Chapter 3- Screening
"Vegeta?" He turned his head away. Although her voice was sweet enough, he wanted to catch a few more minutes of snoozing before having to wake up. He felt exhausted.
"Vegeta." She called again.
He tried to open his mouth to tell her to shut up and let him go back to sleep, but all that came out was a low groan. Confused now, he cracked his eyes open, marveling at their sudden weight. He didn't recall blowing up the gravity chamber. In fact, he didn't recall training at all. Yet, here he found himself in this white—washed building, with a machine beeping beside him. He was in a hospital.
"Hey there." His eyes rolled lazily to the side to see Bulma leaning over the side of the bed toward him. "How are you feeling?" She asked quietly running a cool hand over his brow.
His head was fuzzy, and he found that it was actually taking him some time to comprehend what she was saying. He blinked at her, before trying to push himself up on an elbow.
"No don't." Bulma was there firmly holding his shoulders to keep him flat. "You'll pull your stitches. Just lie still."
Stitches? Then he suddenly remembered. The scouter troop, the Minan Sergent. Despite Bulma's earlier orders he jerked himself upright. He was hunched over in pain a moment later, with his vision black and his ears ringing. It was a second too late that he remembered the sound of the gunshot and the feeling of falling. Go figure.
"And that's why you should listen to me." Bulma was saying when his ears stopped ringing enough for him to hear her. He found that he was flat on his back again, Bulma staring down at him with her arms crossed, and two other hands holding him down.
"Ka…karott?"
"Hi 'Geta." Goku said with a small smile. "Good to see you're awake."
"Dad?" Trunks and Goten were beside him too, both rubbing sleep from their eyes. Trunks blinked at his father and then grinned sleepily at the sight that he was ok enough to be glaring at Goku.
Vegeta glanced at Trunks. "What…" He coughed to clear his throat. "time is it?"
Bulma handed him a glass of water, which he drank down greedily. "It's around 3:30 in the morning." Bulma answered after checking her watch. She took the watch off and then placed it on the table beside the bed.
His eyes widened. "What happened to the ship? Have you gotten use of your power again?"
"Piccolo and Krillin went back to check the ship hours ago. If they've managed to encapsulate it, they should be bringing it back to Capsule Corp now." Goku informed him. "And no. We're still unable to use our ki."
Vegeta tried propping himself up on his elbow again, more slowly this time. He swatted Goku's hand away when he tried to push him back, and Bulma ended up just rolling her eyes and raising the back of the bed to accommodate him.
"I meant the other ship Kakarott! The one that's waiting in space with the twelve other warriors."
"Oh. Well…they're still up there." He glanced toward the window as if he might see the ship floating in the sky.
"What are they waiting on?" Vegeta mumbled to himself.
"How do we know they're even going to come down?" Bulma asked. "I mean if you took out the ones they sent before, maybe they—"
Vegeta's glare caused her to cut herself off.
"You really don't understand the workings of intergalactic empires, do you?" Vegeta groaned. He rubbed his eyes to try to clear them a bit. For some reason, they continued to see blurrily. "Those were just a scouter force…the farthest reaching tendril of the empire, with the most expendable soldiers. They were ordered to take this planet, and they have to land and at least make an effort at it. They don't have a choice really. And even if we manage to take them down, the empire will just send more."
"Then…what do we do?"
Vegeta shook his head. His brain was still too fuzzy to think properly. "First we have to make sure that they never find out about the dragonballs. Then you," He looked to Bulma. "Will try to figure out how those chips work so we can retain our ki when fighting."
"Vegeta, I can't do that before they land. These things take weeks! Months even!"
"Well you'd better get started soon." Vegeta said. He paused. "Kakarott, we should see if everyone was affected by the Meiyochi."
"Yea! We'd thought of that. Krillin called 18. Apparently she isn't affected at all by it. She's gone to look for Android 17 and…convince him to help us if we need it. We haven't been able to get in touch with Hercule yet to ask about Buu."
Vegeta blinked, then nodded falling into thought again. "We should stay away from cities, too."
"Hm?" Bulma and Goku shared a look before looking back down.
Vegeta rolled his eyes. "There are two ways that you can go about taking over a planet." He said with a touch of exhausted humor in his voice. "The first is that you can start attacking in the countryside so that people will flee to the cities. That makes the population concentrate itself into a few places so that a few massive attacks will eradicate them completely. But this isn't a purge. They want to screen the people, so it's much better to attack the cities first. Again there are several ways to go about this. The most popular method is to cut off the food and water supply. Once people run out of resources, they will panic and either try to flee the city or start attacking each other. In this way, the population sort-of screens itself. If you're clever enough to escape, you're clever enough to live. If you stay and fight, the strongest and smartest will come out on top. Either way it's the fittest who will survive."
