Bulma turned on her phone, and attempted to call Jazz.

~"..."- The sound of flames roared in the background, followed by shrill screams and shouts.

"Jazz! Jazz!" She shouted, worried.

~"...Oh, Bulma?"- Jazz's voice sounded worn and haggard, but there was a trace of humor in it.

"Jazz! Get out of there now! The fire's acting weird!"

~"Sorry, no can do."- Crackling filled the phone speaker, after a few seconds, they heard Jazz curse, ~"sorry, reception's pretty bad on account of all the...fire."-

"Jazz just get out, can't you?! You've got the dragon balls already, you can forget about the rest of the treasure! Heck, even if you haven't found the dragon balls, you can forget it, just get out!"

~"Am I speaking to the right person?"- The tone was joking as Jazz continued, ~"Bulma, caring about my life, over the dragon balls? Wow, what about getting a boyfriend?"-

"Idiot, didn't you say I'm the smartest person in the world?!" Bulma asked, "who cares if I don't get the wish now, we can get the dragon ball later, heck, I can probably find a boyfriend real easy!"

They heard a rough sigh from the other end, followed by a cracking sound.

"Jazz!" Bulma roared into the phone, "Jazz?!" she heard no reply. "Jazz, get on the phone or I'm going to kick your ass when we get out of this, DO YOU HEAR ME?!"

~"There's the Bulma I know"- Jazz replied, ~"Look, there are a lot of traps I have to navigate through, just… let me try and concentrate on it."-

Bulma breathed a sigh of relief, "just… come back okay idiot? I'd hate to get my perfect boyfriend only to not be able to introduce my little brother to him."

~"Whose the little sibling here when you're the one whining?"-

…

Jazz smirked as he hung up the phone, marveling at how it was still able to handle the heat.

"Done with your little phone call?" The wizard said nonchalantly, despite his calm demeanor, his fingers were twitching like crazy as more and more flames gathered into the room. "You know, despite being a martial artist, you're a pretty interesting guy, you used your head, even if only for a little bit. I bet you convinced the Ox-King that you could gather the treasure for him, and you're pretty tough too, maybe you thought you could escape with your friends with all the treasure. Too bad for you, I'm here." The wizard launched another gout of flame at Jazz, who jumped out of the way barely.

"But…" the wizard continued, "I don't hate you, I could teach you magic, in exchange for the treasure. I've been looking to get a pupil, and someone like you, who can obviously do heavy lifting, is better than any prep school wannabe."

Jazz smiled, "I'll need some convincing on how tough you are before I can make that decision." He fired multiple arrows then kicked open the doors of the treasure room, revealing the grand hall.

The wizard melted the arrows away then launched a coiling stream of fire towards Jazz. Jazz leaped to the ceiling, then launched off to the side when the flames gathered and began to chase him. "Don't you understand!" The wizard roared, "the flames will charge you until they hit a target or you die!"

"Thanks for the hint." Jazz took out Bulma's capsule case and launched out a capsule, revealing a motorcycle. He got on it mid run and set it off at full speed towards the wizard. The wizard barely floated out of the way as the cycle crashed into the wall, or at least, would have crashed had Jazz not pressed the recall button, turning the motor cycle back into the capsule.

"Pfft… capsule corp technology?" The wizard chuckled, "you could probably make big bucks as a street show magician." The flames rushed towards Jazz, compounded by a secondary release of fiery tendrils in the shape of snakes and vultures.

Jazz bobbed and weaved out of the attacks way, some of the flames getting close enough to sear his skin even with the protective gel on. For attacks he couldn't dodge, he'd shove the carpet forward, having it act as an impromptu shield, catching the ire of the wizard.

"Oooh! No fair! Why are you using my spells against me?!" The wizard pounded his feet on the floor as the flames raged on. He turned to glare at Jazz, then raised his hands, more flames rushed into the room. "Try dodging this!"

Jazz took the opportunity to rush towards the doors out into the hallway, and began to run throughout the castle. The wizard chased after. "I guess you can't hit what you can't notice!" Jazz called out.

When he was out of the wizard's sight, his flames would miss Jazz more often, and their attacks would be wilder and more erratic, with multiple gaps in their blanketing effect in an attempt to catch Jazz. Every time the wizard neared a room, Jazz would crash through either in a motor cycle or a capsule car, blindsiding the wizard every time. But this didn't mean Jazz was in the best shape either. One of Bulma's motor cycles were destroyed, and the second was barely usable. The capsule car was in the best shape, but he didn't want to destroy it yet, and it was running out of fuel.

