Your Experience May Vary

Earth is gone. Bulma is taken on to Frieza's ship and given to the Saiyans. Earth's survivors spread out into an unknown future. V/B et al. Trigger warning: suicide. Minor OC. Going to be v.v. long.

This is a really long prologue, but that's okay, because overall, this story is going to be really long. So it'll be comparatively short. Of course my years' long writers block would end right when I can't afford to look away from my…wait for it…training. LOL. Shit, I wish I had half of Vegeta's single mindedness right now. If my English grammar goes to hell in the meantime, please let me know…

Ps., Yeah, an OC is the POV for the very first introduction to the story. And? And she's not really what you would call a main character; she's just…more conscious and less indisposed than some people are at the moment, so there you go. It's not an objective point of view, and you might not like her, but rest assured, if I'm going to have an OC and subject you to prolonged exposure to it, I'll do my best with it. And she moves into the background after a while. Besides, there's something that I really want to try, with this story. I want to see if I can make it work. And she's not going to be part of any ridiculous love triangles. Gag me.

I was always fascinated with the Saiyan through the Namek Sagas…I really liked the whole concept of the wider universe…that was never really mentioned again? Dafuq? Oh well. That's what fanfic is for.

Disclaimer: I don't own DB or DBZ, and since this is unlikely to change, I'm unlikely to bother mentioning it again. Cheers.

DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH DEPICTIONS OF SUICIDE or VIOLENCE, or swearing. I am not sure how to make this any clearer than warn for it several times. Spare yourselves if you think it's going to be a problem! All I will say on the subject is that people have been known to kill themselves as a means of escape from unbearable situations.

And if you just don't give a fuck, that's cool too.

Prologue—

Clawed feet swung like a pendulum in the suffocating heat and humidity of the engine room. All around, the mechanisms of space flight screamed, and the whole space vibrated. An engineer had found the scene almost thirty minutes ago, and although sick bay was not even fifteen minutes away—nothing was on Frieza's ship—it was almost an afterthought, a grudging side note.

In the end one grudging med tech was sent to go and have a look. She was a recent acquisition from a planet she still called Earth in spite of its new designation, and she was less senior than everyone else, which meant she got stuck with all the worst jobs. One soldier had come with her.

"Could you get that down," said Elena, blinking up at the hanged thing with eyes that showed little, if any, outward emotion.

Suicides meant trouble for the surviving captives and lowest ranks, categories to which Elena belonged. She felt no sympathy, only a strangling, dulled sense of anger at the end of another wrenching day-cycle of twenty hours (or what amounted to roughly an hour), to be followed with eight for rest, which wasn't natural to a human. Fuck this selfish son of a bitch.

"You get him down," retorted the surly reptilian standing beside her. Curiosity and a scrap of free time were his sole motivation in coming along; killing was ubiquitous here and yet self-inflicted death was relatively uncommon, and a source of gossip. It wouldn't take long for the news to reach every last dark corner on board, and then the whole ship would be buzzing with drama, under smug tyranny which would delight in exacting compensation from its remaining victims. If the ship hadn't been preoccupied with something far above their pay grade, there would have been a crowd already. "That's your job, isn't it?"

"Cute," sighed Elena, in a bored tone. "It'd take me all night to get that back to medical, and aside from that, I can't fly. Tell you what; get me that body and take it back to medical—put it on a table, not on the floor—and I'll give you a cupcake."

"What's a cupcake?"

"You know what sugar is, right? Well; they're made with a lot of sugar. They're delicious. Best dessert ever, except for baklava."

The saurian blinked at her suspiciously and scowled with its ugly mouth lined with serrated teeth. Its race had a septic bite and they always smelled ripe. Well; it didn't know what baklava was, either, but it did know what it needed to know.

"How did you get real food? That's reserved for Frieza and his strongest men!"

"Don't worry about it. Do we have a deal or not?"

Greed raced ahead of any other factor in an instant and the alien gave a twisted smirk. It was rare to have the privilege of eating real food (if you didn't count cannibalizing the natives on a purge); sugar was an even scarcer commodity, and all it had to do was transport a stupid body?

