- Location
- United States, CA
It's going to take five minutes, right?
Going Native (DBZ/DC Comics) (Complete)
- Thread starter Ideas-Guy
- Start date
It's going to take five minutes, right?
- Location
- Quebec
...I swear if the author doesn't come up with a good reason for Tarble not finding out about this.
That said, if Shugesh doesn't decide to do something very stupid to prevent the lady he love AKA Fasha from comiting suicide via attempted assassination and kill KING Vegeta first because he heard 'Kill Vegeta' without specification I'll be very sad. As does the death of every emissaries that don't leave fast enough when Tarble power up and beam battle Frieza from the surface of Vegeta to space.
- Location
- Brazil
Tarble want to die and drag his family with it, FOR THE GREATER GOOD! So he probable will only throw tinder to the fire. He needs to kill Cooler and Cold too so it's possible that the Guardians hidden bomb that is Tarble goes off on everybody's face. It's a move they wouldn't see coming.
Loss of Family
- Location
- USA
Planet Vegeta hadn't changed from orbit, I noticed as the Warworld exited slip space in the system. It was the same aquamarine color, the seas holding a greenish tint which made the swirling white clouds stand out that much more. Circling the planet was a sizable moon that would only have a full moon every hundred years or so. It was about a decade away from having that full moon. Beyond that, there was a notable lack of defenses such as defense platforms or shield satellites. The planet itself might as well be uninhabited based on the next to non-existent population.
A few Saiyans had beaten us here, but until now, only about three Saiyans were on the planet. King Vegeta, Matillo, and Parslee. A few million were on their way. Hundreds of thousands arrived with me. Keeping them entertained would be an issue in itself, but I would leave that to King Vegeta and Bardock. Simply put, my attention was the peace talks.
"An interesting choice to have the Peace Talks at. Ten times the galactic standard gravity, no major cities to speak of, and I'm seeing nothing but Apex predators from across the galaxy," Ada'la remarked, sounding faintly amused with the choice.
I looked to my home planet. A planet I haven't even spent a fraction of my life on. Less than half a year not counting the time I spent gestating. "You were the one to teach me about power moves, Ada'la. It's a little late to complain," I returned, my gaze never leaving Planet Vegeta. It didn't feel real, almost. It hadn't felt real since I woke up after spending a few days in slip space. I was heading home after the war ended.
I had started and finished a war.
"Oh, I'm aware. The harshness of the planet will force the Federation leaders to focus on the task at hand. And the longer they stay here, the more that it will sink in that this deathworld is your race's idea of paradise. Spirits help the galaxy if you ever get your hands on gene-editing technology." We already had our hands on it. I'm sure that it wouldn't be long before the Saiyan race combined the most powerful creatures we found to entertain ourselves with.
Something I had almost forgotten — the best part of a good meal was the challenge of killing it.
"Beyond that, it is a good choice," Ada'la added. "Preparations for the Peace Talks will need to be made upon arrival, but we are prepared. As much as we can be." By that, she meant that Frieza had yet to show himself. He wouldn't even take messages. He had barricaded himself in his room and refused to come out.
Because of it, we were lacking the desired peace. The Federation had declared war because of the vassal states that had once belonged to the Thanagarian Empire — so, technically speaking, we had fought a defensive war against the Federation. With the Reach, it had been easy enough to guess that the goal had been to conquer the Reach. But the Federation?
What did Frieza want to be done? One would think it would be a simple thing to ask, but he refused to answer.
And it grew more complicated. "Lord Cooler just sent his refusal to attend. King Cold is a possible surprise guest, but we don't know where he is and we lack the means to contact him." I said as the Warworld sailed forward. Since his retirement, it seemed that King Cold really had just picked a planet and cut ties to the Trade Organization.
"Meaning we're flying blind. Very well then," Ada'la voiced, not sounding concerned. "We'll work with the draft, and take it from there." To that, I nodded in agreement before Ada'la bowed and walked away. I wasn't left alone for long, however.
Komand'r approached from behind, looking up at Planet Vegeta. She came to a stop next to me, and for a moment, she said nothing. "Your planet is one for warriors," Komand'r praised.
"As was Tamaran. Which will be restored to its former glory," I told her. Every plant and animal had been sampled. After the layers of metal were removed, efforts to reconstruct Tamaran would be underway. It might take some time, but between the various cloning methods we had available, within a few years Tamaran should be fully restored. As was one of the conditions that Komand'r had laid out.
"Of that, I have no doubts," Komand'r agreed. She looked at me, her expression serious. "You have my condolences." she told me suddenly, catching me off guard ever so slightly. I looked to her, prompting her to continue. "For the 501st. You might have left them behind when you became Supreme Commander, but I understand they were your comrades for many years."
I looked away, choosing to look at Planet Vegeta instead. Avery. Technician… they had been the ones I was closest to, but I had known all of the 501st well. From the original remnants to those that I had hand-picked to be reinforcements. Yet, they were all dead now. Not slain by the enemy… but killed by Frieza in a reckless and careless display of power.
They didn't deserve the ending that they got.
"I understand that most Saiyans care little for such bonds, but I also understand you are not most Saiyans. Should you ever wish to talk, know my door is always open, Prince Tarble," Komand'r informed me in a low tone, her breath brushing against my ear as she leaned in closely. Then she stepped back and away, floating off before I had a chance to give an answer. Likely to save me from having to give one now.
I took in a deep breath and let it out. I could mourn the dead later. After this was all finished. Then, there would be time. For now, I had to make sure that the peace was worth dying for.
A transmission reached the Warworld from Planet Vegeta. I chose to accept, and a split second later, the hologram of the planet was replaced with a hologram of King Vegeta. My father. He was virtually unchanged since the last time I saw him — nearly identical to Vegeta, except for the goatee he grew around his mouth. His expression, however, wasn't what I expected. It was harsh. Bitter, even.
"Tarble, my son. You return grander each time than you leave." he began, and he sounded like he meant the words. Which made his harsh expression that much more puzzling. "When you first left, I expected nothing but death from you, yet you returned alive and stronger. Again, you left, and you returned Elite-Class and the creator of techniques that forever changed the Saiyan race. For a third time, you left and now you return unimaginably powerful and the scourge of the galaxy."
He sounded proud, some of the harshnesses in his expression lessening ever so slightly. "Even the greatest of gifts I can offer would be an insult to your honor. The only thing I might have that will be of any value to you… is this — I am proud of you, my son."
I opened my mouth, caught flat-footed by the praise. The last time we had spoken… was when I learned that he had tried to use a bomb to kill me and my team. I had been so angry at him for it. It had been enough that it broke the fragile trust between us and I stopped considering him my father. I don't think I could forgive him for trying to kill the team. Just like I don't think I could forgive any of them if they tried to kill my family.
"We have much to discuss, my son. Meet with me when you arrive," he ordered and abruptly ended the call before I could get a word in.
Nothing about the message should have made my instincts scream that something was wrong, but I felt that sense of unease deep in my gut anyway. However, there was only one way to find out why that was.
…
Hundreds of thousands of Saiyans now populated planet Vegeta after the Warworld was placed in orbit. The Warworld was a decently sized planet, yet it seemed to be a moon compared to Planet Vegeta. At the very least, it meant that the Saiyans could spread themselves out a bit. Ironically enough, Capital Vegeta, which was the capital by default on account it was the only city that wasn't a complete ruin leftover from the truffle war, it was populated entirely by aliens.
Construction was being done to tidy the place up, as well as undo ancient damage from the war centuries ago. It was out of necessity simply because this was very unlikely to be a single-day affair. It was also to house the Saiyans that would temporarily all be living here — we weren't a materialistic species by nature, but trophies were of cultural importance. As well as mess halls to handle the incredible demand for food.
It was all underway underneath Ada'la's watchful eye. In the meantime, the others began to trickle in. Mom and Elery arrived on the Devastator, while Vegeta was the last to arrive on his own flagship.
By the time I flew to Palace Vegeta, there were millions of Saiyans on Planet Vegeta. I felt a handful of familiar, yet unfamiliar presences. Vegeta, Mom, Elery, and even King Vegeta were easy enough to place. The same with Matillo. Upon arriving, I realized who they were.
The honor guard. A tradition that I honestly thought was dead since both the Elite and Mid-class had seen such an explosion in size. Originally, being Mid-class would qualify you for one of the ten slots. However, given that prior to the war the Saiyan race had been vastly weaker, there was typically always a slot or two left open. Parslee had been a member, and it was he who greeted me at the door with a bow. Along with another member of the honor guard. An adult Saiyan.
Based on his power level, he was a member of the old guard. He wasn't exactly weak comparatively, but he wasn't in the top one hundred when it came to the strongest Saiyans anymore.
I returned it with a nod as I touched down on the palace. The others were already inside. It seemed I had stalled for too long with trying to reach out to Frieza and overseeing the Sayains to make sure they didn't blow up the planet.
Striding forward, the doors opened for me as the two honor guard fell in step behind me. Before me was a waif of a Saiyan — balding with a bushy mustache. He was King Vegeta's servant. To prove that, he bowed deeply, "Prince Tarble," He spoke, "It is wonderful to see you home. Your family awaits."
With that, he turned around and led me to the hall. While we walked, I took a moment to look at the place. The last time I had been here, the wealth had spilled out into the floor there had been so much of it. It seemed at some point someone realized the impracticality. Now the walls and floors were cleared except for a red carpet laid out in the center of the floor. On the walls were engravings etched into the stone and filled with precious metals and jewels. They detailed the war.
On one wall was Vegeta. His exploits in the war, and his moments of growth.
On the other was me. It followed my exploits and my moments of growth.
Both revolved around the war, but as we neared the throne room… it was clear that the artist had been biased towards me. Simply put, my wall was more fleshed out. From every technique created, to every world I conquered, to every notable enemy. From the Scarabs, to the Green Lanterns, to the Thanagarian Empire, to the Khundian Empire, then Mongul, my promotion to Supreme Commander… and it seemed they would cover the Vega system as well.
Both walls ended at the same point, an expectation that we would have long lives filled with a great many more exploits. Still, it was impossible to not notice the difference between them. Vegeta likely hadn't kept as good records or something. After all, he did have the larger empire.
Upon reaching the throneroom, the large doors swung open with ease to reveal my family. The first time all of us had ever stood in the same room together.
King Vegeta sat on his throne, Mom next to him. Elery sat on the steps leading up to the throne, looking bored out of her mind. The Honor Guard each stood underneath a window, and Matillo looked straight ahead without looking at me as I entered. Vegeta stood in front of the throne, his arms crossed.
My gaze drifted to King Vegeta. His expression didn't display any of that tightness or harshness that it had before. Yet, if I had to put a word to it, the King looked tired. Exhausted, even. His dark eyes met my blazing yellow, neither of us flinching away from the gaze of the other. I could all too easily recall what our final parting words had been so many years ago.
The next time you try to kill my team, do it yourself.
He had failed to answer. That gulf his action caused was still there. Though, time had taken the sting out of the knowledge. Especially when it showed who I had gotten my pragmatism from, because it certainly hadn't been Mom.
"I'm here as summoned," I said, coming to a stop next to Vegeta. My brother looked at me, an intensity in his gaze. Not quite a glare, but not far off. If I had to guess, he also noticed the walls.
"Good. The Saiyan in the Vega system. What do you know about him?" King Vegeta questioned, his tone sharp. He was asking me because I had been the one to defeat him.
That was also a good question. "As I understand, Froot was a construct of an ancient Saiyan. Our race is apparently much older than any of us suspected — we were among the first races to gain sentience in the universe. Right after the Guardians."
Vegeta nodded, "The ancient Saiyans came into conflict with the Guardians. It would seem that we lost," he remarked. King Vegeta glanced at him, then he turned to me, expecting me to elaborate.
"Froot mentioned that they had been distracted and conquered. The Ancient Saiyans were likely individualistic, and the war against the Guardians was anything but a united front. Froot had been distracted by trying to bribe Larfleeze into letting him eat the Avarice Entity. When he failed, he was killed and preserved as a construct. Though, based on the byplay, it would seem that it was something that Froot allowed to be done to him for failing to keep his word." I explained, earning a blink from Elery as she seemed to suddenly start listening to us.
Mom sighed, "I can't believe I missed it. Those damn ships kept shooting at me…" by that, she meant that she was compelled to destroy whatever took a shot at her, rather than she was forced to take cover.
"Your impressions?" King Vegeta asked me, his lips pressed into a thin line.
"Froot was strong. Incredibly so. He dominated the battlefield. His only weakness was the fact that he was a construct," I answered instantly. My memories of the tail end of the fight were hazy. The only thing I really remembered was the awful burning that had filled me and channeling it into a Kamehameha. After that, I recalled finishing off Larfleeze and encountering the Pink Lanterns. I'm not sure if my attack had defeated Froot, or if the destruction of the power battery had done the job. It was the reason why the other constructs faded and why I could finish Larfleeze off.
King Vegeta leaned back in his chair, "How likely is it that there are other ancient Saiyans out there?"
Vegeta and I shared a look, both of us taking a moment to think about it. It also became clear where this was going.
I spoke first, "I think there is at least one left. Possibly still alive," I ventured, earning everyone's attention. "The Guardians have been trying to curtail our species for billions of years. It's very unlikely that Sadala was the first planet we had blown up. And given how few Saiyans there were… I would say that we've managed to drive our species to extinction several times before. Either the Guardians kept a watchful eye over us the entire time and collected samples to restart our species… or they had a dedicated source of Saiyan cells."
The former wasn't likely. If they had, then it was unlikely that we would have been conquered by the Cold Family.
"It's unlikely we can rescue this Saiyan. Our focus should be on reclaiming what was lost. I've attempted to push the Wrath State even further to enter that form. While I've had some progress with the Wrath State, I have yet to enter this… primal Saiyan form." Vegeta informed, and I guess that's what he was doing in the training room.
I shook my head, "That's unlikely to work," I told him, earning a deep scowl from my brother. "The Guardian Ganthet told me the secret to reclaiming our lost forms." I said, looking to King Vegeta, who gripped the arms of his throne so tightly they shattered in his grip. "It's kindness. Empathy. Cooperation."
Vegeta sputtered, "What?!"
"Their goal was to have our species become a highly social and empathetic race. It's possible we were the original draft for what the Green Lanterns are," I remarked. "Only they failed to force us to be what they desired, so they moved on." It made sense. An incredibly powerful and long-lived race, yet was kind and protective? Have a Saiyan for each planet, a protector to guard the native population from harm.
"Additionally, our race has several forms based on our history. The Super Saiyan that destroyed Sadala… Matillo, what can you tell me about them?" I questioned, looking to Matillo. Knowledge of the Super Saiyan transformations had been the most important knowledge I hard ripped from my human self. The issue was that the Guardians hadn't tampered with the Saiyan race in my human memories. Meaning that the information might not be completely reliable.
Matillo looked to me, taking a moment to think about it. "I wasn't born on Sadala, but I was the first generation born on Planet Vegeta, so please don't trust this implicitly. As I understand, the Super Saiyan that destroyed Sadala was a golden Oozaru." That lined up with both sets of memories—the legends that I had learned in this life as well as the memories from my past life.
