Chapter 3
As he flew over it, Vegeta's gaze was drawn to the city below like a palm tree to sunlight. He hadn't felt such a powerful urge to wreak havoc since the time before all he could think about was beating Kakkarot. The violent calling had caught him completely unawares, and it took every ounce of royal discipline he had not to shower the city with ki blasts as he flew across it to its center.
Unable to look away, he forced himself to focus on the Vicodian's aptitude for living instead of their predisposition for death. He beheld the inner province below as though seeing it for the first time. The Chosen lived extravagantly, their housing like sea coral; cylindrical, seashell white, and spacious. Granted, were it not for the impressive collection of outdoor lamps that brightened the streets in false daylight, it would have been as dull and dreary as the considerably larger Cur district.
Vegeta's eyes rolled to the dismal outer circle, whose narrow, cobblestone streets and tightly stacked housing seemed to be structured out of the very shadows it was blanketed with. Where the Chosen had ample lighting, the Curs had little, occasional lanterns casting murky hazes over the darkened community. Though commercial in parts, the lower caste was weighted down with oppression, their sense of self-worth as low as the Chosens' was elevated.
He neared the shimmering, temple in the center of the city, spiraling up to the heavens as though its inhabitants were direct links to deity. Narrowing his eyes, he located the balcony of the main chamber. Two seconds later, he touched down and strode tensely through the violet-curtained frame.
A smattering of Vicodians, cloaked in brilliant hues of blues and purples startled, bumping into each other like frenzied ants at his entrance. The cluster spit out their prophet king, Dynast Tweak, who pratically fell at Vegeta's feet.
"O great servant of Ganja-"
"Don't-"
"You're here, and could not have come to our aid at a more troubled time," said the dynast in a voice twice as warbled as Vegeta remembered. The old critter got to his feet, barely reaching Vegeta's shoulder as he did so, but his snaggle-toothed exhale blew up in Vegeta's face, a putrid waft of rotting innards. Vegeta's lip curled in disgust.
No leader should be allowed to continue ruling a people at this decrepit age.
Tweak's fur had grown dull and patchy, his eyes lackluster. He looked like a tortured lab rat, and about half as sane. But the irony of his haggard appearance was his attire. Adorned in the finely spun material of Vicodin's holy priesthood, he was cloaked in metallic hues, with a well-fastened cap of precious metal. His fingers were so weighted down with rings that Vegeta wondered how it was that his puny arms defied gravity. It was like playing dress up with a carcass.
"There has been an insurrection among the Curs," he breathed. "Sinful, wicked radicals have been poisoning the minds of the lower caste with false doctrines!"
Having an issue flung in his face the moment he arrived distracted Vegeta, and he found himself wondering at what point Tweak had gone from knowingly exploiting religion for political leverage to actually buying into his own bullshit.
"Their blasphemous leader calls himself Mohonro Vronesh," he trembled. "But he is elusive, Lord Vegeta. Ever, ever elusive. The only trace of him we find are these…"
The feeble dynast grabbed a handful of yellow parchments off the nearby desk and balled them in his gnarled fists. Spittle frothed on his wrinkled lips. "These vile, accursed documents that defy Ganja and his children!" He waved them in Vegeta's face, and he caught a couple titles of the fliers, headlining fine-print articles below.
Dynast Tweak - The Pompous Pretender
Eradicate the Hierarchy - Equality for the Curs!
Vegeta kept a snide remark to himself, deciding already that this Mohonro Vronesh was justified in wanting to toss the useless elites out on their holy asses. The caste system was superficial. They didn't even segregate by power levels.
"Already Ganja has punished us," Tweak cried, his yellowed eyes skittish. "The ground shook mightily but a few days ago."
An earthquake. Vegeta rolled his eyes. Idiots. His head hurt, and his body ached from earlier, and his patience was wearing thin.
"But we found them, Lord Vegeta. A tribe of non-believers on the horizon! Evil ran thick through their blood, for amongst them was a black-furred cub. A freakish thing. We will sacrifice it on the morrow, and then you can ask the Great Ganja to forgive us--"
"Silence!" Vegeta snapped, fighting a powerful urge to rip Dynast Tweak's tongue out and slap him in the face with it. "I didn't come here to listen to you flap your lips!"
Tweak shrank back from him, and immediately bowed his head. "My apologies, Lord Vegeta. I thought-"
"I want accommodations and above all else, I want PRIVACY."
"Whatever you-"
"NOW!"
After a week of space travel and relentless self-sparring, Vegeta was actually able to sleep soundly once he got to his secluded quarters at the base of the temple. So soundly, as a matter of fact, that when he woke up, he'd completely forgotten where he was.
He blinked in the darkness, his sense of smell assaulted by spiced meats and floral aromas. He stiffened, and his fingers dug into the silken pad underneath him as his heart thumped in his ears.
