Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ A Beautiful Lie ❯ Primitive Actions ( Chapter 6 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Disclaimer: DB/Z/GT is owned by Akria Toriyama...not me...k.thx. Also, the title..A Beautiful Lie..is owned by the band, 30 Seconds to Mars..love them.

Chapter 6

Trunks involuntarily tightened his grip on Marron's arm as he gazed past his mother's shoulder. His brow furrowed with confusion as he squinted. "I didn't know there were going to be pyrotechnics this year."

"Pyrotechnics?" Bulma frowned as she turned towards the flashing lights.

He saw the confusion in her face. "You mean you didn't set up for fireworks?"

She shook her head, blue eyes filled with bewildered fear. "No, I thought it would come off as tacky and disruptive."

"But where-?"

Marron tugged at his arm and hissed his name. "Trunks!" The grip she had on his sleeve was turning her knuckles white. "Those aren't lights! They have ki signatures!"

He whipped around to watch them streak against the inky backdrop of the night. Tuning in with his superior senses, he discovered what Marron already knew. Someone was hacking away at their planet, one blast at a time. A million questions flooded his brain, but the sheer confusion of it all dumbfounded him. The thought was literally paralyzing him. How can this be happening? One minute he'd been speaking to his mother about taking an extended vacation, and the next he was witnessing the global-wide assault from an apparently invisible enemy.

Was she the only one not taking a stroll down brain-dead lane? Marron looked past the frozen Briefs to see that, yes, she was the only one not gazing stupidly. Even the great Goku stood agog. Things had gone downhill fast if she was the only one on red alert. Releasing Trunks' arm, she mustered up a small bit of power and slapped him upside the head. "Snap out of it!"

He whirled on her in shock. "What gives?"

"Why are you just standing there like and inept halfwit?" She closed her eyes and planted her slim hands on her equally slim hips. "In case you haven't noticed, Chikyuu is under attack. You, with all your fancy Saiyan powers, can do something about it." She held a hand out, palm up, and gestured to the window.

Trunks blinked with surprise. Where the hell was this coming from? He narrowed his topaz gaze suspiciously. "And what about you?"

"What?" Marron stepped closer.

He leaned down to glare at her, finger pointed in her face. "You can fight. I've seen you." He cocked his head to the right in false puzzlement. "Or are you going to play the gender card and punk out on me?"

His sarcasm grated on her already raw nerves. "You arrogant son of a bitch!" She slapped his hand away. "Get your hand out of my face!"

He rocked back onto his heels. "Is that a no?" He hadn't realized she'd get this angry. Marron was always the level headed one. It was a very rare occasion when she boiled over.

"Hell yes that's a no!" She jerked the silver-threader earrings out of her ears and threw them into his face. "Why don't you nurse your male chauvinist attitude on someone else, because you're wasting my time."

Trunks didn't think she'd even noticed the building shuddering around her. Whoever was ambushing the planet was doing an excellent job of it. A wailing crack had him gazing upwards at the gigantic chandelier hanging above them. He realized then that the entire mansion was creaking under the strain. He looked around him. Does anyone else realize the house is collapsing?

"Are you even listening to me?!" She watched him tune her out, his face transforming into an expressionless mask. Her blinding rage died a quick death when she was nearly thrown to the ground by shockwaves. "Trunks?"

The telltale snap of wood jerked his head up and he froze. The six-tier crystal chandelier was breaking loose from the ceiling- and the three of them were all standing directly beneath it. His gaze whipped to dance between Marron and Bulma. He couldn't possibly grab them both; he'd never make it in time. Making a split second decision, he moved.

Marron felt all of his weight hit her through his hands as they slammed into her shoulders. She cried out at the stab of pain along her collarbone and knew that with all his strength, he'd broken it. The shove sent her sailing past a few tables and slapping harshly against the marble floor. Her head whipped backward and smacked the unforgiving surface. Her vision blurred as she watched him tackle Bulma out from underneath the plummeting chandelier. Unconsciousness loomed like a dubious cloud and she let her eyes flutter shut to the ear-splitting shatter of Kami-knows how many pounds of crystal.

