Chapter 22. On the pull

Given that he had not meant this to be more than a test run, Vegeta figured that he wasn't doing half bad. His new attack hadn't come close to completion, but his adversary was unable to longer sustain his third stage super form and decided to make his final move. The Spirit Bomb was powerful enough to wipe out Milky Way if the idiot allowed it, which made it safe for Vegeta to dump out as much force as he had time left to summon, into his own sphere. He was going to make this introduction one to never forget. Swiftly, he conducted all the energy he could without actually killing himself and pushed his body to the ultimate limit. A low-pitched roar left him as he lingered on the verge of dissolving, allowing the full potential of his power to surge through him unrestrained for as long as he could bear it. The force threatened to consume him right there and then, rip to shreds his frame that was unfit to house his might. It was pleasure beyond anything. Life was always sweetest on death's door.

Vegeta brought up his free hand, needing both now to keep the prodigiously pulsating sphere in check while he used his last strength to force his ki into it. With a final push and a cleansing breath, he unleashed it.

"Death Impendent!"

The orb of thundering dark energy shot from his hands on a collision course with the Spirit Bomb his adversary launched. The spheres met, one larger and full of light, the other smaller and blacker than the blackest pit of hell. Instead of colliding, his Death Impendent ate its way through the Spirit Bomb's shell, penetrated its centre and nestled there like a cancerous growth. The sidelines became silent and their sons looked on in frightful anticipation while the three Saiyajins waited, unbiased, for whatever the outcome of this match was going to be.

It took mere seconds for the Spirit Bomb to implode and the Death Impendent to be neutralized upon absorbing all the borrowed blue energy from Kakarot's attack. The battle site shook on its fundament as both spheres vanished and cries could be heard coming from the onlookers at the mighty blast wave that rolled over them. Should Vegeta not have spent himself on amping up his attack, this would have been the moment where he moved in to drop his adversary and claim his long overdue win. Instead, he felt the remnant of his power slip and was yanked out of his super form at the same moment as Kakarot across from him. They went down simultaneously, the idiot with a look of utter shock on his face and Vegeta smirking his satisfaction. Though he had severely damaged his body by conducting too much power at once, his spirits were soaring. It had taken him years to figure out the perfect composition for his Death Impendent and his perseverance had finally paid off. Some credit should go to the fierce little captain for introducing him to her wild red energy and giving him the idea to add that, but this attack was of his own making and it had the power to nullify a third-stage-super Spirit Bomb.

There was a lot of commotion coming from the sidelines. Amidst his son's ecstatic cheering, the idiot spawn could be heard throwing out repeated oh, my Dende's! while Akane snarled her obscene solicitations to the Goddess of Victory: "Sweet Mother of fuck."

"Blind me!" Ringo in turn exclaimed, evoking the two red suns that had reigned their home.

And Turles boomed the staple: "Bugger me backwards!" before he called a tie on the match.

That was fair. It was a tie, but it was a personal victory as well and Vegeta lay there feeling marvellous, rough laughter ripping through his limp, wrung-out body. Soon Trunks seized his celebration and came bounding over to see how he was faring. The boy kneeled at his side and dropped a senzu bean in his waiting mouth. Vegeta swallowed it, glad to feel a drop of energy returned to him, but he had overtaxed his body too severely to receive replenishment from one senzu bean. It wasn't even enough to get him sitting, let alone stand up and move around. His insides felt fried from the outer layer of his skin down to his bones. Everything in him was ground to shit.

Trunks held up another bean. "Goku needed two."

That was about as much consolation as the second senzu Vegeta swallowed. Neither did much for him. "Help me up." he said regardless.

His adversary came into his line of sight as soon as his son dragged him from his supine position into a slumped and seated one. Kakarot looked none the worse for wear. He had served as a mere conduit for the might he had wielded while Vegeta had delved every last fibre of himself generating the force to match him. The shock had yet to leave his gormless face and he beheld Vegeta with some caution, clearly realising how narrowly he had escaped defeat.

