#but i also wanna rub in the fact that out of several tens of thousands of characters i got her

[hprse]

Its all fun and games until you actually enjoy using mudae bot

[nanoland]

new chapter (lucifer fic)

Ponder on the Narrow House, part 6 

Mazikeen/Eve/Michael  

(Whole thing can be read on AO3.) 

0  

Fuck the next bounty.

After thinking about it for ten seconds, Mazikeen turned them around and started driving straight for Los Angeles.

Eve can talk to him. Not me. He needs to talk to someone, and Eve will do.

Barely half a mile later, Amenadiel dropped out of the sky and landed in the middle of the road, just far enough away for her to bring the car to a screeching halt before it would otherwise have slammed into him like wet clay into a steel wall.

“We’ve got a problem,” he said, looking exhausted.

She snorted and pointed skyward. “Yeah. This? Not gonna lie, I was expecting something like this. But I thought it would take, like, at least a month.”

Wincing, Amenadiel said, “No, that’s… that’s a different problem and Chloe’s promised to discuss it with him. Maze, we need you back at Lux. Now.”

“Hi, Amenadiel!” Eve called, waving.

He succeeded in smiling at her without even glancing at Michael, despite his younger brother sitting right at her side, glaring fixedly.

“Why?” demanded Mazikeen, tensely drumming her fingers on the wheel. (Inner voice hissing, Shouldn’t have left him alone, you dumb bitch, you’ve been doing this for centuries and you know what he’s like when you leave him alone for more than five minutes.) “Seriously – what could he possibly need me for? He’s God.”

Sighing, Amenadiel put his wings away. “Mazikeen, we’re all well aware that Lucy often… has difficulty focusing. To put it mildly. There’s a lot more for him to focus on now than ever before. He’s trying to undo climate change. To that end, he started refreezing all the melted ice in the Arctic. But he did it too quickly and, resultantly, there are several hundred trapped ships we need to save and several thousand dead penguins to resurrect and, to be honest, he hasn’t really got the hang of resurrection yet – you remember what Dan looked like for the first few hours after Lucifer brought him back to life…”

“Eurgh. Yeah. Yuck. Totes not the kinda shit you’d wanna see in Happy Feet.”

Michael was snickering.

“Right. And then there are all the changes he’s been making locally,” Amenadiel went on. “The expansion of Lux, the overnight disappearance of all Los Angeles’ firearms, his deciding that the city’s white supremacist population should grow a third ear so they can be easily identified, and, well, it turns out that a lot of Chloe’s colleagues at the police station-…”

“I get it, I get it. Chaos everywhere. As usual. What, exactly, is the problem he wants me to fix?”

Amenadiel exhaled heavily. “The demons. The ones you brought from Hell to help us defeat Michael.”

“Oh, so you do remember I exist,” Michael muttered.

Stonily ignoring him, Amenadiel said, “They’re still on Earth and they’re causing trouble. The one called Dromos, in particular. He’s gathered followers and they’ve surrounded Lux.”

Her brother’s face – his real face, not the human puppet he wore – flashed through her mind’s eye; a memory from when they were unruly children and had raced through Hell together, using the stone pillars that they’d not yet known were cells as an obstacle course. She’d been faster; he, more athletic. Together with a few cousins, they’d made a fearsome team, and not even their meanest older siblings had bullied them.

She folded her arms and looked away. “They’re demons. Lucifer can deal with them. Snap his fingers and turn them into rats or whatever. Make them explode.”

“Mazikeen,” Eve murmured, soft and low, touching her shoulder. “You don’t want that. They’re your family.”

Amenadiel blinked, as though that hadn’t occurred to him. “Er… yes, there’s that. There’s also the fact that Lucifer doesn’t want all of humanity to see him as the type of God who casually annihilates his enemies; a harsh, vindictive God. He wants to be liked. To be loved.”

“Fine. So why don’t you and the other angels sort it out?”

“Come now, Maze. A bunch of angels and a bunch of demons waging war in the midst of a bustling city? Humans will die. But you’re the Queen of Hell now and, by extension, the Queen of Demons. If you command Dromos to stand down, he will. This can all be resolved peacefully.”

Eve’s fingertips were cool against her skin.

Mazikeen looked back at the sky. The cloud letters were starting to dissolve. “What does he want?”

“Who?”

“Dromos. He doesn’t act on instinct. He’s a planner. He wants something.”

Shrugging, Amenadiel said, “He shouted at me about demanding an audience with the king. I didn’t ask for details. I don’t really care. Dromos isn’t someone I’m inclined to listen to at the best of times. The last time the wretch showed his face on Earth, he kidnapped my son.”

“Mmm. Kinda like your sister was gonna do. Kinda like you were gonna do, now that I think about it.”

“Maze!” he gasped, sounding shocked and hurt. “You can’t compared poor Remiel’s misguided actions to-…”

“I’ll do it,” she interrupted. “Take me to Lux. Now.”

“Excuse me? What about us?” snapped Michael.

Mazikeen met Eve’s gentle gaze. “You don’t need to be involved in this. My family drama, it – it’s not pretty.”

“My son killed my son,” said Eve, taking her hand. “My husband loved another woman. I’m used to drama.”

Swallowing, Mazikeen glanced at Michael. “And you, wimp?”

Feigning disinterest – feigning it badly – he said, “You showed up to my last domestic dispute. Guess this’ll make us square.”

“I’ve only got two arms. I can’t carry all of you,” Amenadiel pointed out.

Mazikeen rubbed her chin. “No… but you can carry the car, right?”

0

He didn’t have time for this. There was so much to do.

“World hunger,” he recited as he bounced from one laptop to the next, all twenty-three of them displaying a different article or video by a leading scientific or sociological mind, “wealth inequality, pollution, cancer, droughts, racism, elderly abuse, housing shortages, cruelty to animals…”

“Lucifer,” said Linda patiently, sitting on his best couch with her legs crossed, a cup of coffee and a laptop of her own beside her. “You said you wanted my advice as to how you should manage this whole ‘being God’ business.”

“I do, doctor! Very much. Your input is invaluable. Blast, where did I put that map of Alaska? I’m thinking of making it bigger; slotting it in alongside the Arctic to help stabilise all that new ice.”

“Right. Thanks. So here – here is what I’m suggesting now; slow down. Seriously. Take a breath, step back, and think your next move through.”

He scoffed. “‘Slow down’? Doctor, I need to work at least three times faster if I’m to keep up with everything. There are people suffering everywhere, millions of them! There are sinners in need of punishment! I’m seriously considering asking Chloe to be my Deputy God. I never imagined omnipotence would entail so much paperwork and she’s always been better at that than me.”

Outside the penthouse, many stories below, the chanting grew louder. None of the human police officers, journalists, and gawkers who’d gathered to watch could understand it; it was in Lilim.

Cursing, Lucifer strode to the balcony and shouted down, “For the last time, would you all kindly piss off? I’m trying to fix an entire planet here!”

He heard the elevator open and moaned. “Detective, not now. Please. I’m very sorry I haven’t returned your calls – I swear I’m not avoiding you – it’s just that I’ve got a lot on my plate today and we did already agree to meet for supper at-…”

“Lucifer,” said Linda, sounding terrified.

“Lucifer,” said someone else, sounding irritable.

Now that he was God, rage didn’t turn his eyes red anymore. It turned them gold and blindingly bright, like spotlights. Fists clenched, he turned to see Dromos step into the penthouse, once again clad in the flesh of the late Father Kinley and wearing a leather jacket.

“Nice trick, making all the doors disappear. Finally decided to climb up the side of the building with a sledgehammer and burrow my way through into the elevator shaft,” said the demon, hands in his pockets and concrete dust coating his beard and his bald head. “I want to talk to you, sire.”

Storming across the room while Linda remained frozen, white-faced, on the couch, Lucifer snarled, “You! You have the nerve to come here, to stand before me, after what you did to my nephew?”

He took Dromos by the neck and lifted him off the ground, his wings opening in fury (he had six of them now).

Stoical even as he choked, Dromos said, “I need. To talk. I will leave immediately afterwards.”

“Oh, you’ll leave, alright! You’ll be lucky if I don’t throw you into an active volcano, you accursed traitor!”

Dromos’ stolen skin began to sizzle beneath his fingers. He waited until the demon’s face was wrinkled with pain before throwing him to the floor hard enough to crack the wood and make a crater.

“I will leave,” Dromos gasped, coughing up blood, “when I have spoken.”

“What could you possibly have to say for yourself? Kidnapper. Child-thief.”

Still on the couch, Linda said tremulously, “Lucifer, you’re… you’re hurting him. Stop it. Please.”

“Let us stay!” shouted Dromos, and coughed again before dragging himself up onto his knees. “On Earth. That’s what I came to say. Let your erstwhile subjects stay on Earth if they choose – at least, those who served you in the battle against Michael. Don’t force them to return to Hell. Let them, let us choose where we live, going forward. That’s my request, your Majesty. My only request.”

Lucifer boggled at him. “Is that a joke? Demons? On Earth, indefinitely, unsupervised? Are you out of your tiny mind, Dromos?”

Baring teeth, Dromos said, “Why not? What does it matter to you now? You’ve got everything you could possibly want. Everything anyone could possibly want! All we’re asking is the freedom to come and go as we please.”

“No.”

He spoke the word bluntly, and then he stepped back, adjusting his cuffs. Regaining his composure. “Never. You’re dangerous and untrustworthy. This world is for humans, not you. Good grief, haven’t I got enough to preoccupy my mind, without the added stress of demons rampaging around town?”

“We won’t rampage. We just-…”

“Why are you even coming to me with this? Mazikeen’s the new Queen of Hell. Didn’t you get the memo?”

Dromos wiped blood from his lips. “I don’t know if my sister and I are on speaking terms right now. And she may be Queen, but you’re God; I assumed you would be tasked with such decisions. After all, there’s never been a demon in charge of Hell before. We were told – we were always told – that only angels could rule us. I don’t doubt Mazikeen’s competence, but I…”

He seemed to run out of steam, spreading his hands and finishing weakly, “Lucifer, you’re the king. You’ve been the king for millions of years. For my entire life. Look, if you really don’t want us leaving Hell, then can you at least use your newfound power to improve it? Let us have the things mortals enjoy? Pianos, dogs, blankets, weekends, all that stuff?”

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “That would rather defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it? Hell is supposed to be a place of punishment. The ultimate consequence awaiting sinners. I need a carrot and a stick, Dromos. How else am I supposed to convince people to behave if I don’t? Imagine a rapist arriving in Hell and being confronted with demons playing pianos and walking their dogs. Wouldn’t have quite the desired effect, would it?”

Dromos was quiet for a moment, then said without inflection, “Perhaps you could find somewhere else to put rapists. Somewhere other than our home.”

Throwing up his arms, Lucifer said, “More demands! Don’t you see how selfish you’re being? Here I am, doing my best to end all suffering, and you’re complaining about babysitting a few evil-doers – which, might I remind you, is your job. Nay, your very reason for existence. Always has been. Why’re you getting stroppy about it now?”

“I think,” Linda began, taking a tentative step forward before stopping and clearing her throat. “Excuse me. May I interrupt? Um. Okay, so I think that maybe Dromos has a point here, Lucifer.”

“Doctor! This is the creature that stole your baby!”

“Yes, I know. And I’m not saying I forgive him for that, but…”

“I wasn’t going to eat the brat,” Dromos grumbled. “I was going to make him a king.”

“You took him away from his mother!” Lucifer shouted.

“Gentlemen!” said Linda, sharply. “Please! Let’s try to talk this through like adults.”

Overcome with frustration, and only vaguely aware that he’d not been sleeping well lately, Lucifer kicked the nearest chair. “I can’t believe you’re siding with him, doctor.”

“I’m not siding with anyone. I-…”

“You don’t know these people like I do. You didn’t spend millions of years in Hell alongside them. The only demon you’ve ever gotten acquainted with is Maze, and she’s not like the others; even without a soul, she’s learned how to behave like a more-or-less civilised adult, barring the occasional tantrum. But your average, baseline demon has nothing to them besides wrath and cruelty. Lilith made them to be weapons and that’s all they really are. I mean – just imagine, for a moment, how hard it was for me. To go from the Silver City, the most beautiful place ever created, to a lightless nightmare realm full of these bloodthirsty animals. To be surrounded by them, for endless eons, while they nattered mindlessly on and on about how much they love torture and pain and…”  

He trailed off. Linda and Dromos were both looking past him.

To the elevator. Where – oh – Mazikeen was standing.

Where Mazikeen was crying.

No sobs, not like when Dan had died. No expression at all, really. Just open eyes, motionless muscles, and steady tears.

Before Lucifer could say a word, she pressed the button to close the elevator doors.

“Wait!” he yelped, sprinting over to stop them.

He needn’t have bothered. Now that he was God, objects did whatever he told them to do. The doors stilled, half-open.

“That sounded wrong,” he acknowledged, clasping her shoulders in apology. “You completely missed the context. What I was trying to say was-…”

“Don’t touch me.”

It was a phrase he’d heard many times before from mortal lovers to whom he had accidentally revealed his Devil Face. Some of them said it in horror. Some of them, the religious ones, said it in anger.

Mazikeen looked neither horrified nor angry. She looked sick. As though the very sight of him turned her stomach.

Lumbering over, Dromos stepped into the elevator alongside her and pointedly pressed the button again. With no idea what to do or say, Lucifer allowed the machinery to work.

The elevator closed.

“What have I done?” he asked Linda.

0

Nothing I didn’t know.

“Maze?” called Eve, waiting by the car with the others as Mazikeen stepped out of Lux’s front door and into the sunlight.

The door hadn’t been there when they’d arrived. She’d been forced to use Dromos’ route. Lucifer must have decided to put it back. He could do that now. Just decide things. Didn’t need servants, nor followers, nor anyone. Sure didn’t need a ‘more-or-less civilised adult’ whose kin were animals.

“Maze! Wait!”

Mazikeen didn’t know where she was going, only that she was walking very quickly and felt that she’d die if she stopped. She heard Eve’s heels patter on the pavement and heard her say her name a third time, quiet and worried, and that was what stilled her feet.

“What happened?” murmured Eve, cupping her face.

The fifty or so demons who’d been standing around outside Lux when Amenadiel had set the car and its passengers down were still there. Instead of chanting to get their king’s attention, they were now looking at her.

Michael and Amenadiel stood among them, the latter having been trying to convince them to stop blocking traffic.

Which was what she should have been doing. It was what he’d brought her here to do. But she’d been gripped by a sudden, violent need to see Lucifer, to check on him, just quickly, before tending to her siblings. Once a bodyguard, always a bodyguard.

Except that wasn’t what I was. Not to him. To him, I was a Rottweiler on a leash.

“Are you alright?” asked Amenadiel, his eyes overflowing with concern.

That was what cracked her.

To him. Not to everyone. Not to Eve, or Amenadiel, or Linda. It’s not that I’m incapable of earning love and respect.

I’m just incapable of earning his.

Her legs gave out. She crumpled against Lux’s outside wall and started to weep properly, loud and bitter.

Eve immediately dropped down beside her, holding her tight. Michael shuffled closer, rubbing his shoulder while his mouth opened and shut, testing out sentences that were never spoken.

Then Dromos was there, kneeling, his face sad and tired.

“We did what we were told,” she said to him in Lilim, through sniffles. “We obeyed. We were loyal. We… we…”

“We are alone, sister,” he replied. “But I think we always were.”

“We obeyed!”

“We obeyed Lilith and she left. We obeyed Lucifer and he left. No one wants us, Mazikeen. It’s just the truth.”

She took a shuddering breath and squeezed her eyes shut. “No. I want us.”

Seizing his jacket’s shoulder, she hauled herself to her feet and addressed the crowd, her voice raw: “I want you! You’re my family and I want you! And I swear I will be the queen you deserve, for as long as you’ll have me!”

Her human skin fell away, the left side of her face turning cold, bony, and brittle.

Stepping back to join their siblings, Dromos asked hesitantly, “What would you have us do, then, my queen? What are your orders?”

Hurriedly drying her eyes, she studied them one by one. “Whoever wants to can stay here. But I’m going home. Hell is going to be ours, Dromos. No more damned souls. No more angels. It’s ours now and we’re going to make it into something we can love.”

She turned to face Eve and Michael, her heart pounding. “You’ll come with me, yeah? You’ll stand with me?”

“Always,” said Eve, closing in to kiss her.

“Whatever,” Michael muttered, clearly just relieved that the crying part was over.

Amenadiel sighed, shaking his head gravely. “Mazikeen, are you sure this is what you want? You won’t be able to leave Hell on your own – you’ll need to contact me.”

“Yeah. At least until this one grows his feathers back,” she said, gesturing at Michael. “That’s okay. You’ll always come when I call, right?”

“Of course. You’re my friend, Maze. I’m sorry if I haven’t said that often enough.”

Fuck it. Cringing on the inside, Mazikeen drew Amenadiel into a quick, gruff hug. “You too, idiot.”

[bangtan-madi]

546 Days Without You — Eight: Day 225

Pairing — Seokjin x Reader, platonic!Namjoon x Reader

Tags — boyfriend!Seokjin, older brother!Yoongi, producer/songwriter!MC, military au (ish), idol au (ish)

Genre — fluff, angst

Word Count — 4.4k

Summary — Kim Seokjin is your entire world, and that world falls apart the moment he and your older brother Yoongi are conscripted into the South Korean military.

Part — 8 / 15

Warnings — minor language

A/N — Taglist is open! Comment or submit an ask if you want to be added :) 

Previous — Next

Once Bang PD gives his blessing on the next Tour, everyone at the company hits the group running. Choreography is created, photography and promotional material are completed, tour dates and locations are worked out, and the final details are worked out for the album. Everything is coming together beautifully, and about time, too! The release of Map of the Soul: Dream is less than six weeks away, and the excitement is only growing.

All of this is over your pay-grade, and gratefully so. You've spent most of the past month gawking over the wild success that your song Silhouette has been on Soundcloud. You had millions of plays by the end of the first day, let alone the impressive amount you have thirty-five days later. Your pride and joy has been in the news, on tons of fansites, and all across social media. No one expected the youngest Min sibling to do anything solo; you've taken the world by storm, rivaled only by the boys themselves. The overwhelming consensus is that you blew it out of the park.

"It's actually worked out perfectly from a marketing standpoint," Bang PD said at a meeting recently. "Your fame is only going to fuel the fire of the comeback since we've been radio silent since December. Thanks to you, we've been given a little push that we needed. But you know what would be even better?"

