Fuses Blown
By Moonraker One
NOTE: a lot of the math terms in this chapter, I'm making up.
Chapter One - The Construction
This was quickly growing boring and useless.
Sitting here in Bulma's lab, Gotenks had been doing this for about four days now. Vegeta himself was beginning to question his wife's mental status, for she'd had their son and Goku's son come here and demonstrate the fusion dance almost every half hour for the past four days. They would do the fusion dance, and when the fusions were successful, she'd analyze something with her computer, then type away for the next half hour, then ask them to do the dance again. It was becoming hopelessly boring after a while.
"Um, Mrs. Bulma?" asked Goten as they prepared to do the dance for the umpteenth time. "You never told me, what are we doing this for?"
"Don't worry about it," she assured him, "I'm almost done."
Just then, Vegeta stormed in. The look on his face indicated that he was fed up with it. "Okay, Bulma," he boomed, "I refuse to allow this to continue without you telling me what the hell is going on!" She rolled her eyes.
"Vegeta," she said, trying to calm him down, "I'm trying to extract an energy formula from the fusion dance."
"In idiot's terms, please," he demanded.
She rolled her eyes again. "Basically, I'm trying to find the mathematical formula that allows the fusion to occur."
He shook his head, uttered a swear word under his breath, then walked away. Bulma motioned with her hand, and the two children in front of her performed the fusion again. The surge of energy registered on the computer again, and allowed the machine to analyze the energy signal. A recurring problem that Bulma was trying endlessly to overcome, was that when the energy signal was turned into a digital signal, she found that the computer couldn't find a persistent pattern alone. She had to use her own intellect, and that is what was complicating the process. Feverishly, she typed away at the computer, trying to extract the persistent pattern that allowed a formula to be extracted. She looked in the corner of the screen; the computer's processors were already at one hundred percent calculating capacity. She was about to give up—a rare occurrence for her—when she saw a green light blinking in the upper right corner of the screen. Her half of the pattern she'd calculated on her own; the signal meant that the computer had finished with its half of the pattern. She had almost no need for the two kids anymore. Now she could do the final part of the formula. Excitedly, she typed away at the computer.
"Trunks! Goten!" shouted Bulma as the fusion ended. "You two are done! I don't need you anymore."
They smiled and exited the room. Bulma happily punched the full pattern into the computer, and saw back with a smile on her face as the machine beeped and clicked. In a few minutes afterward, a formula was spat out on the screen. Bulma raised her eyebrows and whistled in astonishment; the formula was far longer than she expected. She clicked on the file menu then pulled up the print preview, and saw that if printed, the formula would be at least forty pages, maybe more. This meant that what she was trying to do just became significantly harder. Goku walked in, slightly startling her.
She caught her breath. "Oh, Goku, it's you," she said. "You caught me off guard there."
"You know I'm glad to have my son do anything you need," he replied, "but I'd like to know what you're doing."
She motioned for him to come, and he did. He looked with incomprehension at the screen. "This," she explained, "is the math formula that makes two people fuse together with the fusion dance. I removed the part that creates that one set of clothing that all fusions have, but still, it's a long formula."
"What's it for?" asked the Saiyan.
"It's for a machine I'm building. I'm attempting to create a device that takes a little energy from both people, then fuses the energy according to this formula. Once it does that, I'm intending for it to use that energy, and according to Einstein's formula of energy-mass conversion, create the being that is the fusion of the two."
That took Goku's breath away. "You…mean a machine that creates fusions from two people!?"
She smiled playfully. "Yup. I figure that way, the two people don't have to do the fusion themselves, and anyone can fuse, regardless of size and power difference."
Goku left the room, positively convinced that such a thing was only possible through Bulma's effort. He would never have thought that such a thing could be achieved artificially, but then again, he knew that she could do just about anything that required intelligence. She hadn't failed in the past, nor was she to fail now.
"Goten! Trunks!" Bulma called from her laboratory. "I need you for one last thing!"
Uneager—but unable to argue—the duo reentered the laboratory. They saw before them two separate chambers rigged to the main supercomputer via two separate very thick expanses of cable. Immediately next to the main computer's CPU tower, was a third chamber, which also had a thick expanse of cable attached to it. Hearing of the news of a new Bulma invention, the other z-fighters soon crowded themselves into Bulma's private laboratory to see the creation and initial use of the Fusion Chamber. Goten stepped into the first one, and Trunks into the second. Bulma activated the computer. An immediate buzzing began as a portion of the energy aura surrounding the two little warriors was drawn into the supercomputer's main CPU.
"Uh, Bulma?" inquired her mother. "Why is nothing happening in the third chamber?"
She looked exasperatedly at her mother. "Mom, the computer has to calculate their energy, then fuse it in the third chamber, THEN transform the energy into a living being. The whole process might take a bit of time," she explained.
"Perhaps it would take up the whole thirty minute fusion deadline," interjected Dr. Briefs.
She looked at him. "Perhaps," she replied, "but I'm only trying to get it to WORK. Fine tuning is for later."
