For reference

"English dialogue"

"Japanese dialogue"

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 4: Suspension of Disbelief

For a while, the three simply stared at one another. Joe and Tom watched the strange man floating in front of them with a mixture of thinly disguised fear and growing confusion.

Goku, for his part, watched them with a rather blank expression on his face. He knew that it wasn't exactly normal to see people flying around, but he didn't expect people to freak about it! Especially since they'd been flying in some weird space- not a spaceship? Goku wasn't quite sure anymore. But hadn't they at least seen people flying in the previous World Tournaments? Everyone had at this point. Or so he'd thought. To his left, Gohan was watching the two strangers curiously as well, but they seemed to have forgotten their earlier shock at him.

A few seconds later, Tom mentally shook himself and took a few deep breaths. He'd been trained better than to react this way. So what if the boy had a tail? So what if his father could fly like some sort of comic book character? He was a soldier, and he needed to keep his nerves, and adapt to the situation. Tom conveniently forgot that his training had never actually taught him how to handle a situation quite this unique. No need to shatter his newfound false self confidence.

Having assured himself everything was still about as under control as was possible at the moment, Tom turned to his companion to make sure he had done the same. And then facepalmed. "Joe, what are you doing right now?"

Either Joe didn't hear Tom, or he didn't care. Whatever the reason, Joe didn't respond. The man was too busy gazing around him with what Tom could only describe as childish wonder. "Joe, pull yourself together!" Tom half shouted as he not so subtly nudged (shoved) Joe to get his attention.

At this Joe finally faced him and met his eyes, and for a moment Tom felt relief wash over him. Until the grin returned to Joe's face, and the man exclaimed, "I've finally figured it out Tom! Don't you see? I read an article of this concept called "lucid dreaming" a while back, and i think I finally figured it out! This is all some crazy dream, I'm still back in the base sleeping and AH- John's going to kill me for sleeping in! I'm not ready to do another hundred push ups this morning! Shoot, how do I wake up for this?"

Tom sighed, grumbling, "I think I've had enough of this…" and without warning punched Joe in the gut, knocking the wind out of his comrade.

Joe gasped, struggling for air, and gave Tom his best look of betrayal, "Hey! What'd you do that for?"

Tom shook his head, not looking at him, "You're not in a dream, stupid. I just tried that no more than a minute ago. Why'd I have to get stranded in God knows where with the most incompetent member of the crew as my only ally?"

"Says the second most incompetent member of the crew."

"At least I had the maturity to take charge of the situation"

"For once."

"...yeah that's fair"

While the two were busy arguing the proper way to handle everything they'd just seen in the past five minutes, the father and son duo watched them in silence. Finally, Gohan addressed his father. :Uh, Dad? I think we broke them."

Goku scratched the back of his head and laughed sheepishly in a manner that someone unfamiliar with him would assume to mean he was thinking. Of course, Goku was doing no such thing, and with a nervous chuckle conveyed this to his son, "Yeah, do you think it's something we said?"

"I dunno Dad, maybe it's the fact that you're flying right in front of them."

"Oh yeah, I forgot I was still in the air. Kinda got caught up in the moment." With that, Goku landed back on the ground, as he continued to figure out what exactly he should do about the current situation. After a moment or so, an idea came to him. "I know, we'll see Bulma about this! She knows all sorts of things, if anyone knows what to do, it'll be her. Now if only there were some way we could take those guys to Capsule Corp…"

Another pause, and by this time the two foreigners appeared to have calmed down and were whispering amongst themselves. Goku continued his train of thought, "Nimbus couldn't carry three people on it at once, and I don't even know if they're pure hearted enough to ride it… but maybe… that's it! I'll just have Bulma come to us!"

Gohan glanced at his father, "Dad, what are you-"

"No time Gohan gotta go I'll be back later, see ya! Nimbus!" And without waiting to listen to his son's frantic protests, the fighter leapt into the sky, where a yellow cloud zipped underneath him before carrying him off in the direction of West City.

