A sigh of wind from beyond the arched windows filled Bulma's nose with dry heat and dust, but she sputtered most with indignation.

The Prince had left for his coronation before her usual 0500 wide-eyed wake up without a word. Without giving Bulma another opportunity to protest to change his mind. Another chance to remind him to be cautious. Or a moment to touch him in support, just for a second, a pat on the back or a squeeze of the shoulder that she didn't know if a Saiyan was capable of fully comprehending but ultimately she wanted for herself.

Bulma's eyes were fixed on the horizon, the hard and merciless countenance of the desert merging and softening at the skyline, the sandy browns and blue gray diluted where they touched.

The Prince was wickedly smart, but he was also hair-pullingly stubborn. He was so convinced that he was untouchable, that he alone was the answer to every ambiguity. Bulma admired his confidence in the face of so much adversity, rooted for him despite his antagonizing her. He was cool, collected...provocative.

But something within her shook in the brief moments, not when he preened and gloated, but faltered. Something tight in her chest that unwound that night on the roof, when they overlooked the city, her hand squeezing his as he gazed uncertainly at his father's tower, unable to escape its suggestion that he was still just a boy. Spurned, insufficient, a tool rather than a son, whose control of his life and sense of self slipped like blood from his hands. That thing in her chest that had been so ruthlessly clamped down over the years loosened as he stalked her in the pallid dark of his room, unsure, malcontent, overcome with an inelegant lack of control. It wasn't when the Prince sneered and monologued that she felt it uncoil, but when he shucked the trappings of what he was supposed to be and became just a man, balking at her infractions on his personal space, stuttering as she uttered the one word he wasn't accustomed to hearing—"no"—and whose immature need to engage her fired a part of her that hadn't felt stirred in years.

If the Prince didn't understand the concepts humble and humility, she'd hoped at least he'd see the advantage of caution today, because their contrary partnership was the strangest kind of friendship, and she needed him to accept her help. To recognize her own need, the need for his safety, the need, the right, to make her own decisions...and then this ubiquitous need that flitted out of sight when she tried to scrutinize it, this burning desire for...for...

But he'd left her without any indication that he cared how she felt, or felt anything in return.

Bulma's jaw tightened.

Gohan looked at her sympathetically, then turned politely away, wincing at her pale glower as it moved over the procession.

Gohan had been right on her heels as the Saiyans surrounded them, protective even while blanching with fear. At dawn, Saiyans had escorted the pair from the Prince's wing of the rolling palace to the Royal Saiyan zve'ra. The harem.

Even as Bulma sputtered beside him, masking her unease and humiliation as they corralled them with curses directed at the Prince and with any luck carried to his ears on an ill wind, Gohan was grateful. He inhaled the arid air that lay thick and oppressive in the hallway, admired the spiny, crooked trees that clung to the sand in the courtyard, and closed his eyelids as another rare gust of a sirocco from outside the enormous windows blasted sand against their cheeks, stinging. Even the wind on Vejitasei was hard and unforgiving.

Though Gohan, too, was filled with misgiving and anxiety, his father was coming. It was just hours now. The Kai's and their hero were perched to arrive between tonight's sunset and tomorrow's dawn to set the Saiyan status quo on fire. All of his family's hard work and all of Earth's suffering led to this moment, this balancing of scales, and Gohan would play his part dutifully.

There was a kind of omnipresent fear conjured just living as an off-worlder with no rights in the capital city of the Empire, and Gohan wasn't so far removed from it that he didn't feel badly for Bulma. This time though, he agreed with the Prince's decision. With a schism so clearly dividing the palace, with every guard standing in the Great Hall to witness the nascent crowning of a new king, the Prince's unoccupied rooms were at risk. In a seraglio nearly forgotten, in a quarter for women and children that hadn't seen any activity for years, Bulma and Gohan were rendered invisible.

But while Bulma was thrown into agitation and discomfort whenever she couldn't control a situation, Gohan, like his father, gazed inward to assess. It was the difference between countering an opponent's move with anger and denial, as both Bulma and the Prince were inclined to do, and accepting the play for what it was worth. He understood that today's jaunt to the harem was simply about biding time. And while Bulma was concerned about being "shepherded by our colonizers to an unknown and hardly alluring future with no form of defense," as she'd grit beside him, Gohan picked up no signs of aggression from their chaperons. It was clear that the stately harem processional wasn't about escorting prisoners. These Saiyans were dressed in robes, not armor, reminding him somewhat of druids with their gold torques and its unsettling, gaping ape maw dangling at their chest. They rang with small bells strung through their tails, giving their procession an air of festivity despite their grave faces. Gohan found it improbable that they would harm a hair on the unlikely black and blue heads that the Prince had ordered all for himself. Filing toward unknown corners of the palace while sandwiched between a dozen Saiyan guards was actually quite safe, he wanted to remind Bulma. It was ancient, unquestioned ritual, and Saiyan's were nothing without pride for their heritage. And so Gohan, with the patience and perception of his father, surveyed, analyzed, drew conclusions, and had faith.

