Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Sarie Mue ❯ Frieza ( Chapter 8 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimer: We don't own Dragonball Z. Neither do we own a baby kangaroo. But if we did, we'd make it wear a diaper and see if we could train it to carry a bottle. It would be really cute.

Author's Notes:

Blah blah blah

Blah blah blah blah blah

Blah blah… blah

OK, now that we've gotten that out of the way, I want to thank you for your patience for the next installment of this story. Sarie Mue has not been forgotten (and neither has The Soul, just in case you were wondering). I am doing the best I can with time constraints. I will, however, work harder to find time to write. Not to worry. Everything will be just fine. Sure…

Anyway, I'm writing for both myself and Howler. We wish to invite you to partake of Sarie Mue's harrowing experience with Sarie Mue. I must warn you, this is a sad tale full of misery. It is not for the faint of heart. If you want to read something happy, please exit this webpage and go read the comics or something right now. You will find nothing happy in this chapter. Do not be fooled by the cheery disclaimer featuring a baby kangaroo. There will be no further mention of baby kangaroos, unless said joey is miserable or sad. Thank you.

We'd also like to thank our reviewers:

Lil Shady: We do put so many Monty Python references in, it's almost getting old. We're trying to hone down on them. But, when you have the masters of comedy right there, it's irresistible to give them a nod every once in a while.

Chuquita: Maybe we'll give a taste of Veggie sooner than you think…

Nice-day: I'm not sure if you're up to this chapter yet, but thank you for picking up the story. Thank you for the profuse praise, though. We've seen so many comedy/parody fics, and have noticed that the authors don't even try, or have a sort of trite humor, since a lot of them are new to DBZ and fanfiction. And, yes, I know. We're bad. LOL, and all those other inane chat responses.

Dark Wolf: Hey, wolf man. I'll have you know that I've been working hard on the next installment of The Soul. It's just that I've got a lot to say and little time to write with. Oh well. Work on Recoil, why don't ya.

Prologue:

The Great Will of the Macrocosm stood arms akimbo assessing the damage that had been done. Le Resistance, formerly given to smaller guerrilla strikes, had become more aggressive lately. The chronically abused characters were out for revenge on those who had taken them for granted.

Peering through dimensional rifts into the various realities of their origins, the Great Will saw that the Bat Cave had caved in… a small red and green flag standing out in stark contrast atop the pile of rubble.

Hogwarts had been closed and reopened as a proper “muggle” boarding school. Young Harry Potter and Hermione Granger had been expelled and sent to the insane asylum for believing that they could do magic. They now spent their days in a drugged haze picking flowers off the wallpaper.

“Neville's doing, no doubt,” muttered the Great Will.

A red-bearded cowboy and a bald-headed hunter were enjoying a meal of roast rabbit.

“This is the rootin' tootinest dang meal I ever had!” screamed the cowboy.

“Yup,” agreed the hunter. “It's weawy scwumptious. Huhuhuhuhuhuh…”

The Great Will wrung her hands in angst. “This is becoming too much!” she said. “Look at me! I'm wringing my hands in angst, for goodness sake!”

“Well, there's nothing for it now,” she said resolutely. “It's time to teach that little trollop a lesson. And I think I know just the man… or whatever he is… to set the mood.” With a snap of her fingers, a dank, dusty, decrepit dungeon appeared around her.

In one corner, covered in cobwebs and crawling with creeping creatures, a crusty creaking coffin suddenly burst open to reveal a decayed skeleton which promptly sat up and let out a terrible screeching cackle that would raise one's hackles and scare off a mackerel who happened to be drinking a Snapple and munching on an apple!

Okay that's just stupid.

So, sans the silly alliterative arts and wretched rhyming parts, we shall continue.

“Eeeeeee-heee-heee-hee-hee-heeeeee” screeched the skeleton. “Heee-heee,” he added.