"Vegeta, that's terrible." Bulma said.
He shrugged, grimacing at the pain the action caused him. "It's just what happens."
"Well it won't happen here." Goku said. Vegeta decided not to bother telling him that on the hundreds of planets who had been screened, all of them thought the same thing. He just leaned his head back tiredly.
"Maybe not the first time." He admitted. "But this is one planet against an entire empire. An empire with technology that we've never even seen, with fighters whose power levels may actually be far greater than anything we imagine—especially since we've got no ki and have two—maybe three—people to stand against them."
"So what do we do?" Vegeta looked down to see that it was Trunks who had asked. He frowned, suddenly wondering if this was what his father felt like trying to save one planet against an entire empire. As much as he'd always thought his father was wrong for having allied himself with Frieza in the first place, he'd always known that he hadn't really had a choice. It was either be eradicated or join the empire in hopes that some opportunity would reveal itself and the empire would crumble. Vegeta stared at his son in the same way that he knew his own father had once looked at him—with a sense of despair and hopelessness, but with pride knowing that neither father nor son would go down without a fight.
Vegeta knew what the best choice of action would be, given the desperate situation, but he also knew that that path could possibly bring about, if not the destruction of Earth, then his own personal destruction.
"…'Geta?" Goku was calling him.
He glanced up at his fellow Saiyan. "Let me think on it." Vegeta said. "I've got an idea that may help us temporarily."
Bulma recognized in his tone that something was amiss. "But?"
"But…" He started. "I'd rather not jump into it just yet. Let's just see how we fare first."
Goku stared down at him, and suddenly, he could feel Goku's mind brush against his own. Vegeta slammed down his mental barriers. "I suggest you go find Buu, Kakarott." He said out loud.
"Right." Goku backed away and looked down at his son. "C'mon Goten. We'll take Kinto-kun."
Goten nodded, sleepily.
"Oh yea." Goku paused after opening the window and glanced back over his shoulder. "Gohan and Videl are on their way back here. There weren't any senzu at my house, so they had to go to Korin's."
"How many do they have?" Vegeta asked.
"Umm…Six I think. Another batch of beans will be ready in a few weeks."
Vegeta looked to Bulma. "Call them and tell them to turn around."
"Huh?" "What?" Goku and Bulma exclaimed simultaneously.
"You'd be wasting a bean giving it to me."
"But, Vegeta."
"Kakarott, even if you heal me I'm not going to be able to do much against the Tik. It's much better to keep the beans for the androids."
"But…"
Vegeta gave him a look that told that he wasn't changing his mind.
Goku sighed. "Fine." He headed toward the window, and opening it, called for his cloud. A few moments later, the fluffy, yellow cloud appeared below the window. "See you guys later!" Goku called hopping onto Kinto kun and pulling Goten on as well.
"See ya!" Trunks yelled. Bulma and Trunks both waved, and the cloud sped off into the night sky.
"Onna, where are my clothes?"
"Huh?" Bulma turned around to see that Vegeta was pulling himself out of bed. "What are you doing?"
"What do you mean? I just told you."
She hurried back to him and started pushing him back into bed. "No! You never said anything about deciding to pull your stitches out!"
"Weren't you listening?" Vegeta snapped, annoyed to find that he was actually losing the battle against his wife. His legs gave out, and he collapsed back on to the bed. His ears were suddenly ringing again, and he found that all of the movement was causing a great deal of pain in his chest and abdomen.
"Get back in bed, Vegeta. I don't know what you were planning on doing, but right now you have to rest."
"No."
"Vegeta, I will call a nurse." She made a movement as if she was going to press the call button, and Vegeta quickly grabbed her wrist.
"Onna, will you just listen to me for one second?" Vegeta was frustrated, and now in a great deal of pain. Why did the woman have to make everything difficult? "The next batch of scouts can land at any moment, and they will likely start attacking cities first. As they are probably wondering why the other Tik scouts aren't responding, it is probably that they are going to land near here."
"But—"
"But what? Where is there room for argument?" He snapped, and Bulma could hear that his breathing was labored. "If they land where the other ship did, this is the first city that will be attacked. Would you prefer to just sit here and wait for them to kill us?"
"Couldn't we just wait for Gohan to get here with a senzu? You shouldn't be out of bed."
"Onna, I told you that I'm not taking the bean. I'm fine. But I won't be if the building is burned to the ground with us still in it."
