Chapter 24

Freeza looked them over slowly, one at a time. “The gang's all here, I see,” he said with a sneer. “It seems you have
a few partners in crime, Vegita. Starting a little rebellion against me, eh?”

Vegita smirked. “They're no partners of mine,” he said, straightening up. “I don't need them to defeat you, Freeza.”

“I see,” Freeza replied, smirking back. He glanced back down at Bulma again and smiled. “So we meet again,” he
said, nodding politely at her in greeting. “You cut our last encounter short, did you not? I hope you intend to stay
and chat a little longer this time.”

Bulma frowned at him. “Quit the confident act, Freeza,” she said coldly. “You've lost and you know it. Even if you do
manage to kill us, you will still have lost. Do you remember what I said to you when we first met? I said that I would
do whatever I could to keep you from winning. Well, I've done just that, Freeza. But I doubt I could have done it
without your help. Now that Saichorou is dead, the dragonballs have lost their power. Your plans are ruined, so I
have succeeded. You will be shadowed by your own mortality for the rest of your life.”

Freeza clenched his fists and bared his teeth. It was apparent that Bulma's words had rubbed him the wrong way.
But he regained his composure and smiled at her again. “That's all the more reason to make your death a long,
painful one,” he said, his eyes burning with hatred.

Bulma just glared at him defiantly. “Face it, Freeza,” she said icily. “If we don't succeed in destroying you, sooner or
later, someone else will. You're not infallible, you know. One day, you will find out that you're no longer the
strongest fighter in the universe. And on that day, you will pay for your crimes against all the civilizations and lives
you've destroyed!”

Freeza just snorted at her. “You're spouting nonsense,” he said haughtily. “There's no one in the universe who can
defeat me, and there never will be.”

“You're wrong,” Vegita said, stepping forward a bit. “And I'm going to prove it to you.”

Freeza glared distastefully at him. “I would expect to hear such ignorance from her,” he said, motioning toward
Bulma. “But you should have learned your place long ago, Vegita. You're nothing compared to me! And today you'll
finally come to grips with that when I snuff out your life as easily as the flame of a candle!”

“I say you're wrong,” Vegita said. “You underestimate how much I've improved, Freeza. Don't forget about a certain
property that we Saiyans possess in our physical makeup. Do you recall what happens when we recover from nearly
fatal injuries? Have you already forgotten how much it increases our power? It was this very property that caused you
to destroy my home planet and kill all of my people, was it not, you coward? To be perfectly honest, I don't really
give a damn about any of them. They were all weaklings, with the possible exception of my father, and even he was a
fool. Even so, I'm going to dedicate your death to them: the only race of people that you ever feared, and the only
race of people that could produce an end to your reign.”

“Bold words indeed,” Freeza said, grinning at him. “Only a true prince could make a speech so grand, while at the
same time utter nothing but verbal trash. Ah, the talents of royalty!” He stroked his chin in mock admiration.

Vegita growled angrily. “The sound of your voice irritates me to no end,” he said, his ki flaring up. “I think it's time
we get started, don't you?”

“Whatever you say,” Freeza replied with a smug grin. He sailed down toward Vegita and landed just a couple of feet
away from him. He was right in Vegita's face.

Vegita threw a right hook at Freeza's face, and Freeza caught his fist in his left hand. Freeza then threw the same
punch back at Vegita, which Vegita caught just as easily. They began pushing against one another, each one
beginning to power up tremendously in an effort to keep up with the other. They continued to grapple in this way for
what seemed like an eternity. The ground all around them began to shake, and they each began to yell as their ki
auras pressed against each other explosively. The ground underneath them began to crumble and break apart, and
their kis dug a small crater underneath them, which continued to grow in size.

Bulma and the rest of the group backed away a good twenty yards. The intensity of Vegita and Freeza's kis was too
great for them to remain where they were.

“I can't believe it!” Bulma said loudly over the roar. “It seems almost as if Vegita and Freeza are evenly matched!”

“Yeah!” Kuririn shouted back at her. “Do you remember what Vegita said about Saiyans getting stronger after
recovering from severe injuries? Doesn't that remind you of Goku?”

“It sure does!” Bulma agreed. “And didn't I hear Vegita say that Freeza destroyed his home planet? I thought Raditz
said it was hit by a comet!”

“Maybe Raditz was wrong,” Kuririn said, shrugging. “Maybe he didn't know. Does it really matter?”

“I guess not,” Bulma sighed. “Oh well. You know, I don't really know who to root for here, honestly. I'd say we're as
good as dead anyway, even if Vegita does win, considering the fact that he's not been granted his wish. That was the
only reason he let us live in the first place. If he actually does kill Freeza, he'll probably kill us too, simply out of
spite.”

“Yeah,” Kuririn said, frowning dejectedly. “I guess it's a no-win situation for us, isn't it? But still, barring all that, I
don't think I'd know who to root for anyway. I'm willing to bet that both of them intend to rule the universe, and I
don't consider either of them to be good Universal Emperor material.”

“I just wish my dad was healed already,” Gohan said, his bottom lip quivering a little. “We don't even know how long
he'll be in that healing tank, do we?”

Dende looked at Gohan curiously. “What do you mean?” He asked. “Is Goku on Namek now?”

