Obscured by the fluffy density of clouds that stretched below her like a field of dusk-shrouded white and purple, Akane hoovered in anticipation of pursuit. In the far distance, a golden orb was slowly labouring its way up to rise above and bathe these sky lands in its sunny rays. The panorama was splendid and, considering that she was not set upon yet, soothing. He wasn't following. She could tell because his massive lifeforce wasn't masked and it remained stationary in the exact spot where she had left him. He must be in a state. The Prince of Saiyajins was hardly ever on the radar, not even while he trained, but right now he was proclaiming himself like a beacon. Out of anger? As a threat? The promise that he would not be allowing her to punch above her weight again? No, not that, she didn't think. He had given her a say, and why do that unless he actually wanted her to make a choice. He had also told her to fuck off elsewhere with digs, supplies and her men, none of which she had taken with her upon fleeing the scene, and thighs that only opened for him… So, he wanted to keep her, and keep her at a distance? Was this some kind of test? Another add-on to the clusterfuck? And was there a wrong way to choose?
The beacon changed position and Akane primed, but it was moving out of the back compound into the house where it vanished upon drawing together with the main bitch's negligible ki. Together with relief, that ridiculous jealousy started worrying at her guts again. Akane shook it off furiously. As if she gave a flying fuck. The notion that the inferior cunt could smell her on him right now, made her gloat only for the hell of it. The glee left her again quickly. This whole thing, it was confusing her. He was confusing her. His cues were conflicting and it was driving her nuts. She finally understood why Turles would get so fed up with her. He had accused her of the same from the day they met yonks ago, and every man that came after him had validated it. The truth she had never shared, not even with Turles, was that they had been the only contradictory factor to the interaction. Their lack, that one piece missing, be it assertiveness or strength or guts or simply the kind of disposition she could suffer in her vicinity for longer than a day without getting homicidal. All those things the prince did not lack. She could see herself go it chops to chops with him and never reach the slaughterous stage. He wouldn't let her reach it, would dispel it, utterly, with a single, well-timed, perfectly white-toothed, big fucking smile. Her stomach had been right. This was bad. Really, really bad.
Worse, way, way worse, was his behaviour suggesting that she was the one lacking. That one piece was missing in her. He wanted her and did not want her like she had wanted and not wanted everyone she ever took for a bed-mate, and him being a prince, he would want and not want her all to himself. A plaything to disregard and pick-up whenever the fancy struck him. It would be a repeat of her history with his father, only this time around she would not be lamenting her freedom she had lost, but his he took while she abided his return, lone and desperate for company no one else was willing to give her in his stead. Property, kept by but never truly belonging to him.
"No." Akane at last had her say, even if he wasn't there to hear it. "No fucking way."
She took off not knowing where to go. It was too bad clouds made for lousy flooring. She wouldn't have minded setting up camp within these sunlit mountains of fluff. The too large, white shirt billowing around her otherwise naked body, made her realise she needed another refit. She wasn't even wearing kecks and she had to get rid of that shirt to disclaim any inference that she already belonged to him. She shouldn't have taken it in the first place. Wearing his gear was the type of sappy crap that moony-eyed bitches pulled on wandering blokes who had no intention of stopping themselves from hanging their dicks in every available cunt they came across. Wearing it without anything else underneath was plain seduction and that didn't make her own cues any clearer. The shattered window she had left in her wake might give the prince an idea though. Him not coming after her was enough of an answer as well. This flighty caper was done. The main bitch, the lesser creature, the honourless weakling, the genius who had invented the digs and supplies, had won. Just like any lord, the prince preferred his company ladylike. Brains over brawl.
Akane set course towards the wreckage and the clouds slapped a sheen of cool moist on her already nastily aching, needy, wanting skin as she dove in with the intention of dropping below them. She changed her mind, pulled her body horizontal and kept flying within the clouds until the shirt was waterlogged and some of his scent started coming off. The remnants of him that were all over her, were washing away in the chilly vapour. This never happened, her cue would be. It never happened and she never wanted it. And no, she would not let him have his lofty place between her thighs. She was never becoming a pleasure slave again. Satisfied with the cleanse and her clarity, she sank below the cloud banks and allowed gravity to slowly draw her back to the ground.
From above, this planet wasn't even that much of an eyesore. The terrain she soared over, was a patchwork of browns and yellows and greens, intermitted by occasional dwellings that dotted the landscape. Further North towards the wreckage, it was all unoccupied, mountainous woodland that looked quiet and inviting, far more so than the city in which royal homebase was situated. She could make this her stomping ground, she mused, proverbially still on the prince's doorstep, but she couldn't settle too far away if she wanted quick access to his gravity tank for her imminent ascend to super. After that, who knew? She may leave this pile of cack altogether. Yet another thing for which she would need his gravity tank. It was outmoded as a spaceship, but she figured it could get her out of the sticks. Where would she go, though? What would she do without duty? Be free. Truly. Like the prince told her to be.
