Disclaimer: I very clearly do not own DragonBall or its many many characters. I am making no money off this either. Please don't sue. I have like 12 dollars on me.

Premise: Bulma decides she'll rid the world of the Red Ribbon Army! How? By finding seven magical balls and wishing for a mighty hunk of a savior of course!

This is AU in that the universe is slightly different than in canon. That said it's closer to For Want of a Nail although it'd probably be a few nails in this case. And no none of them are the Namekian. I want to fool around with the idea of Saiyan biology so the shipping in this might be weird. That is of course if I make it out of the Red Ribbon Saga.

"When the heat breaks thirty degrees it pays to dress slutty. A more conservative girl would be decked out in full sleeves and long pants. Me, I get by with a frilly pink cocktail dress too short to really cover my ass. There are downsides, of course. No human invention is without them. Because I'll be damned if I sit perfectly straight while riding my bike across a hundred odd kilometers of thick forests, I'm giving every little woodland beastie an upskirt shot. But that's a minor thing. This thing I'm doing- this quest- is important… and pretty much completely nuts. Seven magical spheres that summon the dragon god who'll grant any wish? Yeah, it sounds farfetched but, you see, I held one. Held it in the palm of my hand same as I've held a beaker or a test tube. They're real. I bought it off an old cat-morph back when I was twelve. The ball… called to me. I walked miles and miles through West City, all the way out to the outskirts where the latest batch of refugees were being held until the new settlement homes could be built. There he was, looking to peddle trinkets and baubles to anyone willing to buy.

"I was willing."

Bulma clicked stop on her camera. She'd found a clearing where the grass would graze against her navel if she tried to walk across it. There were no animals here. Bulma had blared sirens for the last half mile to make sure the path (what little of it there was) would be clear. Squirrels, lynxes, deer, had all scattered every which way fearing some great new monster had chosen to call the forest home. They were as scared now as Bulma had been before she was deep into the woods. Red Ribbon patrols weren't many but they were always looking for opportunity. And when she stretched her eyes, she saw great wide stumps buried in the sea of prickly green grass. Too evenly cut to be anything but the work of a human. Perhaps there was a Red Ribbon outpost nearby and the dragonball was in it? Bulma thought for a minute. No. Remote outposts weren't the Red Ribbon Army's style. Too far away from roads and supply lines. A helicopter might get in or out but to what end?

The heat was against her again. Sweat stained the pits of her dress and made her grateful wind could get under the skirt without trouble. "Predators in this region are supposed to be primarily nocturnal with the prey species diurnal. So, it's safest to travel during the day. I mean, of course it is. All I have to worry about during daytime is heat stroke and who's that ever killed?" Bulma put the camera into one of her motorcycle's side compartments and took out the dragonball radar she'd gotten working the month prior. She was about another half kilometer off. "Let's just find this thing so I can take a bath. Two baths. No seven! Seven baths! One for each of the dragonballs. Ha!" It was then, as Bulma went to turn her bike back own, that she saw something poking out over the tall grass. Bobbing up and down slowly, the tip of a fuzzy brown tail was visible for one brief moment before dipping down back down. This repeated thrice more always in a different place and different distance from Bulma. Sometimes closer but sometimes also further. "Is this a family of lemurs?" the girl said aloud before the world began to spin. Something sent her tumbling off her hoverbike and onto the ground bellow. "Oof!"

"What're you doing in my forest?!" Bulma looked up from her position to see a wild haired boy pointing a bo staff at her. "Well!" She let out a sigh.

"Not much of a gentleman, are you?" Bulma sat up. The ground was soft enough that despite the fall nothing hurt. Aside from catching a dozen reeds in her dress she was in the same shape as she had been moments ago.

"The Red Ribbon Army isn't welcome here!" The teen's ears perked up.

"Huh? Oh!" Bulma laughed. "I'm not with them. My name's Bulma. Pleased to meet you." The boy frowned. His eyes narrowed and he raised his staff. "You know, this is the wrong way to treat attractive young women. You should be offering to help me up and apologizing for threatening me. We're such delicate creatures a fall like that could really hurt."

"I'm Son Goku and you look fine to me," the boy said more confused than terse.

"Well of course I'm fine. That was never in dispute." Bulma laughed again. She stood and twirled in place. "I mean look at all this."

"Are you… ok?" Goku's frown had shed the signs of suspicion and grown into one of concern. He returned his staff to its place on his back and walked up to Bulma. As he came better into view the girl noticed two things. The first, and most glaring, was a long brown tail growing out of him. While no expert in anatomy, Bulma knew enough of taxidermy (a morbid pastime of her aunt) to know the real deal and that had to be it. The second thing she noticed was that the small boy was as thick as a boar. He looked like he could pick up those men in muscle magazines and toss them around like ragdolls. The only bodies Bulma had ever seen like that were on veteran wrestlers and master judokas.

