War
of Worlds
By B_Chan
Chapter 5: Everyone’s a Genius, Some of us Are Just A Few Brain Cells Short
Dr. Mono went about his lab, checking his instruments. He picked up a scalpel and ran a thumb over its sharp edge, testing it.
"Getting ready for something, good doctor?" came a honeyed voice behind him.
The Doctor turned to see Lady Kijo leaning against the operating table, dressed in tight black material that better showed her true heritage. The doctor smiled. "So it is true, you’re an Akuma," said the doctor with a gleam in his eyes.
"Yes," said Kijo, tossing her long green hair. "Just like Lord Lucifer," she grinned, spreading short bat-like wings on her back. She closed them and they all but disappeared under the long curtain of green hair. "Of course, I pale in comparison to his power. You could say I’m a lesser demon, but I’m still very powerful." Her purple eyes glowed softly in an eerie way.
"Ah, then you’d better hope our Lord never becomes displeased with you, or one day you may be the one I use this on," said the doctor, holding up the scalpel. He looked at her in an equally creepy way and licked the small knife.
Kijo hissed between her teeth at him. "I will never be one of your guinea pigs, good doctor." She smiled at him in a charming way, then continued. "Nor will the Saiya-jin prince, if I have any say about it."
"What!" growled Mono in rage. He threw the blade at her, causing the slender demoness to spread her wings and jump, easily flipping behind the table as the scalpel embedded into the table she’d been leaning against. Kijo laughed.
"Don’t test your luck, good doctor. You’re here to study the Saiya-jins at the moment, not kill them. My lord is eager to hear your report. As for Vegeta," she grinned and slapped a hand on her hip. "He’s my assignment, not yours."
"Damn you," growled Dr. Mono. "You said I could do what I like to them!"
"The demi-Saiya-jins, yes; the Saiya-jin, no. You are to follow my orders, good doctor. And at the moment all you are to do is watch," she turned around and flipped her long hair. "You’ll have to wait for the chance to use your toys," she said with a laugh and walked out of the room.
"Demon bitch!" shouted Mono at her back. (Mesuinu is Japanese for bitch; you could have him say, "Akuma MESUINU!" or something, if you wanted, I don’t know… ~T.H.)
* * * * * * * * * * *
Bulma cursed as she leaned back in her chair and looked at the alien computer screen in front of her.
"Ahhh! This stuff is impossible to understand!" she screamed, rubbing her head.
"Too bad we don’t have an alien translator," said Juuhachi, over her shoulder.
"Shouldn’t we be getting ready to put up that barrier of yours?" said Juunana, next to his sister.
Bulma looked over her shoulder at the two twins and turned her chair around to face them. "I know, but once I get the barrier up, it will be extremely difficult to salvage any more of the alien technology. I was hoping I could get a readout of all the ship’s functions and components before I set it up."
"This stuff is complex," said Juunana, going over to a hunk of scrap they’d brought back. "It’s at least as complex a design as Juuhachi and I. Whoever we’re up against must have some incredible scientists working for them." He frowned and turned to look at Bulma. "I think we should get that barrier up as soon as possible. I get the feeling something bad is going to happen soon." He gave Juuhachi a serious look and the blond android frowned as well. She’d been having a bad feeling for a long time now and her twin had sensed that from her. She didn’t like being up against an unknown enemy. When she and Juunana had been brought on line, she had already received detailed information on Goku and the rest of the Z fighters, which gave them a clue on what they were up against. It went against both their programming to just charge into a battle without sufficient data, especially now that they knew they weren’t the strongest beings around.
"Have you thought about asking Vegeta if he can read this?" asked Juunana tapping the computer screen. "He is an alien that was among many different species of aliens in Freeza’s forces. Maybe there’s a standard language he can translate."
Bulma’s mouth dropped. "You’re right! I never even thought about asking him! Yatta! Juunana you’re great!" she yelled with excitement, jumping up and running out of the lab.
"Hey! Wait! What about the barrier!" Juunana shouted. He cursed, seeing she was already gone. "Humans are such unorganized creatures."
Juuhachi nodded her head. "She working on several high tech projects at once. That’s why I asked you to help, its too much stuff for a mere human to do alone."
"I agree." he went over to another computer off to the side and sat down. "I have to admit, she’s come up with some pretty interesting stuff," he added, scrolling over the plans laid out on the screen. "I would have never thoughts such a limited thing as a mere human could accomplish so much in so short a time. This barrier might actually work. How did she come up with the designs for this, they look like…" he turned to stare at Juuhachi with blue eyes.
