Cosmic Crisis 3 - A New Enemy

Chapter 10 - Slow Progress and Impatience Don't Mix

Bulma, who had grown tired of sitting in her hotel room, walked towards the door.

"Well I'm not waiting around for him." She said angrily, shaking her fist at the air. She swung open the door and marched into the hall, and just as she began to make a 90-degree turn, she smacked straight into Chi-Chi, who had been heading her way too. As soon as Bulma steadied herself, she looked up at Chi-Chi, who also had a rather antagonistic look on her face.

"Goku, that moron!" she said, getting up off of the floor. "Who does he think he is? For Dende's sake we can't even go on vacation without him flying off somewhere!" Bulma looked at Chi-Chi with an alarmed expression on her face, and then spoke up.

"You mean, Goku has run off too?" she cried.

"What do you mean, too?" Chi-Chi said suspiciously.

"What else? Vegeta left as well! Who else is missing!?" Bulma cried, apparently quite distraught.

"Let's check." Chi-Chi said, and headed down the hall towards Gohan's room. She opened the door swiftly, only to see Gohan and Videl sitting together on the cough reading. Videl was practically wrapped around Gohan, who seemed to be enjoying it the whole time. As Chi-Chi burst in, they jumped away from each other and sat up straight. Gohan cleared his throat nervously.

"Is...there something you need, Kaasan?" he asked his very shocked mother. She just shook her head very slowly and exited the room. After an awkward silence, Gohan and Videl shrugged their shoulders and continued where they had left off.

Chi-Chi walked down the hall, still fuming, and headed towards Trunks and Goten's room, where Bulma had apparently already beat her to. As she entered the sunlit room, she saw Bulma, who was red in the face, staring out the window while she yelled at Bra.

"Buy Kaasan I swear! They said they felt a power level!" Bra whined. Bulma spun around.

"Why didn't they bother to inform us!?" Bulma cried. Chi-Chi, who had just entered the room, looked rather confused and bewildered, but that expression on relative serenity changed to one of fury.

"You mean our SONS have left as well?" she cried. Bulma folded her arms.

"When those two get back, I'm going to make their lives hell." She declared. Chi-Chi nodded her head in agreement as Bra and Pan were huddling in the corner in fright.

"B-but Kaasan they said they felt a power level!" Bra insisted. "They will come back!"

"Come back!" Pan added in her little, high-pitched girl voice. Chi-Chi and Bulma looked at the girls.

"I can feel them Kaasan!" Bra continued. Bulma knew that her little Saiya-jin senses were picking up on the power levels, but she knew that she wasn't developed well enough to tell exactly where their relative position was.

"Well at least we know that they aren't in another time zone..." Bulma said, looking out the window.

"Vegeta are you sure you know what you're doing?" Goku asked, rubbing the back of his head. Vegeta turned to him, surprisingly calm.

"Of course I do. If you want, you can go back for your mate. It's up to you." He said. Sirius, Reena, and Ceres were looking around in wonder as Trunks and Goten silently conversed.

"Alright, but I'll come back okay?" Goku said, turning.

"Hai. And bring my mate with you too." He said. Goku nodded, placed his fingers to his forehead for about the 5th time that day, and teleported back to Hawaii. Vegeta turned back to the group.

"We had no idea that the technology was this far advanced on Earth." Ceres said, picking up a scouter and studying it. Vegeta growled.

"Are you sure you know what you are doing?" he said, irritated. "You don't have enough knowledge of our technology to be able to work with it." Ceres looked up at him with an eyebrow raised.

"Vegeta-sama, don't become angry. I've always been good with these kinds of things, domestic and foreign. I guess you could call it a gift." She said, just as she clicked the scouter onto her face, as somewhat of a sign for him not to challenge her. Vegeta clenched his teeth but said nothing.

"I assume these belong to your mate." Reena said, making sure to accentuate the last word. Vegeta flinched.

"They do." He said, proceeding to lean against the wall and fold his arms. Trunks and Goten exchanged glances.

<We don't even know who these people are> Trunks thought to himself. <And yet we welcome them into our house> He was beginning to have second thoughts about the whole thing. But he thought about Natalie, and realized that if there was any chance of bringing her back, he was going to take it. He knew that nobody could understand, but he surely couldn't live without her.

