Videl didn't believe Bulma's story. Time travelling? Evil androids? A dead Gohan? It was crazy!

"Well, how else do you explain all this?" Bulma asked, waving her hand at the half-destroyed city.

"I have no idea where we are," Videl said. "For all I know, this city could have been damaged in a war."

"It was destroyed in a war. The war against the androids."

"Two people can't cause this much destruction, especially with no weapons," Videl said. "Nobody has magical superpowers like that. Not even the Great—"

Wait a minute. Saiyaman. He could do stuff like that...couldn't he?

"The great who?"

"Okay, so I know one person who can fly," Videl admitted. "And emit a strange glow. And maybe shoot lasers or something like that out of his hands. But that doesn't mean other people can do that, does it?"

"I'm afraid it does," Bulma said. "My son Trunks can do those things."

"But...how? Flying is supposed to be impossible."

"I don't know how it works," Bulma said. "You'd have to ask Trunks how he does it."

"Don't worry," Videl said. "I fully intend to learn these things myself." She had three plans on how to blackmail the Great Saiyaman into teaching her how to fly, after all.


Meeting her older self was one of the weirdest things Videl had ever done.

That's not me! Videl kept thinking. Just some weird alternate version of me!

Not only was it weird, but pointless. The other Videl had never heard of Son Gohan, probably because she never went to high school. Orange City had been destroyed by the androids over ten years ago, after they came to the area in hopes that the champion fighter Hercule could put up a halfway decent fight.

It was a particularly gruesome death, too gruesome to write about here, and Videl didn't like hearing the story one bit.

So, after meeting Future Videl, our heroines were no closer to figuring out what was going on than they were before.

"We can't try to send you back into the past with the time machine," Bulma said. "You'd probably end up in yet another alternate universe."

"You mean I'm stuck here?"

"Not exactly. As soon as the Gohan from your universe realizes you're gone, he's bound to figure out what happened and come here looking for you."

"How could he do that?" Videl asked. "I stole his time machine!"

Woah, there's something I thought I'd never say... Videl thought to herself.

"I could send Trunks to the past to give Gohan a time machine," Bulma said. "But that would lead to the same problem—he'd probably end up in the wrong alternate timeline. There must be millions of timelines, after all, and I've only got two programmed into the time machine: our timeline and the one Trunks visited a few times."

"This time travel thing is too much for me," Videl said. "I think I'm going to take a nap and hope that when I wake up, this was all just a bad dream."

"Don't worry, Videl. I'll think of something," Bulma promised. Even though she had only met Videl that day, Bulma felt obligated to help her. She had a duty to honor Gohan's memory and his friends, and she also felt kind of guilty that her time machine was the source of all the trouble. "Even if all else fails, we still have the dragon balls. The ones on Namek, that is."

"Excuse me?"


Two weeks later, it became apparent that Gohan wasn't going to show up in search of Videl. Maybe he couldn't come. Maybe he didn't know what had happened to her. Or maybe he just didn't care...

No, Videl, you can't think that, Videl scolded herself. You're going to get back home, whether or not Gohan helps.

Videl spent most of her time at Capsule Corp with Bulma and Trunks. Trunks ended up being a lot nicer than she originally thought once he realized she wasn't a threat. With a lot of pleading and a little bit of flirting, she managed to convince him to give her fighting lessons.

Soon, she could hover in place (which is technically a kind of flying) and shoot small energy blasts at will.

"Wait until Saiyaman sees what I can do now!" Videl bragged.

"Who the heck is Saiyaman?" Trunks asked.

"He's a superhero in my world," Videl said. "He can fly, lift heavy things, and glow."

A Saiyan Man, huh? I wonder if it's Gohan or my dad, Trunks thought. "What's he like?"

"He's the biggest dork I've ever met."

"Dork?"

"Yeah, he's always doing stupid poses, like this..."

Videl started performing one of Saiyaman's dorkier routines. Sadly, she had seen this routine up close on several occasions.

I am the helmet-having hero...
The cape-covered criminal catcher...
The G-g-g-g-g-great!
S-s-s-s-saiya-m-m-m-m-man!

Trunks started laughing. No way that's anyone I know! My dad would rather die than be caught singing, and Gohan would never do anything that stupid!

"Wow, I'm glad I'm not living in your universe!" Trunks said, catching his breath after laughing so hard.

"I know, right? He's the worst crime-fighting partner ever. Although..."

"What?"

"Dorky as he is, I'd still give a million zenni to see him or anyone else I know again."

"Don't worry, Videl. You'll be home soon, I promise. The dragon balls don't fail."


Speaking of the Great Saiyaman, AKA Gohan, he had not abandoned our heroine Videl. In fact, he was starting to get worried about her. School had ended, but Videl still hadn't come back from wherever she was.

And I went through all the trouble of bringing one of Bulma's flying machines to show her, too... Gohan thought. Oh well.

Gohan packed up all of his books and prepared to go home. That's when he noticed something was missing.

Oh man! The capsule I got from Bulma! Where is it? I had it this morning!

Slightly panicked, Gohan ran back to his classroom to search for the missing capsule.

It's not here! It's not here! Oh man, I lost it! I lost one of Bulma's top secret flying devices! She's going to kill me!

