Disclaimer: the idea and characters of Dragon Ball are owned by Akira Toriyama. This is a simple non-profit fan parody.

Chapter 13 - Manimal house

It often happens that we only appreciate the value of things upon losing them. So, when he woke up on the eighty-fifth day since the beginning of the Human Enhancement Program, Goku had not given much thought yet to how peaceful his life at Bulma's house had been until then.

He got up from bed, clicked a button on a recorder on his bedside table, and as a very well-educated voice started reading aloud with passion and expressivity the considerations on the ephemeral nature of life of long time dead sage Huen Shi (audiobooks had been a wonderful discovery for Goku), he started his morning exercises. Being confined to the room meant he couldn't do anything requiring much space. There would be time for that later. There was already a gym, but Dr. Briefs had also a bigger, sturdier one constructed for him and the new test subjects to practice to their heart's content without fear of collapsing the building, and this would be the first day that they got to try it. This, together with a few other buildings like the all-new dorms, had been raised in record time by a crowd of workers who had been digging, drilling and welding day and night for the last weeks. So, now that everything was ready, Goku would have expected things to become quieter.

He was wrong.

After one hour the day had gotten a lot brighter, so he finished his exercises, he shut down the audiobook and was about to go to breakfast when he remembered that Bulma wouldn't be there this morning. At 9:00 AM was scheduled the induction for the new hires. From Bulma's description the evening before, Goku had a vague idea of what they were like, but he was curious to see more. Besides, he was supposed to attend anyway. They would have coffee and biscuits, but he wasn't inclined to partake of either, so he just opened his fridge and got some milk and some leftover meat from the day before. Then he washed, picked a fresh gi (he had ten now - all identical to his old one, but bearing the Capsule Corporation logo), and left the room. The conference room where the meeting would be held was at the very entrance of the new dorm, so it was easy to find. This was his first time setting foot into the building at all, though, so he still had to follow one little arrow sign to get there. In the end, it was already 9:05. He could hear Bulma's voice behind the fire door. He pushed it open.

"Oh, I'm sure many of you have wondered about what a Goku could be." said Bulma cheerfully. "Well, there's a Goku for you!"

Four heads, with their share of fangs, bandages and horns, and a floating cap with nothing below turned to look at him.

"Nice to meet you." Goku smiled politely, giving a small bow.

"Come seat in front, Goku." Bulma waved. "Goku is my first test subject, and the person who raised my interest in the kind of superhuman potential that you all represent. He's helped me develop theories and technology that you will all benefit from during your work here. He's also been, as you may have understood, my unit of measure to evaluate your strength."

Goku sat down. From behind him, the biggest of the new guys, the one bandaged like a mummy, tapped his shoulder to get his attention.

"I scored 1.1 Gokus." he said, grinning. "That means you're 0.9 me."

"0.90 periodic." corrected Goku.

The other blinked. "What?"

"...now before we proceed further, may I ask that you all sign the contracts I put in front of you? You will see they detail your pay and benefits for the duration of this project, as well as your obligations. If you do not feel like accepting those, this is the moment to walk out of that door. Any information I need to give from now on will be strictly confidential, so you are required to accept a non-disclosure agreement that details in how many ways we can retaliate in case you leak outside info you're not supposed to. Or in simpler terms, remember: snitches get stitches."

There was some low talking as everyone browsed quickly through their contract, but in the end they all signed, and Bulma collected and stored the files.

"Perfect!" she said breaking out a wide smile. "With this, I can officially welcome you all to the Capsule Corporation Human Enhancement Program! Together, we will break new ground in discovering just what the human body is capable of, as well as understanding better the powers that exist in this universe. It is important for you to remember that while our end goal is to make this science available to all, for the betterment of all mankind, it is also liable to be a very destabilising and potentially dangerous tool in the wrong hands. Therefore, we will only disclose our discoveries once we've consolidated our knowledge, later down the line, and following a schedule and a plan that are to be carefully designed. This is why you were made to sign the NDA as a condition for working here. Yes, Fangs?"

