They were back to rock-paper-scissors. Four-way this time. Goku lost in the first round with rock against three papers and after some ties, Vegeta drew a win with scissors over Ringo and Trunks who both stuck to throwing paper. The following throw decided on his son as his opponent when Trunks picked rock against Ringo's scissors. That was too bad. Veget would have liked to give the lanker lieutenant his black eye, and a fat lip to complement it. After bearing witness of Turles' onslaught and subsequent speech, Vegeta really couldn't wait to establish himself. He wanted them to think twice about going against him when their captain waved her sexy tail and threw her big, round arse up as their rallying point.
Trunks followed him onto the battlefield looking pensive. "Do you think I could beat him?"
Vegeta glanced back to where the warriors were gathered at the edge of the field. It looked like Turles was getting his sermon after all and he was waving his drumbeating brother away with clear impatience.
"You have seen the way he fights now. Perhaps, if you stayed out of his reach and wore him down enough. You definitely don't want to get in his face."
"He shouldn't be able to keep up that level of intensity." Trunks theorized. "If I waited for him to lapse…"
Vegeta took on his battle stance saying: "Worry about me now, boy. Don't hold back. Show me what progress you made this summer."
"Who is judging?" Trunks asked as he too slipped into his fighting stance.
"Whoever gets here first." Vegeta grinned. "Who knows, they may even get here in time to see you go down."
Trunks did not smile back. He gave a fierce battle cry and phased directly into super, setting the outlines of his frame alight with surging, golden energy. Vegeta let his own build gradually, feeling no haste as he intercepted the head-on charge that kicked off their match. By the time they were airborne, his ki had overtaken his son's and the surroundings thundered from the sheer force being released through their clash. Sleep-ins aside, the boy had not piddled his summer break away. Trunks had advanced considerably. It wouldn't be long now before he reached the second stage of super. Clearly, he and the idiot spawn got up to more than flipping through the girly magazines they had nicked from that perverted, old coffin-dodger Roshe. Unlike his brazen friend, Trunks was a more calculated fighter, his attacks invariably considered and serving as a set up for the next. Trunks was a keen tactician, but he was still in the making and therefore predictable. Vegeta knew every one of the limited courses his son could take towards his intended victory and he had no trouble foiling the boy's plans to trap him. While Trunks worked hard towards creating an opening and catching him off guard, Vegeta was considering whether he wanted this match to end quickly so that he could get the two underlings he much rather fought, or that he would let his son have his time in the suns.
Just to show his onlooking rivals that apart from adversity, excellence itself also bred excellence, Vegeta gave his son the stage and let him show off some of the attacks he had invented. The boy started off with a Vision Smasher that failed and when he yelled "Behind you!" Vegeta was already behind him and sending him sky-high with a kick.
"Look below!" he mocked.
Trunks caught himself mid-flight, did an about face and summoned a: "Buster Cannon!"
Vegeta countered with his similar Galick Gun to null the attack and the boy changed course by making his single beam morph into a barrage that upturned the battle field below like a fatally potent plough. Their audience was drawing back towards the treeline for cover and from the corner of his eye, Vegeta could see the idiot spawn do his usual cheerleading bit while the two underlings stared, jaws on the floor, at what hell his son was raining down on the site. Vegeta matched the ferocious Burning Storm with a blast volley of his own and his Lucora Gun set the sky ablaze with golden orbs. The fireworks fed his psyched-up super state that always wanted to get away from him and felt particularly unmanageable today. Vegeta knew why that was. That side of him had been challenged and provoked by the fierce little captain and he hadn't allowed it off its leash to make its humbling acquaintance. It would piss him off too, getting called upon – literally – to fuck her like he meant it and getting cockblocked, by himself no less. Vegeta held back on the surge of power that wanted to escape him and kept his ki in check, glad to be having his balls back. Dealing with his – by the road, failed – conquest, had left him with a maddening sense of inadequacy, but this here, this was what he was made for.
Trunks was gathering energy to let rip the move of all moves that had meant redemption for the remainder of the Saiyajin race. Vegeta smirked proudly as he witnessed the incoming God Breaker. It had the potency to destroy planets, yet knowing this was not holding the boy back. He counted on his father to intercept it. What if Vegeta just stepped aside now? What if he set this eater of worlds loose on Earth? How long would it take for them all to perish? Would the end be swift or would the impact leave the planet dying a slow death that prolonged its inhabitants suffering? However it was going to be, it should be a tremendous thing to behold. A terrifying, tremendous thing.
Vegeta had seen it before, many times, but never from this end of the beam. If he did step aside now, he would finally learn the true extent of his own wickedness. There was no denying that it was an end befitting a man who had once served the tyrant that summoned eaters of worlds like so many guests at table. Frieza had thrown more feasts of decay than Vegeta dared admit he had been a spectator to. Should this whole galaxy be his former lord's doorstep, it would still not be great enough to lay all his victims at. Milky Way would be spilling over with bodies. Vegeta had stepped aside then. He had not intervened. Had not dared to for the sake of his own hide he would lose should he petition against the annihilation of a people that had wronged the empire only by showing up on their radar. Did he not deserve to sign off in the same fashion for not speaking up on their behalf? Should he not learn what it was like to be on this side of the field? Like his own people had on the day Frieza destroyed their planet?
