A Brief SI (Dragonball Bulma SI)

(Short because I typed this on an airplane. Spent basically 12 hours on one so too tired to fix it.)

There was a giant meteor.

It was going to crash into the city, which was probably a problem, like that one movie where Aerosmith sang some nice songs about.

But before that could happen, some caped bald guy jumped up and smashed it into a lot of little pieces, causing the debris to splatter all over the city like some celestial bukkake.

Lazuli groaned. “You have a way with words, Bulma.”

“Well, what would you call it?” I whined.

“Everything is on fire. I can't believe I have to be the one to say it, but you should have some pity on those poor sods!” She pointed at the wreckage spread across several blocks. It looked kind of like the ending of the first Avengers movie, where there was a lot of stuff burning and crushed due to some stuff that fell from the skies.

I pouted, “But it could be more on fire...”

Lazuli closed her eyes and counted to ten. Then she turned back towards me, “Didn't you say you wanted something from here? Well, what did you want?”

“Isn't that caped baldy interesting?” I pointed at him as he jogged comically away in his yellow suit that seemed to be a size too big for him. “Let's take it.”

“Bulma, that's a person.”

“You're right.”

“Oh, thank god—”

“But where do we find that much peanut butter?”

“—Oh my god!”

“What?”

“Why do you even want him?” She pressed a hand on her own impressive chest, “If you want someone who could do that, I could do that. You're talking about taking a human being, Bulma!”

I pouted and hugged her tenderly. “But you're already mine, Lazuli. Besides, I care about you! I wouldn't care if I cut that guy up! Oh, hey look, he has a friend! And that friend's a cyborg like you!”

That got her attention. “Wow, he's really obvious about it. Those are some impressively armed arms. Oh god, you've got me talking like you already.”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “Don't you know? Boys dig cannons.”

Lazuli turned to me and gripped my arms. She looked rather upset. “Bulma. Serious question. Do I have cannon arms?”

“... why would you want that?” I blinked.

“I don't want it. I want to know if you secretly put it in me,” She replied matter-of-factually.

“Don't you have energy blast—oh, we haven't even reached that point in time yet. Huh, that's kind of hard to keep track of.” I nodded to myself. I did a double take and gasped, “Wait, you don't want cannon arms?”

“Yeah, and you aren't making any sense,” Lazuli shook me.

“Y-y-you c-c-can s-s-still b-b-blow p-p-people u-u-up by touching—” I ducked and dodged her attempts to hold me accountable for not making her as cool as the stereotypical cyborg and slipped behind her. Then I held her in a Full Nelson! “—by touching people's pressure points.”

“What.” She gaped, but she was still struggling in my capable hands!

“Yeah, I took it from analysis of this guy from that one village with the penguins and stuff. It was supposed to be a parody, but you know, its got basis on the real thing, so you're programmed with Hokuto Shinken!” I deflected proudly. “Besides, I didn't put cannon arms in you, I just put rockets in you!”

“Oh my god.” She paused, her eyes glazing over slightly as she analyzed her internals. “Oh my god!”

“Yes, I am your god!” I puffed out my chest proudly, but seeing her distress, I tried to comfort her, “Look it's not even that intrusive, and besides, I didn't put rocket hands on you like that idiot Gero did to his robot not-son.”

Lazuli snapped out of it. “Wait, what? No, actually, don't tell me. Stop talking in tangents. Bulma, you made rockets propagate out of me from nothing...”

“What's wrong with that? It's cool,” I pouted.

“... from my chest! It looks like the rockets are coming out of my chest!” She yelled.

I pouted harder. “It's from your center of mass, so it was either that or from your hips.”

“That pouting isn't going to work on me,” Lazuli sighed. “Fine, I can see how rockets coming out from between my thighs could be worse. Do I really need all these different kinds of rockets? I feel like a very violent Doraemon.”

“I can't believe you know what Doraemon is,” I muttered under my breath.

“What was that?” She turned back to me.

I cleared my throat loudly, “Anyway, let's go meet that caped baldy!”

“I suppose I could test myself against that cyborg friend of his,” Lazuli sighed and stopped trying to escape me. She pounded her fists together, making a small shockwave. “Though, can we like, not kidnap people, please?”

I rolled my eyes, not that she'd see me do it from behind her, and nodded. “Fine, but I reserve the right to deck 'em in the nose.”

“Wait, but, you... No, Bulma. You're not a fighter!” Lazuli leaped out of my hands and floated above me in the air. “You don't have any augments! You didn't make yourself a cyborg!”

“I did make myself a cyborg, and that's you, remember? And I have tricks too! And protection! When getting in close and personal with a boy, always use protection, as Tights always say!” I smirked proudly and made a stance. Then I frowned, why did I even care what Tights said? “... And besides, what's he gonna do? Beat me in one punch?”

“Bulma, no.”

“Bulma, yes.”

“Is there something wrong with your head? Because I can slap it until it's fixed. I hear that's what they do with machines that malfunction,” Lazuli glared. She didn't seem very happy.

“Come on, come on!” I grabbed her hand in mine and skipped over, dragging her along. “Stop being such a worrywart, Lazzy! What's the worst that could happen?”

 

(Here, to make up for the silly snippet, I'ma end the arc.)

“... What just happened?” I blinked the stars out of my eyes.

Lazuli sighed, “You used a spell that basically froze time, which apparently you learned from some kind of green alien dog? You were gloating a lot and then the bald guy with the red cape punched you out.”

I shook myself and tried to get up, only failing and laying back flat on my back. The ceiling looked rather nice. I counted the tiles and noted that we were back home now. “How... how did he do that?”

“I don't know, he just punched,” Lazuli shrugged.

“B-but... you can't punch if you're frozen in time.” I tried to roll onto my side. I failed at that too and decided to just lay back for a while. “Also, ow. Everything hurts.”

“I told you not to do it,” Lazuli replied. “He didn't really say how he did it. I thought I could follow him, but after a while it became just his after image. Do you think he has some kind of ability to incrementally increase his power?”

I never thought I'd see this side of Lazuli—one that was curious and interested in dissecting her potential opponents. She honestly sounded like she was trying to study this bald, cape wearing specimen. I felt a strange warm feeling in my chest knowing that I had gotten her interested in learning. Maybe she was even interested in science, but I wasn't willing to push it.

Still, I smiled up at her and shrugged. “It's possible. Maybe we can have Yamcha try it out.”

Lazuli looked vaguely unhappy about it, but she nodded and scooted her chair closer to my bed. “So... I we didn't get your goo. I had to bring you back here, your protocols were very specific about it.”

“Mm. Yeah.” It had been a pretty long day too. I yawned, “But it's fine. I got it.”

“... wha? When?”

“While we were buying those anime discs.” I raised a wrist and showed her the modified version of the wristband personal device that I wore. From it, several small, tick-sized drones flew out. If it wasn't for the light and my focusing on the device, I wouldn't have seen it either. “Speaking of which, we should watch that Origins anime.”

“Ugh,” Lazuli rolled her eyes. “It's a weird show. Goku looks like a monkey and nothing like the kid in your database. And then when he grew up, he became a high school student. Muten Roshi has hair and looks like, what's that actor's name? Jackie Chun. And you... well...”

“Well, what?” I felt a sense of dread droop over my heart.

“Why don't you have a look yourself?” Lazuli took out her C-Phone and scrolled over to a scene.

The title played, 'Bloomers and the Monkey King'...