"Come out… come out…" The wizard growled as he searched the castle for Jazz. While for Jazz, the wizard was extremely dangerous, the wizard found Jazz to be an extreme annoyance but little more, if not for Jazz's surprise tactic of using capsules to catch the wizard off guard, he'd have already caught the boy. He entered the armory, roaring in fury as Jazz raced past him in a red motorcycle after the doors burst open. On reflex, and in preparation, he launched a wide angle wall of fire, watching as Jazz smashed through it. Turning to follow Jazz as he rounded the corner, the wizard smiled, looking down on the carpet, he found a trail of melting rubber and metal pieces, the motorcycle was damaged, maybe even damaged enough that the boy could no longer turn it into a capsule.

The wizard's suspicions were validated when he came across the abandoned vehicle on the side of a wall. "Come on kid, if you surrender now, I'll make it worth your while, in fact, let me give you a lesson now. This here is known as magic materialization!" He thought he heard some steps, and turned, conjuring a massive fire ball that smashed into a wall. He widened his eyes, seeing the burnt remains of another motorcycle. "Magic materialization has many forms, I heard that the ancient demon king Piccolo could summon materials out of anything he could conceive and understand. Magic materialization has its subsets, this subset is based on summoning and controlling one of the elements." He fired off another shot, this time, into a corridor that felt a little too dark. Despite believing he was winning, the wizard felt slight discomfort. 'Why am I… nervous?' He fired off more blasts of flame and roused his power.

Magic was different from ki in many ways, beings that had little ki could use powerful magic spells, but the same held true the other way around, physically powerful beings could also be capable of using magic. But most magic users hated ki users and martial artists for one reason, such beings could sometimes have enough ki to overwhelm the magic user's spells and hexes, and since most magic users seldom developed their bodies, they could do little to protect themselves when this happened. This was what worried the wizard, Jazz seemed weak, but he didn't know what else the boy had in store.

"I wanted to be nice, but you leave me with no choice." The wizard took out a crystal ball and began to wave his fingers around it. "Wabowabobo!" he began to chant, a shaky image of a boy covered in burnt rags filled the crystal's vision, followed by the boy throwing a capsule. The wizard turned in disbelief as the capsule transformed into a massive RV which hurtled towards him. He summoned all the flames together to destroy the massive vehicle. From the otherside, something came hurtling towards him, he spread his flames to melt it down, and blinked in surprise as an arrow, coated in gel, pierced through his flames and hit him in the arm. He screamed out in pain, looking up to see Jazz falling from the ceiling, sword in hand. "N-no!"

Jazz cut into the wizard, or, at least he felt he cut into the wizard, his blade sunk into the wizard's neck, but instead of going all the way through, he felt a huge level of resistance, as if he was trying to cut concrete with a butter knife. Sliding his blade out, he turned to see the wizard, whose eyes were wide and bloodshot as black blood dripped to the floor.

"M-my...my blood." The wizard muttered.

Jazz nodded to himself as he charged forward. 'Despite attacking me, the wizard never aimed for the side that held the treasure bag, he looked down on me the entire time, so I could take him by surprise.' Charging forward, he readied his blade.

The wizard screamed out in fury as the world went bright and the flames began to billow up like crazy.

…

"We're back!" Oolong, Bulma, and the Ox-King turned to see Goku arrive with Chi-Chi.

"Where's the fan?" Bulma asked impatiently.

"Sorry, Roshi lost it, but he's going to help us himself!" Goku pointed to Roshi, who was slowly staggering off Baby Gamera.

"M-Muten Roshi Sama!" The Ox-King shouted, bowing deeply.

"Ah, Ox-King." Roshi nodded as his pupil burst into tears. Roshi turned to look at the mountain, which was pulsating with fire, the flames moving inside and outside of the castle and coating the land in its permanent heat and flames. "Hmm… this is much worse than I thought it'd be."

Goku looked startled, "it's worse than when we left!"

"To tell you the truth," the Ox-King began, "it started flaring up and getting wilder, we even had to move back because of how hot it is…"

"I see," Roshi nodded sagely, "in many ways, we can call this Karma…" He turned to look at the Ox-King critically, "I've heard many stories about your exploits, very few of them good, how many people have you killed to defend your treasure?"

