Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Reciprocity ❯ What Evil Lurks In The Hearts Of Men ( Chapter 13 )

___What Evil Lurks In The Hearts Of Men

Bulma tried to give herself time.

After sobbing so hard she ended up dry heaving into the little toilet of Capsule 4, her knees wobbling on the tile, Bulma took a shower.

She scrubbed her face, she shaved her legs, she clipped her nails and she slathered on the unscented lotion stuffed in the ship's medicine cabinet. She threw on a baggy t-shirt and some sweatpants of Goku's that she found, of all places, discarded in the cupboard with the capsulized cereal. Then she ate some cereal. She found a little can of sliced pears, and she ate those, too. It had been awhile since she ate. Bulma rinsed out her bowl and then made her way back downstairs to brush her teeth.

And then Bulma fell into bed and dampened the blankets with her tears, the pillow muffling her regret.

~~~~~~~~~~~

She came to as if waking up from a hangover. She rolled out of bed, shuffled upstairs, and checked the coordinates. The ship was on course. She was not being pursued on the radar. Hopefully the little GR would distract him as she had hoped. Hopefully he didn't think she left for good.

Cry a little more.

~~~~~~~~~~

Head back downstairs and make a turkey sandwich. The capsulized bread a little stale but alright.

Pee. Scrub her face.

Pace around.

The bed was rumpled from last night's restless sleep.

Make it.

Wash the bowl and spoon, the hot water pinkening her hands, put them back in the cabinet.

Pace around.

Grow frustrated. March up the stairs, bare feet rapping on the metal grating, and check the coordinates again to make sure, yes, still on course.

Space looks empty. Space makes it clear she's terribly alone.

She starts doing push ups by the gravity console. She doesn't get through very many until her arms are burning. Turn onto her back in frustration, hooking her feet under the console as she'd seen Vegeta do, and power through ten sit ups before asking herself if this was really worth it. Power through five more just to show herself it is.

Stand up. Do jumping jacks. At number twenty three, accidentally kick over the garbage can. Blue ki skips across her vision. Kick the trash can angrily and shout at it. Pace around some more.

She finds herself in front of the bay of windows in the cabin. Look outside at all that empty blackness, dotted by suns millions of light years away from each other. Rest forehead against the glass. Space doesn't seem so scary when she reminds herself that he's out there somewhere. Put hand against the glass longingly.

...This goes on for two weeks.

-----

She had never had to pilot the ship onto another planet before, so when she got the transmission from the flight control of planet FRIEZA-SB9, asking her to make a right pass and dock at station L9, the tinny command sent her heart into a panic. But she bit her bottom lip and managed to get the ship safely through the flight control's hoops with the lowest amount of humiliation possible.

The ship slid into the parking space and Bulma held her breath before turning the ship off, the engines powering down with a hoarse whirr. She set her hands in her lap.

She was here.

She really, really hoped it wasn't as dangerous as the last trade planet they'd docked at. She had high calibered pistols strapped underneath her sweats and a small knife tucked between her breasts that hung from a lanyard. She didn't want any trouble, she just wanted to get what Vegeta needed and get back to the Nova.

Although she was a little frightened about her welcome party. She didn't know what made her sicker, the idea of Vegeta's anger and his rejection of her, or the shiver she got imagining how she hoped he would take it out on her. She gave herself no time to think on it.

There had been a small backpack in the wall storage that also contained extra clothes, some of them Vegeta's which they had dredged up from their last planetary visit, and she slammed the lid on her emotions as the scent of him wafted up to her. She rifled through the drawer and found some underwear and a jacket, and she rolled them up and packed them tactfully, tightly, in her backpack and slid the drawer closed, pretending there was nothing significant to feel about what it contained.

Because she didn't know how long she'd be there--she was hoping for a single day's shopping trip--she also threw in some capsulized food and the radio she had made before they'd been intercepted by Cooler. Even though she knew it was a bad idea. She knew exactly the reason she wanted it, who she could try contacting with it, and she was utterly against the idea. Wasn't she? But it made her feel more confident, with him at her back so to speak, so she threw it in stubbornly.

When Bulma tip toed out of the ship, she waited to sink to her knees, clutching at her throat for air, but the gravity and oxygen content on the planet was entirely manageable and familiar, and she closed the hatch before capsulizing the ship.

