"Dragon Ball XX"

By RanChan2k3

Chapter 1

"The Tale Begins"

It was a fine and sunny afternoon in the wilderness around Mt. Paozu. An old man and martial arts master by the name of Son Gohan was trekking through the woods in search of wild herbs and vegetables to supplement his dinner that night. His quest was interrupted by the sound of a baby crying somewhere nearby. Curious and a bit concerned, he diverted from his path to track down the source of the noise. To his great surprise, he found it: a naked baby with wild black hair crying at the edge of an impact crater, a strange round object visible in the middle of the crater.

"Why, it is a baby," remarked the old man to himself. He reached down to pick it up. "Hello there. Hmm…so you're a little girl, I see." As he examined the baby, a tail dropped down to hang behind her. "What's this? You have a tail? Ohoho! How unusual! Not to worry, I'm a bit of an odd duck myself." The baby girl attempted a half-hearted kick at Gohan's chin, which the old man dodged. "Ohoho! You're a feisty one, I see! I think I'll take you home with me. Let's see…we'll call you Goku. How does that sound?"

And so, as the little girl's giggling filled the air, we begin a new chapter in the story of Earth.

Twelve years pass…

"Looks like it's just a few kilometers away now," noted the teenage girl driving her car. This was Bulma Briefs, 16-year-old genius and heir to the Capsule Corp fortune, who was consulting a handheld radar-like device while driving towards Mt. Paozu. She looked up from her device, just in time to see a younger girl with wild black hair in a blue karate gi of some sort dragging a giant fish down the road. "Whoa!" She slammed on the brakes, swerving into a spin and just narrowly avoiding a collision as the car stopped.

"Phew…" Then the car began lifting into the air. "Wait, what?! Uwaaa!" The car was somehow thrown further down the road, rolling a few times before stopping on its side.

"That's for trying to steal my fish, you monster!," came the voice of the younger girl outside the car.

"That's gotta be a monster or something," decided Bulma as she grabbed a gun out of the glove compartment. She climbed up out of the window and pointed the gun at the girl. "Try to get the drop on me, will you?!," growled Bulma as she fired the gun, hitting the other girl right in the forehead and knocking her on her back.

"Uh…" Bulma blinked a couple of times, wondering now if maybe she'd overreacted.

And then the other girl sat up.

"Owowowow!" The younger girl was clutching at her head. "What was that, some kind of witch magic or something?!"

Bulma could only stare in wide-eyed disbelief. "But…I just shot you…you should be dead…"

The girl backflipped into a one-armed handstand, grabbing some kind of red pole on the ground. "It'll take more than that to finish me off! My body's harder than steel!" She then flipped to her feet and got into a stance with her pole. "Now get ready for what's coming to you, you witch!"

Bulma dropped the gun and raised her hands. "Stop, please! This is too crazy! I'm not a witch! I'm a human being!"

That made the other girl jump back and hesitate. "A human?"

Bulma climbed out of the car and dropped down to stand on the street. "See? Two arms and two legs, just like you!"

The other girl frowned. "Don't move!" She then began to circle around Bulma, examining her carefully. "Hmm…you sorta look like me…but you're different. Softer, I think."

"Well, yeah," replied Bulma. "I'm a girl from the city, not a country girl like you."

"You're from the city?! Wow!" She peered around behind Bulma. "Where's your tail, though? Do city girls not have them?"

That's when Bulma noticed that the little girl she was talking to had a tail. A real one, too, judging by the way it was moving. "What?! You have a tail?!"

"Well, yeah," replied the other girl like it was no big deal. "I've always had it. Grandpa told me all girls have one, though I'm starting to think he just didn't want me to think it was weird. He also said that if I ever ran into a girl from the city, I should be really nice to her. So, you wanna come back to my house? I can feed you," she offered, indicating the very large fish she was dragging before.

"Okay, sure!," agreed Bulma. "What do I call you, by the way?"

"My name is Son Goku," came the answer, "but you can just call me Goku. What about you?"

"…Bulma."

"Bulma?" Goku started giggling. "That's kind of a funny name."

"Oh, shut up! I didn't choose it!," retorted a fuming Bulma.

"Sorry, sorry," replied a still giggling Goku. "Come on, my house is this way."

As Bulma trailed behind Goku as the younger girl dragged the giant fish towards her home, she had to confess – at least to herself – that she was fascinated by Goku. 'She's so small and so young, but she's light years stronger than any boy I've ever met,' she thought to herself. 'What kind of life must she have led out here to become so powerful and independent at such a young age?'

"Hey, Goku," began Bulma. "How did you get to be so strong?"

"My Grandpa trained me," came the answer. "He was a martial arts master."

'Wait a minute.' "Was?"

"He died a long time ago," explained Goku. "One of the monsters out here killed him."

'Oh. Well, that was a mood killer.' "So it's just you by yourself out here?," queried Bulma.

"Yeah, but I'm not lonely," said Goku. "I'm friends with a lot of the animals out here, and I've got a keepsake from my Grandpa that I pray to every night before bed."

'Sounds pretty lonely to me, kiddo,' thought Bulma.

"We're here, Bulma!"

