DISCLAIMER:
Vetyga: (Holding a big stack of papers) (clears throat) Uh, hmm! This disclaimer is going to be a bit different from the usual. Instead of plotting for world domination and the usual statements that "WE DON'T OWN DBZ!"... (Which we DON'T!) Rath has given me the LAME-O task of doing announcements! (Begins to read aloud):
Okay, for all of those that are probably wondering, the name "Vegge" is purposely spelled V-e-g-g-E (pronounced 'Vh-JEE'), because I happen to like that pronunciation as opposed to it being spelled V-e-g-g-I-e (pronounced "VEH-jee")…. Yes, there IS a difference! At least, it is noticeable enough that my ears prefer one ("Vegge") over the other! The only reason I hadn't commented on this previously is because I hadn't actually used this name in story, yet. However, eventually it will be the way in which I differentiate between the Present Vegeta and the Past Vegeta. So in the near near future (when the time comes), Big Vegeta will be referred to as "Vegeta" and Little Vegeta will be called "Vegge"…. I'm currently trying to make it such that the characters THEMSELVES choose to make the distinction… Hmmm…We'll see….
Also, for your reference (and mine), here are some ages of the younger characters thus far:
Vegge (8), Trunks (14), Marron (11), Goten (13), Pan (3), and Bra (2)
Anyways! That's all for now! Enjoy the story!
.
WITHIN THE PAST WORLD:
As Goku, Goten, and Trunks stepped onto the large platform, Galan repeatedly chanted a strange yet melodious tune….
"Ami lutec sto! Lutec sto ami lang! Imi lumelo sto! Lumelo imi lang! Ami lutec sto…"
Goku, Trunks, and Goten could only stare in wonder as several brilliant blue lines began to form along the platform, tracing out an intricate pattern of interwoven lines and swirls. Everything around the platform seemed to momentarily fade, slightly disorienting all the newcomers to the ship. When everything came back into focus, they realized they were in a different location on the ship altogether!
"If only my mom was awake to see this!" Trunks gasped quietly. There was no doubt that his mother would have been thoroughly impressed by such an amazing display of technology!
"Follow me!" Galan ordered, oblivious to the gaping curiosity of the alien strangers. This was all rather routine to those of HER race. Certainly, their technology was nothing special…! Before leading the strangers into one of the end rooms, Galan gave them a warning, "Remember, you are guests on this ship! While you are here, you will behave accordingly! Is this understood?"
"Clearly," Goku replied without hesitation.
When they entered the room, a rather old and distinguished pale alien greeted them. "Galan! You come not soon enough!" the old doctor uttered the traditional greeting of their people. "And….you bring guests, I see….."
"Yes, I beg your forgiveness in advance….I had thoughtlessly given my word to help two of their injured…." Galan apologized.
"There is no need," the doctor raised his hand up as he interrupted her. "I do not mind!"
"But you must allow me to explain!" Galan insisted, but the doctor would have none of it.
"Nonsense!" the doctor exclaimed. "Do not be so formal!"
Galan sighed. Sometimes it was so frustrating! He just didn't GET IT! As her elder, however, she was obliged to push the matter no further. It would be disrespectful to do otherwise.
"So who are the injured ones?" the doctor questioned. "Lay them on the tables over there." He indicated towards the examination tables in the center of the room.
Goku nodded towards Goten to do as the doctor said and place Bulma on there, but he hesitated to reveal Vegeta. How would he react to the young Saiyan?
"Well?" the doctor questioned Goku. "What are you waiting for? Do you not have TWO injured!"
"We do," Goku replied. "He's in critical condition…."
"Well?" the doctor motioned towards the table impatiently. "Do you not WANT me to help him? I can do NOTHING if you keep him hidden like that!"
Goku slowly unwrapped the blanket from Vegeta and placed him on the other table.
"So, he's Saiyan….." the doctor muttered as he saw Vegeta's tail and distinguished hair. His good mood seemed to vanish immediately. As he glanced towards Galan, she shot him another apologetic look. "I'm afraid there is nothing I can do for the boy," he said after an intense moment of silence. "The girl, however, will not be a problem."
"Why do you hate him so much?" Trunks burst out angrily. "He didn't do a DAMN thing to you!"
"Trunks!" Goku warned, but Trunks ignored him.
"No seriously!" Trunks continued with fury. "I mean what had HE ever done! NOTHING! Everyone hates him just for being the Prince of Saiyans, but…..!"
"HE'S KING VEGETA'S SON?" both Galan and the doctor's voices boomed with anger. Suddenly, Trunks knew he had revealed too much….. He immediately regretted each and every word…..
"I m-meant to say he 'j-just because he LOOKS like King Vegeta's son'…!" Trunks tried to make amends, but it was too late…
"Oh, yes! I see now!" Galan growled. "NOW, I remember why he seemed so hauntingly familiar! Yes, there is no doubt now! How foolish I am! HIS father and that retched FRIEZA were directly responsible for the incident TEN years ago!"
