Oo33oO
17 rubbed his jaw and narrowed his eyes at her. "Well that was uncalled for," he huffed testily, but not without amusement.
Bulma snorted as she crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself tightly. She'd die before she let it show that her hand was throbbing. Instead of howling in pain, she diverted the energy into an angry shriek, "Serves you right! How'd you'd like it if I showed up from nowhere and told you that you were going to die and there's nothing you could do about it and then laughed in your face?"
17 scowled at her but said nothing. Instead, he turned his head and studied Vegeta. The Saiyan still seemed dazed and appeared unaware – or simply just didn't give a shit - that he was still standing in water. He swayed on his feet but made no indication that he would exit the pond as he regarded 17 coldly. After a few tense moments, apparently unimpressed with the teenager, he grunted and wrapped his tail around his waist before brushing past the android to approach Bulma. With 17's glowing eyes lighting him from behind, she couldn't see the Saiyan's face as clearly, but a chill twisted its way up her spine. Something in the way he moved was alarming and predatory. He stopped just out of arms reach. She couldn't see his expression, but she felt the weight of his eyes. His breathing was shallow and fast– more of a strained pant. Even from this distance, she could feel his body heat radiating. He was trembling.
And then, she smelled it. Some kind of musk that rolled off of his body like an electrical storm, reaching for her like lightening tearing through the sky in search of a rod. She could taste it on her tongue and felt it twist up her spine to zap between her teeth when she clenched her jaw. The animal part of her mind broke free, leaving the tiny, human voice in the back of her brain insubstantial and reeling. She knew she was responding to his pheromones and she knew it was dangerous. She breathed shallowly. It didn't help.
"Vegeta..?" she whispered nervously.
The Saiyan shuddered in response, but said nothing. Her stomach dropped and it was only now that she fully understood what 17 had been trying to tell her. Vegeta was going to kill her and there was absolutely nothing she could do about it. The only reason he hadn't already was because – at the moment – his monumental control was just this side of shattering.
What frightened her most was that she couldn't bother to care overmuch. Every cell in her body screamed for his touch.
She reached for him and staggered as her step forward was thwarted by the android. She blinked in surprise. One second her path to Vegeta was open and the next second, she found her progress blocked by the teenager. He stood solidly between her and the Saiyan, glancing back and forth between them, his arms raised to either side as if telling them to 'stop.'
"Easy," he said softly, and with exaggerated calm. She couldn't be certain to whom he spoke, but the word was something to focus on.
Bulma concentrated on his glowing eyes and was surprised how much effort it took to jump start her sluggish brain. "What..?" Her words died in her throat before she could say anything more.
17 nodded at her. He flicked his gaze back to Vegeta briefly before turning towards her again. Though he kept his arms raised to prevent her and the Saiyan from moving closer to one another, he spoke lowly and soothingly. "The ability to communicate with each other while one was in orbit while the other was on the planet's surface wasn't the only reason an android was chosen to come down to fetch you. Goku would have come himself except he can't teleport this far underground; the closer he gets towards the core, the more unstable the rift and he doesn't know if he'd end up half in this dimension and half in the other one. He's nervous about teleporting at all, even if it's only to the surface. Something about ki distortion and not being able to form a very good anchor point."
She nodded but before she could murmur thanks for showing up to help them, he grinned sardonically at her. "Don't think I volunteered for this. I suggested my sister come down and take care of your little monkey problem before it became a problem, but she wasn't too keen on the idea of bestiality."
Bulma's features twisted in livid disgust, but before she could say anything, 17 interrupted her. Again.
"No need to get possessive, Periwinkle." His gaze flicked down to take in her form, and confused by his sudden over-interest, she sheepishly pulled at the tattered hem of the garment she wore in a feeble attempt to cover more skin. When she realized what she was doing, her anger flared but she was cut off again by the android. He was making an annoying habit of doing that.
