-By Vega and SSJ Trinity

***

"Losyara..." the wind seemed to whisper as it sighed, caressing her back with dew-laden air. The girl shivered, snuggled closer into the warm, naked chest of her lover, and ignored it.

Silence only lasted just long enough for her to drift into deeper sleep.

"Losyara..."

This time she opened her eyes and stiffened, certain she'd heard a voice in the wind. She sat up gingerly so as not to wake the one sharing her bed, and turned cautiously to the window.

On the other side of the half-open pane, an eerie white glow seemed to emerge. Shadows started to form and coalesce, and within seconds the glow became a shape... then two... then small incandescent liquid-bronze circles appeared in their centres.

She gasped as she realized that they had become eyes.

They were watching her.

"Losyara!" the wind hissed a third time, sounding displeased, and the shadows beckoned.

The girl's natural instinct of resistance disappeared immediately, and she found herself responding to the preternatural call before she even had a chance to wake the man in her bed. Satin sheets sliding smoothly away from her body, she stood and obediently glided over to the window. Her pale hands gripped the sash and she began to push up on the pane.

Outside, the eyes glittered.

Suddenly, a warm hand came down on her shoulder from behind, and the girl snapped out of her trance. She started and whipped around to glare at her lover, goose bumps prickling her skin in the cool breeze that whispered through the crack at the bottom of the sill.

"Come back," he intoned, and suited action to words, tumbling into the tangled sheets. "The window's fine."

"But? " she started, turning to the window once more. Predictably, the shadows were normal once again and the chilling eyes were nowhere to be seen. Doubt plagued her mind. "I-- I thought I saw..."

"I sensed no one," he snapped, and gave her a look that said 'come here.'

Sighing, she knelt on the bed beside him. "I didn't either - and that's what's weird. I saw something, but I felt n--" She was about to say 'nothing', but paused. No, she had felt something, but it wasn't like anything that would even make sense in this setting. The only thing it could have been? was dead. Therefore, it didn't exist. Period. End of discussion.

She trembled one more time as though to shed the jumpiness from her skin. "It's nothing," she confirmed, and closed the topic in her mind.

"Perhaps," he murmured, looking, her up and down and obviously thinking of more banal things than long-dead enemies.

"Moron," she responded fondly, and then shrugged and snuggled forward into his open arms. His lips began to explore her exposed shoulders.

"Losyara!" the wind shrieked against the pane, and the girl bolted upright, leaping out of the bed and stumbling away from the caresses of the man, jewel-red tears sparkling in her eyes. She backed as far away from the window as possible, terrified - for no longer was it the wind that spoke. It was a voice.

"What's wrong with you?!" her lover demanded crossly, and she risked a glance is his direction as her back found the far wall. He hadn't heard.

"Impossible," she whimpered, "the voice? HIS voice..."

"Losyara..." the strangely hollow voice sing-songed, growing flint-hard as she pressed her hands against the side of her head in a desperate attempt to shut out it's malicious golden tone. "You've betrayed me!"

"NO!" she shrieked and fell to the floor, struggling with a guilt that should not be, could not be - that he could still force guilt on her after all these centuries?

? that he should even be alive?

Her lover shot to the window, scanning furiously for the perpetrator, but when none presented itself, he stalked over the hover above her with a murderous expression on his face. She looked up, her lower lip trembling with a fear and sorrow he had never seen in her before, and his expression softened marginally.

What the hell is wrong with you? he questioned her mentally, not quite tender.

She continued to sob quietly as she answered back, also telepathically. I-- I don't know... the voice...

Impatience permeated his tone. What voice?

He should be dead. We killed him? I killed him... years ago, hundreds, thousands...

WHO? Who did you kill?

She looked up with world weary-eyes, and he kneeled slowly onto the carpet in front of her, studying her closely. Her answer was an unexpected one.

Osiris, she said.

He was so caught off guard that he reacted as though betrayed, and began to shout. "Osiris! You... he's supposed to be dead! You assured me that he was! That you belonged to no one but me! What in hell are you talking about?"

"Ohhhh," she moaned and fell to crying once more, her soul and all sense of security shattered. "I don't know..." she said, unable to keep hidden the terror she was feeling. "He's back, and I don't know how! He.... thinks I've betrayed him, Vegeta." Her piercing blue eyes met his black-velvet ones. "And that means he won't stop until - "

"?Until you are his once more? Is that it?" he finished for her, scowling.

"Yes... and no," she whispered, shocked how quickly her thought patterns had become attuned to Osiris' again. "According to Osiris, I've been his all along."

Vegeta snorted, his shoulders tensing. He glared at the wall in disgust.

"Vegeta-sama?" she began, but he cut her off with a wave of his hand, and turned his furious eyes on her.

"You should've told me! What in hell does this mean? I suppose you expect me to FIGHT for you now? Struggle with your old lover for the hand of the gentle fucking maiden?!"

His possessive rage and choice of words fed her own pride; he KNEW Osiris was anything but an old lover. "I belong to me and to no one else! I have always been in control of ME! There have been dozens before you, Vegeta, and there will be dozens after!" He flinched slightly, which she noted and - as always - treasured; any sign he deigned to give her of his true affections were few and far between. However, she knew this was necessary. She'd make it up to him later, after this, but right now, she could not feel guilty for reminding him of what she had and he did not: Immortality.

She took a moment to calm herself and then continued. "But," she said, "you're the only one I love. Do you understand that? No matter how many there has been, or may be, you are the only person who has captured me completely, body and heart. So he cannot have what you have."

He snorted again. "Bitch," he hissed in return and clamped vice-like hands around her wrists. Had she been mortal, she most certainly would have bruised. "Your body, I own. Your heart, I've earned... but where is your soul, little warrior?"

Ark turned sorrowful eyes to the window.

Vegeta nodded and led her back to the bed.

They fell to kissing each other passionately, almost as though to prove who owned whose soul and bypass any disturbances from ghosts in the window.

Beside them, the curtains puffed out and away from the sill as the wind hissed one final time. "Losyara... you have betrayed me! But you are still MINE....."

Caught up in the throes of passion, Vegeta didn't seem to notice when a single ruby tear rolled down Ark's cheek.

***

***

Ark stirred her coffee again. She didn't like to drink the stuff - it gave her indigestion - but the scent was one she'd grown to love a long time ago in the Middle East, when things like coffee had been a rarity only allowed to the rich and powerful. Ark supposed it was a smell she would love till the day she died.

It was rather unfortunate that that day seemed to be right around the corner.

Bulma looked at her. They had been friends since she was sixteen, and even though Ark had something like three thousand years on her, Bulma flattered herself that she probably knew Ark better than almost anybody alive... and was quite aware what an honor that was. Softly, Bulma probed for more information. "So? Vegeta hasn't spoken to you all morning?

"No," said Ark. "He's AROUND? I mean, there he is now, pacing outside the door like some kind of idiot guard-dog, but?" she sighed. "Kami. I HATE being guarded like some sort of THING instead of a person. And besides? there's nothing he can do when Osiris comes for me. Osiris is? you don't know? he's OBSSESSIVE. He thinks he's a god, and has powers that frighten me even now, and? oh, gods." Ark put her head one hand and stirred her coffee with the other. Good, relaxing scents?.

Would she ever smell coffee again?

It was a silly thought, a melodramatic thought, but it was enough to start her chuckling, very softly. Unfortunately, once she started? it seemed she couldn't stop.

Osiris?

The man of three grips; the god of death; he whose shadow would consume the world?

And she had tried to kill him.

This thought just kept her laughing; how could she have possibly denied fate? Oh, sure, she'd had her fun - gotten a few centuries away from him, and sure, she'd managed to HATE he who could not be hated?

But now that she had tasted freedom and was going to lose it, she had to wonder if it was worth the price.

"Hey," said Bulma quietly, using her napkin to wipe at the blood-red tears streaming down Ark's cheeks. "Hey? it's gonna be okay. You did the right thing by coming here."

Ark immediately rallied; she had been the strongest of Osiris' children when he had had her, and certainly had not been weakened by centuries on her own or years with a prideful Saiya-jin. She wiped her tears and regained her posture. "Yes, but? mmm? no. No, I'm not so sure that I did. I don't want any of you to be hurt by Osiris, and he'd have no qualms about doing that." Evenly, ran her fingers through her short, red-gold hair and said two words which to her sufficed to explain. "He's insane."

Bulma nodded and said a few words which to her summed it up even better. "Yes. And we have Goku."

Ark smiled. Yes - that was definitely something. It was the only thing here that gave her even a glimpse of hope.

"So," Bulma continued, sipping her coffee - it didn't bother HER stomach. "Is it just you? Or are there going to be other people that need our protection?"

"Four," Ark said, holding her coffee mug in both hands and looking at it as though she could see their faces swirling in its depths. "There were four of us who survived actually killing him and then the mess that followed with all the crazed hunters. To my knowledge, all four of us are still alive. There was me - of course - and Max, and Felix, and Hadassah. I? don't know where anybody IS, or?" She sighed again, her eyes flashing red for a moment. "The HELL gives him the right to march back into my life after all this time?" She watched Vegeta's silhouette on the other side of the door - he was arguing volubly with some member of the Z-team, and apparently winning. Not that that was a surprise. He almost always won.

That was when Ark began to cry.

She had to wonder, even as Bulma came and hugged her and Goku arrived and everybody tried to see what they could do, just how the others were handling this.

***

Maximilian Stanton was working late.

Oh, this was quite usual; Max was a very hard worker, and he had little else to do. His current girlfriend, Janet, understood this; Max was very reliable, very steady, very safe - and he was always going to work late.

He had begun to plan out his agenda for the following month, which mostly involved going to New York City to handle a minor employee problem at another branch of his business. While he was there, he might check in on Felix; the silly man was being a model again, not worrying about the consequences of somebody eyeballing him and pointing out that a model who could be his twin had died some eighty years ago. Felix really was simply too vain, and that was that.

Oh, well. He was beautiful; perhaps Felix did deserve the kudos now and then.

They were all beautiful, of course. Every once in a while - every fifty years or so, say - Maximus would reflect on that. He was dimly aware that this was why Osiris had taken them all to begin with: because they were beautiful. However, he was a man who never checked his own reflection in a mirror except to ensure the condition of his tie; who simply caught his ruler-straight blonde hair back in a bond at the nape of his neck and left it at that; who chose his female companions not for their looks - but rather, for their conversation.

Max was a very steady person.

At that moment, one of his alarms went off down on the first floor of his building; and, since he was sitting in the guard room, he manipulated the camera angles to see what was down there.

Nothing. He could see nothing on any of the screens.

Odd; he thought he'd had all those systems checked. Well, that went on the mental list, then; have the maintenance men come in and go over those radars again. Couldn't have false alarms going off in the very building that housed his Stanton Security System, now could he? Of course not. That really wouldn't be practical.

Let's see, back to the list - branch visit in NYC, check on his ex-girlfriend Julia, go to the Forum and make sure their system was working correctly again after that last nasty fuse-box foul-up...

Oh - and of course, check to see if Haddassah had been around. She moved through the underground, when she moved visibly at all; it was only because of her that staid, steady Maximus Stanton knew of such places as The Rock, or The Cave, or SaH House; places where no one respectable would ever go, because there one could find anything one was looking for -including drugs, sex, or death.

Lots of death.

It is true that Max did not and could not ever entirely approve of Das' wild ways; however, he understood them. After all, only the things that he had seen done to her could ever have turned him against his maker, Osiris.

It was supposed to be impossible to hate Osiris.

However, Max did. Perhaps that was why he, Losyara, Haddassah, and Felix had survived, out of all of them; those were the only four who had been able to despise the beauty that was their god. Even now, just thinking about the raw impact of that man sent shivers down Max's spine - although not necessarily for the reasons one might think.

Hmm... thinking of Losyara.... Well, while he was abroad, he might as well hop the Concord and go to see Losy - or Ark, as she called herself now. He hadn't seen her in close to twenty years, although he had gotten letters; one of them, which he remembered vividly, had had an odd statement:

"You'll never guess who I met this weekend, Max!" the jittery scrawling handwriting had proclaimed in her letter. "God! And he's got pointy green ears and green skin!"

Heh. Well. Perhaps he did. Max himself had seen plenty of gods, and very rarely did they fit their stereotypes.

He was still lost in that thought when a second alarm went off in the lower part of his building; but this one was slightly different.

This one was a fire alarm.

Max frowned and again checked the monitors. There was no flame visible onscreen, but that meant little; at least whatever it was, it was small. He leapt to his feet. Vampires were afraid of fire normally - it was one of the few things that could actually injure them - but he was in essence eminently practical; put the fire out NOW and it wouldn't get big enough to hurt anyone. Grabbing a fire extinguisher, he raced to the floor in question, moving through the stairwells at speeds impossible for the cameras to record.

He checked the door to see if it was cool; it was, so he opened it, from that point on everything went mad.

There was smoke - billows and billows of smoke. Only... it didn't SMELL like smoke, but the alarm had gone off, and...

Cool, supernatural flames shot up from the floor out of nowhere, and a shadow flickered into existence in the center.

A shadow of a man; relatively tall, perfect, beautiful somehow even as he barely moved, just silhouetted in the fire.

"Maximus?" came a voice, soft and so sensual that even a confirmed heterosexual such as Max felt things stir that shouldn't. The shadow moved once, barely a step, and unwillingly Max's breath caught in his throat. "Maximus..." it said again. "You have been gone for so long... my child... my son..."

The slightest of pauses.

"My Horus..."

Horus. Max had not thought or uttered that word in centuries. Horus. It immediately conjured images of ceremonies, lit torches and burning incense, nights of wild abanonded pleasure and service, service of the god...

Of Osiris.

"Maximus..." Osiris - for it must be he - said again, and took one more step.

For half a second, no more, Maximus thrilled with joy to see him again.

Then he remembered Haddassah.

Anger and hatred that surprised even him shot up through Max's cool blood, into his brain, clearing it, nullifying the mad effects of Osiris' beauty. Alive? Osiris COULDN'T be alive, because Losyara had killed him, but it didn't matter; alive or dead, Osiris was here, and Max was not going back.

He was not.

"My golden haired angel..." said Osiris from the flames, and took yet another step; Max could see his hand now, held out almost as if in forgiveness, slim and perfect fingers extending from the blaze. "My faithful one. Serve me once more. Set right all that has been wronged. Balance Ma'at. Come to me!"

"No," Max said, a word he'd said to Osiris perhaps once in his life - and it had been a long, long life. "I won't go back." He stood, almost as if in awe at himself for saying that; he, too, had loved Osiris at one time. It really was supposed to be impossible not to.

The hand, hesitating, did not come closer; and in that moment, Max knew a wonderful and foreign truth: once you say no, it's easier to do a second time.

"No," repeated, more forcefully. "I won't go."

Then, the impossible. Osiris, apparently, took "no" for an answer.

"My child," said the shadow with unspeakable sadness. "You have been corrupted. I give you three days. Cleanse your system, do the sacrifices and worship the gods, and then come to me. Come to me with the blood of ten virgins on your lips and the heart of a hind in your hand and I shall embrace you... embrace you!"

Then with not another word, Osiris was gone. The flames were gone. The mist - for that's what it was, mist, not smoke, and only Kami knew why it had set the fire alarm off - was also gone. All of it - gone.

Max realized only then that he had been panting, one hand outstretched slightly, as though to take Osiris' advice and embrace him.

Embrace the devil.

"Oh, God," he said, praying or blaspheming - even he was not entirely sure. "Oh... oh Ra... oh kami, save us all..."

Max fell to his knees, for the moment completely undone by the horror of what he had seen, and the beauty of what he had felt. His memory had not exaggerated Osiris' power in the least bit. He spent precious moments on his knees, trying to think of what he could do, of how this had happened, of what he would tell Janet - and then he had a horrible thought.

"No..." he said, eyes wide and focused on nothing. "What about the others?"

Dropping his carefully made schedule into his mind's wastebasket, he rushed back upstairs and began frantically searching through his daytimer. They had to be called, had to be warned; Losyara he could certainly reach, and Felix - well, he had his email somewhere, but what about Haddassah? Oh, kami, he had no way to reach Haddassah... he didn't even know where she was.

Osiris would know, and this only meant that Max had even less time in which to work.

Exercising immense willpower, Max dialled Arks' number and let the phone ring, praying to all the gods he'd ever known that she would be in and would get the call, before Osiris found her, before it was too late.

And in Arks' empty apartment, the answering machine was full and the phone rang and rang and rang, and nobody ever answered.

***

The woman's eyes glittered; a hungry passion was coloring both her face and posture, and Felix had to restrain a smile. Why, she actually thought she was seducing him!

It was, of course, quite the other way around, but he wasn't going to tell her that.

"Tsk, tsk, my dear," he reprimanded playfully, arching one perfect eyebrow above his grey eyes. "Behave yourself."

His companion laughed, throwing her head thrown back to reveal the creamy expanse of her neck. Felix eyed it hungrily; and, as was usually the case, his would-be-vixen mistook the thirst in his look for lust. She ran the tips of her tapered nails through his ash blonde hair, which was so fair that in the lights of the bar, it looked a powdery ash grey. The other hand lighted on his chest, scratching lightly through the dark grey cable-knit sweater.

"I AM behaving," she purred, lowering her eyelids and gazing at him sultry adoration.

Well. Apparently, said vixen was not a master of subtelty. Felix's silver eyes glittered, and he decided to make the game a bit more aggressive. Hell, why not? She wouldn't mind.

He leaned forward on his stool and nuzzled her neck, taking in the scent of the fluid that pulsed beneath her skin. Holy Ra, it smelled SO good... he shuddered, unable to help himself.

Oh... THE Felix Noiraet... flashed through her mind when he did that, and he had to restrain a chuckle; one of many, my dear, one of many - you have NO idea how many there have been... and probably how many there WILL be. It was a good enough name, and there was simply no reason to change it; it WAS his, after all. He inhaled again, taking the chance to get lost in the scent of her skin and a sound that only he could hear - that of her blood pumping through her veins.

The woman, recovering, remarked on something and laughed again, and Felix laughed too. He wasn't even sure what she had said; currently, he was aware of the ache in his system, the desire to have her body and what flowed IN her body, and that was pretty much it. Felix had never been much of a multi-tasker.

She was still laughing; fine, he'd laugh, too. It wasn't that difficult; he had played this game many times before, and it would always be one of his favorites: a harmless cat-and-mouse, where everyone is the victor, and nobody gets hurt. Oddly, however, he was unable to concentrate on his present game; for some odd reason, his mind had flashed back to an earlier incident that had nothing to do with what was happening in this dimly-lighted and heavily incensed setting. In fact, for the first time in a while, he found himself thinking about the last time he'd seen Losyara.

Oh, goodness; how long ago had that been? Far too long, for certain, and so perhaps after he finished with his over-enthusastic partner here, he'd go for a visit. Why call? He'd just show up, filling the role of "flibbertygibbet" that she'd given him so very, very long ago.

After all, he owed her - so very, very much. A visit was hardly overdoing it.

Ah! Now he remembered. It had been just after that fighting tournament. That... "budokai" thing, or whatever they called it in Japanese. At any rate, Losyara had been a competitor in the thing, and, curious, Felix had gone to watch. He had been amazed by the skill and power she exuded; the confidence she'd always had in herself had found yet another outlet.

He was also amazed by the fact that, although Losy was the eldest of the four vampires still in existence, there was nothing in her mannerisms that would cause anyone around her to even suspect that she was anything more than a mortal teenage girl - albeit a rather powerful one.

After the final, bloody battle of the tournament, Felix had snuck into Losy's quarters to congratulate her on her fourth-place victory, and discovered a party already in full swing. Felix being Felix, he had joined in immediately. Let it never be said that Felix Noiraet was a clod in social situations.

Losy had called to him from across the crowded little room as soon as she had sensed his entrance, and after the initial hugging was over, had introduced him to her circle of friends, runnning past names and faces with a familiarity that was surely years in the making. He recalled being slightly amused when in the course of all this, she had smiled a toothy grin and downed a gulp from a flask she held tightly in her hand; again, appearing perfectly human.

Damn. She was turning out to be a better actor than he was.

Felix had recognized many of the people she palled around with as characters who'd also fought in the tournament; imagine that. Losyara, hanging out with a bunch of war-lords.

Oh, he was SO going to tease her about this when he got to talk to her alone later...

The last face he'd been introduced to was the most beat up and bloodiest of all, and Felix realized with a shock that this was Son Goku, the tournament champion... and one hell of an impressive fighter.

Whoah. So Losy was picking her friends POWERFUL these days. Perhaps this provided more teasing material, too; one never knew when such a flagrant opportunity would arise.

And then everything had changed as one of the other men - the short bald one - had made a joke about how pale Felix's face had grown at the sight of Goku, and Losy had laughed and said something to the effect that it was unusual for one of her kind to grow much paler than they already were.

The world froze. The men stared at him, and he stared at them, each with various expressions crossing their faces... suspicion, fear... not QUITE wide eyed acceptance....

He had never expected her to TELL...

Especially after...

What... what humans DID... when they knew...

"Los..." he had said with teasing reprimand, mentally gearing himself up to throw everything off and escape if this situation should start to turn ugly. "Do these sushi-munchers have any idea what you're talking about?"

"Hmmm?" she had questioned, and then smiled. She knew Felix; knew him better than any person alive and loved him like a brother, and could tell that he was about ready to bolt for the hills. "Oh, Felix," she said reassuringly. "These people are my friends. I've known Son Goku over there since he was five." She laughed. "After the death of his Grandfather, I practically raised the brat myself."

Whoah. So... she KNEW the strongest man in the world... and had RAISED him, to boot.

Felix had begun to wonder what other weird things she had done since he'd seen her last. It was obvious she'd done some adventuring.

Everyone had laughed with Los - Ark, she'd said, call her Ark - and Felix, reassured, had laughed with them. Vampire-killers didn't make sounds like that; this laughter was too free, too light - too alive.

The rest of the evening had gone by in much the same way as this present one was now; they'd spoken of "ki" energies and fighting techniques and all sorts of other things that Felix had neither the desire nor the background to pick up on properly. Instead, he turned his attention to the beautiful woman who had walked in a little while after the laughing, her clear turquoise eyes searching the room for someone who was obviously not there.

"Hey," the woman had finally said as she approached, her bearing that of a slightly ruffled den-mother. "Has anyone seen that good-for-nothing Yaumcha?"

There was a round of "no's," and Felix pounced on this opportunity; lovely lady, unaccompanied - obviously stood up for the night by her idiot of a lover...

Before much could develop, however, Losy had sent a warning glance in Felix's direction, accompanied by a telepathic message in case he chose to ignore the look.

Don't even, Felix. Bulma's going to be married soon. Besides, you promised me you'd stopped.

Ah, but Los, he'd sent back, sounding articulate and melodramatic even in his thoughts. Such a lovely woman! You really don't expect me to let the poor, abandoned creature spend the night alone... do you?

Yes, Ark had said simply, and that was that. She had come to a decision - and woe be the creature that tried to interfere. Hunting humans is wrong, she'd reiterated, bringing up a long-dead argument from times past. ESPECIALLY those I consider my friends...

Out of the blue, a sudden and somewhat bizarre image intruded into Felix's mind and his memories, bringing him back to the present; that of several movies in which he'd acted - with the lead female roles now replaced by the vixen at the bar in front of him. This innocent maiden had moved on to cinematic fantasizing; good Lord, what was next?

Well, as long as she didn't want to read scripts or something....

Felix laughed again and paid the tab, telling her what a wonderful companion she was - and of course, she beamed, happy to be of service. Anything I can get for you sir, a drink, a smoke, a condom, just put in your dime and press "go..."

By Zeus, he loved starletts. Eagerness combined with soft curves. Lovely, lovely combination.

Well, it certainly WAS getting to be time. He suggested smoothly that they find somewhere more... private, and she agreed enthusiastically and latched onto his arm like a remorra. Oh yes, Felix; a real winner you've got here, mm-hmm.

Felix had not the slightest tug of conscience as they left; he never killed his prey - never - and all THEY got out of it was a night of rolling orgasms and one hell of a story to tell their friends. He never had quite understood what Ark's problem with the process was; perhaps she was more sensitive to "using," or something. As far as Felix was concerned, all were having a good time, and there was no harm done - so why worry?

They strolled out of the crowded bar, arm-in-arm, and as soon as they reached the deserted street, Felix walked her into the nearby darkness of a shadowed alley and began to do some serious kissing.

About five minutes into this, something tingled on the edge of Felix's senses; he ignored it. It was probably just a twinge of guilt, brought on by thinking of Losyara and her weird morals right before having a snack. Well, let Losy drink all the Stockyard run-off she wanted. In his opinion, nothing could compare to the warmth of a pulsating throat accompanied by the softness of a female body, and the sounds he was presently causing to escape this one's lips as he touched her merely served to reinforce that theory.

However, the tingle did not go away; instead, it developed into a full-fledged creepy-crawly sensation as the breeze picked up, brushing cool fingers through his ashen hair.

Small hairs on the back of Felix's neck started prickling, and he broke off the kiss to warily to scope the shadows of the alley behind him. He knew that feeling now, and it was not guilt; it was the feeling of being hunted.

"What is it?" his companion asked, then gasped as his eyes flushed a pupil-less red in reaction to his adrenalin surge. Well, shit. This would definitely require a memory-wipe later; they weren't supposed to SEE that sort of stuff.

The feeling grew, and he backed a few shaky steps away from her; Felix did not want to accept the thoughts that were coming with it. These thoughts were utterly impossible; Osiris wasn't alive. He didn't stalk alleyways in the dead of evening for him like some Hammer-studio movie-monster. This was nonsense. Whatever Felix was feeling, it wasn't that, so he would just put it behind him and go knock the head in of whatever sorry son of a bitch had decided to bother him.

"F-Felix..." the woman whimpered fearfully, pressing her back against the filthy brick wall. The feeling abruptly bloomed, leaping out of instinct into cold, sure knowledge.

"Run!" he hissed at her, terror like dust from a grave settling all over his skin. The woman obeyed; smart chick. Felix turned swiftly on his heel and stalked in the other direction, looking about him, trying to appear NORMAL, thinking in some crazed and panicked way that if he just didn't over-react this would all turn out to be a dream...

From behind him came an ear-splitting shriek of terror, and he knew with an impact nearly strong enough to make him cry that this was no dream. This was real. Felix spun around in time to see a shadow-figure, slim, symmetrical, and male, drop the female he had been wooing to the cold pavement. She was dead.

But I didn't even know her name, flitted discursively through Felix's mind, and then the shadow-man spoke.

"Pity," the voice said, sounding threateningly hollow. "When you took her, my young son, I thought that perhaps you, of all of them, had not changed; but then you let her go. You showed her your true face, and then let her go." His voice was gently chiding, that of a father reproving a child - or would have been, if not for the raw sensuality dripping from it like warm, scented oil. "We cannot allow mortals who know about us to live. You remember what happened last time mortals took up arms against me - do you not, my son?" The shadow-man came forward, visibly peeling away from the darkness with a theatrical flair that even Felix himself could never master, and then Osiris was coming toward him.

Osiris.

Coming at him. Those horrid, beautiful, liquid-bronze eyes danced menacingly as he stalked past the corpse at his feet and toward his new prey - which happened to be Felix.

Felix had one brief moment of sharp terror, enough to break his panic, and he actually turned to follow his own advice and run - and then Osiris spoke again.

"My child," Osiris said, coming on with an even, calm pace. "I have so missed you... you were always among the most beautiful. My Horus. My Felix...."

Felix balked. That voice... damn, he'd forgotten all about his maker's voice...

Osiris abruptly sprang forward and clamped iron hands around Felix's forearms, spinning him around and trapping him before he could get away.

Felix cried out. It was such a pitiful sound; such a breathless, useless, pitiful sound. Felix thought dazedly that he personally would never hire the actor who would make such a sound.

"Ah...." the shadowed man whispered, leaning in so close that Felix could smell the scent of honey and cinammon, honey and cinammon and something else that could only be incense - it seemed that Osiris had not been skimping on the toiletries. "You do remember."

For a moment, Felix had no idea what he was talking about; then his brain kicked into gear and he remembered them, remembered the Seth, the group of humans sworn to destory all evil in the world and that had meant Osiris but it had also meant everybody else and almost all of them had died and Ark had helped them anyway and...

Felix realized that his thoughts had begun to ramble like water down a hill, and exerted a great effort of will to slow them down. He also realized that he was trembling in terror; not a good combination.

He jumped as Osiris' lips brushed his ear.

"You have lost our ways, my Horus," Osiris whispered gently, almost lovingly, ignoring Felix's trembling. "You have forgotten why I gave you life. Come back to me. Return to me, and I will love you. I will give you more pleasure than any human ever could."

There was amusement in his tone; was he mocking? MOCKING Felix for trying to take pleasure as well as sustenance from a human female?

From a female...

At this moment, Felix remembered something else; he remembered quite vividly being raped every night by this monster, being raped and ENJOYING it because it was Osiris and he'd had no choice - and he remembered weeping every single night after.

Speaking of weeping... well, he was doing that now. He began to tell himself firmly: I can't love a man. I will never love a man. I know who I am and that is not this man's bitch and so I will just pull away, pull out of his arms, kick him, hit him, bite him if I have to...

But nothing happened. Another lovely facet-O'-Osiris surfaced that Felix had deigned to forget; Osiris was simply irresistable.

Felix felt an odd and crazied urge to break into that chorus, and then Osiris was speaking again.

"Come back to me, my son. My lover," the golden demon-god intoned, his perfect, silken lips hovering above Felix's. Felix cringed, but he was unable to pull away. "Return to me, of your own accord. Come back to the place where we once ruled, wearing the blood of ten virgins on your lips and bearing a warm stag's heart in your hand, and I shall take you back into my arms, and my protection. I will love you again." He smiled cruelly. "Perhaps, my love - I shall take you back even if you do not."

Felix shook his head frantically. He wanted to say "no." With all of his heart and soul he wanted to scream it; it shot through his mind in a dozen different languages, a thousand different intonations, and he forced himself to take in the air, part his lips, shout at the top of his lu-

Osiris kissed him.

In the movies, there was always a moment of angst, a final whimpering of justice before Evil temporarily had its way; this, however, was not the movies. This was real life, and Felix melted immediately. A thousand pleasures flooded his body, and he slid against his maker's chest, his knees giving slightly as his hands tangled in Osiris' hair. Molten bronze, he thought dazedly to himself. That's the color of his hair... how could I have forgotten? Felix groaned. He simply could not help himself.

Osiris broke the soft kiss slowly and stepped away, smiling kindly, and raised his hand as if to beckon to Felix to follow him. "I give you three days to return to Abydos."

Felix watched with a heavy-lidded gaze as Osiris shimmered into the shadows and vanished.

It took all of two seconds for Felix to realize what he had done.

"Oh, God," he said, unconsciously mimicking Max's reaction. "Oh, my GOD!" he exclaimed; he gripped his head, bent over on his knees as though in the deepest of inner torture; and in a way, he was.

He was so... fucking... weak.

Kissed him. He had KISSED him! How revolting! Kissed by Osiris... and he had kissed him back. God... DAMN that man! How DARE he give such unwanted pleasure! How DARE he! Even Felix himself never forced it on people...

Two things, now, were perfectly clear in Felix's mind. One, Osiris honestly expected Felix to follow him like a little lost puppy, begging for more. Just stick your dime in, friends, it'll go all night, ha ha ha.

The other thing, Felix decided, he liked much better. Was he going? Absolutely not. Abso-fucking-lutely not.

On the heels of that came another thought: could he fight the good fight and hold off that monstrosity on his own? Abso-fucking-lutely not on that, too; sad to say, friends and neighbors - but at least Felix knew when it would be stupid to fight alone.

With that thought, Felix sprang to his feet and dashed down the street. Losyara... he had to call Losyara. The woman who had taught him to hate Osiris, who had pitied him and worked with him until he'd regained some of his mind and portions of his shattered dignity.

The woman who had held Osiris down while the Seth battered a wooden stake through his heart. Yes - Losyara would know what to do.

Sparing a single glance for the cooling body of the woman he had unwittingly led to her doom ... I didn't even know her name... he raced for his Jaguar, already fumbling his cellular phone out of his pocket and scrolling through the memorized numbers to find Ark's. By the time he found it, he was already pulling away from this place, tires screeching horribly.

There was no answer.

Cursing - not in English, although Felix was too flummoxed to notice his lapse - he disconnected and dialed another number; one that would put him in contact with his travel agent.

"Hello?" a pleasent voice on the other end said.

"Yes, I need a plane ticket, right now! To Japan - no, do NOT ask me why. Satan City. Yes. Yes. I don't CARE if it's booked... contact the other passengers, I'll pay them anything they want! Bribe them! Just GET ME ON THAT DAMNED PLANE!"

It never even occurred to him to wonder how it was that Osiris was still alive.

***

The dream plauged Max.

He couldn't get the sight of those cool, unnatural flames licking up the wall, along his master's outstreatched hand.

He tossed and turned whenever he tried to sleep. Janet was understanding. She knew there were parts of his past he hated to think about, and so let him be. He had only stayed in thier apartment for a few hours, before getting feverish and jumpy.

When he finally declared that he simply HAD to leave, she understood.

God bless her, wherever the pointy-eared green-skined diety was.

He had called ahead to the London airport so they would have his private/ company Jet ready for take off when he arrived and hopped into his car, speeding along the winding English raods at speeds that were far from safe. He wasn't normally a reckless man. He always drove the speed limit, always thought things through.

But he was panicking. He had to warn them all!

Felix's answering machine had picked up, but Felix had never called back. Los still wasn't home. And Das could be anywhere, as far as he knew. She could be arriving on his doorstep as he thought about it.

Being careful to cover all the bases, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed home. Janet picked up.

"Listen," he said, his heart racing like it hadn't since... well, since he'd been alive. "I want you to listen to me. I love you very very much and that is why I'm leaving... I know, dear. I'll be back if I can, but I want you to know that if I don't come back... or if I... heaven forbid, come back acting strangely, you won't let me in. And if a man shows up with ... well, you'll know who he is. He'll be irrisitable. You need to shut the door and don't look at him, okay? And if a woman with short black hair... the woman from the picture over the fireplace of my brother and sisters? (seen here)Yes, if she arrives, tell her to go see Los in Satan City, okay? Yes... I love you. I wish I could tell you why too. Bye."

Max snapped the cell phone shut and dropped it into his suit's breast pocket, then hastily parked and ran into the airport terminal. His plane took off down the runway as soon as he had buckled himself to the take-off chairs in the rear.

After a few hours of flying, Max decided to try to rest his jangled nerves, and retreated to the soft leather couch. That's when the dreams of Osiris and the fire came back.

Max couldn't bare to look at Osiris' dissapointed expression, couldn't re-play the horrible scene over and over, or he'd start to feel guilty for betraying Osiris. He couldn't afford guilt. That would make him love Osiris.

So he woke himself up, sitting up, smoothing out his wrinkled blazer and dress-shirt.

