Chapter Six: Atypical and Confrontational
Vegeta stirred, rustling the clean white sheet draped over his body. Peeling his lids open, he saw above him a lime-green ceiling dotted with a field of innumerable black specks. Groggy from the length of his sleep, Vegeta stared forward unthinkingly. After a while, he tried to force himself into full wakefulness. Instead, he gained just enough grasp of his surroundings to notice those black specks on the ceiling.
"One, two…" he began to count. He arrived at "thirty-seven" when consciousness hit him like a train. He tossed the white sheet off his body while bounding onto the floor. The cold of pseudo-marble tiles stung his bare feet. He did not bother to question why he was unshod; he did not bother to question where the hole in his heart and chest had gone or why he was dressed in a sky-blue hospital smock.
All he could do was pace forward, backward, forward, backward in a circuit of five square feet of floor. He was trying to piece together all his disjointed thoughts, dreams, and emotions so as to make some sense of them. His conclusion:
He did not know how he would manage it, but somehow—he was determined that somehow he would keep himself from ever having to sleep again. Sure, that may sound unreasonable at first, but it was nothing compared to how unreasonable it was for the Prince of All Saiyajins to have been coerced into unconsciousness three times in a single day!
"What the f—" Vegeta stammered harshly. He froze in place and examined his reflection in a small rectangular mirror, hung neatly over a sanitized hospital sink.
"Where in the hell is my armor?" the Prince bellowed, looking down at his chest and yanking at the bottom corners of the smock disdainfully, "What in the hell am I wearing?"
The volume of Vegeta's voice escalated as he continued to pour out expletives. He scuffed his eyes over every piece of furniture and every medicinal instrument with disgust while stomping around the room. Seizing a tray of Earthling food on a table at the foot of the bed, he hurtled it into the walls.
Hearing the commotion, a nurse entered the room only to have to leap right out again, using the door as a shield against a flowerpot.
"S-sir?" she peeked her eyes over the edge of the door to glance into the room. Vegeta stood, glued in place, panting with anger. Fortunately, he seemed too lost in thought to throw anything.
Ever since Vegeta fought that third-class ape on Earth, his judgment had been clouded with emotions and frustrations. Even now, as he chided himself for his imprudence, he felt the anger brewing inside him. Like puss in an old sore, his anger putrefied and then, turning gangrenous, spread like a fever through his body.
Vegeta told himself that he was losing control, but the truth was that he had already lost it. When that damned Kakarrot beat him, all control had gone amok. He had only his willpower left to act as a source of discipline.
As a warrior, this was insufferable, but Vegeta supposed that will alone was enough. He recalled Nappa telling him an old Saiyajin proverb when he was a boy:
"Few are born brave, yet all can make themselves so through training. The heart of training is discipline. And the heart of discipline is will."
If a warrior has the upper hand in morale, he needn't fear a thing. How could Vegeta not have morale? He was the Prince of All Saiyajins! He was the strongest warrior in the universe! He—not Kakarrot— defeated Freeza (he saw so himself)!
Above all, a warrior can lack courage because he fears death, but the Prince already knew that he never had to worry about that.
"Sir," the nurse repeated with more confidence as Vegeta thought to himself in silence. Once she noticed that she caught his attention, she stepped half-way into the room
"Is—is there something…wrong?" she asked.
"Must you be both a woman and an idiot? Is it even possible to be that damned inferior?" Vegeta barked, tossing up two fiery black eyes at the servant-woman in front of him, "Is something wrong? What's wrong is that a damned coward has stolen my armor and dressed me in this peasant-rag! What fool has dared to dishonor me?"
"I, um—uh…" the nurse shrank more and more as Vegeta's voice boomed louder and louder. She decided to shirk the whole dilemma. Leaning her shoulder toward the doorway, she motioned with a point of her finger that she was leaving.
"I'll—go check on that for you, sir," she improvised and then nearly sprang out of the room, closing the door behind her. She sprinted down the hall and exhaustedly slammed her hands on the hospital's front desk.
Across the desk were inscribed imposing, black letters: "CAPSULE CORP CLINIC".
"Hey, buzz in Dr. Ogawa," the nurse huffed to the receptionist sitting behind the desk. The receptionist cast the nurse an inquisitive glance while dialing the doctor's pager on the phone. After that was done, she hung up the receiver and leaned toward the nurse, ready for the latest gossip. The nurse leaned forward, too.
