Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Camouflage ❯ Chapter Two ( Chapter 2 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Goku, Piccolo, and Yamcha slowly emerged from their hiding spots, which had thankfully been close to one another, the moment that they felt Radditz's ki signature stop moving. Simultaneously, Krillen's ki skyrocketed. The three glanced at each other worriedly, but before anyone could react, there was an enormous flash and Radditz could be seen streaking across the sky towards the palace. Piccolo squinted and noticed with a sinking feeling that he was carrying two figures along with him. He was not the only one who had noticed.

"Oh Kami!" Goku exclaimed, his eyes following the retreating form of Radditz. "Who does he have? I can't tell with his ki being so high -- its blurring the identities of the other two!"

Piccolo knew that no matter who it was, the Saiya-jin was going to take a huge blow. Though relations between he and his wife had been strained as of late, the woman had borne him his only son and had been with him since adolescence. And if one of the figures happened to be Bulma... well, then they were all screwed. The prospect of Vejita getting his hands on the knowledge that she possessed was a terrifying one.

"Bulma!" Yamcha suddenly shouted, bringing Piccolo back to attention.

Indeed, Bulma was sprinting in their direction, knocking pedestrians carelessly aside as she approached. The Namek scrutinized her closely as she came to a halt before them, panting for breath. Her eyes were guarded and her normally rosy skin was pale. He did not know whether to believe that it was from general fear of Radditz or from having witnessed something gruesome. He was reminded that he had not yet been able to talk to her alone -- it was especially important that he do so now that they had been discovered and some of them had been captured.

"What happened, Bulma?" Goku demanded impatiently, grabbing her shoulders to force her to meet his eyes. "Tell me! We just saw Radditz scramble for the palace like a bat out of hell!"

The girl sighed heavily, her face morphing into an expression of sorrow and compassion for her distressed friend. "Radditz took them," she managed to get out between deep breaths. "Krillen and Chichi... he's taken them to the palace, probably to be questioned by Vejita himself." Her eyes said it all -- the two would be tortured for information regarding their -- more specifically, her -- whereabouts.

Goku released his hold on her, letting his arms drop limply to his sides. Piccolo did not feel sympathy very often, but it was hard not to now. It was bad enough for Goku to lose his son, but now he had lost his wife, too. The Namek set a hand on his shoulder, gripping it reassuringly. "He may not kill them, Goku -- it wouldn't be Vejita's style and you know it. He'll most likely hold them until he finds the rest of us."

Bulma looked relieved at Piccolo's statement and was quick to agree. "He's right, Goku. Vejita will probably want to deal with all of us together. In the meantime, we have to press on. We're not doing Krillen and Chichi any favors by not being cautious." With a resolute frown, she started marching deeper into the city, leaving the others to follow.

"Be strong, Goku-chan," Yamcha said as he embraced his long-time friend. "I'm sure that they'll just be imprisoned..."

Piccolo shook his head as he followed the slight form of the human girl, overhearing Yamcha's naive assurances. It might not be Vejita's style to just kill them off without an kind of fanfare or warning, but it was also not his style to simply toss them into a dungeon until they were found. He had no doubt in his mind that Chichi and Krillen would be subjected to all kinds of horrors, and that Goku would most likely never be reunited with his wife again.

Ahead of the others, Bulma stared at her feet, trying to push Goku's devastated expression out of her mind. No matter what she had done, Chichi and Krillen would have been doomed, and that was a fact. She owed neither explanation nor apology to anyone. Besides, not matter what happened, they had to move on and push forward with their lives. It was either that, or share in the fate of their two unfortunate friends, whatever that may be.


. . Vejita . .

The humans, in chains on the floor before my throne, are blubbering like fools as I casually approach and take my seat. Radditz is standing over them, covered with their blood and looking quite frustrated. The second that I was alerted of Radditz's 'accomplishment', I ordered him to do some preliminary beatings, just to assure compliance. I am simply not in the mood to banter back and forth all night in order to gain the information that I want.

