LAST OF A DYING BREED.

she had been dragged screaming to the belly of a ship that possessed tech she never even fathomed in her wildest dreams,  vomiting and crying.  it didn’t take her long to learn and adapt to the advanced engineering.  standard galactic replaced her native tongue due to the chip implanted in her head and she was forced to assimilate or die.  there was no escaping the murkiness of outer-space and she didn’t even have the chance to contact her sister before she was shuttled into the far reaches of nothingness.  in the laboratory in which she was forcefully stationed,  she worked alongside a variety of aliens and creatures that shared the same fate as she did.  same stories.  same tragedies wrapped in imperialism. 

they’re never allowed to discuss anything more than schematics.  someone was always watching through cameras and the assigned attendance often resulted to violence if any of the scientist seemed like they wanted to step out of line.  in the beginning,  she had become quite acquainted with the roughness of the assigned guards– had the scars and bruises to showcase the way her mouth proved reckless.  the kind of scars that left her panic and prone to anxiety attacks in her first year on the ship.  

she’s slowly grown more numb as the months flickered by.  but she worked fast and she worked hard and she avoided far worst circumstances than what she experienced by laying low in waiting.  some of the women from earth had been tossed into brothels and harems throughout this quadrant.  she’ll die before she ever face a similar fate.  she’s learned the workings of this ship’s system.  she’s configured a map of the galaxy in her head.  one day,  she waits.

dressed in the shapeless gray grab of scientists of the PTO with her hair tied in a loose braid– she waits for her assigned ‘bodyguard’ by the laboratory door.  she’s been given her task for that month and she’s to follow through,  if she does not want punishment.  one that no one ever truly wants.  ever so often,  one of scientists would be given the assignment of collecting data samples from a lawless planet that may or may not be cultivated into the organization.  

these planets operated as festering grounds for the underbelly work.  disease ridden,  prostitutes,  and trafficking was rapid in this area– occasionally someone she knows would go missing while down there.  easily replaceable in a rotational system that has numbers for faces.  the markets were full of thieves and con artists waiting for the right opportunity from some drugged out unfortunate soul.  the automatic door hisses open and she steps back,  fingers curled in the pockets of her laboratory coat.

     what a laugh. it occurred to vegeta that the tyrant he served must’ve known about the conditions he designated them to. the prince intended to survive any climate he’s pitted in, a fact that has been made apparent to his freeza since he was the tender age of five. he’s positively certain freeza betted on that tenacious drive and used that against him like it was the emperor’s own plaything. a bile built up at the back of his throat at the thought but he dared not remove his oxygen mask to hawk it out to the muddy soil.

     in his fifteen minute patrol (taken via flight), he observed the general vicinity the starship made its landing bay was a compost for aboriginal carrion. and apparently, a small feeding ground. he flew past opposingly gargantuan organisms with indefinable features feasting on the more manlike lifeforms in packs. being that the creatures were gnawing deeply through what remained of the corpses’ flesh and parts of the skeletons swiftly got picked on by the bone-crushing mandibles, he had no way of telling how recently those souls joined the ranks of the dead. anyway, he too was famished, and as far as he was concerned, this little field trip was over with. the predators would do.

     vegeta swooped in on the feasting creatures like a bald eagle to an unsuspecting freshwater pond duck. his hands snatches the smallest one by the nape of its neck, alarming the rest of its peers. the dining stopped and a full on dogged pursuit developed. the pack had no wings, but their equilibrium-piercing screeches nearly threw off his coordination. by the grace of his superior flying speed and their misfortune of their gait being non-supported by their obesity, he did not go on a full on crash course to the ground and treated them to dust. it was all too comical for him, but he did not break into a laugh.

     the frustration he took with this mission was transferred to his throbbing temples as the veins there pulsed to life from his jaw-clenching. the pressure his gorilla-grip applied to the tough neck of the struggling adolescent was cruel, but necessary. dog eat dog universe, was the unassailable laws that all apex predatorial offsprings of nature followed. after a futile battle, a long, grisly groan betrayed the baby beast’s fight for life, and a noise that sounded like a large tree being snapped in half was drowned out by the intense whoosh in the wake of his aeronautics. but the sudden sagging weight told him the story to his fight. his face was imperturbable. 

     he made it back to his ship, much to the surprise of the two men that waited for him there. they looked at him, waiting for an explanation but they were nobody for a prince to answer too. just two expendable gifts from the meritocracy of the cold dynasty. bagel and cream were cerealian twin brothers that dodoria exerted dominance over in an month long expedition that saw to the submission of planet cereal. their services waived over to vegeta after the bloated commander lost a gamble that betted the prince’s life against two members from his own miserable race. 

     it was a good bet for the saiyan, because the twin’s race had a special talent that had its uses. be it escorts assignments or his lone wolfing operations, he was never truly alone if technicalities are considered. together, they dwarfed any funny hapless ideas from those that partake in consequential actions, in regards to the prince wellbeing. he personally enjoyed doing the dirty work, but sometimes, it was best to have some ‘friends’ in faraway places. 

     the brothers possessed a peculiar red eye that helped them snipe their targets from beyond a reasonable difference distance. he speculated the artificial intelligences (designed as a small optic on their eyepatches), whom called poppy and cheese respectively, might have been responsible for enhancing proficiency. he did not bother to question them, as long as they remained faithful to their uses.

     “ here, you, ” vegeta turned to cream and tossed him the fresh carcass haphazardly. he instinctively caught but his single eye blinked in confusion. “ have my dinner purified of radicals and cured. ” he paid the glare that radiated with displeasure squat and spoke in his native tongue to his ship. the boarding ramp moaned to life as it lowered to its captain. he had a scientist configure certain settings on his war mongrel to receive vocal commands, in the event bright ideas start going against better judgements. 

     vegeta flew up the long ramp, but not without feeling the burning hole a glare was trying to have in his back because he turned around to meet the defiant red-eyed cream. after a moment, the cerealian thought better of mouthing off (cheese, his a.i., probably advised him, if it wasn’t his common sense) and softly cursed his weakness, as he mentally decided to comply with the order. he just hoped the unknown creature was free of disease and did not have parasites in its mangled brown fur. he would be sure to wash his clothes and himself three times over tonight. bagel, on the other hand, sighed and took one last look around their surroundings for any threats. satisfied with his brief surveillance, he trailed his brother and vegeta as the ramp began to close.

     in the belly of the ship, crew members that belonged to a variety of races he deemed mediocre greeted him with quizzical expressions. he was empty-handed and in the process of removing the astronaut suit from his body, until he stripped himself down to just a black bodysuit that clung to the muscular ripples that his warrior-sculpted body expressed. no one had the stones to question why it seemed like their captain was ready to depart, so they just left it up to the kai’s that overlooked the universe. 

     vegeta made it down the corridor where researchers, scientists, and medics worked from their accredited stations. the lead scientist hung outside the door of her post, waiting for him, undoubtedly. eyes carved from ebony stone took a sharp glare in the bluenette’s direction. her name was lost on him, remembered only when concupiscence is mutual between them and a sequestered spot becomes occupied by their animalistic vigor. 

     but he points his index in her direction so that she will know it was her being addressed. “ you, contact that sniveling sleaze that presumes himself clever and tell him he’s outta his rabid mind if he believes for one second i’m wasting any more precious moments of my time on this backwater planet. ” he’s quite loud. his voice gruff and demanding as a lord of a world. never a moment found to tender his tone. lackeys faithful to the cold dynasty were in earshot, but there was an unspoken agreement that they would mind their business, lest they incur the wrath of freeza or worst, vegeta.