The New Age Empire v2: Book 2

~Chapter 12: The Abduction~

"Papa!" Bra shrieked as she ran his office a few hours after she, Pan, and Jakina had departed for the mall. The obviously upset girl took great gulps of air in an attempt to calm herself down. As she did that she was also trying to explain what happened and all that came out was incoherent babbling. Pan, who was in slightly better shape than her best-friend, began to explain the problem to Vegeta.

"We were at the mall and were window shopping," she began, "but when I turned around to ask Jackie-chan something she was gone! I mean, I didn't hear her leave or anything and we can't sense her ki anywhere!"

"You don't know where Jakina is?" he asked in the calmest voice he could manage. Neither girl could answer him, they only shook their heads no. "We'll have to wait at least a day before we go look for her. She should be able to escape whatever ningen kidnapped her." The two girls burst into tears at the word 'kidnapped'. "*Do not* tell the onna. Do you two understand me? She'll have the cops over here so fast the ningen tabloids wouldn't know what hit them."

"Yes sir," the said in unison.

"Good. Well, I'm done for now. How about some training to take your minds from this incident?"

"You seem so calm, Vegeta-ojisan, and we just lost your daughter!" Pan wailed this as if the world were ending. Vegeta's face was still completely blank.

"It was an accident," he said stiffly. "Besides, I know you both looked for her before you two left the mall so she'll probably be home before the day is over. I have faith that she will."

***

Goku held a large sub in his hand as he watched television in the family room no more than thirty minutes from the small meeting in Vegeta's office. His television show was interrupted suddenly by one of those infamous 'special reports' that they so often talk about. If it isn't a severe storm, a mass murder, or a presidential mishap it doesn't make the 'special' section. But this time the normal programming was interrupted by something very shocking.

"We have just heard, no more than twenty minutes ago, that Jakina-hime has been kidnapped! A reliable eyewhitness tape recorded a conversation between Vegeta-oui, Bra-hime, and Son Pan no more than thirty minutes ago."

There was a small crackle on the tape and then it began to play.

"We were at the mall and were window shopping but when I turned around to ask Jackie-chan something she was gone! I mean, I didn't hear her leave or anything and we can't sense her ki anywhere!"

"You don't know where Jakina is? We'll have to wait at least a day before we go look for her. She should be able to escape whatever ningen kidnapped her. *Do not* tell the onna. Do you two understand me? She'll have the cops over here so fast the ningen tabloids wouldn't know what hit them."

"Yes sir."

Goku frowned. That was definitely their voices. But how in the world did the news station's 'reliable whitness' record that? Finishing his sandwhich quickly, he contacted Vegeta while he chewed.

"Vegeta? Where in the world is your youngest?"

"That's none or your concern, Kakarott. She'll be along after while."

"As of this moment, I am appointing myself head of public safety. So now she *is* my concern."

He chucked slightly. "Kakarott, Kakarott have you forgotten that Jakina is demi-saiyan just like your three children are? A ningen would not be able to kill her."

"Sad to say there are more things out there then just death. There's torture and of course," he paused, "rape. If that criminal knocked her out with something, even for a saiyan it could be a long time before she woke up."

Vegeta's eyes widened where he froze in his sparring and Goku could now feel the worry from him. "They can torture her?"

"Hai."

"And r-r-rape her?!"

Goku's voice dropped to a mere whisper. "Hai."

"Then what the hell are we sitting around here for? We have to find her *now*!"

Just as he said that the front door banged open and in walked Jakina soaking wet from the storm that was raging outside. Her ponytail hung limply from her head and she wrung out excess water from her shirt onto the marble floor. She looked like a drowned rat and by the expression on her face, she felt like one too. Goku, Vegeta, Pan, and Bra all felt her ki as soon as she entered the house and sped off for her location. She looked up at them all with wet bangs trailing into her eyes and burst into tears.

"MY LIFE IS A LIVING NIGHTMARE!"

"What happened to you?" Bra asked as she and Pan hugged her so hard her breath momentarily left her body. Jakina coughed slightly and squirmed to get free.

"First, after I lost sight of you two, some strange man came up to me and the last thing I remembered was smelling something strange before I woke up in a very dark warehouse."

"It was chloroform, Jackie-chan," Bra told her. "You know like they use in all the movies when people are kidnapped."

The smaller girl shivered a little bit. "Kidnapped. Such an ugly word."

Vegeta spoke in a completely bland voice though what he wanted to do was hug her and never let her out of his site again. Who knew raising children was both so wonderful, fun, and nerve-wracking all at the same time? "What happened after you woke up?"