“Yes,” Kuririn said, nodding at him. “He got here just in time to help us with a really tough battle. He got beaten up
pretty bad, though, and he's healing in one of the rejuvenation tanks on Freeza's ship. Gohan's right. We could really
use his help right now. We'd never even be able to handle Vegita, let alone Freeza. But after hearing what Vegita
said about Saiyan physiology, I'll bet Goku could.”

“He's that strong?!” Dende cried incredulously.

Bulma smiled. “That's always been our reaction whenever we see Goku fight,” she said. “Goku never ceases to amaze
us. I suppose now we know why.”

“And all he needs is to be healed of his physical injuries, and he can come and fight for us?” Dende asked excitedly.

Kuririn nodded slowly, looking at Dende with a strange expression of confusion on his face. “Why are you so
excited?” He asked him. “It could take Goku more than an hour to heal completely! There's no way we'll be able to
hold out against them that long!”

“We won't have to!” Dende cried excitedly. “I can heal him! Saichorou gave me that power just before I left him to
meet you three out here! If you just take me to Goku, I can have him completely healed in less than a minute!”

Bulma, Kuririn, and Gohan shared a gasp of surprise. This was an unheard of stroke of good luck!

“Bulma!” Kuririn cried. “Teleport with Dende to Freeza's compound right away! We need Goku now!”

Bulma's mind was racing in her excitement, but she was still able to think of the one snag in this idea. “Hold it,” she
said, raising a hand to calm him down. “I can't believe I'm saying this, but we shouldn't bring Goku here just yet.
Think about it. If we brought him here now, he'd have both Freeza and Vegita to deal with. I don't care how much
stronger Goku's gotten; I don't like those odds one bit. I think we should wait until one of them kills or knocks out
the other. There's no point in healing Goku just to have Freeza and Vegita gang up on him and kill him.”

“I can't argue with that,” Kuririn said unhappily. “You've definitely got a point there, Bulma.”

“I guess I agree too,” Gohan sighed, obviously disappointed.

They all watched Freeza and Vegita with apprehension. By now, their kis had dug a crater so deep that neither Freeza
nor Vegita was visible. Only their ki auras, which roared thunderously against one another, could be seen shooting up
into the air. Neither of them was giving an inch.

Suddenly Freeza and Vegita stopped pushing against one another, and instead shot up to opposite ends of the rim of
the crater. They glared at each other in frustration. Neither had gained any ground on the other. But Bulma had a
sneaking suspicion that Vegita was actually holding back a little. He really didn't seem all that overexerted.

“My, my, Vegita,” Freeza said, putting his hands on his hips. “I must say, I'm greatly impressed! You've had a
marked improvement indeed! Just how many times did my men beat the living shit out of you, anyway?”

“You always did fancy yourself quite the comedian, didn't you, Freeza?” Vegita said with a sneer, his eyebrows
twitching a little. “But rest assured that this is no joke. I just happened to learn an interesting fact about you
recently, Freeza. This is not your true form, is it? Your pet prettyboy Zarbon confided in me your little secret before I
blew him to pieces. Stop holding back on me, Freeza. I wouldn't be satisfied with my victory unless I knew that I'd
utterly and completely defeated you!”

Bulma gasped. What was Vegita saying? Was he actually telling Freeza to make himself stronger? Was Vegita
insane?!

Freeza smirked at Vegita coyly, and his tail curled a little at the tip. “So you know my little secret, eh?” He said,
chuckling softly. “I must confess, Vegita, I'd feel rather ashamed of myself if I were forced to transform in order to
defeat you. However, I'll just think of it as granting a dying man his last request. If you'd like to see me transform,
then I will.”

Vegita grinned smugly, and Bulma and the others looked on in horror as Freeza began his transformation. Freeza's ki
immediately began to skyrocket, and he bent over a bit in his fierce concentration. Suddenly he began to grow in
size! He continued growing even after his battle armor cracked and eventually split apart to fly off in all directions.
Vegita laughed.

“You'll have to do a lot more than strip down if you want to defeat me, Freeza!” He exclaimed.

Still growing and intensifying in power, Freeza grinned back at him. “I never had to transform to defeat your father,
Vegita,” he said, his voice having become a little deeper than before. “I remember when he led that little rebellion
against me so many years ago. He thought he could defeat me just like you do. But I killed him with only one hit.
One hit! Oh, he was a sight! But I think the real highlight of that day was your planet's glorious explosion. Ah, yes.
It certainly was a grand explosion. I never have created such a marvelous planetary explosion since!” And he laughed
with a sadistic gleam in his eyes as he finished his metamorphosis.

Bulma stared, horrified, at Freeza's new form. He had more than doubled his size, and the sheer strength of his ki
was unimaginable! He looked a lot more like an adult in this form, but for the most part, his general physical features
were the same. That is, except for his horns. They had grown longer and each made a sharp right angle upward at
the center. He really did look like some kind of demon in this form, she thought to herself.

“This is getting bad, guys,” Bulma said, backing up a little. “His ki's so enormous I can't clearly gauge it with my
senses! What kind of nightmare have we stumbled into?”

Vegita rolled his eyes. “So he grew a couple feet and split out of his armor,” he said dismissively. “Big deal. I can't
believe that this was your big transformation, Freeza! What a joke!”

Freeza chuckled a bit. “Yes,” he said. “A joke. I'm sure you really do think so, Vegita. Would you care to hear
another? Guess how powerful I am in this state! Just try to guess, in terms of the degrees on a scouter, how high my
power has risen!”

