Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Dimensions of You ❯ Chapter 14 ( Chapter 14 )

Frieza turned around as the door slid open and a thumping sound echoed in the stillness of the room. He frowned at the body that had been flung near his feet and raised his purple eyes to glare at Ginyu.

Ginyu quickly bowed before his lord. “Lord Frieza. This was all that found, my Lord. It was right outside the broken window. We suspect she took to the water but we have no way of knowing where she exited.”

Frieza walked toward the body, his tail slowly swaying and his talon-ed hands clasped behind him. He used a foot to kick the body over, taking in the familiar features caught in an expression of disbelief. “Kiwi. Saryl’s sister is most definitely not like him. I told her Saryl’s tale, all but took her right here, and threatened her brother’s life and she still is able to feel the need to escape? There is more to our Princess than I originally thought and I have a feeling it has something to do with her years at Earth.” He looked back up at Ginyu, who had rose and was listening to his lord attentively, though he didn’t grasp all the meaning behind the words.

“Where is the rest of the Ginyu Force? Shouldn’t they be done by now?”

Ginyu started to sweat. Frieza immediately took notice of this and the heightened tang of fear in the air, his eyes narrowing to pinpricks of rage. “Actually, M-my Lord, I’m afraid I haven’t been able to contact them. But when I left they had things well under control. King Saryl and I had left one of the men dying and the other, the Saiyan, was tied up with him. The rest of the Force was taking care of the rest of the resistance with ease, My Lord. The communications on the pods probably just malfunctioned with the harsh landing. I’m sure they’ll be here any time now.”

Ginyu leaned back as Frieza suddenly phased out to appear right in his face, eyes glittering with unsuppressed anger. “Ah, is that all?” The amiable tone of his voice made the murderous glare that much more frightening. “Well, I’m going to assign you with finding and retrieving Princess Bulma while Zarbon will be sent to bring Saryl here. Tell him that he is to simply inform Saryl that I need him. That will bring him running.”

Ginyu made to protest his own goal but was stalled by Frieza’s low growl. “You are to scan every inch of the land surrounding that lake until you find some sign of where she exited. She has that ki reflector on so she won’t be able to fly, but your scouter won’t be able to pick her up either.” His eyes narrowed even further, yet Ginyu could see his own promised death if he failed. “That is, if you think you can handle this.”

Ginyu lowered his eyes from Frieza’s, making the lizard smirk. “Of course I can, My Lord. Do you wish me to continue trying to contact the rest of the Force?”

Frieza turned around and stepped back to the window, much to Ginyu’s relief. “No. I will go personally to where the pods are landing and see to the information I need. That is all, Ginyu. And make sure you get the job done.”

Ginyu bowed once more, thankful all his parts were still intact. “Yes, My Lord.”

Once Frieza heard the door slide shut behind Ginyu, he turned back around to scowl at the dead body. Frieza had just underestimated someone. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice. He had a feeling that the purge on Earth wasn’t going so well and he himself would have to step in.

He shrugged. There was no rush. Saryl would come back, Princess Bulma would be brought back, and Frieza would show her exactly how far gone her brother was.

Maybe that was it. Maybe somewhere Princess Bulma still held the hope that Saryl could be made to see the truth. Frieza smirked, then lightly frowned. But that did not explain all her reactions, or lack of them. No, Frieza needed to know what exactly had happened on Earth. Once again, his other sense told him it had something to do with the man she wouldn’t name, and he’d bet his empire that she’d held some kind of closeness to him.

Perhaps he’d be lucky enough to get his hands on the man, though he doubted the Ginyu Force would be so lax as to allow one man to survive a purge. He had a feeling though, that such a man would be a true rarity.

Frieza smirked, once again assured of his success, and climbed into his floating chair, guiding it out of the room and toward the place the pods holding the Ginyu Force would land. *   *   *

He tested it once again, letting his power fill him as he watched for the two before him to react. He smirked as he indeed found that as long as their scouters weren’t pointed at him, they couldn’t sense his ki.

He carefully slithered out of the shadows, slinking into another right behind one of the three, smirking as the three talked back and forth about the mysterious deaths of their companions.

Vegeta suddenly thrust forward, grabbing the one he was behind and jerking back his arms, ramming a knee into his back and hearing the satisfying crunch of his spine.  He shoved the limp body in between the two left, watching with a sadist attitude as they both dodged the dead alien, faces set in shock as they separated.

Vegeta shook his head at the easiness his trade had suddenly taken on and leapt at the one on the right, taking him out with a simple extended arm smacking him under the chin and sending him flying to stop when he burrowed into a cliff face.

Half turning, he let out a livid curse as the other alien regained his senses enough to fire his gun at Vegeta, clipping him on the shoulder. Vegeta let out a primal scream of rage and charged.

