Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Lab Monkey ❯ From Bad to Worse ( Chapter 12 )
Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ. If I did it would have involved a lot more romance.
A/N: Look, in the anime, somehow Bulma managed to create a translation device. I have no idea how, since she didn't have a sample of languages to draw on, but she did it. She's a genius right? Right…
Chapter Twelve
From Bad to Worse
Bulma was hunched over a makeshift desk in her quarters, muttering obscenities under her breath. Since the incident in the kitchen two days ago, she hadn't dared leave her room except for the absolute necessities. She ventured out for food, water and to raid some of the ship's control panels for electronic microchips, but only when she thought that Vegeta was either asleep or in a different part of the vessel. So far she had been successful in avoiding him, but she knew it would be impossible to continue to do so for months on end.
She couldn't stay with Vegeta. It was just too dangerous. The way he had kissed her in the kitchen was too real, too intense.
His intentions for her were clear in every nuance of his body, from the way he stalked up to her, to the way he smiled wolfishly in her direction. If she hadn't bit him he would have fucked her right there on the kitchen counter. The worse part was that she would have let him and probably would have had the most mind blowing orgasm of her life.
She couldn't let that to happen. No matter what, she couldn't allow him to have that kind of power over her. She wasn't about to become his sex kitten just because he snapped his fingers and kissed like a god.
She had to get away before something terrible happened. Namek was months away and there was no way she was going to be able to resist Vegeta's allure for that long. He was just too incredibly sexy to be healthy for any woman.
She tried to list out the reasons why she shouldn't hop into bed with him. Morally wrong, aside. He probably raped, tortured and murdered more people than she could possibly imagine. Her brow furrowed in thought. Not that he had ever said anything to her about raping. He certainly boasted about his battle prowess, but never about preying on women.
Her biggest deterrent for not lusting after the monster should be Yamcha. He was after all the love of her life, her hero, her lover and her friend. She should be spending the hours longing for him, not fantasizing about the caress of a killer. With a great deal of personal pain she finally admitted to herself that her memory of Yamcha was growing dim. She could still recall the events of their life with perfect clarity, but his face was a blur. He was becoming nothing more than a footnote in her past while her present was slapping her in the face with a vicious persistence that truly disgusted her.
Her most horrific problem was that her biggest reason for not seducing Vegeta herself was his murderous tendencies. Not her love for Yamcha or her hate for Vegeta, both of which were melting away under a barrage of heightened awareness of who Vegeta was as a man and her burning lust for him.
No, it was his bloody past that stopped her. She could not conceive of a man committing the atrocities he claimed to have and still have the iota of emotion one would need to have a relationship with anyone. And therein lay her problem. She just didn't have random sex with people because they turned her on. She needed to have an emotional connection with them and that was impossible where Vegeta was concerned. She just didn't understand him or his life.
Murder was wrong. Mayhem was wrong. Caring for him would be wrong.
Bulma's hand trembled and the soldering rod she was holding almost burned her. With grim determination she tightened her grip and shoved her unruly thoughts out of her mind.
She had located an industrial planet about two day's flight from their coordinates in an escape pod. After she was finished with her translation device she would make her escape. Never again would she make the mistake of not understanding what people were saying around her. She was confident that she would be able to trade some of her scientific genius for a ship on the planet.
She would leave Isis on autopilot for a day, after that Vegeta would be able to take control. She was sure that he would make no effort to retrieve her, especially after she programmed Namek's coordinates into the navigator as an inducement to continue forward and leave her behind. If he did decide to come for her, she would already be on the planet's surface before the much faster ship could catch up. She would be able to hide amongst the rest of the ki-less masses and he would never be able to find her.
Bulma set down the rod and snapped the computer chip into place. She eyed the choker that wrapped around her throat to translate anything she said into the local language and the nearly invisible ear pierce that would interpret all that was said to her. She would escape and make her way home, to her family and to Yamcha. Her plan was foolproof.
It had to work. It just had too.
