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Only Human

It should be simple. The Z warriors have faced absolute titans and come out, if not unscathed, then on the winning side of truly legendary battles.

Mad scientist or no, Bulma's rival is only human. Hardly worth Piccolo, Krillin, Tien, Yamcha, and Gohan coming out in force. But the reason that they do is twofold:

First of all, Vegeta is heading this task force. And secondly, Dr. Tiebler has Bra.

Reasons one and two are inextricably linked.

There are other complications, of course. Nothing can just be easy. Dr. Tiebler's most eccentric work specializes in ki-technology. While his creations never reached the ability to fully suppress any of the Z warriors' massive ki, he did invent ki-blockers among other odds and ends. Ki-block tech is the reason for the major delay in locating Bulma and Vegeta's youngest. They've had to search for the girl the old fashioned way, without extra-sensory help.

Normally, this sort of abduction situation would be handled by Bulma or Vegeta, but for the sake of efficiency in the search for the missing girl, all the old gang was recruited to help.

Today is day six since Bra went missing during recess at her little girl school.

Krillin is nervous. The building they arrive to is as plain and unremarkable as the other fifty identical research and storage facilities on the factory compound. While making their descent, the Z warriors have to sink through an itchy, oily layer of smog belching out of great smokestacks around the fenced off area.

Nasty business, all around.

No one has forgotten, of course, Dr. Gero or his experiments. News of the ki-tech caused ripples of worry in the gang the moment Bulma tersely explained the situation.

But that's not all. As the warriors started having children, the second generation had been all but adopted by even the surlier members of the group. Bra's abduction comes as a slap in the face of everything their group has worked for over the years—establishing and maintaining peace for future generations, like Bra.

Like Marron —Krillin can't help but think, with a shiver of sympathy and selfish gratitude. His little girl is home safe with Eighteen. As time drags on, Krillin's calls home have increased, the father in him horrified by the agonizing position Bulma and Vegeta have been forced into this week. Not that either maniac parent has shown much in the way of wallowing.

True to form.

Even with the tip-off, the compound is a beast to search. It's obvious that only the possibility of Bra getting caught in the crossfire holds Vegeta back from blasting things willy-nilly.

The Saiyan's jaw is clenched tight, and his body is vibrating with impatient anger. Krillin watches Vegeta tear through another building. Once in a while the other man pauses, nostrils flaring like he's trying to scent his child and track her down that way.

Krillin's seen Goku do stranger things back when he was a kid. And alive.

"What if she isn't here?" Yamcha mutters, frown lines slashing across his forehead. "Some tip."

"He's right. This may be a diversion," Tien says. "We should split up. Try other places."

"Do what you want," Vegeta snarls. "I'll find her on my own." He zips over to the next metal-domed building.

To the surprise of no one, enlisting the Z fighters' help was Bulma's idea.

All of a sudden, the line of Vegeta's back stiffens and he whooshes into the warehouse so quickly that it draws the others with him.

Blood is the first thing Krillin notices when he enters. Blood in hospital-issue bags hanging on IV poles. Blood splatters on the floor. The smell of it in the air.

Vegeta is stalking around like an agitated tiger. His fists clench and unclench. His face is white and strained and Krillin wonders if this any of this blood belongs to six year old Bra.

"Holy cow," Gohan says, flinching back. More hospital equipment, more complicated machinery, more mad-scientist mess clutters the way, the deeper in they go.

Tien's bulky frame barely fits between some precariously stacked tech that stretches up toward the ceiling.

Vegeta shoves his way through, cascades of junk falling in his wake.

They burst out into an open arena nearly at the same time, which means they all see Bra at nearly the same time.

"Shit," Piccolo hisses.

Bra is strapped down to an operating table. Blood and gore originating from her stomach stains the concrete floor in messy splotches around the long rectangle surface. Too long for her small body. Meant for an adult patient.

Krillin blinks half-hoping his overtime in battle is causing him to see blood where they isn't any. But no. Gohan gags a little next to him and he knows it's real.

Mercenary types appear along the edges of the chamber and Krillin is ready. His eyes can barely take in everything that's going on, but he's aware of the little girl on the table, the metal protruding from her open stomach, the thick goggles that reflect dull light covering Dr. Tiebler's eyes when he looks up at their noisy entrance.

"Her stomach-!" Yamcha chokes from behind Krillin.

"You're dead." Vegeta tells the scientist through whitened lips, and it's the coldest, scariest tone Krillin's heard their erstwhile ally take in years.

Piccolo immediately flanks Vegeta and Krillin almost goes limp in relief at the unspoken assumption that the Namekian will handle Vegeta—or try to. Krillin himself focuses on the mercenaries and their guns.