She was covering all her bases.

She looked around and let out a little snort. She'd been here before--it was like every parking garage she'd ever been in! Except the cars and spaces were bigger and designed for the extreme conditions of space travel, the intense cold of empty space and high temperatures of slicing through atmosphere. There were arrows on the concrete that presumably led her to the outside world, and Bulma took a breath and followed them.

The quicker this was done the faster she'd be next to Vegeta, healing him, healing them, watching his throat clench as the antidote slid down into his belly. He'd probably grumble at her, and give her that look she loved so much despite reason that read, `I'm going to find a way to make you pay for this later.' Which, in her case, meant a broken bot or a cleared out fridge. Ah, Vegeta's little affections.

As she walked the long sidewalk towards the door, she allowed herself a moment to fantasize about their life once they got back to Earth. Would they share a room? Would he still train like a bat out of hell? Could she talk him into dressing up and going on on a real first date? The man would look so damned good in a suit and tie, and it would certainly be a tragedy if she never got to see it. She smiled softly.

She approached the door to the outside world, took one more solidifying breath and adjusted her backpack. Alright, here goes.

The door swooshed open...leaving Bulma to gape at the entrancing sight before her.

Her first thought was that it shouldn't be possible to see colors on this spectrum; there were hues and shades in a limitless, vivid wash that had her mouthing `wow.' Tropical trees lined a neat path that branched off as far as the eye could see through the bustling little town, and to her amazement, she could see chunks of what looked like cloudy quartz throughout the smooth stones. Tropical flowers bloomed everywhere, and although they looked native, they were thoughtfully cultivated: orchids and bromeliads, succulents and ferns, yucca and palms, and lilies, with their slender, elegant throats reaching upwards among stout, purple sedum.

She shaded her eyes with her hand and tore her eyes from the gold and lavender sunrise to survey the sprawl in front of her. To her left was a sloping gully, and she could see that the town about half a mile out was surrounded by ocean, a sea green surf lapping lazily a white sand. At the far end of the town sat an immense state building, although its beach-side style was more relaxed than the stoic, old-world architecture of government buildings that she was used to.

Someone called out to her, and gestured at a pod that was attached to a motorized pulley system, looking comically as if Frieza's pods were attached to a chairlift, but from the looks of one jetting off toward the town, much faster.

A little man, humanoid except for his very small ears and large eyes, smiled benevolently at her and bowed as she neared the next available pod, opening its door. He had small gills at the side of his throat, she noticed, which flared with a gentle rhythm.

“Do I need to pay?” She asked tentatively.

The man simply shook his head and gestured at her to sit down, so she ducked inside, placing her backpack next to her feet as the pods green glass door sealed shut. And without feeling a single speck of g-force, the pod glided off toward the quaint little tropical town.