You knew what he was going to suggest, and you scoffed when he said it aloud.

"Put your song on the album as a feature and tour with the boys. People will lose their damn minds, I know it."

"The only person who's lost his mind is you, PD-nim."

While you'd teased him at the meeting with the boys, the idea has pricked your interest. While the thought of performing in front of tens of thousands of people terrifies you in a way you can't explain, it also gave you a sense of excitement. Your anxieties are holding you back, you know it, but what can you do against your own dread?

"That must be a pretty interesting batch of ochazuke."

You smirk and turn towards the leader of the group, lifting the bowl of green tea on rice. Or, as it's called in Japan, ochazuke. "Made enough for two. Want some?"

Namjoon's dimples deepen as he sneaks around the corner with a giddy grin. "You're the best. Jin and Yoongi's cooking skills have rubbed off on you."

Due to the busy schedule, you've temporarily moved back into the dorms to be closer to the madness. You've done similar things in previous comebacks, and the boys always loved having you around 24/7. This is never more true than around mealtime. With the two oldest members gone, aka the only ones that are qualified to operate anything in the kitchen, there have been weeks at a time where takeout is the only thing the group consumes. As your workload has lessened due to the nature of being a music producer, and their's has gotten heavier, you've taken it upon yourself to make home life a little more normal.

"I asked Yoongi to send me the recipe last time I wrote," you reply, pouring a serving of green tea over Namjoon's portion of the fish and rice. "I got it yesterday with his letter. Figured it would be a nice pick-me-up."

The member agrees and takes the dish with a slight and grateful bow. "Eat with me? I have to run back to the studio after, but the summer day is gorgeous, and I feel like we haven't had alone time in a while. Just you and me?"

You grip your lunch between your hands and nod eagerly, allowing Namjoon to lead the way to the expansive balcony of the dormitories. Being several floors off the ground and in the heart of Seoul, the area around you is gorgeous. The buildings stretch tall and imposing, casting shadows across the space as the mid-day sun streams through the light cloud cover.

He's right. The day is as close to perfect as you can imagine.

Once you both settle into the chairs in the corner of the balcony, under the wood and vine-woven covering that shades a little of the harsh sun out, you start to dig into the meal. While it doesn't taste exactly like when Yoongi makes it, you're elated to have a piece of him back.

"If you ever get tired of producing, you can always open a restaurant," Namjoon chimes, clearly enjoying himself as he scarfs down the dish.

You chuckle, replying, "Thanks, but I think I'll leave that to Mom. Music is my life. I can't imagine doing anything else. Ever."

"Actually...I wanted to pick your brain about something related to that. You mind?"

Taking another big bite, you shake your head. There are very few times you're not excited to have an in-depth conversation with Namjoon, about everything or anything. "Shoot."

Namjoon leans back in his chair, resting the bowl against his thigh as he chews lightly on the inside of his cheek, a nervous habit. "With the comeback and album release just around the corner, I've been thinking..." He turns to face you. "I'm not sure if Bang PD was kidding or serious when he offered to put you on the album that first time, but I talked to him about it after you shot him down...and I think it would be a really cool idea."

Your stomach does flip-flops at the thought. Instantly, you're shaking your head fervently and placing your bowl on the side table. "Nope."

"Why not?"

"'Cause."

Namjoon gives a disappointed scowl. "Not good enough, [Y/n]."

"I just don't want to, Namjoon," you retort, crossing your arms tightly over your chest. "If my song goes on 'Dream,' then it has to be performed. By me. On tour. In front of fifty-thousand people. I'm...I'm just not ready. I put out one song to exercise a creative outlet, not to get famous or perform life or anything like that. It's like 'Mono.' I never intended it to get this much attention."

"If I had the chance to perform 'Mono' on stage with the members, I would fucking take it," he replies wholeheartedly. 

"That's you, Joonie. That's not me."

Breathing a soft sigh, Namjoon takes another bite of his lunch. "Look, I've told you all this before. So have all the other members. We're not here to force you to sing in public or do anything you don't want to do. I just wanna be sure that you're not hiding behind your fear."

It takes every fiber of self-control not to roll your eyes. "Of course, I'm afraid."

"Of what? Not living up to BTS? Your brother or boyfriend?"

"Maybe at one point that was it, but no. It's not that anymore."

"Then what is it?"

Pulling your knees up to your chest, you hug them tightly as you try to vocalize your fears. "You guys know me. The real me. I'm sarcastic and snarky. I make inappropriate jokes and I use humor to mask my pain. I'm a little on the abrasive side and I like to pretend I'm the toughest person in the room. But when I'm in front of crowds or around people I don't know, I shut down. I get quiet. My inner lioness quiets and turns into a mouse. I just...Thinking about getting on that stage to sing and rap in front of thousands? That's probably my biggest fear."

Namjoon listens patiently, just as he always has. He's never rushed you or interrupted you; it's one of the many things you adore about him. As dorky and destructive and silly as he can be, above all else, Namjoon is the one person in the world you can go to about anything. This includes your brother boyfriend, best friend or childhood friend. Namjoon will give you the facts, an outside perspective, and a logical solution. He tries to be as objective as possible and not let emotions get in the way, all while being a gentle and caring soul.

"So, stage fright?" You nod a wordless reply. "That's completely normal, [Y/n]. We all started like that, and we all still get nervous when shows begin. And this isn't me trying to convince you, but I hope you realize that those anxieties are an outdated form of self-preservation. Those fears you have about being in front of crowds, it's leftover from a time when humans had to hide. Your brain is trying to keep you safe, but you can reprogram it. You don't have to live in that place of irrational fear forever. You don't have to let your mind keep you there. You can be stronger."

You crack a smile at his comparisons. "Of course you'd look at it that way."

"Well, it's true." He shrugs his shoulders. "Again, not trying to convince you otherwise. I just...Don't live in fear of others for the rest of your life, [Y/n]. Our time is short, and the time we have together—in front of the spotlight—that's even shorter. You have a chance. If you take it, you know you have all of our support. And if you don't want that, for a reason other than fear, you have it then, too."

Both of your phone's buzz. As you look at yours, you see an unknown number pop up on the screen. Figuring it's probably a spam call or journalist or someone else you really don't want to talk to, you ignore it.

Namjoon groans lightly at the text he's received. "Someone mixed up the names of the songs for the final version of the album. I gotta go fix this before they send it off. That's the last thing I need." As he stands, he gives you a grateful smile. "Thanks for the lunch and conversation. Always can count on both of those to be good with you. Sorry to leave so quickly."

You return the expression, waving your hand nonchalantly. "Don't worry about it. Go take care of business, boss."

The leader rolls his eyes and heads towards the door. He turns and points at you, still walking backwards, and says, "I meant what I said! If you want to include Silhouette, let me know. I send off the final version later tonight, say eight. Let me know before then? Just give me a call, and you're on."

"What would you do?" you shout after him, fingers playing absentmindedly with each other. "If you were in my shoes?"

Namjoon stops in mid-step, grip on the doorknob and eyes settling somewhere on the Seoul skyline. He takes a moment to think, then turns back to you with the response, "I'd go for it. What do you have to lose but the chance of a lifetime?"

Sometime after Namjoon leaves for the studio, you're sitting alone in Genius Lab, a pad of music sheets in one hand, a pencil in the other. Your mind continuously shifts back and forth between a wholehearted yes and a horrified no. Every possible angle replays over and over in your mind, including your conversation with the true middle member from earlier.

Glancing at the clock, you see the minute hand tick past the twelve. You've been here for hours, trying to bury your mind in writing another melody, but nothing is coming to you. You even went through Yoongi's unpublished works to see if anything your brilliant brother came up with would spark something. To no avail, the time has ticked past seven.

"Another hour," you murmur. "Gotta make up this damn indecisive mind."

Knowing you're not going to get anything else done tonight, you set the writing materials aside, stretch your legs, and make your way to the door. Tugging the hoodie over your hair, you shuffle back towards the balcony with the intention of getting some fresh air. The sun has yet to set, and the majestic hues that cascade across the tall buildings remind you of the first date you had with Seokjin all those years ago.

It brings a smile to your face, and you settle your front against the edge. Arms resting against the solid railing, your eyes focus upward. The moon is full and shining, and ever since the last album, it's a constant reminder of the man you love most.

Your phone rings again in your pocket. Retrieving it, you see the same number as before. It had called you again earlier in the afternoon after Namjoon had left, and you'd ignored it again. 

Huffing an annoyed breath, you swipe the answer key and place the phone against your ear. "Okay, what the hell? How did you get this number and why don't you give up on trying to sell me shit I don't want, nor need, and I'll have you know that I—"

Obnoxious, hiccupy, overly familiar laughter comes through as clear as day. It cuts you to your core, stunning you enough to spur you into a sputtering silence.

"Holy hell, Jagiya, that's some way to answer the phone!"

Your knees buckle, and you have to trip the railing to stay upright. Lower lip quivering, body trembling, eyes watering, you slide onto the ground and pull your legs to your chest. The free hand cups over your mouth as you try to hide the whimpers that escape.

"Jagi?" he murmurs, his voice softer than before. "Hey, are you okay, [Y/n]?"

You swallow hard and close your eyes, allowing the tears to fall. God, his voice sounds just as calming and perfect and lovely as ever. Despite the eight months of separation, it's the one thing that can bring you back to the last time you heard it—on that training field right before you said goodbye.

"S—Seokjin...is that...you?"

The love of your life gives a small, breathy chuckle. "I told you I'd see you soon, Jagiya. Have you ever known me to be a liar?"

A laugh slips out, tumbling past your weak sobs, and you finally allow him to hear your emotions. "God, yes! You lied about that horrid dress I wore to the MAMAs that one year. I looked terrible, and you looked like a King. You lie all the time, you big oaf."

"Excuse me, I thought you looked like a Queen!" Seokjin scoffs. "That's the last time I try to compliment you."

The lightness in his voice brings a smile to your face. Wiping the tears away with the sleeve of your hoodie, you ask, "Wait, how can you call me? I thought they didn't allow cell phones for Privates."

"They don't, not for Second Class at least. Guess who got a promotion and some special perks along with it?"

You gasp and wiggle in your seat from excitement. "You're First Class now? That's amazing, Jinnie! I'm so damn proud of you."

"I was hoping you'd get all excited," Seokjin says, elated at your response, "but I was starting to think you'd moved on after you wouldn't pick up."

"I didn't know the number, idiot! You know how many scammy calls we all get. Trust me, the last thing I felt like dealing with today was a journalist prying into my love life or asking about my future as an artist."

Your boyfriend makes a sound of understanding, then shifts the conversation. "I know I've written to you before about your song, but I have to tell you now. Jagi, I'm completely serious when I say I've never heard you so excited about anything. Or more passionate. Or sounding more beautiful. Silhouette is a masterpiece. I'm so proud of you." After saying such sweet words, he tosses in a playful scoff. "Although, I have to admit I'm a little pissed I didn't get to hear the process of you making it. And I'll have to ignore the fact that Taehyung-ah got to do that with you. Should've been me!"

You lean your head back against the railing, flashing an infamous smirk. "I know, I know. Believe me, when you get back, we'll compose plenty of music together."

"About damn time!"

There's a lull in the conversation as you stifle your laughter and Seokjin brings his voice down to a normal volume. "So, these phone privileges, how long do you have?"

"A half-hour or so," he replies. "I have my own phone for work at the base. To communicate with my team, that kinda thing, but we're allowed a half-hour a day after shifts to talk to our families. I knew my first call had to be to you."

"Not even your mother? I'm honored."

"Yeaaah, I'll hear about it when I call her tomorrow, trust me." 

Sentimentality tugs at your heart strings at his confession. "I appreciate it, Jinnie. I could use a pick-me-up."

"That reminds me..." He pauses, and there's shuffling on the other line, as if he's getting comfortable and settling in for a long talk. "How have you been, [Y/n]? I know we talk through letters all the time, but..."

"Just not the same?"

"Yeah," he breathes. "Exactly."

You bite your lower lip in anticipation. Half of you wants to tell him everything that's going on. The other half is fighting so hard against it. You just got him back after over half a year. Do you really want your first conversation to be about you? There are so many things you want to hear from him, about his life in the military. Even just to hear his voice would be a relief. Who knows how regular these talks can be.

But the things floating around in your mind have to settle soon, otherwise you might regret inaction.

"So...this can be a regular thing?"

"As regular as every day, if you want it. When I get a new phone, one maybe not made by the military, we can even facetime. How does that sound?"

An immense wave of relief washes over you, causing your to sigh, "God, Seokjin, that—that sounds absolutely perfect. I've missed you."

There's a smile in his voice; even over the phone, you've always been able to tell. "I've missed you, too, [Y/n]-ah. So, tell me. How's life been? How's the album coming, and tour? The boys? Anything on your mind?"

"Awww, but I was going to ask you the same thing. I wanna hear about the military and your work with your new team and how things are going."

"Next time," he laughs. "Promise. I've been dying to hear about the outside world, more than just bits and pieces through letters and word-of-mouth. Tell me what's on your mind; that'll make me so damn happy, you have no idea. And you sound a little pre-occupied. Is there something on your mind?"

Taking his words at face-value, you decide to relent and bring up the subject that's been occupying your mind all afternoon. "Well...if this is going to be a regular thing, I could actually use your advice right now."

"About what?" 

"I'm torn, and I've talked to Namjoon, but there's still so much I need clarity on. If you're up for listening, I'd love you a million times more."

"A million times more than infinity? How can I resist such a pretty lady's request?"

You tell him everything. All your fears, all your dreams, all your reservations and wishes, everything you discussed with Namjoon, and your own thoughts. Seokjin listens intently for the next few minutes, drinking in your words as if they're the last he'll ever hear.

Even with nearly eight months of separation, with nothing but letters to connect you, you pick up on caring for each other as if no time has passed at all.

When you finish your explanation, you wrap up with, "I just—I'm so torn. Like I said, I think deep down I want to do it. I wanna have Silhouette on 'Dream.' I wanna tour with our boys. I wanna live that secret dream and show the world my creativity and work and eight years' worth of effort. I'm just...I'm so terrified, Jinnie. It makes my skin crawl thinking about the stage, the audience, the crowds..."

As you trail off, Seokjin speaks up for the first time in nearly ten minutes. "I know how you feel, better than anyone I think, but I think you're underestimating just how much you've grown and changed. Even, and especially, since December. You've become a lot bolder, a lot more sure of yourself and your music, and a lot more willing to share. This time last year, would you even have thought about releasing your own song? Let along contemplating its addition to our next album?"

"No," you reply, stifling a laugh at the idea of your former self. "Definitely not."

"See? That's exactly what I mean. You've changed, Jagi, in all the best ways. I've seen it. The boys see it. Clearly Bang PD sees it, too. Why else would he ask you several times to join them on tour? It's just been a gradual change, so slow and sneaky you didn't notice it yourself. But look back on the last year. You've come such a long way. I bet, if you wanted to give it a go, you'd find tour invigorating."

"You live for tour, though."

"I didn't at first," he admits. "I was just good at hiding it. As the oldest, I felt it was my job to put on a brave face for the other members." Seokjin groans a little bit at the confession. "You know me. You know how introverted and private I am. I have come to love performing, but there were shows where I almost died of fright. I had to grow and change, just like you are now. It's growing pains, but it will only do you good in the end."

"You really think so?"

"I do." There a hint of pride and warmth in his voice, one you've surely missed. "You asked Namjoon what he would do if he were you. He's as honest as they come, and I have to agree. If I were you—because at one time, I was you—I would take the leap of faith. What's that quote you love so much? 'Take the leap of faith. Aim for the moon. Even if you miss'—"

"—'You'll land among the stars," you grin, mumbling the remaining portion of the saying.

Seokjin gives a deep and amused chuckle. "That's my girl." A beat of silence fills the space. "What're you thinking about, Jagi?"

"That it's been too many damn days without you," you admit, allowing your eyes to flutter shut. "I've counted every one."

"We're on Day 225," your boyfriend agrees. "Don't worry. I've been keeping count as well."

"Only 321 more to go. Didn't think I'd survive 546 days without you, but we're halfway there, so there's hope I suppose."

"You know, that's what I wanted our song to be called originally, but I chickened out and forgot to give it an actual name."

Your eyes open. Staring up at the sky overhead, you see the stars start to twinkle, the moon rise over the buildings, and the sky shift from warm hues to cool tones. "Our song?"

"The one I left you, the one Namjoon gave you. I know we agreed to put it on 'Dream,' but don't you think it should have a proper name?"

"I agree. What was it? '546 Days Without You'?"

Seokjin scoffs at the English phrasing. "Or the Hangul equivalent."

You burst into laughter, hearing him laugh right along with you. "You're such a hopeless romantic."

"Only for you."

"That's a damn lie, Kim Seokjin."

"Okay, okay, Min [Y/n]," he confesses, and you can almost see him lifting his hands in defense. "Caught me in a lie. But I do love you, and that's not a lie."

Your tone softens at his adoring words. "I love you, too."

"So, when do you have to let Namjoon-ah know of your decision?"

"Um..." You pull away from the phone, looking down at he digital clock. It reads just after seven-thirty. "Like, right now? Shit."

"No worries, Jagi," Seokjin says with casual ease. "I'm at my daily limit anyway. I'll text you from this number tomorrow, okay? You'll have to let me know what you decide. Just know, whatever you choose, you have me in your corner."

You pull yourself up from the ground, brushing off your pants and pulling yourself together. "I adore you, you know that?"

"I do," he laughs. "Goodnight, [Y/n]."

"Goodnight, Jinnie. Sweet dreams."

The call ends, and you lower the device from your ear. Your heart is at ease for the first time in what feels like months. The conversation you so desperately needed to have with the person you yearned for most has settled your soul. The restlessness you felt today has subsided, and in its place is certainty and resolve.

Quickly calling Namjoon, you get him on the second ring. "Put it on." It comes barreling out of you like an instinct. Because of that, you know you've made the right decision. "Add Silhouette to 'Map of the Soul: Dream.'"

Namjoon hesitates before asking, "Are you sure? I mean, I'm thrilled! But don't let anything I said pressure you."

"I'm sure," you nod, even if he can't see it. "More sure than I've been in a while."

"All right," he relents, sounding more excited than anything else. "Track thirteen is all yours! Gotta say, cutting it a bit close."

"I know, I know. I'll explain when you get home." You push back into the dorms, leaving the balcony and your fears behind. "Also, is it too late to change a track name?"

