Warning: More sap, but this time it's big Trunks and future Vegeta, so enjoy an older perspective. (and remember...THIS Vegeta is a little more opened up with age than the other one...)
A/N: I'm thinking THIS chapter is better than the last few. It flowed a lot easier. This story is forming itself, however. I no longer have it planned, so I'm almost as curious to see where it's heading as YOU are... I'm hoping not to be disapointed (and that you wont be either...).
"Who sent you?!" Future Vegeta had beat just about every bit of life out of the monster, and had done so slowly so as to torture the revolting creature that had the nerve to want to come after HIS son.
The giant purple blob gurgled a time or two, but didn't answer. Vegeta punched it in the gut once again. "I'll repeat myself once more, and ONLY once. WHO sent you?!"
"I am sent of nobody!" the monster gurgled.
"Why do you desire to kill my son?!"
"He will become destroyer of my planet, Kharkun!" the monster spat. "I am from the distant future. Thirty years from now. He killed my FATHER!" the monster suddenly exploded with power.
Vegeta was thrown backward a little ways and regained his senses just in time to see a large blast speeding toward the fourteen year old below. His heart felt as if it stopped as Trunks held his arms up to counter the blow, but was thrown back a few hundred feet, landing hard on his back.
Quickly Vegeta transported himself in front of Trunks and shot a final flash at the monster, blowing him to bits. He breathed heavily, watching as the cloud before him dissipated and only air was left in his line of sight. Finally he turned back toward the young teenager, still lying on the ground, but propped up on his elbows now. He was staring wide-eyed at where the monster had been, a little bit dazed.
"Are you all right?" Vegeta asked, a harsh look on his face that only a few people would have understood.
"I'm fine...," Trunks forced himself up with a lot of effort, cringing. He held his ribs and coughed.
Vegeta watched him, not at all convinced. "I thought I told you to stay out of the way."
"I DID."
"You weren't where I told you to stay."
"...Well...I wasn't THAT far from it..."
Vegeta's eyes narrowed.
"Dad, I'm fourteen now...I'm not a little kid anymore. I've gotten a lot stronger in this last year."
"Oh is that so, huh? Would you like to fight me?"
"What?"
"You're so TOUGH now, Trunks, would you like to fight me? You must have improved considerably in this ONE year, I suppose, so why not show me how much better you've gotten."
Trunks raised one eyebrow. "I never said I was stronger than you..."
"You disobeyed my AUTHORITY, what else could that possibly say to me? You argue that you disobeyed me BECAUSE you're 'stronger now'," Vegeta mimicked his son. "Stronger than that monster? Is that what you think?"
"...I'm not much weaker than he was...if any..."
"You're just the same as you always were, Trunks! Overly confident!"
Trunks blinked, his irritation level rising considerably.
"Let me tell you something. You are NOT stronger than that monster, even if you ARE stronger than when you were thirteen!"
"Well you haven't changed either! I don't even know what I was even thinking when I said our relationship had improved! You STILL do nothing more than yell at me! Why did I ever come to the past to fix this anyway?!" Trunks turned, letting out a breath of frustration and then coughing, grasping at his chest as he did so, and sinking to one knee.
"You just don't like me pointing out the obvious! You can't accept that you're not as strong as you THINK!"
"I can't accept that YOU always rub my inadequacy in my FACE! FINE! So I'll never live up to your standards! I KNOW that! Why can't you LEAVE ME ALONE about it!"
Vegeta's eyes widened a little bit and he paused. It took him a moment to formulate his thoughts into a reply. "What the heck are you even talking about?! This has absolutely NOTHING to do with ANY of that! I don't even HAVE standards for you...!"
"Then why the HECK are you yelling at me?! Obviously your expect SOMETHING of me!"
"All right, fine! I DO expect something of you! I expect OBEDIENCE! I expect that you KNOW your limits and don't PUSH them! You have ALWAYS pushed them! And then you get yourself into circumstances over your head!"
"That's because if I DON'T you call me WEAK or just a CHILD!"
"Well what planet are you FROM, Trunks! You ARE a child! Like it or not, life is tough, you ARE a stinkin' CHILD! And I have NOT called you weak! You call YOURSELF weak!"
"I am NOT a CHILD, Dad!"
"Oh, so you're a full-grown man then? You live out on your own, maybe with a wife or a family? Is that so? Fourteen! My goodness! How the men are getting younger these days!"
Trunks eyes narrowed and he let out a yell, powering up to super. "THAT is EXACTLY what I'm talking about! You talk to me like I know NOTHING! Like I AM nothing! You don't give my opinions any weight, you don't listen to anything I have to say, and you shove me in the background!"
