THE PRINCE OF ASH AND SNOW

PART TWO

by The Not-So-Super Saiyan

based off the web comic by Stupidoomdoodles

and inspired by the works of LadyVegeets

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE CHASE

Content Warning: violence and some language

SEPTEMBER 26th

It was humid and cold and dark and Bulma hated all three of those things. Thick fog floated freely about her as she weaved through the muddy streets.

"I've lost my mind." she muttered,"I'm on an ultra-dangerous-secret mission to change the world and I brought a child and a midget with me."

Krillin opened his mouth to speak but Gohan tugged on the sleeve of his jacket, shaking his head. Now was not the time to get her worked up. So instead they trudged on through the winding streets in silence looking for the motel where they had set up a rendezvous with Goku all the while Mindlessly listening to Bulma grumble.

Vegeta shoved his shaking hands into his pockets and turned his face to the wind.

Wake up you weak little shit. Stay awake.

Ripping the sweatshirt from his body he let the cold fog prickle his skin. He hadn't slept in almost six days. The longest he had ever gone was ten. By that calculation he still had four days left. But he wasn't so sure.

He was exhausted and beginning to see things. Didn't have time to stop. He had to make it to Bulma. She wouldn't stand a chance against Frieza. Unclenching and clenching his fists he looked out across the water. A small man sat across from him, steering the rudder. He spoke to Vegeta in a language he didn't understand, concern laced his voice. Vegeta said nothing in return.

When the banks of the river came into view Vegeta motioned for him to cut the motor and shoved a wad of cash in the man's hand before slinging the bag across his chest and plunging into the cold, murky water.

The man shook his head before turning the boat around and crossing back to the other side of the river.

Damn tourists.

They opened the door to the small room. Bulma threw herself on the bed right inside the doorway, not bothering to strip off her damp clothes first. She let out a moaning scream into the scratchy, colorful blanket.

"I hate everything about everything." she whined.

Krillin rolled his eyes stripping off his wet jacket and dropping it in the wicker chair.

"Bulma. We really should get something to eat. We haven't eaten since we woke up this morning." when she didn't respond he continued, "You know, uh...if you ate something you'd probably feel a little better."

Her head whipped around, her body still flat against the bed. "NO, Krillin." She hissed. "I will not. You know what would make me feel a little better? Being home in a hot bath, safe from certain and impending doom would make me feel a little better. Figuring out the stupid secrets in these stupid balls without having to climb up a stupid mountain to do it. Oh, and let's see...knowing whether or not Vegeta is even alive would make me feel a little better. But no. Food is not going to make me feel better."

Krillin instinctually took a step back as she railed into him mercilessly.

"O-okay. Well maybe you can wait here and Gohan and I will bring some food back for you. How does that sound?"

"Do whatever you want. I don't care." she turned and buried her face, once again, in the bed.

Krillin looked at Gohan. He was anxious to get away from Bulma if only for a few minutes.

"We will be right back, Bulma." he walked towards the door motioning to Gohan to follow. He could hear her quietly sniffling into the blankets. "Don't go anywhere." He teased awkwardly as he shut the creaking wooden door.

Vegeta slipped through the fog silently and gracefully. He pulled the radar from his pocket, clicking it on once again. He was so close. The movement had slowed significantly. If he just knew where they were headed, if he could just keep up.

He had managed to dodge Ginyu this long but he wasn't convinced he was free of him. It would've been too easy. Nothing in his life had been that easy. Burter had caught up to him two days ago that meant Ginyu was hot on his trail. Burter had put up quite the fight. But he had ultimately been no match for Vegeta, not anymore.

Except for Bulma.

He tried not to think about her but she seemed to be everywhere he turned...and so was Ginyu. He told himself it was just the lack of sleep. He had chased her down more than once to find himself alone. She had been so close to where he was and he had no idea why. Had she found him? He told her not to try but...when had that ever stopped her before?

