Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Princess WHO of WHERE?!? ❯ Growing Pains ( Chapter 1 )

Thanks you guys for being so supportive! I was afraid everyone was going to yell at me and tell me to post all the chapters I have up NOW. Fortunately, I do have most of them either stored on my computer, on disk, or written in my notebook. The only sad thing to report is that I'm missing a chunk of Chapter 11. Oh, well, guess I'll have to come up with something completely new.

Here's my next revised chapter. Oh, and you can ignore the notes that come after this because they're part of the original chapter, and as such are probably useless.

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Well, I guess a few reviews are better than none, but at least they were all good reviews!!! I want to thank everybody that did review and I promise to get out my chapters as fast as possible, but I'm still busy even though school is out. Selling car parts takes a lot out of me.

Oh, and what does everyone think of my title?

But here's the next chapter. I hope everyone likes it.

Disclaimer: YEAH I OWN DBZ!! WHAT!!

SIKE!! I was just playing.

************14 years later************

The sun rose over the treetops, bringing day light to the village built within the trunks of the forest giants. Each tree supporting up to three homes, one on top of the other. Some of the inhabitants now going about their daily chores using the suspended walkways between trees or by climbing down to the ground to tend gardens, go out to hunt, or to fetch water from a nearby stream. Those who scouted and guarded the perimeter of their village in the evening were now trading places with those who covered the day shift.

"OOOHHHHH!!!! I am so tired of this!" Bulma stomped out of her home, grabbing her bow and a quiver full of arrows on her way out of the door. She fearlessly leapt from the balcony of her house, which was nearly three stories from the ground and landed on her feet gracefully. She whipped her long, aqua-colored braid back over her shoulder and stalked off into deeper parts of the forest where she had her own patrol. She was angry, but was careful to move through the forest soundlessly as a lion stalking its prey. This morning she had had another argument with her parents about the same thing they had been arguing about the past year. She knew that the man and woman who raised her were not her birth parents. If the ears and tail were not a give away, then surely ability to take on the form of any animal was. By the standards of the people whose culture she'd grown up in, she was a woman grown, which meant that she was old enough to bond, old enough to have children, and surely old enough to make her own decisions! All she wanted to do was go out into the world and try to find out about HER people. After all she couldn't possibly be the only one of her kind that existed. Even her father told her that the woman's body that they had found her beside when she was a baby also possessed some obviously animalistic attributes. Deep down she wished to find her real parents, not that anything was wrong with her adopted parents, but she wanted to know more about the mysterious man and woman who sent her away from them. Did they not want her? Or was it possible that she was kidnapped? Or even that something happened to them and that she was placed into the old woman's care? Bulma had no clue. All she knew was that she was different from everyone else and that sometimes made things hard on her. Even though she was a mostly solitary person, every once in a while she longed for some company. Most of the other young people her age didn't want to have anything to do with her. That's why being a scout fit so well into her life. It was a one person job. The only person she saw on a regular basis was her best friend, Goku.

"Hey Bulma! Wait up!" she heard an amused tenor call from behind her.

It was almost as if she thought him up. She turned and gave a smile to her best friend who was running to catch up with her and making as much noise as humanly possible. Goku learned a long time ago that it was best not to sneak up Bulma. She almost tore out his throat the first time he did it and it only took about two or three more similar encounters before he learned to make enough noise so that she knew he was coming.

"Hey Goku! How's it going?" She was always happy to see him no matter what kind of mood she was in. He always cheered her up and when she was in a truly bad mood, he usually stuck around and obliviously dealt with her attitude as if she hadn't said a thing to him. "I heard you had some trouble with a pack of wild boar the other day."

"Aw, it was nothing really," he said while scratching his head sheepishly, not wanting to meet her eyes. "It wasn't really a big problem. They had just moved into the territory of some deer and I was able to herd most of the boar back to where they had come from except for two of them….."

Bulma started laughing. She had already heard the story the day before, but wanted to hear it straight from the source.

"It's not funny! I can't help that it was a breeding pair!" It was the indignant expression on his face that caused her to fall to the ground laughing. Sometimes Goku got a little flustered when faced with adult situations. She had first hand knowledge in that. They had been each other's "first", so she knew how awkward he could become when he wasn't sure what to do. "All I COULD do was sit there and wait until I could move them!" Bulma was nearly in tears. Trust Goku to brighten her day. After she caught her breath, she began walking again. After all she was supposed to be patrolling, not socializing.

