like your assigned living quarters, darkened the windows, shut blinds and closed doors to get rid of as much light as possible and went to sleep.

Once most of the spots had cleared from her vision, Roma saw her roommate wave to her with a quick, "Be careful!" and launch off into the sky. Roma followed suit, the law against those without licenses flying around town not applying in this kind of emergency. At least she could fly now; a week had passed since she'd begun training with her new partner and that, combined with regular visits to the Conton City doctors meant that her control over her ki was, finally, starting to improve. She stopped short mid-air though when she saw what it was that was causing all of the rumbling. Floating mostly above the Central Plaza and Business District were five gigantic spherical time rifts! No wonder the city felt like it was caught in an earthquake; the instructors at the Academy had taught Roma and her fellow students all about the phenomenon that could occur around rifts and these were all about the size of a city block!

Roma landed lightly on the marble steps of the Dragon Ball Pedestal. This incident, occurring during what was "nighttime" for so many Patrollers, meant she was one of the first to arrive but was quickly joined by many more who were flying in from all over Conton.

Roma had been trying to sense where her partner's ki was and this caused her to look towards the center of the dais. Standing before the ornate receptacle for the Dragon Balls were Chronoa, Trunks, the Toki Toki City heroes Beat and Note and a few other patrollers, including her partner Ultka. He was standing next to Beat and Note and Roma realized that she had never been this close to the famed Heroes before. In fact the only time she'd seen them outside of pictures, videos and the holo-statue in the Central Plaza was at graduation. They were a pair of Saiyan teens, who had been only 15 when Trunks had summoned them to Toki Toki City a year or so ago. They were also a couple and thus, besides being the most famous Time Patrollers, were a source of endless gossip for groups like the Romance Rangers.