Chapter 9- Bar Fight
Vegeta had woken up when he'd planned to, had gotten dressed and went to work.
When he got there, he noticed that everything was like it usually is. There were a few people that he hadn't seen before, but that was customary. He quickly put his ID on and took up his spot by the door.
A few times he had felt like he was being watched, just like he had felt at school, but every time he looked up, no one was looking at him. Only once had he caught the eye of Chuckie. Chuckie was Gee's wife, and a bartender. Her real name was Charlene. She was probably the only woman who worked at Gee's. She was in her forties just like Gee, but still had a nice figure. She had long, black, wavy hair and a pretty face. Chuckie had been like a second mom to Vegeta at times.
They'd only caught each other's gaze once. And after that when he was positive that she wasn't looking at him he still had the feeling.
He tried to ignore it for a while, but it wasn't working.
When a fight broke out and he went to break it up, he felt it more than ever. It was starting to get on his nerves.
He got back to his usual spot after he'd broken the fight up. The feeling was still there. He looked around, but everyone was going about their business.
He dropped his head and stared at the floor for a while trying to rid himself of the feeling. It wasn't working, and so he popped it back up. Just when he did that, he saw two men that had clearly been staring in his direction quickly turn back to their drinks.
He glared at the two men for a while but neither of them appeared to notice.
He decided that he was getting paranoid again.
"Are you okay?" Thomas asked him from the other side of the doorway.
Vegeta looked at him bewildered. "Yeah. Why?"
"You've been acting weird lately. Chuckie's noticed too." He informed him.
"No I haven't." Vegeta protested.
Thomas sighed. He, like many others, knew that it was damn near impossible to win an argument with Vegeta. "Sure. Whatever you say." He said.
Vegeta gave one last glance to Thomas and then turned back to scanning the room.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Well?" Rehtaf said impatiently to his two 'partners' who had just gotten back.
"He's a bouncer, Rehtaf." Shadow said.
"Bouncer?" Rehtaf asked skeptically.
"Yeah. You know. The people who break up fights and toss people out." Locke informed him thinking he didn't already know.
"Yes! I know what a bouncer is!" Rehtaf yelled making both Shadow and Locke take a reflexive step backward.
"Okay." Shadow said glaring, once again, at Locke. "So...?"
Shadow and Locke listened intently as Rehtaf laid out his plan.
"...And remember. Do. Not. Kill. Him. Not yet." He concluded.
The others just nodded their heads, smirking.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"So what are we going to see?" Goku asked ChiChi.
Goku, ChiChi, Yamcha, and Bulma were riding down the street heading towards the movie theater. It was Sunday and, and they were hoping to catch the two o'clock show.
"We don't know, yet. We have to see what's playing." ChiChi answered.
"Oh." Goku said.
"Hey. Why don't you invite Vegeta to come?" Bulma suggested. "We have an hour to waste. We could still swing by and pick him up."
"I guess we could. But I doubt he'd come. He's probably either sleeping or doing that report.": Goku told her.
"Speaking of which, did you do yours, Bulma?" ChiChi asked.
"Yeah. I did it yesterday." She said digging in her purse for her cell phone. Finding it, she handed it to Goku. "Here Goku call him."
Goku dialed Vegeta's number although he didn't know what good it would do.
"Hey put it on speaker phone." ChiChi said pressing the speaker button.
They all listened as the phone rang, rang, and kept ringing.
"Are you sure he's there?" Bulma asked.
"Yeah. He's home."
After the eleventh ring, a very sleepy Vegeta finally answered. "Huh?" He yawned in greeting.
"Mornin' sunshine!" Goku said cheerily.
"What time is it?" Vegeta mumbled more to himself than to Goku.
"One in the afternoon." Goku answered him anyway.
Vegeta groaned. "What do you want?" He asked.
"Whatcha doin'?" Goku asked still cheerily, completely ignoring Vegeta's question.
"Well I was sleeping, but I guess you knew that. Do you enjoy waking me up?" Vegeta said still quite groggily.
Again Goku ignored Vegeta. "We were wondering if you wanted to come to a movie with us."
"A movie? Which one?"
"I don't know." Goku said as cheerily as ever.
Vegeta growled. "Goku stop calling me!" he yelled and then hung up.
"I guess he doesn't want to come." Goku stated the obvious to the car full of giggling people.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
After Vegeta had hung up on Goku, he had gone back to sleep only to wake up again at seven thirty. He was still tired but felt a lot more refreshed than he had for the last week.
He did his usual routine of showering, and getting dressed. On the way out, he made a sandwich, and since he didn't have time to eat it there, he took it with him.
He arrived at Gee's like he usually did, put his ID on and took up watch by the door.
After scanning the room, he was a vaguely surprised to notice the same two men from the night before. He also noticed that they had a bottle of rum but that it wasn't opened.
He didn't spend too much thought on it because a fight had broken out. He and Thomas had gone and broken it up and then went back to stand by the door.
For a while, nothing else happened. Then as if from nowhere one of the men at the table threw his chair at the other man. It missed, but the other man looked pissed.
Vegeta and Thomas, thinking that this was just another fight went to take care of it. By then, the second man had grabbed the bottle off the table and was trying to hit the man who had thrown the chair with it. Thomas, who was a good bit bigger than Vegeta grabbed the man with the bottle and was trying to keep him still.
Meanwhile, Vegeta grabbed the man that had thrown the chair and put him in a strangle hold.
By then, the entire bar was watching. They seemed to know that this was not just an ordinary bar fight. A few of the men had even gotten up to help.
Then, the man that Thomas had been holding managed to break free.
Thomas tried to grab him again, but he was too fast. The man being able to break free from Thomas stunned Vegeta. No one ever got loose from Thomas's grip, except for himself that is. The man that Thomas had been holding brought the bottle up to hit the man that Vegeta was holding with it.
But since Vegeta was so stunned by Thomas's man breaking free, his grip loosened too, or so he supposed. At the last minute, the man slipped out of his grip and got out of the bottle's way.
Vegeta didn't have time to move, he hadn't seen the man swinging the bottle because the other man had been in the way. He brought his hands up in a vain attempt to block it, but he was already too late. The bottle shattered against his skull, and since it was full, the impact was much harder than an empty bottle would have been.
Everyone in the bar stood silent in shock as Vegeta fell to the floor unconscious.