Chapter 3 – speculations

(A/N - For all of those who were puzzled, Bulma's memory is from an actual episode of Dragonball. It is set back in the second World Martial Arts Tournament that Goku attended – the one where he met Tien and Chiao-tsu. Yamcha got beaten up by Tien in the first match, and spends most of the rest of the tournament in hospital. I don't think he was really possessed by Vegeta at any point – although we wouldn't be able to know for certain ^_~ For those of you with Pay TV, its actually round about where we are now on Cartoon Network. If you live in America though, disregard that, cause I am of course talking about the Australian programs.)

Vegeta trained.

He studied the layout of the room carefully. He knew that in the shadows lurked enemies waiting for him, but he could see nothing. He waited, senses attuned to his surroundings. All was still.

Suddenly, there was a faint change in the air pressure behind him. He turned and kicked out smoothly, and a faceless soldier crumpled as Vegeta's foot connected with his neck. The simulacrum toppled backwards and vanished before it hit the floor. As it went down Vegeta caught a faint glimpse of blue hair out of the corner of his eye. He swung round to face it, but it had disappeared. He had no time to reflect on this, because at that moment, a horde of soldiers sprung on him from all sides, attacking him in an eerie, deadly silence.

Vegeta fought them off, his carefully trained mind blank except for the endless instructions that flowed easily from his brain to his body. Block, block, kick, step, punch, back, punch, block…The computer generated soldiers collapsed silently under his onslaught, only to be replaced by more. Vegeta struck out at the soldier directly in front of him, hitting the nerve endings at the top of the spinal cord, causing it to fall to the ground. He spun round, raising his hand again to deal with the next opponent, and came crashing to a halt. In front of him was Bulma. She stood amidst the faceless soldiers, her head cocked to one side. A faint smile played across her mouth, as if she found him amusing. Vegeta gaped at her, then his eyes widened in pain, as a soldier caught him a blow on his neck. He fell to his knees, his vision going black.

The lights brightened, and Vegeta found himself on his knees in the centre of the gravity room. A screen on the wall above him told him that he had been ejected out of the training program, having failed the mission. Cursing to himself, Vegeta stood up, and grabbed a towel from the rack. He wiped the sweat from his body, then grabbed a bottle of water. He took a long, cool drink, letting the water trickle down his throat. Emptying the bottle, he threw it angrily against the wall.

Why couldn't he get that girl out of his head? He had fled to the gravity room as soon as the had quitted Bulma's room last night. The sun was now high, and his concentration level was still inexcusably poor.

In the past, during training was the one time when he could successfully forget everything that troubled him. All of the dark spectres of his past that rose up in his mind to haunt him (A/N - cause that's what spectres do right? Haunt people…^_^) would be banished by the intensity of focus he gained. The peace that came from total concentration would envelop him, and he would spend hours here, wrapped in the silence of his own mind. But now the onna had invaded even here, forcing him to break his concentration, and be defeated by a relatively simple program, one that didn't even deal with energy emissions. What was the matter with him?

It was all her fault, he decided.

He leaned against the wall as the events of the previous night flickered through his mind. Some time in the early hours of the morning, Bulma had been ensnared by the web of a strange creature. It had lured her onto the mental plane and into a trap. Vegeta had tried to penetrate the wall of glamour around her, and found himself drawn into the dream. He had suddenly appeared in her dream, apparently in the guise of that fool Yamcha.

In actual fact Vegeta guessed that the dream was closer to a memory. Bulma had looked younger, and her hair was cropped short. She had not appeared to have noticed that Vegeta was suddenly impersonating her then boyfriend. Yet he himself had been aware of everything. Frowning, he attributed this to the fact that the trap was spun for Bulma, thus it was only her point of view that mattered. He had discovered he could not enter her memory as himself, and realised why when he appeared. The moments Bulma was reliving had occurred in the past, before she had met him. Therefore it was not possible that he could have materialized as himself because then it would not be true to the memory. Vegeta had encountered traps like this before, and he understood that they followed strict rules. Most tellingly of all that it had been a memory was the chibi Kakarrot that had wandered into his room. By guessing at his age, Vegeta had been able to determine that this particular scene had occurred about ten years ago.