“So, it is time for another terrifying tale of pain and peril as we look in on that stupid cow, Sarie MOOOOOOOO!” he snickered sinisterly.

“In this chilling story, Sarie tries to give Frieza the cold shoulder and finds out that he's not very ICE!” he tittered terribly. “I guess she just got cold feet!” he chuckled chillingly. “She should learn to keep her cool!” he cackled cacophonously.

Wow, this is really bad! We should stop. This inane game is becoming a pain. It's simply insane! What is there to gain? Some may insist we cease this silliness, but it is our tale, thus we shall decide when it ends. Mwuahaaa!

“So without further adieu,” continued the corpse, “Let's see what surprises slip up on Sarie in this painful parable I like to call… “Sarie Mue and the Cold-Hearted Killer!!!”

(a.k.a.) Chapter 8: Frieza

Sarie Mue awoke to find herself in a dark cell. Three tiny slits of light filtered in between bars in a view-hole on the solid metal door. “Where am I?” she asked aloud.

A childlike voice chuckled wryly in response. “If there's a bright, shining center of the universe, this is the place farthest from it.”

“Wh..who's there?” she asked, squinting in the darkness in a vain search for the speaker.

“I am - obviously,” the voice said, and a light suddenly appeared, illuminating the upraised hand and fierce expression of a familiar five-year old Saiyan prince as he danced a ball of ki playfully over his fingertips.

Her eyes goggled as she viewed the fantasies of so many fangirls in chibi form. “Oh my goodness…you're…you're Vegeta!”

“That's Prince Vegeta to you!” he declared. “Destined to be the greatest of all Saiyan warriors - and tallest, I'll bet.”

Sarie looked around, frowning. “But if you're a prince, then why are you in this dark dungeon?” she asked.

Vegeta's frown deepened. He was obviously not pleased with his surroundings either. “Not that it's any of your business, but I'm in the dungeon because I pissed off Frieza by calling him a `fat, floating grandmother.' And it's dark because I was trying to take a nap.” He walked over and flipped a light switch, flooding the room with soft lighting.

“But then you had to get thrown in here and wake me up. So I guess I'll go back to target practice.” He proceeded to sit down and incinerate rats with tiny ki blasts, leaving them piles of steaming black ash on the bare metal floor. “These rats are too small. I wish we had some bigger ones to blow up,” he complained.

“Y-yeah,” was all she could think to answer, though the prospect of wishing for larger rats seemed ludicrous.

“I remember when I went with some of the guys to take over this one planet - it had these rodents of unusual size, I think they called them womp rats.” Vegeta's face brightened at one of his few pleasant memories. “They were two meters wide! You know, about the size of a thermal exhaust port, right below the main port on a gigantic planet-destroying war machine? The port that opens to the shaft leading directly to the reactor system? The one vulnerable spot where a precise hit could lead to a chain-reaction destroying the entire station?” He looked at her expectantly.

Sarie stared into his wide, somewhat-innocent eyes. “You're so CUTE as a kid,” she blurted out.

The color quickly rose in his cheeks. “What do you mean, `I'm cute as a kid?' What the hell else do you expect me to be - an ugly teenager? I've never even met you before, you perverted psycho, which is obvious given the fact that I haven't gotten around to killing you yet. If you say one more word, I'm going to use you as target practice instead of these undersized rats!”

“Okay,” she responded quietly. She knew not to mess with Vegeta. However…

“THAT'S ONE WORD!” he screamed, and began blasting her with a barrage of ki shots which quickly, though it seemed like an eternity to her, drew the attention of the guard posted outside the cell.

He threw open the door and cast a dark glare at the Saiyan prince. “Am I gonna have to send you to the chokey again?” He looked down at the severely singed, unconscious form of Sarie Mue. “What've I told you about blowin' up the other prisoners?”

Vegeta let out a petulant sigh. “Never blow up another prisoner without asking for permission first,” he said in a mocking rote recitation.

