Untamed
By Silver Lady
Chapter 3 – Out of Obligation
"I should have allowed Mutenroshi
to come with us, instead," Bulma mumbled furiously as she slipped quickly
into into a plain, pearl-white pair of cotton panties, with a matching bra
before searching for the rest of her clothes in a small closet at the
wall. "At least he would be of some
use and couldn’t transform into sponges, bath towels, or
undergarments."
As if all the danger and concern they
had been through weren´t enough, she also had this nuisance to worry about. The
beautiful scientist couldn´t even pee once without the feeling that the little
pervert was hidden somewhere, peeking in on her. It would be a wonder if when
they went back to Earth she wouldn´t be all filled with wrinkles and gray hairs.
"I should have allowed him to
bring his damn porn magazines. At least he would have other girls to ogle
about…even if not as pretty as me. But here out on space, I´m the only human
woman around, with hair and two breasts," she concluded proudly as she finished pulling
on the black spandexes that had become her uniform since the trip had started.
Save for a few orange, baggy vests to wear over them--and
undergarments of course --she hadn´t brought anything else to wear. Rather she had been thinking they´d would spend
most of time in spacesuits. Sighing, she pulled a vest from the
closet and slammed shut its door with a push.
It was all Chichi´s fault, with her
stupid idea of a baby-sitter. Ha! Oolong wasn´t even able to take care of
himself, let alone of a kid that was far much smarter and stronger than he was.
Only Gohan´s mother didn´t see things that way. Bulma wondered if all normal
mothers were so paranoid about their kids (her own mother couldn´t be
exactly classified as model, so Bulma didn’t exactly have a standard to define
what normal was). Fortunately, she´d planned to never have
children.
Unbidden, the memories of her last
visit to the hospital where Goku and Yamcha had been committed floated back into her mind. All she wanted
there was a nice conversation with to Goku, hoping that his optimism and
comprehension swept her fears away; Unfortunately
Chichi had found her presence the perfect opportunity to read for her a
"small" list of recommendations about Gohan´s needs and duties.
Actually, she had planned that lecture for Oolong, but the reluctant
baby-sitter was nowhere to be found –probably hidden somewhere and turned
into something microscopic.
"… 101 – He must eat vegetables
every day, at breakfast, lunch and dinner. Usually at breakfast I mix them in
our miso-shiru. It would be good if you
could do the same, so he won´t miss it. 102,
He has to go to bed ALWAYS at 8:00 P.M, after having brushed his teeth. 103 –
He never can be allowed to talk to strangers."
"But Chichi..." Goku said
from the mechanical cocoon in which he had been enclosed to be kept from moving.
"Everybody they'll meet in this
trip will be a stranger, so Gohan won´t have anybody to talk but Bulma, Krillin
and Oolong! People in other planets will think he´s mute or rude."
Chichi carried on as she hadn´t
heard him, "...I hope I haven´t forgotten anything. Ah, here's the list of
the books he must study during the trip, so he won't be too late when you'll
come back to Earth." She unrolled another piece of paper, slightly longer
than the recommendations list.
"No fairy tales
or bed time books? Or toys? We're plenty of space in the ship," Bulma
asked sarcastically, but once again Chichi didn´t respond. It wasn´t clear
if the young mother was truly absorbed at in the list or if
she was deliberately ignoring any opinion different from hers about how Gohan
supposed to be raised. Her frown deepened as she scanned the two long paper
sheets for the millionth time. If she forgot to add anything to them, the
results could be tragic.
A deep
sigh came from Goku´s side of the room.
"I wish I could go with
you, Bulma," he said quietly.
Chichi tilted her head back and gave
him a crossed look, for the first time acknowledging his presence since
she had entered the room.
"Me, too," she snapped
harshly. "So Gohan wouldn't have to
sacrifice himself once again to fix the troubles caused by you." she growled
(already used snapped) out before turning her attention to Bulma again, but the
young scientist noticed a hurt look flashing on into Goku's eyes. She
could understand how difficult it was for Chichi to be separated from her only
child again after that long, agonizing year wondering if the poor boy was dead
or alive. However, her friend could be more sensitive. How dared she to
talk about sacrifice when Goku had given on his own life to save their son
and had almost been killed a million of times for the sake of the others?
"I'd happily
change places with you, Goku, if I could,” she said, earning a smile from her
injured friend.
Chichi spun her head around to face the older woman, her eyes softening
instantaneously.