"Um...technically no? Which song, and to what? And while I'm at it, why?"

You huff out a sigh, having too much energy to stay home any longer. "Screw it." Grabbing your scarf, you dance towards the door. "I'm coming down there. Give me five."

"Um...okay, but [Y/n]—[Y/n], are you still there? Helloooo? You didn't tell me why we're changing it? What the hell, did I break the connect—"

Taglist — @joyful-jimin​, @gracehiii​, @live-2-fangirl​, @rjsmochii​​

[longitudinalwaveme]

Villainy Squared

Dramatis Personae

Batman/Bruce Wayne, the heroic but grumpy crime fighting vigilante

Harley Quinn/Harleen Quinzel, the eccentric and dimwitted girlfriend of Joker

Harvey Dent/Two-Face, the angry D.A. turned mob boss who bases his decisions on coin flips

The Riddler/Edward Nygma, a childish, riddle-obsessed technological genius

The Scarecrow/Jonathan Crane, a psychopathic psychologist; obsessed with fear

Script

Act I

(Enter Riddler and Two-Face from different directions)

Riddler: Riddle me this, Gotham! What has- (Pause) Two-Face? What are you doing here?

Two-Face: Out of the way, Nygma. This is the Second National Bank, and I’m going to rob it.

 Riddler: But this is my heist! I’ve been planning it for months! You can’t just interrupt months of detailed planning because of your obsession with the number two! Why, I’ve already set up my riddle-based death traps of doom in there!

Two-Face: Tough luck, Nygma. You should’ve known better than to gamble on  the Second National Bank with me on the loose. Now get lost. (Shoves Riddler to the ground)

Riddler: Ow! (Stands up, brushes himself off) That was entirely uncalled for! And I’m not going anywhere until you find a different bank to rob. This one is mine! Mine! All mine!

Two-Face: Do you really want to tussle with me, Nygma?

Riddler: You aren’t so tough. I can take you. Probably.

Two-Face: (Laughs) A skinny little nerd like you? In your dreams, loser.

Riddler: I’m not a loser! Why, I’m Gotham’s greatest criminal mastermind and the smartest person in Gotham! You’re just a dumb thug!

Two-Face: I may be a thug, but I’m far from dumb. I was a lawyer before I turned to crime, remember? You have to be smart to get through law school!

Riddler: Whatever you say, Two-Face, whatever you say.

Two-Face: (Grabs Riddler by collar) Look here, punk. I’d feel bad fighting a weakling like you, so I’ll give you one last chance to leave. If you don’t, I’ll beat you to a pulp. Got it?

Riddler: But-but I can’t leave! I spent ten thousand dollars on this heist! If I don’t make a profit, I’m gonna be broke! Those riddle traps aren’t cheap, you know.

Two-Face: That’s your problem, Nygma, not mine. Now leave, or it won’t be just your bank account that’s broke.

(Enter Harley)

Harley: Hi, Two-Face! Hi, Eddie! What are you guys doing here?

Riddler: Hi, kid. I’m trying to rob this bank with the help of my riddle-based death traps of doom, but apparently Two-Face had a similar idea, and so we’re now having a difference of opinion regarding who should rob the bank.

Two-Face: (Shakes Riddler a bit) Yeah, and Nygma was just deciding to leave the bank robbing to a professional. What are you doing here, Harley?

Harley: Mister J sent me to rob the bank to fund our next comedy show.

Two-Face: Well, tell that green-haired freak that Two-Face beat you to it. This is my bank to rob, not his or anyone else’s. Isn’t that right, Nygma?

Riddler: Y-yes, sir. Just let me go and I’ll be out of your hair- (Aside) And out of money again! This stinks! How am I supposed to get respect when this keeps happening?

(Two-Face releases Riddler; Riddler rubs his neck)

Harley: Uh, I don’t think Mister J will like the idea of you taking his money, Two-Face.

Two-Face: Well, that’s too bad, because I’m taking it anyway.

Harley: Couldn’t the three of us just split the money, Two-Face? That way, we can all get what we want, and we don’t have to fight over it.

Riddler: Kid, we’re villains. We don’t share money with anyone, not even adorable little things like you. Sorry to disappoint.

Harley: But we’re friends, aren’t we?

Two-Face: No, we aren’t. At best, we’re acquaintances. Now you two had better get lost before I lose my temper. Like I said earlier, this is my heist, and I don’t share.

(Harley starts crying; Enter Scarecrow)

Scarecrow: Greetings, citizens of Gotham. You are about to participate in the largest experiment in mass hysteria ever recorded, courtesy of me, the Scarecrow! (Notices others) Wait- what are the three of you doing here? You’re not part of my experiment.

Two-Face: Go away, you sadistic creep. I don’t want anything to do with a sicko like you.

(Harley pulls out improbably long handkerchief to blow nose)

Scarecrow: Scared, Two-Face? You should be. And Riddler, how nice to see you.

Riddler: H-hello, Scarecrow. I-I was just leaving. See you around! (Tries to exit, only for Scarecrow to grab him and pull him back)

Scarecrow: Leaving so soon? Why, the experiment has only just begun!

Two-Face: (Mutters) Experiment, my foot. (To the others) I thought I told all three of you to leave! This is my bank robbery, not a fear experiment or a way to fund stupid jokes or a way to prove intellectual superiority! Now go before I get violent!

Scarecrow: Leave intimidation to me, Two-Face. You lack the proper finesse to be truly frightening to anyone-except for cowards like Riddler, of course.

Riddler: I-I’m not a coward! I’m a genius! (Aside) Why, oh, why did I have to pick the one bank in Gotham that three other supervillains wanted? It’s going to ruin me, and then I’ll never be able to prove that I’m better than Batman! It’s not fair! They cheated me! They cheated! (Pouts)

Harley: (Notices the Scarecrow, runs to him, hugs him) Hiya, Professor Crane! It’s nice to see you! How have you been?

Scarecrow: Good evening, child. I have been doing well, and I have conducted many fascinating experiments in fear. How have you been?

Harley: Great, Professor Crane!

Two-Face: (To Harley) You actually like this psycho?

Harley: Of course! He was my professor of psychology!

Scarecrow: And she was my favorite student. Her grasp of the physiological and psychological effects of fear, as well as the names and causes of many phobias, was astounding. (Pause) Now, if you’ll all excuse me, I have a fear experiment to conduct.

Two-Face: Oh, no, you don’t. No one’s committing a crime in that bank but me!

Harley: No, I’m robbing it for Mister J!

Scarecrow: Child, my experiments are much more important than petty thievery, and there are plenty of other banks for you to rob. Couldn’t you attack one of them instead?

Harley: Mister J specifically told me to attack this one, Professor Crane. Couldn’t you do your experiment somewhere else? Or just wait for me to rob the bank before you start your experiment? I really wanna impress Mister J, and he’ll kill me if I don’t do what he says.

Two-Face: Why do you stay with that clown? He’s such a creep!

(The three ad lib an argument)

Riddler: Fellow villains, I have a brilliant solution to our problem! (Pause) Hey, guys, I have an idea! (Pause) Is anybody listening to me? I said I have an idea. (Pause) BE QUIET SO I CAN TELL YOU ALL MY PLAN!

(Other villains stop arguing)

Scarecrow: So, you finally grew a spine. I’m impressed, Riddler. What’s your idea?

Riddler: We all want to attack the same bank, but none of us are willing to team up or take turns, right?

Harley/Scarecrow/Two-Face: Right.

Riddler: So why don’t we bet for it? I have a fine set of cards at home, after all. The winner of the game gets to rob the bank-or spread fear gas, as the case may be- and the other three have to help them. Does that sound like a brilliant plan or what?

Harley: I love games! I’m in!

Two-Face: Everybody has equal odds of winning. That sounds fair to me. But I’ll have to flip my coin to decide. (Flips coin) The coin says that it’s a good idea. Let’s play.

Scarecrow: I normally dislike games, but, as this one will allow me to spend time with Harley, study three severely disturbed individuals, and get assistants for my experiment, I will play your game as well, and study how much you suffer from Ludophobia- the fear of losing-by so doing.

Riddler: Terrific! Let’s go to my Riddle-Lair.

(Exit all)

Act II

(Enter Batman on the phone)

Batman: Hello? Hello, Commissioner Gordon. Is something wrong? (Pause) The Scarecrow’s escaped from Arkham, too? That makes four high-profile criminals on the loose. Do we have any leads as to where they might have gone? Mmm-hmm. Uh-huh. Make sure that Gotham’s citizens know not to attempt to engage them. The last time someone tried that, they ended up in the hospital. Thanks for telling me about his escape. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Well, I’ll start looking for him-and Arkham’s other three escapees-straightaway. Good-bye, Commissioner. (Puts phone away) Hello, audience. I am Batman, the guardian of Gotham City. I have been protecting the innocent citizens of Gotham City from its large collection of lunatics, mob bosses, corrupt politicians, psychopathic psychologists, and ordinary thieves and thugs, and I have also trained my ward, young Dick Grayson, to help me fight crime as Robin. However, he is in Washington, D.C. for a field trip, and so I am single-handedly striking fear into superstitious, cowardly criminals until he returns. However, I am currently facing a much more serious problem than usual: namely, the fact that Harley Quinn, Two-Face, the Riddler, and the Scarecrow have escaped from Arkham and are running amok. Each one is a dangerous criminal in their own right, and the idea of all four on the loose simultaneously would be enough to strike strong fear into the hearts of the good people of Gotham. Therefore, I must quickly defeat and recapture all four criminals before they can start committing crimes-or, worse yet, decide to team up. To the Batmobile, audience! (Batman pantomimes getting into car and then driving it) My sources tell me that the Riddler is hiding out in an abandoned publishing facility, while Harley Quinn is in an abandoned amusement park and the Scarecrow is in an abandoned haunted house. Two-Face is probably in one of his many apartments, but I’m not sure which one he’s in, so I should probably look for him first. Tell me if you see anything, audience. Thank you.

Act III

(Enter Riddler, Two-Face, Scarecrow, and Harley)

Harley: Nice place you got here, Eddie.

Riddler: I know, right? I took over this publishing facility after it was abandoned, added a few personal touches, and wallah! Instant masterpiece of home decorating!

Two-Face: If you like neon green question marks, maybe.

Riddler: Who doesn’t ?

Two-Face: 99.9% of people who aren’t you.

Harley: I like it. It’s so shiny and pretty!

Two-Face: That’s because, you, like Nygma, have the attention span, maturity level, and taste of a six-year-old.

Riddler: I do not have the brain of a six-year-old! Why, I’m the world’s greatest criminal mastermind! If I wasn’t a mature adult, I couldn’t be.

Two-Face: One, your claim to that title is very, very debatable. Two, even if you are a mastermind, your crimes are based on riddles, puzzles, and brainteasers. You’re an adult who uses children’s games for your crimes, and you throw hissy fits when you lose. Even I can’t deny that you’re a genius when it comes to tech and wordplay, but you have an extremely immature outlook on the majority of life.

Scarecrow: In other words, Riddler, you’re a technological and linguistic savant. Your skill in those areas far outstrips your capability in any other aspect of life, and in terms of social behavior you are extremely delayed to the point of it being clear that, emotionally and socially speaking, you’re still a small child. And Harleen has regressed to that point as well, in large part thanks to the Joker. Both of you are adults who act like children, and it’s why you’re insane.

Riddler: Whatever. You’re just jealous because neither of you has a brilliant mind like mine. (He grabs a box of cards and sits down at a table with them)

Scarecrow:  (To Two-Face) And, of course, his delusions of grandeur make his mental issues worse. (Both laugh and sit down)

Harley: Professor Crane! Two-Face! Stop being mean to Eddie! (Sits down)

Riddler: Yeah, stop being mean to Eddie-er, me!

Two-Face: (To Riddler) Aww, did we hurt your feelings? Scarecrow: (To Two-Face) Knock it off, Two-Face.

Two-Face: Why? It’s fun to watch Nygma freak out.

Scarecrow: I told you to knock it off! I don’t particularly care for Riddler, either, but we’re upsetting Harleen by making fun of him, and I hate it when she gets upset.

Two-Face: Who are you, and what have you done with Jonathan Crane?

Scarecrow: Harleen is my only friend, all right? I’m allowed to be nice to one person, aren’t I?

Two-Face: So, the big bad Scarecrow has a soft spot, huh? How cute.

Scarecrow: Mock me again and I’ll give you a faceful of fear gas.

Two-Face: Okay, okay, I’m sorry!

Scarecrow: That’s better. So, Riddler, what are we playing?

Riddler: I was thinking poker, but it’s really up to you three. I mean, I’ll win no matter what we play, so it doesn’t matter to me.

Two-Face: (Flips coin) The coin says we play blackjack.

Scarecrow: I was hoping to play rummy, myself, but as I am here to win, not to enjoy myself, I don’t particularly care what we play.

Harley: Um, the only card game I know how to play is Go Fish. Can we play that?

Riddler: You’ve never played a card game besides Go Fish? Really?

Harley: Really really, Eddie.

Riddler: Why?

Harley: All the other ones confuse me.

Riddler: I see. Since I don’t feel like teaching you to play poker, I guess we’re playing go fish.

Scarecrow: Very well. As I said, this  is merely an opportunity for me to study human behavior, nothing more. Go Fish is as good a game as any for that purpose.

Two-Face: No way are we playing Go Fish. That game is for little kids, not super criminals. Can you imagine how we’d look playing a game for little kids?

Riddler: Well, according to you, Harley and I act like children anyway, so why wouldn’t we play a kids’ game?

Two-Face: Okay, then, imagine how I’d look playing a kids’ game.

Harley: Aww, you’d be adorable , Two-Face!

Two-Face: Not the point I was trying to make. I wouldn’t look adorable, I’d look stupid, and nobody in the underground would ever take me seriously again. I am not playing Go Fish!

Scarecrow: All right, then you forfeit the game and have to help whichever one of us wins carry out our crime.

Two-Face: Fine! If that’s how you’re gonna play it, then I’ll ask my coin whether I should participate. (Flips coin; groans) Deal me in.

(Riddler deals and the four play Go Fish, ad libbing all the while)

Riddler: Yipee! I won! I won! I actually won! And you two thought I was a joke!

(Two-Face and Scarecrow grumble and glare as Riddler does an obnoxious happy dance)

Harley: Congrats, Eddie! Do you mind if I steal a little something for myself to keep Mister J happy while we’re helping you?

Riddler: Of course not. I may be a psychotic maniac, but even I don’t want to see you get hurt by that barbaric clown again. Speaking of which, you should really find a new boyfriend who treats you with the respect you deserve.

Harley: Whaddaya mean, Eddie? My puddin’ loves me!

Scarecrow: No, he doesn’t. If he did, he wouldn’t threaten to kill you for failing to fulfill his requests. I’ve told you this a thousand times before-he doesn’t love you, he’s using you.

Harley: Well, maybe Mister J is a little rough sometimes-

Riddler: A little rough? He pushed you out of a fourth-story window! What’s a lot rough for you, having him drop a nuclear bomb on you? Oh, wait-he was willing to do that, too!

Harley: But I l-l-love him!

(Harley starts crying again, Riddler pats her on the back awkwardly)

Two-Face: Does anyone else find it a little odd that three supervillains are lecturing someone about how they’re in an abusive relationship?

Scarecrow: Maybe a little. But then again, I used to be a psychologist. I know the signs of an abusive relationship when I see one.

Two-Face: You do? I thought you only cared about fear.

Scarecrow: I may be fascinated by the effects of fear on the human psyche, but that doesn’t mean that I have completely forgotten everything else I learned in order to become a psychologist. And besides, that poor child’s fear of disappointing the Joker, while invigorating for me in the abstract, is also what keeps her from leaving him. Fear plays a large role in such abusive relationships, and as such, I know a lot about it. (Pause) Poor child. Poor, poor child.

Two-Face: Why does her relationship with the Joker bother you ? You’re the psycho who deliberately makes people see their worst fears for your twisted “research”!

Scarecrow: That doesn’t mean I entirely lack standards, Two-Face. And, even if it did, that doesn’t mean that I want the only person in my entire life who ever wanted to be my friend to be constantly abused by the clown who claims to love her.

Two-Face: Okay, you have a point. (Examines his gun)

Harley: Why does everyone think that my puddin is abusing me? He doesn’t mean anything by what he does to me. (Blows nose)

Riddler: We think he’s abusing you because he is! He threw you out of a fourth-story window, drove you insane, got you involved in battles with a crime fighting ninja, throws you around, hits you, never listens to what you have to say, lies to you, makes fun of you, makes you do things against your will, and ignores you when you’re not convenient. What else would you call that?

Scarecrow: It’s simple psychology, really. He follows the standard pattern of abusers: he pretends he’s nice to win you to his side, then he makes you think that you can’t live without him, and once he’s convinced he can control you, he starts with the abuse.

Harley: But I love him!

Riddler: Is loving him worth him trying to kill you when he gets angry?

Harley: Yes.

(Riddler and Scarecrow groan)

Scarecrow: Child, if you stay with him, he will kill you. I am very similar to him, so I know that he is incapable of love. At best, you are a diversion to him. At worst, you are a punching bag. You need to break up with him and find someone else-preferably someone else who is less prone to creating gigantic explosions.

Riddler: My vote would be that you turn “puddin” into pudding, but that’s neither here nor there. Either way, you should ditch that creep and move on with your life.

Harley: But where would I go?

Riddler: Poison Ivy likes you. Maybe you could go live with her.

Harley: Thanks for the suggestion. You guys are the best friends a psychotic nutcase could ask for. (Blows nose) From now on, I’m done with that homicidal, abusive clown.

Scarecrow: Wonderful! And if he tries to bother you, I’ll give him a nightmare that he’ll never wake up from.

(Harley hugs Riddler, who looks thrilled, then hugs Scarecrow)

Riddler: (Aside) I got hugged by a girl! Score!

Two-Face: Can we go rob the bank now, please? I’m as fond of weird counseling sessions as anyone else, but if we don’t get going soon, I’m going to forget our deal and rob the place by myself using my own plan.

Riddler: Okay, okay, we’re coming. Don’t have a cow.

Harley: You know, now that I’ve broken up with Mister J, I don’t really need to rob the bank, so I’m going to go find Ivy. Good-bye!

Riddler: Atta girl, kid! Bye!

Scarecrow: Farewell, child.

(Exit Harley)

Two-Face: You two really are crazy.

Riddler: And we wouldn’t have it any other way. Let’s go rob that bank!

