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 depictions of torture and descriptions of rape of a child.*
Every Eye Will See
Chapter Twelve: The Penalty
Am I still alive?
He is groaning. Loudly. In a way that they would say was manipulative. He is not trying to be manipulative. Every sound he makes is so real. His fingers grapple at his busted lips, but they do little to stifle the noise. The guard's grip around his ankle is too tight. He cannot pull away. He cannot not stop the blade piercing his skin, digging down to his bone. The blade is heated. It is so very hot, dragging a slow, molten line down his calf. His eyes are wet. He is screaming so loudly his own ear drums ache.
I think I am still alive.
They are beating his feet with a thick, wooden pole. All of his toes have broken. All of his pre-existing blisters have burst under the onslaught. His soles are shredded and raw, and blood oozes and splatters around his ankles.
"Do you want me to stop?" The guard—a different one maybe, but did it matter?—asks him, and he knows it is a trick question but he nods anyway. Or at least he thinks he nods because the beating stops. It is not a blessing. The tormented nerves come alive at the pause. The pain is agonizing.
He is moaning and whining and making all kinds of manipulative noises, but he still hears, "You have no right to demand such a request. Insubordination is a sin punishable by death. You should be grateful we are allowing you to atone for your crimes."
The pole strikes him again. He bites through his lip and his mouth fills with blood.
Why am I still alive?
The blindfold is ripped off his face. The light above is bright. Too bright. He closes his eyes, but the light still flashes across his vision. Its intensity still burned.
Hours. It had to have been hours since they started. How much longer until he has learned his lesson? How much longer until they would finally stop?
Rough fingers are peeling back his eyelids. Obstructions shaped like stone faces partially block the light. Then thick powder blocks out everything.
The powder is fire.
Powder looks more like ashes, but this powder is undoubtedly fire. Fire and maybe sharp knives, slicing and burning away every nerve, from his sclera to his pupils to the irises that made his eyes that damned red.
He claws at his eyes. They are melting and he does not need them anyway. He might as well tear them out of his skull.
They pin his hands down. They rewrap the blindfold, so tightly that his tears cannot wash the fire and knives away.
They might be speaking to him, trying to ensure he learns what he is being taught. More likely they are laughing at him. How amusing is he, the idiot boy who could not follow the one most important rule bestowed on him.
He wants to laugh, too, but he cannot laugh and scream at the same time.
He thinks that the single, blurry glimpse at that man he had gotten is not worth this.
I should not still be alive.
He is alone. He is hanging from the ceiling.
He does not know how high. The floor could be inches beneath him or miles away. Perhaps not miles, because he can hear every drop of sweat that slid from his skin hit somewhere below. He has been left like this for a long time, tied up like meat awaiting the butcher.
The rope binding his wrists to his ankles rub his skin nearly raw, and his hands have long since gone numb. He is too exhausted to use his neck muscles; he had no choice but to let his head hang back limply. It is no comfort—his locks of hair might as well have been barbells for all they weighed him down.
He knows this is not the punishment.
The door opens. It scraps mercilessly across the metal floor. Perhaps it is foreshadowing, or maybe a promise. There would be no mercy in this room.
The door closes, the sound just as agonizing as when it opened. After, there are no other sounds at first. Then there is crackling. Then came the pain exploding across his whole back.
They have lit a fire underneath him.
He can smell his skin cooking. He does not know which is worse: the pain or the odor. Probably the pain. His flesh is melting, not figuratively.
"Does it burn, whoreson?" a guard asks in his ear.
Yes, the flames burn. Make it stop. Make it stop. Make it stop.
"Burn for your sins." The Warden's voice, then. His Master's voice. "Burn for the sins of your sire. Burn for the sins of his sire. Burn for the sins of all who share his blood."
He does not want too.
If thoughts are a sin, then his Master should strike him down right where he hung.
The thoughts do not change. He does not want to burn. He wants it to stop. He wants the fire to stop. He wants the pain to stop.
He wants the breath in his lungs to stop.
Smoke had just started to fill his nose when the blessing came. "Stop."
The fire stops.
The rope is cut. The floor is cool underneath him. It does nothing for his ruined remains.
