Episode 11
BULMATECH VS. SHIATAR'S ENEMIES: TRUNKS' MOTHER FIGHTS!!!
With a sigh, Bulma guided the car back toward the Capsule Corporation. She shouldn't worry; after all, since Trunks had destroyed the Cyborgs, the greatest threat to his physical life was gone. For the first time since he'd been a child, she finally had the freedom to act like a normal mother. Now, it was Trunks' personal life that concerned her more.
She couldn't help but speculate; Shiatar's arrival had changed everything. It was simply too fortuitous: a warrior, a female at that, near Trunks' age, sharing a similar temperament . . . they were already fighting with each other, and Bulma was convinced that such aggression was probably some SaiyaÜjin equivalent of courtship. They were a match for each other, she was sure of it. Whatever darkness was hidden in Shiatar's past was mirrored by that in Trunks; Bulma knew that her son did not tell her everything about his life. Something had happened to him in the past that had changed him profoundlyÜÜÜand it had been more than meeting his father. She sighed. He might never tell Bulma . . . but perhaps he could tell someone whose eyes bore the same shadows, the same oldÜbeyondÜtheirÜyears look. Bulma felt it with a preternatural certainty: fate, not accident, had brought Ko Shiatar through the DITMIX gate that day.
Of course, she was biased; she liked the girl. Shiatar was intelligent, spirited, and strong beyond just physical strength. She was even pretty, in a roughÜedged sort of wayÜÜÜa little thin, but a few weeks of Bulma's cooking would fix that. And, Bulma thought with a smirk, Shiatar had good, wide hips, perfect for children. It hadn't been easy giving birth to an inhumanly strong baby with a tail, after all. For a few minutes she amused herself with thoughts of paleÜhaired, greenÜeyed grandsons and daughters (or maybe with black hair and blue eyes), then she forced herself to return to reality. It wasn't as if Trunks and Shiatar had become an item, and it was foolish of her to indulge such fantasies. It was just that Shiatar's spunk and strength of body and spirit touched a chord within Bulma, like a kindred spirit. She even envied the girl, a little; it would have been fun to be able beat up on Vejiita every once in a while.
Of course, she'd do what she could to steer the two together. Neither Shiatar nor Trunks were the flirtatious typeÜÜÜbut that had been Bulma's specialty, in a happier time. She grinned at this chance to use her old skills again. Trunks would be the hard one; the boy took entirely too much after his father in some ways . . . but then again, that might be a good thing. After all, she could be the first to say that Vejiita had not been entirely an asceticÜÜÜand fighting had not been his only talent . . .
Bulma rounded on her mother, furious. "I don't care if you like him," she snarled. "He can kill himself for all I care! After all Otousan and I did for himÜÜÜ"
"Now, Bulma-chan," Bulma's mother began sweetly, taking a step back gingerly; she had learned to be wary of her daughter's tantrums. "Maybe you should calm down a little . . ."
"Did you hear what he called me?" Bulma turned away to clench her fists. "He called me ugly and stupid! Me, ugly! And he called me stupid againÜÜÜI told him about calling me that! Damn it, he's got to sleep sometime and when he does . . ." She picked up a pair of scissors and snapped them open and shut viciously.
Her mother took another step back, fresh beads of sweat on her brow. "Uh, BulmaÜchan . . ." she began with a nervous laugh. "I'll just leave you alone now. Good night!"
As her mother exited post haste, Bulma sighed, and forced herself to calm down, going over to her nightstand and picking up her brush to start on her hair. The hairÜbrushing ritual was one that usually relaxed her before bed; she certainly needed it tonight.
Damn Vejiita to hell and back. His insults this time had been completely undeserved; she'd only gone to check on him when she'd heard that he'd started his endless practicing again. He'd nearly killed himself only a few weeks before, for goodness' sake, overloading the gravity room and getting caught in the resulting explosion; he was acting as if a few broken bones, internal bleeding, and a coma (albeit a short one) was nothing. All she'd done was ask him if he thought it was a good idea to work out again so soon after his injury. He could have simply said he was fine, and been done with itÜÜÜbut no, not Vejiita. He had to turn everything into a verbal sparring contest. She could still hear his cruel words, even now:
"'Why the hell are you always bothering me?'" he'd shouted, rounding on her before she could react. "'Why don't you go bother one of your old boyfriendsÜÜÜthat weakling Yamucha is around here somewhere today. Oh, but I forgot, he doesn't want you, does he? You are as ugly as you are stupid!"