"But that's not FAIR!" Goten exclaimed. "Vegeta wasn't even BORN, yet! He had nothing to do with it!" Trunks blinked in surprise. He hadn't expected Goten, of all people, to defend his younger father so vehemently.
"King Vegeta is dead. All vengeance aimed towards the late king must instead be taken out on the next in line…His son…! He is Prince, therefore he must own up to the King's mistakes! So states the 'Ways of Old'!" the Doctor explained. "It's just how things are!"
"I won't allow it," Goku replied in a serious tone.
"I sorry, but I DID give my word….." Galan whispered softly. Her tone was almost a silent plea for help. She really didn't want to help the Saiyan, but being shamed for a 'broken promise' seemed worse for her...ESPECIALLY if she had to live with it for all eternity!
"YOUR 'word' is not MINE, Galan," the doctor stated at first, but then changed his mind. "But on second thought, perhaps we HAVE judged too quickly…. He IS still but a little one…"
"Then you will help him?" Goku asked hopefully.
The doctor nodded. 'Mainly for Galan's sake…..' he thought darkly to himself. 'And then for MINE…!' Of course, no one else seemed to notice the fact that he had taken such care NOT to make ANY guarantees or promises on the matter…. Or else they might have questioned his TRUE intentions…..
WITHIN THE DEPTHS OF NOTHINGNESS:
An eternal darkness seemed to engulf the young prince as an icy rain fell down in heavy sheets upon his shivering body. He looked around frantically.
His normally upright hair now hung down his back, making him appear even SMALLER than he already was... He was completely soaked from head to toe. As he looked down at himself, he noticed that the injuries he had sustained from his most recent beatings were gone...
"Maybe I'm dead," he mused to himself. The thought somewhat comforted him, for it meant he no longer had to suffer anymore at Frieza's whim...!
He suddenly found himself in a whole new place filled with tall eerie looking trees surrounded in an oppressive fog. "Where am I...?" his voice echoed out into nothingness.
"Lost are you?" a voice returned to him.
The child panicked inwardly, fearing it was Frieza... Frieza was the LAST person he wanted to see in the Afterlife. Outwardly, however, he appeared calm even as the dark silhouette approached him from the distance. "I haven't done anything," the child ventured boldly in an attempt to mask his fear.
"I never said you DID, boy!" the voice sneered in annoyance at him.
The child prince calmed slightly. He now realized it couldn't possibly be Frieza! For Freiza always addressed him with demeaning names-like "Monkey" or "trash" or something... Still, nothing prepared him for what he saw when the fog cleared...But it COULDN'T be...!
"Father?" Vegeta called, echoing in surprise and then anger. "How could you do this to me! How could you leave me with HIM? I hate you! I never even want to see you again!"
"Watch your tone with me, brat!" his father growled back at him... But as Vegeta observed his father even closer, he realized that it wasn't REALLY his father after all! The similarities were astounding, but the stranger didn't have a beard and his hair was jet black...just like his own... And perhaps he was a bit shorter than his father as well...
"You're not my father," Vegeta stated more as a form of assurance to himself than for anything else.
"No, I'm not," the stranger paused for a moment, also seeming to study the child very closely. "I'm...YOU...!"
Time itself seemed to freeze as Little Vegeta tried to take in this bit of information. "You're lying!" he declared after a while.
"Am I, now?" his older self smirked at him. "You don't sound so sure."
Little Vegeta just folded his arms and remained silent as he always did when he was uncertain about something... But as he turned to glare back at his "older self", he realized he was all alone again... He suddenly found himself shivering harder...
"Come on, Vegeta!" a voice seemed to urge him. "Don't give up! You can make it!"
WITHIN THE HOSPITAL ROOM OF THE "GHOUL SABER", IN THE PAST WORLD:
Goku was softly urging Vegeta to fight on...
"You're strong, Vegeta," Goku whispered as he watched the doctor continue to rub a strangely scented transparent oil over Vegeta's entire body. They had already seen the liquid's mysterious 'powers' put to the test on Bulma as it penetrated through the skin of her broken hand, slowly sealing all the bones back in place before their very eyes! Although the scars all remained, it was still very impressive. It was like some form of sorcery! Even Galan seemed quite amazed! All the while, the doctor explained to them everything he was doing.
"He is but a child," the doctor began as he mixed together an entirely different set of chemicals together in another glass. 'And he is a Saiyan one at that, therefore I must modify things a bit to get the desired effect… We wouldn't want anything BAD to happen to him, now would we?"
"Why can't you use the same treatment on HIM as you did with Bulma?" Goku questioned.
"Saiyans are of a different body type, so the treatment must be modified accordingly," the Doctor explained smoothly. The treatment seemed to be working as they noticed Vegeta begin to stir, shivering slightly. The doctor then roughly pried open Vegeta's mouth, forcing him to swallow the new mixture he had just concocted. Vegeta coughed painfully at first, but his shivering immediately ceased!
On the other side of the room, Bulma, too, was starting to regain consciousness. Her eyes weighed down heavily at first, but as she remembered 'Frieza', she bolted up immediately. The sudden motion, however, caused her to feel a bit nauseous, but other than that she was fine!
