The Deception--Ch. 22
By Elbereth in April
* OK, OK, this is dreadfully late, I'm sorry, gomen! But know that I won't abandon you. Here's Ch. 22. *
Vegeta had thrown himself at the door and the wall, tried to blast himself out, but to no avail. He was staring at the door, numb, when Frieza entered the cell.
"Just think," Frieza grinned, eyes half-closed with pure delight. "All these years of trying to defeat me. Wasted. I have you right where I want you. Weakling. Failure. Fool."
Vegeta looked down. He couldn't bear Frieza's gloating expression. And everything he said was true.
Frieza laughed. "How does it feel, *Prince*? To be lower than the dirt on my boots? You're at my mercy. All your people are at my mercy."
Vegeta forced himself to remain expressionless, but he felt himself pale.
"That's right." Frieza was taking great pleasure in his words. "I'm going to blow up Vegeta-sei."
"No!" It burst out before he could stop it. This was worse than anything he'd dreamed. Frieza wouldn't kill them all. Just him. Surely he wouldn't kill them all. "Kill me, Frieza. Take it out on me. *They've* been loyal."
"Oh, I will take it out on you. Slowly. Painfully. But you've made me realize how much I hate all monkeys. I want to exterminate you all from the universe. Your friends here. Your mother. Oh, and your little girlfriend while I'm at it."
Vegeta made himself smirk. "You don't *have* my mother or Bulma. They've escaped."
Frieza's face contorted with rage. "How did you--Kakkarot told you. Well, hear this. It doesn't matter that they're not in their cells. They're somewhere on this ship. If I have to, I'll blow the whole ship up just to get them."
"You'll die, too," Vegeta sneered.
"No. *I* can breathe in space." Frieza grinned again.
Vegeta stared at him. He wasn't bluffing.
He felt his ki starting to rise. He'd never hated Frieza more than at that moment.
"By the way," Frieza continued, still smiling. "Convincing Kakkarot he was your brother--that was quite ingenious. Almost worthy of me."
Vegeta stopped breathing. Was that it? Was that what he'd come to? All these years of hating Frieza, only to become just like Frieza? 'Am I?'
"I don't want to be," he whispered. "Kakkarot. . ."
It all came crushing in on him. He had failed at everything. He had become a deceiver and a murderer with no conscience, a dark, evil thing. Why not just let Frieza finish him off? His ki started to slope back down.
"As for poor, ignorant Kakkarot. . . he's a traitor. I'll have to make an example of him. After I destroy your planet, and just before I execute you, I think I'll kill him. I haven't decided if I want to lance off all his limbs and let him bleed to death, or beat him until his ribs cave in and crush his internal organs, or rip his guts out with my fingers. . . or all three."
Vegeta started to shake. He'd do it. He'd seen some of the things Frieza had done to rebels in the past.
There was nothing he could do. A wave of nausea and dizziness swept him so that for a moment he couldn't even see. The pain in his heart became excruciating. The knife had been pulled out now, and it was collapsing in on itself in a gushing of blood.
Not Kakkarot. Not him. If anyone was pure it was him. He made everyone around him know what nobility should be like, and strive to be the same.
. . . "There's just something about Kakkarot, isn't there?"
'I can't do that. But he can. He can make us a better race, erase what Frieza has done to us. He has to live. He has to live.'
His vision closed in til all he could see was Frieza's face. For his people. For his mother. For his woman. For his. . . brother.
He threw himself at Frieza. He landed the first punch due to Frieza's surprise, and the second punch due to skill.
They faced each other across the small length of the cell. Both of their eyes were narrowed in hatred. "You still think you can take me, Vegeta? Despite everything. You're a slow learner. Maybe you're just lacking in brains. Or maybe you can't remember your past beatings. Like your brain- deficient pretend-brother."
"Shut up."
"Saiyans are weak."
"No we aren't. It's time for you to learn. Learn to stop underestimating me."
Frieza smirked. "Learn from you? You're the most pathetic one of your whole pathetic race."