It's a bit of blur, the fighting. Takes him back to the early days fighting against the Red Ribbon Army, to be honest. With greater power, has come greater caution dealing with 'ordinary' humans.

Today, Krillin does not pull his punches. Bones snap. He's vaguely aware of Yamcha wailing on a guy near Krillin himself.

A chill touches his neck and he wonders if Yamcha, in another life, could've ever been a part of an outfit like this. Hired gun for an insane man with a computer and a scalpel and a little girl screaming for help at the top of her lungs.

Now Bra is screaming: "Daddy!" over and over in one long impossible breath that comes out in sobs.

When Marron's really upset, she screams in a similar way. Though not so shrill as this. Not so pained.

Krillin's stomach turns and he tastes bile.

"Kami, oh Kami-blessed-Dende!" Krillin sort of prays, sort of curses as he regroups with the others around the operating table and the shrieking child.

Tien looks extremely uncomfortable. The search is over and the immediate threat has passed and now all that's left is an injured child and a scientist who is missing both arms.

Vegeta tore the guy's arms off? Krillin stares wide-eyed up at the Saiyan, but there is no emotion in his hard face except for maybe urgency.

There's a moral sort of question here—do something about the man bleeding out and whimpering on the floor, or leave him? They're the good guys. Even though he's in heaven, the gang tries to follow Goku's example; they usually take the high road, even with the evilest scum.

Not so now. In the end, it's not even a discussion. Dr. Tiebler and his death-gurgles are ignored in favor of attending to Bra.

Piccolo is removing the leather straps from Bra's legs. Krillin has to swallow back more tears and bile at the sight of her short little legs, still a little chubby with baby fat, dressed in dingy white leggings with purple flower designs all over them. Waistband to nearly Bra's knees, the fabric is pinkish with blood run-off.

Vegeta pins Gohan with a piercing, thousand yard stare. Gohan, still in high school, looks younger than he has in years, unsure. "You understand this crap?" Vegeta asks, words heavy and weirdly even.

Gohan stutters an answer. Krillin stares at the little girl Dr. Tiebler thought to hurt in order to hurt Bulma. Maybe Vegeta, too. Krillin doesn't know the details.

There's metal in Bra's stomach. Like Tiebler tried fusing machinery into Bra's insides. A slop-chop version of an android. And Krillin shivers at the thought of his beautiful, graceful wife ever on an operating table like this.

Focus.

Yamcha can barely come closer, he looks so sick.

Piccolo digs out a pouch of sensu beans and holds them out.

"I know that giving her a sensu bean isn't going to help," Gohan says, voice shaky. "That'll heal her body right over all this…this."

That…is probably true, damn it all.

Vegeta stares down with hollow, emotionless eyes at his daughter.

"D-daddy," Bra cries. "My tummy hurts!"

Krillin jerks a little when he sees the hunk of metal pulse and glow inside Bra's midsection. She wails and the machinery seems to grow before their very eyes.

"Nanotech!" Gohan exclaims, discovery and horror warring in his face. "It's organic machinery. We have to stop it from spreading further. It'll try and take her over like a virus if we don't remove all of it."

"How the hell are we supposed to do that?" Yamcha asks, in a high stressed tone. Medical crap isn't really their forte. And between sensu beans, dragon balls and inhumanly good healing abilities, their group has gotten by with far worse injuries and much simpler solutions. Such a scenario is horrible enough without it happening to their youngest, their most fragile.

Vegeta sets his hand firmly along one side of Bra's head and he leans across her, stance looming and somehow protective. "Calm yourself, child. We will fix this now, but only once you are still."

Amazingly, even with the self-worsening injury, Bra settles, blue eyes large and wet and trusting on her father.

The bad feeling in the pit of Krillin's stomach aches more sharply.

"We should take her to Bulma, or to a hospital—" Yamcha starts to insist.

"No time," Gohan says, grimly. "Look how fast this is spreading." He presses a comforting hand to Bra's shoulder. "We have to stop it, get it out before it reaches her heart and…"

Kills her.

"Morphine drip?" Yamcha says, with pale determination, shuffling through the medical supplies on the desk. Gohan goes to him and they confer over something together.

"No," Gohan sounds miserable. "Look what they've already given her. She can't mix pain medication with this crap he already pumped into her system."

At least Chichi's insistence that her son get doctor level education is coming in handy now.

"What's the plan?" Piccolo snaps. "We have to move on this."

Bra whimpers as the glowing tech shifts again, burrowing deeper.

Gohan speaks as if he's thinking out loud. "We'll have to get this out of her now. She can't take any pain meds, it might be too much for her heart and other organs."

Yamcha throws his hands in the air. "So, how?"

"We give her the sensu beans a little at a time, a lot at the end. Pull the nanotech out and heal her up," Gohan finishes.

