Chapter 2: Joyride

Bunny casted one last look at her suitcase; had she really not forgotten anything? Money, clothes, basic hygiene necessities? After all, this wasn't some lame school fieldtrip she was preparing for. She and her archrival would be travelling to the past, where they were going to enter the biggest tournament on the planet and fight to the death. Well, if Tsuru had his way, that was. Bunny would be content with beating the living crap out of him and grinding his cocky smirk into the marble.

If I manage to win that is, she couldn't help but think. She outmatched Tsuru when it came to a simple powerlevel comparison, but the crane school disciple was far more cunning and skilled. Bunny already knew this was going to be the hardest battle of her life, and this time her parents wouldn't be there to sense her distress and fly to the rescue…

No, don't think like that! You're going to kick his ass, and you're going to do it on your own!

"Bunny, dinner's almost ready!"

The girl startled when she heard her mother's voice calling her from the hallway. With one last determined nod, Bunny pressed a small button on the side of her suitcase. With a quiet 'poof!' it turned into a capsule, which she quickly pocketed before her mom could see it.

"Bunny, are you in here?"

Her bedroom door opened, a red-haired woman in her late forties standing in the doorway. People often didn't believe they were related, seeing as Bunny was the spitting image of her father. She had inherited her mother's brown eyes though, and even if her chin length hair wasn't as curly as Kameko's, there was a subtle wavy texture to it that obviously came from her side of the family.

"Oh, hey mom!" Bunny said with a voice that was just a tad too chipper. The woman quirked an eyebrow, eyeing her daughter with suspicion.

"Okay, what's wrong?"

Bunny grumbled, sitting down on her bed.

"I'll give you one guess."

"Tao's boy again?"

"That asshole thinks he's so hot!" Bunny exclaimed, propping her chin on her hands and muttering angrily under her breath. "With his stupid dark eyes and his stupid cocky smirk and his stupid muscles that sometimes show right through his stupid…"

The corners of Kameko's mouth curled up, stretching into a mischievous grin. The girl rolled her eyes and groaned, putting her face in her hands.

"You like him, don't you?"

"I DO NOT!!!" Bunny shrieked, deeply insulted. "I would rather french kiss a toad than go out with that loser!"

"Ah, to be young and in love…" her mother sighed dreamily, Bunny's left eye twitching and a vein popping on her forehead.

"Mom, please! Why would I like someone who only wants my head on a silver platter!?" she exclaimed, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "In what twisted universe does that make sense?!"

"Actually, your father and I…" Kameko started, but quickly fell silent again, as if remembering something important.

"Dad and you what?" Bunny arched an eyebrow, but her mother just laughed nervously.

"Well, it's rather… complicated. Maybe when you're older."

"You've been saying that for sixteen years, mom," Bunny complained. "Come on, how did you two meet? And don't give me that lame movie theater story again, because you know I'm not buying it."

Kameko opened her mouth as if she was going to answer, then suddenly looked over her shoulder into the hallway.

"Hey, do you smell that? I think uncle Oolong made lasagna for dinner today."

A tornado seemed to sweep through the building as her daughter raced for the kitchen, having forgotten all about their conversation. Bunny thought she was a just normal human girl with an abnormal stomach, but Kameko knew better. Though Cell's human DNA was now dominant, his alien DNA had not been completely removed from his system and was passed onto their unsuspecting daughter. A bright green haired girl with the appetite of ten grown men, wounds that healed at a ridiculous speed and muscles that grew stronger every time she recovered from a fight. One day Kameko and her husband would have to tell Bunny the true story behind her 'quirks', but not yet. As far as their daughter knew, she and her father were perfectly human, and Kameko was going to let her live that lie for as long as fate allowed it.


