Chapter Eight: Guilty Soul
A/N: Hey! Wassup! Hola! Konnichiwa! Aloha! Bonjour! Hi! Greetings! Salut! Hello, and Yo!
WARNINGS: Vegeta is really OOC (Out of Character) in the beginning of the chapter, but just act like he's in a really good mood, okay? Okay.
A/N: I just found a really screwed up review for the story by someone named "Kay"… and I just wanna say that I'm not gonna get mad. Not worth it. And if you think that the story sucked so much, why did you even bother to review? And no, the element of surprise is my best friend, so Vegeta won't start to like/love Clarice in any way. Actually, kinda like a sister, but nothing more. He actually begins to hate her later on… but I won't say anything more. It'll ruin the story for the smarter people reading it.
"Ah man, I love the city at night," sighed Bra dreamily, staring out the window, a look of awe on her face.
Vegeta slowed the car to a stop as the light turned red, one arm sitting on the frame of the open window, his other forearm resting lazily on the steering wheel.
He turned to look at Bra for a moment, then "hmphed" and drove on as the light changed color.
"You'd better not fall asleep," he growled, "I don't want to have done all of this for no reason..."
Bra laughed and sat up, gazing out at the street ahead of her.
"Bra..."
She turned to see Vegeta, looking...
Guilty?
"Yeah?"
"When I yelled at you earlier," he continued, scowling with frustration, "...I... I didn't care for it."
'He didn't care for it...?' thought Bra, looking confused. Suddenly she smiled and nodded in understanding. She knew he wasn't very good at saying he was sorry... he was apologizing.
"It's okay, Dad," she said, petting his arm gently.
Looking immensely relieved, Vegeta turned the car into the parking lot of the large mall and turned off the ignition, shoving the keys into his pocket.
"Shall we?" he said, a hint of a smile on his usually stern face.
"We shall!" cried Bra, getting out of the car and running around to his side.
Laughing, she hooked her arm around his, skipping toward the large building.
Once inside the building, Bra began babbling ("I want that, I want that, and Ooh, I want that, too! Daddy, that would look really good on you-!") and running in and out of every store, grabbing dresses, shoes, accessories, everything she could find - and charging it on her (many) credit cards.
Vegeta groaned and struggled to look at his watch, his wrist and forearm caught beneath an exceptionally large pile of bags and boxes that Bra had made him carry.
He finally managed to shift all of the shopping bags onto one arm and looked at his watch, his eyes widening - they'd only been there about half an hour.
"Kami," he groaned, shifting the bags again so that they were sitting with equal weight on each arm, "Bra, if you trained the way you shop, you'd have reached super-saiyajin four already."
Bra laughed and shook her head, looking through a particularly large rack of pink clothes.
"I don't like training, Daddy. It's gross. You get all sweaty and sticky and bloody and smelly..."
Vegeta sighed, giving up. It was one of his latest attempts to get Bra to train, at least a little bit, but she never seemed to like the idea of it.
"Toe...! Iyu, subote gimka shukai mil...."
Vegeta gasped. Had he just heard what he'd thought he'd heard...? Someone was speaking in Saiyago....?
"Plir... ut - shut up!"
He sighed. He was probably imagining it.
"Daddy? Daddy, are you okay?"
"Huh...?"
"You look kinda sad about something..."
"I'm fine."
"Are you sure-"
"I said I'm fine."
Bra decided to quit while she was ahead; she didn't want to get him into a bad mood again. Deciding to leave the store she was in (she'd never find a pair of shoes to match the dress) she walked out of the store, Vegeta following her half-heartedly.
"Where should we go next...?" thought Bra aloud, biting her lip and looking around.
"The Food Court," she heard Vegeta's muffled voice say come from behind the large pile of bags.
Laughing, she grabbed his hand and led him to an escalator, taking them down to the first floor.
"Ohhh... wait..." gasped Bra, her eyes fixed on another store.
"Bra you are not going to another store-"
"Please Daddy, this is the last one-"
Before he could respond, she'd grabbed his hand again and was leading him into another store.
