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

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

Disclaimer: I do not own DBZ. (But I like to pretend)

Chapter 1


It was nearly midnight; Bulma glanced at her watch for what felt like the thousandth time that night. It was way past his usual finishing time.  He would be in there from the time he ate breakfast till just after most of the household were in bed.  She figured he preferred it that way, made it easy for him to avoid everyone but tonight felt different.  She wasn’t sure how many nights in a row now she had stood on her balcony waiting for him to emerge; five maybe, six?  Ever since Goku had returned everything had changed, everything felt different.  It was all wrong somehow, it was just like waiting for the scare in a bad horror movie where the suspense was worse than the actual scare itself.  Knowing the threat was out there already, hidden and just biding its time caused a shiver to travel down her spine and the small hairs on the back of her neck to stand up.  It was worse than the year of waiting for the Saiyans because what was coming for them now had not one but two Super Saiyans scared.  Bulma lit her third cigarette for the evening.  The stars were bright tonight and the slight breeze caught her sheer white curtains and had caused them to billow around the open French doors that led from her decadent bedroom to her balcony.  The grey and white swirl of her curtains and cigarette smoke had an ominous beauty to it.  It was hard for her to imagine anything that would be too much for Goku to handle now.  This was the guy that had defeated the Saiyans and the terrifying Freeza. Bulma knew this was bad, really bad.  The rational part of her brain wanted to deny everything; she wanted to believe that the strange young man that had just turned up out of nowhere and had literally carved Freeza up was just some weird Saiyan outcast with delusions of grandeur and a few screws loose.  But she couldn’t believe it, and she didn’t understand why.


‘Why do I feel like I know him? Like we can trust him?’ Bulma thought to herself, while emitting another puff of cigarette smoke.  ‘If anything all my experience has taught me it’s that I should definitely not trust people straight off the bat!  I mean I once believed some creepy pink aliens were Namekians trying to help me who then subsequently tried to kill me!’ She smiled at the memory.  This boy was different and she knew it.  Ever since he arrived she had noticed how the information he brought with him had affected those around her and especially the effect on one person in her life in particular.  Bulma knew it wasn’t the threat of the Androids that had gotten to Vegeta.  In her opinion he considered the prophesized impending destruction of the Androids a meaningless hindrance and distraction.  It wasn’t the news the boy brought with him but the boy himself.  Bulma wouldn’t soon forget that seething look of derision he shot at the young man after he had witnessed his transformation and subsequent domination of the Colds and their followers.  It was the same look she had seen him give Goku.


“Geez…. You would think he would be happy to see another Saiyan.”  Bulma said aloud.  “Great! Now I’m talking to myself.” But she knew the reason why he wasn’t happy.  All he saw when he saw that boy transform was another person in his way.  Another who had succeeded where he had failed, she surprised herself with her compassion for him under the circumstances.  That is why she stood on her balcony and watched.  Ever since that boy’s arrival and Goku’s return Vegeta had been pushing himself further and further, training with more intensity.  Once during a weak moment of curiosity in her lab she had hacked into his capsules security system cameras and watched him train.  What she had seen had scared her.  The Gravity meter had read two hundred and fifty times the earth’s normal gravity and he was battling her father’s combat training bots with speed and power so incredible she couldn’t believe his body hadn’t split in two.  


Bulma hadn’t watched him again, she didn’t want to; she couldn’t bear to see him like that again. He was so intense, breathing ragged and body sweating, beautiful and terrifying.  She knew she had grossly invaded his privacy and had witnessed something so intimately personal she felt ashamed and dirty afterwards.  Bulma didn’t even want to contemplate what he would do or say to her ever found out but she had a feeling she wouldn’t have a long time to suffer because she would be dead very quickly.  So she waited every night for him to finish to make sure he was okay, to watch him see himself back to the house, where she knew he would then head straight to the kitchen to devour everything in sight, then retire to his room only to repeat the process the next day, every night the same, except this one.

 
His body was exhausted, lungs determinedly sucked oxygen from the air each breath labored and painful.  All muscles strained and wracked with spasms and yet he continued.  Vegeta’s need to continue and push further was primal, the weight of his nearly extinct royal line rested heavily on his shoulders it was what pushed him.  It was everything to him.
‘There is nothing that focusses me more than seeing your goals and destiny laid so clear before you, to be the best, to reach legendary status to surpass that third class clown Kakarott and that boy Saiyan imposter.’ Vegeta’s thoughts swirled through his mind in an exhausted haze.  The boy’s arrival had angered him to a level he didn’t believe even he was capable of.  The fact that Kakarott shunned his Saiyan roots and culture so completely to even refuse his Saiyan name and answer to that ridiculous earth given name was disgrace enough, but to see that boy, who could be no more than twenty years of age transform into the Legendary status of Super Saiyan before his eyes caused a rush of shame and outrage so intense it took all his will power not to blast him to the next dimension.  It was sheer curiosity that stayed Vegeta’s hand that day.


