Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ The Colours Within ❯ Gossip and Insomnia ( Chapter 2 )

two. gossip and insomnia.

 

Vegeta sat with his back pressed against the cold wall. His eyes were shut and his face expressionless. He appeared to be relaxing and looked almost serene - as serene as the Saiya-jin prince could possibly seem, that is - but he was in fact the opposite.

 

He had woken from his dreams slick with sweat and somewhat shaken. It wasn't the first time Vegeta had experienced nightmares but that fact didn't make them any less horrifying. His eyes had skirted around the room and he'd reached out for any sign of a Ki, but had seen nothing and sensed only the Briefs in the nearby vicinity. He had attempted to go back to sleep but found he wasn't able to, so he instead perched himself atop his pillows and waited for dawn to break.

 

He only had four more hours to go.

 

His dreams had involved Frieza, of course. They usually did. In this particular one, Frieza had found Vegeta in the very room he sat in now, hauled him from his bed, and brought him downstairs where the other Z Fighters were assembled. The tyrant had instructed the group to fight him, and after a few moments hesitation, Son Goku had started the attack.

 

The dream Vegeta found himself wondering where Kakarot had gone a mere second later before he realized that the younger Saiya-jin had been completely annihilated.

 

Laughing maniacally, Frieza had picked off Gohan and then Piccolo before a Ki blast struck the side of his head. Snarling, Frieza had turned to see a mysterious boy standing nearby, sword in hand. He was in Super Saiya-jin form, and Vegeta had watched in both awe and relief. This boy would defeat Frieza.

 

And then suddenly the boy was no more. Frieza cackled.

 

Two more figures appeared from the shadows at that moment and moved stealthily to stand beside Frieza. They stood slightly behind him on either side and folded their arms, glaring about at the remaining, terrified Z Fighters. Frieza, on the other hand, did not look around. His piercing gaze fell only on Vegeta.

 

“You, Saiya-jin, are perhaps one of the more useless creatures in existence. You could have been a great fighter, and you could have had great power if only you'd obeyed me. I have no tolerance for rebellion.” At that point he gestured to the two figures behind him. “Meet my androids. They are supreme fighting machines. They are what you could have been had you made the right decision.” He shrugged arrogantly. “However, I have learned over the years not to expect much from monkeys. Androids?”

 

At Frieza's summoning, the androids stepped forward in sync and walked steadily towards Vegeta, who found, to his horror, that he was completely paralyzed from the neck down. He turned his head to face the other Z Fighters and nearly combusted with rage as he found them playing poker - Texas Hold `Em by the looks of things. Would they not try to help him?

 

When he turned his head back towards the androids, he found himself looking directly at a hand, the palm so close that it took him a few moments to realize exactly what it was. Ki gathered in the hand…

 

…and Vegeta woke with a start.

 

He could trust no one, he concluded. He couldn't trust that Frieza was indeed dead - they had all thought so before and he had returned. He couldn't trust that mysterious boy about the androids - who knew who he was or where he had come from. He couldn't trust the other Z Fighters - they, of course, had no reason to help him whatsoever after what he'd attempted to do to them and their planet, and would probably sit idly by and watch him die as a way of vengeance. But agreeing to help was the only way Vegeta would have access to a gravity room and a means of achieving the level of Super Saiya-jin.

 

God, he was tired.

 

///

 

Mediation served several purposes. First, it helped to channel the Ki so that it was more powerful, and focus it on the parts of the body where it was needed most: Generally the hands, where the Ki blasts were formed, and the feet, where the Ki could be pushed out easier so that a person could lift from the ground faster. Secondly, it helped to calm the nerves and slow the adrenaline - it was an excellent warm-down exercise. Finally, warriors would often meditate on the up-coming battle and play the role of a prophet: They would envision the fight, and envision themselves taking the victory. In their minds, they would invent hundreds of maneuvers that their opponent could potentially use against them (often they were maneuvers that the warrior had seen before and been unprepared for) and how they could counter or evade the attack. This created confidence regarding the battle and boosted morale.