This was nothing at all like she expected.

~~~~~

“Oh, my, Kami,” she breathed as the bustle of this quadrant's interstellar marketplace surrounded her like overflow around rock as she stood in the center of the square, gaping and out of place. Vendors called out their wares and shoppers loitered everywhere. Whereas the people on M83 had been ugly, dirty, and tired, here everyone was brilliantly decorated, draped in unsettlingly vivid hues, energetic and fearless. Bulma was happy to see women with a level of modicum milling about, draped in sheer linens, gold, and gems, showing off skirts and bandeaus. Many of them wore wide, geometric necklaces and blocky rings, and long, jangling earrings, and she felt colorless and sloppily dressed next to them. Veils must have been in fashion this year, because, like some Oriental daydream, women with smoky eyes peered out from behind them everywhere. She admired their pretty scalloped edges, some with semi precious stones or bangles sewn in. Many of the women showed off slender headbands perched atop their veils, with dangling gold chains centered elegantly in the middle of their forehead, or long, delicate gold chains whisked back into their low braid from diadems under their pearlescent veils.

Inside, Bulma let out an ear splitting shriek of excitement. The weather was beautiful--there was a velvety cool breeze that offset the heat that was neither too sticky or arid--and the sky was wrapped in a gauze of lavenders, plums, citrine, fuchsias and corals, the paint strokes of a slow sunrise crowned with wispy clouds as its three, small suns heralded this side of the planet.

As she had made her way in the little pod towards the market, a cheerful feminine recording informed her of the planet's demographics. This planet, far away from its large stars, turned slowly on its axis, meaning day and night were Earth-days apart here. The planet prospered from its night life and its tropical climes, its gems and gold lending to its tourism revenue, as well as its advantage with the Empire. Bulma wondered if it were one of those planets that the counsel had been talking about before Vegeta scared them all away. `Scared' putting it lightly.

But it didn't matter. She steeled herself as she remembered her mission. She had simply found the closest planet to the Nova that she could most rely on to find what she was looking for. The faster she could be on and off this planet the better...although, watching the verdant green trees sway in the breeze, the ivy that dripped off them whispering haiku as they brushed against each other, she was having a hard time convincing herself not to indulge a little. Maybe she could talk Vegeta into traveling here later, after settling back on Earth? She wasn't sure if she had the stomach for space travel for awhile after this though. So far she hadn't had a single positive experience in space.

She had settled for the largest market on the planet, and here she was, in the midst of the “Jewel of the North Quadrant,” as the robotic voice demurely informed her. And she was certainly impressed. Sugar and spice wafted on the wind, and her mouth watered for unknown desserts and meats. How long had it been since she had a decent meal?

Bulma slid the crystarium card from her pocket and approached the vendor meekly. Pointing her finger at what looked like a turkey drum stick with gravy and stuffing, she handed over the card, before gesturing at an enormous cinnamon roll, too. She was actually salivating, and she handed over the card as she took the food, her heart hammering. Would it work? Would he ask for ID? Would he freak because it was in the Prince of Saiyan's name? Would it still have money on it, would Vegeta would have anticipated her using it and cut her off? But the vendor scanned it and handed it back to her without care, and Bulma pocketed it with clammy hands and shuffled to a small table farthest from the crowd, relieved.

She gulped down the turkey leg and stuffing look-alike faster than she cared to admit. Whatever the gravy was made out of, she didn't really care to know, although it was the most mouth watering thing she'd had in weeks, and its hint of clove reminded her of mole sauce.

Had it been weeks- - -or months now? Bulma tried to approximate how long they'd been gone now and couldn't even hazard a guess. She knew time moved slower when traveling through space. She regretted not paying more attention to Vegeta's surprising lecture about spacetime and time dilation when they had still been working on their suit project. In fact, she wondered how much of a part space time had played on Vegeta, who had seemed to grow from a lanky, impulsive young man to a more calculating, more bulky version in front of her eyes since he had stepped on her native soil. Perhaps Frieza never gave him much time to stay in one place, and he'd spent much of his life roaming the universe at incredible speeds, aging slower than the rest of them. Was she then dating a younger man? Her mouth curled upwards in a smug smile.

She just hoped they hadn't missed the androids arrival. With any luck, they'd just been gone a few weeks, and could get back to their normal lives like nothing had happened.

Bulma swallowed some of her cinnamon roll hard. Things wouldn't be normal at all once they got back, who was she kidding. She'd be whatever `Marked' was, for one. However Vegeta acted about the fact, she got the idea that this was some sort of commitment. He couldn't get rid of her now. She smirked, unraveling the sticky, aromatic dough before popping the buttery soft center in her mouth.

Sucking the glaze off her fingers and then wiping them on the coarse white cloth napkin that came with her food, Bulma stood up and threw her backpack on, holding back a groan. Belly full, and as focused and optimistic as she could humanly be, she made her way back into the glistening crowd in search of the elusive biomedical vendor that was about to fix her Saiyan and get them out of this chaos.

~~~~~

Curled in his chair languidly, Zarbon tapped his manicured nails thoughtfully against his cheek, his sharp chin in his hand. “So I will have the report on Earth in three days?”

“Yes,” ground the voice of the being hidden in the deliberately darkened room.

“But you're certain the Nova is stationary.”

“It has been since the woman abdicated.” The voice was sibilant, guttural, like a groan dragging over gravel. It had given Zarbon tremors when he was a young Planet Trade officer, but now only piqued his curiosity. He had been to many, many places throughout the galaxies, and had met many races in Frieza's command, and yet he still could not place the accent of the man he had never seen before him.

“That blue haired sylph from M89 will get what's coming to her. I care nothing for her beyond that, since it seems she means nothing to Vegeta. That monkey mockery of a `Prince' would not have let her go alive if they had been bonded. That I thought the Monkey Prince could be capable of any emotion beyond his base, primitive ones was silly of me.”

