Written by
Nevyn Slash at [email protected]
Fate:
~ On Vegeta-sei ~
As soon as Vegeta entered the
room, the alien on the throne stood and began to walk towards him. “Hello
Vegeta. Long time no see.”
Vegeta looked at the alien, his
expressionless face hiding his confusion and surprise to find someone here.
“Who are you and how do you know me?”
“I’ve known about you for a long
time now. When I heard that your planet had been brought back I knew that you
would be here. I absolutely love your
snails here, how could I ever decline the opportunity to taste them again?” The
alien brought up a snail, in one of his four hands to his mouth, below where
his nose would’ve been and slurped the snail right out of its shell. The alien
briefly closed all of the eyes that wrapped around his forehead, and savored
the flavor. He looked at the shell and tossed it aside to reside with all the
other empty shells and said, “Hmm… They struggle a bit too much though.
However, they are delightful just the same.
“Look, whoever you are, I did not
give you permission to land on my planet and start eating my snails. I also did
not give you rights to enter my thrown room! I demand that you leave right this
moment!”
The alien looked at him amused,
“Oh, I do not think so, my little prince. You see, I did not come all this way
just to leave and I do not think that you can stop me from being here.”
“Little! I am the strongest
warrior alive! How dare you defy and provoke me. I will teach you not…”
The alien broke in, “Really
Vegeta, even I did not think that you would be so stupid as to threaten me. We
both know that I am stronger than you. Especially now that you are helpless and
can’t defend yourself.”
“I am far from being defenseless!
You’ll pay for…”
“Ah, ah, ah, none of that now. I
have a proposition for you.”
“I care not of your little
proposition. I want you out and now! You are trespassing in my palace
and I will not have it! Be gone you insect!”
“Oh, do excuse me my little prince. My name is Lord Cronos.
You will call me nothing but that from now on. Now say it or I will squash you,
put you under a rock, and eat you with my bread tomorrow morning!”
Vegeta snorted and crossed his
arms over his chest while wrapping his tail tighter around his waist. “You are
a loon if you think that I am going to call you that.”
“No Vegeta. I am quite sane and I
am serious also. You will call me that because in a few minutes you will be my
property.”
Vegeta’s tail bristled and he
hissed out, “What makes you think that I am ever going to be a slave to you?”
Lord Cronos smirked and came closer, dwarfing Vegeta by two feet and bent down,
“Because your honor and your duty as the prince of your people will make you
accept my proposition.
Vegeta backed up discreetly and
returned the smirk, “Oh?”
Cronos straightened and looked
amusedly at the little prince. “I have a deal to make with you and I think that
you will want to take it very seriously if I know you. And I think that I do,
oh yes.” His grin was purely evil and filled with so much malicious intent that
anyone other than Vegeta would have trembled.
“Fine, out with it, because I have
better things to do than listen to you,” growled Vegeta.
Cronos’ eyes flashed as he
grinned, reveling three rows of sharp pointed teeth. He got about two inches
from Vegeta, drew up his hand and slapped Vegita across the face so hard that
he flew against the marble wall, causing it to crack.
Vegeta clutched his stomach
protectively with one arm, supporting himself up on the other and looked up at
this… demon thing, as Cronos flashed his teeth once more and continued to
speak.
“Very well, Vegeta, the first
thing that I am going to teach you is to never talk that way to me. I like your
spirit and I will let this insolence go for now. Keep in mind that if you are
ever impudent to me again, I will have to teach you a lesson ten times harsher
than even Frieza could ever come up with.”
Vegeta glowered at him, but didn’t
say anything, as he briefly remembered a “lesson” that he had been taught by
Frieza when he was fifteen years old.
***
~ Frieza’s Ship 20 Years Ago ~
“Vegeta what did you just say?”
Frieza asked, his eyes narrowed and daring the boy to continue.
Vegeta glared back at the one
before him and then spat out, “I said, Frieza,
that I refuse to do anymore of your dirty work. I do not like taking orders
from you and I refuse to do anything else that you tell me to do. You’ll have
to kill me first.”
Frieza shook his head as if pained
by Vegeta’s words, “That, my little weakling, can be arranged.” Frieza turned
to the guard at his side and gestured toward Vegeta, “Give him the Tail
Treatment in Cell Block B, Cell Tor31ture.”
The guards eyes widened, “But Lord
Frieza, are you sure that…”
“Of course I am sure!” Frieza
hissed dangerously.
The guard nodded meekly and began
backing away when Frieza stopped him, “I will be administrating the punishment
myself. I expect everything to be ready for me when I get there.”
The guard bowed and then ran from
the room and the wrath of the tyrant that he feared to receive.
