(Goten)
The first ball turned out to be in the nest of a very large and angry bird who was under the impression it was one of its eggs and was rather upset with them for trying to take it. After several failed attempts at trying to quietly approach and get the ball when the bird was seemingly asleep all they'd accomplished was sending the bird into high alert and Marron had some scratches on her arms.
They regrouped back at the capsule house they set up a good distance away to avoid alarming the bird too much and discuss plans as to how to go about retrieving the ball. Trunks was all for a full frontal assault, "Okay, here me out, we just make the bird move and take the ball."
Goten was less sure, "Could we do that without harming the bird, and what about the eggs those could be at risk?"
Trunks scoffed, "Who cares if the bird gets hurt? Worse case scenario we can just eat it."
"We can't do that, this is Yellow-Tailed Mountain Condor!" Marron declared as if that should mean something.
"So?" Trunks responded, baffled. "Is it like poisonous or something?"
"No, they're endangered!" Marron stomped her foot. "And they only mate to lay eggs once every seven years, so we can't afford to hurt the eggs either."
"How is it my fault that the damn birds don't fuck enough to have more little bird babies." Trunks groaned running a hand over his face, before turning back to Marron, "How do you even know what kind of bird it is?"
"Because Uncle 17 gave me a book on birds for my birthday a few years back," Marron paused, before continuing, "I don't know why? I didn't ask for it, but it was cool to look at. It had a lot of really nice paintings and photographs of birds."
But her words were enough to convince Goten. "If the birds endangered then we're absolutely not gonna hurt it, or the eggs," he said.
Trunks responded with an exaggerated eye-roll that involved moving his entire head so that his hair flipped like he was trying to imitate one of those women in a hair commercial. "Nature is stupid."
"You were the one who wanted to go on a camping trip," Goten reminded him, trying to not let on how annoyed he really was. "Besides, if nature's so stupid then we shouldn't have a problem outsmarting one bird."
"Hey, I have a question," Marron interrupted, "are either of you familiar with the mafuba ?"
It sounded vaguely familiar. "Isn't that the thing where you seal evil demons and stuff in jars? Like what happened with King Piccolo?" Goten said after a moment of recollecting.
"Now, I hate that stupid bird more than anyone here but I'm pretty sure it isn't that bad," said Trunks.
"Also I'm pretty sure the mafuba can sometimes fatal on the user?" Goten added, now seriously wondering why Marron had brought it up.
"Yeah if you're not that experienced at it and are trying to seal away something stronger than you," Marron said, her hands gesturing wildly as she continued. "But we're not focusing on that part, the earlier stages of it lets you temporarily stun a target and hold them in place. If one of you just does it for a second that might give us enough time for someone else to quickly grab it and then we can let the bird go. No harm, no foul, and no harming the fowl."
"I don't know how to do it," Goten admitted. Trunks didn't know it either. They were stumped for a moment before Marron was excitedly checking her phone. "Wait, wait, I think I have a video of Piccolo teaching the technique."
"Why do you have that?" asked Trunks and when he didn't get a response he turned to Goten, "Who keeps giving her things?" Goten shrugged.
"I think Bulma sent it to my Dad a few years ago," Marron said when she looked up. "I saved it because it's a cool technique. Here you can watch him do it. Remember we're not trying to copy him to seal away the bird, just see how the beginning of it works so you can paralyze it for a split second."
They watched the video and saw Piccolo awkwardly waving at the camera before demonstrating the technique while Bulma cheered him on in her 'parent indulging their child' voice that was sadly very familiar to Goten, how many times had he heard Bulma using it when Trunks was trying to show off to get her attention?
The technique itself was pretty advanced, but most of the complexity came from the latter stages when you were forcing a resistant being into a confined space. The beginning where you were holding them in place with your own ki didn't look that complicated.
Marron volunteered to be the test subject and they were able to figure it out pretty quickly practicing with her trying to run at them and them holding her in place. Though maybe they should have tried on a less obliging target because when they went back to the condor the resistance felt was a lot harder. But they were successful, and one mostly unharmed, if slightly traumatized, bird later they had the first ball.
The second Dragon Ball was in a mountainous gorge. It had managed to wedge itself into a very deep crevice and they'd actually had to resort to breaking apart most of a cliff to make an opening big enough to let them reach the ball.
That was also the day that it was decided by a vote of two to Trunks that they were having a campfire that night. What did it matter that the capsule house had a stove and heater, it wasn't the same as an open pit of fire. And besides, argued Marron, everyone knew s'mores could only be made on a campfire, they couldn't get the delicious charcoal taste otherwise. It also made for a fun way to work through the giant package of hotdogs in the fridge. Goten was enjoying his experiments with roasting them for different periods of time and distance from the flames and seeing how it affected their taste.
It was towards the end of dinner when Goten and Trunks had moved onto making s'mores and Marron had long since finished eating that she asked, "So, we're already been doing this for a week and neither of you have informed me of why you guys wanted to do this quest in the first place. What is so important that you need to make a wish to Shenron for?"
That was a good question, and one that Goten had felt rolling around in his head since they started the trip. When Trunks had told him about the trip he'd intentionally neglected to mention what the wish he wanted to go this whole trip for even was, for whatever reason Trunks was playing this close to the chest, probably because he didn't want to be talked out of it.
"Umm, honestly I don't know what I want to use my wish for yet," Goten confessed and put his s'more down on his plate. "I mean, sure there's a bunch of things that I'd like , money, drawing supplies, drawing talent, but nothing that really seems worth using a whole wish you know? I don't want us to waste a wishes on something we can get otherwise, it has to only be available through magic."
"Yeah, I get where you're coming from," said Marron, and started to poke the fire with a stick, causing one of the logs crumble in half. "I know what I want to use my wish on, it's something I've been sort of thinking about for a while but Gohan's show just made me realize for reals, so you ever think about just how big our universe is? And that's only just Universe 7, there's 12 of them! There must be so many things going on out there, and I want to have a way to find out about it. I'm going to ask Shenron for some sort of device that lets me get connected to all the information out there, like the universe wide internet if that's a thing that exists. I hate being kept in the dark from everything that's going on."
After Goten and Trunks voiced their agreement that that seemed like a good wish, Marron turned on Trunks, "And what about you Trunks, what could the boy who has everything possibly want to wish for?"
"It's a secret." Trunks teased in a sing-song voice, the dancing firelight making his shit-eating grin look particularly diabolical.
"Oh come on, I told you my wish," Marron whined.
"I guess you'll guys will just have to wait till we summon Shenron to find out," Trunks laughed and took his marshmallow out of the fire, having completely abandoned the crackers and chocolate and was just eating them off the stick now. Any of the previous intimidating appearance was completely ruined by how silly he looked doing so. After he finished he tacked on, "But I will tell you guys this, it's going to be awesome."
If Goten was more responsible he wouldn't be letting Trunks get away with the runaround but quite honestly he was curious as to what Trunks was plotting and perfectly content to let events play out even if it meant regretting the choice later.
"I tremble in fear," Marron said before changing the subject. "You know this is fun, it reminds me of the last time we did the campfire, remember on Uncle's island with all those animals?"
Goten did remember, it had been during the big tournament between the universes that the top Gods had put on. A tournament they had not heard the details of till after it was over.
