(Alrighty then, I really don't have single damn clue as to what came over me for this chapter. Gawd, I didn't know I could BE that cheezy. But before I get hate mail for this sappy sunnuvabitch, I have to say that the first italicized section was meant to be OOC n stuff. It's a memory Andy created to try and fool Bulma. As for the second one…well, Teraynia isn't your typical Saiyan, that's all I'm going to say. Whatever. Well, hope you like it, and please don't try to kill me. I promise the next chapter will rock your socks.
Yes, I know I keep promising that and I swear one day it might come true. Keep waiting. I'll come around someday.
R&R.)
Once her husband's weight had been lifted, Bulma sprang to her feet, cradling Trunks to her breast with all her might. Tears of rage and grief tickled her eyes, and she wiped them away with a furious swipe of her hand.
"Vegeta!" she screamed, running to the door of the cell. "Vegeta, are you alright? Vegeta!"
Trunks wailed in her arms, but she paid him no heed. She rampaged around the room, trying without success to find a way out and back to her husband. The more her baby cried, the faster she looked, until she could no longer see through her watering eyes and had to stop or risk tripping.
"This isn't fair," she whispered. "Why did I have to fall for his trick? If I hadn't, perhaps we would still have had a chance…" Burying her face in her son's sweet-smelling hair, she allowed the built up tension to flow down her cheeks in salty waves. Sensing his mother's despair, Trunks reached up a chubby hand and locked it in her hair, gabbling incoherently and staring concernedly into his mother's eyes.
"I'm sorry, Trunks," Bulma murmured. "I know I shouldn't be breaking down like this, especially not in front of you. But I just can't help it. I don't know what to do. Any shot I had at delving into the past for answers has been brought up short thanks to my stupidity. Now I don't know if I'll ever get to see your daddy again…" Suppressing a soft sob, she bit her lip and looked away.
"Dadddddddaaa…" Issuing a quick, miniscule yank to her tangled blue locks, Trunks stared expectantly into his mother's tearstained face, seemingly hoping for her speedy recovery. The little boy's pretty blue eyes were unusually bereft of tears, and he bore a striking resemblance to his father. "Dadd…aaaaaaaa!"
"Oh come on, Trunks," Bulma muttered, fixing her son with a bleary eyed gaze, "you can't expect mommy to have all the answers." Though you wouldn't be the first, she added silently, heaving a bitter sigh.
But the little boy refused to give up. Giving her long tresses another stubborn yank, he furrowed his little Saiyan brow and let out an incoherent squawk.
"Ow! Trunks, that hurts!" she yelped, stumbling back against the console as she attempted to separate his tiny fingers from her tangled blue hair.
The screen whirred to life as the start button was compressed beneath her weight, blaring into high-tech surround sound from various speakers around the room. Bulma jumped about five feet in the air and whipped around, almost sending her baby son flying across the room in the process.
"What the--" She leaned closer to the monitor as an image slowly came into focus. The Saiyan royal family appeared on the plasma surface, a conversation concerning the fate of their planet on their lips. Bulma furrowed her brow and sat down in the chair to watch, wondering what sort of lie Andy could possibly have cooked up for her.
"We have to give in, Teraynia!" Vegeta's father was pleading, desperately seeking his mate's consent. "If we don't, Frieza will simply destroy us all!"
"Indeed, mother," the young princeling said softly. "It seems we have no other choice."
"I refuse!" Teraynia growled, tossing her head of fiery red locks. Turning from her husband, she knelt to clasp her young son by the shoulders. "My son, do not let yourself fall prey to his weakness. Nothing will be gained by aligning ourselves with this monster, but much will be lost; and there IS much to be lost…"
"Mother, you don't know what you're saying!" Young Vegeta said earnestly, taking hold of his mother's hands and holding them close. Casting a furtive glance at his father, he went on hurriedly, "IF we don't combine our forces with those of Frieza, our entire race will seem like it never existed. Frieza will make sure of that!"