Once inside the glamour, he had sought to find ways to break its hold over them both. However he found that his actions were circumscribed by the rules of the game. He could make minor changes, such as sit up where Yamcha might have remained lying down, but he could not spring out of bed and blow the chibi Kakarrot to pieces, simply because he was playing the role of Yamcha, and Bulma's mind would not be able to comprehend such a development. So he had been forced to lie there, trying to work out how to break the himself and the onna out of the mind-trap they were stuck in. He ignored Bulma he fussed around him, fixing his pillows and other such foolishness.

And then she had bent over him, eyes closed. Vegeta was still fuming silently about the reference to chibi Kakarrot, so he wasn't prepared for what she did.

She kissed him.

Not a passionate embrace, but a warm brushing of her lips against his. He froze, unable to move. It felt like an old lovers kiss, tender and affectionate.

Not that he had any experience with the phenomenon.

Vegeta groaned. Why am I even still thinking about this? he raged inwardly. Its not as if she meant to kiss me anyway.

He shook his head violently, trying to chase the unruly thoughts out of his brain though force. He had been so shocked by the kiss that the surprise had jolted his grip on the memory. Abruptly, he had found himself in his own body again, staring at Bulma as she continued to stand lifeless in the middle of her room. He had hesitated, knowing he should wake her up, but not knowing quite how. He certainly wasn't going to enter her head again.

But in a few seconds, Bulma solved his problem for him by starting awake. He phased out hurriedly before she could become aware of him standing in the middle of her room at some ungodly hour of the morning and reappeared outside her door. He retreated out of the house, and fled to the gravity chamber. Dawn was only a few hours off, after all. He trained vigorously until the suns first light touched the eastern sky.

It was only then, hours later that he remembered the intruder that had sent him up to Bulma's room in the first place. Cursing, he made a quick sweep of the house, but to no avail. The intruder and its.. creature.. were long gone.

Vegeta scowled again, and pushed himself up off the wall. It was no good just standing here thinking about it. He should to go and make another search of Capsule Corp. Something told Vegeta that it was vital for him to find out who the midnight intruder was without any more delay. More importantly he had to discover why he was playing around with Bulma's memories.

~*~

The lunch bell rang.

Kalika spotted Jalen making his way across the courtyard towards the employee restaurant. She sped up to intercept him.

"Jalen!"

The tall blond swung round at the sound of his name, and he smiled as he caught sight of Kalika making her way through the press of hungry employees. He stopped to wait for her, and she caught up with him.

"Hello, Ms Tshibo," he said.

"You don't have to call me that Jalen," she said with a smile. "My name is Kalika."

A strange expression, almost like sorrow, flitted across Jalen's face. "If its all the same, I don't think I would feel comfortable with that," he said. "You are my superior after all. "

"Nonsense," said Kalika firmly. "We all work together here at Capsule Corp."

"Thank you," he said politely, but Kalika noticed that he omitted to call her by name.

"What's wrong, Jalen?" she asked. "You seem a bit distant today. Did Ms Briefs apologise to you yet for yesterday?"

"Yes," said Jalen. "She caught up with me in the afternoon, just as you said she would."

"There you are then," said Kalika, smiling warmly. "I told you things are going to be alright."

They two of them lapsed into silence as Vegeta strode past on his way to the family quarters. Jalen watched him go by almost hungrily. Kalika noticed, and wondered for a few seconds if he was gay. That would certainty explain his strange interest in Vegeta, and why he wasn't returning her advances as promptly as she had been accustomed to.

As she studied his profile however, she decided against it. She had no real proof, and it she would rather not cross him off her list until she was sure. Jalen was just too cute to let slip through her fingers through lack of dedication.

Even as she stared at him, he turned suddenly and smiled at her, a real smile.

"Yes," he said.

"Yes what?" asked Kalika, who had completely forgotten their conversation.

"Yes, you are right." he said, his eyes still following Vegeta. "I think things are going to work out just fine."

~*~

Bulma sat at her desk in her lab, staring at the new blueprints for Vegeta's robots without really registering what they said. Finally, she pushed the papers to the side in disgust. She just couldn't concentrate today.

Bulma was feeling lonely. It had been a few months now since she had broken up with Yamcha, and suddenly she missed him. She could see him now in her minds eye, laughing at some joke and sharing his ice-cream with her.