Trunks snorted, "I remember having to rescue you because you kept trying to feed the Cell Juniors and needed to be rescued when they tried to eat you."
"I wanted to make friends with them and besides I got one of them to settle on the s'mores," corrected Marron.
Goten laughed, "Yeah, in between trying to bite you. What did you name him anyway? The one you insisted was your friend even when he kept trying to eat your hair?"
"Nibbler! "Marron laughed with delight, "And he was alright so long as I kept giving him things to gnaw on."
Trunks sat up from his sprawl in his chair, "You know, I still can't believe you knew about the Tournament of Power going on while our parents lied to us. How unfair is that?"
Marron shrugged, "Mom doesn't see the point in lying to me about things. Besides, it's not like I was going to do anything with the information. I mean I'm not the one of the ones who upon hearing that Frieza is invading the Earth came flying in fused to crotch-shot one of Frieza's men."
Oh, that.
"Krillin told you about that, didn't he." Goten asked, his voice slightly strained under the weight of absolute mortification he felt at the memory.
"Damn right, he did." The smugness Marron said it with did nothing to help Goten's regret.
Trunks even seemed mildly chagrined as he started on trying to defend himself, "Okay first of all, I was a child-"
"You were my age."
"Second of all, it turned out fine in the end-"
"Didn't Frieza blow up the planet and Whis had to rewind time to fix it?"
"Okay to be fair," Goten interrupted, "I think that was mostly my Dad's fault for not taking the situation seriously? And maybe also partly Vegeta's because they were insisting on taking turns."
"Right, dumb Saiyans being dumb. What else is new." Goten wasn't exactly going to argue that point.
"And thirdly," Trunks continued undaunted, "I'm tired of our parents and everyone else withholding important information from us because they think they know better. We have a right to know things and they can't keep us in the dark just because they think we're too young."
Oh, so that's what Trunks was going to use his wish on. Goten didn't know how and what specifically Trunks was going to wish for he was confident that he'd hit upon the right sentiment. Goten didn't share his revelation, but judging from the circumspect look Marron had she caught the hint too.
"Maybe they think you guys are better off not knowing things?" offered Marron. "That or they don't trust you two to not be overconfident idiots."
"We're not!" Goten protested, before thinking better of it and correcting himself, "Well okay Gotenks is, but he's his own person and has his own issues. He's even more arrogant that Trunks ever is."
"Which is weird if you think about it," said Trunks, "because if he's a fusion of me and Goten you'd think it'd even out to be less so?"
"I like that you're not arguing the point that you're an arrogant narcissist, Trunks," Marron said.
Trunks held up his arms in mock surrender, "I mean, can you blame me? I'm me." Goten snorted into his drink.
Truth was Gotenks was a bit of an enigma. Sure Goten had his memories of what it was like when they were fused, but it was like looking in on a stranger's mind. Gotenks wasn't Goten or Trunks he was both and at the same time he was neither, he thought in ways that didn't mesh with either of them and his prioritizes were heavily skewed towards showing off and impulsive decisions. Unbelievably he'd gotten even less helpful since they were kids. The last time they'd fused on a lark Gotenks had completely ignored the reason they'd fused for and spent the entire time jerking off about how strong he was. Which was something that Goten was never going to admit to anyone. Ever.
"Well at least the Tournament of Power turned out alright, our parents won in the end and saved all the other universes," said Goten.
"Uh excuse you, Uncle 17 was the one who won."
"No 17 is just your uncle. He's not your parent that doesn't count," argued Trunks.
"Fine," Marron huffed, "but I had both my Mom and Dad in that big Tournament that Zenos had. So I still win."
Goten was not in the mood for a parental bragging contest so he changed the subject to a question he'd had for a while. "Hey Marron, why do you call them No 17 and 18, and not like their normal names? They were humans once, right? So they should have them."
"Because those are their names now," Marron said. "They aren't the same people they were before Dr. Gero turned them into artificial humans."
Oh now Goten was really curious, "So, it really changed them?"
Marron put down her fire poking stick and looked up at the sky. "Yeah, Mom says everything was different after. She doesn't feel things like she once did, she said it's like viewing everything through a dulling filter, things have less color, emotions less intense. She says she only remembers vaguely what it was like to be truly happy."
That sounded terrible. "I'm sorry that happened to her," Goten offered unsure of what else he could say.
Marron shrugged, "It is what it is. Besides just because emotions aren't as intense doesn't mean she doesn't have them. She still likes some things, like her favorite flowers. And shiny things. And Dad always getting her favorite dessert from this little bakery on Thursdays. She says it's all about the small things now, even if they can't make her happy she can still find something nice about them.
"She and Uncle still have their minds and they can like things on an intellectual level. That's why Uncle loves animals so much, they're not capable of being cruel like humans, everything is simpler for them. Actually come to think of it, Mom doesn't like people all that much either."
"I mean neither does my Dad," Trunks said. "No one hates people like he does."
"No, I'm not talking about disliking social interaction or dealing with weaklings or whatever multitude of issues Vegeta has," Marron waved her hand, gesturing widely as if her hands alone could not account for all of the issues Vegeta contained. "She doesn't like people much at all, like individually or as a whole, sees them as annoying, self-centered, and cruel. Even the exceptions are still selfish in their own ways. She told me once that she figures if all the Earthlings died out that the planet would be better off for it."
"Uh," Goten began but wasn't sure how to continue, he felt like he should argue against it out of obligation but didn't know where to start.
Marron continued, "But she also understands that everyone is just living their lives like she is, and everyone's self-centered like that. So it's not like there isn't some beauty in it. Sure my mom doesn't care about much, but she tries. And isn't that the most important part, the trying? Being a selfish person and doing the right thing in spite of it? That's how I think mom and Uncle see it anyways." She looked at Goten, "Isn't that how it is with your dad?"
Well yeah when you put it like that, Goku was one of the most selfish people Goten knew of. Fighting was his first priority, always. Protecting his friends and family came next and the Earth was a distant third. Goku was kind-hearted and wanted to do the right thing when it was presented in front of him, but he was a fighter and a Saiyan before he was anything else. Including a father.
Conversation died down shortly thereafter and Goten found himself looking up at the sky and thinking about the stars and his place in them. He was an Earthling, he knew that deep in his blood and bones, more than just the place he lived or the heritage from his mom, but he felt it deep in his soul. He belonged on Earth. But a part of him, a smaller part, called to him from the depths of space. He was made from Stardust and Earth blood and it mixed together to form Goten, the only Goten that there was.
He'd always thought only Trunks could get it, and that had made things easier growing up, having someone to talk to. Sure Goten always had Gohan, but that was a sensitive subject. Gohan would always answer his questions about their father when he was asked, but even as a kid Goten could see how much it pained his brother to talk about it. And Goten would do anything to prevent Gohan from feeling that grief, so he stopped asking. That's why he'd asked his mother to train him and hadn't bothered Gohan about it.
But now he was left with a Gohan that liked sheltering Goten as much as everyone else did. Gohan who had always been allowed to be out there fighting, who got to save the world from Cell, who got to fight in the Tournament of Power, and who made sure that Goten never had to face the same struggles. Yes Goten knew that he was lucky he never had to, but he'd like to have had the chance. No, he was doomed to be sitting on the sidelines hearing about fights he had to hope everyone made it back from, not able to be out there ensuring it with his own fists.
