Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Only the Weak ❯ Chapter 6 ( Chapter 6 )

Only the Weak

By Karete-chan

Chapter 6:

Bulma was cold. As she pummelled fruitlessly on the thick arm of her kidnapper she mentally cursed all ki-using beings for not being able to remember that she couldn't do the ki-shield thing. Her long blue hair whipped in her eyes and she could just make out the ground speeding along beneath her. She tried bitting his hand again.

"Try that one more time and I'll drop you," Piccolo growled at her.

The wind prevented her from hearing him properly but his tone told her enough. She stopped struggling.

Presently the ground rose up to meet them as Piccolo turned his flight path over the mountains. By the time they landed Bulma felt like she was turning blue.

He dropped her roughly to the ground and she scrabbled away from him as best she could on her numbed legs.

He grabbed her shoulder. "Sit," he said tersely, forcing her down onto a fallen tree trunk.

She glared up at him as he crossed his arms over his chest and the wind caught the end of his long while cape. "What in hell do you want with me?" she spat. "If you were looking for a fight with Gokou, you'd be better off kidnapping ChiChi."

"You think I don't know that?" he asked, somehow giving the impression of a raised eyebrow without having any. "As much as I would love to pound Gokou into the ground, he is not what concerns me at the minute."

"Oh? And what does?"

"You and your little `corporation'."

Bulma stuck her nose in the air, forcing herself into a false sense of bravado. "You can kill me before I give anything about my company away!"

Piccolo glared down at her. "Your mind truly works along one track doesn't it? Think! I don't need your stupid technology."

She frowned for a minute before her eyes widened in realisation. "How did you know? I had the complex completely shielded!"

"From eyes. Whoever those people are they're absolutely hopeless at hiding their ki."

"Ki shielding? You can do that?"

Piccolo's eyes narrowed. "If I knew how to find Gokou without resorting to a phone book, you would think one or the other would be dead by now. Wouldn't you?"

A slight grin tugged at the corners of Bulma's mouth.

"What is so amusing?"

"You don't know how to use a phone directory do you?" she snickered.

Piccolo closed his eyes and counted slowly to ten. For him to kill the woman before she told him what he wanted would be pointless. He opened his eyes. "You are on a ledge that has a fifty metre drop," he said to the deserted clearing. "How far do you think you will get?" He smirked to himself. "Even if you do throw yourself off the edge?"

The sudden roar of an engine wiped the smirk from his face. "Damn!"

~*~*~*~

The doctor looked up from his papers as the machine beeped for the second time in five minutes. Sighing, he pushed himself up from his desk to check on the rejuvenation tanks in the room. One of the occupants must be stirring but not healed yet, otherwise the machine would simply drain out.

The readout on the console screen brought about a raised eyebrow. Quickly the doctor went to the closest machine and pressed a series of buttons. The occupant inside stirred and opened their eyes.

"Welcome back, my lord," the doctor said, watching his patient carefully. "Do you remember what happened?"

Zarbon's long hair floated loose in the healing waters and moved softly when he nodded his head weakly.

"You are an extremely lucky young man. If some of the Untouchables had not found you, you would have bled to death."

Zarbon raised a hand to the glass and pushed weakly. When nothing happened he looked the doctor in the eye and attempted to frown.

The doctor shook his head. "I'm afraid not, my Lord. You still require at least another four hours before you will even be able to walk. I will increase the tank's concentration so you will rest easily." He turned to the controls and reprogrammed it, then watched as Zarbon's eyes slowly drifted shut. The doctor sighed and let his eyes travel slowly over the other man.

It wasn't fair that it was his shift when Frieza's former favourite had been brought in. Zarbon had made it clear to him several times that he was not interested in anything that went beyond a platonic relationship, whether it was male, female or otherwise. And silently, the doctor thought that it was such a waste.

