Warning: This chapter contains graphic violence and is somewhat dark in nature.

Saturday, Part I.
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Vegeta was awake in his bed ever since 4:30 AM, and the lone clock on the wall now pointed its hands to 7AM. He cast a glance at the clock - he was supposed to be in his gravity room two hours ago.

Two hours. Gone to waste.

Rays of sunlight were now overstaying their welcome as they crept along his face. With a grumble, he shut his eyes when the sunbeams finally invaded his sight. The sun was taunting him for staying under the sheets; it knew that he should have been tossing punches and throwing roundhouses right now, underneath the beautiful watch of 600 G. Unfortunately, all he had was 20 G - and to train under 20 G would be infidelity, not to mention a travesty.

Instead of being up and about, he had been thinking about his course of action with someone who was too insignificant to be in his thoughts in the first place. If it wasn't for her, he would be wooing his love of training right now, instead of mulling over what he was going to do.

His modes of training were now obsolete. There was no Kakarotto to spar, and now thanks to the third class' wife, there was no gravity room.

He had nothing.

He had nothing, and it was all her fault.

Vegeta snarled at the thought.

In one fell swoop, he tore the light cover off of his body. She surely had to know about the problem her big mouth had caused. If only she didn't provoke him, if only she didn't tell Bulma about what happened, if only—

Yes. There was no doubt about it. She created this problem. In Vegeta's eyes, being the cause of a problem was as bad as being the problem itself.

So it was in his best interest to rectify the problem.

Without batting an eye, he jumped out of the bed and bent at the waist, going straight into a hamstring stretch. He followed with extending his left leg into a split, anchoring his balance with perfection.

But wait.

Why was he stretching?

He didn't have to stretch to take care of this particular problem.

An arrogant smirk crept along his lips when he concentrated his ki beneath his feet. He glanced at the window to his right - then blasted straight out of the room, breaking the glass with ease. Even though the raging wind of his aura whipped around his face, threatening to erase his expression, the smirk still remained as he casually picked off the small shards of glass on his suit.

"To hell with what Bulma thinks," he growled to himself. "To hell with what they all think. Kakarotto's wife is going to pay."

Setting ice-washed linen to crisp in the breeze was a favorite chore of Son Chichi. It soothed her to clip neat, hemmed edges onto clotheslines so carefully strewn amongst the boughs of trees. While most people found dripping as an annoyance, she found it refreshing when droplets of water snuck down her arms and rolled upon her stomach. To top it off, the fragrance that always lingered afterwards was the one of Home. It was a sweet, light blend of her, her sons, and laundry detergent - and it never failed to comfort her.

Chichi finished hanging up the clothes and wiped her hands dry on her apron. "All done," she sang. She picked up the wicker basket she used to bring out the clothes, and propped it against her waist. A smile of satisfaction kissed her lips as she evaluated her work. There was nothing like a sea of cotton sheets fluttering against a dawn sky filled with creamy yellows and pastel azures. The few stars glimmering in the Western sky were challenging the breaking daylight – a cheeky reminder that the morning was still young.

One of those stars, strangely enough, seemed to be darting across the sky; it also seemed rather close to the Earth. It caught Chichi's adept attention with ease. She shielded her view and squinted up at the sky. What was that? Was it Gohan?

It had to be.

She smiled at her now fleeting doubt. Who else would it be? Gohan had left about 10 minutes ago to go find some fish for breakfast – but it looked like he was back early. It usually took him about half an hour to bring back a good haul.

No matter. He was just getting better at what he was doing. He was her son, after all.

"Gohan!" she cheerily yelled to the flashing shot across the sky. "That was a lot faster than usual! You must be especially hungry this morning, hm?" With a bright chuckle, she turned so she could head inside to start up breakfast. If Gohan was picking up his pace, she had to as well.

A soft thud alerted her that the person came into contact with the ground - and Chichi then knew it wasn't her eldest son.

"Oh?" came a throaty masculine voice from behind her. "Going back inside already?"

Vegeta.

Chichi snapped around and scowled at the man who was very much not Gohan. "We didn't arrange anything for the children," she spat. "What are you doing here?"

"You don't have the privilege of asking questions."

Vegeta was trying his best to be as calm as possible. He was keeping both his rage and his ki down; any sudden wrong moves and Gohan would reach them without delay. He had already sensed the boy in the vicinity, and an altercation with him would be entirely unnecessary. He needed to get to Chichi. Alone.

