For those of you who are American (like me): Happy Memorial Day. If you or someone in your family has served in the armed forces, thank you for you or your family's service.
So. I had really thought that I would have gotten this out before now but, you know, life happens. I had also thought that all that I wanted to get done for the next chunk would take place in this chapter but, you know, plot (and teh pr0nz) happens. I went ahead and made the executive decision to cut the chapter in two, but the second part hasn't been written yet. (sorrysorrysorrysorry!)
Enjoy!
The wind blew gently through the branches, rustling the leaves above ChiChi and Gohan. Her son turned over onto his back and stared up into the trees. "When is Daddy coming home?" he asked.
"I don't know," ChiChi replied.
"I miss him," Gohan told her, openly and sweetly, and ChiChi leaned over and pressed a kiss to his forehead.
"I do, too."
Gohan ran his fingers through the grass, gripping it in his fists from time to time. "When can we go home?"
ChiChi's heart clenched at the thought of Mount Paozu, and she closed her eyes and saw their little cottage, with its wide outdoor tub and sun-drenched yard and crisp sheets snapping in the wind. "I don't know," she finally said, her voice thick. "We just need to stay with Mr. Yamucha and Mr. Tien for a while."
Gohan frowned at that, a petulant child's frown, and ChiChi wished he were older, and wiser, so that she could talk to him like a man, confide in him her fears, and make plans with him, instead of for him. But he was still a child, barely out of his toddler years, and ChiChi had to be strong for him, for now. So she wiped the tears from her eyes before they could fall and kept on harvesting the wild berries from the bush in front of her. Yamucha was fishing a bit away, because berries wouldn't fill up Gohan, not even for a snack—
A piercing whistle sounded to her right, and she whirled, taking in Gohan's little hands up at his mouth, a blade of grass stretched between his thumbs. "Gohan!" she called, "No noise! I've told you—no noise!"
Gohan colored, remembering when his mom had squatted down in front of him and told him how very, very important it was to be quiet, and let the blade of grass fall back to the earth. "I'm sorry, Mom."
As soon as the words fell from his lips, he heard a rustling from a bit away, and he shot upright. ChiChi heard it a moment later, and she reached out her hand. Gohan, she mouthed, and he took her hand. She began leading him gingerly away, but as they approached the pathway, a large figure stepped out in front of them. ChiChi's tightened her grip on Gohan's hand. "Oh! Hello," she called out, adding a wave. Gohan could feel her palm start to sweat and he heard the beat of her heart kick up.
"What's a pretty thing like you doing up here in the mountains?" the large man asked, leering at ChiChi.
ChiChi forced a chuckle. "I was born in the mountains; it's where I feel at home."
"Why don't you send the boy a bit away and show me a mountain girl welcome, then? Hey, Yaro! I found a pretty lady and her whelp! They must have made that noise." Another man circled around from behind, and ChiChi tried to swallow down the thick fear rising in her throat.
"You're scaring my mom," Gohan told him, pulling a fierce frown. "Please be nice to her—" The man who was not Yaro reached forward and slapped Gohan aside, and ChiChi screamed out her son's name, caught off-guard when not-Yaro caught onto the front of her dress and ripped it open. She whipped her fist out and landed a solid punch in not-Yaro's eye, and he yelped, stepping back. Yaro jumped in and swiped at her, but she ducked and swept her foot out, catching Yaro in the kneecap.
"Son of a bitch!" Yaro yelped, but he quickly recovered and grabbed at ChiChi's dress again. Not-Yaro, shaking his head, bared his teeth and moved in as well, only to be knocked backward by a fearsome headbutt to the stomach from Gohan.
"LEAVE HER ALONE!" he screamed, jumping upwards and pounding his little fists into not-Yaro's head. Yaro, who had had his hands full wrestling ChiChi to the ground and trying to tug down the front of his jumpsuit at the same time while ChiChi twisted and turned, finally rose up to help his friend, only to face the surprising force of Gohan's fists and feet.
"Gohan," ChiChi called out, clambering slowly to her feet, shaking hands trying to hold her clothes together and failing. Gohan spared her no mind, and ChiChi felt the oddest pushing sensation, as if she were facing the wind head on. When not-Yaro tried to catch Gohan from behind, her son easily spun to meet him, and that's when ChiChi saw that Gohan's eyes were completely white, his lips were pulled back to bare his teeth.
She choked out a cry and scrambled backwards. Yamucha, Yamucha, Yamucha, her mind babbled at her, and she turned around and ran towards the lake that she knew Yamucha was planning on fishing in. I need Yamucha, I need him to help Gohan, Yamucha Yamucha, help me, help me. The sounds of Gohan's screaming faded behind her as her feet carried her down the pathway.
