Tarble's appearance by CB-Otaku
Going Native (DBZ/DC Comics) (Complete)
- Thread starter Ideas-Guy
- Start date
Taste of War
- Location
- USA
"What are you doing in there?" Fasha announced her presence, her voice slightly muffled. My eyes cracked open, looking through the window of the healing tank to see her giving me an arched look.
A yawn escaped me before I could answer, "sleeping." I stated shortly, the healing fluid helping my dry eyes but they still felt heavy.
"...In a healing pod?" Fasha continued, making me fall silent. I quickly learned that I couldn't sleep in a bed anymore. It was too dry, a blanket too constraining and just too...weird. I tossed and turned all night, trying to fall asleep only to fail. The same for the second night as well. By the third, I was desperate for sleep, so I climbed into a healing pod and filled it up. I was out like a light as soon as it covered me.
"...is that weird?" I asked, not looking at her. I didn't know how to explain it. Sleeping in a bed felt wrong while sleeping in a healing tank felt natural. It probably had something to do with spending three years in the gestation tank and the past two and a half months in a healing tank after nearly dying every day.
"Uhh," Fasha started, leaning away from the window. Her tone told me that, yeah, it was weird. It would be a lie to say I didn't care, but it would be less weird to not sleep in a healing pod. "No, it's not," she lied. "But you need to get out, we're almost there."
"Okay," I nodded, Fasha stepping out as I got out of the healing pod. Getting dressed with my clothes and armor, I dried myself off. The mission, after weeks of travel, was finally about to begin. I had weeks to wrap my head around it, but I don't think I even started, I realized when I stepped out of the medical bay.
I walked down a hallway, stopping in front of a window and gazing through it.
"What are you brooding about this time?" Fasha announced her presence, placing a hand on top of my head, following my gaze out a window that revealed the final frontier.
An alien planet filled up most of my vision. It was dark brown with patches of white and litter brown bits. Its clouds were a dark black, swirling across the planet. Surrounding it was a bunch of moons, some bigger than others, but it was easy to see why this was the chosen battleground to get first blood.
Planet Rockoroad. Native to the Nepotins, a race of small, weak, fish-based species. Unfit for even slave labor, but there was a mention that they apparently tasted good. Their tech level was deemed primitive, though it would be the modern era for Earth. The planet itself was nothing special, boasting no exotic minerals or abilities other than its strategic location.
"Nothing," I lied, not looking up as I stared at the slowly approaching planet. Bardock gave the order for the thrusters to go dark, relying on previous momentum, as we approached from the dark side of one of their moons.
"Nervous?" Fasha questioned, not believing me for a second. In recent weeks, she was the only member of Bardock's squad that I built something of a rapport with. By that, I meant she was the only one that didn't mind when I followed her like an awkward duckling when Bardock told me to get out of my room.
"No," I lied again. After spending a week following her around, it got easier to talk to her. I second-guessed my words less and the feeling of sticking my entire foot into my mouth was less frequent.
"Hm," Fasha hummed, sounding doubtful. There was a beat of silence as we both stared at the planet that we would soon lay to waste. I...had a hard time picturing it. By now, I understood the plan, but when I tried to imagine it happening in my head, I drew a blank. I couldn't imagine myself destroying cities, massacring millions…
"Well, you're braver than I was before my first mission," Fasha admitted without any care, earning my attention. Craning my head back, I gave her a puzzled look and got a shrug from her. "I became a warrior when I was ten and I nearly ended up joining the working-class. I thought if I screwed up then they'd make me one anyway. Of course, that made me so nervous I did screw up. I'd be some mechanic or food processor if it weren't for Gine."
"Who's that?" I asked, knowing better than to ask how she screwed up. If it was bad enough that she would have been demoted a class, then it meant someone died.
"Gine? She used to be a member of the team, but she left it. She was too soft-hearted to be a warrior. She's a meat processor now and Bardock's woman." She explained a silent dare in her voice for me to make a comment about her...friend. It wasn't just Bardock that was weird, his entire squad was. They may fight and bicker but they were friends.
It went against everything that I learned what saiyans are, and what they should be. I think I liked that, though.
Once she was satisfied that I wasn't going to make a stupid remark, Fasha continued. "What I'm trying to get at is that you'll be fine. Stick with Tora, ignore Shugesh, and don't hesitate to look at the moon. Do that, and you'll be fine." She said, patting me on the head a few times.
Before I had a chance to respond, a voice spoke through my scouter. "Everyone, get to the docking bay. We're heading down," Bardock ordered. I could practically hear the savage grin in his voice. I definitely saw one on Fasha's face as she turned around, marching through the halls. I followed after her after a moment of hesitation.
The docking bay was on the other side of the ship for us, so we were the last ones to arrive. It was a wide-open room filled with space pods called attack balls, a dull gray ball with a dark red window to look out of. The rest of the team, minus Leek, stood in front of open pods. Upon seeing us, Bardock gave a nod.
"Leek, keep your course and stay on the dark side of the moon," Bardock ordered, getting a confirmation from the pilot through our scouters. "We're splitting up to attack these military bases," Bardock began, pointing to a map with two red dots. "Tora, Shugesh, Tarble, you'll take the upper right while Borgos, Fasha and I will take the other."
His gaze swept over us, a serious expression on his face that made me stand up straighter when his gaze lingered on me. "We hit them fast, we hit them hard and we leave nothing left of them. If you can avoid it, don't go oozaru until you reach a city. And stick together! I don't need any of you dying a stupid death for glory this early on in the war, got it?"
"""Got it."""
"Uh, got it." I echoed a half-second later than everyone else.
"Good. Let's get this done," Bardock said, getting a cheer while everyone else got into their attack balls. I picked one next to Tora, the seal cracking open to reveal a padded interior, some medical equipment attached to a single chair. I felt a pang of pity for Tora and Borgos. It would be a tight fit for both of them.
Taking a seat, the attack ball closed as a screen flashed while the destination was set. With that, my attack ball shifted when it got into position a moment before it shot out of the docking bay towards planet Rockoroad. The dark side of the moon filled my window, rapidly growing closer as a heavyweight seemed to settle in my gut.
That heavy weight felt like it dropped to my feet when planet Rockoroad peeked from behind one of its moons as we raced towards it. I was about to participate in genocide. Not sure why, but that only really sunk in now that I was less than a minute away from the planet I was ordered to purge. What did-
No. Don't think about it. I wasn't human anymore. I was a saiyan warrior…and this is what it meant to be a saiyan warrior.
At least, that is what I told myself when my stomach started doing flips as I neared the planet. Heat began to wash over my window, blocking my view as flames licked at the side of the attack ball. I expected the ball to shake, or something, but other than the flames, it was hard to tell that I was going through reentry-
I lurched forward at my sudden crash landing, only managing to stop myself from flying out of the chair by gripping it with white knuckles. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the seal cracked open again, hitting me with a blast of ice-cold air, revealing a pitch-black sky so dark that there weren't any stars, the only color being white clouds and…
Quickly closing my eyes, I looked away from the moons in the sky. Only one of the three was a full moon, but staring at a crescent moon for long enough could trigger the transformation. Instead, I crawled out of the attack pod, floating out of a crater to see I was in the middle of a building, my pod having crashed through the ceiling.
I...was on an alien planet, I thought to myself as my feet touched down on the edge of the crater. The walls were a light green color, marked with dark brown patterns -- it was a hangar of some kind if the ships in the shape bars with a skinnier middle section were anything to go by. Everything was so...light? I gave an experimental hop, only to leap high enough I could have cleared my spaceship. My admiring was broken short when explosions erupted on the outside of the hanger, shaking the ground beneath me while rubble fell from the ceiling.
They were already getting started. I should probably get out of here before they toss a ki blast to destroy the building and me with it. Floating up, I started to sail out of the hole, only pause when I heard the sound of chattering teeth. Looking down, I saw a...gnome?
It was short, though with its head shaped like a cone added another foot to it, with light pink skin. It raised a weapon, an energy blaster, at me but it trembled so badly that I doubt it would hit me if it did pull the trigger. I stared into its chocolate brown eyes, seeing the fear in them even if it was an alien.
I...should kill it, shouldn't I? I couldn't use ki blasts yet since learning how on a ship in space seemed like a bad idea. So, I would have to kill it with my bare hands. It...shouldn't be any different than killing a saibaman. Unless...a quick use of my scouter showed me it had a power level of 10.
It flinched so badly at the hand movement that it fired a shot on accident if the utter terror on its face was anything to go by. The shot went wide, the impact drowned out by the battle raging outside.
I should kill it. I shouldn't be hesitating like this. I was a saiyan warrior. I...I…
I looked away and finished flying out of the hanger. Tora hovered above the military base, ki blast after ki blast firing from his hands and leaving devastation in his wake. Buildings were reduced to rubble, dozens of aliens lay dead, while explosions wracked the military base. Shugesh did the same, laying waste to anything that got in his way. It was a complete one-sided slaughter.
My gaze found a dying alien, laying in a pool of light yellow blood. It struggled to get back to its feet, to throw itself back into the fight, denying its body's screams to stay down with sheer will to fight back like I had so many times before...only to die in a stray explosion from Tora. I doubt he realized that he killed the alien.
It was happening everywhere. Aliens that didn't quite die during the initial blast that struggled to cling to life, only to die moments later. My scouter, still in scanner mode, picked up hundreds of power levels that belonged to the aliens rapidly dwindling with every passing second.
This wasn't war. This was a massacre.
Swallowing a lump in my throat, I turned my attention to a building that dominated the military base. It was a citadel, set as several platforms capped with three large domes. Lights flashed on it, alarms wailing as the military bases went on full alert as its defenses were prepared.
"Tarble, we're heading to the main base. Stick close," Tora ordered, shooting off towards the base without waiting. Shugesh quickly followed after them. I went to do the same, only to pause to look down to see the alien looking up at me with pure terror. It trembled like a leaf, its weapon forgotten, as it simply stared up at me.
Looking away, I shot off after Tora and Shugesh, trying not to pay any attention to the carnage that surrounded me. They did this in minutes, less than five. A fortified military base was wrecked, its soldiers dead. All that was left was the citadel and if the explosions that already covered it from the two saiyans pre-firing at it, it wouldn't offer much more resistance.
"We need to level this place, but first let's see if we can get any intel on troop positions. Shugesh, Tarble, you two head in. I'll finish mopping up out here." Tora ordered, deftly dodging between beams of lights as he rained death upon his enemies. "I'm sure they have a command room or something."
"Sure. Don't have too much fun...and don't blow up the building when we're still in it," Shugesh returned, diving into a hole that Tora had made with a ki blast. I followed in after him, trying to not focus on the bodies laying beneath rubble. They were trying to fight back so hard, they were giving it their all, but it meant nothing. Tora and Shugesh were just too strong.
We flew through the hallways, Shugesh leading the way. The aliens tried to put up some resistance, they sealed off the hallways and put up walls of soldiers to stop us, but they were dealt with complete ease by Shugesh. A yellow ki blast cleared our way, destroying everything and everyone in our path. All they managed to do was throw lives away, not even managing to be an inconvenience.
"How are we going to find the command center?" I asked, talking through our scouters. The stench of smoke and blood was so strong that I could taste it.
"Eh, I usually just find the guy with the strongest power level and use it as a guide. Strong guys are always on the command deck, center or whatever. Bet they didn't teach you that in the pod." Shugesh answered, giving me a cocky grin as he looked back while he butchered another group of defenders.
I swallowed thickly, doing another general scan. Higher power levels took priority, directing me to a power level that nearly hit a hundred directly above us. "Should we make a path straight there then?" Anything other than flying through the halls, senselessly slaughtering aliens. "Tora said we should do this fast, right?"
Shugesh tsked to himself, seemingly displeased. "We're making good time. I usually clear the place out so we don't have to deal with professional soldiers later...but this is a hit n' run…yeah, I guess we might as well." He muttered, the scouter picking up his grumbling as he came to a sudden stop. Raising his hand upwards, he fired off a ki blast that carved a tunnel through the building that lead directly to the strongest power level nearby.
We flew up, and Shugesh wasn't wrong. We found ourselves in a place that fit what I would expect a command center to look like. A large room layered with a command deck, the lower floors lined with chairs for the commander to boss around with a bunch of blinking computers. It was filled with aliens, all of the screaming as they ducked for cover.
All except one. It was next to impossible to tell, but it seemed older than the rest. There weren't any wrinkles or grayed hairs, but it held itself with an air of experience. It looked at Shugesh, then to me, before it clenched its jaw.
"You can have this one. I'll go data mining for something interesting." Shugesh informed, slaughtering the other twenty aliens with a casual ki blast. The room filled with dust, the tracking feature on my scouter telling me that Shugesh moved towards the main computer. Leaving me with the last alien in the room.
My mouth went dry, the scouter telling me its location in the heavy dust. What...what did I do? I...I...I should kill it. There wasn't a choice this time. I should murder this alien for being strong and standing against me. This is what it meant to be a saiyan warrior.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I shot forward, leading the way with a fist. The dust was so heavy that I didn't see the alien until I was right on him. It threw itself to the side as it raised a blaster at me. A dark red laser raced by my head, easily dodged. I clenched my fist -- it...it wasn't any different than killing saibamen. No, it was easier because I was so much stronger than it. All I had to do was punch a hole in its chest and it would be dead.
Another laser fired off at me, forcing me to retreat higher into the air. My insides felt like they were being tied into knots, my heart hammering in my chest. Was...was...was there really no other way? I didn't...If I said that it was a worthy warrior, having earned my respect, then...then it could survive. Since this was just a hit and run, we wouldn't be taking any slaves, so it could survive.
I would have to make the fight look good, though. So, no more hesitating.
Taking a bracing breath, I shot forward with my clenched fist. Another laser shot at me, but it missed by a mile, the alien unable to find me in the smoke. It only did when I was right upon it, my fist sailing towards its face faster than it could see. I couldn't hit it with all my strength, so I-
I only realized the problem with my plan after my fist made contact. I never fought anyone weaker than me before. In my time outside of the tank, I was forced to use every last ounce of my strength every day against foes I couldn't hope to beat.
I couldn't control my strength.
My fist ripped through the aliens head, reducing it to shattered bone, brain matter and blood splashing on the ground as the alien dropped to the floor. The blood on my hand felt impossibly cold, my jaw dropped as I was left staring stupidly at the corpse. I didn't mean…! I tried to…! I…!
I...I was a saiyan warrior, I told myself, swallowing bile as I clenched my jaw shut. My blood-stained hands trembled at my sides, trying to force myself to stay calm. I was a saiyan warrior. I was a fighter. A killer. My destiny was to fight strong opponents, purge planets and sell them for profit for Lord Frieza. This…
"I'm a saiyan warrior," I repeated aloud to myself, the words helping. This is what I was meant to be. Now, if only those words didn't sound incredibly hollow to my own ears, I'd be set.
"Done already? Eh, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. These things are pretty weak," Shugesh commented through the scouters. Using the tracker as a guide, I shoved my darkening thoughts to the side with no small amount of trouble. Paying attention to a map of the planet highlighting troop movements, high priority targets and, more importantly, information on the scarabs on the planet.
Three in total, all scout class. No location, only that they were on the planet. Since we didn't pick them up on our general scans, they must be powered down to avoid detection.
"We're done here Tora, on our way out now," Shugesh informed, stepping away from the main conceal before destroying it with a ki blast. "I'm sending some coordinates your way. There's a depo with hardware designed to shoot off our tails when we go oozaru not too far from here. Oh, and they should have something that fits what Bardock wanted." He said before making another exit that we flew out of.
Tora was just as busy as we were. There was nothing left of the military base, what little that stood was on fire, thick black smoke rising, or in the process of collapsing. There was no resistance left, every alien in the base dead. My stomach clenched, my scouter searching for a power level…
4000, 3800. The only ones were Tora's and Shugesh. That alien that I spared died anyway.
"Something wrong Tarble?" Tora asked, flying towards us. He didn't sound concerned, alert was closer to the mark.
Not trusting my voice, I shook my head. Tora frowned, not believing me, but before he could say anything, Shugesh patted me on the back hard enough I floated forward.
"He's probably just disappointed that he didn't get to do much. The one fight he did get was a one-shot," Shugesh decided with a laugh. Tora nodded, apparently thinking that made sense. It should be what's wrong with me.
"Well, that might change soon enough. Shugesh, you take the military depot and destroy those weapons. Me and Tarble will start hitting their cities," Tora informed, his words like a fist to the gut. I tried to control my expression, but I knew I failed. It only went unnoticed because they were too busy laughing to themselves, eager for the slaughter to come.
Civilians. I was about to start murdering civilians.
"Tarble, let's go." Tora got my attention, Shugesh already flying off. I looked up at him, my horror must have shown now because his eyes narrowed dangerously. I half expected him to blast me out of the sky for being unsaiyan like, for being weak. Instead, he patted me on the shoulder with an oversized hand.
"It's just like killing saibamen. They're just aliens," he encouraged, echoing my thoughts from earlier. It was so much easier said than done. I was still painfully aware of the blood still covering my fist, cooling it while the rest of my body felt uncomfortably hot. I swallowed thickly, giving him a shaky nod.
"Bardock's team is already done with their base and are hitting a city. There's one not far away from here. Follow me," Tora ordered, flying off. Taking a bracing breath, I followed after him. Running away wouldn't do me any good. Not when we were expecting a Reach counterattack and I doubt they would accept the excuse of I deserted mid-mission. Not that I would in the first place.