"I thought we'd agreed I was fine. Hey, kid, I've got a job for you. I'll pay you 5000 zeni for it."

Goku blinked. "Ze-ni?" he repeated back at her. "That's… money right?"

"Yes! Of course, it's money. What else could it be?"

"I'm sorry but I don't use money." The boy was smiling now. It was an infectious thing that spread across his whole face until it was one great beaming orb with too much hair on top. "There aren't any people here to give it to."

"Uh, yeah. Well… is there anything else you'd like? I really need help." Bulma put on her best pout. Whereas Goku's smile spread like a nerve agent, her pout hit like a ram. It was the sort of thing that left you breathless and aching and that running from only made worse. The pout was enough to make Goku stop his circle around Bulma. "So please…"

He swallowed. "You're a… girl, right? Grandpa Gohan always said to treat girls nice so I'll help."

"Great! I need to find a smooth, even path out of these woods. I managed on my bike but it was complete hell on her. I would've been better off with an oldschool motorbike but didn't realize just how bad a trek through the woods could be." All of this was said very fast and declaratively, as Bulma expected no questions or need to elaborate. She pressed a button on her bike and the machine collapsed in on itself until it was a tiny blue capsule with a miniature knob on one end. "But first there's something in this forest I need to find. It's an orangish ball that looks like it's made of glass. There'll be stars on it- Are you ok?"

"Are you a witch?!" Goku had his bo staff in his hands and had lept back several feet. Somehow the staff had bridged the distance and was almost under her nose. "How did you make that- whatever it was disappear?!"

"Not this again! Didn't your grandpa tell you to be nice to girls?"

"I'm not trusting a witch!"

"Why does everyone do this? They see something strange or surprising, and- bam! Bring out the big guns. Time go gung-ho on this ass! They can't just take a minute and try to appreciate this new thing they've found. Oh sure, they'll say it's because strange things might be threatening. Bulma, don't you know it's natural to want to protect yourself? It's natural to follow a crowd but you know not to do it in a burning building. And who says it's natural anyway?"

Goku watched her go on for several more minutes. Somewhere in the middle of her rant he'd put away his bo staff and sat down. It being mid-day the grasshoppers were full of energy. It was a good time to work on his reflexes and catch bait for his next fishing trip. They were quick but Goku was quicker. In one motion he'd snatch a hopper, jam it through the head of a bottle, then plug the bottle with his thumb. This happen five times before Bulma took notice. "What're you doing?" she asked kneeling next to the boy.

"Catching bait. You know, you argue with yourself a lot. I thought those jokes in grandpa's magazines were dumb but you're practically one of those girls from the centerfolds."

Bulma went to flick one of Goku's ears. "Shut up." The boy smiled up at her as he moved his head away from her hand. "I thought your grandpa was a gentleman but I guess he's as dirty an old man as my father. And how are you so good at that?"

"Grandpa always told me to work martial arts training into everything I do," Goku said nodding. He's jaw tightened as he nodded in a way that made Bulma connect "told" and "said." "But also he-" Goku suddenly stopped talking and stood up. He looked right into the girl's eyes for the first time since their meeting as if looking for something specific. This startled Bulma but not so much that she fell back again. She stared back unsure of whether she should break eye contact. After a minute Goku found what he was looking for and sat back down. "Grandpa found me catching bait one morning. It's easier to do it then," he explained. "The hoppers and cicadas are weighed down by the dew and the cold. They just sit there." Goku paused. He watched the critters jump around inside his bottle. "Anyway, Grandpa said it was something terrible no matter how necessary to take something's life. He said 'Goku, you are strong. Stronger than most. When you are grown, you will be even stronger than me. For the weak to kill an enemy when they are defenseless is natural. It is the only way they can. Weakness makes demands that should be forced on no one. But you are not weak Goku. And you must not deny your adversary his chance at life. I forbid you from catching these creatures in so cowardly a way. You will face them when they are strongest not when they are weakest.'"

The wind forced the tall grass to bow and pushed Bulma's ponytail away from her shoulders. She felt the coolness wash over her thighs. She let herself enjoy it. "Your grandfather was a very good man, Goku. And you've got one hell of a memory. I'm sure he'd be proud of how you turned out." The young boy took his thumb off the bottle. Out of it a dozen grasshoppers dashed out back into the woods. "Huh?"

