________vegeta felt the skin between the base of his ears and the surface of his shoulders stiffen. it was a mild chill, like a draft rolling across his physiological awareness. while vegeta would describe it as more of an itch, if anything, its familiar sour texture made him sick to his stomach.
________the first time the rotten sensation had the impudence to crawl its way into him was twenty-three years ago, when frieza descended upon the planet and unceremoniously raised a black-tipped finger to kill the king almost instantly. frieza's lip curled, and even at the age of six, vegeta knew what it meant: perhaps now that you have nothing but a child at the helm, you apes will simply cannibalize yourselves among the chaos.
________but saiyan tradition, blind to the spark that set its gears turning, moved like clockwork to install the six-year-old vegeta the fourth as the new king of all saiyans. and as tradition goes, the king's pet was also to be selected at the time of his coronation. a convenient means of scavenging pathetically worthless newborns with the absolute lowest potential for battle, the baby would miraculously transform from an abject embarrassment for his or her family to a great honor upon selection. as a show of opulence, the king's pet was to be overfed to the point they acquired the appearance of saiyans raised on planets with a much lower gravity. once the selection was made, it would forever be his destiny to be seen and not heard.
________however, there would be one final utility the king's pet was destined to critically serve...
________frieza's impatience had gotten the better of him. the first to get pointlessly fried to a crisp was that fool bardock, followed by the less bright among the saiyan king's best men, and he knew it was only a matter of time before the rest of the rabble fell to the tyrant's paranoia-induced genocide. now, twenty-three years later, king vegeta the fourth knew the time had come.
________his personal attendant dutifully terminated king vegeta's pet, then prepared him with as much beauty as his highness deserves—current circumstances be damned—and presented his meal before the saiyan king.
________vegeta could feel... yes... it was as if the blood he had just consumed was creating an explosive chemical reaction within his own, each biological domino cascading into an even bigger wave of life, an initial stream of energy becoming a flooding torrent in a mere moment. within his chest his heart pumped more richly, his every cell igniting with the electric strength only his own kind could contribute to him. an enormous frission shot up vegeta's spine, then, as he realized he couldn't waste another fraction of a second not actively tearing into his kingdom's invader.
________in a manic blur of guts and explosions, vegeta was vaguely aware of the fact that he was currently succeeding in his plot for revenge against the wretched clown holding his species hostage; his sense of victory would ultimately be brief, though, as this alone couldn't slake his furious desire for further bloodshed. he would soon advance his intergalactic conquest and take what was truly his rightful throne: king of the universe. at least, that's what would have happened if it weren't for one earth woman...