"Bra, what are you-"
"Done!" cried Bra, smiling. "See, it didn't take that long. And besides, you're going shopping next."
"What?!"
"It'll be fun," smiled Bra, setting another bag on top of the pile he was already holding.
Suddenly the bags began swaying, threatening to fall over - without warning, three of the uppermost bags fell from his arms, about to crash to the floor, when Bra leaped for them, catching them just before they could touch the ground.
"Nice catch," said Vegeta amusedly, helping her up. "But this is getting ridiculous."
He set all of the bags on the bench beside them, then a few capsules from his pocket.
"Oh, good idea," said Bra, smiling. "Maybe we should go shopping together more often-"
"No," said Vegeta abruptly as he finished encapsulating the bags, stuffing them into his pocket alongside the car keys.
"Let's go to the food court then," said Bra, hooking her arm through his and resting her head on his shoulder.
They began to walk through the crowd to the immense Eatery3 (Eatery Cubed) to get some food, Vegeta's stomach rumbling quietly.
"So what restaurant do you want to go to?" asked Bra, looking around at the many diners. "Maybe we should get pizza..."
But she immediately frowned; the pizza place was closed.
"Weird," she whispered, her brows furrowed.
"What?" asked Vegeta, who's ears were twitching slightly - he'd heard a familiar voice... but he couldn't identify it.
"The pizza place is closed," muttered Bra, pouting slightly.
Vegeta "hmphed" uncaringly, his eyes scanning the food court; but he gasped when he discovered exactly why the pizza place was closed.
In a corner of the large, circular dining hall, at one of the tables, was a large pile of pizza boxes, towering at least five feet off of the table.
Beside the table where piles and piles of shopping bags from various stores, and boxes of (what he guessed were probably) shoes.
His eyes narrowed as he saw a flash of blonde behind the white pizza boxes, his ears twitching again.
"Ir mayo... te kishta..."
"Dad, are you okay?" asked Bra, staring at her father with concern. "What are you looking at...?"
She turned in the direction that Vegeta was looking at, then gave a low whistle.
"Wow... if that's only one or two people, I think they eat more than Goku does," said Bra in an awed and amused voice.
'Kakkarott...?' thought Vegeta, a look of deep concentration on his face. Suddenly realization dawned on him.
'Blonde... Kakkarott.... eats a lot... mall...'
"Dryphus," he spat quietly, a look of annoyance on his face. Dryphus... she was saiyajin, she did eat quite a lot, even when she wasn't hungry, she was blonde, and shopping was her obsession.
"What? Did you just say 'dry fist'?" asked Bra, looking confused.
"No... um, Bra, go ahead and get some... ice cream or something... I'll be right back."
"Alright," said Bra, getting some money out of her purse. "What type of ice cream do you... want...?" she stopped talking as she looked around; Vegeta was already gone.
"Ah, well," sighed Bra. "Vanilla-fudge for me, then."
*
Vegeta pushed and shoved through the crowd, ready to curse Dryphus out; for what reason exactly, he wasn't sure, but the fact that she was even on the planet just... it just bothered him. Not to mention the fact that she was practically a Saiyajin Hitler; she was disgusted by any race besides siayajins, save for a few that she would meet on far-away planets. He just hoped she wasn't planning on doing anything extreme.
He was a few feet away from the table when he saw Clarice sitting beside Dryphus, looking bored. Her chin was resting in her palm and her eyes were half-lidded, barely focusing on anything.
"Ih fiyut aght miet," continued Dryphus through a full mouth of pepperoni pizza, her hands motioning toward a rather attractive man who was sitting a few tables away from them.
Clarice's eyes finally opened fully and she turned to look at him, her eyes narrowed.
"Subote," she said simply.
"But he does!" cried Dryphus, pouting.
"I didn't say that he didn't," muttered Clarice, her eyelids drooping again.
