Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ A Bond Revealed ❯ part 2 - for real this time ( Chapter 2 )

Time. Fate. Destiny.

Who is to say what these things hold? Who is to say what is in store? Some feel that what is to come is written in the stars and cannot be escaped. Some, though, do not accept what the future brings. Some create their own destiny. These are the few depicted in legends and fairytales but even fairytales have some basis in reality. These individuals contain such strength of will, such strength of spirit as to be able to do the impossible. They are a testament to life itself and the hardship it contains.

Life is such a fragile thing. So fleeting.

The mind is much more powerful. Especially to one trapped within it.

-------------

Goku found himself standing, whole again, upon snake way.

Alone.

He stood quietly and mourned. Finally an end has come and there is no going back. A small twinge of bitterness rose in his throat but he pushed it away. Life still went on…in a way. They now had a new adventure to explore and it came without the threat of death.

The odds had been against them. The power of the destroyers was too great. They had been toyed with, slowly beaten down. Even fused he and Vegeta had little hope. Goku had been the first to fall and not stand again. As he lay in pain and bleeding, unable to even lift his head, his eyes found the battered form of Vegeta not far away. Dust and ash clouded the landscape but he could still see the prince. He too was on the verge of collapse. But still he stood defiant and regal to the end despite the way he swayed in the hot wind. Goku recalled the memory Vegeta had given him of his death before Freiza. Now as Goku gazed upon Vegeta he knew there would be no one to win, no one would carry on. The evil ones would not pay this time. Earth had lost. They had lost. Vegeta's majestic form was the last thing Goku saw before his body was destroyed.

Now Goku felt no pain or hurt. He was whole and healthy again. He felt completely alone. That other pain, those other emotions were gone. He could not feel Vegeta anymore. That above all else brought tears to his eyes. Vegeta had finally opened to him, though it turned out painful for Goku. Painful beyond anything he could imagine but the earth raised Saiyan would not trade it for the universe. He had finally allowed Goku in and had left their mind link partially open until the end.

And now it was gone.

Goku sat down in the center of the path. He knew it would not be long. Vegeta would join him soon. They would travel snake way together.

-----------------

Vegeta rocked on his heels. The pain shooting through him was all that held him conscious. He was broken, bloody and impotent. It had been a long time since he had felt this way. Things had been so peaceful for the last few years. He watched helplessly as Goku's body drove a furrow into the ground to come to a halt before him.

Vegeta knew death when he gazed upon it. He'd seen it and dealt it enough in his lifetime. Goku was now trading life for death. A burst of anger shot through Vegeta. Goku was trading not only his own life but Vegeta's life as well. He was killing Vegeta as he himself was being killed.

'You selfish bastard! How can you give up?'

Vegeta could feel Goku fading. He stared up at the attackers with hate and anger. The Z warriors had always stood strong, had always been victorious. They had always found a way. He could not believe the end had finally come. They'd stood against so much. How could they stop now? It was inconceivable. He would not give way. He could not give way.

Never surrender!

Never give up!

Never defeated!

Trade death for life!

The familiar litany paraded across his mind, hardening him, strengthening him.

'I am the Prince of all Saiyajin. I am the last. I cannot lose! It is my destiny to win.'

'My Birthright!!'

Then Goku's body was incinerated and excruciating pain sliced through Vegeta as the bond was broken.

"No…"

Vegeta fell to his knees as despair and emptiness washed over him, blocking out everything around him. He stared vacantly ahead as his will was leached away by the emptiness. Where there had been a familiar, even welcome presence in his mind there now was a void. That void, so familiar, so horrible, spread threatening to overwhelm and swallow him. He felt as though his life had been ripped from him leaving behind only a shell. He was still capable of feeling the pain, the agony that was his life, but HIS life was gone.

Nothing!

Nothing left!

The barriers he'd erected throughout his mind just for this moment began to crack and crumble. No amount of forethought could protect him from the hole that had appeared inside. This collapse was familiar. He'd experienced it twice before, but that did little to brace him for the horribleness of it.

'No! Cannot give in!'

For the second time in his life he felt deep in his heart at the core of his very being that someone MUST win! He was the only one left. In the dark void of his mind Vegeta stood and howled in frustration and anguish but the sound was swallowed up and torn away.

The last survivor gripped his head in his hands and fell to his knees at the edge of the ditch that marked Kakarott's grave. Despite clenched teeth a feeble keening sob of hopelessness broke free.

