Good afternoon all and sundry! Now I have 5 min to get this up otherwise I'd miss my bus (again) so…
Hi Rosethorn, Enjoy this chappy! Same goes for Alexis! And Daisy (see you FRIDAY!! YAHH!!!) And Assena (its COMING its COMING!) And
Oh you meanie Penchy-chan! (*glares out at ff.net* And no one say it serves me right for cliff-hangers. I know it does, but I'm allowed to complain because….I have a tail. Nyah.) I had to trek all the way up to my room to find my Spanish dictionary, which was not and easy task. That's all I needed, more homework. Though I do have a test next week, I could start talking about Saiyan's and see what mark I get. Hm…
Ah! That went on a little to long! Gotta run! Bye!
Chapter 18: The Palace Dungeons.
The walls around Sena wavered and darkened, and closed in. Someone was grabbing her arm, but she shook him off; she didn't want any help to walk. The someone persisted, and wouldn't let go, he was pulling her towards the stairs and he wasn't being gentle about it. Sena gritted her teeth and tried to shake off the sleepiness and her helper.
Alfalfa flung open the door and gasped in the clean (cleaner) air from the street outside, his head didn't immediately clear, but after a dozen lungfulls, it was easier to think. He bent down and scooped up the young Rebel-woman he'd dragged up behind him, she protested, but had breathed in too much of the gas to do anything about it. Alfalfa grinned, he knew Radditz had promised the Arkosains the Marunkre woman for the half-dozen packs of gas, but then, his boss always did know what the Arkosain's liked. Alfalfa wondered about his own reward. He wrapped his arms round Sena's waist and flew them both back to the Palace.
The guards at the door greeted him with a nod, and he passed through the high entranceway into the grand hall, then up the many flights of stairs to the Head's office. He banged on the door with his head, and waited. Raddtiz opened the door and looked down at him and the body he carried. "So you were successful?"
"Oh my Lord I was brilliantly successful." Alfalfa grinned, and dropped Sena's body just inside the door. She made a small uncomfortable noise, as if she was sure something was not quite right but couldn't remember what it was.
"Shut the door." Radditz said, sitting back down behind his desk. "How successful is 'brilliantly'?"
Alfalfa went to the east wall, which was covered in a detailed map of the city. He looked at it for a moment, and jabbed a location with his thumb. "Here, that's where they all are, in an underground bunker. Four dozen, perhaps."
Radditz nodded, hardly disguising the grin on his face. "Excellent. What else?"
"They're planning something for the Seventh Night."
"What?"
"Something big. A final throw, kind of thing. An attack, disruption at the least. They have maps up everywhere. They're organised and prepared."
"Then we will be too." Radditz said, and his eyes rested on Sena by the door. "We'll talk about this later. Why did you choose her?"
Alfalfa shrugged. "She was there." Radditz got up and walked over to Sena. He squatted down and took her chin in his hand, examining her face. He laughed loudly. "You didn't realise who she is?"
Alfalfa looked long at her. "No." He said cautiously, not sure that not knowing wouldn't get him killed.
"You've done more brilliantly than we could have hoped. Consider yourself promoted." Radditz laughed again. "Take her down to the dungeons. The Seventh night is going to be fun."
Lushka walked down the hall, trying not to stomp and trying not to drag her heels. Maroda hadn't been fooled for a moment with Lushka's I-was-asleep act, it hadn't mattered anyway.
"Go and find him. Right now. And make him stay."
Lushka frowned. How? She felt useless and not at all like she was in the mood for talking to anybody. Of course she wanted Trunks to stay, but...why did her mother have to be so...why couldn't everything be perfect! It wasn't fair! And now she was all confused and didn't like it. Trunks could probably help, she picked up her pace and hurried down the halls of the Palace with the strong desire to just speak to him.
