He was excited. More than that, he was thrilled to see his old friend once more. He'd already called for Raditz and Goku to meet him when Bulma and Vegeta got back from their mission. He was looking forward to Bardock's arrival. It would be a happy event. Kami knew they needed more.
However, as he stood in the hangar, waiting for the stealth helicopter to fully stop so the youngsters could get out, he sensed something was off. That feeling was cut off though, as an ecstatic cry bounced off the walls as the first person stepped out of the vehicle.
"Dad!"
Both Son boys crashed into their father's chest in a positively bone-crunching hug. He didn't seem to mind as he returned the gesture with enthusiasm and ruffled their hair. "How's it been, boys?"
Goku didn't remember much about his rather gruff dad since he was so young when he was captured, but he knew he admired the man very much. Raditz remembered everything about him. The man was his role model and friend. When he'd gone missing, he hadn't been sure he'd be okay.
Dr. Brief smiled warmly at them. He and his daughter were very dominantly human, though he was certain there were saiyan genes mixed up in there somewhere. As far as the Son men went, as well as Vegeta, they were incredibly in tune with one another. To have that kind of tie severed at such young ages must have been devastating, but now they were being rebuilt.
Juu and Bulma emerged not a minute later with Krillin. The blue-haired woman leaned heavily on the blonde and for a moment, her father thought she was severely injured.
He was right.
But it wasn't a physical injury.
She had stopped crying after about half an hour when they got in and left. Juu took her right by her father to her room, ignoring the question in the old scientist's eyes. The bald midget was removing his gloves as he sighed.
"Krillin, what happened? And why is Vegeta still in the copter?"
Almost dejectedly, he looked up. "Vegeta's not in there."
Realization slowly began to sink in, but not totally. "Why would he ride his air bike all the way back here? That's at least a week long trip."
"He's not. They got him. He went in with Bulma, and he didn't come out. Bardock can fill you in later. Juu's trying to help her calm down. I'm going to bed."
To say the news hit him hard would be an understatement. He thought of the lad as a son. He made his little girl happier than anything. He couldn't be gone. He was the most skilled agent within the entire organization. There was no way. It simply was not possible.
Unless.
It had been a trap.
He should have known. The information had been too easily obtained. He should have known.
They had to get him back. Fast.
In her room, Bulma laid face down, clutching Vegeta's pillow. She couldn't cry anymore. Juu stood to the side, not sure what to do to comfort her. It wasn't fair. He'd gotten them out and yet he had paid the price. She tried to think back, find any warning sign she could have picked up on to prevent this. There wasn't much.
Juu excused herself when Bulma went to shower. If there was one place she could think, it was there. They hadn't followed them back out. They gave chase, but didn't pursue them any further than the exit. Then it hit her.
They weren't looking to reclaim Bardock or get her as well.
They were trying to separate them from Vegeta.
And they fell for it.
The thought that it was her fault made her want to cry more, but she refused. As she dressed she began to think about what could be done to get him back. She was fairly certain that they weren't going to kill him. They would have done so the second he was down if that was their goal. So what did they want from him? Would they try to bargain with the resistance to get information? Was there some sort of public morale trick to this?
The questions were endless. She was tired, emotionally stressed, and it would only worsen with the coming days and up until he was holding her again. She would speak with her father in the morning and start coming up with a rescue plan as fast as possible.
Her meeting with Bardock and her father did not go well. Especially at 5:00 in the morning.
They hadn't had enough time to fully extend their resources to find out more about what Gero would want the hybrid prince for. Until then, all they could do was sit back and wait. Charging in blindly (and maybe into the wrong facility) was a move likely to get many people killed. It was why Brief hadn't allowed Raditz and Goku to get Bardock themselves.
The information did not sit well with Bulma.
She yelled. She argued. And she wore herself out enough for the men to calm her down to the point of thinking with logic.
There was almost nothing she could do.
Four days. That's how long he'd been gone, and she was ready to rip her hair out with worry. No one had bothered her as it proved to be potentially hazardous to their mental, physical, and emotional health. She slaved away in her lab, working on the armor, disabling the network, anything that might help.
She would rise before the sun, go to the lab, eat a small breakfast, train with one of her friends, pour over data, eat lunch, go back to the lab, review more data, shower if she remembered, and go to sleep at no earlier than 1 o'clock.
There were dark circles under her eyes, and her shoulders hunched ever so slightly. Launch knew she wasn't the only one to notice.
…
He scowled ahead as the ornate door got closer and closer as he was marched down the hall, eight guards surrounding him, his hands locked behind his back, and cameras watching his every move.
