Chapter 12. Mortality

Vegeta had not been with the little Captain since he marked her for his concubine, deciding to leave her to her own malignent designs for a while. The way he caught her slinking out of her room bare arsed that morning suggested she needed it. And the fact that she had somehow managed to dodge him every time they chanced upon eachother around the CC grounds after that, did as well. Ignoring him like that. The nerve of her. It was quite plain that making her his concubine hadn't resolved anything at all. She was just finding new ways to challenge him.

But wasn't it so that he liked challenges? That his whole life revolved around them in fact? Wasn't it true that this conquest for the dominion over the savage little Captain made his warrior blood boil? That this came close to what he felt in the face of Kakarot's superiority? That he simply needed to put paid to it and that he wouldn't rest until he had? And also that he only loved her for making him work so hard to achieve it? Even if it frustrated him?

Be that as it may, the act of claiming her for his concubine had taken some of the pressure off. Her men already wouldn't dare go near her anymore and now that he had marked her, her new position didn't allow her to try and convince them otherwise, to seek out anyone but him to help her deal with that insatiable lust of hers. She was never going to end up underneath Kakarot. He had accomplished that at least.

It was a good thing that he was taking some distance from all this. He had been far too caught up in persueing her. Stepping back from it allowed more room for his other aspirations, surpassing his adversary being not the least of them.

Vegeta was just back from a two day training spell with Piccolo. The Namekian was one of the few beings on Earth he could actually stomach having around for longer than a second. They found common ground in their shared rivalry with Kakarot. Piccolo too still nourished the hope of one day defeating the idiot and the green warrior was ever building strength to attain that goal. If they could help each other out with honing their skills for Kakarot's downfall, why not?

Training with the Namekian had been engrossing enough to distract him, but now that Vegeta was back at the CC, his little concubine irrepressibly found her way back into his mind. It was about that time. He had a rather persistent image of having her on all fours for him again, fine round arse and blown up tail raised in the air. He was actually getting a lob on. With the certainty that she had no more foreign scents lingering on her, he could also finally have a good taste of her. Maybe even while he had her on all fours.

Caught up was an understatement. This obsessive craving he had for her was putting him ill at ease. He shouldn't like the power she had over him. How she made him lose reign over his baser instincts and drew out his aggression. He had succesfully subjugated her, yet he couldn't shake the increasingly insistent notion that she was the one having him by the balls.

Vegeta snapped out of his imaginings at the urgent ramming on the gravity-tank's entrance. He leapt to his feet from where he had been sitting - and failing so miserably at his meditation - and threw the door open to find an alarmed looking Turles behind it.

"What?" Vegeta spat.

In his haste the soldier forgot all about the usual respectful salutations. "It's the Captain. Something's wrong."

Vegeta stepped out to join him on the lawn. "What happened?"

"She sparked out. Just like that. And now she won't wake up. We don't know what's the matter with her." Turles answered with frantic gesticulations of his massive arms. He bore a striking resemblance to a whiny little bitch all of the sudden.

"Take me to her." Vegeta forced himself to keep his composure as he followed the frightened third-class to the back compound.

"We were on our way out and she keeled right over. There wasn't anything wrong with her before that." Turles recaptured hastily as they entered.

There in the hallway lay the little Captain sprawled on the floor. Ringo was kneeling at her side, shaking her shoulders and bidding her to wake up.

Vegeta wasn't going to panic. There surely wasn't anything seriously wrong with her. She just keeled over. These things happened all the time. He bent over her lifeless form, searching her with his ki and finding her power dwindling.

"Something is draining her power." he said more to himself as he reached out to feel her pulse in her neck. It comforted him to detect the steady, strong tremor of her heart beneath her skin. She was still there.

"I think it might be the chip in her head." Ringo said.

Vegeta scooped the unconscious little Captain up in his arms and rose. "How did Cold control those chips? Was there a device?"

"Yes but we don't know where it is." Ringo replied as he rose too. His eyes never left Akane's ashen face. "We looked for the controlling device when we visited the crash site to get some supplies. We couldn't find it. Cold always had it on him. Maybe it got destroyed when he was killed. Otherwise someone might have beaten us to it."

"If someone got hold of it we would all be drained of our powers right now, wouldn't we?" Turles pointed out, concern making his booming voice uncharacteristically high-pitched.

Vegeta frowned at him. They were both so worried. Those idiots! Why, for the love of battle? She was going to be just fine.

