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Pendulum Control	By : MutantPoptart Category: Dragon Ball Z > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 3964 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own DragonballZ, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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The Day of Reckoning
The two pure-blooded Saiyans strolled an unmarked path through the shaded grove.
Goku lead the way and Vegeta was content to follow. The proud Saiyan pealed off his jacket to reveal a black fitted tank top to match his black spandex pants. As always, his feet were clad in his leather boots of Saiyan design. They weren't the origional ones that had been hand-crafted by Saiyans-- he'd had to dispose of that pair a long time ago due to extensive damage from overuse. However, he had his father-in-law engineer him several new pairs that were in every way identical to the originals. Don't fix what isn't broken, Vegeta would retort when the scientist would offer to update the archaic design.
Goku had a similar philosophy regarding his favored orange and blue gi. Vegeta never understood Goku's affinity for it. The flimsy Earth fabric couldn't offer protection against a bee sting.
It was Goku's turn to pick their sparring site and today, he chose a secluded wood far from the populated cities and anyone who might be disturbed by what was sure to be another day of reckless abandon. If Vegeta had his way, they would have gone to the canyons again, but Goku always liked the calm of the groves. The leading Saiyan came to a stop in the middle of a spot-lit clearing and turned to his companion.
“Here we are,” he said, presenting a wide and promising space that was perfect clearance from the crowded trees and within reach of the warming rays of the sun.
Vegeta began his stretches without an upward glance.
“Lovely,” the prince humoured, knowing that the space would be anything but that by the time they were through with it.
“I don't wanna go hard today,” Goku warned, joining Vegeta in his warm up, “Chichi and I are going to Goten's school later and she doesn't want me looking beat up.”
Vegeta smirked as he twisted from the hips.
“Don't worry, Kakarotto, I'll go easy on you.”
Goku was good humoured enough to allow Vegeta his witticisms-- for now. He predicted that in a few minutes the snide Saiyan wouldn't be smiling anymore.
“Come on, old man.” Goku called as he soared up beyond the trees.
“Oh, don't start.” Vegeta called back and lifted off the forest floor, “You're just about as old as I am and you know it.”
“Just about. But you're still older.” Goku sent him a challenging grin topped with a wink.
They charged each other. Each landing and blocking traumatic blows, countering at an evenly matched pace. They would continue like this while each their energies gradually climbed until they were both pushed immeasurable levels beyond super Saiyan.
“Well, so much for taking it easy,” Goku breathed, panting and scuffed all over. Vegeta was hovering yards away from him in no better if not worse shape.
“What are you talking about,” he scoffed between pants, “This is only the warm up!”
Goku snorted and raised his hand to challenge the proud Saiyan's bluff. “In that case,” he said, a flicker beginning in his palm, “consider the warm up over.”
Vegeta stammered backward in the air as the once-minor spark swelled to a blazing beach ball. Vegeta appeared to brace himself as the energy blast was cast toward him. Once it had closed in to the point that it was skewering the view of the smaller Saiyan,Vegeta vanished from the line of fire. However, the evasive Saiyan was not beyond detection. Goku waited silently, anticipating the lightning quick movements of his adversary. Then, in a flash, he spun around and threw a stiff fist to Vegeta's midsection. Vegeta had expected that Goku would track him and blocked the low blow, retaliating with a high kick to the taller Saiyans neck that sent him reeling several yards through the air. Goku recovered quickly from the sharp kick, but Vegeta had obviously caught him off guard. The exchange had taken only a few seconds but Goku was invigorated by the harsh pace and rewarded Vegeta with an approving smile. Things were about to get serious. The prince was ready and returned the smile with a dark ambition.
Goku had always been exhilarated by the promise of a good battle. If the fight wasn't going to cost him a great deal in attrition, he wasn't interested. Vegeta could respect Goku for that. In that aspect, the third class warrior and the prince were the same. Vegeta, too, was always seeking the ultimate test that would further enhance his strength by pushing him to and beyond his limits. They both loved a war and they both thrived on a challenge. However, this is where all ties between the two abruptly severed. Although Vegeta was content to keep up his poker face in their exchanges as though he had a great secret beneath the surface, deep down he knew that it was really Goku who was sitting on a gold mine. Always in the back of his mind, Vegeta toiled over the mystery of Kakarotto's seemingly endless supply of energy. Vegeta had always been aware of his own limits, as he made a regular practice of testing them during his isolated training sessions. He wasn't sure Kakarotto, on the other hand, had ever found his true peak. He imagined with some terror that if the naive Saiyan were to ever try to reach it, he'd just keep powering up until the day faded and he'd have to break for supper. Vegeta had seen this on a few occasions-- Kakarotto's energy just kept rising higher and higher as though it would never stop. It terrified Vegeta each time. It wasn't the fear of what Kakarotto would do with such a monstrous power, but rather he feared how he was ever going to catch up with his rival while he was advancing at such an incomprehensible rate. For a long time it had seemed to the proud Saiyan that no matter how hard he trained-- he could cut himself off from family and all necessities of life and devote himself entirely to training-- it wouldn't matter. Kakarotto would always be two steps ahead.
