Chapter 68. The Heir I
Present day: year 15 After Restoration (AR)
Once a dispossessed prince serving the intergalactic empire of Cold as a soldier, my father was now the ruler of the resurrected Saiyajin race. His reign had been a peaceful one for the past fourteen years. The downfall of the World Trade Organisation that began with my annihilation of King Cold and Frieza on Earth, was later completed by what became known as the Allied Forces; a peace force made up of former WTO members that sought peace like my father. It was through my grandfather's efforts that this alliance was formed, as repentance for the errors he made in his own reign, and it had been a successful venture. The only trading conducted between the different galaxies these days were the exchange of goods and knowledge and all planets that took part in this alliance prospered.
Vegetasei flourished under my father's rule. To satisfy the Saiyajins' innate hunger for battle and advancement, he installed tourneys where warriors competed for a spot in the annual Queen's Tourney. This four day, six tier tournament was held in celebration of the restoration of their planet, or Restoration Day as the yearly festivities were soon dubbed by the people. I competed in the top tier with the few other Saiyajins that had ascended to the fourth level of super. It was the highlight of the Queen's Tourney and the two finalists were given the Super Saiyajin God ritual to fight the final battle in God mode.
Two of my half-sisters competed in that tier, as did my eldest half-brother, my father, Goku, Goten, the Queen herself since her last pregnancy, Gohan if he bothered entering at all, and as of this coming tourney, Turles and Bardock who had both gone farther than anyone had foreseen. More and more Saiyajins that had the potential, attained their super form during the years since Vegetasei was restored, spurred on by the awesome power displayed by their ruler and his inner circle.
There were countless intergalactic tournaments held as well, hosted by a different planet every time so there was never a shortage of challenges to meet, something restive Saiyajin warriors truly needed to keep themselves in line. Most of the former WTO members were fighting races as well and their leaders too created ample opportunity for warriors to safely channel their bloodlust and hone their battle skills without having to engage in actual warfare. The result of this was domestic and intergalactic peace for all.
.
The royal family was huddling in for the polaroid Bra insisted they took. It had become somewhat of a tradition to have their picture taken, by a deeply tanned and broadly grinning Turles this time, during the opening feast of the Restoration Day celebrations. It was a tradition my father didn't enjoy very much so while most of us put on our biggest smile and cheered: "Happy Restoration Day!" he sat back on his throne with a sigh and waited for the abuse to end.
Turles dashed onto the dais and handed the camera back to Bra, but before she could look at the picture that slid out of the device, the Queen of Vegetasei snatched it away from her. My little sister was visibly straining to keep the irritation from her too pretty face. She was seventeen years old, much alike in looks to our mother, entitled and unafraid like our father and infuriatingly sassy like herself. Yet she never got fresh with the Queen because neither she or my father would stand for it. Their interaction was still strained at times, even after so many years, no matter my father's mate taking both me and my sister in as part of her family without reserve. Bra had spent her childhood influenced by my mother's unrelenting dislike for the woman that had 'stolen' our father from her and it was a big contributor to Bra not being able to bond with the Queen like I had. Things were more settled now that Bra was coming of age and started viewing things from her own perspective. There simply was no denying that my father was where he ought to be, and with the woman he ought to be with.
The Queen threw her head back with laughter. "Though luck. Your father looks like he's curling one off again."
My father waved her away impatiently when she held the photo up to his view with a provokingly entertained look on her scarred face. This made her laugh all the more and soon she was wiping tears from the corners of her eyes. The King beheld her with his usual unstirred exterior, yet being his son, I could tell that he wasn't very amused. His descendants were though. They were all clamouring to have a look. The Queen seized sending my father up and gave Bra the photo.
"At least it's better than last year's." Bra commented and after a thorough look, at her own image no doubt, she smirked in satisfaction and passed the polaroid on to Aina.
Aina, fourteen, hauntingly beautiful and equally reticent, was as unsociable as our father was. She had inherited his equilibrium as well. And his looks. Her hair was a sleek black sheet that reached all the way to her thighs, her skin porcelain white and her big eyes endlessly dark. Those who remembered her, said that Aina was the spitting image of her namesake, Queen Aina, our grandmother who had lost her life to ensure the continuance of the Saiyajin race. Aina took the photo from Bra and passed it on to the next sister at the table with a detached air after giving it the merest of glances.
