Chapter 28
Day 6 of 10
Vegeta was in a lot of pain. He had been ever since he woke up. Through his whole body... he couldn't crouch, couldn't lift his arms... But it was good, it was what he wanted, his muscles were just complaining because they weren't used to the gravity. Planet Vegeta's gravity.
He gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the pain, going around the planet to get breakfast and pick up Mata and Sinkgi. They met his secret room with amazement and the three of them trained happily—well, Mata was focused and serious, but Sinkgi seemed lively enough and Vegeta was happy—for an hour. That was all the others could handle. Ha. Vegeta was reaching his limit, too, but he had spent the night.
"Let's take a break," Mata said, sides heaving as she propped herself up against the wall. "We can get food and walk around for a while. I wanna check out the competition."
"Nnh," Sinkgi grunted, his face closing and shoulders slumping.
Vegeta jumped up and hit him across the back of the head as hard as he could, slamming the beetle against the floor. "One point for me. No matter how many hours we spend sight-seeing, I bet you won't get me back. I don't let my guard down."
"Oh, yeah?" Sinkgi, invested, tried to hit Vegeta five times on the way out of the parking hemisphere. When that didn't work he settled down to play the waiting game.
Vegeta liked Sazz more everyday. After he and Sinkgi got sandwiches and Mata had deconstructed devilled eggs folded in an omelette, the trio was out in the bright and crowded main plaza. They passed through blocks dedicated to specific regions of the galaxy. Vegeta, the polyglot of the group, translated the banners and displays. He recognized a lot of IGRIS-owned shops and saw the different fashion and merchandise of races that had always just been a name on a page for him. And the training building. Why hadn't he been thinking about all the other rooms it had? As they passed by room after room packed with martial artists working relentlessly, devotedly, Vegeta's excitement grew.
*⁂*⁂*
A fisherman leaned over the side of his boat. The telltale darkening of the water filled him with excitement and dread. Something big was coming up from the sea floor. It was huge. It was alive. And it wasn't one of God's creatures.
*⁂*⁂*
"Who's that one?" Vegeta asked Mata with urgency.
"Who?"
"Him." As tall as Nappa, still athletic but leaner. Skin a glassy pale gold and almost glowing, face calm and symmetrical and long black hair smoothly tied back in a ponytail. He held his weight very well... his feet were always planted and he didn't sway. And a moment earlier, he had moved too fast for Vegeta to see. "He looks strong."
"Loe Ott." Mata's eyes were glued to him. "He's the one to look out for. He'll make it to the finals."
"You think? Has he won before?" Vegeta asked without looking away.
"No, this is his first time. But I know."
Vegeta nodded. He could tell, too. What was this warmth in his chest? He loved it here. He wanted to fight Loe Ott... he had to. If he didn't, he wouldn't be able to go home. Maybe he made a mistake in—
"Got you!" Sinkgi charged at Vegeta's back while he was still looking into the room, yes, unguarded. The entire wall shattered and Vegeta fell face-first into fifty people's matches and a floor covered in broken glass.
"Sinkgi...!" He knew everyone was staring at him... the room was silent. Vegeta's hand wrapped around Sinkgi's ankle, strong and unexpected enough to pull him over. Vegeta jumped to his feet while Sinkgi rolled through the glass. Sinkgi was fine with that blue shell of his, but blood dripped down Vegeta's front and light reflected off the shards of glass stuck in his cheek and his bare arms.
Vegeta kicked Sinkgi to his feet and they all ran off before anyone had the chance to window blame them. Sinkgi didn't apologize, so instead Vegeta ducked them into a different room and said they should have a few more matches themselves.
Bad idea. He lost, no other way to put it. The glass was annoying, but Vegeta just couldn't fight with his weak muscles. Mata made him go to the treatment center. The doctor spent almost the whole afternoon picking glass out of Vegeta's skin. He was really starting to miss healing tanks, even though this was the way things had been done for most of his life.
It was nearing the end of day six's official matches by the time he was finally released. Vegeta, heavily bandaged, rushed towards the preliminary building. Things played out almost the same as yesterday, except he shut the fights down before they had the chance to develop. He couldn't afford to hold back today. Everything he put himself through had scratched his power level down to 7,000 or so.
This batch was weaker than yesterday's. Even with Vegeta's handicap, the first hundred didn't put up a fight.
