Whattup.
Chapter Four: Discovery
Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ.
Bulma sighed as she climbed into bed. Vegeta was peering out the window as if he was expecting something. He looked even more worried now.
"...Vegeta, maybe you'd better come and lie down," said Bulma in a very worried tone.
Vegeta looked down and nodded, closing his eyes. He sighed, then began to get undressed. Once he was in his boxers, he climbed into the bed and laid down on his back, staring up at the ceiling.
Bulma smiled and hugged him gently, glad that he was finally relaxing.
"...Vegeta, if something's bothering you, you can tell me," said Bulma in a gentle voice, her hand stroking his arm softly.
"...No, everything is going to be alright... everything is going to be just fine..." said Vegeta as though he were in a trance, turning away from her and lying down on his side.
Bulma, extremely alarmed by his strange answer, decided that she'd let him get some rest (both physically and mentally) before asking him again.
Though she tried, Bulma couldn't fall asleep. Vegeta's strange anxiety was getting to her too, and she couldn't get her mind off of it.
She sighed, wishing that Vegeta wasn't so secretive and would tell her what his problem was.
She sighed again, still wide awake. She lay there, staring at the wall across the room, and if she weren't thinking so hard she would have noticed that the absence of Vegeta's usual snores meant that she wasn't the only one still awake.
~*~*~NEXT DAY~*~*~
Bra groaned as her alarm clock went off. She turned over and put the pillow on her head, trying to drown out the annoying sound. 'Why did mom ever build that thing?' she thought bitterly.
The alarm clock was a new model built by her mother, made especially for Trunks, who always had a problem getting up for work. Bra wasn't surprised, him bringing girls home every other night, it wasn't a really big shock that he didn't get much sleep.
She wished that she could turn it off, but she couldn't - that was the special thing about it - it had to be de-activated by a special password that only Bulma knew. She'd even made them ki-resistant, ever since Trunks and Vegeta blew up the first two models.
Not even bothering to get up, Bra picked up the clock and threw it out the open window next to her bed.
She turned over and was about to fall back asleep when she heard a thud. She turned over to look at the floor where she heard the sound and almost cried.
The alarm clock was back.
Sucking her teeth, she got up and picked up the small, blue clock. She walked over to the window, raised the clock high above her head, and -
"Pan? what the hell are you doing here?" she shouted, looking down at the twenty-year-old.. "It's eleven o'clock in the morning! Don't you know that I'm not up yet?"
Pan, who was looking up at the window, laughed.
"Actually, it's twelve," said Pan. "And you *should* be up! Remember, we have 'plans' to finish up. And besides, I don't think that your mom would appreciate you throwing her clock out the window like that-"
"Oh, cram it," yawned Bra, just realizing that the clock was still ringing. "I'll be ready in a minute. I think Grandma's downstairs, she'll let you in."
"Alright."
Bra yawned again and walked into the bathroom, the clock still in her hand. She filled the sink up with water and dropped the clock into it, dulling the sound greatly.
She sighed with relief and took off the over-sized night-shirt, stepping into the shower.
She didn't know whether it was the pelting beads of water that stung her eyes, or if it was her tears. She couldn't stand it anymore, it was killing her...
As planned, she and Marron had gone to the mall the morning before, Bra still searching for the pink, sequin tube-top. When the cashier had told her that a strange, blonde girl had already bought it, she was heart-broken. Marron, feeling sorry for her, had offered to buy Bra some ice-cream to make it up to her.
But while in the food court, to make matters worse, Marron spotted Goten sitting at a table with a red-head. Knowing about Bra's long-time love for him, she tried to pretend that her wallet was missing and she couldn't pay for the ice-cream. While frantically pushing Bra away from the Brigham's store, unfortunately Bra had turned and saw Goten and "The Bimbo" sitting at the table.
For a moment, she'd been paralyzed, tears streaming down her face, but when Marron tried to calm her down, Bra pulled away from her and took off running.
Marron found Bra in the parking garage, sitting on the ground with her back against the car, sobbing violently.
Bra snapped back to reality, remembering that she was in the shower. She got out and wrapped the dark green bath-robe around her, tying the sash.
She looked down into the sink, where the clock was still ringing, causing the surface of the water to ripple. 'Waterproof,' she thought bitterly. 'Leave it to mom to think of everything...'
Leaving the clock in the sink, she got dressed and headed down the stairs to see Pan sitting at the table, drinking soda. Bra heard a sound, and when she looked out the window, sure enough, there was Mrs. Briefs, watering her plants and humming the tune of "Mary Had A Little Lamb".
Bra smiled and walked over to the table and sat opposite Pan.
"So, are we done yet?" she asked, crossing her arms.
"Um, I think so... did Trunks pick up the cake last night like he was supposed to?" asked Pan, taking a notebook out of her book-bag.
"Yeah. He said that mom yelled at him for leaving work, though," said Bra thoughtfully.
"Well this is going to make up for it," said Pan, checking the word "cake" off of her list.
"Did you guys get the decorations from the mall yesterday?" she asked, looking back up at Bra.
"N-no," said Bra, tears welling up in her eyes at the memory of Goten kissing the girl.
"What's wrong?" asked Pan, putting the pen down. "Did something happen yesterday...?"
"No," lied Bra. "I'm fine. I just wish I'd gotten there earlier for that tube-top..."
Pan knew that Bra was serious about fashion, but she knew that Bra wasn't *that* serious about it.
Pan gave Bra one last look and sighed. "Well... I can pick up the balloons, I'll ask Nazomi to get the streamers and stuff... did Marron invite everyone yet?"
"She *better* have," said Bra suddenly. "We can't call everyone today and expect them to come here tonight. They might already have plans."
"Well I'll call her later and make sure then. .. but who exactly *did* she invite, anyway?"
"Oh, probably a bunch of Mom's old business associates," said Bra, looking exasperated.
"Oh," said Pan, looking disappointed. "But... hey, what if she invited the Sukaros? Remember Andrew? Mr. Sukaro's son? He was *really* cute..." sighed Pan dreamily.
"Don't forget Evan," added Bra. "If she didn't invite them, I'll kill her myself."
Pan laughed and crossed "Decorations" off of her list.
"Alright... all we have left is 'Refreshments' and 'Music and Entertainment'," said Pan. "...What the hell? Who put that on the list?" she asked, a look of utter disbelief on her face.
"I think Nazomi did. She said something about wishing Nelly could perform, but I didn't catch what she said," said Bra thoughtfully. "I won't have any problem picking up the refreshments. And... put together, everyone must have like over three or four hundred CDs. We should be able to find *something* that mom would like... do you have a Ricky Martin CD? I think mom likes him..."
"Not-a-one," said Pan. "But I think Marron must have one. She likes him a lot..."
"Alright, that's one. We need a lot more than that," said Bra. "What about Aerosmith? She's crazy about Aerosmith-"
"I have every CD they've ever recorded," said Pan, writing "Aerosmith - Me" below the words "Ricky Martin - Marron".
"Oh my God - guess who else she likes," said Bra, looking shocked.
"Who?"
"Kid Rock," said Bra.
"What? I thought she didn't like him," said Pan, looking confused.