"Yes," she said, nodding her head. "She used my central unit as a basic design."
"So basically these machines would be similar to us, only without organic components," he frowned, crossing his arms. "That’s how she designed a barrier strong enough. This could deflect blasts as easily as we do."
Juuhachi nodded. "At least ones that aren’t too powerful. We estimate it’ll stop a blast like the ones aimed at earth before, but if they do have some powerful ki wielders on their side, the barrier won’t provide any protection from them."
"Yes, this worries me," agreed Juunana. "To keep them completely out, we’ll need a base or ship out orbiting the earth to fight them off in combat. This barrier will only do so much in the way of protection. It won’t drive them off."
"Well, that’s what we and the Saiya-jins are for," Juuhachi shrugged. "It’s been a while since I’ve had a decent fight," she added, sitting on the table next to him.
Juunana smirked at her. "I too was starting to get a little bored."
* * * * * * * * * * *
Vegeta was spinning in a mess of kicks and punches, hovering in midair in the gravity room, which was up to a whopping 1000gs. Sweat rolled down his back and chest making the black sleeveless shirt he wore stick to him in various places. He yelled and shouted as he massacred dozens of unseen opponents. Due to the amount of noise he was making he never heard the computer beep, signaling someone was about to enter the room. He sure felt it as his whole body was sent crashing into the ceiling as the gravity suddenly went back to 1g.
"Vegeta!" Bulma shouted in an excited voice. She blinked her blue eyes and looked around the room searching for him. She looked up as a piece of roof fell to hit the floor. "Vegeta, what are you doing with your head stuck in the ceiling like that?" she asked.
In respond the Saiya-jin crossed his arm and growled. His head and shoulders were embedded in the ceiling. The hair on his tail fluffed out in an irritated fashion. "I’m checking out the circuitry, what do you think I’m doing!" shouted the Saiya-jin, moving his hands up to push himself out of the ceiling. He fell down to land in a crouch in front of her. "Woman, this is the seventh time you barged in here and that’s happened!" he barked.
"Well what do you want me to do? Knock?" she snapped back, crossing her arms. "The world could come to an end outside this thing and you’d never know."
Vegeta groaned and rubbed his forehead, really not in the mood to fight with her for once. "What do you want, woman?"
Bulma’s face at once lifted back up in a bright-excited smile. "I want you to take a look at something," she said, going over and pulling on his arm.
"No," said the prince. He made a shooing motion with his hand. "I’ve got more important things to do then look at your toys. Now go away."
Bulma frowned at him and leaned in closer. Innocently she moved to his side, and before he could guess what she was up to, she grabbed hold of his tail.
"Woman!" he warned.
Bulma smiled devilishly and began to gently run her fingers against the lay of the fur on his tail. A visible shiver started at Vegeta’s toes and worked its way up. Still grinning, Bulma gave a light tug on the furry appendage and started dragging her husband out of the gravity room. Whenever he voiced his complaints, she ruffled the soft fur again and his complaints-and his voice-would stop for a while.
Juunana and Juuhachi were taking a coffee break when they both raised an eyebrow.
"Now that’s something you don’t see every day," said the blond android.
"A girl dragging a Saiya-jin around by the tail," her black-haired twin added, sounding amused at the thought.
"Woman!" barked Vegeta. "Let go right now!" growled Vegeta as Bulma dragged him into her lab where Juunana and Juuhachi were sitting.
"I thought Vegeta had conditioned himself so that it wasn’t painful to have his tail grabbed," said Juuhachi.
"Oh, it’s not painful," grinned Bulma, running one finger from the tip to the base, going against the fur of Vegeta’s tail. The Saiya-jin prince’s head lolled to the side, eyes dropping shut half way. "I can’t hurt him by grabbing it, I’m not strong enough-but it’s still very sensitive to a light touch. I can make him get down on his knees and purr like a kitten if I work hard enough at it."
Vegeta shook his head and growled angrily at her. "Is this what you wanted to show me, woman? I’ve already seen the two tin cans," said Vegeta, referring to the androids.
"Be nice," said Bulma, tugging on his tail again.
"Let go," growled Vegeta, eyes narrowing at her.
Bulma shrugged and let the furry length slip through her fingers. Vegeta at once wrapped it safely around his waist.
