Dragon Ball Z: Paradise Found

Quest For Grub

"Huh!? N-No way!" Bulma's face widened in a stretched-out grimace. "Wow, things really got out of hand there, huh? Alright, I'll call Muten Roshi and start collecting the Dragon Balls then. Poor Chiaotzu... Tenshinhan will be crushed. Wait, that's right, there are still the Namekian Dragon Balls, right? I'm sure that the Namekians had selected a new elder and have a new set. Even if they haven't, I'm sure they will soon. Of course, I think of everything, I'm a genius after all! Alright, be seeing you, Goku."

Bulma weighed back and spun around in her chair, processing the vague and rather disjointed retelling of everything that had happened on Planet Vegeta. They haven't heard from anyone there in a while though Planet Vegeta was a fair chunk of the universe away from Earth, pretty much on a whole other side of the quadrant. Frankly, it seemed like the whole thing was rather quick to resolve once everyone hit Planet Vegeta. Taking the journey time into calculation, it wasn't much longer than a couple of days.

Lighting up a smoke, Bulma wobbled out from her laboratory before smacking her forehead and stumbling back, shifting her body weight to fall over the communications table. After turning a few knobs and flipping a few triggers, the scientist picked up the communicator that would have reached spacecraft on the other side of the universe only to reach an old man on the other side of the planet–something for which a common telephone would have sufficed.

"Muten Roshi, hello, hello!" a lively voice of an old-timer rung on the other end.

"Muten Roshi, this is Bulma." Bulma said.

"Oh, Bulma-chan, how are you doing? It's been a little while," Muten Roshi proclaimed with vigor and cheer in his voice.

"Had a few sleepless nights ever since Dr. Puri left Capsule Corp to pursue her own ventures and start her own company. I didn't really consider just how useful that woman was and how much she contributed, honestly..." Bulma sighed, flopping down in her chair and turning around a few times before realizing she was tangling the communicator wire around her chair which prompted the woman to tap the table with her boot and untangle herself by spinning in another direction.

"I see, I see... It is a pity, I haven't seen Puri-chan in a while. She was always a sight for sore eyes, though I suppose time feels like it's racing with you when you're young. It might have been about time for your assistant to branch out to her own work. Still, it's just like you to produce a prodigy of your own image, Bulma-chan, a company owner and a genius inventor in her mid-twenties with a background with Capsule Corps, Puri-chan will be like on top of the world."

"What are you talking about? Dr. Puri was pushing mid forty..." Bulma squinted into the phone as if she could almost see the pervy old man on the other end. "Anyway, I didn't quite call you just to catch up, Muten Roshi. Goku reached out finally."

"Goku? I wouldn't have taken him for the communicative kind. He should have let Piccolo or Tenshinhan do the talking. Have they found Gine yet?" Muten Roshi wondered.

"That's the thing... They've run into a horrible monster on Planet Vegeta and... You know how they are, just couldn't help themselves. Most of them got themselves killed. We'll need to gather the Dragon Balls and bring everyone back." Bulma groaned, stroking her temples and popping out veins around them.

"Is that so? What a horrible tragedy... Did Goku tell who died exactly? I take it that Goku made it out..." Muten Roshi muttered. Usually, news such as these would have been met with a far direr tone, but death has become such an inevitable part of their lives that getting killed began feeling like an extended hospital visit, almost.

"Bardock, Piccolo, Yamcha, Tenshinhan, Chiaotzu... I think Goku also wanted to make sure we resurrect Vegeta, for whatever reason. Oh... And... Gine, Goku's mother ended up dying too." Bulma recounted with some brief pauses between each name, just letting the weight of the losses sink in.