"Time is a delicate component of our existence that is not to be messed with. We learned that the hard way- years ago, before you were even born. Traveling through time goes against nature and even the gods themselves."
Bulla rolled her eyes at her mother's melodramatic warning to her, slipping into the vacant lab in the basement of Capsule Corp. Growing up, the half-saiyan's family and friends had always reminisced on tales of adventure and conflict throughout their lives. The most fascinating of these sagas was a story about her very own brother traversing time and space to save their planet on two separate occasions. She remembered asking her father nearly every night throughout her childhood to recount the experiences of both his own youth and the events of meeting his son from the future. 'Probably cause the Trunks we got is such a loser,' the teen thought to her self.
Bulma had thrown a fit when her daughter approached her, asking to borrow a time machine to "take a vacation" to the past.
"Absolutely not!" her mother screeched with her hands on her hips, "Did I teach you nothing about how the universe works?! I'm not letting you screw up the space-time continuum so you can… what do you even want to do?!"
Bulla pouted, "But Trunks got to travel through time!" she whined, "That's not fair! And I just think it'd be cool to see everyone when they're younger. Who cares if a new timeline is made? It'll just be the same thing as here!"
"Okay, one: that wasn't even the same Trunks. Two: he traveled here because he lived in a freaking post apocalyptic world. And three: I don't even have a time machine made, so I guess you're out of luck." Bulma lied. The older woman proceeded with her caution about the laws of the universe and the gods.
"Yeah, like you ever cared about that," the 16-year-old thought to herself as she easily bypassed a number of security systems protecting a vault inside the lab. She could easily just punch through it- she was her father's daughter after all- however, she was trying to be somewhat inconspicuous.
Entering the repository, the young scientist began to rummage through the cabinets, each filled with numerically labeled capsules representing the contents inside. Bulla picked through endless collections of highly dangerous or unfinished weapons, vehicles, and supplies, until she pulled out a shelf revealing several DynoCaps with blank labels. The heiress smirked to herself.
"Looks like mom's been busy," she muttered, and grabbed two capsules from the drawer, "So much for worrying about the gods and nature."
In addition to the unlabeled capsules, there was one with a blue tag marked B15. Having convinced her mother to, at the very least, explain the mechanisms of her greatest invention yet, the proud scientist had pulled out a decades-old notebook and some blueprints of the time machine for her daughter. Having studied those, it was clear that this was the Blue No. 15 Electro-Fluid used to fuel the device.
Pocketing the capsules, the half-saiyan made sure to leave the vault as she found it, setting up the security system once more and leaving the lab. Walking through the halls leading back to the main building of Capsule Corp., she saw Trunks approaching, engaged in his phone and carrying a briefcase. He looked up from his screen, raising a brow at her.
"What were you doing in the lab?"
Bulla walked up to her older brother and plucked his glasses from his face, "You and I both know you don't need these, dork. Why do you even wear them?"
He crossed his arms and glared at her, a spitting image of their father outside of his hair and eye color, "Gohan wears glasses too. They're supposed to make you look studious. Some of us actually have jobs, and I'm trying to look the part, brat."
The younger sibling burst into laughter, "Oh! Well if Gohan think they're cool, then it must be true!" Walking away, she tossed the eyewear back to her brother before pausing, "Spending all night in the lab again? Want me to grab you a coffee?"
Trunks rubbed his tired eyes, Bulla not envying his position as the new head of their family business, "No, I'll only be down here a couple hours," he said, not sounding convinced.
"If you say so!" Bulla continued on her way, glad to have avoided a further interrogation. She had barely completed her search between the time her mother left the lab for bed and her brother pulling yet another all-nighter in it.
The teen found herself on the lawn of Capsule Corporation, throwing a DynoCap onto the grass to reveal a small custom-made hoverbike. Flying would be far more convenient, but as she and Pan learned only a few years earlier, raising her ki in order to sneak out never got past her father.
Quietly taking off into the air, Bulla flew off into the dark sky.
Landing in a small forest clearing miles from her home, the half-saiyan turned her bike back into a capsule before pulling two more out of her pocket. Tossing one after the other onto the ground, the two DynoCaps exploded to reveal a tall ship resembling a spacecraft, and a large metal chest. The teen stared at the time machine in awe, finally laying eyes on the extraordinary invention she had only seen in drawings. Eventually, she walked over to the chest, opening it to reveal about a dozen canisters radiating a vivid blue glow.
'This should be enough for a few trips.'
After a few minutes, Bulla was sitting in the seat of the now functioning time machine, the rest of the fuel once again in a capsule. The screens came to life, illuminating the girl's face in the dark forest, as she began typing out her coordinates. Yes, the time and location of her first trip was an easy choice to make.
She had been studying the information her mother had collected over the decades about the Frieza Force. Capsule Corp. had entire databases saved from the tyrant's own ships and technology that Bulma had managed to scavenge. You could find all kinds of information in those files- including the positioning of his ship throughout the years.
