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It took most of the rest of the night to get Vegeta and Radditz settled into their quarters. Well, not Radditz, Bulma noted crossly; Vegeta's guard had no problem adjusting to his capsule house, and was quickly snoring away what remained of the night. Vegeta, however, was a handful. By the time dawn rolled around he had destroyed at least a dozen more robots, half of them unarmed domesticated ones, in the mistaken belief they were some sort of training aids. He gave up only after Bulma coded the security robots to recognize the Prince. Once she did that, no matter how he taunted them, the robots no longer fought back. Bored with blowing passive things up, the Prince finally stalked off to his new home and slammed the door after himself. Bulma regarded the smoking mounds of debris left behind, looked up at the just-lightening sky, and vowed to get a couple of hours sleep no matter what the Saiyans destroyed next.
Which was when Yamcha dropped in front of her, scaring her out of what was left of her wits, and then pushed her right over the edge by demanding what the hell was going on. "Nice of you to show up now that everything's quieted down!" she screamed at him. "What's the matter, too busy drinking and socializing and womanizing to notice there was a ki battle right under your nose?"
"I don't drink," he said, indignantly, but he also blushed slightly, which told Bulma more than she wanted to know about why it had taken him several hours to respond to ki blasts right under his nose. And something snapped.
"Yamcha," she said without, at first, raising her voice, "I want you out of here. I don't want to see you on the compound's grounds unless you call first. I don't care if the Corporation is being razed by bug-eyed monsters. I don't care if an interdimensional rift opens in the living room and you're the only person in the universe who can close it. I don't care," she continued, her tone turning harsh, "if you're so dense you can only think with your balls, if all you care about is whether or not your pants are tight enough to show off your ass properly, and I don't care," she screamed, "if you sleep with every kung-fu-slash-baseball groupie in the Western Capital and points beyond! I don't care if I never see you again!"
She stared at him, breathing hard, her face streaked with red and veins standing out against her temples. Yamcha was gaping, jaw hanging loosely, astonished. He raised his palms toward her. "Bulma..." he started, placating.
She slapped him, as hard as she could, but of course he saw it coming and, although he let her, he threw his ki shield up and she practically broke her hand against his face. "Why the hell are you still here?" she snapped angrily, shaking her fingers.
After a minute, Yamcha said coldly, "I have no idea." He disappeared as suddenly as he appeared, a small whirlwind of dust marking his exit.
"And stay out!" Bulma shouted to the empty air. She leaned over, bracing her elbows against her thighs, rubbing her stinging hand, fiercely telling herself she was not going to cry and she was not going to throw up, either.
Behind her came the muffled sound of applause. Bulma squeezed her eyes closed, took deep breaths until she could breathe properly, then straightened, put her hands at her waist, and slowly turned around. Vegeta was leaning in the doorway of the guest house, politely tapping his gloved fingers against the palm of his opposite hand. "Thank you," Bulma said, her tone ironic but controlled. "That concludes the entertainment portion of our program, Prince Vegeta. You can go to sleep now. Or whatever it is you Saiyans do."
Vegeta gazed at the lightening sky, much as Bulma herself had done a few short minutes earlier, and said, "I'm wide awake. Maybe I could chase down a few more of your robots?"
"They're locked down for the day."
"I've seen a few of those pink things around."
"Those are the domestic robots, Vegeta, remember? They don't have any weapons capabilities."
"But they blow up so nicely."
"Find something else to pound on for a while," she told him, crossly.
Looking unexpectedly pleased at her harsh words, Vegeta vanished with a gust of wind that pushed her back several feet. Scowling, she wondered what part of the world he was about to wreck havoc on--then suddenly realized what his most likely target was and sprinted for the nearest phone.
She was too late. "Tell me something I don't know," snapped Chi-chi. "As if I didn't have enough problems with my son heading into the forest at all hours, my husband suddenly announces he has a training session and vanishes before my eyes! I just know he's going to show up black and blue with his gi all ripped and a stupid grin on his face."
About to mention that Goku always had a stupid grin on his face, Bulma barely stopped herself and instead replied, weakly, that it would at least give Chi-chi some time to herself. Chi-chi hung up in her ear. Holding the receiver away and looking at it, Bulma decided it was going to be a long two months.
