Seven Deadly Sins: Greed
Dear Diary,
I never was the teacher's pet before. It's actually kind of nice, even at this stuffy private school. Doesn't Mom listen to me how much I hate it here? Sigh, well maybe eventually Dad will get through to her, convince her that I don't need to be a lady. That's what I hate most of all about this school. Walk this way with a gentleman! Hold your fork this way! Next thing I know they'll be telling us something along the lines that "what a man must do on your wedding night is terrible, but brace yourself and think of your country and pray that he is quick". Ha! The Victorian Era was and is a scourge on women and their rights, and if they try to inflict those kind of ideals on me I'm going to show them my kind of ideals, 21st Century Riot Grrl Style!
Ok, enough negativity. I suppose these would be nice things to do for my true love…although I doubt they would be the kind of men who would go for that. I guess Daddy's had an effect on me more then Mom would care to admit, but he hasn't completely warped my mind to his way of thinking yet. Ah, if only I could find someone who is a warrior and a gentleman! The only two I know are too old for me anyway, and they've married others. I guess I'll just have to keep looking…good things come to those who wait, after all.
At least this school has a good education system. I hope that's the real reason Mom sent me here, not so I could learn to "be a lady". I'd rather be a woman…hmmm, perhaps Mom knew that? Maybe this is some scheme she and Dad cooked up to see how fiercely I would cling to my ideals…no actually that sounds more like something Dad would think up…except that if he thought it up I have a feeling it would involve a lot more pummeling of "weak, helpless pathetic oppo…", ok, now I'm thinking in circles. Back on topic. I think I'm becoming the teacher's pet, or the pet of one anyway. Her name is Mrs. Bathori. Isn't that an unusual name? She teaches languages and some art classes, which is good for me beause one of my difficulties is in languages. Ironic, huh? You would think she would be fond of me because I excelled in her class, not because I'm struggling in it. Oh, I try, but different languages seem just so, well, different! It's so hard to use them due to all these new rules and…well, I suppose practice does make perfect. If Mrs. Bathori thought I was hopeless, she wouldn't have agreed to tutor me tonight, would she? Which reminds me, I have to get ready! Talk to you later, diary!
Bra
Bra Briefs closed her diary and went to get dressed in her clothes, grateful that her teacher said she could wear normal clothes instead of the stuffy uniform the school made all the girls wear. Fifteen minutes later she was knocking on the door to her classroom.
"Come in."
"Hello Mrs. Bathori!" Bra said cheerily, trying to put on a happy face, even though the thought of spending two hours studying languages, even with her favorite teacher, was kind of a drag.
Her teacher, Mrs. Bathori, looked up from her mirror and put on a small smile as the lovely young teen girl walked into her classroom, although she was certainly not a hideous menace. While no supermodel, she had a kind of mature beauty around her that drove certain males wild.
Bra paused in the doorway, noticing all the various products scattered on her teacher's desk. Every single kind of cosmetics for women seemed to be there, from lipstick to mascara. Mrs. Bathori followed her student's eyes, and then quickly put on an embarrassed smile and swept all the products and items on her table into a nearby bag.
"Sorry…I was just doing some catagorizing."
"Oh, I see…but you don't look like the kind of person who would need to use a lot of makeup, Mrs. Bathori." Bra said as she sat at the chair that had been positioned in front of the teacher's desk. The teahcer smiled again.
"Call me Elizabeth, dear. And when you get to my age, you find that you need these chemicals far more...or else one day you're face is as brillant as the sun and the next as bleak as the moon."
"Oh don't be so dramatic! You can't be that old Mrs…her, Elizabeth….er, how old are you?"
Elizabeth mock-frowned at Bra.
"You know it's not proper to ask a lady her age…"
"Oh screw that! The era of the lady is over! We're women! We're no tools and props of men, we're their equals, and we'll damn sure let them know it!" Bra said in a sudden rush. Just as suddenly, dread seized over her at her outburst.
"Oh Mrs…"
"Oh no need to apologize Bra. You're young, and that is the view of your generation. I suppose I could never understand it, me being a positively ancient forty-eight years old and all…" Elizabeth chuckled. Bra gaped, but only a tiny bit.
"You're nearly fifty? Wow! You look more like you're in your early thirties!"
"Thank you Bra, but it's true. Now you know why I need all those products…and other means…" Elizabeth trailed off. Bra cocked her head, an inquisitive look on her face.
"What, Mrs…Elizabeth?"