 

It was for these reasons that Vegeta dedicated Sundays to meditation, despite the fact that meditation was his least favourite part of training. As a boy he had never been very good at it, preferring the physical aspect of training to the mental, and he had always needed to be forced to meditate. He had struggled to block out his surroundings and focus only on his own Ki and thoughts.

 

That was before Frieza. Once under Frieza's control, Vegeta found that retreating to his own mind was one of the few ways that he could escape, and he was very rarely bothered during meditation since all the warriors knew the importance of it. But although meditation became easier, the circumstances under which Vegeta most often used it drove him to dislike it even more. Now, on Earth, where there was nothing to escape from, he had little motivation to meditate. Thus was the reason he slept in late on Sundays and often wandered around the Capsule Corporation campus, spending less time in the gravity room than on any other day. Vegeta was, he knew, somewhat of a procrastinator.

 

Inside the gravity room, Vegeta opened his eyes. He stared at the wall for a few moments to get his bearings, then uncrossed his legs and stood up, glancing quickly at the clock on the control panel. The digital read-out informed him that it was four-fifteen in the afternoon on the second of September. Vegeta frowned slightly. He had only meditated for just over two hours.

 

Some meditation was better than no meditation, Vegeta reasoned with himself, and he decided that he would return to the gravity room to meditate after dinner, though he knew as soon as he thought this that he wouldn't do so.

 

Inside the gravity room was warm, and Vegeta was sweating despite his lack of physical activity. He often changed the temperature inside the training facility so that he would be accustomed to fighting in different kinds of weather. He had started out with the temperature several degrees below zero, but the past week he had increased it so that it resembled a hot summer day with no wind. It also resulted in the smell of sweat clinging to the walls and control panel as though the machine had sucked it in. Vegeta didn't mind it, however - indeed he hardly noticed; he had grown used to the smell after spending most of his time in the public training facilities on Frieza's many planets - but he decided to open some of the windows nonetheless. He knew that the Capsule Corporation's newest aircar line would be hitting the market the following day, and planned on telling Bulma to upgrade the level of gravity the machine could impose upon a person since she wouldn't be busy with her Inazuma cars.

 

The open windows let in a blast of sunlight - a rarity for the gravity room due to the heavy tint put on the glass - and Vegeta found himself eager to be outside and away from his responsibility to meditate.

 

A group of new employees walked by just Vegeta stepped out of the gravity room, and they all froze and stared at him as though they were one person. He had already grown somewhat tired of tormenting the older employees, since they knew their place in the business and Vegeta's place in the household, but Vegeta hadn't seen these four before - they were most definitely new, and would undoubtedly provide him with a bit of amusement. Vegeta nodded at them in what seemed a polite manner, and they all visibly relaxed.

 

“Vegeta-san, isn't it?” one of them asked. “I'm sorry, I don't know your last name…”

 

“Vegeta-san?” he echoed, and gave them all a hard glare. “That's Vegeta-heika to you.”

 

The group looked about each other in some confusion before the man spoke up again. With a warm smile he said, “In Japan, that suffix is used for royalty, like the monarch of a country. What does it mean where you come from?”

 

“The same.”

 

As the confusion deepened on the faces of the scientists, Vegeta couldn't help but smirk.

 

“Well…um…what country do you rule?” the scientist finally inquired.

 

“Vegeta-sei.”

 

At this, one of the other scientists burst out laughing. “Just humour him, Takeshi,” he said to the other scientist. “He clearly has problems. Just play along for a moment and let's go.”

 

The smirk vanished from Vegeta's face instantly and he fixed the other scientist with a cold glare. “You,” he said, nodding at him, “what's your name?”

 

“Oh, most noble king,” the scientist said, chuckling as he bowed low, “you can't possibly be interested in the name of a lowly scientist such as myself.”