The Ox-King looked down, then shouted, "I-I understand Master! T-to be honest, I lost faith in my self after my wife died, this foolish disciple looks back on his actions and repents!" He kneeled, "I'm willing to relinquish all of my treasures!"

Roshi flinched, "well… I'm not saying to get rid of all your treasure, that'd be a shame too."

The old man walked up to Bulma and Oolong, "ehh? What happened? Did the boy get turned into this little pig?"

Bulma shook her head and turned towards the castle, "he's in there… can, can you save him?!"

"Did greed take his heart?" Roshi shook his head, "unfortunately, I can't do much about saving him, the flames are too hot even for me."

"B-but aren't you supposed to be the strongest person?!"

"Maybe, but I'm not a miracle worker, I can at the least clear away all the flames.

"Really!" Bulma looked relieved, "Alright! Do that!"

Roshi looked towards Goku, then towards the Ox-King. "Ox-King! I need to borrow these two for a bit! It's very important!"

Goku walked up to Bulma, "the Ox-King wants to ask you something." The three walked a good ways away and stood behind a wall.

"Okay, so what do you want?" Bulma crossed her arms.

"He wants to touch your boobs." Goku pointed to Bulma's chest. Bulma turned to Roshi, who giggled.

"No way!" She looked ready to attempt to strangle the old man. "Goku! Don't make promises on other people's behalf!"

Roshi crumpled a bit, then nodded… "mmmm, alright… fine, then I guess I won't help."

"Are you insane?! Jazz is going to die in there!"

"You want the dragon ball inside that castle right?" Roshi asked, "I didn't tell the boy to go inside."

Bulma opened and closed her mouth repeatedly, trying to find a rebuttal. Before they could continue, the world flashed brightly. Turning, they saw the mountain completely engulfed in flames, and the flames around the mountain began to spread out rapidly. "J-jazz!" Bulma rapidly pulled out her phone and made the call. The others rushed to join them, and after a few dull seconds of silence heard someone speaking on the other end.

~"Hi… welcome to burn victims incorporated… how injured are ya?"- The voice was weak and trembling, croaking out the words more than anything.

"Idiot.." Bulma whispered, "you said you'd get out of there… Roshi's here, and he'll clear the fire, so just sit tight…"

The voice on the other end was silent for a bit. ~"Tell Roshi to hold off for a bit, give me… 2 minutes, no, a minute and thirty seconds, yup, just 90 seconds, then he can fire off his kamehameha."-

Roshi's ears perked up at the boy's intuition. "You know of the kamehameha?"

~"I know you'll probably need to concentrate to make it strong enough to clear away all the fire…"- Jazz coughed hard on the other end.

"Jazz?" Bulma began, "get… get out of there, ignore the dragon balls, they don't matter…"

~"Sorry Bulma, I kinda lied, I can't leave if I wanted to, the flames around the castle are too hot for me to make it out without melting, and the guy causing this is trying to kill me and keep the treasure for himself."-

"...Why don't you just let the treasure go?!" Bulma asked desperately.

~"He can't be allowed to leave the castle, he created the flames…"- After a few more rounds of coughing, the voice strengthened, ~"Master Roshi?"-

"Hmph, I'm not your master, but I'll listen to your request, you want 90 seconds, right?" Roshi stuck out a thumbs up, "I'll wait for you kid, don't let us down, but after 90 seconds…" he turned to the flames, that continued to grow in size, "I'll have to destroy this castle, lest it damage the countryside."

They heard crackling laughter, ~"Thanks."-

…

Jazz watched as the phone broke apart in his hands, the heat from the flames nearly killed him. If not for his quick thinking in summoning the capsule house, he would have been a soot mark on the floor. Looking at his melting weighted greaves and anklets, he could only imagine the amount of pain that would fill his body once his nerves began to work again. 'I... I was greedy…' Jazz had thought he was treating the world like it was real, but it looked like he wasn't. The wizard didn't exist in the manga, or at least, he was only mentioned off hand, but the world of Dragon Ball was lived in, people existed, even when not in focus. He had underestimated the dangers of the castle because he wanted to score brownie points, and when he encountered the wizard, he thought he could smooth talk his way out of there. "...Fuck…" he groaned, getting up. As he made his way through the rubble, he came across the burnt remains of the treasure sack. Countless items were strewn here and there in states of destruction and disrepair, and in the middle of that molten slag was the dragon ball, poking out.