His power had reached the barrier again. He pulled energy from his whole body and threw it at Frieza. Frieza skipped out of the way and it hit the wall leading out to the hallway, which partially disintegrated. Frieza's picture dissolved into a white smear. Vegeta smiled. "Looks better that way. Your hideous face is disguised."
Frieza shouted in rage, and not just at the insult. Vegeta shouldn't have been powerful enough to do that. He threw a blast of his own at Vegeta, who dodged it by rising in the air. It curved to follow, but he dodged again, and the blast struck the ceiling and kept going, taking out the ceiling above and the one above that until it absorbed itself and was stopped by the ship's hull.
They took the fight upwards.
Up through the floor, past the Quarters of the ex-Ginyu Force, now occupied by other alien underlings. Up one more floor, and out into one of the training rooms. More space to move around.
They came together with a force strong enough to shatter the bones of an ordinary man. Punch, block, kick, turn, dodge, punch.
__________ __________
"They're fighting!"
26 Saiyans and Zarbon looked at Tory. "Who?" Vanyar demanded, before the others picked it up, as well.
"Frieza and Vegeta," Tory answered. They all looked at each other.
"I'm going," Zarbon declared.
"Me, too!" the rest of the group echoed.
"Wait! Zarbon--this is our chance to free Kakkarot," Tory interrupted.
"All right. You and I will do that. The rest of you Saiyans, go help your rightful King."
They didn't need to be told twice. They saluted and left out the door one way; Zarbon and Tory headed the other, down to the cells.
___________ __________
There was a knock on the entrance to the air ducts. Colyte slid the panel aside cautiously after Sekot whispered, "It's me."
"What is it?"
"I brought you Lorimaya. We decided to put all the women in hiding together. Zarbon wanted to make sure she was safe."
Lori greeted Bulma and Queen Siane, and climbed in to join them.
The Queen, in mid-greeting, stopped and raised her head as those sensitive to ki felt two huge powers flare up. "My son is fighting!"
"He's fighting Frieza!"
"Colyte, keep them safe! I have to go help." Sekot spun around and raced away.
"I should go help, too," Siane worried.
"You can't, Your Majesty. Frieza can use us against him. This is Vegeta's fight. Trust him to win it for us." Bulma smiled, feeling strangely confident. She didn't know why, maybe she just couldn't bring herself to believe her love could die. But for whatever reason, she smiled.
The Queen bit her lip, nodded, and replaced the air duct panel.
__________ ___________
Frieza was not happy. Vegeta--that worthless traitor, that pathetic monkey, his own slave--was proving to be far harder to beat than he should be.
Well, no matter. He would defeat the Saiyan scum, and then go on to have his fun blowing up the planet and torturing the princeling and Kakkarot. He smirked.
Vegeta dodged the fist careening toward his face, feeling the displaced air as it passed by his ear. He brought his knee up and into Frieza's stomach, only to have his foot caught as he moved away. Frieza flipped him over and into the wall, hard. He threw a blast of energy after him, sending Vegeta through the wall and out into the passageway, incidentally killing some lizard henchman with flying debris.
Vegeta wiped blood away from a cut on his forehead, and tasted blood on his tongue. No, he was not going down in defeat. "Gallic Gun!" He sent his own attack into Frieza as he moved toward him through the new opening in the wall.
Frieza let it hit him, and laughed. "That stung a bit," he taunted. "Too bad you can't conjure up anything stronger."
Vegeta threw wave after wave of ki at him until he had to stop to catch his breath. Frieza was hidden by smoke briefly, but Vegeta knew that Frieza was harder to damage than that. He dodged the attack he knew would be coming when the smoke cleared, rolling back into the room via its regular door.
When the smoke disappeared, Frieza was facing the wrong way. Vegeta plowed into him from behind, getting in a few good hits before Frieza threw him off.
They faced each other across the length of the room again.
____________ __________
Kakkarot had gone dead silent, sensing and keeping track of Vegeta as he fought. His own ki was crackling around him, unnoticed. He could hardly breathe for fear of what might happen. He had to get out of here somehow and help him fight!
When the door opened, he jumped so high out of sheer tension that he hit his head on the low ceiling.
