Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ The Dark Duke ❯ How to Make a Villain ( Chapter 43 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: okieday17 
Ding dong the witch is dead! Right?
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Drama / Comedy / Adventure / Action | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 05.25.2015 | Pages: 4 | Words: 8.5K | Visits: 465 | Status: Work In Progress
Ding dong the witch is dead! Right?
Anime/Manga: Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Drama / Comedy / Adventure / Action | Type: Alternate Universe | Uploaded On: 05.25.2015 | Pages: 4 | Words: 8.5K | Visits: 465 | Status: Work In Progress
Disclaimer: I do not own DBZ, or the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. But if I did...I don't know, relevant movies like the new ones we are getting versus the old ones which made little to no sense?
Warnings: Cussing. Violence. All the good stuff you would expect from a kidnapped Bulma.
A/N: I don't know whether or not to be concerned that most of you were singing 'ding dong the witch is dead' when the dowager got shot in the last chapter. I'm going to go with not, and instead be flattered that I could write a character who you guys could so viscerally hate. Thank you to all of the reviewers who made me laugh with your reactions--I live off of those on some days, I really do. This chapter is mostly unbetaed, so you know, go easy on the grammar and stuff. Or not. Just know to take it out on me this time.
Kattastropi, I hope you're feeling better!
Chapter Forty-Three: How to Make a Villain
Augusta was unaware of how much time had passed since she had been shot. All she was aware of was the carpet pressing into her side as she lay, curled in the position the bullet had crumpled her to. Everything was growing fuzzy, darkening at the edges of her sigh, but using sheer will, she was keeping her eyes open and focused on the hand she could see in front of her. She was using all of her strength on forcing herself to flex her fingers even as she felt her life leaving her, leaking out of her as fast as the blood she felt seeping out from her stomach where the bullet had ripped into her body.
For some reason, some small part of Augusta thought that if she could just keep her fingers curling in, then out, in, then out, perhaps she would live long enough for one of the servants to come back and find her. Get her the medical attention she would clearly need. Otherwise, well the alternative was that she would die as she had lived her very life.
Alone.
Kami, even now she hated how cold that word made her feel. Some small, cynical part of her thought that this is what she deserved, reminding her that she had been alone for most of her life. Even now, as death crept closer, her breathing was her only companion as she flexed her hand. Give in the voice told her give up. But she ignored that voice, willing the hand to open, then close.
Augusta knew she must be in immeasurable pain, but she was almost eighty years old and pain was no stranger to her. Getting out of bed every morning was pain, walking down the steps was pain, sitting down was pain. Pain was her life as an old woman whose body refused to keep up with her still active mind. So the pain was something she could ignore. The introspective thoughts that were creeping up to her, the ones she usually pushed away though--those were new. She wanted to closer her eyes, turn away from her thoughts (now there was some real pain)--but she could not.
She thought of her parents and how disappointing it had been to her father, the Earl, that his only child had been born a female. How it was so much worse as she was the only child her mother bore before succumbing to the blood loss from the childbirth. The Earl had never forgiven Augusta that, and though he had remarried he had never sired another child. That was somehow her fault as well, Augusta supposed. She had been taught from a very young age that it was always her fault. It was her fault that she had been born a girl, it was her fault her mother had died giving birth to her, it was her fault her stepmother detested her, and it was her fault when her father hit her for not living up to his standards of doing her 'duty' as he called it.
Augusta closed her eyes for a second, her thoughts jumping from her parents to her marriage. Her husband's imposing and handsome face loomed in front of her before she forced her eyes open again, focusing on the hand, willing it to open and close even as her pinky started to tingle as it slowly lost sensation.
Augusta had been a candidate for a Duke's wife because her father could claim a sliver of Saiyan heritage--and her father had guaranteed that she would be the one the Duke would wed. Her father had told her it was her 'duty' to ensure that this happened, and so, at sixteen--she had let the Duke, nearing forty, lure her into an affair. An affair that had ensured she would be pregnant with his child and have his hand in marriage.
She still remembered the chillingly triumphant look on her father's face as he had informed the Duke that she was pregnant. Augusta had been worried that the Duke, who had never shown her any kindness, would refuse her, ruining her forever. But he had not--the Duke was a smart man, and one who knew the scandal of impregnating an Earl's daughter was not one his title or money could save him from. So he had wed her, saving her reputation, and (Augusta had hoped) her from her life of loneliness and misery. But he, like her father, had blamed her for the way their lives had turned out.
Their first child had been a girl, and Augusta had almost died giving birth to the stillborn child, the toll of childbirth weighing heavily on her. The Duke had hardly cared. She had later overheard the maids gossiping about how he had told the doctor that if it was a son he was to save the babe first, his wife second. Her fault, she supposed, to think he could learn to show her the affection she never received from her father.
Augusta had taken that cruel lesson to heart, and had started to realize the only person she could ever depend on for affection and care was herself. No longer would she search for validation or love from outside sources, nor would she be foolhardy enough to give it someone else.
Augusta had grown up after she had recovered from that near death experience--gone were all foolish thoughts of love and happiness, instead replaced with lessons on duty and honor. Her husband may never love her, but she vowed that he would respect her. She birthed him not one but two sons, two sons who had earned the Duke's respect, she made sure of that. She showed them no love, as she did not want them to think that love was a commodity that was to just be given away. It was an illusion thought up by poets and the poor to keep themselves occupied with how distasteful their lives truly were.
Augusta felt her breathing growing labored, pulled from thoughts of her husband as the compression on her chest grew more forceful as if a heavy weight was pressing into her, right at her heart. With a mild sort of panic, she realized her hand was no longer moving. She willed it to move, thinking of nothing but the hand--but it was of no use. The panic she should have felt was instead pushed away as she saw her two sons before her, pulled back into the past as if she were a drowning victim who had lost the strength to stay afloat.
Her older son, Vegeta, had been his father's spitting image--not only in looks but disposition. Respectful, dutiful, hard. She had no fear for him or how he would turn out, and he had not disappointed her. Her younger son, Bardock...well. He had been special. He looked Saiyan, but he was funny, and kind and everything a Saiyan was not supposed to be. And Augusta knew he posed a threat to her well-being. He threatened to break through the layer of steel she had poured around herself, to melt her very heart.
So she had treated him much as her father had treated her.
She had berated and belittled him, and when he had been little she would beat him if she caught him running or laughing or doing any of those things she had been scolded for as a child. He was resilient though, tougher than she had ever been. So she had worked twice as hard, making sure that every time he came to her running or laughing about something he would walk away from her somber or in tears. He needed to learn, much as she had, that he had the respect of family on his shoulders and he could not act like he did. People would see. People would judge. People would break his heart.
She did it to protect him, she told herself. To protect herself from him. She had worked too hard at becoming the woman she was, she did not need him or his affection to distract her.
Augusta thought about her last conversation with her son before he had left on one of their ships that's name touted their Saiyan pride. She knew it was his fault he had gotten on that boat, had taken his family and fled her. She had not approved of the low-nobility woman Bardock had married, and even as his wife birthed him two sons, Augusta refused to call her or her baseborn children family. She had been cold to them, treating them like they were the children of her servants rather than her flesh and blood. The day Bardock had caught her having a two-year old Radditz whipped by a servant for having dare hug her was the day Bardock had finally broken. He had screamed at her, but most of the words faded with time.
Most. Not all.
The words he had softly spoken to her at the end of his anger-fueled ravings had been what had stuck. The anger had left him, and he had looked so sad and drained as he had told her:
I'm sorry I ever made the mistake of loving you mother.
Augusta's eyes grew heavy, the eyelids drooping of their own accord, though she took no notice, the pain of his words hitting her twice as hard now as they had at the time.
I'm sorry I ever made the mistake of thinking you could be loved mother.
So simple, so true--but it had hurt Augusta more than her father's beatings or her husband's coldness ever had.
I'm sorry I let someone like you even meet my wife and children. You are not worthy of them.
His last words were the most simple. But they were the most painful thing anyone had ever said or done to her. Even at the time she had remembered feeling shaken at them, and now they were the only thing she could think of:
You were not worth it. Any of it. I am a fool for thinking otherwise.
With that, Bardock, looking defeated and sickened, had left her. She had never seen him again.
It was then, for the first time since she had heard of Bardock's tragic end that Augusta felt the coldness of real tears seep past her closed eyelids and flow down her face. These were not the crocodile tears she had used on Bulma, but rather tears of regret. Regret as she thought of those last words Bardock had said to her. She realized the one good thing in her life, the one person who had truly cared for her had been lost to her forever--and she could not blame her father, or the Duke for that.
