Chapter 10
"Whew!" Bulma exclaimed, wiping the little beads of sweat off her brow. "Finally! I don't think I've ever worked so fast before in my life! Wait 'til Gohan and Kuririn see this thing!"
She was extremely proud of her latest creation. With the aid of some parts from her portable radio and her handy little electronics tool set, she had managed to turn the scouter she'd taken from Raditz into a dragon radar. She smiled proudly as she put it on. She'd thought of everything. She'd even disabled the little transmitter inside it that allowed any outside party to listen to her. She frowned as she thought that it was because of that little transmitter that Vegita and Nappa had come to her planet, killed her friends, and thus caused her to have to go to a strange planet and face strange new dangers.
Another interesting quirk that she'd worked into this scouter was that it no longer took ki readings. It no longer detected the high-frequency waves of energy emitted by higher life forms, but now only tuned in on one type of energy - the very low-frequency energy waves emitted by dragonballs.
Once again she smiled at her genius. It was time to test her new gadget out. She pressed the little button on the side. Instantly, the radar locked on to all seven dragonballs. She read the locations. There were five dragonballs all together in a group in one direction, and two others off in other directions.
"Well," she said, thinking for a moment. "Since those five over there are most likely with Freeza, I ought to try to go get the other two before he can. Then I'll worry about getting his." She turned to take off, but the twinge of approaching ki hit her all at once, and she hesitated.
"Three strong ones and one weak one," she muttered after a few moments. She concentrated harder on them. "Hmm... I wonder... Wait a minute! Is that...? Yes! It's got to be them! I'm positive it's them!" She was fully attentive now, scanning each source of ki carefully. "It's Gohan and Kuririn out there with a much more powerful ki and a very weak one too. Well," she said, taking off her scouter and quickly putting it in one of her capsule bags. "The dragonballs will have to wait. Those two wouldn't reveal themselves like that unless they were forced to. Which must mean," she said, rocketing off towards her friends at top speed, "that they're being chased by that extremely powerful source of ki. Well, we'll see about that!"
She flew hard for a few minutes, until she had nearly reached Kuririn and Gohan. She screeched to a halt and waited. It wasn't more than a couple of seconds before she could see them coming. Soon she realized whom that weak ki had belonged to. Kuririn was holding a small Namekian child! Bulma was quite surprised at first, but shook it off. There was no time for surprise now. She had to act.
"Bulma!" Kuririn said, as he and Gohan stopped in front of her. "Get out of here! One of Freeza's men is after us for rescuing Dende here from him, and he's even stronger than Vegita!"
"All right!" She said. "You and Gohan take Dende back to the cave and hide. I'll hold him off until I'm sure you three are safe. Now hurry! He's almost here!"
"No, dammit!" Kuririn yelled. "This is no time for heroics, Bulma! This guy means business!"
"So do I," Bulma said, as fire flashed in her eyes. "But I know my limits. I promise I'll teleport away if it gets too hard for me. Trust me! Now go!"
For a moment Kuririn looked as if he were about to protest again, but he just groaned angrily and shot off with Dende holding him tightly around the waist. Gohan hesitated, and Bulma knew what was on his mind. It didn't take two to get Dende to safety.
"You go too, Gohan," she ordered sternly. "There'll be no way for you to help me. You'll only be someone else for me to teleport when I leave this fight." She shot him a look of pleading insistence, and he nodded, then flew as fast as he could after Kuririn. And none too soon, either, because Bulma could now just barely see her opponent coming. She squarely faced her oncoming adversary as he zoomed up and stopped abruptly in front of her. He stared in shock and surprise at the new fighter hovering in front of him.
"Who are you?" He demanded, still staring at her with a look that resembled disbelief. He wasn't quite sure what to make of Bulma.
Without answering him, Bulma sized her new enemy up. His ki, in terms of the degrees on a scouter, would probably be a little more than twenty thousand. Still far above hers. It didn't seem that his immense obesity slowed him down much, either. Still, Bulma was curious as to how well she might fare in a fight with the large, pink alien.
Bulma felt a slight intensification of this guy's ki. He appeared to be a bit irritated by her silent observations of him.
"Hey!" He said roughly. "What are you, deaf? I asked you a question!"
"My name is Bulma," she answered him, finally. "May I ask the same of you?"
"It's Dodoria, and I'll ask the questions, okay?" He replied snidely. "First of all, what happened to those two kids that had a Namek kid with 'em? I'm sure they just came by here. Do you know them?"
