A/N: Hey, I got this chapter out a bit faster than last time. (applauds herself mockingly) Not as fast as I would have liked…but at least the chapters are getting longer. ^_^) Thanks to Renee the Rabid Squirrel (I know exactly what you mean about fate – I'm glad you waited ^_^), soyamiso, and TigerQueen, and anybody else who's reading this get-togetherish fic where the main characters don't actually meet for eight chapters. Blame my muse for that one. ^_~
Warnings for this chapter: a bit of strong language, a bit of violence
Disclaimer: I still don't own Dragonball. I merely pay homage.
Prince Quest, a Cracked Fairy Tale
Chapter 8: To the Forest
Welcome, Kindly Audience. I, Timaeus, will not speak to you long today other than to wish you the happiest of days, and to offer you a beverage of your choosing to sip whilst you read this humble endeavor by the Author. For myself, I shall go into a corner and brood, for here is the chapter in which, at last, our hero and heroine are destined to meet.
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Bulma couldn't help thinking that traveling by Speed Warrior had to be one of the best modes of transportation available. It was fast, had comfortable seating, and had garnered admiring glances from other drivers and pedestrians alike. It was also probably stolen, but she wasn't planning to ask about that. She wondered if she could convince her parents that one would be a perfect addition to their collection of practical vehicles. Both of them tended not to let her buy anything they considered racy, unfortunately. It was too bad. They'd already gone nearly 250 miles in under three hours. At this rate, it would be just before dinnertime when she arrived in Vegetable, and not the four or five days she'd expected her quest to take.
She still had not told her companions exactly where she was going, and why, other than that her final destination was the land of Vegetable, but they had all determined they would escort her to the kingdom's border at the very least. Then Goku would go to find Chi-Chi, if they hadn't located her before that time. Bulma watched with a small smile as Goku, on his flying cloud, swooped down to the ground and leaned over to check for tracks and the scent and ki trail of his wife. At his affirmative nod, her smile widened.
It was fortunate the illusion spells had worn off after an hour – she'd been a trifle bothered by the sight of her new friends in their "changed identity" forms. As it was, she wasn't sure if she would ever want to eat a carrot again. But Yamcha had turned out to be very attractive; she hadn't expected that. He was a handsome, dashing man indeed. Lucky Melodia – except that she was also stuck with a former Desert Bandit. Her parents would have a fit of distress if she brought a thief home to meet them, handsome or not. No, on second thought, her mother would probably drag someone so delectable into the house and ask him to pose for one of her paintings so she could admire his body. And her father would attempt to analyze him to find out why he'd become a Desert Bandit in the first place. Bulma Briefs, you have strange parents, she told herself silently. She yawned and watched the scenery as best she could, considering how fast they were traveling.
**** **** ****
Prince Vegeta had been about to have a small snack before his pre-dinner sparring match with Nappa, when he got a sudden urge to go upstairs and get the Book out of the locked cabinet. Feh. Now the ghost is poking around my brain. I will have to humor him; otherwise he will pester me until I do. Back he went to his suite of rooms, retrieved the key and then the large volume, which he set on his worktable as he had done earlier in the day. It began "speaking" as soon as he opened it.
~Hello again, Prince Vegeta. I thought you would appreciate being apprised that the Blue-Haired Woman will be arriving within the hour.~
"What?!"
~She and the Five are on their way to the Forest.~
"So soon? That is impossible!"
~It can be and it is. Perhaps you would like to meet her there, though I imagine those who accompany her will be a sufficient match for the difficulties they will encounter. It is never a bad thing to greet one's Mate-to-Be. It saves problems later, trust me on this.~
"Spare the lecture on etiquette, ghost," snarled the prince, though fairly politely. "I'm not ready, damn it!"
~We have been through this before; you have no choice. None. Zero. Zilch. If I do say so myself, however, I believe you will be quite pleased with her.~
"That is impossible. She is Human, and weak, thus loathsome. Grrrr. So much for my training this evening." Prince Vegeta looked at the clock on the wall, which told him exactly what his automatic inner time sense had, that it was nearing small beast snack time.
~ Kindly remind me to say I told you so a week or two from now.~
"Ha. You may be a Mad Prophet Ghost, but you haven't reckoned with me. I have no heart. I despise weakness in all its forms. But I will put you away now, and go to greet the Human, or she will likely be devoured by one of the trees. They have not had a good meal since the warning signs were erected."