"Goku, you are the only one I know that ends up in situations like that."

Bulma extended her claws and latched on to the tree nearest and climbed faster than a squirrel to some of the highest branches. She spied around from her vantage point to see if there was anything going on worth her interest. The rest of the forest was as quiet as ever, with the exception of the usual sounds of wildlife. She was surrounded by forest in all directions except the east where after about a furlong, the forest abruptly gave way to a path heading down into a valley. The few people that traveled to and from her village always went that way to travel to other villages to trade some of their goods. Bulma herself had only been there once when she was very small. She thought it a very odd place. There were so many people living there. Most of them stayed in the shops and homes along the streets. It was a market day on the day her family went there, so the place was busy with many people. It was loud and smelly and crowded. Her poor, underdeveloped senses were sorely punished that day. Her parents couldn't understand what was wrong with her because they weren't even half as sensitive as she was. She eventually gave up trying to explain her discomfort and just suffered through the rest of the day. She refused to return there since.

These days though, something seemed to be drawing her in that direction. Bulma quickly shook off all thoughts of the valley and continued scanning in every direction. She didn't expect any, but a change of pace would be nice. Even Goku had more interesting things happen to him.

"Sooo…." Goku began, breaking her concentration. "Had another argument with your parents, huh?"

"It's nothing new." Bulma said nonchalantly.

She was closer to him than she was to any of her brothers. Maybe it was because they had sworn to be blood sibs when they were little. It almost seemed like they could hear and sense each other's thoughts and feelings without even trying. Bulma could never figure out how he always knew what was going on in her life. Sometimes he acted like a complete idiot, but he was a lot more perceptive than everyone thought.

"I think you should just go ahead and move out. Hey! You could move in with me!" Bulma looked out of the corner of her eye at her best friend. He stood down there with a big stupid grin on his face. She wondered what kind of idea he had in his head. It had been a while since they had shared covers being that they both discovered others more suited to their personalities.

"I don't know…."

"Aww, come on! It'll be fun! We can have whoever we want there for as long as we want. We could stay out all night." Goku tried to persuade her.

"Hmph. I can do that now if I really wanted to."

"Okay. Or maybe you can just leave and go look for your people without anyone telling you that you can't go." Bulma's head snapped around to look full on at Goku. He still had a big grin on his face. She had the feeling that this was just what he was leading up to and then found herself grinning back at him.

"Why, good sir, did we not think of that before?" Bulma's heart was beginning to pound so hard in her chest that she thought she'd fall out of the tree. That was all she had to do was move out and they wouldn't be able tell her what to do anymore. She let out a shout of delight and leapt free of the tree and transformed smoothly into a bird. She could feel each feather sprout from her skin as her limbs shorted and fingers elongated and formed the webbing between the wings. Her mouth hardened into a beak while she began her first wing beats. She glided through the trees executing some impressive aerobatics while Goku watched, clearly impressed. Bulma landed on Goku's shoulder chirping excitedly.

She thought to Goku, `I am so excited!!! I haven't felt this sure about anything in a long time. I'm going to finish my patrol and then move all my stuff during the night. That way I'll be gone before they can even try to stop me!'

"Alright then! I'll go home and get things ready."

`No. Don't go through too much trouble for me. Remember that I'm moving out so that I can leave and search for my people.'

"Well, if you say so," Goku said while scratching his head with that completely bewildered expression that only Goku can achieve.

Don't worry about me. I'll be in shortly after mid night. I'll be finished by then and Oran will be ready to take over from me.

"Oh! I know you're more than capable of taking care of yourself."

Bulma took off from Goku's shoulder and flew up into some branches not too far over his head. She easily slid into a feline form with short, brown spiky hair and a weird mottled pattern in black on her back and forehead. (The coloring she had taken was for camouflage; naturally, she possessed a coat the same color as her hair.) The fangs and claws alone were enough to deter even the fiercest forest predator. She used those claws to begin her ascent up the tree.

`Of course I am,' she replied with a hint of laughter in her mind voice. `I'll see you soon.'

She climbed until she reached a branch of suitable size and walked as far to the edge as she could before jumping from that branch to the next tree. Goku trotted off back to their village, his passage nearly as silent as Bulma's. Bulma, however, had already stopped paying any attention to Goku. Her patrol held her thoughts unwaveringly for hours. Soon though, it began taking on a mindless pace. She was leaping from tree to tree without even noticing where she was going. After sunset, she left the trees to prowl on the ground. She found herself at the base of a tree that began as one tree, but somehow split and grew into two trees sharing the same base and roots. Nestled between two of the roots lay a grave; one would never know it was there unless they were looking for it.