But maybe Marron had an idea of what it was like too. Not the Saiyan part obviously, but knowing the truth about how strange and scary everything really was. Having to put up with parents going off to fight because the universe was in danger yet again and knowing what stakes were on the line. Knowing how big the universe was and feeling that helplessness at not doing anything to influence it. But wanting to do something about it anyway, even if they didn't quite know yet what it was.
(Marron)
The following transcription is from a now deleted video that was filmed in Age 784 and was the earliest upload to the Godtube channel run by Marron. To those more familiar with Marron's later videos, the format of this one might not meet the standards of the later ones. It has been transcribed by a dedicated fan.
Video Begins:
Shaky footage of Marron holding the camera out and filming herself in profile mode, the sound is muffled because the camera is picking up some slight wind.
Marron: Hello and Welcome to Blowing Shit Up With Saiyans, working title, I'm your host Marron and here we are going to watch our Saiyans in question, Goten and Trunks blow shit up for the entertainment of all our viewers! Let's talk with our first co-host, Trunks!
The camera shifts to focusing on Trunks who is surrounded by many bags and containers with hand-scrawled labels on them. He is shuffling them and not looking up at the camera.
Trunks: I do not consent for this footage to be uploaded to the internet. If I find this online I'm well within my rights to file a copyright take down, I am not a public figure and any footage of me is an invasion of-
Marron: Okay first of all, you can cut the legalese diatribe, I wasn't going to upload this anywhere without your approval. Secondly, if you're so eager to get this on the recording, let's start with what I can do with this footage.
Trunks: I don't want it to be accessible to anyone anywhere Earth.
Marron: Okay, what if it was on an internet that Earth couldn't access, you know, content not available on your planet?
Noise of Trunks shuffling bags stops.
Trunks: Do they have that?
Marron: I dunno, I mean space is a big place, they gotta have something.
Trunks: Alright, fine. If you can promise that no one I know is going to view it you can upload it.
Marron: Sweet! So what are you going to be showing us today Trunks?
Trunks: Well I've been working with some explosive chemicals for a while and I thought it'd be fun if we made our own fireworks.
Marron: Ooo, very cool. Are we grading them on presentation or destructive force?
Trunks: Little bit of column A, a little bit of column B.
Marron: Awesome. Now why are we doing it with chemicals and not just ki blasts.
Trunks: Because ki's boring.
Goten enters the shot from camera right, he has a hand in front of his face to prevent the camera from filming him.
Goten: Ki is not boring, it's the life energy of everything. It's really versatile and there's a bunch of ways to harness and utilize it!
Trunks: And yet somehow everything always comes down to just doing ki beams. But fine, point made. Ki isn't boring, I just think it's much cooler to blow shit up with science!
Marron: Heard it here first, Trunks declares war on magic and has picked science as his weapon of choice.
Trunks laughs.
Trunks: And everyone better take note, I don't start wars I don't intend to win.
Marron: Goten maybe you can compete against Trunks, try and imitate his chemical explosions with ki-based ones? I mean you'll have to drop your ridiculous face shield of a hand to do that. Come on, I promise no one you know is going to see this.
Goten sheepishly moves his hand to scratching the back of his neck.
Goten: Why are you even filming this?
Marron: For science, this way we can consult the footage after to see who does what better. And besides it's fun, we already found the third DB today, let's cut loose.
Trunks: DB? That short for *bleeped*?
Marron: Oh great, now I'm going to have to bleep that. Come on guys!
Goten: You're bleeping *bleeped*.
Marron: Yeah, we don't want other space weirdos knowing about them, do we? Can you imagine what we'd have to put up with if it was common knowledge?
Goten: Fair point.
Trunks: Alright, alright. Now do you guys want to see my first experiment, this one is a thermite compound.
Marron: How far away should we be?
Trunks: Umm, I don't know, I'm sure where you are is fine.
Trunks lights the compound's fuse and it starts sparking into a very large shower of sparks.
Trunks: Too close, too close!
Goten: Marron, get behind me!
Marron: Oh *bleep* -
Video cuts out.
Marron lounged on the deck of the sailing boat enjoying the bright sun and the sounds of the ocean breeze and the muffled cursing from Trunks as he was trying to work on jerry rigging a robotic control system for his miniature submarine. Trying and failing judging by the increasingly creative and violent expletives.
They had known from the start that the fourth Dragon Ball would be over the ocean, but it wasn't till they arrived that they realized the location reading was on top of a deep sea trench. Upon discovering that this would not be a simple retrieval they'd retreated to the main land to acquire supplies to aid the search, including scuba equipment and mechanical parts for a mini sub. Turns out that the radar was actually not the best at determining the depth of where the ball was located and they were having a hard time finding the ball, much less retrieving it.
Marron glanced over at the radar that lay next to her, and had it set to the narrowest setting of a 15 meter radius, and sure enough all four balls were in the range. Two of them were on the ship in her backpack while Goten had taken one in his pocket as he was attempting to retrieve the new one with the scuba gear so that Marron could track his progress on the radar. Trunks had decided it would be a more efficient use of time to get and modify a small remote sub to retrieve the ball. Both attempts had been so far giving mixed results.
Marron could sense that Goten was starting to resurface, it wasn't hard to track him when he was in his Super Saiyan form, he was like a glowing bright light in a dimly lit room. He'd been forced to resort to using the transformation to withstand the increased atmospheric pressure and for its illumination down in the deep water.
"Any luck?" Marron called out as he broke the surface a bit away from the boat and swam over.
"No." Goten grunted after he'd pulled out the oxygen breather and climb onto the boat. "This is stupid. It's all just dark down there and you lose all sense of direction. How close was I?"
"Radar said you were right on top of it, until you started going to the right again."
"Urgh! This is stupid!" He shook his head and water flew out of his hair like a dog. "I'm swimming straight down, why do I keep getting all mixed up at which direction I'm swimming in? Even the Earth's ki lines get all tangled up and hard to read."
"Well remember what the scuba shop guy said, about how hard it is to maintain a sense of direction once you start deep diving?" Marron said and offered him a hetab. "Many people even have trouble determining up from down when they get deep enough that they can't see the sunlight."
Goten took the offered drink and downed the entire thing. "Well at least I can always sense where Trunks is so I could tell where the surface was, but that only helps orient me so far. And that's not even getting into how heavy everything is? I train in the gravity chamber all the time, why is this so hard!" He crushed the can between his hands until it was a sheet of condensed aluminum.
Marron sat back in her lounge chair. "I was looking at my phone for a bit while you were down there, the internet says that every 10 meters you go down the atmospheric pressure increases once over, so if you were 500 meters down that's 50 times. If we're unlucky enough that the ball really is at the bottom of the 4 kilometer trench that's over 400 times the atmospheric pressure you'd be feeling on the Earth's surface. Have you been training at 400x gravity?"
Goten didn't respond with words but more a growl of frustration. Marron didn't say anything and turned to look over where Trunks was running his hands through his hair with increasing ferocity.
"Trunks, want to share a submarine status update?"
"Not good," Trunks huffed loudly and got up to come over to the cooler and grabbing a drink, "I don't think I can get a piloting system working with what I have. Maybe if I had a week in my workshop it'd be a different story but that's only a possibility."