He would have rolled his eyes were it not for the dire situation he was in. he'd woken up restrained by what looked like a high tech strait jacket in a room with one door and walls made of almost a foot of solid steel. No, they weren't taking any chances with him. Whatever they wanted with him must have been quite important for such close vigilance to be executed.
When he stepped into the throne room of who Bulma called, "His Almighty Emperor Ass-ness."
Only four days, and he missed her more than anything. She'd gotten out, for his saiyan hearing caught the whirring of the air bike engines. While his captors had been busy giving false chase as he lied on the floor blacking out, Vegeta had managed to smash his communicator and any other device that might lead the RRA to the rebellion's front door.
He just hoped she wouldn't do something stupid.
She probably would anyway.
He liked that.
Life had been a bitch since that mission. He had only been fed twice, and they had put him in an absurd uniform that was like a black jump suit, only with a tracking device and electrocuting wires running throughout the damned thing.
To be honest, he wasn't really that concerned about breaking out. He knew his woman would go to hell and beyond to get him back, and trusted her capabilities to do so. What he was worried about was the danger of him becoming a liability to the organization.
While they had been able to roughly speculate, he still had no idea just what kind of technology Gero had developed. He could be brainwashed, or given some deadly disease to spread to his fellow agents against his better knowledge. There were so many threats to look out for, and he didn't even know what more than half of them could be.
Of course, there was also that apprehension about being subjected to torture for information, or becoming a lab rat.
Or being killed.
He, very much, did not want to die. Kakarot, Raditz, Chichi, Krillin, Juu, Dr. Brief, Launch…Bulma. He had too many people and obligations to live for.
He scowled. No matter what, even if it meant that he was never freed, he would not endanger them.
They shoved him roughly so that he stood on a circular cut out in the floor where a thick energy shot up, locking him in a tube-shaped prison too small for him to take one step in. Gero sat on his throne with an irritating grin.
And being Vegeta, he couldn't help but be as much of a smartass as possible.
"So it's true then. You really are more hideous in person. I didn't think it was possible."
The man frowned. "I'd be silent if I were you, monkey. Unlike you, I am not tainted with that foul and primitive blood."
"This "foul and primitive blood" of mine makes me easily five times stronger than you as it stands. Without that cowardly ki sucking network, that number would be exponentially higher. And what are you anyway? Your bloodline's efforts were to remain pure, right? Look what it's gotten you. You're the alien beast now."
The older man stood and strode to the prince. They stared at each other; Gero with irritation, Vegeta with smug arrogance, just daring him to do something. So, the tyrant clicked a button on his wrist watch, and the energy trapping him enveloped his entire body, wracking him with painful shocks and stings. He grunted as his body tensed, but managed to glare at the old man anyway. Finally, the freak stopped it as he felt his veins ignite.
"It's interesting that you would call me an alien beast, actually. You see, that's exactly why I need you. You're only a miniscule percent human. Two, maybe three ancestors of yours at most were human. You are quite obviously the best candidate for what I have in mind. In fact, I wouldn't have even thought of it if you and you whore hadn't raided my base in Taiwan for files on the Lunar project."
Vegeta growled lowly at the insult to Bulma. However, the mention of a "Lunar project" confused him. They hadn't even known about that. They'd been after more info on the ki network, but had found nothing. That tip had been a dead end.
"What do you want from me?"
There was a malicious glint to his eyes. "I want the ancient power of the Oozaru." He laughed. "Right in the palm of my hand."
…
"We shouldn't be here."
"I know, and I don't care."
"But, Bul-!" Her hand clamped over his mouth before he could finish.
"Remember, Clark, that's not my name. It's Marie." Goku nodded vigorously. He did not want to invoke Bulma's wrath at that moment. She had been on edge since Vegeta went missing a week ago and if anything, she got worse with every passing minute.
They were currently wandering the barracks of one of the RRA's training areas. They were posing as new recruits. They had all of the fake documents they would ever need. Bulma had gone so far as to dye her hair brown and wear green contacts. She had developed an adhesive that they had put over their fingers to alter their fingerprints that dissolved after twenty minutes.
Raditz and Launch had come too. They were on the other side of the grounds trying to be social and sneak information from soldiers. Bulma had made a serum for the split personality woman to take so she would remain in her blonde form even if she sneezed.
It had been difficult for Goku and especially Raditz to tear themselves from their father when Bulma asked for help, but they had done so for her and Vegeta's sake. They had gone nearly all of their childhood without him, and he would be waiting for them when they returned.
He'd seemed intrigued by the mentions of Launch and Chichi.
He was impressed with how quickly she gathered the necessary data to get in. Of course, he was more terrified of her than anything else in that moment. She pushed as she wove through the crowd, the Son boy doing his best to keep up.
