Summary: Vegeta's little sister, thought dead by the Saiyan Prince, appears on Earth shortly after the Buu Saga. Since the Saiyans are named after vegetables, Roma's name is from romaine lettuce.
Disclaimer: I do not own DBZ. I am a poor educator—hear that students, I'm still writing fanfiction!
Chapter Four
Flying had been nixed. Yamcha had grabbed the pain-in-his-ass princess's ankle the moment she'd attempted to take off and had yanked her back to Earth. (He'd quickly caught on that her power level was a hair above his own.) On this planet, people walk and they expect everyone else to walk as well – at a reasonable pace, he had emphasized.
They were making their way across the city center to get to the biggest and fanciest mall Yamcha knew of. Roma was perpetually a few steps behind, staring left and right and up like a tourist on a day trip from the countryside. She said nothing, but her eyes and mouth frowned at the things she observed. Yamcha wondered what she was thinking, but was still too pissed (at Bulma's misinformation? At Roma being a high and mighty saiyan?) to even consider being sociable.
Roma adjusted her human clothes for the fourth time in ten minutes. Bulma's old sweater and jeans had curves in all the wrong places. She could feel the looseness of the fabric and felt embarrassed by the show of vulnerability (Saiyans never wore such ineffective outfits).
Yamcha glanced back, but kept walking.
"How do you suffer clothing that doesn't adjust itself," Roma said.
"We suffer," said Yamcha. He stuffed his hands in his pocket and slumped his shoulders forward. "You should've left the scouter. You might get some weird looks," he said.
"Why would I give a icejin's tail what people think of me?" She adjusted the scouter and pointed it at her human guide. His power level had considerably dropped since earlier; he almost blended in with the rest of his pathetic species.
She looked about at the lot of them, all looking somehow plain and vague, even with the disgusting variety of colors – green eyes, how revolting! red hair, how ridiculous! Even with all the species she'd met, this one seemed to come in the most useless range of hues. She snarled at the strangeness. Fellow pedestrian's on the sidewalk gave her an odd look as they passed. An older, sweaty guy gave her a wink and before she could deduce what that meant in Earth culture, he'd given her ass a small smack and she'd given his wrist a hard twist.
Yamcha released the man's arm and glared down at him, "Back off while you can." The man nodded and crossed the street, dodging cars to get to the opposite side, never looking back.
Roma hissed, "How dare you interfere."
"This is Earth, and you can't just kill a man," said Yamcha.
"I wasn't going to Kill. I was going to punch him; break some parts," she said.
Parts. Even as he felt queasy at the idea, his blood boiled at her presumptuous attitude. "I don't know how they did things where you were, but this is Earth! And ya can't just go about beating the pulp out of people."
"I was teaching him a lesson! Your planet is horribly backwards from what I've seen so far. Are not all females as strong and respected as that of my brother's mate?"
Yamcha knew he was guilty of all sorts of chauvinistic tendencies and looked away. "It should be like you say. It isn't. Bulma is an exception."
"On planet Vegeta we did not make this distinction. Male or female, we lived, we fought, we died. The strong moved up in rank and the weak were given other menial duties to perform."
"There was no strength difference between the sexes?" Yamcha asked, a bit curious.
"Some. But female sayians bear the children and that is not a task taken lightly!" Roma stated and stomped off towards their destination. Yamcha blinked, surprised by both the enlightening information and the passion with which Roma expounded it. Her eyes had been on fire!
XXXXXXXX
Clothing – more like disaster, thought Roma. Again with the rainbow of colors – how many shades of red could there be? How many sizes could there be? What was with these tiny disks that had to be put through holes – what a waste of time!
"Pick something," moaned Yamacha for the 100th time. He leaned back in the chair by the fitting room entrance and closed his eyes, trying to imagine a more pleasant place, maybe a beach or even the baseball fields for training season.
"Um, what is the function of this apparel?" Roma asked.
Yamcha cracked an eye open. He made a forced heh at the article of black, sheer lingerie she was trying to untangle. "Forget it. It's for special occasions."
