"It's frustrating, isn't it," the man said. "To be so powerless. So weak. To wonder what's become of your woman, your children, your kin…" Vegita hissed and thrashed, trying to break free, trying to touch his power…only to feel it slip away as they things drank again. He sagged in the chains. "I know just how you feel," the pale man said softly. "My name is Hiru of Ansou-sei. You don't remember me or my people, do you? It was so long ago, and you were very young, fourteen or fifteen at the most. You vaporized our major cities in you initial attack. Including the city where my parents and siblings had lived. But we were stubborn and well-armed. So, you subdued us---it only took you a day, you and that giant fellow, Nappa. Do you remember what you did to make us finally surrender and swear fealty to Tsiru-sei?"
Vegita stood motionless, meeting the man's dead eyes. "No."
"You went through the only large city you had not touched, where I was dwelling at the time, block by block, house by house, and executed one member of every household until we capitulated. You killed my wife and our unborn child personally. You made some sort of joke to your leigeman about two for the price of one."
Vegita stared at the white-skinned man, his face blank and cold, sifting through long-buried memories of the life that he had been fool enough to think he could simply walk away from. "I do not remember your world or your wife," he said, quiet as the grave. "There were too many to ever remember them all."
"I thought as much," Hiru said just as softly. "No matter. They will all have their justice this day."
"Your quarrel is with me---" Vegita began.
"Are you going to beg for the lives of the ones you love, Prince Vegita?" Hiru smiled. "Do so. I will be as merciful to your kin as you were to mine. If I could, I would bring your beautiful wife to this cell and kill her before your eyes, so that you might know exactly how I felt. But Burka had given her to his nephew Jeiyce. I understand the Captain had a rather unsavory reputation in his dealings with the fair sex." He chuckled softly as the impassive mask slipped on Vegita's face and betrayed the sick fear he was feeling. He uttered a choked half-scream and lunged forward at the pale man, the spikes in the cuffs around his wrists tearing into the now-permeable flesh. Bulma…He screamed again at the thought, the images of what might be happening to her, of what she now remembered having happened, razoring into his mind's eye…and he touched…something. For a fraction of an instant. Something bright and terrifying and without any end to its depth. A power buried do deep down at the core of his being, he could barely brush it with his consciousness. But it was there….and it was… He fell in the chains, dangling limply as the Arrak-jin tore into him again, leaving him half-conscious.
"Maiyosh has granted me the honor of executing you personally in a few hours," Hiru was saying. "But first we will haul you out before the crowd in the Council Chamber and you will watch as we execute every last living member of your accursed race. You will all die in agony, I promise you that. And you, Saiyan no Ouji, will die knowing that you are the last of your kind. You do not know how I felt on that day you took everything that mattered in my life from me. But before I send you to darken Hell's doorway, I swear to you, you will." He turned and left Vegita alone on the darkness with the Arrak-jin, weazing weakly for enough air to stay conscious. He dipped inside the deepest part of himself, searching in blind desperation for that well of power he knew he had not imagined. "Bulma…" He wasn't even aware of having said her name aloud. And distant and fleeting, he saw it, brushed the edges of it with his fingertips. His ki surged up again and he tore furiously at the chains that held him, before the wrenching suction once more sucked him dry. He did not notice as the insect pulled him down into darkness, that this time, he had torn one of the bolts that held his right arm chained free from its mooring on the post.
Burka Maiyosh stared at the group of men arguing before his desk, his pleasant, slightly concerned expression reflecting none of the annoyance he was feeling. One or two more hours and this would be over, he consoled himself. After today, he would be free---free to do and be and say whatever he wished to whomever he wished. That most coveted and elusive state of existence. The latticed doors that led to the Maiyosh Seat and the Chamber beyond did not muffle the roar of the crowd as the first and foremost of the Saiyan monsters was brought out for display in the arena.
"You are out of order, Corsaris!" Said Dahl of Shik, fairly trembling from head to toe in righteous rage.
"And you are out for revenge, not justice" Corsaris rumbled. "Prince Vegita of Vegita-sei deserves to be strung up on a sharp hook for the things he did as Frieza's soldier." The fat man went on. "No one will argue with that. But this wholesale extermination of an entire race----"
"The Council of Free Worlds has voted and carried the motion as law," said Hiru of Ansou-sei coldly.
"Their children---" Corsaris began.
"One Saiyan baby can lay a world to waste on three days," said Dahl. "Ask Cros about the danger one of the little ones pose."
"And their spouses?" Teslia of Arlia said quietly. The insectoid had been gazing steadily at the pale face of the woman who sat, hands bound tightly in a pair of energy cuffs, strapped to a chair in the back corner of the office lounge. Burka frowned inwardly. His nephew had been in a fine temper when Burka had returned and ordered him from the Maiyosh Seat to complete the last of his duties in preparation for this evening's festivities. Jeiyce had been displeased, to put it mildly, at having been interrupted in what he had been doing---or trying to do. From the looks of things, the only thing the boy had managed so far was to get most of the skin on both hands burned off. Then the lad had simply dumped the woman here on his hands as he went off in a snit to see to his work. Now, his fool nephew was kneeling beside the woman's chair, speaking softly to her, stroking her cheek, a besotted smile on his face. Couldn't the impatient boy wait another two damned hours?
"She is not Saiyan," the Arlian said. "And she is not a criminal."
"You gave her to him as a prize, didn't you, you bastard?" Corsaris said disgustedly.
Maiyosh sighed. "He has become entranced with her, it seems. He only wishes to keep her safe from the mob---"
"My hearing is better than yours, Lord Burka," Teslia cut him off. "He was telling her just now that he will spare the life of her infant son if she does all that he asks of her. I will not countenance this kind of sickness!" The insect stood, thorax quivering with rage, strode across the great room, and carried the Chikyuu woman, chair and all, back to the Maiyosh desk. Burka gave Jeiyce a warning eye and miraculously the lad stayed his anger at having his new toy unceremoniously snatched away. "Wait!" Burka's look said.
"Let us discuss this after the sentences are carries out," Maiyosh said in a placating tone of voice, watching the Arlian and Corsaris unbind the woman from the chair and cuffs. Hiru of Ansou-sei was eyeing the woman closely, an odd gleam in his eyes. "You will all agree that she is at least under house arrest until then." He stood and motioned them all graciously to take a place in his own Seat. Teslia and Corsaris were keeping the Chkiyuu-jin protectively between them. As they filed into the Balcony Box, she gasped at what she saw in the arena below.
"Vegita…" She whispered, soft and sad.
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