Choice to be Different
Chapter Five: Fears and Choices
Disclaimer: Characters and premise are the property of Akira Toriyama, I'm just borrowing them for some non-profit fun.
Bulma gave the closet door one last look then sighed and turned to go check on Vegeta-chan again when Vegeta suddenly stalked into the room and tore the door off the coat closet.
Goku tumbled out with a yelp. He quickly slapped his hands over his eyes.
Vegeta picked Goku up by the scruff of the neck. "I changed my mind Kakarrot. I think I'll teach you to control the Oozaru after all."
Bulma stepped into Vegeta's path. "Vegeta, do you really think it's a good idea to do this?" she asked.
Vegeta felt something twist inside him at the look in her eyes and the realization that his wife didn't trust him with a child anymore. He brushed past her without a word and took to the air. Vegeta flew out to the stark wasteland where he and Goku had first fought. "We're here brat, open your eyes," Vegeta ordered as he tossed Goku to the ground.
"But I'll-"
"How did you think you'd learn to control it?" Vegeta demanded. "Just realize a dumb beast won't be able to fight me. Then, when you get tired of being thrown around, wake-up."
"What you mean, 'wake-up'? I'm already awake." Goku asked. His eyes popped open as curiosity overwhelmed him. Vegeta was floating in mid-air, silhouetted against the harvest moon.
Goku froze. His eyes went wide and blank, a heart-beat too powerful for his present frame thudded in his ears.
Vegeta turned to stare at the moon as well. His tail and his ability to transform were long gone, but he remembered.
Vegeta-chan crouched in the center of his room. His eyes were empty, his expression shuttered. Someday no one, no one would be able to make him afraid like that! Someday he'd be more powerful than anyone, but not today. He wanted to hurt someone, to destroy something. He wanted to remind everyone, most especially himself, of the power that he did possess. He wanted to make someone else more afraid and more hurt than he was. But he couldn't, not here, his older counterpart wouldn't allowed it. If he'd been on one of Frieza's bases he would have picked a fight with a group of lesser mercenaries and killed them or taken a mission and slaughtered the population of some random planet to get rid of the feeling of helplessness. Here he'd been warned against doing that. Here he wasn't allowed to lash out at anyone he could actually hurt.
He smashed his fist into the floor. The floor-boards shattered, the concrete foundation beneath them cracked. Pain lanced up his arm from his knuckles. Vegeta-chan drew back and hit the concrete again, harder. His fist sunk into the concrete. The jagged edges of the hole torn at his flesh as he pulled his arm out and hit it again. He wanted to hurt something so badly he could taste it, but he wasn't allowed. Some small part of the urge seemed to trickle out of him along with the blood that was just beginning to seep from the scratches in his arm.
Experimentally he forced his power down then hit the concrete again. He felt the bones in his hand crack. The pain radiating up his arm obscured the duller ache from his bruised throat. He hit the concrete again and again. Bones splintered in his hand and the fragments tore through his flesh. The sound of his fist impacting the broken concrete changed from sharp cracks to a wet sound as his flesh gave way. Everything faded away except the pain.
Then someone was screaming at him. Begging him to stop. Arms wrapped around him, futilely trying to restrain him. He could feel the weakness in the arms, he knew he could break their hold on him without even trying but he stopped. There was something so novel about being held that it shocked him out of the trance he'd been in. He let himself be pulled into a warm embraced.
The whispered promises that she would fix things were empty words. Vegeta had grown up knowing that his only escape, the only way to make things better was for him to become the strongest. Still he could sense that the intent behind the promises was sincere. If she'd had the ability she would have taken away all the hurt and anger and shame.
With a small grunt of effort Bulma lifted Vegeta-chan to his feet then she led the dazed boy to the infirmary. A quick X-Ray confirmed what Bulma's senses told her when she'd first touched Vegeta-chan's injured hand: The damage was much worse than a simple break that could be set and would heal on it's own. The Regen tank was still out of the question, the injuries he'd arrived with and the broken collar bone had healed but his body still hadn't had time to restore it's reserves. It was going to take Dende or a Senzu bean to see that Vegeta-chan's injuries healed correctly this time.
Vegeta-chan watched blearily as Bulma wrapped his arm in bandages. She urged him up onto one of the beds in the infirmary then offered him a mug of a viscous green liquid. "The bones in your hand are crushed. This will take away the pain and make you sleep until I can get someone to heal it." The look in Vegeta-chan's eyes was more shocky than comprehending but when Bulma held the mug to his lips he drank without complaint.
