Hello! Just a little note: I recommend caution when reading since a small amount of gore is present, starting from the 3rd paragraph. A big thank you goes to Ryu no Ohi for editing!
Disclaimer: I own nothing!
"GENESIS!" Freeza observed unsmilingly as the red-tinted globe of energy dashed towards him; it was radiating such heat as to fry the air around it. Whis was directing the incredibly powerful but slow attack with concentration etched on his features.
The former space tyrant threw a distracted look to the Magnetar that was still following Goku like an obedient, if homicidal, dog; controlling the star was taking up quite a sizable part of his concentration. He eyed the massive "Genesis" attack, reasoning that his attention could really be more profitably used elsewhere. 'Where's the harm, after all? The Magnetar could hardly kill me. As for the other insects...' He hid a smile behind a white palm, his red eyes as cold as ever. He nonchalantly spun around, ignoring Whis' indignant huff, and addressed the star with mock-solemnity, a jovial smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. "You have served me well, soldier, and it is only right that I reward you. Enjoy your time on leave." He snapped his fingers and watched in satisfaction as the mortal star broke free of his mental bindings and started to crisscross the planet's surface, leaving utter destruction in its wake. 'Hm, is Lord Bills still laying on the ground, like the overgrown cat heis? Oh dear, if so, I do hope he won't get hurt... Torn apart limb from limb, however, will be absolutely fine, though.' he thought.
His attention was once more on the ball of energy looming in the distance – well, it wasn't much of a distance anymore. Looming in close proximity was more like it. With a sigh, Freeza raised his arms to block. A second later, he felt himself being crushed by the sphere's massive size, his limbs' stark white coloration seared into a burnt-bronze tan as his skin was literally cooked by the destructive energy. The only bother, besides the unfamiliar sensation of agony, was the off-putting scent of overly-burnt meat, something he personally despised. 'How terribly quaint...and annoying,' he thought as the cooked-flesh smell transitioned into that of a charred corpse.
Whis didn't cheer when his Genesis attack completely enveloped the Arcosian into its scalding core, nor did he smile or acknowledge what happened in any way — he was too old and too wise for any of that. Instead, he raised his guard and prepared himself for an attack. He had barely done so when a shadow slithered just under Genesis' red surface, not unlike a Great White Shark stalking prey while hidden underwater. As rapidly as it had appeared, the silhouette was gone, swallowed once again into the throbbing mass.
'What's he doing? Hiding within my attack like that...he really is an abomination!' Whis was carefully considering whether it'd be wise to launch the sphere into space, when five rays of red light aimed at the god's vital points erupted from the core of the energy ball. Whis pirouetted away, just as another batch of deadly red lasers devoured the space separating them from where the gods was moving to. The fair being halted mid-movement, thus exposing himself to the next shower of red blazes. Whis noted that they were all coming in fives and was caught by a nagging suspicion. He flew down, descending at a desperate pace, all the while twisting and turning to avoid the beams. The scalding heat of Genesis licked at his skin, bringing with it the fuzzy, sickening feeling he always got whenever he used the energy of creation with the intent of destroying.
He effortlessly passed through the external membrane of the attack just as a particularly well-aimed beam grazed his shoulder. Ignoring the bite of pain, he outstretched his right hand and grabbed at a brownish, vaguely limb-shaped thing. The hint of skin upon it sizzled and flaked away upon contact, while what might have been fingertips, now blackened, glowed red. Whis angled the thing away from himself and watched expressionlessly as the ray flashed upwards. The limb fizzled even more as it was freed and pulled away, toward a monstrous carcass of cooked skin, the whole thing covered in bubbles of molten flesh. A few seconds passed as Whis stared, speechless.
"You know, that has always been a favorite attack of mine," Freeza's cultured voice interjected in a conversational tone, "I used to fire it only with my indexes." His eyes, sputtering and smoking as the liquid in them boiled away, appeared to be studying his missing nails lazily. "I had it down to an art; I could fire it so fast. Then, one day I had a sudden revelation: I have ten fingers! Why use only two of them when I had so many at my disposal? Silly, really, that little restriction." He gave a satisfied little chuckle. "It was a bit of an exercise in coordination but I eventually managed, as I always do. I practiced with the worms I discovered in some solar system until I felt my technique was perfect. What a day that was."