~Oh, I reckon with you very well, Dear Young Prince. It is you who do not fully reckon with Destiny. We will be speaking again in short order, and then we will see what we will see. Your heart is not nearly so cold and closed as you believe. Ah, and you might as well leave me here. I will need to converse with the Blue-Haired Woman very soon. No one else will dare to open the Book, so you need not worry about that.~
The prince nodded, and closed the Book, an unpleasant expression crossing his face. No. No. No. He did have a cold heart, and he would not find her pleasing. He refused to do so. He would take her as his formal mate, but she could live on the other side of the palace once the ceremony was over for all he cared. He put the Book back in its cabinet, and went to tell Radditz to arrange for the arrival of six unwanted guests, and the lowering of the barrier that kept outsiders away if the signs and the Forest were insufficient deterrents.
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"Look! We're here!" Goku was grinning cheerily, floating a few feet above the ground in front of a sign that read: Kingdom of Vegetable. Retreat Now or Forever Lose Your Head. Yamcha pulled up beside him and stopped the car.
"Friendly types, aren't they?" Krillin mused dazedly, as imaginary bluebirds of happiness circled his head. He was still stunned from what had happened not half an hour before. They had driven slowly through a small village, and a pretty blonde child had come out to stare at the shiny red car. After a moment, she had waved to them to stop. Then she had looked at the short man with piercing eyes, and told him that she didn't know why, but he was the one she was supposed to marry, and if he didn't come back and find her in a few years, she would have to find him, and she did not want to bother doing that, so he had better plan on returning to her. Then she turned around and vanished into the cottage from whence she came. Yamcha and Goku had enjoyed ribbing him over "his woman", but Krillin was unexpectedly happy. Because of his severe lack of height, he had always doubted he would ever find a girl to be seriously interested in him – so even the prospect of a future interest gave him something to hope for.
Bulma sighed. "Definitely not friendly. Ah, well, what can a beautiful young woman on a quest do but be courageous, and hope that all works out for the best. I imagine this is where I should get out. I shall undertake the rest of my quest on foot."
"Miss Bulma, don't be silly. We'll all go with you. My Chi-Chi's in there, too. This is where the baked bread-lemon smell stops," Goku said.
"Yeah, we're with you until the end!" added Krillin. Piccolo the Younger and Yamcha nodded. "At least until the end of the road," the small man amended, and gave one of his nervous laughs when he saw the green Demon glare at him in disgust. "I was joking, truly, I was."
Bulma squared her chin. Sooner or later, they were going to know why she'd come to Vegetable, but she was going to see how much later she could make any such disclosure. "Really, Goku, you should call it aroma or scent, not smell. Otherwise, it doesn't sound very flattering. Very well, let us go onward, and brave the Land of Vegetable. And…thank you all."
The flying cloud and its passenger and the convertible vehicle with its occupants moved on past the sign. A mile down the road, they came to a second sign. This one told them they were fools, and advised that they turn back before they were made into accordion files. Bulma had been admiring the landscape until then, not that it looked all that much different from the uniformly green Kingdom of Blue-Silver-Red, which they'd just left, but she figured that if she might be living here, she had better find something to admire about it. Then she saw something that made her insides turn to jelly. "Oh, please, not another scary forest," she groaned, realizing what mighty wood this must be. It stretched across the road, and as far as the eye could see. The Forest of Misbehavior: boundary to the hidden Kingdom of Vegetable.
"I don't like the looks of that place," Krillin said, whipping out a handkerchief from his jacket pocket and mopping his brow. He had never seen such trees before; their leaves were a green so bright it would never be found in nature, and their bark was black as a night with no moon.
"It does appear to be a doughty wood indeed," said the Demon Prince, breaking his silence for the first time in over an hour. He did not sound particularly frightened.
"If it's anything like the last forest, bring it on!" Goku jumped into the conversation with his usual enthusiasm for battle. "Maybe there will be more of those giant slimy worms, and we can have a contest to see who can toss them the furthest."
Yamcha blinked and turned pale. He never wanted to see a giant slimy worm again. The rotten things had made him, a strong fighter and a very masculine man, look like a girl, hadn't they?