Was it his heart, Vegeta would wonder, his golden hero's heart? If Vegeta had been less angry and bent vengeance throughout most of his life, would he too be able to achieve such tremendous heights in power? When his thoughts wandered to that point, Vegeta would usually shut them off. Admiring the traits of his life-long rival was never his favorite passtime.
Vegeta was bucked headlong into a large hedge, suffering little damage thanks to the cushioning leaves. For once he was grateful that Goku favored the greenery of the forest over the harsh and rocky canyons. A crash of this caliber would have otherwise left him severely scraped and bleeding. Now however, he was able to leap back up at once to meet his sky-bound opponent.
“Oh, that's pretty, Vegeta.” Goku noted, when Vegeta was level with him, “Is that one of Bulma's hair ornaments?”
Vegeta reached up and plucked the leaves out of his hair. “You're funny when you think you're winning,” he replied. It was true and obvious. Goku was winning the day's spar. This wasn't unusual, nor was Vegeta's pronounced denial of it.
“I am winning, Vegeta,” Goku replied in good humour, “but if you don't think so, we can make a wager.”
Vegeta growled at the audacity of his smirking rival.
“A wager,” he spat, “what sort of wager?”
Goku looked unprepared. “Well,” he began, in a teacherly tone, “If you win, you get to pick something I have to do, and if I win-”
“I know what you mean by wager, idiot. What are the stakes?”
Goku's brow furrowed and he stared at Vegeta. “If I win, you call me by my name.”
Vegeta appeared to wait and then a grin spread over his lips. “Oh,” he began in a boastful manner, “does it hurt your feelings when I call you names? Is poor Kakarotro developing a low self-esteem?”
Goku was unwavering in the face of Vegeta's obvious taunts and even quirked a smile. “No,” he said evenly, “You call me Goku.”
Vegeta's grin faded as he replaced the error in his understanding with the true meaning behind his rival's words.
The sun was poised slightly to the left of them now as Goku and Vegeta were locked in a somber stare.
Vegeta's eyes went dark when he lowered his head and finally spoke. “You won't make me renounce our people the way you do by rejecting your Saiyan-given name. Not me, Kakarotro. I still honor our bloodline.”
Goku looked deeply hurt.
“But Vegeta,” he urged, “It's not who I am. Once I left my ship and became enlightened to the ways of peace, I became an Earthling.”
“And if you'd been shipped anywhere else, you'd be someone completely different?” Vegeta felt he was uncovering something that had too-long been shoved beneath the surface, “Are you so easily influenced by your surroundings, Kakarotto, that you have no direction of your own?”
Goku frowned at the intentionally biting comment but he would not cower from them. He new what Vegeta was suggesting and had also considered what a small change in the past might have done to affect his future.
“I do believe,” he began calmly and purposefully, “that if I'd never been sent here to Earth, but instead was raised as a warrior surrounded by Saiyans like myself, I might have turned out more like you-- or Nappa, or Radditz. But I also believe,” he quickly continued, “that if it weren't for my peaceful upbringing here on Earth, I wouldn't have this power. I wouldn't have been the first in 300 years to achieve the legendary level of Super Saiyan; I wouldn't have overcome every foe to ever threaten the peace of the Earth; I wouldn't always be two steps ahead of you.”
Vegeta staggered. Goku hadn't said the last part, but Vegeta heard it in his mind. It was the very thing the former prince feared most and it was coming from the mouth of his life-long adversay. Kakarotto's too seemed to attribute his exceptional and ever-exceeding strength directly to his non-Saiyan and entirely human exposure. Vegeta had never said it aloud himself-- in fact, the very instant the thought arose, the bitter Saiyan would instinctively burry it away with lightning quickness. His immediate rejection of the idea was due to his knowledge that if that was indeed the secret to Kakarotto's amazing power, there really was nothing he could ever do to surpass his rival, because an Earthly upbringing was simply not the sort of training regimen Vegeta could ever attain. No amount of dicipline and grit would ever erase his past and what it made him today. Now, it was apparent to Vegeta that Goku had been considering the same possibility, only instead of dreading the idea like Vegeta did, it had become something to feed off of and to gain inspiration from. Vegeta could barely contain his rage at the very thought of the Earth-bound Saiyan actually being proud of his own estrangement from their mighty race. He wanted to strike down the disrespectful fool with a renewed fury.
