Disclaimer: Nope. I still don't own DB/DBZ/DBGT.

Author's Note: The ending of this chapter used to be very different. In the original Dub, Vegeta had already known that his planet was destroyed by Frieza, but recently with watching Dragon Ball Z Kai (which is more accurate), and double checking online, he actually didn't... In the previously written scene he also gave Parseri his 'final warning to not be a little shit.' Buuuuut then I realized that he says something similar in another chapter... twice. So we've fixed some things along the way.

Chapter Three: Parseri… The Last of Two Races

Parseri gazed out the window, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. She was silent for a several long moments and then, in a hoarse voice, she demanded with a hint of a pleading tone in her voice,
"Take me back…"

Vegeta, who had drooped his head and closed his eyes to enjoy the short span of silence, now lifted his head and lazily opened his eyes with a rather annoyed expression.

"Take me back…" She repeated, as her voice began to falter, "Take me back!"

She whirled around in her new and foreign environment, rapidly growing hysterical,

"Take me back!" Her voice was growing louder as she attempted to shake him, but all he did was sit there, letting another smirk slide across his face as he watched her. "You have to take me back!"

"Can't you get her to shut up?" Raditz's voice snarled through the communicator.

Vegeta laughed and programmed the computer in the space pod to engage the hibernation program. "Relax Raditz, she'll quiet down in due time."

The lights inside the ship turned off with a snap, and a silent sleeping mist seeped through a vent, meant to put the passengers to sleep until the scheduled arrival to their destinations.

Vegeta laid back in his seat and felt himself grow drowsy. Parseri, who was still in hysterics near the window, in the small space between the seat in which Vegeta sat in and the door, to which she clung to, looked around in alarm in the now dark space pod. He could see that she too was getting sleepy, and in no time, saw her begin to slump against the door and slide down into a crumpled ball onto the floor at his feet. It wasn't long after that before he had fallen asleep as well.

.~*~.

One had month passed since their journey began, unbeknownst to the first-time space traveler who was still under the effects of the ship's hibernation program. A distant chiming sound met Vegeta's ears before the waking gas began to seep through the vents, causing him to stir. He looked up at the small, transparent navigational screen with a smirk- They would reach Frieza's ship within the hour. He looked down, noticing that the girl was beginning to wake as well and began nudging her with the toe of his boot to urge her to wake faster.

Parseri flinched at a shooting pain in her neck, back and shoulders from sleeping on the cramped floor and groaned. Rubbing the back of her neck, she began to open her eyes slowly, still feeling drowsy.

"Girl, are you going to lie there all day?" Vegeta snapped, jabbing at her side with his foot. He was already growing impatient.

Her eyes snapped wide open at the sound of his voice, immediately tensing up as she remembered where she was. Why couldn't it have just been a bad dream? She squeezed her eyes shut again as her body began to tremble.

"Hey!" Vegeta growled as he bent down, stretching a hand towards her. He grasped a handful of her hair and, despite her rather loud shriek of pain, yanked her head upward to make her face him. She stared at him through one eye, the other squeezed shut in a wince. "Are you going to pay attention now, or should I make it hurt more?"

He squeezed his hand tighter, pulling her hair taut to bring her shrieking to new decibels.
"Stop it!"

He released her with a smirk, allowing her to fall forward against him. Quick as lightning, she scrambled away and back to the door and pressed her back against it as if doing so would put more distance between them, staring at him with wide eyes. He chuckled lowly before speaking,
"Well, now that I have your undivided attention, I have a few matters to discuss with you."

He paused for a brief moment to look her over with a scowl before asking,
"Surely by now, you've figured out why you're still alive…?"

As he waited for a response, she only remained silent, staring at him through wide eyes. He growled through grit teeth and barked down at her,
"When I ask you a question, it would be to your benefit to answer me quickly and without delay, girl. You're far too valuable for me to kill, but I can make you wish that I would."

She flinched for a moment before slowly dropping her eyes to the tail that lay quivering by her ankles, every hair standing on end. She blinked at it for a second before lifting her gaze back to his,
"My… my tail?"

A grin spread across his face and he leaned back, folding his arms over his chest.
"Yes. Clever girl… How very impressive, since you came from such a backwater planet."

She felt a twinge of anger erupt inside of her, but remained silent. He noted this and chuckled to himself before deciding to continue,
"Then you realize that it wouldn't just be the three of us to recognize what you are. And might I add that it would be far worse if you were recognized by anyone other than myself and my men. Let's just say that they wouldn't have any intention on keeping you alive, like I do."

