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.

Every Eye Will See

Chapter Sixteen: The Hour

The Past:

On a day that was just like the day before, and all the days before that, Neeila's mother died.

Chill knew it even before she said it. He could feel it the moment Neeila sat down next to him, could feel it in the way her body slumped like a string-less puppet. He could feel that her face had no smile and had not for a long while. He could feel that all of her warmth had frozen away like it had never been there at all.

Chill knew, but he listened to her anyway.

"I tried to wake her," Neeila said in a voice that sounded as if she were the one rotting in the grave. "I tried to wake her, but she wouldn't. I tried to open her eyelids, but they were to stiff..."

He listened to her, even though with every word she seemed to drift further and further away from him. "They just... just took her away. Dropped her on top of those other dead bodies and wheeled her away, but she's not supposed to be there. She's not, she's not..."

Where before she was slipping, suddenly she was cracking, so clearly, he could almost hear each break. "It's not right. It's not right. We aren't supposed to be here. We are supposed to be home, not here and it's all his fault."

It was not the first time she had mentioned a 'he'. Chill never asked who she meant by that.

She was crying then. He had never witnessed Neeila shed tears before. He had never seen her be so sad before. Neeila was always smiling, always laughing. It had stressed him before, the flippant, reckless way she would display every emotion that crossed her heart. Now, he wanted it back. He did not want her to cry. He did not want her to be so sad that it seemed she would never be happy again.

Even more so, he wanted to see.

He could not say why he chose to do it, then. If Chill had better understood social interactions, he might have known that he could not have chosen a worse time to do it. Yet, he did not understand. All he knew was that Neeila was right there, and for once, for just one moment, he wanted to see.

He lifted the blindfold. When he opened his eyes, he looked only at her.

She was nothing like he imagined and exactly what he imagined all at once.

Her skin was white. No—pale was the word. Her skin was very pale. Her uniform was striped, like his. One of her sleeves hung down her tiny shoulder, the other ripped clean off. Her uniform was dirty and missing the top button. The billowing collar exposed the sharpness of her clavicle.

Her hair was very bright, so much so that it nearly hurt his eyes. Her hair was not quite fluffy like he imagined. It was as bedraggled as one would expect neglected hair to be, like the kind stuff he would find crammed inside their flimsy pillows. Even so, he liked her hair, liked the "blonde" color, even if it made his eyes hurt. He liked how long it was, for even tied back and thrown over her shoulder, it still reached down to her waist. He liked the way her bangs framed her face.

There were odd, near shiny things clustered on her thin face, he saw then. All over her body, really, but especially across the bridge of her nose and just under her eyes. They were small and round and plentiful, but not too many. He could have probably counted them all if he had wanted. Something about them made him think her whole face would look different if only the light would shine.

Chill could not tear his eyes away from her face. He thought he really liked her face.

Even more than her face—he liked her eyes. He knew the colors the instant he saw them: dark, long lashes, bound together in wet clumps; white sclera, tainted red from dilated glands; black pupils, large from the lack of light; green irises, gleaming in the water of her tears.

He thought there might have been nothing in the world he liked more than her eyes.

She did not like his eyes.

She screamed.

He tugged the blindfold back down, but it was too late.

She screamed and screamed and screamed.

The Present:

It might have been the Kami side of him influencing his opinion, but Piccolo liked the Lookout more than any place in the world.

He liked it most, he thought, because it was so quiet. Humans were very noisy creatures, especially when they were congregated together, as they often liked to be. Their cities were loud, their transportation vehicles were loud, even their bodies, all the way from their voices to the stomping way they walked, were loud.

Piccolo did not like to be around them. There were places in the world that humans did not taint with their presence, but not many, and even those places were not immune to the occasion wanderer.

Piccolo did not hate humans, but he did not relish being in their presence. Gohan and his other comrades were one thing, but otherwise, he had no interest in trying to understand the inherent strangeness of humans, nor was he eager to have them try and understand him. No, Piccolo preferred to be wherever the humans were not, and the Lookout was the best place in the world to accomplish that. That the Lookout was also calm and quiet was really just an added bonus.

