Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Ride Or Die ❯ Lace & Leather ( Chapter 2 )

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

 

He used to call me DN
That stood for Deadly Nightshade
‘Cause I was filled with Poison
But blessed with Beauty and Rage

[Lana Del Rey; “Ultraviolence”]

 

 

It was well into the dead of night when the unlikely couple reached their mysterious journey’s end, after having endured a fairly bumpy ride, much longer than the one the Prince had originally anticipated. In all truth, it wasn’t as if the treacherous vixen, driving that fancy vehicle of hers at an almost homicidal speed, had given Vegeta much data to work with, but he sure as Hell hadn’t expected her to live in the barren dumpster she’d ended up leading him to.

By the time the warrior’s wobbly feet were finally given a chance to touch solid ground, the arid soil beneath him was just as dusty as the dry sand clogging his nose and parched lips, after having borne the brunt of such an endless trip, barely surviving the miserable torture of sitting right behind that flawless body, without even a spare helmet to protect his tired senses from the wild elements of the dark hours.

In the end, the remote corner of the world which appeared to be Bulma Briefs’ ‘home’ was nothing but a tumble-down residential complex, located in the far-off suburbs of the vast, overcrowded city of white smoke and neon lights where she habitually conducted her business, and not very different from the kind of corrupt motels and casinos where he, more often than not, conducted his own.

The place was pure decadence, a handful of old, low-rise buildings, the majority of them visibly uninhabited these days, constructed around a large, U-shaped parking lot that had clearly seen better days, with only four or five crummy vehicles parked in it, including the woman’s brand-spanking-new motorcycle, its powerful engines briefly disrupting the faint murmurs of television sounds, and the distant, screechy cries of a newborn child, filling the suffocating air surrounding them both.

Bulma’s luxurious two-wheeler stood out like a sore thumb, almost as much as the slender, leather-clad figure walking towards her chosen house with slow, confident steps, unlocking the tattered door with the help of a regular latchkey, and patiently leaning against the wooden doorframe, her shiny helmet hanging from a sloppy hand, and a lopsided smirk spreading lazily across those catty lips, openly challenging him, yet again, to set foot into the illicit territory that would surely chew him up and spit him out the moment he stepped out of line.

“Well, Your Highness…” She dared in a malicious purr, an impudent hand finding her hip as she ingenuously tipped her head to the side, that glossy curtain of turquoise hair hiding one of the eyes so shamelessly reveling in the terror that her misleadingly innocent proposal seemed to awaken in a man far stronger than her. “Are you going to grace my humble dump with your presence, or are you waiting for me to roll out the red carpet?”

And he could almost taste it, he could almost taste the toxic venom burning furiously in his mouth as he bit on his tongue, using every goddamned ounce of stoic willpower so as not to send the blasted woman to Hell, right where she belonged, not without telling her first just where exactly she could stick that imaginary red carpet of hers.

But he couldn’t.

Not yet.

Not now that he’d come this far, so dangerously close to finding an answer to the one and only question incessantly plaguing his haunted mind for so long, yearning, needing to find out the inexplicable reason lying behind his body’s own betrayal against itself, wondering how it was possible for a man like him, the most powerful Saiyan fighter born in a thousand years, to witness, in impotent shock, the sudden decline and fall of his superhuman strength.

The stakes were high, the dicey possibility of this surreal charade being little more than a lethal trap, greater than ever, but as Vegeta’s eyes roamed around such a grim environment one last time, his athletic arms unconsciously crossing on his chest, in a typical gesture of aloofness and self-preservation, he prudently reminded himself that, if worst came to worst, it shouldn’t be all that hard to break the trollop’s lovely neck with the mere twist of a wrist.

After all, it looked like the only spectators to his clandestine visit to the woman’s decaying place were a couple of stray kids playing in the street, about two blocks away from their spot, and a half-blinded old man sitting on the cement step of his home’s decrepit entrance, polishing off the sweaty bottle of cold beer in his hand, before going back inside and calling it a day.

The obvious disinterest in Bulma’s extravagant beauty and flamboyant gadgets, and in the presence of the shady stranger stepping into her place with more than evident mistrust, was proof enough that, either such devious activities happened to be quite common around here, or people had wisely learned to look the other way in anything having to do with the tramp’s infamous behavior.

Whatever the cause, and even if Vegeta knew all too well how ridiculously risky it could be for him to even think of taking the life of a female who, by all accounts, had the aspect of being one of his Master’s most valued informers, without being given permission by Frieza himself, he also held the reckless conviction that, if the insolent creature kept disrespecting him with such disdain, he’d sooner or later be at his wit’s end, winding up doing something far too stupid to feel any kind of remorse anymore.    

Chalky boots stood imperturbably at the center of her one-room pad, every sharp synapse in his body rapidly standing on guard at the shrill noise of the door closing behind him, fatigued eyes squinting in slight confusion as they became accustomed to the artificial light of the busted floor lamp that his hostess had just switched on, mildly illuminating a chamber even humbler than its rotten exterior implied it to be.

If the small cluster of buildings, practically falling to pieces outside, hadn’t already been enough to completely throw him off in regards to the female’s obscure way of life, the virtually empty bungalow sure finished the job, raising more and more erratic questions as he poorly struggled to decipher the blue-haired enigma whose minute figure kept leaning coolly against the now shut door, showing him enough benevolence to, at least, give him a few minutes to scrutinize his new surroundings at liberty, the quietly smug expression glowing in her face letting him know, without a doubt, that no one would ever learn a darned thing about her unless she wanted them to know.           

The place was reasonably clean, and certainly spacious enough to accommodate a single tenant, but there was an impersonal nature about it, an alarming aura of detachment in the outdated, minimalistic furniture, consisting of a double bed and an empty nightstand, both cushioned by a thick, burgundy rug underneath it, and a medium-sized table by the closed window, a large, empty bottle of liquor lying forgotten atop its polished surface.

Only two items held some sort of personal identity: a narrow, half-open wardrobe filled to the brim with dark-colored clothing, and the vintage dressing table next to her unmade bed, crammed with what Vegeta could only assume to be a wide arsenal of dainty feminine weapons, including a couple of decanters of exotic perfume, an unzipped vanity case jam-packed with all sorts of sweet-scented cosmetics and makeup tools, and the half-empty bottle of varnish responsible for those cherry-colored nails he could still feel raking savagely across his scarred back.      

So utterly engrossed had the Prince been in such stimulating recollections, that he almost failed to pay attention to the female’s relaxed voice as she freely invited him to “make himself at home” while she “put on something a little more comfortable”, or the suggestive sounds of those killer high-heels gradually fading away as she disappeared behind the smashed door of her adjacent bathroom.

The disturbingly erotic image reflected in the full-length mirror, when Vegeta’s cutting eyes quickly followed the little hellcat’s unpredictable movements, was yet another warning of how manipulative, how deeply calculating a woman like Bulma Briefs could be.

Everything in her seductive body language screamed ‘danger’, every choice, every gesture, from the meticulously half-shut door, giving him a perfect glimpse of the strategically placed mirror, to the way the sole of her thigh-high boot found the edge of her small bath tub, the slender back of her curvaceous figure arching to perfection as she proceeded to put on a sensuous show for his eyes only.

Her femme-fatale shoes deliberately fell apart when manicured fingers lazily began to unzip them, tiny toes wriggling in delicious relief after being set free, one foot at a time, until she stood completely barefoot in front of the reflective glass, vain-glorying in her own stunning beauty as she took a few more seconds to selfishly admire the magnificent figure staring right back at her.

Not once did her eyes ever seek his, acting as if she were fully alone, as if the man grudgingly devouring her every carnal mannerism wasn’t even there as she undressed for him. But, when she finally decided to shed yet more clothing, Vegeta could have sworn to recognize the ghost of a wicked smile on her lips, the proud smile of a woman who knew her charms to be wholly irresistible to any male with hot blood still coursing his veins.

Folded arms tightened in frustration, calloused fingers digging harshly into the brawny curve of his bicep at the first sight of skin, that translucent, porcelain skin sensually exposed to his oversexed senses as she languidly unfastened the long zipper of that skintight leather jumpsuit, revealing a hint of her fuchsia bra, the one and only touch of color in her otherwise all-black outfit.             

The Prince knew that particularly bright item, and he knew it well, for it was the exact same piece of raunchy lingerie that he’d almost torn off of that incredible body of hers, with his teeth, the last time he’d had her in his lousy bed, the only thing stopping him from obliterating the irritating garment being an implacable, tiny fist viciously yanking a clump of his hair, and pulling his head back as she took full control of that senseless night of animalistic sex.

His tongue turned to cotton at once, both at the vision of those slim arms bared to him as she took them out of her long sleeves, and at the dreadful realization that there was not a chance for this, for any of this, to be a coincidence. And that, whatever it was that the immoral little minx had cooked up for him, it must have been plotted with diabolical precision, as evidenced by her sneaky disappearance into the blind spot hidden behind the bathroom’s door, vanishing from his prying gaze just when she was about to get rid of what was left of her sexy outfit.

He didn’t know for how long she chose to punish him with her absence, all he knew was that uncomfortable feeling, that terrifying, foreign emotion taking hold of his very soul, both unsettling and exciting, shaking in his shoes at her future schemes whilst, much to his shame, desperately anticipating her next hellish move.

But, whatever embarrassing hopes he may have secretly had about the vulgar creature jumping him right off the bat, throwing him on the bed and, at least, giving him a well-deserved chance to even the score between them, letting him call the shots this time in her filthy games of pleasure, left as soon as they came when those naked feet exited her cramped bathroom, walking right past him, not even a pity look in his direction, and reaching for the window, lowering the rusted blinds hanging from it, all the way, in search of some vital privacy, smoothing the way for the next phase of her infallible Masterplan.       

The warrior gawked in anxious fascination at the woman giving him her back, narrow shoulders lightly rising and falling as she took in a large gulp of air, physically bracing herself to carry on with her cryptic masquerade. Her gesture brief, terribly subtle, but powerful enough to give him a first glimpse of humanity and, perhaps, dared he say it, vulnerability.

