"Strict orders, your highness. Today, and any day hereafter, until the King reverses his decision. We apologize." Both guards bent low to demonstrate their regret.
It must have been difficult for them to refuse their sworn heir to please the crown. Vegeta wanted to put a fist through both their faces.
The Prince didn't respond, simply pivoted on his heel and made his way back down the hall, away from the tower and its secrets, before slipping into a recessed doorway.
He sunk his fist into the wall. "Why will he not see me?" He rasped.
Vegeta breathed in rapidly through his nose, painfully aware that he wasn't behind closed doors. He needed to regain control of himself quickly. He did not need it circulating that he was desperate to be received by his father. Their might be whispers that he sought power, and they might ask why, might decide he knew of the plans against him, might make a move against him before he was ready. And despite the oaths the palace guards took to the Royal Family, Vegeta did not put it past them to be paid off by less-than-loyal Elites and Council members. Enemies, enemies everywhere, and he with no offensive other than an off-worlder with bright teal hair and a penchant for telling him "no."
His father had no good reason to keep his son at bay, that was obvious to he and all. Someone was trying to project a divide in the Royal House. When his father passed, he would be the only surviving member of House Vejitasei, and the fate of his house was left solely to him. To hide the King away while the heir frolicked around the universe was too easy a solution to weaken the Royal House, treasonous and sacrilegious and loathsomely impure as it was.
Vegeta pulled his fist from the wall and leaned his head against the cracked plaster, closing his eyes in thought. Or was his father still sound of mind without anyone the wiser? Had he retreated to his rooms to avoid the politicking? Had he refused to see Vegeta because he was not satisfied in some way with Vegeta's progress at the Borderlands? As it stood, the Council had reigned unchecked since his father's sudden seclusion four galactic years ago. Vegeta knew better than to believe that the Council had only exerted power in the King's best interests. There were too many legislative earmarks that funneled money away to nowhere, too much backdoor fundraising. Legally, the Council was only a piece of the architecture of Saiyan politics. Behind closed doors, with the Crown Heir light years away, they were all there was.
He had only done exactly as his father requested: be the lord of his Saiyan Empire, shepherding new planets and neutral planets alike to Saiyan hands in the increasingly hostile relationship with the Colds. His father's pride was the only damned reason he'd spent nearly half his life culling the Saiyan quadrant and beyond the Divide into the Borderlands, picking and choosing planets to add to their Empire and sending the others to the Depths. Thirty two times his home planet had orbited Öngdala, their red giant, since he'd torn from his mother soaked in blood, and he had as much power now as he did as a mewling infant. Vegeta put his fist one more time into the wall for good measure.
So why was he not able to speak to his own father? And if there was no King, just a wasting has-been, why keep power disparate? Why was there no proposal from the Council to see him coronated?
It wasn't until they were startled by the front door closing that Bulma came up for air. Her head snapped to the doorway, where Gohan unfolded himself from a pile of books. Rather than the Prince, however, another, in the belted, loose gray top and wide legged bottoms of third class Saiyans, pushed a cart inside the Prince's bedroom. Both she and Gohan stiffened, breath skipping and heart slamming in her chest. But the Saiyan only pushed it further in, past the guest bedroom, through the sitting room and into the Prince's room, before he left the room without ever looking up. Once the door had closed, she and Gohan shared a wide eyed stare.
"It's food," he explained.
As soon as he said it, the smell of it hit her. She swallowed saliva. "It's not ours," she cautioned.
Gohan watched her. "Should that Saiyan have seen us? Are we supposed to hide?"
The Prince wouldn't have forgotten to tell the servants about them, would he? Or prime them with a game plan if they needed to hide? "I don't know," she answered timidly. She glanced at her watch. 1658. "Elite's eat at 1700, I believe. That's his dinner. Shouldn't he be here, then?"
The front door slammed against the wall in answer, causing them both to jump. They heard the thump of his boots down the hall before they saw him, and then he turned the corner into the sitting room, stalking toward them before pointing at Bulma. She flinched as if struck.
"You will come with me."
The blood drained from her face.
Gohan jumped to his feet. "Where are you taking her?"
Kami bless him, Bulma thought sadly. She was going to have a hard time giving him up when this whole thing had blown over. He was Son's kid through and through, even if he was missing the competitive streak.
Vegeta only sneered in Gohan's direction.
Bulma stood, trying not to tremble. "Did I...Did I do something wrong?"
