Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ A DRAGONBALL HONEYMOON ❯ The Dreamtime ( Chapter 8 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

A DRAGONBALL HONEYMOON © 2005 Darke Angelus
------

It didn't really make for the often-romanticized vision that
usually came to one's mind when they thought of Africa: A disheveled,
blue-haired woman trundling across the grasslands on a bright pink moped
that had a basket on the front. Trailing along behind her was the bluish
tinge of exhaust as the little vehicle coughed and wheezed its way back
to the village. On its hind fender were several new dents, created by an
agitated foot when it had made the mistake of stalling. Bulma was in a
shitty mood.

Strapped to the seat behind her was a large plant with the remains
of beautiful white flowers flailing in the breeze, most of the delicate
petals long gone. Finding the plant that her mother had requested had
been a lot harder than Bulma would have thought. The specimen that she
managed to find and dig up sure as hell didn't look much like the
pictures her mother had sent her. Especially not now. Still, her own
personal quest was finished and she was speeding back to the village in
the southern tip of Africa where she and Vegeta had been staying for the
last three days. There was a little airstrip behind the small
community's one post office and it offered courier service. Traveling
along the one dusty street that separated the well-maintained homes from
the businesses that catered to the tourist trade, Bulma noticed a flock
of people and villagers were clustering around an open-aired restaurant
and her heart sank. "Oh dammit, not again," she moaned, shaking her head
as she drove past.

Part of her bad mood was directed towards a particular alien
prince. That, in itself, wasn't much of a rarity but for the reason for
her resentment in the first place. She had spent most of the evening of
their second day in Africa phrasing and rephrasing her statement until
she had finally blurted out; "Tomorrow morning, I'm going to go out on
Daisy and get that flower that my mother wants. I'll probably be gone
for most of the day."

She braced herself for the reaction, honed by years of being in
Yamcha and Gokou's company, that she had created in her mind: A protest
for her not to go alone. That Launch might have reverted back to her
thief persona and reunited with her mercenary friends. That she could be
attacked and kidnapped (again!) and held at the mercy of strangers who
would seek to use her gorgeous body for their own vile perversions. At
the very least, he would offer to accompany her. Offering himself as her
protector and guardian and not letting her out of his sight for one
second. After all, they were now married and as her husband, he would
not dare to let his prized bride out of his sight for one second.

She held her breath when he raised his head from the hammock he
was resting in and squinted at her in confusion. They had rented a small
cabin on the outskirts of the little village. It provided the bare
necessities with a rustic, endearing charm that either had yet to find
in their accommodations since their honeymoon had started. There was no
electricity and so, no use for radios or television sets, or any other
base necessities that the rest of the modern world deemed so essential
for survival. There was a little sitting room and a bedroom, both
sparsely furnished, and that was it. The bathroom was a crude outhouse
sitting behind the flimsy structure and Bulma was absolutely mortified
to use it. Vegeta, displaying his usual indifference born of a thousand
worlds that didn't have plumbing, simply did his business as only men
could so effortlessly do, not seeming to care about the arrangement.
Senzu bean or not, his nerves were still worn precariously thin from all
of their traveling and he wouldn't have cared any less if they had
camped out in the middle of the Serengeti, just so long as he could get
some damned sleep.

Out in the back yard, however, he only looked at her with a type
of bewildered aggravation as he considered her statement. "Whatever," he
finally said and laid his head back down, eventually pulling the pillow
over his head to drown out the sounds of her indignant sputtering.

"I'll never figure him out," she was still muttering well into the
following day as she stamped into the post office, cradling her wilted
plant. "Rid Ribbon soldiers could have been lying in wait for me out
there and does he care? He doesn't care! Son of a b-"

"Ms. Briefs!" the attendant behind the counter broke out into a
broad smile at her appearance. All Bulma could make out in that dark
expanse of face were the woman's eyes and teeth. She was holding up a
bright yellow package.

"It came? That's fantastic!" Bulma said, setting the plant down on
the counter and eagerly tearing open the envelope. Inside of it was her
chief capsule packet that she had mixed up with her mother's. Once she
and Vegeta had secured a place to stay, she had gone into the village
and called her father to have him send her travel pack of capsules via
the local courier service. The first thing she was going to do once she
got back to their little rented hovel was pop a capsule house and take a
long hot bath.

Paying to have the plant packed and shipped for home, she returned
to Daisy and headed towards the small restaurant. In the short time that
she had been at the post office, the crowd had thickened to a point that
it looked like all the residents and tourists had decided to show up.
Bulma figured that they didn't get much for entertainment all the way
out here and had to make due with whatever came along.

Working her way through the friendly throng, she came up beside a
face she recognized and asked the owner, "How many has he eaten so far?"

"He's working on his fifth," the man said, shaking his head in
amazement. "I've never seen anyone eat more than two- and they didn't
keep it down for very long. Your husband is amazing!"

"He's something, that's for sure," Bulma mumbled, eyeing the scene
with dismay.

Seated at the table, Vegeta was eating breakfast and appearing
oblivious to the crowd as they kept track every time his fork descended
into an enormous pile of scrambled eggs and went back up to his mouth.
Their eyes ticked back and forth like spectators at a ping-pong game,
up-down, up-down, following the Saiyan as he worked determinedly through
his meal and showed no signs of faltering.

Oh god, that's his fifth plate? Bulma thought and inwardly winced
in horror.

The main stock of trade of this peaceful little village was
located on a nearby farm that devoted all of its resources to cater to
the unique stock that drew in tourists from all over the world. Bored
out of her mind by the second day of inactivity, Bulma had visited the
farm out of courisity. Operating like clockwork, professional guides
escorted groups around for over an hour, explaining every detail of the
anatomy, character, habits, feeding, reproduction and farming of this
fascinating creature. Ostriches. According to the tour guide, they were
one of the largest living birds in the world. A mature male stood close
to 8 feet high, and weighed between 140 to 230 pounds. The birds' huge
body and reduced wing size made them unable to fly but they made up for
that by being able to run up to 70 kilometers per hour. Holdovers of a
simpler, prehistoric era, the overgrown birds were highly prized on the
world market for their leather, meat, feathers, oil-

-and eggs.

The average ostrich egg measured six inches in length, five inches
in width, and weighed about three pounds. The shell, shiny and whitish
in color, was about an eighth of an inch thick and strong enough to
withstand the weight of a 250 pound man. The contents of one, single egg
were equal to 24 hens eggs and could feed eighteen people when
scrambled; a local delicacy. And here was Vegeta working his way through
his fifth plate; eating the equivalent of over a hundred normal eggs.
That knowledge alone wasn't what caused Bulma her present anxiety, she
had witnessed her Saiyan consume some enormous mounds of food.

It was what the eggs DID to him that was the problem.

Once upon a time, not so long after all of that awful Installation
15 business while she and Vegeta had begun to explore the eccentricities
of a relationship, her mother had cooked a humongous crock-pot full of
delicious baked beans. For the most part, everything that the Saiyan ate
on Earth resembled some alien delicacy he'd consumed in the past but he
found the beans particularly unique and ate almost all of the pot's
contents while Mrs. Briefs beamed with happiness. Later that night, the
beans had problems interacting with an alien digestive system and the
gas normally associated with such meals became a lethal weapon at the
Saiyan's disposal. Vegeta was amused with the whole thing, as most men
are, but Bulma was completely repulsed. Unable to sleep in a bedroom
that had turned into a noxious gas chamber, she had spent the night in a
spare bedroom. That morning, for the first time in either woman's
recollection, Bulma had threatened her mother with actual physical harm
if she ever prepared baked beans again.