Despite Bulma's blustering and the threat of the Saiyan calvacade around them, Gohan was grateful for the fresh air and the heat of the sun on his skin from the morning light, slanting in the windows that loomed over them, Vejitasei's suns winking as they passed each column of sand stone.

"Cheer up, Bulma," Gohan murmured beside her sympathetically. "It can't be too bad."

"I'm sure it's simply opulent," she grumped.

Gohan sighed at her spark of irritation, but it was with a mixture of exasperation and relief. Because even if it were anger and haughtiness and all the things that made up Bulma at her worst, her snappy reply was better than the despondent woman that sometimes looked out at him from damp eyes. Without the will to fight back, she had only the grace and strength of one who'd endured suffering for a great length of time and had accepted that, at any time, her luck would run out. She'd long since learned to withhold her complaints, because disagreements aroused punishment. Gohan's company, at least, had inflated her spirits this past year, thawing a woman who had forgotten the sound of her own voice.

Her own stumble upon First Strike had been the catalyst to all this, anyway, the real blunder. Or was it? Once she'd seen the call for infiltration on the deeply encrypted intergalactic resistance network, once she'd flirted with the idea and disposed of it and then picked it back up and turned it around in her hands and really got a feel for the weight of it, once she'd set her mind and resolve to playing espionage for First Strike, Bulma'd been infused with purpose that had only swelled since being intercepted by the shadowy, coercive Royal in one of many a courtyard in the palatial seat of the Empire. But was having a hand in preventing a coup that could negatively impact the universe so bad? The Prince, even if unintentionally, had given Bulma the opportunity to make small, arguably significant changes to the Empire every time they heatedly debated, and Bulma was helpless to refuse the role. For all her entitlement and privilege and carefree adventuring before Earth's colonization, Bulma wanted responsibility. She wanted purpose. She wanted to help. She responded instinctively to problems that needed some creativity; after all, it was her grandest complaint while working in the Science Wing that innovation and competition led to the silence of one's very life.

Her ambition and assertiveness were reflected in the face of the man who had provided her an out, feeble as it was. But production had come to a stand still, and Bulma was whistling steam. She couldn't keep emotionally stable in their present circumstances, the battleground of the game vacillating and transforming every time she'd figured out the rules. The man who held the cards had his own agenda. Gohan frowned. Vegeta sucked hope out of any hidden space with the crushing mercilessness of a black hole's singularity. He was a fine-tuned instrument of violence. But it almost seemed like he wanted to protect Bulma. Why? Even if he played her to amuse himself and set her on tasks for his sole benefit, his purposes and pleasures were unpredictable. He offered safety in equal measure to the threat of death with every breath. It was no wonder Bulma couldn't find ground to stand on. Gohan couldn't figure out the game, either.

The processional began slowing, and immediately Bulma and Gohan became alert, trying to peer over and around the Saiyans in front of them as they made their way in their gray robes and the hum of hundreds of tiny bronze bells.

Gohan could see her visibly wilt before his eyes as she recognized the stop for what it was. Bulma's mouth worked soundlessly, her tenacity dimming. The Saiyans in the front of the procession came to a halt and turned their massive frames to regard the pair of off-worlders.

Bulma put her hand on Gohan's shoulder supportively. In turn, Gohan put himself in front of her, bracing.

The processional unfolded slowly from the front until opening upon four women, standing stiffly in front of a wrought iron gate in a wall of marble. Two were clearly Saiyan, and much older than Bulma had anticipated, speaking Saiyazim conspiratorially with one another, the ancient Saiyan lexicon.

They scrutinized Gohan as their escorts bowed and began to depart, until one of the concubines broke the silence.

"Who is this Saiyan to you?"

It was a simple enough question, except the woman used the traditional Saiyan pronouns of this and you. The result was a clear delineation between the Saiyan who deserved a proper acknowledgment and the alien who wasn't worth one. Two of their mute slaves behind them took a step towards Gohan, bells tinkling.

