Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Anaugust Gold ❯ 09 ( Chapter 9 )

Bulma had been wishing sorely that Vejata's attentiveness would lapse for just long enough that she could sneak up to the controls and program the ship to take them back to New Vegeta, so that she could save her prince—but the woman was sharp, slept on top of the most essential part of the console and woke up anyway whenever Bulma entered the room. The blue-haired woman inwardly swore at herself for building Vejata the scouter, for it was working against her now.

 

Vejata's well-honed cautiousness and almost unbelievable paranoia were one of the traits that separated her from Vegeta in Bulma's mind; while the man had certainly had his own level of cautiousness when he first started living on her compound, she had at least been able to sneak up on him while he was sleeping, once or twice, without his noticing until it was too late. And unlike the silent calculation with which Vegeta took in his surroundings whenever he awoke, Vejata would snarl and immediately assume a defensive position, ready to field any attacks some nameless ghost would launch upon her at any moment.

 

Perhaps Vegeta had been like this, once, in the time she had known him—but if he had, it was so long ago and for such a short span that Bulma didn't remember.

 

"Oh, come on. I'm not going to try to turn us around now," Bulma huffed as she entered the room to find Vejata curled up against the console again. "We're less than an hour away. Hell, you could teleport us in from here, I'll bet."

 

"Nonsense; I'm not taking you straight to your friends," Vejata growled, rubbing her head as she adjusted her position. "They're the only ones on Earth I know well enough to teleport to." She smirked a little. "Nice try."

 

"Well," Bulma smiled apologetically, "there was no harm in asking." She laughed lightly and then meandered into the kitchen to dig up a midnight snack—for, indeed, she had calculated that it would be well into the night when they arrived at Capsule Corporation.

 

"No," Vejata closed her eyes, resigned. "I suppose you're right."

 

Bulma glanced up from her tea momentarily, bemoaning her choice to dismantle the coffee machine in order to make the boots. They lie tucked away in a box in her closet, saved aside for a day when she could perfect their design at home, since they would be of no use to her now.

 

"Your friends...they can sense ki quite proficiently. Yes?" Vejata stood up, stepping closer toward Bulma.

 

"As far as I know, they're pretty good," Bulma shrugged, feigning nonchalance as she sipped her tea. In nearly their whole time on the ship, Vejata had not intentionally moved this close to Bulma unless she was about to threaten her life.

 

Vejata nodded, and seemed to shudder a bit. "No matter how well I hide my ki, one day they will look and find yours." She stopped perhaps an arm's length from Bulma, but refused to make eye contact with the woman, instead opting to glance back toward the control panel. "And they will find me."

 

Bulma nodded. "Probably." She looked Vejata over, and was bombarded with memories of the last time they had been together in this ship, this close. Her son had just been killed, and both of them were at fault, for they created the brazen fused being that had caused it. Vejata had seemed to be on her way to improvement, softening. Now, because of her one of Bulma's best friends was dead and Vegeta was stranded with no hope of getting back to Earth without outside help. Vejata had descended into a state of madness, taking Bulma herself as something of a prisoner or hostage. Why Vejata insisted on keeping her alive baffled her somewhat, but it was not a complete mystery to her—and now, as Vejata remained close without lashing out, she felt she knew why.

 

The queen crossed her arms and let her gaze fall so that she could see Bulma from the corner of her eye. The woman was glancing at Vejata, her face neutral but for one corner of her mouth, which pressed upward knowingly. "What will they do?" she asked quietly.

 

"You killed Son," Bulma started, alarmed by the volume of her voice, "and I don't know any of his friends that would stand for it." She sighed. "Of course, unlike the rest, I can't do a damn thing about it."

 

Vejata raised an eyebrow, but still did not turn her head toward Bulma. "You're here with me—I, who have already made, I think, painfully clear that I can't fucking lay a finger on you," she growled. "You could have made me awfully miserable."

 

Bulma shrugged. "Didn't I? At all?"

 

"I said miserable, not annoyed." And now she did face Bulma. "You still can."

 

The woman's breath hitched. "What?"

 

Vejata seemed to ignore this and returned to her original question. "So what will they do with me?"

 

"Not everybody's quite as forgiving as Son," Bulma started, sighing. "You didn't have any good excuse to kill him so I'm not sure if they'll show you any sympathy. Of course we can bring him back, but in the time between them finding out what you did and us gathering the dragon balls, I'm not sure what they'll do." She crossed one ankle over the other, taking another sip of tea as she averted her eyes from Vejata. "Maybe they'll just put up with you until they can bring Son back and sort things out. You know, if they don't feel like you're a threat to anyone." She frowned. "But you just up and killed him for no reason...why would they trust you not to do the same to someone else?"

 

Vejata's mouth twitched, but she knew better than to let Bulma know her reason—she had no desire to put her life in further danger. Still, she wondered if Bulma was trying to bait her into telling her about it.

 

"Why?"

 

The queen swore quietly. "Why what?" she asked, rhetorically.

 

"You know." Bulma tightened her crossed arms, indignant. Her fingers tapped against her forearm impatiently. "Why did you kill him?"

 

"I can't tell you," Vejata murmured. The queen's eyes met the other woman's to find them shaking with anger. "Bulma."

 

"Fuck, Vejata, I—" Bulma was cut off by a swiftly moving blur that landed against her, its lips on hers. She broke away almost immediately, glaring the queen in the eye. "Dammit, don't make this hard for me."