Commercial Break!

Act IV

(Enter Batman)

Batman: I’ve checked the hideouts of Two-Face, Harley Quinn, and the Scarecrow, but they weren’t at any of them. That means that they must’ve teamed up with Riddler for some reason, and they must be hanging out here, at the abandoned publishing facility Riddler uses. I hope that, whatever nefarious crime they’re planning, they’re still here now, because if they aren’t, I’ll have to deal with panicked civilians.

(Enter Harley)

Harley: Hi, Batman! (Does double take) Batman?

Batman: Surrender  quietly and things will be much easier for you, Ms. Quinzel.

Harley: Great! I was just looking for you! (Hugs him) I’m breaking up with the Joker, so I need to go to Arkham to get away with him and meet up with Red.

Batman: (Confused) You’re surrendering?

Harley: Yeah! I’m breaking up with the Joker, so I need to go to Arkham so that he can’t get me, and this is the quickest way to do it.

Batman: All right. (Handcuffs her) Why the change of heart regarding the Joker?

Harley: Eddie and Professor Crane told me he was abusing me, and they made sense, so I decided to leave him and become my own person again.

Batman: I’m glad to hear that, Ms. Quinzel. I wish you the best of luck with your attempt to break the cycle of codependency and abuse.

(They pantomime getting into the Batmobile and driving to Arkham in it. Harley throws her hands in the air like she’s on a roller coaster)

Harley: WHEEE!

(Batman stops the car and lets her out. They ‘walk inside’ Arkham)

Batman: Good-bye, Ms. Quinzel.

Harley: Good-bye, Batman. (Hugs him) And next time, you can call me Harley. Everybody does.

Batman: Good-bye, Harley. (Aside) Now I just have to hope that the other three have kept out of trouble.

Act V

(Enter Riddler, Scarecrow, and Two-Face)

Two-Face: If this plan fails, I’ll make you eat your hat.

Riddler: Fail? I’m a genius! So long as Batman doesn’t show up, my plan can’t possibly fail!

(Enter Batman)

Batman: Hello, gentlemen.

Scarecrow: (To Riddler) Congratulations, Riddler. You jinxed your own plan. How predictable.

Batman: I assume that asking the three of you to come in quietly would be too much to ask.

Riddler: How did you solve my riddles, Batman?

Batman: I didn’t have to. The three of you left a trail so obvious that anyone could have followed you here.

Riddler: You didn’t solve the riddles I sent you? Then I won! I won! I actually won!

Batman: Sure. Whatever makes you happy. (Aside) It’s like fighting a six-year-old.

Riddler: And now, I’ll kill you with a riddle-based death trap of-

(Batman knocks him out)

Batman: There’s your prize, Nygma.

Scarecrow: Did you see Harleen, by any chance?

Batman: Yes, I did. I took her to the asylum myself, in fact. Why?

Scarecrow: I was hoping that she would find a way to keep herself safe from that lunatic. Good for her! (Pause; Brandishes fear canister) It’s time for you to face your fears, Batman!

Batman: No, it’s time for you to face the law. (Knocks fear canister out of his hands) Why did you willingly help Harley, Crane?

Scarecrow: That’s personal information, Batman. (Tries to grab fear canister, is knocked out by Batman)

Two-Face: (Makes a run for the bank) Looks like I get the money after all! (Is knocked out by Batman)

Batman: Good night, Dent. (Pulls out phone) Hello? Commissioner Gordon? It’s Batman. I have three criminals for you to arrest. They’re right outside the Second National Bank. Thank you. (Puts phone away) I can’t believe that the Scarecrow and the Riddler care enough about Harley to try to get her away from the Joker, but it’s beneficial anyway, as it means that I might not have to deal with Harley Quinn any more. Who would have expected that?

[twitchesandstitches]

Three Tides Turning

Odina was, perhaps against her preference, an expert on magical things of all kinds. Academic knowledge, with a lot of firsthand experience, and the joke was that she had approximate knowledge of pretty much any magical thing.

She was very surprised to have Toast, of all people, asking her advice; she was pretty certain the little robot hated her guts, and would in fact have been happy to SEE her guts spread all over the wall. It wasn’t personal, he simply hated every single human to ever exist. It was a democratic sort of loathing, an almost genteel hatred that ignored cred and origin and country and deeds, all in favor of resenting the great teeming mass of humanity and proclaiming them all equally guilty of being absolute bastards.

She’d never asked why he hated her species so much. She had her suspicions. The magic that powered him was fueled by his own hatred and anger, but the special kind that came from pain. Emotion magic had its own flavors, and he reeked of suffering, and in his impassioned rants she heard the echoes of absolute despair so painful the only sensible response was to make it into kindling. He had suffered, and given the reputation of humanity among its mechanical offspring, and the optic that had been torn out of his head, she could guess what KIND of suffering he had endured.

Even at his most sociable and miserably lonely, when he had no choice but to seek out company that might include humans, he tended to avoid her. So seeking her advice out was, well, a really big damn deal!

Toast hunched over on a small overturned table, a little red robot apparently designed for a quadrupedal stance. Here and now he looked a lot like a mechanical dinosaur, but one that was oddly cute. He was just so… small, and compact. His wiry tail lashed around, and his boxy head tilted around, his single remaining eye blinking as he twisted his head around to see her.

Both his arms articulated as he tried to explain himself. One arm was slender and ended in a kind of paw. The other was a massive taloned gauntlet, larger than he was, the obscene mass built around an elemental fire core that fueled his various powers. It made him a truly fearsome heavy hitter, but it also severely hobbled him, and only now did she appreciate just how awkward he moved with it; his claws alone were a painful sight, when all his other movements were fluid, if so jittery you could expect he was impatient to finish moving and making little gestures.

“It’s… it’s my friend,” he managed, and pointed, and some of the things he had been telling her clicked. Ah, she thought in the back of her head.

Looming behind them was a monstrously huge figure, apparently the size of a house, draped in a tent crudely worked into a rough cloak. Atop it was a feral head, snout poking out of a projecting head but still obscured by a massive set of puffy lips.

God, it was so big. No, she was so big. Femininity radiated from it, like the psychic tide you couldn’t help but hammer you with pleasant vibes and sudden surges of hormones, and the desire to… do things. Animal things, rutting and breeding and delighting in the most basest of pleasures...

Odina’s absorbing powers sucked away the worst of it, so that she was a whirlpool of negated essence right there. Her total lack of interest in sex of any kind also provided a defense. The great mother-monster noticed this somehow, and turned to see them. A massive pair of breasts, big enough for Odina to fit inside them, shifted behind the cloak, and were so large they dominated the heft of even this hulking frame.

An aberrant hand, or perhaps a paw, raised its two webbed fingers. Claws longer than Odina’s arm wiggled playfully at her. “Sup, hun,” she rumbled, her voice deep, resonant, like an echo of the primordial sea.

Odina waved back nonchalantly. “Hey, terrifying monster lady.”

The eldritch monster mother - Tiashar was her chosen name, according to Toast, who had made himself an expert on her - chuckled at that. It was hard to make out details with that big cloak she wore; Odina could make out a massive mane of hair, or perhaps feathers, growing down her neck and shoulders and expanding outwards into a huge floor-dragging cloud several times larger even than she was. Some bits of it had become little tentacles, or tongued mouths. There were eyes, many of them, beneath it, but were quite invisible behind the long bangs. She did see a hint of multiple floppy ears, tweaking vaguely in response to stimuli no mortal senses were capable of perceiving.

Most of the exposed body was deep black. The shade differed; upon her face and the smoother parts of her skin, it was the color of ancient tar. On the patches of scales, a blue-black like the deepest parts of the sea. The armored plates on her shoulders, forearms, or the enormous tube that was her tail? It seemed to be even darker than all that, oily and rich. And oh yes, there were patches of other colors here and there; the gills lining her neck and sides were the same magenta as her mane, her huge lips and various other parts were a brilliant green… and in fact green seemed to be a secondary color, as if to offset her other shades.

Pebbly scales, slabs of chitin, features of ten thousand different phylums all mashed together in a strangely ideal form with her, and she suspected that was the key to understanding her. So many things that didn’t seem to belong, but with her, they did.

Presently, she seemed content to now ignore Odina and laid down, cooing at the dirt. Apparently whispering to the bacteria.

“...I’m worried about her, “ Toast said, his smaller hand rubbing its claws against a single digit of his big hand, his normally grouchy expression winding up into something forlorn and distressed. “She’s being so… so weird lately!”

“Weird by what metric.” Odina indicated her vaguely. “This is the same lady who spent half a month living in an attic, eating our garbage cans and screaming at mega-possums.”

It was amazing how Toast instantly shifted into hostility; he flared up, flames exploding around him, and a fireball appeared in his hand. “You talkin’ shit about her!?” he snarled, embers flying from his mouth like spittle.

Odina let herself instinctively eat the magic he was throwing off, but if he noticed his flames dying, he didn’t notice. They just flared up again, and her butt expanded, shelf rising over her waist and her skirt creaking in protest at it slid up, her hips expanding sideways. ‘Do NOT push him,’, she reminded herself, he absolutely would try to kill her instantly if he felt even slightly irritated, regardless of needing her help or not.

It didn’t come easily to her to play nice, but she would do her best. “I’m not making fun. I’m just saying, she’s kinda weird. Like the rest of us?”

He grunted, depowering. The local magical quotient went down, though her backside scale remained embiggened. “Yeah, okay.”

“So what do you MEAN, she’s acting weird?”

“I don’t know. The other day, she’s all calm and serene, hanging around with the men and women that wanna be around her all the time. Y’know, she feeds ‘em, gives ‘em baths in her milk and stuff, sometimes they feed themselves to her and she pops ‘em out as monstery versions of their old selves, but mostly they just… adore her?” He shook his head. “I don’t know, its weird. It's like… she needs it?”

“Sounds like they’re worshiping her,” Odina said vaguely, an idea coming to mind.

“Seems legit.” he tweaked his fingers, popping them off and chewing on them anxiously. “Then the next few weeks, they do none of tat, they just hang out with her and we go exploring? Fighting monsters together? The other folks, they fuse together and stuff, its like its a big adventure party? And it's fine, but then, just a few nights ago, she got hungry. Really hungry.” he looked uncomfortable. “And horny. Like, even more than usual.”

“Sounds like a lot of effort,” Odina said, who regarded all things sexual as an alien endeavor way more trouble than it was worth.

“She just wanted nothing but sex, twenty-four/seven, for almost a solid week! With all of them! And then they let her gobble them up, and now…” he gestured at her. Odina noticed her belly was very ripe, round and projecting outwards. A gravid, super-pregnant belly, with both the offspring sired with them, and the cultist’s reborn souls. “She just did nothing but eat continuously, barely speaking a word. I tried to talk to her and she looked at me like… like she couldn’t remember how.”

He paused.

“She kissed me.” He hugged himself, looking faintly lost, like he couldn’t quite understand how anyone would want to do that to him. “She couldn’t talk anymore, but she was happy to see me.”

“She’s talking now.”

“Yeah, I mean, she’s back on her regular mindset, where she’s being a chill mom and stuff but… shit. She keeps going through these phases and! And! And I’m really freaked out, is something wrong with her, is she sick, is she going to go away and ascend or something!?”

He shook Odina by the neckline desperately. “I can’t deal with that, okay!? How do I help her!?”

She gently but firmly pushed his claws off. “Calm down, she’s okay. She’s just trying to balance herself out. It’s part of what she is, okay?”

Toast stared at her. “Part of… what she is? What, a chimera monster girl?”

“No. You… do know she’s something else altogether? One of those things that…” she gestured vaguely. “Come from Outside?”

He stared blankly.

“The far realms?”

His optic blinked, slowly. “Nuh uh.”

“The parts of the multiverse that exist outside the set that has anything at all to do with mortals or our understanding of reality?”

“I’m drawing a zero here.”

“...The mad things that were here before the gods?”

“Still nothing.”

“...Okay, she’s an eldritch abomination that decided to be like a mortal, okay!?”

He nodded. “Ohh, right. Like that. Got it.”

“...You really get it?”

“Honestly, no.” He shrugged. “Could not give a shit, to be honest.”

She sighed. “It’s like this. Creatures like her tend to develop certain traits in common, because they’re forming minds like ours, but they’re still working in a totally different way. They’re not exactly elder beasts, they’re a little bit like gods, but they’re something a bit in between. And SHE is learning her way around that. Every day, and sometimes backsliding or losing her sense of what she is.”

Toast seemed to understand that, at least. He nodded.

Odina sighed. “Right, okay. So, if she’s like the other sorts of things I’ve heard about, she’s basically formed a mental state made out of three different parts that influence her in different ways.”

“What does this have to do with her being weird?”

“Because these are giving her contradictory urges, and she has no impulse control! She IS her desires!” Odina snapped her fingers, producing a little magical sign that said ‘get it??’. “Firstly, what you probably think is her ‘regular self’ is really just the parts of her mind she’s forced to think like a mortal.” A troubling idea came to her. “Or… what she thinks mortals are like. But she’s so different that even that is just guessing games, and she’s forced her brain into patterns completely unnatural to her, and it's always shifting around and trying to become something else. Because change is what she DOES.”

Toast looked baffled.

Odina tried again. “Look at it like this. When she’s worked out some kind of balance between her natures here, this side of her is the one that probably wins out and makes a happy medium. She wants to please herself and please other people, in moderation; it comes off to us as weird and constantly hungry, but that’s just what happens when godly hungers get curbed. That’s still moderate, by HER standards. The kind of things she doesn’t really get, like abstract causes, and long term stuff; she’s able to deal with those things more easy. She’s able to think more like you can.”

“Okay, I get THAT, at least.” Toast scratched his metal ears sheepishly.

“Now, you probably noticed her gathering people to her. That’s just a function of what she is; she’s a sort of proto-god. Gods want to be worshiped and admired; she needs a cult, and it's her nature to build them. So that's the bit of her that’s the most divine coming out. Probably also why she goes off and fights monsters; she probably sees it as protecting her people.” She paused, thoughtfully. “Or maybe she’s just getting into the ‘guardian kaiju’ vibe. She does have the look.” Another pause. “And getting people to breed with her might also be a god thing; she’s probably compelled to do it, as a function of what she is.”

“And you said something about a beast, earlier?”

“Right, her third nature. That’s the part of her that’s… well, monstrous and ravenous. A beast, nothing but hunger and desire. Not that its bad or evil!” she said hurriedly, noticing Toast’s temper starting to rise on Tiashar’s behalf. “Just… she’s already impulsive, but that part of her is literally nothing but instant gratification and satiating herself! Like…the bit of her that wants to be pleasured and satisfied all the time, that wants to be constnatly gestating monsters and having sex whenever she’s not eating? And then eating them right afterwards, and turning their souls into MORE things to gestate so they can stay with her forever in new bodies. ITs the part of her that runs on instinct and animal hunger, forever.”

He nodded, in a dour sort of way. “Okay, I think I get it. So…” he tried to process it all. “She acts weird because she’s got a whole bunch of competing drives and urges, some of them at odds with each other, constantly changing how she thinks and feels?”

Odina shrugged. “Her actual feelings are probably pretty, uh, consistent. The way she responds to them and acts on them does change, depending on which way her brain is working. Like if she likes someone and she’s pure beast, she probably wants to just jump on them and rut until the sun goes down, and them nuzzle them for a full month. And when she goes full god, she wants to shower them with blessings and love. And if she balances it out and can think properly? Then she just wants a friend, or maybe a tiny spouse. As long as she can hold onto that scale.”

He looked uneasy. “God… and she has to live like that…?”

“I don’t think it bothers her,” Odina said, not sure if she was actually trying to reassure him, or herself. “It’s just the way she sees the world and prioritizes stuff changes. She probably doesn’t really notice her perspective shifting. It’s just part of what she is. The tide turns, because that’s what it does; same thing with her.”

Toast looked troubled. “But..”

“Most eldritch entities, the ones that are making an honest effort to really understand us, wind up something similar. Plenty of them strike up a balance. The trick is them holding onto it.”

Toast wiggled. “So… Mama Tiashar…?”

She noticed, but didn’t say anything about it, his use of the honorific.

A small slip of the tongue, but a big, big deal for someone so miserably spiteful and suspicious of the whole world.

“Nothing’s wrong with her,” Odina said. “Her nature is just to change to different extremes. Sometimes she’ll be wild and ravenous. Sometimes she’ll be weird and think like an old goddess. And sometimes, more often than not, she’ll be like a regular weird mortal thingy. Just depends on the way her tides are turning.”

He whimpered. “But I want her to be happy.”

Odina looked at him, with something she didn’t dare admit might be pity.

It was a hard thing, to find out what love was at this point in his life, and to be afraid to know it.

There was a heavy stomping noise nearby.

Tiashar had stood up and slowly approached. Her massive tail lashed around, her enormous thighs slapped together as she approached, and slowly she leaned down, her head looming over Toast’s body. Her mouth opened, and she whispered softly.

“Toast, buddy,” she said, the words sounding distant and carefully picked. “Something bothering you?”

He shivered, and suddenly hugged her lip. One arm too skinny not to just sink in and instantly vanish, the other a huge and awkward club that started to fall on its own weight. “I’m just worried about you,” he whimpered.

She giggled, and gave him a soft kiss, pulling him right off the ground. She stood up, to her full height, and with another smooching pop, deposited him neatly into her cleavage, where he immediately snuggled up. “Aww, you’re a sweetie, little buddy. Don’t you worry. Mama Tiashar has herself figured out.” She gave her gravid belly a hug. “Be chill, my little dude, and don’t beat yourself up over it.”

“Can’t,” he said shortly. “I just worry a lot about you…”

She chuckled. “I don’t worry about nothin’, and I’m totally chillaxed forever. Try it some time, sweetie. It’s fun.”

She nodded at Odina. “Later, short stuff.”

Odina waved vaguely at her, trying not to instantly butt-bloat up to the size of a building just from being in her presence. “Later.”

Tiashar skipped off, her gargantuan butt jiggling like literally all the gelatin there ever wars, her tail even smacking it possibly by accident, as she cooed gently to the still fretting Toast.

And Odina thought about the tides turning, and how they were fortunate to have wound up with an eldritch horror that seemed perpetually stuck on the ‘be a sweetheart’ side of things, regardless of her current flavor of impulses.