"I thought so too until I heard her singing 'Cowboy' in the car," explained Bra. "And she was humming to the tune of 'Fist of Rage' the other day."
"...Alright then," said Pan. "Who has a Kid Rock CD?"
"Nazomi's got to have one."
"Alright," said Pan, scribbling more songs down.
"She likes Ja Rule," said Bra.
"Really?" asked Pan. "I like him too, I just never expected her to..."
"She especially likes the new one with Ja Rule and J-Lo," commented Pan.
"I can't get enough of that one."
"What else is there? Oh, Sting, she likes Sting...."
The two girls continued to drone on, finding different types of music to play at the party. Finally, when they were done, they had a pretty good list:
Ricky Martin - Marron
Aerosmith - Me
Kid Rock - Nazomi
Dido - Bra
Linkin Park - Goten
Earth, Wind, and Fire - Piccolo
No Doubt - Videl
Faith Hill - Chi-Chi
Destiny's Child - Nazomi
Bare Naked Ladies - Goku
Monica - Me
Ja Rule - Nazomi
Jennifer Lopez - Videl
Sting - Mercy
Dazz Band - Nazomi
Smash Mouth - Goku
Christina Aguilera - Marron
Mariah Carey - Chi-Chi
Limp Bizkit - Juuhachigou
Toni Braxton - Chi-Chi
Green Day - Trunks
Uncle Kracker - Marron(?)
Incubus - Yamucha
Red Hot Chilly Peppers - Trunks
Fuel - Juuhachigou
3 Doors Down - Goten
"Wait a minute," said Pan, looking a few of the Artist's names' over. "A few of these have to go."
"Why?" asked Bra. "We'll have enough time to play them all-"
"It's not that," said Pan, crossing out "Linkin Park". "It's just that if a bunch of Bulma's associates are going to be there, we don't want to play a bunch of music where every word is some type of curse. I mean come on, these people are old," she said, crossing out "Limp Bizkit".
"Yeah, you're right," said Bra. "So.. what about Red Hot Chilly Peppers?"
"We can play part of the CD, but not all of it," said Pan, putting a star next to it. "I don't think that they would like 'Californication' too much."
They continued to fix everything, calling people and checking off various lists, even making sure that Goku hadn't eaten the cake that Trunks had picked up the day before - he'd left it at the Son house so that Bulma wouldn't find it.
"This is going to be great," sighed Bra. Just great..."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Vegeta sighed. His time had been up long before, so had no way of knowing when Clarice would pop up and ask for his decision. And worst of all, he hadn't even made a decision! As much as he thought about it, he couldn't find one thing that would be better than the other. They'd kept in touch as she awaited his answer, but nothing more. He sat up and reached over to the night stand where the phone was. He picked up a pad of paper and pencil which was usually used to take down messages and began to make a list.
STAYING ON EARTH: PROS
1) Will get to stay with Bulma, Bra, and Trunks
2) Will get to protect earth from any future threats, if any
3) Won't have to deal with father
STAYING ON EARTH: CONS
1) Clarice may be killed
2) Won't be able to prevent father from attacking earth again
3) Will miss being Prince
4) Father may send someone else to look for me
GOING BACK TO VEJITASEI: PROS
1) Will get to be Prince again
2) Can prevent more attacks on earth
3) Clarice may not be killed
GOING BACK TO VEJITASEI: CONS
1) Will miss everyone
2) Will have to deal with father again
3) Bulma, Trunks, and Bra would be left alone
*Hey, I know it's a dumb list, but I wasn't feeling very creative at the moment.*
He sighed. Every decision he made seemed to even out at the same level with it's opposite, making it harder for him. Vegeta looked down at the list and memorized it quickly, then tore it out and destroyed it so that Bulma wouldn't find it. If she did... well, who knew what she'd say about it.
'That's it,' he thought. It was the moment of truth. He had to make his decision now. He would force himself to. This depression was tearing him apart, he couldn't handle it any longer.
He racked his brain, digging deep inside of his mind to find out which one he wanted more. As much as he loved his home planet, he couldn't live without his family... but he did love being Prince and ruling Vejitasei...
His decision was made.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Dryphus sucked her teeth in frustration.
"Do you *have* to do that all the time?" cried the blonde saiyajin, cursing because her bottle of deep blue nail polish fell over and was now spilling all over the control panel.
She was referring to Clarice, who was just doing some light training because she was bored. Her punches, kicks, and sudden shouts of "HA!!" were driving Dryphus insane, who was trying to do her nails. She sat in one of the armchairs before the vast controls, her legs crossed.
"No, actually," said Clarice. Despite her response, she continued to jump and leap, trying to defeat an undefeatable opponent: her own shadow. *And REMEMBER the British accent... I know that some people may find it annoying that I keep reminding u, but the reason that I do is because even *I* forgot about it when I was reading the chapter over. So remember.*
Dryphus had come to visit her because she'd been interested in what Clarice had said about earth; and she was even more interested in the fact that it still even existed.
Clarice had also even told her about Vegeta and her ultimatum - Dryphus didn't agree with it, but Clarice could trust her not to tell anyone. Dryphus was one of her best friends, the other being Mason, and they were always faithful to her.
"Geeze, calm down," said Dryphus, grimacing. "I swear, if you acted anymore masculine, you'd *be* a man."
Clarice looked hurt. "I don't act masculine," she said in a tiny, feeble, whiney voice.
"Well when you're training you are," said Dryphus, correcting herself. "You can't compete with your damn shadow, it moves at the exact same pace as you do. It's like trying to get out of the way of a mirror before your reflection has a chance to move."
Clarice laughed, but sat down in a chair a few feet away from Dryphus's, who was now blowing lightly on her nails, trying to get them to dry quickly.
"View-port, on," said Clarice, the volume in her voice slightly loud. The extremely large screen before them suddenly flickered on, showing the view in front of the ship: a beautiful, exotic jungle, festooned by a breath-taking array of colors during the sunset.
Dryphus, who was putting nail-polish on her other hand, looked up at the vast screen and looked shocked.
"This planet only has one sun?" she cried, looking amazed. "Well God-damn, now I've seen everything. Every other planet that I've been to has at least two. Now all you'd have to say is that they only have one moon, and I'll..."
She looked up at Clarice, who looked back at her and nodded.
"Are you serious?"
"Yep."
Dryphus shook her head and contined to coat her nails with the dark liquid.
"Ya know, you said that Vegeta's time would be up last night," said Dryphus thoughtfully. "Shouldn't you go and ask him what he's going to do?"
"No," said Clarice, her voice firm. "If he'd already decided, he would've told me."
"Does he even know where to find you?" asked Dryphus.
"He does," said Clarice, still staring up at the view-port, "Besides, I only moved so that his friends wouldn't come looking for me."
Dryphus "Hmphed". "Just kill them already," she said without looking up.
"I'm not going to kill them," said Clarice, her voice sounding as solid as steel. "I haven't even met any of them yet."
"You *want* to?!" asked Dryphus, sounding appalled.
"Well... actually no," said Clarice, realizing this for the first time. "But there *is* one person that I want to meet above the others."
Dryphus knew who she was talking about immediately.
"You mean his wife? Are you going to hurt her?" cried Dryphus, sounding hopeful.
The older saiyajin scowled. "No," she said, and the tone in her voice said that it was final.
Dryphus rolled her eyes and fell back into the chair, crossing her legs again.
*As you can probably tell about Dryphus's personality, she's a violent blonde air-head. ^_^ She's not in super-saiyajin mode, her hair was just like that.*
She looked out the view-port and noticed that the sun was sinking behind the trees, night was falling.
"...What country are we in?" she asked suddenly.
Clarice, startled at her sudden interest in earth, thought for a moment and answered. "Costa Rica. There's a lot of jungle here, I thought that it would be a good hide-out..."
"Oh... kinda reminds you of the Mystic Ruins, doesn't it?" said Dryphus, her eyes fixed on the screen.
"Actually... it does," said Clarice. She hadn't even thought of it that way. "All it needs is the cliff at the end and the ruins of the temple in the middle of it..."
Dryphus smiled, but suddenly got an idea. "Do you think that we can see them from here?" she asked excitedly.
Clarice stared.
"Well the ship is hooked up with a tele-communicater, and this planet has sattelites with cameras in them. We could try to override the sattelite system and use the camera to get a glimpse of them..."
"You're sick," said Clarice. "I don't want to spy on them-"
"Aw, c'mon! I haven't seen them, and I can't just go over there and ask them who they are. And my tail would be a dead giveaway, and-"
"Fine! Stop babbling..."
Clarice sucked her teeth and began typing furiously on one of the many keyboards on the control panel. She looked up the screen, which had suddenly changed from the beautiful rain forest in front of them to a grid of the space outside of earth.
She located on sattelite that was hovering right over the north-western hemisphere of the earth, almost directly over Japan.
Humming quietly, she continued to type rapidly and soon the sattelite was under her control. She pin-pointed to camera controls and was soon zooming in on the country.
She stopped when she had a skyline view of Satan City, not wanting to go any further.
"I don't feel right about it," she said as Dryphus opened her mouth to ask why she'd stopped. "I don't like spying on people if there isn't a good purpose for it."
"Well there *is* a good purpose! You're best friend wants to see the 'long-lost' Prince!" said Dryphus. "...Please?"
Clarice glared at her, and Dryphus pouted her lip.
The older saiyajin sowled. "Do whatever you want," said Clarice suddenly, getting up from her chair, "But I don't want any part of it."
Dryphus grinned and jumped into Clarice's chair as Clarice walked out of the room. She pressed a button on the key board, zooming in even more.
'Look at all of those weaklings,' she thought savagely as the citezens of Japan became more clear.
Suddenly something occured to her.
"Clarice! Yo, Miss Commando! You didn't tell me where they lived!!" cried Dryphus; Clarice was already quite far from the main control room.
Clarice suddenly appeared behind the chair and muttered "Capsule Corporation," bitterly before disappearing again.
Dryphus looked up Earth on the galactic map, then Japan, then Capsule Corporation. The map pointed her directly in the direction of the large estate.
She smirked and punched a few more keys, hoping to get a good view of the building. She could soon see the roof of a house over a few trees, then she moved the camera a bit more upward, then downward to the left.
'Better,' she thought. What she didn't know was that the sattelite could magnify sound, too. Suddenly a blue car drove to the front of the house and the door opened. Quite interested in who it could be, Dryphus leaned forward and payed very close attention to the screen before her.
A boy, who didn't look any older than maybe twenty-five or twenty-six, stepped out of the car with a large, white, plastic bag in his hand. She couldn't see exactly what was in it, but the semi-transparent bag told her that whatever it was was very colorful.
The boy looked around a few times, then turned to get something from the car. When he stood up, Dryphus gasped.
'He's cute... for a human,' thought Dryphus. 'He's muscular, too...'
Dryphus's eyes narrowed in suspiscion, then she took out a scouter, though this was new model - it was smaller, for one thing, it looked like a pair of small headphones, a microphone protruding from the left ear-piece to the front of her mouth, and a very small, rectangular screen that was no bigger in length than her pinky finger, and about as wide as a bottle cap.
The tiny, tiny screen suddenly turned blue, shining the saphire-colored light on her face as she pressed a button on the right ear-piece. Small numbers began to move rapidly across it, then landed on one number: 687.
Dryphus gasped. 'He's way too strong to be human...'
She pressed a few more of the miniscule buttons on the right side of the Neo-Scouter and the numbers scrambled again, jetting from bigger to smaller, then a few letters popped up. She pressed one more button, a purple one this time.
The screen turned red and this time letters popped up on the screen. The words "Saiyajin/Human" were on the screen.
'What?' she tought. 'That can't be right...'
She ran another scan on the person and it turned up the same. She was about to go and ask Clarice about it, but then decided not to bother her. Just then, a girl came running out of the house and stopped in front of the car.
"Did you get the decorations?" asked the blue-haired girl.
"Yeah," said the spiky-haired boy, handing the bag to her. "Do you think that the confetti was too much?"
"Nah. Hey, do you think think that when she walks in that we could dump it on her or something?" asked the girl excitedly.
"Uh... I don't think she'd like it too much," said the boy.
'Well he *looks* like he could be saiyajin,' thought Dryphus. She snapped back to the screen and paid attention as the girl began to talk again.
"...Don't you have the strangest feeling that we're being watched?"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
'It's getting late,' thought Bulma tiredly. 'Maybe I should call it quits for the night....'
She yawned and got up from her office chair, stretching. She decided to start working again because she wanted something to keep her mind off of Vegeta's problem. But unfortunately, it didn't work; and now everyone was running off and doing something, she wasn't sure what, though. All day, people kept running in and out of the house, making calls, and she really didn't know what to make of it. And worse, they seemed to be avoiding her.
Bulma turned the light off, leaving the office darker except for a few rays of light that came from the window. She sighed and grabbed her purse, heading towards the door. Suddenly there was a loud knock.
She stopped dead. Who would still be in the building at this time of night? How did they get by the clearence without the security officer notifying her that someone was coming up to see her? *Why* would they want to see her?
She snapped back to reality when the person knocked on the door again, this time banging on it a lot harder.
"Wh-who is it?" called Bulma.
The person didn't answer.
"...Hello?" cried Bulma, moving back toward her desk; she had a gun in one of the drawers that she'd always kept for protection.
There was still no reply.
"I-I'm warning you, I'm armed-"
Just then, the door came crashing down, torn right off it's hinges, a couple of small flames on the side of it. Bulma tore her eyes away from the door to look at the intruder.
She'd never seen the woman before. The mysterious (and very sinister looking) woman had black hair and very pale gray eyes. That was all she could see, considering the darkness of the room.
"...Wh-Who are you?" asked Bulma feebily. She didn't know why, but even the fact that she had a gun didn't comfort her.
The woman gave a low, amused laugh.
"I," she said, taking a step towards Bulma, "Am," she took another step, this time stepping on the fallen door, making her appear taller, "Your," she took another step forward, this time steeping off of the door, "Worst," she again moved forward, "Nightmare."
The woman disappeared. Bulma held the gun out in front of her, both of her hands shaking violently. 'Where'd she go?' thought Bulma, panicking. By now, she'd begun to breath more heavily, her heart doing a drum-roll on her ribs. She kept turning wildly, pointing the gun left and right, trying to find the intruder.