"Trunks." Vegeta said, snapping his son out of his stupor. Trunks turned to face his father with a look of question in his eyes. "You know more about these things than I do. Show these people the Capsule Corp. lab and see if they can figure out a plan." Vegeta said. Trunks turned to the trio of warriors and Goten, and nodded his head in the direction of the science wing of Capsule Corp. As the five teenagers walked, Goten started a conversation to break the ice.

"Hey, I have a question." He said. Reena turned to him and looked into his eyes, blushed, and turned away again. Sirius replied.

"What is it." He asked, not turning to look at Goten, but kept his eyes focused in front of him as they traveled down the corridors.

"If Natalie disappeared, and you three left the planet when she did, then how did you know that her mother sent her to Earth? How can you know about it if it indefinitely never happened?" Goten asked. Reena smiled slightly, but did not dare look at him. Sirius paused in the corridor and everyone else slowed to a halt about ten feet in front of him.

"Listen." He said. "Hermes, he killed the princess when she was 14, days before her mother was going to send her to Earth. We already knew of the plans, but they had not been acted out yet."

"You can just call her Natalie." Goten added.

"We address the royal family members by their status or birth name, nothing else." Sirius replied. Goten shot Trunks a look of halfhearted amusement, to which Trunks answered with a smirk. They continued on until they reached the main equipment rooms. Trunks pushed open the swinging double doors and they entered.

"Everything you'll need will probably be somewhere in here." He said, and directed his hand in the direction of the walls of technical apparatuses. The three warriors had looks of reservation on their faces. "Well...?" Trunks trailed off.

"We don't need all of this. We only require a few pieces of machinery." Reena said, looking over all of the devices.

"Well, you name it, he's got it." Goten joked. She blushed again and turned her head to avoid being noticed.

"I assume this planet has discovered time travel. Do you have the necessary-" Sirius broke off as Trunks interrupted him.

"Hope." Trunks interjected. Sirius looked at him questionable. "Hope, the time machine." He said. "We have it here."

"We also need an energy mapping-"

"We have that too." Trunks interrupted once again.

"Does it have built in time and energy conversion capabilities?" he asked, relieved to finally have finished his sentence. Trunks nodded. Sirius, Reena, and Ceres all exchanged glances and nodded.

"It looks as though we might be able to pull this off."

Goku appeared outside the hotel back in Hawaii. He approached with caution, for he feared Chi-Chi's reaction. She probably had already discovered his absence, and delivering the news to her would probably get him deeper into things.

<Oh well> he thought to himself as he entered the lobby. <A Saiya-jin's gotta do what a Saiya-jin's gotta do> Goku entered the elevator along with a group of young teenage girls. As he pressed the button to his floor, he was pierced with the stares of about five or six girls. They watched him timidly stand back and lean against the wall of the elevator. They all moved towards him and began to flirt with him as he desperately tried to pry them off of his body without flirting with him.

"Wow, like you're totally hot." One said. She had a dark tan and bleach blonde hair, and she was smacking a large wad of gum. Goku laughed nervously.

"G-girls I think this is my floor." Goku lied, trying to get out of the deadly grip of the females.

"Oh, you can wait a little while." Another girl said. Goku soon had female bodies piled on top of him.

"Girls, p-please..." he begged, but they didn't listen and continued to squeal in delight. Finally, Goku decided to use desperate measures. He expanded his aura sharply, knocking all of the girls senseless. He regained his composure and exited the elevator quickly before anyone saw him in an elevator full of knocked out teenage girls. Just as he began to sigh in relied, he came face-to-face with a very angry Chi-Chi. Before he could say anything, she grabbed him by the shirt.

"Goku you baka!" she literally screamed. "Where in Dende's name have you been!?"

"Chi-Chi honey, I can explain..." Goku began.

"You'd better explain mister, or you're in for it!" she shouted. Goku freed himself from his wife's grip and stood in front of her. He also noticed Bulma standing down the hall with a livid look on her face.

"Well, Vegeta and I were trying to find some food down in the lobby, and we felt three ki's approaching from the west, so we flew over to check them out." He began. "Well they ended up being some weird warriors from Natalie's planet, who came to help us find her." Chi-Chi looked at him with an eyebrow cocked.

"Is that the best story you could think of?" she bellowed, placing her hands on her hips.

"But Chi-Chi it's true, I swear! I had to teleport them to Capsule Corp. so they could work out a plan! I'll take you there if you don't believe me!" Goku protested.

"No way, Goku. I am finally on a well-deserved vacation, and nothing, not even aliens from outer space, is going to stand in my way!" Chi-Chi declared. Bulma had now stepped out to the group, and had been listening to Goku's arguments.