It may have delighted her that she had finally gotten a handle on that ki-masking ability, but it occurred to her only when she lost it. Her previously suppressed ki erupted in her like a fuming volcano, strobed precariously, then vanished, leaving the well of her power desolate and her without the means to keep herself afloat. Gravity was a whole lot less gentle when it wasn't met with resistance and she came falling out of the sky a warhead with a definite target. The drop was long enough for her to consider that she might not walk away from this one without a busted rib or two, before she was met by the green canopy of treetops. She crashed through, flung out both hands to grab a branch and take some of the velocity out of her downward pitch, bent her knees to minimize impact upon hitting the ground feet first and flopped sideways onto mulchy forest floor. Unfurling and cursing vehemently, she rolled onto her back and took a moment to let her nerves settle from the jarring impact.
The ki that had been sucked from her so suddenly, flooded her again with the same ease and raised her pain barrier just as she started probing herself for possible fractures. She felt mangled, but found no major injuries. It did not put her at ease. She was still trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. Carefully, she touched the back of her head and felt out the pucker of scarred flesh hidden within her hair. Could it have been the chip? The way her power had left her, was the same way her power would always leave her when Cold took it away. Someone could have gotten their hands on that device. The princeling said that he was going to excavate the site. Perhaps he had found it. With the inquisitiveness he had displayed, she could see him tinker with the device just out of curiosity. What she could not see however, was him keeping his discovery a secret to her. He would have brought it to her straight away. The lad was sensitive to praise and had shown himself very eager to gain hers. Either he had broken the habit of becoming active five hours after sun-up every day and had just stumbled on the device, or someone else was poking around at that crash site right now.
Akane threw her feelers out. The cack-stain inhabiting Saiyajins could mask their ki all they wanted, none of them could hide their being, and if they were close enough, she would be aware of them. The wreckage was beyond these woods, not miles off, and it took her little effort to detect that there was no one out there. Her ki blipped again and with it, a stab of pain shot down from the nape of her neck. It made her limbs twitch involuntarily as it zipped across her spine and sent out tendrils all across her body. She gasped even as the pain was already subsiding. That had never happened when Cold used the device to subdue her. The hurt that inevitably followed, had been by his hands only. It made her fear that the chip in her head wasn't being tweaked, but that it was short-circuiting. If it was, she could very well be fucked. She had seen what havoc a malfunctioning chip could reap on a body and Embla, who had been desperate enough to dig it out of her skull with her own fingers to stop her agony, had not lived to tell the tale. One more comrade lost.
For a long time Akane did nothing but lie there and stare up at the treetops, stretched too thin from being in survival-mode all these years and feeling like she could not cope with any more stressors. The chip in her head malfunctioning, this crap with the prince who may or may not be after her for keeps, the budding feelings she couldn't face, her sleep that was haunted by recall, staring into the gaping maw of an empty future now that she no longer had duty to distract her from the fact that this was it and the few Saiyajins out here were the very last left of their kind. As all these things crossed her mind, she watched the sunlight filter through the leaves of that richly green roof above her and she thought that if this had to be her end, it was a kinder one than she had envisioned for herself. She would not go out red and suffering at that sadistic cunt's bloodstained hands, but on her own and in freedom under these peaceful trees. It was a good end to have.
It did not come. Her force was brimming, unfaltering, full of life. It did not blip or strobe again and felt as reliable as it ever had. Her losing it, could have been a one off, brought on perhaps by her suppressing her ki to stay off the radar. Why had none of that happened to either Ringo or Turles, though? They had mastered the ability without trouble. At length Akane got to her feet. If there was one lesson she had learned during her life under her slaver's rule, it was to take things head on and power through. Not slip off into the soothing nothingness of fatalism, not despair, not fear or doubt or give up, but stare her doom right in the ugly face, accept it, befriend it, learn to live alongside it and just tough it out in the belief that fates could turn at the flip of a coin. It was much like being tortured. Simply take the pain that was inflicted and fucking deal with it. Cold had learned something as well. Saiyajins did not break. Their bones might, their flesh could tear, their blood spilled, but their spirit was unbreakable. None of her men had surrendered their will to him and once it came down to begging for their lives, all of them had gone out fighting to the death.
Flying wasn't worth the bother or the risk, so Akane continued her way over to the wreckage on foot, her gait stilted because despite her endeavours to break her fall, she had cabbaged her ankle awesomely. She walked it off, teeth clenched and growling, the soaked white shirt now hanging off her in tatters. The whiff of him still on it, almost made her regret that. Her drop had torn her flesh as well. She was covered in scratches, welts, cuts and bruises that looked not nearly as neat as the ones the prince had put on her. This may actually turn out in her favour. Roughed up as she looked now, his bullshit declarations no longer stood out on her skin. Being reminded of those marks, made her ire flare. How dare he? Where did he get the fucking nerve? Roping her off like his territory and then kicking her to the curb like an unwanted bitch no one else would get it in their head to point their dicks at. Like her at this moment, it was not flying, that shit. She was going to do everything in her power to prevent it.
