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“Wah-!”
There was no telling how this all came to be. One minute, Bulma Briefs had been happily nestled in her bed, deep in the ecstasy of an afternoon nap. The next moment, she was screaming at the top of her lungs.
She was falling – falling! And this was far different from any vivid dream she ever had about accidentally stepping off the top of a tall building. This felt like she was truly, legitimately falling, racing to her completely unexpected death!
Fists trembling with white knuckles, the sixteen year old let out an exceptionally loud “eek!” as her back came into contact with something soft.
Well, actually, it wasn’t exactly soft. But it definitely was not solid, either. A loud rustling wooshed around her ears, and Bulma knew she was going through some sort of tree. The leaves violently tickled her skin as she rushed past them, and scattered branches were catching in her hair. The sensation was rather unpleasant, but she was certainly relieved to know that her freefall had been intervened. Her speed was slowing with each branch that her body snagged on, even if she was still continuing with her decent to the ground.
If someone could have seen her face, Bulma just knew they’d think she wasn’t pretty. Her nose stretched with her lips as she cringed, one of the branches snapping painfully against her arm. She was grinding her teeth, rolling through the ledges, and finally – finally – she made it to the ground with a dull thud.
“Wha-“ She moaned weakly. Bulma was so pumped with adrenaline that she took no hesitation in jumping to her feet, although it was a bit of a strain for her wobbly knees.
‘My arm…’ The frightened girl thought, and she bent her elbow to see that the underside of her right arm was sporting a considerable gash from one of the tree ledges. Bulma had never felt a rush like this during one of her dreams, nor had she ever quite experienced this type of pain. As reluctant as she was, the teenager was having a hard time denying that this was very much real-life.
But how?!
How – and why – had she ended up like this?
None of it made any sense!
Now that she was looking around, Bulma was deep in a forest made up of foreign trees. With leaves that spiked into droops, they all seemed to belong to a species of plants that she’d never seen, which only added to her disorientation. “Where in the-?”
But the ground below her erupted with a rumble, cutting her off mid-thought. She looked down for the first time and saw the hue of burnt orange under her feet. The ground moved again, this time nearly knocking her off balance, and she squeaked as she landed on her rear.
Sprawled out, her hands slapped against the moving floor. “Ah!” Quickly – all too quickly, Bulma was starting to understand that this wasn’t ground at all! No, the surface her hands were touching was too warm! And, of course, it was still moving! It was as if she’d landed on something alive instead…
The teenager was almost too frightened to look. Her cerulean eyes bulging from her face, she glanced forward to see the back of a round head… So it was true, she had fallen on some type of large creature, and now it seemed that it would be taking her for a ride through the forest!
She rolled to her stomach so she could brace herself against this monster’s back. As terrified as she was to learn where she was being taken to, the last thing she wanted was to fall off at the wrong time.
.
“Buh!” Vegeta couldn’t ignore the intense shiver that abruptly ran down his spine. He didn’t know where it came from, but every inch of his skin was warning him to be on full alert, and there was no reasonable explanation why.
How many times had he and his comrades visited this planet? The only living creatures that resided here were of miniscule intelligence, and the ones that were aggressive could easily be reduced to ashes in a matter of seconds.
Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, Vegeta stepped back from the purple stream he’d been staring at, listening intently for any movement in the distance. Nappa was on the North sector of this planet, and Raditz was on the South. They all had their own preferred climates when they came to this world, so what would one of them be doing lingering around on the West section?
Holding his breath, Vegeta pressed an irritable finger to the button on his scouter. He watched as green letters blurred across the small screen in front of his left eye, but there was nothing too startling within the data he analyzed. The only thing to grab his attention was the fact that there were two low life forms that were speeding in his direction, but their power-levels were hardly anything to gasp about.
It was probably a pair of boars or something, the young saiyan concluded, and he clicked his scouter off without another thought. He was about to turn back to the stream he’d been crouched over, but a blur in the distance caught his eye. Out of the trees popped a hairless beast that was nearly three times Vegeta’s size.
The fat on its body wrinkled as it ran, and it waved its giant orange head as it distractedly snapped at something behind it. When it opened its mouth, the monster sported an assortment of teeth that resembled rounded sabers, and it spouted a call of frustration as it struggled to apprehend whatever was on its back.
Clearly the beast wasn’t paying attention to its surroundings, and Vegeta jumped to remove himself from the wretched thing’s path. Just as the monster was approaching, he could swear he heard a high-pitched yell.
