Part 6: A Nude Hope (w/ Clothes)
She wasn't sure what awoke her. She hung, luxuriating in that moment where awareness sloughs off the oblivion of sleep without taking up the burdens of the waking world. Such moments were precious and to be treasured, she knew. Why they were precious eluded her, probably nothing important. Such simplicity, the world was at peace.
FOOM!
She couldn't actually hear the explosions, of course, the sound proofing was an excellent piece of work. But she had found nothing, NOTHING, could completely block the vibrations coming from the gravity room when Vegeta got serious. That being any time he wasn't severely injured or training Trunks. In other word, when she made him. But it was as effective as an alarm. If only she could have him on a timer.
Blinking to clear her eyes, she wondered briefly why the words were written vertically. Crack. 'Ouch, I must have fallen asleep in the lab.' Reaching back to rub her stiff neck, she yawned, long and deep. As the yawn passed, she brushed back the errant blue strands before looking at the green lettering before her. She frowned, connecting the information displayed on the screen with the young woman she had met yesterday. Oh, she'd seen Videl before, but hadn't had a reason to speak with her at the time. 'It was about four years ago . . .'
Just what the function officially was, she couldn't remember, not even at the time. But in practice, it was an opportunity to brag or brown-nose with and among the upper crust. She had managed to drag Vegeta along after stuffing him into a tux. 'And he is stuffed' she thought, a small hungry smile flicking across her face as she looked over her shoulder and down at his dark clad pelvis. Raising her gaze she saw her expression mirrored on his for a moment before it darkened to a scowl. She turned her attention mostly back to the woman she was talking to. The corpulent woman was saying something about how her sons were going to dominate the junior something or other. Keeping Vegeta at the edge of her vision, she saw one of the catering staff bring him a heaping platter of turkey legs. 'Well, he is motivation to learn fast.' As she absently tossed a stinging barb at the unpleasant woman, she saw Vegeta smirking around his current leg. 'Maybe I can ditch the rest, and go screw Vegeta in the car halfway home?' Under the blue strapless dress, she felt the warmth of her arousal and the slight dampening of her crotch as her mind followed that scenario. Before she could act, dragging Vegeta off to the car, a commotion in one of the larger groups distracted her. The random shuffling cleared a view to the center, revealing a large man with an afro, mustache, and a gaudy sequined white tux. Beside him was an adolescent girl with pink dress, pink ribbons in her ponytails, and a scowl to rival Vegeta's. Before the crowd closed, she saw the girl raise her wrist to her face. The hum of conversation blurred words but two voices, one low pitched and one high, rose above the ambient. The girl, not quite little, burst through the crowd, running for the door. Her expression and the way she moved was shockingly familiar. It was exactly the same as so many of her friends as they went into a fight. A glance back told her that Vegeta had also noticed, his eyes tracking her even if he showed no other sign.
'Vegeta managed to wreck the car while it was parked that night' she remembered as she stood scratching before heading to the shower on autopilot. Stumbling through the hallways of Capsule Corp, she reached her destination. Still groggy, she stripped and stepped into the hot spray. She paused, letting the warmth saturate her body, before lathering curves that were still as good as when she was a teenager. 'Vegeta sure is good at keeping me fit, maybe . . . no, we need to get Videl cured fast.' Giving her hair a final rinse, she turned off the water and slid on a terrycloth bathrobe. As the toweled her hair, a wonderful scent drifted through the door. 'Chichi's cooking, how can she be awake so soon after all that crying last night?'
As Bulma entered the kitchen, the piles of food literally dwarfed the small woman who made them. Her well-practiced movements added more to the smallest pile as she hummed to the tunes coming from the radio on the small table off to one side. Alerted by the sound of footsteps, Chichi spun, brandishing the frying pan with her dark eyes warning any marauding Saiyan appetites that food was NOT ready. Instead, seeing Bulma, she relaxed and set the pan back on the stove. "Good morning. Would you like some coffee?"