The evil ones paused in their rampage. They paused to watch the fallen prince as he kneeled before them. Evil cackles surrounded the prone Saiyajin. The sound of his tormentors' glee pulled him from his internal struggle and back to reality causing him to look up with empty, watery eyes. In desperation he seized himself once again.

'How dare they laugh!'

'I will not be mocked!'

Vegeta desperately drew his energy into himself, trying to fill that black hole within. He had to stop the pain! He had to function, to live. Kakarott did this! *He* did this to him! He would not give up, he would never give up like that weakling! No one controlled him least of all Kakarott! He had to stop the pain so he could stop them. Stop the laughter!

'I. WILL. NOT. BE. MOCKED.'

He drew on his power, drew it into that empty space inside himself, grasped it to himself as if it were life. His life! The only life he had left.

It disappeared into that hollow space and still he drew more. He had to fill it. Had to live!

More and more. Stop the pain!

He drew so much power he felt it would smother him BUT HE COULD NOT STOP. Fire coursed through his veins. All physical pain disappeared in the wake of the burning sensation that washed over his body. He could not feel his limbs anymore and his body numbed around him until all he could feel was the fire and the blankness inside.

Still the void engulfed him, an emptiness that threatened to swallow his mind.

As Vegeta concentrated solely upon the agony inside his mind his body revolted against the onslaught of raw untamed energy coursing through it. Fiery eyes watched curiously as the beaten prince convulsed where he knelt. A scream of incomprehensible agony erupted from his throat high and piercing in its peal before his numb body impacted with the rocky ground, nerveless fingers dug furrows in the dust as he thrashed violently.

"He has taken to madness in the face of our power," exclaimed one being.

Laughter erupted once again and flowed over Vegeta's ears.

The prince had begun to lose his steely grip upon himself until the laughter again pervaded the nothingness surrounding him. Faces began to appear all around. Faces that meant nothing to him and faces belonging to those he once knew.

Freiza appeared and his mocking leer burned into Vegeta. He spun around to face Majin Buu, it's grin insulting in its stupidity. To one side appeared Ginyu surrounded by his flunkies. Vegeta turned again and hissed. There before him stood murai Trunks with hatred ripe on his features. All around him they appeared, all around the laughter continued, taunting and despising. In the midst of his torment Vegeta found himself face to face with Goku. The prince stopped short to stare into that face, it held no malice like the others. Instead it held a sad lopsided smile.

"Come on, Vegeta, you've suffered enough. Come rest for a while, you can't win anyway. Come with me."

Rage swept through the royal Saiyajin and he bellowed his hate into the echoing emptiness shattering all the surrounding faces, all except Goku's.

"Never! I don't need you to win my battles! I don't need you to tell me when I am beaten! And I don't need you to live!! My life is MY OWN and I control my own destiny!!"

With new furry and resolve Vegeta threw a blast of power at Goku's visage, shattering it. Then he called once more upon the energy around him and fed it to the void. New hope dared to rise in his heart as he stared across the bleak horizon of his mind. Light appeared. A light in the darkness. It was as if the sun had appeared to vanquish a lifetime of night. With all of his might Vegeta reached for that light, he felt its searing warmth and thirsted for more.

Warmth. Peace.

He reached out for it. 'How could something so pure exist in this place?' He wondered to himself. All around him it was frozen and black. The essence of putrid horror and damnation that he had drawn to himself over so much time. But the light was just beyond his fingertips…if only he could reach…

------------

An energy blast erupted from the pitiful creature before them causing their laughter to cease.

"It is time we finished this."

They closed in for the kill, circling the prone Saiyajin, when a sudden increase in energy sent them reeling away.

Vegeta's prone form rose up into the air seemingly alight from the inside out. His blond hair rippled and waved in a fiery blaze. Yet another cry wrenched from his throat though it sounded distorted as if the very air had thickened around his body. The prince opened his eyes to find himself once more on the battlefield. He raised his hands before his eyes and gazed in wonder at the power radiating from them as if it were flame licking at his skin.

It was amazing.

Glancing around himself he saw the destroyers scrambling back to their feel. The hatred in their eyes was unmistakable.

He felt strange. There was no bloodlust, no Saiyajin rage. He felt…nothing. This new power had brought with it an eerie calm that Vegeta had never experienced in battle before. The killers began to regroup around him, their movements drawing his attention.

"I shall not make the same mistakes I have made in the past. You all should suffer for what you have done but I shall not be the cause. I commend you to hell."

The last living Saiyajin and last living person on earth held out his hand and the evil ones turned to dust in a hiss of energy.