The eggs were almost as bad but the sulfur associated with them
now made everything smell so much worse. Vegeta had eaten three ostrich
eggs the day before and the effects hadn't come into play until they had
been making love in the middle of the night. Every thrust of his hips
had been accompanied by a particular sound effect and once the smell had
hit her, the show was all over. She had tried to sleep with a
handkerchief, dappled with her favorite perfume, wrapped around her
face, and had propped every window wide open. Sulking beside her, Vegeta
farted every time he shifted position and Bulma wondered if she just
shouldn't light a match and put them both out of their misery.

And now he was eating five, Bulma thought again, slapping a hand
to her forehead and groaning.

Visibly slowing down, Vegeta finally forced down the last of the
contents on his plate and leaned back. Stifling a loud burp into a half-
closed fist, he began looking at the now-empty plate with a
contemplative concentration that Bulma immediately recognized with
dread. Quickly, she moved in to intervene before he could open his
mouth. "You're not having any more," she said sharply.

"You don't tell me what I can and can't have," he predictably shot
back but there was no threat to his tone. He was full; there was no
denying it. Beneath his loose t-shirt, the normally tight six-pack of
his abs were distended and bloated. Bulma looked at his stomach as if he
were concealing a ticking time bomb. In a weird, grotesque sort of way,
she supposed that he was.

"Dad had my capsule packet couriered here. Now that we have a new
hoverjet we can go get the five star Dragonball."

"Where are we going this time?" The question came out as a
reluctant sigh.

"Australia. From what you've told me, I think it'll more resemble
your home world than your previous battle site in the desert."

He seemed to brighten at that, not even wearing his usual scowl
when a tourist slipped in and got a photo of them together. He didn't
even protest when she tugged on the sleeve of his t-shirt and he
followed her out of the restaurant. Taking one look at Daisy, he said
he'd meet her back at their cabin and flew off, gathering a collection
of awed murmurs from the crowd. Bulma supposed traveling on unpaved dirt
roads on the back of a moped with poor shocks wouldn't help his
digestion any.

He was waiting for her when she finally showed up in a cloud of
dust and one last shuddering backfire from Daisy as she shut off the
engine for the final time. She encapsulated the little moped with a
mixture of relief and fondness, "You did us good, old girl," she praised
and placed the capsule carefully into her familiar travel packet.
Pulling out another that was labeled "Hoi-Poi Home" she depressed the
switch and threw it away like a baseball.

Vegeta watched the domed quarters appear in a cloud of dramatic
smoke and silently marveled at the technology behind the concept. It
appeared to be a puzzling combination of molecular physics intertwined
with some sort of extra-dimensional energy that he couldn't seem to
grasp even though he had taken apart his fair share of the capsules.
Bulma had explained the process to him once and he had nodded his
understanding while, internally, he had been lost after the first
sentence. Sometimes she forgot that Saiyans hadn't developed far enough
in their evolution to create technology of their own. What they'd had,
had been copied and stolen from other races. Vegeta was highly skilled
at redrawing the schematics of technology he'd examined in the past but
he'd never be able to build what he drew. It was a serious shortcoming
in his evolutionary make-up.

"I can't wait to take a shower!" Bulma cried and was pulling off
her clothes even before she charged into the front door of the bright
yellow structure. There was a small brook that ran behind their rented
cabin but Bulma did little more than wash her hands and splash her face
with the brown-tinged water, grimacing through the entire ordeal. She
was a woman who liked her comforts and her days of roughing it were long
behind her.

She was bent over the tub, holding her hand under the running
water when Vegeta came up behind her. He had also discarded his clothes
in short order and pulled her back towards him. She could feel his
arousal slide in between her thighs and he reached down between her legs
and deliberately rubbed the warm head into her slick folds. He growled
into her hair and lightly nipped at the flesh between her neck and
shoulder, raising excited gooseflesh. "We'll shower later," he said in a
husky voice.

"There's no reason we can't do both." She squeezed his erection
with a gentle hand and led him into the stall, using it like a very
effective lead on a barely-domesticated wild animal. Lost to all input
other than from the region where her hand was gripping him, Vegeta
followed along, barely having the wits to shut the stall door after
them.

Over the next several minutes, an observer standing in the tiny
bathroom would have been privy to the following:

Several throaty moans. The sounds of moist kissing. The
undercurrent of affectionate words. Wet slapping sounds that accompanied
the sound of running water. And then-

"BRA-A-AP!"

Immediately followed by: "Whoops."

"Agh! That's disgusting!" Bulma screeched. The shower door was
pulled open with such force that it almost came off of its runners.
Vegeta's sudden, ungainly exit was more of one being thrown out than
actually being pushed. "Get out of here! Go stink up someplace else
until I finish my shower! Agh!" She slammed the door closed on his
stunned face.

Angrily flipping wet hair out of his eyes, Vegeta grabbed a towel
and padded out into the next room. He intended to finish what they had
started, this time by his own hand, and he cursed through the entire
solitary act until it was over.

-----

One terse, silent brunch later and the pair were back in a new
hoverjet, speeding a direct course east. There was little conversation
between them; Bulma was still seething and Vegeta was still sulking. One
hour into the trip, he went into the small cabin in the back of the
cockpit and lied down to catch a short nap. That act alone served to
dispel the remnants of her animosity over what had happened in the
shower stall. She became lost in thought until he emerged from the cabin
two hours later and returned to the co-pilot's seat, rubbing his eyes
and yawning. She took a deep breath, put the hoverjet on autopilot, and
turned around in her seat to face him.

He looked at her, aware of her scrutiny. "What?" he asked
defensively as her examination lingered.

"It's nothing," she said and, after a pause, finally admitted;
"I'm just getting a little worried."

"Why?"

"You spent most of our time in Africa sleeping-" (and passing
wind, she thought to herself). "It's just not like you, that's all."

She didn't get the usual 'I'm fine' response that he usually used
to deflate her concern. Instead, he looked out at the sky for a while,
his profile tense and guarded before he dropped his eyes. "I've been on
this world too long," she heard him murmur in a low voice.

"What do you mean?" she asked, hoping that he would be receptive
to a direct question and not be evasive in this quiet moment.

He gave a very un-Vegetalike shrug and ran a hand through his
mussed hair. She didn't think he was going to answer until he said,
"Purge missions rarely lasted longer than a week. Shore leaves weren't
much longer. That left the stasis of the space pods or the artificial
gravity of the main warship..." his voice trailed off.

"Vegeta, what are you trying to say?"

"I haven't been on a planet longer than a month since I was a
chimp on my own home world, that's what I'm trying to say. Since then,
it's been an endless parade of different planets, different
environments, gravities, atmospheres, citizens," he rolled his eyes and
added an impatient shake with his right hand to drive the point home.
"But the missions, as I said, were short. We- I, didn't have to
acclimatize to it. The warship was my home, with a constant gravity of
two times that of earth and a thirty-two hour clock. I was completely
adapted to that environment."

When he looked over at her again, his features had hardened
dramatically. "That all changed when Radditz went to retrieve Kakarrot.
Nappa and I had to travel in the opposite direction to lead away
Frieza's scouts. I didn't want them to catch wind of Radditz's pod
trail. Nappa and I camped out on planets in the uncivilized fringe of
Frieza-regulated space waiting for his transmission. The wait actually
wasn't so bad, it was the yearlong travel to Earth that was the worst of
it. No training, no adequate food, no mental stimulation for an entire
fucking year! I was out of shape, hungry as hell, and suffering a
celestial case of jet lag. Small wonder I was a raving lunatic when we
finally reached this world. Small wonder..." he bit the words back but
she heard them whispering in the back of his mind; ...small wonder I
lost the battle...

