Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Fathoming Love ❯ Chapter 7 ( Chapter 7 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

“Of all the lessons he taught me,” Vegeta continued. “It was the lesson of beauty that held the most importance for Zarbon. That it wasn’t simply an outside thing that your eyes could behold. That beauty could be overlooked, or invisible if not used. That it was potentially in everything around us, but that it had to be shown.

“Use it as a tool Vegeta.” Zarbon insisted, reluctantly calling me by my true name.

“And this I did, as I had done before. I used it to deceive others. To get what I wanted. To have whatever way I wished with Frieza, whom I soon was to find out from Zarbon, was what you would call a “sucker” for tiny creatures such as myself, young in age and in crimes. By the age of seven, I was his ultimate favorite, going on every planet clearing adventure that I wanted, most of the time being accompanied by Zarbon.

“But I skip ahead. I’m clearly a terrible story teller Tazial. You’ll have to forgive me on this one. Let me start from the point that I left off. Or, from where I became, as it were, Valique, the pet of the powerful commander Zarbon.

“I was soon to learn that despite his gorgeous, almost dainty appearance, Zarbon himself was nearly as feared as Frieza. And no, I’m not saying that he wasn’t built as I am now, with muscles and the whole bit. But like me, he had a secret to his appearance. Behind my angelic face was a crafty mind and a hell of a power house. Behind his mind blowing beauty was a blood thirsty monster.

‘ “What is the beauty without the beast?” Zarbon smiled.

“And when I say beast Tazial, I’m not being pretentious. I’m not simply talking about the dark person that we are inside, or his habit of taking lives at leisure. Zarbon was an Aqualian with the power to transform his appearance from that of a possibly 23 year old androgyny, to a hideous reptilian creature with strength triple that of the other form. To say that he preferred his godlike beauty form over the other, would be a gross understatement. To say that he disliked the other form would be an understatement. For he LOATHED IT! He hated to even admit it was there and would have denied its presence altogether if it weren’t for the few times he’d changed before my very eyes, protecting me from predators on the ship that preyed on young, “defenseless” creatures such as myself.

“I was also soon to learn that Zarbon didn’t age as I did, never looking a day older than his youthful self, though he claimed to be at least fifty Aqualian years old. Zarbon insisted on dressing me as the Prince I was, or had formally been, spending horrendous amounts of money in order to purchase imported finery for me. I was his little Valigue, his pet, as other malicious voices informed me. And although the boy I had been before would have died before accepted such a loathsome position in life, he became my protector and in more ways than I can count, he became my father.

“Not even the next night after my unexplainable meeting with Zarbon, I was moved into the finest “boy” quarters in the ship, bunking alone in a king sized bed, treated with milk baths and the finest of food. It was a far cry better than the rat infested, snake hole I’d been reduced to previously. The scent of the air was fresh and clean, the other planet orphans clever and silent in my presence, knowing that my strength, though my appearance told otherwise, was beyond their capabilities.

“While being trained to fight with my fists, I was also well taught in fighting with my mind, seeking out every single possibility and conceivable move that would turn the fight around in my favor. I was taught philosophies and history of a thousand different worlds. I was told the secrets of immortality that had been found to be nothing more than myths. I was told sickening legends of love, of betrayal, of lies, of death, of murderer, of revenge. Name it, I was informed of it.

“But none of it interested me. Nothing could compare to my feeling of life when Zarbon would rescue me from these lessons, gathering me against his leg as he brought me forth from the room, taking me on all kinds of adventures. At times we would wander aimlessly around the ship, visiting different corridors and decks, him informing me of their usefulness and functions, and me simply watching his lips move to form the words. He was like a God to me. I HAD to prove myself to him in everything. I had to excel at fighting, which was never that hard for me anyways. But rather then slack off in my studies of history, as I had undoubtedly done when on my own planet, I absorbed each fact as if it was the answer to every question in the universe.”

“So he was your teacher then?” I asked impatiently, watching as he mulled over the question.