Maybe she should call him.

Not for a date, of course. No, she didn't want to get messed up in that again. But it would be nice…to just see him for a while. For some reason, the old times with Yamcha were very vivid today. It had been a while now since she had gone anywhere for fun, what with the whole android thing taking over everyone's lives. Maybe Yamcha would stop training long enough to come and have coffee with her. Or lunch, even. There was nothing wrong with lunch. They could go to the old restaurant where they used to go on their dates.

Not that this would be a date.

Because she was definitely over Yamcha.

Definitely.

Yes.

So it wouldn't really be a problem if they had lunch together at their favourite restaurant and maybe even went to the movies afterwards, because they were not a couple anymore. It would be just two friends, hanging out in a perfectly normal, non-romantic way.

Bulma groaned and dropped her head down on her desk. She wasn't even fooling herself. She swung around on her chair and gazed out the window.

The truth was, she admitted to herself, it wasn't Yamcha that she missed so badly, but his companionship. If only there was someone around for her to talk to! All her friends were so busy training for the androids coming that she had effectively lost all her companions in one blow. Bulma worked at Capsule Corp so irregularly that she had never bothered to make more than casual friendships with her colleagues. The z gang had provided enough excitement on their own to leave little room in her life for new friends.

Bulma sighed and swung back around to her desk. Maybe she should ring Yamcha. All the work that she really had to do was already done. All she was doing here now was playing with some new designs for Vegeta's gravity room. They could wait while she took a personal day. Hopefully Yamcha would be able to take the same view. She was willing to take the chance. Anything would be better than being by herself for another day.

As her hand hovered over the phone, the door to her flew open. Bulma swung

around expecting to see her father, or one of her colleagues come and tell her it was time for lunch. To her surprise, instead she saw Vegeta enter. He stooped abruptly in the doorway when he saw her though.

"What are you doing here?" said Bulma, surprise showing in her voice. Vegeta had never come into one of the labs before. Usually he oscillated between the kitchen, the gravity chamber and his own room, leaving the rest of the house strictly alone as if he didn't want to trespass on her hospitality any more than he could help.

He obviously had not expected that she would be in here. He stood stock still in the doorway, like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a car, the surprise written across his face plainly for the brief second before he regained his usual control. Bulma could see him hesitate in the doorway, as if on the edge of leaving.

"No, wait," she said, unwilling to let only chance at company for the day disappear without at least an explanation to salve her curiosity. "Come in," she added more cordially. "Don't mind me being here. What did you want?"

Vegeta eased into the room, looking more like a strange cat in someone elses yard now as he edged into the room while trying to remain as far away from her as possible. Bulma noticed this, and frowned. "What's the matter Vegeta?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" he said roughly, scowling at her.

"I mean you," she said. "What's up with you today? First I hear from my mom that you skipped breakfast, and now you're acting like you're afraid of me."

Vegeta stopped edging around the room abruptly, a dark flush coming to his cheeks. "As if anyone would be afraid of you," he scoffed, but there was an uneasiness lying underneath his words. His eyes watched her warily, as if he expected her to jump up and start attacking him at any moment.

Bulma let the subject drop, puzzled by his behaviour.

"So what do you want in here?" she said.

Vegeta did not reply. Bulma let the silence drag out, staring at him until it became clear that she would not let him go without an answer

Finally, Vegeta said curtly, "I'm looking for something."

"What?" she asked curiously. "All this stuff is mine." A thought occurred to her. "Aren't you missing lunch by being in here?"

He ignored that, and began looking intently at the floor. Bulma looked down as well, but all she could see was the familiar lino pattern that covered the cement that lay underneath. She looked back at Vegeta, who now seemed to be sniffing the air as if he could smell what he was looking for. Come to think of it, thought Bulma wryly, he probably can with that sayian nose of his.

She stared at him, as he stood in the middle of the lab with his eyes half shut. She couldn't even guess what he was looking for. He wasn't paying any attention to the things she had scattered around the lab, but rather seemed more interested in the air.

