Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ A Saiyan Homecoming ❯ One Large Misunderstanding ( Chapter 4 )

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A Saiyan Homecoming

Chapter 4: One Large Misunderstanding

Several hours, six restaurants, and one maxed-out credit card later, Videl had finally fed her boys. Well, almost. They had one more restaurant to go, the Pancake Hut. Gohan had said he wanted pancakes, and Barden had agreed, insisting that he knew where the best pancake house in Satan City was. Videl was starting to wonder how often Barden ate out, given his knowledge of the city's best restaurants.

But for the moment, she was happy to be in the presence of her family as they wandered through the streets of Satan city, drawing many a surprised stare from other pedestrians.

She linked her arm through Gohan's, squeezing his arm in support as a young mother pulled her children as far away from them as possible.

Gohan's expression was slightly strained. He was not a monster! He'd given his entire life to the rather insignificant little planet called Earth, and to have them reject him stung. He knew he didn't look like an average everyday human, but he wasn't! He was a half-human-half-saiyan hybrid, and proud of it. During his 15-year stint in the other dimensions with Shin he'd learned a lot more about both of the races he had come from, and been surprised to learn that the Saiyans hadn't always been bloodthirsty killers.

He would no longer drown his Saiyan instincts with human naivety. He'd learned to balance them out long ago.

Videl squeezed his arm and he glanced down at her, shifting his arm to wrap around her waist as they walked. Barden was on his other side, continuing to babble on about what had happened in his life while Gohan was gone, occasionally looking up at his father to make sure he was listening.

Gohan smiled at him and continued on down the street, towards the little pancake house nestled in the midst of the shopping district. With Videl on one arm and Barden scampering along the other side, Gohan was just happy to be with his family again.

Not too far away from where the Sons were making their way to dinner, another hybrid Saiyan was enjoying herself, much to the glee of the salesmen and women assisting her. Today was a day when they loved being paid by commission.

Bra Briefs regarded her reflection in the mirror, then twirled so the long blue dress swirled around her ankles. She turned to one side and examined her image again, pinching the expensive cloth that somehow managed to be the exact same shade of her hair and eyes. A slight frown flickered across her face.

The terribly ingratiating salesman held his breath.

Bra looked up. "What do you think?"

The salesman leapt to his feet. "It's a perfect match!" He exclaimed ecstatically, making the young woman want to cover her ears. "The color is perfect, the cut accentuates all the right curves…I think we have a winner here!"

The rich heiress frowned at him. "Not you." She ignored his deflated look and turned to the woman sitting in the chair a few feet away. "What do you think?"

Bulma Briefs cocked her head and studied her daughter's form closely. "He's right-the cut does wonderful things for you," she admitted after a moment. "And while I've never tired of the color blue, I do have to admit it looks good, despite being a bit monochrome. You look elegant."

The salesman smiled, amazed beyond belief that the richest woman in the world was actually agreeing with him.

Bra turned back to the paneled full-length mirror, and shuffled the skirt again. "It's a very nice dress," she admitted to herself calmly, putting dollar signs in the salesman's eyes. "But it's not quite what I want."

The nameless salesperson sighed under his breath.

"This just doesn't do it for me," Bra continued, rearranging the straps slightly. "This is more of a trip-to-the-opera-with-old-people dress, not a hot-date dress."

One of their attendants stepped forward. "Perhaps if you would tell us more about what you're looking for, Miss Briefs, we can find something more suitable for your tastes."

Bra closed her eyes for a minute. "Something shorter," she decided. "And not blue. Red maybe-or green. Something fun."

The salespeople scrambled off to find something that matched her specifications, and Bra returned to the dressing room she was monopolizing to pull the gown off. By the time the saleswoman had taken it away, another one had appeared with several more dresses.

Bra examined them calmly, then snatched a pretty purple halterneck from the pile and showed it to her mother. "Wouldn't this look cute on Pan?"

Bulma looked up from her examination of a catalogue and smiled. "It would, dear, but I thought we were getting you a dress for your date, not shopping for family members."

"We are, but Panny never dresses up anymore," Bra commented. "Her wardrobe is so last-season-and she has to go with Trunks to that social luncheon in three weeks. Dragging her out to get new clothes will be nearly impossible, and I can't let her give Capsule Corps a bad image." Capsule Corps head of Public Relations and its occasional Vice-President smirked at her mother. "Weren't you the one who made sure Dad and Trunks always had something suitable to wear?"

