Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Garrulous and Gritless ❯ I, 11: Raditz ( Chapter 11 )
[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]
By: ShiningMoon 
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action / Comedy / Drama / Psychological / Romance | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 01.15.2011 | Pages: 3 | Words: 4.1K | Visits: 230 | Status: Completed
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Adventure / Action / Comedy / Drama / Psychological / Romance | Type: Divergence | Uploaded On: 01.15.2011 | Pages: 3 | Words: 4.1K | Visits: 230 | Status: Completed
NOTE: For whatever reason, this chapter was a bit of a struggle for me. I wrote the last two pages, and then realized that I had to delete them and completely redo that part, and that's the first time such a thing has happened to me in a while. Hope what I've done is all right. XD In any case, it's better than what it was. Probably good for me to have to suck it up and toss something out every now and again.
By the way, the "ghost tail" is supposed to be like having a phantom limb. (Just, Raditz doesn't necessarily know that term.)
...
I don't know if she knocked me out or if I blacked out from the pain, but when I woke up my head was pounding.
Nobody removes a Saiyan's tail and gets away with it—nobody makes me look like I could pass for one of those humans. Nobody humiliates me like that so soon after such a glorious victory.
Nobody except that goddamned woman.
There are no more walls around me, but I'm more caged-in than I ever was before. Whenever I see her, she looks down her snobby little nose at me, somehow, like I'm trash beneath her stupidly inefficient footwear. She doesn't speak, and that's for the better. I doubt I'd be able to stand her voice.
On one side of her lab I can see that she's preserved my tail. If the equipment scattered around it is any indication, she's studying it—studying me. I don't much like looking at it; gives me the chills—what would you do if you saw your hand in a jar? Often I feel the ghost of my tail following me, wrapped around me, making me midjudge my movements and making me clumsy. I wonder how Bulma would walk with only one leg. Imagining it makes my lips curl up a little.
I'm heading out of the lab—they don't like me showing up there. No, now I have a quaint little bedroom near the humans' living quarters. That woman's trust is moronically huge, that I won't just decide I don't give a shit about my tail and go ballistic on everyone she knows and loves.
But, dammit, I want my tail back. I can't look at my back in the mirror anymore without retching. I wonder how Kakarrot lived with himself—but that's not important now, now that he's gone. I am surprised by how quickly Bulma seemed to move past it, at least from what I've noticed so far. Guess she didn't like him quite so much as she made it sound like—but who can blame her? At least that traitorous fool is gone from my sight. The question now is whether I will take his son, or whether the boy is completely unbearable as well (which is the impression I have gotten—but whelps are easier to push around so there may be hope for him yet). I need to get my scouter back, at the very least, or, ideally, my pod, so that I can see if it can't be repaired. Doubtless Nappa and Vegeta will arrive eventually, but without a means of contacting 'em I dunno how far away they are.
Then these Earthlings will get what they deserve. Well, once I have my tail. I hum a little at the thought of every one of their cities burning to the ground, those screams and the crackling of bodies popping under the heat. The image makes my mouth water so I head up the stairs to the kitchen, which I have been in a few times so far. These humans eat so little, but, hell, what do I care? I start cleaning out the cabinets and eating everything I can find; they can get their own food if I eat all this up. This food that didn't come from something that would have run away will have to do for now; else if I go and off one of her friends, Bulma will find some other way to fuck with me. Next thing she'll find some way to permanently remove my hair and I'll look like that ugly sonnuvabitch Nappa. Maybe I can go out into the wooded area not far away and at least hunt something. Being this stationary ain't healthy.
Killing Kakarrot felt great, after all those weeks of being bothered by him. I'm disappointed my little brother became what he did. It's only a shame I didn't get to enjoy his suffering a bit more. But, well—guy at least got a taste of what he deserved.
...
I wake up in the middle of the night and it ain't because I'm not tired anymore.
"Listen, you sadistic bastard," she hisses, her mouth way too close to my ear. "You fucked up with what you did to Son. You'd better thank your Saiyan gods—if you've even got any willing to admit to such a station—that the dragonballs exist or I would have cut off more than your tail."
Her voice forces me to think again of that unbearable pain, and it paralyzes me. "Get the hell away from me," is all I can say, and manage to roll onto my back so she can't step on the spot where my tail once was.
