Disclaimer: Dragonball Z, character names and their distinctive likenesses
thereof are trademarks of Toei Animation Co. Ltd. Aliens and the aliens'
distinctive likenesses and the name "xenomorph" thereof are trademarks of
20th Century Fox.
Fan Fiction.net Presents
An akilatem Records Production
Based on the characters created by Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusset, Roger Shackelford, and Akira Toriyama
Chris Sabat
Tiffany Vollmer
In a story by Roger Shackelford
ALIENS versus DRAGONBALL: LENTO
Lauara Bailey
Damien Clarke
Sonny Strait
Cynthia Cranz
John Burgmeier
Kara Edwards
and Meredith McCoy
Original Alien Design by H.R. Giger
Orchestral Score by James Horner and Nobuo Uematsu
Cover Art By Shaun Kelly
With Special thanks to Michael Brown, Shaun Kelly, and Emily Rothenberger
-------------------------------------------------------
The ship was coasting silently through space. From looking at it from the outside, it seemed as if it was dead. No engines running, no lights on, no signs of life. It was just slipping across the empty plains to its final destination, earth, which was merely a few thousand miles ahead.
* * *
"Trunks, would you get down here. You're father and Goku are going to be here soon."
Bulma was franticly going around, cleaning up the house. She was expecting company. Not only from the returning heroes, but from Goku's family. They had scheduled a getting together party for their return, but Bulma had waited until the last second to straighten up. The landing strip for their ship was just outside her mansion. Her father was the owner of the multi- conglomerate organization, Capsule-Corp. He was also a brilliant scientist. He created, with help from his genius daughter, the deep space ship that was bringing the adventurers back from their training mission. He could think of no better place to have a landing strip for his creation than in his large back yard.
"What do ya want mom?" Trunks asked as he stood on the stairs, halfway down.
"Didn't I ask you to clean up the bathroom down here?"
"Yeah, I'll do it ina minute, I'm doin' somethin' right now."
"Ah no," Bulma's motherly instincts kicked in. "You're gonna get done what I tell you now! HEY! Don't go back up those steps!"
"I have to get done what I was doin'!"
"And what was that? Playing those damn videogames again? If you don't get this done now, I'm gonna smash them over your head!!!"
"Fine," Trunks knew he was busted. "But leave me alone when I'm done."
"Ah no! I ain't leaving you alone until this house is clean!"
"But mom!"
"Go ahead! Say another word! I'll tell your father what kind of shit you're pulling."
Fatal words to any child from their mother. Trunks quickly shut up and went to work.
The mansion rested on the outskirts of the island city of Caldoria, Bulma's life long home, in the islands off of Japan. It was a large, secluded piece of land with only one way on and off, a large suspension bridge that connected to the mainland only a mile off shore. Bulma never used to like it at home. She always used to be off on some sort of adventure far and away, but those days were far behind her now.
She went into the living room to tidy up some loose ends.
Vegeta had been gone for some time now. She missed him every second he was gone. They had been together for over a decade now and had a child together, but they still weren't married. The subject had never come up, and she began to believe that he seriously didn't understand the concept of marriage. After all, he was alien to this planet. Maybe marriage didn't exist where he was from. She some what didn't mind not being wed. She knew there was a bond between them that was good enough as marriage, but there was a part of her that hoped they could make it official. Also, her parents hated the fact that they had a child outside of wedlock. They believed in Christian values, and saw this as being bad. They had tried to pressure her to marry him, but she pretended to think it wasn't that important to her.
She looked at her watch on the palm side of her wrist. 2:30. She began to cuss in her head. Her company was going to be here in 15 minutes. She knew it was her fault for waiting to clean up. She hadn't even touched the kitchen yet. She began to wonder why they didn't have a butler. With a big house like this they should.
She could hear Vegeta's ship land outside. She began to cuss at herself even more. She decided that the living room was fine and ran into the kitchen to throw some things away at the last minute before Vegeta came in.
"MOOOOOOM!!! WAS THAT DAD!?!?," Trunks yelled from the bathroom.
"YEAH! BUT JUST KEEP CLEANING!" She wanted to get as much done as she could. She heard the engines shut off and then dead silence. She was rushing around, putting things away in cabinets, washing spots off of the counters, basically covering every problem as it came at her.
