Oca Tuberosa woke up.
"Urgh."
The man stretched, grumbling in the groggy discomfort we all know upon waking up. His wife shifted in her sleep, mumbling words he couldn't make out as he slipped out of her sleeping embrace and off the bed, his bare feet slapping onto the linoleum tiles. He walked down the hallway, not particularly quiet, but not loud either. One of the doors was open; he peeked in, getting a quick view of his children sleeping together. His eldest, Zelerie Junior, curled up next to Oxa, his younger but far larger son. Oca smiled to himself; he'd die before admitting it to anyone, but settling down and raising his children has been fulfilling in a way mercenary work never was.
"Bwah gahbwab a," Zelerie Junior burbled in his sleep as Oca slowly closed the door before continuing his routine. Tiptoe down the steps. Past the majin sleeping on the sofa, over the Xerulean in the baby chair and into the kitchen.
"Break-fast time for me~"
Oca began to prepare himself a balanced breakfast. Some mutant jerky on a small slab of roast paozusaurus. Topped with some gengineered iceberg lettuce for fiber, wrapped around an assortment of fruity vitamin gummies. Some eggshell chips on the side for that crunchy goodness. A fairly normal breakfast for a subsaiyanoid of his time, all things considered.
What was decidedly not normal was the entire glass bottle of Hetap he was going to down it with. Of course, a little drinking never hurt anyone.
This was not a "little" drinking. This was over a liter of alcoholic liquid that he planned to chug over his breakfast. At the crack of dawn.
"... Wow."
He slowly turned his head until he saw her at the kitchen entrance. Zenobia. His faaavorite honorary sister...
"Yeeeees?"
She crossed her arms as she approached, getting some chicken tenders for herself from the fridge.
"I just. Wow. I know you can be a heavy drinker, but it's really early. You sure you don't want to get some water instead?"
"... We have water?"
"Oh my god. We have a sink," she said, pointing to the sink only a couple feet away.
"... So we do."
"So?"
"I want to drink the Hetap, though."
"... Ugh, fine," she grumbled, leaving him to his delicious breakfast. "Don't blame me when your heart gives out."
"I've been drinking for a decade. I don't think it's gonna decide to kill me all of a sudden, right now, for no reason."
The subsaiyan lightly kicked the body of his reptilian opponent. Stupid motherfucker, getting in a fight with him when he said he was busy. This is what you get. What even was his name? The Riddler? Dudley? Whatever. Not like the corpse will be using it.
"... Are you all right, Oca?"
"Huh?" he said, turning to the new voice. "Oh, yo, Callis! Yeah, I'm fine."
Oca was a little bit banged up, but still fully functional. The literally-who on the floor was in far more dire (i.e. dead) condition right then. "Hell, you've seen me in way worse shape."
"I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about that," she said, gesturing to the liter bottle of Plutonium Whiskey he was holding. "You in a good headspace, dude? That's a lot of alcohol on the go."
"What?" he said, a note of confusion in his voice as he lifted the bottle and looked it over. "It's just a post-battle drink. I'm thirsty."
"That is a whole bottle of whiskey."
"... I'm really thirsty."
Callis grunted at the lame comeback. "Whatever you say, man," she said before warping away.
"I get the feeling she didn't totally believe me. But I'm fine, really! It's just a drink. Just a drink..."
"I don't know what you're talking about!" the sqid said for the fifth time. "I gave you back the bottle I got from the girl. I don't know anything about a blood ruby. Did you try putting a notice on the bulletin for it?"
Oca sighed. This sqid was either telling the complete truth, or was an extraordinary liar. "Fine, whatever, get out of here. Don't let me catch you again," he told the small alien, who gleefully scampered off into the alleyways. "Ugh, I need a freaking drink."
Plutonium Whiskey? Already had some today. Hetap? Tasty, but that's not what he needed right then. Yunzabitoplian Vodka…? Eh, sure! Bottoms up!
"Hey, Oca! Didn't expect to see… you… uh," Megan said, as her run slowed to a stop. She watched Oca down the entire bottle of vodka with a sick sort of fascination. She couldn't bring herself to tell him to stop before he finished. "I. Uh. …"
"Heeey…!" Oca belched, tossing the empty bottle over his shoulder. "Urp. I mean. Hi, Megan. Fancy seeing you here! What's up?"
"Well… I was going to mention that my experiments with saiyan tailbones and divine ichor have been... relatively enlightening so far? But... erm, how do I put this..."
She pressed her hands together, and inhaled as she thought for a moment.
"That was an utterly copious quantity of alcohol. Is everything okay?"
"Huh?" Oca followed Megan's gaze to the shattered remnants of the bottle of vodka. "... Oh. Really? Why is everyone suddenly acting like drinking is weird or something? Everyone gets thirsty."
