Chapter 69. The Heir II

Year 11 AR
It was day one of the tenth annual Queen's Tourney. The stands surrounding the arena were steadily filling with spectators, the air increasingly charged with high spirited excitement. Vegetasei had only one holiday in the year and these four days were enjoyed with a kind of frenzied abandon.

The Queen's Tourney used to be a hand-to-hand combat tournament to ensure the safety of the spectators and keep the planet from being blown to shreds until the Queen requested me to redesign the arena. I spent the past year helping Vegetasei's most gifted scientists restructure the open-air arena in such a way that it became suitable for heavy combat that included the use of ki attacks. By combining the technology my mother and granddad Briefs used to build the gravity tank with the WTO technology for reinforced battle gear and space travel, I was able to create flooring that could withstand anything most Saiyajins were able to throw at it. Unless my father decided to use his Death Impendent in his level four transformation, or Goku let rip a level four Spirit Bomb, the ground of the arena would hold.

Surrounding the battleground, we created a containment field that protected the spectators from deflected or runaway ki attacks. I based it off of old Kamesennin's Evil Containment Wave and to put it in place, I needed the energy of five other Saiyajins that had ascended beyond level two. This morning my oldest half-sister Aina, the Queen, my father, Goku and Goten helped me set it up. We proceeded to test the barrier by throwing energy attacks at it until my father was satisfied that it would hold.

The battles that were going to be fought here today were first tier fights, one of the only two classes that held Saiyajins who had not attained their super form. The barrier wasn't really needed for that, but my father wanted it in place just to be safe. His mate supported this by saying that there were going to be a lot of hairy arsed weaklings in the stands who couldn't deal with having a candle shoved up there, let alone a ki blast. Her ten years as the Queen had done absolutely nothing to gentle her and it was no secret that this made her King happy.

After a last inspection of the containment field, I transmitted myself up onto the balcony that was raised across from the heaving stands on the other side of the battle field. This place was reserved for the royal family and their consort and had the best vantage point for watching the battles. It was filled to its full capacity like every year. The five youngest of my half-siblings sat in the front row with Turles and Ringo closing ranks on either side of them as their Royal Guard. Their dry nurse Suzuna was seated behind them with my two oldest half-sisters Aina and Kinome and Bra who had The Great Vegeta with his life-long friend and confidant Tragus at her other side. It wasn't a surprise that our grandfather chose to sit next to Bra. He nourished a soft spot for her since the first time they met and it only grew once my sister started displaying a liking for the nobler side of Saiyajin life. She was a perfect lady in mannerisms and contemptuousness and when The Great Vegeta held one of his many feasts, he insisted Bra attend them so that he could show off his beautiful half-blooded granddaughter to the gentry.

The Queen's brother Biran was present with his mate and their two sons that both had the Queen's luminous and unnerving yellowish eyes. Chieftain Ansgar sat close to them with Bardock, Gine and Raditz who had been brought back with the dragon balls years earlier by Goku. The Earth-grown Saiyajin was there as well with his granddaughter Pan hugging his massive arm adoringly. The last Son present was Goten, but he sat in the front row in the seat next to mine. It was the only empty spot left and it was beside the Queen's because she wanted me at her side. Next to her sat my father, King Vegeta, the ruler of Vegetasei, the most powerful man on this planet, radiating ascendancy, his air nonchalant and relaxed.

Yet my father's easy pose was almost rigid compared to how his Queen leisured in her own high-backed seat. She had one leg slung over the armrest, her fiercely scarred face for now unagitated. It was almost strange to see her so slender and lithe since she had been pregnant so often the past years. She was clad in her favourite blood red battle suit. The King and Queen were both going on sixty, but they looked very young. On Earth they would have been considered old by now, but on Vegetasei Saiyajins in their sixties were still in their prime, not even half their life spent.

The rest of the places on the Queen's balcony were taken up by guests she had invited. Some were noble born, but many more came from the tribes and the forces she commanded. The only one of these other guests I knew intimately was the Namekian Piccolo and he had been invited, like every year, by my father. The green warrior sat at my father's side and they were discussing something in low voices. Goku seated behind them joined in as well and I had no doubt that they were talking about the Book of Legends they had discovered on New Namek that supposedly held the secret to unlocking the Saiyajin God power.

The Queen caught sight of me and asked in her rough voice: "Everything set, Prince?"

I sat down next to her and said: "Good to go, Captain." I still refused to call her by her title because the one time I addressed her as the Queen she had looked so disgusted with me, I decided to never do it again.