She'd skipped the Fourth Night tournament and celebrations to calm the anger at herself her mother had ignited; she hadn't though it was a good idea to attend the banquet, even just with her friends, as her fingers were itching to throw something, which would not go down well. Thinking Trunks would probably go back to his room after the banquet like last night, she hung around the halls close by hoping to run into him without looking like she was.
She waited for almost an hour, getting grumpy and wondering where he was and why hadn't she just gone to the stupid feast in the first place? Lushka sighed, knowing that one more day before Trunks left had passed and been wasted. Why did she have to snap at him like that last night? Why couldn't she have done a better job of making him want to stay? Why was she so stupid? She glared at the wall, took one last look down the hall and went back to her room to sulk in bed.
As Lushka was waiting and feeling unworthy, Trunks was on his way up to the Head's solar, going over what he was going to say in his head, multiple lines of thought cris-crossing over each other and tripping and tangling and making a mess of his mind. Oh well, it would probably work itself out. Trunks looked up at the door, it was huge and deeply carved with the rather chunky shape of a massive fist. Trunks couldn't and didn't know if he wanted to see what the fist was holding, or squashing. He knocked on the door with his own fist, and the door promptly opened.
There was a fire as large as the fist burning in a hearth opposite the door, and two high backed, cushioned chairs were set up where the desk would have been, in front of the fire. Trunks drew in a breath through his nose, let it out through his mouth and walked as regally as possible into the room.
Radditz had heard the door click open and was on his feet and bowing before Trunks saw him. "My Lord Prince." He added with the bow, and indicated with one hand for Trunks to take a seat, which he did. "I am Lord Radditz, Head of the Council of Vegita, and I am honoured you wanted to talk with me tonight." Raddtiz said carefully, wanting the boy-Prince to have him in his good books lest thing get further out of control. "What was it you wanted of me?"
"Uh, well first about someone you sent to the Arkosians, a few years ago. She was the mother of a friend," Trunks paused, wondering if that was the right work if Sena really had left the note and killed the guards, he realised he'd stopped talking and began again, "a friend of mine, sold to them before I got here, and I promised to get her back."
Radditz tensed. Someone the Prince was friends with had a mother sold to the Arkosians? And he was close enough with this person to have promised to get her back? "Who was this person?" He demanded, as politely as he could.
Trunks thought of Sena safety first, but then, she had run away a few nights ago. Trunks wondered what he was doing. "Does it matter who she was?" He asked, "I have to talk to her again and she'd come back if her mother was here."
"Of course it matters who 'she' was." Radditz said. "How else are we to find......her mother." He added quickly.
"Well, you could get everyone who was sold back." Trunks suggested, watching the fire. He didn't see the look of shock and outrage on Radditz's face. Get them all back? What was he thinking?
"You don't understand, my Lord Prince, they're not our property anymore, such a recall would be all but impossible."
"All but," Trunks raised an eyebrow, looking up at Radditz in his great mass of black hair, frowning slightly.
"It would be impossible." Radditz said bluntly. "Understand that we can't risk destroying the alliance with the Arkosians, with the Rebel's disturbing the main workforce we can barely afford to pay them as it is. We don't want to bring on open war by insulting them like that."
"But," began Trunks, "if I could..." He wasn't sure where to take that. Radditz took the small pause as an opportunity to change the subject. He considered attempting to pry Trunks of this idea of going home, but if Trunks knew that he knew he'd wonder why the Council did nothing to stop his friends inevitable deaths. "And about the wedding," he began, also needing to think about this mystery friend of the Prince's.
"Yes. That." Said Trunks. "You really think I'm going to marry someone? 'Cos I'm not."
"I think this is another political matter that you don't understand." Radditz said, through his teeth.
"Too bad." Said Trunks, folding his arms. "End of story."
Radditz gritted his teeth. 'Let it go,' he told himself, 'let Lady Maroda take care of it.'
"Well that's not a matter for now." He told Trunks. "If you will excuse me, I have other matters to take care of. Was there anything else?"
