Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Dragonscales ❯ Cooperate ( Chapter 9 )

Nappa was in a panic.

 

He was not as sharply intelligent as his prince or as clever as Raditz, he knew. He never contradicted his superiors when they put him down with insults about his intellectual capacity. It was easy for him to accept that he was simply not built to be anything but a warrior of siege tank classification. Slow but strong, most of the time unstoppable once he gained momentum and rage. He was also loyal.

 

He was in a panic now because if he did not break his loyalty, he, Raditz, and Prince Vegeta would all die.

 

"Cooperate" had been the only order Dodoria had given before sending them on this ridiculous training mission. The underlying goal was not to make them stronger but to try to humiliate them in front of the rest of the army, as usual.

 

Cooperation, they learned painfully, meant staying within a ten foot radius of one another, or else the braces on their necks and limbs would shock them with electric currents powerful enough to kill them if sustained over five seconds.

 

It did not help that they knew nothing of the planet's terrain or the hostile creatures that lived in burrows, springing up around them to shoot ki blasts and then ducking down out of reach. The first fifteen minutes had worn the prince's limited patience to nothing, and thereafter their lives had begun wearing down with each shock that came from the angry young man's attempts at moving beyond the set radius.

 

The prince was actually the one closest to death because his body mass was by far the lowest, though he hated to be reminded of the fact. Nappa was in a panic because if he died, they would all die. What use did Frieza have for two mediocre, ugly Saiyans without their prince? Even Nappa knew that the only reason Frieza kept them around was so Vegeta could keep his sanity; without subjects, he could not even pretend at being a prince anymore.

 

He made his decision and hoped he would not come to regret it later.

 

Before the prince could dart out of range in another futile attempt to hit an indigenous assailant, Nappa struck the back of his neck and caught him before he fell completely unconscious. The look on the prince's face was of unmatched shock and a promise of vengeance. He gulped and hoped he never would see that promise fulfilled.

 

In the last few seconds of his life years later, he realized the prince never left vows unfulfilled. It had just taken a while; the prince was more patient than he thought.