…WHO…S…HAT?!...

…S…THA…RDOCK?!...

WHAT'S…E…OING?!

FRIEZA!

Beep* Beep* Beep*

Papri's face scrunched as a beeping sound assaulted her senses. She opened her eyes blearily, only to wince as they were assailed by liquid. She waited a moment before trying again, this time prepared for the rush of fluids.

She was floating in an off green liquid gel and a mask was strapped to her face. She scoured her mind to figure out what was going on, and was met with the image of Orishi standing over her beaten body as she faded into unconsciousness.

Ah, that explained it. Orishi must have put her in the tank after beating her to near death. How kind of him…

'Right, kind. He definitely just doesn't want to make sure his preferred punching bag is in working order.' Papri thought angrily. It seemed she woke up just in time as her stint in the tank had ended, signified by the beeping she had heard.

The greenish liquid that kept her suspended slowly drained through a vent that had opened in the bottom and Papri slowly began descending to the floor of the tank.

The saiyan pulled the mask from her face, relishing in the lungful of oxygen that didn't come from a tank. She spent a moment simply enjoying the stale air, before placing her palm on the glass face of the healing tank and pushing it open with a hiss.

She stepped out of the tank, wincing lightly at the feeling of cold tile against her bare feet, and ran a hand through her hair, sending a large amount of fluid sloughing to the ground. It would have eventually evaporated on its own given enough time, but having hair as long as hers full of liquid was a one way ticket to a stiff neck. Best to just get rid of it now.

Papri looked down at her arms, thick coils of muscle making themselves known as she moved flexed lightly. She felt good, much stronger than before. It seemed her saiyan heritage had kicked in once more while she had healed, though she'd have to check to find out exactly how much it had done.

'I'll have to thank Orishi the next time I see him.' She smirked to herself. She could just imagine the look on his face if she went up to and thanked him for nearly killing her. Heh, if she was lucky, she'd make him pop a blood vessel.

"Welcome back Papri." A voice called out from behind her, "I didn't think you were ever going to come out of there with how beat up you looked. Must have been some training accident."

The Saiyan turned as was met with a purple skinned alien looking at her with a mix of concern and amusement. It was Rima, a Visurii and Papri's best friend.

The Visurii were a powerful race of biomechanical beings that were just as much flesh as they were machine. Created by a race long since gone, the Visurii had taken to roaming the galaxy in search of answers to their origins.

Given that they were created and not born, the Visurii had exceptionally high natural power levels, averaging around twenty thousand altogether, though their power was completely stagnant and unable to change.

Rima was no exception in her race, having a power level of a little over twenty two thousand. That didn't exactly change her situation however. Rima, just like every other being on the Vistri, was a slave. And just like everyone except for Papri, she didn't have a collar permanently attached to her neck.

"I'm a fighter. Just like the rest of my race, I won't stay down unless I'm dead. And even then I might keep fighting if I'm mad enough, apparently my ancestors did that sometimes." Papri joked, raising her hands high above her head and arching her back in a stretch, sighing at the satisfying pops produced. Despite the restorative fluids inside the healing tank, she always came out of it stiff as hell.

Rima hummed appreciatively as she watched the saiyan turn to get dressed, not bothering to avert her eyes from her nude form, instead roving over the saiyan's muscles appreciatively. Papri didn't mind one bit, she had seen just as much of the other girl and more in the past few years after all.

"Enjoying the show?" Papri asked as she finished stretching.

"I always do." Rima said plainly, and Papri chuckled as she began to make her way over to her locker. She made sure to sway her hips while she walked, her tail swishing teasingly behind her.

She could feel Rima's eyes following her as she retrieved her new set of armor from its place in her locker. She turned it over in her hands, inspecting the dark yellow shoulders and stark white body armor. It felt just as sturdy as her old armor so at least the quartermaster didn't mess with anything.

