A/N: I'M STILL ALIVE, GUYS. And so is Hubris! I've just been really sidetracked with my other avocation(s) lately and haven't been inspired to write as much.
Regarding the chapter, it still has some events that also happen in canon, but have been shortened a little so that I didn't have to write out the entire several-episode-long battle scene and whatnot. And then, of course, there are changes that don't occur in the original timeline. Enjoy!
Kakarot's knuckles cut open the skin on my temple as he grazes it. A mere brush of contact from a Super Saiyan's golden ki would scorch any other, but this man and I survived the inferno that consumed our race; we fear no flame. Our blood boils like it would between the sun and sand of our lost planet – yes, our battle has always been fated. Yet I doubt that he sees it so.
Though he is far from landing his first hit on me, he is also far from having the upper hand in this conflict.
I spin, left heel striking hard into his side. I almost crave the sensation of his ribs cracking – it's been so long since I felt bone shatter beneath me. But as expected, he takes the blow in stalwart fashion.
As I had not expected, he takes ahold of my leg and tosses me through the air and I careen into a nearby rock formation.
The stones crumble around me, my heart pumping harder than it has in a long time. Seven years of peace is almost a robbery to a Saiyan's nature.
"That's more like it," I growl at Kakarot. Blowing the debris away with my ki, I ascend back into the air, taking measure of my opponent once more.
Our auras generate static around us; we leap back at one another with a flurry of close-combat punches and kicks. All I can hear is the sound of his gi snapping in the wind with his speed and the impact of our blows.
My offensive strategy drives him back, further and further until he takes advantage of an opening as I throw a fist at his jaw. His own knuckles connect with my cheek in the same instant and my head is thrown to face the other direction from the force.
Furious that he's managed to land another hit, I reinvigorate my anger and pummel his chest and stomach a dozen times, hearing him gasp from the pain. When I move to knee his gut, he grabs my leg again but this time I shift to drop my elbow into the back of his neck and cause him to release me.
His position enables me to shift around so that I'm behind him; I summon my ki to my hands and fire point-blank at his back and he spirals to the ground below.
Smoke and dust rise from the broken earth and I halt in the air, alert for the slightest movement. Kakarot's momentum has driven him deep into a hole, dark enough that not even the dimmest golden glow of his aura is visible.
A brief flicker of light appears and I narrow my eyes. In a flash, a beam of energy shoots in my direction and I counter with the same. But Kakarot refuses to let up and as he rises from the ground, our attacks push against one another as we stream equal amounts of ki into them, both determined not to abate.
Still struggling, we draw close enough that the onslaught has become a luminous, swirling mass of power, nearly touching my fingertips. But I will not lose to him.
"You're not going to win!" I let out. "Not this time!"
With a cry of effort, I pour as much energy as I can handle against the pressure. Kakarot does the same, and the metaphysical clash grows bright enough that I can no longer keep my eyes open lest I be blinded.
The ball of ki bursts, expanding outwards and throwing Kakarot and I in opposite directions. However, neither of us go far, him skidding across the rocks until he stops himself, clinging to the edge of a cliff.
I manage to catch myself before I hit the ground, righting my posture before I set down on both feet. Without wasting a moment for him to recover, I approach where he dangles from the precipice.
Taking a moment to admire that I have the high ground, I then reach and take ahold of his wrist in a crushing grip, lifting him so that we are eye to eye.
"Uhf... Vegeta," he says, refocusing his teal gaze onto my matching ones. I smirk. Before he can finish his words, I swivel and toss him back, hearing his satisfying impact with the stone face I'd almost crashed into myself.
I approach him once more, stopping several paces away. Kakarot attempts to regain his bearings, but I raise my hand, firing a group of small ki clusters towards him. But instead of striking him, they move to bind him in place against the rock, as I had intended.
"What's the matter? Not winning as easily as you thought?" I taunt, walking so that I am close enough like I'd be for any ordinary conversation.
"I – never said it would be easy," he grits out.
"Hmph. You won't be winning no matter how hard you try," I say. Just because I can, I slap him across the face. It's an oddly rewarding gesture, for all the time he's spent mocking me – patronizing me.
But his expression now holds none of the scorn I reserve for his ridicule. It isn't that of a weakling cursing under the heel of his superior's boot. It is the same, determined and impenetrable glint in his eyes as always.
"What?" I bark at his ongoing silence. "Are you feeling angry? Humiliated? Is that it?"
I knee him in the stomach, hard. He chokes in agony, but still remains silent and trapped by my ki bonds.
