Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Ransom Due ❯ Real Saiyans Don't Sparkle ( Chapter 18 )

Ransom Due - Chapter 18 - Real Saiyans Don't Sparkle

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A/N:  I can't believe I'm still plugging away at this story, which I'm beginning to think is a disaster, but trying to figure out where to go next with it keeps my mind out of its tendency for anxiety.  I had to rewrite this chapter several times, sorry if it's not very polished.  I still appreciate any feedback.

 

Warning: Violence, gore, language, some sexually explicit content (I knew I'd eventually need an M rating)  as of this chapter, I'm deciding to change the description of this story to angst.  Any better suggestions?

 

Disclaimer:  I don't own Dragonball, DBZ or any of these characters.  Some peripheral characters are mine, but all of them seem to die before very long.  I am gaining no profit from this story and I'm only writing it for entertainment value.

 

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The cold fluctuated between throbbing and stabbing pain and a complete numbness that felt like it radiated from the core of Raditzu's bones.  His pod had exited the rift, but the craft continued to have technical difficulties, not the least among them the stasis field. Without the intermittent failure of stasis, he could have completed his journey blissfully unaware of the absence of climate control. He drifted in and out of full consciousness, wondering, at his more coherent moments, whether his disordered state of mind stemmed from the partial operation of the stasis systems or simple hypothermia.

 

His physical condition was no less distressing. Because of the partial operation of the stasis field, he remained for the most part unable to move, stuck in a waking sleep, a situation all too similar to his experience with the Andolonusian flu. Enough so that his mind kept drifting back to his experience on that planet, to memories he'd avoided revisiting.

 

Captain Daax had finally ordered him to intervene in the situation after reports of heavy casualties with the initial waves of low-level fodder had continued inexplicably throughout the mission. The entire operation should have gone relatively smoothly despite reports of advanced weapons technology on the planet. Orders had been to clear the world and plunder the remains of some lucrative gem mining. The place was classified as just barely sale-able and not worth much in and of itself. Daax had also ordered his slave's squad to participate in the first wave of the purge. He'd found it irksome that his thoughts had strayed to questioning if the few sporadic, garbled reports would reveal the condition of his property, beyond irritating when he realized during his deployment that finding her, dead or alive, had caused some distress in the back of his mind. The expendables were to be treated as such. His orders were to strip everything living from the world, the low-level squads having already been listed as casualties.

 

On arrival he'd simply taken a scorched earth approach to the task at hand. One last party of low-levels would be dropped after he finished, assigned to pick through the rubble and collect an initial offering of the gems to Frieza, who would most likely install a mining crew to scour the rest from beneath the surface of the doomed rock.

 

Not long after breaking atmosphere he exited the scaled down drop-pod he used for disembarking Missionary and unleashed an initial wave of destruction at whatever he saw standing. The sorry looking outposts and villages full of rag-tag scavengers he'd found on the lichen-encrusted, frozen earth surprised him as he expected something a little more sophisticated would have been required to stave off the numbers they'd sent in the first deployment. He thought that the Captain should send him on more of these assignments at the outset, despite the tedium, just to save time. He'd decided to simply travel in one direction, following a bearing set on his scouter and basically killing and destroying everything in his path until he arrived back where he'd started, whereupon he'd pick another bearing and repeat the process. He'd cleared larger worlds in less that a standard month with that method, much faster and less involved than the mess the low levels had made of this one.

 

His mental griping was interrupted by some movement he saw below as he flew. Whatever it was had such a low power level, his scouter wasn't picking it up. He touched down and scanned the area visually, removing the scouter for a better view. He noted some fatigue then, but had written it off as a result of the biting cold and thin air of the atmosphere. After a cursory investigation of the area, he found a series of tunnels under the rocky outcroppings and evidence of some kind of guerrilla operation that looked to have been going on long before the arrival of anyone associated with Frieza's empire. Not that it mattered. He lifted off the ground and started pummeling the entire area with ki blasts, churning up the rocks and whatever they concealed for a depth and radius of several hundred kilometers. He was becoming exasperated at the realization that the tunnels were probably extensive and he'd have to go back over territory he thought he'd already finished with and dig a little deeper when he attracted attention.

 

He would've seen them coming if he hadn't neglected to put his scouter back on. As it was, he found himself suddenly flanked by two small, purple skinned characters with bulbous heads. They circled him and began an irritating banter between themselves, speaking about him as if he weren't present.

 

"Oh, look! No wonder the boss was so interested in recruiting this one."

 

"Yes, yes, but surely not everything with a furry tail is…"

 

"Oh, stop, Raizen, Doesn't matter. He'll be so disappointed. Don't you see the readings?" They both paused here to consult their scouters.

 

"Oh, so sad. They are dipping ever so slightly."

 

"No immunity." The one called Raizen shook his head and frowned in mock sympathy in response to this observation, then suddenly grinned widely as his tiny mouth would allow.

 

"No. But look on the bright side. Subdual and retrieval is going to be a lot of fun!"

 

"Quite, brother! Amusement and excitement for the both of us, as surely as we've earned it!"

 

During this exchange, Raditzu put his scouter back on to get a reading on the two creatures and the reason for the mission's failure became clear. The little purple men were each reading at a level fluctuating at just over 3000. He made an effort not to outwardly show the mix of apprehension and giddiness he felt at the prospect of fighting them as he readied himself in a defensive stance. Amusement and excitement, indeed.

 

As for making sense of their words or even what they were doing on the planet, he only noted that which was blatantly obvious. They weren't connected to Frieza's empire in any way except that they appeared to have acquired some pieces of regulation armor and integrated it into the patchwork of what they wore. Before he could make much more in the way of observation, they attacked, coming at him from both sides at once, inundating him with low powered punches and kicks that made clear their intent to toy with him.

 

He blocked most of the blows but a few hit their mark, stinging but not really hurting him, just enough to drive him to exasperation. He opened up on them with ki blasts, one in either direction intended for each of them. One of the little men dodged the assault and the other blocked and then sent the energy back at him in an erratic arc which he strafed in midair. They re-converged on him and continued to play the part of two circling flies, their jabs and kicks punctuated with laughter and taunts.