"Please." Before Bulma had finished sitting at the small kitchen table, she found the mug in her hands. One deep drought of the dark fluid later, she felt the last of the haze clear from her head. Lowering the mug, a dark bun of hair rose above its rim followed by two eyes, brimming with tears.
"Tell me Videl isn't going to die!" In the absence of an immediate response, she collapsed into the chair opposite, sobbing. "My baby Gohan finally found someone to marry, then she catches some horrible disease!" "And I don't even have grandchildren!" she wailed before burying her face in her hands.
'Not again.' "It'll be all right Chichi, so far it looks like my idea is going to work." How well she had comforted the dark haired Son matriarch, she wasn't to find out as the music faded out to be replaced.
"Breaking news this morning, it has been confirmed that the daughter of our one and only World Champ Hercule, has been hospitalized. Apparently, she was infected by a rare virus while fighting terrorists yesterday. As a reward for a cure, her father has offered five million Zeni, personal training lessons, and a date with Videl herself. Boy, there is going to be some lucky . . ." CUNCH!
"The nerve of that man, offering a date with MY future daughter-in-law!" Lifting the pan, Chichi struck the broken pieces as one last spark shorted itself amidst the former radio.
*********************************************************************
"The nerve of that man!" Videl snarled at the broken screen, drawing back her fist from the space occupied only moments before by the image of a local news announcer. 'I'd like to kick his butt, if only he wasn't my dad and World Champion.' She turned from the hollow shell of the broken TV, stepping back to the bed.
Pain, like the lancing of a blister, thrust through her left side. She fell to her knees, gasping. Her vision spun, blurring everything before darkness took her. A gurgling sound, like pipes half clogged, echoed from a long way away. Metal filled her taste, filled to overflowing, and she spat. The gurgling stopped, leaving the echoes of rushing air. She felt the almost softness of what passed for carpet on her palms and fingers long before she could see again. When her vision cleared, she her hands splayed on the beige carpet. Her left was smooth and slightly tanned, with faint soot streaks. The right, black, a solid bruise spreading up her arm from the bloodstained bandage on her hand. Between them, the crimson splatter spread like a Rochester blot. 'What do you see?' 'I see upset janitors.' Deep within her, something stretched almost to the breaking point. She giggled. The sound echoed back, returning joyless mania to Videl's ears. The giggling rose to a feverish intensity. Silence fell like the eye of a storm, bringing her from the heights of mania to the depths of depression. Drained, she whispered, "I'm going to die".
"Not necessarily."
To say Videl jerked up at the voice would mean she could jerk upward, instead her attention was jerked upward. Her body, doubly fatigued by loss of blood and spirit, followed but not without formal and written complaints. She rose, slowly and with great pain as the leakage of fluid had started into her joints. Looking through the glass, as the words echoed. 'Not necessarily, a chance to live, do I dare hope?' As if to answer as she looked at the blue-haired genius that was shaking drops of water from the Capsule Corp jacket, her reflection stared at her like her own ghost. And Bulma looked, and Bulma paled.
A face ravaged inside and out. Spirit, fiery temper to rival a Saiyan, bled from her eyes inscribing lines on her face, eroded hollows beneath the hospital gown. To fill the lines, blood. Small ruptures in the delicate tissues had allowed blood to seep and dry. Blood, now turned to black goo, painted her face and darkened her eyes. Eyes empty of spirit, all save one last spark 'you dare give me false hope'.
Bulma shivered, feeling as she had not when facing any of the monsters and villains in her far travels, or her husband in her short travels. Those times she was struck with blind terror or called on her own fiery temper. Here, neither blindness nor temper shielded her from a gaze like the angry dead.
Swallowing, Bulma groped the chair beside her, raising a stack of papers as if to ward of the cold stare. "I, I ran some cultures of the virus on different tissues." She pulled one sheet out, stepping forward to let Videl see. As her gaze shifted, the chill eased. She watched Videl's expression as she looked at the page filled with graphs, each with one axis labeled cell count. Bulma knew Videl saw the ones from human tissues, the sharp curve down was visible through the paper reached zero all to quickly. Next, tissues from saiyan hybrids, the shallower curve reaching total cell death nearly at the end. Finally, one lone graph with a flat line from beginning to end at one hundred percent, full saiyan.
