The usual disclaimer. I don't own Dragonball Z or anything related.
If you're coming here from "All Alone," welcome back, glad to have you. You can skip the summary, 'cause you know what's been going on.
If you're a new comer, here's the background of where we're starting as described in "All Alone." Don't worry, you don't have to read it, although I'd love it if you did. But technically this story can stand on its own.
Trunks traveled back to the past and this time, Goku convinced him to stay there for a while and train instead of returning straight home. Young Bulma borrowed the time machine while he was at Goku's. After six months of watching everyone prepare for the androids, she decides to take matters into her own hands by traveling to the future herself with a few surprises from the past.
Enjoy!
Free to fight…
No one would stop her this time. No one would make her stay behind because she was a girl.
This time she'd show them!
The young scientist pushed back a stray, teal part of her bangs as her hands manipulated the controls with ease. It was a good thing that Goku and and that cute guy from the future had not come to check on the ship yet, it had taken her a long time to be sure she could operate the machine before she could even think of piloting it herself. Narrowing periwinkle eyes, she leaned over to check her calculations just one more time.
Perfect. Looks like everything's ready to go, She thought to herself. If all worked according to plan then she should appear twenty years in the future in this exact spot. Goku's friend said that future her and him lived in the old Capsule Corporation Building, so that would be the best place to start.
She turned back to the front cockpit, taking one deep breath and pushing the final series of numbers for takeoff.
The sound of the engine began to rise from a low hum into a high pitched whine.
"Yeah, that seems to be all right," She muttered, as the whole cockpit rattled and the ship's many legs lifted from the green lawns of the Capsule Corp.
It was now or never. Time to find out if she had done her work perfectly yet again.
The sunlight sparkled and was magnified inside the cockpit, creating an almost tangible presence in the air. The whirring engine reached a peak of sound that could be felt rather than heard and the young woman began to lose her nerve, muttering, "Oh no. Oh no. What was I thinking? I can't do this. I should've had Goku go or something. Oh no. I don't like this. I don't like this at all."
She felt her hair, which she had straightened and kept at short length, floating every which way. The shifting gravity was nauseating and then add in the sound and the light and it was almost more than the poor scholar could handle.
She gripped her seat, red fingernails digging into the blue fabric of the cockpit chair. The lights blinded her, making copious amounts of tears drip down her face.
It was then, as she was tempted to hit the emergency shut-down, that she imagined she heard Vegeta's voice right beside her. Laughing at her weakness with his arrogant, raspy voice.
Blue eyebrows shot downward into a frown at lightning speed and she yelled to the empty cockpit, "I am not weak! I'll show you!"
With a dramatic show of stiffening resolve, she flipped the final switch, hearing her mother yell, "Bulma!" just as she was transported in a field of light to the future.