Dragon Ball: After the End

Blonddude42 · Apr 2, 2017

Alright I hammered out a draft for the main post in the negaverse. I'd love feedback on it to see if there is anything I can do to improve it. I'll try to figure out how to do the fake quoting later, but until then feel free to react to it as your negaverse self (which can be just your normal self with a negaverse name)

Welcome to the Training Hall

‒

The Training Hall. For centuries, it has been the center of Saiyan civilization; for years, it has been the center of your world.

This wonder of the Saiyan race's making was crafted centuries ago when the first of the Sorcerers banded together in the hope of creating a refuge for the survivors of Earth. They were immensely successful. Hidden by esoteric means from the eyes of the local world, it is a place where Saiyans could exist unrestricted by the Masques that keep them hidden.

Truth be told, the name is not quite accurate. The Hall is open-air; a massive cavern missing its ceiling ‒ although rumors say it was not originally meant to be so. The main area is ringed by many smaller training rooms and even apartments for those who do not wish to take part in the Masquerade. Through the power of countless charms The Hall is as secure as a bunker a mile underground ‒ more so if a Sorcerer is present to reinforce them.

In fear of being sensed, your people are forbidden from walking around the outside world at full power. What few scouters survived the fall of Earth found an unexpected new relevance in determining who couldn't be allowed to go outside the Hall without their power-dampening Masque on. But the Hall, and only the Hall, is the place where your people can unleash their full power.

And, by necessity, it is the place where Scions will transform. It is the place where you must transform.

You woke up at the break of dawn for your training as Father demanded. You only had time for a light three course meal as your breakfast; you were curious when your father would allow you to have lunch. If he would allow you to have lunch at all.

After all, today is the day you begin you become a Super Saiyan. Well, officially it was the day you began your training to do so, but you are a Vegetan and an exceptional protigy. This should be easy for you ‒ trivial even.

So why

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

The Hell

"-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"

Haven't you

"-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"

MADE IT!

BANG.

The explosive burst of your ki tears up the floor and casts rubble across the room. Absently you notice that your father has drifted towards another group of Saiyans. One is powerful ‒ powerful like your father. It must be the Lord Goku and his family.

The Lord, and his Scion.

You can't afford to look. Your father never forgives slacking. He will not tolerate it. You cannot let him see you distracted. You cannot afford to arouse his ire. You don't want to hurt again today.

You need to keep pushing. Struggling against that barrier. Why can't you break through?

You change up your efforts. Struggling to power up beyond your limits alone will not help. You need to keep you other skills sharp anyways.

You pause for just a moment. You close your eyes, envisioning your targets surrounding you. Many move in a complex patterns about you while others remain mostly stationary. In this moment neither side has begun their attacks. Your flash open, and the dance begins.

You begin launching ki attacks to distract what you recognise as significant threats, while already moving far away from where you were just before. You smash through several targets with physical strikes, never stopping your barrage of ki attacks. You switch directions, avoiding the retaliation of several targets own ki attacks. The barrage ends, and you move on to more focused and powerful ki attacks; the targets drop like flies to your might. You are strong, and you will be stronger. You need to be stronger.

You will be a Super Saiyan. You need to be a Super Saiyan.

"Mom, can I go flying?" A young voice drifts across the room, or rather your ears pick the words from up across it. You always have had unusually sharp hearing; it has never failed to bring things you normally should not hear to your attention. Even those you want to ignore; you have long since learned to fall asleep to the screams of your mother during your father's bouts of rage.

But maybe you can afford a little peak. Father is distracted after all.

She is garbed in the traditional gi of house Goku, tail wrapped around her waist protectively as all Saiyans are taught to do. You see her hair flowing freely with her slightly raised aura ‒ bright and golden even without achieving her Super Saiyan form. Her flight is smooth, not wavering in the slightest. She is strong, that much you can tell for sure even with only a cursory glance. Of course, it is only fitting that the other Scion can rival your power.

Maybe she would care for a spar?

[] Attract her attention. Father most likely won't mind a spar between the Scions.

[] Let her be. You refuse to risk Father's wrath.

Blonddude42 · Apr 4, 2017

WOO! I finished chapter two of Jaffur quest. ~~1500~~ 1508 words on the dot. Nearly half again what our glorious GM put out for it

I feel like I'm going to make that a trend for these omakes. @PoptartProdigy how many do I need to do to get my own omake category?

[x] get her attention

Well, You're a Jerk

The decision is easy – of course you want her attention. Now how best to get it? You don't want to do anything that might hurt her, but you don't want her to be able to ignore you. Would she even hear you if you called out to her? Your hesitation almost costs you your chance. Rushing to stop her from getting away, you fire a ki blast to cut her path off. Your aim is true and the blast strikes just ahead of her along her intended flight path.

There, she must have noticed that! Now you just need to think of how to ask her to best ask her to spar with you. Easy enough.

"Nice to meet you too, jerk," The other Scion's calls out to you, her arms folded and her face filled with blatant displeasure.

Crapbaskets! This is not going according to plan! Keep cool Jaffur, keep cool.

"That's it?" Good, that's good – face blank eyebrows raised. She definitely will react to that.

"Hey, waist your energy for all I care; I'll save mine for later," she swiftly replies.

Ah, the age-old tradition of pre-fight banter! Alright, you can do that.

"Like flying off into the sunset?" You reply, adding a slight smirk to your statement. "Literally, it's sunset. Where are you even going?" You finish with a chuckle. There! Take that!

"I'm just flying! Don't you ever?" The other Scion flushes a little as she replies. Absent mindedly, some part of you notes that she is kinda pretty.

Hah! An opening.

You snort. "No, I do important things." You decide that it is time to finish with this, shifting to a more stable (and comfortable) stance. "Care for a spar, Scion? We're going to be rulers someday, might as well see what we've got."

"No."

What? Why? The banter was going so well! Maybe you just need to push harder!

"What's the matter?" you ask. "You're not scared of me, are you?" You power up at this to accentuate the taunt.

There. She has to react to that. You know she is strong – she has to be as the Gokun Scion. She's the only person who should be able to give you a proper challenge now that you have reached the limit of 15 million. You can tell she knows a fair amount about fighting – not as much as you, but to be fair, few do. That's not arrogance even, you are an acknowledged martial prodigy among your warrior people.

She does not reply. She refuses to even acknowledge that you have spoken. She's ignoring you. You hate being ignored. You are Jaffur Vegeta, Scion of Clan Vegeta and she will answer you!

"Come on, fight me Scion," you growl out, your smirk giving way to a scowl. "Fight me." Why won't she fight me?

"BOY!"

Icy fingers of dread stab through your body as you involuntarily flinch from your father's shout. He's angry. Even without turning your head you can picture his scowling face; the one that haunts your every nightmare.

You sigh, muttering your discontent under your breath.

"What was that?" Your father calls, displeasure clear in his voice. You forget sometimes that you inherited your acute hearing from him.

"Yes Father!" Your response is nearly instinctive, a primal part of you recognizing that it disobedience only brought pain.

"Better!"

You turn to the other Scion, a bitter smile upon your face. "Next time, Scion. Good luck." You power up to your maximum, and as you are turning to leave you offer one final parting shot to her, "You'll need it." After all, you can't be too nice. It's not like you like her or something

Distantly, you wonder how your father will punish you for your misbehavior. Numbly you accept that whatever it is – it will hurt. Like always.

***

You have heard many whispers denouncing your father is a sadistic monster. You would beg to disagree. After all, he can't be sadistic if he does not derive pleasure from the pain he causes when he hurts you or your mother. He derives pleasure from venting his ever-present rage upon either of you. A slim difference, but one that has allowed you to escape far more pain than if he was actually the sadistic monster he is referred to as.

Presently, that slim difference is of no use to you as he bitch slaps you into the ground at somewhere in the ballpark of Mach 20. Plus, or minus one to two – it's hard to tell when you are on the receiving end of that.

You think you'll just not move and keep laying here – maybe he won't check if you were actually knocked out this time? Probably not, but you can still try to put off finding out what you've broken this time. You hope it's not your ribs, you're never allowed a senzu bean for broken ribs until they puncture something. At least no bones are sticking out of your body this time – it would hurt a lot more if any were.

"Vegeta..." You hear the Lord Goku growl out, anger clear in his voice. You're confused as to why though; you don't think he has a reason to be angry.

"The boy lacks motivation, Berra," your father replies. " Your methods are soft and useless. There is only one way to access the transformation – I'm just trying to bring it out. As often as I need to. Without a stop. Until he snaps."

Your father's words hardly reach your ears before you sense something off. What's that power level? Why is the Scion over the limit? How is she so –

"VEGETA!"

It's gone as soon as it appeared. The Gokun Scion is back to the level she normally holds. In her place the Lord Goku has transformed and powered up to full, and sounds very angry for some reason. Your even more confused now, but that's probably more from the pain clouding your mind than you missing sufficient context.