Kinome took the picture from her. The King and Queen's second daughter was the opposite of solemn Aina. Merry and great-hearted, she had a disposition quite like that of our genial grandfather, and she spent much of her time in The Great Vegeta's company. Kinome was thirteen years old and took after our father in looks as well with her black hair and dark eyes, but her skin was bronzed like her mother's and when she smiled, which she almost always did, it was an exact copy of the smiles I sometimes caught the Queen give her King. 'Blinders' my father called those and if his mate used that smile on him, he couldn't deny her anything.
"Forget father. Get a load of Batter. He looks like he's seen his arse!" Kinome hollered, letting out one of her belly laughs.
Her joke instantly roused Negi who was already jumping from his seat down the table. He charged at his big sister with his fists raised and a menacing look on his face, ready to give her a good pummel. My father sent him back with a simple: "Sit, boy." and Negi obeyed instantly, slinking back to his place next to his twin sister Nira.
Negi and Nira were nine years old and their looks were dominated by their Southern blood. They shared identical dark skin, hard, coal black stares and very wild, flaming red hair that was only hinted at in their mother's dark tresses, making them look more like tribes people than she herself. Their character was as unbridled as their dos and the King and Queen had nicknamed them Batter and Bake because Negi was the kind of boy that, as he just illustrated, preferred to resolve disputes with his fists and Nira never knew when to shut her insolent bake. They spent the biggest part of their days making mischief in the palace and getting on everyone's nerves.
The third child born to the King and Queen had been yet another girl. Her name was Ume. Her hair was strawberry blonde and her pale skin sandy coloured due to the long stretches of time she spent with her kinfolk in the South. She had the Queen's singular yellowish eyes and she had inherited her rough ways as well. This made her uncouth, short-tempered and thoroughly foul in the mouth. Our father might get a kick out of this in his mate, his appreciating for it did not stretch to his children and Ume was always careful to keep the swearing at a minimum and strained to hold back on her temper when around him. Out of sight though… oof. And the worse thing was; she had the battle power to match her fierce nature. Even if she was only twelve years old, Ume had already surpassed me in strength. It took me every skill I had to still be able to beat her in a sparring match.
Kinome now handed ill-tempered Ume the picture with a needling and very soft: "You know who you remind me of in this picture, sis?" she giggled. "Uncle Ansgar."
That was more than enough to make Ume fly off the handle. "Eat shit, cunty cuntrag." she realised immediately that she had made an error because she continued in an ebbing voice: "I don't look like that old… fart." Her fierce stare landed on our father.
The King sat looking at her with a cup raised halfway to his mouth. He slowly put it back down in the sudden silence that had descended on the high table. The merry making down the dais where the common folk enjoyed the opening feast continued on uninterrupted, somewhat masking the restrained giggles of the King's other children at the high table. They were all doing their best to keep their faces in check so as to not evoke his wrath and the Queen suddenly seemed thoroughly occupied by two year old Endou in her lap. The slight boy was very similar to her in appearance, but while she was stuffing her face in his neck to hide the snickers her shaking shoulders betrayed nonetheless, Endou sat staring at the King with the exact same unaffected look our father had on right now.
"Off with you, girl." was all the King said, the easy tone in his low voice making the words sound all the more dire.
Ume flew out of her seat and jabbed a finger at Kinome hollering: "She started it!"
My father wordlessly glared her off the dais and Ume took her leave while muttering ill-temperedly about how unfair it was, that she was easy because she didn't even want to attend the stinking opening feast anyway and she concluded her rant by announcing furiously for everyone to hear: "I am going down to the practise grounds to train!" before slamming through the small backdoor leading out of the great hall.
"And you." the King resumed, eyes falling on Kinome who sat giggling behind her hands. He was nothing if not fair in dealing out judgement, our no-nonsense father.
Kinome put on her most dignified face and rose with a polite: "Yes, father. Forgive me my ill manners." she bowed her head and trotted down the dais and out through the same door without complaints.
Four year old Cheri was clambering to her feet in her seat next to the King's. The rules of court dictated that this should be my place, but my little half-sister was too young to be left fending for herself through supper and the Queen had her hands full on Endou so my throne was pushed back a seat to make room for Cheri. I raised no objections. The man that had given me life wasn't the kind to be denied his way and this half-sibling wasn't close to the first that had been given my place at table with the King and Queen continuing their bloodline so vigorously.