"Don't you want to know what the dragonballs are?" she asks, and I can see her teeth pulled back—she's bothered that I don't give a damn about anything concerning Kakarrot.
"No," I say. "Get the fuck out of here."
"The dragonballs are seven magical spheres," oh great, and now she's just spewing out bullshit to see how long it takes me to get angry and hit her, "and when you gather them together, you can summon the Dragon, and he'll grant you any wish."
"Bullshit," I manage. I hardly want to acknowledge her, but her face is still so close to mine that she could spit in my eye.
"When I found out about them I wanted to gather them and wish for a boyfriend," she muses, calmer than before, like the sound of her own voice makes her feel better. "Well, that didn't happen." By now I've closed my eyes again and I'm pretending to sleep. For a few moments, I don't hear her, but then I can feel her leaning closer to me. "Wake up!" she nearly screams straight into my ear.
"Goddammit, stupid bitch!" I shout.
She seems to take this as evidence that I'm still listening. As if I had a choice. "Anyway," she grins a little, "you and me are gonna play nice, all right?"
Shit. Like she needs to say it again. "Yeah, yeah, my tail," I mutter.
"Not only that," if it's possible, she leans in closer. I can't help the fact that her tits are right in my line of sight. The woman is far too skinny, like a fragile little stick—nowhere near enough muscle—but I can't shake the feeling that there's hope for her yet. Not that that it'll matter, anyway, once she's burning with the others. I raise an eyebrow and try to look somewhere else. "We're using the dragonballs to revive Son—not now, in a while." Shit—wait—what? Maybe I should've been listening. She keeps blabbering, anyway, her grin getting wider. "He's getting some kind of crazy training in the afterlife, so if he finds out you did anything to any of us, when he gets back, he's gonna beat the snot out of you."
"And who will be gathering this dragon's balls?" I ask, and she snorts a little, maybe out of disgust at the thought of picking up a giant animal's testicles. But then, maybe she's into that sort of thing. The people here are fucked up.
"Dragonballs—and me, of course." Well, damn. There goes my idea of sneaking off to kill whoever was gonna do it, if it was somebody she wouldn't miss. I notice a lot of humans take orders from her, and wonder again if she might be like this world's Freeza.
"You bring him back—if it's true that you can—that's your choice; I'll just kill him again," I say. I doubt these things exist, but at this moment I'm not about to put anything past her—telling ridiculous stories that are true or out and out lying just to screw me over. Then again, guess I always heard bizarre things about Namekians and there is one of 'em here...
"Doubt it," she rolls her eyes, leaning back a little. I feel a bit uneasy under the way she looks over me, like one of those doctors in Freeza's ships who don't understand a lick of what they're doing but are damn sure they can figure it out if they press all the right buttons. Her eyes stop on my midsection and without the slightest bit of warning, her hands are on my side, flipping me over. Her cold human fingers rest against my skin as she narrows her eyes. "Do you still—you know, feel, your tail?" she asks. I look away for fear she's yanked out more of whatever chemical she put on it the first time to seal it over, the fucking most painful thing I've ever experienced in my life.
"Yes," I finally say. "Sometimes." I don't tell her that usually when I do feel it, it's only because it hurts like hell, like I wake up and find that I was lying on top of it and it's got a kink in it; like I try to scale a set of stairs and it burns like it's stretching out too far to balance me. She'd probably use shit like that against me, anyway.
She makes a little grunt like I'm an interesting specimen on her table. "You know, I haven't forgiven you," she says in one of the harshest tones I've ever heard from her, and I can feel her breath near the small of my back, "even though Son's coming back. I heard the way he screamed."
"Guy's stupid enough to bother somebody who can kill him," I growl, "he dies." Of course these Earthlings don't get it and likely never will get the chance.
"So I should've killed you, huh?" she asks.
"Guess so," I growl, "but I guess I'm too damned interesting so you study and torture me instead."
She sighs, but doesn't say anything else for a while. "I'm curious," she finally says, like it's an excuse.
"I'm tired," I answer, hoping it'll shut her up. But I feel the bed sag down a little as she plants her ass against it, right near my legs, so I get the feeling she's gonna keep nagging at me for a while and I ain't gonna get any more sleep tonight.
"I'm curious," she says again, and goes on, "Where's your tail?" Now I have to turn around to look at her, because she must be joking—but she sure as hell don't sound like it. When I get a glance at her, she don't look like she's kidding, either.