The vampire lowered his hand. "This is all very nice and everything," he said, "but what will we be doing, in practice?"

"I was just getting to that." Bulma clicked a button, and a screen behind her lit up. "Here you can see your typical day's schedule. This could change in extraordinary circumstances, but as a general rule, you are expected to participate in tests and experiments in two time slots - morning, 10:00 to 12:30, and afternoon, 14:00 to 17:00. Different people will be assigned to each time slot every day, since we don't have the equipment and personnel to carry multiple tests at once yet. We will establish your slots on a weekly basis. The rest of your time is more flexible, but you are required to also spend at least two hours of your day training, either your strength or your special abilities. You will be given key cards with access to select areas of the facilities; these will also be used to clock your usage of the general gym. The gym is furnished with a good amount of of conventional training equipment as well as some unconventional instruments that I thought could be useful. Anything else you think could be helpful, let me know and if the reason is good enough I'll be happy to oblige. We will also hold meetings on time slots that range from 17:00 to 19:00. These will not be daily or mandatory, but participation is strongly encouraged. I plan to give you all a basic scientific foundation..."

Four faces contracted in a horrified expression. Being unable to show his, See-Through expressed his dismay by screaming "STUDYING?!" instead.

Bulma waved her hand, irritated. "I don't intend to make you major in physics. But since we do work with science here, I think it would be useful if you were able to at least understand what's going on. Any suggestion from you, who have a more instinctual feeling for what your powers entail, would be undoubtedly be quite useful. And for any discussion, you could refer to your colleague Goku, who has both a decent scientific preparation and a solid knowledge of the martial arts and the mastery of spiritual energy, so he's going to be the bridge between our worlds, so to say."

Goku heard Bandages grumble something about a 'teacher's pet' behind him. He wondered if he should punctualise that, despite his tail, he was not a pet.

The screen's image switched from a schedule to a map of the site. Several buildings were recognisable on a green background representing the pleasant meadows the Capsule Corporation facility was built on.

"Please familiarise yourself with the locations." Bulma started pointing around with a small laser as she spoke. "We are currently in the new dorm building. It has five ensuite rooms, one for each of you, a kitchenette, a living room, a small exercise room, this conference room, and a few storage facilities that you're not supposed to use. This is where you'll be spending most of your free time and where you can sleep and eat. We will keep your fridge full, but you have to cook for yourselves. There's a whiteboard in the kitchenette where you can list any requests for special food items. We will also hold our meetings here most of the time, unless there's good reason not to. Next to here is the main gym. This is where you're supposed to train. You will need your pass to enter. The gym is large enough for all of you to train at the same time, it has been reinforced, it's soundproofed, and has room not just for exercise but for sparring as well. However, considering your average level of strength, please submit any plans for sparring fights to me first. And under no circumstances is any kind of fighting supposed to happen outside of the gym. Questions?"

"You said there's only five rooms," objected Yamcha, "but there's six of us here."

"Goku's been staying in a wing of my home, inside the main building." explained Bulma. "And for now, that will continue being the arrangement. However you'll still get to spend most of your training time together. He will also be granted exclusive access to the gym during night hours."

Goku looked at Bulma puzzled, and she only made a small sign that meant I'll explain later. The rest of the audience started chatting nervously.

"Does that mean that we won't be able to train during the night?" intervened Spike, taking the lead of his group. "You realise, Miss Bulma, that darkness is the time that most befits powers such as ours."

"We will measure that, and if it turned out to be true, I could reconsider." said Bulma. "But anyway, you will still have the dorm's exercise room. It's more than enough to do a bit of weight lifting, if that's what you want. But it won't count towards your daily two hours training target, and course, no fighting will be allowed. This place isn't soundproofed or reinforced, so if you started going at it seriously you'd wake up all of West City."