Feeling my anger churn, I resort to my fists again, raining down blow after blow into his face until speckles of blood fly out. "You don't know what humiliation is!"
I have forever seen my struggle against Kakarot as a consuming ambition. But I know that sentiment is not returned. His greatest opponent isn't me, has never been me. Even now, both overcoming me and preventing the monster's resurrection are the same in his mind: tools to surpass the limitations of his own strength.
It's maddening.
Kakarot now hangs limp from the bindings, still conscious but no longer meeting my eyes. I hope he understands even a fraction of the indignity I have suffered from his actions.
"Don't worry," I say to him. "I will teach you the bitter taste of humiliation, just as you have taught me. Me, the last Saiyan of true royal blood. I have the power to destroy entire worlds – whole civilizations once trembled at the sound of my name! But you didn't... did you, Kakarot?"
The honour of my people upon my shoulders, my own pride, had fallen to ashes at my feet. It was by his hands that I suffered my first real disgrace. My royal birthright, toppled by a mere commoner. The added shame when it was he, and not I, who had avenged our people with Frieza's defeat by stealing the place as the Super Saiyan of legend – a place that I'd been raised to believe was mine. And then, Kakarot had disgraced me further when the strength I had worked my whole life for was surpassed by his son, a mere child and a half-breed no less.
I am second to no one. I am subservient to no one. And yet Kakarot continues to torment me beyond the boundaries of death.
"It is time to take back what is mine. I will not life my life as your second. That time is over... Every breath you take is an assault to my honour. But no more, Kakarot! By my hands, you will be cut down inch by inch! The way you have cut down my pride!" I promise, forming a blade of ki around my hand.
But once again, I have forgotten the opponent that he truly presents. Before I can blink, he's torn his arm free along with a slab of stone, hurling both to strike me hard in the side of the head.
My ears ring and I stagger, but Kakarot does not relent and unleashes a flurry of blows to my midsection, ending with a kick strong enough to hurl me away.
I regain my senses with the crash that accompanies my landing in the cave-like structure. I realize I'm beneath the ground when I open my eyes and see only darkness.
Rolling to my feet, I waste no time before dimming my aura and retreating into the jagged jaws of the stone formations. I know Kakarot will follow me, and I intend to use the surroundings to my advantage.
Levitating, I rise to the ceiling and nestle myself among the stalactites, feeling their rough grain against my back and fingers. The air in here is cooler than the outside, reminding me once more of the burning mark on my forehead. I can no longer tell whether the wizard has chosen to leave me alone or if my own compulsions and his have blurred together for the time being.
It is only moments before Kakarot appears, standing in the patch of sunlight shaped by the mouth of the cave. His eyes are closed – he is trying to sense me.
I summon a moderate amount of ki to my palm, firing it off from my position before darting elsewhere while Kakarot is distracted. As the attack dissipates, I appear behind him and lock his shoulders with my arms.
He attempts to throw me off, taken by surprise. Locking my grip tighter, I flex my legs and we launch off, me twisting our orientation in the air to that he directly faces the oncoming points of the ceiling.
However, before he – or the both of us – are impaled, he grinds our trajectory to a halt. I sense his ki fluctuate before he throws me off with its propulsion, and he quickly manoeuvres to fire yet another torrent of energy in my direction.
The mass of our reverse tug-of-war expands, once again casting everything around us in blazing light. Our cavern is decimated, exposing us to the open sky once more as loose rubble swirls in the wake of our strength, another gaping crater torn into the landscape.
Kakarot and I lock eyes as we hover in the air, neither daring to look away lest the other make a sudden move.
When he comes at me again, not an ounce of strength has lessened from his earlier blows.
We go back and forth over the desert, clashing in the sky and on the earth and even over the water. The planet trembles in the aftershocks of our power and the soundwaves boom, rolling over the wasteland. The battle flows and ebbs; moments of triumph appear and vanish as quickly as they come. Neither of us is willing to give in.
Sooner or later we begin resettling more often to the ground. I am breathing hard, taking in gulps of air thought it sears my throat. I don't know how long we've been fighting, but Kakarot is in no better condition than I.
"I'm amazed, Vegeta," he says between heaves of his chest. "These last seven years in Otherworld I've been spending in intense training sessions. But we're still completely even. I guess this whole time you've been pushing yourself even harder than I have."
"That may be true," I reply, "I push myself to the edge of my limits and beyond. But you've been born with a natural talent far beyond my own. No amount of training could've closed the gap between us... I realize that now. It was made painfully obvious to me today as I watched your fight with Babidi's monster. Imagine my shock – to see the undeniable truth to discover that no matter how hard I try, I would never be able to catch you. So that's when I secretly made up my mind."
