"Look before you leap, For snakes among sweet flowers do creep." - German Proverb

"Because we focused on the snake, we missed the scorpion." – Egyptian Proverb

Lines duplicate, fray and triple before blurring back into one solid line as the mahogany irises stared up at what they now realized were rays of moonlight refocused. Chi-Chi blinked, and suddenly the world around her was aflutter; every sense was alive and her body still hummed with the aftershocks of her multiple climaxes at the whim of her Master… Or was it, mate?

That word, it's familiar, yet alien… Animals mate. Chi-Chi silently mused: 'Humans have recreational sex for pleasure or with the intent to conceive a child. Does that mean that like animals, we also have this innate urge to mate which goes beyond the human psyche? Is it instead a deep, primal urge that we are so unaware of that we think we are choosing our partner when in reality, the primal beast lying dormant within is experty sniffing out their mate?'

"Life mate?" Chi-Chi whispered sluggishly, and her dazed gaze was met with a familiar face– yet… altered.

Raditz knelt before her and tilted his head sideways as he admired his newfound mate, whose supple breast he had pierced with his fangs– sealing their souls as one.

"Yes?" He asked attentively, his formerly pitch black eyes gleaming with an odd effect that seemed to shine a light behind his irises and reveal a flickering emerald glow. Chi-Chi's hand moved slowly of its own accord, and stroked his cheek as she gazed deeply into those fathomless forests of plush mosses and unfurling ferns; the undiscovered oasis that was his brilliant gaze.

"I didn't know your eyes were green…"

"They've always been green, just as yours are the rich terracotta clay of my homeland." He remarked back quickly as if it were of little consequence. He thought it would be obvious since each Saiyan's scouter was color matched to reduce glare and eye strain, or enhance visibility. Coincidentally, it was his Saiyan genetics that granted him the additional color cones in his iris that allowed him to see colors that humans are unable to, that is, unless they become mates with one...

Their connected pupils became what she could only describe as a vacuous black tunnel through which they could see inside of one another's minds. Raditz's mind was so blindingly bright with activity that Chi-Chi flinched away and tears flowed from her eyes. Raditz remained still and pensive as his lover cradled her face in her palms and sobbed. He had only a short opportunity to view Chi-Chi's inner mind, but what he had seen put a smile on his face. He truly loved to see Chi-Chi's past, where she was so gluttonously free that she grew angry at every little bothersome thing, including swarming insects which her meager aura couldn't even incinerate upon contact such as his– there was that ferocity that he loved so much!

Where is it now? He wondered, and knelt down carefully to lick a tear from her cheek with the tip of his tongue; grooming her in an attempt to soothe the cries with his healing saliva. It was Raditz's understanding that upon marking her, Chi-Chi and he would mate relentlessly until his offspring was seeded, or they both collapsed from exhaustion. Though this reaction was unprecedented, Raditz had enough patience to wait, given she was human and therefore unfamiliar with his customs.

"Life mates, yes. Loyal to no other lover through mind or body. Is that what you were asking?" Raditz resonated with a low voice, his massive, hot palm landing on her thigh and squeezing to get her attention. Chi-Chi took a deep breath and looked back up at him, her tears drying and leaving tracks on her pinkened face.

"So… it's like we're…Married?" She asked this with a cautious tone, placing her petite hand gently atop his own.

"Well… if by marriage, you mean to commemorate our bond, then that is a separate occasion. Mating occurs first… To ensure that we are a compatible pair. So, yes. Marriage is next." As Raditz explained this, he closed his eyes and thought of the past, of when his parents were wed after the conception of Kakarot. Who… Had given Chi-Chi a son. His own nephew would now be his adopted son…?

Mother, what would you say of me? Father would beat me mercilessly. Raditz was startled from his thoughts when a piercing squeal (even for a Saiyan's ears) erupted from the woman, and she leapt onto him and squeezed him in a hearty bear hug.

"Oh, Raditz! I'm so excited!"

He chuckled and kissed her on her beaming lips as Chi-Chi giggled in turn when Raditz's tail wrapped around her waist and lifted her into the air in a playful gesture.

