Summary: Before Earth, before his change of heart and before his family, there had been a son he'd never wanted, made from Frieza's seed and born from his body. Then he was dead, and Vegeta made sure to forget he had ever been there at all. Only, he isn't dead. He is alive. Tormented and abused, but alive, and now Vegeta will do what he couldn't have done the first time. He will save him.

Warnings: Rated M for language, abuse, sexual violence, depictions of rape, mpreg, etc.

*This chapter includes graphic descriptions of injuries.*

Every Eye Will See

Chapter Four: The Regard

"Do you think someone is in there?" Kakarot asked with a casual voice.

Annoyance struck Vegeta like a dart through a colored board. His eyes tore away from where they were contemplating foreign aircraft—which, despite its enormity, seemed crude, almost primeval in design—to stare at the other man, the corners of them twitching violently. Did he seriously just ask that? As if it were not a spaceship they were looking at?

Perhaps the amount at which he was bothered by Kakarot's words was a bit excessive, but with his nerves already frazzled from his earlier ponderings being interrupted by this very man, and the arrival of this strange, potentially hostile vessel, he found he had no patience left to indulge in idiocy. When Vegeta turned towards him, his lips were already poised to unleash unforgiving criticism on what he viewed to be a foolish question, and perhaps he would even throw in a jab at his brain capacity or something similar if he found himself so inclined.

No critiques fell from his lips, however. The words almost instantly caught in his throat as he stared up at the taller of the two. Kakarot looked the same as usual: his large biceps curled up as his hands cradled the back of his head, the toe of his boot tapping against the grass behind his other foot, his face curious. There was something different though, something tight and mindful lingering beneath his skin. His calm attitude was feigned. Curious, he undoubtedly was, but not in a reckless, or even simply careless way. His round eyes were fixed intently on the craft before them, and there was a vigilant tension in his stance that had not been there when they were speaking before. His body claimed to be as ease, but really it was waiting, prepared for when, if ever, the moment called for action.

Vegeta blinked, genuinely surprised by what he saw. He did not really know the other man that well, but from the little time that they had spent together, he knew that Kakarot hardly ever seemed bothered by what was happening around him. He never took anything seriously, and yet he stood there as if he expected Hell itself to spring out of that ship.

Interesting, Vegeta thought, though he was unsure if it was the demeanor itself that he found interesting, or the fact that he had noticed it. Were there other instances, others he didn't notice? Was Kakarot always like this, or was it only this specific event that had him on edge?

Vegeta huffed in answer to Kakarot's—still idiotic—question and looked away, deciding that he did not care enough to ask.

Several moments went by in silence. Kakarot did not say anything else, and yet Vegeta's nerves began to worsen. He had little patience on the best of days, and as each second passed, the option of simply blowing the craft to smithereens seemed more and more appealing.

He nearly had, his palm raising amid Kakarot's hurried protests, when a loud creak filled the air around them. The scrapping sounds of rusted metal hammered at his sensitive ears as the bridge of the spacecraft began to drop. The bottom edge of the bridge crashed into the earth without grace, flattening the grass and sending chunks of mud and green blades flying through the air. Vegeta dodged them with ease, and though he had not looked to make sure, he was rather certain a clump hit Kakarot in the forehead.

The opening of the craft was dark, nearly impossible to see through. For long seconds, no one emerged, until nearly two minutes passed. Kakarot appeared as though he would spontaneously combust from the effort it took to hold in his impatience—if there was anyone who rivaled Vegeta in that regard, it was apparently him—when finally Vegeta could make out the outlines of figures through the darkness.

It was odd watching the group descend to the ground below them, their movements unbothered by the steepness of the ramp. Every single head donned the same dark brown, shortly cropped hairstyle. Across all of their faces were gadgets that ran from one ear to just the side of their mouths—some type of translator device, he assumed.

Their uniforms were also undifferentiated: thick, deep blue jackets decorated with golden buttons and epaulets on the shoulders; belts that proudly held whips and guns and other such weapons; slick trousers that led into high, black boots. Those boots rose and fell in time with the ones around it; every arm was locked tightly against their sides; every head was raised to the same height; every chest took in air and released it at the same moment; every face wore the same guarded expression. Vegeta did not see a troop, but one single being. A single being that demanded his attention and captivated it completely. He could think of nothing else aside from it.