He pushed on through the exhaustion that threatened to turn his bones to blood and pull his legs from beneath him. Where ever she was he had to find her before Ginyu did.

It was late. Only beggars and drunks stumbled through the cold streets. The signal had stopped about 30 minutes ago. Hovering in the same place for the first time. Vegeta's heart pounded feverishly in his chest, shaking his very bones. He broke into a sprint. His feet pounding rhythmically, quietly through the muddy streets.

Almost there.

He stopped mid-run nearly falling forward into the thick muck that coated the street.

Here. She was here. Right on the other side of the door.

He approached cautiously, slipping into the shadow cast by a street light pulling the gun from his jeans. And running his arm across the chipped paint of the door.

Steeling himself, he exhaled and twisted the nob.

Unlocked.

Stupid, stupid girl.

He burst into the room, following his gun as his eyes tracked through the dark, catching the trailing light that danced over the blankets from outside. The room looked empty.

Something was wrong. Very wrong.

He spun around thrusting the gun into the figure's throat and pressing the metal deep into the tall man's skin. He wasted no time barreling into the figure, who stepped back into the wall, a wicked smile dancing across his face.

"Where is she?" Vegeta hissed as he cocked the gun.

Excitement danced in the man's eyes as he pressed his palms to the wall and slowly slid them upwards until they were above his head.

"I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about." he mused playfully.

"Five seconds Ginyu. Where is she?"

"Oh, don't be like that. Don't you wanna know how I figured you out?"

"Five."

"Hmm. Really? You're not the least bit curious?"

"Four."

"Oh Vegeta, stop being such a prude." Ginyu teased as he wisped a lock of hair from Vegeta's face. He leaned in, brushing his lips against Vegeta's ear and sniffing his hair.

"Because...," he rubbed the side of his face against Vegeta's, "Three."

Vegeta was stunned for a moment as Ginyu took over his own threatening countdown. It was all Ginyu needed. Before Vegeta could react, he heard his gun clatter to the floor behind him and his head snapped back. He tasted blood before the pain registered.

He reeled back, having to drop to one knee to avoid falling on his face. He cursed himself, willing his trembling form to move but he could not.

"You know it suits you." Ginyu mused. Stepping closer with a sway of his hips, he traced his fingers gently along the jagged scar that hugged Vegeta's eye. "It suits him doesn't it Recoome?" Vegeta's head whipped around to find a second man, taller and burlier than the first standing directly behind him.

God damn it.

How did he miss that? He was slipping.

The sound of Ginyu's voice pulled him back to the man in front of him. "Two."

Vegeta didn't see the blow coming, despite the fact that Ginyu liked to fight at a relatively long range. It was perfectly suited to outfighting Vegeta, who liked things close where his smaller frame was at less of a disadvantage and his usually larger opponents couldn't maneuver as well.

Vegeta fell backwards but before he could steady himself he felt a large, warm hand grasp his shoulder and run its way down the length to his hand, pulling him upright. Vegeta grabbed the wrist of the burly hand that held him aloft, attempting to get some leverage. Ginyu simply turned Vegeta's whole body until his back was to him.

He wrapped his arms around the smaller man's frame drawing him in closer.

"Because….you let her live."

Something inside of Vegeta broke. He screamed with primal fury as he began to lash out at Ginyu wildly. Ginyu couldn't help but enjoy himself. He would never let Vegeta know that he was, somewhere deep down, scared of the small man, but in his current state Vegeta posed little threat. He was too easy to read, too sloppy, too pathetic. After avoiding a few swings, he buried his foot into Vegeta's gut.

"One."

"Boss…"

"Yes, Recoome?" Ginyu looked up tenderly at the giant man, as he walked over to his victim, effortlessly lifting him by the collar of his jacket.

"Please, sir. Let me finish him." Ginyu smiled gently at Recoome and released Vegeta's shirt, letting him fall to the ground with a heavy thud, knocking the air from his lungs.