"Occasions where you are naked through cloth?" Roma thought for a moment. "Ah, mating. Why do humans need special outfits?"
Yamcha was silent, choosing to avoid such an awkward conversation; he especially feared the backlash when she realized most of the lingerie was for women. Figures, he thought, male saiyans are chauvinists and female saiyans are militant feminists; must've been a hoot on their planet.
"Yes!" Roma had found the workout clothing.
"I should've guessed," said Yamcha. "Spandex."
Roma was eager to rid herself of Bulma's old, loose clothing and lifted the shirt over her head. Yamcha bolted up wide-eyed and yanked her shirt back down, but not before he and several others in the store got an eyeful. Yamcha could feel his face burning hot red.
"J-j-j," he stammered, "...t-t-take that s-s-stuff t-to that s-small room."
Roma glared at him and then at the others in the store. Really, humans can't handle seeing someone naked? She grabbed her choices and spun around with a huff. Once she was behind the changing room door, Yamcha collapsed back into the chair and groaned, "Please Kami, end this torture."
XXXXXXXX
Clothing bought – gym shorts, gym pants, gym shirts, boy cut underwear. Thankfully, Roma had no need for any bras. He popped five shopping bags into a capsule and tossed it to Roma.
"Okay, we're done," Yamcha said.
Roma pocketed it. "I want to see more. I want you to show me something to impress me." What she'd seen, even the fact human men and women had different clothing, had been depressing. After all, she was planning on making this planet her home, to stay with her brother (how could he stand it here?), but was already regretting such a rash decision to live on a backwards, boring world.
"Impress you?"
"Have you no pride for your species?" said Roma.
A five minute detour to the city park past the mall and Roma was watching human children darting back and forth, up and down on huge swaths of rolling grass and climbing, spinning on training equipment built, it would appear, purely for fun. Roma had never seen so many children of any species in one place – there must've been a hundred spread out across the plot of "organized nature."
Yamcha crossed his arms and looked right at her. "Humans do not send their children away to other planets to kill. We raise our kids."
Roma's power level spiked and she slapped him hard enough to send him flying several feet.
She stood over him. He looked up into glistening, hurt eyes; he glimpsed a bruise hidden deep within their depths, but quickly it was covered up with an evil fire. "Get up," she ordered. He stood up without a comment; he knew he had hit a cord and was beginning to regret his tactless comment. He'd done it to get back, get back at who? Saiyans? Vegeta? Evil space aliens in general?
Roma spoke inches from his face. "What would you do to keep your people alive?"
"I-I-I don't know," he stuttered. Die? Hadn't he already done that a couple times.
"My people were slaves, don't forget who gave the orders," she stated.
Freeza. "I'm sorry," he said and he meant it. He'd forgotten about the icejins.
She could hear the honesty and accepted it. People had said worse to her, and she'd kept her cool. Yet this human riled her up so easily. He was so sure of himself, cocky to a fault. Since arriving at Earth her insides had been wound up tight like a spring; she needed someone to punch. She took a step back from him. "Forget it."
Whee-oo whee-oo whee-oo. Several sirens caught Roma's attention as police cars passed the West Street by the park.
Yamcha was grateful for the distraction. "Must be something up. Uh, let's go have a look." He wanted to swallow the suggestion the second it escaped his lips. Yeah, he thought, as if human police officers with guns will be impressive. Reluctantly, Yamcha grabbed Roma's wrist and sprinted after the sirens.
The six cop cars surrounded a large bank, aiming their weapons at a large white van parked at the corner. A crowd was forming across the street, even as officers tried to coax them to leave. Whispers of a bank robbery gone bad were passed along. Apparently, they were holding up in their van with a hostage.
Roma and Yamcha pushed through to the front of the crowd. "Stealing money? Why?" asked Roma.
"To buy things. Like all those clothes you just got."
Swoosh. A man landed just in front of them, wearing a gaudy green and black costume with a cape and a white helmet. Yamcha rolled his eyes and muttered to himself ("Oh kami. Not the best impression of Earth…").
