The KidVegeta Anthology/Strength

Strength arose as the second reimagined story of Brady Patrick’s collection. Originally, this story was called Scintillator, and was going to be about Tien's emotional state after learning Shen was evil. I scrapped that because I didn't find it interesting to write about it. So, I wrote Strength several weeks before the end of my hiatus. On March 21, 2013, though I was not back to being active on the wiki, I updated Brady Patrick's page, with giving descriptions of each of the twelve stories. At this point, 10 days before I would return, I had already thought up a plot to replace the Tien story with. Within a few days, I had written it, and was very satisfied with my work.

After I wrote it on March 23, 2013, I went back onto the wiki to change the name to Strength, as that seemed a more accurate title to choose. My writing process for this story was rather quick, and I was aided by the isolation of not being on the wiki. I did not use any music while writing, which was a slightly uncommon way for me to do it. Usually, I would use a song (often a Jules one, since he is fantastic), but here, I did not need any such stimulus.

As for the story, that came from simply needing a replacement of the Tien story, and wanting it to connect with Second-best. Since this was my first story since the hiatus, and Second-best was my last story before it, it only made sense to connect the two. Using kid Vegeta here, I went for a completely different emotional state than those he had in Slaved or So Lonely At The Top. In Slaved, Vegeta had already been tortured by Zarbon a lot, and though near giving up, was still fighting for himself. In So Lonely At The Top, he was older, and therefore far more defeated. This story taking place immediately after he got the call at the end of the Bardock Special shows that while he is attempting to conceal any signs of emotion (mostly sadness at losing his father and friend than anything else), he is still stable enough to take on two soldiers, and kill one of them.

This story is a helpful extrapolation of the Zarbon-Vegeta relationship. I have always felt that since seeing the way Zarbon acted in the Bardock Special that he was jealous of the attention Frieza gave Vegeta. After successfully convincing Frieza to exterminate the Saiyans, he probably felt safe that Vegeta would die too. But then, bizarrely, Frieza spared Vegeta and his team, solely. Zarbon obviously did not like this, and in this story, he briefly tried to kill Vegeta. Using Appule was simply so that I would have someone Vegeta knew fight Vegeta. And since Appule wouldn't be stronger than Vegeta (alone, without Cherion) it helped explain how Vegeta won. Overall, this story is great setup to His Majesty's Pet, as Zarbon's torturing of Vegeta and Vegeta's trying to get back at Zarbon becomes a central theme. It almost appears in this story that, would Vegeta have been killed by Appule and Cherion, he likely would have been spared untold amounts of suffering. But hey, it's what we survive through that makes us stronger.

Endnotes

 * 1) The original description for the Tien story was "7. Scintillated - tien story about how he takes his anger of shen's betrayal out on some towns or something but then rises above it all".
 * 2) The new description of the kid Vegeta story was "7. Strength - The story of Zarbon's intended assassination of the young Vegeta soon after the destruction of the Saiyan homeworld".
 * 3) "fickle fiddler frolicking through the field" - was created to on a whim, partly to mock Destructivedisk's use of nonsensical alliteration.
 * 4) "Zarbon came out of the closet" - clearly has a double meaning.
 * 5) Using the heightened sense of smell was intentional, as it's a trait that Saiyans possess. Rarely do writers actually use it for anything, though.

Strength was a good story, though by no means my favorite of the Brady Patrick ones. I do like the connection between Zarbon's part, and the Vegeta's part, and finally the part at the end where it all comes together. This is one of the few stories of Brady Patrick's that actually has a fight, but it does work. Everything in this story is essentially something to distract Vegeta from his emotions, which works well. Since he later stated in the Namek Sagas that he welled up his emotions since this moment, it makes sense to make it a central point here. I also feel like the dialogue is superb, and in character for everyone. My only major complaint is that I probably should have named Cherion something else, though his name is decent. I would give Strength an A+.

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