Quietly, so quietly, the dark air slipped around Vegeta's body and blew on the back of his neck, soft at first, and then insistent. Vegeta groaned. His body felt like cracking lead- he was a puzzle threatening to come apart piece by piece if anyone so much as dared nudge him.
The air turned icy and cruel the moment his mind silently acknowledged his weakness, and it sent tiny pinpricks of pain into his skin as if it were pulling the tiny hairs out of the back of his neck one by one, like it was threatening to snap him apart from the outside in and lay the shards out before him to see as he deteriorated piece by piece.
A voice, soft and sinister and so, so familiar, hissed into his ear. "My, my."
Vegeta's eyes shot open.
"But look at you now," his demon said. "I thought you were better than this, but it seems that even you can grow soft. So pitiful."
It was behind Vegeta now, just out of his sight. He could feel its energy seeping over into the corner of his vision like frost curling its tendrils over the corners of a windowpane.
"Was it just not worth it anymore without someone out there for you to try and kill, someone always one step ahead of you?" The ice demon laughed. "You've let yourself go since I've been locked away here, Vegeta. I would say I was disappointed, but honestly I'm not surprised. You never were much to speak of without me there to hold your hand."
Vegeta let his energy rise up within him along with bile and an anger that made his mouth tang with the flavor of his childhood. He clamped his teeth down so hard that he felt something crack under the pressure, and it rolled around in pieces between his jaws. Vegeta held it there and explored the shards of it and his hateful, unspoken words with his tongue.
"But then again, that other monkey from Earth is stronger than you. He's stronger, even in death, and you're not inclined to do anything about it? Even with his wretched little bastard right in front of you, taunting you, acting so superior? Flaunting his weakness in the face of your foolish, bestial Saiyan pride?" The demon circled around Vegeta. It moved like mist over water, like ice married to air. "My, but that does make your appearance here in hell almost a disappointment! How boring you've become. How tame."
Vegeta ignored the cries of exhaustion leaking from his body in silent, pained screams. He crossed his arms and projected confidence to protect himself; it was the same armor he wore as a child, only without the crest of his father painted over his heart.
"Oh? Still nothing to say?" The demon asked. A long, white tail brushed across Vegeta's shoulder and pressed on his jaw.
He swatted it away.
"Ah, and I had been looking forward to hearing your smug prattle so I could shove it back down your throat," the demon's voice surrounded him like the smoke from dry ice fogging up over hissing waters.
Ghostly fingers brushed at Vegeta's hair, and this time, he let them pass through it as if they really were only part of an apparition.
"Nothing? Nothing at all? Is that really all you have to say to me, after all this time?" The demon asked, pinching Vegeta's cheeks between a cold forefinger and thumb. "How rude. I'm hurt."
Vegeta stared straight ahead, into the darkness, and reminded himself that he was stronger now. He should not sully his hands on such an unworthy, vile creature.
"Oh, I know that look. Are you thinking of trying to kill me again, Prince Vegeta?"
Still, Vegeta said nothing. If he rose to the bait, just as he always did as a boy, and then as a younger man too full of himself to know how badly he was being played, destroying this thing would not matter. Vegeta would be giving his demon exactly what it wanted.
"Please, do try. I would love to see how your little tirade would play out without Son Goku around to listen to your pitiful little sob story." The demon paused. "That was his name, wasn't it? Goku? Or was it, ah, what filthy little pet name did you call him by? Kakarot?" It slipped off its silver tongue so easily, but sounded so wrong, as if the moment the word resounded out loud into the darkness, it became a sin. "Yes, Kakarot."
Vegeta lowered his energy and held it there, like a slow, steady drum beating out a warning in the distance.
"Oh, Vegeta, you don't have to be so coy. I know what burns in your stomach. I know what drives you to get up in the morning. It's not that girl, or your brat, or even the food they put on the table for you. No, not at all. If it were, you wouldn't have such a sour countenance." The demon laughed. "Nobody knows that look on your face more intimately than I do." It appeared in Vegeta's face suddenly, pale white skin glistening in the blackness and deep, dark violet swirling in a tempest on the crown of its head. "After all, I'm the one who put it there."
Vegeta ignored the crimson leer aimed at him.
The demon's whisper was like winter, merciless and decidedly crisp. "Look at you, Vegeta. You don't even have it in you to attack me. Are you afraid? Is the Prince of All Saiyans afraid?
Vegeta made the mistake of looking down then, and those red eyes held him like a snake entrances a mouse.
"It took Son Goku, a dead planet, and the hope of the future to kill me, and you never defeated even the first of those things. You never got the chance. So how could you defeat me, then, when you never measured up? Not to him, not to me, not even to a filthy, damned slimeball full of slugs."
"Don't delude yourself," Vegeta answered, his arrogance outweighing his wisdom, "I've outclassed you several times over since that day, you miserable little worm."