 

He suddenly found himself lifted from the ground with a hand clamped around his neck. Around the blood that was suddenly pounding in his ears, he heard gasps from his co-workers. Opening his eyes, he looked directly down into the stone cold ones of Vegeta.

 

“I said, what's your name?” Vegeta demanded, his voice low and icy.

 

Before the scientist could answer a shriek pierced the air, followed by, “VEGETA!!! You put that man down right now!”

 

The scientists snapped their heads around at the first shout, Vegeta's victim slid his eyes over, but the prince himself insolently turned his head a good five second after the shouting had ceased, the motion slow, to see Bulma sprinting across the compound.

 

She reached them in no time. “Vegeta!” she cried again, “What in God's name do you think you're doing?”

 

He looked at her pointedly. “What does it look like?”

 

“Put him down! What, are you crazy?”

 

Vegeta continued to glare at her for a few moments longer before releasing his grip on the man's throat. The scientist fell to the ground with a loud thud and gasped for breath. The other scientists, meanwhile, had put a great distance between themselves and Vegeta, and now looked uncertainly at their fallen comrade. Dare they help him?

 

Bulma's eyes launched a furious assault on Vegeta. It was almost a full minute before she spoke. “You are a despicable prick,” she said lowly, but the quietness of her tone did nothing to muffle the menace in it.

 

Vegeta smirked slightly and inclined his head. “Am I?”

 

“Yes!” Bulma shouted, infuriated. “You are! How dare you? Who do you think you are? You can't come here and live here for free and think that gives you the right to beat up on my hardworking employees!”

 

“As I recall,” Vegeta replied calmly, “you offered me a place to stay. You make it seem as if I'd begged.”

 

“Oh, and God forbid that the great Vegeta should ever beg,” Bulma retorted, sarcasm pouring from her words. “I invited you because you offered to help us - I didn't have to help you. You could show me - everyone! - some respect! I try to help you out, and this is how you repay me? You have caused me nothing but grief since the moment you stepped through my door to stay. You're nothing but a bastard monkey.”

 

By this time, the fallen scientist had regained most of his composure and breath, and had gone to stand by the other employees, who watched in a silent huddle. So it was that only Bulma saw the murderous flash in Vegeta's eye that turned her blood to ice. She suddenly felt ten times smaller than the prince, though she was, in actuality, about he same height. But the way Vegeta's stone eyes stared down his nose at her made her feel that she was up against a giant. She quickly tried to redeem herself.

 

“I don't want to see anymore of this violence,” she said gently. “That's what that is for,” and she pointed towards the gravity room. “Just try to be nice - it's not impossible. If you want to spar, I'm sure Goku would be more than willing for the opportunity, and he would make a great opponent for you. Are you hungry? I think my mom is in the kitchen cooking right now…” She realized that she was babbling. Stop, she told herself. You're letting Vegeta know you're scared.

 

She noticed then that Vegeta's eyes were still fixated on her face, dark and deadly.

 

New tactic, thought Bulma. “Is something wrong, Vegeta?”

 

Whatever effect she had been hoping for, she knew it wasn't this one. Vegeta had stepped closer, invading her personal space - purposely, she knew. He thrust his face into hers and Bulma found herself desperately trying to find something else to look at besides his eyes.

 

“I know you aren't that stupid,” he snarled, “and I don't want to have to remind you that I'm not that stupid either.” Bulma just stared at him, unsure of what to say. “Don't forget who I am, bitch,” he continued, “and don't forget what I can do. Is that understood?”

 

Bulma had the distinct feeling that she was a little girl again, caught in the act of doing something naughty. “I don't want to see anymore of that,” her father would scold. “Is that understood?”

 

“Yes, Daddy,” Bulma would reply meekly.

 

“That's my girl,” Dr. Briefs would say. “Now come, let's go check up on the labs.”

 

She wasn't a little girl now, and she hadn't misbehaved. She didn't deserve to be talked down to! But at the moment she was too intimidated to say this to Vegeta, so instead she said nothing.