But then a weasel appeared. A weasel with a black quiff and features that were narrow and cruel. A weasel whose arms and legs had bubbles of red, gel-like liquid writhing under the skin... but only up to the elbows and knees.
Vegeta didn't notice him to be generous. He noticed him because he had to. The 33% bubbles alien was targeting his injuries.
The crowd started to complain when they saw what was going on. Vegeta's bandages had stayed clean and tightly-wrapped up until then, but now they were hanging off him in shreds, exposing dozens of thin cuts and scratches. And wasn't Bubble Arms scraping against them on purpose? Wounds that had already scabbed over had begun to bleed again.
"Dirty cheater!"
"You call yourself a martial artist? Fight fair!"
"Shut up." Vegeta ripped the rest of his bandages off and diverted another attack. Didn't the fools know it would be his own fault if he lost against such a strategy? He was still going to win, but he had been surprised by such ruthless play... it was as if he was fighting another member of the Force. Ha! He wasn't expecting such blood at this tournament.
But Vegeta hadn't yet realized the full extent of his opponent's technique. He was attacking from above, or trying to hold him down, and every time Vegeta had a little more trouble pushing him off. "Whoa, no way..." Vegeta whispered, pinned to the ground under his opponent and staring into black eyes. Had the man sensed his exhaustion? Was he forcing Vegeta to use the maximum amount of energy fighting him, until his spent muscles stopped responding?
"Hey, guess what?" the alien hissed. "This is an unofficial match, baby. No rules. You came into this with your shoelaces untied and I'm gonna rip you apart. Half of that sentence was a metaphor, superstar. Guess which half."
Vegeta grinned and gathered all his chi. With an explosive kiai, a shout, his power burst forth. Trees swayed and rocks scattered. The audience stumbled back. And his opponent was thrown off of him. "Rip me apart?" Vegeta got up, laughing. His cuts had stopped bleeding. "Interesting! Okay, let's go—"
"I give up!" 33% Bubbles cried as he flung himself down in a deep bow. "Match over, match over, you win!"
"... Huh?" Vegeta might as well have been punched in the stomach. "B—but we were just getting started..."
"No, you're much too strong for me. I lost, good job, please don't hurt me."
Vegeta frowned. From what he could tell his opponent was around 8,000, but with his own injuries the outcome of the match was far from clear. Quitting too early was a crippling flaw, and 8,000 wasn't really enough to keep up with him at his normal pace... Still, Vegeta had gotten a little better at fighting defensively over the course of the match. This alien was weak but had taught him something... "What's your name?"
"F—F—Fu."
"Fu? Fine." Vegeta turned to the others waiting for a turn. "All of you leave, I have what I came for." He was not getting rid of them because of his injuries. He wasn't. "But you're coming with me, Fu."
"Yes."
"Vegeta! So that's where you went." Mata and Sinkgi had caught up to him. "What happened?"
"You guys, this is Fu," Vegeta said, shoving him forward. "He's joining us. He isn't very strong, but... you'll see. Don't underestimate him."
"Not strong? Not training with him," said Sinkgi.
"I want to crack that shell and watch your soft insides ooze out," said Fu, going straight for Sinkgi's exposed eyes. Sinkgi fought him off, open-faced and obviously won over.
"Anyways, see you later," Vegeta said, starting to walk away.
"Wait." Mata caught up to him, pulling Sinkgi and Fu with her. "Where are you going? We can all get supper and then train together in the contestant district."
"No, I'm going back."
"Without eating? To your audience rooms to sleep off your injuries?" Mata shook her head. "I don't get you, Vegeta. I don't get why you didn't register as a contestant. Come on. No one will notice if you move into one of the empty rooms in our building, and we can train for six hours tonight. Just the four of us. It'll even be more of a fair fight. Get your stuff together."
"You think I'm going back to the audience district? I moved out yesterday. Thanks for the offer, but from now on I'm sleeping in the parking hemisphere. Nowhere else will do."
"The parking hemisphere?" All three were shocked. "Why would you ever do that?" Mata cried.
"Sleeping in 15G... Your brain would get crushed and you'd wake up to blurry lights and muffled sounds, unable to think, in confused pain for the rest of your short life!" Fu said in a perky sort of way.
"Definitely wouldn't heal," said Sinkgi thoughtfully. "Can't get energy back without resting and never resting in that place."
"Yeah. I might die in my sleep," Vegeta said, heart pounding. He was still sore from last night, and he had gone into that at full health. But... he trusted his abilities. He was Saiyan, he had started life in this gravity.
