"So you see, I never got to see my planet being cleansed thanks to my father's quick thinking. The rest of the saiyan race was killed off because of my incompetence and fear. I'm glad that you came to me about these dreams because now, I know the prophecy was the real thing. For years I had forgotten about it… just trying to forget my twin's memory. And now, everything has come flying back at you and I, Bra. You do know what this means don't you?"
Bra paused and swallowed hard; steadying herself on the rock she was perched on, "Yes Papa. I do know what this means. I am the Chosen One, aren't I?"
Vegeta nodded but a smile would not grace his royal face for a long time to come. Gesturing to Bra that it was time to leave, he secretly hoped that he was wrong about everything.
*********
Bulma paced nervously back and forth across her small-enclosed office, waiting for the phone to ring with some news. It had been several hours since she had last seen her husband and daughter and now she was becoming aggravated with anxiety.
Where could they be? And in the name of Kami-sama why didn't they call?
The rusty hinges on her door creaked open, revealing a flustered and sweating Trunks. He wiped his brow with the back of his left hand and entered the office to plop down on the first available chair, letting out an exasperated sigh in the process.
"Did you find them?" Bulma eagerly inquired.
Trunks shook his head before leaning back in his chair and putting his feet on the stack of papers next to the chair he was sitting on.
"I don't know where they are kaa-san. I looked everywhere for them… well, almost everywhere. Actually, only everywhere that I thought they would be and I found nothing. Not even a hair off of otou-san's head."
Bulma let out an incensed sigh and slammed an angry fist down on her desk before letting her tears slide gradually down her cheeks. Perhaps they had left a note or something to that degree on the kitchen table.
Or maybe they've just disappeared.
"Not again. Please, Dende, not again," Bulma whispered as she laid her head down on her desk, weeping openly. Frankly, she didn't care if Trunks saw her like this. He'd seen her in worse situations than this; she didn't think it bothered him.
She was wrong.
Trunks' heart broke every time that Bulma cried (even if it was rare), even though he never said anything and basically kept a straight face. But inside, he died. Over and over again until his mother stopped crying and went back to her normal bubbly self. He wished that he could do more to help the situation but…
A knock came at the oxidized steel door to Bulma's office-room.
"Answer it," Bulma said, not looking up.
And Trunks did. Much to his surprise, a gorgeous woman with long, sleek black hair and black piercing eyes was standing directly in front of him. She wasn't tall but man, did she look like his father, Vegeta. She had his eyes, his dark and brooding eyes, complete with the various flecks of blue, green, and brown in them. Trunks took a step back to let the woman into the room, too stunned to ask her what her name was. As the clicking of her high-heeled boots became more and more irritating to Bulma, she looked up, eager to yell at someone or something but her words died in her throat.
This woman was positively breathtaking to her. She noticed her mate's features - his eyes and hair - in her but didn't quite put two and two together. Bulma swallowed hard as Trunks offered her his seat and then quietly stepped back to gaze at her from the door.
"Who are you?" Bulma managed to squeak from her dry throat.
The woman turned to face Bulma with a sad smile on her face. Her eyes were so full of life and compassion that Bulma found it irresistible not to look into them. They seemed to have her captured or entranced.
"I am Yliah. The queen of Vegetasei," the woman said finally.
Bulma snapped out of her trance and frowned. "That's impossible, I am the Queen of Vegetasei. My husband is King," she said, scrutinizing the woman's features still.
The woman let out a small laugh and stood up from her chair, walking directly over to where Bulma was sitting with a confused look on her face. Trunks watched as she sashayed over, swinging her full hips the entire way.
Good Dende she's striking. After she's done here, I'm SO asking her out.
Yliah stopped in front of a perplexed Bulma and daintily put her elbows on the table so that the two women were face to face. A diminutive smile crept across her face as she looked into Bulma's turquoise eyes.
Vegeta's mate, no doubt, she mused. He has good taste. And what wonderfully delicious children she bore, thought she, stealing a glance at Trunks, who looked away, blushing madly.
Very delicious indeed… but where is he?
"You say you're the Queen? How is that?" Bulma snapped, breaking Yliah out of her trance-like state.
"Hmm? What's that?" Yliah said, thought bubble broken.
"How are you the Queen?"