And that's when he realized that the smell of burning things still filled his nostrils.

A shadow flickered into existence, cast by the dancing flames that now shot up around Max.

It didn't take the golden haired vampire a second to recognize it.

"No!" he shouted to the wraith as it leapt lithely across the airplane floor, darting in and out of the growing, licking flames, and towards him. "I won't go back!"

"My son," the specter whispered gently between sharp fangs, "It has been three days, and I have waited for you..." sadness breifly skittered over his face, making him hauntingly melencholy, but vanished just as quickly,  "And you did not return to me, my love.... but you shall. Serve me once more. Set right all that has been wronged, balance ma'at. Come!" The shadow commanded, and Max felt as if he had no choice but to obey.

The large man stood slowly, bright blue eyes glazed, expression formed in a mask of captivated bewilderment.

The fire suddenly moved aside to accommodate Max's passage, in with that brief flicker, the Shadow's face was revealed... and such a shock at the sight of it snapped Max out of the fatal trance.

He dashed away from the flames, jumping over the fire and into the cockpit.

He went to shake the pilot, to tell the man to get his parachute on and get the Hell out. Then he stopped, realizing that it was futile. The man's head was on the far side of the pit, his blood sheeting the windshield. The plane had flying on auto pilot for what smelt like half an hour.

Half and hour!! Osiris had been on the plane, alone, with Max for half an hour!

Why hadn't Max senced it?! Well, the answer to that one was simple, he had been feeling it all along, and so had almost dismissed the extra little warning tug...

A merry laugh came from the dancing light behind him, and Max whirled in it's direction with wide, fearful green eyes.

"No!" he hissed at the lithe, bronzed man before him. "Never!"

"Yes!" the blood-god known as Osiris snarled back. "Mine forever, Maximus!"

The blond man had barely enough time to scream before he was sent flying out of the window, glass shattering in a spectacular waterfall of red and orange light, and into the freezing upper atmospheric night air.

He clenched his eyes shut and fumbled for his cell phone. He dialed Los's number one last time, frantic. Someone actually picked up.

"Hello?"

"Los!" Max screamed over the rushing wind. He was going to hit the ground in a matter of minutes. He would be dead, then Osiris could do with him whatever he wanted. There was no telling where he'd be when he awoke. Maximilian was a vampire. Death for him was not permanent. But if he didn't warn Los now, he'd never get the chance to. His phone would shatter on impact.

"No, this is her God-son. Can I help you?"

"Tell Los that he's back!" Max screamed desperately. He pushed the shock that Los actually had a God-Son too the back of his mind. "She'll know who I mean!"

"Where are you? WHO are you?" the young man's voice on the other end said.

"I'm Max... I'm ... about to die." Max admitted with a sardonic twist. "Just tell Los that he's back, and he's killed me because I didn't go back."

Without waiting for the man's responce, he hung up his phone - which seemed a surreal and foolish thing to do - and closed his eyes. He didn't want to see the ground rushing up at him. He didn't want to watch himself die.

He wasn't completely sure that even after he hit the ground, Osiris wouldn't finish it completely.

But then, that was a vaugly comforting thought.

To be free of Osiris forever...

So Max took a deep breath, pointed his head towards the ground, and waited.

***

Son Gohan looked at the phone, then down to Aquila, who was nuzzling the young man's legs.

He had stopped by Ark's apartment to pick up the fuzzy critter and take him to CC, because it seemed that neither Ark nor Vegeta would be coming home to feed it within the next few days.

The phone had rung just before Gohan was about to walk out, the cat-rabbit alien hybrid under his arm, and so he had picked it up, thinking it might be Ark.

Instead it was a yelling man who shouted wierd things for him to relay to Ark.

Gohan shook his head, put the reciever back in it's cradle, and scooped up Aquila, remembering what the man had said so he could tell her.

***

Vegeta stood silently, his hands folded over one another on the rail of one of the upper balconies of the Capsule Corporation's Main housing building.

Behind him, Ark was asleep on the large guest bed that Bulma had given the distraught and exahusted pair of lovers. Vegeta had held Ark close to calm her down, and once he realized that Ark had fallen asleep, had lifted himself away from her and paded out into the night air, only a thin pair of boxer shorts between him and the cool breeze that ruffled his hair.

He couldn't possibly sleep, not right now. Despite the fact that the other Z-Senshi were patrolling the area, for want of a better word, he couldn't possibly justify falling asleep right now. His defences would be down, and he would be unable to protect either himself or his mate from Osiris, should he come.

The other Z-senshi had insisted that he get some rest, however, so, just to get away from thier whining and stupid nagging, he had gone upstairs with Ark.

Besides, Felix had called, and he was on his way to Satan City, and Max and Das were sure to follow soon.

There was the light 'toc' of a boot settling on the balcony, and Vegeta only lifed his head to the stars, knowing who had landed behind him without having to look.

"Oi, Vegeta." Goku said merrily, and Vegeta closed his eyes, feeling the familliar headache begin.

"Go away." the Prince responded evenly.

But the other Saiyan did not move. Finally, Vegeta sighed and said, "What do you want, Kakarotto?"

Goku shrugged, and moved to lean against the railing beside his Prince. "I just thought you'd like some company, that's all."

Vegeta snorted. "Not from the likes of you, no." But he made no move to make Goku leave, and Goku just sighed and rested his chin on his folded hands, his eyes on the sky as well.

They stood like that for a long time, the only movement between the two of them being the ruffling of thier clothing and hair in the wind. Then Goku loosened his tail from around his waist and began to sway it back and forth contentedly.

Vegeta eyed it and let his own tail unfurl, swinging it in a small arc from left to right as well.

Comfortable silence and peaceful commraderie filled the air, even if it was only this one time that they could actually understand one another outside of a battle situation. There had always been a sort of link between the two Saiyans, the last of their kind. They shared a battle spirit that no one outside of thier blood could ever understand.

But this silent knowledge of thier peacful auras was new. And not entirely unwanted, though Vegeta would not admit it.

Then Goku, in all innocence, asked, "What did it look like?"

Vegeta blinked, pulled out of his own silent musings, and turned his dark eyes to study Goku. The other man's arms were folded on the edge of the balcony railing, and he had bent over to rest his head on his arms, his tail wagging slowly, happily.

Vegeta sometimes envied that moron's innocence.

"What, fool?" he grunted back.

Goku let the insult slide. "The moon." Vegeta shot him a look, and Goku added, "On Vejiita-sei, I mean."

The Prince just looked at Goku for a very long time, then slid his gaze back to the empty place in Earth's heavens where it's own moon used to be.

"A lot like your moon did, I expect." he answered honestly, surprising himself. "It gave off the most... intriguing greeninsh light. And it was smooth, pure. Almost no pockmarks." He smiled briefly. "As a child, I used to beleive I could see a warrior if I connected dark spots."

Goku grinned. "There used to be a rabbit in our moon."

There was another long, comfortable pause. The trees swayed peacefully in the breeze, but the breeze carried the scent of warning.

This peace would not, could not last.

Then, turning his whole body to face his silent companion, Vegeta asked, "What did it feel like, Kakarotto? To live under a moon all the time?"

Goku sighed. "It felt really good." he said. "I always felt complete with the moon. When it was full, I was as happy as I could ever hope to be." he frowned briefly, "Although Chichi would never let me sleep beside her when it was."

Vgeta snorted. "Of course not, fool! You'd kill her if you tried to fuck her on a full moon night."

Goku grimaced. "Bulma says that that's not a very nice word, Vegeta."

The elder Saiyan rolled his eyes. There was another pause.

Then Goku straightened and prepared to take off, to go home, or to fly around the city again, or whatever it was that he did. But he paused and looked the Prince directly in the eye, having one of his oddly intelligent moments.

"The moon made me feel a lot of wonderful things, Vegeta." he said gravely, "But Chichi makes me feel those things too."

And then he was gone.

Vegeta watched him go, eyes misting, grateful for the younger man's understanding. Then he turned back to watch the sleeping form of Ark.

How odd that her chest did not rise and fall with breath. What a strage and wonderful thing she was. And what peculiar things she did to him.

All his life, Vegeta had felt so empty, so incomplete. He had always assumed that this emptiness came from not ever having seen a real full moon. Not living under a true moon's cycles, his own biological rhythms were often very scattered as he zipped all over the known universe to carry out Freeza's orders.

It wasn't until he moved to Earth perminantly that he began to feel settled and calm, for even if they didn't have a moon anymore, the planet still had cycles of it's own that Vegeta had grown accustomed to, took comfort in.

But now he realized that the lack of a moon was not the only thing that had kept him so angry and defencive all the time. The other was loneliness.

Very carefully he padded back into the guest room to snuggle in beside Ark, his arms going out to wrap around her stomach, and she sighed and turned her body in her sleep so she was pressed against his front.

With a small smile that he would never let anyone see, Vegeta closed his eyes and snuggled back.

The emptiness was gone.

He wasn't lonely any more.

***

Gohan ran into the small kitchen of the Capsule Corp, the small Aquila under one arm, breathless.

Bulma, who had been in the next room tinkering with her security system, came into to shush him as everyone save herself were asleep.

"N-no.." Gohan puffed, letting Aquila drop to the floor. "I need to talk to Aunt Ark. Some guy called her apartment. Someone named Max."

***

(NO DOHICKY FOR FELIX BEING TAKEN-- UNLESS YOU HAVE SOMETHING GOOD DONE OR THOUGHT UP ALREADY --> TOO LONG THAT WAY)

THEN DAS ARRIVES, AND BULMA RECOGNIZES HER FROM THE PAINTING.

ARK IS ASLEEP WHEN DAS ARRIVES, BUT WAKES UP AS SOON AS SHE SENCES HER SISTER. DAS TELLS HER STORY, AND VEGETA BLASTS INTO THE ROOM. HE FELT DAS ARRIVE, BUT THERE'S SOMEONE ELSE WITH HER.... JUNNANA. "I sense an Android... and it's NOT baldy's wind up doll girlfriend!!" JUNNA STAYED OUTSIDE THO, KNOWING THE Z-SENSHI HATE HIM. EVERYONE EXCEPT KRILLIN IS WARY OF HIM, AND HE DECIDES TO REMAIN OUTSIDE.

DAS GOES OUT WITH HIM AND AS SHE'S WALKING TOWARDS HIM, SHE HAS A FLASHBACK TO WHEN OSIRIS "TOOK" HER AT AGE 21 FOR THE "FINAL"TIME. (the same sort of thing as our "Osris and Los RPG" Let's NOT have one of these for Max and Felix. I'd be too long, drawn out and boring.) THEN OUT OF THE BLUE .... ZOMBIE ATTACK! THEY FIGHT, BUT CAN'T KEEP DAS FROM "VANISHING". No one actually sees her get "taken". ARK, WHO WAS INSIDE THE WHOLE TIME, JUMPS TO HER FEET AND...]

In the small, cozy kitchen on the Capsule Corps compound, Ark's eyes suddenly grew wide and she involuntarily clenched her fist, shattering the cup of coffee she had been holding, spilling the cold liquid all over the table-top.

"Oh, oh, oh!" she wailed in horror, her hands flying over her mouth, "I- I- I'm so sorry, Bulma-chan!"

"Ark, what's wrong?" Bulma worried, ignoring the broken mug.

Ark gasped again, and buried her face in her hands.

"Ark...?"

"Oh, oh, oh...! Haddassah!" Ark whispered, terror filling her voice. "I- I thought we would be protected with Goku here- and at your house...! But, he's found Das! Oh, I have t-to go...!" and made as if to spring out of the open window nearby.

"Ark, wait!"

The vampire paused by the open window, the evening breeze blowing the elaborate midnight purple fuku around her slender form.

"Where are you going to go?! What's wrong?!" the human woman asked fearfully.

"I- I wish I could explain it, Bulma-chan..." Ark choked and looked to the shy. "He's back. I thought I had dreamt it, but Felix, then Max, and now I can't sense Das...! I-I'm the last one left.... I have to go, now!"

And then she was gone. So fast that Bulma didn't even hear the usual 'swos' of displaced air. The human tugged fretfully on the hem of her shirt and looked around her devastated kitchen, unsure of how to react.

She was no fighter herself, and something powerful enough to scare Ark was definitely out of her league.

From the doorway to the rest of the house, Bulma heard a yawn, and turned to find her son Boxer, his hair and pyjama's rumpled, rubbing his eyes.

"Momma?" He squeaked out sleepily, "Where'd Auntie Ark go?"

***

Ark froze, terror stamped on her gaunt features, as the figure blocked out the stars above. The last time she recalled being this afraid was... was when Piccolo was still living up to his name as the Demon King.

He had cornered her after the Budoki and beat her senseless for taking Goku's side when she ought to have supported himself, being a creature of evil. Felix, thankfully, had shown up, making Piccolo stop and glare. Piccolo wanted to get Ark alone to kill her, and if Felix were to tell Goku... He had then grumbled "Next time." and took off.

The threat of his promise hung in the air, even after Namek. Ark still did not trust Piccolo.

And the last time before that had occured... was the first time she had ever seen the one who stood before her now.

Losyara had stood on tiptoes to peer out of the small hand-sized window at the night-darkened sky that fateful night so long ago.

Why? Because something was wrong. She had been CERTAIN that Osiris had wanted HER. So where was he?

Here brilliant, tear-dotted eyes widened hopefully. "Has he... passed me by?" she whispered to herself, delicate hands wrapping around her cold, bare arms as she moved to sit under the lone torch hanging on the wall.

There were no sounds from outside except for the occasional night insect; her mother had left. The Torchbearers had left. Her master had left.

They had abandoned her to HIM.

But he wasn't HERE.

The only other sound was the flickering of torches, but she was so used to that sound

that she just tuned it out as she sat slowly against the wall, staring at the bare floors, the bare walls, pondering, scratching the day-old bite marks on her neck. They were still very tender.

She whispered hopefully. "Maybe... he chose someone else?"

Losy took her head in her hands. She simply couldn't understand why her Mother had allowed herself to be taken over by this fervour of sacrifice. Why, her mother didn't even RECOGNIZE Los as her DAUGHTER anymore.

She only saw a body that would please Osiris.

And Losyara herself. Why wasn't she thrilled to be taken? The other youths, the ones who had walked out to the huts with her had sneered at her for her modest and timid demeanor. But there was just SOMETHING inside of Los that refused to allow her to be hypnotized by the splendour of the God. It was almost as if there was an outside force that BLOCKED her mind and heart from his hypnotizing qualities.

And no one else seemed to be protected. Especially the other sacrificial youths. There had been only two boys this year, and four girls. Losyara was the only one with red hair and pale skin adn eyes. And, as far as she saw, she was the only one who had been bitten before, too.

Each of the others were SURE they were the one Osiris really wanted. Losyara had prayed silently to Ra:

She had turned her eyes to the side as they had strolled along the hot dunes, the light, pure white wraps they wore fluttering in the cool breeze, the hems weighted down with gold. Her hair, for the first time in many years, was left loose and danced wildly in the breeze, lifting and swirling about her head as if the very winds found it too beautiful not to run thier fingers through.

She breifly considered running. Sprinting out into the desert, over the hills, hiding among the ancient tombs of the pharohs that could be seen in the distance.

And then what? She'd die of dehydration? Of starvation? Would the soldiers of the city find her? Beat her? Would the priests follow her out, begging for her return? Would the two beautiful boys chase after here, grab her? Drag her along with them?

For not having six youths was blasphemous. It would bring down the wrath of Osris. It would bring death, not only for the other five youths and the priests, but to everyone who died in drought the next season.

For Osris wouldn't make it rain if he and the other gods were not properly appeased. There had to be one youth for each time the Nile swelled, as was Osiris' doing and law.

Then one youth was taken into eternity, about the same time as the Great River surged for the final time, spilling over it's banks to fertilize the dark, rich soil of Kemet.

No. The priests wouldn't find her. She could run too fast for thier old legs. And the boys were too vain to dirty themselves scuffling over the sand to pin her. And she wouldn't die of heat stroke or lack of food, nor of the cold desert night.

She wouldn't be out there long enough for that.

Osiris would find her first.

Losyara had frowned breifly, and one of the others, the tall, lean boy, had laughed. "He'll never take YOU if you scowl all the time. You'll get wrinkles!"

Los had looked him straight in the eye. "For my sake, I hope I do. But for yours..." she frowned more. "... let's hope I don't. Then you'll live for another year."

He had scowled himself at that and turned his back on her.

Los had sighed. What choice did she have? She was certain, deep down, that if she ran, he'd most definately follow. But maybe, if she stayed, he'd pass over her, find someone BETTER. Someone who was willing to give up thier ka to him - thier very soul. Someone who could LOVE him.

Losyara, still recollecting the day's events and ceremonies - her head still spun from the sweet lily wine-

paused.

What had happened to the sounds of the night? They were GONE.

She jerked her eyes up to the torches, and they began to flicker wildly, though there was no breeze in here to make them do so.

There was only one explination. HIM

"Oooohhh... noooo. " she wailed softly, pulling herself to her feet. She ran to the heavy door, trying to move the stone, but she was far too small. Far too weak. She collapsed to her knees, back hitching with repressed, panicked sobs, long, lovely hair vieling her face.

Oh, Ra, it was a curse to be born beautiful in Kemet...

From behind her came a very gentle, very soft, "Losyara...."

HE was THERE, breathing her name, still hidden in the shadows at the back of the hut. Like a mantra, he repeated it over, and over again. "Losyara...."

And suddenly she remembered this voice, this presence.

She had HEARD his voice before. She KNEW him.

That mysterious, vaugue dream of that fateful night seven years ago came rushing back to her in a horrifiying wave:

Losy's head jerked up, but she refused to turn, to LOOK at the man who had haunted her nightmares for so long.

Oh, yes, she remembered him now! And suddenly the pieces fell into place. Her master's vauge whispers, laced with double meaning. Her mother's blind devotion to her religion. How it was that she woke up with jab-marks in her throat nearly every morning for the past seven years.

When Losy was ten, she had run to him, weak, inviting, begging for him ... and he had fallen in love. She had MADE him fall in love.

And now he felt it was time to claim that love. Which meant taking her away. Ceremony be damned, he only used it as an excuse to get at HER. He wasn't really going to take ANYONE this year to appease the gods. Only HIMSELF.

Losyara whimpered once again as she noted from her side-view that he stepped forward just a bit, the weakening torchlight making the gold of his costume glint.

His face, however, was still hidden.

Very quietly, hands clasped at her waist, Los prayed one final time. "No... oh, Ra, no.."

He breathed it again, her name. As natural to him as air was to her. "Losyara..." He stepped no closer. Just stood there and ... stared. As if he couldn't dare to hope that it was really HER. That she, Losyara, was finally THERE.

Ironic, considering that every other year, it was usually the one who was sacrificed who stared in disbelief, not the god.

Very, very slowly, her curiousity finally too much, Losyara turned her head 'round just enough to be able to see him.

His liquid bronze eyes danced in the warm, amber torchlight, and it looked like, for all the world, he just wanted to look at her and do nothing else.

Then slowly, his face enraptured -which of course merely hieghtened his own beauty- he took another step towards her.

Losyara jerked backwards, spinning, pressing her bare feet into the hard packed dirt, back pressed against the mud-brick wall, ready to spring to her feet and run at any given second. Where she would run TO was another matter entirely, for the sparse hut was small, and the entrance blocked by a heavy stone door that she couldn't even begin to hope to move.

But, oh. Her breath caught in her throat. He was so very LOVELY.

Osiris swallowed once, as if he were nervous, his eyes soft, and walked forward, the gold on his person making a faint clinking noise. He wore his usual -tradtional - pleated linen skirt, but for this special night, he had apparently chosen to wear his armoured covering as well. The leaves of gold brushed one another, creating a musical tinkle as he walked.

It was far to heavy for any normal human to walk around in, yet he moved easily, gracefully, hypnotizingly...

Losy shook her head. No!

His perfect, lean chest remained bare and his shoulders were covered with a heavy, expensive idigo cloak. Where he had gotten INDIGO dye was anyone's guess, it was impossible to find and so expencive to buy that even the PHAROAH had very little in the way of purple cloth in his estate. But this was, after all, a GOD.

Losyara met his eyes without meaning to, and was immediately LOST.

He stopped just infront of her, and, so mezmerized by the play of light on his chest, in his armour, that she reached up, slowly, just wanting to TOUCH him, to see if he was really real this time, and not a dream.

He was so much more beautiful in reality, so IRRISISTABLE.

He smiled gently, kindly, his voice rich and soft. "At last..." he whispered, as if he were a parched man who had finally found a cool, clean well. "At last... at long last.."

He knelt, every movement mesmerizing with its grace, "Our wait is over..." and took her outstrached hand gently, so carefully, folding it in his own. He was so sincere, so civil, so polite and kind. He wore a look of pure amazment, enraptured amazement.

Not at ALL what Los was expecting of him, which threw her defences off balance.

She fell under his spell, shimmering blue eyes wide with wonder, the warm amber torchlight dancing in their depths.

However, when his fingers touched her palm, she jerked backwards, trying to wrentch her hand from his. He was so COLD to the touch. And it was that coldness that made her realize what she was doing. She was letting him TOUCH her!

But Osiris didn't let go.

"We no longer have to wait, my daughter." he said smoothly, a genuine smile pulling up his perfect lips. "As the gods have decreed it...you are mine."

"...dau....ter?" Ark repeated slowly, eyes narrowed at him, wary. She ceased her struggling to remove her hand from his and just sat there on the hard-packed dirt.

Osiris reached up and touched her cheek with his free hand, looking absolutley blown away. He rubbed the pad of his thumb over her eyebrows, her cheekbones, admiring thier perfection.

"My daughter." he whsipered, voice quivering with so much emotion that it made Los's heart ache. "My love. The beauty of my night and the dreams of my day..."

Losyara! a seemingly outside voice snapped at her sternly, and she shook her head. Don't! He'll hurt you! "N-no..." Los said softly, trying to separate Osiris' will from her own, struggling. "I am... mamma's daughter..."

Leaning a bit lower, more intently, it seemed as if Osiris chose to ignore her. "You whose heart of fire have kept me longing... " he repeated the word as it PAINED him to say it, "...Longing... for you.... for seven years I have dreamed of nothing but YOU... the feel of you around me, the taste of you on my lips, the sound of your heart pressed against my own chest.... My lovely fire child.... " he closed his eyes and leaned forward, titling his head slightly, and pressed his soft, smooth lips against her own.

Los balked at the sweet, sensual kiss.

It was the first time she had ever been kissed like this in her life. Even her mother had not kissed her on the lips.

And she decided rather quickly that she liked it.

Inside her a voice screamed, No! It's not right! Fight him! But the slow, gentle kiss overrode that - it was as if he was memorizing the flavor of her lips.

A beautiful little gasp escaped from her throat and thier lips, making him smile against her eager mouth when it reached his ears. Los melted against him, not caring that he was cold to the touch, like unyeilding marble, and wrapped her round arms around his neck, pulling him closer, begging silently for more.

The blissful contact lasted for a long, protracted moment, then Osiris pulled away and sighed happily, thrilled by her response. "Come with me..." he said, voice pleading and sorrowfull and full of ecstatic joy all at once. "My child."

Losyara closed her eyes, leaning into him, resting her head upon his naked chest. "...yes..." she sighed.

"It is time to introduce you to the gods you serve." he said gently, one hand petting her back through her hair in long, comfortable strokes. His voice oozed kindness, love dripped from each word like honey. He smiled beneficently and stood, holding his hand out for her.

Never thinking that she wouldn't take it.

The voice inside her scuffled breifly and lost to her heart's mezmerized calm. She lifted her hand and placed it in his own, and his slender fingers closed on it posessively.

Osiris lead her gently to the door, the heavy stone door which had been rolled by nearly a dozen men into place at sunset - which he moved with one hand not even looking at it. He had no difficulty with it at all.

Losyara's face stung when the cold night air hit it, and she realized that her face was flushed, her body warm. But he's still so COLD.

And then she tore her eyes from his aquiline face and realized that the breeze came from the now-moved door, and Losyara gasped in astonishment. That's not RIGHT, the strange voice screamed in her head, not sounding anything like her own. It was the ouside force again, the divine intervention, if it could be called that. The voice of destiny. He's too tangible to be a spirit, and only a god or a spirit could MOVE that without help....It's WRONG

Her mind cleared suddenly, horribly.

Osiris had her by the hand. She had KISSED him, willingly, eagerly, and thrown herself into his arms. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH HER?!

But the subtle play of the starlight on his cascading hair distracted her, the soft sighing sounds he made made her head spin, more so than the chilled wine of the day's festivities had. His arm was around her shoulder, protectively, pressing her against his side, crushing her breasts delisiously into his lower ribs, her hand still wrapped in his.

She hadn't even noticed that all the torches that should have been lit on the outside of each lonely hut were knocked over and gutted. Didn't notice that the doors that should have been barred with a monumental rock were hanging open, like empty blackened mouths.

Shivering in the cold - he had no body heat with which to share with her - Losyara was once again chided by the mysterious voice.

But the voice was nothing more than a distant buzz now, drown by Osiris' gentle touches and beautiful scent. He smelled of incesce and cinnamon. And above that the pure earthy wooden scent of smoke.

He lead her far into the desert, over dunes and past the oblivious camps of vagrants. Toward the sacred temple they went, the holiest place in Abydos. The place where the sacrifices to the gods were made, where the six table-top alters surounded the leveled off precipice of a great pyramid, the floor concave so the blood could be pooled in the centre for the god to come down and taste.

The temple that only the priests may touch, and ONLY during the day. At night, the temple was HIS.

A small, weak slave girl like Losyara would be killed for even going NEAR it.

And Losyara was not one to forget where she was and wasn't allowed to go.

"I--I can't..." she stuttered fearfully, digging her bare heels into the sand when Osiris tried to prod her up the steep steps that scaled the surface. "T-the.. gods will..."

She trailed off when she felt Osiris chuckle, and he looked down at her upturned face, smiling. He reached out with his free hand and cupped her cheek again. "You, my daughter.. have now passed the realm of mortals." he said softly, his odour-less breath tickling her face. "You no longer must follow those rules."

Losyara blinked, unsure. He couldn't possibly be... LYING, could he? He didn't want to get her up there, just so the gods can slaughter her?

Yes, that's it exactly! the voice returned full force. He wants you up there so he can kill you! So he can steal your soul-- your ka! Why else would he bring you to a place filled with such death? A place where sacrifices are made! Something is WRONG.

Without her noticing, he had somehow gotten closer to her. "You now... " he said, pushing her in against his chest, just barely brushing his lips agains ther own, the movement of which made her short-hairs stand on end - though wether it was from fear or pleasure, she did not know. "... must learn new ones."

"New.. rules...?" Los repated uncertainly.

Osiris tucked his palm under her chin, lifing her face to his and kissed her again - not gently this time: hungrily, lustfully, and with a passion so intense that she could not fight it at all. Only whimper as he forced her lips apart and slid his tounge into her mouth.

Wrong, wrong wrong! Run, Losyara, run, he means to destroy you, to take away everything that you are and fill you up with everythign he WANTS you to be...

"..no... NO!" The mortal girl screamed and shook her head violently, backing away from him on unsteady feet, then turned on her heel.

She was going to RUN.

He put out a hand and stopped her aborted attempt easily, pulling her back; to him. He clasped her waist easily with both arms, trapping her own wrists at her sides, pressing her back to his front. He lifted her up off the ground, so thier hips touched, and Los shuddered, feeling the cold gold of his groin armour slide against the flesh of her rear.

"I have waited for so LONG..." he whispered directly into her ear, nose in her hair. "Never I have waited for so long for what I want... but you were worth it... your PERFECTION was worth it...."

"No! I've heard the stories! I don't want to die!" Losyara screamed into the night, struggling with all her worth to break free. She could not. "I can't go up there! I'll die!"

"Die?" Osiris blinked, his eyelashes brushing her ear.

"Please, please, no!"

"You shall not die." Osiris tried to soothe her. It was, of course, just the first in a very long string of lies that was to come - but Los did not know that. "I will never let you die, my beloved."

He held her close, inhaling the scent of her hair, and began to climb the steps carved into the side of the enormus pyramid.

"No, no!" Losy screamed and fought vainly, but she could not gain freedom. "This is WRONG. Please, don't make me! I don't want to become someone else!"

Osiris only held her, her back presed to his chest, not letting her go. He ignored all protests and struggles. In fact, he wasn't really all that aware of them. All he knew was that he had Losyara, finally, and he was the happiest he'd been in CENTURIES.

However, he didn't seem to notice that SHE wasn't happy at all. She was, in fact, WEEPING. "Please... please..." she begged, but he was oblivious, not listening to her at all, as he continued to jog lightly up the steps - and that's when she noticed the smell. "I want to go back. I--- changed my mind... I ... "

She paused in her movements, her begging. Oh, it wasn't a BAD smell, per se. Rather, more like the meat market in the centre of the polis on slaughter day, or the scent that wafted from the kitchen when the master was having a feast. The wind carried the scent of freshly cooked meat and blood, which was puzling - there had been no sacrifices today, no bulls. No one had been up here since the morning. The scarificial alters had been cleaned for tonight.

Is it food? Losyara wondered silently, her stomach rumbling. She'd eaten nothing all day, as was the custom. She had only drunk the pure honeyed lily wine. Has a feast be prepared for this night?

Osiris finally stepped onto the very top of the pyramid, easing over the edge, and all the torches were lit here, spaced between the heavy stone blocks, crackling merrily.

In fact, it was almost too bright.

But Losyara didn't notice those.

All she saw was that there were bodies on the alters. On the circle of six alters, all around the outside of this place of holiness lay the strewn-about remains of five human bodies. And with a jolt of horror, Los realized she recognaized each and every face that lay there, empty eyes and mouths wide.

These were the five other youths the had been offered in the ceremony WITH her.

THAT'S why Osirs had taken so long to get to her. He had been busy murdering THEM.

Losyara screamed, her voice loud and shrill. She struggled, fighting HARDER. "No," she wailed. "No,no,nononononoooooo!"

Osiris' expression was no less than blissful.

Ignoring her panic completely, he annonced, holding her easeily with one hand, "Behold! The gods have been propitiated! All has been made way for your arrival!"

But Los was not strong enough to break free, and her struggling caused her to tire quickly. She whispered, her body hitching with silent sobs, causing her to rub against him even more. "....no...."

He marched into the middle, still holding her with one hand - all her struggling was for naught. "See?" he said eagerly, as if seeking her approval of his actions. "Do you SEE what I did for you? All for you, my fire's heart...."

He ceased his movements, ceased the splashing of the blood, which was gathered around his sandals.

He spoke again, almost as if to himself. "I broke the sacred trust... I did... I ... knew you ... wanted you..." his blissful expression momentarily cracked into a pained look "...touched you, drank you," he brushed his lips against the faint swelling scars on her neck from each of the nights he had visited her in her dreams. "Before you were given properly... I ...have sinned... and now, that has been atoned for."

Los looked around in disgust, her gorge rising.

Osiris knelt and quite litterally splatted her down on her back in the middle of the disgusting mess.

Los shook her head, refusing to belive that he, a GOD, would slaughter five beautiful human beings just so he could have HER, a lowly slave from a middle-class house-hold. She pressed her lips together in a tight white knife-slice. She just KNEW she was going to vomit, and didn't DARE to embarrass herself by doing it HERE.

Osiris didn't seem to notice her distress, panting as he pulled at her sacrifical garments, removing them with a haste born of seven years of surpressed lust.

His eyes widened until they were almost comicly round - like he'd wanted to see this for a while - well, upclose, anyway. "I have.... made..the proper atonement.." he said unevenly, his chest rising and falling above her own, his hands skimming her skin, verifing her solidness in the soft womanly curves she had grown since the last time he had touched her seven years ago.

Dizzy, weak, crying, and revolted, Los tried to push him away, but her pushing did nothing.

"And now I shall give you life..." he smiled gently, his hair falling over his shoulder to brush her face like butterfly kisses. "Eternal life."

Los turned her head away. She didn't want him to see her fear.

Osiris blinked. Well, that was ODD. Most of the time, his children were always all too eager to participate, and yet this one did not want to look?

Perhaps.. she was just shy? Yes, that was it. She was modest, that's all.

He straightened enough to pull off his cloak and removed his waist cloth and the armor, moving with a quickness that was not at all serene.

He WANTED her. To the point of MADNESS he wanted her. He'd been dreaming of this moment for seven years, of this night when she would finally belong to him. He had envioned the days they would spend in each other's arms, the nights out under the stars, the sacrifices, the hunts, the lazy evenings among the thick rushes and reeds that grew on the bank of the Nile River, so close to his Palacian temple on the banks.

Los didn't move as he bent his tounge to taste her skin. She COULDNT move. ... the blood is sticky, still warm...

Osiris was now completely naked, bronzed from top to bottom in the torchlight.

Kneeling in gore, and still holding her trapped, he was beautiful - was perfect, in fact. So much so he was like something that couldn't be real. He was too perfect to exist.

Her stomach convulsed, limbs shuddering. ...this is sickening... she thought, and within her the voice agreed. But she still could not tear her eyes off of him.

Bending down, face eager, his face hovered momentarily above her own, studying her carefuly blank expression. Then, instead of kissing her, he moved his mouth lower and tore right into her throat without any hesitation at all.

But this was not the delicate bites he had given her before, each night, restraining himself form ravishing his lovely fire-child right then and there. This time he RIPPED at the flesh.

Losy's eyes opened wide in shocking pain, and she screamed again, right into his ear. She tried to scramble away, but his hands rested lightly on her shoulders, preventing any and all movement.

He clawed with fervour at the skin along her hips, the pulled her up to kiss her passionately, her own blood smeared on his otherwise lovely face.

She whimpered and wiggled, trying to make him stop. "Please... please.. no.. it hurts..."

Osiris ignored her pleas, certain that she was only playing with him, and continued to move with a speed that was way too fast and born of a need to just COVER her and fill her up. He just couldn't seem to HELP himself.

He'd been waiting for so LONG....

Without warning he pressed a cold hand between her thighs, parting her legs, exploring what he had longed for for so long with his hands.

He tore into her throat again, synchronizing the biting with what his hands were doing below - really seeming to think this was pleasurable for her.

Osiris wanted nothing more than to make her love him. To shudder against his own willowy body in the excstay of an orgasm that he created within her.  Not once did the thought cross his mind that she would NOT love him.

Losyara snapped her head away, tenseing all over as his slender fingers found a few places that paractice and experience told him she'd enjoy. She groaned in spite of herself, begining a silent prayer, a desperate internal mantra: Ra, please, save me, please... don't let him steal my ka, Don't let him hurt me any more.

Osris's entire body was moving on top of hers, in an imitation of what he wanted to do later.

He tore at her throat again, biting more deeply this time. A largeish section of raw muscle was exposed by this, the frigid desert air stinging the open wound as Los sobbed bitterly.

She would really rather DIE than let him steal everything she was and fill her body with a new ka.

