Instinct Of Love

by Dulali

During the turmoil within the years in which the warriors are preparing to fight the androids, Vegeta has returned from a venture from deep in the wilderness with an unlikely companion: an enormous Condrasnipe, a wolf-like species of beastly proportions! Will Vegeta's taming strategy work, or will someone else have to convince him that harshness isn't the only way?

If there was one thing Vegeta could gather from wrangling that dreadful wolven beast, it was that earth's animals were just as hard-headed as the people he had to deal with on a daily basis, and a rumbling growl the beast communicated from behind him seemed to second that thought. Vegeta continued wrapping the heavy steel chain around his battered right forearm, keeping his focus on the task at hand. There was no way he was going get tangled up and gnarled by those chains a second time, so he made sure to wrap the length of the chain tightly. The creature, still chained by the neck to one of the legs of the gravity chamber, locked eyes with its captor as soon as the particular spiky-haired Saiyan had turned around. Another sinister noise rumbled from the enormous white beast's core, accompanying its searing blue glare. The threat only seemed to draw on Vegeta's grit even more.

"Haha, you can growl and have the scruff of your neck stand on end as much as you like, but it's not going to change your fate." After Vegeta finished winding the chain, he hesitated, again noticing the whelks that had been left on his arms from his previous scrap with the animal. He sneered, clutching the only bit of slack he had left in the chain: the makeshift steel clasp that he was determined to get secured over that thing's huge jaws. As strong as Vegeta was, that blasted animal had given him a hard time, a much harder time than he had bargained for. It was no question that the creature's overall strength paled in comparison to his, but the thing was utterly wild, and when provoked, it would explode into a screaming rampage, thrashing its captor around like its prey. No matter how firmly Vegeta would latch onto the thing's long neck, its swift and violent movement was all but uncontrollable. Still, no matter the difficulty, those jaws had to be secured. Vegeta may have been a royal Saiyan warrior, but he was still made of flesh and blood. He had to stay away from those teeth.

"All right," Vegeta announced, radiating dominance and self-confidence, "I know you're not going to change your stupid little mind and cooperate, so let's go ahead and get this over with." He took a few steps towards the creature with his arms spread wide. "Come on!" His approach brought forth an even more intense and hissing sort of growl from the beast, but it drew back, coiling its long neck closer to its body. "Come on, let's-"

WHOMP!

The beast launched its head into Vegeta's abdomen, knocking the breath straight out of him. His feet couldn't break his forward fall, but before his body could even meet the ground, the beast swept him up by his arm and threw him into the side of the gravity chamber with a loud, hollow thud. "AGH!" The disoriented Saiyan heard the beast scream, and barely had enough time to push himself to his feet against the outer wall of the gravity chamber before the crazed monster lunged at him again, this time with its jaws spread like a giant pair of scissors with teeth. With a timely and vicious grab, Vegeta managed to stop the rapid beeline the beast's mouth made towards his throat. Vegeta struggled, trying to maintain a sure grip on the top and bottom jaw, and all the while trying not to hurt the animal, even with sickle-like teeth pressing against his bare palms. The beast's jaws quivered, forcing harder and harder against the opposing power, causing Vegeta to wince. He knew he was about to reach the breaking point; he was either going to allow himself to get gored in the neck, or break the thing's jaw, and his resolve was hastened when he noticed that the barely controlled animal's naturally blue tongue had been washed over by a deep red. "GRAH!" With great strength, a wild-eyed Vegeta thrust the beast's large muzzle into the dirt, and made his break by flying straight upwards. Like lightning he bolted from the monster's range, but not before huge front teeth caught the bottom of one of his pant legs and threw him towards the ground. His arm brushed the grass, but he remained within the monster's control, being violently swung around in all directions like a ragdoll. His view rapidly switched between earth, sky, and the Capsule Corp. building, and the beating and banging against the ground disoriented him even more so. The pounding against the ground and the screams that came from the beast all seemed to blend together, until finally, he was loosed of the fierce and turbulent ride. He tumbled through the air, and before he could gain his bearings in the spinning atmosphere around him, he met the ground with a thump, landing not very far from a large tree.