His vision adjusted slowly, aided by a soft glow that filtered through the heavy drapes of a circular window. Cream, sandstone walls were the first things he made out, then the cylindrical, pillowy furnishings that were scattered in a deliberate fashion about the room. But it wasn't until he saw the purple and blue insignia hanging over the arch of the entryway that it all came back to him.
Planet Vicodin.
He exhaled heavily and sank back into the sleeping pad. His head no longer hurt, and his body was less traumatized. No one was around, and for a short, blissful moment, he gave into the post-slumber lethargy, and let himself relax. But it wasn't ten seconds before his alert mind dropped him into that familiar, uneasy ache. The one that made him wish he could leave his body just so he wouldn't have to endure his own presence.
He sat up. I need to train…
He stood, and his head swam. But first, food…
His feet thumped along the porous spongey flooring. His residence consisted of a spacious front room, the back room and lavatory, and a pantry sectioned off of the hallway, which is where he went first. He inhaled the assortment of Vicodian jerky and meaty vegetables left for him, and five minutes later, only a portion of the food remained.
Feeling much better for the effort, he made for the door. He would go beyond the outskirts of the city to the desert land on the horizon, and self-spar, unmolested and uninhibited.
Then he remembered his clothes, and looked down with disgust. They wouldn't last a half hour. Useless slacks and a black shirt - what he'd thrown on when he arrived in an effort to cover up his wounds. And in his hurry to leave earth, he hadn't exactly taken the time to pack.
Damn…
His eyes scanned the room and located the complimentary sack of currency they always left for him. Next to it was a long, black cloak of the Chosen. It was another benefit. Thanks to their customary fashion, he could walk through the streets disguised. The last thing he needed was the unwanted attention of slobbering worshippers.
Throwing it on and drawing the hood around his face, he pocketed a handful of currency, and left. There was a shop in the Cur district that was renowned for its sturdy material, which was the closest thing he could get to what Bulma used to make for him.
Vegeta noticed as he paced down the brightened streets that they were empty. It was the peak of dusk, about to slip into another nightfall. There should have been at least some Vicodians about. He continued on, and perked as his ears caught the feint hum of commotion. It came from up ahead…from the direction he was going.
They've gathered…
He was half tempted to put off his necessary errand, but procrastination wasn't in his nature. At all. He trudged on, grumbling internally as the noise crescendoed. Then, on the border of the inner province, he saw it.
A tower. Perhaps forty feet high, and made of red clay. It looked like a pyramid, its steep steps leading all the way to an open room on top. As he neared, he saw the sea of Vicodians at its base, both the cloaked figures of the Chosen and the raggedy forms of the Curs. Segregated on opposite sides, but together for the same spectacle.
By the sheer numbers in attendance, Vegeta figured the owner of the material stand was amongst them, so he hung on the outer perimeter of the gathered elite, letting curiosity ground him for a few minutes.
There was a great agitation. A palpable nervousness. He thought his alien presence would be concealed within the folds of his black cloak, but a few heads turned, their noses peeking from under the shadows of their hoods, crinkling at what he could only assume was his scent. Vegeta took another step back, making a mental note to take a shower once he finished training that day.
"O mighty and merciful Ganja!" cried a shrill voice from atop the tower. Vegeta looked up and saw a gaudy, Chosen acolyte with his hands raised to the sky. His voice turned off the murmuring of the crowd like a switch, and all craned their necks in unison to behold him.
"We have purged our presence of the non-believers, and ask for your blessing with a sacrifice."
Another acolyte scurried up to him atop the tower and handed him a small black bundle. It didn't take Vegeta long to figure out that it was a Vicodian cub. Then he remembered Dynast Tweak's words.
"But we found them, Lord Vegeta. A tribe of non-believers on the horizon! Evil ran thick through their blood, for amongst them was a black-furred cub. A freakish thing. We will sacrifice it on the morrow…"
"With the shed blood of this wicked spawn, we ask thee to cleanse our planet, and pacify it, so that it may not tremble at our weakness."
Vegeta could hear the helium-pitched wails of the furry little thing as it was placed ceremoniously on an altar atop the tower. He shrugged, and tried to look away, but his eyes flicked back up to the tower, as though yanked by some unseen force. He caught the gleam of a long, curved blade as it raised in the air over the cub.
The kid's better off in the next dimension anyhow, he told himself. The fools are doing it a service.
Infanticide was as common among the Saiyans as power struggles. If it hadn't been, he hated to think what handicaps would have tainted the perfect genetics of his people. Vegeta had seen plenty of children slain - by his own hands, no less. He was acclimated to the practice. Totally indifferent. It didn't matter to him one way or another how these religious zealots appeased their fabricated god…
…which is why it surprised the holy hell out of him, two seconds later, when the tower exploded from a deliberately-aimed ki blast, and Vegeta found himself hovering high in the air with a warm, frightened, black cub tucked under his arm.