Bulma lifted her hands in surrender.

Bra checked the size of the dress and handed it to the saleswoman. "We'll take that one," she decided. "And the blue one I just had on, too. It might come in handy before the summer is over."

"Yes Miss Briefs!" The saleswoman snatched the two dresses up and trotted off in the direction of counter, where Bulma's choices were already neatly folded and waiting to be delivered.

Free of clinging store personnel, Bra turned back to the dresses, trying to find one she liked. After a moment, she pulled something from the pile and disappeared into the dressing room again.

Bulma went back to her magazine, wondering how many more stores they would be able to hit before everything closed down for the night.

A squeal of delight echoed through the room, and Bulma looked up in time to see Bra come out wearing a flirty little number in white, with brilliant red flowers twining up the sides. She strode right to the mirror and examined her reflection from all angles, before turning to give her mother a bright smile. "Carlos will love it!"

Bulma readily agreed. Carlos was her daughter's latest fling, an upcoming baseball star with dark good looks. He'd charmed Bulma the instant she'd met him, but she had to work to keep him from running into Vegeta or Trunks. His type of flattery would only get him pushed through the closest wall with them.

After their purchases had been encapsulated and pocketed, the two women left the shop, glancing at each other in camaraderie. "Now that we have the dress," Bra began.

"It's time to accessorize," her mother finished, fun sparkling in her eyes. "So shall we start with shoes, or do you want to go with purses?"

Bra frowned. "Shoes, I think. There's a really great place across the street from that Pancake house Barden likes. They have a lot of variety; we should be able to find everything we need there."

Bulma linked her arm through Bra's, and they continued on their merry way, preparing to spend more of Trunk's hard-earned money. After all, if his wife wouldn't do it somebody had to, didn't they?

Their attention was caught by a young voice bellowing Bra's name from across the street. Both Bulma and Bra turned to see a familiar spiky-haired boy jumping up and down across the street and waving like mad.

Bra smiled and waved back. "Hi Barden!"

Bulma waved too, looking around for whoever Barden was with. She was startled to see a hulk of a man with long calf-length hair lounging against a wall beside him. There was no way she could mistake that hair. A chill shot up her spine and she grabbed Bra's arm hard. "Radditz!"

Bra glanced at her mother's pale face. "Who's Radditz?" She demanded immediately, wondering how this man could frighten her mother so.

"He's a Saiyan," Bulma answered, her eyes frozen on Barden, who was rushing towards the curb. "The one who killed Goku all those years ago." She shook her head. "I wonder how he made it here." She let go of Bra and hunted for her cell phone. "I'm gonna call your father-he has listen to him."

As soon as Bra realized the man across the street was a threat, she toned out her mother's voice, worried about Barden. While the boy was strong, he didn't have any experience to help him hold his own against the Saiyan. Was Radditz returning for vengeance on his family? How had he found Barden, and not Goten?

All of her questions vanished when she saw the burly Saiyan grab Barden by the back of his shirt and yank him away from them. The Saiyan instincts that has fully developed with her fighting skills took over. In her mind, Barden was family; and she couldn't leave him alone with the monster that had killed his grandfather.

She handed her purse to her mother and began to pick her way through the traffic.

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Gohan, meanwhile, pulled his son back onto the curb before he ran out in front of a fast-moving semi. Where had Barden's common sense disappeared to? He sighed and dusted his son off. "You need to be careful. Saiyan blood or not, that thing still could have hurt you."

Barden winced and dropped his head. "Sorry. I kinda just forgot."

Gohan gave him a stern look. "That's not the type of thing to forget, kiddo."

He started to lead Barden back towards the Pancake House where Videl was waiting for them. However, he was stopped by a fist that connected with his eye, sending his head snapping back.

Whirling to face his attacker, he was met with another fist-in his jaw this time, followed by a foot to the back of his knee that sent him sprawling to the sidewalk face first.

"Run Barden!" Bra ordered, slamming one knee into the big Saiyan's back to pin him to the ground, powered up as much as she could without ascending into Super-Saiyan. "I'll hold him up until Dad gets here."