“Tch,” Vegita snorted. “You've got to be kidding! Why should I bother? This 'transformation' of yours was nothing
more than a big sideshow!”

“No,” Bulma said, shaking her head in terror. “In his first form I estimated his power to be at around five-hundred
thousand. He's at least doubled his original power, Vegita! I can't believe you allowed him to increase his power like
this, you fool!”

Freeza laughed. “I forgot!” He said jovially, grinning at Bulma. “You have the ability to estimate a fighter's power,
don't you? Well, you're right again. In my current state, my fighting power is just a little over one million degrees!”

“You're lying!” Vegita yelled. “That's impossible, and you know it!” In a fit of rage, he fired an enormous blast at
Freeza.

“Get back!” Bulma cried, grabbing Dende and shooting up into the air. “This one’s gonna be huge!”

Gohan and Kuririn shot up after her, just as the blast hit. Bulma had been right. It hit Freeza with a force that would
have swept them all away, had they not shot up to get out of the massive explosion’s reach.

“Guys, I don’t think Goku would be able to handle Freeza now,” Bulma said, her face pale. “It was doubtful earlier, but
it’s just plain impossible now.” She looked down at Dende, who had his face buried in her chest. He was shaking with
fear.

Neither Kuririn nor Gohan said anything in reply. There really wasn’t anything for them to say. They were both sure
she was right. That’s all there was to it.

Suddenly a figure popped up and out of the top of the debris cloud caused by Vegita’s blast. It flew over at
tremendous speed until it was less than twenty feet away, where it stopped. It was Freeza, and he was, not
surprisingly, unharmed by Vegita’s blast.

“You four weren’t really planning to leave, now were you?” He asked with a smug grin. “I know you wouldn’t want to
hurt my feelings!” For a split second, Bulma felt a jolt in his ki, and she knew an attack was coming. Like a flash, she
stopped time. She cried out in surprise at what she saw. Freeza was right in front of her, with his left horn pointed at
Dende’s neck, only a few inches or so away! What terrible speed! She never even saw him move!

Bulma flew with Dende down to the rock hill by the lake. She set him down behind it so that he was hidden from
view, and then she flew back up to where Freeza, Kuririn, and Gohan were. She hovered in front of Freeza for a
second, wondering what she should do. She looked over at Kuririn as she thought, and an image of what she had tried
on him on the way to Namek flashed in her mind. “That’s it!” She cried, as an idea came to her. She untied her
headband and took it off. She tied it around Freeza’s face, being sure to cover his eyes with it. She made sure it was
on tightly and that both his eyes were securely covered before she flew around behind him – out of the range of his
horns – and let time flow again.

Freeza came to a grinding halt only ten feet away, but Bulma didn’t allow him any time to react. She sailed at him full
force, and began with a fierce blow to his side, and continued by dealing him some violent blows to his back.

“Come on, guys, I can’t do this by myself!” She yelled back to the astonished Kuririn and Gohan as she continued to
pummel Freeza’s back.

Gohan and Kuririn got over their surprise, and they raced after her, brandishing their fists. They shot around to the
other side of Freeza and started pounding his stomach.

Freeza growled angrily as his hands flew to his eyes. Bulma grabbed his arms and yanked them behind his back,
hoping to pin them there. The longer she could keep that headband on, the better. With incredible ease, however,
Freeza yanked his arms back forward, slamming Bulma into his back with terrific force, and stunning her a bit in the
process. He felt the headband briefly – all the while ignoring Gohan and Kuririn’s punches. He suddenly ripped the
headband from his eyes, tearing it into three separate pieces, which he flung to the ground.

He kicked Gohan away in one direction, and he slammed his fist into Kuririn’s face, propelling him in the opposite
direction. He then reached behind him, grabbed the somewhat dazed Bulma by her head, and swung her completely
over and in front of him.

“You die first,” he whispered in her ear, and he flung her by her head at the ground with tremendous speed. Bulma
had no time to react. She hit the ground in less than a tenth of a second, and could only begin to spin around in an
effort to move back-first, rather than head-first. She was a good three feet in the ground before she accomplished
this, and she plowed in another twenty before she could stop herself completely. She was in pain everywhere, and
she felt almost as if her neck was broken. Fortunately, though, her spinning around onto her back had spared her
spine a lot of damage, and although she was in a lot of pain, she wasn’t very badly injured. Cursing in frustration, she
charged up her ki quickly to heat things up a bit. She burned a little cavity in the soil with her ki, and when she had
enough room to move, she crouched down low, and then she shot up through the loose and crumbly dirt, burning a
tunnel with a ki blast as she went. When she broke through the surface, she found herself right in front of Freeza,
who had apparently been waiting for her.

“How rude of you to leave without a proper dismissal!” Freeza chided her, wagging a finger at her in mock rebuke.

“Oh, I DO beg your pardon!” Bulma exclaimed, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “I hope you haven’t taken any offense
at my insolent actions!” She brushed some dirt off her arms, glaring at him angrily. She wouldn’t mind being beaten
up by this cretin as much if he didn’t act so damn smug.