"What about using a submarine someone else has already built?" Marron asked, looking for some solution.
Trunks sighed, "The only people that have unmanned subs that can go down that far are all research institutes, and it would be a huge pain to try to convince any of them to part with one, even for a short term loan. Besides what am I going to say I'm using it for on the request paperwork? Hunting for mystical artifacts that no one can know about? Yeah that will go over well."
"We don't know that the ball is at the bottom of the trench, you yourself said the radar had trouble with precision of depth, it could be a lot closer to the top." Goten grumbled petulantly.
"You gonna give diving another shot, Goten?" Marron asked.
Goten rubbed his face, "Well we gotta do something? I am absolutely not asking my Dad for help with this, I will never hear the end of it."
Trunks groaned, "Oh yeah, that's the truth. My Dad would probably refuse on principle, if he didn't laugh in our faces about this being what we deserve for slacking."
"Okay, how about you guys use fusion and make Gotenks get it?"
Trunks stiffened and suddenly found the horizon much more interesting than he had moments prior, and didn't say anything more. Goten on the other hand suddenly couldn't say enough, "I, um, don't think Gotenks would be willing to behave, he kind of sort of has a mind of his own. And, uh, he might be more interested in doing other things." Considering how he was refusing to meet her eyes and how red he'd turned Marron had a pretty good idea what kind of thing had happened the last time they had tried fusion and it would hardly be useful for the current situation. Teenage boys, honestly.
Marron went to check the cooler for another juice when she heard splashing noises on the opposite side of the boat from where the boys were standing. "Hey whichever one of you is throwing stuff into the water, stop it! We shouldn't be littering in the ocean!"
"Not me." "I'm not doing anything."
Wait, really? "Then where are all those splashing noises coming from?" Marron walked over to the starboard side and didn't see anything until she looked straight down and into the face of a girl looking back up at her.
Marron was surprised, "Um, hello? How'd you manage to get all the way out here?" She reached out a hand to help her onto the boat but the blonde girl just seized it in her surprisingly strong grip and began examining it curiously.
But before Marron could ask the girl any more questions, they were interrupted when a new person burst up from the water and grabbed the first girl and pulled her behind her. She was older, definitely a woman and not a girl, and she had long pink hair. "Ephyra! What did I tell you about swimming off on your own near the surface!"
"But Ianassa," Ephyra whined, "I just wanted to get a look at the boat and the people. I was hiding from them and everything."
"How were you hiding! You're holding the land-dwellers hand!" snapped Ianassa.
Marron was about to ask what blondie meant by that, but her mouth clicked shut when she saw the fins where their feet should be. Oh. They were mermaids. Huh, that was something you didn't see everyday. Would it be rude if Marron mentioned that? Was she not supposed to notice their fins? Even though they were very pretty? They somewhat resembled their hair color, Ephyra's were golden with long flow-y fins while Ianassa had pink and orange stripes and more angular and smaller.
Erring on the side of caution Marron tried a different topic, "I didn't sense anyone approaching, where the two of you suppressing your ki? Umm, you might call it your life energy or presence?"
Ephyra bopped her head along with the current, "Oreithyia always said to cloak yourself if we're going hunting."
"Oh is that what you're doing? Hunting us from the water?" Trunks asked conversationally, as he and Goten walked over to see them.
"We should be. What are you doing in these waters?" Ianassa demanded. "This is a protected area, why are you land-dwellers trespassing?"
"We're trying to get something that's about a good ways down in the ocean, we'll leave once we retrieve it." Marron offered out her other hand that wasn't in Ephyra's grip to the new one, "Hello, my name is Marron, nice to meet you. The boys are Trunks and Goten."
"I'm Ephyra! And this is Ianassa! She's my guardian because she thinks I'm too young to be on my own even though I'm not a kid anymore." Marron wasn't sure how mermaids aged but Ephyra didn't look much older than Marron and her hair made her seem even younger, short curls that were a vivid yellow even when soaking wet.
"And you are continuing to prove me right in how young you really are," Ianassa scolded. "What are you doing introducing yourself to land-dwellers. You don't know what they'll do with the information."
Ephyra stuck out her tongue. "I think you're being dumb, not all land-dwellers are bad, Actaea was one once and she's great."
"Actaea was an exception," Ianassa said tightly.
"Wait, so, this is a protected area?" asked Goten.
Ianassa turned her gaze to glare at him, "Yes, the trench is our territory, and everything that lies within its waters belongs to our Princess. So whatever you're trying to get is ours and you're trying to steal it."
Goten scratched the back of his head, "Oh, well we wouldn't want to do that. Would you guys be willing to work out a deal of some kind? If we show you what we're looking for and you can get it for us and then we can do a trade for it? That way we're not taking anything you don't know about?"
"A trade?" Ephyra perked up. "Ooh, ooh, what for?"
"Ephyra, no, land-dwellers aren't trustworthy, and besides they don't have anything that we could want," Ianassa said.
"Well I don't know about that, there's probably a lot of things we have on land that you guys don't have underwater," Marron said and thought for a moment before adding, "how about some type of food, that's my usual go-to when making friends. I be there's land food that you guys have never tried."
"Like what?" Ephyra said and even Ianassa looked a tiny bit curious. Marron looked at Goten, he was the one with the cooking skills. "Umm, well lets see, what kind of food do you guys like?" Goten asked.
"Meat." Ianassa said and made a point of flashing her very sharp teeth. Ah, she didn't get those eating a kelp diet.
"Okay, carnivores, that's cool," Marron said undaunted. "How do you guys usually eat meat, do you like it raw or cooked? Do you have cooked meat underwater?"
"If we desire to cook our meals we can use the hot flows," said Ianassa.
"Oh the hydrothermal vents? You use those for cooking, that's neat," said Trunks.
Perhaps Ephyra could sense a discussion about the vents and wanted to head it off as she interrupted with an eager, "I like dolphin and squid and especially octopus!"
"Octopus? I can make a mean takoyaki," offered Goten.
"What is this takoyaki?" Ianassa asked suspiciously.
"It's fried balls with octopus in them. Wait, you guys probably can't get fried stuff underwater, so this will be a novelty."
"Can we make takoyaki?" Marron asked.
"Yeah, I just need a few things, like the right pan and some groceries, we don't have any tenkasu. Oh and the octopus."
"I remember that Roshi's got a takoyaki pan over at Kame House, that's not that far from here. Trunks why don't you go fly over and get it while we set up the kitchen on some land?"
"Also can you go by a store and buy the tenkasu and green onions for me. We have enough ginger I think," said Goten.
"But I was gonna build a submarine-" Trunks said, Marron didn't know if he was petulant at having his project thwarted or being demoted to errand boy. Marron patted him on his shoulder, "Well now you're going on a grocery run so we can make takoyaki for mermaids now. Keep up." Then she turned back to Ianassa and Ephyra, "That means you guys need to capture some octopuses for us to cook. Octopi? Octopodes? Can you guys do that?"
Ianassa was insulted, "Of course we can. I'll ask Oreithyia, she's the best hunter we have."
"If we're going to get Oreithyia, we need to also invite Actaea too. Oh! Oh! And my mom," piped up Ephyra.
"The Princess doesn't need to deal with such trivial affairs," Ianassa began hastily.