But Bulma Briefs didn’t do weakness and, in the blink of an eye, there she was again, turning around and facing him with a spunky fearlessness that Vegeta couldn’t help but admire in the most bizarre of ways, seriously beginning to wonder if the peculiar female had actually been born this way, or if such fierce determination was the result of a carefully constructed façade.

In the end, the origin of her bravery should be of little consequence, all that mattered was that pair of icy blue eyes rambling all over him as she kept her chin up, arms mirroring his own when she crossed them in front of her chest, not in an act of self-protection, but of sheer defiance.

The striking creature was now clad in nothing but a black, sleeveless tank top, and a pair of equally black shorts, with a touch of that indecently colorful lingerie peeking through her skimpy attire. But, in spite of her casual choice of clothing, the rare seriousness in her stare, so shockingly different from the cheeky mockery she’d greeted him with earlier, revealed that the woman meant business, and that, whatever it was that she was about to share with him tonight, would be of great significance for the both of them.

“Alright…” Bulma spoke at last, unconsciously pursing that pouty mouth of hers, clearly deliberating on whether or not this handsome stranger was worthy of her very limited trust. “First of all,” she began, the solemnity in her tone sending chills of horror down the soldier’s spine. “There’s something I need from you…”

“Do you now?” Vegeta instinctively replied, a brow arching in irony on his otherwise impassive face, swallowing down the murderous need to teach the insolent woman a lesson or two at the nerve, the goddammed nerve of dragging him all the way to this worthless dump, only to end up being the one to ask him a favor.

“You’re a Saiyan, aren’t you?” She asked with simplicity, seemingly unperturbed by her guest’s bloodthirsty expression.

“I am the Prince of All Saiyans,” he arrogantly clarified, even if he knew that his Royal bravado wouldn’t work on this female, a highly-trained informer who must have surely learnt by now that he had not one member of his long-forgotten race to rule over anymore.

His pomposity wasn’t lost on her, coral lips half-twisting into a meaningful smirk, as if she’d already been fully expecting his big-headed delusions of grandeur. “That’s what I thought…” She continued with a light nod of assent. “And, according to my sources, Honor was a big deal to your People, wasn’t it?”

Raven eyes squinted in instant suspicion, not so much about the conniving woman being so surprisingly well-informed about the cultural aspects of a race that no one cared, or even remembered anymore, but about the fact that she was so bluntly admitting to having performed such a thorough investigation on him, covering everything down to the last detail.

“I don’t know what kind of ‘sources’ have been blabbering about me,” Vegeta retorted, the austerity in his tone letting slip that he wasn’t all too pleased with the idea of a bunch of complete strangers gossiping about his life’s most intimate particulars. “But that part is true,” he confirmed with sincerity, taking obvious pride in one of his people’s most noble principles.

“Good,” Bulma agreed anew, taking one relaxed step forward, then another, until she found herself a mere few inches from him, the odd calmness in her demeanor scaring the living daylights out of him. “Then this is what I need from you, Ouji,” she murmured, a demand of steel laced in a kittenish purr. “I need you to swear on your Saiyan Honor that you’ll never tell anyone about what I’m about to tell you, and show you, tonight.”

 

‘Well, he’d be damned…’  

 

Leave it to a clever little bitch, like the one boldly standing half-naked in front of him, to unveil the very essence of who he was as a Saiyan, wittily turning it against him, and using it for her own perverse benefit instead. If he didn’t abide by her shrewd rules, she wouldn’t tell him a darned thing, but if he did, if he indeed made such an uncertain promise to her, only to break it if it ever suited him, he’d absolutely disgrace himself, an ignominious risk he wasn’t eager to take.

“Perhaps I’d be willing to give you my word,” Vegeta gruffly conceded, following a short, awkward silence, and eyeing with misgiving the minute hand patiently offered to him. “But on one condition,” he warned her back, finally resolving that, even if she’d just put him against the ropes, he might still get something out of her this once, something that might make him want to strangle her just a bit less every time she addressed him with such impertinence.

“Oh?” She requested with candid interest. “And what would that be?”

“You will stop calling me that. Right now.” He commanded in a menacing undertone, his enraged confusion growing by the second at the perplexing recognition that the heartless woman felt threatened by nothing and no one.

“Calling you what, Ouji?” She crooned sweetly, mellow as a lily-white lamb, fluttering those long lashes at him with a smile that sang that she knew what he was referring to just fine.

A brutal hand abruptly snatched her wrist, his grip rough enough to send an extremely powerful message, without causing her any actual harm yet. “You know damn well what I’m talking about, woman,” he hoarsely insinuated, proving to be far more perceptive than she’d initially given him credit for. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stop making a mockery out of my Royal title…”

She could have retaliated, she could have challenged him just as she’d done before, back when he’d arrogantly tested her in that dirty back alley. But the woman surely knew how to astutely choose her battles, smart enough to acknowledge that she’d have to happily play ball with him, every now and then, if she truly wanted to win him over, ultimately doing as she damn well pleased with him anyway.

“Of course, darling…” Bulma agreed with remarkable docility, the tip of her pink tongue caressing the corner of her mouth as her upper lip curled into the most unnerving smile. “And what should I call you then?”

“You may call me by name,” Vegeta sternly caved in, rugged fingers exerting even more pressure on her delicate flesh as he crudely pulled her closer, their noses almost touching while he paved the way to stipulate his own conditions, ready to seal their sordid agreement. “And you have my word, on my Saiyan Honor, that whatever you disclose to me tonight will remain a secret,” he vowed with majestic gravity. “However,” he admonished, his mouth creasing into a thin line as he inhaled deeply through his nose, a wild animal keeping his vilest instincts at bay, hating himself for not being iron-willed enough to just get the Hell out of that infernal house while he still could, utterly unable to resist the living temptation that was Bulma Briefs. “If you betray me, woman…” He spat in a spiteful whisper. “Or if I find out that you’ve lied to me in any way, I’ll fucking kill you. Is that understood?”

And then, Gods, oh Gods, she smiled, a smile as cold as the white stone of those ancient, imperial statues decorating his Father’s palace in Vegeta-sei, the Goddess of Mischief in flesh, the only creature he’d ever encountered, throughout a lifetime of relentless universal exploration, with enough courage to reply to his bloodcurdling threat as she was about to.           

“Likewise…” She answered coolly, her calculated expression never faltering, smiling at him with the same nonchalance as the one in her fingers, casually massaging her sore wrist now that she’d been freed from his aggressive hold. “Follow me, Vegeta…”

His name on her lips felt like a sin, hot caramel rolling in her tongue, smooth like those flowing hips silently inviting him to follow her as she turned around, stopping near the foot of the bed, and readily pushing part of the thick rug aside with one of her bare feet, not without prudently shooting one last glance in the window’s direction, making sure that the blinds were cautiously shut, before uncovering the hardwood floor hiding below the falsely decorative item.

At first sight, the previously concealed wooden planks, now fully exposed to the Prince’s inquisitive eyes, looked exactly like those covering the rest of the bungalow’s creaky floors. But, as Bulma gracefully knelt beside them, carefully running those precise fingers through the thin grooves, and meticulously twisting them when she found just the right spot, a large portion of the ground rose and slid with fluid effortlessness, bringing to light what looked to be a flight of stairs leading to some sort of subterranean room, the bright lights emerging from the bottom of the grotto confirming that there was, in effect, a built basement down there.

“Well,” Bulma spoke as she looked back at him, barely repressing the self-satisfied grin showing how proud she obviously was of her incredibly well-constructed illusion. “Be my guest…” She appealed to him in an amazingly gentle voice, still kneeling on the floor while extending her arms in encouragement, pointing towards the mysterious crypt, and inviting him to be the first to step into her most intimate world.

“Ladies first,” the Prince sharply cut her off, glaring at her with nasty mistrust, not even knowing just what to believe anymore about the ever-changing woman who was now showing him the first sign of actual kindness he’d ever seen on her.     

“Fair enough…” She shrugged with flat-out indifference, not particularly insulted, or surprised, by his expected skepticism.

The small female stayed on the ground, crawling a little closer to the artificial hole she’d seemingly created on her own, and tentatively sticking her legs into it, stretching them with utmost care until the tip of her toes touched one of the metallic stairs, gingerly hopping on it, and proceeding to walk down the stairway without even bothering to look back, presumptuous enough to know that the cynical Saiyan waiting for her to make the first move, was far too curious by now not to follow right behind her, desperate to find out what kind of surreptitious secrets were buried in her precious treasure chest.

Sure enough, it didn’t take long for the echoes of the Prince’s steps to rapidly blend with her own, his obedient moves almost as predictable as the audible gasp coming out of his dropped jaw when the fake ceiling closed behind them, automatically switching on the final set of lights illuminating the clandestine chamber in its entirety.

 

Life.

The entire place radiated Life.

 

Not some colorless, impersonal space, such as the one they’d just abandoned, but a vibrantly animated room, curiously resembling a workshop or laboratory of sorts, the more than evident manifestation of a brilliant, hyperactive mind.

Ever since the dangerous floozy had erupted into his tedious existence, there had never been a time in which he’d dared to ignore the woman’s treacherous nature, and the inescapable possibility of her being in possession of one too many secrets, perhaps going as far as living multiple lives, instinctively shifting, adapting to whatever persona would suit her the most, depending on her devious circumstances.

But just as he always did when it came to anything, or anyone, connected to that Lizard bastard, Vegeta had inexorably assumed that, whatever it was that the tight-lipped creature was deliberately hiding to the rest of the world, it would be just as dark as the soul of their evil Master himself.

Little did the warrior know that he was about to bump into a colorful collection of endless piles of heaped up journals, of wide-open books and scattered pieces of wrinkled paper, every single one of them full of messy scribblings and bizarre side-annotations, together with a chaotic medley of intricate blueprints, of unfamiliar numbers and perplexing designs, so incredibly sophisticated, that the astounded Saiyan was pretty damn sure that even Frieza’s most accomplished scientists would need a lifetime to decipher them in full.  

There was something about that place, something emanating from its very core that told him that, maybe, the real Bulma Briefs wasn’t the leather-clad seductress who seemed to get a kick out of deception, unashamed promiscuity, and blasting to pieces every clueless idiot lucky enough to end up in her bed.

