"What exactly are we looking for?" Lazuli wondered on the com speakers while she and Bulma floated in the widespread scrapyard leftover after the devastated M-2 just took off wherever it was headed. It was tough enough navigating the field, given that it spanned an entire planet's worth in radius and spanned several times as much in M-2's trail. Lazuli wasn't as bright as Bulma, but she felt sure that looking for something in such a wide junkyard would've required more precise scanning technology and a pod to move around in, rather than floating around in spacesuits with jetpacks.
"We'll know when we find it," Bulma didn't ease Lazuli's frustrations one bit. "For now, let's just find one demolished Machine Mutant, one looking as healthy as possible, and one in between. I've got some data on Machine Mutant anatomy from Giru."
"Alright, you're the one with the fat wallet…" Lazuli groaned and tapped the side of her headgear, activating a scouter displayed over the front visor. She looked around while Capsule Corps archives identified the discarded junk floating as wide apart as different cities. Here and there floated static Machine Mutants and upon fixing her scouter on the allegedly deceased artificial beings, it displayed more information about it, such as the extent of damage and its functionality. "At least we're not winging it," Lazuli sighed with moderate relief at the fact that Bulma cooked up this extraordinary radar for this occasion.
"Hmm… Yep, this one looks properly obliterated," Bulma dashed up to a miserable pair of legs attached to a torso that's been blown off halfway with wires and done away parts still party sticking out. "This one will do," she mumbled to herself, with the coms still active while placing the wrecked Machine Mutant inside of a capsule to be brought back to the ship for some examination later.
A few moments later, Lazuli got her eyes on a relatively unscathed sample as a mere dot in the view of the system's star muzzled by the tinted visor. Lazuli pressed her feet to one another and blasted off, riding her jetpack further and further toward the promising signal. It didn't seem like she'd ever get used to space. Everything felt like it was taking forever. Even flying to that miserable deceased Machine Mutant took almost twenty minutes. Having closed the gap, Lazuli jerked the corpse around and examined its state.
"This is strange. This one's only got light scrapes. The shell's scratched, but I can't see any internal damage," Lazuli reported.
"Nice find, let's see what that one died from in the lab. I think I found our ace sample too–really banged up, but I don't think it should've died of it. Alright, we've got oxygen for forty-five more minutes, let's get back to the ship and check those samples out," Bulma replied.
"You mean you're going to dissect them, right?" Lazuli asked with a hopeful glint in her tone.
"What's the matter, never took you for the squeamish type," Bulma teased her overpaid hired hand.
"It's not that. That old hag Puri had me and Lapis learn all that stuff about biology and chemistry and cybernetics, I think she wanted us to pass as her partners and department heads. That stuff always bored both of us out of our minds," Lazuli groaned.
"Don't worry, as curious I am to see how good of a researcher you'd make, I'll do the work. Nothing personal, it's just that what's happened to Vegeta is killing me inside and I want to have the full picture in my mind myself. Besides, I might be rich, but my personal funds aren't bottomless. I dread imagining what you'd ask me for this much overtime, as you put it," Bulma replied as the two followed their directions back to the ship.
Super No. 16 and Super One-Nine entered Dr. Puri's control chamber, walked up behind their family matriarch, and stopped. Super No. 21 was watching the readings from outside the Luud Star and observing the situation developing with her out of the loop. A hint of slight frustration hung over Super No. 21's face, whereas her children appeared emotionless.
"Bulma is using you. Why would she keep you out of the loop? It's because she intends to hurt our family, mother," Super One-Nine said, implying that their best course of action was to strike quickly and hard with no emotional maturity or inner contemplation of what such action would mean.
"That makes no sense, Bulma agreed to let our family leave Earth and we're helping her find her husband. She has no reason to have ill will toward us," Super No. 16 disagreed with no passion or anger behind it.