The house they came up to had clearly seen better days, looking more like a dilapidated ruin than a place someone was currently living in. On the other hand, it was also clear that at one time the house had a lot of love put into it, and if Goku had been alone for several years, it's not like she would've been able to repair it. The younger girl wouldn't have even had access to any instruction manuals to walk her through all the carpentry, plumbing, wiring, etc. So rather than comment, Bulma just followed Goku into the house.

Goku tossed her pole aside and knelt before a glowing orange ball that was resting on a purple cushion, clapping her hands together in prayer position. "Grandpa, Grandpa!," she began excitedly. "Guess what?! I brought a girl from the city home! Her name is Bulma, and she seems really nice."

That's when Bulma noticed exactly what it was Goku was praying to. "Ah! That's a Dragon Ball!" Bulma ran over and grabbed it, knocking Goku aside in the process.

Upset, Goku quickly grabbed it back from Bulma. "Hey! Don't touch Grandpa like that!"

And then Bulma realized her faux pas. "You think that's…? Oh, wow, I guess I need to explain. Here, look at this." Bulma reached into a pouch at her belt and dug around, pulling out two very similar-looking balls to the one Goku had.

"Whoa! You've got two Grandpas?!," the girl voiced.

Bulma giggled. "No, silly, these are called Dragon Balls. There are seven in all, with stars in them to indicate which one it is. I found the Five-Star Ball in my parents' basement. I asked around, but nobody knew anything about it, so I had to do some research. I eventually found out that when you gather all seven of them and say the magic words, the Eternal Dragon, Shenron, appears and grants you a wish, anything you want!"

Goku counts the stars in her own ball. "One, two, three, four. Four stars. My Grandpa has four stars!"

Bulma nodded. "I found the Two-Star Ball in a little village a couple hundred kilometers from here, and then your Four-Star Ball makes three!"

Goku hid the ball behind her back. "No way! This is Grandpa's keepsake! I'm not letting you take it!"

"Then why don't you come with me?," offered Bulma. "Finding the rest of the Dragon Balls could be a really dangerous adventure, just the kind of thing a girl like you could really get into. All kinds of opportunities to train and get stronger."

Goku thought about it. "Well…okay. But I'm still not giving you my Grandpa's keepsake."

"That's fine," agreed Bulma. "You can hang onto it, and then I'll just borrow it for a little bit at the end, okay?"

Mollified, Goku nodded. "Okay!"

As Goku got ready to leave, Bulma congratulated herself on a job well done. 'This is perfect! With Goku around as a bodyguard, gathering the rest of the Dragon Balls should be a cinch! And I'm not even technically lying. It isn't my fault the balls scatter around the world and turn to stone for a year after they get used.' As Goku walked up, tying a pouch with the Four-Star Ball in it onto her belt, Bulma put her own Dragon Balls away. "Great! Ready to go?"

"Yup," confirmed Goku. "By the way, what are you gonna wish for, Bulma?"

"Well," answered Bulma, "at first I thought it might be fun to have a lifetime supply of strawberries, but now I think I'm going to wish for the perfect boyfriend."

Goku blinked. "Boyfriend? What would you want one of those for?"

"Uh…I'll explain when you're older." Bulma then stepped outside, pulling out her case of Dyno-Caps as Goku trailed behind. "Let's see…number nine should do, I think." She pulled out Dyno-Cap number nine, then pressed the button on it and tossed it to the ground. With a loud puff of smoke that knocked over a startled Goku, a motorcycle materialized from the capsule. "Okay, Goku, get on!"

Goku sprang back up, pole in hand. "I knew you were a witch! What magic have you used this time?!" She began poking the motorcycle with her pole.

"It's not magic, silly," retorted Bulma. "It's a Capsule Motorcycle. Everyone in the city uses Dyno-Caps. And stop poking it with your stick!"

Now it was Goku's turn to get offended. "It's not a stick; it's my Power Pole! It was a gift from my Grandpa!"

"Whatever, kid, just get on." Bulma got on the motorcycle.

Goku climbed on behind her, confused. "Okay, but what is sitting on this thing gonna do?"

"Here we go!" Bulma cranked up the motorcycle, then took off, prompting Goku to grab onto her and yell in surprise.

"Wow!," exclaimed an amazed Goku. "We're going even faster than I can run!"

Bulma just giggled and gunned the engine, speeding on down the road. 'Strong, independent, yet she's also so sweet and innocent,' Bulma thought to herself. 'Except for the tail, she's a girl just like me, but at such a young age she can do her own hunting and cooking, survive in the woods, and she's apparently bulletproof, not to mention she threw my car like it was a baseball! Goku, you're kind of amazing. I can't wait to see what kind of woman you'll grow up to become.'

And so the two girls drove on, following Bulma's Dragon Radar to the fourth Dragon Ball. Who can say what adventures await our two heroes? Join us next time and find out on the next exciting episode of "Dragon Ball XX"!

(Author's Note: So! I'm doing a genderbent Goku story. Before you start thinking this is just going to be a point-by-point retelling of the original Dragon Ball story, let me assure you that Goku being born a girl in this story is going to start making a major difference in the way events progress. There's already been one event skipped: Since Bulma didn't have to go far out of sight to go pee where Goku couldn't see her, she didn't get attacked by that giant pterodactyl, and thus didn't require a rescue from Goku. Credit for this idea goes to YouTuber MasakoX and his what-if video series covering this very same topic. Check it out if you get a chance. And I will see you all in the next chapter! Bye! ^_^)