Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Orange Star High School ❯ The World's on Heroin ( Chapter 15 )

It's been awhile, no? Well… I've decided to finish this… and depending how much I have to work my ass off this summer at the fish cannery at night, well, you'll see what happens next

The title comes from the song of the same name by All. It's doesn't really relate, but I like the surrealistic-ness of it.

Oh and: GO CLASS OF '03!!!! YEAH!!! Bitch-ass… I'm no longer in high school hooyah!

Chapter Fifteen: The World's on Heroin

They had asked him again if he would like medical attention. He declined politely, saying that none of the blood was his, and if they could just escort him to the bathroom so he could wash itchy red marks off his face and arms he'd be quite fine.

When they asked him what had happened, he calmly explained that someone was dead, and that they could find him at his home address. They must have sent a car over quickly, because they came back fifteen minutes later and dragged him to an interrogation room.

They asked the mundane things first: What was his name? Where did he live? How old was he? Who was dead on the floor? He had responded in kind that his name was Vegeta Saiyajinn, he lived in the Riverdale apartments, he was eighteen years old, and the man on the floor was his stepfather, Frieza Icejin.

Their last question was harder to answer: Why?

Why had he murdered his stepfather? There were so many reasons… he was sick of the mess he left in the apartment, he'd grown tired of being belittled, he hated it when he beat him, and Frieza had brought up the one subject that was taboo to him and threw it in his face…

They left him for a time, and he could just see their shadows from behind the one-way glass mirror.

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

Jennifer Starling sighed and flipped her blonde ponytail over her shoulder as she stared through the glass mirror at the young man sitting calmly at the interrogation table. She was West City Police Department's forensic psychologist, and from the disgruntled looks on the faces of her coworkers coming out of the interrogation room, they needed her help.

"No luck?" She asked quietly in a faint monotone. Some of her coworkers didn't approve of her `soft' approach, so she always made sure to avoid sounding critical.

"Nah, he's locked up tight. Won't give us anything beyond who he killed…"

"In shock then…" she murmured mostly to herself. "I'd like a crack at him; maybe I'll soften him up for you. Do you have Polaroid's of the crime scene I could have a look at?"

The photos were handed over to her wordlessly. The first photo was of the dingy little apartment. It lacked adornment on the walls, and the floor was filthy. The next was of the filthy little kitchen, where a body lay sprawled out in it's own blood on the floor. The third was a close up of the victim, his face drawn in horror, multiple stab wounds littering his body.

"The stabs are too frenzied for him to have planned this. He was attacking because he was angry, or frightened, possibly both." She handed the photos back. "What do we know about his stepfather?"

"Drug dealer, one of Koola's lackeys, pretty big for the area."

"Has the boy been in any trouble previously?"

"We're running his name through the files right now."

"Then let him stew a little bit… Something made him snap, and I get the feeling we won't know the whole story until we find his weak point."

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

Bulma yawned as the boring Saturday night Cop movie ended. Yamucha was obsessed those kind of films, like all guys she supposed. They personally put Bulma to sleep.

"News Bulletin! Murder at Riverdale Apartments! What caused this teenager to snap and kill his stepfather? More tonight on the five o'clock news report on channel nine!"

The image only flashed up for a second, but Bulma recognized it immediately.

"Hey, Yamucha, wasn't that Vegeta?" She asked, looking at the clock and seeing it was five `til five.

"I didn't see."

Bulma snatched the remote off the coffee table and turned the volume up, and waited anxiously for the first time in her life, for the news to start.

The theme blared and the prim looking blonde blinked dully at the camera as it came to an end.

"Good evening, and now to our top story: At three P.M. today Frieza Icejin was brutally murdered in his apartment by his stepson, eighteen year old Vegeta Saiyajinn…"

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

Goku froze as "Vegeta Saiyajinn" blasted across the speakers of the Boys and Girls' club television in the workout room.

"… details are sketchy at this time, but the police are having a conference at eight o'clock, and KTUU will be there to cover it. Now on to national news…"

He blinked, and turned away from the screen… he couldn't imagine it… They must have been wrong… Vegeta was far too… moral, principled… weak, to kill anyone.

What had happened to the boy he once knew?