Puaru heard the sounds on the balcony that indicated Yamcha was coming home. Looking at the clock, he sighed. Yamcha's stamina was phenomenal, it needed to be to sustain the stress wielding ki energies put on his body, but if he kept these hours during the season it couldn't but help affect his play. "Coffee's on," he called into the living room. There was no answer. "Yamcha?" Still no answer. Beginning to feel the first twinges of alarm, Puaru drifted into the living room.
Yamcha was sprawled on the sofa, his head buried in his hands, his attitude that of a man who had suffered a crushing defeat. "Kami-sama!" gasped Puaru in alarm. "Yamcha, what happened?"
For a moment, Puaru thought he would get no answer. Then, "I blew it, Puaru," came a strained voice from behind Yamcha's hands. "Oh, I blew it, big time. But she made me lose my temper and Vegeta was standing right behind her with that goddamned smug look on his face and then," his voice turned plaintive, "she hit me, dammit. She didn't have any right to do that, Puaru. It wasn't like she was in any danger; I could tell it was just Vegeta last night."
Floating in front of his friend, Puaru folded his stubby arms against his sides and sighed. "Just Vegeta, Yamcha? Just the most powerful, the most dangerous, the most ruthless being any of us have ever come across? It's just Vegeta at Bulma's place in the middle of the night, and you aren't worried enough about it to come racing to the rescue?"
There was another long pause. "He wouldn't hurt her," muttered Yamcha. "I knew he wouldn't hurt her."
Puaru sighed again. Then he wrapped his furry body around his friend's neck like any normal house cat, and made soft purring noises as Yamcha folded his arms across his face and started sobbing.
The first day set up a regular routine that saw Vegeta disappearing for several hours every morning (and Goku, according to Chi-chi's irritated reports, doing the same), returning just before lunch with his battlesuit ripped in dozens of places and a self-satisfied smirk curving his mouth. Bulma hoped the Prince had brought enough battle gear to last for his entire visit; she had no doubt Vegeta would happily head out to battle Goku stark naked if he ran out of clothes. The thought brought strange images to mind that she ruthlessly repressed, wondering crossly if she was running a fever or if dealing with the Saiyans was driving her crazy.
She wasted several days worrying about the extra strain cooking for their alien guests was putting on her mother, largely to keep her mind off her suddenly-void personal life. Mrs. Briefs was constantly in the kitchen, it seemed to Bulma, making copious amounts of strange things she had never made for her own family, and turning off every domestic robot Bulma programmed to help her with the task. Bulma finally confronted her mother, nearly in tears. Mrs. Briefs put an arm around her shoulder. "Oh, Bulma; I know you just try to make life simpler for people, and it's true I didn't cook much before the Saiyans came here. But cooking for Radditz is...nice. He has such a primal appreciation of food. I like doing it, Bulma." She looked into her daughter's face. "Not everything you dislike is such a chore for the rest of the world, Bulma. I always liked cooking for you as a little girl, you know. Then you made the first domestic robot, and you were so proud of it, I just didn't have the heart to chase it out of the kitchen. I've missed cooking for you and your father, dear, although I have to say," she added, lightly, "that neither of you ever enjoyed food the way the Saiyans do."
"Well, I would hope not," Bulma sniffled against Mrs. Briefs shoulder. "We'd both be the size of buildings if we did."
"Sweetheart, you know what would be really, really helpful?"
Pulling back, Bulma silently shook her head.
"Groceries," said Mrs. Briefs. "Vegeta will be back for lunch soon, and I have plenty of food for that, but we need a main course for dinner tonight. I was thinking I might try a curry recipe I got off the internet. Could you go get a couple of cows? Ground up, of course."
That made Bulma chuckle weakly. She dabbed at her eyes, promised she would go get whatever ingredients her mother wanted, then made Mrs. Briefs promise not to wear herself out cooking for their guests. "Well, of course not, dear," said her mother easily. "This is fun right now, but I wouldn't want to do it indefinitely. If Vegeta or Radditz decided to live here forever, I would not only insist on having a few robots in the kitchen, I'd help you program the contraptions."
Bulma actually laughed at that. Feeling better than she had in days, Bulma went outside and pulled out a capsule, tossing it on the lawn and watching it expand into one of Capsule Corporations' top-of-the-line convertibles. Just as she was putting her hand on the door, she heard a popping sound. Looking up, she saw Vegeta suddenly floating just overhead, scowling at her.
