Author's Notice:
I went back and forth how to start this. I wanted to pepper in the history somehow, or key points that I was using, or items I was also going to change. The chapters will swap from perspective to perspective.
I don't want to give everything away. But, what you know of DBZ try and toss it out the window. 'Cause the Z fighters are not as you know them, and the timeline is going to change dramatically. I'll write in the story any knowledge you need to know, and what changes have happened. Anything in the distant past will be dredged up in history books, or explained by certain key players later.
Anyway. This is going to be a long, long fic. I haven't written for DBZ in probably… 15yrs or more, so please give me some wiggle room regarding things. I haven't actively watched the series in forever, and I did as much research as needed to get my story rolling. Thank you for reading.
"Black & Blue"
*ONE*
By: Emo Fox
Planet Vegeta was originally known as Planet Plant.
Years ago the superior Saiyan race lived as cast offs and slaves to a weak race known as the Tuffles. The Tuffles exploited the Saiyans, used their natural power and strength to their advantage, like Saiyans were merely pit animals to use and discard. The Saiyan population was small at this time, lived off the land in the wastes outside the cities in which the Tuffles resided. Resources were growing low, and it was only a matter of time before the Tuffles bled the Saiyans completely dry.
It was then the great King Vegeta formulated a plan to get his proud race out of bondage. They waged a civil war with the Tuffles. The war only lasted a handful of days before the bloody mess was ended. The appearance of the moon gave the Saiyans an advantage that was hardly needed against the pathetic race of the Tuffles. A handful of Tuffles were taken as prisoner and used to create new technology.
"The full moon? What're they, werewolves?" Bulma's knowledge on Saiyans was rather limited. After all, she had never even heard of them until they popped up on her doorstep and demanded she come with them or they would destroy absolutely everything on the planet.
That was definitely one of the shittiest days of her life.
Well, fine, THE shittiest day of her entire life.
Not to mention it happened on her twenty-first birthday, so imagine the shock there with everyone who was present at her home at the time.
Bulma felt tightness in her chest and willed it away. There was no use crying. There wasn't any time for tears. Her first few nights she had given in to the weakness in her heart, but not anymore. Now, she was going to find a way out. She was going to find a weakness, and she was going to exploit it.
There were more than enough other smart creatures stuck in these barracks with her. She was sure she could get them to help her. Bulma was positive they had to be missing their homes too, and perhaps they could turn the tide on the brutish Saiyans.
Though, so far, all their history books were completely biased. She didn't know what to take as fact and what to take as fiction. The moon supposedly was an advantage, but as far as she could tell, Saiyans were only limited by their inability to create technology on their own. Which, they obviously fixed by enslaving races better than them.
Which, honestly, Bulma found ironic, since initially the Tuffles did that to them and they didn't like it, but now were doing it to everyone else.
Whatever.
Back to the dumb book.
King Vegeta moved his people from the barren wastes into the great cities that were erected by the Tuffles before. Every scrap of the indigenous people was stripped from every corner of the city and burned. The cities were then re-populated with Saiyans.
The Planet's name was then changed to Planet Vegeta to honor the Saiyan's king, and the Saiyan's greatest warrior.
The conquering of the planet gave the King a great idea. He addressed his people the following morning and declared that this was the Saiyan birth right. That everything in the galaxy belonged to them, and all they had to do was take it. The Saiyans would no longer live in the shadow of anyone, and would advance far beyond anything seen before. King Vegeta easily rallied his people under his banner and became involved with planetary trade.
"Planetary trade?" Bulma hummed, her cerulean gaze intent as she scanned over the foreign language.
King Vegeta took control of a variety of planets in a short time. He then employed the bartering system. Planets ripe for trade were of neutral atmospheric conditions, general climate, and may consist of unintelligent organisms. Planets worth harvesting were of lesser value, which meant the planet didn't have the ability to harbor life easily, but could still be used for resources. Most of these resource planets King Vegeta kept under Saiyan control to further their technological advancement.