He caught relief washing over her face before snapping sternly,
"And before you go getting any suicidal ideas, let me be clear- Your death would come slow. Agonizingly slow… So slow that you'll think what I've done to your people would be a blessing."

As a fresh glimpse of fear shone through her eyes, he chuckled at her.
"Don't like the sound of that, eh? Well, if you do everything that I say, then you'll survive. And I mean everything. I don't take disobedience lightly."

He gave her a sharp glare as he paused for effect and then continued,
"So… let's start with your tail then. I want you to hide it at all times when you're outside my living quarters. Do you understand?"

She looked at her tail, twitching lightly against her leg and then furrowed her eyebrows together,
"Hide it…? You mean, like..."

"I want you to wrap your tail around your waist beneath your clothing." Vegeta interrupted her, not having the patience for her to grasp the concept on her own.

Parseri did as she was told and uncomfortably wrapped her tail nearly twice around her thin waist beneath her simple brown dress. It bothered her to wear her tail in this unusual fashion, and it felt like the tail often wanted to unwrap itself. She found that she almost had to hold her tail in place by putting her hands over it on her dress, to encourage it to stay still. Her face grew hot and red with embarrassment- It felt very strange.

"Very good. Now when we land, its very important you keep that hidden. I suggest that you leave it this way for the remainder of the trip so you get used to it."

She nodded in comprehension before he continued,
"Next… Your behavior. You will keep silent while we walk to my living quarters. You will not make a scene, nor will you try to escape. We've already gone through why you shouldn't try escaping, now haven't we?"

She nodded again.
"And just to add another reason why you shouldn't try escaping, let's just say that it would make me… quite angry to say the least; and trust me… you don't want that…" He gave her a sharp, threatening glare. "You will remain in my living quarters at all times. You are not allowed to leave under any circumstances unless I am with you. The door will always be locked and you must always remain quiet, so that it seems that no one is inside. Do you understand?"

She nodded once more before he grinned again.

"Good girl." He paused for a moment, looking her over once again, "What did they call you on that pathetic dirtball?"

She gave him a quick glare before she could catch herself and then mumbled as she looked away,
"My mother named me Parseri."

"Parseri…" Vegeta repeated the name, pausing to reflect on it for a moment before grinning again with a sneer, "How very convenient of her to give you a Saiyan name."

It must have been true. Parseri had never heard a name as strange as hers before. Her people were typically given names to honor the Pheonix God of Fire that graced the planet and its inhabitants… Her name seemed to honor her father, the Saiyan. She had never been allowed to learn very much about her father, but her mother had always smiled whenever she looked at her. She knew she must have looked something like him. In fact, one of the only genetic traits that resembled her mother were her amber eyes.

He looked like he was done speaking with her for the moment, so Parseri turned around and sat up to look out the window. It looked so vast and dark outside… she had never seen anything like it. She watched blurs of what must have been other worlds like hers pass by at great speed as they traveled. The young half Saiyan stayed that way for a long while… a still figure at the window, silhouetted in the darkness that consumed the both of them, save for a few flickering lights of the stars outside and buttons on the control panel. As a calm fear washed over her, she hoped that this journey would end soon- He never took his eyes off of her.

.~*~.

Before long, the ship seemed to slow down as they neared what looked like a giant building of some sorts, just floating in the blackness of space. While she tried to comprehend why this thing was all the way out here and how it was staying afloat, Vegeta sat back in his seat and prepared himself for the landing. With no atmosphere to break through, the landing came without warning to Parseri... except for the feeling that they were going much too fast to slow down in time to land.

Her eyes widened a split second before the impact and was flattened into the door, slightly cutting off her scream. Vegeta chuckled to himself and engaged the controls to open the spacecraft. When the door fell open, she fell with it and tumbled out, her tail nearly unwrapping itself. She sat up and leaned forward dizzily, propping herself up by her hands, legs spread and looking very much like a hunched over rag doll. As Vegeta picked her up by the back of her dress as if she were nothing more than a mammal cub, two great quakes happened behind them and soon Raditz and Nappa joined them outside their own now landed ships.

"You remember what I said, girl," Vegeta eyed her as he grabbed hold of her by the wrist, "you won't try anything funny."

"I-I remember…" She stammered, looking nervously into the corridor they were about to enter. It looked so devoid of color and made from a substance that seemed unnatural. It was frightening to look at and she really didn't want to go in, but as they began to walk, she could only do the very same with Vegeta's hand clamped around her left wrist. She jumped a bit when the doors closed behind them and glanced all around in alarm. Since she didn't wear footwear of any kind, she noticed how cold and unfeeling the floor felt. It wasn't like the soft and sandy soil back home. The walls were obviously not made of wood, and the source of light wasn't coming from any sun, nor did it seem to be created by fire. Lights of different color gleamed all around them and Parseri noticed that they resembled the buttons in the space pod. She saw several hideous and frightening creatures who glanced at her as they passed on by. They all seemed to be wearing the same strange fashion of clothing that her captors wore.

