Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Princess WHO of WHERE?!? ❯ Chi Chi ( Chapter 4 )

Thanks to everyone for reviewing!!! I was slightly discouraged and considered not continuing the fic, if I didn't get any reviews, but I DID so I'll keep writing. Sorry about the cliffhangers. I know they're kind of cruel, but I'm just trying my best to keep people interested. Vegeta will be putting in an appearance in either this chapter or the next, so stay tuned to see what happens.

Disclaimer: If wishes were fishes......I still wouldn't own DBZ cause I'm a terrible fisherman

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Goku woke with a start from an already disturbed sleep. He had a dream that Bulma was in some sort of trouble. He got out of bed and went to his bathing room to wipe his face down with some cold water in an effort to clear his mind. He stared at his reflection in the mirror for a moment trying to decide whether it had a dream from nerves or a true vision. Some of his people had been known to have cases of premonition, the ability to see the future, or far sight, the ability to see things happening at great distances away.

He sighed, not truly knowing what to do. He had responsibilities here, but he also felt that he needed to be at his best friend's side as she sought the origins of her kind. He knew Bulma would have followed him anyway if their positions had been reversed. There would have been no argument he would've been able to come up with that would've kept her from his side.

Goku then knew what to do.

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Bulma awoke moaning, her mouth dry, her stomach empty, and her head slightly throbbing. She was lying on her back and rolled onto her stomach attempting to fall back asleep, but the unfamiliar feel of the be beneath her was what snapped her into complete wakefulness. She sat up so fast that she nearly hit her head. She was lying on a silk covered bed surrounded by silk covered pillows. The bed had a canopy and even the sides were shielded with opaque silk curtains. And what was really weird about it was the bed was moving. Moving in slow plodding steps as if it were being carried.

Bulma went to draw on of the curtains aside and was greeted by metal bars. She was inside of a cage! She grabbed the bars rattling them with all of her strength. They wouldn't budge and no one even came to see what the noise was all about. She watched the passing scenery, which wasn't much to look at. She was somewhere incredibly desolate. There wasn't any trees or grass or water. Just the sun beaming down relentlessly, though Bulma couldn't feel the light directly due to the canopy and silk curtains.

The only place this could possibly was the Great Wasteland. But that was impossible. The Great Wasteland was at least a full moon-cycle away from home on horseback, and half a moon-cycle on the wing. She couldn't have possibly gone so far in so short a time. She couldn't have been sleeping so long....could she?

Bulma's anger boiled up at her lack of information and she began to rattle and shake the bars again in frustration.

"That's a waste of time you know." Bulma moved the curtain aside looked out the back of her cage clearly not expecting anyone to be there. She finally saw what was carrying the cage because surely the creature was carrying the cage behind her, a similar one was also carrying her own. It was huge with a gray wrinkly skin and a long nose that nearly reached the ground. It plodded along as if the cage on its back was nothing.

Lying in the cage was a dark-haired beauty. She reclined leisurely as if she wasn't caged up, as if she was there of her own choosing.

"Who are you? And where in the world are we?" Bulma asked the girl behind her.

"I am called Chi Chi and I'm not exactly sure where we are. I've never been in this part of the world before. What's your name?

"Bulma. Hey, is there anyway to get out of here?"

Chi Chi tossed her hair over her shoulder and laughed as if Bulma had just told the funniest joke she'd ever heard. "You cannot possibly be serious! Even if you were to get out of that cage, where would you go? There's nothing out there. There isn't even anywhere to hide."

"That's easy. I would just turn into a bird and fly away."

Again Chi Chi laughed at her. "Oh really? Try and change now."

Bulma tried to do just that and discovered that she couldn't. She tried again and again, but nothing happened.

"What's happened to me? Why can't I change?" Bulma asked her. "Wait! Why do you believe I can change form? How did you know?"

"Have you forgotten about that little trinket around your neck?"

Bulma unconsciously put her hand up to her neck. She felt the bejeweled collar around her neck and tugged at it slightly, already knowing it wasn't coming off.

"This is why I can't change."

Chi Chi tilted her head back to show a similar collar around her own neck. "That's how you knew." Bulma said somewhat in shock. "You're like me."

This time Chi Chi merely giggled. "Finally caught on, huh?"

Bulma scooted closer to the bars as if by doing so she would be able to hear better. "Tell me what you know of our people." Bulma pleaded with her.

Chi Chi looked to her with the strangest look in her eyes. "You don't know who, what you are?"

"No! I was found in the woods as an infant in the arms of a dying old woman of our kind. I was raised by ordinary humans. I know absolutely nothing of my, I mean our, people."

"Isn't that something." And with that she just looked away.

Bulma waited for the raven-haired girl, but she looked as if she were thinking something over. Here was someone who could tell her something and she was playing around.

"Please....tell me...."

Chi Chi's eyes slid back over to Bulma's. "You and I are Kylarians. We are people of a shape changing race as you've already learned."