"Now, your first morning here is free. You will have time to go around, visit the place, tour our main building, and just generally get used to your new workplace. Get to know each other as well. Leaving here, you will find your passes hanging from your rooms' doors. Please leave any luggage there, pick up the cards, and just go see the place. We also have an excellent cafeteria for our employees on site that you can eat at. After lunch, I would like you all to come to the main facility, the same lab where you were interviewed, as I plan to do a proper preliminary scan of all of you. We will then hold our first meeting, during which we will establish the plans for the immediate future. And one last thing. For any need or question you should have, well - Caroline?"

The soft, pleasant robotic voice answered from the environmental speakers. "Yes, Bulma? What do you need today?"

"Please recognise everyone in this room as a new resident of the campus and attend to their needs. They have passes detailing their authorizations."

"Understood. I am Caroline, the virtual assistant for this facility. I welcome you all to Capsule Corporation, and I hope your stay will be pleasant. You can call me by my name to ask for help or information from any room in the complex."

"She can hear all we say?" asked Yamcha, surprised. "Wherever we are? All the time?"

"I have very strict privacy protocols." she answered. "Audio feed from areas such as bedrooms and bathrooms is filtered through a firewall that preliminarily blocks all data from reaching me unless my name is explicitly called."

"And also, she's a robot." added Bulma. "She's not very judgemental."

"Oh, that's okay I guess." concluded the other. His hand, that was touching nervously his left wristband, relaxed.

They were dismissed, and left the conference room. Only Goku remained, as Bulma went to catch up to him.

"I need to show you something."

"Does that have to do with the gym and the night permissions?" asked the boy.

"Exactly that. Come on, follow me."

They walked out of the dorm and covered the dozen metres that separated them from the new gym. Goku had never seen it yet. The building was reinforced with metal plates and columns, and the windows were small, thick glasses sunk into deep slits.

"Here's your pass. Try it."

Bulma handed a small plastic card with a lanyard to Goku, and it took him a couple attempts to figure out how to slide it into the door's electronic lock. Finally, it opened with a blip.

Inside, the gym felt even more impressive - tall buildings weren't unusual, but not many of them were constituted of a single, massive room. It wasn't so high that he couldn't hit the ceiling with a single jump, but he would have to put his back into it.

"This is really good." he commented. "I can do a lot more training, here."

"That was the idea. But it's not all of it! Look here."

Bulma grabbed Goku's pass and inserted it into a keypad right next to the inner side of the door. Then she typed in a code. In the span of a few seconds, the building sealed itself. Metal shutters came down to cover all windows, and air ventilation and artificial lights came on.

"This is night mode." explained the girl. "Until now, during full moon nights, you simply stayed locked in a windowless storage room in our house, and that did not look the most comfortable option, so... yeah."

Goku looked around, curious. "Is it safe?"

"Absolutely. The only way to unlock it is by using this card again - this is completely decoupled from the rest of the computer system controlling the facility. Didn't want to take any risks there. In that corner, down there, there is a small room that can serve as living quarters - it's got a bed, a computer, and other stuff. But if you want to train, of course, you'll have all of this for yourself."

"But why give access to me every night?" asked Goku. "I don't need it all the time."

"Just a clever bit of misdirection. Didn't want to tip anyone off to your... special needs. Between your tail and their passion for the occult, if they also knew you need to stay locked on a full moon, even those guys could connect the dots."

"Oh, well." the boy looked at Bulma and made a small bow. "Thanks a lot."

"No problem." she smiled. "I knew you wouldn't have said a word, but I'm sure it's damn lonely alone all night in a cupboard. Hey, if you want, next full moon I can come over and we can have a movie marathon or something. Pull an all-nighter."

"Better not, for both of us. Sleep deprivation affects both physical and mental performance."

"Tsk. You can be such a downer. Anyway, this room is so big and well armoured that I'm sure that even if you did transform into a giant monster, it could probably contain you. Maybe."

Goku looked at her skeptical. "You don't know that."

"Well, only one way to be sure. If you ever felt like..." started the girl.

"No." the boy looked deadly serious. "Too risky."

"It would really be useful to observe such a phenomenon!" pleaded Bulma. "We could just go in some deserted place with nothing around, and do it right before the Moon sets so you immediately would turn back! Just a minute!"

