"Whoa, it's night already!?" Goku shrieked out in a jolt after leaning down to stare through the few round portholes that Dr. Brief's latest magnum opus had. Supposedly, this spaceship was fast enough to carry all the martial artists of the Dragon Team all the way to Planet Vegeta in just a couple of days. This speed was greater than any of the vessels that Chayote had traveled in, however, the way she saw it–Dr. Brief had spent so many years building spaceship prototypes that it would have been a shock not to have him get this good at it.
Even with Chayote, Bardock, Goku, Tenshinhan, Chiaotzu, Krillin, Yamcha, Gohan and Piccolo all aboard and finding their own small quarters to sustain a dignified trip, the spaceship still felt like it hauled its behind even when Chayote felt like the past vessels were fast enough as they were.
"That's just space, Son," Piccolo replied. "Nothing but blackness and stars. Don't get excited and walk out on your own. I don't think the vacuum would kill you immediately but you'd choke soon enough–there's nothing to breathe out there."
"Thanks, Piccolo!" Goku chuckled with a goofy expression. "It's nice having you looking out for us for once."
"It's like taking care of a baby, honestly," Piccolo grumped out and sat down to meditate. Chayote had seen him do this plenty of times before. It looked like he was asleep, but those pointy, Namekian ears of his kept a close track on everything that happened around him. He only chose to reveal bits and pieces of what the Namekian truly knew.
"So, what is our plan here? Do we just haul all the way to Planet Vegeta, invade it like the Saiyans attacked the Earth, and rescue Goku's mother?" Tenshinhan wondered.
"Got a problem with that, triclops?" Bardock grit his teeth, immediately jumping up to Tenshinhan's face, just a few screws short of starting to swing his fists.
"Tenshinhan raises a good point. I'm not sure I'm okay with just invading the planet of the Saiyans like they did to us. Can't we just land, extract Bardock's wife and get out of there?" Krillin scratched his head. "It feels like we may have rushed out without thinking this through and we're bound to get killed just attacking openly like that."
"Typical…" Bardock rolled his eyes while grumbling. "It's so much like an Earthling to tuck your tail in and worry about everything. You won't find any Saiyans more powerful than prince Vegeta down there, and we've all gotten much more powerful than him, anyway. Even the king of Saiyans had grown soft with his dealings with Frieza. He barely even does anything by himself anymore, and his battle power was stuck on that same pathetic level for years."
"What if he's just holding back?" Yamcha wondered. "We do it all the time. Most of us can make our actual powers swell up many times more than the ones we start the fighting with."
"Saiyans aren't capable of your cowardly Earthling methods like Ki sensing and suppressing their powers. What the king has is all he's capable of and it isn't much." Bardock clenched his fist.
"I'm really excited to fight powerful guys like that prince Vegeta guy, but I don't wanna cause harm to innocents like the Saiyans or Lord Slug did!" Goku objected out loud.
"Fine," Bardock relented with a hefty sigh. "We've got a couple of days until we reach Planet Vegeta, so I'm open to suggestions. As long as we rescue Gine, I don't much care about much else. Still, I'd much rather pummel that poser king and his bratty prince into a bloody pulp."
"Can't we pose as visitors? Extract Gine quietly?" Krillin wondered. "We've seen some aliens invading our planet and some of Lord Slug's men and most of the Saiyans look human like. If we get our hands on some equipment of this Frieza Army, I bet we could blend in and walk on Planet Vegeta unnoticed."
"That's the worst plan I've ever heard," Bardock grit his teeth. "Sure, Kakarot and Chayote might have the Saiyans fooled, but there's no way that nobody could recognize a Namekian and start raising flags. Even then, I haven't felt safe showing my face on Planet Vegeta ever since I started openly attacking Frieza Army's scouts and conquering parties."
"Krillin raised a fine point," Chayote said.
"I did?" Krillin wondered.
"We might want to visit one other location before we land on Planet Vegeta and start working on whatever plans we settle on," Chayote explained.