I was a saiyan warrior and saiyan warriors didn't run. From anything.
My body felt numb as we raced towards a city, within minutes I saw the skyline of it. Tall buildings that stretched upwards, beams of spotlights waved around, likely searching for us. The buildings didn't look like earths. The color was off, the windows were larger but less frequent, the shape was wrong too. It almost looked like a normal skyline, but just different enough to tell me that this wasn't earth or planet Vegeta.
"I'll take the right half, you can have the left," Tora stated, getting my attention. My insides squeezed, a lump forming in my throat. Before my very eyes, I saw what would become of the city. Ruined buildings, smoke, ash and millions of corpses.
"B-but," I started, hating how I stuttered. "Should...I transform with you? We go berserk in oozaru form, right?" I asked, trying to find a way out of this...massacre. "Won't I just attack you?"
If Tora noticed my pleading tone, he didn't comment on it. Instead, he answered, "since it's your first time, you'll just attack everything that moves, but I won't. My instincts will stop me from killing you if you do end up attacking me, so don't worry about that. You might get your butt kicked though."
I clenched my jaw, turning my attention to the city. The moons hanging above seemed to weigh down on me. Two of them were half-moons while the last was a full. All it would take was a few seconds to transform, I would go mad and destroy everything-
Wait, I thought to myself, thinking furiously. Tora would be going oozaru, and since only the mid-class and above could control themselves in oozaru form...Tora wouldn't remember anything while in that form. The same with Bardock and the others, they were already rampaging as oozarus.
All I had to do was wait for him to go oozaru, then I could leave the destroying of the city to him. He wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Shugesh could be a problem, but so long as I didn't see him then it would be fine. Plus, I doubt he would waste time looking for me when he could be rampaging and murdering aliens.
"Right," I confirmed, far more confidently. Tora took notice, glancing at me over his shoulder, before giving a mental shrug and a nod.
"Good luck. Try not to die." Tora said, splitting off to the right. I watched him go, once he got a far enough distance away, he looked up at the moons. The transformation started instantly. His body grew rapidly in every direction. His hair got longer, fur sprouting on his skin that thickened until it covered him. His armor stretched along with him, going from human size to the size of a truck, then to the size of a large building.
He sailed through the air, falling with grace until he slammed into a building. With his new weight, Tora crashed through it, barely slowing down before he hit the ground. It was impossible to hear anything over the sound of the building collapsing on itself, right up until Tora let out a mighty roar that seemed to shake the planet.
He stood over a hundred feet tall, dwarfing some buildings. Light built up in his massive ape-like maw, much like the dragon had back on planet Vegeta, before a massive beam erupted from it. It sliced through buildings like they weren't even there, a series of explosions lighting up the night sky.
The scouter picked up thousands of power levels that I couldn't see underneath a cloud of dust. Fleeing for their lives, but it wouldn't do them any good. I saw 50s, 60s, even an 80. They all compared to the power level that rampaged through the city. In his oozaru form, Tora had a power level of 40,000. The only ones that stood a chance against him were the other saiyans intent on destroying the planet.
For the Nepotins...all hope was lost.
Swallowing thickly, I turned away from the sight and flew away until I reached the other side of the city. Even then, I could hear Tora's beastly roars of rage as he butchered everything in his path. Thousands were already dead, possibly hundreds of thousands. Maybe even a million.
Spotting a tall building, I touched down at it, firmly keeping my back to Tora's rampage, relying on my scanner to pick up any stray attack in my direction. As soon as my feet touched down, I noticed I was shaking like a leaf, just as badly as the alien in the hangar was before. My stomach lurched, I tried to keep the vomit down, but it erupted out of my mouth with enough force I was driven to a knee.
Hacking and spitting, tears stung at my eyes. I refused to let them fall, wiping vomit from my lips. Even as a sob threatened to rip out of my throat, I kept it at bay with sheer force of will. I wouldn't cry. I couldn't cry for feeling bad when we came here to commit genocide. I knew this would happen. I knew every step of the way that this was exactly going to happen. I knew what we came here to do. I couldn't hide behind the excuse of ignorance.
It was just so different seeing it in person. Watching them die like that...so pointlessly...it made memories surface of my own death. A freak accident. A truck crossing three lanes, coming at me like I owed it money.
More vomit spewed from my mouth at the memory. Disgusted with it and myself. I knew what we came here to do. I was just too much of a coward to follow through.
My stewing self-loathing and regret was interrupted by the sound of a door sliding open. Instantly, I was in position to attack, only to freeze in my tracks when I saw what came through the door. It was another alien, this one much smaller than the others ones I saw so far. Young. A child. Like me.
It looked at me with wide eyes, the fine-haired curls underneath its cone a cherry red while its skin was a swirl of red and white. For a moment, it just stared at me, as shocked as I was. What was it doing here? Why wasn't it running away?
Slowly, I followed its gaze to my bloodstained fist. It's lime green eyes hardened, it's expression shifting from shock to resolve. It squared its shoulders, drawing itself to its full height as something began to shift behind it.
With dawning horror, I saw tendrils protrude from its back as liquid metal rushed forward to encase the alien. Most of its body was covered in black armor, only the top half of its chest being a dark blue. Along its sides and over its shoulders were arm like protrusions, cementing the image that a scarab was gripping it from behind. The very last thing to be encased was its head, it's steely gaze unwavering as the liquid metal crawled over its face, morphing into a black mask with blue markings around its yellow-tinted eyes.
A Reach scarab. Scouting class. My scouter read it, making my stomach drop to my feet.
4,000. It was as strong as Tora in his base state.
It raised a fist, the suit shifting around until the biggest laser gun I had ever seen. A light blue illuminated the night sky, growing brighter a moment before a laser the size of my head shot towards me. I already started moving the moment the weapon took shape by throwing myself to the side. I could see the bright blue glow behind me, another attack forming.
I hastily threw myself off the building, just in time for another beam to miss me by a foot. It slammed into a building across the street, carving a neat hole into it.
I couldn't take it in a fight. That would be like trying to take Tora- Tora! It was all too easy to find the giant rampaging ape, if only by the sounds of destruction. I shot towards the source, dodging another blast that cut through the street below, carving a line that edges glowed a cherry red. I pushed my speed to its limits, willing myself to go faster and faster and faster until the wind force was going to push my eyes to the back of my head.
It was a risk but I had to take it. Either Tora would kill me on accident, the scarab would shift its priorities or Tora would kill the scarab. Two out of three worked out in my favor. Those were probably the best odds I've had since I stepped out of the gestation tank.
I heard a screech behind me born from frustration and rage, making me look back just in time to see the weapon shift from one giant barrel to over a dozen. My eyes widened a split second before I dove to the side, slamming into a building and through a wall. Dozens of blue balls ripped through the building behind me, the scarab giving chase through the hole that I made.
Jerking out of the way as another barrage raced towards me, I slammed my way through the floor, finding myself in a bedroom- This was an apartment building. There were people here. Gritting my teeth, I quickly threw myself through another wall back into the street, hoping that I bought myself some time.
I flew in a crazed pattern, dodging, ducking, dipping and diving out of the way as the scarab persistently gave chase. Somehow, despite all odds, I saw Tora before I got hit. He had laid waste to half the city at this point, entire blocks reduced to rubble. Emotion, or more vomit, threatened to well in my chest but I pushed it to the side. Even as I heard a horrified scream from the scarab behind me that couldn't be drowned out by destruction Tora was causing.
Ignoring it, I raced towards Tora, the large ape taking notice of me. An oversized hand started to reach for me, his primal urges to destroy silencing any reason that he had since I wasn't in my own oozaru form. However, the scarab ended up saving me when he shot a focused blast at Tora. It was then that I realized that the weapon wasn't another laser, but a plasma beam.
Tora roared in rage rather than pain as plasma burnt a patch of his fur, his glowing red eyes locking onto the scarab, who screamed in defiance in response. It shot another blast of plasma, a larger blast that washed over its chest like water. The stench of burnt hair somehow managed to overpower the stench of death in the air.
Tora returned the attack with a blast of his own, a bright light carving the city in two as blocks were wiped away entirely. I drifted back, seeing that the scarab's full attention was on Tora. My plan worked. Shockingly. As interesting as watching the fight would be, there was a serious chance of me being killed by a stray blast or swipe, so I continued my retreat.
I drifted away from Tora, watching his back get further away. Now all I had to do was find a place to hide out at until...it...was done. Hopefully, this time I wouldn't land on a building with one of the three scarabs on the planet. Flying further away, my gaze was inevitably drawn towards the destruction below.
Bodies laid in the street, fires raged...I took in a slow breath, uncaring of the heavy taste of death on my tongue before I let it out even slower. The sight was seared into my mind, and I knew I would be seeing this night for the rest of my life. The smart thing would be to look away, to not torment myself and gain more nightmare fuel. Instead, I forced myself to look at it all.
It was for that reason that I noticed a handful of Nepotins. The uniforms that they wore marked them as military, driving a large saucer with a round cap on top. My eyes narrowed, wondering if I should just look away, to pretend that they weren't there. I might have done just that if the cap didn't split open, revealing a stunted looking gun barrel stretched into place with a few segmented locks.
I followed where it was aiming, unsure if I should bother interfering. Tora had a power level of 40,000. Plasma beams were barely noticed, so what good would it do? Tora would be fine. If anything, if he was aware, he'd be pissed for me getting involved. I should just keep going.
But...what if I was wrong? Then Tora gets seriously hurt. Or dies. What did that mean for me? Normally, I would say nothing but Bardock was weird. There was no telling how he would react.
Coming to a stop, my eyes narrowed at the gun, flickering to the battle raging some distance away. The scarab peppered Tora with plasma, darting around between swiped and attacks by inches. A frown tugged at my lips for a split second before my eyes went so wide that they could have fallen out of my head. They weren't aiming for Tora's back. They were aiming for his tail while the scarab distracted it.
The gun hummed with life, adjusting its aim. I shot forward but I knew as soon as I started moving that I wasn't going to make it. I was too far away. Tora's tail was going to be cut off. He might be able to win the fight anyway, but if Reach reinforcements showed up then victory became a lot less certain.
Unless… I thrust my hand out, feeling like an idiot with no idea what I was doing. A ki blast didn't magically fire out of my palm in response as I continued to get closer, time seemingly slowed with every inch I neared. I had no instructions on how to use ki blasts, no guidance. Only a feeling in my gut and desperate hope.
The well of power rose when I summoned on it like I did when I flew, this time, however, I willed it to my hand. A ki blast would fire out of my palm like I saw the others do. It would hit the gun, it would explode, and everything would be fine. In a fraction of a second, that scenario played out a thousand times in my head until my success became certainty.
A malformed blue ball of ki formed in my hand before shooting off towards the gun, its trajectory shaky, but I was so close that aim didn't matter. Exactly how I imagined it in my head, the ki blast punched a hole through the gun, destroying it. What I didn't expect was for the energy built up in the gun to explode outward with enough force I was sent flying away. Heat washed over my face, singeing my eyebrows before I managed to catch myself in midair.
When the heat passed, I cracked open an eye to see that nothing was left of the gun...or...the crew manning it. Swallowing thickly, I started to fly away, my part done. I spared one last glance at the battle raging some distance away, confident that Tora had it from here.
I looked just in time to see a blast of plasma racing towards me. The scarab looked at me, its piercing yellow eyes seemed to seeth hatred as it took a shot at me. I realized a moment before the plasma hit me that I wasn't going to get out of the way in time. Acting on instinct, I summoned another ki blast, launching it at the plasma. A short-lived battle raged between the two attacks that tried to overcome one another.
Then the plasma blast broke through my ki attack, continuing to race towards me. It slammed into my chest, washing over me like water, as everything became pain. Worse than the broken bones, worse than the acid. My chest burned with complete agony so overwhelming my concentration broke and I began to plummet to the ground. I crashed with a bounce, barely feeling the impact as I gasped in pain, unable to even scream.
My eyes looked down over their own will, finding blackened and charred armor still glowing from the heat. My shoulder pads protected my shoulders from the worst of the splashed plasma, though some landed on my arm below. It was a welcomed sight. I expected to see a hole in my chest.
Clenching my jaw, I forced myself to hit upwards, the pain easily the worst thing I experienced so far, each movement had me swallowing a scream. Even still, I looked up to see that the scarab wasn't done with me. It raced forward, screeching its rage and hate, the gun on its arm shifting until it became a blade. Ah. I ruined its plan. It was the distraction for the gun. If it was this mad, then there probably wasn't another one of those guns.
Good. That's good. At least I managed to accomplish something before dying a pathetic death.
It only took a second for the scarab to reach me, I tried to keep my face schooled when it touched down in front of me, its blade raised high. It was the same size as me, but from this angle it seemed impossibly big. Moonlight shone off its pristine blade as it rose, ready to end my life with a simple thrust.
"I'm...a saiyan warrior," I said. I thought I would be more afraid now there was no doubt I would die. Maybe it was just because of the pain, but I felt shockingly calm. Every day for months I was beaten within an inch of my life to grow stronger. To have the right to call myself a saiyan warrior. To call myself my father's son.
And every single time before, no matter how battered and broken I was, I got back up and threw myself back at my opponent. Only this time…
I barely felt it when the blade plunged down, sinking into my chest, directly through my heart. Everything else hurt too much, so I only felt a dull pressure in my chest. I looked at it, my blood staining the blade. The sadistic prick went as far as to twist it. Though...maybe that was fair. We did come to this plane to murder millions of its people, so yeah, maybe this was fair.
But...I was a saiyan warrior. A fighter. I never gave up and I never gave in. I...I...I was already a killer.
I could taste blood in my mouth as I gripped the blade, a sense of calmness falling over me. I couldn't die here. I wouldn't. Not after everything. This was a second lease on life, no matter how brutal and painful it was so far. I died once already. I wouldn't do so again. Especially like this. Even if it meant...
Because I...I…
I looked up at the sky above, the moons hanging over me and everything went red.
...
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A yawn escaped me before I could answer, "sleeping." I stated shortly, the healing fluid helping my dry eyes but they still felt heavy.
"...In a healing pod?" Fasha continued, making me fall silent. I quickly learned that I couldn't sleep in a bed anymore. It was too dry, a blanket too constraining and just too...weird. I tossed and turned all night, trying to fall asleep only to fail. The same for the second night as well. By the third, I was desperate for sleep, so I climbed into a healing pod and filled it up. I was out like a light as soon as it covered me.
"...is that weird?" I asked, not looking at her. I didn't know how to explain it. Sleeping in a bed felt wrong while sleeping in a healing tank felt natural. It probably had something to do with spending three years in the gestation tank and the past two and a half months in a healing tank after nearly dying every day.
"Uhh," Fasha started, leaning away from the window. Her tone told me that, yeah, it was weird. It would be a lie to say I didn't care, but it would be less weird to not sleep in a healing pod. "No, it's not," she lied. "But you need to get out, we're almost there."
"Okay," I nodded, Fasha stepping out as I got out of the healing pod. Getting dressed with my clothes and armor, I dried myself off. The mission, after weeks of travel, was finally about to begin. I had weeks to wrap my head around it, but I don't think I even started, I realized when I stepped out of the medical bay.
I walked down a hallway, stopping in front of a window and gazing through it.
"What are you brooding about this time?" Fasha announced her presence, placing a hand on top of my head, following my gaze out a window that revealed the final frontier.
An alien planet filled up most of my vision. It was dark brown with patches of white and litter brown bits. Its clouds were a dark black, swirling across the planet. Surrounding it was a bunch of moons, some bigger than others, but it was easy to see why this was the chosen battleground to get first blood.
Planet Rockoroad. Native to the Nepotins, a race of small, weak, fish-based species. Unfit for even slave labor, but there was a mention that they apparently tasted good. Their tech level was deemed primitive, though it would be the modern era for Earth. The planet itself was nothing special, boasting no exotic minerals or abilities other than its strategic location.
"Nothing," I lied, not looking up as I stared at the slowly approaching planet. Bardock gave the order for the thrusters to go dark, relying on previous momentum, as we approached from the dark side of one of their moons.
"Nervous?" Fasha questioned, not believing me for a second. In recent weeks, she was the only member of Bardock's squad that I built something of a rapport with. By that, I meant she was the only one that didn't mind when I followed her like an awkward duckling when Bardock told me to get out of my room.
"No," I lied again. After spending a week following her around, it got easier to talk to her. I second-guessed my words less and the feeling of sticking my entire foot into my mouth was less frequent.
"Hm," Fasha hummed, sounding doubtful. There was a beat of silence as we both stared at the planet that we would soon lay to waste. I...had a hard time picturing it. By now, I understood the plan, but when I tried to imagine it happening in my head, I drew a blank. I couldn't imagine myself destroying cities, massacring millions…
"Well, you're braver than I was before my first mission," Fasha admitted without any care, earning my attention. Craning my head back, I gave her a puzzled look and got a shrug from her. "I became a warrior when I was ten and I nearly ended up joining the working-class. I thought if I screwed up then they'd make me one anyway. Of course, that made me so nervous I did screw up. I'd be some mechanic or food processor if it weren't for Gine."
"Who's that?" I asked, knowing better than to ask how she screwed up. If it was bad enough that she would have been demoted a class, then it meant someone died.
"Gine? She used to be a member of the team, but she left it. She was too soft-hearted to be a warrior. She's a meat processor now and Bardock's woman." She explained a silent dare in her voice for me to make a comment about her...friend. It wasn't just Bardock that was weird, his entire squad was. They may fight and bicker but they were friends.
