Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Love (Sort Of): Vegeta and Bulma Unite ❯ Another Training Disaster ( Chapter 1 )

Part One: Another Training Disaster

 

A tremendous explosion shook the Briefs house. In the living room, Bulma and her mother exchanged alarmed glances as Professor Briefs came rushing in from his lab and exclaimed, “What the devil was that?”

 

Shaking her head, Bulma stood and pointed toward the open back door, where tendrils of smoke were beginning to drift in. “Guess,” she said.

 

“That boy.” Professor Briefs wrung his hands and sent a worried glance at his wife and daughter. “He's costing us millions in equipment.”

 

“Not to mention he's working himself to death, the poor dear,” Mrs. Briefs chirped from the couch. “He really should take a break. Why don't we invite him on a picnic?”

 

“Mother, please.” Bulma folded her arms and glared toward the back yard, where Vegeta had no doubt turned another gravity chamber into a smoldering pile of rubble. “I'll talk to him, Dad,” she said before her father could offer. She knew he was more than a little scared of the fierce-tempered Saiyan prince. And to be honest, she was scared too. But there was no way she'd let Vegeta in on that particular feeling of hers.

 

Professor Briefs was already relenting. “All right, dear. If you think you can get some sense into that thick head of his.”

 

“Oh, I will,” Bulma muttered darkly. “I've had just about enough of this.”

 

With that she stalked out into the sun-drenched yard ready to unleash every ounce of feminine fury she possessed at the haughty, arrogant, destructive, unfeeling...

 

Her mental tirade ceased when she found the gravity chamber still standing, with no immediate sign of Vegeta. Thick black smoke billowed from the entrance where the door should have been, but was no longer. Then she saw the twisted remnants of the door lying on the ground twenty feet away—and broke into a run.

 

“Vegeta!” she shouted, instantly hating herself for her concern. Why should she care about him when it was obvious he didn't give a damn about her, or anyone else for that matter? “Vegeta, are you all right?” she heard herself say as she reached the chamber. She peered in through the smoke and saw a crumpled heap lying on the floor across from an exploded control panel. A groan arose from the heap. Bulma picked her way over the rubble-strewn floor and knelt beside it. “Vegeta?” she said tentatively.

 

“This...ridiculous...contraption...” Vegeta stirred and lifted his head. “All I did...was turn it on...”

 

Bulma brought a hand to her mouth, instantly ashamed of her assumption that Vegeta was to blame. But his next words erased her petulance and brought fury surging right back:

 

“Can't that idiot fix any of his inventions correctly?”

 

Shooting to her feet, Bulma glared down at him. “ `That idiot,' ” she said in an ice-choked voice, “happens to be exhausted from all the extra time he has to put in repairing everything some other idiot keeps breaking.” Planting her hands on her hips, she added, “And in case you're too thick to get what I'm saying, the other idiot is you.”

 

Vegeta gave a contemptuous chuckle and pushed himself to his knees. “He would have plenty of time to attend to my needs, if he would just stop all that foolish tinkering of his.”

 

“People don't exist to attend to your needs, even if you are a prince!” Bulma exploded. “My father makes a living from his inventions. If he stops working on them, he stops making money!”

 

“Is that what you're worried about? Money?” Still smirking, Vegeta started to stand. As he did, Bulma caught a glimpse of something sticking from his shoulder at an irregular angle just before he collapsed again.

 

“Oh, my God. What is that?” Bulma dropped down and tried to roll the inert Saiyan onto his back, but he uttered a pained snarl and pulled away from her. Her eyesight was just beginning to adjust to the low light emanating from the open entrance, as the interior lights had been blown out with the controls. At last she made out the jagged metal rod that had gone completely through him just under his right collarbone.

 

“Get off me, woman.” Vegeta maneuvered away and righted himself, then stared down at his skewered flesh as though he'd just noticed the injury. Frowning, he grasped the protruding end with his left hand and pulled hard, extracting the rod with one tug. Bulma shrieked as blood sprayed from the wound and decorated her upturned face.

 

“What are you screaming about? Earth women are such weaklings.” Dropping the length of crimson-streaked metal to the floor with a hollow clang, he managed to say, “This is nothing...” before his body followed suit and fell like a stone.

 

“Nothing, huh, tough guy?” Bulma said aloud. She prodded the unconscious form, expecting him to come back with some vicious retort, but this time he really was out cold. “Hmph. If this is nothing, I'd hate to see what a real injury would do to you.” Staring at his chiseled features that never relaxed their fury, even in sleep, she added bitterly, “Or maybe I'd love to see it. Jerk.”

 

Sighing, she got up and headed for the house to send the med-bots out for him.