She heard a light scratching on the door to her right that led to the basement. She looked over at the door and stopped what she was doing for a second. "Now what could this be", she thought to herself. She started to walk towards the door. All of the sudden, the door exploded into splinters from the inside. Wood chunks flew all over Bulma as she fell to the floor. She didn't wait to see what had done it, she wanted to get out of there. She tried to scramble to her feet just as Vegeta burst through the back door just feet in front of her. He immediately saw Bulma trying to scramble away. Before he could react, the black object pounced on Bulma. It pulled her nearly to her feet by her hair. Her neck was blatantly exposed. The black object opened a mouth full of pearly white, razor sharp teeth just millimeters from her neck. Next thing Vegeta saw was those same teeth enter Bulma's neck as her blood spilled to the floor.
Vegeta snapped up, ice cold, soaking wet, and his spine and the back of his head shaking. He turned over and fell off the bed. He propped himself up with both hands and vomited. Then, he fell to his side. His eyes were closed and he was breathing very heavily. They were getting worse and worse. The dreams were persistent; he had been having them every night for the past month, and they were taking a severe toll on him. Vegeta had become a nervous wreck from sleep deprivation. He couldn't get anymore than 3 hours a night. He put his hand to his forehead and slid his hand onto his hair. Keeping his eyes closed made things even worse. The image of Bulma drenched in her own blood kept playing through his head, and it was almost literally killing him. He snapped his eyes wide open and was met with the image of the under side of his bed and the other side of the room, with dark black and blue illumination. He pushed himself off the floor slightly as a line of saliva trailed from his mouth to the ground. As he sat up, it snapped and hung on to his chin. He wiped it was with his wrist and sat there for a second.
The dreams were almost always the same. They barely involved him anymore; it was always Bulma or his son, Trunks, being brutally and graphically slain by dark images. The images were never totally decipherable. He couldn't remember distinctly the figures they were supposed to represent, but when he closed his eyes, he could see flash images of a black being with no eyes and teeth; the most evil looking creature imaginable. Every time he saw it, it cut him to the bone.
Every minute, he held it in him; the frustration, anger, and madness building up inside him. He wanted to destroy everything in sight, but had to restrain himself. He knew if he went berserk, he may rupture the hull and commit suicide. Maybe he would find some relief when he arrived home later that day. He knew exactly what was going to happen when he got back, he just hoped s-h-e would not trigger his rage. He hoped he could hold it in until he could release it somewhere that wasn't in front of Bulma or Trunks. She was going to go ballistic, and Vegeta had been preparing for it the whole ride, but he wasn't sure if it was enough.
He got up to his feet and staggered his way into the bathroom. He was still suffering from the wounds he acquired on Purge. Of all of them, his leg bothered him the most. He somewhat disliked having to at times float from room to room to keep off of it. He started to think it may have fractured. If it was just a flesh wound, it shouldn't have been hurting him this much this long after. Then again, he began thinking none of his wounds were healing correctly. His shoulder and chest were still sore and still needed bandages as they periodically still bled. He blamed it on not having sufficient medical equipment onboard. When he ran out of conventional bandages a few weeks prior, he had to resort to different types off linen and washed them in between uses.
When he got into the bathroom, he was only thinking of one thing, getting the taste out of his mouth. He flipped the switch to turn the lights on. He squinted a bit because of the pain of having bright lights in his face after being in the dark all night. He took his time and slowly let his eyes adjust. He turned the faucet to cold water, cupped his hands and let them fill. He sipped from them, swished the water in his mouth, and spit it out. He went to grab a tooth brush when he came across the image of himself in the mirror. He was a mess. His hair was messed up, he needed a shave, his eyes were near black and bloodshot from sleep deprivation, the list went on. He had barely been keeping himself active. He used the broken gravatron room to do various exercises, but he hadn't been keeping to his usual schedule because of his injuries. He spent most of his time doing something he had never done before, nothing. He frequently found himself trying to be entertained by TV and videogames, but they never hooked. He spent most of his time thinking, mostly about Bulma. He had a lot of time to think about where they were in their relationship, and about marriage. He understood more about the concept than Bulma thought, but he didn't think much about it until recently. He knew, that even though she pretended to feel about it the same way she did, it was important to her. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. This was what was happening to Vegeta. His time alone and let him think about her in a different perspective.