The alarm on the next machine went off, startling the doctor from his thoughts. The hatch popped open and Radditz stepped out, his tail flicking wildly to rid itself of the water. He stalked over to a bench and grabbed a towel.

The doctor went back to his desk and sighed.

~*~*~*~

She hadn't gotten far. But then, she hadn't expected to. Bulma popped the hatched on her air car and whipped the prototype laser out from under the dash. A large green hand came up from underneath the car and crushed the barrel before she even had a chance to pull the trigger.

"You are annoying," Piccolo growled as he floated up next to the hovering car.

"And you have just ruined my only prototype." She glared at him.

He glared right back.

Birds chirped in the background.

Finally Bulma sighed. "You're not going to leave me alone until I tell you what's going on are you?"

"No."

"If…if I let you come back to Capsule Corp. you have to agree to a couple of things," she said slowly.

"Not that this is a case of `letting' but I'm listening."

Bulma stood up in the car to her full five foot five. "Okay. One: if Gokou comes around, there will be no trying to kill each other. Two: you are not to try to take over the world."

Piccolo growled under his breath. "Anything else your majesty?"

"Yeah. Three: no trying to kill me either." She held her breath.

"Fine. Agreed."

"Really?" she asked, surprised.

He glared at her.

"Okay, okay." She looked over to the horizon, where the sky was beginning to lighten. "We better get back. Everyone's probably worried stupid." She paused. "That is, if they've noticed I'm gone."

~*~*~*~

Frieza paced in his outer rooms. His tailed thumped against the floor in agitation. He was pissed for two reasons. One: He'd had multiple reports of some new technology sweeping through the rebel ranks, technology that actually seemed to be able to hurt his soldiers and two: number one was pissing him off enough to make him pace.

Even though his mastery of the entire universe was so sure that it was just about written in stone, the youngest Lord of Tsiru-sei frequently became agitated by the amount of time it was taking. Not that his family were any help on that matter. Coola, having a whole army of his own was content enough to just wander around aimlessly, plundering and blowing up any planet that wasn't already claimed by Frieza. He was having so much fun that half the western quadrant was currently burning.

Fun. It was something that Frieza only allowed himself on occasion. Having seen that too much of a good time would turn him into something that would resemble his father. He shuddered at the thought. Did his father know what the others of his race said about him? Both Frieza and Coola had been approached more than once on the business of ending the current monarchs reign. Yet, as much as both sons loathed their indulgent and lazy father, neither wanted the responsibility of having to rule over their own vicious race.

Frieza shook his head to rid himself of thoughts of his useless family. The more pressing matter of the rebels should be dealt with first. Sending the Ginyus was out of the question; by the time they returned from their current mission the rebel activity in the area would have long died out and moved into hiding somewhere else. He frowned. Until the pesky little creatures were all dead he could not move on with his plans.

His tail thumped the floor once more. The new weapons they had, increased the chances of them actually defending some part of their territory. Whether it was valuable or not, mattered little to him but the fact that they were still able to call it theirs was.

A comm. station beeped suddenly, reminding the Tsiru-jin of his impending journey planet-side. His tail flicked out and smashed the unit before he turned and stalked out of the room.

~*~*~*~

Yamcha was beside himself. He'd woken every person he could find at Capsule Corp., including some he wasn't sure could really be classified as people, and not one of them had seen Bulma for the last two hours.

He went to her room - no note. He went to the lab - no note. He went to the kitchen - no note. He went to the lounge - and panicked.

Thankfully twenty minutes ago Gokou had turned up. Not that he was too much help. Apart from telling Yamcha that he was sure Bulma was fine the bigger man had just sat outside on the patio and watched the sky.

The sun had been up for an hour and Yamcha had been methodically wearing down the living room carpet when he heard Gokou call, "Hey Bulma!"

He dashed outside to see Bulma's air car touch down on her back lawn. Without thinking he jumped over the railing, fell two stories, dashed to the door, ripped it off its hinges before she could open it and pulled her into a giant bear hug.