Teraynia's face hardened. She pulled her hands roughly from her son's shaky grip and turned once more to face her king, rage burning in the depths of her emerald eyes.
"You have poisoned the mind of our son as well as your own," she spat. "Your fear is contagious - or is it hereditary? I know not which, and neither do I care. You will be the downfall of our people if you are allowed to follow through with your decision." Whirling on her heel, Teraynia stalked toward the door.
Not a second had the empress turned her back when a ball of energy from the king's own hand whistled through the air, aimed at his queen's retreating form. Hearing the blast, Teraynia whipped around just in time to knock it away.
"And now you resort to sneak attacks!" she raged, fingers curling into tight fists at her sides. "You have sunk too far, Vegeta." Emotion clouded her jeweled irises as she regarded him with blatant pity. "Look at you," she murmured. "You have become his willing slave. He is your master, and you are his Saibaman, to be beaten and discarded at the slightest whim. And you WILL be discarded, dear one. Can you not see that?" She studied him for a short moment, then added quietly, "Whatever happened to the Saiyan I loved?"
She looked about to say more, but her eyes flew wide as a blast connected with her from behind, piercing her armor and blaring through her stomach to bore a hole through the wall across the room. Stumbling forward, she fell to the tile, a thin trail of blood trickling from her lips.
The prince stood behind her, hand outstretched, tears running down his pale, pinched cheeks.
"Mother…"
Bulma punched the stop button, a look of utter disgust plastered on her pretty face.
"That was the biggest load of shit I've ever seen," she said incredulously. "For one thing, it was clearly digitized. Anyone who's ever played a video game would be able to tell! And even if I had lived under a rock my entire life, Vegeta is so out-of-character I could have gagged! And another thing!" She was on her feet, jabbing her finger into the plasma screen as if the deranged scientist were standing right there in front of her. "Saiyans…" She let her voice fall a few decibels as she looked down at the little boy in her arms. "Saiyans don't believe in love."
But that part…where Teraynia asked what happened to the Saiyan she loved…
That was the only part that actually seemed real.
Trunks watched his mother turn this over in her mind for a moment, then let out a heavy, infant sigh and lowered his eyes to the floor. Bulma hugged him close and let her thoughts roam through the possibilities.
"What do you think, Trunks?" she asked the baby. "Do you think it's possible that your daddy's parents were in love after all?" Flicking her eyes across the monitor, she called to mind the conversation she and Vegeta had had concerning the Saiyan 'mutual necessity' ritual. What was it called again? She racked her brain, trying to remember the foreign word with all her might. Saiba…Sera…Argh, I know it started with an s…
"God, this is so frustrating!" she burst out, leaning her elbow on the counter and shoving her hand through her messy blue hair. "Somehow it seems like if I can just remember that one word, everything will be alright…"
Trunks cooed gently against her collarbone, nestling his purple topped head under her chin as if to offer encouragement. Bulma barely noticed; her mind was too far gone. Then an idea struck her.
"Wait a minute," she breathed, tossing a glance at the paused image on the screen. "Andy said he created this file from his own personal databanks, right? Hey, yeah! Maybe I can use this disk to access his REAL memory files of Vejitaseii!" Her fingers were already dancing across the keyboard. "If I can just break through this false data…" Creating a text box on screen, she began typing in the complicated numerals of a virus. "Hope this works," she murmured, making a dramatic show of hitting the enter key and squeezing her eyes shut.
Sanna….Saiisee…
"Warning. This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down. Please correct the problem and try again."
"Yes!" Bulma exclaimed, hugging her son close in momentary celebration. Then, flexing her fingers, she turned back to the screen, a new determined blaze glowing in the depths of her ocean blue eyes. "Oh, we're going to correct the problem, alright," she said smugly, tapping the escape key. "We're gonna fix this problem once and for all." She hit the escape key one more time, bringing up a blank blue screen.
A small grey box popped up. "No data," the computer stated monotonously. "Please input data stream."