"Human", Videl's whisper passed her stained lips, "a human disease, not saiyan, not alien". Twisting inside, the chance, the hope, the risk, the disappointment. "But how can this help me, I'm still human, a weak human?" Confusion and bitterness rasped her tone as she questioned her maybe savior.
"With the Dragon Balls, we could change that." As the look of death faded ever so slightly, Bulma spoke more confidently.
"But yesterday, they couldn't cure me?" She spoke, soft and uncertain, like a scared child as she had never been save briefly.
Bulma shook her head, "not directly, but there are ways around the limitations of the wishes." "The problem is, no one alive knows much about female saiyans, even Vegeta was too young to have learned much before Freeza destroyed their home planet" she continued with a frown. "So if you decide to do this, your body can fight the virus and then you have to live with whatever problems come from being a female saiyan."
Videl was swaying slightly, a sleepy look as she muttered "Freeza?" She squeezed her eyes shut before locking her gaze with Bulma "could it, could it make me stronger than before?" At Bulma's nod she closed her eyes with an expression of peace. She smiled, "do it", and fell. A slow boneless fall, flowing rather than collapsing to the floor. And continued flowing, red seeping from somewhere now concealed by her hair. Hair like raven feathers, to carry away the girl who could fly.
***********************************************************
Korin's tower, shrouded in gloom. The ornate patterns that stretch from the ground up are filled with shadows. Rain, thick and heavy, slams into the craggy surface before running in rivulets down to the ground. Faint sunlight paints everything in shades of gray and blurs the heights from view. Up, up, rain weeps from darkness at an impossible place. At the top stands a white cat, grayed by the clouds. Leaning on a wooden staff, he looks out, seeing past the mist and gloom. An errant gust ruffles his fur and deposits a few drops of rain on the pristine white coat. They gleam dully, smokey quartz ornaments shed by the brush of an absent paw movement.
Up, up, into the gloom. Sunbeams pierce the clouds like a mad tailor slaying ants. The eddies of the clouds finally flow apart to reveal the sapphire dome of the sky. This gem, resting on the cotton clouds, flawless save for the tiny speck deep in its substance. This speck, revealed to be a structure, serves as someone's home.
Above the curves base, on the creamy white tiles, two figures stand. Demon, rival, friend, Piccolo stands impassive. His arms are crossed as he as he alternates looking past the edge and at his companion. Smaller and lighter of build, this one is draped in the robes that mark him as Guardian. Like Piccolo, the younger Namek gazes out past the edge of his inherited lookout. Dende's face reveals his worry, concern, and sadness. Some on this concern is obviously directed up at the older Namek. Finally, Piccolo speaks, anger and accusation obvious with guilt lacing his voice for those who knew him.
"I should never have interfered, I could see how close they are even if Gohan can't." Bowing his head slightly, he continues with more anger "I don't know what Gohan will do if she dies, and if I hadn't pushed them together . . ."
"It would have been worse, much worse."
The new voice echoed, blurring gender, age, or any other clues to the new figure's identity. Beneath the long hooded crimson cloak, even its species was concealed. It hovered just past the edge, looking out and down.
Raising a hand to forestall Piccolo as he opened his mouth, the figure continued "the proof you want will come, far too soon."
With that, the figure raised its head and shook, causing the hood to fall back. Hair, now free, was revealed to be raven black before flashing into incandescent gold. In the backwash of Ki, the cloak fluttered. Thus revealed was the black bodysuit and similarly incandescent belt wrapped around HER waist. She turned, golden hair now down to her waist and slowly drifting like a solid aura around her head, facing the two Nameks. She gazed at the two through a white oval mask. The eyeslits spilled turquoise light, the final piece of evidence for her credibility. Her voice echoing hollowly through the mask, far too cold for the liking of either former demon or current Guardian.