Yamucha took one look at her and sprinted in the direction of her pointing finger, ChiChi hot on his heels. They didn't even reach the treeline before they saw the two men breach the top of the trees, one of them carrying Gohan by his tail. ChiChi screamed for Nimbus, but by the time the cloud reached her, the men were specks in the sky, and Yamucha wrapped his arms around her like bands of steel.
"No, ChiChi," he said, his own voice choking on tears, "even if you got to them, you can't fight them—you would fall off of Nimbus and die." ChiChi turned in his arms and pressed her face into Yamucha's gi, so much like Goku's.
"Gohan," she whimpered, fisting Yamucha's gi in her fists, "Gohan, my baby."
"We'll get them back," Yamucha promised. "We'll get them back, ChiChi."
But she knew it was an empty promise, and that she would never see her family again.
Gohan hunkered down in his seat, pulling his lips to one side and scowling at his foe. Bulma listened as he talked quietly to himself, finally writing down his final answer. "Is that right?" he asked, tugging on Bulma's sleeve. She set down her cultures and glanced at his work.
"Sorry, hun," she said, tapping at a negative sign in front of a number earlier in the equation. "Try again."
"You tricked me!" Gohan accused, glaring at her.
"I did not—it's right there!" Bulma huffed, pointing again. "Now, erase your wrong answer and try again!"
He huffed and scrubbed at the paper with his stubby eraser. "Mom always tells me what to look out for," he grumbled, planting his elbows on the table and his fists against the side of his head, preparing to do battle once again.
Loading the centrifuge at the opposite table, Bulma rolled her eyes. "Well, she was wrong to do that. When you get older, you won't have a prophet following you around everywhere, unlocking all of life's little mysteries for you." She turned the machine on and circled back around to his little frame, perched on a tall lab stool. He was focused on the equation, tracing its progression with the eraser end of his pencil with a fierce intensity that she'd seen on his father's face more than a few times over the years, and that she'd come to recognize in Vegeta and the others.
Bulma sighed and ruffled his thick hair with her hand. No matter what ChiChi wants, she's not going to be able to school the Saiyan out of this kid. She watched as Gohan began writing his answer and smiled. "Yep, there ya go, kiddo. You're making good progress," she told him, taking the stool beside him and grabbing a few folders of patient records, "I mean, this is pretty basic algebra but you've blasted through it in the past month. I should really test your IQ sometime…"
"You don't really need to test it," Orja said, running her hand over Gohan's head as she passed him on her way to the other side of the table. "He's already leaps and bounds over his peers on Earth, from the reports I've seen, at least." She pulled out a stool opposite Bulma and sat, sliding her glasses up onto her nose. "I have some of your paperwork from the past week and I thought that I would go over some of it with you, if you have time?"
"Sure," Bulma chirruped. Weeks had passed since that day but Bulma still felt awful about wrapping her major girl-crush up in the fallout of Gohan's arrival.
Orja cracked a rare half-smile and flicked her glossy braid over her shoulder. "I've been very impressed with your precision and dedication to detail since you've arrived here. I keep expecting it to slip at some point but you haven't disappointed me yet. I've heard that you were in a managing position back on Earth?"
That's putting it simply, Bulma thought, and her stomach turned over. She thought of her office back at Capsule Corp—the cluttered drafting table, the sleek hardwood floors, and the wide windows overlooking the manicured yard separating the business office from the main residence. "Yes, I was," she answered, striving for neutral and hitting wistful instead.
"It shows. You work well with the others. I know that you had to step in for Anyippa last week and everyone has said that you were extremely helpful. Next time that a spot opens up, I'll see what I can do about slipping you up a rung or two. Now then," Orja continued without missing a beat, "These labs that you did on that Qossac girl—Evoq? Have you had a chance to talk to her since the results came back?"
"Not yet—I know that she's in one of the storage compartments that have been converted into a—men's retreat," Bulma said, glancing at Gohan, who seemed oblivious and engrossed in his next equation. "I'll get in touch with Wema tomorrow and see if she'll produce her for a few hours."
Orja nodded and jotted a note at the margin of Evoq's lab report. "And I saw that Shoga—he's a second class, under Prince Vegeta's command, right?—came in for another physical. It says here that you've been tracking his iron levels over the past few months. What are you thinking?"
"Well, as you can see from the line chart—yep, right there—his iron levels have been fluctuating a bit oddly. He first presented with below-normal levels after Roqq, when he was admitted for the regen tank…"
Daikon wasn't leading her back to her room.
