Vegeta entered the place where the three Saiyajins resided. The woman's employees mostly used the back compound as storage space since the CC's ever rising success had forced the rapidly growing production of capsules to be moved to a plant outside the city. The few scientists that remained, worked directly under the woman in her lab below the house and only came to the back compound for fetching or dumping things. It wasn't a very hospitable place to put up in, but the Saiyajins hadn't complained. Being soldiers they didn't need all that much for comfort. Vegeta had thrown in a couple of capsule-futons nonetheless and he hadn't needed his know-all son to inform him that he should. Saiyajins shouldn't be made to sleep on floors.
Vegeta could spot nothing of the harassment going on that the woman had mentioned. The one employee that was present, kept to the small office space next to the entrance where he was hastily rummaging around for whatever he sought to collect, his frantic gaze continually falling on the opened door at his back as if something was ready to pounce him any second. At catching Vegeta pass by in the hallway, the scientist mumbled a perfunctory greeting, not at all eased by his presence. After all, he was of the same cloth as the Saiyajins putting up here. Such a substandard species, Earthlings. Whatever had impelled the WTO to send Kakarot down here to purge this grossly overpopulated muck-hole was beyond him. The planet had absolutely nothing to offer. The air was too thin, the one sun too bleak, the ruling race weak and technologically behind, and there wasn't a single useful raw material to mine. Earth may have been destined as a hub, a place from which to direct the empire's relentless expansion. His people had been offered up as fodder to that insatiable war-machine and got granted annihilation in exchange for their steep contribution. It was a good thing that Earth had been saved from a similar fate. Vegeta was sure that the whack on the head that made Kakarot forget what had been his objective here, had also put a screeching halt to the idiot's mental development.
Vegeta found the Saiyajins inside the main lab which they had dubbed their barracks. Two of the futons were placed at the far side of the room, in between three precisely aligned workbenches to create somewhat of a private space. This was where the men slept. As per custom, their captain had her quarters separate from theirs, in the smaller lab down the hall, Vegeta presumed. The Saiyajins may be adjusting to their freedom, they treated the back compound like any army base. Another workbench had been moved into the middle of the lab and was steadily getting cordoned off from the sleeping space by ever multiplying stacks of emptied box-fridges. It looked like they were working on building an improvised mess hall. Post haste. The three soldiers sat around the workbench on swivel chairs with a massive heap of food quickly shrinking between them. They were tearing through the capsule-food supply at a staggering rate. If they stayed long enough, the CC might just run out of stock completely.
This was one more reason for the woman to want them out, even if the capsules stored here were unfit for the market due to minor faults in the design. She continuously badgered Vegeta about getting his monkey friends to leave while he kept putting it off. It was convenient to have strong sparring-partners at hand and well, he was their prince, he couldn't just throw them out on the street. He may have spent most of his life away from Vegetasei, he still felt that it was his duty to take care of his people, however few they were. The Saiyajins clearly expected it of him as well. Their captain had even threatened to camp out on his doorstep. With the disastrous course their lives had taken from that covert mission they conducted to bring Vegeta home, a roof over their heads was the least he could offer them in return. He wanted them to at least find their feet before the woman forced him to send them packing.
Vegeta remained just outside the door, out of sight, his eyes drawn to the strongest and littlest of the three warriors seated at the workbench inside. And there was that too. Despite her absolutely appalling, foul mouth and matching temper, and the rather severe disfigurement of what he reckoned had been a pretty face once, those scars giving her that malicious expression, he found himself very much attracted to the fierce little captain. He had taken an interest from the second he laid eyes on her inside the wreckage of Cold's ship. She was an absolute cracker and, with curves like that, undoubtedly a cracking good time too. Talk about hot and heavy… Vegeta reckoned he wouldn't grow bored of her for a long time. The snag was that he had no clue as to how he should go about inspiring her to let him have his leg over. She hadn't shown herself much interested in him in return. Not in that way at least, and he didn't think it was pretence like with the woman. His kind did not play down on any carnal urge. For Saiyajins sex was like breathing, eating, pissing and shitting. It had to be done at regular intervals to retain good health and was as widely discussed as Earthlings discussed the weather when they made small talk. Any Saiyajin who could be bothered with something as trite as conversating for the hell of it, would avail himself of opening lines like had a good one lately? with the same ease as an Earthling gave voice to the overrated and overused nice day out, isn't it?