"He's my—my son," Bulma stammered, eyes wide, squeezing Gohan close. "You can't take him away from me," she exclaimed with panic. "Vegeta would never allow it. He wants us both."

That seemed to settle them momentarily.

"The Saiyan will be handled by our servants," the oldest Saiyan snipped, her dated Saiyan accent nasal as if pinching her nose, the lines around her eyes and mouth drawing her lips into an unforgiving mien. "We," she gestured to the other concubines, "are in charge of the zvi'tch."

Zvi'tch'hala was a sharper, nastier alternative to off-worlder, which Saiyans generally used to describe any non-Saiyan, while zvi'tch was reserved for particularly intolerable, dirty, and uncivilized aliens. Zvi'tch weren't even off-worlders; their transgression was more severe. Even though this planet wasn't even their original homeworld, and even though most Saiyans were deployed out in the corners of space and not even on world, Saiyans were always a part of their world. Zv'itch weren't made of the same superior, pure elements that were in the blood of all Saiyans. Saiyan being was a collective, it was in the blood. Saiyan's blood represented their culture, their history, and all other Saiyans. To spill and have it spilled was to bring honor, to share it and imbibe it was to consume and be consumed by it. To possess it and be owned by it, to be at its mercy, to be used, to be its most honored tool. Zvi'tch would foul their purity just by speaking of it. Zvi'tch was shit on Saiyan boots.

The allusion to dirtying the Prince by touching him wasn't lost on Bulma. Her mind flashed to the silken clamp of his tail on her thigh, his gaze on her mouth as she bit delicately into the biscuit held between his fingers...Had the feeling between them been real, or had she imagined it? The concubine's snub just confirmed that he should never have touched her, not beyond the cool practicality of using her as an instrument in his war. He should never have kissed her in the moonlight then, for what would he gain from it?

What had she been thinking? Softening to him? Like, like perhaps she had thought, after he'd granted her freedom, that something would remain between them? It was not like he could ever court her openly, not if he wished to avoid damnation, but only summon her from this hell, locked behind wrought iron doors and wetting his thirst for her or anyone else at his whim...

Why did her stomach lurch and rebel, as though rocked with betrayal?

Who had betrayed her? The Prince, or herself?

"I don't see why he wouldn't pick a Saiyan for tribute upon being crowned," the youngest complained to the other women. "Where is his Saiyan pride?"

"Strange tastes," the other murmured. "He was in the Borderlands for so long, perhaps he's accustomed to a diverse palette."

"Perhaps he means to beguile the boy, too?"

"It would not surprise me. He has been consorting with the ground troops in the Borderlands." The concubine's lip curled with distaste. "You know what they say about the third class on the front lines, lonely for women."

"Exotic is one thing, but this?" The youngest Saiyan woman waved her hand with frustration in Bulma's direction. "She's nothing to look at. Certainly nothing so fair or fetching to lie in the Royal Bed upon coronation." The woman's words dripped with envy. "She's just a primitive from a boorish, distant colony."

"You'd better shut your mouth or I'll shut it for you!" Bulma ground out as she stood rigidly in front of them.

"Beauty isn't everything," the eldest concubine interjected, voice dipping low as she moved forward. "Obeisance and good manners will buy your life while bedding a Saiyan. But I see you have none at all."

And she yanked Bulma by her wrist with a vice-like grip, hauling her through the zve'ra gates.

"Get your hands off me!" Bulma tugged and dug in her heels, but slow and chronic starvation was winning this battle. She simply didn't have the strength to resist, and by the slump of her shoulders, her knees unlocking, Gohan watched Bulma submitting reluctantly to being dragged as he was led less forcibly to another area of the harem. Stay strong, he urged.

"You are neither refined nor gracious," the eldest chided Bulma as she wrenched her down the hall. "Show respect for our great culture, or we will beat it into you. You will not displease the heir and bring shame on us."

Overcome with fatigue and despair, Bulma yielded.

She allowed herself to be pulled to a bath room, grit her teeth as they stripped her, sputtered as they pushed her down into the bath water. It was slick with oil, the steam curling at the surface, an acrid scent like sulfur and tossed mint and dates overpowering her.

"I am perfectly capable of bathing myself!" She hissed upon coming back up for air, spraying water through her teeth.

