Forever Dormant
Chapter 3 Prince Napping
The prince could see nothing but darkness for a moments on end. Then noises came into his head, like the buzzing of voices. Someone had begun screaming and another was the heart-wrenching sound of a small child crying.
"Goten! What's wrong? You have to tell me what's the matter." Goku urged his youngest son. "Please Goten stop screaming. You're OK, nothing is hurting you, daddy's here." The saiyan tried to embrace his child, but Goten pushed on his chest and stepped back a few paces.
"Make them go away! I don't want to see them anymore. GET THEM AWAY FROM ME!" yelled Goten. He seemed panicked as if something had been after him. His face went ghostly pale and a small whimper could be heard in his voice.
Chi-chi rushed to her son but seeing he wouldn't accept physical comfort from her husband, she didn't try to hug him. "Goku, what's wrong with him?" She clenched her fist and put it up to her face.
The prince heard all as the voices became clearer. He opened his eyes slowly as he sensed the tense air around him. All the effort it took to open his eyes and retain full consciousness caused him to groan. Upon this noise leaving his throat he turned on his side in an attempt to stand.
From the noise the prince made, everyone with the exception of Chi-chi and Goku looked back to Vegeta. Their attention had been taken by Goten and his irregular behavior.
Bulma rushed back to him, "Vegeta, are you okay?" Her voice shaky and her eyes welling with tears.
The back of his head throbbed and his arms stung but it was nothing in comparison to what he felt in the dream. The beating had felt so real. "Leave me alone woman." He shrugged her off. Then he thought for a moment why he hurt where he did if not for the dream. Realization dawned on him as he looked at Goku. "Kakarrot!"
Goku momentarily turned from his terrified son and gave Vegeta his attention. "Yeah?"
The prince felt no sympathy for the man with a hysterical child as he began to accuse him. "You knocked me out! How dare you? I had no desire to experience anymore of these horrors and you made it so. What could have possibly compelled you to do act this way?" Vegeta demanded.
The taller saiyan looked to Bulma for advice, but Vegeta took the clue. The prince looked to her, "So it was you. You and your curiosity. Why must you always invade such matters that I do not wish anyone to understand?" He yelled at her.
"Well I'm sorry if I felt a need to protect you. To understand what was wrong so I could help make it better." She retorted drying tears still in her eyes.
Vegeta shook with rage and began to power up. He looked wildly from one face to another in near hopes of finding someone on his side. He encountered no such luck.
Goten finally stopped throwing a fit and shrank against the powerful force. All the respect and fear for the saiyan prince returned in that instant and maybe if he became perfectly still and perfectly silent, the prince wouldn't hurt him. Pure saiyan instinct told him the dominant wouldn't hurt the submissive if the submissive was lucky.
Even Goten's sudden obedience didn't calm Vegeta as he jettisoned off the face of the earth and flew towards only the gods knew where. Goku began to power up and was prepared to follow his angered prince. Just then, Bulma grabbed his shoulder and shouted, "Wait Goku."
The blue haired woman sighed and continued, "Please Goku, he needs time to cool down. He'll come back when he's ready. By following him, you'll only make things worse."
The earth raised saiyan nodded at her in defeat, "You're right Bulma. We'll just have to give this some time." The next was whispered to her, "Let's try to keep the picnic going, everyone is going to need something to take their minds off this whole incident."
Bulma understood her good friend's meaning, "Yes, let's try to make the most of all this."
The two friends turned back to their family and friends and the picnic went on.
Vegeta's flight had taken him to a distant mountain range. Streaks of air followed him like white ribbons as he flew. His feet touched the ground and he sat at the edge. One leg dangled off the side of the cliff, the other was bent so he could rest his chin on his knee, and he crossed his arms over his mouth. At that time he smelled blood, his blood. In his dreams he'd marred at them to struggle against the vision.
'Why am I getting these stupid dreams? There has got to be a reason. I wish I knew it, then I could overcome it.'
Meanwhile, from a cloaked spaceship, a woman watched him. The female slid her delicate fingers over the monitor and giggled to herself, "Soon my prince you will be mine. What a wonderful addition you will make to my collection."
The prince began to feel a pressure between his eyes. How bothersome, a headache. He surrendered to the fact that such an offensive discomfort would be brought of from hunger. Vegeta flew back to Capsule Corp to find the woman and the brats hadn't returned home yet, they were obviously still at the blasted picnic.