The whole group goes abruptly silent as they all think over Gohan's plan. No doubt, the kid is the best medical advisor of this team, but in practice, what he just proposed they do is…torture. For Bra's own good. Tear out her guts and heal her up so she can live.

A heaviness in the air increases between the warriors with the unspoken question: who will operate on the little girl?

"I will do it," Vegeta says flatly. He directs a dead-eyed glare at Gohan. "You make sure I'm getting it all." Vegeta looks at Krillin and he feels himself freeze like a rabbit under a predator's attention. "You talk to her. Keep her calm. Give her the sensu beans."

"A little at a time," Gohan reminds quietly. "We can't move too fast on those or—"

"I get the picture," Krillin cuts off, weakly. For the love of Dende, don't spell it out.

Dende. If Goku were here, maybe they could've instantaneously travelled to the young healer in the watch tower. But Goku isn't here, and Krillin and the others really need to stop proposing impossible plans. This is what they have to work with; they need to man up and do what needs to be done.

Gohan moves deliberately, carefully, to set up a sort of X-ray machine to better view where the tech in Bra has spread. Even with the ki-block still on, Krillin can sense Gohan's agitated energy beneath his calm.

Yamcha paces in the background and Tien keeps inching back.

"I'll guard the door," the triclops finally says, and retreats back several feet.

Vegeta moves away from the head of the table, freeing up the seat for Krillin to, what, comfort her while they excavate her innards without giving her any pain medication? Krillin shudders, but forces a serene, monk-ish expression on his face. That doesn't feel right, so Krillin scrunches his face again and lets it relax like he's looking at his little girl. Fatherly.

"Hey kiddo," Krillin says. Vegeta drags a chair to Bra's side, just out of her line of sight. Krillin leans over her in such a way, that Bra can't see her own body.

Bra's face crumples. "I want my dad."

Aw, man. Shit.

"He's busy trying help you feel better," Krillin says. "I'm gonna sit with you until you're okay again."

Vegeta drops heavily into the second chair, feet planted firmly on the blood-slick floor, and leans his elbows onto his knees. The older Saiyan puts head in his hands, fingers pressed tight along his temples.

His eyes close. Vegeta begins to breathe meditatively. The whole thing seems very much like an established process.

Piccolo moves to Bra's other side, ready to hold her down if necessary. Gohan finishes the X-ray prep and there's a pause as everyone eyes Vegeta uneasily.

Dude isn't taking up much space, but his form is deliberate. The hunched line of his back, the set width of his feet…somehow Krillin could see that position being very useful for sitting in a tiny space pod. While nursing a migraine.

"Vegeta," Piccolo murmurs. "You don't have to be the one to—"

With a snap, Vegeta rolls his shoulders back, straightening his spine, taller and taller until he's jumped to his feet with a weird energy. Krillin flinches, a terrible feeling filling him. Even Piccolo leans back in reaction to Vegeta's vibe.

There's something off about Vegeta now. The manic light in his eyes, how much white around the dark of his orbs is visible. The weird frozen mask his face has set into. Not grinning or anything, but not restrained with intensely checked emotion either, like it was before. Just empty and restless.

Vegeta rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck side to side and sniffs and with a jolt, Krillin is reminded of the Majin possession. Or of Vegeta on Namek, or when he first crash landed on Earth.

Where is his head at right now?

"Vegeta." Piccolo's voice is a low warning. He obviously senses something strange as well. Yamcha, too. The scarred man edges away from the Saiyan at an angle until he's close, but not that close. The kind of distance you want between yourself and an enemy not someone you're supposed to be backing up.

Vegeta doesn't acknowledge any of them. He steps up to Bra's side and looks at her like she means nothing to him. Doesn't look at her tear-stained face, just the glowing machinery in her open stomach.

Gohan is next to Krillin in a flash. "Get ready."

Feeling sick, Krillin can only hope the bean's healing properties numb Bra to what's about to happen.

Vegeta says nothing. He puts his hands along the injury, fingers curving down, ready to strike.

Krillin doesn't want to see this.

"Where's my dad?" Bra asks again. Her lashes flutter as pain fights off approaching oblivion and approaching oblivion numbs the pain in waves.

Can't they knock her out? Krillin swallows. Pain would probably just rouse her again anyway.

"Right next to you, Bra," Gohan says in that gentle, soothing way he has. "I've got some medicine here for you. I need you to chew it as fast as you can, okay?"

"Kay," Bra bites her lip. Gohan holds the sensu half near her mouth, but waits until Vegeta moves to press the magical healing plant in her mouth.

Without any warning whatsoever, Vegeta mechanically digs into Bra's open stomach and removes the machinery attached to her innards like someone might calmly pull wires out while remodeling a wall. Dig, pull, rip. Rip, rip, rip.