"Of course. I must meet with Lord Frieza. Do what you will but remember," he grabbed the duffle bag and headed for the door. He emphasized the last words, their dark tone a stark contrast to his previously gentle voice. "Lord Frieza wants him alive...for now, at least."

"You got it, boss." Recoome saluted Ginyu as he left. Placing one foot on either side of Vegeta's body and lifting him up in a bear hug. He tossed Vegeta against the wall, letting him slam into the surface and fall, once again, face first on the ground. The dirty mirror nailed to the wall nearly falling from its wire mount as he collided with it.

"You and I are going to have a lot of fun, Vegeta."

Bulma ran until she couldn't feel her cold, wet feet anymore. She tripped over them and fell to her knees. She tried to control her breath but it felt like her heart was slamming back and forth between her lungs. Looking up, she realised she had no idea where she was.

She had pulled a dragon ball out of its bag, admiring it's simplistic beauty. When she heard the footsteps outside she had hidden, slipping out the back before they entered the motel room. She began to run and didn't look back. She couldn't risk being caught. If these people were anything like the ones who had tortured Vegeta, she knew she wouldn't survive. She felt the inside pocket of her vest where the dragon ball now rested.

All of this. All of this madness for what? Research that had led her nowhere. Dusty old glass orbs and a scientific experiment that had led her to nothing but heartache.

She was cold, hungry, and too tired to cry. Instead she leaned against the alley wall, and pulled her knees to her chest. She would find a way out of all of this, but not right now.

Vegeta sputtered awake as Recoome shook him, almost playfully slapping his face repeatedly.

"Wake up Vegeta. We aren't done yet."

Vegeta felt himself drifting in and out, everything was fuzzy. He tried to push himself upright but his elbows buckled under the weight of his body.

The dragon balls. Bulma. All of it was gone. Everything he thought he had was quickly slipping through his ugly, broken fingers and he was powerless to stop it from happening. He was never strong enough, fast enough, clever enough when it really mattered. He was just too stubborn, too proud, to roll over and die.

"Alright, Vegeta" Recoome's voice was thick and covered sounding, almost like had a lisp. It was probably his missing teeth that did it. It didn't matter, Vegeta just knew he hated it.

"Now, I haven't had any fun like this is awhile, so you need to really give it your all, okay?"

Vegeta responded by struggling to his feet, spitting blood onto the floor.

"Tell you what. You take all the time you need. I really want you to do your best now." Recoome was taunting him. He sat cross-legged on the bed as he watched Vegeta intently, who returned the look with a glare that would have frozen hell. What a waste. Vegeta thought. Recoome was probably too stupid to read facial expressions.

Vegeta tried to remember how Vasili had taught him to deal with pain. Don't ignore it, da? He had said. Breathe into your pain. Breathe your pain out of you. It seems like it's here. He would gesture to Vegeta's body. But it's really here. He'd accentuate his lesson with a tap to Vegeta's forehead.

It hurt to stand up straight, to relax his body which was instinctually trying to tighten up as if trying to hold itself together. Once he was standing though, the relaxation allowed his breath to loosen the hold his pain had on him.

He could probably have used another week. Recoome was dumb enough to probably let him, if he had asked. But Vegeta was too proud for that.

He seemed to fly at the comically large, red-headed man. He knew exactly how to take an oaf like this down. His knuckles shot expertly at all the points of the body that would cause him to crumble. The inside of the biceps, the ribs, the kidneys, the backs of the knees, the bridge of the nose… Vegeta seemed to almost be dancing in and out of the big man's limbs, peppering him with precise blows that would make sure Recoome felt worse than he did in seconds.

Recoome fell to his knees and Vegeta took the opportunity to drive a haymaker into his jaw. Recoome crashed backward, shattering a table and chairs as he did so. Vegeta stood panting.

"Wowee!" Vegeta's eyes shot open at the sound of the voice… what in the-

"You're really doing good!" Recoome said. "I'm impressed!" as he stood from the pile of splintered wood. He was bleeding from several spots, but mostly superficially. He spat a tooth on the ground. "Ahhh… that one was my favorite! I'm gonna have to pay you back for that, Vegeta!"