 

"Bulma," Vejata rumbled, and Bulma couldn't quite decipher the tone—was it anger? When the queen reached forward to lay one hand against Bulma's neck, the woman shook for a few moments before she remembered that she had nothing to fear—but no, still the quivering persisted. She jumped when Vejata's forehead replaced the hand against her neck, and stiffened as the queen's hands came to rest on either side of her shoulders.

 

"Vejata, look..." Bulma started to push the woman away, but encountered resistance; Vejata stood still against her force, unmoving, as if she hadn't noticed it.

 

The queen remained quiet, her breaths collecting in the crook of Bulma's neck. Her hands gently lowered until her fingers caught with Bulma's, and Vejata tilted her head so that her hair brushed against the other woman's face. Bulma closed her eyes against the spikes of hair and, as she stilled, felt Vejata's accelerated heart rate. To calm herself she counted the beats as they raced by. She heard Vejata inhale deeply, and had to count faster. One-fifty-seven, one-fifty-eight... Vejata's feet shifted beneath them and she planted her boots along the outsides of Bulma's, their legs brushing together and her tail swishing gently against their calves. Two-oh-three, two-oh-four...

 

The warmth between them was immense, and behind her eyes Bulma wondered if it was again the awful wave of heat from another ki attack. Vejata's fingers remained laced with hers, and it was then that Bulma realized that the woman was not wearing her gloves. Two-eighty-eight, two-eighty-nine... She shifted slightly, but was fairly well trapped, somehow dwarfed by the Saiyajin who stood shorter than she. Bulma curled her fingers against Vejata's, feeling their sterile softness beneath her own, slightly smaller fingers, well-calloused from her work building but gentle for all the lotion she used to counter the damage. Three-forty-one, three-forty-two...

 

Vejata tilted her head the other way, pressing her lips against Bulma's neck. Three...seventy... She lost count.

 

One bright light from the console blinked as a calm voice spoke: "Thirty seconds until arrival."

 

 

...

 

 

"Six-star! The last one!" Goten grinned, pulling it from the large lizard's nest gently with one hand as he restrained the beast beneath his other arm. "Ssh," he crooned, "it's okay. This one isn't one of your babies." He patted its head soothingly, tucking the dragon ball into the sack that Trunks held out. "Hey Trunks, can you catch her a fish or something to make her feel better?"

 

"Goten, not every little thing in the woods is your pet," he sighed, slinging the bag over his shoulders as a dim orange light glowed through the seams.

 

"Yeah-huh," Goten protested. "They can be if they wanna be."

 

"C'mon, it's late, your mom's gonna—" Trunks froze as a light blazed across the sky.

 

"Hey!" Goten noticed it as well. "A shooting star!"

 

"No it's not—I feel my mom's ki in there!" Trunks took to the air and hovered there, waiting for Goten. "Your dad said we have to make sure she's okay—what if Vejata beat her up or something?"

 

"She did kill my dad..." Goten mumbled, shivering as he released the lizard and hovered up to meet Trunks, clutching at his stomach. "I hope it wasn't painful."

 

Trunks gave a wary eye to the arm that wasn't holding the dragon balls. "Me too, Goten. C'mon. Let's make sure my mom is okay."

 

"But you just said my mom would—"

 

"This is way more important," he asserted. "We have to call the dragon, remember?"

 

The other boy nodded vigorously at this, his chest swelling up proudly. "Yeah!" And they shot off, streaks in the sky following the ship's path to Capsule Corp.

 

 

...

 

 

As the vessel slowly powered down, Vejata turned on her heel, leaving Bulma leaning uncertainly against the counter. She glanced over the controls and then turned back to the woman. "You will proceed to the deepest, most private level of your residence," Vejata's voice was icy, but hiccups of emotion punctuated its monotone threat.

 

Bulma nodded, at a complete loss for what else to do.

 

"You will take the least populated path." She nodded again. "You will not speak until you've reached your destination." Another nod. "Let's go."

 

But as the ship's hatch drifted down, Vejata's stomach dropped.

 

"We heard you were coming back!" Trunks smirked, crossing his arms at the edge of the platform as it brushed against the ground.

 

"Give Trunks his mom back!" Goten added. "Or Dad said we have permission to kick your butt!"

 

Vejata's breathing grew ragged. It was too soon; she hadn't even made plans yet for what to...but no, these were children; they, surely, would spare her. "And if I give her back?"

 

Trunks shrugged nonchalantly. "Hm, we'll probably kick your butt anyway. After all," he grew serious, "we know what you did to Son!"

 

"You..." she blinked, a blanket of horror washing over her, "you do?"

 

"Yeah! You killed him!" Goten gathered himself into a fighting stance. "I hope you didn't hurt him too much! Or else we'll have to hurt you!"

 

Growls issued from Vejata's throat, and they became roars as she powered up. "If you're going to fight me either way, then let's stop wasting time," she hissed, watching Trunks as he handed his mother a small, lumpy satchel with a meaningful glance before turning his attention back to the queen. She knew that there would be no escaping them; on their own, they were barely stronger than she, if at all, but she remembered their powerful fused form. If Goku had already spoken with them, told them that he had died and that Vegeta was stranded, well—she had no hope of tricking them, or of distracting them from their woes.

 

No, she would have to fight them, and she would probably lose, but she wouldn't be a warrior if she didn't try.

 

 

 

...

 

 

They didn't fuse, but the two of them together were too much for her anyway. She hardly had time to worry about what she would wake up to—a revived Goku? His friends, livid and ready to do away with her? ...Hell?—before she sunk into unconsciousness beneath their young but skillful fists.

 

But she woke up to none of those things. She woke up to an enormous dragon, long body curling through the sky, and Bulma, Trunks, and Goten beneath it.