"I see Goku went easy on you today," she greeted him.
"He didn't get a hand on me," he returned, smugly. Looking him over, Bulma thought it was probably close to the truth. The Prince was less ragged than usual after one of his bouts, although she could clearly discern a boot mark on the white armor smack in the middle of his chest. "Where do you store all of these things?" he asked.
She blinked, then looked at the car. "In capsules, Vegeta. Remember?"
"Idiot," he said in annoyance. "After you get them out of the capsules, where do you put them all? Is there a dumping ground?"
"Good grief, no. People aren't going to throw away a car after using it once, Vegeta. Everything can be encapsulated again." Bulma showed him the button hidden under the car's handle, and a minute later was tossing him the newly de-miniaturized vehicle in its little cylinder. One brow went up as he held it in his palm; just for a minute Bulma wondered at the hard amusement in his face. But he sighed and said, as if to himself, "This doesn't explain how they get in there in the first place..."
"We have machinery for that," Bulma told him. "I can show it to you."
Vegeta looked faintly surprised, but touched down, folded his arms and followed her into the factory.
Just for a minute as he held the capsule Vegeta reconsidered the fate of this curious planet and its strange mixture of species. By the time the ship returned, he could single-handedly clear Chikyuu, and even finally force that renegade Kakarott into a real fight before destroying him. But understanding how to shrink and expand this one item put him no closer to figuring out how they would do the same with previously-non-encapsulated Saiyan space pods, fuel stores or food reserves.
Then the woman, with that strange openness of her people, offered to make her race redundant by showing him the technique. These humans seem to have no interest in survival, the Prince thought as he walked after her. It would probably be a mercy to put them out of their trusting misery, before something far less efficient than the Saiyans came along to destroy them.
It took about five minutes to regret his decision so intensely that Vegeta wished someone would put him out of his misery. Bulma steered him along a series of catwalks that wound above and around massive metal constructs that, as far as he could discern, existed for the sole purpose of damaging his eardrums with their ceaseless creaking and wheezing. Bulma pointed out the beginning of the process, where robots ushered what-ever needed to be compressed into the broad end of a huge metallic machine, then pulled him to the opposite end of the factory where capsules were spit out into color-coated containers that seemed to indicate what was concealed within each capsule. Shouting in his ear that it was too loud to go into the details here, she next dragged him into a small alcove that, when she slammed the door, was mercifully quiet. He sank into a chair in front of a plain desk with something like relief, wondering if his hearing would ever be the same again.
But Vegeta's ordeal was not over. Bulma began to discuss matter shunts and stasis fields, and the Prince, once the ringing in his ears ceased, soon found himself bored to tears. Well, not 'tears' -- he never cried, not even as a child when his father's blows still had the capacity of hurting him -- but he wouldn't mind hitting something. He idly wondered if Kakarott would be interested in an afternoon session, and brushed casually for a second time at the strange tickle in his nose as he gazed absently at Bulma's profile.
The annoying drone of the Earthling's voice stopped. "You're not really technical, are you?" Vegeta focused on her, thinking how fragile her skull was beneath the too-pale skin. The only sort of sparring he could do with her was verbal--any other sort, no matter how he pulled his blow, would end up killing her. This is no fun, the Prince thought, and brushed again at his nose.
"You've got a nose bleed," Bulma said.
A what--? Vegeta looked down at his white glove, and saw slight, rusty smears.
"Here." Bulma plucked a thin, flimsy sheet of paper out of a box on her desk, leaned toward him and plopped it over the lower part of his face, pinching his nostrils closed. Over her hand, Vegeta's eyes reflected sheer astonishment. This better not be a mating ritual, he thought.
"Whoa, gusher! Better lean your head back."
"I will do no such thing," snapped Vegeta in annoyance. Since she was still blocking off his nose, his imperious voice came out flattened. The human giggled at him. Laying one finger under her wrist, Vegeta pushed her hand away.
Bulma glared at him. "Geez, fine! See if I try to help you next time you're in physical duress!" She shoved the box of flimsy paper at him. "Clean up after your own bloody nose," she snapped, and stalked out.