*~*
Bulma touched down planet side, several miles away from the nearest life sign. She didn't want to land in the middle of the city and she needed to conceal her craft just in case there were any unforeseen problems.
She exited the pod, stretching her arms above her head, mewling like a kitten. She had been trapped in the small ship for two days and her muscles were sore with forced inactivity. The walk to town would take several hours and she would get plenty of exercise to work out her tight muscles. She felt a burning flare in her shoulder and she grimaced in pain. The bite wound on her back felt like it was getting worse but she hadn't been able to examine it since leaving Isis. She concealed her pod the best she could with branches and quickly set out down the road towards the nearest settlement.
She trudged along the dirt path for several hours, the burning heat of the sun beating down on her. Sweat rolled down her neck and between her shoulder blades, stinging the wound on her back. She tightened her mouth in determination and kept going, methodically sorting through the filing cabinet in her mind. She quietly examined all the technology she had stored there while trying to determine which one would be the best bargaining chip to get her a new ship.
She had picked up a stick and was using it to swipe mindlessly at the tall grass on the side of the road when she felt the first tremor. The ground unexpectedly rocked beneath her feet, knocking her to her knees. She looked up to see a wave of land rolling towards her in sea of tall grass and she braced herself for the impact. The wave struck her and she stayed on her knees, riding the crest unstably.
Finally the ground stilled and she climbed gingerly to her feet, looking around her. The ground had settled back into place as though nothing had happen, but she had seen enough earthquakes in Tokyo to know exactly what was going on. She quickened her pace towards the city, certain that they would need her medical and technical knowledge to help with any survivors.
In the distance she could see great spiraling plumes of smoke rising over a hill and she started to jog in that direction. By the time Bulma crested the hill the ground had mostly stopped shaking except for a few quivers here and there.
A small gasp escaped her lips and her eyes widened in horror at the site of the smoking ruins sprawled out before her. The once towering skyscrapers of the grand metropolis lay broken in the streets and fires peppered the area, the black smoke stinging her eyes.
She jumped when she heard a loud crash and she watched another damaged building collapse into the street in a tangle of steel and concrete. In a daze she moved down the hill towards the outskirts of the city, only one thought ringing in her head. She had to try to help the remaining survivors of this tragedy.
She slipped into a narrow alleyway, noting absently that the sun was blotted out by a larger skyscraper that leaned precariously against a smaller building, making the alley into a dark cave. Bricks fell from above, shattering on the pavement at her feet, making her duck and dodge to avoid being knocked unconscious.
She neared the end of the alley and she breached the inner street of the city. She clasped her hand over her mouth in dismay when she saw the bodies that lay in the street, some smoking from fire while others were crushed under debris. Some looked like they had plummeted to their deaths from the tall buildings, their bodies splattered on the pavement like overripe watermelons.
She moved from body to body, methodically checking them for any signs of life, while trying desperately not to lose the contents of her stomach. Bulma suddenly noticed that it was eerily quiet and in fact there weren't even the barking of dogs or the chirping of birds to disrupt the morgue like silence. Bulma was sure that she should be hearing sirens in the distance for emergency crews or at the very least the shouts of the survivors.
As she continued through the bloody streets she subtly become aware of a foreign noise, like the high pitched whine of a machine. She paused, looking around her in bewilderment, unable to identify it. She heard a clatter to her left down an alley and she quickly stepped towards it, hoping that she had finally found someone alive.
As she neared the end of the alley the whine of the machine grew louder as if it was coming down the street she had just been on. She turned around so she could get a glimpse of it as it passed. Maybe it was a rescue vehicle, if so she needed to wave it down and get help.
Suddenly she felt a large sweaty palm cover her mouth and she was pressed up against the hard body of a man. Instinctively she struggled and the man tightened his grip on her ribs with his thick arm that was banded around her waist.
"Shush." A voice hissed in her ear, before he dragged her down to crouch behind some concrete debris. The whine grew louder and through the opening of the alleyway she could see a small round probe that hovered about four feet off the ground. The top half to the machine rotated in a circle as though it was getting a 360 degree view of the carnage around it.
