AGENTS

Chapter 3

~*~*~*

Vegeta and the others found Krillin on their way to the back room.

Suddenly they heard a gunshot and Bulma scream loudly. "Bulma's in trouble!" Chi-Chi said.

The people shopping in the store screamed and everyone ran out in a hurried crowd.

The group of 5 ran towards the back of the store. When they entered the back room they saw Frieza grinning madly with a scared Bulma in his arms. Zarbon and Dodoria stood in front of Frieza and Bulma.

"Frieza!" Vegeta said outraged.

"Look what I got! Is she a friend of yours perhaps? Maybe I'll torture her to see if she knows anything about you Vegeta." Frieza suggested.

"No, she's no friend of ours." Vegeta said dully.

Bulma's eyes went wide as did the others.

"What are you saying, she seems to like you." Frieza said.

"She may be in love with me, but I hate her and her stupid feelings." Vegeta said coldly.

Bulma gasped in Frieza's arms.

"Do you really mean that?!" Bulma asked teary eyed.

Vegeta looked at the two and responded, "Yes."

"Then you wouldn't mind if I killed her." Frieza threatened.

"Nope, kill her if you like, I don't care." Vegeta shrugged.

"NO!" Bulma yelled. "I hate you!" Bulma yelled. Vegeta didn't show it, but on the inside it stung deep.

"Good, I don't care." Vegeta said in a monotone voice.

"Well, I think I'll keep her. Depressed people are so much easier to keep prisoner over, that way, she won't try as hard to escape." Frieza said chuckling evilly.

Vegeta simply shrugged and walked away, leaving the rest of the group baffled.

Bulma's tears started falling freely down her face. It had hurt her to hear the words Vegeta spoke of.

'How could he say such things? I knew that he wouldn't like me back, but did he really not care if I were to die?' Bulma thought sadly.

Frieza punched her, making her unconscious. Her friends gasped sadly as they watched Frieza and his men leave with Bulma and weapons.

~*~*~*

"How could we just let them leave with Bulma?" Chi-Chi asked.

"He would have killed her if we tried anything." Goku said.

"Yeah, well they're still going to kill her." 18 said.

"Well why did Vegeta say all of those mean things to her like that?" Krillin asked.

"I don't know, but she seemed really hurt. I've never seen her cry before." 18 said sadly.

"Let's go catch up with Vegeta and yell at him." Chi-Chi suggested.

~*~*~*

When they finally caught up with Vegeta, he was already in the parking lot.

"Vegeta wait!" Goku said, stopping Vegeta.

"What?" Vegeta snapped.

"Calm down, we were just wondering why you were so cold towards Bulma like that." 18 said.

"Yeah, would you really not care if she died?" Krillin asked.

"No you fools! I just said that to make Frieza think that she doesn't need her, then he would release her, but he didn't. I'm hoping that he won't beat her then." Vegeta answered.

"So you really do care about her?" Goku asked.

Vegeta nodded. "Of course, I just had to make it believable. I think that Frieza somehow knew about all of us and knew that Bulma likes me, so he thought that he would kidnap her, trying to hurt me." Vegeta said.

"Well, it was really believable, because I believed it, and I'm pretty sure Bulma did too, because she was heart broken." Chi-Chi said.

"I know, I saw her pain in her eyes." Vegeta said quietly.

"We need to tell Andrew that the plan back fired and that Bulma's been captured." Goku said pulling out his watch.

~*~*~*

"So Vegeta hates you, does he?" Frieza asked grinning.

Bulma grimaced as she remembered Vegeta's cold words that echoed in her head.

~*~*~*

"She may be in love with me, but I hate her and her stupid feelings." Vegeta said coldly.

Bulma gasped in Frieza's arms.

"Do you really mean that?!" Bulma asked teary eyed.

Vegeta looked at the two and responded, "Yes."

"Then you wouldn't mind if I killed her." Frieza threatened.

"Nope, kill her if you like, I don't care." Vegeta shrugged.

"NO!" Bulma yelled. "I hate you!" Bulma yelled.

~*~*~*

"Well I guess we'll just have to wait until we get word from your little agents and strike a deal with them somehow." Frieza said. "And if we don't get word in a month, then you'll just be executed like everyone else."

Bulma gasped. "No!" Bulma said struggling in Frieza's grip.

Frieza ripped off Bulma's watch before opening a door.

