Though it must have been painful for him, she didn't think he could stop the guttural, feral growl that grew in intensity and volume at the sounds of something approaching. When four strange aliens came into view, The Saiyan's tail hairs were standing on end and he was snarling so viciously, his whole body was shuttering with barely contained rage.
As they approached the door, she stood, unconsciously placing herself between them and the still injured man behind her. The past day or so, she had been – for lack of a better description – getting impressions from the Saiyan. At first, she had thought it was an accidental collision of his telepathic mind against hers. But as the contacts had increased in frequency, they had become more subtle just as they had grown more intimate. She could now sense when he was hungry and thirsty, when he was angry and when he was… less angry, and when he slept – his mind unfolded and stretched under hers like she was a blanket of security.
He never pushed into her thoughts; it was almost like he was just… checking. Ensuring that indeed, she was still there. After a while, she had just shrugged it off as a Saiyan thing. He wasn't intruding or harming her, and he didn't even seem aware he was doing it. As a telepathic being, reaching out to other minds was probably a reflex. And, she admitted, it seemed to calm him when he was agitated. She was actually getting to the point of finding it calming herself. It was like she had become accustomed to his brief mental brush-ups. If too long a time went by between his check-ins, it felt like she had misplaced something and didn't know what it was or where to look for it.
This is how she had known immediately that there had been enemies approaching. She hadn't questioned it; she simply believed the Saiyan's interpretation of the approaching foursome as if his conclusion would be the natural resolution she would have selected on her own. Her first instinct had been to go and defer to him. It didn't escape her notice that this instinct of hers completely accepted and concede to his - and she still didn't know his name.
When the four appeared, she responded again without thought. Idly, she wondered where the hell her fear was. She mentally rolled her eyes. It was sitting on the bench behind her. If she was no longer afraid of him, she doubted she could ever feel fear again. Nothing else seemed like it could live up to the terror he had been capable of making her feel. Was still capable of doing, actually. Now that he was awake and aware more often.
She cleared her throat. Without the scouter, she had no idea how – or even if – the four would communicate.
When one of them spit out a string of utter nonsensical sounds, she was surprised when the Saiyan behind her responded with something that must have been a name. Or an insult. Or both. She got a fleeting impression that the Saiyan had just compared – Appulhay? .. Appulay? – something like that - to a substance comprised of intestinal pustules covered in parasites and fecal residue. She wrinkled her nose in disgust, glad that the visual hadn't included an accompanying scent. Bulma considered the Appule fellow. Now that she thought about it, he did sort of look like a worm with that elongated, swollen head, washed-out, purplish complexion, and beady red eyes. Having no nose to speak of didn't help him, either.
One of the four aliens held up his hand. His eyes flicked over the woman's shoulder to the Saiyan and then back to her face. He was certain the human had directly reacted to something the Saiyan had said, but he was also certain she didn't understand galactic standard. When he opened his mouth to speak, the human nearly squeaked when she heard English. She narrowed her eyes, probably looking for, but would not find, any device used for translation. She was probably wondering how the hell he could speak the language of her planet. She wouldn't understand if he told her that in fact, he could not.
"Seventy-nine local planet hours has passed since the initial purge began. It was unsuccessful; technology that was unknown to Freeza was used to repel the attack force. Twenty-four local planet hours after the technology was first used, it failed. A second purge force has not yet arrived. In the interim, we have been sent to collect beneficial assets for use in our own purposes," his eyes flicked over to the Saiyan behind her again before returning to hers.
As the alien – another purple freak with protrusions on the sides of his head for ears, continued to speak, Bulma's anxiety level rose. Her anger rose in correlating proportions. What the fuck?
"We were drawn here by the ki signature of the Saiyan. He is a known agent of Freeza, and his loss would be substantial. We are taking the Saiyan –"
"The hell you are!" She broke in. The alien didn't bother hiding a slight up curve of his lips. He pretended she hadn't interrupted, but his attention now was evenly split between the human and her pet monkey, who, he noted, looked carefully neutral but was paying too close attention to a language he couldn't understand. Unless it wasn't the language in particular that he understood.
The alien narrowed his eyes and focused raptly on Bulma, but ensured that he had the Saiyan was within his view. If his suspicion were correct, one of them was bound to respond to something he said, if he put the right kind of pressure on them. He didn't know which it would be or what it would be, but if one of them responded at all, he wanted to judge how the other would react. He had been prepared to say that they would be taking the Saiyan as well as herself. But…
"You are little use to us; you are free to go. There may be an Earth resistance preparing for the secondary purge force. They may not be successful repelling Freeza's forces a second time. An alternative is to hide, though I doubt either option would provide reprieve from Freeza for long." He shrugged, clearly showing that either way she chose, it wasn't really a choice but rather a matter of time.
