Chapter 24
Lethal Games
Vegeta could only grin as he led the hunter into the Lair and then into the maze. What a perfect time to try out the labrynth and its many pitfall traps along the way. Slowing up so the hunter could keep up but just out of reach, the tracker couldn't see the sly smirk upon the Saiyan's face. The only thing the hunter knew was that it was dark and the maze was becoming all the more confusing.
Laughing ever so lightly, the Dark Prince knew that the fun was only just beginning as he reached a certain point in the Lair and it shifted. Already jumpy from the night's raid upon the camp, the hunter turned around and when he seen the wall behind him he gave an audible gulp. He heard the Ghost whisper back to him. "Come on, you're doing so well right now. We don't want to stop this hunt now do we and spoil the fun?"
Turning down yet another corridor, the tracker moved through the damp passages, his hand along the wall when fire flared out just barely in front of him. Vegeta merely laughed. "That was close, should watch out for things like that. Come on now, don't you want to catch me?"
Grumbling under his breath, he followed again when the flames died out and then again the maze would shift. He walked out to the vast cavern and there he really became lost. There was no telling what path to take to get back out and his "guide" seemed to have vanished into thin air. He chose yet another passageway and then a scream echoed throughout the maze, then silence as it faded away. The hunter had fallen victim to a bottomless pit.
Vegeta came out from behind the next corridor and peered down the depths of the pit and raised a brow. He listened for the bottom as he curiously gazed down into the blackened depths. He shrugged his shoulders and would simply turn and walk back towards the entrance again. "Pity, just when I was beginning to have fun too, you had to fall down a damn bottomless pit. Oh well, maybe the next one will get farther than that."
As he turned back into the Lair's entrance, he noted how cold it was and so, taking a few twigs, some duff, and a log, he put it together in a log cabin formation and lit the fire with a small burst of ki energy. His coal eyes gazed to the entrance and he grinned lightly. The fire was small and smokeless but as he closed off the back part to the labrynth, it served to heat the smaller cave up nicely. Coal eyes again moved to Blue and Rain when they had returned to the Lair and a grin crept across his face.
Blue looked to him questioningly and a grin came to her face as well as she gazed curiously at his expression. "What's so funny if I may ask?"
Vegeta couldn't help but to laugh again. "Oh, had some fun with a hunter though it was too bad that he fell down the bottomless pit. I was just thinking of how fun it would be to get him so completely lost in the Lair."
Blue looked at him in partial shock. "You had a hunter here in the Lair? Vegeta what are we to do if one escapes?"
The Saiyan Prince narrowed his eyes quietly. "They won't escape, I'll kill them before they get back to Jronia. No one will know of this place and live to tell about it. It is the only safe haven we have for the family. I won't jepordize it on petty enthusiasm. I know the risks all too well."
Her blue eyes grew a bit furious as she stopped him from going back into the maze. Then blue met black as he spun around and looked to her fiercely. Blue stood firm. "That's what you just did, risked the family for your petty amusements. There's something more here and you have a family to protect. I've been thinking of adopting another child, one that needs us. We need the Vegeta more than we need the Ghost. You are a leader Vegeta, other people need you to lead them. You can't do that if you're dead."
Vegeta scowled, his brow furrowing deeply as he kept his gaze steady upon her. His coal eyes flashed with a bit of rage at what she was reminding him of. "I'm the only Saiyan Prince, Blue. I know the weight of which rests on my shoulders more than any ever will. I have nightmares of that place every damn night that I try to get a decent night's sleep. Being dead is better than living like a coward, constantly hiding from hunters and others that I know I can take out with ease. You can either help me with my burdens or you can become part of them, that choice is your's. Go ahead and do as you please, I'm not going to hold you back from the adoption. However, I will not be the father for a whole mess of kids because you feel too damn sorry for them."
In a swirl of anger and seething rage, he turned and disappeared back into the Lair, his coal eyes adjusting again to the dark passages. His focus was off, and he needed to get them back if he were to survive whatever the hunters would throw next. Not thinking of the next step of his plan or losing sight of it could be disasterous and he knew it. The weight on his shoulders felt like it was a mountain range pulling him this way and tugging him in another.
Blue was furious as she watched him storm away from her like that, blaming him for reckless actions. She held Rain up close to her and could only wait for the time when he would return. Looking up on the walls, she found the murals and stared at them silently, seeing everything he had not yet talked about from his time here in Jronia. On a seperate wall was the mural of him when he was young with his father beside him. Then she realized just how much he had changed since that time.
No longer was Vegeta the carefree child with the grand hopes of ruling the Saiyan planet. Never more would his dreams be of such a grand scale. She had seen it in his eyes this night, in the small argument that he was trying to merely do one thing, survive. Gazing back to the back part of the Lair she let her eyes lower to the ground. Feeling guilty for her words, she had lashed out at him when he was simply trying to have a little fun, but she knew the risks were great. The full story of why the hunter was in the Lair would never be spoken about nor explored by questioning.
Vegeta soon appeared back at the center of the Lair where he paced furiously for some time. His coal eyes danced in the darkness as he lit a couple torches. The flames danced in the stillness of the cave and reflected in the Saiyan Prince's darkened gaze. He thought about it for a time as he watched the flames flicker and rage, much like he was doing silently inside. His own heart screamed in defiance of his life as a slave.
