The Princess

Chapter 15: Negating the Prophecy

By: senzubean

I do not own Dragon Ball Z in any way. I make no profit from this story. I just wrote it for fun.

The scene at the Brief's homestead was a depressing one. The aliens message provided little hope to any of them. Bulma was beside herself with grief, crying into Letta's shoulder.

"Don't cry, Mom," Trunks said, trying to be optimistic but inside he was just as devastated as his mother. "Why would they take her somewhere else to...." His words dropped off into silence, he was unable to continue the sentence.

"Polkrif must want to get rid of us all at once, using Bra as bait." Sala stated.

"My baby's dead. Sh..she's dead. I know it." Bulma sobbed.

Vegeta growled, he couldn't stand it anymore. "No, you don't know that."

Bulma did not agree. "It's obviously a trap Vegeta! They wanted you all along! If you go there the only thing you'll find is Bra's corpse!" Her words had all the power they usually held when arguing with her husband, but the look on her face severely contradicted them. Vegeta did not respond to that, he didn't even turn around. Bulma went back to crying.

"I don't want you to go."

Vegeta was appalled by that statement, he whirled around and confronted her." You want me to leave our daughter to die?"

"She's already dead!" Bulma screamed. "And if you go they'll kill you too!"

Vegeta grunted. "How can you make that assumption so easily? Until I hold her lifeless body in my arms, I will not jump to that conclusion." He paused, regaining his composure. "Besides, there's no way I will be defeated by such cowardly warriors."

"That's what you always say." Bulma spat and pushed herself up abruptly. "And every time you lose." She added then retreated to her room.

Everyone stared after her, only Trunks dared a comment. "She didn't mean that, Dad. She's just upset."

"She meant it." Vegeta replied. "It's the truth after all."

Trunks opened his mouth to reassure his father but Vegeta silenced him with a look.

"This time will be different."

"Of course it will," Sala replied. "because we're all going to help you." Trunks and Letta agreed solemnly.

"No!" Vegeta spat. "I am going alone. If it's a trap, I will be the only one to fall into it."

"Dad!" Trunks exclaimed. "Don't be stupid!"

"Don't try my patience, son. " Vegeta replied.

"B..but..."

"But nothing! That's my decision."

"It's not fair!" Potay exclaimed. Everyone looked at him. Argo took a hold of his arm and gave him a warning glance not to continue.

"You want to talk to me about fairness?" Vegeta snarled at him.

"This is my fault. I want to help make it right."

"I might not be able to make it right! What chance would a stupid kid like you have?" Vegeta said. "You never had my trust and you never will. You're lucky you're still breathing let alone in my house!"

Potay lowered his eyes and gave up this time. There was a long silence after that.

"Um, Vegeta." Letta said meekly. "How are you going to get to that planet? I checked my scouter just before you came back and there's ships surrounding Earth right now. As soon as they see you coming they'll attack."

"I can handle it." Vegeta replied.

"You're not going alone, Dearest." Recely said. It was the first they heard from her since they'd returned from the mall.

"Yes, I am!" Vegeta practically yelled.

"No, you're not!" Recely replied forcefully. "I am going with you because we have no idea what awaits us on that planet. With two of us, one can hold off any opposition while the other looks for Bra. Letta is going to pilot the ship, she's the best at maneuvering around enemy fire. Sala and Trunks are going to stay here and defend the Earth from Polkrif's men if they decide to land. As for the rest of our battle plan, we'll form one on the way to the planet. How long will it take to get there, Letta?"

"I'll have to double check on the ship's computer but I think the numbers correspond to the Gris system. That's about three days away at the very least."

Vegeta suppressed a moan in reaction to that. Three days was a long time. Anything could happen by then.

"Then we had better be off now." Recely replied.

Vegeta retreated quickly to the backyard followed by his Mother and Letta. They were almost at the ships gangplank when he stopped. Trunks was behind him.

"Didn't you hear what your grandmother said?" Vegeta demanded not appreciating the further delay.

"I don't care, I'm going too." Trunks replied, standing firm under his father's unimpressed glare.

Father and Son both stood their ground, neither flinching under the cold stares they were giving each other. Amazingly, Vegeta was the first to falter.

"Go warm up the ship, I'll be there in a second." He said to Letta and Recely. As soon as they were gone, he approached his son, walking right up under his gaze.

"I want you to stay here."

"No! I won't!"

"You'd leave your mother and Argo unprotected?"