“Alright, Kakkarot,” The proud Saiyan spat, “I'll take your bet. And if I win,” his face darkened further, “You bow to me.”
Goku could not suppress a grin. “I see after all these years, you're still the arrogant prince.”
“You bring it out in me,” Vegeta allowed this one last pleasantry before kicking off into a head-on charge.
Goku charged too and when they met it was a clash of two proud and determined full- blooded Saiyans with each their own honor to protect and a very old score to settle.
When they broke apart again, it was with a bright flash and dull crash as one of them landed gracelessly in a forest bed of rubble, the other following smoothly after. Goku landed on his feet next to the prone and defeated form of his former adversary. The last blast had been the nail in the coffin, though they had both seen it coming. Goku had the decency and sportsmanship to not boast his victory so soon after such a defined blow to the proud Saiyan's ego. He knew he would not have to press hard for his winnings. Vegeta was man enough-- Saiyan enough, rather-- to recognize when he'd lost, though he rarely admitted it aloud. Goku looked down at the man whom he'd so decisively beaten and waited patiently.
Vegeta, meanwhile, appeared to be at war with himself as he gritted his teeth in obvious frustration. When he finally forced himself to look up, his eyes were mostly lidded and only appeared focused on the sky directly above. His mouth slowly opened and when he finally said the name, it began with a grunt and ended in a sigh. It was foreign from his lips and both men were hushed by the sound. Neither said anything for a long while before Goku, suddenly filled with purpose, walked away patting himself off.
“Good fight.” he said, without meeting the other's eyes. Vegeta's wilted pride could barely afford a response. “What, you're going?” he choked. They had been out there for only a few short hours, Vegeta guessed. Usually they found sport with each other untill nightfall.
“Yeah, I think that's enough sparring for one day.” Goku's mind was elsewhere as he tried to salvage an outfit out of the tattered remains of his gi.
Vegeta could barely form words as he lay there in the ruffled ground. When their spars ended this way, with Vegeta's loss, it was usually the former prince who would succumb to strange behavior. After a particularly decisive loss, Vegeta would usually fall silent-- The defeat being too raw. However, by the time the too men spoke again, days later, Vegeta was usually back to his normal, grouchy spirits. During that short period of time following a defeat, Vegeta just could not bring himself to cope with the present reality and instead, blocked out his surroundings. Now it seemed it was Goku's mind that was held elsewhere. He wouldn't speak of it-- he couldn't put a finger on it himself. So instead of staying to finish off the day's spar with his baffled companion, he took off in a flash without another word.
Vegeta got up off the forest floor and stared up at the clear sky. He didn't bother with the holes making up the majority of his black spandex and shirt, his concerns mostly occupied with the strange reaction of his weekly sparring partner. It was not like him to leave so soon into their spars, in fact it was usually Vegeta that had to call it quits late into the night when Goku pleaded like an insatiable puppy to stay out just a few more hours.
Vegeta mulled over the day's happenings while he speared off in the direction of his own home. It was mid-afternoon now and he expected that if Bulma was home she would wonder why he was back so early. Vegeta wouldn't be in the mood to explain what had happened leading up to Goku's strange and sudden departure and certainly wouldn't have the patience to make something up. He thought again over their conversation that had been so new and unexpected. It had been stirring between them for so long that now that it was out, he was worried he hadn't said everything he'd wanted to say. Goku, on the other hand, had seemed prepared. He remained cool and collected as he recited the words that Vegeta so dreaded to hear. Goku had said, after Vegeta had challenged him, that he too had considered that the reason he was so exceptionally powerful was because he was not raised to be a blood-thirsty, war-thriving Saiyan -–like Vegeta-- but instead raised to value peace and kindness above all-- the thing Vegeta could never comprehend. It was as though Goku had read his mind and pulled out his most deeply buried thoughts. Vegeta's mind ventured down that taboo trail again, only this time he did not stuff away the thoughts, but instead explored them. Could it be, he wondered, that what he had long believed to be Kakarotto's greatest flaws, were in fact his greatest attributes?
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Pendulum Control