How to Enthrall a Dragon

After his encounter with the female saiyan it became harder than Piccolo had expected to regain his concentration. Every time he would get close to regaining it, her voice would pop into his head: I'm looking forward to it. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't either, but he'd rather be a liar than face the truth that his curiosity was peaked by some girl. Well not just any girl, Goku's sister. For all he knew she could be stronger than he was, which meant he needed to concentrate and get stronger. Now he had two idiots to beat. He cleared his mind again, but gained little focus from it. It didn't matter that her voice was out of his head, her smile had taken its place. His voice boomed through the forest like thunder as he let out his frustration on the nearest tree, completely disintegrating it.

He breathed heavily for a few moments before he decided to let his curiosity get the better of him and headed in the direction she had flown off in earlier. At the very least he could figure out what she was doing here. It always helped to know your enemy's motivation. It wasn't long before Piccolo found himself above the Kami house. He didn't need to get too close to hear all the little details, after all his ears weren't big for nothing. This matter was greater than he'd initially thought it could be. It was a good thing he'd followed the girl, by the looks of things Goku wasn't taking this new threat too seriously. He never did. It was infuriating. The world would thank Piccolo one day when he had rid it of those saiyans. At least he took the matter seriously and would become stronger rather than wasting precious time on introductions. Once the saiyans were out of the way, including Goku and the girl, the world could thank him by bowing down so he could finally fulfill his father's last wish.

Piccolo chuckled to himself, he might even get lucky and they'd all just wipe each other out. No that's not what he wanted, he wanted Goku for himself. He wanted the pleasure of watching him die by his own hands. When he realized this, a plan started to take form. He waited outside the house for the girl to leave. Goku had walked out to watch her fly off and that's when he made his move.

Goku quickly turned around and glared at him, "I was wondering when you were going to show yourself. Come for another fight Piccolo?"

"I guess I was listening better than you were. There's no way we're going to get strong enough in only a month's time." he stated before he looked into the house seeing the others partying away, "especially not if this is your idea of training. The girl was right, you need to train your kid. I'm going to train as well, harder than I have been, and when that saiyan comes, you'll have my help, but don't think for a second I haven't forgotten about our match."

"I wouldn't expect you to." Goku laughed, still appearing to make light of the situation, "Once we defeat him, I'll be ready for you and you'd better bring everything you've got."

"I'm glad you understand the situation. I'll leave you to your..." Piccolo paused and eyed the party in the house before he smirked, "...training."

Piccolo flew off in the direction he'd come from. That was one down, now one to go. There were very few things he knew about Rori and most of them he'd learned by overhearing her chat with Goku. The one thing that stayed relevant in his mind was from what she said, despite her strength and speed, she'd had little to no actual training. She'd never been in a real fight. This played to his advantage. He was gaining on her, he started to see her coming into focus, but almost ran into her when she suddenly stopped.

"You've been following me?" she asked and turned around, "that enthusiastic to finish our match?"

"You could say that." he said with a smirk as the both descended.

"So how much did you hear?"

"Enough to know you'll need my help too."

Rori folded her arms and walked over as she glared up at him, she was Goku's height, but still she was much shorter than Piccolo making it hard for her to appear intimidating, "And why would you want to do that?"

"For a favor... Your brother and I have a score to settle. I think we could help each other." he started as she unfolded her arms showing she was listening, "If I'm correct, you have no formal fighting training and let's face it, Goku alone is not going to be able to defeat your brother in just a month's time. I'll train you and if need be help deter your older brother."

"And what do you get out of this?"

"When this is all over, Goku and I have agreed to settle our score. I don't need you interfering. Stay out of it and when I kill him, then you can stay on my planet and serve me like everyone else or find another place to hide out."

"Or I could just kill you now." she replied with a wink.

"You could try... you're strong and fast, I'll give you that, but not so much that if you make one stupid move I won't be able to take advantage of it." he held his hand out, "It's your choice. Do we have a deal?"