"What?" your father asks, not sounding bothered in the slightest. "It nearly worked. In a minute's conversation, I accomplished what a week of your time-wasting has failed to achieve." You can tell your father's attention has shifted to you; you know he knows you are still conscious and alert. "Feel that, boy? This weakling girl nearly succeeded where you, my son, have so consistently failed. What a disappointment."

You being your struggle to rise, slowly getting up to your hands and knees. Your breath is ragged, and the pain in your right arm immense. But your blood is seething under your skin, roaring in desire for the power to hurt that man.

"Not good enough," that man says, turning away from you – dismissing you. "You remain nothing but a failure."

You hate being ignored. You will not be written off so easily!

Your rage against the indignity of everything. How dare he insult you here, how dare she out do you! "Haaaaa...hraaaaaa...HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-!" It isn't fair!

Your arm suddenly explodes in pain and the muscles in your arm involuntary clench harder at your aura powering up – seemingly reaching into a well beyond what you normally could touch. You collapse on the ground, sobbing at the overwhelming pain radiating from it.

Absently, you notice one of the observing Saiyans fly over and land beside you – likely one of the Senzu children. What was that one's name –

"Leave him, Betarel!" your father calls out.

"B- but Uncle Vegeta-!"

"I said leave him! Heal him in the morning when he needs to train. For now, he stays as he is." You sense your father flying away as your mother comes to take you away. You lean into her mercifully soothing touch as she rubs soothing circles on your back as you continue to sob from the pain. You hardly hear the soothing words she whispers to you, and allow her to wipe the tears that traitorously escape your eyes as they run down your face.

As much of a monster your father is, he has never denied you from the care of your mother. Her kindness is one of the few lights you have in this world, and you love her dearly for it. Because with her, it doesn't matter if you are weak. With her, you let yourself be weak.

With her, you don't care if you are weak.

***

What do you do with the rest of your day?

[] Train. Your father won't tolerate weakness and failure. Today it was a broken arm, what will it be next time? How long will he force you to endure next time? Take a bit to recover and stabilize the injury, then go back out and keep training.

[] Don't Train. Indulge yourself in your mother's care. Let come what may, but for the rest of the day you want to try to enjoy your mother's presence and love while your father won't interrupt you.

Edit: Fixed a few errors and added back in some missing words. Still haven't gotten around to doing the commentary yet.

NegativeJ · Apr 4, 2017

This did not come out as I had hoped...

That and I was too lasy to run Xenoverse...

Also I'm working on the "Kakara did nothing wrong" poster... But The Saiyan sans font is... Not all that good...

PoptartProdigy · Apr 5, 2017

[X] Flee the field with Cabba and Maya in tow. Know when to fold in a fight.

Turning In

Your eyes widen. Maya! NO!

And you lunge to your feet, your hands coming up to frame your forehead. On your right hand, two fingers brush just above the bridge of your nose, and you shout, "Taiyo-"

vip

-and those two fingers snap free and splay wide. "-KEN!"

FLASH

The alien rears back, his eyes having widened at your sudden imposition, and roars in agony.

And then Maya hits you from behind, driving the breath from your body as she tackles you down and out of the way of his blind retaliatory strike.

"Karen!" she says, holding you out at arm's length. "A- a- are you alright? Are you hu- hu-"

Maya, I'm fine, you send, brushing yourself off and checking the alien. You open a private line to Cabba and slip into your command voice. Masque name! Now!

Um- It's Charles, why?

You include him on the line with Maya. Charles, get over here! We need to go!

He doesn't question any further, zipping over to you. You reach out and pull Maya in close, put two fingers to your head, and Cabba's fingers just brush your elbow-

vip

-and you land clear on the other side of the planet, well away from your opponent.

You immediately turn to your friend and pull her into a hug. You run your hands down her back to soothe her; she's shaking. "Maya, I'm okay, it's alright, we're safe. You just have to suppress now, okay? Just suppress and calm down, it's fine, I promise."

"Ka- Karen, I'm fi- fine," she mumbles, ducking her head.

"You're shaking," you say, holding on tighter.

Maya pauses. "...no, Karen, yo- you are."

You blink and raise up your hand.

You laugh nervously. "Hu- huh. You're right." Your laughter escalates a bit before Maya drives the breath out of you with a tighter squeeze. Her power level starts settling back down.

"I- I'm okay. Promise," she says.

You tell yourself that you hold on tighter for her benefit.

After a moment, though, the moment shatters as your Dad's power level explodes onto your senses. Your head snaps up. He's at...a million, and under Masque.

May blinks, looking around. "Karen? You feel that?"

"It's Dad," you say.

KAKARA!

You wince, a hand fluttering up to your head at the force of the shout. Dad! I'm fine!

I'm on my way to the battle site. What happened?!

You wince. I...didn't take him seriously enough. I think it's a him. Even powering up wasn't enough. I was winning, but it wasn't fast enough, and then he transformed. I couldn't stop him, not that strong, and then...Maya showed up.

Silence on the line.

I got her and Cabba out, you say.

So I felt, he replies. Damn it! That's alright, I'll just go to Plan B.

Plan B?

Plan B for rolling back the Masquerade a bit, as far as ki use goes. I was hoping that Maya wouldn't have to be dragged into this mess with the aliens. I wish I could have afforded to keep you out of it. You hear a sigh across the line. I'm closing in on the site now, but I don't imagine I'll have any luck there. The scout has probably already escaped.

Your eyes widen. What? How?!

How'd you escape?

Solar Flare and Instant Transmission, why?

You're in a fight. Your opponent, who you've just begun beating, manages to turn the tables, blind you for a bit, and escape without a trace. You going to stick around to see if reinforcements are inbound? Yeah, he's gone. I just reached the site. Nowhere to be found, nowhere to be sensed.

Your stomach drops. But that means-

-nothing we weren't already prepared to accept, interjects Dad. We knew the scouts might separate; they would have known that we were hunting them down the moment we started ambushing them. We need to make this planet an unattractive prospect for them to keep them away; that's going to involve them discovering a bit of our presence here. It just means we need to redouble our efforts.

I still failed, you reply, closing your eyes. And you did fail...in more ways than one.

We'll talk about that later, says Dad, not contesting what you said. For now I need you to get Maya to your old training caves. Cabba will return to the hunting party.

You nod. Okay, Dad.

I love you, Kakara.

I love you too.

The line cuts, and you sigh.

"Karen?" says Maya.

"We need to go to our old caves," you say, toneless. "Charles, my Dad wants you to go back to your team. He'll probably talk to you later."

Maya looks even more worried now. Cabba just nods and lifts off. You stare off into the distance for a moment before reaching out, grabbing Maya's shoulder, and transmitting away.

* * *

"Karen, what was that thing?" asks Maya as the two of you walk down into your old caves.

"We'll talk about it when my Dad gets here," you say, still subdued.

"O- okay." She shrinks back a bit before mustering herself again. "Wha- what ha- happened to make you so stro- strong? I thought I- I- was stronger."

"if you need it you can boost your strength for a little while off of will," you say. "It only lasts a minute, though. I can't keep doing it." Technically true.

[Deceit-->True enough to pass]

"O- oh." Maya looks down. "Ka- Karen, are you su- sure you're okay?"

You find it in yourself to flash her a smile. It doesn't have much spirit behind it, though. "I'm fine."

The two of your hear running footsteps behind you, and Dad comes into view a moment later, under Masque. The first thing he does is pull you into a hug and then check you over for injuries. You wince as his thumb touches a bruise on your cheek. "You're okay," he breathes, hugging you again.

You nod, not really responding.

He pulls back. "Maya, Karen and I are going to go down a level to talk for a bit, okay? Can you wait here?"

Maya hesitates, but nods after a moment. Dad smiles at her and then starts tugging you to the next hallway down.

"So what happened?" he asks.

You duck your head and rattle off a report, falling into military form to make it simpler.

The shock of that fight is only just starting to hit you. Simple is good.

Dad listens patiently. Then he sighs. "Okay. I think I know what went wrong."

The two of you exit into the next chamber down. He leads you to a level stretch of ground and takes a seat, patting the rock beside him. You follow along.

He stares at you for a moment. Then he starts talking. "Ka-" His eyes flick up towards the next level. "Karen. What did you know about him before engaging?"

You blink. Oh. This is going to be a lesson. "I knew that he was a scout."

Dad nods. "Well, what does that imply?"

You frown. "What do you mean?"

"What is a scout's job?"

...you don't think you like where this is going. "To scout."

"Karen."

You look away. Dad straightens. "Scouts range ahead of the main body of troops. Given the nature of their duties, it is nearly certain that scouts will encounter qualitatively superior forces in the course of their duties. That means they most likely get outgunned at some point. And yet, they are sent out, with the expectation that they will survive to report back in."