His grin widened as she grew more irritated with him. "My sister wouldn't be able to touch him, even if she wanted to. Nappa insisted that at this point, only you'll do." He didn't bother to disguise a wolfish leer as his eyes once more took in her barely covered curves. His smirk became wicked. "For an animal, I must commend his taste. If it meant he'd not receive any attention from you, I can see why another female trying to seduce him would piss him off."
Bulma's anger popped like a cherry bomb just before it warbled, tried to rally, and completely deflated. The sudden shifts from fury to embarrassment to relief was so complete, it left her gaping. Humiliating as it was to be shown by an arrogant robot just how violently she felt about it, it was still oddly satisfying to know she'd prefer to get fucked to death by Vegeta than to live by allowing someone infinitely stronger than her take her place.
Still, she couldn't just say nothing. She grinned back, and the android instantly looked suspicious. She wouldn't disappoint his wary expectation. "So you thought you'd come down here and try seducing him yourself? Thought you could do a better job, did ya?"
17 blanched as his grin crumpled and gave way to horror. He sputtered, "N-nno! Of c-course not! I'd rather be on Yardrat with those insufferable telepathic toads!" His eyes were perfectly round as they shifted nervously from place to place in order to look at anything but her. For some reason, his statement rang true despite his likely intent to sound sarcastic.
Realization exploded in her brain. "You think he's going to kill you! You don't want to be anywhere near us! Yardrat is what? – 500,000 light years away? Pssh!" She sneered at him. "Aren't you stronger than him? You can use ki - or whatever the hell it is you androids use – and he's still collared! What the hell are you afraid of?"
The android winced, but didn't deny it. After a moment, he relaxed and shrugged – and suddenly looked sharply at her. "Strength and power are not the only deterrent, Cornflower. I'm gorgeous, but the only broken hearts I leave behind me belong to people with vaginas."
Bulma barked in laughter. 17 glared at her, but the effect was tempered by a grin. He sighed and looked over his shoulder at the Saiyan. Vegeta hadn't moved and seemed to be studying them as though he couldn't quite understand all that they were saying. Bulma wasn't sure if that was because they spoke in English or if it was because his mind was muddled. However, having something other than Bulma to concentrate on seemed to help him focus. He was still tense, but he was no longer panting. 17 finally dropped his outstretched arms.
He turned back to Bulma. "Just make sure he stays collared. I honestly can't say whether or not my sister and I will be strong enough when he loses it, but there's no other choice and we're the best chance any of us has got. If he were using controlled ki, it wouldn't be a problem, but uncontrolled ki is different. It's like matter colliding with antimatter – the effect is so volatile, the reaction feeds itself and keeps getting bigger and bigger. Based on how strong he was when he fought that red-headed freak, Racoome, and assuming he's only gotten stronger since then, the amount of power he could unleash would tear through him and destroy half the galaxy like it was tissue paper. If there was a chance we could run away, trust me. I'd be the first one out of here. But…that kind of raw power is.. it's.. well, it's not natural. Take that as you will coming from the mouth of someone who has a heart that pumps battery acid instead of blood."
Bulma didn't bother trying to contradict him; she knew it was blood on his split lip – the Saiyan may have landed on his ass in the water, but not before thumping the teenager at least once or twice. She may have even taunted the android a few minutes ago about it, but not after what she had just heard. Instead, she nodded numbly.
After a few moments of silence, 17 frowned at her. "You're taking this rather well, Turquoise…"
She spluttered and tried not to snort. It was actually rather difficult to breathe while her body shuddered in the effort to both laugh and cry at the same time. Apparently, her solution was to start hiccupping. He stared at her as though she had grown a second head. Her choking noises faded as quickly as they had begun when bile rose in her throat. She turned away, bent over, and pulled her hair out of her face just in case she did, in fact, toss her cookies. She wretched, but nothing came up. Suddenly dizzy, she collapsed to her knees and didn't move. After a moment, she regained just enough control to moan weakly. "We have to remove your collar," she whispered. "You would have been able to leave it on since you don't use actual ki..."