The alien hesitated; fear showing in his face and the puddle at his feet as the flame-haired man suddenly screamed and flew full tilt at him like an enraged, wounded animal. It was this hesitation that cost him, as Vegeta suddenly phased out. The alien turned around instinctively, frantically firing his gun into empty air.

He did not even seem to notice that he was firing an empty gun; clicks all that sounded as he pulled the trigger, until he distinctly heard laughter behind him. He turned back around to gasp, gun clattering to the ground, as a gloved hand picked him up effortlessly by the neck.

The alien had seen many deaths and seen many men punished by Lord Frieza’s merciless hand, but this man—was scarier. Now that was saying something.

Vegeta chuckled and tilted his head to one side; smirk widening to cover his whole face. His eyes were lit with an inhuman glee. He’d almost forgotten how nice the fear was, how nice the death was. He put his face in close to the alien, taking in the tangy scent. “What do you know about what’s going on, hm? I asked a few other people, but they were unhelpful and I had to dispose of them. Perhaps you will be more forthcoming?”

“W-what do you want to know?” the alien was rigid under Vegeta’s hand so the assassin did not bother squeezing.

“Well, I know where Frieza is, and I know he has Princess Bulma. I also know Ginyu and Saryl are here. Now, I need to know where they all are. Also, the location of Zarbon would be nice.”

The man gulped, barely able to do so for the hold. Vegeta wasn’t tightening it, but it was tight. “I don’t know where Princess Bulma is. She escaped and Master Frieza has men on the lookout for her. Ginyu was sent to fetch her so I don’t know where he is.” He felt the grip start to tighten and hurriedly blurted out. “But I do know where Lieutenant Zarbon is.”

Vegeta grinned, letting the man’s feet touch the ground. “Do tell.”

The man nodded and raised an arm to point off to his left. “Th-there.”

Vegeta narrowed his eyes, not breaking eye contact with the man as he reached out his senses in that direction. When he sensed the foreign yet powerful ki, he smirked. He released the man completely, but grabbed a hold of the man’s arm so that escape was basically impossible. “Good man to tell the truth. I have a message I want you to deliver.”

The alien eagerly nodded. A message meant he had to be alive, didn’t it?

“Tell your Master Frieza that he now has a price on his head. Tell him there is an assassin here who will make sure he gets his money worth on his corpse. Tell him not to bother searching for my ki; he won’t feel it until it’s too late. And tell him Princess Bulma is about to go from missing to found, but not by him. You will give this message to him word for word won’t you?”

The alien audibly gulped this time, but nodded his head. He had no intentions of telling Master Frieza any of that. His Master would kill him in an instance.

As if he knew the man’s thoughts, Vegeta leaned back in, mouth openly smirking, silently laughing. “Any death you see for yourself by Frieza’s hands I can guarantee will be more painful by mine. I’m highly trained in the more—torturous arts. But if you choose to not deliver this message, just remember how quickly I struck you here. I will not kill you as quickly as I did the others, for you will have lied to me. I don’t like it when people lie to me.” The smirk still present on his face at the end of this little speech made another puddle of liquid pool at the alien’s feet.

Vegeta let go of the creature, backing up and sneering, look traveling from the alien’s eyes to the puddle. “Frieza must find it so hard to find good help.”

As the alien blinked in shock, Vegeta was suddenly gone. As if the man’s sudden appearance hadn’t been scary enough, the disappearance completely unnerved him. The alien rose into the air, albeit shakily, and took off to where Frieza now was. At the moment, he’d rather take the painful death he knew than the painful death he didn’t.

Vegeta smirked once again, hidden completely in the shadows by the cliff he had plastered the one alien into; who was still sticking to the rock. Now that he would have Frieza worried, he could go on to this Zarbon. He needed to get to people who didn’t ask who he was. Luckily it seemed the other two’s death had spread like wildfire and now he was some kind of deadly ghost. Oh, he didn’t mind, just as long as they got the physical description right.

Vegeta set off once again, flying low over the craggy almost barren landscape to avoid detection from the scouters. It wasn’t these little guys he worried about. Obviously a power level of eighteen thousand was high by their standards. Vegeta smirked as he honed in on the targeted ki. Well, he was unique.

Vegeta skidded to a sudden halt, black-flamed hair bouncing forward before springing back into place as the light blue-skinned alien suddenly turned around. Vegeta had screeched to a halt not two yards from him.

Vegeta sneered at the alien who was considering him with narrowed golden eyes, taking in his appearance and putting it against the rumors. “And who might you be, little man.” the creature tapped the side of his scouter. “with a reading of five? How are you keeping yourself afloat with that measly ki, hmm?”