… A chubby little monkey started waxing poetically of all the martial art skills inherited...

… A Marilyn Monroe lookalike with blue hair jumped out of the flipped over car and shrieked daintily...

… then a two meter tall, muscular pig with a mohawk struck a pose, “I AM THE GREAT OOLONG!”...

I slapped the C-Phone out of Lazuli's hands. “Get that abomination away from me. I'm going to bed.”

Lazuli nodded and walked out of my bedroom. As an afterthought, she turned around at the door and added, “Oh yeah, you've been sleeping for a while so I just wanted you to know that today's the day of the tournament.”

I fell out of bed.

 

Yamcha had expected an old temple monastery filled with a crowd of people. That was what the previous World Martial Arts Tournament had looked like in the replays and videos on BriefTube. The location was still filled with people, that much was true, but it was something vastly different from the previous year.

The World Martial Arts Tournament took place on an island, which had its own, small airport and more than one harbor in the chain of islands that came with it. These islands did take a large portion of their economy from tourism, but much of this tourism wasn't from the tournament.

There were chocolate-color skinned girls, whom Yamcha had never seen before in his lifetime, dressed in the skirts made of long leaves and tops made from local coconut shells and wearing necklaces of flowers dancing about. There were people juggling and blowing fire into the air and performing all sorts of the local traditions. There were film festivals and beauty pageants too. There was, of course, also the many sugar plantations along these island chains.

He had taken time to play the part of a tourist before the tournament, already knowing in his head that he wasn't here to win, but to learn and to experience more of the world he had so long ignored.

Yamcha had thought he had not seen much of the world, but after this past week of traveling from island to island, climbing mountains to see natural wind tunnels and deep diving to peek at coral reefs, he felt vindicated but also so very small. There was so much more than he could have imagined in the world and if he had just dedicated himself to training or living a luxurious life of a sports star drowned in cocaine and hookers and blackjack, he would not have seen any of this. Not for the first time, he thanked Bulma for bringing him out of his shell, and then he shuddered just thinking about her.

“Whacha thinking about Yamcha?” Puar asked beside him. They had grown closer over the past months, though his kitten still couldn't get a read on him at times. She had taken to training with him sometimes after they had gotten into dangerous scraps that nearly ended their lives. Dinosaurs and undead littered the parts of the world without civilization, and they were all a part of the 'problem' that he as a 'problem solver' had to face.

He didn't turn to Puar, merely petting her as she sat down on his shoulder. “Just how majestic this place is.”

And it was.

The monastery was still there at the foot of the mountain, but a larger, monolithic structure had been raised above it, covering the entire mountain. It was almost Gothic in design, yet with the East Asian reverence to statues of ancient gods of storms and lightning and other elements, a very image of the a cathedral dedicated to the pursuit of martial arts... if it had not been made of steel and glass. It was an unholy mix between such a massive, modern skyscraper and an ancient temple, and it left Yamcha breathless in awe.

He couldn't comprehend the power and time it must have taken to raise such a towering colossus. And that was where he was going to fight? A shiver ran down his spine in anticipation. He felt, well, to be honest... honored. It was a feeling of, despite being made to feel insignificant, being a part of something massive.

“Well, we should register soon. You never know how long they'll wait, right?” Puar said on his shoulder. She was also craning her neck up just to see the top of the building, which had what seemed like a hundred different viewing screens flashing with different ways to say welcome at the same time.

“If we could get through this crowd,” Yamcha replied with a thin grin.

The crowds were massive here, much more than the previous tournaments led him to believe. Perhaps it was because news had spread that this year's award was—instead of just 500,000 zeni—a grant of 500,000,000 zeni plus an entire private island to build and fund a dojo to the winner's style. Or perhaps, unlike the previous events, this time there were many layers and levels to the event.

Rather than having everyone stand at the same level, even the area outside of the main structure was tiered with a dozen floors and spaces. Of course, many of these spaces were also ports for airships to land at, and that alone had brought a sense of mystique to the location. Yamcha had been to several cities by now, but not one of them had been designed for private air travel to be a part of the city planning. It boggled his mind to even contemplate what it must have taken to have created this island as it was.

As he reached the entrance, he saw a large screen displaying a pretty redhead with fox ears sitting at a desk like one of those shows that analyzed his baseball plays. He hadn't thought martial arts—the art of fighting and stealing and killing—had this sort of play-by-play commentary though. Then their words filtered from his ears to his brain, “And welcome back to the coverage of Capsule Corp's World Martial Arts Tournament, brought to you by Capsule Corp and the delicious drink of Hetap, a Capsule Company, I'm your host, Koto and—”

Yamcha turned to Puar. “Just when I thought I was free... I guess freedom is just an illusion...”

Puar turned to him and petted his head. “It's okay Yamcha, it's not like Bulma's right here, right?”

“Hey, Yamcha! I see you've arrived at the Tournament!” Bulma's voice suddenly called out.

They jumped and looked around, but they couldn't see any blue haired girl.

“Down here, I'm talking to you through your wrist device,” She said, as if actually watching them from some place. “Yeah, I'm watching you through the cameras. Don't bother trying to find them though, I have them everywhere.”

“Oh, um, hello Bulma,” Yamcha replied cautiously. “Are you attending as well?”

“Nah,” She replied, filling his heart with relief. Then it was dashed away. “Well, not right now. I'll go soon. I see you've been working on your skills, very nice. Slightly stronger, slightly higher chi, and oh, is that a new skill you made from fighting undead zombies? Neat. Anyway, I gotta give you something and tell you something.”

Something stun Yamcha in the back of the neck. He winced and slapped at it, only to find it was some kind of tick-like bug, but it was sparking with electricity. “... Is this yours? Sorry if, um...”

“Don't worry about it,” Bulma's digital voice replied casually. “I just injected you with some stuff, but it'll take like three years before it can take effect. Let's call it Hot Blood if you must call it something. You gotta, hm... let me see my notes. Ah, right. You gotta do a hundred push ups, set ups, squats and run ten kilometers every single day. Oh, and never use air conditioning... I'll just make all the air conditioning turn off the moment you walk into the room from now on, for three years. Right, you'll be fine otherwise.”

“... Why?” Yamcha boggled. She could do that? That's... well, that sounded insane. Why did she even wish to be a princess?

“Think of it as training! But if you must, then do it, or else I'll come find you!” She replied as if she had not just said she could control all of the electronics in the world somehow through her techno-magistry that Yamcha had no understanding of. “Gotta go, seeya there!”

“This couldn't have waited until after my vacation?” Yamcha groaned. “Aaand she's not listening anymore.”

“I'm always listening.”

“A... a... always?”

“Yes, Yamcha,” She paused. “And you should be ashamed. Bulma out.”

“... Hey Puar?” Yamcha muttered after a few minutes of relative silence in the crowded entrance hall to Puar. They sat there on a bench, watching the tens of thousands of people milling about, and feeling lost.

“Yes, Lord Yamcha?” She whimpered.

“This world is really scary,” He muttered.

“Yes, Lord Yamcha.” She nodded.

 

As Tien Shinhan finished his registration paperwork, he sneered at the people behind him. They were hobbyists and enthusiasts. They joked and joshed in line as if this was merely a social gathering and not a matter of pride. They were not true martial artists.

Tien Shinhan's lips twisted with a soundless growl before he caught himself and schooled his features into an expressionless mask. They only grew into martial arts. He was born into it. He was raised by it.