Today, though, he was not here seeking peace and solitude. No, today, he was a protector. Not quite of Earth, but of one boy.

A useless protector, he thought, as Dende suddenly gave out a pain-filled, ear-piercing scream.

Piccolo was next to him in a flash, though could think of nothing else to do than to helplessly hold his arm. Eventually, the screaming stopped, but his ears still rang with the terrible sound of it.

Piccolo was not surprised it had reached this point. In fact, he had spent all this time with bated breath, so sure that the other shoe would eventually drop. Apparently, the further the balls went from the atmosphere in which their creator resided in, the more pain said creator felt. Neither of them had even thought to expect such a phenomenon.

Dende's condition had been growing steadily worse as the hours passed, until Earth's Guardian was hardly even able to stand. Now, Dende was on the ground, and seemed as if he was barely holding onto consciousness. His fingers trembled at his temple, his mouth moaning out his agony.

"Dende," Piccolo said, gripping his shoulder desperately in his hand. "Dende!"

Dende seemed to not even hear him.

Piccolo watched his guardian quiver and sob on the marble floor for several more seconds before he turned away, unable to watch any longer while useless to help.

All he could do was speculate. The most logical conclusion was that the enemy must have managed to activate the dragon balls.

When he noticed Mr. Popo running from the building, he left Dende's side. He went until he was close enough to look over the edge of the Lookout.

Down past the clouds, he saw it all: countless land hurricanes, earthquakes, tornados, volcanic eruptions, one monster of a tsunami barreling towards an island nation totally unaware it was coming...

All this, just from the activation, and possibly only the beginning. Would it get worse? What would happen if the enemy made a wish? They could be doing so already, and Goku and Vegeta might not have even arrived yet—

From here, Piccolo could see the other Z-fighters as well. The Android woman was combatting a tidal wave that nearly took out the entirety of the Kame House. Krillin was on the mainland with his groceries abandoned while he helped humans trapped under rubble from the earthquake. Gohan was with Yamcha of all people, preventing the lava of a once dormant volcano from destroying an ill-prepared town.

Piccolo growled once more at his own uselessness. He could not leave Dende's side any more than he could take the pain away. His only option was to wait for the saiyans to return and set everything right.

Hurry, Goku, Piccolo thought almost desperately. Hurry before there is no Earth left for you to return to.

"Goku, wake up. Goku. Goku. Goku!"

"Huh! Huh?" Goku called out as he shot upright. He immediately groaned and dropped back down, completely overwhelmed by the lightness in his head and the way the world spun. Even saiyans were not immune to blood pressure complications when standing too fast.

It took Goku an extra moment to realize that it was King Kai speaking to him telepathically, but before he could amend his greeting, the Kai was already speaking again.

"You know you're going to be landing in a few minutes, right? Now would be a really good time to wake up!"

"Oh right," Goku said, and it was then that he could finally register his surroundings. He was lying on a futon, covered on all sides by his blanket. Beside him, Vegeta laid on his own futon, still asleep.

"Thank you, King Kai," Goku said to the ceiling.

"Yeah, yeah," he said back. "Now, wake up Vegeta, and be quick about it. The sooner you get back, the better. Things are getting really bad back on Earth."

That brought Goku up short. Warily, he asked, "Bad? What do you mean?"

King Kai was silent for a moment, then, "Bad like the planet really does not like that the dragon balls are gone."

It did not go unnoticed how King Kai had not actually answered the question. Goku decided not to call him out on it. He was uneasy, not knowing what was happening to his planet, but he did his best not to worry. It would do him no good, after all. The only way to stop the chaos was to return what was taken. He could do nothing until he had the dragon balls back in his possession.

Besides, King Kai had said that the planet's condition was only starting to get bad, so there was still time. His friends and his family would be fine. He had to believe that.

