Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Butterflies & Hurricanes ❯ Chapter 31
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: Froglady15 
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Drama / Hentai / Romance / Suspense / Angst | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 03.26.2016 | Pages: 12 | Words: 7.6K | Visits: 298 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Drama / Hentai / Romance / Suspense / Angst | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 03.26.2016 | Pages: 12 | Words: 7.6K | Visits: 298 | Status: Work In Progress
Disclaimer: I don't own anything. Just my Husband,
laptop, my 3 dogs and a very overactive imagination… Dragon
Ball Z and any songs mentioned in this fic DO NOT belong to me. I'm
just borrowing them for my own twisted amusement.
Butterflies and Hurricanes
Chapter 31
He felt like he was flying. Endlessly flying with no destination. He didn’t know how long he’d been flying or how much longer he would be flying. He only just now realized that he was flying.
Flying into a white void of nothingness.
There were no land marks, no scenery, no anything. There was nothing. Just white void for as far as he could see in every direction: above, below, in front, behind and on either side of him. Instead of being alarmed, he was more confused than anything else. He couldn’t tell how far he’d travelled or for how long, so he kept going forward; or what he assumed was forward. He could have been flying in a circle for the last several hours for all he knew because there was nothing to indicate otherwise. Was it hours or minutes, he wondered.
As the undetermined amount of time passed, he went through a torrent of emotions and feelings as he tried to determine an appropriate timeline.
There were moments he felt blissful like right now and then there were moments he felt frustrated because he didn’t know how long he’d been aimlessly flying around for or where he was even going.
Was it a few hours, a few days? Was it a few months even? He did not know.
He also had moments when he felt bogged down with depression and anxiety and moments where he only felt hopelessness.
He wasn’t sure why he felt some of these things, he was in a void. What was there to be anxious over other than the fact that he had no idea where he was going or where he had come from? His battle trained sensed reminded him to remain calm and not to over think it; a solution would eventually come to him.
Upon further thought, he only realized just now for the first time that his chest and abdomen were fine. He stopped flying and looked down at himself. He was wearing nothing more than his usual blue flight suit and his body was whole again. The last he remembered, his insides and vital organs had been torn apart or out. His chest cavity was wide open and even when it had seemingly healed on the outside, it had still felt like it was on fire for what seemed to be an eternity to him. He had felt like he was burning from the inside out and it had been so excruciating, without any relief or means to alleviate the discomfort, that he had convinced himself then that he was in hell. Now he felt better. Inexplicably.
He couldn’t remember when he’d began to feel better, but it was when he had begun flying endlessly. It was blissful most of the time but now he was becoming frustrated with it again.
He knew he had somewhere to be...
Except he wasn’t sure where exactly. Or why.
Someone needed him.
Had he somehow escaped from hell, he wondered? Why else was he feeling better? The never ending burning throughout his entire body had been nearly inescapable for so long!
He had accepted that he had obviously perished and had been sent to hell. It hadn’t bothered him all that much because he’d always known that was where he was bound to go anyway. He had accepted that so why now was he in this blissful never ending state of limbo land?
“My, I assumed that it would be some time until we crossed paths again, my favourite prince,” a frighteningly familiar voice said from behind him. He looked over his left shoulder where the voice was but saw nothing. Just void. White, endless void. “I figured it would be quite some time before we met again. Apparently I was wrong.” the voice cackled in amusement.
Vegeta snarled in anger at the condescending tone. “Show yourself!” he demanded.
“Now, now, no need to get testy,” it reprimanded him. “I nearly forgot how easily riled up you can be.”
Once again, Vegeta spun around only this time he was greeted with the being that matched the voice he knew so well and would never forget. “What are you doing here?” he asked, frowning in disgust at his former tormentor who stood before him in his flawless white and purple final form.
“You should know,” Frieza shrugged innocently. “It is only natural that the two of us would be here,”
So he was in hell, Vegeta realized. Of course Frieza was the only person he had seen. Maybe hell wasn’t a big, vast pit of horribleness full of unsavoury people being endlessly tortured for eternity by a sadistic overlord; maybe it was different for everyone and when you died you were just sent into a version of your own personal hell. In which case, this would be it. He couldn’t think of anything much worse than suffering an eternity wondering around a void with only Frieza for company. If there were any gods, they had a very sick sense of humour.
“Together,” Frieza added looking intently at him.
“Fuck off,” Vegeta snorted, turning his back on his former master, mentor and tormentor. He knew he had someplace else he needed to be other than here but he wasn’t sure where that was exactly. “I want nothing to do with you.”
“Then why am I here?” Frieza asked him in a sly tone as though he already knew the answer. “I’m only here because you want me to be here.”
Vegeta chuckled darkly. “The only reason I would ever want you here is to destroy you over and over again.”
“My, my, still holding petty grudges, I see,” Frieza huffed, quickening his pace so as to coast beside him as Vegeta flew aimlessly into the white void again.
Vegeta ignored him, still flying in his chosen direction; not that it even seemed to matter which way he flew.
“What would that woman of yours think of you if she knew you were still acting as childish and petty as ever?” he taunted and knew he’d hit a mark when Vegeta halted in mid-air. “If anyone should be holding a grudge, it should be me after the tasteless way in which you ended me.”
Bulma… Bulma and Trunks. That’s where he needed to be. They were trapped somewhere; he wasn’t sure where, but his gut told him that it was true. He needed to find a way back to them as soon as possible, he thought as he ignored Frieza altogether.
“Still hung up on her?” Frieza asked snidely.
“Shut up,”
“What was it, really?” he pressed. “Such a frail, helpless little thing. I admit the thought of tasting her and having her just to see what you found so appealing did cross my mind when she was in my care. Unfortunately, well, you know where my tastes run.”
Vegeta still continued to ignore him; he was fully aware that Frieza was intentionally baiting him. In his younger years, it would have worked and he would have engaged him by now, but knowing that he could put his fist through the lizard’s chest cavity without much effort at all seemed to make him think it wasn’t worth the effort.
He needed to get back to his family. Not waste valuable time fighting someone whom he had already beaten.
Frieza frowned as Vegeta didn’t respond and began flying again, only quicker this time. “Well this isn’t much fun,” he sulked. “Where exactly do you think you are going?”
Again, Vegeta did not reply. He was simply looking around him for any clue of a way out of this white, endless hell.
“You know there is no way out of here, right?” Frieza taunted in amusement after observing Vegeta carefully for a few more minutes. “It’s just you and me...”
Having had enough of Frieza’s company and chatting, hell even the very sound if his feminine voice finally got the better of Vegeta; he turned around and elbowed the lizard in the mouth, effectively shutting him up with the exception of his moan of discomfort.
“That wasn’t very nice, Vegeta,” Frieza snapped at him, holding his jaw and glaring murderously at him. “Has it been so long that you have forgotten your place?”
“Has it been so long that you have forgotten our last exchange is the reason you are rotting here?” Vegeta laughed. “I ended your existence. Or have you completely forgotten?”
Frieza snarled in reply.
“I can give you a demonstration and repeat performance to jog your memory if you like?” Vegeta offered, arrogantly crossing his arms and standing tall. “I remember every glorious detail of it and wouldn’t mind reliving it.”
“You disrespectful little shit!” he spat at him as he dodged Vegeta’s fist and managed to phase behind him and wrap his tail around Vegeta’s neck unexpectedly. “You realize that you are successful because of me! You are who you are because of me! I created you and made you what you are! If it wasn’t for me you’d be nothing more than a simpering runt of a money prince that would never have amounted to a single thing,” he growled cruelly at Vegeta as he drew him close to him and began constricting his tail around his neck tightly. “It was I who moulded, twisted and shaped you as I saw fit. You owe me your gratitude and respect no matter which dimension we happen to cross paths in!”