"I'll just bet you don't have data," Bulma snickered. Hitting the 'x' in the corner of the window, she tapped the cursor inside the datastream prompter and, after only a moment's hesitation, typed "Teraynia'.
"Enter," she whispered.
"Processing. Please wait."
Bulma stared intently at the screen, all the while trying to remember the Saiyan word that she somehow knew would save her husband's life.
Sashen…Setsu…
"Datastream located. Contents; memory file 721-32-623a, memory file 715-23-446b, memory file 722-36-666f…"
Bulma watched the meaningless script scroll across the screen with growing frustration. True to her theory, she had found the memory bank; but how was she to know which one contained the information she needed?
"Computer!" she said desperately. "Perform search. Keyword: Teraynia."
"Searching. All files match."
"God, he really was obsessed," Bulma muttered. "Okay then…computer, perform search. Keyword: Teraynia and family."
"Searching. 722 matches."
"Well that helps a whole hell of a lot!" Bulma irritably pulled at her hair, shooting the computer a scathing glare. "At this rate, I'll find what I need this time next month! Computer, perform search! Keyword…." she thought a moment, then, on sudden impulse, declared, "Cancel action. Computer, perform search for video files containing the words 'how could she'."
"Searching. 12 matches found."
"Alright," she exclaimed. Hitting a few more keys, she said, "Computer, perform search within matches for a word beginning with 'sai', exempting the word 'Saiyan'."
"Searching. One match found. Word: Sairiea."
"That's it!" Bulma cried, setting Trunks down in the chair and springing to her feet. "Sairiea! 'Mutual necessity'! Computer!" she commanded, regaining confidence with every breath, "play file!" Crossing her fingers, she held her breath and took a step back, wondering why the ensuing processing period was taking so damn long to load her salvation.
After what seemed like an eternity, the footage flickered onto the screen, recorded firsthand through the android's visual units. It seemed as if someone had idly attempted to erase the recording; the tracking was terrible. But the images and sounds were still coherent, and that was all that mattered.
"Teraynia, I don't know if this is such a good idea," Andy was saying. "I mean, sure, you're in the elite force and everything, but that pigheaded king of yours only brought half the squad! Vorenza's supposed to be one of the toughest planets out there, and there are only four Saiyans in your group!"
Teraynia leaned casually against the console of the pod, shooting small pinpoints of energy at her fellow Saiyans' ships and making great sport of it. She looked barely older than eighteen; her future long red hair was cropped into a boy's cut, and her features were young and feisty - ablaze with the arrogance of youth.
"Oh, quit whining, android," she sniffed, aiming a slightly bigger ball of energy at the pod just behind the leader. "I know father programmed you to determine the 'best course of action for my safety', but please, keep your calculations and statistics to yourself. Even if we are outnumbered by a hundred insanely strong aliens to one, all we have to do is lay low until the full moon and - boom! - they're blown out of existence."
"But, ma'am," Andy pleaded, "the odds--!"
"Shut up!" Teraynia roared, whirling around to face him with a ball of power poised on the tip of her finger. "Did your auditory units suddenly stop working in the last thirty seconds? I told you! I don't want to hear any of your drivel about the odds!"
The camera quickly zoomed out; Andy had retreated. "No, ma'am," he said miserably. "My auditory units are in perfect working order."
"Good. Then you'll obey this time." Turning the energy ball back upon her original target, she fired it at the craft next to her and howled with laughter. "Besides," she added, just a little more seriously, "Prince Vegeta is with us." A small smile crossed her lips - a smile that was not lost on the android. "He is the strongest fighter to ever live. With him, we can do anything." Blowing out a short sigh, she shook her head vigorously and studied her next target intently, apparently hoping to escape her 'escort's' disapproving gaze.
"This isn't helping at all," Bulma fumed, hitting the pause button with an angry tap of her finger. "Computer! File length!"
"43 hours and 16 minutes."
Bulma nearly fell back into her chair. "Well," she said shakily, pushing her bangs out of her eyes, "that could possibly be the reason. Computer, skip to the segment containing the word 'sairiea'."