Launch had been assigned to work in the archives after her "terrible" fighting performance in the testing arena for the new recruits. It couldn't have been more perfect.
Raditz was going to report to some guy named General Grey. He would act as sort of a messenger between platoons and him as he gave out orders. Also an ideal position.
And him? Well, Goku was somehow supposed to go through their combat training program with Bulma, make it look like it wasn't a cake walk, and somehow get them both shipped to the capital where they could go after Gero to get Vegeta.
The big trick to all of this?
Dr. Brief had no idea they were there. Chichi, Juu, and Krillin were the only ones back at central command that knew.
Oh boy.
It wasn't even worth describing. Fifteen laps around camp, 100 pushups, 60 sit-ups, running though a two mile long obstacle course twice with a ten pound bag of sand on each shoulder, 30 laps in an Olympic sized pool, five minute spar with a robot…
Honestly.
It was just so damn easy.
No wonder a fourth rank team could take out a level D-7 weapons factory. They were too soft on their men.
He winced as Bulma nudged his harshly in the ribs again. He resumed his heavy, exhausted breathing. Most of the sweat was coming from the heat of the midday sun.
"Now I bet you didn't find that very easy, did you?" The big official commander spoke with a smug look of satisfaction as he looked down at the newbies. He proceeded to go on a lengthy lecture about the prides of the RRA, working hard, staying true and loyal to Emperor Gero, how he understood it was no one's fault that they had saiyan blood (that ticked him off), and how they would crush the Rebellion and make them beg for mercy.
With every word he spoke, Bulma grew angrier and angrier. She knew that coming there she would be exposed to the hatred of the RRA. Glancing around her, she saw that some agreed whole-heartedly with the commander, while others stared at their feet with shame. Then she remembered that not all of the soldiers were there voluntarily. Gero over taxed everyone, leaving them piss poor and scrambling to make ends meet. The military was the empire's main focus, and thus where the best money was. Not all of them agreed with what was being said, but they didn't have much choice.
Still, this bastard hated the blending of the blood. He was very flamboyant. But that wasn't the most surprising part.
The commander's name was Paragus.
There was an interesting story to that man. More specifically, his son, Brolly, who had run away and landed himself in the resistance after the sick-o led an assault on their own protesting village for refusal to pay the outrageous taxes. He was a second rank, right up there with Goku, Launch, Chichi, and Raditz.
As she lay down on her stiff cot within the women's dorm, Bulma wondered if everything would work out. What if they were caught? What if they couldn't find Vegeta? What if something happened?
What if he was already dead?
The thought alone brought tears to her eyes, but she held them back so as not to be heard by the other female soldiers. He had never liked it when she cried, and he had especially hated it when he was the cause for such tears.
"A waste of time and energy when you could be doing something productive to better the situation," he'd told her. She remembered when they were younger, she had been building something when he entered her lab. They were thirteen and fifteen respectively, and even though he was the bane of her existence at the time, she did admit to admiring his physique.
Training relentlessly had many benefits for the prince, to say the least.
He had pestered her until she retaliated. They argued for a time. One of them said the wrong thing. She couldn't remember who or what it was about. The conversation shifted then, into one of the first civil interactions they'd had with each other since they'd met. It had been interesting to see a different side of him.
She reviewed, replayed, and reflected on those wonderful moments spent with her prince "charming" as she tried to fall asleep.
…
He was pissed. How pissed, you may ask? Almost comparable to when he found out that the RRA had captured his oldest allies and locked them away for years.
So, very, very pissed.
Despite the disastrous state that the world was in, it was actually incredibly difficult to anger him. So, this level of pissed-off-i-tude was indeed a rare and frightening sight to all.
Especially the young adults that found themselves seated in Dr. Briefs' office.
Chichi, Krillin, and even Juu were practically shaking in their boots as he demanded to know where his daughter had run off to in hopes of rescuing her lover.
To be honest, they were too paralyzed with fear to answer. Bardock's looming presence behind them did not help their apprehension as he wanted to know where his sons had gone with her.
And as they aging man stared down at them with a more menacing scowl than what was ever expected of Vegeta on his darkest days, they knew that they couldn't last much longer.
"I'm going to ask you one more time. Where. Are. They?"
A/N: Goku's alias, TFS reference if you've ever watched their parody of the Bardock special.
Okay, I NEED HELP! I was challenged by one of my mom's friends. A small drug prescription bottle with quarters crammed in. I'm supposed to figure out how to get them out without damaging the bottle. Any ideas? He took them out and put them back in (I wasn't allowed to look) within a few minutes so it's not that complicated. Any suggestions?
