Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Against All Odds ❯ Retribution ( Chapter 13 )

Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ or Vegeta, but if I did he would stay chained to my bed so he couldn't run around terrorizing people.

Chapter Thirteen:

Retribution

A sharp crack rang through the hollow halls, followed by pain laced screams of anguish. Again and again they sounded until the screams became raspy before eventually dying away, but the cracking still remained.

Vegeta watched as his men were whipped until their skin fell in shreds from their backs. Raditz had mercifully passed out from the pain, but a man was fetching a pail of water to revive him, so they might begin again. Nappa hung limply between the posts that held him, his voice had given out long ago.

Again the leather tongue lashed out to kiss Vegeta's ragged back. He did not cry out and his stoic expression did not alter. The only clue that he felt the lash was a slight graying of his already ashen features. White brackets of pain deepened around his mouth and blood dribbled down his chin from where he bit his tongue to stifle any wayward moans.

He could feel the hot path of his blood as it flowed down his legs where he stood in an ever growing pool of crimson. It took all of his will to remain standing straight and tall beneath the raining blows. He refused to show weakness to his captors, instead he stared straight ahead with unseeing, soulless eyes.

He stood in a large room, filled to the brim with people, who coiled around the perimeter in one long and seemingly endless line. Each person waited impatiently for their turn to lash the Saiyans. Some would introduce themselves, subjecting the prince to a miniature monolog of their lives, while others just applied themselves vigorously to the task at hand until their arm gave out. They would then pass the whip to the next person in line.

There were less people today than there were three days ago and there would be less people tomorrow. Every day at dawn they were brought to this room and at dusk they were cut down and thrown into a regeneration tank to heal. Normal men would have died the first day, but they were Saiyans. Ki-less Saiyans, but strong just the same.

There had been some sort of serum in the dart the man had shot him with. The injection repressed their ki, leaving them as defenseless as new born cubs. They were then shackled with ki resistant chains that bound them tightly, not that it mattered, because the cowards dosed them every twelve hours with the serum. The only comfort that Vegeta could derive from his situation was that the serum was not permanent, but he worried about the long term effects.

He had learned that the man who shot him was named Rio'Kan. He was the leader of this misfit band of refugees who fooled themselves into believing that they had a ghost of a chance of rising against Frieza. Their first act of defiance was to capture the Emperor's elite squad of purgers, but their actions were not totally dedicated to their cause and was more selfish in nature. Every single person here was a survivor of a purge.

There were not more than three or four people of the same race in the room. Instead it was a hodgepodge of species that had come together with a common goal. To kill Frieza.

If Vegeta was capable he might have felt sympathy for their plight or at the very least he could extend them empathy. He as well had suffered under Frieza's rule. His entire planet was destroyed and his race annihilated. The cruel irony was that he was forced to repeat the very thing that had happened to him a hundred times over, unable to escape his enslavement.

The repeated strikes paused and he brutally suppressed the glimmer of hope that it was over. Logic told him that it wasn't, it was only midday and people still silently waited.

A woman appeared before him. She wasn't old, but sorrow had aged her. Her mouse brown hair hung limply down her back and brushed against the yellowish skin of her cheeks. Her lips were chapped and he could see the indents of her teeth where she bit the lower one repeatedly. She looked like the walking dead and the only real sign that she was alive were her eyes. Their muddy depths burned with the psychotic flame that Vegeta had seen before in soldiers who had endured too much. Their dementia pushed them to the edge of reason and more often than not they had to be put down like rabid animals. She opened her mouth and Vegeta braced himself for the flood of damnation that he was sure was going to flow from her lips. Instead she addressed him in a quiet tone that warred with the hellfire raging in her eyes.

"I am from Silac." The name meant nothing to Vegeta. He had purged hundreds of planets.

"I was off world when you came, but my husband, my five month old son and eight year old daughter stayed behind." Her voice was lifeless, as though the memory of her family had no real meaning to her anymore. Vegeta wondered how many times he would have to hear the same thing over and over again.

"When I arrived home, my world was a smoking ruin. The others turned tail and ran, but I took an escape pod to the surface. I had to save my family." She choked on the last sentence and he expected her to break down into tears, but she composed herself and continued.

"Everything was destroyed, bodies lay in the streets and even the pets were slaughtered." She hissed with disgust, but he was unmoved, he had long ago stopped being affected by the carnage he and his men wrought.