He feels... he does not know how he feels. He feels far away, farther away then he thinks he has ever felt. His flesh is dripping, swimming beneath him where the meat has turned liquid. Or maybe that is just blood, oozing out despite his weight trying to hold it in, staining the floor around him for all eyes to see.
He thinks he is going to die.
Even near death, the pain is still great enough to turn his stomach. He is vomiting, nearly choking on it, until someone turns his face to the side.
It is his Master. His touch is gentle, and once he is done gagging, he turns into it. He wraps his hands around his wrist, holding him as tight as he can. He sobs into his palm. He is behaving so manipulatively, but his Master does not push him away.
He cannot see the look of adoration, of amazement, of near exaltation, but he feels it.
"Your punishment is done," his Master promises, stroking his face softly. "You crave the pain I give you, don't you?"
Perhaps he does. He always seems to end up right back here: bleeding, broken, soothed by the hand that hurt him.
"Of course you do, because you are so perfect for me." The Warden hums, sounding so pleased. "You can sleep now."
He drifts off into sleep, and never wants to wake again.
Maybe he did crave the pain. He was still alive was he not? He should be dead and yet here he was, still drawing breath into lungs that did not deserve it.
It was not his right to, but he felt... disappointed.
They must have just arrived back. The numbness that had spread throughout his body told him that they were using his tail to drag him along. His legs must not be working anymore. He could remember the last time he had tried.
The smooth bridge of the ship gave way to a hard, stone ground, and he knew that he was home.
Muted noise filtered in slowly, as if he were rising out of water but not yet breaking the surface. It sounded like cheering and clapping hands, coming from every side and direction. Momentarily, he was confused.
Then he remembered. Their mission had had a purpose, after all, and they had succeeded.
If his ears were working properly, the volume would probably be atrocious. He thought that there probably never had been a louder homecoming in history. It was as if every single citizen had come to welcome them back. He remembered how important the balls were apparently supposed to be, how they were the saviors of the Tene'mareen way of life and thought that might actually be so.
Regardless, the noise was still very grating to his headache.
They must have redressed him at some point, because it was not his naked skin that slid across the dirt now like it slid along the metal floors for the many hours he did not bother to count. He might as well be nude for all the clothing did to protect against the gritty stone he was being pulled across. Even so, the new scraps blossoming on his skin might as well be kisses for all they affect him.
He was not the only one being carted along the dirt, he realized at some point. The girl, the one who had tried futilely to run away, had been punished as well. He remembered her screaming very loudly when they ripped all of her long, dark hair from her scalp in bloody clumps, and the sound of her gagging as they strangled her to nearly the point of unconsciousness over and over again with her own tresses. He remembered her begging and then sobbing when they tore her wings from her back. He remembered her sobbing for hours after that.
She was still unconscious, her body gliding across the stone like a sack of meat. He listened, but he could not hear her breathing. His ears were still not working properly, but he thought it was likely that she was dead, now nothing more than a battered doll headed straight for the trash heap. If not, he imagined they would probably gather all the prisoners to watch them as they made an example of her execution. In any case, she would not survive the day.
He did not think he was in the same boat as her. If he had survived through his rest, he doubted they would allow him to die any time soon.
Certainly not by his wounds at this point. The heat from the knife tearing apart his leg had certainly not felt great at the time, but the heat was enough to cauterize the injury as the blade was creating it, so he probably would not have to worry about that. As for his back and feet, he thought they might have wrapped the messes of damage in bandages, but it was hard to tell at the moment. If he was lucky, they might have even put a healing salve on him.
Suddenly his body was dragged unceremoniously over a large rock in the path, and the blunt edge made brutal contact with his backside, irritating his abused anus.
So, there was also that, but that was nothing new.
Or a bit new, he supposed. The Master hardly ever let the other guards have him in that way. The Master was a possessive man. He had told Chill more than once that his sinful flesh was only for him and him alone. No one else will know this pleasure, the Master would whisper in his ear while his propelling hips split Chill's body in half, you are mine. All mine.
Even so, even one as simple as him understood the difference in situation. In that moment, Chill had not been serving the Master who cared for him the way no one else did. Chill was being punished for disobeying him, for betraying his trust, for daring to forget who he was and what he was. It had been necessary.