"Take a look at his," said Bulma, moving over to the computer screen and pointing to the strange alien script.
Vegeta looked over her shoulder at it. "So what?"
"Can you read it, baka?!" she snapped at him.
Vegeta looked closer at the print and began talking softly in some strange tongue while his eyes ran across the screen. "It’s the captain’s log," said Vegeta, and then he frowned. "Damn, this guy has bad grammar."
"You can read it?" said Bulma in pleasant surprised voice.
"Of course I can," said Vegeta, standing back up straight. "It’s standard, why wouldn’t I be able to?"
"I didn’t even know you could read," Bulma admitted.
Vegeta narrowed his eyes at her. "You think I’m stupid, don’t you?"
"Stupid, no, but literate?" she rocked her hand back and forth in the 'so-so' motion, grinning at the expression on her mate’s face.
Vegeta bared his teeth at her and growled deep in his throat. "I’ll have you know I can speak five standard tongues fluently, the basics in two more, read and write three standard alien alphabets, and that’s not even including my own native tongue and writing system."
The two androids and the Bulma stared at him with wide eyes.
"What?!" Bulma exclaimed after a long pause. "Why didn’t you ever tell me before?! I didn’t know you were a scholar!"
Vegeta snort. "Don’t get me mixed up with Kakarot’s brat. As a prince it was required of me to learn a far amount of stuff, it was my royal obligation to my people. You think they’d just stick any dumb monkey on the thrown?! My people would have never lasted so long if they had," snapped Vegeta, crossing his arms and giving them the characteristic view of his back. "We’ve been around long before your species even stood up right."
Bulma was having just a little trouble believing that her husband might actually know about something else besides fighting. Gee… I wonder if he has other skills that he’s never shown or told me about before, she thought.
"Hn," said Juunana, the faintest hint of a grin in his voice. "Maybe he’s just been pretending to be stupid all these years."
Vegeta bared his teeth at him and took a step towards the raven-haired android. It was clear that he intended to maim him.
"Vegeta!" shouted Bulma, jumping on his back. "Calm down."
"Calm down!" roared Vegeta. "I’m going to turn him into a pile of scrap!"
"Later!" barked Bulma. "Right now I’ve got a job for you!" She swung him around and shoved him in the computer chair. Grinning, she held up a notepad and a pencil. "Translate."
"I’m not one of your stupid assistants!" growled Vegeta, crossing his arms. "This is a waste of my time."
"No, you’re wasting my time: now translate!" Bulma replied, crossing her arms as well.
A long staring contest began.
15 minutes later…
Vegeta sat with a very bored expression on his face in front of the computer. He was leaning with his cheek on one of his hands and frowning darkly at the computer screen as one hand continued to tap on the down arrow.
"I feel like a stupid secretary."
Bulma laughed, leaning over his back to give him a smooch on the cheek. "Can I dress you up in a business suit and take you to work with me?"
Vegeta’s answer was to frown even darker at the monitor.
Bulma laughed again. "You’re right, I won’t be able to concentrate with a sexy piece of man like you outside my office, making me coffee, copies, doing whatever I say, calling me Mrs. Briefs." Her voice was slowly getting deeper, as no doubt she was really starting to like the idea. "I might even be tempted to break company policy and give you a private session in my office to show me your skills."
"Hmm," said Vegeta, a little grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. He shook his head as if to clear it, frowned darker-if at all possible-at the computer and started hitting the down key much harder to distract himself from his tensing mate. He didn’t want her to get any more of her kinky ideas and force him to do something embarrassing; she had a tendency to do that a lot.
"When you’re done with this I’d like you to write down those other alien writing systems and some basic words so I can start a program to translate on the computer." She flipped open a kid’s reading book that she’d dropped off earlier beside him. "Just rewrite this book in those other four languages you know and I should be able to work from there."
Vegeta began to pound on the down key, obviously not thrilled at the request. He stopped for a moment to scribble down what he’d just read angrily. "I can’t believe I’m doing this (grumble, grumble)," he muttered under his breath. "I should have kept my mouth shut and never mentioned I could read this crap (grumble, grumble)."
Bulma smiled smugly and rubbed his shoulders. "I’ll make it up to you tonight, promise," she smirk-grinned. "Right now I’ve got to go help Juunana and Juuhachi with the final launch preparations. They’re going to get some more ship scrap and put up the first barrier satellite above the arctic (the arctic what? Sea? Or did you mean North Pole? -T.H.)." (Answer: That would be the North pole Trillion-san)
"You’re not going with them?" asked Vegeta, not looking up from the screen.