"My house was still standing and inside I found my husband with a hole in his chest. His death was quick and I often feel jealous of that." He could see her battle the conflicting emotions of anger at the dead and the agony of their loss. "My baby's head had been bashed against a wall." The expected tears began to stream down her face and Vegeta resisted the urge to roll his eyes. It was common practice to do such things in order to save energy. There was no reason to deplete yourself when a kick to the head would do the job. "And my little girl." Her shaking hand clasped her throat as if she could physically dislodge the words from her larynx. "She was raped to death." Fire exploded in her tear drenched eyes and the expected damnation began to flow.

"What kind of monster takes time out from his blood bath to rape an eight year old girl?" She spat her rhetorical question into Vegeta's impassive face.

"You will burn! You will be hauled down to the darkest pit in the very center of the seven hells and you will scream and scream, like my little girl must have screamed!" She was frothing at the mouth and flecks of spittle landed in his face, but he did not flinch and his expression did not alter, after all he silently agreed with her. He would go to hell. It was an accepted fact in his mind, so why should he worry about it?

She placed her hands on the sides of her head, pressing them together as if she was trying to stop her head from exploding from all of her rampaging thoughts and memories. She glared at him, her hate spilling out of her and intermingling with everyone else's in the room.

"Tell me that you are sorry! Tell me that you feel some shred of regret you heartless murderer!" She moaned, trying to understand the monster in front of her. She ceased her tantrum and held his eyes with an unwavering intensity. She looked deeply into the dark void and did not even see a flicker.

"Are you sorry?" She whispered.

Her fit had brought Bulma to mind and their argument so many months ago. For just a moment she too had teetered on the lip of the abyss, but she had quickly pulled herself back. This woman was drowning in it and only surfaced for a few moments to drag in an iota of reason before being sucked under the sea of insanity again.

Do I feel sorry?

I can never show remorse for my actions or the actions of my men.

Yes, but do I feel sorry?

It does not matter. I do not feel.

An image of Bulma rose in his mind, mocking his last thought. He sighed inwardly before speaking for the first time in three days.

"No."

Vegeta's tone showed no hint of his inner turmoil and the woman shrieked in rage as she descended into the depths of madness once again. She disappeared from sight and the cracks of the whip resumed, accompanied by the woman's shrill screams.

*~*

"He is a week overdue." Jace paced in front of Bulma who was sitting calmly at her private workstation.

"If he is dead, we will have lost months of work. Not to mention he was the best candidate." Jace ran his hand through his unruly chocolate curls.

Bulma grimaced and absently stroked her neck. The bruises had long since faded, but the memory was still fresh.

What if he is dead?

Do I care?

He's a monster.

But you already knew that when you started.

What if he is dead?

"Are you listening to me Bulma?" Jace snapped his fingers in front of her face and Bulma frowned at his rudeness.

"What?" She snapped in annoyance.

"I said, we have to find him." Jace huffed right back at her.

Bulma sighed deeply. "Yes, we have to find him."

She stood up and strode out of her rooms, Jace on her heels. She walked to the center of the lab, clapping her hands together to get everyone's attention. Her employees gathered around, knowing that whatever it was she wanted was important.

"As I am sure you have all heard, my Mate is missing." She started in a solemn voice. Her people nodded and there was a mutter of condolence here and there.

"I am certain that he is still alive, and I want to know exactly where he is. Each of you has four hours to speak with your contacts and to report back to me." Her eyebrows met as she glowered at her people. "I want him found. I want him back." Her people nodded and scurried off to their stations, typing frantically on their computers, reaching out on the sub space net, connecting with their independent sources of information.

One of the requirements of being apart of Bulma's inner circle was merging your own spy network with hers. Every single person, with the exception of Delia was the head of their own information ring. Together they blanketed the universe in a constant ebb and flow of shared galactic secrets. It was true what they said, if two people had a secret, than it wasn't a secret anymore.

Bulma retreated to her quarters to do her own research and by the time the others had prepared their reports she had a fair estimation of what had happened. She exited the lab and as expected her people were waiting for her. They were efficient, intelligent and completely loyal to her. They had never let her down, and she would see that they would have their freedom someday as a reward.

"What did you find out?" She sat back and waited for them to reply, ready to compare it with the information she had gathered.

