Author's Note: So this took longer than expected. Partly I blame pandemic induced exhaustion, but also a friend of mine over here died (not from Covid-19), someone who I'd know for years from back home, and it was so, so awful. A lot of things I was writing about in this chapter were suddenly too close to home and I lost my appetite to finish it for a long time.

Thanks to Froglady15 for her beta-ing services again!

And yeah, warning - if you handled the last chapter okay you should be fine with this one, but if not, you will likely find parts of this and the next triggering.

Bulma and Tarble walked side by side down a path made of pale marble. It arced in front of them, spanning the tops of clouds, glowing gold in the setting sun. Up ahead the path arrived at a huge, beautiful, golden-roofed pagoda nestled in the clouds, the light bouncing off its edges almost blinding. They were talking, she couldn't remember what about; she could only remember the feeling of wonderful peace and contentment, the beauty and the warmth.

Because then it faded, and she opened her eyes on a scene that felt less real by far, taking fast, gasping breaths, trembling violently with cold as Brolly wrapped her in a sheet.

'Bulma! You're alive! Are you hurt?'

And then she had seen the horror that she had thought she'd escaped, that seemed eons ago, though it had only been minutes.

She had remembered the blood fountaining, and Nappa's filthy curse. The gurgling, choking sounds that were Tarble's last breaths. The pagoda in the sky had seemed more real than that.

She had fought Raditz when he had scooped her up from the bed - wild panic at being manhandled resurfacing - and had not stopped until she was set down on her feet. Krillin and Goku had guided her out, around the blood on the carpet, before she finally allowed Goku to carry her when she collapsed on the sand.

Now she was sitting hunched on her bed in her little house, Goku, Krillin and Puar huddled around her like they were trying to hold her together with the press of their bodies. Brolly crouched at the side of the bed. They were all crying, and Raditz may have been, too, but he sat on the end of the bed with his back to the rest of them.

Her tears subsided after a time, giving way to tremors. Moment by moment, the feeling of disconnection was turning into nausea.

'Where's Vegeta?' she asked, her voice coming out in a little, airless gasp.

As if he'd heard her, Vegeta's voice came over comms.

'Bulma, are you all right?'

Vegeta staggered through the desert. He felt scrambled, dizzy, almost drunk, and he found it hard to gather his chi well enough to fly. So he walked, not so much towards the camp, but definitely away from the thinly scattered ashes behind him. When Bulma didn't answer, he stopped, clutching at the transponder in panic.

'Bulma! Is she okay?'

'She says she is,' Raditz answered after a pause.

'Why doesn't she say so herself?'

'Her transponder is gone. But she can hear you.'

He wanted to ask her what happened, if Nappa had raped her, but he couldn't bear to hear the answer over their comms, or force her to say so when everyone would hear.

'I'm on my way back.'

He started running again, but a few moments later he heard Bulma over comms. She must have taken a transponder from one of the others.

'I'm okay.' She didn't sound it. Her voice was rough and wavering.

'I don't know that I believe you, after the way we found you!'

'I'm shaken and banged up, but I'm not the one who suffered. Nappa didn't have time to - he didn't have time. He blew a hole through Tarble outside the ship-' Now she really didn't sound okay, breaking into tears and then silence for a few moments when she must have stopped transmitting. When she spoke again her voice was distorted by pain. 'He shot a hole through Tarble and thought he'd killed him, but he was wrong! Tarble was still alive. He raised the alarm and he came to save me, even though he was so injured! So Nappa didn't have time...'

Vegeta stumbled to a halt again, crushed by the realization of the debt he owed to Tarble. When he'd ordered him to get back on board the ship, Tarble had, even though he must have known there was a good chance Nappa could kill him in his state.

'Where's Nappa?' Bulma asked.

'Gone.'

'Gone where?'

'To Hell. He's dead.'

At those words, blessed relief rushed up through Bulma, unsettling her stomach. She shouldn't be feeling relief. Tarble was dead and there was no relief in this for him.

Starting to feel light-headed, she pushed the boys away and half-fell off the bed, her feet tangling in the sheet she wore. Then she hurried to the bathroom.

'Bulma?' Krillin croaked after her, but she didn't have the breath to answer, melting to her knees in front of the toilet, grasping it with failing strength as she started to retch. Her friends filed into the bathroom after her, but hung back as the remnants of her lunch came up and black spots began to dance in front of her eyes.

'Woah, there,' she heard Krillin say, and then warm hands steadied her. 'Breath deep.'

She spat into the bowl and took shuddering breaths, torn between the urges to lie down or vomit again. The hands delicately tugged the sheet back upwards and held it tight around her body. She hadn't realised she'd let it go. She was dressed in a fucking sheet! She started to cry again, but felt a little stronger. She reached up and flushed the toilet, pulled herself gently from Krillin's hands and leant against the bathroom wall.

Puar came forward and placed her velvety paws on Bulma's hand. The young cat hadn't managed to say a word since they had left the ship. Bulma gathered her up, placing her warm little body against her chest. Puar was trembling, but somehow it was comforting to Bulma to comfort the cat.

'Are you sure he didn't hurt you?' Krillin asked, almost whispering the words.

She shook her head.

'Why did he do what he did?' Goku asked. 'I don't understand why he would do something like this!'

For a minute she said nothing, just breathed and stroked Puar's fur. Then she told them Nappa's plan, as he had revealed it to her. As she talked, her voice began to shake, distorted by a tremor that was welling up inside her. Raditz had been standing in the doorway, pressing his forehead to the lintel to look inside, looking pale enough to faint himself. When she told them about Nappa's deal with Frieza, he swore and stormed away into the living room for a minute. When he returned his face was set in a grimace.

'What do we do about Tarble?' Goku asked. Bulma looked at him, not believing for a second that he would ask such a stupid question, and then suddenly realised what he was getting at. She sat up straight, electrified by sudden hope.

'We have to take him with us to Planet Namek.'

'What?' asked Raditz. 'Why?'

'So we can wish him back to life, of course!' said Goku.

The others gasped at the realisation that Tarble was not dead forever.

'Why didn't I think of that straight away?' Krillin said, laughing a little weakly. The sides of Goku's mouth started to turn up as he watched Bulma.

'We're going to make this all right, again,' he told her. 'Right?'