"She's keeping her work to herself and she doesn't enjoy working with us, but I don't think she's a danger to our family. She's a family woman herself, just like Chayote and I. She's certainly made her disdain for me clear, which is why I feel perfectly safe entrusting our fates to her. She isn't trying to pretend to be our ally or friend. She's working with us because she has to because we have superior technology and information she doesn't. Meanwhile, we need her and her friends' help to prevent the universe from getting undone, or redone, or… Whatever the Machine Mutants' plan for it currently is," Dr. Puri replied, closing her eyes and sighing in discomfort about this entire situation.
"Still, it wouldn't hurt to keep a close eye on her and hack into her suit's oxygen supply just to see you can snuff it out anytime you want to," Super One-Nine proposed with no hint of malice or a twitch of a muscle in her pale face.
"That would only aggravate our cooperation," Dr. Puri looked a bit saddened because she didn't see this as a viable option. "I am keeping a close eye on her, and what I'm seeing shows me no signs for concern. She's retrieved a few samples of Machine Mutant bodies. I'm running scans on them as we speak. We'll likely find out what she will by analyzing those samples by hand faster than she will."
The two Super Artificial Humans stared at the screen, running blueprints and flashing analytical data with peerless processing power unavailable to any other system in the entire universe. Examining every nook and cranny and every gear inside of the scanned bodies of these samples in mere moments, Dr. Puri minimized the entire cluster of windows and weaved her fingers together, raising her left leg over her right.
"Will you contact Bulma and tell her these samples are worthless?" Super No. 16 asked with a straight face, looking down and to the left of his mother.
"No need, let her entertain herself in her little science experiments. Our attention is best focused elsewhere, on the location of the remains of the… Sigh… Capsule Corps Star… And where M-2's final destination is. I think… I think that's what a partnership is, right? I leave her alone to play researcher while I perform other tasks," Dr. Puri waved her hand in dismissal of the idea. "Oh, before you two leave, One-Nine, I noticed you've taken Dolltaki's office as your room."
"That's right, mother. He may have been a strange one, but his dollhouse is simply breathtaking and his doll collection is extensive. The exhilaration of my tea parties has been up by 85% since I repurposed his leisure activity assets," Super One-Nine nodded and bowed on one knee, tipping the silhouette of her dress.
"You know that his doll collection was likely made of other victims he turned to dolls, right?" Dr. Puri raised a questioning eyebrow. "I imagine that being turned into a doll and played with by that creep must have felt awful, but that's exactly how those other victims feel."
"Not to worry, mother. The Para Para Brothers helped me repair Dolltaki's rod and we've turned whoever survived the ordeal with Luud back to their normal forms and sent them out on one of the shuttles," Super One-Nine replied before looking up to Super No. 21 with a sheepish smile. "Was I a good girl?"
"Yes, even though I'd have liked to know you did all that, but you did good by letting those people go," Super No. 21 stood up and patted her daughter's head, gently ruffling her curly auburn hair.
"You know… I was wondering, Mother… That Dolltaki's rod is dangerous, isn't it? It's ability to turn anything into dolls, it's awfully dangerous to be left alone. What if the Para Para Brothers betray us, or someone steals it and uses it against us? We'd be helpless," Super One-Nine turned her head up, surprising Super No. 21 a little with her initiative.
"What is your proposition?" Dr. Puri pressed her knuckles against her waist.
"I was thinking we disassemble it and you upgrade me with its parts. That way, that ability becomes our asset and no one can use it against us," Super One-Nine proposed with a gentle smile. This much emotion and excitement were a bit unlike her usually apathetic self.
"Little sister…" Super No. 16 turned to his little sibling and kneeled down to look her in the eyes on her level. "This proposition of yours sounds like an attempt to gain control over something that traumatized you. You should know that we're your family and you can always talk to us about it. How you're dealing with this isn't healthy."
"I agree, it would be far easier for me to just assimilate that staff rather than to upgrade you manually with its parts. Studying that rod and how it works, finding out which parts to remove and how to upgrade you properly, ensuring maximum compatibility and an optimal control mechanism for the dollification ability… All that could take some time and we're in the middle of something right now," Super No. 21 said.