[scarletraven1001]

The Final Price (Chapter 8)

Chapter Summary: Bulma is determined to find a way to bring Vegeta back, and with help from Goku and a reluctant Uranai, she journeys into the spirit world, ready to challenge the gods themselves for the right to her soulmate’s ultimate fate.

Entry for the @tpthvegebulmayhem Week 4 (Part 2 of 4).

Prompt: The Better To Grab You With

Chapter Warnings: Rated E - Profane language; Slight sexual content.

All Chapters:  1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9 / 10

Also on Ao3.

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Chapter 8: Holding On

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Note: So you guuuuys! This story just won the 2018 Vegebul Mayhem and I am so, SO happy! To everyone who followed this story on the Mayhem tumblr, thank you all SO much! And to everyone currently reading this and are leaving all this wonderful feedback, thank you, as well! I am on cloud nine right now, and it's all thanks to you guys!

Now, as for this chapter, this is Part 2 of 4, for my Week 4 entry. I hope you like it!

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“We are going to Uranai, you and I,” she said. “We are going to bring Vegeta back.”

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“Bulma, are you crazy?” Goku asked, a moment before a string of static filled her line, and she looked up just in time to see the familiar form of the tall Saiyan materializing before her.

She calmly placed her phone back onto her dresser, smiling placidly at the confounded man.

“Maybe. I don’t really know anymore, to be honest,” she said, half-jokingly. “But I need to try, Goku. Vegeta… he’s not completely gone, I think.”

Goku’s brows furrowed, concern filling his dark eyes. “Hey, look. I know that you’re really broken up about Prince Vegeta’s death, but you gotta listen to yourself, Bulma-”

“No, no, no, listen to me,” Bulma interjected, excitedly waving her arms around as a very vague plan began to form in her head.

“I’m listening,” Goku said, his tone clearly stating that he thought she had gone insane.

Bulma laughed. “He’s speaking to me, Goku. From the afterlife.”

Goku’s brows shot up. “O-kaaaay,” he said. “So, you’re like, a psychic now?”

“No! Vegeta was speaking to me through my dreams!”

“A dream psychic then?”

“No!” Bulma exclaimed, stomping her foot in mounting frustration. “I dreamed of him, I saw what is happening to him, right now!”

Goku still looked unconvinced. “I… I don’t get it?”

She sighed. “Alright. Remember how I dreamt of his past, through his eyes?”

He nodded.

“Well, now I dreamed of his present. In the afterlife. Right now,” she explained. “And he is suffering so badly there, Goku. He doesn’t deserve this. We have to help him!”

“Look, I can kinda see how you would think that Prince Vegeta is talking to you, but how do you suggest we try to save him?” Goku asked, placing his fists on his hips.

“Uranai! She has a portal, right? Maybe we can use it or something!” then, Bulma paused. “Wait, didn’t you say that you found something when you went to Uranai?”

“Oh, right,” Goku said, arms dropping to his side. “Uranai told me that your soul is still linked to Vegeta’s, and that was why you can see his past. She can try to cut it, if you want-”

“No!” she cried. “Are you crazy? No! Why would I want to do that?”

“Well, Uranai said it would probably ease some of your pain, so you could move on.”

“No! Never,” she said, raising a hand to her chest, as if trying to find and protect her invisible link to Vegeta. “I need this link. This may be the one thing that can help me bring him back!”

Goku scratched his head. “You really think you can bring him back, huh?”

“I am positive. I can feel it. There has to be a way…” Bulma said. “After all, when Vegeta died, he was not in his real body, right? Because he didn’t kill me, he never got his real body back. So maybe… Maybe he is not completely dead.”

The Saiyan’s eyes widened at that. “You know… that makes a lot of sense.”

“Of course, I’m a genius, after all!” Bulma bragged. “So you have to help me, Goku. Don’t you want to have your Prince back?”

Goku’s eyes brightened, and a determined smile stretched his lips.

“If you really think there is a chance we can bring him back,” he said, “I’m comin’ with ya. What do you need me to do?”

Bulma smiled, the widest and most enthusiastic one she had ever smiled, in years.

She put her hands on Goku’s arm, then said, “First, I need you to take me to my office. There are a few items there that I need to pick up, just in case.”

He nodded, then, lifted his fingers up to his forehead in a heart wrenching, familiar way that reminded Bulma all the more of how important it was that her plan succeeds.

It was the only way to have Vegeta back.

The dizzying moment of transmission passed quickly enough, and Bulma immediately went to her desk, running to the cabinet behind it.

She popped open her secret drawer, pulling out the small blaster that she had made upon Vegeta’s suggestion.

She looked at it, hoping against hope that the small weapon could hold out if she needed it in a fight.

This would be the blaster’s first real-world test drive.

God, but she hoped that the lab tests were accurate.

After pulling out the gun and securely tucking it into a customized gun holster that she had especially made for it, she went to her desk and opened her first drawer.

Within that drawer, was a small capsule containing her most precious invention: her tiny, personalized multi-terrain hover car. It had the ability to run speeds up to a thousand miles per hour, but had highly sophisticated stabilizers built in so that the passenger remains unharmed.

She had used it only once, and she knew for a fact that the thing was advanced enough to run several thousand miles with a single full tank of gasoline.

She picked up ten gasoline capsules and a mini capsule full of energy bars as well, just to be sure, and secured those and the hover car into a pouch beside her blaster.

“Alright,” she grinned, turning back to Goku. “Now, let’s go to Uranai.”

Goku nodded, letting her hold on to his arm once again while he teleported them to Kame House.

When they arrived, Bulma looked around, noting that the entire island looked exactly the same as the last time she had been there. It was almost as if the island was trapped in time, where the lone tree shading the small house never grew but also never wilted, and the sand remained unmoved in spite of the water’s constant motions.

Bulma realized then, that the portal must have been the one responsible for keeping this lone island seemingly suspended in time.

After all, how else could she explain the fact that the guardian of the portal had been around for more than two hundred years?

She stepped into the small house, followed by Goku, who quietly shut the door behind them.

She looked around, and her eyes met the open trapdoor leading down into the basement, where she had previously seen Uranai as she worked on her Spirit Bridge.

Bulma took a deep breath.

“Uranai!” she called out. “Uranai! It’s Bulma and Goku, we need your help!”

“Grandma Uranai!” Goku called out, as well.

“Just a minute!” the old, raspy female voice called out, “I am coming! Kami, you youngsters are always in a hurry.”

They both waited impatiently as they heard the old woman begin to make her way up the creaky stairs from the basement, and as soon as the tip of her pointy black hat came into view, Goku swooped in, practically dragging the old witch up the remaining few steps.

“Aiyeeee!” Uranai screamed as Goku lifted her, placing her down before Bulma.

“Goku, you idiot, I thought I was going to fall!” Uranai scolded, giving Goku a solid whack on the head with her wooden cane.

“Ow! I’m sorry, you were taking so long and I was excited!” he said, rubbing at the sore spot.

“What in all the realms are you so excited about that you had to drag me from my portal?” she asked, dusting imaginary lint from her dress before she turned to Bulma. “Hello, Bulma.”

“Hi, Uranai,” Bulma greeted, shifting her weight between her feet as she basically jogged in place, in a strange mixture of excitement and anxiety. “We need your help.”

“So I have heard,” the crone said drily. “And how may I assist you two, today?”

“We wanna go into the Other World!” Goku burst out.

Uranai’s eyes went so large that Bulma feared that they would pop out of her skull.

“You what?!” Uranai asked, scandalized.

Bulma stood straighter, then said, with a lot more calmness than she actually felt. “Goku and I need your help to go into the Spirit realm, or afterlife.”

Uranai bristled. “No! Are you crazy?”

Bulma sighed. “This is not the first time I was asked that question today.”

“Because what you want to do is insane!” Uranai screeched, leaping up to her eye level to drive her point home. “No! Absolutely not… that is out of the question!”

“Please, Uranai!” Goku said. “Bulma has an idea and she thinks that she can maybe bring Prince Vegeta back!”

“Goku, you idiot, that is not possible,” Uranai said. “Once someone has entered the spirit world, there will be no going back! And it is not just for Prince Vegeta… why do you think I get so angry when you or anyone else tries to enter the basement? A living being going into the spirit world would immediately be sucked in and turned into a spirit.”

“Not everyone,” Bulma interjected. “The last time I went into the basement, the spirits did not sense me, did they, Uranai?”

Uranai went still. “No, they did not,” she answered solemnly. “But it could have been for any number of reasons-”

“You told Goku that Vegeta and I are still linked,” Bulma said. “It means that his dead spirit is connected to mine. I may have just enough of him in me for the spirits not to realize who I am, until I could get to Vegeta.”

“And what do you propose to do once you get there, huh?” Uranai asked. “Just pull Vegeta back with you? That could never work.”

“No, but if I was down there, I could find a way,” Bulma said, before she suddenly sobered as she thought of another, much less ideal possibility. “Or, even if I couldn’t… at least I could see him one last time.”

“Tsk,” Uranai said. “Your sentimentality will get you killed, child.”

Bulma looked straight at Uranai. “And was it not sentimentality that got Vegeta killed, as well? If he had taken my life as he was supposed to, he could have been in his full-power and could have killed Frieza, without dying, himself.”

Bulma gulped. “He risked everything, going into the fight at partial strength. That was the reason why he had to wait for the Red Moon, after all, was it not? He needed all possible advantages, because he knew that he was going in with a very distinct disadvantage.”

She couldn’t stop speaking as the full impact of what Vegeta had given up for her hit her all at once. “He had waited thirty years, thirty gods damned years, only to let it all go because he didn’t want to sacrifice me. For his sake… for his sake, I need to try everything I could to see if I could save him, as well.”

Uranai looked at her with a face full of sympathy and uncertainty, but finally, nodded.

“Alright. I will see if I can get you into the spirit realm. But Goku,” she turned to the Saiyan. “You stay here. You are very much alive, with no spirit links, and an overflowing amount of power. The spirits will devour you in less than a second.”

“Is there no way I can help?” Goku asked, turning concerned eyes to Bulma. “Bulma isn’t strong, or fast. She’s an Earthling and I don’t know how she could manage without someone there to protect her.”

“I’ll have Vegeta protecting me,” she said, smiling at her spiky-haired friend. “He’s in my soul, Goku. Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

“Don’t say your goodbyes, just yet,” Uranai interrupted. “I still need to see if I can actually manage to push you into the spirit world. We have a lot of sound theories but we won’t know for sure until I go and try.”

“We can do it Uranai, I’m sure!” Bulma said, a wave of conviction going through her along with the relief that Uranai had agreed to help her.

Uranai turned slowly towards the stairs leading down to the basement, and Bulma followed right behind her, her heart pounding quick, rapid beats as the gravity of what she was about to do started to fall upon her shoulders.

She was going into the spirit realm. She was going in there, mixing up with various ghosts and monsters and heaven knows what else.

But she was doing it for Vegeta.

“Can’t you calm down a little? Even I can hear your heartbeats from here. The spirits will pounce on you if you keep that up,” Uranai scolded, and Bulma took a few deep breaths as she began to take the few final steps into the basement.

A thick wooden wall concealed the basement from the stairs, and as Uranai turned the corner going into the hidden area, Bulma put her hand on her chest, willing her heart to calm down.

She could do this. She wanted to do this. But it certainly didn’t mean that it wasn’t terrifying.

She took the last few steps, passing the wooden wall…

Her heart stopped beating, her breath caught in her throat.

The Spirit Bridge was a large, circular black hole that seemingly led into endless darkness, floating ominously over a wide, glassy, flat surface that resembled the mirror that she had seen Dabura holding up to Vegeta in her dream.

The portal itself was dark, a void, but small wisps of foul-smelling clouds and thin strips of weak energy wafted in and out of the portal, a horrifying glimpse of the things that likely awaited Bulma down beneath the blackness. It was large, about twice her height, and as she came closer, she heard the howling from within it growing louder, as the wispy threads of energy began to turn an angry red.

Uranai turned to her, her wrinkled face somber and worried. “Some of the spirits can sense you Bulma. If you are not extremely careful, they will find you, and will suck you in with them, forever. Are you sure you are up to this?”

Bulma took a very deep breath.

“Yes, I want to do this, Uranai,” she confirmed, looking determinedly at the portal, almost daring it to try and stop her from finding her man.

She was going to literally die trying to get him back.

“Alright, listen to me,” Uranai said. “I will open the Spirit Bridge for you, but once you get in, you have to hurry. Run as fast as you can.”

“Can I use a hover car?” Bulma asked hopefully, already feeling the weight of her capsules in her belt.

The crone blinked. “You brought one?”

“Yep!” Bulma beamed proudly, patting her pocket full of capsules.

“Well then. That is a great amount of foresight,” Uranai commented. “Now. As I was saying. Run, or drive as fast as you can. As you touch down onto the Spirit World, you will find a very long and winding path that we call the Snake Way. At the very end of the Snake Way, is the King of the Underworld, King Yemma. He is the one you need to talk to, if you wish to bring Vegeta back.”

Uranai cleared her throat. “Now, remember: along the way, make sure you interact with as little amount of beings as possible. The longer you are with them, the easier it may be for them to figure out that you are not dead, and they will try to kill you.”

Bulma gulped, then nodded.

“Would you happen to have a weapon with you?

She patted her pocket with a smug smirk.

Uranai just shook her head. “I see that it must be the arrogance that attracted the Prince to you.”

She laughed at that, flipping her blue hair off her shoulder, noting that the portal now seemed to be blowing out an increasingly strong gust of wind.

Uranai spoke again, “Make sure that you blast anyone who gets too close, especially if they try to pull you down with them. If you fall off the Snake Way, you will fall directly into Hell, and no one can help you from there as King Yemma would not have known of your presence yet.”

Bulma frowned. “Why don’t you just tell him ahead that I am coming?”

“Do you have any idea how long the waiting time is to get an appointment with King Yemma? The ongoing wait list is fifty years.”

“Oh.”

“Well then. Are you ready?” Uranai asked, lifting her hands up to the portal, and Bulma stared in awe as a little point of light appeared in the very center of the darkness.

The light grew larger, very slowly, until Bulma saw that the light was now large enough to accommodate a small child.

Uranai started shouting, “Jump in as soon as you think the hole is large enough for you to fit through. I don’t know how much longer I can hold this open! Also, I do not have the powers to bring you back here, so you need to reach King Yemma so he can push you back out into the living world.”

Bulma nodded, jogging lightly as she tried to figure out the best way to jump into the hole.

She held onto the edges of the light, ignoring the burning sensation caused by the bits of darkness licking at her fingers.

Lunging up with all the strength she could muster into her arms, she lifted herself up, pushing her head and shoulders into the hole, before she leaned down to slide the rest of her body down the bright part of the portal, barely squeezing her butt in as Uranai started losing strength.

“Go!” Uranai yelled, and Bulma pulled herself down, sliding down the tunnel, shrieking all the way.

She screamed, trying to spin around so she wouldn’t land on her face once she finally reached solid ground. She was hurtling down the tunnel of light at a fast rate, and she was quite sure that her landing was going to hurt.

She saw a slight change in hue from a few meters before her and she realized then that she must have been rapidly approaching the Snake Way.

She braced herself, not quite sure if she should go on feet first, afraid of injuring her legs.

“Dammit why didn’t I pay more attention to Physical Ed classes?” she whimpered as the surface came closer and closer…

She braced herself, wrapping her arms around her head…

Only to fall butt first onto a very soft pile of cushions, the small pillows burying her as she sank deep into the cloud-like mattress.

She opened her eyes, that she had not realized that she had shut, only to see the most amazing span of virtual nothingness that she had ever thought to see.

The mattress she had fallen on was round and airy, and she struggled a bit to get off the bed-like contraption so she can stand on her two feet on the relatively smooth ground below.

She stood on the yellowish road that looked like smooth marble, edged on all sides by tiny golden frills. Beyond the narrow road was an endless sea of the puffiest white clouds, reminding Bulma of huge rolls of cotton candy.

She looked behind her, looking for the opening to the portal, and to her utter dismay, discovered that the light tunnel was gone. The only thing behind her was more nothingness, and the airy bed that she had fallen onto.

She was at the end of the Snake Way, and was truly on her own.

She knocked the heels of her shoes on the pavement, noting the sound of her feet hitting concrete.

Bulma was baffled. What was with all the warnings to stay away from the spirits? The place was absolutely empty.

She released her capsule containing the hovercraft, then got into the car as soon as the vehicle materialized before her.

She remembered Uranai telling her to run as fast as she can, so she immediately set the craft up to its highest speed, leaning back as the craft flew through at speeds that would normally be dizzyingly deadly if she wasn’t within a stabilized car.

It did not take long for Bulma to finally understand what it was that Uranai had been warning her about, after all.

She had been travelling the single, winding road for a few hours, probably half a day, when the skies suddenly grew darker.

She had been snacking on an energy bar when she looked out the viewing walls of the craft, and only then realized that the puffy clouds outside had begun to morph into darkened shrouds of smoke, with angry red bolts of lightning screeching out of their edges, and moving ever closer to her as she went deeper through the Snake Way.

She took the wheel, moving into a manual pilot override, so she can stir the hover car should anything try to hit her or get in the way.

Bulma watched in trepidation as the smoke began to hover closer to the edges of the Snake Way, the sharp shards of electricity zipping out and trying to lick her tiny car.

She wrenched her car to the right, avoiding a particularly long bolt, quickly righting her path so that she stayed on top of the road.

She distinctly remembered Uranai telling her not to fall off the Snake Way, and she was definitely not in the mood to find out if the bad side of Hell was truly just beyond those golden edges.

The clouds were getting darker, thicker, visibly denser, and Bulma tried harder to stay away from the flits of energy that would surely fry her circuitry if she got hit.

If her car broke down, she was so dead. She was deader than dead.

The Snake Way seemed endless, and she knew that she would have no hope of reaching the end of it if she was on foot.

She kept on moving forward, slowing down a little as she had to carefully maneuver around the dark clouds that were really closing in on her, attempting to crush her with their darkness, should they successfully catch her in their grasp.

A large mass of darkness suddenly blocked her way, and Bulma screamed, sure that she would not be able to duck out of the way.

Her shock was immeasurable, when she simply passed through the cloud, emerging onto a once again, clear and cottony clouded Snake Way.

Her heart was pumping a mile a minute, and she looked around in confusion, not quite understanding the sudden shift.

“Better just be thankful, I suppose,” she muttered, engaging her auto pilot once again so she can go at faster speeds, now that the dark clouds were gone.

A few more hours later, she began to wish for the dark clouds to come back.