Vegeta took a step back, and then another one, and no one was stopping him. Not even Kakarot, Earth's saviour. They just stood watching the unfolding calamity as the God Breaker rushed in on all of them. That they would put their trust in a man who was never quite sure that he deserved it. They must all be mad.
It was not the first time that notions such as these had popped into his head. The dark ponderings came to him only sporadically nowadays, but Vegeta used to be plagued by them, his mind an infinite pit of infestation from which welled up the vilest of impressions. He would see his own hands clutch the woman's upper arms, intend on holding her back and letting her rage out while she screamed in his face how she hated everything about him, and at first he would only be captured by how slender those arms were, how steep the contrast between the tanned skin on his grasping fists and the pure white of her soft flesh. Her delicate flesh, seized by his corrupted fists. And it would steal in, the notion, a haunting whisper in his mind: what if he just shook now? What if he just shook and did not stop shaking until she went quiet? The woman was the foremost, but she was not the only one around whom he would catch himself having such violent thoughts. He had them around his children as well. How safe were they in the arms that cradled them? What would happen if he held on really tight and did not let go? Would it smother them, break their small frames, crush their little skulls?
Vegeta was capable of all those things. Where he was from, lives had been cheap. Men, women, children, all were equally inconsequential. People were disposables, just more commodities fit for trade. All that lives, must also die. It was the one truth every single being shared, and a fate Vegeta long ago embraced. From the Dawn Galaxy where it was said that life first sparked, straight across the boundless black to this unmentionable corner of the universe, death came for all. And if the WTO was on your threshold, it came for you sooner rather than later. Wherever the empire went, imminent termination followed and with them, him, their axman, one among many more like him. That was what they made of Vegeta, what he had been. Before. The executioner. Bringer of death. And he could be that again. Even for those he held dearest. This was a truth as well. A truth as sure as death. It was his truth, and until he too reached the end of his mortal coil, he was convicted to battle the morbid shadows cast by what dark musings could sprout from his warped mind. He took them as warnings, a frightful reminder that his hands possessed the power to decide fates for good and evil both. It all came down to choices in the end, and Vegeta had decided to not let himself be defined by the corrupting teachings that had been imposed on him, but to reach back further, to his earliest days where he had walked in the light of the Mother and two red suns.
Vegeta summoned his Final Flash, countered his son's God Breaker and drove it back, away from the planet it could so easily lay to waste. Trunks pushed and made their connecting beams stop at the exact halfway point, the striving energies throbbing and making the very fabric of the world strain. Vegeta dropped one hand and held up the thumb, index- and middle finger of the other to alter his beam into a Final Impact ray concentrated enough to pierce through the wall of force that came hurling down at him. His blast caught Trunks in the chest and the God Breaker dissipated with a massive clap of soundless thunder. The boy lost his super form together with his flight and the match upon crashing down to Earth unconscious.
Goku, arbiter again, awarded Vegeta his win and tossed him two senzu beans, one of which Vegeta slipped into the cuff of his glove. He crouched with his spread-eagled son on the ruined ground, tapped him sharply on the cheek and held up the second senzu in front of his blearily blinking eyes. Trunks lurched into a seated position as he took the bean and popped it into his smiling mouth. No one could accuse this boy of stropping over his losses. He just didn't have it in him to throw a fit over something as inevitable as wiping out against a much stronger opponent.
Vegeta gave him another, lighter pat on the cheek. "You have been working hard."
"Not hard enough to keep me out of the losers pool." Trunks said matter-of-factly while chewing his bean. He swallowed with a grimace for its bitter taste and his bleary eyes became keen and bright again as the healing properties kicked in.
"There are matches left to win." Vegeta reminded him.
His words were meant to lift his son's morale, but he hadn't expected them to cause what strike of absolute transport came over the boy. Trunks jumped to his feet, stared ahead in captivation and breathed a devoted: "Athena."
Vegeta got from his haunches turning towards whatever an athena might be and finding that it was her. His bane. She had deigned to make an appearance after all. Instead of joining the other warriors, Akane remained on the left side of the field, half hidden amidst the trees as if she wanted to stay unnoticed. The tempestuous lifeforce she was suppressing, suggested the same. Her hands were on her hips and even from this distance Vegeta felt – or imagined he could feel – the fire of her hellish eyes on him. She was no longer wearing his t-shirt she had thieved and her bare arse was hoisted into skintight black shorts that showed off legs reaching high as the heavens despite her meagre height. The rim of her battle shirt hugged her right in the smallest part of her waist, so detailing out with brutal precision how perfect her curves were. She had courted femininity and made it give all of its splendour onto her. Nothing was misplaced on that frame, not even the scars on her face. All of it added to the savagery of her beauty.