"I was tied up. One rope around both my hands behind my back and around the back of the chair I sat on and there was a thick, strong rope around my middle. I used ki to burn the ropes around my hands to ashes and just snapped the other ones."

"What did your-" he was interrupted by her look so he began again, "The people there with you, what did they look like?"

"There were both a male and a female. The man was the leader, I guess, because he kept to the shadows and barked out orders to people I couldn't see. The woman I think was the one who took me from the mall. She had bright auburn hair that I think was dyed and bright green eyes. There was a mole above her lips on the right side and she had a lot of piercings. One in her eyebrow, nose, four in each ear, and one through her belly button. I don't know about any others because her clothes were covering the rest. But she does have a pretty nasty scar -- might be a stab wound -- on her upper chest and a heart tattoo on her right ankle."

"You had time to observe all of this *when*?" Pan asked. "You weren't blindfolded?"

"Obviously not baka if she could see all that." Bra rolled her eyes.

"Yeah well after I got free I knocked that lady unconscious and the leader man took off. He was screaming something about 'That kid's not normal either! Run or she'll kill us!' I heard a lot of feet running toward an exit but I made my own one in the ceiling." She grinned proudly despite the horror she still felt. "But not until I tied up that stupid woman. She's probably still there if you want to go get her. It's the only warehouse by the border with a hole in the center."

Goku nodded once and ran out the front door. "I'm on it."

"He said 'That's kid's not normal either'," Vegeta mumbled to himself. "Is that who I think it is?"

"What's up Papa?" Jakina asked while yawning.

"Don't you worry Jackie-chan. Papa's going to take care of it."

"Can I watch?" she asked eagerly.

Vegeta actually considered it for a few moments before he shook his head. "Your mother would kill me. Besides, it's not something you should know about until you're much older."

"Oh I see," Jakina nodded. "You're gonna torture information out of her. Gotcha. Will you be using the rack or some other new method that I've never heard about?"

He groaned and pushed her gently towards the staircase. "Go. We'll talk later."

"Okay. See ya Papa!"

"Yeah, see ya." Both Bra and Pan echoed. The trio ran up the stairs and disappeared around a corner. Goku arrived with the trussed up woman and handed her off to Vegeta.

"Whitness or no?"

"Whitness. Basement cell number four. Audio and visual."

"Really?" he wrinkled his nose as if smelling something bad. "A visual? Are you sure?"

Vegeta smirked with a dark gleam in his eye that hadn't been there for years. "This onna has attempted to hurt my youngest child. I will want to watch this one for years to come."

"You've done this before." Goku sighed. "I should have known you knew what you were doing. I thought it was odd to have basement dungeons but you were the one in charge of the blueprints."

"Just do what I asked and be a whitness. You will not have nightmares over this, I promise you that."

"How come?" He pushed a certain stone in the wall that was the trigger to make the carefully concealed door slide away and the stairs that lead to the basement appear. No one went down there and up to that point it had never been used. Everything that they needed to store was done so in the vault.

"Besides the fact that you're saiyan and deep down you'll love this, I intend to spill not one drop of blood."

"Seriously?" he asked, eyes wide.

"Seriously. It's completely possible, Kakarott. I've used the method before."

Vegeta's soon-to-be-victim stirred in his arms just as they reached the cold cement floor after the last step. She groaned and began to open her eyes but Vegeta's hand was instantly there to cover them.

"I will need a bit of information from you about the kidnapping," he said in his best professional voice. "Don't worry. It doesn't have to hurt if you cooperate." Goku moved off down the hall, not really wanting to participate but knew they had to find out who was in charge *somehow*.

"Who are you?" she asked, very unfamiliar with the voice. She did not deny what she had done. As they reached cell number four, Vegeta sat her on a table and removed his hand.

"I am the man who's daughter you were paid to kidnap. I intend to find out who hired you and torture them mercilessly. I have a suspiscion though."

Bravely she sat there, arms folded across her stomach, a glare in her eyes. "You can't get that information from me, no matter what you do. I am fully prepared to die for my cause."

"Good," Vegeta said as he uncovered an array of nasty looking devices. "Just what I wanted to hear."

***

Goku sat in the A/V room wringing his hands as he both saw and heard what pain Vegeta could inflict when he was trying hard enough. A mere beating didn't even begin to compare to what he did to the woman. Physical pain only lasted as long as it took to heal, mental pain lasted a lifetime. Few things could make him flinch, watching someone torture someone else was now on that list. Previously only whitnessing the horrible death the Kamoku-jin had put his friends Krillin and Yamcha through was higher.