“I owe you nothing,” Vegeta wheezed, placing his hands on the tail that was wrapped impossibly tight around his neck and crushing one of the vertebra, causing Frieza to shriek in agony and let him go except Vegeta only tightened his grip on the deadly appendage. “If I owe my accomplishments to anyone, it is to her; not you.” He said dangerously, yanking on Frieza’s tail and ripping it clean off of him right where the lizard’s spine ended and tail began.
Frieza gaped in absolute sheer white hot pain. He couldn’t scream or even breathe.
Vegeta smirked evilly at him, thoroughly enjoying the fact that he had turned his own personal hell around into something victorious. “You know, if this is hell, I think I am going to rather enjoy it here,” he gloated, holding the severed tail by the thick end and swinging it around to hit Frieza on the head with it.
“Hmmmn,” he grunted appreciatively, looking at the tail. “I forgot how dangerous this thing is.” he said as he began whipping Frieza with it again.
“Stop!” he screeched at him, bringing his arm up for cover.
“Stop?” Vegeta asked with a puzzled look, pausing briefly before continuing on. “Why? Did you ever stop when I asked you to, when I was a boy?”
“I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I made mistakes.”
“Ha!” Vegeta laughed. “You don’t say!” he spat, not letting up with the lashes. He had originally had no interest in destroying Frieza in this dimension, but now that he was on the attack, it felt rather good to take out his rage and anger out on his former master.
After several minutes, he grew tired of this new game. Frieza was barely fighting back so there was no amusement. Vegeta phased into his Super Saiyan form and tossed the severed tail behind him. “Pathetic,” he spat.
“Wait!” Frieza pleaded in fear as Vegeta walked up with him. “It does not have to be this way. We can keep each other company. Besides, you killed me once already. If you kill me now I’ll only rematerialize and come back.”
“Good,” Vegeta grunted. “I’ll take pleasure in ending you until you quit bothering me like a whipped dog.” he taunted as he powered up.
“No! Don’t!” Frieza shrieked, putting his hand out as Vegeta released a brilliant blast of ki right into his face.
He knew he was over doing it; he only wanted to kill Frieza so he didn’t have to endure his presence any longer, not roast him. Vegeta shrugged, upping his ki blast even further so that there was nothing left of the lizard.
“And don’t waste your time returning,” he spat once there was nothing but charred remains left.
Vegeta huffed in satisfaction of his work and turned heel and began walking this time instead of flying; though he didn’t know if he was on the ground or still in the air. This whole place was horribly confusing to him and it began to make him feel claustrophobic as the time dragged.
He stopped and looked behind him; Frieza’s black burned remains weren’t to be seen so he must have travelled a fair distance, he figured.
Vegeta shrugged and kept going. Sooner or later, he had to come across something that would lead him towards the exit of this void. From there he would find a way to contact Bulma or at least see if he could find out how she was doing.
-0-0-0-
It had been three weeks since they had left King Cold’s base on Isotope.
Jeyice had been so busy with gathering all the information about the mission details that Cold kept sending him and about planet they were about to land on, that he had barely had time to spend with Trunks and Tarble to work with them. He had delegated that job to Recoome.
Today he had finally made the time to see what the boys had learned these past three weeks with Recoome and they had enthusiastically shown him a short, perfectly choreographed dance routine and finish pose as their introduction.
“What the fuck is that?” Jeyice asked them, unamused.
“What?” Trunks asked in confusion.
“That!” Jeyice spat. “What you just did! I asked you to show me what Recoome has taught you.”
“This is what he taught us,” Tarble answered.
“Did he not teach you his signature finishing move?”
The boys both relaxed from their pose, looked at each other in confusion and shook their heads. “No,”
Jeyice took a deep breath to calm his nerves before calling Recoome down to the ship’s training room on the intercom. He appeared in a matter of minutes.
“Hey, boss!” he greeted cheerfully. “What’s up?”
“What’s up?” Jeyice spat. “I’ll tell you what’s up! I just asked the boys to show me what you’ve taught them these past three weeks, that’s what’s up.”
“Awe, boys, come on; don’t be shy. You can show Jeyice.” he said to the boys.
“They did,”
Recoome nodded proudly. “They’re both born naturals, hey? Ha haa!”
“I asked you to teach them your finishing move, you moron!”
“Ugh, which one?” he asked scratching his head.
“The mouth energy wave!”
“Oh, you mean the Recoome Eraser Gun?” he asked.
“Is it the energy beam that comes out of your bloody mouth, Recoome?” Jeyice asked, his patience beginning to wear thin.
“Ya,”
“Alright then, why haven’t they learned it?” Jeyice demanded angrily. The entire journey, Recoome had become like their friend, making Jeyice look bad in front of them for attempting to keep order. Jeyice could not be watching over them all the time, so he had left them under the watchful eye of Recoome, which he was almost instantly regretting.
Jeyice had wanted Recoome to teach the boys some of his more advanced fighting techniques, but instead the simple warrior had taught them nothing more than dance moves and poses.
“Awe, come on, Jeyice,” Recoome said sympathetically. “They’re just boys. Ya gotta let them have some fun once in a while. You know how hard that technique is? I doubt they’d be able to do that anyway at their skill level. And what if they accidentally blow a hole in the ship? I know you think I’m an imbecile, but it’s hard to control that attack. A ship isn’t the place to learn it.”
“Hmmm, that may be the most intelligent thing you’ve said ever,” Jeyice said coolly. “I’m not amused you’ve wasted three entire weeks though!”
“We haven’t wasted three weeks, Jeyice,” Recoome objected. “Boys, show them your post victory battle pose.”
The boys nodded and flipped away and then towards each other in a beautifully put together routine before settling side by side, backs facing each other in a confident, almost cocky, final pose.
Recoome clapped enthusiastically. “Way to go, guys, way to go!”
Jeyice stood there seething, chewing his bottom lip as Recoome proudly commended the boys.
“That’s class right there, Jeyice. Pure class.”
“Recoome,” he sighed trying to gather his thoughts and not just pummel the senseless brute. “I need you to listen very carefully now,”
“Ya, sure thing, boss man; anything.” Recoome nodded. “At ease, boys. Go and get a beverage of your choice on my tab.”
“No, they won’t,” Jeyice snipped. “You both stay right there, we aren’t finished here. We have a lot of work to do.”
“Awe, come on,” Trunks whined.
“You shut it!” Jeyice said, pointing at them to stay put. “We’ve wasted enough time in the last three weeks apparently. It is time to get into business.”
“Hey, don’t be that way, Jeyice,” Recoome objected. “They worked really hard to get those down right and you haven’t even seen their individual greetings and what I taught them to do before a ki attack. Man, Captain Ginyu would be so proud of these boys.”
“Captain Ginyu was an idiot and is no longer leader of this group!” Jeyice reminded him harshly.
“That’s a bit uncalled for, Jeyice,” Recoome frowned. “He worked really hard building up the team. I think we owe it to him to keep the integrity of the Ginyu Force alive and intact in his honour now that he’s gone. It’s bad enough Guildo bailed on us; little twerp. With these two, we’re back to a full force again. Doesn’t it feel good? Burter agrees.”
“I don’t give a fuck what Burter thinks, I am leader of this group now and I say there is no reason to keep on as we were pirouetting around like a bunch of Nancys.”
“Why not? It was great!”
“We were a joke, Recoome!” Jeyice spat in barely contained rage. “We were nothing more than a fucking joke to whomever we crossed paths with! That idiot, Captain Ginyu, spent far too much time on that shit,” he went on, gesturing towards the boys who were still standing in their pose as he and Recoome argued. “Maybe if he’d have actually worked at training us better as well as himself, he’d still be around. Oh, wait, he isn’t! So that means it falls on me to make sure this group is no longer the laughing stock of the galaxy anymore! It was shameful, Recooome, and you know it. Absolutely bloody shameful!”
“I thought we all had a pretty good time,” Recoome pouted. “You had fun, admit it. You were the youngest recruit of the Ginyu Force at that time, now that we have these two. We may have been the joke…. Until they saw what we could do and that was the point, Jeyice.”