Gohan sighed, before what had just happened caught up to him. The fact that the strangers seemed to be in trouble and his dad was with him had made Gohan feel unusually confident, but now he was back to feeling like what he really was. A shy, four year old child, who had spent his entire life sheltered in the woods with just his family. Now was not the best time to learn social skills. And now the two seemed to be looking to him for answers, with his father out of the picture. "Um… hi?"

Tom's jaw had dropped. This was it. He was done. One hundred percent. Absolutely. Done. There wasn't even a point in trying to hide his surprise anymore. For what felt like the thousandth time in what couldn't even have been half an hour, the radio operator was at a complete loss for words. This was starting to become cliche. But who could blame him? The guy had just flown away on a cloud. Of all things, a yellow, puffy cloud.

Joe nudged him, "Uh Tom, did he just-"

"Yes, Joe, yes he did."

"You know, I never imagined Oz would be quite like this."

"You know, maybe we did go down with our ship," Tom lamented, "maybe we are dead, and all this chaos is our hell. It's the only thing that makes sense."

"Nah, there's no way this is hell. I haven't seen a single clown, communist, or slice of cornbread anywhere, and believe me I've been looking." Joe shuddered, "Why is it that all the worst things have to begin with the letter c? Why can't good things begin with c as well, like… cabbage. Wait no I hate that too."

"Joe, is now really the time to joke around? We need answers."

"A better question would be, when isn't it the time to joke around? That's a trick question by the way, the answer is never. Besides, I gave up on any of this making sense a long time ago. Figured I'd just roll with the flow and make do."

Tom slouched over, defeated, "Yeah, I guess you're right on that one. Nothing we really can do at this point. The man flew of to who knows where, we're left with the kid barely older than a toddler, and I'm beginning to think we're never going to find our way home."

"Aw cheer up man, at least we've got each other, and a few shots of liquor I stole off one of the officers last night. What more could we possibly ask for?"

"You know Joe? Sometimes I hate you. Sometimes I really do hate you." A brief pause followed Tom's remark, and for a moment there was sweet, blissful silence. Which was broken as always when Joe decided to open his mouth.

"So, we gonna try talking to the kid, or…"

"Yeah, I suppose we should find a way to pass the time. The man did say he'd be back."

West City

Bulma yawned. Today had been a looooooong day. First she'd woken up early to help her dad with a project, then she'd had to attend a five hour meeting between Capsule Corps' executives in what added up to a drawn out and virtually pointless debate as to where each individual asset Capsule Corp had would best be used to maximize profit for the shareholders. Naturally, in a bureaucratic fashion they had come nowhere close to a decision, and there was another meeting scheduled for tomorrow. Wonderful. And to think the government was supposed to be even more indecisive. But that wasn't all. After a very brief (get it? Brief? I'll see myself out now…) late lunch, she'd spent the rest of the day filling out backlogged reports from the previous week's surge in business, and had just now finished enough to satisfy herself on the matter. Long story short, the only thing Bulma wanted to do right about now was rest. Which is why she was not happy to see a very familiar orange blur race through the sky to meet her.

"Why is it that the entire world seems to be against me?" Bulma muttered under her breath, attempting to compose herself.

"Huh?" Goku's signature look of confusion made its appearance on his face, and Bulma had to hide her smile. Some things never changed. "What'd you just say, Bulma?"

"Oh, nothing. So, what've you come f-" Bulma was cut off halfway through her question as Goku grabbed her by her arm, dragging her back towards Capsule Corp. "Goku, what in the world do you think you're doing"

Goku didn't even spare a glance behind him as he replied, "Sorry Bulma, no time to explain! Me and Gohan found these guys with a weird ship near our house and we don't know where they're from and then I thought of you and now I'm here."

