Hey there. I'm pleased to recognize some old readers here. Enjoy.
Chapter 3
Eighteen vigorously shook the tiny bottle before slipping skillfully the improvised plastic teat topping it between the infant's lips.
Everyone was staring at her with bated breath as if she was defusing a bomb, and when silence eventually fell in the room as the baby instinctively began to suck, general relief overwhelmed the audience.
The Android looked up at Goten with icy eyes and the boy cringed. "You definitely lost it. I had forbidden Videl to carry out her idea and you knew it," she stated.
She hadn't raised her voice but her tone was enough to understand that she was beside herself. Goten squirmed in unease. "Well- Huh, we succeeded all the same, didn't we ?" he stammered.
"You did?" Eighteen snapped. "Then, tell me where is Videl ?"
The kid lowered his head sheepishly. Videl had said she would be back for breakfast but he was aware that she had only meant to coax him. He knew better than claiming she was safe. Now, he had to face the reproachful glares of Hercules, Krillin, and seventeen.
"My poor Videl," Hercules wined. "What's going to happen to her if they catch her?"
Eighteen gave him an annoyed peek. Crying loudly over Videl's misfortune certainly wouldn't help. Hercules always overreacted and it was unproductive.
As a matter of fact, his only role inside the rebellion was to stand as their façade. For some reasons that were totally beyond Eighteen, Earthling had an unwavering faith in him and they followed blindly every order he gave and every plan he put forward even though he didn't fully understand them most of the time. Officially, he was their leader but in actual fact, he was a numbskull more often than not.
"Goten didn't mean harm. Videl was hell-bent on her project and she convinced him to be in," Krillin stepped in in an attempt to soothe his wife's anger at the boy.
He had a point there. Eighteen was well-aware of Videl's upper hand over Goten. The truth was that, over the years, Videl was gaining more and more influence on people in general and it was getting dangerous at times. Like her father, she had a natural charisma and even if Eighteen couldn't deny that it had its perk, it also had serious downsides as well. She was only 17 years old. She was too passionate and too reckless. She didn't hesitate to endanger herself, or worse, to endanger other people and it sometimes resulted in troubles.
The current troubles were nestled in Eighteen's arms. A small body, weighing nothing and hungrily sucking on a makeshift baby's bottle in the dead of the night in a rebels' hideout. Eighteen sighed.
"I'll get Videl," her brother claimed.
Eighteen stared up at him with a frown. "Are you sure?" she mumbled with concern.
"Is that true? You're gonna find her and bring her back, huh?" Hercules exclaimed hopefully.
Seventeen glanced at him without a word. The Android was indeed the best option for this mission, provided Vegeta didn't find Videl before him of course.
"And what about the baby?" Krillin asked.
Eighteen studied the child's face. Her greed had weakened as she was getting sated. A fluff of blue hair barely covered the top of her fragile scalp and her dark eyes were blinking in exhaustion.
"Goten, go to bed. We'll talk about this tomorrow," she said.
"I want to go get Videl with Seventeen," the boy objected daringly.
"No way, Goten. You've done enough" Krillin grunted. "Go to bed now."
Goten scowled but he didn't insist, defeated by the adults' coalition. He obliged and left the room in a heavy step.
"So? What should we do with that baby?" Seventeen asked again.
Eighteen felt like bringing the child back. Her brother was reading her and he was waiting for her to say it aloud.
"Keeping her will cause us many problems," the female pointed out.
"But she can be a bargaining chip to get Videl back if needed," Hercules objected.
"It's true - But it's Vegeta's baby this time. That freak won't have any qualm. He'll do whatever it takes to have her back," Krillin replied.
"And we already have Goten. Taking Goten has already cost us a lot," Eighteen agreed.
"And what about Videl? If you return the baby, they will kill her without a second thought," Hercules exclaimed.
"Let's keep the baby for now," Seventeen offered. "First, I have to find Videl, then we'll figure out what to do."
When they had all silently agreed to that wise solution, he grabbed a backpack and resumed. "I should go. I'll give you news soon."
With that, he exited the hideout with Hercules' numb gaze locked on him. "I hope he'll make it," the man murmured for himself when the Android was gone.
Eighteen and Krillin couldn't miss his dejection as he passed them to go back to his room.
"Poor guy," Krilin mumbled. "I don't understand what went through Videl's head to steal that baby, alone with Goten."
