Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Rhapsody in Flames ❯ Chapter Two - Tia-kalzan ( Chapter 2 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Hi everyone!!  *Phew, this story is gonna turn out to be a beast – most likely more so than its predecessor.  But hey, I’m cool with it if you are.  ;)  In fact, I’m pretty sure ‘You’ve Got a Hold on Me’ is going to turn into a massive beast as well.  I’m cool with that if you are, too!
I also have to always give a big shout out to the lovely authors I chat with on a regular basis who give me critique, support, encouragement and introspection.  Y’all know who you are… LOL.  ‘Thank you’ can’t even begin to explain how grateful I am for that camaraderie.  
Thanks as always to the wonderful reviewers, favs and followers – as I always say I try to respond to each reviewer at least once and if I haven’t please know that I will and that I appreciate each review I receive.  It’s like Christmas!!!!
All that being said, go visit the “We’re Just Saiyan…” Community on Google Plus!  It’s fun, and you’ll love it.  I was on their most recent podcast!  If you find yourself with an hour to kill, the link to this lovely bit of debauchery is in my profile.  ;)  Thanks all!  Enjoy!

She dreamed most often of Y’leea, the one who had taught her her first words in Saiya-go.  The one who had called her tia-kalzan, the most endearing term Bulma had yet heard in the language of her captors.  Y’leea was the one who had called her ‘companion’, and she had meant it.  As slaves, companions were the most precious of possessions, and tia-kalzan was more than just a word or a title.  It was a gift, to speak of someone in such a way.
Y’leea was also one of so many Bulma had forgotten in her furious quest for revenge; had she been on Vejiita-sei during Furiza’s frenzied rush for destruction?  As elated as Bulma had been at the thought of its demise, she had not considered the loss of Vejiita-sei’s many slaves and off-world residents.
Gods above, if there were any to question!  How mad with grief and rage must she have become, to forget even those who had eased her transition into the world of the Saiya-jin?  Those who encouraged her to accept her fate, like Y’leea, were among the most precious to her in Raditsu’s household.  And now it seemed there were none here who could fill such a role.  Truth be told, the only one who now would encourage her to do so with gusto was probably Vejiita.  But it would not do to think of Y’leea now; the thought of her brought stinging tears to Bulma’s eyes, and she did not need tears now.  No, not now.
As the guards escorted her to the entrance of the lab, Bulma found that the familiarity of her equipment, the smell of electronics and sterilized processing chips, even the gentle tang of the plasma ignition chambers were all things she’d been missing since her return to Mizukashi.  Regaining access to the lab had at first been quite comforting and, on the rare occasion she allowed it, it reminded her of Chikyuu – of home.  But now that Vegeta had tasked her with weapons development, on the condition that her work be monitored day and night by Elite Guards, well, that was something not quite so comforting.
When she entered the lab today, the Mizuka-jin science staff regarded her as always: some with a gentle nod of respect, others with a wary, hesitant greeting.  Only a small number of them had been involved in the resistance, and she’d made sure of that.  Besides Iriyon, the residual members had remained quiet and kept at their business as usual, just as they had when Brolli had been governor.  Bulma prayed to whichever god would listen that she would one day discover what had happened to the Mizuka-jin scientist, a creature who had been one of very few that Bulma could have called ‘friend’ since her departure from Vejiita-sei.
As she set about issuing a few ignition tests with some of the assistants, Bulma’s mind drifted in and out of her current task.  The dry air inside the lab was in stark contrast to the humid outside air on Mizukashi.  Though this planet could be described as dry compared to the heat and humidity of Vejiita-sei – or what had been Vejiita-sei.  As Bulma drew a hand across the tired muscles of her neck, instructed an assistant to try again with her new calculations and sighed, she remembered the kitchen in Raditsu’s country estate.  It had been over a year since he’d bought her that day on the Mahelka.
Y’leea had pressed a cold compress against the back of her neck, and she stood now across the chopping block table to smile comfortingly.  Bulma remembered the vat of stew and how it added such misery to the muggy conditions inside the kitchen.  In that vast, yet mostly unoccupied, cookery Bulma had found that simple tasks like preparing food were more infuriating than any experiment she had ever performed.
She approached stew the way she approached a chemical compound.  It usually worked, and she never received complaints from her ka’fuu or from his numerous guests and military dignitaries.  That day was hot.  Hotter than any Chikyuu summer she could ever remember.  Y’leea smiled at her across the chopping block and gathered some local vegetables.
“Thank you, Y’leea,” Bulma said, in her best Saiyago, and pressed the cool compress further onto her skin.  Her companion had been a fine teacher so far.  But then, so had her ka’fuu, Raditsu.  “I’m still not used to this weather,” she told Y’leea.
The other female giggled softly, smiling in the way only she could.  Her reptilian lips did not hold as much expression as a human’s of course, or even a Saiya-jin, but Bulma could tell when the young alien smiled.  She returned the gesture and continued stirring her vat of stew.
“I have lived here nine years, tia-kalzan,” Y’leea said quietly, as was her way.  “I am still not used to it.”