The beast bellowed, letting out an elongated scream that seemed to beckon Vegeta. The dazed Saiyan pushed himself up on his elbows from his back. Being of the incredibly strong Saiyan race, he hadn't received a beating, but he was frustrated. The tedious nature of the work was unbelievably more challenging than he thought it would be, but like all other situations with the Prince of all Saiyans, he was not going to go down without a fight. He was not going to go down, period. "ALL RIGHT!" Vegeta yelled, standing up and sharpening his tone this time. "IF YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING TO HAVE IT YOUR WAY, THEN YOU'VE GOT ANOTHER THING COMING, YOU OVERGROWN, FILTHY..." While Vegeta was shaking his fist at the "overgrown" animal in question, bright red coloration caught his attention. He opened his hand, and blood poured from several gashes in his palm; teeth marks. The same was true for his other hand, and instinctively, he bent over to wipe his hands on his jeans. His eyes suddenly widened, and for a split second, he was baffled. What he felt was not the texture of jeans; It was skin. He looked down and noticed that, bizarrely, his only article of clothing besides his socks and shoes were his pair of navy boxer-briefs, and after looking back up, his eyes immediately fixated on what was hanging from the beast's bottom row of front teeth... his pair of jeans. "RRAAAGH!" He chucked the loose bit of bloody chain from his right arm into the dirt in exasperation, and cursed the beast, "NO CONDRASNIPE IS GOING TO MAKE A FOOL OF PRINCE VEGETA!" In a rage, and without any further regard to strategy, the Saiyan trampled towards the behemoth with breakneck speed, and a large segment of chain trailing him. He took one more stride, solidly planting a foot into the ground for momentum, and leapt towards the beast, who in turn reciprocated the action, making a move towards Vegeta. "Yes, that's good! Now, come at me with all you've got!" As soon as the beast ran out of chain, Vegeta made his move, dodging the dive with great acrobatics and countered, spiraling down and locking onto the beasts' muzzle before it could recover from the recoil of its attack. "You're all mine now!" Vegeta laughed as the towering animal reared back in shock. "This is where it ends! It ends now!" As he held the enormous jaws underneath his body in place, the beast shook its elongated cranium in angry defiance. The enormous white lupine fought back incessantly, staggering around and raring its head back and forth like an otherworldly steed. The end of Vegeta's chain lashed into him several times from the motion as he struggled to bend the metal clasp over the beast's chops. After another push, the gap in the clasp lacked one more inch, but a strike to the eye by part of the chain made Vegeta cry out. "AAGHAAAAGH!" The blow was jarring, and his makeshift shackle was tossed into the air. The tables were now turned. A hurt and flustered Vegeta hurried to reposition himself atop the beast's muzzle, as he had slid to the side of its mouth, but the flailing didn't stop. Vegeta painfully sustained his hold on the beast, even after sliding underneath the monster's head. For a moment more, he held on, hoping to regain his bearings amongst the fury, but before he could let go, his back met with the ground. "OOMPH!" And a second time, his body was pelted against the earth. "GAH!" And again, and again. The succession of beatings brought the realization to Vegeta that the beast had grown smart. It was trying to beat him to a pulp. "NOT TODAY!" Vegeta shouted in response, then kicking a foot into one of the beast's eyes. The beast wailed, but the beating continued; even rapidly grazing the beast's eyes with the rugged heel of his tennis shoes did not seem to do any good. Once again, the animal's massive skull crashed down onto Vegeta's body. Having nothing between him and the beast, neither armor nor a mere shirt or pants to speak of, he was left completely exposed, and every strike to the gut took its toll. He coughed some more, craning his neck to read the animal's expression. As soon as he locked eyes with the monster, he felt heat from its exhale against his legs. "NO MORE!" Sensing his foe's next move, he slung back his arm, readying an attack. "HYAH!" After a split second of blinding blue light, a snap sent the beast back flying. Its body bashed into the side of the gravity chamber, and fell to the ground with the clink of its chain and a whimper. The area became quiet.

