Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Saiyan Style ❯ Part V: Frieza ( Chapter 5 )

Disclaimer: I own a Videl action figure, but I don't own the series.

Epic

By: Letta

Rating: R - NC-17

Warnings: Yaoi, violence, language, poor grammar, attempted writing, good times

Pairings: Goku X Vegeta… completely classic. (Major hintage here.)

Notes: This chapter is shorter than some of the others, but I figure with how little of a wait you had compared to the others, you probably wouldn't care quite so much.

"denotes speaking"

*denotes thought*

//flashback//

A/N: Well, thank you everyone for your reviews thus far. This chapter is so sad… *sniff*… Porunga dies! He was so talented, had everything going for him. He could've been the star of the show! *wails*

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Saiyan Style

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PART V: FRIEZA

"What happened to Ginyu?" Vegeta asked, watching the purple alien hop around on all fours, ribbiting.

"He got a new body," Goku chuckled, wincing at the pain it brought him.

"Well where is he?" The prince looked around impatiently, seeing no one other than the two weakling companions of Kakkarot. It was obvious to him that neither one was Ginyu, but if they weren't, then who was?

"Look behind you," Goku said, pointing towards a frog as his son and friend helped to pick him up. The prince walked towards the amphibian, a cruel smirk on his face. The frog, or rather, Ginyu, tried to act like a frog, but failed miserably. He would never win an award for acting. Vegeta lifted a boot menacingly over the frog, watching with delight as it trembled in fear below him, and then softly put his foot back on the ground.

"It's not even worth it anymore," he said, smirk firmly in place, as the frog let out a sigh of relief.

"Hey, Vegeta's finally got someone his own size to pick on!"

"Very funny, Kakkarot." Turning back to the trio, the prince advanced on them, his expression decidedly malevolent.

"I could easily kill you three now."

"You wouldn't dare…"

"That's right, Krillin, he needs us to help him fight Frieza," Goku said, good-naturedly.

"Hmph. Well, we'd better get you healed, unless you plan to face Frieza like that, Kakkarot." The saiyan prince then flew up to the hole decorating the roof of Frieza's ship and went down, leaving them to follow.

"Think we should trust him?" Krillin asked nervously.

"We have to. Besides, he's in the same position we are. We all need each other to fight Frieza," Goku said, attempting to ease his friend's troubled mind.

"I still don't like it."

"Yeah," Gohan agreed, but seeing the logic in his father's reasoning. With a nod to each other, Krillin and Gohan lifted Goku to the top of the ship, and then followed Vegeta down inside. The trio quickly caught up to him, since he was waiting outside of a door for them.

"It's about time. I thought you had gotten lost. Well, come one," he said, annoyance coloring his tone, as he entered the room, not bothering to look and see if they were following. Once inside, Vegeta went straight to an odd looking tank, folding his arms across his chest as he waited impatiently. "Put him in here."

"What is it?" Krillin asked suspiciously.

"It's called an isolation tank." Krillin and Gohan shrugged at each other, and started to bring Goku over, when the saiyan in question happened to see a needle lying on a table.

"Aaaah!" he shrilled, leaping up and trying to escape, arms flailing madly, "I don't want to get a shot!" Gohan and Krillin were startled by the strength Goku had gained from his adrenaline rush, and despite all their efforts at holding him back, they were having little, if any, success.

"No one's going to give you a shot, Kakkarot. Now stop embarrassing yourself!"

"Oh? Whew! That's a relief!" Goku said, falling back into the support of Krillin and Gohan's arms. *Oh father, I'm so ashamed!* Gohan thought to himself, a slight flush on his cheeks. Finally, the three of them managed to get Goku into the tank, Vegeta affixing a breathing mask to his face.

"I'm not going to drown in here, am I?" Goku asked as he settled in, watching as Vegeta shut the door.

"Don't be ridiculous." The saiyan prince punched in a few buttons, and the tank began to fill up with a transparent blue liquid.

"Hey Vegeta, what's that stuff?" Krillin asked.

"It's synthetic saiyan DNA."

"Mondo cool!"

"Hmph."

Vegeta rested slightly against the tank, trying not to make it obvious. He felt exhausted, like he could collapse at any moment, but he wasn't about to show it. Showing weakness opens you up to attack. Enemies will prey on disadvantages. Instead, he led the two Earth warriors into the armory, finding armor for them and answering their stupid questions -when he decided not to just ignore them. He couldn't believe how much the fight with Ginyu had sapped his strength! Suddenly squinting his eyes slightly, he had to lean on a wall for support, a grimace on his face, as a wave of fatigue washed over him.

"Hey Vegeta, you all right?"

"Of course I am, baldy!" he snapped, regaining his composure. All his years under Frieza suggested he had just made a dangerous mistake, but then again, these Earthlings weren't Frieza's soldiers. "Why don't you two guard the dragonballs?"