"Explain," I demand of Radditz. "Why do you bring me these two and not who I have asked for?"

"It is the result of random occurrence, Vejita-sama," he started, giving the bald man a swift kick to the ribs when he began to squirm. The disgusting midget human had the audacity to cough up blood on my beautiful black marble floors. "Nappa was out dicking around when he ran into Kakkarott and the Briefs girl. They had apparently been pickpocketing the very person that Nappa killed. They managed to get away from him, thanks to the girl -- she pretty much castrated Nappa. The scientists in the medical wing say that he has lost the ability to procreate."

I cannot stop myself from chuckling at this piece of information. Little Bulma Briefs managed to bring down Nappa? Very amusing indeed. I motion for Radditz to continue.

"I was out patrolling another part of the city when I felt Nappa's ki flare up. Naturally, I went to investigate, since the only being who would warrant powering up on this piece of shit planet would be Kakkarott. When I got there, Nappa pointed me in the direction that they had fled to. I found these two immediately, and lured the Briefs girl out using them." Radditz looks nervous as he presents this piece of information, and rightfully so.

"Do mean to tell me that both you and Nappa had the girl in your immediate grasp, and yet she still managed to escape?" The ningens on the floor start sobbing again at my angry tone of voice. I growl at them, and they immediately shut up. "She castrated Nappa; what's your excuse?" This should be interesting.

Radditz looks confused as he explains. "Well, I attempted to make a bargain with her -- she would have had to surrender herself to save these two. She -- well, she refused my offer and ran, leaving these two at my mercy."

Interesting indeed. I move from my comfortable seat on my throne and pace on the raised platform it rests on, processing this. I had expected Bulma to be hardened by her new life, but to this extent... I had never anticipated this. She had pulled a heartless manuveur -- the very vice that she had always disdained so much in me. This was better than anything I could have hoped for. By the time she comes to me, she'll be completely conditioned for the life that I will require of her. My anger at Radditz and Nappa's failure is actually quelled by this change in Bulma.

"What will become of these two, Emperor?" Radditz asked. "I can kill them now if you want. You have made no mention of plans for them."

Initially, I did not have plans for anyone but Bulma, Piccolo, and Kakkarott, but as I stare down at my two newest prisoners, something comes to mind. Several things, in fact -- but one will have to wait until the woman is found. "I suppose I could dispose of them, but the entertainment that that would provide would be pretty fleeting, would it not?"

Radditz, sensing that I have something better in mind, grins. Sick bastard. "Yes, it would. What did you have in mind, Vejita-sama?"

I step off of the dias, towards Kakkarott's mate and the bald man. They shrink away from me as if I carry some kind of plague -- their reaction makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Scaring the shit out of people is definitely one of my top ten favorite occupations. "Since women without some sort of sexually-transmitted disease are so rare these days, it would be a shame to let a perfectly good one go to waste." I give Kakkarott's mate a nudge with my boot, earning me a shriek of terror. Music to my ears... "She's a bit plain for my tastes, but I suppose that she'll serve the occupants of the palace well enough. She'll go to the servants quarters, to be used as a whore or whatever else is called for."

"Goku will come for me!" the annoying woman shouts. Her unpleasant voice makes me angry again. "He'll save me and kill you!"

I roll my eyes and nod to Radditz. He delivers a blow to the back of head, effectively knocking her unconscious and, thankfully, silent. The baldy starts to cry -- what a fucking disgrace. On Vejitasei someone so weak and womanly would never have been allowed to call himself a warrior. "And as for cueball here... send him to the med wing. I'm sure there are a few scientists looking for a test subject. Perhaps they can cause hair to grow on his head... and his balls."

Radditz starts to take the humans from the room, looking a bit too content for my tastes. I stop him with a clearing of my throat. He halts and turns slowly, unsuccessfully concealing a look of dread. Smart man.

"You didn't think that I was going to let your failure go unpunished, did you?"


