Chapter 10 - Igue and Reinyn
Time is a funny thing. You can measure it in hours and seconds, days and weeks, centuries and millennia. For children time passes in events, birthdays and holidays, tiny tragedies and victories. Most children plot their lives by pet funerals, and spelling bee trophies. The half-breed children of Diasheru didn't measure their lives all that differently than other children. They lived from battle to battle, meal to meal, marking their time with a series of short slashes in their necks.
A middle-aged woman looked out a small window at Vegeta's bright white skies. Not a Saiyan, her brown hair hung limp past creamy pale shoulders. Her face was too broad and angular to be pretty, her frame too heavy and wide to be ladylike. Distractedly, she wiped at her eyes, large and violet, her only striking feature. Behind her, a small child, a boy, was scribbling on a piece of paper, drawing bubbly unreal creatures.
"Igue? Come, now. Mommy has to talk to you angel," the woman said. She crossed to where her boy was coloring. He dropped his little pencil and looked up slowly. "Your daddy is coming today. You have to take a test. I want you to do your best."
Igue shrugged. "Okay Mom, I'll do good." It wasn't a lie, exactly. He was going to do his best, like his mother asked, but he was pretty sure, no one would consider it good.
His father, tall and solemn, didn't say a word to him, just ushered him out the door. Igue could hear his mother, crying as the door slid shut behind him. The long empty hallways seemed all two short because at the end he faced a panel of Saiyans, old and cold. They stared down at him, sneered, and sent him away. Igue could still hear their laughter at the reading off their scouters. The moment they started laughing, he knew that he'd failed.
Igue didn't kid himself that failure might mean returning to his mother. He was little not stupid. The test was supposed to decide where he went, to decide if he was strong enough to be a real Saiyan like his dad.
His father left him after he failed, not with just a word, but with a fist. Igue had embarrassed his father and his bloodline. Not bothering to spit the warm coppery blood out of his mouth, Igue tried not to panic. He wasn't completely without hope. Maybe Diasheru wouldn't be so bad? It was full of rejects, half-breeds who were judged too weak. There was a chance that he would survive, flourish even. They might consider him strong.
Any illusions he harbored about being considered strong vanished in the face of his dormitory. They all seemed so big. They're gonna pound me into a bloody pulp. Igue wished he could go back in time and be stronger, strong enough to avoid this place, these children.
"We got us a new baby, look at that," one of the boys said. He was bigger than most, with two slashes in his neck. "Let me have a turn with him, I'll get him on the straight and narrow." The clumps of kids turned to stare, but no one actually came after him. Igue moved back until he was pressed firmly against the wall.
"Shut up, Dezie. You wouldn't want to bite off more than you can chew," a different boy said. He wasn't as big as the first boy, the mean one, but the children parted for him when he moved without challenge. Respect? More likely it was fear. "New kid, you got a name?"
"Igue. My name is Igue." Was this guy going to pound him then? Igue knew what the neck slashes meant in Diasheru and this guy had two. He is going to pound me.
"I'm Reinyn. You think you can beat me? Fair fight, one on one of course." The boy stopped advancing right in front of Igue. "I asked you a question. Can you beat me?"
"Maybe I could," Igue said. "If you want to fight, we'll find out." I won't disgrace my bloodline twice in one day. I'll put up a fight you won't expect.
"You're going to have to fight today, but I don't much think I'm the one you should try first thing. See we have a nice little hierarchy in this dorm. You get to start at the bottom. If you want off the bottom, get stronger," Reinyn said. He jerked his head toward a group of smaller kids, none of which had any slashes in their necks. "Try learning from them. They're stronger than they look. Now if you step out and get in anybody's way. They have every right to put you back in your place. Trust me, you will get creamed. Keep your nose clean and your friends there will be the only ones beating on you."
Igue stared at the boys he'd been told to join and craned his head back to look at Reinyn again. This wasn't how Diasheru was supposed to go. His mother used to tell him about this place all the time when he was little. The children fought like animals, the only hierarchy was one won with blood. She had been afraid that he was going to end up here. It wasn't like she told him she thought he was going to fail, but he could tell. Why hadn't they attacked him though? It was obvious some of them wanted to.
"Hey Igue, welcome to bottom of the dung heap," one of the boys said. He wasn't big at all, scrawny was a good word for him. "That was my spot till today. I don't want it back either."
Igue shrugged. "I get off the bottom if I beat you, right?"
"Don't bet on it new guy," the scrawny boy said. "You can call me Heri."
Days passed and Igue failed to see the dreaded Diasheru his mom warned him about. It was weird. They fought every day, almost all day, but they fought peers, equals. The strong didn't get a chance to kick around the weak. Igue gradually developed a theory about the difference between the Diasheru of his mom's stories and the dormitory he was living in. Instead of a dozen packs of boys, there was one source of absolute authority. Reinyn was the dictator of the room. No one crossed him. He set the rules and the rules were followed. That just led to the question of why. Why were they afraid of him? He wasn't big or even very intimidating.
"Hey you, watch yourself."
Igue turned to see who had spoken. He hadn't moved since the other kids in his little group finished pounding his face in for the day, so he was a bit surprised at attracting attention. It was Dezie, the boy who'd wanted to break him in on day one. "Sorry, I'll move."