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

Chichi stared at the television screen from the vantage of her hospital bed. She couldn't see Vegeta killing anyone. He always seemed so afraid of his stepfather… Of course he had stood up to those two thugs, who were much larger and stronger than him.

Perhaps there was more to Vegeta than the effeminate sarcastic boy he showed everyone…

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

Piccolo stared at the yellow tape surrounding his lover's apartment. The police had already left, and he could hear Nail listening to the news report inside his own apartment.

He couldn't believe the gentle boy he'd loved for the past three months could have killed his own stepfather. They seemed to have gotten along fine when Piccolo had dinner with the two of them.

To the left of him he saw Juunana and Juuhachi, Vegeta's only friends. Juuhachi was crying on her brother's shoulders.

"What happened to you Vegeta?"

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

"I've got it!" The petite female deputy came running toward her, waving a sheet of paper at her. By her pale complexion, Jennifer guessed her to be one of the file jockeys for the department.

"Vegeta Saiyajinn was mentioned in one criminal report… Kuui Masai was arrested and convicted of molesting him when he was six." The girl reported grimly. "He was enrolled in an outpatient counseling session, but never attended."

Jennifer nodded. "Thanks." This was big; she could feel it in her bones.

Taking a deep breath she entered the interrogation room, making sure that one of the burlier officers followed her.

She didn't want to have to reopen these wounds… but if they were ever to figure out what happened this afternoon, blood would have to be shed…

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

He stared at the attractive young woman who entered his interrogation room.

They'd left him in here for what he roughly guessed was an hour, obviously hoping to crack him. If they thought silence would kill him, they thought wrong.

"Are you my lawyer?" He asked softly, his voice sounding loud to his ears after how quiet it had been.

"Would you like one?" She asked.

"No." He shook his head. The hour that they'd left him gave him a chance to regroup his wits.

"Why did you murder your stepfather, Vegeta?" She asked softly, not demanding like the other officer, she seemed only curious.

"He had to go. It wasn't as if he wasn't dying already… in fact we're all born dying. I doubt anyone shall miss him."

"What was special about today Vegeta?"

"Nothing… just another Saturday."

"What do you do on Saturdays?"

"I get the mail, sometimes go and hang out with Piccolo, or Juuhachi and Juunana…"

"Did you go to see them today?"

"No… too early."

She nodded vaguely… she was suspicious of his willingness to answer even the most banal of her questions. She flipped through the Polaroids from the scene… and stopped at one of the bloody counter… Her notes logged an acceptance letter to Harvard College.

"How did your stepfather react to your acceptance to Harvard? He must have been proud of you, after you received free admission…"

"He didn't much care."

"I see, and why was that Vegeta?"

"He was too worried about other things." Vegeta said vaguely.

"And would anything of those `other things' have to do with Kuui Masai?" She said in a level tone.

Jennifer was awed and slightly afraid of the change that overcame the subject. Vegeta had been slouched in the chair when she'd entered the room, his head down in a subservient fashion. Now he was glaring at her with unnervingly black eyes, muscles tight as he leaned forward as far as the handcuffs pinning him to the chair would let him.

"He has nothing to do with this." Vegeta growled, eyebrows pinching together and lip curling into a fearsome expression.

"To the contrary Vegeta, I think it does… otherwise you wouldn't react so strongly. What did your stepfather say to you about Kuui?"

"I don't have to tell you anything…"

"No, but you want to. I can tell something's eating you up inside… something you haven't told any of your friends or lovers… but you're dying to tell someone, aren't you Vegeta?" She snapped her folder on the boy before her shut, standing and leaning over the table towards her captive.

"I know what Kuui Masai did to you when you were six, Vegeta, and a quick glance at all the domestic violence calls and dealing busts listed on your stepfather's permanent record tell me he wasn't a nice man at all." She took a deep breath. "So why don't you tell me what happened, and we'll try to do our best to help. You're a smart boy…"

He stared into her eyes, and she could see the glimmer of hope in the empty obsidian eyes. She held his gaze, her face held in a passively blank mask.

"He lost some of Koola's money. I came in with my acceptance letter and they were talking. Koola left. I told my `good news'." He snorted derisively. "And then he asked me to help him pay off Koola." His lips twisted bitterly. "I thought he meant money, what a fool I was." He stopped, staring at a point beyond Jennifer's shoulder.

