Downtime
Vegeta, Raditz and Nappa have some time to kill before their next planetary raid. Vegeta and Nappa are going to Arlia, Raditz is going to Earth. (This is a DBZ space prequel)
It wasn't much of a planet, but Nappa and Raditz loved it.
A vibrant race of violent shapeshifters called this dirty little rock home and Vegeta had never thought it a worthy place for Saiyans to get their boots cleaned on, let alone stop and rest.
Regardless of Vegeta's beliefs, he was always outvoted when the time came for a rest stop on Planet Baranth.
So once again he turned up his nose as he entered the dim noisy pub full of smoke and the smell of weak alcohol. His teammates stalked in behind him. Nappa began to lament about how thirsty he was and Raditz began to drool over the women. Same old, same old. How odd he found it that they'd developed something of a routine these days in what was arguably the most unpredictable profession in the galaxy.
Most of the time you could set a clock to it: Frieza's camp, receive orders, raid planet, rest, repeat.
Frieza's idea of resting was coming back to his spaceship immediately and taking one day to sleep before going back out there again. Vegeta, however, had begun to demand they have more time to themselves. They were not children. They didn't need constant supervision. And it saved time to stay in the field between missions.
Today they were between missions.
Vegeta had already surveyed the place in a matter of seconds. The bar was full and the table along the brown clay walls were as well. An inviting space in the middle of the floor was vacant and as soon as they descended, the other patrons scooted their chairs away and kept their limbs tucked safely out of the reach of "Frieza's men."
"Arlia is only a short trip from here," Vegeta said as Nappa nodded. But he could tell that he was barely listening.
The drink specials for the night were flashing on a scrolling sign above the bar. Raditz made a 'come here' motion to a redheaded waitress with cat ears and long legs.
"Earth, not so much. But we will stay for the night anyway."
That caught their attention.
"Really? We're not going back to Frieza?" Nappa asked, the excitement in his voice was palpable.
"Vegeta, you're too kind," Raditz said with a smirk.
"Do I have to wait all night long for one watered down beverage?"
"No, Vegeta!" Raditz said, slipping his arm around the waist of a purple haired waitress as she passed. She wore a dark shirt, dark apron and not much else. She had a tiger's tail. Vegeta noticed it was not much different from a Saiyan's.
"Three of your finest, Baranthean. And be quick about it." Raditz demanded.
She scribbled on a notepad. "Sure thing."
Raditz pinched her butt as she left. She jumped. Nappa laughed. Vegeta refrained from rolling his eyes. This was their downtime and he did not want to spoil it. The raid on Planet Kinjai was a roaring success. They had earned their women and glasses.
And Vegeta guessed he had earned some downtime, too. It would be nice to let his guard down as well, like Nappa and Raditz, but he'd been trained to be alert at all times. He was in charge here and even when resting he could not become too comfortable. For part of the reason Raditz and Nappa were able to unwind is because they knew he would be looking out for them.
No one dared challenge them though on Baranth. All the natives seemed to be especially aware that their ability to entertain Frieza's men was connected to their lifespan. And any non-natives foolish enough to try and attack them would die quickly.
Lucky for them, Vegeta hadn't had to kill someone in this pub in a very long time. Nappa was glad of it. Under normal circumstances the death of an idiot fighter meant nothing to him. But to destroy this planet would mean destroying the only place that had come close to being a second home planet for the longtime homeless Saiyans.
Vegeta looked around. If he squinted, you could mistake this place for a bar in the working class Sprout District of North Village on Planet Vegeta. Maybe.
He shook his head. Was he becoming nostalgic? How ridiculous. And simply unfitting for a warrior. There was no looking back now, only forward. No past, only the present.
It was what Vegeta told himself to make it through each day.
When the waitress came back with their drinks, the boys grabbed greedily at them.
Nappa raised his glass. "To Kinjai! They put up a good fight."
"And it didn't matter at all in the end!" Raditz added, sticking his glass in the air.
Vegeta tossed back the green liquid. It burned as it went down and made his tongue tingle.
Nappa whistled low and slammed his down on the table after downing the whole thing in one giant gulp. "That's what I'm talkin about! Hey girlie, more of the green stuff. And don't put it in a shot glass again, either."
"Easy, Nappa," Vegeta warned him.
"Oh, lemme have a little fun, Vegeta. Lemme have a few. I'll behave this time, I promise."
"You don't have to behave. Just don't fall on your ass before the sun goes down."
Raditz laughed. "Like last time."
"Shut up, Raditz."