“Help!” It called, but the word only acted in stunning the saiyan frozen. There was no way – no way – he’d just heard a voice like that in a place like this. What was going on?!
The next thing Vegeta knew, something was landing on him, and it caught him by enough surprise that he went crashing to the ground beneath the weight. “Oh crap, it’s turning around!” The voice returned, this time squeaking loudly in his ear.
Dazed, the saiyan opened his eyes, and they widened considerably when he saw the profile of a feminine jawline as she looked towards the beast she’d just jumped from. “You’ve gotta help me!” She crowed, turning back to face him. “Do something!”
The only thing he could comprehend in this situation was the fact that she had very big eyes. They were a shade he’d never seen before, and they were settled on a very pretty face. The bone structure in her cheeks was so pronounced, yet delicate, and they were covered with a light splash of pale freckles. And then – those cheeks - they were on either side of a small, upturned nose. Which lay atop a mouth, made of lips that puckered so-
“Do something!” She cried again, frowning down at him.
“Wh-“ Vegeta began awkwardly. All too aware of how close her face was to his, he stopped mid-word. He could feel the blush forming on his face, and his tongue caught at the roof of his mouth. His mind had gone to absolute fog, and there wasn’t a single word he could think to say as he studied her. It wasn’t long, though, before a pathetic “oof!” forced its way from his diaphragm. The girl had used his chest for leverage to push herself back to her feet.
“HELP!” She wailed, her voice hitting such a pitch that Vegeta’s eardrums were pulsing. This bizarrely intimidating girl grabbed him by the hand and gave a weak yank, indicating that she wanted him back on his feet.
Flustered and bewildered, Vegeta obliged dumbly, and the next thing he knew she was pulling him back towards the forest she’d just emerged from.
“DO SOMETHING!” She howled, yet again. “IT’S COMING RIGHT FOR US!”
So many words would have crossed the saiyan’s mind if he hadn’t been so utterly confounded. In a normal state he would have likely slapped her hand away from his, reprimanded her for ordering him to do anything, and threatened her for inconveniencing his day of peace. But, damned as he was, Vegeta was chasing behind some hysterical girl he’d never met, and there was not one intelligible thought going through his head.
He had no idea how he’d found himself in such a situation…
Where did she come from?
Why was that beast after her?
Where did she think they were heading?
Who was she to demand him to do anything, as if he knew her?
And why, on top of all else, did she feel the need to involve him with any of this in the first place?!
“WAH!” She cried, coming to an abrupt halt.
Unfortunately, Vegeta had been distracted by his thoughts, and he didn’t snap to realization in time before colliding with Bulma’s back. She screamed, her ankles twisting under her legs, and in the next moment she had fallen over the edge of the cliff she’d stopped at.
The saiyan was pulled down with her, but as they fell, Bulma managed to grab onto a hanging vine that was seeping out from one of the trees growing on the cliff’s side. The two teenagers’ bodies snagged, an indication that their freefall had ended, but they were nowhere near safe.
“What are we gonna do now?!” Bulma wailed. She looked up to examine how far they’d fallen from the top of the cliff. It was only a little over a meter to get back to the top. But, considering the fact that she was having to support the weight of two bodies (and had never been good at rope climbing in school), a little over a meter was far too much for her slender arms to pull them.
Vegeta, who had not progressed in his dumbfounded state, was sporting a rather red tinge across his face. His left cheek was pressed into the girl’s mid-thigh, and he had wrapped himself around her legs to keep himself from plummeting to his untimely demise.
“We’re gonna fall!” She lamented, her poor biceps trembling with strain. “I can’t hold on much longer!”
‘Shit’, Vegeta thought. This girl was right. How was she supposed to save the both of them? He looked down, and immediately wished he hadn’t. The saiyan’s eyes bulged, and he pressed his face tighter into Bulma’s thigh. The drop had to be at least 100 meters!
“Nnnghhawahhhh!”
‘Yes,’ Vegeta thought dumbly, listening to this lady’s incomprehensible cry. He agreed with her sentiments completely.
Slowly their bodies began to dip. Bulma’s hands were losing in their struggle to maintain a firm grip around the vine, and it would only be a matter of seconds before her fingers lost their grasp completely.
“Why me?! I’ve never even been kissed!” She threw her head back unabashedly. “I’m too young to die!”
The terror coursing through Bulma’s body had her wriggling her legs. This led Vegeta to speak two full words for the very first time since encountering this girl. “Stop moving!”