"Well the real one's gonna be upset," said Dryphus, grabbing another slice of pepperoni pizza and biting it, chewing thoughtfully. "He's probably gonna whine and cry-"
"He will not," snapped Clarice, glaring at Dryphus, her chin still in her hand.
"Well you have to admit that he does have a sensitive side," said Dryphus, grimacing as she took another bite of the pizza. "Actually, he's really too sensitive-"
"Yes, he is a little bit sensitive, but he doesn't cry," spat Clarice, clearly becoming annoyed. "I think he's sweet. At least he's not heartless like you."
"You think I'm heartless?" whimpered Dryphus, looking hurt.
"On occasion, yes," sighed Clarice. "But only on occasion."
"Oh, okay," piped up Dryphus, smiling.
Vegeta growled and continued walking through the crowd - he'd spent too much time eavesdropping.
He arrived at the table, ready to yell until his lungs collapsed, when-
"Big V!!" cried Dryphus, getting up and hugging him. "How are you? What's it been, forty years? Geeze, you look good!"
She rambled on, Clarice watching in amusement, Dryphus' naturally loud voice catching the attention of a few of the people in the food court.
Vegeta could only stand there, horrified at how much this woman could talk.
"So anyway," she continued, grabbing his arm and dragging him over to the table, "tell me something: doesn't that guy look like Mason?"
Vegeta looked in the direction of her pointed finger, then shook his head, remembering his original plan.
"What are you doing here?" he asked loudly, looking back and forth from Clarice to Dryphus, his expression cross.
Suddenly Clarice looked hurt, a pained scowl on her face.
"I'm sorry that it displeases you so much," she muttered, closing her eyes and setting her cheek against her fist and propping her elbow on the table. "But you'll be glad to know that we'll be leaving tomorrow morning."
Dryphus finally let go of his arm, scowling.
"What'd you have to go and get her all upset for?" she hissed, looking horrified. "Now it's my ass she's gonna kick if we start sparring again... thanks a lot."
Vegeta sighed and tried to find another way to re-word his question, his left eyebrow quirked slightly.
"...Why are you two still here?" he asked, hooking his thumbs on his pocket. "I thought you would've left when I.. um..."
"I wanted to go shopping," said Dryphus, taking yet another slice of pizza. "I forced Clarice to come with me even though she wanted to go home."
That was another thing about Dryphus; she never felt that she needed to lie about anything she did.
Vegeta nodded, his eyes closing behind the dark lenses of the aviator sunglasses Nazomi'd given him.
"So what happened to you?" asked Dryphus, picking up her soda and swirling the bottle around slowly.
"What're you talking about?" snapped Vegeta, looking confused.
"You seemed really upset about a week ago," she explained, leaning back in her chair. "What, did you change your mind or something?"
"No, I didn't change my mind," said Vegeta, glaring daggers at Dryphus.
Dryphus shrugged her shoulders and bit into a large slice of everything pizza. "Your loss," she said through a full mouth. "But what happened?"
"...Nothing," he sighed, shoving his hands fully into his pockets now.
Dryphus snorted, looking incredulous. "I know something happened, and you're going to tell me what it is."
"It's none of your concern," he spat, becoming more and more annoyed by her many queries.
"Well it is now," she said smiling. "You know I'm nosy, and if you don't tell me what's up, as soon as we get home, I'm gonna tell 'Daddy Dear' what's going on-"
"You will do no such thing," growled Clarice through gritted teeth, looking up at Dryphus and glaring at her.
"What do you care? You'll probably be dead by that time, you won't be able to stop me."
"I have plenty of time to 'stop' you before we get back," she mumbled.
"Oh, you'd hurt little old me?" asked Dryphus, smiling sweetly at her.
Clarice "hmphed" and propped her elbow up on the table, letting her chin rest against her fist. She let her eyes slide shut, but not before aiming a small ki blast at Dryphus in warning.
Yep. They were best friends, alright.
Dryphus turned back to Vegeta, rocking her soda from side to side slowly.
"Please?" she begged, using the same sweet smile on him.
"Fine," sneered Vegeta, knowing that she'd probably be true to her word about telling his father.