...you definitely don't like where this is going.

"Scouts cannot count on evading contact every time," says Dad. "Sometimes they will be engaged by hostile forces. A good scout must be able to break contact, or survive long enough for reinforcements to arrive."

You curl in on yourself for a bit, waiting for the blow.

"Finally, your vision," he says. "We know that the scouts' orders are to find a suitable conquest for the regulars and then wait there. And yet, here they are. Which means that every single inhabited planet between where they started and Garenhuld has the strength to repel not only the scouts, but the main invasion force following them. From this, we may determine that the scouts have encountered beings far more powerful or capable than they have any hope of dealing with. And yet, at the end of their journey, here they stand, alive." He leans back. "Kakara, do you find it likely that this individual may have encountered somebody with a power level of at least two hundred thousand on the battlefield before?"

You close your eyes. "Yes."

"Did you know that for a fact?"

"No."

"Did you know about his transformation?"

"No."

"Did you know about his fighting style?"

"No."

"Did you know how skilled a fighter he was?"

"No."

"Did you know what his equipment did?"

"No."

"Did you know if he had reinforcements in the area with suppressed power levels, like you?"

"NO, okay?!" you snap, lifting your head up to glare at him.

He is unmoved. "Karen, you know how to throw a punch, and very well. You can fire ki blasts extremely well. You fly beautifully, and are only getting better as time goes on. You have better control of your ki than I do." He stares you down. "Karen, are you a fighter?"

You stare back at him for a long moment. You think of how you've always put off bringing your skills together into an actual martial art. And then you look down and away. "...just get it over with."

"I'm not going to say it."

"Everybody does."

"Not for years."

"BECAUSE THEY THINK I HELPED YOU!"

Silence falls.

Your Dad takes in a sharp breath after a while. It sounds shaky coming out. "...I have never told you that you wanting not to be a fighter was a bad thing."

"You don't have to," you say. "I know that they'll think it is."

"They're wrong."

You swallow. You don't even know what to think about that anymore.

Dad sighs. Then he reaches out and drops some rocks down into the tunnel leading up with telekinesis, to block noise going up the shaft. "There's nothing wrong with it, but it's the truth. You aren't a fighter. You have skills, but you've never tied them together into a coherent form. Your opponent...you fought on ground that their job description demands they be excellent at fighting on, and you aren't a fighter. You didn't have any intelligence on their capabilities beyond whatever you immediately sensed. You didn't power up high enough."

"I was leading him 4:3," you mutter. "He shouldn't have stood a chance."

"And you were winning," he says. "Barely, by your description. That's his skills coming into play."

"I would've finished it before she got there," you say.

"But he unveiled a secret you didn't know about, and surprised you," he says. "Which happens, and is why you should have gone in higher."

"I didn't want to have to explain it to Maya," you say.

"Willpower pushes," he says. "Yuki. It's hard to get them up as high as you needed to fake, but that doesn't matter when it's still only a fraction of what you're capable of. That is in fact the explanation you already used, if I heard correctly on my way in."

"You did," you mutter.

"Then as long as you were using that excuse, you should have gone all-in," he says. "As it stands...you engaged an opponent on ground they would be prepared to respond on. You knew nothing of their capabilities. You went in at a power level and with an approach that gave them time to react to you unless you accidentally disabled them on the first strike -- which wasn't even your intention. And yes, you were still winning. But he pulled out a surprise. And you should never assume that your opponent has none of those."

You swallow. "...I messed up."

He nods. "Yes. You did. But you will learn from this, I know."

You shrug.

"You will. You always have before." He sighs. "Now. Time to go bring your friend in on some of this." He reaches forward and lays a hand on your shoulder. "How much do you think we should tell her?"

Well?

[ ] Nothing. At least, as little as you can get away with. Garenhulders barely leave their cities. They don't know the first thing about their own planet. The alien was a monster. "Charles" found a monster.
[ ] Limited release. You all aren't sure what this thing is. But it's not from this world, and it didn't come alone.
[ ] Broad disclosure. Give her a filtered version of the events as you know them. You had a Vision a while ago, saying aliens were coming and that they were hostile. Tell her everything through the lens of human ki users being the active parties.
[ ] Full disclosure. Surely you can convince Dad to cast away the Masquerade your people have maintained for centuries for not terribly much reason at all, right? Well, once you do, go walk back upstairs without a Masque on, and start explaining.

THIS VOTE IS NOW CLOSED.

NegativeJ said:
Either that or poptart is enjoying a nice poptart.

Strawberry flavored, actually.

Lailoken said:
I don't know. Poptart might have that condition where you suddenly find yourself paralyzed and vividly hallucinating for several hours every couple of days. I hear it's a real time-sink.

Think I feel that one coming on soon, in fact. :lol

Okay, folks. Real talk. I get a general sentiment among the thread that the last update was the result of bad rolls.

Kakara rolled an average of 63.8 on that combat, rounding. The alien rolled 52.5. What made him put up so much of an unholy fight was the bonuses he could stack on that. His skills, his styles, his tactics -- that all led to him resisting you quite a bit harder than you all were hoping for. Bear in mind the rolls that you failed, before cookies were applied. Two regular rolls that would have resulted in a broken arm, and two rolls that would have escalated to HAPCON 1. Here's the sections of text where you see the final result of Kakara passing those HAPCON 1 rolls, under cookie support.

PoptartProdigy said:
But before that happens, you transmit in and kick the scout in the side of the head, smashing his scouter as you power up to 200,000.

PoptartProdigy said:
You sense it trying to do something with its ki -- calling for help, maybe. No matter. You press harder, and keep it from doing so by forcing its attention onto you.

In other words, one of the bonuses the scout received was that you needed to win so handily that he couldn't even scream for help. He wasn't fighting to win; he was fighting to buy time while his team figured out that something was up.

And you were still winning...until it turned out that, yes, he had something in reserve you hadn't anticipated.

The dice were pulling for you, last update. There's just a limit to what they can achieve. As for what about the plan was faulty, Berra illustrates that above. But in a nutshell: you acted on limited intelligence against a trained soldier while under a heavy power penalty, and got slapped for it.

Which is a good thing.

If it were just rolls, then there wouldn't be anything you all could do about this situation. But in this case? It was just a mistake. Mistakes are fixable.

Now, I already said this in the commentary to the last update. But I got several PMs in the aftermath that referred to rolls messing up the plan, and that managed to make me forget that I had said it until I looked back to re-check what I said last time at the start of this paragraph.

So, to be perfectly clear: The result of the last update was not a result of poor rolls. This was player error.

As such, Kakara has gained the following:

Defeat Gained. First Contact: In the first encounter with the aliens, Kakara resorted to violence before words, and then lost the ensuing fight because of her mistakes going in. Her confidence in herself and her beliefs has been badly shaken, and the scout escaped.

We now have this last bit of social to conclude the event chain, and then it's time to deal with the rest of the year. Plus, y'know, the follow-on consequences from all this. :lol

And additionally, @NegativeJ! Have a greater bonus for the "Kakara Did Nothing Wrong!" pic you made! It's cashable towards dealing with the fallout from this mess.

@Blonddude42! I have indeed decided to upgrade your prior bonus from the Negaverse series to "compliant," netting a greater bonus given that you're basically guessing at what Jaffur's perspective was and the players aren't and can't be privy to that information. All bonuses going forward will be "compliant" as well for this work. Your second submission has netted a greater bonus to your next blown willpower check.

The bonus from NegativeJ's first fanart submission, for "escaping a messy situation," was expended in this update...but not in the way you would think...

And that's all she (or, possibly, he) wrote! I hope you all enjoy this update folks, and I will see you,

Kakara has escaped the battle with the scout with her friend and Cabba uninjured, but the battle has dealt a serious blow to the young Scion's self-assurance. Her beliefs were tested...and didn't hold up. Even worse, the scout escaped and is at large. While there hasn't been any response from the other scouts just yet, nobody knows what they're up to. The situation is still tense and uncertain, and beyond that, Maya is still waiting for answers. Only one thing is certain: nothing has been settled yet. Find out what happens next time, on Dragon Ball AE!

THREE-HOUR MORATORIUM TO CHATTER ABOUT THIS ONE

KaintukeeBob · Apr 10, 2017

An Omake, entitled A Series of Unfortunate Events. I'm not entirely happy with it, but I did promise to publish something. I know Kakara's characterization is off, but honestly it's based on a joke vote that is very out of character for her, so that's sorta unavoidable.

A follow up to the threadmark here, if a completely different path had been chosen. Initial paragraphs stolen from the linked post and slightly modified at the end.

Suffice to say, it's non-canon. I tried to keep it compliant with the setting's rules, but doubt Seeing can work quite in this way. The sorcery is almost all conjecture.