"Sala's here, and the Sons will come ...."

"Your mother needs you right now."

"Nothing I could say will console her! Why don't you just admit you don't want me to help you! Damn it, Dad! Why? I'm not useless!" His face twisted as he struggled against his emotions, finally giving way to broken sobs. "She's my sister. I..I want to help get her back."

"Trunks, please..." He said wearily, then took on a much softer expression than normal "I've already lost one of my children today, I can't bear to lose another."

Trunks continued to repress his sobs, embarrassed that he'd broken down in front of his father of all people. He nodded slowly and turned away.

"Take care of your mother." Vegeta added and went to the ready and waiting spaceship.

Trunks wiped his face in his sleeve as Argo, Sala and Potay joined his side. They all watched the ship slowly rise into the night sky and then take off and disappear among the stars.

"Look at them." Letta spat as she maneuvered her way through five firing space crafts. It took her less than a minute to get past all of them unscathed. She flew for a few moments waiting for them to follow, but they were free and clear.

"They're not coming after us." She said and looked to Recely. "You know they're going to attack the Earth. If we turn back right now we can shoot them all down."

Recely grunted in agreement. "But we can't risk damaging the ship and we'll lose precious time. Trunks and Sala will be able to handle any warriors that descend, I'm positive of that."

"If that's what you want to do." Letta said and looked at Vegeta, who was standing by his mother's chair, staring at the view screen.

He slowly nodded. "Trunks will be fine."

Back on Earth a half hour had passed. Trunks Potay and Sala stood out in the yard, waiting.

"Maybe we've lucked out." Sala said after thirty minutes of complete silence.

"No." Trunks replied. "I felt strange and powerful ki appear on earth about ten minutes ago and it's been getting gradually more powerful ever since. They're coming all right, and they'll be here any minute."

Sala nodded and looked at Potay. "Go inside the house."

"No!" Potay yelled. "I'm going to fight."

Sala gave him a hard look. "How many are there, Trunks?"

"At least ten."

"See?" Sala said to Potay. " Ten is a lot of warriors to handle at once, in the confusion one or two might get past us into the house. You need to make sure that no one hurts Bulma and your Grandfather."

Potay nodded reluctantly, and slunk back into the house.

"That was easier than usual." Sala said. Trunks smiled warmly at her.

"The battle shouldn't be too bad either."

"Especially not with us helping!" A familiar voice called playfully and the owner of said voice landed lightly at Trunks' side.

"Goten!" Trunks exclaimed, a broad smile brightened his saddened face. Pan and Gohan were close behind.

"Hi Trunks!" Pan exclaimed and waved, her face was still sad despite her smile. Gohan took off his glasses, his face somewhat grim.

"You guys should have told us something was up." He said.

"Mom and I wanted to, but Dad didn't want to get anyone else involved."

"It must be bad then."

Trunks shrugged. "This battle will be nothing now. Dad and my Grandmother have the biggest problem on their hands. Bra may be dead."

"We shouldn't think about that now. Let's just get these intruders off our hands." Gohan replied. "Speaking of which, they're here."

About sixteen warriors appeared in the sky above.

"Looks like you underestimated the numbers a bit." Sala remarked to Trunks.

"Yeah, " He agreed, taking a battle stance with all the others. "But that just means that each individual is weaker than I assessed."

"Remember, they could be able to suppress ki." Gohan warned.

"Right." Everyone agreed. Gohan Trunks and Goten went super saiyan right away.

"Let's go!" Trunks exclaimed and all three flew off. Pan and Sala exchanged glances. Sala didn't budge but powered up. Pan nodded, understanding that Sala wanted her to help her guard the ground while the men fought in the air. It didn't take long for half-beaten aliens to fall like rain. Sala and Pan had their hands full making sure they didn't get back up.

Very far away, somewhere dark and hollow, Bra was coming to at an excruciatingly slow pace. Her eyes were half open and staring. Her head hurt so much she couldn't turn it and she couldn't make out a thing in her line of vision. Her thoughts, like the sounds echoing around her, were broken and blurry. Minute by minute, things were becoming slightly less muddled. She was cold, and after she made that discovery everything else came tumbling into place.

"Where am I?" She mumbled, blinking to try and see what was around her. All she could make out was a pitch black sky and hills of dirt. Gusts of cool air blew about her, making her that much colder. Knowing she couldn't just lay there, she very carefully began to stir. Thankfully, all of her limbs responded to the commands her brain gave them. With her head and neck hurting as much as they did, she was afraid she had been paralyzed. She sat up, and nearly fell back to the ground. It was taking everything she had to keep herself upright.

