Here's the next installment. I hope you all are enjoying this as much as I am writing it. I know the updates are slow, but I've got a new work schedule so just bear with me please.

-CP

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Chapter 9

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Vegeta thrashed his tail about in agitation as he watched Kakarot practice the scaled spin attack he'd just taught him. How could he entrust this pathetic excuse for a warrior to help him in his task if he couldn't master a simple attack. Days had passed since he'd began his food training and that was also a hit and a miss. It seemed that he'd only attack at maximum potential when angry. That wouldn't do.

"Again, keep your scales up and the barbs will follow!" He huffed out. "Don't make me come over there and throttle you!"

"This is not as easy as you make it look, Vegeta!"

"It is if you would just focus!" He shouted back. "Now, concentrate!"

The younger mer only growled in response and twisted his tail up and smacked the water in an angry thrashing motion. He managed to cause a huge wave, but the barbs stayed out and the attack was complete. Vegeta sighed, but he was actually quite proud Kakarot had managed to finally make the attack.

"Again."

This continued for several hours. The attack, sparring, and then he would teach him three more. If they were, at least, going to end the tyrants terror on their land they needed to be in top form. Vegeta had already decided that he would stay on land after his mission was complete. From what he'd learned from a secret contact, Vegetasai was lost to the depths and never to return to its former glory. Freiza had taken everything in fits of rage the longer the prince remained absent.

All of his people had either fled or had been killed. It was horrible, but at least once he ended the creature's life, all of the memories could be put to rest. Vegeta turned back to the last of his kind and ended their session for the day. He had a lot to think about and as he dismissed Kakarot, he swam for a few laps before floating on his back and twining his blue tail in the artificial water.

Was this all his life was to be now? Swimming in artificial waters with a human mate and no home in the sea? Was the last of his great people gone forever and only he and the buffoon of a mer the last of them all? His restless thoughts were broken by the footsteps of his mate coming to get him for the evening meal. How long he had decided to float out and brood, he did not know. Time was a fickle mistress on the surface. In the sea it all seemed like one bit day or night. There wasn't much light where he lived anyway.

"Vegeta?"

"I know, food is ready."

"Well, that's part of it." She sat at the pools edge and dunked her feet in as she did every night. "Goku said you seemed a bit down when he left you here earlier. Is everything okay?"

"No, it's not." He sighed and stopped floating, facing her in the center of the pool. "I got into contact with one of my spies in Freiza's court today. I know I shouldn't have gone towards the ocean, but I needed to know how my people were fairing while I tried the last ditch effort to save my home. It turns out there's nothing left to go back to."

"I'm ..."

"Don't pity me." He growled and slapped the water with his tail, the barbs making tinkling noises as the clacked against his scales. "I will kill that monster for destroying our great city, but I will return to you. Since there is nothing left but revenge, I have nothing more to give."

"Vegeta, get a hold of yourself!" Said mer looked up at his mate and swore she looked even more beautiful in her passionate anger. "For days you've been a maelstrom of anger and vengefulness. It's not like you to flop around in self-pity."

"Now see here..."

"No. I won't see anywhere but at the mermaid who's been pushing my friend through hoops only to say that he's just going to give up."

"I'm not giving up."

"That's not the tone that I hear. I was actually starting to like you with your dedicated, ruthless, attitude; but if you're going to sound like a defeated chump ..."

He wouldn't let her finish as he swam so quickly that he crashed into her. He didn't even change forms as he lifted himself up to keep from crushing her. His webbed hands coated with tiny suction cups stuck to the floor so he wouldn't slip on the tiled surface. Her white shirt was soaked through with the salty water of the training pool.

She was a vision, everything human, everything air-breather, land-walker. He shouldn't want her so much, but the smooth skin of her legs wrapped around the slickness of his scales felt divine. Vegeta had never wanted a creature so much in his life. Never had he possessed these urges.

What was this need?

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Bulma had never felt so turned on in her life. Sure, he had the lower body of a fish, but it didn't feel strange or slimy. He felt smooth, but slick. Soft, wet, powerful like the sea that he hailed from. Passionate, stormy, dangerous, and she couldn't help but want to drown in him. This was all happening so fast but she couldn't stop herself.

"Vegeta ..." She breathed out softly, afraid to break their embrace and whatever spell that caused him to cradle her so softly, so gently. She didn't even care that he wasn't in his human form. She trailed her hands down his back to the top of his lower back where the tail of him started. The scales were smooth to the touch, a bit slick, kind of cool, but not clammy. They were nothing like any fish she'd ever touched.

"Bulma..." He answered her before their lips connected and suddenly he was in her head this time. Every memory he'd ever had, every meeting, every talk, every function. Even battles. The last she'd seen before he disconnected them and rolled off of her was the monster Freiza. It had to be him, nothing could've prepared her for the pure evil she had seen in one creature.

The spell had been broken then, she knew when he picked up his discarded shorts and pulled them up his human legs. No longer did he look like the regal royal prince of the mer. Now he looked like a lost man without a home and only debt of blood would ever do for all of the stains on his soul. So much pain for one person to ever bear.

"I never wanted you to see that. I'm sorry."

After those parting words he left and she didn't see him for a week. Sure, he trained Goku every day but he stayed out of her presence.