Vegeta took a swift step to close the gap between them, and his vicious glare followed. "You told Bulma about Monday," he hissed in a low voice. "You told her, and now I can't use my gravity room."

Chichi took a step backwards by instinct, but she still couldn't help giggling at how spoiled Vegeta was sounding. "Wait, let me get this right – she's punishing you, then?" Her giggle ballooned into a full blown bout of laughter. "How sad!"

Through the words, Chichi overlooked the fact that Vegeta wrongly accused her of tattling. How could any of the accusations sink in when he was being so childish?

A ruthless slap cut across her face and dragged her back to harsh reality. "Your laughter tells me that you do not value your life," he said with cold complacency. The basket hugging against Chichi's waist fell to the ground in an unpleasant crash; she had brought her hands to her cheek, shocked by the act.

"I'd hate to make Kakarotto happy by sending you to him so soon. Now, tell me why you ran your idiotic mouth."

The slap forced her back into using common sense, and she remembered his earlier words. That's right, he accused her of telling Bulma that he hit – no, abused her.

"I didn't tell Bulma a damned thing!" she rebuked. Although her cheek was smarting, her eyes were illuminated with the vehement glint of rebellion. She tore her hands away from her cheek and drew them into heavy fists at her sides.

Vegeta glowered at Chichi and cracked his knuckles using his thumbs. Impatience was now chipping away at his barely composed demeanor. "Of course you wouldn't understand something as simple as this, so allow me to spell it out. There's no possible way Bulma would have known about Monday unless you told her. Do you take me, the Prince of all Saiyajin, for a fool?"

With a sudden streak of boldness, Chichi stepped forward in defiance. "I'm not a piece of delicate china, Vegeta. I was one of the 8 finalists in the 23rd Budokai Tenkaichi! That grip you used on me would never hurt me to point of wanting to tell Bulma about it. I didn't even think twice on it!"

"Don't lie to me, you pathetic woman."

"I don't have to tell you anything. You're the one who overstepped your boundaries that day!"

Talking down to Vegeta was without a doubt the fastest way to release his temper. "What?" he shouted. "I overstepped my boundaries? A human woman such as yourself has no place saying that I, of all people, overstepped my boundaries!"

"I said it once, and I'll say it again." She rolled up her sleeves and put her hands on her hips, looking every bit the Spartan-like mother she was. "You overstepped your boundaries!"

This statement dropped a myriad of bricks into the dam of pride holding back Vegeta's anger. A menacing snarl was his only tell as he formed a white ball of ki in his hand with incredible speed. He flicked his wrist, and the ki sailed towards the woman, stopping sheer centimeters away from her bust. Playing nice with her was a fool's errand; force was now necessary. "You will tell Bulma that nothing happened on Monday, woman."

Chichi turned her head a margin to the left and squinted her eye. The ball's energy was lashing into her face; the front of her dress shuddered in the wind it created. Its fury was staring her in the eye, but she stood her ground. She would kill herself before she bent to the will of Vegeta. After all, she knew that he was the one jumping to irrational conclusions, not her. "I'm not going to lie for someone like you!"

"What's that? You won't?" The Saiyajin surveyed her with a stony gaze, then broke out into a murderous grin. "I'll enjoy this, then."

He gave a slight tick of his hand – and shot the ki into her chest.

Chichi flew like a rag doll into the house, making a sickening crunch against the brick. Her body made the change from rag doll into rubber ball; she bounced off of the now shattered brick and fell into a limp pile on the ground. She laid still for one, sole moment, collecting herself and evaluating her injuries.

Air. That's what she needed. Air. She desperately clutched at her chest, trying to wheeze in all the precious air she could. "Vegeta," she growled through a whisper.

Vegeta frowned. With a blast like that, she was supposed to break all the way through the brick of the house. It seemed that she was tougher than he expected. He was already loathe to admit his miscalculation, but to his chagrin, his subconscious still found a small thrill knowing that she was stronger than what he thought. Ah, well. At the very least, her hip should be broken.

He took a casual stroll towards the back of her body and roughly nudged her hip with his foot. Chichi grit her teeth at the contact. "This is what a broken pelvic bone feels like. Painful, isn't it?" Satisfied with her distress, he dug the toe of his boot into her hip with unyielding pressure.

The woman let out a sob.