I trail off, letting Kakarot come to his own conclusions. I can see it on his face as the same shock from earlier reappears.
"You mean you really...! You fool! You deliberately let yourself fall under Babidi's spell!" he accuses.
"Yes," I confirm with a smirk. "I saw the power of his magic. At the World's Martial Arts Tournament, with the two henchmen he sent. No one who'd seen them fight in the previous tournament could understand how they'd become so powerful. But you and I know, don't we? I knew that if I allowed myself to fall under his control, the difference in our power would disappear... I'm quite pleased with the results, even if they do come at a price. I'd say the end more than justifies the means!"
"Vegeta! I don't understand! You've never allowed anyone to help you before in your life, why start now? Why Babidi?! You killed all those people in the arena and you killed the Supreme Kai – don't tell me his death was your decision!"
"I couldn't care less about him! I wanted Babidi to reawaken the evil in my heart, and if that blithering god had to die, so be it! I have done far worse... I wanted to be that way again, the way I was before! I was the perfect warrior, cold and ruthless and I lived by my strength alone, uninhibited by foolish emotion! But slowly... over the years, I became one of you. My quest for greatness gradually giving way to this life of mediocrity. I awoke one day to find that I had settled down... formed a family..."
I look up at the sky, the one whose colour ought to mean nothing to me. "I had even grown quite fond of them. Would you believe... I almost started to think the Earth was a nice place to live."
I draw my gaze back down to meet Kakarot's again. "Do you understand now, Kakarot? That's why I needed Babidi – to set me free of these petty attachments! And I have to say, it feels pretty damn good."
The other Saiyan purses his lips. "Do you really believe what you're saying? You can talk all you want, but you'd better convince yourself of it first."
I'm about to answer when an unusual thrum of energy alerts my sixth sense, causing both Kakarot and I pause. The ki isn't near so large as ours, but carries a strange feel nonetheless.
"Huh? What is..." he wonders aloud, trailing off as his eyes seek the direction of the strange aura. It would be a perfect time to attack him, with his attention off-guard, but I too am curious to know whether this thing could possibly be the Majin Buu they so feared.
"Is that – it must be him! Majin Buu!" Kakarot exclaims, and while I find it hard to believe, there is no other answer to the sudden emergence of this ki.
If it is Majin Buu, then they have been worried for nothing. Even taking my exhaustion into account, I would have no trouble defeating the creature. It seems the Supreme Kai had overestimated what millennia of stagnation did. That, or us mere mortals have long surpassed the strength of the ancients.
Either way, the worry lacing Kakarot's features is almost comical.
"Gohan's there alone," he says.
"Surely, you must be joking," I all but laugh. "Your Majin Buu has turned out to be a weakling!"
"No – there's more to it than that! Something underneath..." he replies.
"Is that what you think? Perhaps the little Kai simply overestimated the creature. Don't you recall how he was constantly surprised at our strength? It makes more sense that mortals have simply grown stronger in the time since Buu was sealed!"
"That's not it. The Supreme Kai died trying to prevent this resurrection." His gaze bores like needles into mine. "And we're the ones responsible for letting it happen. Gohan won't be able to handle Dabura, Babidi and Buu by himself. There's more at stake here than just our battle, Vegeta."
"What are you trying to say? You think you can make me concede just so you can rescue your pathetic son? Or perhaps you're looking to steal the glory once more by killing Majin Buu yourself?"
"... I don't know how much of what you do is under your control, but if we don't find a way to stop Buu now, we're all going to be in real trouble. Please, Vegeta. All I'm asking is that we save this until after the Earth is safe."
I could see how he was trying to manipulate me into yielding. But as there were no orders forthcoming yet from the wizard, I was free to make decisions without a fight.
It seemed Kakarot would be unable to focus upon me until that creature was dealt with. But if the idiot thought it was he who would get to play hero once more, he was mistaken.
I allow a small smirk to emerge. "Fine," I say. Kakarot raises a brow at me.
"You win," I clarify. "Our battle is postponed. I want you at your fullest when we fight, and you're obviously now too distracted by that ridiculous Buu."
The other Saiyan's expression relaxes, and he offers a smile in return, a sincere one, and says my name.
"Well, don't just stand there, get out your senzu beans. We should be at full power when we face him," I urge in a light tone.