With one slow, exhausted breath after another, Vegeta pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, reassuming control of his own body. After a few more breaths, he allowed himself to fall back into a sitting position, and with a hand placed on his lower abdominal area. "Ha," the tired Saiyan laughed, spitting a something of a red tint into the grass, "You could give those bots in the gravity chamber a real run for their money." He grunted as he pushed himself back up onto his feet. "I needed a good break from that gravity chamber. A little embarrassing that you gave me such a hard time, though, and you hammered me in a lot more places than I'd anticipated. You animals sure don't mind to play dirty." The Saiyan took a few steps forward, and examined the fallen beast. "But more than anything," Vegeta continued, "I hate that it came down to me using an energy blast against you. Kind of pisses me off." With a stringent tug, he removed the pair of jeans that lied under the beast, and carried on to wrap the legs of them around his wound-covered palms. He was not exactly in the best condition, but the pain meant nothing to the Saiyan; his work was not yet done. He now had the chance to secure the beast's jaws, but only if he could find where that chain went. He took a few steps away from the gravity chamber, searching the grass, only to discover that someone was approaching him in the distance.

"Vegeta!"

The familiar voice certainly wasn't the most welcome one, and the Saiyan Prince heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes, but felt obligated to look over his shoulder. It was that blue-haired earth woman, and she was running towards his position.

It had been weeks since Bulma had last seen Vegeta. Where he had been or what he had been doing, she had no idea, but he was back. She always found calm in assuming that he had been off somewhere training, but she couldn't help but worry about him when he would go through these bouts of disappearing like he often did, and lately, it seemed to her like he was doing this more and more, and she had a feeling as to why. It was true that, earlier on, something had been going on between the two. Everyone at Capsule Corp. had known it, especially Yamcha, who would pop in from time to time. Being Bulma's off-and-on boyfriend for years, he knew her like the back of his hand, and when he realized the festering of confrontations between her and Vegeta, complete with all the nitpicking and name-calling, he knew something was up. Bulma was a sassy, firecracker of a woman; arguing was oftentimes how she would flirt with a guy. She enjoyed a good verbal joust or little scrap, and Vegeta did even more so. There was a lot of friction between them personality-wise, and as crazy as it may sound, things started to heat up between the two in more ways than one. That was only for a short time, however, and soon after, they came to the decision that they were better off if they just stayed away from each other. This remained the case, that is, up until a couple of months ago. Bulma eventually discovered that she was carrying Vegeta's baby, and she was determined to make him a part of the Brief family, but Vegeta wasn't having any of it. The absolute last thing Vegeta wanted was a family. It was of no concern to the stubborn warrior, and the news of Bulma's pregnancy was nothing more than a faint blip on his metaphorical scouter.

"Vegeta!" Bulma repeated, a bit fatigued by her run from the Capsule Corp. building, "I heard a loud crashing noise, and I looked out the window and saw you on the ground and..." Vegeta's condition caught her off guard, and she shrieked a bit after she noticed the streams of blood running down his forearms. "WHAT DID YOU DO!?"

The weary Saiyan was not in the mood to go into a long explanation, and he sure didn't feel like entertaining anyone. "What, you've never seen me after training before?"

Even after being answered with a stern tone by the roughed-up Saiyan, a bit of relief showed in Bulma's blue eyes. "I thought you might have been training," she said with an uneasy smile, "but what on earth have you gone and done to yourself? Your arms, and your chest, and... gosh, your eye! And..." In curiosity, Bulma blinked a few times. "...Why aren't you wearing any pants?"

Vegeta's face scrunched up in response to that question. "Tch... you should just..." As hard as it was, he refrained from telling her to mind her own business. "I... had to dress my wounds," he hissed.

In concern, Bulma touched Vegeta's forearm. "Here, let me see."

"NO!" Vegeta shouted huffily, pulling away from her.

"Well, fine, Mr. Smarty Pants!" Bulma retorted, then realizing her own pun. "Ha... Smarty Pants. That's funny." She wasn't about to let the man bleed to death, and in disregard to his boorish behavior, she removed her outer shirt to use as an aid for his wounds. "Look, now this will be better. And put your jeans back on, silly."