The Queen waited wordlessly for me to initiate our yearly exchange. We had our own ritual on this memorable day and I revealed my latest offering with a flourish.

"Yes." she said with a wicked little smile as she took the screaming pink t-shirt from me. "Yes." she repeated with a snicker as she laid it across her chest to see how it would look on her. The front of the shirt bore the phrase I'm with ugly in bold black letters. "This is your best one yet, Prince."

"This is going to be your next favourite." I said, feeling sure of it. I brought her a t-shirt from Earth every year and she still wore every single one. Even the green Captain Marvel shirt that had been my first ever gift to her. It had long since become an overwashed, ratty, tattered thing but she refused to part with it.

The Queen turned to my father to show him the shirt still lying across her chest, her smile a radiant one now. My father looked at the shirt, then at his mate's happy face and then at me before returning to her again. They were having one of their silent exchanges I had witnessed so often. I had no idea what it was that they were doing or how, but through the years I had come to understand that my father and his mate were able to communicate with each other without speaking.

The Queen let out a loud laugh and my father reclined on his throne with a very self-satisfied grin.

"Your father is happy." she shared with me. She pulled something long and slender and wrapped in strips of leather from behind the lowest strap of her blood red battle suit. "Now for my gift. It took me nigh on a moon to find you something and I went through much during my journey to the traders' market deep in the South. The pedlar made me pay an arm and a leg for it too."

I was already laughing and looking at my father and he gave a nearly invisible shake of the head. I hadn't been a boy for years now, but I still enjoyed playing this out with them every year.

"No, don't look to him, look to me. Your father wasn't even there. He made me brave the dangers alone." the Queen said, huddling closer confidentially to resume her story. "So, my travels started off pleasantly enough and I thought; perhaps this year I won't have to face any hardship to find the Prince his perfect gift. I was wrong. Not three days into it, I came upon this stonking sun snake, very aggressive and not at all obliged to move out of my way. I tell you, it had fangs the size of daggers! I quickly smote the beast. Sadly, it had already bitten me on the leg. Its poison... it made me very ill. Still, I pressed on bravely..."

She added more and more fantastical details to her story and when she came to the end, it had grown out to such an incredible and heraldic epos that my father sat rubbing his forehead in a kind of wearisome, grudgingly entertained way, while Goten at my back was looking at the Queen big-eyed and breathless.

"You are so brave, Captain." I said with a huge grin.

The Queen smiled cockily and handed me the leather-bound package. I unwrapped it expectantly and found a slender silver and black lacquered tube lying in my hand.

"It is very old. Ansgar gave it to me." she told me, giving me the real story now.

"It's a blow gun." I understood immediately.

"It was used for warfare. Very crafty and stealthy. With this they could pick off their enemies without being seen." the Queen explained. "It's a craven's method. The Shield Smashers abandoned its use long ago. We prefer facing our opponents in the field. It has been passed down through my line since the first generation."

I looked up from the weapon, surprised by the implication. "And you're giving it to me?"

"I want you to have it." the Queen simply said.

I felt such honour and adoration that I couldn't put it into words. "Thanks, Captain. When I

pass it on, I will recount every detail of the peril you faced in obtaining it."

She looked very happy with that and, in extension, so did my father. When his mate was happy, my father was happy.

"Isn't it about time you started off this tourney of yours, little one?" the King inquired. "Your subject are becoming restless."

It was true. There were already several brawls breaking out across the stands on the other side of the arena. When the Captain rose and stepped into view on the balcony, it all subsided very quickly. People started cheering and throwing their fists in the air while chanting her title. The Queen addressed them in her rough, hoarse voice, speaking of the glory of her tourney and the spoils that awaited its victors.

I looked around the balcony and my eyes were drawn to the very back where I found what surely had to be the prettiest girl I had ever seen on either Earth or Vegetasei. Huddled all in black and white furs with matching furry snow boots, the girl was seated next to a gargantuan man dressed in like fashion. She was clearly a highborn lady because she was accompanied by a lady in waiting, or chatty chit, as the Queen called such women, and they were talking softly from behind their hands while they watched the Queen send up a blast of red energy into the air to signal the start of the tourney.

The Queen returned to her seat, looking pleased with herself. I asked her for the name of the girl huddled in furs. She followed my gaze, then assessed me silently for a moment, her unnerving yellowish eyes narrowed as she searched my face. She smiled and turned to her brother seated close by to ask him in her grating voice: "Brother, Brachus' girl, what's her name?"