"Pickled, down in your lab," I answer, my hands gripping at the sheets a little. I sit up just in case she's about to try anything funny, facing toward her so I can keep an eye on her.
"No, dumbass," her voice is quiet, in a different way than it was when she started talking to me earlier. Now that my legs aren't in her way she leans back on her hands and her eyes pierce right into mine. "You said you can feel it sometimes, so where is it?"
Games. I don't know what she's playing at, but something about the way her fingers are twitching against the sheets is making me think she might be just about as nervous as I am confused. And like her talking about it summoned it, I can feel my tail behind me, twisting around. I wince as it bends too far.
"Bring it over here," she says, and motions to her side. "On your leg, or something."
"What the hell are you doing?" I have to ask, but the tail goes there anyway.
"Just...trying something," she says. "For science."
Yeah, right.
"Is it there right now?" she points to a vague area of my leg, and I tilt my head a little. "Can you put my hand on it?"
Dammit, this is not a good idea. I grab her hand, and, feeling just about like as big a moron as there ever was, pull it over and leave it where I can feel my tail. When I take my hand away from hers and her hand settles onto it, I shiver a little—fuck, this is weird.
"Can you feel it?" she asks. She moves her hand a little bit and I growl.
"You're rubbing the fur the wrong way," I tell her, when she looks at me with frightened eyes. Rather'n looking at me like I'm crazy, she starts moving her hand the other way instead, real gently.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Hot air pours out of my nostrils at the feeling and a little whimper makes it past my throat. All the godawful stuff that my ghost-tail makes me feel and she has to be the one who discovers the one good thing.
"Is that better?" she asks, and by her voice I'd say she knows it. She leans closer down like she can see the tail if she does, and I can feel her warm breath on both my leg and my tail, and I shudder, because it's fucking weird, but...
Then I see her hand move too far down, and a shout bubbles out of my throat. She recoils, eyes big like a scared animal's, not that I give a damn with the way the sharp pain has become a pounding ache in my ghost-tail.
"You squeezed it," I tell her, and, shoot, my breathing sounds heavy when I say it. Hurt more'n I thought it did.
"Sorry," she says, and I just keep breathing. Now that I look, my chest is rising and falling visibly with each breath, and I close my eyes to try to convince my tail that nothing happened to it, 'cause it ain't there. All the planets I wiped out and at this one I lose my tail for good—well—I hope not really for good. I wonder if something happened to Kakarrot that kept him from growing his tail back or if he was just in-between growings; if his ghost-tail wailed like it was gonna try to yank itself off 'cause of all the pain. I guess I ain't never known a Saiyan to go very long without a tail, but, damn, all this must have come from whatever it was that she did to where my tail grows out my back, right? That searing, awful pain of the only damn thing I ever had being stripped off of me.
Since the quiet set in, my chest is pounding even harder. I feel cold human fingers on my face and my eyes snap open. "What the hell are you doing?" I hiss, mostly hoping she ain't gonna lean on the tail or something.
"Er," she looks away, and in the dark I can still see that her face is a bit red, "well, you had some tears down your cheeks, so..."
Shit. Well, maybe I can still save some face. "You fuck with my tail like that, you think it's not gonna hurt?" I snap.
"Sure," she whispers.
"Did you just come here to brag about the dragon's balls?" I keep on it, because I think if I bother her enough she'll just up and leave, in this state, feeling bad as she seems to. "I'd rather you threaten me when I'm already awake," I add. "This shit isn't worth my sleep."
Her teeth show a little, and she's grinning for whatever reason. Then she gets a little more somber-like, leaning in close like I won't be able to hear her otherwise. "Yamcha gets his feathers all ruffled when I talk to you," she says, "thinks you're gonna beat me up and kill me or something. So I came to talk to you when I knew he wouldn't show up."
"Now that you say that, maybe I will kill you," I tell her, not that she'd believe it even if was gonna.
Her grin comes back. "Uh-huh," she says, "sure. Anyway," her eyes move away from mine and around the rest of the room, like she's thinking hard but don't wanna seem like it, "I've got a little bit of a, uh—of a proposition for you."
I do not like one bit how all my hairs stand up at that word, nor the images that flash into my head. I do not like how my neck cranes forward, nor the way my ghost-tail twitches. My hand clenches into a fist. It's some sort of goddamned full-body rebellion, I swear.
