Seven Deadly Sins: Wrath
Or
I Crown Thee King
(Note: This is placed in the General Section because we lack a horror section in the DBZ, er, place. Otherwise, this would have gone in there. I will warn you, all these short stories could be very disturbing. If you read on, you have been warned. And Vegeta fans, beware)
His hair was ruined.
He was sitting here, the coppery taste of blood in his mouth, the ache of sore and exhausted muscles radiating through him, and all he could think about was that his hair was ruined.
The irony that the greatest concern of the prince of the saiya-jins would be his now badly chopped and messy hair instead of his own well being was not lost on Vegeta. Again, he struggled to get free and failed. Whatever material held him to this chair where he sat, it was something immensely strong.
As a Super Saiya-jin, Vegeta felt he could probably rip it apart like paper.
But to Vegeta's shock, he could not summon that power, the power that rage triggered within him to make him the mightiest warrior in the universe, the power that he would one day use to defeat Kakarott. Without it, he seemingly could not break free of this chair, this chair someone had imprisoned him on.
He wondered what Kakarott was doing, if he and his baka friends knew that his prince was misisng, and if he did know, if he was trying frantically to find him. Kakarott never had any respect for royalty, but he knew that somewhere in Kakarott's pea-sized brain he would find a reason to save him. The fact that he had to be saved made Vegeta sick to his utter core. This was not right.
Then he heard the chuckle.
"Comfortable, Prince?"
And with the voice, the voice he knew all too well, he realized that he hadn't even begun to grasp the depths of wrongness that had led to this position, even as the darkness began to fade away to reveal the figure who had been watching him, apparently for some time.
"No! You're dead!"
"Am I?" Freiza said, walking in from the shadows, his black lips twitching up in a cruel smile, a smile Vegeta had seen far too many times. "That's news to me. Last time, I checked, I was still alive!"
Vegeta looked at Freiza in fury with an undertone of confusion. How could Freiza be alive again? Well, Vegeta knew that possible answer, but from the way he was acting, it was like Freiza never had any idea that he had died. And that was impossible. Not matter how hard Vegeta had tried, and the mental effort he had expended in the attempt would literally move mountains, he could not forget the two times he had died. If he couldn't do it, neither could Freiza.
"I saw you die! My son carved you into pieces! You're dead!" Vegeta yelled, and began to struggle again to get out of his bonds.
Freiza just laughed, and the laughter unnerved Vegeta greatly. There was so much…amusement…in it.
"MWA HA HA HA! If I had known that such babble would come out of the mouth of a saiya-jin when I tied him to a chair, I would have done it more often! Such ridiculous nonsense! As if anyone could beat me, much less a son that doesn't exist!" Freiza chortled.
"What are you talking about? You know you died! It was after your defeat at the hands of Kakarott…"
Then Freiza's fist smashed across Vegeta's face, wrenching his neck painfully to the side. As blood began to pour from his broken nose, Vegeta's head swung back, his eyes clouded with disbelief. This was impossible. All the time and years he had spent training had increased his power to levels beyond comprehension. Vegeta could summon the power to destroy galaxies in minutes, a power even Freiza had never had. Even as a normal saiya-jin, Vegeta should have been able to shrug off the blow without any repercussions.
Unless…
"Fool. Not only do you suggest that I could be defeated, but you suggest it twice! I am Freiza! I will never lose, never!"
And as Freiza hissed this in his face, Vegeta looked down apon himself.
And the horror came on full force. It was true.
His body was smaller, much smaller then the body he remembered, as if all the decades of training had been swept away. And in a way, they had, for Vegeta was looking at the body he had long ago, long before he had even come to earth to seek immortality.
The body of when he was a child.
"Poor Vegeta. Not only does he betray me by plotting with his father to kill me, but when I confront him he actually has the gall to suggest that I could be defeated! The nerve of you children!"
"No! I'm not a child! I'm a super saiya-jin! I'm…" Vegeta yelled before Freiza slammed his fist into his mouth, snapping his head back violently and scrambling his thoughts.
"Enough babbling. Super saiya-jin…silly legend! Well Vegeta, you will be a legend as well. Except it won't be as a warrior. Oh no, instead it will be as an example of what happens when you betray me!"
Vegeta's head swam. How was this possible? Could his life, his battles, his warriorhood all have been a dream, a dream that had passed through his mind as he faded in and out of consciousness while trapped in this chair? Could some force have turned back time and changed history? Could Freiza have returned and somehow trapped him in the body of a child, having grown so mad in hell that he had forgetten that he had died?
"Tell me Vegeta, do you have any last words?"
"FUCK YOU YOU BAKA! LET ME OUT, I WILL DESTROY YOU! I WILL…"
Then Freiza's fist slammed into his head again, sandwitching his head between the metal of the chair he sat in and his fist. Stars exploded in his vision.
"Stupid child. Even imprisonned, you think you are a king! Well, you are a king now, your father has "unfortunately" passed on! So, let us crown you in a manner fitting!"
As Vegeta's senses slowly came back, he realized two things.
The first was that the chair he was imprisonned on, manacled at the wrists and ankles, was indeed a throne, a metal throne.
The second was that it was starting to get hot.
Vegeta struggled, but he could not escape, and the heat went past the point of being uncomfortable to starting to hurt. He made a low keening sound and redoubled his efforts, but it was futile.
"Ah, but what is a king without a sceptre?"
Then Vegeta felt his right fingers being forced open.