"During the fight with Froot, I tapped into the Super Saiyan transformation," I informed, barely noticing the dead silence my proclamation received. "It was a failed transformation. I think I recall Froot calling it a False Super Saiyan. I either lacked the power to complete the transformation, or I couldn't overcome the genetic blocks the Guardians implemented." I added, frowning in thought. "Based on the evidence, the Saiyan that destroyed Sadala was likely attempting to combine the Ozzaru and the Super Saiyan transformations."
Which is how you accessed the Super Saiyan 4 transformation according to my human memories. The question was how that Saiyan had known that. Was it happenstance? Pure chance? A blind attempt to stack transformations? Or had he or she known what they were doing?
"Beyond that, however, there might be some truth to the Saiyan God transformation as well," I continued. That, I was less sure of. There was nothing in my human memories that hinted at the existence of a Saiyan God transformation. I was only considering it because it was the only other notable legend of our people. It could be nothing, but Saiyans didn't care about the afterlife. We had no heaven or hell. Yet, we had a god that was a level of strength that we desired to obtain one day.
King Vegeta raised a hand, catching my attention. "In light of this information, it is clear what our path is. We must reclaim our former glory and with it, we shall reign supreme over the Universe." I thought he would sound more excited. Elated. Yet, he didn't. He sounded… resolute.
"To this end… it is clear what must be done. The Saiyan race has changed a great deal in the past decade. It will change more in the following," King Vegeta stood up, looking down at me and Vegeta as he slowly descended the steps. Mom looked at him, a frown on her lips, just as puzzled as the rest of us. King Vegeta came to a stop in front of us and reached out, placing a hand on our shoulders. He looked between us.
"For this reason… I name Tarble my heir."
It was truly amazing what eight words could do. A simple sentence. Yet, once King Vegeta, everything had changed in ways that could never be undone.
It felt like I had been punched in the gut, Vegeta seemed to share the feeling by the ragged breath he took. Mom recoiled in her throne and even Elery seemed to understand what had just happened based on her wide eyes and slack jaw.
"You planned this," Vegeta snarled, and that was my only warning before I felt his fist slam into my cheek. Blood filled my mouth as I was knocked through the palace window, shattering the crystal glass and flying off some distance before I even realized I had been hit.
King Vegeta just made me the heir to the throne. That was the only thing that registered in my mind, even as a scream of rage reached my ears before I felt Vegeta's power swell. He had entered the Wrath State, and I could feel what he meant about pushing it further than ever before. He pushed it to Stage Seventeen. Three stages than I had ever managed to do.
King Vegeta had just stripped Vegeta of his place as the heir to the Saiyan throne.
The side of the palace exploded outward as Vegeta tore through the side of the throne room. He killed a member of the Honor Guard to do it. I saw his face as he raced towards me, his eyes blazing yellow, a blood vessel popping in his eye to dye the sclera red. His expression was one of utter rage and mindless fury.
"Vegeta-" I began, only to be forced to block a blow with my forearm, the punch rattling my bones. Vegeta was still weaker than me, but only barely.
"Die," Vegeta snarled, ki gathering in the palm of his other hand. My eyes widened a fraction and there was not a single doubt in my mind that Vegeta had absolutely every single intention of killing me. This wasn't a spar. We weren't fighting to train.
My brother was trying to murder me to keep his position as heir.
How… why… why was this happening?
Vegeta thrust his hand forward, intent on blasting a hole in my chest. My heart. A killing blow. The moment he did so, I lashed out with a hand and knocked his aside so the ki blast fired off harmlessly to the side. My other hand curled into a fist, the taste of blood heavy on my tongue. "Vegeta!" I shouted, slamming my fist into my brother's face, trying to knock some sense into him.
Vegeta was more prepared to take a blow than I was, so he flew back a few feet at best, leaving both of us flying over the cliff that Palace Vegeta was seated on. A line of blood dripped down Vegeta's chin, but he didn't seem to notice. "How long have you been planning this Tarble?" He started, earning a narrowed eye glare from me.
"I didn't plan anything! I don't want to be the heir, Vegeta!" I interrupted, but I knew it was no use. Vegeta was never the type to care about words. I couldn't convince him of anything.
"You would have been sent off to some backwater planet on an infiltration mission if it wasn't for me! I saved your life!" Vegeta raged, shaking with fury. Veins bulged in his neck and forehead, furious at a perceived betrayal. "I was the one to convince father to give you the test with the Saibamen! But I saw you as my brother. And you've done this to me?! You've taken my right as heir?! I should have killed you the moment you left the tank!"
I hadn't known that.
Vegeta blasted forward, crossing the distance between us in an instant. I blocked a high knee to my face, pushing back to avoid a punch. Vegeta continued the attack, his fists moving in blurs. Eyes, throat, heart, joints, and groin. Vegeta fought exactly as I did. He was really trying to kill me. Even as I blocked or avoided the blows, that fact only just barely started to sink in. My brother was trying to murder me. Worse, he was powerful enough that I couldn't easily dismiss him. He wasn't Elery.
"Die!" Vegeta shouted, a fist slipping through my guard to punch me in the gut. I saw the flash of ki come from his fist, and this time I heeded the warning. I slammed my forehead into his nose while one of my fists slammed into his elbow as my other hand pushed, forcing his arm to bend so the ki blast sailed harmlessly through the air. Vegeta snarled, punching me in the face before kneeing me in the stomach.
I knew that this day was coming. Just not like this.
I pressed forward, my eyes narrowed into slits as I clenched my jaw. My gaze met Vegeta's, and a moment passed.
"I don't want to be heir, Vegeta," I told him, jabbing at his face with a fist before following it up with a kick to drive him back. My last attempt to reason with him before I had to beat him into submission. Anything less wouldn't be enough. I knew that.
It wasn't that long ago that my human side had reared its ugly head with words of advice and a warning. A warning about what came after the war. What I would have to do to make the war worth it for those that fought it. It was then that I came to the conclusion that Frieza had to die. It's why the Guardians had been brought to the Vega system—to kill him. Cooler would have to die too. So would King Cold. Which left my family.
It had taken time, but I made a decision.
"I refuse it," I continued, and I saw a flicker of doubt in Vegeta's eyes. "I'm not going to kill you to become the heir to the Saiyan race or to become king. You're my brother, Vegeta. You're the only one that had faith in me since the very beginning. From the sound of it, you're the only reason why I'm here today." I told him, speaking words of truth that I've never been able to voice to him. Mostly because I knew it would embarrass both of us. "Our father can't make me the heir."
Vegeta's eyes narrowed, "What are you-"
"I'm renouncing my place in the Royal Family," I answered bluntly. This was the conclusion I had come to as I stared into the void of space, alone on the Warworld. This was the only way I could think of to avoid killing my father and brother. It was a half measure. That much I knew. It was just one that I had to accept because…
Because I couldn't do it. I was just too weak to do it. For all my words that I would do whatever it took to make the war worth it to those that fought in it, that died to end it… I couldn't bring myself to murder my family to do it. I lacked the conviction. I was too much of a coward. I was a hypocrite of the highest order—willing to sacrifice others, but unwilling to sacrifice those that I cared for.
But, even if it meant spitting on everything I had worked for, bled for, sacrificed for… I wouldn't do it.
Even if it meant that I had to leave the family that I had fought so hard to join.
"No," Vegeta bit out, his power surging. "I won't accept it," he refused. His hands curled into fists, his teeth clenched so hard that his gums bled as he snarled at me. The confusion left him, replaced by a fury so intense that it went from red hot to ice cold. "I've lived in your shadow long enough, little brother. Every step of the way, you have proven my superior. I can admit that. Stronger, a better leader, tactician, and more popular. For years, I've endured it. The taunts, the insults, and comparisons."
He blasted forward, aiming a punch to my face. I reached out and caught it in my palm before going to return the favor, only to be caught cold when my fist slammed into the palm of his hand.
"Now father wishes to give you what's mine by right," Vegeta continued, his voice a low growl. "I've had enough! I have my pride, damn it! I refuse a throne that I have merely because you don't want it. I refuse to give it to you while I still draw breath!"
My hand gripped down on his fist. I shouldn't be surprised.
"I'm not going to kill you, Vegeta," I told him, a sinking feeling in my gut.
"Then you're going to die, Tarble."
...
The next chapter is currently available on my Patreon and Subscribe Star, so if you want to read it a week early, all it takes is a single dollar in the tip jar. Or, for five dollars, you can read the chapter after that two weeks before its public release! I hope you enjoyed!
A few Saiyans had beaten us here, but until now, only about three Saiyans were on the planet. King Vegeta, Matillo, and Parslee. A few million were on their way. Hundreds of thousands arrived with me. Keeping them entertained would be an issue in itself, but I would leave that to King Vegeta and Bardock. Simply put, my attention was the peace talks.
"An interesting choice to have the Peace Talks at. Ten times the galactic standard gravity, no major cities to speak of, and I'm seeing nothing but Apex predators from across the galaxy," Ada'la remarked, sounding faintly amused with the choice.
I looked to my home planet. A planet I haven't even spent a fraction of my life on. Less than half a year not counting the time I spent gestating. "You were the one to teach me about power moves, Ada'la. It's a little late to complain," I returned, my gaze never leaving Planet Vegeta. It didn't feel real, almost. It hadn't felt real since I woke up after spending a few days in slip space. I was heading home after the war ended.
I had started and finished a war.
"Oh, I'm aware. The harshness of the planet will force the Federation leaders to focus on the task at hand. And the longer they stay here, the more that it will sink in that this deathworld is your race's idea of paradise. Spirits help the galaxy if you ever get your hands on gene-editing technology." We already had our hands on it. I'm sure that it wouldn't be long before the Saiyan race combined the most powerful creatures we found to entertain ourselves with.
Something I had almost forgotten — the best part of a good meal was the challenge of killing it.
"Beyond that, it is a good choice," Ada'la added. "Preparations for the Peace Talks will need to be made upon arrival, but we are prepared. As much as we can be." By that, she meant that Frieza had yet to show himself. He wouldn't even take messages. He had barricaded himself in his room and refused to come out.
Because of it, we were lacking the desired peace. The Federation had declared war because of the vassal states that had once belonged to the Thanagarian Empire — so, technically speaking, we had fought a defensive war against the Federation. With the Reach, it had been easy enough to guess that the goal had been to conquer the Reach. But the Federation?
What did Frieza want to be done? One would think it would be a simple thing to ask, but he refused to answer.
And it grew more complicated. "Lord Cooler just sent his refusal to attend. King Cold is a possible surprise guest, but we don't know where he is and we lack the means to contact him." I said as the Warworld sailed forward. Since his retirement, it seemed that King Cold really had just picked a planet and cut ties to the Trade Organization.
"Meaning we're flying blind. Very well then," Ada'la voiced, not sounding concerned. "We'll work with the draft, and take it from there." To that, I nodded in agreement before Ada'la bowed and walked away. I wasn't left alone for long, however.
Komand'r approached from behind, looking up at Planet Vegeta. She came to a stop next to me, and for a moment, she said nothing. "Your planet is one for warriors," Komand'r praised.
"As was Tamaran. Which will be restored to its former glory," I told her. Every plant and animal had been sampled. After the layers of metal were removed, efforts to reconstruct Tamaran would be underway. It might take some time, but between the various cloning methods we had available, within a few years Tamaran should be fully restored. As was one of the conditions that Komand'r had laid out.
"Of that, I have no doubts," Komand'r agreed. She looked at me, her expression serious. "You have my condolences." she told me suddenly, catching me off guard ever so slightly. I looked to her, prompting her to continue. "For the 501st. You might have left them behind when you became Supreme Commander, but I understand they were your comrades for many years."
I looked away, choosing to look at Planet Vegeta instead. Avery. Technician… they had been the ones I was closest to, but I had known all of the 501st well. From the original remnants to those that I had hand-picked to be reinforcements. Yet, they were all dead now. Not slain by the enemy… but killed by Frieza in a reckless and careless display of power.
They didn't deserve the ending that they got.
"I understand that most Saiyans care little for such bonds, but I also understand you are not most Saiyans. Should you ever wish to talk, know my door is always open, Prince Tarble," Komand'r informed me in a low tone, her breath brushing against my ear as she leaned in closely. Then she stepped back and away, floating off before I had a chance to give an answer. Likely to save me from having to give one now.
I took in a deep breath and let it out. I could mourn the dead later. After this was all finished. Then, there would be time. For now, I had to make sure that the peace was worth dying for.
A transmission reached the Warworld from Planet Vegeta. I chose to accept, and a split second later, the hologram of the planet was replaced with a hologram of King Vegeta. My father. He was virtually unchanged since the last time I saw him — nearly identical to Vegeta, except for the goatee he grew around his mouth. His expression, however, wasn't what I expected. It was harsh. Bitter, even.
"Tarble, my son. You return grander each time than you leave." he began, and he sounded like he meant the words. Which made his harsh expression that much more puzzling. "When you first left, I expected nothing but death from you, yet you returned alive and stronger. Again, you left, and you returned Elite-Class and the creator of techniques that forever changed the Saiyan race. For a third time, you left and now you return unimaginably powerful and the scourge of the galaxy."
He sounded proud, some of the harshnesses in his expression lessening ever so slightly. "Even the greatest of gifts I can offer would be an insult to your honor. The only thing I might have that will be of any value to you… is this — I am proud of you, my son."
I opened my mouth, caught flat-footed by the praise. The last time we had spoken… was when I learned that he had tried to use a bomb to kill me and my team. I had been so angry at him for it. It had been enough that it broke the fragile trust between us and I stopped considering him my father. I don't think I could forgive him for trying to kill the team. Just like I don't think I could forgive any of them if they tried to kill my family.
"We have much to discuss, my son. Meet with me when you arrive," he ordered and abruptly ended the call before I could get a word in.
Nothing about the message should have made my instincts scream that something was wrong, but I felt that sense of unease deep in my gut anyway. However, there was only one way to find out why that was.
…
Hundreds of thousands of Saiyans now populated planet Vegeta after the Warworld was placed in orbit. The Warworld was a decently sized planet, yet it seemed to be a moon compared to Planet Vegeta. At the very least, it meant that the Saiyans could spread themselves out a bit. Ironically enough, Capital Vegeta, which was the capital by default on account it was the only city that wasn't a complete ruin leftover from the truffle war, it was populated entirely by aliens.
Construction was being done to tidy the place up, as well as undo ancient damage from the war centuries ago. It was out of necessity simply because this was very unlikely to be a single-day affair. It was also to house the Saiyans that would temporarily all be living here — we weren't a materialistic species by nature, but trophies were of cultural importance. As well as mess halls to handle the incredible demand for food.
It was all underway underneath Ada'la's watchful eye. In the meantime, the others began to trickle in. Mom and Elery arrived on the Devastator, while Vegeta was the last to arrive on his own flagship.
By the time I flew to Palace Vegeta, there were millions of Saiyans on Planet Vegeta. I felt a handful of familiar, yet unfamiliar presences. Vegeta, Mom, Elery, and even King Vegeta were easy enough to place. The same with Matillo. Upon arriving, I realized who they were.