Just then she felt a presence behind her. Bulma held her breath as she turned, slowly, to the person that stood there.
Suddenly she breathed a sigh of relief.
"Oh Kami, Vegeta, I'm so glad that you're here," said Bulma breathily. "A woman just broke into my office and I think that she was going to kill... me..."
Bulma stopped when she saw Vegeta's face. He had a stern, emotionless look on his face.
"...V-Vegeta, are you... are you alright?" asked Bulma backing away from him a little bit. "Vegeta, you're scaring me..."
She noticed that his eyes weren't focused on her anymore, but on something behind her. She turned to see the woman again, standing with her arms crossed.
The woman smirked. "Do it."
Bulma, stared, wide-eyed, at the woman, wondering she could've meant by that. Suddenly she felt something wrap around her neck painfully, squeezing harder and harder.
She turned to see Vegeta, his cold eyes giving her immeasurable fear. He was choking her.
"Vegeta...::cough:: Please... stop ::sputter:: Don't... ::whimper::..stop..."
At this point, Bulma wasn't even speaking anymore, just whispering. All she could do was hang there, limp, as his hands tightened around her throat. She almost screamed with pain as her neck-bone broke in two, her hands gripping his wrists tightly as the gun lay forgotten on the floor.
Bulma started to feel faint. Her eyes suddenly began to cloud over with blackness. She blinked a few times, trying to clear her vision, but the black cloud was taking over. Her eyes began to close, but she forced them to stay open.
Bulma could feel Vegeta's grip on her neck loosen. 'What's happening?'
Suddenly she felt the worst pain she'd eveer felt in her life - she wasn't sure what Vegeta was doing, but the pain began to envelope her entire body, burning her from the outside in.
He let go of her, sending her falling to the floor. She forced her eyes open and saw a bright flash of light; Vegeta was charging up a ki blast to finish her off.
If he was saying anything, she couldn't hear it, because she suddenly felt as if two pillows were being pressed over her ears, muffling all sound. 'I guess this is what dying feels like,' she thought miserably. The last thing she saw was the woman, standing behind Vegeta and laughing before the white-hot ball of light enveloped her body...
~*~*~END DREAM~*~*~
Bulma woke from the chair she was sitting in, breathing heavily. She looked around the room and realized that it had been a dream. 'Bulma, now you're having nightmares about this Vegeta situation... you *have* to ask him about it as soon as you get home.'
She looked at her watch. It was only six o'clock.
Deciding that she would have to get it over with, Bulma got up from her desk and grabbed her purse and began to walk towards the door when there was a loud knock.
'Oh, no...'
Not wasting any time, Bulma ran over to the desk and got her gun, which was fully loaded. Holding the gun out in front of her, too ready to pull the trigger, Bulma walked slowly to the door and called fiercely, "Who is it?"
"It's me, Mrs. Briefs," called a jolly voice. "You've been up here for a while, I thought I'd bring you up some coffee."
Bulma sighed and walked over to the door, it was only the old security officer named Ben. She wrenched the door open and let Ben inside, relieved.
"Thanks a lot, Ben," said Bulma, smiling. "I thought that-"
She suddenly noticed the look of terror on Ben's face. She turned around and looked behind her, expecting someone to be standing there, but there was no one. She turned back around, confused, to face the old man.
"I-I'm s-s-sorry M-Mrs. Briefs, I-I didn't m-mean to bother y-you-"
"What are you talking about?" asked Bulma, even more confused. "Ben, is something wrong?"
She stared at him for a moment, then followed his gaze down to her hand. The gun sat in her grip, her finger still on trigger.
She bursted out laughing. "Ben, this wasn't for you," she explained. "When you knocked on the door, I thought that you were someone else. I would never shoot you."
"O-Oh," said the old man, though he was still shaking a little bit.
Bulma put the gun down on a small, round table in the corner of the office and walked back over to Ben.
"I'm really sorry. It was nice of you to bring out the coffee," said Bulma, trying to calm him down a little bit. She didn't want him to have a heart-attack.
Ben laughed a little bit. "I'm sorry for thinking that you'd shoot me," he said.
She waved her hand in dismissal and Ben left, shaking his head and muttering something about "Kids these days."
Bulma suddenly remembered that her original plan was to go home and ask Vegeta about his problem, so she grabbed her purse and was just about to leave when she saw the gun again.
'Better take it, that dream could have been a premonition.'
She put the gun in her bag, just for protection; even if her nightmare wasn't going to come true, there were still dangers around.
She said goodbye to another one of the security officers, Stanley, as she walked out into the parking lot. Suddenly a strange sense of foreboding washed over her as she stepped out onto the cold pavement. She shivered slightly, she was being watched. But by who?
*In case you think it's Dryphus, it's not.*
Shivering slightly, she walked quickly to her red air-car. It was then that she noticed a motorcycle that she'd never seen before. It was all black and looked brand-new. She looked at the license plate, then smiled. The license plate read "3LLR" on it; it meant "Thriller". 'That's clever,' she thought.
*Author's note: That's the license plate I'm getting on my motorcycle, don't copy it please.*
She started the car and drove out of the parking lot quickly, anxious to get home, and completely oblivious to the roar of the motorcycle engine that had started as soon as her car had exited the lot.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Bulma was finally home. Now she would get straight down to buisness and ask him what was going on, and if he didn't tell her, she'd... she'd.... she didn't even know yet. But she had to at least try.
Wondering why the house was so dark, she searched through her purse for her house-keys. 'Was that a motorcycle?' Sighing and dismissing the sound, she got out her keys and unlocked the door. Stepping inside, she noticed that inside the house was a lot darker than it looked from the outside.
'Oh no...'
Suddenly she heard someone breathing heavily from the doorway. Was her dream coming true?
"Hehehe... surprise," rasped a voice from behind her.
Hey!! Did you like this chapter?! I hope so!! I know it was stupid, but hey, I made it longer to make up for those pitifully short chapters before this one. And guess what... I just read over chapter 1 and I was like "What have I *DONE*?!!!" That chapter just seemed soooo stupid, I swear... there are so many things that I would have changed about it, had I been writing it now...
What else... oh, and I apologize for waiting so long to post these chapters up. I already told you about the whole scenario *is that the way u spell it?* with chapter two... I seriously think that my computer got messed up by that "Code Red 2 Worm Virus" or whatever it is thing that the FBI is talking about because this thing just keeps getting more and more messed up and now it's going berserk.
Now, for the questions that will haunt you forever (or at least until I get the next few chapters up):
Who was at the door behind Bulma? Who did the motorcycle belong to? Was the owner of the motorcycle following Bulma? Will Clarice ever get an answer from Vegeta? If so, what will the answer be? Whoever bought that pink sequin tube-top that Bra wanted? Will Dryphus tell anyone about what Clarice is doing? What's going to happen to Clarice if she goes back to Vejitasei "empty-handed"? And why do they keep having dreams about Clarice killing Bulma - Is it a death omen, or just a coincidence? Find out on -
Dragon Ball Z: The Legends of Chaos
~*~*~*~*~
~Valerie~ *
~*~*~*~*~
Chapter Four: Discovery
Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ.