"I'm strong enough to fish without them!" Goku was smiling again. This time while flexing a bicep. "Say, miss. Why do you want with these gold balls?"

"Well there's an old legend that says when you find all seven the dragon god appears to grant you anywish."

"And?"

"And I- I want to use them to wish for a savior." Bulma's head slumped. She felt distinctly as if their roles had reversed and Goku were now her senior. It wasn't a pleasant feeling and it made her face flush. "Look, it's not like I think that's what'll happen, ok? But they do something strange. A very strange force radiates from them and even if there isn't a dragon god at the end of this I want to study them better."

"Oh…" Goku went to his knees. He bent his waist in a deep bow mirroring the grass around him. "Grandpa left me one. It has four stars on it. He never told me about the dragon god but he said it was one of seven and that they were created by kami himself. He said I should protect it from bad people even if it means my death."

"Made by kami himself?" Bulma repeated back. "I hadn't heard that part. Did your grandpa tell you anything else? Where the others were or what else they can do?"

Goku shook his head. "He only knew where two more were. He said one was in the protection of his oldest friend and the other around the neck of his former master."

"That gives us four!" Bulma leapt up. Her body was tingling. This morning the hunt for the seven dragonballs looked like a winding road that might very well end at the end of a Red Ribbon rifle. But now, when she'd met a strange boy with a tail in the middle a vast forest, when he'd told her about how his grandfather entrusted one of them to him, and that supposedly two martial arts masters were carrying one apiece… There was an electricity in the air that made her pulse race. Every cell in her body was awake. "Goku, I-"

"Down!" Goku was standing again. His staff was firmly in his hand and his mouth was twisted the way a wolf's might be when face to face with a bobcat.

"Huh?"

"Down!" he repeated only this time he didn't wait for Bulma to respond. He jumped over her, striking out with his staff as he did so. Bulma fell backwards. Upside down she could see the small boy bring his weapon down with the force of a man ten times his size. She felt the blow like a sinking feeling in her stomache. Bulma watched herself watch as the grey beast cried out knowing its life was about to come to an end. With the added momentum and force of Goku's attack, there was no way he could stop his descent. When its skull inevitably collided with the grass just beside Bulma, the creature's neck snapped and his body went limp. Moved by instinct she didn't understand, Bulma turned her head to look at the dead thing. Meaningless facts and figures she'd once read came back to her. This thing was a pseudodactyl; a scientifically altered pteranodon. They'd been raised in captivity until two hundred years ago. They had a wing span of –

"Bulma!"

Goku's face was over hers now, covering the sun. The shade it created brought her out of her stupor. "Ugh. Yeah. Um. Thanks." Bulma stood slowly, deliberately, as if to assure herself and Goku that she was well. It wouldn't be until she reached her hoverbike that she dropped to a knee and began gasping for air.

"Easy, easy." Goku placed a hand on her knee. "Just take a minute."

One minute became two and then three but finally Bulma was able to breathe normally. "Oh god," she swore. "I am not fucking cut out for this." Goku couldn't tell if Bulma was about to laugh or cry so he did what his grandfather had always done.

"Looks like we get to eat good tonight!" Bulma looked over to the boy to see he was gesturing towards the dead beast with his thumb. "Let's get it back to my cabin. Wait until you've had one of its wings. They're not like birds, it's all skin but boy is it delicious. You wrap the actual meat in it and you can-"

"You're fucking nuts, Goku." Bulma was crying but the laughter told him she was indeed fine. "Holy fuck. Do your parents know what you get up to?"

Goku smiled. "Haven't got any. Grandpa Gohan raised me." Bulma raised a hand as if to say something but Goku continued talking. "I'm dead serious about these things. They're delicious if you cook 'em right. Come on. My place isn't far and you can have tea while I cook."

"Y-yeah. We can work out what to do next." Goku, carrying his kill on his Nyoi-bō, led the way talking the entire way. About what Bulma couldn't say. The sound of his voice just washed over her. There was so much of it Bulma had no time to think about anything. Which suited her fine. It gave her the moment of respite she needed to compose herself. "Goku," she interrupted. The boy turned his head to look at her. "How long have you been living on your own?"

"Only… three years… I think."

"You think?"

"Time's hard for me to remember sometimes. I-um- hit my head when I was a kid."

"Oh. Well that's not a big issue."

Goku spun on his heels. "What?"