The honor guard. A tradition that I honestly thought was dead since both the Elite and Mid-class had seen such an explosion in size. Originally, being Mid-class would qualify you for one of the ten slots. However, given that prior to the war the Saiyan race had been vastly weaker, there was typically always a slot or two left open. Parslee had been a member, and it was he who greeted me at the door with a bow. Along with another member of the honor guard. An adult Saiyan.
Based on his power level, he was a member of the old guard. He wasn't exactly weak comparatively, but he wasn't in the top one hundred when it came to the strongest Saiyans anymore.
I returned it with a nod as I touched down on the palace. The others were already inside. It seemed I had stalled for too long with trying to reach out to Frieza and overseeing the Sayains to make sure they didn't blow up the planet.
Striding forward, the doors opened for me as the two honor guard fell in step behind me. Before me was a waif of a Saiyan — balding with a bushy mustache. He was King Vegeta's servant. To prove that, he bowed deeply, "Prince Tarble," He spoke, "It is wonderful to see you home. Your family awaits."
With that, he turned around and led me to the hall. While we walked, I took a moment to look at the place. The last time I had been here, the wealth had spilled out into the floor there had been so much of it. It seemed at some point someone realized the impracticality. Now the walls and floors were cleared except for a red carpet laid out in the center of the floor. On the walls were engravings etched into the stone and filled with precious metals and jewels. They detailed the war.
On one wall was Vegeta. His exploits in the war, and his moments of growth.
On the other was me. It followed my exploits and my moments of growth.
Both revolved around the war, but as we neared the throne room… it was clear that the artist had been biased towards me. Simply put, my wall was more fleshed out. From every technique created, to every world I conquered, to every notable enemy. From the Scarabs, to the Green Lanterns, to the Thanagarian Empire, to the Khundian Empire, then Mongul, my promotion to Supreme Commander… and it seemed they would cover the Vega system as well.
Both walls ended at the same point, an expectation that we would have long lives filled with a great many more exploits. Still, it was impossible to not notice the difference between them. Vegeta likely hadn't kept as good records or something. After all, he did have the larger empire.
Upon reaching the throneroom, the large doors swung open with ease to reveal my family. The first time all of us had ever stood in the same room together.
King Vegeta sat on his throne, Mom next to him. Elery sat on the steps leading up to the throne, looking bored out of her mind. The Honor Guard each stood underneath a window, and Matillo looked straight ahead without looking at me as I entered. Vegeta stood in front of the throne, his arms crossed.
My gaze drifted to King Vegeta. His expression didn't display any of that tightness or harshness that it had before. Yet, if I had to put a word to it, the King looked tired. Exhausted, even. His dark eyes met my blazing yellow, neither of us flinching away from the gaze of the other. I could all too easily recall what our final parting words had been so many years ago.
The next time you try to kill my team, do it yourself.
He had failed to answer. That gulf his action caused was still there. Though, time had taken the sting out of the knowledge. Especially when it showed who I had gotten my pragmatism from, because it certainly hadn't been Mom.
"I'm here as summoned," I said, coming to a stop next to Vegeta. My brother looked at me, an intensity in his gaze. Not quite a glare, but not far off. If I had to guess, he also noticed the walls.
"Good. The Saiyan in the Vega system. What do you know about him?" King Vegeta questioned, his tone sharp. He was asking me because I had been the one to defeat him.
That was also a good question. "As I understand, Froot was a construct of an ancient Saiyan. Our race is apparently much older than any of us suspected — we were among the first races to gain sentience in the universe. Right after the Guardians."
Vegeta nodded, "The ancient Saiyans came into conflict with the Guardians. It would seem that we lost," he remarked. King Vegeta glanced at him, then he turned to me, expecting me to elaborate.
"Froot mentioned that they had been distracted and conquered. The Ancient Saiyans were likely individualistic, and the war against the Guardians was anything but a united front. Froot had been distracted by trying to bribe Larfleeze into letting him eat the Avarice Entity. When he failed, he was killed and preserved as a construct. Though, based on the byplay, it would seem that it was something that Froot allowed to be done to him for failing to keep his word." I explained, earning a blink from Elery as she seemed to suddenly start listening to us.
Mom sighed, "I can't believe I missed it. Those damn ships kept shooting at me…" by that, she meant that she was compelled to destroy whatever took a shot at her, rather than she was forced to take cover.
"Your impressions?" King Vegeta asked me, his lips pressed into a thin line.
"Froot was strong. Incredibly so. He dominated the battlefield. His only weakness was the fact that he was a construct," I answered instantly. My memories of the tail end of the fight were hazy. The only thing I really remembered was the awful burning that had filled me and channeling it into a Kamehameha. After that, I recalled finishing off Larfleeze and encountering the Pink Lanterns. I'm not sure if my attack had defeated Froot, or if the destruction of the power battery had done the job. It was the reason why the other constructs faded and why I could finish Larfleeze off.
King Vegeta leaned back in his chair, "How likely is it that there are other ancient Saiyans out there?"
Vegeta and I shared a look, both of us taking a moment to think about it. It also became clear where this was going.
I spoke first, "I think there is at least one left. Possibly still alive," I ventured, earning everyone's attention. "The Guardians have been trying to curtail our species for billions of years. It's very unlikely that Sadala was the first planet we had blown up. And given how few Saiyans there were… I would say that we've managed to drive our species to extinction several times before. Either the Guardians kept a watchful eye over us the entire time and collected samples to restart our species… or they had a dedicated source of Saiyan cells."
The former wasn't likely. If they had, then it was unlikely that we would have been conquered by the Cold Family.
"It's unlikely we can rescue this Saiyan. Our focus should be on reclaiming what was lost. I've attempted to push the Wrath State even further to enter that form. While I've had some progress with the Wrath State, I have yet to enter this… primal Saiyan form." Vegeta informed, and I guess that's what he was doing in the training room.
I shook my head, "That's unlikely to work," I told him, earning a deep scowl from my brother. "The Guardian Ganthet told me the secret to reclaiming our lost forms." I said, looking to King Vegeta, who gripped the arms of his throne so tightly they shattered in his grip. "It's kindness. Empathy. Cooperation."
Vegeta sputtered, "What?!"
"Their goal was to have our species become a highly social and empathetic race. It's possible we were the original draft for what the Green Lanterns are," I remarked. "Only they failed to force us to be what they desired, so they moved on." It made sense. An incredibly powerful and long-lived race, yet was kind and protective? Have a Saiyan for each planet, a protector to guard the native population from harm.
"Additionally, our race has several forms based on our history. The Super Saiyan that destroyed Sadala… Matillo, what can you tell me about them?" I questioned, looking to Matillo. Knowledge of the Super Saiyan transformations had been the most important knowledge I hard ripped from my human self. The issue was that the Guardians hadn't tampered with the Saiyan race in my human memories. Meaning that the information might not be completely reliable.
Matillo looked to me, taking a moment to think about it. "I wasn't born on Sadala, but I was the first generation born on Planet Vegeta, so please don't trust this implicitly. As I understand, the Super Saiyan that destroyed Sadala was a golden Oozaru." That lined up with both sets of memories—the legends that I had learned in this life as well as the memories from my past life.
"During the fight with Froot, I tapped into the Super Saiyan transformation," I informed, barely noticing the dead silence my proclamation received. "It was a failed transformation. I think I recall Froot calling it a False Super Saiyan. I either lacked the power to complete the transformation, or I couldn't overcome the genetic blocks the Guardians implemented." I added, frowning in thought. "Based on the evidence, the Saiyan that destroyed Sadala was likely attempting to combine the Ozzaru and the Super Saiyan transformations."
Which is how you accessed the Super Saiyan 4 transformation according to my human memories. The question was how that Saiyan had known that. Was it happenstance? Pure chance? A blind attempt to stack transformations? Or had he or she known what they were doing?
"Beyond that, however, there might be some truth to the Saiyan God transformation as well," I continued. That, I was less sure of. There was nothing in my human memories that hinted at the existence of a Saiyan God transformation. I was only considering it because it was the only other notable legend of our people. It could be nothing, but Saiyans didn't care about the afterlife. We had no heaven or hell. Yet, we had a god that was a level of strength that we desired to obtain one day.
King Vegeta raised a hand, catching my attention. "In light of this information, it is clear what our path is. We must reclaim our former glory and with it, we shall reign supreme over the Universe." I thought he would sound more excited. Elated. Yet, he didn't. He sounded… resolute.
"To this end… it is clear what must be done. The Saiyan race has changed a great deal in the past decade. It will change more in the following," King Vegeta stood up, looking down at me and Vegeta as he slowly descended the steps. Mom looked at him, a frown on her lips, just as puzzled as the rest of us. King Vegeta came to a stop in front of us and reached out, placing a hand on our shoulders. He looked between us.
"For this reason… I name Tarble my heir."
It was truly amazing what eight words could do. A simple sentence. Yet, once King Vegeta, everything had changed in ways that could never be undone.
It felt like I had been punched in the gut, Vegeta seemed to share the feeling by the ragged breath he took. Mom recoiled in her throne and even Elery seemed to understand what had just happened based on her wide eyes and slack jaw.
"You planned this," Vegeta snarled, and that was my only warning before I felt his fist slam into my cheek. Blood filled my mouth as I was knocked through the palace window, shattering the crystal glass and flying off some distance before I even realized I had been hit.
King Vegeta just made me the heir to the throne. That was the only thing that registered in my mind, even as a scream of rage reached my ears before I felt Vegeta's power swell. He had entered the Wrath State, and I could feel what he meant about pushing it further than ever before. He pushed it to Stage Seventeen. Three stages than I had ever managed to do.
King Vegeta had just stripped Vegeta of his place as the heir to the Saiyan throne.
The side of the palace exploded outward as Vegeta tore through the side of the throne room. He killed a member of the Honor Guard to do it. I saw his face as he raced towards me, his eyes blazing yellow, a blood vessel popping in his eye to dye the sclera red. His expression was one of utter rage and mindless fury.
"Vegeta-" I began, only to be forced to block a blow with my forearm, the punch rattling my bones. Vegeta was still weaker than me, but only barely.
"Die," Vegeta snarled, ki gathering in the palm of his other hand. My eyes widened a fraction and there was not a single doubt in my mind that Vegeta had absolutely every single intention of killing me. This wasn't a spar. We weren't fighting to train.
My brother was trying to murder me to keep his position as heir.
How… why… why was this happening?
Vegeta thrust his hand forward, intent on blasting a hole in my chest. My heart. A killing blow. The moment he did so, I lashed out with a hand and knocked his aside so the ki blast fired off harmlessly to the side. My other hand curled into a fist, the taste of blood heavy on my tongue. "Vegeta!" I shouted, slamming my fist into my brother's face, trying to knock some sense into him.
Vegeta was more prepared to take a blow than I was, so he flew back a few feet at best, leaving both of us flying over the cliff that Palace Vegeta was seated on. A line of blood dripped down Vegeta's chin, but he didn't seem to notice. "How long have you been planning this Tarble?" He started, earning a narrowed eye glare from me.
"I didn't plan anything! I don't want to be the heir, Vegeta!" I interrupted, but I knew it was no use. Vegeta was never the type to care about words. I couldn't convince him of anything.
"You would have been sent off to some backwater planet on an infiltration mission if it wasn't for me! I saved your life!" Vegeta raged, shaking with fury. Veins bulged in his neck and forehead, furious at a perceived betrayal. "I was the one to convince father to give you the test with the Saibamen! But I saw you as my brother. And you've done this to me?! You've taken my right as heir?! I should have killed you the moment you left the tank!"
I hadn't known that.
Vegeta blasted forward, crossing the distance between us in an instant. I blocked a high knee to my face, pushing back to avoid a punch. Vegeta continued the attack, his fists moving in blurs. Eyes, throat, heart, joints, and groin. Vegeta fought exactly as I did. He was really trying to kill me. Even as I blocked or avoided the blows, that fact only just barely started to sink in. My brother was trying to murder me. Worse, he was powerful enough that I couldn't easily dismiss him. He wasn't Elery.
"Die!" Vegeta shouted, a fist slipping through my guard to punch me in the gut. I saw the flash of ki come from his fist, and this time I heeded the warning. I slammed my forehead into his nose while one of my fists slammed into his elbow as my other hand pushed, forcing his arm to bend so the ki blast sailed harmlessly through the air. Vegeta snarled, punching me in the face before kneeing me in the stomach.
I knew that this day was coming. Just not like this.
I pressed forward, my eyes narrowed into slits as I clenched my jaw. My gaze met Vegeta's, and a moment passed.
"I don't want to be heir, Vegeta," I told him, jabbing at his face with a fist before following it up with a kick to drive him back. My last attempt to reason with him before I had to beat him into submission. Anything less wouldn't be enough. I knew that.
It wasn't that long ago that my human side had reared its ugly head with words of advice and a warning. A warning about what came after the war. What I would have to do to make the war worth it for those that fought it. It was then that I came to the conclusion that Frieza had to die. It's why the Guardians had been brought to the Vega system—to kill him. Cooler would have to die too. So would King Cold. Which left my family.
It had taken time, but I made a decision.
"I refuse it," I continued, and I saw a flicker of doubt in Vegeta's eyes. "I'm not going to kill you to become the heir to the Saiyan race or to become king. You're my brother, Vegeta. You're the only one that had faith in me since the very beginning. From the sound of it, you're the only reason why I'm here today." I told him, speaking words of truth that I've never been able to voice to him. Mostly because I knew it would embarrass both of us. "Our father can't make me the heir."
Vegeta's eyes narrowed, "What are you-"
"I'm renouncing my place in the Royal Family," I answered bluntly. This was the conclusion I had come to as I stared into the void of space, alone on the Warworld. This was the only way I could think of to avoid killing my father and brother. It was a half measure. That much I knew. It was just one that I had to accept because…
Because I couldn't do it. I was just too weak to do it. For all my words that I would do whatever it took to make the war worth it to those that fought in it, that died to end it… I couldn't bring myself to murder my family to do it. I lacked the conviction. I was too much of a coward. I was a hypocrite of the highest order—willing to sacrifice others, but unwilling to sacrifice those that I cared for.
But, even if it meant spitting on everything I had worked for, bled for, sacrificed for… I wouldn't do it.
Even if it meant that I had to leave the family that I had fought so hard to join.
"No," Vegeta bit out, his power surging. "I won't accept it," he refused. His hands curled into fists, his teeth clenched so hard that his gums bled as he snarled at me. The confusion left him, replaced by a fury so intense that it went from red hot to ice cold. "I've lived in your shadow long enough, little brother. Every step of the way, you have proven my superior. I can admit that. Stronger, a better leader, tactician, and more popular. For years, I've endured it. The taunts, the insults, and comparisons."
He blasted forward, aiming a punch to my face. I reached out and caught it in my palm before going to return the favor, only to be caught cold when my fist slammed into the palm of his hand.
"Now father wishes to give you what's mine by right," Vegeta continued, his voice a low growl. "I've had enough! I have my pride, damn it! I refuse a throne that I have merely because you don't want it. I refuse to give it to you while I still draw breath!"
My hand gripped down on his fist. I shouldn't be surprised.
"I'm not going to kill you, Vegeta," I told him, a sinking feeling in my gut.
