Chapter 8: Space at Last
Jeremy awoke in his bed, sat up and yawned. As he left his room, he rubbed his eyes and walked down Capsule Corp.'s stairs, turning towards the kitchen. When he reached the kitchen, Bulma, ChiChi, Videl, and Android 18 popped up from behind a counter, waving flags and yelling out, "Hip hip hooray! Today's finally the day!" This continued as Jeremy blankly stared at them as they zipped around him, throwing confetti on top of his head.
Eleanor walked up behind him, obviously sleepy. "Wuz goin' on out 'ere?" she mumbled. The four women turned to her and looked at her with glee, then they repeated the process again. Jeremy and Eleanor locked eyes as the women continued to dance around them. Five minutes and three tons of confetti later, the women were through. Jeremy reached on top of his head and pulled a handful of confetti of the top of the pile.
"Don't tell me this is breakfast." The women facefaulted.
At this point, Vorados walked in. He looked at the confetti, then at Jeremy and Eleanor, then at the other women, and finally at the confetti again. "I missed something, didn't I?"
The four women smiled evilly as they fingered something in their pockets. "No, Chris…" said Bulma. "You haven't missed a thing." At this point, all three of the women pulled out bombs. Vorados' eyes went wide as he was bombarded by the exploding projectiles. He ran from the room, quickly followed by the women, who were yelling out various obscenities and their husbands' names, leaving Jeremy chewing on more confetti and Eleanor dozing on his shoulder.
Later, after Jeremy filled his stomach with real food, Eleanor had woken up, and Vorados had fled to another country and plead sanctuary, Bulma lead them to the backyard. There stood the Capsule Ship that would send them to Namek-sei. They were large spheres with support legs and engines. 'CAPSULE CORP' was written on the side in big letters.
"Ooooooooo…" said Eleanor. "They're done!"
"Yep!" said Bulma. "Probably one of my greatest inventions, too. They're definitely a bigger model than the other Capsule Ships, that's for sure. They have a better gravity machine, a full bathroom, a kitchenette, and a cappuccino machine. Goku would be jealous."
Bulma opened the hatch and a ramp came down the side in classic sci-fi fashion, with enough smoke to make brown bears wearing clothes everywhere cry. Bulma lead the way inside as Jeremy and Eleanor carefully went up the ramp, waiting for gray-skinned creatures with insect-like eyes to pop up and shoot them with a heat ray.
Jeremy and Eleanor looked around the inside of the capsule. The first thing that caught Jeremy's eye was the giant display for the computer, with a complex-looking console underneath, covered with rows upon rows of buttons. Bulma explained that that was the main computer, that it ran the entire ship automatically, that if they broke it they'd be screwed, and no, Jeremy, it won't derive trig formulas for you.
The rest of the floor was one big room, covered with a springy yet soft mat. Off in one corner was an entertainment set, complete with TV, DVD, VCR, and stereo. On the far side was a ladder, which led both up and down. Bulma explained that upstairs was storage and downstairs was the bathroom, kitchenette, and sleeping areas. At one point she whispered to Jeremy something about certain accessories being in a drawer in the sleeping area, and that he could always force Chris to sleep on the main floor, but Jeremy was too busy staring at the blinking lights of the control panel to comprehend what she was saying.
Jeremy faintly wished as he was walking through the ship that Robert, Hailey, Jared, Rae, Daniel, and Matt were going with them too, but Bulma said it would cost too much to build and license more ships, their masters had other plans. Saying that the others needed teamwork training, their masters pulled their efforts and entered them into The Real World.
He was snapped back to reality when he heard a voice from behind him. "So it's finished, eh?" said Vorados. He was munching on a taco, wearing a sombrero, and had a strange-looking creature that looked like it might enjoy eating a goat at that moment.
"When'd you get back?" asked Jeremy. He then shifted his attention to the creature in his arms. "Hey! Is that El Chuplicabra? The legendary goat-eating creature that is a farmer's worst nightmare in South and Central America?"
"What, this guy? Nah… This is my dog, Phantom. He escaped from home when we came here, so I had to go get him." Jeremy took a second glance and saw that the creature really was just a cute little mongrel desperately in need of some Ridilen. Now he looked more like he was in a French fry-eating mood than a goat-eating mood.