You were not worth it. Any of it. I am a fool for thinking otherwise
Augusta felt herself then, being moved, being lifted, and pulled from her thoughts for a millisecond as someone brought her head up, off the ground. She could hear a dim noise, but it was if she were truly underwater and someone on the surface was speaking to her. Nothing but muffled reverberations reached her, and try as she might she could not open her eyes or move. It's over, Augusta thought, and with that realization she let go.
She felt herself sinking further and further into the inky blackness of vacuity, feelings and thoughts and emotions swimming away from her like fish darting away from a stone thrown into a pond.
One thought remained with her though, one single entity with her as she gasped out her last few breaths. That of her youngest son coming to her through the void. He was as she remembered him best: a smiling youth, bounding up to her with enthusiasm and excitement and love shining bright in his eyes. She could almost smell him--that earthy smell that always belied the fact that he had been climbing trees when he should have been studying. When he reached her, he leapt into her arms--and this time she did not push him away as she had throughout his childhood. Instead Augusta held him close, whispering into that wild hair of his (for the first time in her adult life) an apology, "I'm sorry Bardock." She took a deep breath before she had allowed herself one more truth as she held her son tightly to her, "I do love you."
It was then that Augusta felt herself take her last breath, her life leaving her even as she squeezed the image of her son to her tightly.
~~&~~
Chi-Chi had approached Saiyan Hall for the first time since she had quit her position of head chef, following Goku to the Regency, concern weighing on her heavily. It had been hours and she and the Briefs had yet to hear from him. She felt slightly guilty about lying to them, telling them she was laying down in her private suite for a nap--but this was Goku they were talking about and, well, the last time he had left her like this he had almost married another woman.
So truly, one could not blame her for being anxious and concerned...and lying to her soon to be parents. That was guilt Chi-Chi would save for another time, after making sure Goku was okay (and unmarried to someone else).
As she reached the steps to the impressive front door, Chi-Chi had almost turned away going to the servants' entrance she knew so well before she had stopped. She forced herself to take a deep breath, closing her eyes for a fortifying second and then had walked to the impressive front door she had never used before. Chi-Chi took another deep breath, readying herself for the best (Goku was here! Just eating before he came back to her!) and the worst (Goku was married to someone else! Or dead!) before her fist pounded against the door harder than she had intended. She had winced as she realized how loud she had been, preparing herself to be scolded by Jeffries for mistreating his precious door when he would open it to her.
But the scolding never came--no one came. The door remained steadfastly closed, causing Chi-Chi's forehead to crease in consternation. That was odd. Jeffries was usually at the door within a minute of anyone knocking at it--no matter where he was in the house.
Chi-Chi pursed her lips before she decided to try a (softer) second knock, stopping herself from pounding. Perhaps Jeffries was just going to wait until she knocked properly before he lectured her for being so hard on his door?
The pursed lips puckered further, Chi-Chi unnoticing as the heavy wood door stayed shut. Okay, there was something definitely amiss. To not open a door was against every rule in the Butler handbook, and Jeffries was definitely one to play by the handbook. Was something wrong with Jeffries? Is that why Vegeta had summoned Goku?
Chi-Chi thought about going to the servants entrance, but decided to try one last Hail Mary--the handle of the door itself.
It softly clicked open, and Chi-Chi's heart stopped.
The front door was never, ever, ever left unlocked. Something was definitely amiss.
Chi-Chi's senses--both as a trained warrior, and as a woman who had been through a lot of shit in her life--went on high alert, especially as she cautiously entered the entranceway and found it uncharacteristically empty. She could detect no sounds, no movement not even from the always bustling servant's area--the house was so still she was sure she was the only one in it. "Hello?"
Nothing.
Chi-Chi moved tentatively down the hallway, trying again, "Hello?" She took another step in, "Is anyone here?" A few more steps down the main hallway, "Goku?" A few more steps, "Bulma?" Finally a handful of steps that placed her in the middle of the receiving hallway, "Your Grace?" She gulped when she still heard no reply--the houses only reply the deafening silence that was beginning to engulf her in panic.
But Chi-Chi was strong, so she forced herself to move further in, to keep looking--even as the dread in her stomach threatened to swallow her whole.
It was as she rounded the staircase that Chi-Chi saw the first signs of life--or rather, the first people in the whole house. Two of the servants she recognized--two of the men she had fed every day in her tenure here as head chef, two of the men she had swapped stories and shared holidays with--were both slumped on the floor against the doorframe on either side of the Duke's office. Their unnatural poses, and wide unseeing eyes were the only clues Chi-Chi needed to deduce that these two men were dead.
Chi-Chi ran to them, the only signs of visible struggle the dropped guns by their sides and the two perfectly round bullet holes currently gracing their foreheads.
Chi-Chi's stomach dropped out, and she went into automatic nursing mode as she moved them to check for signs of life, some part of her hoping that they would move their eyes and say, "Surprise!" Though that was of course absurd, Chi-Chi could not help but have a sliver of hope--but no. No faint pulsing in their veins, their skin already growing cold, their bodies stiff. They were gone, both of them. Chi-Chi felt her heart tighten even more, and she stood, frantic, screaming, "GOKU?!"
She heard nothing but the echo of her own voice.
Until....
Chi-Chi ran into the office as the sounds of labored breathing came to her and for the second time that day she found herself frozen as she looked at death, this time in the form of Goku's estranged grandmother. Though, the way her chest was moving let Chi-Chi know that she was not quite dead yet. Chi-Chi rushed to the old woman's side, realizing that the old woman she had served for the past few months had a bullet hole on her right side. While that might not be fatal--it looked as if the bullet wound had gone through a major artery if Chi-Chi had to guess from the amount of blood the woman had spilled onto the Aubusson rug she was currently bleeding onto. Still Chi-Chi did not panic yet, moving the woman so her head was nestled in Chi-Chi's lap.
The dowager's eyes stared sightless, past her, but Chi-Chi could feel warm breath escaping the older woman as she held a hand over the dowagers open mouth. Chi-Chi's voice was a near whisper as she tried to see if she could rouse the woman, "Your Grace, can you hear me?"
But it was too late.
The dowager (though still breathing) had the death rattle in her as she stared unseeing past Chi-Chi, her face losing all color as the blood continued to rush from her wound, onto Chi-Chi's skirts. But Chi-Chi paid no mind, especially as she felt tears on her face, though she had no love lost for this woman--no one deserved to go like this. She had never realized just how small and fragile the woman was. When she was alive, the dowager presented herself as someone to be feared, a strong woman, larger than life. But now, in her arms, Chi-Chi saw tears leaking from the dowager's unclosing eyes--and Chi-Chi wondered how sad and lonely the dowager must have been to have acted as horrid as she did. Chi-Chi could not help that very question from escaping past her lips, "What happened to you to make you like this?"
There was no answer, nor was Chi-Chi expecting one.
She was surprised though when the dowager's mouth opened, her mouth moving as if she were speaking, though no words that Chi-Chi could hear. Her lips stopped for a second, and Chi-Chi felt it. The way her breath rattled, the way her body slackened, the way her eyes finally lost the life behind them. The dowager passed, and Chi-Chi held her for a moment, waiting to see if she would take another breath. But no.
The tears from Chi-Chi's face leaking onto the dowager's papery skin mingling with the tears already there as she stared at the now dead women in her arms, saying all of the prayers she could remember. She hoped that the peace the woman could not find in life she would be able to find in death.
As she said her prayers, a welcome sound reached Chi-Chi. The sounds of life in the house. Footsteps, chattering--all of the usual signs of people residing in this house were returning to it. Wherever the servant's had been--they were all coming back, and they would come upon the dead bodies in just moments. Before pandemonium could break out, Chi-Chi felt herself switch back into head chef mode as she gently placed the dowager's head on the carpet before she rushed to meet the others. She needed to gain control of the situation before people came upon the dead bodies and the whole house was lost to confusion and horror. The eyes of the male footmen who saw her first widened in happy surprise, though her no-nonsense demeanor, and the words she was speaking turned that happy surprise into something else completely, "Everett, Anthony--I don't know what happened here but Christian and Marcus are dead--the dowager too. No sign of anyone else in the house."
To their credit, the footmen only took a second before the nodded, Everett speaking, "Yes mum. Just tell us what to do."
After that it was a whirlwind of activity, Chi-Chi began to direct the other servants, stepping back into the comfortable shoes of being in charge as she ordered the house to be searched for any other clues as to what had happened, to alert the Briefs of what she had found, to make lots of tea and scones as more and more servants returned and were shocked to find two of their own dead. None grieved for the lost dowager.
Chi-Chi did not balk or step down from any of it, even as Jeffries made his way back to the house--this was where she felt useful, this was where she felt comfortable, and here she would stay until she could find where Goku was.
