Chapter 43. For the King

The Marauder's messenger, a very comely young man with dark skin and auburn hair, had not made it past the preposterously large group of soldiers positioned at the palace gates. Where normally there would have been three, four, six at most, men appointed to stand guard at these gates, there was now a gathering that would not have been unsuited for a coup. The dark messenger stood a little way away from this shambled mass that was supposed to be guarding the entrance to the palace, but in reality looked more like a group of squatters. He watched them warily, both disturbed and repulsed.

In spite of the warm weather and gloriously beaming suns, there burned several small fires with soldiers huddled around them, large copper pots suspended above the flames from which the guards ladled a sickeningly mud like meal into wooden bowls. It was plain that these men had been on guard here for a very long time because most of them looked exhausted, their eyes puffy and their faces drawn and sunken. Their black and red uniforms were more often torn than not and very filthy, same as every spot of bare skin on them. The reek of unwashed bodies, stale drink and faeces that issued from their squalid encampment was intolerable.

The messenger was very relieved to see the rest of the Marauder's company march upon the gates. He went over hurriedly to rejoin them. The group of worn out guards did not react well to the oncoming column. Fear and apprehension shone clear on several of the sunken faces, yet far more of them looked distressingly indifferent. It was as if they didn't care much whether the arrived force was foe or ally, whether saviour or death had come for them. Hope seemed to have abandoned them long ago and all that remained was to wait until they would come to whatever end.

The messenger went to his former Captain at the head of the column where she stood strong and fierce, worthy of her new title as the Princess of their people. He took much pride in the fact that his Prince had taken her for his mate and even more pride in sharing ancestry with her, she too descended from the Shield Smasher tribe. He gave her a quick salute knowing that bowing to her would offend the proud warrior that had been his Captain, even if he should now that she was his Princess. His greeting visibly pleased her, although the tiny smirk in the corner of her small scarred mouth was hard to catch if he hadn't been so intent on it.

"My Princess, they sent word up to the King over an hour ago. No answer has come yet." he reported.

"Blind my bleeding eyes." was all Akane could get herself to say and she put the sleeve of her battle suit under her nose to block some of the disgusting smell. "How long have they been out here?"

"My guess would be moons." said the messenger humourlessly. "They wouldn't tell me much. Only that I wasn't allowed inside the palace. They did ask me about my dreams and whether I had seen their end in it as well. If you ask me, they all have the moon in them."

Akane remembered the old mangled man in the city. He had been going on about some dream too. Was this about the same thing? Had the people fallen victim to some kind of mass hysteria? Was that the reason why the city had emptied and these men were on guard here looking more dead than alive?

"They have given up on everything but their duty to stand at the gates." the messenger added discomforted. "Just pish and shite where-ever they feel like it."

Akane scanned the shabby group of guards and had to agree. It was quite obvious that morale could not have been lower. What could have caused this collective fatalism? Had it to do with that dream? It seemed significant somehow, yet she had no idea why. And where were the leaders of these men to give them courage and keep up morale? Indeed, where was the King? Why hadn't he come out the second he heard about the return of his lost heir? She remembered that the ruler of Vegetasei had grown rather desperate toward the end, that was why he sent even her away to find his son, but his resistance had still been strong then. The war had not been lost to him yet. If these men had given up hope, did that mean the King had as well?

Vegeta had frozen dead in his tracks at Akane's side and he looked as repulsed as she felt. There was nothing left of the blessedness they had felt upon their arrival. Vegetasei was in disarray indeed. She watched Vegeta pull the hem of the blanket that was wrapped about Aina over the kitten's face to completely cover her up, either to remove her from view or to protect her from the sickening stench. Then he gave their daughter to Ringo who stood next to him in the throng. The man with the tall mohawk was watching the huddled soldiers around the fires looking about ready to vomit. He took the bundle of kitten from Vegeta who told him to stand back and keep her save. Turles, who stood at Akane's back with an air of indignation as he witnessed the tattered group of guards, didn't need orders to join Ringo and with a quick nod in Vegeta's direction he positioned his broad self in front of Ringo and their young Princess, his handsome face determined.

"What in the name of the blessed Mother is going on here?" Ruirdo, Ardian and the second highest in command present of the Marauder's company, stepped out of the column from behind Akane with an expression of utter disgust on her otherwise smooth dark face. "Get up, all of you! You disgraceful pack of lawless beasts!"