"Yeah, we got a deal. But you better pay up!"

"I will. Body first, though. Chop chop!"

Shooting her a dirty look, the saurian rose into the air and went about retrieving the corpse.

"Don't drop it!" Elena said sharply. "Piir will have my head."

"That would be a fucking shame, wouldn't it," snarled the saurian as it tossed the body over its shoulder and began to pull the noose off the beam. It accomplished this quickly and lowered itself back to the deck. "Right, let's go!"

"Hang on a second," Elena grumbled. "Wrap him up in this." She held up a folded tarp that she had brought along, and tossed one edge out, rolling the waterproofed fabric out flat.

"What?" it hissed, impatient. "Why?"

"You want that cupcake?"

That shut it up. When it was done, and the body was wrapped up and safely on the saurian's shoulder, they departed.

Elena hated being anywhere but inside medical. She felt exposed. This low-ranking foot soldier following in her wake, placated for the moment with the promise of reward, could kill her easily. There was virtually no punishment for arbitrary slaughter provided there was some half-assed reason (although the basis for what actually constituted a reason was, as with everything, handled on a nepotistic basis), and in most cases only the threat of retribution from stronger beings was all that kept some people from being blasted away.

She kept her head up and her eyes forward, avoiding eye contact with anyone, and walked with a purpose close to the outboard bulkhead. It was a fragile affectation, but solid enough to stand without a direct challenge.

Humanity was one of the weakest races pulled under the sway of Frieza's power, if not one of the weakest in the galaxy. Elena knew it for what it was as soon as she had set foot inside: a world where strength was the only legitimate currency, where no one missed a chance to beat up on someone lower on the food chain to keep those behind from getting ahead. If she had nothing else going for her here (she couldn't learn medical minutiae for love or money), she was damn good survivor. She always had been.

Med bay was relatively small, and that at first seemed counterintuitive for a crew whose main business was aggressive rezoning, until she realized that the regeneration tanks did most of the real work, and there were enough to go around for those that were allowed to use them. Everyone else had to heal the old fashioned way, and got the space version of Motrin with a side of disinterest and hack butchery. Frieza had almost unlimited fodder; if he lost a thousand foot soldiers, one of his enslaved planets would be compelled to send ten thousand replacements.

Space Motrin.

She smothered the ridiculous urge to smile at the thought as her shoulders relaxed just slightly, seeing the door to medical coming up around the curve. Lots of creatures were stopping to look at what the saurian had over its shoulder, and it was basking in all the attention. He'd have a good story to tell later on tonight in the mess, but right now he was hamming it up and crowing that he couldn't say, yet.

Relief hit her in a rush as she stepped back into her chilly refuge, and she nodded briefly at Piir, who was doing paperwork. He flicked a triangular flap of ear and went back to work with a huff.

"Put him over there," Elena said, pointing at a spare rolling bed in one corner. He obeyed. "Follow me."

"Elena?" Piir snapped. "Where are you going? You've got to make a report."

"I'll be back out in a second, Boss Man…"

"Make it quick. Less than two minutes quick."

"Roger," Elena said over her shoulder as she led the saurian down a small passageway, then an offshoot, and to the door of a small storage closet tucked behind a vent. "Come on. Step into my office."

"It's cold back here!" hissed the saurian indignantly.

"Oh, are you cold-blooded?" Elena asked, glancing at him as she let herself in with an old-fashioned key. "You're right. It is cold. I can't help that, but…" She crouched down, behind a box of something scientific and pulled out a single, perfect cupcake. She presented the prize to her cohort with mocking theatrical drama. "Viola! Eat it quick, I don't have time to sit around."

In its haste, the saurian clipped her when he snatched it out of her palm. Elena jerked back, hissing in pain. She rubbed at her wrist; it was only a superficial injury, but it still stung.

It sniffed at the frosting, and eyed it like something precious. Then he unhooked his flat, froggish mouth and dumped the whole thing in, with the paper cup.

It chewed once. Twice. Then, eyes wide with ravenous hunger, it swallowed.