“Indeed.”

“Which is why it will be exceedingly gratifying to take him to a new level- - -that of humiliation and defeat.”

“I digress,” Zarbon purred, sipping the wine provided for him as a courtesy whenever he made a business call here to his agents on Xior. It wasn't of the same breed as the rare and superior wines he'd been exposed to as Frieza's First Advisor and General. The small gesture appealed to his ego, though.

“So, it can be posited that Vegeta's ki is irreparably disrupted now, given his previous reactions to my Lord Frieza's amusing use of the ki cuffs on him as punishment.” Zarbon caressed the rim of the full wine glass and stifled a pang of longing for his old master. The pillow talk and laughter they'd had at Vegeta's expense! His old friend yearning was replaced by the familiar hatred for Vegeta and the newer, deep indignity that he hadn't been able to bag the Saiyan yet.

He sighed long sufferingly. “I'll tell you what. It will life both our spirits if we just go ahead and speed this up. Give the contingent the go-ahead to purge Earth. It will do my heart some good to have that blue haired smart mouth toiling the rest of her days as a bed slave on her own world. Meanwhile, I will take out my frustrations on the remaining Saiyans.” Zarbon's gold eyes peered up over the rim of his wine glass at the silhouette behind the desk. “And the rest will be a cake walk.”

~~~~

Bulma consulted her map with increasing agitation and worry. She had been to every tech and biomedical vendor in this Kami-forsaken market and she hadn't had any luck finding the particular compounds she needed to create the serum to reverse Vegeta's ki imbalance.

The problem was twofold: first of all, she wasn't able to get real evidence that Vegeta was suffering from a ki imbalance, which she hypothesized, at its heart, was a metabolic disorder. So she wasn't even sure she was looking for the right thing, and oh my Kami did she not want to screw this up.

That Vegeta's ki ailment and odd behavior were related to his metabolism had been an idea that had been gnawing at her for years. She had wondered about Saiyan metabolism and physiology since she'd watched Goku devour a tournament winning's worth of food 15 years ago, courtesy of Jackie Chun. Or the day they'd met Yamcha, the hard mouthed, cocky bandit perched out in a desert wasteland. Goku had barely been able to defend them, complaining about hunger pains as Yamcha so cockily overpowered him. Had she not been there to woo him with her beauty, well then, it just might have been the end of the line for Goku.

And it wasn't just Goku that was severely debilitated by hunger, even while he was tempted with a fight. She had been on the receiving end of Vegeta's hunger, his snapping and moping, simmering and complaining to be fed until someone gave in and fed the damned Saiyan Prince. And yet the colossal amount of food the Saiyans consumed didn't affect their physique at all, beyond making them even more deliciously ripped. Perhaps that's partly why Vegeta had filled out once on Earth, as well. He had mentioned during one of their late night dinners that he'd never seen so much food before he got to the Briefs' household. She had an inkling that Vegeta hadn't been fed well while in Frieza's service, and she wondered with scorn if it was Frieza's attempt to make absolutely sure there would be no Super Saiyan surprise, even as he got to use one for his cruel intentions.

She scoured her map for any vendors she had missed, and huffed when she found none. She walked forward without direction, listlessly, feeling the need to do something, anything.

She thought over it as she lost herself in the crowd. Once Zarbon slapped the ki cuffs on her Saiyan (her Saiyan?), Vegeta had become more emotional than she was used to, and his appetite had diminished. And although that could be an effect of his subjugation at the hands of the Eeyuris, he hadn't ever seemed to regain his appetite back. Now that she thought of it, he was looking a bit leaner, especially in the face and waist. She hadn't seen him eat at all while on the Nova, although neither had she.

She could only reason that Saiyan's metabolisms were sensitive, running high naturally, and needy.

So, if that was the case, she just had to find a way to alter Vegeta's current metabolic chemistry.

But what if she couldn't, what if she failed? If she couldn't help him, than whatever was going on with his paranoia and his aggression would takeover completely, and his life would be dominated by it. Putting his life at risk, if not from his health, that dark energy eating him up from the inside, than surely from the list of enemies he was racking up.

If she couldn't change him, she certainly couldn't just leave him out in space to go mad alone. No, she could neither leave him to bear it alone nor leave any possible victims to a (hopefully) preventable fate.

What did that mean for her? That she was to mother him the rest of their lives, nagging at him to keep the body count down like a fish wife as they lived their unstable and perilous lives out on the Nova? How would she even convince him to go back to Earth in that condition? He had everything he probably ever wanted now that he was in command of Frieza's misbegotten empire.

That wasn't what scared her the most, though. It was the conviction she was trying to bury deep within her.

She could lose her self control around him, as had been occurring with every recent interaction between them, crawling and grasping forward relentlessly. It was the certainty that she would give up, and yield to his brutish psyche's needs, that she would be complicit in her own total submission to the beast inside him which invoked so much desire between them, and through it, complicit in the subjugation and deaths of others.

It was her fear that she could happily endure it all while their lives crumbled around them.

Bulma let out an angry sigh and buried her head in her map before snapping it away and dropping it beside her. She watched the surf with trepidation, the silver feathered gulls, pearlescent in the late dawn, beating their wings against the strong sea breeze, mindlessly, in vain.

