Chayote stared long and deep into the yet another failed attempt to perform the Kamehameha. One that split the oceans for a short while and then just darted off into the sky like a dropped firecracker. So much freedom and not a lick of an idea of what to do with it…
"Still no luck, huh?" Krillin sat down. The tiny warrior had band-aids stuck all over his head and one half of his face was still swollen. He looked far worse a few hours in his beating than he did shortly after but that was the case with beatings, it seemed.
"No. I played nice, just like the old man said." Chayote collapsed onto the sand and stared out into the distance. "Helped Launch turn back too. Granted, that was just because I was hungry but still…"
"I don't think you quite got it what Roshi-san meant." Krillin dragged his bottom closer to the rippling waves hitting the island shore. "Just flipping the switch won't do."
"Then how? How am I supposed to act?" Chayote looked at the brat who may have looked half her age despite being only a few years younger in actuality. And yet he had it all figured out. This martial arts gig really did stick to the Earthlings better than everyone else. Then again, it was kind of the signature craft of their planet after all, at least as far as Chayote knew the universe.
"You're not supposed to act like anything. You're just supposed to be honest. Think and behave as you feel like. Live your life to the fullest, that's what Kame Sennin Ryu is all about." Krillin pointed out.
"So what are we going to do tomorrow?" Chayote wondered. "Maybe the old-timer is actually going to teach us martial arts? That's what Korin told me to do, he said that this would be an essential martial arts training but the bag of bones isn't teaching us anything."
"He's not going to." Krillin shook his head. He looked up ahead at the horizon with nostalgia gleaming through his eyes even if what he was recalling didn't even occur that long ago. "Don't you still get it? Sharpening your body and mind, learning about the true meaning of martial arts is the entirety of the training."
"So I'm done then? You've already spoiled the twist for me." Chayote uttered to herself. One would have been foolish not to notice the hint of bitterness that approached the realms of disappointment in her voice.
"It's not that simple." Krillin stood up through moderate physical effort. The bruises over his body still ached and did their best to drag the young man down. "The training of a martial artist never ends. I completed Roshi-sama's training and so did Goku but the tournament showed us that there are always some areas we can still improve in."
"Is Bulma still inside?" Chayote wondered aloud.
"No, she left before dinner. She's pretty rich, you know, probably has servants to make fancy food for her…" Krillin leaned to Chayote and squinted at her as he gossiped. It was not his girly attempt at gossip that looked awkward, it was the fact that while leaning the pint-sized fighter barely measured up to Chayote's chest.
"I see… Where does she live?" the Saiyan wondered.
"Wait, are you leaving?" Krillin would have raised a curious eyebrow had his eye not been swollen too much for that feat to be possible.
"Naturally." Chayote nodded. "There's no use in me staying here any longer. I can realize what I truly feel anywhere on this planet but here. There's no use for you two to train with me too. With the vast difference between our power levels, it's just meaningless torture. Your results will grow vastly if you two train together, your power levels are not too different."
"So you're just going to leave Earth then? What was that about wanting to learn martial arts? Why did you even go out of your way to meet Goku and tell him about his upbringing then?" Krillin looked defensive. Could he have not wanted Chayote to leave? His voice trembled like his eyes were about to start watering. The Saiyan lingered on her following reply for a moment to see if they would but they did not.
"You said the core of the Kame Sennin Ryu is to live one's life to the fullest. The old geezer said that I'd only learn to properly control my Ki once I unify my body and my mind. I can't do that by just sitting on my butt. Nor can I figure it out by just thinking. Thinking's hard and it makes my head hurt. The only way I can know what I really want is to go for it and see how it feels while I'm doing it." Chayote replied. This seemed to calm Krillin down a little as he backed off and let go of Chayote's Turtle School Uniform.
"Alright then… Best of luck!" Krillin nodded his head. "Thanks for training with us." He followed it up with a bow.
A cascade of shots came from inside the house. Muten Roshi ran out from the house holding a massive, brown sea turtle. It did not take long for the rampaging shapeshifter to reveal herself wielding a submachine gun in her hands. Blond Launch took aim at Muten Roshi and his whiny sea turtle but then noticed Chayote with the corner of her eye.
"This damned bastard! You threw pepper into my face to make the other me cook and clean for you!" the blonde flipped out and unleashed a firestorm at the teen Saiyan who just flicked every single bullet away from her with a nonchalant face. This was perhaps the most training to her reflexes and speed that she had on this island but perhaps physical training or just blind rehearsal of martial art moves was not the training that Korin intended for Chayote at all.
