A cerulean sky beam enveloped Baby's worn-out and panting body. In an instant, the Tsufurian super-organism that's begun assimilating and merging with the host body by forcing their union because of desperation vanished and reassembled particle by particle aboard the Big Gete Star, surrounded by Machine Mutants.
"B-Baby-sama! You need medical assistance!" a Machine Mutant exclaimed in a tone that sounded highly automated while its front central light beeped and blinked, instructing the Big Gete Star to once again merge with the bruised Baby Vegeta and let its power surge through the Tsufurian's body, revitalizing him.
"Baby-sama transformed! Is this the Super Saiyan transformation that Baby-sama was talking about?" another Machine Mutant drone hovered to the side while mechanical wires descended and coiled from the ceiling level, wrapping around Baby Vegeta's battered body and elevating him into the air. Having become this unbelievably powerful, a victory that came at such a grievous cost felt far more humiliating than Bardock's sound defeat against the strongest in the universe.
"No… I couldn't achieve it. However, by forcing a deeper union and squeezing the host body for all the power they're worth, and suppressing their consciousness and memories, I've managed to alter my possession into a fusion. No longer am I just a spare consciousness nabbing at the back of Baby Vegeta's head. We have truly become one. That being said, my level of maturity is still insufficient for a perfect fusion. I need to reach my adult stage to perfect this transformation," Baby scoffed, wallowing in the humiliation for a second time in a row that a battle left him in dire need of regeneration and stimulation of the trait of a Saiyan's body to grow stronger after grueling battles.
"Astonishing!" a Machine Mutant drone beeped in admiration.
"If I hadn't attempted to control the entire universe and spread my flesh too wide, all across, I'd have long since reached my adult stage!" Baby gnashed his teeth. "These Saiyans proved to be nothing but a disappointment. When I recover, we will collect the Dragon Balls and revive our people, restore our planet to its former state, then we will eliminate every Saiyan on Planet Earth! In all of these centuries, they haven't changed their barbaric ways one bit!"
Baby's outrage calmed down when the Big Gete Star numbed the pain resonating throughout Vegeta's body and left Baby entranced and in a hibernating state. However, unlike before when his activity was suspended, this time there wasn't even a peep of Vegeta's voice deep down. No mockery or self-righteous posturing. Just silence.
Goku hopped around and committed to a strenuous shadow-boxing routine. The intense red artificial atmosphere with the highest gravitational pressure around him that Bulma's gravity machine could handle distorted light and made the very outlines of each object present in the training room misshapen and choppy. It was like everything in sight became cut up into noodle-like strings and then dragged up and down by the capricious gravitational pull.
However, Goku wouldn't register something that he'd have found hilarious under ordinary circumstances. That was because he was too enthralled with his training. Before him he didn't see the funny, distorted colors or entrapped light, struggling to make something out of the things it slogged at a snail's pace to. No, Goku was fighting with every foe he had ever faced, taking all of them all at once. Without even tapping into his Super Saiyan power, still struggling against the light-distorting gravitational pull, Goku swatted the images of the strongest opponents he had ever faced, amped up as if they had kept up with their training to this day.
It's been a long time since he's pushed his body this far. Usually, Goku liked to balance his training out, push it to the limit, then kick back and relax for a few days before putting the strain on again. Based on what Bulma told him, Vegeta was completely different. He was every bit as tyrannical on his own body as he was scathing with his opponents and rivals. For some reason, since Goku might end up fending off someone fighting with Vegeta's body, he felt it fitting to train using Vegeta's methods. He's wasted enough time babysitting Goten. Soon enough, the little twerp is going to be of age to start training and Goku would have hated to disappoint his son.
Rolling backward through the air, Goku landed on his weighted boots and huffed full lungs of air out before approaching the gravity machine with strained and heavy movements. Fatigue pounded at every muscle on Goku's body, but he's long since come to love that pain. A slam of his hand against the panel de-activated the gravity room, only for Goku to stumble and fall back on his rear, wheezing, and panting to get used to the alleviated pressure of the ordinary Earth's gravity.
Bulma was incredibly strict about that. No drones she could build could withstand the gravity that Goku was training under. Even those that Vegeta usually trained with popped under such pressure with no need to attack them. She demanded that Goku switched back to normal gravity so that his body didn't get too used to the oppressive and light-bending pressure. Goku liked it this way more, anyway. By constantly alternating between normal and gravitational forces surpassing the number that the gravity room machine could measure up to, he put his body through a doubled amount of stress as it had to learn to handle itself on the intense gravity conditions while also learning to hold itself together and not just explode into a bloody pulp when the gravity returned to normal.