When he felt King Kai's presence fade, he turned his head to the side and looked down at Vegeta. It must be a testament to how tired Vegeta was, that Goku's voice hadn't woken him up. He had not even made an effort to whisper, yet Vegeta slept on. It was especially strange, because Vegeta seemed like the type who could snap back to awareness at the drop of a pin. Like true warriors, Piccolo had said once, when Goku asked. Goku supposed he knew what he meant by that. Goku had been on his own most of his youth, but he never really had to worry about being attacked in his sleep. There were very few things that could have truly hurt him, especially not things that were enemies.

Goku wondered what that must be like, to be on your toes even while you dreamed. It sounded exhausting.

Vegeta wasn't sleeping like that now, though. He was on his back on his futon, his body relaxed, his face turned ever so slightly in Goku's direction. His brows were slightly furrowed though, like even in his sleep he couldn't help but to be grumpy.

Despite the look on his face, there was a peaceful quality to it. Vegeta had most definitely needed the rest. It was a shame he had to wake him up.

"Hey, Vegeta," Goku said, shaking the man's shoulder. "Wake—"

Vegeta's eyes snapped open as if he had never even been asleep at all. His body was stiff on the futon, but the eyes that looked over at Goku were almost wild.

Vegeta seemed to recognize him because the wildness dimmed somewhat. "Why did you wake me?" he asked, and his tone suggested that Goku should most definitely have a good reason for doing so.

"We're going to be landing soon," he answered.

Vegeta blinked at him. Goku regarded him again, thinking that despite the hours of sleep they just got, Vegeta looked like he had never known rest in his life.

"I see," he said and nothing else. He stood to his feet and left without so much as a backwards glance.

It was Neeila's voice that Chill heard when he awakened.

She was saying something to him, but while he knew her voice, he did not know her words. They were stifled, distant—there but not. He did not mind. Even if he did not know what she was saying, the fact that the sound of her voice was not denied to him at all was more than enough.

He remembered then that she hated to be ignored. He used to do that to her a lot in the early days. She would speak and he would never to her. He would not even face her, tried to let her words pass over him as if they were never meant for him, because back then, he did not understand her. He did not understand why she made an effort to sit next to him every time they ate. He did not understand why she followed him whenever she had the chance. He did not understand why she would ask the questions she would ask. Why did she care what his favorite assignment was, or what meal was his preferred, or if he had slept well the night before?

Chill did not like things that confused him, and so, in the beginning he had not liked Neeila at all.

Now though, he liked a lot of things about her. He liked that she spoke to him, even when most of the time, he could not find it in himself to speak words back. He liked the feel of her skin, even when sometimes he was too high-strung to let her touch him. He liked the things she talked about even though she talked very fast sometimes and most of the things she said made no sense.

He liked that she liked him. She was the only one; not even the Warden liked him the way she liked him. He liked that Neeila, with the pretty voice and even prettier eyes, was someone he could call a friend.

Eventually her voice began to clear. Even still, she made no sense, because all she was saying was, "Oh no," over and over again.

Pain filtered in even slower than her voice had, but it came. He could not help the groan that fell from his lips.

"Chill?" She practically leapt on him. The hands on his arms tightened, and her face was so close that he could feel her breath on his cheek.

He groaned again in response.

"Oh, thank Goddess," she said. "You looked like you were dead."

He could feel her hands patting him down. The further her hands got, the more he hissed in pain.

"You—your leg is—your leg is broken," she said, sounding frazzled and authoritative all at once. "I've gotta—I've gotta put it back."

Before he could even protest, she was already forcing his bone back into its socket.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he heard her saying once the high of pain had faded.

Everything came back to him slowly, but surely. Their platform had fallen apart, but they were not dead. His senses came back to him as well. He realized that the world around him was actually being very loud, so loud that Neeila's voice might as well have been a whisper. The air was hot, near stifling. It smelled like dust. Even more than that, it smelled like blood.

He started to pull himself up and despite her help, he did not get far. His head spun and suddenly he was pitching over onto her, his face burying in the bones of her chest. He groaned again, pressing at his temple with his hand where the pain was the most intense. His fingers grew just a bit damp with blood, and he guessed he must have hit his head on impact.