She was just talking with Jeffries in the front hall about whether or not they should involve the constables, or wait for one of the Vegeta's to find their way home (no use in risking scandal) when both of them started at the front door being knocked on. Both blinked in confusion for a second before Chi-Chi beat Jeffries to it, hoping against hope that it would be her fiancé, or his missing sister, or at the very least the Duke. She threw the door open, forgetting her decorum as she opened it, "Goku?!"
It was not Goku standing on the other side of the door--but rather the last person in the entire world Chi-Chi would ever had guessed to be in London. Her heart stopped, squeezing with both fear and affection as she took in the hulking figure who took up the whole stoop of the front door, the familiar ram's horn cap on his head, her face draining as she simply breathed out, "Daddy?"
~~&~~
Bulma awoke on a ship, feeling ready to puke.
She did not even question how she knew she was on a ship as she lay in a comfortable bed--the desire to puke had only ever been this strong on the single other boat trip she had part of. It certainly was not morning sickness--even at its worst, her morning sickness had not reminded her of her time about the Saiyan Lady. This, on the other hand was that teeth grinding, hair-pulling sickness that made her want to kill anyone who came within arm's reach of her.
Which, added on top of her desire to kill the man who had kidnapped her and put her ON A KAMIDAMNED ship--well Bulma just knew that by the end of the day she was going to have some blood on her hands...and it most certainly was not going to be her own.
She made a move to sit up, ready to get the aforementioned murdering done--but found that her hands were tied above her head, bound to the headboard of the rather large bed she was currently prostrate on. Instant panic set in and Bulma bucked expecting her legs to be tied as well--but they were not, as she felt her lower body move and the panic washed away as anger overtook her. They not only kidnapped me they fucking tied me up?
Well fuck this.
Whoever had tied her in--well her restraints felt secure, but that had never stopped her from escaping from being tied up before. She took a moment to ponder when and why she had become an expert on escaping being tied up, and she felt like it had been Goku's fault. Of course it was. Just like her tree climbing abilities, her rope escaping skills were really Goku's doing. When they had been younger (and he had finally outgrown her) Goku had picked up the nasty habit of tying Bulma to trees and leaving her outside as he ate all of their snacks by himself. So, naturally, Bulma had learned all about different types of ropes and knots and how to get oneself out of positions such as the one she currently found herself in. Really she wondered if she should be thanking her brother for his past torture of her....
Focus! Bulma mentally yelled at herself. She needed to concentrate on the here and now, in the present, not on reminiscing about her past. Okay--first step, she needed to see her bound hands, to know what type of knots her captors had used on her. She tugged, realizing that there was only one piece of rope holding both of her hands together, looped around the crown of the headboard. She twisted and saw that whoever had secured her had use a Bowling loop. The more she tugged the tighter it got, which meant she had to be careful--the last thing she needed was to lose all circulation in her hands. She looked at the knot more carefully and felt the beginnings of a smile grace her face as she realized there was no backup knot to secure the one already holding her hands to the headboard.
Whoever had tied her up here had severely underestimated Bulma Vegeta nee Briefs.
And whoever that was, well, they were a fucking idiot.
Bulma took a second to observe her room, to see where she was--judging by the size of the room and the large window that showed her the sea and the setting sun on the horizon--she was in the actual captain's quarters of whatever ship she was on, heading East. She was tied to the captain's bed--and if she had to take a guess, Zarbon was taking her to France. Probably to disappear with her in the countryside somewhere so Vegeta could not find her.
Well that settled it. He who had tied her to the bed was indeed a fucking idiot. Bulma spoke fluent French, and if he even managed to make it to France with her, she would put up the biggest cries and yells in French about how an Englishman was trying to rape her. That was if he did make it all the way to France with her still in his captured possession. Because currently--well a few strategic tugs and she would be free of her ties. Plus--well, she was no damsel in distress--but she had two of the world's strongest men after her, of that she was sure. As soon as they found out that Bulma had been kidnapped (and betrayed by the dowager!), well, there was sure to be hell to pay.
And Bulma fully intended on being around to see said hell being paid. In full. By her husband. Who was surely after her. Surely. Well that was if all went according to plan when confronting Frieze, and Vegeta was not de....
No! You are not allowed to think like that!
Bulma turned her focus back to her bindings, determined not to move from her fastenings until she had a plan, or a better understanding of just where and what she was doing. How long exactly had she been out? How far out from England were they? Where exactly were they sailing too? If she had to guess, she would say they were heading to the closest port in France from London, which was Calais. Vegeta had been in the Navy, Zarbon was well aware of that. The last thing he wanted was to face her husband on open waters. So Bulma's instincts told her that Zarbon would head to land as fast as possible. So Calais it was. The crossing to Calais, depending on weather, could be anywhere from four to ten hours. Which was quite a fucking window, but it was all she had right now.
Bulma forced herself to concentrate, to focus in on everything around her, looking for any signs of what time and where they were. The setting sun let her know it was definitely quite a few hours since Zarbon had taken her from Saiyan Hall, but that gave her no help in knowing if they were close to Calais or not. If her stomach was anything to go off of, though, they were either at high seas or there were large swells around them. A storm approaching perhaps?
Okay, next--what was on the other side of the door that was on the wall opposite the large window she had just been looking out of? If she escaped this room she would bet her bottom dollar it would put her right out on the main deck--which threw a wrench in her plans of somehow sneaking off of a ship. If she opened the door right to the bustle and hustle of the main deck she would not make it through the threshold before being sighted. Plus even if she could sneak off...well, she was on a boat. How would she get away then? She could not just get onto deck and ask for them to turn around--no. Definitely not a good idea.
She had two options. One, she could wait until they docked wherever they were going to go, and escape from Zarbon once they finally did get there. Or, option number two, she would wait until Zarbon came back in and turn the tables on him. She would hold him hostage until he took her back to London.
Option two was her favorite for obvious reasons, but she needed a way to hold him hostage/turn the tables on him. She looked around the room but saw no obvious sharp daggers lying around. Hell not even a hat pin to stick him with. So maybe she would have to forego turning the tables on him--she was pretty damn sure she could never beat him in hand to hand combat. Unless...Bulma pulled against the knots unconsciously, wondering if Zarbon had stripped her of all of her weapons when he had tied her to this bed. When Vegeta had ordered her to the secret office just this morning (Kami, had that really been just this morning?) she had made sure to have a couple of guns and blades stashed about her person just in case...well, just in case this very situation happened. She mentally high fived herself for her good planning skills, before she started to move again. She rocked back and forth, trying to see if anything would fall out of her hidden pockets, but no, nothing. But she was not done yet--she rubbed her thighs together--and felt a smile light her face.
Okay, that bastard had really, really underestimated her. She still had her two knives she had strapped to the inside of her garters. Had he even tried to search her for weapons? Did he seriously just assume she was unarmed? Just who did he take her for?
Someone as foolish as him, that was for damn sure.
Okay, good, his underestimation of her was really working in her favor. She now had a method about how to turn the tables on him--but what then. How loyal was this crew to Zarbon? Were they just a random ship he hired? No--he would not have the captain's quarters then, and he certainly would not have her tied to a bed out in the open when anyone could walk in and see her. They must have been his men. But were they loyal or just well paid? Because whatever he had paid, she could make sure to double or triple it. She was insanely rich and powerful, and damn if she was not going to use that to her advantage.
There were footsteps by the room then, the first she had heard since waking up, and Bulma stopped moving against her constraints, straining her ears to hear. The voices that floated to her were Russian, and Bulma frowned. Okay--that was a snatch in her plan. She was going to guess if the voices were Russian, these were Frieza's men. They would not be easy to buy off. Perhaps she would have to go back to option one, waiting until they reached land to make an escape attempt.
But that made her uneasy, despite her earlier bravado. She would be in another country with no money, nothing of value--except for the blue topaz necklace she always wore the one Vegeta had given her from his mother. She felt weary and even sicker to her stomach at the thought of parting with that gift from Vegeta. She would if she had too, but--it was something so personal from him to her, and what if...what if he did not make it?
Okay--she needed to stop that line of thinking right now. This was not helping anyone, least of all herself.
She listened as the voices drew closer, the door to the chamber opening partially as a hand appeared on the handle, a shoulder visible--and a voice floating to her that she recognized from the night she had overheard Zhelonie and Ginyu talking. It was in Russian--but Bulma never forgot a voice, especially one as important as that one was. She knew it could not be Ginyu--they were abroad somewhere the last Bulma heard from Vegeta, so it must have been Zhelonie.
Bulma frowned as realization hit her. Of course, that explained it. Zhelonie was Zarbon was Viridian. Damn, how had she missed that one? I mean she had doubted him, she had even forwarded his name to Basil once, but it had come back with nothing. His story checked out--did that mean that Frieza or the Colds were converting British nationals to Russian spies? Hmmm, she would need to get that theory to Basil once she escaped.
It did not even cross Bulma's mind that she might not escape. She would escape--the better question was when, or how. Because once she did escape she was going to make sure Zarbon rued the day he ever thought he could capture her.