Bulma gave her a half-hearted smile and lifted her large stirring spoon slightly.  Y’leea had taught her many things, such as the fact that the relationship between the Saiya-jin and her people, from planet Genma in the Videon’s fifth sector, was not altogether benevolent.  They had given their freedom over to the Saiya-jin under much protest.  But to protect what little population remained, the Genins offered a monthly supply of tremium (a mineral of much value) to the Saiya-jin, along with their fealty.  Y’leea respected Raditsu, inasmuch as she needed to, because of his apparent mutual respect for her.  And Y’leea had been right to say, as she did often, that their master treated them well.
“You look tired today, Bulma,” Y’leea observed, and began slicing a long root vegetable.  Bulma saw that the other alien’s mouth was turned up gently again, but it was different this time.  She ignored it for the time being.
“I am,” she replied, and took back to her stirring.
“You ought not to spend so much time with the ka’fuu, tia-kalzan.”
Y’leea grinned now, her sharp teeth visible and glinting.
Bulma snickered irritably at her friend’s inference; of late, Raditsu had taken to making her his guest inside the study in the late evenings.  It was the same room where she had met him face to face for the first time, and where he had made her position in his home very clear to her.  But the nights in his study were more like a visit to a friend’s home, Bulma thought with some exasperation.  He would invite her to try her hand at reading the books in Saiyago, and she had advanced in skill enough to begin reading an old recipe book that his grandmother commissioned years ago.  He had been quite impressed by that.  Bulma shrugged her shoulders as a trickle of sweat inched down between her shoulder blades.
“The ka’fuu does what he will, Y’leea,” she said to her friend.  Y’leea snorted.
“Tia-kalzan, I think he would do whatever you willed.”
“Ha!”  Bulma’s mirth erupted.  “You give me too much credit, Y’leea.”
“Nonsense.”  Her friend’s voice hissed at her.  “He does not ask me to visit him in the study.”  Y’leea paused, and Bulma took a moment to make sure she had understood Y’leea’s heavily accented Saiyago.  “To be fair though, I am not quite his type of mate.”
Bulma laughed aloud again, and turned back to the stew.  She giggled with her friend and took up her ladle.  It struck her suddenly how primitive Saiya-jin kitchens were, when one considered their tech-advanced lifestyle.  Her mood sobered.
“He teaches me to read Saiyago,” Bulma told Y’leea, “and shows me books given to him by his family.  History, society, art…”
“Many slaves, the ka’fuu has asked me to teach Saiyago and customs for him.  But none of them he has invited to study with him, Bulma-kalzan.”
“I am not his lover,” Bulma said, with some measure of consternation.
“But that would please him.”
Y’leea had stopped chopping her vegetables, and appeared amused.  Bulma stopped stirring the stew, and wished suddenly that she had a vial of arsenic in her fist.  That would make this feast more enjoyable for her, anyhow.
“His pleasure is the least of my concern, Y’leea.”
The Genin woman hissed through the snake like slits above her mouth, and the sound inched down through her teeth.
“You must be careful, tia-kalzan…  There are ears everywhere.”
“Curse their ears!”  Bulma snapped back.  Y’leea’s mouth twitched and she glanced around nervously.  “You can tell them it was me if they catch us.”
Bulma lifted the large ladle out of the vat and let it drip for a moment.  Y’leea had begun crushing some spice roots and, when she scooped them into her smoothly scaled hands and into the stew, Bulma sighed.  She pulled the heavy ladle onto its stand by the recessed pantry.
“Don’t worry,” she said to her friend.  “I would never say these things to him.”
Bulma turned to replace the teniha flour in the pantry.  Wouldn’t she?  She wondered.  After making sure that the fire beneath the stew vat was not high enough to boil it, she wiped more sweat from her brow and walked across the large kitchen.  As she stopped near the door and lifted her conLink to the security panel, she heard Y’leea’s hurried footsteps behind her.  Her Saiya-jin sandals scuffled on the clay floor.
“Bulma…”  Her voice was soft, and sympathetic.  “You are like a sister to me now.  Everything I teach you is because of this.”
“I know, Y’leea.”  Bulma sighed and turned to her again as the security panel blipped for an escort.  The sound was so pleasant, that it might have been a wind chime.  “I know,” she said again wearily.  Y’leea took one of her hands.
“Tia-kalzan, I have told you before that my people are no friends of the Saiya-jin.  But the ka’fuu…  You have seen that I was right.  He is good to us.”
Bulma smiled at her friend and placed her other hand on her two.  Y’leea’s humanoid hands were always cool, but never clammy or wet.  Dry and strong, like a snake.
“He is as good as he can be,” she said in reply… ….
Bulma’s ears twitched at the sound of a Mizuka-jin science officer speaking to her quite adamantly.
“Bulma-kalzan?”  He was asking her, his fishlike eyes blinking in question.  She took a deep breath and shook her head.
“Yes,” she said breathlessly, “yes?”
“The last test, with your new calculations.  I said it was as stable as it can be – as we allow it to be.  But I will have to adjust the ignition sequence if we are to amass higher quantities of the plasma in the containment chambers.”
Bulma nodded to him, quite pleased as she read the calculations on his proffered tablet device.  This information meant not only that her late-night number crunching had actually yielded measureable results, but also that she hadn’t needed the back-stabbing Aisu-jin in the first place.  Bitter regret bubbled about in her stomach for a brief moment until she swallowed with a spastic gulp.  She smiled wanly at the assistant.