“There was no bloody point,” Jeyice snorted. “We danced around like idjits-”
“Exactly, it was a diversion to make our opponents drop their guard, you should know that; Captain Ginyu always reminded us of it before battle.” Recoome interrupted him. “Why do you think the galaxy feared us when they heard we were sent on a mission?”
“I have no fucking clue, Recoome.” Jeyice sighed. “We’d show up, do our thing and our adversaries looked at us like we were clowns.”
“And that was when we’d strike!” Recoome reminded him, punching one fist into his hand for emphasis. “That was why we were successful. They never saw it coming. Sure it was silly some of the time, but we were a deadly force to be reckoned with and we need to hang onto that to honour the Captain now that he’s gone. We do that by leaving the formula the same and by training these boys the way that Captain Ginyu so generously trained us.”
“Minus the theatrics,”
“No, we need the theatrics!” Recoome insisted.
“What good are theatrics if you cannot back it up?” Jeyice asked. “They can have all the flair and talent that the Captain would have wanted but if they couldn’t back it up on the battle field, it’s useless Recoome. Completely and utterly useless.”
“Alright, Jeyice,” Recoome nodded, putting his hands up in defence. “I will work with them.”
“Teach them something fucking useful then!” he snarled. “Idiotic dance moves and striking brilliant poses aren’t useful.” he finished, exiting the training room in a huff.
“Okay boys, you heard him. Let’s learn something new!” Recoome said cheerfully, approaching the boys.
“I told you all that was a waste of time,” Trunks huffed.
“It will come in handy, you’ll see,” Recoome shrugged. “Now both of you, come at me!”
In a second, both boys launched themselves towards him and so began a warm up spar that would hopefully lead to useful lessons in combat rather than lessons more suited for the theatre.
-0-0-0-
With the boys and Jeice gone, Bulma fell into a simple, rigorous routine of working all day in the lab and then working almost all night long in her room, sometimes only getting in a few hours’ sleep.
Her Hope project was coming along quite nicely. She managed to fix her Instant Transmission project that Gero had trashed several weeks back. The only real problem she could understand with it was that the generator wasn’t very efficient. It used a lot of energy and it took forever to recharge it, which was a problem she would need to address later on.
Bulma stood up and stretched; she had been bent over on the floor finishing tightening and fixing her project for longer than she thought and now she was stiff and had a knot in her neck. She knew it was late and she should be getting to bed but she just wasn’t tired and she wanted to get as much done while she had the opportunity.
Gero’s careful watch on her had been steadily waning as of late. She figured it was because she never attempted to escape or do anything that would raise his suspicion from him and it had hopefully lulled him into a false sense that she had accepted her surroundings. Which in a way she had, but that still didn’t mean she wasn’t going to use every resource or opportunity she could to further her escape plans. It may take longer this way, but it was better to work slowly and steadily instead of being careless and risk potentially losing everything she had already worked so hard on and losing the amount of freedom she already had. It wasn’t a ton of freedom, but it was enough that so far she had been able to work on her own undiscovered.
Deciding on a quick break, she went into her small kitchen to make herself some tea and see what she could scrounge up to eat. The boys had given her all sorts of goodies before they had left. She smiled to herself at the thought of them. Sure she revelled in the silence and lack of drama these past few weeks they had been gone, but she missed them terribly and hoped they were alright wherever they were.
She realized then that she had no teabags left in her little container. She groaned inwardly and still set her kettle to boil herself some water before sneaking out of her own room.
As she quietly snuck over to where she knew Gero kept his stash she was startled as she heard something.
“Dende!” she whispered hoarsely. “What are you doing here at this hour?”
“You scared me,” he commented with a small smile.
“Sorry,” she whispered apologetically.
“It’s okay,” he said, and began sweeping the floor again. “I’m cleaning. What are you doing?”
“I couldn’t sleep so I was getting something to make tea,” she replied. It was half true. “Why are you cleaning?”
“I always clean,” he shrugged. “Someone needs to do it. Gero won’t let anyone else in the lab to do it so he makes me do it.”
Bulma frowned at the little Namek. It never once occurred to her who cleaned and straightened up the lab. Sure she almost always tidied her work area before she turned in for the day but the overall state of the lab was always near impeccable. “Well, why didn’t you say something?” she asked him, feeling somewhat guilty. “I can help you. It’s not fair for you to have to do it all especially since Gero is a bit of a pig when it comes to his work station.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that but I don’t think he would like that very much; he’s very paranoid.”
Bulma nodded in understanding. “Well, I wouldn’t want to do anything that might get you into trouble but if you want, maybe we can split the work load?” she suggested. “You can do Gero’s work space and I can take care of my own and whatever else needs to be done?”
“That might be alright,” Dende replied with an appreciative smile. “I’m almost done for today so don’t worry about it but you can help me tomorrow if you want?”
“Sounds like a deal!” she smiled, grabbing a few tea bags. “You sure you don’t have anything else that needs doing tonight? It’s late, you should be sleeping.”
“No, I just need to sweep up. Thank you though,” Dende replied politely. “Why are you up so late? I know you generally don’t sleep because the light in your room is always on until late; sometimes you’re still up when I’m finished here.”
Bulma looked at him a moment, wondering if she could tell him about what she was working on. She had a feeling that he was trustworthy. They hadn’t spoken much because Gero was almost always present but she was under the distinct impression that the young Namek child was not happy here and would more than likely jump at the opportunity to escape if she found a way out.
“If you are planning an escape, please take me with you!” he whispered hoarsely from across the room as though he had been able to read her thoughts. “If there’s anything I can do to help, please tell me. I’ll do just about anything to get out of here and back to my people.”
She nodded and silently indicated for him to follow her back to her room, which he eagerly set the broom aside and followed her.
“You have to promise that you won’t tell anyone about this; no one!” she lectured him.
“I promise, I won’t,” he said firmly. “I figured you were working on something and I’ve wanted to ask you for a while but never had the opportunity until now.”
“Alright,” she nodded, deciding then to take a leap of faith that she could trust the little Namek. So far he hadn’t done anything that made her question his motives of helping her. He was, after all a slave here just like she was. “Remember that Instant Transmission project I made for King Cold?”
“Yes,” he nodded.
Bulma locked her door and took out the capsule she had stored it in and decapsulated it in the middle of the floor. “I didn’t throw it away, I took it and was able to salvage it. I’m almost finished fixing it.”
Dende looked appreciatively at it. “I thought it was a really great idea, I didn’t understand why Dr. Gero and King Cold weren’t impressed with it.
“I don’t know either and I was initially really annoyed because of all the effort and work that had gone into it but that’s okay; it’s worked out greatly to my advantage that they didn’t want it.” she shrugged off. “I’ve come up with something even better!”
“What are you going to do with it?” he asked, looking at the controls in interest.
“Well, I’m not sure if it is even possible and feel free to tell me I’m crazy, but I wanted to turn it into a time machine,” she said. “Like if I could go back and change even one small thing, maybe we wouldn’t be here. You know? I can think of two or even three fixed points that had Vegeta or myself had done something entirely different, we wouldn’t be here.”
Dende was quiet a moment as he took in her admission.
“You think I’m nuts, don’t you?” she asked in a dejected tone, knowing that in all likelihood this hair brained idea was probably less possible and more ridiculous than King Cold’s invisibility project he had her slaving over.
“No,” the young Namek shook his head. “It is possible to do what you are thinking of, but highly illegal.”
“What! So there is a way?” she asked dumbfounded. “I can’t believe it! I haven’t just been wasting my time!”
“Just hang on a second,” Dende said, putting his hand up to get her attention. “What you are proposing can be done, but you aren’t considering whether or not it should be done.”
Bulma frowned somewhat. “Why wouldn’t I if I could do it?”
