Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Vega ❯ Questions ( Chapter 2 )

Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

Author's note: In this one, the Saiyans all have their tails at the moment. I'll explain in the story, but it's not going to become a problem of the fifty foot kind.

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CHAPTER 2: QUESTIONS
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Trunks stared at the child in amazement, all kind of questions running through his mind. Who was she? Who were her parents? Who was the man holding her? But most importantly, why were there three armed men after them?

Bulma had questions too, like what had Jarod gotten himself into this time? "Jarod? What's going on?"

"Have you ever heard of the Centre, Bulma?"

Mother and son's eyes narrowed. Both had heard of the questionable activities of the New England think tank, and they knew of several incidents where they had been accused of breaking certain ethics laws, though nothing had ever been proven. "Yes."

"I don't have much time to explain, but they made this child from my DNA and that of an alien they found in the Arctic. I can explain more later, but this is my daughter, no matter how she was created, and I need your help to protect her. Please, Bulma! Please help us."

Just then, they all heard a shot coming from the Northern side of the building. Bulma looked at Trunks, who nodded. "Right." Then he stepped out into the hallway, crossed his arms and waited.

Jarod looked nervously at Bulma, but she just smiled. "Don't worry, Jarod. My son is more than he seems." He raised an eyebrow at her quiet pride, but he said nothing, hoping that they knew what they were doing.

Two men came out of the stairwell, guns out and ready. One was tall, dark-skinned with hair close cropped close to his scalp. The other was slightly shorter, fair-skinned, with short brown hair. Both wore charcoal suits with black ties and shiny black shoes. Neither had any kind of badge in evidence. The first one lowered his weapon so that it wasn't a threat to Trunks and approached him. "Sir, I'm with the FBI. I need to know if a man carrying a baby just came through here. He's wanted for kidnapping and the child is in danger."

Trunks didn't believe the man for a minute, not because he knew fact one about Jarod, but because the man was giving off an aura of meanness that said he was enjoying his work way too much. He wanted an excuse to fire his weapon, and he might not even need that. "He's here, but for the moment he's not going anywhere. The child isn't in danger because my mother, who happens to be the president of this company, is currently holding her. If what you say is true, then you can give me your badge number and I'll call the FBI personally and we'll straighten this whole mess out. If you're lying, then you better get the hell out of my building, or I'll deliver you to the FBI myself and tell them you were impersonating an agent."

The man seemed to be weighing his options for a moment, but then he swung around, bringing his gun to bear. Trunks didn't move, but allowed the man to shoot his weapon. He fired three times, and the Saiyan caught all three bullets in his hands. They barely stung. He strode up to the unbelieving man, stopping when he was only inches away from him, and said quietly, "I believe these are yours." He held out the bullets to the false agent, who took one look at them and turned to run the other way. The second man didn't even attempt to shoot, but followed his superior into the stairwell.

Trunks chuckled. That had been fun, regardless of the circumstances. He went back to the office to find Jarod staring at him. "How did you do that?"

The Saiyan just shrugged. "It's a part of what I am, what this little girl is." He allowed his own tail to unwrap from his waist and slip out from under his untucked shirt. The appendage was as shockingly purple as the hair on his head.

Bulma said, "We're going to need to know what's going on here, Jarod. I know you don't like to tell your stories, but this time it's not just you who's in trouble."

Jarod nodded. "Yes, of course. But it's a long story, and I don't know how long it will be before those clowns are back here with reinforcements. Obviously your son can defend you, but in these close quarters, things could get confusing very quickly, and I'd rather get Vega somewhere safe."

"Right." Bulma picked up the phone and dialed a number that she had memorized a long time ago. "Hi, Chichi. Is Goku there where I can talk to him?" She paused for a moment in which the younger woman could be heard shouting for her husband, then she said, "Hi, Goku. I need you to come to me here at the American Headquarters."

On the other end, the wild-haired Saiyan said, "What's wrong Bulma?"

"Nothing for now, but that could change pretty quick. I have a friend in trouble and I need to get him out of the country as fast as possible. That means you. Do you mind?"

"No. I'll be there in a jiffy." And he hung up the phone.

Jarod, imagining that the man had a helicopter and worked at an airfield, he said, "How soon can he be here?"

