A/N: Okay so I feel I have to put a thing here. THIS is um. Dark. Like. KIIIINDA DARK. Just letting you know!
"L-Lord Frieza, please... destroy them with your own hands,"
However subtle, and easily overlooked, the expression indicative of a disturbance crossed Zarbon's face. Regardless of how shocking it was to see his lord not entirely repulsed by touching a lower life form, or even allowing her request, the real surprise came from the way she so desperately wished death upon these people. Ruthlessness, murder and conquest, these were all normal parts of being employed under Frieza, or quite frankly anyone aligned under their familial rule, but there was a difference between loving your position and loving your job.
Frieza peered down, his sharp eyes boring through those of her yellow ringed irises. It was always a joy tripping down the bleak, evil rabbit hole that was her stare. It wasn't every day one could exude such crude and cruel darkness under the envelop of genuine innocence.
Letting a dark chuckle slip from his upturned lips, he swept his hand from beneath her jaw, and as quickly as Zarbon stepped out of his way, he went on.
Pache sucked in a breath that supplemented her breathless body. She bowed her head down without Frieza's hand supporting it, her head dropping until her forehead roughly hit the floor beneath. Her nails clawed feebly against the metal floor of the tyrant's chamber, her needle-like fangs boring deeply into the curve of her lower lip until streaks of crimson dripped down her chin and pooled beneath her hair whilst staining the white locks of her hair.
Fire power. That was the only way to kill her kind. Weaker ki attacks did little to harm them, and physical damage was the worst possible choice against their kind unless you had knowledge on their weakness.
One of her arms hooked tightly around her abdomen, pressing against the orb that drew out against the touch of her skin. To destroy that orb, was to destroy their core, and subsequently, to destroy their body's regenerative capabilities. Unless one knew to attack that directly, the only other option was to produce ki strong enough to obliterate the entirety of their form, core included.
She knew that, and still, she chose this route: to ask Frieza to simply wipe them all away with his powerful levels of ki.
She asked him, not just to rid himself of them entirely so that she could secure her place, but she opted to sooner erase every trace of them than to reveal her key weakness in the process. The inability to disclose her own advantages, and the desire to promote her own safety and immunity, it was just survival, and yet she couldn't come to terms with it so easily.
She clenched her fist against the soaking of crimson still leaking under her head. Her body wouldn't give her the benefit of dignity, to raise her up from this position with grace. She could only wallow.
Zarbon looked down at her, his disgust, gradually shifting to a strain of pity. He backed away into the lift, aiming to stick closer to Frieza while leaving her to the pain of her own design.
The red loosely broke up into a less dense substance with the mixing of the tears that now allowed themselves to pour when she was alone. She could hate all she had done, and she could hate the cowardly things she did, but all the while, she remained painfully aware that these things would not change.
On the outside, the air grew heavy and warm, the sky darkening in response to the presence of a power strong enough to shift the planet's atmosphere from merely existing. Zarbon looked up at the sight before them - of Frieza deciding to sully his own hands at the request of a grunt. Real life was sometimes so much more bizarre than fiction. Still, he was certain that just as Planet Vegeta had triggered a rooted joy in their lord, this planet would be no different. He did so love spreading his influence with his own hand, should the situation dictate or permit, so maybe it wasn't all that strange.
Still, that whole exchange had left him with feeling uncertain.
He turned his head back to the opening of the ship, seeing Pache slowly emerging. She looked awful; hair disheveled, her eyes somewhat swollen and wet, and not to mention the light stain of red against her bruised lips as well as her hair.
"What is all this?"
The both of them turned to the voice of the woman that touched down: Tamarind. She seemed to have a few scuffs along her skin, and some tears in her clothing, but save for those little nicks, she looked to be in better condition than Pache, who hadn't even fought.
"It seems Lord Frieza wants to have his hand," Zarbon asserted, but from his speech, and the guilty look on Pache's face, the woman grew skeptical. She moved to the outer shell of the ship, leaning against the arch in the door, where she idly relaxed while watching the troops retreat. Had they stayed out and continued to try to fight with Frieza now present, they likely would have been swept away, not that Frieza himself would have cared if their numbers weren't already poor.
She ran her hands through her dark hair, "You came here to plead their case?"
