yellowish fangs. Bulma's hand trembled and the scream stuck in her throat. The twitching cone of light wandered over a reddish-brown fur under which strong muscles played. The cat-like predator was at least the size of a tiger, visibly emaciated and apparently not averse to a nighttime snack from the earth. Only the flashlight that blinded him seemed to confuse it. Bulma bumped her back against one of the cupboards and reached for her only weapon, the laser cutter.
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<br />
"Just come on and I'll pull the fur over your ears," Bulma said aloud to reassure herself. Where was Vegeta when you needed him? Only now did she scream, scream as loudly as she could, even if it was insane to believe that Vegeta heard her.<br />
<br />
The predator's erect ears twitched. It ducked to jump. Bulma's scream broke off. She had to help herself, somehow. Breathing heavily, she switched off her lamp and felt for the cloth she had laid out to wrap the spare parts. The predator had only been waiting for this and shot towards Bulma with extended claws. This concentrated exclusively on the yellowish shining eyes and threw the cloth at the right moment so that it caught on the head of the attacker, then stabbed with the laser cutter.
<br />
<br />
...
<br />
<br />
Vegeta sat on the bed and cursed his condition and the whole universe. Somehow he sensed that Bulma was in danger. This plateau might look deserted and dead, but his instincts warned him not to underestimate the natural dangers of an alien world. Finally he couldn't take it any longer and felt his way to the elevator to go down to the hatch.The cold night wind told him that the hatch was still open. Carefully he padded out and took a deep breath. The otherwise sterile smell was interspersed with a pungent aftertaste that Vegeta knew only too well. Predators. Not just one, no, a whole pack of them had to be in close proximity. Vegeta felt the outer skin of the spaceship until he found the switch, pressed and the hatch closed behind him. One more step ... slowly, very slowly he moved away from the spaceship.
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<br />
He turned his head to the left, to the right. Claws dragged over the remains of the wall. A threatening hiss. Another. If only he only knew exactly how many there were and where each was!
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<br />
There! Wasn't that a scream. Vegeta's head jerked around. His spaceship had to be in that direction. It occurred to him, boiling hot, that the hole on the outside wall had to be big enough for the animals to get inside.Cursing his helplessness, he took one hasty step, another, the tip of his shoe caught on a stone and he fell. Something heavy hit his back and he tossed around in a flash. His outstretched hands got a hold of coarse fur. A jerk and the puzzled gasping animal was thrown through the air so that it hit the ground a dozen meters further and crawled away, whimpering miserably. Bulma! The scream stopped suddenly. Had the animals overwhelmed you? You killed. Icy anger crept up in Vegeta and instead of the lightless darkness before his eyes there were suddenly faint, red fields that were moving. By all gods, he had his sense of aura back! Even if the aura of the beasts was weak, their hunger, their hunting instinct and their lust for murder were sufficient to make them visible to his newly awakened intuition. Crawling on all fours, feeling the ground in front of him, Vegeta struggled step by step towards the ship.Actually he should have felt Bulma's aura too, but the only thing he felt were the fields of some predators that had gathered around a point that could only be the hole he had blown in the wall of the spaceship. Nothing came from inside the ship, no sound and no aura. Vegeta didn't want to think about the meaning of this emptiness, he jumped to his feet and concentrated his forces.
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<br />
"I guess I thought I was helpless prey like?" He crunched, golden energy gathering on his palms. “You thought wrong.” The energy formed into tennis ball-sized, flickering balls. "Take that!"
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<br />
He shot the energy balls on the weak auras with pinpoint accuracy. Stones and earth splash up, surprised hiss, the smell of burned hair, painful whimpering and then the dull sound of falling bodies. Some of the auras died out, others wavered clearly weakened and slowly moved away.He had put her on the run. In the past, such a victory would not have been worth a second thought, but in his current situation it meant the difference between giving up and fighting. Far from giving up, he had to fight, struggle for every step, no matter how small.
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"I'm not giving myself up to Kakerott!" He said aloud. "As long as I can breathe, I won't give up, you hear!"
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<br />
Bulma. She had pulled him out of his lethargy and hopelessness, had shown him that he could very well help himself. He had to tell her that he understood that she could stop giving him the cold shoulder. This time he wouldn't let her out of his arms again, would hold her tight until he finally knew where he was.