"I do not see why you were chosen for this great privilege," the woman griped, scrubbing soap in Bulma's hair with hard fingers. "Unless it's true what they say about the young King, and how he exists only to find the fissures and cracks in rock so that he can pour himself into it like ice and tear it asunder." The woman's eyes flicked up to Bulma's red-eyed glare without sympathy, pouring hot water over her head. "I suppose it's fitting that he means to break an off-worlder, though. In that light, taming and spearing you seems a fitting display."

Bulma's eyes widened with shock as the eldest concubine shoved her under the water for the last time.

All else happened in a fog. A bronze comb ran through her hair, parting tangles savagely. They wrapped her in a gauzey, black gown, just two long bolts of fabric draped each over her shoulder, pinned at the waist and hips with a shorter bolt, like a geisha's obi. She watched glassily as they linked a sinuous belt of gold at her hips, the snarling face of an Oozaru draped over the juncture at her thighs. Then they set the arch of her feet into long leather thongs, wrapping it round her calves, the leather soft against her legs.

When she looked down at herself, she could see her nipples faintly through the sheer silk. Bulma's mouth moved to protest the exposure, but no sound was left to come out. Its intention was obvious. And unbeatable.

"Silence and submission," she heard distantly as they wrapped her like a present. "An off-worlder's fealty and reverence is most attractive to a powerful Saiyan. That is the protocol by which you behave, or you will be disposed of like trash. You are to be simpering, not coy. Saiyan's desire to lead. Let him position you, let him set the pace. Do not complain of any pain, should you wish to live beyond this night. That is most abominable. Praise him for his great strength during the act, and shower him with gratitude after his release."

Bulma felt a burble of indignation boil over from its simmer in her chest. "Not happening!"

Bulma felt the heat of the slap without ever seeing the hand.

It wasn't a rags-to-riches makeover to woo a prince. It wasn't dreamy or glamorous or exciting. It was re-traumatizing. It was reliving the days she had first been seized from her home and treated like disposable goods on one of many Saiyan vessels. It was being made to heel, made small, made transparent. It was becoming less than a person until she had nothing of herself left at all.

The youngest woman leaned in, an off-worlder herself, and glared at her spitefully. "The Prince will crush you. It's more than you deserve, being his play thing for the night. Show some pride."

Another woman pulled her hair. "Do not embarrass us."

And then the eldest concubine, a small terracotta bowl in her aged grip, dipped her thumb into it and drew a bold line under each of Bulma's eyes with red paint, tracing across the angle of her cheekbones. Her thumb was dry and swift, and with her crooked pointer finger, she traced the cupid's bow pout of Bulma's lip with a single line of red pitch to the wet center of her mouth.

Finally, they drew a polished silver tray from the wall, sitting it against the wall. And Bulma, for the first time in almost a decade, confronted her image in a mirror.

She stared, her gaze raking slowly over a reflection she hadn't seen in eight years. Her hands touched the person in the mirror, and she dragged them across her hip, feeling her self even though the stranger's body she was seeing couldn't seem further from her own. Her breasts still stood full under the thin black gauze, and she blinked at them. Symbols of sex and motherhood, two things that had been removed from her future as dispassionately as sterilization. Her breasts and the shadow of hair between her hips under the sheer fabric seemed vastly absurd. Parts of her that were unnecessary. Parts of her that were dangerous to have.

Her feet moved her forward toward the reflection, her hands grazing the bruised circles under weary, paranoid eyes.

She could endure the women's brutalizing. It was part and parcel of any Saiyan experience, intimidation and assault the flavor by which Saiyans spiced their lives. She would never surrender to these women, who were blind to their bondage and sour with false privilege.

It wasn't because of them that she began to cry.

It wasn't the disappointment and resentment festering inside her towards the Prince, who flaunted his control of her with little respect for her, his puppet, dancing to his whim on his strings. Despite his lips on her neck, his tail unwound, his admission of desire...his affection did not exist without his using her. His warmth, his foresight for her welfare, sharing his food with her...The thing clenched tight around her chest again, and hatred made it hard to breathe...It was all an exchange, and she had to give up parts of herself to beg for scraps of his niceties. The harem, she had thought, was surely the final thing the empire could do to reduce her and rip away the last remnant of who she'd ever been.

It wasn't just that she may have had a scrap of dignity and pride left and that it throbbed with violation.

But that it twisted the knife, the knife of her own desire, held by the object of it.

For that, and for the thing that stared back at her in the mirror—it was for herself that she could not endure it any longer, and that she could not forgive.

Bulma began to sob.

She dimly registered one of the concubines clucking under her breath as they put the mirror away, the words "dumb thing," "uncivilized" and "never before seen a mirror" murmured in Saiyam.

