Dragonball Extreme

Radditz stared in shock for a moment before he was able to regain his voice. \"You mean...I am...Vegeta is...\" he shook his head. The full impact of what it meant hit him square on, and he squeezed his eyes shut. \"No...\" he said. \"No, I can\'t deal with this...\" He pushed past Bardock and ran toward the cave entrance.
\"Radditz, wait!\" the elder Vegeta called after him.

Radditz rushed ahead as if oblivious to the people behind him, but as he reached the cave entrance he collided solidly with another person. He looked up in surprise wondering who could stand up to as massive a form as himself hitting them.

The figure was silhouetted darkly against the sunlight streaming into the cave mouth, but as Radditz\'s eyes focused, he recognized the pale blue skin and fine green hair that trailed off in a long braid.

\"You!\" he gasped. Then his shock turned to anger. Hot tears flooded his eyes, and he angrily grabbed Zarbon by the front of his shirt. \"Chikushoume! It\'s your fault! It wouldn\'t have happened if it weren\'t for you!\" He angrily slammed Zarbon up against the stone wall. \"It was bad enough that he was the prince, but he\'s also my little brother! How am I supposed to live with that?\" He slammed the blue-skinned man into the wall again then held him there; his body was beginning to shake with sobs. \"Chikusho...he\'s...my brother...\" His voice was broken by sobs, and he released Zarbon.

The green-haired man sat there stunned for a moment, unsure how to react to the sudden attack. \"I...I\'m not sure I understand...\" he started.

Vegeta strode forward. \"Idiot,\" he snapped. \"If you think about it for half a second, you\'ll realize it wasn\'t his doing, it was Freeza\'s. He didn\'t have any more control over it than you or I.\" He turned to Zarbon. \"But that doesn\'t explain your presence here. Why are you here? How did you even find this place?\"

Zarbon swallowed nervously and stood up. \"Lady Macbeth sent me here,\" he said. \"She said these belonged to you and the other saiya-jin.\" He handed a bundle of clothing to Vegeta.

\"Hn,\" Vegeta snorted. \"And I suppose she told you exactly where to find us, too?\"

\"Well, yes, she did,\" Zarbon responded. \"She said she\'d have come herself but she had other matters to tend to.\"

\"Convenient,\" Vegeta muttered. He turned away from Zarbon and clenched a fist in anger. Then, suddenly, he hurled a small ki blast against the back wall of the cave. It didn\'t do much damage, but it certainly expressed his anger. \"Kami-damned fucking terrific!\" he shouted. \"One of the last fucking people I wanted to see, in a place that shouldn\'t be known to anyone, including and especially that infernal woman!\"

\"Vegeta, calm down!\" his father suddenly said. \"Just what is it between you three that Radditz is upset about?\"

Radditz was staring sullenly at the floor, and if he heard the question, he didn\'t respond to it.

Vegeta snorted and turned his back. \"I don\'t want to talk about it,\" he said.

Zarbon started to speak. \"Well, perhaps I could-\" He was cut off by glares from both Radditz and Vegeta. He raised his hands and backed up. \"Gomen,\" he said, \"it\'s not my place.\"

\"What were you going to say?\" the elder Vegeta asked curiously.

Zarbon looked at him in surprise for a moment, then glanced shakily between him and his son. \"Gomen, your highness,\" he said. \"I really shouldn\'t-\"

He was cut off again as Vegeta sighed heavily in frustration. \"It doesn\'t matter,\" he said. \"It\'s all going to come out anyway. That infernal woman never does anything for no reason; every \"little\" thing she\'s done so far has had an underlying reason. She could have as easily sent that Pigero guy as you...what were you going to say?\"

\"Well,\" Zarbon said hesitantly, \"I was going to say that if you\'re not comfortable talking about it, I could show what happened, from our memories of it.\"

\"How so?\" Vegeta demanded. \"Explain yourself!\"

\"Well, it\'s a gift I have,\" Zarbon said. \"I wasn\'t kept around just because I was a pretty thing, you know, and Freeza hardly needed bodyguards. He took me from my home world because our people have inherent psychic abilities, and mine was rumored to be the strongest on the planet.\"

\"Makes sense,\" Vegeta mused. \"But you never displayed such powers, at least not in my presence.\"

\"He thought I did,\" Zarbon said. \"The one thing in my life I was able to keep to my self was my gift; my father made sure to stress the importance of that on me before Freeza took me away.\"

\"So how did you hide your power from him?\" Vegeta asked, truly curious. \"He knew everything he wanted to know.\"

Zarbon nodded. \"He thought my ability was to \'read people\' because I was exceptionally good at finding out about people and their plans,\" he said. \"He put it to use learning about people he chose to trade with and even when he was gambling. But, that was a learned talent I had, not my inherent talent.\"

\"So what is your talent?\" Vegeta asked skeptically.