“Excellent,” she said, “then, we are much further along since yesterday.”
The Mizuka-jin nodded, and he took back the tablet with a hesitant, fishy smile.
“His Highness will be pleased.”
Bulma felt her feeble smile turn distant and, surprisingly, discontented.  The thought of Vejiita’s approval or disapproval made her feel nervous, weak and—lonely.  She had not felt so neglected since being installed in Raditsu’s household on Vejiita-sei, and the thought made her rage begin to boil, hot in her blood.  All the gods!  The power Vejiita still held over her was debilitating.  It made her work difficult; it made every aspect of her daily life difficult and to make matters worse, it seemed he reveled in it.  She remembered his words the night before her trial, when he’d made her his prisoner despite that she’d never known it.  You need us… You need this!  You need to live.
Somehow, this time without insurrection and subterfuge, and perhaps with a disdainful appreciation, she must regain a semblance of life.  Whether a risk to her relationship to Vejiita or not, Bulma needed back the soul that had fought to keep her alive in the first place.  She needed a reason to keep going—this time to outwit an enemy who knew nothing of alliance or loyalty.  The Saiya-jin were dedicated to those qualities at least.  But Bulma knew the Aisu-jin now, had seen their malice and their relentless pursuit of domination.  It would not be sated by mere retaliation.
“Shaji Bulma?  Are you alright?”
Bulma was jarred back from her reverie by the assistant, speaking quite naturally in Mizukago and at a volume that did not hide it.  Her eyes narrowed as one of the guards closest to the ignition chamber uncrossed his arms and pointed at the scientist.
“YOU!  Fish-nose!”  he shouted, and Bulma was stricken with empathy.  The guard snarled and attracted some attention from the others who stood sentry near the chamber.  “You forget your place, shuga-kalzan!  No more of that backwater language or the Aash’an Raditsu will hear of it!”
The Mizuka-jin scientist lowered his shiny black, bulbous eyes and nodded slowly.
“Suukah.  I am humbled, soldier.  I meant no offense.”  He said, and for the first time Bulma noted his heavy accent.
The guard bared his teeth one more time and rolled his shoulders, then growled and reclaimed his post near the ignition chamber.  Bulma put one hand on the long, lean arm of the Mizuka-jin scientist.  He turned back to her and blinked.
“Thank you,” she told him, in clear Saiyago.  “I’m just fine.  Tired.”  She smiled and squeezed his sleeve.  He acknowledged her concern as best he knew how, and gestured to the numbers on his tablet.
“Your calculations allow for a higher amount of plasma, but as I said I will need to recalibrate the ignition sequence.  Would you like to initiate another test?”
Bulma nodded, careful to conceal her eagerness, and gestured toward the ignition chamber doors.
“Have they cooled enough from the last?”  she inquired of her assistant, and approached the bay window to look inside the chamber.  He handed her his tablet so that she could better understand the readouts.
“Perhaps not enough, Bulma-kalzan,” he replied and came to her side.  “The plasma ignition engines are still cooling from our previous test.”
Bulma’s eyes narrowed as she read the numbers on his tablet.
“These readouts are different,” she said.  “Why such a high concentration of carbon after the ignition?”
Bulma tripped over the Saiya-jin word for ‘carbon’, sure she had not uttered it since learning it years ago.  The Mizuka-jin shrugged.
“It did not affect the outcome, Bulma-kalzan.  I did not think it necessary to report such a finding.  Perhaps a random burst of emission from the plasma?”
“It’s never been so high before,” she replied, and stepped forward to press a hand against the glass window.  Why so high now, she wondered?  “That readout would indicate the presence of something else in the chamber.”  She mused this aloud.
“The chambers are sterile except for the plasma,” the Mizuka-jin told her.  “I checked them myself before ignition.”
Bulma nodded absently and her fingers shifted over the glass.  If these numbers were indeed true, then her recent assumptions of small plasma colony containments were correct.  It meant they might well be royally fucked if the Aisu-jin had managed somehow to amass even higher amounts of contained plasma.
“I will need to reexamine the readouts after this next containment test,” she told her companion.  He voiced an agreement, and she heard him calling for another technician so that the next process could begin.
The fans inside the ignition chamber whirred vigorously to cool the massive amounts of heat and energy discharged by the explosion of plasma and the containment chambers, also personally designed by Bulma, were currently housing a small amount of that volatile substance.  She knew they could hold more—much more.  Bulma’s eyes narrowed in thought.  The Aisu-jin had done it; gods they had created cannons that could contain massive amounts of plasma.  Enough to destroy a planet…
The attention signal on the lab security comPanel disrupted the quiet bustling inside with an invasive blare.  The Saiya-jin guards near the doors stiffened, and one called out for silence in the lab.  Bulma’s lips parted with slight confusion, and not a small amount of irritation.  Raditsu had not sent an inspection squad for a week now, but tripping on the toes of another potential test, this would not do at all!
Bulma stepped past a few of the Mizuka-jin scientists, through two inattentive guards and towards the door, much to the dismay of said guards.  She ignored their shouts of protest, because she had not yet stopped what she was doing and she was not prostrating herself properly.  Raditsu’s conspicuous distrust of her had begun to boil in her guts of late.  Bulma stopped in front of an Elite Guard and cocked her head to the side.  His tail tightened visibly around his waist as she stared up at him defiantly.  He was not so particularly tall.
