Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ The Prince and Princess Diaries ❯ Onegai Tasukete! ( Chapter 12 )

Author's Note: Please, please, please review!!!!

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Chapter Twelve: Onegai Tasukete! (Please Help!)

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Vegeta-sei

City of Versai

One week later

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"Son, you must come home. I do not know how many times I have told you, but you cannot keep putting it off. It is your duty as a prince and husband."

Vegeta frowned deeply at the room-encompassing screen picturing the aging man. His father was looking formidable as usual, but also distraught in an odd sort of way. Vegeta had always hated his father, but the sensation quickly growing in his stomach gave him an odd feeling. He did not like it.

"So what exactly is so important that I must return posthaste to Vegeta-sei? You're acting as if the planet wasn't thriving, there are plagues killing everyone in sight, and the Saiya-jin throne is in jeopardy."

The king cleared his throat nervously, and at the sight of sweat breaking out on his father's forehead, Vegeta felt his stomach twist into a violent knot. This sensation finally caused the young prince to jump out of his comfortable commander's chair and stride with angry steps toward the enormous screen. "What are you saying?" Vegeta demanded, a glare forming on his handsome face. "Are you trying to tell me that there is something wrong, because if there is, just spit it out, old man!! I am sick of your riddles and subtle attempts to tell me something. Tell me now before I go insane!"

King Vegeta frowned, but did not scold his disrespectful son, for there were much more important things to talk about. "Vegeta, it is hard to explain. We do not know exactly what is wrong, only that all the women are being plagued by some deadly killing virus. Your mother-"

"What about my wife?" Vegeta said eagerly, nearly twitching with the need to know about her state of health. He wondered briefly if he would rather hear about her death or her thriving continuance of life.

"Your wife," King Vegeta said, "is at this moment, one of the very few healthy women left on this planet. At this rate she will be the only one surviving."

Vegeta scowled, flinging his fist toward the nearest thing, which happened to be his always-close second-in-command, Nappa. The older man flew to the floor, but immediately got back up with a pained look on his ugly old man's face.

"Why is that stupid girl child still surviving? She should have been the first to goddamn die, the weak pathetic homely creature!" He did not say aloud that she was so horribly hideous that she should have died from complete terror when she looked at herself in her own mirror.

King Vegeta shook his regal kingly head, not a strand of flaming black hair moving out of place. "No, Vegeta. This...virus, this plague, only affects Saiya-jin women."

Vegeta paled at this, something in his chest constricting painfully, unexpectedly. "How is...how is my mother, the queen?"

The expression that developed slowly on the king's face only meant one thing. Vegeta seized the screen and shook it as if it was a living being and he wanted it to die. "Tell me now, damn it! Is she alright? Is she ill? Tell me!!!"

The king could not meet his son's eyes, for he knew if Vegeta were to see them, his son would see just how much of this was affecting him. How could he tell him but bluntly and painfully?

"She is dying, Vegeta."

Vegeta threw himself away from the offending screen picturing his abhorrent father. Covering his face with his callused hands, he fought back emotions he had never felt before. His stomach twisted, his legs felt wobbly, his heart and mind felt like a tsunami had just wrecked havoc upon them. He had never admitted how much his mother meant to him, but anyone seeing the anguish he was now suffering knew. His heart was being ripped asunder.

"No...there is no fucking way my mother is ill." He lifted his head to glare at the pathetic view of his grieving father. "It is not possible. She has never been sick her whole life. Why now?" He needed explanations, and he needed them now.

The king shook his head, and his son wondered briefly if he was half-witted. "I do not know. It appears that she has actually been ill for a while, ever since the day she fainted, which was a little more than a year ago."

Vegeta did not question the fainting thing, for a sudden flash of bright royal blue silk crossed the screen and drew his attention. The king was also drawn away, and Vegeta could see his father talking to someone, obviously a woman, off the side of the screen. Vegeta tried leaning so he could see, but the screen showed no more. He desperately wanted to see for some reason, but he did not know why. Nor did he understand how in a time like this how he could be distracted by a pretty face.