"Let's go," he interrupted, striding to his bedroom. "Grab your ki finder."
Her eyes widened. "The radar?" She bent over her small of pile of possessions and plucked it from under her pajamas before trailing after him, trying to give Gohan a reassuring glance as she passed.
The Prince was standing at the window. "Ömulaya the third sun is setting now. Well enough to evade any guards in the dusk. Climb onto my back."
"Where are we going?" She asked tremulously.
"You don't get to ask the questions, insolent woman," he said roughly. "Get on before I take your device and leave you behind."
She tapped on the radar, watched it blink to life, the dots of registered bodies settling on the grid. There was she and Gohan, in the center, and beyond, dozens of others.
Then she stared at the Prince's back, trying to think of the most graceful way to climb on his back without losing her life with it. Her chest restricted as she tried not to panic. She'd had to touch him before, sure, but he'd never been explosively angry when she'd done it.
She had no time to make a decision before she was scooped up and swooping in the air, clutched in his arms as he took a running jump from his window and leapt from the balcony edge.
"Don't you get tired of scaring me?" She yelled in his ear, grasping his neck with one arm and a white knuckled grip on the radar.
He only grunted in answer. He flew low toward the desert guyá trees in the center of the courtyard, their branches snaking up toward the sky with just enough leafy brush at their tips to hide the pair. The Prince righted in the air just inches away from smacking into the tree and settled smoothly on one of its plump white branches.
"Which way are we headed?" She asked, frowning down at the radar with resolve.
His answer rumbled in his chest and against her side. "Just north of here. That tower, there, at the edge of the palace. So beyond that wall and through another courtyard. The roof slants away from the palace interior, so once we've breached the tower, we will not have to remain concealed."
She glanced up. The lone tower was silhouetted against the violet night sky. She looked back at the radar filling her hand. "There are four sentries posted in each corner of this courtyard, and eight in the other, if I've done my math right. These are the ki's inside the building there," she showed him, sliding her finger between two lines on the grid, "a guard posted every few meters inside. The tower itself..." She bit her lip. "This hasn't been rigged to show three dimensional depth. We'll have to get closer before I can give you an accurate reading—"
He was already heading north, hopping from tree to tree to avoid being seen as his ki sparked against his skin in flight. Bulma tried not to break her teeth as she chomped down in fright. She liked it better when he just flew her.
After a precursory look around, the radar assuring them they were in a dead zone between two guards, Vegeta used as little ki as possible to boost his jump from the branch of a guyá and onto the roof.
Bulma had just a moment to appreciate the view. From a few stories high, the labyrinthine castle snaked outwards, home to several distinct desert gardens, before it simply ended where the desert began and stretched its claws toward the marriage of sand and sky. The stars threaded through the clear dome of the sky, while the third sun, a white dwarf, inched towards the line of the horizon. Behind them stretched the ancient city of Vejitasei, home to the few ten thousand remaining on-world Saiyans. The domes of the Science Wing were one of many residences that shadowed the space port, glittering red and gold, from which pods occasionally plummeted and slingshotted out of sight.
"We cannot stay here. There's nowhere to hide from anyone on the ground," he muttered, before he slid them down the roof, skating on the air to avoid noise. He dropped them over the side, giving her a second of pure terror, before pressing them up against the wall just below the ducting.
She wasn't going to apologize for pressing herself tightly against him.
"Do you have a death wish?" She whispered furiously, glaring up at him.
That earned a small smirk. "On the contrary. Why? Do you?"
She grumbled, glancing over her radar. "One in each corner, one between each of them. North, northeast, east, southeast, and so on. One right below us. South." They both peered down. Sure enough, they could see the top of a head of black hair a few dozen meters from their feet. This courtyard boasted only a reflecting pool, bare of any other ornamentation. "There are no trees. What are you going to do?"
"Sneak."
Pressing them further to the stone, the Prince began moving them down the length of wall.
His chest tensed beneath her, his bicep flexing against her back as he inched down the wall, hidden in the shadows of the soffits. His hand was hot against the underside of her knee. Soon they'd made it to the southwest corner, where they came to a stop to make certain they hadn't been seen, that no ki's were rushing around on the radar. She nodded, and they were off again.
"I wish I could help," she whispered dully. "Pull my own weight. I feel like a big baby," she complained, but not without lamenting how far things had come when Bulma Briefs griped about being held in a handsome man's arms.