Cheri made the hazardous crossing to the King's throne so that she ended up standing on his muscled thighs. She was a pale version of the Queen, or rather what the Queen would have looked like had it not been for those scars and that scowl on her face. Cheri's curly hair was the same strawberry blonde as Ume's and it gave an angelic quality to her beauty. She was an angel in disposition too. There wasn't a bad bone in her body. This was a good thing because Cheri had a base power that disquieted even my father. Her sweet nature was probably the reason why the King refrained from telling her off for climbing into his lap in the midst of supper. He wouldn't have accepted it from any of his other descendants.
"Pappy is cross." Cheri concluded in any pre-schooler's identifying manner as she hugged him around the neck and mashed their pale faces together cheek to cheek. "Is pappy cross with me?"
"I'm not cross with you, princess." the King assured her softly. He slipped his big arm around her tiny frame and bumped foreheads with her. Then he swooped her up and plopped her back into her own seat. "Eat."
With peace now restored, the feast resumed and the polaroid made its way further down the left side of the table to the first son that the Queen had granted her King. That my eleven year old half-brother was named after our father and grandfather was spot on. He looked exactly like the men with whom he shared his name, right down to the elegant, easy grace both the King and The Great Vegeta had to their posture. This Vegeta was a very headstrong boy, forceful and of the solid belief that he owned the world. He was most often referred to as Black Vegeta because I had named my own son after our father as well. My four year old in turn was called Fair Vegeta for the light hair and blue eyes I had passed on to him.
Black Vegeta shared a laugh with the twins about the fact that Ume really did look like their uncle Ansgar in the picture. They strained their necks to look at the fierce tribes man with the long red hair that sat at one of the trestle tables down the dais, his sissing laughter audible all the way to the high table. Nira suggested they go sit at their uncle's table after the eating was done and the two boys agreed while the three of them nudged the polaroid along to six year old Mikan, the last of the King and Queen's nine children. Mikan looked like our father as well but for his yellowish eyes and he had the exact attitude one would expect from a young prince. He was haughty, smug and extremely boastful, but he worshipped his mother and this redeemed his lesser traits in our father's eyes, though the ruler of Vegetasei was apt to say that it was a good thing that 'that one' wasn't going to become king after him.
The polaroid made its way back down the table so that it could be passed on to me by the Queen after she had another good laugh about it. My father refused to lift a finger to the thing and Cheri's scrawny arms were too short so the Queen leaned in saying: "You take a pretty picture too, Prince."
I took the polaroid and let my little half-sister have a look with me. Cheri pointed out our father looking thoroughly fagged in it and she giggled which made me snicker despite the impatient sideways glance the King threw me. It was my own son demanding to have a look now and he tugged my sleeve impatiently with his fat little hand while my mate Rei shushed him sternly and grabbed him by the collar to keep him in his seat. I gave my boy the polaroid and he cheerily started tapping everybody in it with a severely food-stained, greasy finger. I knew Bra wasn't going to be happy about the polaroid being mucked up, but I let my son do as he pleased. The Queen was right that I didn't look much better in that picture than my father did so I wasn't that opposed to letting my son ruin it. The photo went from Rei, who sent me through our blood-link that I indeed looked like a gorm, to her father Brachus and on to The Great Vegeta, then Tragus, Ringo and finally Turles who was the last guest seated at the high table.
By the time the polaroid reached Bra again, the eating part of the feast was over and my sassy sister sat wiping the image with a disgruntled: "Ugh, disgusting." while people started leaving the high table to mingle with the hundreds of guests down the dais.
The two youngest of my siblings were collected by their savage looking dry nurse Suzuna who took them straight into the bustle. The older princes and princesses jumped down the dais one after the other to join in on the merry making as well. Mikan was of a mind to stay behind and lay claim to his mother's attention like always, but my father headed him off by draping himself over the Queen's throne, one arm slung across the high back and the other snaking across her thighs. He met his son's challenging, almost hostile look, holding him in a voiceless staring match until Mikan averted his eyes.
"Have fun, boy." the King said pleasantly, his characteristic, self-satisfied half smirk finally breaking through on his still exterior.
The six year old accepted grudgingly that he was the lesser man here and made scarce, disappearing in the throng in the wake of the gambolling twins and black Vegeta.