Bulma paused for a second before answering that. "Goku, slow down, you're not making any sense! What do you mean by "weird ship"? And isn't Gohan the name of your grandfather? The one that died over a decade ago? What's going on?"

Goku paused, and for a moment Bulma hoped she would get answers to her questions. And like usual, she was disappointed when he simply moved onto a completely unrelated tangent. "Bulma, where did you keep your capsule plane thing again?" he asked with a sheepish grin.

Bulma groaned, "That's what you were dragging me off to? I keep its capsule in my pocket at all times! You could've asked!"

"Really? Let's go then! I told Gohan but I got hungry on the way here and now I'm afraid I'll have taken too long!"

"Goku, where are we even going?"

"Mt. Paozu! Or near it, I guess. I'll tell you when I see it. Now come on!"

And so, the two headed off to greet the mysterious strangers. Or rather, Bulma unencapsulated her jet copter, climbed into the machine, and lifted it off the ground while Goku rode Nimbus impatiently in circles around it, and then they began heading off into the distance, all the while Bulma yelling at Goku to give her more details than what he had provided so far, to which the fully grown man-child responded with frantic and incomplete answers. But as far as the narration is concerned, those two explanations are one and the same. Mostly. Sort of. Okay maybe not but that's not the point right now.

Back on Mt. Paozu, where our characters have continued their unfocused and random conversation, focusing on anything and everything but the situation currently at hand...

"...and that's why it's illegal to sell fried chicken in odd numbers."

"Joe, is it really necessary that you tell all of the things that have ever happened in your home town? Half of this is just plain stupid."

"Only half? I'm really off my game then. But wait just another minute, I haven't even told you about the time the town idiot accidentally mugged himself! The kid is going to love this!"

"How is that even- you are aware he can't speak our language, right?"

"Uh, well… hey Tom what's that thing in the sky?"

"As if I'm going to fall for-" Tom's voice was drowned out by an overwhelming droning sound before he could finish his sentence, and as he turned to look to where Joe was pointing he saw there was, in fact, something massive in the sky. What could only be described as a double decker bus with two enormous wings somehow keeping it aloft was gradually lowering itself to the ground, and Tom noted with no surprise that the energetic man from earlier was hovering around it in an impatient manner, still on his colored cloud. "You know, I used to think our B-24 was big for an airplane, but this… this takes the cake."

"Yeah…" Joe added, "I'd say now I've seen it all, but I'm afraid I'll jinx it."

As they watched the vehicle, and the boy (Gohan, Tom remembered) ran back to his father, the orange clad man shouted up at the pilot of the vehicle, "Why'd you have to take the big one, anyways?"

Another voice, distinctly female, shouted back from the cockpit, although the person herself remained hidden from Tom and Joe's view, "The transport ship was the only one I had on me at the time? What, did you expect me to carry the whole fleet with me wherever I go?"

Of course, the last part of this made no sense to Tom, nor would it have to Joe had the man understood a word of it. She's talking as if she was carrying that thing around with her like a book or something, he thought, this place is making less and less sense as time goes on…

The ship finally came to a rest on the hillside, and to Tom's relief the noise died down. Thankfully, as he was beginning to worry he'd lose his hearing. Well, not really, but Tom had spent enough time around large noisy planes for one lifetime, even if that burden wouldn't have even been half over more likely than not.

The large metal door on the front end of the plane lowered into a ramp, revealing the vast space in the belly of the oddly rectangular plane, and a single figure walked down it. As she became visible under the dim light of the moon and stars, Joe slouched. "What have I done? I did jinx it."

Tom didn't even react, "Well whaddya know, she has blue hair."

A/N: Annnnd I spent another chapter on pure dialogue. What can I say? It's fun to write. Kinda remembered Gohan was supposed to be shy halfway through this, and came up with an explanation for it. I'm still working on fleshing out the characters, and I'm beginning to realize my writing style is sorta fluctuating based on my mood when I write. Should have the next chapter done faster than this one, though no promises, I need to get back to my other stories.