Zarbon took a deep breath and spoke. \"I can project people\'s thoughts as images, almost like a video. It\'s more like a miniature scene, though, because the images are three-dimensional.\"

Bardock stepped forward. \"What about sound? And is it consistent, or just random pictures? Such a gift is useless if you can\'t understand it, I know!\"

Zarbon nodded. \"Let me show you,\" he said. \"This works best when more than one person who was involved participate. Do you remember clearly the day Vegetasei was destroyed?\"

Bardock shuddered. \"How could I not...but what does that have to do with anything?\"

\"Because I was there when you challenged Freeza,\" Zarbon said. \"I\'ll be able to show that of of it the most accurately.\"

Bardock sighed. \"All right,\" he said. \"What do I have to do?\"

\"Just put your hand on top of my fist,\" Zarbon said. He held one fist out in front of him. The other hand he turned palm-outward toward an open section of the cave. \"Then just remember what happened.\"

Bardock closed his eyes; in a flash, the memories came flooding back to him.

The others in the room gasped as a foggy cloud appeared where Zarbon had his free hand aimed. It sharpened into a view of the upper atmosphere of what appeared to be a red planet. Bardock was seen powering forward through mass after mass of soldiers being deployed from Freeza\'s ship.

A panoramic view showed the inside of Freeza\'s ship, where Zarbon, Dodoria and Freeza were watching the saiya-jin on a monitor. Freeza seemed uncannily disturbed, and he dropped his arms from being across his chest to hanging tensely at his side. \"Zarbon-san,\" he said quietly, \"Open the top hatch.\"

Zarbon looked at him in shock. \"Sir?\" he asked. \"But...our men out there...\"

Freeza didn\'t respond, but his hands clenched in anger. Zarbon noticed, and ran for the controls, crying out \"Hai, Freeza-sama!\" on his way there.

Outside the ship, Bardock drug the last of Freeza\'s men up with him as he came before Freeza\'s ship. \"Freeza!\" he shouted. \"You coward! Come out here!\"

The top hatch opened slowly, and Freeza\'s men dropped their hold on Bardock. They stared in shock and fear as Freeza emerged from the top hatch. Bardock grinned, and began to focus his power in his hand.

\"Now it all changes,\" he seethed. \"My fate...my son\'s fate...and your fate! Die!\" he shouted. He heaved the roiling ball of ki toward Freeza.

Freeza just chuckled and expanded a ball of ki off of his own fingertip. The ball grew into enormous proportions, and he tipped his finger forward, propelling it toward Bardock and Planet Vegeta. He chortled as he watched it over take the saiya-jin.

\"N-nani?\" Bardock gasped. He watched as his own blast was absorbed as if it were nothing; he screamed as Freeza\'s attack made contact with him. Around him, Freeza\'s men were screaming \"Freeza-sama!\" in fear.

Bardock screamed in pain as his armor was ripped from his body. He could barely take the pain, and only one thought echoed through his head. The word barely escaped his lips through the pain. \"Ka...ka...rott...\" He was pummeled on all sides by the attack, as it drove him closer to the planet\'s surface. His final word escaped him in one shout. \"Kakarott!\"

Above his ship, Freeza laughed merrily as the ki blast sunk into the planet\'s core, and the surface began to fracture like cold chocolate. Ki and magma shot up through the surface across the red globe, and the planet expanded then exploded in one great blast. Freeza threw back his head with laughter and called out to Zarbon and Dodoria. \"Zarbon-san, Dodoria-san!\" he called. \"You must see this! Have you ever seen such beautiful fireworks?\"

Zarbon and Dodoria stared on in shock as the remaining bits of the planet flew out into space, leaving glowing trails behind them.

Suddenly Bardock pulled away. \"Enough,\" he gasped. Tears threatened to overflow his eyes, and he quickly turned away. \"I\'ve relived it enough times now,\" he said.