After a few minutes his eye-lids began to droop. Gently Bulma pushed him to lay down. Then she pulled a blanket over him and sat beside him stroking his hair and quietly reassuring him until his was completely under.
Bulma got up. She tiptoed out of the room and shut the door behind her. Then she leaned back against the wall and slowly slid down it until she was curled up in a ball in the hallway, sobbing.
"You can do better than that," Vegeta smirked as he narrowly dodged the Great Ape's attacks.
Left, left, kick, right, punch, punch, right.
Given the size differential between them Vegeta felt slightly ridiculous but the important part was the pattern. The answering kata was the first one every elite Saiyanjin child learned. He'd taught it to Trunks even though there was no reason to; the boy's tail had been removed the same day Trunks had been born. Vegeta had gone ahead and taught the pattern to Kakarrot and Goten as well after Bulma blackmailed him into teaching them. At the time there hadn't been a reason. There were rumors about lower class fighters who spontaneously gained awareness of their Oozaru forms but no one bothered to try to teach them to do it. Still Trunks and Vegeta's younger counter-part already knew the kata. It had just been simpler to teaching it to the other two rather than teaching all four boys something new.
Left, left, kick, right, punch, punch, right.
The trick to this was to reach the sentient mind sleeping beneath the animalistic rages. The key was familiarity. The pattern was burned into the muscles through repetition. It helped to have a familiar person to work with but the Saiyan people had been at war for the entirety of their recorded history. And when you were at war people had a tendency of dying unexpectedly so the pattern was the same for everyone.
Left, left, kick, right, punch, punch, right.
After Vegeta-sai was gone he and Nappa had tried to teach Radditz. He was a third class idiot, like his younger brother. Raddiz was totally unworthy of the effort but it wasn't as if there were other options and a self-aware Oozaru was fifty times more effective than a rampaging brute. They'd even made some progress with him. Then Radditz's mate died and he chose to spend as much time lost in a battle-haze as possible.
Left, left, kick, right, punch, punch, right.
It had only been a few months since Vegeta had taught the kata to Kakarrot and Goten. That wasn't really long enough for the pattern to sink into Kakarrot's bones. This was a waste of time.
Left, left, kick, right, punch, punch, BLOCK.
Vegeta sneered. He should have known. It involved fighting, of course Kakarrot would master it with unheard of ease. And people wondered that he despised the other Saiyan?
Still anticipating the pattern was only the first step. Now the challenge began... for the sensei. The Oozaru had the pattern and could anticipate his instructor's movements but still had to be guided into his half of the pattern.
Vegeta grunted in annoyance. Oozaru or no Oozaru he was still more powerful than the boy he faced but when the paired kata had been developed no one had ever anticipated a situation where the instructor would be incapable of making the transformation. It was damned awkward adopting what should have been a completely rigid pattern to account for an opponent who was fifteen times his size.
Left-block, left-block, kick, right-block, punch, punch, right-block.
It had to do with keeping the people around him safe. Of course Kakarrot would find a way to do it. Kakarrot always found a way to win when his friends and his planet were on the line. In a way Vegeta hated him for that more than anything else. Vegeta had sacrificed everything he had, everything he could to protect Vegeta-sai and it had all been for nothing, the Universe didn't arrange miracles for him.
Vegeta done everything in his power to save Vegeta-sai and he'd lost. He'd thought there would never be anything that could make him put it all on the line again. Then he'd watched Cell kill his son and learned that he did have things that were worth his life to protect: Bulma, Trunks. Still he couldn't understand how Kakarrot could find equal motivation over the fate of a stranger.
Saiyans were a warrior race, a race of conquers but Kakarrot turned that on it's head and became a protector. But still Saiyan, Vegeta grinned oddly as he remembered Kakarrot sparing him after their first encounter. It hadn't been the protector who had asked for Vegeta's life that day but the Saiyan warrior who hadn't been content with the outcome of their battle. Vegeta had been defeated and the Earth was safe but Kakarrot hadn't won their fight. It had taken a group effort and more than a small amount of luck. Vegeta's face twisted in annoyance as he remembered Gohan, in Oozaru form, collapsing on top of him. That day Kakarrot hadn't spared him out of any sentimental human emotions. Kakarrot asked for his life so that they could fight again. So that Kakarrot could find out if he could have gained enough strength and skill to defeat Vegeta on his own. Vegeta didn't think his pride could have stood it if Kakarrot's reasoning that day hadn't been Saiyan at it's heart.