"Come out! That wasn't enough to kill you! I'll burn the country side if I have too!"

The wizard was holding the black blood in with his fingers. 'Why isn't he cauterizing the wound?' Jazz thought. The wizard screamed and shouted, flames pouring everywhere, but Jazz remained still, like that, 15 seconds passed by. 'I don't want to die.' Jazz thought, shivering, but at the same time, he smiled wryly, maybe with how strong Goku was now, when he used the Kamehameha, they'd be able to wish him back. And like that, another 15 seconds passed.

"I'll find and kill you!" The wizard roared, melting through the stone and carpet he had painstakingly enchanted half a decade ago.

Jazz closed his eyes, breathing in and out. He surreptitiously ripped off his weights, and opened his eyes. And like that, another 15 seconds passed by, with 30 to go before Roshi destroyed the entire castle.

"...Wait… that ki?!" The wizard shrieked, "it's Muten Roshi?!" The flames began to die down as the wizard panicked, that was Jazz's cue. 4 molten missiles slammed into the wizard, bowling him over. He turned to launched flames at Jazz, but the boy was too fast, rocketing past the flames until he was right behind the wizard. "W-" before the wizard could speak, Jazz slammed his dagger into the wizard's neck, piercing through the other side." With that, there were 20 seconds left.

"No!" The wizard screamed, his body exploded into flame, the flames rushed Jazz, attempting to fill every pore. "I'll steal your body! I'll use its ashes to revive! I'm the immortal phoenix!" He rushed into Jazz's body, who flailed in vane to stop the invasion. 15 seconds remained.

As fire, feeling like countless hot needles, filled his body, Jazz felt his life flash before his eyes. The wizard's laugh filled the room as he attempted to revive from Jazz's dying, burning body like that of a phoenix. But to his surprise, nothing happened, even as Jazz's body burned, he did not feel himself fill with vitality. "N-no…" The wizard's body, which attempted to reform, weakened, and before he could say or do anything else, Jazz, who had lost the use of his limbs, attacked the only way he could, and bit down on the monster's head. The wizard couldn't even scream as Jazz killed him.

Jazz's mind was a flutter with emotions as he bit and chewed, unable to fully comprehend his actions, he simply acted on instinct, attacking until the enemy who brought him so close to death died as well. He had 7 seconds left, and, as if due to some strange enlightenment, felt the gathering of ki from Roshi, preparing to annihilate the mountain and fire. As the haze cleared, an electric-like celerity filled his mind as fear of death took hold, mind racing, he summoned all of Bulma's capsules until he found what he was looking for, her plane. Getting on to it he fired the engines, crashing through the walls of the castle as a blue light overtook his vision…

…

…

Jasper(Jazz) Duncan

Age: 15 (and 3 months), physical appearance: 15

Hair color: Brown

Skin color: obsidian black (charred to a crisp)

Race: Quarter Caucasian(White American of English-Irish decent), Quarter Aisian (Korean), Quarter Black(African-American), Quarter Hispanic (Cuban) (unfortunately racial features not visible at the moment)

Height: 5ft 7inches | 170 centimeters

Weight: 154 lbs | 69.8 kilograms

Skills: Decent Sports Talent for Age, Semi-Above Average Intellect for age, basic martial arts skills,below average ki control, decent pain tolerance, trap building, basic weapons mastery, basic boxing, basic mma, street fighting skills

Powerlevel: 1 (on the cusp of death after a life threatening encounter)

…

Afterword:

Bear with me, pretty please. I know this was a short chapter but next chapter will be finished within 10 hours. But also let me know your thoughts, I think I'm mature enough to take criticism without crying anymore lol. Oh but... before anyone asks, no, eating the brown pixie/fairy-like wizard who ate the immortal phoenix did not make Jazz immortal, and eating the immortal phoenix directly would not have made Jazz immortal either. As for manga canonicity, the immortal phoenix was a friend of Master Roshi's who supposedly had an elixir of immortality, unfortunately, the phoenix died of food poisoning (actual manga lore lol). Phoenix's are normally attributed with fire and lightning, thus the heavy emphasis on fire. Also, I kinda wanted to connect the two events, making it seem like Roshi's carelessness with his old friend's burial helped lead to the situation, I mean, if you forget a friend died of food poisoning, then you probably didn't care to maintain their grave, if they even had one. Of course, this is all fanfiction, so shenanigans galore.