Eighteen didn't reply. She pulled back the teat from the sleepy infant's lips and she gently lifted the baby upright to allow the milk to slide properly down to her stomach all by making her way to their own room.
She remembered that she either hadn't had any misgivings about stealing Son Goku's baby a few years ago. At that time, she hadn't even imagined that she would be a mother of her own one day. The only thing on her mind had been a sentence Piccolo had said: "The best option to fight a Saiyan is another Saiyan, but when it comes to beat them, nothing's better than a half-Saiyan." The words had kept spinning in Eighteen's head. The Namekian knew a few things about Saiyans and he knew as much about half-Saiyans since he had trained Gohan.
At this time, Eighteen and her brother had just been pathetically defeated by Vegeta, Goku, and the Saiyan soldiers. Both Androids had come very close to death and they owed their lives to the rebellion. However, Eighteen had quickly realized that as active as they were, the Earthlings would never stand a real chance to get rid of the Saiyan intruders. The group was exclusively composed of a handful of humans and if all of them were fully dedicated allies, they were dramatically weak fighters. It was ridiculous.
They needed more consistent soldiers if they wanted to gain freedom. And Eighteen craved freedom. Having a half Saiyan in their ranks might help them reach their goal.
The problem was Saiyans proved to be incapable to breed with Earthlings. Oddly enough, as far as everyone knew, only Vegeta and Goku happened to have hybrid children. This had certainly something to do with the strength of their vital energy.
Anyway, back then, the situation had only left two candidates to reinforce the rebellion's troops: Gohan or Trunks. However, Gohan had been already too old to be converted to the cause, and Trunks, being Vegeta's son, was way too dangerous to catch.
Goten's birth had been a game-changer. Stealing him and raising him to fight by their side had stood as the only way out, even though it was a long-term investment.
When she had explained her idea to Seventeen, he approved it without the slightest hesitation.
Eighteen still clearly remembered the way she had weeded Chichi out that night. It had been dramatically effortless. The woman had just fed her son and she was about to go back to bed. All it took was pressure on the right spot of her carotid. The exhausted mother hadn't even yelped. Goku wasn't in the house and the other boy was sleeping soundly. The sated baby hadn't protested and since Goku's family was still living on Mount Paozu at that time, there were no neighbors to worry about either.
Everything had been disturbingly quick, easy, and clean.
Krillin had been mad when Eighteen had brought Goten back to their hideout, but ultimately, everyone had adopted the boy rather quickly.
He was a nice kid and he happened to be up to their expectations. He had a true Saiyan spirit - reckless, strong, feisty. Krillin had started coaching him until he finally convinced Piccolo to take over. Still, Eighteen suspected that the Namekian didn't quite realize what he was doing by training Goten.
Goku had been looking for his son for a long time and even today, the rebellion had to keep hiding him carefully. He looked too much like his father and they couldn't afford to have someone recognize him.
Within the first year, after they got him, a lot of rebels had been tracked down and arrested. And many had died too.
It was a price Eighteen was no longer ready to pay. Her brother liked to tease her saying that she was getting empathic but Goten was indeed promising enough and she wasn't convinced that Bulla was vital to their plans.
Of course, Videl hadn't seen things that way. She was willing to fight Saiyans by any means necessary and she had grown restless the moment she had heard of the birth of Vegeta's daughter.
Eighteen had warned her, telling her that stealing a baby was no little matter. However, Videl had only heard that stealing a baby was no easy matter and Videl Satan never shrank away from anything, did she? Eighteen had only meant that, besides being a risky business, stealing a baby implied leaving a devastated mother behind. She was definitely getting empathic.
She had a small smile at the sight of the sleeping baby stuck between Krillin and her in the bed. Bulla's face was peaceful while her fists were clenched on each side of her head as if she was already up for some revolution.
Yet, when the light was out, Eighteen's mind went back to Videl. Videl was dead. She had lost her ki-scrambling bracelet and if her pursuer had been Son Gohan or Son Goku – as it seemed to be the case - there was no way she could have escaped. She was certainly in the hands of the Saiyans by now and Vegeta was going to kill her. Whether she spoke or not, she was dead.
Eighteen scowled painfully at the thought. Turning to Krillin, she met his sad eyes in the twilight and she knew he had come to the very same conclusion as her. Only Hercules was blind enough to keep hoping. Life was a bitch.