“Because it’s not that simple,” Dende said, sounding far more mature than usual. “I don’t know a lot about it, but my people did and they frowned very heavily against it.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because it’s risky,” he answered vaguely. “You are putting a lot of things at risk by going back to a fixed point in your own personal timeline just to change one thing.”
“Well how bad would it be to change one thing?” she asked. “Wouldn’t the entire universe play out all over again the way it will anyway?”
“Only the events that aren’t directly related to the changes you may make,” he replied. “You changing one thing though could change the outcome of the entire universe if you’re not careful. Despite good intentions, you could make it worse. It’s not worth it. Things generally happen for a reason.”
“Well Vegeta-sei might still be standing if we had done things differently. Maybe Vegeta would have won if he had been forewarned or better prepared so it would have changed that,” she reasoned. “What about yourself? I’m sure there’s things you’ve thought you would do differently if you could so you wouldn’t have ended up here.
“You told me that you found Gero and he took you and forced you to help him and took you from your home. What if you could go back and leave yourself a note to warn yourself to not leave your house that day or if you do, don’t go anywhere alone or if you come across Gero to keep going and not help him.”
Dende nodded in understanding from where she was coming from but still was not convinced. “You don’t understand, it would be wrong of me to not help someone in need, not to mention horribly selfish to make a change like that and knowingly let someone die.”
“Okay, I can kind of see what you mean, but if you hadn’t helped Gero, he would have maybe died and then he would have never found Cold and King Cold would have never known that it was Vegeta who killed Frieza and he wouldn’t have waged war on Vegeta-sei so it would still be standing. Not only that, but the androids would have never been built either without Gero in the picture and King Cold wouldn’t be getting ready to terrorize the rest of the universe with them. So you’re essentially not being selfish. Everything would be exactly as it was before you were taken! You would still be home with your own people and Vegeta and I would be wherever; happy, safe and sound raising Trunks. None of us would be here.”
Dende was quiet as she explained the advantages to him. He didn’t say anything after a long moment before he started to cry. “So all of this is my fault!” he cried, looking up at her in horror.
“Oh no, Dende, sweetie, no!” she said frantically dropping a piece of equipment that was in her hand and rushing to give him a hug. “No, no. None of this is your fault! That’s not at all what I meant! I was just thinking about how things would be different is all.” It was the truth. She felt horribly now for spinning things that way. The last thing she wanted to do was upset Dende. He was the closest thing to a friend she had in this place and she regretted now letting her mouth run without thinking first about how he may have interpreted her rambling.
“But you said-”
“Ya, forget about what I said,” she sighed. “I was only using it as an example of the good things we could do with this, not to make you feel bad.
“I screwed up too, you know. If I had left when Vegeta had wanted me to or if I hadn’t gone with him to Vegeta-sei at all, things would be different,” she said and looked darkly at the floor. Vegeta’s father might still be alive, she added silently herself.
“I get what you are saying but it’s still a bad idea,” he sniffed. “We could get into a lot of trouble if anyone found out.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take if it means changing my life course even a little bit,” she said determinedly. She would do this with or without Dende’s help she decided. “Besides, who could possibly find out?”
“Uhm, the galactic time patrol police?” he replied as though she were stupid.
“There’s police for this kind of thing?” she asked.
“Do you really think you’re the first person in the universe to think of this or try to make it happen to change a few things?” he deadpanned.
“I don’t know,” she shrugged, slightly annoyed with the tone at which he had said that to her. “Probably not. But not everyone is as brilliant as I am either. There’s a big difference between thinking about it and wishing it was possible and actually doing it, you know.” She said feigning an arrogant tone.
Dende shook his head at her, unimpressed and not getting that she was only half jesting. “It’s a good idea, but honestly not worth the effort if we get caught and it wouldn’t change anything anyway.”
“What do you mean it wouldn’t change anything anyway?”
“What do you think would happen here with all that’s happened?” he asked her. “Sure you can go back and change whatever you want but that won’t change the outcome here. This timeline will play out as intended. No amount of time travel will alter it or change it or undo it.”
So it was a waste of her time, she realized, feeling deflated. “So then what’s the big deal? Why is it illegal?”
“Because if you go back to a fixed point in your personal timeline, you automatically create another parallel universe that doesn’t need to exist and wouldn’t otherwise. It’s tampering with unnatural forces,” Dende explained. “You could create a whole bunch of universes all branching out in different directions. What if you go back to warn yourself and so they take a different path and it turns out worse. So then they decide to figure out how to travel back in time to go back and warn themselves to not do what they did? Now there are three identical but different parallel universes operating and so on and so forth. You could be creating a bad pattern here and before you know it, there could be ten negative outcome parallel universes running simultaneously. That’s why it isn’t a good idea and that’s why it’s illegal.”
Bulma continued to sit there, mulling over Dende’s warnings and concerns. She knew she should be taking it seriously and what he’d told her should be deterring her from this path, however the only thing standing out to her was it is possible, it can be done. That was the only thought that seemed to be overriding everything else. She knew it was selfish to not care about the rest of the universe and the potential chaos she may cause by doing this but she almost didn’t care. Knowing that there was another universe out there where she and Vegeta and the boys were safe and happy was worth the risk enough, in her opinion.
“You’re still going to do it, aren’t you,” Dende said, noting the determined look on her face.
“If I can fix things for a past version of my family, then yes. I will,” she replied in finality.
“If you’re caught though-”
Bulma shrugged indifferently. “What does it matter? If I get caught and arrested it can’t be any worse than what I’m facing now,” she reasoned stubbornly. “You think I’m happy here, like this? I’m already practically in jail; so is my husband if I think about it. I work like a slave for Gero and Cold during the day and at night I don’t get any peace because I have to whore myself out to that pig so that he will let me interact with my boys. Believe me, going to a galactic jail would probably be better if not the same so it’s a risk I’m more than willing to take. You don’t have to help me if you are against it, morally; but please don’t stop me.”
Dende looked at her and shook his head. He felt for her, he really did. He pretended like he didn’t know what was going on between her and Jeyice, but he knew there was something wrong going on there. Her whole attitude and demeanour had changed since that had started. Not to mention she had made him go and get a remedy for her so that she would not get pregnant by him.
“I’ll even mention you to my past self to either have someone send a message to your people to come and rescue you or if Vegeta does come here anyway to make sure he comes here to find you first before blowing this place up,” she offered.
“You’re still playing a very dangerous game, Bulma,” he sighed, though he did appreciate the gesture. “Have you given any thought of how you’re getting out of here with the boys and Vegeta?”
“No,” she sighed. “Unfortunately that has me stumped. I can’t get out of the lab unless Jeyice convinces King Cold to let me move in with him and I can’t do that, Dende; I just can’t. I don’t care that strategically it may be a better option. It’s bad enough pretending here nearly every night that I want him when he comes around; I can’t live my whole life like that. I’ll kill myself if that happens.”
Dende nodded in agreement. “I won’t help you with your time project, but I will help you with an escape plan if you are still in agreement on taking me with you.”
“Of course I will!” she said. “I already told you that if I’m getting out of here, you’re coming with us. You’re as much a hostage here as we are.”
“Alright,” Dende nodded. “I need to get some rest. You should too, it’s getting really late.”
“I know,” she agreed, yawning. She hadn’t realized how tired she actually was until he mentioned it. “Thanks, Dende.”
“What are you thanking me for?” he asked in puzzlement.
“For letting me talk to you and understanding what it is I’m trying to do, even if you don’t agree with it.”
“I’d help you, but I really don’t want to be an accomplice,” he replied.
“That’s fair,” she nodded. “If you help us get out of here, I’ll love you forever.”
Dende smiled as he exited her room for the evening.
Bulma stood there in silence for several seconds before capsulizing her work. She was more than happy that she had confirmation that not only was it possible, but that it could work. It saddened her that it didn’t matter what she did to change the past because it wouldn’t change her current life, but that was alright. She would gladly try to change things for her past self and Vegeta.