Neeila's arms came up around him, holding him tight against her, as if he had the strength to try and pull away anyway. "Shh," she told him. "Just be still. I've got you."

He stayed still, pressed against her as he willed the waves of pain to lessen. He could feel her hair bunched up underneath his face. It smelled like dirt and sweat. It was still very, very soft.

"Neeila? Neeila!" Herio's voice called out, much too loud for how close he sounded.

"I'm over here!" Neeila called back, and Chill figured it must be dark wherever they are for them to not simply see each other with their eyes.

Herio's feet were loud as he clambered over the uneven rocks beneath them. When he reached them, he began to speak in Mangelin, and the words were too fast and advanced for Chill to try and follow, so he simply let the sounds wash over him. Mangelin was a very pretty language. Far easier on his ears than the Tene language. The Tene language had always sounded very harsh to him. Every syllable sounded like it was made for commands and for shouting. Mangelin sounded like the kind of language that mothers would speak to soothe their children to sleep at night.

Chill hardly noticed the pause in Neeila's words as she stopped to spit out a wad of blood, but Herio did.

"Your tooth is falling out!" he exclaimed, horrified.

"Yeah, well that happens when you smack your face on the ground," she said, but her words still carried a note of distress.

"Neeila," Herio said, sounding almost close to tears.

"The tooth is just a little loose," she told him. Chill thought she might be trying to tell herself that. "If I leave it alone, it might even heal. Don't worry about it."

To Chill, she said, "How funny is that? I literally just got done telling you about how badass our teeth are and now one is about to fall out of my face."

Chill did not think it was funny at all, but he understood what she was trying to say.

Eventually there was another groaning sound, and Herio moved away. There was the sound of shuffling as Herio said, "Come on, old man, get up."

Chill remembered then that there were others on the cliff aside from Neeila and Herio and him. The old man, who was standing near them must be alright, but the others who were standing further away were not. He realized that must be where the smell of blood was coming from.

He hoped Neeila was not looking at the mess their corpses must be making. Even now, after all these years, her dreams were still haunted by gruesome sights such as that.

"What happened?" Neeila eventually asked, as if any of them ought to know.

"There was a planet-quake," the old man answered regardless. "It seems like we just got lucky."

"I wouldn't call this lucky," Herio said, and it was true. They did not die, but the odds still were not in their favor. The enclosing was tall enough that they could stand, but too small for much else. Every side was closed together by the rocks that were once the cliffside, the rocks above them so precariously fitted together they seemed moments away from collapsing on their heads and doing away with the lot of them.

As if to prove the point, the rocks above them began to grumble, shifting audibly and forebodingly before settling once more. It would not be long before they collapsed altogether.

If not that, then the lack of oxygen would certainly do them in, Chill thought, as he breathed in and out what seemed to be the same puff of air. He felt like he was back in the mines, where the oxygen was hot and stagnant and near torturous in its own right. At least in the mines, the situation was not permanent. The hours would drag on and on, but they would always end; there was always a way out.

There was none here.

That did not stop the others from trying. He could hear them, the old man and the siblings, knocking around, pushing on the walls, banging on the floor, trying to find anywhere the rocks were malleable enough to allow them to escape.

Chill leaned back against the wall. He did not bother to try and dissuade them, even though he knew it was useless. There was no way out. His time had run dry. It seemed that the payment for the sins of his sire could no longer be fulfilled on the realm of the living.

He was going to die this day.

It was always going to come down to this eventually. Every choice he had ever made in life, was constructed to bring him here, to this place in this moment. Admittedly, he never thought it would be this way. He always thought that when the timer he had been given finally clicked to a stop, it would be from the Warden's hand. Who else would have the power to decide when his life was through? No one else but him. It was always him.

Yet here he was, trapped under the rubble that had granted him a few more moments of clarity in this world before death came for him.

He wondered idly what his punishment will be in death. What was waiting for him in Hell?

Maybe there would be nothing waiting for him.