"No, not this time. Juuhachi knows just as much as me about the satellite and with Juunana she’ll have no problems getting it up and operational."
"Since when did they become so technically gifted?" grumbled Vegeta.
"Actually, according to Juuhachi, both of them have pre-programmed knowledge of their internal systems so they could repair themselves or each other if need be. Considering how high tech they are, that makes them pretty much engineering genius. I didn’t know myself till Juuhachi stepped into my lab one day while I was having some problems with a device and told me what I was doing wrong."
"Hhn," snorted Vegeta. "Their powers and knowledge were just handed to them. They didn’t have to work for any of it, that sickens me."
"It’s not like they asked to become androids, Vegeta."
"How do you know? Their past is a blank before they were changed. You have no idea what kind of people they might have been before Doctor Gero turned them into androids."
"That’s true, Vegeta, but not everyone’s as power hungry as you."
"Power hungry," snorted Vegeta. "I gave up that ambition long ago. My only goal is Kakarot, and to achieve that, I need power and strength."
Bulma was silent a long time. "You still want to beat him don’t you?"
"Of course."
"But… he’s gone."
"He’s not dead, I’m still waiting for him."
"You think he’ll come back some day?" asked Bulma.
"Some day he will," answered Vegeta.
"How can you be so sure?" asked Bulma, puzzled.
"He’s a Saiya-jin, just like me." Vegeta replied enigmatically.
Bulma looked with confusion at Vegeta’s profile, but the Saiya-jin prince didn’t give anything away as to what he meant by that with his expression. Bulma sighed and kissed him again on the cheek. "I’ll see you tonight," she said, moving to go help with the final preparations.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Ahh! I love shopping," said Bra. "Especially when I can find a complete stylish outfit where even my underwear matches." she smiled happily.
"Why should you care if you underwear matches?" asked Pan in confusion. The two were sitting in Bra’s purple sports car, Pan at the wheel, going down the highway after a good shopping spree at the mall. "It’s not like people are going to see them."
"Oh, well, maybe someone might, you never now," said Bra, winking at her friend.
Pan blushed.
"I know, Pan, next time let’s go lingerie shopping together! You can surprise Trunks!"
Pan nearly swerved the car right into another car, her face blazing red at the very idea. "Bra! That’s not my style!"
Bra pulled herself back up in her seat, tugging back down her short skirt, and grinned at the quarter Saiya-jin. "Just trying to spice up your life. So you don’t like to put on a show for your mate? Poor Trunks…hey, I know! Let’s by some Chippendale stuff and Trunks can put on a show for you."
Pan nearly had a nose bleed-she had no idea it was possible for girls to do that-and once again the car veered toward the other lane. "Bra!!!! I’m trying to drive here!!!" she shouted, her whole body bright red.
"Pan! Watch where you’re going!" shouted Bra, pointing ahead.
"Huh? Ahhhh!!!!!" Pan shouted again, panicked and turning the wheel just in time to avoid hitting another car. The quarter Saiya-jin breathed in ragged breaths, looking forward with wide eyes.
"Pan, how did you ever get your license?" asked Bra.
"I didn’t have you in the seat next to me!" snapped Pan.
"Hey, you missed the turn off," said Bra, looking over her shoulder.
"No, I need to go see Marron. Oh yah! You don’t know, do you?"
"Know what?" asked Bra.
"About the tournament," said Pan. "The one Marron’s taking me, Trunks, Goten, and Base to compete in."
"What?! No way, how cool. I want to go!"
"I don’t know, you’ll have to ask Marron."
"I wish you had told me sooner, I would have helped you guys." She lifted her hand over her head in a quick cheer. "I could have been a cheerleader or something for you guys."
"It’s not football, Bra," said Pan. "You probably won’t like it, just a bunch of old masters sitting around judging kata. There isn’t going to be any fighting."
"No fighting, so it’s more of a display of skills, grace, flow, and movement. You’d better wear something cute if everyone’s going to have their eyes glued on you."
"No, we’re just going to wear the typical Kame-style gi."
"Oh, that’s no good," said Bra, crossing her arms. "I know, I’ll help you guys out!" she said cheerfully and nodding her head.
"Help us out?" said Pan. "What do you mean by that?"