Bulma did two laps around the factory's catwalks before she calmed down enough to wonder what it was about Vegeta that constantly got under her skin. Apart from the fact he was arrogant far beyond the point of mere rudeness, that he thought he owned everything in sight and most things out of sight, that he still could decide to blow up the planet if he lost his cool for half a second, that--
She heard something. Stepping off the catwalk into a side corridor, she listened for a second as her father's augmented voice, echoing slightly, ordered some adjustments to the 'center console.' Bulma frowned slightly, beginning to move along the corridor, following the sound. She had barely seen Dr. Briefs since the morning of the party, when he had apparently experienced the "brainstorm" that kept him occupied in the factory most hours of the day and night. Wondering what he could possibly be working on, she entered a passageway that crossed over to an adjoining research building, walked down a flight of stairs, and finally traced the sound to a big, closed-off hanger usually used for testing rocket engines. It was normally a huge, empty room. Today, there was a large, domed -- something -- in the very center. Off to the side of the new construct was a smaller, narrower rectangle leaning against it. She paced over to it, walked around it until she found a plain door with the Capsule Corporation logo painted on it. Her father's voice came over the loudspeaker again: "That should do it! We're about ready for the beta phase of testing."
Climbing three short steps, Bulma put her hand against the touch pad by the door. It slid back into the construct's curving wall. After a bare hesitation, she stepped over the raised threshold and walked in.
Looking out the rectangular window of the control room, Dr. Briefs greeted his daughter with pleased surprise. "Bulma! Come to see my latest invention?"
Bulma stepped into the chamber, glancing at the center post with the elaborate computer system, looking around the empty, white interior with her brow up. "It's very nice," she said, the microphones in the chamber giving her voice a slight tinny sound. "For a big empty room, that is."
"It's a gravity chamber," said Dr. Briefs, his tone indicating that Bulma should have immediately deduced that herself. "I figured, if we're going to be sending things off to young Vegeta's planet, it would be a good idea to make sure they work under intense pressure before they get there."
Bulma perked up slightly, interest replacing the polite attention in her gaze. "This is based on Radditz's pod, isn't it?"
"Partially. They used very inappropriate materials in parts of his ship, however, stuff clearly meant for lower gravities. It's amazing the things don't short out all the time."
"They probably do," mused Bulma. "The Saiyans just don't care if they lose warriors and babies in transit. It's not important enough to them to try and figure out why pods aren't getting to their assigned destinations." After looking the controls, she began to push some buttons.
"Careful," her father warned as corresponding lights lit up on the master panel in front of him. "If you implement that command, you'll be in a pressure cooker. That's ten G."
"Yes, I know. I want to see what ten G feels like."
Dr. Briefs looked through the narrow observation window, an expression of understanding and commiseration on his face that would have puzzled his daughter. "Okay, but better let me handle that from here." Stepping back from the central control column, Bulma tensed her leg muscles and clenched her fists, visibly bracing herself. "Lie down," her father instructed.
"What? Why?"
"Because," Dr. Briefs said, once more using that isn't-it-obvious tone, "you're going to go from weighing, what, 130 pounds to weighting over one thousand in less than a minute. Your legs will snap, probably in several places, since your bones lack the tensile strength to stand upright under that much weight. Of course, you won't notice because the blood is going to be forced out of your brain and you'll be unconscious before the first break occurs. If you lie down, we can minimize damage to organ bruises and such. Although if you hang on a second, maybe I should calculate the odds of a cerebral hemorrhage..."
"No." Bulma reached for the control panel, bracing her hands against its cool metallic edge and lowering her head, something in her soul cracking softly. "Of course," she continued after a minute. "I knew all that. What was I thinking? I wasn't thinking. You're right, Dad." She pushed away, and walked toward the exit.
But the door to the main factory opened before she reached it, and Vegeta stepped into the chamber. "Let's try this a different way," he said.
The Earth woman went from moderately dejected to haughty in an instant. Arms akimbo, she said, harshly, "What were you doing, eavesdropping?"
Vegeta's brows went up. "Even if I didn't have hearing twice as sensitive as a human's, woman, I could hardly miss the conversation. You were broadcasting all over the building."
Bulma turned her glare toward her father. The old man shrugged, flipped a switch, and said, "There. It's just the control booth, now. Although if you're considering going ahead with this, we might want to pump it into the emergency crew's quarters as well..."
"All I'm considering doing is walking out the door, which I'll be happy to do as soon as the Prince of all the Saiyans moves his--"
"You're an idiot, aren't you?" Vegeta asked, rhetorically. "You haven't considered the obvious. Ten Gs is nothing for me, woman. It's what I'm used to, what my people are adapted for."
"Bully for you and your people."
Dr. Briefs interrupted was quickly escalating into a full-fledged skirmish. "Why don't you tell us what you have in mind, young fellow?"
Decapitating you next time you call me that. "You want to feel the full effects of Vejiitasei's gravity?" Vegeta said to Bulma. "Fine. We can do it, if I protect you with my aura."
Over the speakers came the muffled squeak of a worker in the booth saying incredulously, "With his what?" Dr. Briefs made a shushing sound.
"You shouldn't feel anything at first," said Vegeta, ignoring the interruption. "I can gradually filter the gravity through the ki shield until you indicate your tolerance level has been reached." His gaze turned sardonic. "Of course, you're going to have to trust that I won't just step back and leave you a mashed pile of bloody flesh on the floor..."
Bulma looked at him steadily, then a smile curved against her mouth. "No, that would be too easy for you, wouldn't it? You prefer to slowly annoy me to death. And Kami knows you've come close enough to that a few times. All right; I agree."
"Bulma--!" the old man squeaked in alarm.
"Is there a panic button on the control panel?"
"Yes," Dr. Briefs admitted after a moment.
"Well, then;" Bulma smiled at her father, "just wait until I say 'panic' before hitting it, okay?"
So--I've completely lost my mind, haven't I?
Vegeta made a small gesture with his chin that Bulma took to mean, 'come here.' She stepped in front of him. He turned her with light fingers against her arms so that she faced her father, then, loosely, put his arms around her waist and crossed his hands against her stomach. She could feel the warmth of him through the gloves, through the unitard, even through the hard armor barely touching her back. He's like an ember, she thought, then wondered why she was thinking about Vegeta's core body temperature when she needed to be considering her future career as the world's flattest scientist. She sighed.
"Steady," came Vegeta's deep voice near her ear.
"I'm fine," Bulma snapped.
"I can tell," he murmured in amusement. "I'm going to charge up now."
There was something she hadn't considered. "Will that hurt?"
"I won't feel a thing," the Prince assured her.
Vexed, Bulma looked over her shoulder to see a faint smile lifting the corners of his mouth. Then she felt a strange electric current that seemed to start where his hands rested against her waist. She put her hands on top of his wrists and the current ran up her arms. She shivered. "Steady," he said again, even as she watched a slight, diffuse glow surround his face, seeming to light him up from within, accenting the strong planes of his face.
"Does it always feel like this?" Bulma asked in nervous wonder.
Those thick brows went up. "Well, it used to be a bit prickly when I started accessing higher ki levels. Now," the broad shoulders shrugged, a movement she felt to her core, "I'm used to it."
Bulma looked up into the control booth, where a deadly silence was reigning. The workers were openly gaping at Vegeta, at the glimmering steel-blue radiance that enveloped the two of them. Her father covered the microphone and said something, apparently sharply, because all eyes suddenly dropped to their respective workstations.
"This is what you want to do?" Dr. Briefs asked his daughter. Wide-eyed, she nodded. Her father then looked at Vegeta, an expression in the watery blue eyes she had never seen before. "Young man," her father said, sternly, "that is my only child you have there. I realize that Saiyans have nothing but contempt for the sciences, but if anything happens to her, you are going to be very sorry you ever dismissed differential calculus as unimportant."
There was a slight tensing of the fingers under her hands, then Vegeta said, his tone formal, "I will not permit any harm to your offspring. You have my warrior's oath on that."
"Right," said Dr. Briefs. "Bulma?"
She lied through clenched teeth. "I'm ready."
So--I've completely lost my mind, haven't I?
Vegeta didn't even feel the extra gravitational pull when the machine whirred, but the woman in his arms flinched and crowded back against him, and it was all he could do to keep his grasp loose when he suddenly wanted to wrap his body around her and keep the crushing force she feared away from her. "Stop stepping all over me, you stupid fool," was what he said.