"Jumpy, are we?" Zarbon asked, pushing his braid back over his shoulder. He smiled, nudged a downed guard with his toe, and started to add something else.
Kakkarot brushed past them without a word and disappeared in a blur.
"Well, come on," Tory hollered to Zarbon, already half-way down the hall himself. "You don't want to miss anything!"
"He could have said thank you," Zarbon complained, then took off after them.
__________ __________
26 Saiyans watched the fight from below, through the hole in the training room floor. "Well, what do we do now?" Traigo asked.
"Help Vegeta!" Capran replied in a tone that said, what else?
"But how? I'll get my face pounded in," Dom shuddered.
"Yeah, that fight's a bit beyond me," Nappa admitted reluctantly.
"Maybe. . . maybe we could give Vegeta our energy somehow," Vegan suggested.
Kwil looked very thoughtful. "That's a good idea. But I don't think we can do it while he's fighting."
"I don't think he's going to be able to call a time out," commented one of their new Royalist recruits.
Their hair stirred in a slight breeze as a figure zoomed by them.
"Was that--Kakkarot?" Rabin asked.
They focused upwards again.
____________ ___________
"Hey, Frieza!" Kakkarot yelled as Vegeta struggled to pick himself up from the floor where the lizard had tossed him. Frieza spun around, eyes widening. "You didn't forget about me, did you?"
"Of course I did," Frieza snapped. "You're too inconsequential to deserve thinking about. What, you're trying to challenge me now, too? Don't you remember, you already tried that and lost."
"I'm still alive, aren't I? I'm still standing. I won't give up as long as you're still alive, too." Kakkarot was dying to talk to Vegeta, but there was no time. 'Just keep Frieza away from him. Keep his attention on me,' he thought. "Your reign of evil is at an end, Frieza!"
"Oh, bravo, what a righteous little speech." Frieza walked toward him. "Too bad they're your final words."
Kakkarot smirked. "No, I have one other thing to say."
"What?" Frieza sneered.
"Kame-hame-ha!" The blast hit Frieza head on and knocked him back through the wall, out into the hallway, through the next wall, and into the training room across from them. Kakkarot followed.
"This ship's not going to hold up," Vegan fretted.
"Now's our chance." Van hit him on the shoulder. "Come on, to Prince Vegeta!"
They flew up into the room, to where Vegeta was staring after the other two combatants.
"Long live the King," Nappa greeted him.
Vegeta turned and half-smiled at them. "Arigatou. How are we doing on odds?"
"Getting better and better." It was Zarbon who answered, as he and Tory rose through the floor and joined them. "I'm going to go help Kakkarot. I can't wait to see the expression on Frieza's face." Zarbon grinned and walked off.
"I can keep him from transforming, I think," Tory said, sweat covering his face. "If we get too much more energy built up, this ship's gonna explode."
"Do what you can."
"Vegeta, we want to transfer our power to you," Traigo announced. "We can't win this fight ourselves, but you can, Prince."
Vegeta blinked. The Saiyans all knelt briefly, then stood back up and formed a circle around him.
"Here we go," said Van, smiling.
__________ __________
Frieza and Kakkarot faced each other, straining. Kakkarot had one of Frieza's fists in his hand. Frieza had Kakkarot's fist in the other hand. Neither one could get the advantage.
"Oi, *Lord* Frieza!"
"Ah, Zarbon," Frieza purred, eyes flicking to his right-hand man. "Dispose of this pest for me."
Zarbon tilted his head to one side. "Hmm. . . I don't think so."
Frieza froze, mouth going slack. "Nani?"
"I said no. N-O," Zarbon repeated slowly and distinctly. "I *quit*."
Kakkarot laughed, pulling away from Frieza as Zarbon raised a hand glowing with power. He aimed it at Frieza, who just stood there, mouth still open, as it hit him. He emerged from the blast looking singed, and abruptly murderously furious.
"So, Zarbon, Vegeta corrupted even you. No punishment is too slow, too horrible for the three of you. Now you face my wrath!"
His power exploded around him, knocking them both off their feet, and shaking the whole ship.
