The moments she was awake, she didn't spend idly. From the calm stasis of the regeneration tank, she plotted and implemented catastrophic revenge. She was patient; if Vegeta had taught her anything, it was the thrill of the hunt – and how to use time as a weapon; let the prey do half of the work for you. While you took a step back, let them dwell. Let them fear. Let their own imaginations do for you what you yourself could not do. But, Bulma had an advantage. She was fully capable of reaching into the nightmares of her victims and making anything she found there wholly real. It was all in the mind.

She was a poltergeist. A shadow seen in the corner of an eye, only to disappear when one turned his head to behold the danger. She was the dark whispers tickling the corner of first one mind and then the other. She made small events seem monumental by tapping directly into their fear. They didn't sleep, they didn't eat… with only each other to accuse, they barricaded themselves behind the seemingly safe walls of segregation. Ah, but the mind plays such tricks on one slowly going mad…

After she had crushed their mental defenses, oh… so subtly to prevent notice, she waited until their most vulnerable moments – as their bodies slumped into exhausted unconsciousness despite the desperate will to stay awake – and possessed them. It was quite simple for her to enforce dream-walking. It was very useful, as well. She could affect the physical world in addition to the subconscious one. Messing with them became as easy as moving something from one place to another, making odd course corrections, or coding malevolent computer viruses that did things like turn the gravity or the lights off randomly. What had been simple suspicion bloomed into full the blown terror of schizophrenic paranoia. From there, only a nudge here or there was all it took. Not long after that, they were plotting against each other without help from her.

She had to constantly put in the forefronts of their awareness the very real threat of attacking each other on board. She didn't want the ship to be destroyed – she and Vegeta needed to survive this war.

All in all, it had taken her far less time than she had anticipated to induce them into destroying themselves. She was especially pleased that she had left no trace of them. First Jeice had ejected Burter into space, believing that if he listened to the voices in his head, they would disappear after he had done as they had asked. How effortless it had been to then make Jeice believe Burter had survived – or worse… was dead and had come back for him as the newest and loudest voice. He had come up with the idea himself that the vacuum of space was safer and had simply…. opened the hatch.

The ship's automated system sealed the door behind him.

It was utterly quiet after that.

Still… Calm…

It was a ghost ship.

Vegeta was in a healing stupor; he was healing much more slowly than he should be, but it had only been a short time since he had awoke from his last slumber. He hadn't had a chance to eat to rebuild his strength. He had slept through the orange and purple war and should remain oblivious; unable to rouse for weeks to come. Yet…..

Terrified of the temptation, she held back until she had no other choice. She needed to make sure. How aware was he? Much more cautiously than needed – and with excruciating care, she brushed his mind.

He was dreaming.

Now was her chance. She forced herself to withdraw before she was compelled to look further. She didn't have the right to know his dreams. She was thorough when she had closed away any memory of herself from him…

It was like severing her arm off to do it, but she withdrew. The initial glimpse of the dream she had accidentally seen was all she could allow herself.

But something wasn't right.

Her breath caught in her throat…. He was dreaming of sunlight.

The sun he dreamt of was not the 2 red stars of Vegetasai, or the distant, third white star always on the horizon. It was her own, warm, yellow Sol.

She didn't know how long she drifted in the pod, torn between letting him keep or taking away the memory of Earth's sun from him. Vegeta had landed at night. There was no window when they were locked away, and later when they were taken from the cell – it had also been night. That meant the memory had most certainly belonged to her.

She couldn't do it. She should do it… His subconscious mind was obviously devastated and was trying to fix itself. But his conscious mind… it would never know. At most, he would feel something was off… missing… but he could easily explain that as a side effect of the collar. His ki had been overwhelmingly suppressed for so long, he'd believe - need to believe - his hazy memory was a consequence. The alternative would be for him to admit to himself that something was horribly wrong; something he couldn't place, and therefore something he couldn't resolve. It would drive him insane. As a Saiyan unaccustomed to abstract emotions he couldn't understand or conquer, he'd do everything he could to prevent them.

His own nature would protect him from himself.

At least while he was awake….

She cut off her thinking before she drove herself mad. She'd done all she could for him, for now. Frieza would most certainly return to the moon. On top of being undercover and appearing to upgrade Frieza's armada while secretly sabotaging it, she'd have to run herself ragged trying to find a way to reopen the wormhole. Maybe not fully and maybe not for long… but just enough. Then all she'd have to do is somehow steal a ship, kidnap and smuggle an uncooperative, homicidal Saiyan onboard, and make it through the wormhole before it collapsed without getting caught or killed. And then hope Vegeta didn't kill her himself when she unraveled the mess she had made of his memory. If she survived all of that, she may just have a shot at finding her friends in an alien galaxy that was completely unknown and unmapped.