Sitting very still in the pilot's seat, Bulma wisely kept her
mouth closed as her mind whirled with images of what could have been.
Vegeta hardly ever betrayed any details of the life he had led before
coming to Earth and this information stunned her. She thought that it
was very ironic how often fate intervened on the behalf of her and her
friends; intercepting disastrous courses in time and providing
alternative solutions. Mirai Trunks' timely appearance was one that
everyone knew about. Vegeta being out of shape when he had arrived was
not one any of them could have fathomed. And still, he had come so close
- SO CLOSE!- to killing them all. It was mind boggling how lucky this
planet truly was.

Oblivious to the shocked run of her thoughts, he continued, "I've
been on earth now, for the most part, for over three years. I've become
accustomed to the Western Capital's routine. Now we've been gallivanting
around this entire planet nonstop for the last week encountering
different time zones, altitudes, food types, cultures, people- GAH!" he
gave another one of those frustrated waves as words failed him.

In other words, you're suffering from sensory overload and it's
wiped you out. That's all that you really had to say, lover, Bulma
secretly translated in her mind, staring at him fondly. What she said
instead was; "I understand."

Vegeta just grunted and offered her a one-armed shrug. He suddenly
rubbed his side with a grimace and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
Bulma had a pretty good idea what the problem was.

"You don't have to hold them in for my sake, I'm prepared for it,"
she said, motioning to the gas mask she had tucked under her seat and
the four pine tree air-fresheners that were hanging from the rear-view
mirror. The cockpit smelled like they were in a forest.

"I'm not," he assured her. "It just... won't come out." His lower
stomach was still swollen with gas and he pressed down on the stretched
flesh and winced. "Maybe five eggs was too many-"

"You think?" Bulma shot back.

His eyes narrowed in irritation and he knew that he wasn't going
to get any pity from her and kept the rest of his comments to himself
while he rubbed his aching stomach. From that moment on, he swore he
would never eat another egg for as long as he lived.

-----

Lester Lockett slapped away the bities with the good ol' Aussie
salute and raised a hand over his eyes to glance up at the sky. Even
behind the dark sunnies he wore, the glare went through his brain like
shit through a Pommy's freckle. He was drier than a dead dingo's donger,
and he privately wondered why he hadn't just chucked a sickie for the
day. The night before, he and the rest of the boyos had enjoyed a right
buck's night down at the local boozer. The mate getting married was a
bit of a whacker even at the best of times but any excuse to get off
one's face was a good one for Lester. A couple of glasses of Bundy was
always enough to hit the turps and once he'd tackled half a slab of
tinnys, he'd been set to rage on for the whole night straight. Even met
a fine little sheila at the bar, too, who was quite a spunk. He cracked
a fat for her right after one slow dance but damned if he could find a
franger or he would have enjoyed a naughty out back of the pub. Ah well,
by four a.m. he was bent over the john having a liquid laugh, anyway.
Didn't even remember the drive home... *

And now, here I be out in the back arse of Woop Woop catering to
the galahs coming to oogle the 'Rock, Lester thought to himself, moving
the red dirt around in haphazard patterns with the toe of his boot.
Behind him, rising suddenly out of the earth like the back of some
prehistoric creature, was Ayer's Rock. It rose 318 meters above the
desert floor with a circumference of 8 kilometers and was considered one
of the great wonders of the world. Located in the Kata Tjuta National
Park, it was owned and run by the local Aboriginals. The Australian
government had handed ownership of the land back to the Aboriginals some
years ago who still call it by its original name of 'Uluru'.

Lester was one of the tour guides, and several times a day he had
to tell slack-jawed tourists how the Aborigines believe that Uluru was
thought to be hollow below the ground, and that it contained an energy
source called 'Tjukurpa'; the 'Dreamtime'. According to Aboriginal
belief; the world had always existed, but was featureless. Giant semi-
human beings, resembling plants or animals, rose up from the plains
where they had been slumbering for countless ages. These ancient heroes
roamed the land aimlessly. As they wandered around, they carried out the
tasks that the present Aborigines did today including camping, making
fires, digging for water, fighting each other, and performing
ceremonies. When the heroes became tired of doing those things,
Dreamtime came to an end.

In several caves around the huge monolith were representations
that support many stories of the Dreamtime. The paintings were regularly
renewed, with layer upon layer of paint, dating back many thousands of
years. Perhaps the most striking feature of the 'Rock, depending on the
time of day and the atmospheric conditions, was that it could
dramatically change color, anything from blue to glowing red.

A yellow exy hoverjet appeared low on the horizon and made a swift
descent near the parking lot. Lester rested his elbows on the fence and
watched with bored half-interest as a couple of tall poppies stepped out
of the vehicle. They looked to be having a proper blue as they bickered
back and forth. The sheila was a blue-haired looka, possibly a Seppo, if
he got her accent right. The bloke, a show pony if Lester had ever seen
one, looked to be a Wog but there was something about him that put the
younger man on guard. Lester had done his nasho, and the other guy
looked like he might be a digger, because he looked as fit as a mallee
bull. At any rate, he also looked as mean as cat's piss with a good
helping of figjam thrown in for good measure, certainly not the usual
brand of drongo that Lester saw on an hourly basis.

"G'day," he called over to them, tipping his hat. "Welcome to
Uluru."

"Oh, thank you," the woman said with a smile, looking up from a
watch-like contraption in her left hand. Her companion just glared over
at him, slanted eyes narrowing in suspicion. He looked as cross as a
frog in a sock and Lester wished that he'd just kept his gob shut.
Unfortunately, the contact had been made and the woman walked over to
him, her face burning with questions. She was wearing a tight fitting
dress that was low in the front and high above the knee and left little
to the imagination. Lester was finding it difficult to maintain his
professional conduct and not ogle her cleavage. As if sensing his
interest, the other man flanked her protectively, his eyes almost drawn
closed to spiteful slits.

"Can you tell me-" the woman began.

"We'll find it ourselves," the man growled and grabbed her by the
arm and led her down the road that led to Ayer's Rock.

The pair got into another blue as the bloke forcibly dragged her
down the path. Lester wasn't disappointed to see them go and didn't
bother to offer his services. The looka had been fine enough, but the
yobbo she was with made him nervous. "Strewth, I'm glad to get the flick
of that date. Bloody oath!" he muttered under his breath and then looked
at his watch.

Only four more hours to quitting time. It might as well have been
four years... Lester crossed his arms in the fence railing and rested
his aching forehead while the hot sun of the Oz baked down on him.

"What the hell was that all about?" Bulma hissed, wrenching her
arm away from Vegeta's firm grip.

"I didn't like the way that prick was staring at you," he growled,
casting another glance over his shoulder as if they were being followed.

"He was just a tour guide for heaven's sake! Did you honestly
think that HE was a threat?"

"If I didn't fuck it or father it then, YES, it's a threat,"
Vegeta coldly snapped back, bracing himself for a screaming match.

Bulma blinked in surprise. All of a sudden she burst out laughing.
"That's got to be the funniest thing I think you've ever said," she
managed to get out.

"I meant every word of it."

"I know. That's what makes it so hilarious," she giggled, glancing
down at the Dragonball radar. "I wanted to learn about some of the
legends I've heard about Ayer's Rock from that guide. Now that you've
shot that idea down in flames, I guess we can go get the Dragonball
directly." She stepped off of the well-worn path and set a direct course
for the southern wall of the huge magnetic mound. After a few steps, she
looked back and saw that the Saiyan was still standing in place, his
arms crossed. "You coming?"

He glowered back at her, his lips a tight, bloodless line. "I am
NOT funny," she heard him grumble under his breath after he finally
decided to follow her. It took some effort, but she was able to keep
another attack of laughter at bay. Barely.