 

Vegeta took her silence as insolence. “Do you understand?” he shouted, “or do you need a demonstration?”

 

A sudden vision of Vegeta plowing through her effortlessly rose unbidden to Bulma's mind.

 

“You wouldn't,” Bulma blurted out, before realizing that it was quite possible that Vegeta was not bluffing.

 

“No?”

 

“No!” she cried, her logic taking control of her fear. “You see, if you did there would be no one to fix your precious gravity room - no! My father would not help you! And if you really wanted to kill me, you wouldn't be here trying to convince me that you would - you just would.”

 

A searing heat suddenly flashed by Bulma's ear and she yelped, her hand flying to the side of her face. Vegeta's index finger was pointed in her direction.

 

“Let that be a warning,” he growled. “You're right, I do need the gravity room. That is why I will spare your miserable life for now.” He faced the group of scientists. “But no one else will be given the same treatment.” With this statement, Vegeta folded his arms and made his way towards the house.

 

Bulma stood shaking - from rage, she told herself. Crazy, arrogant bastard! She thought. How dare he?

 

“Miss Briefs? Are you alright?”

 

She saw one of the scientists looking at her. “Get him to the medical wing,” she said, nodding at the scientist whom Vegeta had strangled. “And don't piss off Vegeta anymore.”

 

She, too, walked back to the house without a backwards glance.

 

///

 

“I bet I have some gossip for you that you haven't heard yet.”

 

“Oh yeah?” asked Narumi doubtfully. “Try me.”

 

“That Vegeta guy, from the Capsule Corp., he strangled one of my co-workers today.”

 

Narumi's eyebrows flew upwards and their mother gave a choking cough that went unnoticed. “You're joking.”

 

Takeshi shook his head at his sister and proceeded to tell the story.

 

“Good God,” their mother said, aghast. “That man needs a restraining order!”

 

“He should actually be put in jail for assault,” Takeshi said.

 

“No!” Narumi fairly shouted. “He's so great to stare at.”

 

Their mother gave Narumi a dark look. “Is your co-worker pressing charges?”

 

“No.”

 

“He should.”

 

Takeshi shrugged. “He says it was his own fault.”

 

“Was it?”

 

“Sort of, I guess.”

 

“Irrelevant,” their mother said. “He's a menace.”

 

“You've said that before,” Narumi said.

 

“Takeshi, I think you should quit.”

 

“What?” he asked, incredulous, at the same time Narumi howled, “Noooo!”

 

She looked at Narumi with raised eyebrows. “Why does it matter to you? Besides, if I remember correctly, you were also telling Taki not to get involved in Briefs' personal affairs when he first started. Why the sudden change, hmm?”

 

“Yeah, exactly, I said Briefs' affairs. That has nothing to do with this Vegeta character. As far as I know, he has little to do with her personal life. And look at the gossip Taki brings home! You can't deprive me of it; otherwise I'll have to get a job at the Capsule Corp. myself,” Narumi protested.

 

Their mother seriously doubted that anything would come from that attempt, but she chose not to say anything. Instead, she turned to Takeshi.

 

“Honey, this man is clearly unstable. He could attack you next.”

 

“I'm not an idiot, mother!” Takeshi argued. “I won't get in his way or give him any reason to attack me.”

 

“See?” Narumi said. “Taki's smart.”

 

“Don't you care about your brother's well-being?”

 

“Of course, mom, but I also know that he will be fine.”

 

“Mom, you can't just tell me to quit and expect me to,” Takeshi interjected. “I'm a grown man - I can make my own decisions.”

 

Their mother gave a great `hmmph'-ing sound and stomped from the room without another word. Takeshi sighed, shaking his head.

 

“So,” Narumi said, “what else can you tell me?”

 

///

 

“I don't know what to do! He attacked that man today, for absolutely no reason! He gets insulted so easily and deals with it violently. I'm kinda scared, Goku. What if he tries to attack me next?”

 

Goku's voice was reassuring over the phone. “He won't, I know he won't. You have nothing to worry about.”

