Chapter Three

- . - . -

Chi Chi was anxious and on edge for a time, but eventually when Bulma said nothing-and nothing else happened-she began to relax. She had almost convinced herself it had been only a dream, and a coincidence that she had dreamt Bulma's labor the night it had actually happened. Her other dreams, dreams of a white castle and surrounded by grass meadows, trickling streams, and hedge mazes, came more frequently after that night. She shoved thoughts of that away as well.

- . - . -

Meanwhile, Bulma went about her atypically typical days inside Capsule Corporation. Vegeta trained as usual, unaware of any threat or anything different about his daughter or his wife. Trunks became more and more involved in the management of the family business, which was a relief to Bulma in more ways than one. She spent as much time in her lab as Vegeta did in his training. The two of them devoted time to their new daughter during the day and devoted time to each other in the dark.

Bulma had noticed long ago that she had developed a connection to Vegeta that she could not explain. She had wondered now if it had anything to do with her line, but Vegeta had gruffly explained to her that when she'd become his wife the two of them had bonded somehow. It was from his line, more common among the royals than among the lower classes of Saiyans. Bulma had awkwardly asked Chi Chi and found that Goku did not have any such connection to his wife. When she had casually mentioned it to Vegeta he'd been less grumpy than usual for two days. Bulma supposed that Vegeta enjoyed it whenever he had one up on Goku. Bulma adored her husband but there was a dark thought, a devastating uncertainty, she could not even finish digging up before her subconscious buried it even deeper. Deep down she knew what Vegeta might think of her when he found out all of the implications of who she really was and the secret she had kept her whole life.

Without admitting to what she was doing she began cataloging all of the fighters on Chikyuu that would probably help to protect Chikyuu, Bra, and herself. She counted the Ladies of the Guard that were on the way back through space, because she anticipated that they would arrive just before the armies of her enemy would be here. There were a few things she had not anticipated. Bulma had not counted on anyone arriving before the year was out-that was a mistake.

Bulma was on her was out to Vegeta's training room, carrying a small tray of food to entice him to break to have lunch with her, when someone she didn't recognize suddenly dropped out of the sky.

The man, with long blue hair and gray eyes, had dropped like a stone so suddenly but had not had to brace himself for his impact as to give himself the illusion that he had simply appeared out of nowhere. He startled Bulma so badly that she'd taken a step back before she'd realized it. She stared hard at him and wished, not for the first time, that Vegeta's training room was not so thoroughly soundproofed.

"Well, hello. If it isn't the darling little Princess 'Lena, all grown up. You've become quite the peasant, haven't you?"

Bulma sighed, "What is it with you villains?"

He continued as if he hadn't heard her, "I am Lord Shantar, ruler of Menou, and I was sent by-"

Bulma affected an air of disinterest, "Villains always so busy with evil monologues that you don't notice the important things. Like my Saiyan husband-standing behind you."

He turned suddenly, mouth agape, expecting to face Vegeta. Bulma used the tray in her hand, built sturdy to withstand her darling Saiyan husband, and broke it over his head. He collapsed, his cloak falling gracefully over him and turning him into a pile of elegant blue-gray fabric. Bulma stared at his unconscious body for a second or two, knowing that she was not strong enough to have killed him. Frankly, she was surprised that he was stupid and weak enough for that to have worked. She remembered Menou, vaguely, since as the future ruler she had visited the planets she would have to rule someday with her Queen Mother. This was not the best warrior Menou could boast, or it hadn't been when she'd been fifteen. She dragged the idiot's body back to her lab, where she could properly restrain him, all the while refusing to admit to herself how long it had been since she'd been fifteen.

She resolved to contact her Guard. She had refused to concede the inevitability of resuming her role as a descendant of the Moon Empress. Having an enemy come so close to killing her, a matter of feet away from her daughter's bedroom, had convinced her better than anything else that she had to start acting instead of thinking, dreading, and ignoring. After three hours of trying every device she had, even the ones originally from the Palace, Bulma finally admitted defeat. Her Guards were just too far away for any of her instruments to reach them from Chikyuu. Her defeat lasted all of three seconds before she realized she could always send satellites out into space. Bulma got down to work. The satellites she built were a hodgepodge of technologies from Chikyuu, Vegeta-sai, and the Palace. It took her eight hours to finish the four small satellites. She had made them small, only a big taller than she was and mostly round; she needed them to be light and fast.

The first two she sent in the direction she most expected her Guards to be coming from, the outer provinces of the Empire. It was there that the devastation of the fall had hit the hardest and where they could do the most good. The second went to the areas that had been the strongest middle governments, where the Guard's could properly resupply without having to worry too much about having their throats slit. Bulma knew that these three planets had most likely survived the onslaught on the palace all those years ago more or less intact. The third she sent out in the direction of where she least expected the Guards to have ever gone, just in case.

Somewhere in the middle of all of that her prisoner had woken up several times. She had sedated him repeatedly, though she knew she needed to come up with a more permanent solution.

- . - . -