Vegeta stood alone upon a now dead planet. Emotionlessly he gazed upon the scorched earth where Goku's body had lain only minutes ago. Nearby lay a charred bag. Without a thought he appeared next to it. Stiffly and without grace he collapsed onto one knee and opened the sack. Out fell half of one tiny senzu bean. He'd told Kakorott earlier to take the last bean. As usual the low-class baka had disobeyed him. He picked up the half bean with a sure and steady hand.

Once again he marveled at this power. He felt no pain yet he could feel every injury, every part of his body that was not the way it was supposed to be. On top of his many fatal wounds he could feel the power eating away at him. His body could not contain it much longer. Silently Vegeta vanished from the ruined battleground. The only trace of his presence was a small patch of glass where the sand had melted under his knee.

Vegeta appeared upon his island hideaway, still untouched by the planet wide warfare. He stood for another moment knowing that he would never be able to feel this kind of power again. He also knew that it would be a long time before he felt the sense of peace that filled him. That is, if he survived between letting go of this energy and managing to swallow the last senzu bean on earth. He drew a deep breath and held the bean before his mouth. With a last smug thought that he'd finally surpassed Kakarott he released the power.

The pain was so intense that he nearly choked upon the bean as he collapsed but he finally was able to swallow. It seemed like ages before the pain subsided and the healing began, bones fused themselves back together and organs became hole again. But while his body healed his mind tore apart once again and he screamed in mental agony.

Holding his head in his hands Vegeta stumbled into his complex and to the medical room. Anything he found in his way was thrown clear until he found the medicinal supply.

He needed something, ANYTHING to stop the pain! At least until he could adapt, until he could stand it enough to survive. His hand fell upon a trank gun. By now he was shaking violently. The desperate prince snatched up the gun and injected himself with the entire vial. Slowly Vegeta lowered his head to the table with a sob of relief before collapsing onto the ground blissfully unconscious.

---------------

Goku sat upon snake way becoming increasingly agitated.

"Where is he? Something must have happened, he couldn't have gone strait to hell. He has to follow snake way just like me doesn't he? Maybe he's at a different part, I'll just have to look."

Goku started walking on his own.

---------------

"I cannot live like this!"

Once again the Saiyajin no Ouji found himself at odds with survival. He was alive! He had chosen his own fate and was now paying for it dearly. He would not let that worthless Saiyan/Ningen kill him! But he had to do SOMETHING or he would go mad!

Vegeta stumbled down the hallway. In one hand was the trank gun and in the other was a bag of vials, he had learned that the sedatives helped to numb his mind from the pain and emptiness of his broken link. But together they also made it nearly impossible for him to think and function.

"I must get the dragonballs…No, I can't. They were destroyed with Dende. Namick! I must go to Namick and use those dragonballs."

The trank gun fell from nerveless fingers and the drugged Saiyajin fell to his knees to retrieve it.

This was not working very well.

Stumbling back to his feet the man entered his living quarters. Somehow he managed to change from his bloody rags into a new set of clothes then he snatched up a bag and stuffed into it the sedatives, the gun and some more random clothes. Then he made his way out of the complex and waveringly into the sky.

A short while later Vegeta landed at the destroyed C.C. and blasted his way through the rubble and into the underground labs. Energy flared around him haphazardly and he released it randomly at anything barring his unsteady, desperate progress. Though Vegeta grew more and more emotionally unstable as the tranks wore off he knew that he needed a semi clear head to be able to launch a space pod if he could find one intact. Since the lower levels were relatively unharmed he hoped the pods were too.

For once luck was with the Saiyajin prince and he was able to launch and preset the controls for new Namick all without becoming terminally suicidal. Once the pod cleared the atmosphere Vegeta could no longer stand the pain of emptiness. He spent the most of the long journey unconscious and blessedly unaware.

----------------

Goku finally approached the gates of the afterlife but he wanted to find Vegeta. Perhaps he should have waited longer. Vegeta could be behind him still on snake way. Unwilling to continue on Goku sat down to wait.

Goku jerked awake before relaxing again.

"Heh, must have dozed off for a minute. Wait a sec, I'm dead, I don't need to sleep."

He looked around confusedly.

"Hey, I'm on earth again!" He felt out with his chi. "Everyone is on earth again! The dragonballs!"

Excitedly Goku leaped up and transported to Dende's place.

"Dende, were back!"

The little green namic was just as excited as he, "Yes, Goku. Vegeta wished us back".

"But how? When you died the dragonballs disappeared didn't they?"

"Vegeta is on Namick," Dende replied.

"He is?! Thanks Dende, I gotta go!"

Goku again transported away, this time to King Kai's and then to Namick.