“If we only knew then what we know now,” she said quietly to herself as she hid her capsule away and started towards her bedroom, forgetting all about her tea.
-0-0-0-
For those of you who are really missing Vegeta, hope that helped out just a bit…. I miss him too. Thankfully he’s just asleep and not in hell like he thinks he is.
Anyway, thanks for reading!! :D
Butterflies and Hurricanes
Chapter 31
He felt like he was flying. Endlessly flying with no destination. He didn’t know how long he’d been flying or how much longer he would be flying. He only just now realized that he was flying.
Flying into a white void of nothingness.
There were no land marks, no scenery, no anything. There was nothing. Just white void for as far as he could see in every direction: above, below, in front, behind and on either side of him. Instead of being alarmed, he was more confused than anything else. He couldn’t tell how far he’d travelled or for how long, so he kept going forward; or what he assumed was forward. He could have been flying in a circle for the last several hours for all he knew because there was nothing to indicate otherwise. Was it hours or minutes, he wondered.
As the undetermined amount of time passed, he went through a torrent of emotions and feelings as he tried to determine an appropriate timeline.
There were moments he felt blissful like right now and then there were moments he felt frustrated because he didn’t know how long he’d been aimlessly flying around for or where he was even going.
Was it a few hours, a few days? Was it a few months even? He did not know.
He also had moments when he felt bogged down with depression and anxiety and moments where he only felt hopelessness.
He wasn’t sure why he felt some of these things, he was in a void. What was there to be anxious over other than the fact that he had no idea where he was going or where he had come from? His battle trained sensed reminded him to remain calm and not to over think it; a solution would eventually come to him.
Upon further thought, he only realized just now for the first time that his chest and abdomen were fine. He stopped flying and looked down at himself. He was wearing nothing more than his usual blue flight suit and his body was whole again. The last he remembered, his insides and vital organs had been torn apart or out. His chest cavity was wide open and even when it had seemingly healed on the outside, it had still felt like it was on fire for what seemed to be an eternity to him. He had felt like he was burning from the inside out and it had been so excruciating, without any relief or means to alleviate the discomfort, that he had convinced himself then that he was in hell. Now he felt better. Inexplicably.
He couldn’t remember when he’d began to feel better, but it was when he had begun flying endlessly. It was blissful most of the time but now he was becoming frustrated with it again.
He knew he had somewhere to be...
Except he wasn’t sure where exactly. Or why.
Someone needed him.
Had he somehow escaped from hell, he wondered? Why else was he feeling better? The never ending burning throughout his entire body had been nearly inescapable for so long!
He had accepted that he had obviously perished and had been sent to hell. It hadn’t bothered him all that much because he’d always known that was where he was bound to go anyway. He had accepted that so why now was he in this blissful never ending state of limbo land?
“My, I assumed that it would be some time until we crossed paths again, my favourite prince,” a frighteningly familiar voice said from behind him. He looked over his left shoulder where the voice was but saw nothing. Just void. White, endless void. “I figured it would be quite some time before we met again. Apparently I was wrong.” the voice cackled in amusement.
Vegeta snarled in anger at the condescending tone. “Show yourself!” he demanded.
“Now, now, no need to get testy,” it reprimanded him. “I nearly forgot how easily riled up you can be.”
Once again, Vegeta spun around only this time he was greeted with the being that matched the voice he knew so well and would never forget. “What are you doing here?” he asked, frowning in disgust at his former tormentor who stood before him in his flawless white and purple final form.
“You should know,” Frieza shrugged innocently. “It is only natural that the two of us would be here,”
So he was in hell, Vegeta realized. Of course Frieza was the only person he had seen. Maybe hell wasn’t a big, vast pit of horribleness full of unsavoury people being endlessly tortured for eternity by a sadistic overlord; maybe it was different for everyone and when you died you were just sent into a version of your own personal hell. In which case, this would be it. He couldn’t think of anything much worse than suffering an eternity wondering around a void with only Frieza for company. If there were any gods, they had a very sick sense of humour.
“Together,” Frieza added looking intently at him.
“Fuck off,” Vegeta snorted, turning his back on his former master, mentor and tormentor. He knew he had someplace else he needed to be other than here but he wasn’t sure where that was exactly. “I want nothing to do with you.”
“Then why am I here?” Frieza asked him in a sly tone as though he already knew the answer. “I’m only here because you want me to be here.”
Vegeta chuckled darkly. “The only reason I would ever want you here is to destroy you over and over again.”
“My, my, still holding petty grudges, I see,” Frieza huffed, quickening his pace so as to coast beside him as Vegeta flew aimlessly into the white void again.
Vegeta ignored him, still flying in his chosen direction; not that it even seemed to matter which way he flew.
“What would that woman of yours think of you if she knew you were still acting as childish and petty as ever?” he taunted and knew he’d hit a mark when Vegeta halted in mid-air. “If anyone should be holding a grudge, it should be me after the tasteless way in which you ended me.”
Bulma… Bulma and Trunks. That’s where he needed to be. They were trapped somewhere; he wasn’t sure where, but his gut told him that it was true. He needed to find a way back to them as soon as possible, he thought as he ignored Frieza altogether.
“Still hung up on her?” Frieza asked snidely.
“Shut up,”
“What was it, really?” he pressed. “Such a frail, helpless little thing. I admit the thought of tasting her and having her just to see what you found so appealing did cross my mind when she was in my care. Unfortunately, well, you know where my tastes run.”
Vegeta still continued to ignore him; he was fully aware that Frieza was intentionally baiting him. In his younger years, it would have worked and he would have engaged him by now, but knowing that he could put his fist through the lizard’s chest cavity without much effort at all seemed to make him think it wasn’t worth the effort.
He needed to get back to his family. Not waste valuable time fighting someone whom he had already beaten.
Frieza frowned as Vegeta didn’t respond and began flying again, only quicker this time. “Well this isn’t much fun,” he sulked. “Where exactly do you think you are going?”
Again, Vegeta did not reply. He was simply looking around him for any clue of a way out of this white, endless hell.
“You know there is no way out of here, right?” Frieza taunted in amusement after observing Vegeta carefully for a few more minutes. “It’s just you and me...”
Having had enough of Frieza’s company and chatting, hell even the very sound if his feminine voice finally got the better of Vegeta; he turned around and elbowed the lizard in the mouth, effectively shutting him up with the exception of his moan of discomfort.
“That wasn’t very nice, Vegeta,” Frieza snapped at him, holding his jaw and glaring murderously at him. “Has it been so long that you have forgotten your place?”
“Has it been so long that you have forgotten our last exchange is the reason you are rotting here?” Vegeta laughed. “I ended your existence. Or have you completely forgotten?”
Frieza snarled in reply.
“I can give you a demonstration and repeat performance to jog your memory if you like?” Vegeta offered, arrogantly crossing his arms and standing tall. “I remember every glorious detail of it and wouldn’t mind reliving it.”
“You disrespectful little shit!” he spat at him as he dodged Vegeta’s fist and managed to phase behind him and wrap his tail around Vegeta’s neck unexpectedly. “You realize that you are successful because of me! You are who you are because of me! I created you and made you what you are! If it wasn’t for me you’d be nothing more than a simpering runt of a money prince that would never have amounted to a single thing,” he growled cruelly at Vegeta as he drew him close to him and began constricting his tail around his neck tightly. “It was I who moulded, twisted and shaped you as I saw fit. You owe me your gratitude and respect no matter which dimension we happen to cross paths in!”
“I owe you nothing,” Vegeta wheezed, placing his hands on the tail that was wrapped impossibly tight around his neck and crushing one of the vertebra, causing Frieza to shriek in agony and let him go except Vegeta only tightened his grip on the deadly appendage. “If I owe my accomplishments to anyone, it is to her; not you.” He said dangerously, yanking on Frieza’s tail and ripping it clean off of him right where the lizard’s spine ended and tail began.
Frieza gaped in absolute sheer white hot pain. He couldn’t scream or even breathe.
