His only intent had been to ensure the human survived long enough so that he could extract his mind completely from hers. He hadn't thought he'd be required to interfere directly to do so; the female had seemed fully capable of taking care of herself – and, he admitted begrudgingly, of him. Yet he had found himself save her not once but twice in the course of an hour. Was she really so fragile?
He sighed as he studied her sleeping form for the second time in two days. It hadn't taken her long to fall asleep. Or, unconscious to be more accurate. He had been about to turn away from her and scout his new environment – it would be foolish to be unaware of his surroundings when forced to share living space with some of the most powerful beings in the known universe – when her mind had simply… fallen away. He wasn't sure if it was surprise or alarm that gripped him, but either way he had immediately turned back towards her and found himself searching for signs of life. She breathed shallowly and her heart beat was soft, but steady – almost like the flutter of smoldering paper wings he had seen once on a fire moth; the insect fed on ash until it cocooned, then it lie dormant, sometimes for years, until touched with flame. It then hatched fully grown, flying on delicate, flammable wings. When they caught on fire, they burned in several stages and in impossible colors until the heat would consume all but the body of the moth. It would burst then, allowing its spore to drift on the wind to start the cycle again.
He shook his head to dislodge the imagery. She was alive and the only thing she had in common with a moth from a fire planet was that odd blue color that infused her hair and those strange, all-seeing eyes. He clenched his jaw and forced himself to turn away. Still, he glanced over his shoulder at her as he moved away. Ridiculous female. You will not perish until I've decided you shall do so. He didn't expect her to answer, but when he found himself listening to the part of his mind that he had shoved her into, isolated, and fortified against breech, he withdrew his awareness and slammed the door shut.
The caves were dim, but there was something organic glowing in the crags of the rock. Likely they were microscopic colonies of bacteria - or something similar - that ingested and processed parts of the stone and produced an illuminating chemical as a waste product. Where their clusters grew in size and number, he followed them, and finally, he found what he was looking for. Water. It was a rock pool; not the stream he had been seeking. Ah, well. In caves, following water didn't always lead to a way out. Sometimes it lead deeper into the rock. He frowned at the dead end, but tucked the knowledge and location of the pool into a corner of his mind before he turned back the way he had come.
On his return, he heard scuffling ahead – not unlike the sound his own boots made against the gravel of the cave floor. Pressing himself into a crevasse, he waited. Instinct told him when to attack. In one, fluid movement, he was behind a much larger alien. Using speed and flexibility, Vegeta leapt onto a half crumbling boulder and used it to launch himself onto the back of the towering brute in front of him. The beast hadn't even had time to become aware of his impending demise until it was already too late. With very little sound, Vegeta had secured the alien's head in an arm bar and used his own momentum and weight to force their bodies to the ground. By the time they landed, the alien's neck was broken. As Vegeta stood, he paused long enough to ensure the thing on the ground was in fact dead. Hefting the enormous carcass over his shoulder wasn't as difficult as it might have been a week before – even without his ki – and the Saiyan smirked. At least Earth hadn't been a total waste. The increase in his strength was as pleasing to him as it was surprising. He let go of the alien and allowed the size and weight of the body to respond to gravity. As it fell into the pit, it disappeared into darkness.
After disposing of the evidence – not that he feared discovery of his deed, but rather the discovery of his secret rock pool if a herd of aliens started investigating why one of their numbers had died here – he allowed himself to experiment with his new strength. He ran, jumped, hurtled rocks and raced to catch them before they shattered and made noise. He only reigned in his play when he came within a few hundred meters of the main cavern. He was pleased to see he wasn't breathing hard. He wouldn't really be able to test his strength until he got this collar off.. and he was certain it would come off. He just had to be patient. He considered that with her intelligence with alien technology, the woman may even be able to remove it.
