Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Slave ❯ Technology ( Chapter 41 )

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

 

A/N - Okay, I had mixed reviews about the last chapter. Understandable since even I wasn't happy with it. I wanted to put in a time lapse but for reason I didn't…and people got confused. Well…you can expect fractured chapters like that for a bit longer. Most things will be explained in flashback. Anyhow, enjoy this chapter!

 

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         The concept of the ki-enhancing gun had been her fathers. Bulma wasn't exactly sure when he'd thought it up or even when he'd begun to build it, but contrary to what the saiyans had believed, the gun wasn't her creation. She'd made it work and she'd done most of the building, it was true, but she hadn't built it alone. The single prototype gun that had been built and the original complex schematics had been a creation of both her father and herself - and both had been destroyed the day the saiyans had attacked the Capsule Corporation Headquarters.

Building another one was a stupid idea. She simply didn't know enough about the gun to make it work and recreating the blueprints had and always would be a futile course of action. If there was one thing her father had taught her during their partnership against the saiyans, it was that science always moves forward - not back. Recreating something was useless…unless you planned to make it better.

Bulma rubbed her eyes on the back of her hand as she tried to wipe away the tearstains that were still encrusted on her cheeks. Her face felt swollen and puffy from all of her emotions and she was willing to bet that her skin was blotchy and her eyes were bloodshot. She sighed and stretched, slowly getting to her feet and stepping out of the bathtub. She'd talk to Ilandra and then she'd ask to be shown to the engineering laboratory, if the space station had one. If they did she'd start planning a new weapon, one that she could use in her bargain with Frieza - and she was going to bargain with Frieza,

Two days she had managed to stay in that room while Ilandra tried to coax her out with brittle promise and shallow whispered words. Nothing had worked. She was stubborn, she'd always been stubborn - if something didn't go her way or someone hurt her she would retreat and sulk. As a kid she'd done it, as a teenager she'd still done it and that had been what she'd done this time. The bathroom had been a horrid place to sulk in of course, but it had a toilet and taps with water, which was all she'd needed while she'd sulked and cried. But now she was hungry, so hungry that even angry as she was she couldn't stay in the bathroom. Not while she had the two babies growing inside of her.

She'd thought a lot about the two lives inside of her, being by herself had given her more then enough time to rationally think through what exactly had been done to her and what it meant for the future. She didn't imagine for a second that she knew all of the plans Ilandra and her horrible father had in store for her and her baby, but she knew enough of them now to know that their interest in the saiyan halfling was political while their interesting in the ice-jin halfling was more…personal.

Bulma slowly dragged a hand down the baby bump and tried to imagine what the two children would look like. It was hard; her brain kept conjuring up images of deformed half lizard half monkey children, which was not what they would look like. Bulma refused to believe for a moment that any child born of her could look like a freak. Besides which, saiyans and earthlings were similar enough that Vegeta's child would at least look human, while if Ilandra was anything to go by, her child by Frieza would also look at least partly humanoid.

God, she wished she'd looked more closely at the ultrasound she'd done, not that it would have made much difference. It had been hard enough to make out two babies in the jumble of half-formed appendages and blotchy shadows and shapes, but still…she may have been able to see something of use.

She hoped her children were normal. She wanted them to be. Her time in the bathroom had given her some valuable reflection time in regards to these children and what would become of them in the future. One thing she had decided was that she was not going to give either of them up. It wasn't their faults that their respective fathers were apparently sociopathic power-hungry overlords, so she wasn't going to hold it against them. She was going to raise the children as best as she could, and as best as Frieza and Ilandra would allow her too.

She would have to compromise with both of her children, she knew. Frieza had plans for Vegeta's child that she would not be allowed to interfere in, but maybe if she spoke to him and allowed Frieza to school the boy (horrifying as that thought was) she might be allowed to at least stay with him. Besides which, if everything went according to plan in the engineering labs then she might have an extra bargaining chip to use in regards to her children. If she could design a newer, better version of the ki-enhancing technology, she was willing to bet Frieza would be wiling to listen to her demands.

It was unlikely that she would be much of a larger say in what happened to her other child by Frieza, since that child was set to inherit an empire. Yet some small part of her was clinging to what Ilandra had said about wanting to make them into a family. The way in which her loved had gone about it was heart wrenchingly sickening…but she had seemed to be truly sorry for upsetting Bulma.

Maybe, just maybe, if she talked to Ilandra she might grow to understand why she had impregnated her. There had to be some sort of a motive besides wanting to have a baby with her - they hadn't been together for long enough, not matter how much Ilandra claimed to love her.

Love. That was a joke. Love was what had sent her crying into the bathroom in the first place - the knowledge that Ilandra's apparent love had driven her to do such a horrendous thing. Love was what had kept her locked in this room for two days while she had alternatively sobbed her heart out about the cruelties that had been done to her, and had sat in silence and thought about the `why?' behind the cruelties.