And just like that, it was over, and the saurian stood there in cheated rage.

"Another—give me another!" it growled, staring at Elena with narrowed eyes and bared yellowed teeth. "Or I'll tear out your spine!"

"I don't have any more, actually," Elena admitted. Her back was up against the shelves, and she was trying to reach for her Prod, the only thing that could possibly work—it wasn't there.

ShitshitshitshitSHI—

It launched itself at her with a scream, and Elena shrieked, twisted away and threw herself into a corner. Behind her, the saurian tore into the shelving.

Elena watched in silent horror as the alien tore the steel to shreds as though it were only paper. When it became obvious that she had been telling the truth, and there were no more cupcakes hidden away, it turned on her, its seven foot bulk seeming to expand in the limited area and loom above her, frill rattling, teeth wide, bearing down like a cracked out nightmare that she just could not wake up from—

"You—! You fucking cunt! I'll tear you apart! I want another! I know you've got them!"

"I do not!" Elena yelled back, trying to think of something—anything—to try and fight him off, or something to say that would work. Bu she wasn't possibly capable of saving herself. She tried in vain to scrabble back into the bulkhead.

The saurian roared, and it lurched forward as if it had been struck. She hadn't hit it! Elena skittered out of the way as it came crashing down. With it came the stench of charred meat, and the telltale fluttering smoke.

"You," snarled Piir, hooked up to an older model arm cannon. "I hope you have a damn good explanation for this!"

Blinking stupidly in the bright lights of the hallway, Elena could only gape upwards, her mouth working like that of a dying fish. Piir moved over the unconscious alien.

Ialmostdied. I really almostfuckingdied that thing would have killed me overafuckingcupcakeholyshit what am I doing I am—

Piir backhanded Elena hard enough to cut into her softer flesh with the ridges of his scaly hand. She jerked back, curled up, and cowered under her arms, but she didn't cry out.

"Pull yourself together!" snarled Piir. "Fucking stupid bitch!"

Saysomething—saysomething!

"N—not my fucking fault!" Elena cried indignantly. "He—he—he, uh—he just went crazy on me!"

"What were you doing before he went crazy on you?" Piir snapped. "Exactly. Don't get cocky, brat. Get up. We'll put him in a tank for a couple of minutes."

"What?" Elena squawked, finding her voice suddenly. "Why?"

Piir struck at her again. This time Elena gave a bitten off yelp when Piir's sandpaper scales scraped her arms.

"You stupid, ungrateful, loudmouthed—get up before I kill you myself!"

Elena scrambled into the hallway, managing to get to her feet. She stared at Piir with wary hatred.

"Aha," Piir sneered. "It took you five whole minutes before you broke down, this time! You're getting better."

What Elena said next would die with her. Her planet was gone, with all its languages. Piir squared his squat bulk, unimpressed with this latest episode of insolence, but this battle of wills had a foregone conclusion and they both knew it. Elena grit her teeth in a visible effort to control her temper so hard her jaw ached.

You've gone over this, Self. Blow like the most limp-dicked reed in history! I hate this son of a bitch, I want to cut his head off and shit down his throat—

They both froze at the faint electronic trill that precipitated someone's entry into medical, and with that, the fury of the moment was dispelled. All that was left was silence, and Elena's sudden, growing embarrassment. Was she a sobbing new conscript, snatched to replenish the numbers? She was long past the point where that excuse was valid. She was acting like an idiot.

"This is not over," Piir warned her. Elena said nothing, and only followed Piir back into the main space. Two soldiers wired into arm cannons of a newer model than the one Piir had used were waiting for them. Neither one was visibly injured or sick and Piir stepped forward.

"What do you want?" he snapped. Elena kept to the wall and avoided looking either of the reptilian men in the eye. No one ever wanted anything from her anyway, unless it was a lay, and even these bastards weren't crude enough to march into a workspace and try to drag her off during working hours. Females were uncommon in Frieza's rank, and if they were not strong enough to defend themselves were often the recipients of special abuse and often died very quickly. It was one more reason she avoided going outside of medical except when it was completely unavoidable.