Then he howled as they were closed on something burning. He looked down in horror as he saw that Freiza had closed his hands on a sceptre of the same metal, a sceptre that was glowing red from the heat. The pain was terrible, and Vegeta could smell the stink of his own flesh roasting as he tried to release his grip. But he couldn't, as the heat had cooked the inside of his hand and caused the flesh to literally fuse with the metal, even as the heat continued to burn down through his hand.
But the pain in his hand was soon replaced as the throne he sat on continued to grow hotter and hotter. Vegeta felt the clothing he wore begin to smoke. He yelled, screamed, and fought with the desperation of wanting to survive, if only so he could kill Freiza for this, but he could not escape. His skin began to burn, and he screamed, a scream that mingled with Freiza's chuckled, which eventually turned into terrible, uproarous laughter as he watched Vegeta roast on the red-hot throne he now sat on.
"And above all else, what is a king without a crown?"
Then it came down on his head, an inferno of new pain in the form of a metal crown heated white-hot. Vegeta screamed even louder as the skin and hair around his head caught fire, even as other parts of his body began to catch fire as well.
And Freiza laughed as he watched Vegeta cook.
"And after all, a kind needs subjects. Here are your people, Vegeta! Normally they would serve you, but instead I think I will serve you…TO THEM! HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA! WELCOME TO MY BARBAQUE!"
And even as the pain began to cloud Vegeta's vision with white, he saw the door open. Saw the men and women come tumbling out, saiya-jin men and women. Saw their unkempt condition, and above all else, saw the utter wild and ravenous looks in all their faces, like rabid beasts. They were utterly starving.
Despite the pain, the horrible torture, Vegeta saw the saiya-jins coming towards him, and he somehow found the strength to scream even as he felt his insteads begin to fry.
"NO! I am your…"
And then they were on him, and Vegeta's cries were drowned out as they tore into him with their hands, ripping, tearing, rupturing, eating, feasting…
"NO! FATHER!" Trunks screamed as he sat up in bed. "DON'T HURT HIM! IT'S MY FAULT! MY…fault…" Trunks said as he realized that he was now in his bedroom. Shuddering, Trunks blinked repeatly to make sure he was back to reality, as he realized that the terrible thing he had seen was not reality, but only the visions of his subconscious mind.
"A dream. It was a dream…thank kami, a dream…but…but…"
Pushing his hair out of his face, Trunks got out of his bed and stood on unsteady legs. He realized that he was soaked in sweat, and that his sheets were as well. Letting the cool night air calm his fevered mind, Trunks could not dispell the nagging feeling of terror and something being wrong.
So he found himself leaving his room and walking down the hallway, heading towards the room where his father slept and banging on the door, hoping, praying…
"WHAT IS IT YOU BAKA!?!??!" Vegeta yelled as he opened the door angrily. "Trunks, what is it, stupid bakayero!"
"Toussan…you're alive!" Trunks said in a wheezing gasp of relief. Indeed, it was all he could think to say.
Vegeta looked at his son, wondering if he had gone crazy to come and interrupt him while he was busy, just to be relieved that he was alive.
"Of COURSE I'M ALIVE, YOU BAKA! In fact, I was trying to create another life when you interrupted me! Go back to bed!" Vegeta said, and slammed the door in his son's face.
Trunks sighed in relief. It had been just a nightmare. An incredibly vivid nightmare, but a nightmare none the less.
But even so, Trunks knew he wasn't going to get back to sleep for a while.
So he wandered down the hall, to a room where Goten and Marron were crashing. He was about to go in and talk with his best friend, like they used to do when they were kids, when he remembered Marron. Carefully, he put his ear to the door. The sounds he heard confirmed it, Goten was busy. He would have to find something else to occupy his time.
So Trunks wandered the house until he found himself in the kitchen. He took a box of cookies off the shelf and began to eat, hoping the sweet treats would take his mind off the horror.
They didn't work, so Trunks tried a cake he found. When that didn't work, he tried brownies. He was eating his way through a cartoon of ice cream when he heard a faint noise. A few seconds later Marron walked into the kitchen, dressed in a bathrobe.
"Trunks! What are you doing up?" she asked.
"Eating ice cream." Trunks said in a dead voice. Marron took a close look at Trunks's face and could see a faint glistening coming from a liquid. Tears.
"Do you sweat while you eat?" she asked.
"It's really good ice cream." Trunks said in a same dead voice, as he continued to spoon the frozen sweet into his mouth. He was more then a tad surprised when Marron snatched the ice cream from him and sat down in a chair in front of him.
"What's wrong?"
Trunks sighed, figured there was no point in lying, and told her.
"…it was just so REAL! Like I was seeing the future or something…and even though it was a dream…I can't help but feel responsible…that I was the cause that my father suffered Freiza's wrath in that dream…I just feel so bad about it…I wanted to talk to Goten but he's probably alseep if you're down here…I know he can be a very restless sleeper at times…I slept in the same bed as him all the time when we were kids…but I'm glad I spoke with your Marron. I do feel better now."
"That's good Trunks. It's ok. Nightmares can be horrible, but they're just dreams. They can't hurt you. It's over now."
Elsewhere, in a place that Trunks could have never known about , a figure sat in the chair he was bound in and watched Trunks and Marron talk. He cracked a cruel smile, and chuckled. It had worked even better then he had thought.
"Over, Marron? Oh no…" the figure said evily, as the view from the hologram protector changed. Now it showed Goten, sprawled across the bed, fast asleep with a dumb grin on his face.
"It has only just begun!"
The time is drawing near…
ATROCITIES