A horde of demons, stereotypical looking demons with dark eyes, pointed horns and arrow-tipped tails, began to emerge from the edges of the Snake Way.

Bulma pushed the hover car as fast as it would go as she swerved and dodged around the beings who seemed to know that she was a living person, as they with all their might to grab a hold of her round little vehicle to pull it down with them.

She had to disengage the auto pilot once more, as the car insisted on just pushing forward instead of dodging the demons, but the problems really started to pile up when Bulma needed to slow down the vehicle so that her reflexes can keep up with the movements.

She could not afford to simply keep dodging, she had to go on the offense.

Reaching down to her belt, she pulled her experimental blaster out of her holster, powered it up, before she lifted a tiny latch from the very center of the hover car.

The latch was specifically designed so that she can secure her specialized weapons onto the console in case she needed firepower.

At the time she had been drafting the designs, she had giggled to herself, thinking it ridiculous for her to design a vehicle that was so obviously needed for adventurous situations, when the most adventurous that she had been before was drinking one flask of wine too many.

Now, she thanked her lucky stars for whatever streak of insanity had possessed her to make her include the gun hatch in her vehicles.

She engaged the blaster, adjusting it to the medium firing strength, then, keeping her fingers crossed, pressed the trigger.

A blinding flash of pure energy exploded from the front of her vehicle, causing her to stumble back as the blaster released its load. The blast was stronger than she had anticipated, and the interior of the vehicle started to shake as Bulma began pressing the trigger more often, more quickly, effectively destroying tens of demons with a single shot.

There were hundreds of monsters, and Bulma felt the terror creep into her heart as she realized that all it would take was a single wrong move on her side, and they would overwhelm her, dragging her down into the abyss with them to suffer an eternity of flames and torture.

She would have welcomed death, if not for the thought of a life that she needed to save. The life of Vegeta was in her hands, and she could not afford to fail.

She persevered, pushing her hovercraft to its limits as she flew up and over the demons, blasting anything that got too close.

The crowd of demons grew denser, while she herself started to become braver, feeling more confident as she thought that this was actually rather fun, if she pretended that it was just a video game.

She saw a tiny spot of light ahead, a very small opening largely obscured by the horde of monsters, and she realized that this spot was her most likely escape, probably the end of a tunnel that she had to cross to get to King Yemma.

The spot was growing larger, and she became more determined, hands flying over her controls as she snaked through the enemies and blasted through the ones that would not quit.

She was sweating now, the exhaustion seeping into her bones after the several-hour long dangerous journey, but she was almost there!

She had to hold on, just a bit more. Just… a bit… more!

With a final, desperate attempt, she set her blaster on the highest setting, then, bracing herself for the recoil, fired.

The blast was nearly deafening in its power, shocking even Bulma, who had never yet used the maximum setting during the trials.

She stared, absolutely flabbergasted, as almost all of the demons blocking her melted away, and she took the chance to immediately push her vehicle to full speed, flying past the surprised monsters as she hurtled her way into the small tunnel.

She was in the tunnel for but a few seconds, before she found herself in the middle of a humongous open area, where, at the end, was a large castle-like structure with the words “Check-In Station” emblazoned on a large neon signage stuck to the highest turret.

Bulma whooped, seeing that beyond the castle, there was nothing more, and this was clearly the end of the Snake Way, where she can find King Yemma.

She dropped down onto the large center lawn, attracting the attention of several people standing around the palace garden.

She pulled her blaster out of the console before hurriedly leaping out, encapsulating the hover car as fast as she could before she ran full-throttle towards the open doors.

“Hey! That woman is alive!” One large, humanoid monster with blue skin, purple hair and a single yellow horn atop his head shouted. “Mez! It’s a living human!”

Bulma kept running as the blue man bounded after her, joined by a similarly large demon with red skin, small spectacles and black hair combed around two small yellow horns.

“Goz! Get her!” the red-skinned man shouted, and the blue demon nodded, charging at Bulma, who frantically scrambled to get away from them as the doors loomed ever closer.

She lifted her gun, turning to aim at the two demons behind her, completely forgetting that the blaster was still on the maximum setting.

She fired, but the impact from the gun sent it flying harshly from her grip and her hitting the floor hard, and she cried out as she landed painfully on her behind, a few feet away from the door.

Ignoring her protesting limbs and buttocks, she leapt up, scrambling her way to the door, knowing that if she got inside, she would be able to meet with King Yemma.

He had to be there. He just had to be!

She skidded into the castle, only to find herself in the midst of a large room full of people waiting in a straight line.

All the people looked at her curiously as she kept running, heading towards the front of the line, where she hoped to meet someone who could take her to King Yemma.

The two monsters were still behind her, and they were quickly gaining on her. She was tiring now, and she felt tears of exhaustion fill her eyes as she forced her legs to go on.

She could see  an enormous desk, at least five storeys high, just in front of her. She sprinted towards it, reaching for it, knowing that she was almost there…

A large hand suddenly clamped over her arms, forcibly hauling her up and off her feet, and she screamed, furiously kicking her legs around, hoping to get the attacker to drop her.

“Please! Let me go! I am so close! I need to speak to him, please!” she screamed, clawing at the thick hands that held her effortlessly above the ground. “Please, I beg you! I need to speak to King Yemma!”

An uncomfortable hush fell over the gathered crowd, before she heard the impossibly loud scraping of wood against stone.

It was as if an entire tree was being scraped against the side of a mountain, and Bulma realized that whoever had been behind the gigantic desk was moving, and the loud sound was that of the enormous chair as it was pushed away from the table.

“What do we have here?” a loud, thunderous voice sounded from above her, and Bulma almost screamed as she looked into the large beady eyes of a man who was at least a hundred feet tall.

He had red skin, two large white horns peaking from the side of his shaggy-haired and fully-bearded head. He was wearing a purple suit with a matching hat, with a white shirt underneath that was collared by a bright orange neck tie.

“Mez? Goz? What is the meaning of this?”

“Lord Yemma!” The red demon said, visibly shaking with terror.

Bulma stared at the humongous demon lord, renewing her efforts to break free from the demon holding her.

“Lord Yemma,” the blue demon said. “We found this living woman outside. She ran into the throne room, she was fast. We will take her now.”

“Please, no!” Bulma cried. “King Yemma, my name is Bulma. Please! I need to talk to you!”

Yemma looked at her sternly as he answered. “How did you get here, human?”

“Uranai helped me through the portal,” she said, making the demon king raise a brow in surprise. “She helped me because I need to talk to you about a man who is not supposed to be here.”

“And how did you manage to make it this far? The demons would have devoured you the moment you landed onto the Snake Way,” Yemma asked.

“Because my spirit is linked to the man I need to speak to you about, so the less powerful demons probably did not sense me. They weren’t reacting to me as I approached the Spirit Bridge.”

“Goz,” Yemma said. “Release her.”

Bulma immediately felt the hands around her let go, and she fell, nearly losing her balance as she righted herself after the rough treatment.

“Alright. Who is this man you are referring to?” Yemma asked.

Bulma took a deep breath. “Vegeta, Prince of the Saiyans.”

Goz and Mez released simultaneous gasps, and Yemma himself looked taken aback.

Mez, the red demon, spoke up. “Vegeta of the Saiyans most definitely is supposed to be here. His spirit has been partially in hell for thirty human years, girl.”

“Yes, I know. And that is the reason why I am here. His soul is tied to mine,” she began.

“Do you want the bond to be cut?” Yemma asked.

“No! Please, no. Why does everyone think I want the bond cut? I don’t want the bond to be cut,” she exclaimed. “I want Vegeta to come back with me to the living world.”

“Absolutely not!” Mez said. “Do you even know what you are asking? That man deserves Hell more than any being you have ever met on Earth!”

“He is right, girl,” Yemma agreed “Vegeta has killed so many people, beyond what you can imagine. He conquered dozens of planets, ended millions of lives.”

“But he did those under orders from Frieza! It wasn’t him who wanted to do it!” she decried.

“True, but it does not excuse the fact that those people died by his hand. We also need to remember that he borrowed a false form to return to the living world for selfish reasons; just so he can take his revenge from Frieza. Thus, his crimes cannot go unpunished. He has yet to do anything that would absolve him of his sins.”

“He died for me!” Bulma said, feeling her tears rising to the fore once again. She quickly dashed them with her hand, just in time to see the expression of profound surprise on Yemma’s face.

“Truly?”

“Yes!” she answered. “He… he let himself die, so I could live. His soul is linked to mine, and for him to survive, all he had to do was kill me. But he chose to go into his fight with Frieza weakened, because he didn’t want to harm me.”

She choked as she kept speaking. “He could have lived on, but he gave himself up, for me. I need him, King Yemma. I need him back. Please,” she begged, “please, let me have him back.”

Yemma looked at her in sympathy. “I would allow it,” he began, and Bulma was about to scream in joy when he held up his hand. “However… He is currently being watched by Dabura, and you will need to convince him, too. Dabura is the king of Hell, and was the one who gave Vegeta a way to return to the living world, following his conditions. If he agrees, you and Vegeta need to come back here to the check-in station so I could write his name off the book of souls until he dies again. Are we clear?”

Bulma nodded. “Yes! I will try to convince Dabura. Where should I go?”

Yemma grinned, before he snapped a finger, and before Bulma could even blink, she was in a dark, dreary area filled with little potholes full of flames, screams of agony echoing around her while the heat of the flames burned her skin.

She recognized the place immediately.

Hell.

She walked aimlessly, trying to avoid the flames but not knowing where to go.

“Dammit,” she muttered, ducking away from yet another tongue of flame that looked a little too much like long, thin claws trying to reach for her. “The better to grab you and kill you with,” she thought sarcastically.

She yelped as she jumped away from a hole that spewed fire up, nearly singeing her hair. “I hate this place. Vegeta, you better be thankful for this.”

“Bulma?”

She nearly lost her footing when a voice, dripping with surprise and confusion, rang loudly, clearly, in her head.

It was Vegeta’s voice!

“Vegeta?!” she asked aloud, heart pounding in her throat.

“Bulma? Is that you?”

Tears filled her eyes, falling down her cheeks before she lifted her hands to wipe them away.

“Vegeta? It’s me!” she sobbed, “I am so happy to hear your voice again.”

“What the fuck are you doing? Are you really in the Spirit World?”

“Yes! I came here to get you!” she said, hearing the infuriated concern in his voice in her head.

“Get the hell out of here, you crazy woman!” he hissed in her head. “This place is dangerous!”

“I know!” she laughed. “But I don’t care! Now, where are you?”

“In Hell, somewhere! It is not as if we have postal addresses.”

“Oh, ha-ha. Can you lead me?”

“I… I don’t know. Bulma, how did you get here? How did you survive long enough to get to Hell?”

She sobered, letting a fond smile wash over her face as she stood still in the midst of the literal fires of Hell.

“I stayed strong and thought of you, Vegeta. I wanted to see you again, so no matter how hard it was… I kept holding on.”

She could feel his happiness flow through her, reminding her of the time when he was still in the orb, and his emotions poured into her body as she held his tiny prison in her hand.

“I wish to see you too. But please, woman... you have to leave. It is not safe…”

“No, Vegeta! I’m gonna find you. You can’t stop me. Not now,” she replied, tiptoeing through another group of flaming stones.

“Fine then. Insolent wench.”

“Stubborn jerk,” she said, grinning affectionately. “Hey. Keep talking to me. I think… I think I can hear your voice getting louder. Maybe I can hear you better, the closer I get.”

“Tch. What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. Anything, really. Keep it up, I can hear you better now.”

“I have no idea what I should talk about! Ask me something so I can answer.”

“Alright,” she said, a small frown marring her face as she thought of what to ask. Then…

“Vegeta,” Bulma began. “Why didn’t you want to kill me? It would have been easier for you, far less risky for you and your team. So… why?”

“Are you seriously asking me this? I would have thought that it would have been clear by now.”

“No, it’s not,” she answered. “I… I have my guesses, but… I want to know what you were really thinking.”

“I was thinking that I did not want any harm to come upon you, and yet here you are, actively seeking ways to die.”

She giggled. “You care about me. Admit it.”

She was met by silence.

“ Vegeta? Hey. Vegeta? Are you still there? Veg-”

“I more than care about you, woman. Never doubt that.”

His words rang clearly through her heart, sending warmth through her soul, and as she took another step forward past a large pillar of melting metal, her eyes widened as she saw the one person who had made this journey to Hell all worth the trouble.

“Vegeta!” she cried, running carelessly through the field of fire when she saw his familiar, muscular form, chained to a tall, wide metal pole.

He looked up, and his dark eyes filled with elation as he saw her running towards him.

“Bulma!” he called, straining against his bindings, trying his best to reach her, to move as close as possible to her in spite of his bindings.

“Vegeta!” she said his name again as she ran to him, holding her hands out as she threw herself forward, reaching out to hold his face in her palms before desperately pressing her mouth to his in a kiss that she had wanted, needed, for oh, so long.

He kissed her back with equal fervor, his mouth slanting against hers as she whimpered, gasping in joy as they finally, finally touched once again after what seemed like an eternity apart.

“Bulma,” he whispered against her lips, still straining against the thick chains that bound him against the large beam.

She pulled away, looking at him through teary eyes. “I can’t believe I’m holding you again.”

“I can’t believe you actually travelled to Hell to see me again, after everything I have caused you to suffer through,” he rasped.

“Don’t say that,” she said with a light laugh, before she leaned back, hands on his chest as she assessed him. “Now, how can I set you free from this thing?”

“You can’t,” an eerily familiar voice said from behind her, and she heard Vegeta growl as she turned, and found herself staring at the form of a monster that she had seen once in her dreams.

“You’re Dabura,” she said, a note of accusation in her tone.

“Why yes. So glad to know that my reputation precedes me,” he said with a short bow. “You must be Bulma! Yemma has told me a little about you.”

She stood stiffly, placing herself between Vegeta and the demon who was looming over them.

“Now… Yemma told me that you wanted to take Vegeta with you, back to the world of the living. Is that right?” Dabura asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “He told me to talk to you.”

“And what were you planning to do if I refuse?” Dabura sneered. “After all, Vegeta and I made a deal when I agreed to equip him with a temporary body. I was promised the soul of his spiritual counterpart, and when that failed, I got his. If I just let him leave, what do I get out of this agreement, then?”

She stilled. She did not really have a plan for that.

She realized… if Dabura wanted a soul, then… “I was thinking of offering you a compromise. You can keep me here instead of Vegeta.”

“Out of the question!” Vegeta roared from behind her. “Bulma, you are going back to the living realm, now!”

“No! I’m not going anywhere without you!” she protested, looking at him over her shoulder.

Dabura smirked. “See, there is a problem here. You,” he pointed at Bulma, “are not dead. But your soul is tethered here through him,” as he pointed at Vegeta.

“So, either way,” he continued, “if you stay here in the land of the dead, Vegeta… this woman will always come knocking. And Yemma didn’t cut your bond. The only way for any of you to be in your correct worlds is if you are both either fully alive, or fully dead.”

Vegeta growled, “You are not going to touch a single hair on her head, Dabura. If you harm her, I swear that I will find a way to permanently destroy you, myself.”

“I wasn’t planning to kill her, Vegeta,” Dabura smirked. “What I am saying is… I spoke to Yemma. Since you were incomplete upon death, you apparently did not fully die. So, if I were so inclined, I could let you go back to Earth.”

Bulma’s eyes widened.

Could it be? Would Dabura let Vegeta go?

“However, as I said before,” the demon king continued, “if I just let you go, where does that leave me? I would have just made a bad business deal. I expect recompense.”

She held her breath.

“If I were to bring you back to life, Saiyan, I demand a price. Something of equivalent value,” Dabura grinned.

“Name it, Dabura,” Bulma interrupted.

She was prepared. Even if he asked for her soul in return, she would give it.

The demon smiled, letting them see his fang-like teeth, as a wicked gleam entered his eyes.

“I demand that the Prince give up his Super Saiyan powers, and his skill with ki alchemy.”

Bulma gasped, while Vegeta growled.

“You… you expect him to give up his powers?” she asked, appalled.

“Not all of it,” Dabura said. “Just the Legendary Super Saiyan, as well as the alchemy. The Super Saiyan powers will no longer be needed, after all. It is an incredible power that will be unnecessary on Earth. As for the ki alchemy, it is what landed you both here in the first place, so I am taking it to balance everything out and avoid such difficult situations in the future.”

Bulma’s eyes widened as she realized that apparently, the final price that they needed to pay for their ultimate happiness was no longer either her or Vegeta’s lives, but his powers.

The power of the Super Saiyan, she knew, was Vegeta’s pride and joy. The thing that made him one of the most revered Saiyans to have ever existed…

“Take it,” Vegeta suddenly growled beside her.

She turned to him sharply. “Vegeta?”

“Take my Super Saiyan powers, Dabura. Take the ki alchemy, as well,” he continued. “Take whatever you want from me, if it means that I can go back to the living realm with Bulma.”

Vegeta turned to her then, his eyes soft, his lips curved into a small yet beautiful smile that Bulma burned into her heart. “If I can be with Bulma, no price is too steep.”

Dabura grinned, a dark smile filled with unholy glee that made the flames of Hell look pale in comparison. “Good.”

He raised his arms, and Bulma watched as Dabura formed a set of web-like energy strands that he then sent flying towards Vegeta.

“Vegeta!” she screamed, panicked, when Vegeta began to convulse, his body glowing in a dark golden glow that slowly seeped into the webs around Dabura’s fingers.

Vegeta groaned, slumping forward, his hair turning golden, then going back to black, switching erratically until the golden color of his hair appeared to melt away from him, forming a ball that flew towards Dabura, who opened his mouth to swallow the legendary energy.

Dabura finally released Vegeta, his chains snapping free from the pole, and Bulma stepped closer to him to catch him as he fell limply into her arms.

“Now, both of you, don’t worry. I may be a demon, but I have no intentions of using the legendary powers to harm you. I only took it as a form of check and balance,” Dabura said.

Bulma held Vegeta close, and as she did, she felt his body go from his usual abnormally hot temperature, to a heat that was closer to her own.

“Now, Vegeta is back in his full, mortal body. I can no longer keep you both here, so I am sending you to Yemma,” the demon said, then with a cheeky bow, added, “It was nice doing business with you.”

A second later, both Bulma and Vegeta found themselves in King Yemma’s large office, on the very top of his desk.

Yemma was above them, squinting at them, before he suddenly smiled.

