Okay, I know that this is 433 days later and I know that it is highly doubtful that anyone is even still reading this. I lost all motivation and muse to write over a year ago because I had prewritten and I thought that I'd destroyed/lost the bulk of my stories a long time ago but when I discovered this in my email archives I absolutely had to post it! Fortunately, I found the next few chapters also and Spring Break is coming up! I'm going to be cleaning up my fics and publishing some more works soon.

Chapter 6: Idles Hands are the Devils Playthings

Unlike some humans I know, Saiyans do not celebrate every little thing that happens, in fact we celebrate two things. Victories, and a good harvest. Once a baby is weaned and able to feed itself, he's practically a child. By the time he is a child, around 4 or 5, he's expected to be a productive member of our fragile society and by studying and training constantly. When he finished the primary level of his education, he was expected to join a band of warriors and begin learning how to fight in earnest.

Anyway, my point is that no one, not even myself, thought it was a big deal that I turned seven just days after my mother died. The only reason I know I turned 7 was because I had a physical every three AstroPhases (roughly one season) and the only time I had a physical without it being the turn of a season was when I had a birthday. I was already a bit of a celebrity because of being born an elite, they were doing an extensive study of me and tracked my age, progress, and power level to keep more accurate records of my power levels growth and development.

Anyway, I remember being really annoyed, I dont know why they were bothering me just then.

I had plateaud in my training months ago and soon after I'd run into a wall and it was beginning to seem impenetrable as no matter what, I couldn't get any stronger. I was now sparring with Nappa closer to Nappas level than my own. We had stopped wasting time on kata's. I knew more than enough forms now so we spent all our time trying them out on each other. Sometimes one of my siblings came to watch. Sometimes even one of my fathers concubines.

Most of their children were gone now, there remained only 6 children counting Tarble and myself. Tarble spent every waking moment shadowing me. He'd wait against the wall while we sparred, he'd bring me a drink of water at every break, whether I wanted it or not.

He was like a tick in my tail but I couldn't bring myself to tell him to go away. The poor kid was naive. He was confused because mother had seemingly vanished. I dont think anyone ever told him outright that she was dead. He never asked if she were directly. He was the sort of kid it was easy to string along because he'd ask the sort of vague questions that allowed vague answers. He asked If mom were here, where she had gone, could he see her soon?

For some reason no one wanted to tell him, in plain terms, that mothers' remains were in a vault deep underground, she had gone on to another dimension of reality and that he could (probably) see her when he was dead.

Besides it was easy to slum him off, so people did. As for me, I was the king of beating around that particular bush. For some reason, I felt that as long as at least one living person felt she were still living then that maybe she were. I had convinced myself that so long as someone remembered her constantly-as a living person, then maybe, some how, she was. I told myself that it was possible with magic and miracles. But the only way for her to remain in this state of not-dead was if, for just one person, she was MORE than just a memory.

I was a bit confused as to why I let Tarble, of all people, be the anchor to which I hitched my fantasies. I dont know if it was as bizarre to me then as it now, but looking back on that time in my life, I realize it as exactly that.

In the beginning I hated Tarble because he'd taken mother away from me, in a sense. She was the favorite baby toy that I wanted back, even if I didnt NEED her back, but she was the one thing I could'nt take BACK. Now, she was actually gone, and I entrusted Tarble to keep her for me.

Even with Nappa occupying all my free time and working me as hard as reason allowed, and Tarble having become my 2nd shadow and all the people who lived, worked or visited the palace, I began to feel lonely and very restless.

I lay awake in my bed most nights and watched as almost every week, there seemed to be close to a dozen pods-each containing a male infant, ranging from 4-6 months of age-that were being sent to distant planets to conquer. I knew that they were males because all the Infant missons were given to the surplus of males being born. We couldn't afford to let the population become too out of balance and we couldn't afford to waste resources on children who'd eat more than their worth. The moment a child, 3rd class and lower, was weaned, he recieved an operation, a large sack of highly concentrated nutrition was planeted in his stomach and he was put into a cryo sleep.

He was then sent away to an alien world where there would be an environment he could live and thrive in. Naturally, the ships were scheduled so that the child would lay sight on a full moon on which ever planet they arrived in within a few months of landing there. The children were woken up soon after landing and presumably they'd crawl out the open door. Even as infants Saiyans are curious and prone to wander.

We didn't worry that they would starve. Because when ever the child got hungry, his stomach would make digestive acids and the acids would dissolve the first layer of the nutrisack in his stomach, releasing pure nutrition straight into his system. It was in no way a satisfying meal, but it would allow them to survive for a month or two while they learned to feed and fend for themselves. By the time they had mastered the art of feeding themselves, a full moon appeared, allowing them to transform and gain some much needed fighting skills.

