Chapter 14

Dizziness. That was the first thing that assaulted him. The blackness of his eyelids gave him no comfort from the sudden wave of nausea that overcame him, yet acted as a shield from the touches of consciousness that buzzed at the corners of his mind. Gingerly he opened one eye, flinching as the bright light from the suns burned his vision. What had happened? Confusion raked over his thoughts as he tried desperately to fight off the dreariness of sleep. His mind was foggy and distant, overcome with uncertainty and disorder. Why could he not remember anything? He could not recognize his surroundings, but heard the sound of a rushing stream. A stream. Water. Blue. That woman!

Immediately Vegeta sat bolt up. His eyes fervently scoured the area around him in search of the abnormal hair color that would give away the woman. His teeth clenched when he noticed her absence. The well familiar sensations of rage and hatred began to creep into his mind and began to smolder. The earth woman had betrayed him…deceived him. A growl left Vegeta's lips, and his carefully guarded eyes narrowed into two perfectly tapered black steel orbs. She had somehow managed to outwit him and escape with his Dragonball.

The thought only made his anger rise. The she devil had bewitched him somehow, made him drop his guard enough for her to sink her elongated nails into and prey upon. She waited until his moment of weakness to strike, like the devious snake she was. He could still taste her on his lips, the warm ambrosia of her venomous essence. His tongue peeked out and tasted her again, overcome with the overpowering surge of lust. His body still tingled where her gentle, weak hands touched, setting his skin on fire in ways no other female had ever done. She had somehow managed to engrave her mark in him, her seal, as his mind was plagued with visions that did little but increase his sexual hunger for her.

Oh yes, she was a sinful little succubus, one deadly enough to try and play him for a fool, and audacious enough to trick him with her innocence and tempt him with her luscious curves and butter soft lips. He would have commended her on her bewitchery and charm had he not been so overcome with his anger of her. She had stolen his Dragonball. There was no doubt in his mind that she went after the others as well. The temptress did not know who she was playing with. He had slaughtered millions before her, her insignificant life would mean nothing more to him but another number to add to the list. She had mocked him, humiliated him, and tried to tempt him with her femininity and therefore must pay the price.

"Deceitful little chit," he breathed out through his nostrils, body shaking with the painfully pleasurable collision of carnality and rage.

Grabbing what remained of his broken armor, his energy swarmed. Like a plague of locusts it surrounded him, licked across his skin and snapped through the air. The ground beneath him easily gave way as he took flight into the skies, cracking and moaning out its grief. He would track her down that was no problem. It was what he did when he found her that consumed his thoughts. Thoughts of murder, death and reprisal brought the fire inside him soaring, but in the same token, the lustful thoughts of sweaty skin and warm thighs burned just as bright. Angered by his own unsure thoughts and the disorder his mind was in Vegeta blasted off in the direction to find the miserable little temptress that dared to attempt to outmaneuver and humiliate the prince of all Saiyans.

"You will not escape my wrath!"

When she reached the little island the first thing Bulma did was attach herself to the lawn chair and immediately grab the radio. The radio crackled with white noise as it desperately tried to pick up a signal. Being light-years away from Earth made it near impossible to create a device capable of reaching across space, but thanks to the brilliant mind of her father, Dr. Briefs, they were able to create a machine skilled enough to pick up the Earth's satellites from the far reaches of space.

With eager fingers Bulma worked the knobs and buttons. Her anxiousness was slowly eating at her, the weight of pressure becoming an unbearable load on her back. She did not want to stay here very long, this would no doubt be the first place Vegeta would come looking for her and she did not want to be here when he came.

Relief struck her when the small radio's picture screen lit up and she recognized the familiar green grass and trees as well as the hideously pink lawn chairs of her back yard. There on the screen stood her father, his face calm and tired from age blinking at her with surprise.

"Bulma my daughter, what an unexpected surprise it is to see you, my dear," her father said. His grey mustache bounced as he spoke.

"Are you well father?" Bulma asked. She had not seen her father in months. Though it was nothing new, she grew used to his absences when she was a child and he went on long work related trips to places like America or Japan. Still it felt different being the one who left home, like it had when she first left to gather Dragonballs. Back then she was still carefree and naïve. When she left for the Dragonballs her father's hair was still a pale blue, but upon her return his hair and mustache were spotted and faded with grey. It had scared her at first, enough to make her stay home for a while and concern over her parents. The lines on his face seemed to grow thicker and more noticeable. However his smile never faded. His warm heart and pleasant grin made him appear younger then he truly was.

"Oh of course, your mother and I are doing just fine, how about you? Have any luck with the Dragonballs?" Dr. Briefs asked.

"Do you know if Son-kun is around?" Bulma inquired, purposely avoiding her father's question. He did not need to know of her troubles and what problems they were facing. If he knew he would be sick with worry and she knew that was the last thing the elderly man needed.

Dr. Briefs gave a quick laugh. It was a pleasant sound, one she admitted she missed hearing. "The boy jumped on the ship as soon as I finished. I never even had time to install the cappuccino maker…."