"Is that the earthling?" asked the bigger one, with a heavy accent.

"What business do you have with her?" Piir snarled, his voice low and threatening. If he was a total jerk, then at least he didn't often appreciate anyone else moving in on his territory.

"Lord Frieza wants her. Don't know for what, but she's coming with us."

Elena froze to the last hair and lifted her eyes to Piir. Were they lying? No; if she turned up dead or violated, Piir would have them flayed. He didn't care so much for her, or any other of his workers' wellbeing so much as being secure in his own position of authority, but if it was true and Frieza did want her front and center, then there wasn't a damn thing anybody could do about it.

"L—Lord Frieza?" Elena repeated. This is a bad dream and I can't wake up from it why can't I fucking wake up—

Piir eyed her. He had gone very still and every inch of him had shifted into sycophancy.

"Get moving, girl," Piir growled. He twisted back to the soldiers and spoke in a much more syrupy voice. "Please let Lord Frieza know that I very much appreciate the upgrades to the regeneration tanks that he made possible last month!"

Elena did not want to move. She couldn't believe she was moving. How was she moving? Jesus, what sort of fucked up automaton am I? I don't want to do this let me—NO! I DON'T WANT TO!

Surreal. That's what it's like to be told to do something, and to watch yourself do it with a straight face, in spite of every instinct to the contrary. There was no stupid, contrived mind control involved, but it wasn't as if Elena could run to the pods and take off for the wilds of space; even if she went mad and had to be dragged screaming into Frieza's presence, she would have to go.

So she went, trailing behind the two soldiers, and it was probably a good thing that her mind was too paralyzed to think. This had all come so suddenly—she had nothing to do with the dread Lord or anyone close to him.

Nothing was more than fifteen minutes away on this godforsaken ship, and it was too soon that Elena was shown through a door and into a dimmed, wide open space. It had a wide round window open to the dichromatic show of superluminal speed. Elena inched into the shadows and winced when the door shut with a final bang behind her.

She looked around cautiously. The cold was deep and she could see her breath in front of her. There was nothing to let her know what she could expect here; surely Frieza wouldn't bestir himself over a few measly cupcakes, right? Unless he was bored. Oh, man, please don't let him be bored…

"Um…" She searched for something to say. She didn't have a rank or a title. She didn't have anything, not anymore. All she had was her name. "Med…Med Tech Elena, reporting, Lord Frieza. As you ordered…"

She took a couple of steps forward, not hearing anything nor seeing anyone, her eyes scanning to either side, blinking away light-blindness.

There is nothing I can do if Frieza comes at me. For fuck's sa—

Elena could not hold back the sickening surge of nausea that gripped her when her eyes finally focused on something real and solid. This was not some stupid suicide whose death was only an irritant. A mass of fabric and limbs barely distinguishable as a humanoid body was folded up on the ground. She had nearly tripped over it. For an instant, Elena wondered—quite hysterically—if she was next. If Frieza just wanted to toy with a mouse, and tear her limb from limb while she screamed.

Laughter filled the empty dark, and Elena's heart skipped a beat. She dropped to the floor and nearly cracked her forehead on the cold, smooth deck, bowing low.

She had never actually been in Frieza's presence before. It wasn't part of enslavement 101. Nobody wanted to meet him. But she knew his face, and knew to look at the short, horned creature with the shiny purple dome instead of the taller and more visually intimidating Dodoria. Then Zarbon appeared too, melting into semi-visibility as if from thin air. Or maybe she was just freaking the fuck out, and it only seemed that way…

Thank God I peed earlier. Thank God none of them are psychic.

"Dodoria, tell me: why, at every turn, I am plagued by wretched pink worms? Look at it; it's as ugly as it is weak!"

No one would have called Elena vain in most respects, but there was some residual hubris to it when she stiffened and lowered her eyes to the floor again immediately. He wasn't a fucking looker, either.

"Oh, look at that: I think I made it mad," Frieza jeered, and laughed again. Of course his two butt monkeys laughed, too, and Elena didn't dare move a muscle, afraid that she had just signed her own death warrant. "You are from earth, aren't you?"