Osiris paused to tilt his head back, Los' blood dripping down his chin, out of his mouth, and closed his eyes, smiling at the sky. She is more sweet and beautiful than I'd ever hoped to dream. Perfect, in every way....like me.

He arched his back to bite her breats lightly, which heaved under his exploring mouth with her uncontrolable sobs and unwanted shudders. All the while, he was removing a small, ceremonial knife from his discarded linen skirt.

His hand closing on the hilt, he tilted his head back again, wearing an expression of ecstasy - and not even looking at the young, violated woman below him, slit his own throat.

Los squeezed her eyes shut as he quite literally began spurting blood - and looking pleased, not pained, bent over her again and tried to force her mouth to the wound.

She jumped when the hot dropplets of the sweetly metallic fluid fell on her face, his blood splattering on the tiles, on her, on everything. Cold man - hot blood.

Los tried to shield her face with her hands, but he sat her up, pulling her against him - so close that she could feel his erection pressing against her stomach.

Losy whimpered and squeezed her eyes shut when she did.

Osiris tilted his head, then leaned down to gently brush the tears away from Los' eyes.

"Don't cry, little one," he said, then leaned towards her face. "There's no need to fear me, my little lily." He kissed her again, softly, lovingly. "I know it hurts, my darling, I know. But I'll make the pain go away, forever." Then he tangled a hand in her hair and forced her mouth to his neck. "Come." he groaned. "Drink me."

Los tried to turn her head to the side, but could not. His hands prevented that. She opened her mouth to scream again. To beg. To cry out, please, I don't want to be slaughtered like them!

But Osiris saw her parting her lips and swiftly pushed her face into the wound. By complete and totally insane, unavoidable reflex, Losyara swallowed.

She shuddered.

Osiris shivered in delight, purring and making all sorts of low, rumbly pleased sounds. He turned his head back and forth, literally rubbing her face in him.

And Los, anable to do anything else, drank. Slowly, lapping at the fount. Can't ... HELP it... she sighed, half a plea to the voice to save her once more, half a sigh of resignation. Waves and waves of PLEASURE hit her every pore, her every nerve. Even her hair seemed to vibrate with joy. Oh, Ra, this feels so GOOD. She began to tingle all over and reached up to wrap her hands in his hair, sucking for all her worth, hips begining to move against his thighs.

Los moaned without meaning to, nails digging into the back of his neck. A strange fire shot from the place where his hands had been working earlier into her viens, making her feel as if she were glowing. It felt WONDERFUL.

Rape! the strange, outside voice screamed into her mind's ear. Continue and he'll DESTROY you! He'll steal your ka, and make a monster like himself of you!

Los jerked back, yanked visously back to reality by the voice -and grateful to it, whatever it was - but his hands were also tangled in her hair, and he refused to let her go. She was trapped within the curve of his arms, no hope of moving tham at all. He tugged on her hair, tiliting her head back and to the side at a painful angle.

She whimpered, eyes screwed shut, unwanted bitter and pained tears leaking from thier corners.

Osiris ducked and tore into her throat again, sort of roaring as he did so, and Losyara whined.

Losyara tried futily to bring her hands up, to make him stop, to PUSH HIM AWAY, but she couldn't move at all. The blood loss and the pain made her entire body completely limp. The only movements she made was from her sobbing, low in her throat.

Osiris didn't seem to mind that she no longer had herself wrapped around him, her sex eagerly pressing up against his own. He was surging, rocking back and forth in time with his suckling.

Really, he had drained her to the point of life-endagernment now. One way or another, she was going to die. And Losy moved in time with his rocking, not able to fight, not able to MOVE as one of his hands swept back and forth over the length of her spine.

She no longer had even the strength to weep properly, and the tears simply leaked out of the corners of her eyes.

Her throat parched, aching, her lips dry she moaned quietly, "Please... please... please... " apparently Osiris mistook her plea for life as begging for more of what he was doing, for he began to suck harder, the soft sweep of his hand being replaced by the fearsome scratch of nails.

He pulled her right up onto his lap, pressing her entire body against his chest and hips.

"Please..." Los begged, her voice raspy, almost gone. Her eyes rolled up as her head flopped back against his hand, and she could only watch the cruel stars, the moon that refused to aide her. "Please... no..."

Osiris pulled back again, letting his prize slip to the side, her head and torso cradled in this powerful arms. He sighed and turned his face to the heavens as if in silent thanks, his face enraptured.

Her leaned down and ran a few fingers across her lips, smiling, eyes closeing slowly, anticipating her tounge against his skin. "Clean my face, Losyara...my child.."

She didn't move.

He wants me to lick my own blood off of his face...? she thought, appaled. I can't ... I can't even MOVE... this is revolting... She closed her own eyes slowly, and gathered as much air as she could before squeaking out a forced-sounding "...No."

Osiris' lovely bronze eyes fluttered open slowly. There was a moment of complete and absolute silence.

Finally, he looked down at her. "Clean my face, Losyara. I command it. As your father. " he brushed some of her blood-matted hair off of her face, his touches still gentle and kind. But his voice had lost a little of it's ethereal nature.

"You..." she began slowly, rasping, breathless, "Are... NOT... my ...FATHER!"

Osiris stared at her.

He didn't NEED to breathe, of course, and in his shock had stopped.

Losyara just let her aching head flop to the side. She didn't want to LOOK at him. Couldn't STAND the sight of this beautiful monster anymore.

She didn't want to fight, she was sick of fighting, hated fighting, and the voice cheered her on. If you don't look at him, he can't seduce you, can't steal you! Yes, she just wanted sleep. If Death came with it, then so be it. Better to die than be HIS forever.

But death SCARED her.

Because, afterall, Osiris was the God of the Underworld, the judge of the departed souls. Either way, she would see him again. There was NO escape...

He looked at her, his expression one of utter disbelief. "Losyara. Look at me."

He reiceved no answer but a shuddering sob.

He grabbed her chin in his fingers and pulled her head up to face him and repeated, more frmly, "Losyara. Look." desperation leaking into his tone he added. "At me. LOOK!"

Losyara opened her eyes slowly, fearful of the danger in his voice.

He stared back, studing her face, her grimace of pain, the expression of terror. The was no lust or passion or anything in his own gaze. It was a very analytical look - actually, it was the sanest he had appeared to be since he came to her in that lonely hut so many hours ago.

Losyara swallowed heavily, then whimpered. It HURT to even do that. Very quietly, very painfully, she whispered, "Please.. I want to go home..."

Osiris' eyes grew a bit wider, as if he couldn't beleive she had just said those words.

Losyara shivered, the blood she had been lying in having grown chilled in the high night air.

Osiris kept his eyes locked on her face, still silent, still not breathing, still not BELIEVEING that she did not WANT him as much as he wanted her, that she would REFUSE him ANYTHING...

No answer... Losyara thought to herself hopefully, does that mean he's considering it? "Please, please." she whispered frantically, "I'll do anything you want, if you let me go. I'll worship you, like mother does, if you want me to. I'll become a preistess at your temple. I'll sleep with anyone you wish me to. I'll bare children for you. I'll do anything, but please, just let me go HOME..."

This, apparently, was the wrong responce to his silence, for Osiris was now looking moderately horrified.

Losyara went on, unable to help the desperation in her voice, on her face, in her eyes. "Please... I.. don't want to end up like them..." and rolled her watering eyes to the five corpses.

Osiris blinked and seemed to snap out of his horrified trance, swinging abruptly into a comforting mode. He held her close, cradeling her head to his chest as if she were a weeping child; and in a way, she was.

"No, no, no..." he shushed her, his voice as soothing as any lilting lullaby. "Oh, you will never be like they are.. they were mere pawns, sent to me to be sacrificed to the gods to propitiate my sins.." Losyara's breath caught in her throat, and she smiled gratefully at his words, trying to reach up, to kiss him in thanks or to rest her hands on his shoulder, but she could not. Cradelling her, rocking back and forth he whispered into her ear, "I will never let you die...

Which, unneknownst to the innocent and still naieve mortal girl him his arms, was really a sentence of doom.

Los let her body go limp. "You'll... you don't want to kill me...?"

Osiris murmmered soothing things and continued to rock her gently. He placed a hand on her chest, just below her left breast. "No...I don't want to kill you... I love you, my daughter of fire.."

Tears streamed down her face, tears of grateful joy. "I can go home...?"

Very softly, very easily, Osiris breathed into her ear. "You are home."

Losyara froze, horrified.

"Home is with me." he continued, still rocking back and forth, soothing hands stroking her blood-tangled hair. It was almost impossible to see where the natural colour of her tresses stopped and the gore began. "I am your home. " he flexed his fingers. "I can feel your heart... it labors... labors with the pains of mortal life." He bent his head to the large wound on her neck., nuzzling her hair and the intact flesh of her jawline, nipping and teasing her softly with his tounge. "I shall free you from that...."

Losyara's formaly grateful tears became cold sobs of dispair. "No, no, I want to go back to mama... to the master..."

Osiris nuzzled, his face and skin now heated from the blood and warmth he had stolen. "I am your master. And I shall take you with me..to the path of eternity."

Very carefuly, he laid her back down into the pool of blood, pressing her back up against the cold granite beneath. He took his little knife and looked up to the full moon once more, eyes closed.

Losyara could only allow herself to be pushed. Soft, yeilding, and unsure he watched his hand with the knife skim along her own chest, cirecling where her heart was, not making a scratch. Then, apparently from memory, he traced a pattern on his chest and stomach, creating occultic, anceint symbols in lines of torn flesh and blood.

He sighed in excstasy and shuddered.

Los gathered all the strength she had left to lift her hands and cover his with them. Odd, now it's my skin that's cold and his that's hot. She tired to excert enough pressure to stop thier movements, but could not. "N-no..." she murmmured.

For a moment he ignored her, then paused and looked at thier laced fingers, a smile spreading on his face. "Why no?" he asked, catching her still weak and slipping hand in his.

He leaned closer now, eyes VERY intense. "Why no, little one?"

"No more... blood..." Los gagged. "Eughk..."

His smile became a grin. "The blood is the life..." he touched his stomach, crimson coming away on his fingertips, then traced it onto her cheeks. "In it lies all the secrets of beyond." he dipped and licked her cheeks clean.

Los shuddered in horror.

He lay down on her, pressing himself to her skin, staining her with her own blood filtered through his body.

"Too.... much... blood..." she whined, retching.

Osiris took the oppertunity of her open mouth to kiss her again, lips crushing her own, his tounge all over the inside of her. He writhed with pleasure, his arousal pressing her stomach and tighs. Running one hand down her side to where her legs met, the other skimming along her forehead to hold her head in place, Osiris pulled his tounge out of her mouth briefly, bit it, and thrust it back between her lips.

Blood trickled down her throat, lots of it, and Losyara wept with all her soul as she felt her body tingle to life. Betrayed! By my own body! Seduced to darkness by an act that SHOULD have been pleasurable!

Alone, afraid, and finally realizing that she had absolutely NO CHANCE of ever living or seeing her family alive again, Losyara did the only thing she could do.

She bit him.

As hard as she could, Los snapped her teeth down on Osiris' tongue, and she felt herself puncture the skin.

The god, however, was not hurt by this, and instead was furhter aroused. He made a high, soft, sighing sound and reached down to cup her breasts, partially for pleasure, and partially to brace himself as he shoved himself up inside of her.

He paused breifly when he felt her maidenhead, and pulled away from her face to leer lustily at her body.

"Perfect. Pristiene. Pure. Untouched. And all Mine...." He slammed his hips against her hard, filling her completely, making Los scream again and writhe in agony. "Perfect." he said, not moving at all, save to pull one of her legs up around his waist, while his other hand moved beside her head so he could brace himself.

Blood oozed out from between them and Los shuddered as she felt it drip down her legs to mingle with the deep puddle of cold blood she was laying in.

He arched downwards and ran his tounge along the side of her face, leaving tiny trails of blood behind, which he doubled back to kiss away.

Losyara yanked her head back, panting, and squeezed her eyes shut. "...stop.. it!" she begged.

Osiris paused for one moment longer, then smiled gently. He nibbled on her ear and whispered, "You'll like this part..." and began to move, slowly, stroking her gently. A soft sigh escaped Los's lips, her face flushing, and this was enticement enough to make him begin to thrust harder.

Her entire pelvis came up off the ground and she began to scream.

Apparently, he had his own ideas as to what "pleasurable" was.

Los tried to reach out, to find SOMETHING to haul herself away with, but he was wrapped all over her, his lips and teeth skimming every patch of bare skin within reach, not letting her go anywhere - he didn't even see what she was grabbing for.

Los screamed again when she could find nothing but corpses and body parts to use to pull herself away, a high, pained, desperate cry that Osiris attributed to himself, and so didn't look up.

"Fear not.... you... I won't..." Osiris panted, hot air from wafting over Los' face, "I will never...let you ..die..." and slipped the hand that had been on her leg hand behind her back, nails tearing into her skin.

Los could only scream again, and, completely overwhelmed by EVERYTHING, the BLOOD, the CORPSES, the SEX...

Osiris made a horrid, bestial sound and tore it her throat again -too deply this time.

She was completely UNDONE. Horrified.

He ripped at her artetires, slicing open her jugular vien, allowing what little blood was left in her bood to spray out in a sort of gruesome fountain.

...the absolute earth-shattering FEAR.... So Losyara did the only thing left that was in her power to do.

She convulsed and fainted dead away.

Sencing this, Osiris pulled her limp body upright, resting her on his lap, and held her close, moving inside of her until she moved past the change and death and started to come out the other side agian, hours later.

The feeling of her stirring back to immortal life pushed him too far and his control was shattered. He climaxed, crushing the bones of her arms in his fists.

By the time Losyara woke up, she was in HIS temple - cleaned up, dressed in ceremonial gold and cotton, and arranged like a piece of art on a luxruious, well cushioned lounger.

In one perfect and beautifully luminous peice.

And she was DEAD ...forever.

***

"Ah...." Osiris seemed to say, bringing Ark back to the present, but the shadows around his mouth never moved. "My wayward offspring... you are the last of my brood. You shall not oppose me." He reached for her, his liquid bronze eyes glittering dangerously. Ark lashed out and knocked away his arm even as she backed into the white outter wall of the Briefs family's large capsule house, the crimson tears flowing in twin rivers down her alabaster cheeks.

"Do not resist me, Losyara!" The man thundered, and clamped his hands around her shoulders so tightly she cringed in pain. His face grew close to hers, bare millimeters from her own, their lips all but touching. "You are not strong enough, little flower... I plucked you millennia ago, and you have belonged to me every day of that since... Do not fight what you are."

His grin widened and the sharp corner teeth sparkled menacingly in the cold light of the stars. Ark whimpered and turned her head away as he brushed bronzed fingers through the blood on her cheeks. "Tears, flower? Do you ever do anything in my presence besides weep?" He chuckled lightly and backed away a bit while Ark began to fume.

"Let me go..."

"Oh.... you presume to tell your sire what to do, flower? You may be the eldest of my children, but you do not control me... I control you." He laughed lightly, his head thrown back, the sound rich and deep and unnaturally resonant, the tips of his long bronze hair brushing the small of his back. He reached foreward, entracnced by her anger. "I.. had almost forgotten how perfectly lovely you are..." he sighed, brushing his fingers across her neck.

"Osiris...!" Ark hissed warningly, and the elder vampire immediately sobered up.

"You, girl," she spat as he lifted his arm and backhanded her so hard she slammed into a nearby tree with force enough to crack the thick trunk, "Will speak respectfully to your betters!" He tugged on the hem of his rough tunic, straightening it as if it were not the torn, filthy rag he'd been buried in millennia ago, but an elaborate gilded robe, and stalked over to tower above the trembling Ark. "You will refer to me as 'master'."

"Never!" hissed Ark, her own eye-teeth lengthening and her eyes flooding red.

She snapped her hands back and shouted, "Kame-ah-me-ha!" and the energy crackled from her palms and leapt towards Osiris, who was thrown back more by the surprise of the attack than the force of it. Before Ark could even regain her feet, Osiris was back on his own, and this time he was furious. He slammed his lean body down onto hers, breaking ribs and pining her painfully against the thick forest floor.

Ark shrieked in pain, and a responding shout came from the doorway.

"Auntie Ark!" Boxer cried from the stoop, having been awakened from bed by the feel of a severely tainted aura nearby. He was lucky. Unlike his father, Yaumcha, Boxer had been born with the ability to sense ki.

"Boxer!" Bulma screeched from inside, "Come away from there! Get your father!"

Boxer smacked himself on the forehead and turned to shout into the house. However, he barely got a sentence out "Dad! Auntie Ark--!" before he was yanked violently off his feet.

Well, no... in retrospect, Boxer decided that he was not yanked so much as *sucked* by something he couldn't touch. However, that didn't matter at that precise moment, because he was looking straight up into the face of a very angry, very *male* vampire.

Now, normally, the face of a vampire wouldn't phase the young boy, for Ark was not secretive about her dual nature around her friends, and so Boxer had seen her eyes flush red many a time, and in fact bugged her to do it for a laugh every time they met. But this was *definitely* not Ark.

"Mm-mommy...." Boxer whimpered, his lower lip trembling as he stared up into the face of the most ... sinister... man he had ever seen. Physically, there was nothing wrong with the man's face, in fact, had Boxer been a girl, he might have noticed that the man was actually quite good-looking. His face was angular and his cheekbones sharp, the lips perfect petals, his eyes a thick gold-brown, his skin the same. But there was something behind the face that shattered all illusion of handsomeness... it was evil.

Evil leaked into every pore of this man's being, from the depths of his heart to the tips of his molten bronze hair. The same hair that was, at that very moment, brushing down into Boxer's terrified face like a lover's... but Boxer was far too young to know what a lover was... he only knew that this man was going to hurt him if he didn't get away.

The boy squirmed to the side, wriggling out of the vampire's grasp, but only succeeded in getting a few centimeters before Osiris slammed his palm down against the turf, effectively blocking Boxer's way and also scaring him senseless. The vampire's other hand pressed painfully against the young child's chest.

Osiris grinned ferally... And then his head jerked to the side and he rolled to his feet, Boxer held against his chest by the scruff of his pyjamas.

Before them stood Ark, panting heavily, half a thick branch clasped in her hand, the other half splintered on the garden floor, spots of thick blackish blood spattered about from where the wood had made contact with Osiris' head.

Osiris smiled and ran a sharp nail along Boxer's throat.

"Don't try that again, flower." Osiris hissed, his voice unnaturally resonant, "Or this little one," he yanked on the collar of Boxer's perfectly pressed Pjs, "won't ever see his 'Auntie Ark' again." There was a choked sob from the doorway, and Bulma clutched at the door jamb to keep herself from barging in and getting killed.

Osiris turned hungry eyes on her.

Ark gasped in horror as Boxer dropped to the ground and Osiris rushed to the entryway. He stopped up short, however, when he found that there was an obstacle in his path. An orange and blue obstacle...

"Leave Bulma alone." the obstacle said, and Osiris sneered.

"Out of my way, little mortal."

Faster than most could see, another shadow sped out of the vegetation of the surrounding garden to place himself between the two vampires. "Go away," he ordered, "Or I'll kill you."

Osiris laughed outright at this, his eyes and mouth wide. "You...? Kill me?!" His eyes narrowed dangerously as he glared out from under his tussled hair, the breeze flickering the scraps of his old-style, soiled tunic as if it were a living thing. "Don't test me, little mortal."

Vegeta's heavy eyebrows pulled down dangerously.

Osiris straightened casually and flicked his wrist.

Nothing happened.

Or, that is to say... nothing *appeared* to happen.

But then, from behind Vegeta, came a low, menacing hiss.

The Prince turned cautious eyes on his lover.

"Ark!" Goku called as Boxer scrambled back into his mother's arms.

The side of Osiris' mouth pulled up...

And all Hell broke loose...

***

There was a slight breeze that ruffled Felix's youthful silver hair and he looked up from where he had had his face buried in his knees and lifted himself warily to his feet. Osiris appeared in a slow whirling soot storm, and as the black and gold settled, he dropped a trembling bundle of midnight-purple silk to the hard-packed dirt floor.

He smiled wickedly and left in the same manner.

The bundle of purple stirred, and the rich silver embroidery depicting a long-fanged dragon became visible as the one inside the elaborate fuku climbed to her unsteady feet.

"By Zeus! Losy!" Felix hissed and helped his older sister to balance long enough to lead her to a seat on a nearby sarcophagus. In the light of the feeble torches, he could see that her face was badly torn. "Losy..." he questioned fearfully. No one should have been strong enough to do this to such a powerful nosferatu, "what happed?" Losyara turned sad eyes to the tiny window, but did not respond. "Osiris?"

She nodded, then turned her head away as a single ruby tear dripped down one cheek. She brushed it away stiffly, obviously ashamed to be seen as the weak one in front of her siblings, anger flooding in and drowning out sorrow. "Where are we?"

"Egypt is my best guess." a familiar voice said and the body stepped out of the shadows. "In a pyramid, I think."

"Oh, Hadassah..." Losyara whispered, sorrowful. "You too...?"

"All of us." A deep bass voice said and the muscular man emerged from his corner as well, his tousled golden hair in disarray, his suit-jacket ripped beyond repair.

"All of us." Losyara agreed, downcast. "Felix, Hadassah, Maximus, and myself."

Maximus stepped forward to envelop Losy in his grasp, but she turned him away with the barest of shoves. "Losyara..." he whispered, pain in his voice, "I know you and I- " he gulped and looked at the other two vampires, who had sympathy written clearly on their pale faces, and then back to Losy. "Well, we haven't been as close as we used to be, but I thought-"

Losyara cut him off with a shake of her head and stood and approached the window, her back deliberately turned to him.

"Das..!" Max turned to his other sister with a plea in his eyes, "Look! We had a quarrel two hundred years ago, and she won't forgive me, not even when death is upon us!"

"Death is *not* upon us." Losy snapped and turned back to glare powerfully at her brothers and sister. All of them older physically -20 ish, while she herself was just into her late teens when she had been taken - but weak in the sense that they had no disconcernable ki whatsoever. "He may be free, but he does not control us." He voice softened marginally. "And Maximus, I've long ago forgiven you, but" she added hastily when Max's eyes lit up, "we have other more pressing matters to attend than who had been right and who wrong."

The brawny man shrugged and turned away, satisfied that at least she wasn't angry with him anymore, even if she was no longer available. He and Dassah returned to the rubble of a sarcophagus and fell into their own agitated conversation as Felix cautiously approached Losy. Unlike Das and Max, he had seen her fight, and he knew the sort of power she possessed. Which meant he knew what sort of power Osiris must possess, to have been able to harm her thus.

Losy turned back to the window, but the opening was too high for her to see out of, so she flared her ki a little and levitated to get a better view of the depressing landscape.

Sand as far as the eye could see...

Behind her Das and Max gasped to see Losyara glow and float so, but Felix had seen it before.

"Losy..." he stuttered, "I know you have powers. Why don't you do that thing you did at the tournament, and go out the window?"

Das and Max shot Felix strange looks... the opening was much to small for anything besides a cat.

"He'd just catch me again." she responded cooly, no hint of agitation in her silver voice. "I can't figure out how he got so strong... it doesn't make sense, he hasn't been training, but... He's too fast... and he's waiting just above us for... for something..."

"Then shoot him." He waved his hands as if trying to describe some unfamiliar object, "Shoot those magic balls you do...!"

"No..." Losy smiled slowly, "Not yet. I believe..." she turned brilliantly glowing red eyes onto her siblings in darkness, "I believe Vegeta-sama has a plan..."

[Ark lunges forward, pinning Vegeta to the turf none to gently.

"Oooffff!" the prince gasps as his lungs are compressed by the weight of her, "Ark! Dammit, this isn't the time for that! Get off me, woman!"

"Ah... so this is the man that dares touch that which belongs to me..." Osiris sneers, and Vegeta tilts his head back to watch the approach of the vampire's sandals. "That mistake, dear boy, will cost you your life..."]

Losyara touched her torn cheek gingerly as it finished knitting itself back together, and sighed heavily.

[The Saiyan Prince's hand lashes out and he smacks his lover with head-spinning force right in the face. The desired effect takes place, and Ark quickly shakes off Osiris' mind lock.]

Felix reached up and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, and she covered it with her own.

["Losyara!" Osiris thunders angrily as she regains a kneeling position and shakes her head unsteadily. Vegeta jumps to his feet and throws a ki sphere, which Osiris bats aside. "Predictable." he scoffs.

"Losyara..." he beckons, but Ark refuses to comply, fighting against his mental pulling by clutching her mate.

Vegeta wraps his arms around her protectively, his tail furling around her waist as Osiris' eyes narrowed dangerously. "I shall tell you one last time, baka," the prince intones, "Leave us or die."]

"Losy..." Felix said softly. "What do you mean 'a plan'? And who's Vegeta?"

[Osiris sneers, and flicks his wrist again. This time an ear-shattering shriek pierces the stillness of the forest's night. Boxer whimpers and clutches his mother tighter, and Goku slowly begins to power up as Ark shudders violently and collapses to the ground, her mouth a perfect 'o' as the blood-curdling sound continues to emerge from her raw throat.

Osiris flicks his hand in the opposite direction, and Ark's scream slowly dies out. She lays, curled on the turf, trembling violently, and Vegeta kneels beside her feverish body, she half-conscience, he glaring murder at Osiris, who grins back devilishly.

"No matter what you may do to Losyara's body, little man, " Osiris smirks, "Her soul is still mine. *She* is *mine*..."

"Vegeta..." she whines pitifully, her hands wrapping desperately into his battle-suit, "My mate..."]

"My mate..." Losyara murmured, and then clarified at Felix's confused grunt, "My Koibito... boyfriend. He... tells me he's got a plan, but the stubborn little s.o.b. won't tell me what..."

[Osiris moves as if to take a step, and his whole body flickers.

Vegeta feels his mate's grip on his shirt tear away, and before either Vegeta or Goku can move, Losyara is dangling flaccidly by her wrist from Osiris' hand, blood-sweat beading on her paler-than-normal forehead. Vegeta chokes back a shout, knowing that provoking Osiris any further would be... un-wise.

"Let Ark go!" Goku yells and takes a menacing step forward.

"Nuh-uh...!" Osiris sing-songs as he wags his finger. One of the sharp nails scratches along Ark's cheek and she cries out weakly as a tear forms.

"Stop!" Vegeta growls through clenched teeth.

"Hmmmm..." Osiris pretends to ponder the Prince's demand, "No." He chuckles, then immediately sobers, peering dangerously from under his eyebrows. "Follow us and die, little man."

Vegeta rushes forward, flaring into SuperSaiyan mode... but they're gone.

A swirl of soot and sand envelops their figures, his triumphant, hers unconscious.

Vegeta howls into the sky, his voice raised in wordless anguish.

Boxer cringes back into his house, and Bulma scoops him up into her arms protectively.

Goku steps forward to place a comforting hand on the prince's shoulder, but Vegeta swats it away and flares his ki, leaping into the cool night air.

"Vegeta!" Goku calls after the other man, knowing that Vegeta was extremely unpredictable in this highly agitated state. Panic, actually, was what it was, but Vegeta would never admit to being panicked.

Goku shoves his hands into his gi pockets and shrugs.

Whatever trouble Ark was in, she could probably take care of herself until... Until Vegeta does whatever it was that he was going to do. In the meanwhile, he was going to go see Dende about this Osiris guy. Power like that just couldn't be concealed so easily from him for so long... So where has Osiris been for the last 3 000 years?]

"Tell you? How?" Felix questioned.

Ark tapped the side of her head. Felix nodded slowly, just once.

"What sort of plan is it?" The grey one asked, and Ark turned her eyes once more to the world outside. Das stood and approached quietly.

"A plan?" She repeated, unsure she had heard correctly. "But... there's no way..."

Losy turned back, but this time, instead of radiating furious calm, the corner of her eyes were crinkled up in amusement. "Something..." she whispered, "... to do with the moon..."

***

"The moon..." Osiris mused, having eavesdropped on his wayward offspring. He perched at the top of the pyramid in which he had been imprisoned for so long, and from which he had just recently escaped. He looked to the sky in wonder. "Where is it...? Where has the goddess gone...?"

***

END PART TWO

***

***

Goku touched down in heaven carefully and approached Dende, respectfully waiting until the deity pulled himself out of a heavy meditation, his forehead beaded with sweat. The Namekjinn grinned weakly up at Goku as the man helped him to his feet.

"Let me guess... Osiris?"

Dende nodded. "I knew you were coming, Son-Goku, so I decided to do a little digging into his past." He eyes glazed over and his antennae quivered. "Goku, this is going to be hard... he's very strong..."

"How strong could he possibly be?" Goku asked. He was, after all, a SuperSaiyan. There weren't many things that could compete with that.

Dende shook his head solemnly, and started towards the fountain that lay in the centre of the Look-Out's tiled courtyard. Mr. Popo had requested it's erection after Piccolo had absorbed Khami, in memory of those who had served as Earth's Guardian.

The sparkling water spouted upwards from a granite figure's upturned palm while the other hand clutched a staff. The water came back down as a misty rainbow, collected along the folds of the stone robe and trickled and pooled in a graceful reflecting pond.

The sight of the fountain always soothed Goku, and helped him to re-live the happier days of his youth. Traveling with the four-star DragonBall he used to believe housed his Grandfathers's spirit, campfires with Ark, competitions with young Krillin...

It seemed that now-a-days, all he and his friends ever did was fight. If it wasn't people named after foodstuffs trying to take over the planet, it was aliens who wanted to purge it and sell it, or simply blow it up, or suck it dry with giant trees...

And it seemed that (at least to Goku) he was always off rescuing one person or another. Gohan from Garlic Jr., and Turles, and his brother, Radittz. Bulma and Master Rochi from Dr. Willoo. And now Ark from Osiris.

Which reminded him...

Dende, who had patiently been waiting out the Saiyan's musings, nodded at Goku's worried glance and gently touched the surface of the glistening water. The pool shimmered, and colours emerged like reflections from an unseen mosaic.

Slowly, the colours took shape, and the shapes became objects, then people and places.

Goku looked up, puzzled, but Dende gave him a look that said 'keep watching'. As he did, a scene unfolded before his eyes.

A man stood, naked save for a cloth around his waist for modesty, sweating in the late afternoon desert sun. He turned and wiped a hand across his damp forehead, and Goku could make out the man's face.

It was Osiris...!

Goku was surprised, but said nothing as the figures around him in a quarry continued to move, their mouths opening and closing, but no sound emerging. Other men surrounded Osiris, and Goku thought at first that they would gang up on him, but they conversed, and then made their way cautiously out of the quarry and into a large, underground cavern.

Inside lay an enormous stone sarcophagus.

Three of the four men succeeded in finally moving aside the monolithic lid as Osiris cowered uncertainly in a far corner, only to have their heads severed in a bloody spray by a fair haired sylph-like woman who sprung to her feet.

The woman soundlessly beckoned to Osiris and he lost all control of himself -much like Ark had earlier that evening- and the woman bit him.

"Dende..." Goku began, but the little god only shook his head 'no' and touched the water once more. The scene changed, and now Osiris sat glorifying on a golden throne in a riches-laden temple, his robes gilded, his fanged grin pure evil.

A scarcely dressed slave-boy was thrown down at his feet by men dressed in black robes, and Osiris stood silkily and glided to the foot of his dias. He folded the trembling, weeping boy into his hard embrace, and before Goku's disgusted eyes, raped and killed the defenseless child.

Goku's fists and teeth clenched, and he looked away, but Dende politely motioned to the pond, and quietly said "It's only water, Son-Goku. These events have already taken place. That boy's spirit has been at rest for millennia." Goku forced himself to look upon the flickering images once more.

Immediately he recognized Ark.

She was in a small clay hut with an older woman who bore a striking resemblance.

"Ark's mother...?!" Goku hissed, and Dende merely nodded.

The woman exited, and Ark was left alone, in the silence, her gaze darting wildly back and forth, her vivid blue eyes burning with tears.

"How could she just leave her daughter like that! Horrible woman!" Goku spat. Dende did not respond.

Time passed. The torches in the pool flickered and all save one blew out. Osiris suddenly appeared behind Ark in a swirl of black and gold. He leaned arrogantly against a wall, his arms crossed and a lusty leer on his angular face. Goku turned away out of respect as Osiris pounced on Ark.

Out of the corner of his eye, Goku saw that Dende touched the water again, and he returned his horrified gaze to the pond.

Lightning flashed. The flare illuminated Ark's terrified face, her lips peeled back in a grimace of fear to reveal her elongated incisors. Her head jerked up and her red eyes darted this way and that, as if she'd heard a sound.

In the far end of a vast marble hallway in which Ark was cowering, a band of men -Goku realized that THESE must be the Seth, the vampire hunters, that Ark once spoke of - appeared, welding torches and stakes.

Ark skittered away from them frantically, crab-walking back, horrified when her hand slipped on a slick puddle on blood that oozed from around a corner, and she slammed back onto the unforgiving marble floor.

The pack of men closed in like a wolf on one of their own injured.

Goku's heart began to beat against his chest wildly, like a bird in a cage it desperately wishes to escape.

Ark threw up her hands in supplication, and the men paused, arms upraised, wooden staves ready.

Ark pulled a small metallic object from around her wrist and offered it to one of the men, who snatched it up greedily and turned it over in the light of a comrade's torch.

It was an intricate golden bracelet baring runes that proclaimed Ark's allegiance to Osiris. And she had given it up to them... an offering to help.

He questioned Ark sharply, and Goku wished that he could hear what they were saying. Ark began to cry, and shook her head vehminantly. One of the men knelt tenderly beside her, wiped the tears away, and helped her to her feet. She wiped her face again on the hem of her rich linen robe, pushed the unruly waves of red hair back over her shoulders and firmed her posture.

She had come to a decision, and her expression was one of stiff resolve.

Ark said something, one of the men -the nice one- nodded briskly, and Ark turned and led them down a darkened hallway. As they traveled, they occasionally came across the charred and staked remains of a few dozen vampires, and Ark turned away from them with a cold sneer.

She stopped outside of a curtained-off room, hushing and halting them. She said something, the men nodded, and she began to force herself to hyperventilate.

At first Goku was confused as to what she was doing, but it became clear to him when she burst through the curtains, for she seemed genuinely terrified. Osiris leapt from his throne, where he was lounging, no doubt planning revenge for the death of his children, the destruction of his cult, and the bodily harm done to himself.

He sprinted to the foot of the dias, and clamped iron hands on her shoulders. She cringed in pain as he shouted at her, but under the act, Goku could see the sly smile she couldn't keep down.

Osiris clasped her wrist, noticed that the bracelet was missing, and he let forth a silent snarl.

Ark shook her head and stood on tip-toe to throw her arms around his neck in a desperate embrace. Osiris seemed puzzled by this action, then smiled and took her hand away from him, leading her towards some curtains on the far end of the room.