Bra gave up on trying to salvage the polaroid and left the dais too. She made a beeline for Pan Son who had joined her grandfather to Vegetasei for the Restoration Day Celebrations. They met up hugging in the midst of the hall and took off to the trestle table that occupied the most soldiers. The two Earth-Saiyajin girls were dressed in the short skirts and crop tops that were all the rage in West City these days and they drew a lot of attention because the styles were so foreign to the people of Vegetasei. The Saiyajin men at the table, like men on Earth, clearly found the clothing provocative, but unlike men on Earth they did not refrain from telling the girls exactly that, nor played down the effect their scant attire was having on them.
Pan and my sister were welcomed to the table with much enthusiasm by the soldiers, many raising their cup to them and hailing their tidy looks. It took no time either for them to start showing each other up for the girls' benefit to prove their merit and it quickly became a blustering side show of boastful stories, flexing muscles and lewd comments. It was all innocent enough, though I suspected any Earthling girl would already be thoroughly scandalized by now. Saiyajins might not bother being coy about their carnal drives, sex was a pastime meant to be enjoyed in consent and my little sister was safer at that table than she would probably be entering Earth's nightlife.
Still, she was lucky that my father was so completely engrossed in his mate at the moment. I reckoned that knowing his first daughter had reached that age was something different than actually seeing it with his own eyes and the Queen apparently agreed because she put her hand to his cheek and kept him tethered to her until Bra and Pan were successfully swept up in the crowd upon choosing their seats at the table where they were going to spend the rest of their evening being showered in male attention.
Rei rose with a little grunt and hoisted our son out of his seat. I lifted Fair Vegeta from her hip to unburden her. She smiled at me gratefully, slipping her hand to mine as I rested it on the considerable swell of her pregnant belly. I flooded with love for the unborn boy that pressed into my palm beneath the surface. I felt him undulate and curl up to shelter himself in my hand. My second son wasn't a week away and Rei and I couldn't wait to meet him. I slipped my arm around her shoulder and ushered her into the crowd, Fair Vegeta bouncing up and down on my free arm excitedly and fighting to be put down so that he could join my youngest half-siblings in their play. I obliged, nodding at the fiercely dutiful look Suzuna gave me in the wordless agreement that she would take our son under her wing tonight.
Rei and I sat down at a random table, those occupying it quickly becoming reserved and reverent at the honour of being joined by the Prince and his Princess. It would pass, I knew. A couple more drinks and the awkwardness would leave them so that we could hold actual conversations with the people I was going to rule one day. This mingling was part of my duties as the heir to the throne. It served to instil loyalty and helped forge a strong bond between me and my subjects.
My father too was getting down from the dais now to put in the work, not gladly, but he did it all the same. If the people felt uneasy upon me joining them, they were truly daunted by my father's regal presence as he passed through the great hall with that careless grace, his fierce Queen in her blood-red suit at his side. The women grew giggly and breathless and the men became more subdued in their speech, all averting their eyes in respect. Being the solitary creature my father was, he thoroughly hated this part of Restoration Day. It wasn't that he considered himself above the common folk, quite the opposite, he was one of the few rulers Vegetasei had seen who actually didn't make the distinction between high and low born. This opening feast was for their benefit, not his. If my father had been looking to enjoy himself, he would be anywhere but here.
I liked being amongst my people. In my own reign I would surely hold more than one feast a year. In this regard I was much more like my outgoing mother. During my childhood she hadn't wasted a single opportunity to throw one of her famous parties at the CC, occasions at which my father was conspicuous only by his absence.
I kissed my beautiful mate on the perfect nose, the sight of her sitting on the bench next to me making me happy. The youngest daughter of Lord Brachus from the Teeth, Rei was tall and slender and even now that she was carrying my second son for me, the only thing about her that had gotten any bigger was her belly. Her black hair was long and wavy and usually tied in a single, fat braid that reached to her waist. Her skin was as white as the snows of her Northern homeland and her eyes were grey like the stormy skies that ruled the highest regions of the planet. Rei wasn't a warrior in the usual sense, but she was skilled as a game hunter and an excellent marksman with a bow. Due to the intense cold of her Northern homeland, she was her built for perseverance, her zest for life an unyielding force.
My mate matched me in intelligence, was well able to follow the crazy leaps and bounds my ever-engaged mind made and help me focus on the whole rather than losing myself in details of some new idea. This channelling of my brainpower was something only my mother and granddad Briefs had been able to do for me before. Rei completed me. Like my father, I too was exactly where I belonged and with the one I belonged to. From the very first moment I met her, I felt that we were meant to be together and not in a misguided, infatuated, delusional way either, but knowing it in my very soul. Rei and I were two parts of a whole.