"B-But… Big brother got his upgrades before we landed on the Luud Star, Mother assimilated Father, and then Luud's remains as well. I feel awfully outdated. What if… What if I become obsolete and you end up replacing me with a newer daughter?" Super One-Nine blew her cheeks out and stomped her foot in a childish fit. Super No. 21 answered her adopted Android daughter's challenge at fencing with stares before sighing in submission.
"Very well, I'll look into upgrading you using Dolltaki's staff while Bulma's busy playing with her samples. I curse the day I built these cute blue puppy eyes for you," Dr. Puri relented and walked out, followed by her two children. Super One-Nine marched with a peppy step with a heating-based blush to her pale cheeks and a hearty smile of contentment while she nuzzled her cupped hands against her cheeks to help her pale cheeks maintain the healthy pink blush longer.
"I'm not entirely sure what to make of these findings," Bulma crossed her arms, biting into the fingernail of her thumb while staring at the disassembled Machine Mutant and speaking out loud for the recording. "The destroyed sample certainly fits the profile of destruction of a Ki blast or a super-powered punch. I've got no doubts that Vegeta proved to be the end of this Machine Mutant. The other two, however… They're puzzling. They don't appear to have suffered too much damage. They certainly should have still been functional, and yet…"
The undone and disassembled body on Bulma's table sprung to life with a lively kick-up. Bulma's face went cold as her body became too paralyzed with fear and confusion to try running away or fighting back. The scientist's whole life flashed before her eyes as she returned to the fateful moment when she came face to face with the Demon King Piccolo. Not again…
Before Bulma could scream, the scout raised its arm and fired a lone shot. Bulma staggered back with shaking hands, waiting for the searing pain and shock to kick in and the pain came, however, it didn't come from her waist or her chest. The bullet seemed to just graze her cheek. Was the Machine Mutant's targeting system in a fritz? This was her chance, Bulma turned around to bolt and, pushing through the trickling blood from her cheek, screamed out.
Super Saiyan Goku soared through the Moon's surface, landing a solid flying kick at Bardock's waist and stunning his old man. After promptly standing up, the Super Saiyan repeated the kick with a flight-assisted slide for additional force. A blazing halo of energy burst around Bardock's body as Goku's Super Saiyan Ki went clean through his opponent's body and exploded on the other side. Drawing his hands back and thrusting them out, Goku released a blindingly swift Kamehameha wave point-blank, sending his father soaring away.
With his golden aura erupting wildly around his body and engaging the full luster of Super Saiyan as opposed to the tranquil state of Perfect Super Saiyan, Goku rushed headlong and delivered a vertical punt to Bardock's chin, shooting him off into the atmosphere where the Super Saiyan pursued his father. Fooling Bardock's attempts at defense, Goku swerved a full circle around him in the air and delivered a spinning roundhouse into Bardock's spine, before punting him up again, then vanishing and dashing in from afar with a finishing hook that smashed Bardock through the Moon onto the other side of the satellite.
A chilling scream distracted the two Saiyans from continuing their vision training, both of them sprang up, snapped out of their dreams of duking it out on the Moon, and dashed out of the room, rushing toward Bulma's lab. By the time they made it to the door and the mechanical door opened up with a hum, Lazuli was standing in front of the laboratory table with Bulma sitting on her rear end, clutching her right cheek. It wasn't tough identifying a Ki blast position from Lazuli, and the look on her face left no doubt about the fact she was trying to deal with something. When the two Saiyans turned their heads to the laboratory table, there was only a smoldering pile of wreckage.
"Th… The Machine Mutant came to life and… And attacked me…" Bulma dragged her twitching hand away from her face, revealing a minor graze on her cheek. Behind her, there was a drawer with chemical jars on display. It had a transparent trail of smoke and a dot-shaped crack on it. The shot that went through the glass of the drawer cracked a medical tube that leaked a green fluid that gently tapped from the drawer's cracks into the sink below.
"You should call this science experiment of yours quits, Bulma," Lazuli grumbled at the distraught scientist who, uncharacteristically to her, was shaking on her back and panting.
