The Dragon Team entered a small shop where an aged gentleman sat behind a counter, clad in vision-enhancing visors and hunched over a project he was working on. Sparks flew from a crystal orb in his hands that he continued to stream beams of concentrated heat on in an attempt to mold it a tad but the sphere did not change whatsoever.
"That's the Dragon Ball he's beaming!" Chiaotzu pointed at the crystal orb with a horrified expression on his face. The ghoulish boy raised his fingers, forcing the Dragon Ball to shoot in his direction. Chiaotzu's pale hands wrapped around the Dragon Ball and then dropped it down into Oolong's hands. The shapeshifter squealed in pain from the heated sphere landing in his hands, it was only because of how easily Chiaotzu handled the artifact that Oolong expected to have a similarly easy time handling it too.
"Hey, give that back! That's my work you've stolen!" the man jumped up on his feet and ran up to the group, while the group did outnumber him and the little, floaty boy even could use mysterious telekinetic powers to snag his work from his hands, the man looked confident with his abilities to beat all of them since there were no notable people amongst them. Just women, mascots, an old man and a weirdo.
"You can't just stream heat onto a Dragon Ball like that!" Bulma scolded the man. "What if you damage it and we can't use it anymore? Sheesh, we could have destroyed the very concept of the Dragon Balls just because some old fart decided to melt it…" the young lady wiped the sweat off of her forehead.
"That's not yours! A man brought it to me to make a wedding ring! Please give it back, I'm already having a tough enough time as it is!" the craftsman demanded and extended his hand. Oolong, donning a cheeky grin, extended the Dragon Ball to the man, hoping that he'd drop it, surprised by the heat as well, but Muten Roshi stepped in between him and the jeweler.
"Please excuse us, but we need this orb to save the world. This young lady here is Bulma, the daughter of Dr. Brief, the head of Capsule Corp, she can reimburse your expenses with some on top." Muten Roshi explained.
"That's not for me to decide," the jeweler shook his head. "You'll need to speak to my client when he comes back and, when he does come back, he'll be expecting his ring!"
"Well, you can't just melt the Dragon Ball, it's made through magical means so… I don't think convincing this client of yours will be that tough." Bulma shrugged.
"Well, if I can't melt the jewel itself, I'll melt the steel of the ring to attach to it." The jeweler spoke his mind but Bulma handed the Dragon Ball to Launch. The old man struggled with the group, deciding to obtain the Dragon Ball via rougher means but Chiaotzu lifted the old man off the ground by pointing both of his index fingers at him, effectively disarming him.
"Thugs! Thieves…!" the old jeweler threw fists and kicked the thin air around him but he showed no hope of breaking out of Chiaotzu's telekinesis whatsoever.
It took the man responsible for finding the Dragon Ball and deciding to put it on a ring as a massive gemstone a few hours to come back. By that time, Bulma reckoned, the group might have found another Dragon Ball but, out of human decency, the group stayed around to barter with the original founder. It was a surprise to everyone that a man in a white tuxedo, short of stature but remarkably plump, of rounder facial features and very pronounced, thick lips and messy, brown hair found the Dragon Ball.
"You!" the man pointed at Chiaotzu, "You're that guy from the tournament, aren't you!?"
"Huh? Do we know you?" Chiaotzu scratched his head and, at last, allowed the floating jeweler to set his feet back on the floor.
"Oh, don't recognize me now that I'm gorgeous, do you?" the definitively less than gorgeous man toyed with his bowtie with a vain expression on his face. "I am none other than Man-Wolf! You might find me difficult to recognize now that I am in my human form as you'd be used to my ugly and ferocious wolf form."
"Ah… I see…" Chiaotzu looked down. He appeared to be embarrassed about something, possibly both because he still only vaguely recalled the man in question, even after he introduced himself and explained where the two had met before and because, even if he did recognize him, he neither found his human form all that attractive or his wolf form at all ferocious.