"Oh," said Jeremy, slightly disappointed.
"Well," said Bulma, "I'd suggest that y'all start packing up and getting ready to go. I stocked the ships with about a year's supply of food, water, and air, but the trip should only take two or so weeks. Also, the walls of the first floor are made to absorb any chi blasts that hit it, which will provide spare energy, so I recommend that you shoot, just in case."
Three hours later, everyone was packed and ready to go, except for Eleanor. She was still having trouble deciding if she wanted to take the red gi or the blue gi. Both looked exactly the same, except for the difference in colors. She looked between them both and lifted the red on up and in front of her, then the blue one, sizing them up in front of a mirror. Vorados was leaning against a wall, his temple throbbing. Jeremy was sitting in a backwards chair, looking on with the interest of one who has been sitting in a backwards chair for two hours, watching someone else try to decide whether to choose to take either the red or the blue gi.
"Hmmm…" muttered Eleanor. "Maybe…." She lifted the red one slightly, then put it down and lifted the blue one some. "Hmmm…"
Jeremy sighed, again. He then stood up, and took both of the gis from Eleanor and put them back into the closet. "Red plus blue equals…" he said, while pulling out another gi of the exact same type, "purple." He thrust the purple gi into Eleanor's hands. She looked at it, then her mouth turned upwards into a smile and she put the gi into her case.
"Finally!" yelled out the exasperated Vorados. He started to turn out the door when Eleanor bent down and picked up two pairs of shoes.
"Hmmm…" she muttered. Vorados fell over.
"You are racking my patience!" he yelled out. He stormed to the closet, pulled everything out and put it all into the suitcase, slamming it with finality. He looked at Eleanor who looked at the suitcase, then back at Vorados, and beamed.
"That works!" she said. Both Jeremy and Vorados fell over.
Ten minutes later, everything was packed away onto the spaceship. Jeremy, Eleanor and Vorados stood on the ramp and watched as Bulma, ChiChi, Videl, and Android 18 all bid them farewell. The three of them were ready to be off, and so, they said their final goodbye and went in, the hatch closing behind them.
After a little while, Jeremy went downstairs to arrange his room, and Eleanor started training. Vorados walked over to the control panel and looked at it, then at the screen. He pressed a button, and the screen lit up, the entire thing filled with Bulma's face. He looked up and screamed.
"AAAAAAHHH! DON'T SCARE ME LIKE THAT, WOMAN!" yelled out the Lord of Despair.
Bulma looked at him, her eyebrow twitching.
"What do you want?" she asked.
"When are we taking off?"
"You're already in space."
"…" said Vorados as he switched the screen to an outside view and saw the Earth pulling away from them. He then switched it back to Bulma again. "Umm… When did we take off?"
"A few moments after the hatch was shut."
"So where were the G forces?"
"Oh, I thought I told you. It has to do with the gravity control that I installed; the G forces just get cancelled out."
"Oh." Vorados stood there for a moment then turned the screen off.
Back on Earth, Bulma was mumbling to herself about what an idiot Vorados was and how he had no manners.
Jeremy climbed back upstairs and watched Eleanor train for a little bit, also watching Vorados watching both of them. Jeremy then walked over to the control panel and turned it up to 200 G's. Jeremy felt the gravity increase, then decided to set it up a few more G's. He then said, "Well, if we plan on being any match for the enemy when we get to Namek-sei, then we need to train as much as we can. I say that we all move our bedspreads to this layer and sleep under this gravity." Vorados and Eleanor nodded in agreement.
"That would be a good idea," said Vorados. Then he muttered to himself, "Now I'll be able to watch."
"What was that, Chris?" asked Eleanor, who looked at him with a deadly glare.
"Nothing! Nothing at all!"
They all spent the next few moments in silence. Vorados then broke the silence. "Eleanor! I challenge you to a sparring match!" Both Jeremy and Eleanor looked at him in surprise.
"What?" asked Eleanor.
"You heard me."
"But," asked Jeremy, "why her?"
"Because she is obviously the weakest person here, and I'm obviously the strongest, so I should obviously train her."
"And what makes you think you're the strongest?" yelled Jeremy aggressively.