"A business proposition," she corrects, and she likely hears me swearing at myself for how obvious it probably was to her what my body was thinking.
"Let's hear it," I finally say.
"Well, I need your help translating the manual that came with your pod," she says, sighing. "I thought I could figure it out, but it looks like I actually need to know what the words say." I grin at her. Heh—she's illiterate. Well—I'm sure she's literate in whatever stupid little language they write here on Earth, but that don't mean a thing. "Maybe you could, er—teach me how to read it," now she's getting a bit red, and it's real clear she ain't used to asking for help with something like reading, "for future reference."
"I hate reading," I tell her, "And the thought of trying to teach you anything sounds unbearable. What's in it for me?"
Her grin grows to a dimension I thought only manageable by Saiyans. "I've been thinking on it," she says, visibly bouncing. Visibly. Bouncing. Oh god, now it's my eyes, too, joining the rebellion. "And I can't deny that I'm a little bit interested in the 'healing tank' you mentioned earlier." She must see me straighten up a little. "You know, if you can describe it to me well enough, maybe I can reverse engineer one." Yes, that is definitely a Saiyan grin she's wearing. "I've never run up against a set of mental gymnastics I couldn't navigate. It'll be fun, right?"
"And what about my tail?" I ask, trying to ignore the fact that various parts of me have particular ideas of what gymnastics entail. Dammit, she's not even that hot, that look on her face aside. "When do I get that back?"
She bites her lip. "When I can trust you, I guess," she says. "Not to turn around and blow me up the second you get it back. And to tell your friends not to kill us."
"Well, that'll be damn near impossible," I say. Even if I could resist destroying her and everything else on this planet, I doubt Vegeta and Nappa would, and I ain't about to butt heads with one of them.
"Look, it's going to take me a little while to build the equipment I need to do the research I need to make sure I can get your tail back safely and without incident," she says, suddenly not snapping around with the usual threat in her voice that she might make a fool of me every other word she says, "not to mention the equipment involved in actually ensuring your tail grows back. Depending on when they get here, your talking them out of it might be crucial to me having the time to get things ready for you."
This is not sounding good. I am almost starting to regret killing Kakarrot, between this and the whole "magical dragon" bit. Almost. Way too much trouble.
She takes a few breaths and moves closer to me. "I'm gonna be honest," she finally says, "I don't know yet exactly how I'm going to do it. It was a bit of an on-the-spot—"
She don't finish because by now I'm on top of her and snarling. "You don't know?" I ask.
"Raditz," she mutters, "I'm gonna do it, trust me."
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. "And what reason do I have to do that?" I hiss. "You're the rottenest bitch I've ever met. I don't see why I shouldn't just kill you now." I lean down close so she can see my teeth, dig my knees against her sides so she can get an idea of just how powerful I am and just what a weakling she is. She's still got an ounce of fight in her eyes so I grab her wrists and pin them down. It still don't flash from her eyes—gets stronger, if anything. Still, her chest rises and falls quickly with panic, brushing up against mine each time she takes in a breath. The fabric of her shirt is pretty damn thin—
"The dragonballs," she finally says. "If I can't get your tail back the good old-fashioned way, we can always use them, for our next wish after we get Son back."
"What stops me from gathering 'em right now?" I breathe dangerously close to her face.
"Easy," she ain't affected in the least, "you haven't the slightest idea where they are, how to find them, or what they look like." Damn. She wins that one. I'll have to wheedle that stuff out of her over time, I reckon.
"Fine," I say, easing up a little.
"You're welcome, by the way," she sneers.
"Don't see what reason I have to thank you," I snort, keeping my face close and my hands pinning her wrists down for good measure. Sure, she's gonna get my tail back, but she cut it off in the first place. Sure, she's gonna build me a healing tank (dunno what I should think of that—that she figures I'm gonna get beat up something ugly if she does bring Kakarrot back from the dead? maybe I'm afraid to know why she's doing it; or maybe it's just for her precious little friends, who ain't gonna need it anyway once I kill 'em). But in exchange for that I have to read the pod manual. How disgustingly dull. "It's a fair trade, at best. I got nothing to thank you for."