It was only a minute to two, and Bunny inspected herself in the mirror one last time. Wearing her traditional orange Turtle School uniform to the past seemed too risky, so she had opted for simple white trainers, grey stringpants and a snug fitting, eggplant colored shirt that she had owned for years. Even her love for purple hues, she had inherited from her father. Bunny glanced at her desk, picking up a framed picture of herself and her parents.

Dad… I look so much like you, but yet I can't help but feel I know so little. Maybe you and mom have your reasons, but I just wish you would trust me. Whatever it is you're hiding, surely it can't be that bad?

"Homesick already? We haven't even left yet."

Bunny let out a startled yelp, which was quickly smothered by a hand clamped over her mouth.

"Keep it down, turtle girl!" Tsuru hissed in her ear. "Or do you want to wake up the whole building?"

"Don't you know how to knock?!" Bunny hissed back after he let her go.

"I know that it's not necessary when the other party is dumb enough to leave their window unlocked," he smirked, cockily folding his arms. Bunny noticed that he had ditched his usual outfit and was now wearing a pink, short sleeved shirt, adorned with a white stripe running down the middle and black, Chinese style frogbuttons. Under that he wore simple, loose fitting black pants and a pair of traditional kungfu shoes.

"Pink, huh?" Bunny snickered. "You just couldn't resist wearing your old man's color, could you?"

"At least I respect the martial arts enough to take some pride in my appearance, 'Miss Leisure Suit'," he countered. "Don't tell me you're actually fighting in those old rags? Are we going to enter a tournament or work in the yard?"

"Well, keep yapping like that, and you'll be pushing up daisies in no time," Bunny glared.

"Keep dreaming, Roshi," Tsuru smirked. "So are we gonna do this thing, or are you planning on chickening out and calling mommy and daddy to rescue you?"

"Oh, we're gonna do it alright!" the girl spat, angrily poking his chest. "We are gonna do it, do it and do it, until you wish you had never been born!"

"Oh my, aren't we frisky today? And here I thought you hated my guts," Tsuru snickered, Bunny groaning and flushing red from embarrassment when her own words repeated themselves in her head.

"Let's just go, crane boy," she hissed through clenched teeth. "And don't make a sound, or we're both done for."


Two shadowy figures tiptoed through the dark halls of Capsule Corporation. The closer they got to Bulma's laboratory, the more Bunny's stomach tied itself in a knot. She lay a hand on the door handle and a shiver promptly travelled down her spine. Her intuition desperately urged her to go back, an overwhelming feeling that she was about to enter forbidden grounds and once they had crossed the threshold, there would be no turning back.

"That door isn't going to open itself, you know," Tsuru whispered sarcastically behind her. Bunny shot him a venomous look over her shoulder and punched in the security code she had seen her grandma use a few months ago. Fortunately, the scientist hadn't changed it since then, and the heavy slab of metal swung open with a soft croak. The two quickly snuck inside and closed the door behind them. Bunny turned on the lights, whistling at what she saw.

"Man… I had no idea this place was so big!"

"You've never been here before?"

"Nah, grandma Bulma wouldn't even let me near the entrance. Something about being afraid I'll get myself into trouble."

"Gee, I wonder why," Tsuru grinned.

They searched the room from top to bottom, opening every capsule they could find. Which, considering they were at Capsule Corp. headquarters, were quite a few.

"Argh!!! This is going to take forever!" Bunny exclaimed, throwing her hands up in frustration. "Screw this, we're never going to find… EEEEEEEK!!!"

The girl yelped as she slipped on a small, round object and fell flat on her butt.

"No, it's okay, just leave the lady on the floor," Bunny sweatdropped as Tsuru reached down, not to grab her, but the capsule she had stepped on.

"Hey, this one's an older model than the others," he said, inspecting the small object. "But what's it doing here? I thought Capsule Corp. stopped making these about fifty years ago."

"Well, don't just stand there, open it up!"

Tsuru activated the capsule and threw it on the floor, where it popped open in a cloud of smoke.

