Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Slave ❯ Omen ( Chapter 54 )

Disclaimer: I don't own DBZ or the characters.

 

A/N - I have finally figured out how to end this fic and keep my sanity intact and keep most people happy. After chopping and changing my original ending with a new idea I had, I have finally settled. I estimate I have arounf 4 chapters until the end of the fic. Enjoy while it lasts!

 

~*~

 

Now the writing's on a wall
It won't go away
It's an omen

- Omen, The Prodigy

 

~*~

 

“Unfortunately, now is not the time for those particular punishments.” Abruptly, Vegeta released the grip her had on Bulma's hair and with a gasp that was half surprise and half disappointment, she fell to the side and took several seconds to compose herself. “I came to see you because I had news that I wanted to deliver myself.”

 

Bulma sensed the shift in the mood between them and she hastily sat up and watched Vegeta's face, frowning slightly as she did so. There was something in his manner that hinted that whatever this news was, it was not pleasant and it was something which he personally felt the need to break to her. A chill worked its way down her spine and she wrapped her arms around herself, trying to think what could be so bad that he'd actually lower himself to tell her directly.

 

“Frieza is alive.” Vegeta spoke distractedly, his black eyes watching her very carefully. “According the the source of our information he somehow managed to survive the destruction of his space station. He suffered extensive damage which could not be healed and only lived thanks to cybernetic replacements.” The Saiyan king hesitated and ran a hand through his hair, “There is no easy way to tell you this, but Frieza's first action once he was recovered was to attack your home world.”

 

“What?” Bulma flinched as though Vegeta had struck her. “Why would be attack Earth?” She wrapped her arms tighter around herself, wondering how the Earth could possibly recover from another alien onslaught. She may never live to see her planet again, but it was still her home and she'd spent most of her life fighting for it's freedom from the Saiyajin oppressors.

 

“He could have attacked your Earth for many reasons. For one thing it is one of the Saiyajin Empire's most outlying worlds and is an easy target if one were to start an invasion.Frieza has made a declaration of war against the Saiyajin Empire by attacking one of our conquered words but...” He paused and seemed to compose his next words more carefully. “...the more likely reason for his attack was retaliation for your part in his brush with death. Frieza does not forgive easily.” Again Vegeta hesitated and then seemed to straighten his shoulders and stand taller. “Bulma, I should tell you that Frieza did not just attack your Earth...he completely destroyed it.”

 

For seconds Vegeta's words buzzed in Bulma's head like angry wasps, refusing to settle and allow themselves to be analysed. Earth...gone? How could an entire planet be completely destroyed? How could so many lives be snuffed out for good? For several moments Bulma blinked in confusion as she tried to process the information, and then something inside of her, the same something that had survived the Saiyajin's original invasion, had endured her rape by the slavers and had even taken Vegeta's constant brutality, snapped...and Bulma began to scream.

 

 

~*~

 

 

Kakarot burst through the door when the screams started without really thinking about what he was doing, and the scene the confronted him confused him further. He had known that Vegeta was concerned about how Bulma would take the destruction of her home world, but even Vegeta could not have dreamed exactly how the human would react.

 

She was like a wild thing; she twisted and contorted in Vegeta grasp and kept screaming one ragged scream after another while while she tore at her face and hair with her nails. Her eyes were closed tightly and her head whipped from side to side, although she were refusing to see something terrible. Vegeta was trying to keep her from tearing out her hair and restrain her at the same time without hurting her, and he was clearly not having a lot of success.

 

“Help me!” He snarled at the lower class warrior when he saw him, “I can't hold her down and stop her scratching at her face!”

 

Nodding at his king, Kakarot lunged forward and caught Bulma's hands in his, pinning them down while Vegeta restrained the rest of her, using his body to pin hers against the bench she had been sitting on, and caught her head in his hands - one hand clamping over her mouth to stop her screams and the other hand catching her hair and forcing her to keep still.

 

Her frail body didn't hand much strength in it and her ineffectual struggles soon ceased, even her muffled screams soon stopped and she lay passively in their arms, sobbing brokenly while tears escaped her closed eyes. She looked positively shattered and frail as she lay crying between them.

 

“Should I let her go?” Kakarot caught Vegeta's gaze and nodded towards his hands which still held Bulma's.

 

“Yes, I think it's over now.” Vegeta released the little human after Kakarot had moved away from her, and rubbed a hand over his eyes as Bulma simply fell to the side and curled up in a ball, sobbing and rocking slowly. He sighed and glanced at his companion. “I can't deal with this now. I have more important things to do than console a concubine. I'd like you to take her back to her rooms and make sure she doesn't do herself any further harm. Hopefully this is just a phase and she'll come out of it soon but if you get concerned about her contact the medical facility and get them to give her a sedative.” Clearly irritated about Bulma's reaction, Vegeta shook his head and turned to leave the room. “I have a war meeting with the other council members.”

 

Kakarot waited until the door had closed and Vegeta's ki had moved away before he approached Bulma again. It was dangerous to show her any kind of consideration but he wasn't able to help himself. Besides, if any nosy doctors came into the room and saw them he'd simply kill all of them.

 

He gently pushed Bulma's hair away from her face and smoothed it back, wincing slightly at the scratches on the sides of her face which she'd given herself in her grief. He gathered her into his arms and held her against him, settling her head on his shoulder while he stroked her back for several seconds.