The scream that followed fell on deaf ears.

Meanwhile

Vegeta had seen this kind of attack before, more times then he'd truly admit to. It was standard procedure for purging known hostile planets. His hands clenched involuntarily and he vaguely registered a stinging pain in his right hand. He ignored it. Nearly three decades had passed since he'd sullied his hands at Frieza's orders, and an attack such as this was straight from that cretin's book. Eliminate all insignificant life forms and follow up with a planet-wide sweep to exterminate any discovered survivors. It dug deep that he could actually remember it word-for-word.

The pain grew from a stinging burn to a steady throb and he held up his hand. The crystal from his glass had shattered and a sizeable shard was imbedded in his palm. Thick crimson blood coated his hand to the wrist, staining his sleeve, and had dripped to pool on the granite balcony. He jerked the shard loose without hesitation and the blood poured out in a rush. Yanking his bowtie, he tied off the wound using his teeth. The injury was relatively minor compared to the ones he was likely to receive in the near future, but he couldn't afford to become faint from blood loss. Bulma probably would've berated me for being careless with her very expensive glasses.

He glanced up in time to see some of the nearby evergreens snap like toothpicks and collapse to the ground. "Fuck." He pulled his blazing black eyes to glare up into the flashing night sky. There were dozens of ships sitting just outside orbit; all of them blasting away like they were at a shooting gallery. Who the hell was running the show up there? If he could pinpoint the ringleader and take him out, his precious army would be lost.

Narrowing his eyes, he reached outward with his deepest senses. "Where the fuck are you hiding?" He could feel a few strong ones, but most of them were measly warriors. He growled low in his throat. "Show yourself, you Kami-damn coward!"

The first tremor slammed into the mansion just as he brushed an enormous power. He only caught a glimpse before the aftershock snapped the balcony supports and screwed his concentration. Vegeta fleetingly realized his house was crumbling like an egg. His heart was thudding heavily in his chest as he tried to fathom what he'd just felt. No, it can't be possible! They're both dead!

The balcony groaned and buckled under its own weight. Vegeta let her slip out from beneath his feet and hung suspended in the air. His chiseled features were schooled with scowling disbelief. "Who the fuck is this bakayaro!"

"Daddy!"

He jerked his head up and saw Bra flying towards him, Goten trailing at her heel. Both were wetter than drowned rats. His obsidian gaze cut between the two of them. "And what exactly were you two doing?"

Bra gaped at him. "This isn't the time to be protecting my virginal innocence!" She pointed at the crumbling outer wall. "The house is collapsing and the guests are still inside!"

Goten was nodding beside her. "She's right."

Vegeta smirked. "You're just agreeing with her to save your ass."

"Dad!" Bra grabbed his face and pulled his eyes back to her. "Try to focus here, please!"

As if to emphasize her point, the rear section of the roof folded in on itself and sparks shot out from mangled electrical lines. Vegeta could suddenly hear all the piteous screams of the people trapped inside. Including his wife- she would crucify him if he didn't help her guests get out alive. He slid out of Bra's hold and shot through one of the ruined archways and its shredded drapes.

And into utter chaos.

People were scrambling towards the exits among the debris. Some had already fallen to the attack and lay dead beside the rubble. Vegeta scanned the demolished room searching for his wife and caught sight of Goku hauling armloads of wood and plaster off still screaming guests. His eldest son had both of their wives slung over his shoulders and was jetting towards the gaping hole in the wall. Pulling his eyes to the right, he saw a flash of lavender through the dust blanketing the room. Bulma lay limply in his arms.

Vegeta let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding and flew across the room. He dropped down beside them and knew instantly that she'd just been knocked unconscious. "What happened?"

Trunks blinked over at him. "The chandelier fell and I had to get her out of the way. She hit her head in the fall."