Zarbon finally stopped speaking right outside of the doorway, and Bulma made sure to lean back on the bed, her face the picture of someone terrified of their situation, trying to imagine what the man would expect her to be like. Probably helpless and weepy. Well she refused to cry fake tears for him, but she could play someone extremely distressed very well, so she would.
Zarbon finally entered the room, twisting into the room with a flourish, as if he was dancing. He looked fucking stupid in her opinion, but Bulma only made herself look confused and afraid. "Bulma, I am quite pleased to see you awake."
Bulma had to fight the urge to roll her eyes, instead keeping them wide, her voice suitably trembling as she asked, "Where are you taking me? What are you going to do with me?"
Zarbon took off his wet coat (wet coat...that storm must be here) and walked straight up to the bed, sitting on the edge of it as he faced her, tapping her on her nose. Bulma had to fight the urge to bite his hand in protest of him fucking tapping her--how dare he deign to touch her! "Don't you worry your pretty little head about it. Leave it to the men to figure it out."
Oh that was it. He was going to die at her hands. And painfully and very slowly.
He was not done yet, though, continuing his brag as he said, "I am the world's greatest spy, so you should know I very much already have something planned."
What a fucking idiot--who the hell admitted to being the world's greatest spy? Still, she gave nothing away as she looked at him, trying to play the role of who he expected her to be. "So you are Zhelonie. How did you get away with it?"
Zarbon shrugged, taking his gloves off one finger at a time as he deposited them on the bed, "I have a shut in cousin whose family immigrated to England before the Revolution. It was quite simple to take his identity. No one had ever really seen him before, and compounded with the fact that I killed him as soon as I arrived in England--well it was quite easy to pretend to be the long shut in Viscount who realized it was time for him to take a season in London, to find a wife." Zarbon picked the gloves up from where they had dropped, before throwing them to a far corner over his shoulder, "You cannot imagine how delighted I was to meet someone as entertaining you--I had you picked out from the first moment I saw you as something special." Zarbon stopped then, delicately putting his hand on the silk stocking that was currently covering Bulma's shin. Bulma, involuntarily kicked her leg, and he looked back up at her smiling.
"That was it, that was exactly what caught my attention. You were feisty. Even underneath your perfectly cultured mask I could tell you were one who thirsted for adventure." His hand moved up, stopping at her knee, and Bulma felt real panic as she realized his hand was only about half a foot away from where her knives were hidden. "I knew I had to have you."
Bulma twisted as best as she could without giving away the fact that she was able to get out of the knots she was in, "No, stop it. I'm married."
Zarbon's hand stopped, his lip curling up in distaste as he looked at her, "Yes, there was that slight hiccup. You had to go and marry the Duke, did you not?" Zarbon's eyes then strayed to Bulma's middle, where her dress revealed the telling bump. Zarbon tutted as he took it in. "But now that I can see it was an actual shotgun wedding--well, I rather think you should be thanking me for taking you away from that awful man."
Bulma felt actual anger prick her skin, losing her damsel in distress act for a second as a steely tone set in, ice in her very words. "You don't know him. Don't you dare speak about him!"
Zarbon's hands went up in a mock pose of innocence, a sardonic smirk on his face, "Oh yes, Vegeta Vegeta, the Duke of Vegetasei. I know nothing about him." He shook his head, the look on his face pure condescension as he continued, "I just know that he entered the navy under a presumed named, rose through the ranks, got captured by Frieza, got sent back to England and has been working as a spy ever since." Her face must have shown her shock at that, because he laughed, daring to tap her nose again, "Do you really not understand how good I am at what I do?"
Bulma fought the urge to slip her hands from her knots then and there so she could strangle him and that stupid smug look off of his face. Still, she said nothing, using all of her willpower to channel her inner Vegeta and show or say nothing.
Zarbon frowned when she said nothing, but continued nonetheless, "Plus your being married is of no consequence. If you were married, you will not be for much longer. If I know Frieza, and I do, Vegeta does not have a chance of surviving this." Zarbon dropped his hands, one on the bed, the other right on the top of Bulma's thigh, only an inch or so from where the knife was strapped to her leg.
Bulma's panic was real as she bucked her hips up, throwing his hand off of her, "Stop it! Don't touch me."
Zarbon chuckled, moving his hand from her thigh, and positioning his body so he was leering right over where she was tied to the bed, "Come now Bulma, you do not have to pretend with me, I am not going to judge you for having been 'soiled,' as those uptight British put it. I want you, and I will have you, one way or the other."
Bulma tried to stay in the act of being scared, but she noticed something as he leant over her, her natural curiosity overpowering her self-preservation. "Zarbon, why is your face running?"
Zarbon's smug face fell, a frown on his face as he moved one of his hands against his skin rubbing it, snarling as he saw flesh colored rouge come off. He moved from her and the bed then, cursing as he went to a vanity in the corner, sitting at it and removing a jar that was hidden in the back. She watched with curiosity as he took some flesh-colored paste out of it, speaking as he expertly and mechanically applied it to his face, "Come now Bulma, you must remember our first conversation. When you brushed your hand against my cheek and saw that I had cover up on?" He looked at her then, their eyes meeting in his mirror, "I told you about the skin discolorations I had?"
Bulma flashed back, remembering thinking how odd it was, "Was that a lie too?"
Zarbon turned then, looking affronted as he put a hand to his chest, the very picture of innocence. "Why Bulma, you're going to have to learn to trust me." He paused turning back to the mirror, admitting, "I was born with a condition that leaves me weak if I do not eat enough red meat. Not only that, but it leaves me with a quite distinctive green skin tint." Zarbon finished applying his rouge, and stood, coming to stand next to her by the bed, looking down at her, "When I realized I was going to be a spy, I knew the last thing I wanted was to have some sort of abnormality that would make me stand out from everyone else, especially when I was trying to fade away." Zarbon chuckled then, once again putting a hand on her leg, "It did stick with me though, and all of my names seem to relate to it--come now Bulma, I thought you were well educated. Surely you know Viridian to mean green in French. Though I would not expect you to realize that Zhelonie means green in Russian." He chuckled then. "Silly girl."
Bulma could not help it--no one insulted her intelligence and got away with it, especially not as many times as he had without her skinning them alive. "You can shove it up your ass you green skinned freak!"
Zarbon moved then, fast, covering her whole body with his own, his body pressed into hers as his legs settled into the vee of her body, trapping her underneath him. She expected him to yell, but instead his voice was low, deadly. "You don't get to talk to me like that, Bulma. Your life is in my hands. Frieza has declared that I give you to him, but I get to decide if that happens." He moved his face closer, close enough that his breath fanned against her face as he whispered, "I would be nice to me if I were you."
His close proximity, the rolling of the ship--Bulma did not have to fake the derision and nausea she felt. She must have looked it too because Zarbon quickly reared back as she told him, "I'm going to be sick."
He moved fast and Bulma turned as best as she could to vomit in the (thankfully empty) chamber pot on the side of the bed, whatever contents that had been in her stomach gone. When Bulma finally stopped retching, she wiped ineffectually at her mouth with the arm of her dress. When she finally rolled back up, she saw Zarbon standing on the far side of the room, eyeing her distastefully. "Perhaps I should leave you alone for the rest of this trip. We hit some headwinds and have about six hours until we reach land, and I'd rather reach Calais without someone else's vomit on me." With that he scrambled from the room as if fearing she might give chase after him.
Bulma's glare was real as she watched him go, though she dropped the act as soon as he was gone, hearing him lock the door behind him, her thinking cap on. Okay, this was good. She got some real information. He was seriously dumb enough to tell her almost everything. They were heading to Calais, they were six hours from French land--which meant they were only about three or four hours outside of Britain. She frowned as she considered trying to sneak out to get a lifeboat--but she threw that plan out. She could not rowboat her way back to England or ahead to France--and the last thing she wanted was to be stranded at sea, especially in a storm.
No, what she needed to do was get out of her bindings, and rig a signal using the mirror and the numerous candles Zarbon had littered about his room. She knew it was raining, but she hoped someone else would be on the sea--if she signaled them, maybe she could get another ship to stop her and help her. She just hoped that Morse code had made its way to the continent--it was rather new in America, but Bulma knew just enough to signal for help. And dammit if she was not going to use that to help her escape.
Even Bulma realized how weak that plan sounded, but she knew the best way to escape was to act--not sit and think.
She only hoped whoever stopped to help her was smarter than the idiot currently holding her hostage
~~&~~
A/N: If you expected Bulma to be scared here--well, I don't think Bulma's fear manifests itself as actual fear. She seems like the type to express fear as anger. I mean, think back to all the yelling. We also had some reveals--Ox King is back! Bardock was the dowager's favorite! Bardock was also extremely OOC! My bad guys...I wanted someone like Goku, who could actually melt someone's heart.