After getting his breathing back together, Goku kicked up to his feet and approached the control panel in control of the entire docked spaceship he was training in. He pressed the button to call Bulma and waited for a few seconds for Bulma's vexed face to appear on the screen. The image was a bit choppy, but then again, the gravity room was designed to withstand tremendous gravitational shifts and not provide sublime visual and audio clarity.
"What is it, Son-kun? You realize that I have a very important job to attend to and that stunt that Baby Vegeta pulled by leveling West City all falls on the shoulders of Capsule Corps, right? Man… The board is going to be furious, and I bet the King will strangle us with audits and official government inquiries to reply to!" Bulma cradled her stressed out of this world head in between her hands, annoyed at one of many Goku's interruptions. She's already provided him with everything he's asked for until this point, including putting her father to work on removing the limiters from the gravity machine, which allowed to crank the gravity up higher than the highest number the system could recognize.
"Say, say, Bulma…" Goku scratched his head. "Why am I stuck training here again? Collecting the Dragon Balls would go much faster if I went at it…" he put his arms on his hips with a childish pout.
"Because…!" Bulma groaned. "Baby's dealt with me before. He has access to Vegeta's memories and, with the help of his Machine Mutant cohorts and the impossible processing speed of the Big Gete Star, he can do any amount of research he wants in no time at all. When he's ready to gather the Dragon Balls, he'll need a Dragon Radar to do that. Capsule Corps is the only place that can give him that. He might think that we're still allies since he still hasn't given me Vegeta's body back, which he owes me, mind you. If he or one of his goons will make their move, they'll make it here."
"Cool!" Goku smiled, punching his open hand in excitement. "That means that when Baby comes here, looking for trouble, I can knock him flat!"
"Ugh… I prefer you didn't endanger Vegeta's body, but… Yes, if he comes here and trouble can't be avoided, you're allowed to fight him in order to protect my and my son's life," Bulma rolled her eyes. "Remember though, that we can't kill him or injure Vegeta's body too badly, or else we won't be able to save Vegeta's life and he's already been brought back with the upgraded Dragon Balls once."
"Heh, I'm not sure I'll have that much control over the battle, to be honest," Goku snickered, overcome with exhilaration. "Baby Vegeta's transformation elevated to an unbelievable level of power, far surpassing anything we've faced before. If he does come here looking for trouble, I'll have to use my full power just to survive and the slightest mistake will cost us the battle."
"That's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. You haven't been brought back with the new Dragon Balls yet. You're expendable," Bulma glared at the screen with a solemn look that relayed that Bulma was only partly kidding when she made that declaration. "I cannot stress enough how perfectly we need to play this. If Baby matures into adulthood inside Vegeta's body, we will only be able to extract him from Vegeta's body without killing Vegeta by using the Dragon Balls and he'll have that leverage over us. Vegeta won't be able to be resurrected again and I won't let him get off his duties as a father and a husband that easy!"
"Yeesh, that's cruel," Goku winced. Then again, it was hardly any better than the treatment Chi-Chi sometimes put him through when his aloof nature irritated her. At the very least, the Saiyan felt like he could peer deeper into Bulma's cold shoulder behavior and empathize with how much Vegeta meant to his lifelong friend and ally. "I'll get back to training then. Let's leave the Dragon Balls to Mr. Popo, Yamcha, and Yajirobe."
The screen with Bulma's irked face flickered and turned off. After a few more breaths and stretches, Goku walked off to the fridge to eat up before he resumed training to kill time while he stood guard on Capsule Corps.
"Whaa!" Gohan cried out before pinching his nose. Inside his school locker, there was a swirled piece of dinosaur poop that radiated its stench all over his sports gear.
"Hey, Saiyan!" a voice called out to Gohan who turned to the direction the voice came from only to meet a handful of jocks who looked both outraged by his presence in Central City school and intimidated by what he knew about the physical strength the Saiyans had to approach him and bully him face-to-face. "That crap's going to be on your textbook if you're not out of this school by next week! Better yet, isn't it about time that you and the other savages get the hell off our planet and stop blowing up our cities!? I was supposed to start school in West City, but I'm stuck in Central City now!"