Pache's voice, dry and light, as if dying away per every passing moment, spoke above the clamoring of soldiers in response, though still too quiet to reach them, "I requested he handle them."
Tamarind's eyes, though not facing Pache, widened considerably. It was enough of a surprise that he heeded her, but that she essentially requested her own race be obliterated was the icing on the cake here, wasn't it? "It seems Lord Frieza has taken a shine to you." She spoke quietly, controlled, with not a sign of surprise nor anything even remotely close,
"be careful not to let it get to your head. Falls from grace are real ugly."
Pache's head dropped down to the ground below, ears blocking out the surrounding destruction and focusing solely on Tamarind's words. She instinctively placed her hand over her stomach, gripping against the thin material of her form-fitting bodysuit, "I understand."
She was right.
In just about every day to week passing after that incident, it became more and more apparent that Pache, despite being a relatively new addition, had seized a spot as one of Frieza's favorites. The only thing more surprising was that it happened around the time the prediction made on Tamarind's likewise ascent to elite was also validated.
It was a normal shift in tone, one that Pache had felt herself now more than ready to contend with. Walking down the halls was a different experience these days; some people parted out of her way or fell silent the way they did for Zarbon, and while some of them watched her with respect, others sneered and glared.
They could get away with it this way, for unlike Zarbon, Pache didn't meet their disrespect with a show of force.
She crossed the parted sea of troops, her eyes barely concerned for them in the moment. She dragged her nails tiredly through her thick locks, boarding the lift, and wordlessly ascending to Frieza's chambers, where she spent the day alongside any combination of Tamarind, Zarbon, and/or Dodoria, along with Frieza himself, of course.
This was where she spent her days now: working only when needed and simply sharing in the events of the day with the tyrant.
So this was what favoritism was.
In honesty, this was what she had wanted: lazily letting the hours pass with a certain level of immunity hanging over her that basic survival desire fulfilled, her focus could wander to the things that would make her hopefully long life more... fruitful.
As per typical routine these days, after the hours drew to dusk, she walked herself back down to her own area, retiring to her room, and decompressing.
Despite everything being so easy and relaxed now, she still felt so tired, and ill-rested. She reclined back against the bed, not bothering to swaddle herself comfortably in the blanket, or fluff up her pillow all nice and plush. There was too much of a chance it would be wasted on her stripping her bed in her sleep to escape her influx of difficult dreams.
Still, she gave sleep a trial, just slowly closing her eyes with wonders of what new fresh hell this night would bring.
Fire.
Was there really any surprise at this point?
Embers burned in quiet dormancy beneath the weakly flickering flames. As Pache passed them by, walking the invisible road they outlined, the sparks of the infero would blaze higher and higher, roaring to life and becoming much stronger than before.
Unlike before, when the dim fires did little more than provide a glow through darkness, this time, they emitted so much light that it gave the illusion of day: a blindingly illuminated day.
Her eyes wandered to either side of her, taking in the scenery that now appeared so much more vivid and clear. The green of the sky was murky and soft, stretching as far as the eye could see with not a thing obstructing it. The closest thing to something in the sky appeared to be the tall, towering mountains and ledges that dotted everywhere in tow with strangely shaped vegetation.
Her eyes then peered down, through the fires that seemed to ferociously try to devour her body as it passed by. She could see underfoot, the lush grasses of blue. So that was what it was this time.
She lifted her head and stared before her; the end of the flaming road was coming upon her quickly. The more she proceeded, the more the flames began to die out, forcing the scenery to grow darker and darker until it was impossible to make out any color of any grass or sky, or even the towering mountains that had just moments ago loomed overtop her in plain sight. It was just dark, colorless, like standing in the centermost point of a void.
Her body stopped.
Her ringed eyes searched the blank palette of emptiness, and for just a moment, despite being submerged in slumber, she felt confusion. This was rare. Even for the numerous patterns that plagued her regularly, she couldn't often come to a place where it all ceased. So seldom were their even times of calm or stillness in her nightmares, let alone a complete absence of anything.
Hesitantly, her food rose, aiming to take a step into the depth of the unknown.
Time ticked and moments passed, and all of it seemed to creep by in slow motion from the time her toe left the undefined floor to the time her sole reunited with it, and the second it did, a wave of color burst out over the void. It splashed like paint, paint that instantaneously crafted a land and scene within what felt like seconds following minutes.