It was an interesting thought that maybe he truly would be done paying for his sire's sins. Unrealistic, but perhaps not farfetched. He would never be greeted with heaven, he knew, but maybe he would not see Hell, either. Maybe when he died, he would just be—nothing.

That would be a blessing, he thought. To just... stop.

He knew better than to hope for blessings, though. No matter what greeted him on the other side, he knew he would deserve it, and he was ready for it.

He wondered why then before, when Neeila nearly dropped them both off the cliffside, he had felt fear then. Perhaps it was the adrenaline—his mind unable to fight against his body's natural response to danger. That was the only explanation he could think of to explain why the thought of falling off the cliffside then had filled him with near mind-numbing fear.

Now, he felt no fear. He did not feel much of anything at all.

He did feel guilt though, as the other prisoners continued to beat against the rocks with their hands; scrap at cracks with their fingers; try everything they could to break free. None of them had yet accepted that they will die here with him.

It was very unfortunate that other lives had to get caught up in the force of his destruction. Though he was not truly surprised, he thought as he listened to Neeila curse and grunt as she threw her body against a rock quadruple her weight. No, he was not at all surprised about what he had just condemned her to.

He had always known that he would be her downfall.

A morbid part of Vegeta, the most awful part of him, thought that the planet looked hauntingly beautiful in the vacuum space.

In terms of color, it was not terribly unique. Vegeta had seen many planets in his lifetime and would say that Tene'mareen's burgundy shade was not all that distinguishing. Yet, there was something almost mesmerizing about the way the atmosphere swirled—like a painting. The entire body of it glowing against the black backdrop, was nearly enchanting, like what he imagined the sun would look like if its rays did not blind the observer. Even the shocks of electricity, sparking across the blanket of swirls, were alluring in their promise of danger.

It was a beautiful planet, and he despised himself for thinking so. Still, its beauty was not enough to endear him to it at all. If anything, Vegeta found beautiful things even easier to hate.

And oh, did he hate it. His eyes marveled at it, but the rest of him seethed at the sight. The hatred that burned through his blood was raw, deep, true. It was a loathing that even he rarely experienced. Only failure made him burn so.

And that was what it always came back to, did it not? That was what the anger really was for. It was not the planet with its beautiful color and swirls and glow. It was not even the Warden, the bastard who would soon meet his death at Vegeta's hand.

It was him. It was him.

It was him because the planet, the Warden, none of that shit would matter if Vegeta had not failed in the first place, if Vegeta had not failed every single day for the past thirteen years.

Every single one of those days that the boy suffered, was because Vegeta took the word of liars. He took Zarbon's message as truth and thought nothing of it. Why? Never in his life had he ever trusted a word that came from Frieza and his cohorts. Why would he accept his words then, the time when knowing the truth was most crucial?

Because he was hurt, he knows. He had buried the memories, but not so deeply he could not bring those old feelings back to the surface. He knows that then, in that moment, he did not want to think of the baby that was taken from him before he even had a chance to make the choice himself. He knows that by the time he could think rationally—when the incisions in his gut no longer ached, when the blinding rage had dimmed—he had already buried the boy down deep where all the other dark parts of him were, so deep he had forgotten that there was even something to forget.

But that was no excuse. There was nothing to justify it. His offspring, his blood, his son had spent the entirety of his little life suffering and it was Vegeta's fault.

Vegeta had never been close with his—now younger—son, not in the way a proper father should have been. Yet at least he could say he had seen the day Trunks lost his first tooth, had been there the first time he performed his katas correctly, had been the first to see him reach a level of power Vegeta would not have even dreamed of possessing at his age. Even when Vegeta was not there when he should have been, the boy had a loving mother, doting grandparents, a gang of weak but loyal humans who would always do their best to protect the son of the woman they called their friend.

His older son had had no one, and it was Vegeta's fault. The only thing that deserved his anger was he himself.

Yet, anger at himself—the kind that could not be so easily punched away or subdued—would make him irrational. He could not act irrationally, not now, not with this, not with what was at stake.