“Vegeta, when I am through with
you, you will never disobey or talk back to me again. As of today, I will crush
your spirit.”
Vegeta just looked defiantly at
him and followed Frieza out of the room.
**
The next five hours were very
painful for Vegeta. Turns out Frieza knew exactly what he was doing and the
punishment that Vegeta went through changed him for the rest of the time that
he was on the ship, for fear of it being done again. Not that it really
mattered. After the “treatment,” Vegeta wouldn’t have been able to feel it if
Frieza repeated the process. So Vegeta behaved for the fear that Frieza would
do something else to him that was far worse.
Although, what could be worse than
what Frieza did that day was beyond the young boy’s imagination.
**
When the two of them appeared in
the proper cell on the ship, Frieza chained Vegeta to a torture rack on his
stomach. As soon as Vegeta was properly pinned, he turned to the tall, mouth
less, orange alien that usually dealed with the torture process and ordered,
“Take off his clothes and ready him for the treatment.”
The aliens eyes flashed and he nodded, responding telepathically into Frieza’s
mind, <Yes, sir. I will have him ready right away.>
While Frieza waited off to the
side, the alien used one of his sharp nails to quickly cut Vegeta’s clothes
into segments on his body and then proceeded to strip him of the pieces, until
he lay naked on the rack.
Frieza licked his lips and eyed
Vegeta with satisfaction, “Ah, good. You may go. I wish to administer his
punishment myself.”
The alien nodded, <Yes,
master.> With a bow, the alien left the room.
As soon as the alien was gone,
Frieza looked over at Vegeta and smirked. He went closer to the prone, helpless
young man on the rack and hissed in his face, “You know what I am going to do to
you? I am going to make you wish that you never pissed me off. You value your
pride? Well, after this, you won’t have any. The pride that you do have will
just be a guise because you will remember this moment for the rest of your
life. This moment will serve to prove to you that you are not as powerful as
you think you are and that there will always be others out there stronger than
you.”
Vegeta looked at the alien with
defiant eyes that hid the fear he was feeling. He knew that this was not a good
situation that he was in and he would be lucky to live through it.
Frieza smirked, “Enjoy your last
moments of confidence Vegeta.” Frieza gave him a smile that was so evil it
rivaled the Demon King and paced over to the shelf on the wall, picked up
various tools and walked back to Vegeta.
He then told Vegeta what he was
going to do. “You see all of these?” he asked. “I am going to use them on you.
Is there anything you want to say before we begin?”
Vegeta’s eyes flashed with anger, “You will never break me!”
Frieza chucked evilly, “We’ll see about that Vegeta.”
Frieza proceeded to put all of the
instruments that he was caring on the tray beside the torture rack and picked
out a fork. With a sadistic smile directed at Vegeta, he straightened out
Vegeta’s tail and then brought the fork down.
Vegeta’s cry could be heard
throughout the ship. People all over stopped working for a moment to face the
direction the sound was coming from, curious as to what was causing it, while
at the same time even the coldest hearts stopped from the fierce pain that they
heard in the long scream.
Frieza’s eyes flashed harshly, and
he peered down at the figure withering on the rack before him. It was easy to
see that Vegeta was in a lot of pain from the way that his eyes watered and the
sounds that he made. If Freiza wasn’t so cruel, he might have stopped what he
was doing at the sound. As it was, he just smirked and raised the meat cleaver
that he had ready beside him.
At the sight of what Frieza had in
his hand, Vegeta tried to jerk his tail away, but the immense pain of the fork
holding his tail to the rack stopped him as he cried out once more. Then Frieza
brought the cleaver down and Vegeta knew no more.
**
Vegeta was rudely awaked to icy
cold water on his face and his hair being pulled. When he opened his eyes, the
first thing he saw was Freiza, looming over him, bloody cleaver in hand. At the
sight of the blood, Vegeta became aware that he could no longer feel anything
from his tail other than a very sharp pain that wouldn’t go away.
At the feeling, he cried out once
more, but Frieza clapped a hand over his mouth and hissed out, “Silence. No
more screams out of you until I actually do something. I didn’t wake you up
just to hear you scream before I want you too.”
Vegeta eyes, filled with pain,
widened and he clamped his teeth down on Frieza’s fingers.
Frieza roared with pain and anger,
snatching his hand away, and slapping Vegeta hard with the other. “How dare
you, you dirty monkey! Just for that, I am going to make your punishment
even worse.”
Frieza threw the bloody clever
back down on the rack, and then picked up a dull knife. Turning around, he
hissed at Vegeta, “This is it. Say goodbye to you precious tail.”
Frieza wasted no time in gripping
the crushed, bloody remains of Vegita’s tail in one hand and the knife in the
other and then proceeding to cut above the fork, just at the base of the tail.