"We're to report to Frieza." Vegeta ordered his comrades.

"What about the girl?" Raditz asked, eyeing her.

"Don't worry. We'll drop her off on the way."

They seemed to twist and turn through a labyrinth of steel until they stopped in front of a wall. However, this part of it seemed different than the rest of the wall and she'd noticed similarities all over the corridor as well. There seemed to be cuts in the wall… and there were buttons next to them. She narrowed her eyes in curiosity as Vegeta pushed a sequence of buttons before the wall slid open. A door! But she had never seen a door like this before.

Without a word he flung her over the threshold and into a room. She whirled around in time to see Vegeta's blank, cold stare looking back at her. For a moment they gazed at each other before the door slid shut again, sealing her in. She stood petrified from his gaze… his gaze that reminded her to stay put and keep quiet until he returned… But what would happen when he returned even if she did as she was told?

The terrified girl desperately clambered over to the door and began pushing buttons, trying to get it open. She pushed each button one at a time, but with no luck... remembering shortly after that there had been a sort of pattern to it when Vegeta had done it. She tried several patterns before giving up with a frustrated whine. She was trapped... and for the first time since she was taken from her planet, she was alone... So very hopelessly alone.

Pain seemed to seep into her mind as her heart began to pound harder and harder. Her mother. Her step-father. Her little brother. Enkou. Moesakaru. Their faces flashed through her mind. She revisited her flaming village and once again saw the lifeless fire dancers sprawled out amongst the Great Flame. Her breathing became more and more ragged until she felt the hot, stinging sensation of tears in her eyes before she flung herself into the nearby cot, collapsing into a fit of sobs. She cried for what seemed like forever until she finally fell into a restless sleep.

.~*~.

Vegeta returned a few hours later to find her curled up in his bed. Closing the door behind him with a smirk, he padded over to her and gazed down at her sleeping form. Her breathing shuddered every now and then, making it obvious to him that she had been very stressed, and know doubt crying before she had fallen asleep- A habit he would have to break her of very soon. She was far too emotional for his liking and seemed to be a bit of a loose cannon, which could prove troublesome in his plans for her quiet imprisonment. He heard her murmur incomprehensible speech in her sleep and raised an eyebrow down at her. After a few moments she spoke again, and this time he understood it.

"Momma… Mom…"

He snorted and rolled his eyes. He looked down at her with an expression of annoyed disgust.
"Weakling brat…" He grumbled, and nudged her awake with his knee. She moaned and rolled away from him.

"Get up." He barked sharply. His sharp voice acted as an alarm bell and she bolted upright, wide-eyed.

"Off." He jerked his head sideways, indicating that he wanted her off his bed. Parseri immediately obeyed, not wishing to remain on the cot as long as he planned to be there anyway. His glare chased her to the other side of his small living quarters as he began to remove his chest piece. With a satisfying smirk, he noticed that she looked away as he did so, her face flushed in embarrassment. He discarded his armor as well as his shirt onto the floor next to his bed and sat upon it, now fully facing her and not taking his eyes off of her. He caught her sneaking glances back at him a few times to check if he was still shirtless and each time he watched her face redden even more as she averted her gaze again when she saw that he was. A thought dawned on him as he chuckled with amusement; she was still innocent. Perhaps he would spare the poor thing his more... primal plans for the time being.

But how long did he really think he could keep her a secret? His face hardened into a glare again as he lost himself in thought, still gazing at her.

"What." A fierce voice snapped him from his thoughts as he looked at her. She still wasn't looking at him, but her face burned with an angry blush as a glare of her own remained locked onto a spot of the wall to his left. "Stop looking at me."

The force of her voice almost surprised him for a moment before a sly smirk spread across his face.
"I don't recall you being the one giving orders around here, girl."

"I want you to stop looking at me like that." She repeated through grit teeth.

He chuckled and rested his cheek on his fist, propping up his elbow on his knee,
"And what if I don't want to? Heh. Not much to look at anyway…"

That did it. Her face turned a deep scarlet hue and she snapped her head back in his direction and squawked, "I beg your pardon!"

Vegeta smirked, filling the small room cold, harsh laughter that rattled her very last nerve. It was enough to make her lose her senses and snap, lunging forward to try and clamp her hands around his throat. How she hated him... She wanted to snap his neck in two! Before her hands could even touch the flesh of his throat, however, his hands flew fast to hers, gripping her wrists tightly, almost painfully. She winced and looked up into his face to meet that cold, threatening glare of his that shook her very soul. In an instant, the rage was gone, and she shuddered as he spoke,
"You forget your place and current situation, Parseri."