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* And what do you do when she is dead? * asked the hard, realistic part of him. * What if these beasts tore her apart because you cowardly wallowed in self-pity instead of standing by her?*
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Vegeta dropped her arms. No, she wasn't dead. She just couldn't be dead. To crawl on all fours was too slow, he had to fly. With his arms stretched out, all senses sharpened, he floated up a little. Just enough that he thought he was still in the slipstream of Bulma's ship. Slowly, step by step, he floated in the direction his ship must be. If he wasn't wrong, that was it.
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<br />
A minute, another, and a third. Shouldn't he have been there long ago? Vegeta slowly sank to the ground and felt the ground. Here the earth was torn open, part of it melted. He could only think of one cause and that was the heat that had caused his ship to belly landing. If he followed this trail, he would inevitably arrive at the ship. Relieved, he reached right and left and picked up small stones.
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<br />
The grooves led in that direction. Vegeta threw one of the stones. Pong!Stone on metal, no doubt. In terms of volume, it wasn't too far. He felt his way forward, step by step. Again and again he threw a small stone until the last one came back to him and hit him on the forehead. Then finally his hands got hold of metal. The hole was not difficult to find and with some effort he climbs into it. The first thing he felt, when he felt his surroundings, was the carcass of one of the animals. The body was still warm, the fur around the muzzle was sticky with blood and the intestines were hanging out of a gaping wound on the stomach. He couldn't remember shooting a beam of energy inside the ship, and it would never have caused such an injury. Vegeta wiped his sticky hands on his overalls and pushed the carcass aside with his foot. If he hadn't killed this robber, it could only have been Bulma. Hot pride fill his heart. Bulma had helped herself, she was so much tougher and stronger than she looked.But ... there was blood around the beast's snout that didn't bode well.
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Vegeta called Bulma's name loudly. No Answer.
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On his knees he felt the trail of blood that the dying animal had left. Hopefully, if he followed her, he would soon be certain.
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A good five minutes later he pushed open the door to the storage room. "Bulma! Are you in here? Answer, damn it!"
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Still nothing. Again he sank to his knees and found the sticky drop on the threshold. No question about it, the animal had come from there. Vegeta swallowed. His heart was beating so hard it hurt. The fear of what he would find in there pressed his throat shut so that he almost felt sick. He wanted to know, he had to know. Slowly, in order to delay the inevitable, not to let the faint flame of his hope go out, he crept into the storeroom. The scraps of cloth stuck with blood, a veritable labyrinth of chests, boxes and boxes, a loose pile of metal pieces and behind that, his fingers touched a strand of silky hair that was spread out on the floor.<br />
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“Bulma!” His trembling hands felt a limp arm, went down to his wrist and searched for her pulse. There was none. "No!", It broke out of him, tormented, and he pulled her to him. Sticky blood on the overalls over her chest. He felt her throat, where was the pulse? Finally ... there it was, a faint tap under his fingertips. She lived! He had never felt so relieved before. He hugged her carefully. A Saiyan doesn't howl, and certainly not a prince, but the tears couldn't be held back. Too much had happened, too much he had pushed back. His fear of death when he fell, his despair when he awoke blindly, his fear for Bulma and now that the rock had rolled from his heart, they didn't want to stop flowing.
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"You stubborn fool!" He whispered, searching for her lips. “How could you scare me so!” His kiss was tender, gentle and questioning.<br />
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A slender hand reached for the back of his head and her lips parted. Heat rushed through him as Bulma returned his kiss ardently. After a few endless moments, they broke away from each other, breathing heavily.
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“You came.” Her voice was weak and the hand that stroked his cheek trembled. “Although you can't see anything, you've found your way here!” The amazement and admiration warmed him. "You are just amazing, Vegeta."
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"I'm just a prince of the Saiyan. You should never underestimate me."
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She laughed softly. "I'll remember that."
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"You didn't do badly," he said. "Are you hurt?"
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She straightened up and freed herself from his arms. "No I'm fine."
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"Then all the blood is from that beast that I found in front of the hole."
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“Did it get that far?” Bulma