That sly cat bastard. He truly did mean for Chayote to meet Muten Roshi only because he could have set her mind straight. Why couldn't the old mouser do that himself? Probably cause he's too damn lazy sitting on his ass, licking his paw and eating fish…
A gust of wind picked up in Chayote's wake as the Saiyan blitzed all the way to behind the raging woman, causing her wild, curly, blond hair to get all over Launch's face and tickle her nose. The Saiyan had always considered that cool warriors never looked at the sneezes, that way the wet and elegant sneeze was the most satisfactory noise of victory she's heard on this planet.
"Kinto!" Chayote called out, a space-blue cloud descended from the heavens with a stuttery whistle. The Saiyan prepared to leap onto her twisted version of a magical cloud and whizz away. It was only then that she recalled that Krillin did not actually tell her anything related to Bulma's whereabouts.
"Hey, so… About Bulma's address." Chayote turned to Krillin.
"You're leaving?" Muten Roshi interrupted their conversation.
"Yeah. I figured that training here would be pointless until I set my mind straight and finally having the option of leaving to space anytime would help to realize if it's what I truly want." Chayote turned at the old man. She had expected him to argue but he did not. He merely settled down and placed his arms behind his back.
"Bulma lives in West City, a massive yellow building named Capsule Corp. It's located in WST 3338926 K." The sea turtle that Muten Roshi used to carry out of harm's way replied.
"Oh my… What am I doing outside? We're all going to catch a cold this late in the evening…" Launch covered her mouth in horror. Now in her blue-haired, nice form.
"I should find it. Thanks, talking turtle!" Chayote leaped onto the Dark Kinto and gave the Kame House one last visual examination. There went yet another chapter of hers on Earth… And yet, it did not feel like it was closed yet despite her having claimed everything there was to claim from here. This home felt much more meaningful than just what there was to take from it, however. If Chayote was to get a handle on her thoughts and feelings, she'd still have to explore that in the future…
One thing at a time…
"Name's Sea Turtle!" the turtle corrected Chayote.
"Hey!" Krillin jumped up. "Don't leave like this! You're basically wearing underwear right now!" he yelled out.
"Oh! I can give you some of my clothes! Follow me!" Launch suggested with untold amounts of cheer in her voice. Chayote looked down at the Turtle School Uniform and shrugged. She was fine flying like this, even if it did feel sort of lacking in content and down below did pick up on breeze from time to time, namely, whenever there was a breeze to be picked up on.
Before one could state Capsule Corp's address out loud, Chayote leaped back onto the Dark Kinto, shoving Krillin off of it in a less than graceful manner. The boy had taken quite the liking to the Kinto he could actually ride.
"Wow, that's amazing, Roshi-san, I can actually ride this Kinto!" the plumpy cheered.
"If you ever climb to the Korin Tower and meet Master Korin, make sure to ask him for one." Muten Roshi nodded, looking a tad smug about his suggestion as if he had spoken to a child whom he suggested what to do once the child grew up.
"These are my sports clothes I jog in the morning with. Good luck, Chayote-san!" Launch waved at the Saiyan while Dark Kinto rose up to an altitude it could blast off from.
"W-Would that… By any chance mean… Launch-san is going to… Jog without the tracksuit and the shorts?" Muten Roshi puffed an imaginary chest with his hands.
Chayote blasted off before she could see what that suggestion ended up like. She kind of felt bad about taking this fine local athlete attire from Launch but it was not like Chayote did not leave her anything in return. A martial arts school uniform for a sports attire was a worthy trade in any book…
There was a lot of beauty to Earth. Unlike Planet Vegeta, Earth did not seem to have developed as a host of perpetual battlefields, pillar-shaped mountains with lush grass on top, mountains with waterfalls bursting from inside and rich jungles, brimming with different kind of life than just cultivated suicide bombers that spat acid from inside their heads sometimes. Chayote stared at a gang of little monkeys hopping from tree to tree with their tails while keeping their hands free to hold on to the food they had closely.
With an inwardly directed turn of her feet, the Saiyan escalated the Dark Kinto to fly faster until the sights of white, sky-reaching buildings, tinier domes with different colored rooftops and complicated monorail systems loomed in the horizon. From where Chayote was approaching the city, it did not look all too different from any world influenced by the Tuffle technology. Differences became apparent the closer Chayote got but overall she was blown back by the West City and how completely different it felt from any other place on Earth she's been to.