"Goku, did you say they came from Natalie's planet?" she inquired. Chi-Chi's jaw dropped and she turned to Bulma.

"Don't tell me you actually believe him!" she cried.

"Well I don't think Goku has the intelligence to make something like that up-I mean..." Bulma trailed off, as Goku looked as he had been stabbed. "Goku-san, if you're telling the truth, you have to take me back. You, Chi-Chi, Gohan, Videl, and the kids can stay here, but I need to go." Goku looked at Chi-Chi for permission.

"Do what you want, Goku. I guess there's no stopping you. But you had better come back, because we are going to enjoy this vacation!" she said sternly. Goku gulped and nodded is head swiftly as Bulma placed her hand on his shoulder. Before Chi-Chi could change her mind, he had disappeared.

"Actually, I think that goes with the older model." Trunks said as Ceres picked up a piece of machinery. "But I could be wrong. I would have to ask Kaasan." Just then, as if on cue, Goku and Bulma appeared in the middle of the room, startling the five teenagers, as well as Vegeta, who had joined them as well. Bulma looked over at the new warriors and studied them curiously. Reena turned to Sirius for affirmation, but he didn't turn to face her.

"Honey, who are these people?" Bulma asked nervously.

"They claim to be some guardians from the girl's planet." Vegeta answered.

"Of course. Goku are these the three people you were talking about?" she said, turning around to face him, but he had gone. Vegeta smirked.

"Kakarotto is in trouble this time." He muttered under his breath. Bulma took a few steps toward the group.

"Hi, I'm Bulma." She said. "Vegeta is my husband, I assume you have already met." Sirius went wide-eyed.

"You're the wife of the great prince Vegeta?" he inquired. Bulma looked at Vegeta and rolled her eyes at him.

"You mean to tell me that you've just met these people and you're already bragging about your former status?" she cried.

"No, woman, they already knew who I was before I told them." He answered. Sirius nodded his head in affirmation.

"Vegeta was a legend on his planet and ours." Sirius explained.

"Stop, you're only inflating his ego!" Bulma cried. Sirius backed away slowly in perplexity.

"I can see that you are a good match for Vegeta-sama." He said. "But we need to get to work."

"Hey, hey. You don't have to be serious all the time." She commented. Sirius just looked at her strangely, and Bulma realized what she had done. "I meant, SERIOUS, not Sirius." She said, hoping to clear up the confusion. Obviously, it didn't work, and Bulma shrugged her shoulders in surrender.

"Come on, woman." Vegeta said, literally dragging his mate towards the equipment, where Ceres was sitting. "They need your help."

"Vegeta, I hate to complain, but all I wanted to do was spend a nice, relaxing vacation in a far away tropical island. I can't even find peace there!" Bulma protested.

"Well perhaps one of these days we'll find time to do that." Vegeta said.

"For now, we don't have any other choice, unless you suggest sitting back and watching the universe crumble." Sirius interpolated.

"You mean to tell me that the fate of the universe depends on that...that girl?" Vegeta said. "I think you're a little too proud of your princess." Sirius snarled.

"Vegeta-sama, we can understand your lack of knowledge, but we aren't making this up just because she is one of our own." He said sternly. "What you fail to do is look at the chain of events that will take place if this 'girl' ceases to exist."

"Alright already!" Vegeta said. "I'm sick of hearing this."

"Tousan stop worrying about it and try to relax!" Trunks shouted. Everyone turned to look at him, and he quickly shied away.

"Can everyone just stop arguing and try to put their differences aside!" Goten said, angered. Now the focus was on him, but didn't flinch. "Every time we try to do something, there's always someone that's not happy, or something that gets in the way!" Bulma nodded her head.

"Amen, Goten." She said. "I think that we should all just follow his example. If we want to solve this problem, we have to work together and forget about our discrepancies.

After everyone had calmed down, they went to work. Bulma and Ceres immediately devised a seemingly foolproof plan of action, and were working on selecting the right components.

"Well, I think that the time machine would be a better idea, because it's faster, but, it doesn't hold many people." Bulma explained. "Even my advanced model only holds three, and there are five of you." Ceres just sat, without comment. "How did you get here anyway, if you're from the past?"

"Ever heard of artificial aging?" Sirius asked. Bulma looked up at him, from where she was sitting.

"You mean...?" she broke off. The three all nodded their heads.