Megan almost laughed, but forced herself not to. "N-no, you know that's not the problem. It's alcohol. Aren't you a doctor? You should know that's not the best thing for anyone."
For the first time that day, he actually seemed sheepish about his drinking. "W-well, I guess you aren't entirely wrong about that. But I can handle it. I have a robust metabolism, y'know. Saiyan stuff."
"Uuuuh-huuuuh."
That was a fairly average morning, if one ignored the anomalously high discussion of his choice of beverages. Dicking around in the Arena is always a nice time killer on weekends; it's too bad he can't easily get wrapped up in any big happenings due to schedule constraints, though. Maybe he should quit his university position… then he'd have all the time in the world! But then he wouldn't have a captive audience for six hours a day… Tough decision.
This is a thing that needs to be thought out over a drink, he thought, as he took a seat at an abandoned table. Was this part of a restaurant at some point? Who knows; apart from Hub Centralis, these cities were never heavily inhabited. It's questionable if they were even built in the traditional sense, rather than just being city-resembling growths on the Arena's landscape.
"Oca? Hey, Oca! What're you doing here?"
The saiyanoid perks up upon hearing his name. Another person?
"Hey, hey! Over here," the voice said. He could sense the air pressure changing slightly - they must have been waving at him. Did he really want to turn his head? … Yeah, why not?
"Oh, yo, Rin! Just chilling. ‘Sup with you?"
"Vibing." She tilted her head slightly in concern. "You all right? You seem a bit lost in thought," she asks.
"Yeah, just drinkin' and thinkin'," he said, taking a swig from his bottle of bright green liquid. "Considering quitting my job. Tough decision, y'know?"
"I guess. I wouldn't know," Rin replied. She pulled up a seat at the table. "Heh, mind pouring me some of... whatever that is?"
Oca turned the face of the bottle towards her, and Rin's eyes widened when she read the label.
NAMCHEKIAN SPIRYTUS - 96% Alcohol by Volume!
"What the fuck. I-I'd be fine, but... are you okay drinking that straight from the bottle?"
"Of-!" he cut himself off before he could snap at Rin. Even if it had been happening a weird amount that day, their concern was understandable. As Megan so helpfully reminded him, this much could very well kill a normal human. … But Oca isn't a normal human. "I'm perfectly fine, Rin. This can't hurt me."
Rin tilted her head. "... Well, if you insist. I'll take some off your hands anyway." She stole a cocktail glass's worth of booze from him, downed it and took off without another word.
Oca watched her go. It was nice seeing her, but for some reason, that left a bad taste in his mouth. Besides the taste of the Absinthe.
"... I need to blow off some steam, somehow," he thought to himself.
Science? Nae, mind is to grogged with... frustration, yes. Eat? … Yes, but he can multitask.
A familiar ki signature blips into his awareness.
… Fight!
"DIE YOU SHIT MUNCHING FUCK ! EAT SHIT !"
"Hahahaha! Fuck you, bro!"
"HATE ! HATE HATE HATE HATE ! I'M GOING TO RIP OUT YOUR STUPID ROBOT BITCH SPINE AND USE IT TO SHOVE SHIT DOWN YOUR SOUL'S THROAT ! FUCK YOU !"
Despite the other party's abject fury, Oca was having the time of his life. Zelerié was always one of his favorite people to mess with, or spar with. Though the latter almost invariably turned into a vicious deathmatch. But in this wretched realm, that was part of the fun!
Zel's blue aura exploded in intensity, and she seemed to vanish into thin air for a moment. Oca's eyes widened in that split second, before he teleported a couple of inches out of the way of an incoming right fist, the speed and force of which would have certainly reduced his skull to scrap metal. Super Saiyan Primal was powerful, but extraversal Super Saiyan Blue made it look like nothing.
"STAY STILL !" she screamed, lashing out with a brutal left hook that Oca barely barrel-rolled under, ending up behind her and upside down relative to Zelerié.
"What, I thought you ‘real saiyans' liked challenging fights~?"
"I'D LIKE IT IF YOU WERE DEAD !"
He kicked off of her back, evading a grab and blasting down towards the water below and plunging into the sea, not reorienting himself upright until he was well under the water.
"Demigod Engine: online!" Oca ‘shouted' in his head as he drew his arms back.
"Ka…! Me…! HA…! ME…!"
Zelerié raised her palms and exploded a terrifyingly large orb of raw ki into existence. "DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE !" she screamed as she threw her arms (and the death sphere growing above them) right in front of her. "GIGA BANG ATTACK !"
"... HAAAAA!"