They both stared in awe at the machine that now stood in front of them. It was almost like a giant egg, with a yellow and black bottom half, and a glass dome that allowed the passenger to see his or her surroundings. It stood on four metal legs that looked like they could move independently from one another, making it easier to land on uneven terrain. Its design looked deceptively simple, but was all the more impressive to the two unwitting trespassers.

"Whoa…" Bunny gawked. "Do you… do you think this is it?"

"Only one way to find out," Tsuru decided, pushing a button that opened the glass dome. He hopped inside the machine, fiddling around with the console.

"I'm seeing a lot of displays in here," he called from inside the contraption. "Years, months, days, hours… I think we just struck gold."

"Really? Lemme see," Bunny said, jumping up an hovering right behind her archenemy, peering over his shoulder at the console.

"Hey, stop breathing down my neck!" he protested, trying to push the girl away.

"Come on, crane boy! Move over!" Bunny pushed back. "Don't be such a hog and let me have a look! You don't even know how to drive this thing!"

"Oh, and you do?"

"Well… no, but I bet I could figure these controls out faster than you can!"

"My father is half machine, I think we should leave the technical part to me!"

"Yeah, right! Every year you show up late for class at least once because you forget about daylight saving time and now I should let you program the time machine? You'd probably send us right back to the stone age!"

The two continued to shove each other, bickering and wrestling over the controls. Somehow Bunny ended up on Tsuru's lap, her right leg wrapped around his neck and his left hand resting on her…

"EEEEK!!! Get your paws off my girls, you pervert!!!" Bunny shrieked.

"Then let go of my arm already, I'm not doing this on purpose!!!" Tsuru protested.

"I bet you aren't!!!" she barked, glaring daggers at her archrival. She tried to smack him in the face, but the boy dodged just in time, causing her elbow to slam into the control panel. With a soft hum, the glass dome came down on them, trapping the bickering duo inside. From the corner of her eye, Bunny suddenly noticed that someone had turned on the lights in the hallway. Before she could react, the door to the lab flung open, two heated figures standing in the doorway.

"Oh, crud…" Bunny sweatdropped as she came eye to eye with a furious Kameko.

"BUNNY LIME BABA ROSHI!!!" the woman yelled, making the girl shrink. Her mother never used her full name, unless she had really, REALLY blown it.

"Uh… ah… eh…" Bunny stammered, blinking and clumsily feeling around. "Whoa! Where am I? What is this? How did I end up here?"

"Don't you use that fake sleepwalking scheme on us, young lady!" her father warned. "You two get out of that time machine right now before you hurt yourselves!"

"You too, Tsuru! I'm calling your father! Not even Tao would be so stupid as to steal…"

"But it was turtle girl's idea!"

"IT WAS NOT!!!" Bunny shrieked outraged. "Who wanted to defend the honor of the lame clan, huh?!"

"That's the crane clan, and you better remember, you dimwitted, peanut-brained, flatchested…!"

The boy never got chance to finish his sentence. With an insulted yell, Bunny threw herself at her archrival, clawing at his face with her nails while he tried to kick her with his feet in the small confines of the contraption.

"Kami… I'm starting to think they are worse than we used to be back in the old days," Kameko sweatdropped. Her husband just groaned exasperated, marching towards the time machine.

"Alright, break it up you two!" he ordered firmly. "You're in enough trouble as it is. You have exactly three seconds before I capsulate this thing, whether you've exited or not. One…"

The words had barely left his mouth, when he was suddenly blown back by an unexpected blast. Somehow during the scuffle, Bunny had banged Tsuru's head on the delicate control panel, causing the whole console to light up like a haywire Christmas tree. The engine began to rumble as the contraption started up, making the two rivals instantly forget about their fight.

"W-What's happening?!" the girl yelped, her face paling when she looked through the glass and saw her parents getting smaller and smaller. Cell flew up, preparing to blast the roof off the time machine and grab the two panicking youths. He raced to meet them, the attack ready in his hand. His magenta eyes locked with his daughter's brown ones, but as he was about to fire… the machine, and its joyriding occupants, vanished without a trace.