"Y—yes, Lord Frieza…"

"Oh, excellent…I just happen to have acquired a new specimen of your species."

Elena couldn't hide a shudder at Frieza's very subtle gesture towards the pile of bones and fabric. She swallowed, and ducked her head tighter. Where the hell is this going and why am I involved? This is bad, very bad…

"But it doesn't speak a word of Common," Frieza went on, sounding dramatically bored and upset at the same time. Elena felt the hair stand up on the back of her neck. "How long have you been on my ship?"

"Six months, Lord Frieza…ever since…"

"Six months! And you've made such good progress. What talent. How long did it take you to speak Common as well as that, Zarbon?"

Elena flinched. She watched Zarbon's golden eyes rake over her as he stalled, and she felt compelled to come to her own defense.

"It—It's not talent," she said. She regretted speaking almost instantly. But for some reason she could not just shut the fuck up. "It's…what I was trained to do. Learn and speak languages. It's really not because I'm talented…" It was a quasi-truth, since some ability was required in the first place and one had to have a knack for it to do it quickly, but she didn't want to distinguish herself in their eyes in any way.

You shouldn't have opened your stupid-ass mouth and told them anything in the first place, let alone contradicted anyone! The less they know or see, the less they care!

"Oh, is that so? And where have they got you now?"

"Medical, Lord Frieza."

"Ah…Zarbon, how long did you say it took you?"

"…Two years, Lord Frieza," Zarbon said at last, and although his tone was pleasant, almost conversational as it addressed his master, his piercing eyes never left Elena's bent form.

"I'm impressed."

This is how Frieza keeps everyone in line. I could never be a real threat to Zarbon, but that doesn't matter. I would give anything to be anywhere but here—

"Do you think you could teach another earthling to speak Common just as well?"

Elena opened her mouth, then held her tongue, sure that her listening had failed. She sat there with her mouth hanging open until she managed to pull together words.

"I…beg your pardon…Lord Frieza," she began, slowly, "I'm sorry, but I must have misunderstood you. Please forgive me….You asked me…if I thought I could teach another earthling to speak Common?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I said," Frieza said, his tail waving eerily behind him as he smirked. There was iron in his voice, and mockery, and Elena felt an icy chill slither up her spine.

"Y…yes, Lord Frieza, I believe I could…" I'm cautiously optimistic, anyway…I'd have to actually make sense of all my notes for someone else, but it's certainly within the realm of possibility…

"Wonderful!" Frieza said. "I couldn't understand a thing the shrill little monster was saying when it was brought in, so I was forced to shut it up. You have two weeks."

TWO WEEKS? Oh, just kill me right now!

Elena nearly collapsed. Surely—surely —she had misunderstood at least that!

"Two—two weeks, my Lord Frieza?" Elena managed, in a trembling voice. "I…I…" I can't do it! It can't be done! Why aren't you using the Scouters for this; if it's that important, why not hook them up to one of them and download it directly! You could always tell someone who came up from outside the system. They had a funny accent when they spoke Common. Elena's was muted by constant refinement. "I…will do my best…"

"I'm sure you will, and if I am not satisfied," said Frieza, with unhidden malice, "Then I can find another tutor."

"You're bleeding, you know," said Piir, watching Elena dig into the flesh of her arm with her fingernails. "And you've been staring into that tank for hours at that girl. You should eat something. Aren't you going to—"

"Shut up," Elena interrupted. She was, in the back of her mind, amazed that Piir actually did pipe down. Then again, ever since she had come back carrying the malnourished, bleeding, broken body, and put it into a tank without so much as a hello, Frieza says you're welcome, he had not been hostile, even to the point of apparent concern. Her voice sounded dead. She was dead and this was Hell—this was her punishment. When, why—how had all of this happened? What twisted shit had she done in a past life to deserve this? Surely, what she had done in this one could wait its turn. "I'm thinking."