…
And for miles around, the earth itself shuddered as the great clash of energy sundered the ocean around it.
"And then I totally won and kicked her ass," Oca said, wrapping up his retelling of the fight in a sudden and anticlimactic fashion. Neuff and Cinke glanced at each other over their drinks, while Oca capped the story off by ripping a bite out of his chicken(?) drumstick. Mm bone go crunchedy.
"Okay. Sure!"
"Do you take constructive criticism?" Cinke asks.
"No."
"Sucks. Anyways, you should have utterly flattened them with the power of science, not merely raw primal might! Think of your image as a scientist! You fling black hole grenades at them, not your feces!"
"Bah, shut up. It was a hissy fit, not an exhibition match."
"Mmblrokbemblglm…"
As the two continued to nurse their own drinks, Oca broke out a bottle of his own and took a swig. The Sisters looked on in fascination, and maybe a little horror, as he chugged a good third of the bottle.
"Oca."
"Oca."
"Oca."
"YOU CHIMP!" Cinke barked, conking him on the head with her closed fist and causing Oca to snort some of the liquid he was chugging out of his nose. "What are you ingesting?!"
"A-alachol."
She snatched the bottle out of his hand, and looked it over:
First Aid Antiseptic
99% Isopropyl Alcohol
Warning: Flammable 🔥 Keep away from heat, sparks, electrical fire or flame.
"HOW."
"How what?" he asked, snatching the bottle back to look at it. "Oh. Eh, it's alcohol."
And then he drank more.
Glug.
There was a quiet pop as Oca teleported back into his home, specifically into the kitchen, yawning wide. He was a bit on edge. Something about that day was frustrating. Blinking the bleariness from his eyes, he bumbled his way through the kitchen.
The silence was deafening. It was also rather dark; the lights were off, and this model of capsule house doesn't have great windows.
Leaning over into the fridge, Oca grabbed some grub - some jerky, a chilled gushie of prickly pear jam, egg chips.
And, of course, some booze.
He turned around, and promptly dropped the foodstuff he was holding upon noticing the various figures and weaponry trained on him. A veritable crowd of his acquaintances and friends filled his living room to bursting, all eyes staring.
This isn't a visual medium so I can't do cameos the way a spread of panels would, but I figured I should still name everyone I would imagine would be here. First of all, duh, all his friends already mentioned in the story. That is Callis, Neuff, Cinke, Megan, Rin, and Zenobia. Sarah and Ninth, too - a rare sight to see of all the Nice Neuffs in one spot. Some of his other associates too, like his Xenoverse's Fu, Trigo, Xoeur, Oxa, Xeno!Raditz, Percel, Nyr, Nagato Yuki I guess.
"WHA"
"OCA. THIS IS AN INTERVENTION," Callis stated plainly but firmly. "We-"
"Are you fucking kidding me? Really? In my own home?"
"WE-"
"HOW ARE YOU EVEN FITTING IN HERE? ‘Intervention'. What are you even intervening, huh? Huh? HUH-auhp!"
"SHUT UP!"
He squawked silent as the house underwent a great shake, and filled with a shining blue glow as Callis was cloaked in the aura of a Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan.
"OCA ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO DRINK UNTIL YOUR FUCKING LIVER SHUTS DOWN AND YOU DIE"
The crowd looks back and forth between the two, Oca bristling as Callis stares him down.
"IT'S BOLD OF YOU TO ASSUME THAT MY LIVER WOULD SHUT DOWN, EVER."
"WHAT IF IT DOES"
"I CAN JUST GET A NEW ONE."
"DRINKING ANYTHING TOO MUCH CAN KILL YOU ANYWAYS"
"WHAT, NO, FUCK YOU."
Neuff raised a hand to interject.
"I know you didn't drink anything that time at least on purpose? But there was that time we went to the salt planet. And you kind of died of salt poisoning. We still have the mummified corpse from that at Cinke's lab."
Callis shook her hand at Neuff, gesturing with a snap! Flicking her hand once for direction, twice for emphasis.
"SEE"
"FfffffffffffffffffffUCK YOU"
"OCA." She raised her hands in front of her, as if holding a tiny cube between them. "YOU'RE ADDICTED. You're an ALCOHOLIC, to like, an unnatural degree. You need HELP."
"I. Am not. ADDICTED. I can stop. ANY TIME. I WANT. I can stop drinking. Whenever I want to."
"OH, REALLY? GREAT."
"YEAH."
"..."
"..."
"So stop drinking so much."
There was a slight rumble: the crowd tensed up as a translucent aura of energy flared up around Oca, shaking the cutlery in its drawers. Oca's aura exploded in intensity as he transformed into a Primal Super Saiyan.
"I don't want to."