"So there's a great monster called Oolong terrorizing the place and stealing girls?" said Bulma.
"He's already taken three of them," said the old man.
"So if we take out this Oolong character, you'll give us the dragonball?" said Bulma.
"Bring back the girls and it's a deal," said the old woman.
"Hey Sakura, I got a job for you..." said Bulma.
"I'll deal with Oolong," said Sakura. "He sounds like the bad man Grandpa trained me specially against."
"Wait, your grandpa gave you special training against perverts?" said Bulma.
"Was that the special training Grandpa said not to use against me unless I was doing something really bad?" said Goku, tilting his head.
"Yup!" she said happily.
It took all of five minutes for Sakura to beat the crap out of Oolong, and to stop his reign of terror. To be fair, even Bulma cringed when Sakura's first move was to immediately punch him hard in the balls.
Oolong was taken out in a TKO attack, and painfully walked them to his mansion where the girls were.
What the village hadn't known was how spoiled said girls had become with having abundant resources around and a guy willing to cater to their whims without having to work for it.
Sakura wished them luck in straightening that mess out.
"So Sakura, what else did that old lady give you? I couldn't see what it was while we were loading up supplies," said Bulma.
"Apparently her mother was a magical like me, but she never inherited the gift and neither did her children or grandchildren. Since I did most of the work and they were planning to throw it out anyway, she said I could have it," said Sakura.
The trunk itself looked rather old, and not worth much. However when they opened it, it was full of surprises.
Case in point, it was much deeper than it looked, and seemed to have a small house about the same size as the one Goku and Sakura lived in contained within. But the thing that held Sakura's full attention were the books.
"You really like to read, don't you Sakura?" said Bulma.
"Yup! Unfortunately grandpa only had martial arts books and some really weird magazines," said Sakura pouting. "He never would explain why he kept looking at those weird pictures of girls without clothes on. Or why he insisted on teaching me all those moves to hurt boys who try to take mine off without permission."
Bulma privately held her own suspicions that their grandfather was a bit of a pervert himself, and didn't want his granddaughter to fall prey to them.
"I still don't get why that Yamcha guy reacted so weirdly around Bulma but ignored me," said Sakura pouting.
"It's because Bulma is more developed than you," said Oolong.
"But Bulma can hardly fight at all!" said Sakura baffled.
"Not like that, you idiot!" said Oolong. "I mean her body is more developed."
Before Oolong said something perverted, Bulma interrupted.
"It's because I look to be around his age and have a big chest," said Bulma.
"Oh, that explains it!" said Sakura brightly. "Is that why Oolong keeps trying to look at you without clothes, but doesn't bother me?"
Bulma glared at a suddenly nervous Oolong.
"Pretty much. Once you're a bit older I'm sure guys will bother you like that too," said Bulma. She would get that perverted little pig later.
"So this is Fire Mountain," said Sakura.
"Story goes the Ox-King hired a wizard to create a fire wall to protect his castle, only the idiot let it get out of control which resulted in this mess," said Oolong. "Ever since it's been like this."
"Who let it get out of control, the Ox-King or the wizard?" asked Sakura.
"The wizard. See he knew how to start the fire alright, but he failed to write the control part properly, which resulted in the whole mountain catching fire," said Oolong.
"How do you know all this stuff?" asked Goku.
"It's common knowledge!" said Oolong irate.
Sakura was eyeing the fire. She knew she had read something in one of the books the nice old woman had given her.
As she dug through the surprisingly deep trunk, she let out a loud "Aha!"
"What did you find?" said Bulma.
"The flame freezing charm. If used correctly it produces a gentle tickle when in the presence of fire," said Sakura. "The only problem is that this book says you need to perform the right 'wand' movements, whatever that is."
She had no idea what a wand was or why someone would need one.
With that avenue closed off, Goku flew up to try and find a way past the fire.
Sakura was the only one not terrified of the Ox-King.
"Hey! What was that for?" she demanded.
"You're just thieves after my treasure!" said the Ox King.
"Hold up, we're not thieves!" said Sakura unhappily. "Why would we need to steal if we could work out an equal trade?"
That seemed to calm the Ox King down a bit.
"A trade, huh?" he said, calming down.
Goku could have had better timing.
"I can't find a way in there!"
"That cloud! You couldn't ride that if you had stolen it! Where did you get it?" said the Ox King in excitement.
"That strange old man the the turtle shell gave it to him," said Sakura. "I got my boots from him too."
"Oh my! Those wouldn't happen to be the Cloud Jumping boots?" said Ox King. "You must have magical heritage if you can wear them."
"That's what the old man said. Unfortunately he couldn't tell me much about it," said Sakura disappointed.
It was then that they heard the full story. Apparently the wizard had managed to coax his way into the Ox King's kingdom by bringing him potential news of a nephew he had been trying to contact for years. In order to wheedle his way into the king's treasure chamber, he offered to create a 'magical protection' to safeguard the palace.
The problem was that the man was entirely incompetent, and died soon after the blaze went out of control...mostly because he tripped at the worst possible time.