He smiled at the thought and made his way closer to where he had left her sleeping. He had chosen a well-protected niche telling himself that, if he was going to be forced into protecting her over the next day or so until he could be free of her mental influence, he may as well make it easy on himself. And so, as he came to the spot he knew she had occupied and found it empty of her, his first reaction was to be irritated. Didn't the stupid female have the sense to stay put where he had left her? He wasn't going to go searching for her. Incensed, he threw himself to the ground and forced the thought of her from his mind. It took minutes more to calm himself enough to sleep. It wasn't until he awoke hours later and she was still gone that he realized he couldn't sense her mind.
After days of this, he was going mad. His senses were reeling with strain despite his constant efforts to pull back. He shouldn't be having this difficulty. His mind wasn't so invested, any longer; they were mostly separated, now. He wouldn't need another mind likely for months, now that he had used hers to fortify his own during his recovery. Yet he couldn't deny that he felt stretched tight and his anger grew. It was a mystery not unlike Radditz's scouter. Only this time, it wasn't just the burning need to know – his anger was so palpable he physically felt on the cusp of rupture. Had she found a way to escape? Had she wandered off and been killed? His mind was teetering back and forth from being on the edge of his control to blowing up against the fucking walls. Why couldn't he sense her? Was he half crazed because she had died and left him without a mental foundation before he was ready?
He had done everything he could for distraction. The number of aliens had declined by half a dozen. Those bodies he hadn't bothered to hide. Instead of inviting more aliens to assert their dominance over the obvious alpha, though, it had the opposite effect. No matter how he goaded, who he challenged, fewer and fewer – and finally none – would provide him with a proper fight. Or any fight at all, for that matter. His sleep was troubled, he was barely eating.
When he found her, he'd kill her.
That's what he told himself – until the moment he found her.
Rather, she just appeared - back in the very spot he had left her in days ago, like she had never been missing. She was… different. Barely conscious as she had been, but now, everything was just… wrong. Her scent was the same but not. She looked like the color had been drained from her. Even her hair was lifeless and limp, more grey than blue. Her skin was mottled and every vein was clearly visible. They made spider webs against the canvas of paper thin, pale flesh. She shivered uncontrollably with a frame that appeared shrunken and drawn. It wasn't until she opened her eyes that he saw the full horror of what she suffered. Never had the whites of her eyes been so apparent; the blue of her irises made the sclera irrelevant. But now, they were not white. Instead, they were the deep red of ruptured capillaries spilling blood. Her head fell to the side and he saw that blood flowed from out of her ears as well. And then it came from her nose.. followed by her mouth. She was falling apart from the inside out right in front of his eyes. And he had no idea why.
Pacing back and forth, his tail an agitated whip behind him, he glanced at her every so often, his eyes taking in every new bruise, laceration, or newly patch of hair that fell from her head. At a loss, his mind reached out to hers, gently.. softly.. to see if the damage had spread that far. When she shrieked in agony, forcing him to his knees as his own mind answered in an agony of its own, he decided what to do. He pounced on and lifted her frail form into his arms. He traced the path he had taken that first day until he found the rock pool. The humidity in the cavern separated the cold water from the warmer air, and an ethereal fog spread thinly over the pond.
He dropped himself over an edge of rocks and entered the pond. The bite of cold water was just shocking enough that he tightened his muscles, causing his hold on her to tighten. When she moaned in pain, he remembered she was there and what they were doing. He blinked – he remembered making the decision to bring her here, but he hadn't been aware of carrying her all this way. Clenching his jaw, he looked down at her as he lowered her into the water. Her eyes flew open as the chill pierced her to the bone. She stiffened, but didn't resist. Instead, as he submerged her almost reverently into the water, she continued to look through the waves and into his eyes.
Part of him distantly wondered why, for the first time in his life, he felt regret when he was killing out of mercy rather than malice.
She reached a hand through the water's glass surface and touched his face. In that moment, a fire exploded behind his eyes and his vision splintered again and again until he could see nothing but darkness. His consciousness rippled and folded in on itself before being violently flung outward. He felt weightless in body but also heavy as his ki bubbled from the pit of his gut and spilled over. Sight began to return in the form of splintering light shards piercing his brain, and the pressure in his skull was immense. Quaking, he wasn't sure if his body would be able to hold itself together or if he was about to be ripped apart.