"What are you going to do?" Gohan asked innocently.

"I'm going to take a nap."

"You're going to take a nap?" Krillin asked, incredulously.

"Yes, and if you don't mind, I'd like some peace and quiet," the prince snapped. With that, he left the two and headed back to the infirmary, walking up to the tank Kakkarot was in. The other saiyan was asleep by now.

"Rest well, Kakkarot, I'm going to need you." He remained staring at the man behind the glass window for several minutes after speaking. Aching to reach out, he raised his gloved hand to the pane, and lightly traced the contour of the saiyan's face. Then, as if his body had a mind of its own and all rational thought took a tropical vacation, he pressed his lips gently to the glass, slightly parted. He breathed out softly, breath fogging the smooth surface. Pulling back abruptly, he noticed for the first time his pounding heart, the shortness of his breath, and the accumulation of moisture on his palms. One thought thundered ominously through his mind. *Was Jeice right?*

Flustered, Vegeta turned his back on the tank and found a timer and began fumbling with the controls. He tried to keep his thoughts rigidly on the task at hand rather then let them stray to the saiyan sharing the room with him.

"I'll set it for thirty minutes. That should give me enough time to regain my strength," the prince said, trying to ease the tension of the unnerving silence. His voice sounded odd to his own ears, his firm control faltering as his sudden nervousness began to overwhelm him. Shakily, he leaned against the tank, sliding down until he felt the floor beneath him, and closed his eyes. Kakkarot was his enemy, a lowly third class idiot, and he was Vegeta, prince of all saiyans. As soon as they defeated Frieza, he would kill Kakkarot. He just hoped he could do it.

*****

Vegeta woke with a start. The sky was dark out. *I must've slept longer than I thought!* Then, he remembered the sun never set on Namek. Confusion mixed with a sinking feeling as the prince rushed outside to see a huge dragon dominating the sky over an island not far off.

"The dragon!" With a surge of near panic, the prince took to the air, praying it wasn't too late to get his wish.

When he landed, he glared at the three present. The kid, baldy, and a namekian child stared back at him, horrified.

"So you thought you could cheat me out of my wish, did you?" he accused, advancing on the menacingly, ready to kill at the slightest provocation.

"Wait, we only used our two! You still have yours," Krillin asserted, nervously.

That information was enough to keep the saiyan prince from destroying everyone in sight, much to the delight of those present.

Vegeta looked up eagerly at Porunga. It was finally time! After all these years, he would finally be able to defeat Frieza!

"I want immortality!"

Dende hesitantly began translating, when without warning, Porunga's eyes darkened and he began to shrink back into the balls that had borne him. The dragon's body flashed with a brilliant light only to fade and repeat itself. When he was sucked back into the cluster of dragonballs, they lit up with an ethereal glow and shot up into the sky. They seemed to hang in the air for a moment before pushing outwards, away from each other. A sickening thud met the air as they landed not more than a hundred feet away.

"What happened? Did I get my wish?" Vegeta asked, fearing the answer.

"I… I don't know," Dende said, voice beginning to tremble, "that's never happened before. It must mean… Guru's dead." The last was barely more than a whisper.

Vegeta, however, didn't care about Guru. He just knew that he didn't feel any different, and his instincts were telling him there was a reason for that. He felt a sinking feeling in his gut.

"Well, well, I must say Vegeta, I always knew you'd turn against me, I just didn't know when." The shocked group slowly turned around to see Frieza, glaring down at them from atop a cliff. *1

The sinking in his gut got even lower.

*****

Goku frowned. He had been monitoring the battle since he woke up, reaching his mind out. He still wasn't fully healed, and couldn't risk showing up until he was. Things weren't going well, though. At first, it seemed like they might have had a shot, but then Frieza had transformed, his power level higher than anything Goku had ever encountered thus far. For a time, the three warriors were hard pressed to hold their ground, even with Dende's newly discovered help in healing them. At one point, Gohan had gotten hurt and Krillin had led Frieza off on a bit of a wild goose chase while Dende fixed up the boy.

Then Piccolo had shown up, and that had evened out the odds, but Frieza hadn't let that last. There was a second transformation. That didn't go on for long, either. To everyone's dismay but his own, Frieza had a final form, and his first act in his supreme state was to kill Dende, whom he had discovered to be the reason for everyone's state of living.

Goku's rage had boiled up at that point, but that, that was nothing. Nothing compared to what was happening now. Frieza finally decided he had enough of Vegeta. Goku could practically feel every blow that Frieza delivered to the prince, each hit slowing stealing away the saiyan's life, bringing down his ki. Thanks mostly to Frieza, Vegeta was the only other full-blooded saiyan left alive. Despite all that Vegeta had done, on Earth, Namek, and Kami only knows where else, Goku couldn't let him die. He abruptly felt very alone.