"Okay, weirdo, do what you want," said Mata. "But you're really going away without eating supper first? Why don't we get something quick and then go our separate ways?"
"Well, obviously," said Vegeta.
Mata was a little sneaky. After they had filled their bellies at the Dough-Gi she brought up a place that was really close, super close, like, basically next door, a place that each contestant traditionally paid their respects to at every tournament, and she hadn't gotten around to it this cycle and it would be so fast and easy to just tag along and see it and they would all get so much out of going, even Vegeta, the only non-contestant.
Vegeta agreed quickly, not even to shut her up. The Tomb of 1,000,000 Artists had piqued his interest ever since he first heard the Cheeing broadcast.
It was a white granite slab about eight feet long resting on five huge platforms made of black and white bricks. Each brick had a few dozen names carved into its surface. There must have been thousands of them all carefully stacked to present the slab to the open air.
"They say 1,000,000 Artists but there's a few more by now," Mata said solemnly. "They've never added a name while I was here but I've heard about some that happened in the last decade."
"This is the death toll for the Galajū?" Vegeta asked, sniffing at something in the air intently. Mata, Fu, and even Sinkgi bowed their heads respectfully in silence. "One million, huh? That's really good."
"Good?" Mata gaped at him.
"Uh, I mean, no death is best but one million's pretty low, isn't it?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Anyway, what's kind of interesting is this white stone at the top. There's a ceremony they do, isn't there? When someone dies? They lay them on the slab and... well, what else do they do, Mata?"
Mata shook her head slowly, looking confused. "I don't know. I didn't even know there was a ceremony. Wait, how would you know?"
"I can smell it. Dead bodies have a pretty strong stench, and that white stone's covered in it. I've never smelled a million dead bodies all in the same spot, but I can tell."
"Do you know how many?" Fu asked intently. "Can you tell the exact number?"
Vegeta was silent for a few seconds. He tried to let the dry, musty air sink down to the bottoms of his lungs. "No... not really. Probably somewhere between 1,000,200 and 1,000,300."
"Still, that's pretty—"
"Young Vegeta, another trick! Is there anything you can't do?" said a familiar polka-cheeked prince, coming up beside them. "Marvellous! Not credible! As the girl said, it's a complete mystery you aren't registered to fight!"
"How long were you following us for?" Vegeta asked, frowning. The man, still exclaiming loudly, didn't hear him. His enthusiasm about Vegeta's sense of smell shifted to enthusiasm about Vegeta's ability to restart hearts, and then to how useful that particular skill could be. Before they knew it, Vegeta and his group had been whisked across the street, through a colorful door in a colorful faҫade, up a narrow flight of stairs, and into a vast room that was sparkling clean and had a view that overlooked the entire bustling plaza. In the middle of the room stood two racks of medical equipment, a giant bed, and two solemn-faced Galajū attendants stationed on either side of the person in the bed. It was Maj the sick girl, of course.
"You may go," said the man with a nod to the attendants, who promptly bowed and slipped out of the room. He then turned to face Vegeta, clasping his hands behind his back. "Now, boy, I'm afraid I have a rather serious—"
"Who are you?" Vegeta interrupted. Mata squeaked and pulled him into a hallway with a shrill apology, Sinkgi and Fu on her heels.
"They're Prince Bisque and Princess Maj, the royal patrons of the Galajū! They've been single-handedly funding the entire tournament for the past ten years!"
"Oh, so that's who they were," Vegeta said, unimpressed. "You didn't have to take me out here to tell me that." He walked back in. Bisque was running a comb through his swooping hair which had gone a little frizzy at being interrupted. Maj was trying to sit up in bed.
"I wouldn't want to entrust such a rude little child with such important matters such as these." Vegeta looked around for the unfamiliar speaker, but there was no one else in the room. Only when Bisque took his sister's hand with a "There, there" did he realize that Maj had spoken for the first time. He took a few steps closer, curious. One of the tubes coming out of her mouth was shorter than the others and ended in a small plastic pair of lips. Maj's own lips wore a carefully-applied coat of blue lipstick and the false mouth matched.
"I'm dying," the tube-mouth said in a plastic hiss, "and the likes of him certainly won't be able to do anything about it."
"If that was true you'd be dead already, dear Maj," said Bisque, not letting go of her hand. "You will recall the incident when we first arrived."
