Shavneral

Chapter 6 – Kakarot

Vegeta wasted no time. I didn't even see what he did, all I knew was that several of the bars in front of my face quite suddenly were sliced and fell to the floor. The precision of the cuts was flawless. He took one step towards me, closer than he'd gotten since we fought, seeming to measure the cuffs binding my wrists and neck with his eyes.

"This'll never work," he muttered, "If I try to break them I'll end up cutting you."

I was about to say that I didn't care, but I remained silent, not meeting his eye, still questioning the decision to let him do this a thousand times over in my head.

Vegeta bit his lip, "Put your hands where I can see them," he said quietly, "So I don't slice off something important."

I obeyed without a word, letting the chinks of light fall on the backs of my hands.

I heard a gasp, and it took me a second to realize Vegeta was staring in shock at me.

"I didn't realize… I thought…" he breathed, sounding appalled, "…You actually got your thumb cut off?"

I glanced at the old injury and shrugged, "Most of it, yeah. My mistake."

He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he just closed his eyes and went back to his work.

I heard a snapping sound and a heavy chain dropped to the ground next to my foot as it was severed. A second followed, and a third. Then the final bond was cut and I stood straight, noting that Vegeta had given me about half a foot of slack preceding the cuts, not slicing too close to the skin.

My sensitive hearing picked up a loud bang in the distance, and the sound of voices raised in alarm.

"Looks like we've been caught," Vegeta said bluntly, "Best get out while we can, it's past dawn."

I blinked and noticed that it was slightly lighter in here than before. It was hard to tell with all the stone walls, but it was.

Without explanation, he grabbed my wrist to lead me. I felt a jolt of terror and instinctively bared my teeth and hissed, wrenching the appendage out of his grip. He looked startled and confused, but his hands came nowhere near me afterwards.

I kept up with him as he lead me down hallways, seeming to know exactly where he was going. The whole place twisted and turned like a maze; just endless stretches of corridors and rooms full of equipment that I'd rather not describe.

I heard rapid footsteps, footsteps made by dozens of booted feet.

"They're chasing us!" I informed Vegeta in a more panicked voice than I care to admit.

"Doesn't matter," he said quickly, "We can fight them if they catch us,"

With that he tossed something at me, and only inbred reflex allowed me to catch it. It was the steel spur that I used to fight. I hadn't thought Vegeta was that observant…

I slid the weapon over what remained of my left thumb and dropped to all fours, using my tail to maintain my balance.

At last we came to a dead end.

"Now what?" I snapped, frustrated and more than a little scared.

"There's a way out through here," he shoved a wooden beam or two to the side to reveal a small gap in the wall. I wondered how long he'd been planning this, how many passageways he'd memorized, how many guards he'd deceived. All for me…. it made me strangely self-conscious. I didn't deserve such dedicated rescue.

I squeezed through the gap first at his signal, and he followed, the sound of an explosion and falling rubble a second behind him.

I turned mid-step and watched the roof of the room cave in.

"What just happened?" I asked raggedly.

"Blew it up," he smirked grimly, "Come on, this way."

Before I could argue that there was no way he could have just blown that up, he showed me to a shadowy alleyway that led to a chain link fence at the very end.

The gravel and concrete of the ground stung the soles of my feet as I dashed after him. I could hear dogs barking and knew that the men had unleashed the hounds on us. Usually I wouldn't be fazed, but it made my blood run cold in my veins right then.

Vegeta scaled the fence easily and dropped to the ground on the other side as if he were half as light as he was. He waited patiently for me to follow. I glanced up at the towering metal fence – topped with coils of barbed wire I might add - with something like exasperation. There was no way I could climb that.

Vegeta seemed to sense my thoughts, because he said boldly, "How much do you want your freedom, Kakarot? How far are you willing to go?"

I grit my teeth and attacked the barrier with a determination I didn't know I had. When I reached the top, I hesitated before dodging the barbed wire and letting myself plummet, landing cat-like on the ground without injuring myself…. though having no idea how I managed that.

And once I was there….. I saw the world for the first time in this memory.

It was a blur of color and sound and chaos that made me either want to shut my eyes and ears and crawl away, or stare until my eyeballs fell out of their sockets.

I think the latter won over, because I found myself standing stock-still, gaping at the scene before me in a state of shock.

"That, Kakarot, is a street." There was some amusement in Vegeta's voice as he spoke, and I shut my mouth quickly, possibly blushing though I'd never admit it.

How did humans manage living in a world of such insane movement every second of every day? I felt like I'd suffered sensory overload after justtwo seconds.

"Not much farther from here," Vegeta said shortly, "Follow me."

I wiped a stream of sweat from my forehead, the six-inch length of chain bound to my wrist clinking as I did.

"Okay…"

There seemed to be some ritual involved with crossing the street; something involving waiting for a change in light color to tell you when to go and when to stop.

Vegeta tapped his foot impatiently as he waited, "Usually I'd just fly," he muttered out of the side of his mouth, seemingly to himself.

I was about to question this, but decided against it. I was too freaked out to voice my inquiries anyway.

I wanted to just dart across the expanse of black stone called a street, but I forced myself to walk.

"Here," Vegeta handed me the jacket off his shoulders, I blinked perplexedly at him and he shrugged.

"Lesson number one: in public, wear a shirt." He said simply.

I nodded distantly and put the jacket on. The chafing cloth felt foreign on skin used to only the contact of the air and the bite of a whip. Then Vegeta surprised me. He leaned against a wall and just stood there.

I tilted my head in confusion, weren't we escaping here? And didn't that involve movement?

"Bulma was to pick me up here in the morning after I investigated the place," he explained.

I was about to ask what a Bulma was, but I held my tongue.

"I told her I'd just go back on my own when I felt like it, but you know how she is." The other man continued.

I blinked, "Actually, no… I don't."

He faltered, and his expression became one of regret, "Right, I forgot for a moment."

I fell silent, listening for the bark of dogs or the shouting of men pursuing us; I heard neither.

"Kakarot…" Vegeta began slowly, "I…I'm sorry…"

"For what?"

"For not coming for you sooner… before all that happened. I sh – I should have come as soon as I heard you were missing…"

I honestly wasn't sure how to respond to this. What does one say to the person they don't even know who claims to have known them nearly their entire life?

Silence reigned for a long time, just the sounds of the street and the civilizations beyond where we stood. I felt extremely, unbelievably,inconceivably out of place. Like I'd been dropped into another universe without a field guide or even a plan.

Vegeta looked up as something dropped out of the sky and landed near us. Something like the vehicles the humans drove on the street… but in the air… I was very confused now.

"That's Bulma," Vegeta said breezily, as if huge vehicles came out of the sky every day. Maybe they did.

"It's a lot bigger than I pictured," I said uneasily, "Are all Bulmas that big?"

Vegeta looked at me; then cracked up.

"No, Kakarot," he laughed, "Bulma is the person inside the airship. Not the airship itself."

I glanced at the glass dome at the front of the…"airship" and saw a human woman with blue hair piloting the thing.

Vegeta gave another half-hearted chuckle, "It looks like I have my work cut out for me. Am I going to have to explain every little thing in the world to you, Kakarot?"

I shifted my stance a little, "M-maybe… is that wrong?"

His gaze stayed on me for a long time, "No. I won't mind teaching you. Even if I have to explain grass to you, I'll do my best."

TBC