He restrained from idiotically shaking his head, but he did blink several times until the odd spell broke. With his mind clearer, he noticed now that while they were incredibly similar, the beings did not, in fact, all look the same. While they were all tall, they did have some variations in height. Furthermore, while their faces were incredibly alike, none were truly identical. He could also see breasts poking through of some of the jackets. There was also not nearly as many as he had originally thought—only about seven.

Their skin however—looking more like cracked stone than flesh—was all the same and was distantly familiar.

The small gasp that fell from Kakarot's lips reached Vegeta's ears at the same moment he himself froze. They both saw them at the same time—the little ones who trailed timidly behind the imposing unit.

There was a total of ten of them, and unlike the previous company, they varied vastly in appearance. Some had hair, others not. Some had flesh, others had scales. One was even covered in feathers, and they all varied in colors. One was missing an arm. Another had wings that were bent in a way that was surely unnatural. A third had the sickest of fluids flowing from where their right cheek should have been.

(Vegeta could not help but to avert his eyes away from that one before the sight could turn his stomach).

Despite these differences, Vegeta found that they had similarities just like the group of identical individuals ahead of them. They were all small in size, none of their heads reaching past the five-foot mark. They appeared to have been cleaned, though their skins were still decorated with wrinkles, and blemishes, and tainted with unnatural hues, betraying the fact that they did not bathe as often as they should. Their bodies were frail and shivering in the cool temperature, their bones sticking out prominently through their thin wraps of skin. Their uniforms were all the same: button-down shirts with light and dark grey stripes, and hardy, black boots. They were all slaves or prisoners if the shackles around their wrists and ankles binding them together were anything to go by. They all shivered; They all kept their head submissively tipped down; they all screamed terrified.

Vegeta sneered, disgusted by what he saw. He nearly turned away, dismissing the lot of them altogether when his eyes caught onto the last of the prisoners, who brought the total number up from ten to eleven.

He—at least, Vegeta assumed it was a 'he'—was one of the smallest of them, standing as far away from the rest of the group as the shackles allowed. He was scrawny like the rest of them, with a thin, brittle neck and a sharp clavicle bone just begging to pierce through his pale skin. Between his legs hung a furless tail, the appendage clearly bruised with tiny bones poking out in way they shouldn't. Dirty, dark hair swallowed his tiny head in a forest of spikes. His bangs made a curtain over his forehead, and the rest of his face was carefully hidden as his chin tucked itself into his neck so tightly that it had to be painful. The child—again, an assumption—was also trembling, though if from a seeming chill or simply terror was unknown. There was also a notable tension in his stance, which meant probably either one of his feet or legs was injured. Furthermore, from the loose shirt sleeve, he could see a darkening bruise peeking out on his shoulder. Other than that presumption, he did not seem to have any major afflictions like some of others he was chained to.

Vegeta stared for a moment longer, before he dismissed him as well.

He turned his attention back to the ramp and watched as the final alien made his appearance. The first group (who he suspected must be guards of some sort) parted down the middle for him. He strode forward with an air of haughty confidence—as if he knew exactly the threat the two saiyans before him posed and yet was not inclined to feel even a smidgeon of fear for it.

Why would I fear you, the man seemed to say, when I know something you do not?

The man put Vegeta on edge. He shared their brown hair and cracked skin, yet he was undeniably different from the others. Dissimilar beyond even the obviousness of his clothing, which were a different color and more elaborate in design than the other guards'. The carefully blank faces and rigid postures of the others was completely lost on this man. His arms swung carelessly at his sides, a downright pep in his step as he strode down the opened pathway. Underneath his nearly gaudy hat were jovial eyes the same color as his suit, and a wide smile above his sharp jaw. He might have even passed as handsome, in the way that one would praise fine wine, but while the smile was polite and charming, underneath it lurked something that Vegeta could not quite decipher. It unsettled him, until Vegeta berated himself for being so affected over a stranger's facial expression of all things.

The tall man held Vegeta's eyes as he stopped in front of him. A moment passed, before shockingly enough, he tilted his head down, and his stone fingers spread across his chest.

"His Royal Highness, Prince of Vegeta." The man looked up with a grin. "Or should I say, His Majesty, the King?"

Vegeta arched his brow. "No."