The prince raided the fridge and concocted himself a sandwich with some left over steak. All he needed was something to take the edge off his hunger, then he could relax with some intense training. Bulma had pulled him away from it for the stupid picnic and now he could return.
When the sandwich had been finished, he munched the crust on his way to the gravity chamber. The routine was the same as always. Open the door, climb up the ladder, and turn on whatever program he wanted. He decided on the laser course most recently installed by his mate.
Lasers would shoot out from the walls and he had to get to the other side of the room without getting hit with a laser. If he touched the beam of light it would send an electric shock through him. Not enough to take him out of the air, but enough to hurt. It was a test of agility for the lasers were only just barely visible and moved constantly.
The prince was ready to start. He set the gravity machine to 1000 and to increase 10 every 10 minutes. Also he set the laser beams to increase speed every 5 minutes. He flew about 10 feet in the air and the lasers turned on. They looked entangled like a spider web if you could see them. Many times he was so close he could feel the hint of pressure radiating from them but hardly ever did any quite graze him. He phased out and phased in two feet ahead of his previous position. Next he took a left and then down. Up and over the next one then as low as he could duck and still be in the air. He was almost to the other end. Quickly to the right and down. Vegeta came up and touched the wall on the other side of the room. Then he sped off to the last one again.
He kept this up for 45 minutes. Growing bored of it he turned off the lasers continued with free style punches and kicks. The prince always had fun training but nothing was more invigorating than a good spar with a being that would be a challenge.
Bulma and the two children returned to the building around 8 o'clock in the evening. She hoped Vegeta came home and heaved a sigh of relief to hear the hum of the gravity machine. He'd work everything out through a little training time. With protests from her son and a yawn from her daughter she took her two young children to bed so they could be well rested for their last day of school.
Vegeta finally left his gravity machine around two o'clock in the morning. He had showered and began his walk toward the capsule corp. building. He felt a pull of positive energy from the sky and looked up. Earth had somehow pulled into orbit a new moon. He examined each of the other planets in the milky way system. Mars was missing a moon. How was that possible?
'Maybe some alien kids borrowing their dad's space cruiser bumped into it and knocked it into earth's orbit.' It sounded ridiculous even to him, but it was the most reasonable thing he could think of. He felt compelled by the same force to look back at the new moon. "Oh no, it's full!"
He felt a ripple of pain run up and down his spine. Pain exploded from there all over his body. A sudden rip of his clothing and he felt something swish behind him. The new feeling made him lose his balance. His body still hurt more than his earlier dream but after riding the pain for a few moments it began to let up. He looked behind him and noticed he now had his tail back.
"Oh thank the Gods, my tail." He grabbed it and hugged it to himself. "I am not losing you ever again." He had never had to grow his tail back before meeting Kakarrot because he never had lost it, therefore didn't know he could grow it back. Now that his tail, the symbol of being a saiyan, was reunited with him his relief could not be measured. Losing his tail had been like losing a part of himself, which it literally had been. He glanced at the building and noticed it still had a roof so Trunks and Bra must have been asleep.
He stood up and felt compelled to look back up at the moon. Unable to fight the urge his eyes turned red and he felt the fangs start to develop from his canines. Luckily Vegeta could control turning oozaru but it took a lot of energy for such control. He wished he could turn into that powerful were monkey. He missed going on rampages and seeing civilizations quiver before him. However, that was no longer his life. Quickly turning his gaze, his eyes and teeth came back to normal. Then he noticed a girl stood in front of him.
"Is that tail of yours real?" He questioned her.
"Why yes it is." she replied. "Is yours?"
"Who wants to know?" The prince cross examined and crossed his arms.
"Then perhaps you know who I am looking for." The mysterious girl stated.
"Of course, Kakarrot's house is 500 miles away in the mountains you can't miss it." He informed her annoyed.
"Oh no, I am not looking for him." She shot also annoyed.
"Well I don't know any other full saiyans you might be looking for." Vegeta growled.
"You don't? Oh come now I am sure you have heard of prince Vegeta. Isn't that right your majesty?" The girl purred.
"How did you know it was me and what do you want me for?" He demanded but didn't receive a reply. She had taken out a dart and thrown it. Had it been any other time he could have dodged it, but he still ached all over from having grown his tail back and refusing to turn oozaru when he looked at the moon. It buried itself in his neck. A dizzy feeling washed over him and everything went dark.