Dragon Ball: A Better Bulma

Piloted by Bulma, the airship approached a vast meadow with no prominent elevation around it, just pure grass, bushes, and the occasional tree. It was a peaceful and unspoiled place, and some curious animals watched the landing. 

It seemed that these animals had not had any contact with humans or technology for a long time, for without fear they approached curiously to observe the strange two-legged creatures that appeared before them. 

"These creatures... they're strange, a Crystal Horned Deer? I never expected to see one alive and with its horns on its head," said Doctor Norimaki, and although his words were pleasant, there was a deep darkness behind them. 

"This place is unique, it is quite isolated from any trace of civilization and still contains many organisms that could be considered protected. The Capsule Corp. is making efforts to designate this place as a protected area," Bulma stowed the airship in her capsule before approaching the strange deer, who did not resist her touch and even licked her hand. 

"I know a little about these deer, many seek their horns for their healing properties, but they have driven them to near extinction, just like the Minotaur," Oolong said, receiving strange looks from his friends. 

"Hey! I've been expelled from the Transformation School, but I went to a normal school, you know? I have culture!" complained Oolong, but his anger quickly dissipated when he saw a blue slime approaching him. 

"Slime? Those things are really weird!" said Oolong in awe, bending down to pet the strange blue creature that kept jumping. 

"No doubt, a beautiful place," Midori Norimaki sighed, carrying her son, who waved his hand at a pink-winged butterfly that seemed to be playing with the little one.

"Let's try not to destroy this place, okay?" Bulma said to Arale, who nodded seriously before smiling broadly. 

"We'll play later! There must be lots of fun little animals here," Arale was excited to see the animals scampering around, especially wanting to hug a cute little white-furred bunny with a little horn on its head. 

"Yes, let's play," Bulma pulled herself away from the deer before she flew a bit to a place away from the group and Arale ran rather quickly to her place. 

On the side of the others, Goku and the others settled in and set up a rather hearty picnic. Everyone had a good place to watch the fight that was about to take place. 

"Who do you think will win?" Chi-Chi asked Goku, who quickly spoke his answer. 

"Bulma!" Goku shouted, but little Turbo Norimaki, who was hovering around his mother, spoke up. 

"Arale will win, she is the strongest!" there was a hint of pride in his childish tone of voice, but Goku wasn't going to argue with a floating baby, he was too mature for that...

"No! Bulma is stronger!" Maybe Goku wasn't that mature yet, but his confidence in Bulma was quite high. 

"Well, Arale can do some... strange things, you know? Look!" Doctor Norimaki pointed out, making everyone pay more attention to the fight that had started. 

"You can fly and shoot beams out of your hands, that's fun, but I can do something much better," Arale said in a jealous tone but soon left it behind to demonstrate her power. 

The little gynoid began to spin her right arm, creating a tornado that she comically threw at Bulma. The tornado had an angry face, with large fangs and furrowed eyebrows.

'Damn humoristic characters,' Bulma complained before pointing her hand at the tornado. 

A ball of purple Ki erupted from her hand, flying quickly towards the colossal tornado and exploding in the middle of it. This shattered the tornado, but Arale had somehow appeared behind Bulma. 

"Nothing personal, Bulma," Arale's small fist lightly struck Bulma's lower back, causing a large sonic boom from the blue-haired girl's body.

A few dozen meters away, Bulma finally fell to the ground, bouncing on the grass before coming back up, her feet sliding along the ground, but she had to keep doing this for several more meters before she stopped. 

"See, I'm awesome," Arale jumped out of the dirt in front of Bulma, then dusted herself off and gave a big smile to Bulma, who regretted her eagerness to fight the girl in front of her. 

"You are, but now it's my turn to hit you," Bulma clenched her fists before punching straight at Arale's face, but Arale didn't move, she just looked into Bulma's eyes. 

"You're just tickling me," Arale said mockingly, and although Bulma felt a little uncomfortable with that sentence, she kept her mind calm.

Bulma began to slap Arale's face with all her might, causing Arale to flinch a little, but there were no marks on her skin, and the girl only touched her cheeks before sticking her tongue out at Bulma.

Bulma flew towards Arale, her hands covered in purple ki, her energy seeming to condense into fighting gloves, and with this new attachment, her punches were more powerful when she struck. 

Bulma's punches and kicks seemed to fall in the air, Arale resisted everything by just taking a few steps back, but there was no obvious damage to her body. 

Bulma used all the physical techniques she could, she even felt that the transitions of her techniques had become smoother, but Arale barely reacted. 

Then the little girl reacted, hitting Bulma roughly in the abdomen, and although she could see the attack because of how slow she was, for some reason she could not dodge it, as if it was inevitable that she would receive the blow. 

Her body flew away again, this time much farther. Then Arale ran up to Bulma and hit her with her head, knocking her hard to the ground. Although the gynoid's blows were powerful, Bulma felt that she had suffered no real damage, but her clothes were now full of dust. 