 

His continued inability to even get some breathing room to ready an attack much less land one had his temper boiling up. In the back of his mind he knew his fury would cause him to loose any sense of stratagem when and if they ever decided to escalate this into a real battle. He kicked out at them and realized that the observation they'd made about his power level previously was proving true. There was a mounting heaviness in his limbs and his breath was coming in shallow gasps. His anger doubled at the realization that they planned to wear him down and dispatch him without ever having really fought him.

 

He exploded with the reserve power he'd been hiding on ship, seeing no point in continuing his assailants' entertainment. He knew he'd only reached a level just on the heels of 1500, not really enough to best either one of the purple men by themselves, but at least it would make the fight more worthwhile if not something worthy of dying in.

 

The two were taken aback briefly at this show of power and the fight became more of a real contest for a time, but it wasn't long before his energy fell away again as though he were a vessel with a small hole allowing it to leak away just a little at a time until he actually noticed the loss, and by then it was too late to compensate.

 

He dropped to the ground in the hope that saving some of the power expended by hovering would be of use to him, but it wasn't. Though he was able to block and even return their initial blows after landing, the mounting slowness of his limbs soon got the best of him and they had him down. He readied himself for their final strike, but even this was denied him.

 

"Shall we put him closer to the outpost now, brother?" asked the first of them.

 

"Yes, oh absolutely, yes. He'll be so much heavier after," the second quipped in reply.

 

He struggled to rise and put in one more effort at the fight but his mind began to feel as dampened as his strength. As he picked his head off the ground everything seemed to spin away from him in a careening whirlwind. Before he knew what was happening, he was spinning. Through his now clouded vision it looked as though the two little men had merged into one which had him by the leg and was twirling, gaining speed until letting go and sending him flying end over end through the air. He barely had time to comprehend the landscape speeding by below him before he plummeted back to the ground.

 

The impact was incredibly painful but jarred his senses back into something manageable, at least enough for him to take stock of his surroundings and to make some sense of what he was seeing.

 

He'd landed in a hilly area much like everything else he'd seen on the planet so far except for the hulking remains of a rotted out tree visible on the horizon. The ground was riddled with gaping crevasses that suddenly came alive with the emergence of people from the dark fissures. They made a quick survey of him from a distance in military fashion and when they got closer he recognized them. Low-levels from Missionary, maybe a hundred or less, tarried nervously at the edges of the openings of the ground while a few of the braver in their ranks approached him.

 

By this point he was unable to move and the pain had given way to a distinct chill and dull ache that felt as though it was overwhelming him from the inside out. He half heard the arguments that passed between the soldiers as to whether to leave his corpse to rot or for some reason collect it and hide it, whether to blast him now with what weaponry they had or wait for the flu to take its course. They all at least agreed on the position that he was soon to be dead, and whatever they did, they had to make it quick because those responsible for putting him here were on their way to see where he landed.

 

"Wait!" He recognized the voice and the figure that pushed through the small throng that had gathered at the openings in the ground. "If you kill him now, the infection will leave the body before it's any good to us."

 

Another of them consulted a scouter. "Power level's dropping but still broadcasting over 750 like a damn beacon. Bastards'll be right on top of us even if we do shoot him."

 

"E.T.A. seven minutes" another reported.

 

"Get ready to fire a volley into the far side of the valley," he recognized the voice of the commander from Squad 57, "maybe that will throw their readings off course and buy us some time."

 

The next thing he knew his slave was standing over him with the business end of a large blast rifle pointed in his face.

 

"If you even think you want to live, drop your ki all the way like I showed you and play dead. Right now." She reached up and threw the weapon into live mode. The whine of it charging up competed with the incessant audible warnings from the scouters registering his combatants' rapid approach.

 

In his confused state he hesitated to respond. She looked back over her shoulder impatiently then jabbed at him roughly with the gun. "Either probably die with us or let the Raisin brothers have at your corpse, but choose. Now."

 

He couldn't think of anything more dishonorable than choosing to die in the company of the scum of the Trade rather than at the hands of two more than worthy opponents, but for reasons he couldn't fathom, perhaps an overriding survival instinct that saw a shred of hope for actual continued existence, he chose the former. He saw his heart in his mind's eye as a flame and imagined his will snuffing it suddenly.

 

"Fire!" barked the Commander of Squad 57 as Raditzu felt all his energy drain away suddenly as though the slow leak of ki had become a rush through countless holes in a sieve. The sound of blast energy echoing from the far side of the valley ushered him into blackness.

 

He drifted in and out of consciousness after that, but things remained muddled, blurry and overlaid with paralysis and either searing pain or a dull numbness. The darkness never lifted, making sense of his surroundings and even the passage of time harder to grasp. He gathered that some of the soldiers had dragged him down into one of the caverns. He made out the sound of a rush of water somewhere and then realized that he was hearing the pumping of his own blood in his ears, or he thought he was… then his mind decided that what he was hearing was a mixture of both or neither before his senses fell away into another spate of nothingness that he later awoke from as his body was racked with uncontrollable chills.

 

Eventually he was able to grasp scant constants from the jumble of waking and half waking periods. One, that the soldiers around him were in an unmitigated state of fear. Despite the loss of his faculties he could smell it coming off them. Second, that his slave remained with him, the only one of the group that displayed a calm surety about her. He awoke on more than one occasion with the certainty that she was within arm's reach of him, appraising him silently. Occasionally light would reflect from somewhere, a lantern or torch perhaps, confirming his suspicions as more often than not in those moments he'd find himself meeting her green, steely gaze. No fear or uncertainty read there, only the steady unabated watchfulness laced with hate. I will destroy you. He knew the look well, having leveled it at more than one unfortunate and seen it pass over the faces of many in his years with the Trade.

