Chapter Ten: Finishing up Business

It's been a week since I made the wish on the dragon, Bulma and I had started the journey to West City to get to her home. Along the way, I convinced her to start learning to manipulate Ki if only so she would be able to fly at some point and defend herself easily from regular humans. So far she is able to form a small ball of ki and has learned basic enhancement. I, on the other hand, have been going into the ID time dilation to train, gaining a good amount of physical stats. Of course, I also took some books from Bulma too, netting me mental stats as well. I stopped training once I hit one hundred in all of my stats, at that point it was taking much too long to earn more.

Hitting one hundred in all the stats did net me a Perk, but it was only the usual well-balanced one. I didn't pay much attention to it as Bulma and I continued on our journey. We were coming up on West City pretty soon and I was really excited about meeting Dr. Briefs, I was hoping to convince him to begin work on a gravity machine. If I got this machine this early in the timeline, I could become nearly unstoppable until the Frieza Arc. Then all I would need to do is make sure Cell never reaches perfect form when I get back.

I forgot to mention, there was a "Minor Update" around the time we were getting close to the city. It said that the Power Level system had been revamped to accurately calculate it through my stats and, more importantly, my overall level. My power Level was now Eight Thousand Two hundred. I decided to figure that out later sometime and just enjoyed the drive to the city.

We reached the edge of the city and Bulma identified herself at a gate for entry, the guard just let me through since I was with her. We drove through the city very quickly, heading for the big spherical building off to the side. Parking the bike and capsuling it, Bulma led me into the house. I just ended up looking around as she led me into the main room, where we found her mother. 'Is it racist to say she has squinty eyes?'

"Oh, honey! Bulma's back, and she brought a boy too!" Bulma's mother yelled out as we walked in.

"What is it Panchy darling, I'm working." I heard a distant yell, coming from the back of the house.

"Just get up here, our daughters home!" Panchy yelled back.

Both I and Bulma just stood there, Bulma in embarrassment, and myself in shock. I hadn't heard the voice of these two in ages, but I could tell they sounded much better than from the show. Actually, now that I thought about it, even Bulma sounded much better than she did when I watched the show as a kid. My thoughts came to an end as Bulma began to speak, her father having already entered the room.

"Hey mom, hey dad, I know this is abrupt and I should have called first but-" Bulma started.

"Nonsense, you don't need to make sure you can come home, we are more than happy with your surprise return." Dr. Briefs announced. He walked up and hugged Bulma tightly, "You also brought a boyfriend, I see."

Bulma immediately went red at that assessment, pushing her father off of her and hiding her face.

"Boksa! Your embarrassing her honey."

"Oh, don't worry honey, I already know who this is." He paused and turned to me, outstretching a hand, "It's nice to finally meet you in person, Son Hikari."

I stood there for a moment, wondering how he knew my name before remembering that Bulma had called him the day I passed out due to the updates. She must have told him all she knew about me. I grasped his hand firmly with mine and gave a strong handshake.

"It's good to meet you Dr. Briefs, I've heard a lot about you from Bulma here," I told him. The handshake ended and I stepped back to stand with Bulma again, she was still covering her face from embarrassment.

"Well my boy, why don't you come with me to my shop and have a look around. I know that my daughter has been tutoring you, we can leave my wife and Bulma to have some girl talk." Dr. Briefs stated.

I agreed and we were aggressively 'shooed' away by Panchy as she sat Bulma down in the living room. Dr. Briefs led me to his lab and spoke about his latest projects, mentioning one that I was really interested in.

"-I'm also working on an anti-gravity room, to be used for people to get used to no gravity when in space. This would help tremendously in their maneuverability, which would make the travel around the ship easier." Dr. Briefs said, he went to continue but I stopped him with a very important question of mine.

"What about increasing the gravity?"

"Why would I do that my boy?" He asked

"Dr. Briefs-"

"Please, just call me Boksa."

"... Boksa, I have reached the limit in training I can do at this level, and weighted clothing won't help that much. But gravity? That could put an equal distribution of weight all over my body, to every muscle, it could be just the thing I need."

"Hmmm, that is an interesting proposition Hikari, but I don't know if I can do that. Anti-gravity is already figured out, it just wasn't being studied and implemented. Increasing gravity though, that will be tricky."

"Well… what if I told you I know where a ship is that already has a gravity system in it?"

Boksa's eyes widened considerably, before going back to normal as the cogs in his head turned.

"You're not human, are you." It wasn't a question, he had already figured it out.