He was unable to express his joy as carefreely as his fiancé, as expressions of joy came with a struggle from Saiyans when sober. Not to mention, happiness was punished growing up as a Frieza Soldier. Only in the privacy of his fellow Saiyans did Raditz indulge in the utterance of a laugh. Though he grinned and bounced her in the air, a small voice at the back of his mind doubted that life on this planet, as it was… would last as long as she seemed to think it would.

"Me too, Chi-Chi." Raditz responded warmly. He resolved that perhaps the only thing they could do now was enjoy it while it lasted, free of all concerns and any objections that may come from this unlikely union. Furthermore, the repercussions of this bond did not phase Raditz one bit. Perhaps he was suicidal for defying Vegeta, but Raditz knew his prince better than most. Sure, he may be punished brutally, but Vegeta was never such a fool to dispatch his own soldier. Right?

Regardless, Raditz couldn't care less. He'd finally found what he'd been searching for all this time, and it was not purging planets for his own slave master, or becoming a slave master himself. He'd found love– something he wasn't even aware he was capable of. Love would conquer all… All obstacles, all senses, all better thought.

Neo-Namek, (Formerly Central City)

Days Later

The shrill tone of a whistle moved the soldiers into formation, the holder of the instrument pausing to inspect their form. His long, cat-like tail with a pointed tip moved to correct posture as Piper walked before them, holding the narrow whistle in both hands.

"Foresters, spread out!" He ordered, and the soldiers spread out as ordered, covering the dense wild that surrounded the very edges of Neo-Namek. Piccolo's troops now numbered in the thousands, with his first ranking soldiers along with Piper laying their own batches of eggs with expedience. The Saibamen too, had also multiplied in upwards of a million. They had an accelerated lifespan, so while they could reproduce quickly, they also had only weeks to live before their energy ran out. Piccolo had yet to understand why this failure existed in their biology, so his solution was to breed them twice as much to make up for their shortcoming.

Currently, the progenitor of all these creatures was far away, flying towards the Riverhead. The crops had been dying off rapidly to an unfamiliar disease, one that caused black boils to grow on the vegetable and explode, corrupting all of the surrounding vegetables.

Piper's instructions were to take his troops to the border and search for any more signs of this corruption. Piccolo believed that there had to be a site where the blight had originated, so he sent them out into the wild, which had yet to be fully explored and cataloged. A messenger had also been sent to Saiyan City, informing them of this development and in turn, displacing their serfs. The water by West City needed to be tested, and as Saiyan property they were tasked with this endeavor.

With this threat, their food sources were in danger, and the calorie-dependent Saiyans could not ignore that threat.

Piper whistled again to get the attention of a nearby soldier, who'd stopped to tie his boot. The young spawn hurried his actions and took off into the dark depths immediately after. Piper lowered his flute, and his ovoid pupils narrowed to get a view inside the trees. His vision was magnified, and he was able to pick out a few handfuls of soldiers just by looking. Piper decided that an aerial view would give him more range, and flew above the trees, his blue and white robes that symbolized his new ranking fluttering on the wind. Since the rendezvous at Satan's Den, Piper had healed from his wounds and even his torn wings were able to be mended by his father's power.

Healers were few and far between in Piccolo's ranks. Due to their malignant nature, the spawns were only capable of performing feats that caused harm– unlike Lord Piccolo, who could mend items, create and regenerate his own limbs, and a multitude of other unique features. Unfortunately, healing the corruption was not within their capabilities. Their only option was to destroy it and hope for the best. Piper sighed and scouted out the area, searching for black boils on trees or veins of blight. By the lights he saw glowing from within the forest, there were already blisters being found. He grit his fangs in anxiety and dove deeper into the forest.

…

A black haired woman crouched down by the water and was about to cup it and bring it to her face when a nearly imperceptible beam of light flew across her vision, breaking off a strand of hair. Mai turned her face quickly, her blue eyes wide with surprise. A shadow came quickly upon her, and swept her up before she could protest.

"You fool! What did I tell you?" Piccolo hisses, baring his fangs at the trembling little woman in his arms.

"You startled me, Picco!" She answered with a gasp, then her tense body went slack and she rested her head against his chest, closing her eyes. Piccolo took a deep breath and cradled the woman, glancing down at her with a concerned gaze.