“That's right,” said the guard, not hearing or caring for the prince's sarcastic tone. “And did you ask permission this time?”

“No,” answered Vegeta. “But why should I have to? Do you know who I am?” Vegeta pulled himself to his full height and seemed to be trying to draw a sort of commanding royal aura. “I am destined to be the greatest warrior in the universe! I am the son of prophecy! I am the product of hundreds of years of planning and precise evolution of the Saiyan to its most perfect, purest state of ultimate power. I will someday become the first and only…” the young prince paused, savoring the words he was about to speak, “Super Saiyan!”

The guard looked at him quietly for a second… before bursting into laughter. “And I'm gonna be the tooth fairy!” He ignored the burning gaze of the youngster. “Well, if you're gonna be all that, you'd better start training before someone else beats you to it! In the meantime, quit blowing up the other prisoners. Lord Frieza has plans for this one.” He nudged the unconscious form of Sarie Mue with his foot. “I'd better get her patched up.”

With that, he slung Sarie over his shoulder, slamming the cell shut behind him. Notice the fine alliteration? We weren't even trying on that one! Get on with it! Yeah, yeah… And he proceeded down the corridor.

*****

Sarie awoke to see tiny rows of bubbles floating in front of her eyes. She looked down to see that she was floating in a tube of… something, breathing through a snorkel-like apparatus over her face.

In typical anime fashion, (those perverted artists!) she wore no clothes, but the essentials were covered (Just barely! Those sickos…) by a metallic bikini with bizarre tubes and pipes sticking out in odd directions.

A voice, presumably a doctor, began speaking to her over a radio transmitter inside the glass tube which encased her in the odd fluid. “I'm glad to see that you're awake! I heard you had quite a tumble with the young prince! You had third degree burns over half your body! Hehe.”

Sarie felt the good-natured chuckle somewhat out of place, but waited for him to continue.

“Anyways, we decided it'd be fun to strip you down and put you in a big tank of goo. It's like something off of Barbarella, huh? Boy, looking at females helplessly trapped inside insidious-looking alien machines gets me turned on. Hehe…”

Again with the inappropriate good-natured laugh, she thought.

The doctor continued. “But this stuff will fix you up pretty quick, aside from giving your skin that alluring orange glow…” He paused, apparently lost in thought. “It speeds up cellular regeneration of any kind. It's especially effective for burns.”

He kept rattling on for awhile, apparently proud of this particular treatment. “Yeah, a lot of folks think the Saiyans came up with these. Hah! Saiyans are more likely to kill and eat their wounded than bother to treat them! We got these tanks of it from some squid people… the… um… Mon Calimonies or something… They call them Bacta tanks, but we're calling them `Rejuvenation Chambers.' Sounds much cooler, don't you think, Sweet Stuff?”

Sarie answered with an angry glare and a snort, sending up a shower of bubbles.

“Hehe, you're a feisty one, aren't you?” He turned as a small bell Dinged behind him. “Well that means you're done! I guess we need to get you out of that metal bikini! Er… Out of that tank, what did I say? Out of that sexy metal bikini? Hehe. What was I thinking?”

Sarie had a pretty good guess actually, but declined to comment on it as the sticky orange goo drained out of the tank. Thankfully, the doctor left the room before the metal restraints popped off, giving her a chance to slip into a robe before he returned.

“Well, then,” began the doctor, walking into the room, “I am Doctor Hentai. Let's give you the once over.”

She jumped back, but saw what he meant as he pulled out a medical tricor… umm… medical scanner thingy in no way related to Star Trek and began pointing it at various parts of her body and jotting down readings.

“Yep,” he finally said. “Looks like you're in tip-top shape! Which is good. Lord Frieza likes for his prisoners to be healthy…” Under his breath he added, “Before they're broken.”

“What was that?” she asked, not quite hearing him.