By Elbereth in April
* OK, OK, this is dreadfully late, I'm sorry, gomen! But know that I won't abandon you. Here's Ch. 22. *
Vegeta had thrown himself at the door and the wall, tried to blast himself out, but to no avail. He was staring at the door, numb, when Frieza entered the cell.
"Just think," Frieza grinned, eyes half-closed with pure delight. "All these years of trying to defeat me. Wasted. I have you right where I want you. Weakling. Failure. Fool."
Vegeta looked down. He couldn't bear Frieza's gloating expression. And everything he said was true.
Frieza laughed. "How does it feel, *Prince*? To be lower than the dirt on my boots? You're at my mercy. All your people are at my mercy."
Vegeta forced himself to remain expressionless, but he felt himself pale.
"That's right." Frieza was taking great pleasure in his words. "I'm going to blow up Vegeta-sei."
"No!" It burst out before he could stop it. This was worse than anything he'd dreamed. Frieza wouldn't kill them all. Just him. Surely he wouldn't kill them all. "Kill me, Frieza. Take it out on me. *They've* been loyal."
"Oh, I will take it out on you. Slowly. Painfully. But you've made me realize how much I hate all monkeys. I want to exterminate you all from the universe. Your friends here. Your mother. Oh, and your little girlfriend while I'm at it."
Vegeta made himself smirk. "You don't *have* my mother or Bulma. They've escaped."
Frieza's face contorted with rage. "How did you--Kakkarot told you. Well, hear this. It doesn't matter that they're not in their cells. They're somewhere on this ship. If I have to, I'll blow the whole ship up just to get them."
"You'll die, too," Vegeta sneered.
"No. *I* can breathe in space." Frieza grinned again.
Vegeta stared at him. He wasn't bluffing.
He felt his ki starting to rise. He'd never hated Frieza more than at that moment.
"By the way," Frieza continued, still smiling. "Convincing Kakkarot he was your brother--that was quite ingenious. Almost worthy of me."
Vegeta stopped breathing. Was that it? Was that what he'd come to? All these years of hating Frieza, only to become just like Frieza? 'Am I?'
"I don't want to be," he whispered. "Kakkarot. . ."
It all came crushing in on him. He had failed at everything. He had become a deceiver and a murderer with no conscience, a dark, evil thing. Why not just let Frieza finish him off? His ki started to slope back down.
"As for poor, ignorant Kakkarot. . . he's a traitor. I'll have to make an example of him. After I destroy your planet, and just before I execute you, I think I'll kill him. I haven't decided if I want to lance off all his limbs and let him bleed to death, or beat him until his ribs cave in and crush his internal organs, or rip his guts out with my fingers. . . or all three."
Vegeta started to shake. He'd do it. He'd seen some of the things Frieza had done to rebels in the past.
There was nothing he could do. A wave of nausea and dizziness swept him so that for a moment he couldn't even see. The pain in his heart became excruciating. The knife had been pulled out now, and it was collapsing in on itself in a gushing of blood.
Not Kakkarot. Not him. If anyone was pure it was him. He made everyone around him know what nobility should be like, and strive to be the same.
. . . "There's just something about Kakkarot, isn't there?"
'I can't do that. But he can. He can make us a better race, erase what Frieza has done to us. He has to live. He has to live.'
His vision closed in til all he could see was Frieza's face. For his people. For his mother. For his woman. For his. . . brother.
He threw himself at Frieza. He landed the first punch due to Frieza's surprise, and the second punch due to skill.
They faced each other across the small length of the cell. Both of their eyes were narrowed in hatred. "You still think you can take me, Vegeta? Despite everything. You're a slow learner. Maybe you're just lacking in brains. Or maybe you can't remember your past beatings. Like your brain- deficient pretend-brother."
"Shut up."
"Saiyans are weak."
"No we aren't. It's time for you to learn. Learn to stop underestimating me."
Frieza smirked. "Learn from you? You're the most pathetic one of your whole pathetic race."