You know what? Probably completely non-compliant.

"Whose mind? You need to find them, right now, get down on your knees, and beg their forgiveness for the trespass. You will explain that it was unintentional, I shall grab one of my Sorcerer friends to swear the person you visited to secrecy about the whole chat before sending them out of earshot, and you will immediately convince your Lord Father to offer whatever recompense is necessary. The mind is sacrosanct, Kakara. You do not enter it, not without permission and as a last resort even then. When you're there, the other person by default can't see you or detect you until you're already touching something. Anybody whose mind you enter is in far more danger than you'll ever be. So you're going to offer your apologies, and I am going to start drilling you on this immediately. It's not your fault, but this cannot happen again. Done intentionally, tampering with somebody's mind is a hideous and abhorrent breach of trust. So yes. I will teach you Mind Projection. Because apparently the standard regimen simply isn't going to take in your case." He stands up from his chair, looking decidedly more frazzled than he was a minute ago, and begins pacing in an infrequently-used corner of the room. "Now: who was it?"

Oh. Crud.

You bite your lip and fiddle with your hands. "Um..."

His eyes narrow. "Scion Kakara..."

You laugh nervously. "Well, you see..."

"Answer me immediately."

Composure Check: Oh My, no.

You freeze. Sensei is Vegetan, you think, Sensei has only heard the 'official' story of the Sealing. A thin sheen of sweat appears on your forehead. What if he hates it? What if he hates me? What if he tells?.

You barely notice that your breath is coming faster and faster.

In fact, you think, mind racing down this track, he's probably going to tell Dandeer! She's going to find out what happened and Seal him again! She's going to kill Jaffur!

You barely even notice that your hands have clenched into fists, and don't notice at all when they come together.

"Kakara?" Sensei asks, pausing his pacing.

It's not a vision. You know what visions feel like, and it can't be one. But in your mind's eye, all you can see is that endless white room, and the rage and hate and anger that's locked away. And that tiny smile. That smile that is going to die.

"kamehameha" you hear yourself murmur, aura spiking briefly to a paltry 20 million.

Sensei's eyes barely have time to widen as the blue beam strikes. Ki waves don't travel at anything like the speed of light. They're not even as fast as the speed of sound. But Sensei's power level right now is only 1,297,332. It might as well be instantaneous, given the distance.

And now his power level is gone.

You look out the new window in the side of the house, past the smoke slowly curling from your cupped hands.

Was that...you? Did you do that? Sensei is de...gone?

It is a sad fact of psychology that the mind can only take so much. The mind can bend in some truly amazing ways, but can be broken like anything else. For a time, your brain wars against itself. Sensei can't be gone! Why did he make you do that? Maybe if you close your eyes and wish really hard, he'll come back? Even Vegetans don't have a bow designed for screw-ups this massive!

You don't know how long you're standing there, but it can't be long. The thick 'slap' of a stack of papers hitting the ground breaks you out of the spirals your mind has been running in. Something just fell out of the space in the walls, having been just barely missed by your blast.

You walk around the couch, eyes sliding away from the blackened scoop taken out of the top of one of the cushions.

There's a thick yellow envelope on the floor, with a name printed on it in large black letters. Your name.

As you open it, you notice that your fingers aren't tremblinb any longer. Inside is a stack of envelopes, numbered one through fifteen, and a pink envelope labelled "Read me first."

Kakara, the first letter begins, "if you're reading this, I'm dead. I was blasted into atoms, and this envelope fell out of the wall of my house, where I'm going to hide it momentarily. There's about five more hidden in other places, but if you're reading this one then they don't matter. Please don't tear up my walls looking for them - houses in the middle of wastelands are expensive and I'd prefer this one to be as undamaged as possible when my brother inherits it.

I don't know who kills me, Kakara, and I don't know how far into your education we've gotten, so I'm not going to prattle on about how I knew where to put this or what shifted the future onto this track. Suffice to say, I knew that if I died by this wall, in a way that made a hole in the right place to drop this package, you'd be the first one on the scene.

Now, on to the envelopes. Envelopes one through six are letters to my friends and family. I'd appreciate if they were delivered unopened, but it isn't like I can stop you from reading them if you want. You'll find a list of who to give each one to in a later envelope.

Mutely, you set aside the first six envelopes, before you continue reading. If my couch is intact, you need to fly away NOW. Tell your Father to gather the rest of the Nobles - the Enemy is here. This branch of the future is clouded over very heavily, so I don't know what's going to happen, but I know it's bad. For all of your sakes, I hope my couch is damaged.

You eye the half-circle of scorched fabric that your blast put into the couch, unsure if Sensei would be happy about it or not, given the circumstances. "He'd probably be happier to be alive to see it," a traitorous voice in your mind whispers. You ignore it studiously, and continue reading.

If you're still reading this, good. It means the planet is likely to survive for a long time, yet. If you're wearing matching socks, go ahead and open envelope seven. If your feet are bare, open envelope 13.

This morning, when you were dressing, you couldn't find matching socks. Mato must have been messing around again - he's been acting passive-aggressive for a while, and that's recently changed from crushing your cereal and chips to powder to hiding your socks. Man, visions are weird.

If you're still reading, look out of the hole. If you can see the sun, open envelope eight. If everything is on fire, why are you calmly reading this letter?

You glance out the hole. Nope, no sun visible. And nothing is burning.

MADE YOU LOOK! That might be my final lesson for you, Kakara, so take it to heart: Seers, of all people, need to know better than to take everything seriously. Find humor where you can, when you can. Some of the things you will See will be terrible, and far too many good Seers let it destroy them.

Now, since the couch is damaged, the sun isn't shining through my newest window, and your socks don't match, open envelope 9. He's signed his name at the bottom of the page.

You pick up envelope nine and open it, wincing as the paper cuts your finger. You hold the newest letter in your left hand, idly sucking on the papercut.

I'm sorry, Kakara. If you're reading this, I was killed by someone close to you. The vision wasn't completely clear, but I did see the young Vegetan Scion smiling cruelly. I fear the Seal you fought so hard to place has broken, and a monster shaped by rage and fuelled by vengeance has been unleashed upon Garenhuld. Set this letter down to your left and open envelope 13. Inside you'll find the solution.

You wonder where Sensei went wrong in his visions as you set the letter to your left. A sickening feeling has been building as you read the letter, spreading from your stomach to your throat as your traitorous mind processes the thought that you killed someone. As the paper hits the floor, your spine begins to tingle. Your dad will be here any moment, there's no way he could have missed the power you spiked to, or not felt the blast.

You resign yourself to facing his Judgement, and reach for envelope 13.

Did you know, the letter inside begins, that Sorcery can do some amazing things? Of course, you were there for the Sealing, and you've seen wards virtually every day of your life. But did you know that some wards are incredibly subtle? Some are so subtle that they are barely even noticed. One of these is a power-sapping ward. Don't worry - it doesn't actually drain a person's ki. But they can be set up to capture the power of ki blasts. There's some of these in the warding scheme of the Training Hall. I don't pretend to understand it all myself, but I have a Sorceror friend who described it to me like a battery. These wards pull in power from blasts and can store it, or use it to power other effects. For instance, in the trainig hall, these wards help power the other wards that hide our power levels from detection.

One of those wards was in the wall. It was destroyed, of course, but it did its job. It powered another set of wards. But they will stay largely inactive, unless they're triggered.

The chill in your spine spreads and gets colder as you keep reading.

It's hard to get wards set up for a proper time-delay. My friend was curing up a storm as he set up all the wards, and the only way to get the most important one working was to set it up to be triggered by blood. Tell me, Kakara, how's your finger?

Your eyes fall to the paper you placed to your left, noticing the tiny red spot on the corner, from where it sliced your finger. The delay costs you, as you feel the wards that had been building up finally snap to full strength.

Your power level plummets. The suppression wards are working overtime, disrupting your ki control. Suddenly you find yourself sitting at a power level of 7, with ki control worse than you can ever remember having. A ghostly image forms directly in front of you. Sensei stands there, created by either some sort of hologram technology or magic, and says simply, "I don't know why you killed me, Kakara. But I can return the favor."

Then the explosives concealed beneath the floorboards trigger, and you know no more.

As always, feedback is welcomed.

PoptartProdigy · Apr 11, 2017

[X] Full disclosure. Surely you can convince Dad to cast away the Masquerade your people have maintained for centuries for not terribly much reason at all, right? Well, once you do, go walk back upstairs without a Masque on, and start explaining.

Success, After a Fashion

Maybe it's an indicator of how crappy this day is going, but you find yourself contemplating dangerous things in response to your Dad's question. You dismiss it after first considering it. He would never agree.

Then you reconsider. Why not push on this? The situation is already nuts. You should propose it. He'd listen. Maybe. And hey, you can always go down if he refuses. But you don't think he will. You think you have a chance. You're going to do it! You're going to tell Dad that you should tell Maya everything-!