"Mom?" Trunks said hesitantly coming up behind his mother. "Dad's right. The other aliens are really strong. I can feel them from here."
Bulma huffed and looked down at her husband. "Fine I'll go get the papers and see if the doctor will let me buy some pain killers off him."
"What? Papers! Painkillers!" Vegeta would have yelled if his damaged lung could have handled it. "Did you not comprehend the situation?"
Bulma straightened. "Vegeta, that's enough! I'm going talk to the doctor, and you two will stay here until I get back." With that she snatched her bag, turned on her heel and stalked out.
Vegeta stared at the door through which his wife had just disappeared, blinked and then snapped his mouth shut. He sent a clearly frustrated look to Trunks. Trunks was making an honorable effort to hide his amusement.
Vegeta glanced around the room. "Trunks, where are my clothes."
Trunks' mouth twitched into a grin before he quickly erased it. "Mom just took them."
Vegeta groaned and nearly flung himself back onto his pillow. As it was, he leaned back with a glare and crossed his arms.
He glanced at the watch that Bulma had placed on the night stand. It was already past 4am.
"Unbelievable."
Goku crept quietly into his house, up the stairs, and slipped a sleeping Goten into his bed. On his way back downstairs, he was met by Chichi, who had been awakened by the sound of Goten's door closing.
"Goku what on Earth is going on? Gohan called and told me some wild story about aliens, and no one being able to fly, and Vegeta…What's happening? Are you ok?"
"Yea we're all fine." He told her hurrying back downstairs. Chichi followed right on his heels. "But I've got to go tell Buu about what's going on." He tried to head to the door.
"Son Goku, you're not going anywhere!" She snapped, placing herself in front of him. "Not until you tell me what's happening."
"Chichi…" Goku sighed. "Fine. Some scouter forces from an intergalactic empire touched down on Earth today."
"Are they…strong."
"Heh." Goku almost laughed. He was so tired. "Not really."
Chichi looked confused.
"They have a machine that pretty much…zaps our Ki. None of us can fly, or shoot energy beams. We can't even power up enough to defend ourselves against simple weapons. Vegeta was shot today by one of their guns. It went clean through him."
"So…what…"
"The thing is, Androids 18 and 17 don't use Ki to fight or to fly. They still have all of their power. Buu uses magic, so he should be able to fight as well. I just need to get in touch with him and make sure that he responds if there is a threat."
"Oh."
"So that's where I'm going."
"Wait just one minute Goku!" Chichi snapped, trying not to yell or wake up Goten.
Goku sighed. "What Chichi?"
"Why don't you just use the phone?"
"Huh?" He put his hand behind his head. "Well we don't have Hercule's phone number."
"Of course we do, Goku. Gohan is dating his daughter. The Satans' home phone number is written in the address book that Gohan keeps on his desk."
"Really?" Goku grinned. "Wow thanks Chichi!" He scooped his wife into a quick hug, picking her up off the ground, before dropping her back down and running upstairs to Gohan's bedroom.
Chichi stared after him and shook her head. She glanced at the front door, realizing that Goku hadn't locked it. The man was the strongest man in the universe. He hardly needed to lock the door. However, given the situation, leaving it unlocked seemed a little reckless. Chichi quickly locked it and turned to head back to her bedroom.
She hesitated and then, running into the kitchen, grabbed a chair. She dragged it back towards the door and then propped it under the handle.
Stepping back, she regarded her handiwork. With a self-satisfied nod, she finally turned and headed back to bed.
"I can't believe you wasted nearly two hours with something so foolish as release papers."
Bulma rolled her eyes and then said for what must have been the thirtieth time. "Vegeta, the release papers were relatively easy to get. It was trying to bribe a law-abiding doctor to sell me enough painkillers to knock out a pack of wild dinosaurs that took so long. You'll be thanking me for that later though."
Vegeta shifted a bit in his seat. Bulma had tried to convince him to lie down in the back seat and go to sleep, but he had insisted on sitting up front. Trunks had taken her advice though, and had been sprawled across the seat for the past hour, sleeping deeply.
Vegeta coughed lightly, earning a nervous glance from Bulma. "Are you sure you're ok?" She asked. She knew what he would say, and she also knew what the real answer was. He was most certainly not ok. He was pale and weak and had holes in both his stomach and lung. He needed to lie down and rest, or better yet to just eat a senzu bean and be done.
Before he could stop her, she placed her hand against his forehead. "Vegeta, you're burning up."
He shrugged her hand away and looked out the window.
Suddenly, the plane started dropping.
"What are you doing?"