'Yes!'

'Thank god!' Puar sighed. 'Oh, thank god! We'll get him back!'

'But how could Nappa have killed him in the first place?' Brolly asked, bringing the mood crashing back to soberness. 'I thought he was meant to be our mentor? What did Tarble ever do to Nappa?'

'That guy was no mentor,' said Krillin. 'Still, I never thought he'd do something like this.'

'Tarble was just in the way,' Bulma explained. 'I don't think Nappa cared if he lived or died. I don't think he cared if any of us lived or died. Except for Vegeta - he definitely wanted Vegeta dead.'

'Even me?' Brolly asked.

'Even you. He betrayed all of us.'

Brolly stared at her in slack-mouthed horror. Raditz seemed to be slowly wilting, hanging onto the door frame to stay upright as he seemed to sag in in on himself.

'How are we going to get Tarble to Planet Namek?' Krillin asked. 'Won't he...you know, decompose on the way?' Bulma wished he hadn't mentioned that. Krillin looked like he wished he hadn't either.

'We'll have to...preserve him, somehow,' Bulma whispered.

'I'll take care of it,' said Raditz softly.

'How?'

'Don't worry about it,' he said, shaking his head as he pushed himself from the doorway. 'I know what to do.'

Bulma listened to him go, slamming her front door, and wondered if he was going to do what she thought he was. The thought made her feel dizzy and her stomach lurched again. She couldn't deal with that now - she would leave Raditz to it. She needed clothes and a shower, and something to bring a sense of control and normalcy back, and that seemed like enough of a task. She hauled herself slowly to her feet.

It was so dull outside the bathroom window that for a second she thought she might be fainting again, but it was just the gathering gloom of storm clouds. Carrying Puar with one arm and trailed again by the boys, she returned to her room to find clothes, coming to a complete standstill when the memory of her clothes being torn off overtook her unexpectedly. She realised she still had bands of scarf tied tight around her wrists.

'Can someone cut these off, please?' she said, her urgency making her sound angry. Brolly, closest to the door, rushed back to the bathroom and came bounding back with the scissors from her little first aid kit. He took her free hand in his large one while he cut through one binding, and she cringed from the contact. Hadn't he been the one to free her? He'd seen her naked, then, when she was unconscious. Shame and anger welled up in her, though she knew it wasn't Brolly's fault that he'd seen her at her most vulnerable.

'Are you sure he didn't hurt you?' Brolly asked, his expression painfully empathetic.

'I already said I'm fine!' She took the scissors from him and cut the scarf from her other wrist herself, still trying to hold the sheet up while she did. When the boys began to follow her back towards the bathroom she stopped in the hallway and rounded on them.

'I'm going to take a shower, guys. I don't think I need your help for that.'

'Oh, yeah, of course,' said Krillin. 'We'll be right here if you need anything.'

Puar lifted her tear-lined face from Bulma's neck. 'Can I stay with you?'

Bulma could feel that Puar was still shaking, still needing comfort, but Bulma knew she wouldn't be able to hold herself together much longer.

'Stay with the boys.'

Alone in the bathroom, the tremor inside her burst free, becoming violent trembling that made it hard to turn on the taps for the shower. She let the water get hot, then slid under it; crouching down under the spray when the shaking got so violent she thought she might fall over. All the leftover terror from earlier rolled over her again. The fear of the future she had thought she was going to face. At first she cried as quietly as she could, and hoped the sound of the falling water covered it up, but soon "as quietly as she could" was wracking sobs and wails that brought her to her elbows at the bottom of the tub.

The world had flipped, and she felt like she'd lost her grip on everything. Each time she thought she could start to lift herself from the bottom of the bathtub she saw Tarble's body slide down the wall, his eyes wide with fear as he knew he was a dead man, and it knocked her flat again. The spray of blood. She couldn't stop crying - she felt like she was losing her mind. How dare Nappa trick her like this? How dare he make her feel guilty for not trusting him, then repay her distrust tenfold? How dare he make her feel such terror? How dare he do this to Tarble!

She gave up trying to curb her emotions and cried herself out on the bottom of the bathtub until the hot water ran out and she dragged herself out, shivering and gasping to the towel on the heated rail. That little dry voice inside her, the one that never totally shut off, observed her breakdown.

This is a natural reaction, given the circumstances. I will allow it for now. But tomorrow we have a task to get on with.

Yes, her task. It shouldn't be possible when the weight of every life on Earth already rested on her, but Tarble's death made her burden that much heavier. She needed to get them all to Planet Namek.

Vegeta came upon his oasis camp almost by accident. It looked particularly grey and bleak in the early twilight of the storm. He strode to the edge of the rock ledge, surveying the miserable place; the place he had hid out to avoid facing his lowered status amongst the Saiyans, and in doing so, completely missed the signs of Nappa's betrayal.

How many times in the past had he idly imagined killing Nappa for something foolish or annoying he'd done? How often had he threatened Nappa and the others with death for disobedience? Now that he'd actually done it, he realised how far he'd actually been from really carrying out an execution of one of his own. And it didn't feel anything like he'd thought it would. He'd killed so many, but this was the first time it felt like something of himself had been taken away with the life. He felt wrong. Something was amputated and maimed inside him. It was hard to breathe.

A flash lit the landscape, and then the rolling boom of thunder followed it. Another flash lit the horizon. Vegeta gave a roar, trying to feel the rage he had before he'd killed Nappa. The sky roared back at him.

'I should feel glad he's finally gone!' he shouted at the clouds.

In reply, the clouds let loose huge raindrops, splashing him in the face and soaking him in moments.

He felt like he was choking.

'How could you do this to me? You bastard!'

Lightning struck a hill in the distance, blinding him for a second. He blinked as the thunder eased into a crescendo that shook the rock below his feet, For a second the world felt thin and hollow, like a crust he might fall through at any moment. Not real. Not the solid thing he thought it was. Life was a delicate tissue, easily torn away. And what for? Tarble's life had meant nothing and gotten him nowhere but dead. And Nappa had built his life around serving Saiyan royalty, and then thrown it all away - and why? And what about himself? A wash-up prince at the dead-end of a species? Where was he going? Was his life just as meaningless?

'What am I here for?' he yelled at the universe at large. 'What is the point of all of this?'