 

“What makes you so sure?” Bulma asked.

 

“I just know.” For all Goku's comforting tone, his words were somewhat less than supportive.

 

“But how?” Bulma demanded. “He's so unpredictable. One moment he'll be calm and relaxed, and the next he's out trying to rip people's heads off with his bare hands! It's like the neurons in his brain are firing off at random and he does whatever randomness pops into his head next.”

 

Goku laughed uproariously but said nothing.

 

“His temper is out of control. What should I do?”

 

His laughter subsided. “I told you, don't worry about it. He won't hurt you.”

 

Bulma frowned. “Okay, so supposing he doesn't hurt me… what about other people? My parents, or my employees? Or just some guy wandering down the street at the wrong time?”

 

“Ah, well…” Goku said. “That's kinda different.”

 

“So you're saying he could possibly attack them.”

 

“No. Yes. Maybe. Maybe, maybe. I don't really think so. He wouldn't have a reason to attack some guy wandering down the street. Unless he knows that guy. Maybe you should tell him to walk down the street at the right time the next time you see him, Bulma, just in case.”

 

Bulma chose to ignore his last comment. “Vegeta has no reason to attack anyone. He nearly strangled one of my employees to death for no reason! The man was actually trying to humour Vegeta and make him feel good about himself, from what I was told, and Vegeta just went ballistic!”

 

Goku paused for a moment. Then, “You mean that thing about the `your majesty' thing, right?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“That doesn't seem very nice. It seems almost mean.”

 

“Mean?” Bulma echoed. “He was doing what Vegeta so clearly wanted.

 

“No… I think Vegeta just wanted respect, not to be mocked. And I think that there's probably something else that happened that your employee doesn't want to tell you. He probably said something else. That's what I think. You should go ask Vegeta what happened.”

 

“Are you mad?” Bulma burst out. “Just mentioning it could set off the neurons in Vegeta's brain again. I might end up just a pile of ash on the floor by the end of it.”

 

“Actually, when a powerful Ki blast hits something, it makes it completely disappear and it doesn't leave any ash,” Goku said, and he sounded rather pleased with himself that he knew something that Bulma didn't and that he'd had the opportunity to explain it to her.

 

But this didn't make Bulma feel any better. “Great! That's even worse! I'll be completely disintegrated and my parents won't even have a body.”

 

“Why won't they have bodies? Will Vegeta blow them up too?”

 

Bulma held back a sigh. “What do you think? Do you think he will?”

 

“No.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“Because Vegeta's here to help us, not kill us.”

 

“How do you know that?” Bulma demanded. “Maybe his whole plan was to gain our trust and then kill us in our sleep.”

 

“I don't think we need to trust him for Vegeta to do that if he wanted.”

 

Bulma realized that Goku had a point. “Just tell me why you're so sure that Vegeta won't hurt me.”

 

“I dunno. I just know that he won't.”

 

Bulma wasn't convinced in the least, and wondered silently how Goku could possibly be so trusting of a man who tried to murder not only him, but his friends and family as well.

 

///

 

Bulma sat in an exhausted stupor on the couch in the living room, watching the television without really paying attention to what she was watching. She'd stopped on the history channel as the show explored ancient Mayan ruins, and was still waiting for the commercials to end and the station to return to the show without realizing that it had been over for nearly an hour. But she still found the commercial on the physics behind catapults to be somewhat interesting, albeit very long, for a commercial.

 

It also took her a few minutes for her brain to register that the TV had shut off, as it was programmed to do at three o'clock in the morning. She blinked as she realized that the screen had gone black, then blinked again as she realized her coffee cup had long since run dry. She sighed and stood - it was time for bed. Not even bothering to put her mug in the dishwasher, she left it on the coffee table and heaved herself to her feet.

 

She staggered towards the stairs and had nearly made it when a door came out of nowhere and thunked her on the shoulder. Bulma blinked as she took a couple steps backwards and then fell gently to her bottom. It was the door leading to the den, she saw, and Vegeta was standing in the doorway. She shook herself fully awake.