"Uh-oh," thought Eleanor as she watched sparks start dancing between the two males. "Time for the Great Clash of the Hormone-Pumped Titans!" She then went into a corner and started training on her own.
At The Real World house, things had already spiraled into chaos. It all began when Daniel decided he wanted to be friends with Robert. "Hey! Robert! Let's get to know each other!" He then made the mistake of wrapping his arm around Robert's shoulders. Unfortunately, at that moment, Jared had turned the volume of the mecha-anime show he was watching all the way up. And Matt was furiously searching the cabin for vampires to slay.
First, Robert removed Daniel's arm forcibly, but Daniel didn't pick up the hint and put it back. Robert then also threw a throwing knife and hit the eject button on the VCR. He then grabbed Daniel's arm and threw him into Matt, causing both to fall to the ground. This of course, angered everyone.
Two Spirit Guns, hundreds of trowels, eight cans of soda, thirty pencils, a rubber ducky, and twenty mecha comments later, everyone called a truce to clean up the mess and establish some rules.
Rule 1: Robert is left untouched.
Rule 2: No loud mecha.
Rule 3: No vampires aloud.
Rule 4: Robert makes all other rules.
The fourth rule hadn't been there the first day, but no one noticed when it mysteriously appeared the next morning.
Elsewhere in the house, the girls were quite calm compared to the boys. Rae was all over Celes, and Hailey was calmly drinking tea. As she lowered her cup, she found Rae and Celes right in front of her. "You know, I've been wondering," said Hailey as she looked at Celes. "Why are you here?"
"Well, I was just wandering through the mansion one day, and I came across Integral and Rae… err… engaged in activities." She blushed at the remembrance. "Anyway, they said that as punishment, I'd have to accompany Rae on her quests."
"Ah…." Hailey began to worry if anything would happen by the time the others got back.
Jeremy stared at Eleanor, then back at Vorados. They had been in space for three days now, and already they were like this. Jeremy sweat-dropped slightly as he continued to glare at the other two, who returned his glare with annoyance and impatience. Jeremy looked down, checked something in his hands, and then looked up again, continuing to stare at the others. Vorados let out a quiet, deep-throated growl, which caused Jeremy to start a little bit. He finally broke the two-hour silence.
"Got any threes?" he asked, looking at Eleanor. Eleanor simply shook her head. Jeremy sighed heavily, then reached and pulled a card from the stack that lay between them all. Vorados growled again.
"Jeremy, if you're going to waste our time choosing a card to pick and then not even choosing correctly, then I'm all up for quitting, seeing that all this will do is waste our training time!"
Eleanor sighed. "Listen, training is one thing, but…." Vorados ignored her and continued his yelling at Jeremy.
"And just whose idea was this Jeremy? It was that damn woman of yours!"
"Yeah, Eleanor," said Jeremy, turning to her. "Why did you want us to stop?"
"Maybe because I figured that brutalizing, I'm sorry, fighting each other for two and a half days straight without food, water, or sleep was pushing the border between training and stupidity!"
"And we could have gone a lot longer, too, if you hadn't interfered!" yelled Vorados. Jeremy nodded his head slightly in agreement.
Eleanor's lips turned slightly upwards in a smirk. "Oh, really?" She poked them both in the bruising areas of their sides, causing them both to fall over. "I see now; Chris idea of 'a lot longer' is two or three minutes." Jeremy and Vorados simply lay there on the ground, twitching.
"Listen," said Eleanor, "I respect your wishes to get stronger, but no one gets stronger dead, so I want both of you to rest for at least a day before you start 'training' again. Meanwhile, while you are recovering from your injuries, I will continue to train, since I have yet to be hurt."
Eleanor turned and went back to her corner and continued to train, leaving Jeremy and Vorados grumbling as they pulled themselves to their bedspreads.
Jeremy awoke later that night. The room was dark and quiet, except for the occasional snore from Vorados and the occasional beeping from the computer. He turned over again, trying to go back to sleep, but found himself unable to. He tossed and turned for a little bit, then finally sat up and looked around. He looked at Eleanor, her chest slowly rising and falling, and he felt himself comforted by this sight. He then stood up and walked to the ladder. As he descended down, something stirred behind him.
