DISCLAIMER:

Rath: (Shouts enthusiastically) COME ON, EVERYONE! FILL IN THE BLANK! 'I DON'T OWN….WHAT?'

Crowd: (Finishes Rath's statement as they raise fists to sky) D…..B…..X…..!

Rath: (Falls down) Whaaaat! Nooo! It's 'Z'! NOT 'X'! What's WRONG with you? Have you not been paying attention these past 19 Chapters?

Crowd: (Sweatdrops in confusion)

WITHIN THE PAST WORLD:

Goku, Bulma, and Goten raced through the massive halls in search of Trunks and Vegge. The "Ghoul Saber" no longer seemed quite so majestic as it had once been during their first impressions. The halls were now filled with screams of agony and pleas for help.

"I don't understand how any of this is even possible..." Bulma commented as they turned down a descending path leading in the direction of the center courtyard. "Are we, too, trapped within this time loop now?"

Goku shook his head as he replied, "I don't know, but if we don't find Trunks and Vegge soon, it's very likely that we will be."

"Sheesh! No wonder they said nobody ever comes into their space anymore..." Goten remarked.

"That's why it's imperative we find them and leave as quickly as possible," Goku agreed. "Besides, I don't know what they'll do if they get their hands on them. If things go as I think they will, they will single out Vegge immediately. At first glance, they will know he is a Saiyan and Trunks might not be able to stop them on his own, since he was weakened back on Frieza's ship."

"What a mess we are in," Bulma muttered. 'Oh Vegeta, forgive us...' She never got the chance to finish that last thought. She ended up running smack into Goku, who had so suddenly stopped.

"HEY!" Bulma was about to give him a piece of her mind, but was silenced by the gruesome site before them. There, not even twenty feet away, was a large vaulted room literally piled with dead bodies emptying their life's blood along the once grandiose porcelain floor.

Bulma felt like she was going to vomit at the ghastly scene. "King Vegeta and Frieza did this, didn't they? They were absolute MONSTERS!"

"But didn't Vegeta used to do the same thing?" Goten mused aloud without thinking.

Bulma looked away from the young teen as she whispered, "Yes, I suppose he did, didn't he..."

Goten knew he must have said something wrong. He quickly tried to make amends by saying, "I'm sorry, I—I didn't mean it like that..."

Bulma, however, cut him off before he could finish, "No, no need to apologize, Goten. We can't change the truth..."

"Shhh..." Goku placed a finger to his lips, gesturing for them to be silent. He quietly motioned for them to look towards the far right side of the room. That's when a small motion suddenly caught their eye.

"What...?" Bulma started, but Goku shook his head. He once again pointed to the lone figure at the end of the room.

It was a young girl no more than about 20 or so years of age. She seemed to be seriously injured though, as her motions were extremely jerky and awkward. She stopped for a moment trying to feel out her surroundings or perhaps to catch her breath. Satisfied that the coast was clear she knelt down and inched her way across the room towards a separate passageway. As her foot brushed against one of the dead bodies, she froze for a moment, but she did not dare to look down. She knew the passage was somewhere around here….. She continued creeping silently towards the left, when at last she felt a small crevice within the floor. She had found it at last—the secret passageway! She knew it was risky, but perhaps if she was quick enough... Her tail wriggled weakly behind her as she anxiously tapped into her last reserves of strength in order to force it open.

Bulma gasped, "She's Saiyan!"

The girl's reflexes suddenly tensed up. Someone was in the room with her! She immediately jumped down into the passageway, accidentally causing her injuries to tear open even wider. She gasped with pain, but a new sense of urgency made her adrenaline sky-rocket as she rushed to get away. She refused to get caught... Not this time!

Goku wasted no time. He immediately chased after her. The passageway was so narrow and low, however. It slowed him down considerably, since he was forced to crawl. As a result, Goten and Bulma easily caught up to him. The passageway was long and winding with many branching passage routes, but Goku seemed to know exactly which ways to turn.

"She's injured," Goku explained. "She covering up her trail pretty well, but there's still faint traces of blood here and there. The scent of blood is pretty distinct."

It didn't take too much longer before they finally came across the crumpled form of the Saiyan girl lying weakly against the wall. The girl did not even bother to spare a glance at them as they approached her. Goku and Bulma's concern rose as they noted how shaky the girl was.

"Pl—Please don't hurt me anymore!" the girl pleaded hopelessly as she heard them come nearer. "Please! I promise I won't tell!"

Goku and Bulma shot a concerned look at one another.