The remaining Z senshi travelled until dark before at last stopping at a crowded hostel many miles from where their friends had been taken. Goku and Yamcha wearily wandered inside to see if there was any space available, leaving Piccolo and Bulma alone. The human woman immediately pulled out a dainty little cigar and lit it, releasing a deep sigh as she exhaled the sweet-smelling smoke.

"What was it that you wanted to talk to me about?" she suddenly asked, glancing up at Piccolo tiredly. At his look of surprise, she smirked. "I didn't forget about it. I'm smart enough to know to at least listen to what you say."

The Namekian nodded, acknowledging her point. "You're not going to like what I have to say, but please shut up and pay attention anyway."

Bulma lifted an eyebrow, intrigiued. "Fair enough. Thanks for the warning, I guess."

"I know what happened back there," Piccolo started gravely, studying Bulma's face for a reaction. "I know the decision you made."

She said nothing -- simply lifted her chin ever-so-slightly and set her mouth in a resolute line. "I don't know what you're getting at here, but --"

"I'm not accusing you of doing anything wrong," Piccolo quickly recovered. Personally, he would have made the same choice, but then again he hadn't had the long-time friendship with Chichi and Krillen than Bulma had had. "I am simply using this to warn you of something -- this time you made the correct choice, but next time might be different. If you give in to temptation and surrender yourself to that bastard Saiya-jin, it will be the end of us all. You must realize what you would truly be giving up to Vejita -- it isn't just your body. It is your mind that he needs; he needs your technical genius. You must never allow him to have it!"

Bulma narrowed her eyes defensively as Piccolo's tone hardened. "If you think that I would just offer myself to him like some kind of idiot, then you have another thing coming. I know what's at stake -- if he gets his hands on some of the knowledge that I possess, then the universe is basically his. Am I correct?"

"Vejita will eventually find you," the Namekian hissed quickly, seeing Goku coming out of the hostel towards them. "But don't let him have all of you."

"There's room, guys," Goku announced. "Yamcha's already setting up a place to sleep."

"Very well," Piccolo replied, holding his intense eye contact with Bulma until he turned and entered the dingy building.

"I'm right behind you," Bulma snapped, before Goku could say anything further. "Go on inside."

Too tired and depressed to question her tempermental answer, the Saiya-jin went back inside, leaving Bulma alone with her thoughts.


. . Goku . .

The floor of this hostel is quite possibly the most uncomfortable I've experienced yet. On top of the plethora of thoughts running a million miles per hour through my head, my awkward sleeping position prevents me from getting anything even remotely resembling sleep. Yamcha snores heartily beside me -- he's developed a ridiculous talent for falling asleep instantaneously, no matter where he is. Bulma is conspicuously still missing. Piccolo is laying down with his back to me. I don't even know if Nameks actually sleep. Judging from what happened today, I would put my money on him meditating rather than dreaming. Not that I care whether he notices me leaving.

Carefully, I make my way around the sleeping (and some slightly more, ah... active) bodies that crowd the floor of the hostel. As I step outside, I am greeted with a burst of chilling air. I scan the immediate area for any sign of Bulma, but she is nowhere to be found. She wouldn't have wandered too far away, would she? I do a quick scan of the area and finally find her, which is quite a feat since there seem to be a lot of people in this district.

She is a few blocks away, on a rooftop, which she usually does when she wants to be alone. I used to try to make a joke out of her gutter-climbing skills, but that stopped being funny really quickly when I realized how much that time means to Bulma. She seems to find some kind of comfort in watching the stars -- she's conducting some sort of search, I think. When she believes no one's watching her, her wide eyes scan the sky for something, something important. I think that when she's alone up there, staring at space, she can almost forget about what's at stake. Or maybe she just thinks about Vejita. I'm not as dumb as everyone might think -- I see that she thinks about him a lot. She always gets the same look on her face when she's reliving memories of him: glazed-over eyes, dreamy half-smile... sometimes she even blushes. That's right -- Bulma Briefs, blushing. That might have been easy to picture three years ago when she still had some kind of innocence, but now... it shocks me every time.

