Cosmic Crisis 3 - A New Enemy

Chapter 3 - Arrival in Paradise

Trunks woke suddenly as the airplane touched down onto the runway, jolting all of the passengers. Dr. Briefs turned the engines down and turned up the rear thrusters to slow the plane down.

<We arrived!"> Trunks thought to himself. He looked at the clock on the wall of the dark room, realizing that it was only 2:30 in the morning, but that meant that in Hawaii it was probably somewhere around 5 or 6:30. Hopefully, their hotel was nearby. He didn't want to sit down any longer than he had to. Suddenly, the lights came on in the cabin and Dr. Briefs' voice came over the announcer. Trunks ignored him and focused on his surroundings, looking for Goten and Natalie. He rubbed his eyes and looked around, realizing that they were lying right behind him.

"What the -!" Trunks cried when he saw his friend practically wrapped around the girl. A pang of jealousy went through him as he broke them apart. "Get up! Get up!" He urged, shaking Natalie. She slowly opened her eyes and stretched, blinking a few times and then rolling over on her other side once again, placing her arm around Goten absentmindedly. Since this obviously wasn't working, he woke up Goten instead.

"Go away, tousan..." Goten mumbled, swatting Trunks away with his hand. Trunks was becoming irritated, and decided to use desperate measures...sortof. He simply picked Natalie up in his arms and left, leaving his friend behind. Trunks opened the door that led to the cabin and headed into the aisle. Vegeta immediately appeared in front of him.

"And just WHERE have you been?" Vegeta hissed demandingly.

"We were just in the back room, dad." Trunks replied sleepily, walking past his confused father and towards his seat. Just then, an angry Goten staggered out of the recreation room and looking at Trunks with a psychotic look in his eyes. Trunks almost dropped Natalie when he saw the boy, and took a few steps backward. Suddenly, Goten bursted into uncontrollable fits of laughter.

"You..." he broke off, laughing. "You actually fell for that!" Goten said, rolling on the floor. Trunks gritted his teeth and growled, turning away and looking for his bag. He was tired, and wasn't in the mood to mess with his friend. Natalie finally stirred, opening her eyes and looking around confusedly. Trunks set the girl down and began to load the bags into his arms. Natalie grabbed her carryon bag and turned to walk off the plane.

"Wait." Someone called to her. Natalie spun around to see Trunks stumbling down the aisle with about five bags in his hands. She sighed and grabbed two from him and continued on. She was so tired that she didn't notice the sudden drop and almost fell when Gohan put his hand out and stopped her from falling.

"Watch out." He said, making sure that she had regained her balance.

"Oh. Thanks." Natalie said, stepping down the stairs and off the jet. As soon as she reached the cement pavement of the runway, she dropped the bags and sighed with relief. The sun would be coming over the horizon shortly. A cool breeze blew off the ocean and stirred Natalie's hair, blowing it into her face. It was a very calm, peaceful scene with dark skies and a perfect temperature. Suddenly, someone shoved a leu (singular form of "lei") over her head.

"Aloha!" a dark skinned Hawaiian woman said, welcoming the Sidra-jin girl to the island. Natalie, who was overcoming the initial shock, forced a smile and turned to wait for Trunks and Goten. Soon, Vegeta emerged with Bulma following. The Saiya-jin prince grumbled as one of the Hawaiian women greeted him.

"Must I wear this stupid necklace?" Vegeta complained to Bulma. She just slapped him on the back.

"Of course you do! It's tradition! Now act pleasant. We'll be at the hotel shortly." Bulma replied.

"Already I don't like this country." Vegeta grumbled, glancing at his mate. She was having a bit of trouble carrying all of the baggage that she had brought, but the fact that Vegeta didn't even offer to carry it for her made it even worse. Seeing the situation, Natalie cleared her throat and nudged him, gesturing towards Bulma. He just rolled his eyes and grabbed the luggage from Bulma's hands, much to her relief.

Soon, Goku and Chi-Chi came out, followed by Bra, Pan, Goten, Gohan, and Videl. Everyone was quite tired and there were a lot of bags to be handled. Fortunately for the women, the guys were all quite capable of taking the load. Natalie wasn't going to resort to that though, and was quite fine carrying her own bags. Bulma pulled out her container of capsules and selected the large aircar to take them out of the airport. When the car had appeared, everyone loaded their bags onto it and took their seats.

