Human Hospitality
by scoutergreen
Chapter 58
Nothing But A Miracle
Trunks had just gone down for another nap when Bulma heard her tablet chirping away, and it took a second for her to recognize the noise: it was the incoming call signal from the ship Vegeta was using.
"Unreal," she ran to the lab to accept the call on a larger screen, "after all this time! He'd better be in a good mood! I bet he's calling to bitch and whine."
She accepted the call and was shocked when her screen displayed an image that flickered and warped constantly. She caught half-second glimpses of his face, unable to properly focus on any of his features. A garbled noise and pulses of static came through the speaker.
"- lo? H-lo? G-G-g- Ull- Ksh-dnt- wr-asdon-tkt-ow-tk-tk-tk-kshhhhhhhhhh!"
"Vegeta? Hello? Hello?"
Vegeta felt his pulse quicken when the image of Bulma flickered on the screen before going totally blank. He could hear static coming through the speakers and a woman's voice, very faint and impossible to understand. He disconnected immediately, realizing there was no way they could properly communicate that the moment, and began pacing the floor, struggling against the panic he could feel spreading inside his body.
"It's okay. I just need to let the ship's fuel cells recharge. Take a break..."
The computer spoke up again: "ENTERING PROTECTION MODE. DO NOT ATTEMPT TAKE OFF AT THIS TIME."
Before Vegeta could properly react, he heard the ship's power core slow down and stop. The port windows darkened as steel shutters expanded over the glass and automatically locked into place. Nearly all of the lights switched off, and a half dozen emergency lights took over, filling the ship with sterile light.
Outside the ship, an ominous crack of thunder split the heavens open and forks of lightning lit up the rapidly darkening sky. Heavy, black clouds rolled overhead, so close to the ground that Vegeta was actually a little frightened by what he saw.
Whatever was going on, he knew it wasn't good.
Slouched over at the bar, near-empty bottle of beer in his right hand, Vegeta stared at himself in the grubby mirror behind the sparse collection of bottles. For what had to have been at least two weeks (the days were blurring together) his mood had gone into terminal decline, rendering him largely silent, blank-faced, and seemingly unaware of everything around him. Every time he shut his eyes, the terrible sight of what he had done haunted him. In the fourteen days he'd been back on Planet 79, Vegeta had slept perhaps twenty hours total.
He drained the bottle and dropped it to the ground beside his stool. A pile of shattered glass collected on the ground around him, but bartenders fearing their lives did not dare approach him to sweep it up unless he requested. They did, however, keep him content with bottles of beer and occasional glasses of water. He declined all offers of food. He'd been there for over six hours, occasionally talking to himself in his native tongue, voice flat and raspy, and staring into space all the while.
"Holy shit," muttered a soldier to his comrade at the other end of the bar, "look at the thousand yard stare on him..."
The second soldier elbowed his comrade in the side. "Shut up! Do you wan'im to notice us?"
"You fuckin'..." Vegeta's head rolled as he turned to look at the recoiling soldiers and he slid off his stool, avoiding all the glass despite his obvious inebriation, "fuckin' regular soldiers," he stumbled over to them and looked them up and down, hissing with disdain, "y'can'timagine... I'm a fuckin' monster," he continued walking, grabbing onto tables and backs of chairs as he made his way to the washroom.
The soldiers heard something thumping inside the bathroom and decided it was time to pay their tabs and leave. The bartender serving them was more than happy to get their bill settled.
Nappa, the huge Saiyan with the mohawk hairstyle and rumbling voice, entered the saloon and looked around for his comrade. "Anybody in here seen Vegeta? You're sure to know what he looks like!"
"Try the bathroom," one customer sitting in a dingy booth snapped, "it's about time somebody got that brat outta here..."
"Oh, fuck off!" Nappa shot back, heading into the washroom to collect Vegeta.
As Nappa went into the washroom, Raditz entered the saloon, having overheard the rude comment and deciding it was time to put whomever said it in their place. He found an older man with green skin going grey with age, sparse grey hair slicked across a balding scalp, and weary blue eyes.
"The fuck's your problem, man?" Raditz pulled the man out of the booth and pinned him against the wall.
"That kid's been in here for hours, drinking nonstop and making everybody nervous! Get 'im outta here!"
Raditz threw the old man to the ground and spat on him. "You piece of shit! Don't you dare insult a Saiyan! I'll kill you next time!" He watched as Nappa dragged Vegeta out of the bathroom, who had started rambling in the Saiyan tongue again. The young Saiyan had apparently punched a mirror, cut hands oozing blood and leaving a trail on the floor as they left the saloon.
"God damn, Vegeta! Get it together, you pussy!" Raditz snarled and he slapped Vegeta around the back of his head as he was dragged out into the street, barely able to stand upright.
