Summary: Bulma is a mad scientist worse than Gero, killing her experiments isn't beneath her & it might just take a callous monster to warm this phyco's heart. Her Z Fighters are a team of creatures with unimaginable power & more than a likely tendency to disobey. Keeping them in check when you're simply human is a hard thing to guarantee, but that's what the bombs in their chests are for.
WARNING: Bulma is the main bad guy of this story. If you don't like reading stories where good guys are in the bad guy role then I suggest not reading.
Chapter 1: The Top Five
Bulma got up everyday at promptly 5am. She would go to her office and check the vitals of all her experiments before breakfast, and after breakfast she would run some tests, do some calculations, and then she was off to oversee the training regiment of her subjects. Some of them needed to be watched more closely than others. This was easy because she lived at the facility where she worked. She had another home, but she was rarely ever found there.
Chichi was her assistant helping her watch over the experiments she couldn't oversee at the time, she would also bring her her morning breakfast. This particular morning she was overly inquisitive.
"Yesterday was his first day of training wasn't it?"
"Yes," Bulma responded bluntly.
"How... How did he do?"
"Chichi..." she sighed setting down the newspaper she was reading looking stern as she swiveled around in her chair to face her.
"I know," she answered frowning.
"I used your dna for Gohan's human half because you told me you wouldn't get attached. This has been a five year project, if you're trying to tell me that I'm going to have to scrap this project and start over with someone else's dna..."
"No!" she answered quickly. "I'm not attached! I'm not!"
She knew what scraping a project meant. It meant killing the subject in question...
"Good," she answered turning back to her paper before adding, "And he did fine by the way..."
Chichi's face lit up before she hurried to the tasks she was assigned to.
The truth was, Gohan had not done fine. In fact he had been somewhat of a huge disappointment. But she wasn't one to count her chickens before they had hatched. She wasn't going to scrap an experiment just because the first day was a failure... No, she would give it a year at minimum. Then she would scrap it if she saw little to no improvement. Their wasn't a point in keeping an experiment around if it was inevitably going to fail after all...
"Dr. Gero is going to be at the next gathering, again," she laughed aloud after reading it. Chichi joined in in a chuckle as well.
Every couple years the King of Earth held a gathering in which scientists brought forth their best ideas for protecting the planet. Ever since King Piccolo, he had wanted a way of keeping the planet safe. So he gathered the brightest minds in the word, held a contest and that person would get a boat load of money to continue their experiments as well as access to the previous Gathering Champion's assets, plus world renown fame. The exchange for this was, if at any time the planet or even parts of the planet was in trouble, it would be their job to protect it. Whether that meant a meteor was heading towards Earth or a small village in the eastern hemisphere was under attack. They had to solve it.
Bulma had not lost the Gathering competition since the first one, and she did not intend to lose any in the furtue. Goku had been her main project when she was a kid, and he had destroyed Dr. Gero's Red Ribbon Army single handily. Ever since then, Dr. Gero had joined the gathering every year in hopes of developing a project that could beat her Goku.
"Seriously, why doesn't he give up?" Chichi teased as she looked over some of their files.
"Oh, he's a man," Bulma said flipping her hair as she got up from her seat. "It probably eats away at him that he keeps losing year after year to a woman less than half his age with twice his brain."
She grabbed a tablet from the counter and pushed the button which opened the sliding door. "The two saiyans are the strongest fighters we have. Even more so than Goku. So, I'm taking Goku and Vegeta out for some one on one sparring, can I trust you to oversee Piccolo's training of Gohan?"
"Yes of course!" Chichi answered jumping to her feet.
Bulma raised her eyebrows at her and Chichi lessened her tone immediately. "I'm mean, sure... When I'm done with things here..."
Shaking her head slightly Bulma walked out hurrying down the hall her heels clacking against the marble flooring. She intended to use the two new saiyans to increase the power levels of her current experiments. They had (unfortunately) reached a plateau as of late, and she knew the quickest way to break above that plateau was to to pair them with someone stronger. It was why she was pairing Gohan with Piccolo (who truthfully might be a bit too powerful for Gohan). But she was banking on his saiyan half allowing him to catch up rather quickly. Finding someone stronger than Goku had proved a challenge, until now.