Bulma approached the grave with all due respect and knelt a few feet away. It was here that Bulma was found almost 15 years ago, squalling for the entire world to hear. It was here that the occupant of this grave had passed on. Bulma's adopted father had found an infant Bulma in the arms of a barely living old woman. She lived long enough only to beg him to take the baby and care for her. `She will be needed one day,' were the words the old woman whispered with her final dying breath. `Needed for what?' was Bulma's question to herself ever since her parents had explained how she had came to be with them. If she was going to be `needed', then why was she left out in the middle of nowhere with a dying old woman? Bulma was also told that the old woman also possessed some animal like attributes, which consoled Bulma that she wasn't some kind of misborn freak. That somewhere, there were probably others like her. Her village was a solitary one, so her knowledge of the outside world was limited, but she knew deep down that she wasn't the only one of her kind.

Bulma did wish for some kind of guidance in her life, so she came to this grave often. Whether it was for spiritual or divine intervention, she didn't care, as long as it was something clearer that what she had in mind. Unfortunately, she got no kind of clues, but it was very peaceful here. When she wanted to be alone this was the place to come. No one would follow her here. Not her family or Goku or any of her other friends. She stayed as long as she dared and then continued on her patrol not wanting to neglect her duties. She still continued her musings through the rest of her patrol. She often wondered why she just couldn't be happy being where she was. Life here wasn't terrible for her, in fact, it was rather pleasant. She dearly loved her adopted parents as if they had truly spawned her. She adored her father from whom she had gotten her initial teaching of the wild and had toddled after him as soon as she was able. She loved her mother though she was sure that her mother absolutely despaired of her ever learning to be a proper wife. Bulma wanted nothing to do with any sort of household chore and promptly disappeared if any came up. She also had four elder brothers who had also taken after their father and only recently had the last son mated and moved out to begin his own family.

Bulma could take a mate as they all had, begin a family, and take up a trade to help support that new family. She sighed out loud at that thought and simply thought it hopeless. It wasn't what she wanted. She didn't want to be in a pairing of convenience. All she would do is make some man unhappy with her loud and bossy ways. There was no man in the village who Bulma felt was even "man" enough to handle her. She easily cowed any male since the age of four. No. The place for her was not here. As she approached the edge of her patrol, she smelled Oran long before she saw him and nearly scared him witless when she dropped out of the tree in front of him.

"By the Mother Earth, Bulma! I nearly died of fright! I wish you wouldn't do that," Oran told her. He was a tall, lanky fellow of indeterminate features. He would easily blend into any crowd with his brown-haired, brown-eyed plainness.

Bulma changed back into her human form with her tail swishing idly behind her. She walked off without a backward glance. "Just trying to keep you on your toes. Just cause there haven't been any trespassers in a while is not excuse to relax you senses."

"Hmph."

She didn't care about his attitude. `I swear, he'll be the first one to let someone through', she thought to herself. She didn't deign to even respond to that childish temperament, she merely continued on her way home.

It was already pretty late for most people and indeed all she could hear about the village were crickets and a few other night sounds. She sank her natural claws into the tree her family lived in and scurried up it and climbed into her bedroom window. She decided her bedroom window was less intrusive that the front door and she had a better chance of moving most of her stuff out without her parents waking by going that way. Of course it was going to be very difficult, but if anyone could pull it off, it was her.

She was soon tapping at Goku's door with her first load. She knocked more out of courtesy and warning than to actually gain permission to come in. She knew she was welcome at Goku's house at any time of day or night. She had to tap again before he actually answered the door.

"Oh....Bulma....", YAWN, "it's.....you," was all he could get out before she was shoving her way through the door.

"How could you forget I was coming? I was expecting you to be up." Bulma wanted to yell at him, but it was a little too late for that, so she just whispered at him in a menacing tone.

YAWN. "Sorry. Aura....came by and we were a little....busy....," again with the sheepish look.

Bulma looked ready to pound him. Ever since he discovered the wonder of `girls', he could become rather single-minded when one had his attention. "Well, now that you've had your fun............come help me!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming." Goku yawned again into his home to get dressed. They were back and Bulma's parent's house in no time. Goku waited the next tree over, while Bulma returned to her room they way she had left earlier and was carrying things over to where Goku waited. He would then wait until she brought out a good number of her belongings before carrying them back to his place. Bulma was, as always, surprised at the amount of stuff Goku could carry. There wasn't another man in the village even half as strong as Goku. It was a mystery to everyone.