"Then you're going to die, Tarble."
...
The next chapter is currently available on my Patreon and Subscribe Star, so if you want to read it a week early, all it takes is a single dollar in the tip jar. Or, for five dollars, you can read the chapter after that two weeks before its public release! I hope you enjoyed!
Stratagemini
Totally a Fire Ferret.
- Location
- Central Park
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
Oh shit. Empathy.
Modus_Tollens
SCREAMING AT THE APOCALYPSE
- Location
- ALSO SCREAMING.
Very much 'oh shit'. The old man is playing speed chess here and decided to set up one of his kids to go that last mile to super saiyan through, well, basically the mangenkyo sharingan route. Power by broken heart.
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Tarble is going to let Vegeta kill him, but instead if dying he goes Super Saiyan, maybe even SS4 due to the weird ozaru shit he broke.
- Location
- Brazil
Man, King Vegita just pulled a Tarble on Tarble. He saw the writting on the wall and decided to spet out on his own terms, frustating everyone that wanted him dead while giving Bardok and company the middle finger on his way out. A pro gamer move that equals to fliping the tablet on you opponent, killing him will change nothing but give his sons a opening against his killers; King Vegeta showing off his his game of thrones mokey edition expertise, scary bastard.
Loss of Sanity
- Location
- USA
Vegeta and I clashed above the ocean, sending a shockwave out that blasted the water back. It surged away, forming a tidal wave that stretched out in every direction, and it was joined by others as my brother and I traded blows.
The taste of blood was heavy on my tongue. I could hardly feel the impact of the blows that I took from Vegeta or from the ones I gave him in turn. There was nothing said between us as we fought. There was nothing left to say. Vegeta refused to listen to reason, his pride clouding his judgment. He was determined to either die with his honor intact or kill me to secure his place as heir. He wouldn't allow anything else.
I slammed my fist into his face, following it up with an elbow to his temple that knocked him away. I blasted off after him, intent on pressing the advantage as Vegeta left a wake in the ocean he flew over. Vegeta recovered nearly instantly, launching a ki ball at the ocean below us and sending thousands of gallons of water up in an explosion. I knew his plan, so I made use of the cover as well. Ki swirled to my hands before I thrust them forward, sending ki blasts through the surge of water.
Vegeta didn't return fire. I realized that a split second too late when a spiraling disk of purple ki raced towards me from below. I clenched my jaw the moment I saw it, jerking my head back to narrowly avoid being beheaded. The Destructo Disk sailed upward, only managing to cut a few hairs and that was it. Flipping back, I looked to the ocean just in time to see Vegeta surge upwards from the water, sending up hundreds of gallons.
The water exploded outwards when we clashed, causing a rainbow to form that we fought underneath. "My own techniques?" I spat at my brother, delivering a devastating punch to his kidney before following it up with an uppercut that was narrowly avoided. Vegeta twisted, going for a roundhouse kick at first before he turned it to a high knee when he saw that I was ready to counter. I chose to accept the blow with my forehead and repaid it by punching Vegeta in the gut, forcing him to fold over my fist.
I lashed out with my own knee, trying to catch Vegeta in the nose, only for him to catch the blow and push off of it to give himself distance. "It's a useful technique." Vegeta stated, the words sounded like praise but his tone said that they were anything but. "Rest easy, little brother. After I kill you, you will leave behind a legacy."
Kill or die. That was my choice. Even if I beat Vegeta now, it would change nothing. The moment his wounds mended, he would force this confrontation again. If I banished him, then he would come back to reclaim the throne. If I left, he would hunt me down to the end of the universe to not suffer a threat to his claim as heir. For the first time in a very long time, I found myself stuck in a situation that had no winning option.
Either I kill my brother or be killed by him.
"Damn you, Vegeta," I snarled at him, closing the distance between us to resume the bout. We fought in a blur, attacking and countering seamlessly as we flew through the air. It was next to impossible to keep track of our surroundings. I only realized that they had changed when I was knocked down to the planet and instead of water, my body tore through tons of rock instead. Vegeta followed me through the tunnel that my body carved out.
We clashed within the mountain, careless of our surroundings. It was too dark to see him, but it mattered little. Both of us had mastered ki sensing at this point. At this close, it was a simple task to sense our opponent's movements.
I jabbed with my left, a feint, before going low with my other fist. It buried itself in Vegeta's gut, sending him flying through the mountain that groaned around us. Though, not without delivering a counter — by kicking me in the side of the head — that prevented me from pressing the attack for a split second. I felt warm blood drip down the side of my face, rubble falling all around us.
"Spiral…" I began, cupping my hands to the side. The ki illuminated the darkness of the mountain, making shadows dance as the Saiyan-made cavern collapsed in on itself. Vegeta hovered across from me, quickly adopting a familiar stance and dark purple lightning began to discharge as he readied his Galick Gun. "BUSTER!" I shouted, thrusting my hands forward and launching the technique at Vegeta.
I heard him shout his own attack before the two clashed in the middle. The ensuing explosion blasted away the mountain we resided on, sending tons of rock flying if it wasn't instantly vaporized. However, despite Vegeta's power, there was no contest between the two attacks. My ki was hyperdense, far more so than normal ki. It was like throwing a rock into the ocean and expecting the ocean to stop it.
My Spiral Buster surged forward, racing towards Vegeta faster than he was prepared for and —
I hesitated.
The Spiral Buster faltered for a split second, giving Vegeta all the time he needed to dodge the attack when he realized he couldn't stop it head-on. With the mountain collapsing around us, he had plenty of room for it. Vegeta sailed upward, deftly avoiding the falling rock. I clenched my jaw, ending the technique before I followed the path it had carved out of the mountain. Rock fell like an avalanche, but I escaped the mountain unharmed as what might have been Planet Vegeta's highest mountain fell to fifth or sixth place.
I couldn't hesitate. Vegeta was not someone I could fight without taking seriously. This wasn't a spar between us like the last time we had fought. This was a fight… and if Vegeta had anything to say about it, then only one of us would walk away.
A flash of light brought my attention above. Vegeta fired off another Galick Gun. A quick one, so it wasn't especially powerful.
A Riot Javelin formed in my hand before I launched it upwards. The torrent of dark purple ki exploded outwards, letting me travel up unharmed. Vegeta cut off the technique, letting the Riot Javelin sail by him. I fell upon him, raining blows on Vegeta. He was prepared for it, but I still managed to land a kick — the back of my heel slammed into his cheek, making his head snap to the side as blood erupted from his mouth.
Even so, Vegeta recovered. He grabbed my leg, yanking me towards him in an attempt to plant a fist in my gut. I caught it with my hands, lessening the impact. Our gaze met during the clash, both of our eyes blazing yellow.
"You're going to kill me because you're jealous?" I spat at him before Vegeta turned sharply and flung me away. I righted myself, ready to counter the high knee aimed for my throat that immediately followed.
"I'm going to kill you because you're in my way!" Vegeta countered with a snarl. "Have you truly forgotten what it means to be a Saiyan? Did you truly believe that being in the Royal Family meant we would never come to blows?" Each word was punctuated with a half dozen blows. Each dodged or countered, just as Vegeta countered my counters. "Our grandfather killed our ancestors for the throne. Our father killed him for it. Now, I will kill you for it."
I grit my teeth, catching a punch before I slammed my fist against the bottom of his arm near the shoulder in an attempt to dislocate it. I succeeded, but it was a temporary victory because Vegeta smashed his other fist against my nose, flattening it in a spray of blood. Though, it was better my nose than him taking out an eye like he had tried to. Vegeta spun sharply, lashing out with a kick in an attempt to drive me away to slide his arm back into the socket. He still managed to even though my foot caught him in the bottom of his jaw with a high kick.
"It doesn't have to be this way!" It was pointless, but it was so maddeningly frustrating that I couldn't stop myself from saying the words.
Vegeta recovered, flipping back before descending on me with an axe kick. A feint. When I went to counter, the flat of his other foot slammed into my face. "You're a fool if you believe that, Tarble. Do you really think you can just walk away from the throne, and that would be it?" He snarled at me, pressing the attack with a fury of blows. "You would command the Saiyans and me due to your position as Supreme Commander. Our people would look to you and wonder why you aren't king."
He delivered the words at the same moment he delivered a punch to my gut. Bile rose in the back of my throat, but I still countered by lunging forward and smashing his nose with an elbow.
"You…" I bit out, grabbing him by his armor before flying directly down to the planet below. All the while I pummeled him with blows and accepted them in return. "You were preparing for this."
We were talking past each other all this time. It was never just about becoming the heir. He was trying to kill me to validate his claim to the throne. He was going to kill me to prevent me and my deeds from undercutting his reign as king. Our father naming me the heir was simply the final straw… but…
"You were planning to kill me," I accused, slamming my forehead against Vegeta's, stunning him before I pulled back and punched him, a flicker of raw rage fueling my attacks. Vegeta struck the ground, propelled forward because of the added momentum. I didn't follow him down, recoiling from the revelation. "No matter what, you were going to try to kill me?"
My heart ached, but it was more numb than painful. It was disbelief. Vegeta wasn't acting out of blind passion. This… this wasn't planned, but he had premeditated my murder. No matter what I said, this was always going to happen.
Vegeta rose from the rubble, standing tall as he looked up at me. "Don't act like you didn't intend to do the same. It's beneath you," Vegeta spat.
I scowled, "That's the thing, Vegeta. I wasn't." My knuckles were white I clenched my fists so tightly.
"Then you are far more naive than I could have imagined," Vegeta responded, his eyes meeting mine without a shred of remorse in them. I slowly lowered myself to the ground, meeting his gaze without flinching or blinking.
There was only one word that could describe what I felt.
That word was betrayal.
I touched down and started to stride forward, my anger growing as my face twisted to match Vegeta's snarl. "I'm going to beat the shit out of you, Vegeta." That was my declaration before I sprung forward, closing the distance between us with explosive force. Vegeta began to counter, but he was caught off guard by the ferocity in my blows. My fist tore through his guard, planting itself in his diaphragm until he was completely folded over my fist. Grabbing him by the back of his head, I kept it in position to knee him in the face hard enough he was launched off the ground.
Dazed, he could do nothing as I grabbed onto his ankle as he flew up, catching him. Gritting my teeth, I recalled the fight with Froot and infused Ki into the ground under my feet. Swinging down with all of my strength, Vegeta let out a strangled scream as he impacted, the stone managing to retain some level of integrity upon impact. He recovered instantly, twisting in my grip to kick me in the face. Or try to, at least, but he managed to force me to let go even as I dodged the kick.
"Glad to see you're finally taking this seriously," Vegeta remarked, a deadly edge in his tone. Veins bulged in his neck and I felt his power swell. I knew what it was. I was just surprised to see it. A cruel smile found its way into Vegeta's face, even as a tear of blood dripped from his eye. I said nothing, merely settled in my stance. One that Vegeta mirrored.
It would seem that Vegeta had reached up to Stage Twenty with the Wrath State.
For the first time in nearly a decade, Vegeta was stronger than me.
There was nothing to say anymore. The two of us darted forward and clashed in the middle with explosive force. Dust and rubble shot up and out, raining down on the planet as we continued our fight. I felt Vegeta's increased strength as it translated to raw power. Three million PL wasn't a gap in power that I was sure that I could close with skill and technique.
What I did know was that I could see the strain it was having on Vegeta's body. Meaning that this just became an endurance match.
A roar ripped from my throat as I punched Vegeta in the face, and felt him counter with a blow to my ribs. I felt them creak from the strain, but they held firm as we fought. The scenery began to slowly change again. The mountainous backdrop gave way to cast planes where the ground was completely flat in every direction. Then that too shifted to the ancient ruins of what had once been a truffle city.
Eventually, even the sky began to darken above as we fought in front of the half-moon.
"Tarble!" Vegeta roared, punching me in the mouth hard enough that he knocked a tooth loose. My suit was severely damaged, but my connection to the Warworld remained strong.
"Vegeta!" I roared back, grabbing him by the ears and slamming my forehead against his — not once, not twice, but three times before I planted a foot in his gut, only to have him slam a fist into the side of my knee. It didn't break from the attack, but the tendons stretched dangerously.
The endurance match had gone on for some time, but neither of us showed any signs of flagging. Vegeta had slowed down some, but he stubbornly remained in Stage Twenty of the Wrath State. It didn't matter. Once he did drop out of it, he wouldn't be able to manage the Hold the Wrath State at all in all likelihood. Whereas I was stuck in Stage Ten. When he faltered, victory was mine.
However, that fact hadn't escaped Vegeta either, so he fought that much harder.
A ki spear came to life in my hand before I thrust it down at Vegeta, attempting to skewer him. He effortlessly batted the ki spear away, going to counter with a spiraling ki disk that came to life in his hand, intent on cutting off my arm. Only I countered him in return, lashing out and diverting his hand with my free one. We both were close and we seemed to have the same thought because we both reared back our heads and slammed them together.
The shockwave of the impact stirred up the endless sea of sand we found ourselves in at some point. The location of our first and only spar. Sand and dust were stirred up, but we thought nothing of it as we continued.
An alert from the Warworld stole my attention away for a moment, costing me a heel kick to my temple, so I shoved it away and blocked the connection. Blood dripped down my face, both new and old, but I still pressed forward to deliver a powerful punch to Vegeta's liver and followed it up with a right hook that was countered by him elbowing me in the diaphragm. My lungs rebelled, expelling any air I had in them, but I forced myself to take a breath as the fighting continued.
Ki gathered in my hands before I started launching ki blasts at Vegeta, forcing him to back off while I regained my breath. Dozens of them raced by him, lingering in the air. "Hellzone Grenade!" I shouted, clenching my hand before the grenades raced to a single point of origin. Vegeta was enveloped in the explosion, but he was unharmed. That was proven when he flew forward before the light had even begun to fade, surrounded by a bubble shield. Another one of my techniques.
Maybe Matillo had a point about keeping them in reserve and not sharing them so freely.
Vegeta cupped his hands to the side, his shield becoming filled with discharges of lightning before he dropped it the moment the technique was complete. However, that slight delay was enough for me to prepare an attack of my own.
My own Galick Gun surged forward, slamming into Vegeta's with explosive force. Lightning discharged from where the attacks connected, pure energy carving lines through the mountainous sand dunes. Burnt glass marked their path as the two attacks temporarily struggled with each other.
Mine surged forward with ease after killing Vegeta's momentum. Three million points wasn't enough to overcome how dense my ki was. Despite losing ground, Vegeta fought to push my Galick Gun back. I grit my teeth, pouring more into my technique…
Then I cut it off.
Vegeta's Galick Gun surged, overcoming the vestiges of mine, but I gave him no time to savor the victory. I darted to the side, avoiding his attack and closing the distance between us. He realized what had happened a split second too late because I was able to deliver a powerful axe kick to his collarbone. I felt something shift underneath my foot, telling me I had broken it, but that meant little. Fighting with broken bones was the expectation at this point.
Following the attack up, I spun sharply, building momentum before I kicked Vegeta in the face, knocking him away from me. He righted himself a second later, prepared to counter me as I went to press the attack.