Bulma shook her head. It didn't matter; she was hungry and that was all that mattered at the moment. She needed to stop dwelling on her past. On Earth she had thought about life before the saiyans. On planet Vegeta she had thought about life back on Earth and on Frieza's space station she had thought about life back on planet Vegeta. It was as though her mind was fixated on all the horrible things that had been done to her…and her way of dealing with them was to stack them up against tall the horrible things done to her in her previous place of existence.

Her life was pretty fucked up. She was what…sixteen? Seventeen? She had been raped, abused, tortured, used as a sex slave, used as some sort of a vessel for children who would doubtlessly be snatched away from her as soon as she gave birth and now she was planning on creating a bio-weapon which would give the current monster in her life even more power.

Still, at least the voice in her head had stopped yammering.

 

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Frieza tapped his black-lacquered nails on the armrest of his throne, a small pitying smile playing around the edges of his mouth as he regarded the saiyan kneeling before him. Something about seeing such a powerful being cowering on it's knees before him was so…invigorating.

Frieza's smile widened.

“I want revenge on Vegeta…” The saiyan gritted his teeth and then grudgingly added, “My Lord.”

The ice-jin lord nodded slowly, taking in the story Brolly had told him. It was intriguing what had happened in the Saiya-jin Empire after his daughter had murdered the weak king Vegeta. Apparently the young prince was doing his best to hold the kingdom together…but things were descending into disarray despite his attempts to being things under his control.

That is if the saiyan could be trusted, and past dealings with the saiyan's had taught Frieza that saiyan's usually couldn't be trusted. They lied as easily as they drew breath, however there was something about Brolly that Frieza liked. Perhaps it was the sheer strength he could feel emanating from the saiyan - such a raw untrained power - or perhaps it was the bitterness that laced his voice every time he spoke about Vegeta.

If anyone could tame the power in Brolly and use it to his own advantage it was himself. Oh the King had tried his best but his son had unravelled all of his work with Brolly…but very few people had had the practice the he had in manipulating people. He'd allow the saiyan to stay but he'd keep a very close watch on him - he was most likely a spy or here to destroy everything Frieza had built after the saiyans had almost destroyed his father's empire…but he didn't fear him.

There was no way a saiyan would ever be stronger then the great Lord Frieza.

 

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Vegeta frowned as he considered the blue prints for the ki-enhancing gun; they were a mass of squiggly lines and earthling symbols that were completely alien to him. The few scientists he had shown them to were just as mystified as himself. Few saiyans had learnt any of the earth scientific symbols, and those that had learnt them were stationed on Earth, which meant Vegeta had to wait weeks for them to arrive to start their translation. He could have beamed them across via COM but he didn't trust that the COM linkups were secure.

It was more then likely that Frieza had cracked most of the saiyan COM linkups, in fact he was damned near certain that Frieza had broken most of their scramble codes. The ice-jin empire was far more technologically advanced then the saiyans were - unlike Vegeta's empire, Frieza tended to try to integrate the races he conquered into his empire. Slavery was non-existent in Frieza's world - they had grown rich from a flourishing trade economy and through taxing, not through the use of slaves to cut costs. Because of this Frieza had had more success in stealing technology from conquered races.

Vegeta could see the effectiveness of Frieza's rule, however it was beyond him how he controlled his people. Slavery of any members of the Saiyan Empire was always one of the most feared punishments. To be owned by someone, to be a toy or a plaything was the most degrading thing possible to a saiyan, which of course was why it worked so well. If the saiyans themselves feared enslavement by the royals then the poor races they conquered were twice as frightened…or so the theory went.

He himself could see both negatives and positives of slavery. Abolishing slavery completely was out of the question - who would mine the ores from the inhospitable planets on the outer arms of the Milky Way? His Empire couldn't afford to pay wages to the miners, hell; it was bad enough having to pay wages to the supervisors who watched them. Everything was about money, and his empire was spending more and more of it everyday on preparations for war.

The army had definitely progressed since training and manoeuvres had becomes a compulsory part of their day, indeed, most saiyans were relishing the chance to build up their speed and strength and impress the new saiyan king. The problems his father had caused by slackening the army training was slowly being repaired, especially since several of the high-ranking saiyan officers had been shown to be quite incompetent and completely unworthy of their ranks. He'd replaced them with younger more competent men and women - one of which had been Kakarot, how had proven himself to be a most remarkably good fighter.

Vegeta pushed the blueprints away from him and stood up, wondering what had become of Brolly since he'd sent him away. It had been far too dangerous to keep such a powerful being so close to him; someone with that much power was bound to turn on him one day…it was a much better idea to have sent him into space. Why, if he was lucky Frieza might have killed Brolly and disposed of his problem for him. Maybe. Of course if Brolly survived and brought Bulma home to him he wasn't going to complain.

It was a win-win situation for everyone involved. Well, except for Bulma.

 

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A/N - Short and sweet! Enjoy and let me know what you think!