Now, as he paid great attention to the strange little creature carelessly rifling through the monumental jumble that was her work table, in search of only the Gods knew what, Vegeta truly began to wonder just who in Heaven’s name was this woman, and whether this unimaginable intelligence of hers, the side of her which she clearly tried to protect the most, would be a positive auspice for him, or if it would actually make the lethal woman even deadlier than he’d originally feared her to be.

It wasn’t long before Bulma found what she was looking for: a tiny metallic box, sloppily buried amongst all of those mountains of paper and picturesque tools, of bolts and screws and dusty ashtrays, half-filled with exotically scented ashes whose alien origin the soldier would be incapable of identifying, not even if his life depended on it.

“Alright,” Bulma uttered in a low murmur, almost as if talking to herself, blue eyes still fixated on the little box as fidgety fingers rummaged through the wide selection of minuscule items waiting inside, finally settling on the one with a bright orange label on it. “Let’s get started, shall we?” She spoke decisively, standing from her old chair and stretching those limber arms like a lazy kitten, giving the small trinket in her hand one last glance before turning to the Prince, the most enigmatic smirk etching itself on her lips, excited about the new world she was about to introduce him to. “Just remember your promise, Vegeta…”

A serious nod from him was all she needed to make her final decision, pressing the minute button of her odd little gadget until the sound of a tinny ‘click’ resonated in the air, immediately pushing her to throw the object into the space available in one of the room’s empty corners.

If the weird cloud of white smoke, dispersing as a result of her technological sorcery, hadn’t been enough to inevitably put Vegeta on guard, the vision displayed before his puzzled eyes would have surely done the trick, an uncanny contraption made out of a primitive medical examination table, and a vaguely familiar, but wholly unidentifiable, apparatus sitting beside it. The entire image hitting him with the most unusual sense of déjà vu, making the fighter feel as if he’d actually seen something like this in the past, but without having the skill to pinpoint what exactly he was looking at.

“Okay, I need you to uncover your torso for me, and to lie on the bed,” Bulma commanded with spooky naturalness, bringing her chair from her desk to the medical table’s side, and taking a seat on it. “Face down…” She clarified distractedly, already tampering with the ancient machine’s buttons, readying it for whatever macabre plan she had in mind for him.

“Why?” Vegeta asked with angry mistrust, his mouth grimacing in pure revulsion as he kept staring at that grotesque spectacle, grappling with a mighty need to blast to pieces both the infernal machine, and the woman.

“You wanted to find out why you’ve lost most of your power, didn’t you?” She questioned calmly, her quietness reminding him that he’d have to work a lot harder if he ever wanted to make this particular woman feel endangered in any way.

“I do,” he responded with reluctance, teeth grinding harshly at the humiliation of having to discuss such a disgraceful issue with a complete stranger.

“Good,” she coolly agreed, suddenly addressing him like one would a child on the verge of throwing a tantrum. “Then lie on the bed, and I’ll show you,” she carefully instructed, showering him with a patience she very clearly wasn’t accustomed to, choosing to further her explanation when she grasped that the mad Saiyan refusing to budge, not even an inch, may turn out to be just as stubborn as herself. “This is an ultrasound machine,” she spelled out, waving the transducer probe at him. “And, if all my research is correct, I believe we’ll be able to see what’s wrong with you...”     

 

Ultrasound.

‘A worthless ultrasound machine…’

 

He knew it, he just knew he’d seen that stupid instrument somewhere before, none other than in his own home planet, and in other cultures with enough access to scientific knowledge alike, back in those early days. Such technology had certainly been considered quite innovative when the Prince was a young child, but now, more than twenty-five years later, Vegeta was fairly convinced that it’d been long ago rendered obsolete, to the point of not even recalling the last time he’d ever seen one of those useless machines around.

“Ultrasound,” he mumbled in incensed disbelief. “You want to ‘see what’s wrong with me’ with a fucking ultrasound machine…”    

“Yes,” was her simple reply, the dignified confidence in her stance, despite the terrifying rage quickly invading her livid guest, infuriating him even more.

“I thought I already told you, woman…” Vegeta muttered heatedly, the bones of the furious fist now shaking in front of him almost cracking at the pressure of his savage wrath. “I told you not to fuck with me!” He yelled at her, flapping his arms all over one of those crowded desks, and violently throwing to the ground a massive stack of her beloved notebooks. “You think I haven’t already seen a bunch of fucking doctors?! Uh?! You think I haven’t been examined by a thousand people more qualified than YOU?!”

“Look, buddy, let’s make one thing clear here…” She shot back, watching the enraged Saiyan with a fearless quietude that felt almost unnatural, the type of behavior that one could only expect from one of Frieza’s best-trained operatives.

Only once did the warrior think her close to losing her cool, and that was when he saw her getting a brief load of the precious journals now dumped on the floor, the feral uproar sparkling in the depths of those ethereal blue eyes confirming that the groundbreaking research buried within those books was immensely dear to her.

“Yes, this is an ultrasound machine,” Bulma smoothly carried on, her slim throat bobbing audibly as she chose to, quite literally, swallow her righteous rage. “And yes, I’m pretty damn sure that you’ve seen plenty of doctors for the past couple of years. Just like I’m sure,” she paused for a short instant, an expressive eyebrow lifting knowingly at him. “That if any of those idiots knew what they were doing, you wouldn’t be here tonight. Am I right?” She raised the old probe still held in her small hand, pointing it at him without even giving him the opportunity to answer her rhetorical question. “Now, tell me something, when was the last time you saw one of these?”

“I can’t remember…” He replied in a half-whisper, the ‘c’ impossibly stuck in his dry throat, stiff as a frozen shadow as he found himself, for the very first time, getting lost in the foreign sensation of both hating and admiring such an unusually brave creature.  

“That’s right, you can’t remember,” she declared. “And you know why? Because now it’s illegal to own one. Frieza made his people confiscate them all years ago. Do you even know where I found this thing?” She asked again, still waving the darned thing in his face as she kept treating him like nothing but a grouchy brat. “I had to travel all the way to Alpha-Maffei-7 to find one. You ever been to that shithole?”

 

‘Oh, he had…’

He’d most certainly visited that criminal dumpster before, and the word ‘shithole’ didn’t even begin to describe just how chaotic, how incredibly unsafe that place truly was. Vegeta had only been sent there on some minor missions, on three or four occasions, and always after he’d already lost the majority of his physical power, when he was in no position to even consider asking for a reassignment anymore.

The mere thought of a female, any female, setting foot on her own on that desertic, backwater planet, packed to the rafters with crooks and fugitives, was enough to make his skin crawl.

And the fact that she’d made it out alive from such an anarchic spot, and with enough street savviness to find her way through the shady dead-end that those lawless black markets could be, was yet another sign of the guts that a woman like Bulma Briefs possessed.

 

“Good,” she acknowledged when he silently assented, an irresistible spark of pride brightening her pretty face at the foxy realization that she was, slowly but surely, earning the Prince’s rare respect. “Then you’ll know by now how fucking hard it was to find one of these, and getting it out of that disgusting place without Frieza’s lackeys finding out about it at customs. And, I’ll have you know that I’ve spent a good deal of time, and of my own credits, fixing this stupid thing...”

Bulma gently deposited the contraption’s probe back in its original place, giving Vegeta the last coup de grace when she boldly held his stare, two pairs of naked arms and legs crossed in defiance as she remained seated on her chair, making good use of those remarkable nerves of steel to inflict the Mother of All Ultimatums on him.

“So, the way I see it, you have two choices here: either you lie down on that bed and you let me help you, or you get the fuck out of here, and I guaran-fucking-tee you that we’ll never see each other again. But if you think that you can just come into my house, and that I’ll sit back and do nothing while you try to destroy everything in it, you’ve got another thing coming…”

 

Her not-so-subtle threat tied his tongue like a shot, her fortitude, brazen to the point of stupidity, rendering him positively speechless, for, even if his glory days were long behind him, Vegeta’s hands still had more than enough power left in them to crack her frail little neck like a twig.

But, by All Demons of Hell, was the woman unbreakable; and, not only that, but sagacious like no other being he’d ever encountered. She was expertly luring him, that much he knew, breaking his resistance with a lethal combination of impertinence and reckless vulnerability, using, with superb skill, that innate fearlessness of hers to gain his respect, whilst earning his trust on the way by confessing to owning such an illicit device.

If the Emperor had indeed illegalized this specific type of machinery, and by all accounts that seemed to be the case, then the woman was endangering her life through her own foolish admission, implicitly trusting him to keep her unsafe secret away from prying ears, in exactly the same way she was asking him to trust her enough to lie on that table by his own will.

The insolent wench was now claiming to wish to ‘help him’, but if there was one hard lesson the Prince had learned throughout all his years of sanguinary mayhem and egotistic survival, a lesson inculcated in his every bone through literal blood, sweat and tears, was that nothing in this Life ever came for free, and that, whatever ‘help’ she’d ever provide for him, she’d, by all means, want her pound of flesh in return.

And now the ball was in his court, and the time had come for him to make up his mind, and to decide on whether the monstrous risk of believing in the dangerous female was worth it, or if such a mad choice would eventually be the end of him.

 

“Why?” He asked at long last, a crumb of genuine curiosity slowly making its way through his obsessive distrust, struggling to make some sense out of Bulma’s apparently illogical hypothesis. “Why an ultrasound machine?”

“Because, Prince Vegeta,” she responded in triumph, a wolfish smirk curving those luscious lips as she sensed the sweet, sweet scent of victory all over him. “Sometimes the old ways are the best ways.” She reminded him with great insight. “And, sometimes…” She cheekily lowered her chin, her voice a devilish whisper, gifting him with one of her favorite scientific discoveries. “Sometimes new technology isn’t just designed to find new things, but to hide those they don’t want us to see…”         

Her ingenious revelation hit him like a ton of bricks, the logic hiding behind it so twisted, so abominably perverse that, in the most ludicrous way, it made some actual sense, because only someone as depraved as Frieza would ever think up such a scheme. If the eccentric little woman turned out to be right, and the ailment consuming his body was something that could, in fact, be visible to the naked eye, then it would make perfect sense why none of the hundreds of doctors he’d visited during the past few years, both licensed and underground ones, had been ultimately unable to identify the cause of his perplexing disease.    