"Yeah… Well, I was supposed to start school in Orange City before the Machine Mutant invasion, then West City, so I'm stuck here just like you," Gohan shrugged. "Besides, my mom is an Earthling, so I've never lived on Planet Vegeta, to begin with."
"Don't bother with them, Gohan," Videl stepped in, crossing her hands, and beaming a death-inducing stare their way. Back in the day, she'd have pummeled all of them and left them hospitalized, but learning martial arts from Gohan and Chayote helped her better understand and respect her strength, teaching her restraint. "You can't educate a bigot!"
"Oh, look, the Saiyan's found himself a girlfriend in the daughter of that loser, second-place Capsule Corps stooge Hercule! I'd say that's sad, but she's actually in your league so well done!" the jock yelled out before turning around and walking off alongside his cronies.
"D-Did he just diss ME?" Videl gasped with a wide stare. "I can't believe it… I've become unpopular somehow!?"
"Sorry, Videl-san," Gohan scratched the back of his head, looking guilty. "I guess being seen around me hurt your social standing."
"No, it's too much stuff happening all at once. My dad changing his name and no one recognizing him anymore, all those cities and their schools getting blown up, leaving everyone crammed in schools in other cities, my dad losing the election…" Videl was about to mention the abysmal reputation of the Saiyans after the Saiyan Summit that left the West City almost entirely leveled to the ground but, out of consideration for Gohan's feelings, she left that up in the air. "It's just that… I've never been in this position. Ever since grade school, my dad's always been the Hero of Earth…"
"That's okay, I'll just stop holding my stuff in the lockers. It's no problem at all to blitz back home to pick it up from my room during recess…" Gohan smirked with a genuine and warm smile. Videl sighed. Despite all the flak he received since the school started, all the blatant bigotry he's experienced because of his upbringing and all the wayward stares, being forced to suppress his strength and even his intelligence so that he doesn't stand out too much and get into more trouble, Gohan could still smile and maintain his calming and warming presence to be around.
"Maybe it's for the better that we get homeschooled…" Videl shook her head. "I mean, Chayote-san is still the head of Chayote Security and she still respects my dad and tries to help him get his groove back after losing the election. They wouldn't mind, I'm sure."
"Well… The thing is that we're not doing too well in terms of money. There hasn't been a World Martial Arts Tournament in over a decade. My grandpa's fortune isn't exactly renewing either since his castle burnt down and he had to leave his village. Besides, I'm embarrassed to ask him for money anyway…" Gohan prodded his fingers with the first hint of shame that Videl had seen in him ever since he started school. This was extremely strange given the treatment he's received. It probably couldn't be helped, the Saiyans and the outcome of the summit were all over the news. The tensions between the Earthlings and the Saiyans were some of the highest ever since Vegeta and the rest of the Saiyans first settled down on Planet Earth.
"You idiot!" Videl pressed her knuckles to her waist, lashing out at Gohan. "You're good friends with Bulma, the current president of Capsule Corps, the richest woman in the world! Chayote-san, the head of Chayote Security, the most powerful military organization on Earth is a friend of your family's, not to mention, you're my martial arts teacher and… Well… We know each other really well, don't we? How can you be so dense in thinking you've got money problems!?"
"Why did you get so flustered when you wanted to say we were friends?" Gohan wondered, with a completely clueless look on his face. "If you… If you want to get your social standing back and don't want to be associated with me anymore, that's okay, but you should let me know."
"You…" Videl tucked her chin and hid her tearful eyes under her hair which was slowly beginning to grow back and could now once more easily obscure her face. "For all of your smarts, you really are clueless! I get it pretending to be ordinary in class, so that you don't attract attention and more bullying, but you don't have to act stupid around me!"
"Videl…" Gohan scratched his neck, wondering what it was that he said or did wrong as Videl ran off upstairs. They had physical education next. The gym was on the ground floor in a separate building. There were only classrooms upstairs…
"Look, even the Saiyan's girlfriend dumped him!" some overgrown slim brat pointed fingers at Gohan from the side while he and his friends laughed out. Gohan completely no-sold their attempts at getting under his skin, like he usually did, but something they said made him scratch his chin and delve deep into his thoughts.
"Girlfriend?" he muttered to himself. There was something he didn't see here and Gohan very much wanted to understand it, because he had a nibbling feeling deep down that Videl would stop talking to him until he realized what he said or did wrong and apologized to her.