Bulma Briefs floated unconscious in the tank, blue hair almost an invisible cloud as it waved in the photoluminescent gel. She had recognized the woman immediately, or…she was fairly sure that it was her. It wasn't like she came with identification stamped on her forehead, and Elena was a little bit removed from the here and now—so maybe she was just going with the best possible scenario. Hoping for a miracle. Trying to wrap her mind around everything. She needed the real McCoy if she was to have any hope of living to see her next birthday.

"Well," Piir said, slowly, "Thought you might like to know: that saurian is dead."

"I didn't think you hit him hard enough to kill him."

"I didn't kill him. When he woke up, he went straight to Dodoria."

"Tough break," she murmured, feeling vaguely sick, but not because of the aliens' death. It was Dodoria she was worried about.

She got the feeling she wasn't scheduled to make it out of this situation alive. If Zarbon didn't find a reason to kill her, Dodoria would.

Elena knew from personal experience that intensive language learning was not easy to do, even under the best circumstances, and the pace Frieza demanded was unthinkable. Common was a very simple language, its grammar artless and functional on a basic level, which made sense as that it had been implemented as the language of an empire that included many disparate worlds, but developing a familiarity with a tongue, enough to communicate fluently in it, took longer than fourteen days, and Bulma had already been in the fucking tank for seven hours.

The most Elena could hope to do within the realm of reason was to stuff her full of vocabulary and rules, get her to learn some useful phrases, and hope for the best. She had some idea of how to do it, but success was totally dependent on the ability of the student and she was not confident that Bulma's prodigious technical knowledge would carry her through learning a language with the same innate genius. People, in Elena's experience, tended to be good at one or the other. Rarely both.

So Elena prayed to the gods and goddesses, with every fiber of her being, that Bulma was a shining exception to this rule that would put her own efforts to shame. Elena knew she herself couldn't have learned to speak Common in two weeks. In two weeks…two weeks?—What was the significance of the time frame? It had not occurred to her to think of that until just then. It could be an arbitrary deadline, but she didn't know for sure…

"Hey, Piir," Elena said, turning her head to look at the birdlike alien. "Can you think of anything interesting that's supposed to happen in two weeks?"

"Why?" he snapped uneasily, breaking off while directing two of the other techs to straighten up medical. He had left her alone, and so had the rest—did they pity her? Did they fear her for coming back with a personal assignment from Frieza? She was the only other human on board and no one else could do it if Frieza was unwilling to implant the knowledge, which was the usual method.

"I have a hot date in a void," she quipped. "Does it matter?"

"…The Saiyans are schedule to return from a purge, but that's all I can think of. I only know that because they're scheduled to use the tanks, if they need them. The dinner on Planet Yemmu is in three weeks. I don't know anything beyond that."

Elena blinked once. Then she blinked again, and looked down to her forearm. Four little bloody crescents, carved into her flesh…she hadn't even noticed.

"Well, that's hardly something to get excited about," she drawled, thinking: Saiyans, real Saiyans!—"I need paper, or something to write on…"

Next time, on YEMV: How did things come to be like this? Bulma gets out of the tank and begins to get a feel for the world she has woken up in (and considers the path she had to walk to get there), Elena has a breakdown, the Saiyans are still out on a purge, Frieza is a mass murdering fuckhead, and the survivors of Planet Earth wander lost in the galaxy, trying to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives against the backdrop of an oppressed empire. More bad things are going to happen. Where is Goku in all of this? And who buys the planets that Frieza purges?

NOTES

Alright, I'm fucking tired of playing with this. I think I've got it where I want it. This is the first actual fanfiction I've written in…oh, let's see, almost a year. So, please, review! There's not much to go on yet, but just wait…

Updates will be slow at best. My life is not my own, and I'm doing this in between all of my other commitments.

Glossary

"Space Motrin": I'm told it's a joke in the military; for everything from a cold to pneumonia to broken bones, medical gives you Motrin. You have to be damn near dead to get anything else. So. Space Motrin.

Outboard: Nautical origin. Means further out from the middle part of the ship. So basically, the outer side. The opposite is inboard.

Bulkhead: Nautical origin. A wall on a ship.

Void: Empty spaces on a ship. Usually used for impromptu storage, and sometimes adventurous sex…