Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Against All Odds ❯ Treachery from Within ( Chapter 14 )

Disclaimer: I don't own it, but in my world Vegeta rules the universe and I am his bed kitten.

Chapter Fourteen

Treachery From Within

Bulma bent over to pluck a chilled ale from her fridge, ignoring the voice that told her it was unwise to drink on an empty stomach. As she straightened up, her front door chimed sending a wave of anticipation through her. She hurried over to the door and slapped the button, opening it up to reveal Jace standing outside. His chocolate hair was in disarray from where he had shoved his fingers numerous times through the curls and his mouth was compressed into a hard line, his heavy lidded eyes reflecting shadows of doubt.

Bulma felt her anticipation shrivel and die as her mouth drew down into a replica of his. She waved him inside while trying to squelch the sly tongued monster named panic that was whispering words of foreboding in the back of her mind. Her fingers tightened around the cold can in her hand while she fought for impassivity that would have made Vegeta proud.

"Do you want something to drink?" She asked her first-in-command politely.

He shook his head as his fingers dove through his curls in agitation once again. He stalked over to the living room, plopping himself down on the chair with a tired sigh. She followed in a more sedate manner and seated herself on the couch while placing her unopened ale on the table in front of her. Once she had settled into her seat Jace launched into an explanation without forethought.

"They said no." He hissed with frustration.

Bulma didn't need an explanation on who `They' were. The Resistance had refused to set Vegeta free.

"What do you mean they said no?" Bulma shot up from her seated position to pace in front of the equally distraught man. "No one says no to me! I am Bulma Briefs!!" She held her arms wide as if she was addressing a stadium of people. Jace just sighed at her outburst and continued.

"One, they don't know it's you who is trying to buy his freedom and two, they wouldn't care anyways." He slumped back in the chair his position defeated. She pinned him there with her ice blue eyes, her anger raging in their cool depths.

"What do you mean they wouldn't care?" She snarled. "They have to release him." Visions of blood rose up in her mind again and she ruthlessly shoved down her nausea.

"No they don't and they don't intend to. To quote them exactly, `We will not set free that vicious murderer of millions, slayer of worlds, killer of innocent women and children…' Bulma cut him off with an upraised hand, no longer needing to hear more, she got the gist of what they were saying. Vegeta was a monster and they were going to make them pay for his crimes, but how was the question.

"If they will not ransom him and they will not accept our support in exchange for his freedom, what do they intend to do?" She questioned, partially unwilling to hear the answer.

"Well, they were very appreciative of any overtures of support, although offering them that without telling them who it was coming from was difficult. In fact, they said that they hoped we could do business in the future after this unfortunate nastiness was over." Jace nearly cringed at the sneer that curled on Bulma's lips. She didn't need to tell him what she thought about that. If they weren't going to give her what she wanted then she was sure as hell not going to help them.

"You didn't answer me, Jace." He did cringe then. She rarely used that tone of voice on him, but he had seen her reduce people to a quivering mass while delivering stinging insults in that snide clip.

"He is scheduled for execution at the end of the week, on Ascension Day." Jace refused to meet her eyes, suddenly finding the hem of his shirt to be fascinating. Bulma rocked back on her feet, her hand clawing at her throat. With a hiss, she gracelessly fell back onto the couch while she stared sightlessly at the wall.

Ascension Day was the only holiday that everyone stopped what they were doing and celebrated as it was decreed by the Emperor himself. That was the day that Frieza, the Ruler of Universe ascended to the throne, two hundred and thirty years ago and everyone raised their glass to toast their mighty lord. They drank to his long life and good health, and as a show of disrespect the Resistance was going to kill one of the Emperor's strongest warriors on that day.

"You know what you have to do." Jace's voice was gentle as he looked at his boss pale features. She jerked when she heard him speak and her blue eyes locked with his. He could see the battle that was being fought in shadows of her mind, just before she shut him out. She nodded curtly to him and he felt his dismissal like a cold wind blowing over a frozen plain, he heaved himself tiredly out of the chair and disappeared out the door.

Bulma turned her attention back to the wall, studying it as intently as she would a fine painting, lost in her thoughts.

Vegeta had committed more atrocities in his life time than she could list out. The blood that he spilt could fill oceans twenty times over, and it would still overflow. His ability to be unfeeling and cold hearted while choking the life from an innocent babe was something that Bulma would never understand, but she did know something for certain. He didn't do it because he wanted to. Like her, he was trapped under the heavy hand of Frieza and like her he would do what he had to in order to survive.

She wondered what kind of man he would have grown into if Frieza hadn't torn his world apart. The Saiyans were a warrior race, they lived to conquer and to fight, but they were honorable as well. They did not believe in destroying someone who was weaker than them, for the simple reason that it was beneath them to do so. They only exerted their energy on a worthy foe.

