Just a quick revisit of who everyone is, here:

Dink – the reason Mo wanted to recruit Vegeta in the first place. Dink was captured distributing fliers, and is going to be sacrificed at a biannual ceremony called the Sumdim, coming up.

Cephus – a radical, comrade of Mo's.
Acolyte Peyote – captured by Mo. One of Dynast Tweak's head councilmen.

Okay. Disclaimer. You may have noticed, but I'm not taking the nomenclature too seriously... I'll probably add some more angsty Vegeta introspection later. When my mind is fresh. Right now, I just want to finish the fic. So forgive me for the choppy, unpolished chapters!

CHAPTER 7

"Acolyte Peyote—"

"Peyote, Peyote," responded the slurred, groggy voice, "Peyototee...PeyotePeyote. A good name. A proper name--"

"Acolyte—"

"Yes yes. I became an acolyte at th-th-the tender age of thhhh…" hiccup, grin, "thirty-five. Fit to practice righteous dominion over the elite, and judgment over the lowly Curs—"

A furred fist slammed on the table. "Peyote!"

Dynast Tweak's drugged acolyte yelped. "M-m-mother?"

Cephus spun around with his cloaked head in his hands, rattling off in a strained hush to Mo, "We don't have time for this, Mo. The Sumdim is in two hours! How the hell do you get them to focus on this drug?"

"Ah, well…it does seem rather difficult, doesn't it?" Nervous laugh. "Perhaps I can try."

Vegeta watched the interrogation in a state of disturbed intrigue. Mo, hooded as a Cur like the rest of them, approached their prisoner with hands clasped non-threateningly in front. Peyote's lackluster face was blank, with wet lines of drool matting the fur under his chin. And his eyes were near-lifeless…glazed, hypnotized. They bounced at her, and then fixed on some random point in the room.

Vegeta shivered. Something about the drug made him incredibly uneasy. He couldn't even watch the process without wincing in distaste. "This is a coward's method of interrogating," he informed Cephus. "You should give the acolyte a chance to keep his dignity, and let me bleed the answers out of him instead."

Cephus' head swiveled on his neck. "Eh…excuse me?"

"It would give him a choice."

"A choice for what?

Uncivilized moron… "To retain his sense of honor, of course!"

"You…" Cephus cleared his throat. "You mean to tell me that you'd rather be maimed and tortured to death, than—"

"Than be subjected to that poison, yes." All day long. Why didn't the fool get it? An awkward silence passed between them as Mo continued her questioning.

Vegeta hmph'd, and crossed his arms in front. The acolyte's expression switched from a sloppy grin to a boohoozing frown, triggered by something Mo said. Then the undignified thing began to speak in weepy gibberish. Vegeta turned away. Ugh. Disgusting. "So what is it? A gas? A pill? A serum?"

Cephus still regarded him apprehensively, but after a moment, shrugged. "Serum. Administered by injection, ingestion…can even work as a topical if it sits on your skin long enough. It has a bazwali base."

Bazwali. Alcohol. Every world had its version of the drink. "Then why hasn't that nimrod, Tweak, used it on your captured comrade? He could have found everything out about you."

"You mean Dink?" Cephus shook his head. "Because no one else has it. Mo invented it."

It took Vegeta a moment to recover from the shock. "Mo?"

Cephus nodded. "She works in an apothecary in the inner province, after all. Oh, she's very resourceful. Don't let her…uh…" They both looked at the ditzy female as she fumbled over words, pacing sideways. Cephus sighed ruefully and shook his head.

"Oblivious…" Vegeta suggested.

After a moment he nodded. "…oblivious nature fool you. She's also the one who snuck into Peyote's apartment, knocked him out and brought him back here in the short time you were absent."

Vegeta tried to cover up his shock with a smug, 'Hn'. "Funny. She doesn't look that strong."

"Not strength, Prince Vegeta." Cephus tapped his forehead. "Intellect."

Hiccup, burp. "Dink. That nasty de…de…despicable Cur…" Peyote's voice piped up, redirecting their attention. "Hate that bastard rodent…so damned tight-lipped, no matter what we d-d-did to him…"

Cephus growled, and Mo tensed considerably. Her voice dropped, suddenly sounding very very serious. Very unlike her.

"You tortured him?"

Acolyte Peyote's head lolled around on his neck, and his eyes blinked lazily as he frowned at the hooded female before him. "Ugly ugly word, that. Torture. Makes us look like s-s-savages, when we're the civilized ones here."