"I didn't know you were working on a new attack."

The idiot shouldn't know. When Vegeta started inventing his Death Impendent years ago, it had still been the attack he was going to use to put an end to the Earth-grown disgrace. Now? Vegeta would settle for hearing him beg for his life. Next time…

"Here." Goku tossed him a another senzu.

Vegeta groped for it with clumsy fingers, his movement glassy, and after taking this third bean, he was finally able to get off the ground. He ignored his throbbing limbs and stood just in time to meet the fierce little captain on his feet. The scouter was back on her scowling face and she was having her own motoric challenges as she limped over, but she looked willing and able to kick in some teeth despite her ankle having gone so big, it was visible through her boot now. The slow-clap she initiated, could be cynicism as well as praise. There were no certainties when dealing with this devious shrew. No one felt compelled to join in and her applause died out into silence that was strained on her underlings' part especially. Everyone was apparently waiting to see if she was going to flip her lid at random again.

Akane stubbornly ignored Vegeta volunteering to be on the receiving end of her malice. She addressed his son instead. "Was I right?"

Trunks contemplated this. "Maybe." He broke out his big, disarming smile like a shield against her combustive mood. "Can I ask you one last question?"

Akane scoffed and looked to be counting the boy's teeth, then somehow saw fit to give Vegeta a glare like he had anything to do with this. She sighed roughly and asked Trunks: "Do you ever grow weary of yourself?"

It was good to see his son handle her mockery like Vegeta would have done. Unoffended, bold and with the simple truth. "Sometimes. My mind never stops."

"I have noticed." Akane assured him, but the straightforward approach tempered her hot-headedness and she allowed: "Go on, ask."

"Well, since Goten will be training with Turles," Trunks started confidently, yet suddenly all his bravery flushed from him and he was left standing there as the young boy he was, that big smile crumbling. "I wondered if maybe you would train me?"

"No." Akane answered immediately.

"Oh." Trunks managed. He sounded like he had been given a punch in the gut.

Vegeta watched his son deflate and blush so furiously, heat was coming off his cheeks. It was pitiful even in comparison to his own predicament that had everything in him aimed at keeping himself from swaying on his useless legs and dropping like a sack of ground meat. He put a heavy hand on Trunks' shoulder to brace them both. Unpleasant as it was to witness, his son had to get his hopes crushed somewhere. It wasn't going to be the last time he would hear no from a girl. He may as well learn young that going after the prettiest, also meant going after the meanest and most elusive around. Big or small, every boy wanted her to say yes and she had scores to pick from.

The fierce little captain wasn't entirely heartless and her scowl soften just a bit at the deepening look of misery on the boy's face. Vegeta liked her for that. It was heartening that despite the ingrained merciless savagery, she could take pity on some sad bastard looking to gain her approval. Perhaps that would work in his favour as well.

"I do not have the patience for it, Princeling. You would inspire me to slaughter you before the end of our first session." Akane explained, professing her shortcoming like it was among the best of her qualities. "Besides, you want Ringo for that. He can help you develop your skills far better than I could. You are both mind fighters."

Trunks took the rejection with a brave nod. "Okay."

Akane observed him, sighed again and offered: "I could teach you more battle lore if you want."

She looked absolutely appalled by how this sent Trunks over the moon. "Really?" the boy practically gasped. "That would be…"

"Now scram before I change my mind." Akane cut him short. "Go fight Ringo. See if you can beat him for that none-existent third place."

She glared the boy off with her lieutenant and they went swiftly and without complaints to find a spot on the battlefield that was not yet completely upturned.

Goten followed, calling: "Third place is mine!"

"Give me another senzu, Kakarot." Vegeta demanded, sensing the buffer grow suffocatingly thin when Turles too went after them. He figured he may very well be up next and he had no idea how to face his bane off when he could hardly keep standing.

Goku held up his bag and looked at it doubtfully. "I don't think it is going to help you, Vegeta. Anything beyond three is just a waste of good beans. You need the coop. I will transmit you to the CC."