Lightning flashed again, and this time Vegeta saw nothing but white.

Raditz stood outside the bedroom for a moment, steeling himself. He was already holding his breath, though the smell of rapidly spoiling blood seemed to coat the insides of his nostrils even so. It was too thick and pervading to avoid entirely. His Saiyan nose could pick it up from well outside the ship.

I could just leave him on the floor and close the door, he reminded himself. But that seemed somehow disrespectful. He still did not completely believe in the power of the dragon balls to revive the dead. Nor did he completely believe that they would actually make it to Planet Namek. He didn't like to think of Tarble waking up slumped in the same position he died in, like no one had cared to make him comfortable, but he also didn't like to think of leaving him like that even if he was dead forever. Which was strange, because dead people don't really need to be comfortable. It was an irrational thought, but one he felt compelled to act on.

Just get in there, he told himself. It's not like you haven't seen dead people you know before.

But this was different, and he knew it.

The room was dim, and Raditz jumped with shock when white light burst in the circular windows, rimming the slouched body with flickering movement, seeming to animate it for a moment. When thunder followed, he shook his head at his own reaction. Only lightning.

Avoiding looking too closely, but unable to avoid stepping on the squelchy maroon carpet, he quickly scooped the small body up and transferred it to the bed. Thankfully it hadn't been dead long enough to go stiff. Standing up again, he saw that his hands and forearms were now smeared with cool blood. He failed to stifle a shudder.

He turned away from the body quickly, caught sight of the comforter laying neatly folded on top of the recessed dressing table, and snatched it up to wipe the worst of the blood off. He tried to ignore that his hands were shaking and that his heart was beating so fast that he needed to take a breath, even when he knew he should be able to hold his breath for three or four times as long as he had. He held the ruined comforter out before him, blocking the view of the body, and then, seized by inspiration, flicked the blanket high and out, then let it settle, bloodied side down across the bed.

Now there was just a Tarble-sized form under a blanket, which was much easier to deal with. But something about that didn't sit right. Raditz hated sleeping with his head under the covers because it made him feel suffocated. He knew it was obviously insane, because Tarble was neither asleep nor breathing, but he delicately turned the cover down until just Tarble's head poked out, and tucked the doubled over blanket under his chin, hiding the savaged throat. Tarble didn't quite look asleep - his eyes were not quite shut, and his pale face and lips were just showing the first hint of mottle.

He remembered how Tarble had turned on him on Namek, betraying Vegeta and the Saiyans for the chance to become an Earthling. After what Nappa did, this seemed quaint to look back on. He'd been furious with Tarble for a while, but perversely, he had come to respect him more because of it. He had a spine after all. And maybe he was going to turn out to be pretty cool, one day.

'Fuck,' he said, and lost his battle to keep holding his breath, choking on the charnel smell.

Swiftly, he pushed Tarble's eyelids all the way shut and rushed from the room, slamming the door. After washing the blood off his hands and boots in the bathroom, he went up to the flight deck and reprogrammed the life support systems to drop the temperature in the master bedroom to below freezing. Then he sat with his head in his hands for a long time.

He couldn't bear to go back to the knot of Earthlings in Bulma's house. He didn't know what to do with himself. He hadn't felt so lost since he found himself on Frieza's ship, and his home planet had blown up. And that time, he'd had Nappa there to hold him together.

'What the fuck, Nappa?'

'Oh, you're awake.'

Vegeta groaned. For a second he thought someone was lying on top of him, but then he realised that the arm flung above his head was his own, and it had fallen asleep. The sky was dark. Night under heavy cloud cover. He moved his arm off his face and sat up, or tried to. He felt like he'd lost a fight rather badly and then slept on his injuries. And his mouth tasted awful, like burnt metal.

The clink of glass on rock made him turn his head and saw the dark shape of someone sitting on the ledge next to him. The hulking figure filled him with a split second of irrational terror that it was Nappa back from the dead somehow, but then his nose told him who it really was. And that they were drinking whisky straight from the bottle.

'What're you doing here?' Vegeta asked, and was amazed at how rough his voice sounded. Then he asked an even more puzzling question. 'What am I doing here? I don't remember deciding to take a nap up here.'

Raditz snorted. 'I think you got struck by lightning. Take a look at your clothes, and the bottom of your boots. Not to mention your hair is standing on end!'

Vegeta's hand shot to his spiky locks, but they felt just the same as usual. Raditz laughed and Vegeta growled.

'Very funny.'

Raditz wasn't wrong about his clothes though. His training suit was open at the back and sagging forwards, the edges of it melted. And when he looked and felt the soles of his boots there was a charred hole in one of them. The last thing he recalled was yelling at the sky. Galling. At least this strike hadn't nearly killed him like the one he'd experienced as a child.

'Why are you here and not back at camp, taking care of things?'

'Why aren't you?'

'As you pointed out, I got struck by lightning.' Vegeta frowned. 'What time is it? I need to get back there.' He didn't admit the reason why, but Raditz seemed to know them, anyway.

'Bulma's okay. Or as well as you'd expect. They're all asleep now. Having a big old slumber party in her house.'

That was both reassuring and strangely hurtful. They were huddled together in companionship. He was out here alone, yelling at the sky and getting smote by the heavens for it. Well, not alone. Raditz was here, for some reason.

'I need water,' Vegeta said, preparing to get to his feet. Instead he found the bottle of whisky thrust into his hand. That seemed warranted, though, given events.

He took a mouthful and swished it around to get rid of the taste, burning his mouth. Then he took a long swig. Raditz was doing something on his other side that generated more sounds of glass on rock, and then turned back holding a nearly full bottle of spirit.

'I thought you sold all the booze?' Vegeta asked, noticing that Raditz's hand trembled as he raised the bottle to his mouth. Almost like it was contagious, a shiver gripped him. And then another. He took another swig.

'I couldn't sell the ones that were already open.'

They sat there for a while saying nothing while they drank. Vegeta finished the bottle and found another in his hand. Raditz was trying to get them both drunk, and for once Vegeta was not against it.

'Did he say anything?' Raditz asked in the end. 'About why he did it?'

'That he hates me. Hated me. He said he hated all of us.'