Drinking that water may mean death to his human partner and whatever mystery critters were growing in her womb. Within the last days, Mai, Violet and Piccolo had spent many hours exploring each other's bodies. By the fifth day, Piccolo had begun to feel a strange swelling sensation in his groin that he could not ignore.

He licked his lips and picked up the strand of hair that he'd broken, using his magic to restore it with a gold glimmer.

Violet laid atop Mai as Piccolo thrust between both bodies, stimulating their clits with his length. His penis had returned to its singular form, with expanded girth than what was natural for him. The women moaned and gyrated against his erection, slicking it and each other with their hot juices. Both of their cycles had synced, and they were ovulating. The clear, smooth ovulation lubrication made his movements that much slicker and pleasurable until Piccolo was gnashing his teeth and grabbing Violet's plush backside as he pushed his purple cock head inside of Mai's pillowy pink interior.

She whimpered and crushed her breasts against Violet's as his girth threatened to tear her walls. Instead of tearing, the contractions of her impending orgasm allowed her to accept his length, creases forming in the grooved appendage as excess foreskin folded then slipped inside of the human woman. Piccolo moaned as she sucked him in to the base and her walls flexed with every cry of pleasure she released. His cock was hardening more than he thought it ever could, the very root of it swelling and expanding as he thrust into Mai and grunted each time he felt his glans kiss her cervix deeply. With his other hand, he groped Violet's plush bottom and pushed his long fingers inside of both her pussy and ass so that she wouldn't feel neglected.

The truth was, he wasn't sure he could pull out at this point, not that he wanted to. The tip of his cock slowly became more spade shaped, and with the next kiss against her cervix, it suctioned and Piccolo was unable to back out. The next events happened to him all in a pleasurable blur, as that knot in his groin finally dislodged, and the first of five gelatin-like eggs were deposited inside of her womb with force; causing Mai to squeal and scream as her walls contracted with powerful orgasms that squirted him with liquid heat. As the skene traveled down his sculpted pink abdomen, he deposited more eggs through his sensitive glans with a release after each that left his legs trembling and his loins buzzing with sensation. As he pushed out the last one with a roar, the pressure rapidly released and a massive flood erupted from Piccolo that caused him to leave scratches down Violet's back. His heavy pink testes tensed against his body, then pumped semen in generous surges atop the thatch of eggs to fertilize them, before the suction was released and he was pushed out by Mai's soul-shattering climax that left her breathless and twitching. The rest of his green-hued semen landed atop Violet's back and dripped down the center of her bottom, where his fingers still moved inside of both openings as she cried out in climax, in unison with Mai.

To Piccolo's great surprise, he had laid the eggs with his reproductive organ and not his mouth as was typical. The results of this had yet to be determined, but in the following days, Mai's petite form had become rounded in the center with clear symptoms of pregnancy. It was so obvious that all in Piccolo's castle had learned of their copulation, and instead of ostracized Mai was celebrated as the one to bear the King's heir. Shortly after, Mai and Violet were both commemorated as Sister Queens to Piccolo's Castle, and became his loving brides. All of this brought joy and celebration, but it was short lived when after the feasting and their honeymoon in Yunzabit Heights, the blight was revealed and all cheer came to a halt.

Piccolo's cheeks turned dark purple as he recalled all of this and stroked Mai's belly tenderly.

"Mai." He uttered in a baritone growl, leaning down to kiss her lips.

She is more precious to me now than when I first found her. I must protect her with all of my might.

"Sir?" A feminine voice sounded from behind, and he felt a delicate touch upon his back. Violet waited for him to turn, her other hand resting on her hip, further accentuating her hourglass figure. Piccolo set Mai down, yet kept her safely held by his side as he turned to face his other wife.

" 'Sir', again? I told you, Violet, I'm your husband now. Please, just call me Piccolo." He growled, yet Violet seemed not to listen as she looked around herself quickly.

"There's movement towards the Riverhead. My troops have reported sighting a UFO."

"UFO?" Piccolo replied, asking for elaboration.

"Unidentified Flying Object. Precisely, it was a white sphere, pouring out a caustic liquid. They shot it down and would like your presence at the site immediately."

