"Don't worry. Your fiancé's gonna be home safe and sound soon enough. Knowing Bulma's penchant for having people do everything for her and lack of restraint in paying for it, Lazuli will bring back home the bacon too," Yamcha nudged Krillin's side with a teasing grin on his face. He had his arm around the shoulder of a slender and short woman in a black turtleneck and long green hair. Despite being new to Yamcha's inner circle of friends, Emeralda looked comfortable and warm while surrounded by them. Almost as if she knew them her entire life. This might have been odd since Yamcha's newest girlfriend seemed around half Tenshinhan's age.
Chayote beamed a squinted stare at Yamcha while playfully wobbling her waist to the sides, gently stimulating Navy, who had climbed over her back like a little monkey and fell asleep waiting for something exciting to happen. There was no jealousy in the Saiyan's stabbing stare, just a very sharp reminder to the womanizer about what it was he told her a few years back why their relationship wouldn't work. While Chayote had zero interest in ever pursuing anything like that again, she wanted the point to stab as deep as she was willing to thrust it.
It was working too–any time Yamcha accidentally turned his head at an angle that included Chayote in his field of vision; he stretched his face out in distress and promptly turned away. It may have been petty, but Chayote was more than fine being the scolding kettle of boiling water for as long as she would know Yamcha in the foreseeable future. In a strange way, she even rooted for Yamcha to actually accomplish the impossible and marry this one. That way, she'd be able to point out his hypocrisy until the end of their days without having to say a word.
"I'm worried that it might become a habit with her…" Krillin pressed his hand to his forehead and shook his head in worry. "It's not that I would mind having a wife that makes more money than me. It's just… Bulma can be such a diva and I don't want Lazuli to get involved in all of her business. Besides, I'm sure that Bulma's petty enough to still hold Lazuli's previous employment against her. I can almost guarantee you she hands Lazuli all sorts of demeaning work."
"Are ya sure yer not scared 'a your girly makin' more money than you?" Yajirobe growled with a half-full mouth while sitting at the snack table and stuffing himself full of it while the ship was far away and he had the chance. "Ain't that the whole reason she's with ya, to begin with?"
"W-Well…" Krillin prodded his fingers with severe sweat, breaking out from his forehead. "It may have started like that, but… I don't think it's like that at the moment…"
"Why are you even here!?" Yamcha's expression got sterner. He'd have shaken his fist over his head at the little hairy ronin pest eating all of their food and pretending to be their good acquaintance while barely ever contributing when any of them needed anything if he didn't have his newest girlfriend rubbing herself against him for warmth and firmness. "You wouldn't spend a single sleepless night if Bulma, Goku, or Bardock died."
"That ain't even true," Yajirobe turned his chair around from the food and began picking his teeth. "I'd find out what type 'a undead they've become. Then I'd hunt them down, slice 'em up an' eat them so that they could make it to the Otherworld nice an' proper."
Emeralda broke into a brief spasm of chuckles before realizing that nobody was laughing. She scanned the yard and realized that every one of Yamcha's friends took what Yajirobe said with utmost seriousness. Given the fact that Yamcha was friends with a three-eyed man, a talking anthropomorphic pig, and his best friend was a levitating, transforming cat-like creature, Emeralda knew that her new boyfriend was a bit quirky, but she must not have suspected ghosts, aliens and demons to be part of the equation so she just gulped that realization down into a remote mental filing cabinet for further evaluation.
"Don't worry, Krillin," Chayote bumped into the circle of friends with the little monkey still hanging on her back and napping with a baby snore. "I might not know Lazuli that well, but working hard for her money sounds like the last thing on her mind. She's not with you because you give and buy her things, she's with you because you provide and entertain her without her having to move a finger."
"Th-Thanks!" Krillin smiled and managed to break into a peal of laughter. "I'm not sure how, but that actually cheered me up a little!"
"Hmm… You can all sense it, right?" Tenshinhan turned his head up. Everyone who bothered to show and could sense Ki all looked up at the sky. Videl was still weaker in terms of how developed her Ki sensory was, so she lagged by a bit, mirroring Gohan's movements while feeling nothing just yet.