Furious, she winced when she inadvertently pulled her hair too sharply with the brush. How dare heÜÜÜand it didn't help that his words struck a nerve. Yamucha had come to visit the Capsule Corporation that day, and he hadn't even stopped by to see her. Of course, he'd come specifically to speak with her father about getting some device or something to help him in his training, and of course Yamucha was as famous for his absentÜmindedness as he was for his vanity, but it still hurt, that he hadn't at least come to say hello. Of course, Vejiita had noticed; for someone who was rarely around, he missed nothing. And of course, he'd had no problem with using it against her.
Suddenly unhappy, she put the brush down and stared at herself in the mirror. Was she ugly? She'd always thought of herself as beautiful, but then, how did she know? After all, her friend Chichi was already long married, with a son, and she was younger than Bulma. Bulma was young, rich, and half the Capsule Corporation's latest bestselling gadgets had been her designsÜÜÜshe should have a dozen suitors, from all the best families. And yet the only serious relationship she'd had had been with Yamucha. And now he wouldn't even come to visit her.
Sighing, she put her head down on her arms. It wasn't fair. Chichi had no subtlety and no charm; she'd just tracked Gokuu down and practically forced him to marry her. Bulma had actually taken the time to cultivate her appearance and manners; she always tried to be a perfect lady in public. So she occasionally lost her temperÜÜÜwas that any reason for men to avoid her? Maybe there was some truth to what Vejiita had said; maybe she was ugly. Or maybe it was the company she kept. After all, Klilyn and the others were hardly men of status and society; Piccolo wasn't even human and besides, he scared her; she didn't know what the hell Tenshinhan and Chaouzu were. Really, only Vejiita had any kind of class whatsoever . . . and he thought she was ugly and stupid.
She sighed again. She might wind up the richest spinster in the world. It was enough to make her want to cry.
She did wind up sniffling a little, crying into the sleeve of her nightgown, and might have stayed like that for a while if some instinct hadn't warned her: she was being watched. Startled, she raised her head, looking into the mirror.
Vejiita stood on the windowsill behind her, leaning casually against one side of the frame.
Fury replaced melancholy, and before she knew what she was doing she'd grabbed the brush and flung it at him with all her might. Barely reacting, he raised a hand lazily and caught it.
"What are you doing here?" Bulma snapped after hastily wiping her face. She'd be damned if she'd give him the satisfaction of her tears. "Go away!" He didn't move, and she grabbed an empty perfume bottle.
"What's your problem?" he asked, annoyed. She threw the perfume bottle. He glanced at the brush and it suddenly vaporized in a little puff of smoke; then he caught the perfume bottle in the nowÜempty hand.
"You bastard! That was my brush!" She grabbed a hair clamp, and wound up her arm. She let it fly when he vaporized the perfume bottle as well.
This one he dodged with a slight incline of his head; it went out the window. "Will you stop throwing things at me?" he snapped.
"Go away and I will!"
He sighed. "What the hell is wrong with you, woman?"
"You're what's wrong with me, Vejiita! Asshole! How dare you come here after the things you said to me!"
A frown of genuine confusion moved across his usually sullen face. "I say things to you all the time," he said slowly. "To which particular statements are you referring?"
"'You are as ugly as you are stupid.'" She mimicked his voice and hauteur and saw him bristle. "As if you can talk! Barbers run when they see you!"
He frowned again. "What is a barber?"
"OhhhhÜÜÜ" She turned back to the mirror, clutching another object in her hand; it simply did no good to throw colloquial insults at an alien.
Vejiita sighed and straightened. "May I at least come in?"
That got her attention. Vejiita did as he pleased; she couldn't recall the last time he'd asked permission for anything. Curiousity slowly replacing anger, she turned again. "Why?" she asked warily.
"Because I'm tired of standing on the windowsill, that's why," he replied testily, and she scowled.
"Do what you want. You usually do anyhow."
He stepped forward and levitated gracefully to the floor of her room, as always dignified. No graceless jumping for him. She curled her lip in irritation. "So what brings you here?" she snapped.
"I was outside looking at what's left of the gravity room, and I heard you up here."
She tensed in consternation. Damn, had she been that loud in her bawling? Embarrassed, she turned her back to him, although she watched him in the mirror. "It's nothing," she said loftily. "I simply sneezed."
