"How could you be so brutal with him?" Bulma objected, pointing at the bandaged yet sleeping peacefully Son Goku sleeping in the Papaya hospital that, despite the short-lived rampage of the world-breaking monster transpiring on the same island, was not only in a functional condition but not even overcrowded. People were lucky to leave as early as they did.
"To beat another Saiyan half-to-death is the greatest honor a Saiyan can have." Chayote replied without much emotion to it. Almost as nonchalantly as she would have explained where the Sun rose from and where it set.
"That's so horrible!" Puar grabbed its fluffy cheeks.
"You might think so." Chayote closed her eyes and breathed in deep. She finished that thought while she exhaled. "However, to a Saiyan, strength is everything."
"I don't get it, how does crippling each other makes you guys stronger?" Krillin squinted at Chayote. Goku's life was not in any immediate danger now which was why the crew still looked distrustful of Chayote but felt calm enough to have a conversation about the intricacies of the cultural differences of a faraway alien race that both Goku and Chayote came from.
"You wouldn't." Chayote shook her head. "It is called Zenkai. It is an ability that all Saiyans share, we grow stronger with each battle. The closer we get to death – the stronger we become. If a battle is boring, there is often no growth whatsoever. Yuca, my instructor back on Planet Vegeta, told me that if a Saiyan is not driven to an inch to their death Zenkai will not come into play but… I have a feeling she was wrong. Sometimes it seems like Zenkai makes itself known all throughout a fight as if I am growing stronger while I am fighting. I've no idea why Yuca would have wanted to keep that hidden, maybe she did not know it either."
"I guess that explains why you two are so eager to get into fights." Bulma squinted at Chayote. She then turned an angry glare at Yamcha too. "Sometimes you're so one-track-minded that I think you might be a Saiyan as well!"
"Awww, come on, Bulma, now that the tournament's over we can spend more time together, we talked about this, remember?" Yamcha tried excusing himself as if he had something to excuse himself about. What a strange guy, why would he feel so obliged to lower himself in front of this woman for having his priorities set perfectly straight?
Then it popped to Chayote – Yamcha must have wanted Bulma to invent something for him. Maybe not a spacecraft like the one Chayote would have fancied but something he could have used. Perhaps a machine that removed his fear of women?
"Saiyans are really scary…" Oolong lamented. "Is this Planet Vegeta nearby? Two of them have already landed and nearly totaled the whole place, what if more of those guys come?"
"There's almost no chance of that happening." Chayote shook her head, growing visibly more bitter and distressed as she affirmed her own worst fears. "I don't know the exact location of this planet in the scale of the entire universe but… Judging from what I've heard, it's on the whole opposite side of the galaxy from the edge of Lord Frieza's Empire. There's no chance of Saiyans finding us here, not until we reach out to them first."
Everyone sighed easier.
"Not for a decade at least…" Chayote sighed again in disappointment while everyone else lost their collective shits.
"A decade!? That's not that far off!" Bulma yelled out at Chayote, attempting to make the teen cower and bend to her authoritative and loudmouthed influence just like the rest of the crew did. While Chayote considered being nice to the brilliant inventor lady of the planet, she'd rather never meet another Saiyan for a dozen more years rather than give up her Saiyan pride.
"This Lord Frieza… He sounds troubling." Muten Roshi turned serious all of a sudden. Something dark flashed through the man's eyes as if he recalled a gruesome and hopeless meeting with another tyrannical overlord. While Chayote was just shooting from the hip, if her assumptions were correct, this may have been an intriguing opponent to meet. Now that Chayote cemented herself as the strongest under this planet's heavens, she'll be severely bored for the coming decades.
"He's not. He rules over everything. Takes everything good and useful under his wing. Kills and destroys the useless things. I've only met him once really but I've been trained to serve him my entire life. I'd like my second impression to be that of a more useful soldier compared to the lacking first one." Chayote looked away. For some reason returning to the fateful day of her demise, even if her memories of some details leading up to and after her death were all murky, caused something round and sticky to get stuck in her throat while her eyes started watering for no reason.