The glow from his eyes flickered as he blinked. "But suppressing ki isn't the only thing it does…" he guessed flatly. It sounded more like an accusation than a question. When she didn't answer right away, the crashing silence implied he should prepare for a monstrous revelation.
She opened her mouth to answer and tittered instead. It sounded far away even to her own ears, but sound was muffled under the blood rushing in her ears. She gulped and took a deep breath before looking up at 17 through the curtain of her hair. "I looked at Vegeta's collar a few days ago to see if I could remove it. I couldn't… I can't… remember building it, but I recognize my own work."
She closed her eyes so she wouldn't have to see him frown at her. She forced herself to continue. "They… the collars… have a proximity alarm. After crossing a certain distance threshold, the alarm triggers…I can't tell how far away you can be before - - the collars were set when they arrived here and it's done using codes indigenous to the individual prison where the collars are sent." She took a breath and closed her eyes. "An electromagnetic pulse that fires before spring loaded blades… slice through the jugular veins.…"
Her words strangled in her throat.
The android's lips tightened into a thin line. He was nervous and he didn't understand why. "Then it's good you're here to deactivate it before I move out of range."
She couldn't remember creating the collar, but she could imagine what she must have been thinking when she made it. She had wanted to ensure any device that negated the effects of the collar's ki suppressant were defeated. She hadn't known androids existed, but in effect, they acted the same way to counter the ki-suppressing collar as any other anti-ki-suppressing device would. An EMP would render such a device – or an android - inert just before the blade cut. 17 wouldn't survive because 17 could bleed.
She couldn't speak. She just stared at him, knowing her expression would make him understand.
"So then why didn't you…?" he croaked. It sounded strained to her. Like he knew he was missing something.
Bulma bowed her head and sighed. "Why didn't I deactivate Vegeta's collar? Well. I'll tell you." She stood up.
"I also discovered that if I deactivate a single collar, all the other collars – all of them-" she stared at 17 flatly for emphasis "-will deactivate. There may be a delay across galaxies, but after a few hours, every single collar throughout the universe will just...stop working. I didn't deactivate his collar because we'd still be trapped under here with hundreds of bad guys. We could break out to the surface, but we didn't have a way off the planet. And how long would a flammable planet stay spinning if hundreds of ki happy dick-heads were roaming around?"
Her eyes flicked towards Vegeta briefly and she had to look away. Her voice had no strength when she spoke. "And I knew something was…wrong… with him," her voice broke and she sucked in air to hold it together. "I was afraid…" afraid he'd lose his mind…
17 stared at her wide eyed and silent, and Bulma found herself distracted by the sound of his breathing. Who'd have thought a robot needed to breathe?
He just stood there. Why wasn't he saying something? Yelling? Taunting? Criticizing?
She lacked the strength to defend herself to the android even if he did belittle her.
She couldn't remember what she had been thinking when she built the collar, but she must have had reason to build the damn thing, right? She had even made fail-safes so that control could never be wrenched away from her -
She had ensured that no one at any time anywhere could ever disarm or remove a collar – except for her.
The teenager abruptly snorted and attempted to swallow a burst of emotion but drastically failed. Startled out of her thoughts, she watched 17 intently. After a pause, he started giggling. It quickly escalated to hysteric guffaws. Bulma – now utterly confused - crossed her arms over her chest and simply waited.
"Well, you've certainly fucked us, haven't you?" he said between wheezes. "And why shouldn't you? After all, it takes two to tango, right? Can't let the Saiyan have all the fun!" He peered at Bulma suggestively and disintegrated into another peel of girlish laughter. "I wonder. Will you two be fucking each other at the same time you're fucking everyone else in the God damned universe!?" His voice had increased in volume and anger until, by the last word, he was hollering angrily.
Angry now, she rose to her feet and stuck her finger in his face. "HEY! I didn't remove his collar, did I?"
"No! But how can you possibly remove mine if doing so renders his useless?! And unless I'm wrong, I can't travel very far with it still on! How do you expect we'll get to the surface when I'm stuck down here?"