Freeza laughed heartily. “You can rest assured that I don’t take offense very easily,” he said, grinning. “However, I
do expect you to at least stick around for the fun!” He lunged at her then, and she could tell right away that he was
really holding back on her, due to the fact that she was finding it not altogether difficult to defend herself from his
blows. She fought fiercely against him nonetheless, trying desperately to get a good hit in so that she could break
away enough to have time to teleport to safety. But he had her outsmarted there; he wasn’t giving her any chance to
break free of his series of punches and kicks. Every time she tried to back away, he just closed in on her some more.
She was beginning to get very frustrated and angry with him. She knew fully well that he was just doing this to wear
her down and humiliate her. This was totally unnecessary and he knew it; he could kill her with one deadly blast if he
so chose, but he was instead drawing her defeat out so as to make it all the more painful for her, and all the more
satisfying to him. She hated him for that; for taking such pleasure in others’ suffering.

Bulma dwelled on these thoughts in building fury as she struggled against Freeza’s flurry of punches and kicks. He
could tell that he was making her frustrated and angry, so he decided to see just how mad he could make her.

“I never have met a woman yet who could fight well enough to speak of,” he laughed as she tried time and time again
to hit him, while at the same time having to dodge his shots at her. “There must be some truth to the old belief that
women don’t belong on the battlefield. You’re just another argument for that belief, aren’t you? You know full well
that the only way that you’ll be able to get away from me is if one of your big strong boys comes to rescue you! You
must feel so helpless, you poor little thing!” He laughed some more and gave Bulma a chance to take in what he had
just said.

Bulma’s eyes flashed with a fire that had never ignited there before. An overwhelming surge of anger arose from deep
within the recesses of her mind and overcame all sense of reason that had previously been guiding her actions. With
an unnatural scream of rage and hatred, she launched a strangely powerful and aggressive attack on him, and she
caught him off guard due to her rapid increase in speed and strength. She dove into him and slammed punch after
punch into his ribs, forcing him farther and farther backward. She had one thought and one thought alone pounding
against the walls of her mind: beat Freeza senseless! She didn’t care anymore that she was the weakest fighter of
the group. She didn’t care that she was scared out of her mind. She didn’t even care that the possibility was good
that she would die today! She was no longer aware of these things. They had all been replaced by the desire to beat
the holy crap out of this smirking, self-satisfied, pompous, and all around insufferable jerk! Without showing the
slightest sign of fatigue, she slammed a right hook into the side of his face so hard that he spun around five and
one-half times before she stopped him with a fierce jerk on his arm. She clamped onto it with both hands and began
to twirl him around and around in a heavily tilted, circular path.

“Eat dirt, you bastard!” She screamed savagely, slinging him to the ground with incredible force. Before he even
managed to hit the ground, Bulma had her blast ready.

“Kyaaah!!!” She screamed, firing an extraordinarily powerful blast directly at the stunned Freeza. It began to explode
on contact, and since she kept it going for a good thirty seconds, it was more than sufficient to keep Freeza pinned
and immobile. But that wasn’t all. The massive explosion caused a crater so large that it reached the edge of the
lake and beyond, causing the water to rush into it after she finally finished. She glared into the steaming water, her
eyes still ablaze with crazed fury, which had already begun to slowly cool down and abate. She began to pant then,
but she grinned cruelly down at the newly formed addition to the lake below. She hoped Freeza liked his bath!

Gohan, Kuririn, and even Vegita gaped at Bulma in awestruck shock. Who could have guessed that she was capable of
such things? Well, apparently she hadn’t either, because she suddenly gasped in surprise as she regained the
presence of rational thought and the full reality of what she had just accomplished hit her all at once. The aftereffects
of her exertion began to show themselves, and she found herself becoming overwhelmingly tired.

Kuririn and Gohan rushed over – but leaving a safe distance between them and Bulma – with shocked expressions on
their faces. Kuririn was the first to speak.

“What happened?” He asked her in astonishment. “How did you do that, Bulma?”

“I… I don’t know,” she said, pressing her left hand against her forehead in an effort to stop her head from swimming.
“But I think I just did something that my body really wasn’t ready for.” She looked at them woozily, wondering why
there was two of each of them all of the sudden.

Suddenly, all the water in the crater below erupted into an enormous pillar of steam and foam as Freeza shot out of it
and up into the air. Bulma and the boys watched in horror as he flew up to be level with them. He had a look of
complete and utter hatred on his face, and he was staring at Bulma, with his cold eyes narrowed, and his teeth bared.

“Congratulations!” He said icily, glaring forcefully at her. “You’ve just accomplished the impossible. No one has ever
done that to me before! I was careless, and you got lucky. But your luck runs out now!” Before anyone had a chance
to blink, Freeza shot forward at Bulma with his arm drawn back and bent at the elbow. Bulma wouldn’t have had any
time to dodge even if she hadn’t been slowed by her pain and fatigue. Freeza moved with lightning speed, and Bulma
never knew what happened until it had already happened.

She suddenly felt a strange sensation of pressure on her abdomen, and she became aware that Freeza was no longer
charging at her. Rather, he was already right in front of her, and his face was just a few inches lower than hers was.
Something about the expression on his face made the blood freeze in her veins. She looked down to see Freeza’s arm,
or at least the part of it that was visible, sticking out of her stomach. Her armor had been cracked apart and had
chunks missing down there – all of which were still suspended in the air around Freeza’s arm. She looked back up at
Freeza’s face in surprise, having not realized the full reality of her situation yet. He grinned back at her sadistically.
She opened her mouth to speak, but instead choked out a sizeable amount of blood. It splattered messily on his
embedded arm, and dripped off underneath it.

