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There are two kinds of pride, both good and bad. 'Good pride' represents our dignity and self-respect. 'Bad pride' is the deadly sin of superiority that reeks of conceit and arrogance.
- John C. Maxwell
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What… what's happening.. I can't see…
Vegeta opened his eyes, his head throbbing. The first thing to come into view was the sight of the tournament ring… from the perspective of the Universe Seven section of the stands surrounding it. There, Vegeta sat with the gods of Universe Seven and his fellow team members who had already been eliminated from the tournament prior.
"Wakey wakey, Prince. Did you enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame?" Beerus said, nudging Vegeta in the shoulder and wearing a big smirk on his furry face.
"He seems to still be a bit shaken from the impact. I don't blame him…" Whis said.
"What the—?" Vegeta looked all around him, seeing the other fallen universe seven warriors behind him, as well as the other gods and angels in the stands. "What happened? Why am I here?"
"Well, to be honest, nobody knows for sure yet," Kuririn said. "Still, you didn't remember anything that happened?"
"No… the furthest I can remember was that immense flash of light before I blacked out." Vegeta stared down at his shaking palms. "And yet… I felt like I just experienced an immense rush of power."
"Immense is correct," Shin, the Kaioshin of Universe Seven said. "It was an incredible state of being that none of us had ever seen before, not even us gods."
"Eh, it's a shame that it only lasted a little while," said the Elder Kaioshin of Universe Seven. "That silver-eyed-whatchamacallit would have won the whole tournament for us!"
Silver eyes? Then it must be exactly what I had planned for… Vegeta thought. However, he brought his thoughts and snapped back at the others: "But why am I here? In the stands?"
"Well, why else? You got eliminated," Kuririn said, causing Vegeta to snap at him next.
"What do you mean I was eliminated? Explain!"
Kuririn, fearing for his life, put his hands up in defense. "Hey, hey, take it easy! That's just what happened, I swear."
"Unfortunately, you didn't last long against the fighter from Universe Eleven, even with that new power you achieved," Tenshinhan said.
"What? Are you serious?"
"Yep. 'Fraid so. In fact, you didn't even last more than a second with the big guy. He just flicked you back with his little finger like you were a novice," Muten Roshi said.
"A novice?" Vegeta growled, both hands balled into fists. "T-That's impossible! That damned fish told me it was the key to my triumph!"
Vegeta stopped deadpan in his ranting as Beerus and Whis now looked at him, both suspicious of the choice of words had just used.
"A fish you say?" Whis asked. "You wouldn't be referring to the Seer, would you?"
Vegeta was flabbergasted. "W-Whis! You said you wouldn't say anything?"
"Well, to be fair, you kind of already let the cat out of the bag. Or should I say 'the fish out of the bowl'?" Whis said, chuckling at his turn of phrase.
Beerus furrowed his brow in anger. "First off, that was terrible. Second, what were you doing speaking to the Seer behind my back?"
He crossed his arms and tapped away with his finger as he awaited Vegeta's answer. All Vegeta could do was keep quiet and keep to his own thoughts. He hunched over and hid his gaze from the others, trying to think of some kind of lie to somehow calm Beerus down and keep him from using his Hakai technique on him.
"Well? Vegeta?" Beerus said, more firmly and loudly this time. Vegeta put his face in his hand and sat straight up again.
"Alright, fine!" He said, sighing. "I asked the stupid fish to make a prediction to see if I would attain a great level of power that would surpass Kakarot. It then told me that I could only do so if I were to gain the power from Kakarot's Spirit Bomb used in this tournament."
"My, I never figured the Seer to be so cooperative. Then again, I'm sure he must have wanted a tasty treat in return," Whis asked. Though he was nonchalant about the ordeal, Beerus was still clearly fuming.
"Oh, that Saiyan pride of yours just has to get in the way of everything, doesn't it? I would have thought Whis's teachings might have whipped that out of you by now, but I guess I was wrong," he said. "And now it has caused you to literally throw away our chances of winning this tournament and keeping our entire universe intact."
Beerus's mood lightened as he curled his lips into a smirk. "Then again, it was very amusing to see that pride have you swatted like a fly under the might of a much more impressive warrior. Brings back old times, it does…" Beerus said, referencing the battle he and Vegeta had during their first encounter.
Beerus's words were accurate as that was exactly as it happened: it began with the moment that Goku began gathering energy for the Spirit Bomb, Vegeta observed the situation from below and waited for his chance to strike. He knew that as soon as the Spirit Bomb would start to implode and make Goku disappear into thin air, that would be the time to make his move.
His move, of course, was to quickly dash over to Goku, shove him out of the way and onto the dirt below, and get caught up in the implosion in his place.
Moments later, Vegeta would recover and appear once more, his body damaged but now surrounded with a bright silver aura accompanied with a matching pair of eyes. The entire World of Void shook just as he emerged from thin air, and he set his sights on Jiren…
However, there was a slight error in Beerus's comment for instead of literally swatting him away like a fly, Jiren simply stared at him and the force from that stare was enough to send Vegeta flying away and knock him out of his new form.
And now, Vegeta was now the one fuming as he felt the overwhelming embarrassment of his foolish actions weigh on top of his shoulders. Lucky number seven represented the designation of his universe but now did the same for the amount of fighters left in the tournament of power.
And with Goku out of commission for the time being, it would seem that there would be no other warrior even close of providing a challenge for the mighty Jiren, securing victory for the Eleventh Universe and doom for every other universe still left to fight.
But perhaps this entire event, the event of Vegeta gaining the power to fight Jiren and yet somehow failing to meet expectations, is merely a theoretic conclusion. After all, a warrior as great and wonderful and perfect as the powerful Prince of all Saiyans surely wouldn't lose just as quickly as that, right?
… Right?
A/N: FOR TEN THOUSAND YEARS I LAY DORMANT. WHO DARES TO AWAKEN ME FROM MY SLUM-oh, it's just you guys. Uh… hi.
Yes, I have finally made my return to and yes, I've been gone so long because much like other writers, it was because my real life became very, very, very busy. I graduated from college, I moved into a new place, I got a job, et cetera et cetera. So again, veeeeeeeery busy, not much time to make new stories… okay, maybe I did have some time and was just too lazy to take advantage of it but hey, I'm here now, so that's all that matters.
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let me now quickly make the declaration of putting up my flame shields so that any Vegeta fan that reads this story won't destroy me. lol
Seriously though, I didn't make this story out of spite. I just happened to get an idea born from certain new developments in DragonBall Super (which I do watch of course because if I haven't made it obvious before, I love DragonBall) and how some people reacted to it i.e. Vegeta fanboys getting their panties in a twist because Goku got a new power-up and he didn't. lol … I'm kidding. Sort of.
Really, I just wanted an excuse to A) do something more relevant and B) get a story out to prove that I'm still alive. Either way, I hope you can still get a couple of laughs out of this even though this really isn't my best work. I've got a lot better material already in the works so I promise that my next installment will be better. Whenever that comes. lol I'm also considering taking off that Naruto story I wrote and moving it to an Archives Of Our Own page, mostly due to its… well, explicit content. I would really prefer to keep these kinds of stories separate from each other but I also want anybody who's actually read it on here to get the heads up.
So until the next story, take care and please don't kill me. I don't have anything against Vegeta, I swear, his fanbase just annoys me is all. I really do like him regardless… even though my last story was also about him getting a new power and then still losing… uh… gotta run, remember to review, bye! runs off
- AJrax