His chin rested against the top of her head for a moment as he looked left, dodging the rain spout. "Me, too," he agreed, voice ripe with mirth.
Without thinking, she playfully rapped him with her knuckles in the chin.
Faster than she could blink, his hand had enclosed her fist, and he stared down at her with humorless eyes as she realized, with a sinking gut, her error.
"You're impudent," he finally said, releasing her hand. He creeped down the wall again. "How you have lasted this long on Vejitasei is beyond me."
Her heart was trying to sprint out of her chest. "Sorry," she apologized sheepishly. "I forgot you were a bad guy there for a second." She sighed, allowing her heartbeat to settle. "I've survived because I don't take pride in my work," she continued after a pause, watching the courtyard spin like clockwork around her. "If you want to get noticed, want to feel powerful because so much of your life is regulated and oppressed, oh, you'll get patronized." She stared up at him, his broad jaw above her leading sharply to a point. "You get patronized," she finished softly, "and you eventually wind up missing."
"The Elites have their own sins to account for," he responded, ducking under another rain spout and rolling them through the last corner. "They are spoiled, shameless, and without anything else to do than politick. That the Council has taken their cue from them…."
"I'd always thought Vejitasei a monarchy. Does the Council have a lot of sway, then?"
He looked at her suspiciously. "Fishing for information, are you?"
"No!" She piped defensively. "It's just, Vejitasei presents such a strong face to its provincials. The way everyone talks, the Elites and the Council have to answer to you and your father...Right?"
He tightened his grip on her as he sailed upright without warning, over the edge of the roof. Once hidden in the shadow at its edge, he sat up, sitting her less than serendipitously on the roof tile beside him.
"I wish it were so," he finally grumbled. He settled beside her, leaning back on his palms. "Vejitasei is a monarchy, but it has it's own distinct traditions. Conventionally, we were divided into three: the Council to serve the future of Vejitasei, the Elites to sharehold the present, and the Royal bloodline to serve as a reminder of the past: the might of the Saiyans, their pride. Respecting the Council's guidance and the Elite's knowledge, the King is certain to execute an action with the fullest wisdom and brevity, and his will is absolute. Now the tradition is nothing but show, but quarreling among each other, and overreaching, I suspect not just from each other but to outside power. That tower," he nodded at the shadow looming just a few steps away, "is my father's residence. No one has seen him for four years, save his servants. Not even I. He lays on his deathbed, and here the rest of us remain in stasis, without a clear view of the future. If he had not sent me away to pacify the Colds, if he had prepared me to rule…." He draped an arm atop one of his knees, staring sightlessly at the tower. "I am now but an empty institution," he murmured, gaze fixed on the skyline, where In'gdé, Vejitasei's smallest moon, scrabbled up from the horizon. "The Council is swiftly becoming the empire's shadow government."
Bulma watched him, his smooth, calm voice lingering on her skin. After a painless silence between them, a smile teased her lips. "Thanks for letting me know. First Strike appreciates it." She winked.
He turned to meet her gaze in the dark, the second moon, Möngdyla, sailing the skyline and reflected in her eyes.
He sniffed, catching the mistake in his admission. "You have a third class sense of humor." By the way he was clenching his jaw, he'd felt he confided far too much.
In the moonlight, despite the strong features of his stony face, he looked...human. In that moment, her heart softened towards him. He may be the Right Hand of the surrogate of this whole hellish operation, but he was just a man, and a man, if she guessed right, whose critical role in stabilizing an empire meant he had no one to confide in.
"You really care about this, huh?" At his sour look, she bumped her shoulder against his, smiling in commiseration. "But you're contradicting yourself, you know. You said last night that I have ties to too many outside powers. You know what I think? That you believe I wouldn't use them against you. You don't think I'm a threat anymore." She crossed her legs, turning the radar mindlessly in her lap and watching him with a faint smile.
"I have nothing to fear from someone I completely control." His eyes slid to her beside him, dark and daring, his voice deep and glacial. "Besides." His eyes, though, flicked at her warmly. "You are far more unlikeable than you are dangerous."
She hadn't realized how intoxicating just talking with someone could be.
And for the first time in almost ten years, she felt as if she were sitting next to an average, ordinary person. Away from the bustle of the palace, cradled in a pool of moonlight, he was simply a man. And he was so close.
She wanted to feel what a human felt like again.
