It all started with the dragon. Not that this had been his GOAL, mind you (Dende explained), but the wish had been worded in such a way that Porunga had no choice but to do what he did, and that, in a nutshell, is how the whole thing started.
There was pain, and then there was silence. Later, the dead man was sure that something must have happened here - after all, when he died again, he remembered the whole thing - but whatever that something was, it never came back to him. All he could ever recall was the feel of oily blackness; cold, thick, soundless dark, which swallowed even his echoes and cemented frozen droplets of sweat to his skin - and the total and despairing feeling of being utterly, completely, alone.
Then darkness coalesced into ordinary dirt, and some frantic part of his mind registered that he had been buried alive.
Vejiita Saiyajin no Ouji, prince of all the Saiyans there were, suddenly burst from the ground like a mole with its tail on fire, desperately gasping for air and trying to roar with frustration at the same time - which didn't work very well, but he was beyond caring.
The first coherent thing that entered Vejiita's head was that he was going to find the son of a bitch who'd made the heart so fragile as to disintegrate with one blast from a finger-beam and gut him. His second thought - somewhat tempered because the first was very satisfying - was that he needed to figure out just where he was and whether or not Freeza was still nearby. Still gasping (and with a new respect for finger-beams), he looked around.
Well, this sure as hell wasn't Namek.
Anything that could have indicated he was in the same place as he was when he'd died was gone. Entire hillsides were blown away, the ground was burnt a different color, the sky was black, and there was absolutely no sign of those annoying little cotton-swabs the native inhabitants called trees. Something like lightning flashed in the sky; lava fountains spurted at random, filling the air around him with poisonous gasses and and brilliant tint. Nothing living or moved or grew as far as Vejiita could see - except for himself.
Okay. So maybe he was still dead and this, sure as Namek, was Hell. Well, if it was, then whatever fools were in charge of this place had made a mistake; they should have tied him down. Scowling at reality and the weird fate that had brought him here, Vejiita struggled to his feet and looked for Freeza, determined to at least get some measure of revenge before he was killed again.
And abruptly, everything changed.
"Changed, sir?" asked Mr. Popo for clarification as he refilled Dende's water glass, doing his best to understand Dende's account of Vejiita's resurrection from Vejiita's point of view in Dende's own words.
Mildly confusing.
"Well, from his point of view, it did," Dende said, accepting the water gratefully. "You see, Gokuu had had me wish that everyone killed by Freeza would be brought back to life and THEN brought to earth - remember? So, basically, they were all resurrected and then... blipped."
"...'blipped,' sir?" Mr. Popo asked in grave doubt, arching one eyebrow.
Dende blushed a slightly deeper shade of green. "Well. Transported, I guess, is a better word, but 'blipped' really works well as a sound effect, don't you think?" Mr. Popo looked at him blankly, so Dende cleared his throat and continued.
"Everything down there was fine, at first; we all found ourselves alive and well, and of course most of us were too happy to see each other to notice that anything was wrong. We hadn't realized who was missing; and more importantly, we hadn't noticed who was there in their place..."
"Where is Turo's village? Why aren't they here?" Muuri asked suddenly, and the joyful celebration around him grew dim. One by one, each Namek realized someone they knew was missing - and every one of those someones was from Turo's village.
A more perfect time to speak up had never been presented.
"I killed them," Vejiita remarked lightly, and waited for response.
There wasn't much of one. Genderless beings of all shapes and sizes stared blankly back at him, as though unwilling or unable to accept what he had said.
Vejiita smirked. And to think, Nameks were supposed to be intelligent... "I said, I killed them. You had asked Shenlon to bring back those killed by Freeza and his group - but I wasn't with them. Too bad," he elaborated condescendingly, as one would to a small child who was not entirely capable of comprehending the situation.
Oh, now this reaction was much better; shock, sorrow, and hatred colored the faces of his audience, and yet it seemed that none of them had the courage to do anything other than stare.
Vejiita felt mildly vindicated; he was beginning to regret what had passed between himself and Kakarotto, and this was making him feel a little bit better; abject terror was a wonderful morale booster.
Then suddenly, seven large, white objects caused a minor distraction by appearing in mid-air and crashing to the ground. Everyone but Vejiita (and Piccolo, but who cared about him) jumped.
"Come, my children," Saichorou gasped - the oldest, fattest slug of them all - and beckoned to the other Nameks. "Come and let me speak with you."
Dende paused here. He looked down, brow knit ever so slightly.