"What? No."

You deflate. "But-"

"Kakara, our people have maintained the Masquerade for over three centuries. Do you really think I'm going to peel it back for even a single person just because they're your friend?" Dad kneads at his forehead. "I understand why it's tempting. Keeping the secret is hard. It's hard for all of us. Any of us who actually have lives in the human world have friends there, and we all have to suck it up and lie to them. And by and large we get away with that since there's nothing that would make them guess the truth. But Kakara, what would our people -- our people, who all have to go along with this -- think if the first human let in on it outside of accident or marriage just so happened to be your friend?" He shakes his head, leaning back. "I'll tell you right now: 'If I have to watch my strength in order to avoid my girlfriend noticing that I can turn boulders into powder and so that I don't kill her, then you can suck up and deal with having the most open and honest human friendship any of us have ever had.'" He shifts. "That's not what I feel, but that's what they'd say. Maya's already in on the ki secret. Nobody would be in a mood to tolerate you dropping the Masquerade for her as well. No."

You turn scarlet. The idea that people would imply that you're acting entitled infuriates you more than you can say. "I-"

"We will instead, as was my plan, wait until later," says Dad, taking out an apple and biting into it.

You blink, brought sharply up. "...what?"

"We'll tell her later," he says, chewing and swallowing. "Give it a couple of years. Deal with the scouts. Let her know the year the army is due to arrive. I'd hoped I could wait even longer, but with an army en route I'm pretty sure we need all hands on deck and at full capacity for this. She'll need to be in on it."

You gape. "Why would you rather wait?"

"Because ideally, I'd wait until she was a grown woman capable of making informed decisions on the matter. What do you take me for? Just because she's learning ki doesn't mean I get to use her like a tool. If I had my way she'd live a normal life, with ki added in, and when she turned eighteen I'd have you tell her the truth. Sure, I gain politically by her mere existence, but I'm keeping her out of it. Given my choice of events, that would be it. Let her have as normal a childhood as possible. But events force my hand." He fishes out another apple. "You hungry?"

You stare at him, feeling fury beginning to mount in your chest. "Why didn't you tell me?" Your fists clench. "Before Maya came in you were going to have me fight the scout at 120,000. I would have been crushed. And all because of this plan that you didn't even tell me about!"

He cocks his head. "Well, first of all, remember how I said I was organizing reinforcements?"

You blink. Oh...right. Somehow I completely forgot about that.

"The relief teams arrived at the site of the battle seconds after I did," he says, setting the apple in your lap. "Working together and under your command, they would have overwhelmed the alien. You were only supposed to hold him up until they arrived; at one-twenty-kay there was nothing else you could have done. I'm not an idiot. But once the time limit materialized...well." He sighs, leaning back. "I'll be honest, looking at it objectively that was a mess of order and counter-order. Fault of training, in this case. With literally any warrior in either Clan, they'd go for the throat at full power the instant they heard the words, 'I don't care how you do it,' and hang whatever else I'd said beforehand. But you are, as discussed, not a warrior. You're a trained officer, yes, which is why I expect better of you next time. But you're no warrior. You lack the instinct. I should have remembered that, and-" He cuts himself off, shaking his head. "Regardless. As for why I didn't let you in on this plan?" He gives you a level look. "Kakara. Princess. How old are you?"

You turn crimson. "Eleven..."

"Eleven years old," he says in a musing tone, looking down at his apple.

"And three-quarters!" you add, before wishing you hadn't.

"Of course, of course," he says.

"...I'm not a baby," you mutter, crossing your arms.

"Oh, I'm well aware," he replies. "But you're my daughter. You're eleven years old. And three-quarters, yes. This is your friend we're dealing with here. With that mess with the Peats you already have another friend bound up in politics and scheming. I just...I know that it's hard to have to lie to your friends. Maya you can be more honest with than any of the other Misfits. I wanted you to be able to enjoy that without worrying about all this mess. Was it the best move, as a politician and a Lord? Probably not, no. Having my Heir in on it would have made it easier to tweak the situation." He stands. "But I'm a father, too. And to be honest...I haven't been the best father in recent years, to you or your siblings. It's hard to balance it. That doesn't mean I won't try." He passes you, squeezing your shoulder. "Eat your apple. I think we'll tell Maya as much as we can without dropping the Masquerade. Patience, Princess. The truth will out. Eventually."

You sit in the dark cave, clutching your apple as Dad starts moving rubble away from the entrance.

You're not sure how to feel about this. Not at all.

"...I was going to try to talk to him," you say on impulse.

Dad halts, looking over to you. "...what?"

"I was going to try to talk to the alien," you say. "I almost did. I even know what I would have said."

Dad turns to look at you, but he doesn't say anything.

"Nobody had to fight at the Council," you say. "But I...I can't even say I didn't think. I knew how I could try it. And when I think back I see all of the things I didn't know going into that fight, but when I was thinking it over...I thought it looked so much safer. And I messed up. But I don't know if I messed up because I started a fight, or because I didn't finish it."

Dad sighs. "I can't pretend to understand the way you think, Kakara. History says that Son Gohan was like that, once...I don't know if it can work. It didn't, for him. I don't know if it can for you. Maybe you're right. Maybe nobody has to die. Maybe nobody even has to fight. Maybe it's like the rest of our people think. Maybe it's something in between." he shrugs, turning back to the blocked tunnel. "All I can say is that you should do what you think is right. Whatever that is. For now...let's go upstairs. We have an explanation to give."

With the conclusion of this event chain, you have gained the Seer sub-Ability Mind Projection, at "Competent." You are prepared to enter Jaffur's mind and make contact with him.

Maya has been made aware of the presence of the aliens and their impending invasion. It was not a difficult thing to sell to her given what she'd seen.

What do you think of what your father told you? Who's right?

[ ] Your people are right. You were only ever kidding yourself. Violence is the only answer to violence. You've been...such...an idiot...
[ ] You're right. Nobody has to die. You'll make it so if that's not the case. That's always been your way; you hope for better. You won't stop now!
[ ] You...you don't know. This is a hard question. You need to think. You need time. But at least you're a little wiser now; you know that you still have to think about it. And that's...that's okay.

THIS VOTE IS NOT YET CLOSED.

Before anybody says one word about me loading the proverbial question on those voting options... *points to quest tags*

Berra was on Kakara's mind (i.e., featured in the thread's discussion) a lot, so it came up. And despite everything, Kakara loves and trusts her father. She was always going to ask him (this is what your family is there for).

KaintukeeBob said:
An Omake, entitled A Series of Unfortunate Events. I'm not entirely happy with it, but I did promise to publish something. I know Kakara's characterization is off, but honestly it's based on a joke vote that is very out of character for her, so that's sorta unavoidable.

A follow up to the threadmark here, if a completely different path had been chosen. Initial paragraphs stolen from the linked post and slightly modified at the end.

Suffice to say, it's non-canon. I tried to keep it compliant with the setting's rules, but doubt Seeing can work quite in this way. The sorcery is almost all conjecture.

You know what? Probably completely non-compliant.

"Whose mind? You need to find them, right now, get down on your knees, and beg their forgiveness for the trespass. You will explain that it was unintentional, I shall grab one of my Sorcerer friends to swear the person you visited to secrecy about the whole chat before sending them out of earshot, and you will immediately convince your Lord Father to offer whatever recompense is necessary. The mind is sacrosanct, Kakara. You do not enter it, not without permission and as a last resort even then. When you're there, the other person by default can't see you or detect you until you're already touching something. Anybody whose mind you enter is in far more danger than you'll ever be. So you're going to offer your apologies, and I am going to start drilling you on this immediately. It's not your fault, but this cannot happen again. Done intentionally, tampering with somebody's mind is a hideous and abhorrent breach of trust. So yes. I will teach you Mind Projection. Because apparently the standard regimen simply isn't going to take in your case." He stands up from his chair, looking decidedly more frazzled than he was a minute ago, and begins pacing in an infrequently-used corner of the room. "Now: who was it?"

Oh. Crud.

You bite your lip and fiddle with your hands. "Um..."

His eyes narrow. "Scion Kakara..."

You laugh nervously. "Well, you see..."

"Answer me immediately."

Composure Check: Oh My, no.

You freeze. Sensei is Vegetan, you think, Sensei has only heard the 'official' story of the Sealing. A thin sheen of sweat appears on your forehead. What if he hates it? What if he hates me? What if he tells?.

You barely notice that your breath is coming faster and faster.

In fact, you think, mind racing down this track, he's probably going to tell Dandeer! She's going to find out what happened and Seal him again! She's going to kill Jaffur!

You barely even notice that your hands have clenched into fists, and don't notice at all when they come together.

"Kakara?" Sensei asks, pausing his pacing.