Sakura had to wonder how much of a blithering idiot this "Gilderoy Lockhart" had to be to mess things up THIS badly.
Still, she did perk up upon hearing something that would come in handy later. Namely the fact that the Ox King did have several magically inclined people living in his kingdom, and they would likely be more than happy to teach the girl how to use her gift properly. If only to spit in the eye of the fools who made their lives harder than they needed to be.
The Ox King could think of one werewolf in particular who took odd jobs tutoring the children with the gift who could be of use.
"So you want me to get Master Roshi for you, and see if he can turn off the fire?" said Goku.
"And if you can, try to find my daughter Chichi," said the Ox King. "She's a good girl, but she's not exactly inclined to fight like I am so I had some protective equipment made for her."
He pulled out a picture. His daughter...looked nothing like him.
Since Goku's Nimbus could only hold a limited number of people, Sakura opted to stay behind.
"So Gohan is gone. That's awful," said the Ox King.
Sakura wondered if she should mention what happened to her grandfather. But she didn't want to give them a bad impression of Goku...it wasn't entirely his fault and it was only because her own inner monkey had asserted dominance that things hadn't gotten even more out of hand.
"So why do they call you the Ox-King?" asked Sakura.
The man laughed.
"It's because I'm the head Giant of the tribe and as strong as an ox!" he replied.
"Wait...Giants are real?" said Bulma in disbelief.
The Ox King looked a tad embarrassed.
"Technically I'm considered a runt," he replied. "However I noticed that several tribes had a tendency to kick out the runts and the half-giants. So I made my own tribe and became their chief. After a while, humans took notice of us, decided they were fine living among larger than normal people, and the next thing I knew everyone was calling me the Ox King."
Oolong could believe it. The guy was certainly intimidating enough to be considered a king.
Sakura looked fascinated, and rightly so.
"Wait...so why is your daughter so small?" asked Bulma.
"Chichi is only half giant, but instead of inheriting my size she inherited most of my strength and a larger than normal magical core, plus the inherent toughness of the giant race," explained the Ox King. "However since quite a few of the 'established' magical communities don't like giants, let alone half-breeds as they call us, I decided to have her tutored by the magicals who settled in the kingdom."
"Wait, you have magical tutors here?" said Sakura intently.
"Several. Quite a few people in England had enough of the nonsense of the Ministry, so eventually they get told of our kingdom and move here for a chance at a decent life. In fact there's a least three packs of werewolves living within our borders," said the Ox King. "One of the werewolves tutors the kids for a small fee."
Considering Sakura was Gohan's grandchild, he had no problem footing the bill for magical tutoring.
He had no idea the surprise many parties were going to get once Sakura finished her training with Master Roshi several months later...
The Ox King had given her a book on basic magic control for children. Sakura was nose deep in it, being far more scholarly than Goku was by a vast margin. While Goku had better instincts, he usually left the major planning and negotiating to his sister, because she was much better at it.
The rare times they did venture into civilization, Goku had stuck close to her and let her do all the talking. It didn't hurt people mistook her for the older sibling.
She was so engrossed in her book it wasn't until the car was sent flying the wrong way that she noticed anything was wrong.
"What the heck happened?" she said.
"Someone stole our dragonballs!"
Sakura blinked.
"Isn't Goku still carrying grandpa's?"
Bulma perked up at that, realizing the situation wasn't completely hopeless.
Once they reached the castle, Sakura took one look and didn't want to waste her time wandering around a castle. Besides, who knew what sort of traps were inside?
"I'm going to scout the outside for a bit. Besides, I haven't had a real chance to use my new boots properly," said Sakura.
"Sure, we have Goku so it should be fine," said Bulma.
As Sakura was looking around the outside of the castle when she heard the commotion.
Now, as Bulma had told them about the dragonballs, Sakura had in a fit of whimsy thought about what she would wish for.
So when she saw someone that was not any of her group with all seven Dragoballs, she knew what she had to do.
She raced to the area, and saw with amazement as the Eternal Dragon appeared.
The idiots who summoned him were clearly too intimidated to spit out their wish, so she took her chance.
"What is your wish?" demanded the dragon, clearly losing patience.
"I wish..." started the small gnome with the strange hat.
"I wish the Eternal Dragon was my friend!" said Sakura loudly, beating him to the punch. "It's not fair the only time you get to see the world is whenever someone selfish gathers the Dragonballs to make demands of you."
Dead silence. The Eternal Dragon seemed more taken aback by the wish than anyone else.
Sakura felt only pity, as it was clear that no one had ever wished to be the dragon's friend before, or shown any real consideration to the poor guy granting the wishes.
The dragon mulled over the wish, and how to best grant it.
"So be it,"he said finally, and a strange egg appeared in her hands.
The gnome looked pissed.
"You little brat!"
The dragonballs flew upwards, before dispersing all over the world once more.
As they did, the egg in her hands glowed...and began to crack. You could imagine her amazement as a small animal that bore a strong resemblance to a snake emerged.
It purred, and curled around her neck, clearly enjoying the body heat.
Sakura made a note to ask Bulma what the Eternal Dragon's official name was.