Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Confessions Of A Believer: II ❯ An Ending...Of Sorts ( Chapter 11 )

Slowly, painstakingly, I came around. A dull ache in the back and side of my head told me that I'd not just imagined being smashed by something hard. I felt my arms at an odd angle behind me and, when I tried to move, realized I was bound hand and foot and laying on a cold stone floor. My eyes fluttered open and I tried to see in the darkness, tried to see where I was and to find Bulma.

I looked towards where I thought the cave opening should have been. Should have been, but was not. Only a darkened rock wall. It would seem I was in an alcove within the cave. I heard a soft moaning behind me and struggled to roll myself over, the pain in my head making it nearly impossible to think clearly. All I saw every time I moved, was a haze of red agony.

"Bulma...?" I whispered, seeing a dark shape curled against the far wall behind me. The shape was shivering and I called her name again. This time, it seemed, she heard me. "I...I'm here." She said, her voice barely audiable, "My leg is broken...I can't breathe...very well..."

"Where are we?" I asked her, fearful that whoever had done this would be back any second, "Do you remember anything? Did you see anything...?"

"No..." She gasped and choked, I guessed it was on her own blood for a moment later I heard her spitting something up, "They grabbed me from behind, I never saw...saw their faces..."

"Who are they?" I asked, more to myself than to her, "What do they want?"

"It doesn't matter, Ami," Bulma said between sobs of pain, "They are dead when my...husband...finds us..."

I was spared having to reply when I heard footfalls. Bulma heard them too and went rigid behind me. A large man, hair greased back with a full beard on his somewhat pudgy face, greeted us. I noticed the animal-skin hides he wore over his bulky form stank of sweat and old food, making me feel sick to my stomach. He was followed by a smaller, thinner and much cleaner-seeming man dressed in more...modern...attire. The smaller one was also clean-shaven and wore a pair of half-rimmed glasses he kept shoving back up onto his needle-like nose.

"Hey, boss, you were right!" The large, bearded one laughed, the sound echoing off the cave walls, "It's her! That Capsule chick!"

"Of course I'm right, you imbecile!" Needle-nose spat, "All we have to do is keep her for a few days, get the ransom note to her family and we'll be living high on the hog for the rest of our lives!"

Oh my god! I thought, as I heard Bulma struggling to sit up behind me. I hoped she would take her own advice and keep her mouth shut. Of course, being Bulma, she did not. "You had better let us go if you know what's good for you!" She raged, coughed, groaned and went on; "When my husband finds us you are a couple of dead men! You hear me? Dead men!"

Shut up, Bulma! I thought furiously, wishing she could sense my thoughts, Just Shut up all ready!

Needle-nose walked calmly over to her, bend down and slapped her hard across the face. Her hands and feet bound like mine, she could not catch herself when she fell and landed on her side. Hard. Whimpering, but no longer screaming, I heard Bulma crying to herself. I felt like doing the same. I felt like curling up into a little ball and crying until I had nothing left to cry. It was pretty much how I always reacted when faced with something that frightened me or was out of my control. But, I did not. My eyes stayed dry, even when they checked my bonds and tightened them up so much they cut into the flesh of my wrists and ankles.

"Please!" I cried, my heart hammering in my chest, telling myself to just be quiet, if I were quiet enough perhaps they'd forget about me, "My head hurts...I think it's been cracked...and Bulma's not doing so good either. You have to take us to a medical center!"

The fat one laughed and said; "Yeah right, so you can run off and tell someone about us? Fat chance, Missy!"

"But she could die!" I cried, I didn't really care for Bulma, but I found that I wanted her dead about as much as she wanted me dead. I just didn't go for the idea of people I had come to know being killed for stupid reasons, "You can't collect the ransom if she'd dead!"

Without a word, Needle-nose left the cave, leaving the fat one to stand gaurd over us. The back of my head felt sticky, my hair was matted to the blood that had seeped out when my skull met the large object which had sent me swirling into oblivion. An oblivion I wish I were still a part of. At least then I wouldn't feel so scared. Needle-nose reappeared, a look of panic on his rat-like features. He said to his partner; "We have to move. Now!"

I felt myself being jerked to my feet, my head swam and I barely registered Bulma's cry of agony as she was dragged cruelly from the cave. Fighting to stay awake, I felt my head loll as the bearded one held me around the waist, so that I hung limply over his beefy arm. I am not certain how much time passed as we were carried, jarringly I might add, up what seemed to be a thick cliff-side. I wanted nothing more than it all to just stop. Just end. Right now. I was more than sick of this little adventure. I swear to God, if I got out this alive I would renouce all anime no matter how cool it looked on the screen!

"Bulma!" My head snapped up at the sound of the voice, relief sweeping through me. Then I made the mistake of looking down and felt my insides drop into my shoes. I was being held over a cliffside, jagged rocks and a river flowed so far below me that it looked as if I could pinch one end of the river bank from the other in between my thumb and forefinger if I'd wanted. If my hands weren't still tied behind my back that is. Terror made my blood run cold and a damp, cool sweat dripped down my sides and back. I looked over and saw that Bulma, unable to keep awake due to the pain of her broken leg, had passed out and was being held by Needle-nose, who looked defiantly over at Vegeta, who was floating not far from us, in the air.