He threw them aside and pulled Ark in after him, throwing her down onto the tangled sheet and pillows that were strewn all over the floor.

Many were bloodstained.

He cocked his head to one side, asked something else, and she denied it. He grinned and lowered himself over her. She accept this embrace, and even kissed him back hungrily.

Goku's eyebrows pulled down. "I thought she HATE D him." he stated, and Dende shrugged.

In the pond, Osiris was puzzled too, doubly so when she pushed him onto his back. He allowed it, and reveled in the sensation of her squirming on top of him, nippling and kissing and licking.

Losyara finally LOVED him!

But then something else happened, something WRONG.

Ark shouted and the men rushed in, just as she flattened her maker's shoulders against the floor.

The kind man lifted the hefty wooden pike he wielded and prepared to jam it into the blood-god's chest, and Osiris began to struggle so much that Ark almost lost her grip. Just as it seemed that Osiris would escape, she bared her own wicked fangs and bit down hard on Osiris' neck. But in doing so, she had to flatten her body against OSiris' bucking one, holding him in place.

The only was to get at his heart was through HER body... so that's just what they did.

The elder vampire paused in his struggles just long enough to allow the mortals time to push the wood through her back and into his bronzed chest, piercing his heart.

Blood spurted in a wide spray from both the massive chest wound, and from Osiris' mouth and neck. The vampire's mouth opened wide in a silent scream. Ark kept her teeth locked onto her maker until the death spasms stopped, blood flowing from every available orifice.

Then she herself slumped face-down onto the shiveled corpse.

THe kind man took his sword and sliced away the stake between thier bodies, releasing Los. She wasn't dead, for the wood had not pierced her OWN heart, but it had left her unable to move at all.

Osiris was shrunken and drained, Ark shaken and pale, and the mortals blood spattered and breathing heavily from the battle against the blood cult.

Without warning, one of the men lifted his sword against Ark, preparing to cut off her head, but just as Goku shouted, "No! Not fair!", the other men stopped him and removed the wood in her chest, freeing her, and she fled out into the desert night.

The images skipped forward in time and Goku could see the men sealing Osiris' seemingly dead corpse in a thick sarcophagus in a pyramid, the wooden pike still portruding from his chest. On a nearby sand dune, four figures stood quietly watching, silhouetted against the distant torches.

They turned and walked away, and Goku recognized two of them. One was Ark, still dressed in the stained linen robe, the other was Felix, the man Ark had introduced him to after the Budoki, dressed in the traditional tunic and trousers of the northern Gauls.

Two others, a man with golden curls and a toga, and a dark haired woman dressed in the Hebrew fashion, Goku did not recognize. However, he did recognize a certain 'look' about them that told him that they too were vampires.

"So that's what happened...." Goku said as Dende touched the water one last time. "Ark never spoke about it."

History seemed to flash at a lightning pace, speeding images past Goku's dark Saiyajinn eyes.

After a few moments, they slowed and Goku could make out events and places... he even saw himself a few times.

Then it stopped and focused in on the same pyramid, only this time it was much more weathered and half buried, and there was no moon in the night sky. Deep inside a ruined sarchophogas, the last of the wood that had been in Osiris' heart, keeping it from healing completely, preventing him from re-generating finally rotted away.

His heart healed, and he was ALIVE.

There was an explosion from within that shook the stones -which flaked dangerously- and thrust light out from the seams and chinks in the cement.

Inside, a broken and frail seeming man climbed out from under the rubble of the once-whole sarcophagus, furious beyond all words. What was left of his time eaten gilded tunic was rotting and tattered as is flapped in the wind like a dilapidated ghost flag.

It was Osiris...

***

Yaumacha watched through the glass window that lead into Bulma's lab. She was in there, with that Vegeta guy again.

The Saiyan was throwing his arms about and shouting.

In the corner was a disgusting half-rotten corpse that Vegeta had slain outside of the CC. The thing had been attacking the compound, trying get in. Yaumcha had grabbed his wife and his son and fled into the inner reaches of the house.

Just when he had been ready to turn back around and ki blast the hell out of it, Vegeta had shown up and ripped it into little peices, slaughtering it merclessly.

Yet it looked months dead.

Maybe it was... but.. did it just stir? Yaumcha looked again.

Eughk! It was STILL ALIVE!

A soul-less zombie!

Yaumcha debated briefly wether he should try to motion to Bulma that the ... THING... was still alive. Then he realized that Vegeta had probably already mentioned it.

Still, Yaumcha wanted nothing more than to go inside that lab, fold his wife in his arms and scream at the Prince to stop yelling.

Not that he had a death wish.

But he loved Bulma and wanted to let her know that he still respected her by staying out exactly as she had told him to. Still his palms itched with a desire to blast Vegeta in the face.

Ark was one of his best and oldest friends. He's known her as long as he'd known Bulma, though admittedly, he's seen a lot less of her flesh. All that weird peeking-tom stuff when they were still kids had been bizarre... and completely by accident.

Bulma still didn't believe him.

Yaumcha began to think back to their days of running around the desert after DragonBalls. He had been so jealous when Goku had been asked to train under Muten Roshi. Doubly so when he realized that Goku could do the Kameha-meha move without so much as breaking a sweat.

But he had gotten his chance, and became a pupil of the Turtle Elder in due time himself.

Oh, how he had gloated when he could finally fly!

"Ark-chan! Wanna go for a ride!?" he'd yell from far overhead.

"Arigatau, Ile." she'd answer, and return her nose to a book. "Ask Bulma."

"She hates heights. Please...?" he'd respond.

"Thanks, no." She'd say again, not even looking up. It was nearly rehearsed, they did it so often. "I don't need to."

One day, at the end of the charade, at the part where Yaumcha usually flew away, he stood still and put a hand on Ark's shoulder. She looked up, mildly surprised that he didn't fly off to flirt with every girl on a nearby island.

A question had been nagging him for years, nearly as long as he'd known Ark, and today he was going to finally ask it. "What do you have against fighting?"

Ark smiled warmly, put aside her book and pulled her wide-brimmed hat lower. It was a bright day, but she was safely tucked under the shade of a palm tree. She smiled nicely. "Yaumcha... I have nothing against fighting. I just have no use for it." she shrugged.

Yaumcha looked at her wide eyed, then laughed. "With Piccolo around?!"

Ark just continued her grin. "He can't hurt me, not permanently, at least. I don't need all those fancy ki powers you have to protect myself. Just the skills I've got."

Yaumcha said nothing, but knelt by her side in the sand. "I can protect you now, Ark-kun." he whispered and leaned closer.

Ark smiled sadly, not moving away from his face, which was so close to her own. "No, you can't Yaumcha-san. Nothing can protect me. Not if he-- well, I wouldn't NEED protection..."

His thick eyebrows pulled down. "From who?"

"No one. Never mind." she dismissed it, and leaned away from Yaumcha's warm body to pick up her book again. Yaumcha's hand intercepted her own. "Don't." She said, looking down to where their fingers were laced. "Don't do this to Bulma."

"Bulma..." Yaumcha frowned.

"She loves you. Are you going to hurt her?" Ark said softly "Because I won't. I won't love you, Yaumcha. I can't. But Bulma does. She wants to spend forever with you."

Yaumcha stood up. He turned on his heel and walked into the sunlight. "You're right." he finally muttered. He ran a hand through his hair. "Bulma means everything to me. I just... thought I'd always have her, y'know, so I thought.. I could, y'know, shop around. But nothing is as good as her, so I just keep going back."

Ark smiled warmly at his back. "Then make it perminent... for both of you. Ya-san." she called and he paused. She tossed something in his direction, and he caught it easily.

Yaumcha opened his hand to gaze down at the tiny glittering ring in his palm. "What's this?"

"Old gift from an old friend. But I'm sure Max wouldn't mind if I gave it up for a good reason." Yaumcha stared at her, clueless. "Give it to Bulma."

"Oh." Yaumcha smiled and ran down the beach, awkward as any school boy.

Yaumcha blinked, suddenly back in Capsule Corps. He glanced back in the window. If it hadn't been for Ark kicking his ass and telling him to wise up, he probably would have spent his life chasing anything in a skirt and not have married Bulma. He was sincerely happy with her, and thanked Ark profusely for it.

But how she could ever put up with that Vegeta guy, he'd never know.

How could Ark, who seemed to be such a tender person, put up with that maniacal freak? Sure, she'd become a little more aggressive in the last few years, fighting, flying, developing ki, (ironically, she'd only really begun training to win a bet between Krillin and herself on wether or not she could kick Tienshin's ass at one of the lesser annual Budokai) but.... this was simply going too far.

At least, it seemed so, to him.

How could she feel she could trust that insane monster in there when Yaumcha, who had ki nearly ten times as strong as her own, couldn't even begin to hope to oppose his power?

It suddenly occurred to Yaumcha that all this time, it might have been a dangerous game between the two lovers. Did Ark really love Vegeta, as she claimed to? Or was it that Vegeta was so strong, he was dominating her?

Was it that she was trapped, and none of her friends seemed to see it?

Had Ark been screaming for help this whole time with a voice muffled my Vegeta's hands?

Yaumcha's heart suddenly sank to his feet.

Could this whole Osiris thing just be a ploy...? Or... was Osiris the good one here? Was he killing Ark, and Vegeta proclaimed... or saving her?

And where was Goku? Still on Kami's Look out, searching for a way to destroy Osiris... or staying out of it because he this was the way to get Ark away from the insane Prince? Were he and this Osiris allies?

Was Vegeta screaming at Bulma because he loved Ark... or he was pissed that his slave had escaped?

Questions scurried through Yaumcha's mind to which he knew he did not have the answers.

He knew, however, that Vegeta would, and so he pushed open the door and went in search of them...

***

Vegeta rubbed his arm, muttering to himself. "Stupid woman... can't even give a SHOT properly... damned thing HURT..."

Then he stood, brushing BUlma aside, adn without even so much as a 'thanks you' -not that he felt he OWED her one - he took to the air and zipped through the window out into the morning. He flew west, falling back into the night, following the ki of of his mate.

He didn't like that it was so weak. But, afterall, it had been four days.

FOUR DAYS it took that dumb-assed blue-haired loud-mouthed WOMAN to make up the poison her required of her. The poison that he could inject into his own viens, so that when Osiris bit him - for there was no 'if'. He was GOING to make the little masochist bite him - he would be tainted with the poison and destroyed.

However, this poison had to act ONLY on a vampire, not on living tissue. And it had to burn out of his vien s later, so that when he and Ark had sex, she wouldn't kill herself when she sucked his blood.

Vegeta smirked a little smirk and touched his throat. Gods, how he LOVED it when he had Ark worked up into such a frustration that she squirmed all over him and BEGGED to let her drink.

She, of course, had to ask permission, because he had to consciously lower his ki so that her fangs could pierce his fleah in any of the sensitive place she chose to pay attention to.

Vegeta shuddered momentarily, recalling how DISTANT she had been the other night, the last night before she was taken from him. He SHOULD have realized something was wrong with her. He SHOULD have tried to talk to her and hold her close, not push her away like he had. Not shut her out and yell at her for not telling him all this.

He SHOULD have.

But he DIDN'T. He was a warrior. Warriors werren't supposed to FEEL anything.

That brought his thoughts 'round to the Z-Senshi, of who's number he was now included. He snorted to himself. How pathetic had he become? Training with weak, stupid Chikyuu-jinn, running around the globe chasing demons that ought to be long dead to re-gain possesion of his long-dead mate.

For Kami's sake.

But he went all the same, not telling anybody. Let THEM handle any more vampire zombie things that came at them. THIS was something he alone could do. There was, of course, the danger that Kakarotto and the other fools might follow him, sure, but...

Letting his ki flare, Vegeta landed some distance from the pyramid. After all, he wanted to let that Bastard Osiris know he was coming. He began walking, calmly, slowly. Why? Because he wanted to appear...humble. Or....petitioning. Or whatever it was that woulf get him IN there.

Vegeta could see the idiot perched on the pyramid like a giant crow. he snorted to himself, then reconsidered his analogy. No, more like an eagle..since they were golden, and the starlight made this man shimmer.

Vegeta took a deep breath. He was GOING to pull this off. He was GOING to make Osiris drink his blood, and MAKE him take Vegeta inside of that pyramid, so he could get to Ark and get the Hell out of there.

Vegeta paused breifly, then forced himself to keep moving.

He was NOT going in there to get Ark. He was going in to KILL Osiris.

Yes. He was going to make Osiris trust him, then use that against the lunitic. After all, he's a damned good actor and he can definitely pull this off.

As he was thinking, he just kept walking, mentally cataloguing his enemies assests:

Intelligence.

Strength.

Speed.

Ability to regenerate.

...but he was also obssessed with people. With Beauty, if Ark had been telling the truth.

And that was his weakness.

***

In the cold star-light, Osiris could see perfectly for miles around his little stone prison. Inside, his children cowered in fear of him, or plotted against him. He laughed as he heard their suggestions, and grew curious when Losyara gainsaid all of them. What could that little one have in mind, he wondered.

Did she realize that attempting to fight was futile? It was good if she did... for it was.

Osiris closed his eyes and forged an unobtrusive link with Maximus, seeing through the other man's eyes. Ah, good, they were all wearing the clothing he had provided them with. True, beautiful, Egyptian garb. It was improper for any of his children to wear anything less, and he had told them so at the end of the first night.

They had refused to obey, and he had flown in to a frenzy, tearing what they wore until they were no longer decent, and forced to don the linens he had provided for modesty's sake.

Osiris frowned deeply. They better not disobey in such a fashion again, or he'd... he'd what?

They were his last remaining children alive, so to speak, and he couldn't bare the thought of destroying them. That would threaten his power. One less vampire meant thousands more that each of the others had to kill... no, controlling the mortal population was going to take all the power he possessed.

He was going to get revenge on the world for forgetting him... by forgetting him they had displaced the balance of the universe.

They had changed Ra's creation!

Unthinkable blasphemy!

And he loved his children, he really did, even if they didn't seem to see that all the time.

But the humans of this world had to die, and their technologies and knowledge had to die with for the world to become pure once more, as it had been under the rule of the forgotten ancient Gods.

And Osiris would NOT be ignored!

Revenge would be sweet...

But something disturbed him.

How had that man -the one in orange and blue- how had he moved so fast?

Osiris dismissed is anxiety. Losyara had been with them, she would know.

He rose to go and ask her why when a small silhouette topped a nearby sand dune and began to march towards the pyramid with slow determined steps. Osiris hung in mid-air, his head tilted to one side curiously, amusement on his face.

Well, now... who was this?

Ah! Now Osiris recognized him. It was the spiky-haired little whelp who had tried to keep Losyara from him four nights ago. Come to think of it... he was also the same one who had fucked Losyara the night before that...

Osiris suddenly decided he did not like this man.

***

Vegeta stopped, lifting his eyes to follow Osiris's decesnt, which caused him to turn his head and tilt his face up slightly. The other man had a good half a foot on him, which Vegeta resented.

But, that was not why he was here. In a steady, even voice he said: "I have come for immortality."

Osiris sneered at him blankly. "Oh?"

Vegeta smirked a little, unable to help it. He knew from his expreiences with Ark that this guy could read at least his surface thoguhts. So... he let what was there normally show. His desire for power. His lust to live forever.

Reading all this, Osiris blinked, then laughed full-throatedly, his laughter like flowing magma. Vegeta scowled. "You have?" He frowned momentarily at the mortal for he DID surely recognize this man. This was the one who had threatened to KILL him? And yet, here he was now, begging for life?

But Osiris LIKED this mortal's thoughts.

Vegeta watched the vampire warily. Images of Ark began to flit through his mind breifly, but he shut them out. That is NOT WHY I CAME. NO Weaknesses. NONE. "Y ou can offer me this." he responded, tone controlled and simple. Should I say why...? well, why not... "I want it. Ark wouldn't give it to me."

"Ark?" Osiris questioned the mortal man, then remembered that the blue and orange one had called Losyara this as well. "Ah, Losyara. Yes, yes..."

Vegeta nodded briskly. "Whatever name she uses. What is your price?" Come on, come on, wasting TIME here....

Osiris grinned happily. Ah, now he saw what Losyara found amiable in this man. He was honest, straight-forward, and intelligent...

He pulled the man closer by the front of what appeared to be a high-necked tight fabric tunic. "You will see Losyara soon enough, and have your immortality, my friend, but first, there is the matter of your allegiance to me."

Vegeta snorted softly. He couldn't play this down too much, his pride wouldn't let him, but his plan required he gave in to humiliation. "I am a prince. I owe allegieance to no one. " he said evenly. However, he didn't make a move to leave.

Osiris laughed, delighted. "A mere Prince? Ah, but such a beautiful one."

Insulted, Vegeta narrowed his eyes slightly. "You would prefer the title Emperor? An entire legion of planets was under my command before I came to this..." he gestured to the world around him. "...miserable rock."

The vampire reached out to touch the mortal's cheek softly, impressed. Lustful of such accomplishments, of such a handsome face. Of course, by the word 'planets' Osiris assumed this man meant 'kingdoms', for, according to Ra's law, there was no land but the land of Kemet.

Vegeta leaned back slightly, as he hadn't expected the touching. That was...weird. He shook himself out of it. "I have earned it."

"Oh?" Osiris grinned, amused again. "By screwing Losyara?"

Vegeta snorted again. "No. By death. And destruction. And taking more lives and ruling more people than you have ever seen even in your long life. You are evil. So am I. I deserve it." He let all these desires float to the surface. He has the WILL to rule...has the DESIRE to.

The immortal leaned forward, nose brushing Vegeta's neck. "Yesss... I smell it on you. Such death. Such blood lust"

Vegeta jumped again. No one except ARK and KAKAROTTO were ever allowed this close to him; Ark when they were in bed, and Kakarot when Vegeta was beating the crap out of him. He really, really wanted to hit Osiris. But, he didn't. It wouldn't have helped at all.

Osiris' hands grasped the other man's shoulders, pulling him close. For a moment Vegeta was stiff and unyielding, but he swallowed once and titled his head to the side, never taking his eyes away from Osiris.

"Such a beautiful scent..." Osiris closed his eyes, his tougne darting out. "Such a taste."

Vegeta jumped again. Damnit.... he hissed to himself, don't make it so...SENSUAL. Just get it OVER with.

"So much death in you..."

The Prince snorted, thinking: no shit... "So? Do it."

"Aaaahhhhhhh... Beautiful. Nefer." Osiris said lightly in Egyptian. "Tell me you want it."

Vegeta made a sound low in his throat. "I want this power, yes." Okay...Osiris...is freaky.

"Come." the vampire smiled, brushing the pad of his thumb along Vegeta's lips. "Tell me you want ME."

Vegeta shuddered, momentarily shaking his head. Something about Osiris was getting under his skin when he was this close to him. Vegeta wrinkled his nose slightly. "I don't want YOU, fool. I want your POWER." He trembled slightly and was furious with himself for doing so. Something ...about this man...

Osiris pulled away, scowling. "It and I are one in the same. Accept me or die here."

Vegeta snorted softly, and had a sudden idea. He stepped back abruptly and clenched his fists at his side, looking up at the sky. He strained breifly, growling, and the familliar fire shot up through his nerves as he slid up into SuperSaiya-jinn. He was golden... beautiful... powerful. Everything the God could ever desire. "I think it works both ways, Osiris. You want this."

Osiris jumped backwards, almost as if he feared being burned by the flickering aura, his eyes huge. "By Ra!"

"So...you get this. If you give me what I want. I don't have to want YOU." And he didn't. So THERE he thought snidely. Never in my LIFE have I ever felt that kind of desire for a man. I don't now He powered back down slowly, crossing his arms over his chest and waiting. It was already easier to think without Osiris touching him.

Osiris smiled, his face a mask of pure boyish elation. He reached for the lovely mortal slowly, slender hands trembling. "Such... beauty!"

Vegeat tensed, but didn't pull away. Yet, anyway.

The vampire stared, transfixed. "You must be mine!" Osiris drawled silkily and put a firm hand around the other man's shoulders.

Vegeta's eyebrows formed an uncertain scowl and swiftly Osiris tangled his other hand into the thick black hair, yanking the head aside. Vegeta's survival insincts kicked in and he couldn't help himself. Suddenly he began to struggle, but didn't really want to break the vampire's grip. If he did that, Osiris wouldn't bite him, wouldn't TRUST him, and then Vegeta would have no way to get INSIDE.

"However..." Osiris continued, tounge tracing his captive's beautifully corded neck, "I believe you would be more inclined to *remain* faithful if you were... persuaded."

The Prince gasped as Osiris pulled him close like a lover and tenderly sank his teeth into his muscular neck. After a few moments, the mortal shuddered and his knees buckled, and Osiris forced himself to pull away and looked down into his angular face.

Admitantly, he wasn't the most attractive man in the world, not like his gorgeous Felix, or enchanting Losyara. He was not steady and loyal like Maximus, or have the silvery, hypnotizing voice of Hadassah.

But, pumping the veins, Osiris tasted *power*... the demon-god groaned and attached himself to Vegeta once more.

Vegeta didn't dare cry out - it wouldn't be prince-like. Fine.. Vegeta decided, I can put up with this, as long as the leech just wants to suck, and... Vegeta shuddered for no good reason. Oh, gods. His mind began to scream warning, oh, GODS, this isn't supposed to feel GOOD....

" Such power...!" Osiris moaned, his lips moving against Vegeta's skin.

No no no no no...this..was NOT... Vegeta closed his eyes tightly and concentrated on staying

conscious, on ignoring the way it was causeing his body to tingle, the warm tingle spreading our all over, into every nerve. He really thought that the pleasure of this sort of intimacy would be limited to his mate, Ark.

Osiris sucked harder, breifly pushing his handsome captive away. "Ah, perfect." he whispered, "But not quite perfect enough. Not like Losyara... But perhaps I should let Losyara finish you herself... you do belong to her, after all."

Vegeta's onyl responce was a grunt. That's it, stupid....imbib the poison.. he thought, further away from teh surface where Osiris couldn't read him. There was definate hatred on the Prince's face. Not love, not worship, not adoration; hatred.

Osiris tilted his head, pondering, his tounge flicking out to catch the sweet saiya-jinn blood that stained his lips. Osiris as a rule was NOT a messy eater. "Although... you are so very strong, and I want that so very much. And I can see that you don't enjoy me as I enjoy you."

Vegeta snorted, a little TOO insistant. "Of COURSE not." he spat. Idiot..not everybody's as twisted as you are...

Osiris grinned, finding this man's apparent homophobia amusing. "You must learn to call me master, Prince. To please me." He began to pet Vegeta's head patiently. "Or I will not give you anything. "

Vegeta clenched his teeth. Gggrrrrrrr.....don't WANNA. Please you my ass......feh. I need to use up time and keep the fool drinking. Apparently deciding that provoking the vampire to the point of anger so her WOULD drink was the NEXT part of the Prince's plan for he snapped back, "I won't call anyone master. Ever."

The bronzed one only smiled fondly. "Come now, is it all that horrid?" he asked kindly and sank in teeth again, sucking softly.

The man in his embrace shuddered and arched forward, surprise on his face, unable to supress his body's unwanted reaction to the intimacy of the fanged kiss. Okay....hold it, he raged mentally, NOT..going there

Against the mortal's lovely olive skin, Osiris whispered, "You're enjoying this now...." and pushed him to teh ground gently, his slender fingers skimming along his battle suit, apperantly attempting to find an opening.

Horror leaked onto Vegeta's face. No no no NO is NOT this is NOT something that.... He closed his eyes tightly, applying what he did long ago as a child - this is going to be over soon, almost done, just let it go, necessary, it... ignoring, just..ignore it, and... Osiris licked his wound and Vegeta moaned low in his throat without wanting or meaning to.

DAMN this man and his skills!

Osiris pulled away, a small scowl on his face. "Don't ignore me. Your mind is closing off. " he leaned down and set his teeth against Vegeta's throat and bit down, hard. "Pay attention!"

Vegeta GLARED at him. "I AM you fool. You're BITING me. Of COURSE I'm paying attention." And yet his mind contunied to ramble, this is not sexual at all there is NOTHING here that is appealing I am fine I am fine I...am...fine. And once he had convinced himself of that, he felt better. He was, after all was told, very good at maintaing control when he wanted to.

Osiris let forth a sound that ALMOST resembled a giggle. "Are you really?" He smiled devishly, lapped up some of the spilt blood and let it drip from his tongue onto his beautiful new child's lips. "I don't think you were before...." He then kissed it away, slowly, licking. "But you are now, hmmmn?"

Oh..my...GODS Vegeta's mind screamed, and came about two seconds away from blasting the man on top of him. His entier body shivering, he turned his face away, revolted by the beauty and pervertedness of this man. "Just....get it over with. P...playing is. ..b..beneath you..."

"Playing? THIS is playing?" Osiris chuckled, mildly insuled, his hands begining to roam. "This power that you so want? Over women? Over men?"

Vegeta didn't answer. He didn't trust his voice to be even and steady. He clenches his fists and kept his eyes closed, his face turned away. "Playing. That's what this is. Just FINISH it, already!" sneered, hoping to goad Osiris on. "Or aren't you capable of that?"

But the vampire didn't seem to take the bait. "I am not toying with you. THIS is what my power entails. If you want it, you must accept me first."

Shivering, Vegeta let forth a stream of mental curses. Damnit. Okay, I can just...say what he wants, and get it DONE already.. Shit. Already supposed to BE inside the pyramid by now... And if Kakarotto or somebody came along and SAW me like this...grrrrrrrrrrrrrfuck.

Osiris frowned. sencing the hesitation, the man's desire for eternity battling with his own pride. "I finish nothing without your words." he said with solmen finality.

"Accept you, fine," Vegeta finally spat, his beathign too quick for his own liking. "I accept you. Do it already."

Osiris smiled. "Beautiful. Now..." he sat up, his hair moving almost by sheer will, rather than teh wind, so lovely it looked in the icey starlight. "Prove it. "

Vegeta, still flat on his back in the sand, only glared.

"I sense deception in you." Osiris wrinkled his nose. He never did like the dishonest. They tasted sour. "I taste it. Prove it to me, or I tear out your throat."

Vegeta could only look at him, his expression filled with incredulty and disgust. " ...what?" he snorted "You want me to lie to you ? You actually WANT me to lie to you?"

Osiris frowned deeply.

"And here, I thought you'd at least want my honesty. " Vegeta tried to push himself into a sitting position, but, finding he was too shaky to do that, he just propped himself on one elbow.

Osiris snarled and grabbed a handful of Vegeta's thick hair roughly, baring his throat. "Traitor...! You dare to disobey me?! You dare defy your god?!"

The Prince let forth a small grunt, not moving, hoping Osiris would strike at him, and drink his blood, and inevitably the poison. But the crazied man's last words made him blink. "My....what? GOD?" Okay, well he honestly did NOT know Osiris thought of himself that way. Ark had never called her maker a "god". It was in his mind, on his face; definite surprise.

"Blaphemous human! You dare defty what Osiris has ordered?!" the vampire howled, tugging on the hair he still held.

Vegeta blinked a few more times.

"You truely wish my wrath?!"

...he thinks he's a god..? Well...go with that, Vegeta smiled to himself. "....blasophemy? ...you are a God?" heh...get Ark in trouble, why not? "Ark did not tell me...." Shift the blame. heh heh heh. Not like any real damage could come of it at this point...

Now it was Osiris' turn to blink. "Of course I am!" he said, his voice somewhere between anger and despair. "The god of death! The god of the dead! The ruler of Kemet! The man of three grips! How can the mortal world have forgotten?! How dare she not keep the old traditions alive!?"

Vegeta blinked a few more times. ...no WONDER Ark is so fucked up in the head, her maker is a loon.

The would-be-god merely snarled.

Vegeta tried to twist his neck around far enough to be able to look at him. "The god...of death." he said slowly, applying intelligence and articulance to the answer. "Of course...that's ...why you have such power. That's why I'm drawn to you."

Osiris said nothing, surprised by these words.

Feh... Vegeta snarled to himself. I can layer it on as thick as anybody else. Feh.

The vampire smiled. "You admit it then. You know it, feel it inside."

"I did not know, lord Osiris. I did not know." Vegeta responded humbly, mentally hissing. Such STUPID things I have to do sometimes.... Well, I had to kowtow to Freeza all the time...this is really no different.

Relieved and re-energized, Osiris pulled him into a way too intimate embrace for the Prince's liking. "I see the fault is not yours." he whispered gently into the Saiyan's ear.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Vegeta's mind sighed and screamed all at once, shutting down. He went very stiff, unyeilding, not moving. " I...." Come on, brain, get back into gear "....did...not know."

"We shall right this wrong, you and I, my beautiful Prince." The man on top of him breathed into his neck, and's fists clenched to such a degree that his own fingernails began to cut away the fabric of his immaculate white gloves, staining them with rising dots of crimson. "We shall bring back Ra's perfect creation."

"... Not realize...." Vegeta panted, upset at his tratiours body. "But..it makes sense." Eeeyack, this guy....gods! Ra's beautiful creation, my ass.....

Osiris licked the small punctures in the Saiyan's neck, all the while muttering, "Such power, and it's all mine...." and Vegeta shivered.

Oh, gods..not this again. Vegeta concentrated on keeping his body and mind under control. He had a very strong will, after all.

"Such lovely, lovely, power..." Osiris mumbled as he suckled softly.

"Yes..." Vegeta replied, his voice barely more than a sigh. yes, yes....in your dreams, fool.

The god leaned down to kiss and suckle at his bite marks.

Vegeta shivered again, wishing he'd just CUT IT OUT, and take him inside already.

Very soflty, Osiris moaned, "Touch me."

Heh...no different from Freeza...gods.. "Uuhm...." Vegeta muttered stupidly at the demand, hating himself for sounding so weak, Not sure that I CAN do that "Ah..."

"Come," Osiris said, kissing Vegeta's neck and jaw between words. "Prove to me that you want me. That you want this."

"I...I can't..." Vegeta forced his prides away and stuttered.

The vampire pulled away, eyebrows drawn downwards. "You say Losyara was your master? And she has not taught you?"

Ooh, SOMEbody is gonna get killed over this... humiliation! But then he blinked, unsure if he'd heard Osiris right. " ...taught me?"

"Did she not keep you?" Osiris demanded angrily, " Did you not belong to her, as you so claimed you have?"

Beginning to think he was really, really grateful to Ark for NOT having taught him most of this stuff, he blinked. "No... ah...my lord..." he said quickly, after all, he had to sound respectful. "SHE belonged to ME. I chased her. Caught her. Won her. Forced her to MY will." Which was essentially the truth. "She...wasn't...the master there." More of a sharing thing, actually, but...

Osiris scowled, "Not true. She is my most powerful. Most beautiful creation. She is spun gold and Ra's brilliance. She is PERFECT. She would NOT be ruled. Save by me."

Veegat, however, barely heard the god's angry words. He was concentrating too hard on keeping his body UNDER his control. Of course, it was much worse when Osiris was touching him EVERYWHERE, and forcing him to think about Ark.

Her hands were just as soft and delicate as Osiris', her hair as smooth, her breath as hot against his neck...

"You lie." the vampire sneered, and Vegeta looked back up at his face, forcing his brows to unfurrow.

He snorted softly. "Ask her, my lord. If you wish. I do not lie. I told you at the beginning. I will not lie to you. That is the utmost cowardice." Heh.. he sneered back, there you go.

Osiris frowned briefly. "Yes. You could not lie to me, even if you wished to. And you are too honourable for that."

Vegeta concentrated, allowing his memories of the first time he and Ark had ever been alone together float to the surface where Osiris could see them.

"You see?" Vegeta wheezed. "I WON." and let another memory surface:

"So... you speak the truth" Osiris whispered, struck dumb by these images. "Losyara... could not fight you."

"Of course not, lord." Vegeta snapped, insulted. So finish it...gods, this is taking so LONG.

"Then it's YOUR power I need." Osiris seemed to muse aloud to himself, one hand petting Vgeeta's furled forehead. The Prince growled in warning, but the vampire seemed to ignore it. "Not hers. She is no longer perfect. The years have wasted away her beauty and perfection. She is nothing. Perhaps I should just be done with my old children..." he looked Vegeta straight in the eye, then bend gracefully and kissed his olive neck. "Start a new brood. Destroy the weak and impure ones."

Okay, that was NOT what I wanted... Vegeta thought privately, then projected his mental voice at the man all over him. ...can I give a suggestion?

Osiris anticipated this and lifted his bloody chin for a moment, "Although, perhaps, you would like to keep Losyara for yourself?"

Being careful not to answer too quickly, Vegeta nodded his head once, ignoring the pain that the movement caused. "I would...appreciate that."

"Perhaps I would like that too." Osiris smirks, licking and sucking on the small rivers of blood that his teeth had set free. "She's so lovely. I do not think I COULD part with her. I'll make her perfect again."

Vgegeta beat back a shiver of delight when Osiris' teeth touched his neck. Gods, STOP that... okay, okay, yes, it's established, it feels good, now cut it OUT. Some of that leaked into the surface of his mind, this unwilling enjoyment, and Osiris smiled, lapping it up as he did the blood. "Losyara... I...earned her, and... not...she's...yours first, of course, and..." Damnit, Vegeta snarled to himself as brain was NOT working, so he did the only logical thing. He shut the Hell up.

"Then, it's final." Osiris exclaimed with a grin, but was still slightly perplexed. he'd never had to BARGAIN for a body before... "I shall make you one of mine, and under my control, you shall wipe out the impure ones... and purge the world of those who seek to blasphme Kemet's gods. And only you," he bent his head to kiss Vegeta, to suck on his lips and wounds. ".. and I," kiss "and she will be alive."

Oh, for the love of... great, lucky me. Vegeta sneered, fighting back the instinct to whallop the man who dared violate the Prince.

Distracted by the scent of his new son and lover's skin, Osiris whispered gently, "Not even the man in orange and blue will stop me."

Vegeta snorted, blurting out his words before he had meant to." Of course not. Kakarotto is a moron."

"Of course...." Osiris agreed, really not caring at all, and bit deep.

Vegeta gaspped, unwanter, unwarranted pleasure springing into his limbs. Oh, gods... He reached up as if to push Osiris away, but ended up just resting his hands against the other man's chest, his face is a study in anguish.

"And we will start the world anew... in my image." Osiris intoned softly around Vegeta's flesh. Sucking hard on the fount, he moaned and pulled his new lover close, crushingly close, and began to rock back and forth, pulling Vegeta up onto his lap.

No no no no no....oh, gods, oh gods.. Vegeta's mind rebelled as he tried to fight TRAINED panic - panic from when he was a child, not panic NOW.

Osiris, oblivious to the Prince's thoughts, focussed all his attention on the hot, powerful blood that filled his mouth.

After all, Vegeta rationalized to his panicking child-side. I wanted to get bitten and get inside and...this..was unexpected that's all not a problem. NOT A PROBLEM

Osiris pulled away from the Prince's neck, mouth smeared with sugary blood, and forced his lips onto Vegeta's, graoning happily. The Saiyan, on the other hand, fought vainly not to respond in any way at all. He was horrified, but..under control. Yes, he was keeping himself under control.