The furnace of hatred that burned within the pits of his stomach were lit from his first memory.

His first memories were of being tossed about by Master Shen. He was taught many skills, and they all came with one simple lesson: only through hardship could he grow. Tien Shinhan had learned at an early age that this was a world where the strong ruled and the weak knelt. Every scar, every drop of sweat and tears, and every wound he suffered were to grow into the disciple that Master Shen wanted.

Tien did not allow those early memories mar his face anymore. This was not the time, and he knew such an act of defiance would only earn him beatings later from Master Shen.

After his fellow disciple, brother Chiaotzu, had finished registration, they nodded to each other and approached their teacher. “Master Shen, we have finished registration. Shall we return to the hotel until the date of the preliminary rounds?”

Master Shen was a thin, wrinkled man with bony fingers and a crone-like back. His hair was white, but he had dyed it grey, thinking dying it black was too pretentious but keeping it white was showing his age. These were the small, petty aspects of the great teacher that puzzled Tien. It was hard to see the powerful man hidden in this shadow, but it was a facade that his teacher indulged in. Though, if what Tien Shinhan had learned was true, his master had conquered the secrets of longevity and had lived for hundreds of years already. Master Shen did not bother hiding he knew what Tien Shinhan was thinking, he merely smirked.

There was an odd, elder style to Master Shen's wardrobe that puzzled Tien Shinhan. He still wore the robes of the ancient martial artists from a time before the proliferation of technology. Yet while he was devious in hiding his intents from his prey, Master Shen never hid his Crane School from view, holding it proudly on his chest like an emblem. Even his headgear was the shape of a small crane, with his hair styled back like wings.

Perhaps when all martial artists rose to a certain level of knowledge and power, they would gain quirks, Tien mused.

“No,” Master Shen was abrupt in his wording, which was rare in Tien's experience. He was frowning and stroking his chin, and not quite paying attention to his surroundings. Tien thought perhaps this was just an illusion to trick him and any others paying attention to his master into a false sense of security. It was hard to tell.

“Master?” Chiaotzu was younger than Tien, thus he was more belligerent and naive. He would openly question their teacher like this, but only when he did not realize what he was doing.

Chiaotzu was a spectacle onto himself at this gathering of freaks, monsters, martial artists and common rabble—being like a little doll and floating midair. He had the wear of an ancient prince; it was a formal robe that he had rarely had the opportunity to wear.

But then again, this was a rather formal occasion.

“We will be meeting the host of this event, apparently,” Master Shen drawled and trailed off, snapping back into focus and strolling leisurely towards the elevators.

“Master, we don't need to use biased referees to win,” Tien spoke out, realizing what tactic Master Shen was intending. “I can defeat any comers. None of them can even use chi.”

He had the distinct feeling that he had overstepped, but when their teacher turned to them, he merely rolled his eyes. Well, Tien Shinhan thought their teacher did; Master Shen wore thick rimmed wayfarer sunglasses, so it was difficult to read his expressions at all. “We have been... cordially... invited to a gathering. Now come, I understand the last bit will have some security.”

And it did; by the time the elevator door opened to the top floor, Tien Shinhan saw what must have been dozens of men in uniform. They did not ear any symbols for the monks of the World Martial Arts Tournament nor were they employees of the Capsule Corporation. These were professionals donning only tuxedos, fedoras, and sunglasses—all black except for their white tie. It made them difficult to see on this floor nearly entirely made of polished black granite, with architecture of strange, non-euclidean shapes and sizes, and pillars that seemed to move whenever his eyes weren't on them.

None of them reacted to Tien's group arriving on this floor, but he felt hundreds of stares on him. It made him feel naked with so many prying eyes. This was an empty lobby otherwise, despite the still towering architecture... that belied more floors hidden above. However, Tien Shinhan's focus and attention was on these men and women in black tuxedos, because the more he studied them, the more he realized that there were many of their number hidden amongst this island.

They were watching him since he had arrived. He found it difficult to comprehend, but he could only excuse himself by pondering on their cold postures. It was as if they were machines, with how little they moved. He couldn't even tell if they were breathing.

Master Shen scratched the corner of his mouth and frowned. “Hm. It seems like we are in need of directions. Go, get a guide,” he commanded.

Chiaotzu was quicker and more eager to take action. He floated up to a nondescript uniformed man in the similar black tuxedos as the others on this floor. “Hey, hey you. Listen! Hey!”

“Yes, Prince-Emperor Chiaotzu?” The man's neck turned ninety degrees to face Tien's junior disciple brother. “How can I help you?”

“Yeah, how come there's no one else here?” Chiaotzu asked, rather than asking directions. Perhaps this was why Master Shen allowed Chiaotzu a degree of freedom with words; he was always asking questions that their teacher also might wish to know the answer to.

“If they are not invited, the button to this floor is not visible to them on the elevator,” the man in black replied. He tilted his head. “Are you in need of directions to the conference?”

“No,” Master Shen interrupted. “I think we'd like a place to rest and some refreshments, if that's fine with our host.” It was not a request.

The man nodded and motioned towards an outer edge of the floor lobby, where the strange geometry was least visible, beside a giant window with a balcony looking over the entire island.

From the black marble floor, a table rose, twisting and turning into shape.

Then a girl, also in a black tuxedo, walked over carrying a tray of china cups and a matching kettle with steaming tea. This puzzled Tien the most, because the tea smelled awfully familiar.

Tien was not the only one to notice.

Master Shen was not smiling when he remarked, “Ah, Red Robe Tea. I had not told anyone this was my favorite. Very nice. It is only raised in a single village in the mountains too.”

“Master? What's so special about this tea?” Chiaotzu asked.

“Hmph,” Master Shen sat down and began sampling the tea, and only then did he allow his students to also take a seat. “It's a long story, but we have time. This village was burned down two hundred years ago, student. I burned it down.”

“Oh,” Chiaotzu's eyes were wide.

“Yes, and it was because I didn't want to share. It was cultivated by one specific clan of martial artist tea herbalists. I slaughtered each one down to the last member.” Master Shen added, as if talking about how the clouds were especially white today. He turned to the lady who had brought over the tea. “How, then, I wonder, do you have this tea?”

Even Chiaotzu knew it was a rhetorical question. Master Shen did not want to know the answer, because there could be no face-giving answers. Any answer given would only lead to more questions.

The lady merely smiled and bowed low. “We are happy you are enjoying the refreshments. Please call my associate if you need anything else.”

Then she left.

Tien Shinhan stared after the woman, her movements robotic and silent. She, like her associates, all glided across the lobby as if they weren't there. He couldn't even hear the sound of her body displacing the air as she moved.

It surprised him, but it also frightened and excited him. He turned to Master Shen with a shaking but growing grin. “Master, perhaps I will not spend this tournament dully curbstomping every opponent.”

Master Shen too had leaned back as if he was too occupied with his tea to truly pay attention. But a grim perversion of a shark-like smirk erupted on his face and his body emitted a bloody aura that cast a shadow on the blackness around them, “Yes, this has become rather interesting, hasn't it? Now take care and lower your presence, and let us see who will also arrive... I have a feeling that I will meet an old acquaintance...”

“... I hate old acquaintances.”

 

“Lord Yamcha?” A stern faced man in a black tuxedo approached him. Yamcha couldn't see the man's eyes through his sunglasses, and that made him nervous. He didn't like it when he couldn't see a person's eyes; it made those people seem like they weren't human in his mind.

