Chapter 2: Landing
Yamcha sat in his apartment holding a half empty bottle of his favorite brand of beer. He took a swallow and sighed.
How could she do this to me? He wondered silently. He loved her. He'd never been unfaithful. And sure she had told him that they couldn't be together anymore but that didn't erase all the things they had been to each other. It had been a little under a year ago when she had bid him goodbye. He was sure she would come around. He would let her play out her life and she would realize she loved him to.
Now that was impossible. She really had moved on. The hickey he had seen clear as day still fresh on her delicate pale skin was evident of that. And she had that smile on her face. He had never seen that smile directed at him. She had been grinning like a Cheshire cat when she bounced down the stairs. He frowned. Who had she been with?
Then as soon as he thought about it he remembered. She had lit up like the sun when Goku had asked about Vegeta.
"That son of a bitch." He growled. Had she really went to that monster? Of all people. That was a blow to his own ego he couldn't stand. She had been with that filthy Prince. The one who had killed him not so long ago on Namek.
"He forced her." He told himself in a mad rush of jealousy. "That's it." He grinned devilishly. "He'll pay."
Bulma awoke the next morning and sighed. She was alone again. Not that she was surprised. She knew it would take time for Vegeta to come around completely. She was just glad he had at least made it as far as her bed.
She sat up and noticed the hum of the gravity machine outside her window. Smiling she thanked Kami silently that Vegeta hadn't just ran off. She still had no idea where he'd went yesterday.
She was in the middle of getting dressed when she heard the explosions.
Vegeta woke up again wrapped in her arms. He frowned when he realized that over the past two nights the nightmares that haunted him as he slept had been absent.
Was she the reason? Was this weak human the reason his spirit was rested?
He didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to face the fact that this could be more than sex. While the still visible mark on her neck confirmed that it was way more than sex. It went past physical. It went way down to emotions. He didn't like dealing with emotions. They made you weak.
He rolled the slight woman out of his arms and got dressed.
"I cant…" he whispered as he slipped out of her room and down to the gravity room.
He trained to the point of exhaustion. The hover bots floating around him sent out an occasional faux ki beam. He dodged them deftly and punched the air. Shadow boxing and avoiding the beams of energy sent his way in five hundred times Earths gravity.
In the middle of his training session he was suddenly slammed to the ground by the spike of the gravity.
The lights blew out first. Sparks flew as bulb after bulb blew under the weight of the gravity. Vegeta looked up as the gravity climbed up to alarming levels. As the levels reached one thousand g's the walls cracked around him. The steel groaned under the pressure. Just as he was about to curse his luck out loud the gravity room imploded. The shock sent out shivers along the ground at Capsule Corporation.
Meanwhile outside the Briefs residence the whole of the island of Japan faced problems of the same magnitude. Machinery went haywire. Lights went out everywhere. A surge of electricity was sweeping Japan and the very air crackled with it. In the broad daylight the sun was dimmed. Screams pierced the air and vehicles stalled, even exploded. As the surge pushed machinery past its limits, people everywhere were scrambling to get to safety. Fires broke out in various places around the continent. As the surge coursed through everyone felt the tension. And with all the electricity gone from Japan people started to panic.
It was hysteria. And no one knew why.
Bulma screamed. She had been knocked sideways and slammed into the wall by the resulting high winds from the gravity room imploding and the various machines around her room exploding. The tiny shards of glass as the bulbs blew in their sockets showered down on her and sparks flew in all different directions. She felt something sticky and hot flowing down her right arm and looked down. Crimson blood flowed from a gash in her upper arm. She sucked in a breath as the pain hit her.
"Bulma dear?" She heard her mother call out to her and struggled to get up. She was shaky but her legs were fine. So she made her way past the debris that littered her room. Looking back she noticed that her wall had caved in. She saw the sky outside and it was pitch black. She wondered what was going on.
She found her mother in the kitchen clutching her father. Her mother reached out for her and she stumbled over to her parents.
"Oh dear. You're hurt!" Her mother cried. She reached out for Bulmas arm. She lifted it gently. Bulma hissed and her mom put her arms down. "You need a doctor dear."
"Thanks for stating the obvious mom." Bulma groaned as pain shot through her arm. She sat up and looked around. "Where's Vegeta?"
"He was in the gravity room." Her father said gravely. "Bulma…Its not good."
She turned to the window and looked in the direction of the gravity room. Where it had once stood there was a pile of rubble. As the blood rushed from her head the blackness crept in. Leaving her falling to floor, both of her parents rushing to catch her.
Bulma awoke hours later. Her head pounded and her arm ached. Remembering the gravity room she sat up gasping and the room swirled around her. Her arm had been bandaged, and the small cuts on her face and left arm had been tended to. She felt the small band aids covering them.
"Bulma!" People cried her name all around the room as she realized she wasn't alone. She smiled halfheartedly when they pushed their way to the bed. The candle light flickered on each of their faces as they neared. Goku, Chichi, Gohan, Krillin, Yamcha, her parents, no Vegeta though.
"Mom?" she cast her blue eyes towards her mom in a silent plea. Her voiced quivered.
