Chapter 11

Disclaimer: I don’t own DBZ…none of us fanfic writers do…unless Akira Toriyama is actually one of us…

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2 DAYS AFTER PICCOLO’S DEATH

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Vegeta and Raditz had expected to met by a party of angry guards when they docked at Coolers space station, perhaps even to be met by Cooler himself. Instead they were met by an ominous silence. They saw plenty of people wandering the halls, some of them with blank expressions, some of them with angry expressions and some with the look that all people get when they realise all is hopeless, but none of these peoples were guards.

Vegeta felt his skin crawl as one woman almost bumped into him, her eyes dull and weighted by sadness that Vegeta recognised. The girl had lost someone she cared about; the whole ship had lost someone they cared about. They were all in mourning.

“What’s going on?” Raditz whispered as Vegeta aimless walked down the hall, he had no idea where Bulma could be, but he knew she was here somewhere.

“Somebody died.” Vegeta whispered back, his eyes avoiding the figure of a man who had sunk to his knees in front of them, sobbing with grief. We walked around the man and grabbed Raditz arm, “Let’s find out who.” They continued walking down the hall until they saw a short, blonde haired woman with blue skin, she was staring out of a window at the planet below, her finger tracing patterns on the thick glass. “Excuse me, Miss?” Vegeta tapped the woman on the shoulder, “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on?” She laughed unhappily. “He died…they died and he’ll probably kill us all next.”

“Who died?” Vegeta stared intently down at the bitter girl.

“Frieza died a week ago, at first it seemed he had been attacked by Ice-jin for revenge but we now know that Cooler orchestrated to the whole attack.” The woman sighed sadly. “And then the head of security Piccolo was murdered by Cooler only a few days ago, and now…now…” She hung her head and tried to compose himself.

Vegeta felt his chest tighten; Frieza was dead? Dear God! Piccolo was dead? How could this have happened? What kind of a monster was this Cooler?

The woman looked up again. “And then when the lady Bulma tried to leave he massacred every guard who tried to help her escape…” The girl’s breath hitched. “My father! My brother! My husband! All dead because of that fiend!” She laughed bitterly again. “And all because he couldn’t let something that had been Frieza’s not be his. Cooler fooled us all when he first landed, he seemed sympathetic to the Lady Bulma, even told her that he would let her leave if she chose to, but then when she told him she wanted to leave he showed his true colours. He tried to teach her a lesson by killing her best friend…some human woman who had only just arrived that very day, but Piccolo saved her…and died.”

Vegeta fought not to show any sign of his building panic. “The Lady Bulma, is she…?”

“Dead? Oh no, she is not dead, although perhaps she would be better off. Cooler married her this morning, then straight after the ceremony he had her locked in her suit of rooms, she is being allowed no visitors at all.” The woman turned back to the glass. “The Empire is doomed now that Cooler has seized control. Unlike Frieza he does not understand how to run a society. Frieza may have been cruel, but he understood the people and worked for our races needs, Cooler just wants to make us suffer for his own gain.”

Vegeta nodded his thanks and began walking again, next to him Raditz was dangerously quiet and Vegeta knew he was angry, very, very angry that Cooler had even attempted to harm his mate. Vegeta knew and shared Raditz rage, how dared he lie to his Bulma! How dare he marry her and then lock her away for punishment?

“Vegeta? Do you mind if I head off to find Chichi? She must be being kept in another place.” Raditz stopped by a door that was marked with the royal guards sign. “I’m going to try to track her down…can you find Bulma?”

Vegeta closed his eyes and concentrated, he could only just feel Bulma’s ki now that he knew what to look for; pain and suffering. But her ki seemed…wrong somehow almost sick feeling - and Vegeta was filled with a sense of urgency. “Yes, I can find her. We’ll meet back at the docking bay in an hour.”

Raditz opened the door and slipped inside while Vegeta turned and began to jog down the hall towards Bulma’s faint ki, a nagging worry that he wouldn’t like what he found when he got their was making the hair on his tail bristle.

He hoped he got there in time to stop whatever was going to happen from happening.

~*~

The Blue haired woman stared at her reflection in the mirror; she stared at the bite mark on her neck and wondered why it wouldn’t stop bleeding. She had a feeling that she had been bitten like this before and she knew that it should have stopped bleeding by now. But she wasn’t sure; she couldn’t remember all that much, everything in her mind was a blinding blur and it hurt to try to remember. Her hands tugged at the bloodstained dress she was wearing, how had long had she been wearing this dress now? She couldn’t remember that either, what she could remember she hoarded close to her like a miser with his money.

She had memories of a green skinned man telling her he loved her. She had a memory of small lavender haired baby with a tiny tail wrapped around her wrist. She could remember a short spiky haired man, holding her at night in a warm bed, the memory aroused a feeling of confusion and fear; had this short man hurt her? She could remember a tall spiky haired man called…Goku? She remembered that he had died fighting something bad…something that was after her. Everything else in her mind was bolted shut, was a chest that she couldn’t get open.