“Nothing! I was just saying that you seem absolutely fine.” His gaze swept up and down her form, pausing at the appropriate (or inappropriate) places, “Yep. You are certainly fine. Now get properly dressed and prepare to meet with Lord Frieza,” he pointed, indicating a dressing room.

“Meet with FRIEZA?” she shouted. But the doctor had already exited the room through a hexagon-shaped door.

I hope the Great Will wasn't thinking what I think she was thinking, thought Sarie Mue as she moved into the dressing room. She looked at the mirror, assessing her appearance.

Ya see? We spent all that time making bad puns and rhymes and whatnot and we're five pages in before we even get to the obligatory “what does she look like this time” scene! Geez… And what was the title of this chapter? Baby Vegeta and the Perverted Doctor? No! (Although with some of the fanfics we've read, that one might be out there somewhere…yuck!) But the title of this chapter was Frieza! And have we even seen him yet? Nope. Now let's get a move on people!

Looking closely at herself, she realized for the first time that her skin had a slight blue tinge to it. This contrasted with her long, straight orange hair.

I'm an alien, she thought.

The rest of her form wasn't so surprising. She was waifishly thin with impossibly large breasts (as if the perverted animators would ever draw a female with a different form) and perfect facial features.

“Well,” she said aloud. “For a blue-skinned, orange-haired alien chick, I'm certainly a knockout!”

She looked at the outfit that had been provided for her. It was a skin-tight, partially transparent leotard-like garment. Slipping it on, she noticed it dipped down dangerously far in the front. She looked for the clothes she would be wearing over what she assumed had to be a form of alien underwear.

There were none.

“So I have to meet Frieza wearing this!” she asked her reflection. Her reflection, in response, just shrugged at her. Sarie did a double-take, but after a moment let it go.

Regardless, she exited the room to find a figure in armor waiting for her, checking his face in a pocket-mirror. He folded the mirror shut with a click and put it in his pocket to reveal the aqua-marine face of… Zarbon!

“I'll be escorting you to his grand high exalted supremeness, Lord Frieza,” Zarbon said, tossing his verdant locks over his shoulder.

“Okay…” Sarie said timidly.

As they walked, Zarbon rattled off a long list of the “do's and don'ts” of meeting with Frieza.

“When you meet with Lord Frieza, you should bow to one knee and remain silent until he acknowledges you. If you don't, you die. You should always address him as either `your highness,' `your evilness,' or `Lord Frieza.' There are other acceptable appellations, but I doubt you'd remember them so stick with those. If you refer to him as anything else… you die. Do not sneeze in the presence of Lord Frieza. If you have to sneeze, I suggest you cut off your nose. Should you sneeze in the presence of Lord Frieza… you die. Do not fart in the presence of…” On and on the list went. She tried to keep up with all of his instructions as she followed him down a serious of corridors, but her mind was on other things. Sarie was positively terrified of the presence she knew she'd have to face at the end of them. She had seen the show. She had seen the movies. She had especially read the fanfictions. She knew what sort of monster Frieza was… what evil he was capable of. This was a destroyer of worlds. This was a being who gave less than a thought to destroying entire races, much less killing a single, scared, scantily-clad, blue-skinned alien chick.

She thought that dying so many times would have cured her of her terror of death, but it hadn't. At least, not the kind of death that Frieza would give her. This was no quick, painless plunge off the Taj Mahal. This would be years of screaming, screeching torturous agony. If half the things she'd read about Frieza were true, she would beg for death long before it came to her. This would be a fic of NC-17 proportions! And then it would be taken off Fanfiction.net, so then where would she be?!

Reaching a tall set of double doors, Zarbon paused. “You stay here,” he ordered. “I shall see if his evilness is prepared to meet with you.” He paused. “You're lucky I chose to tell you how to behave in front of Lord Frieza. You caught me in a good mood.”

He eyed her. “And I simply love your shade of blue! You're almost as pretty as me.” He reached for the skull-shaped handle of the door. “Almost.” With a final flip of his emerald hair and a catty smirk, he opened the door and slipped inside and shut the door… almost.

