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T.I.T.A.N. - 01

- 1 Gooseflesh Skin -

The entire dock was flooded with people, every last head craned up to take in the massive scale of the new spaceship. Everyone except Vegeta. Where others ogled and marveled the F.F. TITAN, singing its praises in awed tones, Vegeta kept his eyes forward and struggled to keep down the black stone of helplessness that rolled in his belly. This was no ship of dreams, but a slave ship taking him home in chains.

Outwardly, he was everything a titan recruit should be: strong, proud, composed. But inside, he was screaming.

The Lord Commander, Frieza, was ahead of him, walking up the gangway to board his new vessel. Though small in stature, the commander was oppressive in presence. Vegeta could feel the weight of his malevolence even across the dock. His father was making a valiant attempt at small talk, a wasted effort given Frieza was far more interested in soaking up the adoration of the crowd than listening to anything a king from a trifling planet had to say. As usual, neither were paying him any attention. They didn’t care or even notice him. He was merely an accessory to this arrangement, the punctuation point of his own indentured sentence.

It struck Vegeta that he could easily slip back into the crowd and disappear before anyone had the chance to discover he was gone.

Unconsciously, his feet slowed.

“What’s the hold up, Vegeta?” The slimy dulcet tones came from Frieza’s right hand man, Zarbon, the last voice he wanted to hear while flirting with the notion of escape. “I understand your stunted stature makes walking difficult, but if you could find it within yourself to trot along inside, I can have a nurse fetch you a hover chair.”

Vegeta’s fists clenched at the humiliating suggestion, but he swallowed back his pride, refusing to rise to the bait. “Forgive me, Titan, I was appreciating the craftsmanship of the ship and became distracted.” It was a good a lie as any.

Zarbon stepped up next to him. He was much taller than Vegeta, wearing ornate dress armor that left his hand and face tattoos proudly on display. The titan looked up at the vessel they were about to board. “Yes, it is impressive, isn’t it? An indestructible ship for an indomitable Lord. I hear they employed the finest minds in the galaxy for its construction.” He looked down at Vegeta, a nasty twinkle in his unnerving eyes. “No one from planet Vegeta, though. But then your kind have never been very bright, have they?”

Vegeta felt the lancing insult cut through him. Back home, such a remark would have been rectified in blood. Here he had to suffer it. “Our talents lie elsewhere,” he growled, his tone barely acceptable for addressing a superior.

Zarbon smiled, amused to see the Saiyan struggle at reigning in his temper. He held out a hand towards the threshold of the ship. “After you, little prince. Wouldn’t want you getting lost, would we? That would reflect rather poorly on your father.”

Vegeta felt the bitter truth of that burn in his mouth, and he stepped inside the ship. As the door slid shut behind them, so too were his fancies of freedom closed to him forever.

~xox~

Bulma held the holographic tablet in her hand and pretended to be doing a series of last-minute checks on the cargo-hold. In truth, she wasn’t supposed to be here. Despite her conniving and flirting, she hadn’t been able to convince the right people to get her on TITAN’s crew staff for its maiden voyage — apparently her transient background put a crimp in their rigorous screening process. She had left Earth at a tender age with a thirst for adventure and little else. Upon discovering intelligent life — and a lot of incredible technology — she jumped from space station to moon to planet until, years later, she eventually caught wind of the most ambitious spaceship project to date. There was no way that was going to happen without her throwing her hat into the mix. The chance to be arms-deep in the most sophisticated technology the galaxy had to offer was too good an opportunity to pass up.

But as the project started wearing down, her future grew uncertain. She was told at every corner that she was not wanted once the ship was completed. But like hell she was going to let that stop her. She had helped design and build the F.F. TITAN. She knew every corner and circuit board and system program of the whole damn ship. It took barely a few hours to come up with a plan, a few days to implement it. Stealing a pair of crew overalls and sneaking aboard hadn’t exactly been rocket science (of which she was also quite skilled in). All she had to do now was lay low until the ship broke the atmosphere and it would be easy-street from here on out.