Osiris slipped his tounge past the other man's lips and explored for a moment before biting Vegeta's tounge, and then his own. "Swallow." he commanded in a dripping voice.

Vegeta could almsot FEEL Osiris's soul touching his own; it was revolting. He blinked at the command, and then decided well...do what you have to and swallowed the blood that filled his mouth, eyes tightly closed.

He was almost immediately set adrift in pleasure so strong he could barely think at all.

Osiris grinned "More."

It was kind of nice, in a way, Vegeta decided - the pleasure from the blood made everthing else, including the panic, lessen. He wondered briefly if suckling on Ark would produce the same effect, after all, she'd never let him drink her own blood before.

At Osiris' demand that Vegeta consume more blood, the Prince steeled himself, and obeyed, trying not to gag. "UGH"

Osiris slipped his hand around Vegeta's and made the Saiyn slide his gloved fingers along the vampire's slender chest and abdomen before moving the strong hand to touch his arousal. What an intoxicatihg feeling it was, leather against flesh.

Vegeta flinched, beating back the urge to fire a ki blast then and there, point blank.

Osiris pushed her prize away slowly, gazing into his deep, unfathomable eyes. All those secrets locked in those black pools... mine now... "Now... bite me."

Vegeta had one moment of real panic. Between their minds, sounding much younger than he was came a child's scream - gods, don't make me DO this. No more, Lord Frieza! Onegai!

Osiris tilted his head to the side, baring his neck, watching Vegeta carefully. "You do not have to fear it." he said soothingly, pulling Vegeta close to him, holding the younger man against his chest. "I will not hurt you like he did."

Vegeta merely blinked at him, dizzy. ...don't have FANGS, you twit...gods...how long was thissupposed to to TAKE? Still going to be OUT here by the time everybody arrives...

The God possitioned Vegeta's mouth over his own jugular. "Come, you can do it."

Vegeta made a soft sound, "ugh...." which was followed by a barely audible, "Oh, fuck it." He set his teeth against Osiris' skin and tried to bite down, but the vampires' flesh was too thick, too old, too strong. Instead he had to chew, making faces. This had to be the most singularly disgusting...

Osiris sighed happily as Vegeta tried to ignore the fact that in spite of the overall ickines of this...it tasted..no, it didn't TASTE good. It FELT good.

But it was quite obvious to anyone with half a brain that he was doing this under duress. A very strong, strong will this Saiya-jinn had.

"Harder!" Osiris moaned.

Rather hoping that Osiris doesn't react the way that Freiza reacted to his will - which was a desire to break it, of course - Vegeta hid his feelings of hatred and his desire for vengance as far down as they could go. "Gods..." he moaned and tried to bite harder. However, Osiris' flesh was harder than Ark's was...of course, he was older and far, far stronger than her too.

It made sense why Vegeta could bite Ark very easily diring thier tumbles on her giant bed and he couldn't even make a dent in this skin.

Osiris, lost in the happy recollections of times past when he did this to as many people as he wished, went to slip his ceremonial dagger from it's sheath on his belt, forgetting completely that he had lost the slim, ceremonial knife millenia ago in the sands of the cruel desert.

He made a slightly disgusted sound as he was forced to lift a finger and slash his own jugular with a nail. "Now... Drink." he commanded, pulling Vegeta down on top of him as he lay back.

Oh Gods... the child voice rang out of Vegeta once more before it was crushed.

Osiris merely moaned "Beautiful human... beautiful power."

Vegeta shivered, his own stupid body is beginning to respond in spite of himself. Things were beginging to stir that he only allowed to happen around Ark. And so he drank as little as possible, fulfilling the request, but only barely.

"Kiss me." Osiris teased, smiled wide. "Take more."

Vegeta scowled, althogh this whole process was made heaps easier on him physically and mentally now that Osiris had slit his own throat. But biting was a special part of the Saiya-jinn mating process, and Vegeta really didn't LIKE biting people he had no intention of fucking.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. His mind wailed. Okay, maybe...I can make myself pass out, or something, and then we'd HAVE to go inside.

"Take all of me. Or none." Osiris said, his voice growing stonier as he senced the Prince's hesitation. "The more of me you take, the stonger you become..." He snarled. "Love me! DRINK!"

Vegeta couldn't bare to kiss the monster below him, but did start drinking more, having just realized something rather unpleasant ....if he did this, if he ingested the vampire's blood, and possibly became turned himself, the poison would kill HIM as well.

Osiris, oblivious to his lover's stunning revelation, wrapped his arms around Vegeta's shoulders, drawing him as close as possible. "Much better. You can be taught yet."

His mind only distantly registering Osiris' roaming hands, Vegeta had a very clear moment of understanding that normally wouldn't come to him. He'll die..but she..Ark... might live.

On the heels of that one came another rapid conclution:

It was worth it.

Vegeta dipped his head ot the wound on his would-be-master's throat and sucked harder, resolved to his fate now and actually quite pleased about it. Ha. His mind rebelled, while he drank with gusto. He didnt' kiss Osiris, though. That was just...too much.

"Perfect." the blood-god sighed, his hands encirling parts of the Prince that Vegeta would have rather he'd left alone. "Losyara has trained you well afterall."

Vegeta gave a mental snort. You have NO idea what you were talking about..moron ...okay...we can stop ANY time now...go inside, finish the plan.. He still clung to his original plan, his thought process, and it was easier now that he was the one doing the biting.

But with a sudden movement, Osiris shattered all of that. He rolled over to pin Vegeta, and licked his sharp cheek affectionately. "My turn." he breathed, and tore into his captive's neck.

ACK. Vegeta gasped. Oooookay, I don't even like being on the bottom when I'm having sex with ARK. This is....ACK.

Osiris pulled away breifly. "Such dark power. So many dark thoughts and such deep hatred." he licked away the smears of gore on his otherwise perfect lips. "So useful. Such beautiful blackness."

Vegeta could only blink at him. ...the hell is he talking about? Weird man... He was just....not moving. At all.

Osiris locked his jaw onto the heavily corded neck below his and tore deeper. "Scream for me."

Vegeta jumped again. "Uum...." he said foolishly, ...scream...for you?

When his lover did not reply, Osiris riped at the skin with his teeth.

The Saiyan was experiencing definite disorientation due to blood loss and varying new chemicals working in his blood - vampire enzyme and poisons. He could only grunts, not daring to move at ALL.

He had a strong, strong wil, adn he knew that Osiris could probaly feel that by now. Most likely a bad thing.

"Make that beautiful sound... " Osiris' voice melted from anger to pleading, his hands roaming up under Vegeta's shirt. ".. or I won't let you live."

Vegeta's strong will had made Freeza go absolutely nuts with domination. He didn't want a repeat from his turbulant child hood and so ground out a "feh" that hid a mental damnit....

" ...what..sound?" Vegeta squeaked out, furoius that even his voice sounded shaky. He ignored Osiris' wandering hand. IGNORE. But he was so very dizzy...

"Don't be stupid. It doesn't become you." Osiris snapped in his face.

Well, hey now, this was the Saiya-jinn no Ouij's PRIDE Osiris was stepping on. That at least called for SOME sort of retribution.

"You're too wise to play such games." It came out as very, very soft hiss - Vegeta couldn't quite help it. "You want me to scream? What, your name or something? Even if it's not what I feel? I thought..you didnt' want me to lie to you." Damnit..those hands are becoming harder to ignore. He COULD'VE so easily ignored Freeza's touch, but then, his former Master's touch didn't automatically cause pleasuere...

Osiris drew back angrily and struck him hard.

Whoo... now that is more like it. Vegeta grinned sloppily. Thanks. I don't feel dizzy at all now.

"You WILL obey me!" Osiris screamed in his face, adn teh Prince refused to cringe.

He merely gave the vampire a slightly distained look. "Fine. I'll lie to you, since that's what you want."

Furious beyond all rationallity, Osiris took a flap of Vegeta's skin in his teeth and RIPPED.

The Prince grunted again and winced. Ya, okay - pain is good. Pain keeps the mind clear. I can DEAL with pain. Not used to really making noises of pleasure at all, though, so...um....

"Do you feel nothing?" Osiris wailed. "No Pleasure!? No pain?! You are useless! Imperfect! I have no use for those who would defy me! I made Losyara, I beat her into submission, and one day she'll LOVE me! I will make you obey me!"

"Hrm." Vegeta cleared his throat. He sometimes shouts when he was climaxing, but that really didn't apply here. He gave Osiris a look, and decided to go for honesty again.

"Lord Osiris, I am a warrior. Not a pleasure slave. I have never been trained in any of the things you want from me now, not like Losyara." Ah, Ark, so very good at what she does... "I am death and I can fight and kill. I am trained to ignore my body's needs."

Osiris paused in his assult, lulled back to calmness by Vegeta's articulate and straight-foreward words, although he he did let forth one last snarl, seething.

Well, that's nice....stupid moron. You sound like a mad dog. "I offer you what I have to give." Vegeta continued slowly, evenly, "Anything else has to be learned, my lord." yadda yadda yada... "Have patience with me, a mere mortal." Sarcasm flitted across his mind- forty years of living like this. Ain't gonna change in an instant, just 'cause you tell me to.

Considerably mroe calm, Tapped his chin with a slender finger, his head titled to one side. "You are honest. And I will teach you." HOwever, he was perplexed. "And yet... you say your body has no needs? Then why hunt my daughter?"

Vegeta grinned ferally, unable to surpress his pride. "Because she defied me." Well... it was TRUE.

Osiris grinned in a manner that matched his captive's.

A tiny voice in the back of Vegeta's head told him that he and Osiris had more in common than was comfortable, but he ignored that.

"She is good at that." Osiris chickled, more to himself, then turned his musing broze eyes back to Vegeta. "Very well. We shall have time for more of this later. It is time you imbibed the blood of one older than yourself, and we finished the ceremony."

I ..thought I HAD done that... Vegeta blinked, eyebrows raising slightly. That was about as much movement as he could squeeze out of his dying body. At least we got out of the sensual stuff...gah...

Osiris eyed the large wound on Vegeta's throat that he had created in his fury, and clucked his tounge reprachfully. "I do hope that won't scar after I kill you. How ugly it will be. I'll have to make you wear collars all the time."

Vegeta snorted, outwardly unphased. "I've healed from worse." But inside... killed me?!...shit. Need to get INSIDE first... damnit. How am I supposed to distract him if I'm fucking DEAD?!? But he forced himself to relax, feeling like he got past the worst of it.

Osiris fisted his hand in what remained of Vegeta's ruined top and proceeded to dissolve, soot and sand rising up all around him.

...I got through it, Vegeta grinned like the fucking idiot he seemed to be at the moment. I didn't embarass myself, surived...feelin' pretty good just now. Well, okay - phsyically I feel like utter crap, but...

Osiris appeared inside the barren prison-burial chamber of the ancient pyramid and dropped the mortal man on the ground, right in Losyara's lovely and horrified face. "Make him mine." he pointed directly at her, then vanished with a laugh.

But I passed THIS little test. Ha...Wonder how many other men could have dealt with that and made it...Vegeta grinned at Ark... and proceeded to pass out.

Osiris voice, echoing after him, laid down one final altimatum: "Or I'll kill him."

***

END PART THREE

***

***

Osiris was addicted to beauty.

In ancient times, his personal chamber had been decked with the finest oriental silks, the thickest rugs, the air heavy with the rich scents of the most expensive incesense. Velvets, laces, and sweet spices filled the hallways and the marble corridors of the great gilded palace of the Blood God.

Precious gems inlaid in the most dazzling of accessories bedecked his favoured children, and gold and silver threads were stitched into every garment he wore, not one of them garish or tasteless.

Osiris revelled in glamour, in enchanting colours imported from the farthest corners of the known world, and designs and fragrances found their way into his palace before even officially leaving the trade vessels.

Nothing passed his front door that was anything less than lovely.

Looking now at his four remaining offspring, huddled together in the feeble torchlight of their pyramid prison, eyes and thoughts weary and wandering, Osiris' addiction was obvious.

Each was breathtakingly beautiful, and this beauty was not created by their preternatural natures, but rather, merely highlighted.

True, their eyes and hair had taken on a brilliant sheen that would otherwise be impossible, and their skin was a smooth, virtually lineless alabaster. But the people themselves had been beautiful to begin with.

They would not be in this Hell if they were not.

***

Four Days. Felix bit down on one of his knuckles nervously. He was ravenous, after four days, but loathe to admit it. His silver eyes darted from the only torch, to the shadow of the small window, and back again. Then he re-adjusted the uncomfortably short tunic he wore to better cover his chilled thighs.

Like his sister, Losyara, he had been dressed to best enhance his form, and also like her, the morals of modern society had worn off on him over the centuries, and he found himself truly uncomfortable in the loose linen garment.

He was unsure where Osiris had stolen the Egyptian clothing, perhaps a theatre, but it was obviously well crafted.

But still, far too short for Felix's liking. And he did not like the fact that -like an old style Roman toga - it covered only one shoulder, leaving his virtually hair-less chest bare.

At first, Felix had thought that the toga, being Roman, had been meant for Maximus, but it became clear that it would not fit his muscular brother's brawny frame. Only his own lean one.

He had shuddered, realizing that once again Osiris ment to use him as a trophy. A beautiful fuck.

That had been Felix's curse, in the end; his beauty.

As a native Northerner Scribe, a voyage to Egypt (then called "Kemet"), the cradle of the sophisticated world at the time, had almost seemed magical to Felix in his mortal youth.

He now desperately regretted the day his father had suggested he travel it.

Oh, he minded not the Immortality, the eternal youth, the strength...

No, what horrified him was the strange bronze man who had snatched him from the very temple steps - not the god's palacial temple home, but the more modest, religious one in the centre of town - and forced the change upon him, and raped him every night thereafter...

Simply because he was beautiful.

In the first few months, Felix, horrified and frightened, naive and unsure of himself in his newly altered state, did not venture beyond the lush room he had been put into. The room in which Osiris visited him nearly every night.

Never during the day, for, as Osiris once put it to him, "The night releases our power. The day's energies build up... and when they are finally released--" Felix had whimpered there, and Osiris never finished the sentence, for he was too busy striking him.

But then Losyara had come, well into her third century already, and sympathetic to his plight.

For she, too, had been taken for the same reason he had....

Forever frozen at age seventeen, she was lovely.

Like him, her colouring was in contrast to the dark natives around her.

She had laughed with him one day, many weeks after she had begun to help him heal his fractured poet's soul, that she strongly suspected the only reason Osiris had taken her was simply that she had blue eyes.

She had flowing, firey red hair, too. The exotic sort that was odd even to Felix. Osris was facinated by it.

But there was also the fact that she, like no other around her, dared to defy her master. A choice that left her constantly bruised and healing. And though she fought, she was still meek. It seemed a contradiction, but yet Losyara did at the same time obey, yet rebel against Osiris.

Like himself, she obligingly laid still for Osiris every night. She came to his calls, did whatever he wished or demanded or fancied. Yet, unlike Felix, there had been no cowering as she did so, no cringing, but defiance and hatred in her every move and expression. She was gentle, but underneath, she boiled, but was too terrified of Osiris to take any action.

Still, even the defiance in her eyes was enough to make Osiris fly into a rage.

And now, centuries later, the horrors of history were repeating themselves, and Felix, terrified, knew exactly why Osiris had let him live whilst he killed the woman from the bar.

Unlike the fleeing mortal, or the rebelling Seth of the turbulent past - who had allowed Felix continued existence because they knew that he, like themselves, was no more than a slave - Osiris was letting him remain alive for one reason, and one only.

Felix shivered, his skin crawling with revulsion as he drew his bare legs up to his chest as he slowly began to weep.

The only reason he lived was to pleasure Osiris.

***

Losyara, lately known as Ark-chan, watched with sympathetic eyes as Felix, her sensitive fragile-souled brother, wept.

She, like him, was hungry and cold in the virtually see-through linen shift left to her.

She craved the touch and warmth of her mate. The feel of him on top of her, inside of her. The breathtaking moment when the air around their bed (or bathtub, or floor, or wherever else he decided to jump her) seemed to grow thin as he lowered his ki just enough for her fangs to pierce the thick, muscled flesh of his well-corded neck and allowed her to lap at the sugary life-fluid that spilled onto her tongue.

Saiya-jinn tasted so different, so much stronger, than normal Chikyuu-jinns; the difference was like the zinging sensation of a static-electric shock and a 3 000 volt electric fence.

"What the Hell are you wearing, woman?" She could imagine Vegeta saying, should he ever see her in this humiliating get up. "Though I find the garment pleasing, only *I* am allowed to view you thus."

She missed the mindless chatter of teas with Chichi, and her advice about living with and feeding Saiya-jinn. And the moment when Goku, bless his clueless soul, asks -yet again - why she and Vegeta didn't have any children yet, and will they ever, and if they did, have boys.

The heavy clanking of tools and the muffled laughter of Bulma in her overalls, her voice coming from under some machine or another, her son, Boxer, and husband, Yaumcha, tossing a ball around in the yard.

Yes, she even missed shooing Muten Roshi and Oolong from her underwear drawer, and Krillin, Tien-shin and Chaouzu's violent games of billiards. They went through more pool cues at that bar...

It was a wonder that they were ever allowed back into the bar at all. They probably wouldn't have been... if it wasn't for the copious amounts of alcohol they consumed in their drinking contests, and the crowds they drew when Tien and Yaumcha started to use their pool cues as bo-staffs.

The screaming enthusiasm and physically thrilling freedom created by the intense joy of an all-out sparring match with those tenfold more powerful than herself.

But Osiris... how much more powerful was he? Could he wield ki?

She shuddered, vivid blues eyes heavy and blood-shot, and reached out with her mind, seeking comfort in the familiar, warm, alive ki of her friends.

But, oddly enough, she was unable to locate the energy life-force she craved most...

***

'What happened to Junnana?' Das pondered to herself, thousands of endless ways he could have been slaughtered by Osiris's zombies running throught her mind, like a sick, fantasy of horror movie.

He had been the first person in centuries who had ever come even CLOSE to understanding her, and if he was GONE...

Das shuddered, the cold depressing blackness crawling it's way back into her heart.

Her lips and throat were dry, and she was terrified that Osiris would call upon her to serenade him as used to be his habit, before calling on either Felix or Losyara for a bit of entertainment.

Oh, there were others, too. Dozens of other Horus, who were all madly in love with Osiris and would be willing to do ANYTHING from stealing to slaughter to sex for him. But he prefered Losyara above all the others. Them, he had merely chosen at the ceremonies and taken, or had spotted while on the streets and abducted.

But Losyara he had all but raised himself. Each night letters would arrive at Losy's former master's house, telling him how she ought to be treated, what he wanted her to learn.

He wanted her PERFECT.

But something had gone wrong. For some reason, she didn't LOVE him.

Das had overheard this one of the first nights she had been in the blood-god's palace. She had slipped away from Maximus' watchful eye, and had snuck into the throne room. There Osiris was yelling about these things at a young woman Das had never seen before, one with long red hair.

He tangled his hands into his beautiful molten bronze hair, face turned to the cieling, screaming and cursing at the gods that it must be his punnishment for taking her prematurelly that this red-haired woman did not love him.

She just stared at his face, not moving. When he hit her, she flew across the room and hit the wall opposite. When she did not get back up, Das presumed her dead, and had to choke back a scream.

Osiris heard the aborted little sound and turned in her direction, eyes finding her easily in the shadows the torches cast about the room. He tilted his head to one side and smiled lopsidedly, then held out his hand to her.

Without meaning to, Das found herself walking towards him, her own hand out for his. She willed herself to stop, to turn back, to RUN. But she was only thirteen, and she was not strong willed enough yet to fight him.

And Das LOVED him.

She didn't want to, but... she did. She WANTED to love him with the same abandonment that the other Horus did, she wanted nothing more than to be able to curl up at his feet and purr.

But the blackness in her soul, the misery couldn't, wouldn't ALLOW her to. It wouldn't let her be happy.

Still, she was not strong enough to stop her feet from moving across the great hall, bringing her into the monster's embrace.

She was almost there, she could almost TOUCH him...

...and then a small, white hand came down and took her outstreached one.

Das looked up into the face that it belonged to. It was the red haired girl. So, she wasn't dead after all!

She held out her arms for the frightened child, and Haddassah snuggled into the protection of her embrace gratefully.

"It's okay." the red-haired woman had whispered, her voice soft. "I'll keep you from him." She narrowed her brilliant blue eyes at thier master. "She's only a child, for the love of Ra. You can't corrupt her. I won't let you do to her what you did to me."

Osiris had snarled and reached forward to grab a handful of the fragrant, soft fiery hair that had fallen around Das in a warm, comforting cloak. He paused a moment to look hopefully into her eyes, hoping to find regret. But when he didn't, when all he found was harded ice which glared hatefully back, he then yanked the woman to the side and slammed her down into the ground hard enough to crack the marble.

Das screamed, and began to back away as she saw the blood pooling around the base of the lady's skull.

Osiris smiled again, gently, reaching out with hand and power once more to calm Das and bring her to him. This time the woman did not intervine, and Das was wrapped, shivering, in in his hot arms.

The god knelt and brushed his palm against her cheek, then brought his hand up. It was glistening with clear, salt-water tears. Das had not yet been turned. Osiris wanted to wait to see what sort of adult she'd turn into before killing her.

He smiled gently, then lifted her own small hand. Das trembled, unsure of what he was about to do.

He took the jeweled dagger from his belt and pressed it into her open fingers. Das began to tremble. Osiris guided the blade to rest against the hollow of his own throat, and made her push just enough to slide the tip into his skin.

Blood oozed out of the wound, and Das screamed, trying to pull out of his arms. He wouldn't let go, and then guided the blade to the tender flesh of her own inner arm and made her slice.

Das screamed again as Osiris then threw the blade to the side, forgotten, and pushed her face into the blood on his neck. Das snapped her lips shut, but he moved them, making him taste her.

That was all it took for the addictive zinging sensation to reach her viens, and Das began to suck greedily as Osiris bent his own mouth to her wound.

Then Osiris' head jerked up and he tossed Das none-to gently to the side. She let out a little squeak of pain as she hit the floor and blacked out. But not before she caught sight of the red haired woman, her delicate hands wrapped around the hilt of the dagger, buried up to her laced fingers in Osiris' back.

Das smiled weakly as the waves of unconsciouness crashed over her.

She was finally free.

What she hadn't seen was his hitching sob and tear-filled question, "Why?". She hadn't seen the lady's own tears, and her hands at her face, her head shaking violently and her exclamations,

"I can't love you! I won't let myself!"

In the present, Das sighed.

Too bad Osiris was Immortal.

AND he had never really died, not that time, at least, and not any of the other times that she or Los tried to kill him either. But then, Das could never do it. She'd hold a dagger against his heart, and he'd look up at her, that lovely smile of his saping all her strength until she was trembling so badly that the weapon dropped, clattering to the marble floors, or getting lost in the soft blankets around them.

Then she'd lean down and press her lips against his, weeping, and he'd gather her into his arms and cradle her and make soft hushing noices, kissing her back and making love to her before killing her, or beating her senceless so she'd make a prediction for him.

Losyara never seemed to loose her nerve when it came to attempting to murder Osiris, but she wasn't ever anymore sucessful than Dassah. He would hunt her down, where ever Los had fled to, beg her to return to him, to love him. He'd spout forgivness and poetry, and when she refused, as she always did, the emotional pedulam that Osiris was would swing in the opposite direction and he would fly into a furious frenzy, unsually ending with him beating, raping, and killing Losyara yet again.

But he never died. Not until the Seth had came, and did him in for good. But even then, it wasn't perminant.

He was BACK.

The terror exhausted her utterly, and after four days, it was virtually lethal. Living in such constant fear drained her reserves and made it hard to even think properly.

So how was she going to be able to sing when she couldn't even speak?

Hadassah shuddered.

She could still hear the pain-stricken screams that used to echo through the ancient gilded corridors from Losyara's chambers.

She didn't want to do anything that would make Osiris elicit those sounds from her own lips.

Although, he had done some other very painfull things in her lifetime with Osiris too. That was the only way he could make her make the predictions. Her body had to be under extreme duress, her mind fatigued, and her mouth filled with HIS blood.

For example, Osiris had once made Das run circles around his main audience chamber for twelve hours straight, promising he'd not rape her if she did what she was told. Of course, he lied, and as soon as she collapsed, he had forced himself upon her, making her drink him in.

She made a prediction. One about blue-haired women and monkeys that Osiris ignored.

This was, of course, BEFORE she had been turned, and so was nearly dead for the three days after that. If it hadn't been for Los, staying by her side with cool wet towels and mixing special brewing cups of exotic herbs, Das was sure she would have died.

Osiris took too much pleasure in pain to try to help her, and was too trusting in the concept that he could keep alive anyone he wanted to by sheer will alone. He knew the limits and tolerences of the human body. He knew that what he did couldn't kill her. Osiris, no matter what he did, would NEVER kill her.

The only one who didn't know that was Das. And he wasn't about to tell her.

Los used to scoff at him for that.

Hadassah could easily recall the beatings her sister had received often for her glib tongue and silent defiance. Sometimes she was tormented merely because Osiris enjoyed the way her eyes sparkled when filled with tears, or the way her face would flush with suppressed fear and hatred as the blood flowed. More often than not, it was simply because he got excited by her pain.

Fucking masochist.

But most of all, he was OBSESSED with Los, because, by some strange twist of fate, she HATED him.

NO ONE had ever HATED Osiris before. It was impossible. He was IRRISISTABLE. That was his magic. But Los did, and Osiris did everything he could to MAKE her love him. He was gentle sometimes, brushing her fine, firey hair with an ornate brush as Los was asleep, or shivering before him, terrified, or dead and regenerating.

He liked to bathe her himself. And she slept beside him, shared his bed, often without sex, and was made to sit at his feet while was worshipped in the temples.

But at other times he would beat her mercilessly for hating him. He'd whip her, stab her, and rip her flesh to pieces with his teeth when she wouldn't cooperate.

And yet, she hated him still. He could do NOTHING to make her love him.

After one particularly loud and frightening night -that same night that Los had stabed her maker in the back with his own dagger - Hadassah, had awakened in her own room, Max standing over her, a look of anger on his face.

"I told you not to leave this wing of the Palace." he snarled at her. "Now listen to what he's doing!"

Das covered her ears, the shrill screams hurting her soul.

Max sighed and knelt at her side, re-adjusting the cloth tied over her slashed arm.

Das stared up at him with watery eyes. "He's hurting her, isn't he? The girl with the red hair?"

Max nodded slowly. "Yes. Poor Losyara."

Das jumped to her feet and scampered past Max, who shouted at her to "Get back here, dammit!"

She ignored him and ran towards the shrill sounds, determined to help the lady -Losyara, Max had called her - who had helped her.

The sight that met her eyes when she pushed back the drawn curtain that separated the gilded throne room of the Blood-God of Egypt and the lush chambers of Losyara made Hadassah nearly faint with sickened horror.

And Das was not one to faint easily.

Losyara, smeared with blood that was apparently her own, was tethered to a wall, her arms above her, and the blood streaming from her slashed wrists. Her feet no longer supported her, and it seemed as if she was about to tear her arms out of their sockets with her unconscious, naked weight.

THIS is how the lady had been punnished for helping her!?

Das had quickly slashed the leather bindings that bit into the woman's wrists, and pulled her down onto the mountain of pillows that served as a bed. She stared with horror as the wounds began to heal in front of her eyes.

"She is lovely like that, is she not, Hadassah?" A rich molten bronze voice whispered in her ear, and Das stiffened immediately.

Osiris came into her field of view, lounging smoothly with feline grace to recline alongside Losy's prone body. Das could do nothing but watch in silent horror as her master ran his tongue through the congealing blood on Losyara's neck, revealing a here-to-fore hidden gash, deep enough to kill a mortal.

Knowing he was watching her, Osiris fingered the hilt of a bloodstained blade at his jewel-encrusted belt, his eyes gleaming golden in the candlelight.

That blade held the blood of all three of them.

Hadassah swallowed heavily as the man before her paused in his assault and cocked his head thoughtfully in her direction, licking at the smears on his perfectly shaped lips. She shivered uncontrollably as Osiris tucked her chin in his palm and looked straight at her, then leaned forward, over Losy's dead body, and pressed his gore-spattered lips to her own.

Das screwed her eyes shut, tense and terrified, while Osiris' remained open, curious and examining.

After the kiss broke off, he seemed to ignore her completely, returning to Losyara. "You're not ready for that yet." he mouthed softly.

Disgusted and physically ill, Das took this as her signal to depart, but as she reached the curtain, Osiris' voice froze her in her tracks. The once molten bronze tone was sheathed with an iciness that Hadassah had heard only on the rare occasions which she had sang, or said, or did the wrong thing.

"Stay out."

She nodded, swallowing again, and ran with saltwater tears in her eyes to Maximus, who wrapped her up into his arms, lifing her into his embrace, and carried her back to her room.

As she clung to him, or perhaps it was visa versa, she realized how truly evil her captor really was... How much he actually enjoyed and revelled in the pain he caused. The more searing the pain, the more he enjoyed it.

The deeper the darkness, the more Osiris craved it.

Hadassah shuddered once more in the cooled desert prison, her eyes flashing briefly to Losyara, whose eyes were closed in an expression of meditation. She didn't seem the least bit phased by the situation. The utter despair that ran rampant in her own heart, as well as those of her brothers, seemed non-existent in her sister's.

Losyara seemed to fear Osiris no longer. Perhaps it was because of this man - this Koibito - she spoke of so often.

Perhaps she had forgotten how severely she used to get beaten.

Das wrapped her arms around her middle, feeling phantom pains of previous encounters with Osiris' rage. She knew the sort of beating she herself would come by if she were unable to preform on the spot.

But, oddly, none of that really mattered. For singing was the most abstract and useless thing to her, and all she could really focus on had nothing to do with music or ballads.

All she could think was, 'Junnana.'

***

Maximus shook his head, dislodging a few stray spun-gold strands on his forehead.

His poor daughter, he thought. And poor Janet, the only woman he'd loved in a very long time, and he'd been torn so brutally from her.

He had been planning to ask her to marry him this weekend.

And she was all alone. Never knowing where he disappeared to, always left wondering if she'd ever see him again. She must think that he had run out on her.

Max looked around the dimly lit room, at Felix shivering in his absurd clothing, chewing on one corner of his lip, eyes misting with reddish tears; Losyara seated cross-legged with her eyes closed, calm and collected, eyebrows pulled together as if she were concentrating particularly hard; Hadassah, in the corner, eyes wide and glazed over with the familiar look of despair that Max so dreaded to see in her, arms limp at her sides.

Oh, how horrid that none of them would be safe and happy again. His job, after all, was security. Keep those he was in charge with safe, comfortable, and in good spirits. It had been his job as a guard in what was now called Ancient Rome, and it was his business now.

However, instead of the shields and polished helmets of old, he now wore the slick business suits and ear-pieces. But the business hadn't changed, only the scenery, the tools. Max smiled a little secretly, running through dossiers in his head.

Felix Noiraet: Supposed age: 21. Current Location: New York City, New York. Employment: Fashion Model/ scriptwritter

Haddasah : Supposed age, 25. Current Location: unknown. Employment: none.

Lisa Aras: Supposed age, 18. Current Location: Satan City, Japan. Employment: Professional artist.

Maximus shook his head slowly.

And Maximillion Stanton: Supposed age: 23, Current Location: London, England. Employment: CEO of Stanton Security.

Max sighed, of course he'd kept tabs on his siblings. He never interfered with their chosen lives, but he kept a fatherly eye on each of them, and it gave him a sense of being needed, of having a place in this world that had changed so very much since the day of his death, of having his own little niche.

Oh, of course, he did try to visit Hadassah frequently, but she was so hard to track down. And, now, from what Los had been whispering with her earlier, he understood that Das was involved with an android?! An artificial human!

Max let himself indulge in a small smile. If he and his borther and sister weren't artificial humans, then what were they?

But Das was still his little girl, and Max felt more inclined to protect Das than the others, and he supposed it was because of the bond the two had shared. As a child, Das had been thrust into the world of slavery, and from there, into the dark depths of Osiris' cult. And Max, following the orders given to him by Osiris, had 'kept an eye on that brat.'

But the babysitting turned into much more... and Max now almost thought of Das as his daughter.

And he prided himself in keeping his siblings safe, in watching over them. Of course he had a panic attack when the secret reports came in that Losy was entering the world famous Budokai, it was expected. Of course he spazed when Das became a Cage Fighter and was elated when Felix finally rented himself an apartment and stopped traveling around in that horrid thunderbird at break-neck speeds. He was concerned for those he thought as family, and was proud that he could say that he looked out for each of them.

It was this pride in his abilities that endeared him to the opposite sex, but at the same time, pushed so many away. After all, in the early eighteenth century, as their brief and childish love affair eroded away, had not Losyara said that she could no longer bear his unfounded arrogance?

But, as Max recalled the silhouetted figure that stood like a vision from a nightmare's nightmare, stark against the roaring blaze of all he had fought so hard for in the last few decades, his security company's offices... a place to call his own, a job, a niche... Fear touched his soul for what was perhaps the first time in thousands of years.

Physical strength, safety, was nothing in the face of POWER...

***

As all four sat on the sand-strewn stone floor, each deep in his or hers thoughts and all silently weeping -save for the eldest - a sound encroached on the uncomfortable hush, causing each to react in shock.

Losyara's, however, was by far the most profound, as she rushed forward to the crumpled blue spandex and white gloves and boots that fell gracelessly from a swirling soot storm. Slowly, as the flickering of the torches ceased and the light returned to it's normal subtle orange glow, it became obvious that a breathing man had been left in Osiris' wake.

"Vegeta!" Los cried out in absolute terror, lunging forward and lifting his head to rest limply in her half-visible lap.

As she searched frantically for a way to staunch the heavy blood flow from the tear on his muscular neck, while at the same time vainly trying to ignore the severe hunger pangs that wracked her body as the scent of his sweet blood tantalized her nose, she was mollified to see the haughty Saiya-jinn Prince slit his triangular eyes open and wink at her just once before going completely limp, his tail twitching slightly on the dusty granite floor.

"Osore ni koto wa nai...." she murmured slowly to those who watched her, but it was more for herself than any of those around her.

***

Max couldn't keep his eyes off the sleeping mortal on the only intact sarcophagus remaining as the oblivious fellow snoozed, innocently unaware of how appealing his bared, scabbing throat looked to the starving quartet of vampires. How the sweet scent that wafted from the spatters of blood on his torn adn low-hanging collar made each of their throats ache.

As he slept, the tip of the man's amazing, furred, monkey-like tail swept across the sandy floor, undulating with the rhythm of his breaths, creating a little dust-free spot.