"Yeah?" she quirks an eyebrow, squirms around like she's thinking of something, and then cranes her neck up, pulling my lower lip into her mouth and biting it. I jump back and real quick she runs out from beneath me to stand in the doorway, grinning that same grin that ain't natural for a human—"Well, now you do," she says, and bounces out of the room.
I can feel the ghost-tail's hairs stand on end as it whips around all excited-like. Little bumps crop up on my skin as those hairs stand up too. I stick by what I said—it's a goddamned rebellion.
Converting /tmp/php7tubVx to /dev/stdout
By the way, the "ghost tail" is supposed to be like having a phantom limb. (Just, Raditz doesn't necessarily know that term.)
...
I don't know if she knocked me out or if I blacked out from the pain, but when I woke up my head was pounding.
Nobody removes a Saiyan's tail and gets away with it—nobody makes me look like I could pass for one of those humans. Nobody humiliates me like that so soon after such a glorious victory.
Nobody except that goddamned woman.
There are no more walls around me, but I'm more caged-in than I ever was before. Whenever I see her, she looks down her snobby little nose at me, somehow, like I'm trash beneath her stupidly inefficient footwear. She doesn't speak, and that's for the better. I doubt I'd be able to stand her voice.
On one side of her lab I can see that she's preserved my tail. If the equipment scattered around it is any indication, she's studying it—studying me. I don't much like looking at it; gives me the chills—what would you do if you saw your hand in a jar? Often I feel the ghost of my tail following me, wrapped around me, making me midjudge my movements and making me clumsy. I wonder how Bulma would walk with only one leg. Imagining it makes my lips curl up a little.
I'm heading out of the lab—they don't like me showing up there. No, now I have a quaint little bedroom near the humans' living quarters. That woman's trust is moronically huge, that I won't just decide I don't give a shit about my tail and go ballistic on everyone she knows and loves.
But, dammit, I want my tail back. I can't look at my back in the mirror anymore without retching. I wonder how Kakarrot lived with himself—but that's not important now, now that he's gone. I am surprised by how quickly Bulma seemed to move past it, at least from what I've noticed so far. Guess she didn't like him quite so much as she made it sound like—but who can blame her? At least that traitorous fool is gone from my sight. The question now is whether I will take his son, or whether the boy is completely unbearable as well (which is the impression I have gotten—but whelps are easier to push around so there may be hope for him yet). I need to get my scouter back, at the very least, or, ideally, my pod, so that I can see if it can't be repaired. Doubtless Nappa and Vegeta will arrive eventually, but without a means of contacting 'em I dunno how far away they are.
Then these Earthlings will get what they deserve. Well, once I have my tail. I hum a little at the thought of every one of their cities burning to the ground, those screams and the crackling of bodies popping under the heat. The image makes my mouth water so I head up the stairs to the kitchen, which I have been in a few times so far. These humans eat so little, but, hell, what do I care? I start cleaning out the cabinets and eating everything I can find; they can get their own food if I eat all this up. This food that didn't come from something that would have run away will have to do for now; else if I go and off one of her friends, Bulma will find some other way to fuck with me. Next thing she'll find some way to permanently remove my hair and I'll look like that ugly sonnuvabitch Nappa. Maybe I can go out into the wooded area not far away and at least hunt something. Being this stationary ain't healthy.
Killing Kakarrot felt great, after all those weeks of being bothered by him. I'm disappointed my little brother became what he did. It's only a shame I didn't get to enjoy his suffering a bit more. But, well—guy at least got a taste of what he deserved.
...
I wake up in the middle of the night and it ain't because I'm not tired anymore.
"Listen, you sadistic bastard," she hisses, her mouth way too close to my ear. "You fucked up with what you did to Son. You'd better thank your Saiyan gods—if you've even got any willing to admit to such a station—that the dragonballs exist or I would have cut off more than your tail."
Her voice forces me to think again of that unbearable pain, and it paralyzes me. "Get the hell away from me," is all I can say, and manage to roll onto my back so she can't step on the spot where my tail once was.
"Don't you want to know what the dragonballs are?" she asks, and I can see her teeth pulled back—she's bothered that I don't give a damn about anything concerning Kakarrot.
"No," I say. "Get the fuck out of here."
"The dragonballs are seven magical spheres," oh great, and now she's just spewing out bullshit to see how long it takes me to get angry and hit her, "and when you gather them together, you can summon the Dragon, and he'll grant you any wish."