Goku shook his head. "I'm just not going to do it. I don't want to."

"Ok, fine." Bulma sighed. "Sorry if I asked. That was rude of me, I guess."

"A bit."

They stood in silence for a minute.

"But anyway, thanks for the refuge. This is good." said Goku, finally.

"Glad you liked it. You going to train now?"

"Probably." the boy started stretching. "I also need to finish reading a couple books. I'll go get them back in my room."

"Alright, see you this afternoon then! And can I ask you a favour?"

Goku stopped before running out of the door. "Sure."

"You're going to spend the next months working with these guys," said Bulma, "so why don't you try to meet them and get to know them a bit more? Maybe when they gather for lunch. It'll be really useful if they trust you enough to look for your help. You can probably understand their training needs much better than me."

"Okay, that sounds easy." said the boy, and running off.

Yamcha dumped the gym sac with all his belongings on the bed. With a puff of smoke, Puar reverted into his regular blue floating cat form, having been a wristband for the better part of the morning. Good thing too, the smoke, being magical, simply dissolved in mid-air. It would have been a problem had it triggered the fire alarm.

"This is pretty good." commented Yamcha. "Scratch that, compared to the last room we lived in, this is amazing! Is that an air conditioner?"

"I think it is." said Puar. "And it's alright. Too bad for the neighbours."

"Who, those weirdos? Oh, come on, I'm sure they're not as bad as they look. Damn, look here!"

He had ran into the ensuite bathroom, whose door was right next to the entrance.

"A shower and a bath tub! They don't even have taps, it's all buttons, I have no idea what they all do."

The cat floated past him. "I think that one activates environmental light effects."

"I love this! If this is the kind of luxury you live in here, I don't ever want to go away."

Puar frowned, but said nothing. He floated back into the main room.

"There's a screen here." he announced. "A computer of some kind."

"Caroline," asked Yamcha, loudly, "what is the computer for?"

"Hello, Yamcha." the robotic voice was melodious as always. "That is the multi-purpose infotainment system. It can provide you with access to TV, radio, a vast catalogue of streaming movies and shows, including a selection of adult-themed videos, access to the internet, and exclusive access to the entirety of Capsule Corporation's digital library."

"Well, that does it. This is the life! Thank you, Caroline, you're dismissed."

Caroline left with a polite blip sound, and Yamcha started going through his luggage, grabbing clothes and stuffing them in the drawers.

"I've got all morning and lunchtime before starting with work." he said, having finished. "I think I'll go see the place a bit, chat the guys up. That Goku kid especially. Besides looking the most normal of the bunch, he seems to be buddies with Bulma. It's a good thing to butter up the people in charge a bit."

"I can't help but notice that you're talking in the singular there." said Puar, worried.

"Well, sure. You didn't want to come with me, now?"

In response, Puar transformed back into the wristband.

"Oh, no, come on, man! Aren't you tired of staying in that form? I can't let you spend your days by doing nothing except being a piece of fabric and going with me wherever I go."

"I don't mind." said Puar.

"I do! That's crazy. You'll be out of your mind with boredom in no time at that rate. Listen, you know what? I'll need your help anyway after lunch, because we'll have the tests, so I need to show my so-called magic. So why don't you chill out in this room until then? Use the computer, watch something, have fun. I'll go around a bit and then I will pick you back up later. I'll also bring along something to eat from the cafeteria."

"But I don't want to chill out. I want to be useful to you."

"You're not going to be by just staying as a wristband with me all the time! You want to be useful, why don't you study from that library, then? I get the feeling I could need some science suggestions now and then if I want to look good with the management here."

Puar was back in cat form - just so he could pout better. "I don't like this."

"Well, I'm not letting you do anything else. Sorry, man, but you have to take your time. We don't even know if you can keep your transformation up for this long without rest. You've never done it before."

"I can." insisted the other.

"And what if you're wrong? You want to be the one to explain Bulma why there's a blue cat wrapped around my arm if you break transformation, and why she shouldn't fire me on the spot?"