Sarie noticed he had left the door open a mere fraction of an inch - just enough for her to see and hear what was transpiring in the room. Looking through the slit, she saw that Frieza was addressing young Vegeta, who was kneeling before Frieza's floating form.

“So,” Frieza said airily. “You have disobeyed me yet again?”

Vegeta, while innately disdainful of any kind of authority, was not stupid. He knew when he had gone too far. And there may have even been a slight tremble in his voice as he answered. “How so, Lord Frieza?”

Frieza lifted a finger, sending a bolt of ki toward the young Saiyan. To his credit, Vegeta did not move a muscle as the ki seared a hole through the floor beside his bended knee.

“Don't play innocent with me, prince!” Frieza said, making an insult of the word. “You tried to kill another prisoner without my permission, didn't you?”

Vegeta swallowed, knowing he was caught. “Yes, Lord Frieza.”

Frieza's floatation device turned in the air, allowing him to look out of the hexagonal web-like window at the blackness of space. “So, you know that you must be punished, don't you?” Frieza asked, his tone again calm, as if he were inquiring about the weather.

“Yes, Lord Frieza,” Vegeta said, turning pale.

Here it comes, Sarie thought as she watched. I've read about the kinds of punishments and tortures that Frieza inflicted upon Vegeta. I wonder what he'll do to him this time. She flinched, almost closing her eyes. I can't watch.

“Let's see then,” Frieza mused aloud. “What punishment would be fit for a royal brat who has yet to learn his station?” Frieza turned - ever so slowly - to face Vegeta once again. “Hmm… I know!”

Sarie tensed.

“Vegeta!” declared Frieza, “You shall go to your room and think about what you did! For…a whole hour!”

“NOOOOOOOOOO!!!” shouted the young prince. “Not time out! Please!”

“Yes!” said Frieza. “And no viewing screen OR video games, either!”

Vegeta collapsed to the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. “B..but Lord Frieza…”

“Shall I make it two hours, then?” asked Frieza.

“N..noo…but…” Vegeta started.

“I'm going to count to three, and if I get to three, it will be two hours, young Saiyan!” Frieza warned.

“No!” shouted Vegeta, jumping to his feet, sniffling as the tears continued to stream down his pudgy cheeks. “I'll go!”

And, tucking his tail between his legs, he turned and trudged out of the room through a side door. Zarbon's eyes followed the mini-Saiyan as he left. Zarbon smirked. “Stupid monkey,” he muttered under his breath.

“Stop that stomping!” called Frieza after Vegeta.

Sarie simply stared, slack-jawed at the surprising scene she'd seen. Frieza wasn't supposed to send Vegeta to time out! He was supposed to torture him for hours on end. He was supposed to stick needles in his eyes and then send him to the medic to be healed so he could stick more needles in his eyes! Frieza was a monster - the kind of ruthless, psychotic being that inflicted horrors beyond the imagination on the innocent child Vegeta!

“What's going on here?” she whispered to herself.

Zarbon, still smirking to himself, finally stepped forward to address Frieza. “Shall I escort the prisoner into your dark and sinister presence, oh fiendish one?” he asked, bowing before the floating figure.

“Not yet,” answered Frieza. “I want to look my best for this one.”

With much grunting and screaming and lots of scary glowing and creepy background music, Frieza forced his fat, grandmotherly form to morph first into a towering, muscled behemoth, then a drooling, fanged, monstrous form resembling the offspring of a Ridley Scott alien and an ill-tempered goose. Finally, he changed one last time, emerging as the diminutive-yet-menacing familiar figure who had faced Goku in their final foray - Frieza, final form.

“Now,” said Frieza, flexing his hands as he became comfortable in his changed body, “I am ready.”

Sarie scurried back scared as she saw Zarbon come toward the door, but she knew that there was really nowhere to run.