The whole group sat there for what seemed like an eternity, when the energy began to build up in the third chamber. They all could see a visible ball of energy forming in the third chamber, and slowly gathering into a larger blob of bright light. Slowly but surely, it began to resemble a person. After what seemed like hours, they mass of bright light formed into a hardened shape of a person, and then lit up the entire room with a brilliant flash of light. Everyone shielded their eyes for a moment, then watched in astonishment as a small figure tried to get its bearings straight as it stood in the third chamber. It was Gotenks, except instead of the "fusion clothes" it had a combo of the two kids' attires. Goten and Trunks both looked in astonishment at this figure, which was a combination of them, except they were separate from it. Gotenks looked at the group, was about to exit the chamber, and then vanished in a bright burst of energy, which it reverted back into.
"What happened!?" shrieked Goku. "I thought a fusion lasted thirty minutes!"
She was partially defeated, because her device so far took much to long to calculate, but at least it functioned. "Except," she refuted, "the fusion lasted much of its time as a ball of energy in a chamber. I checked the clock, and almost twenty-seven minutes was spent forming into a person. I can rework the formula and make it so the fusion lasts twice as long, or even three times as long."
"Can't you make the fusion permanent?!" argued Vegeta.
"NO," she said, angrily gritting her teeth as she spoke. Honestly, didn't he ever speak a good idea? If she found a way to make the fusion permanent—which she couldn't—it might cause problems. "The formula creates a irrational vector field invalidation. The only way to make it permanent is to eliminate the time variable in the original formula, which would irrationalize the entire formula."
Dr. Briefs, who was in the corner, listening to the entire thing, made a mental note of what she had said. Something he'd read earlier in a science journal that he'd get often from the science community mentioned formulas with irrational vector validations. When everyone else was gone, and Bulma powered down her computer to leave for dinner with Vegeta, he went to his private room to reread the journal. It had been what seemed like years since he was able to help her with a scientific invention, so this, he figured, would be his chance.
Scientific journals were ungodly complex if you weren't a genius I.Q. type person like Dr. Briefs. He pulled the three hundred monster of a journal from his bookshelf, and flipped through endless discoveries and newsflashes in the science world, until he found the one page that explained what he was looking for. He pulled out his laptop, and hooked it up to the company network. As the file directory was pulled up, he prayed that she didn't put the formula on her private, secure hard drive. He smiled playfully as he looked at the screen; she put the entire whopper of a file on the secure company hard drive, where he had access to it.
Damn, he thought as he quickly scanned the forty-page formula. This thing's enormous. Now came the hard part; finding the vector calculations in the formula.
He looked through the endless lines of math, in vain trying to find a single vector calculation. Somewhere around thirty-five minutes of reading lines of equations, and four cups of coffee, he found the vector field table. Bulma was right; the vector field was irrational, and thus, invalid. This was the reason the fusion was temporary: the energy fluctuations within the being couldn't fluctuate normally on an invalid field. He reached across the bed and grabbed the magazine.
"Genius minds," he whispered as he read the article. "The freaking answer is right in front of us and we couldn't see it." It was brilliant, that a no-name college kid discovered how to validate an invalid vector field. "The third freaking variable in the field."
Dr. Brief loaded up the vector field on his calculus program—the entire, three page field—so that he could re-calculate and revalidate the field, and thus rationalize the formula in all aspects, not just some. He loaded into the calculator, the third variable in the first field row. According to the formula in the journal, to correct the irrationalization, you had to find the cube root, not the square root. When he re-calculated the formula, and inserted the vector field back into the main formula, the computer beeped in ecstasy, revealing the truth.
"With this rational field," he said, seemingly to himself, "the time element variable not only becomes unnecessary, it also becomes a burden on the formula; in effect making it easier without the time factor." Talking to himself was something he did often when he came across something major like this. Before he powered down his laptop, he clicked to save the formula, then typed in the file name of the original one. The computer prompted him with, "There cannot be two files with the same name. Overwrite? Rename? Cancel?"
His finger pressed down on the mouse key.
The pointer was above overwrite.
The next day, when everyone was gathered back at her house (all wanted to see the Fusion Chamber in action again), she decided to please everyone by having a rematch with the machine. Even though she hadn't time to rework her formula to enhance fusion time, she still wanted to see it work again. More though, she wanted to see what her fused with Juuhachigou (android eighteen), would look like. Would the girl look more like her or Juuhachigou? She had to see.
"What?" Juuhachigou said, "you want me to get in there? Oh what the hell. I may as well. I wanna see what I look like with you in me."
Bulma smiled as Juuhachigou stepped in the first chamber. She typed in the computer to start in a few minutes so that she could have her chance to get in the second chamber first. She smiled excitedly and crossed both fingers as she stepped into the second chamber. It felt a bit tingly as her energy was drawn up through the cables. A red beeping light indicated that it was done with her energy, and was about to do the grunt work of calculating according to her formula. So what if the person would vanish in an instant; at least she'd see it work, then work on it later.