"Oh! Is that so?" The demon tossed its head, tail dancing in the air behind him, "Well, excuse me, little Prince. You ugly, hairy things grow new coats so frequently, it's hard to tell when a new one is special and when it it's nothing more than a fresh, reeking layer of body hair." It cackled under its breath. "But what does it matter? What does it matter if one ape can copy what another one did first?" The demon chilled Vegeta down to his core with cruel laughter and circled him. "There's no real mystery behind it- you've been riding coat tails your whole life! Ah, yes, 'But I am the Prince! I am the Prince! I was born a leader, I was born for glory, for power!' Fool. Ignorant, petulant child. You can't do anything by yourself, Vegeta! You can't even bring yourself to try without seeing someone else do it first! You think you were the first to try and kill me? You think you were my first pet to try and bite the hand that fed it?" the demon laughed louder. "Monkey see, monkey do! That's why you'll always be the lesser, always, from now until the end of time!"
Vegeta sent a fist after the demon, but it floated to the side of it and hung in the air there like smoke.
"Your power, your glory, pride. Even your title, I'd say. That's what we took from you. What he took from you- he lived longer than I, and died more nobly for it, and defined by your ideals. They are all Son Goku's now. You practically gave it all to him."
Vegeta caught the demon with a strike to its iridescent teeth- those bright, shining teeth hanging down from its blackened lips like icicles sharpened to a point by the wind, the same ones that would peek out at him as a boy and smile a smile laced with condescension in the form of praise- 'Oh, excellent work, my Prince. I can see why you're the pride of your people.'
The stalactites shattered, but the demon only grinned wider and showed off the gaping hole in his face as if to swallow Vegeta within it. "They're his little brat's, too!" It said. "Vegeta, Prince of Saiyans, outshined by the king of apes, Son Goku, the disgusting, mongrel bumpkin! The Monkey King! And his half breed bastard!" It staved off Vegeta's next blow and slammed both palms at the sides of his head.
Vegeta's ears rang from the force of shattered equilibrium, and he swallowed the shards sitting in his mouth from the pain. The world swirled around him and his head felt heavy, as if he were wandering between sleep and wakefulness, all bathed in an ugly, vengeful, nightmarish rage. So he lashed out at his demon while it was in his sights, fists flying, loathing pouring from his mouth in strangled screams, and he felt himself growing stronger and stronger with each strike, but at the cost of feeling emptier and more jagged inside as the demon's laughter only echoed within his heart.
"They've taken it all, and left you practically naked, like a monkey who's been strategically shaved to look like an even uglier bastard than you already were!"
Vegeta sent the demon to his knees and assaulted his head until the glassy, violet place on its head split and purple liquid spritzed from the wound.
"You, and that little Son Gohan- both shriveled, mutilated, worthless bastards!"
Vegeta used both hands to smash in the demon's head. It made a wet noise and a permanent indentation to mark the violence, but held together.
"You learned your cruelty from me. You took your drive from me. Your ambition took inspiration from mine," the demon said. "Play pretend and say you've torn me down, proclaim yourself conqueror, sit on the little throne you made for yourself in your head, it doesn't matter- you are mine, Vegeta, and you always will be. You are what I made you."
Vegeta's boot sent the demon's face into the bottom of the blackness they lurked in, and he stomped and ground his heel into its cheek until alabaster flesh was stained the color of the poison pumping through its veins.
"Always the Prince!" it cried out through the holes in its head, laughing as its face was smeared into paste, over and over again. "But never, never the King!"
Vegeta was suddenly seized by some force he knew but could not name, and pain bloomed in his stomach and around his neck as the demon, the darkness, and his dream all dissolved into whiteness.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Bulma's son cowered into his mother's side as Gohan pulled Vegeta away from Yamcha and slammed him into the wall, and then deep into the cement floor when it broke.
Vegeta's face was taught and unreadable, caught somewhere between a grimace of pain and one of relief as he looked around the room, dazed, until he found the face of Son Gohan and grabbed at the hand the boy had wrapped around his throat. Behind him, Yamcha lay on the ground, his face a bloody mess and his arm positioned impossibly.
Vegeta's eyes flicked over Gohan's face slowly, the light his body cast reflecting off of his eyes like off a cat's and staining them green beneath his golden hair. Gohan's back looked much the same, but tenser, more haggard, and everything about him was elongated and hardened in a way Bulma had never seen before. It looked like someone has whittled away all the gentle, boyish softness she was so familiar with and left a skeleton of golden anger in its place.
"What are you doing?" Vegeta finally demanded. "Release me!"
Bulma could not read Gohan's expression, nor could she understand the language of his energy like her son surely could by the way he was hugging her legs, but his stance did not change. It made her feel like a helpless little girl running away from a monster born in the light of the full moon.