"I am the Queen by biological right but it appears that my title has been revoked, as you are Queen by mate," Yliah explained, her eyes roaming back to Trunks momentarily.
"You're meaning to tell me that you're Vegeta's sister?"
"Twin sister, actually."
With those words stuck firmly in her mind, Bulma fainted with Yliah making a tsk-ing noise and a smile playing slightly across her lips.
***********
Capsule Corps looked dead. The lights were off and there was scarcely anyone there, making the building seem abandoned and eerily empty. Frankly, it gave Bra the creeps.
"I wonder where Mama is," she said aloud, wondering if her father was even paying the slightest bit of attention to her or to the situation.
I hope she's ok 'cause we were gone for an awfully long time, Bra mused inwardly. But it's not like Mama and Trunks to work this late. Maybe something terrible happened to them… maybe because they thought we ran away they went to look for us and they never came home! What if…?
It took only moments for Bra to get lost in her thoughts but for Vegeta…
That baka woman. I can't believe she left. Damn Trunks couldn't look after his own damn mother for one damn day. When I find her I'm gonna… I'm gonna…
You're gonna what? Scold her? You're the one who left remember?
That irritating voice came popping up and giving its own two cents. Man, Vegeta hated that voice. Sounded like his woman.
You're damn rights I'm gonna scold her. Probably going to throw her around the room a bit too, Vegeta retorted.
Yeah right. The first time you see her, you're going to wrap your arms around her and give her a great big kiss… ya big kitten.
Vegeta growled, wondering why he even bothered thinking.
"Bah. Thinking's overrated," he said, glancing over his shoulder to look at his bemused daughter who obviously was deep in thought. Vegeta began to question why he took Bra away to tell her a stupid story when he probably could have done it right here in New Hope. But no… it had to be done in a forest by a stream. Although Vegeta had no idea why he chose there of all places to tell Bra about Sionay, he figured he had his reasons.
KABLAM!
An immense explosion rocked the silence of the sleepy city, shaking Bra and Vegeta back to reality.
"What in Kami's name was that?" Bra exclaimed, holding her hands to ears in a vain attempt to muffle the sound that was coming from… inside Capsule Corps?
********
Bulma came to her senses quite quickly, considering she'd been thrown half-way across her office and into the cement wall adjacent to her door. The fire that started from her desk had spread to her bookshelves and was continuing to eat its way through her books and papers, gaining energy, gaining fuel. But it wasn't the fire that fightened Bulma.
It was Yliah. The woman that claimed to be Vegeta's twin. Did she have something to do with this? After all, Vegeta was once a ruthless warrior; couldn't his sister be one as well?
Coughing and sputtering up blood, Bulma crawled weakly to the door and pushed it open. Outside in the hallway was even worse than inside her office. The smell of burning chemicals and burning toxins made her insides writhe in torture.
I can't stay here much longer. I'll die from inhalation of all these fumes and volitle chemicals.
So she crawled through doors and hallways, concentrating on staying conscious while she attempted to make it outside. The last she saw of Trunks was when he rushed out of the office. He'd heard Yliah scream; she swore it was a trick. But Trunks wouldn't have it. He followed her out there anyway and by Kami, look what happened.
But Trunks was a big boy now; he could look after himself. Bulma just hoped her son was alright and not in the clutches of something evil; or worse... in the clutches of that so-called "sister" of Vegeta's. Several more coughs of blood sent her lying on the floor for a few seconds while she caught her breath. Something was punctured internally; she had to get help.
As she crawled through the last hallway that lead out to New Hope City, she felt a strong grip on her left leg. Someone or something was holding her back. Bulma twisted and kicked but the grip only tightened, making her cry out with pain.Then, all of a sudden, the pain was gone and she was free. She didn't know what made her look up, but when she did, Vegeta was standing in front of her, scowling at whatever had taken its hold on her.
"Get out of here, woman," Vegeta calmly ordered. "This is no place for a human."
Knowing better, Bulma agreed and ran out the front doors.
**************
"Hello Vegeta."