The fierce little captain may not be interested in him, she did have an interest in broadcasting her acrimony. She was very invested in that, and for his benefit especially. That she was overstepping would be an exaggeration, but overbold she certainly was, and not at all reluctant to push some boundaries. She granted him the exact amount of respect to keep him from seeking vindication, no less and most definitely no more. Vegeta hadn't the slightest clue how to deal with that either. The reality was that he hardly knew where the boundaries lay himself. He had been a prince in title only far longer than he had been one with subjects to recognize and treat him as the heir to the throne. With the Saiyajins' genocide there was no more reign for him to come into, no throne to ascend and no people to rule. The three dispossessed Saiyajins in this compound were all the subjects he had left and the fealty the two men showed him was possibly more discomfiting than how their captain was aiming to test his authority. And his patience. Because it did rile him, increasingly, that she was scoping out just how many liberties she could take. It wasn't her wiggling for room perse, he could appreciate a bit of sass in members of the fair sex, but the effect her impertinence had on him, that was discomfiting. He wasn't easily riled, nor moved. The poise he had once only fronted, and needed to front to get by, was so much part of him now that he rarely lost it.
Until along came one savage little fighter to mess with his flow. Her temper alone was enough to put him off kilter. It was aimless and roused entirely at random. She had a talent for switching moods like a schizoid on some very potent uppers. It was quite something to behold her go from zero to one stop short of flinging shit within the blink of an eye and when she went off, it was all vehement fucking and cunting thrown around. Vegeta had endeavoured to stare some propriety into her, and not for him – he had been a soldier too long himself to be intimidated by intimidating mouths – but for the two boys standing within earshot. It had made her only more liberal with her curses and she had taken her sweet time stepping down and averting her gaze from his. Now, he may be unsure about those boundaries, he was fully aware that staring your betters in the face was a blatant infraction of the social norms where they were from. He had forgotten a great many things, but never that. Once, there had been only one person in the whole wide world who had not avoided looking straight at him. As a prince on Vegetasei only his father had been his better. Vegeta had quickly unlearned that when he became subject to an empire that gave sod-all about him or his title, but he did remember.
Her impudence was rubbing him wrong, and exactly right in every which way. Rather than putting her in her place like he probably should, he was far keener on putting fire into her. He wanted to pin her down for a good horizontal. Or a sideways, backwards, vertical, over-under or, better still, a vertical over-under. He could also go for conquering those toned, shapely legs hand over mouth like heavenly stairways. One thing he dared to bet his life on, was that her court would not be a prim and proper one. Half her vocabulary was made up of allusions to the things he wanted from her. She knew her stuff, surely. Odd and ill-advised as it was, her giving him the kind of mocking looks that were designed to geld any man she didn't want viewing her as a viable prospect, made him only more eager to see if he could get her to change her mind. Regardless of every indication that he would be better off looking for a good time elsewhere, he intended to give it a go soon. If not today.
The captain and her men were talking, the formality coming with their ranks abandoned for the ease only long comradery could bring forth, not to mention the bond forged through living under hostile rule together. Her subordinates tended to heed her, doggedly, and they were still doing that now, the respect they bore her coming through at every word exchanged. The three of them remained unaware of his presence and as Vegeta caught what topic the captain was steering their conversation to, he decided to keep it that way. Those boundaries she had been so deviously skimming the edges of with him around, she was crashing straight through them in his assumed absence.