As it turned towards the alley entrance a red beam shot out of the glass visor and swept every inch of the darkened area. The man behind her grew very still and squeezed her tight in warning to do the same.
Finally after what seemed to be hours of taut expectation, the light clicked off and the probe continued down the street, its tell tale whine growing fainter with its departure.
The man behind her stood up releasing her at the same time. Bulma whirled around, anger snapping from her icy eyes. She was momentarily stunned to see a startling handsome blond man with crystal blue eyes and strong features. He towered over her at an impressive height of at least six foot five, every inch of which was hard, lean muscle. The close cut of his hair and his dress obviously marked him as military and his honed muscles and stern face told her that he took his job very seriously. Of course the weapon that he held in his hands tipped her off as well. It looked like some sort of assault rifle and she wasn't to keen on having it pointed in her direction.
"What the hell do you think you are doing, mister." She shrieked and the man's face instantly darkened as he grabbed her none too gently by the arm.
"Shut up! Do you want that thing to come back here? Come on." Without waiting for her agreement he dragged her from the alley and into a dilapidated building. They entered into a large empty room that had a row of dirty windows straight ahead of her and various stone pillars that kept the rest of the building from crashing down on them. She could see piles of trash and barrels where fires had been burned and she knew instantly that this was an old abandoned building that was only used by the more undesirables of the city.
She was about to complain loudly when she caught sight of the other inhabitants of the room and the shrill words died on her tongue. A young woman about her age with strawberry blonde hair glanced up from the ground where she was sitting, her pale blue eyes sparkling with unshed tears. A young boy about sixteen glared at her from under dark green hair that had obviously been dyed. Bulma could see a streak of blood that smudged his cheek before dripping down under the collar of his jacket. Finally, her eyes drifted to an old man, well into his seventies, who stood with stately assurance as he leaned against his cane, his wispy hair smoothed over his balding head. He gave no sign that he was anywhere but inside his parlor receiving guests.
The thing that struck Bulma the most was the hopeless despair that shone in every one of their eyes. It was then that she knew that she hadn't stumbled onto a planet that was suffering from seismic seizures, but something far more sinister.
"Are you an off worlder?" The teenage boy asked her, curiosity lighting his eyes momentarily.
"Yes. How did you know?" Bulma asked.
"Blue hair is totally blossin." The boy snickered and Bulma frowned in confusion.
"Blossin?"
"It means dandy or neat. Kids and their slang these days." The old man said gravely, his eyes sparkling warmly. "My name is Orlander and that is Jet and Aleah." The man motioned to first the young boy and then the woman. "Behind you is Lieutenant Ricker."
The man who had brought her began to move restlessly behind her, checking the entrances and making sure that they were secure. Bulma eyed him for a second, before turning her attention back to the other three in the room. For the first time she realized that everyone she had seen so far had differing shades of blonde hair. Even the victims in the street had light hair, with the exception of the kid, but she suspected that if it wasn't dyed it would be blonde as well.
"My name is Bulma. Are you survivors of the quake?"
The boy snorted rudely at her comment, shaking his head like he thought she was the biggest moron he had ever met. He turned away to wander over to a nearby pile of rubble, kicking over a bucket to make himself a seat.
"That was no quake ma'am." The military man answered her while unceasingly double checking the perimeter.
Bulma's eyes widened in shock as she glanced at the others in askance. "What else could have caused such a terrible calamity?"
There was a deafening silence in the room and Bulma felt icy fingers of dread trail down her spine.
"Frieza." Jet muttered under his breath and a bolt of recognition struck Bulma. She had only heard that name once before. Almost as an accident it had fallen from Vegeta's lips. The look on his face at the time was full of hate and self pity and the dread inside of her tightened its grasp on Bulma's spine.
"Who?" Bulma asked quietly almost afraid to raise her voice when speaking of what she instinctively knew was a monster. It was paramount to locking yourself in a dark bathroom and chanting Bloody Mary while staring into the mirror. If you said its name enough times the monster would come to rip you apart and eat you for supper.