Vegeta writhed in protest beneath his captor's grip, his white-knuckled hands wrapped around the boy's wrists, and Gohan pushed him back down. A ball of ki appeared in the boy's other hand and he slid it close to Vegeta's face.
"So you're trying to kill me now, after all these years, hm?" Vegeta asked. "In my sleep, no less. And here I was starting to believe that Earth had actually weathered away all of your brutality and all that crap you spout about peace. But instead, it turns out that you have no honor, no warrior's pride. An assassination, really. How cowardly you are." He grinned like a predator. Bulma had not seen that expression on his face for a long time.
The ball of ki in Gohan's hand disappeared. "I'm not here to fight you or do anything like that."
"What is this? Stage fright?" Vegeta chuckled, darkly and unfamiliarly, even to Bulma. "Oh, no. Don't mind me. See if you can do it. I'd like to know how strong the son of Kakarot really is." His eyes glinted cruelly in the light, and something about the glow of his hair washed out the color of his gums and elongated the sharp white of his teeth. "I'd love to rip you apart and finally prove that you and your filthy, lowborn bastard kind are weaker than me."
"I said that I'm not here to fight you."
Vegeta grinned wider. "Yes, yes, Gohan, I know. You've never wanted to fight, or to fight me. You want to kill me." Then, he laughed. "That's the way it's always been. That's the way you are."
"Vegeta, I want nothing like that."
"Oh? I thought that was what your Namek teacher had trained you to do, all those years ago."
Bulma watched the hairs on the back of Gohan's crown brush back and forth as he shook his head. "That was so long ago, and an entirely different circumstance. You don't know anything about that."
"Oh, I don't, do I?" Vegeta snickered. "you were there to kill Nappa, and kill me. That was always your purpose- to deliver death. And it has always been your deepest desire."
"That's nonsense."
"You may not love the fight, but you love the high from the power your rage gives you, and you crave the thrill of the kill. I know it. I've seen it plain on your face."
"You don't know anything. You only see what you want to see," Gohan said.
Vegeta used his legs to push Gohan's body away from his own and then burned the boy's wrist with ki until he released Vegeta's throat.
Bulma held Trunks tightly against herself as the atmosphere of the room whipped around and pulled at their clothes, their hair, their footing. Yamcha dragged himself over to them, coughing from the cloud smog filling the room.
Vegeta rose like a nightmare made of gold from the smoke and stood in front of where Gohan crouched, holding his wrist. "Enough talk. I have waited long enough. Fight me, and see if you can take what you want." The harsh glow of energy filled his palm and the violet light of it spilled over onto Gohan's face. "Fight me to the death."
"Father!" Trunks cried.
The cold warrior snapped to attention then, and cast his eyes over to Trunks. Bulma felt them wander over her incredulously next, and then finally they landed on where Yamcha lay as he spat blood and shards of his teeth from his mouth.
"Vegeta, stop!" Bulma cried. "You were dreaming!"
He looked at Bulma again, and then at Gohan, and then at the ruined room like he had only just discovered he was standing in it. His hair lost its golden hue and dampened to black, and the violence of his energy faded as he stayed his hand.
Gohan watched him for a moment, and then covered his aggression over with the color of mourning black, too.
"Gohan," Yamcha choked out after an eternity. "Your mom probably wants you home. Don't make her worry."
The boy gauged Yamcha and his words, and then he stood. He bowed to Bulma, and Yamcha, and Trunks, and then, after turning back and piercing Vegeta with a stare that even Bulma could feel from where she stood outside of his line of sight, lifted into the air and took his leave.
Then, the smoke alarm went off.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Thalia stood stock still as that familiar, horrific energy pierced through her surroundings and gripped at her heart.
It came from the Capsule Corporation- that much was unmistakeable- in the form of rage from the man she had thought mangled, that Vegeta- and from Son Gohan, son of Goku, the Sundrop Child who saved the world.
Thalia gripped Clio's the box filled with gifted burden tightly in her hands.
Surely, everyone in the Circle felt them when both reached their peak. She would be a fool to think otherwise. Hell, Terpsichore might have even felt it on the other side of the globe.
But surely nobody else could trace the heartbeat of energy pulsing across the sky after the fallout between the two titans. Nobody else besides she and Terpsichore had seen Gohan so close, nor had anyone else put a face to the distinct way he pushed and pulled at himself with his energy. Nobody else in the Circle knew, unequivocally, the magnitude of power that was Son Gohan.
Thalia slipped on a mask, faded outside of the Circle's boundaries, and followed Gohan like he were a star leading her across the night sky.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Author's Notes:
Thank you all for your continued support, your comments, your enthusiasm, your criticism, and for reading. Hopefully the next chapter comes sooner than this one.
special thanks to those of you who help me with my writer's block. You know who you are.