Once on Namick Goku sensed Vegeta right away but there was something wrong. The link was fully open but Goku couldn't make sense of it. It almost seamed…fuzzy. Immediately he teleported to Vegeta's location.

Vegeta stood in the center of a circle of Namicks watching the balls disperse. He didn't know how long it had been since Goku's death but the damage was finally gone from his mind. He was at peace once again. More than peaceful now that nothing held the sedatives back. Then he felt HIM. The world spun as Vegeta turned to see the astonished Saiyan. He didn't realize he'd fallen until Goku's arms wrapped around him to hold him up.

Goku knew that something was very wrong when he saw Vegeta's dilated eyes slowly focus on him. When the prince began to fall to his knees and Goku transported to him before he even hit the ground. Vegeta's too large eyes met his again and Goku found the royal Saiyajin's hand latched tightly around his throat.

"You BASTARD…" came a weak and gravelly voice, "I'll kill you…for what you put me through! You low-class baka… How dare you!"

The hand squeezed tighter causing Goku to choke slightly. Suddenly Vegeta's lips engulfed his own roughly and it was all Goku could do not to fall over in surprise. Then the pressure on his lips and throat were gone and instead he found himself staring at an oncoming fist. Goku's cheek throbbed achingly and he shook his head to clear it only to find the prince latched onto his clothing with his face buried against his chest. Four racking sobs shook the two of them before the smaller Saiyajin quieted.

Goku glanced around in helpless wide-eyed shock at the surrounding Namicks. One of the elders stepped forward and addressed Goku.

"We found him this way when his ship landed a short time earlier. He seems to be heavily drugged though he was much more coherent before his wish was made. He had the look of a tortured soul."

Goku looked down at the now unconscious form huddled against him.

"I had no idea that breaking our bond would cause such pain. He told me he would die but… Thank you for helping him. You've saved all of earth."

"How could we not after all you have done for us?"

Goku programmed Vegeta's space pod to travel to earth. Then with the prince cradled in his arms he transported them both home. He took Vegeta to his island and put him into a rejuvenation tank. He hoped it would clear the chemicals out of his system and restore some much needed nutrients. It looked like Vegeta hadn't eaten well for some time. Meanwhile Goku waited. It seemed like he'd been doing that a lot lately.

Vegeta dragged himself from the tank slowly. He did not remember returning to earth. He did not remember much beyond deciding to go to Namick. Since he was back he must have succeeded. Once his feet were on the ground Vegeta opened his mind link and felt Goku not far away. Quickly he closed it again suppressing a sigh. He could also feel Bulma to the North. He did remember what it had been like to lose both of them, though Goku's link had been much stronger and much worse.

"Damn that Kakarott."

He retrieved a towel and exited to his bedroom where he clothed himself in some loose sweats and a tank top. The smell of food drew him out again.

When Goku saw him a wide grin spread across his face. Vegeta gave a snarl when he realized how happy he was to see that idiotic grin.

"Vegeta! How do you feel?"

Vegeta stopped short at that question. His expression was incredulous.

"I am so utterly enraged by what I went through when you decided to die - When you decided to KILL me - that I am shocked that I have the will not to kill you again."

Goku looked confused for a moment and could think of no reply to that so he went back to serving the food.

"Oh…I didn't…"

The big Saiyan started to deny but it was pointless. He WAS the reason Vegeta had suffered and he still didn't know the extent to which he had.

Vegeta sat at the table and glared at Goku's back. After a minute he rested his forehead in his hand and sighed. Goku brought the food to the table and sat opposite the prince. The Ouji looked squarely into Goku's eyes and grumbled angrily.

"Nothing held back, Kakarott."

"Wha…?"

Vegeta poured everything from the moment Goku died into Goku's surprised mind, smirking in satisfaction as the big man grabbed his head with a shout. All the pain and emptiness, even the struggle Vegeta had had in his own mind. The prince even shared that absolute power he'd found and almost been consumed by. At the end he searched Goku's mind for what had happened on Namick.

Irately he glared at Kakarott. He had been shocked at his own actions when the baka found him on Namick but there was little to be done now, he had been flying high at the time anyway. He wasn't sure what difference it would make so he left the subject alone. Before Goku could recover he mentally retreated and began to eat.

'He better not dare get any weird ideas about that!'

I was not satisfied with this ending but I couldn't really think of a better one. If I do I will keep in mind to replace it but who knows. Well, it's not quite the same as the first part as you could see. I pretty much kinda pulled it out of my @$$ but I felt a need to continue it. Feel free to hate it but if you like it please let me know. Thanx guys.