"Bullshit," I manage. I hardly want to acknowledge her, but her face is still so close to mine that she could spit in my eye.
"When I found out about them I wanted to gather them and wish for a boyfriend," she muses, calmer than before, like the sound of her own voice makes her feel better. "Well, that didn't happen." By now I've closed my eyes again and I'm pretending to sleep. For a few moments, I don't hear her, but then I can feel her leaning closer to me. "Wake up!" she nearly screams straight into my ear.
"Goddammit, stupid bitch!" I shout.
She seems to take this as evidence that I'm still listening. As if I had a choice. "Anyway," she grins a little, "you and me are gonna play nice, all right?"
Shit. Like she needs to say it again. "Yeah, yeah, my tail," I mutter.
"Not only that," if it's possible, she leans in closer. I can't help the fact that her tits are right in my line of sight. The woman is far too skinny, like a fragile little stick—nowhere near enough muscle—but I can't shake the feeling that there's hope for her yet. Not that that it'll matter, anyway, once she's burning with the others. I raise an eyebrow and try to look somewhere else. "We're using the dragonballs to revive Son—not now, in a while." Shit—wait—what? Maybe I should've been listening. She keeps blabbering, anyway, her grin getting wider. "He's getting some kind of crazy training in the afterlife, so if he finds out you did anything to any of us, when he gets back, he's gonna beat the snot out of you."
"And who will be gathering this dragon's balls?" I ask, and she snorts a little, maybe out of disgust at the thought of picking up a giant animal's testicles. But then, maybe she's into that sort of thing. The people here are fucked up.
"Dragonballs—and me, of course." Well, damn. There goes my idea of sneaking off to kill whoever was gonna do it, if it was somebody she wouldn't miss. I notice a lot of humans take orders from her, and wonder again if she might be like this world's Freeza.
"You bring him back—if it's true that you can—that's your choice; I'll just kill him again," I say. I doubt these things exist, but at this moment I'm not about to put anything past her—telling ridiculous stories that are true or out and out lying just to screw me over. Then again, guess I always heard bizarre things about Namekians and there is one of 'em here...
"Doubt it," she rolls her eyes, leaning back a little. I feel a bit uneasy under the way she looks over me, like one of those doctors in Freeza's ships who don't understand a lick of what they're doing but are damn sure they can figure it out if they press all the right buttons. Her eyes stop on my midsection and without the slightest bit of warning, her hands are on my side, flipping me over. Her cold human fingers rest against my skin as she narrows her eyes. "Do you still—you know, feel, your tail?" she asks. I look away for fear she's yanked out more of whatever chemical she put on it the first time to seal it over, the fucking most painful thing I've ever experienced in my life.
"Yes," I finally say. "Sometimes." I don't tell her that usually when I do feel it, it's only because it hurts like hell, like I wake up and find that I was lying on top of it and it's got a kink in it; like I try to scale a set of stairs and it burns like it's stretching out too far to balance me. She'd probably use shit like that against me, anyway.
She makes a little grunt like I'm an interesting specimen on her table. "You know, I haven't forgiven you," she says in one of the harshest tones I've ever heard from her, and I can feel her breath near the small of my back, "even though Son's coming back. I heard the way he screamed."
"Guy's stupid enough to bother somebody who can kill him," I growl, "he dies." Of course these Earthlings don't get it and likely never will get the chance.
"So I should've killed you, huh?" she asks.
"Guess so," I growl, "but I guess I'm too damned interesting so you study and torture me instead."
She sighs, but doesn't say anything else for a while. "I'm curious," she finally says, like it's an excuse.
"I'm tired," I answer, hoping it'll shut her up. But I feel the bed sag down a little as she plants her ass against it, right near my legs, so I get the feeling she's gonna keep nagging at me for a while and I ain't gonna get any more sleep tonight.
"I'm curious," she says again, and goes on, "Where's your tail?" Now I have to turn around to look at her, because she must be joking—but she sure as hell don't sound like it. When I get a glance at her, she don't look like she's kidding, either.
"Pickled, down in your lab," I answer, my hands gripping at the sheets a little. I sit up just in case she's about to try anything funny, facing toward her so I can keep an eye on her.
"No, dumbass," her voice is quiet, in a different way than it was when she started talking to me earlier. Now that my legs aren't in her way she leans back on her hands and her eyes pierce right into mine. "You said you can feel it sometimes, so where is it?"