So, he turned his anger out, out onto the planet that was too beautiful for its own good, to the Warden who still had to pay for every hurt he had ever caused his son. His own berating would come.

The machine said it would take about five more minutes to reach their destination. Despite his disgusting admiration, his goal did not change. He would see this planet destroyed by his own hands once he had retrieved what he came for, every beautiful inch of it.

Five more minutes, the machine said. Five more minutes, the anticipation brewing in his gut said. Five more minutes...

He could sense Kakarot approaching him. He did not turn to acknowledge him, but the other man did not seem to notice (or care about) the rebuff.

Vegeta tried very hard not to think about the night before. The tale of the 'bathing incident' had not been the only story Kakarot felt the need to share. It was not that the stories were bad per say, quite the opposite actually. Vegeta found himself not only listening to him, but admittedly intrigued with Kakarot's tales of past adventures and childhood escapades. He had listened to each one intently, until the lull of sleep finally claimed him. Like a child.

No, Vegeta thought it would be quite alright if they never spoke of that night ever again.

Kakarot stopped next to him, but for a while, said nothing. They stood together, watching as the planet grew closer in the window. Vegeta could not help but to wonder if Kakarot found the planet to be beautiful as well. That was not the kind of thing he would ever ask.

Eventually, Kakarot broke the silence. "You know, for a very long time, I didn't know what the word 'regret' meant."

Vegeta turned to him, unsure what he expected Kakarot to say but certainly not that.

"When I was really young, there were lots of words I didn't really understand. Bulma said it's because I was isolated and didn't really develop socially like other people do. The only person I ever knew was my grandpa, so I only learned the things I saw him doing, you know?"

A look came over his eyes, a distantly fond one, Vegeta thought.

"He would try to teach me words, but they didn't always make sense, or I wouldn't understand him the way he wanted me too. He tried to tell me what regret was, but I always thought of it for simple things, like 'I regret putting out the fire because I didn't realize it was going to be very cold tonight' or 'I regret eating all that fish because now my stomach hurts'. I didn't really understand that the word 'regret' really applies to things that are more serious than that."

Kakarot glanced at him for a moment, before looking away. "My grandpa said to me once, 'Goku, I would tell you to live your life without regrets, but that's just not possible. Instead, try and live it unapologetically'.

"I don't think I really believed him when he told me that." He seemed almost amused by that. "I definitely didn't believe him after I left my forest. I always thought that humans were pretty odd. I didn't understand why they talked the way they did or why they did the things they did. Because of that, I couldn't help but to assume that meant I was different."

Kakarot shook his head, seemingly at himself. "But I'm not really different from regular humans. Everyone has regrets and I have them too."

Vegeta stayed silent, surprised that this was coming out of his companion's mouth. He had watched the man's lips, and he was certain the words he was hearing were coming from Kakarot, but he just could not make sense of the phenomenon.

"I always considered myself to be a good person, but it turns out I'm actually pretty selfish. I've disappointed people," Kakarot said, not even self-deprecatingly—simply stating a fact. "I've done things that I thought were right but were actually wrong. I've done things that I knew were wrong and did them anyway. Awful things, that I can't ever make right. People have been hurt because of my choices, people that I care about." Kakarot took a deep, long breath. "I know that my mistakes might not seem as bad as yours, but I've been where you are. I'm still there."

Vegeta only then realized that Kakarot was trying to console him. Before he could even have a proper thought on how he felt about that, Kakarot was already going on, "I've learned that a regret is something bad that makes you wish you could go back in time just to change it. That's what makes it awful, because you can't change it. You just have to accept that it happened and deal with it."

Kakarot looked him right in his eyes then. "That doesn't mean you can't try and make it right," he said. "And that's what you're doing, isn't it? Maybe it isn't enough, but there are people who don't try at all. There were times when I hadn't tried. But you are, and even if it's not enough it's still worth something."

Firmly, with no room for argument, Kakarot said, "Maybe we can't live without regret or unapologetically, but that doesn't mean we can't live the best we can. It definitely doesn't mean it's not worth trying. It's never too late to do better."

