Chapter Five:

After a very eventful night, which had included Goku catching a wolf for dinner and walking in on Bulma in the bath (which he still failed to see was indecent), the mismatched pair were on the road again, this time on the back of a motorcycle.

Goku was being uncharacteristically quiet, most likely still trying to decide for himself what the motorcycle was and how it worked and if it was alive. Bulma didn't mind at all. In fact, after the boy's nearly endless chatter of the day before, she found silence welcome.

Goku, however, couldn't be quiet forever. If he tried, he was afraid his head might explode, or something. But soon he had a reason to talk, when he saw what looked like a huge rock in the middle of the road blocking their bath.

"Hey, Miss Bulmabrief, you'd better stop." He said, tapping her on the shoulder. "You're gonna hit that rock."

Bulma sighed. She had hoped the silence would go on a bit longer, but apparently not. She did, however, stop the cycle next to the rather large stone and got a good look at it.

Then she screamed when a head popped out.

"AAH!!!" the turtle jumped into the air, a feat that was hard for a turtle at the best of times, and it's head shot back into it's shell, along with the flippers that had popped out when it leapt up.

Goku jumped off the cycle, despite Bulma's continued shrieks. He walked gingerly over and tapped lightly on the turtle's shell with one finger. "Hello? Mister Turtle? Could you come out? I'm really sorry we scared you."

"What are you doing!!" Bulma screamed. "Let that gross, slimy reptile stay in it's shell and let's go!"

The turtle's head poked out very slightly. "Could you please make her stop shouting?" it asked in a low, polite voice. "I have very sensitive ears."

"Uh, Miss Bulmabrief? Could you please be quiet for a minute?"

"Oooohh…" Bulma trailed off into a small trail of curses, but she did stop yelling.

"Are you in trouble, Mr. Turtle? Can we help you?" Goku asked as the turtle popped the rest of the way out of it's shell.

"Well, I'm lost." The turtle said. "I went for a swim and came all the way to the mainland, and now I can't find my way back to the sea. Do you happen to know which direction the sea is in, young man?"

Goku turned to Bulma. "I don't know. Hey, Bulma? Do you know the way to get to the sea?"

"Of course I know how to get to the sea." Bulma said matter-of-factly. "But there's no way I'm taking a slimy lizard on my motorcycle."

Goku smiled. "Oh, don't worry, I'll carry him! I don't mind."

"Oh, would you?" the turtle looked, well, as happy as a turtle can look. "I would be so grateful."

"No problem." The boy laughed. He easily picked the turtle up and let it climb to his back. "Yeah, you're not very heavy."

Bulma sighed and threw her hands in the air. "I give up. Come on, let's go."

She revved the engine and took off. Goku smiled wide, and with Umigame's startled cries, bolted after the bike, somehow catching up and keeping perfect pace with it.

Being psychic was sometimes a royal pain, and so a lot of the time Choutzu blocked the brief visions that would visit him. That meant that for one to get through, it had to be especially powerful, like Hotei's visions, to get through.

Now he was standing in the middle of a forest, waiting for Tien and Yamucha to start duking it out, and trying to understand what this last one had meant. Was this a flash of the future? The past? Or was the strange looking ancient god simply sending him a setting to go with the message.

Psychic visions could be very confusing.

Suddenly a huge explosion rocked the landscape, shaking the very earth he stood on. It was over in a second, but he had actually been tossed to the ground.

There was only one technique he knew of that could produce effects like that.

Kaiko-ho.

"Tien!" he yelled, and took off into the trees.

Yamucha clenched his fists, looking at Tien with distaste bordering on outright dislike. Who was this guy, who assumed he could just tell him what to do and when to do it? Well, he wasn't about to just let Tenshinhan walk all over him.

"All right, if that's the way you want to play, I'll show you how to do it." The bandit snarled. "Wolf Fang Fist!!"

Before Tien saw what was happening, Yamucha was on him, moving in a blur that the tri-clops could hardly see, let alone dodge. He jumped out of the way of the first couple punches, but the third was too fast, and clipped his jaw. This caused him to pause for a second, and a kick landed in his midsection, sending him back and down to the ground. When he fell, Yamucha stopped, sinking to one knee, panting for breath.

Tien, however, was not that easily winded. He stood only a fraction of a second after falling, and rose his ki slightly.

"Okay, that was yours. Here's mine." He brought his hands up in front of him, like he was praying, and then opened them into a triangle shape.

"Kai-ko-ho!!"

Yamucha's eyes went wide, and somehow he jumped, just in time. The blast tore out of Tien's hands and through the trees, shaking the earth and carving a wide alley in the forest. For a brief second, everything went blue and white.

It stopped, and as it did, Choutzu came tearing through the trees. "Tien, stop!!"

The tri-clops paused and looked over at the now former emperor, breathing heavily. "What? Why!?"

"If Red Ribbon has helicopters, or planes, they'll see your blast!" Choutzu said, not adding that he also didn't want Yamucha killed. If Choutzu had asked, Tien would have let the bandit go, but that wasn't something the emperor was prepared to do.

Tien's eyes widened, then he slapped a hand to his forehead. "What a fool I am! Come on." He gestured to Yamucha. "We have to get away from this place, right now."

The bandit said nothing, only crossed his arms and shook his head.

Whether he thought Tien would relent and let him leave, or expected to be in another fight, who can say? But the tri-clops had less patience then he thought, and the last thing he saw before everything went black was a fist, faster than he could clearly see, belting him across the face.

Gero's body was in a huge freezer. Outside, Tao Pai Pai and the crane master were standing, not saying anything, just staring into each other's eyes, thoughts flickering from mind to mind.

Red Ribbon's technology was eons beyond anything the rest of the world possessed. One of the things they could do that no one else had figured out yet was artificial intelligence. They could create robots that could think, androids.

But trying to turn a human body into a cyborg was something else altogether, and much more complicated. Instead of creating everything from mechanical parts, now the body's natural systems were enhanced, and trying to make two completely different systems work in tandem was much harder than creating one.

Still, the genius of Dr. Gero was something far too important to lose, so they meant to try. Construction of a perfect android body had already begun under the supervision of the soldier/scientist, advisor Black.

So, perhaps there was hope for Red Ribbon's plans of world domination, after all.

AN: I know I said that Earth: Occupied was getting finished next, but this fic needs attention too. And, Crash, it's definitely nothing strange to care about Goku and Bulma the least. Hell, I cared about their part the least, and your review made me realize that that was probably why it was less interesting. So, I figure it's time I start having them do something.