The next afternoon.
No one had seen Bulma the entire day; she had holed up inside her lab.
Inspired by Mirai's return, she was researching parallel timelines, alternate realities, and the like. She was currently hunched over several pieces of paper, scribbling furiously and muttering to herself.
"...Now, according to the Stromberg equation, I should be able to get this result, but that puts it at direct odds with the Vaughn theorem, but if I combine both of those with the Brown hypothesis, it should work..."
Skritch. Skritch. Her pencil flew across the sheets of paper. It had been a while since she had been this involved in a project.
The areas she was dabbling in now were probably outside of the realm of everyone else in the world, with the possible exceptions of her father, her sons, and Gohan. But it was doubtful that even any of them could do all she was doing.
Skritch. Skritch. Knock. Knock.
Bulma frowned, mid-calculation. Pencils didn't normally do that.
She swiveled her chair around and looked at the door to the lab. Through the viewport, she could see Trunks waving at her. She walked over to the door and unlocked and opened it.
"What is it, honey?"
"Could you fix us some lunch?"
"Isn't it a bit early for l--" She cut off her statement as her eye caught a clock. It read 1:30 PM. She blinked. That meant she had been working for about six hours or so. Yet it had only seemed like a few minutes.
"Sure. I'll be right there." As Trunks ran merrily in the direction of the kitchen, she smiled. It was just like the good ol' days, when she would stay up entire nights inventing things and not realize it until the sun rose in her eyes.
***
"Just what the hell are you doing in there, anyway, woman?" Vegeta asked, as he started on his fourth ham sandwich.
"Some stuff involving alternate dimensions."
He grunted.
***
After lunch, Bulma went right back to lunch. She worked the rest of the night with only one small break for supper.
She had finished all of her calculating, and had now moved onto construction. She was building a dimensional hyperbelator, to allow her to view other timelines, such as Mirai's. It would allow her to see how things would have developed if certain events had happened in different ways.
"Of course, it does make me feel a bit like a cosmic voyeur," she muttered to herself.
***
She finally finished the dimensional hyperbelator around 3:30 in the morning. She supposed she should get some sleep, but she was too eager to test it out to wait until daylight.
She pushed the power button. She rubbed her hands gleefully as the huge monitor activated.
"Now, if everything works right, it should home in on a random timeline out of infinite," she said, as if there was an audience, "and allow me to view all the events in that entire universe, past, present, and future."
The monitor began to display a scene from one timeline. It took place on a planet that was unknown to Bulma, but it looked devastated. She couldn't see that anything grew there; all that was visible to her were rocks and dust. However, through the dust, she could make out two figures, striding towards her.
As she strained to discern some kind of detail on the figures, some of the machine's internal circuitry began to spark, unknown to her.
The figures suddenly jerked their heads up. They seemed to be staring straight at her.
The next thing she knew, the machine had exploded, and she had hurled back several feet. Recovering, she could see that the two figures were striding forth from the wreckage of her machine.
One of them was a huge, muscular looking man--no, it wasn't a man. He was a Super Saiyan. A ridiculously muscled Super Saiyan, but a Super Saiyan.
The other one...
She gasped. The other one looked just like Goku, except for the fact that he had a deep tan.
And then they saw her.
"Well, well, well," said the one who looked like Goku. "Allow us to introduce ourselves. My name is Turles, and my associate here is Broli."
The pair began to advance on her, a wicked smile forming on the lips of Turles. Paralyzed, forgetting her vast Super Saiyan 3 power, Bulma was horrified. What would they do to her?
Wham.
In less time than it takes to describe, the locked titanium door to the lab had been burst open, papers had been scattered in the wake of a strong wind, and a certain King of the Saiyans had delivered a single punch that had rendered Turles unconscious. Another one had taken care of Broli, as well.
"Ve...Vegeta?" Bulma managed to gasp. "How did--?"
"If I've learned one thing from Mirai, it's this: alternate timelines are dangerous. I've been waiting outside the door ever since dinner, just in case something happened."
Bulma staggered to her feet. "I have got to remember I have all that power."
"Yes, you do. And you need to learn how to use it. Now, what should we do with these two bakas?"
"Hang on a second...I think I have something around here somewhere..." As Vegeta gave her a quizzical look, she began to rummage around in her lab.
"Ah-HA! Found 'em!" She emerged from behind a huge pile of junk, holding two pair of what looked like handcuffs with strange electrical equipment covering them.
"By the cosmos, woman, what are those devices?"
"Ki-draining handcuffs. Whenever someone wears them, their power is reduced to that of an ordinary human until they're removed. Here."
As Vegeta attached the devices to the two unconscious figures, he asked, "What drove you to create these? As a backup plan in case something similar to the Majin incident happened again?"
"Yes. That, and...other purposes."
Vegeta simply looked at her.