“Yes?” He asked after taking a drag of his cigarette. It was a bad habit he had picked up recently. The little spent stick of tobacco was one of the many little, inane things that helped him forget. He threw the faggot on the dirt and grounded it down.

The uniformed man in black stared at him for a moment unnervingly. Then he extended a hand, “Miss Briefs wishes to see you now.”

“I... see.” He like he was falling down a dark pit, each day there was less light. In a way, Yamcha was already resigned to this fate, he couldn't bring himself to fight it. So he grabbed Puar and asked, “Where does she want me?”

“If you'll follow me?” The man turned about without waiting for Yamcha's answer.

Well, Yamcha knew his own answer before he heard the question too.

With shaky fingers, he pulled out his packet and tapped the little box on the end twice. Another cigarette butt peeked out. He raised it to his lips and flicked his fingers, making a spark from his inner strength.

The climb was long and silent, with only their footsteps and the occasional puff of smoke to punctuate in between. It felt like forever, climbing these marble steps... like he was ascending to heaven. But Yamcha had no wish to die just yet.

They finally arrived onto a floor that was utterly glassy and white, so much so that it seemed like every part of it glowed. The whole of it seemed contradictory to the theme of the tournament. Yamcha felt there was something futuristic about the place.

And it was empty.

Their guide motioned to a wall, which opened up with a sharp ding. It looked like a round elevator made of glass. “Please.”

Yamcha walked in and paused when their guide didn't. “You aren't joining us?”

“No,” the man replied simply.

Then the door closed.

The elevator rose at a rate Yamcha couldn't feel, but his ears popped and felt similar to how his first trip on an airplane made him feel. He was nauseated and dizzy.

Ding.

The door opened, and who was it but Bulma Briefs herself.

She was dressed in a simple, white cardigan with black sleeves and black collars, a stylized Capsule Corporation logo made up of each of its buttons. Under that, she wore the same black body suit she had shown him last time they met, though she was wearing short shorts over that and for some odd reason she was wearing light-up sneakers that, while similar in color, did not match up with the sort of boutique and rich elegance of the rest of her cloths.

Bulma saw him stare too, to which she pouted and immediately crossed her arms. “What? I can wear whatever I want! Light up sneakers are cool!”

Resisting the urge to call her a nerd, Yamcha sighed and scratched the back of his head, turning his vision anywhere but to Bulma. “Sorry. What was it that you wanted to see me about?”

“Eh,” She shrugged. “You're a... witness. Yeah. Come, follow me, stand behind me, and don't say anything. Also, give me Puar.”

“What are you going to do with Puar?” Yamcha's eyes narrowed and he placed a protective hand over his kitty.

Bulma rolled her eyes at him, and spoke as if she were speaking to a child. “Nothing, I want her to sit on my lap. It fits the whole evil genius theme I'm going for today. Look, at least I didn't order McDonald's for everyone to compliment their meal. Anyway, gimme gimme!”

“Yamcha, I'll be fine,” Puar said, though she was shivering.

Reluctantly, Yamcha handed over his oldest friend, knowing that there was nothing he could do. He hated himself for being weak, though he could never bring himself to hate Bulma. He owed her too much.

And that just made him hate himself even more.

They walked down a brightly lit corridor, to a glamorously furnished conference room. At the center of the room was a domineering round table that had room for ten parties. There were already several people seated, though their identities shocked and confused him... what kind of meeting was taking place here?

Yamcha only recognized some of the people here, and each one was a personage greater than he.

At one end of the table, there was Muten Roshi, sitting leisurely and playing with a Capsule Tablet, one of those new, larger touch screen computers that Capsule Corporation had announced to celebrate the World Martial Arts Tournament. There was a perverted grin on the old man's face, and he was drooling a little. If it was just this, however, Yamcha would have glossed over him; the old master was also emitting a thin aura of energy that was vaguely visible to the naked eye. Beside him a bald boy stood stiffly as if he were as frightened of this room as Yamcha was.

Next to Muten Roshi's small group were the Ox King and his daughter, along with one other dignitary that Yamcha recognize as a fellow warlord that the Ox King had conquered some years ago. They were all armed, and their muscles twitched, as if ready to leap into action at a moment's notice.

The only other person Yamcha could recognize by name was at the other end of the table. This was a man that everyone in the world knew: President King Furry. President Furry was a blue furred dog with a white mustache, and he was the president of most of the world. Behind this man with the most political power in the world was his bodyguards and an aide who was whispering in his ear.

When Yamcha walked in after Bulma, President Furry turned to him immediately. The pressure of the man's stare caused Yamcha's heart to skip.

He turned away from the President's gaze immediately.

There were others in the room, but Yamcha did not recognize them. He did note that one of the parties was a group of people all wearing the Red Ribbon Army symbol, but he didn't know enough about the powerful entity's leadership to be able to name their names.

What were these people all doing here? Yamcha wanted to ask, but Puar was in Bulma's lap now. He could only walk stiffly behind her, trying to keep up and trying not to piss himself. Each of the people in this room had enough power at their fingertips to change the world. It wasn't like the joke of an education that was taught in the high school Yamcha attended, which taught that if each student worked hard enough, they could accomplish their dreams and change the world.

That was a sack of dinosaur shit.

But Yamcha knew, each person here was capable of reshaping the world with a few simple words.

He also knew that they were possibly the most powerful people in the world, either on their own or through the groups they represent. He wanted nothing more than to turn around and run out of the room right now, but he couldn't. Not with all these eyes on him, as the room quieted down after Bulma strolled in as if she owned the place.

… As if she owned the place.

Yamcha's eyes widened a fraction and his feet felt frozen on the spot. He swallowed thickly and clamped down on his emotions. With wobbling hands, he tried to reach for his cigarette, only for it to fall onto the floor.

A man wearing a crane-themed uniform who sat at the center of the group beside Muten Roshi's group look up at Yamcha the moment his cigarette dropped to the floor. His voice was like nails to a chalkboard, “Hmm... youngsters shouldn't ruin their bodies like this, but what do I know? I'm not the Turtle Hermit.”

One of his students, a boy with three eyes, noticed Yamcha watching their group and returned the stare. As if to speak without words, the three-eyed boy turned his chin upwards and sneered down at Yamcha.

Before Yamcha could formulate a response, Bulma walked up to the head seat and plopped down with her feet on the table. Then she started audible counting, “Roshi? Ox King? Red Ribbon? Wheelo? Furry? Shen? Pilaf? Garlic Jr.? Lazuli? ... yeah, I think everyone's here, we can start now. By the way, Yamcha don't smoke in here, I don't like the smell.”

Yamcha swore from that moment on that he would never quit smoking.

 

(Haha, I got really carried away with this time, so I guess we're going off the rails of what I planned.)

“Welcome to everyone at the table,” Bulma Briefs clapped her hands in childish giddiness. She smiled naively, like a civilian who had never faced true combat and hardship. Tien Shinhan knew she was born into luxury and inherited everything she had. Her words meant little to him, though her possessions meant something. “I would like to first thank the Men in Black and their representative to this event, Miss Lazuli, for providing security. I am Bulma Briefs, representing Capsule Corporation and its subsidiaries.”

She nodded towards a woman beside her, who couldn't be much older. But there was something colder in that woman than human. She wore the same black tuxedo and black sunglasses as the other creatures below, only she had no hat and her gloved hands were folded before her as if she were a good student in school.

