Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Unfaithful ❯ Part Four: 29 ( Chapter 29 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

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........................................................................ ...........Rhapsody~*



________________________~*Part Four*~: War
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Magdalene was crazy, Vejita told himself. She would have to be, to come to him with a straight face and expect him to believe such stories. She'd lost her throne, her power, and it had driven her off the edge of stability, therefore creating these ridiculous little fantasies in her head. Yet, looking at her back as she was 'escorted' from the room by his guards, he could not bring himself to believe that his mother was crazed. There had been something in her eyes, in her voice that told this to him...

Oh, who the hell was he trying to fool? Vejita scowled as his inner voice berated his actions. What Magdalene had claimed had probably been almost completely truthful, because she had never been one to make up lies, even in the most dire of situations. And besides that, some of her statements rang true. Yes, he was losing his grip on himself, and he was struggling for control of his primal anger, but he hadn't gone over the edge quite yet, and that was what was important. If his own mother couldn't trust him, then who the hell would?

Unaccustomed to this uncertainty and loss of confidence, the prince-- no, king-- did not know what to think. So, as he usually did, he brushed the feelings aside to examine later (as in never). And this was well done, because just then his head scientist, Turles, and what looked to be a human with grotesquely transparent skin and large, unblinking orange eyes strode into the room, each bowing to the new king.

"Sorry to go against your orders of privacy, Vejita-sama, but the ambassador from planet Malydor just arrived with urgent news," Turles explained, gesturing to the alien man beside him. "This is Prince Valyn, the eldest son of the king."

"We've met," Vejita responded with a conspiring half-smile. And what a meeting it had been. They had been introduced to each other when he and his parents had went on a diplomatic trip to Valyn's industrial planet just barely a year before his father's death, and the two equally mischevious boys had hit it off instantly. They shared the same love of battle and controversy, and weren't afraid to show it when necessary. Valyn had a temper on him, but there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he would replace his wise father as a good king when the time came. Vejita had sent for him knowing that he would aid him in this war not just for diplomatic reasons, but for his own pleasure. "And I'm glad to see that you've decided to join in on the fun, Valyn."

The other man grinned. "When we received your message, we were overjoyed. My father sent me as soon as a ship could be sent out."

"I had expected as much. You always were up to a good fight."

Turles cleared his throat, clearly indicating that the two royals begin talking business. Luckily, he too had met Valyn before, or else the interupption would have been unacceptable. Though somewhat reluctantly, Vejita changed the subject of the conversation. The head scientist, who had looked uncomfortable with the two men's informal banter, looked relieved.

"I've called for your help because I will require weapons," Vejita informed the prince, stepping off his throne and leading the men to the table where all of the documents regarding the war had been placed. "The humans are pathetically weak, but they possess a multitude of technology that would enable them to stand their ground against us, and I cannot allow that. I want complete domination over them, no questions asked."

"I have heard much about these humans since all of this mess began," Valyn said with a sideways glance at Vejita. It was clear that he was wondering on his affair with the human queen. "I hear that their queen is something else."

"Something else!" the scientist suddenly squeaked. "That's the world's biggest understatement..."

The other men merely stared at him oddly, then proceeded with their conversation.

"She's the power behind King Yamcha, I understand," Valyn continued. "If it were not for their love of her, the people would rebel."

"The natives will be easily moved over to our side with a small amount of explanation on her behalf," Vejita speculated. "But I don't want to take any chances. Yamcha may be a fool, but anger is a strong motivation."

Valyn, the deeper meaning of Vejita's words not beyond him, glared at his fellow monarch suspciously. "What exactly are you planning to do, Vejita? Because I don't think that my father sent me to help with a war declared over a mere argument."

"Are you insinuating that I am wrong to go to war?"

Turles drew in his breath nervously. The last thing that they needed was the loss of a potentially powerful ally like Malydor, especially a loss due to Vejita's infamous temper. Valyn soon proved that he had more faith than that, however.