 

“It's alight Bulma, no matter how bad things get, you're going to be alright.” He whispered to her softly as he stood up with her in his arms.

 

Kakarot supposed that humans must be far more emotional creatures than saiyajin's were to judge by her outburst, although he had heard rumors around the castle of Bulma's apparently inconsistent and strange behavior prior to her 'abduction' by Ilandra. Perhaps the girl was simply unbalanced due to the constant pain and death surrounding her, the Gods knew that it wasn't impossible considering all she had been through.

 

Ignoring the doctor's curious glances Kakarot carried Bulma out of the medical facility without a word and back through the winding corridors to her rooms. The King, Kakarot knew, would be attempting to make contact with Frieza in his war meeting today to demand an explanation for his attack on Earth. No matter the reason for Frieza's behavior, the Saiyajin Empire was likely to go to war. Tensions had been brewing between their Empires for far too long and things had been heading down this road for a long time.

 

It was simply strange that Frieza should have chosen to launch his first attack on their Empire, on Earth. True, it was a planet which had provided the Saiyajin Empire with numerous slaves, a few technological advances and was a rich planet in terms of the natural resources, but it was a planet which was far from the Icejin Empire. It made Kakarot suspicious that Frieza had destroyed it in order to get at the human in his arms. It seemed like an angry and futile gesture designed to hurt someone who had hurt him.

 

Reaching the human's rooms, he opened the doors and walking inside with her, carefully placing her on the bed as gently as he could. She was awake, he knew, but she made no move to speak to him or even to acknowledge his presence. Whatever was going on in her head was taking all of her concentration, and sighing, Kakarot leaned against the wall near the bed and watched her, knowing that she would snap out of her grief eventually.

 

When she did, he would be here for her.

 

 

~*~

 

 

Bulma struggled to contain the rage that was welling up inside of her again and again. The sense of pain and grief was almost too much for her to bear and she felt another hysterical scream building in her throat again...but she swallowed it down. The mere fact that she had lost control of herself so completely earlier was something that she was not proud of. By now she should have been able to take bad news with more dignity...and losing her home wasn't an experience she was unfamiliar with.

 

The emotions churning about within her made her feel as she had when she'd watched the Capsule Corporation get destroyed and watched her father die. She felt the familiar sense of loss within her like a physical thing - a great yearning gap that would never be healed properly. In a way, it was like losing her family and friends all over again. Her home was gone and her friends were gone - everything was gone thanks to Frieza.

 

Frieza.

 

Bulma gritted her teeth and channeled her pain into the rage she could feel inside of her. Somehow, no matter the cost, she would make him pay for what he had done. His crime was far greater than that of the Saiyajin Empire; they may have conquered her world and enslaved her people but they'd always had a chance to recover one day. Now they had nothing. Now her race was all but gone and she was part of an endangered species.

 

She remembered Frieza telling her that one day he'd have her in his collection and goosebumps blossomed all over her skin. Was that to be her future? Would she be locked away in another cage next to those other poor unfortunate creatures if Frieza managed to defeat the Saiyajin Empire? Never! Bulma silently swore to herself. If it came to that, she'd kill herself rather than live as his fucking slave.

 

Bulma felt a strange sense of calm fall over her with that decision. Death, the one thing she had always feared, was now to be her savior if all else failed, and with that came a calm acceptable of her fate. She would not embrace her death unless there was no other options, and the calmness she felt would enable her to properly explore those options. She knew more than most people about the capabilities of both the Saiyajin and the Icejin Empire.

 

Frieza's Empire had the bigger armada and was more technologically advanced than the Saiyajins. He knew this and it made him cocky. Cocky people made silly mistakes. They were easily lulled into a false sense of security and could be taken advantage of that way.

 

She'd always known that her brain was her best weapon, and Bulma began to run through all of her inventions which might give the Saiyajin's an advantage of the larger and more dangerous Icejin armada. Unbidden, Bulma remembered her father talking to her in the days before the Capsule Corporation had been destroyed and he had died. He had been holding a capsule in his hands and looking at it with awe.

 

“The smallest and most innocent of objects could be our greatest weapon, Bulma.”

 

At the time she hadn't known what he was talking about. In her innocence she had been sure that mankind would overthrow the Saiyajin rulers and they would be free once more. She hadn't paid her father much attention when he'd spoken of changing tactics and scraping her research into the ki enhancing guns. He'd been sad to lose the capsule technology to the saiyajins, but he'd always told Bulma that they didn't realise the potential of the capsules, and that that was what they themselves should be doing instead of wasting time with less powerful toys.

 

“Capsules.” Bulma sat up abruptly, her fiercely angry eyes burning with the same idea which she was sure her father must have had prior to his death. For years the saiyan's had been using the stolen capsule technology to transport weapons, but they hadn't stopped to think that perhaps the capsules themselves could become weapons.

 

Ignoring Kakarot, who was watching her with fascination, Bulma's brain leapt into hyper-drive as she began to mentally run through everything she knew about capsules. The two facts that kept repeating themselves over and over in her mind were the most important though: Capsules were too small to register on a ships radar and the saiyajins had an almost endless supply of them...

 

Bulma Briefs, slave to the Saiyan King and one of the last remaining humans, began to smile. She knew how to destroy the Icejin armada and she even knew how to lure Frieza into a trap that would cost him his life...and maybe hers, but no matter. Revenge would be sweet.

 

~*~

 

A/N: This isn't as long as I wanted it to be...but I'm on a roll. More shall follow.