Vegeta smirked evilly at him, thoroughly enjoying the fact that he had turned his own personal hell around into something victorious. “You know, if this is hell, I think I am going to rather enjoy it here,” he gloated, holding the severed tail by the thick end and swinging it around to hit Frieza on the head with it.
“Hmmmn,” he grunted appreciatively, looking at the tail. “I forgot how dangerous this thing is.” he said as he began whipping Frieza with it again.
“Stop!” he screeched at him, bringing his arm up for cover.
“Stop?” Vegeta asked with a puzzled look, pausing briefly before continuing on. “Why? Did you ever stop when I asked you to, when I was a boy?”
“I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I made mistakes.”
“Ha!” Vegeta laughed. “You don’t say!” he spat, not letting up with the lashes. He had originally had no interest in destroying Frieza in this dimension, but now that he was on the attack, it felt rather good to take out his rage and anger out on his former master.
After several minutes, he grew tired of this new game. Frieza was barely fighting back so there was no amusement. Vegeta phased into his Super Saiyan form and tossed the severed tail behind him. “Pathetic,” he spat.
“Wait!” Frieza pleaded in fear as Vegeta walked up with him. “It does not have to be this way. We can keep each other company. Besides, you killed me once already. If you kill me now I’ll only rematerialize and come back.”
“Good,” Vegeta grunted. “I’ll take pleasure in ending you until you quit bothering me like a whipped dog.” he taunted as he powered up.
“No! Don’t!” Frieza shrieked, putting his hand out as Vegeta released a brilliant blast of ki right into his face.
He knew he was over doing it; he only wanted to kill Frieza so he didn’t have to endure his presence any longer, not roast him. Vegeta shrugged, upping his ki blast even further so that there was nothing left of the lizard.
“And don’t waste your time returning,” he spat once there was nothing but charred remains left.
Vegeta huffed in satisfaction of his work and turned heel and began walking this time instead of flying; though he didn’t know if he was on the ground or still in the air. This whole place was horribly confusing to him and it began to make him feel claustrophobic as the time dragged.
He stopped and looked behind him; Frieza’s black burned remains weren’t to be seen so he must have travelled a fair distance, he figured.
Vegeta shrugged and kept going. Sooner or later, he had to come across something that would lead him towards the exit of this void. From there he would find a way to contact Bulma or at least see if he could find out how she was doing.
-0-0-0-
It had been three weeks since they had left King Cold’s base on Isotope.
Jeyice had been so busy with gathering all the information about the mission details that Cold kept sending him and about planet they were about to land on, that he had barely had time to spend with Trunks and Tarble to work with them. He had delegated that job to Recoome.
Today he had finally made the time to see what the boys had learned these past three weeks with Recoome and they had enthusiastically shown him a short, perfectly choreographed dance routine and finish pose as their introduction.
“What the fuck is that?” Jeyice asked them, unamused.
“What?” Trunks asked in confusion.
“That!” Jeyice spat. “What you just did! I asked you to show me what Recoome has taught you.”
“This is what he taught us,” Tarble answered.
“Did he not teach you his signature finishing move?”
The boys both relaxed from their pose, looked at each other in confusion and shook their heads. “No,”
Jeyice took a deep breath to calm his nerves before calling Recoome down to the ship’s training room on the intercom. He appeared in a matter of minutes.
“Hey, boss!” he greeted cheerfully. “What’s up?”
“What’s up?” Jeyice spat. “I’ll tell you what’s up! I just asked the boys to show me what you’ve taught them these past three weeks, that’s what’s up.”
“Awe, boys, come on; don’t be shy. You can show Jeyice.” he said to the boys.
“They did,”
Recoome nodded proudly. “They’re both born naturals, hey? Ha haa!”
“I asked you to teach them your finishing move, you moron!”
“Ugh, which one?” he asked scratching his head.
“The mouth energy wave!”
“Oh, you mean the Recoome Eraser Gun?” he asked.
“Is it the energy beam that comes out of your bloody mouth, Recoome?” Jeyice asked, his patience beginning to wear thin.
“Ya,”
“Alright then, why haven’t they learned it?” Jeyice demanded angrily. The entire journey, Recoome had become like their friend, making Jeyice look bad in front of them for attempting to keep order. Jeyice could not be watching over them all the time, so he had left them under the watchful eye of Recoome, which he was almost instantly regretting.
Jeyice had wanted Recoome to teach the boys some of his more advanced fighting techniques, but instead the simple warrior had taught them nothing more than dance moves and poses.
“Awe, come on, Jeyice,” Recoome said sympathetically. “They’re just boys. Ya gotta let them have some fun once in a while. You know how hard that technique is? I doubt they’d be able to do that anyway at their skill level. And what if they accidentally blow a hole in the ship? I know you think I’m an imbecile, but it’s hard to control that attack. A ship isn’t the place to learn it.”
“Hmmm, that may be the most intelligent thing you’ve said ever,” Jeyice said coolly. “I’m not amused you’ve wasted three entire weeks though!”
“We haven’t wasted three weeks, Jeyice,” Recoome objected. “Boys, show them your post victory battle pose.”
The boys nodded and flipped away and then towards each other in a beautifully put together routine before settling side by side, backs facing each other in a confident, almost cocky, final pose.
Recoome clapped enthusiastically. “Way to go, guys, way to go!”
Jeyice stood there seething, chewing his bottom lip as Recoome proudly commended the boys.
“That’s class right there, Jeyice. Pure class.”
“Recoome,” he sighed trying to gather his thoughts and not just pummel the senseless brute. “I need you to listen very carefully now,”
“Ya, sure thing, boss man; anything.” Recoome nodded. “At ease, boys. Go and get a beverage of your choice on my tab.”
“No, they won’t,” Jeyice snipped. “You both stay right there, we aren’t finished here. We have a lot of work to do.”
“Awe, come on,” Trunks whined.
“You shut it!” Jeyice said, pointing at them to stay put. “We’ve wasted enough time in the last three weeks apparently. It is time to get into business.”
“Hey, don’t be that way, Jeyice,” Recoome objected. “They worked really hard to get those down right and you haven’t even seen their individual greetings and what I taught them to do before a ki attack. Man, Captain Ginyu would be so proud of these boys.”
“Captain Ginyu was an idiot and is no longer leader of this group!” Jeyice reminded him harshly.
“That’s a bit uncalled for, Jeyice,” Recoome frowned. “He worked really hard building up the team. I think we owe it to him to keep the integrity of the Ginyu Force alive and intact in his honour now that he’s gone. It’s bad enough Guildo bailed on us; little twerp. With these two, we’re back to a full force again. Doesn’t it feel good? Burter agrees.”
“I don’t give a fuck what Burter thinks, I am leader of this group now and I say there is no reason to keep on as we were pirouetting around like a bunch of Nancys.”
“Why not? It was great!”
“We were a joke, Recoome!” Jeyice spat in barely contained rage. “We were nothing more than a fucking joke to whomever we crossed paths with! That idiot, Captain Ginyu, spent far too much time on that shit,” he went on, gesturing towards the boys who were still standing in their pose as he and Recoome argued. “Maybe if he’d have actually worked at training us better as well as himself, he’d still be around. Oh, wait, he isn’t! So that means it falls on me to make sure this group is no longer the laughing stock of the galaxy anymore! It was shameful, Recooome, and you know it. Absolutely bloody shameful!”
“I thought we all had a pretty good time,” Recoome pouted. “You had fun, admit it. You were the youngest recruit of the Ginyu Force at that time, now that we have these two. We may have been the joke…. Until they saw what we could do and that was the point, Jeyice.”
“There was no bloody point,” Jeyice snorted. “We danced around like idjits-”
“Exactly, it was a diversion to make our opponents drop their guard, you should know that; Captain Ginyu always reminded us of it before battle.” Recoome interrupted him. “Why do you think the galaxy feared us when they heard we were sent on a mission?”