"Please Ianassa? It would be super cool and I bet my mom would like to taste the octopus balls. Please, please, please?" It was funny to watch Ianassa's will melting under the onslaught of Ephyra's pleas.
"Tell you what Ianassa," said Marron, "we'll make the food and all your friends, and then afterwards you can tell us if it's worth helping us find the object we're looking for."
"...I'll allow it for the sake of Ephyra," she said finally.
"I need a landmass to put the capsule house so I can use the kitchen we have," Goten said, "are there any small islands or something around here?"
"Yep! There's one that ways." Ephyra pointed in a direction. Ianassa said nothing but silently grabbed Ephyra's hand and moved it so she was pointing 15 degrees more to the right. "Oops, I mean that way!
They followed their directions and came upon a large coral reef that encircled a lagoon. The atoll had sections that were dozens of meters wide at points, and even had some sparse vegetation, so they set up the house on one of those sections.
Goten got started on dicing the ginger and making the batter and the sauce while Marron cleaned up the kitchen and made more space for Goten to work. Trunks arrived about a half hour later and pulled out a capsule containing Roshi's takoyaki pan and the groceries. His reward was getting to setup the pan on the stovetop, it required tinkering to get it to heat evenly and Trunks baby-talked the stove as he got it working.
Soon enough they could hear Ephyra's voice yelling, "We're here land people!" Outside Ianassa was nowhere to be seen but Ephyra had the company of two new mermaids. One had very short violet hair and a tiger-striped tail and introduced herself as Actaea and the other had long wavy green hair and an iridescent tail who was Oreithyia. She was also the one lugging behind a large net filled with squirming octopuses.
"I was told we're going to be trying a land-dweller's dish?" Oreithyia said, "Ephyra was very excited about it and told me I needed to capture the octopi for it? I hope I brought enough."
"I mean that is a lot of octopus, but then again I have no idea how much you guys eat, is it a lot?" asked Goten.
"Yes, I found that mermaids appetites are about three times as large as humans, something I noticed after my own transformation," Actaea explained, "That won't be a problem will it?"
"Nah, you're in good company, we're used to big eaters." Marron waved her off.
Moments later Ianassa reappeared, this time holding the hand of a middle-aged mermaid that har orange coral curlers in her hair that matched her own hair color, and had bright orange and pink fins.
"This is Princess Doris," Ianassa introduced her, her clipped tone making clear the amount of reverence Doris ought to be greeted with.
They greeted her before Goten grabbed the net of octopuses and announced, "I'm going to need a second pair of hands with the grill, I'm not as fast as my mom. Marron, you can come help me."
Marron agreed and helped him carry the net back to the house, it wasn't that it was heavy so much as it was bulky and moving . Marron refused to be in the room till all the octopuses were dead, but she helped with the dicing afterwards.
But the real treat was watching Goten work the grill, first he poured the batter over the pan and it filled all the little round holes, then he sprinkled the diced octopus and other ingredients into the holes to fill each ball. Then they used the poking sticks to turn the little balls of frying batter so that the bottom could get cooked. They probably had real names but Marron wasn't about to bother asking when poking sticks was just as accurate. Poke, poke, poke, tiny stabbing. Goten was a lot better at it than her, he only needed to poke it a few times to get to to flip, Marron was getting better with each one though. Except for one half-finished dough ball she accidentally skewered and managed to fling a foot away, that one she just wasn't going to mention to Goten.
After the first batch had been made and put into bowls with the sauce drizzled on top and toothpicks on the side, Trunks helped bring them out to the mermaids. Marron gave the first bowl to the Princess, assuming she would be the first to try it but Ianassa seized the dish. "Princess, please let someone else try it before you do, you don't know what the land-dwellers could be planning with their cooking techniques." She poked one of the balls with a toothpick suspiciously.
Goten was incensed, "I would never sabotage food! But if it makes you feel more comfortable," Goten reached over and took one from Ianassa's bowl and popped it into his mouth. "See, totally safe."
The mermaids all turned to Actaea as if she was the frequent answerer of queries. "Actaea are these how they're supposed to be?" Oreithyia asked.
"I've never heard of takoyaki before, I guess they didn't have it in my part of the world," Actaea said thoughtfully. "But I know frying is a delicious way to prepare any food, and they don't look odd, I think these will be fine."
"Ianassa, I think I will trust these octopus balls," Doris announced her decision before eating the first one cautiously, "What a peculiar texture. But it's most delicious!"
The rest of the mermaids quickly dove in and the bowls were swiftly emptied. Goten and Marron returned to the grill and every time they turned out a batch the mermaids were ready for the next one. They were eating them as fast as they could make them. Marron might have been sneaking a few of the balls herself as they were making them, Goten certainly was trying one or two from every batch to "test" but Marron knew snacking when she saw it.
Trunks played waiter and was taking the fresh ones out to the mermaids and bringing the empty dishes back. Finally around the 7 th batch things began to slow down and around the 9 th batch the mermaids were full. They still had to make two more rounds so there would be enough for Goten and Trunks to eat for lunch but it was a more sedate pace.
After they had finished cleaning up the kitchen, they rejoined the mermaid party that was on the shores of the shoal. Doris greeted them, "Your meal was a most pleasing offering, now Ianassa said you wanted something in return from my trench?"
Goten held out a Dragon Ball, "It looks like this, it's an orange sphere with some stars in it. It would have only been in your trench for the past couple of years and we'd like it back. We know where it is, the only problem is going down deep enough to get it. Once we get it, we'll be out of your guy's way."
Doris took the Dragon Ball and examined it, "Yes it does seem foreign, and after such a good meal I suppose we can assist you in retrieving your ball." Marron resisted the urge to fist-pump as Doris turned to the green haired mermaid, "Oreithyia, you have the best eyes for the deep, will you help these land-dwellers with their task?"
"Of course, Princess. Let me see the sphere." After examining it for a bit Oreithyia asked them, "And you say you can take me to its exact location?"
"Yes, though since we don't know the depth of the ball, it's possible our reading could be a little off if it's deep enough," said Trunks. "But I can take you directly over where the reading says it is. I'll fly out with you, how fast can you swim? I don't want to outpace you."
Oreithyia scoffed, "Land-dweller, you should never underestimate a mermaid's speed in the water. I assure you I can more than keep up with you."
Trunks chuckled, "Well I look forward to being proved wrong. In fact, how about we race?" They waited until Oreithyia was in deep enough water that she was able to get a good start, then Marron counted down and they both took off.
After they'd left, Marron turned to the remaining mermaids. They had some time before Oreithyia came back with the ball and Marron wanted to ask some questions about something she'd heard mentioned earlier. "So Actaea, Ephyra said you once lived on land? How did the tail happen?"
"Yes, I was human once," Actaea laughed, "I was a marine biology student and that's how I met Oreithyia one day when I was doing field work on some of the barrier reefs. I was quite taken with the chance to talk with a mermaid and Oreithyia was certainly an engaging conversationalist. Eventually she started to talk about me joining her in the ocean and becoming her consort." (At least that's what Marron assumed she meant because it was pronounced a lot more like "conch-sort".) "It took her awhile to convince me but she was rather insistent and I was persuaded."
"So there's ways for humans to turn into mermaids?" Marron asked.
