…

Two years passed in the blink of an eye. They spent most of it in wild space battles, kind of like the one Yamcha was in right now. His hands were through his spaceship. The place where his arm and metallic exterior connected was like a ripple.  

 

Thousands of spaceships surrounded them, yet he had a calm look on his face as he kept shooting at the Frieza Forces. Each of his attacks blew up a spaceship and killed hundreds of personnel. 

 

Bulma maneuvered their spaceship through them all like a snake. Or, more correctly, the Artificial Intelligence she had created was moving the spaceship at such speeds and calculating trajectories faster than any fleshy mind could.

 

While that was all happening, Bulma was reading a book. Not the science-related kind, but a romance novel book. A bad one too, if Yamcha had anything to say about it. 

 

"Can you read the new chapter out loud? It's getting kinda boring here. I've been shooting at Frieza Soldiers for the last couple of hours." Yamcha yawned. He didn’t need to look at what he was shooting at, since he could sense them well enough. 

 

He knew the Frieza Force was a big group with millions of fighters. But it seemed like he had made a mistake. It wasn't millions of fighters, but hundreds of billions of fighters. Frieza had subjugated a lot of races and whole planets of fighting ethnicities. 

 

"Frieza has increased your bounty again," Bulma added, flipping to another page in her romance book. 

 

"That doesn't sound like the chapter of what you're reading," Yamcha retorted as he created a barrier around the ship. Bombardments of cannons and Ki Blasts from enemies hit the barrier, but they couldn't even crack the protective barrier. "Also, Frieza has increased my bounty for the third time this month. It’s tempting me to turn myself in if I could get all that money."

 

“That sounds like a you problem,” Bulma shrugged. She didn't have a bounty, despite everything. 

 

If it wasn't for her, Yamcha was sure he would have been captured by now. That's just how things work. Despite his power, he wouldn't have been able to build a ship at her level. Well, he doubted anyone could build a spaceship at her level.

 

Sure, Yamcha had the power. But Bulma was the one who had built the ship to work with an AI who was awake all day long. Also, their ship was faster than the standard Frieza Force ship. 

 

'She did all this while working with limited materials, as we never could settle down and wait until the right materials arrived. Instead of her creations becoming weaker in that environment, she actually got better, discovered new elements and cheaper means of super fuel.'

 

What Bulma always needed was some kind of pressure to grow. If there was enough stress on her, Yamcha was pretty sure she could create Androids at a stage that Dr Gero couldn't even dream of. Well, he was biased in that opinion, but he was going to stick to it. "Also, can you deploy your guns and shoot those guys down? It's getting pretty boring doing this all the time."

 

"Sure, but we will need to get away from here soon. As they have notified Frieza and are calling for backup," Bulma checked with one of the computer screens where she saw the latest conversations the Frieza Forces had. 

 

It was kind of scary how fast Bulma grew to hack the computers of some of the smartest scientists in Frieza Force. They were one of the best in the universe, but now she's one or more steps above them.

 

Sometimes, Yamcha wondered if she knew how to build a time machine. 

 

"They're casting scrambling viruses again," Bulma sighed. "Time to release the countermeasures to buy us some time. Virgo, go and handle them, and take some of your friends with you."

 

After she said that, Bulma released the pink-haired maid android into space. Yamcha knew of Virgo, but another onslaught of robots poured out of their spaceship. 

 

The new robots were different shades of gray patches, as if they were welded together and looked like they were made of scrap. 

 

But no Frieza soldier in the field compared to any of the robots, as they massacred them.

 

Virgo was the strongest among all of them, and she shot laser beams from her eyes and mouth, destroying dozens of ships that way.

 

"She is working together with the ship's AI and targeting command vessels who are sending out signals with orders," Bulma explained, not once having bothered to take her eyes off the romance book she was reading. 

Beep! Beep! Beep!

 

A button on the ship's control panel blinked red, and Bulma turned it off. She didn’t show an ounce of panic and finally took her eyes off the romance novel. 

 

Yamcha felt his heart beat faster than normal, not out of nervousness. 

 

The way Bulma moved was elegant, like a master musician playing the piano.

 

"They have set a scrambler to our travel system to stop us from turning on our traveling systems. They're trying to keep us here for a while." Bulma explained. 

"Will that be a problem?" Yamcha wasn't sure he could hold back a fully powered Frieza, despite having gotten stronger over the last years. His power level was only at 1.2 million, with maximum Skills boosts would be around 3.6 million.

 

"We won't be able to move for about a dozen seconds. He must have some new good hackers in his army." Bulma's eyes shone with a burning flame of passion.