"Don't worry, I'll be sure to break more of your bones - unless you agree to tell Bulma nothing happened."

Chichi was in pain, but she was conditioned with far worse before. More than enough of her wits were still about her, and she knew Vegeta wouldn't expect her to make any of the next moves she had planned.

"I'm not going to do," – a pant of breath – "any favors for you!" Calling on a store of energy she hadn't used in eons, she rolled backwards to end up behind him, and slammed her forearm into the back of his knees.

Vegeta was on the ground before he could realize it.

He was nowhere near hurt, but he was everywhere near shocked. He scampered to all fours and gaped at Chichi in bewilderment. She was now kneeling, facing him and still looking at him with that same heated defiance. His mouth was moving, but no words came out. Unbelievable. He leaned back to sit back on his haunches, as he tried to understand what exactly happened.

How could this woman have knocked him off his feet? Was she that fast? That strong? No, it couldn't be. He couldn't have miscalculated her that much.

Vegeta was speechless.

And whenever Vegeta was rendered speechless, he resorted to what he knew best. Fighting.

He snatched Chichi's forearm with one hand and lifted it high enough to scoot his other hand underneath her elbow. He pushed it forward in a slow show, stressing the joint without remorse and perversely enjoying the torment scrawled across her face. "I bet you think you're clever, doing a cheap move like that," he said through a sneer. "I hope you didn't think you were actually going to hurt me."

Chichi smiled to herself. This was exactly where she wanted him. She flung her leg forward and unleashed her foot into Vegeta's groin with remarkable force.

Both of his hands flew to his groin, freeing Chichi in the process. "You miserable hag!" he screeched. He wasn't injured, but he was flabbergasted beyond belief - yet again. Unfortunately for Chichi, her actions only magnified his vexation.

Acting on the distraction she caused, Chichi picked herself up and stood – but her body was shaking from the damage it took. In stark contrast, her hands were sure and steady in front of her as she took a fighting stance. "No, I didn't think I was going to hurt you," she finally answered, "but I do think I'm someone you can't underestimate."

Vegeta fixed his eyes on the woman standing above him. He was far beyond shock and was now in the realm of numb disbelief.

This can't be happening, he thought. This stupid Earthling woman, this hellish piece of work, this worthless trash Kakarotto left behind... I misread her? I, Vegeta, Prince of all Saiyajin?

Unforgivable.

With his head lowered, Vegeta got up to his feet in a slow, smooth motion. The air around them became thick with gravitas, and Chichi had to shiver in response. It was obvious that he wasn't going to hold back any longer.

He locked his eyes with hers; the gaze was slathered with frigid fury. This certainly wasn't the Vegeta she had grown accustomed to. This certainly wasn't the Vegeta that had become partial to their great, beautiful Earth. This certainly wasn't the Vegeta who grew to care for a particular blue-haired human.

This was the Vegeta who wanted to hurt her. Badly.

Chichi gulped.

Her hands lowered in a brief second of terror - but she regained her senses and jerked them back up. "Y-you need to go back home!" she said, with all the bravado she could muster.

Vegeta said nothing in response. His silence pervaded the air around them, and the noise from Chichi's chattering teeth provided the antithesis. There she was, trembling with the prospect of the near future - pupils dilated, mouth parted, hair splayed. Fear was a magnificent sight when enshrined in a woman.

And then something told him that this was how he liked it.

A deep thread resting dormant in the depths of his belly awoke and curled itself around his reason. Instincts he long forgot were now announcing their arrival.

He had a quality female to prey upon.

"Vegeta?"

Barely a shred of his anger was left – the universal characteristics of Saiyajin lust were now a dominant ebb and flow within him.

He was no longer himself.

"Vegeta! What are you doing?" Chichi took a more wary stance to appraise the man as he advanced. He was acting more and more strange with every step, and to be frank, she didn't know how to react.

And then he disappeared.

The only things she could see were the slashed ribbons of his afterimage. Before she could process it, a hand clamped over her mouth from behind, and an arm gripped her around the waist. Chichi yelped in surprise, but the white glove against her mouth turned her cries into a faint muffle. She tried to tug his hand off, but her grip went lax when she realized that something was very, very wrong.

Vegeta was almost being gentle with her.