"Great." he heard Losy mutter, her hands on her hips, "I try to get him to sweep at home, and it takes THIS for the baka to finally put his royal tail to work with domestic chores."

The laughter that followed was short-lived and forced sounding as the desperation of the situation blanketed the room. Osiris would be back within the hour, and he would demand his daughter's decision.

She would either bring her mate into immortality... or watch as Osiris delivered him to death.

***

END PART 4

***

--The Nightcrawler. (Suzan Sizemore)

****

Haddassh sat in the far corner of the frigid tomb, alone quiet, starving, hazel eyes locked on Vegeta's flicking tail.

Losy sat by his head, on the sandy floor, eyes sparkling with unshed tears, mind a riot. Das could tell by her sister's fearsome expression that Losy was trying to decide in which direction she ought to go.

Das bit her bottom lip.

She honestly wouldn't know she would do if she and Junnana were replaced by Ark and this Vegeta.

Das refused to think on that. She knew that if Osiris was successful, if the Dark God once again held the world by it's throat, David and 'Becca and yes, even Darma and Lois would suffer.

The darkness within her swelled, and more depressed than she had been in years, Das merely rested her head against her crooked knees and sighed, shuddering softly. No tears came. She was too far gone to cry, now.

There was a soft shuffling sound, of feet stepping across sand and stone, and Das looked up languidly, into the vivid blue eyes of her sister.

"Das..." Losyara whispered softly. The words were for the vampire woman's ears only. Max and Felix were too bust staring at Vegeta to hear them anyway. "Don't. I know you're thinking about..." she paused, "About THEM. Don't, Osiris will read it from you. He'll hurt them if he knows you love someone and something more than you love him."

Das closed her eyes and looked away. "Shut up, Losyara." she muttered.

Ark blinked, then crouched by Das, her balance seemingly precarious, but solid. "Nani?" she asked softly.

"You heard me." Das snapped under her breath. "You don't understand. I have a friend at risk, a life. Number 17, Junnana-gou, he's been the only person in YEARS, CENTURIES that hasn't cared about what I WAS. He only cares about what I AM. We're so alike, I couldn't bare to loose that! And don't use that Japanese shit with me. You're not Japanese, just like I'm not English. Speak to me in Hebrew, Sister, like we were born to. Speak to me in Egyptian, the language of the damned."

Losy shook her head slowly, red frizzing curls bouncing. "Ile." she whispered warmly. "Uso da, it's not true. We are not damned. And I am whatever I choose to be." Ark put a gentle hand around Das's shoulders, but the other woman brushed her aside. "So too are you."

"We are whatever HE wishes us to be!" Das responded. "He holds our fates in his hand, and there is nothing to be done about it." she slumped, almost as if caving in on herself... onto her soul.

"Das-chan..." Ark said softly. "Don't give up. The moon-"

"Has been DESTROYED!" Das suddenly screeched.

There was an uncomfortable, echoing pause. Max and Felix stared at Das with openly puzzled expressions. Vegeta did not stir. Ark merely sighed.

"Yes, I know. Piccolo-san blew it up years and years ago. I watched it explode. That doesn't matter."

Das blinked. She hadn't known that Ark had actually KNOWN WHO had done it.

"Vegeta can create artificial moonlight... he can just go Oozaru and..." she trailed off, looking back at her half-conscious lover. Then, with a shielded eyes, she looked back to Das. "It's not gonna happen, is it?" he said so softly that even Das couldn't make out every word. "There's something wrong. He should have recovered by now. He won't have the power.... He usually heals so fast... "

Ark sank to the floor herself.

"Das..." she whispered, voice shaken. "I can't give up. My heart won't let me. The Z-Senshi will help us. They have to. Goku-san will come through that wall any minute, hair white, eyes flashing emerald..." again she stopped. "I need Vegeta-sama. He needs me. And Chikyuu-sie needs both of us. I won't give up." she said fiercely, face and voice intense, body shaking with passion. "I vow it."

Das stared with wide hazel eyes at the shivering frame of Ark.

"I... have a confession." Das began slowly, and Ark snapped her head up to glare into Das' hazel eyes, her own a sparkling crimson. Das swallowed, nervous. She had never seen Losy so full of passion about... well, anything.

Losy had been bitter, and angry in her life, she'd had her share of powerful emotions, but never had she cared enough about ANYTHING to actually be UPSET like this.

"Losyara, " she said slowly. "He made me drink his blood again. As he brought me here." Ark narrowed her eyes, knowing what this meant.

Das had made a prediction.

"What did you say?" Ark hissed. Then her expression suddenly softened. "Onegai. Please, tell me."

Das closed her eyes and reached back in her memory of what Osiris had claimed she'd said. He'd never lied about it. He was too arrogant to tell her something she hadn't foreseen.

"When the Dark rises,

His Shadow will consume the world,

And the rivers of Blood will

Flow as they once did.

When the Sun rises,

The golden light will bathe

And cleanse the Souls, and

The world will be as Pure as His Heart.

And the armageddon will arrive,

And the final battle will rage,

And the Fire-River's heart will

Compel The Man With Three grips

To crush the life from the dead."

Ark blinked a few times, looked back at Vegeta, then returned her gaze to Das. "Hadassah, I don't understand." She confessed. "Do we win or not?"

Das only shook her head. "Osiris has already interpreted it... he says he's the man with three grips because he controls the living, the dead, and the world beyond both."

"But..." Ark whispered stubbornly. "The Golden light! The pure heart! That's Son-kun, it has to be! We can't loose!"

Das reached forward and put a soft hand on Ark's shoulder. "There is another way to perceive it, Losyara." she admitted. "There is another man in this room with three grips."

At Ark's puzzled scowl, Das flexed first one fist. Then the other. Then she looked to Vegeta, and said, "Tell, me, Ark." she twisted out Losy's new name with hint of sarcasm, "How much can Vegeta lift with his tail?"

***

Gazing on Vegeta's unconscious form, Ark let her mind wander briefly. Having been torn so ruthlessly from the embrace of her lover mere days earlier, and now upon the threat of it happening again, she inadvertently recalled the one time - about a year after they had officially gotten together - when Vegeta had disappeared from her life for no apparent reason.

She couldn't sense him anywhere on Earth, so deduced he had left the planet.

She had fallen asleep in his embrace one night, and woken up in an empty bed. Not that she usually didn't, Vegeta didn't often sleep in, but when she awoke the kitchen was still in good order, and the Gravity Room Capsule was still lying on the dresser.

He had been gone for almost six months before he returned one warm morning, some sort of bizarre cat-rabbit hybrid thing hanging by the scruff of it's neck from his fist. He hovered almost casually outside of the large bedroom window, a smirk on his face when he caught sight of the startled one on Ark's.

She jumped when he tapped on the glass, dropping the pillow case she had been fussing with and all but ran to the window, throwing up the sash. She wanted desperately to do nothing more than haul him inside by the rim of his cracked armour, but restrained herself and peered curiously at the critter Vegeta seemed to be offering.

"Here." he said curtly, "Since Chikyuujinn LIKE to have animals in their houses."

Ark frowned momentarily. "Not so much as a 'Hello Ark, oh no, I'm not dead. I'm quite alive. Did you get my postcard?' " Vegeta said nothing, the creature still pushed towards her. Ark sighed. "What am I supposed to do with that thing? Eat it?"

Vegeta's little smile disappeared into a frown. "Well I'm not taking it back."

Ark's own frown spread into a grin as she saw Vegeta pull it close to his body and rub the back of the thing's fuzz-covered neck. "YOU wanted a pet. You're a softy, admit it."

In Vegeta's arms the thing squeaked merrily.

"Fine." Vegeta scowled, his caresses growing rougher. "You don't want it - it'll make good target practice." He scowled and began to power up, much to Ark's growing horror, and seemed perfectly serious. He was going to kill the trembling little, innocent critter.

Ark reached out and snatched the thing as gently as possible from her mate's grip. "Hey, no! That's cruel!" she hissed at him, and Vegeta powered down slowly.

He looked at her carefully. "You want it after all?"

Ark shook her head, unsure of how to respond under Vegeta's intense glare. It was almost as if he were afraid she'd refuse his 'gift'. "Well," she decided, "I'm not gonna let you kill it." The thing squeaked again, this time sounding frightened. Ark pulled it in closer to her own body, and it buried it's rabbit-like head into the crook between her elbow and chest. "You don't have to scare it like that."

Vegeta rolled his eyes, muttering. "...had it in the damned pod the WHOLE way here.... so you are GOING to take it.. ." he snorted as he realized that Ark wasn't listening to him anymore, and was instead coddling the tawny-coloured critter.

"What'll I call you, thing?" she whispered to it tenderly, and it lifted it's bright clear eyes to her. Ark was pleasantly surprised to find them a soft powder pink.

Vegeta, outside and smirking triumphantly, whispered, "Softy." and flickered, then vanished completely from view.

Realizing suddenly that she could no longer sense the Prince, Ark rushed the window to see if she could follow him, but he was already gone. She smiled weakly at the thing, then did a double take. "He kept it in the POD? Ha!"

In her arms, the thing grinned, and waggled it's long, floppy, rabbit like ears and stretched cat like claws for the heck of it, seeming to be getting comfortable. These little exercises caught Ark's attention and her smile faded a little. "He's gone again, huh little critter?"

The thing waggled.

Ark sighed and gently dropped it onto the bed. "You can have Vegeta's pillow. He's certainly not using it."

The critter immediately fell asleep, curling right up on said pillow, and Ark supposed it was because it was used to Vegeta's scent.

"Hmmm," she pondered momentarily. "I hope it doesn't have any weird diseases, or something..."

Half a day later, Ark sat on the foot of her bed, grooming her new pet, and pondering what to name it.

"How about...Yisrael? You like that, little thing?" It seemed to sneeze, and Ark took that as a 'no.' "Hmmmm, then what about... Perseus." The thing just stared up at her with those flashy little rabbit eyes. "Well, it was a perfectly acceptable name a thousand years ago. And I'm certainly not gonna give you a Saiya-jinn name." she paused thoughtfully. "Aquila, then. I'll name you after a constellation, 'cause you gotta be from space."

Aquila seemed to agree and snuggled into Ark's lap, fluffing up momentarily. "Aie... I hope you don't shed, Aquila. I don't need two shedding creatures in here."

Suddenly, Ark's cheery spirits dropped at the thought of Vegeta. He had been gone so long, she wasn't vacuuming up his tail-hairs from the carpet anymore. Her chin trembled briefly before she set her jaw.

*If he just wants to take off and leave me all alone for half a year, that's fine. I don't care.* A pang of guilt rang out with her lie. She DID care. It hurt. *Why did he just up and leave? Was it something I said...? Was it something I did...?* In her lap Aquila made some purring noises and Ark looked down at it, startled to see the tawny-coloured fur on it's back spotted with damp red patches.

It took her a second to realize, but it was because Ark was crying. The tears were falling onto Aquila's back, staining it's fur.

"I'm being an idiot." Ark sighed and stood, taking Aquila with her. It's large ears flopped to lay against her arm as it scrambled onto her shoulder, tail curling around her neck, still purring. The vampire wiped away her tears and sighed. "Vegeta has every right to run off if he wants to, it's not like we're married or anything.... still... he at least could have told me."

She turned her vibrant eyes to the creature perched on her shoulder, "Isn't that right? And what about you. Hmmm, Aquila? Why did he appear so suddenly, then vanish again? Why did he leave you here? Some sort of freaked-out Saiya-jinn wooing ritual?"

The thing just yawned and closed it's pink eyes.

"Figures. You're just like him. You want to be fed, stroked, and then left alone to sleep."

"You forgot to mention 'fight'," came a smugly familiar voice from behind Ark and she turned, her heart jumping, to find Vegeta had returned and was now reclining on the bed, his battle suit and armour in tatters.

"Rabbit-cat things don't fight." Ark countered, hands on hips in a pose of annoyance, yet her eyes betrayed her joy at seeing her mate again.

With a little bout of shyness, Ark ushered the fuzzy tawny *thing* that Vegeta had left with her out of the bedroom, closed the door, then turned back to where Vegeta was waiting smugly on the bed, shoulders against the head board.

Vegeta sat up and gestured for her to come to him. "Shiyou." he murmured with an evil smile.

Ark snorted. "You've been gone for over six months, without any explanation, without so much as a 'good-bye', or a 'see ya later', and you suddenly expect me to hop back in the sac with you? You're cracked."

Vegeta's self satisfied smirk sunk into a scowl and Ark smiled wickedly.

"Maybe I found a new lover." She was about to say more when she noticed the muscles working it Vegeta's jaw. "Maybe I didn't." she sighed heavily, "Vegeta, you can't just leave and expect to come back and for everything to be the way it was before you left. Relationships don't work that way."

The Prince's eyes narrowed and Ark feared an explosion of rage, but she found her fears were unwarranted when he suddenly laughed. He threw back his head and laughed! "Baka..." he managed through the chuckles. "You've been with no one else. No one has even been in this apartment besides you since I left. I'd smell them if they were. And I'd kill anyone who dared try."

Ark sighed, defeated, and obeyed when he beckoned once more, crawling up onto the foot of the bed and sitting cross-legged on the folded-down comforter.

"Come here." Vegeta spat, a little annoyed that she purposefully sat just outside of his reach.

It was a big bed.

"Not until you tell me why you left." Ark countered in all seriousness.

"No." Vegeta responded immediately, and beckoned a third time. "Kite kudasai."

"No." Ark echoed him, and he began to growl in frustration.

Seeming to decide the teasing was pointless, Vegeta lunged at Ark and pinned her to the sheets. "Now." he hissed, arching over her and bending to run his tongue across her cheek. "You will do as I say."

Ark said nothing, a slight grin spreading over her face. "Is that so?" she asked smugly after a long pause.

"Yes." Vegeta grinned and neither said anything for the next few hours.

After gaining her second wind, Ark stretched lazily and rolled over and on top of Vegeta, snuggling into his chest under the sheets. The Prince cracked an amused eye in her direction as he had been napping himself in the warmth of the late-day sun that pooled on the bed in square patches.

Ark had been avoiding the sun by hiding under the covers.

"What do you think you're doing?" he asked clearly, no hint of exhaustion in his tone.

Ark sighed, content, and began to trace the lines of his muscular chest with one tapered fingernail.

"I don't want you to leave again." she admitted, pouting a little.

"So you seek to pin me down?" Vegeta laughed, his amusement growing. He wrapped his tail around her shoulders and flipped her onto her back, rolling over to pin her himself. "You're not strong enough to play games like that with me."

Ark arched one delicate eyebrow. "Oh?" Rather than of hitting him or struggling to wiggle away, she instead reached around him to stroke the length of Vegeta's tail.

The Prince immediately tensed, then relaxed all over, melting into Ark and resting his head between her breasts. A low rumbling sound of contentment emerged from his throat as Ark continued to pet his tail.

"You big pussy-cat." she said softly, and Vegeta craned his thick neck to look her in the eye. "You're purring."

His hands wandered downward briefly and amusement sparkled in his obsidian eyes when Ark began to purr herself. "I have something to show you, little warrior." he said under his breath, the air tickling his mate's ear.

"I've seen it already, Koibito." Ark teased back, and Vegeta moved his fingers slightly to the left. Ark immediately shut up, face flushing a little.

"Baka." he hissed. "That's not what I meant. Open your eyes."

"W-why?" Ark teased, her breath coming faster, "You gonna propose? You have a ring?"

"Baka." Vegeta snapped again, and stopped teasing her entirely, moving his hands and planting them firmly against the mattress on either side of Ark's head.

Ark frowned a little and obediently opened her vivid blue eyes, and was immediately blinded by a flash of intense, bright yellow light. She winced, and when it cleared, she gasped in astonishment.

"What the HELL?!" she yelped, scrambling out from under Vegeta to cling to the head board.

Vegeta sat up, smiling with the single most smug expression he had ever worn in his entire life.

Vegeta had transformed for the first time... into a SuperSaiyan.

"You... you ..." Ark stuttered, eyes flashing over his now-blond hair, his clear emerald eyes, "You... you JERK!" she suddenly cried, and punched him in the shoulder. "You scared the shit outta me! I thought you were blowing up or something!"

Vegeta said nothing, and grabbed her wrist carefully. Ark ceased her attack and gazed at him in wonder. "You ... you look good as a blond." she admitted slowly, then smirked herself. "We should buy you some Blondissima and make it permanent."

Vegeta returned her wicked smile. "Wouldn't that surprise Kakarotto."

With the mention of Goku, realization hit, and Ark whispered, "You went away... to train hard enough to become a SuperSaiyan." Even though she was sure she knew the answer, Ark added, "Naze?"

"Now that I am a SuperSaiyan," Vegeta crowed proudly, "I will KILL Kakarotto!"

Ark briskly pulled her wrist out of Vegeta's grip. "You're in bed with ME, and you're thinking about GOKU?!" she spat. It frustrated Ark immensely that all Vegeta seemed to care about was getting stronger and destroying her best friends. Ark, of course, knew that Goku was much stronger than he looked, and it would be very difficult for her lover to kill the man she thought of as a son, but it still annoyed her that Vegeta TRIED.

"Pah," Vegeta snorted, not having powered down yet. It looked like he wasn't planning to for some time, either. Then he pushed her back down into the pillows and proceeded to show her EXACTLY what he was thinking about.

***

Ark realized that she was day dreaming and shook her head clear, a flag of bright red staining her cheeks and nose. This was certainly the last place to be thinking about THAT.

She wondered briefly if she should have asked ChiChi to take care of Aquila. Of course, it hadn't seemed when she joined the mortal woman for tea that she'd be gone for five days straight.

*The poor critter must be starving by now,* she thought dismally. *Hopefully Gohan realized when I didn't meet him for that History stuff Monday that something was wrong. ChiChi would've told him, and I'm sure Aquila will be glad to see him when he goes to search my apartment for clues.*

Ark chuckled briefly. Aquila was a finicky creature indeed. It really didn't like many people, and those it did like were smothered by it's affection. All the rubbing and purring annoyed Vegeta to no end, but with Piccolo it was worse, because the only thing that kept him from blasting the critter was fear of getting mangled by Vegeta for killing something that belonged to the Prince's mate. Aquila seemed to prefer him over all the others, and Ark thought it was simply because Piccolo was green.

It liked The Son boys a lot, but tended to avoid ChiChi and Bulma. Boxer Briefs was another of Aquila's favourite people, but only because the toddler fed it. Ark didn't even know that Aquila could spit and hiss until Yaumcha tried to pet it, and it simply turned up it's nose and tail to Muten Roshi.

Krillin it didn't ignore so much as... was just not interested in the bald monk. Tien it adored, and Chauotzu it liked to play with. And of course, Aquila seemed to be enamoured of Puar. Puar had imitated Aquila one day, and when the cat-rabbit saw another of it's 'kind', it fell in love with the shape shifting cat on the spot.

Ark smiled secretly again, gazing down at Vegeta, who remained asleep.

Had she ever really been that happy in her life? What a melodramtic and foolish thought; she seemed to be having a lot of those, lately. And yet, all her memories now seemed like fading, mist-shrouded childhood dreams.

The terror and pain of her life under Osiris had returned, and it seemed perhaps she would never be happy again.

***

Yaumcha watched with worried eyes as his wife leaned over the ... the ... *thing* on the examination table.

"Bulma, dear..." he stuttered, "Do you really think you should be so... so close to that... thing?"

Bulma sent him a dark glare and continued with her investigating. "Hmmm... pupils don't react to light." she mused into a small tape recorder on the nearby counter. "Not at all. Not like Ark's, her pupil's dilate so fast you can't even see them move..."

Boxer tugged on the pant leg of his father's signature orange gi and Yaumcha reached down and hefted the five-year old into his arms, so Boxer too could peer into the lab. "Whatsat?" the boy whispered into his father's ear, clinging to his shirt, and Yaumcha smiled.

"Mom's just testing." the man explained to his son. Boxer's turquoise eyes glittered with curiosity, and Yaumcha pushed the boy's heavy black bangs off of his forehead. *so much like his mother* Yaumcha mused, *same curiosity. I suppose I'm a little disappointed he isn't as into martial arts as the Son's boys... but not everyone's kids can be like Goku's. At least Son Pan and Goten are close to his age...*

Inside the lab, Bulma set down her flashlight and picked up a pen and clipboard instead, marveling that this demon-thing -whatever it was- was still alive.

After the way Vegeta had dragged it in here two nights earlier, one arm torn clean off and the rest of it oozing strange orangey blood, she was very surprised it was still alive indeed. Of course, perhaps it was only still alive because it couldn't die.

She turned back to the ... thing.

Where had Vegeta gotten it from, she wondered. What was it? Vampire? Demon? Alien?

No, all Vegeta had growled out was: "This thing attacked us. It was guarding him. Find me a way to destroy it, a poison for one infinitely more powerful than it." When his demand was met with uneasy hesitation (let's face it, the guy just plain scared her) he screamed, "Now, woman!!" and stormed away, returning every few hours, a new body -- or body part -- in tow to further examine, until the poison had been created.

And when she had finished it this night, the Prince had forced her to inject him with it and left without even so much as a "Thank you."

Not that she had expected one.

Bulma lowered her brilliant eyes to the body. Once it had been human, that much was obvious, but the time eaten flesh and the decaying fragments that fell in chunks from the blueish, slimy, molding skin and half-exposed bones made Bulma wonder how long it had been dead.

She turned her back to the thing, mildly nauseated, and crossed the room to glare down at the mess the haughty Prince had left her desk in hours earlier when he had come in, demanding her results, and left in a flurry of blue and black.

She considered cleaning it up manually, but decided against it and called for a domestic robot instead. What use was it being rich if you didn't employ your means?

Then she applied herself to another set of vials and results, tinkering.

Yaumcha pushed the door open and entered, Boxer in his arm. The child reached out for his mother immediately and Bulma hefted him over into her embrace, then groaned. "Oh, you're getting so big! I think you're going to have to use your own feet from now on, kiddo."

She set him down in her chair, then turned her eyes back to her husband. "It'll be okay." she said, reading Yaumcha's dark expression. "Whatever it is, Vegeta and Goku can handle it."

"Yeah." Yaumcha sighed. "It sure is good to feel useful."

***

END PART FIVE

***

***

The first thing that came to Vegeta's mind when he awoke was, "Kill him!"

The second, far more important thought to occur to him was, "Shimatta, I can't move." He did not voice this, of course, because he could not speak.

His throat was very sore, very scratchy, and rawly parched.

And he was acutely aware that half of the flesh from his neck was missing. That piece of shit had taken a bite outta him!

The chilled, sand-dusted air stung the exposed tissue and Vegeta grimaced and growled. He did not like feeling this weak.

The harsh sound rumbled low in his chest, and it alerted Ark, who straightened from where she had been crouched by Das and walked past her siblings to his side, pausing only briefly to put a reassuring hand on Max's shoulder as he had been staring with open curiosity at his sisters and their rather loud conversation.

"Get some sleep." she said softly, "You need it." Max and Felix nodded and then went to cuddle in the corner with Das for warmth.

"You don't need help with him?" Felix said softly.

The corners of Ark's eyes crinkled up in amusement. "No."

Ark then moved beside Vegeta and gazed down at his finely sweat-sheened face. "Stop it." she whispered warmly. "You'll make it worse."

He closed his eyes arrogantly. Without even speaking he had managed to come across as an arrogant ass.

"Don't look at me like that." she said sternly, "And don't think I don't know what you're thinking, either."

"You don't." he rasped thinly.

Ark's eyebrows bounced, amazed that he could even speak. The tear in his throat was deep. Not deep enough to kill - Osiris didn't want that - but deep enough to keep Vegeta still and quiet so either he could kill him... or Ark could. But Osiris had apparently underestimated Vegeta's willpower... Ark certainly had, if she was surprised to hear him speak- even if his voice was so low she had to strain to hear it.

"You never have." Vegeta said in a pained monotone, voice growing stronger with each word. "Don't pretend you do."

Ark blinked at him a few times.

"So what do propose, then?" she said, hands on hips, face close to his so she could hear his thin voice. "Going Oozaru?"

Vegeta closed his angular eyes slowly. That meant 'no'.

"Too strong." he rasped. "No power left for that." Then his voice poured into her ears, strong and vibrant. *But stupid. Oh, Ark, that creature is a fool.* His mental voice laughed. Ark smiled thinly.

*Not so stupid as you may think, Koibito.* Ark responded, tone solemn.

*No.... not so stupid. But he is naive. He does not know anything about me... or about what you have become.* The corners of Vegeta's lips pulled up.

Ark sighed, not bothering to correct him. Osiris was intelligent. He was crafty, as sneaky even as the Prince himself.

Vegeta sneered to himself, remembering, no longer broadcasting thoughts.

*I know when I am not *strong* enough to defeat my opponent. Now is one of those times.* He had said. *Yes, certainly not strong enough, but I am ever so much more clever. And I DO know where my loyalities lie. AND they are not with YOU, Monster!*

He planned, he plotted, eyes closed, body recovering. Ark didn't bother trying to talk to him anymore, she recognized the look.

There was nothing more she could do.

Well, almost.

Knowing that this would probably damage her body permanently, maybe even kill her in her starved, weakened state, Ark said, "Hold still for five seconds, okay?" and Vegeta opened his eyes again, glaring at her for interrupting his plotting.

When Ark drew her fangs across the inside of her wrist, his eyes widened, and his clear mental voice rang angrily in her head. *Stop!*

*No.* she answered back. *I'm going to do this. Even if it kills me. For once I'm going to be the one in control here, do you get that? I will help you- help Chikyuu! Even if it kills me! I'm NOT going to just fucking lie down and stay still for Osiris this time! I won't make the same fucking mistakes AGAIN!*

Vegeta said nothing. Ark couldn't even tell what he was thinking.

She shook as she spread the oozing liquid from her wrist over his throat, the tissue knitting back together upon being saturated with the crimson fluid. She pushed it against his lips, parting them with her fingers when he clenched them into a knife-like slice. It dribbled between his teeth and she held his nose until he was forced to swallow lest he drown.

"Just a little..." she whispered, "Just to heal..."

As the rich metallic fluid flowed into Vegeta, Ark grew weak and dizzy, until he was just strong enough to catch her as she fell backwards.

"Baka no Onna!" he hissed at her, then crumpled to the floor himself. "You've killed us both! Do you realize that?! In saving me, you have made him... he will... and now you're too weak to do anything alone! Stupid, foolish, woman!!"

Ark smiled, "At least you'll be alive, Ne?"

Vegeta snarled, forehead beading with sweat. "Barely. I cannot even move... your blood is trying to change me."

"There's not enough." she said softly, "it will pass."

"Not in TIME!" he roared. Ark's eyes paled, rolling over to stare at her siblings. They were still asleep. "Now I need to revise the whole fucking plan!" he hissed.

Ark blinked, then began to laugh, slowly, quietly.

"Shut up." Vegeta snarled. "I need to think."

He sat once more on the edge of the sarcophagus after laying Ark on it. She sighed and stayed still. She had done what she could for Vegeta... for Earth. If she died because of it, maybe Ennima-sama just might forgive her past, and allow her entry to heaven.

***

Vegeta stared at Ark for a long time, eyes flinty and cold.

Then he too lay down, one arm going around her waist and his head resting gently on her shoulder.

He needed to think, yes... but there was a war going on in his body between the vampire blood that Ark had unwittingly made him consume, and the poison Bulma had made and he had ingested to kill Osiris.

*The poison must be working on Osiris by now.* He thought solemnly. *I don't need the moon. But the poison will start on me soon enough... now that I have a vampire's blood within me.*

With a soft growl he nipped the lobe of Ark's ear and settled by her side.

*Think, yes. Destroy Osiris before the poison destroys me...* he sighed mentally, *But sleep first. Only a short nap... the time is nearly at hand.*

He cuddled close to the frigid, still body of his mate, content with his fate to die if only he could dispatch Osiris first, and slept.

***

Like the powerful pull of gravity, Ark has returned, time and time again to Vegeta. She has been pulled to him by a power she could not describe, nor truly wished to fight, even through at times she had struggled to oppose it.

She had not opposed it, however -could not.

At first she had hated him, oh, with a passion she had hated him, loathed him, wanted to rip out his throat and spatter his blood onto the grass.

His blood wasn't even fit to drink.

But then he chased her, stalked her, tried in his own sadistic way to win her attention. When he had her attention he moved onto winning her interest, and when she had briefly cocked an eye in his direction, he turned on the sexual heat, until Ark's dreams often left her sexually frustrated and shivering, alone.

Of course, he did it on purpose.

Once Ark had learned to want him physically, it was just a matter of time before Vegeta had the oppertunity to earn her respect - which he did by saving her from the vampire hunters. From there it was just a matter of time before Ark herself realized what she felt and - with a little nudging in the form of the two sets of gifts and the once a day visits- decided she DID want his body, at least.

Lust very soon grew into love, as quick as their first willing night together.

Surprisingly, Ark's compassion and sympathy for his loneliness and terribly black life had made her care even more. She didn't want him to be alone anymore than she herself wanted to.

What Vegeta had NOT antisipated however, was falling in love himself.

*That must be the reason* he mused to himself, thinking in patterns and plotting even in his sleep, *I'm being such an idiot.*

***

In the Dark of the tomb, Vegeta was still weak and drained, fighting the poison, but now awake. Ark leaned silently against the casket.

Vegeta lay on his back on the lid of the ruined sarcophagus, staring into the darkness of the ceiling, having awoken after only ten minutes of sleep and returned to his plotting. Ark had already been awakened by the vicious hunger pangs that wracked her hollow stomach.

To keep from pouncing on her lover, fangs bared, she had sat on the cold floor. And a stone floor in the middle of an Egyptian desert was as effective as any cold shower.

It was there that she rested now, eyes locked on the sleeping forms of her siblings, her sister and brothers in Hell. Particularly, she watched Max. His smile was that of a protective, fond father, caring for his daughter.

Das was tucked under one of his arms, snoring softly.

Around them, the torches flickered.

Save for Vegeta's breathing, it was silent, not even any crickets in the dessert.

Osiris was gone, as far as Ark could tell. Many people were probably dying to slake his thirst at that very moment... and all of them no doubt beautiful.

*Is Gohan one of them?* she thought blackly, *Is Videl And little Pan-chan?* she was no longer strong enough to sense their ki, and these thoughts blossomed like wild black fire in her breast, making her long-dead heart leap with sorrow.

She wrenched her thoughts away from those ideas.

Kuso, Ile!

Osiris was breaking her again, stealing away the new power she had amassed over the last two decades... and the hour was almost up.

Ark will have to choose.

Give Vegeta Immortality and surrender him and his soul to Osiris, or let Osiris kill him and take his soul anyway. And she knew perfectly well that once Vegeta was gone, the Z-Senshi wouldn't be strong enough without him to kill Osiris, not even Goku.

Everyone would die. Even Piccolo. Which meant of course, because he had aided Dende in creating them as Kami, there would be no DragonBalls, no resurrection.

No more Earth.

At least not as she knew it- as ANYONE knew it.

Either way, Osiris won.

That, however, was not what was on Ark's mind as she watched Das curl up under Max's arms, like a daughter in her father's tender embrace.

Almost hesitantly, she whispered " Ve.... Vegeta....?"

He merely grunted softly.

"I.." she sighed, frustrated that she didn't know how to voice her troubles. "Have you...ever..."

Vegeta grunted again, making it clear that he did not wish to have to tolerate her silly mindless questions while he was trying to think.

"Oh.." Ark muttered, getting the hint loud and clear. "Well, never mind then... n-nothing."she finally said, knowing full well that now she had said 'nothing' Vegeta would know it was 'something' and would be forced to appease his piqued curiosity.

Annoyed, he grunted again.

"No...., no, nothing."

Finally he spat "Out with it, woman."

Ark laughed weakly, victorious in this little skirmish. What made it even better was that she knew that Vegeta knew he had lost... and that he knew that she knew, too. But then her serious mood returned. "Vegeta... have you ... ever thought about kids?"

The Prince sat up in a swift, rigid movement, bottomless, unfathomable eyes boring into her back. "Baka." he said softly. "Who needs brats?"

Ark sniffled as if she was insulted, covering the fact that she had been chocking back tears of frustration. She said nothing.

Annoyed with the lack of response, Vegeta quietly snarled, "Why are you thinking such inane things?"

" 'Das. " she said, indicating the dark-haired woman on the far side of the frigid chamber, with a weak wave of an even weaker finger. Oh, this lack of nourishment was killing her. The sorrow, the insufferable guilt was killing her, the fear was killing her - she was exhausted, emotionally and physically. "I was... thinking about her and 'Becca. That little girl means the world to her. She's willing to give up everything for a ..." she paused and licked her dry and cracking lips. "A brat."

Vegeta said nothing, eyes narrowed.

"And," Ark continued, "The other reality's Bulma had a son. With you... with that Vegeta, I mean. Trunks-"

"Shut up." Vegeta suddenly snapped.

Ark smiled quietly to herself, and looked over her shoulder at him. "Now don't get me wrong-"

"Shut UP, woman." Vegeta snarled, swinging his legs around to dangle over the edge of the casket beside Ark's shoulder. "It does not MATTER what the other Bulma did."

Ark frowned, annoyed that he kept cutting her off. "What I meant was, Trunks--" she stopped when Vegeta sighed heavily. Had he not thought it un-fitting of his Royal Blood, he probably would have been rubbing the bridge of his nose.

"Ark." he said, with forced calm and control. "What do the words 'shut up' mean to you? Just out of curiosity..." Ark jerked back and frowned at him deeply, and was just about to send back a poisonous reply when he sighed again, giving his 'I don't mean to be nasty' look. " I don't want children." he stated plainly. "I have never wanted them."

Ark paused, looking at him carefuly, studing his less-than strong posture and stained and ripped attire. "You sure about that?"

Vegeta gave her an anoyed 'didn't I just say that?' look. "The only CONCEIVABLE purpose would be to further the race, and that can't HAPPEN. So it is a waste of time. Now, do be a good little corpse and shut up and let me THINK."

"Oh." Ark said quietly. Then, mollified a little by his answer, she turned to rest her back against the sarcphogas once more. "I understand. I just thought that maybe... I mean.. I guess I feel.. a little..." She looked at her fingers, which were laced together loosely, resting on the tops of her crooked knees. "...guilty."

Vegeta stared with a curious expression at the back of her head, his face a mixture of shock, confusion, and anger.

"GUILTY?!?" he finally yelled at her. "For WHAT?"

Ark craned her head around to glare at him angrily. Damn it, he just didn't get it! "Well, you ARE the last of the Royal house... and I.. I wish I could give you a....son, or something, a prince, y'know? To carry on the bloodline, and all that stuff that you seem to think is so important."

Vegeta looked at her in askance.

Ark sighed deeply, frustrated. These sorts of things were impossible to converse with him about.

"Have you been THAT long with out a decent meal?" he asked snidely.

Ark growled. "Shut up."

Vegeta responded with a growl of his own. " I. Do. Not. Want. Children."