Bulma sighed as she climbed into bed. Vegeta was peering out the window as if he was expecting something. He looked even more worried now.
"...Vegeta, maybe you'd better come and lie down," said Bulma in a very worried tone.
Vegeta looked down and nodded, closing his eyes. He sighed, then began to get undressed. Once he was in his boxers, he climbed into the bed and laid down on his back, staring up at the ceiling.
Bulma smiled and hugged him gently, glad that he was finally relaxing.
"...Vegeta, if something's bothering you, you can tell me," said Bulma in a gentle voice, her hand stroking his arm softly.
"...No, everything is going to be alright... everything is going to be just fine..." said Vegeta as though he were in a trance, turning away from her and lying down on his side.
Bulma, extremely alarmed by his strange answer, decided that she'd let him get some rest (both physically and mentally) before asking him again.
Though she tried, Bulma couldn't fall asleep. Vegeta's strange anxiety was getting to her too, and she couldn't get her mind off of it.
She sighed, wishing that Vegeta wasn't so secretive and would tell her what his problem was.
She sighed again, still wide awake. She lay there, staring at the wall across the room, and if she weren't thinking so hard she would have noticed that the absence of Vegeta's usual snores meant that she wasn't the only one still awake.
~*~*~NEXT DAY~*~*~
Bra groaned as her alarm clock went off. She turned over and put the pillow on her head, trying to drown out the annoying sound. 'Why did mom ever build that thing?' she thought bitterly.
The alarm clock was a new model built by her mother, made especially for Trunks, who always had a problem getting up for work. Bra wasn't surprised, him bringing girls home every other night, it wasn't a really big shock that he didn't get much sleep.
She wished that she could turn it off, but she couldn't - that was the special thing about it - it had to be de-activated by a special password that only Bulma knew. She'd even made them ki-resistant, ever since Trunks and Vegeta blew up the first two models.
Not even bothering to get up, Bra picked up the clock and threw it out the open window next to her bed.
She turned over and was about to fall back asleep when she heard a thud. She turned over to look at the floor where she heard the sound and almost cried.
The alarm clock was back.
Sucking her teeth, she got up and picked up the small, blue clock. She walked over to the window, raised the clock high above her head, and -
"Pan? what the hell are you doing here?" she shouted, looking down at the twenty-year-old.. "It's eleven o'clock in the morning! Don't you know that I'm not up yet?"
Pan, who was looking up at the window, laughed.
"Actually, it's twelve," said Pan. "And you *should* be up! Remember, we have 'plans' to finish up. And besides, I don't think that your mom would appreciate you throwing her clock out the window like that-"
"Oh, cram it," yawned Bra, just realizing that the clock was still ringing. "I'll be ready in a minute. I think Grandma's downstairs, she'll let you in."
"Alright."
Bra yawned again and walked into the bathroom, the clock still in her hand. She filled the sink up with water and dropped the clock into it, dulling the sound greatly.
She sighed with relief and took off the over-sized night-shirt, stepping into the shower.
She didn't know whether it was the pelting beads of water that stung her eyes, or if it was her tears. She couldn't stand it anymore, it was killing her...
As planned, she and Marron had gone to the mall the morning before, Bra still searching for the pink, sequin tube-top. When the cashier had told her that a strange, blonde girl had already bought it, she was heart-broken. Marron, feeling sorry for her, had offered to buy Bra some ice-cream to make it up to her.
But while in the food court, to make matters worse, Marron spotted Goten sitting at a table with a red-head. Knowing about Bra's long-time love for him, she tried to pretend that her wallet was missing and she couldn't pay for the ice-cream. While frantically pushing Bra away from the Brigham's store, unfortunately Bra had turned and saw Goten and "The Bimbo" sitting at the table.
For a moment, she'd been paralyzed, tears streaming down her face, but when Marron tried to calm her down, Bra pulled away from her and took off running.
Marron found Bra in the parking garage, sitting on the ground with her back against the car, sobbing violently.
Bra snapped back to reality, remembering that she was in the shower. She got out and wrapped the dark green bath-robe around her, tying the sash.
She looked down into the sink, where the clock was still ringing, causing the surface of the water to ripple. 'Waterproof,' she thought bitterly. 'Leave it to mom to think of everything...'
Leaving the clock in the sink, she got dressed and headed down the stairs to see Pan sitting at the table, drinking soda. Bra heard a sound, and when she looked out the window, sure enough, there was Mrs. Briefs, watering her plants and humming the tune of "Mary Had A Little Lamb".
Bra smiled and walked over to the table and sat opposite Pan.
"So, are we done yet?" she asked, crossing her arms.
"Um, I think so... did Trunks pick up the cake last night like he was supposed to?" asked Pan, taking a notebook out of her book-bag.
"Yeah. He said that mom yelled at him for leaving work, though," said Bra thoughtfully.
"Well this is going to make up for it," said Pan, checking the word "cake" off of her list.
"Did you guys get the decorations from the mall yesterday?" she asked, looking back up at Bra.
"N-no," said Bra, tears welling up in her eyes at the memory of Goten kissing the girl.
"What's wrong?" asked Pan, putting the pen down. "Did something happen yesterday...?"
"No," lied Bra. "I'm fine. I just wish I'd gotten there earlier for that tube-top..."
Pan knew that Bra was serious about fashion, but she knew that Bra wasn't *that* serious about it.
Pan gave Bra one last look and sighed. "Well... I can pick up the balloons, I'll ask Nazomi to get the streamers and stuff... did Marron invite everyone yet?"
"She *better* have," said Bra suddenly. "We can't call everyone today and expect them to come here tonight. They might already have plans."
"Well I'll call her later and make sure then. .. but who exactly *did* she invite, anyway?"
"Oh, probably a bunch of Mom's old business associates," said Bra, looking exasperated.
"Oh," said Pan, looking disappointed. "But... hey, what if she invited the Sukaros? Remember Andrew? Mr. Sukaro's son? He was *really* cute..." sighed Pan dreamily.
"Don't forget Evan," added Bra. "If she didn't invite them, I'll kill her myself."
Pan laughed and crossed "Decorations" off of her list.
"Alright... all we have left is 'Refreshments' and 'Music and Entertainment'," said Pan. "...What the hell? Who put that on the list?" she asked, a look of utter disbelief on her face.
"I think Nazomi did. She said something about wishing Nelly could perform, but I didn't catch what she said," said Bra thoughtfully. "I won't have any problem picking up the refreshments. And... put together, everyone must have like over three or four hundred CDs. We should be able to find *something* that mom would like... do you have a Ricky Martin CD? I think mom likes him..."
"Not-a-one," said Pan. "But I think Marron must have one. She likes him a lot..."
"Alright, that's one. We need a lot more than that," said Bra. "What about Aerosmith? She's crazy about Aerosmith-"
"I have every CD they've ever recorded," said Pan, writing "Aerosmith - Me" below the words "Ricky Martin - Marron".
"Oh my God - guess who else she likes," said Bra, looking shocked.
"Who?"
"Kid Rock," said Bra.
"What? I thought she didn't like him," said Pan, looking confused.