The cat made a displeased sound, tilted his head sideways, crossed his tiny arms - or rather, paws.

"Have it your way." he said, finally.

"Perfect! See you later then. And remember - don't call Caro... the robot lady! She doesn't know you're in here too."

Yamcha left, waving and closing the door behind him. Puar frowned, then sat at the computer. Touching the screen, he browsed the system to find the digital library, then started looking for good books to begin with. A lot of that stuff seemed really really difficult, he thought. Then he found something called 50 fun things you didn't know about science!, and decided it may as well be a good starting point as any. Maybe there would be something that could help Yamcha in there.

Dear reader,

if you've never understood much of all those complicated formulas and theorems, if you've slept through all your science classes at school, well, then, this book is exactly for you...

That sounds easy, Goku had said, about establishing some sort of human connection with five perfect strangers who all seemed to speak and think in ways completely different from his. Turns out, it wasn't. At lunch Goku sat alone in a corner of the cafeteria. He was sure it was just a matter of finding the right moment to break the ice, but that moment obstinately failed to present itself. The newcomers had entered the place ten minutes ago now. First had come the four weirder guys, joking and chatting among themselves loudly. They all had their costumes, which had drawn the attention of all the ordinary Capsule Corporation employees having lunch there. The only one without a costume was the invisible one, who was wrapped into layers and layers of all sorts of clothing, including a balaclava and sunglasses, which still looked very freaky - though not as much as it would have been if one noticed that through the gaps there was nothing to see at all. Then came the guy who wore a red and green gi, long black hair, and seemed cocky as hell. From what he had heard from Bulma, this was the second strongest of the bunch, and almost as strong as he. The one thing that Goku felt would really break the ice (and that he was really eager to try) was a fight, but that had been barred for now, so he needed another strategy.

So he dove his nose back into the book that he was reading, while using one hand to pick rice with his chopsticks and bring it to his mouth.

"Hey, kid. May I sit here?"

The cocky guy was next to the table, with a tray of food he had bought, smiling. Clearly, the strategy had worked.

"Sure." said Goku, turning another page.

"Nice. I'm Yamcha, by the way. Of the Dojo of the Wolf."

"I think I've read about it." the kid finally raised his eyes. "Wolf Fang Fist?"

"That!" he laughed. "Man, I hoped I could find someone who really knew their stuff about martial arts."

"Well, to be precise, my grandpa said that only a bunch of buffoons would think that aping a pack of dogs could make for good fighting technique."

To this, Yamcha's enthusiasm somewhat died down. "Oh. And do you agree?"

"I've never seen it for myself. And as Bulma says, experience isn't just the best teacher - it's the only one."

"Seems like you and Bulma are close." Yamcha started picking from his carton of chips. "I hope I'm not being too nosy but - you two an item?"

Goku blinked.

Yamcha coughed. "Yeah, I mean, are you her boyfriend?"

"I'm a boy, and her friend." said Goku. "And no, we're not mating."

Yamcha laughed loudly. "You're funny, you know? So what do you think of her? How'd you meet her?"

"Not sure she'd want me to talk about all the details." Goku now attacked his dish of pickled eggplant. "All I can say is, she found me living in the mountains, where I used to stay, and we had common interests. I gave her the idea of this project, and I thought I could learn one thing or two coming with her to the city."

"Ha. Following the dream of the big city, eh? Just like me. Everything's better here, or so we think before coming."

"Everything is surely different." the boy nodded. "Better, I would not know. But I like how many things I get to learn. I haven't been much around to see how it is, anyway. Only that one time me and Bulma went seeing places, I guess."

Yamcha leaned in. "Places? What kind of places?"

"Museums. Some bright noisy place called a Luna Park." Goku thought about it a moment. "We had ice cream."

"That sounds like a date. You sure you're not her boyfriend?"

"I am. We had already met when Bulma was still looking for one."