Bulma's legs gave out from under her, and in her kidnapper's finest silks, she cried raggedly at the irony of it all.

"You look handsome, Gohan," whispered Bulma as he sat quietly with his legs folded beside her, but it took her a moment to gather her energy and glance up at him with red rimmed eyes so he knew it wasn't just a cursory compliment. "You look like the Saiyan you are." She couldn't stop the humorless chuckle which followed.

Gohan crossed his arms across his chest, but then gave into curiosity and pulled at his own suit, the white boots and the thong that tied his unruly hair back at his neck, his hands on evidence of his complicated and unwanted heritage.

"Well, I'm all gussied up now. I think they've indoctrinated me," she chuffed wryly, meeting his gaze with her trembling one, trying to lighten the situation, to make their circumstances less hard on him.

"This is temporary," he assured her with boyish optimism.

He was trying. Kami bless him, he was trying so hard to make her feel better when he was rattled himself.

"Vegeta wouldn't force you to be a, a—" Gohan blushed.

"Wouldn't he?" Bulma rested her chin on her palm. "Saiyans are good at one thing: shows of power and displays of force. He's not any more dignified than the rest of them." She seemed to deflate even further. "Let's be real: he kidnapped us and forced us to work for him. He forced us into his seraglio. He wasn't protecting us, he was using us, and now he's putting us back on the shelf until he needs to use us again." Bulma's face grew dark. "A Saiyan doesn't spend his time tiptoeing around an off-worlder's feelings, least of all the King of the bastards." She wrapped her arms around herself, the anger on her face fading. "I'm just so tired of being someone's property, Gohan. First the Empire's, now its scion. My body is not my own." Her voice was weary and hollow. "I know I should be strong for you," she admitted into her lap, "but I'm just so tired."

"You'll be free soon," Gohan inserted uncertainly, patting her knee. "Dad's coming. Even if the Prince wanted to force you to stay, he can't say no to Dad. If he can't convince him, Dad will make him let go of you."

Bulma snorted. Then looked away sullenly. "I guess it's for the best I never had children. I'm not cut out for taking care of another person, most of all myself." Her vision watered. "I can't protect you. All of my attempts to save myself I fumbled. In this era, when so many have no voice and the rule of law is just physical power, I can't survive. What good am I in this universe? Why stick around at all?"

Bulma, legs folded under her and forehead resting against the wall, seemed to be making herself smaller and smaller. Her skin pale against the black gauze, the ape on her belt roaring against her thin and trembling fingers as she trailed her fingers over it, its simple juxtaposition all that the Saiyan Empire was and she wasn't.

Gohan set his jaw, even if it trembled.

He had always been sheltered by an adult. If not his parents, then Bulma.

He would carry them both through the fires if he had to.

Bulma had watched the sun out the window intensely for over an hour. Gohan was becoming sleepy with it, when suddenly, in the middle of the hostile silence of the back room to which she had retreated, Bulma bolted out of her seat, jaw tight and eyes shining.

And then hopped up onto the windowsill and pushed herself out the window.

Gohan jumped up frantically.

"Where are you going?" He struggled to keep his panicked voice at a whisper, leaning out the window.

Bulma crouched in the sand before standing. She scowled, her eyes gleaming with determination. "I'm waiting for your father far away from this purgatory."

Gohan whitened.

"You better keep up if you know what's good for you!"

"That's not a good idea," he argued, a pleading note threaded through.

"Look, Gohan," she snipped while trudging away, and with a guilty glance back into their empty room, he dove out the window and scrambled after her.

"Ongdala is almost at its peak—" she pointed to the middle sun—"and even if it's reckless and stupid, I can't take it anymore. I'm done. I was done eight years ago," she corrected, voice breaking.

Suddenly the ground rumbled under foot and a concussive blast boomed, popping their ear drums before the following rush of air slapped them. They both smashed their hands against the wall to keep themselves upright, their hearts racing as they heard screams from within.

Gohan and Bulma stared at one another, the whites of their eyes clearly visible and not daring to breathe for the long, long moment the cracks and peals of a violent thunder climaxed and then cantered to silence.

They heard distant voices, orders given, and then the rooms they had escaped only minutes ago were quiet as a grave.

Gohan's eyes were wet, but his brows knit with growing fury. "Those were Saiyan voices," he whispered.

"Why would they attack the harem?" Bulma couldn't catch her breath. "Why would Saiyans kill royal concubines?" During the coronation, which every Saiyan in the palace would be attending.