When she did nothing but stare back at him and breathe heavily, and the Saiyan sat like an immobile statue, he started to doubt his initial assumption that the two shared a connection. The first alien who had spoken with Vegeta now spoke into his ear. He listened intently, then his eyes darted up to consider attacking the human from a different angle.
Bulma felt self-conscious as the weirdo alien's gaze lingered on her chest? No… something on her shoulder. She backed a step, crossed her arms to hide, well, whatever he was looking at, and chewed her lip.
The alien took her in with new interest, and his eyes glinted when he spoke to her.
"That emblem – the curved line within a circle - it is the same seen on many of the recovered weapons found here." He cocked his head. "I am curious. Was it by design that the weapons failed? Or was it a flaw?"
"They didn't fail. They went into stasis." she spat defensively. Behind her, Vegeta stiffened. It was almost imperceptible, but to one looking for it, it had been enough. Maybe the Saiyan hadn't understood her words, but he had certainly understood that she had given away information that could be used. Instinctively, he had cringed. The human hadn't see it, but the alien watching them both roared internally with triumph. She had responded to the Saiyan without realizing it. Even now she continued to respond to his mental cue as she sputtered, trying to back pedal. "But I can't reactivate them. My facility has been destroyed."
Bulma didn't know why, but the look the alien was giving had become predatory when mere seconds ago, he had seemed bored. Uncertain and extremely nervous, as if she had given away much more than an admission to being a weapons designer, she backed away. When she could feel the sleepy electrical aura pulsing around the Saiyan behind her, she stopped retreating and instead, stood her ground.
"I won't help you," she said flatly. "And he isn't going with you, either," she hastily added, referring to Vegeta.
The alien fought to keep his features bland and waved her words away, uninterested. She couldn't know that the alien had been trying to confirm the presence of a mental connection between she and Vegeta. It was weak – if it was indeed there at all – but even the potential that they could be mind-linked couldn't be ignored. Instead, he barked something unintelligible to his companions who then positioned themselves at the door to the cell. Two of them tore the door from its hinges and the last entered through the vacant frame.
"I may have believed you, had I not known you have no need of facilities to reactivate your weapons. But we have no interest in your weapons. It is the mind of their creator we find valuable."
Bulma's features crumpled into a cross of perplexed anxiousness and annoyed defiance. He simply smiled and shrugged at her as if to say, It is what it is. The two who had removed the door entered and approached the Saiyan, who had curiously stopped growling in favor for listening once she had started speaking. He couldn't have understood the words, but he probably had gathered quite a lot from tone of voice and visual body cues. In fact, he probably had a better understanding than she did. He wasn't protesting, even as they secured a device around his throat. She knew it would dampen his ki; it was familiar enough to the Saiyan that she could recognize it through vague, far away emotions. She chewed her lip. She wasn't sure if she should be more worried that the Saiyan was less aware that his thoughts were leaking or that he seemed no more than mildly annoyed about the whole thing – as if he were a movie star and someone had interrupted him for an autograph.
She frowned, but stopped struggling and trying to bite. How could he do that? He was being taken captive – again – by those who wanted to probably kill him – again – and he was calm about it? Like he was gracefully suffering someone's idea of doing him an honor or a favor he found tedious but couldn't politely refuse?
As they exited the cell, she with an escort who had her by the upper arm, and the Saiyan, who insisted on walking out on his own, she stopped just outside of the door so she could look up at the presumed leader.
"This guy," she said, pointing to her chaperon with her head, "knew –"she glanced at Vegeta, unable to speak his name for lack of knowing what it was. She sighed and looked back at the alien leader. He knew who she meant. "They spoke to each other like they knew and hated each other. Even if you're against Freeza, that doesn't mean you're fighting for the right team, either. You can't force us to fight with you."
He chuckled. "Brave one," he mocked her, "what makes you think that either of them, or any of us, ever had or have now a choice for or against whom we fight? We are none of us in control, little female." He peered at her with peculiar intensity, and she could almost swear that two people were assessing her through his eyes.
"At least, most of us aren't," he stated suggestively before turning to lead them out.
She frowned at his back. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He laughed and glanced over his shoulder briefly. "It means, human, that if your mind is what we think it is, you may be able to keep your pet Saiyan."
He refused to say more.