It was not the worst of his punishments, not by a long shot, but he had certainly not been fond of it. He did not like being used by guards whose names he did not know and voices he did not recognize. He did not like being taken by these men in front of everyone else.
It was such a stupid thing to dislike, and yet even the memory made him feel... badly. It was dirty, it was humiliating, it was so awful, but that was the point, wasn't it?
He preferred serving the Master. He knew the Master, and the Master was usually private. The Master would never tear into his body with dozens of eyes witnessing their coupling. The Master was only one man; he could not take him over and over and over again like they could. He could not constantly fill and refill his mouth, until the only thing inside of him was what came out of them—
Chill abruptly felt sick, but he did not dare vomit. If they had truly starved him, then he would certainly be dead, so somewhere in his hazy memory they must have fed him something... something else. He was not out of the woodworks yet, and if he wanted to survive to see another day, he would have to preserve everything in his stomach for as long as he could.
...
Did he want to live to see tomorrow?
If his limbs were actually responding to his motion commands, he would have hit himself right across the face. Only four days he had been gone and already his mind had tainted enough to hold such thoughts as that.
It would be alright though, because he was home now. The days spent away had felt like a lifetime, but they were over now. If he were lucky, he would never leave again. His life here never bothered him the way Earth had. There was nothing to be confused about here, nothing that did not make sense, nothing that made the spot where his heart resided ache like it was splitting down the middle.
There was no man named Vegeta here, either. Not that it mattered. He did not want Chill anyway.
His fists clench and his toes curl tightly because he was... angry? Yes, he was angry. His heart hurt, too. He should not feel this way; he never feels this way. He did not know what to do about it. He could not cry because of the anger, and he could scream because of the anguish. He could not do anything; all he could do was feel.
It felt as though he were drowning. Or maybe he was in one of those thunderstorms Neeila told him about. Whatever it was, it was taking his breath away. He was gasping but no air seemed to get through. He was trying to get away, but he couldn't. He was not moving at all in fact—when had they stopped dragging him?—and if his limbs felt like jelly before they feel like lead now, stapled down to the ground so securely not even his fingers could move.
It was scary.
Finally, one of his hands was able to move, and he dropped it over his heart. He clawed at his chest, but whatever was hurting him was too deep to reach.
He wished he had never left in the first place. He wished he could go back to the days when he thought that man was dead. He had gained nothing from learning that that man had lived all this time. He had gained nothing from seeing him with his own two eyes.
For as long as Chill could remember, he had wondered about the man who had borne him. He could not help it; every orphan wondered what their parents were like. Even if they had photos, they wondered what they looked like when the cameras were off, or what their voices sounded like. They wondered what kind of person they were, if they had offered anything to the world aside from a parentless child.
He wondered. He even lied to himself, it seemed. He knew in his heart that Vegeta never wanted him any more than the Tyrant did. He knew that, he really had, but maybe there was part of him that did not want to know that. There was a part of him, always, that thought that maybe if Vegeta had been alive, things might have been different.
The dreams (the nighttime ones he could not control and the daytime ones he could) were so vivid sometimes. His head would lie on a soft chest, a gentle hand would stroke his hair. It was warm in the dreams, and so quiet. A voice would whisper in his ear, mostly words he could not understand or remember, but sometimes words that he could. At times, the voice would say the sweet things he had heard other parents say to their children.
Come... rest now...
Precious thing...
I'll keep you safe...
Other times the voice would say other things, realer things, like they were memories he could not fully remember.
I miss you...
Come back...
I wish you were here...
You'll always be mine...
He cherished everything his dreams would create, because the voice was Vegeta's voice. It was stupid to think that Vegeta could ever love a boy who held all of the Tyrant's sins, a boy that had been forced upon him in the first place, but it helped, to think that even through his suffering there had been a time when he was wanted. It never hurt to wonder because he would never know.
Now, he did know.
Just one look, that was all he wanted. It had been a ridiculous risk, and had predictably not paid off in the end, but his mind had not been thinking of those kinds of logical thoughts. All he had thought about was how badly he wanted to see the man that had borne him, that he would never have a chance to do so again.
He had lifted the blindfold and looked. Through the blur of the sun and his own unaccustomed vision, he saw. He saw hair tall like a flame. He saw broad neck muscles and a face of hard lines. He saw black eyes staring straight back at him.