 

Third, his rage at the situation he'd found himself in never ceased below the surface of the prison that his own body had become. The utter humiliation of being allowed to live, or perhaps die as he'd gathered from bits of conversation out of the darkness, at the whim of these worthless insects was nearly unbearable. And, his continued existence had become a bone of contention among the soldiers. He couldn't be sure, but it seemed the question of who would have control of his remains should he not survive was at the core of the dispute. He witnessed an argument between his slave and several others who had decided that it wasn't worth waiting for him to become a corpse and wanted to desert the larger group and take their chances with their share of the cut, specifically, he thought he heard this right, one of his limbs.

 

They were close enough that again, the sense of fear ebbing off the soldiers was apparent to him. They were obviously putting up a front in their demands. He thought that were he in the slave's position, he would have simply killed them immediately, but she was willing to string them along for a bit.

 

"Look, we've agreed to leave you with the hair and the tail. Even if the virus doesn't take its course with the rest, you'll make a mint on the black market with those." The first soldier sounded sure of himself, but the second was practically sniveling.

 

"Yeah, we're taking a gamble by settling for some of the flesh, it may never turn…"

 

"Don't be so negative, the Saiyan has been nearly a corpse for almost a week now, the cells will transform any day," he heard the first soldier say, taking a couple of steps further into what he'd come to understand was a little alcove in the cavern that they'd dumped his body into. "Whatever you were planning on doing with it is a bust. You'll never be able to drag the whole thing out of here without help, and most of us agree…"

 

"And where do you plan on going with your share once I give it to you?" The voice of his slave was even and level, not a hint of hesitation in the words.

 

"We'll make a run on the hangar. This plan of hiding right under the noses of those pirates is wearing thin, we've been here long enough they're sure to stumble on us…"

 

He heard murmurs of agreement from somewhere farther back in the cavern.

 

"So you plan to walk out of here onto the surface right under their noses instead? Your bravery is inspiring… in its insanity." He could practically hear the smug grin that must have been on her face. "It's crazy enough that I might just agree to it."

 

He heard the sound of a blade being unsheathed, and then the voice of the second soldier. "We even thought we'd let you do the honors, considering what hell this monster has probably put you through. We thought you might enjoy severing an arm…"

 

"Heh," she laughed without mirth, "an arm? Surely you don't think I'd just give away such a large chunk, and you seem to want me to enjoy this. Perhaps something smaller, more meaningful, like you say, considering the ordeal I've endured." He saw a glint of light off the blade as her shadowed form moved over him, then down towards his waist.

 

An uncontrollable wave of terror and rage washed over him as he realized that she intended to either emasculate him or remove his tail and he couldn't even move to avoid it let alone stop it. Then he saw the light flash off the blade again as she threw it, followed by a dull thunk and then a thud of one of the soldiers hitting the ground. This was immediately followed by a burst of blaster fire and the sound of another body dropping, then fearful exclamations from whatever ranks were assembled in the dark beyond them.

 

He heard the crunch of her boots as she moved to the bodies, a rustle as she searched them, and then saw feeble illumination as she stood, lighting a cigarette she'd retrieved from the dead soldiers. She brandished the blaster in the other hand.

 

"Stupid fucks," she muttered around the cigarette as she reached to reset the blaster. "Anyone else want their cut now?" she called into the darkness. She was met with scared, mumbled replies to the negative and the sound of shuffling feet as the group disassembled.

 

She took a pull off the cigarette and the ember reflected in her green eyes. His dulled senses found him mystified at the sight of the amber light briefly playing through her blonde hair. The look on her face told him she would kill the rest of them without hesitation, and he suddenly admired her ruthlessness. His sight had become accustomed to the dark enough to watch her silhouette move back over to the dead soldiers. She put her foot on the neck of the soldier she'd knifed and withdrew the blade from his skull, then bent, pushing the bodies a few feet from the alcove, whereupon he thought they just disappeared. Then he heard a distant splash and realized she'd shoved them over the side of some kind of cliff.

 

He was thinking that he'd been right about hearing water before when she returned, squeezing herself into the alcove next to him. She didn't say anything, but twirled the knife in her hand and looked right in his face with that steady gaze, letting him know that there was no guarantee that she wouldn't fall back on her previous plans with the blade. There was no doubt in his mind that she'd do it too. His thoughts skipped erratically from the fact that water streaming below might afford some route of egress to contemplation of the slave and the unavoidable admission to himself that he found her very attractive. Anger fueled thoughts that if she wanted his manhood, he'd surely give it to her with the promise of terrorizing her a thousand fold in return for what she'd dared to threaten him with.

 

All of a sudden she stilled the knife and cocked her head slightly to the side as if listening for something. He watched her swiftly jam the point of the blade into the roof above them and pry with it for a moment. Bits of something, (rotted wood perhaps?, it couldn't have been stone) dropped down on him as she buried the blade deeper and then removed it, a wriggling prize impaled there. The grub was shimmery white and at least six inches long and an inch thick. It stretched disgustingly as she withdrew it from the hole she'd made. She did all this without looking away from him or even acknowledging the thing, beyond the slight grimace she pulled as she bit the head off and spat it outside the alcove, as if this had become rote practice. She ate in silence as the rest of the contingent must have retreated elsewhere in the caves and he found himself drifting into unconsciousness again.

 

His sense of time waxed and waned with consciousness and during what felt like long stretches without the ability to do anything but lie there uselessly he found himself entertaining detailed fantasies of exactly what he'd do with the slave in repercussion for her actions. His rational side told him she'd never live through most of the depravities he'd thought up, but that didn't stop his mind from churning through some of the most brutal and morally corrupt scenarios that even a Saiya-jin woman of elite strength might not have weathered without serious injury.