Lord Biran, Protector of the Eastern Quarter, leaned in to answer: "Rei."

I only half registered the following familiar voiceless exchange between the King and Queen while I tested the name in my head, my eyes already drawn back to that figure huddled in her black and white furs at the far end of the balcony.

"About time too." my father concluded out loud.

The following hours, the guests on the balcony watched the battles being fought out in the arena below while I watched Rei peel off layer after layer of furs as the suns steadily climbed higher until at midday, she was left in black leather brigandine and black woollen trousers, her small white feet bared now that she had rid herself of her too warm boots. And I… well I think I finally truly understood what it was that my father must have felt when he met the Captain inside Cold's wreckage long ago, what made him still so infatuated with her after all their years together. I was just blown away by Rei's beauty, blown away by my own fascination for her. I simply had to make her mine.

By the end of that year's tourney, I had taken Rei for my mate and my father's Queen was pregnant with descendant number eight.

.

.

My half-siblings were tearing up the King's solar when Rei and I arrived. Judging from the stacks of empty platters, pitchers, bowls and plates, the royal family had just finished their supper. The four eldest of their children sat at the table bantering, Aina smiling ominously and joining Kinome in sending their little brother Vegeta up about the sparring match he had lost to Ume in the practise grounds and Ume watching it play out with her fiercest grin on.

The twins made a lot of noise while they chased each other through the large front room and the King and Queen's youngest son Mikan was careening through the room on his clumsy and very fat toddler's legs, repeatedly bumping his ungainly big head against things he happened across on his boisterous way over to his mother. It didn't deter him. The two year old boy ploughed on while continuously hollering a rather commanding: "Mum!" his hard yellowish eyes fixed on his mother's even harder ones.

Their new-born baby girl Cheri, conceived somewhere during the last Restoration Day celebrations, was purring so loudly that I could almost feel it resonate inside my chest while she lay balled up in the crook of the Queen's arm a tiny pale lump. I was once again perplexed by the insane base power this latest addition to my father's family possessed. All my father's children were strong, but this one outdid us all.

"Welcome to hell." the Queen said to us humourlessly as we sat down at the table with them.

I laughed while Rei next to me respectfully bowed her head and softly intoned their titles in greeting.

The Queen intercepted forceful Mikan with her free arm when he finally reached her and dumped him unceremoniously in my father's waiting arms. Mikan reacted to this with another string of now very vexed mum, mum, mum's. He phased into his super form and stood up in my father's lap to brandish his fat little fist in the King's face.

"Hush, boy." my father ordered him firmly.

Mikan did, though not gladly, turning to staring at his mother instead. The ill-tempered look on his face made the Queen snicker.

Rei and I exchanged a look while being swept up in this cacophony of sounds, agreeing through our bond that one child would be more than enough to complete our own family.

I didn't know what madness drove my father to keep insisting on having more children, but I knew that he was already harassing his mate for 'just one more'. It might be the challenge alone. My father loved challenges and weathering this prodigious clamour certainly was one.

Just as I was about to suggest coming back some other time, the doors to the solar were thrown open and a grinning Turles appeared on the doorstep. He boomed a happy greeting to his many charges who all cheered at the sight of him, even angry Mikan and even solemn Aina. Following in after Turles was the dark-skinned tribes woman Suzuna who, after ten years of living at the palace, still refused to wear anything but her scant, leathery tribal clothing. At her entrance an instant, otherworldly calm settled inside the front room.

"Take heart, my King. Hope has arrived." the Queen said, welcoming the reinforcements with one of her malignant smiles that Suzuna was more than capable of returning.

My four older half-siblings got up from the table, bade their parents a good evening and made for their own quarters while Suzuna rounded the younger children up and ushered the twins and Mikan out of the solar under guidance of Turles' booming voice. He was singing some silly song that had the three children giggling. It really did take a village...

"Sweet Mother." the Queen muttered to herself in clear relief as the doors fell shut behind the gaggle. She got up to put the now sleeping Cheri in her cot in the nursery adjoining their front room.

My father folded his arms and looked at me, needing nothing else to put across that I could and should start speaking now.

"Rei is with child." I said without any preamble.

My father wasn't surprised. He had already sensed it. "A boy." he said. "You don't look very happy about it."

"I have to go tell mom." I explained. "About Rei and the baby."

My father had little patience with me. "I reckon your stalling has made this easier on you in the end. Now you'll only have to disappoint your mother once."