Vegeta didn't respond at first. Inside, he was thinking that maybe he was staring at a ghost; at a long forgotten memory that he had repressed deep inside. Another part of him was telling him that this wasn't a ghost and that she had attempted to kill his mate.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
Yliah tossed her long black hair behind her shoulder and smiled sweetly... if sweetly was the right word for it. Her body had changed but her face; her face remained as soft and lively as it had ever been. It looked as though she had never been hurt by anything. Looked as though nothing had touched her and killed her so many years ago. But her smile was different. It wasn't sweet and coy anymore; it was somehow demented and evil. Yet how could something so wonderful be so evil at the same time?
"I'm here to kill your daughter," she simply said with a simpleness that sent chills through Vegeta's saiyan spine.
"Yliah... how..?"
A maniacal laugh escaped her and she sashayed to where her twin brother stood, placing her hand on his shoulder. It had been years since she had had the chance to use her telepathy; she'd only been able to sense what her God had been thinking. But Vegeta's thoughts were louder than anything she had encountered in her journeys through the worlds.
His eyes closed and his body stiffened as Yliah entered into his mind. She was searching through his anger, his passion, and his pride, for something that he loved beyond all the confines of his cold saiyan heart. There were doors and windows in his mind. Yliah laughed as she threw them all open; he was such a simple warrior. Living with humans had softened him more than he realized. However, there was one door that was locked; one that just wouldn't budge.
Yliah had found it.
Now it was only a matter of opening the door and revealing what he did not want to reveal. It amused her to break his mind; to finally overthrow the great Vegeta from the pedestal that he'd thought himself to be on. Finally, she could prove herself to her twin brother without being afraid of how it would affect him. She could simply kill him, if she wanted to. But somehow that wouldn't be as satisfying as forcing him to watch his daughter die.
The door was stubborn. Yliah pried with her hands and attempted to throw a controlled ball of ki into it. It just wouldn't work. Finally, the door flew open on its own, revealing a two people. She assumed that the young blue-haired girl was his daughter and the other one was...
A younger version of her?
Yliah gasped. He still loved her after all these years of being gone in his life? Either he was a true loving brother... or his mind was playing tricks on her. Defeated, she left. There was nothing there that wasn't already known to her; nothing that could help her in the long run. Frustrated and beaten, she threw a concentrated ball of ki against Vegeta's chest, sending him flying uncontrollably through the air.
He hit the wall with a sickening crunch; a trickle of blood ran helplessly down the hardened forehead. He remained unconscious while Yliah slipped out into the night, unaware of the young purple haired man that eyed her from the shadows.
Bra paused and swallowed hard; steadying herself on the rock she was perched on, "Yes Papa. I do know what this means. I am the Chosen One, aren't I?"
Vegeta nodded but a smile would not grace his royal face for a long time to come. Gesturing to Bra that it was time to leave, he secretly hoped that he was wrong about everything.
*********
Bulma paced nervously back and forth across her small-enclosed office, waiting for the phone to ring with some news. It had been several hours since she had last seen her husband and daughter and now she was becoming aggravated with anxiety.
Where could they be? And in the name of Kami-sama why didn't they call?
The rusty hinges on her door creaked open, revealing a flustered and sweating Trunks. He wiped his brow with the back of his left hand and entered the office to plop down on the first available chair, letting out an exasperated sigh in the process.
"Did you find them?" Bulma eagerly inquired.
Trunks shook his head before leaning back in his chair and putting his feet on the stack of papers next to the chair he was sitting on.
"I don't know where they are kaa-san. I looked everywhere for them… well, almost everywhere. Actually, only everywhere that I thought they would be and I found nothing. Not even a hair off of otou-san's head."
Bulma let out an incensed sigh and slammed an angry fist down on her desk before letting her tears slide gradually down her cheeks. Perhaps they had left a note or something to that degree on the kitchen table.
Or maybe they've just disappeared.
"Not again. Please, Dende, not again," Bulma whispered as she laid her head down on her desk, weeping openly. Frankly, she didn't care if Trunks saw her like this. He'd seen her in worse situations than this; she didn't think it bothered him.
She was wrong.
Trunks' heart broke every time that Bulma cried (even if it was rare), even though he never said anything and basically kept a straight face. But inside, he died. Over and over again until his mother stopped crying and went back to her normal bubbly self. He wished that he could do more to help the situation but…
A knock came at the oxidized steel door to Bulma's office-room.
"Answer it," Bulma said, not looking up.