“Guardsman, I’m sure your orders from Aash’an Raditsu are explicit but I must at least request to reschedule the security inspection this once--!”
The guard in front of her laughed, interrupting her very emphatic outburst, and was joined by several of the other guards inside the lab.  The Elite Guard crossed his arms over the plated armor on his chest and raised a thick eyebrow.
“This is no security inspection, buhala ku’fuu.”
A hot blush bloomed on Bulma’s cheeks, her nostrils flared and her chin leveled.  No curses in her own tongue could possibly express the fury that erupted in her gut at his words.  Bloody gods she was tired of being called names!  She pressed her lips together firmly and breathed out like an Earth bull about to charge its quarry.
“Then,” she began slowly, “what is the reason for the delay of our testing?  His Highness the King would be most displeased by this interruption in his commission.”
“Then you must tell him yourself, Chikyuu-jin.”
He turned and gestured to his left, where the small entourage of Elite Guards parted and saluted with a resounding thunk of fist against armor.  Bulma’s already thudding heartbeat skipped around in her chest as she realized what was happening now.  Indeed, this was no security inspection.  Vejiita was coming, and she had not had contact with him in this lab for the past two weeks.  Indeed, she had not had much contact with him at all.  Bulma was sure this particular brand of mind-maze was intentional on his part.
As a gust of warm, humid sea air rushed into the open lab doors, Vejiita rounded the corner and made his way through the small entourage like some messianic, ancient savior whose very presence was meant to awe and inspire.  His black and red armor, dark and foreboding as it was, could not contain the glint of the Mizukashi sunlight off of its golden trim.  Bulma blinked at him as he approached, characteristically bemused, and clutched the tablet she held closer to her midsection, her hands folded neatly in front of it.
“Bulma-kalzan,” Vejiita said, his voice a paralyzing mixture of delight and venom.
He stretched his neck from side to side, straining the high-necked collar of his black body suit.  Bulma realized she had stared at him in wordless irritation when the guard next to her took a step forward.  He growled at her, but Vejiita kept smirking, as ever.
“Buhala!”  The guard spat at her again, and her eyes snapped wide open.  “Zarshon ki sha’ga bahat!”
She heard him, Bulma realized.  She heard the guard telling her to kneel before her king, and that she was a stupid slut who should know better.  But what she saw was Vejiita’s arm raise in a dismissive gesture, and the perpetual scowl on his face turn to a soft irritation.
“Sergeant Kurosu, there is no need for such dramatic and threatening commands,” Vejiita said.  His mouth quirked upward into a devastating smile, and his brow creased when he looked at her.  “Is there, Bulma-kalzan?”  He took to removing his gloves, but his eyes never left hers.
Bulma swallowed the vicious embarrassment in her throat and shook her head once.  Her nose wrinkled, and her upper lip quirked so that only he could see, and she lowered herself to one knee so that she could clutch the tablet with one hand and press the other to the floor.  The floor was cool, and she gazed at it with unbridled wrath.
“Suukah, My King.  Ka’fuu, I am yours.”
Her lips tripped on the words, as though she had never said them.  But that seemed a lifetime ago, and another Saiya-jin warrior had been her master then.  No, she had not called anyone ‘master’ since coming to Mizukashi.  She lifted her eyes until she could see the tips of Vejiita’s boots, and that he was shifting on his feet.
“You see, Kurosu?”  his voice was full and ardent in the deathly silent lab.  “You cannot expect respect from a slave until you have shown that you are capable of some empathy.  Shallan.”
At the sound of his acknowledgement, Bulma pushed to her feet.  When her eyes met his again, his gaze had narrowed.  What a slick bastard he was even now, she thought, pretending at such benevolence.  Flames shot through her veins until she had to will them to a smolder.  Was it back to the same dance with Vejiita, she wondered?  Bulma would not forget the steps this time, though.  No, she knew each turn through and through.  Something passed between their two bodies then, and Vejiita took a breath as if to scent the air.
“Bulma-kalzan, you will show me your progress.  I’ve heard of your recent successes.”
His words were a veil to something else, surely, Bulma mused.  But he gazed at her intently; his insignificant height advantage may have emboldened a less intelligent creature, but she nodded once and took a step backward in deference.  His height was nothing if not a genetic ploy—the underestimation of which meant life or death, even for a warrior.  She felt the uneasy shifting of a few Mizuka-jin behind her.
“Ka’fuu, this lab is at your disposal.”
A soft, barely audible laugh escaped Vejiita’s nose, and he craned his neck backward.
“The rest of you will leave,” he said without pretense.  He nodded back to the Mizuka-jin as well.  “And you.  We’ll have no need for you.”
Bulma watched him carefully.  Her surprise must be as evident as it was on the Elite Guards, and the other lower stationed patrols inside the lab.  They all eyed him with confusion until the silence was almost unbearable; the only sound was the whirring from the ignition chamber.  Vejiita’s jaw twitched and he crossed his arms over the plates of his armor.  The flexible plastic issued a low creak against his body suit.
“I said you will leave.”  He told the others.  “Dismissed.”
The Elite Guards shifted and observed each other to determine the proper thing to do.  Bulma could see the question in their eyes, the hesitance in their step.  Anger the King or leave him to the devices of a belligerent, convicted traitor?  But Vejiita was the one to decide this time, when his head snapped to the side.