"Yeah, I know. I ballsed up." I admitted with a sigh.

I wanted to hate that my father never chose to refrain from pointing out my flaws to me, but I was his successor, I needed my flaws pointed out if I wanted to even have a chance of stepping out of his magnificent shadow one day. I felt Rei's hand come to the small of my back like a hot coal. Her hands and feet were always hot, an adaptation to the freezing weather she used to brave in the North. It soothed me to feel that fierce life force in her. With her by my side, I might just be fit to fill my father's boots when my time to rule came.

The Queen came back into the front room and pointed out her pink I'm with ugly shirt to me. "You were right, Prince. This is my new favourite."

"No thanks, Captain." I said with a smile that was much younger than my years. It still pleased me to see her obvious delight for my gift.

The feelings my mate shared with me through our bond were very prickly suddenly. None of it showed in Rei's face, yet somehow the Queen still picked up on it. It was almost as if she had a sixed sense for these things.

"No, girl." she said in her hoarse voice. "You are mistaking a boy's admiration for manly drives. It is insulting to us all. Put it to rest."

My father was looking at my mate as well now, his face stoic as ever.

Rei was blushing furiously.

The Queen abandoned the subject and put her hands on her hips, saying in an oddly approving way: "Your mother holds a grudge like a tribes woman."

It baffled my father as much as myself that she could speak about my mother with something that hinted at reverence.

The Queen quickly set out to nullify her previous words. "I don't understand why. Your father is such an ugly specimen. And lousy company besides. He takes up too much space in bed as well. I wouldn't be half so sad to see the back of him."

My father came to his feet smirking his appreciation and pulled his mate in roughly by her pink shirt. The next thing I knew the both of them vanished into thin air. He had instant transmitted himself and his mate out of the solar and into their bed chamber, this was made plain by the Queen's rough laughter coming from behind the closed door. It was our cue that this audience was over so I zapped myself and my mate back to my own apartments.

"The things she dares say to our King." Rei said with an angry headshake.

My mate did not like the Queen very much, if only because of the unyielding little boy crush I used to have on her that Rei was made aware of through our bond again just now.

I laughed at her jealousy and pulled her in for a kiss on the frowning forehead. "My father is a masochist. He likes her that way."

"And you?"

"I have my own goddess to worship." I said reassuringly. "The Captain is right. You are mistaking a boy's admiration for manly drives. Those are for you alone."

"You're looking to stall again." Rei pointed out as she plucked my eager hands from her bum.

"True." I admitted, letting her go. "You know, I think the Captain actually made my mother a compliment."

"By comparing her to a tribes woman?" Rei asked incredulously.

"Yeah, it was definitely a compliment." I decided at that.

How the Captain had worked so hard to smooth over her words with witty remarks was proof enough. That was my father's mate. Whenever she caught herself getting within sight of revealing her inner workings, she resorted to either aggression or jokes to cover it up. As forthright, uncomplicated and unaffected as my father was, so wayward, explosive and evasive was his Queen.

It was curious how Saiyajin couples cancelled out each other's shortcomings or excesses, how they complemented one another. This was so for every bonded couple I had ever come across. Bardock's devil may care attitude against Gine's sense of duty, Goku's benevolence as opposed to Chi Chi's violence, how my own mate always had her sights on the bigger picture while I lost myself in the details. The Saiyajin race was innately driven to seek perfection, made for perpetual evolution.

On Earth it was also true that opposites tended to attract, but it wasn't a prerequisite for a successful union. Saiyajins either found the one to complete them or they never tied themselves down. Once I found my perfect match, I knew it could only be Rei. It was inescapable. Everything in me gravitated towards it. I saw this with my father as well, even as an eleven year old boy I recognized this. He and the Captain simply had to be. That was why I never resented him for leaving us, no matter how hard it had been on me to bear witness of my mother's grief.

This was the exact reason why I hadn't told my mother about Rei yet. I didn't want to see her hurt again. My father was right. I had waited so long that I was only going to end up hurting her more. Not only had I not told her that I found my mate, I had kept it from her long enough that I now had two bombs to drop on her. Well, three actually. In my attempts to spare my mother I had also failed to inform her that I had taken up permanent residence at the palace over half a year ago and that I only came to Earth for work.

"Oi, you'll be fine." Rei softly called me from my musings. She put her hot hands on my cheeks and kissed me. "Let's just go get this over with so you can tell me more about those manly drives."

"That is a deal." I slipped my arms about her slender waist and zapped us into the hallway of my childhood home.