Only for a blast of purple to cut us both off before we could clash. Both of our attention snapped to the source, and there I saw it was Frieza sitting on his throne that floated a few hundred feet over the desert. He held up a pointer finger, an amused smile on his face as his red eyes blazed. The sight caught me so off guard, I nearly failed to notice the fact that he wasn't alone.
King Vegeta floated next to him, his expression troubled. Behind them were aliens. Each stood on a metal disk in a bubble of some kind while wearing official attire.
"Oh, Tarble — it seems you were having so much fun with your big brother that you forgot something," Frieza remarked in a singsong tone. And he was right. I had forgotten something. I had absolutely no clue what he-
The Peace Talks.
"I-..." Words failed me for a moment as I looked at Frieza, unsure what to say. He looked fine since he had both hands, and the mark across his torso had healed. However… I didn't sense any ki coming from his left arm. Was he using a mechanical one to cover up that he had been dismembered? "My apologies, Lord Frieza. But… don't the Peace Talks begin tomorrow?"
Frieza let out a laugh, "I suppose I can't blame you for being unaware, but the two of you have been fighting counter to the Planet's rotation. It's been a full day since you've begun," Frieza informed. I… me and Vegeta had been fighting to the west. I had noticed it was nighttime, but I had thought that was because we fought over to the night side of the planet rather than fighting against the planet's rotation.
My gaze darted to the dozen aliens behind Frieza. The representatives of the Federation based on the pins they wore. The Federation was hundreds of races strong, but these twelve were the chosen representatives. "Please forgive my tardiness, in that case. If you take no issue with it, then I am ready to begin." It wasn't the impression that I wanted.
To that, Frieza smiled dangerously, "That won't be necessary, Tarble. We've already concluded the Peace talks." He informed, catching me off guard. Already? I expected them to take days. Maybe weeks. I suppose Frieza being there had helped scare the Federation into agreeing with whatever he wished.
"And the terms agreed upon?" I asked, biting the inside of my cheek. This… I… I missed my chance to win the peace for-
"It was rather simple, Tarble. For the next thousand years, the Federation will waive importation fees on all Trade Organization merchandise as well as cover shipping fees, waiving any liability on the Trade Organization's behalf," Frieza explained and the words just seemed to… wash over me.
There was a small pause as I waited for Frieza to continue, but he didn't. It took me a few seconds to realize that. Then a few more to understand that was the peace deal.
"I…" I trailed off, a sinking feeling forming in my gut as I slowly started to feel sick to my stomach. There weren't words. My mind tried to form them, but they just wouldn't come. Frieza laughed loudly, apparently delighted.
"The Federation will become our most loyal customers Tarble! We'll pay off the expenses of the war in a decade with this deal," he announced, laughing harder. My stomach clenched and it felt like I was going to puke.
That… this…
This couldn't be real. My mind rejected it. It rejected even entertaining the possibility that was the peace deal that trillions had died for. That I had killed countless people with my own two hands for. That wasn't a peace deal that could in any way validate the war and those that died for it. It wasn't even a step towards building a future that would justify the war.
"Is that it?" Vegeta bluntly questioned, our fight practically forgotten. I was glad he asked it because I don't think I could so much as speak. I was left reeling from the information. "What was even the point of going to war with the Federation then?"
Frieza chuckled, "That was a defensive war, Vegeta. They attacked us. It works out perfectly! The Federation will be our customers, and with the production planets we've taken from the Reach, we'll produce all sorts of merchandise! Ovens, spaceships, soft drinks, we'll even sell them weapons and slaves!" No. No, he could not…
"I knew going to war with the Reach would pay off. I really do have to thank you, Tarble — if you hadn't inadvertently created the Federation, I would have had to deal with Cooler's nagging for centuries about betraying the Reach to take back the planets they developed." Frieza continued, and he had to know what he was doing. "It was so much faster and less costly than developing our own production worlds. We can even resell the planets they renovated for us for a vast increase in profit than what we sold the planets to them for."
Stomach acid churned in my gut, rising up my throat, and even swallowing it down couldn't help the burning sensation in the back of my throat.
Ovens. How many people have I murdered over ovens with a Trade Organization logo?
"But, enough about that. I'm far more interested in what this is," Frieza informed, looking between Vegeta and I. "Vegeta? The Prince? Would you be so kind to inform me why you're fighting with your baby brother?" He knew the reason. I could hear it in his voice and saw it in King Vegeta's expression.
He was humiliating us to drive the point home to the representatives of the Federation. For all of our strength and power and influence in the Trade Organization… we were nothing to Frieza.
Vegeta ground his teeth together and for a moment I thought he wouldn't answer. Then he spat a mouth full of blood to the side, the glob of red falling hundreds of feet to the sand below us. "We are fighting to see who will be the heir to the Saiyan race," he answered shortly.
Frieza made a sound as if that was somehow news to him. King Vegeta trembled, his hands curled into fists as the Federation exchanged looks. Then Frieza nodded, "I see. I see… how… underwhelming."
King Vegeta snapped, turning to Frieza with a snarl on his face. "I'm doing what — " he began, and I saw Frieza move. He raised his hand, looking to King Vegeta, my father, and aimed a finger at him. Frieza's smile grew and I acted.
Not to save my father, but my brother.
"Don't!" I shouted, tackling Vegeta as he rushed to interfere. It slowed him down enough that there was no stopping it. I caught a flash of light out of the corner of my eye but by the time I looked over, King Vegeta had been completely enveloped by purple energy. The attack faded from view a second later, but…
When it faded, there was nothing. Nothing left of my father. Not even ash.
"Nooo!" Vegeta screamed, a sound of grief tearing from his throat as I held him back with increasing difficulty. "FATHER!"
"We can't do anything for him, Vegeta. If you try, you'll get yourself killed," I told him, but I don't think he heard me.
The sound of Frieza laughing caught my attention, "There! Much better! Now you're fighting to the death to see who will become King of the Saiyans! Much more dramatic, don't you all agree?"
"I'LL KILL YOU!" Vegeta screamed in my ear, but I could barely hear him over the sound of my heartbeat thundering in my ears. He struggled to get past me, but I couldn't allow that.
None of it mattered at this moment. Not that we had been trying to kill each other moments before. Not that trillions upon trillions of people had died in a war to advance the Trade Organization's bottom line. None of it. Right now, the only thing that mattered was getting through this situation.
I flew down, tackling Vegeta to the ground below. We crashed through a mountain of a sand dune, making it wash over us. Vegeta lashed out, catching me in the face with the back of his fist. My head snapped back — I had been so preoccupied, I didn't notice Vegeta's power swelling. It was skyrocketing.
"Vegeta, swallow it," I hissed at him, grabbing him by the throat and pushing him through the sand to arc a long line through the desert. It washed over us, but it gave us some distance between us and Frieza. "I know. I understand. But if you do this, then Frieza will exterminate the Saiyan race. He will kill us all. You will be the king of nothing," I finished, punching Vegeta in the face and sending him through another sand dune.
My father was dead. Killed by Frieza. We weren't close. We hadn't ever been. First I was too weak, then I had walked away. I didn't love him… but I could have. Now that the war was over, we could have reconnected. That was stolen from me now. Vegeta, on the other hand…
Vegeta rose to his feet, his face twisted into a furious snarl of rage. Veins throbbed, his teeth gnashing together as he tried to control his breathing. Grains of sand began to swirl as they were blasted back from the power that he gathered. My heart sank when his raven black hair flashed gold for a fraction of a second.
"He killed him, Tarble. He killed our father," Vegeta bit out, tears welling in his eyes. I had never seen him cry before. I honestly thought he wasn't capable of it. Yet, it would seem the sting of the betrayal that he had suffered at our father's hand wasn't enough to wash away what they shared. Vegeta had loved our father. Looked up to him. Admired him. He had shared years with our father. As many as I had shared with Mom.
His power surged, his hair flashing gold as it drifted up, gathering in locks. Tears dripped from his eyes, but the power he gave off lifted them up before they could fall. "Frieza killed him," he repeated, looking at me. His eyes shifted from yellow to turquoise and his hair flashed once again.
"I know," I told him, my voice grim. "But you can't go Super Saiyan, Vegeta. If Frieza sees, he will kill us all because then… then we'll be a threat rather than his entertainment." It wouldn't work. I could see that. I didn't blame him either. I just couldn't let this happen. We failed to kill Frieza in the Vega system. We weren't ready to kill him now.
Vegeta took a step forward, "I… I… I DON'T CARE!" Vegeta threw back his head and screamed the words, his power surging. Sand and dust washed over me, a glow of golden light shining in the darkness filled my vision through it all. Vegeta began to rise and I rose with him, thinking as fast as I could, but I knew it was too late. It was all just falling apart.
I reached out to the Warworld and sent out a message. A risky gamble, but it was the only card I had left to play. I gave the order to evacuate the planet. Me and Vegeta were dead, but the Saiyan race didn't have to die here. The others could escape. They could hide. Then, one day, they could kill Frieza in our place. To do that, though, they had to survive today.
"Vegeta…" I trailed off when we rose above the dust and sand.
Tears still dripped from Vegeta's eyes, but he was surrounded by an aura of gold. His black hair shone with the same color while his eyes were colored turquoise. His armor was scuffed and broken, but the Royal Family insignia was still displayed proudly over his heart. He was a Super Saiyan. The first of us to become one. I was almost proud underneath the horror of everything that led to this point.
"Move," he growled the word out, sounding like a rabid animal trying to restrain itself.
"Vegeta, you need to run. Try to get off of Planet Vegeta with the others," it wouldn't work. That ice-cold part of my brain that I had grown so used to listening to, it practically became my normal thoughts. "You're a Super Saiyan. Run now, train our race, then come back stronger." It was the best I could come up with, but it wouldn't work. I knew that. I did. I just…
I didn't want my brother to die.
"Tarble," Vegeta said, taking in a breath, closing his eyes for a brief moment. When he opened them, his gaze bore a hole through me. As if he was looking at Frieza through me. "You run," he countered, drifting forward. "I'll hold Frieza off for as long as I can. You flee with those that you can gather. Train them. Be their King." My heart clenched in my chest as I realized what this was.
Vegeta was telling me goodbye.
He reached out, placing a hand on my shoulder and it was the most difficult thing I had ever done to meet his gaze. He gave my shoulder a slight squeeze and a nod, "I believe in you, little brother."
"Ve-" The words died in my throat when Vegeta's head snapped to the side, struck by an unseen force before blood splattered across my face. I flinched back, my heart sinking to my feet. Had Frieza-
Vegeta began to drop like a stone, his grip on my shoulder slipping. I reached out to grab him and found that he was dead weight. The golden aura faded quickly but his golden hair remained for a moment, revealing blood-soaked hair. It dripped down, soaking it before fading from view when Vegeta's hair went black.
All I could hear was the thundering in my ears. Air refused to enter my lungs. My gaze was locked on the wound on the side of his head. I could see the blood, the white of bone…
No.
"Vegeta?" I heard a pathetic voice whisper as I reached out, cupping the side of his head. Blood soaked my palm, dripping down my wrist as I turned his head to look at me. Vegeta's dark eyes looked back at me, wide open.
Lifeless.
"N… no…" I lowered to the ground, dropping like a stone. I laid him down in the sand, a Medicine Ball forming in my hands that washed Vegeta in purple healing light. His blood dripped into the sand underneath it, dying it red. My heart stopped in my chest, almost as if someone had reached out and gripped it with an ice-cold hand. This… no… no, this…
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something enter my range of vision. With wide eyes, I looked up to see Frieza, who looked down at Vegeta with a deep frown. His lips moved but it took a moment to click that he was speaking.
"-fun. Seems like Vegeta tried to save my life, taking a bullet for me. How droll," Frieza remarked, holding up a metal slug. I looked to it — a slug about an inch wide and two long. On its surface were engravings. Engravings that I recognized. For hours upon hours upon hours, I had watched Narra make similar movements as she carved those symbols into my soul.
Then the slug vanished.
"That…" My tongue felt wrong in my mouth. Heavy and clumsy. My thoughts felt muffled, my hearing too. It felt like I wasn't in my body anymore. "That's Canda's Nth metal slug," I heard myself say as I rose to my feet. I looked down at my hands, seeing the blood on them. Vegeta's blood. My brother's blood.
This didn't make any sense. Why… why was my brother dead? Why was he dead? Why had he been shot in the head with a Nth metal bullet from a dead comrade's gun? I… needed answers. I needed to know.
I think Frieza said something, but I wasn't listening. I reached out to the Warworld and demanded answers. It scanned the planet for all Nth metal -- there wasn't much. Just what was in my suit and necklace, and a small amount that was a few miles away. The Warworld gave me the exact location.
Wasting no time, I blasted towards it. I pushed my speed to its limit, heading towards the Nth bullet that was enchanted to return to the gun that fired it. I hadn't known Canda as well as some, but I had known her. She was a member of the 501st. She had been for years. There was no way I wouldn't recognize that bullet.
I didn't even care that I was risking a bullet to the head just like Vegeta. My head was empty except for the thought of finding the gun. Finding the gun and the person that pulled the trigger.
It didn't take but a minute to find it. It laid in the sand in a small crater, half-buried. As if someone had thrown it away as hard as they could to get rid of the trail. There were no footsteps, so it was a flyer that murdered my brother. In the crater was a railgun, a Nth bullet in the chamber to be fired. It was Canda's gun. There was no mistaking it. How? How was it here? Canda had died in the Vega system with the others—
The Warworld answered my question. Footage from a drone played in my mind, feed to me by the connection I had with the Warworld. It was a short clip, barely a few seconds long but there was no mistaking it. It was impossible to.
I saw Fasha picking the gun up, bracing it against her shoulder. I saw Bardock and Tora with her.
It was too much. It was just too much. I didn't even realize I was moving until I arrived at my destination. My mind felt like it was felt with fog clouding every thought. My blood felt too hot in my veins… none of it felt real. It felt like I was trapped inside of some hellish nightmare.
I flew down into an ancient building that had once been inhabited by the Truffles. The floors gave way like nothing until I reached the bottom floor that was half-buried in sand while moonlight streamed in from above. I landed in a crouch in a small crater, but as I rose, I met the gaze… the gaze of Fasha. Of Tora. Of Shugesh. Of Borgos.
Of my team.
"Tarble…" Fasha started, looking stricken as I walked forward out of the crater. Her dark eyes met mine, and I saw it in her gaze. I saw it before she spoke. "I'm sorry."
She did it. She murdered Vegeta.
Tears blurred my vision, my heart felt like it was being ripped into shreds. A heart-wrenching sound of grief escaped my throat as I gripped my head in my hands, trying to make sense of it all. Trying to find some other explanation for what was going on. My tears felt hot on my skin as they raced down my cheeks and I stumbled a step forward, nearly falling over because my legs didn't feel like they had any strength.
"Ahhh…" I groaned, my hands curling into fists as I grabbed handfuls of my hair. "Ah…" It wasn't a sob. It was something too broken to be a sob. I couldn't breathe. Air refused to enter my lungs, leaving me gasping for breath.
All of it… all of it was for nothing. My father was dead. My brother was dead. The Saiyan race was going to be exterminated. The war was for nothing.
It was all too much.
Something inside of me snapped.