Bulma froze, her finger suspended mid-air, and her jaw dropped.
Oh.
She sucked in air through her teeth.
Oooohhh.
Goku couldn't teleport to the surface without ki to lock on to – that meant either she or Vegeta would have to go up. With 17's revelations, it would be suicide to allow the collars to be deactivated because the suppressant was the only thing keeping Vegeta in check. Likely it would fail at some point – even her designs were not invincible – but the longer they could delay the inevitable, the better. And to top it all off, dealing with hundreds of un-collared criminals down here was an added bonus she'd also like to avoid.
So. That left her. She looked at her hands. The most they had ever seen were tools that left calluses. It would take her a year to carve out an inch of stone and she'd likely lose her finger nails in the process.
Oh, fucking hell.
"I can't tunnel through rock with my bare hands, 17. My ki is so negligible, they didn't even bother giving me a collar." She looked at 17 and frowned after a moment of studying him, suddenly insulted. He didn't have ki, either, yet he was outfitted with a collar. Pssh. Asshole.
17 watched her glower until she gave up staring at him and started to fidget. She flatly refused to look at Vegeta. He may have calmed down quite a bit, but she could still smell the need for sex literally coming out of his pores and she could feel his eyes following her every move. In all, he was very distracting and it wasn't helping her think clearly.
She slammed her palms to her temples and tangled her fingers in her hair. Exasperated, over-aroused, over stimulated, and generally overly desperate and angry, she clenched her teeth and held back an overpowering desire to scream.
"I don't know! Why don't I just..."
Her eyes popped open wide and her right hand flew to the bracelet she wore on her left wrist. She dropped to her knees, her fingers shaking as she fiddled with the clasp. She spoke to herself in a rushed whisper and quickly rifled through the charms. Absentmindedly, she yanked on the pant leg of 17's jeans to bring him and his glowing eyes closer. He obliged, and able to see better, Bulma apparently found what she was looking for.
"I have no idea how I remembered this just now," she stammered. "But I think it will help."
She popped open a capsule and rummaged through it. Not finding what she was looking for, she opened another one. Frustrated, she gave up looking and just started opening capsules at random, giving only a cursory look before she reached to open another. 17 knelt to the ground.
"What are we looking for?" he asked as she poked at indiscriminate items.
"I don't know. I just know that I'll know it when I see – " she cut herself off as she found what she was looking for and pounced on it. "This."
Her eyes fell on something else. "And this," she snatched both items and, shaking, backed away from the mass of opened capsules to perch on a boulder. Raising her head, she beckoned the android over. As he approached, she twirled a finger in the air and motioned him to turn around and sit on the ground between her knees. Vegeta flinched as he was bathed in the soft, blue light coming from the android's eyes.
"Ungh.. now I can't see," she complained, but dismissed it immediately. "Well, I was able to fiddle with Vegeta's collar in the dark. Of course… that was after a couple of days after my eyes had time to adjust…"
17 glared over his shoulder. "You're not touching this thing without being able to see."
Bulma drew in a breath to ask if he had any other suggestions – none too politely – when the issue was solved by 17 popping out one of his eyes and raising it above his shoulder. Bulma blanched but shook her head and shrugged.
"Hold it up more a little, please," she instructed.
She opened the case she had grabbed and selected a slender tool. "I remember these, now. They're tools I made specifically for the collar. I still can't deactivate it without all of the others deactivating, but I should be able to set a feedback loop so the collar becomes its own proximity limit. You'll be able to go as far as you want."
"I should be able or I will be able?"
"Fuck."
17 flinched violently.
Bulma shrieked. "Don't move!"
"Well what the fuck else am I gonna do when you say something like that!?"
"You're not gonna move, that's what! Now hold, still. Let me check something."
Her hands froze when a deep, chesty sound oozed from just beyond the glow of 17's eye. The teenager raised his head.