"Those bozos!? No way!" Bardock objected vehemently with a light flush of red to the tips of his cheeks.
"They're going to have all the gear we need…" Chayote shrugged.
"How are we going to pay them for it?" Bardock shook his head, opposing the idea with an adamant stance that seemed to make it likely that he'd keep opposing it until his last breath.
"I'm not sure if you know, but Piccolo has the power of Magic Materialization. They'll notice that we're trading fake parts, but by that time we'll have left. They can file all reports to Lord Frieza that they want…" Chayote pointed her hand at the meditating Namekian. She had grown quite familiar with Piccolo's abilities since her trip accompanying Piccolo to Planet Namek and back.
"Who are you talking about?" Krillin scratched his head, looking perplexed.
"The New Gadget Super Lovers, of course." Chayote said.
"New Gadget… Super Lovers?" Krillin's eye twitched. "Just who are they?"
"A joke is what they are!" Bardock grit his teeth and shook his fists before him, still struggling with the idea of visiting their shop.
"They are a team that works with the many of tech companies producing gear for the Frieza Army. Often they'll be doing pitches to Lord Frieza, handpicking the best gear for his army to use. They have loads of stock on standard equipment. Whenever you need gear quickly or if you want some customization or if you have a custom order or your own ideas about gadgets that you could use–you contact them." Chayote explained.
"Huh? Are they strong?" Goku wondered.
"Their power knows no bounds! Just talking about them curves and bends every law of reality and limits of space-time itself," Bardock hissed. "Even though they are ridiculous buffoons and even Frieza tries to get rid of them all the time, not even he can destroy them because they are gag characters!"
"I-Is it really safe then?" Krillin freaked out.
"Don't worry, they've never hurt a fly. When Lord Frieza tried using them once, the rumor goes their attacks backfired on them all the time. Such is the fate of being a gag character–you are doomed to always serve only comedic purposes and cannot impact the plot." Chayote calmed Krillin's worries. "They cannot die as long as the franchise is marketable, but they cannot do anything that'll ruin its marketability like kill main or supporting cast either."
"Will it impact our trip to reach their planet?" Tenshinhan asked.
"It won't, it's exactly where and when you need it. Waiting around for lengthy space travel to get to where you need to be makes for poor comedy, after all…" Chayote shrugged. "Oh, look, there their planet is, conveniently in the distance," she pointed through the porthole.
"H-Huh!? What kind of planet is that!?" Krillin's jaw dropped. What he was staring at was an oddball amalgam of the most memorable locations of the Dragon Team's adventures. It had its own Mt. Paozu section, a Kame Island and a desert with the Fire Mountain, the World Martial Arts Tournament arena and a floating God's Temple up in the higher layers of the planet's atmosphere.
"What is this!?" Piccolo's eyes opened in shock as he rushed to a porthole as of then unoccupied by anyone else to take a gander down at the planet that their spaceship was landing on. "This looks exactly like Planet Namek too!"
"I'd have rather avoided this thin ice. This will cost us more than a few readers, you know…" Bardock shook his head, feeling like an unheard prophet speaking of an inevitable calamity. Ignoring his dire warnings, the spaceship landed onto the New Gadget Super Lovers' version of the God Temple as the Dragon Team looked all too eager to run off and see just how accurate this imitation was.
"Welcome!" a tall and purple, humanoid alien with a white stubble of facial hair extended his palm and struck a flamboyant pose, showcasing his tremendous flexibility and his two, black horns that were sticking out from the sides of his head, giving him the appearance of a purple devil of sorts.
"Captain Oniyu!" the purple, horned humanoid chanted.
"Sukupu!" a broad shouldered human-like alien rushed in to the right of his captain, striking a flashy pose of his own.
"Nyusu!" an attractive, red-skinned female alien dived under her captain's spread legs and posed by raising her arms over her head after successfully skidding across the floor and under the captain's legs.