Eyeing the building that she is residing on top of, I sigh. I would give anything to be able to levitate to the top, but even that small exertion releases my ki signature for Vejita or one of his cronies to sense. So, I start the long climb. I'm impressed with Bulma; this is one of her best yet. When I finally reach the top, I see that Bulma has been watching my trek up the building.

"I guess being a Saiya-jin doesn't really make that much of a difference when you can't use your ki, eh?" she asks, looking a little amused.

She turns away from me again to lie on her back and stare up at the sky, which is crystal clear this night. I lay down a few feet away from her. We sat in silence for a long while, her searching for whatever it is she's always looking for up there. I am tempted to ask, but I know that if I did, she would shut down or get angry with me for being nosy. So, instead, I observe her out of the corner of my eye. I had thought that Chichi's capture would have done away with whatever kind of attraction I feel for Bulma, but as I watch her now I am seeing something quite different. Bulma looks even better to me now. She's a survivor.

Every inch of her oozes strength, yet femininity at the same time. Her long lavender hair is ragged and slightly unkempt, yet still retains its sheen and, I can only imagine, its softness. Her once rounded young body has become long, lean, and muscled. The planes of face are still delicate, but there is something there that wasn't before -- her cheekbones are sharper, maybe. The biggest give-away of that small surviving bit of her former self are her eyes. The dreamy sky blue color that she has possessed for her entire childhood remains, though the emotions passing through it tend to distort its pureness sometimes. Nonetheless, I can still see it. Even her clothes ooze toughness -- from her boots, the knife slung low around her waist, her practical, rugged jumpsuit... she could be the female Indiana Jones. I resist a tiny chuckle at that mental picture.

"Why are you always looking at me like that?" Bulma's annoyed question brings me back to cruel reality, where she is hardly a friend and my wife is in the clutches of Vejita. Her blue eyes are narrowed at me, diverted from their stargazing.

I try to think of a plausible lie, but not a one comes to me. "I... I just..."

Bulma turns over from her back to her side, facing me. There is an odd look on her face -- almost feral. Its terrifying. "You just what? Spit it out, Son-kun."

My mental blank is not remedied by her impatience or scrutiny. "Its nothing, I just..."

"You just want me," she finishes for me. At my shocked expression, she actually chuckles. "Don't look so surprised. You don't hide it very well. You may love Chichi, but you lust for me. You're not so innocent as you would have everyone believe -- you are a Saiya-jin, after all." She gets that strange look on her face again, more intense this time. "Believe me, I have learned a thing or two about the power of the Saiya-jin sex drive."

I am frozen in place; did Bulma really just call me out on my feelings? For the life of me, I cannot settle on a reaction. I simply lay there and stammer like an idiot. She smirks, looking an awfully lot like Vejita, and crawls over to me. Though she has almost no ki to speak of, her aura sizzles with sexuality -- that special something that lends it its unique signature. My arms actually erupt in goosebumps as she leans over me, her lavender curls brushing my face.

"If you want me, Goku, then take me," she whispers, her breath hot on my face. Her face is closer to mine and I can see into her eyes; I immediately discover what is going on when I see that they are brimming with tears. Reluctantly, I sit up and gently push her away from me. The temperature of the air around me seems to drop ten degrees without her presence.

"What you say might be true, but its not what you want," I say gently. She looks bewildered. I feel sympathy for her suddenly -- she truly misses Vejita, aches for him to the point where she would do something so strange as give herself to me, but she would never admit it to anyone. "Why don't you just let those tears fall, Bulma-chan? You need release more than anyone."

She is enraged; she jumps to her feet and glares down at me. The tears have disappeared. "Crying won't do me any good! Crying won't help keep me hidden from him, and it sure as hell won't make me feel better! Don't you dare feel sorry for me, Son-kun! I'm just fucking fine!"

I watch as she climbs back down to the street below and heads for the hostel, leaving me alone on the rooftop.


. . Bulma . .