VEGETA!
And everything was sucked back into place; it was so sudden the complete change from absolute pain to nothingness was a pain unto itself. His head was thrown back, and he wasn't sure if he was alive or dead. Looking up, he could still see a borealis of lights flickering and he realized, looking down, that his ki was being reflected on the surface of the water; it danced in patterns on the ceiling and the walls around him. The shock of having ki was so sudden, he'd have thought it would wink out just to taunt him – but it didn't.
Cool fingers on the flesh of his cheek reminded him – looking through the water, he could still see her eyes looking up at him. With his heart hammering in his ears, he peered at her. She blinked, and again, her voice blossomed deep in his mind.
Vegeta..
Immediately, he leapt backwards out of the pool, pulling her from the water. When his back hit a wall behind him, he sat down hard and his ki flickered out like a flame extinguished. Trembling and panting, his eyes grew wide as they stared at each other. With more than a little fear, he bared his teeth at her. She spoke to him then, out loud. Though he couldn't understood her words, the echo of her thoughts in his brain made the meaning of her words quite clear.
Layer upon layer of thoughts, some more focused than others, and some just barely formed beyond an animalistic sense, her voice poured over and through the cracks of his brain.
Out of the whole mass, what nearly broke him was her overwhelming, desperate desire to live. How could she want - ? Was she so strong? To want to live when her planet was gone, her people gone, and her life…
Completely drained, he sat holding her until long after they had dried and her shivering had been overcome by his body heat. As she drifted to sleep, he still sat in awe. His mind was still too numb for thoughts to form, and he was at the mercy of whatever feelings were left living and bouncing around inside his skull. He caught himself starting to succumb to sleep several times and jerked awake. Finally, as if the meaning of her words finally clicked, he nodded to himself. With relief, he felt himself in control again. Once a Saiyan decided on a course of action, every fiber worked towards making that course of action the sole focus until completed. It's part of what made Saiyans so deadly; such focus left no room for fear, doubt, or self-preservation.
Vegeta stood and carefully made his way back to the place where this had all started.
He hadn't found Cui, but with the reputation he had made of himself the past few days – compounded with the reputation of Saiyans in general - he got the attention he wanted after making enough noise. Now, he stood in a next door underground medical facility and laboratory not far from the cavern where he and the woman had been placed. Vegeta stared at the stick-like alien in front of him and was tempted to snap its neck like the twig it resembled. Instead, he elected to bare his teeth towards the thing instead. The threat seemed to work when the insect put up four of its arms in acquiescence. It didn't stop making excuses, though.
"We haven't prepared for her. I was told she had refused –"
Vegeta crossed his arms and peered at the doctor with half-lidded eyes. "So. Prepare for her now."
The stick blubbered. "Her DNA has been altered. I could place her in a regeneration tank, but it would be useless. As her DNA splits to include new genetic material, her cells need the foundation of her original genetic pattern to strengthen themselves enough to prevent complete collapse – but we never took unaltered samples of DNA."
Vegeta glanced down the rows of aliens in their own regen-pods. All of them 'genetically altered,' as the hunk of firewood had called it. All to enhance their minds and unlock, enable, or create ferocious telepathic capabilities. To what? Pierce the minds of those like him – fighters with phenomenal strength – and control them like they were puppets? He has scoffed. He couldn't believe it. But as he listened to twiggy, he had recalled Cui. Vegeta knew that Cui was an unstable, unfocused slug whose galactic standard was barely passable. Yet he had shown shocking control and the ability to speak the human language as well as galactic standard. Was it truly someone inside Cui's brain, controlling him that enabled such things? Would adding a second consciousness not be a handicap to a fighter who relied on instinct and senses honed over a lifetime?
