Debunked

"I..." Bulma began, hands balling into fists on the fabric of her pants as she mulled over Black's offer. Could she? Should she? Helping the police would protect her friends and she would be personally involved in clearing her family's name.

But Baba's warning came to the forefront of her mind. What was it the old fortune teller said exactly? That they should be careful in West City about what exactly?

"Black," Bulma uttered and her eyes hardened flint sharp.

"Yes, Miss Briefs?" Chief Inspector Black pressed as that smile of his widening into a smug grin.

"I need to use the bathroom," she flatly said.

The older man looked surprised and coughed. "Alright, but once you return you need to give me your answer." He called for an escort but Bulma was already walking out of the living room and down the hallway to her bedroom, ignoring Black's yell of "Miss Briefs!"

"This is my home, I know my way around," she said with the dismissive haughtiness that the Capsule Corp heiress had mastered. An armed guard quickly caught up to her but made no motion to actually restrain her.

Bulma did her best not to react at the state of the rooms she passed. She knew the police were investigating things but she didn't think ransacking the place was part of it. Alarm bells were ringing in her head as the circumstances of Chief Inspector Black and his claims about the case just didn't add up.

When she arrived at her bedroom, the guard tried to enter after her. "Excuse you! This is a lady's bedroom. Some privacy!" she snapped and slammed the door in his face.

Her bedroom looked like it was untouched, which meant it was just as much as a mess as she left it. She felt the slightest bit offended that no one thought to investigate her room. But that was actually a blessing, wasn't it? It meant that no one knew about the control panel she and her father had installed in her room.

Cracking her knuckles, Bulma began to make sure it was in working condition. Accessing her home's surveillance system, she was expecting that it had been disconnected. Fortunately it was still active, allowing her to find where her friends were being held.

Knowing that, she began to check the footage from the past weeks. The more she watched, the less credible Black's story became. And when she came to Black and his men's arrival, she saw some of them were wearing Red Ribbon armbands.

"Son of a bitch!" she yelled.

The guard outside knocked, "Ma'am?"

"I-I'm fine! I just found out that I, uh, I need some feminine supplies!"

"Please make use of your right to remain silence, Ma'am!" the man quickly said.

Bulma rolled her eyes at the guard's disgust before returning her gaze at the control panel, trying to keep her temper in check. How dare Black try to use her friends to blackmail her. How dare Black try to trick her into assisting the Red Ribbon Army. How dare he try that in her own home and on her own turf.

She switched from her home footage to that of the Capsule Production Facility and felt her stomach knot. There were Red Ribbon soldiers piling weapons onto a conveyer belt for encapsulation. When she rewound the video and saw the employees being slaughtered bile rose in the back of her throat. She clamped her hands over her mouth in an effort not to throw up or bawl.

This is all my fault, she thought. She should have seen to the rest of Capsule Corp before she fled, shut the factories down, locked up the facilities or something. Anything would have been better than allowing the Red Ribbon Army use of the facilities.

She had to make this right. But first she had to let her friends know they had to get out.

"Ma'am, are you finished dealing with your, er, red visitor?" the guard asked from behind the door.

Kami damn it, she wished she had more time. Maybe she'd be able to come up with a plan that would guarantee her friends' safety.

"Gimme five more minutes!" she answered as she switched the monitors back to her friends. She would just have to trust them when she activated her house's intercom and her voice blared out "Guys, the police are working with the Red Ribbon Army!"

Bulma heard the man outside her room curse before attempting to kick down the door. She prayed that her friends would be able to find her before she was taken captive. Damn it, she wished she hadn't fully cleaned out her bedroom of weapons when she first fled. She could use a handgun or a bazooka right now.

She glanced at the window and considered escaping through there but before she could even open it, a body was flung into her room with a crash. The body that thudded to a halt was that of the guard. And standing in the doorway was "Chi Chi!"

Chi Chi was brandishing the staff Son Gohan had given her, "Yamcha's getting the car ready. Let's go before the rest of the soldiers reach us."

"How are we supposed to get out?"

An explosion rocked the compound.

"The boys know some handy moves," Chi Chi said, leaping into a high kick to knock out a Red Ribbon guard.

"O-okay," Bulma nodded, getting to her feet and making a run for it with Chi Chi quickly catching up. The pair managed to make it outside just as Yamcha pulled up with Krillin opening the door for the girls.

As the older boy stepped on the gas, Bulma leaned forward to point out a building in the distance, "We gotta stop by the Capsule Factory first!"

"What? Why?" Krillin began but was quickly cut off by Bulma.

"I'm not leaving my family's factory in the Red Ribbon creep's clutches," the heiress snapped.

"Alright, alright," the bald boy said settling back as Yamcha sharply turned the wheel and headed for the aforementioned facility.

"Krillin, you know what to do," Yamcha said when several guards aimed their weapons at the incoming vehicle.

The bald boy glanced back at Bulma and Chi Chi before grinning, "Leave it to me." He leaned out of the window, legs anchoring himself to the car, and took a deep breath.

Bulma stared in confusion when Krillin brought his hands to the center of his face, angled his head, quickly warned the girls to close their eyes, and yelling out "Taiyoken!"

The light that shone off of Krillin blinded the soldiers long enough for Yamcha to drive straight through them.

"Yamcha, get me to the back of the building," Bulma ordered.

"Why don't we just ram the front door?" he countered.

"We're not going inside," Bulma said knowingly. Once they reached the back of the factory, Bulma leapt out of the car with Chi Chi and Krilling keeping watch. The blue-haired teen accessed a hidden panel and briefly prayed that nobody alive was still inside the building.

"Hey, Bulma," Krillin began, "Not to rush you or anything but I can see a whole bunch of tanks and cars headed our way."

Pressing a sequence of buttons, there was a loud pop, and the entire factory imploded into a capsule that was the size of Bulma's arm.

"I don't know if I should be happy or upset that Papa never got around to updating this," she said beneath her breath before she, Chi Chi, and Krillin all piled back into the car. "Okay, floor it, Yamcha!"

The four fled from the site, barely escaping the fleet of Red Ribbon vehicles.

A/N: Managed to get a little bit over the writer's block. Here's hoping it continues. As always, reviews aren't expected but appreciated and loved.