"Every one of our problems would be solved if only Daylee Chou would come back to us."
"He's missing again, if you haven't figured it out by now," Bisque said to Vegeta.
Vegeta nodded. "How long?"
"An hour. That may not sound like much, but with our connections, being hidden from us for half that time would be a feat in and of itself. And with Maj's frail condition, even being gone for an hour..."
"He isn't a very good nurse."
"You're right, he's the best nurse! No one else has the ability to fully care for me. Bisque does what he can, but poor love can't handle anything more than basic maintenance. Every time I begin to tell him what's become of my insides he turns ill and has to leave the room."
"Maj's life is in greater danger every minute Daylee is away. Tell me now, what is your medical background?"
Vegeta frowned at Bisque again. It was clear where this was going and he didn't like it. "Gaki-yūki," he said reluctantly. During the four days he had spent studying under that doctor he had passed the first level in medical science.
"That's all? Nothing I can't do," said Bisque. "Well then, we'll just keep you on emergency backup. You'll need to be ready at all hours in case her heart stops again." He held out a comm.
Vegeta looked at it with revulsion. There was no way he was taking it. Being a nurse? Not what he had in mind when he set out for the galactic martial arts tournament, and not what he had in mind when he joined the Freeza Force. She had called him a child.
But then he saw the towering stack of match records on the bedside table, stuffed with annotated bookmarks. Maj crossed her arms under the tubes and stared him critically up and down, then closed her eyes and gave as much of a nod as the tubes would allow, as if he had already agreed to do it. Bisque was talking again. "... 100,000 Uni up front. If you have to save her again, another 100,000 will be yours. And if you are absent when she needs you, I'm afraid I'll have to withdraw funding to this tournament."
Vegeta accepted the money and the comm and very reluctantly promised to come running if it went off. Then he left.
Despite the others' outcry, he still went around the planet to the parking hemisphere. He'd probably try to be available in the future, but Maj would just have to die if anything happened that night. He wasn't spending another night out of 15G. And he was going to wake up the next day well-rested, healed, and alive.
Like most races, Saiyan infants are born significantly weaker than adults. Perhaps it is the resilience of their bodies, or perhaps it is an intense, instinctual will to live, but Planet Vegeta has never lost a single child to its crushing gravity. Even the low-class members of the species survive.
Day 7 of 10
Vegeta had slept deeply. Something had to pound on the door for thirty seconds before he woke up. Yawning, he went to answer it. It was probably the tournament-runners come to kick him out, but he was too groggy to care. His senses of danger and constant alertness had taken their own holiday on this safe planet.
"Good morning!" It was the group, bearing a massive tray loaded with breakfast. Vegeta blinked sleepily at them. Very nice.
Fu was slow coming into the room, not used to the gravity. "So you survived... the night..." he said with difficulty. "But a kid like me can't take it for long. Gotta bounce... see you bad apples later when it's time for us to beat each other senseless."
"You aren't going anywhere," said Vegeta, cheerful now that he was scarfing down the food with Mata and Sinkgi. None of them had eaten yet in the interest of getting to the parking hemisphere early. "You probably won't have a chance if you can't handle this gravity, and you definitely won't have a chance if you keep quitting like that. Get back here. Why would you register if you didn't want to win?"
Fu immediately thought of his father, beating him almost to death daily because he wasn't strong enough to fight back. He wanted to be. He needed to be. If he learned something here and went home... went home and got even with his father... he would finally get to call himself a man, and his father would accept him. They all would.
"I don't know what I was thinking." He joined them and took what little food was left. "These three are strong. They'll help me. And then, after the tournament, I'll honour them all with my new power by breaking each of their spines. Even if the other two scream and start to cry, I know Vegeta will understand."
"You think?" Vegeta said, licking syrup off a plate. Mata and Sinkgi were horrified.
"Oh, no, babies, I didn't—I wasn't—" Fu was also horrified, having forgotten that he often forgot to think instead of speak. "I mean of course I—"
"Cut it out. And you two, what's there to be afraid of? He's just a little 8,000, and a quitter on top of that. Work hard and he'll never catch up to you." Tossing the plate aside, Vegeta got up and passed by Fu. "You work hard, too, if you're serious about what you said," he whispered. "Now we're all going to go until lunchtime. You're the only one who isn't used to this gravity. But if you try to leave I'll stop you, so figure out a way to survive the morning."