She knew it was a risk, but she dared anyway. As he sat there and grit his teeth, looking anywhere but at her and wondering how to recover his slip-up without butchering his informant, she grabbed for his hand. He stiffened so woodenly that she froze, thinking he meant to hurl her off the roof. As another second passed and he had yet to protest, she threaded her fingers through his gloved hand, and squeezed, before jerking it back into her lap and blushing.
They stared forward for a long and awkward minute.
She cleared her throat. "Your father is in that tower," she finally asserted into the silence, "and we're going to go see him?"
"Yes," he managed curtly.
"Why not walk there? Why this slinking around in the night?"
"You ask too many questions," he snarled, standing and walking across the slate roof. Whenever his foot slipped, he simply righted himself with his ki.
Bulma went to stand but wobbled and fell to her knees. "Hey!" She called frantically. "You just going to leave me here?"
Evidently he'd thought of a suitable punishment, because he kept on walking.
She growled and crawled over the tile until her knees were thoroughly bruised, and she straightened, leaning forward to catch herself on her hands and scramble up to him.
He was just under the shadow of the tower, looking up its length. Approaching him, she struggled to restrain herself from whipping him around and really giving him a piece of her mind, her battered knees and palms throbbing. But she'd pushed his limits enough tonight, and no matter how convenient and rare an informant she might be, the Dark Prince wasn't known for his mercy.
She pushed the radar's plunger and it recalibrated. She frowned. "Are there stairs up the length of the tower?" She asked from behind him.
He didn't bother to glance back. "No. The only way to ascend the tower is traditionally, by flight." His voice was low, soft.
"I suppose that would explain why there are no ki's registering inside the tower, except at the very top. Would any of the guards have high power levels like you?"
He sniffed. "Absolutely not. Not even my father." His brows pulled together, and he glanced with irritation at the radar. "The King's energy should register on your device."
"Then three." She looked up at him. "Only three ki's at the top. The rest far below."
Without preamble he grabbed her around the waist and shot upward. She trusted him to hold on tightly enough—just barely—and focused instead on the window he was aiming for. He hugged the wall, keeping close to the black stone, which would hopefully absorb any blue sparks as he used the thinnest amount of ki he could to ascend. They were coming up fast in the Prince's usual furiously-paced and devil-may-care style of attacking a problem, and rather than slow down, peek in, and assess the inside like she expected of the thoughtful man who she'd spoken to only moments ago, the Prince kept barreling toward the open window, the details of the paneless frame becoming clearer with every second. She let out a squeak, torn from her and buffeted on the wind, and they surged through the open window. He tossed her to the side before she'd even had a chance to get a look around and she stumbled. Vegeta, too fast to register, sprinted toward an older woman folding towels in the corner of the room and slammed the side of his fist on her head. She crumpled in her chair. He pinwheeled and brought his knee up into the stomach of an older Saiyan who was plodding out of the bathroom and who never saw him coming. As he bent over in pain, the Prince's elbow slammed onto the crown of his head and he fell to the floor heavily, fingers twitching.
Bulma watched in horror.
Vegeta swept the room for any other unexpected guests. "Move the bodies into the bathroom," he ordered from across the room. "I do not want to chance them coming to and seeing me."
She picked her feet up heavily, stepping once, twice to the nearest body before stalling, gawking.
"Do as I say or you're of no use to me!"
Mouth closing on a few choice curses, she tentatively grabbed the shirt collar of the male Saiyan, trying to pull him back into the bathroom he'd just exited. He didn't budge. Her eyebrows slammed down around her angrily and she grabbed at the Saiyan's wrist, yanking back. What was with Saiyan muscle mass? She pulled again, heels backpedalling into the bathroom just as the Prince approached the bed. No lamps were lit save a single fire that burned to the right of the bed.
Bulma didn't know whether to apologize or relish it as she pushed the Saiyan's head out of the way of the bathroom door with her foot, and once the doorway was clear of body parts, she fell onto the toilet, breathing heavily. The woman was easier, lighter. She didn't see many Saiyan women, but they weren't as dense as the men she'd encountered, nor as tall. She managed to pull the woman into the bathroom without any hiccups, until she tripped over the man's feet and fell onto her butt with a gush of air. She grumbled, struggling to stand up, and slammed the door indignantly behind her.
Her stomping came to a halt as she watched Vegeta sit delicately on the bed. She approached, tentatively, not knowing whether or not he'd appreciate being ogled and settling instead to hovering at the edge of his vision.