"How about throwing beams from your hands?" asked Arale, who looked at Bulma with curiosity in her eyes. 

Bulma nodded before standing up. She then walked several feet away from Arale before looking at her palm. An aura of purple ki erupted from her body, the gloves she was wearing joining the energy that covered her body.

This time, Bulma controlled all of her energy to shape it into something special in her hand, something that looked like a rather thin purple thread that was constantly twisting, as if the gentle breeze made it flutter. 

"This is an idea I've been working on, but haven't gotten around to testing it on anyone else," Bulma said before she controlled the thread in her hand, turning it into a thin needle. 

"Chaotic Needle!" the needle in Bulma's hand disappeared from her hand and appeared almost instantly in Arale's head, spinning intensely in her forehead before exploding with a thunderous roar. 

But the energy from the blast turned into a ball of intensely spinning spikes that shattered the ground beneath Arale, and all of the energy was harnessed in such an attack before diminishing at the end. 

Arale's clothes were a bit torn, but otherwise, the little girl was in good shape. Arale simply stretched the torn sides of her clothes, gluing them together in a strange way as if they had never been torn. 

"That was a nice attack," Arale exclaimed before seeing that the ground beneath her was completely shattered, leaving only a small pillar for her to stand on. 

"You made a wreck," Arale said with some reproach, and Bulma touched the back of her neck, recalling her younger brother Goku's classic gesture. 

"I can fix it," Bulma said before she closed her eyes for a moment and a breath of life burst from her being, causing many plants and flowers to grow around her. 

Crystal-clear water began to gush from the large hole, creating a pond that would be used as a water source by the surrounding animals in the future. Bulma looked quite tired after this, but her 'fight' with Arale was not serious. 

She just wanted to test a few things, both her own and Arale's. She could see firsthand what an abnormality the gynoid was, and she could also test how effective her power was against an overwhelmingly strong opponent. 

In the absence of real opponents, this was all she could do. Her master was strong, but she could try to hurt him with some dirty tricks if she set her mind to it, though the old man would always have superior power to hers, at least for now. 

"This is cooler than beams from hands!" Arale exclaimed excitedly when she saw her reflection in the water, and she even tasted it, finding it strangely the most delicious water she had ever tasted. 

"I think so, but Arale, can you use your full power?" asked Bulma, causing Arale to suddenly look at her before smiling at her. 

"You know you'll never be able to match my strength, right? But I'll show you something that you will be able to reach," Arale strangely kept a steady and calm tone this time, before jumping in front of Bulma and gently touching her side. 

"My power is too strong, you can't reach it, but you can if you try hard, you can achieve what I will show you, consider it my gift for being my new friend, okay? Arale said before she suddenly punched towards the sun. 

Nothing very obvious happened, but Bulma felt that something... something very bad was about to happen. Then the sun seemed to be affected by something, for a moment, the whole Earth was illuminated, and all humans saw how it gave its last light.

Before it exploded. There was no sound, but Bulma seemed to hear something like an explosion. The earth was plunged into darkness, but then Arale turned her hand and the sun reappeared. 

"Whew, lucky I had a light bulb," Arale said, wiping the sweat from her forehead, but Bulma paid no attention to her, just watching as the same old sun stood in front of her after its supposed explosion. 

"How will people react?" asked Bulma, and Arale started to laugh next to her. 

"They don't need to know, but Bulma, I'm only responsible for Dr. Norimaki's safety, I'm not interested in anything else, so don't bring any trouble into our house, okay?" Arale said, causing Bulma to nod. 

Perhaps the most important thing about this supposed fight was not the performance of her technique or the subtle improvement of her martial arts or mental state, but the fact that she could understand why so many things happened in Dragon Ball and Arale did not act. 

Her greatest concern has always been and will always be Doctor Norimaki, her creator. No matter if Earth was conquered, destroyed, or simply wiped out by some God of Destruction, she would only protect Doctor Norimaki with her abilities, nothing more, nothing less. 

Fortunately, she had befriended Arale, not expecting to have to rely on her against the great threats this world would face, nor did she plan to bring her to the very likely Tournament of Power, because that was essentially none of Arale's business. 

Bulma decided not to think about the actual abilities of a cartoon being, especially since when she returned to the rest of the group, they seemed unaware of the fact that the sun had exploded and then been recreated by Arale. 

The world had forgotten about it, except for Bulma and Arale. But knowing that she could gain that power and probably more, Bulma immediately broadened her horizons. 

Even though she knew the things that would be done in the future, to directly see a sample of the power that she could achieve with hard training was quite beneficial, she even felt that if she used her Chaotic Needle again, she could execute it in a better way to make it even more powerful. 

Bulma looked down at her palm, where a small needle of purple ki was spinning intensely as it hovered just inches from her skin. The color was much deeper and more compact, and the needle had shrunk considerably.

It no longer had to go through the thread form, a significant improvement in its use. Bulma then released her energy, now she was going to enjoy a picnic, knowing that although she had undoubtedly lost this battle against Arale, she had gained many things in return.