The unfairness and shame of it all caused bile to rise in his throat.  They all disgusted him.  Everyone on this planet was weak.  Not only physically but in the way they allowed their emotions and feelings to distract them and cloud their judgment was abhorrent.  In was disturbingly comforting to know that any such petty emotions and attachments had blown up along with the planet Vegeta.  His planet nothing but dust his father along with it and his mother long before the both of them.  He could still remember his father’s crushing blow after he had delivered the news of her death.  His father was right to strike him down; the way he bawled and yowled for his mother was a disgraceful way for the prince of all Saiyans to behave no matter how few his years.  That lesson was the first of many that taught him what weakness was and this planet was abundant with it and it corrupted and infected those exposed.  It was lucky for them he found them so useful there training facilities were exactly what he needed to surpass Kakarott and that boy, he was housed in comfort and fed better than he had been in years.  The training bots so advanced they could absorb his energy attacks and rebound his own energy back at him.  Vegeta was currently surrounded by five of them dodging their counter attacks at two hundred and eighty times normal gravity.  Vegeta was tiring and he knew it.  It infuriated him even further as he his clenched his left fist and raised his right hand and fired. The energy blast he shot at the Bot in front of his was more then it could withstand.  The Bot crashed to the ground in a clamor of smoke and sparks.  A slight smirk appeared across his noble features.
‘That was extremely satisfying’ he thought, chuckling slightly and his mood lifted. He realized his distraction too late.  One of the bots had absorbed some residual energy in capsule from his last attack as it circled around him humming with newly absorbed power and fired a blast that caught Vegeta directly to the back of his head.  There was no time to react, there was no time even think, and then all Vegeta knew was the blinding agony of the impact.  He collapsed to his knees with the overwhelming pain of the direct hit then silently and completely fell into the blessed oblivion of unconsciousness.


It was clear when he awoke that many hours must have passed, his body had recovered enough it could withstand the strain of consciousness however that didn’t stop the pounding of his head and the unbearable thirst and hunger due to his many hours without sustenance.  During his years of service to Freeza he was no stranger to the gnawing pain of hunger, though during his time at capsule corp. he found he had become quite used to the comfort and advantage of training with a full stomach.  With a surprising amount of difficulty Vegeta dragged himself in to a sitting position and then stood on extremely unstable legs.  He needed food, to bathe and sleep then he would find himself ready to resume in the morning.  He walked with ragged difficulty down the capsule’s entrance ramp and across the grounds to the main house.  Vegeta had never before noticed how far his training capsule was from the main building.
“I should demand my own facilities inside the capsule from the loud blue haired woman.”  He grumbled to himself. Bulma watched Vegeta drag his exhausted frame from the capsule and across the lawn, alarm and fear arrested her whole body.
‘Oh my God!’ she exclaimed over her fourth cigarette. ‘What has he done to himself now?’ She forcefully extinguished the remaining embers on the butt and raced to meet him down stairs.  Her elevators had never seemed to move this slowly to her before.  When she finally heard the telltale ping and saw the doors open at a snail’s she raced through the hall heading towards to back door which lead to outside through the kitchen.  It was the quickest way outside and she could meet him on the lawn and help him to their infirmary. Her shock at finding him already in the kitchen rummaging through the refrigerator was written all over her face.
“Vegeta, you’re okay!” said Bulma as the relief wash over her.  The feeling hit her so intensely she completely neglected to keep the well regulated indifference she had until then been using when speaking to him from her voice.
“What do you mean woman?” barked Vegeta, shooting her a confused stare over the fridge door.
‘Oh crap!’ thought Bulma, feeling very stupid. She would have to come clean and admit she was watching him! How mortifying! Well she didn’t need to completely come clean.
“I was on my balcony enjoying a nice late night cigarette, minding my own business when I saw you stumbling from the capsule looking an inch away from death.” she shot at him with a grin on her face. “And naturally I came to see whether I needed to start making burial arrangements.”
“As if those pathetic bots could end the prince of all Saiyans!” Vegeta spat back at her as he continued to search the fridge.  His brow then furrowed in pain and he had to use the fridge to steady himself.
“Sit down Vegeta,” said Bulma “You’re clearly exhausted.” She noted how his breath was ragged and this body was drenched in sweat and he was shivering.
“I’m starving!” he grunted through the pain.
“Sit down and I’ll make you something, then you need sleep.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!” Was his reply, although Bulma noted with a smile on her face how he abruptly stood and planted his compact but heavy frame on a chair at the kitchen table.  “Fine! Cook! And it had better be palatable.”  Bulma silently walked over to the fridge and pulled out everything she would need for chicken pasta.  In all honestly it was the only thing she really knew how to make. But it tasted good and was quick; she wanted to be away from this uncomfortable situation as quickly and with as little blood spilled as possible.  She cooked and Vegeta watched her in companionable silence.  She caught herself stealing sly glances in his direction, he was sitting in his usual way back straight and arms crossed. He was still in his tattered training suit and was covered in perspiration and yet he still looked gorgeous.
‘Why is he watching me like that?’ she thought. ‘He’s probably making sure I don’t poison him.’ A giggle escaped her as she put his meal on a serving platter they usually used to present a whole Christmas dinner.
“What are you laughing at?” he asked her with his brows furrowed and his expression dark.
“Poisoning you.” replied Bulma with a grin as placed the meal in front of him.  Her only reply was a grunt before he started to devour his meal with gusto without so much as a glace in her direction.
“Goodnight Vegeta, please rest.” said Bulma as she turned and left the kitchen with her heart thumping in her chest. She was worried he would yell at her again for her presumption so she wanted to make a quick retreat.


‘Wow.’ thought Bulma as she collapsed exhausted into her luxurious bed covers. ‘That was our first encounter that didn’t end in an argument.’ The feeling it created was pleasing although she didn’t really know why.  The whole of her rational personality told her she should detest the man. And yet night after night she watched him leave the capsule every to make sure he was fine.  And she knew the reason why, it was slowly dawning on her that she was beginning to care for him, she knew there was an attraction (on her side at least) and she thought for the first time tonight that she was beginning to make some progress in her desire to figure him out and see if he was even capable of friendship. She was relieved that no harsh words were directed at her as she left the kitchen. ‘Until tomorrow.’ she thought with a sigh, and then slowly drifted off to sleep with dreams of a certain Saiyan prince invading her mind. What she hadn’t seen as she left the kitchen was the confused yet softened stare Vegeta aimed at the back of her retreating form.  



A/N: There’s my first chapter guys! Please, Please review and tell me what you thought of it and the prologue.