The relief was welcomed. He slid his arms under her feather-light frame and took her from him. "We have to get her somewhere safe." He frowned when Trunks turned away and started turning over the tables that had, miraculously, remained standing. "What the hell are you looking for?!"

Trunks frantically jerked a heavy wooden table out of his way. "Marron!"

"Cue ball's daughter?" Vegeta tightened his hold on Bulma as she stirred.

The long-haired executive slammed yet another weighty table aside and shouted with obvious relief. "Thank Kami!" He crouched low and scooped the disheveled blonde up off the floor, hesitating when she cried out. "Marron?"

Her eyes fluttered open and glared at him. "That hurt, bakayaro."
Vegeta paused in his exit at her murmured words and turned to face his suddenly nervous son. "What exactly did you do to her?" Trunks never raised a hand to women and his curiosity had been piqued.

Trunks looked up sheepishly. "I shoved her away to tackle Mom. We were all under the chandelier."

Marron gritted her teeth against the pain screaming through her body. "And in all your zeal to save her, broke my fucking collarbone." Her teeth took hold of her lower lip to stave off a moan.

"Shit, Marron." He didn't know what to say. "I'm sorry."

She reached her working arm around his neck and adjusted her position until the pain subsided. "I'll accept your apology if it'll get the my-neighbor-poisoned-my-dog look off your face."

Vegeta smirked and cleared his throat. "If you're finished with all the pleasantries, this building is going to collapse any second. I doubt we want to be inside when that happens." They both managed to nod stiffly and Trunks followed him as he flew back out into the disturbingly quiet night. Vegeta glanced around but couldn't sense anymore aerial attacks. "They're stopped firing on us."

Trunks pulled up alongside him. "They?"

Vegeta sighed. "What's the first rule I taught you when in combat/"

"To always mind my surroundings." He frowned.

"Then try minding them." He dropped closer to the ground, aiming for the shelter of the trees. "That includes outside the atmosphere."

He knew the instant his son realized what he knew. His ocean blue eyes widened with shock. "Holy shit!"

Marron lifted her head from his shoulder, her voice dry with sarcasm. "That's putting it mildly." For such a brainy guy, he wasn't very quick off the blocks. Not that she cared much. The cracked bone in her shoulder was shifting from the friction and it was sending her skin crawling with the shivers. His strong arms tightened around her and it felt so impossibly good that she forgot about the pain a bit. She'd craved his touch for years and she wasn't about to pass up the chance to enjoy it. Who knew when she'd have a chance at it again? The planet was being exterminated.

Vegeta spied a grassy hill with relatively sufficient cover and banked toward it. He dropped quickly and gently laid Bulma down on a bed of pine needles. She whimpered softly and reached out languidly when he stepped away. She was scuffed up a bit, but otherwise unharmed. He turned to his son and gripped his shoulder. "Stay here with them until Bra gets here."

His lavender brows scowled. "What?" He ignored the wounded girl in his arms. "You'll need my help to fight whoever's out there!"

The Saiyan no Ouji leveled his son with a harsh stare, one he hardly had use for anymore. "Very shortly Chikyuu will be swarming with brainless lemmings on strict orders to kill anything still breathing. Do you really want to leave two helpless women without protection?"

"I'm not helpless." Marron slid out of Trunks' arms and sagged to the ground.

"Of course you're not. I wouldn't say Bulma is helpless either, but none of her gadgets are here to aid her."

"You're lucky I'm dizzy and nauseous or I'd get up and show you just how helpless I am." All three turned to look at Bulma, still lying prone, but with liveliness she hadn't worn before.

Vegeta smiled crookedly. At least she didn't actually try. "Glad you could join us."

"Where's my daughter?" She tentatively touched her forehead.

"Still pulling people from out demolished abode."

She groaned. "These fuckers better have a good reason for crushing my house because I just might kill them myself."

"Now you know why I need you to stay here until I can get Bra to come. Someone needs to keep a leash on your mother."