"It has to be Kakarot," Chayote stated the obvious. As expected, his Ki soared to unbelievable heights and could've been traced from an entirely different star system.
"It's incredible that he can reach new levels of strength while being confined to a spaceship," Krillin shriveled up and shook his head. "It's tough to keep up with him and we had every tool at our disposal."
"Say, what are we all looking at the sky for?" Emeralda wondered, turning to Yamcha.
"Well, you see…" Yamcha cackled with an oafish look while ruffling his hair hard enough to scrape them off his scalp. "Me and my friends are powerful martial artists, as I've already told you. When you're at our level, we can kind of feel when one of us is close enough."
"Bardock's there too," Tenshinhan identified a relatively puny Ki signature that hid a terrifying level of power hidden behind artificial augmentations that Bardock kept after Bulma reversed some of Dr. Puri's cybernetic conversion the Saiyan went through. Tenshinhan looked at Launch when he said it, but the curly-haired blonde had her arms wrapped around Tenshinhan's arm, which somewhat confused the three-eyed martial artist given how close he thought Launch and Bardock were when he last saw them spending time in the city.
"I don't get it!" Trunks yelled out, parting away from Panchy's grasp and running off into the clear opening in the Capsule Corps' yard. "Where's Dad!? Why isn't his Ki there!? Why did Mom have the Capsule Corps Star brought back and why is she coming home without Dad!?"
Seeing Trunks so worked up made Chayote breathe out in a stressed pant. A kid shouldn't have been this worked up about their parent. It wasn't right. Not to mention the complicated package of the fact that it was Trunks who suffered this loss of having no father around to take care of him. It just tugged at painful strings of Chayote's deep down and made a psychological layer that Chayote would rather ignore yearn acknowledgment and being dealt with.
Slowly, so that she would not wake Navy up, Chayote walked up to Trunks and kneeled down so that she could place her hand on his shoulder for comfort. Trunks turned around with a bit of bewilderment. He's received nothing but cold shoulders and distant stares from this woman for as long as he could remember her, despite multiple people telling him she was a friend and a protégé of his mother's once. With a soft and comforting expression, Chayote dragged her hand over the boy's hair.
"I'm sure your mom has to have a good reason why she prioritized the star over finding Vegeta. Maybe she needs the star to find him? Maybe she can use the star to beam him back home? I know I didn't leave with Bulma and didn't help to find your father and that it sounds meaningless to say this now but… If there's ever another voyage to find your father and if you or your mother will need help, I'll do whatever I can," Chayote said. She did her best to restrain the bundle of razors going up and down her throat in the form of repressed feelings that sought a tearful revolution at the sight of a younger and childish version of Trunks in front of her. Even if she'd have to lose control for someone as undeserving of it as Vegeta, Chayote swore to herself that a kid shouldn't have shed tears yearning for a father if it was within her power to fix it.
She was so vain not to see it earlier.
"Everyone looks at you like you're some time bomb that can blow at any moment. Sometimes it looks like my mom's more scared and angry at you than she is at most people we end up fighting. Your services will be useful and I'll be holding you up to your word," Trunks turned away. The boy did his best to sound tough while he was hiding away the sniffling behind his façade. Knowing both his parents, it was tough to say which one he was more like since both of them were more alike than either would like to admit. Even if Chayote would have adamantly disagreed at first, in this case, the shoe truly fit the foot.
A bombastic flare lit up in the sky, making the more squeamish bystanders gasp while Trunks and Chayote backed up. The Capsule Corps vessel drastically slowed down the breakneck pace of crossing entire solar systems in a snap so that they didn't rupture through the Earth's surface like a speeding bullet. In that way, the atmosphere helped them a little. By the time the ship touched the ground with its extended mechanical support feet, they only let out a little squeak, and the ship was grounded.
Chayote's nose wriggled almost as if it had caught a suspicious whiff before its owner could figure out something was off. When the drawbridge extended, Bulma walked out like she was working the runway, with Bardock and Goku walking behind her like her bodyguards or something. Lazuli was still a relatively new acquaintance to Chayote, and the artificial woman usually acted grumpy anyway, so her strut directly behind Bulma didn't add to Chayote's questioning eyebrow being raised by even one inch.
