There were few times Bulma Briefs admitted any personal flaws. Splayed face down with a mouth full of sandy ash and surrounded by a burning heap that used to be her ship, she decided now was as good a time as ever to go through with some self evaluation.
The theme of today's criticism would be underestimation. Fully aware of where her human strength stood in the universe, the irony was not lost on her.
Somewhere between none and dead Vejita had once commented when prompted to read her ki. His delivery had been both appalled and exasperated.
But Bulma knew that what she lacked in strength she more than compensated with in intellect. A knowledge she carried into every dangerous situation; a certainty that spurred her spirit and forward action.
Here was the result of her genius.
She had yet to open her eyes to fully assess the entirety of the scene, instead opting to run a count of her aches along side of her personal progress report. First was the left half of her face, second was her right side from elbow to knee, and third was the entirety of her back. It didn't worry her that she was categorizing her pain in entire sections instead of key points. Baby steps, she reminded herself.
How was she to know that human sized bugs were any more sentient than their proper smaller sized cousins? You see a bug, you squish it. Pests are not among those who question their existence in the universe. Was she supposed to ask them how their home life was? Skittery and generally creepy crawly, she mocked. Memories of a 6 foot waxy looking arthropod came to the forefront of her mind and sent a chill down her aching back.
Her nerves still worked, splendid. Also in account were all 10 of her fingers and 10 of her toes.
In retrospect, alien bug creatures going for her engines and fuel cells should have been her first clue. She'd mistakenly chalked the creatures reasoning to the amount of heat and power emanating from those areas. Clearly they were going for the maroon and conquer route. Her moment of revelation came when they overtook her control room led by a bug with a freaking gun and cape.
"Stupid Bulma, you fucking amateur," her mouth was coated in an acrid grime she couldn't swallow down. The sand lining her teeth didn't help either but her voice worked so she added that to the things that didn't blow with the ship.
She had set that trigger as soon as they compromised the hull. Her ship be damned, she could build a new one. The blast alone must have alerted half of Lookout to something odd but perhaps not. She can't think of anyone who hasn't seen or been on a ship that was lost among the stars.
With all the bravery she could muster (and after pouting for a solid minute), Bulma opened her eyes. They were sore and her left eye did not like movement. Her cheek and forehead sustained damage from her headgear shattering. Her eye was lucky it was still there.
The light that burned at her cornea was at the top of her list as one of the most obnoxious things she's ever had to deal with. Slowly her vision adjusted but gave her no more to work on than she had already guessed. Her ship was in pieces and aflame. Great.
Bulma dared jump right into the next step of hoisting herself onto her knees. The strain was unbelievable but surprisingly do-able. Her right side and back stung like a motherfucker. She was expecting that. Her muscles were all kinds of wobbly just trying to get her half up and that was something she hoped would pass. Quickly she did a visual scan of her injuries.
Right away she noticed the painful right half was charred black along her suit and at her hip was a melted down shield box. She unclipped it from its position on her belt, gave it a dry, bloody kiss and tossed it into the wreckage. That shield had kept her alive more so than she had ever thought upon creating it. Her confidence in her genius just gained a substantial boost.
From the hot wind the burning engines blew, Bulma could tell that her suit was tattered along the back. She could imagine the events in slow motion: Initiating the engines to burn with a broken fuel line, watching the fire burst through the control doors behind the Bug invaders, instinctively shielding the incoming blow with her right arm and turning her back to the blast, being flung forward and landing almost face first into the dirt.
Just how the hell she managed to actually survive the entire ordeal was still beyond her. If her failure lay in underestimating a weak enemy, it was only due to her miraculous ability to survive the impossible.
Bulma agonizingly made it onto her two feet before she checked her capsule holster. Save for the giant hole at the bottom, two capsules managed to remain. One read, Bulma's Nasty Shit and the other read Transport 3. She let out a moan and whispered "fuck yeah" to about a dozen arthropod corpses.
She uncapsuled her hover bike first and made sure it purred before getting her hopes up further. She popped her Shit capsule shortly after and knew she was right to save it all along. There were only three things inside of it. A flask of the world's last bit of scotch whiskey, a small metal case containing exactly 3 cigarettes and a gas station lighter.
Bulma took a swig of the whiskey to wash down whatever the hell was going on in her mouth before lighting a precious cigarette. She didn't even think to look back when she mounted her hover bike next.
A bulbous and long tower shot upwards into the sky just beyond the horizon line due east. A few hours ride, she guessed, if nothing stopped her along the way.
Bulma Briefs took a long relaxing puff among the burning debris and made a mental note to crush the next bug she saw. As a final footnote in her examination, she settled with her ultimate lesson being No Compromise. She may have mistaken the abilities of the Arthropods but she still managed to outsmart and outlive them.
Underestimation or not, they clearly did not know who they were fucking with.
I'll admit this story will be a child of playing too much Destiny. Feedback is always welcome.~