As for the dowager--I am not trying to make you pity the woman, as she made some horrible calls/choices in her life and in this story. But...well villains are not born, and I thought it would be interesting to see what you guys thought if I humanized her just a bit at the end. Let me know what you think!
Until next time xx
Warnings: Cussing. Violence. All the good stuff you would expect from a kidnapped Bulma.
A/N: I don't know whether or not to be concerned that most of you were singing 'ding dong the witch is dead' when the dowager got shot in the last chapter. I'm going to go with not, and instead be flattered that I could write a character who you guys could so viscerally hate. Thank you to all of the reviewers who made me laugh with your reactions--I live off of those on some days, I really do. This chapter is mostly unbetaed, so you know, go easy on the grammar and stuff. Or not. Just know to take it out on me this time.
Kattastropi, I hope you're feeling better!
Chapter Forty-Three: How to Make a Villain
Augusta was unaware of how much time had passed since she had been shot. All she was aware of was the carpet pressing into her side as she lay, curled in the position the bullet had crumpled her to. Everything was growing fuzzy, darkening at the edges of her sigh, but using sheer will, she was keeping her eyes open and focused on the hand she could see in front of her. She was using all of her strength on forcing herself to flex her fingers even as she felt her life leaving her, leaking out of her as fast as the blood she felt seeping out from her stomach where the bullet had ripped into her body.
For some reason, some small part of Augusta thought that if she could just keep her fingers curling in, then out, in, then out, perhaps she would live long enough for one of the servants to come back and find her. Get her the medical attention she would clearly need. Otherwise, well the alternative was that she would die as she had lived her very life.
Alone.
Kami, even now she hated how cold that word made her feel. Some small, cynical part of her thought that this is what she deserved, reminding her that she had been alone for most of her life. Even now, as death crept closer, her breathing was her only companion as she flexed her hand. Give in the voice told her give up. But she ignored that voice, willing the hand to open, then close.
Augusta knew she must be in immeasurable pain, but she was almost eighty years old and pain was no stranger to her. Getting out of bed every morning was pain, walking down the steps was pain, sitting down was pain. Pain was her life as an old woman whose body refused to keep up with her still active mind. So the pain was something she could ignore. The introspective thoughts that were creeping up to her, the ones she usually pushed away though--those were new. She wanted to closer her eyes, turn away from her thoughts (now there was some real pain)--but she could not.
She thought of her parents and how disappointing it had been to her father, the Earl, that his only child had been born a female. How it was so much worse as she was the only child her mother bore before succumbing to the blood loss from the childbirth. The Earl had never forgiven Augusta that, and though he had remarried he had never sired another child. That was somehow her fault as well, Augusta supposed. She had been taught from a very young age that it was always her fault. It was her fault that she had been born a girl, it was her fault her mother had died giving birth to her, it was her fault her stepmother detested her, and it was her fault when her father hit her for not living up to his standards of doing her 'duty' as he called it.
Augusta closed her eyes for a second, her thoughts jumping from her parents to her marriage. Her husband's imposing and handsome face loomed in front of her before she forced her eyes open again, focusing on the hand, willing it to open and close even as her pinky started to tingle as it slowly lost sensation.
Augusta had been a candidate for a Duke's wife because her father could claim a sliver of Saiyan heritage--and her father had guaranteed that she would be the one the Duke would wed. Her father had told her it was her 'duty' to ensure that this happened, and so, at sixteen--she had let the Duke, nearing forty, lure her into an affair. An affair that had ensured she would be pregnant with his child and have his hand in marriage.
She still remembered the chillingly triumphant look on her father's face as he had informed the Duke that she was pregnant. Augusta had been worried that the Duke, who had never shown her any kindness, would refuse her, ruining her forever. But he had not--the Duke was a smart man, and one who knew the scandal of impregnating an Earl's daughter was not one his title or money could save him from. So he had wed her, saving her reputation, and (Augusta had hoped) her from her life of loneliness and misery. But he, like her father, had blamed her for the way their lives had turned out.
Their first child had been a girl, and Augusta had almost died giving birth to the stillborn child, the toll of childbirth weighing heavily on her. The Duke had hardly cared. She had later overheard the maids gossiping about how he had told the doctor that if it was a son he was to save the babe first, his wife second. Her fault, she supposed, to think he could learn to show her the affection she never received from her father.
Augusta had taken that cruel lesson to heart, and had started to realize the only person she could ever depend on for affection and care was herself. No longer would she search for validation or love from outside sources, nor would she be foolhardy enough to give it someone else.
Augusta had grown up after she had recovered from that near death experience--gone were all foolish thoughts of love and happiness, instead replaced with lessons on duty and honor. Her husband may never love her, but she vowed that he would respect her. She birthed him not one but two sons, two sons who had earned the Duke's respect, she made sure of that. She showed them no love, as she did not want them to think that love was a commodity that was to just be given away. It was an illusion thought up by poets and the poor to keep themselves occupied with how distasteful their lives truly were.
Augusta felt her breathing growing labored, pulled from thoughts of her husband as the compression on her chest grew more forceful as if a heavy weight was pressing into her, right at her heart. With a mild sort of panic, she realized her hand was no longer moving. She willed it to move, thinking of nothing but the hand--but it was of no use. The panic she should have felt was instead pushed away as she saw her two sons before her, pulled back into the past as if she were a drowning victim who had lost the strength to stay afloat.
Her older son, Vegeta, had been his father's spitting image--not only in looks but disposition. Respectful, dutiful, hard. She had no fear for him or how he would turn out, and he had not disappointed her. Her younger son, Bardock...well. He had been special. He looked Saiyan, but he was funny, and kind and everything a Saiyan was not supposed to be. And Augusta knew he posed a threat to her well-being. He threatened to break through the layer of steel she had poured around herself, to melt her very heart.
So she had treated him much as her father had treated her.
She had berated and belittled him, and when he had been little she would beat him if she caught him running or laughing or doing any of those things she had been scolded for as a child. He was resilient though, tougher than she had ever been. So she had worked twice as hard, making sure that every time he came to her running or laughing about something he would walk away from her somber or in tears. He needed to learn, much as she had, that he had the respect of family on his shoulders and he could not act like he did. People would see. People would judge. People would break his heart.
She did it to protect him, she told herself. To protect herself from him. She had worked too hard at becoming the woman she was, she did not need him or his affection to distract her.
Augusta thought about her last conversation with her son before he had left on one of their ships that's name touted their Saiyan pride. She knew it was his fault he had gotten on that boat, had taken his family and fled her. She had not approved of the low-nobility woman Bardock had married, and even as his wife birthed him two sons, Augusta refused to call her or her baseborn children family. She had been cold to them, treating them like they were the children of her servants rather than her flesh and blood. The day Bardock had caught her having a two-year old Radditz whipped by a servant for having dare hug her was the day Bardock had finally broken. He had screamed at her, but most of the words faded with time.
Most. Not all.
The words he had softly spoken to her at the end of his anger-fueled ravings had been what had stuck. The anger had left him, and he had looked so sad and drained as he had told her:
I'm sorry I ever made the mistake of loving you mother.
Augusta's eyes grew heavy, the eyelids drooping of their own accord, though she took no notice, the pain of his words hitting her twice as hard now as they had at the time.
I'm sorry I ever made the mistake of thinking you could be loved mother.
So simple, so true--but it had hurt Augusta more than her father's beatings or her husband's coldness ever had.
I'm sorry I let someone like you even meet my wife and children. You are not worthy of them.
His last words were the most simple. But they were the most painful thing anyone had ever said or done to her. Even at the time she had remembered feeling shaken at them, and now they were the only thing she could think of:
You were not worth it. Any of it. I am a fool for thinking otherwise.
With that, Bardock, looking defeated and sickened, had left her. She had never seen him again.
It was then, for the first time since she had heard of Bardock's tragic end that Augusta felt the coldness of real tears seep past her closed eyelids and flow down her face. These were not the crocodile tears she had used on Bulma, but rather tears of regret. Regret as she thought of those last words Bardock had said to her. She realized the one good thing in her life, the one person who had truly cared for her had been lost to her forever--and she could not blame her father, or the Duke for that.
You were not worth it. Any of it. I am a fool for thinking otherwise
Augusta felt herself then, being moved, being lifted, and pulled from her thoughts for a millisecond as someone brought her head up, off the ground. She could hear a dim noise, but it was if she were truly underwater and someone on the surface was speaking to her. Nothing but muffled reverberations reached her, and try as she might she could not open her eyes or move. It's over, Augusta thought, and with that realization she let go.
She felt herself sinking further and further into the inky blackness of vacuity, feelings and thoughts and emotions swimming away from her like fish darting away from a stone thrown into a pond.