"Yes, Colonel." He answered with a nod, picking her up promptly, both girls balanced on his muscular arms. They hung on tightly and he took flight towards the outcrop where the water flowed out of the Earth.

His boots slammed against the floor with every step as Vegeta impatiently waited for the woman inside to come out. He stopped before the door, and rapped on it.

"Are you ready yet, woman? If you don't come out in 5 seconds, I'm leaving without you."

"I'm ready, I'm ready!" Bulma replied from inside and the knob turned, swinging inward to reveal her fully to him. The Prince's cheeks turned pink and he growled softly to conceal his embarrassment. She was wearing some strange Earthling getup that vaguely reminded him of what the pilots of their metal birds flew, except it was much more revealing and girlish.

"Do you like it, Master?" She asked while holding out the red skirt of her skimpy blazer/skirt combo complete with black stockings and knee high white go-go boots. She even wore a pilot cap atop her head which sat primly atop her French twisted hair.

"Yes… Sure, but why did you need this elaborately skimpy outfit to fly to West City?" He clipped out tersely, though a smirk played upon his lips.

"Um… Well, I…" Bulma began, then found herself at a loss for words. She supposed it was just the excitement of Vegeta 'asking her out' finally for a day trip to West City. In her mind, she thought of it as sight-seeing, perhaps forgetting for a moment that her home was in shambles. Regardless, she had some silly urge to make herself a special outfit for the date that would hopefully entice Vegeta to do something naughty.

Since the party, her Master had been neglecting her physically and emotionally. She thought that with their intimacy, that the walls were finally broken down and perhaps now he would warm up to her fully, but she was wrong. He was just as cantankerous as before if not more now that he knew what pleasures she could provide him. Yet, for some reason he couldn't bring himself to demand it from her as easily as before. The mere thought caused him to stutter and blush, and many a wall had been abused, leaving the house covered in holes from his angry eruptions.

The Prince was sexually and emotionally frustrated, and had no coping mechanism besides the release of his anger. Thankfully, Bulma was left unblemished by his anger. Raditz, on the other hand, was not safe. He'd been beaten within an inch of his life after announcing that he'd made Chi-Chi his mate. The beating left Raditz so incapacitated he had to be tended to by Chi-Chi and Bunny for three days, earning Vegeta some scowls from the Ox Princess herself. Gohan received a beating as well. Maybe not quite as brutal, seeing as Vegeta stopped once the boy fell unconscious during training. Raditz wasn't so lucky.

So, with all this behind them, it was no surprise that Bulma was tiptoeing around her master and attempting to keep him happy in whatever ways she could. He seemed to have sworn off sex and took to sleeping in the cramped space pod on the roof at night, which she discovered was impossible to get into one night when he'd left her bed before she had the chance to seduce him…

Bulma stirred with a gasp and tossed in bed to grasp for the warm touch of her Master. In her dream, she'd woken up once again, alone on the floor of that damnable kennel with snakes looping around her limbs and sinking inside of her orifices. Though she screamed and squirmed, the small snakes became pythons that held her tighter, their ribbed lengths becoming slicked as they explored her body. Her only companion, the imprisoned Prince, who previously fucked her on this very floor, was nowhere to be seen, though his cum was escaping her with the help of the snakes.

Bulma cried out in a mixture of pain and pleasure as her body became stretched and full with writhing life, and craned her head back in defeat as her walls trembled against the tickling tongues of snakes licking her clit and injecting her with their rubbery eggs. She saw what she thought was another snake, white and curling. It held the door open so that the hostage in the hand of the white-skinned figure could see everything in full view, without the bars of the cage in the way.

"Vegeta!" Bulma cried out upon seeing him being hoisted up by a clawed hand, the black nails of it digging into his throat and causing blood to trickle down his body.

"Forgive me, Bulma… I'm too weak!" He cried out with a grunt, then Bulma screamed in turn as she heard the grinding sound of his spinal cord breaking and an unsettling, guttural sound coming from the severed throat of her lover.

"NO! NO, Vegeta!" She screamed, hearing only the soft, simpering laughter of his murderer before all was black, and she was back in her room once again. Alone, and trembling. Bulma shivered and rubbed her goosebump covered arms as she attempted to recover her wits, the dream being quickly discarded in favor of thoughts of receiving comfort from her master.