Vegeta... did not know what to say, so for a long while, he said nothing.

As far as speeches went though, it was not an awful one. One might even say it was exactly what he needed to hear, but Vegeta would never bring himself to say something as ludicrous as that. Just as he would never say that Kakarot's words might have lightened some of the heaviness inside of him.

How could Kakarot break out of his naïve, pure persona, he wondered, and speak something one could almost say was profound (at least by his standards)? He wondered just how Kakarot could one moment be the goofy idiot who fought villains just for the fun of it, and the next be a man with problems and imperfections and pain in his soul just like everyone else?

He thought that he did not really know Kakarot all that well. He might not even know him at all.

Kakarot was no less the low-class clown that he had always been—Vegeta would never think otherwise—but it seemed that he might also be something... different. Something more.

Vegeta said, "Maybe you're not a complete idiot."

Kakarot's face lit up like one of those gods-awful trees Bulma always put up in their living room during the wintertime holiday. Vegeta turned away before the fool could blind him with the brightness of his ridiculous smile, feeling absurdly embarrassed.

The smile was wiped quickly off Kakarot's face when the floor suddenly rocked beneath them. It was almost mortifying how low they let their guards drop that they both end up tumbling to the ground. Vegeta did not have time to properly berate himself for allowing such humiliation to come to pass. He was rather occupied by assessing the room, taking in the urgently flashing red lights and the robotic voice from the control panel calling, "DANGER. SYSTEM OVERLOAD. SYSTEM OVERLOAD."

Vegeta was not entirely sure what that meant, so he did not know what to say when Kakarot urgently questioned, "Vegeta! What's happening?!" but he would bet that it was nothing good.

The electric shocks sparking across the ceiling certainly helped with his theory. The shocks began crawling down the walls and across the floor, and he hissed when one unexpectedly zapped his arm. The system's message of danger and despair soon cut out and every screen began flashing uselessly.

Then he was no longer on the floor and instead falling rather fast towards what he figured must be the ceiling, because of course the gravity stabilizer would decide to go out as well.

He landed on his feet before he could splatter in a graceless heap, relying on his own power to keep himself from tumbling any further. Kakarot landed next to him in a somewhat less dignified manner.

"Vegeta!" Kakarot was shouting at him, hardly seeming to notice the electric shock leaving a red line across his cheek, "What should we do?!"

As if Vegeta would know. Clearly, they were crashing, falling through the atmospheric layer of clouds like a knife through warm butter, and Vegeta did not have the slightest clue what to do about it. How do you stop a spacecraft from crash landing when you do not even know what went wrong in the first place?

"Don't let the ship make impact with the ground," he said, thinking that at least that should have been obvious. "It might not be too broken to take us home, but if it crashes it'll be useless!" Distantly, he thought Bulma would probably not appreciate him leaving behind what was probably very expensive equipment. He would be lying if he said he cared if it came to that.

The electricity taking over the spacecraft is suddenly subdued by the force of their combined and elevated energies. Like this he could focus—the chaos from before was almost slow before eyes could see motion faster than the speed of sound, the speed of light if he pushed himself even further. He could see the clouds whipping past the window, brown and murky like dirty Earth rivers. He could see the ground rapidly approaching.

There were only seconds before the ship crashed. With their power, it was more than enough time for them to fly to the other side and with their hands, slow its descent to the ground so it settled onto the ground almost gently.

After a moment, Goku said, "Well, that could've gone better."

"Shut up," Vegeta said, as he forced the door open.

The first thing he took in was the air, and it was so awful he nearly gagged on it. It was thick in his throat, and so hot he could feel the warmth of it burrowing deep within his lungs with every breath. It was like water—no, more like blood; there was no better way to describe it. He could certainly smell blood, tied in tight with the scent of dirt and the rottenness of sulfur.

Then, when his eyes focused, he took it all in. Wherever they were, it was not a prison camp, or a civilian town. Their ship had landed in the middle of barren land, surrounded by cliffs on all sides, and dirt everywhere else. There was just as much chaos here as there was in the atmosphere, that was for sure. The cloudy sky rumbled with thunder, the ground beneath shattering from the assault of the bolts that rained down.