He walked around the room, observing its decor for the first time with mild interest. Stopping at her bookcase, he glanced at her and caught her reddened eyes in the mirror. "And your eyes?" He smiled wickedly at her discomfiture.
"I got some dust in them. That's why I sneezed. The cleaning robots haven't been doing a good job lately."
He snorted, dismissing her book collection and walking over to stand a few feet behind her. "That's why you should have living servants. There's no pleasure in killing a robot that does a bad job."
She sighed. "You kill everything, Vejiita."
"Not everything. Only things that have no use to me." His smile was wicked. She turned, annoyed.
"Why don't you kill me, then? You obviously don't think much of me; you insult me at every turn."
He shrugged. "Not worth the effort." He stepped up to her dressing table and bent over, frowning, to poke at her powderÜpuff. "Is that alive?"
She snatched it from him, irritated, and tossed it back on the table, where it bounced fluffily. "Don't you need to go and practice or something?"
"No." He straightened and regarded her in the mirror. "So what's wrong with you?"
Bastard . . . "Nothing, I said."
"Did you really believe what I said about you being stupid and ugly?"
She stared at him; he'd raised one eyebrow. "You didn't mean it?"
He shrugged. "It doesn't matter whether or not I meant it; what surprises me is that you believed it. You really are stupid if you believe everything I say." She got to her feet to face him; he was smiling in that casually cruel way of his.
What was that supposed to mean? Was that his way of saying that he hadn't meant it? And for that matter, there was something strange about his behavior tonight. That he had come to visit at all was unusual; that he'd shrugged off several of her insults was remarkable; that he was speaking civilly to her was astounding. Confused, she opened her mouth to retort, but could think of nothing to say.
"Ah. So I've finally found a way to shut you up."
She flushed with anger, and found her tongue. "Go away, then, if I'm 'bothering' you again."
"Your petty snipings are unimportant. If you were bothering me, I'd be gone."
Translation from VejiitaÜese: he didn't want to leave, for some reason. Which was very strangeÜÜÜ
The Saiyan warrior looked her up and down, and she fought not to blush; she hadn't thought to throw on a robe when he'd shown up, and the gown she wore was a bit too thin to be decent. SelfÜconsciously, she folded her arms over her breasts. "What the hell is that frilly thing you're wearing?" he asked, frowning.
"It's called a nightgown. Never mind that. Did you mean it or not, Vejiita, when you said that I was stupid and ugly?" She tried to make her voice sound belligerent.
He rolled his eyes, then smiled enigmatically. "What do you think?" he asked.
She thought that Vejiita may not have properly recovered from his injuries yetÜÜÜparticularly the concussionÜÜÜbut she said nothing. He could have said yes, and added in a few other insults for good measure. For the second time, however, he'd offered a noncommittalÜÜÜdeliberately enigmatic, in factÜÜÜreply. He hadn't even called her any names yet, and he'd been in the same room with her for a while now. She frowned as he folded his arms and turned away, reaching out with a finger to flick at the powderÜpuff again. He certainly looked fully recovered; there weren't even any scars on his smooth, tanned skin. In fact, he actually looked good, wearing a loose black sleeveless shirt and his usual closeÜfitting black pants. The clothing outlined his compact, muscular frame surprisingly well. He'd always been handsome in a dour sort of way, but she'd never really paid a great deal of attention to that; to her surprise, she had to admit that Vejiita was actually attractive. In spite of herself, she found her memory returning to that night a few months before, when she'd hugged him and felt muscles like stone beneath that smooth skin . . .
Was she going mad? This was Vejiita she was having such thoughts about . . .
And he still hadn't answered the question. She watched as he drew back from the dressing table, regarding the powderÜpuff suspiciously. The tone of voice in which he'd replied made her think that he hadn't, in fact, meant what he'd said. But she wanted to be sure. "Damn it, Vejiita, answer me straight."
He looked at her again, and she suddenly flushed. Why was he looking at her that way? Almost as ifÜÜÜ
"I think you're hideous," he said softly. He hadn't spoken softly to her since that night outside by the gravity room, and she started. She didn't know whether to believe the words he was saying or the way he was saying them. Or the look in his eyes.
"In fact, you're the ugliest woman I've ever met," he continued, folding his arms again and walking in a slow circle around her. She didn't turn to follow; she was too confused. Inexplicably she found herself blushing. He was throwing out insults, but every instinct she posessed told her that he really meant the exact opposite of what he was saying . . .