 

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

 

Vegeta gave her a pointed look. “I'm living here,” he replied.

 

Bulma frowned at him. “You know that's not what I mean,” she said. “I mean, why are you downstairs? Why aren't you in bed?”

 

“Training,” he grunted.

 

“In the den?”

 

“No, stupid, in the gravity room.”

 

Bulma's eyebrows descended further. “But then why were you in the den?”

 

Vegeta seemed to have no answer for this because he snarled at her suddenly. “Why aren't you in bed?”

 

“Can't sleep,” Bulma replied evenly.

 

“Well me neither.”

 

A quick look at the darkening circles under Vegeta's eyes and Bulma concluded that he wasn't actually lying. “Really? Why not? You can't tell me that you're not tired.”

 

“You expect me to discuss my personal life with you?” Vegeta sneered, and Bulma was slightly taken aback.

 

“I was just asking,” she said. “I mean…you don't have to tell me, of course… I was just wondering if maybe I could help you or something…”

 

He made a sound somewhere between a snort and a scoff. “Like I need your help.”

 

“You clearly do,” Bulma snapped, “with the gravity room and your residence.”

 

“I don't need your help with my life,” he shot back and he folded his arms and leaned against the door frame.

 

“No,” Bulma retorted coldly, “it's much too late for that. You're a lost cause. You needed help back when you were a boy. It's actually a pity, really, but not my problem, I guess.”

 

A muscle in Vegeta's face jumped, and then settled back into place. “You're in no position to make a commentary on my life.”

 

Bulma shrugged. “There isn't much to comment on. You were born, you ended up with Frieza, you trained, you murdered, you got murdered. And then you ended up here. What a life.”

 

She watched as his whole body stiffened and his expression seemed to grow colder. There was a difference, Bulma realized, between Vegeta's scowl and Vegeta's angry scowl. Just because Vegeta was frowning and making sarcastic comments didn't mean that he was angry. Now, with his eyes smoldering and his muscles tensing, he was very obviously very mad.

 

“You know nothing,” he spat. “You've lived here with your perfect, sheltered life, with your parents and money, and you dare to criticize my life? Well you're a pathetic bitch. I'd bet anything that this android scare is the most horrible thing to ever happen to your flawless life and you're shitting yourself worrying about it. That's why you're not in bed, that's why you can't sleep. You fear what you don't even know, and yet you make remarks on my life!”

 

Bulma opened her mouth to reply, but Vegeta's stopped her.

 

“No, don't bother saying anything. Just shut up. Don't talk about what you don't know - you're smart, don't you remember how it felt when all the idiots would try to argue with you about something that you knew they knew nothing about? So just shut up. I'm going to bed.” He turned from her suddenly and stomped up the stairs, making a great show of being angry as he slammed the door and bumped around noisily in his room. It was a few minutes before there was complete silence and Bulma knew that he had gone to bed.

 

She sat for a little while longer on the floor. She supposed that maybe what he said was true. She knew nothing of his life or the hardships he had gone through, but on the flip side he knew nothing of her life either. For all he knew, she could have had a hard childhood as well, and things were only just beginning to improve for her. But she knew that the fact was she had had an easy life, comparatively speaking. The other Z Fighters had fought to the death to save their friends and families, while she had just sad on the sidelines and watched, then gone and collected the Dragon Balls to wish them back in the end.

 

She knew that Vegeta's life must have been traumatic for the man to turn out the way he had. People weren't naturally so cold, bitter, and distant from everyone they ever happened to meet. They weren't naturally so untrusting of everything, and they weren't naturally so angry. But this was Earth, Bulma reasoned, and Frieza wasn't around. So why didn't Vegeta just try to make an effort to be a nicer person?

 

His inadvertent compliment hadn't gone unnoticed either, and Bulma found herself feeling somewhat proud. It certainly was something when Prince Vegeta of the Saiya-jin called someone smart.