And it had not been worth it. Didn't he know by now, that removing the blindfold never turned out well?
Vegeta had always seemed so far away. A dream that he could only desire, but never truly know. Yet, somehow, for a time Chill was so close he could have reached out and touched him. But what did it matter? Like before, Vegeta let them take him and never looked back. How much more would Chill need to understand that he was well and truly abandoned?
He jerked his head back, smacking it soundly off the ground, but the pain in his chest did not stop.
It used to feel good, to think about the one who mothered him. It made him feel light and content and good inside. Now it was all ruined.
He smacked his head off the ground again and again until finally a scream broke free. Then he was screaming and screaming. It felt good and it didn't. It made him lighter but not enough. He was still crushed underneath the weight of it all, and the pain wouldn't go away.
He screamed until he could not anymore. His voice broke and died until it was weak and useless like the rest of him.
He was exhausted. He did not fight the feeling. He embraced it. He was eager for the peace his exhaustion brought with it.
Sleep had always scared him. It was not due to nightmares. In fact, he rarely dreamed most nights. The nightmares came sometimes, but even so he would not say they truly scared him. In the moment they were frightening, of course—he was not so emotionally detached to claim that they were not—and it was unpleasant to wake up covered in sweat and breathing like he had run for miles. Despite the fear they produced, however, nightmares were not real. The monsters that plagued his dreams held no power once the morning came. No, that was not what scared him.
Only real things could truly scare him.
He could die in his sleep, and that would be real. Many prisoners died that way. He had awoken next to such souls on the barracks overly packed bunks a number of times. Sometimes, you could tell when a person would go. They would crawl onto the bunk with slow, useless bodies that had finally reached their limits. Their mouths would no longer form words, only a slew of gurgles and offhand moans, seemingly unaware of the noises they were making. Their eyes would look so eerily blank, as if their soul had already moved on and the body had yet to catch up.
Sometimes, though, you could not tell. Sometimes a prisoner would lie down for sleep like they would any other night. They would let sleep carry them away, not even thinking to imagine that once their eyes slid shut, they would never open again.
Chill acknowledged that if he were ever so far gone as the former, he would not be in a position to care about his impending death one way or the other. Yet, the boy he was then, with a mind still capable of rational thought, would have cared. He did not know what it was like to die and he had never wanted to know.
He was not scared now. He did not know what he felt now. He did not want to die, but he did not think he would be terribly put-out if he did.
Who gave you the right to think that way? Who gave you the right to be so dismissive of a life that is not wholly your own? Who gave you the right to accept the death of a life that has left so many sins still unpaid?
No one, he knew, but he thought it all anyway.
He was home now, he reminded himself. He was back where things were right and made sense and never changed. He was sure that once he woke again, the pain would be gone, and everything would go back to the way it was.
It had too. He did not know what he would do if it didn't.
He never should have looked.
It had been hours since they left Earth.
Every single one of those hours had been spent sparring.
It ought to have been fairly simplistic as far as spars go. Mindful of the necessity to keep their spaceship intact, neither of them pushed past super saiyan. Additionally, they only made physical attacks on the other, aware of just how catastrophic a wayward blast could be.
Even still, despite the limitations, their spar was not any less taxing. It had been hours, after all, and while neither were firing energy blasts, they certainly made up for it with punishing blows. Or at least, Vegeta certainly was. Sweat poured down his face in rivers, and his muscles were already beginning to sob with pain, but Vegeta did not care. If he had his way, it would be a long time yet before they finally stopped.
With that thought, Vegeta struck Kakarot with a particularly harsh blow to the chest. The other man flew back several feet, catching himself before he slammed into the wall. Instead of charging back into the fight, however, Kakarot looked up and asked, "So, do you know a lot about Teena... Tene... Tene'mareen?"
Vegeta dropped his fist and gave him an odd look. "What?"
"Do you know anything about Tene'mareen?" he repeated.
Vegeta blinked several times before he furrowed his brow. "What the hell do you want to know?"
Kakarot hummed in thought. "Well, I didn't know that prison planets even existed. Why is it a prison planet? Did they just find some empty world and decide to put a bunch of bad people on it?"
