Dragon Ball: Space Adventures
About as well it could have gone VIII
The ball of fire quietly darkened gradually, like a drink being watered. It's molten color slowly turned into a dark mushroom that rose high, appearing akin to a cancer in the blue crystalline skies. The ever expanding wave of energy silently shook away every cloud near, creating the appearance of a tsunami in the atmosphere. He looked down towards the earth where the ground still burned with ferocity, following the path of the attack in a straight line that was accompanied by the smell of ash and carbon sparsed over the entire area. Uub smiled content, complete, and feeling both hands number that they had ever been. To say he couldn't feel them would be an understatement. The attack had been nothing short of brutal, pure unrestricted energy being released like nuke—devouring entire miles around in a sphere of radioactive fire. He quivered just thinking what that thing could've done if it had hit him or a populated area. Thankfully, none of that happened, so as far as he was concerned, it had all gone just fine. Now all it was left was to go home, and part to another world.
He began to walk towards Bulla, Ignoring Pan who followed him with her eyes, as anything else seemed to be too much, and feeling slightly bad for the blue-haired girl. He didn't know what or why but seeing her getting punched wasn't as satisfactory as it should have been. She was there sitting on the ground near where Pan had sent her flying, holding her right arm with the left and with the two growing mountainous bruises on each cheek. Her clothes were ragged and broken and filled with dirt, the hair was a mess similar to the Everest—and she simply seemed out of it. Tiredly resting like she was waiting for something, anything. Even the tail was unbuttoned, resting straight in the ground imitating a lifeless snake. It was odd, that was for certain.
—Are you alright?
The girl looked up, and softly, she responded.
—Yes.
She said, tired, beaten. With the shine of her eyes gone and the glamorous tone having banished to a faraway land that didn't seem to exist anymore. Uub recognized it immediately. That shame, that regret, the feeling of sadness that embeds you after a terrible loss—where you decide to rest in the floor for a couple of minutes to try and regain some semblance of honor. He extended his right and offered a hand to get her to get up. Slowly, the girl extended hers, and once they connected Uub pushed and she raised from the ground. She trembled a little from the effort, but she was able to stabilize and get up. The girl didn't look like herself, he barely could see the similarity between the girl that less than a week ago had ordered him to sit. It felt wrong, and the boy wondered why. Sure, Bulla hadn't been half as bad as Pan, if anything he could say she'd just lived in her own world—but that didn't make it better, they had not only put the fate of their planet at risk but also kept him in chains like a slave for over a week, if that didn't merit serious consequences then nothing did. So why couldn't he enjoy it? He enjoyed what happened to Pan, it'd had been the most cathartic set of events he'd witnessed in a very long while, not only that, but he looked incredibly cool while doing it. It was a shame no one was there to see it.
At last, Uub gave up, he decided to give Bulla some space, and went for the black-haired girl. There, where the ground had first obscured, and small fires appear to have been lit up, laid Pan, breathing heavily and trembling as if she had hypothermia. She rose her eyes to his, and the boy saw an immensity that threatened to devour him whole, an anger greater than the entire universe and it's many worlds, so powerful that it could bring energy to every know town he ever knew. She could hold that, he thought, deep inside and for the time she had left, for he had won this one, now and forever. He extended his hand down for her, and didn't say a word—he held his mouth in place and even if he needed, he refused to act mockingly, for he had already gotten everything he wanted. Uub, held the hand in place for a while, trying to see if the girl had at least the dignity of defeat in her soul, but just as he expected, Pan never waved her eyes from him, never dignified the hand and what it meant, she just had one simple objective; Him. And if that was going to be the way she preferred to live her life, then he would be alright with that. He subtracted the hand and walked away feeling slightly disappointed and surprised. That was the granddaughter of his master, just some brat who didn't know what she had. He had no more words to speak to her. Instead, he returned towards Bulla, to focus on what it had to be done. The blue-haired maiden had slightly recomposed, and now seemed to pacing over her head a white cream in an attempt to control her unruly hair. Even the nosebleed had stopped, although the face was still a pretty large mess. For a moment, they've locked eyes, and the boy awkwardly put a hand on the back of his head.
—…I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but could you explain to me how do we obtain the water?
Uub expected a lot of things, a no, a very uncomfortable explanation, but none of those things happened. Instead, she smiled and looked away shaking her head.
—It's funny, you look like him.
Uub smiled nervously, He guessed he did had a lot of things in common with him.