Everyone sat eager (none more so than Dr. Briefs) for the computer to finish with the calculations. When it did, a small ball of energy materialized in the third chamber. Unlike the previous ball, which was red, this was blue. No one seemed to notice except Bulma's dad, who was near the doorway. For what seemed like an eternity, the ball slowly reshaped into a feminine figure. Once it had hardened, everyone shielded their eyes for the flash, and it came. After the flash, everyone looked to the chamber, and saw a figure inside. The person had mainly Bulma's features. She had eighteen's hair style, but Bulma's light blue color. She had eighteen's head shape, nose and mouth, but Bulma's eyes. She had eighteen's white-sleeved tank top and blue jeans, except the black part of the tank top and the jeans were red, like Bulma's dress. The fact that it looked like Bulma more wasn't surprising; that title went to the fact that almost half a minute had passed since the figure formed into a actual person, and that person was still there.
"The machine worked?" asked the fused person, speaking with that usual 'double voice' all fusions had.
"She's…still here…" Vegeta whispered to Bulma.
"Eh…um…hello!" Bulma said, introducing herself to this new person. "I think you know us, but what's your name?"
"My name's Bulmachigou," she said, shaking Bulma's hand. Bulma cringed as her hand was shook; Bulmachigou certainly had eighteen's strength. Juuhachigou herself, had the ability to read power levels due to her android sensors. Her unique talent was reading the power levels of androids who transmitted only artificial ki. Even though Bulma had virtually no power, she'd contributed power—an extra eighth of a million's worth, in fact—to Bulmachigou.
"It's a bit weird, isn't it?" the fused person posed as a question.
Bulma lowered her eyebrows unknowingly. "What do you mean?" she'd replied.
"I mean, here I am," she answered, "with all of your memories and all of Juuhachigou's memories. Not only that, I'm here staring at the both of you."
Goku stepped forth. "I…something's strange about this one," he exclaimed with a slight look of worry on his face. "Androids don't transmit a ki signal. Yet I'm sensing one from her."
Bulma looked at the other members of the group. "Yeah," Piccolo added, "I'm sensing her signal too."
The fusion finally decided to speak for herself. "That's because Juuhachigou's artificial ki was changed into actual ki because of the fact that real ki takes precedence over artificial ki, thus changing it," she explained. "I still, however, have a limitless stamina and ki supply."
Dr. Brief coughed. It was one of those coughs that meant to get someone's attention. Bulma looked up, for she was the only one that heard him. She stood up and walked over to her father. He was smiling so she felt it would be entirely good news. She had no idea about the truth that he was going to tell her.
"What's up, dad?" inquired the blue-haired genius.
"I found a science journal that I'd gotten in the mail last week," he replied, "and I saw that there was a section on how to re-rationalize a formula with an irrational vector field."
Bulma's facial expression became childishly ecstatic. "You…you're kidding!" she cried. "That'll be wonderful! I can alter my formula so that the fusion would last longer! Wait, that reminds me; how is this fusion lasting as long as it is?"
"I…kinda can answer that," he replied. "I already altered your formula last night. I found the irrationalization, and corrected it."
"That's excellent! How, uh, long did you make the fusion last?"
"Um, I removed the time variable, because when the formula was rational, it became easier without it."
Her smile began to lower into a straight face. "You didn't…"
"What? I thought you'd like it if I made the fusion permanent!"
"So, you're telling me I'm stuck with this…this Bulmachigou or whatever her name is!? I don't know how to deal with her!"
Bulma walked over to Juuhachigou, who was talking with the woman that she was part of. Bulmachigou noticed the slightly angry look on Bulma's face.
"What's wrong?" she asked, that double voice almost unnerving Bulma.
"Do you know what the vector field is?" Bulma asked in response.
"Yeah! It's the part that makes me exist!" cheerfully replied Bulmachigou.
"My…our dad found a way to rationalize the vector field and thus, eliminate the time variable."
Those words made Bulmachigou's face become childish and happy. It was as if she had been told the best news in the world. "You m…you mea…you mean I'm NOT going to vanish into pure energy!? I'm gonna live!?!"
Bulma smiled a phony smile so as not to hurt the woman's feelings. "Yeah," she said. "You're going to live. The fusion is permanent. You're gonna live a loooong time. Great."
Bulmachigou threw her arms around Bulma, practically choking her and almost breaking her in two with her strength. "I love you!" the fused woman cried.
"Yeah…I love…you too…" Bulma said as she struggled for breath.
"Here's the hard part," Vegeta interjected. "Where's she gonna stay?"
"She can stay with me," Juuhachigou announced. "I've got at least two extra rooms where she can sleep in."
"Are you sure?" asked Krillin.
Juuhachigou elbowed him. "She's part of ME, remember?!" the android called. Krillin chuckled one of those defeated laughs and agreed with her by giving in. Bulmachigou was excited to know that she was going to stay with the woman that was the main source of her power.