Vegeta bit back on the less than grateful reply he wanted to give. Just like how even monkeys – and fierce little captains, apparently – did fall from trees, idiots sometimes got it right and princes would do well to swallow their pride every now and then. There was no way he was getting home by himself.

"Take me along." Akane ordered.

This made Vegeta hopeful, but the look she gave him from behind her scouter, was the gelding one that made his nuts want to jump into his stomach before she could rip them off. The pity she had shown his son, would clearly not extend to him.

"Sure." Goku said oddly reluctant.

He placed a hand on both Vegeta's and Akane's shoulder and zapped them back to the CC. The woman had made the idiot swear he would never again instant transmit himself inside her house after he had landed in her lab and broken something she had spent a week of back-to-back all-nighters assembling. The three of them thus reappeared on the steps leading up to the front door.

Akane immediately extracted herself and made a gimp for the gravity tank, half stumbling down the steps in her haste. So that was why she had tagged along. She wanted to train. The discovery made Vegeta feel a bit fucked-off, but it seemed to carry his adversary's approval. That explained his reluctance to take her along. Kakarot hadn't wanted to be responsible for putting them together so that they could go on cheating together. What had the idiot foreseen happening here? Vegeta probably wouldn't be able to tackle the rest of these steps without crawling up them. Laying one on her was definitely not forthcoming right now.

"Stick with what you know, Kakarot." Vegeta goaded. "You are clueless if you think I could pull that off."

Goku ignored the jibe on reflex, eyes still on the retreating and now cursing Akane. "She should take that senzu." he decided before turning back to Vegeta and smiling brightly. "Need help?"

"I can manage." Vegeta said flatly.

Goku shrugged. "Alright. Later." He spun and called: "Bye, Akane!"

Even if the idiot was already gone, Akane made the effort to whip around and shout furiously at the place where he just stood: "That is captain to you!" And then she muttered to herself: "Cunter keeps calling me by my name. I ought to kick him in the fucking teeth."

Vegeta's sniggers drove him to slump on the steps and seeing how that only exacerbated her anger, he sat there laughing his arse off even if his whole body was objecting to it and he knew that it wasn't helping him win her over to his side. He could picture how that temper drove her to something as foolish as trying for energy suppression mid-flight and ending up looking like she had been mauled by some vicious animal. The stupidity of it would have been a turn-off, but reckless impulsivity? That he could overlook.

"You would seriously rather conk than accept his help, wouldn't you?" Akane demanded, turning her foul temper on him.

"Fuck him." Vegeta groaned as he attempted to erect himself. The steps looked insurmountable from where he sat and he gave up, deciding to really crawl up them once his bane was out of sight and he could do it without losing the little that was left of his dignity. She didn't strike him as the type to overlook anything.

But she wasn't leaving. She wanted to, the longing look she threw over her shoulder towards the gravity tank, said as much, but after some consideration, she snarled, retraced her gimpy steps and got right in his face. Powerless as Vegeta felt – was – right now, he backed up at the show of small white teeth and he was reclining on the steps with her looming over him.

"Your royalty deceives you." she hissed dangerously. "What gives you the idea that you are in a position to stand on principle? You are in a bad way."

"I am fine." Vegeta contradicted her words as well as the tiny stars that started winking before his eyes. If he accepted either, he was going to pass out on these steps with her as his witness.

"You lie." Akane called him out. "You burnt yourself up summoning that ruinous ball of splendour."

Vegeta grinned despite it all. His bane had such a way with words. "It was worth it."

"Yes." Akane smiled back in her obnoxiously sexy way. "You were fucking awesome."

Vegeta was better off not remembering the other times where she had been inspired to tell him how fucking awesome he was, but it struck him smack in the centre and sucked all the blood from his already light-headed brain. He felt the crotch of his breeks grow tight despite the deplorable state his body was in and despite the fabric stretching to just about any size. Perhaps he could pull it off after all. If she took it on herself to jump into his lap and rodeo the shit out of him like she had done with such flair that morning, he wouldn't be opposed to figuring out how he was going to stay conscious long enough for her to send him smiling to his grave.