No one had seen Bulma the entire day; she had holed up inside her lab.
Inspired by Mirai's return, she was researching parallel timelines, alternate realities, and the like. She was currently hunched over several pieces of paper, scribbling furiously and muttering to herself.
"...Now, according to the Stromberg equation, I should be able to get this result, but that puts it at direct odds with the Vaughn theorem, but if I combine both of those with the Brown hypothesis, it should work..."
Skritch. Skritch. Her pencil flew across the sheets of paper. It had been a while since she had been this involved in a project.
The areas she was dabbling in now were probably outside of the realm of everyone else in the world, with the possible exceptions of her father, her sons, and Gohan. But it was doubtful that even any of them could do all she was doing.
Skritch. Skritch. Knock. Knock.
Bulma frowned, mid-calculation. Pencils didn't normally do that.
She swiveled her chair around and looked at the door to the lab. Through the viewport, she could see Trunks waving at her. She walked over to the door and unlocked and opened it.
"What is it, honey?"
"Could you fix us some lunch?"
"Isn't it a bit early for l--" She cut off her statement as her eye caught a clock. It read 1:30 PM. She blinked. That meant she had been working for about six hours or so. Yet it had only seemed like a few minutes.
"Sure. I'll be right there." As Trunks ran merrily in the direction of the kitchen, she smiled. It was just like the good ol' days, when she would stay up entire nights inventing things and not realize it until the sun rose in her eyes.
***
"Just what the hell are you doing in there, anyway, woman?" Vegeta asked, as he started on his fourth ham sandwich.
"Some stuff involving alternate dimensions."
He grunted.
***
After lunch, Bulma went right back to lunch. She worked the rest of the night with only one small break for supper.
She had finished all of her calculating, and had now moved onto construction. She was building a dimensional hyperbelator, to allow her to view other timelines, such as Mirai's. It would allow her to see how things would have developed if certain events had happened in different ways.
"Of course, it does make me feel a bit like a cosmic voyeur," she muttered to herself.
***
She finally finished the dimensional hyperbelator around 3:30 in the morning. She supposed she should get some sleep, but she was too eager to test it out to wait until daylight.
She pushed the power button. She rubbed her hands gleefully as the huge monitor activated.
"Now, if everything works right, it should home in on a random timeline out of infinite," she said, as if there was an audience, "and allow me to view all the events in that entire universe, past, present, and future."
The monitor began to display a scene from one timeline. It took place on a planet that was unknown to Bulma, but it looked devastated. She couldn't see that anything grew there; all that was visible to her were rocks and dust. However, through the dust, she could make out two figures, striding towards her.
As she strained to discern some kind of detail on the figures, some of the machine's internal circuitry began to spark, unknown to her.
The figures suddenly jerked their heads up. They seemed to be staring straight at her.
The next thing she knew, the machine had exploded, and she had hurled back several feet. Recovering, she could see that the two figures were striding forth from the wreckage of her machine.
One of them was a huge, muscular looking man--no, it wasn't a man. He was a Super Saiyan. A ridiculously muscled Super Saiyan, but a Super Saiyan.
The other one...
She gasped. The other one looked just like Goku, except for the fact that he had a deep tan.
And then they saw her.
"Well, well, well," said the one who looked like Goku. "Allow us to introduce ourselves. My name is Turles, and my associate here is Broli."
The pair began to advance on her, a wicked smile forming on the lips of Turles. Paralyzed, forgetting her vast Super Saiyan 3 power, Bulma was horrified. What would they do to her?
Wham.
In less time than it takes to describe, the locked titanium door to the lab had been burst open, papers had been scattered in the wake of a strong wind, and a certain King of the Saiyans had delivered a single punch that had rendered Turles unconscious. Another one had taken care of Broli, as well.
"Ve...Vegeta?" Bulma managed to gasp. "How did--?"
"If I've learned one thing from Mirai, it's this: alternate timelines are dangerous. I've been waiting outside the door ever since dinner, just in case something happened."
Bulma staggered to her feet. "I have got to remember I have all that power."
"Yes, you do. And you need to learn how to use it. Now, what should we do with these two bakas?"
"Hang on a second...I think I have something around here somewhere..." As Vegeta gave her a quizzical look, she began to rummage around in her lab.
"Ah-HA! Found 'em!" She emerged from behind a huge pile of junk, holding two pair of what looked like handcuffs with strange electrical equipment covering them.
"By the cosmos, woman, what are those devices?"
"Ki-draining handcuffs. Whenever someone wears them, their power is reduced to that of an ordinary human until they're removed. Here."
As Vegeta attached the devices to the two unconscious figures, he asked, "What drove you to create these? As a backup plan in case something similar to the Majin incident happened again?"
"Yes. That, and...other purposes."
Vegeta simply looked at her.