Power flooded my body. I knew what it was even before I saw the golden aura that rose off of my body in wisps, or the light that cast long shadows in the ruined building. I saw it in their eyes. The look of awe. And fear.
I was a Super Saiyan… and I only had one thought in my mind.
"I'm going to kill you!"
...
You have no clue how long I've waited to write this chapter. This was the scene that gave me the idea for Going Native in the first place. It's changed a fair bit over the past year or so, but at the core it's still the same. Goku had rage, Vegeta had desperation, Broly had grief and Tarble has betrayal.
Vegeta betrayed him. His team betrayed him. Even Frieza betrayed him. Everything he fought for betrayed him. And, in a way, Tarble betrayed himself by betraying everything he stood for.
All that foreshadowing and build-up. All for this one moment to drive Tarble to become a Super Saiyan. I ended up writing this thing up in one sitting, I was having so much fun with it. The next chapter will be the finale for Going Native. I'm just going to make it as long as it turns out to be. After that, it's an epilogue. Then it's done at 84 chapters.
On that note, after the Epilogue is posted, I will be taking a week off from all my stories. For this story, I'm taking two weeks off to build up my backlog and finetune the outline for the sequel. So, Gone Native will be posted on July 5th, if I've done my math right.
Hope you all enjoyed!
The taste of blood was heavy on my tongue. I could hardly feel the impact of the blows that I took from Vegeta or from the ones I gave him in turn. There was nothing said between us as we fought. There was nothing left to say. Vegeta refused to listen to reason, his pride clouding his judgment. He was determined to either die with his honor intact or kill me to secure his place as heir. He wouldn't allow anything else.
I slammed my fist into his face, following it up with an elbow to his temple that knocked him away. I blasted off after him, intent on pressing the advantage as Vegeta left a wake in the ocean he flew over. Vegeta recovered nearly instantly, launching a ki ball at the ocean below us and sending thousands of gallons of water up in an explosion. I knew his plan, so I made use of the cover as well. Ki swirled to my hands before I thrust them forward, sending ki blasts through the surge of water.
Vegeta didn't return fire. I realized that a split second too late when a spiraling disk of purple ki raced towards me from below. I clenched my jaw the moment I saw it, jerking my head back to narrowly avoid being beheaded. The Destructo Disk sailed upward, only managing to cut a few hairs and that was it. Flipping back, I looked to the ocean just in time to see Vegeta surge upwards from the water, sending up hundreds of gallons.
The water exploded outwards when we clashed, causing a rainbow to form that we fought underneath. "My own techniques?" I spat at my brother, delivering a devastating punch to his kidney before following it up with an uppercut that was narrowly avoided. Vegeta twisted, going for a roundhouse kick at first before he turned it to a high knee when he saw that I was ready to counter. I chose to accept the blow with my forehead and repaid it by punching Vegeta in the gut, forcing him to fold over my fist.
I lashed out with my own knee, trying to catch Vegeta in the nose, only for him to catch the blow and push off of it to give himself distance. "It's a useful technique." Vegeta stated, the words sounded like praise but his tone said that they were anything but. "Rest easy, little brother. After I kill you, you will leave behind a legacy."
Kill or die. That was my choice. Even if I beat Vegeta now, it would change nothing. The moment his wounds mended, he would force this confrontation again. If I banished him, then he would come back to reclaim the throne. If I left, he would hunt me down to the end of the universe to not suffer a threat to his claim as heir. For the first time in a very long time, I found myself stuck in a situation that had no winning option.
Either I kill my brother or be killed by him.
"Damn you, Vegeta," I snarled at him, closing the distance between us to resume the bout. We fought in a blur, attacking and countering seamlessly as we flew through the air. It was next to impossible to keep track of our surroundings. I only realized that they had changed when I was knocked down to the planet and instead of water, my body tore through tons of rock instead. Vegeta followed me through the tunnel that my body carved out.
We clashed within the mountain, careless of our surroundings. It was too dark to see him, but it mattered little. Both of us had mastered ki sensing at this point. At this close, it was a simple task to sense our opponent's movements.
I jabbed with my left, a feint, before going low with my other fist. It buried itself in Vegeta's gut, sending him flying through the mountain that groaned around us. Though, not without delivering a counter — by kicking me in the side of the head — that prevented me from pressing the attack for a split second. I felt warm blood drip down the side of my face, rubble falling all around us.
"Spiral…" I began, cupping my hands to the side. The ki illuminated the darkness of the mountain, making shadows dance as the Saiyan-made cavern collapsed in on itself. Vegeta hovered across from me, quickly adopting a familiar stance and dark purple lightning began to discharge as he readied his Galick Gun. "BUSTER!" I shouted, thrusting my hands forward and launching the technique at Vegeta.
I heard him shout his own attack before the two clashed in the middle. The ensuing explosion blasted away the mountain we resided on, sending tons of rock flying if it wasn't instantly vaporized. However, despite Vegeta's power, there was no contest between the two attacks. My ki was hyperdense, far more so than normal ki. It was like throwing a rock into the ocean and expecting the ocean to stop it.
My Spiral Buster surged forward, racing towards Vegeta faster than he was prepared for and —
I hesitated.
The Spiral Buster faltered for a split second, giving Vegeta all the time he needed to dodge the attack when he realized he couldn't stop it head-on. With the mountain collapsing around us, he had plenty of room for it. Vegeta sailed upward, deftly avoiding the falling rock. I clenched my jaw, ending the technique before I followed the path it had carved out of the mountain. Rock fell like an avalanche, but I escaped the mountain unharmed as what might have been Planet Vegeta's highest mountain fell to fifth or sixth place.
I couldn't hesitate. Vegeta was not someone I could fight without taking seriously. This wasn't a spar between us like the last time we had fought. This was a fight… and if Vegeta had anything to say about it, then only one of us would walk away.
A flash of light brought my attention above. Vegeta fired off another Galick Gun. A quick one, so it wasn't especially powerful.
A Riot Javelin formed in my hand before I launched it upwards. The torrent of dark purple ki exploded outwards, letting me travel up unharmed. Vegeta cut off the technique, letting the Riot Javelin sail by him. I fell upon him, raining blows on Vegeta. He was prepared for it, but I still managed to land a kick — the back of my heel slammed into his cheek, making his head snap to the side as blood erupted from his mouth.
Even so, Vegeta recovered. He grabbed my leg, yanking me towards him in an attempt to plant a fist in my gut. I caught it with my hands, lessening the impact. Our gaze met during the clash, both of our eyes blazing yellow.
"You're going to kill me because you're jealous?" I spat at him before Vegeta turned sharply and flung me away. I righted myself, ready to counter the high knee aimed for my throat that immediately followed.
"I'm going to kill you because you're in my way!" Vegeta countered with a snarl. "Have you truly forgotten what it means to be a Saiyan? Did you truly believe that being in the Royal Family meant we would never come to blows?" Each word was punctuated with a half dozen blows. Each dodged or countered, just as Vegeta countered my counters. "Our grandfather killed our ancestors for the throne. Our father killed him for it. Now, I will kill you for it."
I grit my teeth, catching a punch before I slammed my fist against the bottom of his arm near the shoulder in an attempt to dislocate it. I succeeded, but it was a temporary victory because Vegeta smashed his other fist against my nose, flattening it in a spray of blood. Though, it was better my nose than him taking out an eye like he had tried to. Vegeta spun sharply, lashing out with a kick in an attempt to drive me away to slide his arm back into the socket. He still managed to even though my foot caught him in the bottom of his jaw with a high kick.
"It doesn't have to be this way!" It was pointless, but it was so maddeningly frustrating that I couldn't stop myself from saying the words.
Vegeta recovered, flipping back before descending on me with an axe kick. A feint. When I went to counter, the flat of his other foot slammed into my face. "You're a fool if you believe that, Tarble. Do you really think you can just walk away from the throne, and that would be it?" He snarled at me, pressing the attack with a fury of blows. "You would command the Saiyans and me due to your position as Supreme Commander. Our people would look to you and wonder why you aren't king."
He delivered the words at the same moment he delivered a punch to my gut. Bile rose in the back of my throat, but I still countered by lunging forward and smashing his nose with an elbow.
"You…" I bit out, grabbing him by his armor before flying directly down to the planet below. All the while I pummeled him with blows and accepted them in return. "You were preparing for this."
We were talking past each other all this time. It was never just about becoming the heir. He was trying to kill me to validate his claim to the throne. He was going to kill me to prevent me and my deeds from undercutting his reign as king. Our father naming me the heir was simply the final straw… but…
"You were planning to kill me," I accused, slamming my forehead against Vegeta's, stunning him before I pulled back and punched him, a flicker of raw rage fueling my attacks. Vegeta struck the ground, propelled forward because of the added momentum. I didn't follow him down, recoiling from the revelation. "No matter what, you were going to try to kill me?"
My heart ached, but it was more numb than painful. It was disbelief. Vegeta wasn't acting out of blind passion. This… this wasn't planned, but he had premeditated my murder. No matter what I said, this was always going to happen.
Vegeta rose from the rubble, standing tall as he looked up at me. "Don't act like you didn't intend to do the same. It's beneath you," Vegeta spat.
I scowled, "That's the thing, Vegeta. I wasn't." My knuckles were white I clenched my fists so tightly.
"Then you are far more naive than I could have imagined," Vegeta responded, his eyes meeting mine without a shred of remorse in them. I slowly lowered myself to the ground, meeting his gaze without flinching or blinking.
There was only one word that could describe what I felt.
That word was betrayal.
I touched down and started to stride forward, my anger growing as my face twisted to match Vegeta's snarl. "I'm going to beat the shit out of you, Vegeta." That was my declaration before I sprung forward, closing the distance between us with explosive force. Vegeta began to counter, but he was caught off guard by the ferocity in my blows. My fist tore through his guard, planting itself in his diaphragm until he was completely folded over my fist. Grabbing him by the back of his head, I kept it in position to knee him in the face hard enough he was launched off the ground.
Dazed, he could do nothing as I grabbed onto his ankle as he flew up, catching him. Gritting my teeth, I recalled the fight with Froot and infused Ki into the ground under my feet. Swinging down with all of my strength, Vegeta let out a strangled scream as he impacted, the stone managing to retain some level of integrity upon impact. He recovered instantly, twisting in my grip to kick me in the face. Or try to, at least, but he managed to force me to let go even as I dodged the kick.
"Glad to see you're finally taking this seriously," Vegeta remarked, a deadly edge in his tone. Veins bulged in his neck and I felt his power swell. I knew what it was. I was just surprised to see it. A cruel smile found its way into Vegeta's face, even as a tear of blood dripped from his eye. I said nothing, merely settled in my stance. One that Vegeta mirrored.
It would seem that Vegeta had reached up to Stage Twenty with the Wrath State.
For the first time in nearly a decade, Vegeta was stronger than me.
There was nothing to say anymore. The two of us darted forward and clashed in the middle with explosive force. Dust and rubble shot up and out, raining down on the planet as we continued our fight. I felt Vegeta's increased strength as it translated to raw power. Three million PL wasn't a gap in power that I was sure that I could close with skill and technique.
What I did know was that I could see the strain it was having on Vegeta's body. Meaning that this just became an endurance match.
A roar ripped from my throat as I punched Vegeta in the face, and felt him counter with a blow to my ribs. I felt them creak from the strain, but they held firm as we fought. The scenery began to slowly change again. The mountainous backdrop gave way to cast planes where the ground was completely flat in every direction. Then that too shifted to the ancient ruins of what had once been a truffle city.
Eventually, even the sky began to darken above as we fought in front of the half-moon.
"Tarble!" Vegeta roared, punching me in the mouth hard enough that he knocked a tooth loose. My suit was severely damaged, but my connection to the Warworld remained strong.
"Vegeta!" I roared back, grabbing him by the ears and slamming my forehead against his — not once, not twice, but three times before I planted a foot in his gut, only to have him slam a fist into the side of my knee. It didn't break from the attack, but the tendons stretched dangerously.
The endurance match had gone on for some time, but neither of us showed any signs of flagging. Vegeta had slowed down some, but he stubbornly remained in Stage Twenty of the Wrath State. It didn't matter. Once he did drop out of it, he wouldn't be able to manage the Hold the Wrath State at all in all likelihood. Whereas I was stuck in Stage Ten. When he faltered, victory was mine.
However, that fact hadn't escaped Vegeta either, so he fought that much harder.
A ki spear came to life in my hand before I thrust it down at Vegeta, attempting to skewer him. He effortlessly batted the ki spear away, going to counter with a spiraling ki disk that came to life in his hand, intent on cutting off my arm. Only I countered him in return, lashing out and diverting his hand with my free one. We both were close and we seemed to have the same thought because we both reared back our heads and slammed them together.
The shockwave of the impact stirred up the endless sea of sand we found ourselves in at some point. The location of our first and only spar. Sand and dust were stirred up, but we thought nothing of it as we continued.
An alert from the Warworld stole my attention away for a moment, costing me a heel kick to my temple, so I shoved it away and blocked the connection. Blood dripped down my face, both new and old, but I still pressed forward to deliver a powerful punch to Vegeta's liver and followed it up with a right hook that was countered by him elbowing me in the diaphragm. My lungs rebelled, expelling any air I had in them, but I forced myself to take a breath as the fighting continued.
Ki gathered in my hands before I started launching ki blasts at Vegeta, forcing him to back off while I regained my breath. Dozens of them raced by him, lingering in the air. "Hellzone Grenade!" I shouted, clenching my hand before the grenades raced to a single point of origin. Vegeta was enveloped in the explosion, but he was unharmed. That was proven when he flew forward before the light had even begun to fade, surrounded by a bubble shield. Another one of my techniques.
Maybe Matillo had a point about keeping them in reserve and not sharing them so freely.
Vegeta cupped his hands to the side, his shield becoming filled with discharges of lightning before he dropped it the moment the technique was complete. However, that slight delay was enough for me to prepare an attack of my own.
My own Galick Gun surged forward, slamming into Vegeta's with explosive force. Lightning discharged from where the attacks connected, pure energy carving lines through the mountainous sand dunes. Burnt glass marked their path as the two attacks temporarily struggled with each other.
Mine surged forward with ease after killing Vegeta's momentum. Three million points wasn't enough to overcome how dense my ki was. Despite losing ground, Vegeta fought to push my Galick Gun back. I grit my teeth, pouring more into my technique…
Then I cut it off.
Vegeta's Galick Gun surged, overcoming the vestiges of mine, but I gave him no time to savor the victory. I darted to the side, avoiding his attack and closing the distance between us. He realized what had happened a split second too late because I was able to deliver a powerful axe kick to his collarbone. I felt something shift underneath my foot, telling me I had broken it, but that meant little. Fighting with broken bones was the expectation at this point.
Following the attack up, I spun sharply, building momentum before I kicked Vegeta in the face, knocking him away from me. He righted himself a second later, prepared to counter me as I went to press the attack.
Only for a blast of purple to cut us both off before we could clash. Both of our attention snapped to the source, and there I saw it was Frieza sitting on his throne that floated a few hundred feet over the desert. He held up a pointer finger, an amused smile on his face as his red eyes blazed. The sight caught me so off guard, I nearly failed to notice the fact that he wasn't alone.