“Bras d’ha Ka!”  He shouted again, clearing the silence from the lab with the kind of noise she had only heard him emit once:  once in the arena with Brolli.
At this, the guard and the patrols inside the lab filed out uneasily, and when Bulma looked back to her Mizuka-jin assistants and nodded once to them with a smile, they followed suit.  Soon, the lab was empty save for her and the Saiya-jin King Vejiita who, with a small chuckle, uncrossed his arms and took another step closer to her.  This time, he was close enough to angle his mouth and nose down at her.  Bulma felt her mind balk; it was too close.  It was always too close, when he stood next to her as he did now.  Too close, unless he was touching her.
Vejiita drew in a breath and the air was alive with energy.
“Bulma-kalzan, if this lab is at my disposal, then you must show me how my commissions are coming along.”
She simply stared at him for a brief moment, held his gaze with unwavering resolve before her eyebrows creased and she stepped backward to bow respectfully.
“Of course, Ka’fuu,” she replied.  She turned from him and caught only a glimpse of his visible amusement before she continued back toward the ignition chamber.  She could hear his boot steps following her, and when she stopped Vejiita came to stand behind her right shoulder.  He was so close that she could feel the heat dancing off of his body.
Bulma breathed, long and slow, and nodded at the chamber.
“We have been successful in containing a fair amount of plasma, Sire.  Before your—arrival, I had planned on another test to see if my calculations for a greater amount of containment could be attained.”
Though she could not see his face, his voice did betray an amount of pleasure in this admission.
“Then you are further along than your original expectations,” he said.  “You told me a month before you would have measurable results, did you not?”
“I did.”  Bulma’s eyes fell on the swirling plasma inside the containment chambers, and she thought about the carbon emissions on the readout the Mizuka-jin had given her.  For a moment, she forgot Vejiita and stepped within inches of the chamber glass again.
“It is something incredible we have here,” she said carelessly, as though to herself.  “Something even the Aisu-jin cannot really fathom.”
She could feel the uneasiness from Vejiita’s aura behind her, and she was again all too aware of his presence.  Her eyes shifted to the side; he had come beside her again.
“What do you mean?”  he asked, and the question was really quite harmless.  Expected even.  But he said it right next to her ear, and she felt his lips move against her skin like small waves of the plasma she now gazed at.
Bulma swallowed convulsively and inched away from him as though he had burned her.  When she faced him, Vejiita’s mouth was parted in charming confusion.  He smiled from the corner of his mouth and folded his hands behind his back.
“Bulma-kalzan,” he said slowly, “what do you mean, the Aisu-jin do not fathom it?”
“I--?”  
She found that revealing her late-night observations of plasma behavior may not be something he would approve of.  But the carbon readouts proved everything she’d guessed since watching Raditsu’s brother Kakarot receive a direct hit from a plasma wave on board the Shafuri.  Everything…
Vejiita was waiting; his chin cocked at an angle that said his amusement in her discomfort was slowly turning to irritation.  Bulma pressed her lips together and reached out to place her tablet on a nearby table.  She folded her hands across her midsection and turned back to the window.
“It is capable of much more than we ever imagined, than they have ever imagined,” she told him quietly.  “Do you know what happens to a body when it is hit with plasma?”
Bulma heard Vejiita huff behind her; it was two parts indignation and one part latent disgust.  
“Too many times,” he replied.  “The plasma eats its way across the body from the hit site and, depending on where that was, reaches the heart within minutes.”
“It’s why you didn’t let Bardock go back for his son,” Bulma said, still looking hard into the ignition chamber and watching the plasma swirl with uninhibited pressure.  No—urgency.
“It is.”  Vejiita was next to her again, but this time his body was giving off a different kind of heat.  Bulma thought that she could feel the weight of his empire even from here:  oozing off of his shoulders just like blood.  “It is,” he said again.  “Kakarot was dead the moment they hit him.  Bardock knew that; but his reaction was no surprise.”
This time Bulma turned to face him, lips parted in thought.  Though his closeness still paralyzed her with a myriad of emotions, and cut her with unspoken words, she looked at him.  He was watching the plasma now, too.  In his utterly black eyes she could see something new, something unfamiliar.  She saw regret.
Vejiita angled his gaze and his chin back to her, and a flood of uncertainty came over her like a Mizukashi waterfall, deep within the tropical lands of her southern hemisphere.  Bulma breathed deeply and she could smell him, he was so close.  His mouth parted with a question, and if just for a brief nanosecond of time she saw his brow lift.
“What exactly are you trying to tell me, Bulma-kalzan?”
The voice was so close to her that she drew in an audible breath.  She could feel the way the air between their mouths mingled and flurried like a gust of wind.  Gods help her if he could smell how much the sound of his voice aroused her.  No doubt he would find it unbearably amusing.
Quickly, Bulma turned away.  She took a few steps forward and put one hand on the window of the ignition chamber, as she had before.  Do not come closer to me, she willed him, do NOT.  His reflection in the glass did not betray the expression on his face, so she bit down on the side of her cheek and decided that to be frank may be the only way to really gain his trust after—after all that had happened.
“Ka’fuu, even when I have finished my work for the day, as you have commissioned for me, I--?”