Vegeta filled his mouth with the rest of the drink. It felt like his tastebuds were disintegrating. He sighed and his shoulders lowered. He crossed his legs and leaned back.
Raditz grabbed yet another waitress with a wiggling tiger tail, blonde and freckled and athletic. She set three giant mugs down and began to fill them with brown alcohol in a bottle shaped like a hammer. The label read "Tranquilizer."
'They are dedicated to becoming too inebriated to walk tonight,' Vegeta thought.
"I won't be needing one of those," he said pushing the mug away and holding onto his regular sized glass.
"Anything else I can get you?"
She smiled at him. He turned his head. "No."
"Anything at all?" Her tail was turned upwards. Vegeta looked her up and down.
"No."
"Suit yourself, handsome."
Raditz leaned over and elbowed Vegeta as the waitress spun around to leave with his empty mug.
"Vegeta, you're going to let *her* walk away?"
"She's a Baranthean." He spat, "Unfit for anything other than serving me drinks."
"She's a shapeshifter. Didn't you see her tail? Mannn oh man, the things she can probably do in bed," Nappa chuckled.
"Every servant in the room is a shapeshifter. What's your point?"
"C'mon, Vegeta," said Nappa. "If you're waitin' around for a nice Saiyan girl to hit you, you're gonna be waitin' for a long time."
"I'm not here to sample the population, like you two. Planet Arlia is going to be a challenge and I need to rest if I plan on destroying it."
"Arlia, Kinjai, Nowan, Didiyous, they're all the same," Nappa said. He gulped down more alcohol. "You're Frieza's favorite, can't you ask for a sabbatical or something?"
"Now, Nappa, leave Vegeta to his own devices," said Raditz. "If he's not interested, then I'll be happy to entertain some tiger tail for a while. It's not like Vegeta knows how."
He narrowed his eyes at Raditz.
"What did you say?"
The long-haired Saiyan gave Vegeta a charming smile. He tipped his chair backwards and balanced on the back legs. "Did I stutter?"
Vegeta leaned forward.
Nappa jumped in. "Now, Vegeta - "
"There's a reason why they call that drink in your hand liquid courage, Raditz," said Vegeta. "You're gonna need that and so much more to take me on."
He swung out his leg and kicked Raditz's chair back. Raditz yelped and flailed and then crashed onto the floor with a huge commotion. His mug smashed into a million little pieces. His alcohol stained the ground. His hulking legs were kicking in the air and causing a scene in the middle of the floor.
Nappa burst into laughter. Raditz scrambled to his feet and Vegeta smirked.
"Entertain whomever you like." Vegeta poured the last swallow of his green drink in his mouth and stood up. "Just try not to catch any diseases in the process."
Raditz fumed as Vegeta started to walk away.
"Hey, where ya goin' Vegeta?" Nappa called.
"To get some fresh air."
The pub had become even more crowded in such a short period of time that he didn't like sitting there anymore. Vegeta elbowed his way past ignorant patrons and slack-jawed natives.
Until a creature with a barrel for a chest stepped directly into Vegeta's path.
He tilted his head up to see a blue-skinned goon with yellow eyes and repulsive facial features grinning down at him.
"Out of my way, you ugly beast. I'm not interested in making friends."
"You think we don't know who you are?" He said in a raspy voice.
Two other blue-skinned people with huge arms and glowing eyes and teeth circled Vegeta.
He was wearing his white and yellow armor, his blue 'uniform' of sorts. Widely recognized around the universe as the signature look of the Frieza Army. So yes, actually, Vegeta did expect them to know who he was.
"I don't care what you think," he replied. "Step aside or die."
"We heard you and your mass murderer friends over there wiped out a couple million Kinjaids a few days ago." The ringleader said. "Don't even try and deny it."
A memory hit him. A brief one. There was something about the atmosphere on Kinjai. It made the oxygen appear red. Vegeta thought those insects on Kinjai had purple skin.
But it was merely the tainted air giving their skin a different hue. Their real appearance was blue.
He smirked up in the creature's face. "Yes. You are correct. That was me. Now what are you going to do about it?"
They all began shouting at him.
"Why you little midget!"
"You're proud of yourself, aren't you?"
"You're proud of committing genocide!"
"Someone should wipe out your home planet!"
Vegeta stuck his hand out behind him, to the one who dared speak of Planet Vegeta and fired a blast of white light in his chest.
The creature's body went flying across the bar and smashed into the farthest wall. Patrons began to scream and run. The waitresses hid, the bartenders ducked. Nappa and Raditz were on their feet in a matter of milliseconds.