She expelled the stale, recycled air from her lungs. Baby steps, Bulma. Rome wasn't built in a day. Right now, just focus on right now.

They were halfway to Frieza's fleet and she was running out of time. Now that Jeice and Burter were gone, she didn't have any other way to manipulate objects on the ship, so she had to do it herself. She had believed it would be more difficult to purge them from the ship. Had she known, she'd have had one of them alter the pod's programming before allowing either one to be tossed out of the airlock. She briefly considered using Vegeta before smashing that plan to bits. Even if he had the awareness of a vegetable, she couldn't trust her self-control. The temptation to crawl back into the warmth of his mind was too powerful. She was alone in this.

She felt so alone….

Screwing a lid on her heart, she opened the lid to the pod. The liquid sloshed as she slid out. Underestimating her own weakness, she was unable to catch herself before spilling to the ground in a heap with a slimy plop. Pain bloomed from her half-closed gashes, and she fought a wave of nausea. She lay on the floor, breathing deeply, trying to gain strength and motivation to move. It wasn't going to happen. You knew this wouldn't be easy, she told herself. Get up. Get UP, Bulma. Getupgetupgetup… She hauled herself onto her stomach and forced her legs to bend. She refused to succumb to dizziness, and she didn't allow herself to stop. Her vision swam in a combination of light-headedness and pod mucus that ran into her eyes.

At least she had enough foresight to come up with a contingency plan. As unpredictable and violent as they were, she didn't trust Jeice or Buter to be reliable. Without them, she knew she would need one of their scouters. Before they had become too paranoid and crazy to form coherent thought, she had one of them – she didn't remember which – leave a scouter right on top of the computer that did little more than display her life signs. She plucked it off the consol. It was strange to hold one in her hands again… She dismissed the nostalgia and turned to exit into the hallway. Ignoring how the floor swayed underfoot, she forced one foot in front of the other, using the ships bulk heads to keep herself on her feet. It was cold. Granted, she was naked and covered in blue tinted goo…

She made her way to the bridge. When she reached the consul, she leaned against it to rest. She couldn't dwell. The liquid of the regen pod acted as an agent that penetrated cells and repaired them – but it also had nutrients and drugs that acted in tandem to put her into an almost complete stasis; an unconscious body relieved of the need to metabolize anything beyond a breath of oxygen every 10 minutes was easier to heal than a body that continually worked to dispel the very chemicals that healed it. Deprived of the pod's cocktail of fuel and medicine, she was quickly becoming lethargic. If she didn't hurry, she'd pass out right here. That just wouldn't do.

Putting the scouter over her eye, she instructed it to translate. Then, shifting her weight from one foot to the other to encourage her sluggish blood to flow, she glided her fingers over the controls. A peculiar prickling danced over her scalp.. like she was being watched. Pausing in the middle of reprogramming the main computer, she held her breath and listened. She heard nothing. She snorted. Playing tricks on Jeice and Burter had made her paranoid. Entering the last bit of code that would instruct the liquid of her pod to include a bio-program that would teach her to speak and understand Galactic Standard, she felt relief. She was so weak, she was starting to shake. It was time to return to her tank.

She turned to reenter the hallway and saw him. Against the far wall, he sat with his head resting against the bulkhead. When she had tested to see if he was awake, she hadn't bothered to discern where he was. A spike of ice stabbed her in the gut. That feeling she had before of being watched…. Her stomach dropped to her feet and like a rabbit hiding from a fox, she froze. She knew it was worthless – he had already seen her. Too terrified to do anything else, she stood there helplessly and motionless, staring at him.

Unable to hold his head up, it lulled to the side as he tried to focus on her. His expression was blank – peaceful. Her heart started to slow its frantic pounding in her chest, and she exhaled a very shaky breath. She didn't know what woke him – likely a buried instinct that told him something existed where it shouldn't exist and was moving about - but it was likely he wasn't actually seeing anything. He was still deeply submerged in healing sleep. His eyelids fluttered and slowly drifted shut.

She left as quickly as her heavy legs would allow, and used her hands to grab whatever she could to prevent herself from falling. Her fingers lacked the strength to both keep her erect and maintain a grip on the scouter. She dropped it on the floor as she shuffled past. Panic alone gave her strength to climb back into the pod. Sleep pulled at her almost before she could replace the oxygen mask, and she was unconscious and floating just as she was able to pull the straps tightly about her face.