An elastic black bodysuit as well as a pair of white gloves and boots still sat inside the locker, along with a blue scouter. As she retrieved the suit, Papri briefly wondered what happened to the glove she didn't destroy in her rage fuelled attack on Kiishi, before shrugging it off. It didn't matter anyway.

If there was one good thing that came from her spats with Orishi, it was that she rarely had to put in a request for armor maintenance. After all, there was now to maintain your armor if it was destroyed once a week.

Behind her, Rima groaned in faux disappointment as Papri began dressing, pulling on the bodysuit and denying the girl her view. The saiyan turned around and stuck her tongue out teasingly, to which Rima pouted lightly before giggling along with her.

There was a moment of comfortable silence before…

"Have you heard anything back from Planet Vegeta?" Rima asked from behind her.

Papri froze as she finished putting on her suit, clenching her teeth tightly, "No…"

She had been trying to contact her parents back on her home planet for years now, wishing simply to hear their voices or…anything. And yet every time she attempted to do so, she received nothing but static.

It was both infuriating and concerning because she knew her parents almost never went off planet anymore unless directly ordered to. They should always be in range of their home transponder, or at least not be away enough that her once a week calls would be missed every single time.

And yet she hadn't been able to get through to them for some reason. It didn't sit well with her, and she had to force down the terrible feeling that something might have happened to them. Planet Vegeta was on the other side of the galaxy and firmly under the control of Cooler's younger brother. Even if she weren't a slave, it was unlikely she would ever be able to get there in any reasonable amount of time.

No, she had to believe there was an explanation for their sudden silence. It was all she could do at the moment.

"Orishi must still be blocking my transmissions. That's all." Papri said firmly as she finished putting on her boots.

Rima hummed, unconvinced. She knew how prideful the saiyan could get about her home though, so she decided not to say anything, something Papri was grateful for.

The saiyan finished dressing and retrieved her scouter from the locker, affixing it to her face before turning to face Rima with a grin, "Scan me." She said.

Rima sighed, before placing her hand to her own scouter and aiming it at Papri. After a moment, the scouter stopped beeping and Rima read the reading it produced in concern.

"Nine thousand nine hundred and forty two…" She said slowly and Papri grinned, looking down at her hand in glee.

'My power level is almost ten thousand! That's stronger than almost all of the saiyans back home! Soon, I'll be even stronger than the king!" she thought giddily, closing and opening her hand slowly as she imagined the power now at her disposal.

"Papri…" Rima spoke slowly, "Two days ago your power level was just above eight thousand. Even with you saiyans and your unnatural growth, that's not normal…" she trailed off, horror dawning on her face and Papri froze.

"The reason you were so beat up wasn't because of a training accident at all, was it?" She asked rhetorically, "How did you really end up in that healing pod Papri? Who did this to you."

Papri opened her mouth, denials coming to her lips, before she froze as she saw the look Rima was giving her. Big blue eyes full of concern.

Rima was one of only a few people on the ship to treat her with anything besides general apathy or outright hatred. The purple skinned girl was one of the only good constants in Papri's life. She couldn't, wouldn't, lie to her.

"I insulted Orishi to his face. He wasn't very happy as you can imagine." She muttered quietly and Rima gasped.

Nearly every person on the ship, save for a few, either ignored or outright hated Papri. Whether their reasons were due to her race's actions as a whole or simply because she was stronger than most of them, they didn't say.

One of them certainly made their feelings known however he could, whenever he could, Orishi. His species was one of the very first the saiyans had conquered and they had been enslaved by the Planet Trade Organization ever since, forced to work in the various mining planets throughout the galaxy.

Orishi was an anomaly in that his power level was magnitudes higher than any of his race who had come before him, and most likely any who would come after. This made him just barely more than just an insect in Cooler's eyes and for that, he was conscripted instead of enslaved, given his own ship and crew of slaves to better help him do the Arcosian's bidding. He was still a slave in all but name, but a slave who had slaves of his own to do his bidding.