One thought remained with her though, one single entity with her as she gasped out her last few breaths. That of her youngest son coming to her through the void. He was as she remembered him best: a smiling youth, bounding up to her with enthusiasm and excitement and love shining bright in his eyes. She could almost smell him--that earthy smell that always belied the fact that he had been climbing trees when he should have been studying. When he reached her, he leapt into her arms--and this time she did not push him away as she had throughout his childhood. Instead Augusta held him close, whispering into that wild hair of his (for the first time in her adult life) an apology, "I'm sorry Bardock." She took a deep breath before she had allowed herself one more truth as she held her son tightly to her, "I do love you."
It was then that Augusta felt herself take her last breath, her life leaving her even as she squeezed the image of her son to her tightly.
~~&~~
Chi-Chi had approached Saiyan Hall for the first time since she had quit her position of head chef, following Goku to the Regency, concern weighing on her heavily. It had been hours and she and the Briefs had yet to hear from him. She felt slightly guilty about lying to them, telling them she was laying down in her private suite for a nap--but this was Goku they were talking about and, well, the last time he had left her like this he had almost married another woman.
So truly, one could not blame her for being anxious and concerned...and lying to her soon to be parents. That was guilt Chi-Chi would save for another time, after making sure Goku was okay (and unmarried to someone else).
As she reached the steps to the impressive front door, Chi-Chi had almost turned away going to the servants' entrance she knew so well before she had stopped. She forced herself to take a deep breath, closing her eyes for a fortifying second and then had walked to the impressive front door she had never used before. Chi-Chi took another deep breath, readying herself for the best (Goku was here! Just eating before he came back to her!) and the worst (Goku was married to someone else! Or dead!) before her fist pounded against the door harder than she had intended. She had winced as she realized how loud she had been, preparing herself to be scolded by Jeffries for mistreating his precious door when he would open it to her.
But the scolding never came--no one came. The door remained steadfastly closed, causing Chi-Chi's forehead to crease in consternation. That was odd. Jeffries was usually at the door within a minute of anyone knocking at it--no matter where he was in the house.
Chi-Chi pursed her lips before she decided to try a (softer) second knock, stopping herself from pounding. Perhaps Jeffries was just going to wait until she knocked properly before he lectured her for being so hard on his door?
The pursed lips puckered further, Chi-Chi unnoticing as the heavy wood door stayed shut. Okay, there was something definitely amiss. To not open a door was against every rule in the Butler handbook, and Jeffries was definitely one to play by the handbook. Was something wrong with Jeffries? Is that why Vegeta had summoned Goku?
Chi-Chi thought about going to the servants entrance, but decided to try one last Hail Mary--the handle of the door itself.
It softly clicked open, and Chi-Chi's heart stopped.
The front door was never, ever, ever left unlocked. Something was definitely amiss.
Chi-Chi's senses--both as a trained warrior, and as a woman who had been through a lot of shit in her life--went on high alert, especially as she cautiously entered the entranceway and found it uncharacteristically empty. She could detect no sounds, no movement not even from the always bustling servant's area--the house was so still she was sure she was the only one in it. "Hello?"
Nothing.
Chi-Chi moved tentatively down the hallway, trying again, "Hello?" She took another step in, "Is anyone here?" A few more steps down the main hallway, "Goku?" A few more steps, "Bulma?" Finally a handful of steps that placed her in the middle of the receiving hallway, "Your Grace?" She gulped when she still heard no reply--the houses only reply the deafening silence that was beginning to engulf her in panic.
But Chi-Chi was strong, so she forced herself to move further in, to keep looking--even as the dread in her stomach threatened to swallow her whole.
It was as she rounded the staircase that Chi-Chi saw the first signs of life--or rather, the first people in the whole house. Two of the servants she recognized--two of the men she had fed every day in her tenure here as head chef, two of the men she had swapped stories and shared holidays with--were both slumped on the floor against the doorframe on either side of the Duke's office. Their unnatural poses, and wide unseeing eyes were the only clues Chi-Chi needed to deduce that these two men were dead.
Chi-Chi ran to them, the only signs of visible struggle the dropped guns by their sides and the two perfectly round bullet holes currently gracing their foreheads.
Chi-Chi's stomach dropped out, and she went into automatic nursing mode as she moved them to check for signs of life, some part of her hoping that they would move their eyes and say, "Surprise!" Though that was of course absurd, Chi-Chi could not help but have a sliver of hope--but no. No faint pulsing in their veins, their skin already growing cold, their bodies stiff. They were gone, both of them. Chi-Chi felt her heart tighten even more, and she stood, frantic, screaming, "GOKU?!"
She heard nothing but the echo of her own voice.
Until....
Chi-Chi ran into the office as the sounds of labored breathing came to her and for the second time that day she found herself frozen as she looked at death, this time in the form of Goku's estranged grandmother. Though, the way her chest was moving let Chi-Chi know that she was not quite dead yet. Chi-Chi rushed to the old woman's side, realizing that the old woman she had served for the past few months had a bullet hole on her right side. While that might not be fatal--it looked as if the bullet wound had gone through a major artery if Chi-Chi had to guess from the amount of blood the woman had spilled onto the Aubusson rug she was currently bleeding onto. Still Chi-Chi did not panic yet, moving the woman so her head was nestled in Chi-Chi's lap.
The dowager's eyes stared sightless, past her, but Chi-Chi could feel warm breath escaping the older woman as she held a hand over the dowagers open mouth. Chi-Chi's voice was a near whisper as she tried to see if she could rouse the woman, "Your Grace, can you hear me?"
But it was too late.
The dowager (though still breathing) had the death rattle in her as she stared unseeing past Chi-Chi, her face losing all color as the blood continued to rush from her wound, onto Chi-Chi's skirts. But Chi-Chi paid no mind, especially as she felt tears on her face, though she had no love lost for this woman--no one deserved to go like this. She had never realized just how small and fragile the woman was. When she was alive, the dowager presented herself as someone to be feared, a strong woman, larger than life. But now, in her arms, Chi-Chi saw tears leaking from the dowager's unclosing eyes--and Chi-Chi wondered how sad and lonely the dowager must have been to have acted as horrid as she did. Chi-Chi could not help that very question from escaping past her lips, "What happened to you to make you like this?"
There was no answer, nor was Chi-Chi expecting one.
She was surprised though when the dowager's mouth opened, her mouth moving as if she were speaking, though no words that Chi-Chi could hear. Her lips stopped for a second, and Chi-Chi felt it. The way her breath rattled, the way her body slackened, the way her eyes finally lost the life behind them. The dowager passed, and Chi-Chi held her for a moment, waiting to see if she would take another breath. But no.
The tears from Chi-Chi's face leaking onto the dowager's papery skin mingling with the tears already there as she stared at the now dead women in her arms, saying all of the prayers she could remember. She hoped that the peace the woman could not find in life she would be able to find in death.
As she said her prayers, a welcome sound reached Chi-Chi. The sounds of life in the house. Footsteps, chattering--all of the usual signs of people residing in this house were returning to it. Wherever the servant's had been--they were all coming back, and they would come upon the dead bodies in just moments. Before pandemonium could break out, Chi-Chi felt herself switch back into head chef mode as she gently placed the dowager's head on the carpet before she rushed to meet the others. She needed to gain control of the situation before people came upon the dead bodies and the whole house was lost to confusion and horror. The eyes of the male footmen who saw her first widened in happy surprise, though her no-nonsense demeanor, and the words she was speaking turned that happy surprise into something else completely, "Everett, Anthony--I don't know what happened here but Christian and Marcus are dead--the dowager too. No sign of anyone else in the house."
To their credit, the footmen only took a second before the nodded, Everett speaking, "Yes mum. Just tell us what to do."
After that it was a whirlwind of activity, Chi-Chi began to direct the other servants, stepping back into the comfortable shoes of being in charge as she ordered the house to be searched for any other clues as to what had happened, to alert the Briefs of what she had found, to make lots of tea and scones as more and more servants returned and were shocked to find two of their own dead. None grieved for the lost dowager.
Chi-Chi did not balk or step down from any of it, even as Jeffries made his way back to the house--this was where she felt useful, this was where she felt comfortable, and here she would stay until she could find where Goku was.
She was just talking with Jeffries in the front hall about whether or not they should involve the constables, or wait for one of the Vegeta's to find their way home (no use in risking scandal) when both of them started at the front door being knocked on. Both blinked in confusion for a second before Chi-Chi beat Jeffries to it, hoping against hope that it would be her fiancé, or his missing sister, or at the very least the Duke. She threw the door open, forgetting her decorum as she opened it, "Goku?!"