"We were aged a couple of years ahead of our time, cryogenically frozen, and then awoken 2 years later." Reena said.

"Just like Orion." Vegeta said. "That bastard."

"Orion wasn't aged." Sirius added. "He was just frozen for a year. So, actually, he is supposed to be three years older than the princess, but he is really four."

"Yeah, whatever." Trunks said, becoming irritated at the constant mention of Natalie and that ass hole Orion.

"May I ask, how did you kill him?" Sirius asked, directing his question mainly at Trunks.

"Why, you don't think we look capable of pulling it off?" Vegeta snapped.

"Well, I didn't say those exact words, but-"

"Yeah, we know what you meant by it nonetheless. Besides, we didn't do it. It was the girl, and her brat from the future." Vegeta answered. Sirius tilted his head.

"Nani? Who came form the future?" he asked.

"It was the girl's brat..." Vegeta said. "Hers, and his." He continued, and pointed in Trunks' direction. Trunks, at the mention of both of their names, turned his head away bitterly.

"Their child?" Ceres asked.

"Child, brat, whatever. Yeah, that was her." Vegeta replied. "Why do you want to know?"

"Just curious. Did you all know of her heritage or not?" Sirius asked.

"Of course we knew. Hell that Orion guy came back and explained the whole damn story to us, going on and on about her destiny." Vegeta said. It was obvious that he was growing annoyed as well.

"I'll stop asking questions if it's a bother." Sirius said, and turned away. "It just interests me to see how the princess has adjusted to this new world."

"Do you think she would remember you?" Goten asked out of the blue.

"I'm not sure." Sirius replied. "There's only one way to find that out. And we should get a move on."

"We're working on it!" Bulma whined, working on a piece of equipment with microscopic tools. "Dende knows how long this will take. If we're lucky, only a few days." Bulma continued.

"A few days!" Vegeta said, exasperated. "Hell woman we could disappear before that time! Isn't there any way to make the process less...time consuming?" Bulma looked up from her work with an aggravated look on her face.

"Listen here, prince. Time travel is NOT an easy task, especially when you have to worry about transporting five people to a planet in another galaxy in the process." She belted out. Vegeta quickly shut his mouth and turned the other way.

"Well why don't you just use their methods?" Trunks said icily, gesturing towards Sirius and Reena.

"They did not time travel!" Bulma shot back. "They were frozen and waited for 2 years. If you feel like doing that, be my guest. But, considering you probably don't, just can it!" Goten and Reena struggled to keep their laughter in, but quickly composed themselves when they saw the look on his face. Trunks, fighting to control his anger, stormed out of the room, leaving behind a very confused Goten.

Trunks angrily walked down the halls, heading towards the main living quarters. If there were one thing to calm him down, it would be training, especially in the gravity room where he would have physical targets. He was still in his clothes from Hawaii, but he didn't care. He tore off his shirt and set the control panel for 400 times gravity. He knew that he should warm up first, but he was so beyond comprehension that he didn't know what he was doing. As the gravity generator powered up and emitted a low, steady hum, Trunks opened the door and thrust himself into the room to prevent destabilization from being exposed to two different G-Forces at once. Just as he did a few quick stretches, several fighting droids emerged from the inner walls, just as Trunks expected. Immediately he charged one and thrusted his hand through it's protective metal shell, tangling his hand in the vast away of wires. He pulled his hand back out, causing jagged pieces of metal to scrape him down his fingers and cut his skin. He cursed loudly and kicked the malfunctioning droid across the room in fury. As he fought, he was deep in thought. How could everyone be so insensitive to his feelings? The acted like the loss of Natalie was to be taken lightly, and there was nothing to worry about. But, surely, if it had been his kaasan, his tousan would have blown up the planet in anger and fear.

"Damnit!" Trunks cursed aloud. He was so angry with everyone, and everything. He was still trying to grasp the concept that the last thing Natalie saw were his cold, evil eyes staring into hers as the life was being forced out of her. Before he knew it, tears were falling down his face. Angrily, Trunks literally slapped himself, trying to remove them from his face. How could he cry at a time like this! He was being a fool, worrying about his own emotions when he was supposed to be focusing on the task at hand. His rage grew significantly, and he transformed into Super Saiya-jin subconsciously. Since he had done so for many, many years, it was almost like second nature to him now. It required little to no effort. He just continued to fight, his rage acting as his fuel, as he gritted his teeth in determination, as if that simple act would make up for his mistakes.