Rori looked up at him studying his face before she placed her hand in his and shook it. As soon as her hand met his, she felt something strange in the pit of her stomach. She wasn't sure what it was, but for now she pushed it aside to deal with later if it ever came up again. Little did she know he had the same feeling. Piccolo pulled his hand away before he looked up at the sky. The sun had set and the crescent moon was out, now high in the sky. "Good decision. We'll start tomorrow morning at dawn."

Over the next few days, Piccolo had learned more about Rori than he had planned. He had learned that she was used to a higher level of gravity which explained why she was so fast. That most of her time on the ship she had tried to avoid Lord Frieza's guards by spending her time in training rooms. She knew little about any real strategy, but he had plans to fix that. Honestly at this point, he felt she was probably their best chance at fighting off the older saiyan, but then again he hadn't gauged Goku's full strength yet either. It would be interesting to see who would come out stronger, the man trained by his "better half" Kami or the girl trained by the ruthless Piccolo.

Piccolo found that he was gaining strength from training with her as well. She was a quick learner and kept him on his toes whether they were sparring or meditating. Though the girl couldn't seem to keep her concentration, asking him all kinds of silly questions after only minutes of meditation.

"Why do you want to kill Goku?" she asked one day after they had sat in silence under a waterfall, letting the ice cold water run over their heads.

Piccolo grumbled something under his breath she couldn't hear before he finally answered, "He killed my father."

There was silence for a few minutes before she spoke again, her eyes remaining closed as if she was still meditating and not thinking up more silly questions for him, "I'm sorry..."

There was silence again, but Piccolo opened one of his eyes and noticed she was shivering. She must have been asking her questions to keep her mind off the cold. Without even realizing it, he did something for her benefit, trying to keep her mind off the coldness of the water, "He wasn't a good man, but before he died, I was born out of his hatred for mankind. My father filled my being with his plans of revenge on Goku and this planet. Once I get rid of Goku, then the world will know what true pain and suffering is. I will make sure they understand true evil."

"hmmm..." she hummed on her lips, listening to his words, but never said anything. This was the first time he'd ever told anyone anything about himself or his thoughts and all she could say was hmm. He waited, but she still said nothing so he stood and left the waterfall, "That's enough for now. Why don't you go take a break."

He turned around to ask what she was waiting for when she didn't repsond, but found Rori had gone like he'd asked. He almost seemed disappointed, but went over to a tree and began meditating again. He wasn't sure how long he'd remained there, but eventually he felt her presence and opened his eyes to find she was hanging from the tree upside down in front of him. Piccolo looked at her and shook his head, "just what are you doing?"

She flipped down from the tree and landed, sitting before him, "Taking a break like you said." She took a bite of an apple she had found pointedly as if to prove to him she was indeed taking a break, but he was paying no attention to that. Piccolo's eyes followed the trail of juice flowing from the side of her lips fighting the urge to lean over and taste it. She caught his gaze and assumed it was to the apple so she pulled out another one holding it up to his face, "apple?"

"I don't really eat." he replied as she shrugged her shoulders and continued eating her apple. His gaze followed her full pink lips with every bite she took, wondering if she knew she was torturing him by just staring at him with those big teal eyes. Eventually he couldn't take it and exploded, "What are you looking at?!"

"I was just thinking about what you'd said earlier." she replied moving on to her second apple that he'd refused. He regretted that now as her tongue ran along the side of the apple capturing the trail of juice she'd created from biting it. Luckily, she moved to his side, not wanting to anger him by staring at him any longer.

"And just what were you thinking?" he asked when he finally found his voice again.

She laughed a bit and threw the apple core past them watching it disappear into the forest, "how strange it is... you think you're evil, that you can show this world what evil is, but I don't think you truly know evil like you think you do."

"What makes you say that?" it was laughable the way she spoke as if she knew. Who was she to judge him or the likes of what could be deemed evil?