"It will be too soon, and maybe, too late."
She wasn't sure what awoke her. She hung, luxuriating in that moment where awareness sloughs off the oblivion of sleep without taking up the burdens of the waking world. Such moments were precious and to be treasured, she knew. Why they were precious eluded her, probably nothing important. Such simplicity, the world was at peace.
FOOM!
She couldn't actually hear the explosions, of course, the sound proofing was an excellent piece of work. But she had found nothing, NOTHING, could completely block the vibrations coming from the gravity room when Vegeta got serious. That being any time he wasn't severely injured or training Trunks. In other word, when she made him. But it was as effective as an alarm. If only she could have him on a timer.
Blinking to clear her eyes, she wondered briefly why the words were written vertically. Crack. 'Ouch, I must have fallen asleep in the lab.' Reaching back to rub her stiff neck, she yawned, long and deep. As the yawn passed, she brushed back the errant blue strands before looking at the green lettering before her. She frowned, connecting the information displayed on the screen with the young woman she had met yesterday. Oh, she'd seen Videl before, but hadn't had a reason to speak with her at the time. 'It was about four years ago . . .'
Just what the function officially was, she couldn't remember, not even at the time. But in practice, it was an opportunity to brag or brown-nose with and among the upper crust. She had managed to drag Vegeta along after stuffing him into a tux. 'And he is stuffed' she thought, a small hungry smile flicking across her face as she looked over her shoulder and down at his dark clad pelvis. Raising her gaze she saw her expression mirrored on his for a moment before it darkened to a scowl. She turned her attention mostly back to the woman she was talking to. The corpulent woman was saying something about how her sons were going to dominate the junior something or other. Keeping Vegeta at the edge of her vision, she saw one of the catering staff bring him a heaping platter of turkey legs. 'Well, he is motivation to learn fast.' As she absently tossed a stinging barb at the unpleasant woman, she saw Vegeta smirking around his current leg. 'Maybe I can ditch the rest, and go screw Vegeta in the car halfway home?' Under the blue strapless dress, she felt the warmth of her arousal and the slight dampening of her crotch as her mind followed that scenario. Before she could act, dragging Vegeta off to the car, a commotion in one of the larger groups distracted her. The random shuffling cleared a view to the center, revealing a large man with an afro, mustache, and a gaudy sequined white tux. Beside him was an adolescent girl with pink dress, pink ribbons in her ponytails, and a scowl to rival Vegeta's. Before the crowd closed, she saw the girl raise her wrist to her face. The hum of conversation blurred words but two voices, one low pitched and one high, rose above the ambient. The girl, not quite little, burst through the crowd, running for the door. Her expression and the way she moved was shockingly familiar. It was exactly the same as so many of her friends as they went into a fight. A glance back told her that Vegeta had also noticed, his eyes tracking her even if he showed no other sign.
'Vegeta managed to wreck the car while it was parked that night' she remembered as she stood scratching before heading to the shower on autopilot. Stumbling through the hallways of Capsule Corp, she reached her destination. Still groggy, she stripped and stepped into the hot spray. She paused, letting the warmth saturate her body, before lathering curves that were still as good as when she was a teenager. 'Vegeta sure is good at keeping me fit, maybe . . . no, we need to get Videl cured fast.' Giving her hair a final rinse, she turned off the water and slid on a terrycloth bathrobe. As the toweled her hair, a wonderful scent drifted through the door. 'Chichi's cooking, how can she be awake so soon after all that crying last night?'
As Bulma entered the kitchen, the piles of food literally dwarfed the small woman who made them. Her well-practiced movements added more to the smallest pile as she hummed to the tunes coming from the radio on the small table off to one side. Alerted by the sound of footsteps, Chichi spun, brandishing the frying pan with her dark eyes warning any marauding Saiyan appetites that food was NOT ready. Instead, seeing Bulma, she relaxed and set the pan back on the stove. "Good morning. Would you like some coffee?"