"You are the client that has requested to make the Dragon Ball into a ring, correct?" Muten Roshi, who at first appeared to be positively freaked out about something after the man's entrance into the shop but then regained confidence, since he's realized that the Man-Wolf could not recognize him now, asked.
"Why yes, I was not sure it was called that or that there was anything special about it at all but… I have met a very special lady the day after the tournament and I wish to propose to her with the most extravagant ring on this planet, I seemed like the luckiest man on Earth to find this gemstone too…" Man-Wolf nodded, appearing as dreamy about his situation as he spoke of it.
"If it is not too much trouble, we'd like to buy it off of you. This young lady would be quite capable of compensating you for the gemstone's value, you see. This gemstone indeed has special qualities." Muten Roshi pointed out.
"Although only in the quantity of seven, it is meaningless all by itself so don't get any bright ideas here…" Bulma squinted at Man-Wolf, reading the man's expression like an open book.
"Well… If you can compensate the orb's value at the rate of a gemstone of the same size, it would be no problem for me at all." Man-Wolf nodded.
"What!? I'm not paying for ruby or sapphire of a Dragon Ball's size! That's a whole fortune!" Bulma reared her fangs, appearing much more like a rabid wolf than the man who once quite literally wore a wolf's skin over that of his own.
"B-Bulma…" Muten Roshi stepped in between Bulma and Man-Wolf, trying to calm the young lady down. "Please be reasonable here, you can afford it…"
Muten Roshi did not let the opportunity slip to touch Bulma's chest when she came at Man-Wolf with her fist over the head, intending to pound some sense into the face of the rather unsightly plumpy. Instead, she let out of her fury at the handsy old fart, something that Roshi must have seen coming, provided the woman's wrath evident on her face and their past history of similar crime and punishment chemistry between them but, even if he did see it coming, Muten Roshi showed no effort in trying to avoid it.
"Of course I can afford it, that's not the problem. It's the general principle of the thing! Why does this weirdo even need to put a ring of that size on his lady's gentle finger!?" Bulma threw fists in the air, like warning shots of what was to come if she laid her hands on the confused and taken aback shorty.
"Puppy!" a humanoid of great bodily mass and proportions sufficient to fit the entire room of people present in the jeweler's shop burst through the door. She had merely pushed it daintily but due to her body mass and gross excess of physical strength due to her size and weight, the woman very nearly pushed the very shop off of its foundation in the process.
"Dearest! Oh my!" Man-Wolf turned toward his sympathy, easily thrice his size, and then began looking around the shop with a horrified expression. "Of course… I expected the ring to be done by now… That's why I told you to meet me here and now…" he smacked his face and shook his head.
"Ummm… So that was… A ruby the size of a Dragon Ball, correct?" Bulma slurred out, still taken aback by being proven wrong by the fact that Man-Wolf's "gentle-fingered" fiancée would find such a ring excessive and overall too heavy for her delicate fingers. "Yes, that seems about right…" she answered her own question and handed Man-Wolf a pink case full of capsules.
Confused about the affair, Man-Wolf handed the same case to his beloved who promptly opened it up and began checking the capsules. "Huh?" she groaned. "Since you've chosen to meet in a jeweler's place, I expected a ring and a proposition, puppy…" the giantess complained.
"W-Well… You'll find this capsule much more suitable for newlyweds, it has everything you might ever need – multiple portable houses, various vehicles and even necessary as well as more deluxe appliances and gadgets. Everything you will need for a married life that's sweeter than honey!" Bulma pitched her impromptu present. "That's all courtesy of Capsule Corporation, of course!" she winked at the lady that, quite frankly, was the most suitable possible wife for the groom.
"Wow, you're so mindful, puppy-poo!" the woman wrapped her oak-sized arms around her suitor and lifted him off the ground, shaking him in the air while squeezing the life out of him with love. "I'll make sure to be the best wife you can hope for!" the lady pretty much burst outside of the jeweler's shop with her dragging to-be groom in hand.