Raditz turned his face away, his frame convulsing for a second. Vegeta ignored it, too disturbed by the thought of Raditz doing anything as emotional as sobbing to accept that that was what he was seeing.

'The fucking bastard!' Raditz said thickly. 'How can he be one of us for all this time and then just...throw us all away for Frieza?'

Vegeta had no answer.

'He was going to lure you to Frieza so that Frieza could kill you. And then we'd probably all be dead, too, but he apparently didn't care about that!'

'He already killed Tarble,' Vegeta pointed out. The words seemed to fill his muscles with lead, and with the alcohol hitting his bloodstream he sank back onto the rock with weakness. His head swirled; a nauseating kaleidoscope of Tarble's corpse, Nappa's dead eyes and his parent's dismayed faces.

'I froze him, by the way,' Raditz said.

'What? Froze who?'

'Tarble. Kakarott and Bulma want to take him to Planet Namek and wish him back to life.'

Vegeta flinched as realization hit him - of course they could! And of course the Earthlings would want to. But it was going to mean extra time on Planet Namek while they waited for more wishes. And what wishes would come first, and which would wait for round two?

Some of the weight lifted from him, evanessing into mere annoyance. He pushed himself to sitting again, took another drink and smiled grimly.

'I always knew Tarble would get himself killed at great inconvenience to us.'

Raditz gave a bark of surprised laughter. 'True. I didn't expect Nappa to be the one to kill him, though.'

'Nappa always thought Tarble was a waste of Saiyan blood. I guess he thought we were all a waste of Saiyan blood in the end.'

Raditz frowned and shook his head. 'I can't believe that. I know he was always harping on about being an Elite, and how he was so much better than me and my parents. But I just thought...he said stuff like that to tease me. I didn't think he really believed that...I wasn't as Saiyan as him, or that I wasn't part of- I don't know what I'm trying to say! I got stronger than him in the end, but I never thought he was less than me!'

Vegeta's face was growing warm. He had certainly thought of Raditz as the least of the Saiyans until they'd picked up Brolly and Tarble. Now it seemed that the true measures of a Saiyan had been made, and Nappa was the one who'd been lacking all along. Vegeta felt like a fool.

'You may have once been lesser than he, but he was the one who failed, he was the one who fell, further than the worst of us when he betrayed us. I don't know what he thought he was going to get out of it, but apparently it trumped all his years of service and his oath, and just plain loyalty to Saiyan blood!'

'He thought that Freiza was going to make him the new Dodoria.'

Vegeta scoffed in disbelief.

'That's what he told Bulma,' Raditz said.

'So, he thought he was to replace an ugly, stupid general, whose chief use and pleasure is blowing up dissenters?'

'Huh. When you put it that way, it's not as unlikely as it sounds.'

They lapsed into silence again. A crack in the clouds above let through enough starlight to let their Saiyan eyes pick out the landscape's features, or lack thereof. Vegeta finished the end of the bottle of rum Raditz had given him and then swung it by its neck, pitching it across the dimple of the oasis to land on the other side with a distant tinkle.

'Is this where you've been sleeping?' Raditz asked.

'Yes.'

'Wow, what a shithole. Can't imagine what you see in the place.'

'No Brolly or Nappa,' Vegeta said plainly.

'Well, I guess you only have to worry about one of those things now.'

Vegeta continued to stare straight ahead into the dark. He felt the rum having its effect on his body, but so far he only seemed to have succeeded in drinking himself into a deeply depressed mood.

'Is there any more alcohol?'

'No. That was the last of it.'

'Damn.'

'I know where we can get more, though.'

'Say there's more on one of the ships.'

'There isn't. But there are a couple of credit chips in the flight deck locker…'

Vegeta half expected to hear Nappa telling him that he could afford to relax and enjoy himself for once in a while. Instead there was just silence where Nappa's gruff cajoling should have been.

Vegeta shivered. 'Lead the way, then.'

'Huh - just like that?'

'I don't wish to spend my night half-cut, waiting to get soaked again in this shithole.'

'Praise the gods, and hallelujah.'

They went back to the cruiser. It was still parked on the edge of the cliff, and still smelling of Tarble's blood. Curiosity vied with horror about what lay in the bedroom. He felt like he could sense the iciness of Tarble's interment chamber emanating all the way to the rampway.

'I'll wait out here,' he told Raditz, halting in the entrance. Raditz gave him a look that seemed to convey both understanding and censure. Then he slipped inside.

Vegeta wandered to the edge of the cliff and looked down at the half-dome of Bulma's house. The lights were all off, and the energies of those inside were peaceful, sleeping. How quickly it seemed the crisis had passed for the Earthlings.

Raditz stomped down the damaged rampway, and as Vegeta turned he found a bundle of clothing thrown at him. Sandals bounced off him and hit the sand.

'What are these for?'

'Look at your training suit - it's a rag!' said Raditz. 'You can't go into town wearing that.'

'I thought we were just going to buy some spirits.'

'You can't buy alcohol outside a bar or restaurant around here, or at least not that I've found. No one is doing retail alcohol sales.'

'Of course not. Why would anything be convenient on this planet?'

He stripped on the cliff edge, and quickly put on the outfit Raditz had brought down. It was one of his from Grenouilea II - the maroon pantaloons, sleeveless silk shirt and leather and gold sandals. When he finished he saw that Raditz had changed too, into white pants and a Capsule Corp t-shirt, and was toying with something in his hand. He was grimacing.

'What is it?'

Raditz held the thing in his hand out. 'I just found this upstairs when I went to get the chip and clothes.'

It was a scouter.

Vegeta snatched it; his first instinct was to crush it. But he hesitated. They still didn't know if the PTO tracked locations by scouters. Frieza could have been tracking him by the transmitter inside his brain all along.

'Bulma said he picked up a scouter on Namek,' said Raditz. 'This must be it - how he was talking to Frieza and the PTO.'

He considered turning it on. Calling Frieza to gloat that Nappa's deal would not be fulfilled. But what if turning it on activated some location triangulation?

'Do you think they know we're here?' he asked.

Of course Raditz had just as little idea as he did. 'Bulma said that Nappa thought he'd kept our location secret from them.'

'And do you trust Nappa's judgement on that?'

Raditz shrugged. 'What can we do? Do we need to leave Baccanelli?'