“Fine,” Vegeta caved in through gnashing teeth, already unzipping his skintight battle-suit, and taking off the sleeves, until the upper part of his outfit hung loosely from his waist, his torso completely bared to Bulma’s rapacious eyes as she leisurely savored her victory. “Just don’t forget about what will happen to you if you trick me, woman…” He bitterly warned one last time, before walking half-heartedly to the examination table, steps cautious as those of a young deer, and lying face down on it, just as she’d asked him to.

He hated this, he hated her, and the way she made him feel, raw, fully exposed, his pulse pounding frantically in his temples as he listened to her every move, from the way she shifted softly in her chair, to the tips of her fingers tapping into the machine, gearing it up for him.

Worst of all was not knowing why, and where these alien emotions were arising from, feelings that went way beyond his usual, pathologic mistrust of people, or the odium that the woman’s infuriating disrespect evoked inside of him.

Perhaps it was because, even after all of those countless days and nights, exhaustively devoted to his in-depth investigation, in search of her and her mysterious identity, and after having learnt the many dangers associated to such a disloyal creature, here he was anyway, facedown and half-naked, entirely at the mercy of a woman who’d highjacked a piece of his spirit, after a mere night of drunk, meaningless sex with no goodbyes.

“Alright… I’m going to apply a conductive gel now,” Bulma gently explained, rewarding his compliance with a kindness that surprised even her. “It will feel a bit cold, but it’s perfectly normal…”

The cooling substance touched his dorsal spine, right at the center of his back, the transducer probe gliding carefully across his now slippery skin as she explored it with the precision of a surgeon, the accuracy of someone who already had a pretty decent idea of what to look for, and where to find it.

He endured it like a good soldier, battle-hardened fingers draped around the bed’s legs as his arms hung meekly on both sides, his eyes shut in concentration, making the effort to disappear into that quiet Zen spot, deeply secluded in his mind, desperate to ignore the delectable scent of those naked thighs standing beside him, and the foggy memory of how good, just how incredibly good they’d felt firmly wrapped around his body.

Her hand kept drifting, sliding smoothly in a measured, upwards motion as she examined, with utmost care, every inch of his muscular spine, vertebrae by vertebrae. Not a word was exchanged between the two of them as the amateur ‘doctor’ took her time analyzing the Prince’s extraordinary anatomy, an odd sense of calm and anticipation enveloping him at the soothing sounds of the woman’s feminine breathing.

Until the outcome that he’d both dreaded and needed the most, became a sour reality, in the shape of three words, three ghastly little words that would change the course of his Destiny forever.

“There you are…” Bulma murmured with noticeable relief, as soon as she reached the base of Vegeta’s broad neck, a quick hand immediately pushing him down by the shoulder, and into the thin mattress, when she felt him instinctively tense up, trying to raise from the table in response to her shocking statement. “Don’t move, dammit!” She practically shrieked at him, penetrating blue eyes glued to the screen as her fingers worked the keyboard hysterically. “I’m trying to get a screenshot!”

His body broke into a cold sweat, visible tremors infesting every part of him, doing what he could to resist, to hold out against the sickening wave of nausea killing his stomach as the wicked woman barely managed to keep him in place, so that she could get her cussed snapshot.

 

Something.

There was something inside of him.

 

“Son of a bitch…” She mumbled in awe when the task was completed, dropping the sticky probe on the ground as she held the final print with both hands, her back now leaning shakily against the wall, trying not to fall off her chair at a sight that wasn’t quite exactly what she was expecting, after all. “It’s big…”           

“What?! What is it?!” Vegeta furiously exclaimed, already standing on his feet, and yanking the horrid image right off Bulma’s hands before she could even describe it to him. “Wh-What…?”   

The stunned Saiyan gawked at the flimsy sheet wrinkled between his fingers, an image of dark tonalities, a pitch-black background contrasting with the various greys depicting his bones, tendons, and different kinds of tissues. And, in the middle, perfectly aligned with the vertical line of his spinal cord, a bright, almost white rectangle instantly caught the eye, a shape so unnatural, so utterly artificial, that there was absolutely no chance of it being of an organic nature in any way.

“It’s a microchip, Vegeta,” Bulma enlightened him, her tone subdued, instilled with an unexpected air of pity. “I believe the technical term is ‘Dynamic Energy Suppressor’, and it’s basically designed to zap your ki.”

Vegeta just stood there like a lifeless pawn, the world crumbling beneath his feet as he stared at the furrowed piece of paper, trying to assimilate the truth, the repulsive truth that there was something inside of him, something that should not even be there, a foreign body literally sucking him dry, depriving him, for only the Gods knew how long, of the one and only thing which had ever mattered to him.

“Out…” He slurred drunkenly, throbbing veins popping out of his forehead as the room spun vertiginously around him. “I-I want it out of me… G-Get it out of me…”

 

And then it happened.

 

A loud, agonizing howl burst from the Prince’s exhausted lungs, a rush of primal energy fighting wildly to be released, only to find itself crushed without clemency, his deadly frame quivering out of control, a wounded animal captive in an invisible cage, chained by the spiteful Master who’d made a cosmic joke out of his life ever since he was a helpless boy of only five years of age.

“Y-You… You little bitch!” Vegeta roared at the pallid woman, pointing an accusing finger at her, desperately trying to find something, someone, to blame for his misfortunes. “YOU FUCKING LITTLE BITCH!!!” He thundered, grabbing the medical table and brutally smashing it against the wall. “GET IT OUT OF ME!!! NOW!!!”     

The piercing noise of the old bed breaking apart, and falling at her feet, re-awakened Bulma’s impeccable survival instincts at once, rolling on the floor with feline expertise and finding one of the many ki inhibitors she’d cautiously hidden all over her home, this time, behind the leg of one of her work desks. She picked up the gun, pointing it right at the uncontrollable Saiyan as she stood on both knees, her body taut as a fiddle string as those turquoise eyes turned to stone.

“Watch it, asshole…” Bulma muttered with bared teeth, her arms steady, not even a flinch. “I told you to be nice, Vegeta. Be nice…” She warned him, in the same way she had in that grimy back alley. Only, this time, she wasn’t quite as trigger-happy as she used to be, choosing to follow the road of persuasion instead. “I’m just the messenger here, Vegeta, don’t you fucking forget. I didn’t do this to you. He did.” She wisely reminded him, not even needing to pronounce the vile name of the fucker responsible for the total devastation of far too many lives to count anymore. “It was Him, Vegeta. It was Him…”      

The woman could put on a good act, he gave her that, but Vegeta’s overdeveloped Saiyan senses had little trouble detecting the unique scent emanating from her, that bittersweet aroma of fear that he knew, oh so well, after a lifetime dedicated to intimidating and murdering bastards for a living.  

And yet, Bulma’s fancy toy never budged a bit, earning his admiration, one more time, with her adamantine stance, the silent dignity of a creature who wouldn’t go down without a fight, not even with the frightening inevitability of knowing her nemesis to be strong enough to end her life with his bare hands.

“Look, I know it hurts, Vegeta. Believe me, I know…” Bulma emphasized cryptically. “But that thing is no ordinary chip. It attaches itself to your nervous system from the moment it’s implanted, and it’s impossible for it to be surgically removed.” She pointed out with scientific coolness. “Besides, what do you think would happen if we slice you open and we mess with your spinal cord? Uh? You could die, Vegeta. Or even worse, you could end up completely paralyzed. Is that what you want?”

“Of course not!” Vegeta blurted out, growing more and more ashamed of his childish outburst by the second.

A veteran warrior like him might not have been blessed with the brains of a technological genius, but if there was one thing he was proficient in, it was anatomy, a real virtuoso in the Daedalian arts of inflicting as much pain on his enemies as he possibly could, for as long as he could, without killing his poor, unsuspecting victims along the way, not until he got what he wanted out of them.

And, as much as it pained him to admit it, the gutsy female was one hundred percent right in her prediction of what would happen to him if he ever dared to ask someone to meddle with such a delicate part of his constitution.

“Then you need to listen to me, Vegeta,” she patiently beckoned him, her voice visibly calmer, almost friendly, even with that ingenious little weapon of hers still fiercely directed at him. “I believe there’s a way to get rid of it, a way to destroy it from the inside,” she gave away, her promising words feeling like a sudden ray of the brightest hope. “But you need to calm down, Vegeta. Just calm down, and listen to what I have to say…”   

 

He watched her like a hawk for a long while, scrutinizing every curve of that beautiful face in search of a sign, however small, of trickery or deception.

But he got nothing, nothing but the faint glow of perspiration clinging to her creamy skin as she kept those glacial eyes on him with equal distrust, waiting for him to come to a decision, the only decision truly left for him after having reached this point.

The possibility of Bulma Briefs being Frieza’s very own Devil-in-disguise was still alive in Vegeta’s frazzled imagination, but there were far too many incongruities, too many details that didn’t add up as to why his Master would allow this woman to openly display the reason behind his bodily decline, instead of dragging out his suffering by keeping him perpetually in the dark.

Or perhaps that was the point, after all, showing him that the cause of his Fall from Grace lived deep inside of him, within a body that didn’t even belong to him anymore, and shedding light on how utterly powerless he was to do anything about it in any way.

 

‘Oh, yes…’

 

That second option definitely resounded closer, much closer, to the maleficence that was the Icejin’s hollow heart.

Even so, that still wouldn’t explain the rare honesty irradiating from the woman’s every pore, an honesty that contrasted with the dangerous make-believe, of naïve smirks and fluttery eyelashes, that she’d mimicked for him when she’d first shot him outside of that blasted nightclub.

Either the woman was telling the truth, and she’d genuinely found a way to restore him back to the splendor of his Day in the Sun, or she was the most consummate actress he’d met in his worthless life.

Either way, Vegeta knew one thing, and one thing only, and it was that there was not a chance in Hell of him leaving this place without listening to her story, right to the end, since, in the long run, it was of no importance whether this whole thing had been real, or little more than a phony charade.

It could be that his Master was ready to kill him, having finally grown sick of keeping a useless burden like himself in the ranks of his vast army, or that Bulma Briefs was telling some sort of truth, which could only mean that they’d both try to find a way to remove that demonic chip, or die trying; for Death would be a more appropriate, more honorable end for a Saiyan Prince like him, than spending the rest of his days imprisoned in a body that he had no power to control anymore.