“You mean these plasma containment tests?  The diffuser weapons I instructed you to design?”  He was impatient now, and somehow quite disturbed.  She turned to him so that he could see her face.
“I have been working on other—‘projects’, Vejiita.”
It was the first time she had used his name, without title, since that last night on his balcony.  That night when the future of their union, the Empire, the very galaxy seemed so uncertain that it had turned into a scorching desire, she had said his name many times.  Many times.
Vejiita’s head tilted a degree, and she could see that her casual address had not gone unnoticed.  To her surprise though, he smirked handsomely and chuckled.  The noise echoed in the empty lab and settled somewhere in the heavy center of her body.
“Weapons?” he asked, with a measure of concern.
“No,” she replied steadily, to assure him that she had not overlooked that bit of distrust.  Bulma went back to the lab table and retrieved her tablet to avoid the questioning gaze of her sometime lover, who even now tested the limits of her sanity.  In a few seconds she had pulled up a test result chart saved in the main dataports of the lab servers.
“In the bioLab, near the regen tanks, I have been conducting tests on plasma specimens.”  Vejiita approached her, his arms crossed again and a firm interest etched into his brow.  “I have watched its movements, tested its emissions, have seen it interact with Saiya-jin cell matter!  I think I can control it, Vejiita…!”  She stopped, because he was not looking at the tablet, but at her.
A moment passed, pregnant with indecision.  Bulma swallowed the dryness in her mouth and realized she had been speaking as though she were his appointed Science Division Leader, a trusted and valued member of his society who could contribute whatever knowledge and genius one might expect from such an individual.  She was not speaking as a slave should speak to a master—as a subject would speak to a King.  Now, though, he was watching her speak with a look so deeply saturated by fascination that it burned her from where he stood.
Vejiita’s palm was pressed on top of the table and without pretense he reached out to grab the high collar of her tunic and pull.  Bulma gasped until she was flush against his armored chest, her bottom pressed uncomfortably into the edge of the table behind her.  Vejiita leaned in and put his other palm down beside her so that she was trapped.  When she looked at him, his eyes were full to bursting with something she could not name.  Would he kill her this time, she wondered for a moment?
One hand came back to her, his fingers pressing first on the valley between her breasts and then up until they pushed against her collarbone, the space between it and her neck and then finally her throat.  His bare fingers, hot like pokers, rested on her pulse for a brief moment, and his thumb framed her chin to keep it steady.  Bulma held her breath; it was the only way to keep from collapsing under the weight of his stare.  Oh gods, it was difficult to keep her legs steady, and the bastard knew it.
Vejiita’s eyes observed every part of her face until the corner of his mouth twitched upward, and his breath became audible.  He dragged his thumb across her bottom lip, and Bulma could not help the rush of air that escaped her mouth.  His barely veiled distrust was lost on her for the moment.
“Shall’la,” he whispered against her lips.  “Do you remember how much I want you?”
The words were so reminiscent of a short moment in time, not so very long ago, when he had worked her against Brolli, perhaps even against himself in a desperate bid to determine her loyalty.  Her heart sunk deeply into her gut and pounded there until she nodded to him.  The silent insistence in his touch would not wait long for an answer.
“I remember, Vejiita-Zarshon,” she told him.
At her words, he shifted the length of his body into hers.  At his waist where his armor ended, where nothing could disguise it, she could feel the rock solid heat of his cock boring down on her leg like the plasma a scant few meters away.  Her chest heaved now; no manner of control would stop that.
“And you can see that now, Shall’la, can you?”
“Yes.”  Her breath came now in what sounded like short little sobs.
All the gods damn him!  He knew the buttons to press, and he knew what words to say—even now!  Even now she was at his mercy and hated every part of herself for it.  But gods she wanted him, just as he wanted her, with a fury so soul-deep that it poisoned both of them.
The fingers at her pulse trailed back down her throat and over her breast.  Her tunic and body wrap betrayed nothing to his touch, but he squeezed the swell of her flesh anyhow and slanted his mouth over hers.  His kiss was demanding and possessive, and it began to consume her in the frightening way it had since the beginning.  Her eyes squeezed shut, but she gripped the edges of the table behind her with both hands so as to stop them from burying into the sweeping flame of his raven hair.  The heat of his insistent tongue frazzled her nerves and sunk into the warmth between her legs, right where she wanted him.  Right now, right now--!
Vejiita’s mouth tilted up, and he sucked viciously on her bottom lip until he sighed, unrestrained.  He pressed his forehead against hers and panted against her swollen mouth for a moment before his eyes opened and bore into her.  They were ravenous, like a yarra cat from Vejiita-sei’s hot savannahs.
“You are still frightened of me, Shall’la,” he told her, breathless.  “You are frightened of how I make you feel.”
“Fucking bastard!”  She spat at him, and brushed her lips against his at the same time.  It had been a long time since she’d uttered any words like that, anything from her language that would express such a frustration, such a longing.
Vejiita chuckled heavily against her and kissed her once, sucking on her lips again.
“Spitting Chikyuu-jin curses at me now?  It’s too late for that!”
With that he reached down to grip both of her hips and haul her onto the table with ease.  He pushed the tablet, a few glass flasks, test tubes and paperwork across the length of the table until it was mostly clear.  Bulma had little time to admonish him as he gripped one of her ankles and lifted up until her soft boot was hovering over the lip of the table.