Everything except the knowledge that the Cooler was bad, he had hurt her and then had locked her in here and told her that she wouldn’t ever see her friend again. The blue haired woman wondered briefly who this friend was she was never going to see, but all that came into her mind was that the ‘friend’ had something to do with the tall spiky haired man who had died.

“A name.” The woman looked at her blankly reflection again. “I need a name, I think I shall call myself…B…” She tried to concentrate, a name with a ‘B’ sounded right, but she felt like she was trying to grab a slippery fish, she sighed. “I shall call myself Bra!” She smiled at her reflection and it smiled back.

Bra stood up and unzipped her dress, it fell to the floor, stiff with dried blood, she stepped out of it and gazed at her body in the mirror, she looked closely at the hundreds of tiny scars that laced her body, they looked like bite marks. She shrugged to herself and slowly walked to the bathroom, she picked up a towel and held it to her neck, she hoped the puncture wounds would stop oozing soon, she was feeling very light headed.

She heard a crash from the main room and she slowly made her way back out, feeling as if she were in some kind of strange dream. The door was lying in a splintered pile on the floor; Bulma tilted her head as she looked at it.

“Bulma?”

She turned towards the voice, aware that she was only dressed in her undergarments but not really caring. The owner of the voice was the man from her memory, she sort one who made her feel afraid…he had some sort of power over her. Bra could remember that, but why had he called her Bulma?

“Bulma.” She repeated slowly, rolling the word off her tongue, it sounded familiar - perhaps it was her name! “I am Bulma?”

The spiky haired man looked appalled and took a step forward. “Bulma…my God, what did he do to you?”

Bulma jumped back, she could remember more things now about this man. She remembered being in a jail cell, then a tall man with a tail had taken her to the ‘Prince’…to this man an he had done things to her; bad things. “No!” She held up hands to keep him away, “Go away! You hurt me!”

“I never hurt you.” He took a step forward. “Don’t you remember me?”

“I remember that you hurt me! You had me on a bed and you did things to me that I never wanted to do! And when I told you to stop you told me it was too late! That I was yours now and that I had to like you because you liked me! But I didn’t! You hurt me!” Bulma’s voice had turned into a hoarse shriek and she collapsed to her knees. “Go away!”

“Bulma!” The man rushed forward and tried to touch her but Bulma shrank away,

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!” She covered her ears with her hands and began to slowly rock back and forth. “Not gonna listen to the bad man!”

The man sat down next to her and grabbed her before she could scuttle away, he covered her mouth with his hand before she could scream and pulled her hands away form her ears with the other hand. “I never hurt you! I made sure of that!” He seemed angry now. “I loved you Bulma! I loved you! I know I may have scared you at first but…but after what Frieza had done to you said you loved me! I saved from him and you said you loved me!”

Bulma moaned in fright and tried to pull his hand off her mouth, but he was too strong.

“You don’t even remember our son do you?” The man was shouting now. “Our son! Trunks!” He abruptly let her go,.

“Who are you?” Bulma pulled away but looked at him curiously, he scared her but there was something in his voice that made her stomach flip flop.

“Vegeta.” He shook his head, “You have to come with me…”

“No!” Bulma edged away again. “I…I do remember you!” Bulma lied, desperately wanting the man to leave. “I know that you hurt me and I know that if I go with you your just going to hurt me again!” she took a deep breath. “And I know that I hate you for what you did to me!”

Vegeta stared down at her for a moment more. “I’d never hurt you, but if you want me to go, really want me to go because you hate me…”

“Yes! Yes!” Bulma shrank back, her eyes wild. “I can remember everything.” She was so confused! She just wanted this man to leave so she could figure out who she was!

Vegeta looked at her for a moment longer then turned and strode from the room. Bulma meanwhile curled up into a ball and sobbed, for some reason watching him walk out of the room had scared her more then when he had been in the room with her.

Bulma lay on the floor in a ball for hours and, slowly, she began to remember…

 ~*~

When Vegeta reached the ship it seemed that there was only more bad news waiting for him. Raditz had found Chichi, in the hospital, comatose. Her baby was still alive and Chichi was still fairly strong but she wouldn’t wake up. Raditz took one look at Vegeta and had asked him what had happened, Vegeta hadn’t bothered to lie.

“She hates me.” Vegeta’s voice had sounded empty and lifeless.

So they had left, Vegeta with the pain of a broken heart and Raditz sick with worry for his mate.

~*~

A/N - The next chapter starts up from where the first chapter left off – Chichi comatose and dying, Raditz losing hope for her, Vegeta heart broken and Bulma contemplating suicide.

What will happen? You’ll have to wait and see in the final chapter of Chains and Bonds!