His grand plan sagged with his riser as it garnered no recognition from her. She was too busy groping around in her boot, wincing as this made her hand rub against her fractured ankle, and pulled out the senzu bean she had dropped in it back at the battle ground.

"Keep it for yourself." Vegeta declined when she offered it to him. "The idiot is right. It is useless to me. You should take it before your bones begin to set. It will not properly mend them for you if you wait too long."

She smiled deviously and popped the bean into her sexy little mouth, with it proving that she in fact could eat green things. Vegeta had suspected that to be a ruse. She had used her busted ankle as an excuse not to compete in the tournament. The why still eluded him, but as he watched his love-bite vanish from her jaw while the senzu healed her many hurts, he wondered if that had anything to do with it. Just like that far too convenient stink she had picked up somewhere cancelling out his scent. Those wounds hiding how he had been all over her with his mouth, were just as convenient. He could be paranoid, but none of this felt accidental. And her putting him up against her commander? Vegeta at least had no doubt that she prearranged her bawdy rhyme to get that outcome and it just went to show how possessed of cunning she truly was. Could it all be part of this elaborate web she was weaving? Even those injuries? If so, then he had no clue who she wanted to trap. Him or her commander. She may well be spinning her snares for the sake of spinning itself, like a fat, contented spider, biding her time and pulling threads while she watched her prey flail. Dangerous, was what she was. As if on cue, the ferocious lifeforce she had spent the last hours failing to properly suppress, all but spewed from her pores as she let it off its leash. Vegeta bathed in her hellishness. Any quest worth undertaking was wrought with dangers. He wanted it no other way.

"You could have spared yourself the limp. I doubt anyone would have had the balls to call you out on your refusal to compete." Vegeta said just to put it out there that he wasn't completely ignorant.

Akane did not seem impressed that he was on to her and insinuated: "I did not want to steal your glory."

Vegeta wasn't fooled, but he knew better than to insist on truths from a pretty mouth designed for lies. "Is that why you pitted me against your commander?"

"There was no glory in that. It was like siccing a sand lion on a wildhare." Akane said with feigned regret. Then she revealed with sheer delight: "I wanted to grant myself the pleasure of naming you a runt and him a keeper."

Vegeta repaid her leer with a smile he wasn't even sure he was faking. There was something undeniably stimulating about playing this out with her. "I reckon I have my answer then."

That she did not confirm it, seemed a good sign. A tiny ray of hope. Or so she wanted him to believe.

"Where is this coop?" Akane inquired, suddenly businesslike and apparently done laying traps for him.

Vegeta lost his appetite for their bandy to the mortifying idea of getting carried up the steps by her, but she allowed him to retain a shred of his manhood by pulling his arm around her neck and heaving him to his feet. Her arm slipped around him for support and she grabbed a fistful of his waistband to keep him standing. She helped him inside the house muttering under her breath how he wasn't nearly tall or burly enough to account for the magnitude of his bulk.

Not tall or burly like her commander. Vegeta felt provoked and jogged her hard to underpin that no matter how piss-poor his current state, she was right that he had a lot more weight to throw around than she did. This little thing was about half of a hundred soaking wet. He had all the bulk she could ever need.

"Lightweight."

"Let's not invent trouble." Akane warned him darkly. "You have enough problems as it is."

Vegeta pointed her to the stairs leading to the underground floor where the infirmary was and she took him down with the care of a dog owner handling a particularly bothersome, flee-ridden and disgusting mutt.

"I would just as soon kick you down these stairs." she threatened, topping it off by spitting out his title as if it was the magic word that could undo her ceaseless contempt.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and stood in the hallway that lead to the woman's lab in the back. That second corridor was sealed off by automatic sliding doors, accessible only with a keycard, but they needn't go in there. This hallway lead to his son's game room, the gravity chamber, and at the very end, the infirmary. His bane ushered him along on his directions, all the while stewing in her foul mood and grumbling inaudible complaints. Yet her voice was rising with her anger and it enabled Vegeta to catch some of her vehement monologue.