Beauty was only skin deep, indeed.

Vegeta tried to find something familiar in it, but he simply couldn't. It had been nearly two decades ago when he had come here, and the visit had not at all been memorable. It was just another planet to stare down at from his space pod, some place to drop off prisoners he would have just preferred to kill and be done with. An odd warden, he remembered, but nothing else. A forgettable place, but one that had still managed to steal every year of his child's life away.

Not yet, he told the rage that came forth. Not yet.

He was still fighting it back when Kakarot stepped up next to him. He did not look, but he could sense Kakarot inspecting the ship behind them.

"I know you wanted to save it, but I don't think it's going to be able to fly anymore," he said. "It's still all... 'electric-y', and I doubt you have any more of an idea on how to fix it than I do."

"Don't ever say that idiotic word again," Vegeta said back. "Do you think you'll be able to transmit us back to Earth?"

Goku contemplated for a moment, his eyes closed and his fingers on his forehead. After a moment he said, "Yeah, I can feel our friends clearly." He paused. "Their energy... they seem like they're in trouble."

Vegeta pointedly did not respond to that, even if he could not quite ignore the unease that it gave him. There was no point in worrying when he was too far away to do anything. In any case, Trunks was more than strong enough and smart enough to take care of himself and Bulma.

He is a child, a voice that sounded like Bulma's—because surely, she had told him something like this before—came from somewhere inside of his head. He is a child and not at all like you. Don't expect things from him that you would have expected from yourself.

If not, then... There was Gohan, the Namekian, even the humans as far as maturity went. It was very unlikely Trunks would be put in any situations he could not handle with them around. Admittedly, he hoped it would not come to that. He was not fond of being indebted to Bulma's and Kakarot's motley band of fools.

"Do you think this is normal?" Kakarot asked him. "The planet being like this?"

Vegeta took in the lightning brutalizing the surface a second time. "Most likely not," he said. As he had said, he remembered almost nothing of this world; he was sure that a planet hellbent on destroying itself would have been at least a little bit memorable to him.

Which meant that the most logical conclusion was: "They've activated the dragon balls."

Damn it all. Ziloh was a fool and had condemned the lot of them to death. Not that it mattered. Once Vegeta had taken back what was his, this planet and its people could make their new home in the deepest depths of Hell and rot there for all he cared.

Kakarot looked at him, then he turned away, facing the hell that was before them. "Then I guess we better get a move on, then."

Vegeta couldn't have agreed more.

"I can't teleport to the balls," Kakarot said. "I can feel them, but their energies are too chaotic for me to focus on."

Vegeta grit his teeth. That was an annoying set back. "You have the dragon radar, yes?"

Kakarot nodded, reaching into his pocket and holding it up. On his back was a single pack. "I'll find the dragon balls. You find your son. Then, we'll meet back here?"

"That sounds like a plan, Kakarot," he said back, and powers up until the black of his hair faded to gold and his eyes to green. Kakarot followed suit. The more power they used after all; the less time it will take to do what needed to be done.

He could feel it—time, that was. He could feel each and every second tick by, more and more time that his son was still theirs.

"Hey," Kakarot said. "You okay?"

"Fine," he snapped, aware that he sounded the exact opposite. "Go get the dragon balls, and be quick about it."

With that, he blasted off into the sky, never mind that he had no idea where to go. He could be going in the complete wrong direction for all he knew. Even so, every move he made had him feeling closer and closer.

I'm coming, he thought. I'm coming for you.

I'm coming for you, and damn anyone who dares to get in my way.

TBC

I can't remember if it was a filler episode or not, but I'm almost 100% certain there was an episode where Goku was collecting the dragon balls and he was Instant Transmissioning to their locations. I assumed that meant the dragon balls have energy that can be sensed.

Furthermore, super saiyans look way more badass with green eyes instead of blue eyes and that's the tea.