Smoking red blocks ejected from the tower's sides, raining down on the surrounding spectators in a godstorm of fire and brimstone. The screams of the sacrificial acolytes escalated above the rest as what remained of the edifice toppled inward, swallowing their cloaked forms alive in the rubble. Then, that set off a chain reaction that ricocheted through the spectators like an electric current. Panicked Vicodians ran about screaming as they dodged the debris, bumping into each other like ping pongs in a vacuum. Pandemonium abounded.
And Vegeta hovered up in the air, stupefied, with the cub frightened stiff against his ribs. He looked at the chaos. Then he looked at the cub. Back at the chaos. Back at the cub.
…the hell?
It was mute with terror. That much was clear. He could drop it back in the crowd. Quickly. So no one would see. Then let them make of it what they would.
But the dust from the tower billowed out like a cloud of ill omen, further inducing the crowd to hysterics. The kid would be trampled. And if not trampled, no doubt slain to appease their angry God.
But the angry God was Vegeta. And he was still trying to assimilate what just happened.
"Shit."
The cub's ears twitched at his spoken profanity, and it swiveled its head around to look at him. Vegeta stared.
It was unique. Undeniably unique, with completely opposite coloring than that of the generic Vicodian. Where their fur was white striped with black, the cub's fur was a shiny black streaked with white. And its mane was snowy instead of raven, and as billowy as a cloud. But the features were only adornment to the terrified expression on the thing's face.
Vegeta could hear the unvoiced cries on its quivering lips, he could feel the trauma of a disrupted world through its tiny, trembling limbs… He could see the slaughter of its people in the little cub's eyes.
He blinked. Those eyes… Large, and blue. Ridiculously blue.
They struck something familiar in him. Something deep. Instantly uneasy with the association, he tried to steer his train of thought elsewhere, but a determined memory flitted across his awareness of similar eyes, staring up at him just as intensely, of a five-year old hybrid he'd left back on earth.
He hissed and clenched his eyes. Damn damn damn!
For no other reason than not knowing what else to do, Vegeta shot off towards his residence, cub in hand, having the wildly disturbing sensation of watching a complete stranger control his body, and do things with it he would never do.
He slammed the door behind him, and made sure the windows were covered with their spongey drapes. A small orb in the corner of the front room emanated an orangish light that reflected lazily off the sandstone walls. Vegeta spat and uncurled the trembling child from his clutches and held it up by the scruff of its neck. "Just what the hell am I supposed to do with you, huh?"
It looked at him, still stunned from the flight over. And 'it' was a 'she' Vegeta determined as he noticed the lack of external organs. He scowled and dropped the small female on one of the plush seat pillows against the wall, and began to pace.
"I came here for myself," he said, waving his arms in angry gestures. "To train so I could go back and defeat Kakkarot. And now I'm stuck with a mutated runt in a society of fanatical, idiotic zealots who are governed by the most stinking insane, fossil of a dynast I've ever come across," he turned to face the cub, whose eyes had begun to water. He crossed his arms tightly across his chest. "I'm not going to keep you, you know. This is absurd."
The traumatized child's heart had finally slowed enough to let it get emotional. Vegeta winced as the first tears rolled down her downy rounded cheeks, and she immediately began to cry in a piercing hiccupping whimper.
"Be quiet!" he hissed, fearing someone would hear her. "You sound like a damned cricket!"
She continued sobbing, and he went over and bore down on her. "I don't need Vicodian freaks on my doorstep asking me why I rescued their sacrifice and blew up their temple. Do you understand? I didn't come here seeking attention. I came here seeking solitude!"
Undeterred, she just threw her head back, unlocked her jaw and howled. Amongst other things, it amazed Vegeta how such a soft little critter could project so much noise. Instinctively, he picked her up and curled a hand around the cub's mouth, stifling her cries. He felt his eyebrow twitch in rising anxiety.