She looked over the figure on the bed, lying prone on his back under the covers. The firelight flickered over their faces, and though she couldn't make out the King's features in the shadows, she could see the same upwards flame of hair against the pillows, and a gold band fitted over his forehead, a single red ruby dripping against his brow. He took shallow breaths, his pallid face bruised around his closed eyes, his cheeks hollow. The room was thick with incense.
"You must make me King," the Prince finally demanded. Bulma's eyes widened. The King did not move as if he had heard.
Vegeta's voice was raw, uncontrolled. "You sent me to the edge of the universe while your most dangerous enemies surrounded you. You have put all of the Empire at jeopardy. And here you lie, weak, and silent, the same man who tore the flesh from my back when I was but a child for questioning your logic at the Battle of Sector Thirty." The Prince's fist curled at his side. "Now I am a man, with an Empire trembling at my feet, and I am powerless to stop it from imploding at its core." Bulma watched his brow twitch and tremble, squeeze his eyes shut. "You're a fool," he accused, standing with his fists balled. "Wake up!"
Her breath hitched with both fright and pity. She drew near, sitting on the bed with her hands in her lap, watching the King's shallow, sedated breaths. He did not look like the beast who commanded a ruthless empire, only a man at the end stage of his life, and here he was alone, with no one to grieve him.
Her head snapped to the Prince when blue flickered in her vision. Against all logic, the Prince was powering up his ki, molten blue rippling off his body. He clenched his fist, a ball of ki turning on its axis in his palm, with only the singular intent of blowing the tower to smithereens revealed in the gleam in his eyes.
She jumped up, grabbing his fist, and closed it with her own. She gaped with disapproval. "No!" She whispered furiously. "They'll know it was you."
The blue light of his ki flickered on their faces. His eyes, black embers, stared at her accusingly before his fist balled tight in her palms.
Finally, he reabsorbed his ki and turned away from her sharply, shoulders taut with unshed violence.
And all at once, something aligned in him, and he whipped back around, striding over to his father and ripping the crown off his head. Bulma gasped sharply. The Prince clutched it and whirled, throwing her over his shoulder and plunging out the window.
He used his ki to cushion their fall as they landed, and ran over the rooftops, sprinting all the way south back to his quarters.
Only when they were perched over his window did he bother to glance around for guards, but they were focused only on what was in front of them, not above, and he bounded over the edge, twisting and grabbing the ledge with his free hand and swooping them right through the window. He tossed her onto his bed, yanked his curtains closed, and began pacing anxiously, staring at the crown in his hands.
Gohan scrambled in. "Bulma!"
She made her way toward him, squeezing him. "I'm okay," she assured him, though her trembling voice was less than convincing. The Prince still strode, back and forth, turning something over in his head furiously.
"What are you going to do with it?" She gestured frantically at the crown. "Surely you can't just take the man's crown off his head."
The Prince turned, baring his teeth. "Of course I can't! It's highly illegal! Just as I am barred from seeing him, against penalty of death!"
"What? Why? He's your father, why can't you—"
"That's a good question!" He retorted forcefully.
Her brows knit gently. "Why is he sick? What has he been diagnosed with?"
The Prince's pacing slowed. "I know not. I only know that it is terminal. A transmission found me two years ago to inform me, and I made my way home. It was a fool's errand!"
After a pause, Bulma injected a small notion in the quiet storm that was brewing. "That seems awfully convenient."
Bulma and the Prince's eyes met.
"Indeed." He braced his legs, dangerously still, calculating eyes fixed on hers. "Saiyans are not known to suffer many malaises. We have strong immune systems, thanks to our forays around the galaxy. Often we do not live to old age, but because we live for blood. I cannot recall though the last time my father was involved in any military exercise." He looked down at the gold crown in his hand, the red jewel catching the light.
"Vegeta." It was the first time she'd ever said his given name, and she stepped toward him boldly as if she wasn't aware of the error. "Is the Saiyan immune system tolerable of poison?"
He stiffened.
He looked down at the ground, and then back at her with an arrested look. "The Council."
"Perhaps." Her eyes widened. "How long until his servants wake up?"
"Servants are third class without nearly as strong a defensive reflex. Between now and hours from now, I cannot say."
"And what will they think happened?"
She and the Prince stared at one another.
"I can accuse the Council of it."
Gohan, forgotten, interrupted. "But that's lying!"