Plus… She had the odd urge to make sure that he was alive. Just in case.

"Woman!" Vegeta's shout of her most hated nickname startled her out of her daydream with a gasp. Bulma blinked in confusion, then reached down to her stomach and felt there. All smooth. No eggs.

"What on Earth has gotten into you? Are you… ill?" He questioned, his aggressive tone turning puzzled as he reached over to steady her wobbling form with both hands on her hips. Bulma's face had become pale and ashen, and his concern was twice as evident.

"I'm not sure… Maybe? I was thinking… I need to tell you something important."

Vegeta's eyes widened and he glanced back down at her hand that was clutching her stomach and feeling around as if searching. His stomach dropped and he gulped.

"But… That night, we didn't–?" He uttered with a blush, searching his memory for any possibility that…

"Didn't what?" She asked, completely oblivious to what he was leading into. She blinked her big blue eyes up at him and the rosiness returned to her cheeks. Vegeta gritted his teeth in frustration and grabbed her hand roughly, it was his only option to pull her around without the help of a leash. Bulma disliked the leashes and collars so much that her complaints about them had forced him to give up on them, at least for now.

"We'll talk about it in the air. For now, just try to keep it together." He bit out, somehow the bitterness kept the weakness from seeping through his words. First the blight, which led to the loss of their crops. Now he had to deal with a potentially ill human woman who got pretty much every damn thing she asked for. It almost felt like this entire 'invasion' of Earth had all been halted because he was transfixed by this one woman, and had let himself grow weak and foolish while his free leave of duty had potentially expired.

…

The moment her feet left her air, the weight seemed lifted from her shoulders and Bulma was able to take a deep breath of outside air. Sure, it tasted of ash and smelled like sulfur and hot garbage, but it was air, and being stuck indoors for days had begun to make her stir crazy.

Vegeta hefted her up by her bottom and made a soft growl as she cooed in amazement. He regretted picking her up this way, now the heat between her thighs was balanced directly on his hip and he was holding her with his hand cupping her rear. Bulma didn't seem to mind at all as she held onto his armor securely to look over the city and into the skyline, where the smoke was fading and rays of sunlight filtered through.

"Can we go there, Vegeta? Pleeeasee?" She asked softly in a pleading tone. He turned his face to see what she was looking at and frowned.

"Why?" He replied flatly.

"Because it's…Pretty, and clear. I feel like if we go there, we can actually see white clouds and feel sunshine instead of… This."

Vegeta thought it over for a moment, then clicked the side button on his scouter so he could set coordinates for west. The spot she mentioned wasn't directly west, but it was close enough for a quick stop.

"Only for a minute."

It didn't take long at all before he flew directly beneath the opening in the clouds and hovered there. Bulma tilted her head backwards and inhaled the fresh air, the gentle breeze ruffling the long tendrils hanging from her updo. Vegeta sighed in annoyance, clicking the button on the side of his scouter and making an annoying beeping sound. Bulma attempted to ignore the distraction, but she couldn't help but be annoyed by the sound and stopped to glare down at him. Once Vegeta was satisfied with the settings on his scouter, he glanced up and noticed her change in demeanor.

"Are you done?"

"I could ask the same of you."

"Tch," he spat, glancing away from her and towards the designated route.

"It must be nice to see beauty in such a wasteland. Now that the blight has started, your pretty little world will become blistered and black. So, I suppose it's fitting for how truly vile my time here has been."

Bulma took in his response with a surprised expression that gradually emoted something he couldn't quite describe, somewhere between regret, horror and sadness. All he knew well. Not because he experienced them very often, no, but because he had seen the look crossing a being's face one too many times, right before they died.

"No, it can't be! There's always a way to fix things. I'm telling you, we can fix it." She assured him with gusto and huffed, making Vegeta's frown flip upside down as he smirked. His dark, coaly eyes glinted in the sunlight, and for the first time, she could have sworn they had a glint of ruby in them.

"Good Pet. It seems like your determination has erased your sickness." He remarked with an almost congratulatory tone, the hand gripping her buttock squeezing tighter as he looked at her inquisitively.