Orishi begrudgingly accepted the offer and had been taking planets for his master for decades, slowly becoming more and more discontent with his station. And then Papri came along, and he had an outlet for all of the built anger he had accrued over the years.

Every bit of anger his species held towards the saiyan race and their hand in his enslavement, every iota of hatred and loathing that was possible to direct, he directed at Papri. He made sure to remind her of that hatred every chance he got, usually painfully.

"What did he do to you?" Rima asked. Papri stayed silent, "Papri, what did Orishi do to you?"

"Nothing he hasn't done before Rima." Papri sighed, "You know he loves to punish me any way he can. This isn't new." She stretched her tail, shaking it lightly to get rid of any lingering healing fluid, before wrapping it around her waist.

"If he wanted to punish you he'd use that damned collar!" Rima all but shouted, "You and I both know his thinly veiled 'punishment' is just a way he can abuse you as much as he wants and get away with it!"

Papri scowled lightly, turning away from the irate Visurii, "And so what? Every time he beats me I just get stronger. The more he does it, the closer I am to being able to rip the bastard's head off! Then Cooler will make me captain instead! We both know the only reason he puts up with Orishi is because his power level is above average!"

"That doesn't-!" Rima cut herself off, taking a deep breath. Her white aura, which had flared with her temper, slowly receded back into her body, "That doesn't make it ok Papri." she said as she walked closer to the saiyan.

Papri tensed, before relaxing as a pair of arms slowly wound around her middle. Rima placed her head on the saiyan's shoulder, "We're all slaves Papri, even Orishi as much as he tends to forget that. The way he treats you is…"

She sighed, "It's not fair." She muttered and Papri laughed bitterly.

"Since when is anything in our lives fair, Rima? It's been a shitshow from day one for the both of us, we just have to keep fighting. At least until we find a way out."

Rima laughed softly, "Well then you shouldn't have anything to worry about huh? If there's anything you're good at, it's fighting."

Now it was Papri's turn to laugh, "Please, we both know you're more than twice as strong as me even after I got out of that tank. It's a damn shame you don't like fighting, I'd love a sparring partner that doesn't whine when I hit them too hard."

"Has Sadri been ducking your fights again?" She asked sympathetically.

Papri groaned, "Yeah. He's just worried I'll get stronger than him so he's been putting off fighting me for weeks. Probably training or something to get the drop on me."

Rima hummed lightly, "You know how he is. Give him a week or two and he'll be right back to challenging you every day. He enjoys fighting almost as much as you do after all."

Papri sighed as she leaned further into Rima's embrace, "I hope so. It's so boring training by myself."

They stayed like that for a moment, simply basking in each other's embrace. To most the scene might seem extremely intimate, but the both of them knew that it wasn't like that. They were simply very good friends, comfortable in all aspects of their relationship, including the more… physical ones.

Papri still had yet to find her actual mate, and she had a feeling that so long as she was enslaved by Cooler, it would never happen. That was fine though, Rima was there to provide the support and relief that would keep her going for now.

Papri leaned back and turned to place her face against the pale purple skin of Rima's neck, inhaling as much of her best friend's scent as possible, "I've got to go use the training room to get used to my new strength. I'll see you tonight?" she asked.

"Of course you will, you silly saiyan." Rima muttered, resting her chin in the saiyan's long hair, just as untamable as the rest of her, "You've gone and gotten me all worked up, there's no way I'm burning this off by myself."

Papri chuckled, Rima had always been the type to burn off her unwanted emotions through a passionate mating session instead of a fierce battle. It had always confused the saiyan that Rima had a power level higher than her own and yet hated fighting, but she had quickly learned to stop complaining. Rima's method made for fantastic sex and Papri had come to look forward to helping the Visurii burn it off any chance she got.

Well that, and she honestly enjoyed the other girl's company.

"Good. I'm looking forward to it."

Papri Power Level: 9,942

Sadri Power Level: 11,047

Rima Power Level: Stagnant 22,362

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