Throwing the doors open, the effeminate warrior made a curiously gentlemanly gesture for her to enter, as if she were a guest and not a terrified prisoner.

Trembling, she began to step gingerly forward as Zarbon began an often-rehearsed introduction speech.

“I present to you his royal greatness, prince of the changelings, dark terror of the universe, scourge of the galaxies, emperor of the known universe, the greatest warrior known to any civilization, three time winner of the annual planet-exploding award, and leader of the deadliest fighting force in existence. You should bow and pay homage to his general badness and all-around maliciousness. He is the thing which the demons fear! He is the…uh…” Zarbon froze - terrified. He had forgotten part of the speech. “Destroyer of the helpless…the killer of…um…little puppies and…er…flowers?”

Frieza's eyes flicked over to Zarbon, narrowing darkly. “Zarbon?” said Frieza.

“Y-yes my Lord?” he replied, a single drop of sweat trickling its way down the lieutenant's girlish features.

“Come closer,” said Frieza, curling one finger in a `come-hither' gesture.

“As you wish, my Lord,” squeaked Zarbon, trembling.

“That's it,” Frieza said, his demonic red eyes glowing with malevolence as the sexually ambivalent soldier made his way toward him. “Just a little closer. Now lean in a bit.”

“Y-yes?” Zarbon asked, his voice a hoarse whisper as he inclined his head toward the changeling.

Sarie didn't even see Frieza's hand move as he quickly slapped Zarbon across the face with a resounding SMACK! Zarbon's head rolled across the throne room floor as his hands searched above his neck for the things he treasured most - his face and his gorgeous hair.

Frieza sighed. “I've told you before not to forget the speech. I swear, Zarbon. You'd forget your head if it wasn't atta… oh… sorry.” Frieza let out a sinister laugh. “Go put that thing back on and come back when you can remember the introduction.”

Zarbon's body gave an awkward bow before picking up its head by the ponytail and stumbling out of the room.

Frieza smirked cruelly as his eyes followed Zarbon's exit. Then, his glowing crimson eyes locked onto the trembling form of Sarie Mue.

“Come forward, slave,” commanded Frieza.

Sarie tried desperately to remember all of the things that Zarbon the headless wonder had told her to do when meeting Frieza, but somehow all she could think of was the bloody painful death that she knew was awaiting her as she edged slowly forward toward him.

“I suppose you are wondering why you're here,” began Frieza.

Sarie waited until she was certain he expected an answer. “Y-yes. I would like to know that - um… Lord Frieza… sir,” she stammered.

“You are here because you are the princess of the planet we just finished destroying a few hours ago, and…”

“Really?!” Sarie interrupted, forgetting who she was speaking to. “Wow! I'm a princess! That's really cool.”

“ARE YOU MOCKING ME?” shouted Frieza. “Don't be sarcastic with me! You know who you are, and you know who I am, and if you know what's good for you, you will address me with respect and give me straight answers!” His voice took on its former deadly calm. “Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

“Y-yes your high evilness,” Sarie squeaked.

“That's good,” replied Frieza. “Now, as I was saying, it is my custom to keep the highest ranking and/or prettiest member of the planet's ruling body as a personal slave…or harem girl. You of course, with your light blue skin, orange hair, waifish frame and impossibly large breasts (Just making sure you remember!) are the most attractive of the royal family and shall therefore be one of my many concubines.”

“You're going to turn me into some ugly spiky animal?!” shouted Sarie. “You're worse than I thought! Everyone says that you're a monster, but that's just sick! And… wrong!”

A vein in Frieza's forehead began to throb violently as he scowled at her. For a second, it looked as though he might blast her out of existence, but then he began to smile.