He noticed that the man's lips did not quite match the words filtering from the device around his face. Their translators must change soundwaves, then. It was much unlike the translator chips Frieza had implanted inside of all of his soldiers, so every language was clearly understood. In contrast, the device seemed rather primitive, but it was certainly a step up from Earthlings, who had no such translation methods at all.

"Ah." The man straightened. "I do recall you explaining a bit of the workings of saiyan ascension of royalty, though given that it has been some time since then, I figured it would not hurt to make sure."

Vegeta's only response was to stare. The man arched a brow as well. "I take that to mean you do not remember me?"

"Who are you," Vegeta demanded, refusing to be thrown off-kilter. The man's grin grew.

"I am called Ziloh, descended from the third blood of His Imperial Majesty Hikso, the Warden of Division III." He gave a short laugh, sweet like the twittering of birds. "My, was that a mouthful."

Vegeta's eyes widened slightly as the name shook the fog off his memories. Vaguely he did recall this man, and the people who called themselves the Tena's—a feat in itself that he even remembered that much, given how unimportant such knowledge had been even at the time, never mind now.

Vegeta had been in his late teens, maybe nineteen or so with fringes still brushing his forehead, when Frieza had sent him and his saiyan team to conquer some planet he could no longer recall the name of. It would have been more efficient to have just killed all of the inhabitants, though Frieza made it clear that he wanted all casualties to have been kept to a minimum, and to have the entire populace shipped to the prison planet, Tene'mareen. Frieza had claimed that it was too strengthen relations with the prison planet through live trade, though Vegeta knew Frieza had just been amusing himself with whatever stupid game he had thought the whole thing was.

He followed orders anyway. It was one of his more difficult missions—not to say that the inhabitants of the small planet were particularly powerful but controlling an entire population without leaving so much as a single straggler was no easy task for anyone. He had succeeded, and as ordered, had personally delivered the inhabitants to the prison planet without a single casualty. He remembered being proud of himself for the accomplishment.

Even more vividly than the pride, he remembered how awful the place was.

The planet was like an oven on the highest setting. The air had been hot and thick, sticking to the walls of his throat until it felt like the passage had closed entirely. The heat came from the suns but there was no sky, only heavy, scarlet clouds that hung oppressively above everything below. He could even remember the smell, could definitely remember how every breath he took was tainted by the odor of unwashed bodies and excrements and how it had his stomach feeling sick even after he had long left the planet behind.

Then there were the prisoners, and that was a generous term. They were more shells of skin and skeleton, resembling people but only just. They walked with missing limbs and bones sticking out in ways they should not. Some labored with spines bent almost completely forward, others waddled with stomachs round and fat but not filled with food. Festering wounds covered their flesh, and insects ravaged their scalps, but none seemed to notice. They moved like puppets on marionettes, laboring away with eyes devoid of souls.

No, those things were not prisoners at all. Vegeta knew what a prison and its inmates looked like when he saw it, and he saw none of it there. What he had seen there was slavery, the lowest hells of slavery.

Vegeta had seen horrible things. He had seen war, and death, and torture, and the way the light left a slaughtered child's eyes, and the face of a mother still grieving even in the face of her own demise.

He had never seen anything like Tene'mareen.

Compared to all that, meeting the man himself had been rather uneventful. The whole ordeal had been but a mere gesture of formality whilst trading the prisoners. Vegeta did vaguely recall him smiling the way he was now, his words and mannerisms overly flippant for a man of his apparent status. He hated the warden of the third Division during that brief encounter, but then again, he hated most people he came across, so it was not as if there was any reason for the man to be particularly memorable.

In fact, he probably would have faded away from Vegeta's memory entirely, if not for his eyes. There was something unsettling lurking deep in his navy eyes, hidden almost completely by the overtly lascivious look that the man took no cares to hide. Vegeta had been more focused on the latter look and had been nearly snarling in indignation, desperately wanting to snap the man's neck like he did to most other people who dared to look at him that way. Vegeta was a prince and an elite, not a slab of meat to be devoured.

He did not kill him, but he did break several bones in his hand when they shook goodbye. Then he had left and had not thought of the man once afterwards. It had not even dawned on him that the pervert warden of Division III might be someone worth committing to memory.