Kuririn and Gohan gasped in frightened horror at what had just happened to Bulma, and Freeza shot them a cruel
sneer. He knew they wouldn’t dare try anything with him now.

Bulma reached shakily for Freeza’s arm. She tried to pull it out, but found to her dismay that she didn’t have the
strength to do anything more than grasp it. She looked back up at Freeza in disbelief, still clutching his arm.

Freeza still had that evil grin on his face. Without a word, he suddenly grabbed onto Bulma’s right shoulder with his
left hand. He then wrenched his right arm out of her stomach, making a sickening squelching sound, and a steady
rush of blood gushed out after it. Bulma gasped loudly, her body having suddenly been racked by an unbearably
excruciating spasm of pain. She began to go numb as she slipped into a state of shock. Her body fell limp, and she
would have fallen down to the lake below, if not for the fact that Freeza was still holding her up by her shoulder. He
brought his other hand up in front of his face so she could see it. It was coated somewhat thinly by her blood, and it
glistened crimson in the bright Namek sunlight.

Freeza brought his fingers to his mouth and daintily licked each one clean. “Exquisite,” he cooed, gazing into her eyes
and smiling smugly. “You have such rich, delicious blood. Don’t you agree?” He wiped a bit of the blood from the
corner of her mouth with his index finger, and he then touched her lips ever so gently with it. Bulma closed her eyes
and let the tears stream down her face. She wanted to block his image out of her mind. She knew she was going to
die; her wound was most assuredly fatal. But for some reason she was able to accept that. The one thing that she
was unable to accept was that the last image she would ever see for the rest of her life was Freeza’s grinning face.

“Please,” she whispered. “Enough. Let me die in peace.”

Freeza laughed boisterously. “You must be joking!” He cried. “I’m going to make this last for as long as I can! Your
death wouldn’t be worthwhile to me otherwise!”

She winced as he laughed some more, and she looked over her shoulder at Kuririn and Gohan. They were staring,
horrified, at the hole through her middle. They looked up at her face, which was by now soaked with blood and tears.
“I’m sorry,” she mouthed noiselessly. She couldn’t speak anymore. Her lungs were too filled with her own blood to
function properly.

Gohan and Kuririn had witnessed about as much as they could take. Gohan was the first to act on his rage.

“You… you… you animal!!!” He screamed, lunging at Freeza. He actually caught Freeza off guard, since he was still
laughing at Bulma’s plaintive request. Gohan punched him squarely in the face, causing him to lose his concentration
and let go of Bulma’s shoulder. Gohan continued to attack Freeza, as Bulma fell to the water below.

Bulma lost consciousness on the way down, long before she hit the water. The lack of air in her lungs made it
impossible for her to float, so she began to sink as soon as she submerged. Kuririn didn’t want to leave Gohan alone
with Freeza, but he knew that Bulma didn’t have much time.

“I’m coming, Bulma!” He yelled, shooting down toward the water. But Freeza had other ideas. He smacked Gohan
away and shot down between Kuririn and the water, blocking his way.

“Oh no you don’t,” he said, grinning fiendishly at Kuririn. “You’d do well to worry about yourself instead, my friend.
She’s as good as gone.”

Kuririn yelled in frustration as he made several unsuccessful attempts to dart around Freeza. He was able to catch a
brief glimpse of Dende diving into the water below, as well as Vegita, who dove in the opposite end of the water at
about the same time. Kuririn decided that he’d let them get her to safety; Dende might even be in time to heal her.
But that certainly didn’t excuse what Freeza had done.

“You bastard!” He snarled at Freeza, turning his attention back toward the grinning giant in front of him. “You’re
going to pay dearly for that!”

“Oh, am I?” Freeza laughed, straightening himself up a bit. “I rather doubt that, little man.”

“Believe it, you freak!” Gohan screamed, suddenly arriving to attack Freeza. He and Kuririn attacked simultaneously,
working together against their opponent.

In the meantime, Dende had reached Bulma and pulled her up to the surface of the water. Vegita followed him up.
As Dende began to pull Bulma toward the shore, Vegita swam out alongside him.

“What are you planning to do with her, kid?” He asked gruffly with an odd look of concern hanging about his eyes.

“I’ve got to get her to the land quickly so that I’ll be in time to heal her,” he said, eyeing Vegita distrustfully. “What’s
it to you, Saiyan?”

Vegita stared at Dende in shock for a couple of seconds, not daring to believe what he had just heard. But when he
looked down at Bulma’s pale face and blue lips, he decided that he had no choice but to believe the little brat’s claim.
“Here,” he said, taking Bulma from Dende. “I’ll carry her then. You follow me.” He flew with Bulma to the side of the
hill that was beyond Freeza’s view – in the same place that Bulma had taken Dende before – and Dende followed him
nervously.

Vegita set Bulma gently on the ground and looked at Dende expectantly. “Well?” He said impatiently.

“Just stand back,” Dende ordered, glaring at him distrustfully. “I can do the rest.” He closed his eyes, lowered his
hands down onto Bulma’s body, and began to concentrate. Soon he began to glow with a yellow aura, which
transferred itself down around Bulma. They both glowed like this for about thirty seconds, and Vegita watched in
amazement as Bulma’s wound closed itself up and her color began to return. Even her ki was returning to its normal
level. Finally, she opened her eyes, and Dende was finished.