Games. I don't know what she's playing at, but something about the way her fingers are twitching against the sheets is making me think she might be just about as nervous as I am confused. And like her talking about it summoned it, I can feel my tail behind me, twisting around. I wince as it bends too far.
"Bring it over here," she says, and motions to her side. "On your leg, or something."
"What the hell are you doing?" I have to ask, but the tail goes there anyway.
"Just...trying something," she says. "For science."
Yeah, right.
"Is it there right now?" she points to a vague area of my leg, and I tilt my head a little. "Can you put my hand on it?"
Dammit, this is not a good idea. I grab her hand, and, feeling just about like as big a moron as there ever was, pull it over and leave it where I can feel my tail. When I take my hand away from hers and her hand settles onto it, I shiver a little—fuck, this is weird.
"Can you feel it?" she asks. She moves her hand a little bit and I growl.
"You're rubbing the fur the wrong way," I tell her, when she looks at me with frightened eyes. Rather'n looking at me like I'm crazy, she starts moving her hand the other way instead, real gently.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Hot air pours out of my nostrils at the feeling and a little whimper makes it past my throat. All the godawful stuff that my ghost-tail makes me feel and she has to be the one who discovers the one good thing.
"Is that better?" she asks, and by her voice I'd say she knows it. She leans closer down like she can see the tail if she does, and I can feel her warm breath on both my leg and my tail, and I shudder, because it's fucking weird, but...
Then I see her hand move too far down, and a shout bubbles out of my throat. She recoils, eyes big like a scared animal's, not that I give a damn with the way the sharp pain has become a pounding ache in my ghost-tail.
"You squeezed it," I tell her, and, shoot, my breathing sounds heavy when I say it. Hurt more'n I thought it did.
"Sorry," she says, and I just keep breathing. Now that I look, my chest is rising and falling visibly with each breath, and I close my eyes to try to convince my tail that nothing happened to it, 'cause it ain't there. All the planets I wiped out and at this one I lose my tail for good—well—I hope not really for good. I wonder if something happened to Kakarrot that kept him from growing his tail back or if he was just in-between growings; if his ghost-tail wailed like it was gonna try to yank itself off 'cause of all the pain. I guess I ain't never known a Saiyan to go very long without a tail, but, damn, all this must have come from whatever it was that she did to where my tail grows out my back, right? That searing, awful pain of the only damn thing I ever had being stripped off of me.
Since the quiet set in, my chest is pounding even harder. I feel cold human fingers on my face and my eyes snap open. "What the hell are you doing?" I hiss, mostly hoping she ain't gonna lean on the tail or something.
"Er," she looks away, and in the dark I can still see that her face is a bit red, "well, you had some tears down your cheeks, so..."
Shit. Well, maybe I can still save some face. "You fuck with my tail like that, you think it's not gonna hurt?" I snap.
"Sure," she whispers.
"Did you just come here to brag about the dragon's balls?" I keep on it, because I think if I bother her enough she'll just up and leave, in this state, feeling bad as she seems to. "I'd rather you threaten me when I'm already awake," I add. "This shit isn't worth my sleep."
Her teeth show a little, and she's grinning for whatever reason. Then she gets a little more somber-like, leaning in close like I won't be able to hear her otherwise. "Yamcha gets his feathers all ruffled when I talk to you," she says, "thinks you're gonna beat me up and kill me or something. So I came to talk to you when I knew he wouldn't show up."
"Now that you say that, maybe I will kill you," I tell her, not that she'd believe it even if was gonna.
Her grin comes back. "Uh-huh," she says, "sure. Anyway," her eyes move away from mine and around the rest of the room, like she's thinking hard but don't wanna seem like it, "I've got a little bit of a, uh—of a proposition for you."
I do not like one bit how all my hairs stand up at that word, nor the images that flash into my head. I do not like how my neck cranes forward, nor the way my ghost-tail twitches. My hand clenches into a fist. It's some sort of goddamned full-body rebellion, I swear.
"A business proposition," she corrects, and she likely hears me swearing at myself for how obvious it probably was to her what my body was thinking.
"Let's hear it," I finally say.