To his immense relief, the isolation tank suddenly beeped, signifying that his time in the blue liquid goo was up.

With his renewed strength and vigor, he burst through the tank and through the ceiling of the ship to land on the top. He took in a deep breath of air, the smell of the ocean wafting through his nostrils, a scent he was beginning to associate with this planet. It erased all worry and tension for a moment, calming him, preparing him in its own way for Frieza.

Then his frown returned. Vegeta's ki felt so weak. He searched with his mind, it felt like… like Frieza was choking the life out of the prince. Goku narrowed his eyes, determined to make the lizard pay as he sped off to the saiyan, hoping he'd be in time.

Hoping Vegeta wouldn't die.

Vegeta couldn't die.

Not yet.

Not now.

*****

Vegeta clutched weakly at the tail coiled around his throat, cutting off his air. His grip was getting steadily weaker, and his clawing hands did him no good. How could he have ever thought he'd be strong enough? He hadn't known. He hadn't known how strong Frieza really was. How could he have?

He gasped desperately, gaining nothing.

His vision was blackening, his mind was going fuzzy, his body beginning to shut down. *No! Not like this! Not yet!* he thought, frantically.

His lips, taking on a slightly bluish tint, moved soundlessly, releasing a name, one no one could hear. Only Vegeta knew what it was, his dying mind focusing on the only person who could possibly save him.

*Kakkarot.*

Then, he was released. Something was wrong. Vegeta's senses came back to him as he realized he was being thrown through the air, and then being stopped by a wall of rock. It registered that the jarring halt of his short flight should have hurt much more than the trickle of pain he felt. His battered body sank down, flopping onto the ground. He couldn't feel much of anything, but the slight grunts he let escape anything his body impacted with something thundered loudly in his ears.

Vegeta drooped his head downwards, frowning slightly through the fog of nothingness his consciousness had become. His mind was trying to tell him something, something important, but he couldn't figure it out, until he heard a voice.

Kakkarot. Somehow, he had known he would come. Although, he doubted there was anything the Earth-raised saiyan could do to save him now, it was in some way right that he was there.

Painfully, he craned his neck and cracked his eyes open to see the other saiyan, his battered body protesting the movement, telling him it was not a good idea. At first, all he could see was an orange blur, but it slowly focused into the form of Kakkarot. A slight smirk managed to fight its way onto his face, opening a fissure for blood to stream out from his lips to course its way to the dusty ground. A drop or two managed to seep into his mouth, sending a teasing message to his tongue, reminding his brain of his pitiful, broken state. His personal failure. His shattered pride.

Vegeta, the prince of saiyans was nothing. He was a dying, bloody piece of flesh wheezing on a foreign planet far away from his destroyed home. Just another name carelessly scrawled on the long list of those who went up against Frieza, joining the rest of his race. The most recent shame for the saiyan people. The only hope left was a third class who was so unsaiyain-like in nature that one was almost hesitant to count him as a part of that proud, warrior race.

Vegeta stared at this last hope. This strong, beautiful creature. He could not deny that this man was more than a rival to him. The prince knew, that if he weren't about to die, the orange-clad fighter would have grown into an obsession. With a certainty he could not trace, he suddenly knew that if anyone could possibly beat Frieza, it was Kakkarot. If it were ever to happen, it would be today.

*****

*1 To be perfectly honest, this is what I originally had written down:

Vegeta looked up at Porunga.

"I want immortality!"

Dende began translating, when without warning, Porunga's eyes darkened and he began smoking as the unholy flames of Hell burst from his body, licking away his life. Those gathered watched on in morbid fascination as a tear began to grow in the dragon's gut, thick black liquid oozing out as a stream of demonic beasts poured out, skin a deep putrid gray. Porunga began to glow brightly and in a final flash of light, disappeared, the dragonballs lurching up into the sky to shoot only a hundred yards away, turned to stone. The demons that had emerged looked around in confusion.

"Damn it! This isn't Tahiti!"

With another dimensional tear, they left.

"Well, well, I must say Vegeta, I always knew you'd turn against me, I just didn't know when." The shocked group slowly turned around to see Frieza, glaring down at them from atop a cliff.

---I was in one of those weird moods.---

A/N: Hmmm. There really wasn't much to edit this time around at all. I don't plan on having the rest of my chapters so short, though, just so I can make the Halloween deadline. I plan on typing like a madwoman (I hope.) Of course, if everything goes according to plan (the outline I just made on my calendar 43 seconds ago), if I can work my tail off through the start of Fall semester, my last publish date should be Halloween day! I'm excited. Whether or not this will happen… well, I'll at least try for ya'll.