Moments later, and after an explanation Uub actually paid attention this time, the girl grabbed a box from her back (The boy had no idea where she'd even gotten that) and gave him one of the capsules. With that, Uub nodded and asked her if she wanted to go along. The girl denied, for she had to apologize for her behavior. Uub asked her again if she wanted him to go along—Bulla, very annoyed, sighed deeply and told him no.
—I'm fine, young Uub, I do not need your assistance, not for this.
The sudden change of tone took him back, it was like seeing a dead volcano burst open in half. In a way, he was happy, it meant it hadn't been that bad.
So the boy flew, freely and as fast as he could. His body still warm from the movement and fresh from that week that with each passing second felt farther from his memory.
Bulla watched him leave like a dream in the morning. Tiredly, the girl sighed, and looked over the city she'd soon have to go again. Shame washed her over like rain. She couldn't even believe it had happened in the first place—her, acting no different than a badly raised dog. The sheer horror that passed through her brain as she thought of the inevitable moment her father would ask for details, and how those eyes would look in sadness down to her when he unescapably hears of how she'd been behaved. Eschalot didn't even want to think of mentioning the fight. It was like the worst possible scenario turned reality. She had tried so hard and done everything her father had told her to do, and yet, she hadn't landed one blow—She hadn't done anything at all! She had been punched in the face, like a punching bag, that was the only good thing she'd successfully done. What was this? This feeling of fear and shame, like waking up late for school and the bed wet. Bulla's mind was filled with a sense of dread and hopelessness, she felt weak, as if all her strength had disappeared. Who was she to fight? Who was she to train and be warrior? She was a weakling, a bag that needed to be carried, and even with all she's done, it meant nothing. Seeing Pan get humiliated did make her feel better, but if someone that was much better got beaten so easily, then what was the point? Why even try? She thought her brother had made her suffer entire lives all at once, and now seeing someone else suffer only brought her more doubt. Was that common? to lose so badly you wish to have never been born, or was it simply a fact of life no different than reproduction and death? She didn't know, and maybe didn't even want to know. But what she did know, was that she had a thing left to do.
The girl took off slowly, carefully. First she lifted herself from the ground and then turned around and moved away in the direction they had first came. Momentarily, she turned around to watch Pan, but she wasn't looking at them, she was looking at the ground, seemingly in thought. She could hold that, she thought, refusing to share any type of empathetic thoughts with the other loser.
Bulla moved fast, passing above the gate once more and making her way through the city. Thinking of what she had done all the clothes she had lost. All of it was gone, her pride, her honor, her clothes, at the very least the gems now belonged to a few intelligent sellers, at least someone won something. At last, she reached the place where it happened. That horrible spot that would remain in her memory forever, where the ground had cratered on the place she held her tail in anger. There were no clothes around, all had gone flying away, only the crowd of people still remained there alongside some guards who had made their way to examine the place. She stood from above the river, watching how the people calmly turned their eyes towards her. One by one the number pupils on the girl grew, until it became no different than a coliseum watching the gladiators struggle. She smashed each palm of her hands, and bowed down to the countless citizens that joined the spectacle.
—Citizens of this beautiful city, It is I, Bulla Eschalot Briefs, Princess of all Saiyans, have come here to offer my most solemn apologizes. Shortly ago, my rashness and childless caused a terrible commotion. People got hurt, many were scared, I have no excuse for my actions and their consequences, and for the pain and fear I have caused, for that, I'm sorry.
No replied, no one found in themselves a proper response to this sequence of events that so easily surpassed them like a car doing ninety in the highway as you jog in the other side of the concrete wall. Quickly, the girl turned around and scattered away like a rat running from a cat, trying to hold the overwhelming sense of embarrassment that had so easily embolden her entire body. This was a day that would live in infamy.
By the time both Bulla and Uub arrived at the ship again, they were not surprised to see Pan already there. She was in the upper floor, doing pushups. They didn't bother to say greetings—none wanted. Instead Bulla went on to take a shower, and Uub decided to wait after she was done to take one too.
As the water began to ran the boy quickly became aware of the deafening silence of the ship, the sounds of the crowd were impossibly distant, and now it was just them—alone. The boy sighed already missing it. He tried to cheer himself up a little. They had one out of seven Dragon Balls, and all things considered this had been a walk alongside the river in a nice sunny day when he stopped to think of all the possible things that could have gone wrong. So maybe the rest of the trip would be like this.
For a second, he remained alert, carefully looked around for it, ready—alert waiting for that same gust of wind to appear and threaten him, seconds passed and time went on, but, it didn't, nothing happened. Uub exhaled, maybe I'd all go fine.