"Ruirdo," Akane began.

She felt that she had to explain what she believed was going on. That these men simply had no hope left and no longer cared enough for themselves to feel any of the honour the Ardian was so keen on. This wasn't a disgraceful pack of lawless beasts. This was what remained of demoralised men when all hope had gone. Akane had seen this many times on her purging missions. She had been the one to cause it, the one to take away hope and leave living hell behind until her liberating stroke would fall to end it for them. These men were just waiting for that liberating stroke.

Ruirdo did not listen and started forwards incensed by what she witnessed.

"Ruirdo, no. Listen!" Akane said pulling her back so roughly that the other woman nearly lost her footing. "They are not…"

But Ruirdo gave a sharp hiss of warning, her eyes transfixed on the two figures that had broken away from the huddled group. It could not have been plainer that theirs was a hostile approach because they shouted angry words as they came. Fearless, or rather desperate Akane thought, the duo marched up to the large formation of Saiyajins to meet the one that had offended them, not moved in the slightest that they were facing over three hundred men.

The one who reached them first was a towering, broad-faced soldier with numerous decorative burn marks blotting his rough features which told that they were dealing with a battalion of Ground Force soldiers who all bore such distinctive marks to set them apart from the men of the Royal Fleet. The stripes on the broad-faced man's armour showed that he was a General and in rank as high as the Marauder's Air Marshal who, Akane now noticed, was conspicuous by his absence at the moment. She wondered dryly whether they had forgotten to wake the old cocker upon arrival and thus had left him behind sleeping in the ship.

Ruirdo wasn't impressed by the uncomely man's rank at all and she stepped right in his blotted face without a trace of fear in her beautiful exterior. Akane had to give the Ardian credit for her boldness. She herself merely reached to the man's waist and Ruirdo didn't come higher than his enormous chest. His battle power outdid Ruirdo's too, but the Ardian seemed not to care.

"What was that, little girl?" rasped the General in her face menacingly.

"I think you heard me fine, General." Ruirdo said dry-eyed. "Are you in charge here?"

"That would be me, lovey." the other man, shorter but definitely not less menacing than the General, pushed his taller companion aside to take his place in Ruirdo's face. He too bore countless marring burn marks on his rather haughty face and bald head and he swayed on his feet, making it obvious that he'd had a couple of drinks too many.

Akane was shocked to recognize him. He was the last man she had spoken to before the Marauder left on its fatal mission. This was the Field Marshal, highest of all ranks in the Ground Forces and she had always considered him a steady and respectable, though crude man. The steady and respectable had abandoned him and crudeness was all that was left. Demoralised or not, to Akane this was unacceptable. No matter what poor condition his men were in, he should be the one to keep them going. A Field Marshal was not allowed to fall apart, no matter what.

The Maraunder's old Air Marshal's absence became apparent to her again. He wasn't much of a leader either. But that was different, she thought, the man was over a hundred and fifty years old and shouldn't even have been on a mission in the first place. There had been no one to go in his stead so he was sent off anyway, but none of the Marauder's company had ever looked to him for guidance. It had always been Ruirdo and Akane leading the men and they had never fallen apart. And even if the Field Marshal had somehow lost his capability to exercise sound leadership, it should have been his General who had the presence of mind to take over, but he too had succumbed to the sickness that had spread amongst their ranks. Both of them had failed.

"Field Marshal Cordack." Akane addressed him reproachfully. "What happened here?"

"The Mother's oozing purple cooze! It's you!" hollered Cordack, uttering a phrase she had heard him use before and which had made her snicker, but now seemed to fit his mangy appearance so well that it was no longer charming. It was fun to see a man, high ranked, impeccable and in his prime, dressed in fine armour, speak swear so crudely. Coming from this dirty scum it was just rude.

"Wing Ardian Akane? I thought you were a goner for sure!" Cordack lurched dangerously for a moment in his drunken state, but he seemed friendly now rather than menacing. "You got your skull split open." he observed the scar at her temple.

Akane ignored this and held her silence.