"You won't tell what?" Goku asked as he knelt beside her. "What's going on here?"

"P-Please... D-don't..." the girl looked up towards him with wide unblinking white eyes. "I-I promise I won't... Just let me go!"

Bulma noticed something unusual about the way the girl was looking at Goku. It was like she couldn't actually focus on him. Not to mention, her pupils were pretty much non-existent. Bulma decided to test her suspicions a bit further by waving her hand directly in front of the girl's eyes. When the girl did not so much as blink or acknowledge her, Bulma knew...

"You're blind, aren't you?" Bulma asked quietly. "You can't see us at all."

"I'm sorry," the Saiyan replied automatically.

"No," Bulma said quietly. "There's no need to be sorry. We're not here to hurt you. Who are you afraid of?"

"Them," the girl replied softly. "The Yuuli..."

"The Yuuli?" Goku raised his eyebrows.

"They're the ones in control of this ship," the girl stated as a matter of fact. "They are the ones with long shiny white hair..."

"But you're blind..." Goten was confused. "How do you know what they look like?"

The girl turned away. "I wasn't always like this..." Sensing their confusion rise, she began to explain:

"It's true that the Yuulian technology is second to none, no doubt, but few really know how exactly it became that way...

"You see, the Yuuli are a very curious race. They are always experimenting with stuff—an interesting object from one planet or a unique substance from another... They don't really care where or how they get their information, so long as they actually get it. Then they incorporate it somehow into their own technology to make it even more superior. Six years ago, however, they began to experiment with live specimens. I suppose they wanted to know exactly how their enemies functioned, so that they could calibrate their weapons more efficiently against them or something...

"The Saiyans really never posed much of a threat to them. We just weren't interested in them, but unfortunately, Frieza was. Everyone knows that when Frieza wants something, Frieza gets it. Frieza was no stranger to stolen technology, so he was not above the idea of stealing it from them. The Yuuli knew they could not beat Frieza alone, so they offered the Saiyans a chance to align with them temporarily to take him down together.

"Perhaps it could have worked, but our King was too busy being Frieza's lapdog to give it any thought. The Yuuli were so enraged by his refusal that they decided to take matters into their own hands. If reasoning with the King wouldn't work, they decided that threatening him would... For five years they secretly began capturing relatively weaker Saiyan children and threatened to do unthinkable things to them if the King did not meet their demands. They had not expected the King to call their bluff, so they vowed to eradicate all of the children they had collected over the years and any others who were unfortunate enough to cross their path...

"Up 'til then they had only kidnapped 3rd or lower classed Saiyan children, so the King didn't really pay them any mind. It wasn't until about a year ago that they ended up getting their hands on a couple of 1st class children as well. Unspeakable things were done to them until their bodies couldn't take it any more and thus gave out on them. The Yuuli sent their mangled bodies as a 'gift' to the Saiyan King himself. The King was so outraged that he told Frieza all about the Yuuli's plans to betray him. Outraged, Frieza himself decided to go to their home planet to deal with them.

"Of course, Frieza couldn't care-a-less about the well-being of all those Saiyan children. If anything, he probably would have been entertained by the situation. No, the only reason he cared at all was because he couldn't stand for anybody to openly challenge him like that. He wanted to make an example of them. He and King Vegeta went to their planet and finished off every last Yuulian man, women, and child they could find, but this ship managed to escape unscathed. Here, the Yuuli began to take out their hatred upon the remaining Saiyan children, as if their screams would somehow make all their problems go away...

"Unfortunately, I am one of those children... I've actually been here from the very beginning of this whole ordeal, but I am ranked lower than 3rd class in the Saiyan hierarchy, so I doubt my King will care about any of the injustices I have suffered here... I have been relatively resilient throughout most of their experiments in comparison to most of the other lower class children, but one of the chemical substances they forced me to drink cost me my sight...

"It affects each individual differently, but it always attacks the mind in some way. I regret I've been blind ever since... I think I was fifteen years old at the time, but I've since lost track of time. I think they prefer me somewhat now, since I cannot see what they are doing..."

Goku and Bulma couldn't believe all the injustices done to Saiyan children. They were so strong and yet so vulnerable all at once, allowing for their enemies to take advantage of them. Goku remembered when he used to firmly deny having any Saiyan roots whatsoever... Looking back, it would seem the Saiyans had it tougher than he ever would have guessed.

"How did you ever manage to escape?" Goku wondered aloud.