She looked around. There were dirt hills in every direction as far as the eye could see. The wind blew her hair in her face, but she noticed that no dirt accompanied the gusts. She thought that was strange, forgetting for an instance her sheer terror at being completely alone and hurt in this desolate place. She was obviously outside as indicated by all the outdoor features of the place, but for some very odd reason, she felt the space to be limited, as if the black surrounding her were actually walls and she was indoors. But wind and dirt?

That doesn't matter. Bra reminded herself and pushed herself to her feet. She wobbled, but managed to stay standing. Maybe I'm dead?

She quickly decided against that conclusion. Her father had been dead twice and told her exactly what the underworld was like.

But he went to hell, maybe this is heaven.

A huge gust of wind nearly toppled her, she caught herself, but became extremely dizzy in the process. Her spinning head lead to nausea and she was sick all over the dark gray ground.

"I'm definately..not dead." Bra concluded. Her father said he'd felt no pain, even in hell. Bra felt very much pain right now. She sat down again in order to try and calm her stomach.

"What is going on here?" Bra said, she felt desperate tears welling up. "No." She said aloud forcefully and stood back up. "I brought this on myself and whatever happens I'm going to face it. Death couldn't be worse than this anyway."

"Maybe not death itself, but the process of meeting death can be terrible indeed." A voice said from somewhere in the darkness, startling Bra. She looked around and saw no one.

"Wh..who are you?" Bra demanded.

"I'm sure your grandmother has told you all about me."

"Polkrif." Bra said feeling chills shoot up her spine.

"At your service. Or rather, awaiting your service." He said and chuckled.

"What do you mean by that?" Bra asked backing up. Her eyes darted all around trying to find him. It sounded as if he were right behind her but no one was there. "Answer me!" She cried out forcing herself to sound angry.

"It's a surprise." Polkrif's voice replied slyly. "Why don't you just lay down and rest for now? Regain some of that impressive energy you saiyans are so proud of."

"No! You'll tell me what you want!" Bra replied. There was no response, not even laughter. "Polkrif!" She exclaimed. Frustrated beyond belief, she mustered as much energy as she could, which was not much, but enough to form a medium sized ki ball. She let it fly in the direction of the voice. It flew until it disappeared, not colliding into anything.

"What is this place!?" Bra screeched. She knew that he had something horrible planned for her and she couldn't do anything to stop it. She clasped her fists hard.

I have to find more energy somewhere. I can't let him use me!

To her utter disappointment, not to mention fright, she didn't find hidden reserves of power from within her, but felt herself slowly losing energy she had. She swooned, collapsing to her knees. All of a sudden she was exhausted. Her eyes became heavy and she could barely keep them open.

"Wh..what's wrong with me?" She mumbled as the rest of her body slumped to the ground. The cold wind blew across her prone body sending her into shivering fits. The last thing she was able to do was curl into a fetal position, then the darkness overtook her in the void.

Several feet away, the spider creature who had terrorized the Earth mall and kidnapped the saiyan princess sat at a huge machine. In front of her was a small console, into which she was busily typing commands. Attached to this was a massive metal box and three columns, each at least a hundred feet high. They reached towards an open skylight. Heavily insulated cables stretched from the columns to a massive satellite aimed at the starry night sky. The whole contraption dwarfed the spider woman and looked very out of place in the large empty room which it was built into.

The Spider creature hummed pleasantly as a string of data appeared on her monitor.

"Is it working?"

The spider jumped several inches out of her chair then whirled around to confront the person who'd snuck up on her.

"I asked you nicely not to do that!"

The man, a humanoid simian, chuckled.

"Arachne, you should relax."

"I'll relax when Prince Vegeta is dead."

The man smiled mockingly. "Why are you worried about him? He's nothing."

"That's easy for you to say. You've never met him face to face."

"Things are very different now, Arachne. We hold the cards, not him."

Arachne snorted and turned back to the screen. "I held them once too, and lost them very easily."

The simian chuckled nastily. "I could point out the obvious but I won't, because you control my lovely machine. Now, answer my question."

"It needs to be tested properly. But it did trap that small amount of energy she expelled a few hours ago, that's encouraging. Let's just hope it can handle the absorption of large amounts."

"Impressive. I believe we have the perfect little powerhouse too, don't you agree?"

"I could have picked a better one."

