Hi again! I'm back with a new update.
So, before I say anything else, I'm going to be posting new chapters regularly on Tuesdays. Simple enough.
Okay, last chapter I made a TWO MISTAKES! Yes, I'm sorry. Two people pointed out that it isn't grammatically correct to say "Standed casually", and one of them also mentioned that, near the end, I wrote, "Bulam though" instead of "Bulma thought". Sorry. They have been fixed. I have a few more things to say, but I'll put the story first. Sha-ZAM!
Opposites Attract
Chapter Two
Bulma was harshly jolted awake by the door to her room bursting open.
"Eeek!" she squealed, pulling the blankets around her. Yajirobe was in her room, an impatient expression on his pudgy round face.
"Woulda' thought you were dead. Don'tcha have anything better to do than sleep the day away?"
"What are youdoing here?! Don't you have any respect for a lady's privacy? Out, out, OUT!" though he raised his hands in self-defence, he didn't leave right away.
"Y'think I want to be here? Here's the bleedin' senzu. 'Bye," he left a small leather pouch on a nearby shelf and scrambled out the door. Bulma lay there, seething.
"Well, fine!" she yelled after him. "I don't want you to be here, either!" Bulma had never liked him. He was too cowardly, too uncivilized. Too rude.
She hopped up from her bed and threw on her clothes. Despite being so unceremoniously jolted awake, she felt well-rested. Bulma grabbed the bag off her bookshelf, opened it, and peered inside. She'd actually never seen a senzu bean up close, just the effects they have.
Really, it was nothing impressive. Just a small pale yellow bean. But she knew that if you ate one of these, you'd be full for over a week. They also healed wounds and regained energy.
Shaking her head, she walked out the door. Unlike everybody else, she didn't have an appetite big enough to eat ten days' worth of food in one sitting and not explode. Plus, it would totally sabotage her diet.
She was just about to flag down a servant robot when her eyes landed on a window. It was dark out, stars were in the sky. How long had she been asleep for? Probably hours.
It was way too late to give Vegeta the senzu, which was just as well. Bulma wasn't looking forward to it. Plus, she didn't even know where to find him. She knew he was staying in her house, but, with the execption of today in the garden, she hadn't seen him since he had flown off to train years ago.
Suddenly, she remembered that she forgot her lemonade in the garden. She'd have to go back for it. A long time ago, when she was thirteen, she'd programmed all the robots not to go into her rose patch, no matter the circumstances, so she would have total privacy. It was okay, though. She loved the garden in the night almost more than in the daytime, the moonlight giving the whole place a slightly fairytale look, completed by the giant fountain and the dogs, cats and dinosaurs chasing each other around. Some of the plants were even bioluminescent, the edges of their leaves glowing softly.
It was beautiful.
Bulma almost didn't want to leave, and why not? Nobody would be looking for her, she had already slept a lot today so she wasn't tired, and taking a stroll through the moonlit garden sounded lovely.
She walked softly, fearing that the slightest sound would break the spell. She gradually found herself drifting back to her spot. Bulma scooped up her glass and left the rose patch. She whistled for a servant bot, and once it found her she handed off the glass to its steel fingertips.
Bulma looked up at the sky as the robot rolled off, feeling very small. Years ago, before Raditz had come to Earth, she had never really thought that there were other civilizations out there. Sure, it made sense in theory, but seeing all those stars, just far off twinkling white flecks of light, made it seem impossible.
Bulma was broken out of her reverie when a distant pounding noise started. Come to think of it, it had been happening on and off for the past while, but now it was definitely louder. Before, Bulma had ignored it, adding to the numerous list of unexplained noises that were always present here. But now it was loud enough that she was intrigued.
"What's that?" she wondered to herself. She started off towards it, her curiosity aroused. Bulma followed it out of the garden, to the building's left wing. This was where her father kept all his inventions that weren't available to the public. What could it be? A malfunctioning robot? Burglars? If so, they had to be the worst ones in the world. Nobody could make that much noise on purpose.
Bulma came to a door that she didn't recognize. Not surprising, considering how large the place was. There were a lot of empty rooms.