“Speak…” Vegeta demanded in a vicious undertone, seeking support on one of the lab’s small walls as he sat tiredly on the floor, taking pains to keep his last shred of dignity intact, and falling flat, judging by the look of sympathy swimming in those sparkly blue eyes, the look of someone who could see the exhaustion incapacitating the Prince every time his body shut itself down, immediately after a bout of rage, or a vain attempt at powering up.

It was now Bulma’s turn to rigorously assess the situation, observing him, not without reservations, for a few more seconds. As if, this time, it was she the one trying to decide on how reliable, how trustworthy such a volatile man could be, and with how much prudence would he handle the highly-classified information held in her power.

Only a blind act of Faith could make her put her weapon down, the very same sixth sense that had made her choose this particular man above all the others, this broody, violently anti-social warrior who was about to join her in what could only be described as the most suicidal mission she’d ever set sail into.

“Alright…” Bulma resolved with a heavy sigh, ignoring the psychotic mess he’d made out of her precious laboratory as she stood and grabbed her chair, putting it back in its original spot and sitting by the desk, leaving her gun on the table, within hand’s reach, and anxiously rummaging through the untidy clutter of books and blueprints, looking for a little something to help her sooth her agitated nerves.   

A small, rectangular-shaped tin emerged from the jumbled pile, filled with the extravagant souvenirs responsible for the oddly spicy perfume enveloping every object in the room, a selection of slim, dark-brown cigarettes completely foreign to the alien Prince.

One of those long, thin cigars rolled smoothly between Bulma’s fingers, a thin cloud of white smoke flowing from her lips as she lit it up, flashing him yet another glimpse of her raunchy lingerie when one of her elbows leaned casually on the table, the strap of her black tank top sliding carelessly from her shoulder.

If she wasn’t the most seductively picturesque spectacle he’d ever laid eyes on, he didn’t know what she was, a vision of glowing skin and celestial hair, of graceful, feminine movements designed to make her look as carefree as she could be, even if Vegeta knew her to be fully aware of the devastating effects of her dreamlike beauty.

Most disturbing of all was how incredibly difficult it was for him to read her, to make some sense out of the hypnotizingly blue gaze that kept looking him over, dissecting every drop of his empty soul as she languidly smoked her exotic cigar, carefully contemplating if she deemed him deserving of her valuable secrets.

“I assume you’ve heard of the Lands of the North…” Bulma said at last, choosing the hint of a question to break her pensive silence.

“The Ice Lands?” Vegeta automatically shot back, disconcerted by such an out-of-the-blue change of topic.

“Yeah, the ‘Ice Lands’…” She confirmed, an intriguing half-smirk curling her mouth when the Prince assented with frank interest. “What do you know about them?”                              

“Not much,” he replied in all honesty while shrugging indifferently, fatigued arms returning to his classic, crossed-armed stance. “I’ve heard it’s forbidden territory,” he freely shared. “And that no one’s allowed to go there, because it’s where Frieza’s people bury the City’s toxic waste.”  

A stifled chuckle shook in Bulma’s throat, the puzzling gesture stealing the warrior’s attention at once. “Toxic waste, uh? So that’s what you’ve heard…”   

“Yes,” Vegeta assured her, as annoyed by the woman’s presumptuousness, as he was fascinated by the sudden focus of their conversation, resorting to his own memories as means to prove to the infuriating creature that there was nothing of value in such an inhospitable place. “I recall flying over those lands a few years ago, soon after being assigned this post,” he admitted, smothering the melancholic rush of nostalgia cruelly crushing him whenever he reminisced on the times when he could still fly. “There was nothing of interest, as far as I could see. Only ice and some tundra. Not even any kind of population living there.”

Bulma’s greedy lips tightened around the filter of her lanky cigar, giving it a long, idle puff as she made up her mind, opting to trust her gut instinct in regards to this enigmatic soldier, and letting him in on their Master’s most transcendental secret.

“What if I told you that that’s not the reason why that place is off-limits?” She piqued his curiosity with still one more intriguing question. “What if I told you that there’s something there? Something big…”

“Like what?” Vegeta snapped irritably, losing his composure by the minute, fed up to the back teeth of the woman’s exasperating teasing. “Look, Bulma, if you have something to say, say it now, because I’m this close to…”

“Fine, Prince Vegeta,” Bulma briskly cut him off, astute enough to know how to build up her prey’s anticipation, and how to choose just the right moment to hit him with the hard truth, without losing valuable momentum. “I’ll tell you…”   

 

And she did.

 

She told him a story, the most fantastic story to ever reach his Saiyan ears, the unbelievable tale of a scientist, an eccentric Doctor who’d landed, on this very planet, more than thirty years ago.

Nobody knew his exact place of origin, not even his real name, all that was really known of him was that he’d been born originally on an alien planet, far, far away from any territory explored yet by Frieza and his minions, and that he’d dropped anchor in this particular spot, after a long, arduous Odyssey, in search of the Unknown.        

The reason behind his mysterious choice to put down roots in such a remote rock, or whether or not he’d found what he was looking for, remained an unresolved enigma. But what Bulma had accurately confirmed was that, once his decision to settle down was final, the naturally inquisitive Doctor never again considered moving back to his unidentified home.

Magella-19, the planet chosen by the exiled explorer as his new base camp, had been virgin territory back then, and although it would take quite a few years for Frieza to discover and claim it as his own, turning it into the chaotic entropy of overcrowded cities and polluted air that it was today, the brilliant inventor chose to embark, early on, on a series of scientific experiments whose purpose was still unclear.

Some said his studies were related to the field of neurogenetics; others, that it was information technology that interested him the most, and Bulma herself swore that it was possible, ‘highly possible’, that the man’s original intention had always been to achieve what he ultimately brought into existence: a Digital World, a parallel dimension co-existing to perfection with the realm of reality that everyone believed to be the only possible one.

In all probability, the Doctor’s impressive creation had initially been conceived as an extremely sophisticated depository, a labyrinthic archive designed to compile, and store, every single one of the physicist’s groundbreaking discoveries, alongside all of the priceless information so methodically accumulated throughout his numerous space travels.

The woman didn’t specifically know just how many treasured secrets he’d managed to amass, but what she did promise to have discovered was that the gifted man had somehow found a way to devise, and build, a portal, an interdimensional gateway which made it possible to cross from one world to the other, and that, thanks to such a revolutionary work of genius, the Doctor began to teleport himself into his newly developed universe at regular intervals.

According to Bulma’s in-depth investigation, it was then that the man’s behavior became increasingly erratic, his furtive visits into his own personal microcosm getting longer and longer, until his mind, the bright, pioneering mind that had taken him further than any other innovator had ever travelled before, broke for good, causing him to retreat into the fictitiousness of his own creation forevermore.

It wasn’t entirely clear if the Doctor had become a madman, or if he simply preferred a life of discipline and austere isolation, the one thing that the cunning little spy claimed to know for sure, was that the man made the personal choice to take up residence in this so-called ‘Digital World’, never to be seen in the sphere of reality ever again.

At this point in the story, and going against every red flag rising in his stunned brain, Vegeta interrupted the female’s far-fetched narrative, finally joining the conversation by questioning if Frieza himself knew about any of this, and how was it all connected to the repugnant chip attached by force to his own body.

Much to the Prince’s surprise, Bulma seemed to welcome his disruption, taking his more than obvious interest as a positive sign, and proceeding to connect, with great skill, the ludicrous life story of her enigmatic Doctor with the omnipotent presence of Frieza himself.

The beautiful creature carried on with her fanciful tale of events, lazily smoking her exotic cigars, one after another, as she explained in confidence how the Icejin Overlord found himself acquainted with the reclusive scientist who was, by all accounts, a quiet man of peace.

By the time Frieza picked up on his existence, her cryptic Doctor had already been inhabiting his world of make-believe for a good handful of years, bumping into him, quite literally, by pure, unfortunate chance.

As always, upon his arrival on Magella-19, the Emperor made his people implement the standard protocols applied, without exception, on every one of his newly conquered planets, systematically subjugating, and taking full control, of its native population and natural resources.

Going by Frieza’s top secret files, Bulma could assure, with conviction, that the main interest in this particular piece of rock had primarily resided in its useful strategic location, and that, other than that, her Master’s cronies had found nothing of real value in it, no precious metals or stones, or any kind of flora or fauna worth keeping alive.

Thus, most of the planet’s original ecosystem was wiped out with full intent, callously replaced by two state-of-the-art military hangars, and the three massive urban centers that they both knew so well by now, corrupt metropolises bursting with rotten decadence and dazzling neon lights, of addictive gambling and depraved cathouses, and any illegal activity ever conceived by the mind of man.

It was well after the commencement of the first city’s construction, that one of the Lizard’s many research workers stumbled upon something extraordinary enough to be reported to his superiors: a bizarre, wholly artificial electromagnetic field located right at the core of the Lands of the North, an area originally believed to hold nothing but barren ice and a few minor species of aquatic creatures.

The startling discovery was riveting enough to arouse the wicked curiosity of the Emperor himself, and no time was wasted, sending two of his top-notch analysts to the field, appointed with the classified mission to investigate such an offbeat phenomenon all the way, and to inform immediately if any solid conclusions were ever reached.

A long string of technical trials was what it took to make the Doctor’s deepest fears come true, with Frieza’s most talented scientists eventually finding a way to concentrate such a powerful energy, duplicating an exact replica of the original portal ideated by the founder of this fabulous parallel universe, and trespassing, with little trouble, into a world always meant to be out of bounds for everyone but its brilliant creator.

It was here that the Prince could see the blue-haired belle truly hesitating, resorting to half-truths and speculation to fill-in the blanks in her otherwise impeccable investigation.

Not much was known of Frieza’s first encounter with the introverted man of science, given how increasingly difficult it’d been for Bulma to gather information from then on. But what she could pretty much confirm, was that the alien Doctor had not welcomed the presence of his arrogant intruder at first, only learning to tolerate it, under protest, when he witnessed the Ruler’s supreme power, soon after the Emperor threatened to burn his brainchild to ashes if he didn’t agree to share part of his advanced technological findings with him.