"Fine!" Ark finally snapped, turning her eyes once more to her siblings who now huddeled together peacefully in a corner, deep in slumber. "It's impossible to talk about anything serious with you! It's pointless, I don't even know why I try."

"IF you were Saiyajin, there might be some point to procreating." Vegeta said cooly, and rested his golved hands on his muscular thighs. "However, there ARE no Saiyan woman left alive."

"I know." Ark said softly, the guilt returning full force. "But there are always the demi-humans. Like Gohan and Goten and Trunks--"

"Trunks," Vegeta butted in angrily, "Was an accident. Don't you know that? He was not planned ! Not wanted!"

"That's a horrid thing to say!" Ark said, agast. "He was so .... nice!"

"Do you really think," Vegeta said, grabbing her shoulder to make her look at his face, "had I been there, I would have ALLOWED some woman to remove his TAIL?!?"

Ark met his glare with one of her own. "If you were Bulma, wouldn't you?"

"That's irrelavent." Vegeta sighed heavily, and the action produced a small ache in his chest. The Poison was working it's way around, making his breathing labourous, his heart rate wild, his emotions hot. He was loosing control... and he didn't like it one bit. "Why the hell are you asking me this? Do YOU want children?"

"No!" Ark immediately responded, and Vegeta crossed his arms knowingly. Her answer had been a bit too fast. She saw his smug look and hastily added, "What I mean is, I don't think it would be wise for me to have a child, but... I was just worried about you."

"Worried about me?" Vegeta snorted, raising an eyebrow.

"Vegeta," she said softly, turning to rest her own hands over his. "I've been alive a long long time. I've seen everything that I grew up with wither, rot and die. My race is dead. And now the same thing is going to happen to yours."

Vegeta snorted again, removing his hands, crossing them over his chest once more. "The strong survive Ark. Your Darwin has taught you that. The destruction of Vegiita-sei has taught me the same."

"Hai." Ark whispered, head down. "But, I want you to know... that... well.. If you decided to go find some human woman to impregnate... I'd understand if you left me."

"We're getting out of here!" Vegeta suddenly lifted her to her feet. "You're speaking nonsence! That baka has addled your wits!"

Ark smiled gently at him, once again understanding the Vegeta-ese perfectly. He didn't want anyone else but her.

He pushed her over to the wall, pointing to it. "Where does this go? Outside?"

Ark looked at him as if he had grown a spare head. "Of course. Why?"

As an answer, Vegeta spread his palm against the bricks, feeling for the weakest point. When he found it he snapped his arm back and let fly with a furious punch. It cracked the mortar and shook the ancient pyramid.

"Vegeta!!" Ark wailed. "You'll bring it down on us!"

"Shut up." Vegeta snapped, striking the cracking wall once again. Flakes of cement showered the five occupants of the room. "Get out of the way."

Ark decided to get out of the way, and went to go wake up her brothers and sister.

It looked like the Prince finally had a plan.

By the time Vegeta had broken all the way through, they were all ready to run, and leapt out of the small hole to the shifting sands below. Beyond the wall, maybe ten meters out stood a faintly shimmering force field, held strong by Osiris' will and power. And in front of those stood a legion of the familliar, oozing, rotting zombies that Vegeta had been 'gifting' Bulma with for the past four nights.

And above them hovered Osiris, a maliscious and entertained grin spread wide on his bronzed face, his eyes a blazing red and his fangs sparking and full.

"What sort of escape do you mean to stage?" the blood god laughed, amused as Ark clung to Vegeta. The Prince shoved her away, into the group of vampires to her side. "So clumsy. And I thought I had tasted intelligence in you."

"Not an escape, baka." Vegeta sneered at Osiris, who turned his head to where the Prince's out stretched finger indicated a blazing golden, orange and blue-clad figure. "A distraction."

***

END PART SIX

***

****

Goku hovered outside of the force field that kept Vejiita and and Ark trapped within the pyramid, and himself outside.

He tapped the toe of his boot against it and sighed. Too strong. It was made of so much fear and hate and loathing. The fear of those trapped within. The hate of the captor of everything outside of it.

Goku sunk to the dessert floor and dug a small pit in the sand to see if the forcefield extended under the ground, and watched intently as it oozed downwards to fill the gap, while at the same time grew up out of the sand to meet in the middle. Which gave him an idea.

If he dug under the sand fast enough, he could zip through the gap, and reach the other side. However, he would probably be the only one of the Z-Senshi who could execute this. The field moved as fast as emotion. That was almost as fast as light.

Which made him glad that he had decided to come alone.

He was lucky that this same forcefield blocked out his presence from Osiris. At first, it had been very weak, and he could actually keep mental tabs on Ark and the other's condition. But by the time Vegeta was taken inside it, the fear of the prisoners, and the hate of both captor and captives reenforced the field to such an extent it was even visibly opaque.

Yes, he was very glad he had come alone.

The risk of losing any of the others to Osiris was too great. And once that individual were under the control of the ancient vampire, it would be only a matter of time before they all were.

Even Goku couldn't fight off all his friends as once should they decide to turn on him their own ki supplemented by the enhanced power of the un-dead.

His idea developed, Goku then reached out with his mind, trying to touch that of Ark or Vegeta to tell them what he was doing, to be prepared.

Ark he could not sense at all, and he assumed it was because her ki was so weak. He had felt it sliding downhill over the past four days, until is was as low as it was when they had first met.

She must be starving, as he had learned early in the acquittance that it was blood that kept both her and her ki strong. And the stronger the blood, the stronger she herself was. Ark had become an amazing fighter over the past five or so years, and Bulma had deduced it was because she was regularly absorbing the blood of Vegeta.

Goku chuckled. Saiyans weren't the only species that marked their mates by biting them and lapping their blood. When he had first done that to Chichi -not even consciously meaning to do it- she had screamed at him and not let him touch her for a week.

Goku turned his thoughts back to the task at hand, but Vegeta's mind gave him only a slight acknowledgement. That being the sensation of a door being slammed in one's face.

Goku smiled. Typical Vegeta.

Besides, if he strained enough, he could almost hear the familiar sounds of Ark and Vegeta squabbling inside.

Goku's smile grew wider.

Perhaps they fought all the time in front of everyone, but Goku could tell how deeply they felt for one another.

He could feel the current of emotion flowing between the two of them whenever they locked eyes.

It was just like the emotion he felt flow between his own wife and himself. There was just something about being Saiyan that made the relationship between his mate and himself a force as strong and as natural as gravity itself.

And, although Goku was at a loss to describe it, at least out loud, he knew that he liked it a whole heck of a lot.

So, smiling one last time, Goku slammed first a fist full of ki, then his whole body into the hard-packed sand, slipping past the emotion- barrier just in time to emerge as Vegeta pointed to him, and Osiris turned in his direction, golden eyes wide and furious.

***

Ark stared with equally wide eyes at Goku. However, instead of the hate and loathing that her maker's held, she stared only with wonder, and joy.

Goku was here!

The prophesy was out to come to pass!

Under her breath, Ark whispered the words, certain that Osiris was wrong. He HAD to be wrong!

"When the Dark rises,

His Shadow will consume the world,

And the rivers of Blood will

Flow as they once did.

When the Sun rises,

The golden light will bathe

And cleanse the Souls, and

The world will be as Pure as His Heart.

And the Armageddon will arrive,

And the final battle will rage,

And the Fire-River's heart will

Compel The Man With Three grips

To crush the life from the dead."

Osiris spun to her with a snarl. "Shut up! That is MY prophesy! I SHALL NOT BE DEFEATED!"

He made a motion, and the zombies swarmed at Goku, who yelped and jumped back up into the air. "Hey, you guys smell!"

Osiris laughed and narrowed his eyes at Vegeta, who was trying vainly to remain upright as his insides threatened to burst and twist their way out of his sore and aching body. "And you, little man, still think you can keep what is mine from me?"

The Prince only snarled in return.

Osiris looked too healthy, too robust. Why the Hell wasn't the poison ripping him apart from the inside out?!

Then his snarl evolved into a smirk. Oh, the poison WAS working, so well that Osiris wasn't really feeling it. He was so arrogant, so overconfident, and so old that pain was just something he didn't feel anymore.

Vegeta learned to use pain to make him stronger. Osiris couldn't feel it at all. And that made him weak.

He was dying.... and he didn't even know it.

***

Ark's eyes flicked from Goku, who was swimming in rotting corpses, flashes of ki lighting up the night time sky, to Das, Felix and Max, who were watching Goku with horror, to Vegeta, who was smirking with his patented 'I found your weakness' smile, to Osiris, who was glaring... at her.

She shrunk back into Felix's chest, worried about that smile of her maker's. What had he to grin about? Goku was gonna burst outta that group of zombies any second now and start laying it in on him!

Before Ark could blink, there was a sudden tugging on her wrist, and she felt herself be yanked up off the ground.

She shrieked when she realized Osiris was dragging her back into the pyramid.

"Vegeta!" she yelled, and from Goku's direction, there came a 'thump' and a yelp.

"Vegeta, don't go in!"

The prince however ignored Goku's warning and dove through the hole in the wall after his mate, reaching out to grasp her hand. But the poison was slowing him down, he couldn't fly as fast as he should have been able to, he got not quite make it.

Frustrated, he let forth a snarl, attempting to slide up into SuperSaiyan, but something was holding him at the edge, at the cusp of the burning sensation that would yield the power and excstacy of ki that crackled through his viens.

It was that same damned poison!

Yet, for all his frustration at his own betraying body, Vegeta was not wearing an expression of horror. He looked mad as hell, but otherwise...

"Let her GO!" He snarled and flew into the hole after Osiris.

"Damnit," Ark snarled, scratching at Osiris' hand, "Vegeta, help!" She gave up, and reached for Vegeta instead.

Osiris merely laughed and continued down into the depths of pyramid, torches lighting magically as he passed despite the rusty hinges they hung from and the wet, rotting wood they consisted of.

Vegeta, oddly, merely laughed as well. He strained his power to the edge and took to the air, flying faster and faster until his fingers could just barely brush his mate's. Which made him even madder.

He still was too slow!

Osiris poured on the speed in a surprising little spurt and disappeared from Vegeta's vision, dragging Ark off of her feet and around a shadowed corner.

But then a strange sound touched the Prince's ears. When he rounded the corner himself, he learned where it came from.

Osiris had collapsed on the ground in the centre of a small, time-eaten room that vaguely resembled the remains of a clothing-storage chamber, Ark's wrist still clasped in his own, but his free hand pressed against his chest. The odd sound Vegeta had heard was Osiris... wheezing.

So, it seemed the poison WAS working after all. That stupid blue-haired woman was smarter than she looked.

Vegeta made as if to pry Ark from the fallen god's fingers, by Osiris sprang to his feet before the Prince could come within touching distance of them. "No!" Osiris snarled, pulling his hostage close and wrapping his arms around her waist in such a way that her feet cleared the ground. "She is the only one I really need, little man! I only need one, and she is the strongest! You can't have her, ever!" He began to chuckle low in his throat, then yelped in pain, snapping his arms away from Ark's form.

She shoved herself away from him and towards the door, a smile on her face. It only took a fraction of a second for Vegeta to see why. Her fangs were fully extended and there was blackish blood oozing down her chin.

She had bitten his wrist.

Vegeta laughed. "You won't have her, fool. Besides, I didn't come here to rescue her." he grinned into the darkness. "I came here to watch you die."

Vegeta strode forward, pulling his hand back and actually slapped the vampire - backhanded, a gesture of disrespect that sent him into the floor. "I have defeated you. You. The mighty Osiris."

Osiris only laughed, turning his arm as the dripping wound healed.

Vegeta was unimpressed. He pointed directly to the fallen god. "You are dying as you lie there. And you KNOW it."

Mentally, he began to scold his mate. *Ark. Stop gawking like the idiot you are and run.*

*But...*

*Do not argue with me...*

Ark growled in frustration and dug her nails into the soft brick work. *You're half-dead! What can you do alone!?* and stayed put, much to Vegeta's annoyance.

Osiris snarled, unaware of the conversation going on between his child and his enemy. "You? A weakling human!? I cannot DIE!"

"You can now." Vegeta came frighteningly close to laughing, crossing his arms over his chest to hide their trembling. The Poison was killing both of them. But he covered it with his ego ." I have caused you bane. When you tasted me you tasted your death. I have poison in my body."

Osiris hissed, jumping to his feet. "Liar!" Then he smiled. "Liar. There is no poison that can harm a god."

"No. I tell the truth." Vegeta answered straight-frowardly. "This world that you so seek to rule is much more advanced than the one you left. And I have the means to kill you. And I have used it."

Osiris pressed a fist over his heart, still convinced that Vegeta was bluffing. "I feel wonderful! I am about to kill you!"

Vegeta spread his hands. "Then here is my proof." he gestured to Ark. "Just try to take her with you. You're dying. I want to watch."

In the door frame, Ark barely suppressed a shocked, "Nani!? Vegeta! What are you doing!? Hit him or something!"

The Prince only ignored her. "Well? Go." He gestured to his mate, urging Osiris to try to detain her physically.

Osiris eyed Vegeta, wary of a trick.

Vegeta laughed again. "He's dying Ark." * And so am I. Don't be an ass. GO.*

Osiris's golden eyes narrowed. "You believe you're right, don't you?"

Vegeta smiled just a bit. "You mean you don't even notice?

Osiris decided to call the Prince's bluff, snorted, and headed towards Ark.

"Shit!" she gasped and turned to dash out the door, only to find it suddenly blocked by another one of Osiris' emotion-force fields. "SHIT!"

Vegeta turned to watch Ark dash back and forth, searching for an exit as Osiris approached, feeling as helpless as the night she was first stolen by this same monster. And Vegeta wasn't doing a damned thing.

Vegeta's eyes lit up with the familiar battle-lust. He hissed almost sensually. "Didn't you FEEL it when your zombies died? When I ripped them apart? When all those other rotting bitches you sent at us died?"

Ark paused to stare with horrified eyes at Vegeta's words. Osiris had set his leeches upon the Z-Senshi?! Oh, Kami! Had anyone been hurt?!

"Didn't' you FEEL them burning?" Vegeta urged on, "That was this poison. And you. Are. Dead."

Osiris turned to stare at the Prince as well, horrified. He HAD felt it. A burning pain like nothing else. But he had assumed it was only the hunger that came of 1 000 years of imprisonment. He thought it would vanish when he was finally satiated.

Vegeta saw his horror and grinned. Then he sent a pointed glare at Ark. *Get the HELL out of here*

Ark began to pull the bricks from their loose mortar, trying to make an un-blocked hole through which to get away from these two ticking time bombs while Osiris was distracted. Someone was going to blow up really soon, and Ark didn't want to be in the way when he finally did go off.

Casually, the Prince pressed on, lofty in expression and tone as Osiris looked within himself for the truth. "Do you feel it yet? Burning in your blood? Your insides trying to writhe out of your skin?"

Osiris, focussed on himself and Vegeta's words, he studied Vegeta carefully. He did not feel it, not like that. It was more of a dull ache that radiated from the pit of his stomach, that was slowly growing worse as the chemicals leeched into his system. He had not even thought about it until this arrogant mortal had forced him too, and now that he knew... he also knew Vegeta was in the right.

"If what you say is true, and I really do feel this... how did you do it? I must know!" Vegeta did not answer, and suddenly Osiris knew all that this arrogant man spoke was truth. He grew very angry. "Answer me!"

Vegeta snorted. "I ingested it, moron. And then you did, when you drank my blood."

"No!!" Osiris flared.

Vegeta smiled with mock sweetness. "Yes."

"It's not possible!" Osiris, "I don't understand!"

"I think you do." Vegeta re-crossed his arms, "A shame. You were once a good warrior." his tone became condescending "Such a waste."

"You dare mock me!" Osiris snarled, fists clenching. "My prophesy deems otherwise! I am the man of three grips! I shall crush you!" Osiris tensed and flew at the Saiyan, hands hooked into claws. "Die!"

Vegeta, making it look as easy as possible, blocked whatever Osiris threw at him. In actuality, he was straining, at the very edge of his power and endurance. He'd really rather collapse. In fact, it seemed very appealing right now, but he didn't dare loose face at this moment. And so his mask of ease remained in place.

"No, no no!! Die, stupid worthless human!" Osiris cried, getting frustrated at his inadequacy to physically damage his enemy. "You cannot defeat me! I am a god, it is fate! It is Ma'at! I SHALL RULE!"

Vegeta, insulted, snapped a fist into the vampire's face. "For the last fucking time... I am not HUMAN!!" and wrapped his tail around the vampire's neck, twitching the tip under Osiris' freshly-broken nose to prove his point. "You, blind, STUPID son of a bitch! Not only are you weak AND dying, you are STUPID! RETARDED!" he threw Osiris against the wall. "DAAAAFT!!"

Osiris slumped against the wall, and slithered to the floor, wiping the drying blood from his face. Ark yelped, as the vampire had landed mere inches from herself and her frantic digging.

"Human, my Ass!"

Osiris glared up at the Prince, eyes wide and on his tail, stunned. "You...! Beast! Demon!"

"I am SAIYA-JINN." Vegeta smirked, thoroughly enjoying the melodramatic aspect of this. "And I am your DOOM!"

Osiris shook off his shock, struggling to his feet. It was more of a chore than it should have been, and he realized that his joints were stiffening. He was only moments away from death, he could feel it! But he wasn't going to go alone... "I don't care what you claim to be! You have unbalanced fate! Ma'at...! It is my duty as a god of Kemet to stop you!!"

Vegeta chuckled. Yes, this WAS entertaining. On the other hand, Vegeta too felt like he was dying.

The god lunged at the prince. "Die die die!!" Osiris wailed, as each blow was reflected with seeming ease.

Vegeta snorted. "Baka. You avoid death by your very existence. YOU are the one who unbalances your precious Ma'at. And," he hissed, yanking on the weakening blood-god's shoulders to they were face to face. "And, Ark is MINE."he added, just for the record.

Ark paused in her work, stunned by Vegeta's words. "What'd he just say...?"

Osiris growled, shoving Vegeta away. "But you change to laws of the world! You have upset Ra's perfect creation! Blasphemy!! She was mine to begin with! Her power comes from ME! All power comes from ME! LIFE AND DEATH: FROM ME!!" Osiris struggled to his feet, panting heavily, probing all his broken bones. They weren't healing as fast as they should have been. "Ma'at is the prophesy! And the world is MINE, AS IT ALWAYS HAS BEEN!"

Vegeta crossed his arms again, and just looked at him. "Pathetic."

Osiris stomped his foot, temper rising. "All creatures from this Earth are MINE!! MINE! YOU ARE MINE!!"

Vegeta glared. It was time to do it... it may kill him, but it was time... "You are nothing." he smirked, baiting the fallen god. "You are nothing more than a left-over from dead civilization, on a third rate mudball at the end of the universe."

"No!" Osiris struggled to remain erect. "No." He chuckled in a low tone. "No. You are mistaken."

Vegeta just looked at him. He wanted Osiris to get so mad he attacked, making the blood in his viens pump harder and spread the poison faster. The vampire, however, wasn't so easily provoked as it had fist seemed.

"It is YOU who is worthless."

Vegeta looked at Osiris with one of his expertly haughty expressions, regarding the vampire as one might an easily squish-able bug. "Yeah, uh- huh." He was grinning now.

"I've tasted you." Osiris sneered, his temper cooling. "You are alone. You are nothing."

Vegeta was throughly amused. He snorted. "I need no one."

"You are deluding yourself."

"YOU are the one who withers for the lack of your incestuous children." Vegeta's grin sunk into a scowl as the other man pointed to Ark.

"You need HER. And SHE is mine." Osiris sneered. "And this world is mine. From the beginning of time it, and all it's creatures have been, mine. And therefore, so too are you!"

Vegeta scowled, and backhanded Osiris again, sending the weak and stiffening vampire onto his side in the dust and gravel. There was no pain in the gesture. It was pure disrespect.

Vegeta turned his head to the side and spat. "You are shit. Nothing more." He grinned. "And I will watch you die."

Osiris laughed into his arm. "I am death itself! I am evil!"

Vegeta cackled. Really, that WAS funny.

"So too were you, once!"

"I AM evil, you moron."

A brick skittered down the wall and both men looked in the direction of the noise and Ark froze, eyes wide.

She fought down the urge to giggle nervously.

*Ark,* Vegeta hissed mentally, *Get OUT*

*I'm through the wall, okay?!*

Vegeta frowned. *Then get the hell OUT already.*

*But...*

*Gods, you're as stupid as he is...GO!*

Ark glared at the lover she was almost certain she would never see again and ran, fighting back both the urge turn back and help him, and the urge to weep.

Vegeta was going to die. And she couldn't even say good-bye.

Back inside the cool, damp room, Vegeta - satisfied that Ark was finally out of harm's way - decided to let loose with the verbal abuse. It was time to end this. "Evil. You ought to recognize it, since you claim to embody it."

Osiris looked up at the Prince from the floor, unable to rise. His body was too sore, his breathing laboured, his joints locking. "NO. Not anymore. You are soft and weak and nothing."

"Maybe," Vegeta shrugged, non-chalantly. "But I still win. And I brought down something that was immortal."

"No." Osiris managed to push himself up into a sitting position. "SHE has tamed you. Losyara has made you weak. This new world has tamed you. And now I know your weakness." He grinned maliciously. "Your weakness is HER." He lifted a hand and flicked his wrist, much like he had earlier, when the Prince had first laid eyes on him.

A pained shriek floated to the Saiyan's ears from far along the passage that was Ark's escape route.

Vegeta did not move as the scream slowly tapered into a whimper, and then out. He had business here. When Osiris was finished, with him would go the suffering of Ark.

Vegeta hissed, resting his weight on the fallen rubble that Ark's digging had created. "IF you are all those things you're spouting at me...." he said, taking a haggard breath, forehead breaking out into a sweat. His joints began to grow stiff, but not so bad that he could not move. "Then that makes me more than you are. In every way. MORE." Vegeta snarled, fighting gravity, which suddenly made him feel as if he was back on Vejiita-sei. "MORE evil, MORE balanced - perhaps even closer to being a god." he revelled in this truth. "Because *I*. BROUGHT. YOU. DOWN."

Mentally, Vegeta yipped as he nearly collapsed.

Osiris, still seated on the floor, locked eyes with Vegeta and smiled, his voice now changed into a seductive hiss. "Yessss... beautiful boy... come to me. You are the victor here. I see that you have earned your power." he smiled, fangs bared in a grin, "Give me your power, and I will return it to you tenfold. Because power is what really matters to you, isn't it?"

Vegeta made a nauseated face at the god's words, not ever having that particular reaction from his enemy before. "Nani?"

Ark, still writhing in pain on the floor in the halls, let out a sudden sigh of relief as Osiris focussed all the power he had on seducing Vegeta's mind. The energy barriers that blocked off the room and surrounded the pyramid vanished.

Goku was still having too much fun beating zombies to a bloody pulp to notice.

Vegeta stared, wide eyed at the blood-god before him.

"Is it not what you want?" Osiris asked invitingly, arms outstretched towards the handsome Prince. "Power? Immortality?" He lowered his head seductively, looking up at the Saiyan through bronzed eyelashes. "Forever...!"

Vegeta shook his head once, sharply.

Osiris pressed on. "I know you want this. I tasted you, remember? Don't deny yourself the power! Be mine, and be FREE!"

*Wha....?* Vegeta thought, but had not the power to say. Without realizing he had, he took a shuffling step towards the fallen man.

Osiris watched, waited patiently with open arms and a parched throat. He couldn't stand now, but if he could only get a little of that power... "Come to me! Bend to me! Come!"

Vegeta held one ripped and bloodied gloved hand against his temples as Osiris' molten golden voice echoed through his brain.

And just as suddenly as the words had begun to disorient him, Vegeta snarled, breaking free. He jumped backwards, horrified that he had awoken to find himself with finger's- reach of Osiris. He did not remember moving!

"Don't you DARE touch me!" Vegeta snapped. He wouldn't lean against anything. That would betray his poor condition. And yet... What WAS he offering...?

"COME!" Osiris demanded angrily.

*NO... * Vegeta wanted to punch Osiris in the face, but his body hesitated.

"Mine!! So beautiful! Your power, so lovely! Such... golden..."

Vegeta shook his head agian, trying to think clearly. He blinked a few times, trying desperately to block Osiris out. He even went so far as to clamp his hands over his ears, even knowing it was futile.

Ark, having heard the familiar seductive whisperings, and perturbed by the lack of shouting and fighting-noises, stuck her nose back in the room to find Vegeta on his knees, his gloves gloomed to the side of his head and Osiris beckoning to the Prince.

"Vegeta!!" she cried. "No!!"

She moved to shake him out of it, but Osiris flattened his trembling and cold body to the floor, fingers digging into her ankle.

Her gasp of shock reached the Prince, who shook his head sharply and did what very, very few mortals have ever been able to do. He broke completely free of the mind-lock. Then he sped forward and pulled Ark away from between them, shoving her towards the door rather forcefully.

"Losyara!" Osiris called desperately, "My love! My Child! Help me!"

"Stay where you are!" Vegeta ordered.

On the ground, Ark shuddered, her mind being pulled apart by the two men trying to gain a hold on it. She tangled her fingers in her hair and screamed, her sanity at risk. There was no way she could obey one without feeling guilty for the other.

So, she followed the only route that wouldn't end in suffering for either herself or one of the two men.

She reached out for a particulaily sharp shard of stone that had cracked away from the wall during her frantic escape, and jammed it through her heart, killing herself instantly.

Vegeta blinked at her suddenly limp form, then threw his head back and laughed.

"Nooooo!" Osiris howled. "She is mine! Obey me, obey me!" he screamed, but Ark did not, could not move. Furious he turned his eyes to Vegeta. "How dare you?! I gave you everything! I gave you myself! I was GOING TO GIVE YOU FOREVER! All I wanted in return was YOU!!"

"Bullshit. I am not yours. I am not even hers." he gestured breifly to the form of his mate on the floor. "I am MINE. And I will perhaps gain immorality, but on my OWN terms." Briefly, a memory of Frieza and his first hunt for the mystical DragonBalls of Namek-sei flash through him, but he dismissed it.

The vampire wailed. "You betrayed me!"

"I will NEVER be anyone's slave." Vegeta snarled, though still shaken. He had seen right through to Osiris' perverted desires.... his mind had been so close. He knew exactly why Osiris wanted his mate. His mate's body. He knew the Blood-God also wanted his own body, and this revolted the Prince. He pointed a flattened palm in Osiris' direction, preparing to shoot. "Die begging, then. It suits you."

"No!" Osiris sobbed like a child with a tantrum. "I shall not die! The prophecy forbids it!"

Vegeta laughed.

"NO, no nononononono!" he shrieked over and over. "You won't win, you won't!!"

"I HAVE won." Vegeta smirked.

"I'll make you suffer, mortal!" Osiris slammed his fists into the ground, cracking the pavement, shaking and weak. He couldn't even life himself further than a laying possition, and it appeared as if the gravity was a hundred times stronger in that spot than any other.

Vegeta re-crossed his arms, amused. "I have defeated the mighty Osiris. And do you want to know how?"

Tears leaked out of the corners of the god's eyes; frustration poured out in his cracking voice. "You will NEVER WIN AGAINST ME!!"

"I already have." Vegeta grinned almost sweetly, ignoring the tantrum and outbursts. "Because you - underneath it all - are nothing but a human."

Osiris was stung.

There was a pause.

Stung, insulted, and deep down... crushed. It WAS the TRUTH! But he would have revenge. "Human, maybe! But I know your soul! I have tasted your torment! I know what keeps you awake at night! And I shall curse you from beyond for daring to oppose Ma'at!"

Vegeta stared. "Perhaps you did taste it. It hardly matters." Deep down inside, he really, mostly, believed his words.

Osiris chuckled weakly and his head drooped. He couldn't even hold that up anymore. "Oh, there is much you wish to forget, little prince!" he would WIN! If took all of the power he had, he would come out laughing. "And I know how to unlock it all...."

Osiris took a deep breath and pointed a hand straight at the Prince. "A'nen kekewey, kefa re-pat!!"

Vegeta stood his ground, blinking, as something that felt a lot like a wave of hot air brushed his skin. He had a moment of dizziness, which passed fast enough for him to dismiss it as the effects of the poison.

Osiris could only chuckle weakly, blood spattering his lips as his chest heaved.

Vegeta shook his head, trying to focus, trying to clear it. ".... what did he say... ? What kind of nonsense....?" He shook his head again. This sure did have ONE funny effect - but he felt a bit better than he did a moment ago. *feh* he snorted to himself. Perhaps his constitution COULD take this poison.

"See you in hell, fool." Vegeta strolled over and spit on the mute, trembling Osiris. The vampire was as good as dead. And the Prince's bravado covered his shaken and shot nerves.

Osiris' shallow breaths stirred the dust under his nose and he began to mutter to himself, completely gone. "And the man with three grips... will ... crush the life from the dead... I'll kill you... I won't be killed..." He was out of his mind with pain and poison as he shook on the floor, no longer in control of himself.

Vegeta snorted. "Yeah, Right." and now that he thought that he could survive the poison, he just wants to get OUT and leave the slobbering shell to himself and his death. "A'nen kekewy kefa re-pat.... whatever THAT means..."

As Vegeta moved to leave, Osiris's empty eyes jumped to follow him, and his voice became a barely audible plea. "Don't leave... so much to do.. so beautiful.. I love you..."

Vegeta froze in mid-step, shaken...for..SOME reason...by those three last clear words.

It was obvious that Osiris was completely gone.

Vegeta swallowed hard. It was weird... that... Nobody he had killed had ever said THAT to him before. As a matter of fact, he didnt' think ANYONE had said those words to him before, except his foolish little mate, who screamed it at night.

Osiris, somehow sensing Vegeta was leaving, screamed, then the sound abruptly cut off. "So... beautiful..." his voice cracked, a whisper, "mine, all mine... beautiful beautiful prince..."

Vegeta turned back to stare, aghast, as the voice went right through his head. Shoving the sensation away, he bent down, slung Ark's unconscious body over his shoulder with a rouge thought as to how much fun it might be awaken her with sex. She hated it when she opened her eyes and he was right there on top of her.

"Ra's gold..." Osiris murmmered, holding out his hands desperately, as if all he wanted to do was TOUCH Vegeta. "Such green eyes... lovely water eyes... Please, be mine..."

Vegeta shivered at the plea ...gods... I'm experiencing DESIRE for this man.... okay, well that does it.the Prince snarled and pushed himself to the very edge of SSJ, being careful not to burn the load on his shoulder. No fucking WAY I'm letting him own ME.

"No." he said plainly, and Vegeta was proud to hear that it almost sounded completely genuine.

"Please..." the fallen god whispered pittifully. "You love me... you have to love me... I love you..."

"Dammit!" Vegeta snarled. This was his PRIDE Osris was trying to scratch out with pretty words!

And very suddenly, Vegeta realized. He couldn't BARE to watch Osiris DIE. There was just something... tragic.... about beautiful things passing away that he just couldn't even begin to think abou--

He was freaked by that thought, the idea that he found Osiris desirable, beautiful, and that the death of him would be terrible - these were poetic concepts that were totally alien to his normal mind.

For the first time since he had arrived on Earth, so many years ago, Vegeta panicked.

"I want .... you... much, so much so beautiful..." Osiris smiled, his once sparkling bronze eyes now a dull and cloudy glazed earthen tone.

"I am no one's!" Vegeta snapped, panting, confused. He collected his wits slowly and said, almost regretfully: "Good-bye, Osiris."

He powered up carefully, and proceeded to blast the shell of what used to be Osiris with all the power he held.

"Mine, all mine..." The god managed to squeak out, before his earthy remains were scorched by furious battle ki into a small pile of ash and flesh-laced bone.

Vegtea snarled again and increased the power feed. In one spectacular burst of light, Osiris was not only dead for certain, but there is a huge hole in the blasted ground where he had BEEN.

Vegeta stared at it for a long time, amazed by his wish to weep for the death of such a foul and perverted creature.

He shook his head roughly and errected the shields that protected his mind and thoughts once more.

Oh, yes, the poison was almost gone now, he could feel it. Yep. He was definitely feeling better. It was time to go smack Kakarotto and tell him to go home, then take what was his to his own domicile.

Weird, weird creature. He mused as he strolled almost casually back up the labyrinthian passage ways to the outside world. "mine"? Gods...

And then, without reason, a long-suppressed memory leapt into his head.

{"Mine" the white one said, caressing the young boy's inner thigh. "So pretty. Ah, Vejiita no Ouji, all mine..." and then teeth came down, but the boy didn't dare scream...)

Vegeta flipped. The pain and terror of that even took over, was refreshed, and Vegeta lashed out at the cause of such a flood of un-wanted feelings and thoughts.

With all the ki he possessed, he struck out at the remains of a statue of Osiris.

Vegeta stood with his arm outstretched, trembling beyond control, for a very long moment. How the HELL could that little prick affect him so much?

He turned with one last contemptuous glare and took to the air, wobbling a bit as he flew towards the ki signatures of the others outside...

***

END PART SEVEN

***

***

gk:*just abot done with all the zombies* *they pretty much stopped being a threat once O bit the dust*

Das:*standing next to felix*

Felix: This is just too much. Do you have a smoke?

das: *snorts softly* no, you moron. *no anger in her voice - just ribbing each other* *Actually, sounds kind of shaky* You know I cant' stand that smell.

F: *snorts* Fine.

D: *sticks her tongue out at him* *slowly* *and with great aplomb* *Abruptly screams, grabs her head, and falls to her knees*

F: Fine then, I... *freezes* *staring at nothing.* *suddenly shaking, not moving.* *sudden scream*

Max: *just plain... falls down.* *gasping, clutching at his chest*

Gk: *blinks, scratches head.* Um? You guys okay?

das: ugh...wh... ugh..my ...my heart...it...*winces*

***

A: *OVER v'S shoulder* *suddenly awake* No no nooooooooaaaaaaaahh! Lemmie go lemmie go! *thinking he's O*

v: *swats you* shut up, stupid woman.Unless you WANT to stay here with the truly dead. *in opposition to his harsh words, strokes your cheek with his tail*

A: wah..... Ve--vegeta?

v: yes, stupid. Vejiita. Prince. Conquror. *grins* the winner.*quite pleased with himself* *not feeling nearly as ill as he was a few minutes ago*

gk: *feels them coming and shouts down the hall* Hey, guuuuuuys! Over here!

A: *looks up, trying to see over V's shoulder* Goku?