To everyone's surprise, not only was Vegeta no longer weak like yesterday, he even seemed to have gained some strength. No one could beat him. Not even Mata, who had been working herself nearly to death ever since he arrived to achieve that very goal. She had to use all her normal strength just to stay on par with Vegeta in the room... and she knew he was holding back... only fighting at "training" levels. Damn it. It was scary how comfortable he was under this debilitating gravity. Mata had already made it to the semi-finals that started tomorrow, but in her eyes she hadn't earned her place until she beat Vegeta.
Vegeta, for his part, was very pleased with his progress in adjusting to the gravity. He would have no trouble waiting until he got back to get fully healed... and then get a proper power boost. Heh heh heh... he'd get at least a hundred point increase. There was no way of measuring his power level on this planet, but he should be getting close to 11,000. And before the week was out, he would challenge that strong one personally. He didn't need to participate in the formal tournament to fight Loe Ott after all.
Sinkgi was having the time of his life. Four people training together was great, but he wanted more. Twice that! No, five times that! Hundreds of people, fighting in an unrestrained battle royale! Just pure chaos as far as the eye could see. He had already sent in a job application to the tournament staff. He had a few suggestions he wanted to make to transform the Galajū from a tournament to paradise. Or he could just clean the floors. Anything to get away from his home planet.
Fu was getting used to the others' aggressive style of combat. Even if he tried to surrender, there was nowhere to run. The crippling, wheezing fear was slower to appear and faster to leave. And the red bubbles in his arms were finally past elbow-level. Wait for me, Father. I won't be a failure anymore. I deserve to live.
With such a productive morning, the four young aliens could afford to take a few hours off. It was Mata's idea to find the edges of the city. Since Sazz was a planet whose only purpose was to host the Galajū, the cityscape ended sharply. One second they were walking around the corner of Lao's Oddities and Satellite Repair, and the next they were practically hit in the face with a wall of deep green vegetation.
"A forest? This must be the green spot," said Mata.
"Looks more like a jungle. Too wet. Hot already," said Sinkgi.
"Does anyone else smell—"
"Yeah." Vegeta cut Fu off. "And I've also smelled it in half the restaurants we've been to. This is where they grow the food for the whole planet. It's just herbs and spices. Let's go."
"Back?"
"No, in."
Sinkgi was right, it was wet. Every leaf was dripping with condensation, every stem slick with moisture. The plants grew so thickly above them that they blotted out the light and tendrils of foliage seemed to squirm out of their way as they travelled deeper. The air was so humid that it was hard to breathe. All in all, this jungle existed for function rather than form, and hiking through it was like drifting alone the bottom of the ocean.
Once in a while, a clearing would appear where animals were being raised. But Vegeta was only interested in going deeper... the jungle had a hypnotizing effect where it seemed to get dimmer and dimmer as they continued on.
The light must really have been fading, because the trees that were marked with streaks of glowing blue stood out from a mile away.
"What's this?" Mata wondered aloud.
"Tree."
"Thanks, Sinkgi. But really, what is this? It looks like light or some kind of energy, but it's smeared. Like someone shot a chi blast that... shedded... somehow."
"Or someone made of this blue stuff got dragged through the forest," said Fu.
—FOREST !た! THERE WAS—!すけ!—THAT HOST—... RELEASE... —LIMITED !て! TOMB... !くれ! ... WHAT ON SAZZ WENT WRONG—
All four of them flinched.
"Did you all just—"
"What? What—"
"Who said—"
"Fu, do you smell that?" Vegeta asked.
"H... he... huh?" Fu squeaked, only saying anything because Mata was keeping him from running away. "S—smell what, Vegeta?"
"Never mind. Just some more... herbs." Vegeta searched the blackness around them, troubled. He should have noticed earlier... but he wasn't expecting such strong traces of fear at the Galajū. He wanted to find out what was wrong with these woods. If he ditched the others he might be able to...
... Or he might not. If they wanted to get back in time for the end of the preliminaries, they had to leave now.
The group was more than happy to head back, but Vegeta had to take a longing glance at those blue-marked trees. That had been the only flash of danger he had felt since his arrival. He had always thought that fighting was all that mattered to him, but now he was second-guessing himself. Even at the center of all the fighting in the galaxy, he was glad he didn't have to stay longer than ten days.
There was no need to second guess the choice to abandon the jungle mystery. Vegeta's final recruitment session behind the preliminary building was the most eventful one of them all.
It started with Han'na Michee.