It went against everything that I learned what saiyans are, and what they should be. I think I liked that, though.
Once she was satisfied that I wasn't going to make a stupid remark, Fasha continued. "What I'm trying to get at is that you'll be fine. Stick with Tora, ignore Shugesh, and don't hesitate to look at the moon. Do that, and you'll be fine." She said, patting me on the head a few times.
Before I had a chance to respond, a voice spoke through my scouter. "Everyone, get to the docking bay. We're heading down," Bardock ordered. I could practically hear the savage grin in his voice. I definitely saw one on Fasha's face as she turned around, marching through the halls. I followed after her after a moment of hesitation.
The docking bay was on the other side of the ship for us, so we were the last ones to arrive. It was a wide-open room filled with space pods called attack balls, a dull gray ball with a dark red window to look out of. The rest of the team, minus Leek, stood in front of open pods. Upon seeing us, Bardock gave a nod.
"Leek, keep your course and stay on the dark side of the moon," Bardock ordered, getting a confirmation from the pilot through our scouters. "We're splitting up to attack these military bases," Bardock began, pointing to a map with two red dots. "Tora, Shugesh, Tarble, you'll take the upper right while Borgos, Fasha and I will take the other."
His gaze swept over us, a serious expression on his face that made me stand up straighter when his gaze lingered on me. "We hit them fast, we hit them hard and we leave nothing left of them. If you can avoid it, don't go oozaru until you reach a city. And stick together! I don't need any of you dying a stupid death for glory this early on in the war, got it?"
"""Got it."""
"Uh, got it." I echoed a half-second later than everyone else.
"Good. Let's get this done," Bardock said, getting a cheer while everyone else got into their attack balls. I picked one next to Tora, the seal cracking open to reveal a padded interior, some medical equipment attached to a single chair. I felt a pang of pity for Tora and Borgos. It would be a tight fit for both of them.
Taking a seat, the attack ball closed as a screen flashed while the destination was set. With that, my attack ball shifted when it got into position a moment before it shot out of the docking bay towards planet Rockoroad. The dark side of the moon filled my window, rapidly growing closer as a heavyweight seemed to settle in my gut.
That heavy weight felt like it dropped to my feet when planet Rockoroad peeked from behind one of its moons as we raced towards it. I was about to participate in genocide. Not sure why, but that only really sunk in now that I was less than a minute away from the planet I was ordered to purge. What did-
No. Don't think about it. I wasn't human anymore. I was a saiyan warrior…and this is what it meant to be a saiyan warrior.
At least, that is what I told myself when my stomach started doing flips as I neared the planet. Heat began to wash over my window, blocking my view as flames licked at the side of the attack ball. I expected the ball to shake, or something, but other than the flames, it was hard to tell that I was going through reentry-
I lurched forward at my sudden crash landing, only managing to stop myself from flying out of the chair by gripping it with white knuckles. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the seal cracked open again, hitting me with a blast of ice-cold air, revealing a pitch-black sky so dark that there weren't any stars, the only color being white clouds and…
Quickly closing my eyes, I looked away from the moons in the sky. Only one of the three was a full moon, but staring at a crescent moon for long enough could trigger the transformation. Instead, I crawled out of the attack pod, floating out of a crater to see I was in the middle of a building, my pod having crashed through the ceiling.
I...was on an alien planet, I thought to myself as my feet touched down on the edge of the crater. The walls were a light green color, marked with dark brown patterns -- it was a hangar of some kind if the ships in the shape bars with a skinnier middle section were anything to go by. Everything was so...light? I gave an experimental hop, only to leap high enough I could have cleared my spaceship. My admiring was broken short when explosions erupted on the outside of the hanger, shaking the ground beneath me while rubble fell from the ceiling.
They were already getting started. I should probably get out of here before they toss a ki blast to destroy the building and me with it. Floating up, I started to sail out of the hole, only pause when I heard the sound of chattering teeth. Looking down, I saw a...gnome?
It was short, though with its head shaped like a cone added another foot to it, with light pink skin. It raised a weapon, an energy blaster, at me but it trembled so badly that I doubt it would hit me if it did pull the trigger. I stared into its chocolate brown eyes, seeing the fear in them even if it was an alien.
I...should kill it, shouldn't I? I couldn't use ki blasts yet since learning how on a ship in space seemed like a bad idea. So, I would have to kill it with my bare hands. It...shouldn't be any different than killing a saibaman. Unless...a quick use of my scouter showed me it had a power level of 10.
It flinched so badly at the hand movement that it fired a shot on accident if the utter terror on its face was anything to go by. The shot went wide, the impact drowned out by the battle raging outside.
I should kill it. I shouldn't be hesitating like this. I was a saiyan warrior. I...I…
I looked away and finished flying out of the hanger. Tora hovered above the military base, ki blast after ki blast firing from his hands and leaving devastation in his wake. Buildings were reduced to rubble, dozens of aliens lay dead, while explosions wracked the military base. Shugesh did the same, laying waste to anything that got in his way. It was a complete one-sided slaughter.
My gaze found a dying alien, laying in a pool of light yellow blood. It struggled to get back to its feet, to throw itself back into the fight, denying its body's screams to stay down with sheer will to fight back like I had so many times before...only to die in a stray explosion from Tora. I doubt he realized that he killed the alien.
It was happening everywhere. Aliens that didn't quite die during the initial blast that struggled to cling to life, only to die moments later. My scouter, still in scanner mode, picked up hundreds of power levels that belonged to the aliens rapidly dwindling with every passing second.
This wasn't war. This was a massacre.
Swallowing a lump in my throat, I turned my attention to a building that dominated the military base. It was a citadel, set as several platforms capped with three large domes. Lights flashed on it, alarms wailing as the military bases went on full alert as its defenses were prepared.
"Tarble, we're heading to the main base. Stick close," Tora ordered, shooting off towards the base without waiting. Shugesh quickly followed after them. I went to do the same, only to pause to look down to see the alien looking up at me with pure terror. It trembled like a leaf, its weapon forgotten, as it simply stared up at me.
Looking away, I shot off after Tora and Shugesh, trying not to pay any attention to the carnage that surrounded me. They did this in minutes, less than five. A fortified military base was wrecked, its soldiers dead. All that was left was the citadel and if the explosions that already covered it from the two saiyans pre-firing at it, it wouldn't offer much more resistance.
"We need to level this place, but first let's see if we can get any intel on troop positions. Shugesh, Tarble, you two head in. I'll finish mopping up out here." Tora ordered, deftly dodging between beams of lights as he rained death upon his enemies. "I'm sure they have a command room or something."
"Sure. Don't have too much fun...and don't blow up the building when we're still in it," Shugesh returned, diving into a hole that Tora had made with a ki blast. I followed in after him, trying to not focus on the bodies laying beneath rubble. They were trying to fight back so hard, they were giving it their all, but it meant nothing. Tora and Shugesh were just too strong.
We flew through the hallways, Shugesh leading the way. The aliens tried to put up some resistance, they sealed off the hallways and put up walls of soldiers to stop us, but they were dealt with complete ease by Shugesh. A yellow ki blast cleared our way, destroying everything and everyone in our path. All they managed to do was throw lives away, not even managing to be an inconvenience.
"How are we going to find the command center?" I asked, talking through our scouters. The stench of smoke and blood was so strong that I could taste it.
"Eh, I usually just find the guy with the strongest power level and use it as a guide. Strong guys are always on the command deck, center or whatever. Bet they didn't teach you that in the pod." Shugesh answered, giving me a cocky grin as he looked back while he butchered another group of defenders.
I swallowed thickly, doing another general scan. Higher power levels took priority, directing me to a power level that nearly hit a hundred directly above us. "Should we make a path straight there then?" Anything other than flying through the halls, senselessly slaughtering aliens. "Tora said we should do this fast, right?"
Shugesh tsked to himself, seemingly displeased. "We're making good time. I usually clear the place out so we don't have to deal with professional soldiers later...but this is a hit n' run…yeah, I guess we might as well." He muttered, the scouter picking up his grumbling as he came to a sudden stop. Raising his hand upwards, he fired off a ki blast that carved a tunnel through the building that lead directly to the strongest power level nearby.
We flew up, and Shugesh wasn't wrong. We found ourselves in a place that fit what I would expect a command center to look like. A large room layered with a command deck, the lower floors lined with chairs for the commander to boss around with a bunch of blinking computers. It was filled with aliens, all of the screaming as they ducked for cover.
All except one. It was next to impossible to tell, but it seemed older than the rest. There weren't any wrinkles or grayed hairs, but it held itself with an air of experience. It looked at Shugesh, then to me, before it clenched its jaw.
"You can have this one. I'll go data mining for something interesting." Shugesh informed, slaughtering the other twenty aliens with a casual ki blast. The room filled with dust, the tracking feature on my scouter telling me that Shugesh moved towards the main computer. Leaving me with the last alien in the room.
My mouth went dry, the scouter telling me its location in the heavy dust. What...what did I do? I...I...I should kill it. There wasn't a choice this time. I should murder this alien for being strong and standing against me. This is what it meant to be a saiyan warrior.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I shot forward, leading the way with a fist. The dust was so heavy that I didn't see the alien until I was right on him. It threw itself to the side as it raised a blaster at me. A dark red laser raced by my head, easily dodged. I clenched my fist -- it...it wasn't any different than killing saibamen. No, it was easier because I was so much stronger than it. All I had to do was punch a hole in its chest and it would be dead.
Another laser fired off at me, forcing me to retreat higher into the air. My insides felt like they were being tied into knots, my heart hammering in my chest. Was...was...was there really no other way? I didn't...If I said that it was a worthy warrior, having earned my respect, then...then it could survive. Since this was just a hit and run, we wouldn't be taking any slaves, so it could survive.
I would have to make the fight look good, though. So, no more hesitating.
Taking a bracing breath, I shot forward with my clenched fist. Another laser shot at me, but it missed by a mile, the alien unable to find me in the smoke. It only did when I was right upon it, my fist sailing towards its face faster than it could see. I couldn't hit it with all my strength, so I-
I only realized the problem with my plan after my fist made contact. I never fought anyone weaker than me before. In my time outside of the tank, I was forced to use every last ounce of my strength every day against foes I couldn't hope to beat.
I couldn't control my strength.
My fist ripped through the aliens head, reducing it to shattered bone, brain matter and blood splashing on the ground as the alien dropped to the floor. The blood on my hand felt impossibly cold, my jaw dropped as I was left staring stupidly at the corpse. I didn't mean…! I tried to…! I…!
I...I was a saiyan warrior, I told myself, swallowing bile as I clenched my jaw shut. My blood-stained hands trembled at my sides, trying to force myself to stay calm. I was a saiyan warrior. I was a fighter. A killer. My destiny was to fight strong opponents, purge planets and sell them for profit for Lord Frieza. This…
"I'm a saiyan warrior," I repeated aloud to myself, the words helping. This is what I was meant to be. Now, if only those words didn't sound incredibly hollow to my own ears, I'd be set.
"Done already? Eh, I guess I shouldn't be surprised. These things are pretty weak," Shugesh commented through the scouters. Using the tracker as a guide, I shoved my darkening thoughts to the side with no small amount of trouble. Paying attention to a map of the planet highlighting troop movements, high priority targets and, more importantly, information on the scarabs on the planet.
Three in total, all scout class. No location, only that they were on the planet. Since we didn't pick them up on our general scans, they must be powered down to avoid detection.
"We're done here Tora, on our way out now," Shugesh informed, stepping away from the main conceal before destroying it with a ki blast. "I'm sending some coordinates your way. There's a depo with hardware designed to shoot off our tails when we go oozaru not too far from here. Oh, and they should have something that fits what Bardock wanted." He said before making another exit that we flew out of.
Tora was just as busy as we were. There was nothing left of the military base, what little that stood was on fire, thick black smoke rising, or in the process of collapsing. There was no resistance left, every alien in the base dead. My stomach clenched, my scouter searching for a power level…
4000, 3800. The only ones were Tora's and Shugesh. That alien that I spared died anyway.
"Something wrong Tarble?" Tora asked, flying towards us. He didn't sound concerned, alert was closer to the mark.
Not trusting my voice, I shook my head. Tora frowned, not believing me, but before he could say anything, Shugesh patted me on the back hard enough I floated forward.
"He's probably just disappointed that he didn't get to do much. The one fight he did get was a one-shot," Shugesh decided with a laugh. Tora nodded, apparently thinking that made sense. It should be what's wrong with me.
"Well, that might change soon enough. Shugesh, you take the military depot and destroy those weapons. Me and Tarble will start hitting their cities," Tora informed, his words like a fist to the gut. I tried to control my expression, but I knew I failed. It only went unnoticed because they were too busy laughing to themselves, eager for the slaughter to come.
Civilians. I was about to start murdering civilians.
"Tarble, let's go." Tora got my attention, Shugesh already flying off. I looked up at him, my horror must have shown now because his eyes narrowed dangerously. I half expected him to blast me out of the sky for being unsaiyan like, for being weak. Instead, he patted me on the shoulder with an oversized hand.
"It's just like killing saibamen. They're just aliens," he encouraged, echoing my thoughts from earlier. It was so much easier said than done. I was still painfully aware of the blood still covering my fist, cooling it while the rest of my body felt uncomfortably hot. I swallowed thickly, giving him a shaky nod.
"Bardock's team is already done with their base and are hitting a city. There's one not far away from here. Follow me," Tora ordered, flying off. Taking a bracing breath, I followed after him. Running away wouldn't do me any good. Not when we were expecting a Reach counterattack and I doubt they would accept the excuse of I deserted mid-mission. Not that I would in the first place.
I was a saiyan warrior and saiyan warriors didn't run. From anything.
My body felt numb as we raced towards a city, within minutes I saw the skyline of it. Tall buildings that stretched upwards, beams of spotlights waved around, likely searching for us. The buildings didn't look like earths. The color was off, the windows were larger but less frequent, the shape was wrong too. It almost looked like a normal skyline, but just different enough to tell me that this wasn't earth or planet Vegeta.
"I'll take the right half, you can have the left," Tora stated, getting my attention. My insides squeezed, a lump forming in my throat. Before my very eyes, I saw what would become of the city. Ruined buildings, smoke, ash and millions of corpses.
"B-but," I started, hating how I stuttered. "Should...I transform with you? We go berserk in oozaru form, right?" I asked, trying to find a way out of this...massacre. "Won't I just attack you?"
If Tora noticed my pleading tone, he didn't comment on it. Instead, he answered, "since it's your first time, you'll just attack everything that moves, but I won't. My instincts will stop me from killing you if you do end up attacking me, so don't worry about that. You might get your butt kicked though."
I clenched my jaw, turning my attention to the city. The moons hanging above seemed to weigh down on me. Two of them were half-moons while the last was a full. All it would take was a few seconds to transform, I would go mad and destroy everything-
Wait, I thought to myself, thinking furiously. Tora would be going oozaru, and since only the mid-class and above could control themselves in oozaru form...Tora wouldn't remember anything while in that form. The same with Bardock and the others, they were already rampaging as oozarus.
All I had to do was wait for him to go oozaru, then I could leave the destroying of the city to him. He wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Shugesh could be a problem, but so long as I didn't see him then it would be fine. Plus, I doubt he would waste time looking for me when he could be rampaging and murdering aliens.
"Right," I confirmed, far more confidently. Tora took notice, glancing at me over his shoulder, before giving a mental shrug and a nod.
"Good luck. Try not to die." Tora said, splitting off to the right. I watched him go, once he got a far enough distance away, he looked up at the moons. The transformation started instantly. His body grew rapidly in every direction. His hair got longer, fur sprouting on his skin that thickened until it covered him. His armor stretched along with him, going from human size to the size of a truck, then to the size of a large building.
He sailed through the air, falling with grace until he slammed into a building. With his new weight, Tora crashed through it, barely slowing down before he hit the ground. It was impossible to hear anything over the sound of the building collapsing on itself, right up until Tora let out a mighty roar that seemed to shake the planet.
He stood over a hundred feet tall, dwarfing some buildings. Light built up in his massive ape-like maw, much like the dragon had back on planet Vegeta, before a massive beam erupted from it. It sliced through buildings like they weren't even there, a series of explosions lighting up the night sky.
The scouter picked up thousands of power levels that I couldn't see underneath a cloud of dust. Fleeing for their lives, but it wouldn't do them any good. I saw 50s, 60s, even an 80. They all compared to the power level that rampaged through the city. In his oozaru form, Tora had a power level of 40,000. The only ones that stood a chance against him were the other saiyans intent on destroying the planet.
For the Nepotins...all hope was lost.
Swallowing thickly, I turned away from the sight and flew away until I reached the other side of the city. Even then, I could hear Tora's beastly roars of rage as he butchered everything in his path. Thousands were already dead, possibly hundreds of thousands. Maybe even a million.
Spotting a tall building, I touched down at it, firmly keeping my back to Tora's rampage, relying on my scanner to pick up any stray attack in my direction. As soon as my feet touched down, I noticed I was shaking like a leaf, just as badly as the alien in the hangar was before. My stomach lurched, I tried to keep the vomit down, but it erupted out of my mouth with enough force I was driven to a knee.
Hacking and spitting, tears stung at my eyes. I refused to let them fall, wiping vomit from my lips. Even as a sob threatened to rip out of my throat, I kept it at bay with sheer force of will. I wouldn't cry. I couldn't cry for feeling bad when we came here to commit genocide. I knew this would happen. I knew every step of the way that this was exactly going to happen. I knew what we came here to do. I couldn't hide behind the excuse of ignorance.