Oo0oO

When next she woke, all of her plans nearly came pummeling down.

She had known she would be most vulnerable swimming in the nothingness between conscious and subconscious – she had used the same weakness against Jeice and Burter. She had fortified her own mind against invasion, and her telepathic protections would react without conscious direction should something try to get in as she slept. She didn't want anyone to surprise her.

But she hadn't been prepared for… this.

She barely was able to slam a wall into place before her automated defenses were breached. Deeply shaken before she could even discern where she was or how long she'd been in stasis, she did the only thing she could do. Hid behind her wall and waited.

She could feel a phenomenally strong telepathic mind probing her own, looking for a way to enter. Every time it assaulted her defenses, she trembled with the effort to keep it out. But, she learned several things from this onslaught. Though it took most of her concentration to make it so, the mind searching for a way in was strong – but she was still stronger. Every time it crashed against her, she was able to sense the consciousness behind it - as if the tremendous strength was offensive only.

She wove a false state-of-mind into a web and let it float through her wall. The foreign presence immediately zeroed in on and seized it. It – he - fell for it completely. He had never known a mind that could withstand the penetration of his telepathy. Allowing him to believe he had broken into her thoughts was her best defense – but it had also become an offense. As he was sifting through the phony streams of nonsensical subconscious drabble she had thrown together, she was able to poke through her own walls and into his mind completely undetected.

She didn't have much time; there was only so much interest one could invoke by appearing utterly and completely asleep. Especially since any useful information that could have been gleaned from any real dream she may have had was very purposefully not included in the fake dreams she offered up.

The warrior poking at her thoughts was shockingly weak defensively. She could scream inside his brain and he wouldn't notice her. It took no effort at all to discern that he was a nobody; only used to break into people's heads and learn their secrets. He may be useful later if she ever wanted to learn any of those secrets, but for now, the only thing of interest she learned was that she was on Frieza's flag ship.

Frieza was here -

It was reckless, stupid, and dangerous, but she couldn't miss this opportunity. This may be the only chance she'd ever get – there was no way to know. She had to take the chance.

She didn't know whether or not Frieza was telepathic and could sense her or not… he didn't seem to, in fact, he seemed completely oblivious to her. Then again, she seemed completely oblivious to everyone.

She was as cautious as she could afford to be while rifling through the tyrant's most accessible thoughts.

Apparently, Jeice and Burter had been late. When neither of them reported in or responded to hails, Frieza had sent others to look for them. When the Ginyu ship was found drifting aimlessly in space – 4 days ago – Frieza had immediately decided to reclaim it personally, so had come to claim it. Too many things had happened lately that shouldn't have, and he wasn't pleased. It had all started when he invaded that insignificant blue planet with the single yellow star. He had lost Zarbon and Vegeta there, and since then, his planets and compounds had been under constant attack. Now he had lost a very important wormhole and 4 of his 5 most elite warriors.

When he had heard Vegeta was alive, he hadn't been surprised. He had even been thrilled! He just knew that pathetic monkey was somehow behind everything. Saiyans had a way of being the sour in the sweet; it never took much at all and the whole flavor was ruined. No Ice-jinn liked a bad taste in their mouth…

Frieza had a very sensitive tongue. It was a species trait few knew about his people. His kind were sexless. Any could breed with any other – all it took was for two of them to come together and dart each other in the throat with a spike each had on their tongue. Both then would lay eggs that emerged from a sac at the base of the gullet. Hacking them up wasn't very pleasant. Neither was getting stabbed in the back of the throat with a tongue spike. Oh, but the tongue fencing… that was glorious. And every Ice-jinn had a four-foot tongue with which to do it.

And now, the prince had returned. Frieza was so excited, he could feel himself salivate. He'd have to be careful… this particular Saiyan was quite spicy. He had burned his tongue more than once..

Bulma reeled back in disgust. It took every ounce of her will not to outwardly react.

She must have been successful because a moment later, her audience retreated - but not before she learned she was to be removed from the pod and brought to Frieza immediately upon her waking.

Right then, her pod's siren screamed.

Apparently… she was waking up now.

Oo0oO

Wow, he wasn't kidding. She hadn't even dried off completely, and she was still trying to put some pants on when some enormous brute grabbed her by the arm and started to lead her away. Fighting off the last remnants of lethargy, it was easy to hold her tongue. Still, it was lucky for him she decided it would be unwise to show her cards by revealing how dangerous she could be, even without her foul mouth. Hmf. She would just have to be satisfied with giving him the mother of all headaches later on.