"Landing. What's it look like I'm doing?"
"Why are you landing?"
"Because we're in the middle of nowhere. And that's where you wanted to go. If we keep going much further, we'll run into another city eventually. Was there a specific middle-of-nowhere that you were trying to get to?"
"No."
"Well then this spot is perfect."
Vegeta glanced down below. There were certainly a good number of animals down there. He could sense their energy. The three would blend in among the animals. It was as good a hiding place as any.
He had been reluctant to land anywhere, even though there had been a good number of potential hiding places. Part of him was ashamed at the thought that he was hiding, and he had been therefore reluctant to actually do it. Another part of him, though, was actually terrified of being on the receiving side of a screen. Even when he'd been performing screens—though those times were few and far between—it had been a horrifying experience, and he'd certainly never envied either the victims or the survivors of a screen. He'd been trying to think of something, any hint that may help to save his and his family's lives. He couldn't think of anything though. What was worse was that his head was growing steadily foggier, and there was now a dull throbbing on his right temple.
"Go near that river, but not in the actual clearing." He ordered.
"I've got to land in the clearing. We'll just have to walk to get a little bit away from it." The plane touched down gently, and a moment later the buzzing of the engine stopped. Everything was suddenly eerily silent. "And now you're going to see why you married me." Bulma said with a grin waving her capsule case at him.
The dim light from the stars cast her face in shadows, outlining of her perfect features and causing her blue hair to nearly shine. Nonetheless, Vegeta cocked a skeptical eyebrow.
Bulma rolled her eyes at her husband and turned in her seat. "Trunks, honey, wake up." She said, nudging her son. "We're here."
Trunks sat up groggily. "We're…where?" He looked out the window to see nothing but trees.
"In the middle of nowhere." Bulma informed him.
He stared blankly as if wondering when she would announce the punch line of her joke. His mother just grinned and pushed her door open. To Trunks' surprise, his father did the same. "What are we doing in the middle of nowhere?"
"Trying to avoid getting caught in the screen for as long as possible. We're masking our kis among the animals here."
"We're…hiding?"
"In essence, yes." Vegeta swayed as he finally stood upright. His head was swimming, and he suddenly felt weak. Bulma hurried around the car toward her husband.
"For how long?"
Vegeta's knees gave out. Bulma caught him just in time. "Until your father is well enough to stand on his own. Trunks, here." She handed her son the capsule case. "Encapsulate the jet. Then find the capsule house and pop it open somewhere just in the woods. Hurry up."
"Uhh, right." Trunks hurried to do as he was told, as Bulma half-carried a nearly-limp, wheezing Vegeta into the woods. His face was dangerously pale. Sweat was now beading his forehead, and she could feel him shivering against her.
"Stubborn man." She mumbled to herself. He needed to rest. He didn't need to be gallivanting around the world and trekking through the forest in such a state. Being upright so soon after such a terrible injury was only causing his condition to worsen.
A soft pop was heard behind her, and a moment later, Trunks was running past them into the woods.
"Is this good?" He yelled to his mother, indicating a small area amid the trees.
At that moment Vegeta shivered so violently that it was nearly a spasm.
"Yes that's fine!" Bulma called back to him. She readjusted her grip on him. He was getting heavier by the moment.
A house popped into existence a few yards ahead of them. Trunks opened the door and ran inside. A moment later, he came back out, looked at his parents and then deciding that his mother apparently needed help, ran over to them. He supported Vegeta from the other side, and the two of them carried him the rest of the way into the house.
Vegeta was nearly unconscious by the time they finally got him into a bed.
"Is he ok mom?"
Bulma felt Vegeta's forehead. It was still hot. Honestly she didn't know if he was ok, but with Vegeta being Vegeta, she had faith that he'd pull through. "I'm sure he'll be fine, Trunks. He just needs to rest. Go back to sleep. I'll take care of him."
Trunks yawned at the mention of sleep. He just nodded to his mother and turned to find the capsule house's other bedroom.
Bulma quickly went find a cool compress and then placed it on Vegeta's head. His eyes cracked open slightly and he regarded her through a haze of exhaustion and pain.
"Shh…" Bulma adjusted him to make him more comfortable. "Go to sleep."
His eyes fluttered once, and finally slid closed.
Bulma dropped into a chair beside the bed. It had been such a long night, and it was nearly 7:30 in the morning now. Soon, the sun would rise on a new day, and Bulma had hardly slept a wink. In a way she was used to this. She frequently pulled all-nighters when working on interesting projects or when preparing presentations for the board. And it seemed like every few years some powerful villain would appear and disrupt everyone's lives. But she still had a nervous feeling in her stomach. Vegeta made the situation sound so serious. And how could they win when not even Goku could fight?