Bulma paused in the hallway after Daikon kept going up the stairs instead of getting off at F deck. "Should I go back on my own?" She called up to him, stepping out of the way to let a pair of Tungas pass by.
"You're moving quarters," he called back, stopping and planting his feet in a wide stance, arms crossed, on the landing above her. God, but he's big, she thought, not for the first time since meeting him. "The Prince was given better rooms, and you're along for the ride, naturally."
"Better rooms?" she asked, starting up the stairs after him. "…why, though?"
Daikon barked out a laugh and gestured to get off on the next deck, which was higher than Bulma had ever been, except when she had visited Frieza's rooms on the top deck. "Because we did a good job on Roqq," he stated, as if it were obvious to the world.
A good job, Bulma repeated in her mind, thinking of Roqqi's jovial smile and deep laugh. She looked at her feet as she walked next to Daikon, putting one foot in front of the other on the gray metal of the floors and then, unbidden, she remembered how hard the floor felt that next day, when the Roqqani had dragged her down and shoved her face into it, how cold it felt when they ripped her clothes—
"Here," Daikon announced, stopping short and pulling her out of her thoughts. Bulma shook her head, shaking herself out of the memory, and looked through the doorway that Daikon jerked his thumb at.
And laughed in disbelief.
She had been expecting maybe ten extra square feet but not this. "You can come in, Daikon," Bulma invited as she stepped past him and through the much-wider casement. Instead of a direct entry into the bedroom as with her old quarters, she and Daikon entered a large sitting room that seemed to lead straight into space, given the floor-to-ceiling window that constituted the back wall of the room. They were traveling at superluminal speed again (and reaching their next destination within the next few days), and the streamers of photons were even more beautiful when they weren't framed by an oblong window casement. A few Saiyans—Radditz and two others that she had met but whose names escaped her—nodded at her as she entered. The sofa and two armchairs on which they lounged faced each other across a table centered over one of the rugs from the old room, all arranged so that it would be possible to walk from the door to the window in a fairly straight line, and directly to Bulma's right, a deeper, longer desk backed up to the wall, accompanied by a swivel desk chair.
"Is Prince Vegeta here?" she asked, finally asked, trailing her fingers along the edge of the desk. Bulma had learned she received a much more favorable response from Vegeta's men and women when she referred to him by his title, though, as a group, they seemed to have deemed her veritably invisible after everyone found out about her inability to carry a child to term. They talked to her in the lab, or when basic manners necessitated it, but that was about it. She passed her days under the radar, generally ignored by about 95% of the Saiyans aboard.
Raditz pointed at the doorway behind the sofa. "In the bedroom," he told her, though his voice seemed tinged with more surliness than she was used to hearing from him. She murmured her thanks with a side glance and stepped through the doorway into the next room.
She almost squealed at the sight of the space in the bedroom. They actually had a set of drawers in here, and bedside tables on either side of the bed. She'd been so tired of dropping all of her stuff on the floor after working in bed. No floor-to-ceiling window here, just a picture window like in the last room, but no other furniture either. I'll just have to remedy that, Bulma mused. "Vegeta?" she called out, already heading into the closet.
"Oh my god, I think I've died and gone to heaven," she sighed, drinking in the sheer depthof the closet. It was nothing compared to her closet at home, but it was certainly at least triple the size of their old closet down on F deck. Vegeta was sitting crosslegged at the opposite end of the closet with his back to her, rearranging clothes in a low drawer.
"Yeah, there's finally space for my own shit," he muttered without looking back at her.
Bulma rolled her eyes walked inside the closet and kicked off her shoes into one of the corners. "Speaking of good moods, why is Raditz so cranky?"
"He was being sloppy in training today so I made him move all of your clothes and hang them up," he said with a flippant wave at the dresses and clothes lining the walls.
Bulma snickered—and then groaned. "Please tell me he didn't move my underwear, Vegeta."
He looked over his shoulder at her with an appalled look on his face. "Fuck. No. He's not going anywhere near anything like that."
"Who did then?" When awkward silence followed her question, she moved closer to him and, with an eye towards the door, through which she heard the others raucously jeering at each other, hissed, "Remember—we promised not to lie to each other anymore."
"Oh, please, woman," Vegeta snarled back, finally turning his head up to look at her, "that promise does not extend to such trivial matters as these."
"Knowing who touched my underwear is not trivial, Vegeta!"
