Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Dragonball AU ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

         "RaRadum 'niichan?" Goku blinked up at the brother he'd never known before and whose name he could neither remember or pronounce.
         Raditz rapped him on the skull again, "I am your older brother! A Saiya-jin child never refers to a family member in such a weak, disrespectful manner!"
         Goku clutched his head and looked indignant, "Well what'm I s' posed to call you then?"
         "If you can't say my name, you will call me Onii-san, understand?"
         "Sure, Just quit hittin' me on the head!" he glared.
         "Now, what did you want?"
         "Huh?' he thought a moment, "Oh, yeah, now I remember"
         "Well?"
         "Are we there yet?"
         "No."
         Goku looked disappointed, "Oh. How will we know when we're there?"
         "When the ship stops, we're there."
         "Oh!" Goku grinned, "I get it now!"
         "Good." Raditz leaned back to catch a little sleep.
         "Um.. 'NiichaI mean'Nii-san?"
         "What is it now?" He was becoming irritated.
         "Did the ship stop yet?"
         "No! Now shut up and sit still! If you poke me one more time with that stick, I'm going to break it over that hard little head of yours!" Raditz growled.
         "How much longer 'till we get there?" Goku asked, ignoring his brother's threat.
         "Not very long. Now I told you to sit still, dammit!"
         "But I gotta pee."
         Raditz jerked away, stiffening up so that as little of him touched the boy as possible, which was not easy, considering that Goku was sitting on his lap, "You'd better hold it, Kakarrot!" He warned.
         Goku did not reply, he merely changed positions once again. This time Raditz did not complain about his nyoi-bo.

         *                          *                         *

         "Do you have any idea how illegal this is?" Bulma crossed her arms and tried to glare at the person whose lap she was, in effect, sitting in, "Kidnapping, assault, smuggling!" She gestured toward her backpack unintentionally smashing it into Vegeta's face, "Customs has a fit if you take things out of the country without their permission, I don't even know what they would have to say about taking stuff off the planet!" Somehow during the duration of the trip she had metamorphosized from terrified kidnap victim to ruddy bitch.
         "Woman, Shut up!" He tried to say around a mouth full of canvas, "And stop fidgeting!" He pushed the wayward backpack out of his face. "What is that smell ?"
         "I do not smell!" she uncrossed her arms and clenched her fists.
         "You do! You smell like some variety of flower!"
         "It's called perfume, Vegeta ." She replied sarcastically, emphasizing the name she'd heard the huge guy call him. Sans the "Sama" of course. "You should try it! You don't smell so great yourself, you know!"
         "Well quit it!"
         "Quit what?"
         "Smelling like that!"
         "I will! As soon as you stop being such a jerk !"
         "Woman! I'm warning you!"
         "Ooh! He's warning me! Well, I'll have you know that I" She was cut off as Vegeta reached up and slammed her head against the only hard surface in the pod, the red glass.
         "I told you I expect a quiet trip." He told her unconscious form. At this point he was too annoyed to care if he done any serious damage to her or even killed her.