Both parties decided to keep the conditions of their reluctant arrangement under wraps, and though Bulma had no way to tell what terms they’d both exactly agreed upon, she’d basically deduced that Frieza had ‘mercifully’ allowed the good Doctor to keep his precious life, and to carry out his scientific research fully undisturbed, in exchange for some of his profitable knowledge, showing special interest in anything related to battle weaponry and space travel.

At long last came Vegeta’s turn to enter the picture, for not only had this mysterious scientist somehow agreed to quench his Master’s thirst for warfare technology, but he’d also found ways to satisfy Frieza’s obsessive need for control, by offering him the original design of a prototype that would eventually become the standard microchip systematically implanted on every soldier in the Icejin’s growing army.

These tiny devices were not your average chip; they were not microprocessors of a purely mechanical nature, but of a bio-organic one, meaning that they did not simply attach themselves to their victim on a superficial level, but they merged with the target’s connective tissue, instantaneously fusing with their nervous system until they became, quite literally, an intrinsic part of themselves.

Bulma’s cool-headedness as she explained, in great detail, the way the abominable invention had succeeded in infesting his body, taking full ownership of every vestige of his vital energy for more than two years, was enough to make the Prince sick to his stomach. Still and all, Vegeta managed to keep his shaken emotions in check this time around, asking the street-smart woman how was it possible for someone to have inserted that blasted gadget inside of him without him even noticing.

He wasn’t even surprised anymore to see the crafty little female being as quick as a whistle, ready to comply with an answer that strangely fit into the surreal narrative she was trying to sell.

On the basis of her own groundwork research, Bulma had discovered that the standard procedure was for chief physicians, always present in every one of Frieza’s military and training bases, to take advantage of the state of drugged unconsciousness that soldiers fell into whenever they were inside their regeneration tanks.

The usual protocol would normally involve increasing, unbeknownst to their vulnerable victims, the dose of potent sedatives employed to keep the fighters under control as they received their therapeutic treatments, implanting the small device within a specific point of their spinal cord, habitually at the base of their neck, and letting the regenerative fluids do the rest of the work for them, efficiently curing the skin surrounding the fresh wound, and leaving no trace whatsoever on the mercenary’s skin by the time the ‘healing’ cycle concluded.

By the woman’s estimations, the first preliminary tests had been run at least five years ago, and the success rate had been so overwhelmingly high, that it’d now become mandatory for all doctors in Frieza’s army to embed these bio-organic chips in every soldier who joined the ranks, evidently, always keeping the idiotic rookies in the dark.   

Moreover, Bulma freely informed Vegeta of the chilling fact that the ingenious device didn’t have an immediate effect on its prey’s ki, and that it could lay dormant for months, even years, until one of the Icejin’s technicians deemed it fit to switch it on, indicating that a man could walk around with that cursed thing adhered to his body, utterly oblivious of it, for an indefinite period of time.          

 

“So, this… This thing…” The Prince murmured with clear disgust. “It could have been inside of me for years without me knowing anything about it?”

“That’s right,” Bulma recognized, exhaling one last wisp of incensy smoke as she put off the last of her exotic cigarettes in a half-full ashtray nearby. “Frieza doesn’t usually make his doctors switch those chips on unless the soldier becomes a threat…”

“Threat?” Vegeta rejoined, honestly baffled as to why his Master would have considered him a threat, given how careful, almost neurotic, he’d always been about hiding his secret plan to betray, and assassinate, the filthy monster once he became strong enough to challenge his superiority.

“Yeah, a threat,” she stated, putting that brilliant mind of hers to good use by tying up any loose ends in her clever theory. “I mean, think about it. Why would Frieza want to get rid of one of his men’s power unless the guy is a threat to him? He needs his soldiers strong enough to purge his stupid planets, right?” She conjectured out loud, her first true sign of disdain towards her Emperor not lost on the Saiyan. “He’d only want to activate that chip if the guy becomes a threat to him, probably because he’s getting too powerful. Weren’t you one of his strongest men?”  

His still folded arms stiffened into his chest, the spark of something warm and uncomfortable burning inside of him at her subtle compliment.

The woman was still sitting on her small chair, a bare foot sloppily perched on the seat, looking visibly more relaxed, almost comfortable, than he’d ever seen her before. And yet, although he knew that her praise was surely related to her scheming ‘investigation’, and that it wasn’t a real appreciation of his physical strength, the sound of such an enticing creature flattering him in any way felt good, so stupidly good that Vegeta couldn’t hide the rush of heat suddenly spreading across his cheeks.

“See?” Bulma smirked in satisfaction when he agreed with a reserved nod. “I think that must have been what happened. You were getting too strong, so he asked his people to take care of things by activating your chip.”

A short-lived silence embraced them both, with the lost warrior analyzing the woman’s radiant features in a futile attempt at unmasking her, shocked by the rare sympathy she seemed to be gifting him with when, mere hours ago, she’d been literally trying to emasculate him by shooting him right into the pavement of some dark alley.

“You mentioned that…” Vegeta persisted, brushing off his childish hopes of Bulma Briefs holding any actual emotion for him, and choosing to focus instead on the most urgent matter at hand. “That the chip can be destroyed from…”

“From the inside,” she fluently finished his statement, already expecting his more than natural desire to free himself from his Master’s claws. “I know it can be destroyed, Vegeta,” she proclaimed, her serene confidence reawakening a glimmer of optimism in his heart, the kind of hopefulness he’d tragically renounced to far too long ago. “But it won’t be easy…”  

“Of course not,” Vegeta agreed with awful calmness, already well aware of the way things worked around here, but feeling that he owed it to himself to at least try to beat his tyrannical boss, outplaying him at his own crooked game for once. “Nothing connected to Frieza is ever easy,” he reaffirmed. “So, tell me how the system works…”

If the topic of discussion hadn’t been of such a sensitive nature, the Saiyan would have found it comical, almost charming, to see her being the one slightly disconcerted this time, biting her bottom lip as those big blue eyes roamed all over the ground, venturing to find a way to shape the chaotic thoughts hounding her.   

“Alright,” Bulma proceeded after a long, ragged sigh. “Here’s how it works: the microchip can be activated from the outside by a few of Frieza’s doctors, but it can only be deactivated from the main database. So, basically, we need to enter the Digital Dimension, find the central computer system, and deactivate it manually.”

“Deactivate…” He repeated in a hesitant mumble, somber eyes narrowing in suspicion as he mulled over her disappointing offer. “If we only deactivate it, does that mean that the chip will remain inside of me? What would stop Frieza from activating it again anyway?”

“Ah! Right… Well, not really…” She promptly refuted him, the frail smile on her lips stabbing him straight into his black little heart. “You see? There are two ways to deactivate those chips. You can choose to simply switch them off, or you can choose the ‘deactivate and erase’ option. Like I said, the microchip is bio-organic, so if we choose to erase it, it’ll basically disintegrate inside of you, and just be reabsorbed and expelled by your own body.”

“Is that so?” Vegeta asked again, his initial incredulity slowly giving way to the dreadful question of what exactly would this hurricane of a woman want in return for her unsolicited generosity. “And by ‘we’, I assume you’re implying that you want us to…”

“To enter the Digital World together.”

His head tilted to the side in disbelief, face hardening sternly as his most rooted preservation instincts took over. “You want us to enter that place together, so that you can deactivate my chip, is that correct?”

“That’s right,” Bulma affirmed with newfound seriousness, any trace of spontaneity quickly vanishing at her rival’s challenging glare, his astuteness reminding her why she’d chosen him, and no other, to join her in her Ultimate Mission from Hell.

“And you think you’re qualified enough to deactivate it yourself?” He openly defied her, his condescending paternalism suddenly making the fuming woman wish she’d electrocuted his patronizing balls just a little longer.

“I don’t think I can deactivate it myself. I know I can.” She confronted him in a hostile murmur, her chin raising, arms crossing in front of her splendid breasts as she gladly accepted his challenge, like the fiercest of all Saiyan females. “I’ve been investigating and planning this for over three years now. So, trust me, Prince Vegeta, I know exactly how to deactivate that fucking…”

“Then what do you need me for?” Vegeta purred sarcastically, flashing her his most lethal smirk, the one especially reserved to throw off even his most obstinate opponent. “If you can do such impressive things on your own, then why are you asking me to join you?” He pushed once again, his last word crawling back into his throat the second those ice-cold eyes shot him her first dagger.        

 

‘Oh boy…’

If he’d ever wanted to touch a nerve, that was the way to do it.

 

“Listen to me, asshole, and listen well, because I will not say it twice,” Bulma snarled, her endless legs standing on their own from that battered chair, firm hands on her hips. “Yes, I could deactivate that chip on my own once I’m in there. It’s getting to that place what’s really dangerous here. And, from what I’ve heard, you’re still a pretty strong guy, even now,” she grudgingly acknowledged.

And it was then, in the broken bitterness coating her voice, that Vegeta understood that the real reason behind her invitation, the reason for this whole sham, was fear.

Bulma Briefs was afraid, afraid that her priceless investigation and outstanding brains wouldn’t be enough to tackle the colossal risk she was about to take. And she was, at least, humble enough to grasp that, for all of her funny little games and sly survival skills, no one ever dared to betray Frieza without the help of some solid muscle by their side.

And now here she was, bottling up a pride as heavy as his own, clenching her teeth and admitting, as much as she possibly could without losing her self-respect, that there were still some things in life that a creature as fragile as herself simply couldn’t do on her own.

“I’m giving you the chance to get rid of that stupid chip,” she casually reminded him, grabbing her small tin of cigars and her lighter from her desk, and turning around, acting as though she didn’t give a damn about him, or his future decision, anymore. “There’s a shower over there,” she pointed out, one foot already on the stairs as she signaled with her thumb a narrow door, located in the lab’s opposite corner. “You can get cleaned up if you like. I’m leaving tomorrow, so if you want to come with me, you better…”  

“Why?” Vegeta prodded one last time, eager to uncover the one piece missing in the woman’s enigmatic proposal, needing to get his hands in her every answer before making up his mind. “Why are you helping me?” He clarified in sight of her questioning glance.