Whis nodded absentmindedly. "I can imagine. You have become the perfect killing machine, have you not? The speed with which you master new skills, the destructive attacks you devise, your ruthless spirit... Astonishing."
Freeza waved away the compliment, still-white teeth flashing from between ruined lips in what might have been a smile or simply the normal, haunting expression of a skull.
"It must be so frustrating," Whis went on in a patronising tone, "Knowing that you are a genius and having no one left to acknowledge that. No one to share your successes with, no one to enjoy destruction with. I wonder, how do you cope with that?" Freeza's whole body went completely still. He had no expressions left for Whis to read, but the god could see it all anyway. The endless years spent in utter silence, with only stars listening to his raving, egotistical speeches; the blind fury, then bottomless despair, that came with realizing that inanimate objects are useless at conversation, let alone praise; the hunger for bodily contact, or any kind of contact, destined to morph into full-blown starvation for company. There were never tears, of course. Gods, as Whis could testify, have no use for them. The screams of madness born of isolation eventually died out, absorbed by the dark curtain of "forever and ever". The Arcosian had been forced to lie in the proverbial bed that he'd made, and for a creature once mortal, it was obvious this was not pleasant.
Freeza laughed; it was a breathy, almost desperate sound, laced with an almost painful madness. He slowly shook his blackened head, pieces of flesh flaking off with each movement. He didn't seem to notice or care. "I need no one," he answered easily, "I am the ultimate being and I know it. Here I stand before you, a god, with half of my skin missing, the other half boiling, and not only do I feel not even the slightest discomfort, but I could easily put an end to your miserable life. That alone should tell you something."
"Indeed," Whis retorted, "You really feel nothing, do you? Or are you so used to feeling nothing that even pain is a respite?" The god's pale eyes narrowed to punctuate his point.
The half-burnt corpse stared at him with fathomless shells of eyes. "Enough of this," the tyrant finally whispered, "Your universe will soon be delighted by my presence."
With a flick of his finger, Whis raised the core temperature of his attack. As the energy sphere started to collapse, he shook his head slowly. "Not my universe, no," he simply stated solemnly. Freeza's form blurred and disappeared. Genesis exploded with the roar of a billion supernovae.
Vegeta and Goku hurriedly hunkered down to avoid the debris generated by Whis' massive attack exploding, clamping their hands over their ears to try to negate some of the sound. It had not taken them long to realize that the world they were on was much more resistant than normal planets; otherwise, it'd be destroyed long ago. As they stood again, their minds concentrated once again on the problems at hand. On one side, there was a completely out-of-control star bent on destroying Beerus or Goku, whichever was closer. On the other, there was...
"How does this bloody thing work?!" The sceptre of the god of Creation, and the object of Vegeta's scream of frustration, remained stubbornly unresponsive as the Prince waved it in the general direction of the Magnetar. The artifact didn't start to shine magically, like Goku had hoped, instead allowing the star to continue undisturbed its path of destruction.
Goku looked frantically around, searching for a clue on how to make the sceptre work or, failing that, a source of inspiration. His eyes fell on the dumbfounded Kaioshins, who were helping a still-recovering Lord Beerus stand. The Saiyan hero snapped his fingers in comprehension.
"I bet it needs a ritual!" he announced triumphantly. His enthusiasm somehow dampened when he noticed Vegeta was looking at him as if considering whether banging Goku's head with the sceptre might be a good way to get a ritual started.
"Have you gone completely mad, you idiot?" the Prince finally snapped, almost rhetorically.
Goku shook his head. "Of course I haven't! Think! It's a magical artifact and everyone knows that everything magical needs a ritual to start working. Or a magic spell. Like Abracadabra!"
"Like what?" Vegeta asked suspiciously, one eyebrow arched in absence of recognition.
"It's a famous magic formula," Goku explained, "I think it's universal. Hey, why don't you..."
"Get out of the way, clown!" The royal-born Saiyan pushed Goku away as the Magnetar lazily slithered towards them.
"Quick Vegeta! It's coming! Say 'Abracadabra'!" the spiky-haired Saiyan shouted, following the star with his gaze and frantically waving his arms at it.
Vegeta shut his eyes, murmured a quick prayer for his dying pride, held the sceptre high and pronounced the supposed spell. "Abracadabra!"