"You're not going to force me?' Trunks asked, suspicious at the sudden drop of topic.
"We'll see." Said Radditz non-committingly.
"And Se-...ah, my friend's mother?"
"I said already. Nothing can be done about that."
'Well maybe you can do nothing, but I made a promise.' Trunks said, envisioning more scenes of climbing out windows at night. "Fine." He said, still none too happy.
Radditz watched him leave, then rapidly drained the rest of the wine resting on the arm of the chair and stood up. Alfalfa peeked through a slightly opened side door between the solar and the small roo he'd been waiting in. When he saw Trunks was gone he pushed the door the rest of the way open and entered the room. The look on his face said that something inside him was dancing round pleading 'can we go yet? Can we go down? Canwecanwecanwe?' But he stood straight and still and waited for Radditz's orders.
"Come on." Radditz said, seeing the anticipation written all over him. Alfalfa performed a very small bounce and followed Radditz through the main door and down many flights of stairs to the dungeons.
Sena's eyes were sticky as she blinked them open to the sight of her breath pluming out in front of her face in the cold air. At first, she wondered why she was so uncomfortable. She dragged her arm out from underneath her body and lay on her back, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling, waiting for recognition to set in; the past few nights she had woken up in her unfamiliar room back home, and knew she just needed to wake up a little more and remember where she was. She shook herself loose from restless sleep, and she still didn't know. Panic set in with the cold.
Sena sat up quickly, closing her hands around two fistfuls of cold sand. Her brain pounded against her skull as it was assaulted by this new upright position, but sacrificing a hand to hold her head would mean she'd slip back down to her hollow in the thin sand, and she didn't think lying down again would be a good idea. Heart pounding, and pride fighting to get it under control, she looked around.
She had lain by a wall, made of thick heavy blocks of black stone. There were five walls, one had to have been a door, but she couldn't tell which. Sand covered the floor, half a foot deep, cold and clammy against her skin, she brushed it off her cheek and arm and shivered.
Something was very wrong.
The sand rustled in one of the corners, and Sena's attention snapped to the other occupant. She had her back to Sena, long black tangle of hair shadowed her bare arms and barely clothed, dark skinned back, and she leaned against the wall as if she couldn't sit up by herself. She wasn't about to turn around to look at Sena, and Sena wasn't about to crawl around half the cell to see her face, it would be too nosy.
She struggled up, one hand on the wall for balance, and pounded the stone with the side of her fist. Nothing happened. She hadn't expected it to but she had to try. Nothing moved any of the other bricks either, but then, she hadn't expected that, either.
The other woman blinked and looked up at Sena with dark and tilted eyes filled with too much pain, then turned her attention back to the wall she'd been staring dully at. Sena looked down at her.
How do you keep a Saiyan prisoner from blasting the wall down around them? How do you break a strong spirit that just nights ago was dining with the Prince at the First Night banquet? How do you drain them of so much strength that they haven't the power to move, yet their body is unharmed for sale and bargain purposes?
A thick wire covered in blood old and new was wrapped around her tail. Long, fishhook barbs reached out to snag anything that came too close, and the same spiked, metal razors sliced through tail-flesh and settled down between her bones.
Sena turned away. She couldn't even bare to look at such a perverted means of suppression and control. A Saiyan's tail was the most sensitive part of the body...She tucked her own tail firmly and protectively around her waist.
But she didn't have time to think about it because one of the walls rumbled, and opened.
There were two men standing as silhouettes in the doorway, one moved a step forward. "Well met, little sister.
"Come with me."
Not well met, Sena turned to face them both, keeping her face emotionless. She shook her head, face fearless.
"Ah." He turned his head so the light caught on his face and features, and grinned as if he owned the world. "That's no way to behave to your older brother."
Sena's stomach flipped upside down, and stayed there. She felt physically sick. "Surprised to see me?" He continued, in that patronising, arrogant tone.