'We have to leave at some point.' Vegeta stared at the scouter in his hand, forcing his buzzed brain to run the obstacle course of logic and deduction. 'If Frieza is on Planet Frieza 65 waiting for me to show up, he won't be able to leave until he knows I'm not coming. It's not that far from Grenoulliea II, or Planet Namek, on the other side of the galaxy - two and a half months away, roughly. Even if he were to somehow realise Nappa had failed already, we'd be long gone by the time he showed up here.'

'You're right,' said Raditz with a sigh of relief. 'And at least we know where Frieza is right now, which is good. But he's looking for dragonballs, which is bad.'

'Then we have to hope that Bulma is better at finding them than he is.'

Vegeta crushed the earpiece of the scouter, dropped it and then took pains to grind the rest of it to components under his sandal.

Raditz took him first to an upstairs bar in Ye Olde Town, one town up from Blue Lagoon. It's candlelit interior had a dark and smoky atmosphere thanks to the various inhaled substances on offer besides drinks. Raditz ordered a bottle of their cheapest whisky and two glasses, and Vegeta drank until his mind finally started to wander from the subject of Nappa. He took notice of the holidaymakers and table servers, going about their business, laughing and being banal. None of them had murdered their servant today. None of them were hunted by the strongest, most evil being in the galaxy. Being among them made the afternoons events also seem less real. More like a nightmare that had been very upsetting while asleep, but obviously not believable upon waking.

'How does one become one of these people?' he found himself asking, waving at the room in general.

'You mean, like, ordinary weaklings?'

'Naturally.'

'How should I know?'

The waitress came and delivered another drink, and held out a chip reader for Raditz to pay with. When he was done, she took it back, frowned at the screen and handed it back to him.

'Excuse me, sir, you forgot the tip,' she said pointedly.

Raditz grunted and subtracted a tip from his chip.

'That's all they care about down here on ground level,' Vegeta observed. 'Money. Physical power gets you nothing in the bourgeois world. But money buys you nothing when it comes to the most elite of the galaxy. Power is the real currency. Money is just what we use to keep the fools busy.'

'Yeah, it's useless until you're trying to get from one side of the galaxy to the other in a limited time,' Raditz said, and pushed one of the glasses toward Vegeta. He took it with a slightly weaving hand. Instead of the burn of spirits, this one was sweet.

'What is this?'

'It's meant to compliment the herbal smoke.'

Raditz plucked a flexible straw with a glass stem from the strange vase in the centre of the table, and put it in his mouth. Vapour flowed through it, piped from gods-knew-where, and containing who-knew-what. Vegeta watched him suck, blink, then choke a little as tendrils of steam came out of his nose and mouth.

'Ek,' Raditz gasped, taking a sip of the sweet drink. 'Oh, yeah, that helps.'

'I don't know why you are so eager to put mystery intoxicants in your body,' Vegeta scolded him. 'It could kill you, for all you know.'

'I looked at the list of species that this is tested safe for,' Raditz protested. 'I think that Saiyans would be on it, if we still existed.' Then he started snorting with laughter. 'Oops, if we still existed!'

'You said the S-word!' Vegeta said, looking quickly around. His head swam at the movement. Everyone one seemed intent on their own conversations.

'Oh, come on, does it matter anymore? Like you said, it would take Frieza months to get here. Anyway, you didn't even tie your hair up!'

Vegeta put his hand up and flattened the top of his hair self-consciously. He had forgotten his hair, and so had Raditz, whose ridiculous mane filled the booth around him like a fur coat.

'We may as well wave our tails in the air!'

'Even if we did, no one would recognise us! Do you think these people are looking out for terrorists?' Raditz took another drag on the stem, then another sip of the drink. 'I think I feel something,' he said, frowning at the straw. 'And to answer your question, I find the risks of getting fucked up are usually offset by...'

'By what?' Vegeta prodded, wondering why Raditz seemed to have come to a standstill.

Raditz took a deep breath and ran his hands over his face, a grin breaking out.

'Oh, Vegeta, you gotta try this! Go on, I paid for half an hour of access to the vape stream, so you may as…' He gripped the table and giggled, then took another hit.

Vegeta growled, simultaneously annoyed, curious and envious. He took a straw from the pot and drew in a short breath of it. It was bitter and drying, and immediately caused him to cough, but a quick sip of the syrupy sweet drink calmed that.

'It's foul.'

'You get used to it!' said Raditz happily, smoke curling out of his nose.

Knowing what to expect now, Vegeta puffed recklessly away on the pipe, trying to catch up to Raditz, and consequently was shocked by the suddenness of the moment his skin disappeared and his body turned into a floating blob of chortling goo.

The night after that became somewhat disjointed. Vegeta could have sworn they were at their table much longer than a half hour, entertaining baffling conversations with the waitress that somehow resulted in more drinks arriving.

Vegeta's fortified cheer began to wear off later as they were wandering down the sand-blown coastal road between towns. They stood on a bluff looking down on what Vegeta thought was Mermaid Rock, and the beach either side of it lit up by beach bars and restaurants, but couldn't have been, as that was to the South, and they were walking North.

'Let's not go near the Mermaid Rock Resort,' he told Raditz as they stumbled down the road into town.

'Why not?'

'Don't you remember? Oh, no, that's right - you got Bulma falling-down drunk and then went out partying that night!'

'Oh, that night. What happened?'

'Nappa got us banned from the resort, and almost had the police set on him. He tried to get me to hire a whore for myself, and then… I don't know what he did. But it cost us thirty thousand credits of property damage and medical bills.'

'What?'

'Yeah, he drank the most expensive whisky in the joint, then hired one of the whores, and...I don't know. Probably roughed her up badly.'

Raditz stopped still and Vegeta squinted at him, trying to make out his face.

'Shit, you think he beat up a prostitute?'

Vegeta took exception to Raditz's surprised tone. 'Don't pretend like you didn't know he did stuff like that. There was a reason I forbade anyone to touch Bulma against her will when the Earthlings joined us.'

The two stared at each other, swaying a bit.

'I guess I did,' said Raditz. 'But I just didn't think about it much.'

'Until he almost did the same thing to Bulma!'

'Well, if you say it like that, we both should have seen this coming!'