"There seemed to be a lot of chaos and panic going on at the moment, so one of my good friends staged a distraction for me, so that I might escape unseen," the girl replied. "I met her about a year after I had lost my vision, so I'm a bit limited in what I can tell you about her. Apparently, she had heard about a Saiyan boy who had been planning to escape by using this very path. H—He died before he ever got the chance, but he had told her all about it and so she relayed it back to me. I memorized the details, so I'm just going by that and pure instinct to get by... My senses have all heightened immensely since I went blind!"

She smiled weakly. "I'm afraid they must have killed her by now. I don't want her sacrifice to end in vain..."

"So what name should we call you by?" Bulma asked as she struggled not to let her emotions overwhelm her, especially since she knew that this girl must not have succeeded in her goal…. She was trapped within the time loop along with all of the others aboard this ship, which meant she, too, was no longer of the living world….. It was quite sad really, because the girl seemed to possess so much hope…

"My birth name is 'Sarahda'," the girl replied as she glanced in the direction of Bulma's voice. "But you can call me 'Rah' if you wish!"

"Very well then, Rah," Bulma replied. "We, too, are trying to get out of this place, but we have to find someone first. Is there anything that you could tell us to help us along our way?"

Rah thought about it for a moment, before nodding. "Well, I wouldn't recommend going up in the open or anything, but there are passages like this running throughout the entire ship. I would stick to those. There are only a couple of things that you need to know, really. The sound of electricity will lead you in the direction of a power source, which will always be in the direction of the center court of the ship. The sound of blowing winds will lead you in the direction of the outer boundaries of the ship, such as the docks. Other sounds like rushing water or nothingness will lead you everywhere else."

"You can accompany us, too, you know," Goten offered.

"I—I think I would like that, but..." Rah motioned towards a large gash in her side. "I'm afraid I would just end up slowing you down..."

"We would not mind, Rah," Goku said after a moment. "Besides, we wouldn't dream of leaving a fellow Saiyan behind in a place like this!"

Rah gaped in shock. "You are Saiyans! Y-You really came for us! And all this time we thought no one cared!"

Goku and the others didn't know what to say. Before them, apparently no one had...

.

ELSEWHERE ABOARD THE 'GHOUL SABER', WITHIN THE PAST WORLD:

Vegge had been trembling feverishly for the last five minutes now, and Trunks did not know what to do about it…. As he lifted Vegge's shivering form up into his arms, he noticed that Vegge now felt extremely hot and looked very flushed.

"Vegge!" Trunks gently shook the younger Saiyan. "Come on, Vegge! What's happening with you!"

"Trunks…?" Vegge mumbled quietly.

Vegge seemed to be numbly aware of Trunks's voice, but still did not offer much of a response. Even his breathing seemed far too harsh and labored for his own good.

"Maybe Mom will know what to do," Trunks reasoned. "Perhaps you're just sick or something…?" But despite all his hopefulness, deep down Trunks KNEW that it was something far more serious than that…. Vegge was going through something akin to a seizure. Perhaps it was due to something Frieza had done to him earlier…Or maybe it was because of that Doctor…. Trunks froze. He hoped it wasn't what he thought it was….

"Come, come now, Vegeta," a sinister voice echoed from on of the distant halls. "You are moving far to slow for my tastes! I would like to finish this BEFORE the next century!"

Trunks ears perked up at that voice….. That voice! Was that…? But how…? Frieza was supposed to be DEAD! And who was he talking to!

"Perhaps if you JOINED me, Frieza," a deeper voice suggested with barely controlled irritation. "I'm sure with your impeccable skill, this would take NO TIME!"

"Ha ha ha," Frieza laughed as if a funny joke had been told to him. "Good one, Vegeta! Good one! Ha ha! But it's far more FUN this way, don't you agree?" Frieza's evil smirk only widened as the Saiyan King's eyebrows twitched with anger. It was fun annoying the monkey like this! Perhaps a bit TOO easy, though….. "You wanted to say something to me?" Frieza questioned calmly, knowing full well the monkey wouldn't dare object!

"No, of course not, Lord Frieza," the King muttered indignantly he shot a stray ki-blast aimed at no one in particular.

"Come now," Frieza replied smoothly. "Let's move on! We have so much to cover in so short a time!" And so they continued onwards….. Straight towards Trunks's current location…!

Rath: Hey, everyone! I was so thrilled with the Reviewer response I got for the last chapter that I decided to try to get this one out as sooner than usual! I'm glad you all enjoyed the Bra scene so much! LOL!

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed THIS chapter as well! Please continue to Read and Review! Until Next Time! Sawatdee!