This was interesting news. Yamcha opened his mouth ready to ask for more, but approximately at that moment, a projectile flew through the room and came dangerously close to hitting Goku's cheek. He spotted it; thought about dodging; realised he didn't have enough time to avoid it entirely; and ended up shielding himself and deflecting it with his book, all in a fraction of a second. Unfortunately, the bullet happened to be a small ball of potato mash. The resulting high speed impact caused a small starchy explosion that soaked both the cover of Goku's book and his companion.

"WHAT THE HELL!" screamed Yamcha. "What are you people doing?"

Laughter came from the table of the four freaks. Bandages got up and started apologizing - still chuckling uncontrollably, which didn't really make his apologies very believable.

"We didn't mean that, sorry, sorry," he said, with his usual grin, "we were playing among ourselves, and you just happened to be in the way."

"Yeah, fuck that." Yamcha was cleaning himself with a napkin. "Don't give me that crap. You knew we were sitting here. Just don't act like some middle school kid and this sort of stuff won't happen."

"Come on, we're only having some fun. Why would we do that to you on purpose? We're all colleagues here." the mummy turned to Goku, made a small bow. "By the way, we haven't been introduced yet. I'm Bandages."

"Nice to meet you," said the other, putting the book back on the table, potato side up, "I'm Goku."

"We know, we know. Over there - the charming devil is Spike. The one with a pale complexion is Fangs. And the one with a very pale complexion is See-Through."

See-Through had taken his balaclava off to eat, and was waving. One of the other employees eating noticed him and screamed.

"Well met." Goku remembered that he really was supposed to socialise. "Are you enjoying the place?"

"Oh, it's good, really good." Bandages nodded vigorously. "Very nice rooms, you have here. And the gym seems cool too. Looking forward to training with you. Maybe we'll get to see you in action with more than a book in your hand, yeah?"

"I wouldn't know." said Goku "I usually keep reading while training."

"Ha! Well, that won't do. You gotta commit, when training. No surprise I'm stronger than you." said the mummy, casually.

Yamcha realised Bandages was clearly one of those kind of guys. Pretty much every dojo and tournament had one. He hoped Goku wasn't the type to take the bait.

"Quite the contrary," replied the boy with absolute innocence, "I believe that even if one has the upper hand in power, more knowledge can tip the overall balance in someone else's favour."

Yamcha quickly picked up his stuff, left the table, and started putting a safer distance between him and those two.

Bandages gritted his teeth. "Are you calling me stupid?"

"Here we are again." sighed Fangs.

Spike intervened. "Come on, my friend, he is just a kid - I am sure he didn't mean to..."

"Stay out of this. I want to hear it from him." the mummy looked Goku straight in his eyes. "You calling me stupid?"

"I'm not." answered the other calmly. "If you don't feel like you are one, you have nothing to fear."

"Oh, so that's it? You insult me, then pretend you said nothing? That's too damn easy, boy. Maybe you should just read a little less and pump a little more iron. Would give you the muscle to back your words! Whoever put these ideas in your mind was an idiot and a shit master."

Goku got up from his chair. No one of the presents knew him well enough to appreciate fully the rarity of what they were seeing, as his eyes were burning with anger.

"My grandpa was not an idiot nor a shit master. You take that back."

"If you don't feel like he was one, you have nothing to fear." said Bandages, mocking his voice.

Goku drew a deep breath.

"Fine. I see you need some empirical evidence in support of my stance." he said. "Gym. Right now."

After reading five of them, Puar had started suspecting that the 50 fun things weren't really that fun; more, like, poorly disguised as such. That he couldn't stop thinking about where Yamcha was, what Yamcha was up to, who Yamcha talked with, didn't help. So he had started working his way down the quality ladder in terms of entertainment and distractions. Right now he was at Cyborgs vs. Aliens 2: the revengeance.

Well, the movie was labelled as science fiction, so there ought to be some science in it.

"Mr. Cyborg!" cried Tim, the human teenager who clearly had not died even amidst the furious clash of powers surrounding him to keep serving his inane role as an audience self-insert. "We need to defuse this bomb before it blows up the Earth, but you can't defuse bombs!"