"Maybe there is a failure in the chip itself." Vegeta mused. "Return to the crash site and make sure the device isn't still there. I will take care of the Captain."

The two males nodded grimly before running out of the compound to execute his command.

Vegeta could just spot them lodging themselves into the air when he hurried out and over to the house with the little Captain in his arms. She just weighed nothing at all, magnificent though she may be. The fierce scars in her face stood out even more than usual now that all the colour had drained from her light bronze skin. Her limp body felt like dead weight in his arms. He was not going to panic, he told himself, because even if this was serious, even if she ended up croaking on him, he would be fine. She was a nice fuck, a fun pastime, nothing more. Life as he knew it would go on with or without her.

Vegeta located the woman inside one of her various labs. Bulma was dressed in a white lab coat and a pair of narrow framed glasses balanced on the branch of her small nose.

"Quickly woman. You have to help her. Her power is fading."

"What happened?" Bulma hurried over, her hands instantly darting out to examine the unconscious Akane in his arms. She lifted the Captain's eyelids.

"She keeled over. It might have something to do with the chip in her head. It was used to control her power. Can you help her?" Vegeta said hastilly, the words tumbling out all on their own. Was that his voice? Why did it sound so shrill? He sounded like a whiny bitch himself.

Perhaps he had caught a cold or something. The Prince of Saiyajins, coming down with some weakling virus? Maybe it was some other, more powerful virus, like the one that nearly did in Kakarot that time. Certainly that had to be it. Even the woman noticed how weird his voice sounded. She looked at him very strange with those big blue eyes.

"Her pupils are dilated. She's in shock. Get her onto the desk." Bulma commanded indicating a large work bench filled with books and instruments that were foreign to Vegeta.

He shoved it all aside with a quick swipe of the arm and laid the little Captain down on top of the bench, fighting the pangs of panic in his chest. Pretend time was now officially over. She wasn't just a nice fuck or a fun pastime, and life as it was would not just go on without her. She was his little concubine and he needed her to be well again.

Bulma silently examined the unconscious Akane more thoroughly, motioning Vegeta aside to give herself more room to work. Even if she thought of Saiyajins as no more than savage brutes that didn't deserve the time of day, her love for science had taken her over now. She was going to pick this problem apart and put it right. That was how the woman worked.

"Get her up." Bulma demanded after a time. "Where is that chip exactly?"

Vegeta stepped back in and pulled Akane's lifeless form into a sitting position. "I don't know."

Bulma searched the back of Akane's lolling head with her fingers for a scar or any other indication of where the chip could have been implanted. "Hold her head steady." she said to Vegeta.

Vegeta took the still, scarred face in his hand, at her jaw like he had done after the Saiyajin tournament, but he did it gently now, suddenly very alive to her mortality. Her fierceness had never given any indication of it in her prime, but in her inanimate state she was just a small creature. A little thing... The pangs in his chest were getting more difficult to suppress because he sensed her power slipping away at a frighteningly fast rate.

"Hurry up, woman." he growled.

Bulma threw him another assessing look. She was wondering about it, guessing at it, starting to put it together. Vegeta could almost hear the cogs inside her head turn as she looked from him to the lifeless Captain atop the desk and back to him. She wasn't certain and was ready to dismiss it.

Vegeta let her, glad for it. He was just putting it together himself, was just getting to terms with the idea that he cared more for the little Captain than he dared to admit to himself. And he was going to tell the woman, but he couldn't do it now, not with Akane's life in the woman's hands. There was no telling in what state it would bring her. He had come to learn over the years that she could be very jealous, even if she had no rights to his loyalty.

"Woman." Vegeta urged and Bulma returned to the lifeless Akane, easing the wild black hair up to continue her search.

"There it is." Bulma mumbled when she found a small scar just above the nape of the neck.

Vegeta looked at the scar. He had never noticed it before. Why not? She had been so close. His hands had been all over her. Had he been paying attention at all? Bleeding hell, she was like a freaking goddess. He should have noticed. He should have found out everything there was to know about her when he still had the chance. It might be too late for that now.

"Can you take it out?" he asked. It was a wonder that he sounded so together.

"It is risky. She is very weak. I don't know if she'll survive surgery in this state." Bulma let go of Akane's hair and motioned Vegeta to lay her back down. "I will try. Get my father."

.

.

.

"How is the Captain?"

