Chapter 3

Bulma sighed. She had finally gotten the scouter to show ki values in
terms of digital numbers. She tried it out on Kuririn and Muten Roshi
and nearly fell over laughing. She knew that they were holding back on
her, but the numbers were still so tiny!

Bulma wiped a tear from her eye and managed to stop chuckling. She had
needed a good laugh. The whole day had been a disaster. Kuririn had
chickened out on telling Chichi the whereabouts of her family, and she
had followed him to the island when he had left the Son house the next
morning -- unbeknownst to him! She had been expecting to find her son
and her husband but had found some bad news instead.

So they were all still reeling from Chichi’s reaction to their
explanation. She and the Ox King had left about an hour ago, and Bulma
had never been happier to see them leave. Chichi had all but torn
Roshi’s house apart when she had heard that they had let Piccolo take
her baby. She couldn’t have cared less about Goku, however. As far as
she was concerned, he was to blame for the whole affair! In the
confusion and uneasiness they had forgotten to ask her for the other
dragonballs to boot. Now they were taking it easy at Roshi’s house.
Bulma breathed a sigh of contentment. It had taken her a long time to
figure that scouter out.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, setting it on the table. "This scouter reminds me
of something that I had meant to tell you guys at the reunion yesterday."

"What’s that?" Kuririn asked.

"Well," she began, "it’s something I had planned to tell Goku too, but
I guess I might as well go ahead and tell you two first. You may find
this hard to believe, but I can..." She was cut off by a loud knock on
the door.

"Hey!" someone yelled outside the door. "Come on now, I ain’t got all
day, y’know."

"Now who in the world could be so rude?" Kuririn asked as they all
walked to the door. He opened it to reveal a short, fat man with a
sword.

"Hey, I know you!" Kuririn exclaimed. "You’re uh... um..."

"I’m Yajirobei, you dummy!" He said angrily. "I’m supposed to tell you
to report to Karin tower for special training. And you need to bring
Yamucha, that Tenshin guy, and Chaozu with you."

"Who’s going to train us?" Kuririn asked excitedly.

"Kami," Yajirobei bragged. "Yeah, he’s going to train me, you, and the
others personally. He wants us to be ready to fight the other two
Saiyans when they come."

"Wow!" Bulma exclaimed. "Personal training from Kami himself! What an
honor!"

"Yeah!" Kuririn breathed. Yajirobei turned to go back to his air car.

"Oh, one more thing," he said, turning back around. "Don’t wish Goku
back with the Dragonballs yet."

"Why not?" Bulma asked.

"He’s trainin’ in Hell," Yajirobei replied, turning back towards his
car.

"Just be sure you don’t keep Kami waiting for too long," Yajirobei
shot back as he hopped into his car. "It wouldn’t be too polite,
y’know!" With that, he sped away.

"Ha!" Bulma laughed. "I’ll bet that guy knows a lot about being polite!"

"Bulma?" Kuririn said excitedly. "Where’s Yamucha? I can’t wait to tell
him the news!"

"He could be anywhere right now," Bulma said, thinking for a moment.
"I don’t think we could find him if we looked today. But he has a big
game tomorrow night in the city. I’m sure he’ll be there. I think we
should wait until tomorrow to round everyone up anyway. It’s getting
pretty late in the day, and we ought to get some sleep tonight.
Especially you. I know this day has been pretty hard on you."

"I agree with Bulma, Kuririn," Roshi said. "Let’s just take it easy
until tomorrow evening. You’ll be more alert then anyway."

"Now that you mention it, I am a little tired," Kuririn said, yawning.
"Oh well. Let’s go in and watch some TV. I wonder if anything good is
on."

They blew the rest of the evening on Roshi’s sofa watching a cheesy
monster film marathon and talking about what they had all liked best
about Goku. Bulma had completely forgotten about her wanting to tell
Roshi and Kuririn about her fighting skills. Oh well. She would save
that surprise for another day. It didn’t really seem like the right
time to drop that kind of bomb just yet.

Hours later, they turned off the TV and forced themselves to get off
the sofa. It was already dark outside and Bulma was exhausted beyond
belief. Kuririn and Muten Roshi didn’t appear very energetic either.
They all decided to call it a day and go to bed. Kuririn and Muten
Roshi slept in the Kame house, but Bulma decided to sleep outside
under the stars in her air car. She opened the skylight and relaxed in
the driver’s seat. Sleepily she looked up at the moon.

