Final Fate

The origin

The King of the Saiyans went about his daily routine. He had spent the whole night dealing with the files of the new recruits and had goneto his big bath the next morning to relax. Servants had poured waterfor him and so he swam a few laps through his pool before being oiledand massaged. After he had eaten a hearty breakfast, he had hisuniform put on and, accompanied by two of his feiceadan, had flown tothe open-air training areas. These had been laid out as a spaciousarea, which, however, still belonged to the castle district and laywithin its walls. Here one could train in good weather and theyoffered a pleasant change from the gravity training areas under thecastle.

The large, open fighting areas, each protected by acube grid in case an energy attack missed its target, were surroundedon one side by the castle, on one side by a dense forest used forground exercises and on two sides by the buildings of the palaceguard. These contained spacious rooms for the guardsmen and all theluxury they could wish for. After all, they all belonged to thewarrior nobility, or at least to the elite, and were thereforeaccustomed to a certain luxury. Everyone had their own rooms, theirown washing facilities and, depending on the rank of the family, atleast one private servant, or even several. There was a kitchen forthem, as well as places where they could spend their time when theywere not on duty or did not want to be out and about in thecity.

The only people who lived and slept directly in thecastle were the fifty Freiceadans, the ministers and army commandersand the servants who had direct contact with the king. That might notsound like much, but considering that especially the ministers andarmy commanders were responsible for the entire Saiyan empire, whichincluded dozens of planets, it became clear that the royal palace,the heart of it all, was like a beehive. One could say that thepalace, within the capital, was a world in itself, which containedsmaller worlds separate from each other.

One of them was thatof the palace guard, another that of the servants and that of thegovernment ministers, which all had the same dimensions as that ofthe guard. Two other worlds, which were however further away from thepalace, were the areas where the buildings of daily life werelocated: Laundry, Tailor, Armour Maker, Weapon Maker and theworkshops for the space capsules and gliders. Since the palace hadits own launch and landing areas, these also had to be maintained, asdid the spacecraft.

But all this was at a reasonable distancefrom the palace, so that it did not disturb the king's peace andlife. Nevertheless, it was protected by the palace walls andguardsmen and, of course, by the ring of warrior nobility that wasall around behind the walls of the palace, the ring of the elite,middle class and lower class. In addition, the individual sections ofwall that separated these rings. And in front of that, the quartersof the Tràill. So whoever wanted to conquer the palace had a fewhurdles to overcome on their way.

The new recruits werealready standing by when the king landed with his coat flapping andstepped next to Nappa. Veran was in the front row and had assumed hisposture. Good. Vegeta was sure that his bodyguard was quivering withanger inside, because of course everyone knew him and that he wasstanding here with the rookies was a disgrace beyond compare, becausehe held the most aspired position in the Lord and just about everyyoung Saiyan dreamed of becoming the King's bodyguard, the strongestof the strong, serving his Rìgh and being close.

It was thehighest honour a male Saiyan could achieve, just as it was thehighest honour for a female Saiyan to become the strongest of thestrong and serve the Queen. Always assuming she was not directlychosen as Queen. Since the queen helped the king in his affairs ofstate, it was not only muscle strength that was considered. Musclestrength played a big role, but also the lineage had to be right andall the other skills that were important to support the king in allmatters. This reminded Vegeta again that it was getting to be timefor him to look at the daughters of the warrior nobility, but not yet... not yet.

He nodded curtly to Nappa, who launched into aspeech in his loud voice that was quite a speech. It was about thehonour it meant for the family and the Saiyajin to be accepted intothe palace guard, the prestige and so on. There followed explanationsof how things worked in the palace, what they had to do and not doduring the selection period, where they were allowed to stay and whatwas expected of them. Vegeta then added some stern and terse wordsand it was off to the training areas. This year's recruits proved tobe very talented and Nappa was pleased with their performance. Asnone appeared to have an ego greater than their abilities, Vegetaleft them to Nappa and set about his other chores left over from theprevious afternoon. Late that evening, when the king was already inbed, a servant placed a datapad on his desk, containing the requestedinformation regarding births some nineteen years ago and all thedates that went with it.



