The deeper they drove into the mountains, the bumpier it got. Her parents were shit-talking some reality show bimbo (her father's limp cigarette dancing around the corner of his mouth as he prattled on) while Tights read aloud from a fairy tale picture book about some knight in shining armor rescuing some lost princess and giving her a…
"And I wouldn't attempt to escape with it, either, because if you tried something like that, the sniveling girl behind you would suffer the consequences. Now hand over that ball," Vegeta said, flashing his teeth. He hadn't even needed to pat her down.
Morphing from smoke into his cracked armor, the Saiyan Prince looked more the villain than his pursuer; landing with a graceful flip, the warrior with smooth green skin and long hair, her savior, swore to slay that savage simian for her sake. Giggling, Krillin sniffed the diamond, so she slapped him upside the head. Try as he might, her emerald prince could not vanquish the filthy monkey. Energy rained down around them as he fell from the sky. Her heart was beating madly. The fate of Earth hung treacherously in the balance. Tights' voice breathlessly continued, barely audible over the hum of the engine.
Bulma would never forget when he transformed into that ghastly monster. The first time it had happened, she had been trapped in Pilaf's castle. The great ape bellowed, shaking the ajisa trees. She urged Krillin to run. He wouldn't budge, even after Vegeta swatted the alien aside like a gnat. His eyes, red as rubies, ensnared her in his psychic hold. She began to spiral, the scenery slipping out of sequence, tearing like scraps of paper in a windstorm as the colors dulled to grey.
Krillin may have said something, but she wasn't paying attention.
"Don't worry. I don't think you'll be around long enough to see what happens to her," Vegeta scoffed. He had wiped out entire civilizations without breaking a sweat, and yet, he had spared her. A calm befell Bulma, and there again was that old urge to squeeze her legs together.
"Oh, isn't it a lovely story?" Tights asked, hugging the book to her chest.
"I'm telling you, Bulma, you won't find a man like him every day. That Vegeta's tenacious, and handsome to boot!"
"I don't know, isn't he somewhat of a lunkhead?" her father quipped. "Seems to me all he's good at is pummeling those he disagrees with."
She blinked, and there were Namek's skies again, the faded green of an aging stoplight. Krillin was begging her to make a run for it.
Cackling, Vegeta punched through the monster's armor, into his back. "You can bleed us to the brink of death, crush every bone in our bodies–it only makes us more powerful!"
"He's just like Goku! No matter how much of a brutal beating Vegeta takes, he gets stronger every time that he fights."
The room was spinning, and the lights flickered twice, and everything pulsed out of place and back in again, but when it did, nothing quite went back together the way it had been before, and the wind was picking up, and it was becoming harder to breathe…
The jeep came to a stop right before the top of the next hill. Her father shrugged, chewing on his ciggy nervously, and asked if she wanted to go any further. Tights and her mother had vanished. If she blinked, she would have lost it.
"Well, dear, I'm afraid I can't take you any further than this… what do think about going on by yourself?"
"B-by myself? But why, Dad? Can't you come too?"
As her father exhaled a puff of smoke, his head morphed into a pterodactyl's. Shrieking, Bulma dove from the car to avoid a peck and fled up the dirt road. By Goku's house, she found the prince. Blood ran down his forearm; he had firmly lodged his fist in the alien's stomach.
"Hey, what's that horrible smell?! Ugh, Goku, you need a bath!"
She hadn't had any mosquito bites yet that night. He hadn't heard of a bath before. At least Vegeta's armor was machine washable.
"Servant woman, bring me a drying cloth at once! Woman, can you hear me?!"
The bathroom was bright and warm. It was just the two of them. The shower door opened. Vegeta's face cut through the swirling avalanche of steam. Bulma took a step back. He took three steps towards her and unwrapped his tail.
"What in the world? Whoa… How does this thing stay on, kid? I thought it was attached to your pants. What do you do, superglue it to your butt?" She gave it a gentle squeeze.
Vegeta's hair shot up. "Ow! What are you doing? That hurts!"
His tail took the shower scrubber from her hands and began washing his back with it.
Falling onto her ass, goosebumps spreading over her body, Bulma mumbled, "N-no way, it moves! That means it's… it's… real!"
He folded his arms, narrowed his eyes, and was about to say something (assuredly) rude when she felt a tickle of fur brush across her cheek. Gasping softly, the girl blinked and lost her dream.
Though the sun had not yet risen, Bulma awoke with a start. Peeking out her window, she noticed the lights were still on inside the Capsule Corp. spaceship.
"Ugh, the nerve of that Saiyan!"
After making a cup of coffee and preparing a bath, she returned to her room with a towel, glancing at the half-empty bottle of Midori on the desk. Its shade of green reminded her of the skies of Namek, and her vision pulsed, blood rushed to her cheeks, and as she grabbed onto a chair to maintain her balance, fragmented dream memories, sugary and nostalgic, returned with great force.
A sticky liquid that left behind a cold trail of slime slowly slid down her thigh. Without missing a beat, she snagged that little black bag in the back of her panty drawer and marched off to her bath with newfound urgency, her breathing coming sharply, her face flushed.