AN: I'm sorry I took SO long to post this. I've been busy last week. Well, at least I finally finished this chapter. Please read!!!

Chapter Eight: Troubles and Rescue

Dear Diary,

After all these months, I finally found ChiChi… my poor friend… She was in shock, I can't do anything to help her…

Bulma's eyes grew wide in fear as she looked around and saw excited people all around screaming loudly. Her minded started swirling as she had completely lost control of her thoughts. She felt helpless. She couldn't think of what to do.

"Kuso," she muttered under her breath. Suddenly, the crowd of people started to move forward, slightly pushing her forward among with them. She started to scream and fell forward, her arms sprawling onto the floor.

"Well, well, look who we have here."

Bulma heard the ominous voice of a woman and she slowly lifted her head up. She squinted her eyes a little to see the face of the woman standing in front of her, blocking the sun. Bulma quietly gasped.

"L-Lady… Riyuka…" she managed to choke out. Riyuka gave her an angry scowl and started pulling her ear. Bulma let out a painful cry as she felt the pain.

"And where exactly have you been for the past few months, ungrateful servant?" Riyuka growled.

Bulma started to feel fear. The same fear which had been haunting her for most of her life. If anyone could easily scare her, it would be Riyuka. That frightful feeling started creeping towards her again, almost suffocating her mind.

Bulma started to whimper. No… I don't want to spend the rest of my life in a cage surrounded by loneliness and dismay again…

"Well? I want an answer from you, servant!! Why did you run away???" Riyuka demanded.

Bulma ran through her mind at the speed of light, thinking of what to say. She then slowly closed her eyes. Things won't happen if I stand here and do nothing. I have to make this happen… Do I really deserve to be treated this way? No, I don't. No person should be treated like this. Even if I have done something horrific in the past, I don't deserve this.

Bulma then opened her eyes and turned to face Riyuka. "You must be mistaken, why would I ever run away from your wonderful household? Unless my memory is malfunctioning, I am quite clear that it was you screaming like a madwoman, bolting out of the house and pushing me out of the doorway," she said quickly in a sarcastic tone. She could see the colour of Riyuka's face turn red.

"Why you little baka…" Riyuka lifted a hand and prepared to strike hard when another hand stopped her. Bulma looked surprised and turned to the person who had stopped Riyuka. She saw a girl, around the same age as her, standing in front of her. The girl had large, pretty black eyes, and long brown hair. She had a concerned look. "I don't know who you are, but please don't take this out in public," the girl said.

Riyuka turned to the girl. "Don't stick your nose into other people's business!!! I can do whatever I want to low class servants, wherever and whenever I want!"

Bulma took a step back. "No, Riyuka, you're wrong. I am no longer your property. You have lost your possession!"

Riyuka dropped her mouth open. "I have no idea where you have been for the past few months. But wherever you went, you have lost your respect. And don't you forget that I bought you!! I let you live in my house for twelve years. And whatever is lost can always be found. I am taking you back, and there is nothing you can do about it."

The brunette took a step in between Bulma and Riyuka, facing Riyuka. "I think you should let the girl go, if I had to work under your household, I probably wouldn't want to stick around for too long."

The brunette then quickly grabbed Bulma's wrist and ran into the crowd.

After finally losing sight of Lady Riyuka, Bulma took a sigh of relief and turned towards the brunette. "Thank you so much for helping me. You have no idea how appreciative that was. By the way, what is your name?"

The brunette smiled. "I'm Rei, I'm an orphan girl. My job is to help people. I have no home, but my kindness has been re-payed by a lot of different people. This is how I live."

"Well, I'm Bulma. I'm glad to meet you. There's just another problem, and since you like to help others. Do you think you can help?"

Rei nodded happily. "Of course, what is the problem?"

Bulma pointed to ChiChi, who was still chained to the cage. "Please help get my friend out?"

Rei started to smile. "Oh, that would be very easy."

****

"Ruuuuuuuuun!!!!!!"

Bulma, ChiChi, Rei, and a short bald man started running for their lives.

"Come back you little runts!!" a voice screamed behind them.

Bulma turned around and saw three men not close behind. She then turned to her friends. "Alright, you go to Cavelin Forest and hide in there. I'll find you guys later." She suddenly stopped in her tracks. ChiChi stopped too.

"Bulma, what are you doing? You can't face those three men alone!!"

Bulma smiled to her friend. "I think I can. Trust me." She then gave her friend a gentle push. "I'll find you guys later, I promise."

ChiChi nodded and then started running with the others.

Bulma took a deep breath. I hope I can do this. She looked straight ahead and saw the three men finally getting close to her.

"You would have been smart if you ran away and hid somewhere," one of the men snarled at her.

"You really think that we're going to let you go. Well, you better think twice. Because for what your friend has done, we are not going to let you get out of this place alive."

Bulma started to centre her key. She started to focus when she felt a strange intuition within her.

*A sudden flashback*

A tall, slender woman with long purple hair faced Bulma. "You're powers are great dear, but can you control them?"

"End of sudden flashback*

Bulma blinked when reality started to her again. That was strange… Where did that come from? She then suddenly realised that the men were surrounding her. She started powering up and surprisingly noticed something. My powers are greater than usual, how can that be?

Shrugging off her odd thoughts, she started to rise onto the air. I never used to know how to fly!!