The king mumbled something unintelligible to the woman, but he had a happy smile on his face, something that his son gawked at. His father leaned down and kissed the cheek of the woman, and Vegeta wondered briefly if his father had taken up a mistress and was having a clandestine affaire d'amour. The hidden woman giggled lightly and disappeared, and Vegeta could have sworn he saw a glance of blue hair....

"Well, Vegeta, it appears that-"

The screen started flickering, and then disappeared altogether. This caused Vegeta to turn to Nappa in anger, which in turn looked back at a young man who said something about growing power failure.

Vegeta nearly yelled in frustration. "What is going on?" he demanded, striding over to the young man who watched the power controls and nearly ripping him away.

The young man looked frantic. "Um...your highness, it appears that we have 80% power failure, and increasing."

Almost at the same time, four sweaty, dirty men burst through the command deck door, breathing heavily. They bowed immediately, and the oldest moved forward to speak.

"Your majesty, if you have been wondering why-"

"Get on with it!!!!" Vegeta yelled, nearly beside himself in anger. How was this happening?

"We have almost 100% engine failure," the man said, hoping that the ruthless prince would not take his life when he saw the vein throbbing in his forehead.

Vegeta started pacing back and forth, trying to think. The old man's life was the last thing on his mind.

"Why?" he asked, still pacing.

"Well, sir," the man said, trembling, "after a certain amount of years in space, an engine can only last so long without any repairs, um...sir."

Vegeta nodded stupidly. "Alright. So do we have enough engine power to get us back home?"

The old man nodded. "I'm pretty sure we do, your highness, but no more than that. We're trying our hardest to keep it together as it is."

Vegeta wanted to kill something. He dismissed the men from the engine room and ordered them to do what they could to make the engine hold together. The men nodded and left, leaving Vegeta and the few higher-ranking members of his crew on the command deck. He looked out a distant window, watching stars flash by, and snorted. He did not want to go home, but it seemed like there was nothing he could do. The possible death of his mother and a dying engine both seemed to be pushing him towards his worst nightmare: his wife. He would be forced to see, to be with his child bride, the one with no breasts, no hips, no curves, no womanly displays whatsoever. He shuddered in disgust.

After contemplating any possible getaways and not discovering any, to his dismay, Vegeta straightened.

"Reroute the current course and head straight for Vegeta-sei. Make no stops and avoid any and all hostilities." He growled to himself, and plopped back down in his captain's chair. "We're going home."

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Bulma smiled brightly at her father-in-law, and then giggled when he kissed her on the cheek with fatherly adoration. She strode away, but stopped when she heard him give a frustrated sigh and saw him come towards her out of the corner of her eye.

He moved over to her, giving orders to the two men controlling the viewing screen to shut it off, but keep a constant vigil for any messages from his idiotic son.

After giving his quick orders, he looped his arm through his daughter-in-law's and escorted her away.

Bulma cocked a charming eyebrow. "So, what did your son have to say about...everything?"

King Vegeta shook his head. "The boy is young and stubborn and full of himself. He does not wish to come home, even after what I told him. With his stupidity, he will ruin Vegeta-sei when he comes to power."

Bulma nodded sadly, for she knew why Vegeta refused to come home. She blinked back tears, but held her emotions in check and did not express them, for she knew she would be showing a weakness that she did not want known.

The king looked down at the lovely profile of the future queen of Vegeta-sei. He stopped, wanting to say something when he saw the troubled look on her face.

"Bulma, I want you to know that if something were to happen to Vegeta, that I would make sure everything was alright for you. You would not want for anything, nor need anything. I would give you whatever you wanted, even if you wanted to go across the galaxy."

Bulma immediately thought of home, of beautiful Anausia-sei, but she knew that would never happen, even in her wildest fantasies. She nodded. "Thank you, your highness. You have no idea how much that means to me."