It was not Goku standing on the other side of the door--but rather the last person in the entire world Chi-Chi would ever had guessed to be in London. Her heart stopped, squeezing with both fear and affection as she took in the hulking figure who took up the whole stoop of the front door, the familiar ram's horn cap on his head, her face draining as she simply breathed out, "Daddy?"
~~&~~
Bulma awoke on a ship, feeling ready to puke.
She did not even question how she knew she was on a ship as she lay in a comfortable bed--the desire to puke had only ever been this strong on the single other boat trip she had part of. It certainly was not morning sickness--even at its worst, her morning sickness had not reminded her of her time about the Saiyan Lady. This, on the other hand was that teeth grinding, hair-pulling sickness that made her want to kill anyone who came within arm's reach of her.
Which, added on top of her desire to kill the man who had kidnapped her and put her ON A KAMIDAMNED ship--well Bulma just knew that by the end of the day she was going to have some blood on her hands...and it most certainly was not going to be her own.
She made a move to sit up, ready to get the aforementioned murdering done--but found that her hands were tied above her head, bound to the headboard of the rather large bed she was currently prostrate on. Instant panic set in and Bulma bucked expecting her legs to be tied as well--but they were not, as she felt her lower body move and the panic washed away as anger overtook her. They not only kidnapped me they fucking tied me up?
Well fuck this.
Whoever had tied her in--well her restraints felt secure, but that had never stopped her from escaping from being tied up before. She took a moment to ponder when and why she had become an expert on escaping being tied up, and she felt like it had been Goku's fault. Of course it was. Just like her tree climbing abilities, her rope escaping skills were really Goku's doing. When they had been younger (and he had finally outgrown her) Goku had picked up the nasty habit of tying Bulma to trees and leaving her outside as he ate all of their snacks by himself. So, naturally, Bulma had learned all about different types of ropes and knots and how to get oneself out of positions such as the one she currently found herself in. Really she wondered if she should be thanking her brother for his past torture of her....
Focus! Bulma mentally yelled at herself. She needed to concentrate on the here and now, in the present, not on reminiscing about her past. Okay--first step, she needed to see her bound hands, to know what type of knots her captors had used on her. She tugged, realizing that there was only one piece of rope holding both of her hands together, looped around the crown of the headboard. She twisted and saw that whoever had secured her had use a Bowling loop. The more she tugged the tighter it got, which meant she had to be careful--the last thing she needed was to lose all circulation in her hands. She looked at the knot more carefully and felt the beginnings of a smile grace her face as she realized there was no backup knot to secure the one already holding her hands to the headboard.
Whoever had tied her up here had severely underestimated Bulma Vegeta nee Briefs.
And whoever that was, well, they were a fucking idiot.
Bulma took a second to observe her room, to see where she was--judging by the size of the room and the large window that showed her the sea and the setting sun on the horizon--she was in the actual captain's quarters of whatever ship she was on, heading East. She was tied to the captain's bed--and if she had to take a guess, Zarbon was taking her to France. Probably to disappear with her in the countryside somewhere so Vegeta could not find her.
Well that settled it. He who had tied her to the bed was indeed a fucking idiot. Bulma spoke fluent French, and if he even managed to make it to France with her, she would put up the biggest cries and yells in French about how an Englishman was trying to rape her. That was if he did make it all the way to France with her still in his captured possession. Because currently--well a few strategic tugs and she would be free of her ties. Plus--well, she was no damsel in distress--but she had two of the world's strongest men after her, of that she was sure. As soon as they found out that Bulma had been kidnapped (and betrayed by the dowager!), well, there was sure to be hell to pay.
And Bulma fully intended on being around to see said hell being paid. In full. By her husband. Who was surely after her. Surely. Well that was if all went according to plan when confronting Frieze, and Vegeta was not de....
No! You are not allowed to think like that!
Bulma turned her focus back to her bindings, determined not to move from her fastenings until she had a plan, or a better understanding of just where and what she was doing. How long exactly had she been out? How far out from England were they? Where exactly were they sailing too? If she had to guess, she would say they were heading to the closest port in France from London, which was Calais. Vegeta had been in the Navy, Zarbon was well aware of that. The last thing he wanted was to face her husband on open waters. So Bulma's instincts told her that Zarbon would head to land as fast as possible. So Calais it was. The crossing to Calais, depending on weather, could be anywhere from four to ten hours. Which was quite a fucking window, but it was all she had right now.
Bulma forced herself to concentrate, to focus in on everything around her, looking for any signs of what time and where they were. The setting sun let her know it was definitely quite a few hours since Zarbon had taken her from Saiyan Hall, but that gave her no help in knowing if they were close to Calais or not. If her stomach was anything to go off of, though, they were either at high seas or there were large swells around them. A storm approaching perhaps?
Okay, next--what was on the other side of the door that was on the wall opposite the large window she had just been looking out of? If she escaped this room she would bet her bottom dollar it would put her right out on the main deck--which threw a wrench in her plans of somehow sneaking off of a ship. If she opened the door right to the bustle and hustle of the main deck she would not make it through the threshold before being sighted. Plus even if she could sneak off...well, she was on a boat. How would she get away then? She could not just get onto deck and ask for them to turn around--no. Definitely not a good idea.
She had two options. One, she could wait until they docked wherever they were going to go, and escape from Zarbon once they finally did get there. Or, option number two, she would wait until Zarbon came back in and turn the tables on him. She would hold him hostage until he took her back to London.
Option two was her favorite for obvious reasons, but she needed a way to hold him hostage/turn the tables on him. She looked around the room but saw no obvious sharp daggers lying around. Hell not even a hat pin to stick him with. So maybe she would have to forego turning the tables on him--she was pretty damn sure she could never beat him in hand to hand combat. Unless...Bulma pulled against the knots unconsciously, wondering if Zarbon had stripped her of all of her weapons when he had tied her to this bed. When Vegeta had ordered her to the secret office just this morning (Kami, had that really been just this morning?) she had made sure to have a couple of guns and blades stashed about her person just in case...well, just in case this very situation happened. She mentally high fived herself for her good planning skills, before she started to move again. She rocked back and forth, trying to see if anything would fall out of her hidden pockets, but no, nothing. But she was not done yet--she rubbed her thighs together--and felt a smile light her face.
Okay, that bastard had really, really underestimated her. She still had her two knives she had strapped to the inside of her garters. Had he even tried to search her for weapons? Did he seriously just assume she was unarmed? Just who did he take her for?
Someone as foolish as him, that was for damn sure.
Okay, good, his underestimation of her was really working in her favor. She now had a method about how to turn the tables on him--but what then. How loyal was this crew to Zarbon? Were they just a random ship he hired? No--he would not have the captain's quarters then, and he certainly would not have her tied to a bed out in the open when anyone could walk in and see her. They must have been his men. But were they loyal or just well paid? Because whatever he had paid, she could make sure to double or triple it. She was insanely rich and powerful, and damn if she was not going to use that to her advantage.
There were footsteps by the room then, the first she had heard since waking up, and Bulma stopped moving against her constraints, straining her ears to hear. The voices that floated to her were Russian, and Bulma frowned. Okay--that was a snatch in her plan. She was going to guess if the voices were Russian, these were Frieza's men. They would not be easy to buy off. Perhaps she would have to go back to option one, waiting until they reached land to make an escape attempt.
But that made her uneasy, despite her earlier bravado. She would be in another country with no money, nothing of value--except for the blue topaz necklace she always wore the one Vegeta had given her from his mother. She felt weary and even sicker to her stomach at the thought of parting with that gift from Vegeta. She would if she had too, but--it was something so personal from him to her, and what if...what if he did not make it?
Okay--she needed to stop that line of thinking right now. This was not helping anyone, least of all herself.
She listened as the voices drew closer, the door to the chamber opening partially as a hand appeared on the handle, a shoulder visible--and a voice floating to her that she recognized from the night she had overheard Zhelonie and Ginyu talking. It was in Russian--but Bulma never forgot a voice, especially one as important as that one was. She knew it could not be Ginyu--they were abroad somewhere the last Bulma heard from Vegeta, so it must have been Zhelonie.
Bulma frowned as realization hit her. Of course, that explained it. Zhelonie was Zarbon was Viridian. Damn, how had she missed that one? I mean she had doubted him, she had even forwarded his name to Basil once, but it had come back with nothing. His story checked out--did that mean that Frieza or the Colds were converting British nationals to Russian spies? Hmmm, she would need to get that theory to Basil once she escaped.
It did not even cross Bulma's mind that she might not escape. She would escape--the better question was when, or how. Because once she did escape she was going to make sure Zarbon rued the day he ever thought he could capture her.
Zarbon finally stopped speaking right outside of the doorway, and Bulma made sure to lean back on the bed, her face the picture of someone terrified of their situation, trying to imagine what the man would expect her to be like. Probably helpless and weepy. Well she refused to cry fake tears for him, but she could play someone extremely distressed very well, so she would.
