Chapter 44

It never occurred to Vegeta to avoid incriminating himself, even though one could easily interpret Ronji's death as a suicide. In the Freeza Force, being caught in the same room was bad enough and attempting to put any sort of spin on the facts would just make things worse. Besides, he had done it.

Freeza nodded along while Vegeta told him everything that the two of them had been up to. (Though not exactly painting himself as a co-conspirator from the start.) He waited patiently as Vegeta described finding out Ronji's true intentions. "... could be used to process planets, but most of all, he intended to threaten you personally if things stopped going well for him in the Force! At that point I had no choice but to—"

"Cut the act, Mr. Vegeta," Freeza said peacefully. "We all know what really mattered to you was preserving the extermination campaigns. Don't look so flustered. As a matter of fact, I agree. You're dismissed."

Two steps out the door and Vegeta stumbled. Wiped his forehead. Smiled a little. He was invincible after all.

"Sir, c—can I ask for some sort of explanation?" Zarbon spluttered.

"I meant what I said. What do you get from pressing a button to process a planet? You get one planet. But going in and taking it piece by piece by hand, nice and slowly, letting one or two escape every time? You get one planet and a plague of fear that spreads pestilence far across the stars ahead of you."

"But sir, the potential he wasted in Ronji—"

"Perhaps you didn't know that Mr. Vegeta was not the only one I dismissed just then."

Zarbon hurried out the room, not needing to be told twice. And not needing to see that look in Freeza's narrow eyes, right above his fake understanding smile, ever again.

Vegeta felt great. All that anxiety, that twisting dread that had been growing every morning, it was all gone now. Even as the news of Ronji's death took Planet 14—or rather, the Freeza Force itself—by storm, Vegeta was happy to spend his days training with Nappa and Raditz and filling out his application to leave the planet. He didn't jump every time someone entered the room. He didn't have any nightmares.

For not even knowing that Vegeta had been in contact with Ronji, Nappa and Raditz were being awfully careful around him. Saiyan instinct was something else. Vegeta left the two of them on the landing pad with question marks in their eyes. Maybe he'd tell them what happened later. But how Ronji died was about as relevant to Nappa and Raditz as why he liked mint and chocolate so much in the first place. They weren't secrets Vegeta held on to, they were random facts he had no place for.

Seventeen days later, Vegeta was in orbit above the golden planet. From Planet 14, Nappa (the only Saiyan left who was even remotely qualified) was leading him through the traditional pre-Cross oath.

"Prince Vegeta of the royal Vegeta family, there are two sole honors in this world: to live as a Saiyan and to die as one. You stand at the crossroads of your own life and death. It's your unique heritage to earn your existence. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

"What will you do if your enemy overpowers you?"

"Fight until I'm dead."

"It's time. Put up your guard."

"See you back at 14, Nappa." Vegeta shut off the scouter. The space out the window looked too black. All the nearby stars were dull. It was as if the small planet below was trying to make up for its desolate location with that golden light that shone so brightly. Vegeta regretted his ship's crude landing system, he didn't want to damage this beautiful planet, but the planet's surface didn't give an inch when he landed. It was harder than diamond. The shockwave had to go up his spine instead, ouch.

Vegeta stepped outside to a red firework spreading underfoot. Within a few seconds it receded until it vanished under his ship. Confused, Vegeta took a step back toward it. Blue. Another step. Green.

Looking past the spaceship, he saw his guy. The glassman had been running, bursts of color covering the gold under his feet with every step, but slowed down the closer he got. Did he sense that Vegeta wasn't there for his planet?

There was no way they spoke any of the same languages. Vegeta pushed his ship aside and faced the glassman head on. He gave a slow and deliberate bow and settled into a fighting stance. After a pause, the glassman copied him exactly.

And they were off. If there had been any life on the neighboring planets, and if it had been stargazing at that moment, it would have seen the entire gold planet light up with a brilliant spectacle of rainbow sparks and prismatic watercolors. Only a planet harder than diamond could withstand the stress of their fight.

And as he made bruising contact with the glassman, for the first time, Vegeta realized that he was the softest thing around for light years. He could tell himself that it didn't matter. He'd broken glass many times before.