But Vegeta didn't need them. He jumped up and punched the ringleader in the throat, sending him reeling. The last one standing got a firm uppercut to the stomach. He spat blood. In three seconds flat, they were all out cold.
And in through the door, as if his actions had triggered some kind of silent alarm, more Kinjaids. 10, 15 of them.
They swarmed the pub and Vegeta was swinging like a madman. Taking them out, one at a time, with a smile on his face.
Nappa picked up a table and swung it around to knock out three men where they stood. Raditz kicked one in the face and suckerpunched another to his side.
Bottles flew, chairs broke, and when the smoke cleared Vegeta was heaving and gasping for air. He wasn't tired. He was exhilarated.
Nappa and Raditz were grinning. Not a single Kinjaid was on his feet. Almost all of them were dead. The pub was incredibly silent. No one moved.
Vegeta resumed his straight posture and laughed.
He went over to the ringleader and pulled him up by the collar. He groaned and cursed Vegeta's name.
"If you had just gotten out of my way like I asked, then your race would only be endangered... instead of extinct."
Vegeta put his hand up to the Kinjaid leader's face.
"No, please! I take back everything! Please, spare me! Spare meeeee!"
A ball of ki formed in his hand and Vegeta used it to blast the flesh off his skull and char it to a golden brown.
There were gasps from the other patrons. Vegeta threw down the twitching body.
"Nice one, Vegeta," said Nappa.
"Where are you going now?"
He ignored Raditz. He ignored the dead Kinjaids on the floor behind him. He went back to their table where the waitress from before was cowering behind his chair.
Vegeta held out his hand. "Get up."
She swallowed hard and took his hand. She stood, clutching her serving tray to her chest. She was shaking. "C-Can I help you?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, you can."
Nappa and Raditz watched in awe as the tiger tailed waitress put down her serving tray and walked to the bar, hand in hand with Vegeta. The bartender passed over a bottle shaped like a rectangle.
The waitress tucked it under her arm and they disappeared towards the staircase. It lead to boarding rooms upstairs... where Vegeta usually slept alone.
Whatever Nappa had heard about shapeshifting women with tiger tails must have been an urban legend.
The blonde rolled over, away from Vegeta's torso. There was a chill on his side now, but it was nothing he wasn't used to. She wasn't particularly exciting once they were alone, but the encounter had burned off his excess adrenaline from the fight.
He was tired now. Really tired.
When she transformed into her more cat-like state things got interesting, kinky even, however her second form didn't last long. She apologized for her inexperience. In a rare moment of candid confession, he admitted his own lack of experience as well.
She didn't believe him. All conversation ceased.
This was why Vegeta never found much interest in the waitresses and the prisoners of war and the daughters of kings. They never kept his attention for long.
If Nappa and Raditz wanted to ravage these beautiful, uncultured creatures in every corner of the universe, that was their business.
Vegeta, on the other hands, was still getting used to the idea that there are no women of his own race to ravage. No Saiyan children to create. No continuing of the race, of his royal bloodline.
He sighed in the darkness.
There was a sick kind of irony involved in that Kincaid scum's words. How could he destroy planets when his own had been destroyed? Did he not feel their pain?
He was becoming more like Frieza with each passing day. Colder, harder, more evil.
And how could he not? Frieza was his lord. The only thing he had now that even barely resembled a family were Nappa and Raditz. They were akin to brothers, but even one day they too would die. Then he would be truly alone. His own race would be extinct, too.
Ruthless, was what Frieza's men called him. That and a dirty monkey and other disgusting slurs. He was no filthy mammal. He was a prince. He feared nothing! And yet, the thought of being alone when he died was unfathomable in it's horror.
Vegeta immediately began to deny this truth to himself. He was not afraid. Dying alone was the burden of the warrior. And the calling card of a prince. And he was not just any prince. He was the prince of all Saiyans!
... and he was sleeping with a lowly Baranthean. As if that could cure what ailed him. He scowled and got out of the bed. He went to the window and looked out at the planet.
He and Nappa were going to Arlia. Raditz was going to Earth. He'd heard much about the fabled Kakarot that lived there. The fourth surviving Saiyan was out there in the universe somewhere.
Vegeta was looking forward to meeting him. Hopefully he'd be a nice addition to their group. He was a low-class Saiyan. A disgrace to Raditz and their father. Under normal circumstances he would never even think twice about associating with someone like Kakarot.
But that was then and this is now.
"You better not be a weakling, Kakarot," he murmured. "You better not waste my time."
I don't own DBZ. Thanks for reading! Leave me a comment or two :)