"It's time for you to learn a lesson!!!" she screamed, and started to form a ki ball.

****

ChiChi started pacing back and forth inside the dark, musty cave. "Ohhh I hope that Bulma is alright. We shouldn't have left her. I should have told you to stay with her, Krillin." ChiChi faced the short bald man in front of her, whose name was Krillin.

"You're right, I should have," Krillin said, looking guilty.

Suddenly, the brunette stepped in. "Look, Bulma's going to be fine. Believe me, she will be."

ChiChi and Krillin both stopped talking and both turned to face her at the same time.

"Well, I sure hope so. By the way, what is your name?" ChiChi asked.

Rei bowed to her. "I am Rei, an orphan. I met Bulma at the slave auction."

ChiChi smiled and bowed back. "Nice to meet you. I'm ChiChi, Bulma's best friend. And this is Krillin. Bulma and I were separated in a storm for over half a year ago. I didn't expect her to find me. I was so happy when I saw her, I knew that she was going to help me escape."

"Well, I'm glad that you two have finally met up again," Rei said.

"Yeah, I'll never forget the look on the bidder's face when you called out that ridiculously high amount when we were being auctioned. And I can never forget the look on his face when you ran off without paying for us!!" Krillin laughed. He then stopped laughing when he saw the look on ChiChi's face. "I'm sorry, ChiChi, I don't mean to laugh at a time like this"

Before ChiChi could reply, they heard someone call into the cave.

"Helllooooooooo??? Is anyone in here?"

ChiChi smiled. "It's Bulma!!"

A dark figured stepped inside, a flash of blue hair could be seen through the light. The girl standing in front of them smiled. "Hi!!! See? I told you I would be alright!!!"

ChiChi and Bulma ran towards each other and hugged. ChiChi started to cry "I missed you so much, Bulma. I thought that I would never see you again!!!"

Bulma also had tears in her eyes. "I missed you too. I've been looking for you for so long and I'm glad that I've finally found you."

They let go of each other and Bulma turned to Rei, smiling. "Thank you, I owe you a lot, Rei."

Rei smiled back at her. "Like I said before, I love to help others."

****

Crackles could be heard as four figures sat around a small campfire inside the cave. Rei was breaking twigs in half and feeding the fire. Krillin was lying down, his mind drifting away.

"I thought I could trust the people who found me after that storm, Bulma, I really did," ChiChi said quietly to her best friend.

"What exactly happened after we separated from the storm?" Bulma questioned curiously.

"Well, these two men found me. They took care of me for a few days until I fully recovered. And then," ChiChi started to sniff as she wiped away a tear, "they tried to rape me. I have never felt so scared and defenceless in my whole entire life."

"Ohhh… ChiChi.." Bulma said softly, trying to comfort her friend.

"And this was on a deserted alley, on the streets. That's when Krillin came by and tried to help me," ChiChi continued on.

Bulma was listening with her full attention. "Then?"

"Then more men came and Krillin was greatly outnumbered. One against Six. They beat him up pretty bad and then they threw us in a cage, letting us starve for a few days. They let us out a few days later, finally feeding us rotten scraps that they had thrown away. I then realised that the men were in a very bad gang. There were a whole lot of them too. Krillin and I were just treated as slaves. Once, Krillin got very sick from eating all that disgusting food. I had to take care of him and we still had to do everything they told us to do. This is how we have been living for the past six months. After that, the leader got sick and tired of us and decided to throw us in the slave auction. I can't believe it, they were going to sell us, yet they didn't even possess us in the first place." ChiChi stopped talking when she realised that both Rei and Bulma were staring at her, waiting for her to say more. She sniffed again. "Don't worry about me, guys, I'm fine, just a bit hungry. But I'm fine. I'm just so glad that I found you. So what about you Bulma? What happened to you all this time?"

"Well… It's a long story…" Bulma took a deep breath and started to tell her journey.

****

The night was quiet as ever. Inside a dark and gloomy cave, a blue haired girl lied in there, her head was slowly moving from side to side, her forehead was covered with beads of sweat, yet, she was still asleep.

In front of Bulma, stood the green Namek, bowing down to her feet. "Princess, your mother would like to see you. Immediately."

Bulma suddenly stared at him oddly. "Why would mother want to see me?"

Suddenly, a door behind Piccolo opened, and dozens of men headed into the room. Two of them grabbed Piccolo from behind, one on each arm. Pulling him away from Bulma. She frantically looked around the room.

"What is happening? Where did you come from? Why have you come into this room?" Her heart was racing very hard. Fear took over her body. She didn't understand what was going on around her. She didn't recognise any of the people. But she knew one thing. Those people were evil, and they were trained to destroy the country her mother had ruled over.

AN: It's not really a cliffy this time. Sorry this chapter is a bit boring and sorry that Vegeta isn't in this chapter, but we all can't forget about ChiChi. I'll give you a clue about what's going to happen next chapter. Well, I can't give away too much, but I'll tell you that there's going to be a lemon. If you would like to be informed via email when I make my next post, please email me (pink_angel91@hotmail.com) or tell me if you review. Oh, and please review!!! Tell me what you think, I'm really dying to know.

PS: if you're pondering over what fic you would like to read next. I just let you know that I have rewritten my story "Beyond Higher Things", I've changed the storyline around a bit. So please take a look at that. Thanx!! Cya!!