Vegeta was jerked from his trance by Ringo's concerned voice. He had been so caught up in troubled thoughts that he hadn't even sensed the two males come in. He wondered how they had been able to locate him inside the house when he noticed that his battle power wasn't masked. He made a habit of staying undetected and his concern had caused him to forget all about it.

The three Saiyajins were in the corridor outside the lab, Vegeta standing with his shoulders leaning against the wall, a leg drawn up and his foot resting planted against it as well, his arms folded. He didn't know how the Captain was. They had kicked him out of the lab before they started surgery. He clenched his teeth. The woman and her father had been in there working on his little concubine for hours. What was taking them so long?

"They are removing the chip." Vegeta said, putting a massive effort into sounding calm. "Did you find the device?"

Ringo shook his head. "We've searched the whole area twice." His concerned stare fell on the door at Vegeta's right. "Is she in there? I can't even sense her."

Vegeta nodded wordlessly. He couldn't sense her either and it was affecting him in the same way.

Turles sank down along the wall to sit on the floor, rubbing his face in his hands with a wretched growl. "What if she doesn't make it? I couldn't… I would just… Blood…" his voice trailed off.

Vegeta wanted to kick him in the head. He didn't need that bleeder to voice the fears that were haunting him as well. She had to make it. She would.

"The Captain is tough. She will be fine." Ringo reassured his comrade, though he didn't sound certain of it at all.

Vegeta eased up a bit. Indeed, the little Captain was very tough. Tougher than anyone he knew. The prick was right. She was going to be just fine.

Silence filled the space in between them while they waited anxiously for news on Akane's status. It took a long time.

Vegeta pushed away from the wall when he finally sensed the woman drawing closer on the other side of the door. She came out with blood covering the front of her lab coat and she was pulling off blood soaked latex gloves, a sheen of sweat glistening on her forehead. Vegeta had never been impressed with the sight of blood, in fact he usually rather liked it, but this was the blood of his little concubine and the amount of it alarmed him.

Turles shot up from the floor instantly. "Is the Captain going to be okay?"

Bulma wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. "Yes. The chip was removed successfully."

Vegeta suppressed his sigh of relief, unlike the other two males who practically cried out and fell over at the good news.

"Can we see her?" Ringo asked hastily.

"Later. The surgery went well but she is still very weak. She needs rest." Bulma said.

The woman's father appeared in the doorway, his lab coat thoroughly covered in blood like his daughter's. His smile was a rather happy one and Vegeta cursed him out internally. That old fool was doubtlessly intrigued by these chips and their ability to control battle power. Fucking scientist. Vegeta took in the woman's blue eyes and those too were shimmering with hunger. This was nothing but a case study to them. They didn't care one bit about the fate of his little concubine. To them all this was just one big scientific experiment.

"Are there chips in your heads as well?" Mr. Briefs adressed Turles and Ringo with poorly suppressed anticipation.

The two male Saiyajins nodded as one man.

"I think we should remove them." Bulma said.

She managed to conceal her motives a lot better, but the eagerness in her face didn't go by Vegeta unseen. "You're liking this a bit too much woman." he observed. "My people will not serve as your experimental subjects."

"Your people?" Bulma repeated mockingly. She smiled reassuringly at the other Saiyajins. "It is just as a precaution."

"We want to examine those chips more closely. Unfortunately the one we retrieved from the miss's head is busted." Mr Briefs continued shamelessly frank. "I gather the ones in your heads are still functioning in order? May we have a look?"

Bulma silenced him with a sharp glance. "It would really be for your own good. There is no saying what caused the failure in your Captain's chip. For all we know this could happen to you. It is safest to remove them straight away."

"What, now?" Ringo asked bewildered.

"It's a minor procedure. You're both in good health. You'll be up and running again in a couple of hours." Bulma assured him.

The two Saiyajins looked to their Prince, evidently expecting him to make the call for them. Vegeta had to agree with the woman that it was safer to remove the chips before those would malfunction too. He didn't like catering to this frenzy in her, but she was right. "Let them be removed. She knows what she's doing."

His revolted glare didn't pass by the woman unnoticed, but she refused to acknowledge it and motioned the Saiyajins inside the lab with a comforting smile. Mr. Briefs followed after them briskly. Bulma remained in the doorway with another thoughtful look on Vegeta. She wanted to say something. Vegeta didn't let her. He couldn't deal with her right now.

"Let me know when I can see my Captain." he growled before leaving her behind perplexed.