Everyone stopped what they were doing to stare dumbfounded at her. Even the military man ceased his obsessive perimeter check to stare oddly at her.
"Don't you know anything?" The boy asked her scornfully.
"Should I know?" Bulma glared back at the boy, offended that he questioned her genius. It wasn't her fault that she didn't know about their boogeyman. She was a stranger to this part of the galaxy.
"Of course you should. Everyone knows of Frieza." For the first time the young woman spoke and Bulma looked closely at her. She was attractive in her own way if a little on the pudgy side. She looked like she enjoyed one to many sweets in her life and not had enough exercise, but she was in no way obese. She had a fragile air around her that begged others to take care of her. The classic victim Bulma thought to herself.
"Yah. He's the ruler of the universe. The warlord of the seven hells. The devil himself. Destroyer of worlds. Murderer of civilizations…"
"Enough, old man." Lt. Ricker cut the old man off in mid sentence and Bulma was more than a little thankful. As Orlander had rambled on, his face had grown grayer and his pale, aged eyes had glittered with ill contained malice. Aleah had begun to tremble uncontrollably and the boy curled up into a tight ball as he sat on his bucket. They too were afraid that muttering the monster's name would bring him to them and there was nothing more they feared than that.
"Frieza is the lord of this quadrant of space. His army is composed of the fiercest fighters in the nine galaxies. Only those societies who haven't traveled into space have never heard of him." The handsome man gave Bulma a hard look and she fidgeted under his stare. Although his words were censuring she was struck with an obscenely odd thought. This was the type of man she should be attracted too. The handsome hero type, not the dark killer, but all she could think was that he was far too tall for her.
"I am the first to travel out of our solar system." Bulma muttered almost apologetically at the ground. She felt like she was undereducated street kid who was trying to impress college students. When she looked up she was stunned to see the sad looks that everyone was directing her way.
"When you don't return, your world will send out more explorers and they will draw the eyes of Frieza. Your world is destined to die." The militant man was solemn as though he was delivering a eulogy and perhaps he was. If what he said was true then her world may not make it through the next century, maybe even the next decade.
"What do you mean when I don't return?" Bulma questioned sharply, panic joined the dread that was nesting in her stomach. Things were just going from bad to worse.
"There are only two types of worlds under Frieza's rule." Aleah said, her voice tinkling in the quiet room.
"Enslaved or dead." The old man stated matter-of-factly, pity showing clearly on his face.
"And it looks like we have been slated for death." The teenager said bitterly. He sat hunched over, his arms wrapped around his stomach as if he was in pain.
"This destruction wasn't caused by a quake. It was a purge team." Lt. Ricker stared at her unemotionally. No pity for her shone in his eyes as he gripped his gun in his white knuckled hands.
Bulma trembled under the onslaught of information they fed to her. She knew vaguely what a purge was. Vegeta had spoke of it several times, claiming that once he got free of his prison that he was going to purge Earth of its inhabitants. He never went into great detail but she understood the gist of what he was saying. Everyone died, no one survived.
"So he is going to kill everyone on this world?" Bulma squeaked lifelessly. She couldn't believe her ill luck. She had created a foolproof plan to escape Vegeta only to end up dying on a strange world by the hands of his fellow soldiers. She looked around at the sad truth that was reflected in everyone's eyes and she felt helplessness well up inside of her. Who would save her world if she died here?
"Only the strongest will be taken alive." The military man's hands tightened on his gun and Bulma felt another shiver run up her spine.
"What will happen to them?" She almost didn't want to know. She wanted to go home and crawl into her nice warm safe bed while her mother told her it would be alright.
"They become unwilling soldiers in Frieza's army." He replied.
Bulma felt a spark of hope bloom inside of her at his words. "If these men are so strong and unwilling, why don't they overthrow Frieza?" Bulma's question was met with nervous laughter from the others.
"No one is that strong." The woman replied, horror at Bulma's suggestion echoing in her words.
"Even if all the men banded together they would have no chance of defeating him." Lt. Ricker said condescendingly.
