Bulma is alive. I would know if it were otherwise. I would know if it was I who –
The flames. The screams. The hundreds of new faceless dead, but they're only faceless when something that's yours is not among them.
If the woman survived the explosion, then she's seen what I've done.
Something clenches in my chest before Babidi's magic can will it away. The thought of her – the things I have been trying to suppress –
But I am given no more time to think as my body shifts, moving to act as an unwilling shield for the wizard as commanded. His hold over my mind has not broken; or rather, the prison of my covetousness I allowed to take root only steels itself.
Our group is at a standoff. The behemoth Buu has begun waddling its way over, setting the boys and the Namekian on guard. However, the latter's eyes flick back and forth between us as he hisses angry words in my direction.
"Where is Gohan?" he demands. "Did you kill him?"
"Do you see a body?" I riposte, finding my ability to speak returned.
"Then where is he?"
One of the boys begins to say something, to ask about Gohan when Babidi's voice snaps through the air again.
"Buu! Hurry up and get over here so you can devour these insects! Aren't you hungry?"
"Want to play! Want to eat!" Buu replies. The small beads that suffice as its eyes open, fixing upon us. "Me take turns with you!"
"Don't worry, Piccolo! Me and Goten will handle this overgrown freak, you get the ugly guy calling the shots!" Trunks says, shifting his stance to prepare for the oncoming monster – but also to place me within his peripheral line of sight. "Papa, what is he doing to you? Are you okay?"
"You boys, listen to me! Buu is stronger than it seems! Not only that, but Vegeta is under the wizard's spell! You two need to get out of here while you still can! Trunks... your father is your enemy right now!" Piccolo bursts out.
"That can't be! My dad wouldn't let himself be controlled by anybody!" Trunks turns to face me completely now, to confirm with wide blue eyes the brand on my forehead and whatever else he sees that keeps him transfixed with dread.
It is at this moment that Buu chooses to strike.
Catapulting itself through the air almost faster than the eye can follow, the creature lands with a huff of dust in the midst of Piccolo and the boys, causing them to scatter back from the force. The beast's beady orbs are fixed on the Namekian and Buu propels itself forward with arms outstretched, intending to catch its opponent in a crushing grip which Piccolo narrowly avoids.
"Hey! We weren't ready!" Goten chirps from his new position on the rocky plain. Trunks' movements had taken him closer to me, so he's now merely feet away from where I stand by Babidi. The wizard himself has flinched further behind me.
"Eyuck! Vegeta, kill the brat!" he hisses. "That little monstrosity dared to fire at me!"
The words soak in and suddenly my awareness is restricted from Buu's antics a distance away to only the boy and the wizard. I turn my gaze to Babidi briefly, as if my rage can pierce him by gaze alone, but he ignores the look. I whip my gaze back to my son.
"Trunks – you need to get out of here. Now."
The boy is as obstinate as the woman and I put together. Even if I tell him to go, I know he won't, yet I have no other way to make him understand except through my words.
"I won't leave you, Papa!" he cries, voice beginning to quaver. "We – we need to work together and kill this monster before it hurts somebody!" His gaze is blue and it stares into me; we're in the eye of the storm.
"What the hell are you waiting for, Vegeta? I said... kill him," the wizard bids. My breath is gone, but my body moves forward without me.
It's always been said that one should be careful what they wish for. I have wished for damnation and I received it.
There were times in my past under Frieza when I'd decimated planets with populations greater than this one. Billions of people who had meant nothing in my mind. Yet seven years ago I watched my son from another life die, watched his blood splatter over the earth and it caused something in me to crumble – the same place in me reserved for the young boy I have now.
But I've failed them both.
"Pa - ... Papa..." the boy chokes out. His hands look so small where they clutch at my forearm, his halfhearted grip enough to suggest some semblance of trust, or disbelief, remains in his mind.
The warmth of his throat in my hand betrays any notion that this isn't really happening. The soft places between his oesophagus and jugular veins give way too easily under my grip, like a shroud too thin.
"Vegeta!" Piccolo cries from somewhere in the distance, voice a mix of fury and panic.
I feel angry. Angry at my son. Angry that he didn't leave when I told him to, even though a small part of me still screams that this rage isn't mine. Something is twisted, misdirected. My vision has an ethereal quality, dark around the edges. Drowning.
Trunks is no longer using his legs to support himself but he holds my arm tighter, sallow grey spreading across his face. My son struggles to breathe, hoarse gulps of air passing every so often through his windpipe where he can manage them, eyes now shut in pain.
"What are you doing?" Goten cries. He is here now, tugging at my elbow while the earth quakes from the struggle of Piccolo against Buu. "Stop! You're his dad! Why are you doing this? Please stop, you're gonna kill him!"
Goten is his father's voice of reason while Kakarot cannot be present. Kakarot will try to push me in the directions he pleases, but he never makes choices for me. Yet I can no longer make choices for myself. And I relinquished this willingly.
A figure casts its long shadow over me, but I'm an instant too late to react as a large green set of knuckles strikes me square in the face followed by a palm-heel to the chin. I stumble and feel Trunks tugged from my grip with Goten pulled away as well but the Namekian doesn't stay to retaliate any further.
Recovering myself, I am just in time to see Buu barrelling down at me, the creature leaping after Piccolo and not caring that I am in its trajectory.
I spring away and the ground beneath where I stood is turned to powder, dust billowing into the hot air. I touch ground and go foot-over-hand to clear more space between the chaotic creature and I, to restore some vantage point for myself regarding the situation.
Arcing off into the sky in an attempt to escape, Piccolo has his hands full with the boys. Their meagre weight will not slow him down, but he won't be able to fight back should he be pursued. Despite his excellence as a tactician he would never risk the children. Trunks is motionless in the Namekian's grip, save the wind and movement tousling my son's soft hair as he dangles from Piccolo's protective arm.
"They're trying to fly away!" Buu notes with all the tact of a toddler. Before it can move, I raise a hand and release several red-hot energy projectiles in Piccolo's direction before launching after him.
As he is distracted trying to out-manouevre my attacks, I dart in with a swift kick intended to strike at his back. He swivels just in time, raising a knee to deflect the blow and use that same momentum to continue his rotation and hit back with a kick of his own. I use my increased strength to seize his leg without trouble and spin, releasing at particularly the right time to hurl him back to the earth. At the last second I see him clutch the boys to his chest and absorb the impact all upon himself.
The ground is rent with a deep scar following the Namekian's course against it until he slows to a stop against several large boulders. I descend to his point of first contact, my white boots stark against the overturned dirt.
"Not fair, not fair! It's my turn you mean man!" Buu shouts at me.
"I don't care which one of you it is – quit playing around and do the job, you lumbering brutes!" Babidi says as I hear him start to waddle over a ways behind me.
Piccolo gets to his feet, slightly off-balance but no less alert than before, using the boulders as a support. His alien eyes dart between his three opponents as he readjusts the children he carries.
When his eyes come to rest on me and he opens his mouth, I think he is about to try reasoning with me again – but that is not what happens.
"Krillin! Now!" the Namekian cries.
A small shape leaps over the boulders to land directly in front of Piccolo, raising its arms up against the sides of its face. Krillin's gaze fixes on me for the briefest flicker before closes his eyes.
"Solar flare!" he shouts, voice ringing across the wasteland, and then the world goes stinging white.
A/N: And Hubris has returned after its eternal, non-official hiatus. I never actually intended to neglect it for this long, but I really stuffed it to the bottom of the pile and... yeesh, it's been a whole year. All I can say is sorry to those of you who were waiting for this update, but here it is.