He smiled. "Do not worry, my dear. Now, let us go check on the queen."

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Southern Quadrant of the Universe

On the ship of Prince Vegeta

1 month later

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"Nappa, I have a question."

The second in command gulped, for he did not like the look on the younger man's evilly smiling face. They were so close to home, only one month away, it would be a shame if he would die now after all this time.

"Yes, your exaltedness?"

Prince Vegeta glared at the older, weaker man. "A while ago, quite a long time ago in fact, you mentioned something about my mother being ill. How did you know?" This had better be good.

Nappa tried not to pale, but he knew he did when he felt the blood drain from his face. Vegeta cocked an interested eyebrow at the sight of his second-in-command panicking.

"Well, your highness, it's hard to explain. You see, many of the men, including myself, wanted to go home. I just made up an excuse that I thought would convince you to bring us home. That is all, your highness. Nothing that bad, you see?"

Vegeta smirked, mischief in his black eyes. "You do realize, Nappa, that if I had decided to return to Vegeta-sei and my mother had not been ill, that I would have killed you without a second thought?"

Nappa nodded pathetically. "Yes, your majesty, I realized this, but I just wanted to go home."

The handsome prince snorted rudely and flung up his hand. "You sound like a pathetic weanling wanting a suckle from his mother's breast. You are excused."

Nappa nodded and bowed, quickly leaving. He was lucky he had got off so easily.

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Bulma calmly stroked Hokora's hand, humming a lovely tune that Chichi and herself had made up as little innocent girls. Hokora's raspy breathing slowed to almost nothing, and when Bulma went to shake her, it leaped up again into harsh, liquidy breaths, and then went back to the normal rasping with a sigh. Bulma let out a ragged, haggard breath, and started humming again with tears in her grief-filled eyes.

Every day she would visit her mother-in-law, for hours on end, just stroking her pale, veiny hand, and humming. Sometimes she would talk to her cheerfully about her day, trying her absolute hardest to sound happy, but knowing that she did not. She tried to do what she could, but she knew, as well as everyone else did, that it was wholly worthless.

Bulma's watery blue eyes looked down at the once lovely visage of the prone woman. Her Saiya-jin black eyes were dull, lifeless...dead. Her once beautiful black hair, her pride and joy, now hung in oily strings about her face, which was hollow, pale, and transparent. Her lips were dried and cracked, nearly the same color as her skin. Bulma remembered with a smile how the queen would drive her husband up the wall by licking her once luscious, red lips, and send the king into a fit because she was teasing him and he was busy.

The sudden knock on the door signaled that her watch was over and it was now Chichi's turn. Bulma nodded to her best friend, but did not say anything. Chichi did the same.

The young Saiya-jin princess walked down the empty corridors, noticing the stillness in the air since everything had changed. No women were about, for they were either dead, dying, or quarantined. Only men were around, but even they were few, for so many were in mourning.

Just this morning, the weekly death count for the planet had been released, raising the pervious week's death count from 328,976 to 563,987. Over a half million women were dead.

Bulma shuddered in spite of herself and wrapped her arms around herself as if there were a chill in the air. She wished there was something she could do, but even with all her brains, she did not know what to do. She knew there had to be a cure, but what? Who would know what to do? Who was smart enough to challenge this harrowing plague?

She stopped in her tracks as realization dawned on her.

Her father.

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Author's Note: YAY!!!! So maybe her father will come and save everyone, including Hokora!!! And yay, everything will be all better because then Vegeta will come home and Bulma and him will fall MADLY and DEEPLY and PASSIONATELY in love, and then they'll pop out a few babies and there ya go. But we all know as well as I do that I have to make everyone SUFFER and there has to be a lot of BLOOD, DEATH, and DESTRUCTION before I'll permit a happy ending. So what do you think is going to happen? Tell me, I want to hear!! Thanks!!