When nothing happened, the royal grabbed the sceptre with both hands and aimed it right at Goku's head, attempting to bash it in. The hero jumped out of the way just in time, a shriek making its way past his lips. "Vegeta! What was that for?"
Vegeta ground his teeth together. "What for?! Why, for making me look like a complete moron, you stupid fool! Besides, it seems fracturing your skull is the only thing this trash can do!"
Goku pondered the problem. "Maybe it's not Abracadabra. How about Hocus Pocus? Do you want to try that one? Vegeta? What's wrong?"
The Prince was looking at him with a completely blank face, his hands gripping the artifact so tightly it must have been painful. "You are an utter idiot," Vegeta finally breathed, as if having a sudden revelation. "Even your brother, who once almost blew himself up with his own attack, wasn't that much of a simpleton. Nor were the Kelamns, a race so stupid they built all their main power sources on highly seismically active grounds. Or the Lianastis, whom we destroyed with almost no effort their power notwithstanding, because they'd been so idiotic to poison themselves by dumping highly toxic waste materials in their water. Or the—"
"Erm, Vegeta?" Goku warily interrupted him before he could go on with his list, not liking the manic light in the other's eyes. Somehow, the Prince seemed to have forgotten about the reason for his initial outburst. "I don't think this is really relevant..."
"Oh, but it is," Vegeta muttered vaguely. His grip on the sceptre had eased to a caressing stroke. Quite surprisingly, Goku didn't consider it a good thing that the artifact was standing on its own.
"I had to remember all of them, you know." A faraway look had crept on the Prince's face as he stared into the crystal ball floating over the end of the sceptre.
Goku swallowed. "Who?"
Vegeta kept gazing at the sphere, his eyes following invisible images. "The races I destroyed. I didn't want to — their pitiful stories didn't interest me. They were gone anyway, weren't they? However, Freeza wanted to know. He wanted to know everything, every detail."
"He wanted his soldiers to keep records of the planets they purged?" the Saiyan hero guessed.
Vegeta gave a short, mirthless laugh. "Of course he did, for the sake of keeping count. I'm talking about something different, though. Every time I returned from a mission, I was expected to report to him. I had to tell him what I saw on the planet I'd just destroyed. What were the buildings like? What did the cities look like, if there were any cities? And what about the fauna and flora? Were there dangerous animals or plants? Was there anything useful? And the races inhabiting the planet? What did they look like? Had they any peculiar abilities? Any special customs or rituals? And, and, and... He went on and on. I never knew why it was me he fixed upon. He told me I was fun to listen to, that I knew how to tell a story or some-such garbage." Vegeta closed his eyes, reciting words from a never-forgot past. "Wasn't I always telling stories? The pitiful story of the Super Saiyan, of how I was the strongest. My delusion of how I was going to transform one day and defeat him. All of them, stories that I was allowed to tell only for his own amusement..!"
The royal resumed his studying of the crystal ball. "After the story was told, Freeza would just move on and forget everything, waiting for the next one. Initially, I tried to do the same, to wipe my mind clean after every meeting, but I was so conditioned that it didn't work. All the details were branded into my memory. I remembered everything. Still do, after all this time."
Goku could swear that he heard faint screams coming from the crystal. What really upset him, though, was the deranged smile that had blossomed on Vegeta's lips as he kept peering into the ball. "The Lamboos were incredibly fun to fight," the Saiyan Prince went on dreamily, "They could literally fuse with shadows. The only way to kill them was when they wandered outside their protection of darkness. Took Nappa, Raditz, and me weeks to get them all. They lived in the shadows projected by buildings abandoned by the previous inhabitants of the planet. Freeza had a field-day with that one. And the Astinians! How could I forget about them! They considered themselves the guardians of a so called "Book of Destiny"; they told me it contained all the past, present, and future events. Rubbish, of course. According to the book, I should have been a god by now. The Naitderers were the best, though! They were the only race I had to lie about. I didn't kill them and blow up their planet in a fit. They took their planet and escaped. It was a very neat trick..."
White tendrils started slithering around the Prince as he remembered, encasing his body in a luminescent aura. Vegeta didn't seem to notice, too busy caressing the surface of the crystal ball.
"I wonder how they did it," he murmured, apparently talking to it, "Will you show me?" The artifact glowed and started playing a spectacle only for Vegeta's eyes.