Bulma sat up and looked around. “I’m alive!” She said in amazement, feeling the place where Freeza had run her
through. Finding no wound there, she cried out in surprise. It was then that she saw the very relieved Dende
standing next to her.

“Dende!” She cried, leaping at him and giving him a great big bear hug. “Oh God, Dende, I should have known it was
you! I don’t know how I can ever thank you enough for what you did for me!”

“I’m just glad you’re all right,” he said, his eyes filling up with tears. “I was so afraid that we had lost you, Bulma!”

Bulma frowned. “Me too,” she said grimly. “I’m sorry. But this may only be a temporary fix, Dende. I’ll have to go
fight him again soon enough, and he may very well kill me for good this time.”

“He will if you try to fight him alone like that again,” Vegita said curtly behind her, causing her to jump. “He’s much
more powerful than you are; you know that damn well. If you don’t start using your brain more often there won’t be
enough left of you for the brat here to heal.”

Bulma glared back at him. “I don’t want to hear a word out of you, Vegita!” She snapped at him, getting up and
balling her hands into fists. “This is all your fault! If you hadn’t decided to show the world what an ass you are by
persuading Freeza to double his power, you might have actually killed him by now and saved the universe a lot of
trouble. But now, thanks to you and your big ego, we don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of beating him! Even if
both Goku and Piccolo were already here and we all fought Freeza at once, we’d still lose!” She was fuming now, and
Dende backed away from her a little bit. He didn’t want to get caught in the middle of this.

Vegita gaped at her in shock for a second or two, unable to believe that she’d actually had the audacity to say such a
thing right to his face! He glared at her angrily, suddenly sorry that he’d helped the little Namek kid revive her.
“Don’t you tell ME how I should fight my battles!” He snarled. “I am the greatest fighter that ever lived! I certainly
don’t need to be told that how I fight is wrong, especially if it’s coming from someone as weak and pathetic as you!”

Bulma wanted more than anything in the world to just deck him right there, but she knew that there was no point.
Fighting with Vegita wasn’t going to win the fight with Freeza. So she simply rolled her eyes at him and sighed
angrily. “I don’t have time for this,” she said testily. “I’ve got to go join my friends. Dende, you stay here and out of
sight, okay? Don’t let Freeza see you!” And with that she hopped up on top of the hill to see what was going on
between Freeza, Kuririn, and Gohan.

Bulma didn’t like what she saw. Kuririn had already been knocked into the ground and was just beginning to come to.
Freeza had Gohan pinned on the ground, and he was pushing down on his head with his foot. Gohan looked like he
was nearly past the point of no return. Freeza must have given him quite a beating. Bulma studied this scene with
some uncertainty for a couple of seconds before she had decided on a plan of action. She shot back down to Dende
and Vegita.

“Dende!” She said as she landed. “Freeza’s already hurt them pretty badly out there. I’m going to draw him away
from them when I go back out there. What I want you to do is to rush out there after I’ve gotten Freeza to chase me
away, and then heal Kuririn and Gohan. Can you do that?”

“I don’t know how much time it’ll take,” he said nervously. “I won’t know that for sure until I find out just how badly
they’ve been injured.”

“Don’t worry about that,” she said, shaking her head. “Just do the best you can. I’ll keep Freeza away no matter what
it takes. Just make sure you heal Gohan first, okay? He’s a lot worse off than Kuririn is, and besides, he’s also the
one with the Saiyan blood. If anyone could benefit most from being healed by you, it’s him!” And with that, she flew
up over the rock and shot down toward Freeza below.

Vegita gasped. Of course! Kakkorot’s brat was half-Saiyan! It would stand to reason that he would get a significant
powerup from being healed, just as he himself would! A sly grin slowly spread across Vegita’s face. He had just
figured out a plan to become more powerful than Freeza!

Bulma shot like a bullet toward the unsuspecting Freeza. He never heard her coming. With a loud smack, she gave
him a sharp kick to the back of his head, sending him sprawling forward, and causing him to land a full ten feet away
from the now immobile Gohan. Bulma shot over past him, just far enough to give her a good lead when she started.

“Hey, ugly!” She yelled at Freeza, causing him to jump up to his feet and look up at her. “Are you planning to take a
nap down there or something? I’ve got a bit of a score to settle with you, and I don’t really feel like waiting for you to
finish!”

“What?!” Freeza exclaimed in shock. “Why aren’t you dead?”

“You really want to find out?” Bulma said, winking at him mischievously. “Well, then you’ll have to catch me first!”
She then shot off in an effort to get a good head start on him. She looked behind her a few seconds later to make
sure he was following her, and she noticed with a great deal of surprise that he was already less than fifty yards
behind her. Boy, his reflexes were quick!

Determined to take him much farther than this speed would allow, she teleported a good two hundred yards ahead of
him and then resumed her flight. She looked back at him again and grinned. “You’re going to have to do better than
that!” She called back at him playfully. “I’m gonna get away!”

Freeza answered her with several fast moving ki blasts that she avoided with a fair degree of difficulty. “Yow!” She
said to herself as the last one whizzed by her ear. “I’d better be more careful! Okay, Freeza, so you wanna play
hardball? Well, I’m gonna make you jump through a few hoops if you want to catch up with me!”

“Here’s a present for you!” She called back, sending a fairly strong blast at him. He simply swatted it away with one
hand, and kept coming, all the while gaining ground on her. Bulma frowned back at him with a hurt look on her face.