Vegeta growled, and began stomping down the hill into town.

'Sorry, your Highness, I didn't mean it that way,' Raditz said, rushing to catch up. 'We couldn't have known he'd do something like that.'

'No, it's true, we should have! But I was stupid enough to still trust him. Even Tarble saw him as more of a danger than I did! Not that he was prepared him for what Nappa did, in the end.'

'But Nappa gave his word, his oath! Of course we trusted that! He always went on about his honour and pride at being chosen as your bodyguard and servant. I thought his Saiyan pride would never let him disobey you and betray us like he did.'

Vegeta snorted so hard that snot flew out his nose and he had to wipe his lip. 'Saiyan pride! What a mockery! He said I had none! What the fuck even is Saiyan pride if it lets him do what he did?'

'I don't know. I don't know anymore.'

Somehow, some indeterminate amount of time later he found himself seated at a table at a beach restaurant, his feet digging into the cool sand beneath his chair. Hadn't he been wearing sandals earlier?

'Why did I let him get away with stuff like that?' he grumbled at a tall glass of beer.

'I thought you didn't really care at the time,' the beer suggested.

'I did care - I always thought it was...distasteful. But you're right. I didn't care enough to stop him.'

'Uh. I guess I was the same. It's weird though. I never forced a girl, never beat one up just for existing. But is there a real difference between that and wiping out a planet of people? I mean, if you kill billions of people for a living, someone could say that beating and raping someone is letting them off lightly.'

'It's different.' Vegeta was starting to feel a bit queasy, and didn't want to think too hard or get into an argument with the beer.

'I'm not saying it's not, but how?'

'It just is! And anyway - I don't kill people for a living any more.'

'But would you? Again, I mean?'

Vegeta shrugged, almost falling off his chair.

A bucket of fried seafood treats appeared between him and his beer, and Vegeta looked up, finding Raditz's face not far away, grinning as a waitress in a bikini placed another bucket in front of him.

'Now, are you sure you boys didn't order too much food?' she asked. 'People usually share one of these for a table of three or four.'

Raditz squinted down at it. 'You're right. I think we need a couple of baskets of those things - what you call them?'

'Sweetnut poms poms?'

'Yeah.'

She gaped at Raditz. 'Okay, it's your money.'

Vegeta was already stuffing handfuls of crispy coated morsels into his mouth, hoping to ease the burn inside his stomach. He had forgotten dinner! He was starving. Then he realised he'd burnt his mouth and spat a half chewed gob onto one hand while he grabbed the beer with his other and chugged it.

'I thought you liked to use your fancy table manners in public, your Highness,' Raditz teased him between stuffing his own face.

'Fuck off, Radish. And don't call me your Highness.'

'Why not?' he asked, incredulous. 'You used to slap me across the room for not calling you "your Highness" often enough!'

'I'm not a prince anymore.'

'But…' Raditz appeared lost in thought for a time, and Vegeta resumed destroying his pail of seafood.

'Your father was the King,' Raditz said eventually. 'And named you his heir, the prince. So what's different?'

'My father had himself crowned king because he was the strongest Saiyan alive, and there wasn't anyone who could stop him. And now there's Brolly. My father's claim was based on his power, and mine on being the strongest Saiyan child ever born. Though that didn't mean anything, it turns out.' Vegeta saw the strangest expression of panic cross Radtiz's face, and after a few seconds processing, asked, 'What do you know?'

'About what?'

'About something I said? About me being the strongest ever born?'

Raditz looked flustered as he shook his head. 'Nothing! Whatever idea gives you that?'

'You do, you…' Vegeta's brain slowly drew the connection. 'Was I the strongest baby ever born? Or was Brolly?'

Raditz was frozen now.

'Raditz! Answer me!'

Raditz put down his beer and his handful of greasy food and pawed drunkenly at his napkin. 'Well, you were… Until Brolly was born.'

Vegeta found himself on his feet and the table almost overturned. Raditz cringed in his seat. Vegeta was dimly aware of other people at tables around them looking over. 'You knew all along! Did Nappa know?'

'Yes.'

Vegeta staggered. One of the foundational truths of his life had just come loose under his feet.

'You knew? Have you been laughing at me this whole time?'

'No! I didn't laugh!'

'Well, how can you have known these last two years that Brolly was the strongest Saiyan ever born, and NOT SAY ANYTHING?'

Raditz clutched his pail of seafood to his chest.

'Vegeta,' he whispered. 'Can you not scream the S-word?'

S-word? Vegeta's sense returned with a snap and he looked sharply at the diners around him. At least he tried to. Their faces blurred dizzyingly when he moved his head side to side, but they seemed inclined to look away when his gaze lurched past them.

'Please, your Highness- I mean, Veg- I mean...just sit down! And I'll tell you what we knew.'

Vegeta did. 'Tell me then,' he commanded. 'Who knew?'

'Pretty much everyone at court at the time Brolly was born knew.'

'So my father knew?' He was sickened by the thought. He actually felt his stomach sour.

'Yeah. When Brolly's father Paragus turned up dead everyone was saying that it was your father that ordered it.'

It was a shame so great that it overflowed dead "King" Vegeta's cup and withered his son sitting in a beach bar on the other side of the galaxy. 'Why did you never tell me?'

'And get my ass kicked for delivering the bad news? And what would the point have been? I thought that Paragus's baby was dead along with his father, and if he wasn't, he would have gotten blown up with the planet a few days later! It wasn't until we got here, to Baccanelli, that Brolly remembered who his parents were, and Nappa and I figured out who he was.'

'Did you tell Brolly who he was?'

'Of course not! But now he's the super Saiyan, so I'm not sure it matters either way.'

They sat in glum silence until the waitress returned with baskets of fluffy, starchy balls.

'I suppose you'll be calling Brolly "your Highness," now?' Vegeta asked in a fit of self-pity.

'Are you going to call him that?'

Vegeta had an instant of hot rage at the thought. 'Get fucked!'

'Then why would I?'

'He is the super Saiyan. Destined to lead our people to salvation.'

Raditz made a face. 'Brolly, lead? Yeah. Seems likely.'

'It's the natural order,' Vegeta pointed out, perversely pushing the issue. He would choke before calling Brolly his leader, but he wanted Raditz to say the same. Wanted Raditz to pick him over Brolly, definitively.