Bra grinned widely. "You’ll see." She reached into her purse, pulled out a pencil, and stuck it behind her ear. She also pulled out a small notepad. Pan didn’t see what she had in her hand as she shoved something else in her pocket.
Pan sweat dropped with a "…", not sure if she like the sound or look of that.
It didn’t take them long to reach Marron’s dojo. They opened the sliding screen door to see that Base, Goten, Trunks, and Marron were already inside practicing.
"Hi!" chirped Bra, kicking off her shoes and walking in. "Thought you could have a party without me, did you?"
"Oh no, not that crazy Briefs girl," muttered Base under his breath. Bra was pressed up against his side in an instant.
"Ahhh, you missed me, did you, Base? That’s so sweet!" she practically purred, nudging him in a teasing matter. Everyone sweat dropped as she pulled out a measuring tape and lifted Base’s arm to measure from his armpit to his wrist.
"What are you doing?!" shouted Base, snapping his arm away from her.
Bra hummed to herself and scribbled down the measurement on her notepad. She then went behind Base and forced his arms up to measure from one wrist to the other across his back.
"Stop that!" shouted Base, as she tried to measure from his ankle to the crotch of his pants.
"Oh, quit being such a big green baby," scolded Bra as she stood up and looped the measuring tape around his waist.
"Make her stop!" Base whined, looking more then a little freaked out by Bra’s actions.
Everyone just blinked confused eyes at the scene as Bra climbed all over the freaked out Namek sei-jin taking measurements.
"Trunks, what is your sister doing?" Goten whispered.
The purple haired demi-Saiya-jin shrugged, at a loss.
Bra finally released Base and the Namek sei-jin ran across the room as far away from her as he could get. "I’ll never understand you females!" he said.
Bra only grinned at him and walked over to Pan. Without a word she forced the girl’s arms up and wrapped the measure around her bust. Pan turned a lovely shade of red as Trunks and Goten’s eyes bugged out.
"Wow, Pan. I think you’ve grown an inch or two," Bra teased.
"Bra!!!!" shouted Pan, raising a fist at the demi-Saiya-jin girl.
"Hold it!" shouted Bra, making Pan pause in mid-swing. Bra straightened her arm out and measured it, then wrote down the numbers. "Okay."
Pan blinked her dark eyes at Bra a moment then completed the swing, only to have Bra dodge out of the way and reappear at a different angle to take another measurement.
"Oops, one too many sweets there, Pan," Bra chided, looking down at the tape as she looped it around Pan’s waist.
"Ahhh!" growled Pan and began to attack all out, looking quite silly as Bra effortlessly moved out of the way and took another measurement. By the time Bra was done Pan was breathing ragged breaths.
"I’m going to get you one of these days, Bra Briefs!" she vowed between pants.
"Looking forward to it," smiled Bra, holding up the peace sign. She walked over to Goten and smiled charmingly at him.
Goten gave a shrug and just lifted his arms to let her do her thing.
"Bra, what are you doing?" asked Trunks as his sister moved all around Goten.
"Isn’t it obvious? I’m taking your measurements."
"…" was Trunks’ response.
"And why do you want those?" asked Marron as she finished with Goten.
"You’ll see. Since you didn’t invite me to go with you, I’ll participate in my own why." She gestured for Marron to lift her arms. With a sigh, the blond complied and Bra did her thing.
"Hey Goten," called Bra.
"Huh? What?" asked Goten.
"Want to know Marron’s three sizes?"
"Bra," said Marron, not looking mad, just kind of annoyed.
"Um… that’s okay."
Bra wrote down Marron’s measurements. "You sure, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed," she sang, waving the notepad at him.
"Well…" said Goten, looking actually very interested. He glanced at Marron beside Bra as the blond crossed her across and gave him the look.
Goten laughed nervously. "Er, haha, no, that’s okay Bra!" he said, waving his hand at her.
"Ahh, you’re no fun," said Bra, going over to Trunks. "Okay, bro, you know the routine, spread um."
Trunks surrendered without a fight. Once Bra was done she happily sat down and flipped to a clean piece of paper. She licked the tip of her pencil and brought it down to the page. "Just go back to your practice, pretend I’m not here." She instructed, waving at them. They all blinked at her, then turned to look at one another, not sure just what to make of it all.
"Why do I have his sinking feeling in my stomach suddenly…" said Base, as he eyed the blue-haired girl who looked like she was doodling, the way her hand was moving around the page.