"We know that,
Bulma," she said reassuringly. "Both
you and Puar have been through a hell because of Yamcha. Nobody deserves
that. I know how hard and how painful it must for you to be separated from him
for so long, without even knowing if he´ll still be alive when you´ll come back
to Earth..."
Bulma paled visibly, lamenting
that the Ox King wasn´t there to shut the mouth of his stupid daughter… well,
at least to try any way. Yet they were
alone, the three in that room. Although Goku noticed her distressed look and
opened his mouth to ask his wife to stop, Chichi carried on, completely unaware
of the discomfort she had created.
"But, even though
you´re so busy with the preparations for the trip, I think you should save more
time to spend with Yamcha, even if he´s still unconscious. After all, you´re
going to marry someday. Look at me, for example! God knows how hard
is to be Goku´s wife. But I never neglect my wifely duties, as hard as
they can be," she let out a long-suffering sigh, her eyes closing proudly
at her self-sacrifice.
She opened them again
just to meet Bulma´s own blue orbs throwing sparkles of pure anger. Her body
trembled visibly, while both her teeth and fists were clenched tight in a vain attempt
to hold back her increasing rage. Chichi´s eyebrows lifted in surprise, but
before she could say anything, Bulma widened out her own mouth in a grimace that
make her teeth look like a beast´s.
"You´re hardly
anyone to teach others how to be a good wife!” she roared. “At least I never jumped over
Yamcha´s injuried body at the battlefield, or blamed him for things
that were completely out of his hands!"
With that, she turned
on her heels and darted out of the room, before the wide-mouthed Ox Princess
could react. Mainly, before the couple could see the tears in Bulma´s
eyes. The same tears that now threatened to spill just did so at that exact
moment, as she stared at her own distress in the mirror.
"Damn it… from all the
things why did I have to remember this, specifically?"
As horrible as it
sounded, Bulma frequently thought that it would have been far much better if
Yamcha had died. At least he would have joined Tenshinhan and Chiaotzu in
heaven to train and improve his fighting techniques, which never had been that
good to start with. He would never be in a coma in a hospital, only to regain consciousness
just to be kept under the sedation of drugs. So much so that the pain wouldn´t make him
crazy, even putting him at risk of becoming a junkie. Most importantly, the
ones who loved him would be of course grieving, but wouldn’t go through the agony
of watching him in such a horrible situation while remembering how he used to
be.
“Yamcha… you were so beautiful…”
By the time when the
ship was finally ready to go (pick by the time or when, don’t use both of them)
, Chichi had ‘forgiven’ Bulma´s outburst, by associating it to the tension and
stress her poor friend was dealing with. The young housewife hadn´t any way of
knowing that her comments had touched a secret wound in Bulma´s insides; a wound
hidden deeply but kept open and throbbing with guilt. The young scientist never
had worried too much about whatever people thought about her, but this was very
different. She wondered if the rest of her friends thought the same as
Chichi _ that she had been neglecting Yamcha. It hadn´t been completely an
excuse, she really had been busy restoring Kamisama´s ship and acknowledging
the preparations for the trip… But, the main reason of her visits to Yamcha
being so few was that it was a torture to enter his room to see him
covered with tubes and bandages like a Frankenstein´s creature. Also how difficult it was to see Puar´s loyal,
scrawny form hovering around the bed, a shadow of his cheerful former self. His
devotion to Yamcha had touched and worried them all, but was also somehow
unnerving for Bulma. There were moments where she felt like chocking the little
cat, for whenever he looked at her she felt like he was censoring her for not
being so dedicated to Yamcha. For not
standing there the whole time and forget to eat and sleep, at the point that
Bulma and Chichi had to fight to shove some food into Puar´s throat, or he
would have starved. He was a constant reminder of her secret guilt. And yet,
she couldn´t help but feeling the way she did.
Karin had reassured them
that Yamcha´s face would be perfect again as soon as he ate the senzu bean.
However, as much as Bulma wished to believe that, inwardly she was as pessimist
as Oolong, despite her optimistic façade. It was all well and good that a magic
bean could make wounds stop bleeding and broken bones, but could it also
restore torn flesh and skin?
If they didn´t… Plastic Surgery wasn´t
well developed enough on Earth yet, even the best doctors in the world wouldn´t
be able to restore such a destroyed face in a perfect way. With luck, it would become, at least… functional, one might say. He would be able to eat without tubes and
talk. Perhaps even the vision in his
right eye could be restored. Yet, he would need physiotherapy and specially, a
place to stay, where he could receive as much love and care as he could. And he
would need her, Bulma.