"I'm back!" Bulma raised her hands, announcing her arrival in case the fiery and hasty landing hadn't done it for her already.
Goku walked up to his wife and a wonky little version of himself still clinging to his mother's lap but not out of fear of the man that helped raised him. Goten didn't part too far away yet because he could fly much straighter than he could walk, despite having a solid pair of legs. The father looked down with a stern and almost spiteful look down at little Goten. Chi-Chi looked at her husband with a worrying inquiry, since she's never seen Goku look at anyone this way before. Usually, her husband was more of a child than their son, excited to meet new people, good or bad.
"Hello there," Goku smirked with the right side of his face. Because his eyebrows didn't drop the sharp squint of disgust from his eyes, his smile looked almost like he was pitying his wife and son. "So glad to be home to you two."
"W-Welcome back, Goku-sa. Are you okay?" Chi-Chi wondered, questioning her husband's look and distant behavior.
"Don't worry," Bardock grumbled, smacking his hand from Goku's right side onto his son's shoulder with a strong, paternal tap. "Kakarot's just being a sore loser after having his ass kicked thoroughly by his old man on Image Training. Don't worry, son. It was all just literally in your head."
"Hmph…" Goku answered his father with a sullen look, showing Chi-Chi what Goku's true hateful eyes looked like and making her more relieved about the stare he gave his family back then. "You know us Saiyans. Loss only makes us grow stronger and more vicious, Father."
"Okay… That's not weird at all…" Krillin nudged Lazuli's side while leaning at his fiancé just to lighten the heavy and dour mood that fell onto the gathering of friends, despite Bulma's return being a joyous occasion. "You were there with them, what happened?"
"Nothing in particular," Lazuli dismissed Krillin. "You want to ditch these losers and go do something on our own?"
"N-Now!?" Krillin stumbled back in bewilderment. "I mean… I mean… Bulma hasn't even paid you yet, has she? There was supposed to be a party and… Maybe we should at least wait until Bulma pays you?"
"I guess…" Lazuli rolled her eyes. Judging from her gritted teeth and the light blush she worked up, she was more annoyed by the proposition than anything else. "Though it's not like she can't just send us the money, right?"
"Mom, what's going on here?" Trunks walked up to his mother with the sleeves of his hoodie rolled back as if he intended to beat his answers out from his mother. "Where's Dad and why did you have the Capsule Corps Star brought back home? I thought finding Dad was your priority!"
"We found your father, Trunks," Bulma leaned down to her son with a smile so clearly faked that the implied motherly warmth from it turned to apathetic frost. "You know how he is, running off and always looking for places to train. He won't come back until he's squeezed his training out of every bit of juice he can. And then… Planet Vegeta will be ours again. The Saiyans will come home and we'll come home with them. We'll all be one big happy family, Trunks. All of us."
"Huh?" Trunks scratched his head. "I wasn't aware that Dad planned to move back to Planet Vegeta. I thought that Meta-Cooler messed the planet up and that it's a scrapyard now…"
"That's why we need the Capsule Corps Star, Trunks. To restore the rightful home of our race back to its former glory. What the Big Gete Star took away, the Capsule Corps Star will fix. Though something's bothering Vegeta. He doesn't want to call our home Planet Vegeta anymore. You see, back in the day, it was called Planet Plant. And so your father thinks the planet should be called New Planet Plant," Bulma patted the head of her son, who couldn't look any more confused if he tried. The young boy wriggled out from under his mother's hand like it was making him shiver in discomfort.
"That doesn't sound like Vegeta at all," Chayote noted, intruding on the conversation. "The Vegeta I know wouldn't skip an opportunity to stick his name onto anything he can see and reach."
"Yes, well… Maybe you should have come with us and spoken to him. Or, better yet, maybe you should have spoken to him at all since the last time you fought him. Maybe then you'd have known the magnificent king he's transformed into rather than the savage he used to be," Bulma replied with a façade of politeness while radiating passive aggressiveness onto Chayote. "Oh… I see your little tot has grown. How… Quaint."