"Kylarians," Bulma breathed, savoring the word in her mouth. "So our land is called...."

"Kylaria of course."

"Where is it? Is it large?""

"I believe it is somewhere far southeast from here. I'm not quite sure since I haven't gotten my bearings yet. And yes, it is a very large kingdom, even though very few populate it."

"Why's that?" Bulma asked.

"Silly girl! Aren't you yet a woman or surely you wouldn't be here? It is very difficult for Kylarian females to conceive, thus the lack of population."

"Oh." Bulma thought that over for a minute. She thought back to how easily it seemed other women around her became pregnant while she continued her "sport" without worry. She simply accepted it as her being infertile.

"It must have been hard for you living with ordinary humans. I've always found them to be a little dull. They're so confined by that single form."

"There not so bad. And just because they can't change their form doesn't mean they're boring. My best friend is a human male."

"Really! Isn't that interesting. Being able to interact with human males in a non-sexual way. I didn't think it was possible."

It was Bulma's turn to look at Chi Chi oddly. Why in the world would she say something like that? "Say Chi Chi, what did you do before you were captured?"

"Ohh, a little of this and a little of that," she answered, while looking around innocently.

"Hmph. Whatever," she said before looking away. Bulma had a clue as to what Chi Chi's previous occupation may have been, but wasn't about to press the subject.

Suddenly, some sort of grit made itself known between her neck and the damned collar around her neck. Bulma tugged and twisted at it mercilessly trying to get it out, but didn't succeed at much more than continuously aggravating her already sore skin. She growled in frustration before throwing herself back down onto the `bed'.

"That's not going to come off you know," Bulma heard Chi Chi say.

Bulma flipped over onto her stomach and glared sullenly at the girl behind her.

"And just how would you know?"

Chi Chi just laughed at her. "Because that's how Restraining Collars work, you fool. Only the person who cast the enchantment on it can remove it," she told her condescendingly.

Bulma wanted to smack the smug look off the girl's face, but the bars provided too much of an obstacle at this time. She counted until she had a better control of her temper; she needed to know more about this `restraining collar'.

"Could you tell me what you know about it? Why do they put these things on us?" Bulma asked, straining to keep as pleasant a tone of voice as she could manage.

Chi Chi, not noticing this, answered her promptly. "I'm not sure really, but I figure that they do it to keep the one's bent on escape under control, such as yourself. You would have been out of here in less than a heartbeat if you hadn't been wearing it."

"I noticed that it not only keeps me from changing, but it somehow affects my mood. When I was taken, I remember being angry and preparing to strike, but then it all just drained away and I could barely recall what was going on," Bulma admitted.

"That sounds consistent. Tell me do your remember if whoever took you did something, made some kind of odd movement before your feelings changed?"

Bulma thought back to that night, sorting through the memories until she came to that part of the fight.

**FLASHBACK**

"What are you talking about? Why are you doing this to me? I don't even know you!" She wailed knowing things had gone from bad to worse. She started yanking at the collar again, determined to remove it even if it meant removing her own head to get it off, if one were to account the amount of force she was using to pull on it.

"Now please calm down. It wouldn't do at all if you were to harm yourself. The master would be most displeased to have to pass on a beauty such as yourself."

"WILL YOU TELL ME WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT??!!!" Bulma was to the point of hysterics she got to her feet and was ready to pound him to the ground like a tent peg. She advanced on him, fully intending to do just that.

"Ah, ah, ah." Nomaro used two of his fingers on his right hand to grab a ring on his ring finger of his left.

Bulma suddenly felt all the anger drain away and she stood before him docilely. For a moment, she forgot what she was angry about, but then it came back and she prepared to attack him again. This time she was going to shred him in her feline form. She tried to change.....and found that she couldn't. She looked down at her hands and instead of paws and claws, she still saw slightly blunted fingers of her natural form covered with their usual aqua blue fur. She willed herself to change again and again, but failed every time.

"What have you done to me?" She sank to the ground, defeated. Her first attack or defense was almost always involved her shape-shifting abilities. Now, having been stripped of them she became dumbfounded.

"Do not worry. I have merely provided you with a little restraint. As long as you behave yourself, I will not coerce you further. However, one more outburst and you shall suffer the consequences with no explanation," Nomaro chided her.

**END FLASHBACK**

"I remember him touching, or rather, holding his right hand," Bulma said, miming the actions she saw Nomaro making in her mind's eye. She held her left hand and then her right finger. "He touched something on his finger. A ring perhaps?"

Chi Chi nodded. "That's probably his control object, given to him by the one who put the enchantment on the collar in the first place."

"So all I need to do is get the ring away from him and I can get free?" Bulma asked excitedly, for the first time seeing something positive in this somewhat hopeless situation.

"It's not that simple. Even if you were able to get the ring that controls you, it won't remove the collar," Chi Chi said.