Zarbon finally entered the room, twisting into the room with a flourish, as if he was dancing. He looked fucking stupid in her opinion, but Bulma only made herself look confused and afraid. "Bulma, I am quite pleased to see you awake."
Bulma had to fight the urge to roll her eyes, instead keeping them wide, her voice suitably trembling as she asked, "Where are you taking me? What are you going to do with me?"
Zarbon took off his wet coat (wet coat...that storm must be here) and walked straight up to the bed, sitting on the edge of it as he faced her, tapping her on her nose. Bulma had to fight the urge to bite his hand in protest of him fucking tapping her--how dare he deign to touch her! "Don't you worry your pretty little head about it. Leave it to the men to figure it out."
Oh that was it. He was going to die at her hands. And painfully and very slowly.
He was not done yet, though, continuing his brag as he said, "I am the world's greatest spy, so you should know I very much already have something planned."
What a fucking idiot--who the hell admitted to being the world's greatest spy? Still, she gave nothing away as she looked at him, trying to play the role of who he expected her to be. "So you are Zhelonie. How did you get away with it?"
Zarbon shrugged, taking his gloves off one finger at a time as he deposited them on the bed, "I have a shut in cousin whose family immigrated to England before the Revolution. It was quite simple to take his identity. No one had ever really seen him before, and compounded with the fact that I killed him as soon as I arrived in England--well it was quite easy to pretend to be the long shut in Viscount who realized it was time for him to take a season in London, to find a wife." Zarbon picked the gloves up from where they had dropped, before throwing them to a far corner over his shoulder, "You cannot imagine how delighted I was to meet someone as entertaining you--I had you picked out from the first moment I saw you as something special." Zarbon stopped then, delicately putting his hand on the silk stocking that was currently covering Bulma's shin. Bulma, involuntarily kicked her leg, and he looked back up at her smiling.
"That was it, that was exactly what caught my attention. You were feisty. Even underneath your perfectly cultured mask I could tell you were one who thirsted for adventure." His hand moved up, stopping at her knee, and Bulma felt real panic as she realized his hand was only about half a foot away from where her knives were hidden. "I knew I had to have you."
Bulma twisted as best as she could without giving away the fact that she was able to get out of the knots she was in, "No, stop it. I'm married."
Zarbon's hand stopped, his lip curling up in distaste as he looked at her, "Yes, there was that slight hiccup. You had to go and marry the Duke, did you not?" Zarbon's eyes then strayed to Bulma's middle, where her dress revealed the telling bump. Zarbon tutted as he took it in. "But now that I can see it was an actual shotgun wedding--well, I rather think you should be thanking me for taking you away from that awful man."
Bulma felt actual anger prick her skin, losing her damsel in distress act for a second as a steely tone set in, ice in her very words. "You don't know him. Don't you dare speak about him!"
Zarbon's hands went up in a mock pose of innocence, a sardonic smirk on his face, "Oh yes, Vegeta Vegeta, the Duke of Vegetasei. I know nothing about him." He shook his head, the look on his face pure condescension as he continued, "I just know that he entered the navy under a presumed named, rose through the ranks, got captured by Frieza, got sent back to England and has been working as a spy ever since." Her face must have shown her shock at that, because he laughed, daring to tap her nose again, "Do you really not understand how good I am at what I do?"
Bulma fought the urge to slip her hands from her knots then and there so she could strangle him and that stupid smug look off of his face. Still, she said nothing, using all of her willpower to channel her inner Vegeta and show or say nothing.
Zarbon frowned when she said nothing, but continued nonetheless, "Plus your being married is of no consequence. If you were married, you will not be for much longer. If I know Frieza, and I do, Vegeta does not have a chance of surviving this." Zarbon dropped his hands, one on the bed, the other right on the top of Bulma's thigh, only an inch or so from where the knife was strapped to her leg.
Bulma's panic was real as she bucked her hips up, throwing his hand off of her, "Stop it! Don't touch me."
Zarbon chuckled, moving his hand from her thigh, and positioning his body so he was leering right over where she was tied to the bed, "Come now Bulma, you do not have to pretend with me, I am not going to judge you for having been 'soiled,' as those uptight British put it. I want you, and I will have you, one way or the other."
Bulma tried to stay in the act of being scared, but she noticed something as he leant over her, her natural curiosity overpowering her self-preservation. "Zarbon, why is your face running?"
Zarbon's smug face fell, a frown on his face as he moved one of his hands against his skin rubbing it, snarling as he saw flesh colored rouge come off. He moved from her and the bed then, cursing as he went to a vanity in the corner, sitting at it and removing a jar that was hidden in the back. She watched with curiosity as he took some flesh-colored paste out of it, speaking as he expertly and mechanically applied it to his face, "Come now Bulma, you must remember our first conversation. When you brushed your hand against my cheek and saw that I had cover up on?" He looked at her then, their eyes meeting in his mirror, "I told you about the skin discolorations I had?"
Bulma flashed back, remembering thinking how odd it was, "Was that a lie too?"
Zarbon turned then, looking affronted as he put a hand to his chest, the very picture of innocence. "Why Bulma, you're going to have to learn to trust me." He paused turning back to the mirror, admitting, "I was born with a condition that leaves me weak if I do not eat enough red meat. Not only that, but it leaves me with a quite distinctive green skin tint." Zarbon finished applying his rouge, and stood, coming to stand next to her by the bed, looking down at her, "When I realized I was going to be a spy, I knew the last thing I wanted was to have some sort of abnormality that would make me stand out from everyone else, especially when I was trying to fade away." Zarbon chuckled then, once again putting a hand on her leg, "It did stick with me though, and all of my names seem to relate to it--come now Bulma, I thought you were well educated. Surely you know Viridian to mean green in French. Though I would not expect you to realize that Zhelonie means green in Russian." He chuckled then. "Silly girl."
Bulma could not help it--no one insulted her intelligence and got away with it, especially not as many times as he had without her skinning them alive. "You can shove it up your ass you green skinned freak!"
Zarbon moved then, fast, covering her whole body with his own, his body pressed into hers as his legs settled into the vee of her body, trapping her underneath him. She expected him to yell, but instead his voice was low, deadly. "You don't get to talk to me like that, Bulma. Your life is in my hands. Frieza has declared that I give you to him, but I get to decide if that happens." He moved his face closer, close enough that his breath fanned against her face as he whispered, "I would be nice to me if I were you."
His close proximity, the rolling of the ship--Bulma did not have to fake the derision and nausea she felt. She must have looked it too because Zarbon quickly reared back as she told him, "I'm going to be sick."
He moved fast and Bulma turned as best as she could to vomit in the (thankfully empty) chamber pot on the side of the bed, whatever contents that had been in her stomach gone. When Bulma finally stopped retching, she wiped ineffectually at her mouth with the arm of her dress. When she finally rolled back up, she saw Zarbon standing on the far side of the room, eyeing her distastefully. "Perhaps I should leave you alone for the rest of this trip. We hit some headwinds and have about six hours until we reach land, and I'd rather reach Calais without someone else's vomit on me." With that he scrambled from the room as if fearing she might give chase after him.
Bulma's glare was real as she watched him go, though she dropped the act as soon as he was gone, hearing him lock the door behind him, her thinking cap on. Okay, this was good. She got some real information. He was seriously dumb enough to tell her almost everything. They were heading to Calais, they were six hours from French land--which meant they were only about three or four hours outside of Britain. She frowned as she considered trying to sneak out to get a lifeboat--but she threw that plan out. She could not rowboat her way back to England or ahead to France--and the last thing she wanted was to be stranded at sea, especially in a storm.
No, what she needed to do was get out of her bindings, and rig a signal using the mirror and the numerous candles Zarbon had littered about his room. She knew it was raining, but she hoped someone else would be on the sea--if she signaled them, maybe she could get another ship to stop her and help her. She just hoped that Morse code had made its way to the continent--it was rather new in America, but Bulma knew just enough to signal for help. And dammit if she was not going to use that to help her escape.
Even Bulma realized how weak that plan sounded, but she knew the best way to escape was to act--not sit and think.
She only hoped whoever stopped to help her was smarter than the idiot currently holding her hostage
~~&~~
A/N: If you expected Bulma to be scared here--well, I don't think Bulma's fear manifests itself as actual fear. She seems like the type to express fear as anger. I mean, think back to all the yelling. We also had some reveals--Ox King is back! Bardock was the dowager's favorite! Bardock was also extremely OOC! My bad guys...I wanted someone like Goku, who could actually melt someone's heart.
As for the dowager--I am not trying to make you pity the woman, as she made some horrible calls/choices in her life and in this story. But...well villains are not born, and I thought it would be interesting to see what you guys thought if I humanized her just a bit at the end. Let me know what you think!
Until next time xx