"…must think you are so smart. Going around smelling like you still have your dick in me."

Vegeta gave her a generous smile. "I was going to say the same to you, smelling like you never let me put my dick in you."

The devastating eye she aimed up at him, gave him the sniggers again and before she could tear into him, he tucked her closer under his arm, causing him to lean on her more heavily and her to step sideways correcting that.

"Oh, don't let it get to you, little one. Your squealing gave you away long before their noses did. I was under the impression that you already understood how little need you have for them with me around. You can rest assured that your mighty ache has my full attention." Vegeta brought his mouth close to her ear and imparted: "As much as I would like to, I do not have it in me to hunt you down right now. If you want me to show you how well this worked out for you, you are going to have to stay put and play nice with me."

She elbowed him in the gut by way of answer, but did it without letting go of his arm around her neck which ended them up careening from one wall to the other as he tried to regain his footing. They came to a clumsy halt outside the training chamber and Vegeta pressed her into the wall with his uncooperative body while blindly feeling out the numbers on the panel beside the door. If he got it to open and she gave him half a chance, he was pulling it off. Somehow.

"Have you smelled me?" Akane demanded, moving her mouth away from his seeking lips.

"Yeah." Vegeta said softly. "In this instance, a sewer would be a fair comparison. I could care less. This is not half so intolerable as those sloppy seconds you offered me. I eat alone, is the point. If your pretty, pink plum tastes as good as it looks, I will enjoy polishing you off regardless."

"No, I am over that." Akane snarled, avoiding his next attempt at kissing her. She pushed for space half-heartedly, then tipped her head to expose her neck, her actions, as usual, in complete opposition with her words. "You can starve for all I care."

The erroneous bleep coming from the panel Vegeta was still fingering, let him know that he had inputted the wrong combination. He knew the code and he knew the position of every digit on that interface, yet the numbness in his hand prevented him from getting it right a second time.

"Who is lying now?" he prodded, his confidence growing at the scent of her excitement that wafted up at him. "You are starting to smell better already."

He nosed her exposed skin and left the panel for what it was so that he could peel down the neck of her battle shirt. It was more pawing than peeling and his lack of coordination alerted him to his legs that were ready to give out as well.

"Not to question your vile appetite," Akane said and she did a poor job of holding back the hoarse laugh that stirred in her throat he was rubbing his lips along. "But if you go down on me now, you are really going down on me. I am almost tempted to let you have your way just to see you pass out with your face in my muff."

"Like you said, there are worse ways to go." Vegeta had another go at pressing the right buttons on the panel, but was deterred from it by a dizzy spell that would have driven him to his knees, had his bane not found her resolve and shoved him off. He stumbled to keep up as she resumed escorting him up the hallway not too gently.

"You are delusional." Akane told him.

"So are you." Vegeta returned. "We found ourselves some common ground. That is good. We could build on that."

Akane snorted a disallowed laugh at the wide smile he gave her. "I am not interested, ugly."

"I am not convinced."

She refused to let him tuck her back snugger under his arm, practically dragging him along until they reached the infirmary. There was no lock on this door and Vegeta was cut loose as soon as he pushed it open. He grabbed the doorpost, steadied himself and went inside, his gait as surefooted as he could make it with the corrugating walls and jumping floorboards trying to throw him off course. He somehow reached the recuperation machine the idiot had dubbed the coop because five-syllable words were too complicated for him to commit to memory. Leaning his forearm on the machine for support, Vegeta started adjusting the settings without being able to focus on the interface. The digits kept looping in and out of his vision, but he thought – hoped – he had set the machine to an eight hour healing cycle. That should be sufficient to get him back into commission.

"Re-gen tank?" Akane guessed as she turned up beside him.

Vegeta had expected her to be long gone, uninterested as she wanted him to believe her to be. Perhaps she was taking pity on him after all. He wrestled with his armour, answering: "Recovery only."

