Chapter 9. Defiance
Vegeta landed on his back in the crater Akane had created with her Fatal Flare, the depression at least ten times bigger now that his own attack had been released upon the site. Though his body was severely damaged by summoning so much power all at once, his spirits were high. It had taken him years to perfect the new attack and the hard work had finally paid off. The Death Impendent beam was the strongest he had developed yet.
He tried to reach out with his senses, but couldn't. There wasn't an ounce of energy left in him to do so. Instead he lay there feeling marvellous, rough laughter ripping through his depleted body. He didn't worry about the brats. If his calculations had been correct he had still been at least two million points behind on Gotenks at the peak of his own power. It had increased tenfold in that short moment though, so he wasn't complaining.
Soon the others came speeding over.
"I didn't know you were working on a new attack." Goku said as he kneeled at Vegeta's side and dropped a sensu bean in his waiting mouth.
Vegeta swallowed the bitter bean, glad to feel some of his energy returning. He had used up way too much of his strength to receive replenishment from one sensu though.
"The suns blind me!" Ringo yelled ecstatically. "That attack was monstrous! My Prince, that was absolutely sublime!"
"Fucking ace." Turles added in his booming voice.
Vegeta sat up, ignoring his aching limbs. "What of the brats?"
"You knocked them straight out!" Goku sang happily. "Nothing a couple of sensu beans couldn't handle of course. They're fine, just a little sore."
Akane kneeled at Vegeta's other side marvelling at him. "They wouldn't come along to see if you were okay. Kept saying that you know. They sounded kack-scared."
Vegeta snickered. He had only brought up the filth they had been flipping through to distract them. Boys would be boys, after all.
"Are you well?" Akane asked, her intense eyes scanning his face.
"I'm fine." Vegeta said and to prove this he picked himself up from the ground. He felt rather weak in the legs. "Give me another sensu bean, Kakarot."
"Sorry Vegeta, we're all out. The boys needed three each." Goku answered. "I'll transmit you home. You should get into the recuperation-tank for a couple of hours."
"No need." Vegeta replied dismissively. "Just take me back."
"I'm coming too." Akane said. "Ringo, Turles, get back over to the Princeling and his little friend. Have them teach you that fusion dance."
"Yes Captain." they saluted before loping off across the crater.
Goku placed a hand on the shoulder of both Vegeta and Akane and instant transmitted them back to the CC, the three of them reappearing right on the doorstep of the house.
"Need help?" Goku asked with a worried look at Vegeta.
"I'm fine." Vegeta repeated irritably. "Go back to the brats."
Goku shrugged. "Okay. Later! Bye Akane!" He lifted a hand in greeting and vanished.
Even if he was already gone, Akane made the effort to shout furiously at the place where he just stood: "That's Captain to you!" and then she muttered: "Cunter calling me by my name. Ought to kick him in the fucking teeth."
Vegeta snickered despite it all and that infuriated her all the more. He knew what it was like having to deal with the idiot's total disregard for the Saiyajin hierarchical structures. He knew that all too well.
Akane focused her foul temper on him then. "You shouldn't keep saying you're fine when you're obviously not. You put everything in that attack."
Vegeta opened his mouth to object when she roughly pulled his arm around her neck.
"Drop the fucking act." she broke him off. "Prince." she remembered to add, sounding only a tad less aggressive.
Her other arm slipped around his waist to support him and Vegeta reluctantly allowed her to help him inside the house.
"I just need some rest." he retorted in a similar fashion. "Captain."
A grin appeared on her battered face at that. "Fine. Where should I drop you?"
Vegeta motioned ahead. He would never admit it, but he was glad for her support. He still felt unsteady on his legs and he was completely knackered. They headed for the living room where she sat him down on the couch not too gently. She practically shoved him on it.
"Should I get the main woman for you?" Akane demanded very fiercely, hands on her hips.
"Blood no." Vegeta swore. He lay back with his head on the armrest and pulled his legs onto the couch so that he could stretch out on it. "I'm having enough of a headache as it is." he muttered as he closed his eyes and put a hand to his forehead.
Akane moved to sit with him and Vegeta opened his eyes again to find her kneeling on the floor next to him, gripping his bicep with that innate roughness he felt so drawn to.
"You are so fucking awesome. That attack? Sweet Mother of fuck! I have never seen anything like it before. It was simply perfect. Your battle power went off the chart." she spoke, hoarse and uncouth like the way she carried herself.
"Indeed." Vegeta smirked, remembering the last time she had told him how fucking awesome he was. He felt the crotch of his spandex grow rather tight despite the deplorable state his body was in.
He examined her features in silence, his earlier anger with her all but forgotten in the face of his fascination for her. Her looks were still youthful, even more so than his own. It figured. Cold had kept her in hypersleep for a good part of her life on his ship. Her eyes, a yellowish golden with tiny brown dots in them, looked back at him narrowed, calculating and, admitted, able to unsettle even him. Right underneath her eyes was a smatter of tiny freckles, all neatly in a row as if having been put there on purpose.