He raised a hand, snapped…

And in the next second, Bulma found herself in the center of a house in the middle of nowhere, a tiny island home that hid a secret portal into the other world.

“Bulma,” Vegeta whispered as he held her, his arms tight around her as he took a deep breath beside her neck, taking in the scent of her hair.

And Bulma, blinded once again by her tears, could only smile as she caressed his face, ran her hands up and down his back…

She did it.

Vegeta was back. And she was never, ever, going to let him go again.

8-8-8-8-8

To be continued…

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[tpthvegebulevents]

MAYHEM 2018 - WEEK 4 - [ANON A] “THE FINAL PRICE” (2)

Title: The Final Price

Chapter Summary: Bulma is determined to find a way to bring Vegeta back, and with help from Goku and a reluctant Uranai, she journeys into the spirit world, ready to challenge the gods themselves for the right to her soulmate’s ultimate fate.

Genre: AU / Romance / Adventure

Rating: E

Chapter Warnings: Profane language; Slight sexual content.

Prompt: The Better To Grab You With

Word Count: 7,686

Chapter 6: Holding On

(Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8)

I.i.I.i.I.i.I.i.I

“We are going to Uranai, you and I,” she said. “We are going to bring Vegeta back.”

I.i.I.i.I.i.I.i.I

“Bulma, are you crazy?” Goku asked, a moment before a string of static filled her line, and she looked up just in time to see the familiar form of the tall Saiyan materializing before her.

She calmly placed her phone back onto her dresser, smiling placidly at the confounded man.

“Maybe. I don’t really know anymore, to be honest,” she said, half-jokingly. “But I need to try, Goku. Vegeta… he’s not completely gone, I think.”

Goku’s brows furrowed, concern filling his dark eyes. “Hey, look. I know that you’re really broken up about Prince Vegeta’s death, but you gotta listen to yourself, Bulma-”

“No, no, no, listen to me,” Bulma interjected, excitedly waving her arms around as a very vague plan began to form in her head.

“I’m listening,” Goku said, his tone clearly stating that he thought she had gone insane.

Bulma laughed. “He’s speaking to me, Goku. From the afterlife.”

Goku’s brows shot up. “O-kaaaay,” he said. “So, you’re like, a psychic now?”

“No! Vegeta was speaking to me through my dreams!”

“A dream psychic then?”

“No!” Bulma exclaimed, stomping her foot in mounting frustration. “I dreamed of him, I saw what is happening to him, right now!”

Goku still looked unconvinced. “I… I don’t get it?”

She sighed. “Alright. Remember how I dreamt of his past, through his eyes?”

He nodded.

“Well, now I dreamed of his present. In the afterlife. Right now,” she explained. “And he is suffering so badly there, Goku. He doesn’t deserve this. We have to help him!”

“Look, I can kinda see how you would think that Prince Vegeta is talking to you, but how do you propose we try to save him?” Goku asked, placing his fists on his hips.

“Uranai! She has a portal, right? Maybe we can use it or something!” then, Bulma paused. “Wait, didn’t you say that you found something when you went to Uranai?”

“Oh, right,” Goku said, arms dropping to his side. “Uranai told me that your soul is still linked to Vegeta’s, and that was why you can see his past. She can try to cut it, if you want-”

“No!” she cried. “Are you crazy? No! Why would I want to do that?”

“Well, Uranai said it would probably ease some of your pain, so you could move on.”

“No! Never,” she said, raising a hand to her chest, as if trying to find and protect her invisible link to Vegeta. “I need this link. This may be the one thing that can help me bring him back!”

Goku scratched his head. “You really think you can bring him back, huh?”

“I am positive. I can feel it. There has to be a way…” Bulma said. “After all, when Vegeta died, he was not in his real body, right? Because he didn’t kill me, he never got his real body back. So maybe… Maybe he is not completely dead.”

The Saiyan’s eyes widened at that. “You know… that makes a lot of sense.”

“Of course, I’m a genius, after all!” Bulma bragged. “So you have to help me, Goku. Don’t you want to have your Prince back?”

Goku’s eyes brightened, and a determined smile stretched his lips.

“If you really think there is a chance we can bring him back,” he said, “I’m comin’ with ya. What do you need me to do?”

Bulma smiled, the widest and most enthusiastic one she had ever smiled, in years.

She put her hands on Goku’s arm, then said, “First, I need you to take me to my office. There are a few items there that I need to pick up, just in case.”

He nodded, then, lifted his fingers up to his forehead in a heart wrenching, familiar way that reminded Bulma all the more of how important it was that her plan succeeds.

It was the only way to have Vegeta back.

The dizzying moment of transmission passed quickly enough, and Bulma immediately went to her desk, running to the cabinet behind it.

She popped open her secret drawer, pulling out the small blaster that she had made upon Vegeta’s suggestion.

She looked at it, hoping against hope that the small weapon could hold out if she needed it in a fight.

This would be the blaster’s first real-world test drive.

God, but she hoped that the lab tests were accurate.

After pulling out the gun and securely tucking it into a customized gun holster that she had especially made for it, she went to her desk and opened her first drawer.

Within that drawer, was a small capsule containing her most precious invention: her tiny, personalized multi-terrain hover car. It had the ability to run speeds up to a thousand miles per hour, but had highly sophisticated stabilizers built in so that the passenger remains unharmed.

She had used it only once, and she knew for a fact that the thing was advanced enough to run several thousand miles with a single full tank of gasoline.

She picked up ten gasoline capsules as well, just to be sure, and secured those and the hover car into a pouch beside her blaster.

“Alright,” she grinned, turning back to Goku. “Now, let’s go to Uranai.”

Goku nodded, letting her hold on to his arm once again while he teleported them to Kame House.

When they arrived, Bulma looked around, noting that the entire island looked exactly the same as the last time she had been there. It was almost as if the island was trapped in time, where the lone tree shading the small house never grew but also never wilted, and the sand remained unmoved in spite of the water’s constant motions.

Bulma realized then, that the portal must have been the one responsible for keeping this lone island seemingly suspended in time.

After all, how else could she explain the fact that the guardian of the portal had been around for more than two hundred years?

She stepped into the small house, followed by Goku, who quietly shut the door behind them.

She looked around, and her eyes met the open trapdoor leading down into the basement, where she had previously seen Uranai as she worked on her Spirit Bridge.

Bulma took a deep breath.

“Uranai!” she called out. “Uranai! It’s Bulma and Goku, we need your help!”

“Grandma Uranai!” Goku called out, as well.

“Just a minute!” the old, raspy female voice called out, “I am coming! Kami, you youngsters are always in a hurry.”

They both waited impatiently as they heard the old woman begin to make her way up the creaky stairs from the basement, and as soon as the tip of her pointy black hat came into view, Goku swooped in, practically dragging the old witch up the remaining few steps.

“Aiyeeee!” Uranai screamed as Goku lifted her, placing her down before Bulma.

“Goku, you idiot, I thought I was going to fall!” Uranai scolded, giving Goku a solid whack on the head with her wooden cane.

“Ow! I’m sorry, you were taking so long and I was excited!” he said, rubbing at the sore spot.

“What in all the realms are you so excited about that you had to drag me from my portal?” she asked, dusting imaginary lint from her dress before she turned to Bulma. “Hello, Bulma.”

“Hi, Uranai,” Bulma greeted, shifting her weight between her feet as she basically jogged in place, in a strange mixture of excitement and anxiety. “We need your help.”

“So I have heard,” the crone said drily. “And how may I assist you two, today?”

“We wanna go into the Other World!” Goku burst out.

Uranai’s eyes went so large that Bulma feared that they would pop out of her skull.

“You what?!” Uranai asked, scandalized.

Bulma stood straighter, then said, with a lot more calmness than she actually felt. “Goku and I need your help to go into the Spirit realm, or afterlife.”

Uranai bristled. “No! Are you crazy?”

Bulma sighed. “This is not the first time I was asked that question today.”

“Because what you want to do is insane!” Uranai screeched, leaping up to her eye level to drive her point home. “No! Absolutely not… that is out of the question!”

“Please, Uranai!” Goku said. “Bulma has an idea and she thinks that she can maybe bring Prince Vegeta back!”

“Goku, you idiot, that is not possible,” Uranai said. “Once someone has entered the spirit world, there will be no going back! And it is not just for Prince Vegeta… why do you think I get so angry when you or anyone else tries to enter the basement? A living being going into the spirit world would immediately be sucked in and turned into a spirit.”

“Not everyone,” Bulma interjected. “The last time I went into the basement, the spirits did not sense me, did they, Uranai?”

Uranai went still. “No, they did not,” she answered solemnly. “But it could have been for any number of reasons-”

“You told Goku that Vegeta and I are still linked,” Bulma said. “It means that his dead spirit is connected to mine. I may have just enough of him in me for the spirits not to realize who I am, until I could get to Vegeta.”

“And what do you propose to do once you get there, huh?” Uranai asked. “Just pull Vegeta back with you? That could never work.”

“No, but if I was down there, I could find a way,” Bulma said, before she suddenly sobered as she thought of another, much less ideal possibility. “Or, even if I couldn’t… at least I could see him one last time.”

“Tsk,” Uranai said. “Your sentimentality will get you killed, child.”

Bulma looked straight at Uranai. “And was it not sentimentality that got Vegeta killed, as well? If he had taken my life as he was supposed to, he could have been in his full-power and could have killed Frieza, without dying, himself.”

Bulma gulped. “He risked everything, going into the fight at partial strength. That was the reason why he had to wait for the Red Moon, after all, was it not? He needed all possible advantages, because he knew that he was going in with a very distinct disadvantage.”

She couldn’t stop speaking as the full impact of what Vegeta had given up for her hit her all at once. “He had waited thirty years, thirty gods damned years, only to let it all go because he didn’t want to sacrifice me. For his sake… for his sake, I need to try everything I could to see if I could save him, as well.”

Uranai looked at her with a face full of sympathy and uncertainty, but finally, nodded.

“Alright. I will see if I can get you into the spirit realm. But Goku,” she turned to the Saiyan. “You stay here. You are very much alive, with no spirit links, and an overflowing amount of power. The spirits will devour you in less than a second.”

“Is there no way I can help?” Goku asked, turning concerned eyes to Bulma. “Bulma isn’t strong, or fast. She’s an Earthling and I don’t know how she could manage without someone there to protect her.”

“I’ll have Vegeta protecting me,” she said, smiling at her spiky-haired friend. “He’s in my soul, Goku. Don’t worry, I’ll be back.”

“Don’t say your goodbyes, just yet,” Uranai interrupted. “I still need to see if I can actually manage to push you into the spirit world. We have a lot of sound theories but we won’t know for sure until I go and try.”

“We can do it Uranai, I’m sure!” Bulma said, a wave of conviction going through her along with the relief that Uranai had agreed to help her.

Uranai turned slowly towards the stairs leading down to the basement, and Bulma followed right behind her, her heart pounding quick, rapid beats as the gravity of what she was about to do started to fall upon her shoulders.

She was going into the spirit realm. She was going in there, mixing up with various ghosts and monsters and heaven knows what else.

But she was doing it for Vegeta.

“Can’t you calm down a little? Even I can hear your heartbeats from here. The spirits will pounce on you if you keep that up,” Uranai scolded, and Bulma took a few deep breaths as she began to take the few final steps into the basement.

A thick wooden wall concealed the basement from the stairs, and as Uranai turned the corner going into the hidden area, Bulma put her hand on her chest, willing her heart to calm down.

She could do this. She wanted to do this. But it certainly didn’t mean that it wasn’t terrifying.

She took the last few steps, passing the wooden wall…

Her heart stopped beating, her breath caught in her throat.

The Spirit Bridge was a large, circular black hole that seemingly led into endless darkness, floating ominously over a wide, glassy, flat surface that resembled the mirror that she had seen Dabura holding up to Vegeta in her dream.

The portal itself was dark, a void, but small wisps of foul-smelling clouds and thin strips of weak energy wafted in and out of the portal, a horrifying glimpse of the things that likely awaited Bulma down beneath the blackness. It was large, about twice her height, and as she came closer, she heard the howling from within it growing louder, as the wispy threads of energy began to turn an angry red.

Uranai turned to her, her wrinkled face somber and worried. “Some of the spirits can sense you Bulma. If you are not extremely careful, they will find you, and will suck you in with them, forever. Are you sure you are up to this?”

Bulma took a very deep breath.

“Yes, I want to do this, Uranai,” she confirmed, looking determinedly at the portal, almost daring it to try and stop her from finding her man.

She was going to literally die trying to get him back.

“Alright, listen to me,” Uranai said. “I will open the Spirit Bridge for you, but once you get in, you have to hurry. Run as fast as you can.”

“Can I use a hover car?” Bulma asked hopefully, already feeling the weight of her capsules in her belt.

The crone blinked. “You brought one?”

“Yep!” Bulma beamed proudly, patting her pocket full of capsules.

“Well then. That is a great amount of foresight,” Uranai commented. “Now. As I was saying. Run, or drive as fast as you can. As you touch down onto the Spirit World, you will find a very long and winding path that we call the Snake Way. At the very end of the Snake Way, is the King of the Underworld, King Yemma. He is the one you need to talk to, if you wish to bring Vegeta back.”

Uranai cleared her throat. “Now, remember: along the way, make sure you interact with as little amount of beings as possible. The longer you are with them, the easier it may be for them to figure out that you are not dead, and they will try to kill you.”

Bulma gulped, then nodded.

“Would you happen to have a weapon with you?

She patted her pocket with a smug smirk.

Uranai just shook her head. “I see that it must be the arrogance that attracted the Prince to you.”

She laughed at that, flipping her blue hair off her shoulder, noting that the portal now seemed to be blowing out an increasingly strong gust of wind.

Uranai spoke again, “Make sure that you blast anyone who gets too close, especially if they try to pull you down with them. If you fall off the Snake Way, you will fall directly into Hell, and no one can help you from there as King Yemma would not have known of your presence yet.”

Bulma frowned. “Why don’t you just tell him ahead that I am coming?”

“Do you have any idea how long the waiting time is to get an appointment with King Yemma? The ongoing wait list is fifty years.”

“Oh.”

“Well then. Are you ready?” Uranai asked, lifting her hands up to the portal, and Bulma stared in awe as a little point of light appeared in the very center of the darkness.

The light grew larger, very slowly, until Bulma saw that the light was now large enough to accommodate a small child.

Uranai started shouting, “Jump in as soon as you think the hole is large enough for you to fit through. I don’t know how much longer I can hold this open! Also, I do not have the powers to bring you back here, so you need to reach King Yemma so he can push you back out into the living world.”

Bulma nodded, jogging lightly as she tried to figure out the best way to jump into the hole.

She held onto the edges of the light, ignoring the burning sensation caused by the bits of darkness licking at her fingers.

Lunging up with all the strength she could muster into her arms, she lifted herself up, pushing her head and shoulders into the hole, before she leaned down to slide the rest of her body down the bright part of the portal, barely squeezing her butt in as Uranai started losing strength.

“Go!” Uranai yelled, and Bulma pulled herself down, sliding down the tunnel, shrieking all the way.

She screamed, trying to spin around so she wouldn’t land on her face once she finally reached solid ground. She was hurtling down the tunnel of light at a fast rate, and she was quite sure that her landing was going to hurt.

She saw a slight change in hue from a few meters before her and she realized then that she must have been rapidly approaching the Snake Way.

She braced herself, not quite sure if she should go on feet first, afraid of injuring her legs.

“Dammit why didn’t I pay more attention to Physical Ed classes?” she whimpered as the surface came closer and closer…

She braced herself, wrapping her arms around her head…

Only to fall butt first onto a very soft pile of cushions, the small pillows burying her as she sank deep into the cloud-like mattress.

She opened her eyes, that she had not realized that she had shut, only to see the most amazing span of virtual nothingness that she had ever thought to see.

The mattress she had fallen on was round and airy, and she struggled a bit to get off the bed-like contraption so she can stand on her two feet on the relatively smooth ground below.

She stood on the yellowish road that looked like smooth marble, edged on all sides by tiny golden frills. Beyond the narrow road was an endless sea of the puffiest white clouds, reminding Bulma of huge rolls of cotton candy.

She looked behind her, looking for the opening to the portal, and to her utter dismay, discovered that the light tunnel was gone. The only thing behind her was more nothingness, and the airy bed that she had fallen onto.

She was at the end of the Snake Way, and was truly on her own.

She knocked the heels of her shoes on the pavement, noting the sound of her feet hitting concrete.

Bulma was baffled. What was with all the warnings to stay away from the spirits? The place was absolutely empty.

She released her capsule containing the hovercraft, then got into the car as soon as the vehicle materialized before her.

She remembered Uranai telling her to run as fast as she can, so she immediately set the craft up to its highest speed, leaning back as the craft flew through at speeds that would normally be dizzyingly deadly if she wasn’t within a stabilized car.

It did not take long for Bulma to finally understand what it was that Uranai had been warning her about, after all.

She had been travelling the single, winding road for at few hours, probably half a day, when the skies suddenly grew darker.

She looked out the viewing walls of the craft, and only then realized that the puffy clouds outside had begun to morph into darkened shrouds of smoke, with angry red bolts of lightning screeching out of their edges, and moving ever closer to her as she went deeper through the Snake Way.

She took the wheel, moving into a manual pilot override, so she can stir the hover car should anything try to hit her or get in the way.

Bulma watched in trepidation as the smoke began to hover closer to the edges of the Snake Way, the sharp shards of electricity zipping out and trying to lick her tiny car.

She wrenched her car to the right, avoiding a particularly long bolt, quickly righting her path so that she stayed on top of the road.

She distinctly remembered Uranai telling her not to fall off the Snake Way, and she was definitely not in the mood to find out if the bad side of Hell was truly just beyond those golden edges.

The clouds were getting darker, thicker, visibly denser, and Bulma tried harder to stay away from the flits of energy that would surely fry her circuitry if she got hit.

If her car broke down, she was so dead. She was deader than dead.

The Snake Way seemed endless, and she knew that she would have no hope of reaching the end of it if she was on foot.

She kept on moving forward, slowing down a little as she had to carefully maneuver around the dark clouds that were really closing in on her, attempting to crush her with their darkness, should they successfully catch her in their grasp.

A large mass of darkness suddenly blocked her way, and Bulma screamed, sure that she would not be able to duck out of the way.

Her shock was immeasurable, when she simply passed through the cloud, emerging onto a once again, clear and cottony clouded Snake Way.