They were a little more than halfway finished when they got an unexpected visitor. Both had heard the approaching footsteps long before they appeared, but knowing that there was no way to hide the stuff they had piled up, they stood their ground hoping that it was someone who would mind their own business. Unfortunately, luck wasn't with them.

"Well, what do we have here?" asked the unwelcome male, who bore a striking resemblance to Goku.

"Beat it, Radditz. This is none of your concern," Bulma nearly growled at him.

Radditz was Goku's older brother. Both men look exactly like their father, so it was given that they would look like each other. The main difference was their hair, Radditz wore his a lot longer than Goku, and they completely different personalities. Goku was all sunshine and laughter, while Radditz reeked of pettiness and jealously. As long as the two friends had known each other, Radditz had been jealous of their friendship. He felt that whatever Goku had, he should have too, and in his eyes that included Bulma.

"Of course I should be concerned. My dear little brother and his best friend are out late at night skulking around with a pile of things at their feet that probably don't belong to them," Radditz said suggestively.

"Oh, please, Radditz. You know that neither of us would steal anything," Goku told him.

"So you say." He circled around the pair finally stopping at Bulma's side. He had this indescribable look in his eyes, that almost made Bulma back away, but her pride and her temper wouldn't let her. She straightened up to her full height and glared menacingly at Radditz.

"I think it's about time for you to go," she warned him.

"Yeah, Radditz," Goku added. "Won't Mother be looking for you?"

Radditz nearly turned red at the question. It was rather embarrassing that he still lived at home with his parents because no female would have him and he was too irresponsible to keep up his own place.

"Shut up, Kakkorot!" he yelled at Goku, calling him by his proper first name.

"Don't call me that!" Goku yelled back.

"Both of you BE quiet!" Bulma whispered to both of them as loud as she could. "Do you want the entire village to wake up?" Neither male made another sound, they just glared at each other over the mountain of Bulma's belongings.

Bulma herself wasn't going to bear witness to this staring competition and instead began to collect some of the items at her feet. Unfortunately, her perpetually waving tail grabbed Radditz's attention and he seemed to think it was a good idea to grab it. Bulma nearly howled at the acute pain that went through and quickly snatched it away. Before anyone could blink twice, she shoved Radditz at the railing and watched him flail as he almost went over. Nearly because Bulma grabbed a fistful of his tunic before he could fall. She held him there, teetering on the edge about to indulge in a fit of tears he was so scared.

"Don't let me go!" he squealed.

Bulma growled in response.

"Please?" he begged, the salty liquid beginning to course down the sides of his face since he was on the rail on his back.

"I think he's learned his lesson, Bulma," Goku put in for his brother, trying his hardest not to laugh. He knew Bulma wouldn't let him go, but it was still amusing to watch him think that she was.

"Fine," she spat out. "But only because you asked, Goku."

She hauled Radditz back over the railing and let him slide to the floor, trying his hardest to hide his face, so they wouldn't see the tears that they knew he cried.

"I think it's time for you to go home," Bulma ordered him, not requested.

He looked up at her from his seat and nodded his head so hard that Bulma thought it was going to fall off. He scrambled to his feet and trotted off before he could be tortured anymore.

"I haven't had any good entertainment like that in months," Goku laughed.

"Well, he needed to learn that he can't just put his hands on me whenever he feels like it," Bulma told him.

"I'm sorry that he just won't take a hint and leave you alone."

Bulma waved the apology off. "I told you a long time ago not to apologize for your brother's idiocy. It's a waste of breath. You'll end of spending half of your life apologizing for his actions."

"You're probably right."

"Of course I'm right. Now come on and let's get this stuff to your place before someone else comes along and I actually let them go over the railing."

It was nearly sunrise before they finished moving and organizing things. Bulma fell asleep on a pile of pillows, as was her habit, knowing that no one would miss her at home for at least two days.

All she could think as she drifted off to sleep was, "Wow………...that was easy……...."

Okay that was the end. I know it was kind of over contemplative, but I just wanted to get things set up for the rest of the story. In the next chapter, bulma's going to be out "on the road", but i assure you that she won't be meeting Vegeta in the usual way.

Well read and review. Hopefully i can crank out another chapter before bedtime.