Vejiita leaned forward, one hand slid up the inside of her thigh and he pushed his forehead against her breasts.  Even through the rough fabric of her body wrap, his fingers were like fire.  Ki danced on the tips of his touch, and traveled upward into the soft, warm center of her.  It jumped into her and stiffened her spine with desire.
The sound of rending fabric brought her back to her senses, and she saw that Vejiita was tearing the leg of her wrap until her skin was bare all the way to her undergarments:  simple and thin little things given to any slave.  But Vejiita seemed pleased enough by them and he pushed the thin fabric away, so damp now with want, and slid his scalding hot fingers inside her.  Bulma arched her back and marveled at the degree of her abandon for him.  She marveled at the sound of her voice, a harsh gasp that ended on a deep groan of pleasure.
Vejiita laughed again, against her restrained breasts, and worked the slick flesh at his fingers the way one would work an instrument.  He gripped the collar of her tunic again and claimed her mouth, drowning the sounds of her excitement.  But something in Bulma’s mind revolted against him still, something deep-seated and so difficult to extract.  She saw him as the one who had played such a dangerous game with her that blind vengeance had almost robbed her of everything—had robbed them all of something precious.
Vejiita gripped her neck and released her mouth, then slid his fingers from her until she was close to begging him to give them back.  He pulled her from the table and lifted her leg until it was draped around his waist.  Vejiita pushed his firm arousal, still confined by his body suit, between her legs and sighed, throwing his head back.
“Come back with me now, Shall’la.”  Of course, he meant to his quarters.  But Bulma heard another meaning in those words: one that cooled the burning in her loins.  Come back to what, she wondered?  To the prince who had broken her of the will to fight?  Or the king who had sat in his throne during that trial and smiled at her salvation?  Which one was he now?  Which one was he?!
He brought his head back down to press a cheek against hers.
“Come back with me now,” he whispered again.
Bulma pushed against his armor with one palm until they both looked at each other.  His mouth was turned up in an unreadable smile, brow furrowed in characteristic tenacity.  She panted for a long moment, and pushed harder against his armor.
“Everything is still a game to you, isn’t it?”  She blurted, heedless of form or ceremony.  Vejiita’s smile faded, and his fist clutched in the tunic cinched up around her waist.
“A ‘game?’”  His voice was like gravel, and the word sounded more like a curse.
“Yes, a game,” she spit the words at him.  “You see what I’ve done here, you don’t trust me—even now!  And so you have come here to test me again, Vejiita.  Haven’t you?!”  When he did not reply at first, she said again, “haven’t you?!”
Vejiita’s fist tangled in the simple bun on her head and pulled until her throat was completely exposed to him.  She gasped in pain this time.
“What have you learned since my council graciously gave you a second chance at this life, Bulma?  Nothing!  You have learned nothing yet!”
Bulma panted and gulped, hard.
“I have learned to see my purpose here, have I not, Vejiita-Zarshon--!”
His other hand slipped below her leg again and back to the dampness that still betrayed her desire for him.  Vejiita brought those same digits up to her mouth, and traced her bottom lip with purpose.
“You still see this as your only means of survival.  It is why you are still afraid of me, because I can end you whether or NOT you fuck me!  Remember what I have told you so many times, Shall’la,” he said, mockingly this time.  “My lover, I know who you are.  And this?”
He slid a finger into her mouth, against her tongue where she could taste the evidence he described.
“It is only desire.”  He pushed forward with his hips again, so she could feel him.  “This is only desire.  Not power, not defeat—nothing else!”  His fingers slid away from her mouth, and his hand closed around her neck.
Vejiita did not squeeze but he did push her away with that hand, and Bulma was left to stand a few feet from him, dignity in shreds beneath her feet.  But her chin was steady and she glared at him with all the vigor she had fought so hard to maintain, for so long.  She watched his face, and it was masked by his thwarted lust.  Bulma could see nothing else there, nothing to help her understand what surely rushed through his mind.  She took a few deep, rejuvenating breaths and pushed away from the table to readjust the tunic around her waist and legs.
“Nothing else, Vejiita?”  she asked him.  
With a snarl, and all traces of desire or interest gone from that handsome brow, he pointed one finger at her.  His strong shoulders tensed, and the corded muscle in his neck bunched up like coiled springs.
“I am not like any of the fools you’ve known before, and you are not the woman they thought you were.  You should know that very well by now, Bulma-kalzan.”
The renewed emphasis on her title sent cold pin pricks down her spine and gobs of regret and repressed sorrow up her throat.  He turned from her, his black cape trailing behind, and went toward the lab doors.  His stride stole all the warmth his aura had given off, and Bulma thought to call out to him.  But no…  No, that would not do.  He was shoving his gloves back on his hands.
“You will report your progress on the containment and diffuser projects to me by day’s end,” he said as he punched in a command at the comPanel.  “And you will explain to me your findings on those plasma specimens as well—i Kal’ga!”  he shouted impatiently at the comPanel to his guard.