Vegeta crossed his arms in front of him, amused beyond words. “I could ask the same of you, with your measly ki.”

Zarbon laughed. “Ah, a comedian I see. In case you can’t tell, which without a scouter you can’t, my ki level is 18,000.”

“Well that explains the pathetic state of it then. And that scouter explains why everyone keeps reading my power level wrong. I mean, you’d think after that horned guy and that spined guy made that mistake word would get around.”

Zarbon’s eyes narrowed. “You expect me to believe you killed those two?” He breezily brushed aside his momentary disbelief. “Whatever. Those two didn’t even top 8,000.”

Vegeta barked a laugh. “How does Frieza keep control of all he rules with such weak fighters?”

“What do you know of Lord Frieza?” Zarbon arched one elegant brow. “Besides, it is the Master himself that people tremble because of—what was your name again?”

Vegeta smirked. “I never gave it. But since you have a power level higher than those corpses, Vegeta. And yours?”

“Zarbon. My, but aren’t we pleasant right before death?”

“I’m always pleasant before death.” Vegeta uncrossed his arms, bringing them to the front of his body, fists clenched. He was glad to finally be up against someone who could match him. In truth, he hoped the man’s title had more to do with his battle tactics and less with his political skills.

“Yours?” Zarbon smirked, knowing the answer before the flame-haired man announced it, wanting to hear it still so he could taunt his broken body with it before death.

“Yours.” Vegeta gathered his ki around him, sneering as it swirled around him in a bluish cyclone. His sneer widened when Zarbon’s eyes did as numbers slid across his scouter.

“Eighteen thousand? Nice. I’ve been waiting for a good fight.”

Vegeta smirked. “As have I. But I do have a proposition for you, to make the fight more interesting.”

Zarbon again arched an eyebrow. “And that would be?”

Vegeta smirked. “Well, pretty boy.” Zarbon frowned. “I was thinking that we could agree to use no ki, only physical attacks. That way, since we both have an even power level, we will be seeing who has the most battle experience.”

Zarbon shrugged, smirking slightly. “Sounds fine to me. But are you sure you wouldn’t rather do it the normal way? I mean…it’s so old fashioned.”

Vegeta shook his head. “No, your death goes my way.”

Zarbon’s smirk widened, pleased with the shorter man’s answer. “Then your death shall go the hard way.”

Both men grinned eagerly and allowed their power to flit around them like transparent yet colored cloaks, weighing each other carefully before attacking. Zarbon was the first to strike, coming in fast and low, swooping down at the last second to try and catch the man unawares from the bottom.

Vegeta twisted his body up, turning himself upside down in midair and backing up, smirking as Zarbon faltered slightly and righting himself by throwing his head back, both feet cracking under Zarbon’s chin and sending him flipping head over heels backwards.

Zarbon caught himself and grimaced at the taste of blood in his mouth from a bit tongue. The fact that this man had drawn first blood was almost unbearable, but what mattered most was last blood.

Vegeta swooped down and straightened his flight path to align himself with Zarbon’s still recovering form, aiming a punch for the man’s head. Zarbon threw himself to Vegeta’s left, sending the human skidding to the side with a roundhouse. Vegeta winced and grinned at the other, giving him credit for a good hit as he met the man’s next punch by catching it, throwing the man around him and keeping a hold on him so that when he kicked him back, Zarbon folded over the leg.

Vegeta quickly let go of the man, and just in time, as Zarbon’s elbows came down to break the leg he had been curled around. Zarbon snarled and launched himself again at the man.

Vegeta sneered. The man had a temper when he was losing. Then again, so did he. However, he wasn’t the one losing here. Vegeta met the charge with a cool calm that he knew would drive Zarbon even further over the edge.

Zarbon’s golden eyes took on a glint that was indeed half-mad as he was sent careening back to hit the ground with a thud that made dust rise as Vegeta phased out and reappeared to put clasped hands into his back. He let out a roar and suddenly went silent in the cloud that enveloped him and momentarily hid him from sight.

Vegeta stilled himself as all sound from the cloud stopped, halting inches from the fringes of the dust that reached out as if to pull him in. He moved his senses carefully outward, searching for any sign of the man and confusingly finding him straight ahead, not having moved from where he had been thrown. Was it over?

The dust settled around the standing form of Zarbon, revealing his smirking face to Vegeta, who was starting to feel just a tad uneasy.

“Well, as much as I have enjoyed this fight, I’m afraid it’s going to have to end. That is, unless you have a way to bring up your ki level?” At Vegeta’s narrowed-eyed glare, Zarbon chuckled. “I thought not. You see…I do have a way.” He lifted one hand into the air. “Observe.”