The Prince clapped his hands in glee, a spark forming at the contact. "So that's how! Heh, how did I miss it! It's easy! I could do it too!" He picked up the sceptre and casually spun it around, a joyous laugh bubbling in his throat. He didn't sound like himself at all.
Goku's nails bit into his palms as his hands tightened into fists. He couldn't explain why it felt like something terrible was happening, but his instinct was never wrong. "Put that thing down Vegeta!" the hero ordered.
The royal smiled indulgently at him. "As you wish, Kakarotto. I don't need this anyway. Not anymore." He let the sceptre fall to the ground, his white aura not disappearing at the lack of contact.
"Who are you?" Goku shouted, enraged and more than a bit worried, "What just happened?"
Vegeta shrugged. "I am that I am," he answered flippantly, "As for what happened... Well, I remembered. I remembered what I did and what I am supposed to do."
"And what are you supposed to do?" Goku questioned warily.
The other Saiyan smiled sweetly at him. It looked so incredibly wrong as to send a shiver down Goku's spine. "To make anew what was destroyed. To create life from the void. To have the phoenix rise from its ashes, forever more. In short, to be the god of Creation."
Goku exhaled, trying to keep calm. He threw a look at Whis, who was still exchanging blows with Freeza at a terrifying speed. Doubts crept into his mind, as he wondered whether Whis had really aimed at helping them when he gave Vegeta the sceptre. But what would making the Prince delusional accomplish? Whis managed to throw the Arcosian to the ground, and his eyes briefly met the Saiyan's. The serene expression that addressed him did nothing to put Goku at ease. 'Man, if there's a lesson to be learned from all of this, it'd have to be,"never trust gods, least of all this guy"!' the hero reasoned with a growing unease.
"Vegeta," Goku stated with utter certainty, "You are not a god. I have no idea what the sceptre told you, but it wasn't the truth. You want to say you're the Prince of all Saiyans? Go ahead, I even miss hearing that. But stop saying you're the god of Creation, it's creeping me out. You're starting to sound like Freeza."
The royal laughed merrily. "Of course I am the god of Creation, you silly low-class. The sceptre told me nothing, it only helped clear a few things up. I was always meant for that role, being groomed for it really. Freeza destroyed all those races, however indirectly, while I allowed them to live, re-creating them in my memory; I breathed life into the Super Saiyan by retelling his legend; I took the ashes of my life and became something completely new. Such is our difference: the god of Destruction never remembers, the god of Creation never forgets. And speaking of destruction..."
Vegeta casually stepped aside to avoid the Magnetar, which proceeded to warp and destroy a few more trees. The Prince pointed at the star and white tendrils shot out from his finger, sneaking around the dark mass and raising it high above the ground. Then, he carefully studied the sky and, once his eyes stopped on a particular portion of celestial firmament, tossed the Magnetar in that direction. The star shot up and disappeared from view. "There!" the royal exclaimed, satisfied. His eyes moved to take in Whis and Freeza, who were still battling enthusiastically. "Let's take care of that now." He started to walk in the gods' direction, white aura growing. Goku hurriedly followed him, not trusting the Prince not to put himself in danger.
"Do not fret, Kakarotto." Vegeta turned to look at him for a second. His smile had turned feral and his eyes shone with malice. Not one to cower, even before a friend he barely recognized now, Goku met his stare fearlessly. The other merely laughed and continued to head towards the fighting duo. Once he was close enough, he almost effortlessly glided between the two, his attention solely on Freeza. The Arcosian blinked and then stared at Vegeta in what could only be described as polite interest. Whis, on the other hand...
Goku's thought process halted. Whis was doing nothing. He had backed off the second Vegeta had approached them and was observing the scene from the sidelines, his face betraying nothing but utter peace. It immediately put Goku in an alarmed state, his mind screaming that this wasn't right.
He realized he'd started to run to catch up with Vegeta only when he almost tripped in his rush. Everything seemed to be moving slowly. It took centuries for Freeza to raise his tail, probably in order to struck down Vegeta for meddling; Whis, who was turning in the hero's direction, appeared to be fighting against time itself to do so. And, as fast as he tried to run, he was not making any progress...
Then Vegeta spoke, casually, almost conversationally. "Say, do you remember the Naitderers?"
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Do leave a review on your way out ^^