“Don’t you tell me to stop!” She flailed even more desperately, causing Vegeta’s head to slam against her thighs in a way that made his heart pound even harder.
“I said cut it out, girl!”
“I’m not-“
But it was then that the vine finally slipped from Bulma’s hold, and her voice broke into an overwrought scream. “AAAAAEEEEEEEEEEI-!”
Their plunge began, and she outstretched her arms woefully. However, it seemed that just as soon as it started, their fall had quickly ceased. All so suddenly there was no longer air rushing through her hair, and no longer was there an enormous pressure in her chest as gravity ripped her down. Bulma had squeezed her eyes shut in preparation for her impending death, and now she hesitated in opening them.
But when she finally opened her eyes to fearfully inspect the source of her halted fall, she gasped. “You can fly?!”
Instinct had finally caught up to Vegeta’s stuttered mind, and he now floated in midair with her in his arms. He didn’t want to think about how scarlet his face must be, and he avoided looking at her as they both rose back up towards head of the cliff.
Bulma all but fell out of his arms as she jumped for the land, and Vegeta furiously fought the urge get more views of her than he’d already seen at this point. But it was no use, for she was now yelling at him.
“IF YOU KNEW HOW TO FLY, YOU COULD HAVE DONE SOMETHING EARLIER, Y’KNOW!”
“And why should I!?” Ripping his eyes from a nearby tree that he’d been studying, Vegeta glowered at this female stranger, and his yell caught in his throat. Now, with her standing a reasonable distance away, he was able to get a better look at her face. It was just as delicate as it’d been the last time he’d seen it, if not more. Something about the composition of her facial features was enthralling, and that wasn’t the worst of it.
Her hair!
It was just as blue as her eyes, which was certainly a shade Vegeta had never seen any humanoid creature sport. Shoulder length, it waved out in all directions with leaves and chunks of dirt peeking out at random through the strands. Yet she looked anything but silly as she glared at him.
It was weird, wasn’t it? The Bluehead’s hands were on her hips now as she glowered at him so casually. As if she actually had enough familiarity with him to be justified in her lectures.
… As if she actually knew him? Who was she?!
Despite his indignation at her behavior, which was quite out of line, his mouth was going too dry to yell anything back. He took another step back, as if adding more distance between them would help cool his cheeks down.
And as angry as she was, this blueheaded girl definitely noticed Vegeta’s reaction when he looked at her. However, she misconstrued the reason for his behavior. “What – don’t try to act like I smell bad! I happen to use a very expensive brand of cucumber body scrub! It isn’t my fault I’ve been through hell today!”
“Watch who you’re talking to!” Vegeta finally managed to growl, and he hated how shaky his voice came out. “You’re lucky to still be alive.”
“I-“ Bulma began, but all anger dropped from her face in that instant. The saiyan was amused to see that she now appeared to be just as flustered as he’d felt since laying eyes on her, and he grinned. Finally, he was starting to feel like himself again. He’d just successfully claimed the upper-hand in this situation, after all.
Quietly and slowly she moved her eyes from him, bobbing her head down to glance at her own body. Her pupils glossed over her pink shirt, which was loose-fitting but tightened at her waist with a brown leather belt. It had been one of her favorites, and now it was soiled with dust. She was surprised that there were no cuts in it from her the ordeal she’d been through. Bulma blinked twice, and then moved her eyes back to Vegeta. “You’re right. You saved my life.”
“Huh?” He nearly tripped! Clearly she didn’t interpret his threat correctly!
“Of course, I would have fallen to my death if you hadn’t flown us to safety, right?” She smiled, moving a hand up to pat herself on the head. When her palm scratched against a small twig that was poking out from her blue strands she scowled, and delicately untangled it from her cobalt mane.
“Bah!” Vegeta growled, shuffling himself back a bit more. “Why did you bother me with this in the first place! I was in the middle of something very important, you stupid girl!”
“I’m not stupid…” The Bluehead’s frown deepened, but she was too forlorn to bother yelling back at his insult. “You’re the first person I’ve seen since I got here, and I guess I got excited…”
“I ought to kill you for how you speak to me!” Vegeta spat now, and he was pleased to hear the confidence returning to his voice. He really was starting to feel more like himself again! “Interrupting my mood with this annoyance and having the nerve to yell at me about it. Bah!”
He turned and made the storm away, but Bulma jumped. “Ah – hey! Don’t! Please! You’ve gotta help me!”