"I thought so too until I heard her singing 'Cowboy' in the car," explained Bra. "And she was humming to the tune of 'Fist of Rage' the other day."
"...Alright then," said Pan. "Who has a Kid Rock CD?"
"Nazomi's got to have one."
"Alright," said Pan, scribbling more songs down.
"She likes Ja Rule," said Bra.
"Really?" asked Pan. "I like him too, I just never expected her to..."
"She especially likes the new one with Ja Rule and J-Lo," commented Pan.
"I can't get enough of that one."
"What else is there? Oh, Sting, she likes Sting...."
The two girls continued to drone on, finding different types of music to play at the party. Finally, when they were done, they had a pretty good list:
Ricky Martin - Marron
Aerosmith - Me
Kid Rock - Nazomi
Dido - Bra
Linkin Park - Goten
Earth, Wind, and Fire - Piccolo
No Doubt - Videl
Faith Hill - Chi-Chi
Destiny's Child - Nazomi
Bare Naked Ladies - Goku
Monica - Me
Ja Rule - Nazomi
Jennifer Lopez - Videl
Sting - Mercy
Dazz Band - Nazomi
Smash Mouth - Goku
Christina Aguilera - Marron
Mariah Carey - Chi-Chi
Limp Bizkit - Juuhachigou
Toni Braxton - Chi-Chi
Green Day - Trunks
Uncle Kracker - Marron(?)
Incubus - Yamucha
Red Hot Chilly Peppers - Trunks
Fuel - Juuhachigou
3 Doors Down - Goten
"Wait a minute," said Pan, looking a few of the Artist's names' over. "A few of these have to go."
"Why?" asked Bra. "We'll have enough time to play them all-"
"It's not that," said Pan, crossing out "Linkin Park". "It's just that if a bunch of Bulma's associates are going to be there, we don't want to play a bunch of music where every word is some type of curse. I mean come on, these people are old," she said, crossing out "Limp Bizkit".
"Yeah, you're right," said Bra. "So.. what about Red Hot Chilly Peppers?"
"We can play part of the CD, but not all of it," said Pan, putting a star next to it. "I don't think that they would like 'Californication' too much."
They continued to fix everything, calling people and checking off various lists, even making sure that Goku hadn't eaten the cake that Trunks had picked up the day before - he'd left it at the Son house so that Bulma wouldn't find it.
"This is going to be great," sighed Bra. Just great..."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Vegeta sighed. His time had been up long before, so had no way of knowing when Clarice would pop up and ask for his decision. And worst of all, he hadn't even made a decision! As much as he thought about it, he couldn't find one thing that would be better than the other. They'd kept in touch as she awaited his answer, but nothing more. He sat up and reached over to the night stand where the phone was. He picked up a pad of paper and pencil which was usually used to take down messages and began to make a list.
STAYING ON EARTH: PROS
1) Will get to stay with Bulma, Bra, and Trunks
2) Will get to protect earth from any future threats, if any
3) Won't have to deal with father
STAYING ON EARTH: CONS
1) Clarice may be killed
2) Won't be able to prevent father from attacking earth again
3) Will miss being Prince
4) Father may send someone else to look for me
GOING BACK TO VEJITASEI: PROS
1) Will get to be Prince again
2) Can prevent more attacks on earth
3) Clarice may not be killed
GOING BACK TO VEJITASEI: CONS
1) Will miss everyone
2) Will have to deal with father again
3) Bulma, Trunks, and Bra would be left alone
*Hey, I know it's a dumb list, but I wasn't feeling very creative at the moment.*
He sighed. Every decision he made seemed to even out at the same level with it's opposite, making it harder for him. Vegeta looked down at the list and memorized it quickly, then tore it out and destroyed it so that Bulma wouldn't find it. If she did... well, who knew what she'd say about it.
'That's it,' he thought. It was the moment of truth. He had to make his decision now. He would force himself to. This depression was tearing him apart, he couldn't handle it any longer.
He racked his brain, digging deep inside of his mind to find out which one he wanted more. As much as he loved his home planet, he couldn't live without his family... but he did love being Prince and ruling Vejitasei...
His decision was made.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Dryphus sucked her teeth in frustration.
"Do you *have* to do that all the time?" cried the blonde saiyajin, cursing because her bottle of deep blue nail polish fell over and was now spilling all over the control panel.
She was referring to Clarice, who was just doing some light training because she was bored. Her punches, kicks, and sudden shouts of "HA!!" were driving Dryphus insane, who was trying to do her nails. She sat in one of the armchairs before the vast controls, her legs crossed.
"No, actually," said Clarice. Despite her response, she continued to jump and leap, trying to defeat an undefeatable opponent: her own shadow. *And REMEMBER the British accent... I know that some people may find it annoying that I keep reminding u, but the reason that I do is because even *I* forgot about it when I was reading the chapter over. So remember.*
Dryphus had come to visit her because she'd been interested in what Clarice had said about earth; and she was even more interested in the fact that it still even existed.
Clarice had also even told her about Vegeta and her ultimatum - Dryphus didn't agree with it, but Clarice could trust her not to tell anyone. Dryphus was one of her best friends, the other being Mason, and they were always faithful to her.
"Geeze, calm down," said Dryphus, grimacing. "I swear, if you acted anymore masculine, you'd *be* a man."
Clarice looked hurt. "I don't act masculine," she said in a tiny, feeble, whiney voice.
"Well when you're training you are," said Dryphus, correcting herself. "You can't compete with your damn shadow, it moves at the exact same pace as you do. It's like trying to get out of the way of a mirror before your reflection has a chance to move."
Clarice laughed, but sat down in a chair a few feet away from Dryphus's, who was now blowing lightly on her nails, trying to get them to dry quickly.
"View-port, on," said Clarice, the volume in her voice slightly loud. The extremely large screen before them suddenly flickered on, showing the view in front of the ship: a beautiful, exotic jungle, festooned by a breath-taking array of colors during the sunset.
Dryphus, who was putting nail-polish on her other hand, looked up at the vast screen and looked shocked.
"This planet only has one sun?" she cried, looking amazed. "Well God-damn, now I've seen everything. Every other planet that I've been to has at least two. Now all you'd have to say is that they only have one moon, and I'll..."
She looked up at Clarice, who looked back at her and nodded.
"Are you serious?"
"Yep."
Dryphus shook her head and contined to coat her nails with the dark liquid.
"Ya know, you said that Vegeta's time would be up last night," said Dryphus thoughtfully. "Shouldn't you go and ask him what he's going to do?"
"No," said Clarice, her voice firm. "If he'd already decided, he would've told me."
"Does he even know where to find you?" asked Dryphus.
"He does," said Clarice, still staring up at the view-port, "Besides, I only moved so that his friends wouldn't come looking for me."
Dryphus "Hmphed". "Just kill them already," she said without looking up.
"I'm not going to kill them," said Clarice, her voice sounding as solid as steel. "I haven't even met any of them yet."
"You *want* to?!" asked Dryphus, sounding appalled.
"Well... actually no," said Clarice, realizing this for the first time. "But there *is* one person that I want to meet above the others."
Dryphus knew who she was talking about immediately.
"You mean his wife? Are you going to hurt her?" cried Dryphus, sounding hopeful.