"You’re not the only one, Base," Trunks agreed.
Marron shook her head and clapped her hands. "That’s enough time wasted, back to work, everyone. We’ve only got one day till the tournament, time to get down your final moves and work it to perfection. Let’s move, move it!" she called above their conversation.
"Marron, you take charge so well," smiled Bra, not looking up from her notepad. "A natural leader," she added, too softly for the others to hear.
* * * * * * * * * * *
"Ahh, that was a good work out," said Trunks, wiping sweat off his brow.
"Your form is great as always, Trunks," Marron smiled. "I’ll see you all tomorrow morning, seven sharp, remember. We don’t want to be late."
"You might want to call Goten before six just to make sure he gets up," teased Trunks. Goten gave him a playful shove and went over to Marron, kissing her cheek.
"I won’t miss it for the world," he said, slinging his bag over his shoulder. Marron smiled sweetly at him. "I’ll see you tomorrow," he waved, before disappearing through the door.
"Ahh, you two are so cute together." Bra commented with a grin, still sitting down on the floor with her notepad. "When are you two going to stop playing around and declare yourselves a couple? We all know you like each other."
Marron only smiled at the blue-haired demi-Saiya-jin. "That’s none of your business, Bra. Don’t be a busybody."
"But it’s my job," Bra smiled. "I got Trunks and Pan together, and now it’s your and Goten’s turn. I won’t rest till you’re all set up for life," the demi-Saiya-jin girl smiled again, stretching.
"Even Base?" asked Pan, looking at the Namek sei-jin over her shoulder as he was putting the sheaths on his Caiman.
"Leave me out of this," snapped Base, standing up straight and glaring at them.
"Oh, especially Base," grinned Bra.
"Great," muttered Base, moving towards the door. "The blue-haired terror is out to get me."
"And don’t you forget!" sang Bra.
"How can I." Base muttered flatly, leaving without a goodbye.
"Well, I’m going too," said Marron. "Bye, you guys, get lots of sleep, I don’t want you all tired out for tomorrow. Trunks, lock up for me," said Marron, giving a little wave before leaving the dojo.
"Better get your stuff then, you two," Trunks said to Pan and Bra. "I’m going to lock the back door," he added before going back into the small office to the side.
Pan packed up her stuff and walked over to Bra to peer over her shoulder. Her face dropped with what she saw. "Bra, just what the hell are you drawing?!"
A rough sketch of Marron and Goten all decked out in leather was on the pad. The sketch was surprisingly realistic, but what really got Pan was that Marron was smiling with a naughty grin her face, holding a bullwhip in one hand. Goten’s jacket was hanging loose on his arms, which were chained together, the chain going up to a dog collar around his throat and another chain branching from that like a leash-Marron holding the end.
"You like?" asked Bra, mockingly innocent.
Pan just stared at her. She looked down at he pad and noted that there were several more pages flipped over and tucked under the pad, meaning they’d been used as well. She wondered briefly what was on the other sheets and sweat dropped, wondering if she’d done a picture like that of her and Trunks. She reached down for the pad to check, but Bra snatched it out her reach.
"Ah, ah, ahhh…sore wa himitsu desu ^_^… (mind your own business ~T.H.)" said Bra, waggling a finger at her. "I don’t want you spoiling my surprise, now."
"Surprise?!" said Pan. She knew Bra did a lot of her own clothing designs, and she glanced down at the sketch again. "Bra, you’ll never get Marron or Goten to model like that for you," said Pan, pointing at the sketch.
Bra laughed. "I know. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to, I just drew this one for fun. Marron’s got a nice figure and she looks cute together with Goten. She doesn’t let me dig as much into her love life like you do, Pan," smiled the blue-haired girl.
"I won’t let you either if I could help it," said Pan, crossing her arms. "So what’s on the other sheets, more kinky pics?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No, not really, just designs," said Bra, folding the pages over and tucking the pad under her arm.
"Designs for what?" asked Pan.
"You’ll see," Bra grinned mischievously.
A weird image formed in Pan head of all five of them decked out in ass-tight leather at the tournament. A large sweat drop ran slowly down the side of her face. "Bra, you know that these tournaments are designed around tradition and respect for oneself and their teachers, right," Pan said just as slowly as the sweat drop.
"Of course," said Bra, getting up and dusting off her skirt.
"So you’re not going to do anything crazy, are you?" asked Pan hopefully.