Frieza grinned as Vegeta let out another scream, his back arching off of the
torture rack.
After cutting the tail into six strips
in such away that the bone was located in one piece, muscle another, sinew and
skin a separate, and so on. You could see all of the make-ups of Vegeta’s tail
after Frieza’s expert cuts, the blood pooling around the pieces and falling off
the torture rack, onto the floor.
Vegeta shut his eyes in relief
from the pain, as the nerves were cut and he could no longer feel his tail and
the immense pain. Vegeta opened his eyes again when he sensed that Frieza was
done, and was met by another sadistic smile.
“I love hearing you scream little
prince. Although I think that you might not be able to feel your tail now that
I cut all of the nerves. So, we are going to go on to the next part.
With a quick slice, Frieza cut off
Vegeta’s tail at the base and removed the fork. Holding the tail up, he allowed
Vegeta to see it.
At the sight of his mangled tail,
Vegeta grimaced and closed his eyes once more, in hopes of blocking out the
sight. It was really terrible what Frieza had done to the appendage, and it
hurt knowing that he no longer had a tail.
Frieza nodded in enjoyment and
surveyed his handy work. “Okay Vegeta, time for the next part. You are going to
love this.”
Vegeta knew full well that he wouldn’t
like this at all, but there wasn’t anything that he could do about it as Frieza
hoisted him up off the rack and chained him to the wall. Too weak still from
the earlier torture, Vegeta’s knees buckled as he almost fell to the floor,
only stopped by the chains on his wrists.
As soon as he had Vegeta where he
wanted him, Frieza raised the tail, gripping it by the middle where the fork
had been, with the mangled part curled in his fist. He positioned himself
behind Vegeta and said softly just before proceeding, “We’re going to see just
how well Saiya-jin tails are for whipping. Surprised that I didn’t bother to
find out before now.”
When Frieza brought the tail down
like a whip, Vegeta clenched his mouth tight against the pain of his tail being
used against him, as the bone sliced into his back.
Frieza caught on after a few
lashes that a tail was not a good tool to use for a whip someone. Everything
was too soft, except for the bone that left interesting square looking marks
behind. If Frieza wanted to cause a lot of pain and bring out more blood than
he was at the moment, he would have to use a real whip.
Sighing with disappointment,
Frieza went back over to the torture rack and put the whip down, then walk over
to a shelf and picked out a nice cat-o-nine tails whip. Stretching it between
his hands, he paced back over to Vegeta and grinned, “Let’s see how long you
can stand up to two hundred lashing.” With an evil smile, he brought the whip
down, counting off the strokes in his cold voice.
Vegeta lost count at thirty-seven
when he could no longer feel the lashes of the whip on his bare back. All he
could hear was the slicing of the air and the whip when it connected with a
sickening wet ‘smack’. And then Frieza whipped him lower on his back, harder than
ever, and with a cry, Vegeta blacked out.
**
When he awoke, he was floating in
a pale green liquid substance. Before him, was a room, filled with technical
equipment and he knew that he was in a rejuvenation tank. There were weird
looking aliens walking about the room and occasionally one went to check up on
other patients in the room. Finally, one came in his direction and checked the
machine. When the alien saw that the light was green, he nodded and pushed a
button to drain the tank.
Once the liquid was gone, the
front of the tank opened and Vegeta wearily steeped out. He looked about him
and his eyes finally settled on the alien that had let him out. “What am I
doing in here?” he demanded.
The alien had been taking care of
Vegeta’s injuries ever since he had first arrived on the ship, ten years ago,
and was far too used to Vegeta’s attitude to be intimidated by him. Vegeta may
have surpassed him in power three years ago at the age of twelve, but that
didn’t mean anything to the doctor.
The alien looked at Vegeta closely
with his shining reptilian opaque eyes, “You are in the medical lab. Where else
would you be?”
Vegeta sighed as he sat down an the steps leading down to the floor, “I didn’t
think that Frieza would put me here.”
The alien shook his head at the
comment, “Nonsense Vegeta. Your Frieza’s top fighter. If he let you die, it
would do a lot of damage to his army. You know that.”
Vegeta nodded but replied
bitterly, “Then why did he almost kill me?”
The alien shook his head, “Vegeta,
you need to learn that you can’t disobey Frieza. This is what happens when you
do. Although, what you did must have been even worse than before because
usually he just hits you. What did you do to make him so angry?”
Vegeta was silent and the alien
finally continued, “Just be more careful Vegeta. You know that you can always
talk to me if you need to.” He stopped and observed the dejected form before
him and in an attempt to cheer him up said, “At least he let you keep your
tail. He even let me fix up you back with a cream I made so that you won’t have
any scars.”