“He was all I knew.” He said simply. “All I cared to know. In him I found every aspect of a person that I wished I could be. He was ruthless, uncaring, hard and cold. He cared nothing for mercy, and if he ever felt it, I cannot tell you even to this day. A large part of me thinks that he didn’t. He could kill with absolutely no pity. None. He could stare into the eyes of an alien child, watching the tears leave streaks of water on the plump and ruddy face, hear the pleas and sobs, and bam!”

I jumped as he smacked the surface of the table.

“Absolutely nothing.”

“But Vegeta.” I gasped, moving slightly away from him. “You said that he was……. That you found aspects, characteristics in him that you wanted to be. That he was what YOU wanted to be. How can you…….” I cleared my throat, pursing my dry lips. “How can you say that you wanted to be like him when he slaughtered children? Why in God’s name would you want that?!”

“Tazial,” he sighed, as if what he was about to say was pitifully unimportant. “Good and bad………. These qualities weren’t the same to us. The universal ideas of good and bad vary much more than you can even imagine. What is good? What is bad?”

I choked, unable to answer.

“Every culture has its ideas, don’t deny that. How are you to assume that in another world it isn’t TOTALLY different? AND, how are you going to assume that your opinion on the subject is better than theirs? Who are humans to decide what’s right and wrong? Good and bad?”

“But murder is…… wrong!” I spat, horrified that he would imply otherwise and SERIOUSLY doubting his innocence regarding the death of his wife.

“Is it?” He said as if actually undecided and wanting my thoughts on the matter. “Or is there such a thing as….. a time to kill?”

Again, I sat speechless, looking at him coolly as if my eyes could reprimand him for such careless, heartless things.

“At that time, I didn’t think murder was wrong. You have to remember Camden, I was NEVER brought up with morals such as you were. The ideals, rules and unspoken laws were completely different from anything you’ve ever known. Probably because for the most part, there WASN’T any laws or rules. The strong survived, the weak perished. The strong killed the weak for the sin of BEING weak. So you strived to be strong by killing the weak. THAT was life. And simply because you’ve been brain washed to believe that such a lifestyle is a crime against humanity, NEVER assume that others feel the same. Right and wrong are figments of personal imagination. Like you humans say, “don’t bash it till you try it’.”

I was mortified. He could tell.

“But enough of this talk Tazial.” He waved the air, dismissing the matter entirely.

“Yes,” I agreed, licking my lips. “Yes you were saying that Zarbon was your protector of sorts.”

He squinted, looking at me strangely.

“Did I refer to him as that?” he asked. “I don’t recall ever labeling Zarbon as my personal protector really. True, he stuck beside me and was miraculously there whenever the usual scuffles and brawls broke out, but you have to realize that there were many things that Zarbon wouldn’t, and COULDN’T protect me from. Namely Frieza.

“As soon as I was moved into my new quarters I was immediately to find out the price to such lavish surroundings and the reason why the very few boys that inhabited the room with me were unimaginably pretty. Beauty, as Zarbon explained it, had its advantages and its curses, as did everything in the way of things. And beauty was amongst God’s most wonderful blessings he bestowed upon the universe. Therefore, those who possessed such a gift from God were unspeakably closer to his heart than any others, which I suppose makes some sort of sense simply because he would not have given them such an appearance if he didn’t favor them.

“And while most men find the beauty of women intoxicating, as I do, Frieza was breath taken by the fresh, girlish features of young boys. But this alone would not have inspired Frieza to take the drastic measures that he did. It was the low numbers of lives we had taken that pulled us magnetically to him, willing or not. A thousand deaths on this ship was what you would call a low number, and the creature that had taken them, an innocent.

“The next morning after I had ‘moved in’, as you call it, I was awoken by a barbarous man, savagely gripping my hair and yanking me to my feet. Moans and sharp cries from the boys around me sounding like an alarm and I was instantly thrashing at the meaty hand that was tangled in my hair. But it proved absolutely useless and I found my head spinning to the side as I was violently cuffed across the face, the walls twisting around me with the pain I hadn’t even registered yet.