“I have no fucking clue, Recoome.” Jeyice sighed. “We’d show up, do our thing and our adversaries looked at us like we were clowns.”
“And that was when we’d strike!” Recoome reminded him, punching one fist into his hand for emphasis. “That was why we were successful. They never saw it coming. Sure it was silly some of the time, but we were a deadly force to be reckoned with and we need to hang onto that to honour the Captain now that he’s gone. We do that by leaving the formula the same and by training these boys the way that Captain Ginyu so generously trained us.”
“Minus the theatrics,”
“No, we need the theatrics!” Recoome insisted.
“What good are theatrics if you cannot back it up?” Jeyice asked. “They can have all the flair and talent that the Captain would have wanted but if they couldn’t back it up on the battle field, it’s useless Recoome. Completely and utterly useless.”
“Alright, Jeyice,” Recoome nodded, putting his hands up in defence. “I will work with them.”
“Teach them something fucking useful then!” he snarled. “Idiotic dance moves and striking brilliant poses aren’t useful.” he finished, exiting the training room in a huff.
“Okay boys, you heard him. Let’s learn something new!” Recoome said cheerfully, approaching the boys.
“I told you all that was a waste of time,” Trunks huffed.
“It will come in handy, you’ll see,” Recoome shrugged. “Now both of you, come at me!”
In a second, both boys launched themselves towards him and so began a warm up spar that would hopefully lead to useful lessons in combat rather than lessons more suited for the theatre.
-0-0-0-
With the boys and Jeice gone, Bulma fell into a simple, rigorous routine of working all day in the lab and then working almost all night long in her room, sometimes only getting in a few hours’ sleep.
Her Hope project was coming along quite nicely. She managed to fix her Instant Transmission project that Gero had trashed several weeks back. The only real problem she could understand with it was that the generator wasn’t very efficient. It used a lot of energy and it took forever to recharge it, which was a problem she would need to address later on.
Bulma stood up and stretched; she had been bent over on the floor finishing tightening and fixing her project for longer than she thought and now she was stiff and had a knot in her neck. She knew it was late and she should be getting to bed but she just wasn’t tired and she wanted to get as much done while she had the opportunity.
Gero’s careful watch on her had been steadily waning as of late. She figured it was because she never attempted to escape or do anything that would raise his suspicion from him and it had hopefully lulled him into a false sense that she had accepted her surroundings. Which in a way she had, but that still didn’t mean she wasn’t going to use every resource or opportunity she could to further her escape plans. It may take longer this way, but it was better to work slowly and steadily instead of being careless and risk potentially losing everything she had already worked so hard on and losing the amount of freedom she already had. It wasn’t a ton of freedom, but it was enough that so far she had been able to work on her own undiscovered.
Deciding on a quick break, she went into her small kitchen to make herself some tea and see what she could scrounge up to eat. The boys had given her all sorts of goodies before they had left. She smiled to herself at the thought of them. Sure she revelled in the silence and lack of drama these past few weeks they had been gone, but she missed them terribly and hoped they were alright wherever they were.
She realized then that she had no teabags left in her little container. She groaned inwardly and still set her kettle to boil herself some water before sneaking out of her own room.
As she quietly snuck over to where she knew Gero kept his stash she was startled as she heard something.
“Dende!” she whispered hoarsely. “What are you doing here at this hour?”
“You scared me,” he commented with a small smile.
“Sorry,” she whispered apologetically.
“It’s okay,” he said, and began sweeping the floor again. “I’m cleaning. What are you doing?”
“I couldn’t sleep so I was getting something to make tea,” she replied. It was half true. “Why are you cleaning?”
“I always clean,” he shrugged. “Someone needs to do it. Gero won’t let anyone else in the lab to do it so he makes me do it.”
Bulma frowned at the little Namek. It never once occurred to her who cleaned and straightened up the lab. Sure she almost always tidied her work area before she turned in for the day but the overall state of the lab was always near impeccable. “Well, why didn’t you say something?” she asked him, feeling somewhat guilty. “I can help you. It’s not fair for you to have to do it all especially since Gero is a bit of a pig when it comes to his work station.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that but I don’t think he would like that very much; he’s very paranoid.”
Bulma nodded in understanding. “Well, I wouldn’t want to do anything that might get you into trouble but if you want, maybe we can split the work load?” she suggested. “You can do Gero’s work space and I can take care of my own and whatever else needs to be done?”
“That might be alright,” Dende replied with an appreciative smile. “I’m almost done for today so don’t worry about it but you can help me tomorrow if you want?”
“Sounds like a deal!” she smiled, grabbing a few tea bags. “You sure you don’t have anything else that needs doing tonight? It’s late, you should be sleeping.”
“No, I just need to sweep up. Thank you though,” Dende replied politely. “Why are you up so late? I know you generally don’t sleep because the light in your room is always on until late; sometimes you’re still up when I’m finished here.”
Bulma looked at him a moment, wondering if she could tell him about what she was working on. She had a feeling that he was trustworthy. They hadn’t spoken much because Gero was almost always present but she was under the distinct impression that the young Namek child was not happy here and would more than likely jump at the opportunity to escape if she found a way out.
“If you are planning an escape, please take me with you!” he whispered hoarsely from across the room as though he had been able to read her thoughts. “If there’s anything I can do to help, please tell me. I’ll do just about anything to get out of here and back to my people.”
She nodded and silently indicated for him to follow her back to her room, which he eagerly set the broom aside and followed her.
“You have to promise that you won’t tell anyone about this; no one!” she lectured him.
“I promise, I won’t,” he said firmly. “I figured you were working on something and I’ve wanted to ask you for a while but never had the opportunity until now.”
“Alright,” she nodded, deciding then to take a leap of faith that she could trust the little Namek. So far he hadn’t done anything that made her question his motives of helping her. He was, after all a slave here just like she was. “Remember that Instant Transmission project I made for King Cold?”
“Yes,” he nodded.
Bulma locked her door and took out the capsule she had stored it in and decapsulated it in the middle of the floor. “I didn’t throw it away, I took it and was able to salvage it. I’m almost finished fixing it.”
Dende looked appreciatively at it. “I thought it was a really great idea, I didn’t understand why Dr. Gero and King Cold weren’t impressed with it.
“I don’t know either and I was initially really annoyed because of all the effort and work that had gone into it but that’s okay; it’s worked out greatly to my advantage that they didn’t want it.” she shrugged off. “I’ve come up with something even better!”
“What are you going to do with it?” he asked, looking at the controls in interest.
“Well, I’m not sure if it is even possible and feel free to tell me I’m crazy, but I wanted to turn it into a time machine,” she said. “Like if I could go back and change even one small thing, maybe we wouldn’t be here. You know? I can think of two or even three fixed points that had Vegeta or myself had done something entirely different, we wouldn’t be here.”
Dende was quiet a moment as he took in her admission.
“You think I’m nuts, don’t you?” she asked in a dejected tone, knowing that in all likelihood this hair brained idea was probably less possible and more ridiculous than King Cold’s invisibility project he had her slaving over.
“No,” the young Namek shook his head. “It is possible to do what you are thinking of, but highly illegal.”
“What! So there is a way?” she asked dumbfounded. “I can’t believe it! I haven’t just been wasting my time!”
“Just hang on a second,” Dende said, putting his hand up to get her attention. “What you are proposing can be done, but you aren’t considering whether or not it should be done.”
Bulma frowned somewhat. “Why wouldn’t I if I could do it?”
“Because it’s not that simple,” Dende said, sounding far more mature than usual. “I don’t know a lot about it, but my people did and they frowned very heavily against it.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because it’s risky,” he answered vaguely. “You are putting a lot of things at risk by going back to a fixed point in your own personal timeline just to change one thing.”
“Well how bad would it be to change one thing?” she asked. “Wouldn’t the entire universe play out all over again the way it will anyway?”