Turning Oozaru as an infant was beneficial because it forced a growth spurt and by the time the moon set and the baby reverted back, they'd completely left behind the infant stage. They were toddlers and a Saiyan toddler could be a very dangerous creature.
As I watched more and more of my infant brethren chased off their own home world each week, I began to feel lonely, and that loneliness grew in more ways than one and I became increasingly restless. I was almost to the point that I could hold my own against Nappa, almost, but not quite. Yet, I couldn't seem to move forward.

Nappa wanted me to continue my current training regiment but I felt I needed something else, something different. I told Nappa that I was thinking of going out this campaign season. I'd been out on a campaign once before, before Tarble was born. I was just a baby then, it had been kids stuff and father, along with an entire squad of elites had been holding my hand, watching my back and doing the real work while I battered a few shields and stole some shattered teeth.

Nappa told me I wasn't ready for a real campaign, that I needed more practice, more training.

I told him those were paltry excuses. I was as much a warrior as I was a Saiyan. I could handle it.

Nappa said I needed to do some serious work on my Ki control.

I told him I wanted to get stronger.

Whats the use in being stronger, Nappa asked me, if I couldn't properly control the strenght that I had now.

I told him not to concern himself with the finer poincts of my ki control. I could take care of myself.

"A little power spurned is how even a warrior gets burned". Thats what he told me, I recognized it as a moral to a fable, but didn't know what the hell he was talking about. When I asked him, he got all important and said I should thin about it.

So I told him that he should stop talking in riddles, that I'd had enough of this foolishness and that I was going to tell them to ready a ship. He was my mentor, tutor, trainer and my official protector. He was the only one, besides father, with the authority to refuse me leaving planet Vegeta.

Nappa refused to take me off world.

I tried to wheedle him, I even whined a little. Nappa wouldn't budge. I threatened to make his life a series of miserable events for months on end until I got on a campaign ship if he didn't take me.

Nappa encouraged me to do my worst.

And for three weeks, I did.

I pranked him mercilessly, I was silly during spars, aggressive during every other activity. I ruined his meals, rigged his scouter to explorde in his face. I tried to cut his hair off. I sent Tarble to whine mercilessly. I threw tantrums and wrecked things which got HIM into trouble for not better controlling me. I stole his snacks, painted his face when he was asleep and changed the access codes throughout the palace so that he was burned, stunned, denied when ever he tried to access a bathroom.

I released a box of fleas into his private chambers.

I barged in on him at all hours of the night, I waited until he was either good and sleep, or having a really good time with his own concubines. I blew up his room, ruined his ship and drugged his dranks. I was difficult even when doing the simplest of tasks. I told him he could make it all stop if he'd just take me on a campaign mission.

Nappa, despite being a softy, could be very strict and though he knew that I could concievably make good on my threat, he said he refused to reward my behavior and that he'd report me to my father. Who we both knew was increasingly pre-occupied for longer and longer stretches of time. It might take weeks, maybe months for my father to inquire about me.

I probably would have continued to torment poor Nappa, because I had began to see just how much fun it could be, he couldn't really discipline me because I wasn't afraid of pain, he'd been pummeling for the past 4 years and making me stronger and more skilled, what could a spanking possibly do to discourage me? There was nothing I owned that I was so attached to, I wasn't Tarble, who would roll over and cry uncle if you even looked at him sternly enough. All I had to do was threaten to take some stupid toy or another and Tarble would tearfully comply with my commands. I didn't have many toys and it was by choice. I have never liked clutter and excess junk.

I spent a lot of my free time in either the pod docks, watching them build and repair pods and other equipment or in the library, where we had hundreds of articles and books about the technology they worked on in the docks. But those books weren't mine, they had been my mothers, Nappa couldn't destroy them without forfieting his life, because we both knew that my father probably would've killed him for such a thing.

Nappa might have been able to ban me from hanging around in the pod docks, watching them work on ships and build things, but there was no way him to enforce that rule unless he were willing to spend every waking moment with me and lately, he'd grown quite tired of me.

As it were, father proved to be both our savior.

He had gotten back from a series of meetings with Frieza and had been given a long list of planets to conquer and I was invited along for the campaign. He said it was time to see what all Nappa had been teaching me.

Two days later we had a great campaign ship ready and were taking off. As it were, father was taking both my mothers sons. I was estatic. I wasn't just going on any old campaign, but a campaign meant for elites, with my father to boot. I was, as a human might say, riding high on cloud nine.