"This would be when Saichorou-sama died - yes, Dende-sama?" Mr. Popo prompted gently, aware that this event pained Dende - who was the last Namek Saichorou had created - even now, years after it had occurred.
"...yes." Dende simply said, and skipped forward in the story.
Vejiita had remained silent after his last comment; everyone was too busy weeping over the dead Saichorou, and he himself was too busy processing things to push any further buttons. At least, for now.
So; different types of dragonballs. Different powers. All of this was good information, and Vejiita held onto it. One never knew when such a thing would come in handy, ne?
Besides, it lent itself to good distraction. Vejiita was beginning to pass "regret" and hit "embarassed" in terms of what he'd said to Kakarotto; this was bad for all concerned, because it was putting him in a bad mood. Turning his attention from the wailing Nameks to the other, native inhabitants of earth, he listened in on the conversation between Gohan, Bulma, and Piccolo, which was going on to his right.
They were discussing how to bring Kuririn and Kak - ah, they called him "Gokuu" here - back to life. Apparently, there were complications.
"He was very foolish to exclude himself from the wish and remain on Namek," Piccolo judged in his low, ominous voice, and Vejiita was unsure if he agreed or not. On the one hand, Kakarotto had a chance; a real, genuine chance of defeating Freeza - assuming he could make any headway before the planet blew. On the other, if he failed and Freeza won, the lizard-king would make full speed for earth, much angier than he'd been if Kakarotto hadn't stuck around to fight him. Of course, he'd have been heading here even if Kakarotto HAD been transported, so it didn't really matter. Unless Kakarotto killed him, he'd be coming here either way - and that spelled doom for this third-rate mudball. It was kind of a toss-up.
"You're wrong, Piccolo - dad will win!" Gohan insisted brightly, apparently unaffected by Piccolo's dangerous baritone. "I saw it! He became... a SUPER SAIYAN!"
And the only one there who reacted to that with true understanding was Vejiita.
"Wh... what?" Vejiita said, and everything in his world stood still.
The afternoon continued, unconcerned with Vejiita's private struggles. Freeza had lost, and Namek had blown up; and still, Gohan kept talking.
"I saw it! His hair went gold and his eyes went green and EVERYTHING!" Gohan continued, every word irritating like buzzing bees inside Vejiita's consciousness, and he found himself fighting with some difficulty to keep from shouting "IT ISN'T FAIR!"
It WASN'T fair. All his life, Vejiita had worked, strived to become what he was; he knew he had both the genetic and personal traits necessary to become a Super Saiyan. One of his only cherished memories was that of his father, hand on Vejiita's five-year-old shoulder, telling him that he was the Legendary Super Saiyan and that someday he would be the strongest in the universe.
Vejiita had believed him. Even when Freeza had made a laughingstock of his entire species by blowing them up, Vejiita had believed him - he had believed him all of his life.
Vejiita had held onto that belief, prizing it when all else failed, nourishing it with his pride and trusting in it with a faith that almost bordered on religious. It was something that meant more than even he could truly grasp; and now... someone with no real heritage, someone who hadn't even known what a Saiyan was, someone who had NO FUCKING CLUE what was going on around him, had gotten to the goal first.
THE goal. HIS goal.
Deep, deep inside, Vejiita was beginning to melt down. He countered this by focusing on the conversation beside him and simply decidiing to become a Super Saiyan soon in the near future - followed by a very thorough beating of Kakarotto the Idiot. He had no way to get back at Fate; but he could certainly get back at the one Fate had used.
Which vengeance, it seemed, was currently in danger because the people responsible for bringing him back had the collective IQ of a slug.
"It would work if their bodies were rebuilt by the kami and they were at Kaio-sama's like Chaozu; but they'll be resurrected on Namek, which means in space, because Namek's going to be gone, and so... they wouldn't survive. There's nothing we can do," Bulma explained to the others, tears making her voice wobbly. Somebody or something had apparently tipped her off that people couldn't live in space.
They all moped, defeated.
"But... there HAS to be a way!" Gohan cried, crying openly, which disgusted Vejiita because no warrior would ever behave like that in his right mind. True, he'd cried when he was dying, but that was totally different; he hadn't even wept over the death of his own father.
"No," Bulma said, and for the first time since Vejiita had seen her, she was relatively quiet; apparently, she had to be miserable before she toned down the decibel levels. "There's nothing. Kaiou says it's not his territory. We have no way to bring them back."