The top of the machine lowered from above, sealing her inside as it began to rise into the air. Bulla was now thankful she decided to do this far from home as she listened to the roar of the engine and watched the trees sway from the sheer power of the ship.
Taking off further into the sky, the world around the heiress eventually blipped out of existence, the time machine now hurtling through what could only be time itself. Bulla stared in wonder as the colors and shapes flew past her in at incredible speeds. Minutes passed, until finally it all came to abrupt stop, and the half-saiyan found that she was now floating in a void.
Taking a moment to adjust her eyes, Bulla could now identify faint stars speckling the black space all around her. If one looked hard enough, they could see the shadow of an ellipse blocking out any starlight. The Saiyan princess smirked as she realized her plan had worked.
It was Frieza's ship.
The young genius grabbed the throttle and began to maneuver the ship closer to the abyss. How she would get on the vessel, she wasn't sure, but she was hoping they would contact-
The sound of static rang through the small space before a raspy voice called out to her "This is an unauthorized spacecraft currently trespassing on territory belonging to Lord Frieza. State your name and reason for your intrusion." The time machine groaned as an unrelated force began pulling it towards the larger ship. Bulla sighed in relief. She had been afraid they might shoot her down. She could survive in space for a few moments should she power up enough, but she really didn't want to forcefully tear into the ship.
Looking around, the half-saiyan spotted a handheld radio speaker and brought it to her lips, "Hi! I just wanted to take a look around your ship for a while. If you could just bring me on in that would be wonderful."
There was an extended silence before the voice returned, "You want… to look around Lord Frieza's main vessel, unauthorized." The alien on the other line asked in disbelief.
"Yes."
Bulla didn't receive another response as the time machine was pulled into Frieza's own spacecraft. The princess squinted as the area she was pulled into was illuminated- a stark contrast to the darkness of space. The room looked to be made completely out of steel, with only a large, sealed door on the wall ahead of her.
"All sentient beings exit the spacecraft." The voice from earlier sounded throughout the room. Bulla shrugged, opening the top of the time machine and leaping out of it. "Walk ten paces forward and get on your knees. Put your hands behind you… uh…." the voice faltered as it went completely ignored. The teen instead focused on her ship, pressing a button on the side that reverted it back to capsule form. She turned around and looked up to address the omnipresent voice.
"Look, I don't want to break down your door, but I will if you don't open it for me."
The person on the other line scoffed at that, "We will rid of you right now, weakling, if you continue to defy our orders. The walls of this room are nigh indestructible-" a blast interrupted the alien, putting a gaping hole in the "indestructible" wall. Bulla lowered her arm and walked through the destruction she had caused, alarms now blaring through the hallway. She was practically skipping through the corridor when she came across another door, again, using the brute force of a ki blast to get through it. The fighter emerged through the clearing smoke, only to come face to face with dozens of soldiers aiming guns at her.
"Get on the ground!" another voice screamed at the girl as she crossed her arms.
"I just blasted through your indestructible wall. Do you really think those little energy guns they give you are going to do anything to me? Actually, I don't think you do, or else you would have fired already." Bulla crouched into what appeared to be a fighting stance as Frieza's men prepared for a battle.
Then, the woman was gone, leaving their scouters at zero as panic rose among the soldiers.
The teen soared through the hallways of the space station, too fast for any of Frieza's men or scouters to detect. Eventually she came to a stop in an empty corridor far away from the alarms and chaos she left behind, deciding to plan her next course of action: finding her father, of course. Closing her eyes, Bulla began trying to sense his ki, hoping he was actually present on Frieza's ship at the moment.
It wasn't difficult to find. His energy was among the most powerful onboard. It was definitely different than what she was used to, though: far weaker and extremely evil. It was, however, unmistakably his.
She ran through the ship, wanting to find her way to her father before the men that greeted her realized that she had made it this far into the station. She eventually found herself in a highly crowded area, tons of Frieza's men packing themselves into a single area, seemingly unaware of what had occurred at the docking station.
Bulla entered as well, looking around and realizing she was in some sort of mess hall as aliens of all species rushed back and forth with… well what she was assuming was food. It looked closer to wet concrete but people seemed to be eating it.
Craning her neck and trying to maneuver through the crowd, the half-Saiyan didn't notice that she had entered a small area that the rest of the fighters were actively avoiding. She continued to walk forward, distracted, until she crashed directly into someone.
Bulla felt the cold, concrete food drip down her clothes as the entire room went silent, every pair of eyes now on her and the one whose meal she just ruined. The heiress didn't care; this moron just ruined her shirt!
"Hey asshole, watch where you're going-" Bulla gasped, her hands covering her mouth as she looked at the other fighter. Standing in front of her was a teenage version of her father. Despite being a few inches shorter than her and having a bit of a baby face, he looked his same old grumpy-self.
"Ohmigosh," she squealed, "You are just adorable!"