He was behind her, and she found that she was suddenly nervous. She'd grown familiar with Vejiita's moods over the monthsÜÜÜthey weren't that varied, usually consisting of anger and variations on the sameÜÜÜand this one was like nothing she'd ever experienced before. Suddenly hands fell upon her shoulders, and it was all she could do not to cry out in shock.
His voice was soft again, right beside her ear. "You're so ugly that I want you to stay out of my sight; I never want to see any part of you." His hands, warm and calloused, were moving now, sliding up her shoulders to the back of her neck; he gathered her hair in his hands to pull it out of the way. And thenÜÜÜgood GodÜÜÜshe felt his lips touch her neck, very lightly, not quite a kiss.
Startled, she stiffened, and the hand that was not holding her hair moved to her waist, sliding around to rest on her belly. With slow, gentle pressure, he pulled her back against him. She found herself pressed against a body like moulded steel, but still warm, still flesh and blood . . . She suddenly felt faint, and couldn't catch her breath. "When I woke up in the infirmary and saw you asleep beside the bed, I thought that you were the most horrible sight a man could wake up to," he murmured into her ear, just before brushing her earlobe with his lips. "I thought I had died and gone to straight to hell."
A debate had begun inside of Bulma the moment his hands had touched her: half of her wanted to turn and slap him for his presumption, and the other half wanted very much to hold still and see where this strange behavior went. The surprise was fading, being quickly replaced by something else that she had never in her life expected to feel for Vejiita. She couldn't think; a large part of herself had been ignored for far too long lately, and the things Vejiita was doing to her were directly addressing that neglected self. As he moved to brush her bare shoulder with his mouth and slide his other hand around her waist, the balance of the internal debate slipped from fiftyÜfifty to sixtyÜforty and then eightyÜtwenty, rapidly moving in favor of holding still. And now a new percentage was gaining strength, one that was urging her to take him up on his unspoken offer . . .
"BulmaÜsan," he whispered. "Should I try to hide your ugliness? Should I put you in your bed, and cover you up?"
Oh, no. She knew exactly what he was asking. And she didn't want to say no . . .
His hands had begun to move on her belly, and she suddenly felt very warm. "Should I, BulmaÜsan?" he asked again, in the other ear now. "Do you want that?"
Kaio-sama help herÜÜÜ"YÜyes," she said. "Yes."
Vejiita took her hand then, and led her toward the bed. When he glanced back at her, his expression was mischievousÜÜÜand something more. "You're stupid, too," he said to her, as he lifted her hand to kiss it.
So caught up was Bulma in that memory that she nearly overshot the Capsule Corporation, and had to loop the car a bit to correct her course. She hadn't thought of that night in years, probably because at the time it had taken her a few months to recover from the shock. On that night and every night after that, Vejiita had been a startlingly skillful and passionate loverÜÜÜand by day, he'd continued insulting her, sometimes seriously, sometimes not. She'd followed his lead, continuing the strange relationship, even after she'd discovered that she was pregnant and Trunks had been bornÜÜÜat some point, she even recalled that he'd made some snide remark about her bloodline not being good enough to bear his son. That had been the only time she'd ever tried to slap him; she'd nearly broken a finger. But he'd shut up about her bloodline.
She sighed. If Trunks took anything after his father, getting him together with Shiatar would not be the problem. She had to amend her earlier thought. It was Shiatar, then, who would be the difficult one, and with the young demiÜSaiyin woman, Bulma hadn't the slightest idea of what to do. So it seemed that they would have to fumble it out for themselves. She snorted. As if she could advise anyone else on their loveÜlife; she and Vejiita had been the original dysfunctional couple.
Landing the car finally, she made her way back into the building, noting as she passed that the gravity chamber was in use. This new chamber was properly soundproofed, even against the kind of noise that a SaiyaÜjin could make; she'd finished it after Vejiita's death as a sort of tribute to his memory. It pleased her that Trunks had found the chamber useful also; Vejiita would gripe about it if he were here, but be secretly pleased that his son took so much after him.
She went immediately to the new chamber where the DITMIX had been installed, and booted up the console. It had been two weeks now since the day the alien pseudoÜgate had appeared, and she'd made good progress on the repairs; it was ready, at last, for a test. At this rate, she would have completed the repairs in another week.