* * *
He gargled the mouth wash. The liquid was stinging his tongue and gums. He spit it out into the sink, grabbed a towel, and wiped his lips clean with it. He limped back into the bedroom and looked out the window. Earth was getting larger and larger in the window. "Oh yeah, that's right," he thought to himself. To day was the day he had both looked forward to and dreaded, the day he returned to Earth.
* * *
Bulma did a double take as she looked at the monitor in the hanger. She ran into the next room as fast as she could, picked up the phone and started dialing.
"Come on, pick up, pick up, pick up." she was mumbling under her breath as she waited for an answer, twirling the cord around her finger as she paced back and forth. "Hello, Goten? Get your mother please.No you're not in trouble.ok.Hey Chi-Chi!...You gotta get your ass over here now!...Yeah! I'm picking them up on the radar.I don't know, maybe Vegeta got upset or something.Look, they're gonna be here in 3 hours.I'm looking at the damn thing right now!," she said as she peered into the other room and looked at the green lit radar screen. "Yeah, so be here at like 1.Naw you don't have to bring anything, just be here.Ok, see ya ina few." *Click*.
Bulma ran out of the hanger and into the house which was a few yards away.
"Trunks! Clean up the bathroom! Chi-Chi an' them are coming over!"
She then began straightening up her self.
* * *
"So why do you think they're back a month early?" Chi-Chi asked.
"Be damned if I know. Vegeta was probably like 'Ugh, I don't like this planet, blah, blah, blah, let's go back.'" The girls giggled to each there at Bulma's impression of Vegeta. The two friends were anxiously awaiting the return of their males while sitting at Bulma's kitchen table, sipping hot tea, and watching their children play outside through the window. As usual, Trunks and Goten wrestled around with each other, while Gohan organized them and watched them with an almost father like quality. He was always there when they played. He watched them with a sense of enjoyment, and also to make sure things didn't get out of hand.
Chi-Chi was just staring at them with both of her elbows on the table, holding the cup of steaming hot tea just inches from her mouth. "They get along together so well," she said. Just as she finished, Goten lurched over and fell yelling ,"Agh! YOU DICKHEAD!! No nut shots!"
Bulma forced down the tea in her mouth with one of those gulps that leave a pain in your sternum. "Where did he learn that?"
"Aw jeez, the other day I caught him going through Goku's tapes."
Bulma's eyes went wide ,"Goku has pornos!?!?"
"No, no, no. Goodness no! His comedy tapes!"
"You mean like 'R' rated stuff?"
"Oh yeah, anything that makes him laugh. He loves anything remotely funny no matter what it is, but he never lets even Gohan see the real low brow stuff he has, and I don't blame him. Some of the stuff he has is bbaaaaaaaaddd."
"So, what did Goten get into?"
"Remember that show that was on when we were real little called 'Jackass'?"
Bulma nodded her head as she took a sip.
"Well, this movie had a few of the guys that were in it. It's pretty sick. Goku tried to get me to watch it one time and I had to leave it was so horrible."
"What was it called?"
"CKY.or something like that."
"Never heard of it. Are you sure you're not thinkin' of Jackass tha movie?"
"Naw. In fact, I think this came out before it. It wasn't a real movie. It wasn't in the movies or anything, it was like this guy just ran around with a home camera while everyone acted like assholes. It had a lot of cool skate boarding in it though."
"Cool. You're gonna have ta lemme barrow it."
"That's up to Goku. It's his tape. And if he does, don't let Trunks see it."
"I'll be the judge of that. I'm not anal like you about what my children watch."
"Oh shut up!"
"No, seriously, it was kind of ridiculous when a few years ago we couldn't even rent a PG-13 movie when he slept over because you have such a tight choke chain on him!"
"He's my child, I'll decide how to raise him."
"Amen," she said as she raised her cup in the air and took a sip. "So I'll decide if my son gets to watch it or not."
Chi-Chi bit her under lip and looked away for she knew that she had been beat. She looked back at Bulma and shook her head with a smile. Bulma smiled back. She loved being right.
There was a brief pause. For a moment, the two friends listened to the kids yell at each other outside. Gohan tried to keep the peace.
Chi-Chi was the first to break the silence.
"So what kind of movies does Vegeta like?"
"He doesn't watch movies too much.Though he does like mob movies."
"Really?"
"Yeah. He really like Goodfellas and The Godfather Part 2. It's weird, sort of. Mafia movies are the only kinds of movies he enjoys."