"Brain damage. My mother was in an accident a few years ago and lost her short-term memory. So, the doctors did a scan of her brain and… ok I'm not a neurologist so the exact mechanisms are a bit outside of my expertise but basically, they stitched her brain back together. There were supposed to be five rounds of the stuff but my mom quit at three. She was tired of all the pills and migraines. All she is now is a little forgetful and she was always so ditzy I don't think anyone's noticed there's been a change except for me and dad."

The boy's face fell but then suddenly brightened. "But-but you could scan it right? And see how it worked? Like if… someone had issues… controlling themselves or-"

Bulma blinked. "He'd see a therapist." Goku's frown returned. "But… it is possible to alter behavior with certain surgeries- I mean that stuff's really morally questionable and most doctors will take you to take a hike."

"Take a hike?"

"Same as get lost. It's another way of saying no when someone asks you to do something. Why do you want to know all this anyway? Memory lapses don't have anything to do with altering your personality."

"No, no it doesn't." Goku turned back to the road. He kicked a small stone up to his face and balanced it on his nose as he walked.

The shock from before finally truly out of her system, Bulma wondered how it was Goku could remember in such detail what his grandfather had said but struggle with keeping track of the years. Perhaps it was something the old man had told him on his death bed. Then wouldn't the date of that time too have been burned into his psyche? In any case, there was only one thought in her mind that she felt comfortable sharing. "You're a weird kid, Goku."

So he was.

It was now Bulma's turn to talk as they walked. She told Goku about Capsule Corp, her father's many genius discoveries, and how he'd put that all to use to turn her hometown into a utopia in this "fucked up God forsaken hellhole we call a planet." West City, as Bulma proudly told Goku, had eliminated hunger, poverty, and need. Whatever the Red Ribbon Army was doing elsewhere the people of West City were safe thanks to her father's fantastic inventions and the city's guard watch. It was one of the last truly free cities left. "Everyone else just caves to what the Red Ribbon wants."

"What do they ask for?"

"Oh- well it depends on the city but it's almost always the same stuff; money, supplies, fuel, and machinery. From what the newspapers and dad tell me they'll also kidnap doctors and medical personnel. Their soldiers are always getting hurt, what with the whole, expansionist superpower thing, and their science departments are geared almost exclusively towards robotics and weaponry. Which is actually a stroke of luck. Can imagine those monsters messing around with medicine or biology?" Bulma saw Goku trying to mouth the word biology. "Ok well trust me it'd be bad. Zombie apocalypse bad."

"What's a zombie?"

"It's a person who's dead and their body is rotting but they're still walking around. In the movies, the only way to kill them is by shooting them in the head. They're really slow and go 'Uggggggghhhhh' everwhere."

Goku shook his head. "How is that worse than the Red Ribbon Army?"

"It's-" Bulma stopped. "-probably not. Zombies are just a monster story. I guess when you can kill flying dinosaurs, monsters don't seem that scary." They smiled at each other. "But they're still scary for the rest of us.

"Anyway. The big cities at least have the means to support themselves even with The Red Ribbon making so many demands. Small towns and villages too far away from a main city might disappeare overnight. Either because some Red Ribbon colonel wants to test a new weapon or because some other colonel needed workers to build a base. It's… pretty bad, Goku."

"Which is why you need the seven dragonballs. To wish for your hero, right?"

"And to make sure he's good looking!"

"Huh?"

"You heard me. It's like that song. I'm holding out for a hero and with just seven balls I can make him a maaaaaaaaan!"

Bulma was now pointing dramatically. Goku followed the path of her finger but couldn't see anything especially noteworthy at the end. He looked up at the strange blue haired girl. She wasn't… what he expected in a savior but he would follow her regardless. He had promised his grandfather as much. "'Only part with the dragonball when you find someone noble and pure of heart. Follow them and see that no harm comes to them on their quest.' I'll make you proud, Grandpa."

"Did you say something, Goku?"

"Oh, nothing. Sorry. We're just about home."

"I know what you're thinking. 'Oh, Bulma, so you really aren't so noble. This is all about getting some M.A.N. in your V.A.G.' Well let me tell you something, mister. I'm the one going on this quest and if we've got to have a hero why shouldn't he be tall, well-muscled, and with long flowing curly locks? And if you were tall and well-muscled with long flowing locks, you'd want to hook up with some hot young thing, right? I'm a hot young thing! So it isn't that I'm wishing for a boyfriend. It's that the guy I'm going to wish for- who will save us all from the Red Ribbon Army- will want to be my boyfriend!"

"Grandpa, I think the savior may be crazy."

That's the first chapter. Read, review, flame, do what makes you happy. So long as you're not, I dunno, a serial killer I think 'do you' is good advice.

If you're a serial killer do the opposite of what makes you happy.