At the very least, she should have told him if they were still going to practice martial arts after school. That was Gohan's only source of income, and it was only because of their martial arts lessons that Gohan could afford to study in the same school as Videl.
"Giru-Giru?" Giru blinked its red light while levitating out in front of Videl, who sat curled on top of a skyscraper near the school and wept. Giru looked a bit baffled about why Videl would have activated him and let him out of her backpack. He didn't really have any insights into human psychology, nor did he have a device available to him that he could eat and assimilate that would have helped him understand why Videl was crying.
"That Gohan… Honestly," Videl sniffled. "How can he just say that we're just friends so casually, without a care in the world?"
"Giru-Giru, are you and Gohan, not friends?" Giru wondered, turning itself sideways with a slight tilt while expelling vivid red flame from its jetpack. "Giru was under the impression that Videl and Gohan were close allies. You've asked Giru to eat your DVD machine and television, a stereo and a projector. You've had Giru play music for your dancing evenings and project movies during sleepovers. Giru was under the impression those were friend activities."
"You don't understand! Of course, we're… Of course, we're… Friends… It's just that…" Videl frantically wiped her tears and snotty nose with the sleeve of her uniform blazer. "I thought he would stop and reflect on it more. It's difficult to sign off our relationship as just us being friends, at least… It wasn't supposed to. When it first came up, I hesitated to say it. He didn't hesitate for a second!"
"You're right…" Giru turned away, scanning the bustling Central City streets and monorail lines with his lone blinking red light. Videl looked up to Giru, achieving a momentary truce with her emotions. She expected something profound to come from Giru's speakers at any moment. Something that would illuminate aspects of relationships of biological species that were only available to an objective outside observer. "Giru doesn't understand." Giru made Videl flip out with a sudden and unexpected proclamation.
"Whatever, it was a bad idea. All of this. Calling you out, skipping gym class…" Videl sighed. "I just… I don't want to see his stupid face for a while. If I do, I think I'm going to punch it. Mash it much harder than I want to smash the faces of those people hating him for who he is and making fun of me because of who my father is."
"Is… Is Giru Videl's friend?" Giru wondered all of a sudden without turning away from the brewing sights of Central City.
"What?" Videl squinted her right eye in confusion.
"Videl said it, she said that she ran away from class and activated Giru, let Giru out of the backpack when she clearly didn't need Giru. Videl spoke to Giru and was honest around Giru. Videl spoke to Giru about her other friends. Giru observes from experience that Earthlings speak that way with their friends. They contact people when they don't need them to do anything, in particular when they're friends. Is Giru Videl's friend?" Giru detailed what led him to his surprising conclusion.
"I just…" Videl looked away, wiping more tears and snot off her face, while a bit flustered about this question. She felt embarrassed to admit that some alien robot was her most trusted friend whom she vented her frustrations to. Did she consider Giru as her friend or was he more like a really advanced diary, like the notebooks she laid her heart bare when she was much younger? "Do you want to be my friend?" she asked.
"Videl stood up for Giru. When Giru ran away from the Sigma Force and when he abandoned his secret mission and betrayed the Machine Mutants, no one trusted Giru. People wanted to destroy Giru, they wanted Giru to be stripped for parts and analyzed, they saw Giru as one of their gadgets that they intended to use and then disassemble to build something better out of. Videl protected Giru, and Videl stood up for Giru and took him in. Giru thinks Videl is Giru's friend, and everyone who's Videl's friend is also Giru's friend," Giru said with an automated voice that in no way relayed the emotion that must have brewed inside the sentient machine. "Giru isn't strong, but Giru wants to eat all the Earthling rockets and guns in the world to protect Videl and her friends like Videl protected Giru."
"I… I didn't know you felt that way," Videl reached out and placed her hand on top of Giru's small, sticking-out head section. "Yeah, I guess Giru is Videl's friend!" she laughed out through the tears, pulling the little hovering sentient Dragon Radar closer to her for a hug.
"Giru-Giru, observation, hugs are scary. Videl is strong and can crush Giru if she's not careful. But because Videl is Giru's friend, Giru will allow Videl to hug Giru," Giru beeped out while being rubbed and pressed against Videl's body like some soft little teddy bear.
Even during the calm before the storm, the clouds over the Earth were gloomy with only occasional rays of sunshine. When the sunshine peeked through, and those that survived the storm saw the ramifications and the widespread destruction left in the storm's wake, they wondered if their peaceful life will ever be the same as it was before the storm.