It's not a vision. You know what visions feel like, and it can't be one. But in your mind's eye, all you can see is that endless white room, and the rage and hate and anger that's locked away. And that tiny smile. That smile that is going to die.

"kamehameha" you hear yourself murmur, aura spiking briefly to a paltry 20 million.

Sensei's eyes barely have time to widen as the blue beam strikes. Ki waves don't travel at anything like the speed of light. They're not even as fast as the speed of sound. But Sensei's power level right now is only 1,297,332. It might as well be instantaneous, given the distance.

And now his power level is gone.

You look out the new window in the side of the house, past the smoke slowly curling from your cupped hands.

Was that...you? Did you do that? Sensei is de...gone?

It is a sad fact of psychology that the mind can only take so much. The mind can bend in some truly amazing ways, but can be broken like anything else. For a time, your brain wars against itself. Sensei can't be gone! Why did he make you do that? Maybe if you close your eyes and wish really hard, he'll come back? Even Vegetans don't have a bow designed for screw-ups this massive!

You don't know how long you're standing there, but it can't be long. The thick 'slap' of a stack of papers hitting the ground breaks you out of the spirals your mind has been running in. Something just fell out of the space in the walls, having been just barely missed by your blast.

You walk around the couch, eyes sliding away from the blackened scoop taken out of the top of one of the cushions.

There's a thick yellow envelope on the floor, with a name printed on it in large black letters. Your name.

As you open it, you notice that your fingers aren't tremblinb any longer. Inside is a stack of envelopes, numbered one through fifteen, and a pink envelope labelled "Read me first."

Kakara, the first letter begins, "if you're reading this, I'm dead. I was blasted into atoms, and this envelope fell out of the wall of my house, where I'm going to hide it momentarily. There's about five more hidden in other places, but if you're reading this one then they don't matter. Please don't tear up my walls looking for them - houses in the middle of wastelands are expensive and I'd prefer this one to be as undamaged as possible when my brother inherits it.

I don't know who kills me, Kakara, and I don't know how far into your education we've gotten, so I'm not going to prattle on about how I knew where to put this or what shifted the future onto this track. Suffice to say, I knew that if I died by this wall, in a way that made a hole in the right place to drop this package, you'd be the first one on the scene.

Now, on to the envelopes. Envelopes one through six are letters to my friends and family. I'd appreciate if they were delivered unopened, but it isn't like I can stop you from reading them if you want. You'll find a list of who to give each one to in a later envelope.

Mutely, you set aside the first six envelopes, before you continue reading. If my couch is intact, you need to fly away NOW. Tell your Father to gather the rest of the Nobles - the Enemy is here. This branch of the future is clouded over very heavily, so I don't know what's going to happen, but I know it's bad. For all of your sakes, I hope my couch is damaged.

You eye the half-circle of scorched fabric that your blast put into the couch, unsure if Sensei would be happy about it or not, given the circumstances. "He'd probably be happier to be alive to see it," a traitorous voice in your mind whispers. You ignore it studiously, and continue reading.

If you're still reading this, good. It means the planet is likely to survive for a long time, yet. If you're wearing matching socks, go ahead and open envelope seven. If your feet are bare, open envelope 13.

This morning, when you were dressing, you couldn't find matching socks. Mato must have been messing around again - he's been acting passive-aggressive for a while, and that's recently changed from crushing your cereal and chips to powder to hiding your socks. Man, visions are weird.

If you're still reading, look out of the hole. If you can see the sun, open envelope eight. If everything is on fire, why are you calmly reading this letter?

You glance out the hole. Nope, no sun visible. And nothing is burning.

MADE YOU LOOK! That might be my final lesson for you, Kakara, so take it to heart: Seers, of all people, need to know better than to take everything seriously. Find humor where you can, when you can. Some of the things you will See will be terrible, and far too many good Seers let it destroy them.

Now, since the couch is damaged, the sun isn't shining through my newest window, and your socks don't match, open envelope 9. He's signed his name at the bottom of the page.

You pick up envelope nine and open it, wincing as the paper cuts your finger. You hold the newest letter in your left hand, idly sucking on the papercut.

I'm sorry, Kakara. If you're reading this, I was killed by someone close to you. The vision wasn't completely clear, but I did see the young Vegetan Scion smiling cruelly. I fear the Seal you fought so hard to place has broken, and a monster shaped by rage and fuelled by vengeance has been unleashed upon Garenhuld. Set this letter down to your left and open envelope 13. Inside you'll find the solution.

You wonder where Sensei went wrong in his visions as you set the letter to your left. A sickening feeling has been building as you read the letter, spreading from your stomach to your throat as your traitorous mind processes the thought that you killed someone. As the paper hits the floor, your spine begins to tingle. Your dad will be here any moment, there's no way he could have missed the power you spiked to, or not felt the blast.

You resign yourself to facing his Judgement, and reach for envelope 13.

Did you know, the letter inside begins, that Sorcery can do some amazing things? Of course, you were there for the Sealing, and you've seen wards virtually every day of your life. But did you know that some wards are incredibly subtle? Some are so subtle that they are barely even noticed. One of these is a power-sapping ward. Don't worry - it doesn't actually drain a person's ki. But they can be set up to capture the power of ki blasts. There's some of these in the warding scheme of the Training Hall. I don't pretend to understand it all myself, but I have a Sorceror friend who described it to me like a battery. These wards pull in power from blasts and can store it, or use it to power other effects. For instance, in the trainig hall, these wards help power the other wards that hide our power levels from detection.

One of those wards was in the wall. It was destroyed, of course, but it did its job. It powered another set of wards. But they will stay largely inactive, unless they're triggered.

The chill in your spine spreads and gets colder as you keep reading.

It's hard to get wards set up for a proper time-delay. My friend was curing up a storm as he set up all the wards, and the only way to get the most important one working was to set it up to be triggered by blood. Tell me, Kakara, how's your finger?

Your eyes fall to the paper you placed to your left, noticing the tiny red spot on the corner, from where it sliced your finger. The delay costs you, as you feel the wards that had been building up finally snap to full strength.

Your power level plummets. The suppression wards are working overtime, disrupting your ki control. Suddenly you find yourself sitting at a power level of 7, with ki control worse than you can ever remember having. A ghostly image forms directly in front of you. Sensei stands there, created by either some sort of hologram technology or magic, and says simply, "I don't know why you killed me, Kakara. But I can return the favor."

Then the explosives concealed beneath the floorboards trigger, and you know no more.

As always, feedback is welcomed.

...

for a variety of reasons (the Balors are a Gokun house, and Sensei's power level doesn't break a hundred thousand, for the smallest concerns), this is non-canon as you guessed. But it is excellent. Take my fervent thanks, a spot in the Omake Index, and a lesser bonus for escaping traps. :lol

Enjoy, everybody, and as always, I'll see you next time, on Dragon-!

Dad leads you and Maya out of the caves in the aftermath of your conversation. Your friend is subdued, looking down at her feet. You're watching her, a bit concerned by her reaction.

Thus, Dad's shocked intake of breath is the first indication you have that something's wrong.

"You must be that fighter I heard barreling into the clearing after I left," you hear. A chill goes down your spine at the familiar voice, and your head snaps up.

The scout stares at your Dad, back in his base form. He's still as naked as he was last time; you're both relieved and disturbed that he doesn't appear to have visible private parts.

Dad grabs you and Maya, tugging you back. "Girls, stay behind me!" he snaps, firing up his human aura to a million and taking a stance.

The scout narrows his eyes, dips his head...and then raises his arms. All eight of them. "I surrender," he says.

Dad blinks. "...come again?"

"I surrender. Parley, human." The alien's tail swishes back and forth at its waist. It smiles. "I wish to talk."

GOTCHA! HERE'S THE REAL VOTE!

Okay, within the bounds of this spoiler box everything I say is 100% serious. This is the real vote. Me messing with you and having the last part of the update interrupt the ending crawl is me feeling like toying with you.

. You'll notice from the text of the default options below that I'm also feeling whimsical in general.

The below vote, however, is serious. It is not an April Fool's joke, and its results will actually happen as canon in the quest. Do not make joke votes assuming that this is a joke update. Ignore the vote above; this is the real vote.

You'll notice some odd formatting on the votes below. "[ ][ALIEN]," for instance. This is something NetTally can pick up on to differentiate between different tasks and tally them separately. It's very simple; you just make sure your vote is tagged correctly. I'll be using this from now on for task voting.