King Vegeta floated next to him, his expression troubled. Behind them were aliens. Each stood on a metal disk in a bubble of some kind while wearing official attire.
"Oh, Tarble — it seems you were having so much fun with your big brother that you forgot something," Frieza remarked in a singsong tone. And he was right. I had forgotten something. I had absolutely no clue what he-
The Peace Talks.
"I-..." Words failed me for a moment as I looked at Frieza, unsure what to say. He looked fine since he had both hands, and the mark across his torso had healed. However… I didn't sense any ki coming from his left arm. Was he using a mechanical one to cover up that he had been dismembered? "My apologies, Lord Frieza. But… don't the Peace Talks begin tomorrow?"
Frieza let out a laugh, "I suppose I can't blame you for being unaware, but the two of you have been fighting counter to the Planet's rotation. It's been a full day since you've begun," Frieza informed. I… me and Vegeta had been fighting to the west. I had noticed it was nighttime, but I had thought that was because we fought over to the night side of the planet rather than fighting against the planet's rotation.
My gaze darted to the dozen aliens behind Frieza. The representatives of the Federation based on the pins they wore. The Federation was hundreds of races strong, but these twelve were the chosen representatives. "Please forgive my tardiness, in that case. If you take no issue with it, then I am ready to begin." It wasn't the impression that I wanted.
To that, Frieza smiled dangerously, "That won't be necessary, Tarble. We've already concluded the Peace talks." He informed, catching me off guard. Already? I expected them to take days. Maybe weeks. I suppose Frieza being there had helped scare the Federation into agreeing with whatever he wished.
"And the terms agreed upon?" I asked, biting the inside of my cheek. This… I… I missed my chance to win the peace for-
"It was rather simple, Tarble. For the next thousand years, the Federation will waive importation fees on all Trade Organization merchandise as well as cover shipping fees, waiving any liability on the Trade Organization's behalf," Frieza explained and the words just seemed to… wash over me.
There was a small pause as I waited for Frieza to continue, but he didn't. It took me a few seconds to realize that. Then a few more to understand that was the peace deal.
"I…" I trailed off, a sinking feeling forming in my gut as I slowly started to feel sick to my stomach. There weren't words. My mind tried to form them, but they just wouldn't come. Frieza laughed loudly, apparently delighted.
"The Federation will become our most loyal customers Tarble! We'll pay off the expenses of the war in a decade with this deal," he announced, laughing harder. My stomach clenched and it felt like I was going to puke.
That… this…
This couldn't be real. My mind rejected it. It rejected even entertaining the possibility that was the peace deal that trillions had died for. That I had killed countless people with my own two hands for. That wasn't a peace deal that could in any way validate the war and those that died for it. It wasn't even a step towards building a future that would justify the war.
"Is that it?" Vegeta bluntly questioned, our fight practically forgotten. I was glad he asked it because I don't think I could so much as speak. I was left reeling from the information. "What was even the point of going to war with the Federation then?"
Frieza chuckled, "That was a defensive war, Vegeta. They attacked us. It works out perfectly! The Federation will be our customers, and with the production planets we've taken from the Reach, we'll produce all sorts of merchandise! Ovens, spaceships, soft drinks, we'll even sell them weapons and slaves!" No. No, he could not…
"I knew going to war with the Reach would pay off. I really do have to thank you, Tarble — if you hadn't inadvertently created the Federation, I would have had to deal with Cooler's nagging for centuries about betraying the Reach to take back the planets they developed." Frieza continued, and he had to know what he was doing. "It was so much faster and less costly than developing our own production worlds. We can even resell the planets they renovated for us for a vast increase in profit than what we sold the planets to them for."
Stomach acid churned in my gut, rising up my throat, and even swallowing it down couldn't help the burning sensation in the back of my throat.
Ovens. How many people have I murdered over ovens with a Trade Organization logo?
"But, enough about that. I'm far more interested in what this is," Frieza informed, looking between Vegeta and I. "Vegeta? The Prince? Would you be so kind to inform me why you're fighting with your baby brother?" He knew the reason. I could hear it in his voice and saw it in King Vegeta's expression.
He was humiliating us to drive the point home to the representatives of the Federation. For all of our strength and power and influence in the Trade Organization… we were nothing to Frieza.
Vegeta ground his teeth together and for a moment I thought he wouldn't answer. Then he spat a mouth full of blood to the side, the glob of red falling hundreds of feet to the sand below us. "We are fighting to see who will be the heir to the Saiyan race," he answered shortly.
Frieza made a sound as if that was somehow news to him. King Vegeta trembled, his hands curled into fists as the Federation exchanged looks. Then Frieza nodded, "I see. I see… how… underwhelming."
King Vegeta snapped, turning to Frieza with a snarl on his face. "I'm doing what — " he began, and I saw Frieza move. He raised his hand, looking to King Vegeta, my father, and aimed a finger at him. Frieza's smile grew and I acted.
Not to save my father, but my brother.
"Don't!" I shouted, tackling Vegeta as he rushed to interfere. It slowed him down enough that there was no stopping it. I caught a flash of light out of the corner of my eye but by the time I looked over, King Vegeta had been completely enveloped by purple energy. The attack faded from view a second later, but…
When it faded, there was nothing. Nothing left of my father. Not even ash.
"Nooo!" Vegeta screamed, a sound of grief tearing from his throat as I held him back with increasing difficulty. "FATHER!"
"We can't do anything for him, Vegeta. If you try, you'll get yourself killed," I told him, but I don't think he heard me.
The sound of Frieza laughing caught my attention, "There! Much better! Now you're fighting to the death to see who will become King of the Saiyans! Much more dramatic, don't you all agree?"
"I'LL KILL YOU!" Vegeta screamed in my ear, but I could barely hear him over the sound of my heartbeat thundering in my ears. He struggled to get past me, but I couldn't allow that.
None of it mattered at this moment. Not that we had been trying to kill each other moments before. Not that trillions upon trillions of people had died in a war to advance the Trade Organization's bottom line. None of it. Right now, the only thing that mattered was getting through this situation.
I flew down, tackling Vegeta to the ground below. We crashed through a mountain of a sand dune, making it wash over us. Vegeta lashed out, catching me in the face with the back of his fist. My head snapped back — I had been so preoccupied, I didn't notice Vegeta's power swelling. It was skyrocketing.
"Vegeta, swallow it," I hissed at him, grabbing him by the throat and pushing him through the sand to arc a long line through the desert. It washed over us, but it gave us some distance between us and Frieza. "I know. I understand. But if you do this, then Frieza will exterminate the Saiyan race. He will kill us all. You will be the king of nothing," I finished, punching Vegeta in the face and sending him through another sand dune.
My father was dead. Killed by Frieza. We weren't close. We hadn't ever been. First I was too weak, then I had walked away. I didn't love him… but I could have. Now that the war was over, we could have reconnected. That was stolen from me now. Vegeta, on the other hand…
Vegeta rose to his feet, his face twisted into a furious snarl of rage. Veins throbbed, his teeth gnashing together as he tried to control his breathing. Grains of sand began to swirl as they were blasted back from the power that he gathered. My heart sank when his raven black hair flashed gold for a fraction of a second.
"He killed him, Tarble. He killed our father," Vegeta bit out, tears welling in his eyes. I had never seen him cry before. I honestly thought he wasn't capable of it. Yet, it would seem the sting of the betrayal that he had suffered at our father's hand wasn't enough to wash away what they shared. Vegeta had loved our father. Looked up to him. Admired him. He had shared years with our father. As many as I had shared with Mom.
His power surged, his hair flashing gold as it drifted up, gathering in locks. Tears dripped from his eyes, but the power he gave off lifted them up before they could fall. "Frieza killed him," he repeated, looking at me. His eyes shifted from yellow to turquoise and his hair flashed once again.
"I know," I told him, my voice grim. "But you can't go Super Saiyan, Vegeta. If Frieza sees, he will kill us all because then… then we'll be a threat rather than his entertainment." It wouldn't work. I could see that. I didn't blame him either. I just couldn't let this happen. We failed to kill Frieza in the Vega system. We weren't ready to kill him now.
Vegeta took a step forward, "I… I… I DON'T CARE!" Vegeta threw back his head and screamed the words, his power surging. Sand and dust washed over me, a glow of golden light shining in the darkness filled my vision through it all. Vegeta began to rise and I rose with him, thinking as fast as I could, but I knew it was too late. It was all just falling apart.
I reached out to the Warworld and sent out a message. A risky gamble, but it was the only card I had left to play. I gave the order to evacuate the planet. Me and Vegeta were dead, but the Saiyan race didn't have to die here. The others could escape. They could hide. Then, one day, they could kill Frieza in our place. To do that, though, they had to survive today.
"Vegeta…" I trailed off when we rose above the dust and sand.
Tears still dripped from Vegeta's eyes, but he was surrounded by an aura of gold. His black hair shone with the same color while his eyes were colored turquoise. His armor was scuffed and broken, but the Royal Family insignia was still displayed proudly over his heart. He was a Super Saiyan. The first of us to become one. I was almost proud underneath the horror of everything that led to this point.
"Move," he growled the word out, sounding like a rabid animal trying to restrain itself.
"Vegeta, you need to run. Try to get off of Planet Vegeta with the others," it wouldn't work. That ice-cold part of my brain that I had grown so used to listening to, it practically became my normal thoughts. "You're a Super Saiyan. Run now, train our race, then come back stronger." It was the best I could come up with, but it wouldn't work. I knew that. I did. I just…
I didn't want my brother to die.
"Tarble," Vegeta said, taking in a breath, closing his eyes for a brief moment. When he opened them, his gaze bore a hole through me. As if he was looking at Frieza through me. "You run," he countered, drifting forward. "I'll hold Frieza off for as long as I can. You flee with those that you can gather. Train them. Be their King." My heart clenched in my chest as I realized what this was.
Vegeta was telling me goodbye.
He reached out, placing a hand on my shoulder and it was the most difficult thing I had ever done to meet his gaze. He gave my shoulder a slight squeeze and a nod, "I believe in you, little brother."
"Ve-" The words died in my throat when Vegeta's head snapped to the side, struck by an unseen force before blood splattered across my face. I flinched back, my heart sinking to my feet. Had Frieza-
Vegeta began to drop like a stone, his grip on my shoulder slipping. I reached out to grab him and found that he was dead weight. The golden aura faded quickly but his golden hair remained for a moment, revealing blood-soaked hair. It dripped down, soaking it before fading from view when Vegeta's hair went black.
All I could hear was the thundering in my ears. Air refused to enter my lungs. My gaze was locked on the wound on the side of his head. I could see the blood, the white of bone…
No.
"Vegeta?" I heard a pathetic voice whisper as I reached out, cupping the side of his head. Blood soaked my palm, dripping down my wrist as I turned his head to look at me. Vegeta's dark eyes looked back at me, wide open.
Lifeless.
"N… no…" I lowered to the ground, dropping like a stone. I laid him down in the sand, a Medicine Ball forming in my hands that washed Vegeta in purple healing light. His blood dripped into the sand underneath it, dying it red. My heart stopped in my chest, almost as if someone had reached out and gripped it with an ice-cold hand. This… no… no, this…
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something enter my range of vision. With wide eyes, I looked up to see Frieza, who looked down at Vegeta with a deep frown. His lips moved but it took a moment to click that he was speaking.
"-fun. Seems like Vegeta tried to save my life, taking a bullet for me. How droll," Frieza remarked, holding up a metal slug. I looked to it — a slug about an inch wide and two long. On its surface were engravings. Engravings that I recognized. For hours upon hours upon hours, I had watched Narra make similar movements as she carved those symbols into my soul.
Then the slug vanished.
"That…" My tongue felt wrong in my mouth. Heavy and clumsy. My thoughts felt muffled, my hearing too. It felt like I wasn't in my body anymore. "That's Canda's Nth metal slug," I heard myself say as I rose to my feet. I looked down at my hands, seeing the blood on them. Vegeta's blood. My brother's blood.
This didn't make any sense. Why… why was my brother dead? Why was he dead? Why had he been shot in the head with a Nth metal bullet from a dead comrade's gun? I… needed answers. I needed to know.
I think Frieza said something, but I wasn't listening. I reached out to the Warworld and demanded answers. It scanned the planet for all Nth metal -- there wasn't much. Just what was in my suit and necklace, and a small amount that was a few miles away. The Warworld gave me the exact location.
Wasting no time, I blasted towards it. I pushed my speed to its limit, heading towards the Nth bullet that was enchanted to return to the gun that fired it. I hadn't known Canda as well as some, but I had known her. She was a member of the 501st. She had been for years. There was no way I wouldn't recognize that bullet.
I didn't even care that I was risking a bullet to the head just like Vegeta. My head was empty except for the thought of finding the gun. Finding the gun and the person that pulled the trigger.
It didn't take but a minute to find it. It laid in the sand in a small crater, half-buried. As if someone had thrown it away as hard as they could to get rid of the trail. There were no footsteps, so it was a flyer that murdered my brother. In the crater was a railgun, a Nth bullet in the chamber to be fired. It was Canda's gun. There was no mistaking it. How? How was it here? Canda had died in the Vega system with the others—
The Warworld answered my question. Footage from a drone played in my mind, feed to me by the connection I had with the Warworld. It was a short clip, barely a few seconds long but there was no mistaking it. It was impossible to.
I saw Fasha picking the gun up, bracing it against her shoulder. I saw Bardock and Tora with her.
It was too much. It was just too much. I didn't even realize I was moving until I arrived at my destination. My mind felt like it was felt with fog clouding every thought. My blood felt too hot in my veins… none of it felt real. It felt like I was trapped inside of some hellish nightmare.
I flew down into an ancient building that had once been inhabited by the Truffles. The floors gave way like nothing until I reached the bottom floor that was half-buried in sand while moonlight streamed in from above. I landed in a crouch in a small crater, but as I rose, I met the gaze… the gaze of Fasha. Of Tora. Of Shugesh. Of Borgos.
Of my team.
"Tarble…" Fasha started, looking stricken as I walked forward out of the crater. Her dark eyes met mine, and I saw it in her gaze. I saw it before she spoke. "I'm sorry."
She did it. She murdered Vegeta.
Tears blurred my vision, my heart felt like it was being ripped into shreds. A heart-wrenching sound of grief escaped my throat as I gripped my head in my hands, trying to make sense of it all. Trying to find some other explanation for what was going on. My tears felt hot on my skin as they raced down my cheeks and I stumbled a step forward, nearly falling over because my legs didn't feel like they had any strength.
"Ahhh…" I groaned, my hands curling into fists as I grabbed handfuls of my hair. "Ah…" It wasn't a sob. It was something too broken to be a sob. I couldn't breathe. Air refused to enter my lungs, leaving me gasping for breath.
All of it… all of it was for nothing. My father was dead. My brother was dead. The Saiyan race was going to be exterminated. The war was for nothing.
It was all too much.
Something inside of me snapped.
Power flooded my body. I knew what it was even before I saw the golden aura that rose off of my body in wisps, or the light that cast long shadows in the ruined building. I saw it in their eyes. The look of awe. And fear.