Mo cleared her throat. "But you tortured him. For information..."

"No different than slaughtering our cattle, maiming a Cur… If Ganja cared…cared one way or another about what we did to the lesser creatures, then he'd have st-struck us all down, by n-now. "

"I'll kill him," Cephus fumed. "Rip his tail off and shove it down his throat."

"Kill him?" Peyote responded with fogged eyes. "Oh, don't worry. We will. At the Sumdim. Say, Isn't the S-Sumdim…today?"

Mo's tail had gone from swaying sporadically to completely stiff. Several tense seconds passed. "Where…." She finally managed, "Where is your place in the ceremonial line up?"

Peyote's head lolled to the side, and fell forward on his chest. Vegeta thought he'd passed out until a crescendoing lyric trumpeted out of the acolyte's mouth. "First, first FIRST there-was-a-little-Chosen-leedle-leedle-lee-leelee-leelee—"

Vegeta grimaced at the sour melody. "…the hell?"

"A primary song," Cephus' lip twitched. "It's a primary song taught the Chosen when they are young."

"Annoying."

"Hn."

"So you are first in the Sumdim line up?" Mo asked the unfocused creature, more forcefully.

"NO!" Peyote barked, the timbre of his voice making his own eyes cross. He shook himself, and frowned. "Third…in the…Sumdim…up line, er, line up…"

"And your offering?"

Peyote put on a serious face and straightened his back in a dim remnant of self-superiority. "The Holy order of the Chosen will offer up the despicable Cur to the Mighty Ganja—"

"Your offering, Peyote," Mo repeated. "What is your assigned offering in the Sumdim as an acolyte of Dynast Tweak?"

"Gnob."

"Excuse me?"

"The…"

"The Gnob?"

"Yes. The Gnob."

At Vegeta's unasked question, Cephus leaned over in a whisper, "A symbolic ornament carved from the bones of dead acolytes."

"Where is the Gnob?"

"In my…ceremonial cloak. Cl…closet…"

Mo tapped her finger to her chin thrice, and turned to face Vegeta and Cephus. She shrugged. "Can you think of anything else to ask him?"

Cephus pondered as Vegeta's attention was drawn back to Peyote. Their captive's expression had altered. Focused. On Mo. "Saayyeee…" he belched, blinked, and narrowed his eyes at her. "You sound an awful lot like that pretty intern at the Apothecary…"

Mo froze, and even through the shadows of her hood, Vegeta could see her eyes fling wide.

Cephus swallowed audibly. "Shit."

"C-come to think of it…" the old acolyte's eyes thinned even more, trying hard as they could to focus through the drug. "Your tail is full, and shapely…sways just like hers, too… The lovely female was just at my home tonight, dropping off my medications from the doctor..." He hiccupped again, and frowned at the floor.

Mo looked sick.

"Will he remember any of this?" Vegeta asked, quick on the uptake.

She nodded, and Cephus added. "All of it."

Peyote's eyes widened dramatically then, as though he'd just figured something out. "Apothecary intern! Apothecary intern!" the acolyte hollered, his shrill voice straightening their spines. He looked like he wanted to point at Mo, but his hands were still tied to the chair. "It's YOU! You're a traitor, aren't you!? One of the radicals! OH! OH! OH!"

"So what are you going to do with him?" Vegeta asked over Peyote's sudden hysterics.

"The servant of Ganja? He's in on this, too!?" Peyote interspersed their strained dialogue.

Vegeta scowled at the inconvenience of being recognized by voice, alone. He should have been more quiet. Mo caved in on herself, looking at their captive over her shoulder in dread apprehension. "I…I hadn't thought that far in advance," she laughed nervously, holding her head in her hands. "It was impulsive, bringing him here. But you had refused our help, and I panicked."

Cephus swore again, baring his fangs. "Don't look at me like that, Mo. I'm not watching him. We don't even have a place to keep a captive."

"True, true," her voice was wavering. "Maybe if we tied him up in his quarters—"

"Are you INSANE!?" Cephus shouted. "Do you forget how much Cur blood is on Peyote's hands? He was the one who executed the massacre on the horizon just four days ago! If he got back to Tweak with this, then all our work will be for nothing!! He'll have us all killed before--"

Mo batted at the air between them to calm Cephus down. "I'll think of something—"

"When!? The Sum Dim is next-to-now!"