"Here's your new home for a month, that is, unless those spies of yours actually want to save you." Frieza said grinning, and threw her into a small dark room.

He locked the door and left to attend other business.

Bulma looked around the room. She couldn't see anything, there were not lights or windows. She felt the hard cement that she sat on. It was damp and dirty. It smelled of rotting carcasses, but she couldn't see anything to tell if there was anything else in the room.

~*~*~*

Three weeks later.

~*~*~*

"We've checked everywhere. Where could Frieza possibly be?!" Goku asked.

"He's hidden himself well." Vegeta commented disappointedly.

"I'm worried about her. It's been three weeks, and anything could happen in three weeks!" Chi-Chi sad worriedly.

"Don't worry, we'll find her." Goku said, trying to comfort her.

~*~*~*

Frieza walked into Bulma's room. By now Bulma's eyes had adjusted well to the dark. The room was so cold that she couldn't even feel the cuts, bruises, and tortures of her body. They were practically numbed.

Bulma had been beaten several times a day just for Frieza's entertainment. It wasn't so bad if it was Dodoria beating her, but Zarbon, and especially Frieza, are hard on her.

If you cried, they would only beat you harder. They would beat her until she was begging for her life. By now she had learned the hard way that if she cried or tried to block their moving fists, then she would get a longer and more severe beating.

They would like to experiment on her with whips, chains, anything that they could get their hands on, just for their sick amusement. She had gotten barely any food.

She was ill and pale. She needed medical attention and she knew it, but there's nothing that she can do, for they would only hurt her already broken spirits more if she ever tried to fight back.

Bulma curled herself up against the wall shivering.

"It's been three weeks already, and I still haven't had any form of contact from your friends. It seems as though they really don't care about you." Frieza said grinning evilly.

"And now it's time for your beating." Frieza said pulling out a whip, turning her around, and slashing her already bleeding and bruised back several times, while laughing.

~*~*~*

"I think that I may have found where Frieza is hiding. You 5 will go and search the place." Andrew said to Vegeta and the others.

They nodded and prepared for the search.

~*~*~*

"Let's split up. You go that way, you go up the stairs, you go that way, and 18 you follow me." Vegeta said pointing to Chi-Chi, then Krillin, then Goku.

~*~*~*

Krillin walked up the stairs and tried searching the labs, but couldn't find anything.

~*~*~*

Chi-Chi didn't find anything where she looked, just a bunch of rooms with different things.

~*~*~*

Goku walked into a room and saw that it was labeled "execution room" and he gasped at all of the spilled blood on the floor. He plugged his nose at the smell of death.

He gazed up at the walls and saw hundreds of weapons with new and dried blood on them.

He looked at the corner and saw piles of newly dead bodies. He glanced at them more carefully and checked to see if Bulma was one of them. To his relief, he didn't see her there.

~*~*~*

18 and Vegeta walked down the narrow halls opening each door.

18 opened a door and saw an old man who looked as though he was barely alive. 18 grimaced, thinking of what would happen to Bulma.

Suddenly Vegeta pulled 18 out of view and they watched Frieza exit a room laughing, with the bloody whip in his hand. He walked down the other side of the hallway, away from 18 and Vegeta.

Vegeta and 18 decided to check out the room Frieza had just been in. To their disappointment, they did find Bulma, but she had been beating numerously.

Vegeta walked over to her, but when she saw him, she backed away towards the wall, until she could go no further.

"Stay away from me!" Bulma's horse voice choked out.

"Bulma, it's me. It's Vegeta." Vegeta said reaching his hand out to her.

Bulma curled up in a fatal position on the floor. "I would rather stay here and be beaten several times a day, then be around you." Bulma said looking at him with pure disgust.

Vegeta could see the tears the fell down her bruised face. Her lip was bleeding, and she looked as though she had been punched repeatedly in the face by a hard fist.

"We don't have time for this." 18 said, pushing past Vegeta. "Come on Bulma, we need to get you out of here." 18 said propping Bulma onto her shoulders.

"Vegeta, contact the others, tell them that we found Bulma, and to leave." 18 said walking out.

~*~*~*

On the plane.

~*~*~*

Bulma lay on a couch on their private plane, sleeping.

"She needs to get to a hospital." Chi-Chi said preparing a wet rag. When she placed it on Bulma's forehead, Bulma grimaced with pain, even though she was asleep.