Vegeta scoffed. "Why do you care?"
"I'm just curious," Kakarot muttered, seeming offended at his interest being questioned.
Vegeta sighed, and likewise, sounded very put-out by the questions.
"I don't know much. I was a teenager the only time I went, and I wasn't exactly there for a history lesson," he warns.
"Okay," Kakarot said, and if he was at all curious about what Vegeta was doing there, he did not say.
Vegeta sighed a second time as he leaned back against the wall behind him. He had been thinking of many things the night before. One of those things had in fact been Tene'mareen, despite how much he did not want to be plagued by it at all. The more his mind involuntarily drugged up thoughts of that gods forsaken planet, the clearer his memories became.
"The Tene'mareen prison system is said to have been founded by a king called Hikso," he starts. "They say that he started the system because he saw it as a way to use the harsh environment of their planet to make profit. He split up his planet into eight Divisions—like Earth continents—and registered it as a prison planet with the Planet Trade Organization. He assigned each of his eight children to control their own division as the 'warden', and the leadership passed from them down to their children and so on."
Kakarot's face screwed up in thought. "So, it's a prison system... that's a monarchy?"
Vegeta shrugged affirmatively.
"That's really weird," Kakarot said, seeming unable to wrap his head around the concept. "Why would you need a whole planet just for other people's prisoners? Wouldn't those planets just take care of their criminals themselves?"
Vegeta shrugged again, this time in somewhat equal confusion. "I rarely concerned myself with the customs other planets. Tene'mareen is a truly abhorrent world, so perhaps they felt their criminals deserved a harsher fate than they could offer. Or perhaps they simply did not wish for their society to be tainted by lawbreakers. I really couldn't tell you. In any case Tene'mareen is not technically just a prison. There are just as many people there who have committed no crimes at all."
Kakarot blinked, seeming to comprehend that even less. "What?" he asked, then clarified, "What do you mean there are people there who've committed no crimes?"
"I mean what I said," Vegeta answered, annoyed. Had Kakarot himself not commented on the far too young age of the children that had been paraded before them the day before?
Kakarot still seemed unable to grasp it. "Do you mean like... by mistake?"
"No."
"So, they do it on purpose?"
"Obviously."
He began to look angry at that, and it was only then that Vegeta realized just why exactly Kakarot—good, righteous, naive Kakarot—was reacting the way that he was. "What kind of prison knowingly puts away people who haven't even done anything?"
Vegeta had even less of a desire to finish the conversation than he had when they started, but clearly it was too late to turn back now.
It's more like a... concentration camp," he answers reluctantly.
"What is a concentration camp?" Kakarot asked, his confusion not at all dampening the fire of anger in his eyes.
Hold on, let me just pull out my dictionary, Vegeta thought, irritably. "They put people there who aren't necessarily criminals. Political enemies, or conquered races."
Kakarot's jaw nearly dropped. He floundered for a moment, before demanding in a near anguished tone, "Why?"
Vegeta shifted, feeling more than a little uncomfortable in the face of Kakarot's distress. "Why what?"
"Why would they put innocent..." Kakarot shook his head. "If you... conquered a race of people, wouldn't the conquerors be more likely to..."
"Kill them?" Vegeta offered.
"Yes. That."
Vegeta sighed heavily, wondering why he had to be the one to explain such things to Kakarot.
(Part of him also wondered what Kakarot would think of him, that Vegeta even knew the answer.)
(He reminded himself that he did not care what Kakarot thought of him.)
"Sometimes it is not enough to kill your enemies," he told him. "Sometimes you want them to know pain. In their body and I'm their minds too. That is what you get out of slavery, after all—people that are broken down to their very spirit. There is a sense of pleasure in knowing that someone is suffering a fate worse than death all from the power of your word."
Vegeta, feeling no desire to see what was playing on Kakarot's face at the moment, allowed his eyes to catch onto the nearest window. Faraway stars zipped past the glass in near-mesmerizing lines of techno white.
"Sometimes, not even that is enough. Sometimes true satisfaction comes from knowing you have crushed them in every way you can. You destroy their culture in a way so they could never have it back, take away their entire way of life, trample on their dignity until they were less than an animal. Sometimes, true vengeance is knowing that they and they and their children and all the children after them will suffer for ever daring to cross you."