And Trunks did. Much to his surprise, a gorgeous woman with long, sleek black hair and black piercing eyes was standing directly in front of him. She wasn't tall but man, did she look like his father, Vegeta. She had his eyes, his dark and brooding eyes, complete with the various flecks of blue, green, and brown in them. Trunks took a step back to let the woman into the room, too stunned to ask her what her name was. As the clicking of her high-heeled boots became more and more irritating to Bulma, she looked up, eager to yell at someone or something but her words died in her throat.
This woman was positively breathtaking to her. She noticed her mate's features - his eyes and hair - in her but didn't quite put two and two together. Bulma swallowed hard as Trunks offered her his seat and then quietly stepped back to gaze at her from the door.
"Who are you?" Bulma managed to squeak from her dry throat.
The woman turned to face Bulma with a sad smile on her face. Her eyes were so full of life and compassion that Bulma found it irresistible not to look into them. They seemed to have her captured or entranced.
"I am Yliah. The queen of Vegetasei," the woman said finally.
Bulma snapped out of her trance and frowned. "That's impossible, I am the Queen of Vegetasei. My husband is King," she said, scrutinizing the woman's features still.
The woman let out a small laugh and stood up from her chair, walking directly over to where Bulma was sitting with a confused look on her face. Trunks watched as she sashayed over, swinging her full hips the entire way.
Good Dende she's striking. After she's done here, I'm SO asking her out.
Yliah stopped in front of a perplexed Bulma and daintily put her elbows on the table so that the two women were face to face. A diminutive smile crept across her face as she looked into Bulma's turquoise eyes.
Vegeta's mate, no doubt, she mused. He has good taste. And what wonderfully delicious children she bore, thought she, stealing a glance at Trunks, who looked away, blushing madly.
Very delicious indeed… but where is he?
"You say you're the Queen? How is that?" Bulma snapped, breaking Yliah out of her trance-like state.
"Hmm? What's that?" Yliah said, thought bubble broken.
"How are you the Queen?"
"I am the Queen by biological right but it appears that my title has been revoked, as you are Queen by mate," Yliah explained, her eyes roaming back to Trunks momentarily.
"You're meaning to tell me that you're Vegeta's sister?"
"Twin sister, actually."
With those words stuck firmly in her mind, Bulma fainted with Yliah making a tsk-ing noise and a smile playing slightly across her lips.
***********
Capsule Corps looked dead. The lights were off and there was scarcely anyone there, making the building seem abandoned and eerily empty. Frankly, it gave Bra the creeps.
"I wonder where Mama is," she said aloud, wondering if her father was even paying the slightest bit of attention to her or to the situation.
I hope she's ok 'cause we were gone for an awfully long time, Bra mused inwardly. But it's not like Mama and Trunks to work this late. Maybe something terrible happened to them… maybe because they thought we ran away they went to look for us and they never came home! What if…?
It took only moments for Bra to get lost in her thoughts but for Vegeta…
That baka woman. I can't believe she left. Damn Trunks couldn't look after his own damn mother for one damn day. When I find her I'm gonna… I'm gonna…
You're gonna what? Scold her? You're the one who left remember?
That irritating voice came popping up and giving its own two cents. Man, Vegeta hated that voice. Sounded like his woman.
You're damn rights I'm gonna scold her. Probably going to throw her around the room a bit too, Vegeta retorted.
Yeah right. The first time you see her, you're going to wrap your arms around her and give her a great big kiss… ya big kitten.
Vegeta growled, wondering why he even bothered thinking.
"Bah. Thinking's overrated," he said, glancing over his shoulder to look at his bemused daughter who obviously was deep in thought. Vegeta began to question why he took Bra away to tell her a stupid story when he probably could have done it right here in New Hope. But no… it had to be done in a forest by a stream. Although Vegeta had no idea why he chose there of all places to tell Bra about Sionay, he figured he had his reasons.
KABLAM!
An immense explosion rocked the silence of the sleepy city, shaking Bra and Vegeta back to reality.
"What in Kami's name was that?" Bra exclaimed, holding her hands to ears in a vain attempt to muffle the sound that was coming from… inside Capsule Corps?
********
Bulma came to her senses quite quickly, considering she'd been thrown half-way across her office and into the cement wall adjacent to her door. The fire that started from her desk had spread to her bookshelves and was continuing to eat its way through her books and papers, gaining energy, gaining fuel. But it wasn't the fire that fightened Bulma.