"I'll go tell the captain that we need to land at the nearest hospital." Krillin said.

"So when you found Bulma, did she talk to you?" Goku asked Vegeta.

"Yeah, she told me to stay back, and that she would rather stay with Frieza and get beaten several times a day, then to be near me." Vegeta said.

"Gee I wonder why she would say that, maybe it's because you broke her heart!" Chi-Chi said furiously as she cleaned Bulma's wounds the best way she could. Some of her wounds were too deep or too infected to clean properly.

"How is she?" 18 asked, walking towards the group.

"She's miserable. 3 weeks of torture and mistreating." Chi-Chi said.

Vegeta stared at Bulma's face. He wish that he could talk to her, but she's to sick to be awake, and hates him too much to be around him.

~*~*~*

A couple days later.

~*~*~*

Bulma woke up to see her friends standing by her bedside.

Everything rushed back to her and she started crying.

Chi-Chi and 18 rushed to her side. "What's wrong Bulma?" 18 asked.

"I should have died!" Bulma replied.

Vegeta's face showed sorrow.

"No Bulma, you're fine. It's going to be alright." Chi-Chi said.

"No it's not! Frieza was right! No one cares about me. No one tried to contact Frieza, and no one found me." Bulma sobbed.

"But we tried to find you, and we did, it just took three weeks." Chi-Chi said.

"Next week, I would be ordered to be executed. I was supposed to die!" Bulma yelled.

"No Bulma, you're not!" Chi-Chi said soothingly.

"It's him! I hate him!" Bulma said pointing to Vegeta.

"We need a moment alone." Vegeta said to the rest of the group.

"No! You can't leave me alone with him!" Bulma screamed.

"I don't know.." Goku said unconvinced.

"Just leave Kakkarot!" Vegeta demanded.

Goku nodded and left with the others.

"Get away from me!" Bulma shouted.

"Listen to me before you say anything. Then after I'm done talking, I'll leave you alone, for good." Vegeta said the last part hesitantly.

"Fine!" Bulma said.

~*~*~*

The others could still hear Bulma's voice booming from inside.

~*~*~*

"Okay, the reason I said all of that stuff that day when Frieza took you, was so he wouldn't try to use you to get to me. I had to be convincing." Vegeta started.

"You lie!" Bulma yelled.

"No Bulma! It's the truth! I thought that if I told him that you were of no importance to me, then he wouldn't harm you, but he did, and I feel your pain. And when you said that you hated me, I felt like I had been stabbed in the heart, but if that's what I felt from what you said, then I can't begin to imagine what you feel when I said such hateful words to you.

"I'm sorry Bulma. I don't hate you, and I would care if you died. If you died, then apart of me would die as well. I do care about you. I'm sorry that I hurt you so badly." Vegeta said sadly and walked out of the room before Bulma could say anything.

Bulma cried quietly into her pillow. She couldn't have been more happy.

'He cares! He said that to me!' Bulma thought.

~*~*~*

Vegeta walked out of Bulma's hospital room with a gloomy face and walked past the group to the waiting area.

The others walked back into Bulma's room to see her crying.

"Oh Bulma, what did he say this time?" Chi-Chi said.

"He cares! He really does care." Bulma said smiling through her tears.

"Yeah, he told us that he does." Goku said.

"And now I won't ever see him around!" Bulma sobbed.

"Why not?" 18 asked.

"That's what he said he would do." Bulma sobbed.

Krillin ran out of the room and hollered. "Vegeta! Come back!"

Vegeta stopped and turned around. "What?!"

"Bulma doesn't want you to go!" Krillin shouted.

"Really?" Vegeta asked quietly.

Krillin nodded and went back with the others.

"Krillin what are you doing?" 18 asked her bald little boyfriend.

"I told Vegeta to come back, why?" Krillin said looking at their faces.

"Is he coming back?" Bulma asked.

"I'm right here." Said Vegeta at the door.

"Vegeta!" Bulma said smiling. "I thought that you left!" Bulma said.

"That was part of the deal." Vegeta said sadly.

"I don't like that part of the deal." Bulma said smiling. "I'm going to make a new part of the deal. How about you never leave my side?" Bulma asked.

"Sounds like a deal to me." Vegeta said smirking, as he walked over to her and embraced her.

~*~*~*

To be continued.

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