Cordack smirked then. "At last some good news for our King, eh? Did you truly manage to find our…" His unfocused eye fell on Vegeta and it seemed to take his sodden mind a while to add everything up. The fact that this Prince was much older than the young Prince that had been taken from the palace might have made it extra hard on him, but he got there eventually and finished rather indistinctly: "The Prince? The lad wasn't joking then."

The Marauder's dark messenger returned his dumbfounded stare with a mingled expression of disgust and defiance. "I told you." he spat. "Sir." he added very reluctantly.

Vegeta gave the Field Marshal such a cold, menacing look that Akane saw in him the merciless killer he had once been for Frieza. The one that had revealed himself to her only once when she treathened to end herself and their unborn kitten. Akane didn't know what had evoked this, his feelings thundering through their bond were confused and knotted, rushing at her so fast she could not keep up. Her sensory system, the knowing within her, found his being screaming murder. She put her hand to his wrist, apprehensive of what he could and perhaps would do to the man across from them if she didn't stop him. His eyes flashed to hers and she was driven back by the genuine bloodlust in them.

"Clear out." Vegeta said to the Field Marshal. His voice was a murderous hiss.

Cordack's eyes were no longer unfocused. He did not sway on his legs anymore. His fear for the Prince's sheer fury had instantly sobered him up and all the colour had left his face, the haughty look gone. "I'm under orders of your father himself, my Prince. We…" He hesitated. "We may not leave."

The silence that followed was deafening. The whole crowd seemed to hold its breath in anticipation. Akane felt certain that this was the wrong way to react to someone who was ready to rip out your guts and Cordack too looked convinced he had made a fatal error. His face was now turning a sickly shade of grey.

Then Vegeta's deep, commanding voice cleaved the ominous silence. "And an honourable job you and your men are doing. My father must be proud to have such valiant deeds done in his name. Get out of my way."

Cordack nearly fainted when he discovered that he had as yet survived in the face of the Prince's wrath. He gave an exaggerated salute as if he could undo all his previous dishonourable acts with it and he actually tried to brush off his dirt-caked armour in an attempt to make himself more presentable. It was rather too late for both and he knew it. He gave up suddenly crimson in the face and rounded on his men.

"Shift your arses! On your feet, you bleeders! Make way for our Prince!"

The dishevelled regiment stirred and torpid still they clambered to their feet. The numbness did not leave them, yet there was a shadow of life returning to them as they moved out of the way, their eyes now really taking in the formation of soldiers and Vegeta at their front in particular. Akane saw that one or two of them even managed a faint smile. She wanted to order her own men to take care of this pathetic lot, but there was no time. Vegeta was on a resolute march through the gates after he had commanded Ringo and Turles to take Aina back to the Marauder and to not come out again until he personally told them to.

Akane watched the Royal Guard execute their Prince's orders, reassured herself that her kitten couldn't be safer with Ringo and Turles and then ran after her mate along the abandoned courtyard. She caught up with Vegeta just as he passed out of view under the great embellished arch of the palace's black stone entrance. He didn't stop to look at her and set out into the first of many long halls leading up to the King's private floors. His feelings were still shambled and unfathomable to her.

Akane opened her mouth, yet lost courage when she couldn't come up with what to say or ask. She wanted to know what had gotten into him, but she could hardly tell him that she had been certain he would have killed Cordack because in the end he hadn't and perhaps he hadn't looked all that murderous either. Maybe she had just imagined it. Apart from that he didn't seem too keen on discussing this or anything else with her at the moment.

So the long climb was marked by silence as she walked at his side trying to make some sense of the chaos of feelings he made course through their bond. It was impossible and when her mate became aware of her probing him, he shoved her out without ceremony and threw up walls she couldn't penetrate. Akane was almost happy about that. She felt worn from letting all those emotions in. She turned to taking in their surroundings.

The halls were dark and neglected. Dust lay in thick layers on the black marble floor, muffling their footsteps and making it impossible to see the beautiful veins of silver Akane remembered rippling through the black stone slabs beneath her feet. The lights had been extinguished but for a few torches standing in their ancient iron brackets and the tapestries on the walls that once told of heraldry, now hung in pitiful imitation of better days when they had been tended to with care.

Until the coming of the World Trade Organisation, Vegetasei's technology hadn't been very advanced and the organisation had only ever been interested in advancing them to the adoptation of space travel so that the Saiyajins could be put to use in conquering galaxies. Still, the palace used to have more advanced equipment around. It was all gone now, the place brought back to the way it was before the WTO. It might have been appeasing not to hear the whizzing of machinery or see the flickering of little illuminate buttons all around, if it hadn't been testimony of the decay that had overtaken her home.