“There’s something else in that place, something I want for myself,” Bulma confessed, her deadpan expression making it crystal clear that, even in the unlikely scenario of the two of them ever becoming partners in crime, there would always be one or two occult secrets that would remain off-bounds to someone like him. “So, I figured we could help each other out here, you know… I’ll scratch your back and you’ll scratch mine…” She shrugged with dispassion, too burned-out to even put on another one of her flirtatious shows for him anymore. “Anyway, I’m tired. I’m going upstairs to take a shower. If you’re still here when I get out, I’ll know you’re in. And if you’re not, well… Good luck, I guess. You’ll need it with that thing stuck inside of you…”

 

And, with that, she was gone, leaving him high and dry while sitting on her littered floor, sulking amongst that rumpled pile of strange journals and smashed furniture, a gooey stream of gel dripping down his back as he wondered what, in the name of everything Holy, had just really happened tonight.     

 

 

*********************************************

      

 

A monsoon rain was falling when Vegeta made it out of his hot shower, walking upstairs, and into her main room, and moving her thick rug back to its original spot immediately after the false floor closed behind him, taking great care to keep Bulma’s illusion intact before stepping to the window, opening it wide and letting a much-needed breath of fresh air breeze into the suffocating chamber.

He leaned on the ledge, taking in the cooling scent of heavy summer rain as he looked outside, inspecting the depressing slum that the woman called home. Her flashy vehicle was still parked right where she’d left it, but not a soul was to be seen around her block anymore, no one left to pick up on his furtive visit but the flickering lights of an old, broken neon ad, hanging precariously from a building nearby, and the faraway sounds of some lost, stray dog.

His bare feet paced deliberately across the room, anxious hands running through his still damp scalp, back and forth, trying his hardest to put out the restless fire that Bulma Briefs had just ignited within his spirit.

Because he was going to, he was going to backstab the most powerful Beast ever known to man or God, and he was going to do it knowing that he wasn’t ready, breaking away from everyone and everything he’d ever known while being, simply put, at the bottom of his fighting potential, and he was about to make that choice based on the craziest, most preposterous story he’d ever heard in his entire life.

And it was all because of Her, the wicked little witch who’d seduced him beyond cure, the one whose erotic memories had tormented him ever since she’d fallen into his bed, having her way with him in ways no other lover ever had.

She was the only woman he’d ever bedded to make him feel regret, not the usual, shamefaced regret he always experienced whenever he surrendered to his basest desires, disobeying his Father’s most sacred rule to never lay with a non-Saiyan female, but regret at having been too goddamned drunk to even savor her the right way, to tame and subdue her, and to teach her the kind of pleasures that his seasoned hands could bring to a carnal beauty like her.

When he’d agreed to get on her motorbike, after she’d hunted him with such aggressiveness in the early hours of the night, he’d been so sure, so incredibly convinced that the night would end with him murdering the deceitful woman in cold blood, after she’d try to execute some sort of betrayal against him, that he was now more disoriented than when he’d first run into her.

Against all odds, he’d found himself believing Bulma’s demented story, identifying a kind of nefarious logic in it that could only belong to someone as malignantly disturbed as Frieza himself.

Even worse, the virulent hatred that the impertinent creature seemed to stir in him, was oddly giving way to a rare sense of admiration towards her, for, in spite of her disrespectful insults and cheeky personality, Vegeta couldn’t deny anymore that the woman had guts.

Committing treason against the Emperor was an already insanely dangerous enterprise for a fairly strong soldier such as himself but, for a woman, any act of disloyalty would mean an automatic Death sentence, by cause of the demeaning social status that females held within the Icejin’s Empire. A world where most females were seen as one thing and one thing only, used, abused and discarded, by default, whenever they stopped serving their humiliating purpose, or if they ever failed to remember their place in the Status Quo.      

The Prince hadn’t been clever enough to worm her mysterious goal out of her yet but, whatever it was that she was looking for, she wanted it badly enough to throw overboard the many privileges that she must have, undoubtedly, worked hard to achieve within her Master’s army. And he’d already caught enough signs of brave determination in her to see that, with or without his help, Bulma Briefs was about to set out on a road of no return.

Whether the real reason behind his decision to blindly follow this complete stranger to the end of the world had to do with his own selfish want to rid himself of his artificial disease, or due to an old-fashioned chivalry he’d never even experienced before, he had no clue. All he knew was the magnetic pull lashing him to this woman, a deep, primordial need to never let her go, not until he unraveled all of her secrets, every one of the trials and tribulations that had turned her into the cold-blooded renegade she’d come to be.

 

Vegeta’s stomach dropped at the creaking door opening before him, so utterly lost in his own gloomy thoughts, that he failed to notice the stream of hot water from her shower no longer melding with the turbulent sounds of the summer storm raging outside.

He kept his head low, spellbound eyes following every dainty move of those cherry-colored toenails as they got closer and closer. A sudden rush of self-consciousness hitting him hard at the vision of the glistening droplets running idly down Bulma’s pale legs, wondering what his one-time lover would make of the crushed man sitting defeatedly at the foot end of her bed, his modesty barely covered by the small towel poorly wrapped around his waist.

The libertine creature had been so brazen during their first encounter, and his urge to have her again was so irresistible, that the Prince had naïvely forgotten that, just because she’d given herself to him once, that granted him no permission to take her again. For all he knew, their first night of mindless passion together could have been little more than the work of a woman on a mission, carefully testing the waters in search of the moronic wimp foolish enough to follow behind her like an infatuated puppy.

But, before he could even try to guess the real implications behind their one moment of sultry intimacy, or Bulma’s ultimate intentions for him, her skimpy towel did the talking for them both, falling quietly at her feet with the smoothness of a melody.

She took one step forward, then one more, until she stood before him, close enough to be touched, yet so far away, the rich perfume of her arousal betraying her apparent indifference, that aura of feminine disinterest that she wore like a second skin.

For an unbearable instant, Bulma did nothing, and said even less, the slow rhythm of her calm breathing clashing with the wild thunder enveloping them both, the one and only witness to the forbidden affair about to arise, an affair as sordid as it was inexplicable, the union of two uncontrollable Forces of Nature ready to go against the World.

The woman was waiting, he knew, waiting for him to surrender, to lift his gaze and run those famished eyes all over her, making her feel as revered as he obviously had when she’d undressed for him in front of her full-length mirror. Or, perhaps, she was trying him out, curious to see if he’d act like a good boy this time around, or if those infamous, domineering Saiyan instincts would finally kick in tonight.

But he wouldn’t give her such a victory, not this time, not until she took the initiative and she lay open a weak spot or two, baring herself to him and freeing him up to dive into that voluptuous body, avid to show her what a Saiyan Prince like him was truly made of.

And it didn’t take much for his mistress to play the game according to his rules, a lot less, in fact, than he ever expected her to. All it took was her heat approaching him, and a pair of long legs spreading for him, dangling down playfully on both sides of his thighs, light hands finding his hunched shoulders for support as she took a comfortable seat on his lap.

It was an invitation, a fearless invitation that Vegeta was much too eager to accept; but there was something stopping him still, a rare resistance he couldn’t quite identify on his own, finding himself drowning into an almost oneiric state, dreaming wide awake, as if the petite figure temptingly straddling his insatiate body was but a beautiful ghost, a sinful apparition that would dissolve beneath his fingers the moment he’d dare to taint her with his dark touch.

“I take it you’re not in the mood tonight…” Bulma presumed in an aloof whisper, even if she could feel his more than noticeable interest bulging underneath the not-so-thick fabric keeping them apart. “Oh well…” She shrugged devilishly, leaning her weight into him while lifting one of her legs, ready to set her stubborn man free if he wasn’t obedient enough to worship her like he should.    

The threat of her loss scared him out of his wits, a fear strong enough to make his trembling fingers let go of the sheets they were so frantically clutching, and latching onto those milky hips instead, his heart in his mouth at the thought of wasting such a precious opportunity.

One of his hands roamed across her luxurious skin, tracing a path of need and fire, and settling right in the small of her back, pushing her closer to him, skin on skin, until the rose crowns of those perfect tits brushed deliciously with his sensitive nipples, the tiny gasp swelling her chest at his possessive move setting his spirit ablaze.

His free hand found her flawless visage, enfolding her elegant jaw between two of his fingers, dying to get to the bottom of the cold, oceanic eyes beaming at him with silent irreverence.                 

 

Statuesque.

 

There really was no other word to describe the only woman to ever look him in the eye with the nerve of an equal, the only one about to share his bed more than once, the only one to ever remind him of the majestic Saiyan females who were no longer a part of this decaying realm.

She was almost too faultless, as if the Gods had designed her with the one and only purpose of seeing if they could.

A physical fragility balanced to perfection with the courage of a lion, an ingenious little creature smart enough to hide her exceptional intellect from those who might take advantage of it, choosing to parade her unreal beauty instead, relying on the only charms that most of the men inhabiting their degrading world cared about anyway.

And tonight, as Vegeta held her face in his hands, he understood, he understood why Bulma Briefs was Frieza’s deadliest weapon, for she was both yin and yang, lace and leather, the kind of woman who needn’t hide the natural born danger that seemed to be her one companion, following her around wherever she went.        

She lowered her head, her movements slow as a hot Summer’s day, the tip of her tongue darting out and lazily swirling around his thumb, once, twice, before taking it into her mouth, making every drop of his blood abandon his body as she suckled on it.

Her eyes never left his, naughty shades of blue mocking the panting man shuddering in the dark, his left cheek twitching uncontrollably at the minuscule, but incredibly erotic gesture. A guttural grunt chocked in his throat when Bulma’s wet lips curved into the most mischievous smirk, a hint of breathless laughter escaping her as she relished the power she blatantly had over her new lover.

“Did you miss me, Vegeta?” She murmured huskily, releasing his shaky thumb after a playful nip. “Because I sure did…” She confessed against his dry mouth, covering the back of his hand with her own and placing his calloused palm around her neck, languidly guiding him down, all the way down, from the tiny dip at the base of her neck, lightly caressing her frail collarbones, to one of her soft breasts, a wanton smile on her lips when his body instinctively obeyed her plea, her nipple hardening under his touch as his expert thumb played gently with it. “I missed your mouth…”

The Prince groaned in frustration at her calculated words, hating her for spelling out that it was his mouth, not him, but his mouth, the one thing she’d missed about him, and hating himself more for even caring about what part of him had the vulgar creature even missed to begin with.