The cyborg stared at the kid for long seconds that could have been really precious in defusing the bomb, then extracted a small diskette from a case he carried with him, and inserted it in a slot he revealed in the middle of his chest. His eyes went blank for a second.

"Now I can." he announced finally with a cold robotic voice, removing the diskette.

Well, that would be convenient, thought Puar. If only he could do that instead of having to read those books.

And then he had the weirdest realisation. Maybe he could do that.

He paused the movie, and opened up an internet browser. He looked up a website that sold computers, and sure enough, there was a nice photo of their best laptop model. He also had to understand how would one go about connecting a computer to another and moving data between them - this was a bit tedious, but apparently diskettes weren't much in fashion any more. There were cables for that stuff, but most importantly, one could also connect wirelessly. A tutorial taught him the essentials about it, and how to check whether the room's computer allowed for it.

Magic is a weird thing. Transforming into another object, for example, for Puar, did not require him to understand all the details of that object - that would have been absurd. He would not have been able to transform into anything, that way (or for that matter, go back to his original form after transforming). Rather, there was a vague threshold that required knowledge of the object's appearance and its functionality, pretty much all that one would have needed to have a complete mental image of what that object was. Once transformed, even without detailed knowledge, all the required functionality would be mapped appropriately onto any analogue structures. For example, if he transformed into a dog, heavens forbid, he could easily bark and communicate with other dogs in their simple (honestly, crude and barbaric) form of language. He could also still talk in human words, though, by exerting specific will to do so.

So, he thought, this was worth a shot.

With a pirouette, Puar disappeared in the usual cloud of smoke and rematerialised as a laptop computer. He activated his wifi connection and managed to identify the signal he needed to answer to. It felt much like trying to recognize a familiar voice among an incoherent screaming chorus. Once he got the hang of it, communicating wasn't hard - as he had hoped, the exchange of information felt like talking, though with a very limited vocabulary that only allowed basic exchanges like "who are you?" and "gimme that". He asked for the book he was reading earlier. The information flowed almost instantly into Puar's modem and then hard drive - and thus, his memory. One second later, he realised he finally remembered all those annoying facts by heart. Sure, he didn't really understand them, but this was good enough. There would be time to go through the material. Encouraged by his first success, he decided to look for something more complex.

For now, Fundamentals of Mechanics would do.

Panchy had just finished putting the last of the cream puffs on top of a carefully designed pyramid when the ground shook violently with a deep, low booming sound. The puffs started tumbling down, but she deftly managed to snatch them all before they hit the floor. Still, this was annoying.

"Bulma, sweetheart," she called, "what is your father doing?"

"This couldn't be him." answered the girl. "He's putting up acoustic motion sensors in front of my bedroom and yours."

Panchy was a bit dumbfounded. "Wait, why is he doing that?"

"Because we now have an invisible man on site and I don't want to take any risks. Nevermind that, what is going on?"

A second boom shook the house. This time one of the puffs fell down, much to Panchy's dismay.

"This can't be. It's just the first day!"

The gym was soundproof, of course - but its foundations didn't have dampeners. This might have been a mistake, but at least now it was allowing her to immediately realise that her instructions were being explicitly ignored.

"Someone's getting fired on day one." she muttered. Her first impulse was to just go storm into the gym and put an end to whatever madness was going on, but on second thought, being physically present in the middle of a brawl violent enough to cause localised earthquakes may not be the smartest choice. She ran up to her room and sat at her computer.

"Caroline, give me a video feed of the gym."

"Certainly, Bulma."

The screen showed an image of the vast room, with multiple points of view to choose from. In the middle of the scene was, well, a blur.

"Activate high framerate mode for the cameras that support it," asked Bulma, "and then replay in slow motion."

With 1000 fps, the two fighters finally became visible. Bandages was flailing around wildly with his linen stripes, trying to grab the other fighter, who was instead deftly dodging, slipping through the tentacular fabric, and closing in the distance from his opponent.

The other fighter being Goku, of all things.