"You know that patient Miss Briefs gave us—" the nurse started.
"One of those creepy green guys?" the receptionist mewed in a voice befitting her porcelain-doll face.
"No," the nurse shook her head and explained, "I mean that burn victim whose body somehow just healed itself. You know, the one Miss Briefs called a mini-conference over in order to warn us about his 'atypical and confrontational behavior?'"
"Oh!" the receptionist chirped in an epiphany, "You mean that cute soldier with the funky hair?"
"Cute? Ha!" the nurse spat, waving a hand dismissively, "He's up now. And Miss Briefs was right. He may be nice to look at, but he sure as hell isn't nice to be with! Atypical and confrontational my butt! He's just a jack a—"
"Yes, Mimi?" a tall, lean doctor—lab-coat, stethoscope and all— walked over to the front desk, looking down at the receptionist.
"Oh, Dr. Ogawa," the nurse exclaimed, "I had her call you over here. You know that burn victim Miss Briefs warned us about?" Dr. Ogawa nodded slowly. While he did this, one of the doors in the hallway exploded off its hinges and slammed into the wall opposite it.
Dr. Ogawa twirled around to the see the door fall onto the floor with a crash, leaving behind a rectangular dent in the wall.
"Well, the patient's up now," the nurse spoke to Dr. Ogawa's back, "And he's not very pleasant."
"How did Miss Briefs describe him again?" Dr. Ogawa muttered. He did not bother to glance back at the nurse but instead kept his eyes hooked on the mess in the hall.
"Atypical and confrontational," the nurse answered mechanically, placing her hands on her hips.
"What exactly did she mean by that?" the doctor wondered.
"She meant," the nurse spoke as a short, dark figure strode out of a patient's room, "violent."
"Is that him?" Vegeta shouted, pointing at the doctor accusingly while marching down the hall, toward the front desk, "Is this the fool that stole my armor?" He tossed his glance to the nurse.
"S-sir," the nurse began, "this is Dr. Ogawa. He didn't steal your…armor."
"Do you mean the clothes you were wearing when you first arrived?" the doctor enquired. Vegeta grunted affirmatively, crossing his arms.
The doctor felt the hard and muscular Saiyajin loom over him—even when the man was nearly a head-and-a-half taller than the Prince. The glaring patient sent shivers up the doctor's spine. Vegeta's blue smock ruffled in a draft from the air conditioner; still, he stood fixed in place, with eyes digging deep into the intimidated doctor.
"I believe that your clo—your 'armor' was removed so that the nurses could more easily dress your wounds," said Dr. Ogawa.
"What wounds?" Vegeta hissed, "I am in complete health."
"Well, yes, I can see that now. But your clothes were removed before your body decided to—er…heal itself."
"Enough!" Vegeta vanished from sight and then appeared centimeters from the doctor in an instant. The Prince grappled the doctor's shirt collar and heaved hot breaths onto the man's face.
"Where did you put my armor, thief?" Vegeta spoke lowly and tried to speak slowly, yet there was a hurried and almost menacing bend to his voice, "Speak now."
"I—" the doctor stammered, subtly glancing toward the receptionist, who snuck her fingers onto a red button hidden under the desk. Vegeta grasped the doctor's face and forced the man to look straight into his charcoal eyes.
"Where did you put it?" Vegeta whispered.
"I believe," the doctor roved his eyes around in thought, "Miss Briefs! Yes! We were going to dispose of it as it was damaged and contaminated with unhygienic fluids, but Miss Briefs said she would sanitize it. She took it to her headquarters, I think."
"You think?"
"I know she has your cl—armor at her place," the doctor said with more conviction.
"Very well," Vegeta released the doctor and stepped back, "Take me there. I want my armor back now."
"But," the doctor stalled, "it's my shift right now. Someone has to watch over the—"
"Would you rather I kill you and take your clothes instead?" Vegeta threatened in an incongruously sweet tone. Dr. Ogawa stared at the Prince a moment and then shook his head carefully.
"Follow me," he said, leading the Prince out of the clinic. As he did this, he glanced again at the receptionist, and the woman faintly nodded to him. Opening the glass doors, the doctor and the Prince stepped out into the sprawling yet crowded atmosphere of Earth.
A/N: Thanks for reading! Please review!