“You didn’t want my gift?” She asked piteously.

Apparently Freeza wasn’t in the mood for jokes anymore. “I don’t know how you managed to come back from the
dead,” he yelled angrily. “But I sincerely hope that you didn’t make plans to stay!”

Bulma shot a silly grin at him and sped up a little more. She was feeling pretty gutsy, but she didn’t feel like letting
him get too close. Suddenly she felt his ki shoot up dramatically, and she looked back to see him gaining ground on
her much too rapidly for comfort. He shot her a wicked grin, and she grit her teeth. She had to try something else.
She had known he wouldn’t let her outfly him for long anyway. She was just stalling him as much as she could, and
she decided that this tactic had outlived its effectiveness.

She spun around and spread her fingers out on either side of her face. “Taiyoken!” She yelled as he raced up to her,
totally unaware of what she was up to. He soon became aware, though, as the blindingly bright flash of light hit his
face. He yelled in surprise as the flash blinded him, and his hands flew – all too late – to his eyes to shield them
from the glare.

Bulma grinned. Tenshinhan always could create some of the best techniques! She flew down toward the ground
below, and noticed that there was a large, cracked mountain down there. A perfect hiding place! She shot down into
one of the center cracks and waited, trying to think of what she could do to him next.

She noticed that Gohan’s ki had risen far above normal by now. Good. That meant that Dende must be done healing
him. Kuririn felt really weak, though. Dende still had to get to him. She’d have to stall Freeza a little while longer
yet.

It only took Freeza thirty or forty seconds to get over Bulma’s Taiyoken, and he was plenty mad when he did. He
certainly didn’t like being made to look the fool, which is exactly what she had done to him with that last stunt.
Growling angrily, he scanned the area carefully with his eyes, trying to figure out just where the little bitch had gone.
He was going to find her, and then he was going to kill her. And this time he was going to make damn sure she was
good and dead! He spotted the cracks in the mountain below, and he grinned evilly.

Bulma saw Freeza as he descended toward her hiding place, but he couldn’t see her. She wondered what he was going
to do. She got her answer when he threw a small orb of ki into one of the adjacent cracks. It exploded and created a
lot of smoke, which spread quickly into all the little cracks and crevices in the rock. Oh ho! So he thought he was
going to smoke her out, did he? Well Bulma knew exactly how to handle this. She simply stopped time and flew out
of her hiding place to look for a new one. This would slow him down a bit! She saw a fairly large tree not too far
away, and she flew over to inspect it. Its branches were more than strong enough to support her weight, and the
foliage was sufficiently thick to conceal her from view. She positioned herself on one of the branches so that she was
fairly well hidden, let time pick up where it had left off, and peered through the leaves at Freeza, high above the
nearby mountain. He waited patiently up there for a minute or two, keeping a watchful eye on all the escape routes.
She snickered a little at him. This was starting to turn into a fun game!

Finally, the smoke had all but cleared up, and Freeza was losing his patience. “If you don’t come out of there this
instant,” he yelled, “then I’ll destroy your little hiding place with you in it!” He formed a ki ball and held it high.

It was all Bulma could do to keep from laughing. What a dolt! She watched eagerly to see how long he would wait.
She knew he’d much prefer to kill her face to face, but she didn’t think he’d wait too long for her to come out of there.
She was right.

“Have it your way!” He yelled, hurling the ki ball into the center of the mountain. After an odd pause, it suddenly
erupted into a massive explosion, sending chunks of rocks and dirt high into the air and outward as well. But the
shockwave from the blast was the cause of what happened next. As it hit the tree Bulma was hiding in, it uprooted it
completely, and it knocked it into the ground, causing it to roll over and over, and causing Bulma to fly up and out of
it. She looked up at Freeza, just in time to see him turn and look at her. She grinned at him sheepishly and kind of
waved. She could sense by now that Kuririn was completely healed, so she decided that it was time to go back
anyway.

She flew around him in a wide arc, and then she took off for the battlefield at top speed. Freeza shot after her at a
much faster rate, and when Bulma looked behind her, he was already less than ten yards away! She cried out in
surprise and teleported ahead a few hundred yards. She kept going, and it wasn’t long before Freeza had caught up to
her again. When he did, she teleported ahead again.

Bulma looked back at him nervously. They had a good bit of ground to cover yet, and a lot could happen between
there and here. Maybe it would be better not to tempt fate a second time.

“You’re too slow!” She called back at him. “I’ll just meet you up ahead, okay? Don’t keep me waiting too long!”

“Don’t you dare!” Freeza yelled, shooting a ki blast at her. But she was already gone by then. She had teleported
back to the battlefield already. Freeza screamed in frustration and he flew toward the battlefield at a breakneck
pace. He had a sneaking suspicion that he’d been tricked. Someone was going to pay dearly for this!

Bulma grinned as she got back to the battlefield and halted her teleport. Gohan, Kuririn, and Dende were in a small
group on the right, while Vegita watched them with stern interest on the far left. She flew down to Gohan, Kuririn,
and Dende to tell them the news.

“All right, guys,” she said, causing them to jump and spin around to look at her. “It’s time to get ready now. I left
Freeza only about ten miles back there, and he’ll be back very soon. That means it’s time for you to hide again,
Dende.”

“Bulma!” Dende cried. “Thank goodness you made it back all right! We were so worried about you!”