"Ya think there's any particular reason?"
"I know he hates those summer movies that try to be all epic and everything and make a few hundred million dollars. He considers them the scum of the earth. That may be a reason he likes those kind of movies, coz they're the exact opposite," Chi-Chi nodded, fully attentive as she sipped her tea. "But I think there's a different reason to tell ya the truth."
"What's that?"
Bulma opened her mouth to answer when a soft buzzer sounded behind her.
"That means they are going to be landing in a few minutes. Maybe some other time." Bulma got up and grabbed the tea cups and saucers. "Want me to get the kids?" Bulma asked.
"Naw, I'll get 'em."
* * *
"IF YOU SO MUCH AS EVEN THINK ABOUT LEAVING THE GROUND, I WILL KILL YOU!!!!" Trunks had asked his mother if he could fly up to the ship and say hi. She hated it when her son acted like that just to arouse a reaction. All of them were outside now, standing at the hanger at the end of the runway. They could see the ship re-entering the atmosphere high in the twilight sky. It resembled a shooting star as it slowly made it's decent. Gohan came out of the hanger with a few plastic chairs for everybody. Everyone thanked him and took a seat. He didn't get a seat for himself, so he leaned against the wall.
The bright ball of light disappeared.
"Mom, where did dad's ship go?" Goten asked.
Bulma answered the question for Chi-Chi. "You're dad's ship just got out of the stratosphere and is in the troposphere now. We should be able to see him again in a few minutes."
"Oh, ok.". Goten turned around to Trunks with a confused look on his face. Trunks just shrugged his shoulders.
For the most part, everyone stayed quiet. They had nothing to talk about. All the kids were anxious to see their fathers again, but kept their excitement inside them.
Just as Bulma said, a black spot appeared in the sky. It slowly grew bigger and bigger. Soon, they were able to make it out as the ship. It began to decend rapidly to meet the runway. They could see the nose tip up slightly. The ship was now fully decipherable. It made it's final decent on the runway. The back wheels touched down first and screeched loudly as they hit the pavement. The front tip slowly came down. Watching a ship enter the atmosphere and end up right there was always fascinating to all of them, especially the younger ones who were seeing it for the first time. The ship slowed down as it came towards them, eventually stopping directly in front of them. The heard the ship's engines die down and soon, silence. Everyone arose from their seat. The airlock hissed and rolled opened. In the doorway was Vegeta.
Bulma ran up to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him on the cheek. Imediately, she felt something was wrong. He didn't even react to her. No returning hug, no smile, not even an eye twitch. She looked into his eyes. They weren't looking back; they were looking at someone else very solemnly. Trunks ran up to him and wrapped his arms around his waist. He began talking to his father, but he wasn't listening. Neither was Bulma. She was now getting worried. She looked over to see if she could tell who he was staring at. She started to catch on when she realized it was Chi- Chi. She got a cool chill as she turned back to look inside the ship and saw that on one was in there. She looked back into Vegeta's eyes.
Chi-Chi stood where she had been, trying to peer into the ship. She looked over at at Vegeta and realized he was looking at her.
"Where's Goku?"
"He didn't make it."
Chi-Chi lost her breath ,"w, w, wha."
"He didn't survive."
Her eyes went glassy as she brought he hands up to her mouth ,"no."
Gohan and Goten couldn't believe what they just heard. Their father, dead? Wasn't this just supposed to be a training mission to an uninhabited planet?
Bulma looked at Chi-Chi breaking down before her eyes and then at Vegeta. He had that same stoic look on his face. He couldn't have done it.could he?
Gohan stepped up ,"Wha, what happened?"
Vegeta never had a chance to answer. "You BBAASSSTAARRDD!!!!," Chi-Chi screamed as she rushed Vegeta. Bulma ducked out of the way, as did Trunks, as Chi-Chi punched Vegeta square in the jaw. Vegeta's head moved in the direction she hit him. He didn't retaliate. She hit him a few more times in the chest before Gohan came from behind and pulled her away. She continued to kick and scream, tears flying from her face like waterfalls as she thrashed about.
"YOU MURDERING SON OF A BITCH!!! I'LL KILL YOU!! YOU KILLED HIM, YOU KILLED HIM!!!!"
"Mom! Get a grip! Stop it! STOP IT! Let him explain." She calmed down a bit, still, however, gritting her teeth, her face red with the fires of hell breaking loose in her.