It was just so different seeing it in person. Watching them die like that...so pointlessly...it made memories surface of my own death. A freak accident. A truck crossing three lanes, coming at me like I owed it money.
More vomit spewed from my mouth at the memory. Disgusted with it and myself. I knew what we came here to do. I was just too much of a coward to follow through.
My stewing self-loathing and regret was interrupted by the sound of a door sliding open. Instantly, I was in position to attack, only to freeze in my tracks when I saw what came through the door. It was another alien, this one much smaller than the others ones I saw so far. Young. A child. Like me.
It looked at me with wide eyes, the fine-haired curls underneath its cone a cherry red while its skin was a swirl of red and white. For a moment, it just stared at me, as shocked as I was. What was it doing here? Why wasn't it running away?
Slowly, I followed its gaze to my bloodstained fist. It's lime green eyes hardened, it's expression shifting from shock to resolve. It squared its shoulders, drawing itself to its full height as something began to shift behind it.
With dawning horror, I saw tendrils protrude from its back as liquid metal rushed forward to encase the alien. Most of its body was covered in black armor, only the top half of its chest being a dark blue. Along its sides and over its shoulders were arm like protrusions, cementing the image that a scarab was gripping it from behind. The very last thing to be encased was its head, it's steely gaze unwavering as the liquid metal crawled over its face, morphing into a black mask with blue markings around its yellow-tinted eyes.
A Reach scarab. Scouting class. My scouter read it, making my stomach drop to my feet.
4,000. It was as strong as Tora in his base state.
It raised a fist, the suit shifting around until the biggest laser gun I had ever seen. A light blue illuminated the night sky, growing brighter a moment before a laser the size of my head shot towards me. I already started moving the moment the weapon took shape by throwing myself to the side. I could see the bright blue glow behind me, another attack forming.
I hastily threw myself off the building, just in time for another beam to miss me by a foot. It slammed into a building across the street, carving a neat hole into it.
I couldn't take it in a fight. That would be like trying to take Tora- Tora! It was all too easy to find the giant rampaging ape, if only by the sounds of destruction. I shot towards the source, dodging another blast that cut through the street below, carving a line that edges glowed a cherry red. I pushed my speed to its limits, willing myself to go faster and faster and faster until the wind force was going to push my eyes to the back of my head.
It was a risk but I had to take it. Either Tora would kill me on accident, the scarab would shift its priorities or Tora would kill the scarab. Two out of three worked out in my favor. Those were probably the best odds I've had since I stepped out of the gestation tank.
I heard a screech behind me born from frustration and rage, making me look back just in time to see the weapon shift from one giant barrel to over a dozen. My eyes widened a split second before I dove to the side, slamming into a building and through a wall. Dozens of blue balls ripped through the building behind me, the scarab giving chase through the hole that I made.
Jerking out of the way as another barrage raced towards me, I slammed my way through the floor, finding myself in a bedroom- This was an apartment building. There were people here. Gritting my teeth, I quickly threw myself through another wall back into the street, hoping that I bought myself some time.
I flew in a crazed pattern, dodging, ducking, dipping and diving out of the way as the scarab persistently gave chase. Somehow, despite all odds, I saw Tora before I got hit. He had laid waste to half the city at this point, entire blocks reduced to rubble. Emotion, or more vomit, threatened to well in my chest but I pushed it to the side. Even as I heard a horrified scream from the scarab behind me that couldn't be drowned out by destruction Tora was causing.
Ignoring it, I raced towards Tora, the large ape taking notice of me. An oversized hand started to reach for me, his primal urges to destroy silencing any reason that he had since I wasn't in my own oozaru form. However, the scarab ended up saving me when he shot a focused blast at Tora. It was then that I realized that the weapon wasn't another laser, but a plasma beam.
Tora roared in rage rather than pain as plasma burnt a patch of his fur, his glowing red eyes locking onto the scarab, who screamed in defiance in response. It shot another blast of plasma, a larger blast that washed over its chest like water. The stench of burnt hair somehow managed to overpower the stench of death in the air.
Tora returned the attack with a blast of his own, a bright light carving the city in two as blocks were wiped away entirely. I drifted back, seeing that the scarab's full attention was on Tora. My plan worked. Shockingly. As interesting as watching the fight would be, there was a serious chance of me being killed by a stray blast or swipe, so I continued my retreat.
I drifted away from Tora, watching his back get further away. Now all I had to do was find a place to hide out at until...it...was done. Hopefully, this time I wouldn't land on a building with one of the three scarabs on the planet. Flying further away, my gaze was inevitably drawn towards the destruction below.
Bodies laid in the street, fires raged...I took in a slow breath, uncaring of the heavy taste of death on my tongue before I let it out even slower. The sight was seared into my mind, and I knew I would be seeing this night for the rest of my life. The smart thing would be to look away, to not torment myself and gain more nightmare fuel. Instead, I forced myself to look at it all.
It was for that reason that I noticed a handful of Nepotins. The uniforms that they wore marked them as military, driving a large saucer with a round cap on top. My eyes narrowed, wondering if I should just look away, to pretend that they weren't there. I might have done just that if the cap didn't split open, revealing a stunted looking gun barrel stretched into place with a few segmented locks.
I followed where it was aiming, unsure if I should bother interfering. Tora had a power level of 40,000. Plasma beams were barely noticed, so what good would it do? Tora would be fine. If anything, if he was aware, he'd be pissed for me getting involved. I should just keep going.
But...what if I was wrong? Then Tora gets seriously hurt. Or dies. What did that mean for me? Normally, I would say nothing but Bardock was weird. There was no telling how he would react.
Coming to a stop, my eyes narrowed at the gun, flickering to the battle raging some distance away. The scarab peppered Tora with plasma, darting around between swiped and attacks by inches. A frown tugged at my lips for a split second before my eyes went so wide that they could have fallen out of my head. They weren't aiming for Tora's back. They were aiming for his tail while the scarab distracted it.
The gun hummed with life, adjusting its aim. I shot forward but I knew as soon as I started moving that I wasn't going to make it. I was too far away. Tora's tail was going to be cut off. He might be able to win the fight anyway, but if Reach reinforcements showed up then victory became a lot less certain.
Unless… I thrust my hand out, feeling like an idiot with no idea what I was doing. A ki blast didn't magically fire out of my palm in response as I continued to get closer, time seemingly slowed with every inch I neared. I had no instructions on how to use ki blasts, no guidance. Only a feeling in my gut and desperate hope.
The well of power rose when I summoned on it like I did when I flew, this time, however, I willed it to my hand. A ki blast would fire out of my palm like I saw the others do. It would hit the gun, it would explode, and everything would be fine. In a fraction of a second, that scenario played out a thousand times in my head until my success became certainty.
A malformed blue ball of ki formed in my hand before shooting off towards the gun, its trajectory shaky, but I was so close that aim didn't matter. Exactly how I imagined it in my head, the ki blast punched a hole through the gun, destroying it. What I didn't expect was for the energy built up in the gun to explode outward with enough force I was sent flying away. Heat washed over my face, singeing my eyebrows before I managed to catch myself in midair.
When the heat passed, I cracked open an eye to see that nothing was left of the gun...or...the crew manning it. Swallowing thickly, I started to fly away, my part done. I spared one last glance at the battle raging some distance away, confident that Tora had it from here.
I looked just in time to see a blast of plasma racing towards me. The scarab looked at me, its piercing yellow eyes seemed to seeth hatred as it took a shot at me. I realized a moment before the plasma hit me that I wasn't going to get out of the way in time. Acting on instinct, I summoned another ki blast, launching it at the plasma. A short-lived battle raged between the two attacks that tried to overcome one another.
Then the plasma blast broke through my ki attack, continuing to race towards me. It slammed into my chest, washing over me like water, as everything became pain. Worse than the broken bones, worse than the acid. My chest burned with complete agony so overwhelming my concentration broke and I began to plummet to the ground. I crashed with a bounce, barely feeling the impact as I gasped in pain, unable to even scream.
My eyes looked down over their own will, finding blackened and charred armor still glowing from the heat. My shoulder pads protected my shoulders from the worst of the splashed plasma, though some landed on my arm below. It was a welcomed sight. I expected to see a hole in my chest.
Clenching my jaw, I forced myself to hit upwards, the pain easily the worst thing I experienced so far, each movement had me swallowing a scream. Even still, I looked up to see that the scarab wasn't done with me. It raced forward, screeching its rage and hate, the gun on its arm shifting until it became a blade. Ah. I ruined its plan. It was the distraction for the gun. If it was this mad, then there probably wasn't another one of those guns.
Good. That's good. At least I managed to accomplish something before dying a pathetic death.
It only took a second for the scarab to reach me, I tried to keep my face schooled when it touched down in front of me, its blade raised high. It was the same size as me, but from this angle it seemed impossibly big. Moonlight shone off its pristine blade as it rose, ready to end my life with a simple thrust.
"I'm...a saiyan warrior," I said. I thought I would be more afraid now there was no doubt I would die. Maybe it was just because of the pain, but I felt shockingly calm. Every day for months I was beaten within an inch of my life to grow stronger. To have the right to call myself a saiyan warrior. To call myself my father's son.
And every single time before, no matter how battered and broken I was, I got back up and threw myself back at my opponent. Only this time…
I barely felt it when the blade plunged down, sinking into my chest, directly through my heart. Everything else hurt too much, so I only felt a dull pressure in my chest. I looked at it, my blood staining the blade. The sadistic prick went as far as to twist it. Though...maybe that was fair. We did come to this plane to murder millions of its people, so yeah, maybe this was fair.
But...I was a saiyan warrior. A fighter. I never gave up and I never gave in. I...I...I was already a killer.
I could taste blood in my mouth as I gripped the blade, a sense of calmness falling over me. I couldn't die here. I wouldn't. Not after everything. This was a second lease on life, no matter how brutal and painful it was so far. I died once already. I wouldn't do so again. Especially like this. Even if it meant...
Because I...I…
I looked up at the sky above, the moons hanging over me and everything went red.
...
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- Location
- Some corner of the Milky Way
Tarble's a bit soft, isn't he?
Then again, it's not quite a bad thing... except in Saiyan society, it kinda is.
He's had the crap beaten out of him so many times but his flight or fight instincts has always been in flight mode? When is he going to learn that fighting to remove the threat is sometimes the only option here?
Aren't Saiyans in general supposed to be more in tune with their instincts?
I mean even for humans, there's only so much patience one can have by being whacked and trashed by what amount to fricking mobs - mook characters in DBZ before they start fighting back hard to end the threat. His life has always been in constant danger and he constantly waffles about death and such. Sorry mate, suspension of disbelief broken.
I salute Tarble bruh, he's got the stubbornness of a martyr.
On a side note, I loved the part where he tried to come to terms with the reality of killing civilians and runs away only to face a Reach Scarab Infiltrator.
Gotta face your problems sooner rather than later.
Then again, it's not quite a bad thing... except in Saiyan society, it kinda is.
He's had the crap beaten out of him so many times but his flight or fight instincts has always been in flight mode? When is he going to learn that fighting to remove the threat is sometimes the only option here?
Aren't Saiyans in general supposed to be more in tune with their instincts?
I mean even for humans, there's only so much patience one can have by being whacked and trashed by what amount to fricking mobs - mook characters in DBZ before they start fighting back hard to end the threat. His life has always been in constant danger and he constantly waffles about death and such. Sorry mate, suspension of disbelief broken.
I salute Tarble bruh, he's got the stubbornness of a martyr.
On a side note, I loved the part where he tried to come to terms with the reality of killing civilians and runs away only to face a Reach Scarab Infiltrator.
Gotta face your problems sooner rather than later.
- Location
- USA
It's because the human mentality has helped him just as much as it hindered him. Had he been a pure SI, human mentality and all, King Vegeta would have yeeted him off into space for being spineless and weak. Instead, he's a mix of saiyan instincts and human higher thinking. The easiest way to explain it is that the SI drank the kool-aid, is aware that he drank the kool-aid, but remembers a time when he didn't drink the kool-aid, so that influences his actions and personality.
In the end, for a saiyan, it's easy to mindlessly fight every day of your life. No thinking involved, just throwing hands until you win. The human part of the SI is screwing him over at the moment, because he's aware that he's participating in genocide. Hundreds of millions of sentient people are being murdered right in front of him. Worse, he's helping them. The SI understands that he's the bad guy in this story.
And I like to think that any half decent person would have problems with that.
It's his first time using it. If anything, I expected comments about how it was bull that he could use it pretty much first try.
I hope Tarble makes it to Earth. Will he?
- Location
- USA
I mean Goku did the Kamehameha first try
- Location
- USA
Eventually. So far, it's looking like he'll arrive somewhere around chapter 20, or so. I really want to explore the saiyan part of the story before I delve into the DC side of things.
True, bit Goku is the protagonist and Tarble is an SI. When the former does something amazing first try, it's because he's that good. When an SI does it, it's because the author is wanking how great they are. Or, at least, that's been my experience.
But still I'm disappointed that your si didn't even try to do it and fail that is better then not trying at all and where is Broly again and if he exist and got exiled hope he is on Earth with the Kent's or the Wayne's maybe even on Amazon island (can't spell the name)
- Location
- USA
But Krillan also did it on the first try.
- Location
- Anatolia
Except it's not, Saiyan's canonically are able to copy Ki and combat techniques after a single encounter.
- Location
- Quebec
Well of course everyone half decent has a problem with that. Why do you think every genocide attempted or sucessful was preceded by a long campaing to make everyone believe it's ok to murder the heck out of these people in particular?
Neruz
Rogue Spiderbanana
- Location
- The Land of Fire and Poison
Saiyans explicitly learn best in active combat, as in 'can learn an entire unique style of martial arts over the course of a single duel with the user'. Goku's ridiculous power comes from a combination of human Ki techniques, which are orders of magnitude more advanced and efficient compared to most of the rest of the galaxy's techniques due to humanity having such a poor innate Ki capacity, leading humans (mostly Roshi) to make the most out of what they have and the fact that even by Saiyan standards Goku is utterly, unreasonably obsessed with training to the absolute limit and thus triggers Saiyan Power all the time. As Vegeta demonstrates later in the series; any Saiyan can achieve ridiculous power levels if they are willing to spend literal months to years on end doing nothing but training to near-death exhaustion under ludicrous gravity magnification and main-lining senju beans or an equivalent. Training like that is Goku's default response to having nothing else to do, compared to most normal Saiyans who tend to start slacking off once they reach some comfortable level of strength and start lording it over those weaker than them.
To be fair; you do have to be kind of a lunatic to train like that, or totally obsessed to a level that would be completely unhealthy for literally anyone else, but is actually fine for Saiyans. Because thanks to Saiyan Power, Saiyans are an entire species that can bash their heads repeatedly against an invulnerable wall with a genuine expectation of eventually winning the fight. For anyone else that course of action would be insane, for a Saiyan they'll just keep getting stronger until they knock the wall down, or die.
The fact that he somehow managed to learn the Kaio Ken, despite the technique being thought to be impossible by its own creator, also helped a lot, as the Kaio Ken synergizes stupidly well with Saiyan Power.
The main thing holding the Saiyans back as a species is that they are naturally so ridiculously overpowered that they almost never encountered a problem they couldn't solve by hitting it real hard, even if they had to nearly die and come back to try again later a few times before succeeding, so they never really bothered to learn how their own abilities actually worked and thus how to exploit the hell out of them. That would involve thinking, and time spent thinking is time spent not punching things.
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Taste of Death
- Location
- USA
"Father," Vegeta started hesitantly, a nutrient bar pausing before it entered his stomach with the other thirty he ate as an after spar snack. He shifted in his seat, his cape serving as a convenient cushion, trying not to look up at his father. Instead, he looked out at the great stretch of desert that served as their training ground.
Dunes that towered over hundreds of feet above them, easily two oozorus tall. Some were flattened, collapsing from the ferocity of their spar, or vanishing entirely. The air shimmered from the heat, his brow soaked with sweat alongside his undersuit. Vegeta would sooner bite off his tongue before he complained, though.
"Yes, my son?" Father returned, tossing the core of a colorful fruit into his mouth before swallowing it whole. "Speak your mind. Hesitation is unbecoming of you."
Swallowing his nervousness, Vegeta straightened his shoulders as he spoke clearly. "Why did you allow that low-class trash to take my brother?" He asked- no, demanded! He was the prince of all saiyans, he asked for nothing!
His father glanced at him, revealing a deep cut over his eye. Dried blood covered half of his father's face -- his father was more excited over the wound that he managed to give him than Vegeta was. "He is not your brother," he reminded lightly, causing the younger Vegeta to scowl as he looked away.
Vegeta chose not to argue the point, his father having refused his demands to acknowledge Tarble as elite-class. Regardless of how little sense it made. Raditz, one of his squadmates, was considered mid-class with a power level of 750 just because he was born with one over 100. And apparently that was somehow impressive. It was ridiculous. Tarble's royal blood showed — barely out of the tank and he already had a power level nearing 700. It wouldn't be long before Tarble left that long-haired jumped up trash behind altogether and he would still be called low-class. As if their father could produce offspring so weak.
"Why did I allow it?" His father echoed, grabbing another fruit from a basket that the servants delivered. He gave Vegeta a long look, a frown tugging at his lips. Vegeta hastily looked down, suddenly finding his bloodied knuckles so very interesting. Even still, he gave a shallow nod, confirming the question.