He sat down in the chair, his head hung for a moment. He sighed and began his account of what happened, becoming angrier as he noticed a delighted glint in Dryphus' eyes.
But Clarice just sat at the table, not moving; whether she was listening to him or not, he couldn't tell.
"So she hates you," shrugged Dryphus again after taking a sip of soda. "Now you really don't have any reason to stay here, so you can come back with us-"
She suddenly gave a loud yelp dropped her soda, but luckily the cap was on it, or it would've spilled all over Vegeta's lap; she bent down slightly and began rubbing her left shin vigorously, whimpering, and cursing, her lips pouted.
Vegeta looked back and forth from Clarice to Dryphus, wondering what'd happened; then he gave a small laugh as he realized that Clarice had kicked her.
Clarice's eyes slowly rolled open, then she sat up straight, looking Vegeta directly in the eye.
"Is all of that true?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Vegeta looked taken back at the expression on her face, but found his composure and nodded, gazing down at the floor.
Clarice buried her face in her hands, breathing slowly.
'How could I have been so stupid?' she thought, guilt running through her. 'You knew he was married, why did you have to kiss him...?'
'Now you've done it,' came another voice. 'You've gotta learn to let go! Quit being so emotional!'
Clarice smiled. She knew that she did have to learn to accept things for what they were, and this incident had proven it. She'd gone too far and destroyed a beautiful relationship.... but she was going to fix it.
Both Vegeta and Dryphus looked surprised as Clarice stood up, a look of determination on her face.
"Where do you think you're going?" asked Dryphus, an angry look on her face.
Clarice didn't answer to Dryphus, but to Vegeta, who had a questioning look on his face.
"Vegeta," she began, throwing on her jacket, "if she won't believe that you weren't cheating on her, I'll have to convince her myself."
So that's the end of chapter eight! Yet another sucky chapter, I know, I know, but unfortunately, as I mentioned in the chapter previous to this one, my internet isn't working, so I can't e-mail K-chan and get her to help me in writing it out.
So blame my computer.
Anyway, as you all know, this will later be following the storyline of a very high-quality, first-class game (except for all of those damned horrible camera angles!!), Sonic Adventure, and I made a few decisions on how this will go about:
Most of the levels (Windy Valley, Red Mountain, Speed Highway, etc.) will be Saiyajin training courses. Yes, I know that sounds stupid, but how the hell else am I going to explain how all that stuff got there? I'll have a better explanation somewhere later in the story, and believe me, it won't sound half as bad as it does now.
The soundtrack will be included in the story. It is really a kick-ass soundtrack, and some of the songs ("It Doesn't Matter", "Unknown From M.E.", "Believe In Myself", etc.) really fit well into different parts of the story.
Various characters will play a single character from the game. For example, Nazomi, Clarice, Goten, and Goku all play Sonic's part. ^_^ Yeah, that sounds pretty weird. But it fits. And besides, Sonic has a really big part in the game. (Well duh, the game is friggin' named after him!) Both Bulma and Krillin play Tails' part, blah blah blah... but the rest of the characters will be played by a single person. Chi-Chi plays all of Amy's part, Yamucha play's Big's part, and E-102 (Code name: Gamma) will, well, be played by E-102... but as I mentioned before, not as a gunner robot, but as an android. Puar will play Froggy's part, and Oolong will be the Birdie. And Knuckles will be playing Knuckles. No, I will not be having a red echidna in the story, but another made up saiyajin named Knuckles.
But here's a poll question that needs answering: Should rings be included in the story? They're in the game, and I've already thought up a scenario about how they'll come to be there. So answer it!
So what'll happen in chapter nine? What did Clarice mean when she said that she would have to convince Bulma that Vegeta wasn't cheating on her? Will Bulma and Vegeta get back together?
Find out on the next episode of -
DragonBallZ: The Legends of Chaos
If I get ten more reviews, I promise to get the next chapter out before next week! So review! ^_^ (Yes, my latest scheme to get more reviews…)