Bra came bounding down the stairs in a pretty white sundress when we appeared.

"Alright, Rei!" she called in her usual sassy way.

Unlike me, my thirteen year old sister had integrated much of the Saiyajin dialect in her speech. I usually only resorted to it when I had something to cuss about. Bra was like our father in mannerisms as well with the way she froze in front of us arms crossed in his famous pose. She tapped her foot impatiently, looking every bit the Saiyajin princess she was.

"Are you finally ready to tell mom?"

Rei laughed in her infectious way. Bra's aggravatingly overbearing conduct towards me often had that effect on her. "I'm with child. He can't put it off any longer."

"No way!" Bra gave a joyous yelp at this announcement. She hugged Rei. "This is so huge. I am going to be an aunt! I am so happy for you!" she turned to me with a wide smile on her pretty face. "Does father know yet?"

"Yes." I said.

"I bet he didn't even blink." Bra joked.

I laughed myself. "Didn't congratulate us either. Only stuck the boot in for not having told mom about Rei yet."

Bra giggled and for a moment she acted her actual age when she said gloomily: "I miss father. And grandfather. Can you take me to the palace tomorrow?"

"Sure thing, sis."

"Cheers." Bra said. She lost interest in us then and resumed her way to the front door. "I have to run. I'm meeting up with Pan. Mom is in the main lab with granddaddy. Good luck!" And so, the whirlwind that was my little sister passed out of the house.

We climbed the stairs and made for the lab. Rei was holding onto my arm as if afraid I was going to bolt when given the chance, which was exactly what I felt like doing.

My mother and granddad Briefs were busy hoisting a huge bell-shaped structure upright. They were both grunting and groaning. I quickly moved to help them. My mother was still very youthful for an Earthling in her mid-fifties, but she had never been very strong physically and my granddad was pushing on eighty.

"You should get our employees to do the heavy lifting." I said as the steel contraption came to a standing position with a loud clang. "Or wait for me."

"We couldn't wait." my mother said as she wiped her hands on her lab coat. She had that fever in her blue eyes. "I am going to try for that time-machine after all."

"Awesome, mom. That's great." I said enthusiastically. "I know you can do it."

"We all know she can do it. Future you proved it." said my granddad matter-of-factly.

Rei cleared her throat behind me. That my mother had decided to try and invent the time machine her future self had built, made me forget all about why we were here. I returned to Rei's side and put my arm around her waist.

"Say mom, I have some great news as well." I started and Rei had to prod me with her elbow to make me go one. "This is my mate Rei."

My mother walked up to us, the fever dying out in her eyes as they fell on Rei pressed snug against my side.

"It's nice to meet you." Rei said with a slight knee bend and a nod of the head.

"At least this one is civil." my mother said dryly as she held out her hand in greeting.

'Take her hand, not the arm.' I instructed my mate through our link.

Rei took my mother's hand and shook it awkwardly.

"This is why you are always up there these days." my mother concluded as she let go of Rei's hand.

"About that..." I hesitated, but another prod, a much harder and impatient one this time, propelled me into throwing it all out in one breath. "I kind of already live there, like permanently, together with Rei. And we're having a baby. A boy. You're going to be a grandmother."

My mother's astonishment left her frozen in her spot in front of us, unblinking and open-mouthed.

"Congratulations, sonny." my granddad said genially. It was all the attention he had to spare for us and he returned to examining the bell-shaped contraption, far more interested in my mother's plans.

"Mom?" I asked my dumb-struck mother to see whether I could bring her to unfreeze. "Please say something. I know I should have told you sooner, but I... I didn't know how."

"I'm happy for you, sweety." my mother said very suddenly. She tried for a smile. "I think we should celebrate by making you president of the capsule corporation. What do you say, dad?"

"Past time." my granddad mumbled. He chuckled. "Get it, past time, time machine."

I was too blindsided to laugh at my granddad's amusing habit of explaining his own lame jokes.

"Wow mom, that's..." I was lost for words.

My mother wasted no time in revealing her motives. "If I want you to have some connection to Earth left, I don't really have any other option. You think you're ready?"

"Mom, don't say that. You are my connection to Earth. You know you are." I said feeling insulted.

Even after all these years, even after having moved on with Yamcha and sharing a daughter with him, she still could not let go of the past. She had often commented on my father's thick-headed pride, but hers was far more unyielding than his had ever been.

"Do you think I'm ready or is this only to keep me here?"

My mother blinked her watery blue eyes and really smiled now. "You are ready."