"I probably should talk to your mother privately about what happened."
Fan Fiction.net Presents
An akilatem Records Production
Based on the characters created by Dan O'Bannon, Ronald Shusset, Roger Shackelford, and Akira Toriyama
Chris Sabat
Tiffany Vollmer
In a story by Roger Shackelford
ALIENS versus DRAGONBALL: LENTO
Lauara Bailey
Damien Clarke
Sonny Strait
Cynthia Cranz
John Burgmeier
Kara Edwards
and Meredith McCoy
Original Alien Design by H.R. Giger
Orchestral Score by James Horner and Nobuo Uematsu
Cover Art By Shaun Kelly
With Special thanks to Michael Brown, Shaun Kelly, and Emily Rothenberger
-------------------------------------------------------
The ship was coasting silently through space. From looking at it from the outside, it seemed as if it was dead. No engines running, no lights on, no signs of life. It was just slipping across the empty plains to its final destination, earth, which was merely a few thousand miles ahead.
* * *
"Trunks, would you get down here. You're father and Goku are going to be here soon."
Bulma was franticly going around, cleaning up the house. She was expecting company. Not only from the returning heroes, but from Goku's family. They had scheduled a getting together party for their return, but Bulma had waited until the last second to straighten up. The landing strip for their ship was just outside her mansion. Her father was the owner of the multi- conglomerate organization, Capsule-Corp. He was also a brilliant scientist. He created, with help from his genius daughter, the deep space ship that was bringing the adventurers back from their training mission. He could think of no better place to have a landing strip for his creation than in his large back yard.
"What do ya want mom?" Trunks asked as he stood on the stairs, halfway down.
"Didn't I ask you to clean up the bathroom down here?"
"Yeah, I'll do it ina minute, I'm doin' somethin' right now."
"Ah no," Bulma's motherly instincts kicked in. "You're gonna get done what I tell you now! HEY! Don't go back up those steps!"
"I have to get done what I was doin'!"
"And what was that? Playing those damn videogames again? If you don't get this done now, I'm gonna smash them over your head!!!"
"Fine," Trunks knew he was busted. "But leave me alone when I'm done."
"Ah no! I ain't leaving you alone until this house is clean!"
"But mom!"
"Go ahead! Say another word! I'll tell your father what kind of shit you're pulling."
Fatal words to any child from their mother. Trunks quickly shut up and went to work.
The mansion rested on the outskirts of the island city of Caldoria, Bulma's life long home, in the islands off of Japan. It was a large, secluded piece of land with only one way on and off, a large suspension bridge that connected to the mainland only a mile off shore. Bulma never used to like it at home. She always used to be off on some sort of adventure far and away, but those days were far behind her now.
She went into the living room to tidy up some loose ends.
Vegeta had been gone for some time now. She missed him every second he was gone. They had been together for over a decade now and had a child together, but they still weren't married. The subject had never come up, and she began to believe that he seriously didn't understand the concept of marriage. After all, he was alien to this planet. Maybe marriage didn't exist where he was from. She some what didn't mind not being wed. She knew there was a bond between them that was good enough as marriage, but there was a part of her that hoped they could make it official. Also, her parents hated the fact that they had a child outside of wedlock. They believed in Christian values, and saw this as being bad. They had tried to pressure her to marry him, but she pretended to think it wasn't that important to her.
She looked at her watch on the palm side of her wrist. 2:30. She began to cuss in her head. Her company was going to be here in 15 minutes. She knew it was her fault for waiting to clean up. She hadn't even touched the kitchen yet. She began to wonder why they didn't have a butler. With a big house like this they should.
She could hear Vegeta's ship land outside. She began to cuss at herself even more. She decided that the living room was fine and ran into the kitchen to throw some things away at the last minute before Vegeta came in.
"MOOOOOOM!!! WAS THAT DAD!?!?," Trunks yelled from the bathroom.
"YEAH! BUT JUST KEEP CLEANING!" She wanted to get as much done as she could. She heard the engines shut off and then dead silence. She was rushing around, putting things away in cabinets, washing spots off of the counters, basically covering every problem as it came at her.