Okay, calm down, Gohan. Maybe if you're lucky, she won't mention it when you pick up Goten today! Besides, she's extremely reasonable, right?

...I'm dead.


Back in the future, Bulma and Trunks agreed that it was starting to look like the dragon balls on New Namek was their best bet. Only...they didn't have the spaceship to Namek anymore. It was yet another one of the casualties of the androids.

So it was decided that Trunks would go back in time and borrow the spaceship capsule from the earlier Bulma. He set the time machine to the universe where he had met Goku, and on the odd chance he might get lucky, he set for the day that Videl disappeared.

Trunks thought the people in the past would be happy to see him again, but when he arrived at Capsule Corp, he could hear yelling coming from his mother's lab.

"You LOST the time machine?"

"I said I was sorry, Bulma!"

"You were supposed to take one of the jet copters! How could you be such an idiot?"

"I guess I was distracted with the news about my dad coming back!"

"I wouldn't go in there if I was you," a voice behind Trunks said.

It was Vegeta.

"Father!" Trunks said.

"Figures you'd be around, with all this talk about missing time machines," Vegeta grunted. "Come back to fight Kakarott?"

"Fight...Kakarott? You mean, Goku? Isn't he dead?"

"Then you haven't heard," Vegeta said. "Kakarott is coming back to fight in the World's Martial Arts Tournament."

"Isn't that impossible?" Trunks asked.

"I don't care how he does it; I'm just glad for the opportunity to beat his sorry face in once and for all," Vegeta said. "It's a good thing you're here; I need a decent sparring partner. Let's go."

"Actually, I was hoping to get a capsule from Mom first..." Trunks said.

"What's the matter? Scared to fight your old man?" Vegeta asked. "She won't be finished yelling at the half-breed for at least another twenty minutes. You've got time."

"Well, um, sure, I guess," Trunks said.


Thirty minutes later...

"It's good to see you again, Trunks," Gohan said to his friend.

"Trunks! You came back!" Bulma said, showering her future son with hugs and kisses. "We haven't seen you in years!"

"Mom!" Trunks complained, trying to push her away. "It's only been a couple of weeks since we last saw each other! ...Well, for me, at least."

"It's so nice to see a responsible young man around the house," Bulma huffed. "Gohan let his girlfriend steal one of our most important capsules."

"She's not my girlfriend!" Gohan said. "Besides, we don't even know if she has it!"

"She disappears at the same time as the time machine, and you think it's just a coincidence? For all we know, she could be stuck in the Stone Age by now!"

"You guys aren't talking about Videl Satan by any chance, are you?" Trunks asked.

"Yeah, you know her?" Gohan asked.

"A couple of weeks ago, a girl named Videl Satan showed up at Capsule Corp. in a time machine."

"So she did steal it!" Bulma said. "The little thief! That's it, Gohan; she's not allowed to be your girlfriend anymore!"

"She's not my girlfriend!" Gohan said for the twentieth time.

"That's great news!" Trunks said.

"What?" Bulma said. "Great news? Why would you say it's great news that they're not dating? Unless...oh no! Don't tell me you want Videl to be your girlfriend?"

"What? Trunks!" Gohan said. "You can't go out with her! She's from my timeline, not yours!"

"No, no!" Trunks said. "You've got it all wrong! It's not great news that she isn't Gohan's girlfriend; it's great news that I've found Videl!"

"Oh," Bulma breathed a sigh of relief. "Because no son of mine is going out with a thief."

"She's not as bad as you make her out to be!" Gohan protested. "She's actually a nice person! Well...kind of!"

"We had no idea where Videl came from," Trunks said. "I actually came back here to get the spaceship to Namek so we could use the Namekian dragon balls to wish her back to her own timeline. But now that we know which timeline she's from, I don't have to do that anymore!"

"So, you're going to bring her back? And the time machine?"

"Yes," Trunks said.

"Yes!" Gohan cheered. "See, Bulma? Nothing bad happened because I lost the time machine! You don't have to be upset with me anymore!"

"Nice try, Gohan," Bulma said. "If Trunks hadn't been around to save the day, who knows what would have happened?"


And so it was that Videl was able to use the time machine to go back home to her own timeline.

"I guess this is goodbye, Trunks," Videl said.

"Ah, you'll see me soon," Trunks said. "Dad mentioned something about a martial arts tournament."

"The World's Martial Arts Tournament!" Videl said. "They're holding it on March 15th this year!"

"Yeah, it sounds like fun. I think I might stop by and enter."

"That'd be great!" Videl said. "I was afraid I wouldn't find any competition with all the new fighting techniques you taught me."

"Ha ha, yeah!" Trunks said. "You're going to knock them dead at the tournament."

"The first person I'll knock dead is Gohan, for getting me into this whole time travel mess."

"Ah, go easy on him, okay?" Trunks asked. "He's my friend. Besides, I heard that he has a little crush on you."

"Gohan has a crush on me?" Videl wondered.

She blushed slightly, without knowing it.

He might not be the only one with a crush... Trunks thought to himself.

"Goodbye, Trunks! See you soon!" Videl said.

"See ya!"

"Time to go home," Videl said, pushing the start button on the time machine. It sprang to life and disappeared.