“I said she was pretty; I never said she was smart,” he said quietly. Raising his voice, he said to her, “A concubine is a harem girl - a slave to satisfy my whims. You will wear ridiculous and impractical outfits and wait on me hand and foot and tail. You will do everything and anything I ask of you without question, even if it involves extremely personal and disgusting hygiene procedures. Should I wish you to play a game of MahJong, you will whip out the board immediately. (If you know what I mean, eh gov'? Whipping out the board, ay? `Ay? Hint hint nudge nudge wink wink say no more!) Now, do you understand or shall I just kill you now, you insignificant speck of Bantha fodder?”

“I..I understand,” she answered meekly. She didn't know what he planned for her, but she knew she didn't want to be killed by Frieza.

“And by the way,” Frieza continued, his red eyes going from menacing to concerned. “What did you mean about people saying I'm evil? What have you heard? I always like to hear my press.”

“Well,” she began, not sure where to start. “Umm…they say…” She fell silent, afraid of what Frieza might do to her.

“Spit it out, wench!” he said. “I won't punish you. I want to know what the Andorians of your planet have heard about me.”

“For one thing, they say that you enslave entire races, blow up planets, pillage resources and squander them on yourself and your generals, that you begin writing good fanfictions but abandon them unresolved after two chapters, that you buy and sell whole solar systems as though you owned them, that you think morals are paintings on walls, that you don't recycle, that you make 1-900 calls to naughty sex lines, that you hate Christmas, that you are the one who sends Viagra spam e-mails, that you torture small puppies to hear them whine and howl, that Jar Jar Binks was your idea, that you boil your enemies alive in pots of boiling tears that you've collect one by one from tortured slaves and captives and fall asleep listening to their screams of agony, that you were the second gunman on the grassy knoll, that you bought Nero his very first fiddle, that you double-dip, that you are the world's only living heart donor, that you read naughty mangas like Love Hina, that you force your subjects to wear plaid with stripes and iron their blue jeans, that you perform disgusting gene-splicing experiments on babies and turn them into half-animals like Anne Geddes does, that you end sentences with prepositions and often dangle modifiers, that you bathe in the blood of captured virgins, that you bite your toenails, torture innocent people by forcing them to watch Mary Kate and Ashley movies, flame other people's fanfictions under assumed login names, that you don't floss, that you have entered into an alliance with the koalas, that you were the one who convinced them to let Shatner direct Star Trek V, that you invented Brussels sprouts, you cause cows to dance and pigs to fly, seduce the queen in her own bedchamber, that you are hiding the weapons of mass destruction, that you got Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera their starts, that you enjoy clog dancing loudly at night to keep people awake, and that you kind of smell bad.”

Frieza sat for a moment, stunned. “I see,” he finally answered. “Well that's all true enough, I suppose. Is that all?”

“Well,” Sarie said uncomfortably, knowing she had left the most prominent and important part out of it. “No.”

“What else could they possibly say?” asked Frieza, genuinely curious.

“They say that you severely mistreat the young Saiyan, Prince Vegeta.”

“WHAT?!!” Frieza bellowed. “I never… never ever…” he cut off, too frustrated to speak.

“So you don't?” she asked, recalling all of the horrors of the fanfictions.

“OF COURSE NOT!” he screamed. “THAT'S JUST… MEAN!”

Sarie couldn't see how someone who happily admitted to boiling people in their own tears would take affront at being thought of as mean, but she waited for him to continue.

Frieza started towards her, reaching his hands out. She shied back, frightened, but he merely grabbed both of her hands, as if pleading with her to understand.

“I love that boy like my own son!” exclaimed Frieza. “More even! I ate most of my own children!”

“Really?” asked Sarie Mue, too surprised to be afraid anymore.

“Yes! I mean, sure I blew up his planet and killed his father a few months ago, but I was just trying to help him build character. I want him to take over the empire when I'm gone. That boy has potential.”