She heard a light scratching on the door to her right that led to the basement. She looked over at the door and stopped what she was doing for a second. "Now what could this be", she thought to herself. She started to walk towards the door. All of the sudden, the door exploded into splinters from the inside. Wood chunks flew all over Bulma as she fell to the floor. She didn't wait to see what had done it, she wanted to get out of there. She tried to scramble to her feet just as Vegeta burst through the back door just feet in front of her. He immediately saw Bulma trying to scramble away. Before he could react, the black object pounced on Bulma. It pulled her nearly to her feet by her hair. Her neck was blatantly exposed. The black object opened a mouth full of pearly white, razor sharp teeth just millimeters from her neck. Next thing Vegeta saw was those same teeth enter Bulma's neck as her blood spilled to the floor.
Vegeta snapped up, ice cold, soaking wet, and his spine and the back of his head shaking. He turned over and fell off the bed. He propped himself up with both hands and vomited. Then, he fell to his side. His eyes were closed and he was breathing very heavily. They were getting worse and worse. The dreams were persistent; he had been having them every night for the past month, and they were taking a severe toll on him. Vegeta had become a nervous wreck from sleep deprivation. He couldn't get anymore than 3 hours a night. He put his hand to his forehead and slid his hand onto his hair. Keeping his eyes closed made things even worse. The image of Bulma drenched in her own blood kept playing through his head, and it was almost literally killing him. He snapped his eyes wide open and was met with the image of the under side of his bed and the other side of the room, with dark black and blue illumination. He pushed himself off the floor slightly as a line of saliva trailed from his mouth to the ground. As he sat up, it snapped and hung on to his chin. He wiped it was with his wrist and sat there for a second.
The dreams were almost always the same. They barely involved him anymore; it was always Bulma or his son, Trunks, being brutally and graphically slain by dark images. The images were never totally decipherable. He couldn't remember distinctly the figures they were supposed to represent, but when he closed his eyes, he could see flash images of a black being with no eyes and teeth; the most evil looking creature imaginable. Every time he saw it, it cut him to the bone.
Every minute, he held it in him; the frustration, anger, and madness building up inside him. He wanted to destroy everything in sight, but had to restrain himself. He knew if he went berserk, he may rupture the hull and commit suicide. Maybe he would find some relief when he arrived home later that day. He knew exactly what was going to happen when he got back, he just hoped s-h-e would not trigger his rage. He hoped he could hold it in until he could release it somewhere that wasn't in front of Bulma or Trunks. She was going to go ballistic, and Vegeta had been preparing for it the whole ride, but he wasn't sure if it was enough.
He got up to his feet and staggered his way into the bathroom. He was still suffering from the wounds he acquired on Purge. Of all of them, his leg bothered him the most. He somewhat disliked having to at times float from room to room to keep off of it. He started to think it may have fractured. If it was just a flesh wound, it shouldn't have been hurting him this much this long after. Then again, he began thinking none of his wounds were healing correctly. His shoulder and chest were still sore and still needed bandages as they periodically still bled. He blamed it on not having sufficient medical equipment onboard. When he ran out of conventional bandages a few weeks prior, he had to resort to different types off linen and washed them in between uses.
When he got into the bathroom, he was only thinking of one thing, getting the taste out of his mouth. He flipped the switch to turn the lights on. He squinted a bit because of the pain of having bright lights in his face after being in the dark all night. He took his time and slowly let his eyes adjust. He turned the faucet to cold water, cupped his hands and let them fill. He sipped from them, swished the water in his mouth, and spit it out. He went to grab a tooth brush when he came across the image of himself in the mirror. He was a mess. His hair was messed up, he needed a shave, his eyes were near black and bloodshot from sleep deprivation, the list went on. He had barely been keeping himself active. He used the broken gravatron room to do various exercises, but he hadn't been keeping to his usual schedule because of his injuries. He spent most of his time doing something he had never done before, nothing. He frequently found himself trying to be entertained by TV and videogames, but they never hooked. He spent most of his time thinking, mostly about Bulma. He had a lot of time to think about where they were in their relationship, and about marriage. He understood more about the concept than Bulma thought, but he didn't think much about it until recently. He knew, that even though she pretended to feel about it the same way she did, it was important to her. They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder. This was what was happening to Vegeta. His time alone and let him think about her in a different perspective.
* * *
He gargled the mouth wash. The liquid was stinging his tongue and gums. He spit it out into the sink, grabbed a towel, and wiped his lips clean with it. He limped back into the bedroom and looked out the window. Earth was getting larger and larger in the window. "Oh yeah, that's right," he thought to himself. To day was the day he had both looked forward to and dreaded, the day he returned to Earth.