Vejiita turned his gaze on her one more time and scowled.  Bulma’s insides turned to ice, and the welling tears in her eyes spilled over.  She did not cry out, as her soul willed her to.  For only a fleeting moment, his brow lifted.  But Vejiita turned away as the doors swished open.  He shouted some orders to his guard and ordered that the lab be left to her devices until evening.  The doors slid shut behind him.
Bulma spilled to her knees.  They splayed out so that she straddled the cold floor until she could feel it against her exposed undergarments.  She sobbed once pathetically, as loudly as she could so that it would all come gushing out at once.  It echoed in the empty lab and dissipated against the whirring of the ignition fans.  The deep puddle of hot tears overflowed, hit the icy tiles and sent tiny little plumes of vapor into the air.  Her breath began to steady though, and she took great gulps of calming air until the tightness in her throat abated.
Finally, after she had stopped gasping, Bulma stood.  She stared at the doors where Vejiita had left her, and reached blindly for her tablet.  When her fingers found its edges she clutched it back to her breast and blinked slowly.  The numbers, the knowledge she held in her hands were both key to conquering one obstacle.  The slow burn deep in her belly, at the very center of her, that was another key.  It was the key to the one who ignited it.
“But what door does that key open?” She wondered aloud to herself.  Her voice whispered against the walls of the lab.  “I am fighting two wars.”
Bulma furiously wiped the tears from her cheeks.  If her ka’fuu wanted more results by the end of the day then, by all the bloody Saiya-jin war gods, he would have them.

The light was so very strong, he thought.  So strong that it hurt so much.  It hurthurthurthurt--!  Gods, the pain!  Why couldn’t he just shut his eyes against the light?  It seemed that with every effort his own body rebelled against him.  He wanted to move his arms but that did not work, no not even a single finger on one hand would respond to his mind’s request.  Oh sweet goddess, that hurt, too.  It hurt like the tearing of limbs and the rending of flesh from bone.  He willed his eyes to close against the piercing light: a large lamp that now took shape slowly above his head.  He wanted to open his mouth and ask: ‘am I alive’?  But his bottom jaw was firmly closed, not grinding against the other but merely closed.  Was this death, he wondered?  Blessed Gods, he hoped not.
There were soft voices around him.  They hissed and made noises, said words that he did not understand.  Shadows began to take shape in his peripheral, the glow of the lamp began to dissipate and the pain in his eyes abated.  No part of him would move yet though, despite his very greatest effort.  All he could do was feel, and it was the very last thing he wanted.  He begged forgiveness from his father for the tears that began to puddle in the corners of his wide eyes and slide down his temples.  They pooled in his ears and tickled the tender skin there.  There, that… It almost felt good.
In an instant though, blinding pain pierced the place between his neck and his spine.  His voice begged to cry out, to rage curses against the pain and whoever had dealt it.  He wanted to tear his torturer apart, piece by piece until even the gods would not recognize him in the afterlife.  There was more hissing behind him, and suddenly his body began to tilt upwards…   Slowly he rose, very slowly, until the lamp was gone from view, and he could see only a pane of glass.  There, in the glass, was his own reflection.
But it wasn’t him, it wasn’t—all him!  Oh, gods.  Sweet, merciful gods, what had happened?  He was naked, but there were parts of his body that no longer resembled what he knew to be right.  Or—what he thought to be right?  Desperately he tried to recall his last memory.  What was it, now?  He remembered the cold spaceship, and cocky laughter.  He remembered the hallways and the rush of air as he flew hurriedly through them to reach—what?
There was movement behind him in the reflection on the glass.  A small, lithe body inched out from behind him, and then another.  No, they looked all wrong.  Not like him, not—like him!  Nonononono!  The blinding pain returned, and the figure to his right moved in front of him.  Its gleaming white head was just as bright and glaring as the lamp had been, but he could see the red, red lips and the oozing liquid between sharp teeth as it spoke.  The words; he could understand them.
“You are awake now are you, stinking monkey?”  It sneered at him with a hatred he did not understand.  The other creature on his opposite side sniggered and hissed aloud.  He felt a fine spray of slime on the bare skin of his left arm.  If he could cringe, he would.
“You are going to be so useful, puppet!”  The one on his right was sneering again, and it was pressing buttons and chuckling and now it was poking at him with its long, white fingers.  “Now,” it said.  “Look at me.”
He did.  He did look, because the white thing told him to.
“That’s right, monkey,” it said, and grinned like a demon of the Old World superstition.  It reached behind him and twisted until the pain in his spine began to dull.  “Keep looking at me.”
Its voice was softer now.  His mind continued to rebel, though he did not look away.  The other creature on his left moved behind him and made some shuffling noises.  A slow hum, followed by the high-pitched cry of machinery echoed in the room, and a great gushing heat began to burn in his left arm.  A glow reflected in the glass, in the side of his vision, but he continued to look at the white one.
“Yes,” it said again, as though the word were somehow quite soothing.  “You remember the blast, do you?”
“Zarshi-kalan--!  Ta’sham!”
The blast?  Yes, he remembered the blast now.  The white one nodded.
“You do, don’t you?  Tell me, monkey; you remember the blast?”
He did not will it, he thought, but his head bobbed up and down in agreement.  Unadulterated terror replaced the pain in his spine, and the glow continued in the reflection of the glass.  It grew very slowly into a ball of dense energy.
“That’s right, monkey,” the white one said.  “You’ll do just fine.”