It was a despicable feeling, it reeked of weakness.
Muten Roshi stared at Chayote in silence. There must have been something he meant to tell her, his grim expression was similar to when the old sage spoke with his mind as he did earlier, but even as Chayote maintained an open mind she received no signals from him. The silence, the loneliness made her feel even more grumpy.
"Anyway. Son Goku will be fine." Chayote stuffed her hands into the pockets of her torn up pants. She needed a complete change of wardrobe before she'd head off to her next adventure. Maybe that prize money that the announcer gave her would help do the trick? Perhaps she could purchase an actual military uniform and not don what true soldiers on Earth wore when they exercised in the mornings?
"How will he be fine? Look at him!" Bulma complained but her attempts at guilt tripping Chayote was only met with a devoid of any emotion stare back at her own eyes.
"Saiyans recover quite fast. Keep a steady supply of food coming and Son Goku will be back on his feet in no time." The teen Saiyan shrugged before heading to the door.
"Chayote." Muten Roshi's voice stopped her. "I'll be waiting for you on my island. It's located at NBI 8250012 B. Despite what you might think after winning the World's Martial Arts Tournament, there is plenty I can teach you. Not things of the body but things to strengthen your mind and help you see the world more clearly. Arguably, this is the more important aspect of a truly magnificent martial artist."
"Nobody to say so many words can be wrong." Chayote shrugged with a naughty childish smirk. "Training with you was my plan all along. There may be a few more things left to see on Earth anyway."
"I for one am glad that somebody's gonna do something about that attitude!" Bulma wrapped her hands over her chest with a glare aimed at Chayote full of disdain. The Saiyan did not even need to turn back or have a supernatural sense of emotion reading to feel all that heat emanating at her.
Before Chayote could leave the ward, she turned around and approached Bulma. The genius girl took a wary step back, nervous that the Saiyan would lash out after taking one too many offenses to heart but Chayote halted up in Bulma's face just a bit short of where she could have smashed her head in. The Saiyan extended a hand full of money.
"I am not good with Earthling currency. Is this much money enough to build a spacecraft capable of traveling to the other end of the galaxy?" the Saiyan took a wild shot.
"Huh? It's barely even one-tenth of what you would need. Also, obviously, it is not a matter of resources but the matter of technology. You implied your kind was a spacefaring race? If I had a decent sample of your technology, I could build you your craft just for the kicks. Hell, I'd probably enjoy the challenge." Bulma winked at Chayote as if the two had been friends all along. It was odd how little it took to get a genius on one's better side.
"You could collect the Dragon Balls and ask the Shenron for a spacecraft, couldn't you?" Oolong wondered. Bulma looked at him with eyes that aimed to incinerate the swine whole. The azure-headed inventor likely did not want a wild card Saiyan that recklessly beat her own kind to unconsciousness to know about these Dragon Balls.
"Dragon Balls? Those are some sort of wishing device, right?" Chayote wondered, recalling a handful of vague comments made by Commander Red before he met his demise by her hand.
"You know about Dragon Balls!?" everyone in the room lost their cools.
"Sure. The leader of the Red Ribbon Army tried recruiting me into his weakling force to help him gather them. He said he would have a genius scientist build me a ship home when we're done." Chayote shrugged.
"The Red Ribbon?!" the entire room flipped out once more.
"What's all the ruckus about?" Goku sat up, rubbing his eyes with his childish little knuckles. He appeared to struggle with the comfort of the bandages wrapped over his head selectively, only to cover up the injuries he had attained during the match.
"Goku! You're alright!" Krillin jumped up and crawled up on Goku's bed to nudge the brat about, Goku looked in high spirits about it before grunting in pain and pushing Krillin off of him.