Kakarot looks away, rusting in the sash banded around his waist as I approach, step by step. He already faces the direction he intends us to exit, leaving his back exposed. He trusts me.
What an utter fool.
"With all of us working together, I'm sure we can beat this guy," he says.
Without raising my energy, I lift my hands up and clench them together, readying myself for a swing. He doesn't even cast a glance my way.
I bring my fists down, knuckles making a direct hit on the back of his skull. I can hear the bluntness of the impact.
He drops like a stone, and I almost cannot believe it was this easy.
His hair fades from the colour of his halo to its natural charcoal as he lands face-first into the desert rock. I analyze him for a moment, ensuring that he is indeed unconscious, then step over him to retrieve the fallen healing token.
I put it in my mouth without a second thought. The beans were one of the few tools of Earth natives that had proved useful over the years.
Once my ki spikes back to its natural potency, I turn to focus on my new destination. The pulse of Majin Buu's energy beckons – Kakarot will not be going anywhere soon.
The wind snaps against my face as I soar through the air. As fast as I can travel in this form, Buu's ki has made unusual fluctuations in the time it's taken me to get this close. However, whether Kakarot was right in his predictions about the creature remain to be seen.
As I draw near enough to spot a pair of figures below, I scan the area to confirm what I can sense. Or rather, what I cannot sense – Gohan's energy is absent, and the demon's has vanished as well.
"Vegeta!" Babidi grating voice shouts, catching sight of me. "I was wondering if you were dead. No matter, Buu is here, but one extra trick up my sleeve won't hurt."
My boots hit the dirt, raising a small puff of dust. I ignore the mottled hairball of a magician and narrow my eyes at the large being several metres away.
The repulsive creature is not near so ugly as its master, but obnoxiously pink and fat framed. Its features resemble an amorphous baby, but huge and hairless and with an antenna at the crown of the head. It dances, humming to itself in the childlike way its appearance suggests.
This was supposed to be Majin Buu?
"Impressive, isn't he? Imagine what we can do now that he's freed," Babidi says. I turn to look at him rubbing his hands together with glee.
"You cannot be serious," I say. "That bloated freak is Majin Buu? This is going to be even easier than I thought."
"Oh no you don't," the wizard threatens. "You almost slipped from my grasp once, and that won't happen again. I forbid you from moving or speaking until I tell you to."
I'm about to turn and deal with him once and for all – until I find that the cold pain in my stomach has returned and my muscles refuse to so much as flinch.
"See? You're mine, Vegeta. You think you can get away with using my power and not pay the price...? But perhaps I should just kill you. I don't have Dabura anymore, but are you really of any use when I have my Buu here?"
I try cursing at him, but as he commanded, I can't speak either. I'm rooted to the earth, immobile as the stone edifices that dot the landscape.
Stone. Yes. Krillin and the Namekian were turned to stone by the demon's powers. Yet if he is gone, then they must have returned to normal.
But what happened to Gohan? If Babidi has truly rendered me inert, then the half-blood is the only one strong enough to take on Buu until I regain control. However, Gohan's energy is still nowhere to be found.
He must be dead.
The inner fire of my Saiyan transformation flickers, but it isn't enough to break away from Babidi. I can do nothing as he calls his monster closer, the lumbering thing turning its lazy attention to us.
The creature is the only one who doesn't appear surprised when a swath of ground between the wizard and I is suddenly struck by an energy blast.
Babidi hops back with a squeak of indignation and whips his head around to spot the interloper. Though I still cannot move most of my body, I don't even need to look to recognize the aura of our guest.
The furious child lands a short distance away, familiar head of violet hair shifting to gold from the root up as he touches down.
"You little brat! Where did you come from? You almost killed me!" Babidi shrieks.
"I don't know what you did to my dad, but let him go!" Trunks retorts. "I'm not scared of you and your stupid monster!"
"Trunks, wait for us!" another child's voice calls. A moment later, Goten appears skidding into the dust behind Trunks. The towering form of Piccolo follows suit, pale cape swirling in the breeze of his landing.
The Namekian eyes me from the corners of his vision, but says nothing as his gaze skirts over the insignia still branded on my forehead.
I don't know why the three of them are here, outclassed as they are. I'd given no thought at all to Trunks' whereabouts until now. I had assumed he'd be with the woman, back at the arena –
In the stands.
What is left of them.
"Majin Buu! Dispose of these pesky insects! Show them your power!" Babidi's shrill pitch interrupts.
I assume I am to be left here when the wizard utters one more order.
"And Vegeta! Make yourself useful – protect me...!"