~~~~~

Perched in the wide Captain's chair of the Nova, his chin on his fist, the newly ascended Galactic Lord Vegeta no Ouji stared out at the endless space before him with antipathy. Seated roguishly on his throne, his florid eyes as turbulent and wild as his mane of defiant hair, the Emperor of four dozen quadrants of space regarded the space outside the main windshield of the Nova with manic purpose. Around him surged the life of the ship, its crew, although some of them lay lifelessly in the corner, pilot caps skewed on cold faces of surprise.

He heard the woman's voice nagging at him from somewhere, tugging at him and thrumming through him, chiding him for his impulsive brutality. Vegeta swatted the air. She wasn't here now, was she? She had given up her say on the matter.

She had left him. Why? She couldn't be trusted.

She could be trusted. Undoubtedly. Yes.

But she wasn't above the rules.

He bristled. She sure acts like it.

She was wild, unexpected. She hid her cards from him. He wanted to lock her up, watch her horror unfold with abysmal satisfaction as he swallowed the key. She wouldn't keep his interest if she had been any different.

And he was very interested in finding her.

“Six standard days until we arrive on Xior, my Lord,” interrupted the tremulous voice of the man who had replaced the Captain, who lay bleeding out and disregarded in the corner.

Vegeta, how could you? You're stronger than this. Her voice drifted though him.

He wanted to show her just exactly how he could.

I would never hurt her, but I'm going to.

He wanted to lay kisses at her feet, he wanted to provoke her fury.

He was going to prove to her how strong he was.

Vegeta's stare pierced through the windshield and out into the abyss of space, Xior winking at him like a jewel ahead.