As for Nappa. He would be used as the goal level for the other Z fighers. She would let them fight him occasionally, instilling in them what real power is and then let them train with their planned pairing the rest of the time so they knew what goal they were striving for.
Eventually, if their came a point when she could deem Vegeta and Nappa trustworthy, she might work towards increasing their strength too and making one or both of them her top five. But for now they were to be tools to train her real warriors.
"Saiyan," she said after punching in the code to open Vegeta's door. "Come with me please, you're going to be training today."
Vegeta who had been sitting against the opposite wall got to his feet. This was the first time he was going to be allowed out of this ridiculous cell in what must have been at least a week. He couldn't use energy beams in the cell for some reason he couldn't quite figure out, and whatever the material that the cell was made of, he couldn't punch through it. He would have been impressed with it's craftsmanship if it didn't piss him off so. The bitch had been speaking with him every day via a tv screen in the corner explaining her goals to him and what she was to expect of him.
Now, the idiot was left defenseless, no magic or unbreakable walls between them and she stood without guards to protect her. Big mistake...
"So," he said after walking out into the hallway. "Explain to me what is going to stop me from ending you here and now. I guarantee I can kill you far faster then you can use your little device to kill me..."
He held the palm of his hand out in front of her face, but she didn't flinch. "I wear a heart rate monitor at all times. If at any point should my heart stop for more than five seconds, all the bombs will go off at once."
His hand lowered slowly... Was she bluffing?
"Well then, let's be off. I want to test your skills against my prize fighter..." she turned walking away. Her back was now to him, she was beyond defenseless and yet... If she was telling the truth...
He followed. He saw no other option. But tsk, prize fighter... He would wipe the floor with this prize fighter of hers.
Down the hall a ways she stopped outside a door very much like the one to his cell, and used a hand scanner to open it. "Goku," she called upon walking inside.
This place looked much like his room only far bigger and with things in it. Like a fridge and a large bed.
Goku was in fact Kakarot. The saiyan they had sent Raditz to retrieve a few months prior. When he failed to return Nappa and Vegeta had decided to stop by on their way to their next mission and that was how they ended up here...
He was doing push ups with his feet above him when they walked in.
"Goku, this is Vegeta," Bulma said. "He's another saiyan like yourself, and I thought today we would test the two of you against one another."
He jumped upright smiling like the clown he clearly was since he was willing to do tricks for this earthling.
"Hi!" he said holding out his hand, which Vegeta ignored.
"Now now, Saiyan," Bulma said softly. "I would really like us all to get along so theirs no need to give him the cold shoulder."
"Hmph..." he frowned looking away.
"Oh well," Bulma shrugged turning back to Goku. "I was thinking of taking you out to the desert to train. Our facility doesn't have enough room and I'd really like to see the two of you go all out."
Goku grinned clearly overjoyed at this news.
Piccolo (despite what Bulma believed) was not evil. He wasn't exactly good either, but he certainly wasn't evil. His father had been, and thus when she and Goku had taken him as a baby they assumed he would be just like King Piccolo. He had hatched in this place, and known nothing of King Piccolo aside from what Bulma had told him. He had been Goku's sparring partner ever since, his soul purpose to make Goku stronger. Until she saw fit to name him one of her top five. Each time one of those gatherings were held you could only have five experiments enter. When she decided to make him one of her top five she then focused on increasing his strength as well rather than just using him to train Goku.
Now he was being used to train this brat... He hadn't really had any formal training. Everything he knew he knew from watching others (aside from a few techniques he had developed on his own). But since he had never been formally trained, he didn't really know how to formally train someone else.
So their first training session had basically been him smacking the kid around hoping to see him attempt to block something and all that ended up happening was his crying. And he didn't like to hear him cry.
So today their training was more or less the same as before. Him smacking the brat around and Gohan crying.
"May I help?" came a voice over the PA system.
He glanced up at the glass window where he knew Bulma and her colleagues would often watch.
"How?" he groaned.
"For a little while, maybe you could focus on teaching him some of your techniques rather than trying to make him fight back by hitting him."
"..."
"Maybe teach him how to shoot energy, but without being offensive."
"That's how you learn, if you get hit enough times eventually you get sick of it and find a way to fight back."
"Okay..." the voice answered. "But maybe you could just explain how you do it and then have him learn that way."
"Explain how I... I don't even know how I do it!" Piccolo snapped looking down at the palm of his hand. He had never told how to shoot ki blasts he just found he could do it one day.