"Yeah… Well… Anyway…" Chayote wasn't sure how to transition from that. It was as if she was talking with a complete stranger. Then again, they were quite distant lately, and they certainly had their falling outs. "I promised Trunks that if he… Or you… Ever needed help, I'd be there. So if you need to find Vegeta or bring him back home or have some business that you could use my help on, I'm there for you."
"Oh… That's very kind of you, Chayote," Bulma only cranked up the faux politeness, looking like the literal devil who was about to shatter this façade of decency and devolve into slanted tongue wriggling, hissing, fire-breathing and soul-stealing business in a blink of an eye. "Though I can't imagine how and when we would need YOUR help."
Chayote's exhaled breath got stuck in her throat. She had no clue in hell why Bulma had to emphasize that exact sentence in that exact way. The only reasonable explanation that Chayote could arrive at was that Bulma took Chayote's refusal to leave initially way worse than Chayote intended it to be taken. Before Chayote could figure out if she should pry and try to mend the schism between them or just walk away and never turn back, Yamcha came up and pulled on Bulma's elbow.
Bulma turned back with the expression she would have given a journalist who intruded on her important business rather than a fling from her past and a lifelong friend. The disgruntled and bemused look appeared to even make Yamcha begin sweating and get flustered, making Emeralda have to pick up the slack for him.
"Hello, Bulma-san. My name is Emeralda, Yamcha and I have been dating for three weeks now. When Yamcha told me he knew the Bulma from Capsule Corps, I thought he was bragging. I mean… He's a famous professional athlete superstar, sure, he ought to have plenty of celebrity friends but… You're like… If anyone's really ruling the world, it's you. Right on, sister!" the green-haired bombshell extended her hand for a high-five only for Bulma to raise her right eyebrow.
"L-Look, Bulma… I know we used to date and all, and…" Yamcha tried speaking up for himself and explaining why he brought someone no one around knew for a welcoming party that Bulma probably intended for only their select circle of friends to experience together, but Bulma pressed her index finger to Yamcha's lips. The gesture made Yamcha's eyes shoot open and his cheeks flush red while Emeralda's jaw dropped and her high-fiving hand went limp.
"Yamcha, why on Earth should I care," Bulma shook her head with the most careless look in the world. While absolutely healthy, this reaction only made Chayote squint in suspicion harder. Healthy permissive were the last things that Chayote or anyone who knew Bulma would have used to describe her. Even long after Bulma married Vegeta and had kids with the King of Saiyans, she still looked like she'd never forgive Yamcha whenever she saw him happy with someone else.
"Emeralda, glad to meet you," Bulma turned to Yamcha's new girlfriend and grabbed hold of her hand, raising it back up to a high-five position so that Bulma could smack her hand and not leave Yamcha's new date hanging.
"Ow!" a sharp prickly feeling in her hand made Emeralda reel back and look at the fingernail scratch on her hand.
"Oh my, how clumsy of me…" Bulma chuckled lightly. "Let's go inside, I'll treat you to something cold and sweet while I personally patch you up. You simply must let me redeem myself for this ditzy mistake. We can't get off the wrong foot, I won't allow it."
"W-Well…" Emeralda was desperately looking for viable objections to excuse herself from having to leave anywhere one on one with the inheritor of Capsule Corps but if there was one aspect of Bulma's personality that didn't change during her voyage looking for Vegeta, it was her assertiveness. The tech mogul grabbed Emeralda by her elbow, as if it was she who was dating her, and dragged her to the mechanical door of the Capsule Corps.
Bulma's welcome home party was far more awkward than anyone could have expected, and no one had the slightest hint of why. Nobody from amongst the crew of returning space tourists bothered to mention anything about the trip, so the mystery wouldn't become any clearer anytime soon, or so it seemed. At least they were back home and things could finally return to normal again after all the Destron stuff and the Machine Mutant invasion and Chayote being petrified and all that…
Normalcy. The dream of it was what kept the mounting suspicions at bay. Now that it was within reach, no one dared to disturb the peace and muddle the waters again.