It seemed more frightening when he called her by her name.

He wasn't carrying any traces of amusement or mockery anymore. He had wanted this type of reaction, true, for it proved to him once again that she did indeed hold important (albeit seemingly unbalanced,) traits of a Saiyan… But he couldn't have her throwing fits and causing a ruckus every night; he wanted to draw as little attention to her as possible. Flinging her to the floor, he glared down at her and resumed speaking,

"You will not raise your voice, nor fist to me. Is that clear? I remember instructing you to remain quiet at all times. You're no use to me if you can't follow simple orders and you don't want to find to find out what I do to those who I find a lack of use in."

"You never said anything about when you were in the room with me, Sir," Seething, she spat the word out with venom, staring angrily at the tiles of the floor below her, "Only to remain quiet when you were gone… so therefore that rule didn't apply."

He stood up, getting very tired of this attitude of hers.
"Consider it applied."

She glared up at Vegeta, hating him.
"I don't."

His eyes blazed and in a split second she was facedown on the floor after a swift backhand to the face. The Saiyan Prince glared down at her for a few seconds more before his lips curled into a smirk.
"My, that's some mouth you've got."

He stood and watched her for a moment longer before laying down upon the cot to go to sleep. Parseri didn't move from the spot for the rest of the night, cringing and fighting back silent tears.

The next morning Vegeta awoke, to find her still in the same spot on the floor where he had left her, only curled into a ball and shivering. He almost thought she was crying again and began to think very seriously about her mood swings before he heard the chattering of her teeth. Grimacing in annoyance, he lifted her sleeping and shivering form from the chilled tiled floor and into his arms, depositing her onto his bed before dressing and leaving to report for his morning patrol and upcoming assignments.

.~*~.

How long Parseri remained in that room, she didn't know. There seemed to be no sun or light of day outside whenever she peered out of the small window that the room bore. Her sleeping patterns grew irregular, so they were certainly no help in deducing the length of her stay. A month? Two months maybe? During which time she never saw the outside of the four walls in which she was confined. She didn't see much of Vegeta, save for when he brought her food, or came into his quarters to sleep every now and then. She often wondered where he went to when he was gone and often wished she could predict the length of time he spent there as well.

She hadn't really given up on escaping, but knew that it needed to be planned very carefully for it to work, for she would more than likely have only one shot at it. Where she was going after she escaped, she didn't know… that was another problem. She had no idea where she was and it wasn't as if she had anything to go back to. As she paced the room one day, contemplating all of these facts, she flopped down upon the bed, putting an arm over her forehead as she stared at the ceiling. Her brain was exhausted, and it seemed impossible that she'd be able to do any of the things that needed to be done for her escape. She jumped as she heard a distant beeping on the other side of the door, and sat up straight as the door opened, revealing Vegeta.

He closed the door behind him after he entered, carrying a tray of food which was no doubt for her. She looked at the tray with distaste written upon her face. Meat again. Was that all they ate around here? Vegeta set the tray down and turned towards the door. She was used to this, for that was his usual routine these days. She narrowed her eyes at him in wonder... What was keeping him so busy? Whatever it was, she doubted it was a good thing. She jumped in alarm as he turned his head and snarled at her before opening the door,

"And eat it all this time. You're no use to me if you keep looking like you're wasting away."

As he turned to the door and started pushing buttons to engage the locking program, her eyes snapped up and caught the first three keys of the pattern before she couldn't follow the rest. After he left and the door slid shut, she scrambled from the bed and over to the keypad on the wall. It was a four-by-four block of sixteen buttons.

It sounded like he had typed in eight keys from the beeping sounds. The first one was the second button in the third row. She remembered that, and pushed it. The second one was the fourth one in either the first row, or the second row. The young half-Saiyan thought on it for awhile until she became certain it was the first row. The third button in the sequence was second row, three… or was it third row, four? She wracked her brain, trying to remember, but couldn't. Finally, she threw her hands up, growling, disgusted with it all. Walking over to the small circular window in the room, she looked out of it into the vast darkness of what they called "space."

If she had not been so distraught, she might have stopped to realize how beautiful it was out there. The stars winked pleasantly at her, but only stood as symbols of freedom… something so hopelessly out of her reach. She began to tremble as the familiar sting of tears began to form in her eyes again. She sank to the floor weeping, and thoroughly disgusted with herself. Why was it that all she could do was cry? The hybrid girl wept on the floor until her voice went hoarse and she felt an intense pain in her stomach. Without really thinking, she crawled to the bed and began to tear into the meat with her teeth, stopping every now and then to sob, but continuing to eat. After consuming all the food on the tray, she shoved it aside with a sliver of satisfaction that at least her stomach was comfortable even if the tears wouldn't stop.