Vegeta was sent skidding across the golden ground, leaving a blood-red wake, the glassman disappearing behind the small horizon as the starry sky swung dizzyingly into place overhead. He twisted to avoid crashing into his ship which he'd lost track of when the fight began, then he nearly broke his neck going over a bump on the otherwise smooth planet's surface. Vegeta scrambled to grab ahold of another passing speed bump, finally getting control over his slip over the frictionless marble. He jumped to his feet when he saw the Saiyanoid figures. Even though they were almost entirely obscured by milky gold, it was unmistakably dead aliens buried under glass that made up the bumpy, no, casket-ridden, ground. Vegeta didn't wait for the glassman to appear on the horizon again, he took off back the way he had came.

The planet was so tiny that the glassman just appeared. Neither of them had time to react, it was by a lucky position that Vegeta happened to get him around the middle and wrench him off his feet. Suddenly the planet was a postage stamp below them... they were suspended in dark space... Vegeta was clinging to the glassman now... they weren't suspended, they were falling and the gold marble was rushing back towards them at speed... Vegeta managed to get on top so that it was the glassman's back that cracked the planet's surface on impact. The resulting starburst of fiery orange was so intense it left spots in Vegeta's eyes. The glassman pinned Vegeta's wrists against his shoulders and slammed him backwards, again cracking the glass.

Vegeta struggled to his feet, ears ringing. He looked around. The glassman was nowhere to be seen and he was back with the glazed-over bodies. There was a few seconds for him to catch his breath. He still couldn't hear a thing, could barely keep his balance, it felt like the entire planet was shaking under him. Get it together.

He had almost recovered when the glassman came at him out of nowhere with a fist. Vegeta went to sidestep, found his boots covered in gold glass almost past the ankle, and took the glassman's punch to the side of his head while he tried to free himself. A fine gold dust had coated him from head to toe and his ear felt wet. While Vegeta brought a hand up and confirmed it was blood, the glassman attacked him again. He was knocked back to the ground, his feet still stuck. His blood on the glass was fluorescent, backlit by the golden light. The glassman towered over him yet Vegeta had to smile with his mouth wide open. This was just the end of round one, and he wasn't going to die here.

Two smooth hands and two rough hands grabbed Vegeta's arms and yanked him back, so sharply that the glass shattered and both his boots stayed on his feet.

Vegeta had been so distracted that he hadn't heard them land, hadn't smelled them until just now. Zarbon and Dodoria. With the two of them holding him off the ground, he couldn't get away. He kicked and spat while the glassman looked on in his version of confusion, and then the third presence made himself known.

Freeza.

"What are you doing?!" Vegeta screamed at them. Freeza, walking on his own two feet for once, slowly came up behind the unsuspecting glassman. And he slowly, slowly, slowly held up a delicate finger. "No! No! GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!"

With no more pomp and circumstance than his usual executions, Freeza pointed off a thin beam of light. And the glassman went down no differently than any 1,200 soldier. Hairpin cracks formed in his skin as he fell and he shattered into millions of rainbow shards on impact. The gold planet's surface did not light up underneath him.

Vegeta's desperate struggles to escape melted into one long cry. The hands finally released him and he fell heavily to his hands and knees. There was something in his throat. He couldn't breathe.

Vegeta coughed blood and raised his trembling head to look up at Freeza with oily eyes. "Wh... wh... why?"

"How could any leader stand by while one of my best men is being attacked?" Freeza said impassively. "I'm concerned... you almost don't sound grateful that I personally saved your life."

"I did this by the book. He was mine," Vegeta said, gravel voice scraping against pavement throat.

Freeza cocked his head just a degree to the side. "Isn't it frustrating when someone you have plans for gets killed?"

Vegeta's sides heaved with something that scared him. Something he was trying with all he had to keep down. He dragged himself to his feet and straightened up to face Freeza. Five minutes passed punctuated only by Vegeta's harsh breathing.

"I'd like you to get back on your knees and apologize to me."

"No," Vegeta snarled. He couldn't imagine anything more humiliating.

"Mr. Vegeta. Bow."