"Citizen stand back," said Saiyaman.
"Sure thing, Go- uh Saiyaman," said Yamcha, grateful that either Gohan didn't recognize him or didn't care.
"You seem familiar with this weirdo," said Roma.
"Uh, definitely not," said Yamcha as Gohan started putting on his introduction and making strange motions.
"He talks too much," Roma said raising her palm and releasing three tiny ki-blasts towards the van.
Yamcha hurriedly pulled her through the crowd before anyone could identify her as the "shooter." "There was a hostage!" he shouted at her.
Roma cocked a grin and tapped her scouter. "I can avoid hurting someone if I want."
He couldn't argue with that, if it was true. "Fine, but you can't do that stuff around – "
"Humans?" Roma supplied. "This ball of dirt is increasingly disappointing."
He sighed and smirked, "For you and most of the rest of us."
XXXXXXXX
Although in West City the sky had turned a dark blue and the wind blew a brisk autumn wind, in the wilderness of the Northern plateau the warm sun was just dipping down towards the horizon, painting the landscape a striking contrast of golden glows and stark shadows.
Vegeta sat at the edge of a cliff staring off through the sunset. The whirr of an engine grew nearer and a small hover-scooter came into view. Bulma landed only a few feet away and quickly capsuled the hover-scooter away into her pocket.
Vegeta gave a glance at the scouter she wore. This woman would find any means of finding him. Minutes of silence passed. Bulma never taking her eyes off him, asking the questions without having to move a lip.
"She's my sister," he said suddenly.
"And?" said Bulma taking a couple tentative steps closer.
"She's my sister, " Vegeta repeated in a strained, low voice; to admit even that much was a struggle.
Bulma felt an foreign sensation at the edge of her own thoughts. (She knew Chichi and Goku could communicate telepathically on a rudimentary level, and she herself had felt something the moment of Vegeta's death during the Buu fight.) These sensations were not whole thoughts, there were no words, but a weight of dark feeling that could crack tectonic plates.
A child's scream. This, this was Vegeta's oldest memory. Though he knew his mother, his father, his sister, even some of the words of wisdom the Saiyan King had shared with him, the moments, activities, events of his young life had been boxed away and buried so deep never to be resurrected.
Just as he knew the saiyan alphabet but could not recall the first epics he'd read; he recognized his sister, but could not remember her.
The telepathic connection abruptly ended as if the whole incident had been an accidental leak, though Bulma suspected apart of Vegeta shared it on purpose.
She kneeled down beside her husband and spoke, "What are you going to do?"
"She is saiyan blood, royalty. I am going to train her."
XXXXXXXX
Roma pulled out her half-acceptable human clothing, dressing in a snug tank and shorts as sleepwear.
Yamcha had become more agreeable after the incident in the park, though still cranky, and had walked her up and down several streets. Kami, was everything just shops to these people? Back at Capsule Corp, she'd spent the rest of the evening with her nephew, who continued to fill her in on the planet Earth and had wonderfully introduced her to the delicacy called ice cream.
Bulma passed by the bedroom door, chatting on her cell ("No, no Roma is harmless. I'm glad they were stopped and the girl was fine. No, no Gohan I don't think she – hold on"). She poked her head in for a second, "How was it? You didn't kill Yamcha did you?"
"I'm sure the bruise on his face will heal," she said truthfully.
Bulma laughed, "Oh dear, I'm not gonna ask. He usually does something to deserve it. Sorry I couldn't find anyone else. Tomorrow I'll make it up to you. Promise. Sleep well."
A minute later the door opened again. Vegeta stood hands on hips. Roma stiffened upright.
"6 AM, gravity room."
"Yes, sir." She respectfully bowed low and when she looked up he was gone, but the image of what he'd been wearing!
A blue button shirt and loose tan pants; human clothes on the Saiyan Prince! The stress of the day released, and she fell to her knees laughing her heart out.
Trunks poked his head in. "Aunt Roma? You're not turning evil, are you?"