"Oh nothing Bra. Just me thinking out loud. Let's get to studying. I brought some drinks, would you like a soda or something?"
"Sure, whatcha got?"
"Oh, just some generic old stuff…it tastes the same as the brand names to me and it's cheaper." Elizabeth said, pulling out a bottle of cola. Bra took it gratefully and began to chug it down. Her school didn't exactly think high;y of such low-nutrient, high-caffiene beverages.
"Ah….that hit the spot…" Bra said, and then grimaced.
"What's wrong?" Elizabeth said, concern in her eyes.
"Ugh…has this drink been sitting out in the sun…it's got a horrible aftertaste…" Bra said. Then her vision began to blur. Panic blossumed in her chest, but it was only a brief flare before a deepening numbness settled over it and extinguished it.
"Mrs…" Bra said, her voice slow and slurred. "There's some…ting…wrong…the drinks…"
Then the darkness began to close in, and as Bra tumbled into it, the last thing she saw was Mrs. Bathori, close and yet so far away, looking down at her.
"I know, darling." She said.
Then her face CHANGED, as a smile of pure desire flowed onto her face as her eyes seemingly darkened and began to blaze a lust that was not sexual, but something else, something far more terrible.
"I know all too well."
And then the darkness consumed Bra completely, as she…
…Tried to sit up with a gasp, only to have the gasp squashed suddenly as something wrapped around her neck and cut it off. Falling back down the short distance she had managed to make, she craned her head and saw she was lying on a stone platform. No, not just lying. Tied to it.
Nightmarish visions of David Solomus came flooding back into her mind, and she began tostruggle with all her might.
Then she noticed the smell, and she gagged. The room reeked of rot and decay, the thick wet odor filling her nostrils and making her watch to vomit.
"Where am I?' Bra thought out loud.
"Why, you're in my private beauty parlor, Bra dear."
And then Elizabeth Bathori was suddenly in her vision, smiling, a terrible smile. In her right mind, Bra finally recognized the desire reflected in the teacher's face. It was a smile of greed.
"What are you doing? Let me go! NOW!" Bra screamed as her struggles increased. But the straps held her firm. Bra goggled. Her father had instructed her in the arts of fighting after the terrible Agony holocaust, and even more so after the David Solomus trial. She was strong enough to lift a truck over her head. The straps that bound her didn't feel like metal, so why could't she break them.
"Oh no. I can't do that. I need you. Or more specifically, I need a certain part of you."
Bra listened half heartedly, but most of her mind was focussed on her struggle. Try to break the straps that held her down via her throat, she contorted her head, twisted it as far to the side as she could.
And screamed.
Lying in a heap in the corner were a pile of rotten bodies. Flies and various other insects buzzed on the black putrescent flesh. But despite the decayed condition of the pile of corpses, Bra could tell one thing. There were all girls. Young girls.
"I was so lovely when I was your age, but as I grew up, I noticed that my looks began to fade. I tried everything, but nothing seemed to stop it. But then I found the key, back in the days when schools allowed canings. I'm afraid I caned one girl too hard, so hard I splashed blood on my face. Imagine my surprise that when I washed it off, and found my beauty had increased!"
"But…but…no…they didn't allow canings…they banned corporal punishment decades ago!" Bra gasped.
"Oh yes. I said I was forty-eight, didn't I? I sort of left out a digit, a two."
The sheer realization that her teacher either believed she was really two hundred and forty eight years old, or by some horrid miracle, actually WAS hit Bra like a bullet.
"No…"
"Oh yes. And since then, I've used you. You will give me immortality, an immortality of beauty, your virgin's blood. You don't want to be a lady Bra, so you will be used to make sure a true lady never dies!"
Bra's eyes filled with sick horror, and then she saw two other things.
One was the tub near the bodies, covered with a continuous dark red/brown stain. It was large enough to hold a person…large enough to be a bathtub of sorts.
And the second was the large, curved scythe-like blade that Elizabeth was drawn from behind her back, the blade she was rising to make the first cut.
"It is what I deserve!"
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO………………"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Bra screamed as she sat up, her heart racing at two miles a minute.
And then a second later her door exploded off the hinges as Vegeta stormed into the room, torn out of sleep by his daughter's cry of pure terror.
"BRA! Bra, honey, what's wrong? What's wrong?" Vegeta said, taking his weeping daughter into his arms and holding her tight. Her shudders of fear sent burning sparks of rage racing through him, and his eyes flashed green.