Bulma suddenly had a great idea. If she were to tell this moron that she knew where the remaining dragonballs were, he would have to take her to see Freeza! Once inside his ship, it would be a lot easier to get to his dragonballs. And once she got them, she had only to teleport away, and that would be it! It was so easy! Not only would she keep this jerk from getting to Kuririn, Gohan, and Dende, but she would also have a chance to get to Freeza's dragonballs! Still, perhaps she should play it cool and pretend that she wasn't really willing to be captured. Yeah, that was more realistic. Well, time to play her part!
Bulma sneered at Dodoria. "Freeza's got a few screws loose if he thinks that chasing after small fry like that is going to get him the other two dragonballs," she said, folding her arms and smiling craftily at Dodoria.
"What do you know about the dragonballs?" Dodoria asked her, eyeing her suspiciously.
"I know Freeza's not going to get them," she answered, frowning at him. "Only I know where to find them, and I'm sure as hell not going to tell you, or even Freeza what I know, so you can just forget about them!"
"Oh yeah?" Dodoria asked, grinning at her with those thick, purple lips of his. "I'll bet I could persuade you to tell Freeza what you know. He's heard everything we've said by now, and if you think he'll let you just fly off after hearing what you just said, you've got another thing coming."
"Yeah, yeah, I know about your lame little scouters," she said, looking bored. "But Freeza's not here now, is he? It's just you. So I guess I don't have much to worry about, at least for the moment, anyway. Now," she said, turning around with a courteous smile at Dodoria. "If you'll excuse me, I have better things to do than to talk to Freeza's little cronies."
"Guess again!" Dodoria exclaimed. He shot a powerful energy blast at Bulma. She wasn't expecting him to fire so soon; she'd figured he'd at least warn her again. So she didn't quite get completely out of its path. It skimmed her right shoulder. She angrily turned to face Dodoria. Wiping the blood from her shoulder, she glared at Dodoria.
"So a fight is what you want, is it?" She spat at him, assuming her most solid fighting stance.
"If need be, yes. That is, unless you're now willing to come quietly with me to Freeza's ship," Dodoria replied.
"I will not be forced to go speak to such a tyrant," she said indignantly. "And if fighting you is the only way out, then so be it!" She began powering up. All thoughts of her previous plan had scattered, leaving behind only the anger and indignation she felt at the moment. She sailed into Dodoria, punching and kicking with all her might. At first she had caught him off guard, and she managed to land a few good, solid hits. But the fact that he was a much more skilled fighter than Bulma was couldn't be denied, and it wasn't long before he was back in control. Then he really began to work Bulma over. It seemed to Bulma that the she was suddenly being attacked from all sides. As she struggled to free herself from the barrage of punches and kicks, she gradually began to lose her strength, and the pain was becoming more and more excruciating. Bulma began to panic. She was trying her best to escape the blows, but to no avail. She tried to teleport, but she couldn't even do that, due to the inescapable truth that she couldn't focus enough energy to stop time. Now she was seriously regretting this fight. She angrily cursed herself for being so foolhardy. She didn't even have the strength to fight back any more, much less defend herself. But that wasn't the worst part. By now, she was too weak to fly. Right now, the only things keeping her airborne were Dodoria's punches and kicks. She tried to yell, but no sound came out. This was it. This was where it all ended. She closed her eyes and waited for the final blow. But instead of feeling another painful hit, she suddenly had the strangest sensation that she was falling!
Bulma opened her eyes. She realized - not without a great deal of surprise - that she was indeed falling! With a loud SMACK!, she slammed into the ground. As she tried to refill her lungs, Bulma looked up into the sky to see where Dodoria had gone. She cried aloud in shock at what she saw. Vegita was up there, facing off against Dodoria! Bulma watched in wonder as the two seemed to throw insults back and forth at one another.
"What's going on?" She asked herself. "If Vegita's on Freeza's side, why is he confronting Dodoria? It doesn't make any sense. Unless...!" Her eyes opened wide at the thought that had entered her mind. What if Vegita was trying to save her? Dodoria pointed at Bulma, angrily saying something to Vegita at the same time. Vegita glanced briefly at Bulma, but she saw no sign of reassurance in his expression. It was utterly emotionless. Bulma sighed angrily as she realized the obvious truth. So that was it. These two were going to fight it out, and the winner would get the privilege of beating the location of the two remaining dragonballs out of her. She smiled sardonically at herself for letting such a silly notion creep into her mind earlier. She should have known better than to assume that Vegita would do something so selfless. She must have really taken a blow to the head to think that. Well, she could scarcely move, and all she could do now was just hope that the two bastards would kill each other. Because that was about the only chance she had left.