 

Once, he awoke, this time burning horribly from fever, to feel her gentile touch on his forehead and make out that she'd transformed back to her weaker state, he felt a mental pang of something that it took him a moment to even identify as akin to remorse or guilt at having those thoughts in the first place. This sent him into a psychological tailspin as he was completely unfamiliar with the feeling and the self accusation of undeniable weakness came hard and fast on its heels. What the hell was happening to him anyway? If he'd felt anything about some of the more intimate scenarios he'd busied his mind with it should have been disgust. His anguish redoubled when she offered him water and he slapped the canteen away listlessly, the thought passing through his mind that he wished she'd just let him die. To actually wish to die in such a dishonorable way, to even think it, was nearly sacrilege against everything he knew. He was so entrenched in self loathing when she returned to try again with the water that he didn't notice that she was smiling, didn't realize what had just happened or what it meant until she gave voice to it.

 

"You… you can move again!" Her voice sounded excited, happy at this revelation. She should have been terrified, like the others. "I think that means you're getting better." She wiped at his forehead again, this time with a damp cloth, and held it up to the meager light given off by a small lantern. "Look," the cloth sparkled slightly in myriad colors that could not be simply from moisture, "your body's rejecting whatever it is that's supposed to turn you into an opal."

 

She went on, but he was only half paying attention as he put his effort into trying to move his arm again.

 

"…There's not really any mining. Some people get sick, and some don't. The ones that don't, profit off the remains. The ones that were stronger before they got sick are worth more because they run the guns better…"

 

He tried to make find some logic in what she was saying through the frustration of not being able to move his arm again. She'd given him the water again and as soon as the cool wetness of it touched his dry lips he found himself gulping it down hungrily. At least he could swallow.

 

"…I guess the idea is that maybe you could get us past those pirates, but I don't know. Those guys are really strong and there's two of them. Besides, the decoys we put out won't last forever and I suppose they're looking for you."

 

He coughed up some of the water and she took the canteen away.

 

"You think maybe you could eat something?" she went on. "After watching how you and your brother eat, I was thinking you must be starving after not having anything for so long."

 

She got up and disappeared from his view but continued talking. "The grubs are nasty, but they're a little better if you cook 'em, but you gotta be careful because, you know, those pirates, maybe they might smell something cooking." He realized she was as scared as the others and was covering it with useless blather. She returned with a small torch and the knife and he felt momentary apprehension.

 

"But, um, I guess if you wanted meat…" She shrugged nervously and turned the light on the cavern beyond them, revealing a substantial pile of bodies. "I think we got in an argument and I did something bad." At this admission the terror became apparent, but then she suddenly brightened. "Anyway, I can't really do much in the way of cooking but there's some seasoning packets left from the rations. I know it's really gross… you know, eating them…well, maybe not to you but there's probably not enough grubs and even if there were I couldn't find them all, and the meat will go bad soon even though it's pretty chilly down here."

 

Good girl, he thought, ditching those chumps and choosing to save the bodies to fend off starvation. He wondered what the hell was wrong with him again. He tentatively wet his lips and choked out two words.

 

"Shut. Up."

 

"Uh, OK. I guess I'll go see what I can find in the grub department first, gotta be quiet to listen for them anyway, and then…"

 

He growled at her and she finally stopped her chatter and quietly went about listening at the cave walls and ceiling, digging in with the blade sporadically.

 

She managed to come back with four of the grubs and sliced the heads off with the blade one by one before feeling them to him wordlessly. Strangely, such a paltry meal did fill him, which turned out to be a good thing because when she went back to scavenge the corpses she balked.

 

"Having second thoughts about the meat?" A warm feeling spread through his body and he found speaking somewhat easier. He tried pulling himself up into a sitting position and succeeded.

 

"I can't believe I killed him," she replied in a low whisper.

 

"I should've known you wouldn't really have the stomach for such things, though it's no different from anything you ever saw in the galley." He leaned his back against the cavern wall. The rock felt incredibly cold against his bare skin. She must have removed his armor at some point.

 

"But those were just dismembered pieces of... I don't know. Nestar was my friend. I don't think I ever actually killed my friends before."

 

"Friend? Hah! Only an ingrate like you would mistake the efforts of a commanding officer to better his own lot as friendship. I can hardly fathom that you lasted this long."

 

"He... he... when I found myself here at first I didn't know what to do. The others wanted to get rid of me. They tried to... to," she stammered as she searched for the words to describe what he understood as the obvious course of action such a pack of dogs would take finding themselves with a rare female among them, and then abandoned the effort. "Well, he stopped them. Told them he knew Daax would be sending you since we were failing the mission."

 

"Like I said, he was covering his own ass. He knew he would bear the responsibility should I arrive and be angered if you were damaged or dead. He only should have known better that I considered you dead already." He shifted around so that he could see her better in the gloom. She still held the knife, but he could see that her hand trembled over the corpse. "In any case, what you have provided seems to be sufficient for now." A feeling of listlessness was coming over him again. Suddenly he could barely keep his eyes open. "Save your efforts for removing the corpses should they putrefy, or for sustaining yourself if you have need..." He trailed off and fell into another period of deep sleep full of fever dreams and torment, unaware that he'd been unable to finish his thought until he woke sometime later.

 

Things continued along these lines for some time, although he was unable to gauge the length of it. Dreams and hallucinations of using the slave to sate what had become a nearly painful sexual need blended with his waking experiences, so that he was unable to tell if he had in fact acted on those urges, save for her mostly uninjured state and that she still lived. This was compounded by the tendency of their bodies to find each other for the need of warmth when they slept. The two often wound up pressed together after drifting off. In her transformed state, she would push him away and regard him with disdain upon waking, however, in her weakened form she tended to remain clinging to him and most of the time he lacked the strength or even ability to put some space between them. He became accustomed to and even comforted by her fluttering pulse and the feel of her cool, soft skin against his, and though the remnants of his rational mind told him that desire for what amounted to little more than an animal was disgraceful, he found that his cravings did not wane even as he gradually felt his strength and wits returning to him.

 

Once, he awoke to frantic whispered pleas of the slave in her weaker state as she shook him trying to get some response. Stricken, she was barely able to string words together to explain to him that she could hear voices in the corridors just beyond their position.

 

"The pirates," she breathed, "I think they're still looking for you. We have to... can you move?"