And to think that the first place she began experiencing Earth from was in was the Land of Korin…
Chayote kept moving onward and westward, cutting the city diagonally, thinking that, eventually, she'd run into the large building that's supposed to be in the center of the West City anyway. She may have navigated by the address given to her but that was too complicated. She'd have to do a whole bunch of reading and also to lower herself down to where she could check on the addresses of each building she passed. It felt far too troublesome compared to just whizzing to where she thought the center was and hoping for the best.
By the time Chayote reached West City, it was already morning. The last thing that the Saiyan wanted to do was to wake the inventor princess up and get her groggy. Still, she needed her spaceship so Chayote boldly walked into what may have ended up being a grave mistake for anyone who valued peace and quiet. A curly hair receptionist lady in a uniform fixed the tiny hat on her head and covered her face in a surprise of seeing such an unconventional guest in the Capsule Corp.
"You look like a soldier. Where's Bulma? Also, where can I get one of those uniforms?" Chayote approached the woman.
"Oh dear…" the woman shook her head. "Bulma-san is in school right now, she left thirty minutes ago. Shouldn't you be in school as well? You wouldn't happen to be some kind of delinquent, would you?"
"School? Is Bulma learning how to fight? It's a bit late for that, isn't it?" Chayote sighed, pressing her hands to her hips as she tapped her foot in frustration.
"Oh, dear no. Don't you know what a school is at your age? What a poor child…" the woman leaned in closer to Chayote as if trying to pat her on the shoulder, something about the Saiyan made the receptionist freeze and cease all comforting activity immediately. "Well, you asked about how to get my job earlier, you won't make it without a school degree, you know…"
"What a drag. I thought we had a deal, she was supposed to help me build my spaceship!" Chayote complained out loud. "These Earthlings, I swear… What an unreliable bunch all of them!"
"I… I don't even… Young lady, I will call security if you don't go to school this instance." The woman's voice trembled even if she was supposed to sound at least somewhat threatening.
"Security? Choosing to send your lackeys at me, smart. Anyway, if Bulma's not here, I don't think I have any use of this place. Is your security strong?" Chayote wondered, trying to decide if there was still any use out of this Capsule Corp that she could squeeze out.
"They've finished school and even professional school. They should handle a delinquent such as yourself." The receptionist looked more worried than confident in the supposed skill of the Capsule Corp security force.
"I'm back!" Bulma walked into Capsule Corp with her bag over her shoulders as if nothing happened.
"Finally…" Chayote pouted her lips. "I was just about to leave this boring place."
"Bulma-san! Don't tell me you've skipped school again!" the receptionist covered her cheeks in shock. "You wouldn't like growing up like this delinquent here, would you?"
"You think this place is bad, you should see school…" Bulma sighed. "Come on, let's go to the lab and see what we can cook up there… It's about the only reason for a seventeen-year-old gorgeous genius inventor to get out of bed in the morning."
Chayote did not really know or care about how to respond to that. She was neither that old nor did she know a thing about inventing things or school. For the sake of not having her ears yelled off, she just nodded and followed Bulma along.
The inventor's lab was just what Chayote thought she needed. Filled with examples of awesome tech, pretty much every remarkable invention of Earthlings that Chayote had seen was lying around halfway disassembled and already looking new and improved, even before it was finished. It also had a short old man that looked like a hobo, staring a massive television set, descending from the ceiling and observing a handful of women working out. They must not have been trained by a notable master as their skin was all covered up, making Chayote wonder if they even broke a sweat.
"Dad!" Bulma roared out. "We've got guests, turn your perverted garbage off!"
"Oh, Bulma!" Bulma's father looked back at his daughter and then back at the TV screen. The man in a doctor's coat kept switching between the two targets before realizing that something in this picture did not quite compute. What a slow man, even Chayote would have caught on by now. "Shouldn't you be in school?" he asked.
"I'm back already…" Bulma raised her nose up and looked away. "I'm going to work on some spacecraft to help Chayote here get home. She's an alien."
"Oh! Is that so?! I'm Doctor Brief!" the man raised his hand up, similarly to how Upa and Bora said hello whenever they saw Chayote after some time. It was child's play mirroring that social gesture. "So what's space like? Well… I guess it's the same in most parts but we've never left that far away, just to the Moon and back from time to time."
"Clearly it's loads of fun if Chayote wants to get back home! Now stop bugging us and turn off your erotic workout shows, please!" Bulma barked at her father. Chayote wondered how she could have been this rude to her own father. It was not like Saiyans even lived with their parents this long, or anything, but if Chayote ever spoke this way to her own old man, if she ever met him, he'd have backhanded her in a second. Then again… Taking on her old man would have been fun… Maybe that's what Bulma was trying to pull off here.