Because it didn’t matter anymore.

All that mattered were those spicy lips smashing against his as she fervidly brought him to her, ten sharp nails grazing his cheeks, almost scratching him, and kissing him urgently, passionately, as if this were the last time they’d ever get to be together.

Bulma’s hips rolled on his lap as she worked him through the thin towel, rubbing herself against his hard cock with the crude intention of building up her own pleasure while driving him out of his damned mind.

“I missed your mouth on me…” She teased him again, and again, raking those killer nails of hers across his bronzed cheeks, and down to his shoulders, biting on his bottom lip with enough force to taste the burning saltiness of his blood. “I want it…” She demanded, asserting her command by yanking a fistful of coarse Saiyan hair, and pulling with vicious skill, happily oblivious to the way Vegeta’s thick fingers dug into both of her hips in response to her ravishing fighting spirit, even if she could already feel the tiny bruises marring her skin come morning, and grinding against him one more time, rougher, harder, making him gulp like a third-class soldier, an untried young boy who’d never drunk from a woman’s ecstasy before.

And then, she took it all away, stripping him from any hope of ever taking full possession of her by grabbing his solid shoulders and shoving him heartlessly into the hard mattress, throwing herself at him like a huntress about to devour her last kill.

Only one of them would win this fight, and the paralyzed man palpitating in hunger underneath the fiery thighs keeping him prisoner would not be the one taking his prize tonight.

A loud hiss slipped between his gritted teeth, his head tipping back on its own when one of her brash hands reached down between her legs, snatching away his pathetic piece of cloth, and replacing it with her soaked little pussy instead, bringing back a febrile flashback of X-rated images, of an obscure, blurry night of hands and teeth, sweaty bodies rolling amongst damp sheets in an intoxicated battle for dominance that could have only ended with his defeat.

“I want your mouth on my tits…” She mumbled provocatively, firm arms leaning on both sides of his dizzy head as she kept hovering over his open mouth, a few drops of water dripping from her still wet hair, and falling on his skin, the cloying scent of floral shampoo and her growing arousal making Vegeta wish he were drunk, if only so he could forget her this time around. Because a woman like Bulma Briefs was not to be forgotten, because the memory of this moment would chase him for as long as he could breathe. “Be a good boy and suck on my tits…” She pouted in his ear, swaying those hips one last time before lowering herself down, spearing herself on his dick as she leaned back, her hands gripping the nape of his neck and pulling him to her, guiding his submissive Saiyan tongue right where she wanted it.

And damn her, he succumbed, starved lips bound to her hot flesh, licking and tasting every inch of those round, bouncy breasts as she rode him, long and hard, like a bitch in heat. His hands kneading and squeezing, grumbling in a frenzy at her animalistic moans when his sharp teeth grazed those hard nipples, barely managing to keep her in place while she moved in unison with the roaring thunder looming outside.

She worked him like a charm, her pace fast, unrelenting, as well as sinuous, sensual enough to let him feel her as she rose and fell on top of him, the lewd sounds of her peachy ass cheeks smacking against his thighs driving him round the bend, pitch-black eyes struggling to focus on her, on anything, at the incredible sensation of that tight cunt constricting around him as she took him for a spin.

Pointy nails savagely clawed his already scarred back as she held onto him with one greedy arm, gashes of scarlet slashed all over his skin, sanguine red as dark as the woman selfishly touching herself without his permission, manifesting the one and only desire to put her own pleasure above any other, and letting it be known that no lover of hers would ever get away with getting off without first giving her the mind-blowing climax she deserved.      

And, by the looks of it, and by the sounds of the filthy slew of obscene words coming out of that dirty little mouth while she massaged her clit, savoring every delicious part of him as she mounted him, from the thick tip of his cock to the base of his tightening balls, Vegeta could only hope for such an excruciating torture to be over soon.

He hid his flushed face between the valley of her breasts, too overwhelmed by the stream of unreal pleasure surging through him to even look at her anymore, impotent to handle the way those heavy-lidded eyes began to fall as her climax drew closer and closer, or her sleek womanhood clenching invitingly, a crescendo of raving moans and anxious gulps of air making that small body shiver succulently as she madly gasped for breath.

Her arms clung feverishly to his shoulders when rapture hit her at once, embracing him between trembling, clammy thighs, and taking as much from him as she could, secretly grateful for the pair of strong arms holding her as Vegeta took over, keeping up her maddening rhythm when he sensed her tiny body slowing down, surrendering to that wild tide of bliss.

His body followed her like wildfire, spilling himself as avid arms fastened to those rocking hips, thrusting her desperately against him and abandoning himself, wallowing in the intoxicating woman narrowing around him, covering his entire being in a placid cloud of exhilaration and calmness, of hands and legs holding each other close, refusing to let go until every primal appetite had been fulfilled through and through.

Their extraordinarily intimate hug lingered on for a while longer, with Bulma’s exhausted arms and legs wrapped all around him as her sizzling blood took its time to simmer down, slowly descending from the ambrosial high that her lover had just freely given her.      

And, while the Prince’s inebriated recollections weren’t sharp enough to know by heart every detail of their first aphrodisiac night together, he believed, beyond doubt, that the unruly woman had never once held him like this. Just like he knew that he hadn’t been inundated by the upsurge of alien emotions suddenly strangling his inexistent heart, shot to pieces by the captivated, turquoise gaze curiously staring at him as Bulma’s head rose tiredly from his shoulder, and by the tiny hand languorously brushing away the strand of black hair hiding one of his fascinated eyes.

Perhaps, it was the good-natured gesture of a woman satisfied to the full by the complacent man who’d just bowed to her without much resistance. Or, maybe, a symbolic sign of gratitude for the shot in the dark he was about to take for the both of them, on the threshold of risking his own life for the sake of a secretive something she hadn’t even shared with him yet.

It was of little importance, all that mattered was the all-consuming flame she’d just kindled inside of him, in ways far too enigmatic for him to even comprehend, and the painful void in his empty arms when she took the final liberty of carefully untying her sated body from his own clingy one, rolling on her back and lying by his side, with not one care in the world.   

Smitten eyes followed her at once as he sat sloppily on her bed, boldly reveling in the small figure, stretching with the grace of a ballerina, as one of her arms reached for the bizarre tin of cigarettes awaiting her on her nightstand, slowly rolling one of them between her fingers, just as she’d done in her private laboratory, and lighting it up, tasting it with indolence while lounging idly on the bed.

“We’ll be leaving early in the morning,” Bulma announced in a distant whisper, a lazy arm sprawled on the pillow, heavy hand twirling a lock of glossy hair as she struggled to stay awake for as long as her exotic cigar would last her. “So, you better get some sleep while you can…”

And there it was again, that aloof, unapproachable aura, the air of mystery of a creature savvy enough to erect a protective wall around her if and when it suited her, making it damn clear to the idiot gawking powerlessly at her that it would be she, and only she, the one shaping the rules of the game, bending and twisting them at her fancy in any way she pleased.

She didn’t even bat an eyelid when the buck naked Saiyan stood from the bed with bad grace, worn out steps striding to the wide-open window, sensibly pulling down the shutters as he smoothed the way to what he knew would be a measly few hours of restless sleep. It was bad enough that he’d just made a fool of himself, ruled by the spell of the woman’s sexual magnetism, and that body made for sin, but he’d at least pretend to still have the decency to sleep next to the Devil herself with the durn window closed.

Bulma’s cold-eyed stare remained pinned to the grey ceilings, taking drag after drag of her pungent herbs with no apparent intention of acknowledging her peculiarly new companion anymore, and lying on that bed with the quiet magnificence of the Empress of Darkness, as utterly unperturbed by the awkwardness of the Prince’s movements when he joined her back on the old mattress, as she was by his last question for the night, trying to find just one more of the many answers he hadn’t drawn out from her yet.

“Why?” Vegeta asked in a proud undertone, muscular arms crossed casually behind his neck, trying to look half as relaxed as the coldest little thing he’d ever come up against.

“Why what?”

“Why me?” He clarified, the woman’s frightening ability to make him feel like nothing truly beginning to get under his skin by now.

“I just told you, Vegeta…” Her response came after a short, weary sigh, sapphire eyes closing for a brief moment, choosing to speak to him as if he were an annoying brat. “Sometimes a girl just needs a bit of muscle by her side…”  

“Then why me?” He asked anew, failing miserably at keeping his self-imposed promise to not lay eyes on her anymore tonight, by lowering himself to yet another sly look, cringing pitifully to himself at the few strategically placed bruises now scattered across her hips, shameful evidence of his complete lack of self-control when it came to such a beautifully wretched creature.

The Prince’s question was only natural, the expected doubt of a man who knew himself not to be one of the strongest soldiers in Frieza’s ever-growing army anymore. If the cunning female was as smart as she was supposed to be, and Vegeta surely had no reservations in regards to her quick wit anymore, then he should have been one of the least logical choices in the interminable list of suckers who’d be far more powerful than he was these days, brainless enough for her to convince and manipulate them at will.

For all that, and though he already knew that there must have been a reason behind her atypical choice for a sidekick, that went beyond purely physical strength, Bulma Briefs surprised him again, pushing aside her usual snark, and the untouchable halo glowing around her at all times, and giving answer to his cryptic question with an even more inscrutable reply.

“Because I knew,” she murmured in the dark, the dry quality in her monotone voice oddly forced, struggling, if only for once, to keep herself together in front of him. “I knew the moment I saw you…”

“You knew what?” Vegeta echoed back, admitting defeat by turning his head to face her, because, try as he might, he couldn’t, he simply could not keep his blasted eyes away from this woman for more than a goddamned minute.

 

And it was then that he saw.

 

It was then, in one of those dreamy puffs of spiced smoke, that the awestruck warrior saw a first flash of truth, thinly veiled behind her long, quivery exhalation, and delicately entwined with the spark of unadulterated rage burning at the bottom of the unforgiving eyes fixed to the ceiling.

A ruthless rage that, together with a virulent confession that closely hit home, revealed that maybe, just maybe, the hot game of Russian Roulette they were both about to play may not be a trap, after all.

 

“I knew that you hate Him almost as much as I do…”