 

He tested his limbs. "Yes, but not fast enough to outrun them, not enough to fight them for certain." Though he had mobility, he still felt sluggish and weak. Perhaps resignation to dying was in order, though he wondered if his death was what the ridiculous little pair actually sought. She looked around in a panic, and then back at him with some hope that he had a solution to their predicament. He sighed quietly. "What a waste for a warrior to expire in such a fashion and in such company."

 

She put her hand on his and then took two slow, deep breaths as though to steady herself. "Wait. There's a ledge underneath where the rocks drop off to the river. I found it when I was pushing some of the bodies off. Maybe if we climb down there they won't see..." She scrambled to collect their armor, scouters, her blaster and the few things around that would indicate they'd been camping in the cavern and then made her way to the edge of the chasm. He heard her toss the stuff over and it landing only a short distance below before she came back over to him.

 

"Come on!" she hissed through clenched teeth. When she found him unresponsive, she actually tried pulling him up, to little effect.

 

"What for? To run away and hide? I may be about finished but I'm no coward. Let them come. Save yourself if you think it'll matter in the end." He turned away from her.

 

"You... you're giving up?" she nearly sobbed. "You can't. You said it yourself, you're a warrior. Live to fight another day. Please!" She pulled at him again, but he pushed her off in the direction of the ledge, harder than he thought he was able. She went tumbling backward and over, and suddenly his heart lurched at the realization that he'd thrown her to her demise unintentionally.

 

He didn't hear her land, either in the water far below or on anything solid. The voices and footsteps from the adjoining corridor, however, had become close enough for him to make out a few words over the sound of the rushing stream below and identify them as belonging to the two who had attacked him on arrival to the planet. Then he heard a scrabbling of loose rock and a whimper. Curiosity prompted him to go over to the edge and look.

 

The slave was hanging there by one precarious handhold. The ledge she'd described was actually some distance back up under the ground he stood on and she struggled, either trying to swing her legs over to it or pull herself up, though she was obviously capable of neither. Once he'd actually gotten up and stretched his neglected muscles, it was clear to him that he had more strength than he'd thought. The possibility of regaining enough power to actually fight the pirates on proper terms sometime in the near future prompted him to take the option she'd offered.

 

She looked up at him, eyes full of pleading and fear. Feeling more like himself than he had in a long time, he paused to position his heel next to her grasping fingers and made as though he was going put the rest of his foot and his weight on them. The look of absolute terror she gave him at this buoyed his spirits slightly as he put his weight on the opposite leg to vault over and around the lip of the cliff, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her with him as he went.

 

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" she said under her breath. He pulled her up against him and forced her head into the crook of his neck to stifle the outpouring of gratitude, wishing she'd remember why they'd crawled into the small space to begin with. He concentrated on keeping his ki down to near nothing, hoping the pirates weren't using their scouters. Her heart was pounding so fiercely he wondered that they wouldn't hear it.

 

Luckily, it sounded as though they were too busy with their conversation which indicated that finding him or his remains was only secondary to finding something else, though he couldn't discern what.

 

"Be patient, Rakasai. It's the last thing we have to acquire before we can leave this dump. It couldn't have fallen too far from the tree."

 

"Yeah, but it's like looking for a needle in a haystack, if it's even here anywhere. I was kinda' hoping we'd find that Saiyan. Might've been at least something interesting to show for all this even if we didn't get what we came for."

 

"You don't even know that it was a Saiyan."

 

"Looked like one."

 

"And you've only ever seen one, so you don't know for sure. Besides, Saiyans aren't immune to the virus. Remember? That's why we got sent on this job to begin with."

 

"Just proves my point. That guy definitely had the virus."

 

"Yeah, but he was definitely was no prince, either. Isn't their prince one of the only ones left?"

 

"There's supposed to be a couple more, working for Freiza."

 

"Well, doesn't matter now anyway. Freiza's not getting this world or anything from it. Judging from the blaster burns all over the place, those goons got skittish. At least we get the extra spoils from all the ones that got the virus and turned."

 

"Still woulda' been nice to find that body. Whatever that guy was, he was pretty strong. Woulda' made some nice gems for us to pocket. Was the most fun we had on this boring trip, anyway. Too bad."

 

They rustled around in the cavern for a bit, and then he heard their footsteps directly above.

 

"What about that river down there? It could have been swept downstream."

 

"True. Why don't you go down there and check the low road then, and I'll continue along this way."

 

"Split up? But we never split up."

 

"Might go faster that way though, and the scouters have shown nothing left on this rock with a power level over 30."

 

"Quite. We meet at the base then to ship off the jewels? Two days?"

 

"Fine. Why not. Good hunting brother."

 

He watched anxiously and held his breath as one of them hovered past the opening of the crevice and downward. For a moment it looked like the little puss ball was going to come back and check the walls of the chasm, it did slow its descent and poke around a few places, but finally it reached the bottom and wandered off following the flow of the stream.

 

He waited in silence with the slave clutched to him for the pair to move off. All the while his mind turned over what he'd heard. As much as he wanted to speculate on their limited knowledge of his race, those thoughts were overshadowed by the time line they'd indicated. If he could recover from the sickness in two days he could attack them at their outpost and divest them of their booty. He could only assume he'd be greatly rewarded for delivering the last of the gems into Freiza's hands since there were no mines to be exploited. But he was already feeling fatigue again and any sort of training would be impossible without alerting the pirates on their scouters. The best he could hope for was to find a way to their base and face them with whatever power he'd have at that time. It might mean certain death, but better to die in a fight than cowering in a cavern. The pirates probably had a means of communicating off world if they weren't the cause of all the radio interference in the first place. He could use the slave to contact Missionary and let them know the truth of matters on this planet while the pirates were distracted fighting him. He supposed it was as good a plan as any for a final stand.

 

His thoughts were interrupted by the slave as she squirmed in his grip and he eased his hold on her. She gasped, either from holding her breath or suffocating against him. His own head was swimming by then from the cramped quarters. She took another breath and started to say something, but sneezed instead.