Son Goku's eyelids flutteredand he struggled to come to. His vision was blurred and his wholebody ached. Carefully he tried to sit up, but the attempt failedbecause he simply felt he could not reach any of his limbs. So heminimally raised his head and even that demanded so much strengththat sweat broke out on his forehead. Panic flared in his eyes whenhe saw that his wrists and ankles were bound and that there was alsoa belt stretched across his chest and stomach, securing him to thecot. But what worried him even more were the needles and tubes in hisarms and the liquid in the bags hanging around him. What ... whatwere they doing to him here? Was he in a lab? Were they pumping himfull of drugs? What was that?!

In spite of the pain, he tuggedat the shackles with a growl, but it was as futile as if he werepushing against steel cables, yet he just wouldn't give up, kepttugging and jerking at them. If he could at least move his tail topull the needles out of his veins, that would at least have beensomething, but it, like everything else he could have moved, wasstrapped down. Disgusting! What was going on here was simplydisgusting! If only he could have used his powers, then neither Verannor Nappa would have seen land against him, then he was sure that hecould also defeat the king ... Vegeta, nen him Vegeta, not king ...he's not your king! ... he was sure that then he would have been ableto defeat Vegeta too and if he had the garden gnome in his power,then those Saiyans would happily give him his friends and all theother people and they could go back home.

He didn't want tothink about the fact that these thoughts were naïve at the moment.There were worlds between his current situation and this outcome, butif he didn't clutch at that straw, he would go crazy! He needed someglimmer of hope, no matter how small and absurd it was. So he spentthe next time thinking of all possible escape plans and finally fellasleep, pondering these beautiful thoughts.

He was awoken bynoise that was all around him and this time when he opened his eyes,Saiyans in black robes were scurrying around him, holding strangeequipment in their hands, fiddling with the cannulas in his body,exchanging pouches and looking at various devices. "Hey!"croaked Goku in a raspy voice, but no one paid him any attention.Angrily he tensed his muscles, pulling at the restraints, even thoughhe knew from the night that there was no point, but anything wasbetter than just lying here passively doing nothing. "Hey damnit! I don't care what you're doing! Stop it! I don't want this! Doyou hear me?! I DON'T WANT THIS!" One of the, Son Goku decidedto call them doctors, frowned and drew up a syringe. The young Saiyanredoubled his efforts to get loose, but by then the doctor wasjabbing the fucking thing into his arm and he felt the squeezing pullas the liquid was forced into him. God, he hated injections!

Afteronly a few moments, the effect of what they had given him was alreadymaking itself felt. His attempts to free himself weakened, he couldonly manage an inarticulate stammer, the image before his eyesblurred and his thoughts faded. The pain faded into the backgroundand everything dissolved into bliss as he slipped into the realm ofunconsciousness and the nakotisiac took effect. When he came to, hehad no idea how much time had passed and it took him an incrediblylong time to clear his vision enough to understand where he was.

Thegood news: he was no longer strapped to the cot in the lab and hispain was gone. His shoulder no longer hurt, neither did his ribs, andwhen he took a long, deep breath, really inflating his chest, nothinghurt in the process either. The bad: he was lying on the floor, inthis shitty cage, in Vegeta's bedroom and was tied by one of hisankles with a clamp and short chain in the middle of it. Groaning,the young Saiyan buried his head in his hands and clawed them intohis hair. Tightening his body, he let out a cry of frustration and ashis tail whipped wildly through the air, his fist thundered on theground next to his head. He suppressed the impulse to continueshouting and lashing out blindly, even if he felt like it.

Whathe couldn't stop, however, was that his fingers slipped under thatcrappy chain with the stone and he once again pulled on it with allhis strength. The thing dug painfully into his neck as the pull on itbecame stronger and stronger, then he heard a sound he already knew,he felt a slight electric tingle in his nerves and his arms just sankdown without him being able to stop it. For seconds he couldn't movethem and, as he knew from all his attempts to get rid of this thing,it would stay that way for a good minute. He used the time to look atthe black, skin-tight thing he was wearing, which looked like thethings the Saiyans wore under their armour.

When he couldcontrol his arms again, he crawled dejectedly to the edge of thecage, the chain rattling noticeably. With his back against the bars,facing the door and thus any threat that might come in, he pulled hislegs to his body, wrapped his arms around his knees and lowered hisforehead onto them. He could do nothing ... simply nothing. He wascompletely helpless ... and it was driving him mad!