The bartering system would be employed if a planet showed signs of advanced life. If the technology of this planet exceeded that of Planet Vegeta, a trade could be made. The engineers or scientists of that race were to be given to King Vegeta to live on Planet Vegeta to further the Saiyan advancement. Special conditions could be made to gain any and all knowledge, and brute force was not to be used. If the scientists or engineers of the dominated race refused to do their duty once employed—
"Employed. Right. More like enslaved. I haven't seen a paycheck." Bulma scoffed.
-the consequence is death, and the eradication of the species on the home planet.
Bulma closed the book and stared at the cover a long moment. She had been reading for hours, but hadn't found anything useful, or anything she didn't yet know. She had been on the planet so far a few months, long enough to learn the language, and long enough to be allowed to make small requests. The Saiyan history books had been one request, which was easily given. After all, the Saiyans thought themselves far superior, and her reading about that superiority had them assume she would remain in fear of them with the more she knew.
She wasn't in fear.
Bulma had long since moved past fear. Fear was pointless. She had to focus her brain, she had to think, and then she could fix this terrible situation.
She always thought of her family, of her friends, of her boyfriend stranded back on Earth.
She wondered if there were other humans enslaved here, but so far she hadn't seen any. But, as long as she was alive, Earth was safe. At least, she had to hold onto that small belief, and hope King Vegeta wasn't a liar.
But, what was a lie to one man? Not to mention, probably the strongest man in the entire universe?
Doubt didn't have a place here.
She had to believe, and she had to be focused. She needed to find a weakness, she needed to rally her own troops, and she needed to develop a plan of attack. Bulma had traveled almost everywhere on Earth, fought terrible beasts, and had experienced loss and triumph before. She was a warrior(maybe not of this caliber), and she would save her planet.
There were stacks of books on her desk, most of which she hadn't yet gone through. There was a lot to look over. Maybe she'd find more about the moon, about where they came from, about how they were generally as a people; aside from being assholes. She had notes upon notes which she had written in Japanese, which the majority of the Saiyans(especially the guards) couldn't read. Being in the planetary trade business, she was aware they knew just about every spoken language worth knowing, but reading comprehension not so much.
Her personal cell consisted of four white walls and a door with a barred grate for a window. Her bunk was low to the ground and had an obscenely hard mattress, with bland grey sheets, grey blankets, and a single grey pillow. She did have a shower and toilet that was segmented off in the far corner of the room. Her desk took up the majority of the space, and her desk aside from the books, had a lamp, and various machine supplies scattered on it.
She had one personal photo that she kept on the desk, to remind her what she was fighting for. It was a photo of her, her parents, Yamcha, and ChiChi. She had met both Yamcha and ChiChi on her adventures around the world for the Dragon Balls, many years ago, and they had become a staple in her life. They were also two of the strongest people she knew, and she wished they were here now.
But, there was no use getting sad about it. She would make it, she had to.
She couldn't help but wonder how they were doing though. When she had been taken away, she had seen Saiyans stationed in her city. They probably had anyone strong enough under lock and key. What if they were being tortured? What if they had been kil—
No, no, no. Definitely not. They were fine. They had to be fine.
Bulma had written up blue prints on new technological items, and had some half-finished sketches of others. She was trying to work on some projects on her own as well, without them knowing. She wanted to try and make a transmitting device, a way to contact Earth. She wasn't an astronomer, but how hard could it be? But, she rarely had the time to work on her own projects nowadays.
It was quite often she would get a request from the royal family, but she didn't know what that meant. Unfortunately the other races she shared a lab with didn't speak her language, and communicating was difficult. But, not impossible. If she could find some books on them, maybe she could learn their language. After all, Saiyans had to learn alien languages from somewhere, if she could just get access to that, then she could start getting a foot hold in her plan.
The monotony of it all was a killer though.
Not to mention this stupid chair. Really killed her back. Then the bed she had killed it again.
She hadn't had a good night sleep since Earth, and spent most her personal time hunched over her desk scrawling notes and reading. She didn't have a mirror in her cell, but assumed she looked like crap. She hadn't had a haircut, so she had resorted to keeping her hair tied up or pinned in a messy bun. Bulma had lost a lot of weight, and was eating only the bare minimum. Saiyans apparently didn't cater to the aliens they enslaved, and offered them all the same meal. They didn't understand humans couldn't eat raw meat(and they hadn't cared to fix it when she told them), so she could only chew on the weird tuber plants they offered with it.