 

'Some of the best hackers in the universe are contending against some girl in her early twenties from Earth. Hacking isn't even one of Bulma’s main strengths.' 

 

Yamcha stood by the side and stared at what could be considered his girlfriend. When coming to this world, with so many things around to explore, both magical places and new planets. He never thought he would fall in love with someone.

 

Well, he didn't know if what he had for Bulma could be considered love, as in Yamcha's eyes, if you love someone, you must be willing to give your life for them. He wasn't sure he could do that for Bulma, but she was the person he cared about the most in this world. 

 

Virgo flew back to the ship while the other robots Bulma had created each attached themselves to an enemy ship and started exploding. 

 

He smiled at the Frieza soldiers getting killed in droves. This was like a symphony of a massacre. 

 

While Yamcha usually killed Frieza's soldiers with his fists and Ki Beams dirty, like a brute. The way Bulma killed was beautiful. She didn't have to get her hands dirty and didn't even look at her victims. 

 

Ding!

 

[You have lost your Title: Champion]

Yamcha's thoughts froze when he saw the notification. Rage bubbled in his chest before it was crushed down by his Gamer's Mind and Willpower. He wasn't strong enough to allow his feelings to lead his decisions. 

 

'What the fuck is that dumbass doing?!' Yamcha clenched his fist. 

 

Everything had been going well, but the easiest thing was where the clone just had to go to earth and defeat some people with power levels below 1000. Yet he failed that!

 

Taking a breath, Yamcha calmed down. He knew right now wasn't the best time to get angry, and there wasn't anything he could do about it now. Instead of worrying and screaming, it would be more efficient to think of a different way to get a title that increases his stat gain. 

"Bulma, can we stealthily contact the attack pod we sent my clone on?" Yamcha asked, sitting down on Bulma's chair as she was up and managing the controls. He read her shitty romance book for a couple of pages and then put it back down.

 

"No."

 

"What? But I thought you were smart?"

 

"I work within the bounds of science. I'm not a miracle worker. Also, the Frieza soldiers aren't dumb," she stated. As she did so, the ship shook, and they took off.

 

Yamcha sighed but understood what she meant.

 

These scientists, hackers, and engineers were at the top of their fields. She outpaced, outsmarted, and outplayed thousands of them. On top of that, she made it look easy. 

***

 

The attack pod exploded on impact. Clone Yamcha felt the heat of the explosion as he landed in a forest on Earth. 

Clone Yamcha winced as he landed on earth, with his attack pod exploding on impact. Thankfully, he used a rudimentary form of Barrier Magic and stopped himself from being hurt.

 

The attack pod had taken damage, as Frieza's men had been relentless in their chase. Unlike the original, he didn't have Bulma with him to fix every small thing. He had almost died in space. 

 

His senses spread out, and he sensed multiple familiar energies fighting where the Tenkaichi Budokai was held. "Fuck, the original is going to kill me."

Knowing that the original might dispel him soon, Clone Yamcha powered up and flew toward Kami's Lookout. His flight speed was faster than most things in this world, so within a dozen seconds, he reached his destination.

 

Popo was watering flowers. He noticed Yamcha and turned toward him. "Yamcha? I thought you went out of the planet. You're back so soon. Want some tea?"

 

'Fuck, every time I look at him, the image of the abridged version of Popo overlap.' Clone Yamcha winced before schooling his expression. "Is Kami here?"

 

"Of course he is. Not like he can go anywhere else," Popo chuckled good-naturedly. 

 

'What do you mean by that?! Do you keep Kami prisoner?!' 

 

While thinking thoughts of doom about the possible terror incarnate that was Popo, Kami came from the lookout building. "You're back."

 

"Yeah, anyway, Kami. Do you usually sense dragon ball energy from me?" Clone Yamcha asked.

 

Kami closed his eyes as if thinking of something. "Yes, a bit. But it's very faint that if I'm not concentrating, I wouldn't usually sense it."

 

Like some humans have better eyesight or sense of smell, Clone Yamcha reasoned that Namekians must have different sensing abilities. Because Lord Slug seemed to sense the original Yamcha as long as he was in the same solar system as them. 

 

"Then do you sense anything on me?" Clone Yamcha asked. Though this might seem like a casual question, its implications would run deep.

 

Kami narrowed his eyes and was silent for a couple of seconds before he tilted his head. "Huh? Weird, I can't sense anything on you."

 

'Yes, because I don't have Gamer's Body or access to the Gamer Interface. Then the second theory just became a lot more apparent. The original really is a paranoid but a smart asshole.'

 

Kami not being able to sense Gamer's Body meant that likely the Gamer Interface itself was created by a Dragon Ball wish. 

 

********

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