         *                          *                         *

         "Have we stopped yet?" Goku rocked forward, doing a sitting-down version of the pee-dance.
         "No. I've told you a hundred times! When we stop, you'll know it!" He would have smacked Kakarrot on the head again, but he was worried that any sudden movement would set him to gushing like a geyser.
         "But I really gotta go!" Goku had long ago forgotten about being hungry. The pressure in his bladder blocked out the comparably minor discomfort of hunger.
         "It won't be long now! Stop complaining! Saiya-jin children never complain!" Raditz's voice had a frantic edge to it.
         In what seemed like an eternity, their pods were accepted into the docking bay of a rather small ship. As soon as the airlock closed and environmental control was restored, Raditz threw open the hatch of his pod and raced for the door, holding his little brother at arms length in front of him.
         "Where are you going?" Nappa called after them.
         "Bathroom!" Raditz replied over his shoulder as the automatic door zipped shut behind him.
         Nappa cackled, "I guess this would be Raditz's first taste of family life."
         Vegeta's pod opened with a hiss, "Wake up, woman, and get off of me!" He made a noise of disgust when she did not respond.
         He hauled her out of the pod under his arm like a sack of flour, and, for the third time that day, Bulma was carelessly dropped. "Oow!" She sat up gingerly, and patted the lump on the side of her head, "What happened..?" She opened her eyes and blinked blearily at the two men standing over her, effectively ignoring her.
         "So, Vegeta-Sama, can we turn the ambient gravity back up again?" It was protocol to turn the gravity to it's lowest setting to conserve power on an unoccupied ship.
         "I don't see why not. Get to it," Vegeta ordered.
         "Oh." Bulma glared up at the undersized, adolescent tyrant, "It's you." She stood up and advanced on him, her hands on her very-shapely hips, "You have a lot to answer for, Bud! You can't just show up and deprive a planet of it's most beautiful, intelligent, occupant, you know!" She straightened her spine, using her two-inch height advantage to her benefit. was too shocked to move, and before he realized what he was doing, Vegeta had already taken a few steps backward. He was utterly unprepared for this. In his experience, there were only two types of people in the universe: those who were weaker than him and those who were stronger. The ones who were stronger were always deferred to, and were free to mop the floor with him if they so desired. But the one's who were weaker They were his. They only survived because he found them useful or he couldn't be bothered to kill them. And this stupid woman who was bitching him out was totally messing with his perceptions of reality.
         He quickly recovered and took a few steps toward her, regaining his original position, with his tail sticking straight up like a furry exclamation point, "Woman! Do you have any idea who you're talking to? In one finger I have the power to crush entire civilizations! I have been responsible for the deaths of more planets than you could even fathom! ORE WA SAIYA-JIN NO OUJI!"
         "You are the Prince of all Vegetable Men?" She snorted, "Honestly, how many times a day do you practice that little speech of yours in front of the mirror? And what do you know about what I can fathom or not? I'll have you know that I am not just another pretty face! I'm probably in possession of the most impressive scientific mind you'll ever encounter!"
         He took another step closer until they were less than two feet apart, "If you won't be silent, I'm liable to forget exactly why it was I wanted you alive in the first place! And keep this in mind, If I am forced to dispose of our only means of controlling Kakarrot, I may be forced to kill him as well."
         "Some big, tough, warlord you are!" She stepped closer to him, and leaned forward until there faces were mere inches apart, "Picking on a little kid and a poor, helpless girl!" occurred to Nappa, that, if one discounted her pathetic power level, she did not appear to be particularly "helpless" at the moment.
         Vegeta opened his mouth to respond, but she licked her lips, and he forgot what he was going to say. He stood there motionless for a second, before recovering his composure. He growled, low in his throat, then, turning on his heel, he stalked toward the door, not even pausing when he spoke to his subordinate, "Nappa! Do something with the girl! If I have to spend another moment in her company, one of us may not survive!" and then he was gone.
         "The nerve of that jerk!" She screeched once, wordlessly, "I can't believe this! Hey! What are you doing!?"
         Nappa grabbed her by the arm and started walking out of the docking bay, "I'm finding some place to put you."
         "Well, you could have at least grabbed the other arm, this one's still sore, you brute!" With her free hand, she slapped him on the wrist, but she only ended up hurting her own hand.
         "Do you ever stop talking!?" He snarled.

         *                          *                         *

         "Thanks, 'Nii-San! That feels much better, now." Goku waved his tail around happily, as he came out of the bathroom.
         Raditz thwapped him on the head. At Goku's indignant glare he explained, "That's for all the complaining you did on the way here."
         "Well, then why didn't you hit me then?"
         Raditz's face bore an expression of absolute disgust, "and risk having you piss all over me?"
         "Oh, yeah. That's a good point." Goku put his hand on the back of his head and grinned, "Can we get food now? I'm hungry."
         "Heh. Sure, kid." Raditz reached down and roughly mussed his little brother's hair.