He pressed his lips together in a harsh line and the slightest amount of pink rose in his tan cheeks. "Fine. I moved them. I was going to ask Parseri but…"
"You didn't know how to ask?" Bulma finished with an arched brow. Vegeta held her gaze for a beat longer and then decisively turned back to re-stacking his jumpsuits. "Well, thank you. I appreciate it," she said in a much more concise and conciliatory tone. "Daikon said that we get these new rooms because of Roqq? I find that hard to believe, given all that's happened. Frieza doesn't seem to like us very much these days."
"He doesn't have a choice," Vegeta said. "He has to keep up appearances if he wants to keep all the pieces moving in his favor."
Bulma exhaled heavily and pressed her fingers to her temples. "Vegeta, you drive me crazy with this half-answer bullshit you do."
Rolling his eyes towards the ceiling, Vegeta finally explained: "Groups bid for jobs. When they get a job and execute it well, Frieza moves them into better living quarters and gives them better benefits. His personal feelings aside, if he didn't abide by his promises, no one would bid for the jobs and his business wouldn't function."
"And this room? Was someone knocked out for it?"
"More or less. The Cronifs were in this position before but they've been transferred over to Cooler's ship. My men get their living quarters, too. Four to a room with a head now, instead of eight with no head." His voice warmed up at the end, and he closed his drawer with a satisfied look on his face.
"The captains?" Bulma asked, wanting to let him talk about his soldiers some more.
"Into rooms like the one we just left," he answered, looking up at her with the barest smile curving the corner of his mouth.
She grinned at him and dropped to her knees behind him. "Good," she purred, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and dropping her chin into the crook of his neck. "I want the chaise from our old room."
"What?" Vegeta asked, and cut his eyes sideways to take in her profile. "Why?"
Bulma dramatically sighed and shook her head. "We need it to put under the window in the bedroom. The wall is really empty over there."
"The wall is empty," he repeated in a flat voice. "So you want to drag that piece of shit up halfway across the ship because a wall is empty."
"Well," Bulma murmured (since the soldiers outside were still being loud), "if Frieza has to put on the appearances of being in a giving mood…" Tilting her head, she ran the tip of her nose along the shell of his ear and watched as his eyes drifted closed.
"I doubt he'll want to set that precedent," he protested with a voice that had dropped an octave when she took the lobe of his ear between her blunt teeth and tugged. She felt the vibrations against her chest and shivered. He rumbled again when she flicked her tongue against the corner of his jaw, and she hummed against his neck when he unwound his tail from his waist and twisted it up her bare thigh. "Fuck, I forgot you wore a skirt today," he sighed without looking back, sliding his tail up underneath her hem and tilting his head back against her shoulder when it found the smooth skin in the crease of her hip.
"I don't know, Vegeta," she breathed, spreading her hands wide on his chest and sliding one down to where hard muscle covered his ribs. She could feel his heart speeding up against her hands, and she moved to his side, where she had better access to lean in and press openmouthed kisses to his neck. "It might be a worse precedent for him to turn down the small requests of soldiers that have served him well and done their jobs as asked. You're just settling into your new rooms and your silly, silly wife wants to feel at home."
Her hand had found him, heavy and straining against his jumpsuit and she laughed breathlessly as he reached around to fist his hand in her hair and kiss her, his lips slightly missing their mark. It was awkward, with her still right next to him, but she adjusted and jerked in painpleasure when his teeth accidentallyonpurpose snagged on her lower lip. "Send them away," she murmured into his open mouth when the soldiers outside hollered and laughed at another joke.
"Get out!" he thundered, and Bulma didn't even care when she heard footsteps pounding on the floor and lewd encouragements thrown into the bedroom. "And close the door!" In mere seconds, it was just the two of them and Bulma could think of no good reason to move from where they were.
She threw her leg over his and worked her fingers underneath the top section of his jumpsuit. His skin was warm and smooth except for where he was scarred and she pushed upwards until it was off. Now she had skin to gain traction on and dig her nails into when he slipped her out of her jacket and pushed the straps of her tank and bra down in one fell swoop. "You really want that chaise, don't you?" he laughed, and ran his tongue along a cup of her bra before pulling it down.
"Yes, I do," she replied, letting her fingers trip along the cords of his neck. He kissed her again. "I have fond memories of it."
"Of a piece of furniture? You're insane, woman."
She laughed and let her head fall back as he worked his way up and down her neck. "Please, Vegeta, get it for me. I really, really," she purred with a teasing smile, reaching down between them to slip her fingers beneath the waistband of his pants and slide them back and forth to feel his muscles quake against her knuckles, his shaky exhale against her temple, "really want it."
"I would get it myself now if it didn't mean leaving you in here at the same time," he rumbled against her clavicle. "But if you really want it, I'll submit a request."