I closed my eyes again, perfering not see what was happening, trying to focus on stilling my wildly beating heart and fast breathing. I was getting dizzy from the effort, but I didn't care. I heard Needle-nose laughing and saying something to the extent of "Give us five hundred thousand zenie of we drop them both!" Laughing, he went on, "I think I'll make a game of this, what do you think? Which one are you going to save? Come on, now, think fast!"

"You...are...dead!" Vegeta words came slow and menencing, as, I felt a crackling power build up around him. I didn't have to look to know his face was set in the grim look he gets when he knows he about to kill someone for something. For half a moment I almost feel sorry for our kidnappers and then I shut my mind on it, almost feeling it snap closed and wondered, not for the first time, if this was going to be the day I, myself, died.

I felt the man's hold loosening on me, in a sudden burst of panic, I tried to push myself backwards, away from the edge. He cursed and shoved me hard over the edge. Everything was falling upwards at a speed to great to focus on. Before he'd pushed me over, I saw Bulma being dropped without fanfair over the side as well. I wasn't too shocked when Vegeta automatically flew to catch Bulma. Tumbling head of heels towards the watery death that awaited me below, my body began it's own process of shutting down in preparation of my own demise.

However.

That was not to be the case. I heard a swooshing sound and felt strong arms about my knees and back, felt the world right itself and I was being flown upwards. I looked up to see Piccolo's grim features. Whimpering with the fear of how close I'd come to smashing below on the river rocks and still terrified of great heights, I squeezed my eyes shut tight, burying my face in the bunched up part of his salt and desert scented cape. We touched down outside Capsule Corp, where he set me down and loosened the bonds about my wrists and ankles so that I could move, and flew away without a word. A moment later, I saw two explosions shake the sky and, when the dust settled, caught sight of Vegeta and Piccolo returning. Vegeta holding a limp Bulma in his arms.

"Oh my baby!" Mrs. Briefs cried, I hadn't realized she was behind me as I sat on the grass outside the house, looking up. Mr. Briefs was there as well, his arm around his wife. "Bulma!"

"Mom!" I heard Chikara, saw him rush out of the house and stand next to me, pointing up at the approaching warriors and the woman, "What happened?" He looked at me, "Why's your hair all messed up?"

I didn't answer, but gathered him into my arms and hugged him tightly. He squirmed, of course, but hugged me back, not understanding my tears or why I was behaving in such a manner.

~*~*~

My head wound cleaned and properly bandaged, after a few days of nothing but sleeping once the nurse they'd hired to keep watch over us deemed it safe for me to do so, I woke and stepped into the living room to find Bulma, left leg in a cast, laying half sitting up on the sofa. She held a photo album open on her knees, looking through it slowly. I don't know if she even heard me approach, but when I sat down on the ottoman across from her she didn't look up. Instead, she pulled the plastic wrapping which covered each set of photos to the page back and pulled a photo from it's place. She handed it over to me and I looked at it, finding a smile somewhere at what I saw.

"I took that on the day they came out of the time chamber," Bulma said, as I looked at the snapshot. I showed Vegeta holding Chikara up on one shoulder like I'd seen Goku do to Gohan when he was a toddler. An expression of mingled irritation and fatherly pride shown in Vegeta's eyes and his mouth was curled upwards in a rare smile, not just a smirk. Chikara had his eyes closed and looked to be laughing, the tip of his tail just visable behind Vegeta's neck as the youngster held on to his father's gravity-defying hair.

"You can keep it, if you like." Bulma said, "I have others of them together, not like that one though, you probably know that..."

"Ami." I heard a voice behind me and looked to see Piccolo and Cyndi, both of them watching me. With a part of my brain that always thinks things at the worst possible moment, I noticed that the girl, did, indeed, have hair like Yajirobe's twin sister. I noticed her tail waving behind her as if it had a life it's own. "It's time to go."

Holding the snapshot tight in my hands, I stood up. Cyndi held up one of little dragonballs that allowed for traveling through the realms and it glowed softly. She said, "You have to go back home now and start writing. You have to tell people about what happened so that they will start to believe, too. We need all the Believers we can get."

Nodding, but still feeling sad because I realized that I would not get to say goodbye to either Vegeta or my son, I walked with them to the hallway mirror, which was just large enough for me to slip through. Holding out the necklace with the dragonball attached to it, Cyndi smiled at me as the mirror shimmered, revealing bits and peices of my own living room beyond. "Don't look so sad," She said, "Just because your leaving doesn't mean the adventures don't still go on."

"Remember us!" One of them cried as I walked through the mirror, I heard Cyndi yell; "Write! Believe!"

So, I found myself back in my own world. My features changed over from anime to flesh as soon as I'd stepped through. The mirror shimmered a moment longer than returned to normal. I still clutched the snapshot in my hand. It, of course, had changed into a real picture, depiting what Vegeta and Chikara looked like my my world. Looking down at it, I walked to my bookshelf and took down my Dragonball Z lunchbox, opened it and placed it next to the thermas. After closing it back up and placing it on the shelf I walked automatically to my computer, sitting down at my desk. My eyes glanced downwards at the tool bar and I noticed the date and time.

Only a few hours had gone by since I'd first stolen the little dragonball from Vegeta and shoved him through the mirror. Only a few hours. A few hours that had lasted several weeks. Sighing, I opened up my writing program and began my story, wondering, bemusedly, if anyone would really believe me.

~ End ~