"It's nice to know someone missed me," she said giggling.

"Missed you? Babe, I was worried sick."

Yamcha sighed in relief to feel her in his arms again. Things were usually crazy around the blue haired beauty but ever since she'd taken on whatever this project of hers was, things had been a lot weirder than usual.

"As much as this scene is so terribly endearing, I'd rather hear what's going on so I can get out of here."

Yamcha spun at the sound of the deep voice behind him. At the sight of the caped and turbaned figure he pushed Bulma back and stood in front of her.

Piccolo fought not to roll his eyes. He glanced over at Gokou, who was still standing calmly on the grass behind the happy couple. At least he knows how to spot a threat. Piccolo's eyes went back to Yamcha as he heard Bulma start on an explanation, though she sounded extremely annoyed. Yamcha apparently forgot him then as he rounded on his girlfriend and the two proceeded to have an argument. This time he did roll his eyes.

"Are they always like this?" Piccolo asked, shooting a look at Gokou.

His archrival looked surprised at the question. "No," Gokou answered amiably, "only when they're together."

~*~*~*~

There was a sudden shift in the air of the room. A beam of light hit the wall through the only window and slowly began to spread across the room. OneBlack glanced up from her work. Several other slaves frowned at her from the small circle they sat in. The tall girl stared out the window towards the glow of a distant planet before a sharp whack on the shoulder from a passing senior slave turned her back to her work.

She grasped the needle tightly between her numb fingers and returned to patching the damaged body suit in her lap. As the needle passed through the thin but very warm fabric it drew the ragged edges of the rip together seamlessly. This particular suit had been torn in battle, she could tell. Not that scorched edges like this didn't occur from training but there wasn't usually this much blood.

OneBlack strayed further from the slave common room than her friends. She was the strongest of the four of them physically and was often called away to help shift cargo and other odds and ends. Despite this more demanding physical labour, she was the least tired of the four and was hardly ever beaten.

She faltered in her work again as her hand rose to her right eye. TwoBlue had said they could take the bandages off tonight. OneBlack frowned; it had been almost two weeks since they'd wrapped it and it still hurt. Absently she rubbed it with the heel of her palm, wincing as it just made the pain worse. Stupid bastard, she thought. And he thought it was just the greatest joke.

She went back to her sewing, her thoughts lost on the arsehole that hurt her. In her minds eye she could see his large, bulbous, blue scaly head. She ripped the needle through the fabric viciously. I'll get `Lieutenant' Kui for that one day. Realising that she had begun to sew crookedly she forced herself to calm down. It would do no good to loose her cool now.

Movement outside caught her attention. Two of the small metal spacecrafts called pods shot out from the side of the ship, heading planet side. A moment later a larger cruiser appeared from the stern and slowly began to follow them. OneBlack grinned inside.

Frieza was off ship again. That meant tonight was training again. She looked around for Petak. He was nowhere to be seen but she had no doubt that he would organise as many training sessions as he could under the lax security the ship was under while Frieza was away. In her anticipation OneBlack could feel her growing ki flare to life inside her. She smirked. Wait until she showed the others she worked out how to make it glow in her hand.

"Lazy bitch!"

This time the slap struck her across the face. She fell backward on the hard metal floor, her head throbbing from the pain in her eye. Someone grabbed her by the front of her grubby shirt.

"Get back to work, you idiotic creature! Do you want us all punished for your stupidity? Just because that snitch, Petak, favours you doesn't mean you can slack off and leave the rest of us to be punished for it!"

The man slapped her again and stalked off. The rest of you to be punished? OneBlack thought as she struggled to clear her throbbing head. What the hell do they think happens to the four of us every day?

Author's Note:

To Hellwise - thank you very much, that has to be one of the best compliments I've ever received. I hope this chapter lived up to your expectations.

I'd just like to thank all of those who have read this fic. I can't believe I actually managed to get 962 hits!