Bra chokes on the bean and a scream that makes everyone but Vegeta flinch away in innate sympathy and horror.

Vegeta methodically continues, that weird, dead look on face as he thoroughly makes his way around Bra's insides, removing every bit of tech.

Krillin feels like a murderer holding the shrieking child down like this, while Vegeta roots around in her guts and she shakes and cries. Torture, but for her own good. What a fucking thing to be a part of.

Krillin closes his eyes to the gory scene. He's seen a lot of shit over the years but this, he can't handle.

"Chew, Bra!" Gohan's miserable voice shouts over her insensible cries. Krillin peeks, unable to help himself, and sees Gohan forcing down the second half of the sensu.

It seems to take forever. Vegeta is extremely thorough, he doesn't waste time, but Gohan has to keep adjusting the X-ray screen to make sure he got all the little sections that regrow as Vegeta moves away to the next section.

Awful. Krillin's keeping a steady dialogue of who-knows-what, trying to keep Bra calm, but it still seems like hours pass with her screams of pain echoing in his ears before it's over.

Vegeta's arms are covered in his daughter's blood up to the elbows but even as he pulls away with the last of the invasive tech, the girl's stomach knits itself and heals over like new.

"Give her the rest," Piccolo croaks.

Gohan pushes a full bean and half into Bra's mouth. She squirms and cries but swallows it down.

After a moment, her breathing calms down and she blinks up at Krillin with confused, betrayed eyes. "I don't want any more sensu beans," she whispers, bottom lip trembling.

Kami, did she think the pain came from eating the beans? Krillin thinks that might be less traumatizing to believe than knowing what actually happened.

Gohan is carefully moving the X-ray over Bra's brand new baby-skin belly. No metal or foreign objects to be seen.

A whoosh of relief comes from more than Krillin when Gohan declares the all-clear.

Tien approaches again. "That was fucked up," he says, all three eyes narrowed at Vegeta in disbelief. It was creepy, how unmoved Vegeta was for the whole thing.

Vegeta scowls vaguely in Tien's direction. "Shut up, Nappa." One bloody hand raises to the side of his face to tap own temple.

…what? Nappa? Krillin's unease returns. Vegeta's frowning and feeling along both sides of his face. For a scouter, Krillin realizes.

"Hey," Gohan says, slowly putting the equipment down. "Vegeta? You okay?" Gohan reaches for the older man's shoulder.

Vegeta knocks Gohan's hand away, then scowls at his own gore streaked hands. Blood covers Vegeta from his bare fingertips to his elbows. Vegeta gives Gohan a really shitty look. "Where the fuck did you put my gloves?"

Speechless. Everyone is speechless. Krillin can only hope Yamcha doesn't say what's on all their minds like he looks like he wants to. By Kami, Vegeta's snapped.

Vegeta shakes off some excess viscera from his hands with irritation, then suddenly double takes a look at Gohan. "Your hair!" Vegeta snorts, a weird cold smile forming on his face before confusion clouds in again.

Gohan does strongly take after Raditz in some ways—and, yeah, that's who Krillin thinks Vegeta's seeing right now-but in many ways, Gohan is obviously different. He's slimmer, his hair is much shorter.

This seems to alert Vegeta that something is wrong. He stiffens and glances back at Tien, suspicious gaze lingering on the third eye. Vegeta frowns and backs up a step. His eyes dart around, taking in Krillin, Piccolo, and Yamcha like he's just noticing them. Finally, he looks at Bra, surrounded by blood, only half-awake on the operating table.

Piccolo straightens, at the ready, but intervention is unnecessary. Vegeta seems to be smacked with a dawning realization that staggers him back. Recognition, at last.

Vegeta looks between Bra and his own gore streaked hands with a terrible expression. He rubs his wrists against the bottom of his shirt and spins.

Vegeta only makes it to the outer wall a few feet away before he braces an arm against the door and bends over and pukes.

"Daddy's sick?" Bra whispers, eyes half-mast and concerned.

Right. Snap out of it. Piccolo pushes forward. "I've got Vegeta. Get Bra on a hovercraft. We'll take that back. Not all of us should be flying."

No kidding.

"Daddy's never sick," Bra adds. She strains to see her father as Yamcha picks her up.

"I've never seen him sick either, Baby Blue." Yamcha shoots Krillin a 'can you believe this?' look.

Yeah, it's been years since Krillin's been around someone who threw up after seeing battle or gore. Vegeta is the most hardened of all of them against that sort of thing. It's extremely off-putting.

They leave Piccolo to collect Vegeta and take Bra to an uncapsulated ship.

AN: TBC. Thanks for reading.