Super Dragon Ball: Paradise Hysteria

No Escape

"Gohan!" Videl cheered after burrowing through heaps and piles of extinguished wreckage until she found the battered young man panting heavily underneath. Trunks shivered in his boots after seeing the miserable state that the Ultimate Artificial Human left the young man in. Videl scooped Gohan up and hoisted him on her back in a comfortable carrying position and hurried through the door.

"Mom, we've pulled Gohan-san out," Trunks pressed his hand against the control panel by the door and reported it to Bulma, at which point the Capsule Corps Star's hallways began shifting and rotating like a mechanical puzzle and, instead of rushing to the office room where Bulma was working from, the room turned to the stationary youths.

Immediately upon entry, silver wires flung down from the ceiling and stuck to Gohan, suspending him in mid-air and wrapping around his entire body. The wires entered through the wounds and expanded with a coating of medical gel over the bruises, beginning emergency treatment that should've gotten him back on his feet in just a few minutes.

"Thanks, Videl, you've been a tremendous help in dealing with all this. If you ever decide that you want to work for a living, I could use an assistant that takes charge of things like you. You should probably head home now," Bulma thanked the young woman, who just straightened her back and bowed her head respectfully before turning to Gohan. She looked a bit worried about the grim-looking situation of the young man dangling suspended by some wires that sparked and entered his body wherever they saw fit, performing hundreds of surgeries on a microscopic level in an instant, mending broken bones and spreading medical gel throughout the entire body with mechanical precision.

They relied so heavily on technology when technology-based entities were some of their most persistent and toughest foes yet...

"Thank you, Bulma-san, but I'd like to make sure that Chayote-san is okay. What happened to her? Why isn't she back yet?" Videl pressed her knuckle to her chest, trying to reach the tech mogul's line of sight as Bulma seemed to avert her gaze ever since the topic came up.

"I've... I've lost contact with Chayote. I can't seem to reach her. That rotten asshole Dr. Gero must be flooding the atmosphere of the planet I've sent them on with his electromagnetically charged photons. The planet was on a whole different galaxy already, I intended to send Dr. Gero far enough away that he wouldn't be able to threaten us but... It seems like our plan backfired as I'm unable to reach her or beam her back," Bulma pointed out.

"This is... So we're just going to leave her there to die?" Videl exclaimed.

"Don't be ridiculous! I don't think that Dr. Gero would go that far. If he has the records Dr. Puri kept on us and is aware of Chayote's history, he won't kill her. She's quite literally the only person he can't kill in the entire universe... Even if it may end up more painful for Chayote short-term, this might end up saving us long-term," Bulma turned around her chair, staring at the ceiling as she tried formulating a plan to pull Chayote out of her perilous situation. A compartment opened up on the side of the computer panel she's been operating on, gently tossing out a squishy, rubbery ball that Bulma had been so accustomed to using that she caught it without looking and began smudging in her hand to appease the desperate rush of her emotions.

"I don't... Understand..." Videl scratched her cheek, feeling a bit embarrassed that this woman she's only just met appeared to know more about her mentor than Videl herself did.

"Oh, you don't know about Chayote's death and resurrection?" Bulma gasped. "I'd have thought that Chayote would've told you..."

"Huh? Don't know what?" Trunks jumped up and down. "What do you mean by death and resurrection?"

"Wait, you don't know either?" Bulma scratched her head. "Jeez... I guess it just felt like such common knowledge amongst us veterans that we just don't talk about that stuff anymore... I wasn't aware that the kids were so out of the loop on this."