Jeremy found himself in the shower, letting the water flow over his body. He closed his eyes and sighed. He thought to himself, "What am I doing? Just 3 months ago, I was living a normal life, about to graduate from school and go to college. Now, I'm not sure who I am, what I am, or what I'm going to do after all this is over." There was a cold draft for a moment, and he shuddered a little.
Suddenly two arms draped themselves onto his neck and something heavy pressed against his back. Jeremy's eyes widened. "What's going on?" he thought. He turned around and two lips met his own. Jeremy's eyes widened as he pushed the kisser away and wiped his lips. "CHRIS! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
Vorados looked up from where he was standing, his long black hair clinging to his body. He looked up at Jeremy and smirked. "Don't you want this, Jeremy-kun?" He moved closer to Jeremy, pressing himself onto Jeremy, his arms wrapping their way around Jeremy's waist.
Jeremy stood there for a moment in a stupor, then shook his head and pushed Vorados away again. "No, Chris, I don't. I'm with Eleanor for crying out loud! Besides, you're a friend."
Vorados smirked again and came closer to Jeremy, touching Jeremy's chin with his thumb and forefinger. "But we both know that you'd rather have me." Jeremy opened his mouth, but he couldn't find anything to say. Vorados smiled and pulled himself closer to Jeremy, wrapping his arms around him again. "Just leave her and come with me."
Jeremy stared ahead for a moment. Then, against his will, he put his arms around Vorados and said, "Alright, then."
Vorados looked up and smiled at him, then opened his mouth, revealing a snarl and rows upon rows of razor-sharp teeth. Jeremy's eyes opened wide in fear as Vorados bit his shoulder, ripping it off.
The bathroom rang loud with Jeremy's screaming, but it was silenced and faded out with a gurgle. The water still flowed towards the drain in its soapy redness as Vorados left the bathroom, licking his lips.
Vorados began to climb the stairs, slowing, staining each with Jeremy's blood. He climbed out of the ladder and onto the main floor, surveying the room. His gaze then fell onto Eleanor's sleeping form. Vorados smirked with bloodstained lips. Blood dripped off his fingers and landed on the ground, echoing throughout the room. Eleanor's eyes jerked open and she sat up quickly.
Eleanor turned to the ladder, but saw nothing standing there. She looked beside her and saw that Jeremy was still there and not lying on the bathroom, dead and ripped open. Eleanor also saw Vorados' form behind Jeremy's, but, thankfully, several feet away. She held her head in her hands for a moment, discarding the remnants of fear from her nightmare. "Jeremy wouldn't really leave me for Chris, would he?" she thought, her eyes watering at the thought.
Jeremy stirred beside her and looked at her. He then noticed the glistening in her eyes and sat up, coming over to her and putting an arm around her. "Hey what's wrong?" he asked, a concerned tone in his voice. Eleanor shook the tears away.
"No… Nothing, not really."
"Don't give me that. Something's wrong, I can tell. What is it?"
"Well… It's silly, really, not anything to be concerned about."
"You seemed awfully concerned about it just a moment ago."
"Well… you… you wouldn't… this sounds really dumb, but… you wouldn't… leave me for Chris… would you?"
Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief. He thought he had muttered something in his sleep again. He cringed at the Taco Bell scheme that had been ruined by that. "No, I wouldn't. You can rest assured that I wouldn't leave you. We made a promise, remember?"
Eleanor smiled as she remembered the beginning of their journey. She nodded her head. "I remember."
"I always keep my promises." He pulled her closer and wrapped both arms around her gently, trying his best to comfort her. Eleanor did the same. They stayed that way for several minutes.
"Thanks, Jeremy. I guess I just needed to hear that. Well, we probably should go back to sleep now."
Jeremy smiled a little bit. "Okay. I'm glad you feel better now." He gave her a reassuring squeeze on her shoulder then crawled back to his bedspread, getting under the covers and lying down.
Eleanor sat there for a little while, then pulled her own bed spread closer to Jeremy's and laid down, falling to sleep in a few moments, her arm wrapped around Jeremy's chest.
On the other side of the room, Vorados wiped away a fake tear. "How touching…" he muttered, and then acted like he blew his nose.
