True Torture
Chapter 5
By: Kahlan Nightwing
It was dark. And there was a weight
pressing on his back. It centered
right on his spine, just above his tail spot. If he moved, it would rub
against it. It would hurt.
Vegeta, Prince of the Saiyans, former
prisoner of Bulma Briefs, now
freed, knew what pain was. That was why he stilled immediately upon
making sense of his surroundings. Or lack of them rather.
It was pitch dark, and dust and dirt
clogged his eyes and nose, making
it harder to breathe than it already was. There was no air here, no
outlet or entry for it. The little that was in the hollow that formed
around them was going to run out…and quickly.
Them. He could feel the woman
underneath him. She felt nothing. She was
paralyzed. That was good in a way. If they died, she wouldn’t feel
anything.
It was ironic though. The kind of
irony that made him want to chuckle.
If he wanted to waste precious air that is.
He’d gotten free, and now something—
He wasn’t sure really what had
happened. He’d injected the woman and everything had exploded around
them. He’d been thrown forward. They must be somewhere near the outside
wall, underneath what was left of the woman’s house. And they
were stuck too, at least he was. Pinned quite nastily.
He wondered idly if the woman was
still reading his thoughts. She was
probably laughing at him…maybe. She might just be—yes, he could smell
the fear rolling off of her. She had no idea what had happened.
He didn’t feel like enlightening her
either. He felt like trying to
find a way out of this situation. There was little air, which meant no
holes to the outside, no outside access to blow a hole through. There
was pressure above him and he was sure below the woman. The only reason
it wasn’t crushing them was because the slab of stone centered
painfully on his back was holding back the other rubble. If he moved an
inch, he’d crush them both.
Damn it! He wanted her alive for his
vengeance. He wanted her to watch
him crush everyone in his fists.
“—ulma!”
His ears suddenly perked up and he
titled his head to one side. Was
that—?
“—ulma!”
Yes! It was the half-breed. He wanted
to shout out, but the voice
sounded far away. He couldn’t waste breath now. He had to wait until
the brat was closer.
“—ma!”
Damn it, was he moving further away?
He felt the rock above him
suddenly shift and wasn’t able to break off the agonizing scream that
was forced from his lips as it landed squarely on his tail spot. The
whole world shrunk to that horrid, paralyzing pain. The entire color
spectrum burst apart around him, in front of his eyes.
He ran out of air, the little air
left in that hole, long before the
pain subsided. He was left gasping and panting, eyes wide and the
pressure from not being able to catch his breath making sweat break out
and pour down him. He couldn’t think, couldn’t see, couldn’t feel
anything.
Relief suddenly swamped him. The
pressure lifted, and he took in a huge
lungful of air. It was so sudden, the relief, that he was left coughing
and shivering from a cold sweat. He heard something dimly, felt himself
being jostled, but he—gods, he hurt everywhere!
His head rocked back from a blow and
he blinked once, then again, sure
the green form in front of him was an illusion. A frog—?
“Huh, thought you were dead for sure.
That wouldn’t have gone over
well.” The thin, nasal voice that reached his pounding ears made him
wince almost as much as the throbbing of his tail spot.
Guldo.
He was dropped unceremoniously on his
rear and had to bite his lip
until it bled to keep from bellowing out. “Hey guys! I found him. Looks
like Jeice landed right on top of him!”
The laughter that followed that
proclamation made Vegeta grit his teeth
and struggle to his feet. He only made it to his knees before his legs
simply refused to lift any more. His arms felt as heavy as lead, never
mind that his head could barely crane upwards.
He heard the crunch and crumble of
displaced stones and turned his head
to the side enough to view the four sets of boots coming their way.
Ginyu…and his whole squad.
“Wha—?”
He was embarrassed when his throat
cracked, the words sticking there. A
hand clenched the gravel underneath it as Ginyu’s boots stopped before
him and his booming voice sounded. “Cat got your tongue, Vegeta?”
He gritted his teeth, struggling
again to stand as the others guffawed
after their leader, their laughter like rocks rubbing into raw wounds.
Finally the laughter died down and Ginyu squatted down, making it clear
he was mocking Vegeta by doing so. The smile on his purple face told
all.
“Lord Frieza heard about your little
insurrection. He wasn’t too
pleased. But then you were so nice to mention those others dragonballs,
on Namek.” His grin widened, as if knowing the other was cursing
voicelessly.
“He decided he simply couldn’t let a
planet that could take down three
Saiyans remain in the universe. He said if we saw you, to bring you
back.” There was a significant pause for effect. “He misses you….”
Vegeta spat directly in the face that
leered at him, watching in
satisfaction as Ginyu reared back in disgust and surprise. He had only
the time to let out a grunt before he was landing on his backside a
couple feet away, nose bloodied and vision dancing.
“Damn Saiyan. Carry him to your pod
Guldo. I’ll kill this—creature.”
“N-no.” He knew who they were talking
about, managed to quickly lever
himself on his elbows and almost threw up in the process as everything
spun sharply.
He heard footsteps coming near him,
saw something purple blur in and
out of his sight. “No?”
There was an edge to the voice, and
he knew it wasn’t a good one. But
when had he ever shied away from that? “For F-Frieza.”
Ginyu crouched down next to him, this
time putting a foot right on his
shoulder, crashing him grunting and growling back to the stone
underneath. “You mean to tell me that this—human is a gift for Lord
Frieza? A toy?”