Bulma's heart raced a bit faster as he looked at her in such an intrigued light. Normally she would've bathed in male admiration shamelessly, yet it felt strange coming from Vegeta.

"I suppose it has. So, West City?" She managed to utter after a beat, before becoming distracted as something fluttered on the fringe of her vision. She turned to look, and saw that it was a butterfly. With pearlescent, delicate blue wings, it gently fluttered up into their space and towards the sun. Bulma looked on in awe as the butterfly flew and flew, until it was nothing but a speck.

Vegeta saw that the insect she was so dazzled by could no longer be seen, and began his route without saying a word. It was a few seconds later that he noticed a wet, persistent sniffling sound, and braced himself for what was to come. He could take any of Bulma's many moods but this. Not this. It wasn't because the tears came from her that bothered him, actually, that made it a thousand times worse. He was brought back, once again to his past when crying soldiers would be eliminated by Frieza with a death beam on the spot. Aliens too defenseless to save their planet sobbing right before Vegeta dispatched them in much the same way.

"Why now? Why not back there, during all those times you should've cried, you rarely did." He stated, then his eyes met with hers and the way they filled with tears had him losing all his hopes that Bulma would become fierce and motivated by their situation instead.

She took in his words and thought about her response for a moment before responding.

"I suppose it's because I'd rather it happens to me than an innocent creature like a butterfly… At least they can fly away and go wherever they want."

"It's one measly, insignificant insect that will likely perish from something as stupid as a gust of wind. I don't get it. Why value your own life so little?"

Bulma chuckled as she watched the ground move beneath them, her amazement at how Vegeta could just literally fly like Superman making her wonder if a butterfly's life really is that frivolous in the grand scale of things.

"My life is no longer mine. I belong to you, Vegeta. You can put me in a jar and tear off my wings, but I'll still keep aimlessly crawling around in the jar, searching for an escape. One day, I'll run out of air and crumble into dust, but you'll live on and you'll keep killing, you'll continue on your path of destruction until nothing is left and nothing in the universe is worth saving. Not even yourself."

After this, Vegeta fell silent and contemplative. Bulma silently wondered if she would regret what she had said, but a part of her knew that she'd simply given voice to something that had been in his mind already. Her saying it aloud had only cemented that bleak truth.

The trio landed at the Riverhead, yet saw that the UFO site was oddly empty, but for the destroyed UFO on the ground. Violet jumped down before Piccolo could land, and began shouting for the missing soldiers.

"Nohkan, Zordone?!"

Piccolo didn't expect this reaction from the stoic Violet, and hovered in mid-air, looking horrified. His gut instinct told him that only terrors could await.

"Violet, come back here! It's not safe."

"NO! I told them not to leave their post! They disobeyed my orders!" She cried out with less anger in her tone than her words would suggest.

Mai looked around herself, then pointed to a spot by the bushes.

"You said it was a strange liquid the ship poured out, right? Look!"

When Violet and Piccolo followed her finger to the spot, it was their mighty husband who cringed back from the scene and floated down to the ground as he looked visibly distressed. The purple liquid mixed with an off shade of yellow which was steaming. The purple liquid was one he was able to identify without any deliberation, the mere sight confirming his worst fears.

"Not my sons… Please, no." He whispered, still holding Mai as he walked close to move aside the bushes. Through the branches, he saw the limbs of his children soaked in their unique purple hued blood and could no longer bear witness to the sight.

They remained silent like this until hearing the familiar intonation of Piper's flute, which was the first thing to move Piccolo from his marble-like state.

Piper landed before Piccolo on one knee, laying his flute down.

"My king, I have updates about the state of the Outer Fringe."

Piccolo nodded for him to go on.

"It is… ridden with blight. My soldiers have incinerated all of it we can, but I'm afraid the blight may have spread too far into the ground for it to be fully eradicated."

Piccolo solemnly nodded in understanding, then turned away with his hands behind his back. Piper looked on for his orders.

"At ease. We have graves to dig."

Mai and Violet came to his sides and rested their heads against his chest as he wrapped his arms around them both and held them. The comfort of his wives was pleasant, yet did little to erase Piccolo's despair.

What killed you, the strongest of my sons?