His power had reached the barrier again. He pulled energy from his whole body and threw it at Frieza. Frieza skipped out of the way and it hit the wall leading out to the hallway, which partially disintegrated. Frieza's picture dissolved into a white smear. Vegeta smiled. "Looks better that way. Your hideous face is disguised."
Frieza shouted in rage, and not just at the insult. Vegeta shouldn't have been powerful enough to do that. He threw a blast of his own at Vegeta, who dodged it by rising in the air. It curved to follow, but he dodged again, and the blast struck the ceiling and kept going, taking out the ceiling above and the one above that until it absorbed itself and was stopped by the ship's hull.
They took the fight upwards.
Up through the floor, past the Quarters of the ex-Ginyu Force, now occupied by other alien underlings. Up one more floor, and out into one of the training rooms. More space to move around.
They came together with a force strong enough to shatter the bones of an ordinary man. Punch, block, kick, turn, dodge, punch.
__________ __________
"They're fighting!"
26 Saiyans and Zarbon looked at Tory. "Who?" Vanyar demanded, before the others picked it up, as well.
"Frieza and Vegeta," Tory answered. They all looked at each other.
"I'm going," Zarbon declared.
"Me, too!" the rest of the group echoed.
"Wait! Zarbon--this is our chance to free Kakkarot," Tory interrupted.
"All right. You and I will do that. The rest of you Saiyans, go help your rightful King."
They didn't need to be told twice. They saluted and left out the door one way; Zarbon and Tory headed the other, down to the cells.
___________ __________
There was a knock on the entrance to the air ducts. Colyte slid the panel aside cautiously after Sekot whispered, "It's me."
"What is it?"
"I brought you Lorimaya. We decided to put all the women in hiding together. Zarbon wanted to make sure she was safe."
Lori greeted Bulma and Queen Siane, and climbed in to join them.
The Queen, in mid-greeting, stopped and raised her head as those sensitive to ki felt two huge powers flare up. "My son is fighting!"
"He's fighting Frieza!"
"Colyte, keep them safe! I have to go help." Sekot spun around and raced away.
"I should go help, too," Siane worried.
"You can't, Your Majesty. Frieza can use us against him. This is Vegeta's fight. Trust him to win it for us." Bulma smiled, feeling strangely confident. She didn't know why, maybe she just couldn't bring herself to believe her love could die. But for whatever reason, she smiled.
The Queen bit her lip, nodded, and replaced the air duct panel.
__________ ___________
Frieza was not happy. Vegeta--that worthless traitor, that pathetic monkey, his own slave--was proving to be far harder to beat than he should be.
Well, no matter. He would defeat the Saiyan scum, and then go on to have his fun blowing up the planet and torturing the princeling and Kakkarot. He smirked.
Vegeta dodged the fist careening toward his face, feeling the displaced air as it passed by his ear. He brought his knee up and into Frieza's stomach, only to have his foot caught as he moved away. Frieza flipped him over and into the wall, hard. He threw a blast of energy after him, sending Vegeta through the wall and out into the passageway, incidentally killing some lizard henchman with flying debris.
Vegeta wiped blood away from a cut on his forehead, and tasted blood on his tongue. No, he was not going down in defeat. "Gallic Gun!" He sent his own attack into Frieza as he moved toward him through the new opening in the wall.
Frieza let it hit him, and laughed. "That stung a bit," he taunted. "Too bad you can't conjure up anything stronger."
Vegeta threw wave after wave of ki at him until he had to stop to catch his breath. Frieza was hidden by smoke briefly, but Vegeta knew that Frieza was harder to damage than that. He dodged the attack he knew would be coming when the smoke cleared, rolling back into the room via its regular door.
When the smoke disappeared, Frieza was facing the wrong way. Vegeta plowed into him from behind, getting in a few good hits before Frieza threw him off.
They faced each other across the length of the room again.
____________ __________
Kakkarot had gone dead silent, sensing and keeping track of Vegeta as he fought. His own ki was crackling around him, unnoticed. He could hardly breathe for fear of what might happen. He had to get out of here somehow and help him fight!
When the door opened, he jumped so high out of sheer tension that he hit his head on the low ceiling.