Again the Prince began to fight the black steel band around his throat, trying in a vain deperate hope that it would come off and allow him his freedom. It remained upon his throat securely fastened keeping him trapped to a place he wanted to just vanish from his mind, to wake up warm in bed when he was just a small child. He would fight the collar all the more only to receive a powerful shock when he had fought it for too long. He sank to his knees from the pain and trembled. He hated it with such a deep fiery passion, one could not put it into words.
Silently he paced the cavern, his mind racing. After a time, he finally lost the edge of his anger and began to look upward again. The Royal Sword had been put away for the time being but he remembered gazing upon it for the first time here in the Lair. His coal eyes then gazed back the way he had come and he took a deep breath. He needed more time away so as not to come back with a temper he was well noted for.
Vegeta quietly sat down and finally relaxed, letting his mind blank out into a meditation. His coal eyes closed and his mind went back to a time he was free, when he wandered alone in the stars above. It was a time he had no cares except to do as he pleased when he pleased. For a time, he returned to the silence of space away from the madness of this City, away from everyone and everything. Whole planets passed the pod window and stars off in the distance formed a sense of security around him that could not otherwise be found.
When he came to again in the Lair, he looked around and found his body had completely relaxed. He had stopped shivering from the rage that had built up inside him as his eyes focused on the dim lighting the torches gave off around him. He found he could think clearer, his thoughts were faster and more precise. There was no denying that he had found his mental solitude by which he would learn was the only means of escaping this place.
Soon he looked toward the maze before him, and his coal eyes narrowed lightly as he thought for a moment. The labrynth had been created for three reasons. First off was to provide a safe haven for him and his family which could find the safety in the maze in a different location. Second, was to be able to lure the hunters in to give him the advantage of getting them seperated, lost, and eventually to kill them if the Lair's traps and pitfalls didn't do that first. Finally, it served a passageway through the dangerous mountain range by which he could get the slaves free of Jronia's grasp and beyond their reach.
Standing up, he knew then that was how he had to do this. The slaves were no longer to be released deep in the forest, but taken through the Lair. He was chosen to be their guide, their means of hope and he alone could only hope to give others what he could not gain himself, their freedom. A white gloved hand reached up to his collar as he fingered it gently knowing it would not come off so easily. Quietly he began to head back for the entrance once more.
The event of him having a hunter in the Lair would go undiscussed as his coal eyes rose to Blue's own. "From here on out, expect what had happened here today. I was given charge of this Lair and it's built to do more than just house a family. It is a means of freeing slaves that would otherwise not have a chance. If you don't like the choices I have reached then I suggest we find another place for the family. My life does not have the luxuries of safety. I've told you that when we first met that it would not be easy. Now you have that same choice to make. You can help me with this burden, or you can become part of it. I however no longer have that decision, I know what I must do now at whatever cost it comes to."
Blue looked at him in astonishment that he had put it so bluntly to her. She looked down at Rain and then looked to him. "What about being there for Rain when he grows up? Who'll teach him how to fight and to avoid the traps made by a hunter?"
Vegeta looked to Rain and then to her. "Our son will know that we love him no matter what happens. If needbe, we can take him to Kienna's and have her raise him as her own. That may be the better option anyway."
Blue seemed horrified at that thought. "Vegeta, you're talking of giving up our only child to one of them! How can you think such a thing as that?"
The Ghost looked to her quietly, his coal eyes shown nothing, not even the fact of the deep thoughts he had put into this. There was no way of letting her know how much he hated the notion as well. "Kienna is a good person and since my arrival has given me more care than any one else. She and I have become friends and I'm not about to let my child live in shame by ducking and cowering away from hunters. I will not let my son share the same fate as I. He will have his freedom without worry of having to hide as we do. That is no life for a child, and I refuse to put him through such. Get him ready, I'll drop him off tonight when I go for a raid in the City. He will live a good, normal life."
Blue was in tears by hearing him, seeing that he spoke from his heart and had already made up his mind. "Think of what you're saying! He won't be happy without us. Just because you lost your father when you were young does not mean that he has to lose his parents. Quit being so damn selfish!"
Vegeta narrowed his eyes taking his son into his arms. "You told me I had a family to protect and that's what I'm doing. I'm not the one being selfish either. I'm wanting merely a chance to get our son a life to live with freedom. Do you think you can give him that and look after him all the time? How happy do you think he'll be if every rustle of a bush sends him fleeing in terror thinking it could be a hunter? If you keep the child then you'll have to take him to a different place. I can't watch over him all the time. I have food to get, and supplies to make sure are ready."
Silently he gripped a shoulder gently yet with a firm grasp. "I have Saiyans and slaves that need me for guideance. I have a family I need to make sure is happy and protected the way a father should. Do not blame me for what was forced upon me and transfer it to our son. What you said about my father was cruel, I hope someday you realize just how much I have done for the both of us. Then think about what you had just called me Blue. You're views will drastically change."
He gave Rain back to her and then finally he walked away. What was to come next would solely rest upon Blue's own decision. Ghost could not force her to do as he would wish. He respected her more than that and in that manner, he had left it to her. Between him and the hunters, life was a lethal game he couldn't afford to lose.