"I do, I d—" her response was cut off by a highpitched squeak when his fingers slid underneath her panties for the first time, and he cursed into her ear as they slipped and slid and sank easily.
"Bulma—" He moaned (pleaded, with her firm hand all the way south, now) "Let me—"
They pushed everything out of the way and she rose up and then slowly down again and he groaned and wrapped his arms around her waist while she rocked against him. Impatiently, he shoved the rest of her shirt and bra down and brought her breasts to his mouth and she moaned and let her head fall back, bracing her undulating on his shoulders.
"I get it now," she said to the ceiling. "Why you do it all." She flattened her hands and pressed until he laid back on the cold floor of their closet but he didn't even flinch. He looked up at her with hooded eyes as she rose and fell over him, his hips pressing upwards in tandem.
"It's for them, isn't it?" she asked—but not expecting an answer. "You do it for them." Vegeta's eyes closed and he gripped her thighs, focusing on the flexion of her quads. She saw the muscle working in his jaw and she reached for his wrists, wrapping her own hands around them. "They're the best and they deserve the best."
He twisted his hands and tugged at her arms until she lay atop him. "Vegeta?" Bulma asked, but he kissed her, wrapping his arms around her back. "I'm right then," she said in a high voice, when he broke away and snapped his hips against hers, but he didn't respond. "They deserve the best," she murmured in his ear, her voice getting thin as she spiraled higher and higher, "and you want to take care of them—they need you—"
He rolled her over onto her back and set his mouth at the soft skin under her chin, sucking up a purple bloom until her head thrashed from side to side. Her soft blue hair swirled around her head, her brow furrowed, and her hips moved restlessly, and Vegeta realized the change in position had caused her pleasure to plateau. "Fuck," he muttered, sliding his hand between their bodies. She shuddered and sighed his name and ran her hands along his shoulders and into his hair. Her eyes began to turn glassy and lose focus, and he ran his nose along her cheekbone. "C'mon," he urged, removing his hand and wrapping it in her hair. He ground his hips down into hers and she arched upwards, her legs starting to spasm against his side. "There you go, there you go, gods damn it, Bulma, you're so fucking—" he cut off as she tightened up all around him, legs squeezing tight and her face breaking out in the most amazing flush.
He wanted to sit back on his heels and pull her hips up to his but that would mean leaving behind the press of her breasts against his chest, so he slid an arm under her hips to slide deeper. She was still spasming, so he knew he wouldn't last long. Vegeta pressed his face into her neck and he heard himself saying her name over and over again until his hips stuttered against hers and he pressed himself deep to spend inside her.
Bulma reveled in the heavy weight of Vegeta bearing down on her and his shaky breaths against her neck. She ran her fingers through his hair and scraped her fingernails along his scalp, smiling when he shivered. He finally raised himself up on his hands, and Bulma smirked at him, moving her hands down his body and back up. He leaned down and nudged her nose with his before slanting his mouth over hers. "Do I get this treatment every time you want something?" he asked in a gravely voice, quirking an eyebrow.
"If I actually get what I want in the end, perhaps," she replied, and Vegeta laughed. He was always more open after sex, Bulma had realized a while ago, and his lighter humor and his obvious enamorment with her (though he did a pretty good job of covering it up the rest of the time) had allowed her to be more open with him as well. Months ago, she would have shriveled up and died at the suggestion that she might not mind Vegeta's company, much less enjoy it. But here, the line between his eyebrows had disappeared, the corner of his mouth turned upwards instead of downwards, and he looked at her like he wanted to … look at her forever.
"Well, then," Vegeta said, rolling them to their sides, "I'll have to make sure to follow through."
Kabocha and Parseri were kicking the ever-loving shit out of each other in the training room again, though Parseri was maintaining a pretty good margin over her twin. She twisted up and around, whipping her foot over Kobocha's forearm and into the side of his head.
"What the FUCK," Kabocha snarled, shaking his head to clear the ringing.
Parseri grinned—more like bared her teeth—at Kabocha. "Keep leavin' it open and Imma keep hittin' it."
He set his mouth in a firm line and charged forward at Parseri, catching her by the hair and kneeing her in the stomach. Vegeta watched her breathe into it (she'd let Kabocha in, the idiot) and jam her fist upwards and into Kabocha's jaw. He retaliated by dragging her back with him by her hair, and twisting her down onto the floor where his larger bulk would work in his favor. Parseri fought against this change of plane tooth and nail, but Kabocha wrestled her underneath him, pinning her arms down with his knees and throwing his arms up in victory. He leant down to rub her face in it, but she reared up and head butted him. The shock allowed her to wrest one arm out and shove him off of her, and the game was on again.