“What have you gathered us here for, little girl?” A blue demon with the body of a child asked. He was backed by three larger, muscular demons of a similar race, but they seemed to quiver whenever his attention seemed like it might turn to them. “What makes you think you can even call upon me?”

“Eh hehehe! I know why I came here!” Muten Roshi interrupted immediately, placing the tablet he was fiddling with onto the table and showing everyone that he had been watching a muted video of some televised aerobics course, with instructors with especially wide thighs. Of course, it was practically softcore pornography.

Tien Shinhan couldn't quite believe it, though he did turn away as his face grew hot. This was the master's fellow disciple? “Master, are you sure this is Roshi?”

“He is Master Roshi, and don't you forget it,” Master Shen turned to Tien, causing his heart to skip a beat.

“O-Of course, Master Shen,” Tien stuttered.

“That is better. That... is... better...” Master Shen leaned back, releasing the tension that had been held between them.

Throughout this exchange, Bulma Briefs did not make a fuss nor did she even react. She sat back and allowed a small smile to grace her face. It was only then that Tien Shinhan noticed that the blue haired girl—who couldn't have been older than him—was the only one in the room without anyone behind her.

She didn't even spare Tien Shinhan a look... and this galled him more than he'd like to admit. What made her feel so confident, so special, that she thought she could ignore Tien Shinhan?

She stood and answered the elfish demon child, “Garlic, son of Garlic. You have been on Earth long enough to call it home. This... congress... concerns the fate of this planet, yet do you see Kami here?”

Garlic's teal, squat face twisted as if to unleash an overwhelming pent up blood lust. For a fraction of a second, even Tien Shinhan felt like he could not breath, like he had been held within the grasp of a giant, unyielding fist that slowly crushed him into paste. But then the small demon smiled, and all the wrinkles along the edge of his eyes and the corners of his lips creased visible. His voice was unreasonably high pitched, yet with an undertone of what must have been insanity. “Very well. You know things. I wonder, is that enough, little mortal? Hm... call me Garlic Junior... but I am interested and I shall stay and watch.”

Tien hated to admit that he didn't want the interests of this demon. Beings like these, they had no reason to coexist with other earthlings, and all they did was indulge in their insane urges... and now Tien discretely looked around the room, wondering if the rest were the same.

Then a robot stood from out of the corners of Tien Shinhan's eyes. It was a grotesque monstrosity of rusting, black metal, with twisting spikes and screeching, mechanical gears, yet there was power in its motions, as if a simple twitch would cause it to collapse this entire building on their heads. Behind the robot stood monsters of varying shapes and sizes, each more disgusting in physic, smells, and behavior than the last.

Yet it was the robot that was the most upsetting of them all, for at its head was a giant tank where a brain the size of a golden retriever sat, bubbling in its embalming fluids and pulsing in wet, squishing sounds with visible arteries of purplish blood throbbing all over the exterior.

And perhaps what was most off putting was the robot's voice, the voice of a sophisticated man, that echoed through the conference hall. It was the voice of an educated man, perhaps even a teacher as insidious and cunning as Master Shen.

“I am Professor Johnathan Wheelo, surgeon, head researcher and the new dean of Miskatonic Mastiffchusetts Institute of Technology. You may call us The Institute, if that suits you better.” It made to make a gesture similar to a low, regal bow with one hand over its 'chest', only the sounds of twisting metal made it seem all the more awkward. “Please—”

“Johnathan Wheelo? Didn't you disappear some forty years ago?” A balding old man interrupted him. It seemed like this old man was a simple scientist in a white laboratory coat, but on his chest was the logo of the Red Ribbon Army.

The robot waved its hands—almost as if it weren't used to using its robotic body. “Yes, well, there were some mishaps, but thankfully, things were cleared up and now I represent a coalition of unaffiliated scientists, Doctor Gero.”

“Ah,” the old man smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. “You know of me.”

He did not speak like he was asking a question. And yet, there was a feeling of pride in the old man.

“Hmph. Yes, I've been going over the reports. Your Red Ribbon Army took quite a few of our number to be your personal... interns. How disgraceful.” If a robot body could scoff, it just did. “If not for this location being stated as neutral grounds in our invitations, I would have torn you limb from limb.”

As if to accent the Professor's disgruntled speech, the monsters behind him roared in animalistic and undecipherable rage.

“Okay, settle down,” The blue-haired girl clapped twice so loudly that Tien's ears rang. It happened so suddenly and so unexpectedly that everyone stopped what they were doing.

He watched her, only now reminded of Bulma Briefs being an inventor of some renown—her unkempt behavior had thrown him off into thinking her just another teenage girl. It was clear he was wrong about this, but Tien knew himself well; he would admit he was wrong... as long as no one knew he admitted it.

“So there are two key agendas on the table today. I think the more important one is the one we ought to discuss first, which I hope we can come to an agreement and then we'd be able to make this a regular gathering,” She smirked toothily.

“World councils have been attempted before,” President King Furry spoke up at last. He technically held the most military, economic, and industrial might at the table and his voice was perhaps the most influential, but he was constrained by bureaucracy. He held little true power, he couldn't act as he wished, and every action he wanted to make had to go through his Diet of senators.

That, and Tien knew the old dog was just a regular person. Tien could literally kill this old fool any time he wished...

… but the old man had a point.

World councils had been attempted before.

All of them ended in failure, which was why the vast majority of the world was under the powers of kings and emperors once more. And even if there was a council, a single supernatural being could end it.

Too many of those happened; Master Shen was one such supernatural power, and Tien Shinhan had little doubt there were others, not even present at the table here. He felt himself standing, because he wished to prove his worth to his teacher, and because if Bulma could lead this meeting, why couldn't he have input? Wasn't he better than this girl in nearly every way?

“Yes, not a single one of these councils even had true power. Why should anyone present yield to a powerless entity?” Tien Shinhan smirked proudly; Master Shen had taught him more than just martial arts. If fighting could be won with words, if he could turn allies against each other, why wouldn't he do it? Tien puffed his chest out and looked down on the naive girl, “Democracies are worthless. The strong eat the weak, that is the way of this world. If you don't have the power of martial artists and demons, then all you have are silly armies of toy soldiers. And toy soldiers... break easily.”

“Don't be so quick to start a fight, Tien Shinhan,” Bulma replied immediately. She was still smiling, with such confidence. It made Tien Shinhan want to wipe that grin off her face... he wanted to defeat her, to dominate this little jumped up tinker. “The first order of business is to examine the consequences of if any one party at this table were to fight against another one here. I think we all know what that could end up as.”

The stoic Ox King finally spoke, “You are speaking of a conflict that will engulf the world.”

“And what is this buffoon doing here?” Doctor Gero sneered, “He's a king without a kingdom. This 'Ox King' is barely more than a warlord with a small army... I refuse to believe he is on par with my Red Ribbon Army.”

“I am not alone, Doctor Gero. While I am here, I can speak for many warlords of the world,” the Ox King replied evenly.

The old doctor smirked and postured, “Ah, yes. More of these 'warlords'? Each a tiny, third-world nation on their own? Aren't you what this little girl wants to make in the first place?”

“There is a difference, Doctor Gero,” Bulma interrupted.

“Then enlighten me, girl,” Gero sneered.

Beside him, a short, stout man with flaming-red hair and an intimidating eye-patch grabbed Gero by the sleeve and whispered a few harsh words into Gero's ear.

Doctor Gero looked like he swallowed a lemon, but he nodded and wordlessly sat down, fuming.