"Because it gives me the chance to get rid of Bardock." His father answered, earning a puzzled look from Vegeta. He knew of who his father spoke of. There were few who didn't. Bardock was expected to rise to the mid-level within a few years, in addition to being the father of a mid-class, however weak Raditz might be. Not to mention the technique he created recently.
"Bardock?" Vegeta repeated, not expecting that. What did he have to do with anything? "If you need him to be disposed of, I can-"
"No, you cannot, my son." Father denied, eating half of it in a single bite. "There are times when you can't take action directly. This is one of those times." Vegeta scowled, his face twisting as he swallowed his retorts. That made no sense. If Bardock needed to die then why not just kill him?
"Bardock put himself out on a limb with this stunt. With any luck, it will break underneath him and send him straight to hell." His father mused, a savage grin on his face as he finished the fruit with another bite.
Vegeta didn't understand, feeling like he was missing something but too afraid- no, not afraid. He feared nothing! He was too...cautious to ask his father what he meant.
However, his father seemed to sense his confusion. A disappointed sigh escaped him, it took everything that Vegeta had not to flinch at the sound. "Vegeta, would do you think would happen if we killed Bardock?" He asked, adopting a cold tone that meant his father expected him to have the answer ready.
He didn't. The obvious answer was that they lost a halfway decent low-class warrior, but in his experience, the obvious answer wasn't the one that his father was looking for. When he didn't answer, his father huffed, clearly disappointed with him.
"Bardock is rather famous amongst the low-class. He fathered a mid-class warrior, he holds one of the highest successful mission records in Frieza-force history and he did it all with a power level below 5,000." His father explained as if he were telling him the answer, but Vegeta still struggled to understand what he was getting at.
What was the worst that could happen? Bardock might have some talent as a tactician -- enough so that his father had him study some of Bardock's mission reports, but tactics were nothing compared to power. Vegeta knew he could kill him in an instant.
"It is not who Bardock, but what he represents is why we cannot act against him, my child. He is the hope of the low-class. He is proof that they can rise above their station," Father said, smirking at my sneer. Those worms thought that climbing to mid-class would somehow mean they weren't trash. It was pathetic. And hilarious. "I agree that it's ridiculous, but the low-class need that hope. Otherwise, they would get...ideas."
"Ideas?" Vegeta echoed, not liking the sound of it.
"They are complacent because they believe they can rise above their station with enough effort. However, if they see that their hope is executed, they will doubt if they could become more than they are. If they doubt, then they will rebel." His father explained, draining a water container in a few gulps.
"...so?" Vegeta hesitantly asked. So what if the low-class rebelled? It could be fun crushing a rebellion.
"It would be annoying. We would have to catch and make our own food and clean up after ourselves." His father stated with a huff, sounding irritated by the thought of it. Vegeta grimaced, feeling much the same. He looked down at the nutrient bar in his hand, trying to imagine making it with how own two hands. He didn't know where he would start.
"We could just replace them with slaves," Vegeta ventured, finishing off the bar. That might be a good idea. Getting rid of all the trash that cluttered up the saiyan race, leaving behind only the strong. It would be fitting.
His father shrugged, grabbing another fruit. "Most races aren't strong enough to survive on planet Vegeta. Those that can are too expensive." He said, chuckling when Vegeta tsked. He reached out, running his hands through Vegeta's hair as he continued. "My point, Vegeta, is that blunt force is not always the answer. You possess many gifts, the most important of them is your mind."
Vegeta didn't agree and his father knew it. "King Vegeta the First knew this back when the truffles still lived and this planet was called Plant. We were stronger physically, but they had numbers, technology and supplies. For ten years we fought against the truffles, the longest war in our history. It would have been over much sooner with our defeat if King Vegeta the First wasn't a brilliant strategist."
Vegeta knew the story. Every saiyan did. His ancestor used ambush tactics to weaken the enemy, and only fighting in pitched battles when victory was certain and overwhelming. It all accumulated in one final battle when the full moon came that only appeared every hundred years, finishing the truffles.
Despite himself, Vegeta saw his father's point. Even still… "Why does he have to die?" He asked, earning a pat on the head of approval for asking the right question.
"Because he may not be a threat now, but he will be. His team is comprised of some of the most promising warriors, all of them could raise to the mid-class. All of them loyal to him." His father explained, making Vegeta clench his jaw in outrage. They were loyal to a low-class warrior instead of their king?! "In time, they may all become mid-class, provided that none of that class die during the war, the mid-class will be comprised of nine that are loyal to me with five loyal to him."
"Four?" Vegeta questioned with a frown, opening up another nutrient bar. Not counting Bardock, there would only be four of his team that would be mid-class within a few years.
"His son, Raditz." His father answered, earning a poleaxed look from Vegeta. How did that make any sense? Low-class saiyans didn't have families, not like the elite. They didn't need them, so why would Raditz pick his father over his king?
His father ignored it, though, choosing to continue the lesson. "It would be a civil war. We would crush them, of course, but we would inevitably take losses as well. Worse, it could summon Frieza's attention." His father made him look up at him, his expression grave. "And should Frieza decides that he prefers Bardock over us, we will be slaughtered."
Vegeta's blood went cold at the thought of Frieza. Their meetings were few, but each one left an impression. Never before had he met someone that could so...effortlessly kill him. He didn't deny his father's words, knowing that they were true. Suddenly, the indirect approach made much more sense.
"That is why I agreed to his request to go on that mission. Tarble, as talented as he is, will most likely die. He simply isn't ready. It is a waste, but his death gives me justification for Bardock's execution and will more than make up for it." His father finally answered his original question, a satisfied smirk on his face. Either he was pleased with the plan he made or because Vegeta understood the lesson in full.
He only saw one problem with it. Tarble said that he wouldn't die.
Vegeta believed him.
…
Everything was hazy, my head felt like it was full of cotton, my ears stuffed with it as well, while my eyes were glazed over. I blinked once, twice, then a third time to clear them, dimly aware that I felt the wind on my face. Despite trying to keep them open, my eyes drifted back shut, sleep trying to claim me again-
I woke up when my face slammed into the ground, my body hitting so hard that I bounced. A grunt escaped me on the second landing, the shock quickly leaving, replaced with overwhelming pain. My entire body ached, every muscle feeling like it was stretched like taffy with countless scrapes and burns that covered me.
"Ughh," I groaned, forcing my eyes open as I threw myself onto my back, looking up at the night sky. What happened to me? Did I get my butt kicked by the saibamen again? A better question might be why I was seeing lights up above -- a bright white light almost the same size as the sun before it expanded outwards explosively, a white ring marked the perimeter of...of...a moon...blowing up.
"Uh," I started, staring up stupidly as everything hit me all at once. The mission, my role in it- a hand went up to my chest, feeling a groove where the blade cut through my armor. There was blood, but it was dried. Feeling the wound itself, to my shock, I felt that it was healed. No fresh blood, no pain or anything.
A surge of adrenaline helped me get to my feet, ignoring my body's screams for me to stay down. I kept my eyes to the sky, searching for another moon, only to find traces of their destruction. The moons were gone, meaning no Blutz waves, meaning no oozaru form...which meant that we were on a hostile alien planet without the ability to steamroll over them.
A weight settling in my stomach, I tore my gaze away to search my surroundings for a hint of where I was and for my team. I stood in the smoldering remains of a building, rubble surrounding me that still burned uncontrollably. Destruction stretched far beyond me -- it was impossible to tell from this angle, but the entire city looked like it had been flattened. It looked like a scene ripped right out of hell.
"Ugh," I groaned, straightening out my body as my mind raced. I needed to find the others. Destroying the moons was one hell of an opening move to a counter-attack, so how would they follow it up? Normal soldiers were useless against us, so that could only mean they would use scarabs. Throwing their slave-soldiers by the handful would be wasteful, and too much. No, I would send a vanguard unit -- they were already stronger than us, and, while I couldn't speak for the others, I was spent.
A sound brought my attention back to the sky, the sounds of a faint woosh, almost like the hymn of a-
Through the smoke emerged a half dozen space ships, a compact design, with its wings wide wings dipping down and curving inward. Dark orange lights marked its front and back -- from the angle that they descended, they almost looked like a creature than a spaceship. My admiring was cut short when the claw-like protrusion from underneath began firing yellow bolts of energy, all of them at the same time.
They slammed into the ground, breaking concrete with large thumps and explosions of dust and rubble. My eyes went wide, my body moving before I realized it. I threw myself out of the way, hiding behind a large pile of rubble. I could feel the vibrations of where the bolts slammed into it, though not through it, thankfully.
My relief was short-lived when the ships split in half, arcing to the side to make a second run. Hiding wouldn't solve anything, just delay the inevitable. I needed to run or destroy them. Given that my body felt too battered to run, and they controlled the skies, running would just get me killed.
I floated off the ground, shooting towards one group of the ships. My internal energy felt diminished, emptied out almost. When I formed a ki attack in my hand, it flickered like a dying flame in the wind. Fearing the worst, I fired it before it could vanish entirely. It sailed towards one of the ships, I half expected it to take evasive to dodge my attack. Instead, my ki blast hit it dead center, the ship exploding before falling to the ground, a trail of smoke marking its decent.
Wishing to follow up a good start, I dug deep as I forced myself to fly faster, the other two finished the maneuver as if they hadn't lost a companion. It was too smooth, too coordinated. I couldn't tell for certain, but I was sure that they were drones. With no hesitation, I lobbed another ki blast at them, forcing them to split further and delay firing on me.
A pang of exhaustion nearly overwhelmed me, feeling suddenly weak. It felt like I was on empty, running on fumes. Even still, I rushed towards one of the ships, using a burst of speed to close the distance between us. I touched down roughly, hard enough that the ship dipped low enough to clip a shell of a building, making it collapse completely behind us. So close to the glowing orange bits, the looked important, I decided, so I punched them until they blew up.
Instantly the ship began to fall, only then did I realize that they were like our ships floaters. Another ship, one from the other group, was hot on our trail. Its guns glowed, firing on me and the ship. Reacting instantly, I kicked down on the back, flipping the ship so it served as a brief shield from the blaster fire.
My shield exploded not long after, fire and smoke washing over me, but it went ignored. Gathering up some of the last dregs of my ki, I formed another ball of it in my hand and fired it through the smoke. I heard another explosion, telling me that my aim was dead on. Three down, three to go.
Swallowing a pant for breath, I flew away from the wreckage of my shield, darting towards a half standing building as I searched the skies for my opponents. One announced its presence with blaster fire, bright yellow blasts racing towards me as it came from the left. My small size was a blessing, offering a small target, which made it easy to dodge the fire. I waited until it was practically on top of me before I hit it with a ki blast, it tried to swerve out of the way at the last second, but it was too late.
Dodging the flaming wreckage, I sucked down air greedily, sweat pouring from my forehead. Just two left. Then I would regroup with the squad and we could get out of here. My moment of respite was ended by more blaster fire, this time coming from my left. I threw myself out of the way, only for more blaster fire to rain down upon me from above.
Making a split decision, I rushed upwards, zigzagging out of the way of dozens of blasts. It didn't try to swerve out of the way as I neared, intending to hit me to take me down with it, only I did a tight flip out of the way, slipping underneath it, my legs shooting out at the last second to kick it from underneath. The blasters tilted just enough to rip the ship below into shreds.
With an exhausted grunt, I punched the ship to death, it exploding, before I lowered myself to the ground. This planet might have less gravity than planet Vegeta, but it seemed to be a hundred times heavier with how I collapsed as soon as I touched down. For a moment, I just sat there on my hands and knees, beads of sweat pouring off me in rivers, the only sounds around me were the crackling of fire and my heavy breathing.
Then the sound of rubble shifting underfoot alerted me that I wasn't alone. With strength that I didn't have, I shot to my feet, my hands at the ready to-
"Tora?" I asked, seeing the other saiyan approach. His armor had seen better days, a few cuts and scrapes littered his skin, but he looked fine. Much better than me at any rate.
"Tarble. You figured out how to use energy blasts, good job." He complimented, approaching, stepping over...over a corpse. "I tried to get in touch with you earlier, but it looks like you lost your scouter."
Swallowing thickly, my throat feeling like it was lined with sand, I nodded. "How'd you keep yours?" I asked, relaxing ever so slightly.
"An old trick veterans pick up. I'll show you some other time, but for now we need to group up with Bardock." Tora explained, sounding far too calm. I frowned at him, narrowing my eyes in a silent demand for an explanation. They blew up the moons, they were counter-attacking, where was the panic?
"Come on, Shugesh is already there," Tora informed, taking off. I wiped the sweat from my forehead before following behind him. If he wasn't panicking then, as annoying as it was, it was a good sign. No one was dead, and he was confident in his ability to win or escape. Or, at least, he was confident that Bardock could win this or escape.
"What about Leek? He was by the moons, right?" I asked, trying to will myself to get a second wind.
"He and the ship are fine. Bardock saw this coming, so he had Leek take measures. He's hiding in the rubble of the moons now." He answered, getting a nod from me as I searched for any more aircraft. Everything was so dark, from the ground to the inky black sky, making it hard to actually see anything.
The only thing that illuminated the darkness were fires raging below from destroyed cities. We left the one Tora had destroyed, passing through another and approaching a third. I wonder how many power levels my scouter could pick up if I still had it. How many were left on the planet?
Not many, I would guess. How long had it been since we landed here? An hour? Two? Going Ozoru made it hard to tell, but it couldn't have been long.
Eventually, Tora angled downwards and I followed. It was hard to make them out in the darkness, but I could make out Bardock's form waving us down. His gaze raked over me, lingering on the mark on my armor. He cocked an eyebrow in a silent question.
"Uh, I landed on a building with a scarab in it. It stabbed me before I went oozaru." I explained, leaving a whole lot out of the story. There was no real reason why he had to know I tried to pass the scarab off to Tora and tried to sit out on massacring the natives.
Bardock frowned, eyeing the mark. "The oozoru transformation saved your life. Good job on not dying." He complimented, getting a stunned look from me followed by a hesitant nod. Bardock. Compliment. Those were two things that didn't go together like oil and water or pineapple and pizza.
Then he jerked his head to the side, "come on. The others are waiting." Bardock said, turning around and walking into what looked like a tunnel, though it would have been impossible to tell with a passing glance. Mountains of rubble hide it from view, perfect for regrouping on a hostile planet. Tora quickly followed with me bringing up the rear.
Inside, I saw that the tunnel was a lot larger than I thought it would be. Somewhere around the size of a subway, but there weren't any rails of any kind. Fasha, Borgos, and Shugesh were all there, sitting around a fire with chunks of meat roasting over it. They all sported some scrapes and bruises, but I was by far the one in the worst shape. Not surprising.
"Tarble? You survived? Shugesh, you owe me your pay for this mission," Fasha informed triumphantly, waving me over to sit by her. I obeyed, too tired to be surprised that there was a bet if I lived or not. I looked at the food longingly, reaching out to a chunk of meat with a skewer stuck through it. The skin was burnt and uneven, the long narrow shape of it making it a poor choice to lean over the fire-
My gaze landed on the end of the meat. Were...those fingers? Swallowing thickly, the jokes and good cheer around me falling on deaf ears as my gaze slowly drifted over the other chunks of meat. A leg, another arm, chunks of a torso…
They were eating nepotins.
All of a sudden my appetite vanished like smoke in the wind.
"My scouter is picking up a vanguard unit and three scouts," Bardock informed, taking a seat next to Tora as he grabbed a leg. I watched him take a bite of it, swallowing before speaking. "We have some time to rest, but it won't be long until they find this place."
"I took care of most of the army on the planet, so whatever soldiers are left came on the fleet," Shuegsh said, chewing on a bone, it crunching loudly. I was snapped out of my revulsion by what he said. Fleet? What fleet?
Fasha saw my confused look and explained in a low whisper, "the Reach is reinforcing the planet was a fleet. Borgos would have a better idea of what kinds, but it's a small one instead of a proper war fleet. A dozen ships, some really big ones too." Upon seeing my increasingly worried look, because there were five of us against a fleet of ships, she rubbed my head reassuringly. "Don't worry about it. We'll be fine."
Why were they so confident? The moons were destroyed and we were going up against five scarabs, two of them vanguards. We were trapped here.
"Hm. Really hate to use these things, but whatever gets the job done." Bardock continued, looking into a sack that Shugesh tossed at him. The smaller, rounder saiyan gave a careless shrug.
"I'm fine with it. Fighting ships just isn't the same as fighting a scarab, you know?" He dismissed, earning an agreeing nod from the other saiyans.
I looked at the sack, which was roughly the size of me, the bag lumpy so it was a bunch of things instead of one big one. What was inside, I couldn't even guess. If Bardock had Shugesh go get it in the middle of battle, it must be important though.
"I hear you," he agreed before he stood straighter, his gaze sweeping over all of us. "Right now, the Reach thinks that they had us cornered, pinned exactly where they want us. And that is exactly where we want them." He started with a savage grin, the low flickering light making him appear like a demon in the shadows. All things considered, we were worse than any demon.
"Tora, Borgos, Shugesh, you're with me. We're going to make a desperate break for the flagship hovering in orbit. One last hurrah," Bardock said, earning matching savage grins and an annoyed look from Fasha. Bardock saw it but didn't comment in favor of explaining his plan. "Fasha, you and Tarble are going to slip into space while we distract them."
Wait...what?