         *                          *                         *

         "How could I have been so stupid!?" Vegeta asked nobody, "Why did I bring that annoying moronic obnoxious" he temporarily ran out of things to call her, "low-class woman!" he amended. "I should just kill her now! Controlling Kakarrot isn't worth her irritating presence!" He sat down on his bunk, leaning against the headboard, with one leg bent, his wrist resting on his knee. He felt strange, almost feverish, and he could feel his heart pulsating in his chest, as though he were preparing for battle. Oddly, though, it was pumping blood to places it never did when he was ready to fight, and , as angry as he was with that blue-haired idiot, he had the strangest urge to seek her out again.

         *                          *                         *
         While they were eating, Goku decided that there was one thing that he did like about his brother. Most people, in Goku's limited experience, had a really dumb habit of trying to talk to him while he was eating. It was just silly, in his opinion, to try to talk while you got food in front of you. "'Cuz if you're eatin' right," He thought to himself, "there shouldn't be time to do anything else with your mouth between bites."
         This "ship" thingy was kinda neat, too. It was really big with white walls that sometimes had pipes sticking out in weird places and yellow floors. Sometimes there were huge oval windows where you could see stars, except, for some reason the sky wasn't just up anymore, it was everywhere ! There where also places on the walls that had bits sticking up with things painted on them. 'Nii-San said they were called buttons and that Goku wasn't ever to touch them, though he didn't know how much harm touching something could do. Goku decided that, as stupid as the request was, he better do what he was told or 'Nii-San would smack him in the head again.
         Goku leaned back and patted his pudgy little tummy, "All done!"
         Raditz frowned, "You sure? You didn't eat very much"

         *                          *                          *

         "You can't just leave me in here!" Bulma crossed her arms and tapped her foot, "I won't have it! I'm not going to let you lock me up like some kind of Hey! Where are you going!?"
         Nappa was going to inform the little twit that he didn't have to answer to her, but since he was given orders not to kill her, and he was pretty sure that was the only other way, besides answering her, to shut her up, he decided it would be easier to just tell her, "I'm going to turn the gravity back up."
         "Gravity? Up? You can't do that! How high does it go?"
         "We're at one-tenth normal gravity."
         "Ten g's!? You can't do that!"
         "And why not?"
         "You have orders not to kill me, right?" she waited for him to nod, "well, the human body can only withstand six g's tops! And then only for very short periods of time."
         He frowned at her, trying to decide if she was lying or not. He thought it would be better not to risk it. "Fine. The gravity stays."
         She let out the breath she'd been holding in one long woosh. This time she did not try to stop him when he left her alone.
         She sighed and crossed her arms, surveying her surroundings. It was small and kind of dingy-looking. The walls were supposed to be white, but they were a grayish yellow in the corners and along the edges. What little furniture there was in the room was made of metal and most of it was badly dented, if not outright destroyed. There was a bunk along the shortest wall, taking up the length of it, it had a shelf about two feet above the head of it. Or at least Bulma thought it had been a shelf, it was difficult to tell because it was so badly mangled and hanging by a single fastener, streaking diagonally down the wall. There was a table against the opposite wall, with a stool sitting in front of it. The table was suspended to the wall by a large metal bracket. "This will never do!" She clenched her fists and screeched, " I can't believe someone would put me in this dark ugly Argh!" She stomped her foot. Aside from the entrance leading out into the corridor, there was another door beside the small metal table, she hoped it was a bathroom. She bit her bottom lip and braced herself to enter, fearing the worst from this room.
         She opened the door and felt along the wall for some kind of light switch. Her probing fingers encountered a small button, and she pushed it. Pale, wan light flooded the tiny cubicle. It was indeed a bathroom. The mirror was cracked and everything that could be bent, dented, or otherwise damaged was, but it was surprisingly clean. "Well, thank goodness for small favors." She mumbled to herself.
        