Oh, for the LOVE of hell... "Are you brainless or what?" he suddenly snapped, breaking into their conversation because he could not stand their stupidity any longer. "Just transfer their souls, thoughts, or whatever here, and THEN bring them back. Right?" It was such a SIMPLE solution... what was WRONG with these people....
The blue-haired woman blinked. She looked at him. She thought about it. She lit up like Dodoria on meth. "You're RIGHT!" she squealed, beaming something dangerously close to gratitude at him, and Vejiita wrinkled his nose in slight distaste. "Why, you're not so bad after ALL!" she said.
Oh, now WAIT a minute...
And Gohan, misunderstanding Vejiita's intention, waltzed right up and held his hand out like a friend at a cocktail party. "Thank you!" he said, expecting Vejiita to reciprocate - or something.
Vejiita smacked his hand away, doubly disgusted that Gohan looked shocked. "Don't misunderstand me, fool," Vejiita began, when fortunately for Gohan, they were interrupted by the new Namekian leader.
"Excuse me," Murri said politely, eyes still swollen from all the crying he'd done, and everybody looked at him.
Mr. Popo was finding this more interesting as time went on; he hadn't realized that Vejiita's inner dialogue was quite so articulate. Obssessed and confrontational, certainly - not to mention one-sided, arrogant, and biased - but definitely intelligent. Perhaps he'd unconsciously assumed Gokuu's unusual idiot-savant mentality extended even to the "high-class" members of his race. Which would make no sense, he reflected; Vejiita had actually been bred to be what he was, a first-class Saiya-jin of the finest composition, whose tail was even impervious to pain.
Unaware of personal revelations on the part of his friend and servant, Dende sipped some more water and continued.
"Excuse me," Murri said politely, eyes still swollen from all the crying he'd done, and everybody looked at him.
"Yes?" Bulma answered, still bimbo-bubbly and apparently not aware that Vejiita was about two steps away from killing them all.
"We'll find a new planet to live on once our dragonballs work again, but in the meantime... would you know of a place where we can stay?" Murri asked, absolutely polite.
"Ooooh, yes!" she shouted with even more enthusiasm, bouncing on her toes. Gods, she was irritating... "Come live with us! We have lots of room! Plus, we want to use your dragonballs as well. There'll be a panic if you just parade around!"
Then, unexpectedly, she'd turned to him, absolutely no fear whatever in her eyes. "What about you?" she said. "You wanna come too? You don't have money for a hotel anyways." And, beatifically, she smiled.
Vejiita made a non-committal noise, mostly because he was too disgusted to do anything else.
"We'll feed you well!" she promised blithely, going on. "I guess you're a big eater like Gokuu. Oh, but there is one condition: you can't jump all over me even if you find me seductive."
Vejiita gaped at her in disbelief. "What a mouth.... Low class woman!" he snapped back at her, but she didn't take offense. Instead, she promptly began making calls for a large transportation vehicle, bound and determined to take everyone - deadly or not - home for the nonce.
Okay. So she wasn't just irritating. She was insane. It was an affliction Vejiita began to believe most earthlings possessed, but for the sake of meeting Kakarotto again, he decided to put up with it. After all, she was one of Kakarotto's friends; she had the dragonballs. Logically, Kakarotto would show up here before he did anywhere else.
Besides - if Kakarotto were anything like the rest of these freaks, he'd probably assume that Vejiita himself was somehow trustworthy and nice, to boot. Which meant he could take said Kakarotto by surprise.
There was a silver lining on every cloud....
And so, affecting boredom, Vejiita submitted to being cargo and went home to the Capsule Corporation along with Bulma, Gohan, and so many Nameks that the color green seemed permanently burned into his retinas.
Dende had to stop telling at this point because Mr. Popo was laughing his head off.
"She... she... can't jump all OVER her... BWAHAHA!"
Dende looked puzzled. He didn't entirely understand the intricacies of love and lust and the like, so the request had seemed perfectly reasonable to him. "Well... that's what she SAID..."
Mr. Popo doubled over, barely able to breathe for laughing so hard.
"...what was WRONG with what she said?" Dende asked, now sounding slightly offended.
"Oh... ah... um..." Mr. Popo stammered not really clear on how to explain sexual propriety to a Namek. "Just... just keep going, Dende, sir... I'm listening." But he kept sniggering. Bulma, in his opinion, had more brass in her than most men. Perhaps that was why the relationship had worked...
"Um... okay," said Dende, and continued.