He would have been strong and proud like he is today, but the pride would have been derived from his people and his place in his world, not created as a lifeboat of sanity to keep himself from buckling under the Ice-jinn's rule. She imagined that he would have been kind, or at least full of laughter. He would not have had to cut away the part of him that felt, if he had grown up happy and secure. He would have had the ability to love.

With a sigh she cracked open her nearly forgotten ale and took a long deep pull from the can. She leaned back against the coach laying her head on the back rest and stared up at the ceiling, her drink sitting on her thigh. The Freine Resistance Core had amiable goals in her mind. They wanted to kill Frieza, which is something she could definitely support. From the reports it was clear that they had the technology to overthrow Frieza. That was if they had her support. She was after all a genius. With enough time she could invent counterattacks to their devices, in fact she already had an antidote to their ki repressing serum. But the sad fact was that until Frieza was no more, she worked for him. He said jump and she said how high while barking like a bitch in heat.

She understood the Freine's all consuming hatred of Vegeta. She knew that they were all survivors of purged planets. Planets that he had personally destroyed and in their position she would loathe him too. They were new to the game of intrigue though, because they hadn't figured out yet that sometimes you had to sacrifice some of the things you wanted in order to achieve your ultimate goal. If they had just accepted her offer, together they could have seen that monster beg for mercy before stripping him of everything, including his life, but they could not see past satisfying their desire for Vegeta's blood. Unfortunately for them, she was not willing to break her first compact with the Saiyan in order to enter into another one with them.

She stood up from the couch and moved silently into the foyer, seating herself in front of her monitor. She booted her system, staring at the black screen while patiently waiting for it to flicker to life. When her planet had been purged, the strongest and the smartest had been cut away from the herd and sent to Frieza. Over the years she had not seen another human, but she had heard stories. One of those rumors was of a human man who defied Frieza and escaped, lost in the echoes of space. He had formed a band of mercenaries and for the right price they were willing to do anything, no matter the cause, right or wrong were not moral dilemmas for them. Only credits mattered. They eluded capture at every turn and eventually even Frieza used their ingenious skills from time to time.

She cracked her knuckles as she reached out through her vast network to make contact with the one group that could help her. She had long ago come to terms with the knowledge that she wasn't a good woman. She too had committed sins that she could bear to think of. She would free Vegeta, and in doing so she would sacrifice the lives of everyone on that space station. Like she said in the past, she was no martyr.

*~*

Vegeta knelt in the center of the small cell. His arms were stretched out from his sides, levered slightly higher than his shoulders, ki resistant manacles attached to chains that were bolted into the walls on either side of him cut unmercifully into his wrists. He shifted to try to relieve the searing burn in his shoulder blades but there wasn't enough leeway to move more than a quarter of an inch to either side. He couldn't stand to relieve the pain either since more bands encircled his ankles, nailing him to the ground in a kneeling position. All he could do was hang there, his chin nearly touching his naked chest.

He heard footsteps outside the door and summoning forth his massive pride Vegeta lifted his head to stare straight ahead while trying to square his aching shoulders the best he could. Rio'Kan's scent filled the air, but Vegeta's expression did not flicker, nor did he turn his head to face the man. There was a loud scraping sound as Rio'Kan dragged a chair over to sit directly in front of Vegeta, ki resistant bars between them. Vegeta would have snickered wickedly if he had the strength, the fools were so afraid of him that even with all their chains and bars they still dosed him with the serum to be sure that he couldn't escape. Woe was them if he did.

Vegeta glared at the semi handsome man in front of him. He was wearing dark green slacks with a matching green tee. His shiny blond hair fell loose over his shoulders and Vegeta could see scars from battles on the man's bare arms. Vegeta wished he had the strength to pry into the man's mind, to see if he had any fighting power, or to see if he really was a weakling that needed to hide behind his fancy technology. Rio'Kan had brought a yellow file with him and he now appeared to be leafing through it with apparent interest. He picked up a picture flipping it around so Vegeta could see it, a lewd smirk on his lips.

"She is quite beautiful, wouldn't you agree?" Rio'Kan's admiring tone set Vegeta's teeth on edge and he barely resisted the urge to growl at the man. He looked down at the picture and he felt the floor drop out from under him.

Bulma

Since he had been captured, Vegeta had not spoken. He bided his time and eventually they told him everything that he wanted to know. Who they are, what they were planning and what they were going to do to him on Ascension Day. Vegeta now had to bite his tongue to keep himself from spewing obscenities at the man in front of him, a man daring to think lustful thoughts about his woman.