“I fell to the floor, only to be grabbed up again, this time my temper accompanying me as I threw a mind blowing kick into his knee, pounding his ugly, sweaty face even as he fell to the ground trying to soothe the throbbing leg. The other boys watched in COMPLETE wonder as I pounded the intruder mercilessly, grabbing HIS hair wretchedly and smashing my fist repeatedly into his swollen face. He began to gurgle blood and I didn’t even once think to stop. Slam! Slam! Slam! And he collapsed to the floor, my pretty white boot coming down once, twice on the back of his head, the second time drenched with his brains and all the gory filth that surrounded it.

“Smiling at my somewhat easy triumph, I was taken back by the sheer number of guards that at once flooded the room, grabbing the other boys who apparently had no intention of fighting, and circling me and the dead body of the nameless soldier. I smirked as one by one they came at me, instead of simply jumping me as a group which would have been the smarter course of action that gangs of people seem to miss. And one by one I killed them, enthralled by the ease at which these grown men collapsed at my feet, piling upon one another as I ended them.

“And just when I thought that the last of them had fallen, a thousand more appeared, these ones uncommonly strong and unfathomably smarter. They came at me as a whole, and soon all I could see was a thousand arms and legs smashing into my small frame, me sinking down into the middle of them as they continued on and on needlessly.

“I must have at one point been knocked unconscious for I remember quite clearly simply waking up and being dragged by both arms through deck after deck. If I thrashed, they kicked me. If they kicked me, I screamed. If I screamed, they kicked me some more. And so I let them haul me shamelessly through one corridor after the next, before entering a large shrine of sorts. My blackened eyes opened painfully wide as I took in the glorious surroundings, remarking to myself almost humorously that Zarbon HAD to have been the designer for this room.

“Wall after wall was painted red, the dull lighting adding to the somewhat morbid colors and the bloody idols finishing the look. I imagine at least five thousand icons and images of so called “Gods” decorated the “church” we occupied, a hush going through the soldiers as they too looked at the gross and disturbing idols that marked five thousand lost planets. Blood Gods, Moon Deities, Cosmic Queens and Planet Kame’s decked out the golden tabernacle. Crosses such as you humans have, symbols of a hundred different styles and a hundred different meanings, all ending with the same idea. God.

“A placid pool of who-knows-what lay in the center of the church and one by one the young boys were forced onto their knees, many more I’d never seen filtering into the room, eyes wide with fright. Twelve small boys kneeled in the filthy water, hands in it as they stared down at their reflections, and we, the other twelve were to stand behind them. I was pushed behind a golden haired boy, face sweet and feminine as he stared down at me through the waving water. Tracks of tears went down his plump and rounded cheeks, diluting the horrible water with their purity. It was then that I took into account the garments we had all been forced to wear the night before, something that had never happened to me in the quarters I’d previously inhabited. White. White robes like a priest at a monastery.

“I breathed in cold air as a guard, much larger than the others stood behind me, his thumbs thumping on his forearms as he held them crossed over his chest. Chancing a glance next to me, I saw that there were indeed twelve guards, one standing behind each of the twelve standing boys, myself included.

“And without a word, without a signal, each of the twelve guards bent over and slit the throat of the kneeling boy, the sound of blood gushing into the awaiting water like that of a waterfall. Cries erupted around me and I felt a scream threaten to break forth, though I stifled it with the lump in my throat that was near to choking me where I stood.

“Sacrifices. Each boy a sacrifice to any of these icons that may have been a living and true God. I began to tremble uncontrollably, the kind of fear that I had no idea even existed. Mortal fear as I had not experienced it before. Not in the dungeon. Not on my reckless pillages of planets. Not in my battles even with Frieza. I cant explain it now and I didn’t understand it then, but I didn’t want to die in front of these statues. I didn’t want to die in this sacristy before these tributes to dead planets full of beliefs people had lived and died for. It was horrific to me for some reason. That I would die not by being courageous and strong but as a faithless sacrifice to Gods and ideas I didn’t even believe in. It was a travesty.