The southern face of Ayer's Rock was steep and the ground was
littered with shallow caves, sagebrush, and gigantic rust-colored
boulders. There were crude markings on some of the smooth surfaces and,
at first, Bulma thought it was some hateful graffiti until she looked
closer. There were concentric circular patterns and drawings of stick
figures into the ancient rock carefully etched out in white chalk.
"These are thousands of years old," she marveled.

"Big deal," Vegeta snorted. Archeology was definitely not among
his limited interests. "Is the Dragonball here or isn't it?"

Huffing out a frustrated breath, Bulma led him around one of the
boulders into a nearby cave. It was only ten feet deep and she was left
standing at the wall of barren rock, studying her radar in confusion.
"According to this, the Dragonball is right here! I don't see anything,
do you, Vegeta?"

The Saiyan was barely listening to her. He was studying a chalk
drawing on the wall and thunderstruck by what the seemingly random
slashes spelled out before his wide eyes.

It was the Saiyajin word for; WELCOME.

Bulma took off the back housing of the radar and examined the
battery. It was still fully charged. She shook it once and then
recalibrated the settings. The result was the same: The Dragonball was
right where she was standing. "This doesn't make any sense. Do you think
we should dig? Vegeta?" She turned her head marginally and completely
turned around in shock.

Vegeta was gone.

-----

"Wake up, sire."

Embracing the fur wrap in his arms, Vegeta muttered a bleary
grumble and settled his face into that soft warmth. A hand lightly
grabbed his shoulder and gave it a tentative shake. "Sire? You've
overslept. You have to wake up."

Opening his eyes a crack, Vegeta looked up at the figure that
loomed over him. All traces of sleep immediately evaporated and he
snapped fully awake. "Nappa?" he cried in disbelief, sitting up. He
spared a quick glance around and saw that he was waist-deep in a royal
hrasa'an that spanned over twenty feet wide. The sumptuous surroundings
were vaguely familiar, a far cry from the quarters he'd briefly occupied
as a small boy. Here, the elaborate tile patterns on the floor were
crafted from a rare alien stone that glowed muted colors of green and
amber. The walls were covered with expansive tapestries that depicted
battles and warfare, displaying warriors in armor that were engaged in
hand-to hand combat while their tails waved like flags of honor. Vegeta
recognized the huge room instantly even though it had been over thirty
years since he'd last set one small, tentative foot in here; "What am I
doing in my father's chamber, Nappa?"

The huge bodyguard gawked at him for a few seconds and then burst
into boisterous laughter. "A fine joke, sire! You know as well as I do
that you bested your father in Royal combat. His quarters are now yours-
as it should be."

"You mean, I'm ... King?" he asked in a hesitant, disbelieving
voice.

"It was an exquisite battle, sire. One that's still spoken about
in awe." Nappa eyed the other Saiyan critically. "Are you feeling all
right? You didn't make the mistake of drinking that commoner wine the
Third class soldiers favor did you? It's barely one step up from rotgut-
"

"No, I haven't been drinking," Vegeta muttered, working his way to
the edge of the hrasa'an. As he did so, he silently marveled at all of
the different colors and textures of the rich pelts and soft leathers
that made up his bedding; all skinned from creatures he couldn't begin
to put names to. Climbing out, he felt something tickling his thigh and
when he reached around to swat it away, his hand closed around the firm
length of a tail.

His tail.

Vegeta released a rare exclamation of surprise and gripped the
appendage gingerly, as if fearful that it would disappear. The thick
russet fur was just as he remembered; clean and soft, each individual
hair reflecting the light like a miniature prism. He grabbed the thick
length more firmly and did a totally unexpected thing before Nappa's
incredulous gaze:

He began petting it.

"Sire?" the large man asked.

"I've missed you," Vegeta murmured softly.

"Sire," Nappa said more forcefully. "Are you all right?"

As if in a spell, Vegeta shook himself and released his prized
tail, snapping it sharply left and right and relishing in the feel of it
moving freely about behind him. He knew that his balance was going to be
off for a few hours because of it but didn't mind. He was thrilled with
its return and the memories of it even being gone were beginning to seem
like the after-effects of a dimly remembered nightmare.

Climbing out of the hrasa'an with a rare smile on his face, he
stood up beside Nappa and experienced the second shock in as many
minutes stared at his bodyguard. Before, he had always been eyelevel
with the Elite soldier's ever-expanding gut. Now, all of a sudden, he
found himself staring directly at Nappa's collarbone. "Have you shrunk?"

Now, Nappa was certain that something was seriously wrong with his
King. "Sire?" he asked cautiously.

Looking down at himself, Vegeta suddenly turned to one of the
doors and began walking briskly. "I need a mirror," he said. "Right
now!"

He entered the bathing area of the royal chambers and ignored a
steaming bathing pool that could have easily accommodated a legion of
soldiers. Moving directly to a full-length mirror set in the corner,
Vegeta stood in front of it and examined himself thoroughly.

He was taller, there was absolutely no doubt. His longer limbs
were coated with thick warrior muscle and covered in a dark, olive skin
that was completely unmarked by the scars that he had begun accumulating
ever since he had become a soldier working for Frieza. Even his face had
subtle changes; his cheekbones were sharper and lacking that cherub
roundness that he had always privately resented. The hairstyle, as
expected, was unchanged and had completely grown back. Around his neck
was the necklace and medallion that symbolized his royal status. He
touched his lower jaw with a frown, half-expecting to see the goatee
that his father had sported.

No, of course you wouldn't have it yet, he thought to himself.
Whatever the k'rucT is going on around here, you're obviously still the
same age and you won't have any hair growth on your face until you crest
the height of your prime.

He was wearing a loincloth that did little more than offer some
degree of decorum in polite company. It was really just a string wound
around his waist with a simple scrap of leather in the front.
Compulsively, Vegeta pulled open the front and looked down, frowning
slightly. Great, of all of the things to remain the same, it had to be
THAT. Now, at best, he could be considered 'average'...

Behind him, Nappa was hovering indecisively and Vegeta barked, "I
need answers, Nappa."

"To what questions, sire?"

"What is the date?"

"217 Passes, 56 Revs, sire.

It took some time for Vegeta to translate the Vegetasei standard
date keeping to an Earth year he could relate to: Each full moon pass
was seven years, so 217 was equal to 1519 years, dating back to the time
when early Saiyans had become evolved enough to start keeping track of
time. Revs were planetary revolutions (there were 45 revs to a month,
630 to one year, and 4410 to a Pass).** He had been born the Vegetasei
date of 212p85r so it appeared that time was still running smoothly. It
was everything else that appeared to be screwed up.

"What happened to my father?" Vegeta asked next.

"Sire, are you sure that you're all-"

"No questions. Just answers."

Swallowing, Nappa composed his thoughts for a moment and told him,
"You defeated him in Royal combat two Passes ago, sire. It was-" His
eyes glazed over and he betrayed a small, revered smile, "-spectacular,
sire! Soldiers still speak of it to this day. You became the Super
Saiyan of Legend just as your father had foretold. He was smiling when
you dealt him the death blow-"

"I became Super Saiyan," Vegeta interrupted roughly. Two Passes
ago would have made him approximately 21 years old. According to his
bodyguard, he had been ruling as King for 14 years.

"Yes, sire. A truly amazing sight. Would you... like to hear my
telling of the battle?"

Vegeta found that he wanted that very much but that would have to
wait. There were more pressing concerns he had to have addressed. "What
happened to Frieza, Nappa?" He braced himself for the answer to come:
You still serve him, sire, he was expecting Nappa to say. He's allowed
you this figurehead position, but he is still the true ruler of the
Empire. And of you.

The true answer stunned him: "Who is Frieza, sire?"