Bulma growled. "Keep it up, monkey boy. You'll be sorry."

"Father, I'll be of much better help with you." Trunks took a step towards him.

Vegeta's smirk fell instantly. "No. If my suspicions are correct then we'll have a big problem on our hands. These two need to looked after by capable hands." He turned his back to all of them. "Only when your sister gets here are you to leave. If you disobey me on this, you won't have to worry about these bastards."

Trunks gritted his teeth, but relented. He was right. "Fine."

Vegeta took a deep breath. "You'll live, I promise." He lifted off the ground to hover above it.

"Vegeta." He turned to meet Bulma's blindingly blue eyes. She half-smiled. "Be careful."

He gave her a slight nod and blasted off into the night.

Back at the mansion

"Goten." She didn't know how to tell him to stop. They'd been pulling bodies out for the rubble for almost an hour. The house had totally collapsed not ten minutes ago. She doubted any of the weaker people inside were still alive. The tiny ki signatures she could sense were blowing out faster than birthday candles. None of the people he was digging for were alive. "Goten, they're gone."

"No, I can get them out!" He hauled an enormous slab of drywall up and threw it.

Bra tentatively touched his shoulder. "You know as well as I do that they're dead. We can't help them anymore."

He slammed his fist into the concrete block beside him. "Kami-damnit!" He whirled away and stalked over the Briefs Manor ruins with a feral snarl on his face. "I swear that whoever's behind this is dead!"

Bra hugged herself and stared at the mess in front of her- including the blood staining the broken building. Not three feet from her was a severed arm, its owner pinned between the floor and a concrete support beam. "You and me both."

He stilled his furious pacing and looked over at her. "Are you alright?"

She nodded solemnly. "Yes." It wasn't everyday you were faced with the remains of people you used to be friends with. She wasn't a greenie when it came to fighting, but murder in cold blood was entirely separate.

"You're not going to be sick are you? You're awfully pale." He frowned.

"No." She shot him a hard look. "It's just that I used to talk to these people, was friends with most of them. I'm staring at their blood and guts, or their still twitching severed limbs." She swallowed past the lump in her throat. "It's just a lot to process all at once."

He came towards her intending nothing more than to comfort her, but she jerked away. "Bra?"

His tux was soaked with blood from the bodies and she didn't think she could handle touching it. "No. I need to deal with this alone."

"But you shouldn't have to." He stepped up beside her and had to sidestep around the severed arm.

The move was enough to be her last straw. Bra turned and bolted toward what remained of the courtyard. She was trembling all over and was sweating almost profusely in an effort to control her stomach. I will not be sick! I will not be sick! Her bare feet slapped onto the gravel drive and the needling pain sent her stumbling.

The stones cut into her knees when her legs buckled and she lay sprawled out in the drive. She welcomed the pain. It staved off the nausea. The gravel bit into her bare arms and shoulders, imprinting themselves on the skin of her cheek. What was going on? Who'd turned her stable, reliable would upside down? Bra groaned and crawled onto all fours. Where was her mother? Her father? Her brother?

She stared blankly at her sliced hands. Everyone was dead or dying and she was totally lost in the upheaval. Bra just didn't understand. The situation vexed her to the point of pain. Her head and eyes ached like her head had been used as a soccer ball, batted back and forth until it was just a hollow piece of flesh. Nothing seemed to penetrate through the smog of shock numbing her body. Her brain was just shutting down.

The air around her shifted and it was enough to grab her attention. She blinked with intense confusion and languidly looked up the legs connected to the shoes that stood in her line of sight. Her empty gaze eventually made it up to his face and hesitated. She knew this face. She knew him. It was her father.

Vegeta knew that she was shock. The adrenaline had finally worn off, leaving her pale, sweating, and shaking. Her eyes were dulled and her breathing was irregular. He had to act quickly before she passed out. He sank down of his heels and framed his hands around her delicate face, ignoring the streak of pain that shot through his gashed palm. "Bra, look at me."