Blood wafted on the breeze, the blasts still ringing their ears.

It didn't make sense. The harem hadn't been used in years. No one of consequence or power resided there. All it was currently was a reverent symbol of the King's power.

Bulma's eyes widened. "They're purging the palace."

Gohan stared at her in horror.

"But why—"

"They're eliminating royal influence and tradition. Saiyans are attacking Saiyans and liquidating royal property." Bulma could feel her heart hammer in her chest, her hands tremble as the reality of it descended on her. "They don't intend on allowing Vegeta to ascend at all!"

Bulma rushed to the window ledge, but Gohan tugged her arm and shook his head. "You don't know if anyone's still in there. They could have posted someone on guard."

"We have to warn Vegeta!" Bulma was frantic now. "How do we get out of here?" Her thoughts buzzed and spun.

Gohan looked grim, then looked away, jaw tight. When he turned back to Bulma, he revealed a look of defeat that was unsettling to see on a face that so clearly looked like his father's. "Bulma, what help could we possibly be?" He gestured around them. "Neither of us are powerful enough to defend ourselves from even a third class Saiyan. The palace is probably crawling with those guys. And if we got to Prince Vegeta, what would we do? We need to stay here to protect ourselves and let my dad do the work."

"I can't believe the words that are coming out of your mouth right now," she replied hollowly. "I'm so very disappointed in you, Gohan. People's lives are at stake! And we have to warn him! The Guard has turned against him. He thinks they're loyal, and they're the ones guarding the damned coronation!"

Tears welled in his eyes now. "I'm just trying to be sensible and keep you alive!"

She growled, trying to contain the sting of her urgency. "If we don't try to do something, your father may have nothing left to save."

Goku scowled and looked away, turning it over in his head. "We'll be killed," he argued. His father was almost here. He needed to leave it all to him. Gohan was untested, untrained. He didn't want to hurt anybody. He wasn't a killer. What could he do?

"I can't sit around and do nothing. I can't stand to even think of him being confronted..." She bit her lip. "And what about the innocents in the palace? The women who lay dead just behind this wall? The price of saving our own hides is the death of others. I'm scared, too, Gohan, but how is that right?"

That seemed to shake Gohan. "I can't believe they'd do that." His hand fisted against the wall. "How could they?" He asked brokenly.

"And they'll only kill more!"

Gohan couldn't kill.

But he could defend.

He was a Saiyan, after all.

He grasped Bulma's arm and ran toward the window. "Let's go."

Bulma was yanked back by the back of her dress, choking her, and she grit her teeth, glaring daggers at Gohan.

"Sorry," he apologized, looking sheepish. "But look. There." He pointed down the hall. "Third doorway on the right."

The Earthlings hovered inside the deep recess of the doorway, protected by shadows. Bulma remembered the layout of the palace from her foray into the Military Wing, but vaguely, and they'd slipped in and out of doorways and rooms to avoid Guard members since poking their heads out of the gates of the harem. The palace was eerily empty, but the silence was pocked with interims of distant screams and the crack of ki.

Sure enough, down the hall stood two men, bodies of dead Saiyans littered around them. Not Guard members this time, but off-worlders, their armor markedly different from the Saiyans. The shoulder plates and codpieces were long and pointed, their skin vibrantly orange and purple, and each had an Imperial scouter over their ear.

They were PTO soldiers.

Cold mercenaries.

"What did the brass say?" The purple one's voice rang throughout the hall, but it was more of a complaint than a query.

"Orders are from the Saiyan Council itself."

"Is it true they've formed an alliance with these Saiyans? Ain't that a mockery."

"Shut your mouth and do as your told, or there'll be nothing left of you when it comes time to collect your paycheck."

"All I'm saying is this better be worth it."

The two off-worlders flew down the hall together. Silence filled the hall until their ears rang with it, and Bulma and Gohan let out a breath.

"The Guard. The Council. Royals. Elites." Bulma listed in shock. "That's most of the palace. That leaves only the Judges, the military, and any other first class Saiyans from outside the palace invited to the ceremony. And now there are mercenaries in the palace. Could our odds get any worse?"

"Even if everyone in his court were to turn on him...even if they're backed by the Cold Empire..." Gohan pondered out loud. "I don't know that the Prince would step down." Gohan watched her, voice tight. "He'd only see it as an even better challenge."

"No." It came in a rush from her mouth. "An alliance like that..." Against a man incapable of surrender. The Empire, and Vegeta, would fall.