"Y-Yeah…" Bulma nodded, still clutching her head in between her hands and looking to be one step away from falling over and rolling on the floor in a complete mental breakdown.
Goku scratched his head. He walked up to his old-time friend and leaned down to press his hand against her shoulder gently and offer her a reassuring look. "Bulma, it's okay. You're safe now. We wouldn't have let anyone hurt you," Goku gave his friend an encouraging thumb up with a wink and a warm smile. He's never had to do this before and he's only seen Bulma like that during the earliest days of their friendship when the girl didn't know too well or trust him that much yet. Ever since, even if she was awfully weak by their standards and faced those same threats they stood against, she's always stood tall and spoken truth to power whenever she had to. Goku just always thought that Bulma knew they had her back.
The only times he needed to use these tools of reassurance were with Gohan and Goten when the two little rascals got themselves into trouble and cried loud enough for Goku to hear from a different side of Mount Paozu. He's never had to console Bulma like this.
"Yeah," Bulma nodded, looking down at her shaking hands and pressing them against her cheeks as if feeling herself up and running them down her body. After checking if all her limbs were in place and the Machine Mutant hadn't blown a hole she wasn't aware of in her, Bulma smiled and burst into a cackle, scanning the laboratory and her friends who seemed confused about her nervous reaction more than worried. "I guess I am safe. That's why I brought you guys along."
"That's enough adventure for one day, don't you think?" Bardock wondered with a strict look at Bulma. In this fragile, broken-down woman he saw traces of Gine when she got herself into more of a pickle than she could handle because of her gentle heart, and Bardock had to pitch in to help her out. Whether it be scolding abusive Saiyan bullies or picking up more work than she could handle, Bardock initially felt hesitant to help because he figured it would hurt her Saiyan pride. He's learned a lot from his time with Gine and has grown into a much more capable man. Even if Gine was now gone, Bardock was ready to put his maturity to good use.
"No, no!" Bulma hopped to her feet and began dusting her lab coat, looking reinvigorated. Almost as if the shock of a near-death experience had completely vanished without a trace. "In fact, I think I want to contact Dr. Puri and ask her to do something for me."
"Huh? Now?" Goku scratched his head.
"Yeah, you two just stop worrying your knuckleheads about it and go work out or whatever it is you two do here," Bulma shooshed at the pair before strutting proudly out of the lab and approaching the control panel of the ship.
"Bulma, I didn't expect you to reach out to me, I will admit," Super No. 21 turned to the screen. Based on loads of schematics and processes running all around her in her lab, the artificial woman was working on plenty of things on her end as well.
"I've thought about your offer, Dr. Puri. I agree we should leave this wreckage behind and repair the Big Gete Star instead. We're off against one of the Four Stars, aren't we? That means we need to stack the odds against us. Please deliver the remains of the Big Gete Star to Earth where I can repair it. While I work on the Big Gete Star, you should salvage what's left of the Dark Planet," Bulma leaned forward with previously unseen confidence and a sassy smirk on her face. This went a bit beyond her usual immovable confidence. This look on her face looked almost mocking and scoffing at those who would choose her and her allies as their enemies maliciously.
"Wait, Bulma… Do you have any clue how much time that will take? What about rescuing Vegeta?" Bardock grunted, frustrated. "I told you, you're not being yourself right now. Go have some rest, then you can talk it out with Puri later."
"I'll have to agree with Bardock, Bulma," Dr. Puri replied to the image on the holographic screen projected in front of her. "A series of undertakings like these might take a full year to complete. I thought you were in a hurry to find your husband. What's all this about? Did you discover something in that wreckage?"
"No, nothing but dead and broken junk," Bulma ran her hand sifting through her hair with dismissal. "I just got a sense of perspective just now. My husband is the most powerful, ultimate, super-elite warrior in the entire universe. Some Machine Mutant scientist wouldn't get the better of him and if Vegeta's away on his own, that means that he's okay and that he must have just discovered some amazing new training method. But I know him, he's a family man deep down, so he'll come back when he will. I have absolute faith in him and his dream."