 

She immediately started cursing and thrashing finding his arms around her. He held fast, the fact that he was able a good sign that he'd be well sooner than later.

 

"Calm yourself, lest the sound of your ranting brings those pirates back this way."

 

"Really?" She stopped struggling and he let her loose. "They were here? Then how come we're still here?" She tried to stand up and hit her head on the low ceiling. "Ow! Oh, I see you found the hidey hole. And feeling better too? That's a good thing. We need to get moving if we're going to meet our deadline."

 

"So you knew they were shipping off the gems in two days?"

 

"Shit. I must have been out of it for a while if that's true. Let's go then."

 

She easily hopped up to grab the ledge above and pulled herself over the outcrop to the larger cavern in sharp contrast to the troubles her weaker form had with the same obstacle. He remembered that he still had the vial that would trigger the transformations stashed in his armor as he handed their things up to her. He figured her plans must be of a similar bent to his, at least getting to the base and stealing the spoils. He knew it would be much easier to get her to do things his way in her weaker transformation so he was glad he'd have the vial at hand.

 

They put their armor and scouters on and started off. She set a quick pace for traveling on foot. When he warned that one of the pirates had just taken the same passage she led them through, she scoffed. "Hmmm. I was just going to tell you not to go barreling through here like a bull in a china shop in case they were still around, but it looks like you're getting a little winded already. Want to rest?"

 

"No," he retorted, but the truth was that his stamina flagged even though their speed should have been more than easy for him to keep up with even powered down to almost nothing. He pushed onward for the next several hours despite the feverish feeling creeping upon him and he finally collapsed. She went on for some distance ahead of him before coming back and chiding him.

 

"You could've just said you needed to stop."

 

"I don't," he grumbled and got back up but found himself swaying. He leaned against the wall for a few more paces, then had to concede that he could go no further.

 

"Ugh! If you could just set your stupid pride aside for a bit, we might actually be able to make it out of here in one piece," she griped. "If you need rest, take it. You'll need everything you can muster to fight those guys tomorrow."

 

"Two days, not one. I'll be fine by then."

 

"They plan on two days. We only have one. Take a powder."

 

"And why do we only have one?"

 

"You'll see."

 

"Don't play at keeping secrets from me," he growled. "Trust that you'll be sorry for it."

 

"No secret. You should already know. Take a minute to sift through all the rocks in that thick skull of yours," she dared to punctuate this by poking him in the forehead with her finger, "you might figure it out." She flashed him a half cocked grin. "Maybe."

 

"Test me and I'll force the information from you."

 

"And ruin the surprise? Besides you're in no condition to..."

 

He reached into his armor and took out the vial. He didn't get a chance to pop the lid before she had a hold of his wrist and pressed her thumb hard on the pressure point between his thumb and index finger. He was shocked at how fast she moved, much faster than he remembered she could, never mind that the maneuver actually worked. Sharp pain shot through his hand and he lost his grip on the vial. It clattered to the ground and she kicked it hard down the tunnel in the direction they'd come from.

 

"Hey! The novelty of your little ace in the hole wore itself out a long time ago," she crowed.

 

She'd neglected to let go of his wrist in her boasting. Anger and the desire he'd been feeling since they'd been stuck in the caverns bubbled up in him unhindered, giving him a sudden though small burst of vitality which he used to turn her arm and throw her to the ground. He rolled on top of her and pinned her, his weight if not his strength keeping her there. All sense of restraint left him. He could no longer stem the tide of his needs, the dizzying heat of the fever fueling them beyond his control or care for consequence or dignity.

 

"If it's an ace in the hole you're worried about, I can easily provide," he snarled, moving his hands to encircle her waist as he pressed his hips against hers.

 

Her eyes widened in surprise, as if this were the last thing she expected of him. Her hands went up to his chest to push him away, but her lower body rose up to meet his almost eagerly. He reached up and pulled her armor off over her head, leaving her arms entangled in it as he removed his own. By then her hands were back at his chest. They felt like firebrands against his already burning flesh, trailing downwards. He pulled at her bodysuit, exposing her breasts an upper body, feeling her skin break out in chill bumps, her hardened nipples raking his skin as he maneuvered to remove the rest of their clothes.

 

She made an attempt to shimmy out from under him, but he pressed her shoulders back down to the ground and his mouth found her neck, where he proceeded to nip and lick at the place where her pulse raced. They struggled with each other wordlessly, save for her grunts of dissent which gradually turned to soft sighs of pleasure as he concentrated the attention of his lips down to her chest, the sweet-salty taste of her nearly driving him to madness.

 

It became clear that she was very skilled in the business of lovemaking and in his weakened condition she managed to take some control of the situation before he really knew what was happening. Oh, the things he wanted to do had he been at full power, he thought. As it was, she would slowly draw him to near exploding and slow or stop their pace to find another angle or position before starting the process all over again. Finally he felt her passage tighten and the flood of her own release, all the while having denied him the same.

 

And then pain. Excruciating, mind numbing pain shot through his entire body.

 

In the throes of his lust he'd forgotten to protect his tail in any manner and she'd easily managed to trap it in her grasp. She squeezed it so hard both her arms were shaking.

 

"Bastard!" she hissed, rolling away from him. She still held his tail and in disengaging herself from him she gained more leverage and squeezed even harder. She kicked his exposed torso for good measure.

 

All traces of desire had drained away quickly, but the anger remained. "You'll regret..." he started to threaten, but she cut him off.

 

"Oh, I already do. Greatly," she snapped, throwing his tail back at him as though it were a venomous snake.

 

Under normal circumstances he would have been up and upon her to deal out retribution, but the sickness and exertion had taken its toll. She was already fully dressed and running down the tunnel before he could pursue.

 

He decided to go back and look for the vial but never found it for all the small fissures and rotted tree roots crisscrossing the floor. He finally gave up with intent to catch up with her after some sleep. He was halfway into slumber when he thought he heard the sound of sobbing a short distance ahead and considered that she might have transformed and he could go after her to take the advantage while it presented itself, but the timbre of the sound was too low. Odd, he never knew the stronger transformation to have shed a tear, but he tried to take some comfort in her misery as unconsciousness overtook him.