Even in her battered state from her battle with Kakarot, even with those fierce scars giving her that unfavourable, sneering expression, or perhaps because of those scars, her beauty was stunning to him. She was made up of all opposites. Her insanely feminine body hiding the powerful warrior she was, her gentle scent in such stark contrast to her savage ways. He was especially intrigued by the contradiction of those battle scars marring a very neatly carved face and lovely small mouth in truth. The mere thought of the way she had kissed him with that little mouth made his lust unmanageable.
His eyes found the flame like mark beneath her left eye. It was his father's sigil. It was his own sigil as well. This savage little thing had been one of the King's concubines. Had his father been as captivated by her then, as he was now? Vegeta gathered the King simply must have been. It made him wonder again if he had ever come across her in the palace that used to be his home long ago. She would have been older than he was then, a woman grown while he was still a boy. He had happened upon several of his father's conquests, yet he couldn't recall having met the little Captain. He was certain that he would have forgotten neither her face nor that outrageously feminine body.
Vegeta took in the unruly mass of dark hair reaching down to just sweep her shoulders and of which he had learned that though looking stiff and untamed, it was soft like silk in his hands. It had also been a good means to submitting her to his will.
"You amazed me as well today. The way you routed Kakarot. You have made allurement into an art." Vegeta eventually broke the silence and it was true, she deserved credit for getting the better of Kakarot, even if the manner of it seriously pissed him off.
Akane snorted. "I merely avail myself of men's disgusting inability to exercise self-control."
"You are more dangerous than I realised." Vegeta touched the clean pink scar that ran across her temple, following the length of it with his gloved fingertips. He wondered how she had come by it. He moved on to the one at her small mouth, brushed his thumb down it until he reached those lips that seemed to ever pout in discontent. He wanted to kiss her again. "To what end are you playing these games with me?"
Vegeta took her busted chin in his hand hard and held her bound as he searched that gorgeously vicious face for the answer she wouldn't give him. She returned his probing stare unyielding. He couldn't read anything in her expression, she gave him nothing. His grip on her face tightened more when she tried to look away. She scowled, but he refused to release her.
"Why did you let me win our fight in the tank?" Vegeta tried again. "You could have easily vanquished me with the techniques you used on Kakarot today."
Now it was her turn to rake his face with her hard eyes. "Why would I do that? I want your interest in me to be sincere, not conjured up by my techniques. That wouldn't satisfy me at all. As for Kakarot, I don't care where his lust comes from, as long as it's there to exploit."
Vegeta didn't know what to make of her answer. Hearing her voice that she wanted him was pleasing, but overshadowed by the fact that she just admitted she also wanted that idiot lusting after her.
"You hardly need another pleasure slave. You have two already." he said and it couldn't be helped that he sounded so condemning. Well, she should be made aware. She should know exacly how repugnant her interest in Kakarot and her men was to him. "Against my wishes, I might add."
Akane laughed her rough laugh. "I thought you made three."
It was blatantly clear that she was trying to provoke him again and he was unable to stop himself from squeezing that busted jaw captured between his fingers just that bit more, hurting her though she refused to give any indication of this other than a sharp inhalation.
"I am not one of your playthings." Vegeta spat and he removed her from his sight by releasing her jaw with a shove, hating that he was forced to leave it at that, but knowing full well that he didn't have the strength left in him to sort her out again.
Akane seemed aware of that as well when she rose to her feet and said slyly: "That blasted Kakarot really got me good back there. My bleeding insides are crushed. I am going to get him back for that."
Instincts made Vegeta leap up from the couch despite the whacked state of his body, despite feeling himself reel as he seized her by her injured jaw again to keep her from getting away.
"I forbid it." he hissed.
Akane leered at him like she had done that first time in the mess hall. "You forbid me to fight, Kakarot?"
The only thing that kept Vegeta from keeling over was his anger at how she found courage in the fact that he was too drained to overpower her.
"That's very cute, you conniving cunt. Let me make something very clear to you. I don't allow it. You coming to me smelling of your subordinates is insulting enough, but Kakarot is my adversary. If I ever find so much as a whiff of him on you, I am going to have to kill you."
"You came to me. Three times." Akane pointed out obnoxiously, sounding disgustingly complacent. "And just so you know, you smell too. You think I fancy being privy to the time you spend between the thighs of your fuckhole?" she drew his hand away from her face without much exertion and edged in close, making him loose his footing and end up back on his arse on the couch. She even had the gall to snicker at that. "You really need your rest now, Prince. I will leave you to it."
Vegeta was very glad that she strode off before she could see him pass out, the last thing on his mind being that he was going to make her pay. And dearly too.