The recuperation machine was built off of the imperial healing tank, but it did not have the ability to regenerate anything the body itself could not. That was probably on him for the most part. He hadn't been able to explain the science behind it clearer to the woman.

"Too bad. I guess you are never getting your balls back." Akane needled as she helped him take off his armour.

"You will have to do better than that if you want to unman me." Vegeta struggled with his shirt and when she stripped it off for him, the feel of her nails against his skin gave him another, very suitable riser. It held firm this time, but the reaction was mere physical. The only thing he was pulling off, was passing out within the next minute.

Akane did give it recognition this time. "The mother's sagging tits. Is that really necessary?"

Vegeta leaned back against the recuperation tank and made the effort to shrug, relying on his fronted poise like he was forced to do around her so often. He liked her even for that. "My cock is bound to work while I am still breathing."

Akane gave an irked snarl and crouched down to take care of the boots he tried in vain to kick off. "Your virility is the stuff of nightmares."

"Still not convinced." Vegeta tried for a grin at the infinite-hell-to-pay look she sent up to him.

Just as she grasped his waistband to help him take off his remaining gear, the sounds of sliding doors opening and swift heels cantering up the hallway, announced the woman's arrival. It made quick work of the potential in his breeks and the lethal little hands that had been ready to set it free. The woman appeared in the doorway with her father, the two of them peering curiously into the infirmary. Yeah, it was about time Vegeta told her about that rival she had gained.

"What is going on?" Bulma asked surprisedly, clearly having no idea what she could have walked in on just now.

His bane stood up and spoke before Vegeta could gather the strength. The preceding and sadly fruitless groundwork had sapped the last of his energy. He gripped the rim of the recuperation machine with one hand and made a grab for his spinning head with the other. The reintroduction of sufficient blood to his brain was going to make him spark out.

"Not a whole lot." Akane answered, that hoarse voice echoing through him like a faraway lure. "The prince talks big, but he is in no state to start anything. All for the better if you ask me. These duties are yours after all. He keeps harassing me for something to eat, but it is not my place to feed him. I trust you will see to his needs."

"I think food is the last thing he needs right now." Doctor Briefs observed clinically from over the rim of his black-framed glasses. As always, there was a cigarette dangling from the corner of his whiskered mouth.

Akane ignored him, her hellish glare fixed on the woman. She reached up to the scouter and engaged it with an affectatious flourish. The familiar bleeps coming from the device, told Vegeta that she was getting a reading on the woman's stats. Finished, she barked a derisive laugh he knew was meant more for him than for who she referred to as his fuckhole.

"I will take my leave now." Akane announced to the room at large. "I was made to understand that I am to stay away from you, your baby and your house. Forgive me my trespass. It will not happen again."

The woman visibly steeled herself and gave departing captain the widest possible berth, her beautiful face stuck somewhere between fear and disdain. Akane's was arranged in the usual scowl when she turned in the doorway and shot Vegeta her hardest, most unnerving look. He half expected her to flip him off. Instead, she let out another mocking laugh and turned away from him.

"Miss." Doctor Briefs greeted politely.

"Funny old geezer." Akane returned pleasantly and with that, she slunk past him and left the infirmary.

"I'm glad that is clear." Bulma said, feeling safe enough to speak now that her unwanted guest was gone. Then she started in on Vegeta for allowing that scary Saiyajin in the house in the first place and a lot of other things he hardly registered while he willed his knees not to buckle just yet.

"We have to go if we want to make it to that meeting in time, Bulma." Doctor Briefs urged.

"Almost done." Bulma called.

She was checking the settings on the recuperation machine and told Vegeta to get in. When he didn't move, she approached and gave him her scientific scrutiny. Vegeta prevented the far more hesitant and cautious hands from helping him get undressed, realising that he never wanted to be touched with that kind of repulsed reluctance again. He rather received another elbow in the gut. At least that had been meant.

"Woman, I should tell you…" But Vegeta never got to tell her anything. Before he could fess up that he was cheating, his knees gave out and he sank into sticky blackness.