Seeing him blanch, Bulma patted his shoulder in a surreptitious, sympathetic manner. "I don't think there are any of those nasty creatures in there," she whispered to him. The thief shrugged, essayed a smile, and, after a moment, regained his composure.
"Let's go!" chanted the Spargatian a few times, and he requested Kintoun to speed up.
"It will not be said of the Desert – er – Forest, er – Yamcha, the reformed Bandit, that he was afraid of a challenge!" declaimed said personage, and the car matched the cloud's speed.
All too soon, they were at the place where the road met the trees in a dark, forbidding line. Yet another sign awaited them. Munchy! Munchy! Munchy! We Like Human Crunchies. Leave Now or Face the Consequences of Your Misbehavior.
"I mislike this," Bulma said. She almost wished Father hadn't told her about the eligible bachelor who lived here. If the entrance to the Kingdom was this spooky, what must the rest of it be like? There was no way she would be living in a castle full of cobwebs and rats, absolutely no way. She would sooner stay unwed forever.
Piccolo the Younger turned to her. "Be not afraid, Miss Bulma. We will protect you. I came on this journey so that I would alleviate some of my boredom, and so far I have not been bored. All has been as Goku promised. I look forward to the mysteries that will unfold in the Forest, as well as the chance to fight something that will perchance be a greater challenge than worms. Let us go on."
The beauty bit her lip, and agreed. "Yes! We'll go, but you had better protect me in a properly knightly manner." Come to think of it, if Goku's vision was correct, they would all survive, so what was she worried about? Well, possibly being killed by the wheel-shaped object, and there were still the Vegetables to contend with…and…she had better stop thinking about this, or she'd never be able to pay enough attention to her surroundings to attempt to defend herself in case something did happen.
**** **** ****
"You look exceptionally stupid hanging from that branch like a monkey, Cauli!" snorted Lady Lima, as she leaned against a huge black oak-like tree. "What if the Prince should see you, or even worse, the Blue-Haired Woman?"
The teenaged Elite growled. "You take all the fun away, Sir Lady!" He backflipped, and landed with a purposeful thump in front of the gorgeous brunette with the twisty-spiky bangs. "Just what I always wanted to do, Human-sit." He peered through the trees. "They're coming in now – let's see what they think of the arrangements."
**** **** ****
"I don't like this place." Krillin looked up, down, sideways, and behind him as they entered the Forest. "It's too dark, for one."
Bulma said nothing, but she squeezed over a bit closer to Yamcha in the front seat. It was very dark. He smiled manfully, and straightened his back. "It will be just fine, Miss Bulma," he said quietly, returning her kind reassurance from earlier.
As it turned out, Yamcha was wrong, and the intrepid questers found this out rather rapidly when, without preamble, a wind started to whip up, and heavy, sharp-edged leaves to fall all over the vehicle. "Hell! I mean, dash it all!" the former bandit cursed as the leaves left razor marks on his skin. "I knew I shouldn't have spoken." Next to him, Bulma had her head down, rummaging in her knapsack, one arm up to protect her face from cuts.
Behind them, Krillin and Prince Piccolo were batting at the killer leaves without much efficiency. "I take the utmost umbrage at this!" the green giant growled, and started aiming pinpoint ki blasts at them. That worked, but the rain of leaves didn't cease. "Thief, will you hurry up and get us out of here?"
"It's a little difficult to drive when you can't see, Prince Pickle!" Yamcha retorted.
"You shouldn't have said that…" Bulma said urgently, as she found the capsule she wanted. She decapsulated it, and a giant, storm-resistant umbrella sprang up around the vehicle, protecting them from the razor leaves.
"Why not, milady? Hi, that's a pretty impressive contraption!" Yamcha reached up and adjusted the umbrella so it wasn't hanging over his eyes.
"She warns you not to insult me, because she understands that, as a rule, I do not like Humans, and especially not foolish ones such as yourself," answered the Demon. "It would be easy for me to kill you, but as I am no idiot, and I comprehend you are needed for the future safety of Miss Bulma, I leave you alive."
"Well, thank you!" Yamcha said, voice heavy with sarcasm.