Zarbon opened his eyes. The images faded out as Bardock moved away from him, and he straightened up. \"You see why Freeza would have and did kill to have a talent like that,\" he said. \"Imagine what he could have known about people. My father knew that, that\'s why he warned me to never let Freeza have it.\"

\"It\'s so realistic,\" Bulma said. \"It almost felt like I was there, watching it all happen. Is it always like that?\"

\"Yes, it is,\" Zarbon said. He took a second look at Bulma. \"You look familiar,\" he said. His eyes narrowed and he concentrated. \"Of course! On Nameksei! You were that woman who was with the humans collecting the dragonballs!\" He smiled. \"Your appearance changed slightly, but the good looks are still there.\" He winked at her.

Vegeta growled. \"Don\'t go getting any big ideas,\" he threatened.

Zarbon looked at Vegeta in surprise, then back at Bulma, then back at Vegeta again. He chuckled. \"Don\'t even tell me...\" he said between laughs. \"You two...after how you were on Nameksei...\"

Bulma looked puzzled. \"Well, sure,\" she said. \"Things change, you know.\" She pointed at Trunks and Bra. \"That\'s our son, Trunks, and our daughter, Bra.\"

Zarbon wiped his eye and quickly composed himself. \"You truly are something else, you know that, Vegeta,\" he said. \"When I saw you at Lady Macbeth\'s place I thought you were just playing the cool customer in front of the humans...to find out that you actually settled down and had a family...\"

\"I don\'t see what\'s so funny,\" Vegeta snapped. \"I got over my past, unlike some people.\"

Zarbon frowned. \"And unlike some people, I died under that tyrant\'s rule! It didn\'t matter that you killed me, Vegeta! I was under orders to bring you back or prepare myself for death! What did I have to lose by challenging you?\"

\"You could have walked away at the first chance you got, Zarbon,\" Vegeta snapped. \"I had my opportunity and I took it!\"

\"Well unlike you, I wasn\'t that willing to die!\" Zarbon snapped bitterly. \"What good was freedom if I was dead because of it?\"

\"I was glad to face death to escape!\" Vegeta sneered. \"I couldn\'t stand so-called \'living\' under that monster\'s rule!\"

\"Then why didn\'t you die the first time he raped you, Vegeta?\" Zarbon shouted. He realized what he said just as the words left his lips, but it was too late to stop them. He bit his lip and looked at the floor, ashamed. \"Gomen, Vegeta,\" he whispered. \"I know how you feel about that...\"

\"Shut up,\" Vegeta said hoarsely. \"Just...shut up...\" He choked on the last few words.

The room sat in stunned silence. Suddenly, everyone burst into sound, voicing concerns and questions, trying to be heard over each other. Vegeta covered his ears and clamped his eyes shut to keep them from spilling over with tears. \"Silence!\" he shouted. \"Silence or I\'ll kill you all!\"

The room was immediately quiet once again. After a moment, the elder Vegeta spoke up hesitantly. \"What is this all about, Vegeta?\" he said. \"I want to know exactly what that monster did to you.\"

Bulma stepped forward and cautiously took Vegeta\'s hands. \"Is that what you\'ve been hiding away all these years?\" she asked. \"Is that what made you so cold and distant to everyone?\"

Vegeta looked away from her. \"What does it matter,\" he asked bitterly. \"It\'s over with now.\"

\"It does matter, Vegeta,\" Bulma insisted. \"You\'ll feel better getting it out in the open, and it may just help the rest of us understand you better.\"

The elder Vegeta rested his hand on Vegeta\'s shoulder. \"She\'s right son,\" he said quietly. \"As much as I hate to think of such a thing happening to you, we do need to know.\"

Vegeta sighed and closed his eyes. \"All right,\" he said. A defeated tone seeped into his voice. \"I hope you know what you\'re getting into; you\'ll have to see it, because I know I\'ll r ber be able to talk all the way through it.\" He gestured for Zarbon to approach.

Zarbon raised his fist and hand again, but beckoned to Radditz. \"You were part of this too,\" he said. \"It\'ll make it easier to get everything out into the open in one shot.\"

Radditz looked ill as he glanced warily at Zarbon and Vegeta. \"Don\'t remind me,\" he croaked. \"I don\'t want to even think about it.\"

Bardock spoke up from the shadows. \"I saw it, Radditz,\" he said. \"I saw it in my visions. I know what happened. And everyone else is going to know soon enough. They might as well know all of it.\"

Radditz trembled a little as he walked up to Vegeta and Zarbon. \"Fine,\" he said. He placed his hand on top of Vegeta\'s and Zarbon\'s.