"W-Wait now… Does anyone still need a ring?" the jeweler babbled with a weak voice, made punier by the confusing happenings that transpired in front of him over what started as a standard day's work.
"I… I don't believe so, no…" Blue-haired Launch admitted. "Now that you mention it, what we've done feels a bit horrible…"
"All that matters is that we've got this!" Bulma tilted up the third Dragon Ball in the Dragon Team's possession.
"You're all just the worst! Get out of my shop!" the jeweler let out his rage now that he once again had space for it after the confusion vacated his mind.
"Baba!" Goku's desperate voice sliced through the calm sky. He repeated his yell once more after his feet landed on the sandy ground and Kinto bolted off into the skies above, having delivered its master to where he wanted to be.
Chayote landed not too far beside the Saiyan boy and approached the Ghost Usher. A decent chunk of martial artists shook in their boots, pointing at Chayote with the fear for their lives. It appeared that the place had been flourishing now that Chayote had vacated the spot of the final combatant. People once more had hope that they could have completed Baba's challenge.
"Th-The monster-girl is back!" a large man in a karateka's attire and a black belt of sufficient size to go around an entire building all by itself pointed at Chayote, his face twitched and his giant thighs quivered as if he was a schoolboy worrying about an upcoming lesson he hadn't prepared for.
"My, my, Chayote-san… The business has been booming for the couple of days you've been gone. To be certain, even Fortuneteller Baba hadn't seen such an effect of your presence coming. If you've come to take your place as the fifth combatant again, I'm afraid Baba might not accept those terms…" the Ghost Usher smiled at Chayote.
"I've no need for that, I'm here to cash in my Free Return Ticket." Chayote pointed out her hand, gripping a weathered ticket in her hand that's been stapled together by the middle and soaked in coffee stains. None of those were Chayote's doing, it was the Fortuneteller herself who needed to take better care of free revival artifacts.
"Oh my… I had expected Goku-san to come here to cash it in to pull you back… Are you sure about that?" the Ghost Usher wondered.
"Hell yeah!" Chayote almost shoved the ticket up the Ghost Usher's throat, forcing the apparition to take Chayote's declaration as seriously as it required to be taken.
"V-Very well… If all of you guys would stay here for a moment, I'm going to help Chayote-san and Goku-san finish their business here and then I'll serve all of your needs!" the Ghost Usher addressed the visitors that by all means should have been outraged but they appeared to be most delighted that an excuse presented itself to bail out on having to challenge Chayote.
"Y-You know what… You guys seem busy… Maybe it's not the best time…" the colossal karateka faked a hearty laugh.
"Y-Yeah… Now that you mention it… My belly is getting pretty achy… What could be making it act up like that, I wonder… Perhaps we should come back tomorrow, after all!" another martial artist agreed with his companion while a whole group of rabble-rousers, genuine martial artists and general scumbags alike fled the scene upon the return of the dreaded Saiyan girl.
"Huh… Those guys seem pretty puny. Did you feed them something? I was going to ask you make us something too, I bet Krillin's gonna be really famished after coming back to life but… If you've poisoned them, I won't be having anything! Well… Maybe just a little bit…" Goku referenced the sudden dispersal of the booming business Baba currently had going.
"Oh, not at all… Chayote-san has built up a reputation for herself, you see. Over the last couple of years, while she trained here, she's served as Baba's fifth competitor. Usually, nobody even gets that far, that's true, but oftentimes Baba found herself a guy in the Afterlife that she wanted to serve as her fifth or when Dracula-Man was sick, she sometimes fought in the place of earlier guys too. As you see, she's built herself up the reputation of a true monster, in a different kind of sense than the genuine monsters Baba employs…" the Usher laughed at his own pun that he then had to explain. Despite him making the pun and then explaining it afterward too, Goku didn't appear at all amused by it, which made the Ghost Usher's expression bleak as well.