"Of course not, my friend," Valyn assured him quietly, placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. It was now obvious that he had heard all about the affair, and the circumstances. "I myself have recently found a mate, and I think that I can understand how you feel. If I lost her..." His voice trailed off as he contemplated the depressing circumstances. "It would be like losing myself."

"You couldn't even begin to understand," Vejita snapped in response, his black eyes guarded.

"I can't if you won't let me, sire," Valyn responded. A heavy silence fell over them as each man struggled with himself, then it was broken by Valyn once again. "But let us push the personal matters aside. We have a war to orchestrate."

Vejita was slow to respond, but after a moment he smirked, and the guarded look in his eyes diminished somewhat. He turned to the documents and maps spread out before them. "See if you can make any sense of all of this shit, and then we'll see where we are." Then he turned away to examine a map of Earth's capital city, absorbed in the task.

Turles took a bold look over at Valyn, and met the man's exotic orange eyes. It was clear that Valyn was helping them more from compassion to an old friend than for political reasons, and for that, Turles felt a new respect for this alien man. In him and his kind, true honor could be found. Kami forbid there come a time when they would need that honor. Valyn offered a conspiring smile, and Turles knew that he would speaking on this further with the man later.

"You-- scientist!" the foreign prince called to the nervous Saiyan who lingered nearby. "Come here and explain to me the meaning of these symbols."

"Those, Highness? They represent the topographical..."

Turles tuned them out and instead inconspicuously studied Vejita, who was studying on his own silently, like a man with no options left. In his face Turles saw something that he had seen before, expect on the face of the prince's father-- vengeance. The new Saiyan King would stop at nothing to exact his revenge on Yamcha and the humans, there was no doubt about that, but just how far would he be willing to go? How many people would have to be killed before his Saiyan bloodlust was satisfied?

"Turles!" Vejita's voice brought Turles' mind back to the present. "Stop daydreaming and get something done! What do you think this is, a tea party?"

Turles frowned as he shuffled through papers, trying to find something to occupy himself with. Oh, how he wished that Vejita's sarcastic statement were true.
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"I hope that you're quite proud of yourself."

Yamcha looked up from his overwhelming stack of papers at the intruder, running a frustrated hand through his already tousled hair. He had been poring over the written plans of his advisors and war planners all morning, and it had done nothing for his temper. The Saiyans could attack at any moment, and here he was, reading.

"Good morning, Lady Briefs," he greeted irritably. "What do you mean? I would appreciate it if you just got right to the point. As you can see, I'm kind of busy."

"You know what I'm talking about, you dolt!" the noblewoman scolded, lifting her skirts just off the floor and crossing the room. Her facial expression relayed that she was also not in a pleasant mood. "That was quite an act that you put on last night at the party. I'm not sure that it was necessary, however."

Yamcha snorted. "All this time, and you're deciding to worry about your daughter's feelings now?"

"This has nothing to do in the least with her feelings!" the woman exclaimed, putting angry hands on her hips. "I could care less how she feels about the matter! What I'm worried about is what the courtiers are going to think! Who do you suppose is funding this war, Your Highness?"

"I don't see what they have to object to. They've been witnessing me and Bulma's... relationship and all its terms for years now, and they've never protested before."

Lady Briefs slammed a hand down on the desk-- the most unladylike thing Yamcha had ever seen her do-- and glared at the man levelly. "You fool, that's because back then, they weren't giving you their precious money, nor were they putting their lives at risk! Any instability in you or Bulma is going to effect their views on the war situation. They're worried enough as it is."

"Let them worry," Yamcha said with a careless wave of his hand. "What they think is of no concern to me."

A delicately arched eyebrow was raised. "You could have a rebellion on your hands soon, if you get used to thinking that way."

"What would you have me do?" Yamcha demanded, throwing down his papers in a fit of indignance. "The men are discouraged! They are up against an infamously dangerous enemy, and their motivation was down. They needed the boost. It will pay off in the long run, I assure you."

"Don't feed me those lies," Lady Briefs snapped. "You did that for your own entertainment and pleasure!"

"Oh? And what have you been doing all these years?" Yamcha challenged her. "What were all of those years of pushing Bulma at me, of arranging our marriage, of conspiring with me against her, hm? Don't tell me that all of that was for the public good!"

Lady Briefs made an attempt at restraint, but did not succeed. Her face went from cool and calculating to an expression that exploded with years of unbridled frustration and vengeance. "The little bitch deserved it! She had it coming! You all don't seem to understand! Until she came along-- by accident, I assure you-- I was the most beautiful woman in court! Me! I was! And then she started to grow up, and... and they all forgot about me! About me! Suddenly everyone was talking about my precious little daughter and how 'gorgeous' she was! 'She's going to become legendary', they said! 'Men will come from all over the universe to court her and make her their queen'! And what about me? Like hell they cared about me anymore! Suddenly, I woke up and I was the aged housewife of a Kami-damned scientist! A blubbering, absent-minded man with no good social standing at all! I've been suffering for years now, you ignorant ass! I'm just recovering what's been taken from me!"

Yamcha looked bewildered for a moment, then remembered himself and moved to the lady's side, placing a calming hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, my lady-- you'll get your revenge soon enough. When I smother that Saiyan bastard, I'll be sure to have you there so that you can savor the look on Bulma's face."

The older woman fought to smile, imagining that moment. "In the meantime, Yamcha, please make sure that you think before you let your testosterone take over."

"Yesterday's event was completely necessary," Yamcha argued. "The men were ready to fucking give up and go home! But when I brought Bulma out, you should have seen their change of mood. As a matter of fact, I had to dispatch several of my best men among their camps to keep their enthusiasm in check."

Lady Briefs at last managed a real smile. "Did you? That's nice to hear. So there is hope for us?"

"Hope?" Yamcha repeated incredulously. "There was always hope!"

"You're lying again. Everyone knows that the Saiyan brutes are almost unbeatable."

"Not when they're up against a people like us! They may be physically superior, but we have something that they don't-- technology. We have guns that can penetrate their ki shields and kill them with a single shot. Don't worry yourself, milady-- the planet is in capable hands." Yamcha sounded like he was trying to convince himself, but the stressed noblewoman took no heed to that. They had to win, in her view, and she wouldn't even let herself imagine it happening any other way. Overconfidently, Yamcha continued on. "If Vejita was capable of putting aside his idiotic pride for a moment, he would realize that he could just enlist the help of another planet for that, but don't worry-- I know him too well to even think of that."

"Know him, do you?" Lady Briefs started coldly. "Then why didn't you predict that he would go after Bulma? Seems to me that if you can know that he won't ask for help, then you should have been able to tell from the moment their affair began."

Yamcha's glare would have been enough to cause a lesser woman to back away, but Lady Briefs was not timid. "I'm not telepathic, Lady Briefs, and believe me, if there had been a way to prevent it from happening..."

"Where is Bulma now?" the woman asked, clearly sick of the topic. The deviousness of the seemingly normal woman's mind never ceased to surprise Yamcha, so he was caught off guard, still thinking about her previous question.

"She's being held in our rooms," Yamcha answered vaguely. "I've posted guards outside the doors and locked the balcony as well so that she can't attempt anything hasty."

"You'll hardly need any of that by now," Lady Briefs mused. "The girl is too far gone. If you opened up the doors of the palace and asked her to leave, she probably wouldn't even hear you."

Yamcha knew that the relationship between mother and daughter wasn't the best, but he just couldn't see any mother being that cold, not even Lady Briefs. If he had possessed a heart, he might have felt sorry for Bulma. "That doesn't seem to bother you."

"Like I said, Your Highness, the silly girl deserves every moment of misery that I can put her through."

The tight set of her jaw warned Yamcha not to push her any further, so he didn't. He might have been overconfident, but he wasn't entirely stupid. "Did you come here just to harass me about last night, Lady Briefs? Because if you did, I really have to get back to my papers, you know, because there's a war going on right now--"

"You may be the king of this planet, Yamcha, but remember who pays the bills and revises your dim-witted plans," Lady Briefs scolded, lifting her aristocratic chin even higher, if that was possible. "Do you really think that I would waste my precious time on such a mediocre question? I also came to find out what you are planning to do when the Saiyans attack."

Yamcha hesitated, glancing down at the stacks of papers before him. "Well, I... I was planning on..."

"Dear Kami," the woman breathed in disbelief. "Are you trying to say that you don't have a battle plan yet?"

"Of course not! We have multiple ideas already-- its just that we can never be sure of how the Saiyans will attack, and each battle plan is for a separate situation. It would take hours for me to explain it all to you. And besides, if the other nobles caught wind of you learning the battle plans..."

"Rubbish," she scoffed. "Everyone knows that I have been included in matters of the crown ever since you and Bulma were married, and they wouldn't dare say anything about it."

There was silence as Yamcha scrambled to think of something to tell her about the half-finished war plans and Lady Briefs awaited his answer impatiently.

"How about this, milady," Yamcha finally proposed. "While I organize all of these ideas for you, you can go and look in on my wife and make sure that she hasn't stopped breathing or something drastic like that. Does that sound appropriate?"

Lady Briefs eyed him from down her nose for a second, her cornflower blue eyes calculating. Then, after what seemed like hours, she broke the gaze and exited the room without so much as a muttered word.

After she left, Yamcha breathed a heavy sigh of relief because, as he 'forgotten' to point out, he didn't have a single completed plan to show her.
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Meanwhile, Bulma lay alone on she and Yamcha's large bed, utterly motionless save for the miniscule rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. Yamcha had not been gentle with her the night before. It had been as if he were trying to make up for all the lost time that she had spent with Vejita and not him. Had she even cared to examine herself, she would have found bruises on her inner thighs and small stains of blood on the sheets beneath her. But she didn't care.

Yamcha had posted guards to keep her from escaping, but there was really no need. If she had been able to get past her soreness and crawl off of the bed, the guards might have been necessary, but she wouldn't have even thought to try. Her once clear and sharp blue eyes were clouded over, staring blindly ahead. She looked not at the ceiling, but rather into a different world. The guards, chilled to the bone by her zombie-like appearance and apparent vacancy, had long since inched away from the bed to stare from a safe distance.

When Lady Briefs knocked on the door, the sound registered in Bulma's mind, but then was filed away in the recesses of her brain. The girl didn't even flinch, and her eyes remained honed in to her private world.

"Leave us for a moment," the noblewoman barked at the guards. The men hesitated, uncertain whether to disobey their king or this infamously volatile woman. Wisely, after a death glare from Lady Briefs, they left the room.

If the woman felt any remorse at all for her daughter, she didn't show it. She walked over to the bed where her daughter lay wearing a rather bored expression, in fact. With a sigh, she sat down on the edge and studied the girl through smoldering eyes.

"Can you hear me, girl?" she asked the still form.

Bulma didn't move. The pattern of her breathing didn't even vary at her mother's words.

Lady Briefs' mouth twisted into a disapproving frown. "I realize that you can hear me, though you might not show it. Pretend all that you want, because I am going to speak whether you reply or not." Still no response. It sounded as if she didn't truly believe her words, but was rather speaking to satisfy her own self. "Your husband seems to think that I owe you a bit of compassion, which I find to be quite ironic, considering your peculiar relationship. At any rate, this little conversation is the most compassion that I am going to show you."

If the woman been looking at her daughter as she spoke, she would have noticed a slight twitch of one of the queen's eyes, but she was not. The small response went unnoticed.

"Every woman should know how she came to be, don't you think?" Lady Briefs continued in a reluctant voice. "Judging from the stories of you and that Saiyan prince, and by the blood on your sheets--" She eyed the offending stains with distaste. "I won't have to explain how you were conceived, but I do owe you the story of how your father and I came to be together." The older woman looked down at her bejeweled fingers, stalling momentarily. "Our marriage was not one of choice, at least not on my part. You see, at the time, my father was struggling to conceal our family's debt, and it seemed that the only way that it could be covered was for me to marry a man-- a wealthy man." The light blue eyes stared off into the past, much like her daughter's had been before the twitch. Now, Bulma seemed to be on the borderline between consciousness and dreamland. "I could have had nearly any man that I wanted, of course, being the court beauty, but not just any nobleman would do. This man had to be easy to manipulate, and frightfully loyal, because the knowledge of my debt could never be allowed to become public. It seemed that there was no such man to fit the bill, and just when I was beginning to lose hope, I ran across the court scientist at a banquet. That scientist was your father, and from the moment that I met him I knew that he was the one man who could satisfy all of the requirements for the marriage."

Bulma's eyes had cleared, and she stared up at the ceiling now, listening silently to her mother's story. She wasn't sure where the story was going, but she did know that somewhere along the line her mother had probably heartlessly manipulated her father-- and enjoyed it.

"He was taken with me, of course, though he was a bit surprised that I deemed him worthy to speak to. It wasn't long before I had him twisted around my little finger, ready to come running at my every beck and call." Lady Briefs smiled at the 'pleasant' memory. "I didn't love him, of course-- I didn't even really like the man, actually. He was your typical genius-- scatterbrained and far from civilized. Its a wonder that I survived our courtship, let alone our marriage. But anyway, on the night of the wedding, I had a little bit too much to drink-- which was understandable, considering that I was being wed to an unsophisticated fool against my will-- and when we went to his rooms, I let him consummate our marriage, and that is how you came to be."

The woman glanced down at her daughter, but missed the aware glint in her blue eyes. She didn't even know her daughter well enough to tell the difference. Lifting her chin, she continued on.

"I never wished for nor wanted a child, most especially not a girl, who would hamper my social status and take up all of my time in her upbringing. If I had had it my way, I would have miscarried, or bore a male. At least then your father would have had to worry about it and not I," she said, her voice completely devoid of any emotion even resembling compassion. "After you were born, I was still as beautiful as I was before, but I had to hide my leftover weight with corsets and the like. I've never fully regained my figure, either. But even with those flaws, no one could hold a candle to me." The woman smiled wistfully, then her face hardened into a mask of jealousy and anger. "Then you grew up. Your features were more delicate, more refined, more approachable. While I had a stubborn look to me that scared many away, your face resembled that of an angel, calling people to you. You were simply ethearal, they told me, as if you had been carved right from the stars of heaven."

Inside, Bulma flinched at her mother's steely voice. The woman hated her-- truly hated her with every fiber of her pathetic being. And she wondered, had any of the Saiyan mothers back on Vejitasei hated their children just because they were better looking?

"I hated you then, and I hate you now!" Lady Briefs ranted on. It was clear that she did not think that Bulma could hear her, or else she wouldn't have let herself get out of hand. Now she was practically yelling into Bulma's unresponsive face. "If it had not been for your father doting on you every second, I would have smothered you in your cradle and rid myself of you once and for all!" Her hands clasped together as if she were imagining snuffing the life out of the helpless infant even now. "You are the one that they all talk about, you are the one that all the men want, even now that I am single again! Kami, even the barbarian Saiyans couldn't resist you! And for that, you must suffer."

Lady Briefs then struggled to regain her cool composure and stood, brushing off her demure dark skirts as she did. "You will never be reunited with your Saiyan prince again, even if I have to kill you myself. Never will I allow a rival to taste the happiness that I could not have, do you hear? Never." Then she left, leaving Bulma alone with her guards once again.

Had she looked a little closer, she would have seen the only evidence of Bulma's consciousness herself-- two trails of tears running down the pale cheeks, two bits of crystallized agony.
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Rhapsody~*
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(A/N): So now you have some insight into why Lady Briefs is so... evil. Her wounds have been festering for far too long, don't you think? Will this agony ever end? Not if Rhapsody has anything to do with it! ^_~ I'm not sure when the next chapter will be out, so I'll post my best guess on my profile later. Its just that Halloween is coming up, and I've got so many things coming up... Anyway, please review and tell me what you think! Love you all...

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