The prince had left her with more than just those marks, but Akane was not going to own up to the heavy, saturated sensation of appeasement between her overworked, still trembling thighs. While she made her ungainly way across the plain where the wreckage was now partly excavated, more of his cum started dripping down the insides of her thighs like jeering reminders of his utter, undeniable supremacy. Even if his claim had been nothing but a hollow declaration of his intentions, he had stated it thoroughly and without the least bit of effort. Her resistance had been just as hollow. Well, no more. She should also forget about training in his tank, even if she wanted the fast progress. She didn't trust her own resolve and putting herself in close proximity to the shitbag that had just so fucking blithely attempted to put her out of the reach of everyone's dick while claiming that he wanted her life to be her own, was just inviting more trouble. The best thing she could do right now, was keep out of his way.
The princeling had unearthed what was left of the ship's hull. Most of the front part was blown to pieces and the upper levels were wrecked beyond yielding anything useful. Seeing the damage, Akane realised she really was lucky to have survived the blast. If there truly existed something like divine intervention, Mother Victory had been on her side the day the princeling jumped into the past to defeat Cold and Mecha Frieza. She entered the remains of the ship and saw that the innards were now supported by beams to keep the walls from collapsing. The princeling had been hard at work.
There was little gear left in her locker after her previous visit, mostly tit-straps to put under a full cast body armour and an odd glove that no longer had a twin. She found a pair of shorts to gear up on her dripping, profaned and still treacherously humming sex-bits and went to Embla's locker. They had been of a height. She took out a black undershirt with long sleeves and a high neck that could hide the defilement climbing up her throat like a string of red blossoms. She exchanged it for the ripped shirt that smelled so nice and flung it away with a level of aggression that was grossly disproportionate to getting rid of something she didn't want. The undershirt she donned, was cropped and showing the lower part of her back, but a particularly pointy branch had apparently barely missed her arse-crack when she fell from the sky and it had left her with an awesome set of scratches that outdid the kisses meandering along her spine. The fresh gear did nothing to hide the prince's smell on her though. She needed another bath.
Akane reined in her mounting temper, grabbed a scouter from the upturned steel box in the corner of the room, rammed it over her left eye and set it to scoping out the surroundings for a place to wash up. The closest body of water was within the woods she had just hobbled out of so she started off again, legs wobbly also from the multitude of unsought for and too easily gained orgasms she would not be having again.
"Shut up." she snarled at her stomach trying to impart more truths to her.
Her wrenched ankle made her all but topple into the disgusting, bog-like sinkhole her scouter had brought her to. The water had an unpleasant, composting smell and it was turbid, its surface infested with a dense carpet of duckweed that stuck to her skin like small green parasites. There were critters living in this murky pond as well, but nothing bigger than she would be able to snuff out under the heel of her crippled foot so she left that alone. It was actually a good thing that this water smelled so off-putting, no matter how nasty it was to take a bath in mucky, piss-warm water. It was taking care of the scents on her far better than that dip in the clouds. The splooge on her thighs had its own distinct – and usually gratifying – smell, but it was the masculine, hot, excitingly virile scent that she needed to be rid of, and not just because it would prove that the prince had been on her. It was simultaneously pissing her off, putting fresh fire into her groin and making her regret that she would not be smelling of him again. She had use for none of those sentiments.
Akane revisited their last conversation – argument – in her head to determine whether she could really shake him off by erasing the evidence of their twine. It seemed too easy and like her mother used to say, when it did, something was afoot to fuck you over. The unwanted claim was unwarranted as well. If he truly bore his title as the remnant of an abandoned destiny and she had no duty to him, the whole issue of royalty not sharing their women went out of the window. Without a retinue, there were no positions to allot and no pleasure slaves designated to satisfy his carnal cravings. This wasn't a pick and choose type of deal. Either he saw her as part of his following or he didn't. He had told her he didn't so he had no right to demand exclusivity based on his title. As a man, he had even less grounds to mark her as his own. The only right any Saiyajin had to claim another, was after reaching synergy, not to cut ahead of rivalling suitors. He had not only spoken out of turn, he was delusional as well if he thought that they were ever moving past physicality. Should she be impelled to tie herself down, which was about as likely as hell freezing over, it would be to Turles, if only in recognition of that torch he had been carrying for her the past four decades or so.
Akane checked her warped reflection in the red visor of her scouter, finding that one small spot on her jaw standing out despite the scratches from her fall. She could tell anyone who asked that she had smacked her face on something unyielding. A rock on the forest floor. That sounded believable to her. The way she stank when she clambered out of the pond covered in green, starshaped speckles of weed, cancelled out any scents the prince had left on her. In whatever capacity the claim had been made, prince or man, it was undone. With that problem solved, the only thing that was left for her to do, was pray her hardest that the chip in her head would not short circuit again.