The older saiyajin scowled. "No," she said, and the tone in her voice said that it was final.
Dryphus rolled her eyes and fell back into the chair, crossing her legs again.
*As you can probably tell about Dryphus's personality, she's a violent blonde air-head. ^_^ She's not in super-saiyajin mode, her hair was just like that.*
She looked out the view-port and noticed that the sun was sinking behind the trees, night was falling.
"...What country are we in?" she asked suddenly.
Clarice, startled at her sudden interest in earth, thought for a moment and answered. "Costa Rica. There's a lot of jungle here, I thought that it would be a good hide-out..."
"Oh... kinda reminds you of the Mystic Ruins, doesn't it?" said Dryphus, her eyes fixed on the screen.
"Actually... it does," said Clarice. She hadn't even thought of it that way. "All it needs is the cliff at the end and the ruins of the temple in the middle of it..."
Dryphus smiled, but suddenly got an idea. "Do you think that we can see them from here?" she asked excitedly.
Clarice stared.
"Well the ship is hooked up with a tele-communicater, and this planet has sattelites with cameras in them. We could try to override the sattelite system and use the camera to get a glimpse of them..."
"You're sick," said Clarice. "I don't want to spy on them-"
"Aw, c'mon! I haven't seen them, and I can't just go over there and ask them who they are. And my tail would be a dead giveaway, and-"
"Fine! Stop babbling..."
Clarice sucked her teeth and began typing furiously on one of the many keyboards on the control panel. She looked up the screen, which had suddenly changed from the beautiful rain forest in front of them to a grid of the space outside of earth.
She located on sattelite that was hovering right over the north-western hemisphere of the earth, almost directly over Japan.
Humming quietly, she continued to type rapidly and soon the sattelite was under her control. She pin-pointed to camera controls and was soon zooming in on the country.
She stopped when she had a skyline view of Satan City, not wanting to go any further.
"I don't feel right about it," she said as Dryphus opened her mouth to ask why she'd stopped. "I don't like spying on people if there isn't a good purpose for it."
"Well there *is* a good purpose! You're best friend wants to see the 'long-lost' Prince!" said Dryphus. "...Please?"
Clarice glared at her, and Dryphus pouted her lip.
The older saiyajin sowled. "Do whatever you want," said Clarice suddenly, getting up from her chair, "But I don't want any part of it."
Dryphus grinned and jumped into Clarice's chair as Clarice walked out of the room. She pressed a button on the key board, zooming in even more.
'Look at all of those weaklings,' she thought savagely as the citezens of Japan became more clear.
Suddenly something occured to her.
"Clarice! Yo, Miss Commando! You didn't tell me where they lived!!" cried Dryphus; Clarice was already quite far from the main control room.
Clarice suddenly appeared behind the chair and muttered "Capsule Corporation," bitterly before disappearing again.
Dryphus looked up Earth on the galactic map, then Japan, then Capsule Corporation. The map pointed her directly in the direction of the large estate.
She smirked and punched a few more keys, hoping to get a good view of the building. She could soon see the roof of a house over a few trees, then she moved the camera a bit more upward, then downward to the left.
'Better,' she thought. What she didn't know was that the sattelite could magnify sound, too. Suddenly a blue car drove to the front of the house and the door opened. Quite interested in who it could be, Dryphus leaned forward and payed very close attention to the screen before her.
A boy, who didn't look any older than maybe twenty-five or twenty-six, stepped out of the car with a large, white, plastic bag in his hand. She couldn't see exactly what was in it, but the semi-transparent bag told her that whatever it was was very colorful.
The boy looked around a few times, then turned to get something from the car. When he stood up, Dryphus gasped.
'He's cute... for a human,' thought Dryphus. 'He's muscular, too...'
Dryphus's eyes narrowed in suspiscion, then she took out a scouter, though this was new model - it was smaller, for one thing, it looked like a pair of small headphones, a microphone protruding from the left ear-piece to the front of her mouth, and a very small, rectangular screen that was no bigger in length than her pinky finger, and about as wide as a bottle cap.
The tiny, tiny screen suddenly turned blue, shining the saphire-colored light on her face as she pressed a button on the right ear-piece. Small numbers began to move rapidly across it, then landed on one number: 687.
Dryphus gasped. 'He's way too strong to be human...'
She pressed a few more of the miniscule buttons on the right side of the Neo-Scouter and the numbers scrambled again, jetting from bigger to smaller, then a few letters popped up. She pressed one more button, a purple one this time.
The screen turned red and this time letters popped up on the screen. The words "Saiyajin/Human" were on the screen.
'What?' she tought. 'That can't be right...'
She ran another scan on the person and it turned up the same. She was about to go and ask Clarice about it, but then decided not to bother her. Just then, a girl came running out of the house and stopped in front of the car.
"Did you get the decorations?" asked the blue-haired girl.
"Yeah," said the spiky-haired boy, handing the bag to her. "Do you think that the confetti was too much?"
"Nah. Hey, do you think think that when she walks in that we could dump it on her or something?" asked the girl excitedly.
"Uh... I don't think she'd like it too much," said the boy.
'Well he *looks* like he could be saiyajin,' thought Dryphus. She snapped back to the screen and paid attention as the girl began to talk again.
"...Don't you have the strangest feeling that we're being watched?"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
'It's getting late,' thought Bulma tiredly. 'Maybe I should call it quits for the night....'
She yawned and got up from her office chair, stretching. She decided to start working again because she wanted something to keep her mind off of Vegeta's problem. But unfortunately, it didn't work; and now everyone was running off and doing something, she wasn't sure what, though. All day, people kept running in and out of the house, making calls, and she really didn't know what to make of it. And worse, they seemed to be avoiding her.
Bulma turned the light off, leaving the office darker except for a few rays of light that came from the window. She sighed and grabbed her purse, heading towards the door. Suddenly there was a loud knock.
She stopped dead. Who would still be in the building at this time of night? How did they get by the clearence without the security officer notifying her that someone was coming up to see her? *Why* would they want to see her?
She snapped back to reality when the person knocked on the door again, this time banging on it a lot harder.
"Wh-who is it?" called Bulma.
The person didn't answer.
"...Hello?" cried Bulma, moving back toward her desk; she had a gun in one of the drawers that she'd always kept for protection.
There was still no reply.
"I-I'm warning you, I'm armed-"
Just then, the door came crashing down, torn right off it's hinges, a couple of small flames on the side of it. Bulma tore her eyes away from the door to look at the intruder.
She'd never seen the woman before. The mysterious (and very sinister looking) woman had black hair and very pale gray eyes. That was all she could see, considering the darkness of the room.
"...Wh-Who are you?" asked Bulma feebily. She didn't know why, but even the fact that she had a gun didn't comfort her.
The woman gave a low, amused laugh.
"I," she said, taking a step towards Bulma, "Am," she took another step, this time stepping on the fallen door, making her appear taller, "Your," she took another step forward, this time steeping off of the door, "Worst," she again moved forward, "Nightmare."
The woman disappeared. Bulma held the gun out in front of her, both of her hands shaking violently. 'Where'd she go?' thought Bulma, panicking. By now, she'd begun to breath more heavily, her heart doing a drum-roll on her ribs. She kept turning wildly, pointing the gun left and right, trying to find the intruder.