It was Yliah. The woman that claimed to be Vegeta's twin. Did she have something to do with this? After all, Vegeta was once a ruthless warrior; couldn't his sister be one as well?
Coughing and sputtering up blood, Bulma crawled weakly to the door and pushed it open. Outside in the hallway was even worse than inside her office. The smell of burning chemicals and burning toxins made her insides writhe in torture.
I can't stay here much longer. I'll die from inhalation of all these fumes and volitle chemicals.
So she crawled through doors and hallways, concentrating on staying conscious while she attempted to make it outside. The last she saw of Trunks was when he rushed out of the office. He'd heard Yliah scream; she swore it was a trick. But Trunks wouldn't have it. He followed her out there anyway and by Kami, look what happened.
But Trunks was a big boy now; he could look after himself. Bulma just hoped her son was alright and not in the clutches of something evil; or worse... in the clutches of that so-called "sister" of Vegeta's. Several more coughs of blood sent her lying on the floor for a few seconds while she caught her breath. Something was punctured internally; she had to get help.
As she crawled through the last hallway that lead out to New Hope City, she felt a strong grip on her left leg. Someone or something was holding her back. Bulma twisted and kicked but the grip only tightened, making her cry out with pain.Then, all of a sudden, the pain was gone and she was free. She didn't know what made her look up, but when she did, Vegeta was standing in front of her, scowling at whatever had taken its hold on her.
"Get out of here, woman," Vegeta calmly ordered. "This is no place for a human."
Knowing better, Bulma agreed and ran out the front doors.
**************
"Hello Vegeta."
Vegeta didn't respond at first. Inside, he was thinking that maybe he was staring at a ghost; at a long forgotten memory that he had repressed deep inside. Another part of him was telling him that this wasn't a ghost and that she had attempted to kill his mate.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
Yliah tossed her long black hair behind her shoulder and smiled sweetly... if sweetly was the right word for it. Her body had changed but her face; her face remained as soft and lively as it had ever been. It looked as though she had never been hurt by anything. Looked as though nothing had touched her and killed her so many years ago. But her smile was different. It wasn't sweet and coy anymore; it was somehow demented and evil. Yet how could something so wonderful be so evil at the same time?
"I'm here to kill your daughter," she simply said with a simpleness that sent chills through Vegeta's saiyan spine.
"Yliah... how..?"
A maniacal laugh escaped her and she sashayed to where her twin brother stood, placing her hand on his shoulder. It had been years since she had had the chance to use her telepathy; she'd only been able to sense what her God had been thinking. But Vegeta's thoughts were louder than anything she had encountered in her journeys through the worlds.
His eyes closed and his body stiffened as Yliah entered into his mind. She was searching through his anger, his passion, and his pride, for something that he loved beyond all the confines of his cold saiyan heart. There were doors and windows in his mind. Yliah laughed as she threw them all open; he was such a simple warrior. Living with humans had softened him more than he realized. However, there was one door that was locked; one that just wouldn't budge.
Yliah had found it.
Now it was only a matter of opening the door and revealing what he did not want to reveal. It amused her to break his mind; to finally overthrow the great Vegeta from the pedestal that he'd thought himself to be on. Finally, she could prove herself to her twin brother without being afraid of how it would affect him. She could simply kill him, if she wanted to. But somehow that wouldn't be as satisfying as forcing him to watch his daughter die.
The door was stubborn. Yliah pried with her hands and attempted to throw a controlled ball of ki into it. It just wouldn't work. Finally, the door flew open on its own, revealing a two people. She assumed that the young blue-haired girl was his daughter and the other one was...
A younger version of her?
Yliah gasped. He still loved her after all these years of being gone in his life? Either he was a true loving brother... or his mind was playing tricks on her. Defeated, she left. There was nothing there that wasn't already known to her; nothing that could help her in the long run. Frustrated and beaten, she threw a concentrated ball of ki against Vegeta's chest, sending him flying uncontrollably through the air.
He hit the wall with a sickening crunch; a trickle of blood ran helplessly down the hardened forehead. He remained unconscious while Yliah slipped out into the night, unaware of the young purple haired man that eyed her from the shadows.