As much as the rest of his friends took
on, the main responsibilities would rest on her shoulders. They were already
doing so, in fact – it was the Capsule Corp. that was paying all the treatment
given to Yamcha (Ox King was paying Goku´s ). This was a duty that Bulma would embrace with
all her heart, without any shadow of a doubt. Although she no longer saw Yamcha as her
boyfriend, she´d always care about him, just like she cared about Goku. This was the major problem. It didn´t matter
that they had split up before the fight with the Saiyans, because according to everyone
she was still commited to Yamcha. And now that he was in such a terrible
situation, everybody certainly expected that she would officialized their
union to him once for all, as soon as he would recover. Ultimately making
certain that she married him.
It´s so easy to judge
someone when you´re not in their shoes! Kindness and generosity were supposed
to be things given spontaneously, not out of obligation. If you sacrificed
yourself for someone, you’re automatically a saint, a wonderful person. Unfortunately it never occurs to anybody
that, sometimes you haven´t another choice, because if you don´t play Miss
Selfless, then you´ll automatically be considered a selfish, inhuman, complete monster!
People´s minds always worked between 8 and 80. That would undoubtedly be what
would happen to her—Bulma-- if she broke up with Yamcha or fell for another man
now.
“I really shouldn´t think of that.
Must have faith. If senzu beans won´t work, the dragonballs will do the trick it.
We´ll have them back on Earth when the Namekians resuscitate Piccolo, they
promised us that. Ooh… I should have asked them to heal Yamcha, too.”
Bulma blinked quickly, as if she
feared that her image in on the mirror was replaced by the face present
on her nightmares: the hole in the right cheek exposing white teeth and red gum,
in deep contrast to the destroyed skin of the borders. She closed her eyes and looked again, to see
her own, anxious face. Damn it!
Very recently, it had started plaguing
her dreams again, after so long. Probably because of so many empty days without
no any searching at all. All the danger and distress they had went
through at their former quest for the black star dragon balls, and the planet
Namek before that, had at least served as a distraction from her personal
problems. Yet now, despite the crew´s attempts to keep in good humor, the
tension could be occasionally noticed in their eyes. Gohan could sometimes be heard
whining for his mom, dad or ‘Mr. Piccolo’ when he slept, and Oolong had started
stalking Bulma, no longer caring if he would be spanked or not. And she… she
was gradually growing crazy! Everybody couldn´t wait to see the mission
finished and come back to Earth at once.
“And yet, despite wishing that as
much as the others, I catch myself dreading the moment we´ll come back to
Earth…” she thought, looking tensely at the mirror
again.
A fist beating on the
door brought her back to reality. Bulma took a deep, calming breath before
opening it.
"Have you already finished the
cleaning you were supposed to do?" she practically barked, even before
even looking who was waiting outside, as if Bulma feared that the person out
there had heard her musings.
The messenger, who happened to be
Gohan, took a cautious step back.
"Uh, yes..." he said
tentatively, like wondering what he had done wrong now. "Krillin told me to call you," his
timid expression was quickly replaced by an enthusiatic smile. "We found
something you must see!"
"And what is it… oof!" Bulma gasped as Gohan took seized her
hand and hurried back to the bridge. She was forced to bend over because of his
shorter size, as she stumbled to match his pace. In a few moments, they
had traversed crossed the short hallway that led to the control
room. At the sound of their steps, Krillin quickly turned at to them,
his face beaming as much as Gohan´s, as he clutched the dragon radar in his
hands.
"WE FOUND IT!!!" he yelled
with an enthusiasm that matched Gohan´s, as he practically scampered
towards them. "We found the last black star dragonballs, Bulma!"
"Hey, wait a minute. We
still have four dragonballs to search for, remember?" she said a little
sceptically as the monk handed her the radar. Suspiciously, Bulma frowned at
her small invention, just only to wide her eyes almost instantaneously.
"It´s... it´s not
possible!" she gasped, staring at the arrow that signaled no. 3 at the
screen. Then she noticed something else.
“There´s another dragonball, here,”
she pointed at a signal no. 1, at the extreme point where the no. four was on
the grade of the device. “It´s far away from the other three, but all the
spheres are in the same planet, no doubt about it.”