Frokadile, a frog like creature and her head engineer, stepped forward. "Vegeta and his men were captured on the planet they were sent to purge. Near the completion of their mission, emissaries of the Freine Resistance Core managed to incapacitate them and transport them back to their base of operations set up on a large space station in the Velda sector. I have managed to procure the exact coordinates along with a partial layout of the station." Bulma nodded and Frokadile stepped back in line.

Derrik, her head biologist, stepped up. "The Freine Resistance Core is a group of refugee's brought together by their leader, Rio'Kan. He is the sole survivor of a planet purged by Vegeta about five years ago. He has since gathered up as many stragglers as he could find and formed them into a militia. Most of the members have no fighting power to speak of, but they are technologically advanced. Most of the information on their inventions is top secret but it has been ascertained that they have developed ki resistant technology in order to combat Frieza's warriors. Their main goal is to revolt against the Emperor and overthrow him. My sources say that at this time they are primed to be the most successful in such an endeavor." He handed Bulma his written report and stepped back.

Facie, her top chemist stepped forward. "In order to incapacitate Vegeta and his men, they used a serum that seems capable of repressing their ki. This was their first test in the field and was met with overwhelming success. I was able to locate the formula and I think I may be able to reproduce it as well as create an antidote."

"Do so." Bulma nodded to the woman. She was pleased with the results of their findings and thanked them for their hard work. She motioned for Jace to follow her and walked into her rooms to sit heavily on her couch, rubbing her temples at the same time. Jace took a seat on the chair that Vegeta favored, while eyeing his boss.

"Now what?" He questioned.

Indeed, now what? The Resistance was working for the same goal that she was, just by a different means. They could very well be successful if given enough time to grow and if their technology was advanced as the reports said. She was interested in their methods and wouldn't be opposed to lending them a hand, behind the scenes of course. Repressing the ki of the warriors that worked under Frieza was not something that she had considered before, but now it was something to definitely look into.

"Bulma?" Jace prodded her out of her thoughts. She shifted her gaze to him.

"Set up a third party negotiation. Advise them that we would be interested in assisting their cause contingent on them freeing Vegeta and his men. If that is not acceptable tell them that we will pay a ransom, no matter the amount." Jace nodded and quickly exited her quarters. Bulma leaned her head back against the couch, trying to order her thoughts, but her head was pounding from lack of sleep and worry. She was upset with Vegeta because of his behavior before leaving, but at the same time she found that she missed his presence. Absurd as it was, she felt safe when he was around and without him she felt vulnerable.

There was a ding at the door and Bulma levered herself off the couch to go answer it. It slid open to reveal Delia who was biting her lip in agitation and while rubbing her hands together. Bulma eyed her for a second before standing aside to let the young woman in.

"Would you like something to drink?" She asked, while motioning to the living room for them to sit down.

Delia shook her head no and did not move. Bulma waited patiently for the girl to speak. After a few moments of internal struggle she gave voice to her worries.

"Do you think they are okay?" She whispered and Bulma frowned at her. She hadn't really considered that they wouldn't be. After all Vegeta was the strongest man she knew, next to Frieza, but he didn't really count. He wasn't a man, he was a monster.

"Of course they are." She replied confidently, but Delia only wrung her hands more.

"But they said that the members of the Resistance were survivors of purged planets." Delia's words were laced with sadness and Bulma's frown deepened.

"So?"

Delia bit her lip so hard, Bulma was sure that it would start to bleed. "Don't you think they would be mad at them?"

Bulma inhaled sharply. She hadn't thought about that. She had merely thought that Vegeta's capture was to test their new serum. She hadn't considered that they had a personal vendetta against the Saiyans. In her minds eye she pictured the torture that Vegeta might be going through at this very moment, in doing so she opened herself up to a wave of pain that washed over her. She wavered on her feet, closing her eyes, but behind her lids all she saw were rivers of blood and an incessant cracking sounded in her ears.

Bulma felt nausea start to rise in her throat and she quickly excused herself. She rushed into the bathroom and vomited up what little nourishment she had in her stomach. She distantly heard the soft hiss of the front door as Delia let herself out. She huddled over the bowl for a few minutes afraid to move and cause another bought of sickness.

As she sat there she prayed to Kami and all the other gods she had come across in her lifetime, that Vegeta would be alright and that he would be strong enough to endure.