Whirling in surprise, Vegeta stumbled a few steps, still thrown
off-balance by his tail. When he righted himself, he grabbed the front
of Nappa's armor and hauled the huge behemoth down so that they were
eye-level (and despite everything that was happening, he was privately
reveling in the fact that there wasn't much of a difference between them
anymore; A foot- maybe a foot and a half, instead of the usual three).
Nappa was staring back at him warily, half expecting his king to either
slug him or kiss him. Given the younger Elite's strange behavior, Nappa
wasn't sure which one would be worse.

"Are you telling me that Frieza doesn't exist?" Vegeta was almost
raving. "That pallid son-of-a-bitch isn't hanging around here somewhere?
Are you serious?"

"You are the sole ruler of the Empire, sire," Nappa said
carefully.

Vegeta released him. "How-how many worlds are included in the
Empire now?" He could feel himself starting to shake and had to actively
force himself to stop.

"Over sixty planets of thirty-eight systems, sire."

Running a hand through his already disheveled mane, Vegeta tried
to absorb this information. It was actually getting difficult. He had
reached the point where his mind was having trouble grasping anymore
input. Sixty planets... In the time of his father's rule there had been
a mere three systems that had sworn fealty to the Saiyan banner. Before
Vegeta's birth, Frieza had gradually absorbed all of the others under
his own 'rule', including his father's. In this alternate timeline (or
dimension, he wasn't sure what it was), no Frieza appeared to have ever
existed, leaving him the sole heir to a gigantic empire that had no
equal.

Sixty planets. Thirty-eight systems... Billions, no, TRILLIONS of
citizens all swearing their loyalty to the Saiyan Empire-

- All swearing their loyalty to HIM.

Nappa watched the color fade from his King's face to be replaced
by a pallor he definitely did not like. Forgoing all propriety in his
haste, he grabbed the younger Elite by the shoulder and half-led, half-
dragged him over to a chair. Vegeta collapsed into it as if the strength
had gone suddenly out of his legs and bent over to put his cold face
into hands that were shaking.

"Are there other Saiyans, Nappa?" Vegeta heard himself asking this
desperate question in a muffled voice that was completely unlike his
usual gruff tone. It was almost a whine. "We're- Tell me we're not the
only ones left?"

Nappa soberly regarded the younger man for a long considering
pause and then suddenly stepped around the bathing pool, crossing the
room to the chamber's far side. There were heavy curtains occupying the
far wall and he grasped them with immense fists and flung them open.
Early morning light came in through the huge bay window, bathing the
room in a strident golden glow. Nappa was only a dark silhouette when he
turned back to Vegeta, saying, "See for yourself, sire."

Shielding his eyes, Vegeta came up beside him and looked out. At
first, all he could make out was a blinding glare and it took some time
for his eyes, accustomed to Earth's sun, to adapt to this brighter,
harsher counterpart. Details began to swim into view and become more
distinct as his vision adjusted to the light. He was looking out into
the back courtyard of the royal bastion where soldiers were doing
maneuvers. The number of training arenas extended as far as his
straining, watering eyes could see and in each one of them was over a
hundred soldiers practicing their craft. Ki bolts flashed like miniature
bolts of lightening as the training progressed both on the ground and in
the air, as if either medium were commonplace to the combatants. As
Vegeta's eyes sharpened, he could make out one more feature, perhaps the
most important one, that was visible on every soldier- male and female-
he laid his straining eyes on.

Tails. They all had tails.

Because they were all Saiyan. Thousands of them.

Nappa heard a crunch and saw that the younger Elite had sunken his
fingers into the stone windowsill up to the second knuckle. He had his
eyes squeezed shut, as if in pain. "Sire? Are you all-"

"... get out..."

"Sire, I don't-"

"You're not real! GET OUT!" Vegeta screamed. He transformed into
his Super Saiyan form even before he was consciously aware of it and
raised one trembling, glowing hand directly into the larger man's face.
As if suddenly attacked by a vengeful, unstable God- Nappa turned tail
(literally) and ran out of the chamber before a white-hot blast of
unrivaled power tore his head from its shoulders.

Even before the sound of the bodyguard's echoing footfalls had
faded, Vegeta lost his hold on the empowered form as swiftly as he had
assumed it. He was staring helplessly down at the training grounds,
tracking the progress of the soldiers as they sparred on the ground and
in the air with a grace that no race could ever mimic, or ever would.
There was moisture on both of his cheeks but it wasn't caused by the
glare of alien sunlight, and he wiped his eyes with a curse, forcing
himself to turn his back on the view. Once, not so long ago, he had been
shot through the heart and he had thought that nothing could top that
agony.

He had been wrong.

"This is a lie. All of it," he muttered, irritably pacing the
large chamber. He could feel the warm stone beneath his bare feet, could
hear the sound of his foot steps, he could smell the faint aromas of
oils and herbs, see the masonry work around him. "None of this is real!"
he suddenly shouted at the ceiling. "I command whoever is doing this, to
stop it RIGHT NOW! Do you hear me? I DEMAND-"

"What the k'rucT is with all of this shouting?!" a woman's voice
piped up from the sleeping quarters.

Vegeta's muscles clenched and stood out in stark relief with the
effort that maintaining control was costing him. A distinctly female
figure approached the doorway and stepped inside, staring at him in
exasperation and asking, "Well? What's wrong with you?"

Of all of the surprises to greet him here, it had to be HER.

-----

"Bulma?"

Charles McNeil gently shook her shoulder and Bulma's head snapped
up as if she'd been electrocuted. "OH!" she gasped, looking urgently
around. The eccentric scientist was standing next to her, and seated all
around a large oval table were the top shareholders of Capsule
Corporation, studying her curiously.

Looking quickly around, Bulma realized that she was in the
boardroom back at the headquarters' building. That meant she was in the
Western Capital. Home. How was that possible? She had been standing in a
cave in Australia a couple of minutes ago, hadn't she? The details
seemed fuzzy and thick, like a rapidly fading dream and she blinked at
Charles in confusion. "What's going on?" she whispered.

His eyes widening almost comically behind his coke-bottle lenses,
Charles turned to the twelve other men and women and said, "Uhm, I think
it's – ah- time for a coffee break."

"But the meeting just started-" protested one of the stuffed
shirts.

"You heard the man," Bulma said, and when she had that cross note
to her voice, nobody objected. They filed out of the room, talking among
themselves in agitated, spiteful tones. As Charles began to draw away,
Bulma grabbed him by the tie and reeled him back in. "What the hell is
going on, Charles?"

"What do you mean?" the man asked uneasily. "It's our annual
meeting. We're preparing our next round of budget negotiations for the
fiscal year."

"So what are you doing here?" she asked suspiciously.

"You asked me to come," the scientist said, sounding angry as well
as bewildered. "There're a lot of new projects coming up and as head of
Research and Development, you wanted me to prepare a summary of what
we've got on the drawing table. Hell, you even managed to draft Vegeta
into coming-"

"Vegeta!" Bulma pounced on the name, jumping to her feet. "He's
here?"

"Next door," Charles inclined a thumb to the back wall. "I'm damn
near pissing myself I'm so nervous and he's laying back in a chair,
scarfing down donuts, and reading a Reader's Digest. Your husband is a
complete enigma."

Husband... So everything was normal. Now it was just a matter of
figuring out what the devil was going on with her memories. She had to
touch base with the Saiyan and compare notes. Between the two of them,
they should be able to come up with an explanation and maybe find a way
out of this... what? Dream? Hallucination? Dimension? "Charles, can you
go get Vegeta for me? I need-"

"I hear whistling, I think that's him," Charles said, turning to
the door. When it opened and the figure stepped through, Bulma's relief
immediately shattered.

It was Vegeta, but not the one she knew.

-----

It was Bulma, but not the one he knew.