She watched helplessly as the fight began between Dodoria and Vegita. After a few minutes she was surprised to observe that Dodoria was not such an even match for Vegita as she had imagined. In fact, Vegita didn't even seem to have broken a sweat! Bulma marveled at the incredible increase in power that she sensed in him, compared to what she had sensed on earth.
Dodoria was breathing heavily now, and was very bruised up. Bulma could see by the expression on his face that he knew what kind of danger he was in and he was getting desperate. Vegita's ki was increasing in intensity, and Bulma could sense that a fatal blow was coming. Dodoria was hysterically babbling to Vegita, but Bulma didn't really expect any kind of reprieve from the angry Saiyan. She'd seen the same look on his face before he'd eliminated Nappa on earth, and she knew what was coming. But, strangely enough, it didn't. Vegita unexpectedly appeared very interested in what Dodoria had to say. Dodoria talked to Vegita for several minutes, and all the while Vegita's expression remained the same - attentive, yet somehow rather indifferent. When Dodoria had finished, he backed away slowly at first, as if he thought Vegita was too shocked to notice, then he took off at full speed.
Bulma saw an evil grin flash on Vegita's face, and with cruel precision, he shot an enormous and very deadly ki blast directly at Dodoria. It immediately engulfed the unfortunate soldier, and when the beam had dissipated, there was no sign of Dodoria.
Slowly Vegita let his ki drop down to a minimum level. Then he turned and looked directly at Bulma with cool, calculating eyes.
Bulma stiffened. The victor had been decided, and now it was time for him to come and claim his prize. She glared back at him, making no effort to conceal the revulsion and indignance she was feeling. She showed no trace of the fear, however. The sheer terror she felt at being alone and helpless with this Saiyan monster; the only emotion of her entire being that rivaled her anger right now, and she refused to let him see it. She didn't know what was worse: being in the situation she was presently in, or his knowing how much it scared her. He casually descended toward Bulma, his expression changing to one of triumph. Bulma didn't know what to do. She knew her body couldn't take much more before it quit on her. She was having trouble keeping awake as it was. She had never felt so vulnerable in her life. The physical pain she was feeling was unbearable. But it was nothing in comparison to the pain she felt from knowing how weak and vulnerable she was at this moment. She hated him for it. She wanted to kill him, that damn Saiyan, for causing her to feel so helpless. Before she realized they were there, tears began streaming down her face - another sign of weakness. She blinked, clearing the blurry image before her. Bulma wished that she would just die and end all this anguish.
When Vegita was only ten feet away, he stopped. He looked away from Bulma and seemed to focus on a point in the distance. Out of habit, Bulma focused her senses on the new distraction, and to her surprise, she discovered that another fighter was approaching. She knew it wasn't Kuririn or Gohan; he was approaching from the wrong direction. Besides, this fighter seemed much more powerful than Dodoria had been. She could feel it. Within seconds the new fighter was in her line of sight. He flew down closer, first observing her, then glaring with distaste at Vegita. He was very handsome, with long green hair in a braid down to his waist, and smooth blue-green skin. He was well-built, and seemed very sure of himself. He was also wearing the armor worn by Vegita and Freeza's henchmen.
"What do you want, Zarbon?" Vegita said, obviously annoyed at this new fighter's presence.
"I've been ordered by Freeza to take this girl in for questioning," he said, pointing at Bulma without smiling. "And," he added, with a trace of a grin, "to eliminate you, Vegita. You've made Freeza very angry, you know. He doesn't like it when one of his soldiers turns against him."
"I can't stand the thought of being that fool's lackey any longer," Vegita replied, sneering at Zarbon. "Unlike you, I have more self-respect than to allow myself to be led around on Freeza's leash. And if you think you can get rid of me, then you're more than welcome to try. But I warn you," he added, grinning and intensifying his ki, "you won't find me so easy to defeat."
"Nor you me," was all Zarbon said in reply. Then they began to fight. And what a fight it was! This time Vegita was definitely getting a workout!
Bulma was watching the fight attentively after this. She didn't know whom to root for, but she was kind of glad that Vegita wasn't having such an easy time anymore. She was having a great deal of difficulty in keeping her eyes open, however. It almost seemed like she was in a dream. Everything had begun to move very slowly, and she was no longer aware of her injuries. She only had a vague feeling that she was becoming very cold. She struggled to stay awake. Her mind screamed at her, "Don't go to sleep!" But she didn't want to listen. She was so very, very tired. She didn't want anything else but to just close her eyes and let the all-encompassing slumber overtake her. Finally, she gave in to her desire, and succumbed to the overwhelming fatigue that now controlled her every muscle. The last things she remembered before she drifted off to sleep were a cry of surprise from Vegita and an enormous increase in Zarbon's ki.
On to the next Chapter!