The room was nearly consumed by the imagery, as they were swept from a dimly lit cave to the darkness of space.

Radditz, Nappa and Vegeta stood in small, spare quarters in Freeza\'s ship. Radditz solemnly listened to the fate of his planet and people.

\"And as such,\" the young Prince Vegeta said, \"You are now a royal guardsman, directly behind elite warrior Nappa. I will have no one around me except saiya-jin.\"

Radditz bowed deeply. He felt the urge to cry, to shout, to scream, to do something about the news of his home world, but he could not. This was not the time or the place. He now had duties directly to the throne, and he had to uphold that responsibility to the best of his ability.

Just then, Zarbon leaned into the room. \"Into the training quarters, monkeys,\" he said shortly. \"Freeza wants to measure each of your fighting abilities.\"

Radditz started to snarl a reply, but Vegeta held him back. As Zarbon left, Radditz turned to him in confusion. \"Why do you accept such disrespect, Prince Vegeta?\" he demanded.

\"Because he reports directly to Freeza-sama, and any disrespect to him will be considered disrespect to Freeza-sama. Remember to keep your cool about you at all times, Radditz.\" Vegeta crossed his arms across his chest. \"Even if he is disrespectful, there\'s nothing we can do about it at this time.\"

Vegeta and Zarbon traded a volley of punches and kicks as they wound down in their spar. It was over all too soon for Vegeta\'s liking, even though he knew Zarbon\'s power far outweighed his own. He was too consumed in his own thoughts to notice the approach of the messenger, but he did notice the red blush that spread across the man\'s face as he walked away. And what was that? He had addressed Zarbon as \"prince\"? Zarbon suddenly seemed preoccupied, though, and he was very short with his talk as he lead the way to Freeza\'s chambers. Sure, Vegeta himself was even occasionally nervous around Freeza, but this much so?

Things got even stranger as he bathed and then dressed again with Zarbon. Zarbon sensed the young prince\'s unease, and he knew what was going to happen. There was no stopping it, however. It was too routine. The drug, the collar, the leash...all of it was the same as when he\'d been \"broken in\". He could barely take the young Vegeta\'s screams as the boy was penetrated by the ruthless warlord. Soon, though, he was soothing the boy as best he could, without alerting Freeza to his intentions...then Freeza\'s interest was finally turned away from the young boy to himself.

And so it continued...

Freeza beating Radditz for a slip of the tongue, then realizing just how strong even \"weak\" saiya-jin were...

A trading partner, asking about the beautiful, green-haired man at Freeza\'s side...

Radditz, foolishly getting between his prince and Freeza during an argument...

That freakish sideshow that Freeza put on during one of his \"house parties\", with sex as entertainment and saiya-jin as the stars...

Zarbon being forced onto Vegeta again for misbehavior...

Radditz being forced to have sex with Vegeta for Freeza\'s pleasure...

Zarbon and Vegeta being beaten for fighting in Freeza\'s chambers, Radditz looking on helplessly as they recovered in regeneration tanks...

Being displayed publicly as some kind of trophies...

A twisted, perverted threesome put on for Freeza\'s important guests...

After a while, the images began to fade out. Radditz shook his head and broke away first. \"I can\'t think about it any more,\" he whispered hoarsely.

Vegeta sighed and broke his hold. He glared scornfully at the shocked group still staring at the fading images. \"I hope you\'re happy, now,\" he snapped.

Zarbon slumped against a wall in exhaustion. \"I\'ll need time to recover,\" he said, catching his breath at the same time. \"Then I\'ll be going.\"

\"Wait,\" Bardock said. He hesitated and chose his words carefully. \"We all need rest,\" he said, \"but your skills are very helpful. I\'d like it if you stayed...that is, if you don\'t mind...\"

Vegeta broke in before Zarbon could respond. \"The last time I checked, it was my decision, not his,\" he snapped. Then he settled down a bit. \"But my reminiscing is done. I don\'t care either way.\" He started to stalk off in the direction of his house.

\"Vegeta, where are you going?\" Bulma called.

\"To get some food, damn it, onna!\" he shouted back. \"I\'m hungry for Kami-sama\'s sake!\"