It was another peaceful day at Capsule Corporation; however, the tranquility would soon be shattered by yet another of their endless arguments. Bulma was busy in her laboratory, working on a new project that had consumed all her time and energy. Suddenly, the door swung open violently, and Vegeta entered with his typical arrogant and proud look.
"Woman, I demand that you build a new training room for me. I need to get stronger, and the current one is useless!" Vegeta shouted, not caring about what his wife was doing.
Bulma dropped her tools with an exasperated sigh. It wasn't the first time Vegeta had made this demand, in fact, it wasn't even the tenth time! But this time, something inside her broke. She was tired of being her husband's servant, always yielding to his demands and whims, only to have her creations ultimately disregarded by a spoiled sugar daddy.
This time, Bulma, the smartest humble human in Universe 7, and probably at least half of the other universes, from what she had learned during the Tournament of Power, would have her revenge.
"Alright, Vegeta, I'll build you a new training room," she replied with a mischievous smile. "But this time, it will be different. I have something special in mind."
With his typical expression of indifference, although internally somewhat concerned by his wife's murderous look, Vegeta grumbled a response and flew out through the door he had broken. He had no idea what was coming. Bulma quickly started working on her project, with a manic gleam in her eyes that made it clear she was a mad scientist.
Days passed, and finally, the new training room was ready. Vegeta, eager to begin his training, entered with his chin held high, ready to destroy the new contraption Bulma had prepared. Initially, the room seemed like another typical thing his wife had built before—lasers coming from all sides, spheres firing energy blasts in rapid succession, some robots for close combat made of supposedly unbreakable material.
"More of the same Earthling junk," thought the arrogant Saiyan prince as he passed through it all without breaking a sweat. However, as time went on, strange things started happening. Gravity suddenly seemed to increase, but not in the way Vegeta was used to training under hundreds of times Earth's gravity. His movements felt restricted, his speed seemed to decrease, and his energy blasts were more likely to miss than hit.
Vegeta struggled to adapt to the new conditions but couldn't understand why the room was getting harder with each passing minute. What he didn't know was that Bulma had built the room to diminish his strength rather than enhance it. After revolutionizing human understanding of gravity, she had found a way to gradually shrink a living being.
The Saiyan prince was now struggling threefold, without realizing that his already short height of 5.4 feet had diminished to just 5 feet, putting him at the same height as Krillin. But it was only when Vegeta reached the 4-foot mark that he began to realize something was amiss. Initially, he thought the robots he destroyed were being replaced by larger versions, but it was only when one of them hurled the smoking remains of a robot he had already destroyed that he realized he was the one shrinking.
Realizing that Vegeta had finally grasped his situation, after just one hour inside the room, Bulma, who had been monitoring the progress of her revenge from the outside, couldn't help but let out a victorious and malicious smile.
"How's it going, dear? Do you like your new training room that I built with all the love in my heart?" she taunted, her voice echoing inside the room through loudspeakers.
Vegeta finally understood the truth. His wife was getting back at him for all the times he treated her like a servant. However, he was far from apologizing. Irritated and only slightly impressed by his wife's audacity, he tried to break his way out by destroying one of the vaulted walls, but even his powerful, albeit pompous, "Big Bang" attack didn't even scorch the walls.
Vegeta's indifferent/arrogant attitude was broken by a slight nervous twitch of his left eyelid. Bulma had truly built a prison for the Saiyan prince.
"You can't do this to me, woman! I am the Prince of the Saiyans!" Vegeta shouted in anger after recovering from the momentary shock. He immediately transformed into his powerful Super Saiyan Blue form and started firing hundreds of energy blasts around the room, effectively destroying all current threats.
But Bulma just laughed. "Bravo! Bravo, Vegeta, you are so strong... for someone your size," Bulma said with a bitterly sweet and innocent voice.
"That's enough, Bulma! Let me out of here now, or else..." Vegeta threatened, looking at what he believed to be the camera through which Bulma was watching him, even though he was actually looking in the opposite direction.
"Or else?" Any trace of innocence or even malicious amusement left Bulma's tone, replaced by a rancorous hatred, the result of years of repressed abuse, contempt, and neglect. She stood up from her chair with such haste that it flew to the ground. "OR ELSE WHAT?" Bulma shouted, activating her final move.
At the same time that Vegeta heard his wife's outburst, he noticed a door slowly opening. Only his warrior's instinct made him position himself for combat instead of running toward what he believed was freedom.
"You're not the prince of anything! You're not a real father! You're not a real husband! You're not even the fifth strongest in the universe," Bulma declared with each new assertion, the door toward which Vegeta had been looking continued to rise.
"You are nothing!" With her final declaration, whispered so low and filled with so much bitterness, it was only heard because she was speaking into a microphone she had set up. Bulma's ultimate revenge was revealed.
Entering the training room was what appeared to be an exact replica of Bulma, but a few years younger (specifically the age Bulma was during the Frieza Saga, wearing the same outfit she had back then).
"Maybe now, Vegeta..." Bulma's voice was now hoarse, a mix of frustration and anger. "...you will learn to treat me with more respect. The training room will continue to shrink you until you apologize and promise never to treat me like your servant again." Bulma sentenced, adding with a more vibrant and biting tone, "And to help with that, let me introduce you to the first android in Capsule Corporation! GZ01, Bulma model, initiate Discipline mode!"
Vegeta swallowed hard, a bead of cold sweat trickling down from the top of his head, which was now only 3.8 feet from the ground on his back. Part of him thought it would be better to apologize, but he wouldn't bend just because his wife asked him to. At least not for now.
The prince of the little, I mean, the Saiyans, assumed his typical combat stance as GZ01 flew in his direction.
And in the next chapter: