Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Wherever You Will Go ❯ Ch 10 ( Chapter 10 )

Chapter 10

Run away with my heart

Run away with my hope

Run away with my love

The next levels were, for Bulma, a blur of fighting of gore that did not change. Well, except for the demons and the tactics used. Vegeta easily took care of the guardians to levels five, six, and seven, being his usual cocky, mocking self. They were now walking through what Bulma supposed to be the eighth level, hunting out the guardian to it in order to get to level nine and the portal.

Hell has been defined as the place or state of punishment for the wicked after death. Philosophers and theologians, from time immortal, have debated and wondered at this one, four-letter, ambiguous word. Whether it be Hades, Sheol, the Underworld, or the Pit, Hell conveys images of fire and blood, bodies writhing in a torturous pain that can never be eased. The reality, perhaps, will be much more horrifying than any image.

Where Bulma stood there was no fire, no blood. Bulma walked through a void that was full of nothing. There were no bodies. The weight of loneliness, the heavy silence that draped over everything, the unchanging aspect of her surroundings, the lack of distractions; it was these things that were the torture to her.

All of them caused her to look inward. The loneliness forced her to wonder at the reasons she was lonely. She had friends, but none of them would understand the real her, the one that was harsh and cold; that was overwhelmed constantly by life. The silence forced her to listen to a little voice that nagged and prodded at her faults. She was too bold, too obstinate, too trusting, and too selfish. And the black surroundings felt terrifyingly proper. They seemed to fit who she was, who she was always meant to be.

She looked at her companion out of the corner of her eye. But she wasn't alone, the silence could be broken, and there was something to fill the void. Then there were the distractions.

Chuckling out of the shadows drew both Bulma and Vegeta out of their reverie and toward the two demons that stepped out of the black mist. Duplicate grins on their faces marked them as either not very intelligent or too intelligent. They reminded Bulma of school bullies looking at the class dweeb.

Vegeta matched their grin and stepped toward the pair, "Only two?"

The pair looked at each other, almost making Bulma giggle at the identical humorous glance they gave each other. They looked back at Vegeta and blinked, "Only one?" They both said it at the same time.

Bulma frowned. Sure she wasn't a fighter, but ignoring her was dangerous. As Henry found out, Vegeta thought. "Surely at least one of you can count properly," he grinned mockingly.

Bulma echoed Vegeta's grin and the two hulking, demons' grins faltered at how-eager the two looked.

Bulma lightly stepped to Vegeta's side, "Can I have the one on the right?" she asked lowly enough for only Vegeta to hear.

Vegeta inwardly cursed. He hadn't meant that she could fight with him. Besides, what made her think she could fight one of these guys? They were twice her height and width, not to mention weight.

During this lapse between Bulma stepping forward and Vegeta's thoughts, the duo moved into fighting stances, poor though they were. Both of them faced Vegeta with squared shoulders, arms bent and fists clenched at sides. Vegeta smirked then glanced at Bulma, sending her a glare, "Stay out of my way, woman. You're not meant for fighting."

As Vegeta turned back to the twin idiots with a grin and walked calmly toward them, Bulma took his words at face value-something she should've known better than to do with Vegeta. She gritted her teeth, So, he thinks I can't handle one of them, huh? Can I? She decided to watch before jumping in.

The demons were thrown off by Vegeta's calm advance and glanced at each other. As soon as their eyes were off their opponent, Vegeta phased out. The idiots, for they truly were, turned in the same directions to look for their missing opponent. Vegeta predictably appeared behind them. It obviously wasn't predictable for these two dopes though. It took them a full minute to notice his impatiently waiting presence, and they turned around to gape at him.

"What am I; on the first level?" Vegeta growled. He executed a jump split kick that sent a corresponding white boot smashing into the twin's faces. Both stumbled back a few paces. Obviously their slow reflexes matched their wits.

Bulma rolled her eyes. Even she could take care of one of these. It wasn't only brawn that mattered in a fight. She was about to prove just that to Vegeta.

As the brutes turned to Vegeta, Bulma let out a shrill whistle. The demons whirled back toward her, showing their backs to the Prince.

This had the desired effect. Vegeta's face immediately changed from its smooth neutrality to a harsh anger. He leapt up and over the left demon, flipping in the air and landing in a half-crouch facing the startled beast. He snarled at it as he rose swiftly and smoothly, ruthlessly throwing a ki-powered roundhouse to the side of the thug's head.

The demon's head snapped to the side, spittle flying from its mouth. It turned around and looked at Vegeta wide-eyed, "OW! That hurt!" He cradled the growing lump on the side of his head with one meaty hand and tears sprung into his eyes. Blood ran from a cut on his mouth where he'd accidentally bitten himself.

Vegeta looked at the demon in silence for a moment before throwing back his head and laughing long and hard. Truly, he hadn't been this amused in years! His laughter finally subsided and he sneered at the demon, which looked even more hurt by the laughter, "Pathetic."

The ki blast wasn't even powered up fully before he let it rip from his hand and into the demon's gut. The demon's eyes went wide before the pupils contracted to pinpoints and the body fell away from Vegeta with a thud that made the ground shake, a perfect hole where his stomach used to be.

With a wry grin he turned to the last demon. The grin fell.

Bulma was taking on the other demon. Her distraction had been a ploy to get him to make a move on one and only one demon so that she could take the other one, thereby staying out of his way. He had to admire her ingenuity. She'd known he'd react that way, and now she was getting to fight the exact one she'd wanted to. He wouldn't have been surprised to find that she'd known that would happen too.

Bulma deftly dodged the monster's slow and clumsy efforts to grasp her with his huge hands, laughing as she ducked and maneuvered herself around the bulky body. As soon as the demon would pause, she would come back in, prodding and poking and forcing the monster to chase her around himself again, tiring him out all the while.

While Vegeta found this quite amusing, he also found it too long. He lifted a hand and formed a ki blast in it, ready to tell the woman to move so he could end it. He paused when he noticed her sudden change in both position and demeanor. He lowered the arm and waited. He did not have to wait long.

As the demon charged forward toward her, not yet realizing she had stopped, Bulma dropped down and put her leg out right in front of the demon's already staggering gait. The demon made one futile hop before tripping right over Bulma's leg and crashing to his knees. Bulma winced at the pain that the gigantic beast's shins made when they met her leg. That's going to bruise!

She ignored the pain in order to hurriedly straighten and leap to the beast's neck. Arm outstretched, four fingers together, thumb out; she applied pressure to the webbing that connected the thick neck to the massive shoulder. The monster, suddenly numb of all feeling from the neck down, tumbled forward the rest of the way, just managing to turn his face as it met the hard ground.

Bulma's face grew flushed as she heard the sound of clapping to her left. Vegeta walked to where she was standing in front of the fallen beast, still clapping. "Good show. It was a little long and ineffectual though. He's still alive."

Bulma frowned, lungs heaving. It seemed he was never pleased with anything. "But he won't be getting up again. Ever."

Vegeta rolled his eyes, "I told you I didn't want you fighting."

Bulma grinned at him, "You said to stay out of your way. I did that."

Vegeta growled. He'd known she would bring up that point, "I also said you weren't meant for fighting. I meant it."

Bulma was hurt, but just smiled and motioned down to the still alive and conscious demon, "Tell him that."

"Really, Vegeta. I think you should let her have this round."

Both of them looked behind them at the source of the deep, booming voice that resonated through the blackness.

"Who are you?" Vegeta snapped.

The demon stepped out of the mist, as all the demons before him had, "Who I am matters not, for I have no name. What I am is the guardian of this level. Since you wish entrance into the next level, you must fight me."

"Ok, then Master of the eighth level," Vegeta said mockingly, "Perhaps you can explain these." He motioned toward the fallen bodies.

The demon chuckled, "Ah, yes. Those were my 'test pilots' you could say. Just testing you, I'm afraid. I can always get more from level one."

Vegeta crossed his arms, "I thought they were a tad too easy."

The demon nodded gravely, "Yes, very much so. I fear that I don't have a good assessment of your skills. I can hardly fight you in ignorance." He smiled and stepped back slightly, "I do hope you'll forgive me for delaying our fight longer. I just need to get a feel for you, you see."

Vegeta's eyes narrowed as tiny pinpricks of red and green lights began to appear all around the demon. He was counting them as fast as he could and hadn't even gotten to two dozen before the first ranks skittered into the light.

Bulma let out a slight shriek, and Vegeta glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. She was pale and trembling. Looking closer at the monsters he almost sighed in aggravation. She was afraid of spiders.

These spiders however, even had him disgusted. Their segmented bodies glistened like black ink; abdomens long and narrow while the cephalothorax was shaped more like a rounded-off triangle. Their legs twitched and bent at the many joints as if eager to touch any kind of flesh. Two fangs curved down from their jaws in the front of their bodies, and Vegeta could guess that they held a poison as lethal as a recluse's, with probably the same results. Eight beady eyes, two in the front larger than the others, from hundreds of the little arthropods twinkled up at him, glowing red and green, quite delighted in the prey their master had caught for them.

The first ranks of the spiders were now only a few feet in front of them and getting closer. Vegeta flinched when something brushed his left side. Bulma had scooted in closer to him and was almost clinging to his arm.

Disgusted with her fear and his revolt, Vegeta shook her off and smirked at the eighth level demon, "Spiders? I'll crush them like the bugs they are."

The demon smiled, "Perhaps. But I remind you that your friend has no such guarantees. Oh, and Prince Vegeta, might I add that these are level eight demons? Good friends of mine in fact."

Vegeta growled at the amicableness of this demon. It was more annoying than Kakarott, and truly, he'd thought none more annoying than that idiot.

"Well, you heard him, woman. Get back. These are no Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee."

Bulma found herself shocked by the reference to Alice in Wonderland despite her situation but nodded wordlessly as she scrambled backwards. Two rows of spiders immediately turned toward her at her movement and crouched low, preparing to spring with all the accuracy of a jumping spider.

"V-Vegeta!"

The shrill tone of her voice caused Vegeta to wince. "I see them, woman!" He growled.

"Well then do something about them!" She shouted.

The demon, thoroughly enjoying himself, stood back and laughed.

Vegeta's mind raced, then he thought of the tactic Bulma had used only minutes beforehand. Vegeta smiled.

The spiders in front of Vegeta pounced seconds before the spiders in front of Bulma did, as if anticipating Vegeta's next move. They didn't know the Prince's moves couldn't be anticipated.

Bulma closed her eyes and shrieked, immediately hearing a grunt of displeasure from behind her. She opened her eyes and turned her head to see Vegeta holding her high above the ground, behind the eighth demon. He was glaring at her, eyes squinting in a wince. She giggled, almost hysterical in her relief.

Vegeta sighed and watched the demon-spiders jump around the image of himself he had left behind, both them and the demon showing confusion in the fact of his transparency and Bulma's disappearance. "I may have been wrong about that Tweedle-dum-Tweedle-dee comment," he murmured.

He floated down silently and put Bulma down. He stepped away from her, much to her disappointment, and sneered, "Stay here. I have some unfinished business to take care of." With the sneer still in place, he put two fingers to his forehead and suddenly disappeared. Bulma gaped.

Vegeta reappeared to the left of the demon, "Looking for me?" The demon turned and gawked at him. "You were right, you didn't have a good assessment of my skills, otherwise you would've known better than to fight me and expect to live."

The spiders had all turned by this time and were charging their prey once again, undaunted. Vegeta causally pointed a finger at them at fired a pencil-thin blast that hit one, leaving a smoky shell behind.

The demon laughed at him, "You may have a few tricks up your sleeve, but I've already assessed your power and it's lacking. You won't be able to kill all of them."

Vegeta smirked and glanced at the spiders, which were crouched, ready to pounce on him, "I won't have to." He looked the eighth level demon guardian straight in the eyes; ebony depths meeting fire-filled ones. The demon's eyes widened as he realized, too late, Vegeta's plan.

The spiders jumped as one organism, although actually many, straight at Vegeta. Vegeta turned with cat-like agility and swung his arm in an arc in front of his body. The spiders went as far as the tip of his fingers, barely brushing them with their legs, before being hurled aside by the invisible force of Vegeta's ki; right at the demon.

As the spiders landed on their master, fangs instinctively sinking into demon flesh, which was not impervious to them, the guardian of the eighth level shrieked, amusing the Prince in the sound's likeness to Bulma's own shriek, although not quite as high-pitched.

The spiders hung on to their raving, panicked master, injecting lethal and acidic venom into the monster, whose frantic motions only aided the poison. Finally the demon began to burn his own skin, letting it give off a fire that burned both him and the spiders, making his skin bubble and burst with steamy black flesh and green, oozing venom. The stench was enough to make Vegeta gag, so he quickly removed himself from the scene, using the same technique he had to get him and Bulma out of the spiders' way.

As Bulma felt Vegeta's presence again at her side, she turned to him, careful not to look at the disgusting scene of the eighth level demon melting by his own fire and his pets' venom. She still looked a bit shaken by the whole situation. She stared at Vegeta for a moment before shuddering and looking away, "I hate spiders!" she vehemently snarled.

Vegeta smirked, "So does-sorry, did-that demon."

Bulma rounded on him, needing to take out her frustration on someone, "And you! What did you do and how did you do it? I thought only-" She looked suddenly reluctant to finish what she was going to say.

"That only Kakarott knew that little trick?" his face was impassive, "I did see him do it."

Bulma looked confused, "But that was only once and Goku said he had to feel a ki he knew. How'd you get us over here and then get back to the demon?"

Vegeta rolled his eyes and spoke slowly, as if to a small child, "Woman, I am an Elite. I have only to see a technique once to learn it. And techniques can be improved upon if one has the ingenuity for it."

"Then why didn't you use it sooner? Like a couple levels ago? Why don't you just send us straight to the ninth level?"

Vegeta glared at her, "Improvements take a while to add on. You of all people should know that. Besides, that was my first time doing the technique period. And I can't go down levels. It would be like trying to pass through the floor. Empty space is relatively easy to transverse with a thought, but solid matter is another concern entirely."

Bulma thought about that for a moment before nodding, "Your reasoning's flawed, Vegeta," Vegeta scowled, "Nothing's 'empty'. Even air has some kind of matter."

"I said solid matter, woman, not gaseous matter!" Vegeta huffed, "Are we going to debate science or are we continuing on to the next level?"

Bulma smirked at him, "What's wrong? Can't think and walk at the same time?"

Vegeta met her smirk for smirk, "I was merely trying to save you the humiliation of losing to my superior mind, as any lowly human is apt to do."

Bulma's face darkened and she beckoned for Vegeta to lead, "After you, oh Great One."

"I know I am." With a haughty air, Vegeta took point, leading a fuming and scheming Bulma into the next level.

A/N: I hope I gave you the heebie-jeebies for that was my intention with those spider-demons. Lol. A cephalothorax is the part of the spider located between the head and abdomen. I just wanted to get technical! :P

Well, ninth level coming up next…lots of-stuff there. ;) Suppose you'll see what I mean when we get there. I have an idea of what will happen. Trunks fans stay tuned. He is coming… Part 3 is coming too….

Thank you reviewers! I really appreciate the reviews. Hey, aren't there any more people reading this? I think so. So leave a review! Thanks!