The fire returned, roaring in pillars that crackled through her ears and betrayed their path-like formation to eat through the landscape, casting warm-tinted light. A pink sky, and orange grass spread out before her, and before she had a moment to contemplate the nagging feeling of familiarity that existed beyond the creations of her dreams in the past, her mind was thrown into a scene that made her remember. Hundreds of thousands of people, an army, lined across the horizon with bodies of various colors and hair of thick white.
These were her people, no; these were people that shared her race. These were people that were no more.
Her body tremble, her leg attempting to shift and retreat her backwards, but it was as if an invisible force was at her back, refusing to let her escape. She planted her hands against it, feeling a dream-like version of glass against the flat of her palms. Her breath quickened in pace, and she could hear her heart within her ears - the ghosts of her pasts rallying to take vengeance on the one that had pleaded for their elimination.
They were coming for her.
Though she couldn't look away, and couldn't lift a finger to move or run while tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, she also couldn't find herself focusing in her stillness. She watched them, but as the fear and adrenaline set it, it felt more as if she were looking right through them, and just as they stepped foot within her space they took to the air like smoke - gone.
The land was barren again. Still facing the view of her peoples' destructions for her own life, even in the form of her dream, she couldn't help but undergo the same feeling: relief. The whole lot of them was gone, but she remained, and for that... she could feel only grateful.
Her back sank against the invisible wall that still existed behind her. Now that it seemed she could move again in slight bursts, her limbs felt so heavy with tire that all she could do was lean against the barrier to support her. She caught her breath, shallow inhales and exhales slowly graduating into those closer to normal. If that was it, why wouldn't she wake up? Why couldn't this dream be over if this Hell had nothing else in store for her?
Her eyes opened again, only partially, her heavy lids refusing to let her have a full view. They sank down to the grass beneath her, the orangey hue gone blue once more. This original color, this world with the green skies and the tall mountains, she was glad it was here.
Crash!
Abruptly, the sound of shattering glass pounded against her ears, and the support keeping her standing steady crumbled to bits at her back, leaving her unsteady. Her wide, ringed eyes slid behind her, only catching the stretching silhouette of some unknown creature. Its hand raised up, and without even a second to spare, a searing pain struck through her back, and again through her stomach.
"Ahh," Pache gasped heavily, the fingers of one hand against her throat, and the others against her stomach.
That one felt real... Too real. All of her dreams were considerably vivid, but the phantom pain and feeling of a touch against her stomach left her more shaken and unsteady than usual. The hand against her throat raised up past her face to her forehead, gripping the thick bunch of her bangs and feeling the way sweat soaked them as well as her face. She swallowed the lump in her throat and slowly, she was able to breathe normally again.
Her eyes scanned the interior of her room from one side to the other, and there appeared to be nothing out of place. It was after a few more moments of aimless searching that she noticed herself still gripping her abdomen. Hesitantly, she withdrew her hand, just a touch.
As crazy as it sounded - she was worried to just remove it all together - too afraid that she may actually find something there.
Though... maybe that wasn't too crazy.
As her fingers eased away, her eyes caught the immediate sight of a dark crimson against her digits, and upon full removal, staining her palm. Her breath hiked again, and her eyes dart to her stomach, the appearance of a claw mark branded against her skin.
Her heart sank. Her throat dried, and for a brief time as the goosebumps raised along her skin and her heart thundered against her ears, she tried to deny it. Maybe she did it to herself. Maybe she had been injured somehow and hadn't realized. Maybe...
Maybes only eased her mind so much.
She pressed her hand against the wound, clumsily pushing herself out of bed and kicking the clinging bedding from her body and carelessly into the floor. She yanked open the door to her room, hurrying up the hall of the ship like her life depended on it, for all that she knew, it did.
Somebody was in her room.
A/N: So. This chapter was always planned. Like ALWAYS. Yet when I wrote it, I couldn't help but think 'was it always this dark'? So. LOL I decided to put a warning just in case.
Like, I even changed the genre on this fic, because I was like 'damn this- this isn't Adventure'. LOL. NO ONE WISHED FOR THIS ADVENTURE?! Though, I thought about changing it to Horror, but decided that for the overall gear of the story, Tragedy would be a better fit.
Either way, the dark, twisted romance is budding a bit more soon, and likewise, the end is drawing near.