"Mom!" Trunks exclaimed joyfully as he ran up to hug her.
"Trunks?" Bulma uttered in confusion. "But how..."
"Vegeta freed us!" Trunks exclaimed, trying not to get emotional. After all, emotions were for the weak, as his older father always told him... He wanted to be strong, especially for his younger father's sake.
"And my dad killed Frieza!" Goten stated proudly, not noticing Trunks's glare of aggravation.
"Sugo lead me to you…." Goku stated quietly. "He gave his life to protect you…"
"He really cared…..?" Bulma whispered to herself. She then sobbed, "Oh Goku! Frieza really is terrible…! He was so cruel! When Vegeta didn't kill Nappa and Raditz like he ordered, he hurt me and threatened him into doing it anyways! He's such a…." She suddenly paused as she noticed that her hand was in fact completely healed! At first she thought that perhaps she had dreamed up the whole thing, but no, the scars from the incident still remained…. Besides, it had felt far too real to be imagined! But then, what happened to Vegeta!
"Where's Vegeta?" she suddenly exclaimed. "Frieza didn't kill him, did he?"
"Vegeta is..." Goku paused for a moment, looking for the right words. "Vegeta is still recovering. Frieza really overdid it this time when he punished him. When we found you, he was barely alive… I think if we had arrived much later, he really would have died. Frieza didn't look like he was going to let up on him any time soon."
"So where is he?" Bulma interrupted.
Goku silently motioned over towards the other table on the other side of the room. He didn't know what to say.
The doctor was blocking her sight, so she eased off the table and walked over towards him to get a better view. Albeit she was a bit wobbly at first, she quickly regained control. Nevertheless, she was speechless as she saw Vegeta's small frame burdened with so many scars. It seemed every time she saw him, he bore even newer bruises and scars. She hated Frieza all the more for it! As she looked at him, she wanted nothing more than to hold and comfort him to make his troubles go away... No matter how unlikely it would be.
"I asked him to do it…" Bulma whispered. "I told him that I needed him to get the keys to free you guys… I even thought of asking Sugo, b-but I didn't think I could trust him!" She nearly choked on her words as her voice became hoarser with sorrow. "I had no idea that the keys would be in a place he was absolutely forbidden to go…. I never would have expected him to risk so much just for us…." She subconsciously began to hold Trunks a bit more protectively. It sickened her that Frieza would dare do something so brutal to a child….
"Frieza found out?" Goku questioned. Actually it was more of a statement of realization than a question; for it was obvious that Frieza had found out and made Vegeta suffer dearly for it.
"This doesn't look like Frieza's ship," Bulma observed.
"It isn't," Goku replied, "But I'll explain later."
"Yes, I have a bunch to explain to you guys, too," Bulma replied. "But we really need to be on our way as soon as possible. We have to reach a planet called Rijow."
"I'm afraid that is not possible," the doctor's voice seemed to echo.
"What do you mean?" Goku raised his eyebrows in confusion.
"I'm afraid we cannot allow you to leave," the Doctor replied as he noticed Vegeta was finally awakening. "Especially not with the Saiyan..."
"I don't understand," Bulma was confused.
"Rijow is in much disarray," the Doctor explained with a strange sense of knowing. "If you were to disrupt anything, the balance would be ruined!"
"But what do you know of Rijow?" Bulma questioned, leaving Goku, Goten, and Trunks behind to gape in bewilderment. The subject of conversation had officially gone over their heads.
"Enough to know this brat will be your undoing..." the Doctor stated seriously. "King Vegeta and Frieza had already been ours..."
Rath: (Looks up at chapter above and nods approvingly) Yes, I think that will do! It's the characters faults! They LED me here! Now, I just have to figure out how to get them back out! LOL! But seriously, this chapter was a bit difficult to write, because some important 'connections' are starting to slowly be unveiled… Anyways! I really really REALLY appreciate all the support I got for the last chapter!
To "Tsume-Hiei luver": Hey! I'm glad this story caught your interest!
To "Garowyn": It's nice to know that you still like this story enough to even WANT to catch up on things, as much as an irregular updater I am! LOL!
To Shasti: Thanks for taking the time to review, rushed or not!
To "cutieangel": WOW! You actually stayed up until 4:30 in the morning reading this? I never thought that I'd hear that! It makes me extremely happy to know that you're interested enough that you'd deprive sleep just to read it!
To "Erica": Yes, his attitude IS going to cause him some trouble! LOL!
To "Godzilla2": Thanks for the complement!
To "Dark Ki A.K.A. Lee": I'm glad the fact that Vegeta is so misunderstood in the universe is coming out in my writing! I picture this to be one of the major influencing factors of his life…besides Frieza himself, of course! It must be hard EXPECTING everyone to hate you, justified or not! This will definitely play an important part in how he reacts towards the Z Warriors…with a few 'exceptions'!
Anyways, I do hope you continue to Read and Review! Until Next Time! Sawatdee!