"Stop being such men!" the blue-haired woman yelled as they jolted along the path. "You don't have to be touchy over every little thing! The leaves aren't hurting us now, but we still have a problem. Goku's out there, and he has no protection. So shelve your egos."
"Hmph," said Piccolo, but he leaned back against the seat as Krillin and Pu'ar breathed sighs of relief
"I've got to adjust this umbrella so Goku can get under it," Bulma muttered, shifting around beneath her seatbelt so that she could maneuver the canvas into a better position. "Goku! What's happening to you? Are you all right?" she called as loudly as she could over the whipping wind and the whapping of the leaves against the thick umbrella.
"Sure. I'm fine!" the Spargatian replied, sounding as though he was a bit out of breath. "I've got a few cuts, but I'll survive. Whoa!" There was a loud smacking sound, and then a thud-crunch-thud. "Hey, you damn tree, let go of me!"
"Goku!" Bulma turned her attention back to Yamcha, who was trying to drive one-handed, and fight off the leaves that had suddenly seemed to figure out how to find their way below the giant umbrella. "We have to help him!"
"By the Ones, are these things alive?" The former Desert Bandit braked the Speed Warrior quickly as he spoke. Bulma re-encapsulated the umbrella, and Yamcha backed them up amidst falling instruments of pain to the spot where they could see, just barely, Goku being held prisoner by a tree branch. It had pinned him against the trunk, and he was having little success in freeing himself. There were thin cuts all over his face and arms.
Piccolo the Younger leapt from the Speed Warrior, and raced over to the place where Goku was being restrained. There he made a valiant attempt to pry off the branch that was crushing the young fighter. Sadly, this did not work, as a second branch came down and hit him over the head. Stunned, he fell to the ground amidst a welter of sharp green leaves.
"Noooo!" Bulma turned her head back and forth from Krillin to Yamcha. "Help them!"
The young man jumped out of the car, raised himself up proudly, and took a defensive position. He seemed almost to be in meditation for a moment, and then, with a shout of "Ayiiiieeee! Wolf Shadow Torque Twister!" he charged at the tree. Sparks flew, and the large trunk shuddered, as whatever power he'd thrown at it impacted with the bark.
Below him and to the side, Piccolo coped with a handful of fallen branches and the ever-menacing leaves. Managing to overpower them with his ki, he struggled to his feet. "You will not do that to me again!"
Just then, Bulma the Beautiful screamed. One of the trees from the other side of the path had snuck upon her, and wrapped her in a viney embrace. Krillin wheeled around, and though he knew it would be futile, tried his hardest to pry the vines away from the young woman as she was dragged from the Speed Warrior. A branch in the stomach was his reward. He fell out of the car, and over on his back with a grunt, and then popped back up. "You won't stop me, tree!" he said with brave, if perhaps, unrealistic expectations – once he'd caught his breath.
"Holy Ones, this bastard is trying to eat me!" Goku looked down at his left arm, which now sported deep, bloody gash marks. "I'll have to use my ki after all."
"Somebody DO something!" Bulma demanded, as she was crushed flat against uncomfortable bark. "It's nibbling the back of my shirt – how perverted is that?"
"We're trying!" Yamcha answered, just before he was whacked on the chin by yet another branch. "Lord Yamcha!" squeaked Pu'ar, flying to him and making little sounds of distress.
"Try harder!" The young woman strained to get free, wondering if this would be the most opportune time to use her Exploding Nerve-Numbing Gas Capsule, if she could even manage to reach it. No, it wouldn't be possible, because she couldn't even move her arms. Drat a thousand times.
***** *****
While the Beauty and her Five Protectors were fighting with the man-eating trees, not too far away, four warriors congregated. "Listen to them squalling." Prince Vegeta shook his head. "They are pathetic. I am considering letting the trees devour them, and then the world will no longer have to deal with their weakness and stupidity."
Nappa snickered. Lady Lima smiled wolfishly. Cauli guffawed. The prince smirked. Of course, he had no intention of leaving them to become tree mulch, but the thought had been an amusing one.
"Hell, let us go rescue the fools," he said. "For heroes of prophecy, they are doing damnably badly already." The prince kept it to himself, but he was thinking that perhaps the Book had some explaining to do. He would have to taunt it a little when he got back. He spun, and stalked through the trees, which wisely kept away from him, hearing the remaining three fighters following in silence. Now was his chance to see what the Blue-Haired Woman looked like, before she saw him.