 &nb sp;       *                          *                          *
         Goku gave his brother's tail several soft, quick tugs, "Can we go see the Bulma-girl?"
         "Why would you want to do that?" Raditz yanked his tail out of his grasp. He was genuinely confused. The girl was weak, loud, and arrogant, and Raditz didn't think that Goku was old enough to appreciate her one good quality. "Make that two good qualities," Raditz thought to himself, smiling slightly.
         "I just wanna make sure she's okay. She's not real smart, ya know," Goku whispered conspiratorially.
         Raditz decided that since it was too late to train and too early to go to bed, that it wouldn't hurt to indulge his little brother, just this once. Besides, that chick was real fun to look at. "Yeah, sure. If I can find Nappa and ask him where Vegeta put 'er." He exited the mess hall (and it was a mess) and started walking along in the corridor.
         "So how d'we find Nappa?" Goku followed behind, taking two steps for every one of Raditz's long strides.
         "Well," he thought, "We could always follow the smell" Aloud he said, "we use the intercom. And you will call him Nappa-San." He paused in front of a speaker and pushed a button, "Nappa-San"Raditz paused a moment, "Nappa-San?" Goku started tugging on his tail again, "Kakarrot! Stop that!"
         "But'Nii-San"
         "I said Shut up!" He ordered without looking at him, "And never tug on my tail again!" he pressed the button on the intercom again, "Nappa-San?"
         "But 'Nii-San!" Goku pulled on his tail one more time.
         "Listen, Brat!" Raditz whirled and smacked him on the top of his head, " When I tell you not to do something you'd better never do it again!"
         "Owww!" Goku glowered, clutching his cranium "I was jus' trying to tell ya that Nappa-San's right here!" He pointed at the huge warrior.
         Nappa had his arms crossed, and he was obviously very amused at Raditz's expense, "Did you want something, Kid?"
         "Hai, Nappa-San. The brat wants to know what you did with that girl."
         "I put 'er in a bunkroom." he uncrossed his massive arms, "Why?"
         "Can I go see her?" Goku looked up at Nappa and waggled his tail hopefully.
         "Why?" Nappa wore an expression akin to horror, "I'd rather face down Frieza, The Ginyu Force, and King Cold than be forced to listen to that girl's mouth again."
         "C'mon, Nappa-San, " Goku pleaded, "I know she talks a lot, an' she's mean and stuff, but I like her."
         "Whatever, I gotta bring her dinner anyway." He frowned, "I knew I'd get stuck babysitting that wench when Vegeta-Sama told me t'bring her."
         "Is that complaining I hear, Nappa?" Vegeta stalked around a corner in the hallway. paled, "N-no, Vegeta-Sama!" He bowed, placing a hand over his heart in the traditional Saiya-jin salute.
         "Stop your blubbering, Nappa," Vegeta shoved them out of his path on his way to the mess hall.
         "Just wait here!" Nappa growled at them, "Let me grab something and then I'll take you to her."
         Once they were alone again in the hallway, Goku looked up and asked Raditz, "What's wrong with 'Geta?"
         Raditz looked as if he just swallowed something particularly nasty, "You never address Vegeta-Sama like that!" He kneeled down and grabbed Goku by the shoulders, shaking him, "Do you understand me?"
         "Butwhy not?" Goku winced, already expecting a blow, " I don't get alla these silly words ya put at the ends of people's names"
         "Because he's the prince!" He hit Goku in the stomach, " Baka desu yo!"
         He coughed once, "Whatsa prince?"
         "Someone who's a helluva lot stronger than you are, and if you piss him off you're toast. Got it?" Raditz released his brother's shoulders and stood up.
         "Okay. Can we go see Bulma now?"
         "We're waiting for Nappa, remember?"
         "Oh, yeah." Goku, having gotten bored waiting, stood on his tip-toes, and reached for the controls of the intercom.
         "Kakarrot" Raditz said warningly.
         "Huh? Oops. I forgot." He put his hands behind his back and scuffed his feet, "Sorry, 'Nii-san."
         "Just don't let it happen again." He said harshly but, for some reason, he couldn't keep himself from smiling.
         Nappa emerged from the mess hall, carrying an armload of food, "Let's get this over with." He started towards Bulma's cell, Raditz and Kakarrot in tow.
         All too soon, in Nappa's opinion, they arrived at Bulma's door. Nappa started to open it but Goku grabbed his extended arm and hung from it.
         "Ya gotta knock first!" He exclaimed.
         "What? Why should I?" Nappa glared at the little monkey clinging to his forearm.