"Well, I thought the tail would give it away sooner to someone of your intelligence," I said with a grin.

"Right you are, I just thought someone had finally figured out how to crossbreed, or splice DNA."

"True, those were also possibilities."

"Alright then, would you like to go and get your ship now? Or later?"

"We can go later, Let's continue looking around, this place is really fascinating to me."

For the rest of the time, Boksa and I walked around his lab, showing me all of his inventions and projects he was working on. We bounced ideas off of each other and worked on some of his projects, I ended up helping him complete the Anti-Gravity Room by just picking up the panels myself instead of him using machinery.

Around five hours later we went back to the house and entered the living room. Finding Bulma and Panchy setting up the dinner table.

"Just in time honey, we were just finishing dinner," Panchy told us.

"Hope you like my mother's cooking Hikari," Bulma added.

After that we had a nice dinner and were all sat down in the living room, talking about how Bulma's journey went, then leading up to her meeting me, and finally our journey together. This went on for a while before we decided it was time to get some rest. I would be heading out in the morning, without Bulma's knowledge of it. It's not that I wanted to leave her, but I needed to make sure I wiped out the Red Ribbon army… other than Dr. Gero. I need him to build the androids, even if it meant letting Lapis and Lazuli get turned into androids seventeen and eighteen.

"Where are you going Hikari?" Bulma asked

"What do you mean? I'm sleeping on the couch." I replied

"Uh huh, no, we have slept in the same bed for a while now and I don't think I'll be able to sleep without a weight next to me."

"You, want me, to sleep with you, in your home, while your parents are here." I deadpanned.

Bulma gained a light blush as she looked away, but gave a slight nod. I just sighed and got up.

"Fine, fine, I'll sleep in your bed," I said.

We both went up to her room and got ready for bed, she changed into a gown in her bathroom while I just equipped my 'Casual Set.' Fun Fact: I found a system in the gamer that allowed me to make these 'Sets' to quick equip into, I have a couple of Gi for fighting, my training Gi, and a Casual Set. The casual set actually shifts between clothes as I wear them according to a cleanliness percentage, and they actually get slowly cleaned while in the inventory too so no laundry for me. Back to the sleeping part though.

Bulma came out of the bathroom and laid down before looking at me with an eyebrow raised.

"You're going to sleep in a T-shirt and Jeans?" Bulma asked.

"Why not? It's not like I have anything else to wear unless you want me to wear only my boxers?"

Bulma immediately shut up with a strong blush.

"J-just get in bed already."

With that, we both laid down and got comfortable. Ready to sleep for the night. What Bulma did not know was I planned to leave this night, while she was sound asleep.

I had waited a good 2 hours even though I had heard her breathing even out indicating sleep, I wanted to make sure she would not wake up. Using instant transmission to place myself out of the bed without disturbing her, I left the room, sending one last gaze back.

'Sorry Bulma, but taking you with me isn't an option. I hope you won't be too mad with me after this year I'll be gone for…'

With that last thought about her, I removed her from the Party, closed the door, and left. Heading out of the Capsule Corp. grounds, to the city gate just a few blocks away. Once I was out of the city, I floated up and began to try and recall where all of the Red Ribbon bases were.

'Wasn't there one on the ice ca-'

"Android 8!"

I couldn't believe I had forgotten about the tower on the ice cap, or Android 8. Android 8 had always been one of my favorite characters from Dragon Ball. I flew up higher and took out a map I had snatched on my way out of Capsule Corp. and figured out where I needed to go before blasting off to save my future friend.

It only took me a little over half an hour before I could see the ice cap on the horizon, only a few more minutes to be over it and see Muscle Tower in the distance. I floated up to the wall, near where I thought level 4 was, and busted through the wall, finding the forest inside. This was Murasaki's level, which also had Android 8 in his cage. Finding Murasaki sleeping, I quietly floated past him and found the cage with Android 8 inside. He was sitting as he was when Goku first found him, with his knees up in front of him, the silhouette of him only lighted by the glow of his eyes.

"Android 8?"

Android 8 stood up, busting through his cage as he walked towards me. I didn't react as I knew what had to happen for android 8 to break his programming. He walked to me and grabbed me by the throat, bringing me up above his head, and began to choke me out. It wouldn't really work on me as my power was too great, but I pretended to be affected by it and "struggle" against his grip.

'Come on, I know you, you didn't hurt Goku, because you didn't want to hurt anybody… break your programming Android 8!'