The campaign consisted of a total of 8 planets, well beyond the reach of the Saiyan empire. I didn't think to ask why we were interested in planets so far from home. Conquering them would serve no strategic purpose, so what, we'd have 9 more planets giving us supplies and possibly serving as homes to any excess population, but, they'd be so far from Planet Vegeta that they wouldn't be worth the effort to maintain.

As it were, the planets were junk. Valuable only to the species and peoples inhabiting them. The first was a desert world, barren and dry and with a glaring red sun that was so hard on the eyes it was painful for us Saiyans just to stand in its light. It was, however, over run with giant worm-like creatures that had no eyes but a keen sense of smell and spit acidic goo all over the place and they stunk to high hell too. It took us 3 weeks to obliterate them, we searched the planet over, but there wasn't anything worth the effort on the whole damned rock. The only thing any of us got from that first trip were some minor chemical burns and a migraine that lasted for days because of that weird lighting.

The second planet was a bit tougher. The inhabitants were strong but stupid Saiyanoid-creatures who didn't have the sense to organize themselves to fight us. But they were fast, and it took my fathers men more than a week to finish them. I fought along side them, trying my best, it was a jungle-world, the majority of the ground was a filthy swamp that burped poison gas constantly. Saiyans couldn't breath the poisonous swamp gasses so we all had to wear masks. This planet had no moon and only a few dull satelites that I had hoped could at least serve as a speudo moon, and allow us to transform.

After everything worth killing was dead, I thought it was time to go, move on to next planet more than two weeks away, but my father informed me that Frieza wanted this planet leveled, he had some construction project planned for it. I had been enjoying myself up until that point.

Frieza wanted? FRIEZA wanted? Who the hell did he think he was and what the hell was father thinking running ops for that ice sucking reptile?

I wanted to say something, to object, to complain, to demand to know why we were doing anything for Frieza (to tell you the truth, I'd almost forgotten that he existed. I hadn't realized how much of my fathers recent time had been spent dealing with Frieza.) It took us a few days to level the forest and the stench was horrific and the air masks were running out so we had to suck down the sour, breathless air for two days.

In the end, the whole thing looked like a giant mud-bath. It was the foulest smelling thing I'd ever experienced and we all boarded the ship with low spirits. We were all filthy and queasy from the bad air. I developed a cough and had to spend quite a few hours on a ventilator to clean my bloodsteam after inhalling the polution.

I was to despondent to put up a fuss about being treated like a baby. My head hurt, my chest hurt, my lungs burned and my eyes stung, despite all that I couldn't breath and I wanted to cry, but didnt dare because the tears might make my eyes even worse.

Thanks to the first class treatments, I recovered nicely from the bought of poison and was ready in time to go join my father and the others in time for the Sirien System.

Unlike the first two, we weren't taking just a planet, but a small star system. They were a highly advanced civilization and they controlled 6 close together planets. We were traveling in a mainsteam campaign ship. There were about 50 of us all told and when we approached them, they didn't hesitate to fire on the ship.

We were deployed in groups of 8, each group taking a planet. The fighting was fierce and I went with father and several other first class warriors. They tried to shoot down our pods as we sped toward them (The ship we traveled in was huge. It had a pod bay, we left the ship to orbit out of range and took the pods to the surface world.) but we'd anticipated as much and had shields up.

Father told me to come out swinging, because they wouldn't hesitate to kill me even if I was a fat faced little kid. I think that last part was to distract me from the mounting nervousness I felt going in to a battle my instincts were advising me to avoid. I had intended to come out swinging once the momeny my ship landed but instead, I was shot, close range with a high-pulse energy canon.

My shield was destroyed and I had to over ride the autopilot at the last minute...

I told Bulma once what a phenomenal pilot, I am. I dont think she believed me, its a shame I didn't think of this story then. It is an excellent example of my piloting prowess, and to think it was evident even then.

Anyway, I was speeding toward crashing hell, my ship was damaged (if not for the shield it would've been destroyed, probably killing me in the blast) and I was fighting to land it in any fashion that meant I could walk away from the blast. I had lost alot of the momentum which normally caused the pods to create a crater when the landed, but it, being a space pod, was still falling incredibly fast. I found the back up engine at the last minute and managed to outrun the lasers that they were chasing me with. I could hear a voice in my head, shouting at me but I couldnt think about it right then.

I turned my ship back into the sky and the moment the missiles entered my blindspot, I kicked the door open and jumped out, leaving the pod to be destroyed while I made my escape. I landed amongst the city and was just realizing that the voice in my head was my father voices through my scouter when someone came up behind me.