“Yes.”
Ginyu chuckled, and his lackeys
joined him, cutting off abruptly when
he did. “Do you think he’ll ignore you if you give him this?”
His face burned. He could feel it.
They all knew; every single one of
them. It was part of his ‘training.’ “No.”
Ginyu chuckled again, rising and
turning from the Saiyan. “Jeice, take
the girl. Guldo, you’re with Jeice. Put Vegeta and his ‘gift’ in your
pod.”
As Jeice opened his mouth to protest,
Ginyu cut him off. “You’re the
one that caused this mess by not landing correctly. I told you to take
those refresher courses. If Lord Frieza thinks you’ve damaged his
property, it’ll be my head.”
Whatever protests Jeice had died on
his lips. Picking up the
blue-haired, paralyzed woman, he flung her over his shoulder, frowning
all the while. Vegeta grunted in displeasure as he watched white boots
topped by black legs waddle into his vision. He saw the thing bend down
to pick him up and snarled, waiting until he was half-way levered
before using the thing’s weight and hold against him, twisting free and
barely managing to stay upright.
He got by with a good imitation of
his usual arrogant pose, his feet
spread to give him better balance, his arms across his chest as they
tried to hide the fact that he was just getting his breath back. “Don’t
touch me, you freak! I can walk just fine on my own.”
Before Guldo could do more than open
his mouth to protest, Vegeta’s
head went forward as Ginyu casually slapped it walking past. “That’s
great, Saiyan. Can you fly as well?”
Vegeta was left gritting his teeth,
watching the others chuckle and
take off. He put his arms down and followed close after. He was slowly
experiencing natural feeling returning to his limbs that caused them
all to tingle and pull at him distractingly. It was very annoying.
What was even more annoying was the
fact that they stopped before they
had even gone very far. Vegeta moved around the members of the Ginyu
Force that were in his way and watched.
“Put her down!”
It was Kakarott’s brat. And he was
standing before Ginyu in a fighting
stance, small face serious and ki raised enough to create a shell
around his form. Ginyu himself stood casually before him, one eyebrow
raised in surprise and not a little amusement. The horned head turned
from the boy toward Vegeta. “Who’s this, Vegeta? I didn’t think any of
the little humans had a fighting power.”
Floating forward slightly, Vegeta
fixed the boy with a blank stare.
Gohan spotted Vegeta, opened his mouth, and quickly snapped it shut.
The Prince wondered what he had been going to say.
“He’s Saiyan. Now either blast him or
let’s go.”
Ginyu’s eyes probed the other man,
running over his face, but the
Prince’s visage was stone, revealing nothing more than disinterest. He
looked back at the boy. “Burter.”
The aforementioned man nodded and
started toward the boy, who tensed.
He halted when his leader’s voice called out, preempting his attack.
“Take him alive.”
Burter half-turned, voicelessly
questioning. Ginyu himself sneered.
“You know Frieza’s command.”
Shrugging, Burter turned back to the
boy. Vegeta merely blinked and
Gohan was draped over the other. He catalogued the trait in his mind,
vowing he wouldn’t forget that one’s speed.
“Let’s go.”
Nodding, they all set out, Vegeta
last among the group, frowning
lightly. By the time they got to Frieza’s the woman’s paralysis would
be over. He wondered what exactly he was thinking, wanting her and the
brat there. The medicine must have affected his mind, or prolonged
exposure to humans had….
It was just outside of the rubble
that had been Capsule Corporation
that they landed, Vegeta ushered forward to the first open pod. He
stared in at the small space and grumbled to himself. A month in this
thing with that human? Oh, he’d—
All thoughts were halted as a push
from behind sent him unceremoniously
into the pod’s seat. He barely had time to turn and open his mouth to
growl before the woman was thrust into his lap, draped over him
awkwardly. He grunted and settled for a hard glare at Jeice as the pod
door closed. The man had the audacity to wink at him.
Vegeta twisted his torso around to a
straight position and glanced down
at the woman. Her eyes were open, moving around in panic. The smell of
fear was awful, saturating the limited space they occupied. He wrinkled
his nose. “Damn human. You’ve brought this upon yourself.”
The human’s eyes rolled toward him,
and he watched as the jaw clenched,
as he literally hissed at him, air barely coming from between gritted
teeth. He actually felt the urge to smirk at her, but instead scowled
and looked away, out the portal that showed the rubbles of the woman’s
house and career.
It was only a few moments later that
they were rising from the ground.
Vegeta knew the sleeping gas would be kicking in soon, so he would be
blissfully ignorant until they landed at Namek, where his—master was.
He slid down in his seat more,
adjusting the woman so that she didn’t
strain any of his bruised and sore muscles. A voice over the intercom
the pods shared crackled to life and Vegeta sat up a little more.
“Recoom. Destroy the planet.”
He knew the woman heard the voice,
and he also knew that she would feel
as he had felt, helpless to do anything to stop the events occurring.
He didn’t feel sorry for her, or anything remotely like empathy, but he
didn’t feel the triumph he should’ve either.
As the sleeping gas began to seep
from the air vents to fill the pod,
the last thing both Bulma and Vegeta saw was the lighting of the whole
interior of the pod as they lifted away from the destroyed planet.
A/N: Ooh! I blew up Earth! Heehee
That’s off my checklist now. And
now—um, I really have no idea. I’ll get back to you on that. I think
they actually see Frieza now….
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