When Jeremy woke up, he knew that something was wrong. There was something that led him to this conclusion, something about the atmosphere of the pod. Jeremy couldn't decide if this was because of gut instinct or the klaxons going off and the giant screen flashing in bright, bold letters, "WARNING!"
As Jeremy sat up in bed, Vorados pressed a button on the control panel, causing the sirens to turn themselves off and the screen to switch to Bulma. Vorados looked up and screamed again.
"AAAAHHH!" he yelled out. "STOP SCARING ME LIKE THAT!" Bulma looked as is she was about to pop a vessel.
"What is it, this time?" she asked.
"Well, we were just woken up by several loud sirens and this screen flashing. It didn't seem too urgent, but I decided that I might as well see what it was about."
"Wait a moment," said Bulma as she left the screen. A few moments later, she came back with a warm cup of coffee. She took a sip. "Well, it seems as if you are being pursued."
"WHAT?" yelled out the three teens in unison.
"By who?" asked Eleanor.
Bulma shrugged. "I have no clue, but it seems as if they came from Earth."
"WHAT?" they all yelled out again.
"But who would have followed us from Earth?" asked Jeremy.
"I know who," said Vorados, with a smirk.
"Wha… Oh, no… Not them!" Vorados simply nodded his head.
"Seems this trip may get interesting after all!" he muttered.
"Oh," said Bulma. "There's one more thing."
"What, woman?" barked Vorados. Bulma's temple started throbbing again. She let out a small growl.
"You know, you're really beginning to remind me of Vegeta in some ways."
Vorados looked at her suspiciously. "Don't get any strange ideas."
"WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING?" Bulma screamed her head becoming much larger and her mouth taking up most of it. "I'M GONNA KILL YOU!"
Vorados simply turned away in classic Vegeta fashion. Unfortunately for him, he didn't see the pair of arms reaching for his neck. They grabbed him and lifted him two feet off the ground and shook him a whole lot as Bulma continued to yell at him.
Giant sweat drops formed on both Jeremy and Eleanor's heads as they watched Bulma lean out of the screen and commence to choke Vorados.
After a few minutes, Bulma finally threw him to the ground and returned to her place in the screen.
"Geez, woman! I was simply trying to stop you from being hurt!" Vorados mumbled as he stood up.
"What was that?" she snapped back at him.
"You heard me! I didn't want you to fall in love with me, only to be hurt when you saw my asexuality."
"…" thought Bulma, Jeremy, and Eleanor.
"Your what?" said Bulma.
"My asexuality. See?" Vorados pulled down his pants.
Jeremy, Eleanor, and Bulma all had gigantic sweat drops on their heads as they simply stared. After a few moments, Jeremy reached out an arm to shield Eleanor's eyes.
Bulma's face twisted in rage as she closed her eyes and lifted a tightly clenched fist in front of her. She wanted to scream. She wanted to scream many things. How dare he think she'd fall in love with him! How dare he think she'd want to do stuff with him! How dare he drop his pants in front of her! All she managed to scream was, "HOW DARE YOU!" as she proceeded to hurl many large and heavy objects through the screen.
Jeremy and Eleanor's eyes went wide as they watched several tons of metal fly through the screen, all hitting with deadly accuracy. After the dust cleared, all they saw was a large pile of metal and a few of Vorados' twitching limbs. Jeremy walked over to the screen and poked it, satisfying his curiosity. The screen was indeed solid. "I guess a woman's wrath simply defies physics," he thought. "Of course, I was never really good with physics…"
Eleanor broke the silence that had settled while Bulma had glared triumphantly at Vorados' fallen form. "What were you trying to say, before Chris interrupted you that is?"
Bulma looked at her, then immediately regained her composure. "Oh, yeah! Well, it seems that other ship is on a collision course with you."
"WHAT!" yelled out Eleanor. Jeremy was still perplexed by the screen, and Vorados was trying to cling to life.
"Yeah. And, from my calculations, the impact should be right about… now!" At this, Jeremy and Eleanor both looked at each other, then cried out and grabbed each other, Just as the ship suddenly lurched with a deafening sound of metal against metal. Jeremy hit his head on the control panel, knocking him unconscious.