She hadn't been surprised, not really. The chill in her blood had given her a fair warning. Still, surprised and shocked are not the same thing. Sena was frozen on the spot.
"What's your Daddy planning?" Radditz moved into the cell, hands in fists on hips and looming. Sena didn't move. "But you're not going to tell me. Are you sis? No, I didn't think it would be so easy. I'll even say that you probably won't know...why would the Rat tell his runt daughter?" Sena glared, the man behind Radditz laughed.
"Well I won't take that chance only to have myself embarrassed on the Seventh." Radditz said, and sighed- mocking. His hand shot out and grabbed Sena's wrist, and he pulled her roughly out of the cell. Sena followed, if she fought back now she'd just be beaten up, the least she wanted to do was get a look around this place to get her bearings straight.
It was a long narrow hallway with a low ceiling and lower light, Radditz high hair brushed it's roof. There were few doors leading off it, and it turned off at the end into a larger room. Sena looked up and around for natural light, anything to indicate being close to the outside, but the dungeons were under the very heart of the Palace, a heart that beats with blood and pain. Sena shuddered in the silence, a long slow shiver that said she didn't like at all where she was being taken. Her wrist twisted in his hand as she tried to pull loose, she dug in her heels and lashed out with her other fist. It was caught by Radditz hand before it could hit, and he forced it backwards until all three heard the crack, and Sena's rapid intake of breath and small cry of pain that was the first noise she'd made since she had woken up. Hot pain coursed up her wrist and down her hand, and she fought to keep it under control. 'I will not let them see it hurts. I will not give them that pleasure.'
Radditz jerked on her other arm, pulling her forward and sending her through one of the doors onto another floor in another room.
With burning eyes and a burning wrist and out of place dignity Sena forced herself to her feet, not about to be caught cowering on the ground.
"Deaf and dumb as the walls, are ya?" The smaller Saiyan behind Radditz teased. "Answer your Lord before he has reason to punish you."
Sena looked up at Bardock's son with a look of such disgust and hate Alfalfa winced. 'He is Lord of nothing.' She thought. 'Lord of me never.'
"I have reason enough already." Radditz said, and each word was invoking nausea in Sena's belly she refused to show. She was keeping so much bottled down inside she was finding it hard to think straight. "Well, can you talk or not, runt?"
Sena remained silent. Glaring and shaking violently with anger that has nowhere to go. Her eyes flashed, and Radditz stepped forward and struck her across the face. Sena picked herself up from the ground and turned her eyes -utterly black, now- back to Radditz.
"Do you want her, before we get started?" Radditz held her glare even when speaking to Alfalfa, who screwed up his nose and spat on the ground.
"Bed a Rebel slut? You insult me, my lord."
Sena knew she should feel relived, but she was having trouble feeling anything save from anger right now.
Radditz grunted. "Fine." He lunged forward with a heavy fist, Sena pulled back and blocked with her arms. Still the force of the blow made her arms ache. The next numbed them both.
The speed of her reactions was still gripped by the gas, but she'd shaken off as much as she could and was blocking each blow as fast as her body would allow her to move. Even though, she knew Radditz was holding back in speed and strength and she hated him even more for not fighting honourably. She ducked under another incoming fist and heaved both her ki-glowing hands up into his ribcage, and used her much smaller size to force him a few feet back. 'Filthy. Rotting. Scumbag. Bastard.' She though with each punch, scarpering out of the way of his fists as best she could. He cheated, sticking out a foot to trip her then bringing both hands down on the back of her neck. Sena didn't count this as fair play at all. Her fists were clenched so tightly there was blood running down her arms and making sticky, gritty pool in the sand on the ground.
'They won't get one word from me, not one sound. And if that means I'm not allowed to scream, then very well, I shan't scream.' And even Sena was aware that this was going to be a hell of a lot harder than it sounded.