"There's a ritual for it," Ephyra butted in, "that can turn human women into mermaids."
"Oh, only women and not guys? I mean that makes sense if we're only talking about mermaids, but would guys be called mermen?" Goten asked.
"No, men are for eating, not mating," Ianassa said, making sure to flash all of her very ominous teeth as she said it.
"Oh. That's well, I mean good to know," stammered Goten. Marron started to giggle at the uncomfortable look on his face.
"Can I nibble on you?" Ephyra asked Goten, "I've never tasted human meat before."
Doris interrupted before Goten's stammering could really kick off, "No, Ephyra, you don't make friends with what you eat and you don't ask to eat what you make friends with. We mustn't be rude."
Marron laughed, "Yeah, let's stick with us feeding you takoyaki instead."
They got to chatting about life on land, which was a topic of great interest to Ephyra, she wanted to hear all about it. She was especially delighted when she heard that Trunks had a younger sister and Goten had a niece. As an only child, apparently the concept of siblings was a foreign and fascinating one to her.
A little while later Trunks landed and was very vague about the results of who won the race. Yet not more than ten minutes after he returned he was challenging Ianassa to an arm wrestling contest and even went Super Saiyan before hand. This was especially delightful to Ephyra who praised both the fact his hair could change colors and that he'd chosen to turn it blonde like her. Goten couldn't resist transforming as well just so Ephyra could shriek her delight even louder.
The arm wrestling contest went on for a while but there was a clear victor and the win went to Ianassa. Marron wanted to laugh at Trunks fighting a sulk after he accepted his loss. "Okay, I admit, I'm impressed with how strong you guys are."
"We have to be, to survive along the trench's depth takes much fortitude," Ianassa said smugly, her victory putting her in a better mood. Goten started up a conversation with her about what it was like to be that far down and without sunlight.
Marron walked over to where Trunks was standing and asked, "You going to retry it as Super Saiyan 2?"
Trunks shot her a sharp look, "What makes you think I can do Super Saiyan 2?"
"Oh can you not?" Marron played it off, not letting on how much she'd noticed his change in posture at her question.
"I dunno, that would be telling."
"No it would be sayin'." Trunks groaned and did not appreciate her pun, which was a pity. Marron was a genius.
She didn't know why he was being so evasive about her question, either he could or he couldn't, but him trying to get out of the question was more interesting than either answer. See, Marron had figured that he could have done it just from osmosis knowledge of the form from Gotenks. He'd already done it before, on his own shouldn't be that much harder to do doing so on his own ki supply.
But Trunks was refusing to say, which, why? If he couldn't he would probably be embarrassed? Daddy issues and the fear of paternal disappointment? Insecurity because the other Trunks from the future was stronger and better than him? But at the same time, that was a simple thing to admit to, even if it was an embarrassing one, refusing to answer seemed to tip the scales in the other direction.
If he could, why would he be hiding it? The only reasons Marron could come up with were trying to hide it from his father or trying to keep it a secret from Goten? Could it be that Trunks could do it, and Goten couldn't? Possible but overall unlikely since Goten had the same Gotenks advantage. If Marron was a gambling girl, and she was to an extent, her bet would be that it was something he was trying to keep a secret from Goku and Vegeta for whatever reason, probably to avoid being a sparring partner.
Trunks was a much better liar, she might have better luck trying to bait Goten into answering the question later, between his nervous response she might glean more clues.
After about two hours, Oreithyia finally resurfaced and had with her the two-star ball. She arrived in time to see Ephyra showing off what she'd been working on during that time on the shore, three seashell crowns. She gave one to each of them and Ephyra made them promise to come back again some time and bring the girls with them. Trunks and Goten reluctantly agreed, and Marron imagined they were both apprehensive of what havoc introducing Pan and Bulla to a mermaid who was both very strong and a princess would cause.
They were driving through the great desert, several hours away from the location of the 5th ball, and it was currently Marron's turn to play music. She'd been working her way through the "sing-a-long" playlist of songs so infectious and poppy that it was impossible to avoid learning the lyrics after a few listens and even more impossible to not want to join in. The boys had tried to fight against the power of the earworm but now weeks later they had succumbed to the might of the music and were belting out the chorus along with it.
And they were really put out when Marron suddenly stopped the current song in the middle of the best part. "Hey do you guys feel that? Two life energies north of here."
"You stopped the music for that? It's probably just some animals," huffed Trunks.
"No, they're more like people's. I'm sure of it."
"What are they doing out here in the desert?" Goten asked. "There's not much civilization around for at least an hour in any direction."
"I don't know, but it's weird isn't it, people being out here? We should probably go check it out, don't you think?"
"Where are they," said Trunks. Marron reached an arm out into the front seat and they both took her hand and she guided their attention to the energies she was sensing.
"Hmm, yeah that's definitely something even if it is pretty faint," Goten agreed. "Trunks we should go check it out."
"Fine, not like we don't have the time," Trunks said. "But start the song over, you totally ruined the flow."
30 minutes later and they arrived at the location where there was a truck on the side of the road and two people were waving them down. Upon pulling over Marron realized that the inhabitants were in fact two animal people, a rabbit man with dark brown fur and a red and white spotted ferret lady. They were next to a truck that was on very tall wheels and to Marron's untrained eye looked rather flashy and gaudy with its overly large tires and chrome trim.
"Oh thank goodness!" The ferret lady called out to them when they pulled over. "We never thought we'd run into anyone all the way out here."
"What seems to be the trouble?" Goten asked as he opened his door to get out and talk. "You run out of gas?"
"No, the damn truck isn't working! Can't believe it, after all the money I poured into it and it just won't work!" The rabbit man stamped his foot in frustration a few times in quick succession.
"Sounds like you're up Trunks," Marron slapped his shoulder, and Trunks grumbled and grabbed his capsule case as he stepped out of the car and started poking through it for the one that had all his tools in it.
"Do you guys need anything to eat or drink? It must get pretty hot out here." Marron offered the ferret lady who was closest the snack bag and a water bottle.
"That would be great," the ferret lady said, thankful and took the water and some jerky, "I'm Fendra and that's my boyfriend Radator."
"You can call me Rad."
"Okay." Trunks said and from his tone of voice Marron doubted he was ever going to use the shortened version of the name. Trunks finally found the right capsule and bags and cases of tools appeared where he threw it. Rad let out a long whistle as he saw the pile of tools, "You know anything about working on cars?"
"Yeah, I'm a bit of an enthusiast," Trunks shrugged nonchalantly.
"Me too!" Rad said eagerly.
"First I gotta ask why are you taking this car off-roading, this type of truck wasn't designed for that type of wear off the line. And these modifications are certainly something."
"Yeah that's what that idiot mechanic said, but he didn't know what he was talking about," Rad said with confidence Marron wasn't sure he had earned, "That's why I had to soup the truck up myself. New wheels and a new suspension system to start with."
Trunks looked as if his soul was leaving his body. "Oh. Were you trying to make it as heavy as you could before you took it out into the open desert?" Trunks wasn't outright calling him an idiot but the uptick in his inflection was certainly doing most of the heavy lifting.
Trunks didn't say anything more until he'd walked around and stood on a stepladder to get a look under the hood. With just one look he was reeling back to look at Rad and demanded loudly "What did this poor truck do to you? What could it have possibly done to deserve this!"