Since when is she your woman?

"All that creamy skin, waves of blue hair and that spark in her eye. I bet she's a screamer." He chuckled, his thumb smoothing over the glossy photo. Rio'Kan's words unwilling brought to mind the night in Vegeta's room when she faked her orgasm and he couldn't suppress the animalistic growl the reverberated from his throat this time, causing the man to snicker even louder.

"Like her do you?" Vegeta refused to answer to the man's taunting, though his self control was straining especially with so many days of fatigue and hunger weighing him down. Not to mention the beatings.

"She's smart too. A regular innovator. That capsulation process is just pure genius. Imagine taking a ship and shrinking it to fit in the palm of your hand, or even this entire space station. Amazing stuff really." Rio'Kan didn't bother to hide his growing veneration for the woman. Vegeta eyed the man, his mind desperately trying to understand what he was doing with a file on Bulma.

"Can't figure out why she hooked up with you though." He shook his head while clicking is tongue in a chiding manner. "She seems way to smart for that, but some women like those dark types, ya know?" Vegeta did know, he had plenty of woman chase around after him in the past, but they were never women like Bulma. They were usually sly morbid creatures that got a rush from being touched by a killer.

"She really has a finger on the pulse of the underworld too. It only took her four hours to figure out where you were once she started looking for you. Another four hours after that we were being contacted by a third party trying to negotiate for your release." Vegeta's heart thudded, it only took her four hours? Vegeta may not be familiar with intrigue, but he was fairly certain that this group was keeping their existence a secret, and it only took her four hours to find out about them. Vegeta shivered, he had no idea what she was talking about when she had told him that she ran the biggest spy network in the universe. Perhaps, he should listen to her more often. That is if he ever got out of here.

"She offered money, assistance, whatever we needed as long as we freed you. She must really have a thing for you, huh monkey man? Can't imagine why though." Vegeta knew why. He was her ticket to freedom from under the claw of Frieza, but these people were also after the same goal. If their boasting was any indication, they were close to achieving it too. After all, he thought with disgust, they had captured him without any trouble and they could probably use the same method on Frieza and his men. If that was true then there was nothing stopping the woman from jumping out of bed with him and into bed with the Resistance, in the figurative sense of course, especially after his treatment of her before he left.

"We said no, of course. We would never deny ourselves the pleasure of watching a demon such as yourself bleed out on our floor." The man closed the file as he looked at Vegeta, the bon fire of vengeance flaming in his green eyes. Vegeta recognized the look, it was the same one he had when he looked at Frieza. The man leaned forward, a predatory gleam in his eye while waving the folder in front of him. Vegeta mentally braced himself for what was coming next.

"Don't you want to know how we know all this?" Rio'Kan taunted, his voice syrupy with false camaraderie. Vegeta did want to know. How did they know that it only took her four hours to find them and how did they know it was her that tried to negotiate for his freedom?

"Your woman is not as untouchable as she thinks she is. We've had a man on the inside for some time now. Since before she even got herself sent to that filthy backwater base. Initially we were just trying to steal some of her inventions, but she is too smart for that. She never lets anyone see the final project; she just lets them see pieces. Even her spy ring is sectioned out. All of her members have their own separate organization and they protect their contacts like a mother protects her cubs. I don't think she even knows everyone who spies for her." Rio'Kan was gritting his teeth in frustration now, and Vegeta couldn't stop the smirk that feathered across his lips. He always knew she was a pain it the ass, but leave it to her to piss off someone who was light years away from her.

Rio'Kan halted his tirade when he saw Vegeta's smirk. He boiled over with rage, throwing the file at the Prince, hitting him squarely in the chest with it. The file fell to the floor and the picture of Bulma slid out, her smiling features winking up at Vegeta.

"It's not as funny as you think Prince Vegeta. You see, she has outlived her usefulness, especially since she has decided to fuck a monster such as yourself. We initially thought to seduce her over to our side, but it's clear now that she is just some diseased whore who needs to be put down." Rio'Kan hissed with fury, his eyes dilating dangerously and a vein popped out from his forehead, throbbing with the intensity of his emotion. Vegeta felt his chest vibrating and he realized that he was growling again, but not his usually warning growl but the sound that you hear a heartbeat before you get your head ripped off.

The sound seemed to bring Rio'Kan back to his senses and instead of hissing with anger he began to bark with laughter. The glee he took at seeing Vegeta's furious features was enough to sweep away the last visages of his own fury. He turned on his heel to walk out of the room, pausing to taunt the monkey one last time.

"Sleep tight sweet prince, just know that your little princess won't make it to dawn." Rio'Kan's laughter echoed down the hall followed by Vegeta's enraged howling.