A couple titans marched by; they were easy to spot with their telltale armor, facial tattoos, and unnerving eyes. Bulma kept her face lowered over the cargo dossier, doing her best to be inconspicuous. Titans gave her the creeps, and not only for their fearsome reputation on the battlefield. There was something… off about them. Just a little too arrogant and a little too obedient. Not to mention their eyes; the light didn’t reach them. It probably had to do with the tattoo process they underwent which turned the sclera — the white part of the eyes in humans — black. When a titan looked at you it was like being eyeballed by a shark, and just as potentially dangerous. It was deeply unsettling.

Thankfully these titans had better things to be do than concern themselves about her, the largest of them curling a nasty-looking whip about his tattooed fist. When they were gone, Bulma checked the area one last time before closing her tablet and slipping inside the maintenance room. On the far wall was a hidden door she had installed. She slipped inside to a little room she had built, complete with a bed roll and some supplies. She laid out on her bed and turned her tablet back on, scrolling through the influx of information from the ship’s start up logs — yes, she had hacked into the ship’s computers, what of it? — and got settled in. It wasn’t a big or glamorous space, but hey, it was free. What more could a stowaway ask for?

~xox~

Vegeta let the dinner conversation wash over him. It was hard to concentrate, not only because the topic held little interest for him but because his body was screaming. He was positive the wounds on his back had split and were freshly bleeding. Luckily he had thought to wear his cape to hide any stains. Still, just the act of sitting straight in a chair was agonizing. He refused to let it show, refused to give any of these bastards the satisfaction.

As soon as the TITAN had taken off, he was sent to meet his soon-to-be fellow titans. He suspected it wouldn’t be pleasant. Even prepared for a hazing, he never anticipated they would whip him, one lash for every titan ‘sibling’ he would gain. Something about ‘sharing the burden of responsibility’, ‘bearing your brothers and sisters on your back’, ‘rights of passage’… blah blah fucking blah. He stopped listening after the first few lashes bit right through cloth and muscle and began exposing bone, blood dripping down his back and filling his mouth as he bit his cheeks to keep from screaming.

He lost track of how many lashes he earned. Frieza had a lot of titans.

His Saiyan genetics meant he had healed — at least enough — to make dinner. He sure as hell wasn’t going to lie in a hospital bed and let rumors of weakness spread about him or his people. Whatever these assholes wanted to throw his way, he would take it. He had to, for his own pride and the pride of his people. It was his duty, or so his father kept insisting. “We need this treaty, my son. Our society won’t survive without the technology of the empire.”

Food was put before him, but his usual vigorous appetite was lacking. “Care for some wine, Vegeta? You look rather peaked,” Zarbon drawled, knowing full well why Vegeta was pale. His lashes had been some of the cruelest to bear.

“I do not partake,” he replied curtly, forcing himself to stab at his dinner so as not to appear weak. “It dulls the senses.” He shoved the forkful of food into his mouth and forced himself to swallow.

Frieza laughed airily from the head of the table. “Oh ho ho, your boy is disciplined, I’ll give you that, King Vegeta,” he complimented. “I do appreciate that quality in my titans.”

“I think you’ll find my son to be a fine addition to your ranks,” the king promised. “He is the most accomplished among our people, and at such a young age.”

Frieza’s eyes narrowed. “So you keep telling me. I grow bored of hearing it.”

“Ah… Yes. Well then, Lord Commander, I’m curious. The name of this vessel. Was it inspired by your elite force?” the king hastened to change the subject.

Frieza leaned back in his chair, swilling his wine about in his glass. “Yes. I am ever so proud of my titans, so what better name for my new ship, wouldn’t you agree?” His lips curled in a dark smile. He didn’t wait for a reply. No one would dare to disagree. “And I quite liked how the name encapsulates the sheer magnitude of its size too.”