* * *
Bulma did a double take as she looked at the monitor in the hanger. She ran into the next room as fast as she could, picked up the phone and started dialing.
"Come on, pick up, pick up, pick up." she was mumbling under her breath as she waited for an answer, twirling the cord around her finger as she paced back and forth. "Hello, Goten? Get your mother please.No you're not in trouble.ok.Hey Chi-Chi!...You gotta get your ass over here now!...Yeah! I'm picking them up on the radar.I don't know, maybe Vegeta got upset or something.Look, they're gonna be here in 3 hours.I'm looking at the damn thing right now!," she said as she peered into the other room and looked at the green lit radar screen. "Yeah, so be here at like 1.Naw you don't have to bring anything, just be here.Ok, see ya ina few." *Click*.
Bulma ran out of the hanger and into the house which was a few yards away.
"Trunks! Clean up the bathroom! Chi-Chi an' them are coming over!"
She then began straightening up her self.
* * *
"So why do you think they're back a month early?" Chi-Chi asked.
"Be damned if I know. Vegeta was probably like 'Ugh, I don't like this planet, blah, blah, blah, let's go back.'" The girls giggled to each there at Bulma's impression of Vegeta. The two friends were anxiously awaiting the return of their males while sitting at Bulma's kitchen table, sipping hot tea, and watching their children play outside through the window. As usual, Trunks and Goten wrestled around with each other, while Gohan organized them and watched them with an almost father like quality. He was always there when they played. He watched them with a sense of enjoyment, and also to make sure things didn't get out of hand.
Chi-Chi was just staring at them with both of her elbows on the table, holding the cup of steaming hot tea just inches from her mouth. "They get along together so well," she said. Just as she finished, Goten lurched over and fell yelling ,"Agh! YOU DICKHEAD!! No nut shots!"
Bulma forced down the tea in her mouth with one of those gulps that leave a pain in your sternum. "Where did he learn that?"
"Aw jeez, the other day I caught him going through Goku's tapes."
Bulma's eyes went wide ,"Goku has pornos!?!?"
"No, no, no. Goodness no! His comedy tapes!"
"You mean like 'R' rated stuff?"
"Oh yeah, anything that makes him laugh. He loves anything remotely funny no matter what it is, but he never lets even Gohan see the real low brow stuff he has, and I don't blame him. Some of the stuff he has is bbaaaaaaaaddd."
"So, what did Goten get into?"
"Remember that show that was on when we were real little called 'Jackass'?"
Bulma nodded her head as she took a sip.
"Well, this movie had a few of the guys that were in it. It's pretty sick. Goku tried to get me to watch it one time and I had to leave it was so horrible."
"What was it called?"
"CKY.or something like that."
"Never heard of it. Are you sure you're not thinkin' of Jackass tha movie?"
"Naw. In fact, I think this came out before it. It wasn't a real movie. It wasn't in the movies or anything, it was like this guy just ran around with a home camera while everyone acted like assholes. It had a lot of cool skate boarding in it though."
"Cool. You're gonna have ta lemme barrow it."
"That's up to Goku. It's his tape. And if he does, don't let Trunks see it."
"I'll be the judge of that. I'm not anal like you about what my children watch."
"Oh shut up!"
"No, seriously, it was kind of ridiculous when a few years ago we couldn't even rent a PG-13 movie when he slept over because you have such a tight choke chain on him!"
"He's my child, I'll decide how to raise him."
"Amen," she said as she raised her cup in the air and took a sip. "So I'll decide if my son gets to watch it or not."
Chi-Chi bit her under lip and looked away for she knew that she had been beat. She looked back at Bulma and shook her head with a smile. Bulma smiled back. She loved being right.
There was a brief pause. For a moment, the two friends listened to the kids yell at each other outside. Gohan tried to keep the peace.
Chi-Chi was the first to break the silence.
"So what kind of movies does Vegeta like?"
"He doesn't watch movies too much.Though he does like mob movies."
"Really?"
"Yeah. He really like Goodfellas and The Godfather Part 2. It's weird, sort of. Mafia movies are the only kinds of movies he enjoys."
"Ya think there's any particular reason?"