Vegeta didn't look away and he didn't move. His face was ugly twisted in rage.

"Do it."

Zarbon and Dodoria stared in disbelief at the Saiyan who still faced their master head-on. This was beyond stubborn... beyond stupid. He was asking Lord Freeza to kill him.

Freeza sighed and lifted that same finger. Vegeta took in a sharp breath and his heart kicked up... but he didn't move. Freeza lazily pointed at Vegeta's chest. An impossible weight pressed on his shoulders.

He held out for ten whole seconds. Then he was forced down to all fours in front of Freeza, head bent in defeat.

"I'm... sorry..." Vegeta said, voice dripping with hatred. The weight didn't lift.

"Mr. Zarbon, Mr. Dodoria, and myself will be relocating to our newest acquisition, Planet Freeza 27. You will find your spaceship has been locked to follow ours. You have been promoted to Lord status. Once we've settled in and you have begun your training, you will be permitted to send for Mr. Nappa and Mr. Raditz. From now on, they are under your official jurisdiction."

Vegeta could hear Freeza walking away but he still couldn't lift his head. And suddenly he could. He jumped up, all the power he had rushing back at once.

"I—" Freeza turned around but Vegeta had already cut himself off. I should have made Ronji do it. One more word of that sentence and he'd be dead. It was a miracle ten times over that he was alive as it was.

He screamed I hate you! I hate you!. He bit. He scratched. He maimed. He turned the danger from silent threats into full-contact for the first time, finally making up for a lifetime of paralyzed hell.

No, he didn't, he trembled like the last leaf on the branch in the winds of winter.

*⁂*⁂*

In the middle of a monsoon, Café le Cliffe on Planet Lei was only accessible by day. The heavy rains always doubled down at night and anyone trying to take a gondola all the way up would plummet to their death before making it halfway. So the handful of baristas and overnight guests were surprised when a figure in a floor-length hooded cloak came through the door at twenty-three minutes to midnight.

Its small white boots were made of cloth and barely made a sound as they padded across the shadowy wooden floor. Everyone in the café watched it order a mint tea at the counter and then take a seat at a table in the corner. Before his tea had cooled enough to drink, no one was paying attention to Lord Vegeta anymore.

He had been thinking a lot in these past eight months, so obsessed and so angry he couldn't recognize himself in the mirror anymore. The question that haunted him day after day: should he have kept Ronji alive?

It took far too long to face the facts. The only way that Ronji would have killed Freeza for Vegeta would be if he would take up the mint and chocolate burden himself. He'd seen Ronji's hunger first hand. He couldn't do it.

Vegeta closed his eyes, burned his tongue on a sip of tea, and tried to forget who he was for the first time.

Rain drummed on the windows outside. The milk fridge kicked up with a hum. Chairs scraped the floor and voices whispered to each other. Plans to go shopping the next day. Stories from work. Quiet vows of love. Even with all the travelling he'd done, all the vastly different places he'd been, this was a side of life that he was completely detached from.

Vegeta's head snapped up and he quickly adjusted his hood. He could have sworn someone in the room said his name.

"—Thought they all died in that rebellion. They said most of the inhabited planets in the other half were involved."

"No, Freeza brought the hundred or so ones he had left with him."

"I heard they honored him as a war hero, doing what he did at only twelve years old. They made statues of him and named a planet after him."

"No, that's an urban legend. Planet Bejīta just coincidentally sounds similar."

"Still pretty scary to think someone like him wasn't left behind in the war. I guess Freeza's pretty anxious to hold on to the Saiyans he has left."

"I bet he's out there killing people right now. I'm glad Rei's on the outskirts of the galaxy. We'd be sitting ducks if anyone knew who we were."

His reputation preceded him. The galaxy was vast and full of many, many warriors who were stronger than the glassman. In time, Vegeta would fight them all.

He couldn't stand it anymore. "Nappa."

"Yeah?"

"Can anyone listen in through your scouter?"

"Hold on... Now they can't."

"What do you think of Freeza? Do you like him?"