"Mr. Vegeta," the little half-breed whispered, sliding up alongside his prince. Vegeta cast a scathing look upwards at Nappa, through whose legs Gohan had slipped unnoticed. His power level was so low that his movements weren't even caught on scouters.
"What do you want, brat?"
Gohan lifted a fist to his mouth—"Put that thumb in your mouth again, brat, and I'll cut it off"—dropped it, and asked, "If Miss Parseri is Mr. Kabocha's boss, then why are they fighting each other? Mr. Kabocha knows that he is going to lose anyway…"
"You only learn by sparring with people that are better than you. Same reason why you spar with your father," Vegeta said, looking down into Gohan's serious face and seeing the brat's tail twist and turn behind him. "Put your tail around your waist. Someone's going to step on it."
Gohan immediately curled his tail around his tummy, using his little fingers to help the end wrap around the base. "But I beat my dad sometimes," he told Vegeta, who looked at him strangely. The child seemed completely sincere, though, so Vegeta shrugged it off. Perhaps Goku had yielded for his son's sake a few times, and there was no reason to belabor the point. Vegeta darted his eyes over to Kakarott (he had decided to stick him in with Parseri's squad—that decision had been made the moment he had idiotically refused to hit Parseri because she was a woman), who was squatting down with some third-class warriors against a wall on the other side of the room, seemingly oblivious to the conversation happening between Gohan and Vegeta.
Without a second thought, Vegeta returned his gaze to the fight before him, and watched as Parseri backed Kabocha into a corner. She lifted up into the air so she could whale on his upper body with her fists and feet. The rest of her unit, watching from benches, cheered and egged each of the parties on. Nearly all of them were yelling for Kabocha to turn the fight around, and that satisfied Vegeta. It was important to have tight unity among the squad separate from their loyalty to Parseri and Vegeta, and he knew that if there were little support for Kabocha, she would be rooting out the cause of such apathy as soon as she scraped her brother off the floor.
The door to the hallway slid open, interrupting the fight. Parseri touched back down to the ground, and Kabocha immediately hunched over, dropping his hands to his knees to catch his breath.
One of Frieza's lower-ranked lieutenants stood in the doorway, hands on his hips. "I'd always wondered what it was like to watch a bunch of monkeys fight," he sneered, stepping inside the massive training room and letting the door slide shut behind him. "And now my dreams had been ruined. I thought there would be less fists and more feces."
Vegeta barked out a laugh. "Oh, a monkey joke. You'll have to forgive me if I don't remember your name, Lieutenant…?"
The soldier's handsome grin twisted. "Borix. Lieutenant of the—"
"Yeah, I don't care," Vegeta cut him off, waving his hand and rolling his eyes. "You can't throw a rock without hitting one of Frieza's lieutenants on this ship. I'm much more interested what orifice you let Frieza stick it in so that you get to wear that fancy little pin on your breastplate." The rest of the Saiyans chuckled under their breath, and Vegeta granted Borix a toothy grin. "See, that's an insult."
Borix's blue face darkened into purple. "Well at least my species' only chance for survival isn't tied up with a bunch of useless sacks of meat—"
"At least my species is worth saving," Vegeta snarled.
"That's the half-breed?" Borix asked, pointing at Gohan. Across the room, Goku jumped to his feet.
"Now, now," he said, clapping his hands and forcing a laugh, "there's no reason to be so testy with each other! Lieutenant, I'm sure each species has its own flaws and why don't we just all agree to disagree?"
Borix looked from Goku to Gohan and then jabbed a finger in Goku's breastplate. "You're the father, aren't you? You're the one that came back all addled from Earth?"
Vegeta was surprised to see several of Kakarott's squadmate stand up behind him, fists clenched, but he snapped his fingers at them and motioned for everyone to stay where they were. "Nobody touch the Lieutenant here. Whoever ends up in the brig is going to be dealing with me as soon as they get out," he warned.
"I don't need a guest right," Borix sneered at him, "and you don't have to worry about me turning tail to Frieza after a little scuffle."
"Oh, I think I do," Vegeta deadpanned.
Borix threw his head back and laughed. "You're questioning my scruples when you have your own men getting worthless half-breeds off of weaklings living in the middle of a galactic swamp?"
"Hey!" Gohan shouted as he jumped up, surprising even Vegeta.
"Gohan, sit down and be quiet," Kakarott ordered, but Gohan didn't listen.
"You're being mean," Gohan yelled. "You were not invited inside and now you're calling my mom names! Please apologize and leave!"
