Science and Old Gods
Disclaimers: Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, and its respective characters belong to Akira Toriyama. I make no profit from this.
Semantics
Bulma was twelve years old when she first heard about the legend. It was during a sleepover with the daughters of some of her father's colleagues. Someone (probably her) had the brilliant idea to tell scary stories. They spent most of the night huddled in a circle on Bulma's floor, passing a flashlight around and trying to scare the living daylights out of each other. Someone (definitely not her) began telling the tale of the Dragon Balls.
"They say, hidden somewhere in the four corners of the world, are the Dragon Balls. No one knows how old they are. Some say they're as old as time itself. No one knows where they came from. Some say they came from the void. No one-"
"-knows if they're really the balls of a dragon. Some say it's just from really big li-"
"Shut up! You're ruining the mood!" the girl gave the heckler a pointed glare amidst the giggles and snickering. The storyteller harrumphed at everyone for good measure before she continued, "No one knows why they're here. Some say they were a blight unto all living things because the first and only time all the Dragon Balls were gathered, the gods got angry and declared war. Explosions erupted all over the planet surface, the sky burned red for three days straight, and then a smaller sun appeared and crashed down, nearly tearing the planet apart! They say if you found a Dragonball, you would be cursed! Death and destruction will follow you and all those you hold dear."
"What does a Dragonball look like?"
Their storyteller faltered, clearly not expecting that question, "Err, like a ball, probably?"
"Is it colored green and scaly?"
"Wouldn't it be more pinkish and fleshy since the genitals of a lizard would be interna-"
"I don't think they're really the balls of a dragon," someone sighed tiredly.
"I bet she was about to throw a wadded up sock at someone while screaming Look Out! It's a Dragon Ball!"
"Sh-shut up! I was not!" No one missed how the storyteller surreptitiously tried to hide something behind her back. Everyone burst out laughing.
When they calmed down some, Bulma frowned in disappointment, "That was a stupid story not a scary story. I mean, there's only ever been one time all the balls were gathered since they were made? And even then, why would the gods get angry about them being all in one place?"
"I dunno, the version I heard is that just having all the balls together isn't enough to cause the whole catastrophe thing," the heckler shrugged. "I heard you needed to make some sort of sacrifice to it in blood or something icky like that. And no it's not to replace the dragon's lost balls. It was funny the first time, don't wear it out okay?"
"How would just having one curse you, though?" Bulma pressed, as fascinated with the idea as she found it ridiculous. "And why would anyone gather them if it means destroying the world?"
"The same reason anyone wear stripes with plaid," another girl scoffed, "Some people are just crazy. And you can't really expect crazies to make sense."
Most of the other girls saw the logic in the reasoning and quickly dismissed the legend, all thoughts of world-destroying god-wars forgotten in favor of the next attempt at a hair-raising tale. But Bulma was not like most girls. She merely filed the legend away for another time and focused on the girl talking about guts and gore and axe-wielding lunatics crashing pteradons into bedrooms.
Bulma was sixteen years old when she thought about the legend again. No, that was inaccurate. She thought about the legend but in an on-and-off way, something to distract herself while giving her brain time to percolate on the real issues she was currently tackling. But she was sixteen when she truly gave the Dragon Balls serious thought.
She'd finally started her internship at Capsule Corporation and was admiring herself in the lab coat her mother had given her, dreaming of the day she'd become Capsule Corp's youngest ever vice-president and then its youngest ever president. The lab coat was one of her father's and it was a bit big on her. But she wore it well, even with the worn patches over the elbow and the claw marks from countless generations of Scratches. She slipped a hand into one of the inner pockets, mimicking her father's thinking pose and her fingers brushed against the smooth surface of a capsule.
Huh. What could this be?
She pushed down on the plunger and after the smoke cleared, there was another capsule waiting in its place. She decapsulated that only to find another capsule. This went on for several more times. She wondered who would go through all the trouble of arranging this nesting-doll setup until she lost count of how many there were. All she knew was that there was a sizable pile at her feet and that she was simply working on automatic, because she was determined to get to the bottom of it, Kami damn it!
Bulma suddenly felt the plunger resist her efforts. She tried again but the capsule remained locked. "This has gotta be the last one!" she decided, studying the pellet in her hand much more closely. Beneath the handwritten label of Dragon Ball: 2S, small dials lined the capsule's circumference. Blue eyes widened as she whispered "A Dragon Ball? But how?"
Before she could fiddle with the numbers her father called out to her, "Bulma? Do you have my lab coat? Your mother said you had it."
When he came into the room and caught sight of the discarded capsules, Bulma couldn't recognize the hard, haunted look that crossed her father's face. "Poppa?"
He held his hand out to her and forced a brittle smile that showed too much teeth. "Bulma, give me the capsule. Give it to me right now." His voice was tight with terror and without his lab coat to shroud his body Bulma could see him trembling in panic. She'd never seen her father like this. It made his fear contagious.
She glanced down at the capsule she was studying just seconds prior and felt a sense of power pulse through her. It buzzed along the surface of her palm, tingled up her arm, and straight into her head. When she handed it back, the tension faded though it didn't completely leave father or daughter. She opened her mouth to ask what that was all about but Dr. Briefs held a hand up to silence her.
"Now's not the right time, sweetheart. When you're older I'll tell you more about the thing inside."
Then he was back to his usual cheerful, absent-minded self, whistling a little tune while he began the tedious process of encapsulating.
Now most people, after having felt that strange power would have left well enough alone. But Bulma Briefs was not like most people and the odd thrum of energy had set her mind abuzz with ideas. She had to know more about these Dragon Balls now that they weren't mere legends. And if she couldn't study the one her father had, well, what's to stop her from finding one of her very own?
A/N: I've been binge-reading drabble fics lately (hnnnng Pandemic and Beyond Empty Lands wry u play with my feels like that?) when suddenly this plot-bunny just Leo-strut its way into my consciousness. So here you go: A different take on the way the world views the Dragon Balls. Why? Because I am a pretentious twit playing at philosophy, maturity, and wisdom. I mean because why not?
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