She was marched through a labyrinth of hallways, Jeffery's tubes, communards, atriums, and a whole mess of things she didn't even have names for. By the time she was shoved into a –a throne room? A viewing deck? A bridge? – she was so absorbed in looking at everything all at once and trying to figure out how things worked, what species that was, and oh! What technology was that? – that she didn't notice where she was at first. It was the lack of bustling aliens and noise – the lack of anything – that raised the red flag. She knew she wouldn't be left alone. That only meant…

She shivered as goose bumps prickled all over her body.

Something she had overlooked because she thought it was a part of the décor, or maybe machinery? started to rotate. She watched as it came to a halt. Inside, a being no larger than a child sat amongst a backdrop of pillows. He twirled a glass of something that looked like wine in one of his hands. It was dark, but her pseudo-Saiyan eyes could see a glint from red eyes glowing in the shadowy, half-hidden crevices of his face. She couldn't see it, but she knew he smiled cruelly at her audacity to stand before him without cowering.

He chuckled menacingly. "You don't know me, do you, child?"

Her insides dropped and she almost melted to the floor in relief. Oh, thank God he was speaking Galactic Standard. The only other languages she knew would reveal her as an Earthling, Or worse – someone intimately familiar with Saiyans. She recovered quickly out of necessity and quickly schooled her features. She was about to put on the show of a lifetime.

She lowered her eyebrows and narrowed her eyes at him. She knew Freiza very, very well. She also knew him well enough to know she had one shot to impress him. She couldn't overdo it, though, or she'd insult him. So. She couldn't simper or she'd never be respected… but she couldn't act like Vegeta, either. She wouldn't be able to withstand the physical damage it would take to pay for saying the wrong thing.

So. Be unafraid, but don't be an asshole.

She took the plunge.

"I know enough about you to know I'm valuable," she said. She tossed her still damp hair arrogantly. "And I know enough to know you're not foolish enough to jeopardize my worth."

He tossed his head back and cackled thunderously. Placing the glass of wine down next to him, he leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, and steepled his fingers.

"Is that so…" He murmured, mirth dancing in his dangerous, ruby eyes.

It took effort not to cringe as his raspy voice sand papered her ear drums. The less he spoke, the better.

"I'm a genius. On my world or any other. There isn't any technology beyond me. If you want it, I can make it." She shoved any feeling of nervousness down to her toes. She had to seem like she meant every word. A tiny, conceited voice in the back of her mind told her it wasn't a boast if it was true.

He tilted his head and considered her as he would an interesting, beautiful bug.

"Why would you do this for me?"

Well at least this was an easy answer… She shrugged as if the answer was as obvious as it would be, if she was actually who she was pretending to be. "If I didn't offer it, it would be forced from me, anyway. If I'm going to work for you either way, I'd rather be rewarded than punished."

When the pause was growing uncomfortable, she soberly added, "I have nothing. No planet, no people.. I have only myself. I'd rather live easy and scratch out whatever enjoyment I can wherever I can than bother with someone else's cause and someone else's war against you." She was ashamed just how close to the truth that was. She wasn't going to fight Frieza. Not now. She needed his resources and his help so she could further her own cause. Fix the wormhole. Find her friends. Figure out a way to return to Earth.. hope Kami was still alive. Gather the Dragon Balls. Heal her planet. Regroup…..

Vegeta…

Only then would she be able to bring the fight to Frieza. Goku…. and Vegeta…. made her invincible. Without them, she was just half of what was needed for victory. She could plan until the rest of her was as blue as her hair. Without someone to carry the torch, she may as well not exist.

Frieza seemed ready to capitulate. One more shove should do it. Something to play up to his ego.

"Always side with the winning side. If you help make the rules, no one else can use them against you."

He grinned. "You will have all you need and more." He leaned back in his chair. "Of course you understand I'll be watching you very carefully. I wouldn't want you to start believing some other side could possibly win…"

He was threatening her by referring to her association with her last 'employer.' It wasn't as though he could ask for a reference. Everyone on the meteor was dead and he had no way of knowing how. Was she involved? Did she defect to him, bringing Vegeta with her as an offering? With Jeice and Burter gone, he'd never know. He knew better than to ask her – he had no way of corroborating whatever she said.

She forced herself to smile. "I wouldn't dream of it," she replied.

Oo0oO

Vegeta stood motionless in the hallway's intersection, his eyes downcast and unfocused. He didn't bother reaching out with his senses; he had tried that countless times already and it had gotten him nowhere. He hadn't even known he could do such a thing – sense ki – until he had done it. The shock of the discovery was blunted; like he shouldn't really be surprised. Everything felt that way to him, now. Half of what it should be. Things seemed…. colorless and tasteless…

Lifeless.