He tossed the sack at Fasha, who looked in, her expression told me she was unimpressed. "Antigrain warheads. Put them on the ships and blow them up. Our exit will be cleared, Leek will pick you up when he sees the light show."
What?
"Fine. The detonator in here?" Fasha asked, rummaging through the sack in search of it. What...what were antigrain warheads? Anything that named warhead sounded dangerous and not something you shoved into a bag. She found it before Bardock could answer and tucked it between her breasts.
I was seeing one really big problem with this plan.
"What about you?" I asked, wishing I could take the words back as soon as I said them when everyone gaze turned to me. Bardock sent him a questioning look, so I continued, "how are you going to deal with the scarabs? The moons are gone and…" Saying that they weren't strong enough to beat them didn't sound like a good idea.
Bardock just smirked, "you let me worry about that." He answered cryptically before jerked his chin at me. "Now go to sleep. You'll need it."
"But," I started, despite myself, shifting from foot to foot. Bardock saighed, gesturing at me in a way that said 'spit it out.' "Do we have to use weapons? Can't we just use ki attacks instead?" The idea of it left a bad taste in my mouth. The ships before seemed flimsy, so we could defiantly do it. Using weapons, especially alien weapons, just...I didn't want to do it.
Bardock sighed, striding over to me. For a split second, I thought he was going to hit me for questioning him. Instead, he dropped to a knee in front of me. He looked at me for a moment, letting me hear Fasha whisper to Tora, "What's a ki attack?"
"Tarble, I'm going to teach you something. It's a lesson that most of our race never learns, and because of it, hundreds of us die." Bardock started, staring a hole right into my head, I couldn't bring myself to so much as blink. "This lesson took me years to learn, and it cost me blood, sweat, and tears to do it. Do you want to know what it is?"
Not trusting my voice, I gave a jerky nod. Bardock stared at me for a moment longer, dragging out the tension. Then he spoke.
"Pride has its place. The battlefield isn't one of them," Bardock stated, pretty much throwing everything that I had learned in the tank into the garbage bin. Pride was everything to a saiyan. We needed it as much as we needed food, water, and a good fight. As if sensing my confusion, Bardock continued. "We could use energy attacks to destroy the ships, but what if you can't punch through the armor?"
I didn't answer. Bardock's eyes narrowed into a glare, "that wasn't a rhetoric question. What happens if you can't destroy the fleet with your own power?"
I shifted, not having to think too deeply about the outcome. "We die," I answered. We would be overwhelmed and then we would die.
"Exactly. With the warheads, they're guaranteed to work. Don't let your pride cloud your judgment -- the mission comes first, the team second, and your pride last. That's how we win. Do you understand?"
Did I? It made sense. It resonated with the part of me was still human. But that part of me seemed so small now. When I was human, I would have never killed. I would have never participated in a genocide. If I was still human, I would have given up against the first saibaman and died.
Bardock noticed that I was mulling it over before he stood back up, towering over me. "Now, go to sleep you'll need it."
With heavy thoughts, I turned away from the group, curling into a ball and closed my eyes. I thought sleep would have claimed me instantly, but it didn't. Maybe it was the fact I was sleeping on the ground, or the fact I was sleeping wasn't a good enough reason for the others to lower their voices. They laughed and joked, reminiscing over past missions.
I felt like an outsider. I shouldn't, the logical part of my brain told me. They had known each other for years, they fought together in countless battles. I knew them for less than a week. Even still, logic rang hollow when I knew that they would only laugh at me.
Sleep refused to claim me, so I slipped into myself like I did so many times before. My brain tried to latch on to countless thoughts of what happened in the past few hours, but I refused to think about them. All through the night, I refused to think about anything.
Time passed painfully slow but eventually, I felt someone shaking my shoulder to wake me up.
"Hm?" My eyes snapped open before the first shake could finish, seeing Fasha's face hovering above me. I sat up, not feeling refreshed, but stronger. It would have to do.
"It's time," was all she said before straightening. I pushed myself back to my feet, no sooner than I had, I felt something being pressed into my hand. A deep green scouter. Looking up, I saw it was Bardock that gave it to me.
"Don't use it unless you have to. The Reach will be monitoring for any communications and this plan hinges on you and Fasha not getting caught." He informed as I put the scouter on. Then he put a mask in my hand, similar to the one I wore in a healing tank. It was connected to a canister that he hooked up to my lower back without an explanation until he finished. "This is so you can breathe, don't let that hose get cut. You'll suffocate and die."
Um. Where was I going? I stared up at Bardock for a moment, the context clues painting a picture that I didn't like. At all. "The ships...are in space?" I ventured, getting a nod from the elder saiyan. Right. Of course, they were. I looked down at my armor, my undersuit not faring much better.
"You should be strong enough to survive the vacuum," Bardock answered, like what he said wasn't completely ridiculous. Though, as if to double-check, he scanned me with his own scouter, his eyes going wide when it settled on a number. I read the number backward, my eyes doing the same.
"The hell, 660? Weren't you at 630 yesterday?" He snapped, torn between sounding angry and surprised. His sharp tone caught the attention of everyone else, double-checking with their own scouter. I shifted from foot to foot underneath all the attention, unsure how to respond.
30 points, easily the largest jump yet. Absentmindedly, my hand went up to where the scarab stabbed me, my mind thinking furiously. I noticed it back when I was training with the saibamen, but my biggest jumps in pl happened when I was nearly beaten to death. Judging from the intense look Bardock gave the mostly healed wound, I think he noticed it too.
"660 and he's barely out of the pod? King Vegeta's kids really are freaks," Shugesh commented, breaking the intense silence. I heard some chuckling from the others while Bardock shook his head as if to clear his thoughts.
"Yeah, you should be good," Bardock said, his expression shifting back to a serious mask. "Stick with Fasha. We're heading out now." He said, turning to exit the tunnel we spent the night in. I swallowed thickly, putting on the mask to hide my expression. I double-checked the oxygen in it three times before we stood underneath the sun, the sky a chocolate brown, the white swirls standing out more now that the sun was out.
The destruction was also more apparent. Fires had died out, though trails of smoke still drift towards the sky, mountains of rubble stood in place of a city. At some point I must have gone nose blind to it, but I knew the air reeked with death. My gaze caught a body half-buried underneath chunks of stone, its blood long since died on the pavement. I quickly looked away.
"Don't die, any of you. I can't collect from a corpse," Fasha said, tapping fists with her squadmates.
"Don't remind me. I'm so deep in the hole I might as well be buried in it," Shugesh said with an exaggerated shudder. Tora gave her a lopsided grin and a nod, while Borgos and Bardock just nodded.
It was a simple goodbye of people expecting to see each other again. Whatever Bardock had up his nonexistent sleeves, it must be one hell of a trump card. With that, the four of them blasted off into the distance, rapidly making their way to a flagship hovering in low orbit somewhere. Before long, they were little more than specs in the distance.
"You ready?" Fasha questioned, tapping the top of my head with the bottom of her fist.
I was about to fly into space with no protective equipment. I nodded, trying to hide my doubts. The mask definitely helped because Fasha seemed to believe me this time.
"Good. Take these warheads," Fasha started, handing me a bag of antigrain warheads. They were shockingly light. Curious, I glanced inside and saw they looked like a really big bullet, roughly the size of a liter of soda. There were six in total. "Stick one on each ship, flat side to the ship so they stay there. Don't get caught either, because they'll swarm you with drones and then you're done for. Got that?"
Again I nodded.
"Then let's go," Fasha said, floating upwards, her own bag of antigrain warheads in hand with her mask secured. I floated up after her, feeling less sure about this by the second. Could I even break atmosphere without any kind of spaceship? It seemed insane.
Even still, I followed after Fasha. The ground grew more distant with every passing second, the clouds getting closer until we passed through them. The air grew colder as we continued, leaving the clouds behind us as well. Eventually, I felt less and less wind on my face, everything getting even colder until it felt like I was sticking my face against dry ice. It didn't hurt, not really, but it was really uncomfortable. The only places it did hurt were my cuts and scrapes.
And, just like that, I was in space. Without a spaceship or suit. Despite it all, laughter bubbled from my chest, my gaze sweeping over the planet below. It was the same view as before, but this time there wasn't a plane of glass to separate us. Unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing that had changed.
In the distance, I saw the fleet that hovered just outside of orbit. All of them shared the same theme as the ships I destroyed earlier, though hundreds of times larger. The largest of them was twice the size of all the others, and each of the others were the size of a skyscraper. Tiny specs rained down from the ships to the planet, it was landing new armies on the planet.
I couldn't risk using my scouter, but I could only assume that the scarabs would be mixed in. Between the three of them, I believe they could take on one vanguard unit, but more than that? With scouts providing support?
Shaking my head, I dismissed the thoughts to focus on the task at hand. They could deal with the armies. We had to deal with space ships.
Following Fasha, we flew towards the ships. In space, the only thing I could hear was the sound of my heartbeat thundering in my ears. Every second we got closer, I expected the ships to start to turn, alerted to our presence. Instead, we got closer and closer and closer and closer until the ships were close the ships were all that I could see.
I felt a hand tap my shoulder, nearly making me jump out of my skin. Fasha pointed to me, then half of the ships, the back half. My gaze racked over them, swallowing thickly, before I gave her a firm nod. I could do this. Fasha returned my nod before she flew off towards her half of the ships. I turned towards my half, ignoring my fears and my doubts.
Flying forward, if the tension was bad before, it was downright unbearable now. I tried to control my breathing as the first ship drew closer and closer and closer and closer until I could reach out and touch it. I looked around, expecting every single ship in the fleet to round on me and open fire. A second that felt like a century passed, and when nothing happened, only then did my hands dip into my bag to grab a warhead.
I stuck it to the ship how Fasha instructed, and it stuck there. I looked at it for a moment, the weapon jutting out against the sleek metal before I looked up at the ship. It was massive, completely filling up my field of view. I didn't know what an antigrain warhead could do, but it didn't look like it could do much to ships like these.
If Bardock was willing to bet it all on them working, then I guess I didn't have much of a choice but to hope that they would.
Floating away from the ship, I drifted towards another ship, careful not to move too fast or else the ships would take notice of me. After what felt like hours, but was less than a minute, I reached the ship and repeated the process. I spared a glance below me, still seeing pods raining down on the planet. They were bigger than ours, closer to the size of busses. Some didn't go straight down in favor of arcing out, covering the surface of the planet.
With two down, I went to do the same with the other four. Each second was unbearable, the feeling of vulnerability of knowing that there was nothing I could do if they noticed me was terrifying. I was lucky that it was too cold for me to sweat, or I would be picking pieces of ice off my forehead.
To my shock, as I placed the last warhead, I managed to do it without being noticed. With my heart pounding, my mouth uncomfortably dry, I spared a glance at my oxygen tank and saw that I still had plenty of time left. This was...easy. Incredibly easy. Shockingly easy. Where was the other shoe and when was it going to drop?
As if to answer my question, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. A bright light that I was rapidly recognizing as an attack caught my attention. For a split second, I thought that I jinxed myself and the attack was meant for me. When I followed where it was going, I saw Fasha flying between the ships, the blast slamming into a ship as she flew out of the way. Then my eyes darted to the source of the blast and my stomach dropped so hard that I'm surprised it didn't fall out of me.
In sleek black armor, a large scarab warrior fired another blast at Fasha. It looked almost identical to the one that nearly killed me, only it stood the same size as Borgos, the dark blue replaced with a dark gray. The scarab shifted on its back, turning into a jetpack, before it launched itself at Fasha, closing the distance between them in a blink of an eye.
The vanguard unit.
It threw a punch that Fasha barely managed to duck under, trying to counter only for a fist to be planted into her stomach. When she bent over involuntarily, a knee smashed into her face as a hand held her head in place. I saw her mask break under the blow, air leaking out as the black scarab grabbed her by the hair and slammed the back of her head into the flagship.
I froze, watching the scene. I couldn't fight that thing. Fasha was so much stronger than me, and as she slipped out of the hold and countered, it was clear who was winning. With her mask broken, air continuously leaked out and it wouldn't be long before she suffocated.
She has the detonator. I didn't see the bag, so either she dropped it or all of the warheads were in position.
Fasha blocked a punch with a forearm, returning it with an elbow to the face that the black scarab accepted. In return, one of the armlike bulges along its collar bone lifted up, lashing out and cutting the thin tube that fed Fasha oxygen. Her eyes widened, the air escaping her broken mask stopping instantly.
My body moved before I could think better of it. She had the detonator and even losing, she stood a much better chance of beating the thing than I did. I shot forward, a ki blast forming in my hands that I launched at the scarab. In the void of space, there was no warning of my attack until it slammed into it, doing exactly zero damage.
Not that I expected it to. Fasha seized the opportunity instantly, slipping away from the scarab. She sent me a look when I approached, but there was no time for explanations. To stop my lungs from exploding, I emptied them of air before I took off my mask and tank and passed it over to her. Her eyes widened, taking it, and no sooner than she had the black scarab was on us. I darted away, the scarab firing a blast at me, but it knew who was the bigger threat was.
Fasha fired off a ki blast to get its attention firmly on her as I dodged out of the way, feeling the heat of the attack wash over me. We needed a plan. Giving Fasha my oxygen tank bought us some time, but she couldn't win against that thing. Already, my lungs felt like they were burning, it wouldn't be long before I suffocated.
Forcing my heart to slow in my chest, I searched for any other threats, finding none. It was clear that they thought the black scarab would be enough to deal with us, and they probably weren't wrong.
My mind raced, my lungs burned, and time was ticking by with every second. We couldn't beat it in a straight-up fight, it was just too strong and we were too weak, so we needed something else. We needed-! The warheads!
The warheads were small but they stuck out like a sore thumb when you were looking for them. It only took a second to find the one stuck on the flagship when all of it was seamless metal. If it could take out a ship like this, then it could take out a scarab.
Then the question became how to use it against the scarab. Bringing the fight near the warhead would just get us all killed in the explosion. We had to get the scarab by the ship by itself. Maybe take out the scarab and kick it towards it? No, even if I jumped in, we wouldn't be able to scratch it, much less exploit an obvious weakness.
I needed...an attack. A powerful attack that would send the scarab flying. I wasn't strong enough to do it physically, and with its attention of Fasha, and me running out of air, I would only get one shot.
I needed…the answer I sought came to mind.
My hands cupped at my side, adopting a stance that it felt like I saw a thousand times. A ball of ki formed in my hands, beams of blue light slipping between my fingers. As I pumped more and more ki into the ball, it tried to grow but I forced it to be compact. Images of what it was supposed to look like helped me give it shape.
"Ka...me…" I started, my lips miming the words because my lungs were completely empty. The ball grew in strength as I put my all into it, knowing this was my best and only shot. "Ha...me…" It felt like it was going to explode in my hands, like a grenade that I was left cooking for too long.
"HAAAA!" I screamed, the kamehameha erupting from my hands, a cone of blue ki rather than the call of it that I expected. Either way, it had to work. It raced towards the scarab, Fasha's scouter must have given her an early warning because she disengaged. I saw it look up at the attack, but it was too late to get out of the way.
It struck head on, forcing the scarab back, consuming it in blue light, as it raced towards the flagship. Fasha must have realized what I was doing because as soon as the scarab got close enough to the warhead, a blast of light filled my vision, rendering me blind. Unlike every explosion before, I didn't hear or feel the aftermath. When the light faded, I looked at the flagship and saw it was broken in half.
The middle portion of the ship had just been deleted, there was no debris or anything. The closest thing I could compare it to was it was as if someone took an eraser to the middle portion. Looking behind me, I saw that the same happened to all the other ships. The fleet was destroyed.
We won.
Despite it all, despite what this victory meant, despite the oceans of blood that now stained my hands, I felt pride.
Then everything went dark.
...
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Dunes that towered over hundreds of feet above them, easily two oozorus tall. Some were flattened, collapsing from the ferocity of their spar, or vanishing entirely. The air shimmered from the heat, his brow soaked with sweat alongside his undersuit. Vegeta would sooner bite off his tongue before he complained, though.
"Yes, my son?" Father returned, tossing the core of a colorful fruit into his mouth before swallowing it whole. "Speak your mind. Hesitation is unbecoming of you."
Swallowing his nervousness, Vegeta straightened his shoulders as he spoke clearly. "Why did you allow that low-class trash to take my brother?" He asked- no, demanded! He was the prince of all saiyans, he asked for nothing!
His father glanced at him, revealing a deep cut over his eye. Dried blood covered half of his father's face -- his father was more excited over the wound that he managed to give him than Vegeta was. "He is not your brother," he reminded lightly, causing the younger Vegeta to scowl as he looked away.
Vegeta chose not to argue the point, his father having refused his demands to acknowledge Tarble as elite-class. Regardless of how little sense it made. Raditz, one of his squadmates, was considered mid-class with a power level of 750 just because he was born with one over 100. And apparently that was somehow impressive. It was ridiculous. Tarble's royal blood showed — barely out of the tank and he already had a power level nearing 700. It wouldn't be long before Tarble left that long-haired jumped up trash behind altogether and he would still be called low-class. As if their father could produce offspring so weak.
"Why did I allow it?" His father echoed, grabbing another fruit from a basket that the servants delivered. He gave Vegeta a long look, a frown tugging at his lips. Vegeta hastily looked down, suddenly finding his bloodied knuckles so very interesting. Even still, he gave a shallow nod, confirming the question.