Akane scanned her mate's noble profile in the gloom, searching for signs of the pain she felt while traipsing these dismal halls, but his features were almost unrecognizably hard, even for him, his strong jaw set and his eyes fixed on the way ahead. She gathered that whatever she encountered possessing him earlier, still held sway over him.

"What do you make of this dream everyone keeps talking about?" Akane inquired, hoping that by occupying his mind with other thoughts, she could bring him back from the hostility that had taken such firm hold of him.

"No idea." Vegeta said and though he tried to control his voice, his tone was cold and baleful.

Akane chose to ignore this in spite of her waning patience. "It could be important though, don't you think?" she asked, smoothing over his reaction with a nonchalance that bordered on the absurd. "Maybe this dream explains why the city has emptied and why the guards have lost faith."

"Maybe." Vegeta said with little confidence. Nevertheless her diversion seemed to have some effect because he sounded less severe and the hard lines in his face softened a bit.

"There has to be a connection. I just know it." Akane pressed on determend not to let him abandon the subject and fall back in his dark mood.

Vegeta glowered at her. "People don't usually all have the same dream, Akane."

"Yeah, well I figured as much myself." Akane threw back becoming irritable. "But it could be mass hysteria or something, couldn't it? If only we knew what this dream was about, it would be a lot easier to find out what has gotten into these people."

"Forget the dream!" Vegeta shouted, his furious voice echoing through the deserted hall and making Akane jump. "What I want to know is why my father is doing nothing to stop this madness!"

"You don't have to yell at me." Akane snarled, her temper now really blowing. "How the fuck would I know? Maybe he is ill."

"He better be." Vegeta said through gritted teeth. "He better be too ill to stand on his bleeding feet. Look at what he let happen to this place!"

"I'm sure he wouldn't have wanted this to happen to it." Akane snapped back.

She recoiled when he swooped down on her with the murderousness back in his dark eyes and now that she was on the receiving end of it, she understood precisely how Cordack could have turned as grey as he had.

"You are not sticking up for him again." Vegeta snarled. "I am sick of hearing you make excuses for him. How he deserves a second chance, how he never wanted any of this. He did this! I don't care that he changed his mind along the way and wanted out of the WTO. It didn't stop him from serving me to that sadist on a fucking platter! And what about now? What repentence has he shown? The city is empty, Akane! This palace is empty! Those men at the gates, what has he ordered them? To shit and piss themselves and stand guard until they perish? What kind of a leader does that?"

"Vege..." Akane was shouted down before she had even begun.

"No!" Vegeta bellowed. "I don't want to hear about the delusional love you have for my father! Stop idolizing him! If you're still too blind to see him for what he is, you deserve to be out there with the rest of them and rot away at his will. If not, you can come with me and we will put an end to this now. Together. You choose!"

Dazed Akane watched him storm away, incapable of following, until he disappeared behind a bend and she was left alone with the sound of his quickly retreating footsteps. She fell back against the cold stone wall, her heart throbbing in her throat. How dare he? How could he even suggest…? Was it true? Were her views of the King deluded by her love for him? It pained her to admit it, but Vegeta's words made horrible sense. He had been right all along. And she had been loyal beyond reason just as he had once told her.

Wasn't it the King who had exhausted their forces until there had been none left to protect their home from the impending war with Frieza? And hadn't he started that very war, even if it was to save his son? Wasn't it of his doing that Vegetasei was in disarray still? All the long moons that the planet had been back, had the King done more than cause more suffering? Weren't the people chased out of the city? Weren't the last of his men forced to stand guard in despicable circumstances?

But the King wasn't a monster. He wasn't like them. Like Cold or Frieza or their henchmen. He was just… a blind fool. And Vegeta was right, it had to end.

The truth struck her like a sledgehammer in the back of the head. The scorn Vegeta had directed to Cordack was never meant for the Field Marshal himself. It was his father whom Vegeta blamed for the pathetic state those men were in. And Akane hadn't imagined seeing that merciless killer at all, he had just revealed himself to the wrong person. Vegeta's bloodlust was meant for the King.