Left-block, left-block, kick, right-block, punch, punch, right-block.
Vegeta laughed dryly. Underneath it all Kakarrot was still Saiyan. Brought up on Earth without memory of his people it was simply in his blood.
Author's Note: In the DBGT flashback about that incident Goku spared Vegeta more out of sense of "there but for the grace of god go I" (and I can't remember how the scene went in the various translations of the Anime). But this is the Viz manga version of that scene: Kurrin: "Are you thinking he's gonna see the light, like Piccolo? That he's gonna turn over a new leaf? Well, forget about it! He's not like that!! He doesn't have a leaf to turn over! He doesn't have a speck of decency in him! He's a killing machine! He's a-" Goku: "I know... and I know how dangerous he is... But...I don't know how to say it... When Isaw him about to die... I thought... What a waste... I trained under Kaio, the lord of worlds... I thought I'd hit the peak of power... But Vegeta was... so far above me..! I was shocked... scared. But... Somewhere inside... I was happy. I was... thrilled... to be fighting such power... I guess it's my Saiyan blood... It's no smart, I know... But next time I swear I'm gonna surpass him... Gonna beat him!! I know it's wrong, but please... Let me do it myself!!"
I prefer the manga translation. Not to mention I think that reasoning would have been a lot easier on Vegeta's pride than to have been spared out of pity.
Bunny Briefs found her daughter in her lab, throwing things. "Bulma! What's wrong?"
Bulma picked up a piece of glassware and hurtled it at the far wall of the lab. "A year is going to pass."
A test tube shattered.
"The Dragonballs are going to regenerate."
A peitri dish.
"They'll use my radar to find them."
A beaker.
"Then we'll let him wish himself-"
Another beaker.
"-back to Frieza-"
A scale.
"-for twenty, fucking, years!"
Bulma started sobbing. Bunny patted her on the back soothingly.
"Oh Mom, I know Goku has to go back to save the Earth from Piccolo and everyone else that came after him but why do we have to let Vegeta go back? I know what's going to happen to him."
"Bulma, I think Vegeta turned out alright," Bunny comforted.
"I love Vegeta, but he's not alright," Bulma asserted. "Vegeta-chan's in the infirmary and he did it to himself: First Vegeta, my Vegeta, nearly strangled that poor kid! Then he- every bone in his hand and half-way to his elbow is shattered, not broken, shattered! Vegeta couldn't hurt himself like that by accident. Concrete's not that hard."
Bunny pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Vegeta-chan isn't nearly as strong as Vegeta," she pointed out.
Bulma shook her head. "He's stronger than Goku and I knew Goku at that age. Goku vs. Concrete would end with powdered concrete and scraped knuckles. Vegeta-chan was making an effort not to gather his ki, he was trying to hurt himself Mom."
"Where is he now?" Bunny asked.
"The infirmary. I gave him a sedative, he'll be out for twelve hours minimum." Bulma said.
"Well it won't do anyone any good for you to work yourself up into a tizzy. Why don't I make you a nice cup of tea and we'll talk about it," Bunny suggested.
Bulma nodded and wiped at her eyes.
The water started boiling just as the sun came up.
Vegeta returned with an unconscious Goku tucked under his arm like a bag of flour. Both Saiyans were covered in dirt and blood. Vegeta was about to toss Goku on the couch when Bunny gave him a disapproving look. He sighed and waited until she'd spread a sheet over it to protect it from the mess.
"How'd it go?" Bulma asked.
"He learned," Vegeta said. "Once he gained control of his Oozaru form I almost got a decent spar out of him."
He was happy. It made Bulma want to forget about everything else that had happened that night and play with him. "Almost?" she asked, her eyes making note of Vegeta's battered condition.
He smirked. "I didn't bother to ascend. When is breakfast going to be ready."
"Later," Bulma sighed as reality crashed in. "There's something you need to see first."
Vegeta stared down at his younger counterpart in silent shock for several moments. Then, hesitantly, he reached out to touch the boy's injured hand; beneath the bandages it felt like a bag of rock shards.
"Why did he do that?" Bulma asked.
Vegeta's gaze shift guiltily to the bruises on the boy's throat. The idea that he would take out his violent impulses on himself if denied any other target was disturbing and hard to accept but he was looking at the proof. He'd always been able to find a target for his hatred, Bulma's robots at the very least. As much as he wanted to believe he'd never do anything like what the boy had done he couldn't be sure. And Vegeta had to admit that no one had made a point of making him feel powerless once he'd come to Earth. He hadn't been so kind to the boy.
