Feeding Genius

Bulma - Book Two

Chapter Seventeen

A Lesson in Family Values

Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ, but so long as Vegeta's stroking my imagination I'll continue to write about him.

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The three hours I spent in that room were the most terrifying I have ever endured. My head had been spun into such a disturbing mix of anxiety, fear, and uncertainty that I felt physically sick. The air was a breathy haze of destruction and death. I couldn't see, but for some reason I could feel it, my spirit experienced it in some trance of hallucination that was handed to me straight from the fires of HFIL.

I heard the fight, heard its conclusion, but did not know its victor. When the explosions fell silent I could feel the room suddenly drop in temperature. I grew so cold because there was nothing to hand that would help keep the icy fingers of near zero structural stability away from me. In the end I ripped the satin over-skirt of my dress away to cover my bare arms. There I shivered, and as every second of silence past, my sense of security became more and more strained.

For a long while I clung onto the hope that Vegeta was just being an ass, using this situation in another sick bid to get even with me for whatever crimes he still held me accountable for, but I knew deep down, his absence was not a game it was more than likely death. Of course the far reaches of my mind jumped into a twisted circling and almost as soon as the idea crept into my head, then it moved on one step further. If Vegeta had failed to stop Faylorn, then it would be more than plausible that he had also failed to save Trunks.

At that moment I cannot describe to you what I felt. Was it anger…? Disbelief? Pain? Or the worst of them all… guilt? Vegeta and Trunks wouldn't have been on Gleya if it hadn't been for my stupid pride, my overbearing ambition, and my blinded rage. They would have been safely on Earth where both would be living a life of normalcy away from the glaring line and stark reality of Vegeta's past.

In that time of great distress, muddled, and polluted emotions did I blame Vegeta? Oh yes… I most definitely did. I couldn't help it. I could feel it burning up from the feet. I knew from day one of giving my heart to that implacable, arrogant Saiyan that his own nature could well destroy him. Being married to a warrior had to have its certain expectancies, but somehow knowledge and feelings don't taste so well when they are flung together.

I wondered… wondered what kind of awful things Vegeta had to have done for any entity to go to such an extreme level of dementia, so as to decimate a crèche for revenge. There was no conceivable explanation that didn't give Vegeta a great fistful of guilt, no matter how it might be construed. As I saw it then his past actions had put the nails in both father and sons coffin. It made me so angry, but the anger didn't last and soon my screams and curses gave way for the total decimation of painfully silent sobs that tore up my throat and manifested into nothing more than a stricken dance of grief.

It seemed like an eternity, but even as I had started to fall victim of stress and numbing heartache, and my eyes felt they were about to close for the final time, I heard movement. At the start it was nothing more than the crumbling of some structure above me that fell in reams of debris to the floor, coating me in a fine film of dust. Over the ten or so minutes that followed, light appeared in a ring of gold above my head, and a familiar face peered through.

Commander Teash, or Rian as I have come to know him, smiled benignly down, his face was awash with relief, but tainted at the edges by something darker. I knew, from the first moment I locked eyes on him that he didn't have the news I had secretly craved he might. I wasn't mistaken and I very quickly found out the truth.

"Is Faylorn dead?"

That was my first question, as my new friend led me gently over the rubble and to the rescue hover stretcher. He stared down at me, rubbing his thumb across the back of my hand, and mumbled a pained, "No, no he isn't."

I can still feel the chill of silence that followed that brief, but over-packet conversation. On Rian's side I have no doubt he was thinking of how best to break the news to me, and on my own there was a reluctance to hearing any answer on the question that my might send both my body and mind tumbling out of control.

I sat down on the heated canvas, shaking as a warm blanket and cup of water were forced onto me. Rian hadn't left my side, and emboldened by the fresh taste of water on my lips I finally plucked up the courage to speak. "Vegeta… Trunks?" It was all I could do to force out their names, I almost felt the urge to throw up under the suspense.

I grew angry quickly. The commander hadn't answered. It felt like he was deliberately playing the tension out, making me suffer in the pit of not knowing, with a knack that would have give even the most skilled torturer a cause to be praised. "For fucks sake, don't play with me!" I screamed at him. "Tell me!" I demanded.