Barden stared at her in surprise. "Go!" Bra ordered. "I can handle him!" She grabbed a fistful of the massive man's hair and yanked his head back. "Thought you'd come back for another round, didn't you?" She sneered. "Well, I'm not letting you kill my friends!"

Gohan grimaced. "What in Kami's name did I do to you?" He asked, wincing as she tightened her hold on his hair.

"It's not what you did to me," his captor snarled, not realizing she was drawing a crowd. "But you killed that boy's Grandfather! I won't let you do the same to him!"

"Huh?" Gohan finally realized who must have him pinned to the concrete. "Bra? Is that you?" He was stunned-the girl must have really undergone some intensive training to get that kind of power level.

Unfortunately, Bulma picked the same time to scream at Barden to run to her, and Bra didn't hear him.

Barden, deciding not to mess with the angry women despite his father's situation, decided to obey her and flew across the street to Bulma.

Gohan groaned as Bra straddled him while once again tugging on his hair, and decided it was time to pry her off so she could see his face and realize who he was. He worked one of his arms free and managed to reach above him, intending to grab her arm and pull her off.

Bra interpreted his action as an attempt at escape, and reacted by grabbing the first sensitive spot she could find, intending to inflict pain. Her father had always said that a Saiyan's one weakness was the sensitivity of their tail. That was one way to immobilize any Saiyan warrior. Her hand unerringly closed around Gohan's tail and she squeezed hard, trying to get the man to go limp. For good measure, she dug her perfectly manicured fingernails in. It was dirty fighting, she knew, but sometimes a girl had to do what a girl had to do.

Unfortunately for her, her opponent didn't go limp.

Gohan didn't feel anything but pain as Bra's hand tugged on his tail. Pain that eroded all the restraints and limitations he had been holding onto to keep from hurting her. When she stuck her fingernails in, he reacted in the only way he knew how.

He bellowed in pain and stood, whipping the other half-saiyan on his back off what every seasoned warrior in the otherworlds knew as his Achilles' Heel.

Bra clung to his tail, refusing to relinquish her hold. She found herself sitting on the ground clutching it in both hands, blood leaking over her fingers from where her sharp nails had pierced his skin.

Gohan roared again and lashed out with a foot, catching the younger girl squarely in the ribs. With the strength he'd developed over the last 15 years fighting some of the most horrendous beings in the other dimensions. Beings that made creatures like Cell and Frieza look like mere babes in diapers.

She went careening across the street and into the shoe-store opposite him.

Chest heaving and hair flickering gold, he stood in the middle of a hushed crowd and examined the damage he'd just caused. She'd severed one of the building's support structures, sending the walls crashing down on top of her.

In one motion, both Gohan and his son began to try to make it across the street to start digging her out of the rubble.

Gohan's path was stopped by a massive ki blast that blew up part of the street in front of him, which, thankfully, was clear of innocents. He threw his arms across his face and gathered a wide ki blast strong enough to incinerate the hunks of concrete that were flying past. When the glow his sheer energy had produced finally subsided, Gohan was able to see his opponent.

Vegeta, the last of the pure-blooded Saiyans, floated less than a foot off the ground, lightning crackling around his form as he powered up to the first level above Super-saiyan. The cold blue eyes were inhumane as his fury reached peaks Gohan had thought the man incapable of. A bright ball of ki dangled from the man's extended hand as Bulma wailed about Bra's fate in the background.

Gohan glanced at the smoke rising from the rubble. Bra's ki was still steady, although it was weak. She was still alive--if they could dig her out in time all it would take would be a few days in a regen tank to heal her. He turned back to the man hovering before him. "We can get her out in a few minutes."

Vegeta's eyes narrowed, and Gohan sighed. He wasn't going to get out of this battle that easily. He shook himself and began to cross the street to help Barden, hoping Vegeta would realize who he was before his anger cost Bra her life.

Without thinking, Gohan continued to cross the street, intending to aid his son in pulling the girl from the rubble.

Unfortunately, Vegeta had other plans. No one, mortal, immortal, or of any power level so much as touched his daughter without reprisal. This Saiyan, whoever he was, would be no different.

He loosed the ki blast from his fingers.

The battle had begun.

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