Just then, he felt a series of weaker kis returning to their homes. They were running, no doubt spurred on by the fact that their temple was just obliterated by the 'hand of god'.
He hurried to the back room with the hysterical thing, who was convulsing with muffled sobs. Growing desperate, he rallied back and forth between stopping the cub's cries permanently, or…
"If you're not quiet, brat, then they're going to find you and kill you," he said with a little less heat in his words. "And I won't stop them next time. I shouldn't have intervened in the first place."
Vegeta realized that the little female was probably too young for much language. Maybe two Vicodian years. Barely. But she must have understood enough, because she bit back her next cry and quieted. He exhaled audibly and relaxed his hand against her teeny bifurcated mouth and sat down on the edge of the sapphire sleeping cushion with the cub in his lap.
"Just shut up until I can figure out a way to get rid of you," he whispered, as he sensed some life forces of the Chosen passing by his residence. The little one's shuddering lessened, and he wondered why. Was it his quieter tone? Or perhaps…
Agh, hell.
His proximity. She had taken advantage of his loose grip to spin around and burrow her way into his cloak like a cursed marsupial pup, curling up next to his abdomen. He tensed and stopped himself from flinging her across the room. She was being quiet, and that's what he was going for, wasn't it? He sighed and rolled his eyes.
The mighty prince of a proud warrior race reduced to being a nursemaid for a worthless whelp of a critter.
"If you were a Saiyan child, I would whip you bloody for acting so pathetic," he said in hushed tones, recalling her whimpers from earlier, and which annoying earth insect they'd reminded him of. "Damn cricket."
Another sob wracked through her body, and he absently rested a hand against her to keep her still. Despite his knee-jerk reaction to make her a scapegoat for his earlier lapse of judgment, Vegeta found that it was difficult to place much blame on the thing. "Granted, it's not like courage has a place in this self-defeating society of Vicodian nincompoops. I suppose it's not your fault you were never taught."
In response, tiny, helium-pitched sounds emanated from her mouth, and she slipped her head out of the cloak to look up at him. At first, he thought she was going to start up bawling again, but she repeated it, and he realized that the noises were articulated.
"Mom-," hiccup, sniff, "-ma-dada?"
Ugh. Her parents.
"Hmph. Typical. Another foolish dependency that most of you lesser species seem to have," he muttered.
She spasmed under his hand and he was abruptly struck by how vulnerable the cub was. As fragile as a glass hammer. He could kill her with one of his sneezes. She might never be right in the head after what happened, anyhow. It had always disgusted him how weaker beings were unable to cope with trauma. She'd most likely end up insane.
She chimed for her mother and father again, looking up at him with... Agh. Damn those eyes... Vegeta narrowed his stare and looked at the bulge against his stomach. "They're gone," he said, "but I could send you to them."
She stiffened and gazed up into his stern face with a hopeful, pleading expression. Her black velvety ears even perked through her white mane at the words.
For some reason it made his chest ache. He cursed himself again for his current circumstance. He'd done nothing but prolong her misery by saving her life. It had been utterly pointless. "The next dimension is good to children. You'd certainly be happier there."
She blinked, her eyes not leaving his. Complying, he cradled his hand around the back of her skull. It would take one twitch. Quick and painless. She'd be decapitated before the nerves could even relay the message to her brain that it hurt.
He nodded, decisively. It would be the best thing. For both of them. His hand tensed, on the ready. His lips pursed in anticipation.
But the warm throbbing pulse of her life force thumped under his fingertips, and her tiny chest expanded against his gut with each living breath. She blinked wetly, her sapphire eyes windows to a potent soul and the promise of a dignified future.
All telling him that she was very much alive. Too alive.
He swore, and dropped his hand.
Her bottom lip started to quiver again, and he extracted her squirming form from the folds of his cloak and placed her on the mattress next to him. "I'd have to kill you, and I…," he swallowed, refusing to say a certain two words in that order. "I've decided not to." Right. That's it. My decision. He rolled his eyes. Just like I 'decided' to be beat by Kakkarot.