"Reduce the scale," Krillin
said, now in a much calmer tone.
When Bulma did that, the dragon ball coordinates
indicated a small, lone planet in front of them. It was an unknown system, with
a sun slightly bluish and much farther from its planets than Sun was from Earth
_far enough to make life possible under the stronger radiation.
They stared at the planet through the
screen of the control panel (or a telescope, or something alike… I think that
certainly Bulma has installed something to stare at the space, since those
curved windows of Kamisama´s ship didn´t look much good for that)
"I never heard of this
planet before. It simply doesn´t appear in any of the maps,” Bulma said, after
a few moments fumbling with the pile of maps they had won on other planets or that
she had drawn herself during the trip. “And nobody among all the people we
met in our journey ever mentioned it."
"I still think it looks too good
to be true," Oolong finally mumbled from his spot. "Remember those
two pink aliens we found that pretended to be Namekians to steal our ship?
Maybe it´s another bandit trying to trick us."
"That would be too much of a coincidence," Krillin stated.
"Those aliens were telepathic, and were trapped in that vortex. There´s no
such vortex around here like that now."
"But Oolong has a point," Bulma reasoned. "I´m not saying that
it really might be aliens like those guys, or if it´s another trap for us, but
someone else might be collecting the dragonballs. Remember that not everyone
knows that the Namekians survived to the cataclysm of Namek and moved to
another planet. We´d never had found them, if it wasn´t for Kaioh´s help."
At her words, everybody sobered up and
started exchanging worried glances among themselves.
"People might think they´re
extinct and thus think that the normal dragon balls are no more. That´s
probably why they want the black star dragonballs, too. They´re legendary
throughout the universe," Gohan added, his worried eyes darting to every
one of his friends. "Turles, for
example! He could be collecting them,
since he couldn´t get the Earth ones because Piccolo-san was murdered," his
voice trembled slightly at the last word.
The name of the creature
responsible for their trip sent a shiver into everyone´s spines. Oolong looked
particulary sick, even he never had been anywhere near the battlefield at that
terrible day. How could someone look so much like their friend Goku, who all
they loved and trusted, and be so horribly evil and twisted inside?
Finally, Krillin
slowly held his head up, a slow, determined expression appearing on his face as
he started to talk.
"But if we don´t
go, we´ll never know. Maybe it´s a trick, as Oolong said, and a waste of time.
But what if it´s not? The Earth might be doomed just because we didn´t
try?"
Bulma and Gohan nodded
in silence at him, the same determined look appearing in their eyes, too.
In silence, the bald monk stretched his arm out and offered his hand
to them. The first one to put a hand over his was Gohan, then Bulma, and
finally Oolong, after receiving a few glares at his hesitation.
"To the unknown planet!" exclaimed Gohan.
"May that be the end of our journey!" Krillin added.
"But not the end of our lives," Oolong finished with a gulp.
Pulling her hand
back, Bulma straightened up and put both hands on her hips in a commanding
stance.
"All right, let´s
stop blabbering and go to your assigned seats. I´m going to tell the computer to
land, so it´s better you guys sit tight or you´ll be flattened like pancakes
against the floor…”
She hadn´t yet finished
her phrase and everybody was already strapping their seatbelts, with an ease
brought from the practice of so many abrupt landings and taking offs of their
female ‘pilot’. As Bulma herself settled cosily into her own seat and punch the
keys to input the coordinates into the computer, she felt a small chill arise into
her stomach, very different from the natural feeling caused by the velocity of
the ship going down.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Meanwhile, somewhere at the jungle…
"Ugly,
isn´t he?" asked a high-pitched voice in a scornful tone.
Although their leader was a Saiyan, he
never had been under the pink lizard´s swell, unlike the rest of his people. As
a typical Saiyan, he loved battle and was proud; but it was his pride which
caused him to feel a slight disdain for his race, for allowing themselves to
become slaves, with only one exception.
"Kakarott.... even though you
think like one of those pathetic Earthlings, at least you have this in
common with me. We both treasure our freedom above anything else. So
unlike your brother and that stupid Nappa..." meditated him at the darkness of his control
room.
Sepsi - Pepsi
Keco - Coke
Fruki, Brama, Kuato, Tartika - marks
of guarana, a popular, Brazilian non-alcoholic drink
Ginger - ginger ale
Root - root beer
Fanta (say 'funta') - an old drink with orange taste
Chapter 4