On the side, Yamcha, Spike and Fangs were visibly excited - looked like they were passionately rooting for one or the other side, screaming and shaking their closed fists. See-Through wasn't very good at being visibly anything, but he still managed to get noticed, as he had taken off his jacket and was waving it around like a flag. The slow motion camera made them seem frozen in a weird grimace.

Bulma skipped quickly ahead. Goku kept dodging until Bandages managed to get a hold of him - at which point, however, the linen caught fire, and the mummy had to withdraw it and stomp it. Goku took advantage to get past his guard and hit him with a hook to his chin. He had focused his ki locally and heated up his skin with a diffuse low emission - even through her annoyance with this episode, Bulma couldn't help but grin at the boy's creativity. He had been developing by the day since the beginning of the program.

There was another small quake. Skipping ahead a bit more - this was all happening in a matter of seconds, after all - she saw the cause. Bandages had managed to grab Goku once and this time he had not wasted any time in tossing him towards the nearest wall. The kid had been smashed at full force into the plate of metal. Bulma reeled, feeling his pain, but he actually seemed to be fine, because next thing, he ran at Bandages, firing small ki globelets from his fingers. The shining bullets zipped past the mummy, who grinned and carelessly rushed towards Goku - just to be hit on the back by the bullets that had changed trajectory mid-air, and turned around like a boomerang. He screamed in pain as his bandages caught fire, and immediately started rolling on the floor to put them out. Bulma restored normal playback speed, and there he still was; Fangs was getting a fire extinguisher.

This had gone on long enough, and if there was something Bulma didn't want to have to do, it was explaining a case of potentially deadly injuries inflicted via superpowered martial arts to the cops. She clicked on the button that would connect her microphone to the speaker system in the gym.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS DOING?"

Everyone came to a standstill - including Fangs, who kept spraying Bandages with fireproof foam even past the moment when the fire was put out and he started simply coughing, sputtering and protesting.

"Fighting." said Goku, plainly.

"I can see that! So, the one thing I had explicitly said you shouldn't do!"

"You almost killed me, you midget!" roared Bandages, jumping up. He was promptly stopped by Spike and Yamcha, who went to grab him.

"Don't be overdramatic - and you don't get to complain anyway!" said Bulma. "After starting a fight... you can begin packing your stuff for what I care!"

"That would not be very fair, miss Bulma. Goku was the one who started it." said Spike.

The others nodded. Goku looked away, a bit dejected.

"Caroline," asked Bulma, incredulous, "do you confirm?"

"Affirmative. I have the recordings of the cafeteria, where the incident started. While he was provoked, Goku was the one to suggest that they settle the matter with a fight."

Bulma sighed. This was definitely not something that she expected. And it was not like she could just fire Goku - in fact, she didn't even pay him.

Now that she thought about it, that may actually have been a bit unfair, at that point.

"Goku, you come to talk with me. Right now. Everyone else, lunchtime is over, so go prepare for our afternoon testing session. Change and come back to the laboratory in fifteen minutes. For now there will be no sanctions - but in the future, you are to actively defuse any situations before they get to this point! Simply saying that someone else started it won't be enough. Dismissed."

The feed closed, and Bulma let herself slump back into her seat.

Science she could crack, but from the looks of it, handling this bunch promised to be much trickier.

Hi all! Thanks for the continued reviews/support! Yes, I know it's been a bit slow recently, but I'm sorry, with my job and all I just can't really update faster than this. It's frustrating to me as well also because I realise this part is a bit slow and I'd like to get to writing the more exciting stuff.

I hope that my take of 'yandere Puar' doesn't put people off - for now it seems like most are on board with it, so that's good! You may already be getting an idea of where I'm going with it in this chapter. Also, yeah, I know I could put the story on the DBZ section, but I don't feel that'd be much appropriate. At most, what I'll do is split the story once I reach the end of the Dragon Ball arcs and make a sequel for the stuff that involves Saiyans, Frieza etc. and put that in DBZ. It will obviously be called "Optimi-Z". I'm not even kidding.

See you next chapter!