Bulma stared down at the pool of blood leaking from a nearby Saiyan servant, widening, reaching its fingers toward her feet.

"Goku needs to arrive now," Bulma grit. "Vegeta might be strong, but he's only one man. He can't hold against so many."

"If there are mercenaries already on the ground," Gohan considered with growing unease, "then they had to have come from somewhere. Backup. Out there." The pair looked out the window at the cloudless sky.

"Or hiding under our noses. There are plenty of off-worlders here. They could blend in easily."

They glanced outside the windows at the city's blinking lights.

Gohan and Bulma shared a look, and then slipped out of the shadows, racing as quietly as possible over the dead, toward the Hall.

She should have known it was too easy.

They'd made their way from the east wing of the palace to the south without any confrontations, hiding when required and sprinting down empty halls.

It figured that once they'd reached the stairs to the Hall they'd be caught.

They watched from behind a corner, gaping, as the PTO soldiers swiftly executed the off-worlder servants outside the Hall.

"No," she mouthed, and Gohan cried out silently.

They mean to kill everyone, not just those who support the monarchy, Bulma thought, mouth dry.

And just then, one of the PTO soldiers looked up, eyes locking on Bulma's.

Bulma felt her heart stop.

"Runaways," he said playfully, and floated toward them.

Bulma couldn't catch her breath. She skittered backwards on her hands and feet, rising to her knees to bolt when she was grabbed by the hair and dangled in front of a grinning alien.

It took a second to recognize the growing amber light from the corner of her eye. The PTO soldier caught on as she did, but not quick enough. She only had a split second to see Gohan's enraged face as he burst with ki, shoulders scrunched with uncontrollable anger as a beam of energy shot from his palm, his fingers curled into claws around it. It went right through the mercenary's chest as easily as a bullet through cream.

"Run, Bulma! I'll hold the last one off!"

It was shouted with such fierce resolve that she immediately shot to her feet and scampered for the Hall.

She couldn't just go through the doors. She knew from pouring over the map of the Hall with Vegeta that through those doors lay the entry chamber, where there would be dozens of Royal Guards to run her through.

There were stairs, though, that led to second floor box suites. Empty, Vegeta had said. No one was allowed to be higher than the Prince during his coronation.

She glanced around in a frenzy.

And saw the stone staircase curling around the wall until it met a dark, recessed doorway.

She ran, feet slapping on marble. A bolt of excitement jolted her as her feet met cool stone, up, up, up, but a shaft of ki ripped through the air in front of her. Bulma skidded to a stop and blinked, the scent of ozone and singed hair blanketing her.

She choked, spinning around to see the one who shot it, and, in slow motion, watched him fire off one more. She almost froze up, almost—but threw herself back instead, her feet slipping on the edge of the stairs.

As if swimming, Bulma fell backwards, arms outstretched, spinning.

The energy beam darted above her and found its mark against the wall, scorching it.

She let out a squeal as her hand clamped over edge of the stair, and she swayed, dangling.

She reached out and grasped the edge with her other hand, and it bit forcefully into her palm.

Her shoulders aching with her weight, Bulma continued to claw her way upward, trying to heave herself over, bare toes almost finding purchase on stone...

She heard him before she felt him, the whoosh of air as he cut through it before his arms wrapped around her waist and he hauled them both upward, out of the line of sight of the guards who were racing around the corner.

"In here!" He was peeling back a door at the top of a flight of stairs.

Bulma pushed in behind him, causing them to both fall to the floor, but Gohan closed the door quickly and quietly.

"The Hall," she breathed.

They had done it.

The air was clammy in the balcony suite of the Hall. It was dark, and a few chairs, upholstered in red velvet, hid them from view.

Tentatively, they crawled forward on their bellies, and the balcony grew closer.

Then they crouched on the balls of their feet, peering from between the spaces in the veranda.

A sea of Saiyans. Hundreds and hundreds of them, hair black as raven's wings and all fitted in their best armor. They were staring forward in their seats with the solemnity of a church service, cleaved in half by an empty aisle running through the crowd. A long, vividly red carpet had been unrolled down its path. It drew her gaze to the front of the hall, up the dais steps, to the half-circle of robed Saiyans in the back watching the one planted in its center in the pool of sunlight.

He took her breath away.