"Vegeta, what did he want?" She demanded, bringing his focus back to her.

"Koola wanted a catamite…"

"He wanted you." She said, and he jerked his head in a positive motion.

"I told Frieza to fuck off, and then he called me a lying whore ---" He choked off. "Then he said that I --"

"I'd been dreaming for the last few months of killing him… him and Kuui… but I thought he'd changed." Vegeta sighed. "Then he said I **enjoyed**," He gritted out, his posture becoming tenser, "what Kuui did to me. And I couldn't take any more."

"I see." Jennifer said quietly, before exiting the room.

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

"What do you think, Jennifer?" asked Larry, the state defense attorney, as she entered the interrogation side room.

"It's more of a case of battered wife syndrome than pre-meditation."

"What about his dreams?"

"Freud says that dreams are things we want to come true that we wouldn't normally think. He may have dreamt of killing his stepfather, but he didn't execute his stepfather over his dreams… his stepfather pushed, and he broke."

"I'm tempted to have him locked up at a mental institute… If he snapped over a few names, there's no way to tell if it won't happen again."

"It won't, if he receives the proper treatment he should have received as a child. The only way it could happen again is if he ran into Kuui Masai… and I can't say that I'd miss that bastard." Larry snorted in agreement.

"How much do you think he knows about Koola's operation?"

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

Graduation was a somber affair at Orange Star High School, and not only because of the foul weather storming on outside. Their two forerunners for valedictorian: Chichi Mau and Vegeta Saiyajinn had dropped out early in the `race', one due to drug habits and the other to murder, leaving the announcement of the winner of the prized position anticlimactic.

Bulma walked up and accepted her diploma from the Principal, pausing to turn and smile at the cameras of her parents.

She winked at Yamucha who was standing offside, proudly clutching his diploma to his chest.

"Class of 2003, turn your tassels!" Cheered Marcus Redd, the captain of the football team and soon balloons were falling from the rafters and hats were thrown in the air.

Bulma reached over and kissed Yamucha, before turning to pose for her parent's cameras.

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

He glared down the aisle at the stewardess who was showing off the exits at her side, and realized she looked as bored as he felt.

He glanced back at the book in his hands that he was supposed to be reading… in actuality it was a short novel on his new `life', as it was, that he would be assuming as soon as they touched down. The agent from witness protection was sitting beside him, eyes boring into the side of his head. They expected him to memorize this piece of shit before they let him go out on his own.

His name was John Simon Ritchie, born on the 10th of May in 1985, in North City. He'd gone to Elementary School #14, Jackson Jr. High, and North Star High School. He'd graduated with a 3.5 grade point average. His parents had divorced, and he was only in contact with his mother (He had to remember to `call' her every Sunday). He was currently attending his freshman year at Boston University.

His gut sank as they took off. He'd never been on a plane before… never had a place to go.

Now he was leaving West City for Boston … never to come back, quite literally. They said it would be too dangerous, after all the information he'd given out on Koola's operation.

He regretted not being able to say good-bye to his friends… but he supposed they were better off without him.

He'd always thought it impossible to get away with murder… he obviously was wrong.

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

The End

***(-I-)**(-I-)***

Right, before you all kill me, YES that IS the end of Orange Star High School. It's finished, no more chapters….

Here's a peek at the upcoming sequel (as of yet untitled):

*******

Bulma smiled seductively at the group of boys standing upon the football field, all a golden tan, wearing shorts and soccer jerseys. They were huddled about, and she could hear the deep melted caramel voice of the team captain.

Sarah, her tour guide, stopped in her story of the history of the stadium and smirked at Bulma knowingly, and coughed.

"They're quite attractive for B.U. boys…"

"I'll say." Bulma agreed, watching the tight backside of the team captain running out into the center of the field.

"Another for John, I see." Sarah sighed. "You watch out for John Ritchie, he's nothing but trouble, and a heart breaker."

"Uh huh…" Bulma said, her heart twisting slightly as `John' turned towards her running swiftly after the ball.

She froze in mid-drool, as she looked at that determined face, feeling a strange sense of strong déjà vu. She had seen this John Ritchie before… if she could only remember where…