He purred in soft indulgence, pressing against her with a sensuous touch that was specifically reserved for her beloved Goku. Even though they were in the middle of a skirmish, a place where contact was to be expected, there was nothing appropriate about this contact. His body aligned flush with hers, in a way far too intimate for her tastes. She tried to protest how unbefitting it was - but that same muffled cry was all she could manage.

"Silence." A hard yank left her head resting on his shoulder; his lips left a velvet touch against her ear. "You fool," he said in an amused hush. He slicked his hand over Chichi's stomach, through the silken cloth of her qi pao – and was pleased to find the taut muscularity that Bulma lacked. "You should have done what you were told."

Chichi whipped her head to the side, furiously glaring at the face so close to hers. How dare he even think to touch her in such a manner – let alone, actually do it?

She was so lost in her wrath that she didn't know when she smelled it.

A familiar scent had interrupted her thoughts and lambasted her senses. It was a distinctive, smooth musk that she could never, ever forget.

Goku.

…But it was coming from Vegeta.

Her eyes went wide as the notion hit her – Vegeta's scent, the smell of such a foul man, was exactly the same as her Goku-sa. 'It can't be! Why do they... No! What in all hell is going on?'

Vegeta broke into a vicious smile when he saw Chichi's widened eyes. He completely misread her reaction. With an expression like that, the most logical interpretation was fear – and he tightened his grasp by a fraction. He pressed his nose into the downy crest of hair upon her temple, and with his mouth crushed behind her ear, he let out a hot whisper.

"It's too late to be frightened now."

The fraction of a grasp then turned into the vice of a thousand-fold.

Using his arm, Vegeta crushed the woman against his body; she was as good as caught between two unyielding boulders. Her tormented howl ripped through the wind as she felt her body constrict more and more. Rib bones were shattering into jagged slivers; splinters of bone pressed against her lungs and the sharp edges lacerated the soft tissue without mercy.

An agonized scream exploded past her lips. The pain was unbearable.

Vegeta's psychotic laugh, generously peppered with pleasure, was the soundtrack to her demise. He tightened his vice-like hold – her back snapped like a twig. His body swayed as he took care to break her back in exactly the right places; each vertebrae popped and cracked in succession. The man was an artisan in the métier of torture.

Chichi now knew that she was in an encounter with the ultimate suffering. All she could see were cloudy images, as if her sight was shrouded with an eerie gauze. Her mental faculties were barely there – she was beginning to slip out of consciousness.

And then Vegeta dealt his last obliterating crunch with sick, unadulterated glee.

Chichi's haze lifted as she felt several piercing-hot jabs in the left side of her body. Her broken ribs had at last punctured through the sopping wet membranes of her left lung. The bones cruelly tore rugged holes into the already mutilated organ, and utter agony seized her functions. Blood forced its way up her throat and spurted out violently through the sides of her mouth.

Her body couldn't withstand it any more.

She fell unconscious.

Vegeta smiled with satiation when he felt her body go limp against his. He let go and watched in delight as she slid to the ground in a heavy slump, laying helpless as a mangled heap of flesh and bone.

She was barely breathing.

She was barely alive.

Son Goku woke up with a start. His eyes darted up.

Above him were the usual leaves of his usual napping tree, swaying in the usual breeze. Nothing out of the ordinary.

He blinked.

He could have sworn he felt a disturbance in the ki of someone he knew back on Earth. Something had unsettled him deeply enough to rouse him from his slumber – he knew that much – but he also knew he wasn't able to feel the ki of anyone in the living realm.

His face split into a sleepy smile. What a ludicrous thought. "Nah," he mumbled, half laughing at himself. "Must have been a dream..."

A yawn and a stretch later found Goku in a sound, peaceful sleep once more.

Trunks and Goten snapped their heads up from the toy mecha they were playing with. All attention fell on the direction of Mt. Paozu.

"Did you feel something just now, Trunks-kun?" Goten bit his lip, unsure of what was happening and unsure of what he felt.

Trunks glanced at his best friend with a bit of worry before nodding. "I-I think so."

Mother.

Gohan dropped the fish slung across his back and whipped his head towards the direction of his house. He had felt a familiar ki escalate to an intimidating level and then drop back down. Soon after, he felt his mother's ki disperse into nearly nothing.

"No," he murmured in sheer incredulity. "Mother... what's going on? No, no, no!"

Without another thought, Gohan powered up to the golden fury of a second level of Saiyajin. He blasted himself off the ground and plowed through the air at breakneck speed, taking the fastest trajectory he knew.