"You are NOT in the background...!"
"What does being a child MEAN, Dad?! THAT's what you make it out to be! Child is the equivalent to WORTHLESS!"
"Is THAT what you think?" Vegeta was almost surprised.
"That's what YOU think!"
"That's NOT what I think! You ARE a child, Trunks, but your are NOT worthless! Why would I even be HERE today if that were so?"
"For the adrenaline of a good fight." Trunks shook his head with disgust. "You're all about words, Dad! It may have fooled me to begin with, but your actions speak a lot louder."
"You think I'm here for the fight?" Vegeta was almost hurt by the assumption.
"You drew it out long enough, didn't you?" Trunks crossed his arms and glared.
"And you think I did that to enjoy the fight?" Vegeta's irritation was flaring up again. "I'm not going to deny that the draw of a good fight is inside me...I'm a SAYAIN, but THIS is COMPLETELY different! This didn't hold an OUNCE of excitement for me! I drew this out because I wanted that MONSTER to feel PAIN! And I wanted him to feel PAIN because he wanted to kill YOU! This isn't like the other fights where you got in trouble by jumping into it! THIS was the situation coming after YOU and THAT I will NOT stand for!"
"Yeah right," Trunks muttered, trying to remain completely unaffected by his father's words.
It only made Vegeta angrier, however and he powered up, letting out a cry of frustration. "Stop expecting perfection of me! I will NEVER be everything that you WANT me to be! I am doing the BEST that I can with the circumstances I've been dealt throughout my life! I'm NO different from YOU in that matter!"
Trunks looked at him, raising one eyebrow. "What are you talking about?!" he was exasperated by his own confusion.
"I've had to pay my WHOLE LIFE for all the mistakes I've made, but the PRICE of the ones I've made with you is just TOO much to bear! WHY can't you cut me ANY SLACK?! Is it more PUNISHMENT because I wasn't the father I KNOW I should have been?! I KNOW I was no good! I KNOW I should have held you, I WANTED to even and I DIDN'T! I KNOW I should have said from the very start how much I cared about you, but I DIDN'T! So what do you expect of me NOW?! Do you think I can just go back and right all the wrongs?! I TRIED that, remember? It's taken me TOO long to wade through all of my OWN scarring! Only to come out here on the other side to deal with something much WORSE--the scarring I've caused YOU! But do you HAVE to flash those scars in front of my face at ALL times?!" Vegeta finally paused, his eyes flashing and his breathing heavy.
Trunks stared at him. He had NO idea what to say.
Vegeta shut his eyes and took in a deep breath, calming himself before he opened them again. "You said things were better between us. Maybe you don't remember because it was when you were thirteen, but it's clear to me because in my time it was only a week ago. Is it possible that you've just forgotten? Because for YOU, I've been dead for a year?"
Trunks waited, unsure if he was supposed to answer. "I don't know."
"What is it you're really so angry about? What am I doing that makes you think so avidly that I don't care about you?"
"You yell at me."
"So it comes back to that again then. What about?"
"Just NOW about not being in the EXACT spot I was supposed to be in. I remember several times about turning the gravity on higher than you thought I should. And when I was twelve there was the whole world invasion thing when I got yelled at BIG time for sneaking along and helping out."
"Interesting link between every incident you mention. Can you imagine for just one second that YOU were a father? Think of Marron."
"Marron?" Trunks was utterly baffled.
"For lack of a better example. Think if Marron were your child..."
"That's REALLY out there, Dad..."
"Humor me! Now, do you think you'd be slightly angry if she got knocked back a hundred feet by a creature with intentions of destroying her because she hadn't stayed in the spot you'd told her? And what would you do if she was in the gravity room with three times earth's gravity..."
"Marron??" Trunks eyes widened a little bit. "But she couldn't do that..."
"AND," Vegeta continued, forcing Trunks to hold his tongue, "How would you react if she snuck along when a creature was threatening the earth and you KNEW she would be in the direct path of danger? Oh wait...now what if she also decided SHE was going to FIGHT that creature?"
"That's not fair! This comparison is completely different!" Trunks argued.
"Why?"
"Because she's not sayain in any way and she's a girl!"
"Oh, now we're bring sexes into it..."
"Ok, forget that part, but she STILL has NO Sayain in her..."
"So? Ok, pretend she's half-Sayain, like you, then. Does it change matters? Wait, let's change the gravity up to 200 times earth's, which is the same amount YOU train under, only she's about half as strong as you."