It was as if Vegeta blinked and Recoome was in his face. He had no idea how someone that big could move that fast. Before he could react, Recoome had grabbed him by the face, his enormous hand enveloping Vegeta's face, his fingers extending into his hair. He wrenched his head down right into his knee.

He watched and waited to see if Vegeta would stand up. He wasn't disappointed.

Before Vegeta could ready himself again, Recoome was once more upon him. Vegeta couldn't block, couldn't dodge, and couldn't wrestle his way free from Recoome's grasp - his tree trunk arms moved like freight trains, so even when Vegeta managed to block a strike, it shook him to his core and shot pain through his whole body.

Goku had to hurry. He knew he was way behind the others and probably missing all the fun. As he ran, he checked the slip of paper he had scribbled the address on. He was close, only a few blocks now.

He turned a corner and saw the motel. He burst in the room just in time to see Vegeta's body crash into a wall, cracking through the plaster, and slide down to the floor.

"Whoah! Who are you?" A thick voice called out. "This is a private show, y'know!"

Goku's face couldn't have hidden his reaction had he tried, which he didn't. Standing before him was probably the ugliest guy he'd ever seen. He was pretty sure Master Roshi had more teeth than him...and more hair.

"Sorry to crash the party," Goku said, "but that's my friend over there."

"Oh really… well, Frieza didn't say I had to keep you alive...hehe" Recoome said as he launched himself at the newcomer. His fist swung through the air, almost throwing Recoome off balance as he had expected his fist to hit something. He turned to see Goku kneeling by Vegeta.

"What the-"

"Hey, it's alright, Vegeta." Goku said. "Here," he rubbed some strange oil onto the more prominent of Vegeta's wound. "My friend Korin makes this stuff. It'll help you heal up a bit quicker than normal."

Recoome was so confused it took him a solid 30 seconds to wrap his mind around what was happening. He didn't process new things very quickly.

"Alright, pretty boy. It's time to leave Vegeta alone… you're getting in the way of my FUN!"

Goku looked over his shoulder as Recoome jumped forward to attack. This time, Recoome's fist didn't swipe the air- because he didn't get to throw a punch at all.

Pain exploded through his body. Trembling, he looked down to see the messy-haired interloper with his elbow in his gut. He fell to the floor with a loud thump.

Vegeta's eyes flashed. How did this clown take down Recoome with only one blow? He had trained a bit with him months ago, but he was nothing like this. Clearly Kakarrot had been doing some training on his own since Vegeta left, though Vegeta couldn't imagine what could have resulted in this.

He rose to his feet. Goku stood up straight.

"Whew!" The clown said. "That guy sure was big!" as Vegeta rummaged for something in the corner. "Say… weren't Bulma and the others supposed to be h-"

BANG.

The gunshot echoed through the small motel room.

"What the-?" Goku certainly didn't expect that. "Why'd you do that, Vegeta? He was down!"

"Listen, fool. You're not in West City and you're not fighting common street thugs. This is my world now, and you need to play by these rules if you're going to come out alive."

With that, he shoved the gun back down in his jeans and limped away.

Bulma shouldn't have gone anywhere, she wouldn't have. Krillin rubbed his bald head, nervously shifting the weight of the paper bag in his arms. He glanced over at Gohan who stood in the doorway with him looking at the carnage of the room. Tiny flecks of red adorned the dirty walls and carpet. The mirror was shattered, the bed overturned, and the bag was missin

He tried to swallow the panic. He knew they never should've split up. This was a bad idea. Bad, bad idea.

Uh oh.

He heard something crash to the ground near the back door, silently he handed the grocery bag back to Gohan, who moved to stand flush with the wall in the shadow of the window. Krillin pulled the gun from it's holster at his side, stepping carefully through the splintered wood and shattered glass. He rounded the false wall and threw his gun up, peering into the darkness.