 

When he woke he felt well rested and had no problem digging several grubs out of the rotted tendrils of roots snaking through the walls. After eating, he immediately felt a surge of energy and after checking the timekeeping indicator on his scouter, he saw that he'd been out for nearly twelve standard hours. He sprinted up the corridor, hoping to catch up to the slave or the pirate. As far as he was concerned, either would suffice as a pressure release for the rage swelling within him. It wasn't long before his scouter came to life warning of a large power and he heard the reverberations of what might have been blaster fire. He rounded a turn in the passage and saw the slave careening towards him at a breakneck clip, shouldering a weapon that was far larger than any standard issue firearm, with the diminutive pirate right on her heels.

 

She turned and fired on the little alien. He was shocked to see that the blast actually knocked her pursuer of course for a moment, which she took to dive past the obstruction he presented.

 

"Your ball, boss. Let fly! Let fly!" she screamed as she slid past him. He threw all caution to the wind and powered up to full.

 

As ki aura and heat engulfed him, he felt the remnants of the fever burn off with it as though sloughing off dead skin. The pirate backpedaled slightly at the sight of the massive outpouring of energy, its scouter and the slave's behind him squealing in near protest.

 

"Holy... 3300! How?" The slave exclaimed, then yelped fearfully as the entire cavern shook in the wake of the energy pouring from him.

 

The pirate, surprised as they all were at the more than twofold increase in his base power, hesitated just long enough for him to lunge and plant a blow directly in its face and draw first blood. It recovered quickly and came at him with fists flying. The two of them locked, evenly matched, into close combat in the limited space the tunnel afforded for a short time before the sounds of their blows alternately connecting and being blocked were overridden by a wave of blasts from the slave's weapon. All of a sudden, the roof of the cavern opened up in a rain of falling rocks and a pale, greenish light filtered down around them.

 

A familiar, heady feeling overtook him and he lost his concentration on the battle, allowing the pirate to land a kick to his midsection, sending him backward a few paces.

 

"Look, damn you! Look!" he heard the slave say through panicked breaths, practically at his ear.

 

And then he did look up to see the full face of the planet's moon, sickly yellow-green and bloated, directly above the opening she'd created in the roof. He barely had time to curse himself for forgetting, or rather discounting the moon since he'd never planned on being planet side for as long as he'd remained, before the transformation overtook him.

 

He felt his insides in a tumult, and power - raw, unfettered power surge through him like a dam breaking. The next thing he knew his vantage point of the scene had changed to high above the wrecked tunnel, fully swathed in moonlight and the red haze of rage. The tiny form of the slave climbing out of the rubble and running off across the broken ground barely registered as the pirate foolishly continued trying to attack him. The only thing running through his mind was the need to smash the annoyance, rip it to shreds, destroy, destroy, destroy. He had the thing in his grasp before long, its struggles useless as he smothered the head in one hand and squashed the remainder with the other. He let out an earth shattering roar as he tore it in two with hardly a thought, the delightful sound of rending sinew and bones crunching reminding him that he was very hungry. He was slurping the entrails out of the lower half of the corpse when the second pirate arrived on the scene.

 

"Brother! Noooooooooo!" It bellowed upon seeing its riven counterpart. It flew at him flinging ki blasts at his face and torso in rapid succession. It continued raving as it came, the words barely intelligible to him, its assault little more than a stinging tickle. He only saw another opportunity for decimation, more flesh to devour.

 

The second pirate came in close several times to attack him, buzzing about his head like an errant mosquito. He swatted at it, still clutching the pieces of its ruined brother. He finally discarded the remnants of the first, growling in frustration for having his meal interrupted, and went about trying to trap the thing in his hands. Seeing the futility in its assault, it finally backed off, pausing to charge an ungainly amount of ki. He had it in his fist before it finished, the bright light of the ki it brandished nearly blinding him. He turned his head to the side, expecting it to discharge the energy in his face, but the blast never came. Instead, it directed the wave upward at the moon, which shattered into a thousand fractured chunks and glowing motes on impact.

 

His gut somersaulted as he diminished in size, his braying cry of dissatisfaction reverberating across the landscape. Somewhat disoriented from the sudden termination of his mighty Oozaru form, the pirate connected a few punches and then blasted him with another wave of ki. He shook it off quickly and rejoined the fight, delivering in kind what had just been dealt him. He again found that his recent increase in power put him on near level ground with the pirate, and his excitement and pleasure in the battle only increased as it wore on. When he saw that the tide had turned in his favor due to the pirate's unchecked fury at the loss of its brother and reliance on attacks meant to be executed in tandem with its compliment, he was somewhat miffed. Still, he let the encounter go on longer than really necessary just to prolong the thrill of the contest. Only when intermittent burning hunks of the crumbled moon began streaking down around them was he reminded that it might be best to remove himself from the planet post haste.

 

He put a halt to the conflict by delivering a kick that sent the pirate skyrocketing into the air uncontrollably He ascended ahead of it to catch it in the gut with his fist. It was then easy to flip the bulbous figure over and descend at velocity which allowed him to break the thing's back over his knee upon landing. He wedged the little alien into a headlock as it tried to crawl away from him.

 

"Now you know exactly what a Saiyan looks like," he declared in triumph.

 

It struggled and blubbered, clearly bereft. "Rakasai," it wailed. "What you did to him... unconscionable... you sick, twisted fuck," it spat, still uselessly trying to grapple with him.

 

"Yes," he backhanded it hard and laughed. "That is a rather apt description of my kind. Perhaps I'll let you live to tell about it if you direct me to your base."

 

"Why should I care one way or the other? I'm nothing without my brother. I'll be dispatched by my commander anyway for this failure..."

 

He used his free arm to ensconce it's head and began to twist. "There's a difference between a slow torturous death and an easy one, no? I promise you the latter if you tell me."

 

"Fine," it huffed, deflated. "To The southeast. At the tree stump."