"He left already? That's great news! When is the expected arrival date?" Bulma beamed.

Dr. Briefs shifted and scratched at his chin in thought. The cat stationed on his shoulder stared blindly at her. When she was young, she had thought that the cat was a permanent attachment to her father since it never came off. The cat must have been extremely old, yet it hardly looked like it had aged a day since she was young.

"I'd say about a day or two." He finally announced.

Bulma's face lightened up tremendously. "That is great news."

"Yes well, he seemed awfully eager to get to Namek, is there anything I should know?"

Sweat began to gather on her brow, but she played it off coolly, wiping it away in an expression that depicted hot weather on Namek.

"We have some slight…difficulty. Son-Kun would be the one to tip the scale in our favor though." She wasn't lying outright, just concealing it in half truths.

"Ah yes, the boy always did have a knack to be more then helpful in dire circumstances," he recalled, "And your mother adores him. Would you like to speak with her?"

Bulma took a nervous look behind her. Any sudden noise caused her to jump. It turned out to be nothing more than a bird squawking to his fellow kin.

"No father, I'm in a bit of a rush, but do tell her I miss her and can't wait to come home."

Her father looked at her skeptically. "Alright dear, I won't keep you then, take care of yourself." His face grew serious. The smile on his face vanished into a somber expression he rarely used. His fatherly instincts had no doubt tipped him off and gave away the true dangers they all were in.

"I will," Bulma sighed dejectedly.

"Good luck, dear."

Then the radio disconnected.

Bulma sat back and breathed in a deep gulp of air. She did not like lying to her father, and wanted nothing more than to speak with him longer. It had been some time since she last spoken to him. He had the ability to calm her whenever she was upset, ever since she was little. He had the remarkable gift of making it all go away. She wished she could still rely on him to make her troubles seem insignificant, but she was an adult now and had to face real life on her own, without the aid of daddy's knee and warm smile.

She stood up and looked around the desolate place. The cave they chose to hide in was not pleasant to look at. The ground was patchy and dry and the gaping mouth of the cave looked like the maws of a ferocious bear trying to devour her. The jagged rocks still smelt burnt and bitter. The char markings on the side brought back the memory of when Vegeta had first abducted her and Kuririn had taken the blow for her.

She made her way inside the cave and rummaged around to the door of her hidden Capsule home. Once inside she gathered the precious things she needed at hand and put them back in to their proper separate Capsules attached to her belt. Screw drivers, nuts and bolts, gears and other odd assortment of tools, wires and machinery filled her tool box. She also made sure to grab the scouter she had been primarily working on the entire trip there. While Gohan and Kuririn thought she had done nothing but drink beer in her underwear the entire time on board the ship, she had actually been spending time fixing and improving the little communication device provided to her thanks to none other than Raditz. She had spent the time studying the contraption, learning all its secrets, and even improved the model. It had taken months because of its previous state, and she only managed to finish it the day before they landed. Being in her underwear and drinking beer was only her way of being comfortable while working. Besides, her one best kept secret was that when she was tipsy, she tended to be a lot more on top of her work.

She had also taken the liberty of learning and memorizing the Galactic Standard. This was the language, both written and oral, that were first programmed into the scouter. She found she didn't like the language very much, it had a very guttural sound when spoken and the words were always spoken with military precision. It was not a conceptual language; no emotion like many of the languages on Earth. It was much like Latin, which is why she inferred it to be a military language. It was not meant to be pretty.

She found another language programmed in the scouter, one that had to have been encrypted manually seeing as it was a whole separate unit attached to the inside of the device. She could not find its name, she thought dismally, but it was much more preferable then the harsh sounding Galactic Standard. It was much more fluent and fell off her tongue much easier. It was also not a phonetic alphabet. Different symbols in the words meant different things, much like the Japanese signatures she learned. There was deep notional imagery in all the words, for example there were four different terms for the word Pride, each having a different level of meaning, and words like Honor and Bravery had the same markings. She hadn't the clue what this language was, but found herself treasuring it like a child who discovered a secret nobody else knew.

Bulma grabbed the scouter and exited the house. It would come in handy later to make sure she was safe. Placing the scouter in a capsule, Bulma then put it in her Capsule container, along with some of the other devices she found lying around; another hover bike, a small jet and of course her favorite toys that made loud booming noises.

As she turned however, the sight that met her froze. There was a shadow casting over her, one not made from any rocks, or even an animal, but one made from a person. She had forgotten to turn on the sensors, and therefore was not able to track that someone had found her. Bulma took a deep gulp and took a step back. The figure before her smirked brutally at her, arms crossed over his broad chest and casting a leering look at her through his cold black eyes. The sight of him made her blood run cold. She had never planned on ever seeing the likes of him again, but fate had other ideas in mind.

She stood before his towering form, blood cold and skin as pale as snow. In her hands she gripped her Capsules, which were now useless to her. Then he opened his mouth, and with the most guttural and filthy voice he dared to speak to her.

"Going somewhere?"