Vegeta vomited in the gutter and immediately started screaming, voice slurring in a language nobody knew. Nappa held the inebriated Saiyan prince up and sighed. "We gotta get him to a doctor. He's fucking losing it, Raditz."
Raditz rolled his eyes and called for an ambulance on his scouter. They waited there on the sidewalk, underneath the hot sun as Vegeta struggled to stay conscious, and flagged the ambulance down when they heard its siren as it came screaming up the street.
At the medical centre, the doctor examining Vegeta hooked him up to an IV drip and monitored his vital signs. Within fifteen minutes of arriving at the medical centre, Vegeta came to and let out a mournful cry. The doctor responded by giving the Saiyan a fast-acting sedative. It was possible the young soldier was having a psychotic break, but he may have just needed to sleep. It was too early to tell.
Eighteen hours later, Vegeta came to, mouth parched and eyes stinging from the bright hospital light. When he recognized a small figure in armour and a pair of sharp horns, Vegeta whimpered and squeezed his eyes shut, anticipating a world of pain and humiliation. When he felt fingertips as smooth as snakeskin run up his arm, Vegeta's eyes cracked open and he turned his head to face Frieza.
When Frieza gave Vegeta a smile many would describe as paternal and friendly, the Saiyan thought he may be sick again.
"Vegeta, Vegeta... why all this madness? I am most disturbed by this news that you are so very depressed, my dear child."
"I killed it," croaked Vegeta, "I killed a little baby crying for its mother... I grabbed it by the leg and swung it against the wall... then I killed the mother... then I killed the family... ohgodIkilledababy..."
"You did your job, Vegeta," Frieza resumed stroking Vegeta's arm, "nothing more and nothing less. You fail to keep your feelings out of this. You fail to control your emotions."
Vegeta stared into Frieza's cold red eyes and whimpered once more. The room around him dissolved and he hung in a world of no colour, no temperature, no sensation. All around him and Frieza was a soft white light.
"No..."
"You must learn to control your feelings. Shut them off. They do you no favours in the art of slaughter. Now, my boy, do not disappoint me like this again..."
As Frieza's fingertips left his skin, the world became real again and Vegeta sighed and shut his eyes. Two seconds later, the memory of the baby's cries suddenly turning to a gurgle followed by silence and the sound of its screaming mother surrounded him.
His eyes snapped wide open and he screamed.
Wind whipping through his wet hair with such force that it felt like it was being pulled, Vegeta staggered down the hill his ship had landed on and watched the sky, anger bubbling up his stomach and into his mouth. He'd gone outside in the midst of a violent rainstorm, ready for any challenge. Vegeta was ready to do battle with the elements.
He screamed at the heavens, hoping the overseer of his existence was listening and taking note, because Vegeta wasn't fooling around any longer. He would beat nature, and he would get off the planet he'd plummeted to. "You want to fucking test me again, you asshole? You want to challenge me again?! FINE! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! SHOW ME WHAT YOU'VE GOT, GOD! I'M READY!"
The sudden sting of his cheek being cut open by a whizzing rock made Vegeta snarl, and then he saw what was headed for him: a cascade of rocks and boulders that had taken the place of rain.
"About time you got creative!" Vegeta screamed at the sky once more, taking the incoming danger as a direct challenge from his maker. He let his psychic energy take over and started vaporizing the rocks as they raced towards the ground, cackling with glee all the while. About twenty minutes into his psychic onslaught against the meteors raining down from the skies, Vegeta caught a glimpse of his ship and realized it too had created a defensive force field around itself to avoid any damage. Any rock or boulder that approached it was turned into dust once it entered a five metre radius.
Wow, he thought, that woman thought of everything! Okay, I can just have some fun with this!
An hour passed, and Vegeta found himself enjoying this new, frightening situation. He did well for himself, incurring some cuts and scrapes but avoiding any major injury. Heart beating fast and on the edge of breathlessness, Vegeta gasped with painful laughter as the falling rocks slowed and then stopped altogether.
He staggered back up the tall hill to his ship and looked for any damage. Incredibly, the ship appeared to have come out of the storm in perfect condition. Vegeta heaved a sigh of relief and sunk to the ground as he caught his breath and struggled to collect himself. He lay on his back and let his body become totally relaxed.
Ten minutes passed before another crack of thunder rolled across the sky. Vegeta barely had enough time to stand upright before the rocks began falling from the heavens once more, even heavier and more dangerous than before. Exhausted, Vegeta threw up another force-field and prepared himself for another round of hardcore agility exercises.