"He can't confess," Bulma countered, although reluctantly, glancing at Gohan's fretting face. "Allowing their to be suspicion of him could be detrimental to life on Vejitasei as we know it, to us. It would be the Council's out. They could make Vejitasei even worse than it is now." She and the Prince shared a look, and Gohan looked between them desperately, refusing to believe Bulma would choose immorally, selfishly. "But if you turned the tables on them," she posed, holding her hands out at the Prince plaintively, "this could be your opportunity to begin investigating their intentions!"
"Or to silence them altogether."
She looked at him incredulously. "You mean," she paused, "consolidate power?" At his muteness, she grew more piqued. "You mean, 'silence' them, silence them? Kill them? You want an autocracy?"
"They plan a coup anyway."
She threw her arms out. "What evidence do you have?"
He scowled. "Everything. And nothing." He crossed his arms over his chest. "That is where you came in. What did you find out today?"
Her lips pulled thin. "I was able to breach First Strike's security, but that alone took hours. I haven't found anything except security keys yet."
"That gives me greater initiative to make a move. Now."
Bulma was astonished. "You would take the power out of their hands and place it in your own. Is that not a coup?"
"Their breach of the law has moved them beyond the safety of it. I would only seek to impose they reap what they've sewn."
"That's awfully convenient, given that you don't want anyone to know about your own crimes tonight!"
The Prince stood rigidly, his tone hot. "The Saiyan Empire was not founded on peace and negotiation. We are foremost a nation of military might. That I should act firmly—"
"With violence!"
"—is wholly Saiyan...and therefore, legal," he issued dangerously.
"I don't understand you. First you complain that Saiyans aren't noble and forthright enough anymore, now you wish to plot and scheme your way to the top, like a, like a Council member!"
Gohan cringed. She'd made him mad now.
"Can't you now wrap your small mind around it, Earthling?" The Prince sneered, and Bulma simmered but kept her mouth shut. "The Council can be arrested on regicide and we can temporarily dissolve the Council."
She scoffed at his obviously empty claim of 'temporary.'
"I would have the Elite's automatic support. After all, they are drawn to the one with power. And perhaps even the Kai's, who would wish to avoid any further internal strife, unless they seek to uproot the entire Saiyan political infrastructure. And I would welcome them to try."
"Use the legal process," she begged him. "Don't risk your position any more than you have to."
Her disapproval seemed to goad the Prince into more sadistic heights. "Would you have me kill one of the Council members and claim they had confessed?" He asked her silkily, drawing closer to her. "They chose to end their own life once admitting their egregious sins, I'd say, to further solidify my claim?" He sounded as though he'd already thought it a brilliant scheme. "A nest of vipers, and I would have no choice but to assign myself complete control to keep the empire and my role in it secure. It would be as tradition wanted, my divine right: supported by the military, backed by the endless pockets of the Elites."
"And then what, huh?" She gestured wildly. "Would you reassemble the Council?" At his reluctant disgust, she snorted. "Of course not."
Gohan could clearly watch every one of Bulma's contradictions increasingly needle the Prince. "Need I remind you the Council members were never elected? They were once assigned, now they are bought. There is no risk of destroying a democracy on Vejitasei that does not exist!"
"Then install a rigorous and fair process to appoint officials to the Council!"
"Both my father and I have little power over the Council as it stands," he argued furiously, shoving his face into hers. "Would you have me do nothing? Would you have the Council rule? Because they shall. It is only time until they send me to the edges of the universe to contend with empty threats, or poison me, or kill me outright in the name of Vejitasei itself. They harbor no sentimental feelings toward me, I assure you. They wish to make me a puppet, and if I resist, they would remove me entirely from the situation. So, the Council rules. Where are you? How would you fare? And would you have them negotiate with the Colds? Would you like to be collateral, a commodity, shipped as a good from one Empire to the other? You are very lucky to have been assigned to Vejitasei's Science Wing, little woman. Or are you ignorant to how women fare on the frontlines of war?"
Bulma grew red and shook with outrage. "I am, a far touch better than you!" Her face twisted with fury, and Gohan's own crumpled with concern. "I thought you were avoiding a game of thrones. You keep going at this pace and you're going to find yourself six feet under ground!"
"Are you worried about me?" He smiled brutishly, brushing her jaw with his thumb, a cruel gesture that mocked her earlier affection. She bucked back with revulsion. "Do not be, faithful hound. I am beyond touch. I am attempting to do this within legal constraints, after all." It was a lie, of course. He would only appear to be taking power legally. The crown still hung between his fingers. "If need be, I can simply slay the Council and appoint myself by divine right."