Vegeta couldn't hold back anymore. "What's silly is YOU coming out here and sticking your nose in MY business."

Bulma drew back. "YOUR business? Excuse me, but anything that has the Capsule Corp. logo on it is automatically MY business!" With her nose in the air, she walked past Vegeta. "If it weren't for my dad, you wouldn't have this magnificent gravity chamber to train in. Credit Brief ingenuity."

"Hey, don't go near that!" Vegeta shouted, waddling after her as he pulled up his jeans.

"And look, you've already put a dent in the..." What laid about eight feet before Bulma halted her words, and she instantly panicked. "AAAH!" She froze in position, her voice quivering. "What is that?!" The white-furred beast still laid there on its side, still, with its toothy mouth agape and its tongue limp.

Vegeta grabbed Bulma by the shoulders. "Just back away! It'll be coming to at any minute now."

Bulma was still in shock. "Coming to?! You mean it's not even dead?!" Turning to Vegeta, she grabbed hold of his bare shoulders, mortified by the situation. "From a distance, I thought that thing was a pile of space junk, for goodness sakes! Why didn't you tell me that thing was there!?"

"Well, if you hadn't been so caught up in babbling nonsense about that gravity room and paid attention, you might have heeded my warning." With a smirky grin, Vegeta continued. "But then again, you should have known anyways, since everything IS your business, after all."

With an annoyed flair, the blue-haired girl crossed her arms. "Oh, you!" She growled.

Vegeta grinned in his usual smart aleck manner and laughed under his breath, but paused when he realized where Bulma was headed. "Hey, wait! What do you think you're doing!?"

To his surprise, Bulma had leaned over to the sleeping beast. "I'm just taking a closer look," she said, looking it over with her hands rested against her knees. "Oh!" She exclaimed, her expression reading surprise, "This is a Condrasnipe, isn't it?"

Vegeta was bewildered by her boldness. "You're in a dangerous position!" He warned, taking a step forward. "You don't need to be just standing there like that!"

Bulma looked over her shoulder. "Just because I'm pregnant, that doesn't make me handicapped, Vegeta, but I appreciate your concern."

Dumbfounded for a moment, Vegeta just stood there, his mouth agape from her guile, but he quickly made a retort. "That's NOT what I meant... that thing will kill you with one mighty swipe!"

Bulma turned her head different ways, observing the beast. "This thing?" She questioned, squinting her eyes. "This gentle giant?"

Vegeta was taken back. "GENTLE!?" What came next stunned Vegeta even more.

"Yes!" Bulma replied as she lowered herself down next to the giant. "Condrasnipes are very affectionate creatures."

Vegeta's jaw dropped, and he questioned Bulma's sanity as she began to stroke the animal's long, white fur. "Wha... You..." There were no words that could describe his astonishment. "Foolish woman!" He barked, regaining his composure and tightening a fist, "That monster will be the end of you!"

Bulma laughed a bit, continuing to gently pet the animal. "Looks like someone is a little ill-informed!" Vegeta's eyes narrowed at that, but before he could protest, she continued. "Condrasnipes are extra-special creatures. They can sense out people's thoughts and feelings, and-"

"I'm aware of that!" Vegeta interrupted, "And they can sense the supernatural as well. It's why I captured the thing. Thought it might be of use to us at some time in the future. But it's nothing but a liability until I can get it to become tame."

Bulma looked confused. "Tame?" She questioned, having just laid the giant wolf-monster's head in her lap. "You mean it isn't?"

Vegeta quickly whipped out his hand from the shirt he had been using as a bandage. "Does THIS look tame to you?"

Bulma shook her head. "That's strange. I thought ALL Condrasnipes were benevolent creatures."

"Not THAT one."

Vegeta's claim was still hard for Bulma to believe. "Hmm. Maybe he just doesn't like you."

"It would be an awfully intense hatred if that were the case, with the hell it tried to put me through," Vegeta said, turning from Bulma and the animal. "And anyways, that one's not a "he". It's female."