Bulma drew in a whistling breath through her clamped jaws, called him something obscene in a muttering tone, but finally held still, although the grip she had on his hands would break the bones of any normal Earthling male. Especially that weakling Yamcha's...
"We're at 10 G's," came the old man's voice from the control room. "Bulma, you don't have to do this."
She was shaking with a fine tremor they probably couldn't even see from the control booth. For a moment the Prince thought she was going to back out. Turning his head so that his lips were almost against her ear, "Coward," he whispered to her.
Bulma's back went very straight. "Ready," she said, and her voice was firm.
Vegeta let himself feel the pressure outside his enfolding ki shield, carefully examined it then, incrementally, let a fraction of it through. Bulma gasped and staggered, but found her feet and pushed back, her body straining. "Not--so--bad," she gritted.
"That's enough," said the old man.
"How much?" demanded Bulma.
Vegeta gauged the difference between what he was permitting through his shield and what was pressing against it. "You're about one tenth of the way there," he said, dryly.
Her knees flexed, and she braced herself against him like he was a wall, folding her arms along his, wrapping her fingers around his wrists, wedging her elbows against his biceps. "More," she said.
Vegeta let another tenth or so through, and her head slammed back against his armored shoulder so hard he thought she might have knocked herself out. But she hissed, "More," once again and, after looking into her pale, strained face, he let a bit more filter through. He was, however, beginning to realize the futility, to understand the utter fragility of her race; he was supporting almost every gram of her increasing weight against his own body, and the gravity was still dragging her flesh down, distorting her features, beginning to pull the blood away from her head and trunk. In another second, her face would be as blue as her hair. "That's enough," he heard himself echoing the old man.
"How much?" she forced out of her throat.
The Prince very much wanted to lie, to tell her that she had experienced the full force of Vejiitasei's gravity well. "Three and a half G's, max," he said.
"More," she insisted.
Vegeta carefully went to one knee, getting her to the ground with her legs stretched in front of her. She was completely at his mercy, he thought; she couldn't have moved a finger to save her life. He wrapped his arms around her torso, made sure her head was firm against his shoulder, that it wasn't at an angle where a vertebra might suddenly give way, and dropped another portion of his shield, a larger one this time. The breath went out of her; he felt the ribs under his arms refuse to expand. He snapped the ki shield back into place fully, looked up at the old man and said, "That's enough."
I could never be a fighter pilot was her first thought. But Bulma knew it wasn't a true comparison. Fighter pilots experienced sudden but brief pressure extremes during sharp turns; they didn't try to stand or move or breathe under a steady, constant multitude of G forces.
Then she wondered how she came to be draped over Vegeta's thigh, and if it could possibly be Vegeta's gloved fingers she felt gently brushing against her neck, moving softly over her back. "It's all right," she heard the Prince's voice. "We'll think of something else."
"What?" Bulma spat out, disappointment and anger mixing in her voice. "Replacing the calcite in my bones with liquid metal? I'll snap like a twig under 10 Gs."
"Get over it," Vegeta said, his voice impatient although his hand continued to stroke, up and down, over her spine, across her shoulders. "If you're so damned smart you'll come up with a way."
And that brought her head up, because suddenly Bulma had no idea what the conversation was about. "What the hell do you mean?" she demanded harshly, urgently.
Vegeta looked at her, scowled, then his face simply -- closed. "I have no idea," he replied, shortly. "I think being under this feeble atmospheric pressure has made me light-headed." He stood abruptly, dislodging her. Bulma fell back, hard, and glared up at him as he folded his arms and stared haughtily back. She held out a hand, expecting to be pulled up, but the Prince made no move to assist her. "You are not such a weakling you need help to stand in this pathetic gravity," he said, coldly.
Bulma shot to her feet in record time, then, suddenly, she was screaming at the Prince like a banshee and, while he did not quite achieve the same decibel levels as she did, Vegeta's terse responses were loud enough to be categorized as shouts.
Watching from his perch over the quarreling couple's heads, Dr. Briefs had a pretty good idea, himself, what all the hollering was about. He mumbled an aside to one of his assistants. "Better get Development to step up the time table on that limited gravity field research." Nodding, the assistant made a note.
Read The Chikyuu Contaminant: Chapter Twenty-Two
Return to Vejiitasei Ascendant
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Dr. Briefs' gravity chamber has reached G's since 3/30/99!