All his might rested on the sole possibility of this being his mother successfully masking her ki.

He had done it.

He finally conquered her.

Vegeta looked down at Chichi. The woman had defended herself fairly well – far better than he had expected. Nevertheless, there was no way she could have defended against his decimating hold. She was no match for him whatsoever, but with the exception of Juuhachigou, she was the strongest female Earthling he had ever encountered.

And then he became even more jealous of Son Goku.

He had a wife who could tolerate pain, formulate strategies, and possibly manipulate her ki if she only attempted it. Out of all the females on the alien planet, Goku somehow found the strongest one. Vegeta let out a derisive snort. How Saiyajin of you, Kakarotto.

He turned his attention back to his prize; he dragged his lascivious gaze across the broken body at his feet. The smell of blood seeped into his senses and a small chill raised the hairs on the back of his neck. It was the fragrance of a job well done, of a worthy woman completely dominated. His eyes glazed over – the sensation was unhinged intoxication.

He hadn't felt this way in far too long.

Vegeta squatted down on one knee and took his time running his finger through the trail of blood leaking from Chichi's mouth. A wild thrill danced down his spine and took shameless root in the raw core of his being. He continued sliding his finger down, fluidly slipping it along her neck while slicing his nail into the soft flesh. He sucked in a sharp, terse breath at the sight. A thin line of blood was left in his finger's wake, and the scene embedded into Vegeta's memory. He would make sure to remember this – Kakarotto's wife, pathetic and powerless under his touch. Kakarotto's wife, tied with the fragile threads of the little leniency he had left. Kakarotto's wife, laying ready for him to take all for himself...

Gohan.

Gohan's rapidly approaching ki seemed to reach inside his very soul, rousing him from his primitive thought.

He had to snap out of it.

His thoughts bumbled and fumbled around his noisy mind as his subconscious gave way to his conscious being. As his subconscious grew dimmer and dimmer, it was yelling at him to stay, to stay and complete what his instincts were yearning and pleading to do – but he had to go. Gods, he didn't want to, he didn't want to–

–But he had to.

Using incredible self-discipline, he dragged himself out of the drunken stupor of his Saiyajin bloodlust and applied his mind to the present.

His mind was still addled as he surveyed the area. Gohan's ki was getting closer. Sticking around wasn't an option. He needed to get out of there.

Now.

Even though he had surpassed Gohan's power levels in these times of peace, he had seen his rage 4 years prior at the Cell Games. Gohan was nothing to shrug off, Gohan was no easy target to plow through or sidestep. Even entering a scuffle with the boy would send waves of trouble through the damned circle he was a part of on Earth. Seeing his mother in this state was certainly something that would send Gohan into a blind fury – and Vegeta simply didn't want to reap the consequences of provoking him.

So it was time to go.

Vegeta figured that Gohan wouldn't recognize his ki signature too readily – the boy had severely neglected his training; he was most likely too rusty. Detecting the ki signatures of loved ones was probably easy enough for the boy, but Vegeta could hardly say that Gohan called him a loved one. It'd make sense for Gohan to look in the skies for the unknown ki. The best way back was by foot.

For Vegeta, this was a rare instance where his common sense trumped his desire to fight, and he didn't like it one bit. He begrudgingly set off into the forest and ran with tremendous speed back to the Capsule Corporation.

As he ran back to the place he scorned to call home, his mind flitted upon Bulma. He wasn't oblivious – he fully understood that he did something his mate would perceive as so very, very bad.

He couldn't care less. It had felt so very, very good.

Besides... she didn't have to know about that bit.

Finally.

Gohan had finally reached home.

He stumbled as he landed, hasty and rushed with enough force to plunge a deep crack in the ground beneath him. His eyes desperately evaluated the area - his mother had to be around there somewhere. "Mom!" he screamed. "Mother, where are you?"

His eyes landed on a delicate body, laying lifeless near the entrance of their house.

Gohan's quicksilver reactions transformed into a sludge, and his legs almost gave out. "No," came his crackling noise.

He drifted over to the side of the body, dropping to his knees in weakness. A lump formed in the middle of his throat, and he thickly swallowed it down. "No," his voice cracked again, softly. "It can't be... this can't be happening. This isn't happening...!"

He lurched forward, slamming his hands in the ground while letting out an anguished wail.

"MOM!"