“... As I was saying, the purpose of the warlords' alliance is to give these smaller nations a voice that could be taken seriously. They nominally yield their authority to their current representative, the Ox King, due to the need to have a greater impact upon the world and the be able to compete with other powers. However, due to this, there is a great deal of bickering and individual interests are often placed ahead of the interests of the group entity, as there is no group identity to truly bind them together.” Bulma waved her hands, and floating holograms flew into the air as solid light constructs.

At the center of the room, a global spun slowly with small, red specks scattered all over it. These were the member states of this warlords' alliance, Tien realized.

From the way the Ox King's lips sealed tightly, Tien knew the girl was poking at a sore spot.

Bulma nodded and continued, “Seeing as this group is already on the verge of dismantling, you might question what right do they have as a whole to be at this table? That is because there are greater threats than neighboring kingdoms... but I will get to that in a moment. The purpose of council is less to decide a way to rule Earth and more to decide... an accord, let's say. A way so that we can interact without destroying the Earth, our home. A way to settle disagreements... a set of rules and etiquette, as well as to lay the ground works so that we can have a unified identity.”

“And what identity is that, girlie? You're a human girl. You'll live, what, another hundred years at best? You are mortal, fragile, and you break from the slightest touch. I am a demon and the antithesis of what you humans believe in.” Garlic Junior stood, his voice slowly growing deeper and darker as his skin changed from what looked like smooth baby's skin to a slightly scaly hide of a blackish hue.

His body grew, ripping his white robes to shreds and leaving only a muscular form that was larger and thicker than even Master Shen at his best. The lights in the room dimmed and the table shook.

“Well, girl?” Garlic Junior leaned close to their host, his black breath only inches away from her face. He cackled madly, “How can we be alike? How can you get me to care about the puny earthlings?”

Somehow, Bulma Briefs had the gall to examine her nails. “You were raised on Earth.”

Garlic Junior's laugh echoed through the halls, even the birds outside were shaken. “So? Is that the best you can do? Maybe I should just kill everyone here and take over the world right now!”

“You wouldn't,” Bulma replied, standing up and walked up to the demon who was now more than twice her height.

“And why not?” Tien knew this was a pivotal moment... if Bulma did not give a satisfactory answer, the chi being built up in Garlic Junior's body could kill her. More than that, there was enough power pent up in his torso that even if he were the most novice of practitioners, he could explode outwards and wipe clean this entire room.

“Simple... you hate Kami.” She stood. “You despise him. You want to kill him.”

The room was silent, reeling. Kami?

God?

These were people of power, megalomaniacs the whole lot of them, but even if they weren't and they were actually sane like Tien, Tien knew none of them believed in God. There was no God, no good or evil, only power in this world.

“But you don't, you can't. Not yet, and perhaps not ever.” Bulma turned away from Garlic Junior, and sat on the edge of the table. “You'll want to trap him in the dimension of darkness... you think there's some kind of poetic vengeance in that. And you tell yourself and your minions that you want to free your father.”

“I do!” The beast roared, but he didn't move to smash the girl into a pulp. He could though, Tien knew, from the way Garlic Junior threatened with his back hunched and ready. It was a posture and yet... was he merely posturing?

“No... you don't. And you know exactly why... amongst your monsters, your demons, you are a king. But with daddy home, you are only a prince—you will have lost all authority. What, did you think daddy would just pat your head and say you did a good job freeing him?” Bulma chuckled. “If you were your father, wouldn't you ask... why did it take you this long? But you hate Kami. As well you should. And not just you... even you, Roshi. Shen. You hate that same being.”

“W-What?” Roshi was the first to respond to her.

She slinked up to him with a sway of her hips and a coy smirk on her lips. There was a shine in her eyes that was so mocking, as if calling everyone else ignorant. “Your teacher, Mutaito, remember him? His... last... moments.”

“Bulma, how do you know him? There's no... no records left of him, of...” Roshi spoke as if too reluctant to remember that distant memory. It was as if he had just relived a nightmare.

“Garlic knows. The duality of man, well, has nothing compared to the duality of Kami and his other half, the one you know as King Piccolo.” Her voice was just a whisper as she trailed off. But then she turned and address the table, “The thing is, beings like those are not from around here... they aren't from Earth, they aren't from a hell dimension, and they certainly aren't from the Afterlife.”

There was a moment of silence as the notion sank in, and then...

“... You're speaking of aliens,” Gero scoffed.

“You expect us to believe in aliens?” Tien Shinhan sneered at the arrogant girl at the other end of the table. A cold draft drifted into the room, though there were no opened windows.

She smirked, that insufferable smirk that Tien Shinhan wanted to punch into the earth until nothing is left. That damnable vulpine grin... he held himself back, only finding himself more and more irritated by the girl and her way of doing everything.

She waved again, and the picture of a strange, pod-like ball appeared in the middle of the room. It was old, as if it had been buried in dirt for a decade. Pock marks littered its white surface and age defined it... yet there was an unmistakable sense of futuristic technology seeped into it.

“This is known as a Saiyan Attack Pod. Some twelve years ago, one such alien had arrived on Earth. It is currently walking amongst us, but it is just the vanguard of an invasion by an intergalactic empire that thrives in the enslavement of entire planets or the extinguishment of all life on entire planets.” She pressed a button in the air, and something that vaguely looked like genetics floated up besides the 'Saiyan Attack Pod'. “These were the only remains of genetic samples that I could salvage from the wreckage... and they indicate that the alien was in its youth.”

“Hold on,” Professor Wheelo held up a hand. “I can see that these are probably alien genetics, but what does this have to do with Garlic Junior's psychological issues with this, ahem, 'Kami' figure?”

“Kami, the guardian of Earth, is also an alien. He is green and... well, perhaps Muten Roshi or Master Shen can enlighten you on what he looks like,” She added. “After all, neither Piccolo nor Kami has died yet.”

Tien watched as Muten Roshi, the man who was supposed to be the strongest in the world and known as invincible, stutter and shake. He watched the old turtle hermit fall onto his seat and breath uncontrollably. The old master's face was plain for everyone to see, like he had just seen his death warrant.

Tien Shinhan scoffed. This was the rival of his master? This? This frail looking old man with boogers rolling down into his beard?

He turned to his teacher to...

… Tien's brain stopped to a screeching halt.

This was the first time Tien Shinhan had seen his teacher speechless. And not just rendered speechless, there was a slight, almost unnoticeable shake in Master Shen's pinky. He didn't say a thing, merely stared at the Briefs heiress as if he was staring at his own death...

Master Shen was afraid.

But Tien... Tien couldn't see it. He couldn't understand it. This whole event was something equally beyond him as a joke and beneath him for any serious consideration.

This was a conference with a rich girl, a president, a couple scientists, a couple military dictators, a couple martial artists, and a couple demons. It was... he couldn't help it anymore. He laughed. He laughed and laughed at the inanity and silliness of it all. “This is stupid,” he said at last, after the last laugh had escaped his lips.

Bulma watched him curiously, her eyes sparkling. Well, keep watching, you arrogant, insufferable...