The hostel is quiet as I return and make my way to where the others, minus Son-kun, are sleeping. With a heavy sigh, I collapse into the empty space between Yamcha and Piccolo. The floor is hard and uncomfortable, but no more or less so than any other space I've slept on since taking to the streets. I could fall asleep upside down in zero degree weather if the situation called for it.

"Could you two have at least waited until Chichi was gone for more than a day?" Yamcha, apparently very awake, hisses under his breath at me. I ignore the snide comment, though considering what just happened on the rooftop, there was some validity to the statement.

I try not to dwell on my strange actions. I don't know what came over me; all of a sudden I felt as if I were actually attracted to Goku. Since I am positive that that is not the case, I brush it off as everything getting to me. Hell, I'm surprised that attempting to seduce Goku is all that I did. I turn my back to Yamcha, who I know is waiting for a reaction, and close my eyes. The stars are still imprinted in my mind.

He is out there again, in his regular spot, his regal profile illuminated only by the moonlight. The stars are reflected in his black eyes; the stars are the only things that seem to ever make them shine.

He does not acknowledge me as I approach. Though I am, as he dubs me, a "weakling", I am fairly easily able to climb to this particular part of the roof from his balcony. I cannot pinpoint exactly why he sometimes allows me to sit here with him, but the wise choice is not to push my luck by asking. Vejita sits silently, pensively, his attention focused on the heavens while my attention is focused on him. The usual.

After a good length of silence, I steel my nerves and speak up. "What are you looking for?" I ask, following his line of sight to the blackness above.

He does not answer immediately -- by no means did I expect him to at all. "I am not looking for anything. Are you always this persistent?" I have asked him the same thing several times before, I realize.

"You have never told me what it is that you do up here. I can't see you just chilling up here for the hell of it."

Black eyes show me the tiniest hint of amusement. Its the closest thing I'll ever get to affection. "I am a warrior; a warrior always takes careful note of his surroundings so that he can always be prepared. I wouldn't expect your race to know anything of this."

"The stars are a million miles away and your home is here." The warm summer breeze caresses my face; I close my eyes to savor the feeling. When I open them, Vejita is watching me, his stony expression giving away nothing. "You have nothing to prepare for; we are safe."

"This Kami-forsaken place will never be my home," he growls. "My home was destroyed many years ago, though it is still visible from here. And you are as ignorant as Kakkarott if you think that you are ever safe."

Irony is truly an amazing thing.

Ah. There it is. As he turns back to the sky once again, I examine the section of sky that he is looking at more carefully, taking note of the brighter spots in the area. When I return to my lab, I will look up sky charts and figure out which star is in fact Vejita-sei. "Vejita-sei's distance from Earth must be considerable if it can still be seen from here."

Vejita grimaces; I imagine that to him home is much farther away than even I can fathom. He is so out of place here; a ruler -- a space pirate even -- trapped on this backwater planet among a population which knows nothing of his existence. Perhaps this is why my attraction to him is so strong. No one on Earth could possibly compare. Besides, I know what its like to be different from those around you -- my intelligence and social standing have always set me apart from my peers.

"By studying the sky, I can calculate my exact location in the universe." He flashes me an eerie smile, something that is altogether sinister and sends an unpleasant chill down my spine. "I have found that domination requires a thorough knowledge of all of a planet's nuances."

I thought nothing of it at the time, but I realize now that Vejita had essentially warned me of his true intentions, once again. Lucky me.

When I woke up that following morning, I holed myself up in my lab and pored over star charts for the remainder of the afternoon. After hours of scrutiny and several cups of coffee, I was able to pinpoint Vejita-sei's exact location. Vejita, surprisingly, had been looking in just the right direction. I should not have been surprised at this -- he has traveled the universe extensively and probably knows more of astronomy than I could ever hope to.

Now, whenever the sun dips below the horizon, I find myself scanning the sky, dreading the day when that tiny pinpoint of stellar light disappears, taking Vejita's home away from him forever.

Somewhere, in one of the towers of his dark palace, perhaps Vejita is watching too.


..............



[A/N]: Sorry about the long wait on this chapter -- blame the holidays. Please remember to leave a review!