[ ][ALIEN] AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
-[ ][ALIEN] AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
--[ ][ALIEN] AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
---[ ][ALIEN] Scream. In Kagome. [/reference]
----[ ][ALIEN] Turn around.
-----[ ][ALIEN] Run away.
------[ ][ALIEN] Don't forget Maya.
-------[ ][ALIEN] Go ahead and leave Dad, though, he's fine.
-[ ][ALIEN] Punch him.
--[ ][ALIEN] Kick him.
---[ ][ALIEN] BLAST him.
----[ ][ALIEN] DO ALL OF THE THINGS!
[ ][ALIEN] Accept his surrender.
[ ][ALIEN] Tell him to go away.
[ ][ALIEN] Tell him he's mean.
[ ][ALIEN] Complain about the QM messing with you.
[ ][ALIEN] Tell the QM he's/she's/they're mean.
[ ][ALIEN] Write-in.

[ ][DRAMA] Your people are right. You were only ever kidding yourself. Violence is the only answer to violence. You've been...such...an idiot...
[ ][DRAMA] You're right. Nobody has to die. You'll make it so if that's not the case. That's always been your way; you hope for better. You won't stop now!
[ ][DRAMA] You...you don't know. This is a hard question. You need to think. You need time. But at least you're a little wiser now; you know that you still have to think about it. And that's...that's okay.

THESE VOTES ARE THE REAL VOTES, AND ALSO ARE NOW CLOSED.

...NEXT time, on Dragon Ball AE!

Kakara is interrupted from her musings by the unexpected reappearance of the scout! What does the alien want to talk about, and can he be trusted? Find out next time, on Dragon Ball AE!

EH, FORGET THE MORATORIUM THIS TIME. IT'S LATE AND A HUGE FRACTION OF YOU POST WITHIN A FEW TIME ZONES OF ME ANYWAY. VOTING WILL BE SLOW TO START EVEN WITHOUT MY INPUT. GO NUTS.

Generic_Generica · Apr 11, 2017

stop @NegativeJ, take a threadban for a week and 25 points in a violation of rule four.

Your behavior has been disruptive. Incredibly disruptive. We do not like it when people try to deliberately stir shit up. You're trying to stir shit up. Don't.

Take time off to think about what you've done and why you're not going to do it again.

Everyone else? Keep questing and have fun.

Ford Prefect · Apr 11, 2017

NegativeJ said:
So If I do it off forum... It's fair game...

official staff communication Nothing in the rules prevents you from going elsewhere to advertise. We don't really mind what you do on other platforms.

But inherent to this idea is bring people to this thread. There's no loophole - if you went to Mars to vote brigade, that brigade would have to come here eventually.

At which point you would be fair game.

Just saying.

PoptartProdigy · Apr 15, 2017

[X][ALIEN] Accept his surrender.
-[X] Ask him why
[X][DRAMA] You...you don't know. This is a hard question. You need to think. You need time. But at least you're a little wiser now; you know that you still have to think about it. And that's...that's okay.

Bringing It Down A Bit

You're tense as a wire, and despite the screaming conflict in your head you're still ready to spring into action. Can you trust this, how does this make sense, what even is this-?

-but ultimately, you slowly slide out of your stance. Ahead of you, Dad does the same. He looks back at you and you meet his eyes. The two of you nod after a moment of unspoken communication -- not even any telepathy exchanged. In unison, you turn back to the scout. Dad nods. "Alright. We can talk. Karen, see Maya home and then go let your mother know that you're alright." He glances at you out of the corner of his eye. Then get back here.

You nod. "Yes, Dad." Soon as I can. You turn to your friend and nod. She glances at the alien, clearly worried, but follows you into the air.

"Do you thi- think we ca- can trust him?" she asks, still glancing over her shoulder.

"I don't know," you say. "But I know Dad can handle him. I don't need to think he's a good guy to know Dad can deal with whatever he does."

"...ri- right."

It only takes a few minutes to make it back to her house. Once you have her there, you hug her goodbye and fly back home, making sure to move faster than the humans around would be able to see.

"Kak- Karen?" she calls, using the right name for Masques at the last second as you come in through the door.

"It's me, Mom," you say. She appears out of the basement and immediately pulls you into a hug before looking you over. "Your clothes are a mess. What happened? I felt something...new."

"One of the scouts," you say after checking your surroundings with ki sense for listeners, pulling free and heading for the stairs. "The hunting party found him. I was the first one there. Maya was moving around too, so I had to stay Masqued and powered down. Dad showed up and the scout ran. He found us again later and surrendered. I just dropped Maya off and I need to go back now to see what's happening."

Mom blinks. "Are you alright?"

"Fine!" you say, going into your room. "Fee, get out, I need to change." You immediately cross over to your closet.

Your sister, reading on her bed in your room together, lets out a loud sigh, not looking up. "Go somewhere else, Karen."

"Fee, not the time!"

She looks up to say something, rolling her eyes, and promptly freezes when she sees you, eyes wide. "Mom!"

"I saw her, Felicia!" says Mom from downstairs.. "Come down here!"

"But she's-"

"Felicia!"

Fasha pouts and hops up, scurrying past you with a worried look.

You dig deep into the closet and pull out one of your House gis. Then you pause. On reflection, if there was ever an info hazard...you put the gi back and get out some normal street clothes instead. Then you frown. You like those clothes. No, back in they go. You reach for some ratty jeans -- no, those would either restrict your movement if you need to fight or break right off! There's a skirt...no. You've purged all of the gis with skirts on them from your wardrobe over the course of the last year, as it became obvious why you should mind them.

After much debate, you take the jeans and slash off everything below the knee with a lash made of ki. Then you grab an old shirt you use for painting. It'll do.

As you turn to leave, you see Mom in the doorway, stifling a snicker. You blink. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing," she says, ruffling your hair. "Honestly, sweetie, you pick the weirdest times to be a girl."

You scowl, pretty sure you're being made fun of. "What do you mean?"

She doesn't answer, propelling you towards the door with a hand on your shoulders. "Go back to your father. Be careful. Love you."

You grumble to yourself but nod. "Love you too." You put two fingers to your forehead.

vip

You reappear at the caves. Dad and the scout are out of sight. You make the obvious connection and disappear down the hole.

As it turns out, they've gone all the way to the bottom. You hear them before you see them.

"-think you are in a position to negotiate," says Dad, his tone harsh. "You are the invaders here, not us."

The alien says something you can't hear.

"That is none of your concern," says Dad. "We know. That's enough. What negotiations could you possibly have in mind?"

The alien says something else. You frown. Something something driftwood? That can't be right. You catch the next sentence, though. "...as it happens, I am not technically in command of my squad."

"Then you appear to be wasting our time."

"'Our?'"

You step out into the lowest chamber. The only light comes from Dad's aura, still glowing as he flares at around four thousand. "Our," he says. "You have no power to negotiate if you're not in command. You're just another soldier."

"Why are you here?" you ask, finally getting the chance to voice what's been on your mind.

The scout turns to face you, squinting in the dim light. "Ah, it's you," he says. "The child. Why is she here?"

"Because she is my daughter and because I say she is," says Dad. "Any other questions?"

The scout cocks his head. "...I suppose not, if that's your reply. Not on that topic, at least."

"Why are you here?" you say, a bit stronger this time.

"Because I'm practical," he replies. "I haven't survived this long by being otherwise. A fighter of your father's strength? My scouter is destroyed, as you know, but I could feel the air he was displacing just by moving around from miles away."

"Doesn't explain why you didn't report back in to your boss," says Dad.

The scout inclines his head. "True. I didn't do that because I don't know where my commander is, myself. Standard policy is to scatter after first insertion. I wouldn't have made contact for another month, had things gone normally. And as it stands I have no immediate means of contacting them. So, given my choice between risking a theft of the locals' radio equipment or tracking down the girl with the powerful backup who proved so very reluctant to resort to lethal force...the choice was obvious. Given your presence, I was hardly going to risk going into a possible fight with even more nasty surprises tucked away."

"Very survivalist of you," says Dad, crossing his arms. "That explains why you being here means good things for you. What's in it for us? From what you're saying, you get all the benefit from being here. From where I'm standing you're just a prisoner of war."

The alien makes a quiet hiss, inclining his head. "It would seem that way from your perspective, yes."

You snort, losing patience. "Quit stalling. It doesn't make you look smart and cool, it's just annoying."

Dad makes a stifled noise. When you look over to him, he's very determinedly looking at the alien, and has his hand over his mouth.

The alien, meanwhile, blinks, nonplussed. "Um. I...apologize if I offended you-"

"I'm tired," you say, crossing your arms. "I lost a fight earlier. Maybe you noticed." Your eyes narrow at him. "I'm having a really bad day. Stop trying to be smart and just tell us why we want to keep you here instead of firing you into the sun."

You wouldn't do that. But you're irritated enough to mention it.

The alien nods. "As you say. I think my team can achieve our objectives better if we use diplomacy rather than force. I thought you'd be open to that overture, and I was confident at least in my ability to escape if I was wrong. I can't make promises on their behalf, but we're a team. I think they'll listen to me."