***

das: *pushes herself up, shakily* wha....ow...*holds her head* *blinks*

F: *Curls up on the ground, trying to relax.* Holy fuck.

gk:*blinks* is that possible?

das: *shaky laugh* he's dead. he's got to be dead.nothing else could feel like that. Either he's dead or we are...

gk: *looks at himself* *looks up* nope. We're not dead. *He WOULD know, afterall*

M: *says nothing, shaking his head*

***

v: *heads toward everybody* *hasn't put Ark down yet* *spoils of war, and all that*

A: You can, put me down... now... *gah, what a possesive jerk. I HAVE my own feet*

v: *announces* Osiris is dead. I have killed him. *not putting you down*

gk: *blinks* You did? How?

v:*Glares* By destroying him, moron. Poison and ki. Wonderful combination. *stiiiiiiiiiill hasn't put you down* *tail tickles her nose, slipping around her neck warmly.*

das: *shaky* you...he....*starts to laugh, very quietly* *Tears running down her face* He's...really....dead?

A:Vegeta.... *giggles, wiggles a little* stop it....

F: *looks up, eyes wide.* Now I really need a cigar. Or a bottle of bourbon. Max?

M: Shut UP, Felix. Damn. *considers*

gk: That's GREAT, Vejiita!

Bulma: *finally comes in, out of breath**was cariied by Yaumcha, who's there with Krillin WHERE IS THAT MORON?!?! *stops v* *poitns* YOU!!!!!!!!

v: *looks at her casually*

A: ???

b: you INCOMPORABLE ASS!! *waves a hypodermic* you just...TAKE that stuff and waltz AWAY?!?

v: yes. my constitution can handle it.

F: Hey. *to Bulma* I remember you... *stands, or at least, tries to.**collapes back onto his ass rather ungracefully.**nope, not gonna stand. Finally feels it. Starts to cry too.*

M: *Just... stares at nothing, tears in his eyes*

das: *on her back now, still laughing/crying* *relief like cold water refreshing you* *whispered* its' over. gods. it's finally over...

M: *crawls over to das.* Are you okay hon?

das: *smiles at him* I am now. I'm free. WE'RE free. *shudders* I half believed him when he said if he died, we'd die...

M: ...Finally....

F: *softly, eyes on the stars* He was a liar all along.

gk: *helps felix into a sitting position* Well, yeah. Bad guys do that. *simple philosophy*

das: *snorts* So do gods.

v: *turns eyes to Das, snaps* he wasnt' a god, idiot. And if he was, then that makes me a destroyer of gods. *grins*

das: *Rolls her eyes*

b: *back to v* you STUPID son of a BITCH!

v: *doenst' bother answering tirade* *Finally puts Ark down*

gk: *blinks* Bulma. What's wrong?

v: *ignores everybdoy* *lofty* *Wobbles a bit* *okay, maybe not COMPLETLY well....*

b: *Stares at his neck* *all but has steam coming out of her ears* You...MORON!!!

gk: *tries to help Das sit up* *wants to help everybody, really...*

b: you ...were bitten?*stares*

v: Yes. It was the only way to ge tinside.

b: *heads over and starts inspecting V'sneck, which is still torn to shreds* *inspecting* *looks shaken and pale* Vejiita...this is bad. If what you say is true, then the vampiric enzyme must be your system. As is the poison. This...*looks at her antidote* this may not be enough.

gk: what? what do you mean, Bulma?

b;*shaking* Vejiita, I think you're dying.

v: I am not dying. idiot.' *feels...okay* *just a little dizzy* I feel better than I DID, fool.

A: *concerned.* NO way. He can't be dieing... Not after what he just did.

b: *sighs* *runs her hand through her hair* This moron you're in love with took poison, Ark.

Dont' put anything past him. *sighs, and gets the hypodermic ready, being very careful to keep her back turned to Goku so he wouldn't see it and freak.* Okay. I'm going to give oy this...

Hold STILL..if this needle breaks wie'll have to wait until I get back to the CC...

A:*glares at vegeta like: I'm not in the mood to argue with out about 'pathetic' human medicine. Do it.*

b: *injects*

V: *winces* *ow ow ow ow...**Yet, looks impervious* *FINE with needles, thank you ver much* *ow ow ow ow..**falls to his rear in the sand, trying to make it look like he DECIDED to sit down, not fall*

A: *sees his eyebrows twitch* *rolls eyes. baby.*

b: *frowns* *looking for some specific reaciton, obviously*

Yaumcha (who brought Bulma there): Gokuu...Ark...you guys all right?

A: yeah. *crouches* Vegeta, you okay? Do you wanna go now?

v:*wobbles again* *hand to his head* *snorts at you* I'm fine. *lofty* Yes.I...want to go now.

A: Um, okay. *looks at v's tail which was wrapped tightly around her wrist, if not because he was terrified to be alone at that moment, then at least for balance.*

das:*blinks* hey... I get it. thre...three grips..gods, he has a TAIL... Heh. bet you didnt' know you were bedding your master's doom, did you, Losy?

A: *sends her a glare*

gk: *looks* Vejita, you don't look well. Take him home, guys. We can clean up here.

v:*wobbles again* *scowls* *Stupid traitorous body....*

b: *frowning* This isnt' working. We have to go now.

ya: hon? *holds out his arms*

b: Yamucha, take me home. Super speed.

b: Meet us there, Ark. he's gonna be okay. One way or another.

v: *course I'm gonna be okay...idiots...*

A: What does that mean? Bulma?

b: Tell you there, okay?

ya: *learned a long time ago to obey Bulma when Bulma is in a

mood* *Takes her and leaves*

F: *just stares*Well, how the hell am I supposed to get back to New York?

gk:*beams* well, I can take you.

A: But... *but Bulma and Yaumcha are gone.*

gk: I got this techinque, see, where I can zap you back from anywhere! It's cool. Wanna try?

F: *eyes him* Yeah sure. What are YOU on?

gk: *blinks* on? *looks down* *shrugs* the ground?

A: But, BULMA...! *turns to Ve.* Let's just follow okay? Get up, let's go.

v:*nods at her once* *damn...really, NOT feeling well physically*

v: *snortS* *to Felix* Kakarotto has brain damage. Ignore his more foolish statements and take advantage of his- *wobbles* - his offer. *tried to get to his feet, but can only lean against the pyramid wall, panting*

F: Um... okay... *holds out hand*

gk: *beams* *takes his hand* *presses two fingers to his forehead* *proceeds to disappear*

F: *just has time to yelp*

das: ack! where'd they go?

v: *feels like he's trying to move an already dead body.* *but...that's not the odd thing* *his BODY feels crappy yes, but...* *his mind feels...clear. Frighteningly so.* *more clear than it normally does* *in fact, he's finding that he's remembering even tiny incidents of a few days ago with startling clarity* *rubs his forehead...this si beginning to hurt*

A: *sees this wierd look on his face. *vegeta?

gk: *reappears* *beams* Next?

das: *stares* Are you people demons or what? *blinks*

Gk:Demons? no. *looks politely puzzled* Vegeta says I'm a Saiyan.

das: *looks at Ark, crawling to her feet* We're gonna come visit later, okay? Have a party. A real party. *wipes more tears away* So..you keep him alive. I want to get to know the man who did in Osiris.

gk:*hand on her shoulder* *Softly* I'll take you back now. Okay? *nods, still crying*

gk/das: *Disappear*

A: *holds out hand for Vegeta, trying to haul him upright.* C'mon. I'm not gonna carry you, idiot.

v:*roughly* take me home, Ark. I...feel ill.

A: *perturbed. He never admits feeling bad* Sure... But, maybe we should just go check in with Bulma, okay?

v: I don't care. Just..take me out of here. *hasn't stood* *holds his head in both hands now*

A: *soflty* Okay, just... hold onto me. *crouches in his embrace. And proceedes to dissolve*

v: *hangs on to you* *more so than usual**clinging, his tail wrapped around her wrist until he was almost bruising her.*

Max: *blinks and looks around... alone* Well, this is no good. Where's my cell phone? Crap, I lost it when I fell out of the plane.

gk: *takes care of everybdy there*

***

v: *Silent* *didn't say a word, even when they got to the cc*

b: *working frantically in the lab and cursing Saiyan composition* *talking at yaumcha, who doesn't really understand but listens anyway* *loves her, after all* ...so Saiyns have SUCH a strong composition that it just absorbs anything it gets HIT with... which makes them harder to turn into vampires, but it also makes them harder to HEAL...

A: *re-appears on the floor**Rests her head on his shoulder breifly* Just hold on... You think you can get up? *worried*

v: *swallows once* ah.. Just...put me down somewhere. *his mind is racing* *WAY too fast*

A: *Moves him over to the table* *Not stronmg enought to lift him, so she motions to Yaumcha, and the wo of him sort of drag Vegeta.* Do you want to lie down?

b:*Sighs* Soenst' matter. take him in there- *points* the guest bedroom.

A: *nods* Okay. Vegeta? *Yaumcha and she begin to move him towards the end of the hall*

v: *grunts and that's it* *has begiun to shake, just a bit*

b: *continues working franctically, cursing Saiyans* Just get him settled and then come back

in here.

A: Um, sure.

v: *goes without protest* *not one* *in fact, LETTING you lead him*

Y: *gets the Prince settled, then goes back to Bulma*

A: *does just that, lingering in the door frame. Something is just too WRONG* Vegeta, is there something you... is somehing bothering you?

v: *snorts softly* no. *mind is racing just..way too fast* *it hurts* I'm fine. *heads for the bed and flops on it*

A: *sighs* No, I didn't think so. *leaves* *in the hall* There's never anythign wrong with you, is there?

***

v: *snorts softly* *closes his eyes and tries to amke the weird, weird images go away*

***

A: *re-enters the lab, very dirty and very tired. *

b: *still cursing*: you want the short version, Ark?

A: *the transportation nearly wiped her right out. Rubs tmeples* THat's all I can handle right now.

b: kay.

A: *flops onto a chair*

b: your idiot of a lover injested poison menat to kill vampires and talked Osiris into biting him.

That about sum it up? *fuming*

A: Yeah? So... that doesn't... oh... oh... shit... *hits her* I... I made him... Bulma... *looks up.*

b: *not lookig at you* I dont' know HOW he lived this long. I have the sample of his blood here, and....*stops* *stares at it*

A: I made him drink my own blood... to heal the... the wounds that Osiris... *buries head in hands* Oh, no no no...

b: but... Stares at the vial in her hand* that...doest make any sense. *frowns* Okay. you know, Ark...

A: *can't bare to look up*

b: that it's nearly impossible to turn him into a vampire. Right? Because hsi body is such that it just absorbs any foreign matter and disposes of it. Well...I... *sighs* he DID that this time. According to this, his blood is clean. So..then..wahtever his problem IS... It's not the poison.

*looks quite baffled* I'll need anotehr sample.

A: *looks up* What do you mean?.. not the poison?

b: no. *forwns* Excuse me for a moment. *retreats to v's room*

ya: *looks at you* you okay, Ark? *puts a hand on her shoulder, leaning down to hug her*

A: Not now, Ya-san. You smell too good. I'm starving. *he smiles gently, and striaghtens**thinking* So, if his blood is clean. I didn't do anything. Osiris didn't do anything. So what's wrong with him?

b: *comes back out, cursing at everybody* *has a new vail of blood* That man is IMPOSSIBLE! I Dont' know how you live with him. *tests the blood* *Stares* it's...clean.

b; *frowns* there's somethign wrong with him, ark, but... I dont' know what it is.

A: Clean, huh?

b: *looks helpless* Kami. I can't...do ANYTHING. *nods*

ya: *holds b* hey. it's okay.

b:*Sighs* I hate being helpless.... *sigh again* you'd better go check him, Ark. whatever his problem is, it's not showiung up in his blood stream.

A: *frowns* What do you want me to do? *craves the same sort of comfort b is getting.*

B: *sighs, eyes closed* *been an exhausting couple of days* I don't know. find out if he hit his head or something. Could just be vapors.

ya: *snorts* I thought only women could get vapors.

b: *weak smile* or big babies. Which he IS. *Really, is about ready to collapse*

ya: I'm taking you to bed now. You're going to sleep. sorry, Ark..she's bushed.

b: no... I have more to DO...*loses* *ya takes her to bed*

A: Sure. *walks away, a little jealous of such open affection. Runs into Dr. Briefs and Boxer in the halls* Sure thing.

Boxer: Hi. Ark! *moves to hug her and Breifs stops her*

Dr: Careful Boxer, she's sore.

A: *smiles gently* Boxer hun, you wanna go help put your mom to bed?

box:*brightly* SUre!

box/drb: *head that way*

A: *looks at the innocent little kid, recalling her and Vegeta's conversation about Trunks. Bozer was, essentailly, half of Trunks.* *sighs, and heads back to v's room*

*no sound from v's room*

A: *small twist in her heart.* Poor little guy. He's got no idea.... *creeks open the door*

v: *curled up on the bed, holding his head* *shaking* *shakes hard and winces* Kami....DAMNIT....

A: *Kneels at the head of the bed* Vegeta....

v: *pants* *is sweating badly* Get...something...from that green haired twit out there to knock me out.

A: You... just need to calm down to sleep or something. You must be worn out.

v: I want to be unconscious. *mutters* Give my tail for a tank right about now..

A: Bulma says there's nothing else wrong. *he snorts* And you smell okay.

v: *shakign visibly* *snaps* of course I'm fine. I...need rest. that is all. rest. *winces as though hit for no apparent reason at all*

A: You're just... stressed out? *at a loss.* Damnit! I wish that other Bulma's tank was here.

v: *beathign quickens* DAMNIT! what... *Rols over to lay on his back, breathing too quickly*

A: *jumps at his shout*

v: *sweating morenow*

A: *Sits on the edge of the bed* *touches his shoulders*

v: *presses the heels of his palms into his forehead, like a young child*

A: Vegeta, please, just.. calm down...

v: *jumps when she touches his shoulder* I AM calm! moron... *winces again* *shouts ..at something BESIDE you* DON'T TOUCH M- : *stops nad blinks* *sighs* *nothing there* *mutters* great. seeing thigns. wonderful.

A: *jumps back*

v: stupid poison.. she didnt' TELL me it would make me hallucinate! Moronic woman.

A: Hallucinate?

v: hallucinate. see thigns. whatever. damnit...

A: But, *at a loss* it's not doing anything, Vegeta! It's GONE.

v: tell yout idiot friend with the green hair that if she doesn't - *blinks at you* what do you mean, gone? It is not GONE. It is in my BLOOD and setting my brain on FIRE.

A: *moves foreward* I mean GONE. IT's not IN your system anymore.

v: Ican FEEL it. It is NOT. GONE.

A: Would Bulma lie to me?

V: *snorts* no. Then she must be mistaken. ..has to be. *swallows hard and rubs his forehead* She has to be.

.

A: *annoyed* NO. It's something else.

v: *shaking again* *jumps at nothing* *stares at ...well,nothing...beside the bed for a moment*

*shakes his head hard* damnit...

A: *sits on teh bed again, as close as possible.*

v: *definitely hyperventilating now* *sweating badly* Thats' it. just...knock me out.

Hit me or something.

A: Ve....? *tentitively reaching out. * Now you're scaring me.

v I Can't wait any longer. *snorts* nothign to be scared of.

A: I don't want to.. hit you.

v: *Glares at you* fine. don't then. it's just an adverse reacion to that THING sucking my blood. That's all. *lies back down again* Or mabe a reaction to his blood... bah. I dont' know.

A: Sure? I don't want to hurt you anymore... but...

v: maybe I hit my head on the way out. *weak chuckle* *snorts* I want to be unconscious, woman. I dont' care if it's by drugs or not, but I can't SLEEP like this *winces at nothing again*

A: *frowns* maybe you shouldn't sleep.

v; *Snorts* *no malice* whose side are you one?

A: It might not be safe! And you cna't guilt trip me.

v:*sihgs* fine, not safe. the nightmare demons mgiht get me. whatever, Ark. *winces again* damnit... *holds his head in both hands*

A: *snarls* YOu want me to put you out, you arrogant jack ass?!

v: *tiny grin at you* *LOVES getting you angry* yes, I do. *ha* *won* *made you lose your temper, la la la* *starts to gloat, and then suddenly grips his head and screams*

A: *crosses arms* fine! *slaps him, but not hard enough to do anything.*jumps away as she screams* Shit!

v: *makes a soft, hurt sound - not onethat you'ev ever heard him make before* *it sounds too YOUNG to be coming fom him*

A: Vegeta? *sits back back on the edge of the bed.* Koibito...?

 v: *softly* hate you all.. *winces again* *not talking to you - somnehow, you can FEEL that*

v: *gasps for breath and seems to come back to himself* *stare around the room, wide-eyed*

A: Vegeta... who are you talking to? YOu hate who?

v; *Actually looks scared* wh..what.... where...

A: *swallows hard* You're here. With.. with me. We're in CC. *leans over him*

v: Stares at you blankly for a moment* *Definitely afraid* Yes. of course. : *trembling* *you have NEVER seen him like that before* *still looks spooked* You sure?

A: Of.. of course I'm sure! Are you... what's wrong? You said you were seeing things.

v: I didnt'...go anywhere just now, or..

A: Maybe *refering to his mental state, not his physical one* ... are you alright?

v: what do you mean, MAYBE? did I go anywhere or NOT?

A: NO. You've been here, with me. Vegeta, you're... *stunned* You're trembling...

v: *mutters* damnit....what did that bastard do to me....

A: *crawls up next to him, hugging his waist* He can't have done much, not with just.... He's dead.

v: *shaking* I KNOW that, you idiot. I killed him myself. *shaking still* He did something. this HAS to be because of him. no other reason. *vainly trying to rationalize*

A: *tries to hold him still* I think you're just over tired.

V: bah.I have been overtired. I have never been like THIS before. this is not overtired. *thinks a moment* was his blood different from yours?

A: *only nods* *kisses the back of his neck*

v: *can't seem to stop shaking* well? is it? Is there some key ingredient in his blood that's missing in yours? It must be when I ingested that. I cant' think of another reason.

A: What do you mean?

v: *shrugs* he insisted that I drink a good portion of his blood. sick bastard. Got a real kick out of it, the moron. feh.

A: *froze* YOu... didn't..

v: *shaking, so doesnt' really notice that you're frozen* Didnt' WHAT?

A: DO anything...

v: *puzzled* do anything..? *winces again* argh!

A: I mean.... you didn't... He didn't make you....*holds him close* *sits up to look him in the eyes*

v: *snorts*

A: Did you do what he wanted?

v: *dryly* you mean, did he feel the urge to rape me as we sat out there on the sand? He did not. if that's what you mean. I didn't let him do anything like that to me. Of course I did it. to a degreee. I had to get INSIDE.

A: .... *horrified*

v: *Shrugs* he wanted me to drink some of his blood, fine. whatever. What? why in hell would that matter? *joking* what, he doenst' usually make new converts drink his blood? I suppose that's a special rite, or something?

A: Well, Yes! It is!

v: *blinks*

A: But.. if you didin't... DO anything.. then maybe we're okay. I was worried about it...

v *blinks* ...why? What ...would it matter? And what do you mean, DO anything?

A: *glares at him* What, you think all that sex shit was just sex?

v: *snorts at her*

A: It's an instinct to bind you closer.

v: ex - *winces again* *shaking more* explain what you mean, woman. I...am not thinking as clearly as I ought.

A: *softly, leaning closer* Ever wonder why I don't let you drink from me?

v: *blinks* no. I never had the urge to. *shrugs* why would you want me to do so?

A: *rolls eyes* Thank god. Kami knows I've wanted you to often enough.

v: *blinks at you* : well..why SHOULDN'T I? You drink from ME.

A: Not the same. It's the vampiric instinct. To procreate... to claim children and... make them... make YOU MINE.

v: *blinks* ...what? *osiris used that word* *that..."mine" word* So you can drink from me but I can't drink from you? *snorts* Okay. so what difference does it make that he wished me to do that? *wry smile* he DID talk about replacing you. Moron that he is.

A: It meant that I *freezes*... he what?  *almost...insulted*

v: *weak chuckle* he was upset that you hadnt' "trained me." *sneers it* Until he discovered that it was the other way around. I caught YOU. Not you me. Then he waxed eloquent on wiping out all his old children and starting anew, or some such shit.

A: Well... I guess he assumed... that I HAD followed the rites.

v: I was just wasting time. *snorts* Even offered to let me keep you. Joy. *snrots* I know of no rites.

A: Of course not! I ... hid them...

v: He was more insane than you'd ever indicated, Ark. He thought he was a GOD.

A: He was a god. At least, a very long time ago he was, to millions of people. He had control eery thing, and every body's mind.... he was teh leader of a cult, for kami's sake... he could do ANYTHING he wanted.. and TAKE anything or any ONE he wanted... and I ... I... *squeezes eyes shut* No... He's GONE... don't want to talk about him ...right ...now....

v:*snortS* fine. dont', then. He's dead. I killed him. *grins* He wanted to me ME like him - and instead, I killed him. : *closes his eyes* good day, I thin- *winces again* I...*trembling* suppose....this is...part...of that. Something...to do wtih...the blood, or...

A: *sighs* If it was, it shouldn't be like this... I don't think...

v:*wincing* *has started to curl up agin* *says an odd thing* I just wish I could turn off my mind....

A:*stares, lost and helpless*... *finally sits up.* Do you want me to go?

v: *Snorts* I dont' care. No. *thinking: don't wanna be alone* I..gods... I havent' even THOUGHT of this in..such a long TIME..

A: Then.. then I'll go.

v: *snorts* I didnt' TELL you to go, woman.

A: *Turns back to him* Did I ASK your permission?

v:*snorts* you asked me if I wanted you to. Fine. leave then, since you're so eager to. *trembles**rolls onto his other side*

A: I was just being nice. *turns back to him, expecting to see the familiar 'come here' look, but only sees his rude gesture* You obvoiusly don't want me around. *stares at his back* You don't have to be such a jerk all the time.

v: *snorts softly* What, you'd rather me be posy and weak?

A: NO, I'd rather you let me IN sometimes!

v: I can't be weak, woman. I can NOT. if I were weak, I woudl die.

A: *sighs, opens door* Of course you can't. BEcause there are so many things in this universe that can kill you. *sarcastic without meaning it* Do you want to know what you really are? You're a chauvanistic asshole.

v: *snorts* *hunches furhter* Whatever you say, Ark. Go on, then. Find somebody weak to play with.

A: *horrified that he would even suggest it, she quickly ignores he even said it* You can't even ask for help! even if you need it!

v: I dont' NEED help! *winces again*

A: And I don't WANT anyone else!

v *strained voice* it's..simple... you need...someone...then you are ..you..can LOSE that somethig, and you're WEAK. I caNT' AFFORD WEAKNESS! *is curled up now*

A: SO... I'm a weakness...

V: *Sighs* NO.

A: Fine.

V: Never mind. I dont' expect you to get it. You're not a warrior.

A: I try!

v: *slight pause* : I know.

A: Why can't you ever be straight with me....?

v: *another slight pause*  I am what I am, woman. I havr been what I am for many, many years. You cant' expect me to change. But you also cant' assume you KNOW me. You don't., not as well as you think you do.

A: No. *small breath* No, I don't. I just wish it didn't have to be like that.

v: *isnt' mentioning that he was perfectly willing to die for you* *just...not bringint it up, although it's true* *why? not really necedssary*

A: But I wish you'd at least let me try.

v:*Sighs* I never told you you could not.

A: But you never let me IN.

v:*doesnt' answer*

gk's voice from outside* oi! Ark! I'm. Back..hello!

A: *looks at the door* In a minute, SOn-kun.

gk: oi! *sounding quite cheerful*

v: *hunched* *in SUCH pain...* *not gonna say anything, though* *That kind of weakness is not allowed*

A: Maybe.. *looks back at v*.. I'll be right out, okay?

v: *in a fetal position at this point* *very silent*

A: *goes back to him, a gentle hand on his shoulder.* DO you want me to put you out? : I'll find some drugs or something... Yaumcha's gotta have pills. Then, maybe after some rest, you'll feel better?

v: *tries to answer and can't* *Settles for a grunt*: *gods, this hurts...*

A: I ... suppose that was a yes? *turns back to door* I'm coming, Son-kun. *rubs head.. neeeeeed sleep. AN a really big bottle of blood would be nice too. That leftover stuff from the bloodbank... warmed up in a bowl... mmmm...**opens door.*

gk: *beams* Hiya, Ark! *hugs you immediately* *a bit too tightly*

A: *oof. Ow.* Little more gentle, goku-san. I'm very sore today.

gk: ooh..sorry, Ark-chan. *lets you go* *beams* It's all over, ne? How does it feel? *pats you on the back*

A: *sighs* It's okay. I know you didin't mean it. *grabs his hand to prevent him from knocking her right over* It... feels empty. *hand over heart* He used to be there all the time, and now there's nothing. I'm not sure if I like it.

gk:*sobers immediately**softly* I know. That's what the others said. It'll be okay, though, Ark. Anno, we'll fill it up with something else, ne?

A: *looks back at the closed door* Yeah. Sure. *long pause* *truns back to gk**frowns* Is it a saiyan thing, Goku?

gk: huh? Is what, Ark?

A: Refusing to let anyone near you. Or is it just him? And.. sometimes me...

gk: *sighs* It's a Vejiita thing, Ark. He's... He..has these shields. When I fused with him, I got to see them. Theyr'e really tough.

A: *snorts* Tell me about it.

gk: And they're there because that's the only way he survived growing up. He NEEDS them. but... I don't think he understands that he doesnt' need them any more beccause his FRIENDS are his shields. He doesnt' really understand he has us. Y'know? I's a totally foreign (WOULD GOKU SAY "FOREIGN"?) concept to him.

A: *puzzled* What did he need them for? *He doesn't answer* Goku?

gk: hm?

A: Why the shields at all? *wants to just sleeeeep, which reminds her--Vejii's pills*

gk: *considers* well...

A: What doesn't he want to remember?

gk: eh...you know... I think maybe..he ought to tell you that. *looks mildly embarassed*I mean..you know the basic facts.

A:....?

gk :Alone, last saiyan of royal blood, and all that. But... it...takes a lot... to make one of the last memebrs of his race...: do something like destory Nappa without even looking back. He had come to the point that he didn't even care if his own people went extinct. I dont' think you know how much you've changed him already, Ark.

A: *to herself* I didn't see him do that. He really... just didn't flinch?

gk: *pants you on the shoulder agian* well.. I ogtta take a shower. Bulma says I could kill a horse at ten paces. *brightly*

A: Yes. Of course. Goku...

gk: hm?

A: Please, you've been inside of him.

gk: *sobers again* yeah.

A: What won't he tell me? What is it he won't remember?

gk:*snorts softly, and for a moment loses all his boyishness* *For a moment actually looks like an adult saiyan of indeterminate age* More than you have any idea, Ark. Much more. *turns to go* *pauses* Hey, ark?

A: *looks at the floor, then, turns back to the door* Yeah?

gk: what does 'A'nen kekewey ' mean?

A: *looks up* Huh? It... *thinks* it was... "return to ... memory"? "Find the black thoughts"?no. It was "Bring back the darkness." It meant...um *brows furrow*  "remember the evil." *looks up, puzzled.* But, I've never spoken that language infront of you.

gk: Oh. *looks puzzled* Weird. Okay. *starts to go wihtout explaining just becase...well, he's gokuu*

A: Why? Where did you hear it? Gokuu!

gk: *turns* Oh, Osiris shouted it before he died. That's all.

A: *stops*

gk: Dunno. just...sounded important to me. A poweful word, you know what I mean? Well, see you later! *leaves*

A: *stomouch turns* .... Ve...geta. It wasn't the poison at all. Oh, kami, what did that bastard do to you...? *pushes the door in violently* Vegeta! I know what's happened! *freezes, gawking*

v: *on the floor, curled up as tightly as he could possible go* *has blood on his fingernails from where he's been clawing at his head* *shaking*

A: Good god! Vegeta , stop it! *grabs his hands*

v:*jumps*

A: Please, you have to stop!

v: *stares at you**no recognition on his face* *none at all*

A:*looks in his eyes* Vegeta... stop thinking about it. Whatever it is, stop thinking about it!

v: *blinks*: *blinks again, harder* *looks at you - no sheilds, nothing but him - very scared* I.. I can't...

A: I know you won't tell me, but please, you're hurting yourself!

v: I c...I can't...s-stop...  I understand that now, *determined, but scared for him* You have to. Aren't you the one who brags about being strong? So over come it!

v: *Sobs once* I c..can't..  Please... make is stop... *whines*

A: *all she wants to do his hug him... and does* *rocks slowly, back and forth* *He doesn't pull away or anything* *is about in the same condition he was when he died on Namek*

A: I... I can only think of one way to rid your blood of this curse. I want to help you... Will you.. let me?

v: *another sob* *okay, so he's worse than he was on Namek* You can't... it's..my fault, and you can't h..help...

A: *kisses his neck softly* Memory hurts so much, I know. I felt it every time you touched me, for months. I remembered Osiris. But I know what it is now... and I can help you, but you have to want to let me, or it won't work.

V: You...c-can't... Ark, please! Make it go away! 

A: I will, Koibito, I will.... *bites his neck.* *begins suckle softly, and it instantly sucked into his mind. She searches vainly for his barriers with her dream-self, his own unconscious leading the way past the chinks in the brick-work of the walls he kept errected.**searching searching, until she found one particular citidel of repressed memories that was crumbling beneath the burden of Osiris's words.*

A:*takes a deep calming breath, then holds out her hands, absorbing the memories and curse into herself*

And instantly became Vegeta, age twelve. She was only mildly surprised that she/he was standing beside Freeza.

Freeza placed a cold hand on his/her shoulder, and smiled almost benevolently down at him/her. "You knew, didn't you." he sighed dramatically, almost as if it really hurt him to watch Vejiita-sei burn from space.

"I told you, little prince. I warned you that telling anyone would make this happen. But.." the benevolence faded into mock disappointment. "You're much to stubborn for your own good." Freeza leaned in close, his breath tickling Vegeta's face. "So what have we learned from this, hmmm?" Ark felt herself tremble, feeling the clear salt-water tears streaming over her twelve-year old face. But it wasn't HER face...

"I-- I'm s-sorry!" he/she sobbed. "I'll be good from now on! I'll do whatever you want! I won't fight you anymore... please don't kill them all!"

"Oh, not all of them." Freeza chuckled, one cold, clammy hand coming to rest against Vegeta/Ark's shoulder.

[flash of white in a black room. Purple, chuckles, "Miss me, little Prince. Stand for me. Take that off...]

He/she fought not to flinch away. No weaknesses were to exist, none could be shown. "I'll keep a few around to keep you under control, Little Prince. Nappa... he's stupid enough. Raddittzu's blind loyalty to you will be useful as well."

[No one in the palace knew... kept secret for years and years... "Tell them and I'll kill them all... and it will be you fault, the destruction of your species." Ground teeth together, obeyed. Damn that fucking jerk I'm going to fucking kill him for what's he's done to our people, we are not slaves and you cannot make me... aaargh!]

Vegeta/Ark reflected bitterly on all of the other off-world Saiya-jinn. The babies purging other worlds, Turles' gang looting energy with the Tree of Might... would Freeza hunt them down and destroy them as well... would they, too, die for the sins of their young Prince?

Best not to think on them, he decided. They're lost.

Chibi Vegeta/Ark wanted to swear. To cuss out loud. He/She did, and was immediately smacked by Freeza, the icy white hand sliding across his/her cheek, rending the skin.

"Not again!" Freeza hissed, tongue actually darting out. "Catamite, manners!"

Vegeta/Ark sucked on the blood angrily, not wanting this monster to enjoy seeing him bleed.

The word 'catamite' rang in his/her ears. Freeza had used this word many times before...

["bend over the end of the bed, little Prince. Say nothing, catamite... just .. Yes... ahhhh... that's it... squeeze harder... yes... fight me... ohhh.. How delicious, little weakling....]

As Vejiita-sie burned in space, Vegeta/Ark turned away from the large viewing ports. There was nothing worth watching anymore. King Vegeta had been slaughtered before young Vegeta/Ark's eyes, and that made him/her angry too.

Not because he/she had CARED emotionally about the King, but that he/she wasn't the one to kill him! That meant, rightfully by tradition, the throne of Vejiita-sie belonged to Freeza... in order to get it back, the young Prince would have to kill Freeza.

Something he/she would enjoy very much... when he/she was strong enough.

Now, he/she bided his/her time, fighting against the torturous guilt.

He/she shook his/her head, and Vegeta looked back on the memory of the smoldering remains of Vejitta-sie floating through space where it had once orbited. Even the precious moon had be destroyed!

Kuso tare, shimmatta!!

And he had felt responsible to his people. Vegeta had told no one of the previous encounters, because Freeza warned him that if anyone else knew, all Saiya-jinn would suffer.

Vegeta had kept his tongue until the age of twelve. He followed Court ettiqute, he trained, he killed, he laughed at weakness and pathetic creatures... and inside he ached and twisted and drowned in darkness knowing, KNOWING that if Freeza were ever to bring his wrath down on Vejitta-sei... it would be HIS fault.

And Vegeta had CARED, damnit. He had WANTED to kill his father and claim the throne and be the strongest being in the universe. He was going to be a SuperSaiyajinn!

It was that odd sense of caring that destroyed his soul, made him Freeza's warrior-puppet... His little fuck toy and scapegoat.

And young Prince Vegeta swore he would never care about anything again... and Ark, trapped in his shattered mind, wept for him.

And then as suddenly as she had been sucked into Vegeta's mind, she was one again in her own, the whole of her weight upon her arms and knees. She had been unconsciously mimicking the loathed pose. Stigmata appeared on her shoulders, tiny crimson crescents that dripped slowly before sealing up... the deep biting marks of sharp obsidian fingernails.

Panting, Ark looked up and into the black-velvet eyes of her lover. Her knees seemed to want to give out at any second, her elbows buckling, and she could no longer support her weight on all fours.

Vegeta, like always, was there to catch her.

Ark parted her lips, wetting them, and began to speak.

"Shhhh." Vegeta commanded softly. Ark obeyed. "Don't."

"Naze, Vegeta...?" she said after a long, long moment, hands trembling as she reached up to cup his cheek. "Such insufferable guilt! He made you think it was all your fault! I'm sorry I never understood. I thought I had, but you never--"

"Quiet!" Vegeta snarled, but there was no menace in his tone, and engulfed her tiny, delicate hand in one torn and bloody glove. Ark was effectively silenced. "You look horrible. You sound like a fool. I'm taking you home."

Ark nodded slowly, and shivered, the remnants of the horrid nightmare still in her system.

Yes, foolish to think that this - all of this - would have changed Vegeta. Foolish to think that he could ever be affected by any sort of emotional trauma.

Damn him anyway.

But, as Vegeta lifted her into his strong embrace, his lips brushed her cheek softly, and Ark sighed and closed her eyes. "I love you, Vegeta-sama." she smiled softly.

"You mean more to me than I could ever tell you." Vegeta responded in a whisper, his voice resonant and low, quivering for the first -and possibly the last- time with emotion, "Aishiteru, Koibito."

***

The End

--Stan Rice

Never and Always * Two Are Better Than One * The Nightmare Cycle *  Ark's Adventures in HighschoolLand * The Ancient Art * Preludes to a Nightmare * What's Past is Present * Melencholy Miracles* History's Mirror