He was… drifting. He felt like he was on pause; only half awake. The things that mattered to him before seemed unimportant, now. When he had first returned, he hadn't bothered to fear retribution. Sure, he had been beaten, but even Frieza sensed there was no real point to it if Vegeta couldn't be bothered to care. His apathy had done more to exempt him from the attentions of those few who were stronger than anything he had ever done before. Whereas he had been a favorite before, now…. everyone seemed as disinterested as he himself was.

He knew as well as anyone this was completely wrong. He was utterly out of character. Yet that troubled him far less than the feeling of….he didn't know what. But he knew he'd recognize whatever it was if he found it, so – he went looking for… whatever it was. It was infuriating to feel.. something.. everywhere, yet find it nowhere.

He had tried to bury it with distractions, at first. When he had recovered from his reunion with Frieza, he had squandered a week's worth of credits on meals that went uneaten when he couldn't force himself to choke anything down. Now, eating was something he tolerated simply because it was necessary. Picking fights produced a similar response. He was infinitely stronger than he had been – stronger than anyone minus Frieza. Yet exacting revenge on those who had tormented him before – what few remained – did nothing. He felt more at peace when he allowed himself to be beaten so broken and bloody he had to be dragged to the nearest regeneration tank. The pain was something he could focus on and he felt more himself – he had somehow learned to rise above the agony of his flesh and float in the nothingness in between consciousness and subconscious. It was there that he felt that maybe he had found a hint of…. And then the fluids of the tank would descend and he would sink into oblivion.

He had just emerged from one of the pods an hour ago. He barely noticed those who brushed by; even those who dared to make contact with him. He didn't know where he was going. Probably looking for someone strong enough to put him back into a tank. Even if it was the minutes before sleep overtook him that he wanted yet dreaded – the nothingness that followed was still better than the hell of being awake.

And his dreams…

He would live and die for those dreams.. except that he always woke never remembering the tranquility he had found in slumber. Even his dreams were a plague to him, now. He couldn't suffer the agony of feeling them fade away every time he was roused. So… he didn't sleep anymore. Any rest his body needed, it got in the regen tanks.

He turned down a random hallway and started to walk.

And suddenly - he jerked to a halt. Eyes wide and panting, heart galloping in his chest, he swallowed to work moisture into his dry mouth. The sensation of something – anything – after weeks of walking around alive yet half dead…. He had no choice. He had to know what it was. His senses told him nothing he didn't already know. Thousands of life forces, milling about chaotically. He heard nothing unexpected. Then why had he suddenly halted in the middle of a hallway? What had triggered…? Instinct alone caused him to breathe in the air through his mouth so he could taste it.

He swooned. The vile stink of pheromones from hundreds of alien bodies should have made him retch, but somehow, impossibly, there was one over all the others that stood out to him. One that punched him in the gut and stole the air from his lungs. Everything that had seemed so dull and listless came crashing down on him all at once and the overstimulation made his knees buckle.

All thought was squeezed from his brain and replaced with a thunderous pain. He was dizzy. It was almost as if he were seeing images that weren't really there superimposed over his vision. Only… the moment the images blossomed in his mind's eye, they were snatched away from his consciousness before he could grasp what it was he saw. Something…. Bottomless and blue…. Waves of silky water flowing around him.

It was like a caress.. a sigh gently blowing over his face –

And then it was gone.

It was as if he were waking from his dreams all over again. Only this time – he was fully aware of what was happening.

What he was trying to see but could not see where memories. His memories. Something… he couldn't remember what.. had triggered his memories.

As a Saiyan, he was well aware of sharing thoughts and memories. He had done so all his life - though he had only two with whom to share, he was still extremely picky with what he shared. But he did share. He had to. Half of Saiyan communication was done using telepathic imagery, pieced together with impressions and memories. He understood memories. And something had forced his away.

So it was true, what he had heard. When he had first returned, he couldn't escape the talk – everyone wanted to know what had happened to him… how he had come to be on that ship with a strange kind of alien female he heard looked like the beings from the last planet he had purged.. which, he admitted to himself for the first time, was where his memory started to falter. He had heard she was the one who invented the collar. He had heard it was believed the collar had stolen his soul – why else would he have returned so changed? He hadn't really paid any attention. He hadn't wanted to consider that they may have been right. But…..what else could this feeling of wrongness be? What else could snatch his memories away?

Whatever the collar had stolen, he wanted it back.

It was time for him to hunt for answers. His lips curled back in a silent snarl.

And he knew exactly where to start.