“You bring old men and little kids here, and you tell us there's big, bad aliens out to get us. What's next? Mars being destroyed nine years ago was also due to aliens?” Tien Shinhan felt like something had cracked and broken only to be mended. He huffed. He puffed. He grounded out, “Fine. Say we believe you, say you provide your pieces of evidence... these scientists tell us everything checks out. Say you even convince Garlic “Daddy Issues” Junior to join up as one of the earthlings, instead of going back to whatever hell realm that spawned him—”

“Makyo Star, it's a planet that comes around like once every five thousand years,” Bulma said, pulling out a hologram that showed a diagram of two stars coming into orbit and their planets coming dangerously close to each other. “By the way, that's coming up soon in a couple years.”

Tien wanted to ignore her, but his jaw just hung open. He collected his thoughts and continued, “Whatever! What is really your goal here?” After he said those words, he felt like his spirit was spent. He slid back down into his chair and his shoulders drooped as he realized what he had just done.

“Tien Shinhan.” It seemed his teacher had finally stopped shaking at the name 'Piccolo'. There was a definite edge to Master Shen's voice. “You will be silent or you will be unconscious. Choose.”

“I... yes, Master Shen,” Tien's three-eyed gaze dropped to the floor beneath his feet.

Master Shen nodded and said to the rest of the conference, “What my student has done is an utter breach of courtesy. I will apologize to our host for this... but he brings up a good point. You've been dragging us around for a while now on information that you have been privy to somehow, Miss Briefs. What is your real objective?”

There was a moment's silence. It was punctuated by a shuffling of clothes, and Tien looked up from the floor.

Bulma Briefs had steepled her fingers and finally her grin grew into a full smile. It was not a pleasant smile, and Tien felt like... that would be what his smile might look like, if he ever smiled. She leaned back and turned to the woman representing the 'Men in Black'. “Miss Lazuli, if you will?”

The lady stood and pulled out a briefcase. After fiddling with its keys for a minute, it unlocked with a click. Then this Miss Lazuli—never once even twitching a muscle on her face—pulled out a scroll from within.

It was long and thick, and emitted a thick layer of chi and power and something else that was elder and more twisted than anything Tien Shinhan had ever sensed. It was only because of his third eye that he could even see it, this palpable aura of something deep. There was something beckoning about its power that Tien found impossible to look away from. He felt like he was going to be lost in it...

… in the words and symbols carved into the scroll. How they danced and crawled as if ants on human skin...

“Everyone, I present to you...” Bulma paused for what must have been a very dramatic moment. “... The Tenkaichi Accords.”

 

(Been pretty tired, so I'll cut it short because I'm tired. Tired.)

“I can't believe that worked,” Lazuli said the moment we were alone. She plopped down on the sofa and rested her head against mine and we both flailed like we were boneless.

It had been an exhausting day to say the least.

I laughed as tension left my body and I enjoyed the look of bewilderment on Lazuli's face. It was good that I had nanomachines to help me stabilize my hands—I didn't honestly think I would have been able to sign my name so smoothly at the end. “Well, you know me.”

“You pull miracle technologies out of nowhere and combine magic with science, there's nothing in your dossier about being able to negotiate,” Lazuli sniped. Still, she didn't bother moving—even if her body never grew tired and even though her mind technically couldn't exhaust, there was a certain stress placed on her today that was something I could hardly understand.

I shrugged against her shoulder. I was just happy to sink into my fluffy couch and feel the heat of her body against mine. I blinked a couple times and then yawned. “Didn't know you were keeping a dossier on me...”

“How did you do it?” Lazuli asked, ignoring the question with her pesky free will.

“I cheated, silly. Did you really think I could convince them with words and evidence?” I nestled deeper into the fluffy pillows. This was marshmallow heaven.

She sighed and scanned the information that I had embedded into her about the other signatories of the Tenkaichi Accords. I knew she would do this, though she seemed to have mastered doing it wirelessly and with thought—faster than I had anticipated considering most of her body and mind was preserved the way she was. That was to say she wasn't a... ghost in the machine. “Wheelo you freed and have some open cooperation with, so I can see him stand on your side, and you've had past dealings with Muten Roshi... but Gero and Shen should have canceled them out. How is it that they aren't even trying to start their own faction within this Accords?”

“Oh, Lazuli,” I petted her pretty blonde hair on her silly head. That was always something I envied her about; I loved the silky, golden hair and I would only love it if it were natural. There was a certain... prestige to being natural. Though, being naturally blue-haired wasn't anything to sneer at either. “There's more to cheating than a simple give and take.”

Lazuli didn't look happy at my cooing at her, frowning and standing up. She motioned and summoned holograms of dossiers and information packets, along with multiple angles of spy cameras watching each party that had left earlier. “I can see Roshi and the Ox King are affiliated... but that shouldn't be enough. The Ox King's coalition is something that President King Furry wants to actively dismantle through peaceful negotiation, and for the most part it is working. He would fight against their political empowerment... instead, look at him.”

He viciously chewing out his aide on the video.

“Sir, shouldn't we worry about these Men in Black? I think my wife saw one watching her sleep through our bedroom window a couple nights ago,” the aide and suggested.

The blue dog ruffed and barked, “That's nothing! I have more important things to worry about! My Doggocratic Party was probably thinking about replacing me if this conference didn't yield anything positive. How are we supposed to tell the people about aliens? The Repuglicans are going to make a puppy show of this... probably going to suggest replacing me with some jumped up billionaire!”

“Well, at least they'll get laughed out like the last term,” the aide smiled. “Shouldn't we worry more about the capabilities of the Capsule Corporation, all things considered?”

King Furry slapped the man up the back of his head. “You idiot! This isn't four years ago! Besides, CC will be trying to hold this Accord together and the people want change! The Bone Party is suggesting a cat for their candidate! A cat! Even our own party wants a cat to replace me... when did we become so politically correct?”

“Sir...” The aide sniffled.

“I got more important domestic issues to worry about anyway! What's the progress on our plan to push down No Puppy Left Behind?” The president asked.

“... And there you have that,” Lazuli deadpanned.

“So...?” I buried my face between pillows and peaked out at her from such pure fluffiness.

“Something's going on. Is it magic? I can't see magic, so that's my guess. Can you tell me?” Lazuli asked finally with a tone of resignation. “How... did you cheat?”

“So many ways,” I replied and counted them off with my fingers. “Commander Red is easy to deal with, and his Chief-of-Staff, who practically runs his whole show by the way, already knows there isn't much of a future from the way their economic investments failed so miserably to meet their KPI this year. Gero, thus, becomes a non-issue, see?”

“But doesn't Gero control the vast majority of the technology of the Red Ribbon Army?” Lazuli turned back to her analysis.

“You're working off of pure numbers, so you think he's in control, but... well, first, his son is still under Command Red's direct command. Secondly, there are other supernatural beings within the army who do not rely on technology. Thirdly, Gero's entire manufacturing depends on the logistics of the Red Ribbon Army, which wouldn't be such a problem if he wasn't such a nasty perfectionist. This means he doesn't have lesser drones and robots making things for him and he builds his robots and cyborgs by hand.” I emphasized that last bit. It was rather important—Doctor Gero was capable of surviving after the destruction of the Red Ribbon Army also due to this trait of being an obstinate perfectionist who did everything himself.

But it was also his biggest flaw, and he knew it on some level. This gave Commander Red, a silly, simple man so easily subverted and controlled, an unreasonable control over the good doctor.

“Well, okay, so I stacked the deck a little.” I admitted sheepishly, telling her the most obvious bit of underhanded tactic I used, “The Ox King couldn't simply represent a group of warlords and be so important. Even if there were ten of their number, they couldn't amount to half of the President's forces... they'd just about equal the Red Ribbon Army, but they wouldn't have such cohesion. See... the Ox King is also representative of the various, smaller martial arts schools scattered throughout the warlord nations. This is the one thing they have that the President's nation does not.”