Not that he was giving that impression even now. Older, he was, but still the same swollen-headed, conceited prick he had been all those years ago. A sham of a ruler, who flaunted his status as if he were the pinnacle of power, as if he had even earned the power he held, instead of happenstance simply birthing him into the right bloodline.

A prince Vegeta was, but he had learned long ago that a name was nothing without strength to back it up. It would seem that Ziloh had yet to learn the lesson.

"You know this guy, Vegeta? Who is he? What does he mean by 'warden'?" Goku asked in rapid succession.

"Be quiet," Vegeta said before the other questions hanging off this tongue could leap forth. Kakarot snapped his mouth shut. "Yes. I met him once before. He is, like he said, the current warden of a certain section of Tene'mareen, a prison planet. I'm sure you know what the word 'warden' means."

"I do!" Kakarot exclaimed, as if Vegeta were about to go off on another tirade dedicated to his idiocy at a time like this. "I just got confused with all of the names he was saying!"

Ziloh bowed his head in apology, his expression taking no cares to hide his amusement. "I apologize for the confusion, sir...?"

Kakarot either did not catch the hint to introduce himself or did not care. He barely acknowledged the man before looking back at Vegeta. "And that doesn't explain why he's here."

Realization hit Vegeta for a second time. "That is a good question, Kakarot," he said, his words dripping with cynicism. He narrowed his eyes at Ziloh once more. "What are you doing here? Certainly not to take prisoners."

"Oh no, of course not!" the Warden exclaimed, reeling back as if the words were a physical blow. He continued, "I could not legally do so, anyhow, seeing as how Earth is not a part of the Planet Trade Organization, or any known Galactic Allegiances for that matter."

"You've done your research, then," Vegeta commented, his tone implying just how suspicious he found that.

"Well of course, Your Highness. It would be very unprofessional of me to visit a planet without at least being aware of its superficial background, if only to avoid upsetting any alliances or other such legal matters."

"I take it your visit must involve a very important matter, then, if a warden himself felt the need to come along."

"Why yes, Your Highness, my business with this planet is of an exceptionally important matter, that does indeed require the utmost attention."

"And that would be?" Kakarot interrupted impatiently. Vegeta was surprised by the reaction but took cares to make sure it did not show on his face. Again, he had not spent all that much time with Kakarot, but even he could tell that the other man was not one to become so easily incensed.

The Warden regarded Kakarot for a moment. He then straightened and said simply, "I need herbs."

Both saiyans blinked, stunned. Then: "Herbs?"

"Well, yes, Yarrow and Echinacea pallida, to name a few."

"Your evasion is becoming annoying!" Vegeta shouted suddenly. "Why do you need our herbs? For that matter, what makes you think you have any sort of claim to use them?"

A whimper, muffled and weak, graced his ears then. His eyes flickered, darting over the group of prisoners before landing on the boy from before. His face was still tipped down out of sight, but his little legs were shaking, and his whole body practically vibrated from the force of it. Was the hidden injury—the one Vegeta only assumed existed—ailing him? Or had it been the harshness of his tone that unsettled him? The other prisoners looked a bit uncomfortable after his declaration as well, so perhaps that was it.

Vegeta looked to the rest of the gathered, though it seemed that no one else had noticed the sound of distress that escaped the boy, not even Kakarot. In the time that passed, he had forgotten that the boy that held his attention for a moment longer than the others before was even there, yet he was the only one to notice that he had made that pitiful little noise. Had he been subconsciously acknowledging him this whole time? Or perhaps he had imagined the noise altogether and was overthinking for no apparent reason. With a silent growl, he turned his full attention back to the Warden.

Ziloh's amusement faded to make way for a somber expression, and if he had noticed Vegeta's previous distraction, he did not let on. "A plague has befallen my people. We suspect that a set of prisoners were carrying it when they were transported to us and our diagnostics team hadn't caught it. Either way, my people are reacting negatively to the infection. Our population is dropping by the hundreds every day, and the death toll is only rising. Our physicians believe that they can make an antidote, but our planet lacks the ingredients that they believe are necessary. Earth is the closest vegetative planet, and after a quick scan of the biological activity, we discovered that most of the herbs we need can be found here."

The Warden looked up then, his eyes shining and pleading, before abruptly dropping to his knees.