"Data!" a blue-skinned alien with a rather Frieza-like looking face and horny protrusions on the side of his head but a look too innocent and cute to him to be nearly as intimidating as his lookalike posed to the left of his captain, mirroring Sukupu's moves.
"Kuruzo!" a pudgy, green-skinned alien with a mohawk of yellow hair raised his hands, rolling like a cannonball under his captain's legs and emerging on his right side as he mirrored Nyusu's movements and final pose but from the other side.
"We are…" a large-bodied female of orange skin and white hair, tied into a ponytail spun around like a whirligig while the four other members struck their own signature poses by their captain and in front of their largest of body member to make their poses more picturesque. "The New Gadget Super Lovers!" the squad all chanted in unison as confetti and lights of mysterious origin popped and flashed behind them.
"Bonyu?" Bardock blinked twice before his eyes blanked out and terror took over his face. "I've told you all this was a bad idea! She's with the Ginyu Special Squadron!"
"No, no… Rest assured, visitors, that Bonyu has left the Ginyu Special Squadron years ago and came to join us here at the New Gadget Super Lovers. Her keen intellect serves a far better use to us than it did to the Captain Ginyu's elite force," the supposed captain of the New Gadget Super Lovers quickly cancelled his pose and began trying to settle the frightened visitors of his unorthodox corner of the universe down.
"Why are you so frightened of the Ginyu Special Squadron? Are you running away from them?" the incredibly thick female alien wondered, making an inquisitive expression as she leaned over her much shorter colleagues, succeeding in her task at intimidating Bardock.
"N-Not at all!" Bardock muttered in denial.
"We're heading to Planet Vegeta to resume our service to Lord Frieza after a very long and difficult mission off-planet. We're going to need some gear as the one we used is done with," Chayote made up a crafty lie on the fly. With this and how she fooled Raditz way back, the Saiyan woman thought to herself about how good she was getting at this sort of deceit.
"I see…" Bonyu scratched her chin. "Well, it wouldn't matter if you were at odds with those goofy tokusatsu show rejects. As Captain Oniyu said, I've left the Ginyu Force because I couldn't stand all the stupid dancing and posing."
"But you seem to still be posing on the New Gadget Super Lovers…" little Gohan observed, scratching his cheek. While the child had remained silent and felt too unimportant to have anything to add to the grand scheming of the more experienced warriors earlier, he felt like this contradiction was too glaring to ignore.
"Well done, token, relatable child character!" a tall and muscular colossus of a man with kind facial features that greatly contrasted his size and intimidating build and a full head of lush, orange hair commended Gohan while ducking down to bring himself to Gohan's level and pat his head. "You plug those plot holes real good, or else this story will lose marketability and we'll go Poof!"
"You're right, I'm still involved in some loathsome twirling dribble in this squadron," Bonyu sighed. "But these bozos don't change their poses around all the time and don't force me to do embarrassing moves all the time. Plus, it's almost as if like inventing new gadgets is what I've been born to do, unlike killing and plundering. All this nonsense twirling is a lot more tolerable with the Super Lovers, even if it is still a drag."
"So, you've come for some gear, didn't you? Well, boy, are you in for a treat!" a red-skinned member of the same race as Bonyu spoke up. This woman, however, was of a much more feminine and subtle build and had a much wilder tail of white hair behind her.
"We've got loads of merchandise for you, armors of all types and sizes, scouters, and whatever else you main and supporting cast might need for your butchering of a crucial, beloved arc of the series with your own, inferior in every way version that will spell out doom for this horrible fanfic!" Deita proclaimed, turning to the side where Kuruzo was already lugging a massive, cardboard crate of supplies that seemed to be much larger than the box itself as the armor, scouters and all sorts of other junk Frieza Army used loomed in a stack well beyond the box's edges.
"Mafuba!" Captain Oniyu chanted out, extending his hands to the front as a green void enveloped the entire planet and a howling gust of wind directed the merchandise in a flowing stream that slammed into the open door of the spaceship and filled it with supplies.