Zarbon let out a yell and Vegeta had time for one shocked gasp before a hulking monster with his hair in the same braid as Zarbon’s had been in crashed into him, sending him flying up. He hadn’t even seen the thing move!

Hands hammered him down much as he had done to Zarbon and Vegeta was barely able to pull up, stomach skimming along the ground as he gritted his teeth and tried to get some distance so that he could assess this new situation.

He turned only to find the open-mouthed, sharp-teethed sneer of the evolved form of Zarbon right in his face, backhanding him into a cliff wall. Vegeta painfully levered himself out of the crater he had made and tried to stand to fall to one knee to the ground. A rough hand yanked his lowered head forcefully up by the chin.

He glared into amused golden eyes and formed a ki blast in his hands that he threw into the alien’s gut. The hold on his chin was immediately released and Vegeta rose as quickly as possible, taking straight up into the air to get out of being cornered.

He halted as Zarbon suddenly flew in front of him, sending daggers straight into him. “We had an agreement.”

Vegeta grunted, trying to find a way around Zarbon, or some trick to win, though he could feel how much more powerful this thing was he. “And your transformation was within those agreements? Don’t even.” He put his hands back, prepared to throw another blast, but Zarbon beat him to the punch, literally, as his fist connected with the human’s gut, bending him over, and a reverse backfist sent him flying to the right.

Vegeta could dimly see a glittering body of water below him, color reflecting the green Namekian sky and knew that he needed time to regroup, to come at this thing in his way, not this all-out fistfight. Against a stronger foe, one must sometimes use methods that are looked down on, cheating per se. But then, that was what this fight was all about.

He slowed his flight down and made his final stand right above the water. If he didn’t time this right…Bulma was dead.

Zarbon sped toward him; a green and blue blur that Vegeta waited for as calmly as possible. At the last possible second, Vegeta dodged the blow that was aimed for his head, diving down slightly.

Zarbon’s fists cracked down on Vegeta’s back, smacking into the spot where neck met spine. Vegeta allowed his body to fold in with the blow that could have broken him in two had he not, blood spilling from his mouth to leave a red trail in the sky behind him. He dimly tried to keep his sight on the green water below that was rushing up to fill his whole vision, squinting against the shimmering brightness that tried to blind him.

Zarbon chuckled as the man hit the water with a great smack, thinking of all those frail bones breaking upon contact. Smirking with true satisfaction as his scouter picked up no ki from the slowly sinking man, he shifted back to his beautiful form, turning to continue his flight to King Saryl. There was no need to worry about dead men after all.

The water slowly calmed behind the flying form of Zarbon; choppy waves caused by the man’s entrance into the deep depths subsiding to its regular stillness. Again the shimmering tranquility of the water overtook the violence that had just occurred. However, activity soon revealed itself at the edge of the lake in the form of air bubbling to the surface as frantically as the man whose top half burst from it, head thrown back in a desperate attempt for air, droplets of water sent flying to shimmer in the air before falling back into the main body.

Vegeta clung to the edge by will alone, clawing himself onto the shore and kicking his legs to get himself fully onto it. With a great out-take of breath; he collapsed to the ground, weary to his very bone.

He’d had to time the whole thing perfectly. If Zarbon had even suspected he was alive, he likely would’ve followed him down and finished him off. Vegeta had turned his ki outward as soon as he had brushed the surface, shielding his body from the impact that would’ve crushed every bone in his body. As soon as he felt the water close over his head he had shut off all his energy, gratefully allowing his battered body to sink down. The hardest part had been swimming back to the surface after that small respite. Now, he merely wanted to close his eyes and surrender his bruised body to unconsciousness.

With a growl and gritted teeth, he levered himself onto his hands and knees, trying to clamber up the rest of the way. He put pressure on the ankle of his left foot and folded under sudden and sharp pain. While the shield had worked for the most part, he looked to have had an Achilles’ heel.

Wincing, he threw his body forward, leaning so that he could feel the swollen and quite broken joint. He cursed in the nastiest language available to him, Saiyan, and fell onto his back, breath heaving from even that little motion.

Zarbon was loose, Bulma was missing, not able to be sensed, Ginyu was searching for her, and he had just been defeated, taken the coward’s way out of the fight to stay alive. He was now maimed on the ground, unable to so much as move. Yeah, things were sure looking up.

Vegeta heard a noise, a slight shuffle, and cursed his inattention. Zarbon was back for the clean up. He must have sensed him, though Vegeta had not raised his ki level, could not in fact. He tried to lever his head around and was rewarded with a suddenly tilting and blackening world as he jarred his ankle, sending pain racing through him like a sword driven through his gut. The last thing he saw before the darkness embraced him fully was green. NEXT