Bulma's lips trembled. "You would have absolute control over everything," she said brokenly. "Without elected officials, without any division of power, it will be one man, one man who has terrified the universe."
His eyes narrowed at her. He was listening to her, though. She was an off-worlder, a slave, a non-Saiyan. But nonetheless, he was arguing; he was trying to see if he could change her opinion.
"A division of power is a weakness," he said with tight control, gaze wandering over her disappointed, crushed expression . "And the Council and Elites are a testament to its deficiencies. I would think you would rather have it this way." He said it as if he were almost affronted.
"I want to help make this universe a better place," she confessed through her teeth, "but I can't if your schemes are bonkers!"
"Who are you to speak of trust?" He hissed. "Besides, I thought you faithful to our cause." He smiled, leaning closer. "After all, you assisted me in absconding with my father's crown." The threat was thinly veiled.
"I didn't think I'd be an accessory to a crime!" She said between her teeth.
"You know how I know you are truly powerless?" He leaned in close so that their noses were touching, looking at her under severe brows, invading her view. "Because you sought to stop me from making that mistake in my father's room. If you were working for the Council or that group of foolish insurgents, you would have let me walk right into my mistake. And that's how I know you have no one else. Helpless," he chomped. His black eyes gleamed wickedly. "You make a good doggy."
She slapped him.
Gohan leapt forward, grabbing her wrist at her side.
"I respected you," she spat, trembling as Vegeta seethed above her. "But not any longer."
They'd never seen his posture so taut, so deeply forbidding. He was no man anymore; the Right Hand of Darkness had finally been revealed to them, straightening at the spine and watching them with loathing from under his eyelashes. "Waiting to do it legally is to wait for the executioners blow," the Prince assured them with deadly force, "and you will help me do it."
"Do you really think so little of me?"
It wasn't a question Gohan had expected from Bulma, but whatever it was, the Prince felt its impact. They shared a look that left Gohan breathless with worry before they both turned away, and Bulma marched past Gohan as if he wasn't even there. He took one last look at the Prince's back, and hurried after her.
Bulma slammed the doors, hollering unintelligibly. She stomped to the bed, ripping a pillow from the top of the coverlets and heaving it at the wall before throwing herself onto the bed. Gohan approached her cautiously, sitting beside her as she buried her head in her pillows.
She pried one from her face and looked up at him. "I can't stay here any longer. We have to escape."
Gohan paled. "I don't think that's a good idea…."
"I can't do this anymore." Her eyes shined with a decades worth of tears. "I'm tired of being in a cage, Gohan," she explained brokenly.
He looked down at his hands, laying limply against his thighs. "Miss Bulma, I don't think...I don't think he thinks so little of you." He glanced between his white hands and her blue eyes, which watched him without their usual luster.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, he wouldn't have bothered listening to what you had to say if he didn't think much of you. I think, I think his arguing with you is an answer to that question."
She stared at the wall, at the wallpaper's coil of gold and red vines entwined in each other. The room was quiet, and dark, one solitary lamp lit on the far side of the room. Everything was shadows, even Him; he couldn't stay still long enough for her to make heads or tails of him, instead just flitting from one form to the other, the shadow of an Empire, a ghost, without substance, without something to grab onto.
"You might be right," she finally resolved, voice worn.
"I know he seems set on this plan, and he seems like a real jerk, but he must think highly enough of your opinion. I think, if you stay, you may eventually be able to get through to him. Even just a little bit." Gohan didn't say what he was also thinking: that the Prince was fond of Bulma.
She smiled up at him, a warbly thing. "You're right, Gohan." She sat up abruptly and threw her arms around him.
"Let's get some sleep, Miss Bulma. We'll talk to the Prince tomorrow. Maybe he will have thought some more about what to do and have came to a different conclusion."
Tonight, Gohan was the one to tread over and turn out the light. Wearily, they undressed with their backs to the other, the bed large enough that despite Bulma's flopping around at all hours, Gohan never felt her. It was why he'd preferred to sleep on the couch in her apartment.
"Good night, Miss Bulma," he said wanly, still chewing on the night's anxieties.
"Good night, Son Gohan," she answered softly, staring at the way the pattern of vines on the wallpaper tangled around the other until, with burning fatigue, she shut her eyes against the image.