"Vegeta is alive…"

Those were his only words, but I felt a great surge of relief in them. Vegeta wouldn't have let anyone kill Trunks. Even if he only had a scrap of energy left, Vegeta would fight to the death, he knew no other way. If my husband was alive it meant that Trunks was too… right?

"He's alive… but…"

My little pocket of stolen relief was turned inside out.

"But… only just. He received major trauma to the head and nervous system. There is still a chance he might not recover, and even if he does, then there is always the possibility of brain damage."

I could feel my lungs exhale in a gasp of painful air. My body started to crumple at the enormity of what Rian told me. "And Trunks?" I managed to ask.

"As far as we can tell Trunks is still alive as well."

My brain tried furiously to work out why that statement didn't give me all the answers I needed. "As far as you can tell?" I repeated in astonishment.

"From what we understand Faylorn and Vegeta met each other in a head to head battle. Faylorn beat Vegeta and left him in the critical condition he is now suffering under. Sensors and data logs suggest that Faylorn had a spaceship waiting for his escape and that both he and a ki signature, fitting your sons characteristics, left the station shortly afterwards. We know for certain that although injured, your son was still alive when he was taken on board Faylorn's vessel."

I stared forward in a disbelieving daze as the events were retold to me in the flawlessly accurate narrative of the stations commander. At the time the words were digested with a brain that was stupefied into a haze too crowded and stunned to think anything through properly. Trunks was my life, and even though he still lived it felt like his essence, which had lived as a life-giving elixir to me from the day he was born, was kidnapped along with him.

Rian had finished up his recital of events by saying that Master Suh had received serious but non life-threatening injuries. I had no idea why he thought that would interest me in the slightest at the time, but later he told me that she had been Vegeta's old master and that she had been assigned to Trunks' protection during the time he had come in search of me and moved me to the relative safety of his rooms. Now I know why he was so adamant that I shouldn't go back.

Rian moved away and laid me gently down, letting the remote hover controls take over. I have been in the infirmary ever since. It's been over two hours since I was pulled out of the destruction by their elite team. It seemed that my heightened state of agitation wasn't as natural as I had thought it was. I had inhaled a vast amount of Vemitrian coolant (an inert gas that is used to help keep the stations atmospheric and ventilation systems in fully working order) Elements tend to gain or lose valence electrons to achieve stable octet formation, however when the coolant was released from it's airtight circulation the electrons started to destabilize, effectively causing me to suffer from heightened anxiety, and it was the vapors state when mixed with high levels of nitrogen that had caused the temperature of the room to drop so dangerously low.

I've been fed pure oxygen ever since I came through the infirmary doors and I'll have to take some major painkillers for the next few days as I come down from the gases toxicity, but otherwise I'm as healthy as ever. It is only my heart and spirit that have been broken beyond repair.

"I want to see Vegeta!" I demand.

Gleya's preeminent physician (Dr Clayerds) glances in my direction, and picking up the small keypad at the end of my bed, looks over my file, with a thoughtfully workman-like attitude. Eventually he looks up to me. "Are you able stand up on your own Miss Brief?" he asks, hiking an eyebrow.

"What kind of lame-ass question is that?" I shout defiantly over my oxygen mask, "Of course I can!"

I kick the covers off my legs and swing them purposefully over the side. Lifting my chin and rolling my eyes I let both feet touch the floor. I can feel my head start to swim, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let him know as much. "There… happy?"

"Very good." He applauds in a sarcastic drawl. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

I blink to get my vision to behave. "Ha, ha very funny!" I exclaim, "You don't have fingers you have claws."

"Very good young lady." Damn! Who gave this guy the patronizing pill? Next he's going to ruffle my hair and give me a lollipop for being extra brave. "Now one last test. I need you to walk towards me in a straight line, one foot in front of the other, just to test your balance."

I tentatively do as he asks, "I've taken easier sobriety tests." I mumble under my breath as by some miracle I make it to him without even a single wobble. "Now can I see my husband?" I demand.

"You're free to go," he says with a sympathetic smile, "…oh and Miss Briefs?"

"What?"

"I hope they find your son soon. There are several creatures on this station today that haven't been as fortunate as you. Remember that."