"Let me get this straight," Vegeta drawled out. "You have here a Cur murderer."

Nod.

"Who has discovered who you are."

Nod.

"And will execute you if he escapes."

Nod.

Vegeta rolled his eyes, raised one muscle-knotted arm, aimed, and fired. The white-hot ki blast sizzled right through the hysterical acolyte's skull, erupting with fur and blood out the scalp in a sickening, wet pop. After a few jiggles, the acolyte Peyote slumped over in his chair, his ridiculous expression frozen in death.

"Oh…oh Ganja…" Mo covered her mouth, while Cephus leaned over the table and retched. "Ganja Ganja Ganja…" she uttered, gaping in horrified denial at the corpse. "You killed him…"

"This is a revolution!" Vegeta snapped. "If you thought it could be won by words alone, then you might as well lay your furry asses on that altar alongside your comrade." He turned with a flourish, and slammed the door open with his ki. "Go get that chicken-shit Vronesh," he ordered without turning around. "I want to be informed of your plans immediately. All of them."

He was going to end up carrying them. Vegeta knew it. These Vicodian rebels were idiots. All their idealistic, and impractical plans were going to fail, leaving the bulk of the movement on his shoulders. A bloodless revolution, indeed. Could they really be that ignorant?

What have I gotten myself into?

The Saiyan prince stood rigidly by a scum-covered basement window, scowling randomly at the Cur streets. It was all so filthy. The few that ambled by seemed to cower, and hobble. The Curs had been repressed for so long, they didn't even have enough self-respect to live like the sentient beings they were. Vronesh's biggest challenge wasn't going to be to overthrow the social structure of all of Vicodin. It was going to be to convince the Curs that they were worth more than dirt.

Because currently, they weren't.

"Eke teku bee bee?"

Vegeta looked sidelong at the black-furred, blue-eyed cub perched on his shoulder like a parrot. Unless he ordered her away, she was with him. Had leapt up and smothered him with little, rough-tongued kisses when he'd returned. The prince felt like he was supposed to shoo her away…and he no doubt would…as soon as he could remember exactly why he had an aversion to this kind of attentive nonsense…

Cricket blinked curiously at him and bumped his cheek with a wet, cold nose. He moved his head away, and snorted at the affection. "Your heritage is a joke, pup. You'd be better off escaping this planet, before it sucks the intelligence right out of your eyes. "

She cocked her head, and then nestled down onto her paws, staring out the window with him. "duga duga duga…eekie duga zimbatwoot…"

He shook his head in mild amusement as she spoke her gibberish. Whatever she was saying, it sounded pretty serious. After a couple seconds of watching her scowl, and warble her voice, it dawned on Vegeta that she was trying to mimic him.

He coughed surprise. "Silly creature. You have nothing to back it up." In a state of disturbed amusement, he continued observing her as she grumbled and spat, and ultimately tried to fold her paws across her chest. Except they weren't long enough. "I'm inclined to laugh at you," he said in the earth tongue, adding silently, but somehow it feels as though I'd inadvertently be laughing at myself.

"Ah. There you are, Vegeta." Mo entered the room, walking briskly up to him with a large parchment unrolled in her hands. She still looked uneasy. Still disturbed by Vegeta's presence for killing Peyote. But what aggravated him most was that she was alone. And he'd specifically asked for--

"Are you mocking me? Was I not clear? Where's your—"

"Oh that," she laughed nervously, and lifted one hand to scratch the back of her head. "I'm it."

"Pardon?"

"Mohonro Vronesh. That's me."

Vegeta stared at her. She grinned ruefully, and shrugged. "Now here's what I was thinking," she quickly laid out the parchment as though the bit of news was nothing out of the ordinary. A long, painted nail tapped at a segment of what looked to be a layout of the Sumdim. "This is where Acolyte Peyote was assigned to sit. Cephus was going to wear his cloak, and carry his offering in disguise. I was hoping that you would—"

"YOU'RE Mohonro Vronesh."

She paused. "Right. Now, as I was saying—"

"YOU'RE at the head of this uprising."

"Mm."

"Give me a moment," Vegeta closed his eyes and ran his fingers across his brow. It took about fifteen seconds to assimilate that the ditzy, naïve Chosen female was the leader of this underground group of Cur rebels. He had a hundred questions…a hundred questions that would have to wait. Vegeta shook himself, cleared his head, and exhaled heavily. "Alright. Continue."