He glanced over at Gohan who was still on the ground from the last time he had hit him, though he was sitting up holding his cheek which was slightly swollen. He sniffled.
Sighing Piccolo walked over towards him and sat down on the ground beside him.
"Hold out your hand," he instructed.
Gohan just blinked up at him looking slightly scared.
Impatiently he grabbed Gohan's wrist holding out his arm, he forced his fingers open so the palm was facing up. Then Piccolo did the same. "To form a ki blast you just pull the energy from within you to the palm of your hand and it just stays there..."
A poor explanation clearly. In Piccolo's hand was a tiny little orb of light.
Staring at it Gohan reached out prodding it with his finger. He instantly recoiled putting the now burnt part of his finger in his mouth.
"Well don't touch it stupid, it's basically fire. It'll burn you."
Gohan held out the hand that hadn't been hurt and he tried to do as Piccolo said. But it didn't seem to work.
"It's broken," he said giving up.
Sighing impatiently, Piccolo made him hold out his hand again. "You didn't even try, now really concentrate..."
This time Piccolo kept his hand close and added a small bit of his own energy, just so Gohan could get the feel of it. When Piccolo brought his energy to Gohan's palm, the boy was able to make it stay there and he stared in aw at the small orb in his hand.
"See, you got it," Piccolo lied. He stretched out on the ground putting his arms behind his head. "When you can shoot energy I'll teach you something else."
Gohan sat staring at it for a few minutes, while Piccolo closed his eyes.
"Pi... Piccolo..."
He opened them. Gohan had made the orb slightly bigger, and without warning he shot it directly into his own face. Gohan fell back and Piccolo bolted upright to see if he was okay. When Gohan sat up his face was singed and he started crying. It was so ridiculous and silly, the green monster couldn't help but smile.
"Dear God," Bulma gasped staring at her energy reading machines. The charts had never gone this high before... "Launch are you getting this?"
Launch was another of Bulma's colleagues. Her dark blue hair was whipping around her from the energy that Goku and Vegeta were giving off. "I'm recording everything don't worry."
Bulma grinned. This was the power she had needed go give Goku his boost. But... How much of a boost would it give him? Vegeta was stronger, but not by much... If she was truly going to take Goku's power to the next level she was going to need someone more than double his strength.
She hit a button on her ship that made a loud noise.
Goku stopped fighting immediately and began heading back towards Bulma. Vegeta who didn't understand what that sound meant, had no choice but to follow Goku's lead in heading back.
"Great job you two, I'm going to be pairing you two together for awhile," she said and walking over to a print out coming from one of her machines she stared at the random numbers, which appeared to only make sense to her. "You two are almost evenly matched, Vegeta is just a bit stronger. Damn, I had really been hoping you would be a bigger challenge for him..."
"I'm way stronger than this clown! You just didn't let us finish our fight!" he snapped.
"I didn't take you out here to kill one another. I took you out here to train. Besides, even if I did let you finish a fight Goku would beat you. He has a way of beating his opponent even if they are stronger than him..."
"He wouldn't beat Lord Frieza that's for sure..." Vegeta snapped.
"Frieza?" she questioned looking up from her work.
"A tyrannical dictator bent on controlling the galaxy," Vegeta answered before heading towards the ship's entrance to head back.
"Is he strong?" Bulma asked.
"More so then you can imagine."
"Great, next week, you can take us to him."
"What?" Vegeta gasped looking over at her he noticed her determined eyes and cocky grin.
"I'll prepare a ship and next week you can take us to him."
"Hell no, do you understand what I mean by more than you can imagine!"
"Yes," she answered. "He sounds like the perfect opponent for Goku."
Goku grinned. "It sounds exciting, I wanna fight this Frieza guy!"
"No you don't!" he snapped. "Neither of you understand how powerful he is! My power level, Kakarrot's, it doesn't even compare!"
"Sounds exciting," Bulma answered before getting on the ship.
"Yeah it does!" Goku agreed hurrying after her.
They didn't understand. Neither of them. To go looking for Frieza it was suicide!
"Are you coming or not?" Bulma snapped. She had been waiting to close the door to the ship so he could get on. He glared at her.
This bitch was going to get him killed.
AN: Yea! I'm done! Hope you all enjoyed.