Her head lifted minutely, swaying the long aquamarine ponytail at the sound of her name. Her eyes brightened a bit, but not enough to wake her up. Her mouth murmured incoherently.

She was reaching out to him, but the lure of his voice wasn't strong enough to wake her up. Neither did his touch. Her human instincts were failing her and there was only one way to get her conscious mind back. Tightening his grip, he reached deep within his ki and slid his Super Saiyan transformation to the surface. His hair blazed gold and the intimidating dark eyes lightened to a chilly blue. He directed his energy through his palms and into her body. "Bra!"

She growled and shot out of his grasp like lightning, her slender body pulsing with a golden light. Her soft silky hair hardened into brassy blonde locks, but her brilliant blue eyes retained the bold sky blue hue. Blood from his injured hand stained her left cheek. He couldn't touch her human mind, but her Saiyan one was constantly on guard. It had perceived his touch as a threat and transformed her in defense. She was crouched against the ground, body shivering in apprehension of his attack. Vegeta pushed outward with his power, calling her name. "Bra." She stilled under the force of his energy. "Come back, Bra."

Her power flared in response, rustling the grass in the twilight. She was challenging his threat. He curled his lip back in a snarl and drowned her in the thick weight of his energy. She was functioning on pure instinct and behaving like the most primitive of his race. It was similar to that of the first Saiyans; contesting their power to establish the status quo. Her Saiyan side, in an effort to dominate, was challenging his strength. Vegeta allowed himself to growl viciously at her. It was simply a matter of shoving it back down now that he'd called it up. He shot his power up to a level that easily surpassed hers.

The energy faded from her body and her bangs fell to hang over her eyes. Bra blinked through her thick teal bangs at her father. He stepped towards her, losing his transformation, and held out a hand to her silently. She licked her dried lips and grasped his hand. She had some inkling about what had just transpired, but it was too much to wrap her brain around. She didn't care much anyway- her father was alive and well. "Daddy..." She used the momentum of his pull to help her embrace him, fingers gripping into the fabric of his jacket. "What's going on?"

He wrapped his left arm around her trembling body and caressed her hair with the other. It was something that had soothed her from infancy. Bra was fighting her fear of the unknown, something she'd apparently inherited from him. She tucked her head against his shoulder and calmed. It was oddly childlike and he remembered that she was barely eighteen years old. She spent so much time acting older than she really was he forgot that she was still so young and inexperienced in life. It was a harsh reality and he wasn't going to lie to her. "It's too early for me to tell for sure. I have my suspicions, but I will not say for certain who is behind this and why."

She sighed. "I couldn't handle it."

His eyes turned to look at her head. "It?"

She swallowed. "Inside. The bodies."

His scowl returned. Now he knew what had caused the shock. Having violent death thrown in your face, especially the death of comrades, was devastating. His arms squeezed her tighter. "I never wished for you to see such a sight."

Bra sniffed. "It was like my brain was trying to deny what my eyes saw as truth."

Vegeta knew the feeling well. He was once upon a time the perpetrator of such acts, and in the beginning not immune to their affects. But that had dimmed over time and what had once nearly crippled him, didn't bother him at all. The exposure had eventually managed to kill his empathy of the dead and it was something he never wanted his children to feel. He had more then one reason for wanting this intruder dead. "Whoever's up there chose the wrong planet to fuck with. I won't rest until I have their head on a platter."

A/N: I would really like to apologize for offering up ultimatums like I did. I was obviously in a pissy mood when I updated last time and I'm usually not so evil. I hardly think that I would actually delete this fic, so you shouldn't worry about that. Just ignore it as wallowing in self-pity. I will admit to acting like an ass sometimes. So, here's your update, and I'll try to update at these once every three weeks. I'm super busy right now, but I really want to keep this going.

Reviewer Acknowledgements~ Sabudabu, gotenbrafan4life, and son-gosen. Thanks for your reviews and feedback. I hope I didn't offend anyone.