"Please wait."
After another excruciating moment, the image flickered once, then flipped over to the desired starting point.
"Play."
A beaten Teraynia appeared onscreen. She stood behind a stand of cliffs, sheltering herself from oncoming blasts with battered arms crossed over her head, her teeth gritted in a show of defiance and pain. Blood trickled into her tightly shut eyes from numerous lacerations on her brow, and she let out a miniscule gasp of pain as another scythe of energy cut a ragged path across her upper arm.
"Teraynia," came Andy's feeble voice. The image flickered worse than usual; apparently the android had been damaged in the crossfire. He sputtered out a bitter laugh. "Guess it's a little late to say I told you so, huh?"
"Do me a…favor…and shut…the hell up," Teraynia grated, moving slightly to the left to avoid at least one of the painful missiles. She threw a desperate glance up at the sky. "It's…not over…yet. We can…still…win."
"Two out of the four of you are dead, Teraynia!" Andy said fiercely. The camera shakily angled up; the android had forced himself into a sitting position. "You need to get to your pods and get out of here! Now!"
The proud Saiyan woman laughed softly. "That would…prove fruitless. Our pods …were destroyed."
"…Oh." The camera was cast at the ground. After a few minutes of nothing but Teraynia's small grunts of pain, Andy said, "I guess I've failed you miserably, Lady Teraynia. Forgive me."
"Shut up," she growled. "You haven't…failed me. You've failed…my father." In a flurry of waning energy, she fell to her knees, arms tumbling uselessly to her sides. "Vegeta…will only last…just a little…bit longer. Any second now…they'll come…for me." She turned her emerald eyes to a battle being fought outside the android's line of sight, and a small smile caressed her blood-smattered lips. "He was bold," she said softly. "Truly…a warrior to be…remembered. He just made…one…stupid…mistake." The Saiyan girl fell sideways, landing roughly against the rocky cliffside, breath coming in labored gasps as she struggled to keep herself alive.
"Teraynia…" Andy's eyes fluttered shut as he prepared to be destroyed alongside his charge.
At that moment, a rush of energy like those Bulma had heard so many times before burst onscreen, penetrating the android's imitation eyelids with its brilliance. Andy's eyes flew wide and quickly focused on the situation at hand.
"Prince Vegeta!" he cried, pushing himself upright once more. "She's not dead yet; take her and get out of here! Quickly! She needs a rejuvenation tank as soon as possible!"
"Shut up, you hunk of scrap metal!" the prince said furiously, blood and spittle flying as he turned maddened eyes upon the android. The prince held Teraynia erect, and he shook her with all his adrenaline-pumped might, sending her ruby-haired head jerking violently with each jolt. "Teraynia!" he said desperately, black eyes widened in fear, "wake up, dammit! We have to perform the Sairiea!"
"Sai…riea…?" the girl moaned, attempting to force her pupils to focus on his bloodstained face. She chuckled, sending small flecks of hot red liquid flying onto his lips. "I don't even have…the strength to….stand…let alone…perform the ritual…"
"Then I'll give you some of mine, gods damn it all!" The prince crushed her to his breast. A warm glow enveloped the two as he transferred his ki into her body. Slowly he rose to his feet and set her down, gazing intently into her eyes to see if the transmission had been a success. "Well?" he demanded.
Teraynia pushed away from him and tested her limbs, performing a few basic stretches and taking a couple deep breaths. "I think I'm good now," she replied, awestruck. She looked him up and down, amazed that he had fought that long and still managed to give her half his ki without faltering a single step.
"Good! Now let's get moving before those lizard men figure out that I'm NOT over there and come to fuse our furry asses to the dirt!" Vegeta grabbed her hands and held them tight, wiping the blood from his face with the crook of his arm and glaring directly into her emerald irises.
Teryania gazed back, undisguised admiration glittering in the depths of her olive eyes. "You are truly amazing, Vegeta," she murmured.
"Yeah yeah, let's just get on with it," he growled. "You know the words, right?"