"Bad dream…terrible…daddy…!" Bra said, holding her father as tight as she could. The doorway in the hall was suddenly filled with more people, as Bulma, Trunks, Goten, and Marron crowded into the room.
"Shhhhhhh…shhh…it's ok sweetie…" Bulma cooed as she joined her husband in trying to comfort her daughter. Trunks stood where he was, and then looked at Goten. The look in Goten's eyes told Trunks he had arrived at the exact same conclusion.
"She had a nightmare too. One so vivid and terrible…that she was reduced to this. That settles it Goten. We need to know what's going on. Now."
The figure laughed at the group.
"Oh young one, you are about as incapable as realizing the truth as your father is of realizing once and for all that your best friend's father will always be stronger then him!" he chuckled.
Then a beeping suddenly started coming from his panel, and the figure looked down at it.
"Well well…can it be?" the figure said, and then tapped a few buttons. A white outline suddenly formed around Marron's 3-D image that the figure was watching and readings began to appear above and around her, until a single word appeared above her head. The figure grinned again.
"My genius shows itself again. I kept my scanners on alert, and they have found me the other Trigger. My plan is falling into place all by it's own. Soon, it will be time. You should be honoured girl. You and the Videl woman will be the beginning of a new empire beyond comprehension, a reign by a new force of creation itself!"
Then another beeping sounded on the panel, and the figure looked at in annoyance.
"I do hate it when people interrupt…" the figure said with some annoyance, and pushed a few buttons on his panel. The image of the people in Bra's room trying to comfort the teenager vanished, and was replace by a lone man's head. The man had hair cut close to his skull, a blonde so light it was almost white. He had a handsome face that projected a bad-boy attitude, but he also exuded an aura of menace and savagery.
"Ah, William. What can I do for you?" the figure asked.
"For starters, mate, you can tell me when we're going to leave!" the newly named William said with a heavy accent. "I've been sitting around for hours. I want some action!"
The figure smirked.
"Do not worry William. The Gateway is almost complete. Soon we will be on our way to the world which will grant us all power beyond imagining…enough power to do whatever you wish…without anyone being able to oppose you."
"Yeah, well your bitches are saying soon as well, and I'm sick of it! I don't care how strong you say these warriors are, I want a piece of them! Or anyone! What good is a newly returned desire to kill if I can't use it?" William said, his voice and words clear he was not saitisfied with the figure's answer.
"Be calm William. Your desire to destroy will soon have plenty of oppourtunity to gorge itself. Be patient. Your allies are."
William cocked his head.
"You know how I feel about them, mate. I don't trust them, especially that hybrid who already thinks he's a god."
"And they probably feel the same about you, William. But you, they, and I are more equal then you think. We were once all human, but we rose above the frailties and imperfections and overall pathetic nature that the human species is! And soon…we will be ever more so, William. I promise."
"Ok. But one last thing. Stop calling me William! My name is S…"
The figure pressed a button, and the image of the man the figure had called William vanished.
"It doesn't matter what your name is, William." The figure chuckled, and pressed a few more buttons.
Vegeta sat at the living room table, head in his hands as he tried to make sense of it. After hours of comforting his daughter and assuring her there was no crazy woman out to get her because she had a murderous greed to be beautiful, Bra had finally fallen asleep again from pure exhaustion. Vegeta had thought he could get some more sleep, but his son has insisted on speaking with him then. A few hours later, with the light of day starting to peak over the horizon, Vegeta sat there. He had excused himself from the discussion that was still continuing in the kitchen on what these nightmares might mean, and was now doing some ow his own private thinking, even as his own exhaustion began to weight down on him.
My son and daughter suffer these dreams...dreams so terrible, so real that it affected them to the degree that it did…how could dreams do that? And not just my childen…Kakarott's spawn suffered one as well? Is it possible for something like this to happen to three people in one night…and if not…what…so tired…could it…I'll just lower my head and rest my eyes a bit…mean…………….
The figure smiled at the now sleeping saiya-jin prince.
"I've saved the best for last, Vegeta. You wonder how these nightmares could be so horrid. I've got my greatest one ready for you…and when it's over, we'll see if you managed to hang onto your sanity like all the others. For all your strength, you are weak in mind…far weaker then you think your rival Goku is…and soon, you'll know just how terrible strength is! HA HA HA HA HA!"
A psychotic mastermind…a ruined soul hell bent on revenge…a personification of vengeance…vs a beyond menacing force…and the final battle for redemption is about to begin…
ATROCITIES