The door had a keycard slot. Bulma swiped her master card (one of the perks of being the boss's daughter) through it and it silently slid open. She stepped inside.
Or rather, tried to. There was some sort of force-field. What could be in this room? Bulma peered past the invisible barrier.
It was a simple room, the main thing of interest being a pillar in the center with panels bolted to it, keyboards and monitors fastened to those. Bulma knew that that was a generator, but for what? The force-field? She gave an experimental push, and found that if she used all her strength it gave the slightest bit. So, less of an invisible wall and more of an...
"Extremely powerful artificial gravity field," Bulma said, just as Vegeta stepped around the pillar. He didn't react at all to her being there, other than raising an eyebrow.
"Well?" he said, somewhat impatiently. He didn't look any better, if anything he seemed worse for the wear. His body was shiny with sweat, veins all over it were pulsating from exertion. He was panting heavily, his sides heaving.
"Huh?" Bulma replied eloquently. Then she realized that he was waiting for the senzu. But that was at the back of her mind. This "heavy gravity" was too heavy.
"The senzu. Now." he said, holding out his hand, which Bulma noticed was, almost imperceptively, trembling unsteadily.
This was worse than she thought. Vegeta, in his eternal quest for power, was pushing himself to total destruction.
"Only if you switch off the gravity," Bulma said, a bit surprised by her words. Both by her bravery and her concern. "You're going to kill yourself," he rolled his eyes.
"You do realize that I could just take them from you? It's not like you can stop me," Bulma shook her head.
"Not until you lower the gravity," she said. Vegeta sighed a little.
"...Fine. It's about time for me to take a break, anyway," he trudged to a monitor attached to the pillar structure and typed on a keyboard. The numbers flicked back down to normal gravity, but not before Bulma saw what they had been before. Her jaw dropped open.
"300 G?!" she screeched. Vegeta turned to her, giving her a cold stare.
"Yes. Not that it's any of your business,"
"That's enough to crush a person to death instantly! Are you insane?!" Vegeta growled.
"I don't need your sentiment," Bulma backed up, her feelings wounded. Vegeta snatched the bag of senzu out of her hands and ate one. Although it did nothing to change his looks, his breathing evened out and he stood straighter.
"Is beating Goku really so important?" Bulma asked softly. Vegeta shrugged casually, and she couldn't help but pay attention to his shoulders, the muscles rippling fluidly with the movement. Couldn't he wear a shirt?
"Surpassing Kakarrot is only part of it," he admitted. "... I don't want to die again," Bulma gasped, remembering what the kid from the future said. Vegeta was killed in the battle with the androids, along with the others. Only Son Gohan survived.
"Of course," she said. Vegeta walked over to the keyboard.
"Enough. You have ten seconds to leave before I increase this to 300 again," Bulma almost sighed. He never changed.
"Okay, but you should really rest once in a while. Saiyans sleep too, you know," ignoring her, Vegeta pressed a few keys. The air around Bulma thickened, and she began to feel heavier. Not putting anything past him, she scrambled out of the room before she got crushed like a bug.
And there you have it! Chapter two of Opposites Attract. Okay, first I want to thank everybody who reviewed, followed or even read this li'l story of mine. You guys rock!
Secondly, this story will last for five chapters. So I have three left to write and publish. Just a heads up.
Also, at first when I was reading stuff online about DBZ, I noticed that a lot of the names were different. I now know that those are names that the anime uses, but just for the record I'm going to write this story completly faithful to the manga. So here, Krillin is Kuririn and Frieza is Freeza. Tien is Tenshinhan, ect. I think that King Kai is KaiƓ. Right? The Lord of the Worlds?
Oh yeah, and can anyone tell me why Vegeta's tail doesn't grow back after his fight with Goku and company? I mean, he specifically said that it'll grow back. And Goku's did, more than once.
Any questions that you have about this story, just PM me or write a review. If you don't have an account that I can reply to, I'll write the question and the answer in upcoming author's notes, okay? Okay. I'm getting to be a bit ramblily, so I'll have to sign off.
See you next Tuesday!
~Lily