She was dressed in a transparent caftan deliberately left open in
the front and the body it revealed was lithe and firm and rippled with
taut muscle honed by years of intense training. Her blue hair was now an
unkempt mane of short auburn spikes and her wide, beautiful blue eyes-
eyes that had fascinated him practically since the first time they had
met – were now slanted and harsh and as black as cold space. Completing
the look was the three-foot length of brown tail that flicked lazily
from side to side behind her.

"Bulma," Vegeta said, eying the medallion around her delicate
throat. It was identical to his own. "Are you... my queen?"

"Silly male," she huffed, rolling her eyes. She discarded the
flimsy wrap and stepped past him to enter the bathing pool. Vegeta
caught a whiff of an odor he couldn't identify and it immediately made
the hackles at the back of his neck quiver. It was heady and cloying,
obliterating all conscious thought and it immediately erased his
previous anxiety. It wasn't perfume, or deodorant, it was natural but
not Bulma's usual smell. This was amplified into an intoxicating elixir
he was powerless against.

Of course, he thought with the last vestiges of reason, she's a
Saiyan female. I- I've never met one before...

Bulma reached the deep end of the pool and dipped her hair back
into the water, displaying her pert breasts until she flung her head
forwards, spraying water in a wide arc. "Well, are you going to join
me?" she called over to him. "Or are you going to continue to point at
me with that?"

Dumbly, he looked down and saw that he was massively erect.
Without a second's hesitation, he ripped off the loincloth and joined
her.

-----

Vegeta looked from Bulma to Charles and back again. "What'd I
miss?"

Her mouth was working but no sound was coming out. Bulma stared at
the man in the doorway, torn between a perplexing sense of recognition
and outright denial. There was no way that this was the Saiyan prince of
her memories, the alien she had married, and yet... it WAS him. None of
this made any sense and she was stuck mute.

Frowning at her, Vegeta crossed the room. "Bulma, are you all
right? You're as pale as a sheet," he asked in a voice that held a
cultured undertone that was remotely British, not the throaty growl that
usually accompanied his terse responses. He was dressed in an immaculate
navy blue, double-breasted suit that was set off nicely by a red power
tie. The body beneath his clothes seemed to be about the same from the
one that she so intimately knew; same athletic build, same height. It
was the rest of his features that threw her for a loop. His face was the
same but it was touched off by a pair of wire spectacles that softened
his eyes, which she noticed were now a gentle brown. He still had that
dramatic widow's peak but instead of the usual flame-style corona of
hair, it was now tied back in a simple ponytail. When he turned his head
to glance at Charles again, she saw a small diamond earring in the lobe
of his left ear.

"Oh, I gotta sit down," she moaned and collapsed into the nearest
chair.

"Maybe you better give us a couple of minutes, Chuck," Vegeta
said.

"Sure, sure, okay," Charles said in agreement. "Whatever you say,
little buddy." He exited the boardroom without so much as a glance from
the Saiyan who, under normal circumstances, would have flown into a rage
at the scientist's usual insult.

Except nothing was normal here, Bulma thought with rising fear.
It's not anywhere close.

"What's with the jitters?" Vegeta asked, crouching down next to
her and smiling. It was a real smile, not the usual one-sided smirk he
usually offered her, and his dimples complimented the grin, making him
look much younger than he really was. "You've done these meetings since
you were a teenager." He reached up and touched her pale cheek and she
compulsively grabbed his hand, examining it closely. There were no scars
on the knuckles and the nails were perfectly manicured, certainly not
the hand of a man who had ever engaged in steady combat. He was wearing
a wedding band on his ring finger but it wasn't the platinum band that
she had given him; the one imprinted with the crest of the Vegeta Royal
family. It was a gold band that now had a Star of David etched into it.

She glanced at her own ring and saw that it was different; now it
was a one carat blue diamond in a gold setting. "Oh," she managed to get
out, hesitantly touching it. "Vegeta, when did we get married?"

"Four years ago," he answered promptly. "Six months after I came
to the Western Capital to work for Capsule Corporation. Why?"

"Where are you from... originally?"

"Bulma, I don't-"

"Just answer the question!"

"I was born in Tel Aviv," he said, eying her warily. "My folks
moved from there to London when I was still a teenager. After I
graduated from university, with my Masters in Engineering, I've worked
all aver the world. Canada, France, Japan-" he smiled fondly, "You're
the first person to ever keep me in one place for longer than a year."

"So you're... Jewish?"

"Hey, you didn't complain the first time I took my pants off," he
said, tipping her a wink. "I believe your first words were, 'Thank god!
Foreskins are sooo gross!'"

Bulma blushed right down to her toes. She started stammering again
until he gently pulled her face over to his and kissed her. It was meant
simply as an affectionate peck, there was no amorous overtone to the
gesture, and his hands returned to his sides without trying to risk a
quick grope. "Don't be nervous. You'll do just fine, that's why I love
you."

The color had started returning to her cheeks and now suddenly
evaporated as if she had just been slapped. She manage to rasp out one
simple, thunderstruck question before words failed her completely; "What
did you say?"

-----

Entering the heated, gold-tinged water, Vegeta slowly swam over to
the woman who was, by some unknown, miraculous twist of fate, now
transformed into his Royal Saiyan consort. The water made his entire
body tingle but not in the irritating way that chlorinated water on
Earth reacted to his alien skin. It was entirely pleasurable, a welcome
complement to the heady scent that radiated off of the beauty in steady
waves even though the water should have masked it. "How is this
possible?" he wondered, barely aware that he was speaking out loud.

"Husband, you are not yourself," Bulma observed, watching him
through half-lidded eyes.

"None of this is real." He was still trying to make himself
believe that.

"See if this convinces you," she said and hauled off and punched
him soundly across the jaw. He head swung to the right with the power
behind the blow and he was stunned enough to stop swimming and promptly
sank like a rock. He surfaced a few seconds later, sputtering and
cursing, shaking the hair out of his face and rubbing a knot that was
forming beside his mouth. "What the hell did you do that for?!" he
roared at her.

"I don't like to see weakness in my King. Leave the indecision for
the commoners," she huffed in disdain. She raised her arm again and this
time he caught her fist as it arced towards him, pinning her against the
side of the pool. The pair regarded one another in silence for a long
moment, their raven-black eyes locked in silent combat; his outraged
betrayal hitting against her cool disdain and rebounding. Unexpectedly,
she smiled, showing teeth that were sharper than they had any right to
be. "There's the King I married," she purred, while under the water, her
tail curled around his erection and tightened.

He hissed in breath through clenched teeth and she moved in and
kissed him, pressing her tongue against the barrier. Hungrily, Vegeta
opened his mouth as wide as possible to admit her straining oral member
and soon their two tongues were commingling lewdly, wet with saliva.
Bulma explored every crevice of the interior of his mouth, the inside of
his cheeks, behind his teeth, while her tail continued to squeeze and
caress his desire-hardened shaft.

Vegeta pulled his head back to betray a soft moan as Bulma kneaded
the softly pulsing mound of his testicles with her tail. He felt a sharp
sensation in his earlobe as she nibbled the tender flesh with her sharp
teeth, biting slightly, and then hard enough to draw blood. At first, he
was a little put off by her aggression but the stinging pain was also
undeniably exciting, and his entire body shivered in reaction.

"Do you like that?" she breathed into his ear, snaking a warm
tongue up his cheek.

His response was an inarticulate growl of lust and he kissed her
neck so hard with tightened lips that he made a little red welt on her
skin. He could feel his penis throbbing with excitement, yearning for
release and he was caught in a turbulent surge of passion. Throwing
aside all reason and restraint, he grabbed her into his arms and
showered hot kisses all over her face, her neck, her throat, his hands
roaming feverishly over the smoothness of her body. The musky female
odor of her staggering form was driving him wild with savage desire.