"Looks like the Saiyan is waking up," he observed. "You might want to hurry. I don't think he'll appreciate me being between your legs, even if I'm facing the wrong way." He paused before adding, "I'd also refrain from saying a particular four letter word again. I don't want to give him any ideas. At least, not while I'm in the way of him being between your legs."
Bulma rolled her eyes but quickened her pace. 17 had a point. Actually, he had a few.
"Done," she stated a minute later. 17 replaced his eye and stood. He swiftly put distance between he and Bulma and raised his hands, palms upwards, in a proactive effort to placate Vegeta. The Saiyan growled lowly, but the sound was less menacing than the first had been. Bulma beckoned the Saiyan forward and pointed at the spot in front of her 17 had just vacated.
17 stepped forward but Bulma shook her head. As Vegeta approached, she held up the second item she had plucked from the pile of decapsulated goods. She glanced at 17 to confirm he was listening. "This is a regulator. You stick it in your mouth and it will pull oxygen from any gaseous or liquid element that has the molecules to create oxygen. He can't smell me, I can't smell him. We'll be ok long enough for me to deactivate his proximity alarm."
17 frowned at the weird contraption but decided to let it go as he watched the Saiyan sit. He had something else he wanted to ask.
"Care to explain what the explanative was all about?" He blurted.
Bulma nodded her head, but couldn't answer with the device clenched between her teeth. She worked quickly and deftly on Vegeta's collar, taking care not to touch him, and when she was done, stood and backed away. Vegeta rose to a squat and slowly stood. It wasn't until 17 elbowed her that she realized she was staring hungrily at the Siayan's lithe movements. She shrugged at the android and removed the contraption from her lips. "Um. Yeah. So! Good news. You are free to move about the cabin." 17's brow pinched in confusion. Bulma sighed. "Airplane lingo."
"And the bad news?" he replied, choosing to ignore her poorly made joke.
"To create a feedback loop, I had to attach the loop to something that could provide continual feedback. Vegeta's ki is constant and provides a continuous baseline. Since you don't have ki, I had to use something else. The only mechanics within your collar that could do that was the device that suppresses ki…"
"Fuck!"
Bulma jumped at the force of his shout and frowned at him. "I thought you said we weren't going to say fu-"
"You're telling me.." he was angry because he was scared. "What exactly are you telling me? I'm going to get my head cut off because my non-existent ki can't constantly reinforce a feedback?"
"Don't worry. I disarmed the EMP and the blades." 17 relaxed a little and she continued. "I would have had to do that, anyway. These collars are powered by ki. Since you don't have ki, it would have run out of juice. The second that happened, the EMP would have gone off."
"Well that's good to know," he said sarcastically. She ignored the interruption.
"I had to bind the feedback to the only other thing that's constant in the collar that has nothing to do with ki. That's the signal pulse that tells all the collars to shut off if one collar is deactivated."
17 stared at her blankly.
"You're on a timer. You have about an hour, give or take, before your collar deactivates."
He blanched. "I can't get to the surface in an hour. I can power up but I can't use any energy attacks to blow through the rock – even a small amount could cause a chain reaction of explosions. I could blow up the planet with an energy strike that should only be strong enough to shatter a 100 pound stone."
The teenager sighed and shook his head. "Even if I got to the surface, in time," Glowing eyes met hers. "Goku won't know I'm there. I don't have ki."
"We…go."
Bulma and 17 jumped and both swung their heads to face Vegeta – who had somehow crept closer without anyone noticing. He now stood a single pace away.
The Saiyan's dark gaze took in the android coldly before he shifted his attention to Bulma. The sudden heat erupting from his bottomless black pits was enough to make her knees weak with a bizarre cross of arousal and fear. Her breath caught in her throat and she had to swallow several times before she could trust herself to speak.
"V..Vegeta?" She hadn't known how closely he was listening, but he was certainly paying attention now. Still, he didn't answer. "Did you understand?"
She still spoke in English, but the Saiyan drew in a breath, cocked his head when he could smell and taste nothing, and peered at her as though she were something edible but he wasn't certain what.