"Wow!" she breathed. "What a gorgeous full moon!" Vaguely she
remembered that there had been something said recently about a full
moon...

She was nearly asleep when the significance of her thoughts hit her.
She shot into awareness and jumped out of her car. She had to get to
Piccolo before it was too late! He had no idea what he was in for with
the combination of Gohan and a full moon. Like a bullet she shot into
the air. Straining with all her might, she scanned the horizon for
Piccolo’s ki. She finally found it. It was about 100 miles away to the
east.

"Well, it looks like I’ll have to reveal my fighting skills to at
least one person," she said dryly as she flew towards the source of
the ki. She wondered what Piccolo would think when he saw someone he
thought to be normal - by human standards - fly up to him as if it
were nothing at all. Oh well. She was going to find out in a few
minutes. She hoped his policy wasn’t attack first and ask questions
later.

Piccolo watched silently as Gohan slept on the rock column. He glanced
down at the dinosaur waiting at its base, and mused that if Gohan were
to learn to control his powers their respective roles would be reversed.
Gohan would be hunting the dinosaur instead of its hunting him. Gohan
shivered. He still hadn’t found the apples Piccolo had left him. Was
it a weakness to give him those? Piccolo hoped he wasn’t growing soft
because of one lousy kid. Gohan woke up and discovered the apples.
While he ate them Piccolo flew back a few hundred feet. He didn’t want
Gohan to see him. He wanted him to feel total seclusion.

Suddenly Piccolo sensed the approach of a new ki. He faced the
direction of the oncoming power, and in doing so he turned his back on
the rock column. "Who could it be?" he wondered silently. This island
was miles away from anyone. That had been the main reason for his
choosing it for Gohan’s training grounds. Whoever was coming must have
been looking for him. Silently he braced himself for battle. That ki
was intense enough to belong to a fighter, and it wouldn’t hurt to be
prepared.

When Bulma first began to become discernible in the distance Piccolo
wasn’t quite sure what he was looking at. When she was close enough to
be recognizable he was beyond speechless!

Bulma could see Piccolo in the distance. She flew to him as fast as
she could, forgetting that he was unaware of her ability to fly. He
braced himself for an attack as she advanced. Suddenly Bulma realized
that he probably thought that she was about to attack him. Not wanting
retaliation from him, she slowed down quite a bit and approached him
more easily, although she was a bit impatient. She stopped about five
feet away from him.

"Piccolo!" she exclaimed. "Where’s Gohan? Tell me it’s not too late!"

"Too late for what?" he asked, still overcome with surprise at who he
was seeing in front of him.

"Oh, thank goodness!" she said, breathing a sigh of relief. "It must
not have happened. He must be asleep. Piccolo, listen to me very
carefully. It’s absolutely necessary that you don’t let Gohan see the
full moon. It’s his tail. I don’t know how long you were at Muten
Roshi’s, so you may not know this. But Gohan is a Saiyan, and a tail
is the Saiyan race’s most deadly source of power. When a Saiyan with a
tail looks at the full moon..."

A roar in the distance unexpectedly cut her off. Bulma realized in
horror that she recognized that sound!

"Oh, Kami help us!" Bulma said, her eyes wide with fear as she noticed
the horrifyingly familiar shape growing in the distance behind Piccolo.
"It’s too late! He’s transformed! We’ve got to change him back before
he hurts anyone!"

Piccolo spun around to see what she was babbling about and met with an
even greater shock than seeing Bulma fly. Gohan had become a gigantic
weremonkey!

"What the..." Piccolo began and tried to take off toward Gohan, but
Bulma stopped him.

"Wait, Piccolo! He’s even stronger than Raditz was the other day.
We’ve got to get rid of that tail. As long as it’s in the moonlight
he’s unstoppable. You have more fighting experience than I do. Do you
think you could distract him long enough for me to get a good shot at
his tail?"

"I can if you can get in close enough without letting him hear you,"
he said, as Gohan smashed the column of rock.