"Please," he begged, "my granddaughter, Hilla, she's sick. She is dying. Please let us use your herbs! Please!"

"I-I, uh—" Kakarot stuttered as he waved his hands in front of him, looking flustered and awkward and sympathetic all at once.

Vegeta sneered with disgust and turned away from the display. For the third time, his eyes fell onto the boy again, as if his eyes could not even fathom looking anywhere else.

Why, he wondered. Why?

Chill was certain that his heart was going to stop.

The air on the planet, he found, was considerably colder than Tene'mareen. The gentle breeze felt like harsh whips of ice, forcing the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck to rise to attention. His chest heaved from his breathing, and every haggard breath he pulled into his throat left traces of frost in their wake. A slight chill-induced quaver, the likes of which he has never felt before, passed through his body.

It was odd, and so very strange. A far cry from persistently dry air and unending, stifling heat, that was for sure. He found the change to be not completely awful. The experience could have been worse for him, he knew, if the way the other prisoners, who were trying and failing miserably to disguise their full-body, agonizing shivers, were any kind of indication. Perhaps his genetics were more suited for climates such as these. He'll take a wild guess and say that if so, it is probably his Ice-jin blood that made the cool air less intense to his body, despite it never knowing a temperature other than 'sweltering'.

That was not important, however. It held absolutely no relevance in comparison to the man who stood only a few feet from himself. As far as distances went, that was practically nothing. He could smell him from here. His voice was loud and clear through Chill's ears.

He tried to do as he was told. He hid his face, kept his tail wrapped underneath his shirt, and stayed as quiet as he possibly could. A few whimpers had escaped him—his shoulder was in too much pain to pretend that it wasn't—but as far as he knew, no one had noticed.

All except Vegeta.

He swore he could feel those eyes constantly flickering over to him, burning into his cooled skin. Each time he cowered under the weight of them, the pounding of his heart the only thing he could hear, until he felt those eyes leave him. His whole body shook with nerves, his knees nearly knocking together from the force. He fought to control his breathing, barely staving off the panic that threatened to overcome him.

Did Vegeta know who he was? Chill was not sure he wanted the answer to that question.

Focus on something else, he told himself.

He decided to focus on the conversation going on over his head. He had never needed a translator device to understand what people were saying. He did not contemplate Vegeta's voice (it was deeper than Chill ever imagined. In his mind, he pictured something higher, something smooth, like the lapping waves of the Great Lake underneath the railroad leading out of Division III. In reality it was low and thick, every word spoken with an accompanying growl, like a dog hashing out its final warnings before it attacked). He focused only on the words being spoken. He took in the lies and deceptions that fell like truths from the Warden's lips. There was no plague ravaging Tena lives, not that he had heard, and Chill heard a lot of things. Furthermore, his granddaughter was long dead, and not from any illness.

It was not his place to question the Warden's dishonesty. It was not his place to wonder at the game of subterfuge and deceit that played out before him.

It was his place to tuck his head, to hold his tongue, and to do nothing at all. Because even with Vegeta so close, he was so far, far away.

"Thank you!" Ziloh exclaimed, startling Vegeta back to the scene before him. He grasped Kakarot's hand and kissed it over and over again as tears ran down his rock face. The sight was disgusting and beyond idiotic. "You have no idea how much this means to me and my people! We are forever in your debt, Kakarot, truly we are."

"Kakarot," Vegeta hissed.

Kakarot gave him a helpless look as he tugged his hand away from the blubbering mess of a man. Vegeta snarled at him, even as part of him berated himself for his own inattentiveness. It was his own fault that Kakarot had been alone in the decision-making by not paying attention to what was relevant.

"Er, my name is Goku," Kakarot said, "and, um, you're welcome?"

"Goku, then. I cannot put my gratitude into words. Please, tell me if there is any way to repay your kindness."

"Er, um, it's fine. The Earth doesn't actually belong to us, so you don't really need our permission anyway. Um, good luck with your antidote."

"Thank you, we will certainly need it." Ziloh stepped back. "I hate to leave so abruptly, though we really must be going if we ever hope to find what we need. Earth is a very large planet, and we are on a fixed amount of time."

Vegeta knew the words that Kakarot was rearing to say before his lips even moved, and yet he was still too late to stop them. "Well, we know someone who may be able to help you find what you're looking for faster."