Her mom leaned down so only she could hear. "He's in the regeneration tank."
Bulma sighed and sank back into oblivion.
Miles above Earth. A black vessel floated weightlessly in space. Here and there along the ship electricity crackled in the vastness of space, moving from one side of the ship to another. A large painting of a skull and crossbones on its rear.
"Orders my lord?"
"Kill the old and the sick. Capture those with able bodies. We will have this planet for our own. And bring me the Saiyan when you find him."
"Do we know what happened?" Bulma asked. She had woken up thirty minutes after she had passed out for the second time. And after she had been assured once again by her mother that Vegeta was okay and in the next room she had questions to ask.
They all sat around a steel drum which held the flickering light from a fire.
"We know." Her father said. She watched as all of them looked at each other not meeting her eyes. "Apparently Japan is being attacked again. By some outside force. But we don't know what they want. Their ship entered our atmosphere and their strong magnetic pull shorted out everything we own with electricity. So…as you can guess we have no electricity. The information we have we attained from Goku and the others when they flew up towards the ship interfering the sun and encountered the magnetic pull. It caused a spike in the energy from the electricity."
"Oh wow." Bulma processed the information.
"The ship is getting closer to Earth." Goku said. "And who ever is in there is strong. We can feel many different ki's. But there's one that stands out-"
He was cut off by a sudden crash from the next room. Everyone went running to the room with the regeneration tank. Dr. Briefs had rigged up some sort of battery to make the thing work. In the green glow of the light from the tank they saw Vegeta. Flat on his butt.
Vegeta had woken up to the warm feel of liquid from the regeneration tank. His eyes slowly opened as he remembered what had happened. He flexed his hands. They seemed to function okay. He did the same with his legs. Finding nothing wrong with him he pushed the button on the inside that drained the liquid from the tank and opened the door on the top. But when he had pulled himself up and out of the tank he miscalculated the jump it took to get down due to the almost dark of the room and landed almost on top of a table filled with scrap pieces of metal and wiring. He fell on his posterior.
"Damnit," he cursed as he heard footsteps come his way.
Bulma was first through the door. She looked rough. Her arm and face bandaged. His heart skipped a beat as he looked at her. She reached for him. Scared of the longing to hold her he turned his nose up at the offered hand. He winced inwardly at the hurt on her face but he couldn't comfort her.
Behind her rushed in Chichi holding onto Bulma like she was scared. Then Bulmas parents, Goku, Gohan and Yamcha. Yamcha had a slight smile on his face. Vegeta may have been the only one that noticed it was a mad, unbalanced smile. He wasn't in his right mind. Vegeta didn't care. That baka had always been deranged.
"What happened?" He growled to no one in particular.
"We think we are being attacked. The enemy has made their first move." Goku pushed past Bulma to the smaller Saiyan and pulled him up. Vegeta pushed him away as soon as he was standing and looked around. He was aware that all he had on was boxer shorts and he felt exposed. He hated that feeling.
He searched for his spandex blue uniform and couldn't find it.
"Woman, where's my clothes?" He demanded. He wasn't going to stand around half naked if there was an enemy to face.
"I don't know." She said putting her left arm on her hip and cocking her head. "I just woke up myself, stupid monkey."
He growled at that last part. She knew he hated being called that.
"You look like hell." He said. He didn't know how to be polite and ask her what had happened. So he degenerated to insults. It was his way.
Bulma stared at him with her mouth open for a bit and then smiled. He hated that she knew him. Knew he was being an ass to 'protect' his 'bad boy' image.
"I'm okay." She said softly. Bulmas mom handed him some clothes and he pulled them on. Ignoring the blue haired woman for the time being.
"Well, since you're up Vegeta we need to discuss a plan." Goku took a step towards him but Vegeta waved him off.
"I don't need help, Kakarott." He followed the crowd of people into the next room where they had a fire. He leaned up against one of the walls a little bit away from them and crossed his arms.
"What are we gonna do?" Krillin asked. A slight frown on his face.
"Well. The ship has yet to make a move. They landed on Earth but so far…Nothing." Dr Briefs explained. "We have no idea what they want. We don't even know if they are attacking. No one has seen anyone come outside the ship. And for all we know it could just be an empty ship."
"Its not." Goku said, as he sat down beside Chichi holding her close. "I can feel their energy and I'm sure the others can to. Vegeta?" Goku glanced at Vegeta as if to affirm this fact.
Vegeta focused his senses for a minute and nodded. "Yes. There's definitely something there."
And more worrisome to Vegeta was the fact that the strongest ki on that ship was strangely familiar. Like he'd known the person before.
It was no where near his level of strength. But it far surpassed the humans kis. Which wasn't disturbing. Seeing as how all humans were weak. There wasn't more than thirty people occupying the vessel either.
"They are going to attack. There's just no telling when. We need to be on guard though." He said nonchalantly. He would fight. And protect Bulma. The others he didn't really care about. They were on their own.
"So.." said Bulma after a short period of silence. "We fight?"
"We fight." The rest said in unison.