Preposterous. Even if it were true, he'd never allow any to control him – to possess him like some demon parasite. He'd had practice protecting his mind from Freeza's other telepathic lackeys. He'd had recent practice keeping a certain human out, as well. If they planned on using her to control him, they'd be disappointed. He glanced behind him to the woman on a metal table and raised an appraising eyebrow. Hah. She may have discovered his name, but if they thought she'd be able to break his mind, let them try and let them fail.
Turning back to the bean sprout, he tilted his head. "Then use my DNA. Our species are…. Compatible."
"Compatible?" came the surprised, interested reply. "In what way?"
"In every way." Vegeta glared at the doctor who was peering at him with a curiosity that was entirely too personal. He rolled his eyes, unsure why he should suddenly feel embarrassed. "There has been a hybrid between our species –" When the doctor raised his eyebrows, Vegeta hastily added, "But nothing between she and I."
The doctor nodded, momentarily disappointed. It didn't take long for him to become lost in thought, though, obviously thinking of this new project. "If your species' genetics are compatible enough to breed, you should be compatible enough to allow for her cells to accept yours as fortification without rejection." He seemed to brighten. "With Saiyan DNA, she may form a few Saiyan traits. They'd be minor influences, but the implications… you are naturally telepathic, no? The possibility that mental contact between you two becoming exponentially enhanced is…why, there's no telling what changes there could be.."
Vegeta flinched and stopped listening at Enhanced mental contact. He was trying to expel her from his brain – not give her a bigger anchor. He almost changed his mind and was about to call out to the Stick-man, but the creature had already wandered off. Brilliant. Sighing, he turned back to the half-dead, fragile female and scowled. What the hell had he gotten himself into?
Grunting at himself, he left her to wander around the lab to peer into different pods and study the occupants. So the purpose of separating the strong from the weak hadn't been to separate the weak to shelter them from the strong. It had been so they could do.. this. Turn freaks into bigger freaks. He scoffed. Several aliens seemed to be deteriorating; apparently not capable of adapting to genetic engineering on such a scale. Others seemed to pulse as he walked by them – as if they were mentally reaching out to him to size him up. Flexing a new sense, he decided. Like someone blind suddenly able to understand the environment using sonar. Even if a fraction of these wretched creatures survived, not many would successfully transition into telepathic beings. The sudden addition of such an ability would likely drive half of those who survived mad.
He turned and made his way back. By the time he had returned, the doctor had put the woman in a pod. The liquid within was barren, but she serenely floated within. He approached the pod and allowed Twiggy to extract as much genetic material from his arm as he wished and tried to drone out his wooden voice.
"This is quite a bit more than we took from the others. But we had time to synthesize their DNA. In this case, well. You understand."
It wasn't until he started to feel light headed and had to blink his eyes to maintain focused vision that he glared at the doctor. The doctor shrugged sheepishly and removed his contraptions.
"You can stay as long as you like. If she survives the next twelve hours, her cells have accepted your genetic contribution and she will start to heal as well as adapt to the new genetic manifestations. I'm uncertain how long she must remain in the pod, but judging by those who have already been removed from their pods, she will remain weak until she fully adapts, regardless."
Vegeta held up his hand to cut the doctor off. He wasn't interested in the details. If the woman survived, she survived. And if she did live – even if his DNA made her stronger – she'd always be weak. He peered at her as she floated in the tank. Putting his hand against the glass surface, he touched her mind. She was still in pain, but it seemed to fade as the liquid in the pod – fused with is DNA – penetrated her cells. He lingered briefly to ensure she was stable, but was distracted by the visuals of her dreaming. Sunshine again. He looked at her face and considered her before retreating from her thoughts.
Nodding at the doctor, he turned to leave. "If she lives, she will be returned to me. I'll not have anyone playing with her mind." Vegeta didn't bother to turn around to see the reaction on the doctor's face. He didn't need to explain himself.
He didn't want to reveal that in altering her mind, they risked fucking with his. Even if that was the purpose of this asinine experiment.