"Of course."
"Then let's start!"
The two turned away from each other, tails entwining and binding them fast against each other's backs, sealing them together with a burst of yellow ki. With one final glance over her shoulder, Teraynia let a small smile slip between her lips and held up her hands. Vegeta thrust his own fists, much larger than hers, into the air as well, wrapping one huge hand around her closed fingers and allowing her to do the same with her opposite hand, though her small palm wrapped only the smallest part of his in the depths of her bloody grip. The two placed their feet directly beside one another, using each other's swaying weight to keep them both upright.
"On the count of three," Vegeta declared gruffly, casting her a brief glance over his shoulder. She caught and held his gaze, and the two shared a moment of silence, as if they were both accepting the seriousness of the ritual they were about to perform.
"Ready when you are," she murmured, turning her head to stare straight ahead.
"One," Vegeta stated.
"Two," Teraynia said softly.
"Three!" they said together.
"Saiya-jin soth mirai," they cried in unison, raising their eyes to the stars. "Don terith sa Renir, vowest sularus en mithas jen scelles korai. Ki est juntareais. Hiestai neaed oesth tierm, viex coen sei."
Blinding light flashed around them, enveloping their blurry forms in a cloud of ki. Andy pushed himself to his feet, stumbling forward a few awkward steps to attempt to see through the growing maelstrom.
"Teraynia!" he called desperately, reaching out his hand to the whirling storm of energy.
"On my honor," came Teraynia's voice, floating upon the wings of power unopposed, " I vow with my pride as a Saiyan warrior to be the greatest queen ever to walk the soil of the Saiyan planet and the paths of the stars beyond."
"On my honor," followed the voice of King Vegeta, "I vow with my pride as the Saiyan king to protect my empire at the cost of my own sweat and blood. With this Saiyan woman, I will bend the laws of power into my favor as long as I deem it necessary."
"As long as I deem it necessary," Teraynia repeated, though somewhat softer than her new mate. The energy cloud died down ever so slightly - just enough to be able to see the new 'couple's' faces. King Vegeta's face was electric with his newfound power. Teraynia wore a look of resignation.
"I suppose it's time to enter the second stage," she said quietly.
King Vegeta let out a laugh scratchy with vigor. "Whatever it takes! Do you feel this power, Teraynia? With it, we can do anything! The universe will be ours to command!" Whirling her around, he crushed her against his body, as if to absorb every last bit of energy she could possibly offer. Teraynia stared calmly into his power-maddened eyes, allowing her arms to come to rest on his waist.
"And command it we shall, my Saiyan prince," she murmured.
King Vegeta threw back his head, letting rip a tremendous, feral howl that shook the planet beneath their feet. Teraynia watched him, feeling her power grow with every breath, an expression of indifference clouding her features as she lowered her gaze to his powerful chest.
At this point, Andy seemed to have been blown away by the blast. The 'camera' lens bounced backwards, then landed in the dirt, crackling and hissing until it eventually went dark. The last words recorded on the dying sound system were Teraynia's:
"I will always remember you as you are now, Vegeta. The perfect Saiyan warrior."
The recording ended. Having been forced to sit down by the sheer raw power of the android's memory, Bulma now held tight to her son, eyes transfixed on the now-dark screen as she struggled to absorb what she had just seen.
"So," she said at last, turning shining eyes upon her little boy, "it seems true Saiyans can love after all." Closing her eyes, she called to mind the visage Teraynia had worn as she resigned herself to her mate's power, allowing it to rip through her as a hurricane of lethal energy. Smirking slightly to herself, she returned her gaze to the monitor and searched for the Saiyan vows, intending to write them down and somehow find her way to her husband.
"Even when all seemed lost," she told her son softly, locating the words and carefully scribing them onto the back of her hand, "they still found a way to make it work. Well, Vegeta, here I come; we're going to make this bastard wish he'd never been born."
(Well, you know. Please R&R, and if you want to kill me, wellllllllll….
I don't care.
Ciao. )