Somehow the tubers and water was enough to keep her going. Bulma wanted to examine the strange plant in the lab, but never had enough to spare for research. She could only guess it was a nutrient rich plant, and then the meat would provide the other necessary protein(only she couldn't eat the meat).
They wouldn't allow her a burner in her cell, so she had no chance or cooking anything herself, or give her the ability to heat anything up to weld anything together(made working on her side projects that much more impossible). There was no eating in the lab; everything was very sanctioned and scheduled. But, that was something to expect, they were a military race after all.
Even the females, it was almost hard to tell them apart sometimes. There wasn't an ounce of compassion or understanding in any of them, even to each other. She had witnessed her share of scraps in the hallways, and they didn't pull punches. Gender was created equal; she had seen females in higher positions and males in lower ones. From her own observations she was beginning to understand their hierarchy. Everything of course was based on strength, and as far as she could tell, the majority of the population seemed to be in the lower ranks.
Most of the Saiyans she had seen were stocky and broad. Some were tall, but not many, and they all generally had shades of brown or black hair. They usually wore jumpsuits with a primitive armor on top, their weapons about the same, just clubs, swords, or spears. They reminded her of cave people, really, but cave people with tails. Now the tail sort of made sense, if they were indeed werewolves or something.
Bulma was hoping she'd find a book on their culture, but all she could find so far were war records. Saiyans recorded every worthwhile skirmish, but anything personal seemed to be missing. She did have a hefty stack to look through, but she wasn't holding her breath.
Bulma stifled a yawn with the back of her hand, and then rubbed at her eyes. "Damn it." She was getting tired; she turned in her stiff chair to look at her uncomfortable bunk.
She had too much work to do; she couldn't go to sleep now.
Bulma grabbed a piece of blank paper and her pen and began to write what she knew about their planet. It was huge; she had seen a glimpse of it outside the pod window when she was being brought in. It had two satellites that were far from the planet. She didn't know much about space, and hadn't found anything concrete on the moons at all, but from the history it seemed a rare thing when the moon came into the sky. They also only ever spoke of one moon, so she gambled that they were on different orbits, and only one came into view at a time. How long their orbits were, that she didn't know.
What was stranger still, they also had two suns. Before landing she was guessing the suns cooked the planet and she would probably die of heat the moment she was taken out of the pod, but it didn't happen. The sky was always a blood red, and that meant the atmosphere was thick, which took the brunt of the heat burn. The glaring suns were still too much for most plant life(or so she guessed, she had only seen brief glimpses of the world outside), it seemed more a desert around the compound which she was located.
The compound itself felt more like a military base, or a prison. It consisted of dome-shaped rooms attached by skinny long hallways. Everything was a stark white that almost hurt the eyes, and reminded her of a hospital. The compound had a gravity that was similar to Earth, apparently to accommodate her and the other species living here. Bulma could only guess other compounds(she could see out the port windows) had different gravity and temperature environments and were filled with even more diverse creatures.
Planet Vegeta had a natural gravity ten times that of Earth, which she only remembered because the guards that had taken her from point A to point B kept telling her this over and over again, how her weak pathetic Earth body would be crushed.
She only knew that the tubers grew here, somewhere underground, and that they had other species that lived on the planet that they harvested meat from. As far as she was aware, the only intelligent species on the planet were Saiyans(not including all the alien prisoners). Bulma frowned at her notes, and how sparse they were. She didn't know much, not nearly enough for anything. She was trying to plan a prison break out, or maybe somehow overpowering the Saiyans and taking the planet like they took it from the Tuffles. She couldn't do that with this limited knowledge.
Bulma tapped her pen on the paper but no further ideas popped into her head. She was getting tired, and she could probably use a good few hours of sleep. She pushed away from the desk and turned off the lamp, slipping herself into her bed.
The room was dark, but not completely pitch black. There was a skylight above her which let the starlight shine in. The stars still looked pretty, even if they were a little clouded. She looked around the room as she tried to relax, seeing her few suitcases piled up against the opposite wall. Bulma was definitely homesick, but eventually she had drifted off to sleep.