"Well, I need your help translating the manual that came with your pod," she says, sighing. "I thought I could figure it out, but it looks like I actually need to know what the words say." I grin at her. Heh—she's illiterate. Well—I'm sure she's literate in whatever stupid little language they write here on Earth, but that don't mean a thing. "Maybe you could, er—teach me how to read it," now she's getting a bit red, and it's real clear she ain't used to asking for help with something like reading, "for future reference."
"I hate reading," I tell her, "And the thought of trying to teach you anything sounds unbearable. What's in it for me?"
Her grin grows to a dimension I thought only manageable by Saiyans. "I've been thinking on it," she says, visibly bouncing. Visibly. Bouncing. Oh god, now it's my eyes, too, joining the rebellion. "And I can't deny that I'm a little bit interested in the 'healing tank' you mentioned earlier." She must see me straighten up a little. "You know, if you can describe it to me well enough, maybe I can reverse engineer one." Yes, that is definitely a Saiyan grin she's wearing. "I've never run up against a set of mental gymnastics I couldn't navigate. It'll be fun, right?"
"And what about my tail?" I ask, trying to ignore the fact that various parts of me have particular ideas of what gymnastics entail. Dammit, she's not even that hot, that look on her face aside. "When do I get that back?"
She bites her lip. "When I can trust you, I guess," she says. "Not to turn around and blow me up the second you get it back. And to tell your friends not to kill us."
"Well, that'll be damn near impossible," I say. Even if I could resist destroying her and everything else on this planet, I doubt Vegeta and Nappa would, and I ain't about to butt heads with one of them.
"Look, it's going to take me a little while to build the equipment I need to do the research I need to make sure I can get your tail back safely and without incident," she says, suddenly not snapping around with the usual threat in her voice that she might make a fool of me every other word she says, "not to mention the equipment involved in actually ensuring your tail grows back. Depending on when they get here, your talking them out of it might be crucial to me having the time to get things ready for you."
This is not sounding good. I am almost starting to regret killing Kakarrot, between this and the whole "magical dragon" bit. Almost. Way too much trouble.
She takes a few breaths and moves closer to me. "I'm gonna be honest," she finally says, "I don't know yet exactly how I'm going to do it. It was a bit of an on-the-spot—"
She don't finish because by now I'm on top of her and snarling. "You don't know?" I ask.
"Raditz," she mutters, "I'm gonna do it, trust me."
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. "And what reason do I have to do that?" I hiss. "You're the rottenest bitch I've ever met. I don't see why I shouldn't just kill you now." I lean down close so she can see my teeth, dig my knees against her sides so she can get an idea of just how powerful I am and just what a weakling she is. She's still got an ounce of fight in her eyes so I grab her wrists and pin them down. It still don't flash from her eyes—gets stronger, if anything. Still, her chest rises and falls quickly with panic, brushing up against mine each time she takes in a breath. The fabric of her shirt is pretty damn thin—
"The dragonballs," she finally says. "If I can't get your tail back the good old-fashioned way, we can always use them, for our next wish after we get Son back."
"What stops me from gathering 'em right now?" I breathe dangerously close to her face.
"Easy," she ain't affected in the least, "you haven't the slightest idea where they are, how to find them, or what they look like." Damn. She wins that one. I'll have to wheedle that stuff out of her over time, I reckon.
"Fine," I say, easing up a little.
"You're welcome, by the way," she sneers.
"Don't see what reason I have to thank you," I snort, keeping my face close and my hands pinning her wrists down for good measure. Sure, she's gonna get my tail back, but she cut it off in the first place. Sure, she's gonna build me a healing tank (dunno what I should think of that—that she figures I'm gonna get beat up something ugly if she does bring Kakarrot back from the dead? maybe I'm afraid to know why she's doing it; or maybe it's just for her precious little friends, who ain't gonna need it anyway once I kill 'em). But in exchange for that I have to read the pod manual. How disgustingly dull. "It's a fair trade, at best. I got nothing to thank you for."
"Yeah?" she quirks an eyebrow, squirms around like she's thinking of something, and then cranes her neck up, pulling my lower lip into her mouth and biting it. I jump back and real quick she runs out from beneath me to stand in the doorway, grinning that same grin that ain't natural for a human—"Well, now you do," she says, and bounces out of the room.
I can feel the ghost-tail's hairs stand on end as it whips around all excited-like. Little bumps crop up on my skin as those hairs stand up too. I stick by what I said—it's a goddamned rebellion.
Converting /tmp/php7tubVx to /dev/stdout