"I don't understand, I souped up the truck with the best parts I could find."
Trunks sighed, pained, "How about you give me a rundown of all the modifications you put on this thing. Let me try to fix this." Oh boy, none of that sounded good, they might be here for a while.
Marron turned back to Fendra who was quite apologetic, "I'm sorry for the trouble. We've been out here for hours, the truck was giving us problems for a while but all of a sudden it just gave out." She sighed loudly as Rad began listing off modifications to Trunks. "Anyways, what brings you guys all the way out here?"
"We're on a road trip to see the world and it's sites, we just happened to be coming out this way," Marron lied.
"Well, we're certainly lucky you guys did," Fendra said. "I hope you won't mind me asking, but how do you all know each other, you all have different colorings and I'm told that it's not common for humans that are related?" she trailed off, her sincere curiosity oddly sweet.
Marron laughed, "We're just friends."
"Oh, I hope you don't think me rude, it's just so hard to tell with humans, you all tend to look alike," Fendra fretted, "You all have the same face shapes and ears. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I mean back in ZooTropolis I have some dear human friends."
"Oh, you're from ZooTropolis?" Goten perked up. "The big city built for furry people? I've never been."
"I visited there once on a trip, it was really neat," said Marron, "with all the different sized buildings and all the different types of restaurants."
"Yes, it's lovely! I'm so glad King Furry established it. It's so nice having salons that specialize in fur care. I can't begin to describe how terrible the time I went to a human salon was, they completely fried my tail! It's so wonderful having a city where all the furred people can come and find a place they belong."
"Don't some humans live there too, if I'm recalling correctly?" Marron asked, "Or where the ones I saw all just tourists?"
"Oh no, there's some humans who live in ZooTropolis, they're just the minority of the population. It takes a certain kind of person to live in the majority furry city, and some people get so strange about it."
"We know a bit what that's like, one of my old family's friends is a pigman that I grew up around," Marron said, pausing for a moment to consider if she should or shouldn't say what she was thinking before deciding to barrel on with it. "You know, Goten actually has some monkey ancestry in his family lineage, don't you Goten?"
Fendra lit up and turned to Goten with great interest, "Oh, so you're parentage is from an inter-species relationship?"
"Yeah. I guess you could say that," Goten said tightly then loosened up a moment later and let out a laugh. "My dad's part monkey, he was born with a tail, so was my brother. Skipped me though."
"Oh that's a shame," Fendra cooed, "tails are wonderful, I couldn't imagine living without mine. I bet your brother looked adorable with his."
"I've heard stories about it from my parents, but he had to have it removed when he was younger for unrelated reasons," Goten said. "Don't think he misses it."
"That's too bad!" exclaimed Fendra, and she started to run her hands over her own tail as if perishing the thought of having it removed.
"Well to be fair, your tail is a lot more impressive. Look at how fluffy and bushy it is," Marron said.
"Thank you, I'm a bit vain about it, I'll confess," Fendra said as she curled her tail around her neck like a scarf. Marron and Goten spent several minutes admiring it.
Fendra changed the topic, "I can't imagine how difficult it was for your grandparents, Goten. A human and a furry together would get strange looks, even in ZooTropolis. Rad and I have enough difficulty being together and we're both furred."
"Is it because you guys are different species? I thought that wasn't a problem for furries?" Goten asked.
Fendra shrugged, "Well it's more because I'm a carnivore and he's a herbivore, that bothers people sometimes."
Before Marron could ask any more questions they were interrupted by Trunks loudly yelling, "Why would you add one of those contraptions to the intake!"
"It's called a turbonator, it helps atomize the fuel by creating turbulence."
"No, it's an obstruction that does nothing but restrict your air flow!"
"That's what it's supposed to do, by disrupting the airflow it makes it more efficient-"
"No, you're just blocking air from getting into the engine!"
Fendra sighed quietly, "Does your friend know a lot about cars?"
"Oh yeah Trunks lives for working on them," said Goten. "He's got a hoverbike he babies and will sweet talk to for hours as he's working on it."
"Sounds like Rad, though I've had my doubts as to how knowledgable he is about it sometimes," she sighed again and looked skyward, "Sure he's a dumb bunny, but he's my dumb bunny."
"I think you're exaggerating," Rad insisted.
Trunks was not having it, "I'm not, you wasted money modifying this thing and you're going to be spending even more money to undo the damage if you ever want to drive this car again."
"I bet you're not even a mechanic!" Rad insisted before dropping the goldmine of a line when he continued, "I see the way your legs flex in your too tight pants, you only get thighs like that when your day job is working on a pole."
"...Are you insinuating I'm a stripper?" Trunks was incredulous but edged with delight at such a claim. Marron perked up at the change in conversation and Goten resorted to hiding his face in his hands.
Fendra interrupted, "There is nothing wrong with being a stripper! I say if people want to pay you for getting naked, well you can make good money doing that."
"I agree with you, but alas the point is moot," Marron said to Fendra, "Fortunately for the rest of us, Trunks's exhibitionism doesn't include getting naked in public."
"I think you're just trying to up-charge me," Rad said stubbornly.
"Hardly, I'm doing this as a courtesy," Trunks scoffed. "You couldn't afford to pay my rates, be it for work in your truck or me taking my pants off."
Goten had finally taken his face out of his hands, "Why would you think he's a stripper!"
"With thighs like those how can I not."
"We do martial arts!" Goten yelled.
Fendra interrupted, "Rad, you need to hang out with humans who aren't strippers. Just because that's what Natalie's thighs look like doesn't mean that every human whose got similar thigh muscles got them pole-dancing."
Trunks shut the lid on the hood and stepped down, "This poor truck has been abused and gone through enough horrors already and saving it would involve hours of work stripping down all these asinine modifications. Which I have neither the time nor the inclination to do right now. Your best bet is to put it in a capsule and take it to a mechanic who actually knows what they're doing to fix it."
"We still need to help them," Goten said.
Trunks ran his hand through his hair, "Alright, I will loan them one of my capsules." He pulled out two capsules and was about to give them to Rad when he stopped and thought better of it and instead handed them to Fendra. "The yellow one is empty and the green one will get you back to civilization. Once you're there you better return it to the local Capsule Corp office to have it forwarded back to me."
Fendra thanked them immensely while Rad was pouting next to her, she hit him in the shoulder when he had started to protest and he shut up. Once they were assured that Rad and Fendra's loaned jeep was in working order, they took off in the opposite direction.
Marron looked into the backpack next to her in the back seat, they had five Dragon Balls in it, they were only missing the one-star and six-star ones now. Trunks's earlier efforts this morning to put them in a capsule had failed and he was still pouting about it as he drove them across the Great Bay. He was flying at the car's top speed but even still it was an hour of flying across nothing but open water, and quite frankly Marron was rather done with seeing nothing around but water.
Goten might have been getting similarly twitchy because he was messing with the Dragon Radar in the front seat, comparing it to their road map. "Okay so I think the maps wrong now? The next ball is not where you marked it, it's moved westward."
"Someone's moving it? Who would be gathering them?" asked Trunk worriedly, someone else gathering Dragon Balls could mean many number of possible scenarios, many of them worthy of concern. Was Frieza back again?
"Here, let me see it," Marron reached for the radar, "huh, those are the coordinates of Uranai Baba's place."