         " 'Cuz ya don't wanna hear how she yells when ya don't!"
         "This is ridiculous!" Nappa ranted at the still-dangling boy, "She's our prisoner! I refuse to bow to her whims!"
         "Oh, just come in already!" Bulma called from the other side of the door, apparently having heard them arguing outside.
         Nappa pressed the button to release the door latch and open it. He strode into the small bunkroom, and it seemed to shrink even more. He dropped her dinner on the little table in the corner.
         She was sitting on the bed, having emptied the contents of her backpack onto it. "I just loved how you locked the door, mohawk-boy!" She stood up and put a hand on her hip, "I mean, Duh! We're in space, where did you expect me to try to go!? Not to mention I've been bored out of my mind ever since I was left here!" She shook her finger at him, "What's the big idea, anyway? And what am I supposed to wear? My clothes are filthy! I couldn't even shower because I'd have to get back into the same dirty outfit!"
         Nappa realized that he was more powerless against her than Vegeta had been. At least Ouji-Sama had been able to stand his ground, whereas nothing could keep Nappa from allowing her to back him into a corner.
         While she stood there haranguing the hapless warlord, Raditz took this opportunity to rifle through the items she'd scattered on the bed. There were copious tubes and containers that, according to Kakarrot, were called "make-up," a comb, a hairbrush, four small yellow spheres, and, "What're these?" He held up several strangely-shaped lacy things.
         "Those are panties!" Goku told him, proud to be in possession of such knowledge.
         Bulma froze in the middle of her rant, and whirled to face the curious, invasive Saiya-jin siblings. "Get out of there!" She screeched, "Don't you know that's personal stuff?" She stood by the bed, blushing crimson.
         "She gets real mad when people touch her panties. She shot me with a big gun when I took 'em offa her."
         "Hey! Candy!" Raditz popped the sugared confection into his mouth, "Score!"
         "Uh, you prolly don't wanna eat that" Goku started to say, but was ignored.
         "Hey, gimme one!" Nappa demanded, forgetting that he had just been henpecked to within an inch of his life. Raditz tossed him the last piece, and he caught it with ease.
         Bulma, beyond angry, nudged past them and started collecting her things and shoving them back into her backpack, "Get out of my way, you big, stupid oafs!" She proceeded to lock herself and her possessions in the bathroom.
         "Bulma?" Goku knocked on the door, "Are ya okay?"
         "NO! I'm not okay! That's a stupid question!"
         "Are ya gonna come out?"
         "Not until all of you people leave me alone!"
         Nappa was already on his way out the door.
         "C'mon, kid," Raditz tugged on his brother's hair. "I don't think she's comin' out, so let's go."
         Goku turned to face Raditz and rubbed the newest injury on his sore head, "Ouch! Okay." he faced the door again, "I'm gonna go now, Bulma! I'll try to come see ya tomorrow so ya don't get lonely, 'kay?"
         "Whatever! Just go away, Goku!"
         "She is really mean." Raditz mumbled, smiling, as he led his kid brother to his room.

         Goku pounced on Raditz's bed, "Are you gonna sleep here too?" He asked hopefully, it had been a really long time since he'd gotten to listening to someone else's heartbeat, smelling someone else's skin until he fell asleep.
         Raditz smiled at him, "Yeah, it's my room, you little bastard." this brought back fond memories from when the Saiya-jin still had a planet. At every large gathering all the kids invariably ended up sleeping in a huge pile in the middle of the floor like puppies, after, of course, they spent the whole day beating the heck out of each other, trying to see who the strongest was. Sometimes they'd pretend to be asleep, just so they could listen to the adults present critiquing their performances of that day, declaring who was already strong, who had great potential, and who should mate with whom to produce the strongest offspring. None of them could ever stay awake long enough to hear the end of those conversations, but they all looked forward to the day when they would be the one's scrutinizing their own children. None of them realized that this would never happen.
         "G'night, 'Nii-San." Goku curled up next to his brother, almost lost in his hair, using his ribcage for a pillow. He rubbed a lock of Raditz's coarse hair under his nose. His last coherent thought before he fell asleep was that there were two things he liked about his 'Nii-San.

         *                          *                         *