"Please." Before Bulma had finished sitting at the small kitchen table, she found the mug in her hands. One deep drought of the dark fluid later, she felt the last of the haze clear from her head. Lowering the mug, a dark bun of hair rose above its rim followed by two eyes, brimming with tears.
"Tell me Videl isn't going to die!" In the absence of an immediate response, she collapsed into the chair opposite, sobbing. "My baby Gohan finally found someone to marry, then she catches some horrible disease!" "And I don't even have grandchildren!" she wailed before burying her face in her hands.
'Not again.' "It'll be all right Chichi, so far it looks like my idea is going to work." How well she had comforted the dark haired Son matriarch, she wasn't to find out as the music faded out to be replaced.
"Breaking news this morning, it has been confirmed that the daughter of our one and only World Champ Hercule, has been hospitalized. Apparently, she was infected by a rare virus while fighting terrorists yesterday. As a reward for a cure, her father has offered five million Zeni, personal training lessons, and a date with Videl herself. Boy, there is going to be some lucky . . ." CUNCH!
"The nerve of that man, offering a date with MY future daughter-in-law!" Lifting the pan, Chichi struck the broken pieces as one last spark shorted itself amidst the former radio.
*********************************************************************
"The nerve of that man!" Videl snarled at the broken screen, drawing back her fist from the space occupied only moments before by the image of a local news announcer. 'I'd like to kick his butt, if only he wasn't my dad and World Champion.' She turned from the hollow shell of the broken TV, stepping back to the bed.
Pain, like the lancing of a blister, thrust through her left side. She fell to her knees, gasping. Her vision spun, blurring everything before darkness took her. A gurgling sound, like pipes half clogged, echoed from a long way away. Metal filled her taste, filled to overflowing, and she spat. The gurgling stopped, leaving the echoes of rushing air. She felt the almost softness of what passed for carpet on her palms and fingers long before she could see again. When her vision cleared, she her hands splayed on the beige carpet. Her left was smooth and slightly tanned, with faint soot streaks. The right, black, a solid bruise spreading up her arm from the bloodstained bandage on her hand. Between them, the crimson splatter spread like a Rochester blot. 'What do you see?' 'I see upset janitors.' Deep within her, something stretched almost to the breaking point. She giggled. The sound echoed back, returning joyless mania to Videl's ears. The giggling rose to a feverish intensity. Silence fell like the eye of a storm, bringing her from the heights of mania to the depths of depression. Drained, she whispered, "I'm going to die".
"Not necessarily."
To say Videl jerked up at the voice would mean she could jerk upward, instead her attention was jerked upward. Her body, doubly fatigued by loss of blood and spirit, followed but not without formal and written complaints. She rose, slowly and with great pain as the leakage of fluid had started into her joints. Looking through the glass, as the words echoed. 'Not necessarily, a chance to live, do I dare hope?' As if to answer as she looked at the blue-haired genius that was shaking drops of water from the Capsule Corp jacket, her reflection stared at her like her own ghost. And Bulma looked, and Bulma paled.
A face ravaged inside and out. Spirit, fiery temper to rival a Saiyan, bled from her eyes inscribing lines on her face, eroded hollows beneath the hospital gown. To fill the lines, blood. Small ruptures in the delicate tissues had allowed blood to seep and dry. Blood, now turned to black goo, painted her face and darkened her eyes. Eyes empty of spirit, all save one last spark 'you dare give me false hope'.
Bulma shivered, feeling as she had not when facing any of the monsters and villains in her far travels, or her husband in her short travels. Those times she was struck with blind terror or called on her own fiery temper. Here, neither blindness nor temper shielded her from a gaze like the angry dead.
Swallowing, Bulma groped the chair beside her, raising a stack of papers as if to ward of the cold stare. "I, I ran some cultures of the virus on different tissues." She pulled one sheet out, stepping forward to let Videl see. As her gaze shifted, the chill eased. She watched Videl's expression as she looked at the page filled with graphs, each with one axis labeled cell count. Bulma knew Videl saw the ones from human tissues, the sharp curve down was visible through the paper reached zero all to quickly. Next, tissues from saiyan hybrids, the shallower curve reaching total cell death nearly at the end. Finally, one lone graph with a flat line from beginning to end at one hundred percent, full saiyan.
