Super Dragon Ball: Paradise Hysteria

The Dangerous Bio-Android - Cell

Piccolo and Lapis landed in the front yard of the Capsule Corps building in the center of West City and looked around. Given how meek Bulma's Ki signature was, it barely set itself apart from millions of people around West City. However, both of them noticed the fact that the garage was open on the right side of the massive central dome-shaped building. It didn't take long for Bulma to emerge, covered in machine oil, wearing rags and thick leather overalls that seemed to be put through some wear and tear.

"You two? That's a surprise!" Bulma exclaimed after slipping off her headgear, slipping off her thick glove, and wiping the back of her dirty and sweaty forehead. "Do you two also want to leave for space to look for the Ultimate Dragon Balls? At this point, I think we've got enough people."

"Sorry, we understand that collecting the Ultimate Dragon Balls is essential to Earth's survival, but we might be onto something that's just as important," Piccolo replied after Lapis stayed quiet for longer than he'd have liked. Given how this was Lapis' idea of how to get some more information about what they were dealing with, Piccolo expected the young man to show some more initiative.

"Do you think we could use the communications in your lab?" Lapis brought it up out of nowhere.

"Huh? My coms?" Bulma scratched the back of her head, slathering it with some black dirt and sighing after realizing how much work it would be to wash all this muck off after she'll be done tinkering with whatever she was working on. "I guess..." she shrugged. "Everyone's been milking me dry of money and handouts lately, frankly, letting you guys use my coms sounds like the least I can do."

"Do you think they could reach Dr. Puri?" Lapis wondered with a casual look on his face. He carried himself almost as if him asking Bulma of this was some nonchalant thing. While Piccolo had loads of additional context for Lapis' request, he had to hand it that, without said context, one of Dr. Puri's strongest hitmen from her dark past contacting her like this sounded suspicious, if nothing else.

"What's this all of a sudden?" Bulma placed her hands on her hips, turning sour. "Why would you need to contact that backstabbing harpy?"

"Did something happen again? You two seemed to be content working with each other and she assisted you in rescuing Vegeta, after all..." Piccolo wondered, noticing a dramatic shift back to the relationship between the two being rotten beyond repair.

"As if that hussy did it out of the kindness of her heart!" Bulma ground her teeth while clenching her fists tightly in front of her and feeling the innate desire to expel all the pent-up stress. "She showed her true colors after towing the remains of all the Four-Stars for herself after the conflict with Baby and the Machine Mutants was over with, leaving me with the trouble of relocating Baby and the Machine Mutants back to Planet Vegeta out of my pocket!"

"Haven't all the Four-Stars been wrecked? What does it matter if she dragged a bunch of scrap space junk out of our figurative lawn?" Piccolo crossed his arms.

"It DOES matter!" Bulma growled, leaning over at him, and frightening even the dauntless Ultimate Namekian warrior into breaking concentration and leaning back in a submissive posture. "What do you think someone like that horrible woman will do with ancient, ground-breaking pieces of technology like the Four-Stars that borderline on being so advanced they seem like magic!? Nothing good, that's what!"

"Right now, that old hag is the least of our problems," Lapis stepped into the middle of that conversation. "She might have some information that's vital for the Earth's survival, though. You can judge her character and intentions based on how willing she is to provide it to us. It has something to do with some work she might have done back in the day. That was a mystery even to us, her closest assistants."