"Hey, where's Tousan?" Bulma asked, looking around for her father. Dr. Briefs came out of the airplane and stood on the steps, waving.

"The misses and I are going to tour the states while you're vacationing!" Dr. Briefs shouted. Bulma sighed and waved goodbye to her parents, since there was no arguing with them at this hour. She turned to get into the aircar, but it was already full! Natalie, Pan, and she hadn't even gotten a seat.

"Oh well. Looks like we'll have to improvise." She said to herself. "Girls just find somewhere to sit. I don't care if you have to sit in someone's lap...we're all going to fit in this aircar!" Bulma said, jumping into Vegeta's lap, much to his...delight. Pan jumped into Gohan's lap, and Natalie stood, trying to find a seat.

"Come on, Nat. We have to get going!" Goten said to the girl. She reluctantly stepped into the car and sat in Trunks' lap. Not that he minded.

Soon, everyone was off, blazing through the air towards the hotel. The night air was warm, and the early morning sky was filled with bright stars. Natalie took a deep breath and leaned back on Trunks, resting her head on his shoulder.

It took ten minutes to reach the hotel, but it was worth it. Everyone shuffled out of the car as Bulma called for someone to get his or her bags. When the doorman had everyone's luggage onto a cart, the two families made their way into the hotel, wanting nothing more than to get some rest before the sun rose.

"Okay." Bulma started, walking back from the check-in counter. "We have four suites on the 16th floor. Who's with who?" she asked. It was obvious that the couples wanted to share rooms, which meant that three rooms were already taken. They were then left with Trunks, Goten, Natalie, Bra, and Pan.

"There is NO way I'm getting stuck with them." Trunks said, gesturing to Bra and Pan, who in turn shot him dirty looks.

"We don't want to stay with you anyway!" Pan retorted, running to her father. "I'm staying with daddy!" Gohan shook his head vigorously, knowing that if Pan slept in his room, Bra would surely tag along, and he wanted a decent night's rest.

"The five of us will take the extra room." Goten said, reaching for his bag. It was obvious that he wanted nothing more than to get some sleep, and he wanted to settle things quickly. Bulma and Vegeta exchanged glances and nodded in agreement.

After the room situation had been sorted out, Vegeta just shrugged his shoulders and headed for his room. Everyone else did the same, dragging his or her exhausted bodies into bed. Trunks, Goten, Natalie, Bra, and Pan shuffled into their room, plopping their things down into a corner. There were two king-sized beds in the room, along with sofa, two dressers, three end tables, and a big screen TV. Natalie let out a sigh of relief and curled up in the bed on the far side of the room while Trunks and Goten took the one closest to the door. Pan and Bra snuggled next to Natalie, much to her distaste. By the time everyone had fallen asleep, Natalie had already tried 6 or 7 different positions in the bed. She couldn't fall asleep. Something was nagging at the back of her mind.

<I'm just paranoid...> she thought to herself as she glanced at the clock on the nightstand. She had been tossing and turning for almost 45 minutes. Not only that, but she was extremely frustrated that she couldn't quite figure out what was bothering her. It wasn't like the feeling she got when Orion arrived. She shuddered just thinking about that. She considered waking Trunks to talk to him, but resisted and got out of bed. She paced around the room, almost knocking into a table, since she wasn't familiar with the layout. <Chill out, Nat you're going to scare yourself.> she thought. If she weren't careful her ki would rise and wake everyone sensitive to it. She walked over to her bag in search of her CD player. She unzipped the top and began to rummage around inside, when she realized that the suitcase wasn't hers. It was Trunks'.

"Oops." She whispered out loud. She attempted to zip it shut, but it was stuck. "Oh, what now!?" she cried in desperation, but hushed herself for fear of waking the others. Something was blocking the zipper. She formed a very dim ball of light using her ki, and untangled the object. She picked it up and inspected it. It was made of cloth; a shirt of some kind. She looked closer, and realized that it was her shirt! "What the..." she trailed off. It was the shirt that she had lent him on one of the first days that they trained together. She remembered that she gave it to him to wipe his forehead. It smelled like her shampoo. A smile formed on her lips as she thought about Trunks keeping this shirt without even washing it. With that finished, she put the shirt back in place, zipped the suitcase shut, and returned to bed. Just as she settled down and got comfortable, she remembered. "Damn I forgot my CD player."