“One would think you have an unnatural preoccupation with size,” Vegeta grumbled under his breath as the others at the table voiced their agreement.

A sharp elbow jabbed him in the side. He winced, more from the wounds on his back than anything else, and looked to his right. His father was glaring murder at him. “Remember your place, boy,” the king hissed furiously, casting Frieza a furtive look to make sure the commander hadn’t overheard the insulting remark.

Vegeta thinned his lips and kept his mouth shut for the rest of the meal. By the time dinner was over he was feeling extremely poor, his back on fire and his face sweating. He must have overestimated his healing, or underestimated the severity of his lashes. Either way, he excused himself before he passed out on his plate or threw up what little he had eaten, and headed for the observation deck to get what counted as ‘fresh air’.

~xox~

The observation deck was situated near the front of the vessel and domed by a large glass bubble that protected the onlookers from the vacuum of space while also allowing for a spectacular view of the galaxy.

Bulma lay sprawled on a bench on the lower deck. The view wasn’t quite as good but it was unoccupied and close to an exit in case security came by and she needed to duck out. The stars she could see were breathtaking. She would never grow tired of looking at them. Any time she grew homesick she just looked up into space and considered all the unexplored planets, technology, and adventures there were awaiting her, and she would be motivated to push on.

She heard footsteps. Turning her head to the upper deck, a man in armor approached the railing. Bulma hitched a brow at the sight of him — human? Wait, no… not quite. Was that a tail around his waist? And something about the hair seemed a little unnatural by Earth standards. Still, it was kind of nice to see someone human-ish. Not bad looking, either. The only detractor were a couple tattoos around his eyes. Titan markings, though far fewer than she was used to seeing. And no all-black eyes. Interesting.

Her curiosity piqued, Bulma found herself staring. Though the man’s armor appeared battle-functional, his red cape was less so, the marking of someone important. Most intriguingly of all, it wasn’t titan-standard issue. Neither were the gloves that hid his hands which now dangled over the railing. Who and what was he? A dignitary perhaps? He certainly held himself with importance, even managing to lean against the deck in an aristocratic manner. The man was an enigma.

His sixth sense must have been tripped, for his eyes turned and locked directly onto her. For a moment they stared at each other from across the divide of the decks as stars were born and burned out and died around them. Nothing was said, no smile or nods exchanged. There was just this moment, this raw fleeting moment where they recognized the existence of the other, and were seen in turn.

Then another approached the railing. This alien Bulma did know.

The Lord Commander.

You didn’t get far in the galaxy without quickly learning who Frieza was.

The diminutive lizard-like alien approached the other man, his tail whipping slowly back and forth in his wake. He placed his claw-like fingers on the man’s shoulder and leaned in, whispering something that Bulma couldn’t hear. Whatever it was, it caused the man at the railing to pale. Frieza’s fingers tightened and the man’s cheek twitched, struggling to keep the pain from his face — but she saw.

Then Frieza threw back his head and laughed, the sound carrying all the way to her on the lower deck. He walked off, leaving the man sweating and alone. He stood frozen for several minutes before he came back to himself. Consciously or not, his eyes sought hers out, but something in his expression had changed. The light in his eyes was gone. It was like staring into the eyes of a dead man.

Her skin broke out into gooseflesh.

He turned and left the deck. Haunted by what she had seen, Bulma decided to do the same and retreated back to her hidden room.

~xoXox~

AN: Written for The Prince and The Heiress’ 2019 Smutfest. Find them on discord or reddit or twitter. I know this is a smutfest, but this one’s gonna be a slow burn, sorry guys.

Based on a little known movie, not sure if you’ve heard of it, called Titanic by James Cameron. Movie buffs will notice that I’ve used a couple quotes from the film — though modified to fit the narrative.

DBZ characters are, obviously, Toriyama’s creations.

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