Vegeta shut his eyes, and all the world dropped dead.

~~~~~~

What the hell am I doing?!

She had given herself two days to prepare. Two days was enough time to scrutinize the state building and its auxiliary building's layouts. Two days was enough to formulate a plan. Two days would see the two suns finally below the horizon and give Bulma the advantage of darkness.

And yet, here she was, floundering in her heroism, not only completely lost in the sprawling estate that was actually quite impressive even in the dark, but also completely doubting her plan. Was it absolutely necessary to risk herself like this? She could have gone to another planet or something! Hell, maybe she could have stayed on the Nova and had the damned compounds delivered to her door. All she knew at the time was that she had failing control over her anger and lust and this ki thing that was happening to her, and she couldn't trust herself to do the right thing anymore. She left because she had to fix them, quick, and she just couldn't do it in proximity to him.

That was the second part of the problem.

The last thing he had said to her, before she fell into sleepy darkness, had been an alluring promise to lock her in the bedroom from there on, and she believed him. He was becoming increasingly possessive of her, whether or not anyone was around. After they lay, panting hard, sleek with sweat on the rugs that night, Bulma had finally managed to get up the energy to use the restroom- - - only to feel Vegeta's teeth sink into her shoulder, his rough voice silkily demanding, “Where are you going?” She pushed away from him. “To pee,” she had whined. When she had wondered back into the room, she had yipped in terror, coming face to face with a red eyed boogie man who waited for her like a nightmare outside the bathroom.

“Are you done yet?” He barked impetuously, his rough voice gnarled, barbing her anger.

A protest formed in Bulma's throat, and as she went to walk around him dismissively, he grabbed her wrist and pinned her to the wall, her bare breasts and belly pressed up against the cold steel.

“Next time, you better ask for permission. I won't be as forgiving next time, and, well, you might not like what I have to do, to teach you a lesson.”

He let out a slow chuckle, relishing the thought. Real menace glinted in his words, lacking any affectionate teasing.

Vegeta pressed her harder into the wall, this time definitely either forgetting she was human- - -or deliberately hurting her.

“Now go lay down on the bed and open your legs for your master.”

Bulma's eyes flew open in shocked anger and the next thing she knew her fist was colliding with his eye and a skin of blue energy was stitching up her skin. Vegeta was laughing full of impish dark pleasure and she grabbed the back of his neck, tearing her fingers into his hair as his own hands snaked up her hips to hold her heavy breasts.

“Don't tell me what to do,” she hissed, and he was already spilling her onto the bed and pressing himself against her buttocks, before pulling away to slap it decisively, and she yowled into the sheets, the evanescent energy tittering along her nerves and racing along her spine and spilling out its heavy need. Vegeta's hot wide chest pressed against her back and he laughed at her as she lifted her rear as high as she could manage, keening against the sheets with anticipation.

After he had sunk into her slowly from behind, his hands over her hips and back and thighs--only after he'd flipped her over and pushed her back up against the head board, sucking and nipping on her lips and tongue--only after the angle he was working her caused her aura to flare in tandem with his, blue on black, and he looked down at her with sinister glee--only after she put her fist through the head board and his tumbling energy shoved everything within a ten feet diameter back did she look up at her red eyed succubus mirror image as she came, hard, and she had only a second to feel a tremor of shock before Vegeta laughed and laughed and the crone cackled with him.

Bulma felt utterly sick recalling it. Yeah, she was definitely not trusting either of them around each other right now. How could he do this to her? Who was this Bulma and Vegeta?

Apart from him, she was starting to feel clear headed, horror at her actions churning in her stomach. She didn't like herself when she was around this new Vegeta.

She just hoped deep down he was feeling the same way.

After she woke up halfway off the bed, the sound of the GR whirring in another room, did she ever feel a terrible sense of disconnection. Deep down, the Bulma she knew urgently whispered run.

Had Vegeta caught up to her in time, the only punishment to await her would be her own dark pleasure as he ki cuffed her to the bed and licked his way up her thighs. She had lost her sense of self, becoming only flesh and feeling, and it was either because the Mark somehow linked them or she was going insane, and it scared her deeply.

She had a tenuous hypothesis, that the Saiyans inner animal, the Oozaru under their skin, was impacted by their metabolism, and the animal was all Freudian id, all impulse, and anger, and sex. Somehow, the Mark allowed her to share his mania, whether she wanted to or not. Distance alleviated it, and the serum could pacify it.

She desperately, desperately hoped that were true.

She tried praising herself for putting distance between them and doing the right thing, but it felt hollow. Even far apart, the animal lurked inside her still, bristling, trying to find a foothold.

As Bulma navigated the outside of the mansion's Research Center- - -at least she had made it that far- - -she hoped that at least the sex wasn't lacking after she fixed this.

“Ah ha!” There, a paneled window open to the fresh air which led into an office. The city shut down at Night, apart from the businesses that catered to the night life; the planet's people worked in three Day shifts before getting the three days of Night off. She was thankful for the dark, because she was terribly bad at these things. She sat on the cool ground, quickly surveyed the dark inside, and seeing no one around, slipped her body in feet first, careful not to scrape her belly on the window sill as she wiggled her way into the room through the window. She hung onto the ledge before bracing herself for the drop--and then she was in.

As she pulled her sweatshirt back down over waist, her sneakers tapping lightly against linoleum, fluorescent lights flicked on, buzzing, and she whipped around, pulling her gun from her waistband.

Only to be unable to pull the trigger because the stranger was the most profoundly mouth watering version of Goku she'd ever seen.

He leaned against the door frame, a cigarette dangling from his lips, looking up from under his lashes against the door frame.

Her frozen finger wouldn't obey her as she pleaded with it to pull the trigger now.

“Now who are you,” he purred, drawing on his cigarette before blowing smoke out his nose nonchalantly, “and why do you smell like a Saiyan?”