"It won't happen again," Vegeta promised quietly.
"Why did he do it in the first place?" Bulma demanded. "Make no mistake, I'm furious about that," she gestured to Vegeta-chan's throat, "but it's nothing compared to the injuries he had when he first came here."
Vegeta looked away from her. "I'll get a Senzu bean from the cat," he said flatly.
Bulma grimaced. She wondered if the thing Vegeta didn't want to tell her was about his past or his present. Vegeta left before she could ask.
He flew to Korin's tower and landed on the balcony. "Cat, the Senzu beans restore energy," he stated as he glowered at the tower's master. "They would heal exhaustion. They don't deplete the body when they heal it correct?"
Korin gave Vegeta a long, searching look. "It'll heal the boy's injuries and the damage from over-using those nasty tanks." He produced a small bag of Senzu beans. Then he hesitated before tossing them to Vegeta. "They won't fix emotional and mental exhaustion though. You can't nearly kill him to make him stronger then give him a Senzu bean to make it all better. He needs a break from the pain and the ugly things he's done and seen more than anything else. It wouldn't kill you to just let him be a kid for once."
"Feh, just because you can read my thoughts doesn't mean you understand anything," Vegeta stated. He snatched the beans out of Korin's hand and stomped out of the tower.
The next morning Vegeta found Goku chatting animatedly with Vegeta-chan. The two boys sat cross-legged on opposite ends of the bed in the infirmary while they compared the relative merits of various methods of responding to blinding attacks. As soon as Vegeta stepped into the room the boys went silent. They watched him warily.
Vegeta flicked one of the Senzu beans to Vegeta-chan. The boy plucked it out of the air then stared at the unassuming little bean blankly. Goku's eyes lit up with recognition. "Oooh! Eat it. It'll make you all better."
Vegeta-chan shrugged then popped the bean into his mouth. His jaw dropped as it's healing properties took effect. A moment later he'd hopped off the bed and was rapidly discarding his bandages.
Goku grinned at the wonder in Vegeta-chan's expression as the other boy stretched and flexed his newly healed fingers.
"Beat it brat," Vegeta told Goku.
Goku hesitated. For a long moment he stared into Vegeta's eyes. Vegeta could almost hear Goku wondering if Vegeta intended to make things right between himself and his counterpart..
//None of your business Kakarrot,// Vegeta thought back.
"Hey! I heard you talking but your mouth didn't move!" Goku exclaimed.
"That's not possible," Vegeta-chan stated. "It took years before I could talk with Nappa and Radditz that way."
"Kakarrot trusts by default," Vegeta explained. When he saw Vegeta-chan's confusion he gave the boy a faint shrug; he didn't understand how anyone could do that either. "He isn't normal. And I was dying the first time I tried to reach out to him. I had nothing left to guard against."
Goku stuck his tongue out at the older Saiyan in response to the 'not normal' comment.
"And the Kakarrot I knew was no more mature than this one," Vegeta added. "The connection seems to have carried over."
Vegeta-chan snickered.
"The only time you two get along is when you're being mean to me," Goku whined.
The two Vegetas traded a smirk. Goku huffed in mock irritation.
"He did teach me in the end. I think he's sorry about what he did," Goku whispered to Vegeta-chan. He gave the other boy an encouraging grin then scurried out of the infirmary.
After Goku had gone a long silence descend on the room. Vegeta-chan sat back down on the bed his arms crossed over his chest, slightly turned away from his older counterpart. Vegeta leaned back against the opposite wall, crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at his younger counterpart.
Vegeta's family and Goten would have understood that Vegeta suddenly agreeing to something he'd refused to consider previously was basically Vegeta's way of apologizing. Vegeta-chan knew better than most that an actual apology required too much loss of face, still he had his own pride to satisfy.
"You have eight months until the Dragonballs regenerate," Vegeta said finally. "Nothing less than a Super Saiyan will defeat Frieza."
"I told you I wanted to learn," Vegeta-chan reminded him sulkily.
"Kakarrot managed the transformation after training and living in a hundred times Earth's gravity for a few weeks then taking and recovering from near-fatal injuries," Vegeta stated. "His emotions aid him in the transformation, yours won't. I trained for months at five hundred times Earth's gravity before making the transformation." Vegeta hesitated. "You'll improve at the greatest rate if you move into the Gravity Room. If you're not actively training increase the gravity until it hurts to breathe."