There was a long pause. Vegeta could almost hear the gears turning in Nappa's head, probably caught off-guard by a rare moment of introspection. "Sorry, Vegeta, I know what he did to you but he's a good guy. He gives us all the fights we want. Coming from my old position, serving Freeza—" Vegeta's grip tightened on his mug "—is heaven. That asteroid hitting Planet Vegeta was the best thing that could have happened."

"Are your true loyalties with him or with me?"

This time, the silence on Nappa's end was deafening.

Vegeta continued. "I know you're sick of being tied to my family. Obligation means little to us Saiyans on a good day. Looking at actions, Freeza gave you entire worlds and I only let you live. But when it comes down to it, which of us would go farther to help you? And most of all, what kind of life are we Saiyans supposed to lead? We both know not one of fucking servitude." Vegeta fought to keep his voice down. The smooth jazz wafting through the room could only cover up so much.

"... You know I'm loyal to you. If I wasn't, you would have killed me back then. What are you trying to get at, Vegeta?"

"If I told you I was going to attack Freeza, would you rat me out?"

"Attack—you're—there's no way—"

Vegeta laughed softly. "Don't worry. You think I'm that stupid? I was just testing you." And with that he hung up.

It was true, he'd have to be beyond stupid. But Freeza wasn't a fellow warrior, he was just an obstacle. Unlike Vegeta, his power wasn't earned. Which could only mean that it was temporary.

*⁂*⁂*

On the mothership parked in orbit above Planet Freeza 27, Zarbon and Freeza had a moment alone while the crew prepared for travel.

"Lord Freeza, may I humbly inquire as to why you left Vegeta alive, much less made him a Lord?"

"... I seem to recall you asking me a similar question after I accepted him back from his four year absence. I'll explain under the condition that you stop questioning me on this. Mr. Vegeta has uncanny instincts, more so than any other Saiyan I've met. He left, not only because he sensed his weak position in the Force, but also because he knew he wouldn't be missed. I never considered executing him over that. If he had waited much longer, certainly. But he came back after what was a glorified hiatus and he had turned himself from a child into a very useful asset."

"But Ronji? It's been a rule from the start that soldiers of Vegeta's rank don't have the authority to do what he did, whether he had a good reason or not."

"That rule is in place to ensure cocky young upstarts don't act outside of my will. Like you, I believe that Mr. Vegeta made a very rash, very selfish decision. But I also believe that he would not have done so if he thought me to disapprove." Freeza chuckled. "It seems we know each other well."

"But sir," Zarbon said in exasperation, "the example you're setting for the other soldiers..."

"He has committed three acts of insurgence against me during his time here, all years apart. I don't give chances to everyone who serves under me, and Mr. Vegeta has used all of his up. Not one more incident. I think he knows that as well."

"All right, maybe I can understand why you didn't punish him. But why reward him? Why make him a Lord?"

Freeza smiled. "Oh dear, have you forgotten the meaning of your own title, Mr. Zarbon? Mr. Vegeta will be working directly under me from now on. It may look like a promotion in your eyes, and perhaps in his as well, but he will soon come to reality. Now please go up to the deck and summon Mr. Dodoria for a meeting here in ten minutes."

*⁂*⁂*

Alone now, Freeza stared out the glass wall at his newly-born planet. By now half the sentient galaxy belonged to him. But he had inherited most of that half from his father, now retired, who had inherited it from his grandfather, dead. Even with supreme power they were sickeningly mortal. He would have to leave the total conquering of this galaxy to his children's children. And forget about the rest of the universe. Just making the trip between galaxies would take lifetimes.

If only there was a way to stay young. He would take this galaxy with ease. Then he'd move onto the next one. And the next. And the next.

Yes... if Freeza could have one wish, that's what it would be.

*⁂*⁂*

As the hours went by and—lucky for them—nobody came near to bother him, Vegeta sunk lower and lower in his chair. A tired peace was finding him at last and he was dozing in the warm café with the rain outside on the planet full of people who did not yet know to fear him. He finally knew why he was alive.

At some point he was going to kill Freeza. Imagine ruling the universe in Freeza's stead. No... that was so far off right now that he couldn't see it. Imagine living life as a free man. Able to fight whoever he wanted. That was the only way he'd find a true rival.

THE END