Without warning he looked up and saw her staring at him. She opened her mouth to make some smart comment, but the words died on her lips when she caught sight of his face. There was something strange about his expression…

Vegeta flushed even deeper again, which was strange in itself, as she had never seen Vegeta display anything other than anger, detachment, or mocking humour. Now he seemed almost … embarrassed.

As if sensing her train of thought, Vegeta turned abruptly and left. Bulma sat in her chair, staring at the door, her phone call to Yamcha forgotten. He had left without telling her the reason he had come in or what he was looking for. Even more confusing, he had skipped breakfast this morning, and now it appeared that he would skip lunch as well. That was not like Vegeta at all.

Now what the hell is he up to? thought Bulma. Whatever it is, I bet I can find out. She grinned to herself. Suddenly her day seemed a lot more interesting.

~*~

"Last night went far better than we expected, Remmy," Jalen said to his most unusual pet. Remmy cocked his head at Jalen, as if he wasn't so sure.

"No really," said Jalen, smiling down at him. "I know we didn't manage to get past Vegeta's mental barriers, but the trap you spun for the girl was perfect. I watched it on tape this morning, and from what the readings say, she wasn't even aware that she was dreaming. She thought it was the real deal."

Remmy made a faint rumbling noise.

"I know, I did record some initial doubt, but the deeper she sank into the induced memory, the less her mind struggled. I'll admit we have never tried this technique on humans before, so I did have some preliminary uncertainties, but last night's experiment proves that humans are most susceptible to mental manipulation. Good work, Remmy."

Remmy purred happily, rubbing his head against Jalen's hand. Jalen laughed, and scratched him obligingly behind the ear for a few seconds before resuming their conversation.

"And you know what was the best bit about last night?" he asked Remmy.

Remmy stopped and looked up at Jalen inquiringly.

"The best part," said Jalen, relishing the words, "is that Vegeta entered the dream of his own volition."

Remmy cocked his head to one side. He could smell his master's excitement, and he looked inquisitively at Jalen, the question clear in his huge brown eyes. Jalen caught the look and smiled back, his eyes alight.

"Don't you see, Rem? We couldn't even catch hold of a trace of Vegeta's mind by ourselves. His mental barriers are naturally high, being a saiyan, and this no Ouji has exceptionally opaque ones, no doubt due to his unique childhood. But, while we couldn't even hold him still long enough to identify him properly, when we went after the girl, he let them all down of his own accord to rescue her." Jalen laughed. "He even lost control over his own astral projection while he was in the dream. He couldn't even maintain basic contact."

Jalen grinned at Remmy, raising his voice in excitement. "Its all so easy now. This is how we can go after Vegeta All we have to do is ensnare the girl in another dream-net, wait til he goes after her, and then attack him there, where he is helpless! It's a perfect plan!"

Jalen dropped his voice again, his eyes hardening. "And then, when we have him in our control, we can sift through his mind at our leisure until we find the evidence that we need."

He lapsed into silence, stroking Remmy's head absently as he thought.

Remmy looked up at his master, confused. He could sense the sudden change of mood, and it worried him. Jalen continued to stare out into space, his eyes seeing something that no one else could see. His hand on Remmy's neck was trembling, and suddenly Jalen smelt like old anger.

"My Alaria," he whispered, sharp sorrow clinging to his voice. "Sweet Alaria. I'll find out what he's done to you." He looked away into the distance.

"And then I will kill him for it."

Next time on Aishiteru, Jalen and Remmy spin another dream-web for Bulma, but what will they catch instead? Will Vegeta fall for Jalen's plan so easily? And what are the mysterious pair really looking for? Find out next time ^_~

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Lalala. Chapter three finished. It was a bit hurried, so I'm sorry if it sounds a bit rushed, or if there are any mistakes. If you see any please tell me, I hate spelling mistakes almost as much as I do tomatoes (it's a long story )

What did you guys think? As you can see, nothing really happens in this chappie, its just a building point for me to plan the next bit, kinda like chapter one was. I also used one of my favourite words an unseemly amount of times, can anyone guess what it is? Estoy muy perdone for that, but I don't really like to use suddenly that much, and that's really the only other synonym for it. Well, that I like anyway. If anyone can suggest a better one, please do.

Enough rambling. Muchos gracias to Tempest and DBZ Fanfiction Queen for reviewing again. You guys rock ^_~