"This is ridiculous," Trunks crossed his arms, looking away. He KNEW the answer his father was getting at and the logic was there, he just didn't want to admit it.
"You're not a stupid boy, Trunks, I KNOW you wouldn't feel any different or react any different than I did."
"But you make me out to be so much weaker than I am."
"I do NOT! I only make you out to be weaker than I am! And there's NO denying THAT's true! And there's no SHAME in it either, which is the problem YOU seem to have. I have an obligation, an INWARD one that I've set upon MYSELF to protect you. And it's there because I'm your FATHER. It's an innate instinct to keep you from harm. Sayains protect their offspring and punish them when they act in ways that could harm themselves."
"I couldn't have gotten hurt!"
"Yes you COULD have! Just now you could have been KILLED! You're lucky you WEREN'T! That creature WANTED to and you just HAPPENED to react quick enough and have just enough strength to ward off the blow enough to survive it! And the gravity! You couldn't even get yourself off the FLOOR that day! You were trying to PROVE something to me and you practically CRUSHED yourself doing so! And I'm not even going to TOUCH when you came along at twelve! I don't even NEED to say anymore about that! You got you BUTT kicked!"
Trunks let out a heavy sigh, part from frustration and part from defeat. Both were quiet for a few minutes.
"Look, I love you, Trunks, and I think deep down you KNOW that. I may not always show it in the ways you would prefer me to, but it's the truth and I have no problem saying so. I will CONTINUE to yell at you when you do something that I think could cause you harm. You might look at that as me picking on you, but the fact is that if I didn't love you, I wouldn't care and I WOULDN'T be yelling at you over it. I wouldn't waste my time on it. So if I'm yelling at you over something, it's BECAUSE I love you," Vegeta stood for a few seconds, then turned his head, scowling. "Now, catch," he tossed half a senzu bean to his son.
Trunks caught it, looked at it, then looked back to Vegeta.
"As much as you deserve to live with the pain you've brought on yourself by disobeying me, I can't stand to watch it, so EAT that! And come on," Vegeta lifted off his feet and started flying.
Trunks watched him for a few seconds before popping the bean in his mouth and following after his father.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
A longer chapter...interesting concept in THIS story... Hey...since I don't have a DEFINITE destination for this story, is there anything in particular any readers out there would like to see happen? I'm open for suggestions and if I use one of yours I'll mention your name (pen name of course) at the top of the chapter...
A/N: I'm thinking THIS chapter is better than the last few. It flowed a lot easier. This story is forming itself, however. I no longer have it planned, so I'm almost as curious to see where it's heading as YOU are... I'm hoping not to be disapointed (and that you wont be either...).
"Who sent you?!" Future Vegeta had beat just about every bit of life out of the monster, and had done so slowly so as to torture the revolting creature that had the nerve to want to come after HIS son.
The giant purple blob gurgled a time or two, but didn't answer. Vegeta punched it in the gut once again. "I'll repeat myself once more, and ONLY once. WHO sent you?!"
"I am sent of nobody!" the monster gurgled.
"Why do you desire to kill my son?!"
"He will become destroyer of my planet, Kharkun!" the monster spat. "I am from the distant future. Thirty years from now. He killed my FATHER!" the monster suddenly exploded with power.
Vegeta was thrown backward a little ways and regained his senses just in time to see a large blast speeding toward the fourteen year old below. His heart felt as if it stopped as Trunks held his arms up to counter the blow, but was thrown back a few hundred feet, landing hard on his back.
Quickly Vegeta transported himself in front of Trunks and shot a final flash at the monster, blowing him to bits. He breathed heavily, watching as the cloud before him dissipated and only air was left in his line of sight. Finally he turned back toward the young teenager, still lying on the ground, but propped up on his elbows now. He was staring wide-eyed at where the monster had been, a little bit dazed.
"Are you all right?" Vegeta asked, a harsh look on his face that only a few people would have understood.
"I'm fine...," Trunks forced himself up with a lot of effort, cringing. He held his ribs and coughed.
Vegeta watched him, not at all convinced. "I thought I told you to stay out of the way."
"I DID."
"You weren't where I told you to stay."
"...Well...I wasn't THAT far from it..."
Vegeta's eyes narrowed.
"Dad, I'm fourteen now...I'm not a little kid anymore. I've gotten a lot stronger in this last year."
"Oh is that so, huh? Would you like to fight me?"
"What?"
"You're so TOUGH now, Trunks, would you like to fight me? You must have improved considerably in this ONE year, I suppose, so why not show me how much better you've gotten."
Trunks raised one eyebrow. "I never said I was stronger than you..."