When he heard the awful clang of a large rock hitting the side of his ship, Vegeta screamed in horror at the immediate realization that the ship's force-field had depleted. If Vegeta wanted to get off the planet, he'd have to protect the ship, and for twenty five minutes, Vegeta managed to do just that without any trouble.
And then things got worse. The hail of rocks grew heavier, and the amount of energy the Saiyan forced himself to continually expend in order to protect himself and the ship became too great a feat for his body to sustain. He took hits from smaller rocks, desperate to save his ship. Lungs aching, heart pounding, and body screaming for relief, Vegeta finally dropped to the ground, blood oozing through his clothing, and slammed his fists into the ground, growling with frustration and terror.
I'm going to fucking die here, he realized, this really is it. There's no way I can beat this...
It was all God's fault. The creator had really screwed him over, starting from the time he was born. Every prospect he had, and every opportunity he perused, it all ended in heartache, failure, and pain. He could no longer go on and started to prepare himself for the end.
"After so many battles, nothing! After so much pain, nothing! Where is my payout, God?! What the fuck is wrong with you?"
He caught a glimpse of a meteor plummeting towards his disabled ship. My only way out of here, he thought, at least it will be crushed along with me...
I'm going to die, he told himself, tears rolling down his cheeks. He did not want to return to the cold and darkness; his soul just could not take that kind of pain after such a brutal life.
I'm going to die...
Keep pushing, a disembodied voice urged him, just a little more!
Screaming from the pain as he forced himself back onto his feet, Vegeta concentrated and tried to focus any dregs of energy he had left to spare, eyes locked on the meteor and desperate to charge up an attack that could at least break the meteor apart into smaller pieces before it hit the ship.
"C'mon," he wheezed, "m-m-must..."
He found a tiny speck of energy deep within him and channelled it to begin moving through his body. His pounding heart worked a little harder, and he forced himself to keep breathing, unable to do more than pant like an animal.
For the rest of Vegeta's days, he would fail to find the words to accurately describe what happened next: the feeling of a cataclysmic force ripped through every muscle fibre in his body, his vision went white, and he caught the sound of himself screaming in a voice that pierced through the air like a rocket. A ripple of golden light surrounded him, and instantly his vision grew sharper and a new wellspring of energy sprang up and filled his body. Focus crystal clear, Vegeta locked onto the meteor and sent out a telekinetic attack so violent that the huge rock turned to dust before it had time to make contact with the ship, and the heavy clouds overhead vanished in an instant.
Three seconds later, Vegeta fell to his knees and did not move for many minutes, trembling too violently to consider the ten steps between him and the ship.
When he did get back up, Vegeta cautiously watched the skies and waited for more thunder. Above him, the sky was black and studded with twinkling stars. He unlocked the door to the ship and crawled back inside, so exhausted from his ordeal that he would have happily curled up and died at that moment. Instead, Vegeta forced himself to look himself over in a mirror, certain his face was badly cut.
It was only when Vegeta recognized his reflection in the mirror that he saw the transformation: standing tall and upright, skin glistening with sweat and streaked with blood, Vegeta had turned into a blonde-haired Super Saiyan with light turquoise eyes. Vegeta, the Prince of all Saiyans, was finally a Super Saiyan; a miracle in his darkest moments of terror and desperation.
Vegeta was far too spent to celebrate or even scream, despite his massive shock and utter disbelief that he'd just survived a literal meteor shower. He sighed once more, smiled at his blood-streaked reflection, and shuffled into his bedroom, where he collapsed on the mattress and instantly fell asleep.
When he awoke a few hours later, body still aching, Vegeta realized the lights had turned back on and the port-hole windows were no longer protected by steel shutters. He rolled off the mattress and stood upright, unable to walk normally after all his exertion, and turned on the computer. The navigation screen loaded but flickered on and off. When the screen went blank, Vegeta saw that his hair and eyes were dark once more.
His head was still fuzzy. Vegeta felt like he had woken up the day after a huge, joyful celebration, and the fact that he had finally realized the legend left him with a constant smile on his face.
"Computer!"
"W-W-W-W-welllll-cooome to Caaapp-sule Corp Inn-ksshhh-stellar Travel! Plea- please- please input comm- comm-kshhhhhhh-nd."
"Computer! Initiate countdown to take off!"
"COMMAND REC-REC- REC- KSHHHHH! KSHH! KSHH! KSHHH! TW- KSSSHHHHHH- NE!"
The ship took off from the strange planet and Vegeta headed back into space. With his navigation system barely functional and computer slow to respond, Vegeta searched for a pencil and paper to record his coordinates. His ship may have been damaged, but it still worked, and the Saiyan would not let such a minor problem defeat him. He would press on into space and find somebody to fix his ship before deciding what to do next.