"Really? Who?"

"Anyone! You don't mess with Vegeta and live to tell about it! Unless you are very, very lucky. You better hope this thing works properly." Arachne said gesturing to the machine. "If not, Vegeta is going to kill us, and saiyans don't kill nice."

"You're wrong, Arachne." The man replied, grabbing the spider by the throat. "You had better hope this thing works, because if it doesn't I'll kill you well before Vegeta gets here. Now, shut up and tell me the status of our little battery." He let her go, she choked and gasped for a second.

"She's as healed as she's going to get. We could test her immediately."

"Get on with it then."

Bra's eyes snapped open and she sat up. She was warm, she only had a dull headache. Instantly, she remembered where she was and jumped to her feet. Amazed at how much she'd recovered, she looked around curiously. The place didn't look any different, so she had no way to determine how much time had passed.

"I must have been out for days." She mumbled to herself and started to look herself over. It didn't appear that she'd been violated in any way. She didn't have any new scars or wounds and she felt pretty good considering the way she felt before.

Still, she was very, very upset.

"Polkrif! Tell me what is going on!" She yelled. Her voice echoed until it disappeared.

Briskly she began to walk.

I got here somehow, there must be an exit. I just hope I'm walking in the right direction.

She walked for what seemed like forever and the surroundings stayed exactly the same.

Bra heaved a frustrated sigh. "Guess I'll walk in another direction now." She said and turned only to find a giant ki blast coming straight at her. She squealed and jumped out of the way. Shocked, she watched it disappear into the distance behind her.

"I didn't even feel that coming." She said trembling. She wasn't the best ki detector in the world, but she would have felt something that big coming at her under normal circumstances..

She heard chuckling from where the ki blast came at her. Hesitantly, she looked up. In front of her was a small horned creature, wearing pink and black saiyan style armor. Once again, Bra was at a loss as to what to make of this.

"You're Polkrif?" Bra asked the still chuckling creature. The only problem with that assumption was that this creature's chuckling tone was different from the voice that had addressed her before.

"So, you want to fight me , do you?" It asked smoothly.

"No." Bra replied.

"You're pathetically weak. To be fair, I'll fight you with one hand behind my back. What do you say now?"

"Hmph! I say don't patronize me! You're not Polkrif!" Bra spat. "Hey!" She yelled into the emptiness. "Fight me yourself, you jerk!"

With that, the creature fired at her. Again, she didn't feel it, but being prepared this time she easily dodged it.

"Enough of this." She said wearily and fired back. The hefty blast collided into the monsters chest, and was absorbed into the being. The thing laughed at her, the blast had done absolutely no damage. Again it fired at her, she dodged again and fired back. This scenario happened a few more times. Bra decided that it was getting her nowhere and went in for hand to hand combat. She didn't even land a single punch, the creature batted her away effortlessly. Bra bounced off the ground hard. The arm where she was hit was a mess, most definitely broken.

"Damn it!" Bra spat. The creature was still laughing. Bra fired at it again, with no luck.

In their lab, Arachne and Polkrif watched the meters of their machine gleefully.

"It's working great!" Arachne exclaimed.

"Excellent." Polkrif said. "How much energy do you suppose we'll get?"

Arachne laughed. "Don't worry, My Lord. By the time that Prince gets here, there'll be more than enough to facilitate your plans."

"This is joyous news, Arachne! When the universe is mine, you will be rewarded greatly!" Polkrif said excitedly. "Now, hurry and extract as much energy as you can from that little whelp. The sooner she's drained, the sooner she can be healed and the process can be started again."

Arachne nodded and typed some commands into the machine.

Bra tumbled across the plain for the third time. Her ki attacks were useless against the monster, and what was worse, every hit was absorbed and gave the creature more power. Bra cursed her ill luck, finding another fighter with the same power as hers. If only she could control her own, but she couldn't.

Panicking she tried to attack it twice and ended up in the dirt both times. Bloodied, tired and panting, she got up again. Her left arm was useless and after the last deflecting blow, she could add a few broken ribs to the list of injuries. Wearily she rose her good arm and fired her last ki attack. Now she was truly drained. The blast was pathetic compared to the others she'd thrown. The creature walked right into it, not flinching as it hit. Bra collapsed to one knee.

Well, this is it. At least I can say I tried.

She watched as the enemy stopped right in front of her, and didn't try to scramble away when it raised its arm. She remained put as it started to fall, and didn't make a sound when it hit her square on the head.