"In any case, here she is…" the Ghost Usher pointed at Baba.
"Ara-ara…" Fortuneteller Baba turned to Chayote and Goku. "I did not foresee this. What could you two be doing here right now?"
"We're here to cash in the ticket." Chayote pointed the Free Return Ticket to Baba now.
"Wh-What!? That's… So unexpected! Who died?! Don't tell me that brother of mine finally kicked the bucket…" the Fortuneteller nearly lost her hat. "I had foreseen it being Son Goku who would cash in the ticket to return your life, Chayote. Are you sure you wish to use it this way? Knowing what waits for you if you die?"
"Wait… What? Chayote was going to die!?" Goku dropped his jaw.
"Yes. In fact, I'm still quite certain she's going to die about seven years from now." Fortuneteller nodded, appearing about as adamant about her prediction as she usually was.
"Well, your predictions suck anyway, you didn't see us being here, did you?" Chayote tried shrugging away the bitterness and the fluttering swarm of butterflies in her stomach after hearing that. "Now take this ticket and bring Krillin back to life."
"W-Wait… What will happen if Chayote dies?" Goku grabbed Chayote's arm by the elbow and didn't allow her to hand the ticket over.
"Well… It's tough to say for certain. She was supposed to go to Heaven when she died originally. If she is still deserving of going there, and if the Heaven's all fixed up now, that's where she'll go but… She might just end up as a spirit sent off to Hell, or, more likely since she wasn't all that evil, to begin with, she'll go into the recycling machine and get reincarnated. One thing's for certain, the blue-face guy won't be giving out any more freebies!" Baba explained.
"Are you sure you wanna go through with this?" Goku looked up. "We can always bring Krillin back with the Dragon Balls… Krillin isn't going into the recucking machine, is he?"
"Recycling machine… No. I'm afraid his fate is much darker. His spirit is left to wander limbo forever, unable to find peace in either Heaven or penance in Hell. That's because he's been killed by a demon of the Evil Tribe." Baba explained. "In this case, I suppose, you'd find such an outcome favorable, given that you have ample time to resurrect him since reincarnation isn't in the plans for him. In fact, so to speak, you've got all the time in the world to do so…" the old crone chuckled with a crooked smile.
"Whatever… Bring Krillin back now!" Chayote insisted, slipping her arm out of Goku's grip and handing the ticket to Baba.
"Well… If you insist…" Baba directed a beady stare at Chayote, still maintaining the chilling smile of very few pearly whites to rest one's eyes on in her mouth. "Upa! Start up the passageway, we're bringing a soul back!" she yelled at the back of the palace.
"Yes, ma'am!" Upa ran out of the cover with a tomahawk nearly his own size in hand. The boy began chanting something that was hard to understand before striking the empty space in between the gateway frame. The sky around the Fortuneteller Baba palace turned dark and stormy, a couple of crackles preceded a mighty jolt that enveloped Upa's tomahawk and appeared to spark life into the passageway.
"If you still haven't changed your mind, through here…" Baba smirked gesturing at the portal. The old crone took great pleasure in seeing just how far the two Saiyans were determined to go and how well they'd deal with the hesitation smoldering inside both of their chests about what they were doing.
"Chayote, you haven't taken off yet?" Upa looked up at Chayote.
"Just got a couple of things I need to do before then…" Chayote tilted her chin, greeting her old friend and answering his question at the same time.
"You may follow me this time. Soon enough you might need to tread those endless hallways yourself so it's about time you get introduced to those damned ogres and the big boys up above." Baba gleamed her eyes at Upa.
"R-Really? I can meet the Gods stronger than the God of Korin Tower themselves!?" Upa's jaw dropped in awe.
"Yeah, let's go, kid, knock yourself out and burst your bubble…" Baba sighed and led Chayote and Goku through the azure passageway, prompting Upa to rush after them. It didn't take long for the passageway to close down behind them and remain as just an empty doorframe.