"I know he hates those summer movies that try to be all epic and everything and make a few hundred million dollars. He considers them the scum of the earth. That may be a reason he likes those kind of movies, coz they're the exact opposite," Chi-Chi nodded, fully attentive as she sipped her tea. "But I think there's a different reason to tell ya the truth."
"What's that?"
Bulma opened her mouth to answer when a soft buzzer sounded behind her.
"That means they are going to be landing in a few minutes. Maybe some other time." Bulma got up and grabbed the tea cups and saucers. "Want me to get the kids?" Bulma asked.
"Naw, I'll get 'em."
* * *
"IF YOU SO MUCH AS EVEN THINK ABOUT LEAVING THE GROUND, I WILL KILL YOU!!!!" Trunks had asked his mother if he could fly up to the ship and say hi. She hated it when her son acted like that just to arouse a reaction. All of them were outside now, standing at the hanger at the end of the runway. They could see the ship re-entering the atmosphere high in the twilight sky. It resembled a shooting star as it slowly made it's decent. Gohan came out of the hanger with a few plastic chairs for everybody. Everyone thanked him and took a seat. He didn't get a seat for himself, so he leaned against the wall.
The bright ball of light disappeared.
"Mom, where did dad's ship go?" Goten asked.
Bulma answered the question for Chi-Chi. "You're dad's ship just got out of the stratosphere and is in the troposphere now. We should be able to see him again in a few minutes."
"Oh, ok.". Goten turned around to Trunks with a confused look on his face. Trunks just shrugged his shoulders.
For the most part, everyone stayed quiet. They had nothing to talk about. All the kids were anxious to see their fathers again, but kept their excitement inside them.
Just as Bulma said, a black spot appeared in the sky. It slowly grew bigger and bigger. Soon, they were able to make it out as the ship. It began to decend rapidly to meet the runway. They could see the nose tip up slightly. The ship was now fully decipherable. It made it's final decent on the runway. The back wheels touched down first and screeched loudly as they hit the pavement. The front tip slowly came down. Watching a ship enter the atmosphere and end up right there was always fascinating to all of them, especially the younger ones who were seeing it for the first time. The ship slowed down as it came towards them, eventually stopping directly in front of them. The heard the ship's engines die down and soon, silence. Everyone arose from their seat. The airlock hissed and rolled opened. In the doorway was Vegeta.
Bulma ran up to him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him on the cheek. Imediately, she felt something was wrong. He didn't even react to her. No returning hug, no smile, not even an eye twitch. She looked into his eyes. They weren't looking back; they were looking at someone else very solemnly. Trunks ran up to him and wrapped his arms around his waist. He began talking to his father, but he wasn't listening. Neither was Bulma. She was now getting worried. She looked over to see if she could tell who he was staring at. She started to catch on when she realized it was Chi- Chi. She got a cool chill as she turned back to look inside the ship and saw that on one was in there. She looked back into Vegeta's eyes.
Chi-Chi stood where she had been, trying to peer into the ship. She looked over at at Vegeta and realized he was looking at her.
"Where's Goku?"
"He didn't make it."
Chi-Chi lost her breath ,"w, w, wha."
"He didn't survive."
Her eyes went glassy as she brought he hands up to her mouth ,"no."
Gohan and Goten couldn't believe what they just heard. Their father, dead? Wasn't this just supposed to be a training mission to an uninhabited planet?
Bulma looked at Chi-Chi breaking down before her eyes and then at Vegeta. He had that same stoic look on his face. He couldn't have done it.could he?
Gohan stepped up ,"Wha, what happened?"
Vegeta never had a chance to answer. "You BBAASSSTAARRDD!!!!," Chi-Chi screamed as she rushed Vegeta. Bulma ducked out of the way, as did Trunks, as Chi-Chi punched Vegeta square in the jaw. Vegeta's head moved in the direction she hit him. He didn't retaliate. She hit him a few more times in the chest before Gohan came from behind and pulled her away. She continued to kick and scream, tears flying from her face like waterfalls as she thrashed about.
"YOU MURDERING SON OF A BITCH!!! I'LL KILL YOU!! YOU KILLED HIM, YOU KILLED HIM!!!!"
"Mom! Get a grip! Stop it! STOP IT! Let him explain." She calmed down a bit, still, however, gritting her teeth, her face red with the fires of hell breaking loose in her.
"I probably should talk to your mother privately about what happened."