Just then she felt a presence behind her. Bulma held her breath as she turned, slowly, to the person that stood there.
Suddenly she breathed a sigh of relief.
"Oh Kami, Vegeta, I'm so glad that you're here," said Bulma breathily. "A woman just broke into my office and I think that she was going to kill... me..."
Bulma stopped when she saw Vegeta's face. He had a stern, emotionless look on his face.
"...V-Vegeta, are you... are you alright?" asked Bulma backing away from him a little bit. "Vegeta, you're scaring me..."
She noticed that his eyes weren't focused on her anymore, but on something behind her. She turned to see the woman again, standing with her arms crossed.
The woman smirked. "Do it."
Bulma, stared, wide-eyed, at the woman, wondering she could've meant by that. Suddenly she felt something wrap around her neck painfully, squeezing harder and harder.
She turned to see Vegeta, his cold eyes giving her immeasurable fear. He was choking her.
"Vegeta...::cough:: Please... stop ::sputter:: Don't... ::whimper::..stop..."
At this point, Bulma wasn't even speaking anymore, just whispering. All she could do was hang there, limp, as his hands tightened around her throat. She almost screamed with pain as her neck-bone broke in two, her hands gripping his wrists tightly as the gun lay forgotten on the floor.
Bulma started to feel faint. Her eyes suddenly began to cloud over with blackness. She blinked a few times, trying to clear her vision, but the black cloud was taking over. Her eyes began to close, but she forced them to stay open.
Bulma could feel Vegeta's grip on her neck loosen. 'What's happening?'
Suddenly she felt the worst pain she'd eveer felt in her life - she wasn't sure what Vegeta was doing, but the pain began to envelope her entire body, burning her from the outside in.
He let go of her, sending her falling to the floor. She forced her eyes open and saw a bright flash of light; Vegeta was charging up a ki blast to finish her off.
If he was saying anything, she couldn't hear it, because she suddenly felt as if two pillows were being pressed over her ears, muffling all sound. 'I guess this is what dying feels like,' she thought miserably. The last thing she saw was the woman, standing behind Vegeta and laughing before the white-hot ball of light enveloped her body...
~*~*~END DREAM~*~*~
Bulma woke from the chair she was sitting in, breathing heavily. She looked around the room and realized that it had been a dream. 'Bulma, now you're having nightmares about this Vegeta situation... you *have* to ask him about it as soon as you get home.'
She looked at her watch. It was only six o'clock.
Deciding that she would have to get it over with, Bulma got up from her desk and grabbed her purse and began to walk towards the door when there was a loud knock.
'Oh, no...'
Not wasting any time, Bulma ran over to the desk and got her gun, which was fully loaded. Holding the gun out in front of her, too ready to pull the trigger, Bulma walked slowly to the door and called fiercely, "Who is it?"
"It's me, Mrs. Briefs," called a jolly voice. "You've been up here for a while, I thought I'd bring you up some coffee."
Bulma sighed and walked over to the door, it was only the old security officer named Ben. She wrenched the door open and let Ben inside, relieved.
"Thanks a lot, Ben," said Bulma, smiling. "I thought that-"
She suddenly noticed the look of terror on Ben's face. She turned around and looked behind her, expecting someone to be standing there, but there was no one. She turned back around, confused, to face the old man.
"I-I'm s-s-sorry M-Mrs. Briefs, I-I didn't m-mean to bother y-you-"
"What are you talking about?" asked Bulma, even more confused. "Ben, is something wrong?"
She stared at him for a moment, then followed his gaze down to her hand. The gun sat in her grip, her finger still on trigger.
She bursted out laughing. "Ben, this wasn't for you," she explained. "When you knocked on the door, I thought that you were someone else. I would never shoot you."
"O-Oh," said the old man, though he was still shaking a little bit.
Bulma put the gun down on a small, round table in the corner of the office and walked back over to Ben.
"I'm really sorry. It was nice of you to bring out the coffee," said Bulma, trying to calm him down a little bit. She didn't want him to have a heart-attack.
Ben laughed a little bit. "I'm sorry for thinking that you'd shoot me," he said.
She waved her hand in dismissal and Ben left, shaking his head and muttering something about "Kids these days."
Bulma suddenly remembered that her original plan was to go home and ask Vegeta about his problem, so she grabbed her purse and was just about to leave when she saw the gun again.
'Better take it, that dream could have been a premonition.'
She put the gun in her bag, just for protection; even if her nightmare wasn't going to come true, there were still dangers around.
She said goodbye to another one of the security officers, Stanley, as she walked out into the parking lot. Suddenly a strange sense of foreboding washed over her as she stepped out onto the cold pavement. She shivered slightly, she was being watched. But by who?
*In case you think it's Dryphus, it's not.*
Shivering slightly, she walked quickly to her red air-car. It was then that she noticed a motorcycle that she'd never seen before. It was all black and looked brand-new. She looked at the license plate, then smiled. The license plate read "3LLR" on it; it meant "Thriller". 'That's clever,' she thought.
*Author's note: That's the license plate I'm getting on my motorcycle, don't copy it please.*
She started the car and drove out of the parking lot quickly, anxious to get home, and completely oblivious to the roar of the motorcycle engine that had started as soon as her car had exited the lot.
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Bulma was finally home. Now she would get straight down to buisness and ask him what was going on, and if he didn't tell her, she'd... she'd.... she didn't even know yet. But she had to at least try.
Wondering why the house was so dark, she searched through her purse for her house-keys. 'Was that a motorcycle?' Sighing and dismissing the sound, she got out her keys and unlocked the door. Stepping inside, she noticed that inside the house was a lot darker than it looked from the outside.
'Oh no...'
Suddenly she heard someone breathing heavily from the doorway. Was her dream coming true?
"Hehehe... surprise," rasped a voice from behind her.
Hey!! Did you like this chapter?! I hope so!! I know it was stupid, but hey, I made it longer to make up for those pitifully short chapters before this one. And guess what... I just read over chapter 1 and I was like "What have I *DONE*?!!!" That chapter just seemed soooo stupid, I swear... there are so many things that I would have changed about it, had I been writing it now...
What else... oh, and I apologize for waiting so long to post these chapters up. I already told you about the whole scenario *is that the way u spell it?* with chapter two... I seriously think that my computer got messed up by that "Code Red 2 Worm Virus" or whatever it is thing that the FBI is talking about because this thing just keeps getting more and more messed up and now it's going berserk.
Now, for the questions that will haunt you forever (or at least until I get the next few chapters up):
Who was at the door behind Bulma? Who did the motorcycle belong to? Was the owner of the motorcycle following Bulma? Will Clarice ever get an answer from Vegeta? If so, what will the answer be? Whoever bought that pink sequin tube-top that Bra wanted? Will Dryphus tell anyone about what Clarice is doing? What's going to happen to Clarice if she goes back to Vejitasei "empty-handed"? And why do they keep having dreams about Clarice killing Bulma - Is it a death omen, or just a coincidence? Find out on -
Dragon Ball Z: The Legends of Chaos
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~Valerie~ *
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