His suit fit him as if they'd poured it molten over his hard body, wet and deepest black. A scarlet sash hung low on his hips, knotted at his hip like a scarf. Her mouth parted as she drank in the sight of him. Saiyans were no strangers to body forming gear, and not even Royals, who couldn't be conscripted, went without it. But there was something essentially dangerous and revealing about this suit, the sensuous fit for private eyes. His gloves and boots weren't the standard bright white but blackest black, but a pure white cape fluttered from his strong shoulders to the marble floor. Nothing Vegeta did wasn't well-considered, and Bulma wondered at the significance of the cape draping against a strong black field, immaculate, snowy white behind the dark body of the empire itself. The gold circlets round his round biceps gave him the air of a barbarian king, but his bearing was fiercely aristocratic, proud and unapproachable. His posture was unmistakable: he was a threat to all of them in the room simply by existing. He was intimidation, desire, and power made flesh.

Her gaze caressed upwards and lingered on the large mask that completed it, his straight nose and assured jaw beneath it. The mask was adorned with twisted, thick horns—Bulma recognized the horns from the massive creatures in the murals that Oozaru were often depicted fighting—and the toothy upper mandible of an ape in a crown atop his head. She held her breath before releasing it in a gush.

He was beautiful.

She watched the sunlight streaming in through the high windows fill his palm like water, his blood dripping on the flagstones.

Vegeta put his cupped palms to his lips and drank it.

The hall was hushed at the improvised gesture. In his palms he contained the fierce sun and the blood of the empire, held tenderly, before knocking it back and consuming it.

It was a staggeringly clear threat:

Kill me and you kill the empire itself.

I am the empire.

Bulma was pulled from the spectacle by movement from the corner of her eye. Along the walls, in the shadows as the audience gawked at the new King, the Royal Guard began drawing their ritual swords.

"Now, Gohan!" She cried with panic.

Before she knew it, she'd braced her knees and perched, hanging from the ledge, her hair flying back with the gusts from the windows.

Gohan scooped her up and jumped.

They landed in the center of the aisle, red carpet cushioning the jarring landing.

Bulma wasted no time.

"Vegeta!"

Her voice rang out in the silent hall.

The dark figure turned his face to her, standing motionless, the breeze rustling the bottom of his cape, gaze indecipherable under his mask but weighing heavily on her.

"They're killing them all! Everyone outside this hall is dead! Cold mercenaries are clearing the palace. The Royal Guard and the Council has betrayed you!" She jabbed her pointed finger at the doors, where the Royal Guard was peeling from the walls with swords drawn, stalling as the King turned his dark gaze on them.

In an instant, he saw and assessed it all. The Guard, who had betrayed him; the Judges who stood and watched, gaping with disbelief; the panic of the Elites; but mostly, he fixated on the lone woman who stood in the center of the empire surrounded by all its most powerful players, in see-through black silk and shocking blue, blue hair. The world narrowed, and his gaze raked her. He saw the fists clenched at her sides, the urgency on her face, and recognized undeniable concern in eyes whose hue was deep as polished cobalt. The curve of her bare legs and hips, braced wide from her flight, the outline of her breasts and the thatch of hair at the juncture of her thighs, eyes ablaze over the fierce red markings that marked her the crowned Prince's. Harsala izu, his, in the black and red of his House, and bold as any Saiyan. The image spoke to his blood as clearly as if she'd said outright, "I'm yours," and a bolt of unwieldy, violent possessiveness seared him.

Then it was quick. The ache became a catalyst to rage, crackling, lashing fury leashed for far too long. His shoulders stiffened around his ears, his legs bracing.

"Get her out of here now!" Vegeta roared, his voice barely carrying over the shrill, thunderous vacuum of his increasing ki. Bulma saw it all in slow motion—the Judges in the front row standing, turning their backs to Vegeta in order to defend him; the Royal Guard pulled from the walls, short swords drawn; the Council bolting upwards, shouting for the Guard and Elites to attack.

And then Gohan barreled into her with his shoulder, already lifting off the ground and above Vegeta to shoot through the enormous arched windows behind them. It was a calculated move, ensuring Vegeta could suppress any last-minute attacks.

And the Emperor of the Saiyan Empire began his upward spiral toward his furthest limits of ki.

Toward killing them all.

AN: Hello! This one was hard to write. I had so much I had to balance, and writing sad Bulma was sad. But it has its purpose. Also, yeah, it's been a long time. During the holidays my computer crashed and deleted all my work (FOUR chapters of Hookups), and the new year wasn't very kind to me, so I took a break from life. I am actively working on this story and a one-shot, so there's more to read in the pipes. I hope you'd let me know if you appreciated this chapter and welcome me back from a half year hiatus with a review. It would be nice to feel missed. ;-;