Vegeta looked up at him sharply
and ignoring the commit about his back, jumped to the point. “My tail? What do
you mean? Frieza pounded it into a pulp, cut it up, and then cut if off.”
The alien winced, “I know. I saw
what it looked like when Frieza’s aid dropped you and your tail off. It was a
mess to be sure. I didn’t know how to fix it. Can you feel it?”
Vegeta considered this and finally shook his head, “I can barley feel it. I can
move it, but I’ve lost control of where it goes, now that I can’t feel it.”
The alien sighed, “I thought that would be the case. I’m sorry Vegeta. I had to
sew it back together, treat it with a formula of mine to heal it and then I
sewed it back on to your sump. I hoped that it would heal. I suppose the damage
was too great for even the tank to fix. The only thing that I can suggest is to
try and get used to it. At least you still have it.”
Vegeta snorted and focused on
wrapping his tail about his waist before standing and pacing out of the room.
**
After that torture incident,
Frieza decided that if Vegeta couldn’t stay awake for more than forty-three
lashes, then he needed practice. So began the sessions where Frieza would whip Vegeta
till he passed out and then have him placed in a tank to heal.
With Dr. Bordure’s cream, Vegeta’s
back healed without scars and he was ready for more whipping within two days.
With the treatments, Vegeta’s
power level rose greatly from being brought to the brink of death so often.
Frieza didn’t realize that the beating were the cause of this rise and
continued with the practice until he felt that Vegeta’s tolerance of pain was
acceptable.
During the seven months that this
went on, Vegeta was only spared from the beatings when he was sent on purge
missions. This treatment and the previous torture, contributed to the reason
that Vegeta hated Frieza so much and why he was never able to feel his tail
anymore. Although he was able to get used to moving it, he never forgave Frieza
for ruining it. When it was cut off by Krillin years later it wasn’t much of a
loss, although he never forgave him either.
***
~ Present day on Vegeta-sei ~
Vegeta finally came back to the
present and faced Cronos, “I don’t think you can manage that.”
Cronos raised an eyebrow as he
watched Vegeta rise from the floor, “Really? Did Frieza really torture you so
badly that there is no way I can match it?”
Vegeta snickered, “No. I just don’t think that you can do so.”
Cronos looked at him and smirked, “We’ll see about that Vegeta. I’ll find
someway. You’ll see. And now, if you are done resting, I will tell you my
proposition now.”
Vegeta wrapped his tail about his
waist tighter, briefly for once realizing just how much he appreciated being
able to feel his tail again and faced Cronos, crossing his arms over his chest
and looking at him indifferently. ‘If he hits me again…’
Cronos nodded, “Anyway Vegeta, the
reason that I came was not to put up with your attitude. It was to offer you
something that no one else can. For a price of course.”
Vegeta continued to just look at him and Cronos continued after a moment. “This
is the deal Vegeta. I’ll bring all of the Saiya-jins back to life, if you
become my slave.”
Vegeta dropped his arms to his
side and stormed toward the alien, his face enraged. “How dare you mock and lie
to me!” he raged.
Cronos was unmoved and bared his
teeth at him, “I am serious Vegeta and you are once more testing my patience.”
Vegeta stopped his advance, unsure
of what to believe. It was simply too good to be true that his people could be
brought back. ‘If this is real, then the cost is my freedom.’ Vegeta didn’t
like that at all, but he knew that the alien had been right. He couldn’t allow
his pride to get in the way. He had to do this because of his duty as the
prince of his people.
Cronos smiled when he saw the
change in Vegeta, “So, you are really going to be my slave for the rest of your
life? Or are you going to say no?”
Vegeta’s eyes flashed, “What joke
are you playing?”
“No joke. I can and will bring them back to life, if I have your word that you
will be my slave.”
Vegeta’s pride screamed at him to
say no, but no matter what his mind told him, he knew that he had to do the
right thing and came to his decision, “I will be your slave, but you have to
bring my people back first, and wait for eight years.”
Cronos frowned, “Fine, I will
bring your people back. But I will not wait for seven years. I will only wait
for six.”
“Seven, and that’s my final
offer.”
Cronos growled, “Fine. I bring
your people back right now and in seven years, you become my slave for the rest
of your life.”
Vegeta, determined not to show how upset he was, nodded, “I only do this for my people.”
“But of course. After all, who in
their right mind would want to be a slave for the rest of their life?” Cronos
looked around for another snail to eat and didn’t find one. Disappointed, he
turned toward the entrance and tossed a, “Come with me,” over his shoulder as
he disappeared out of the room.
Defeated, Vegeta followed him out
into the courtyard and watched with detached interest as Cronos lifted himself
up into the air and raised his hands above his head.
***