“Aw, I was all right,” she said, laughing nervously. “I made sure to stay well ahead of him. But I’m afraid that I’ve
also made him hopping mad, so you guys had better do what I said and prepare yourselves! He’ll be here at any
second now!”

As if that was his cue, Freeza appeared in the distance, just barely too far to see him clearly. But he was coming very
fast, and he would definitely see them within a couple of microseconds.

“No time!” She cried. “Brace yourself, Dende!” She teleported him to the other side of the hill, just as Freeza caught
sight of them. He shot down to the ground and landed in front of them, and Bulma would never care to see such a
look directed at her ever again.

“I’m through playing games with you, girl,” he said, simmering in his anger. “I’m quite sick of you, as a matter of
fact. If I were you, I wouldn’t anticipate being in existence too far in the future.”

Bulma just glared at him. Freeza glared back. It was a mutual loathing that they reserved for one another; and one
that would only be dissolved in the event of the destruction of either or both. It was an almost tangible quality, and
one could easily observe it whenever the two were in close proximity to each other. Bulma had never come so close to
death before; Freeza had almost succeeded in killing her. For that reason, she would never have any gentle feelings
for him. Freeza, on the other hand, had never had someone escape death from him so narrowly, and he took it quite
personally indeed. He felt that she had slighted him somehow, and that was unacceptable. Freeza now had a
personal vendetta against Bulma, and she knew it.

Bulma grinned. She wondered if anyone else had ever given Freeza this much trouble. She hoped that Goku would be
even more of a pain than she had been!

“I’m only going to ask you this once,” Freeza said, his eyes narrowing at Bulma. “How did you recover from your
injury?”

“Heh,” Bulma said with a smirk, straightening up and crossing her arms. “I’m not the only one anymore.”

“What?!” Freeza cried, and he suddenly noticed that she was right. That little bald guy and the kid had recovered
too! What the hell was going on?!

“How?! Why?!” Freeza demanded, growing flustered.

Bulma laughed. “Well, I don’t really know,” she said, grinning at him. “Perhaps we just got lucky, hm?”

“Are you trying to make a fool of me?” Freeza said, taking a step forward.

“You don’t need me for that!” Bulma retorted, glaring at him tauntingly. “You’re doing just fine by yourself!”

Freeza looked like he was about to explode. It seemed as if Bulma knew just which buttons to push to make him lose
his temper. But miraculously, he didn’t. He took a deep breath, and then he smiled.

“You know, I’m almost glad that you survived,” Freeza said, his eyes flashing brilliantly at her. “You’re definitely one
person whom I wouldn’t mind killing twice!”

It finally occurred to Bulma that he was right. He probably was going to kill her this time. She gritted her teeth and
glared at him angrily. She didn’t have anything to say to that.

He laughed, realizing that for once, he had her cornered. “I wonder how I should kill you this time?” He said,
scratching his chin thoughtfully. “Last time was really much too short for my taste. I think that however I kill you this
time, I’ll draw the pain out much longer!”

Bulma just glared at him. For once, she didn’t have any good ideas to fall back on. What were they going to do now?

“But,” he said, walking forward until he was right in front of her, less than two feet away. “You, I’ll save for last.” He
grabbed her by her neck with one hand and shot up into the air with her.

Bulma gagged a little and clawed at his hand in protest, trying desperately to get him to let go of her. He chortled in
amusement as she writhed and kicked at him wildly. He held her face up in front of his.

“Comfortable?” He asked her sinisterly. Bulma just growled at him savagely, still kicking and clawing for all she was
worth. “Good,” he said. “Now just be patient, my dear. As soon as I deal with your friends I’ll come back and pay
you a little visit!” With that, he yanked her backward, and as she screamed in protest, he hurled her at blinding speed
toward the rocky hill by the lake.

Bulma knew before he let her go that she wasn’t going to be able to stop herself in time to avoid hitting that hill. But
she was determined not to hit that big chunk of rock with her head unprotected! She covered the top of her head with
her arms and gritted her teeth, waiting for the impact to come.

Bulma definitely felt the jarring stop when she did come to a halt, but remarkably, she wasn’t even touching the rock
face of the hill! Rather, she was looking back at it, and was only about a foot away, but she had stopped short of it
nonetheless. She was lying suspended on her back, and she was suddenly aware that she was being held up by
someone. She lifted her head to find herself reclining in Piccolo’s able arms.

“Mind if I cut in?” He asked, cracking a rare smile at her.

“Piccolo!” She cried, trying her best to keep from hugging him. “I can’t believe you’re here! You have no idea how
much we need your help right now!”

Piccolo frowned. “I have a pretty good feeling,” he said, as he let her go. “I could sense everything that went on
after you wished me to Namek. It seems you three have been having some difficulties.”

Bulma looked back at Freeza, who was gaping at them in angry astonishment. “I’d say that’s a bit of an
understatement,” she said uneasily. “Kaio-sama had a good reason for being angry with you for wanting to challenge
Freeza. It’s sheer suicide, even for you, Piccolo.”

“We’ll see,” Piccolo said, grinning confidently at Freeza. He flew deliberately toward his new opponent, and Bulma
followed him apprehensively. Piccolo seemed sure of himself, but not even he could be a match for Freeza! Bulma
sighed and flew down to the ground to join Kuririn and Gohan, as Piccolo flew up to meet Freeza. She hoped he
wasn’t making a grave mistake.



On To Chapter 25 ~~~>