Suddenly, there was a man standing in the middle of the room who hadn't been there before. He was just as obviously alien as Trunks, a brown tail wrapped around his waist like a belt. He had wild black hair and black eyes and he wore an orange fighting gi with a dark blue tee-shirt underneath and blue cloth-top boots. A blue sash and two blue wrist bands completed the outfit, and Jarod guessed that those last pieces had weights in them. A martial artist. And an alien. "Well, I'll be telling you my story, but I hope you'll be telling me yours as well."

Bulma grinned at him. She didn't know much about the man, but she knew that he was a very curious sort, always wanting to know all he could about people. Of course, now he was going to need to know those things. He had his own demi-Saiyan to raise. She chuckled. "Of course." Then she turned to Goku. "Goku, this is my friend, Jarod, and this is his daughter, Vega."

Goku reached out to shake the man's hand, then saw that it was otherwise occupied, holding a tiny infant, who had her own tail wrapped around his wrist. She was beautiful, and obviously Saiyan, but there were only two female Saiyans on this planet, and neither of them was old enough to have given this man a child, not to mention the fact that he would have heard about it if it had happened. He looked into the man's eyes and, using a talent that he had always had for judging people's characters, he found that he liked what he saw. He was more than a little curious to know how he had come by the child, but he'd already said that he was going to tell his story, so he didn't ask the questions that came to his mind. Instead, he asked, "What do you need?"

Bulma answered. "Could you transport all of us back to CC in Japan? We need to get these two safe. A very unsavory organization is after them, and there's no way they can trace you. I'll tell the secretary that we're leaving by the secret exit, so she knows not to expect to see me for a while." That was what she had always called it when one of the Saiyans took her out of the building. She'd had to avoid the press more than once, and she wasn't above asking for help in doing so.

Goku nodded. "Sure. Jarod, do you have the baby's things somewhere?"

He shook his head. "I had to drop everything and run. The Sweepers are getting too close."

Bulma shrugged it off. "Don't worry. Once we're back home, we'll be able to grab a few things from the store, and I still have all of Bra's baby clothes packed up somewhere." She turned to make the call to her secretary, then grabbed the reports she had been working on and took Goku's hand. Trunks put one hand on his mother's shoulder and the other on Jarod's.

Goku said, "Ready?" Then he put two fingers to his forehead, concentrating. He could reach Capsule's main headquarters in his sleep, and had once, but he had to figure mass of the people he was bringing with him. But it wasn't that hard.

One instant, they were standing in the office; the next they were standing on Bulma's front lawn. Jarod muttered a heartfelt "Woah!" Goku chuckled.

Parker stalked the halls of the Centre as if all around her were a mere nuisance. It was a defence mechanism she had developed long ago against the preditory males that surrounded her in a male dominated business. She never dropped that mask, save for a very select few, and under very specific circumstances. It was a hard existance, but she could handle it.

She walked into Sydney's office, closed and locked the door, then walked up to his desk. She pointed to her ear, asking the aging man if there were bugs in the room. Both of them did regular sweeps with scanners that Brutes had worked up for them, guaranteeing, as much as was possible, their privacy. "We're clear. Did he get away?"

"Yes. Apparently, Jarod has made friends in some very high places, Sydney. The president and the heir of Capsule Corporation helped him to escape, and no one knows where they've gone. No one knows a damned thing, Syd. For once, that's a good thing." She chuckled. "They have poor Brutes chasing his tail trying to figure out not only how they got out of the building in the first place, but where in the hell they got off to. There was no chopper, no car, and no one was seen leaving the building."

Sydney smiled slightly. "A woman as inventive as Bulma Briefs is going to have a safe exit from her building in case of reporters, not to mention the possibility of terrorism. I'm sure that her company has made enemies over the years, if not herself personally."

Parker nodded. "Do you think he'll ever come back?" She had known that Jarod would flee the country to get his daughter safe, but she had counted the safety of the child more important than her own personal vendetta against Jarod, which she already counted more important than her job of catching him. Besides, the Centre should never be allowed to get their hands on the kind of power that the baby was likely to have as she grew older.

"I don't know, Miss Parker. I really don't know." Would Jarod continue to Pretend, or would he settle down and raise his daughter? It was a question he doubted even Jarod knew the answer to yet.

There's the second chapter. I don't know the answer to this question myself yet, so we'll just have to see how it unfolds. Please remember to review!