"I want to fuck you," the words were tumbling out before he had a
chance to pull them back, knowing how Bulma disapproved of the language
but helpless to stop himself. This was such a raw, primal, emotional
moment that the poetic words of affection were lost in favor of brutal
honesty, "Bulma, I want to fuck you so much..."

"Show me, husband," came the smooth reply, stunning him to the
core of his being.

Pulling away from him, she hoisted herself easily out of the water
and moved quickly towards the full-length mirror and knelt down, dog-
fashion, facing it. Her glistening buttocks were quivering with
excitement and her tail waved lewdly high above her, a vulgar invitation
to be taken from the rear.

Vegeta regarded the sight; transfixed by that russet tail flailing
back and forth like a banner, freely exposing the glistening slash that
was his for the taking. For a brief instant, he was somewhat disturbed
by Bulma's strange actions, she had never behaved so bizarre and
shameless in her life, but after the initial shock he found himself
eagerly anticipating the animalistic act.

"Come on, my King," she panted. "Don't keep your Queen waiting any
longer. I want you RIGHT NOW!"

As if in a trance, Vegeta climbed out of the pool and moved
towards her like a panting beast, his penis purplish-red from
excitement. The veins along the length of his swollen tool were fully
outlined, and his balls trembled with desire. He positioned himself
behind her, and placed his pulsing, ruddy head at the entrance of her
womanhood, ready to slice inward. At that moment he caught sight of
himself in the mirror and could hardly believe what he beheld. It was
like watching a movie that displayed two completely different people;
aliens he didn't even recognize with dark spikes of hair fanning
haphazardly over their shoulders, wild-eyed with lust, and their tails
snapping back and forth like whips. He was overwhelmed by what he saw
and raw power filled his body.

"What are you waiting for, Vegeta?" Bulma screamed, her head
thrown back and dark eyes blazing. "Shove it in me!"

With a deep, savage growl, Vegeta shoved his massive length all
the way into her tight, muscular sheath, sinking up to the hilt until
the wide base of his member slammed against the curling outerlips of her
vaginal entrance. Wet, sluicing sounds filled the air, exciting them
both.

"Ah! That's it!" she moaned, pumping back in exact timing to his
lurid strokes, her vaginal walls growing moist and wide and clutching
hungrily at his lust-inflamed ramrod. She watched the crude images in
the mirror before them, watching him drive his length steadily into her,
his muscular body gleaming with a light film of sweat.

His eyes drawn into tight pinpoints of concentration, Vegeta
watched the mirror as he pounded into her with mounting intensity.
Positioned behind her, gripping her shoulders for support was like
looking at a pornographic movie and it made him even more raunchy than
before. The sight of their two naked bodies writing obscenely, reflected
in the glass, was the most lewd thing he had ever seen- And he reveled
in it! He rammed into her without mercy, his hard, muscular buttocks
swinging back and forth, his eyes glued to the images in the mirror. His
thick, sinewy penis was throbbingly near the bursting point and every
muscle he possessed strained with desire for this wanton, thrashing
creature trapped beneath him.

"AGH! That's it!" Bulma screamed as he drove brutally into her.
"Fuck me harder! Hurt me, Vegeta! Make me BLEED!"

Vegeta's head snapped up in shock. He suddenly withdrew and
collapsed back on the hard stone of the chamber, staring at her in shock
and horror while he struggled to catch his breath. "Wha-what did you
just say?"

-----

"I believe I just said that I love you," Vegeta responded with
that same affable charm that radiated from his well-tailored form in
waves. He smiled at her affectionately. "I tell you that every chance I
get. It's the truth."

Bulma stared at him as if he had just grown two heads. All of a
sudden, she leapt out of her chair and backed up towards the window.
"You're not Vegeta," she said, her voice strengthening with every word.
"I thought, just for an instant, that maybe it was you in some sort of
costume but you're not him. You're not any where close!"

"What the bloody hell are you going on about?" he raged at her and
that was when she saw the final truth that confirmed all of her
suspicions. Even angry, he lacked that exclamation point between his
thick eyebrows. He had the face of a man who had never known hard
living, who had been catered to hand and foot, and hadn't done a day's
hard labor in all of his life. He was human, educated, and spoiled- like
her, and she didn't need a male mirror image of her life to be her
husband. What she needed was the man who was the complete antithesis of
all that she knew so that she could learn from his life's journeys just
as he could from her own.

She needed Vegeta. Her Vegeta.

The fraud stepped around the table and approached. "Bulma-"

"Get away from me!" she screamed at him. "You're not real! None of
this is real!"

"Listen to me-" he persisted and this time she brought her hand
around to slap him.

The palm of her hand sailed through his head like thick smoke and
his form wavered like a mirage. "Holy Dooley! Now you've done it!" he
objected but his voice had changed into a high-pitched, reedy whine.

Her surroundings wavered and through parts in the illusion's
façade, she saw that she was still standing in the small cave carved
into the side of Ayer's Rock. It was like witnessing two dimensions
colliding in on each other and the different perspectives made her head
swim. Beside her, standing barely three feet away, was Vegeta: the real
Vegeta. He was staring at the nearby wall with his head cocked to one
side and his mouth slightly open; he looked like he was stuck in a
permanent daze.

Bulma tried to move towards him and found herself frozen in place.
Whatever force lived in this chamber, it wasn't willing to let go of her
just yet. "Vegeta, snap out of it! We're in trouble-"

-----

"-Vegeta!"

He swung his head around numbly, trying to isolate the source of
the call. It seemed to be echoing from every corner of the bathing
chamber, fading into indecipherable mutterings of sound. "Bulma, where
are you?"

"Right here, husband," the Saiyan Queen growled, getting slowly to
her feet. Her tail puffed out to twice its normal size in her growing
fury and she advanced on him, her hands drawn up into tight fists. He
made no effort to move away and she gripped him by the throat and pulled
him to his feet. "I'm growing sick and tired of your theatrics," she
hissed into his face while her claws dug into his skin, drawing small
rivulets of blood. "I expect my King to be stronger than this, even when
we're alone."

Vegeta barely felt her nails entering his skin. He was examining
her face, seeing his human bride interwoven into the features of an
alien imposter. There were so many similarities, a mental projection
made flesh of how he had always privately wanted Bulma to be, but it was
really just a warped mirror image, much like the reflection of their
frenzied rut bare seconds before. It was all a private fantasy acted out
for his benefit but it hadn't been like he thought it would be. Seeing
her act like that, hearing her beg for him to hurt her- It was like
biting into a succulent, overripe fruit and finding out, too late, that
there were maggots writhing in the core.

Disgusted, he pushed her easily away and she stumbled backwards.
For a split second, her form lost cohesion and wavered until it became
solid again. That bare second was enough for him to recover. He raised
his hand, palm facing up, in her direction. "I was right all along," he
said in a flat, emotionless voice. "None of this is real."

"Husband-"

"Especially you," he finished, releasing a blast of ki that sliced
through her.

What followed was a brilliant, white flash.

There was a sudden explosion that made his eardrums recoil and he
felt himself thrown a short distance to land in loose soil, skidding to
a stop several feet away. A body fell on top of him, hard enough to
knock the wind out of his lungs, and when he managed to pry his eyes
open, the Dragonball fell out of the sky and beaned him squarely between
the eyes.

"Ow! Shit!" he howled, cradling his forehead.

"Vegeta?" the body on top of him shifted position and stared down
at him with genuine concern. "Oh, thank Kami- It's really you!" Bulma
gushed and started kissing him even as he was struggled to sit up.
Pushing her aside, he managed to get a clear look around and he saw
that, ten feet away, the cave was now a black gash of rock and had
partially collapsed. "What the hell just happened?"