Vegeta witnessed how his son deteriorated to a trancelike state as his feet carried him over to where she stood. It was painful to watch, and not just as a father. Vegeta recognized what blind adoration lay at the base of such lacking self-determination. It was obvious that the captain had his son wrapped around her finger as well. And why shouldn't the boy take leave of his senses around her? She was that formidable.
"You better take that senzu when you are up against me."
Vegeta snapped from his own trance when his adversary showed up in his face.
Goku had clearly not spotted Akane yet and he was ready for his match with Ringo. "I want a fair fight." he clarified with a ridiculously stern look on his gormless face.
Vegeta decided on the spot that he would be judging this match. He honestly didn't have the balls to face his bane yet, not with how everything had been left between them. He really didn't want to find out how he had blown his chances with her. Turning his back on her and her infernal glare, he mustered a smirk for the idiot.
"Never fear, Kakarot. I will match you point for point." As if that still begged question. "Let us see you win this fight first. And remember, this is not your merry band of Z Warriors. Your opponent looks ready to rip out your throat."
It wasn't an exaggeration. Ringo was so keyed up on adrenaline, his eyes had become black pools of death. Here was another one who had walked in the long darkness cast by the empire. There must be a before and after for the lanker lieutenant as well. Vegeta wondered how the man was dealing with that upon witnessing a smile sinister as to be worthy of his malevolent captain, spread bold across his face. The lanker may be easy meat when it came to strength, when he went down, he was going to do it frothing at the mouth.
Vegeta stepped back and signalled the two warriors to commence their match. It became a long and gritty one and he doggedly gave it all his attention, all the while feeling holes being stared into his back by the most beautiful and unnerving pair of eyes out there amongst the onlookers. Initially, it was Kakarot's love for battle that made him drag out the match, but then, as Ringo proved himself a true Saiyajin for not playing by any rules, because Kakarot could not get him to yield until every shade of seven shits was kicked out of him, which went entirely against the idiot's benevolent ethos. Kakarot kept looking for a fair way to win an unfair fight and Ringo kept refusing to let the stacked odds be against him. The lanker was going on pure tactics now and used his advanced skill to get out of the way of Kakarot's would be final blows. They broke apart from yet another savage skirmish and landed on either side of the field.
"You have to go down sometime." Goku reasoned, hands on his knees and panting.
"I will." Ringo bared his bloodied teeth. "When you bury me."
"This is just silly. We are having a tournament. It is supposed to be fun."
From the small band of onlookers Vegeta could hear Trunks holler: "Persuasion, really?"
The boy would recognize what the idiot was trying to do. It was his own move, copied from Mr. Satan, the moronic mayor of Shitburg. Talk about idiots.
"Come on, dad, just transform and finish it!" Goten chimed in.
"Have you lost your knackers, sweetheart?" Turles boomed. "Didn't I tell you to forget about mercy?"
Vegeta expected to hear some base obscenity spoken from the biggest mouth around, but the fierce little captain stayed suspiciously quiet. She was devising something, crafting more nasty schemes that no doubt involved him and her men and maybe all of them. And somehow, masochistic as it was, Vegeta couldn't wait to find out what suffering she had in store for him.
"Can you just call it?" Goku demanded, his hand held out to indicate the slumped, bleeding, done-in warrior across the field. "Look at him."
"What was that? You want to forfeit?" Vegeta taunted. "He is still on his feet. If you don't stop sprinkling stardust and skipping around looking for hands to hold, the only fair call for me to make is a tie."
"Ah, c'mon. I am riding time here!" Goku exclaimed.
"You are wasting it." Vegeta rotated his finger in the air and ordered: "Recommence."
But it was already too late. From the opposite side of the field, Ringo took one staggering step forward, then dropped like a sack and did not get back up. Wretched, that. Graceless.
"The match is yours, Kakarot." Vegeta judged, but he couldn't refrain from adding for his adversary's ears only: "You don't deserve this win. He wanted to go out fighting. Instead you forced him to spark out waiting on you to do him the fucking courtesy of recognizing his worth as your opponent."
Goku looked sheepish and his hand was irrepressibly drawn to the back of his head for a scratch. "That's not what I… I didn't mean it like that."
He never did. The good-guy routine Kakarot had perfected, was appreciated on this muck-hole only. True warriors preferred defeat over mercy. Even their sons understood that, if not consciously then at the core of their dormant Saiyajin being. Vegeta scoffed and jogged over to the lanker lieutenant to give him the senzu bean still stuffed down his glove. Ringo was already coming around and trying to gain control of his rangy, no doubt smarting limbs. Pulverised, he was, and seemingly feeling none the worse for it. Physically at least. Vegeta bunged him the senzu wordlessly. He knew what it felt like to have Kakarot piss on his honour as a warrior. Welcome to the world of misplaced mercy and crushed dignity, lanker. Enjoy the ride and never think it will get any better than this. Delivery, like all things in life, came with a price. One, Vegeta was starting to find out, was getting too dear for him to pay. He turned to finally face his bane. For the love of battle, let him still have a shot there. Let her be the one to redeem him.