"Oh," Kakarot said, and nothing else, his face so pale it was nearly white. He was looking at Vegeta like he had never seen him before, like one would a dangerous stranger.
"I wouldn't say I ever related to that desire," Vegeta could not help but to say, unsure why, but nonetheless feeling the need to clarify. "I'm sure you can imagine that it wasn't really my style."
After several moments, Kakarot said, "I hadn't thought so."
The prince only shrugged in response. "I've told you what you wanted to know, now let's continue this spar."
Kakarot dutifully slid back into his fighting position, but his face still looked the slightest bit ill, and the look in his eyes was somewhere distant, somewhere far away.
"Kakarot," Vegeta barked in exasperation, though internally he acknowledged that perhaps he should not have been so blunt. Far past grown, yet Kakarot was still too naive for his own good.
"Yeah?"
"Your lack of concentration is insulting."
"Sorry, it's just I—" Kakarot cut himself off when the screen across the room caught his eye. "Woah, Vegeta. Maybe we should call it a night?"
Vegeta peered over at the screen. The digital clock with large, white numbers read Earth's current time—12:50am. They had been sparring far longer than Vegeta both expected and intended.
Still, Vegeta scowled at the other man. "Weakling. Night does not even exist here, but do what you want, Kakarot," he said, spitting out the name with as much distaste as he could muster.
Kakarot flinched at his tone. Vegeta turned away from him and began to throw punches out to the unresisting air.
Vegeta had no reason to be so cold with him, he knew. They were not friends, and Vegeta disliked him, but he had not shown the other saiyan this much disdain in a very long time.
That acknowledgement, what it implied about his own mental state, only served to make Vegeta even more irritated.
Vegeta was marginally surprised when an indulgent sigh came from behind him.
"Alright, Vegeta," Kakarot said. "If you're still good to go then so am I."
Vegeta huffed, but still turned around and charged at the other saiyan again.
"I can scarcely believe it, sir!" exclaims the Correctional Officer Major sitting just to the side of him. Ziloh's previous one had died in a riot not long ago and he had yet to memorize this new one's name. And his face, in all honesty. In his defense, it was a very plain one. Despite the man's unnoteworthy appearance, Ziloh's son—whom he had left the task of procuring a replacement too in the first place—assured him that the man was qualified for the position.
The major-with-no-name did not seem as though he was in that moment, not with his eyes bugging out quite unprofessionally at the dark chest sitting in the center of the table on the floor below. Luckily for him, Ziloh was not the type of warden to reprimand his subordinates for such a thing, however. Rather, he hummed in agreement.
He could hardly believe it, either.
The last half an hour passed in a blur of excitement and triumph. One moment the ship was landing on Division III's tarmac and the next they—he, his heir, the unconscious body of the runaway girl whom he planned to execute once this was all through, and all the personnel high ranking enough to deserve to see the makings of history unfold—were here, seconds away from true victory.
Excitement ignited his blood. His heart pounded just from looking at the closed chest, just knowing what was inside. He could scarcely manage to sit still, not with this burning high of life pumping through his every vein.
Now would be a wonderful time for a fuck, he thought, but unfortunately for him that form of celebration would have to wait. On this occasion he would have nothing less than the best, and the best was not available now.
The thought of him only made the horniness worse. Beautiful memories flashed through his mind: of soft, pale skin and raven locks, of sweet screams in a voice too high for a man's, of an innocent face painted red with blood and tears and longing for control, for subjugation.
He could not help it—he shivered pleasantly at the thoughts that danced through his mind. No, nothing else could compare to his Angel.
Yet Ziloh could not have him now. His Angel had been so good for him—nearly too good. He had soaked up every punishment like they were sips of water in a desert, and nearly drowned himself. Ziloh had pushed him so far that he nearly lost him, and that would not do. No, for now the boy would rest. He would rest until Ziloh's urges could wait no longer, but given the saiyan blood in his veins, that would certainly be more than enough time for him to heal and prepare for more.
And more would Ziloh give him. Never before had he wanted the boy to this magnitude. The thrill had always been there, of course. Ziloh was not a powerful man in body, nor a particularly influential one in the happenings of the wider universe, and yet he was the one fucking the son of the galaxy's most hated tyrant.