"I'm not sure but I can hazard a guess," she said, experimentally
sniffing the air and grimacing. "When you fired your blast, you ignited
the gas and created an explosion."

"Gas? From what?" he asked, still rubbing his aching forehead.

"From who, you mean," she said, arching a knowing eyebrow in his
direction.

It took him a few seconds to process what she was trying to say.
"Oh," he finally said in a small voice. When he rubbed his stomach, he
noticed that it wasn't swollen anymore and the discomfort had lessened.

"Saved by Saiyan gas, who would have thunk it?" Bulma said,
obviously amused by the whole thing. She betrayed a brief gust of
relieved laughter.

"Certainly not me," piped up a small voice directly in her ear.
"Bloody oath, what a stench!"

Perched on her left shoulder was a tiny red lizard. It was
standing on its hind legs and had its front legs crossed, scowling at
her. "You and your wowser over there destroyed my home!" it cried,
blinking at her indignantly.

"What the hell-" Vegeta scrambled to his feet.

"Who are you?" Bulma asked.

"I'm Tatji," the little creature exclaimed proudly. When he saw no
reaction or recognition from the pair, he huffed out, "Bloody
foreigners. I represent the Dreamtime. The locals call me a totem but
I'm really an avatar of Uluru. I live in that cave-" he crimson features
tightened into a frown, "Well, lived, anyway. Nobody's visited me for
eons so I thought I'd have a spot of fun-"

"FUN?!" Vegeta exploded. "You call what you did to us 'fun'?"

"Easy, Vegeta," Bulma soothed. "The little guy was just playing
around. Nobody got hurt-"

Vegeta turned on her, his teeth bared, and Bulma saw something
that was normally hidden in the raven depths of his eyes. There was rage
there, and confusion, but she was astonished to also see a great deal of
grief etched in those usually cold orbs. Before she could question, he
turned his back on them both and marched stiffly away.

"No sense of humor," Tatji was muttering when Bulma grabbed him by
the scruff of the neck and lightly shook him.

"I don't know what you did to him, but tricking us like that was
wrong," Bulma said, holding the creature so that they were face to face.

"Was it?" the little lizard queried. Amazingly, he still had his
front legs crossed and he stared back at her completely devoid of fear.
"All I did was let the Dreamtime show you each your heart's desire."

"What I saw in that boardroom was not my heart's desire."

"No? Are you telling me that you never wondered what your man
would have been like if he had been born on this world- Your world? You
can't lie to me, or to Altijiranga, the 'Dreaming'. It knows only the
truth, little miss, and what you saw, you created all by yourself. Don't
blame me if you didn't like it."

"I didn't- I'm not..." Bulma faltered and the lizard took
advantage of her confusion and squirmed out of her grip, dropping easily
back down into the Australian dirt. It scampered back towards the
remains of its cave, released a dismayed curse, and disappeared.

"I created all of that?" Bulma whispered. She wandered over to a
rock and sat down, absorbing everything that the little Aboriginal
creature had said. It all made sense, sort of. There had been the odd
time when she had privately wondered how Vegeta would have looked and
acted if he had been originally from earth. It was the clarity of the
details that perplexed her: Willingly working for Capsule Corp., wearing
his hair in a ponytail, having an earring, his Jewish faith? Had all of
that really come from her?

"Wow. I must have one hell of an imagination," she muttered,
shaking her head in dismay. Of all of those things, it wasn't until he
had professed his love to her that brought the whole illusion home.
Because it was the one thing that he had never said, even if he showed
it in other ways. It was the ultimate vulnerability that he would not
allow himself to betray, not even to her. That his double said it so
easily had torn her 'heart's desire' delusion to ribbons. The irony of
that was not lost on her and she betrayed a laugh that contained little
humor.

It finally dawned on her that she was alone and that Vegeta was
nowhere in sight. She got to her feet, retrieved the Dragonball, and set
out to look for him. When he wanted to move, he could really haul ass
and she thought that she saw a figure out on the horizon, steadily
walking away.

Heart's desire, she privately mused. She wondered what it would be
like to be reunited with the extinct people of a destroyed world and
finally become their leader as destiny had intended. She realized that
she couldn't even begin to scratch the surface of what it must have felt
like to have that ripped away a second time. Vegeta needed time to
recover and he needed to do it alone. She decided to give the Saiyan his
space and follow at a distance. He would come back to her when he was
good and ready.

That didn't happen as soon as she had hoped.

Bulma had gotten into her hoverjet and assumed a high altitude
while keeping an eye on him. When he had finally stopped walking it had
been close to nightfall and she had landed and popped a capsule home for
shelter; not to far away from him, just close enough to be noticeable.
He appeared to be just staring out at the barren land that marked the
Outback, lost in thought. She made herself a meal, with enough leftovers
to satisfy him, and went to bed early. She spent the entire night
staring at the ceiling wondering if she was doing the right thing. Maybe
he wanted company; perhaps he wanted to talk about what had happened.
She just didn't know what to do.

It wasn't until the sky began to glow with the first tendrils of
dawn that she heard the front door open and close. There was a rustling
in the kitchen and she smiled for the first time since Vegeta's ki blast
had ignited his gas and saved them from the Dreamtime's hold. He was
eating, and that was always a sign that he was going to be all right.
Turning on the small lamp beside the bed, she propped herself up on
pillows and waited for him.

He entered the room and passed her a brief glance and then began
to get undressed. "Let me guess, you didn't sleep either," was all he
said.

She shook her head. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't
want to-"

"-I don't," came the harsh reply.

Bulma sighed and dropped her eyes. He crawled into bed beside her,
crossed his arms behind his head and lied on his back, staring up at the
ceiling, identical to what she had done for hours before. Normally, when
he just wanted to go to sleep, he would roll over on his right side. If
his body language was any indication, he was still deeply troubled.

She laid on her side and propped her head up with one arm,
studying his face. Eventually, his eyes swiveled in her direction.
"What?" he asked in a terse growl.

"Vegeta, whatever happened at Ayer's Rock is behind us. Please
don't let it get to you. It's over."

His lips became a rigid, bloodless line. "'It's over'," he
repeated hollowly. "'The age of Saiyans is over', that's what I tell
myself every fucking day. And I was finally starting to believe it until
...until yesterday-" his voice broke and he rolled over and buried his
head into the pillow.

Her heart aching, Bulma could do little more than rub his back.
Impulsively, she told him of what she had experienced in her own
Dreamtime fantasy. And when she described how he had looked in her
illusion, she thought that he had calmed down a little and was listening
to her every word. That was confirmed when his muffled voice sounded
out, "An earring. Preposterous!"

"You were cute," she giggled, "With the little professor glasses
and ponytail and all. Maybe when we get back home-"

"Not on a bet, woman," he snapped back.

Smiling, Bulma reached over and turned off the light and snuggled
up against him in a spooning position. He didn't object and she wrapped
her free arm around his waist, while whispering in his ear, "Any more
farts and you'll be sleeping outside with the dingos, mister."

She felt his body move with a barely repressed snort and
affectionately kissed his bare shoulder. "I love you, Vegeta."

"I know," came the sleepy response but she was sure that he was
smiling as he said it.

Before she slipped off into sleep, her hand wandered down and
gently grasped the warm, flaccid length of him and she betrayed a
gratified smile as she drifted off.

At least there was ONE thing that Vegeta had in common with his
Dreamtime double...




-----
* Head on over to
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~enigman/australia/slang.html to find out
what Lester's saying!
-----
** The Saiyan method of date keeping is entirely fictional and not based
on any existing DBZ material. As such, it is open to individual
interpretation.
-----
Chapter Nine: A chilling life and death encounter at the bottom of the
world.