Borix smirked at Vegeta. "Now you have a child protecting you?" Vegeta glared back at him. "Lemme tell you one thing, kid—the best thing your mom has ever done was spread her legs for a full-blooded Saiyan. They're dirty, mangy creatures, but they're better than the puny species your mother is a part of."
"Stop it!" Gohan shouted, balling his hands into fists. Vegeta's scouter beeped, indicating that someone's power level was rising rapidly. Neither Parseri nor Kabocha looked upset enough to be letting their power jump all over, and Kakarott seemed more concerned about his screaming son than the actual conversation taking place. No one else in the room had the power to be tracking numbers this high, so he tapped the side of his scouter to get it to calm down. "Please just go away!"
"I think it's time for you to go," Vegeta stated. "As you can see, you're stirring up trouble and distracting my men from their training."
"Oh, but I thought that you were showing me what it was like to give an insult, Prince Vegeta," Borix said with feigned humility. "I'm just returning the favor."
"You started it!" Gohan told him.
"Now you're being rude, kid. What happened to all of the 'pleases' from a few minutes ago? I thought that maybe your sweet mother had actually groomed some class into you. Then again, as weak as humans are, they might need that politeness in a few years. Why don't you tell me where your mama lives, kid, and I'll make sure I personally take care of her. I'll have her screaming for your daddy by the time I'm done with her."
Vegeta took a step forward so as to bodily remove Borix from the room, but before he landed his first step, he was swept backwards and into the wall by what felt like a concrete slab. He hit the wall with such force that he had to struggle to take in a breath and when his eyes finally focused again, he saw that all of his men were tossed back along the perimeter of the room. His scouter was screaming in his ear, and his eyes widened in disbelief at the number running along the bottom of the pane of glass.
Gohan was standing in the center of the room, his hair blown straight up and blue lightning crackling around his small body. He had grabbed a fistful of Borix's tentacles and was punching and kicking him, screaming unintelligibly. Kakarott seemed to have only fallen to his hands and knees, and within the space of a breath, he flash-stepped to Gohan and tapped the side of the brat's neck with the edge of his hand, knocking him out.
As soon as the brat fell unconscious to the floor, Vegeta felt a huge weight lift off of his body. Gohan's power had been pushing all of them back against the walls, even after the initial surge. Vegeta's scouter fell silent, as did the rest of the room. Parseri met Vegeta's eyes from across the mats, and shook her head in disbelief, speechless for once in her life. The other Saiyans slumped down onto the floor, staring at Gohan with mouths agape.
"Gods," Nappa murmured. "Gods."
Borix, bruised and bleeding, lifted a shaky hand to his scouter, and before Vegeta could get a word out, two of Parseri's squad jumped on him, wrenching the scouter from his ear and crushing it beneath one of their feet. They held him to the ground, where he screamed for mercy, for help, and looked to Vegeta. "He can't leave here," Shiso, the woman, said. "We're all dead if he does."
Vegeta looked over at Gohan, passed out now, remembered how quickly Kakarott had recovered from the initial blast to reach his son ("but I beat my dad sometimes") and nodded once.
"NO!" Borix shrieked, but the Nasu put his finger to the Lieutenant's forehead and fired. Borix's body slumped to the floor, and Kakarott looked away with a grimace.
"If had left here," Vegeta said to him, crossing the mat to stand next to him and look down at Gohan's form, "your son would be on the dissecting table within the hour, all of us would be dead, and Earth would be purged by the end of the week. So don't you turn your back like there was something else that could have been done."
Shaking his head, Kakarott's frown deepened. "It's the finality of death that I don't like."
"From the moment we are born, we are on a collision course with death. We just avoided crashing into it today." Vegeta nudged Gohan with his foot. "Now if you don't want your son getting caught in the middle of this, I'd advise moving him out of the way."
Kakarott gave him a queer sideglance, but reached down and picked his son up. Gohan began to squirm in his father's arms, and then Vegeta's attention was sidetracked by Parseri's foot crashing into the side of his face. He grunted and resisted the urge to retaliate, instead standing still while she launched a barrage of attacks against his body.
By the time the body was dragged down to the medbay, Parseri's squad had turned the training room upside down and Vegeta was as bruised and battered at Borix. He had to go to the medbay as well, leaving Parseri and Nappa to go before Frieza on bended knee and swear with their fists over their hearts that Borix had challenged Vegeta to a spar and then played dirty when he knew he wasn't going to win. The attacks on their prince had spurred a few soldiers into action and before anyone could stop them, they had killed Borix.
"And how do you plan to punish the members of your squad, Captain?" Frieza drawled, resting his fist on his hand and swishing his tail in boredom.