"Everybody needs to slow down. This is way too much stuff happening all at once…" Yamcha complained while removing his headband and using it to wipe the sweat off of his face. "Now, did Chayote just claim she beat the Red Ribbon Army all by herself?"
"Sure. Technically, they wiped themselves out for the most part but none of them were any strong at all." Chayote shrugged.
"That would explain the troubling raiding activities far out in the north, the south and the west…" Muten Roshi stroke his beard. "With the headquarters of the Red Ribbon destroyed, the rest of the generals must be growing restless and suspecting something. The Red Ribbon must have more bases established all over the world and none of them are getting any orders from the headquarters. In the worst case scenario, you can get a whole bunch of different splinter groups operating all at once."
"And Chayote said they're all after the Dragon Balls…" Bulma sighed. "At this point, I won't ever get my strawberries…"
"I thought you were in it for a boyfriend…" Oolong turned at the inventor who proceeded to pound the anthropomorphic pig in the head with frightening brutality.
"Are you kidding me?! I've got Yamcha, don't I!?" the harpy showed her teeth as if she threatened to devour the pig bit by stringy bit.
"Wait, you guys also are after the Dragon Balls?" Chayote raised an eyebrow. "Aren't they super hard to find?"
"Normally they would be!" Bulma smiled with a larger than life amount of pride in her own self brimming from within. "However, the elegant genius that is moi has created a Dragon Radar to track them!"
"I see, the Red Ribbon Army likely had one of their own…" Chayote made Bulma's balloon burst with the genius deflating to a pathetic state of self-pity once it was revealed that her invention had not been unique for even a couple of years before the rest of the world caught up to it. "If I collect those Dragon Balls and ask the Shenron for a spaceship, we can leave Earth then? That seems like a plan…"
"Wait… You're leaving?" Goku turned fussy over the first news he heard after waking up from unconsciousness. "I thought we'd get to fight again and train with each other! Plus, you can't use the Dragon Balls because I still haven't found my Grandpa yet!"
"So you want to use the Dragon Balls first to find your grandpa? Wait… I thought you kill…" Yamcha shut Chayote's mouth before she could finish that sentence. He really needed to stop doing that but Chayote did not feel like punishing the dolt like she punished Muten Roshi for getting handy earlier.
"The Four-Star Dragon Ball is his grandpa," Bulma explained. Or at least she thought it did, none of either that or Goku's objection made even a tiny lick of sense. "It's what his grandpa left behind, it's all that Goku has to remember him by."
"Hmm? Why would you want to remember your fake Earthling grandpa? In a manner of speech he kidnapped and brainwashed you…" Chayote scratched her head.
"It's because Goku is a nice person with a heart!" Bulma yelled at Chayote again. While it was regrettable of a multitude of levels that Yamcha was in a relationship with this siren, the two had a habit of doing things Chayote wanted they'd stop doing and boundaries they must have stopped crossing at once that sort of befit each other. "Not that you'd understand…" Bulma looked away with disdain.
"That's not true." Goku pointed at Chayote. "Chayote's a really kind person too. I felt it when we fought."
"Was it before or after she beat the snot out of you?" Bulma turned her angry glare at Goku for speaking what she took as utter gibberish.
"That hurt…" Goku rubbed his aching spots but then began chuckling and moving his body as if responding to a slow, melodious tune with a sense of childish glee. "But she's not evil. That much I can say. She took the Kamehameha even though she could have moved away and let it blow the audience up and hurt other people."
"That's… That was just a coincidence, I'm sure… She probably just wanted to show off and happened to save everybody in the process!" Bulma objected again.
"Can we stop this useless discussion and return to the matter of the Dragon Balls?" Chayote sighed. The topic at hand made her feel uneasy and itchy deep down, for whatever reason. "Why can't both of us get what we want?"
"Because the Dragon Balls scatter after they are used and then remain as ordinary stones for a year," Bulma replied as if it was common knowledge she was getting tired of explaining. "If you ask the Shenron for your spacecraft, Goku will lose the chance of returning his Four-Stars for one year."