"Jumpy, are we?" Zarbon asked, pushing his braid back over his shoulder. He smiled, nudged a downed guard with his toe, and started to add something else.
Kakkarot brushed past them without a word and disappeared in a blur.
"Well, come on," Tory hollered to Zarbon, already half-way down the hall himself. "You don't want to miss anything!"
"He could have said thank you," Zarbon complained, then took off after them.
__________ __________
26 Saiyans watched the fight from below, through the hole in the training room floor. "Well, what do we do now?" Traigo asked.
"Help Vegeta!" Capran replied in a tone that said, what else?
"But how? I'll get my face pounded in," Dom shuddered.
"Yeah, that fight's a bit beyond me," Nappa admitted reluctantly.
"Maybe. . . maybe we could give Vegeta our energy somehow," Vegan suggested.
Kwil looked very thoughtful. "That's a good idea. But I don't think we can do it while he's fighting."
"I don't think he's going to be able to call a time out," commented one of their new Royalist recruits.
Their hair stirred in a slight breeze as a figure zoomed by them.
"Was that--Kakkarot?" Rabin asked.
They focused upwards again.
____________ ___________
"Hey, Frieza!" Kakkarot yelled as Vegeta struggled to pick himself up from the floor where the lizard had tossed him. Frieza spun around, eyes widening. "You didn't forget about me, did you?"
"Of course I did," Frieza snapped. "You're too inconsequential to deserve thinking about. What, you're trying to challenge me now, too? Don't you remember, you already tried that and lost."
"I'm still alive, aren't I? I'm still standing. I won't give up as long as you're still alive, too." Kakkarot was dying to talk to Vegeta, but there was no time. 'Just keep Frieza away from him. Keep his attention on me,' he thought. "Your reign of evil is at an end, Frieza!"
"Oh, bravo, what a righteous little speech." Frieza walked toward him. "Too bad they're your final words."
Kakkarot smirked. "No, I have one other thing to say."
"What?" Frieza sneered.
"Kame-hame-ha!" The blast hit Frieza head on and knocked him back through the wall, out into the hallway, through the next wall, and into the training room across from them. Kakkarot followed.
"This ship's not going to hold up," Vegan fretted.
"Now's our chance." Van hit him on the shoulder. "Come on, to Prince Vegeta!"
They flew up into the room, to where Vegeta was staring after the other two combatants.
"Long live the King," Nappa greeted him.
Vegeta turned and half-smiled at them. "Arigatou. How are we doing on odds?"
"Getting better and better." It was Zarbon who answered, as he and Tory rose through the floor and joined them. "I'm going to go help Kakkarot. I can't wait to see the expression on Frieza's face." Zarbon grinned and walked off.
"I can keep him from transforming, I think," Tory said, sweat covering his face. "If we get too much more energy built up, this ship's gonna explode."
"Do what you can."
"Vegeta, we want to transfer our power to you," Traigo announced. "We can't win this fight ourselves, but you can, Prince."
Vegeta blinked. The Saiyans all knelt briefly, then stood back up and formed a circle around him.
"Here we go," said Van, smiling.
__________ __________
Frieza and Kakkarot faced each other, straining. Kakkarot had one of Frieza's fists in his hand. Frieza had Kakkarot's fist in the other hand. Neither one could get the advantage.
"Oi, *Lord* Frieza!"
"Ah, Zarbon," Frieza purred, eyes flicking to his right-hand man. "Dispose of this pest for me."
Zarbon tilted his head to one side. "Hmm. . . I don't think so."
Frieza froze, mouth going slack. "Nani?"
"I said no. N-O," Zarbon repeated slowly and distinctly. "I *quit*."
Kakkarot laughed, pulling away from Frieza as Zarbon raised a hand glowing with power. He aimed it at Frieza, who just stood there, mouth still open, as it hit him. He emerged from the blast looking singed, and abruptly murderously furious.
"So, Zarbon, Vegeta corrupted even you. No punishment is too slow, too horrible for the three of you. Now you face my wrath!"
His power exploded around him, knocking them both off their feet, and shaking the whole ship.