"I’m sure I can do it, but he has to be totally unaware of me. You’ll
really have to keep him busy."

"All right," Piccolo said. "But we have to get it right the first time.
I don’t think he’ll give us a second chance, so I hope your aim is good
enough. Now let’s go, before he spots us and our plan is ruined."

Bulma flew around behind Gohan as Piccolo flew out in front. She
powered up rapidly as Gohan started grabbing for Piccolo. She had just
collected her energy when she heard a loud, angry yell from Piccolo.
Gohan had caught him and was crushing him with his massive hands. It
was now or never. Grunting with the effort, she hurled the energy ball
at the base of Gohan’s tail. But he must have heard her, because he
jumped at the last second and turned to face Bulma, escaping her
energy ball and releasing Piccolo in the process. Piccolo seemed
unhurt, so Bulma decided to worry about her own safety. Gohan glared
at her with enraged slits of eyes. Gulping, Bulma flew backwards,
dodging Gohan’s hands as he swatted at her as if she were an insect.

Suddenly he clipped her with the tips of the fingers on one of his
hands, but it was more than enough to slam Bulma into the ground.
Gasping in pain, Bulma stared in horror at Gohan as he lifted his foot
to crush her. She knew she wasn’t going to make it. Just before he
brought his foot down Bulma heard an enormous explosion.

Gohan’s hair began receding and he started shrinking in size. Bulma
realized that he was beginning to fall forward just in time to dart
out of the way. She shot up into the air, watching Gohan shrink to
normal. She noticed that he still had his tail.

"How did he..." she began and looked up at Piccolo. He was facing the
moon... hey, wait a minute! Where was the moon? She flew up alongside
Piccolo.

"You destroyed the moon," she breathed in awe.

"Gohan was too quick and powerful. It was just easier to hit the moon
than it was to hit his tail," he said emotionlessly.

Bulma sighed. "I should have known better than to alert him like that.
To tell you the truth, I haven’t had any fighting experience at all.
This was the first time I’ve used my fighting skills outside of
training. I could have gotten us both killed, but I wasn’t thinking
about that. I can see that I’m going to have to be more careful in the
future. Oh well. I suppose it doesn’t matter right now anyway. The
moon is gone, so this problem won’t come up again. I won’t be back."
She turned to leave.

"Wait," Piccolo said. She turned back around. He had an odd expression
on his face.

"Why?" she asked.

"You’re right," he replied. "You should have known better. But just
because you didn’t do very well this time doesn’t mean you don’t have
the potential to improve. From what I’ve seen, all you’ll need is some
good, solid combat training, and you might actually be useful when
those other two Saiyans arrive. I had intended to do a little extra
training myself, so I suppose I wouldn’t be too hindered by another
incompetent sparring partner. I suppose you could stay and work on
your fighting skills. We do, after all, have a year to prepare. I
suppose I might be able to help, if what they say is true, and miracles
do occur."

It wasn’t very hard for Bulma to weigh her options. The idea of
becoming Piccolo’s own personal punching bag was not all that appealing
to her. Besides, the thought of having to put up with his arrogance
for a year didn’t sound very amusing either.

"Sorry," she replied. "But I’ll have to decline your generous offer.
You’ll have your hands full with Gohan, and I have some dragonballs to
collect. Besides, I hadn’t intended to get involved in the upcoming
fight."

"Fine," Piccolo said angrily, turning away from her. "It makes no
difference to me, but I guess I was wrong in assuming you wouldn’t
mind risking your life for your planet. But just in case you change
your mind, I’d develop some sort of secret weapon if I were you,
because you’ll need it if you want to fight the Saiyans. Your ki is in
good shape I suppose, but the fact that you have no fighting experience
shows very clearly." With that he flew down to take care of Gohan.

Bulma seethed. She didn’t like the way he implied that she was a coward
for not planning to fight. Besides, she was still mad at herself for
her errors in the previous skirmish with Gohan, and his rubbing it in
didn’t make her too happy either. Well, she didn’t need his opinions.
Nor did she need his training.

"What a jerk!" she said to herself as she took off for the Kame house.
She yawned as she raced over the water. She was in a lot of pain, and
she was even more exhausted than she had been before. She was going to
sleep like a rock tonight!


On to Chapter Four...