Her heart was pumping a mile a minute, and she looked around in confusion, not quite understanding the sudden shift.

“Better just be thankful, I suppose,” she muttered, engaging her auto pilot once again so she can go at faster speeds, now that the dark clouds were gone.

A few more hours later, she began to wish for the dark clouds to come back.

A horde of demons, stereotypical looking demons with dark eyes, pointed horns and arrow-tipped tails, began to emerge from the edges of the Snake Way.

Bulma pushed the hover car as fast as it would go as she swerved and dodged around the beings who seemed to know that she was a living person, as they with all their might to grab a hold of her round little vehicle to pull it down with them.

She had to disengage the auto pilot once more, as the car insisted on just pushing forward instead of dodging the demons, but the problems really started to pile up when Bulma needed to slow down the vehicle so that her reflexes can keep up with the movements.

She could not afford to simply keep dodging, she had to go on the offense.

Reaching down to her belt, she pulled her experimental blaster out of her holster, powered it up, before she lifted a tiny latch from the very center of the hover car.

The latch was specifically designed so that she can secure her specialized weapons onto the console in case she needed firepower.

At the time she had been drafting the designs, she had giggled to herself, thinking it ridiculous for her to design a vehicle that was so obviously needed for adventurous situations, when the most adventurous that she had been before was drinking one flask of wine too many.

Now, she thanked her lucky stars for whatever streak of insanity had possessed her to make her include the gun hatch in her vehicles.

She engaged the blaster, adjusting it to the medium firing strength, then, keeping her fingers crossed, pressed the trigger.

A blinding flash of pure energy exploded from the front of her vehicle, causing her to stumble back as the blaster released its load. The blast was stronger than she had anticipated, and the interior of the vehicle started to shake as Bulma began pressing the trigger more often, more quickly, effectively destroying tens of demons with a single shot.

There were hundreds of monsters, and Bulma felt the terror creep into her heart as she realized that all it would take was a single wrong move on her side, and they would overwhelm her, dragging her down into the abyss with them to suffer an eternity of flames and torture.

She would have welcomed death, if not for the thought of a life that she needed to save. The life of Vegeta was in her hands, and she could not afford to fail.

She persevered, pushing her hovercraft to its limits as she flew up and over the demons, blasting anything that got too close.

The crowd of demons grew denser, while she herself started to become braver, feeling more confident as she thought that this was actually rather fun, if she pretended that it was just a video game.

She saw a tiny spot of light ahead, a very small opening largely obscured by the horde of monsters, and she realized that this spot was her most likely escape, probably the end of a tunnel that she had to cross to get to King Yemma.

The spot was growing larger, and she became more determined, hands flying over her controls as she snaked through the enemies and blasted through the ones that would not quit.

She was sweating now, the exhaustion seeping into her bones after the several-hour long dangerous journey, but she was almost there!

She had to hold on, just a bit more. Just… a bit… more!

With a final, desperate attempt, she set her blaster on the highest setting, then, bracing herself for the recoil, fired.

The blast was nearly deafening in its power, shocking even Bulma, who had never yet used the maximum setting during the trials.

She stared, absolutely flabbergasted, as almost all of the demons blocking her melted away, and she took the chance to immediately push her vehicle to full speed, flying past the surprised monsters as she hurtled her way into the small tunnel.

She was in the tunnel for but a few seconds, before she found herself in the middle of a humongous open area, where, at the end, was a large castle-like structure with the words “Check-In Station” emblazoned on a large neon signage stuck to the highest turret.

Bulma whooped, seeing that beyond the castle, there was nothing more, and this was clearly the end of the Snake Way, where she can find King Yemma.

She dropped down onto the large center lawn, attracting the attention of several people standing around the palace garden.

She pulled her blaster out of the console before hurriedly leaping out, encapsulating the hover car as fast as she could before she ran full-throttle towards the open doors.

“Hey! That woman is alive!” One large, humanoid monster with blue skin, purple hair and a single yellow horn atop his head shouted. “Mez! It’s a living human!”

Bulma kept running as the blue man bounded after her, joined by a similarly large demon with red skin, small spectacles and black hair combed around two small yellow horns.

“Goz! Get her!” the red-skinned man shouted, and the blue demon nodded, charging at Bulma, who frantically scrambled to get away from them as the doors loomed ever closer.

She lifted her gun, turning to aim at the two demons behind her, completely forgetting that the blaster was still on the maximum setting.

She fired, but the impact from the gun sent her flying, and she cried out as she landed painfully on her behind, a few feet away from the door.

Ignoring her protesting limbs and buttocks, she leapt up, scrambling her way to the door, knowing that if she got inside, she would be able to meet with King Yemma.

He had to be there. He just had to be!

She skidded into the castle, only to find herself in the midst of a large room full of people waiting in a straight line.

All the people looked at her curiously as she kept running, heading towards the front of the line, where she hoped to meet someone who could take her to King Yemma.

The two monsters were still behind her, and they were quickly gaining on her. She was tiring now, and she felt tears of exhaustion fill her eyes as she forced her legs to go on.

She could see  an enormous desk, at least five storeys high, just in front of her. She sprinted towards it, reaching for it, knowing that she was almost there…

A large hand suddenly clamped over her arms, forcibly hauling her up and off her feet, and she screamed, furiously kicking her legs around, hoping to get the attacker to drop her.

“Please! Let me go! I am so close! I need to speak to him, please!” she screamed, clawing at the thick hands that held her effortlessly above the ground. “Please, I beg you! I need to speak to King Yemma!”

An uncomfortable hush fell over the gathered crowd, before she heard the impossibly loud scraping of wood against stone.

It was as if an entire tree was being scraped against the side of a mountain, and Bulma realized that whoever had been behind the gigantic desk was moving, and the loud sound was that of his enormous chair as she pushed it away from the table.

“What do we have here?” a loud, thunderous voice sounded from above her, and Bulma almost screamed as she looked into the large beady eyes of a man who was at least a hundred feet tall.

He had red skin, two large white horns peaking from the side of his shaggy-haired and fully-bearded head. He was wearing a purple suit with a matching hat, with a white shirt underneath that was collared by a bright orange neck tie.

“Mez? Goz? What is the meaning of this?”

“Lord Yemma!” The red demon said, visibly shaking with terror.

Bulma stared at the humongous demon lord, renewing her efforts to break free from the demon holding her.

“Lord Yemma,” the blue demon said. “We found this living woman outside. She ran into the throne room, she was fast. We will take her now.”

“Please, no!” Bulma cried. “King Yemma, my name is Bulma. Please! I need to talk to you!”

Yemma looked at her sternly as he answered. “How did you get here, human?”

“Uranai helped me through the portal,” she said, making the demon king raise a brow in surprise. “She helped me because I need to talk to you about a man who is not supposed to be here.”

“And how did you manage to make it this far? The demons would have devoured you the moment you landed onto the Snake Way,” Yemma asked.

“Because my spirit is linked to the man I need to speak to you about, so the less powerful demons probably did not sense me. They weren’t reacting to me as I approached the Spirit Bridge.”

“Goz,” Yemma said. “Release her.”

Bulma immediately felt the hands around her let go, and she fell, nearly losing her balance as she righted herself after the rough treatment.

“Alright. Who is this man you are referring to?” Yemma asked.

Bulma took a deep breath. “Vegeta, Prince of the Saiyans.”

Goz and Mez released simultaneous gasps, and Yemma himself looked taken aback.

Mez, the red demon, spoke up. “Vegeta of the Saiyans most definitely is supposed to be here. His spirit has been partially in hell for thirty human years, girl.”

“Yes, I know. And that is the reason why I am here. His soul is tied to mine,” she began.

“Do you want the bond to be cut?” Yemma asked.

“No! Please, no. Why does everyone think I want the bond cut? I don’t want the bond to be cut,” she exclaimed. “I want Vegeta to come back with me to the living world.”

“Absolutely not!” Mez said. “Do you even know what you are asking? That man deserves Hell more than any being you have ever met on Earth!”

“He is right, girl,” Yemma agreed “Vegeta has killed so many people, beyond what you can imagine. He conquered dozens of planets, ended millions of lives.”

“But he did those under orders from Frieza! It wasn’t him who wanted to do it!” she decried.

“True, but it does not excuse the fact that these people died by his hand. He has already used his lease on life by killing Frieza, but his crimes cannot go unpunished. He has yet to do anything that would absolve him of his sins.”

“He died for me!” Bulma said, feeling her tears rising to the fore once again. She quickly dashed them with her hand, just in time to see the expression of profound surprise on Yemma’s face.

“Truly?”

“Yes!” she answered. “He… he let himself die, so I could live. His soul is linked to mine, and for him to survive, all he had to do was kill me. But he chose to go into his fight with Frieza weakened, because he didn’t want to harm me.”

She choked as she kept speaking. “He could have lived on, but he gave himself up, for me. I need him, King Yemma. I need him back. Please,” she begged, “please, let me have him back.”

Yemma looked at her in sympathy. “I would allow it,” he began, and Bulma was about to scream in joy when he held up his hand. “However. He is currently being watched by Dabura, and you will need to convince him, too. If he agrees, you and Vegeta need to come back here to the check-in station so I could write his name off the book until he dies again. Are we clear?”

Bulma nodded. “Yes! I will try to convince Dabura. Where should I go?”

Yemma grinned, before he snapped a finger, and before Bulma could even blink, she was in a dark, dreary area filled with little potholes full of flames, screams of agony echoing around her while the heat of the flames burned her skin.

She recognized the place immediately.

Hell.

She walked aimlessly, trying to avoid the flames but not knowing where to go.

“Dammit,” she muttered, ducking away from yet another tongue of flame that looked a little too much like long, thin claws trying to reach for her. “The better to grab you and kill you with,” she thought sarcastically.

She yelped as she jumped away from a hole that spewed fire up, nearly singeing her hair. “I hate this place. Vegeta, you better be thankful for this.”

“Bulma?”

She nearly lost her footing when a voice rang loudly, clearly, in her head.

It was Vegeta’s voice!

“Vegeta?!” she asked aloud, heart pounding in her throat.

“Bulma? Is that you?”

Tears filled her eyes, falling down her cheeks before she lifted her hands to wipe them away.

“Vegeta? It’s me!” she sobbed, “I am so happy to hear your voice again.”

“What the fuck are you doing? Are you really in the Spirit World?”

“Yes! I came here to get you!” she said, hearing the infuriated concern in his voice in her head.

“Get the hell out of here, you crazy woman!” he hissed in her head. “This place is dangerous!”

“I know!” she laughed. “But I don’t care! Now, where are you?”

“In Hell, somewhere! It is not as if we have postal addresses.”

“Oh, ha-ha. Can you lead me?”

“I… I don’t know. Bulma, how did you get here? How did you survive long enough to get to Hell?”

She sobered, letting a fond smile wash over her face as she stood still in the midst of the literal fires of Hell.

“I stayed strong and thought of you, Vegeta. I wanted to see you again, so no matter how hard it was… I kept holding on.”

She could feel his happiness flow through her, reminding her of the time when he was still in the orb, and his emotions poured into her body as she held his tiny prison in her hand.

“I wish to see you too. But please, woman... you have to leave. It is not safe…”

“No, Vegeta! I’m gonna find you. You can’t stop me. Not now,” she replied, tiptoeing through another group of flaming stones.

“Fine then. Insolent wench.”

“Stubborn jerk,” she said, grinning affectionately. “Hey. Keep talking to me. I think… I think I can hear your voice getting louder. Maybe I can hear you better, the closer I get.”

“Tch. What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. Anything, really. Keep it up, I can hear you better now.”

“I have no idea what I should talk about! Ask me something so I can answer.”

“Alright,” she said, a small frown marring her face as she thought of what to ask. Then…

“Vegeta,” Bulma began. “Why didn’t you want to kill me? It would have been easier for you, far less risky for you and your team. So… why?”

“Are you seriously asking me this? I would have thought that it would have been clear by now.”

“No, it’s not,” she answered. “I… I have my guesses, but… I want to know what you were really thinking.”

“I was thinking that I did not want any harm to come upon you, and yet here you are, actively seeking ways to die.”

She giggled. “You care about me. Admit it.”

She was met by silence.

“ Vegeta? Hey. Vegeta? Are you still there? Veg-”

“I more than care about you, woman. Never doubt that.”

His words rang clearly through her heart, sending warmth through her soul, and as she took another step forward past a large pillar of melting metal, her eyes widened as she saw the one person who had made this journey to Hell all worth the trouble.

“Vegeta!” she cried, running carelessly through the field of fire when she saw his familiar, muscular form, chained to a tall, wide metal pole.

He looked up, and his dark eyes filled with elation as he saw her running towards him.

“Bulma!” he called, straining against his bindings, trying his best to reach her, to move as close as possible to her in spite of his bindings.

“Vegeta!” she said his name again as she ran to him, holding her hands out as she threw herself forward, reaching out to hold his face in her palms before desperately pressing her mouth to his in a kiss that she had wanted, needed, for oh, so long.

He kissed her back with equal fervor, his mouth slanting against hers as she whimpered, gasping in joy as they finally, finally touched once again after what seemed like an eternity apart.

“Bulma,” he whispered against her lips, still straining against the thick chains that bound him against the large beam.

She pulled away, looking at him through teary eyes. “I can’t believe I’m holding you again.”

“I can’t believe you actually travelled to Hell to see me again, after everything I have caused you to suffer through,” he rasped.

“Don’t say that,” she said with a light laugh, before she leaned back, hands on his chest as she assessed him. “Now, how can I set you free from this thing?”

“You can’t,” an eerily familiar voice said from behind her, and she heard Vegeta growl as she turned, and found herself staring at the form of a monster that she had seen once in her dreams.

“You’re Dabura,” she said, a note of accusation in her tone.

“Why yes. So glad to know that my reputation precedes me,” he said with a short bow. “You must be Bulma! Yemma has told me a little about you.”

She stood stiffly, placing herself between Vegeta and the demon who was looming over them.

“Now… Yemma told me that you wanted to take Vegeta with you, back to the world of the living. Is that right?” Dabura asked.

“Yes,” she answered. “He told me to talk to you.”

“And what were you planning to do if I refuse?”

She stilled. She did not really have a plan for that.

“I was thinking of offering you a compromise. You can keep me here instead of Vegeta.”

“Out of the question!” Vegeta roared from behind her. “Bulma, you are going back to Earth, with or without me.”

“No! I’m not going anywhere without you!” she said, looking at him over her shoulder.

Dabura smirked. “See, there is a problem here. You,” he pointed at Bulma, “are not dead. But your soul is tethered here through him,” as he pointed at Vegeta.

“So, either way,” he continued, “if you stay here in the land of the dead, Vegeta… this woman will always come knocking. And Yemma didn’t cut your bond. The only way for any of you to be in your correct worlds is if you are both either fully alive, or fully dead.”

Vegeta growled, “You are not going to touch a single hair on her head, Dabura. If you harm her, I swear that I will find a way to permanently destroy you, myself.”

“I wasn’t planning to kill her, Vegeta,” Dabura smirked. “What I am saying is… I spoke to Yemma. Since you were incomplete upon death, you apparently did not fully die. So, if I were so inclined, I could let you go back to Earth.”

Bulma’s eyes widened.

Could it be? Would Dabura let Vegeta go?

“However… I expect recompense.”

She held her breath.

“If I were to bring you back to life, Saiyan, I demand a price. Something of equivalent value,” Dabura grinned.

“Name it, Dabura,” Bulma said.

She was prepared. Even if he asked for her soul in return, she would give it.

The demon smiled, letting them see his fang-like teeth, as a wicked gleam entered his eyes.

“I demand that the Prince give up his Super Saiyan powers, and his skill with ki alchemy.”

Bulma gasped, while Vegeta growled.

“You… you expect him to give up his powers?” she asked, appalled.

“Not all of it,” Dabura said. “Just the Legendary Super Saiyan, as well as the alchemy. The Super Saiyan powers will no longer be needed, after all. It is an incredible power that will be unnecessary on Earth. As for the ki alchemy, it is what landed you both here in the first place, so I am taking it to balance everything out and avoid such difficult situations in the future.”

Bulma was shocked.

The Super Saiyan, she knew, was Vegeta’s pride and joy. The thing that made him one of the most revered Saiyans to have ever existed…

“Take it,” Vegeta suddenly growled beside her.

She turned to him sharply. “Vegeta?”

“Take my Super Saiyan powers, Dabura. Take the ki alchemy, as well,” he continued. “Take whatever you want from me, if it means that I can go back and be with Bulma.”

He looked at her then, his eyes soft, his lips curved into a beautiful smile that Bulma burned into her heart. “If I can be with Bulma, no price is too steep.”

Dabura grinned, a dark smile filled with unholy glee that made the flames of Hell look pale in comparison. “Good.”

He raised his arms, and Bulma watched as Dabura formed a set of web-like energy strands that he then sent flying towards Vegeta.

“Vegeta!” she screamed, panicked, when Vegeta began to convulse, his body glowing in a dark blue glow that slowly seeped into the webs around Dabura’s fingers.

Vegeta groaned, slumping forward, his hair turning golden, then going back to black, switching erratically until the golden color of his hair appeared to melt away from him, forming a ball that flew towards Dabura, who opened his mouth to swallow the legendary energy.

Dabura finally released Vegeta, his chains snapping free from the pole, and Bulma stepped closer to him to catch him as he fell limply into her arms.

“Now, both of you, don’t worry. I may be a demon, but I have no intentions of using the legendary powers to harm you. I only took it as a form of check and balance,” Dabura said.

Bulma held Vegeta close, and as she did, she felt his body go from his usual abnormally hot temperature, to a heat that was closer to her own.

“Now, Vegeta is back in his full, mortal body. I can no longer keep you both here, so I am sending you to Yemma,” the demon said, then with a cheeky bow, added, “It was nice doing business with you.”

A second later, both Bulma and Vegeta found themselves in King Yemma’s large office, on the very top of his desk.

Yemma was above them, squinting at them, before he suddenly smiled.

He raised a hand, snapped…

And in the next second, Bulma found herself in the center of the tiny house in the middle of nowhere, a tiny island home that hid a secret portal into the other world.

“Bulma,” Vegeta whispered as he held her, his arms tight around her as he took a deep breath beside her neck, taking in the scent of her hair.

And Bulma, blinded once again by her tears, could only smile as she carressed his face, ran her hands up and down his back…

She did it.

Vegeta was back. And she was never, ever, going to let him go again.

I.i.I.i.I.i.I.i.I

...to be continued...

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