"Did he just…?" Piccolo's eyes shook wide open as his entire body twitched in terror over what he had just seen.
"Don't question it, just go along!" Bardock whispered to the Namekian's ear.
"Wow… That's a lot of merchandise…" Krillin scratched his head. "How much will all of it cost?" he wondered.
"Oh, don't bother. Don't even try that ridiculous idea with Piccolo's Magic Materialization fakes. That's hokey and it will only further dip the quality of this story down if you go with it!" Nyusu laughed out to the skies above before giving the Dragon Team a thumb up with a glistening smile on top.
"That's right, just make sure you add prince Vegeta to the supporting cast by the end of this arc, he's a major sell and a fan favorite amongst the Western audiences that comprise the entirety of the story's readership and we'll be even!" Kuruzo wiped the sweat that he had worked up lugging that massive crave of gear off his face.
"Vegeta, he's such a dreamy hunk… You better emphasize on that, this fanfic has been so dry so far… Where's your sense of romance, honestly!?" Nyusu started daydreaming at first but quickly snapped out of it to wag her finger at the confused Dragon Team.
"Also, we might need to borrow Goku-san for a Fire Brigade Special and maybe a Traffic Safety special in the future…" Captain Oniyu nodded to himself.
"R-Right… We're gonna go now…" Tenshinhan wheezed something out and, judging from everyone's looks, he spoke for everyone and everyone around him felt grateful to the three-eyed martial artist for his mental fortitude to excuse themselves from all of this insanity.
The Earthlings pressed their backs to the door as it shut closed while Bardock shoveled through heaps of merchandising to take a gander through the porthole, only seeing vast void of open space where the heaven of Dragon Ball based marketing was once located.
"Gags… Never again…" he wheezed out while stumbling over the junk littering the spaceship and fell to a bunk bed as he stared at the spaceship's ceiling with the eyes of a veteran who had just returned from the most fearsome battle yet.
"Well, we've got branded food and all the gear we can ever need…" Chayote breathed out easier now that their encounter with the New Gadget Super Lovers was over with and their journey to Planet Vegeta could resume.
"Right, time to put those couple of days we've got to a good use!" Yamcha pumped his fist, ready to start training. "This spacecraft won't have nearly enough space for good training but we can still image-train to our heart's content."
"There's something that I need to teach all of you." Chiaotzu exclaimed suddenly. "It's going to be necessary if you guys want to keep up with Goku-san and the Saiyans on Planet Vegeta."
"Chiaotzu?" Tenshinhan looked to his friend, surprised at this sudden initiative.
"Huh…?" Goku turned to Chiaotzu before his face widened and his jaw dropped. "No way, don't tell me!"
"Mmm…" Chiaotzu nodded with a blank expression on his face. "I've been to King Kai while I was dead. I've passed his test and learned the King Kai Fist. I didn't have enough time to learn the other technique, however…"
"Chiaotzu! You know the King Kai's Fist!?" Tenshinhan yelled out in amazement. "Amazing!"
"I guess even Chiaotzu has better comedic timing and sense of humor than dad!" Gohan chuckled out only for Krillin to join in, even if only four people in the room got his joke.
Atop of a large, white and futuristic tower of pearly, glossy material with gem-like windows in texture, a Saiyan soldier donning a full-head helmet turned to the supervisor as he pointed to a red dot on the radar. The supervisor rushed in and leaned over. Without needing to be told anything further, the soldier grunt focused in on the signature bringing up as much flashing information on the screen about the vessel as possible.
"Incredible, that speed, those specifications… It's based on Saiyan technology for sure, but it's not one of our spaceships. Contact whoever is onboard and find out what the purpose of their arrival is. Close the bouncy landing pad if they do not state a reason and send a party of soldiers to intercept them," the supervisor ordered.
The Dragon Team had been closing in on Planet Vegeta at last.