Chapter Ten
"Oh Vegeta, honey, what's the matter dear?" Mrs. Briefs gushed at him as she spotted him at the table.
Vegeta groaned to himself silently. Not her! It's almost midnight she should be asleep! "Nothing."
"Oh, Vegeta, you can't fool me!" She giggled as he cringed ever so slightly. "Come on, Vegeta, come clean? It's Bulma isn't it, dear?"
Vegeta looked at her thoughtfully. "Well, she has been acting odd lately?"
"Oh! You noticed!" She giggled and covered her face with her hands. "I bet you don't know what's wrong, do you dear!"
Vegeta frowned slightly at her perceptiveness. "No, I don't."
"You are so cute, Vegeta!" She pinched his cheek not noticing how he stiffened. "It's so obvious!"
"What is wrong with her?" Vegeta relaxed as she walked toward the refrigerator.
"Who dear?" Mrs. Briefs started placing cakes on a platter.
"Bulma!" He snapped then looked shocked with himself.
"Bulma? Oh, I believe she likes you!" She turned around to find him gone. "Oh no, who is going to help me eat this cakes?" She looked at her platter to see half it's contents gone. "Oh, that Vegeta! He's a slippery one!" She giggled.
**
"Human!" Ava burst into Bulma's laboratory the next morning.
Bulma looked up from her latest invention. "What's wrong?"
"Vegeta, he refuses to talk to me." Ava looked down.
"Ava, he does that sometimes," Bulma dismissed her.
"Not with me! He won't come out of the gravity room... I want you to get me in there!" Ava came as close as she could to asking.
"All you have to do is remove the panel and push the button on the underside of the ship, it's the emergency cut off switch..." Bulma shook her head and turned back to her invention. Ava was gone.
**
Ava stomped up to the gravity room with a vengeance. You have never been able to avoid me and you will not start now!!!! She ripped the hidden panel off it's hinges, shoved her thumb into the button, and grinned as she heard the power drain.
"Bul- Woman, what the hell are..." Vegeta trailed off as he spotted Ava looking at him wide-eyed. "Ava..."
Ava stopped him from slamming the door shut.
"Is that why you are avoiding me?!" Ava growled at him. "You are letting a pathetic human come between us!"
"Ava, it's not-" Vegeta tried as Ava shoved him.
"A weak pathetic human at that! One who can't even throw a punch! One who hair is blue!!!"
"AVA, THAT is ENOUGH!" Vegeta stood up tall. "YOU have no say in what the hell I do!"
"Vegeta, you nearly called her by name!! Don't you know what that means!!!" She screamed.
"Of course, I do!! It doesn't MATTER!! There is no way that she could possibly win the tournament!!"
"Then why are you even letting her in like this! Have you no pride!!"
"I have ten times as much pride as you!"
"Do not!"
"Do too!"
"Do not!"
"Do too!"
"DO not!"
"DO too!"
Vegeta and Ava were toe to toe neither giving an inch. "If you have so much pride then why do you auction yourself off like an inanimate object."
"You dare, to throw the tournaments in MY face!" Vegeta snarled, "YOU are the one who wanted to have them not I. I wanted nothing to do with it and unless you watch your BIG mouth I will cancel them!!"
"You wouldn't DARE!!"
"THAT'S IT!!! IT'S OFF!!"
Vegeta grabbed Ava's face and connected his mind to hers, erasing the memory of the dance from all the human's minds. No one would remember such a thing had occurred.
**
All over the world men and women blinked in confusion as they found themselves exercising with a fury. They looked up at the sky as if looking for an answer for the feeling of loss within their hearts.
**
Yamcha, Krillin, and Tien looked at each other in shock. They had been snarling at each other ready to tear the other man in half. They all swallowed hard as they realized they were at Goku's house and the owner was baring the door as a super saiyan.
"Um, Goku?" Krillin said uneasily as Goku's hard stare landed on him. "What are we doing here?"
Goku's face melted into a smile as the others shifted uncomfortably, though, they all sighed a breathe of relief as he slipped from super saiyan.
"So you guys are back to normal, now?" Goku scratched the back of his head with his hand in a familiar gesture.
"What do you mean back to normal?" Tien questioned gruffly.
"Yeah, that's what I want to know?" Yamcha put in.