The son of the handsome prince who snubbed him, as well. Even now, after all these years, Ziloh had not forgotten the prince who, despite his height, looked down on everyone and everything before him. He had forgotten the finer details of Vegeta's face, but never his black-flamed hair, never those sullen, dark eyes smoldering with contempt.
For many moons after that one fated meeting, the prince consumed his dreams. He dreamed of beating the contempt from those eyes and replacing them with submission. He dreamed of how his deliciously small body would look underneath his. He dreamed of making that proud little prince surrender to his will.
They were fruitless dreams, he knew. He had known it even when, many years later, his infant son had been placed into his custody. The boy was a sorry replacement. Aside from the color of his hair, and perhaps some facial features, he did not even look all that much like Vegeta. More importantly, he would never act like him. Haughty arrogance and princely cockiness could not be replicated, especially not by one who had never known anything other than obedience.
Ziloh had grown to love his Angel, though. He might even love him more than he ever loved Vegeta. It was now his little blindfolded face he saw in his dreams on the nights the boy spent in the barracks as opposed to between his sheets. There was a sense of power with him too, different than the one he would have liked to have experienced with Vegeta, but still just as strong. The boy was the spawn of two great lineages that were so powerful they destroyed each other, and he was warming Ziloh's bed whenever he desired it.
Ziloh could not have Vegeta—he had long since accepted that. He could have Chill though, a boy with a face that was still sweet and a body still sinfully young. He had forgotten Vegeta's face, but he would never forget his Angel's. He had made the boy his and his he would stay. Ziloh would not lose him, not to death, not even to the one who bore him.
Just remembering the near threat made him want that little body in his hands right now. He wanted to leave his marks all over him. He wanted to tear into that pale skin over and over again, until it was painted red with blood and white with seed from head to toe. He wanted to give him scars so thick they were ugly, so then everyone would see them, and all the rest of the mess, and know just who the boy belonged too.
Not yet, he told the fiery desire blazing hot under his skin. Not yet, but soon.
Ziloh turned his attention back to the happenings before him. He watched gleefully from his position high above the proceedings, shielded by a thick, protective barrier. He would have loved nothing more than to be down there himself, to hold the balls in his own hands as they did his bidding. Alas, he could not. It had been a hard sell, but under the force of his advisors and his son, he conceded that activating the balls could very likely result in dangers unknown. So, from his spot high in the room, he watched as a lowly—but no less trusted—guard selected a sharp, silver key from the ring Ziloh had reluctantly handed over earlier. He watched as the guard pushed the key into the keyhole of the chest, turned it, then opened it.
There, waiting for all eyes to see, were the seven dragon balls.
They were truly beautiful. Small, colored like oranges plucked straight from a grove, with bright red stars in their centers. The balls glowed even before being used, rapidly, hardly letting even a second pass before the next glow of energy.
He would learn, later, that it was unnatural for them to glow this way. Now though, he only marveled at them.
"We can finally rid the universe of that pest," Ziloh told his audience.
"Yes, sir!" They called back to him, their eyes on him rounded in awe. He basks in their expressions of awe, of veneration. He had surely earned it—no other warden could say that they had disposed of the pest, the one that was nearly as terrible as Frieza himself, could they?
"Father," spoke up his son.
"Reiko," Ziloh acknowledged.
"After..." his son stopped and cleared his throat. "After we rid the galaxy of the pest... would you consider making a second wish?"
Ziloh peered over at him. Reiko, his son, had wanted to come to Earth with Ziloh's retinue, had wanted to be a part of the crew that secured the glowing orbs that would change their lives forever so badly, but Ziloh had refused. As his heir apparent, Reiko was required to keep everything in the prison system in order, even during as short a trip as that one. Secondly, again as not only heir apparent, but the only heir, his life was the most valuable in all of Division III, and despite Ziloh's own brand of recklessness for embarking on a galactic trip riddled with unknowns, he would not risk his son in the same manner.
Thirdly—and perhaps most important of all—Ziloh could not bear, in the face of possible failure, to see the disappointment that would overtake his son's face.