"They're confined to quarters for a calendar week and will receive half rations, my lord Frieza," Parseri answered, keeping her head bowed. The two that had executed Borix had offered to take the fall, and Parseri was taking them up on their offer.
Dodoria huffed from his seat along the wall. "That's all? Lord Frieza, you gotta insist on killing them for killing Borix."
Frieza rolled his eyes. "I don't know exactly what that would accomplish. I can't just go around killing everyone that takes a training session too far. I would be executing half of my purging forces. Besides, it's not like Borix was particularly useful. Remind me to give his position to Quari tomorrow morning. Maybe he'll be more productive than Borix was. I hear the little Prince is in the medbay, Captain?"
"Yes, my Lord," Parseri answered.
"See," Frieza said, gesturing towards Dodoria, "Vegeta has his fair share and the two soldiers that killed Borix are being punished by their superior officer. I'm not going to do more for someone like Borix of all my lieutenants. You're dismissed, Captain. Take your brother with you and pray you have better news for me the next time you have to come before me." He waved his hands and Parseri and Nappa backed out of his reception room. "These Saiyans will be the absolute death of me," Frieza sighed, rubbing his temples. "If they weren't so damn valuable I would have jettisoned them ages ago."
"Pass them off to Cooler?" Dodoria offered. Frieza immediately shot him in the leg with a ki blast.
"If you ever mention anything so asinine again I will strangle you myself," Frieza snarled. "Cooler already got the Cronifs out from under me, and they're useless on cloudy days. The Saiyans belong to me and I'll be damned if I pass them off to anyone. Now get out my sight—you're getting blood all over my floor."
Vegeta finally got back to his rooms very late that night. Walking the corridors at night was not something that he did often, but always appreciated when he had the chance. With the machinery and air systems turned off, the ship was silent and a man could finally think. What happened earlier in the day with Gohan was still a shock to his system, and Vegeta was still working through what had to be done about it.
He had thought the child to be a weakling, but clearly that wasn't the case. The power level he saw today was astronomical—even beyond his own. Yet as soon as he collapsed, his power level returned to the negligible level that Vegeta was used to. Rage was what triggered it today, but Vegeta obviously couldn't test this hypothesis again. And what would be the source? Radditz and Kakarott had an impressive lineage through their mother, but nothing that would justify what he saw today.
He walked through the door of his new rooms and was surprised to see Bulma still awake. She was sitting in one of the armchairs in the dimly-lit sitting room, reading off of her electronic tablet. "I heard you had a long day," she said, resting her head on her fist and quirking her brow in his direction. Her clean skin was still pink from the shower, and she had piled her damp hair on top of her head in a messy bun.
Suddenly, Vegeta remembered (not that he had forgotten) that Gohan's mother was human, and that maybe…maybe human blood didn't water anything down, after all. His stomach turned over and he moved over to his wife, taking the tablet from her and setting it on the table behind her. Her mouth opened easily under his, and he sighed at the sensation of her fingers carding into his hair.
"That kind of day, huh?" She murmured against his temple as he pressed his lips to the mark he left under her jaw just a few days ago. He hummed in response and sat down on his heels in front of her, placing a palm on the calf she had curled up onto the seat.
"We have to get off this ship," he told her in a low voice, raising his eyes to meet hers. "All of us." Her eyebrows drew down, and then she pressed her lips into a line and nodded in agreement, reaching out to run her hand over his sharp widow's peak. Without another word on the subject, he tugged at her calf to untangle her legs and run the flat of his palms up the inside of her thighs. She'd shaved her legs tonight (not that Vegeta really cared, honestly, and he'd told her so) and the light scent of her moisturizer reached his nose as he leaned down and lightly nipped the inside of her knee. "Vegeta," she said on a sigh, and he stood back up, tugging her to her feet.
She let him lead her into the bedroom, slide the shorts off of her hips, and guide her backwards onto the bed. He knelt down and set his mouth to her, working her over in the darkness, having mapped her geography thoroughly long ago. Her thighs strained against his hand and shoulder and her body writhed on the mattress above him while he filled his senses with the tastetouchscentfeel of her. By the time the ship slowed to a halt in Lulani's orbit, they were too wrapped up in each other to even care.
If you haven't already joined, there's a google+ group called We're Just Saiyan and it's moderated by MayMayB and MallieP. Come and join us; we have cookies (the cyber kind though, not the eating kind, unfortunately). You can also search for the podcasts on YouTube, they're kiiiiiind of amazing, especially if you're like me and you like your fandom talk mixed with girl talk and gossip.
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