Ten minutes passed, then twenty, and then thirty and finally Vegeta entered the room. He checked the tape methodically as if he did it every day and commented on one small error.

"I broke the skin about half-way through. I'm slightly rusty."

Goku coughed in discomfort but remained silent.

"Enjoy it?"

The larger man blinked as if coming from a trance. "Nani?"

Waving his hand to encompass the everything, he said, "This."

Goku nodded. "I did and that scares me."

"Listen, Kakarott, you can take a man away from Vegeta-sei but you can not take Vegeta-sei from within the man. You were affected even though you only resided there a mere day. You can't help that. What you *can* help, though, it how far you go in either direction. Too much darkness isn't good but neither is too much light. If you expose a plant to too much sunlight does it not die? The same holds true for too much darkness. Saiyans, by nature, are not creatures of light."

"Then what am I supposed to do, Vegeta? It was wrong for me to take pleasure in the suffering of others."

"I've found a balance within myself between the darkness and the light," he turned slightly towards the monitor and gazed at the broken woman who still sat inside, "I suggest you do the same. Hmm, thirty-five minutes. Not bad. She's tougher than most."

Opening the door, he made his way back cell where he prepared to sentence his prisoner. Tilting her head up with his right hand, he smirked down at her face. "Any crime committed against any royal family member is punishable by death. Public execution tomorrow at sunrise." He released her head. "Rest assured that the Lord of Shadows will get what's coming to him as well."

***

The following day was gray and overcast, completely unlike the day before. The sun did not shine, the birds did not sing, the wind did not blow, and spirts were not high. Both the king and the queen attended the execution but for completely different reasons. Bulma did it out of obligation. It would be expected that she would be there to whitness the death of the one who had taken her daughter against her will. Vegeta, on the other hand, did it out of pleasure. He wanted that woman, who's name he didn't even know, to suffer. She should have never hoped to commit a crime against the royal family and live afterwards. What kind of government did they think he was running?

Jakina, Bra, Pan, and Trunks all stood behind the king and queen with somber expressions on their faces. All asked to attend and all were granted permission. Other than those six whitnesses, very few came. It took place in the backyard, away from the prying eyes of the Shadow Chasers and the media.

Goku was granted the privellege of bringing the woman out to her death. Of course he didn't see it that way but Vegeta insisted that this was one of the highest honors a king could bestow upon a subject. That and revenge. So Goku led the silent kidnapper out, her hands tied behind her back, and forced her to kneel over the block. Once he had stepped back, Vegeta was free to speak.

"I, Vegeta-oui the Tenth of the former planet of Vegeta-sei, bring the charge of abduction against," he paused. He needed to know her name for this part.

"Um, ma'am?" Goku knelt down. "What's your name?"

She refused to answer him instead choosing to glare. Goku shrugged.

"Fine then. I charge you, Jane Doe, with the abduction of Jakina-hime. How do you plead?"

She told him the truth. "Guilty."

"Do you have anything that you wish to say?"

"Remember this," she hissed, "the Lord of Shadows will not surrender. He is strong where I am weak. The Shadow Chasers will triumph!"

"Right." Vegeta said in a bored way. "The katana."

Trunks had volunteered his beloved weapon for the event. He said that anyone who dared to kidnap his sister ought to be killed in just such a away. Unfortunately he couldn't weild the blade himself. After passing his katana to his father, he stepped back into his place.

"I then find you, Jane Doe, guilty of abducting my youngest daughter." He drew back his arm. "Your master will be joining you in Hell shortly." In one swift movement, he brought Trunks' katana down upon her neck.

"WAIT!" Jakina cried out just as it was an inch away. Vegeta halted immediately and turned to look at her.

"Is something wrong?" Vegeta looked as if everything in the world would get better after she died. As if a single death would change everything.

"I know what she had done was horrible but no one deserves to die for any crime."

Her father spoke in a voice that would take no argument. "This fanatic will die for her crimes. I don't know how they used to handle things in a ningen court of law but this is my world now. My word is law."

"Fine," Jakina muttered and turned her head away. "You may continue." She kept her eyes closed until she heard the sound of steel hitting stone and a basket being taken away. Still she remained until the corpse was properly disposed of and Trunks' katana was cleaned completely of blood. It wasn't until she felt strong arms around her that she began to cry.