35 Return (1/2)
”Menagerie, What happened?” Bulma was tossed to the floor by the sudden explosion onboard the ship. The lights in her quarters changed to red, signifying the ship was on alert. She quickly went to work throwing her uniform on.
”Emperor Raditz and Specialist Ramen have returned to the ship.” the Menagerie reported the cause of the disturbance.
”Where are they?” the Empress knew a normal teleportation would not have caused the ship to become damaged.
”Emperor Raditz is in Guest Celipa's quarters. Specialist Ramen is on the bridge.” the ship promptly replied.
”Something must have gone terribly wrong for Raditz and Ramen to end up in two different places.” the Empress mused. She didn't have much time time to think about what could have happened before the ship delivered an urgent warning.
”Alert! Emperor Raditz's vitals are dropping.”
After receiving the news Bulma ran out of her room as fast as possible. She rushed down the hallways, taking the quickest possible route to the guest rooms. On the way, she made sure to inform the medical personnel to bring aid to the room.
When she arrived at Celipa's quarters, the female Saiyan standing near an injured an unconscious Raditz. She was wearing her pink under suit and in her hand was a bottle of the viral cure Big Gete synthesized years earlier.
”What happened?” Bulma asked. She started to remember the time she talked Raditz into going to the Arctic Wastelands. She had never seen her husband that close to death since that time in Wheelo's lab.
”I don't know, I heard an explosion and ran outta the shower and he was there on the floor. He needed me to give him this medicine.” Celipa answered.
Raditz needed to be transferred to the infirmary to heal from the damage sustained by the botched teleportation. They doctors needed to wait for a few hours for the cure to work before they could give him a Panacea bean. The medical personnel were forced to use conventional means to treat his injuries until the cure did its job.
She wanted to wait in the medical facility until Raditz was fully healed, but the Captain had sent word that he needed her on the bridge. When she exited the infirmary's sliding double doubles, she saw Celipa leaning against a bulkhead with her arms crossed. Her fierce eyes were staring at the floor in front of her.
”I'm surprised you're here.” Bulma said.
”Well... he said he would owe me if I gave him the cure! So I wanted to make sure my ticket to becoming a Super Saiyan survived!” the female Saiyan became animated.
”I need to get to the bridge.” Bulma said before asking, ”Do you want to go along?”
The Saiyan thought about the question for a moment. Going along would probably be better than waiting, but she wasn't an official member of the crew and didn't want to take too many liberties.
”No, I think I'll pass. If I get bored, I'll go train.”
Bulma smiled and head down the hallway towards the lift that would take her to the bridge. When she stepped onto the bridge, she saw the Shadow on the view screen drifting in space. The ship appeared to have been heavily damaged. Ordinary pirates should not have the ability to completely outgun a Promethean Mother ship.
After Bulma left the infirmary quieted down with the exception of the machines monitoring Raditz and the doctors conversing among themselves. One of the doctors discovered that Raditz had begun bleeding internally and required emergency surgery or he wouldn't survive to long enough to eat a Panacea bean. Despite the urging of the doctors Raditz refused any anesthesia. They tried to protest saying that any movement do to pain could kill him.
”My Lord, you understand that you will need to keep your power suppressed for the entire procedure. You can't even use it reflexively.” the doctor explained in a shaky voice.
”Wheelo did this to me!” Raditz managed to grab the doctor's coat and pull him close. ”So I'm going to enjoy his gift to the fullest so I know how much to pay him back!” Raditz grimaced and shoved the doctor away.
During the surgery Raditz, through sheer force of will stayed, conscious the entire time. The pain and anger over what happen caused the Emperor to hovered back a forth between sanity and insanity. While laying completely motionless his eyes filled with a murderous rage he never realized he had.
At one point he happened to glance over to surgical waiting room and saw the Saiyan that helped him earlier staring through the glass window. When he laid his eyes on her she thought she could physically feel the murderous intent behind his rabid gaze. She'd never experience anything like it in her life.
When she arrived at the bridge Bulma was greeted by salutes of the crew.
”Empress, how should we proceed?” the Captain asked his superior, ”I know we originally came to investigate, but considering current events should we abort the mission?”
”No we need to see if there is anyone is alive on the Shadow and collect the records.” the Empress commanded.
”At once, my Empress.” the Captain nodded.
Back on Earth, Kakarot was pressuring the cyborg, Dr. Gero. He fell back on hand to hand combat to avoid the cyborg absorbing his Ki. Kakarot was moving much faster than Gero had projected from the data he'd gathered over the years. However, his predictive processes were still capable of keeping up with the Super Saiyan.
Gero charged at his Super Saiyan foe ready to attack. His augmented reality vision made phantom versions of Gero appear displaying the optimal attack pattern he should use. The cyborg followed the highlighted steps that only he could see, avoiding Kakarot's counter attacks at every turn.
Gero attempted to use an uppercut, but his wrist was tightly grasped by his opponent. Kakarot forced Gero's arm down, stepping over it at the same time, forcing Gero's face into the dirt. The Super Saiyan had one foot on the white haired cyborg's back, pressing him harder into the ground, while he continued to twist the arm he was holding.
Kakarot was almost caught off guard by the cyborg's head rotating a full one-eighty to stare at him. The Saiyan was forced to jump back to avoid to red laser beams that fired from the cyborg's eyes. Kakarot still had Gero's arm in his hand when he jump away to avoid the beams. To his surprise, the lasers made a right angle, charging right into the path Kakarot was dodging. He threw Gero's severed arm into the path of the beams to avoid being hit. Reiss noticed the attack and hoped his father saw it because he was looking for a way to make Ki blasts zig-zag. Reiss had been so absorbed by his fight that he failed to notice his father had left the battlefield with Ramen.
BOOM!
A thick black smoke filled the air, surrounding the spot where Kakarot and Dr. Gero were having their battle. Because he was concealed by the smoke, Kakarot couldn't tell where Gero was going to attack from. The Super Saiyan made certain not to lower his guard until the smoke cleared.
Vegeta was finding Dr. Wheelo to be an odd opponent to face. The cyborg's body was almost like rubber in the way it could stretch and deform. Each time Vegeta struck the doctor, his fist would be absorbed by the cyborg's face, or the body part would just stretch.
”Dr. Wheelo, help me!” Dr. Kochin shouted. He was still being beaten on by the two children he was facing.
Kakarot had lost sight of Dr. Gero after the smoke cleared, the one armed cyborg was nowhere to be seen.