"You disobeyed my AUTHORITY, what else could that possibly say to me? You argue that you disobeyed me BECAUSE you're 'stronger now'," Vegeta mimicked his son. "Stronger than that monster? Is that what you think?"
"...I'm not much weaker than he was...if any..."
"You're just the same as you always were, Trunks! Overly confident!"
Trunks blinked, his irritation level rising considerably.
"Let me tell you something. You are NOT stronger than that monster, even if you ARE stronger than when you were thirteen!"
"Well you haven't changed either! I don't even know what I was even thinking when I said our relationship had improved! You STILL do nothing more than yell at me! Why did I ever come to the past to fix this anyway?!" Trunks turned, letting out a breath of frustration and then coughing, grasping at his chest as he did so, and sinking to one knee.
"You just don't like me pointing out the obvious! You can't accept that you're not as strong as you THINK!"
"I can't accept that YOU always rub my inadequacy in my FACE! FINE! So I'll never live up to your standards! I KNOW that! Why can't you LEAVE ME ALONE about it!"
Vegeta's eyes widened a little bit and he paused. It took him a moment to formulate his thoughts into a reply. "What the heck are you even talking about?! This has absolutely NOTHING to do with ANY of that! I don't even HAVE standards for you...!"
"Then why the HECK are you yelling at me?! Obviously your expect SOMETHING of me!"
"All right, fine! I DO expect something of you! I expect OBEDIENCE! I expect that you KNOW your limits and don't PUSH them! You have ALWAYS pushed them! And then you get yourself into circumstances over your head!"
"That's because if I DON'T you call me WEAK or just a CHILD!"
"Well what planet are you FROM, Trunks! You ARE a child! Like it or not, life is tough, you ARE a stinkin' CHILD! And I have NOT called you weak! You call YOURSELF weak!"
"I am NOT a CHILD, Dad!"
"Oh, so you're a full-grown man then? You live out on your own, maybe with a wife or a family? Is that so? Fourteen! My goodness! How the men are getting younger these days!"
Trunks eyes narrowed and he let out a yell, powering up to super. "THAT is EXACTLY what I'm talking about! You talk to me like I know NOTHING! Like I AM nothing! You don't give my opinions any weight, you don't listen to anything I have to say, and you shove me in the background!"
"You are NOT in the background...!"
"What does being a child MEAN, Dad?! THAT's what you make it out to be! Child is the equivalent to WORTHLESS!"
"Is THAT what you think?" Vegeta was almost surprised.
"That's what YOU think!"
"That's NOT what I think! You ARE a child, Trunks, but your are NOT worthless! Why would I even be HERE today if that were so?"
"For the adrenaline of a good fight." Trunks shook his head with disgust. "You're all about words, Dad! It may have fooled me to begin with, but your actions speak a lot louder."
"You think I'm here for the fight?" Vegeta was almost hurt by the assumption.
"You drew it out long enough, didn't you?" Trunks crossed his arms and glared.
"And you think I did that to enjoy the fight?" Vegeta's irritation was flaring up again. "I'm not going to deny that the draw of a good fight is inside me...I'm a SAYAIN, but THIS is COMPLETELY different! This didn't hold an OUNCE of excitement for me! I drew this out because I wanted that MONSTER to feel PAIN! And I wanted him to feel PAIN because he wanted to kill YOU! This isn't like the other fights where you got in trouble by jumping into it! THIS was the situation coming after YOU and THAT I will NOT stand for!"
"Yeah right," Trunks muttered, trying to remain completely unaffected by his father's words.
It only made Vegeta angrier, however and he powered up, letting out a cry of frustration. "Stop expecting perfection of me! I will NEVER be everything that you WANT me to be! I am doing the BEST that I can with the circumstances I've been dealt throughout my life! I'm NO different from YOU in that matter!"
Trunks looked at him, raising one eyebrow. "What are you talking about?!" he was exasperated by his own confusion.
"I've had to pay my WHOLE LIFE for all the mistakes I've made, but the PRICE of the ones I've made with you is just TOO much to bear! WHY can't you cut me ANY SLACK?! Is it more PUNISHMENT because I wasn't the father I KNOW I should have been?! I KNOW I was no good! I KNOW I should have held you, I WANTED to even and I DIDN'T! I KNOW I should have said from the very start how much I cared about you, but I DIDN'T! So what do you expect of me NOW?! Do you think I can just go back and right all the wrongs?! I TRIED that, remember? It's taken me TOO long to wade through all of my OWN scarring! Only to come out here on the other side to deal with something much WORSE--the scarring I've caused YOU! But do you HAVE to flash those scars in front of my face at ALL times?!" Vegeta finally paused, his eyes flashing and his breathing heavy.