Goku blinked at them. "You mean you don't remember?"
"I'll tell you what happened!" Chichi appeared from the side of the house with a pan on her head armed with a skillet and frying pan.
"You hoodlums! We were having a family picnic when you slackers came out of nowhere demanding to fight, Goku honey. When he said maybe later you beatniks went berserk saying that, MY Goku, wanted Ava for himself! Then you lunatics attacked him screaming about how Ava belonged to you!! That's when you turned on each other and vowed to be the last man standing!!!"
The three fighters backed away wearily from the red-faced furious Chichi as she raised the frying pan threatening. They gulped again as she took a step forward and Goku laughingly picked her up despite her screams and put her in the house.
"Come on, Chichi, you know they were only joking! Go check on Gohan..." Goku waited until Chichi's grumbling died off signaling she was deep inside the house. "All right, what is all this business with Ava?" He raised an eyebrow.
The three fighters glanced at each other helplessly, they honestly didn't know.
**
Ava punched Vegeta in the gut making him release her before he could erase the memory from Bulma's mind.
"What have you done?!" Ava smirked on the inside as she growled at her easily controlled brother.
"You know what I did! I will mate with whomever whenever I want! If it be the woman then so be it!" Vegeta growled back.
"Woman! What woman? The blue or the blond woman!" Ava snarled.
"Blue! Bulma!" Vegeta snapped back.
"Oh, ok," Ava calmly smiled as she slipped out of the gravity room.
Vegeta sputtered helplessly as his only kin practically skip toward the house.
"What's she so happy about?"
Vegeta gaze snapped to Bulma who was leaning in the doorway.
"I honestly do not know." Vegeta rubbed his forehead in consternation.
"What's wrong with you?" Bulma looked at him appraisingly.
"What do you care?" Vegeta dropped his hand and glared at her.
Bulma glared back. "Why? Do you have a problem with that?"
"If I do?" Vegeta lifted an eyebrow.
"Then you can take it up with me though I doubt you could actually beat me." Bulma challenged him.
"A fight?" Vegeta chuckled. "Surely you are not serious! I would mop the floor with you even if I didn't use my powers."
"Fine!" Bulma ground out. "You want to put your money where your mouth is?"
"Excuse me?" Vegeta looked at her puzzled at the expression.
"I..." Bulma blinked unsure of how to explain.
"What's wrong, woman, did you speak too soon?" Vegeta laughed.
"Those are fighting words buddy!"
Bulma threw herself at him.
Vegeta laughed as she prepared to make the biggest mistake in the book, you never throw yourself at somebody---- Vegeta looked up at the ceiling in shock. He sat up in and wiped his mouth amazed to see blood staining his fingertips. He looked up to see a boot coming towards his head. On reflex he laid back down and grabbed her leg twisting it making her fall next to him. Letting go of her leg he quickly rolled on top of her, straddling her and snagging her hands in his as he pinned them to the floor.
"Damn it!" Bulma tried to thrash beneath him.
Vegeta quickly covered her with his body to minimize her movements and tried not to groan. "Bulma, don't do that."
Bulma looked at him with wide eyes as she stopped struggling.
"You know, I cancelled the tournaments because I believed that there was no chance you would win." He chuckled. "Ava, was right, I shouldn't have dismissed you so quickly."
"She was the one who trained me," Bulma told him a bit breathlessly.
"Did she?" Vegeta looked at her from underneath his eye lashes. "She planned this whole thing you know."
"Then I am glad."
"Are you?"
"Yes, she helped me see behind your pain-in-the-ass persona." Bulma smiled at him.
Vegeta raised an eyebrow. "Is that so. Well, she helped me see behind your I'm-weak-help-me-I-broke-a-nail attitude."
"I resent that." Bulma's eyes narrowed.
"So did I." Vegeta smirked. "Want to do something about it?"
"Release my hands you, big ape."
"Why, screeching harridan?" Vegeta smirk widened into a grin as he released her hands anyway.
To his surprise she didn't attack him, well, in a the way he thought she would. Bulma pulled his face to hers and they shared their first kiss.
**
Ava stepped back from the window of the gravity machine. There you go, my work is done. Now to find a mate worthy of me... Ava had left a round silver rock on her pillow for Vegeta. He will remember what it means. Ava smiled and disappeared into the woods.