"What I would like to know, is what the fuck he is even doing on this kack-stain." Akane snarled in reaction to something Turles had said. She continued swearing, but in vexed mutters and more to herself: "Living in some backwater galaxy at the arse-end of the universe. It makes no cunting sense to me at all. Your brother is blinkered too, but at least he didn't know better."
"Where else should he have gone?" Ringo asked reasonably. "Vegetasei is gone."
"Oh please, he couldn't have chosen a better place than this? With that sadistic cunt out of the way, he could have had his pick of the fucking universe."
"His kin is here." Turles pointed out.
"A bleeding disgrace, is what that is." Akane spat. "Fucking the local fauna. Ugh! I would have more fun straddling a firepit. I would sooner dry up than get my twine on with some lowly creature. I would sooner die! None can drop from pedestals like princes, right? They have a mighty long way to fall and ours dusted himself off and scraped some poxy wench from the dregs at the very bottom of the barrel to mingle with. He has no pride. And that cunt ought to be hanged for the way she dares speak to him."
"Honestly, Captain, with the way you dare speak about him, you are begging for the long drop yourself." Ringo broached and he did it measured because he had to truly break ranks to tell her that she was flagrantly bypassing hers.
"Stick to your station, Ringo." she put him back in his place. "I have my reasons."
"You have an arse-ache." Turles disagreed and he sounded fed up with her. "And a raging one at that. How about you do me the favour of not including me?"
"Or me." Ringo jumped in, but unlike his commander, he finished with an apologetic: "Captain."
Turles wasn't half so choosy with his words. "If you need to tickle that fucking death drive of yours, do it solo. We like to have an easy time of it for a change."
There was a silence and it was wrought with tension as the men seemed to wonder whether they had been too honest with their combustive captain. It was good to see that her underlings' respect at least lasted longer than Vegeta's presence. Concerning that impertinent bitch herself, Vegeta didn't need them to teach her what her place was. He would take care of her personally. In fact, he was looking forward to that. Kicking her back down the ladder to the rung where she belonged, would be a great pleasure. It sure as hell wasn't going to help him get his leg over, but if he had to go on her views on him, he stood zero chance there to begin with. Even if he had enough of hearing her chew him out, he couldn't quite get a handle on his indignation and he was loathe to go in there tearing a vessel. Forget being put off kilter, he was off his head. And it wasn't getting any better because she hadn't quite concluded her rant yet.
"Very well, you big bleeders, keep defending him if you must. It is only right." Akane said. "But let me tell you this: his father is cursing his seed in the afterlife for what has become of his heir. Now there was a true leader. The king would never have accepted some lesser bitch mouthing off to him like that. Designated cumslot or no, he would have flogged the hide off her skinny arse." she relapsed to bitter mutterings again, reining back in that hideous temper. "Calling me a fucking monkey. I should have ripped out her windpipe for that alone."
"Leave it alone, Akane." Turles told her. "I want you to have an easy go of it as well. That temper gets you into trouble every time."
"I like you for the loyalty you show our prince, Turles. It tells me you have your priorities straight and it proves that I did a fine job spearheading your squadron." Akane said, her hoarse voice dripping with self-satisfaction. She took arrogance to a whole different level if she could get her ego boosted from having her subordinates point out her shortcomings. "But you are leaning way too fucking heavily on my nostalgia right now. I am still your superior and I will not stand for insubordination. You want to go over my head, you better be ready to part with yours."
"Yet you have no trouble leaning on mine and making me sit here and listen to you mock him." Turles shot back. "I don't care how far back we go, your words are treason. I will not hear it."
"Good man. Perhaps we should crown you king. With that big, gap-toothed smile, you'd make a fucking handsome one too." Akane laughed roughly. "Never mind me kicking in open doors. You know that joke had to be made."
"You are impossible." Turles muttered, but the joke seemed to have taken the sting out for him.
Vegeta, however, was done listening to the unseizing declamation and done looking for composure. He much rather had himself a reckoning instead.