"Human", Videl's whisper passed her stained lips, "a human disease, not saiyan, not alien". Twisting inside, the chance, the hope, the risk, the disappointment. "But how can this help me, I'm still human, a weak human?" Confusion and bitterness rasped her tone as she questioned her maybe savior.
"With the Dragon Balls, we could change that." As the look of death faded ever so slightly, Bulma spoke more confidently.
"But yesterday, they couldn't cure me?" She spoke, soft and uncertain, like a scared child as she had never been save briefly.
Bulma shook her head, "not directly, but there are ways around the limitations of the wishes." "The problem is, no one alive knows much about female saiyans, even Vegeta was too young to have learned much before Freeza destroyed their home planet" she continued with a frown. "So if you decide to do this, your body can fight the virus and then you have to live with whatever problems come from being a female saiyan."
Videl was swaying slightly, a sleepy look as she muttered "Freeza?" She squeezed her eyes shut before locking her gaze with Bulma "could it, could it make me stronger than before?" At Bulma's nod she closed her eyes with an expression of peace. She smiled, "do it", and fell. A slow boneless fall, flowing rather than collapsing to the floor. And continued flowing, red seeping from somewhere now concealed by her hair. Hair like raven feathers, to carry away the girl who could fly.
***********************************************************
Korin's tower, shrouded in gloom. The ornate patterns that stretch from the ground up are filled with shadows. Rain, thick and heavy, slams into the craggy surface before running in rivulets down to the ground. Faint sunlight paints everything in shades of gray and blurs the heights from view. Up, up, rain weeps from darkness at an impossible place. At the top stands a white cat, grayed by the clouds. Leaning on a wooden staff, he looks out, seeing past the mist and gloom. An errant gust ruffles his fur and deposits a few drops of rain on the pristine white coat. They gleam dully, smokey quartz ornaments shed by the brush of an absent paw movement.
Up, up, into the gloom. Sunbeams pierce the clouds like a mad tailor slaying ants. The eddies of the clouds finally flow apart to reveal the sapphire dome of the sky. This gem, resting on the cotton clouds, flawless save for the tiny speck deep in its substance. This speck, revealed to be a structure, serves as someone's home.
Above the curves base, on the creamy white tiles, two figures stand. Demon, rival, friend, Piccolo stands impassive. His arms are crossed as he as he alternates looking past the edge and at his companion. Smaller and lighter of build, this one is draped in the robes that mark him as Guardian. Like Piccolo, the younger Namek gazes out past the edge of his inherited lookout. Dende's face reveals his worry, concern, and sadness. Some on this concern is obviously directed up at the older Namek. Finally, Piccolo speaks, anger and accusation obvious with guilt lacing his voice for those who knew him.
"I should never have interfered, I could see how close they are even if Gohan can't." Bowing his head slightly, he continues with more anger "I don't know what Gohan will do if she dies, and if I hadn't pushed them together . . ."
"It would have been worse, much worse."
The new voice echoed, blurring gender, age, or any other clues to the new figure's identity. Beneath the long hooded crimson cloak, even its species was concealed. It hovered just past the edge, looking out and down.
Raising a hand to forestall Piccolo as he opened his mouth, the figure continued "the proof you want will come, far too soon."
With that, the figure raised its head and shook, causing the hood to fall back. Hair, now free, was revealed to be raven black before flashing into incandescent gold. In the backwash of Ki, the cloak fluttered. Thus revealed was the black bodysuit and similarly incandescent belt wrapped around HER waist. She turned, golden hair now down to her waist and slowly drifting like a solid aura around her head, facing the two Nameks. She gazed at the two through a white oval mask. The eyeslits spilled turquoise light, the final piece of evidence for her credibility. Her voice echoing hollowly through the mask, far too cold for the liking of either former demon or current Guardian.
"It will be too soon, and maybe, too late."