The machine had completed its startup check, and eagerly she sat in the console chair and activated the system. She flicked switches and pressed keys, and as always felt a kind of thrill when the device responded. This was the fun part; if it didn't work, there would be disappointment and frustration, and she'd have to start from scratch to find the error. But if it did workÜÜÜthere was no better feeling than to see her own creation working as it was designed. It made her feel a little omnipotent, sometimes. She thought that this must be a little of what Vejiita and Trunks felt when they used their incredible powers. For her, it was a lesser thrill, but a thrill nevertheless.
She was about to press the enter key to activate the pseudoÜgate sequence when a loud, obnoxious blaring filled the room, and she gasped. The alarm on the old DITMIX roomÜÜÜanother gateway was opening!
She sprang to her feet in shock and pelted out of the chamber, down the hall toward the old lab, pressing the alert beeper Trunks had made her wear and grateful for it, now. It was too soon; she knew that Shiatar had not yet completed her training. They wasn't ready to face her enemies yet.
When she got the door of the old chamber open, it was almost too late. A full gate, from this side looking like nothing more than a perfectly circular disc of unnaturally thick fog, had manifested, waiting only for someone to cross over and into their world. NO! This couldn't happen yet. It was too soon!
Suddenly, she knew what she had to do.
She almost flew, SaiyaÜjin style, as she ran back toward the room where her machine was set up. She had only this one chance; if she was too slow, someone would step through the gateway. And if Shiatar was right, Bulma did not want to be around to meet that emissary from her dimension.
Of course, whispered a small, niggling voice in the back of her mind, you don't really know what will happen if you activate a second gateway this close to the first one . . .
It almost slowed her down. The theory behind the gates suggested that opening two gates in close proximity to each other at the same time was bad. Very bad. How bad it could be, she was about to find out.
Skidding into the new DITMIX chamber, she bruised her thighs when she accidentally ran into the console. Then she slammed her hand on the "enter" key.
The sequence began, and a wind began to blow as the pseudoÜgate sought to establish a path to Shiatar's world. Bulma switched on the camera she'd put in the old DITMIX room, and watched the screen anxiously when an image of the chamber, complete with alien gate, appeared on her secondary monitor. So far, it looked as if no one had come throughÜÜÜ
Suddenly the sensors of her console flickered in warning; the computer had detected a surge of power in the gateway she was forming. At the same time, the gate on the viewscreen shivered visibly, flickering like a bad television image. "No you don't," Bulma snarled, reaching for the knob that controlled the power for her system. Someone on the other side of that mysterious gate had detected the disturbance created by her gate, and had increased the power of his gate to deal with it. It would be a race now, between the manifestation of her own gate and a visitor's arrival through the first one; Bulma had no intention of letting Shiatar's enemies come without a fight.
The other gateÜcontroller increased the power again, and Bulma turned the knob up all the way. Her own gate flickered, died down . . . and then flared suddenly to explosive brightness. Bulma fell back into her chair, shading her eyes instinctively, and a radiance like that of the sun at noon exploded from the DITMIX gateway. The light exploded outward in circular waves for a second, and then slowed, seemed almost to hesitateÜÜÜand then the light blasted back into the gate. On the viewscreen, she could see that the other gate was shuddering as if in pain. At the moment when the light had coalesced most heavily in the very center of the DITMIX archwayÜÜÜit exploded outward, with such force that the entire Capsule Corporation headquarters building shook to its foundations. And the whole explosion was eerily silent.
A moment later, only Bulma's gate remainedÜÜÜthe other had vanished on the secondary monitor.
Her brows drawn in determinationÜÜÜan observer would have noted at that point that Trunks' scowl did not entirely resemble that of his fatherÜÜÜshe reached for the frequency tuner and flicked it up and down, moving the gate up and down throughout the planes. The effect should be similar to erasing tracks in sand; they wouldn't know what hit them. For a while, anyway.
Suddenly exhausted, she leaned forward, resting her head on the console. Since the whole episode had begun, only two minutes had passed; Trunks might only now be on his way. Two minutes . . . that had been close.
Far too close.
Meanwhile . . . Trunks has been drilling Shiatar in the gravity room, teaching her the key to the power that she seeks. He, too, has demons of memory to wrestle with . . . and an unusual new dilema to face, in the next episode: THE FIRST LESSON: THE SUPER SAIYAÜJIN TRIGGER POINT!