'In that case, the natural order is fucked. Brolly is a milksop and thick as mashed tubers. Natural leader, he is not.'

'So, if he wasn't a spineless moron, would you follow him over me?'

'Uh. I don't know - I haven't thought about it.'

'Then think about it.'

Raditz looked out to sea for a while and didn't answer for so long that Vegeta began to get angry, then sleepy. He caught himself nodding off, his nose pressing into the pail of seafood, The smell reminded him that his stomach was still waiting, and he began snarfing it down again.

'Permission to speak without repecussi- without repicuss- Uh, permission to speak frankly, your er...Vegeta-ness?'

Vegeta had forgotten what they had been talking about. Oh, the question of leadership. He nodded at Raditz, anticipating his answer. 'Persimmon granted.'

'Well, remember that you did ask. But if Brolly was smart enough and had some balls...as well being as the Super Saiyan...I guess...I would have to choose him as my leader.'

Vegeta gaped at Raditz, stupidly hurt and then stupidly angry about it. Well, what had he expected?

'Because he's the Super Saiyan?'

'Well… That, and I'm trying to imagine Brolly with a spine and a plan, but still him, and I'm thinking that he might be... A bit easier going, maybe?'

'Easy going? As opposed to what?'

'Oh, come on, you must know yourself!'

'What do you mean?'

Raditz grimaced, then smiled. 'You must know you're kind of a prick.'

'I - what?'

'I mean, it's not all bad - you are much less of a prick than you used to be!'

Vegeta stood up, knocking his chair over and started walking away.

'Aw, don't be like that! I'd still be your- I mean, I'd still listen to you and stuff!'

Vegeta turned back, tipped a basket of fluffies into his pail, scattering half of them on the sand, then took the pail with him out into the darkness of the beach at low tide.

Later still he remembered drinking from the neck of a bottle of sweetened rum as he walked, hair and silk clothes plastered to him by another tropical downpour, when suddenly the wet sand hit him in the face and the side of the body. Trying to rise, he had trouble working out which way was up. He thought he had succeeded for a moment before he registered the big arms around him. Who was carrying him? His father? Nappa?

But then he remembered that he wasn't a child anymore, and shouldn't need to be carried. Also, his father was dead. So was Nappa.

'I killed Nappa!' he said in shock as he remembered all over again.

'I know.'

'He didn't leave me any choice!'

'I know.'

'That idiot practically...he forced me! He...he…' Vegeta stopped. He was starting to get choked up. Even drunk, he managed to hold himself back from breaking into wet, weak emotion.

'I know,' Raditz said. 'He deserved it for what he did. But I still wish he hadn't done it.' Then Raditz started crying. Vegeta listened in horror for a few moments and then began struggling against Raditz's arms.

'Put me down!'

Raditz stumbled and dropped him. Vegeta landed on his butt. He was so numb with drink he barely felt it.

'Shit, sorry!'

Raditz tried to pull Vegeta up again by the wrist, but Vegeta slid out of his wet grasp.

'I can walk!'

The last place they went to was some sort of boutique apartment-themed nightclub. Vegeta peered at the white walls that he bumped against as he was led down a hallway to a balcony out back. He was relieved - the brightness of the rooms made his head swirl. The hostess was beautiful, but too tall for Vegeta's liking, and seemed to be giving them some attitude about their level of intoxication.

'M'a Saiyern,' Vegeta slurred. 'Can handle any drink I want.' He hoisted himself up to take a seat on the handrail of the balcony, and then the night turned upside down.

Bulma awoke to the sight of Goku's sleeping face, feeling dopey for a moment before the events of yesterday struck her all over again. She extracted Puar's paws from her hair and sat up, seeing Krillin yawning on the floor and Brolly already propped up against the wall, blinking away the silent tears that slid down his face. The sleeping pills last night had been a good idea, but now they had worn off and it was time to face the day.

No one, not even Goku, felt like breakfast right away, so instead they busied themselves with the easiest task. The campfire and the salvaged couches and cooking implements were scattered across the ledge and down the ravine by the blast of the cruiser taking off. They hunted through the sand and in the trees and scrub in the ravine, reassembling their camp from what they found. Bulma knew she couldn't contribute much to this effort, but joined in anyway. How many times had she sat back and let Tarble do all the dogsbody work?

Assessing the soggy cushions of the couches she gave in and asked Goku the question that had been nagging her since she'd gotten up.

'Where are Vegeta and Raditz?'

Goku shrugged. 'I don't know.'

'They're not in the cruiser?'

'Nope.'

'Out in the desert then? Where Vegeta has his little camp?'

Goku frowned and concentrated for a few moments before shaking his head. 'No. Not unless they're keeping their chi real low.'

Bulma raised her hand to a transponder that wasn't there. Damn. Well, she knew what her next task would be.

'Can you call them and ask where they are and when they are coming back?'

'Okay.' He touched his own transponder. 'Hi Raditz and Vegeta! Bulma wants to know where you are and what you're doing!' Bulma cringed. She hadn't wanted it to sound like that.

They both waited for an answer, but there was none.

'Rad-itz! Veg-eee-ta! Where are you? Guys! When are you coming back?'

'Urgh, shut up!' Raditz replied, his voice raspy.

'But you didn't answer.'

'Well, what did you expect this early in the morning?'

'It's almost lunchtime!'

'Huh? Crap.'

'Just get him to answer the questions!' Bulma snapped.

'Hey, Bulma wants to know where you and Vegeta are and when you're coming home. I think she's worried.'

'Goku!'

'Thanks, Mother,' said Raditz. 'We're just in Sweet Stuff Village. Be back later today sometime. Nothing to worry about.'

Bulma had to be satisfied with that answer for now.

The boys went looking for discarded chi levellers in the desert while Bulma made herself a new transponder out of spare parts. She managed to force down a cup of tea and half a toasted botho cake while she did it. Puar toyed with her own breakfast, and Bulma had the cat tell her stories about her adventures in banitry with Yamcha in the desert to distract them both from the thoughts that pressed in on their minds, ready to strike. The building and programming of the transponder should have taken her twenty minutes, tops, but it took her over an hour, with her still-shaking hands and many mistakes made.