"Alright! This is the pathetic excuse we call a spaceship!" Bulma unrolled some dusty blueprint of something that looked almost like one of the Earthling arrows.
"Why is it shaped like that? Every spacecraft needs to be round for aerodynamics…" Chayote scratched the back of her head."
"What?! That doesn't even… Make sense!" Bulma dropped her jaw. Chayote took the marker off of the inventor's hand. She kept on scribbling and adding on details for mechanisms she did not know the exact purpose of that well but she knew exactly where they were, how they were meant to look and how they could have been fixed in an emergency scenario.
It was so strange, being able to draw something but seeing that only the person next to you who was incapable of drawing what you were scribbling understood what exactly you were drawing… Bulma kept on nodding the whole time, breaking into fits of laughter and exclaiming some weird sounds from time to time. Chayote had not even noticed when exactly did old man Brief turn away from his erotic show and join his daughter in marveling Chayote's best hand-drawn blueprint.
"I don't know…" Bulma closed one eye and began measuring and sizing up the finished blueprint. "It doesn't look quite like universe crossing stuff. There's a bunch of valuable improvements but…"
"I may have forgotten a thing or two since I left Planet Vegeta." Chayote shrugged. "Plus, I only know whatever any other grunt that's supposed to be able to fix the damned thing knows. If you want some blueprints for armor and weaponry, I could draw that with better accuracy. Saiyans have always cared much more about that stuff anyway."
"Couldn't you build it yourself?" Bulma raised an eyebrow, still looking a bit skeptical.
"No chance, the way we got this tech was by having Frieza Army land and toss it at us. The only look inside we got was when we smashed it and looked inside. Saiyans like to smash and break stuff so I've seen plenty of the Frieza Army tech from the inside." Chayote shrugged.
"This is garbage," Briefs declared. "My brilliant daughter was correct in her assessment, this is no universe traversing stuff, you'd only be able to travel to the end of our galaxy in about five years or so…"
Both Bulma and her father stared at one another with wide and blank stares. Then Bulma's stare grew increasingly pissed while her father just stared back the same at his daughter, cradling a lollipop in his mouth and rolling it about with his tongue. Bulma was about to explode in outrage but then she just smacked her own forehead and dragged her hand across her face.
"Oh!" Briefs raised his finger. "No, wait, those results are actually very good! We wouldn't come anywhere close that in a hundred years of advancement at our current rate…"
"One of the smartest men on the planet…" Bulma grumbled to herself. "Honestly… There's still a problem, though."
"Hmmm?" Chayote wondered.
"Most of this is full of materials that are very unlikely to be found on Earth. We would require some pretty kickass substitutes and they exist for sure but… They look like some A-Class military-grade stuff. Not something you'd buy in a convenience store." Bulma pointed out having calmed down after her father's vexing antics.
"Hmmm… I don't know where I could get my hands on military gear…" Chayote pondered. "Since I've kicked the Red Ribbon's ass, I wonder if Earth even has a military force worth its salt and the Red Ribbon base has been totaled so there's no chance salvaging anything from there."
Bulma stared at Chayote with an ironic squint, tapping her foot against the floor and her fingers against the table, waiting for the thick-skulled Saiyan to finally catch on.
"Wait, Son Goku's fighting the remainder of the Red Ribbons right now. Muten Roshi said there were some generals that have gone rogue and are wreaking havoc, hoping the Red Ribbon would eventually reform and take them back." Chayote finally realized what made Bulma this flippant. "It's too bad I don't have a way of finding Son Goku."
"That's not a problem at all." Bulma raised her index finger, looking all too proud of her own intellect. She reached out for a white gadget with a dark screen lying on the table and handed it to the Saiyan. "This is the Dragon Radar. You should be able to find Goku with this. He's looking for his grandpa's Dragon Ball, after all… It's a good thing I've made a spare, Goku's hogged my main one and I kind of still want those strawberries."
"Alright then, I'll bring you the military gear, build me my spaceship then." Chayote nodded. "It's been fun meeting you, Bulma's dad." The Saiyan waved for the aged man who nodded and turned back at the screen looking middle-aged women making their legs clip like scissors in front of the TV screen before switching to all fours and beginning to stretch out their bottoms.
With the morning barely having even kicked off, Chayote blasted off into the distance, following the yellow beeps on her radar in the distance in hopes of finding Son Goku. It seemed much easier to just collect the Dragon Balls and ask for all the technology she needed, honestly, but Son Goku was such a diva when it came to those things…