"Oh, so you're a girly!" Bulma said endearingly to the animal, stroking the top of its head.

"As bizarre as it sounds," Vegeta added, "It is the females of the species that are the largest and strongest."

"Sounds like a matriarchal thing." With fascination, Bulma continued to pet the creature. "Have you named her?" That garnered no response from Vegeta, but it did make Bulma think. For a moment, she pondered, lovingly caressing the beautiful beast's luxuriant fur with a twinkle in her eye. "Vegeta," she spoke softly. Assuming he heard her, she continued, "You know... it's only six more months." In between her words, she glanced over at Vegeta, who was facing away from her. "Just... six more months... and the baby will be here." Even with Vegeta's silence, she smiled at the thought, and then laughed. "I've... been trying to come up with names, and... I just, I don't know... What do you think?"

With a look that Bulma could not interpret, Vegeta halfway turned to her with a glare from the corner of his eye. "Do you really want to know what I think?"

Appearing as if she were about to speak, Bulma's lips parted, but whatever her words were, they seemed to evaporate, and she felt such an ache, as if her heart had just broken inside her. She welled up, and as she was about to spill her pain, the white beast moved.

It arose, almost as if it were in slow motion, and as it turned, it exchanged a fleeting, but powerful glance with Bulma. Its gorgeous blue eyes radiated an indescribable aura that seemed to channel the most fervent emotion. However, as swift as the wind, and before Bulma could say a word, the beast made a screaming dash towards Vegeta. The Saiyan stumbled backwards in surprise, and just in the nick of time, as the monster had ran out of chain.

Jaws slashed in front of Vegeta like a pair of screaming chainsaws, and he hustled to his knees. "HEY!" Vegeta yelled to Bulma over the monster, "YOU HAVE TO GET OUT OF THERE!" Standing up, he fretfully called to her. "BULMA! LISTEN TO ME!"

Having enough of Vegeta, the beast turned, and the shadow of its long neck loomed over Bulma, who was frozen in fear against the side of the gravity chamber. Vegeta called out to her relentlessly, but it was just all background noise now as the beast continued its menacing slink towards her, one skinny leg after the other. After one last step from the beast, it s blue eyes met with...

"NOOO!"

... A pair of angry black eyes. A pair of angry, Saiyan eyes. "You TAKE ONE MORE STEP, AND YOU'RE DEAD! DO YOU HEAR ME!?"

Bulma's eyes opened to see Vegeta's back, and in amazement, she listened.

"That's right!" Vegeta persisted, standing as firm as a soldier, and with his arms spread. "I've had all I'm willing to take from you today, and I am not about to let you-"

As Vegeta continued to underline his dominance, the creature moved towards him. In response, Vegeta's feet shuffled, but before he could ready an attack, Bulma grabbed his arm from behind.

"NO!" She shouted, "Look."

When Vegeta looked back, his nose touched the beast's. In utter shock, he stood there, the sheer gravity of the moment holding him hostage. The beast's large, wet nose meandered across his face and neck, all along the way leaving residue of its hot breath. The Saiyan cautiously exhaled in bewildered relief, but wondered what was coming next. "What... what is it doing?"

Still holding onto Vegeta's arm, Bulma came closer to Vegeta's side. "I... I don't believe it..." The beast, after having sniffed around and investigated Vegeta some more, began to lick him, from his neck and up to his face.

"UGH!" Vegeta exclaimed, drawing back quickly. "What is this!? What's going on?!"

While witnessing the animal's newfound affection for Vegeta, or respect, rather, Bulma couldn't help but smile. "Vegeta," she answered, "She knows..."

"Knows what?" He questioned, still trying to keep the beast's tongue from painting his skin.

"She knows..." Bulma repeated, "She knows that you... that you were trying to protect me. She knew your intentions. That they were good."

That explanation mystified Vegeta, and he hesitated, locked into an infinite stare and at a loss for words.

"All she needs to know is that you love," Bulma reassured. And maybe one day, she thought, I will know, too.

The End