When she heard the boys back in camp she gathered the courage to go inspect the cruiser. She could take the holographs of all the rooms except the master bedroom and hope the collector didn't notice. There would still be time before the sale to replace the bedroom carpet again… She felt her breakfast sitting heavily in her stomach and cut off that line of thought. She would not be going into the bedroom today.

Taking the path up the side of the cliff to the plain, she walked around the side of the ship and up the rampway, which didn't seem to be sitting flat to the ground. And there she stopped at the entrance of the lounge, unable to go on. She could feel Nappa's arms clamp around her again in her memory, and it was all she could do not to scream again in terror as if it was happening all over again. And the smell - warm, sweet, spoiled and horribly intimate - invaded her nostrils. Even from here she could see the trail of bloody footprints, darkened to almost black, stamped back and forth across the parquet floor.

She fell backwards, down the rampway, landing on her butt and then rolling feet-over-head off the side of it, coming to rest on her hands and knees in the sand. Her stomach heaved, over and over, and the botho cake made a reappearance. She must have been so loud that the boys heard her from the campsite, because they landed in a circle around her.

'Bulma, what's wrong?' Krillin asked, though he looked upset in anticipation, like he might cry no matter what the reason.

'The smell,' she gasped, pushing herself away from the little pool of vomit. She was crying and shaking like it was yesterday all over gain. 'The ship stinks!'

Brolly and Goku both nodded in affirmation. No doubt their Saiyan noses could smell it from camp.

'Do you really have to go in there?' Krillin asked, crouching down beside her.

'I still have to take pictures of the ship,' she explained, feeling as if this was suddenly all too much. 'But I can't take pictures when there's blood all over the floor!'

'You think you can still sell the ship?' Krillin asked.

She nodded and wiped her eyes with the shoulder of her t-shirt. Talking about practical things like this seemed to be calming her down. 'I'll just have to fix up any damage before we hand it over.'

He frowned.

'Do you want us to clean it up?' Goku asked.

'Would you?' She would be happy to never set foot inside the ship again, though she knew she would have to. But she couldn't face Tarble's blood on the floor.

'Sure, we'll do it.' He gave a slightly forced grin, and looked at the boys next to him. 'Won't we?'

Brolly looked at Goku in horror, realizing that Goku was including him in the "we". Krillin looked less than happy, too, but he set his chin.

'We will.'

'Don't bother with the bedroom,' she told them. 'We'll have to skip it for now.' She stood up and brushed sand off her hands and knees.

'All right,' said Goku, dropping the smile for a much rarer expression of grim resolution. 'Let's do this.'

He went up the ramp, followed by a pale and very unresolute-looking Brolly. As Krillin took a big step up onto the rampway Bulma's attention was brought back to the fact that it no longer sat right.

'What is going on with this thing?' she asked

Krillin stopped to see what she was talking about. 'Oh, I think it got damaged when Vegeta and Brolly broke into the ship.'

'Broke in?' she repeated, alarmed. Somehow she hadn't considered how they had gotten the cruiser back on the ground. 'Help me lift this up!'

Krillin hopped down and did so, and Bulma moaned in dismay. The top corner of the outer skin of the rampway was mangled.

'Holy shit, Krillin, I can't fix this!'

'I'm sorry,' he said, absurdly.

Brolly returned to the top of the rampway. 'Vegeta had to tear it open.'

Bulma tried to hazard a guess at how much time and money it would cost to get a new rampway built. 'Brolly, can you close the ramp so I can get a better look?'

Brolly pressed the pad inside to close it, and the mechanism whirred, which it didn't normally do. The ramp shuddered and raised about halfway before jamming. Bulma rubbed her face and paced around it, trying not to panic, but when she saw that the skin of the main body of the ship was also buckled, and the solar panels smashed up by the top corner of the opening, she failed.

'No!'

And then there was the line of other holes smashed into the hull that she hadn't noticed until now because they stretched around the other side of the ship above her head.

'No! No! No! We're fucked! We're absolutely fucked!'

She took a seat in the sand again, and Krillin crouched down beside her, bowing his head till it rested on her shoulder.

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry.'

'Did you do this?' Bulma asked, not understanding why he was apologising.

'No. I'm sorry that the ship is wrecked and we can't use it to sell and get to Planet Namek.'

'Vegeta did it,' Brolly said, leaping down to land before her. 'But I think it was the only way to stop Nappa taking you into outer space. I-I tried to stop the ship by landing on top of it, but we were already on the edge of space and Nappa just flew the ship out from underneath me - I didn't have anything to hang on to. Vegeta was able to hang on by punching holes in the ship.'

Bulma closed her eyes, getting a clearer picture of what her rescue had looked like. A desperate team effort by Brolly and Vegeta. Who would have guessed that?

'What're we going to do?' Krillin whispered. 'We still have a plan B, right? Your wormhole generator?'

'Yes,' she agreed, though she felt more dread than hope at the thought of relying on it. Plan A - selling the ship and using the tournament money to buy passage through a private wormhole - was definitely the safest and most reliable plan. And now all the time, effort and money that had gone into it was wasted.

She got to her feet.

'Krillin, take me out to the particle accelerator, please.'

He let her get on his back, which was awkward due to his relative shortness, and they made the short flight across to the other arm of the ravine to her outdoor physics lab. When it came into view Bulma gripped Krillin's shoulders tight. The control centre for the accelerator was blackened.

'Uh, that doesn't look good,' Krillin noted, landing beside it. Bulma ran to it. Had Nappa sabotaged even her wormhole research? The housing of the control and power units were half melted, and black streaks ran from their bases into the sand, which had turned to glass in some spots. The ring of the accelerator was intact, but the insulated housing on some of the wires near the control unit were charred, and soot ran up the sides of the steel tubes. But wouldn't Nappa have just destroyed it outright? Wouldn't it be blasted across the ledge in pieces?

'Oh, my god! It got struck by lightning!' she said, remembering the storm that had struck last night. 'This is my fault!'

'How can it be your fault?' Krillin asked.

'Because I didn't think! Because I never thought the weather might change! I didn't think! Of course it would get hit by lightning if we had an electrical storm in the area! I didn't think! I didn't think!'

Author's Note: Good news for you, the second half of this chapter is currently being beta-ed, so expect that along soon.