"Because it gives me the chance to get rid of Bardock." His father answered, earning a puzzled look from Vegeta. He knew of who his father spoke of. There were few who didn't. Bardock was expected to rise to the mid-level within a few years, in addition to being the father of a mid-class, however weak Raditz might be. Not to mention the technique he created recently.
"Bardock?" Vegeta repeated, not expecting that. What did he have to do with anything? "If you need him to be disposed of, I can-"
"No, you cannot, my son." Father denied, eating half of it in a single bite. "There are times when you can't take action directly. This is one of those times." Vegeta scowled, his face twisting as he swallowed his retorts. That made no sense. If Bardock needed to die then why not just kill him?
"Bardock put himself out on a limb with this stunt. With any luck, it will break underneath him and send him straight to hell." His father mused, a savage grin on his face as he finished the fruit with another bite.
Vegeta didn't understand, feeling like he was missing something but too afraid- no, not afraid. He feared nothing! He was too...cautious to ask his father what he meant.
However, his father seemed to sense his confusion. A disappointed sigh escaped him, it took everything that Vegeta had not to flinch at the sound. "Vegeta, would do you think would happen if we killed Bardock?" He asked, adopting a cold tone that meant his father expected him to have the answer ready.
He didn't. The obvious answer was that they lost a halfway decent low-class warrior, but in his experience, the obvious answer wasn't the one that his father was looking for. When he didn't answer, his father huffed, clearly disappointed with him.
"Bardock is rather famous amongst the low-class. He fathered a mid-class warrior, he holds one of the highest successful mission records in Frieza-force history and he did it all with a power level below 5,000." His father explained as if he were telling him the answer, but Vegeta still struggled to understand what he was getting at.
What was the worst that could happen? Bardock might have some talent as a tactician -- enough so that his father had him study some of Bardock's mission reports, but tactics were nothing compared to power. Vegeta knew he could kill him in an instant.
"It is not who Bardock, but what he represents is why we cannot act against him, my child. He is the hope of the low-class. He is proof that they can rise above their station," Father said, smirking at my sneer. Those worms thought that climbing to mid-class would somehow mean they weren't trash. It was pathetic. And hilarious. "I agree that it's ridiculous, but the low-class need that hope. Otherwise, they would get...ideas."
"Ideas?" Vegeta echoed, not liking the sound of it.
"They are complacent because they believe they can rise above their station with enough effort. However, if they see that their hope is executed, they will doubt if they could become more than they are. If they doubt, then they will rebel." His father explained, draining a water container in a few gulps.
"...so?" Vegeta hesitantly asked. So what if the low-class rebelled? It could be fun crushing a rebellion.
"It would be annoying. We would have to catch and make our own food and clean up after ourselves." His father stated with a huff, sounding irritated by the thought of it. Vegeta grimaced, feeling much the same. He looked down at the nutrient bar in his hand, trying to imagine making it with how own two hands. He didn't know where he would start.
"We could just replace them with slaves," Vegeta ventured, finishing off the bar. That might be a good idea. Getting rid of all the trash that cluttered up the saiyan race, leaving behind only the strong. It would be fitting.
His father shrugged, grabbing another fruit. "Most races aren't strong enough to survive on planet Vegeta. Those that can are too expensive." He said, chuckling when Vegeta tsked. He reached out, running his hands through Vegeta's hair as he continued. "My point, Vegeta, is that blunt force is not always the answer. You possess many gifts, the most important of them is your mind."
Vegeta didn't agree and his father knew it. "King Vegeta the First knew this back when the truffles still lived and this planet was called Plant. We were stronger physically, but they had numbers, technology and supplies. For ten years we fought against the truffles, the longest war in our history. It would have been over much sooner with our defeat if King Vegeta the First wasn't a brilliant strategist."
Vegeta knew the story. Every saiyan did. His ancestor used ambush tactics to weaken the enemy, and only fighting in pitched battles when victory was certain and overwhelming. It all accumulated in one final battle when the full moon came that only appeared every hundred years, finishing the truffles.
Despite himself, Vegeta saw his father's point. Even still… "Why does he have to die?" He asked, earning a pat on the head of approval for asking the right question.
"Because he may not be a threat now, but he will be. His team is comprised of some of the most promising warriors, all of them could raise to the mid-class. All of them loyal to him." His father explained, making Vegeta clench his jaw in outrage. They were loyal to a low-class warrior instead of their king?! "In time, they may all become mid-class, provided that none of that class die during the war, the mid-class will be comprised of nine that are loyal to me with five loyal to him."
"Four?" Vegeta questioned with a frown, opening up another nutrient bar. Not counting Bardock, there would only be four of his team that would be mid-class within a few years.
"His son, Raditz." His father answered, earning a poleaxed look from Vegeta. How did that make any sense? Low-class saiyans didn't have families, not like the elite. They didn't need them, so why would Raditz pick his father over his king?
His father ignored it, though, choosing to continue the lesson. "It would be a civil war. We would crush them, of course, but we would inevitably take losses as well. Worse, it could summon Frieza's attention." His father made him look up at him, his expression grave. "And should Frieza decides that he prefers Bardock over us, we will be slaughtered."
Vegeta's blood went cold at the thought of Frieza. Their meetings were few, but each one left an impression. Never before had he met someone that could so...effortlessly kill him. He didn't deny his father's words, knowing that they were true. Suddenly, the indirect approach made much more sense.
"That is why I agreed to his request to go on that mission. Tarble, as talented as he is, will most likely die. He simply isn't ready. It is a waste, but his death gives me justification for Bardock's execution and will more than make up for it." His father finally answered his original question, a satisfied smirk on his face. Either he was pleased with the plan he made or because Vegeta understood the lesson in full.
He only saw one problem with it. Tarble said that he wouldn't die.
Vegeta believed him.
…
Everything was hazy, my head felt like it was full of cotton, my ears stuffed with it as well, while my eyes were glazed over. I blinked once, twice, then a third time to clear them, dimly aware that I felt the wind on my face. Despite trying to keep them open, my eyes drifted back shut, sleep trying to claim me again-
I woke up when my face slammed into the ground, my body hitting so hard that I bounced. A grunt escaped me on the second landing, the shock quickly leaving, replaced with overwhelming pain. My entire body ached, every muscle feeling like it was stretched like taffy with countless scrapes and burns that covered me.
"Ughh," I groaned, forcing my eyes open as I threw myself onto my back, looking up at the night sky. What happened to me? Did I get my butt kicked by the saibamen again? A better question might be why I was seeing lights up above -- a bright white light almost the same size as the sun before it expanded outwards explosively, a white ring marked the perimeter of...of...a moon...blowing up.
"Uh," I started, staring up stupidly as everything hit me all at once. The mission, my role in it- a hand went up to my chest, feeling a groove where the blade cut through my armor. There was blood, but it was dried. Feeling the wound itself, to my shock, I felt that it was healed. No fresh blood, no pain or anything.
A surge of adrenaline helped me get to my feet, ignoring my body's screams for me to stay down. I kept my eyes to the sky, searching for another moon, only to find traces of their destruction. The moons were gone, meaning no Blutz waves, meaning no oozaru form...which meant that we were on a hostile alien planet without the ability to steamroll over them.
A weight settling in my stomach, I tore my gaze away to search my surroundings for a hint of where I was and for my team. I stood in the smoldering remains of a building, rubble surrounding me that still burned uncontrollably. Destruction stretched far beyond me -- it was impossible to tell from this angle, but the entire city looked like it had been flattened. It looked like a scene ripped right out of hell.
"Ugh," I groaned, straightening out my body as my mind raced. I needed to find the others. Destroying the moons was one hell of an opening move to a counter-attack, so how would they follow it up? Normal soldiers were useless against us, so that could only mean they would use scarabs. Throwing their slave-soldiers by the handful would be wasteful, and too much. No, I would send a vanguard unit -- they were already stronger than us, and, while I couldn't speak for the others, I was spent.
A sound brought my attention back to the sky, the sounds of a faint woosh, almost like the hymn of a-
Through the smoke emerged a half dozen space ships, a compact design, with its wings wide wings dipping down and curving inward. Dark orange lights marked its front and back -- from the angle that they descended, they almost looked like a creature than a spaceship. My admiring was cut short when the claw-like protrusion from underneath began firing yellow bolts of energy, all of them at the same time.
They slammed into the ground, breaking concrete with large thumps and explosions of dust and rubble. My eyes went wide, my body moving before I realized it. I threw myself out of the way, hiding behind a large pile of rubble. I could feel the vibrations of where the bolts slammed into it, though not through it, thankfully.
My relief was short-lived when the ships split in half, arcing to the side to make a second run. Hiding wouldn't solve anything, just delay the inevitable. I needed to run or destroy them. Given that my body felt too battered to run, and they controlled the skies, running would just get me killed.
I floated off the ground, shooting towards one group of the ships. My internal energy felt diminished, emptied out almost. When I formed a ki attack in my hand, it flickered like a dying flame in the wind. Fearing the worst, I fired it before it could vanish entirely. It sailed towards one of the ships, I half expected it to take evasive to dodge my attack. Instead, my ki blast hit it dead center, the ship exploding before falling to the ground, a trail of smoke marking its decent.
Wishing to follow up a good start, I dug deep as I forced myself to fly faster, the other two finished the maneuver as if they hadn't lost a companion. It was too smooth, too coordinated. I couldn't tell for certain, but I was sure that they were drones. With no hesitation, I lobbed another ki blast at them, forcing them to split further and delay firing on me.
A pang of exhaustion nearly overwhelmed me, feeling suddenly weak. It felt like I was on empty, running on fumes. Even still, I rushed towards one of the ships, using a burst of speed to close the distance between us. I touched down roughly, hard enough that the ship dipped low enough to clip a shell of a building, making it collapse completely behind us. So close to the glowing orange bits, the looked important, I decided, so I punched them until they blew up.
Instantly the ship began to fall, only then did I realize that they were like our ships floaters. Another ship, one from the other group, was hot on our trail. Its guns glowed, firing on me and the ship. Reacting instantly, I kicked down on the back, flipping the ship so it served as a brief shield from the blaster fire.
My shield exploded not long after, fire and smoke washing over me, but it went ignored. Gathering up some of the last dregs of my ki, I formed another ball of it in my hand and fired it through the smoke. I heard another explosion, telling me that my aim was dead on. Three down, three to go.
Swallowing a pant for breath, I flew away from the wreckage of my shield, darting towards a half standing building as I searched the skies for my opponents. One announced its presence with blaster fire, bright yellow blasts racing towards me as it came from the left. My small size was a blessing, offering a small target, which made it easy to dodge the fire. I waited until it was practically on top of me before I hit it with a ki blast, it tried to swerve out of the way at the last second, but it was too late.
Dodging the flaming wreckage, I sucked down air greedily, sweat pouring from my forehead. Just two left. Then I would regroup with the squad and we could get out of here. My moment of respite was ended by more blaster fire, this time coming from my left. I threw myself out of the way, only for more blaster fire to rain down upon me from above.
Making a split decision, I rushed upwards, zigzagging out of the way of dozens of blasts. It didn't try to swerve out of the way as I neared, intending to hit me to take me down with it, only I did a tight flip out of the way, slipping underneath it, my legs shooting out at the last second to kick it from underneath. The blasters tilted just enough to rip the ship below into shreds.
With an exhausted grunt, I punched the ship to death, it exploding, before I lowered myself to the ground. This planet might have less gravity than planet Vegeta, but it seemed to be a hundred times heavier with how I collapsed as soon as I touched down. For a moment, I just sat there on my hands and knees, beads of sweat pouring off me in rivers, the only sounds around me were the crackling of fire and my heavy breathing.
Then the sound of rubble shifting underfoot alerted me that I wasn't alone. With strength that I didn't have, I shot to my feet, my hands at the ready to-
"Tora?" I asked, seeing the other saiyan approach. His armor had seen better days, a few cuts and scrapes littered his skin, but he looked fine. Much better than me at any rate.
"Tarble. You figured out how to use energy blasts, good job." He complimented, approaching, stepping over...over a corpse. "I tried to get in touch with you earlier, but it looks like you lost your scouter."
Swallowing thickly, my throat feeling like it was lined with sand, I nodded. "How'd you keep yours?" I asked, relaxing ever so slightly.
"An old trick veterans pick up. I'll show you some other time, but for now we need to group up with Bardock." Tora explained, sounding far too calm. I frowned at him, narrowing my eyes in a silent demand for an explanation. They blew up the moons, they were counter-attacking, where was the panic?
"Come on, Shugesh is already there," Tora informed, taking off. I wiped the sweat from my forehead before following behind him. If he wasn't panicking then, as annoying as it was, it was a good sign. No one was dead, and he was confident in his ability to win or escape. Or, at least, he was confident that Bardock could win this or escape.
"What about Leek? He was by the moons, right?" I asked, trying to will myself to get a second wind.
"He and the ship are fine. Bardock saw this coming, so he had Leek take measures. He's hiding in the rubble of the moons now." He answered, getting a nod from me as I searched for any more aircraft. Everything was so dark, from the ground to the inky black sky, making it hard to actually see anything.
The only thing that illuminated the darkness were fires raging below from destroyed cities. We left the one Tora had destroyed, passing through another and approaching a third. I wonder how many power levels my scouter could pick up if I still had it. How many were left on the planet?
Not many, I would guess. How long had it been since we landed here? An hour? Two? Going Ozoru made it hard to tell, but it couldn't have been long.
Eventually, Tora angled downwards and I followed. It was hard to make them out in the darkness, but I could make out Bardock's form waving us down. His gaze raked over me, lingering on the mark on my armor. He cocked an eyebrow in a silent question.
"Uh, I landed on a building with a scarab in it. It stabbed me before I went oozaru." I explained, leaving a whole lot out of the story. There was no real reason why he had to know I tried to pass the scarab off to Tora and tried to sit out on massacring the natives.
Bardock frowned, eyeing the mark. "The oozoru transformation saved your life. Good job on not dying." He complimented, getting a stunned look from me followed by a hesitant nod. Bardock. Compliment. Those were two things that didn't go together like oil and water or pineapple and pizza.
Then he jerked his head to the side, "come on. The others are waiting." Bardock said, turning around and walking into what looked like a tunnel, though it would have been impossible to tell with a passing glance. Mountains of rubble hide it from view, perfect for regrouping on a hostile planet. Tora quickly followed with me bringing up the rear.
Inside, I saw that the tunnel was a lot larger than I thought it would be. Somewhere around the size of a subway, but there weren't any rails of any kind. Fasha, Borgos, and Shugesh were all there, sitting around a fire with chunks of meat roasting over it. They all sported some scrapes and bruises, but I was by far the one in the worst shape. Not surprising.
"Tarble? You survived? Shugesh, you owe me your pay for this mission," Fasha informed triumphantly, waving me over to sit by her. I obeyed, too tired to be surprised that there was a bet if I lived or not. I looked at the food longingly, reaching out to a chunk of meat with a skewer stuck through it. The skin was burnt and uneven, the long narrow shape of it making it a poor choice to lean over the fire-
My gaze landed on the end of the meat. Were...those fingers? Swallowing thickly, the jokes and good cheer around me falling on deaf ears as my gaze slowly drifted over the other chunks of meat. A leg, another arm, chunks of a torso…
They were eating nepotins.
All of a sudden my appetite vanished like smoke in the wind.
"My scouter is picking up a vanguard unit and three scouts," Bardock informed, taking a seat next to Tora as he grabbed a leg. I watched him take a bite of it, swallowing before speaking. "We have some time to rest, but it won't be long until they find this place."
"I took care of most of the army on the planet, so whatever soldiers are left came on the fleet," Shuegsh said, chewing on a bone, it crunching loudly. I was snapped out of my revulsion by what he said. Fleet? What fleet?
Fasha saw my confused look and explained in a low whisper, "the Reach is reinforcing the planet was a fleet. Borgos would have a better idea of what kinds, but it's a small one instead of a proper war fleet. A dozen ships, some really big ones too." Upon seeing my increasingly worried look, because there were five of us against a fleet of ships, she rubbed my head reassuringly. "Don't worry about it. We'll be fine."
Why were they so confident? The moons were destroyed and we were going up against five scarabs, two of them vanguards. We were trapped here.
"Hm. Really hate to use these things, but whatever gets the job done." Bardock continued, looking into a sack that Shugesh tossed at him. The smaller, rounder saiyan gave a careless shrug.
"I'm fine with it. Fighting ships just isn't the same as fighting a scarab, you know?" He dismissed, earning an agreeing nod from the other saiyans.
I looked at the sack, which was roughly the size of me, the bag lumpy so it was a bunch of things instead of one big one. What was inside, I couldn't even guess. If Bardock had Shugesh go get it in the middle of battle, it must be important though.
"I hear you," he agreed before he stood straighter, his gaze sweeping over all of us. "Right now, the Reach thinks that they had us cornered, pinned exactly where they want us. And that is exactly where we want them." He started with a savage grin, the low flickering light making him appear like a demon in the shadows. All things considered, we were worse than any demon.
"Tora, Borgos, Shugesh, you're with me. We're going to make a desperate break for the flagship hovering in orbit. One last hurrah," Bardock said, earning matching savage grins and an annoyed look from Fasha. Bardock saw it but didn't comment in favor of explaining his plan. "Fasha, you and Tarble are going to slip into space while we distract them."
Wait...what?
He tossed the sack at Fasha, who looked in, her expression told me she was unimpressed. "Antigrain warheads. Put them on the ships and blow them up. Our exit will be cleared, Leek will pick you up when he sees the light show."
What?