I was assuring my father that I was fine, it had only looked bad and t hat I'd had everything under control the whole time when I was hit in the back of the skull.

I remember rolling to my feet and finding myself surrounded by armed warriors. They didn't particularly look dangerous, but then again, neither did I. Like father had said, I was just a fat faced kid, but the tail on my back declared me a Saiyan and thats all the incentive they needed to tear me apart.

There were three of them.

At first, I was doing fine, I was holding my own and not feeling too over worked. Then one of them landed a blow in my ear, then another and another. I was disorientated and tried to retreat a little, to put space between me and my attacker. I leapt over their heads, and some one grabbed at me, they were going for my leg but snagged my tail instead. It threw me off balance, caused me to shutter and fall to the ground, before I could get back on my feet, someone had me in a body bind.

Obviously, they didn't know that the tail was a popular weakness for my people, other wise they probably would've finished me right then. Between them, they had the strength needed to kill a little Saiyan prince. But as it were, they wanted to squeeze the life out of me. I struggled for a minute or two, gasping for air and fighting for breath, then, I remembered that I could use ki. I pointed my fingers at my captor and released a great bolt of ki into him.

There was a scream, a horrible burning smell and a loud pop. I was as surprised as they were when the Sorrien that had been holding me a minute before was nothing but clumps of blood and flesh, falling in a grisly rain around us for just a minute. For a minute, everyone was still.

Then, I attacked.

Four more came out of nowhere and I fought back, this time they kept their distance and I chased them off with Ki. They weren't skilled fighters, but they were strong, they had hi-tech weapons and they outnumbered me. Every several minutes more appeared until finally I was swarmed in on all sides.

I panicked a little then and began firing ki blasts in every direction. It took several minutes but I mowed them down for the most part, only about 6 were left standing and then I was breathing hard. Formulating a new strategy when a hundred more Sorriens came out of nowhere.

It didnt take them long to over run me.

I remember gagging on blood and screaming as they just pummeled me. I was being held again, this time by two of them, each on had an arm and a leg. Fortunately they hadn't realized what an advantage yanking my tail might give them. They were trying to fry me alive, with their weapons and pummel me to death with their fists and I was at a loss of what to do. I'd been fighting them for hours and no matter what, they just seemed to appear out of nowhere.

My scouter had come off hours ago, and there was no way to call for help. I felt my arm snap, then pain blossomed throughout my body and something hard-a knee-was ramming into my gut. I was falling...falling.

Blackness called me, and after several more than an hour of their beating, I didn't resist anymore. I couldn't. I had never known such pain existed and all I wanted to do was to sleep, to slip into oblivion and sleep...

When I came to, father was there and the world was silent around us.

The fighting had stopped.

A medtech was bent over me, running a fullbody scan. He told my father I had a dozen fractures, a punctured lung and three ruptured organs. Worse, I had lost nearly 20% of my blood. I would need an immediate stay in the regeneration tank if I wanted a chance to recover fully with minimal scarring. the Medtech radioed for a medical transport unit.

My father lifted me gently in his arms, for the first time since Tarble had been born, and carried me all the way back to his pod. When we got there, he climbed in backwards and cradled me-almost in his lap-as we made our way back to the ship. The moment we'd docked, father carried me to the nearest regenaration tank and placed me inside. I'd never been in one before.

He hooked up the mask and promised me I would be okay.

"No matter what," he'd told me, "you will be okay."

I remember looking up, seeing my fathers face at that weird angle that can only be accessed through being carried. I remember seeing how calm he was, hearing his voice, deep and strong and stead. I could feel the tiny tremors in his arms as he carried me, he was shaking-very slightly, but shaking. He was just that worried about me. With every step, a promise.

A promising that I'd be okay. That he was there, that he wasn't going to leave me. That the pain would go away, that I'd walk again, that I was going to live and that he'd made those scummy sons of Sorrien Bitches sorry for what they tried to do to the Prince of All Saiyans.

I remember thinking, with eerie clarity, how strong my father was. Now, I realize for the first time, how absurd that was. My father was a Saiyan elite. I weighed maybe 50lbs, soaking wet with armor. My father could very well tear a small mountain out the ground if he could get a good grip on it. But it didn't stop me from being thoroughly impressed with him at that moment.

Chapter word count: 4169.

Please read and review if you have the time! I will be doing my best to revise this story a bit and making it flow a little better with the next few chapters and will hopefully have Ch. 7,8, 9 and 10 up within a couple of weeks. I have a good feeling about this. I struggled with Writers block for a very long time and upon finding my long lost Drafts I may have found a second wind. Plus, I've been rewatching Dragonball Z recently!