Three wishes

The two brothers stood in the air above Dr. Gero's laboratory.

After a moment's thought, Son Gohan raised his hand and hurled an energy blast down.

BOOM!

The energy blast detonated.

Light blazed in every direction, the earth shook, and flames shot into the sky.

The entire laboratory was blown to pieces. An enormous mushroom cloud rose into the air, and the explosion could be heard over a hundred kilometers away.

Amid the deafening blast, the Weathered Stone Forest was flattened in an instant, leaving a crater several kilometers across, billowing with thick smoke.

Looking down at the crater, Son Gohan nodded in satisfaction and flew away with Trunks.

The two soon returned to Capsule Corporation.

Bulma was still tinkering with the Time Machine.

Son Gohan and Trunks unloaded everything they had taken from Dr. Gero.

The roomful of stuff left Bulma staring in shock, her mouth hanging open.

Had these two gone out looting?

Computers, books, notebooks, manuscripts, desks, hibernation pods, and even a few lumps of some blackened material?

"What's all this? You found Dr. Gero's laboratory?" Bulma asked in surprise, stopping her work.

Son Gohan nodded. "Yeah, we found it. We brought all this from Dr. Gero's laboratory. Aunt Bulma, take a look and see if any of it is useful to you."

"Uh, all of this came from Dr. Gero?" Bulma hurried to her feet and went over to inspect it.

Son Gohan said, "Yeah. We thought it might be useful to you, so we brought it all back."

Bulma picked up a notebook and rapidly flipped through its pages.

Then she switched to a manuscript. The more she read, the more astonished she became.

And the more delighted she grew.

Bulma couldn't stop marveling.

"Dr. Gero really was a genius. It's a shame he went down the wrong path."

"Androids, the Perpetual Energy Reactor, genetic engineering... Incredible. Absolutely incredible. These are all brilliant ideas."

Seeing her excitement, Son Gohan knew he had made the right call.

Good thing he hadn't destroyed all this with a single blast.

He asked, "Well, Aunt Bulma? This stuff is useful, right?"

"Useful? It's incredibly useful!" Bulma said happily. "Gohan, you two did a great job. I'm so glad you didn't destroy all this."

"Dr. Gero may have been a villain, but his scientific research was innocent. With all this, I feel like I've grown a whole new brain."

"For starters, I should be able to finish my Time Machine a year ahead of schedule."

"And I can use this Perpetual Energy Reactor as a reference to build other devices."

Bulma talked at length, her face radiant with joy.

It was the first time Trunks had ever seen Bulma so full of energy.

At that moment, Bulma seemed to have returned to her driven, youthful days.

Son Gohan laughed. "Sounds like we hit the jackpot today. We'll have to have an extra-big dinner tonight, haha."

"Mm-hmm, extra-big dinner," Bulma replied without even looking up.

Only after half an hour had passed

did Bulma finally emerge from the ocean of knowledge.

The first thing she did was put Son Gohan and Trunks to work.

"You two, give me a hand and move all this into the empty room next door. Remember to sort everything and arrange it neatly so I can find things when I need them."

The two handsome young men got busy again, carrying everything over piece by piece.

Once they finished, Son Gohan and Trunks headed into the Gravity Room and trained for several hours.

Training never ended.

The next day.

The three of them neatly arranged the seven Dragon Balls on an open patch of ground near Capsule Corporation, then summoned Shenron to make their wishes.

It was the same familiar routine, the same familiar process.

The sky instantly turned pitch-black.

After a burst of thunder and lightning,

the familiar Eastern Shenron coiled among the clouds, his enormous blood-red eyes gleaming and his whiskers swaying, regal and imposing.

He truly lived up to his place as a revered symbol and totem of the East.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Seeing Shenron for the first time, Trunks cried out with shining eyes.

He's so cool!

How awesome would it be to have a mount like that? Trunks let his imagination run wild, practically drooling.

Meanwhile, Dende and Mr. Popo stood at the edge of Kami's Lookout, gazing down at the mortal world. Naturally, they, too, saw Son Gohan and the others summoning Shenron to make their wishes.

Shenron came with his own sound system, his voice booming across the sky. "Humans who have summoned me, state your wishes. I can grant you three wishes. Any wishes at all..."

"Really? Any wish at all?" Trunks asked excitedly.

"Of course. Any wish at all..." Shenron replied.

Son Gohan rolled his eyes. He couldn't listen to this anymore.

Doesn't he know his own limits? Should he really be bragging like that?

Son Gohan looked up at Shenron and grinned.

Feeling Son Gohan's gaze, Shenron's enormous body twitched.

That look... Is he looking down on me?

A fist-sized bead of sweat rolled down the green dragon's forehead.

Silence!

Son Gohan smiled at Shenron. "Since you put it that way, I'll just make a little wish."

Shenron had a bad feeling, but he still replied, "State your wish!"

Son Gohan said, "Please raise my power to the level of a God of Destruction or an Angel."

Three black question marks popped up above Shenron's head: ???

Then he fell silent again.

Holy shit! That's ridiculous!

How am I supposed to do that?

If he hadn't been the noble Shenron, he would have had a few choice words to say.

Son Gohan looked at him, and he looked back at Son Gohan.

After several seconds of silence... he lowered his head. "S-sorry, that wish is beyond my power. Please choose another wish."

Son Gohan said, "But you just said you could grant any wish."

"S-sorry. I can grant any wish within my power. What you just asked for is beyond my power," Shenron continued to explain.

Seeing Shenron with his head bowed and eyes lowered, Trunks felt something shatter inside him.

Where's Shenron's dignity?

Although he had no idea what Gods of Destruction and Angels actually were.

The fact remained that Shenron couldn't grant every wish.

Shenron had been bluffing.

His image crumbled in an instant!

So what wishes were they going to make?

As for that, Son Gohan and the other two had already discussed it the previous night.

The first wish: resurrect the humans killed by the androids.

The number of humans killed by the androids was staggering, reaching into the billions.

But that was the total accumulated over more than a decade.

In the end, Shenron could only resurrect those killed within the past year.

That wish was easily granted.

Countless humans came back to life, looking utterly bewildered.

Total number resurrected: 250 million.

That showed just how savage and bloodthirsty Android 17 and Android 18 had been.

They had slaughtered hundreds of millions in just one year. It was downright terrifying.

Even demons would have gotten tattoos of Android 17 and Android 18.

The second wish: restore the cities and all kinds of equipment on Earth that the androids had destroyed.

That wish was easily granted as well.

But with Earth's population now so small, many restored cities became completely deserted.

A few years later, weeds ran rampant and vines wound around buildings, making them look like ghost towns.

From then on, this world had no more mortgage slaves struggling against impossible odds just to survive. That was a blessing of sorts.

The third wish: strengthen Earth and make it better able to take a beating.