Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Toxic ❯ Chapter One ( Chapter 1 )

Toxic

Chapter One

A loud, obnoxious knock at her door made Bulma jump and her large white comforter slipped the rest of the way off her bed. Sitting up in a start, she rubbed her eyes and yawned, trying to pull the large blanket back onto her legs.

“What!?” she yelled grumpily. She was not a morning person and everyone at the Capsule Corporation knew that. There is a reason I don't start work until 10 am.

A timid voice she recognized as the cleaning lady replied from the door. “I'm so, so sorry Miss Briefs! Your father asked me to wake you, or else I would never have knocked!”

She climbed out of bed and adjusted her pajama shorts. They had twisted sideways in the night and also rose to her waist. She yanked them back to their original position on her hips. “Its fine Emily, tell him I'll be out in a minute. You can clean my room while I'm out.” Bulma looked over at the clock and almost collapsed. Six AM. The sun was hardly up, why in heaven's name should I be awake???

“This better be good…” she muttered as she threw on large coat over her shoulders followed by a large scarf. It was getting warmer and the grass was beginning to turn green again, but the mornings were still chilly. As she walked past the mirror, she realized the coat was so large that it covered her sleeping shorts. It was not befitting for the daughter of Capsule Corp, but it was also six in the morning. Her father could deal with it for waking her up so early.

She walked over to the balcony and opened the shade. The heavy glass had the sparkling designs of frost cover, the morning sun shone through the flakes into her eyes. At the warmth of the sun, she remembered her dream in fragments.

“How strange…” She couldn't remember all of it. Wasn't there something about a beach, or a lake with a book? And two people, talking or something… “Whatever.” Unconcerned, Bulma slipped on her boots and stomped through the upstairs hall. If she was awake, others could be too.

Of course, her mother Bunny was making coffee in the kitchen. “Hello dear! Have you seen the news?”

Bulma sat down at the kitchen island, cracking her stiff knuckles. “Mother, I just woke up.” She rolled her eyes at the absent-minded woman. “I have not seen the news. Can I have some coffee?”

Bunny smiled and slid her daughter a cup skillfully. Bulma didn't know much about her mother's past, but occasionally entertained the idea of a young bartender... “You shouldn't drink caffeine, my dear. You aren't growing any younger and it will wrinkle your delicate face.”

“Mom, I'm twenty years old!” Bulma exclaimed, exasperated. She glared at her mother, thinking twice about accepting the cup. My face will not wrinkle, not if I have anything to say about it. “Seriously! Besides, Dad woke me up. I need something.” She grabbed the warm mug with two hands and stood, nodding an annoyed goodbye to her mother, who only smiled and turned back to her busywork.

Bulma slid the patio door closed behind her, leaving the kitchen to walk to her father's laboratory. He spend almost all of his time there and it was where the “magic happened,” so to speak. Many hours were spent creating capsule products and many of those she proudly was a part of. She couldn't help but feel no other woman was quite like her. Not many people graduated high school at age fourteen, and she smiled as she remembered the envious looks on the faces of her graduating class-mates, all many years her senior.

Reveling in her academic success, she sipped her coffee slowly, consequently making a face. It tasted like cardboard. Anything that was produced from the hands of her blonde haired beauty of a mom usually wasn't good. Besides me, of course. Bulma smiled. If anything was her blessing and her curse, it was vanity. As confident as she was in her intelligence, many business meetings may have gone a different way if she had been anyone else…

The white-tipped grass crunched under her boots as she trudged to the large dome-shaped building. He could've at least made the lab a little closer, she thought sharply, still bitter about her early arousal. Reaching the lab, she automatically punched in her specialized code of entrance. “Welcome. Bulma Briefs.”

“Hi Emily.” Why her father named the computer the same name as the cleaning lady, she would never understand.

Upon entering, she saw her father in his usual spot, huddled over the control board. Numbers and letters flashed on the multiple-screen display and two large tables scattered with papers lay at either side f him. There was no one in the room with him, as the rest of the lab team usually arrived later in the day. “Hi Daddy.”

He jumped as she broke the silence. Turning in his chair, Richard Briefs sent his daughter a hurried smile. “Oh hello dear, I'm sorry to wake you so early. How was your night?”

Bulma gave her father a scrutinizing look as she walked over to him to sit on the desk. “It was fine, Dad. I had a weird dream, but otherwise everything is fine for me. What about you?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

He smiled again, anxiously gathering his papers. “Oh everything is great!” He nervously tapped his papers into a pile.

“Yeah Dad,” Bulma commented, reaching for a sheet the Doctor missed. His eyes widened and he quickly grabbed for it, just missing the edge as Bulma leapt up from her spot on the desk. “What is this, Dad?” What was wrong with him?

“Oh nothing hunny, please just give it here!” His voice cracked, and he rose to walk after his daughter.

“No.” Bulma clunked, still in her heavy boots, over to the other side of the lab. “What is this?”

Her father continued to walk towards her, reaching out his hand frantically. “Please, just… I didn't know you were coming so soon, I figured it would have been a few minutes longer so I would've had time to tidy up! It's just garbage, you can give it to me so I can throw it away.”

Bulma jumped out of her father's reach, turning swiftly away from his hand. She ran back across the lab and into one of the lab rooms. As she heard her father's frantic cries, she ignored them and clicked the lock. What in the world was this paper?

She turned to lean against the cold door. The door was very cold. In fact, her legs stuck to the frost and she quickly peeled them off. Why was it so cold? A head of her was another door. She didn't recognize this room. Where am I? My father must have just built this room. The lab had been her play place since she began walking. She knew every room and every secret passage.

Shivering, she walked to the door ahead, momentarily forgetting about the troublesome paper still fixed in her grasp. It was a large, round door with an intricate keypad she was not familiar with. Behind her, the entrance door clicked with the sound of her father trying to find the right key to open it. Quickly she punched in her key code for entrance to the lab.

“Key code incorrect. No entrance.”

“What?” Her fingers shook from the cold and she tried her code again.

“Key code incorrect. No entrance.”

Her father didn't enter her code in. She frowned, insulted. It is so unlike Daddy to hide things from me, especially important things! As the clicks behind her became increasingly hurried and her father's voice faintly shouted through the steel, Bulma smiled. If her father was going to go to those lengths, she would too. When she was younger, she had stumbled across her father's wrinkled notebook page of personal information. Bank accounts, stock accounts, passwords… and his personal key code for everything in the lab. He might have been a genius, but at times he lacked common sense.

She punched in her father's code. “Welcome. Doctor Briefs.” Bulma grinned and walked through the opened door.

The door slammed behind her, almost catching her oversized coat. She was met by a freezing gust of wind, her once shaven legs prickling. She gasped at the temperature, the cold biting at her nose and lips. Despite the temperature, she walked forwards down the long, bare hallway that lay ahead. When did her father build such a room? She was completely confused as she reached the end. It opened into a larger room and an even colder temperature. She was now very uncomfortable.

As she turned her eyes forward, she no longer noticed the freezing temperature. She sharply exhaled, her breath turning to fog. In the small room, there was an even smaller cage in the middle. And inside that cage was a man.