Apparently not interested in compliance, Dieze laughed harshly and grabbed Igue by the front of his jumpsuit. "I'll move you." He attacked, quickly, brutally. Dieze pummeled Igue's chest and kidneys. This was the Diasheru his mother told him about. Before Igue could plan a proper counterattack, the pounding was over, and Dieze dropped him. Igue moved his hands from in front of his head and came face to face with the reason there was absolute authority in this dormitory.
Gold fire, energy, pulsed and flowed around Reinyn. His black hair was gone, replaced by golden tresses that danced in the energy playing over and through him. Igue's mouth dropped open and he moved away from the light display. Dieze wasn't moving though. He was glaring murderously at Reinyn.
"How many times have we fought, Dieze? Wait, never mind, you don't count that high do you?" Reinyn said.
"Today I'm gonna beat you," Dieze said. "Today you go down hard little boy. I'm tired of your pansy un-Saiyan rules."
"Beat me then, Dieze," Reinyn said. There wasn't any fear in that invitation, just a calm certainty.
The other children gathered and watched. Some cheered for Reinyn, others simply watched the fight in silence. No one was willing to cheer for Dieze. Igue watched the fight with his emotions riding a roller coaster between fear and awe and disbelief. He'd never seen anything remotely like what was happening. Reinyn moved so quickly, Dieze couldn't even lay a hand on him. It was a joke, a game. Why doesn't he just end it? As if Reinyn had read his mind, he struck out. Two blows, and the psycho, Dieze, was prostrate.
"What is he?" Igue asked. "That is not normal."
"He glows like that when he's pissed. I figure it's related to his non-Saiyan side. Nobody else here glows when they're pissed," Heri said. He rubbed his hands reflexively over his skinny forearms and stared at Reinyn. "You ever glow like that?"
Igue shook his head. "I don't glow. He's really strong, huh. So why'd they send him to Diasheru? I didn't think they sent strong kids here."
Heri shrugged. "His dad might have screwed up, got himself dishonored then all his half-breed kids would get sent here. He might even be from off planet."
Why Reinyn was in Diasheru wasn't important to Igue. He was there, another half-breed, another reject. "I want to be that strong," Igue whispered.
"We all do," Heri said.
After watching Reinyn take down Dieze, Igue became somewhat obsessed with the dictator of their dormitory. He watched him whenever he could, what he ate, how he fought. Igue wished he could be close enough to actually hear him, to train with him. Not that that was ever likely to happen.
"Hey Igue, you ready to fight?" Heri said. "You said you were going to beat me didn't you?"
"Yeah, let's go." Igue grimaced when he pushed himself to his feet. He was bruised and tired, but he was getting stronger too. Heri, his sparring partner, was a paradox, small and skinny but damn hard to hit and even harder to hurt. It was difficult to believe that Heri was the weakest guy in the room outside himself.
"Whoa, time out," Heri said.
Igue frowned. "What? We barely got warmed up."
"I think he's deferring to me."
It couldn't be...Igue turned slowly until he was face to face with the object of his admiration, Reinyn. Why would he be playing at the bottom of the dung heap with the scraps?
"Can you fly?" Reinyn asked.
Igue couldn't quite comprehend what he was being asked at first. Could he fly? "No."
"How about you Heri? You remember how to fly?" Reinyn asked.
"Yeah, I remember," Heri said. "Want me to teach Igue?"
"You keep training. I'll teach Igue," Reinyn said. "Come on, let's get somewhere out of the way where we can concentrate."
Why did Reinyn want to teach him anything? Why the heck did he know Heri by name? "Yes, sir." Igue followed Reinyn away from the crowds of fighting children.
"Sit down," Reinyn said. "I won't bite, so don't look so scared." Once they were seated facing each other, Reinyn continued. "You were born on planet, right? You're probably not real happy to be here."
Igue shrugged. "No one wants to be weak. You let down your bloodline, and you deserve what you get."
"You want to be strong, work hard. You have the potential. Every kid here has potential. I won't let the psychos beat you down while you learn. The thing I need to figure out today is, are you one of the psychos? Do I need to watch you, Igue?"
"I don't need to beat anybody down, besides there isn't anybody wimpy enough here for me to attack if I wanted to," Igue said.
"It won't always be that way, but I'll take you at your word." Reinyn took a deep calming breath. "Let's learn to fly."
That night, long after his flying lessons were over, Igue lay in his bunk with his eyes shut. He had come closer to his leader, Reinyn, than he ever thought he would. The experience hadn't tarnished his image of the older boy. Rather it had enhanced it. The pedestal he had placed Reinyn on had grown taller and more austere. Igue opened his eyes and squinted into the pitch blackness. His hero was out there, somewhere sleeping.
"I'm going to be that strong. Maybe stronger." Igue shut his eyes and remembered what it felt like to fly. He remembered the freedom of it, the pleasure. Sleep finally found him and he flew in his dreams. He flew and he glowed with a golden power. In his dreams he was stronger than even his own father. He was a real Saiyan warrior. He didn't realize that the values and ideas he'd begun to consider those of a true warrior weren't recognized by Saiyans as anything but weak.