Bra smiled widely at her and Pan sweat dropped again. Stupid question, this was Bra she was talking to.
Trunks came back out, then. "Okay, the place is locked up, let’s get going." he smiled, picking up his bag.
"Right," said Bra, walking over to the door. "I’ve got so much to do tonight, soooo much to do," she said before exiting the room.
"Um… right," said Pan, slowly following with Trunks.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Bulma yawned and fanned her mouth with a hand. She was already dressed for the night in a long gown, her robe over it and fluffy warm slippers as she walked down the hall to her lab.
"He won’t still be…" she whispered softly, pushing the door in. She was greatly surprised to see that, yes indeed her husband was still sitting in front of the computer. Only he wasn’t looking at the screen, he had his face down looking at the notepad as his hand moved across it.
"Vegeta?" she called, slowly walking into the room. She went over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. "Vegeta, it’s really late, come to bed."
Vegeta grunted. "I will in a few minutes, I’m almost done."
"Have you been in here this whole time?" asked Bulma with some shock. She glanced at the clock on the wall-damn, that was close to 12 hours!
"Yup," said Vegeta. He put down the pencil and leaned back. "Done."
Bulma picked up the notepad and looked at it. She was very surprised at the detail and design of the characters she saw. She was even more surprised as she read the short comments Vegeta had written beside the characters. They stated what each meant, how they were pronounced, and small steps about how each letter was draw, which stroke you started and ended with, just like Japanese kanji, hiragana, and katakana. "Vegeta… you did all of this already?" she breathed in shock. She lifted through the pages-it was like a book! "You didn’t have to do all this, you could have just translated the short story," said Bulma, gawking at him.
"Then I wouldn’t get to see you with your mouth open like a fish out of water," smirked Vegeta. "Translating that won’t have worked. The book’s too based on Earth life and what not. There are lots of things like animals and objects that are only found here on this planet. So I just wrote the alphabet and the characters for all the words."
"All the words?" said Bulma, with wide eyes.
"Well, all that I can remember. There are about 6,000 for that system. I could only remember around 5,500; I’m a little rusty." He raised his eyebrow at her again as she stared at him with open mouth.
"You memorized that many characters?"
"What, your own language has several thousand kanji! You Japanese spend years learning it all. Hell, you can’t even read the damn newspaper till you’re in high school."
"That’s way I’m so shocked," said Bulma. "How long have you been studying this one?" she asked, looking down at the neat print.
Vegeta shrugged. "A year, I think."
"Only a year?!" said Bulma.
"I was bored," Vegeta replied offhandedly. "I learned this one when I was working for Freeza." he frowned slightly at the mention of the alien monster. "I didn’t feel like just looking out into space and sleeping the whole time I was traveling from planet to planet, so I picked back up on classes I use to take on my planet." He leaned back and grinned at her. "To tell the truth I actually know bits and pieces of over 100 different languages from my travels, but most of it is curse words or phase like ‘Now you die’." The prince smirked.
Bulma got over her shock and snorted. "Figures." she said, crossing her arms. She’d already known that Vegeta was a fast learner, really fast. According to Trunks and everyone he could learn a new technique just by watching someone use it. Krillin told her Vegeta had learned his kienzen move when he first arrived on Earth to destroy it. He’d seen the Saiya-jin prince use it to cut off Gohan’s tail when he’d turned Oozaru. Unfortunately for Vegeta and fortunately for earth, in doing so, he’d put himself in position to be squished by the young demi-Saiya-jin who hadn’t changed back fast enough. Still, she was impressed with the speed he’d done all that work, and she smiled at him. "Well, since I know you can get a lot of work done fast I guess I can be expecting those other notes of alien tongue within the week."
"I told you, woman, I’m not one of your assistants," said Vegeta, getting up. "Beside, I’ve already done them." He commented carelessly, putting his hand down a stack of notepads. Bulma’s eyes nearly rolled out of her head. "You know me, I’m a perfectionist." he smirked. "And now that I’ve done your little task, you get to make it up to me,"
He walked over to her and threw her over his shoulder. "And since I didn’t get to do my daily workout, you’ll have to deal with me not even the least bit tired. I need to get my blood going and stretch," he said with another of his trademark smirks, dragging her off.
"My Kami, you’re an animal," said Bulma over his shoulder, but she was grinning her self.
"Woman, you have no idea." Vegeta replied evilly, leaving the lab.
*~*~*~*~*