 

Of course. The direction the slave had run off in. He began to put slow, even pressure on the pirate's neck.

 

"Quickly, then. As you promised," it choked, eyes beginning to bulge in its sockets.

 

"Hmmm. Another characteristic of the Saiya-Jin is that we tend to break promises when it suits us. I really would like to know where you've encountered another like me and some kind of prompt is in order." He pulled back with one arm and putting all his strength behind it, drove his fist into the soft flesh below the pirate's ribcage. Feeling it puncture both armor and skin, he opened his hand and turned it within the mass of tissue.

 

"That," the pirate coughed, blood dribbling copiously from its open mouth, "I c-c-can never tell you. T-t-take all night if you like."

 

He did spend some time digging around in the pirate's vitals, but never got anything more out of it than a few gurgling cries of pain before it expired.

 

It took very little effort for him to reach the base and hangar, his flight speed having doubled along with his power. Stray fragments of the moon sporadically rained down in his path, but the majority of it had formed a streak of pallid scraps in the darkened sky. They floated like spoiled curds, bound in their orbit. By the time he set down on the ground, he could feel a constant but weak reverberation through the soles of his feet. As he navigated his way through the buildings, which had been set directly into the massive rotting stump and fallen trunk, occasional waves of larger tremors rumbled through the floor as though the planet was readjusting to the shift in gravitational pull caused by the diminishing of its satellite.

 

He found the hangar empty, save for one mid-sized freighter. Wrenching open the locked hatch with little trouble, he entered the ship and headed for the bridge. Catching sight of his reflection in one of the portholes, he saw his visage as that of a true monster, bathed in gore from just below his nose to his waist and all the way up both arms, his copious mass of hair matted with it. The sight satisfied him greatly, a testament to a job well done.

 

The slave was on the bridge fussing with the controls which appeared to be giving her some trouble as they were far from the configuration of anything standard to the Trade. Every time the ship's interior creaked with the quaking of the planet's flux she would start, despite being in her stronger form. He entered quietly and watched for a moment before interrupting her.

 

"Going somewhere in a hurry?" he asked in a smooth tone.

 

It looked like she was going to jump out of her skin at the sound of his voice before she even turned to see him, proof enough that she hadn't planned on his joining her. When she did face him, his appearance elicited a shallow gasp, but she recovered her composure quickly.

 

"Just trying to get all the diagnostics and prep done before you got here, that's all," she shrugged, smiling nervously. "I thought..."

 

"Locking the outside hatch is part of the diagnostics, then?" he asked, a hint of ire creeping into his voice. "Maybe the fact that you never told me the location of this hangar was part of prepping the ship for flight?"

 

The craft rocked with another tremor, nearly knocking her of her feet. A look of panic crossed her features momentarily as she backed up against the console to steady herself. "Oh, that. A little oversight, I guess. I got a little distracted after," her eyes shifted to the side, "well, you know..." The tremor subsided and she put on an air of indifference, obviously feigned. "Soooo, anyway, you got any ideas of where we can go to fence some of this stuff? The cargo hold's full of those opals. More than enough to divvy out a good share of profit for each of us."

 

He went to the console and nudged her aside dispassionately. "Missionary," he replied flatly. "We leave any sort of 'fencing' up to Freiza or whomever he assigns to the task." He scanned the controls and recognized the layout enough to start the liftoff sequence and enter basic navigational instructions.

 

"What?! And back to slavery?" she retorted, her voice rising an octave.

 

"For you, yes." he said evenly, his concentration on guiding the ship out of the open hangar bay doors.

 

"For you, too. Don't think I haven't seen how you have to run around at the beck and call of that freak of a captain," she said indignantly, all transgressions momentarily forgotten. "You mean we did all this and get a chance to walk away scot-free, and you're not even going to try and take it?"

 

"'All this' is just what comes with the job." Finished with setting the autopilot, he turned on her. "And you haven't the knowledge to be questioning my station on that ship. As for yours, contrary to what you might have been thinking during your tenure on this planet, it remains and always has been the same." He advanced, trapping her between himself and the console. "To remind you of that," he paused, meeting her petulant stare, "perhaps we need to address your infractions one at a time."

 

"Infractions?!" she spat, refusing to back down an inch. "I didn't do anything that..."

 

"Let's start with your intent to strand me on the planet." He stepped back and unfurled his tail, then lashed at her with it. The first strike sent her flying across the bridge and into the opposite wall even though he'd made an effort to put very little strength behind it. In retrospect, he couldn't believe that he hadn't just killed her at this point, but a strange calm had settled over him, and somehow he found that he didn't really want her dead, despite all she'd taken from him.

 

She pulled herself up from the floor, groaning and wiping at her nose with her forearm. It came away bloody, but this didn't dissuade him.

 

"Daring to crush my tail," he continued, striking again, this time putting less into it. A sharp cracking sounded when it made contact, but she was able to hold her ground and actually tried seizing it with her hands, either out of defiance or simply to fend him off. He laughed. "I see I've not made myself clear yet." He wagged the tip of it in her face and she made another grab at it, even though it was obvious that she would only gain purchase of empty air. Giving up after several tries, she skittered away from him, and he followed, strapping her over and over.

 

His list was long, and they'd made at least three circuits around the periphery of the bridge, the whole thing having become an amusing game to him. Angry red welts rose on her exposed skin, but he reasoned that he couldn't be doing too much real damage as she still had her armor on. She never gave voice to deny his accusations, never even cried out in pain, but continued to shoot daggers at him with her eyes throughout the episode, until finally she sneezed in a spray of bloody spittle, leaving her in her weaker state.

 

He whipped her three more times, his tail whistling through the air, but she made no attempt to retreat or defend herself, instead kneeling at his feet in complete obeisance.

 

"Raditzu-sama, please stop," she begged softly.

 

He laughed. "So, it's Raditzu-sama now, is it?" He had to admit that in her weaker form she had a knack for stroking his ego like no other. He decided that in itself was enough for him to keep her around for at least a little while longer.