He nearly fell back as he heard a high-pitch scream echo through the dark. He felt something collide with the side of his head. A yelp followed. He recognized that voice.

"Bulma?"

Silence greeted him for a moment, she surprised him by dropping the heavy stick and throwing her arms around him.

"Krillin. Oh my god, I've never been so happy to see your stupid face."

He ignored the insult.

"Bulma, what happened?"

The words spilled from her mouth, barely understandable. "These men, someone, they came and I had a dragon ball and I didn't even realise I still had it. I just ran and I ran and I got lost in this stupid awful place and I finally decided I would rather die than run forever so I came back here to kill them."

"You…..Killed Frieza's Ice Men." he questioned in disbelief. "With a stick."

"No. No, pay attention Krillin. I didn't kill anyone. I was going to but that one was already dead and I don't know where the other one went. Maybe they fought over the dragon balls. It doesn't matter, they took my bag- it's gone, it's all gone-"

"Bulma, calm down." he guided her to the second bed, stripping the now filthy blanket off the bed and motioning for her to sit down. He placed his hands on his hips, missing the familiar weight of his utility belt. "So. What do we do now?"

"Why do I have to make all the decisions?" Bulma snapped.

"Because if I made the decisions you wouldn't listen to them anyway." Krillin stated matter-of-factly.

He had her there. It was true. She shrugged and sighed, pulling her hair from her eyes and looking around the destroyed room.

"We go to the Lookout. Our only hope is to beat his men there and find whatever Kami left."

"Well then," Krillin shrugged with a fake confidence. Almost laughing anxiously. "What are we waiting for? Let's go before someone else finds us."

Goku struggled to keep up with Vegeta.

Man, that stuff from Korin really does work wonders. he thought. He's such a cool guy.

Goku interrupted his own thoughts.

"Wait..where are we going again?" Goku asked, not understanding why they were now hurrying away from where he rushed so hard to get to.

Vegeta could barely contain his contempt. "I have to find where Ginyu went. He took the dragon balls." Vegeta tried to explain with as little venom as one could expect from someone like Vegeta.

"Ooooh, right" Goku said. It was obvious he still had no idea.

Vegeta was scanning every street and back alley. Where would Ginyu go… where… his thoughts went blank as his mind felt like it had been dunked in a bucket of freezing water. His exhaustion was catching up to him.

"Didn't Bulma have a thing that could find the dragon balls?" Goku asked with his stupid voice.

Vegeta's brow furrowed a bit tighter as did his jaw. Of course… how did that clown think of that when he didn't?

He pulled the radar from his pocket. A couple of clicks and he saw exactly where Ginyu was. A cluster of small glowing pings on the radar made it clear. They weren't far.

Then he noticed the one, lone, illuminated point on the radar. It confused him for a moment, before realizing that a dragon ball must have fallen out of the bag before Ginyu took off. That meant that any minute now, Ginyu would report in to Frieza...they'd realize they were missing one, and they'd go looking for it. If only he could keep that one away from them he'd be able to control when and where their next confrontation was. After all, he was in no condition to take on Ginyu and Frieza together, even with Kakarrot. And there was still the matter of Jeice, that flamboyant Australian, final member of Ginyu's team still hadn't shown his face, but Vegeta knew he was here somewhere. He'd already run into Guldo, Burter, and now Recoome.

Vegeta didn't even break stride as he about-faced and began running back towards the hotel. Goku, for his part, kept pace and obediently followed despite being thoroughly bamboozled.

"Did we miss a turn or something?"

"No you idiot. We're going back to the motel."

"Finally." Goku responded. "See, I told you that's where we needed to stay!"

One thousand thanks to all of my readers and their patience. Of course a huge thank you to my valiant copy-editors who make me look like less of an idiot. And praises ever be to her Holiness Stupidoomdoodles for inspiring this fic!

XOXO, The Not-So-Super Saiyan