“I’ve done enough for you, girl.” He hissed, not turning back around. “You must not know who I am, or you’d consider yourself lucky to survive such an unpleasant encounter with me. You’d be wise to go back to wherever you came from before my companions discover you.”
“But that’s the problem!” She continued. “I don’t know how I got here.”
“What?”
“The last thing I remember was falling asleep in my room, and now I’m here. I don’t even know where I am!”
“Nonsense!” Vegeta replied. This conversation was becoming so ridiculous that he really did turn towards her again, which only frustrated him even more. The last thing he wanted to do was look at her and become mystified all over again.
“I’m being serious,” The Bluehead continued. She took a hopeful step towards him, which somehow worked in making the saiyan’s heart sputter anxiously. “Please, er – I don’t know your name…”
“I am known as Prince Vegeta, girl.”
“Oh-kay… Prince Vegeta,” Clearly she thought this title was a joke. “Listen, I really don’t know where I am, and I could use the company while I figure this all out. Could you please-“
She was moving even closer now, and he jumped back as if he thought she might be poisonous. “Get away from me!” He snarled, kicking up into the air. “I already told you I’ve done enough! Now cease with your lies and leave me be!”
“I’m not lying! I-“
“Enough! I’ve already told you to get out of here before anyone else spots you. If you don’t listen then it’s not my problem!” And, with that, Vegeta fiercely rose, disappearing through the tree leaves before taking off in the sky. His body whistled through the air as he moved, growing fainter with each second that he lurched further away.
“Some prince you are,” Bulma grumbled sourly, watching the spot of trees he’d so rudely disappeared through. Who did he think he was, acting so high and mighty like that? He didn’t look as if he was any older than she was, and he still had the nerve to talk down to her so oafishly?
Perhaps this really was a dream, after all… It would make more sense, wouldn’t it? What would the explanation for any of this be if it weren’t? Sure, everything had been terrifyingly and painfully vivid, but still… It had to be…
Regretting that she hadn’t picked fun at his ridiculously spikey hair when she’d had the chance, which looked black in the forest, but had almost appeared red out in the sun, the dejected Bluehead set off in search for a decent shelter. If she was going to have to wait the rest of this dream out, she’d at least do it without the risk of something else horrific happening…
.
“Stupid, ungrateful, idiotic girl…” Vegeta pulled the last chunk of meat from a cooked leg, before throwing the bone in the fire angrily. It was now nighttime, and he’d spent the last several hours unsuccessfully trying to forget about that pathetic incident with the Bluehead. Even his dinner hadn’t done much in making him feel better, and he scowled at the fire in front of him.
Could it be that he just hallucinated the entire thing? Everyone knew that the only living beings on this planet were the mere wildlife that were scattered about. There wasn’t a single living person, and that girl was far too airheaded to have master the workings of space-travel. And how could she have not known who he was? Even if she hadn’t, for some stupid reason, she should have at least recognized the armor he was wearing…
“It had to be some kind of dream,” He muttered. Perhaps in the morning it would all be clear…
.
“This is getting so old!” Bulma groaned. She rubbed her arms urgently, trying to warm herself against the cold cave wall that she leaned against. Surely she should have woken up by now!
It had taken a couple hours of wandering before she managed to find this cave. And she’d been terrified the entire time, worried that she’d encounter another aggressive beast during her journey. It was such a relief to find a bit of shelter to hide in, and the Bluehead hadn’t dared to wander back out, even in search of food.
“I’m so hungry,” She lamented, and she scowled down at her pink shoes in thought. That jerk – Prince Vegeta, as he’d called himself – had really been so rude to refuse helping her out. Bulma was willing to bet that, if he had stuck around, she would have been able to have a nice dinner by now. And she wouldn’t feel nearly as afraid of getting ambushed by a ginormous orange creature that resembled a raging hippo. How could somebody that knew how to fly deny her of his assistance?!
“Too bad this is a dream – I hope.” She grumbled shakily. “If I run into that guy again, I’m definitely giving him a piece of my mind!”
As fearful and uncomfortable as the Bluehead was, she was surprised at how easy it was to fall asleep. Fatigue fell on her like a heavy blanket sometime shortly after, and she used her arms as a pillow as she lay on her stomach.
Bulma just knew that she would wake up happy, cozy in her plush bed, and the thought made her smile.
“Worst dream ever…” She mumbled, and these were the last words to leave her lips as she drifted asleep. Bulma just hoped that this really was a twisted dream…