Trunks stared at him. He had NO idea what to say.
Vegeta shut his eyes and took in a deep breath, calming himself before he opened them again. "You said things were better between us. Maybe you don't remember because it was when you were thirteen, but it's clear to me because in my time it was only a week ago. Is it possible that you've just forgotten? Because for YOU, I've been dead for a year?"
Trunks waited, unsure if he was supposed to answer. "I don't know."
"What is it you're really so angry about? What am I doing that makes you think so avidly that I don't care about you?"
"You yell at me."
"So it comes back to that again then. What about?"
"Just NOW about not being in the EXACT spot I was supposed to be in. I remember several times about turning the gravity on higher than you thought I should. And when I was twelve there was the whole world invasion thing when I got yelled at BIG time for sneaking along and helping out."
"Interesting link between every incident you mention. Can you imagine for just one second that YOU were a father? Think of Marron."
"Marron?" Trunks was utterly baffled.
"For lack of a better example. Think if Marron were your child..."
"That's REALLY out there, Dad..."
"Humor me! Now, do you think you'd be slightly angry if she got knocked back a hundred feet by a creature with intentions of destroying her because she hadn't stayed in the spot you'd told her? And what would you do if she was in the gravity room with three times earth's gravity..."
"Marron??" Trunks eyes widened a little bit. "But she couldn't do that..."
"AND," Vegeta continued, forcing Trunks to hold his tongue, "How would you react if she snuck along when a creature was threatening the earth and you KNEW she would be in the direct path of danger? Oh wait...now what if she also decided SHE was going to FIGHT that creature?"
"That's not fair! This comparison is completely different!" Trunks argued.
"Why?"
"Because she's not sayain in any way and she's a girl!"
"Oh, now we're bring sexes into it..."
"Ok, forget that part, but she STILL has NO Sayain in her..."
"So? Ok, pretend she's half-Sayain, like you, then. Does it change matters? Wait, let's change the gravity up to 200 times earth's, which is the same amount YOU train under, only she's about half as strong as you."
"This is ridiculous," Trunks crossed his arms, looking away. He KNEW the answer his father was getting at and the logic was there, he just didn't want to admit it.
"You're not a stupid boy, Trunks, I KNOW you wouldn't feel any different or react any different than I did."
"But you make me out to be so much weaker than I am."
"I do NOT! I only make you out to be weaker than I am! And there's NO denying THAT's true! And there's no SHAME in it either, which is the problem YOU seem to have. I have an obligation, an INWARD one that I've set upon MYSELF to protect you. And it's there because I'm your FATHER. It's an innate instinct to keep you from harm. Sayains protect their offspring and punish them when they act in ways that could harm themselves."
"I couldn't have gotten hurt!"
"Yes you COULD have! Just now you could have been KILLED! You're lucky you WEREN'T! That creature WANTED to and you just HAPPENED to react quick enough and have just enough strength to ward off the blow enough to survive it! And the gravity! You couldn't even get yourself off the FLOOR that day! You were trying to PROVE something to me and you practically CRUSHED yourself doing so! And I'm not even going to TOUCH when you came along at twelve! I don't even NEED to say anymore about that! You got you BUTT kicked!"
Trunks let out a heavy sigh, part from frustration and part from defeat. Both were quiet for a few minutes.
"Look, I love you, Trunks, and I think deep down you KNOW that. I may not always show it in the ways you would prefer me to, but it's the truth and I have no problem saying so. I will CONTINUE to yell at you when you do something that I think could cause you harm. You might look at that as me picking on you, but the fact is that if I didn't love you, I wouldn't care and I WOULDN'T be yelling at you over it. I wouldn't waste my time on it. So if I'm yelling at you over something, it's BECAUSE I love you," Vegeta stood for a few seconds, then turned his head, scowling. "Now, catch," he tossed half a senzu bean to his son.
Trunks caught it, looked at it, then looked back to Vegeta.
"As much as you deserve to live with the pain you've brought on yourself by disobeying me, I can't stand to watch it, so EAT that! And come on," Vegeta lifted off his feet and started flying.
Trunks watched him for a few seconds before popping the bean in his mouth and following after his father.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
A longer chapter...interesting concept in THIS story... Hey...since I don't have a DEFINITE destination for this story, is there anything in particular any readers out there would like to see happen? I'm open for suggestions and if I use one of yours I'll mention your name (pen name of course) at the top of the chapter...