"I know real evil. Someone purely evil..." she thought for a moment back to Frieza, "someone who could kill a whole race of people and not care, enslave them without giving it a second thought, rape and destroy them until any last ounce of humanity is drained from them. Someone who is born of actual evil, is a monster that doesn't discriminate, their one goal is to destroy every last hope in another being. That's not you. You couldn't do something that beastly, whether your father wanted you to or not. You may settle your score with my brother one day, but I just can't imagine you being the kind of heartless person that would want to corrupt every last shred of innocence."

Piccolo let her words sink in. Who was she to judge him? This was all that he was created for, before he knew what he was doing he had her pinned to the ground, "I should just kill you now and rid myself of your foolishness..."

She stared up at him defiantly at first until she saw the look in his eyes, there was a darkness there that she couldn't put her finger on. He moved his finger over her bottom lip and smirked, "or maybe I should rape you first and show you what I am really capable of?"

It was amazing how in such a quick instant her face turned from insubordinate to pure fear. Her voice was barely above a whisper as she shivered beneath him, "you wouldn't..."

It was then that he'd remembered what she had told Goku. He was trying to prove that he had real darkness inside of him, that he was the kind of monster she described, but she knew what real evil was. She lived with it every day since she was born. Seeing the fear in her eyes, feeling her shake beneath him, she could have gotten away if she wanted, but that man had put so much fear into her, that even Piccolo could make her cower in fear at just the mention of taking her innocence.

For a long time, neither of them spoke, his eyes were still hard as he stared down at her, but he realized she was right. He had to wonder how could anyone look at this girl and want to break her so thoroughly. She had been nothing but kind to him and most likely anyone else she'd met. To want to cause her pain, he just couldn't fathom it as he looked into her eyes.

Regaining his composure, Piccolo moved off of her, not able to look at her after how he'd acted, "You're right... I can't"

Rori sat up, holding her wrists where he had pinned them. She wiped a stray tear from her eye and sighed. She knew her reaction was a bit over the top, but ever since she'd heard Frieza's plan for her, and even for Vegeta, some of the braveness she had inside of her had died. Maybe it was because she knew there was nothing she could do, but that's how he'd wanted her to feel, helpless. He'd succeeded in that without even knowing it. She looked to Piccolo and saw him staring off at nothing.

"I think I'm going to go take a walk" she said quickly and left before he could reply.

After walking for quite some time her mind began to wonder. By now she had cooled off from what had happened earlier, but she kept reverting back to when he had her pinned down. She couldn't get it out of her head, not because she was scared anymore, but because she couldn't shake that strange dark look in his eyes. He had stared down at her with something she'd never noticed before. No one had ever looked at her with that kind of intensity. She could feel her skin tingling at just the thought. She pulled her hair out of it's ponytail and began to run her fingers through it, relishing its silkiness between her fingers.

The cool breeze ran across her back causing her hair to flow over her skin making her shiver. The sudden urge overwhelmed her of wanting to feel the breeze over her entire body and her armor began to feel as though it was weighing her down. Before she knew what she was doing she began to strip out of her armor, letting the last piece of the skin tight fabric pool around her ankles. She moved into the water as her hands had seemed to find minds of their own, one running through her hair the other down her chest. Quickly she gained her composure shaking herself out of whatever trance she had been put in, What am I doing...?

Then Frieza's words ran through her head. On her twenty-second birthday, she's going into heat for the first time just like the others would if I hadn't destroyed them all. You know how those women get when they're in heat, she won't care who's in there with her as long as she's being sated.

"But... It's past that time... I shouldn't be now..." she spoke to herself trying to make sense of things, "unless... because I was in hibernation in the ship that didn't count..." Rori quickly counted on her fingers, based on when she landed her birthday should be... tomorrow.

She heard a rustle from the bushes and turned to find Piccolo standing there.