"Oh," Trunks sighed with relief, Baba was something he knew personally and how to handle, not potential new person or threat.
"Maybe someone took it to her?" Goten offered.
Marron nodded, "Makes sense, I bet someone found it and tried to barter for a fortune telling by trading it instead of paying her fee."
"Okay are the coordinates that far off from where I'm headed?" asked Trunks. Marron reassured him he was doing fine and they could reorientate on the other side of the Bay. They ended up taking a detour to go to some area the boys vaguely recalled from when they fought Majin Buu as kids. They camped out there and the next morning headed over to the Fortuneteller desert palace.
When they arrived in the late morning they found a queue of people who had been in lines for hours hoping to get their fortunes told. Shrugging, they took their place at the end of the line, with the people before them shooting them not so subtly smug looks about being ahead.
After a few minutes a little ghost in a conical straw hat and reading a clipboard floated over to greet them in a fake cheery voice. "Hello and Welcome to the Fortuneteller Baba's where 'a Fortune Read Today Averts Catastrophes Tomorrow' how may I help you?"
"Can you tell Baba we stopped by? She knows us." Trunks said.
The ghost lowered it's clipboard. "Oh. It's you." His voice had lost all the false enthusiasm. "I'll send her a message you've arrived. It's probably going to take awhile, she'll see you on her lunch break. You can wait inside."
Rich dude next to them was most upset at their cutting in line and protested loudly as they walked past the line. Marron made sure to flash him the victory sign.
They waited in a room with chairs that were overstuffed and lots of pictures of witchy cats on the walls. Dracula poked in and ended up staying a bit, he was a pleasant conversationist, he only asked if he could taste their blood twice. Trunks was nearly convinced to let him do it out of curiosity as to how he'd react to Saiyan Blood, would it wire him up or maybe be poisonous to him? The possibilities were enticing. But that plan was scrapped when it was realized Marron wouldn't be able to film Dracula with her phone to study for later, and if they couldn't properly document the experiment, there was no point.
Soon enough they were interrupted when Baba floated into the room atop her ball, hopped off it and took the chair behind the desk. "Oh, so you finally decided to show up? Are you here for the Dragon Ball I have?"
"Well that was easy, were you expecting us?" Marron asked. "Did you see it in your ball?" Goten added.
Baba huffed, "I don't need my ball to tell me what I can discover using common deduction. You brats are always so predictable, trying to use magic to fix the mistakes you make." Then like she couldn't help herself and added, "Besides my brother phoned me to tell me you were looking for them and stole his takoyaki pan." Yeah, that would do it.
"So you do have it?" Goten pressed.
"Yes, a man brought it to me to barter for his fortune, knocked 5 million off his price. Knew someone would eventually show up for it, figured I could extort Bulma Briefs for it whenever she came around," Baba said wistfully.
"Well I'm here instead, and I think I'd rather try my hand at the martial challenge." Trunks cracked his knuckles in a manner meant to be menacing but Baba utterly unaffected. "Oh stop with your little muscle show you little miscreant, I'm not withholding the ball from you, in fact you can very well have it. I know how to read a forgone conclusion when I see one."
Oh was it really going to be that easy? "You're not going to ask what we're going to use our wishes for to make sure they're worthy?" Marron asked.
Baba snorted, "No, I don't care what you whippersnappers are getting up to, that's your business. Besides, I already know what you're going to wish for, that I have seen in my ball."
"Well then you already know more than me," Goten scratched the back of his head. "I haven't figured out what I want to wish for yet."
"You will." Baba didn't elaborate more beyond that.
"Well maybe I still wanna fight," said Trunks, pouting and crossing his arms. "I heard my mom and Krillin talking about it once, maybe I want a turn to fight your zombie guys."
"You did not come here to fight my warriors of the dead." Baba sounded so very done.
"No, but I'm not opposed to doing so."
"Alright, listen here you little brat, I'll even throw in a free reading for each of you, so long as you scram and get out of my hair."
"Sweet, free question." Trunks turned to them, clearly eager for praise for his cleverness. He was disappointed when instead Goten admonished him. " Trunks, you shouldn't bully people, especially little old ladies."
"Who you calling old, I am 664 years young!" Baba snapped at Goten. "And your beau can try to bully me but he'll find I've dealt with far more impressive forces than you kids, I'm not going to be done in by his preening and peacocking. He can try and intimidate me, he'll fail but he's free to try."
Okay, Marron was going to interrupt this before Trunks resorted to literally flexing in front of Baba. And before they reacted to Baba knowing about them. "What should I get my mom for her birthday?" At Goten's incredulous face she addded, "What? She's impossible to shop for." It was a perfectly good usage of her question.
Baba snapped her fingers and the ball floated over to the desk, plopping in front of her, she gazed into for a moment before answering, "Those Rascal Rabbit's Dark Chocolate and Salted Caramel Moon Pies are going to be quietly discontinued in a few months time."
"Oh no, Mom loves those, I'll have to buy a whole bunch." This was bad news, she'd have to tell her father right away. Maybe they could order a pallet of them and surprise her mother with them once she found out about them being discontinued.
"Well I have a question for your great and mighty wisdom oh most powerful and impressive witch," Trunks began and Marron was already rolling her eyes. "Why wouldn't the Dragon Balls fit in capsules when I tried earlier?"
Baba ignored his sarcasm and gazed into her ball, "Because they are orbs of powerful magic by the planet's God that interfere with the capsule's effective field."
"That's stupid, all kinds of things can go in capsules, magical or not, why can't dragon balls?"
"Don't argue with me boy, I am an expert on magics that you know nothing of."
"Yeah well, magic is just a bullshit excuse to explain away science that isn't understood yet."
"Careful there little heretic, you know better than most that mortals should fear and respect the powers of magic and gods."
Trunks made a face, "Gods are different, besides all they are is just another kind of person with their own type of power. I mean my dad's a god, kinda, and all he does is use it for fighting, it's just like another transformation."
Baba looked at Trunks like he was an idiot, "I don't know how it's fallen for me to be the one to inform you that your father should not be held up as a model example of anything. Including divinity."
Goten sighed loudly and Marron started to giggle as Trunks was ready to continue his debate about magic with the witch.
Finally Goten interrupted, "Well I got a question for your precognition Baba? If we leave these Dragon Balls with you for a week will they be safe? It's time for us to meet up with our friends for a planned trip to WaterWorld and we don't want them around in case they ask questions, and if we can't put them in a capsule..."
Baba looked at Goten with narrowed eyes before turning back to her ball, "Yes, they will be safe with me until you chose to return for them."
"Okay well that at least solves that problem." Goten said.
"And now for the other one," Trunks finished looking at Marron.
"You guys aren't sending me home before we complete the hunt, I guess I'm coming along to WaterWorld." Marron crossed her arms.
"Yeah but our friends from high school are going to be there," said Goten. "And they don't know about any of this junk." He waved his hands around, presumably both Baba and the Dragon Balls were included in "this junk".
"I can keep secrets. Besides I already met one of them at the Tournament, Trunks don't you remember. I played it cool with her."
"Yeah..." Trunks sighed. "Okay so long as you know when to keep your mouth shut you can come along."
"Yay! WaterWorld, here we come!" Marron cheered.