"His dream?" Goku scratched his head.
"Are you sure that Machine Mutant didn't punch you or something? You're not making much sense, as if you're concussed or something…" Lazuli objected.
"Ah, Lazuli, don't you worry. I know you would like to run my tab even higher chasing after Vegeta through the entire universe, but you'll be adequately and handsomely rewarded, as you already have been when I repaired the damage to your body and skin," Bulma turned to Lazuli, addressing her more like her boss rather than her friend or family. "As for you two, I've told you to go bash your heads against the wall or whatever you brawling savages do. You have no place in the room where business is being discussed."
"Come on," Bardock grabbed his baffled son by the elbow and guided him out of the room with a solemn look on his face. "Can't you see we're unwanted here?"
"Very well, if that's what you propose," Dr. Puri agreed to Bulma's plan with some hesitation. "Though delivery of the entire… Capsule Corps Star… is going to be troublesome. You can't just park that whole thing in your backyard or stuff it in the lab. Neither of the Four Stars was ever meant to be docked on another planet. It's a cybernetic world of its own."
"That's okay, I'll send you the coordinates of a dozen of Capsule Corps affiliate laboratory locations. Just deliver the wreckage there separately and I'll make sure that all those separate labs assemble the Big Gete Star back together. Then, when it's ready, we'll launch and connect it in the Earth's atmosphere," Bulma explained her plan.
"Deliver? You mean… Land on Earth?" Dr. Puri shook her head in absolute shock at what she was hearing from Bulma. The last person ever to advocate for Dr. Puri stepping her foot on Earth's soil ever again.
"Not necessarily," Bulma stretched her lips and elaborated somewhat. "I'm sure you can launch the parts from the orbit and have them land on Earth separately. A project like that should be child's play to someone with their hands on the Luud Star, am I wrong?"
"No, it will be, just making sure," Dr. Puri shook her head. "I am doubtful about the use of salvaging the Dark Planet. The Destron Gas, the production and processing of which was its core function, has almost certainly all been burnt up. What's left has been processed by your drones. There's not a trace of it left in the universe now. The rest is just wreckage, hi-tech wreckage, but wreckage nonetheless."
"We can use what we salvage from the Dark Planet to upgrade the Big Gete and Luud Stars, and you shouldn't fret too much about the Destron Gas. My drones have collected plenty of data so I don't see creating some more being impossible with both of us behind the wheel," Bulma shrugged. "You know, in case we need it for a contingency or something."
"Understood, let's stay in touch. I will want to discuss parts and details of this plan some more soon enough," Dr. Puri nodded with strange reservations instilled in her reflection.
"I'll be available when you need me, Dr. Puri," Bulma nodded and turned the communications off, turning around with a malevolent grin etched into her expression.
Not much longer than five minutes ago, the miraculously activated Machine Mutant drone aiming at Bulma began convulsing and its metallic shell and parts became lavender-colored and highly malleable. The lavender sludge matching mercury in its consistency and texture, spewed itself out and coated Bulma whole, forcing the brilliant scientist to wrestle against it as the lavender bio-mass crawled up her body and seeped through her eye sockets, nostrils, mouth, and the scratch on her cheek until it was no more.
Bulma fell on the ground, thrashing and crawling around her laboratory as the immovable, slimy muck slid down her airways and seemed to coat her body from the inside while parts of it burrowed into her brain. Grabbing her head, Bulma felt nothing but sticky, liquid goop coating the right side of her face. Horrified, Bulma saw parts of her reflection in the lab glass. The right side of her face had been covered in that bio-mass, lavender and grey colored with a comically large, red right eye and a long, wide antenna sloping off to the right side of the top of her head.
Lazuli burst into her lab, Bulma turned at her and jumped away as if scolded by hot water and fearing that Lazuli would misunderstand and blast her away. Instead, asking no questions, the Android turned to the Machine Mutant drone and fired a Ki blast at it, breaking it apart into the tiniest pieces and frying any remains irreparably.
By the time Goku and Bardock rushed to her help, Bulma was gone. There was only Baby.