She jumped again when he expelled a lungful of air harshly. Again, he tried to taste the air. When her scent continued to elude him, he bared his teeth menacingly and narrowed his eyes…. But he inclined his head. He understood.
"I…will…" he gritted out the words through clenched teeth and he raised a tightened fist. She nodded. He was having trouble speaking, but she understood that he meant to help them break out.
"Bad idea," 17 interjected. "You two need to stay as far away from each other as possible to delay Casanova's supernova. At least until we can figure out how the hell we're going to survive once he finally snaps. I'll take Vegeta. He can keep the tunnel clear behind me so I don't have to stop every time the passage gets clogged. At some point, the collars will be off and he can help me tunnel upwards so long as he doesn't get trigger happy with his ki. Goku will be able to sense him once we break through to the surface. We can come get you once he teleports down from orbit."
Bulma's eyes narrowed angrily, and she spoke in a hushed, sharp tone through clenched teeth. "I'm not going to be stuck down here in an hour when all these collars become nothing more than costume jewelry. I was bait once already, thank you – not doing it again. I'm going."
"Well then Vegeta stays - "
"Do you have a few screws loose?" Bula would have laughed at her own joke – few humans could boast saying that remark and actually mean it literally – but the longer they debated, the less likely it would be that they would escape.
"We can't leave Vegeta down here because, like it or not, he'd be more dangerous - he throws a Saiyan-sized fit if I'm not within grabbing distance." 17 cringed but said nothing.
After a moment, Bulma sighed. "Look. We're about a mile underground. You need him because with two of you working, we could be out before the hour is up. You need me to keep him in line. The rest… sort of doesn't matter. At least, not for another hour, it won't."
17 scowled. "Fine," he said snidely.
"Good," she replied, just as testily.
"I'd better get started, then," he spat as he brushed by her.
"You do that," she tossed over her shoulder.
Vegeta stepped towards her slowly and paused, just an inch between them, and lowered his head so that their noses touched. He breathed deeply, his eyes narrowing when he could still smell and taste nothing.
"You coming?" the android's sharp voice had a hint of alarm.
Vegeta's soft, vocal purr blew over her face with his breath. It wasn't quite the intimate sound he had explained to her earlier... but it was a gentle reminder that she was his possession. He bared his teeth and turned away from her to join the android.
"Iiiiii…..'ll just.. uum.. go over here," Bulma whispered hoarsely, more to herself than to anyone else. Her knees nearly buckled, but she was able to wobble to close-by boulder for much needed reprieve. Her legs were shaking...
Feeling weak, she bent awkwardly to brush pebbles from a flat surface so she could sit comfortably. Mid swipe, she turned her head when a resounding crack echoed through the caver. 17 pulverized the rock wall and quickly disappeared into a man-sized hole. Vegeta followed, and within seconds, enormous rocks started flying out. Boulders too large or heavy to throw without the aid of his ki were shoved and came cascading down to roll away from or shatter at the entrance. Before she sat down all the way, there was already a pile of rocks and boulders at the mouth of the hole. Bulma was embarrassed that she felt stunned. It was just.. for some reason, knowing a thing and watching it being done somehow seemed different.
At this rate, they really would be at the surface in an hour.
"Well. I guess I'll just…" She hastily grabbed the regulator and all of her other gear and encapsulated them before standing up to trot to the hole. She peered around the edge and hollered up. "I'm coming in! I'd appreciate it if you didn't squash me!"
The only answer she received was more rocks tumbling towards her. She flattened herself against the wall as a cascade of enormous boulders bounded by. One that had to be the size of a small wolkswagon cracked and crumbled into various sized rocks which bounced and rolled until a small pile of them came to rest at her feet. She stared at it a moment and blinked.
"Right." she informed it, and bent down to help the rollable stones out of the tunnel. "I got the little ones!" She shouted up.
The "little" ones weighed upwards of 150 pounds. It was going to be a very long hour.