Part of her was glad that she may be of help against this new enemy, but then seeing how vulnerable her husband had been to the alien's attack, she had trouble being very optimistic. What if they all died before she could manage to come up with something that would help? What if she never managed to come up with it? What if the alien technology was far beyond anything that even she could comprehend?
Her eyes watered a bit and she looked over at her husband. Reaching out a hand, she gently felt his cheek. It was still hot, but he was sleeping peacefully now. His shivers had subsided, and his face had regained some of its color.
She smiled a bit at seeing him. He had been so close to death, today, but he had survived. She could still touch him, and tease him, and kiss his nose in clear defiance when he was angry—though she knew how much that annoyed him. Everything would be ok. She just knew it.
18 opened her eyes groggily. Sunlight was streaming into the room she was in, but that room was only vaguely familiar. She sat up, realizing that she had apparently fallen asleep with her head on the table. Her neck was aching, and she raised a hand to rub it.
Suddenly she sprang up. "What time is it?" She gasped.
"Huh?" She spun at the voice, seeing that 17 was in the chair next to her, rubbing sleep from his eyes. "Wha…? What happened?"
"I was here all night?" 18 asked.
17 glanced at the clock on the wall. "Yea I guess so. It's almost 8:30."
"Oh no!" She pulled out her cell phone and flipped it open. "I left Marron with that old bag of—hello? Krillin? I thought you were going to be away all night." 17 yawned loudly and leaned his cheek onto his fist. He fixed his sister with a lazy gaze, secretly triumphing at the fact that she had for once forgotten about her family because she was preoccupied with him. "Yes we did have a nice chat." 18 said. "I got so caught up that I fell asleep, I hope you're not upset…"
Apparently, he wasn't, for 18 smiled. 17 was always surprised at how the little human could make his cold sister smile so easily. He lifted himself from his chair and made his way to the coffee machine.
"Ohh…" 17 started ignoring his sister's conversation. Apparently Marron had missed her mommy, and now it was necessary for her to talk to 18 on the phone. As 17 set about scouring his kitchen for two clean coffee mugs, he heard 18 say a little louder than before. "Of course. Uncle 17 would love to talk to you."
He cast a glance at his sister. She lazily handed the phone to him with a small smirk. "Uhh, hello?" He rarely used phones. He had no one to talk to after all.
"Uncle 17! Hi! Are you going to come visit us?"
"Visit you? Umm…"
18 was amused at how confused and flustered her usually cool brother became when faced with his young niece.
"…I wasn't planning on it." He finally said.
"But why not? You never come visit! Dad says that you and mom are going to save the world from some bad aliens!"
"Uhh…well, that... The aliens aren't actually here, so that could all fall through."
"Some aliens came a little while ago, but they were actually Trunks' aunt and uncle. And then there were some bad ones too, but mom and dad fought them and they became nice. Did you know that?"
"Uhh…no. That is interesting."
"It was so cool! Mom and dad are really strong."
"Oh yea?"
"Are you strong like them?"
"I do my best."
"I want to watch you fight! Is it going to be at the tournament place again?"
"Likely not. Maybe it'll be on TV, but don't count on it."
"After you beat the aliens will you come visit?"
"We'll see."
"Can I come to your house?"
"Uhh…" He sent a panicked gaze to 18. 18 rolled her eyes and took the phone back from her brother.
"Hi, honey, this is your mommy….oh you want to come to Uncle 17's house. Well we'll see. He'll have to clean it first…Ok…Well I've got to go now, ok? Tell daddy that I'll be back later…ok. I love you sweetheart. Byebye."
She flipped the phone shut and chuckled at the look on her brother's face. "You really do need to clean this place."
He scowled at her. "Why? You're the only company I ever get."
"I can see why." She looked around at the dirty countertops and the pile of dishes in the sink. "I washed two mugs." She announced afterwards, heading over to the coffee pot to pour two cups of coffee. "There weren't any clean ones."
"Oh." 17 said a bit dumbly as she handed him his coffee.
"Have you got any breakfast food or what?"
"Umm…I should have some cereal. Or I can make pancakes."
"Cereal is fine." 18 said a little too quickly.
17 chuckled and set off in search of some bowls.
Just then, they felt it. The Kis in space were getting closer. The aliens were finally landing.
AN: Hi guys I hope you enjoyed that.
Here's a quick thanks to all of you who reviewed. I'm glad to know that you're enjoying it!
Reviews always appreciated.