Dad leans forward, his hand coming down from his mouth. "And what exactly are your objectives?"

[Command Training-->Pass]

You keep silent, and refrain from mentioning that you of course already know their objectives. You never let on how much you know to an enemy.

The alien, for his part, shifts uncomfortably. "I...you must know that I cannot answer that. It's just standing regulations, it would mean my life if I-"

Dad waves his hand. "I understand. What is your name?"

The alien cocks his head. "Meerak. And yours?"

"Unimportant, for the moment." Dad stands. "How do you plan to facilitate us talking to your team?"

"I was hoping you might give me access to radio equipment," says the scout.

Dad shakes his head before Meerak even finishes speaking. "No good. I'm not giving you tech, much less the opportunity to shout something through a connection before I can silence you. No, you'll give your messages to me, I'll relay them to one of my people, and we'll send them out the way you tell us to, if we're convinced you're not passing hidden messages."

"I am willing to accept those precautions," says Meerak. "Does this mean that you are...?"

"I am considering it," says Dad, stepping forward. "For now, you come with me, and remain in a secure location until I make my decision. Is there a way to safely render your race unconscious?"

The scout frowns unhappily at the question, but sighs, tapping the small of its back. "A sharp blow there -- this sharp, no harder," he slams a hand into the ground in demonstration, not even cracking it, "will put me out."

Dad nods and blurs out of sight. Meerak slumps forward with a quiet sigh as Dad reappears. Dad goes to a knee and puts his hand on Meerak's forehead, closing his eyes in concentration. "He was telling the truth. There's no thought going on in there." He stands, picking up Meerak. "I'm going to bring him to a Sorcerer and have them set up a mobile ward. Then I'll bring him to our holding cells."

"And then?" you ask.

"That depends. I haven't decided yet." He looks at you. "What do you think we should do?"

You pull up short at the unexpected question. There's always a test, it would seem.

And your answer?

[ ] Accept his offer. Better this than hunting them down one by one.
[ ] Deny his offer. This has to be a trick; you remember the vision.

THIS VOTE IS NOW CLOSED.

And we're back! Wanted to move into something else after this scene, but it just read too disjointedly. Ah well. I'll just make this vote a little quicker than the last one.

Anyway. This event chain is basically concluded. This is your final decision in it. The situation with the scout shall resolve later in the year.

Trait lost: Cognitive Dissonance.

Trait gained: Reflective. You have had your beliefs directly challenged. While your worldview is stable enough at the moment, the question still remains: what will you come to decide about your view on violence? You don't know yet. "Pacifist," its sub-trait, and "Convictions" remain disabled, but you no longer suffer a penalty to Willpower. You have until [ERROR DATA NOT FOUND] to get Kakara back to more settled ground on the matter of violence and her stance on it. After that time has elapsed, she will begin taking scaling Willpower penalties over time due to increasing existential crisis. I will not explicitly announce it in updates when this occurs, but there will be indications in the text when it's on its way, and when it's occurring, and I will update the character sheet with the information. Pay attention...

Simon_Jester said:
Er... you mean that the actual amount of power manipulation involved scales with, say, e to the power of the power level?

Jeez I hope not. Because (for example) a power differential of 700 versus 1000 is a major gap. But if power scales exponentially with power level, then...

The thing is, in an exponential function, increasing the power level by a fixed additive increase would ALWAYS multiply the power level by a fixed amount.

If adding 300 to a base power level of 300 to get 600 is a large gap in power level (say, in increase by a factor of two), AND if power growth is exponential as a function of level... Raising power level from 600 to 3600 is implementing that same increase of a factor of two ten times. So 3600 is 1024 times as powerful as 600.

By the same logic, 6600 is 1024 times as powerful as 3600, and over a million times more powerful than 600. But it gets worse.

1,000,003,000 is ALSO 1024 times as powerful as a power level of exactly one billion. "A billion and thirty thousand" is (1024^10) or roughly 10^30 times more powerful than "a billion." "A billion and three hundred thousand" is roughly 10^300 times more powerful than "a billion." And so on.

...

I'm pretty sure Poptart has explicitly said it does not work this way, and power levels are additive. I hope they did.

The better to turn into a giant ape with?

*eyes cross* Additive. Definitely additive. Power levels are a linear scale, not logarithmic.

darkdigi said:
Thanks. It was pretty fun read, even the... recent developments.
Also.
[X][ALIEN] Complain about the QM messing with you.
[X[ALIEN] Tell the QM he's/she's/they're mean.
seriously tho that bait and switch was hilarious.

Welcome! And thanks; I had fun writing it.

Enjoy, everybody.

Finally, matters have calmed down, but the situation remains tense. From the scouts' perspective, one of their own has gone entirely dark. A potential solution is available, but can Berra and Kakara afford to trust Meerak to be telling the truth? What will the Scion decide? Where will she go from here? Find out next time, on Dragon Ball AE.

We have gone back down to HAPCON 3.

TWO-HOUR MORATORIUM TO ENCOURAGE DISCUSSION.

PoptartProdigy · May 6, 2017

[X] You ask dad for any other information about he knows that you might not, such as what was discussed while you were absent. Not getting all the fact, and rashly deciding is stupid.
-[X] But with what you know right now, you're learning towards accepting his offer. Better than hunting them down one by one, and you hold enough advantages you should be able to turn any tricks or traps around.

An Outstretched Hand

You frown, thinking, and look up at your father. "Did he mention anything before I got here that might be important? I don't want to decide without knowing everything I can."

"Nothing substantive. He was rather nervous about establishing what our rules are for ethical treatment of prisoners. I let him sweat on it."

"Oh."

You think about that for a second, worry mounting.

"...Dad, we don't have those, do we?"

"We do not, officially. I've been researching some of the Garenhulders' codes, but we have no formal obligations as of now. Don't worry, though. I'm not going to harm him."

"...thank you."

"Of course. Other than that, he asked how we knew his people are coming. I rebuffed him. What you heard is everything relevant. He only really started talking once you arrived; everything before that was him trying to establish ground rules to feel secure in."

You blink, feeling very off-guard. You're not used to Dad talking like this. "Um...okay...well, in that case, with what we know now, I think we should say yes."

"Why is that?"

"Better than having to chase them all, right?"

Dad falls silent for a moment, mulling the idea over. At last, he nods. "Good reasoning. As it happens, I agree. I'll take him to the Hall and wait for him to wake up. Once he does, we can start relaying his messages to his team." He hefts Meerak where the alien lays on your father's shoulder. "Now, unless he's much different from humans or us, he'll be waking up momentarily. I should go." He raises his fingers to his head.

You reach out. "But what do I do? Do I just...wait?"

"Take some time off of work," says Dad, shrugging. "Goodness knows you could use it after this disruption. Just take some time to relax before getting back into the groove."

You gape. "But Dad, I have a schedule!"

To your indignation, he chuckles. "Oh I know, trust me. I know."

vip

You grumble to yourself in frustration. Your parents are being so weird today. Well, whatever. You have a schedule to attend to, and you...

...um...

...what was next on your schedule, again?

...crapbaskets, this whole mess threw off your whole schedule for the day. You're supposed to be training Maya by now! But she's at home and making excuses; if you show up it'll just be weird!

You freeze up, eyes wide as you suddenly contemplate the yawning gulf of a block of time that has no applicable schedule attached to it. You hear a high-pitched whine, and belatedly realize that it's you, holding back a shrill scream of frustrated organization.

Crapbaskets. You hate these scouts.

So, what to do?

[ ] THE SCHEDULE MUST BE PRESERVED. GO TO MAYA'S NOW AND GET BACK ON TRACK. YOU CAN COME UP WITH SOMETHING (immediately recommence our progress through this year's actions).
[ ] Okay, okay, this is fine. Just go see somebody else. Fennella? Yeah, her. She would have felt the fight, she probably wants to chat (mini-event socializing with Fennella).
[ ] Go to the Hall and blow something up. Stupid scouts. (go blow things up to blow off steam; a random person will come to talk to you)
[ ] Write in literally anything (go do something with the next update, and enjoy a brief event series decompressing from the recent rush before getting back into it).

THIS VOTE IS NOW CLOSED.

I decided to implement this suggestion from a long time ago; just cover some things that aren't life, death, or a critical part of the yearly plan. Just an opportunity to delve into the world beyond its immediate relevance to the yearly routine. Thanks to @Andres110 for the idea, way back when!

Or you can decide to jump right back in. Up to you all! But otherwise, do whatever you like. The suggested defaults are just very basic examples for the kind of thing that might work.

And welcome back, everybody. I'm glad to return, and look forward to writing much more in the near future. Enjoy!

NO MORATORIUM THIS TIME, BUT IT'S PROBABLY A GOOD IDEA TO BRAINSTORM SOME COOL-SOUNDING IDEAS

Dragon Ball: After the End

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