I'm left speechless as he turns through the opposite double doors and out of sight. I do not pretend to be ignorant of his meaning. Rian has made me fully aware of the innocent cost of today's tragedy. Trunks may still be missing and Vegeta badly injured, but there is still an outside chance that both will live. The same cannot be said for the other twelve children and two nursery assistants that were unfortunate enough to get in Faylorn's way.

I hang my head low. I'm living in a horror movie. This is not the way it should have been. I shouldn't be here right now, walking like a zombie through a maze of alien corridors, and on the way to see my husband fighting for his life, not knowing where my son is and whether I will ever see him again. Kami! If only someone had given me the gift of foresight! What a powerful weapon that must be, what a source of comfort and ease, to have known from the first how all my pettiness and mercenary dealings could culminate into something as awful as this.

Vegeta was right. I am mercenary. I mean look at how I've chased my comfort to this pathetic space station, determined to make my business thrive in a way that no other human business ever had. The information Vegeta had stored in his spacepod had opened up an aspect of the universe I had never contemplated before. Organized, systematic, trade routes and merchant shipping paths, creating an intergalactic cobweb of wealth that stretched to the far corners of explored space.

But it gave me so much more, adding layer after layer of cherries and icing, as I found exact economy charts for all known extraterrestrial life, history logs, ecological surveys and military listings, giving me an untold advantage in marketing Capsule Corporation throughout the far reaches of space; and the opportunity to give my fathers company a universal household name. I'd been avaricious, materialistic and blind, oh so completely blind to the family and love that I had run away from.

When I departed Capsule Corporation that day Vegeta had so effectively shattered my heart and destroyed what little was left of my soul, I had thought about nothing else but revenge. I wanted to prove him wrong, that I could do it on my own, to make it work without anything but my own mind, so I could return a few months later, successful, triumphant, and with more power and sway within the universe than any Chiku-jin had ever possessed before. I wanted to shove my success down Vegeta's throat to show him just what I was capable of, and just what he had so easily and stubbornly given up.

I can see what has happened now. I was so busy feeding my own genius in a bitter and pitiable attempt at revenge that fate decided it needed to punish me by taking away the people I love. Well too bad that I don't believe in fate. I can see what this has done to me. Fuck my business, I don't care about Capsule Corporation, I couldn't give a shit if Mr. Simmons took over it all and enjoyed the wealth and luxury I had craved like a starving child for the rest of eternity. All I want is my family, my husband and my son. I love them both so completely. Without them I am nothing. Without them…

My head is so blurred. I still feel nauseous and I can feel my grip on reality slipping more and more at every new footstep. My eyes are becoming more and more unfocused the greater the amount of moisture they try to hold back. Somehow my brain manages to read the mass of swimming words and tells me that the regeneration tanks are in the room I'm standing before now. I try to unlock the double doors but they won't open.

"Let me in!" I scream, hitting them once with the flat of my palm. Not getting an answer I glance down to notice the security bell I have to press before being aloud entry. I do as the instructions tell me and I hear a faint buzz as the door's lock is briefly yielded to let me in.

A young nurse is the first creature I see, and she takes a gasp and slight step back as I approach. I can feel the anger I have against myself manifesting into a kind of shroud of negativity and no doubt it has settled in my countenance as well. Kami only knows what incarnation of hell I must look like to her at this moment, still dazed from the gas, and worn with the emotional and mental stresses of the day.

"Vegeta Ouji!" I demand, standing over the nurse, the low lighting playing me up even more as a demon, "Where is he?"

The nurse gulps nervously and losing all power of speech she only manages to move enough to tilt her pen in the right direction.

"Thank you," I recite in an eerie monotone as I pace across the room in the direction she pointed, my bare feet slapping against the tiled floor. Through bleary eyes I look up to the bulbous structure in front of me. At first all I can see through the convex portal is a sea of green liquid, but the longer I stare the sharper my eyes become and a face pools out of the fluid and imprints its image onto my retina.

"Vegeta." I breathe, fresh tears spilling from my eyes, "Vegeta" I repeat, reaching a hand out to caress the glass. "Vegeta."

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A/N - Can't you tell I was listening to really depressing music while I wrote this. It really left me feeling sad even after I finished writing. I had to get my fiancé to give me a big hug too… I'm such a sap!