She blinked at him and instead of protesting, sank into the cushion, with her chin on her paws as water leaked at an alarming rate from her eyes.
Having the feeling that this was just the beginning of his own self-betrayal, Vegeta stood shakily and ran his hands through his hair, clasping them behind his neck. He tilted his head to the ceiling. "Gods. I should have never come here."
He couldn't take her with him to train. And he couldn't leave her in the residence. She was just a cub. She'd no doubt whine, and someone would find her. Then she'd be killed, and he would be swarmed with worshippers begging to know what the God wanted. And then to compound things, the stupidly structured society was on the brink of a political revolution that no doubt would have interrupted his stay anyhow.
Vegeta looked up. Political revolution… Their leader, Vronesh, would no doubt take the female child in. Anyone intelligent enough to know that Dynast Tweak was a fraud would know that a cub was a cub, regardless the color of its fur.
He turned. "I may be able to get rid of you yet, little cricket." His shifting movement caused his own un-bathed odor to trail up through his cloak to his nostrils. He winced, recalling the curious stares the Vicodians gave him at the temple site, due to his potent alien scent.
"But first, I must cleanse myself. There's no point in seeking the radicals out discreetly if I'm alerting every passerby of who I am."
At least they had a form of plumbing and running water. The hot spray spewed forth from jets that peppered the shower wall, top to bottom. It pelted his body vigorously, pressurized for penetrating the grime from fur, not slick skin. It was a welcomed massage, and he only wished he had the time to enjoy it more.
As he lathered himself with the liquid emulsifier, he glanced outside the stall to make sure the cub was still there. He remembered Trunks at that age, and Vegeta wasn't about to take any chances by letting her out of his sight.
She was curled on the floor meekly, with a dish of water in front of her face. He'd tossed down a couple rations, but she didn't seem to have much appetite. Considering her past couple days, he wasn't surprised.
Satisfied that she'd stay put, he tilted his head back and let the Vicodian shower do its work. His thoughts trailed to the Cur district. A muddy, dismal community whose buildings sank, and streets buckled as though weighted down by the perpetual night. He'd been there on occasion for things not found in the inner province, and racked his brain for where he'd stop first in his search for Vronesh.
He opened his eyes against the stream. How the hell am I going to find the radicals?! He'd been so relieved at figuring out a solution, that he hadn't considered how difficult it might be. Especially if Vronesh didn't want to be found. He growled, the sound echoing in the stall, and looked through slitted eyes over at the cub.
And she was gone.
He swore. "Cricket!"
The bundle of obsidian fur came skidding around the corner, her paws slipping on the tile for purchase. She nearly threw herself in the stall, her blue eyes distraught…alarmed.
"Bad Ch-chosen!" she whimpered in a helium-pitched voice. "H-here!"
Vegeta's shoulders tensed. He sent out his feelers and sensed a presence within the walls of his residence. Cursing himself for not noticing the intrusion, he stepped out of the stall, and held his finger to his lips for the cub to be silent. So someone was there, eh? Well, they picked the wrong place to break into. Especially if they saw the cub.
Undressed and soaking wet, he powered up enough to slip through the darkened hallway and into the dim front room at an unnoticeable speed. Within a half second he had the imposter pinned to the wall with an extended arm, his fingers curling around a fine, velveteen throat. The individual wore a violet cloak of the Chosen, hiding its face in a hood, but by the effeminate gasp, he guessed it was a 'she'.
And the female went completely rigid, making no effort to free herself. Vegeta's lip curled. Apparently she knew better.
"You broke into my living quarters, foolish Vicodian," he grated, the words slicing through his teeth like daggers. "I've annihilated entire planets for lesser offenses."
Her breath hitched, and he could see her paws clenching and unclenching at her sides. He stared hard into the shadows of the cloak.
"You've got three seconds to talk me out of killing you," he threatened. "Speak."