They came to the spot where all the activity was going on, and halted. The prince looked down the lines of trees, and saw various beings trapped against trunks, fallen on the ground, or trying to use lower-level ki powers to attack their captors.
"I am never going to look at a tree the same way again – if I live through this!" came a sweet yet shrill voice off to Prince Vegeta's left, and he turned to look…and it felt to him as though someone had turned an hourglass upside down in his stomach and temporarily stopped time. His tail twitched thrice.
Damn it. She is beau…no, no, she is not. I did not just think that. Nay, she is the most unappealing female I have ever set eyes on. He viewed the Woman, in her tan shirt and trousers, bound by vines, her braided aqua hair unkempt, and something…twisted inside him. Something not easily controlled and therefore hateful. Something he did not understand in the least.
"She has an appealing appearance," Lima whispered to him.
"She does not," he answered in his darkest voice. Lima merely smiled at him. "Well, why do we hesitate?" he asked the others gruffly. "We save them now so they will aid us later." He strode forward, and stopped in front of the Blue-Haired Woman. The leaves skittered out of his path as he went, for the trees knew he had the power to raze the whole forest if he chose. "I see that you are the Blue-Haired Woman," he said. What he thought was, What kind of idiotic statement was that, imbecile? Of course that is who she is.
She gave him a blank stare, and continued her efforts to free herself. "Who in the world are you? Never mind that, just get me out of this mess!"
She is ordering me around? Who does she think she is? What an attitude. The prince stepped back, and said, "Let her go." The vines uncoiled, and disappeared behind the tree.
Bulma stumbled forward, rubbing at her arms. "Thank you. How did you do that? Are you a Wizard? But what about my companions?"
There was a sudden flash of light and a sizzling sound from the other side of the road, and everyone turned to stare. "I hate to do harm to nature, but you have to learn that it's not right for you to hurt people who mean you no harm!" Goku fell away from the tree, which was now missing a few branches, and landed on his feet, wiping at a blood-covered face. Piccolo, Krillin, and Yamcha, who had also been busy taking care of as many leaves and branches as they could, lined up next to him. Pu'ar hovered slightly behind them.
The leaves stopped falling at a gesture from the prince. "You did not save any of them," he said to Nappa, who was now standing to his right.
"I didn't need to, my Prince. As you saw, they were able to do it all on their own."
Bulma, to the prince's left, almost fell over. That tall bald man called the short one my Prince? So he is the Handsome Prince of the Vegetables? These are the icky were-monkeys? She heard a sound and turned to see two more – a brown-haired youth, and a young, black haired female Vegetable. Both were smiling at her. No, they were not icky in the least. They were fierce and sharp faced and of dangerous mien, but they were all attractive. She wasn't sure she'd call the Vegetable Prince "handsome", however, not at first sight. Perhaps his looks grew on one as time passed. Those glamour magazines were all the same; if a person had a lot of money or was of high rank, they automatically became ten times better looking than they actually were.
She glanced at the prince while pretending she wasn't looking, so she could garner a second impression of him. He wasn't much taller than the lady were-monkey; in fact, he might even be shorter than she herself was. He was dressed in some sort of tight black armor and white boots, with a white chest protector. It showed off how muscular and well proportioned he was, for such a small person. Hmmmm. That's a definite plus factor on the Eligible Male Scale. He had a furry belt wrapped around his waist…no, wait, she decided, that must be his tail. The three "non-bald" Vegetables all had very odd, spiky hair, quite reminiscent of Goku's. The prince's hair stood up and away from his head, starting from what seemed to be a natural widow's peak. She wondered how it could stay up in that manner; it veritably defied gravity. He had somewhat of a bulging forehead, on which the veins stood out sharply, and a certain ferocious, intense quality that intrigued her very much. She was interrupted in her tabulation of his worth on the all-important Scale when the shortest of the Vegetables spoke.
"Who the hell are you?"
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Ah, Dear Readers, 'tis not much of a hanger of cliffs, but it was the best place to end this chapter that the Author could find. Thank you as always for your attention, and I, Timaeus, the Unhappy Narrator, shall return to my new, regularly scheduled brooding.
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Thanks for reading, reviewing, what have you! ^_^