"Kakarot," Vegeta hissed for the second time, missing the aggravated twitch of Ziloh's brow.

"Really? And who might such a person be?"

Kakarot's eyes flickered over to Vegeta's, before replying, "her name is Bulma. She's Vegeta's wife."

"Oh!" Ziloh exclaimed, looking genuinely surprised, as if that information was actually relevant to him. "I had no idea you were married. Congratulations!"

Vegeta huffed in reply.

"Yeah well, she's a scientist, and definitely knows more about herbal medicines than we do. Do you want me to take you to her? It'll only take a moment."

"If it really won't be too much trouble, I would like to take you up on your offer." His face then falls a bit, looking contrite. "Are you sure there is nothing we can do? Really, you must let me repay your generosity!"

"Don't sweat it! I'm just happy to help." Kakarot turned his body, giving the lot of them his back. "Here, grab my shoulder and I'll take you over to Capsule Corps."

"Pardon?"

"I know a technique called Instant Transmission. I can get all of us over there in just a few seconds."

"How fascinating! Is it the same technique that the Yardratians use?"

Vegeta instinctively tuned out of the conversation (he could admit to himself that he was the smallest bit jealous of the technique he had never learned, and he would not stand to listen to Kakarot wax its praise for the millionth time). Almost as instinctively, his eyes fell back onto the boy again. The boy was now bouncing on his oddly positioned feet, as if they were moments away from giving out under his weight. A trail of blood began to drip from the wound on his shoulder, the entirety of which was nearly black from the bruises. The pain he was surely feeling must be nearly unbearable now.

Ziloh laughed out suddenly, frightening the boy into a full-body jolt. His face raised then, only for a moment, though long enough for Vegeta's stomach to drop at the sight.

Around the boy's face was a clean, grey-colored cloth. It completely shielded his eyes, the fabric thick enough that Vegeta could not so much as see the outline of his skin. Undoubtedly, it was a blindfold.

Why was it there? Perhaps he did not have eyes? But no, a prisoner towards the front of the line was missing an eye, though there was no such fabric tied around their face. What was so special about this boy's eyes that they needed to be hidden? Did they have some sort of powers? Vegeta imagined that more drastic measures than a simple piece of fabric would have been taken then if that was the case.

The boy's trembling began to grow. Tiny beads of sweat started dripping noticeably from his brow. He knew Vegeta was watching him.

"Amazing! I thought only the natives could master such a technique. To think you accomplished it in such a short period of time is astounding!" the Warden exclaimed. Vegeta reluctantly looked away from the boy, despite the curiosity that now burned through his veins like the beginning flame of a match before it became a bonfire.

"Well, it certainly hadn't felt like a short period at the time, though you're probably right about that."

"Kakarot, don't you think it's time we take these people up on your offer already?" Vegeta cut in, his displeasure at the current ordeal quite apparent. He really just wanted to get away from Ziloh and the other aliens as soon as possible. He had had enough of the disgusting sight they made and their horrific smell. He wanted to fly home, lock himself in his gravity chamber, and forget any of this had even happened.

He also needed to get away from the boy with the blindfold wrapped around his eyes, before his curiosity got the better of him. There was no point in him wondering about a boy that was not his business. A boy that would be gone by the time the day ended.

Kakarot nodded at him. Then he called out, "Alright everyone, just grab onto any part of my body or each other and we'll be on our way!"

Ziloh and Vegeta grasped Goku's shoulders, the guards dividing up between either side. The prisoners were hesitant at first, before huddling closer towards the two saiyans. One boldly reached up to grasp at the back of Vegeta's shirt. Vegeta glowered at her, and the girl yelped before reaching over to grab a guard instead.

"Alright then, let's go—oh," Kakarot trailed off.

Vegeta followed his gaze and landed on the blindfolded boy for the umpteenth time. He jumped at the sudden attention, seeming lost as to who or what he should touch or if he should even bother at all. Vegeta doubted he would have too, really. Given that he was chained to the other prisoners, his body would probably teleport regardless.

Despite this, Kakarot still reached down and grasped one of his tiny hands in his.

"Alright, everyone, let's go!" Kakarot exclaimed before fazing them all away, not noticing—or perhaps ignoring—the looks of horror that splayed themselves across the aliens' faces.

TBC