"Oh no… Bunny…" he uttered, the energy in his hand fizzling away. Kameko flew up to meet her husband, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, look what I found on the floor of the lab," she said, holding out a piece of paper. "It looks like an old newspaper clipping. One of them must have dropped it."

"The 19th Tenkaichi Budokai?" he narrowed his eyes. "Oh, his has Tao's kid written all over it."

"Well, at least we know where they went, and it's not so bad," she smiled faintly. "Neither of us or our ancestors will be there, and if I recall correctly, Demon King Piccolo won't be freed from his ricecooker for another nine years or so. There aren't any major events she can disturb, or bad guys that can hurt her. Except for Tsuru himself maybe, but I know deep down that Bunny has the strength to beat…"

"It's not him I'm worried about," Cell suddenly said, his hands shaking uncontrollably.

"What do you mean?" Kameko asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"K-Kameko…" her husband whispered hoarsely, his pupils the size of pinpricks and his face completely ashen with fear. "They may have activated the time machine… but I never saw them set the right date."


With a loud crash, the time machine slammed upside down into the ground. The glass dome shattered, and the contraption's occupants where thrown out and send hurtling and skidding through the muddy soil.

"Well, we won't be going back that way," Tsuru sweatdropped as he looked at the twisted and warped remains of the machine.

"Oh Kami…" Bunny gulped, when she turned to said remains, which promptly burst into flames.

"Looks like we landed in a forest. Odd, I always thought the Budokai ring was placed in an area with wide, grassy planes and… Turtle girl, are you listening?"

"Oh, Kami…" Bunny whimpered again, completely ignoring her rival. "My parents are going to kill me!"

"Not if I beat them to it," Tsuru smirked. "Now let's find that arena and settle our feud once and for…"

"Then again, they'll probably ground me first," she sweatdropped, still staring horrified at the charred wreckage. "They are going to ground me for the next fifty years, kill me, find a way to revive the dragon balls, wish me back, ground me for another fifty years, and then kill me again."

"Look, what's done is done," Tsuru said annoyed. "Now are you going to keep whining, or are you going to grow a spine and hold yourself to our agreement?"

Bunny glared at her archrival, balling her fists.

"Just remember your part of the deal, crane boy. In exchange for taking my parents out of the equation, I get a fair fight, with no dirty tricks and on the ground at all times."

He just smirked at her, his eyes betraying that he would hold up his end of the bargain, but only as long as it was in his advantage. He opened his mouth to speak, but suddenly something else seemed to catch his eye.

"…What? What is it?" Bunny asked warily as the boy began to frown curiously and slowly walked towards something behind her.

"What on Earth…?" he mumbled as he passed through some shrubs and entered a small clearing. Bunny joined him, letting out a shrill shriek at what she saw.

The creature, or at least its discarded skin, looked mostly like a giant cicada. It was a dark green, with big, round, bulging eyes and two insect like wings that were almost as large as Bunny herself.

"The lining is still moist," Tsuru mumbled as he reached down inside the empty husk, ignoring his grossed out rival who was making gagging noises in the background. "Whatever it was that hatched from this thing, it can't have gotten far."

"As long as it stays away from the tournament grounds," Bunny scrunched her nose in disgust, suppressing a shudder. "I knew I should have brought bug spray…"

"How about a first aid kit? Because you're going to need one once the Budokai is over.

"In your dreams, Tsuru," she scoffed as they made their way through the forest, neither of them prepared for what they would find…


A/N: I know what some of you are fearing will happen now. Yes, that's right, I can read your thoughts right through the Internet. And don't worry: this story is not going to be just a souped-up retelling of Eye of the Turtle. Some things will be similar of course, but I plan on making this an unique story with plenty of fresh plot twists and events :)