“Only the events that aren’t directly related to the changes you may make,” he replied. “You changing one thing though could change the outcome of the entire universe if you’re not careful. Despite good intentions, you could make it worse. It’s not worth it. Things generally happen for a reason.”
“Well Vegeta-sei might still be standing if we had done things differently. Maybe Vegeta would have won if he had been forewarned or better prepared so it would have changed that,” she reasoned. “What about yourself? I’m sure there’s things you’ve thought you would do differently if you could so you wouldn’t have ended up here.
“You told me that you found Gero and he took you and forced you to help him and took you from your home. What if you could go back and leave yourself a note to warn yourself to not leave your house that day or if you do, don’t go anywhere alone or if you come across Gero to keep going and not help him.”
Dende nodded in understanding from where she was coming from but still was not convinced. “You don’t understand, it would be wrong of me to not help someone in need, not to mention horribly selfish to make a change like that and knowingly let someone die.”
“Okay, I can kind of see what you mean, but if you hadn’t helped Gero, he would have maybe died and then he would have never found Cold and King Cold would have never known that it was Vegeta who killed Frieza and he wouldn’t have waged war on Vegeta-sei so it would still be standing. Not only that, but the androids would have never been built either without Gero in the picture and King Cold wouldn’t be getting ready to terrorize the rest of the universe with them. So you’re essentially not being selfish. Everything would be exactly as it was before you were taken! You would still be home with your own people and Vegeta and I would be wherever; happy, safe and sound raising Trunks. None of us would be here.”
Dende was quiet as she explained the advantages to him. He didn’t say anything after a long moment before he started to cry. “So all of this is my fault!” he cried, looking up at her in horror.
“Oh no, Dende, sweetie, no!” she said frantically dropping a piece of equipment that was in her hand and rushing to give him a hug. “No, no. None of this is your fault! That’s not at all what I meant! I was just thinking about how things would be different is all.” It was the truth. She felt horribly now for spinning things that way. The last thing she wanted to do was upset Dende. He was the closest thing to a friend she had in this place and she regretted now letting her mouth run without thinking first about how he may have interpreted her rambling.
“But you said-”
“Ya, forget about what I said,” she sighed. “I was only using it as an example of the good things we could do with this, not to make you feel bad.
“I screwed up too, you know. If I had left when Vegeta had wanted me to or if I hadn’t gone with him to Vegeta-sei at all, things would be different,” she said and looked darkly at the floor. Vegeta’s father might still be alive, she added silently herself.
“I get what you are saying but it’s still a bad idea,” he sniffed. “We could get into a lot of trouble if anyone found out.”
“It’s a risk I’m willing to take if it means changing my life course even a little bit,” she said determinedly. She would do this with or without Dende’s help she decided. “Besides, who could possibly find out?”
“Uhm, the galactic time patrol police?” he replied as though she were stupid.
“There’s police for this kind of thing?” she asked.
“Do you really think you’re the first person in the universe to think of this or try to make it happen to change a few things?” he deadpanned.
“I don’t know,” she shrugged, slightly annoyed with the tone at which he had said that to her. “Probably not. But not everyone is as brilliant as I am either. There’s a big difference between thinking about it and wishing it was possible and actually doing it, you know.” She said feigning an arrogant tone.
Dende shook his head at her, unimpressed and not getting that she was only half jesting. “It’s a good idea, but honestly not worth the effort if we get caught and it wouldn’t change anything anyway.”
“What do you mean it wouldn’t change anything anyway?”
“What do you think would happen here with all that’s happened?” he asked her. “Sure you can go back and change whatever you want but that won’t change the outcome here. This timeline will play out as intended. No amount of time travel will alter it or change it or undo it.”
So it was a waste of her time, she realized, feeling deflated. “So then what’s the big deal? Why is it illegal?”
“Because if you go back to a fixed point in your personal timeline, you automatically create another parallel universe that doesn’t need to exist and wouldn’t otherwise. It’s tampering with unnatural forces,” Dende explained. “You could create a whole bunch of universes all branching out in different directions. What if you go back to warn yourself and so they take a different path and it turns out worse. So then they decide to figure out how to travel back in time to go back and warn themselves to not do what they did? Now there are three identical but different parallel universes operating and so on and so forth. You could be creating a bad pattern here and before you know it, there could be ten negative outcome parallel universes running simultaneously. That’s why it isn’t a good idea and that’s why it’s illegal.”
Bulma continued to sit there, mulling over Dende’s warnings and concerns. She knew she should be taking it seriously and what he’d told her should be deterring her from this path, however the only thing standing out to her was it is possible, it can be done. That was the only thought that seemed to be overriding everything else. She knew it was selfish to not care about the rest of the universe and the potential chaos she may cause by doing this but she almost didn’t care. Knowing that there was another universe out there where she and Vegeta and the boys were safe and happy was worth the risk enough, in her opinion.
“You’re still going to do it, aren’t you,” Dende said, noting the determined look on her face.
“If I can fix things for a past version of my family, then yes. I will,” she replied in finality.
“If you’re caught though-”
Bulma shrugged indifferently. “What does it matter? If I get caught and arrested it can’t be any worse than what I’m facing now,” she reasoned stubbornly. “You think I’m happy here, like this? I’m already practically in jail; so is my husband if I think about it. I work like a slave for Gero and Cold during the day and at night I don’t get any peace because I have to whore myself out to that pig so that he will let me interact with my boys. Believe me, going to a galactic jail would probably be better if not the same so it’s a risk I’m more than willing to take. You don’t have to help me if you are against it, morally; but please don’t stop me.”
Dende looked at her and shook his head. He felt for her, he really did. He pretended like he didn’t know what was going on between her and Jeyice, but he knew there was something wrong going on there. Her whole attitude and demeanour had changed since that had started. Not to mention she had made him go and get a remedy for her so that she would not get pregnant by him.
“I’ll even mention you to my past self to either have someone send a message to your people to come and rescue you or if Vegeta does come here anyway to make sure he comes here to find you first before blowing this place up,” she offered.
“You’re still playing a very dangerous game, Bulma,” he sighed, though he did appreciate the gesture. “Have you given any thought of how you’re getting out of here with the boys and Vegeta?”
“No,” she sighed. “Unfortunately that has me stumped. I can’t get out of the lab unless Jeyice convinces King Cold to let me move in with him and I can’t do that, Dende; I just can’t. I don’t care that strategically it may be a better option. It’s bad enough pretending here nearly every night that I want him when he comes around; I can’t live my whole life like that. I’ll kill myself if that happens.”
Dende nodded in agreement. “I won’t help you with your time project, but I will help you with an escape plan if you are still in agreement on taking me with you.”
“Of course I will!” she said. “I already told you that if I’m getting out of here, you’re coming with us. You’re as much a hostage here as we are.”
“Alright,” Dende nodded. “I need to get some rest. You should too, it’s getting really late.”
“I know,” she agreed, yawning. She hadn’t realized how tired she actually was until he mentioned it. “Thanks, Dende.”
“What are you thanking me for?” he asked in puzzlement.
“For letting me talk to you and understanding what it is I’m trying to do, even if you don’t agree with it.”
“I’d help you, but I really don’t want to be an accomplice,” he replied.
“That’s fair,” she nodded. “If you help us get out of here, I’ll love you forever.”
Dende smiled as he exited her room for the evening.
Bulma stood there in silence for several seconds before capsulizing her work. She was more than happy that she had confirmation that not only was it possible, but that it could work. It saddened her that it didn’t matter what she did to change the past because it wouldn’t change her current life, but that was alright. She would gladly try to change things for her past self and Vegeta.
“If we only knew then what we know now,” she said quietly to herself as she hid her capsule away and started towards her bedroom, forgetting all about her tea.
-0-0-0-
For those of you who are really missing Vegeta, hope that helped out just a bit…. I miss him too. Thankfully he’s just asleep and not in hell like he thinks he is.
Anyway, thanks for reading!! :D