"Are you always so cheerful?" Bulma asked sarcastically. "I bet you were the one people always got to break the news of someone's death weren't you?"

Bulma turned back around to watch the progress of the little caravan she seemed to be a part of. It had now begun to turn left and she could now see the head of it. There were many wagons and a few more of the large gray beasts ahead of her. Also stretched out along intervals were men walking beside the wagons.

`Probably just guards', Bulma thought.

She sat in silence wondering how to get out of this situation, but could come up with nothing feasible. She came to the conclusion that she would just have to sit back and wait until they got to a place where she could make a break for it.

Shortly after the sun had passed its zenith, Bulma began to smell vegetation and peered out of her cage to see a break in the desolation. It began in the way of fields, where a few industrious souls toiled away. Then things grew a little denser in the way of a forest. This relieved Bulma in no small amount. She was used to being in the woodlands: after all it was where she grew up.

As the sun began to set, they were approaching a stone fortress. Bulma was overcome with nerves from worrying over what was about to come. She turned and looked at Chi Chi who looked as bored as ever.

"Chi Chi, do you know why we've been brought here?"

"Of course I do. Don't you?"

"No. I was kidnapped while I was out journeying and I guess I've slept until this morning. Nobody's explained anything to me about what's going on."

Chi Chi took a sharp intake of breath. "You really don't know why you've been captured, do you?"

"No I don't," Bulma answered irately, "will you please stop playing games and just tell me what's going on!"

Chi Chi looked for a moment as if she didn't want to say anything, but went against her better judgement and told her anyway. "You were taken to become a part of Lord Vegeta's harem."

"PART OF WHO'S WHAT!!!!"

"Lord Vegeta's harem. He's one of the many nobles to have left our land after the The Great War. Many would consider this to be a great honor to have been chosen, but you were kidnapped....," Chi Chi trailed off.

"I don't want to be a part of anybody's harem!" Bulma wailed.

"You don't have a choice, girl!" A gruff soldier stated as he pulled Bulma from her cage. They had stopped and Bulma hadn't noticed him come and open the door cleverly design to blend with the cage.

"NO!!!!" Bulma struggled with all her might, but it was obvious she wasn't going to get away. The soldier was very strong and it was very clear that he was also Kylarian, for no ordinary human male would be able to hold Bulma down.

"LET ME GO!!!" She finally got lucky and threw an elbow in his stomach and broke free of his grasp, which was all she needed to dash away.

"NO BULMA!" She could hear Chi Chi yell behind her. She dashed low through the many horses and other pack beasts that seemed to fill the courtyard. She startled them all, hoping to cause enough confusion so she could escape. Bulma felt bad for leaving Chi Chi behind, but she had to see to herself first.

"STOP THAT WOMAN," someone else yelled behind her as she dipped between more animals and a few people, swatting a few to cause additional confusion and deftly avoiding everyone's grasp. She glanced briefly ahead and saw she was nearly to the gate. They had foolishly not closed it, though the entire caravan had entered. She could almost taste her regained freedom. She even had a brief thought of coming back to save Chi Chi.

Until again she was tackled from behind. The ground, having been churned up from the many feet and hooves was muddy and Bulma and her assailant slid a few feet before stopping. She had mud all over her clothing, face and hair. She tried to get up, but was securely pinned down. The soldier ran up pulling up Bulma by the arm. She winced at the pain he caused when he twisted it, but didn't make a sound.

"I'm sorry, my lord. I didn't expect the female to try and escape," the soldier said subserviently.

"Yes, well, make sure it doesn't happen again or you shall be punished!" Said the most overbearing and snide voice Bulma had ever heard in her life. She used her free hand to begin clearing the mud from her face.

"Yes, my lord. I understand, my lord."

Bulma chose then to look up at the one who managed to catch her. She gasped in shock. THIS was Lord Vegeta? He looked hardly older than she was. They were pretty much of the same height and he had the oddest dark hair that stood up as if it were on fire and eyes the same color as his hair. He had a condescending look on his face that clearly showed exactly what he thought of her.

"Make sure this one is cleaned up well before presenting her to my father. He would be quite disgusted by such a slovenly hoyden."

"WHAT!!! I'll show you a slovenly hoyden!!!" Bulma twisted to get free of the one who held her, but his grip was sure as he was on his guard this time."

"This one has spirit. Father shall enjoy her in the bedchamber." And with that he walked off, almost as muddy as Bulma herself. Bulma growled deep in her throat in fury. How dare he insult her! She'd show him, just as soon as she got free.

"Let's go now! No more tricks!

Bulma let the man steer her back through the crowd where another man was holding Chi Chi. Her face had some small measure of sympathy for Bulma.

"I told you not to try it."

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Okay that's the end of this one. I made sure to introduce Vegeta in this one, so tell me what you guys think. I'm off tomorrow, so I hoping to squeeze out another chapter.

R & R!!!!!!