Lazuli's eyes lit up and she seemed to understand immediately. She turned to me and gasped, “So the Ox King was also representing the Turtle School?”

“Exactly,” I smirked.

“Then who did Muten Roshi represent?” Lazuli bit her bottom lip. She flipped through hundreds of information packets in an instant, but she could only find contemporary information on Muten Roshi. She couldn't know.

I flicked these holograms away and answered her, “His sister... Lazuli, the world is older than you know. There are great, mystical powers around before I came into being, you know? Where Muten Roshi is known as the World's Strongest Fighter, his sister is known as the World's Greatest Mystic. This Accord cannot function without the input of magical authority, after all. Well, whatever the case, the purpose was not just to corner the majority vote, but also to keep an opposition faction from forming. So much to do, so little time.”

“... What did you do?” Lazuli stared.

“Who, me? Don't worry, I didn't do much.” I hopped off the fluffy couch, once more into the fray. As an afterthought, I added as I just remembered some minor detail, “Anyway, isn't there a tournament happening? Can't miss that!”

 

It took the rest of the evening to put my nerves to rest. When I closed my eyes, I could still see all the ways that the conference could have gone wrong, especially towards the end. Other than Pilaf, Commander Red, and President King Furry, each party could have splattered me into unrecognizable meat paste with a thought.

I woke up at 3 AM in the morning that day, having slept only a little over an hour. It wasn't even that I had been instilled with instincts to awaken at the lightest sound from my travels, I just couldn't keep myself in bed.

I had turned and turned until the sheets were wet with sweat and I was feverishly dizzy. Nanomachines that swam in my system couldn't really do much in this case, I hadn't built them to fix every little problem of my body and it wasn't like they were some kind of panacea for every problem.

So I stood up and flicked on the lights with a switch.

My room wasn't at the hotels where everyone else was staying on Tournament Island, it was an isolated location within the Battle Tower. I could see most of the island from where I was this high up, and there were still lights and sounds below as very festivities went on into the early morning. There was no curfew for this island; there wasn't even much of a government before I decided I needed to own and control everything. There was maybe twenty monks on the island living off of the land as well as tourism and donations... this place wasn't really that big of a thing, really, compared to what I had thought it was like from the comic books.

The restaurants that used to open here were seasonal shops that opened right before the tournaments and became abandoned right afterwards. There were some civilians that lived on the island not as monks, of course, but I could count the number of families living here with two hands before I got my fingers into the island. Now, it was actually capable of accommodating the two hundred thousand visitors that came in the past week.

Not that the majority of the viewers are on the island, of course. Much like everything else I learned from my previous life, I knew that broadcasting and streaming was a way of the future. Compounded with my owning the video and hardware platforms, I actually had a need to provide my users with more and more content.

People weren't just satisfied with what they saw on BriefTube, nor were they satisfied with what I was able to license from film, television, and other media companies—which was actually more expensive than I'd have liked to get into. The amount of money I spent to license shows for just a measly five or ten years on Brieflix, my shows streaming platform, was enough to fund a moderate sized nation for a year. Perhaps it came back to bite my ass that I jumped the gun on making the platform, perhaps these media companies thought I was an easy target for milking money from since I didn't actually have experience in the industry, thus I didn't know the actual value of things, or I was a shitty negotiator when it came to spending money... it could have been a number of things.

Whatever the case, I found that to maintain my monopoly over the world's technology industries as well as maintaining the Google-like good reputation Capsule Corporation and I both had with the general public, I had to provide people with content.

Well, so the tournament was a thing I was going to spend money on anyway, even if my executives were pissed off at me for wanting to own the thing. They simply thought I should have offered the tournament a licensed deal such that we could broadcast it, or perhaps obtained the hosting rights.

It sounded ludicrous to me, of course, because I knew that the only way a media platform could succeed was due to quality content.

But, we all knew how executives were. They watched out for short-term profits first, the investors second, and way down the line, maybe in near the end of their list of priorities, board members and executive level personnel might care about the company creators and the company itself. It was probably due to their owning a rather nice chunk of stock... but it surprised me nevertheless. You see, I always thought, because of the way how Dragonball had been made by the Japanese, its world would have a Japanese culture...

… How naive of me, really.

While it was true that entry level and middle management employees were of that type of traditional Asian corporate culture—the type to world their whole lives in a company and basically follow the flow like everyone else, the executives of any company were a different sort of creature.

Even at 3 AM in the morning, I saw my e-mail inbox fill up with random messages from my board members and various vice presidents. Due to the nature of Capsule Corporation being what could be translated as a conglomerate that spanned more than two dozen industries, we had a whole cornucopia of vice presidents.

Each one of these vice presidents were equal to another in ranking, and in the company structure, they were only second to Dad, the President and Chief Executive Officer, and perhaps me, the Chief Operating Officer.

Ah, nepotism.

Ahem.

So, with some thirty to fifty (I didn't even both keeping count at this point due to the rapid expansion of the past year) vice presidents, we had a little more internal strife than the average conglomerate. By 'a little', I was measuring in 'shit tons'. Most of that was quashed by Dad or me, when I had the time, but much of our labor only caused these new assholes to more creative and subtle in their ways of claiming more company resources. It was starting to feel like a fiefdom with fifty dukes trying to curry favor or sabotage each other, mindless of external threats.

It was my fault, really. It had to be. I was the one who created the subsidiaries that now house more than three quarters of these assholes, and I was the one who set the key performance indicators for each of them. It was my fault they were fighting for resources, because each of them had to satisfy their own KPIs or else they wouldn't get their stock options or get replaced, or something.

Really, it had to be, I told myself... ignoring that if they were really, actually good executives, they would have tried to create value with what resources they were allotted rather than try to obtain more to make their jobs easier. But then again, humans were always the same in this regard... I had experienced this kind of bullshit in my last life too.

“Fuck it,” I murmured and rubbed the little pink gumball in my hands a little more. I was going to bury myself in bullshit magical science to keep from thinking about company politics... real politics were a headache and a half. Somehow, people thought my voice mattered in this or that election. I was just a fucking fifteen and then some years old girl! What did I know about politics? I didn't even have my fucking Quinceañera yet!

Speaking of which, I needed to schedule in a Quinceañera. I had the perfect pink dress design in my head already, one which would make even Frieza jealous!

I fed my little gumdrop another strawberry and mulled things over. Of course, I had more important worries than my companies or having a best party ever, or any of that. “Now, what name do you want? Gumdrop or Strawberry? I'm leaning towards Gumdrop, because it's cute, sweet and rolls off the tongue. Aren't you just adorable?”

“MEEP,” she replied adorably.

“Yes you are, you're my little cutie, aren't you, my little Gumdrop?” I nuzzled her against my cheek.

“MEEP.” She rolled around on my palm.

“Hungry? Well, I'll have some candy brought up for you, okay? Be a patient girl for mommy, okay?” I petted her a little more before turning back to what was in the Petri dishes before me. They were mostly finished products already, but I still needed to decide on which one... so many important decisions. I stifled a yawn and peeked over at my watch.

4:18

There was still like three hours before the contestants started gathering for the preliminaries. What was that? Bunker down, you said? Well, I had time for maybe one more little creation. “Come, Gumdrop! Onto the next mad science project!”