"Surely no one is that strong?" Bulma asked in disbelief.
"Frieza is." Aleah stated in a haunted voice that reminded Bulma of misty graveyards and mausoleums.
"There must be something we can do." Bulma was a genius. She would not allow some power hungry madman kill her like she was nothing but a useless gnat. She could out think her way out of any situation. This was nothing different. She was met with a round of shaking heads and sad eyes. They believed that they would die here today and she couldn't convince them otherwise.
"There is nothing. Our only hope is to stay hidden until the purge team leaves." The woman sounded unconvinced and the Jet chimed in right after her in a brighter more caustic voice.
"Yah and pray that we can dodge the extermination team that comes to clean up afterwards."
"There has to be something else. I refuse to sit here and wait to die." Bulma raised her chin a notch and stared down the others. If all else failed they could try to make it out of the city to her ship, but there was a reason she hadn't mentioned that option yet. The small pod could only carry one other person and she didn't think she was equipped with the ability to decide who lived and who died.
"Young lady, sometimes in life there is nothing left to do but wait." The old man stood unsteadily on his feet, but he looked at her with the clear unclouded eyes of aged wisdom.
"But…" Bulma trailed off, despair eating at her.
"There is something." The military man offered unexpectedly. The all turned to look at him with started, hopeful expressions on their faces. Bulma looked towards him and was slightly unsettled when she noticed his piercing gaze was on her. Something glimmered in his eyes and she recognized it as respect, something she never saw in Vegeta's cold gaze.
"On the other side of the city there is a military bunker." The man started but he was cut off by the boy.
"Across the city!" He exclaimed in disbelief.
"That's too far." Agreed Orlander.
"We will die for sure." Wailed Aleah forlornly.
"In the bunker there is a ship that could carry all of us to safety." The man continued as if he hadn't been interrupted.
"The purgers will blast us to bits before we even break orbit." Jet claimed bitterly.
"It's fully armed and more than capable of taking on a purge ship." Lt. Ricker explained confidently.
"But it's so far." The woman exclaimed frailly, her reluctance to leave her rabbit hole clear in her entire shaking frame.
"What choice do we have?" Lt. Ricker was becoming agitated now and Bulma felt his agony. As the most qualified person here to lead the group he was burdened with the responsibility of trying to keep all these people alive and they weren't cooperating with him to do so.
"We can stay here until they are gone." Replied Orlander reasonably.
"Yah and wait for them to hunt us down." Bulma was surprised by Jet's sudden change of attitude, but she supposed the mention of an armed ship changed his mind. She guessed that it didn't matter what planet she was on, talk of guns always made boys feel safer.
"But Aleah is right. It's too far." The old man's voice was becoming frailer as slow realization sunk in that he may be outnumbered.
"You are just saying that because you are feeble, old man. You should stay behind anyways. You will just slow us down." The boy snarled with anger and Bulma was shocked at his cutthroat words.
"Stop it!" Bulma had enough of their childish arguing. It was time someone took control of the situation. "I say we put it to a vote." She offered democratically. "Who thinks we should go?"
Lt. Ricker, Jet and Bulma raised their hands while looking expectantly at Orlander and Aleah. The old man slumped his shoulders dejectedly as he was outvoted while he nodded his agreement. Aleah just began to sob softly and Bulma's mouth tightened with strain.
"Right. Then we are going." Bulma knew the trip would be hard on Aleah and the old man, but she really didn't see a choice in the matter. If they were going to die, they may as well do so while trying to save themselves.
Bulma looked around at her companions. Aleah was curled up in a corner crying to herself, while the old man patted her comfortingly on the back. The boy had wandered off and was poking stick at the pile of rubble that he had retrieved the bucket from. Bulma could tell that he was trying his best not to let his own fears show as he turned his back on the group.
Eventually, she met the crystal blue eyes of Lt. Ricker, their one hope. He was the only one with a gun and who knew where to find the ship. He gave her a reassuring nod, but all Bulma could think was that she wished that Vegeta was there.