“B-but, they say that you torture him and that you beat him senseless and…”

“I would never!” declared Frieza, his practically nonexistent sensibilities shocked. “He is a willful child, and I sometimes have to punish him…”

“Like by jabbing his eyes out with needles and pulling off his fingernails with pliers, of making really disturbing yaoi fic situations with him, or forcing him to kill his own friends or love interests or sister, right?” she asked.

Frieza's eyes grew wide with horror, and he covered his open mouth with one hand. “Dear me, no!” he said. “Wherever do you hear such awful things? I send him to time out or make him do extra chores or take away his allowance. I would never do such things to my little solider! I'm not going to be around forever… well, unless it turns out that there are magic balls on some godforsaken vegetarian planet that would let me summon a dragon and wish for immortality, but what are the odds of that? Anyway, what I mean is that Vegeta is going to be my heir. I'm training him to take over someday.”

Frieza looked off into the distance, a small smile on his lips. “I mean, what's the point in being a sadistic, evil world-destroying tyrant like me if you don't give something back to the little ones? The children, especially the little prince, are our future. We have to let them lead the way. You know what I mean?”

“S-so you really want Vegeta to grow up to be a leader someday? You want him to rule your empire?” she asked, still a little slow on the uptake.

“That's what I've been saying,” Frieza said. “I can see him now, standing tall and proud in his armor, looking noble and wise as he surveys his minions and lackeys. But he might need to change his hair, though. Perhaps dye it blonde or something? He might look quite the handsome young man if he were to go blonde, don't you think?”

“Yeah,” agreed Sarie. “He just might do that someday.”

“So what am I going to do about these rumors? They really are terrible. And did everyone on your planet think this about me?” Frieza asked.

Sarie, of course, had no idea what the Andorians had thought. She had just been plugged conveniently into their society for plot purposes by very tired authors. So she decided to fake it.

“Uh…yeah. Yep. Every last one,” she told him.

“I see,” Frieza said musingly. “Well, if the Andorians thought I would hurt my precious little Saiyapoo, it's a good thing I've killed them all.”

He stopped, eyeing her suspiciously. “Well, almost all of them…”

*****

Minutes later, as the guards loaded Sarie into a torpedo tube to be shot out into the depths of space where her body would implode from the vacuum, she thought about what she had learned that day.

You know, Sarie thought to herself, sometimes you can't believe everything you read.

*****

& nbsp; The Great Will of the Macrocosm smacked her forehead… or the general area of her starfield that would represent her forehead. Usually articulate to a fault, all she could utter was a pained “d'oh.”

& nbsp; “Well, what did I expect, really?” she asked herself. “I mean, Frieza had it pegged when he said she wasn't smart. She isn't. I should be thankful that she at least learned something. Know what I mean?”

& nbsp; The various gagged hostages merely grunted unintelligibly. Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: TNG was hanging upside down from a rope suspended from the ceiling. Wesley Wyndam Price from Buffy: TVS was currently tied to a sleeping Whomping Willow. And Wile E. Coyote was embedded under many layers of rock and wondering why there were so many W names.

& nbsp; The Great Will crossed her arms and sighed happily. “At least I have this to satisfy me. The brains of Le Resistance, all in my grasp. Without these three, Chichi's workings will be severely impaired.” She paused for a second. “I might want to check and see if Bulma has joined Le Resistance. Is she considered a chronically abused minor character? Hmm… worth looking in to.”

& nbsp; The Great Will brushed it off for a moment. “Right. It appears that Sarie Mue is now dead again. Since that was my intention, I suppose I'll need to put her up in another situation… maybe something that will conceivably work this time.” She consulted her trusty checklist.

& nbsp; “Lately I've been trying the ones that aren't usually featured in romance fanfiction,” the Great Will said absently to herself. “It appears they weren't featured for good reason. They make horrible love interests. I suppose I might try a more traditional character…”

& nbsp; The Great Will's sight lit upon one of the names. “Ah. This would be an actual idea. Someone who is incredibly strong, yet down to earth and dependable. Let's give it a whirl.”

Chapter 9: Gohan