Reiko was like him in most ways. They were the same height, their hair was the same shade, and their eyes were the same piercing, navy blue. If Reiko had more age cracks in his face, they might have been twins. Yet, despite how Ziloh's blood so undeniably flowed through his veins, he and Reiko were not the same.
Reiko felt emotions far too deeply.
Looking at his son now, it was only too obvious. He was far past his adolescence, well into manhood, and yet he still could not manage so much as a decent poker face. Try as Reiko might to seem stoic, like his question was not of great importance regardless of what the answer was, all Ziloh saw was the face of the boy who used to ride atop his shoulders and cry when prisoners were beaten.
Ziloh crossed the room, and when he reached him, he laid a grounding hand on his shoulder. "Once the demon is gone, I shall wish for Hilla to return to life."
The hope in his Reiko's eyes was enough to make even Ziloh's heart ache. "Really, father? It is possible?"
"It is," Ziloh assured. "The loss of my granddaughter is not a pain I have forgotten, my son. But we can make it as if it had never happened."
It pained him even now, nearly a year later, just to think about it. Hilla had been such a sweet girl. Beautiful, lively, scarcely past her eleventh year. She was so loved, his granddaughter, by her family and all who knew her. And then suddenly she was gone, attacked by rebellious and ungrateful prisoners, crushed and battered by rocks twice her size until her little body could take no more.
Ziloh had given each and every one of them—and then some—what they deserved. He had burned and flayed and tore off limbs and until they too gave into death's embrace. There was no true satisfaction, though. He could punish and punish, but the only heiress of his only heir was still gone from them. Not only gone, but also in dire need of a replacement. Of course, Reiko knew just what was expected of him as heir, but how could you ask a man who had lost a beloved child to simply make another?
There was guilt, for if Ziloh had fathered more children himself, then his son would not have to consider such a burden, but alas, Reiko was his only son and Hilla his only granddaughter, and without her their line would not continue.
But now, that would change.
"She'll be back with me," Reiko whispered, seemingly to himself. "My child... she'll be with me again."
"Yes, my son," Ziloh told him. "The pest, first, but after I promise she will be ours again."
Reiko's eyes were wet, but at least his son was not so soft that he would let the tears fall. He nodded, and together, they turned towards the dragon balls once more. Everyone was silent, hardly daring to breath in the presence of the gleaming orbs. What could you say when the power of the gods was before your eyes?
You could only say what you demanded.
The fortunate guard, who had been bestowed the honor of addressing the dragon balls, said, "Draakballe, luister na my woorde. Met jou krag vernietig ek ons grootste vyand!"
Dragon Balls, heed my words. With your power, I destroy our greatest enemy!
Moments passed, long enough for the anticipation that had nearly made his heart stop to slowly begin to dissipate.
Absolutely nothing happened.
The ground did not shake, the sky did not change, and no dragon appeared. The balls themselves did not even so much as shudder with effort. They glowed on and on with no care for what and who they were disappointing.
More moments passed. A brave soul finally said, "Sir... nothing has happened."
"I see that!" Ziloh erupted. He abruptly pointed down to the guard in his line of sight. "You! Tell me why it has not worked. Now."
The singled-out guard scrambled with the tablet another guard graciously handed him. He tapped a few times, then said, shakily, "Our data still only says the location of the balls and their appearance. Any more information Frieza may have gained is lost to us."
Ziloh already knew this, and to hear it over again did nothing to mellow his rage. He pounded his fists against the table, before him so hard the wood cracked. "Fuck!"
"Sir, please do not be distressed," another guard below said. "We have all the time we need to understand the mechanisms necessary to use the dragon balls. We will surely find the way to use them."
Ziloh removed his hands from the indents he had made in the table. "Well, does anyone have any useful suggestions on how to activate them?"
No one made a sound.
He held himself back from the curses his rage made him wish to spill. He held himself back from peering at his son, from seeing whatever devastation must be painted over his face.
He declared, "I need a goddamn smoke. When I return there better be a dragon here or I'll put a bullet in all your skulls," before storming from the room.
TBC
I Made the Tene'mareen language Afrikaans, for absolutely no reason other than that I liked how it sounded on Google Translate.
For anyone that is confused, Tene'mareen is still a normal planet with homes and towns and schools, they just happen to be a prison planet on top of that.