Chapter Text
There are a few moments where you drift half into consciousness where you start to feel and hear things around you. Almost like you’re still dreaming, it seems, or as if you want to crawl back into the comforting dream you had been in. Your eyes are closed, but slowly, you start to recognize the cool substance enveloping your body; you feel something closed around your mouth; you feel as though you are floating, not standing on solid ground nor lying on a bed. But you’re still hungry for the dream you just exited, wishing to go back.
Now, however, you have an itch to open your eyes. So you do. Something heavy tries to hold them closed, but you push through, and your now fully conscious brain registers that the world around you is green. And you really are floating.
The original curiosity of what surrounds you is quickly drowned by a new feeling: fear. Something heavy and tight is wrapped around your mouth, connected to a tube which you assume supplies you with oxygen. You thrash around in the thick, liquidy substance that your body is being kept in, struggling to see where the tube leads to.
It appears you’re inside some sort of giant glass enclosure. The breathing tube is not the only one hooked up to you – several more are suctioned into your back. There is one tube-like thing near your lower back which you don’t recognize for a moment: your tail. It moves slowly in the green goop.
You feel a primal urge to get out, to escape. You are not comfortable being confined. It’s in your blood, your need for freedom. Whatever this urge is, whether it be pure need or anger or anxiety, it gives you the adrenaline boost you need to break free. You take one final gulp of air before ripping the tube away from your mouth. There’s a stinging sensation immediately, but you cannot dwell on it for long. As soon as your fingers discard the tube, you ball them into a fist and start punching the glass. With every strike, you feel your power grow. Cracks start becoming visible in the glass. Your hand has a heartbeat, but you couldn’t care less. You must get out.
With one final blow, the glass explodes upon impact and the green goo immediately bursts through, pulling you with it. Your body slaps onto cold tiles, cool air hitting your skin for the first time in you don’t know how long. You take a long, needy gasp, coughing out the thick liquid you were held in. You now lay in a puddle of the slop, your body wet and your heart racing. Glancing around, you recognize you are in some kind of laboratory. There are other glass enclosures filled with green liquid, but no life forms are detected in any of them.
You are the lone experiment in a science lab. The lone living one, at least.
It takes a moment for your ears to adjust as well, having been stuffed with goop for god knows how long. But when you adjust, regaining your hearing, the foggied sound of blaring sirens fades in. Sirens. For you. With almost comedic timing, a group of armored men burst through the door on the far side of the lab. They carry weapons and waste no time running up to you and surrounding you. They’re accompanied by scientists in lab coats, yelling to each other words you can’t make out. The soldiers aim weapons at you, all wearing the same neutral armor. You aren’t sure what exactly they fight for, but then again, you’re unsure of everything.
You stare up at these soldiers, all different races but one uniform uniting them, as they aim their weapons at you. You’re absolutely helpless. You’re weak and confused, and being surrounded by so many people, who apparently view you as some sort of threat, that doesn’t help you at all.
You open your mouth to speak, to question, but you cannot form a single word. Surely these soldiers and scientists realize they don’t need to go to these lengths? You’re assuredly not a threat. You can’t speak, can’t hear, and can barely see. Your emotions are all over the place. You’re utterly overwhelmed.
And then… the crowd splits.
Someone is yelling. Someone loud. And as you’re looking up, the soldiers split down the middle of their clump to allow someone to move through to you. He’s angry and commanding – and clearly, the soldiers fear him if they bend to his will so easily. He is in front of you in a few moments, and you understand immediately why people are so afraid of him. He stares down at you as if you’re vermin. His arms are crossed, legs far apart, mouth set in an unsettling sneer. His hair is tall, and his widow’s peak is sharp and far back. He looks short compared to the other people around him, but his attitude makes up for what he lacks in height. But when he speaks, he sounds – to you – like he’s underwater.
“Looks like we have a containment breach,” he sneers.
You manage to make eye contact with him, still groggy and out of it. “I don’t know what’s going on,” you gargle.
“Stand. Don’t make a fool of yourself in front of these second-class Saiyans,” the man orders.
You squint your eyes at him, but oblige. You feel weak on your legs, allowing your tail to stretch out and wrap around you. It’s natural, normal. You’re about the same height as this man, but a little taller – tall enough to look down at him. “Don’t speak to me that way,” you utter.
He snarls, but turns back to the soldiers surrounding you. “Well?” he exclaims. “What are you doing, just standing there in the presence of royalty? Your princess has returned, at the same time as your prince is here too! Bow to us!”
You watch in awe as everyone either bows their head, their upper body, or kneels down to you and the man with the attitude.
You. The Saiyan princess.