"Fine. The detonator in here?" Fasha asked, rummaging through the sack in search of it. What...what were antigrain warheads? Anything that named warhead sounded dangerous and not something you shoved into a bag. She found it before Bardock could answer and tucked it between her breasts.
I was seeing one really big problem with this plan.
"What about you?" I asked, wishing I could take the words back as soon as I said them when everyone gaze turned to me. Bardock sent him a questioning look, so I continued, "how are you going to deal with the scarabs? The moons are gone and…" Saying that they weren't strong enough to beat them didn't sound like a good idea.
Bardock just smirked, "you let me worry about that." He answered cryptically before jerked his chin at me. "Now go to sleep. You'll need it."
"But," I started, despite myself, shifting from foot to foot. Bardock saighed, gesturing at me in a way that said 'spit it out.' "Do we have to use weapons? Can't we just use ki attacks instead?" The idea of it left a bad taste in my mouth. The ships before seemed flimsy, so we could defiantly do it. Using weapons, especially alien weapons, just...I didn't want to do it.
Bardock sighed, striding over to me. For a split second, I thought he was going to hit me for questioning him. Instead, he dropped to a knee in front of me. He looked at me for a moment, letting me hear Fasha whisper to Tora, "What's a ki attack?"
"Tarble, I'm going to teach you something. It's a lesson that most of our race never learns, and because of it, hundreds of us die." Bardock started, staring a hole right into my head, I couldn't bring myself to so much as blink. "This lesson took me years to learn, and it cost me blood, sweat, and tears to do it. Do you want to know what it is?"
Not trusting my voice, I gave a jerky nod. Bardock stared at me for a moment longer, dragging out the tension. Then he spoke.
"Pride has its place. The battlefield isn't one of them," Bardock stated, pretty much throwing everything that I had learned in the tank into the garbage bin. Pride was everything to a saiyan. We needed it as much as we needed food, water, and a good fight. As if sensing my confusion, Bardock continued. "We could use energy attacks to destroy the ships, but what if you can't punch through the armor?"
I didn't answer. Bardock's eyes narrowed into a glare, "that wasn't a rhetoric question. What happens if you can't destroy the fleet with your own power?"
I shifted, not having to think too deeply about the outcome. "We die," I answered. We would be overwhelmed and then we would die.
"Exactly. With the warheads, they're guaranteed to work. Don't let your pride cloud your judgment -- the mission comes first, the team second, and your pride last. That's how we win. Do you understand?"
Did I? It made sense. It resonated with the part of me was still human. But that part of me seemed so small now. When I was human, I would have never killed. I would have never participated in a genocide. If I was still human, I would have given up against the first saibaman and died.
Bardock noticed that I was mulling it over before he stood back up, towering over me. "Now, go to sleep you'll need it."
With heavy thoughts, I turned away from the group, curling into a ball and closed my eyes. I thought sleep would have claimed me instantly, but it didn't. Maybe it was the fact I was sleeping on the ground, or the fact I was sleeping wasn't a good enough reason for the others to lower their voices. They laughed and joked, reminiscing over past missions.
I felt like an outsider. I shouldn't, the logical part of my brain told me. They had known each other for years, they fought together in countless battles. I knew them for less than a week. Even still, logic rang hollow when I knew that they would only laugh at me.
Sleep refused to claim me, so I slipped into myself like I did so many times before. My brain tried to latch on to countless thoughts of what happened in the past few hours, but I refused to think about them. All through the night, I refused to think about anything.
Time passed painfully slow but eventually, I felt someone shaking my shoulder to wake me up.
"Hm?" My eyes snapped open before the first shake could finish, seeing Fasha's face hovering above me. I sat up, not feeling refreshed, but stronger. It would have to do.
"It's time," was all she said before straightening. I pushed myself back to my feet, no sooner than I had, I felt something being pressed into my hand. A deep green scouter. Looking up, I saw it was Bardock that gave it to me.
"Don't use it unless you have to. The Reach will be monitoring for any communications and this plan hinges on you and Fasha not getting caught." He informed as I put the scouter on. Then he put a mask in my hand, similar to the one I wore in a healing tank. It was connected to a canister that he hooked up to my lower back without an explanation until he finished. "This is so you can breathe, don't let that hose get cut. You'll suffocate and die."
Um. Where was I going? I stared up at Bardock for a moment, the context clues painting a picture that I didn't like. At all. "The ships...are in space?" I ventured, getting a nod from the elder saiyan. Right. Of course, they were. I looked down at my armor, my undersuit not faring much better.
"You should be strong enough to survive the vacuum," Bardock answered, like what he said wasn't completely ridiculous. Though, as if to double-check, he scanned me with his own scouter, his eyes going wide when it settled on a number. I read the number backward, my eyes doing the same.
"The hell, 660? Weren't you at 630 yesterday?" He snapped, torn between sounding angry and surprised. His sharp tone caught the attention of everyone else, double-checking with their own scouter. I shifted from foot to foot underneath all the attention, unsure how to respond.
30 points, easily the largest jump yet. Absentmindedly, my hand went up to where the scarab stabbed me, my mind thinking furiously. I noticed it back when I was training with the saibamen, but my biggest jumps in pl happened when I was nearly beaten to death. Judging from the intense look Bardock gave the mostly healed wound, I think he noticed it too.
"660 and he's barely out of the pod? King Vegeta's kids really are freaks," Shugesh commented, breaking the intense silence. I heard some chuckling from the others while Bardock shook his head as if to clear his thoughts.
"Yeah, you should be good," Bardock said, his expression shifting back to a serious mask. "Stick with Fasha. We're heading out now." He said, turning to exit the tunnel we spent the night in. I swallowed thickly, putting on the mask to hide my expression. I double-checked the oxygen in it three times before we stood underneath the sun, the sky a chocolate brown, the white swirls standing out more now that the sun was out.
The destruction was also more apparent. Fires had died out, though trails of smoke still drift towards the sky, mountains of rubble stood in place of a city. At some point I must have gone nose blind to it, but I knew the air reeked with death. My gaze caught a body half-buried underneath chunks of stone, its blood long since died on the pavement. I quickly looked away.
"Don't die, any of you. I can't collect from a corpse," Fasha said, tapping fists with her squadmates.
"Don't remind me. I'm so deep in the hole I might as well be buried in it," Shugesh said with an exaggerated shudder. Tora gave her a lopsided grin and a nod, while Borgos and Bardock just nodded.
It was a simple goodbye of people expecting to see each other again. Whatever Bardock had up his nonexistent sleeves, it must be one hell of a trump card. With that, the four of them blasted off into the distance, rapidly making their way to a flagship hovering in low orbit somewhere. Before long, they were little more than specs in the distance.
"You ready?" Fasha questioned, tapping the top of my head with the bottom of her fist.
I was about to fly into space with no protective equipment. I nodded, trying to hide my doubts. The mask definitely helped because Fasha seemed to believe me this time.
"Good. Take these warheads," Fasha started, handing me a bag of antigrain warheads. They were shockingly light. Curious, I glanced inside and saw they looked like a really big bullet, roughly the size of a liter of soda. There were six in total. "Stick one on each ship, flat side to the ship so they stay there. Don't get caught either, because they'll swarm you with drones and then you're done for. Got that?"
Again I nodded.
"Then let's go," Fasha said, floating upwards, her own bag of antigrain warheads in hand with her mask secured. I floated up after her, feeling less sure about this by the second. Could I even break atmosphere without any kind of spaceship? It seemed insane.
Even still, I followed after Fasha. The ground grew more distant with every passing second, the clouds getting closer until we passed through them. The air grew colder as we continued, leaving the clouds behind us as well. Eventually, I felt less and less wind on my face, everything getting even colder until it felt like I was sticking my face against dry ice. It didn't hurt, not really, but it was really uncomfortable. The only places it did hurt were my cuts and scrapes.
And, just like that, I was in space. Without a spaceship or suit. Despite it all, laughter bubbled from my chest, my gaze sweeping over the planet below. It was the same view as before, but this time there wasn't a plane of glass to separate us. Unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing that had changed.
In the distance, I saw the fleet that hovered just outside of orbit. All of them shared the same theme as the ships I destroyed earlier, though hundreds of times larger. The largest of them was twice the size of all the others, and each of the others were the size of a skyscraper. Tiny specs rained down from the ships to the planet, it was landing new armies on the planet.
I couldn't risk using my scouter, but I could only assume that the scarabs would be mixed in. Between the three of them, I believe they could take on one vanguard unit, but more than that? With scouts providing support?
Shaking my head, I dismissed the thoughts to focus on the task at hand. They could deal with the armies. We had to deal with space ships.
Following Fasha, we flew towards the ships. In space, the only thing I could hear was the sound of my heartbeat thundering in my ears. Every second we got closer, I expected the ships to start to turn, alerted to our presence. Instead, we got closer and closer and closer and closer until the ships were close the ships were all that I could see.
I felt a hand tap my shoulder, nearly making me jump out of my skin. Fasha pointed to me, then half of the ships, the back half. My gaze racked over them, swallowing thickly, before I gave her a firm nod. I could do this. Fasha returned my nod before she flew off towards her half of the ships. I turned towards my half, ignoring my fears and my doubts.
Flying forward, if the tension was bad before, it was downright unbearable now. I tried to control my breathing as the first ship drew closer and closer and closer and closer until I could reach out and touch it. I looked around, expecting every single ship in the fleet to round on me and open fire. A second that felt like a century passed, and when nothing happened, only then did my hands dip into my bag to grab a warhead.
I stuck it to the ship how Fasha instructed, and it stuck there. I looked at it for a moment, the weapon jutting out against the sleek metal before I looked up at the ship. It was massive, completely filling up my field of view. I didn't know what an antigrain warhead could do, but it didn't look like it could do much to ships like these.
If Bardock was willing to bet it all on them working, then I guess I didn't have much of a choice but to hope that they would.
Floating away from the ship, I drifted towards another ship, careful not to move too fast or else the ships would take notice of me. After what felt like hours, but was less than a minute, I reached the ship and repeated the process. I spared a glance below me, still seeing pods raining down on the planet. They were bigger than ours, closer to the size of busses. Some didn't go straight down in favor of arcing out, covering the surface of the planet.
With two down, I went to do the same with the other four. Each second was unbearable, the feeling of vulnerability of knowing that there was nothing I could do if they noticed me was terrifying. I was lucky that it was too cold for me to sweat, or I would be picking pieces of ice off my forehead.
To my shock, as I placed the last warhead, I managed to do it without being noticed. With my heart pounding, my mouth uncomfortably dry, I spared a glance at my oxygen tank and saw that I still had plenty of time left. This was...easy. Incredibly easy. Shockingly easy. Where was the other shoe and when was it going to drop?
As if to answer my question, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. A bright light that I was rapidly recognizing as an attack caught my attention. For a split second, I thought that I jinxed myself and the attack was meant for me. When I followed where it was going, I saw Fasha flying between the ships, the blast slamming into a ship as she flew out of the way. Then my eyes darted to the source of the blast and my stomach dropped so hard that I'm surprised it didn't fall out of me.
In sleek black armor, a large scarab warrior fired another blast at Fasha. It looked almost identical to the one that nearly killed me, only it stood the same size as Borgos, the dark blue replaced with a dark gray. The scarab shifted on its back, turning into a jetpack, before it launched itself at Fasha, closing the distance between them in a blink of an eye.
The vanguard unit.
It threw a punch that Fasha barely managed to duck under, trying to counter only for a fist to be planted into her stomach. When she bent over involuntarily, a knee smashed into her face as a hand held her head in place. I saw her mask break under the blow, air leaking out as the black scarab grabbed her by the hair and slammed the back of her head into the flagship.
I froze, watching the scene. I couldn't fight that thing. Fasha was so much stronger than me, and as she slipped out of the hold and countered, it was clear who was winning. With her mask broken, air continuously leaked out and it wouldn't be long before she suffocated.
She has the detonator. I didn't see the bag, so either she dropped it or all of the warheads were in position.
Fasha blocked a punch with a forearm, returning it with an elbow to the face that the black scarab accepted. In return, one of the armlike bulges along its collar bone lifted up, lashing out and cutting the thin tube that fed Fasha oxygen. Her eyes widened, the air escaping her broken mask stopping instantly.
My body moved before I could think better of it. She had the detonator and even losing, she stood a much better chance of beating the thing than I did. I shot forward, a ki blast forming in my hands that I launched at the scarab. In the void of space, there was no warning of my attack until it slammed into it, doing exactly zero damage.
Not that I expected it to. Fasha seized the opportunity instantly, slipping away from the scarab. She sent me a look when I approached, but there was no time for explanations. To stop my lungs from exploding, I emptied them of air before I took off my mask and tank and passed it over to her. Her eyes widened, taking it, and no sooner than she had the black scarab was on us. I darted away, the scarab firing a blast at me, but it knew who was the bigger threat was.
Fasha fired off a ki blast to get its attention firmly on her as I dodged out of the way, feeling the heat of the attack wash over me. We needed a plan. Giving Fasha my oxygen tank bought us some time, but she couldn't win against that thing. Already, my lungs felt like they were burning, it wouldn't be long before I suffocated.
Forcing my heart to slow in my chest, I searched for any other threats, finding none. It was clear that they thought the black scarab would be enough to deal with us, and they probably weren't wrong.
My mind raced, my lungs burned, and time was ticking by with every second. We couldn't beat it in a straight-up fight, it was just too strong and we were too weak, so we needed something else. We needed-! The warheads!
The warheads were small but they stuck out like a sore thumb when you were looking for them. It only took a second to find the one stuck on the flagship when all of it was seamless metal. If it could take out a ship like this, then it could take out a scarab.
Then the question became how to use it against the scarab. Bringing the fight near the warhead would just get us all killed in the explosion. We had to get the scarab by the ship by itself. Maybe take out the scarab and kick it towards it? No, even if I jumped in, we wouldn't be able to scratch it, much less exploit an obvious weakness.
I needed...an attack. A powerful attack that would send the scarab flying. I wasn't strong enough to do it physically, and with its attention of Fasha, and me running out of air, I would only get one shot.
I needed…the answer I sought came to mind.
My hands cupped at my side, adopting a stance that it felt like I saw a thousand times. A ball of ki formed in my hands, beams of blue light slipping between my fingers. As I pumped more and more ki into the ball, it tried to grow but I forced it to be compact. Images of what it was supposed to look like helped me give it shape.
"Ka...me…" I started, my lips miming the words because my lungs were completely empty. The ball grew in strength as I put my all into it, knowing this was my best and only shot. "Ha...me…" It felt like it was going to explode in my hands, like a grenade that I was left cooking for too long.
"HAAAA!" I screamed, the kamehameha erupting from my hands, a cone of blue ki rather than the call of it that I expected. Either way, it had to work. It raced towards the scarab, Fasha's scouter must have given her an early warning because she disengaged. I saw it look up at the attack, but it was too late to get out of the way.
It struck head on, forcing the scarab back, consuming it in blue light, as it raced towards the flagship. Fasha must have realized what I was doing because as soon as the scarab got close enough to the warhead, a blast of light filled my vision, rendering me blind. Unlike every explosion before, I didn't hear or feel the aftermath. When the light faded, I looked at the flagship and saw it was broken in half.
The middle portion of the ship had just been deleted, there was no debris or anything. The closest thing I could compare it to was it was as if someone took an eraser to the middle portion. Looking behind me, I saw that the same happened to all the other ships. The fleet was destroyed.
We won.
Despite it all, despite what this victory meant, despite the oceans of blood that now stained my hands, I felt pride.
Then everything went dark.
...
The next chapter is currently available on my Patreon, so if you want to read it a week early, all it takes is a single dollar in the tip jar. I hope you enjoyed!
White Lantern
A really overpowered Mary Sue self insert
- Location
- Sector 2184
Ah yes the kamehameha. is there any chance of him trying to use ki blades? its a underutilized ability in fan fiction
also apparently one of the deadliest weapons around aside from the destructo disk, which is why its hardly ever used! would make the fights less exciting but I think we would all agree that fighting smarter for his is a must.
I really recommend you not do this. From the DBZ side of things you'll get nothing but a slap on the wrist, but DC likes to lawyer up. Getting paid for fan content that isn't parody is illegal.
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- Location
- USA
Ah, but this is transformative, and he is publishing them for free public consumption almost directly afterwards.
It's copyright infringement, because he's earning money from properties that are not his. To qualify as transformative it either has to be parody, critique, or commentary. Fanfic itself operates on a moral grey area. It only becomes illegal when you start making money off it.
- Location
- USA
It only becomes copyright infringement if I were putting the chapters behind a paywall. Since all content does become free, it doesn't qualify. My supporters pay to receive a product early, not for the product itself, if that makes sense.
They're still paying for it. The pay wall does exist even if temporary, and you're making money off copyrighted franchises. It's illegal dude no matter how you dress it.
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Skelethin
Barebones Writer
Disagree. Its access to his writing, but as he is not trying to sell the work itself this becomes a question of if anyone who matters cares enough to do anything about it.
Could he get in trouble? Hard maybe. But thats true of literally all fanfiction.
You have given your opinion on it already, so just chill on raging about it being illegal or not. The author, and literally everyone else on this site is free to disregard your warning without being hassled about it further.
I'm stating facts, and I'm not raging. Look at the time stamp. You're late to the party. The discussion was already dead.
Skelethin
Barebones Writer
And yet you demand the last word anyway. If it was dead, you wouldn't have needed to respond. Again. For the third time.