The sliding open of the door made her jump as Vegeta returned. How long had she been on the floor? She felt a pang of disappointment in herself that once again she had failed to pay attention to how long he was gone. His eyes spotted to the empty tray on the floor before they slid back up to her with a satisfied smirk,
"Nice to see you're doing what you're told for once."

She didn't answer, but looked down at her lap, fists clenched tightly upon it. She closed her eyes and grit her teeth, making two fresh tears fall onto the backs of her hands. Vegeta noticed this and his smirk immediately darkened into a scowl. He crossed the room to stand over her, glaring down at her shaking form.

"Stop that. The blood that runs through your veins is partially the blood of a great and proud race… Have some pride, you pathetic brat."

The distressed girl did not look up, but spoke very slowly in a hoarse, shaky tone,
"This blood… This blood that you speak so highly of has taken everything away from me from the moment of my birth. This blood which you have such pride in has kept me an outcast, and now it has destroyed the only people who ever cared about me... It's nothing more than a curse."

He scoffed in annoyance, folding his arms across his chest.
"Don't give me that. You can hardly blame your Saiyan blood or my comrades and I for what happened. If it wasn't us, it would have been someone else sent by Frieza to get the job done and you would be dead with your primitive race."

"Well maybe that's what I want!" She shouted at him and snapped her gaze up to his with a jerk of her head, fresh teardrops flying from her eyes from the sharp movement, "You've ruined everything! I may not have really belonged with the people as a whole, but I was happier there! I was happy with my family and friends! And you killed them! You took everything away from me!" She finished shrilly. The room fell silent as they gazed at each other for a moment before she lowered her head to weep again. "Why didn't you just leave me there?" she sobbed helplessly, "Why didn't you just kill me? That's what I wanted…"

"I kept you alive because you have an important role to fill." He growled, becoming rapidly annoyed with her weeping and trembling, "You are going to help me rebuild the Saiyan race. You wouldn't know anything about it, so allow me to enlighten you…

"You have already met the remainder of our dying race. Just the four of us, and the possibility of one more. You are the only female with Saiyan blood left, and it is your duty to help repopulate our noble race."

She jolted, her body tensing as her eyes flew back up to him in shocked disbelief,
"Y-you're disgusting!"

He smirked for a moment before replying, "Not your ideal situation as I understand, but it cannot be helped. Our entire planet was destroyed by a meteor, afterall." He paused, the smirk slipping from his face before murmuring, "...We're the only ones left…"

The room fell silent once again as he gazed at her and she still looked down into her lap. The only word she uttered to break that silence before she could catch herself was:

"Good."

Slowly, Vegeta's face contorted into a look of pure rage. He actually had to work to stop himself from hurling a blast of energy to send the sniveling brat straight to oblivion. Instead, he reached down and forced her head up by grabbing her neck and twisting it upward. She flinched, looking up into his blazing eyes as he hissed,

"I've had just about enough of this attitude of yours. As I said before, I won't kill you, but I can and will make you beg for me to if you don't watch your mouth."

And with a horrible smirk, he lifted her up an inch and hurled her down on the bed. She watched in horror as energy began to flow into his hand, glowing with a bright blue light. The orb of power seemed to grow larger by the second… She heard screams in her head as she imagined the same thing happening to her family. The memory of Moesakaru vanishing into nothing by this powerful light was swimming just in front of her eyes until she threw her arms over her head with a terrified shriek,
"S-stop! Stop! I'm sorry!"

Parseri heard him chuckle lowly, feeling the heat from the ball of energy disappear. With a jolt, she felt him place a hand atop her head.

"Good to hear." He cackled, giving her hair rough tousle, "See that you behave yourself from now on."

She froze, absolutely hating his hands being anywhere near her, but was too afraid to anger him further.

"I'm sleeping here again tonight." He spoke gruffly, causing her head to snap back up in alarm, "Off."

She nodded quickly, scrambling from the cot to her usual spot on the floor. Vegeta disrobed and turned the lights down before long, leaving her in the dark as he retired for the night.

Parseri huddled against one of the walls, shaking with suppressed, silent sobs. She could have been free… if she would have egged him on further, there was a chance he might have just lost it and killed her. Coward… she was nothing but a coward who couldn't even die right when the invitation had been right there!

Coward… Coward… Coward...