"There is a conundrum then…" Chayote sighed deeper and with more ingrained gloom. "Are you sure you can't let me ask for my spaceship and then get your Four-Star Dragon Ball a year later?"
"Nu-uh! I've already waited for a year!" Goku objected. "Can't you and Bulma just build your spaceship if you two make up?"
"Tsk… If Chayote knew about the technology her race uses, maybe together we could put something together but she's a blockhead like you!" Bulma yelled at Goku for even daring suggesting that the two made up. Then again, it was hard to say if Bulma even knew why exactly she was not too fond of the Saiyan, to begin with.
"I do know a bit." Chayote shrugged. "Even the gutter trash of the Frieza Army are meant to be able to repair the ships and weaponry. Let's just say I was hardly an elite class soldier, it was more than likely that I would have been an over glorified engineer…"
"Wait… Seriously!?" Bulma's eyes lit up with shimmering novae. "In that case, you must visit West City after you're done training with Roshi! Think of what an intelligent adventurer like me could build with your aid!?"
"As long as that something includes my spaceship…" Chayote shrugged. "I can give you basic rundowns of how scouters, arm-cannons, spaceships, hover chairs and the like work."
"So, I guess, you won't be needing the Dragon Balls after all?" Goku wondered.
"Well, I could have always asked this Shenron for more power but… Just how much power could a deity of a planet like Earth truly give me? It is unlikely to be a worthwhile bother." Chayote shook her head. "Just remember to train with me proper after you recover. We will need many Zenkai power-ups to catch up for all the time we have wasted so far."
"I can't wait!" Goku nodded before clutching at his ribs again.
Chayote looked at the massive pile of money she still clung to with her hand. The Saiyan placed most of the money on the cupboard by Goku's bed and turned back for the door. "I have no use for this money either, in that case. I'll buy myself some new clothes, use the rest to eat up and get your strength back. After I'm done training with Muten Roshi, I'll be expecting some serious training."
Goku nodded with a smile. "While you're training, I'll make sure to beat up those remaining Red Ribbon generals!" he declared. "If I can't do that, I won't ever be able to stand up to you in the future! Plus, they're after Dragon Balls anyway, right?"
"Sounds like a waste of time to me, they're a bunch of weaklings but… Do whatever you like." Chayote shrugged.
"That's just great, while Goku gets over his downtime, I'll make sure to catch up to you!" Krillin declared, extending his fist as a challenge to Goku. "Maybe I'll even train with Chayote, as scary as she is!"
"I guess I could use a punching bag…" Chayote looked down and put her hands into her pockets that all had a handful of holes now.
"In that case… Muten Roshi, please train me as well!" Yamcha bowed his head. "I've seen first-hand how far Goku has gone in these last few years. If I let things develop as they are, I would never catch up to Goku but this injury may have given me a chance get back to his league, please!"
"Are you even listening to what you're saying!? I thought we were going to start going out on dates and stuff after the tournament's over!" Bulma unveiled her imposing, demonic presence that loomed over poor and shriveled Yamcha.
"Awww, come on, Bulma… Muten Roshi lives on an island in the middle of an ocean. It's a pretty neat holiday location if you asked me. You could spend some time sunbathing and just flat out bathing… It's a pretty sweet deal, isn't it?" Yamcha pleaded his case.
Chayote wondered if an esteemed master of martial arts like Muten Roshi would truly go for such a useless for him deal. He did not look like the type that took in just about anybody. However, the elementary first glance revealed the legendary Muten Roshi drooling with a blush on his face with his shades nearly slipped off of his nose completely.
"Yeah, yeah… You can all sunbath… I mean… Train!" he slurred.
It appeared that Chayote would still have to sit through a decent chunk of this tomfoolery before she could truly return to her rightful place in Lord Frieza's army.