Vegeta-chan watched him warily. He didn't trust that Vegeta was actually offering to help him.
"Tactics won't help you," Vegeta continued. "You're already beyond him tactically but tactics only take you so far, beyond that there's power. Frieza has never fought anyone who's power came close enough to his level for tactics to matter. The only way for you to win is to get stronger, much stronger."
"What do I do when you're training?" Vegeta-chan asked.
Vegeta met his younger counterpart's eyes levelly. "While you're here I'll restrict my training to levels you can withstand," he said. Getting the boy ready to face Frieza was more important than his own training.
Two months passed and Vegeta-chan's power increased greatly but Vegeta could see that it wouldn't be enough for the boy to become a Super Saiyan before the Dragonballs regenerated. Furthermore by the end of two months the boy seemed to have reached a plateau. The rate at which Vegeta-chan's power was increasing tapered off despite the intense regime he was being subjected to.
During the two months Vegeta continued teaching Goku to control his Oozaru form as well. When there was no moon Vegeta conjured up his false moon so they could continue with Goku's training. Gradually Goku reached the point where he didn't need Vegeta's help to come back to himself after the transformation. Vegeta took advantage of Goku's Oozaru form to get a sparring partner who could challenge him, at least as long as he didn't transform into a Super Saiyan, since he'd surrendered the Gravity Room to his counterpart.
Working with Goku so much led Vegeta to the realization that the Earth-reared Saiyan's powers had increased so much more rapidly than his own counterpart's because no one on the planet had been able to push the boy to achieving his true potential in the time where he belonged. To Goku Vegeta's harsher training methods were like water in a dessert.
However, just like Vegeta-chan, Goku's rate of improvement leveled out after a time, and Vegeta found himself forced to admit that the boys might well be reaching the limits of what their immature bodies could accomplish. The thought that they would end up wasting what little time Vegeta-chan had to prepare waiting for him to grow up frustrated Vegeta to no end. Still he could see that the break from the abuse he'd suffered under Frieza's rule was doing the boy good.
The fact that Goku's power had stabilized at a level that was somewhat above average for an elite Saiyan of the same age stunned Vegeta. He knew Kakarrot had been born with a substandard power level even for a third-class Saiyan. Vegeta had always believed that it was the universe unfairly favoring Kakarrot that enable him to find the power he needed or some sort of magic imparted by emotions.
Vegeta had even researched power increases tied to emotions since it was blatantly apparent that Gohan's power in particular was closely tied to his feelings. He'd learned all about human adrenaline rushes and the way that it could momentarily boost their strength to miraculous levels. Saiyans didn't have anything comparable but the wild fluctuate in Gohan's power, particularly the ones Radditz's scouter had recorded so long ago, matched the stories Vegeta had found about humans' adrenaline rushes. Vegeta believed that a momentary boost from adrenaline explained how Gohan had managed to become a Super Saiyan when he'd never achieved a base power level that was comparable to his father's or Vegeta's own base level. Human/Saiyan hybrid biology could explain Gohan's atypical strength. Vegeta himself had been born with the highest power level ever recorded for a Saiyan child, he'd been raised to believe that he would make the legend of a Super Saiyan reality again. There was no explanation for Kakarrot, at least not one Vegeta wanted to believe.
What Vegeta didn't like to face was the idea that Kakarrot's true potential hadn't been related to his power level at birth. If there wasn't a magical-emotional explanation for Kakarrot's strength then the Saiyan people had discarded hundreds of perfectly healthy children every year. If a child born with a negligible power level could become stronger than most of his elite-born peers by the time he was fifteen then there had been something wrong with how the Saiyan people had raised heir children because what Goku had accomplished just didn't happen on Vegeta-sai. But that didn't matter anymore, Vegeta-sai was dead and gone, Frieza was still a problem, at least for the boy.
Vegeta had to find a way around the boy's inability to gain enough power in the time they had. He considered the Room of Space and Time, but discarded the idea. Vegeta pictured the vast, harsh emptiness inside the Room of Space and Time and he knew he couldn't send the boy in there not after what had happened. Inside the Gravity Room the boy had Bulma's robots to vent his frustration on. Also Vegeta could monitor the boy's training in the Gravity Room but he had already used up his two years inside the Room of Space and Time. Vegeta didn't know of anyone who could withstand conditions inside the Room of Space and Time who would be willing to spend a year in there to help him and he didn't want to give the other Z-fighters the satisfaction of turning him down if he asked them for the favor.