“Kneel!” Barked the monster of a man behind me, pushing me forward until I crashed to my knees directly beside the dead boy, soaking my white robe in cold water and warm blood. I could hear the whimpering and sobs of boys near me, the sound of tears slapping the surface of the dark red pool of water. My fingers dug into the stone beneath, my teeth grinding in my head as I bit back my own terrified screams, feeling the presence of the large man behind me and another boy.

“But I wasn’t going to cry. I knew that then, I know that now. Nothing on this mortal plane could have made me break down and cry at that moment. I was too proud. If I was going to die a useless death, let it be with dignity. No, I wanted to cry, I’m not going to deny you that knowledge. But I knew that it would do no good. Tears are simply a release from emotional pain, even physical. While inside I was screaming, my pride alone kept the pain down, even as I saw the distraught reflection of myself staring right back at me from the murky waters.

“Pray!” the man screamed, kicking my shoulders with the bottom of his foot until I was suspended on my elbows, my face nearly in the blood stained liquid. Pray?

“PRAY!!” He screamed again, a large leather tassel appearing in his hands as he whipped me with it. The leather prongs tore into my white robe, slashing into my back like glass, my own warm blood seeming to soothe it. I gritted my teeth, lowering my head as the whip came down again and again, tearing shards of stained cloth and flesh.

“Each of you pray to God!” The men were screaming, the sounds of hushed and miserable prayers filling the air. Each of the other eleven boys began to whimper verses of prayers, some singing hymns they remembered from their planets, or from their parents.

“The beastly man behind me beat me merciless yet again, his foot slamming into my exposed ribs.

“Pray you little fucker!” he screamed, kneeling down next to me, and grabbing a fist full of my hair. My head was yanked backwards, my eyes to the ceiling and my throat exposed to his hot breath as he told me to pray over and over.

“I have nothing to pray for!” I screamed through gritted teeth, the horror of my shame laid before me.

“Do you believe in God!?” he demanded wickedly, his foul breath overwhelming me momentarily. I hesitated unsure of any answer I could give. Saiyans believed in God. We were our God. We believed in the legendary Super Saiyan, a God amongst our people that was to rise and be the strongest known being in any universe. But mostly, we believed in our own virtues. We believed in strength and had no reason to answer to any one besides ourselves for our actions. Repentance and forgiveness were things we asked merely of ourselves.

“DO YOU BELIEVE IN GOD!?” He roared, pulling my head back until I was certain my neck would break. Without waiting for my answer he threw me forward once more, my face being drenched in blood diluted water. I was drowning in the frightening sounds of sobbing boys and forced prayers with no meaning or feeling.

“Pray for Lord Frieza.” The men commanded and I realized then exactly what was happening. And the audacity and the sickness of it collapsed upon me like a boulder. We were young and beautiful sacrifices for the forgiveness of Frieza. God would hear the prayers of the innocent. Hands stained with the blood of trillions upon trillions, Frieza’s only absolution was the prayers of children.

“Out of the corner of my eye I saw the gleam of the knives used to slaughter the boys before me, and knew at any moment I would be drenched with pain and with blood. And I was. Screams unlike anything natural I can think of erupted into the air and I felt the wet, hot splash of blood slap the back of my neck and shoulders, the body of the boy behind me smashing the area next to me with a repulsive crunch. I had been spared. He had not. Only us twelve remained and the bodies of twenty four others decorated the floor like gory confetti, the rank stench of death and blood swarming the thick air.

“Attention.” Said the sadistic soldier, walking behind each of us. “You who have been spared from the wrath of God on this day. Your life now belongs to Frieza entirely. Others before you and behind you are dead. For your power and your beauty alone you live. Forsake either one of these and you’ll join them.”

“And just like that we were forced to swear our allegiance to Frieza always for the merciful “sparing of our lives.” And on that day and every one that followed we were taken here to pray and to beg forgiveness for our Lord’s sins. Though sacrifices were used only on special occasions, it had been enough to bestow upon the others enough fear to keep them learning new songs and verses from Bibles. But it wasn’t enough for me. Between us, I never really did pray.”


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Nothing to say? HA! That’s what I thought… dumb crack head whore.

Love

Camaro