I was a Super Saiyan… and I only had one thought in my mind.
"I'm going to kill you!"
...
You have no clue how long I've waited to write this chapter. This was the scene that gave me the idea for Going Native in the first place. It's changed a fair bit over the past year or so, but at the core it's still the same. Goku had rage, Vegeta had desperation, Broly had grief and Tarble has betrayal.
Vegeta betrayed him. His team betrayed him. Even Frieza betrayed him. Everything he fought for betrayed him. And, in a way, Tarble betrayed himself by betraying everything he stood for.
All that foreshadowing and build-up. All for this one moment to drive Tarble to become a Super Saiyan. I ended up writing this thing up in one sitting, I was having so much fun with it. The next chapter will be the finale for Going Native. I'm just going to make it as long as it turns out to be. After that, it's an epilogue. Then it's done at 84 chapters.
On that note, after the Epilogue is posted, I will be taking a week off from all my stories. For this story, I'm taking two weeks off to build up my backlog and finetune the outline for the sequel. So, Gone Native will be posted on July 5th, if I've done my math right.
Hope you all enjoyed!
I Wonder just who all fall under "you" just then, cos there are a lot of people who may fall under the "I want to kill this person" catalog for him right now.
Next, what is his base power right now, and does going SS still keep him in wrath stage? Because if yes then he should be able to kill friza, if no then the question becomes what is his base lower level right now? And how much stronger friza is compared to canon namek.
Also to consider is if having the wrath stage lv 10 which is more or less great ape with beyond perfect control and SS at the same time will kick him in to "SS4" soon, the we have to consider if he will keep control or go on a rampage,
Over all there are a lot of directions ideas-guy, can make the next chapter go I can't wait to see which way he has chosen to take this.
Finishing this comment I would like to thank idea guy for the chapter and the Story.
Loss of Everything
- Location
- USA
A scream of rage ripped itself from my throat as I blasted forward, crossing the distance between us in a fraction of a second. At speeds that my team — my family — couldn't hope to react to. For me, time seemed to slow to a crawl as Fasha's gaze managed to meet mine as I reared back a fist. Her final words echoing in my head like a bell. They replayed as if they were on a loop, serving as white noise to the moment I watched my brother die.
Fasha didn't think I would do it. I could see it in her eyes. She didn't think I was capable of it.
She was wrong.
My fist blurred forward as I screamed a wordless roar of grief and rage. Blood splashed on my cheek when my fist punched through Fasha's chest, directly through her heart. Her expression twisted to one of shock and anguish as I ripped my arm free. Her blood splashed out, soaking the sand red as she began to drop to her knees.
Fasha… she had been the closest thing I had to an older sister. A memory flashed in my mind from so many years ago — my first mission. How we had both stared into the vastness of space as she told me about her own first mission to reassure me. The universe had seemed so much larger back then.
Before her knees touched the sand, I grabbed her head with both hands, each covered in the blood of someone I had loved. I turned sharply, filling the abandoned lobby with the harsh sounds of Fasha's spine breaking. Her presence left her body. She was dead. I had killed her.
"Faaaassshhhhaaa!" I didn't need to look to know who screamed her name. The grief and heartbreak in the tone mirrored my own. Shugesh. He had loved Fasha for years. Decades. He never told her. Some battles were easier than others, he used to say when I questioned him about it once. He had been afraid of ruining what he had, so he didn't dare reach out for more.
Now it was too late.
"Shugesh!" I roared right back, pivoting where I stood to look at the short man. His eyes were a blazing yellow that dripped tears, his bowl-cut hair blasted back as he threw himself at me, driven by grief. The expression on his face didn't suit him. Shugesh had always been the most laid back of the team. Someone who understood his weaknesses and strengths well, so he stuck to them. We had been similar in the beginning, but as my power and responsibilities grew…
He was still family to me. I loved him.
My fingers pressed together as I threw an uppercut, using Shugesh's momentum against him. The soft skin underneath his jaw offered no resistance, nor did the bone as I skewered Shugesh's brain. He died instantly. A noise that sounded like it came from a wild animal escaped me as I sent Shugesh into a crash landing with the sand. He impacted hard, tumbling a fair bit and slamming through the ancient wall.
Distantly, almost faintly, I realized that the building was coming down. Tora and Borgos backed off, making a hasty retreat. I stood still, uncaring of the falling stone. My hands trembled, tears blurring my eyes as they raced down my cheeks. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. I was all too aware of what I was doing, but it was like I was watching someone else doing it. Watching my body murder my team. People that I loved. Looked up to. Admired. And hated.
"RAAAHHHH!" I screamed, my power surging. Like an invisible wall, the collapsing building exploded outward as sand and dust stirred. "Hnnh… gah…!" I tried to swallow a sob that rose from my throat, my hands going to my face. The salt in my tears stung at the wounds that Vegeta had given me. I barely felt it. Nothing could be compared to the hellish feeling in my chest. There weren't words. None even came close.
I tried to swallow it down. To give the same advice I had given Vegeta. The moment I thought about him, about my older brother, I saw the moment he died. It was seared into my mind.
"Bardock, we need-" I heard Tora shout, making me go still. My hands dropped from my face as I looked up at Tora. He was shouting into his scouter and I realized that neither Fasha nor Shugesh had been wearing theirs. They were trying to avoid being tracked. For all the good that it did them. "It's Tarble, he's betrayed us!"
Those words seemed to penetrate the fog that clouded my mind and it snapped me back. I was suddenly in my own body again, and every sense I had felt like it was dialed up to fifteen. The blood on my face and hands, the sand on my sweat-soaked skin, the almost gentle sound of my power surging and falling in a steady rhythm not unlike a heartbeat. I felt something bubble up from deep in my gut. At first, I thought it was another wordless roar.
Instead, I heard myself chuckle. My shoulders began to shake as they kept coming, growing in strength. A laugh escaped me, followed by another, then another. I tried to contain them, a hand going to my mouth that had curled up into a smile. I was laughing. It was too hilarious for me not to.
It was the first time I've laughed like this. From the gut, until it felt like my lungs were empty. Somehow, I don't think this was what Froot had meant.
I breathed out, looking up at Tora, who gazed down with a determined expression. However, he couldn't hide the fear in his eyes. I killed half of the team already. "Who betrayed who, Tora?" I asked him, taking a slow step forward. "Who betrayed who?"
Tora opened his mouth, but I didn't care. I couldn't. I betrayed them? After they murdered my brother in front of me? Who were they trying to fool? It certainly wasn't me. They betrayed me. They betrayed my family. They betrayed everything we had gone through together. They betrayed the trust that had been forged in war when we only had each other to rely on.
Because would they really stop at just Vegeta? Who would be next? Me? Mom? Elery?
Gritting my teeth, I threw myself upward, closing the distance between Tora and me. He was in the Wrath State, as far as he could push it. He dodged the punch that would have torn through his heart, moving to counter. Because of that, he never saw the blow that killed him. I dipped under his counter, rearing back a fist that I slammed against the side of his head. His skull shattered on impact, his heart still pounding and sending his blood through the stump of his neck. It doused me, but his body began to fall to the ground.
Tora… he was an uncle to me if I had to put it into words. He wasn't a mentor, but he had been someone I looked up to. When I first took command of the team, it was his opinion that had mattered the most to me. Bardock had left large shoes to fill, and Tora had been the natural choice to replace him. Which is why I had pushed myself so hard to be worthy of the role as leader.
His corpse hit the ground in a plume of dust, rolling down a sand dune before he was buried in the sand that he had displaced.
A ki blast slammed into my back, exploding upon impact. I felt it, but it didn't hurt. It was more like a solid punch. I turned around, catching another to my chest. When the smoke cleared, I saw Borgos rushing me. The fact that his attacks did no damage didn't phase him. I don't think he cared.
Borgos was the quietest among us. It was easy to forget that he was there at times. But he had made his impression on me. When I had first joined the team, it had been him that welcomed me first with no reservations. A simple gesture of sharing some dried jerky, but at that time, when I had been so unsure of myself, it had meant the world to me.
I raised my hand, ki flooding my palm while my gaze never left his. Blue light erupted from my hand, washing over Borgos before the torrent of ki slammed into the ground with explosive force. I felt his presence vanish nearly instantly, but I kept the technique going for a moment longer.
It started to sink in what I had just done. Only when it was over did it process that I had been fighting against my team. And it was only when they were all dead that it sank in that I was killing them. I reached out with my ki sense and I found nothing in the city. Frieza was keeping his distance, likely for his own entertainment. I also felt presences begin to leave my range as they obeyed the order to flee Planet Vegeta.
However, the only thing that I could focus on was a familiar presence racing towards me.
Bardock.
My mentor. The man that I looked up to. That I idolized. The man that had been more of a father to me than my own father.
Who had also arranged for my brother to be murdered. Who had betrayed me in ways that there weren't words to describe.
"BARDOCK!" I roared, blasting forward to meet my mentor halfway. A sandstorm followed in my wake as I shattered the sound barrier instantly and raced beyond it. I moved faster than I ever had before. Faster than I thought possible without being a speedster like Burter. In mere moments, I left the desert and the ruins behind and closed in on Bardock.
It still took me long enough for him to realize what was going on. Bardock spotted me coming, launching ki blasts to deter me from coming straight for them. They slammed into my body, but I hardly felt them. They did damage, but there was just no room in my head for anything but this.
I could have killed him in the opening blow. I wanted to. I was soaked in my brother's blood. I was soaked in the blood of my team. I was soaked in my own blood.
Why? I had to know why.
I slammed into Bardock, grabbing him by the face as I sent us both flying to the ground. "Why?! Why?!" I screamed, slamming Bardock into the ground below and pushing him through the dirt and stone. He couldn't answer even if he wanted to. I knew that. Even still, the lack of an explanation set my blood boiling in my veins. "Why, Bardock?!" I lifted him out of the ground and threw him down.
Bardock struck the planet like a meteor despite the little distance. Rubble and dust went flying up as Bardock shot down beneath the surface, displacing minerals and dirt as he formed a tunnel with his body. He was still alive. I felt that much, and it was proven when Bardock fired up with a ki blast that blasted through the falling rubble to hit me. I caught the blast effortlessly.
I wouldn't have been able to do that before. Bardock, however briefly, had taken Vegeta's place as the third most powerful Saiyan alive. He was nearly my equal before the Vega system. Yet, with the power that surged in my body… it wasn't even close. Not remotely. Becoming a Super Saiyan made all the difference in the world when it came to power. More so for me given that for years, I was stuck in Stage Ten of the Wrath State.
Bardock blasted out of the man-made tunnel, looking bloodied. His armor had broken up, revealing most of his torso, though he still had one strap over one shoulder. He glared up at me as if I was the enemy. "Tarble, what did you do?!" He demanded to know, his face twisting into a snarl.
"You know exactly what I did, Bardock," I bit the words out. "Now tell me why you did it. Why did you murder my brother?" I forced out between clenched teeth. Every instinct I had screamed for blood. Demanded it. That one act of betrayal completely washed away what we were before. The moment that Vegeta was murdered, the team became my enemies.
An expression of rage and loss passed over Bardock's face as he realized whose blood I was drenched in. "You killed them?" Bardock breathed as if he could barely believe it.
My eyes narrowed into slits and I moved. Blurring forward, I crossed the distance between us and gripped Bardock by the neck. I held on tight, choking the life out of him as he pointlessly pulled at my hand. I held on, sending us both on a collision course with a cliffside that crumbled upon impact. Bardock gasped, his body taking the worst of the impact and I reinforced the cliff with ki to make it more durable.
"My brother, Bardock. My brother. I knew you two didn't get along, but this?! How can you justify this?!" I roared, squeezing tighter. Despite his position, Bardock glared at me. His face twisted into a snarl — there was pain in his yellow eyes. The same pain that had been in Vegeta's. The same that was in mine.
"For you!" Bardock roared back, pushing against my grip. "So you would be king instead of that elitist brat that was going to keep things the same because he liked being on top!" Bardock bit the words out and my grip lessened on reflex. "Because I know your father already tried to kill us once. What's to stop him from doing it again?"
"Me," I stressed the word, glaring into Bardock's eyes, completely dissatisfied with the answer. They murdered my brother to make me King? Just like how my father stripped Vegeta of his position as heir?
Meaning… meaning that Vegeta… he died for nothing. For no reason. We were fighting. Father already made me the heir, and Vegeta wasn't going to stop until he killed me or he died.
The moment we had set that aside for the good of our race, Fasha murdered him. With a gun stolen from one of my soldier's corpses.
I couldn't forgive it. I would never forgive this. I don't care how pure and good his motives were. I watched my brother die. I held him in my arms. I was covered in his blood.
I would never forgive them.
Bardock lashed out, a fist catching me in the cheek. I let it land. "What did you do to the team, Tarble?" He demanded to know, his lips curling back into a snarl. "Whose blood is that, Tarble?!"
"It belongs to people that I loved, Bardock," I answered.
A wordless roar of grief escaped Bardock as he lunged for me, tears budding in his eyes. I grit my teeth and slammed a fist into his gut, folding him over it before cupping my hands together and bringing them down in his back. Bardock shot to the ground and impacted hard enough that the cliffside began to break up from the miniature earthquake that he caused.
I should end this now. I knew Bardock. Or, at least I thought I had. He loved the team. He trusted them. They had been his closest friends for most of his life.
Bardock checked all the same boxes that I did. That Vegeta did. Vegeta had lost Father. I had lost Vegeta. Bardock lost the team. He had the power. He had the catalyst. The three of us were always the most likely to become Super Saiyans, but I never thought that the three of us would all become one on the same day.
"Tarble!" Bardock roared up at me, the sky stirring above as thunder began to crackle and his power skyrocketed. The sandstorm that I had whipped up was racing to close the distance between us. Golden light shone beneath me, the dust pushed back as Bardock too attained a form from myth and legend. His golden hair stood straight up, his turquoise eyes filled with hate.
I was still stronger, but the gap between us had been bridged.
Good.
"Bardock!" I returned, darting down and the two of us clashed in the middle. Trees were ripped up and sent flying from the shockwave of our fists colliding, the cliffside shook and further collapsed on itself. I didn't care. I only had eyes for Bardock.
His fists lashed out in blurs and I shook off how familiar the feeling was as we fought. For three years, we had trained every day together when I had been crippled by my fight with Mongul. Before, he had watched me and advised me during my fight with the Saibamen. Then we sparred more times than I could count during our years behind enemy lines. I knew how he fought.
Just like he knew how I fought.
I threw an elbow at his eye that he caught in the palm of his hand. He countered with a fist to the gut that was similarly caught by my other hand. Rearing our heads back, our foreheads collided with a clash that could be heard for miles. I grit my teeth, my nails digging into my palms until they bled.
"They were our team! You knew them your entire life!" Bardock shouted, punching me in the face, and opened himself up to a liver shot as blood filled my mouth.
I lashed out with a foot, catching him in the side of the head, dazing him, only to be caught in a trap when I learned he had faked it to punch me in the gut. He threw a high knee that I caught by slamming both of my fists against his knee, nearly breaking it. Bardock roared, just as immune to pain as I was, and slammed his fists into my back. I shot towards the ground, flipping so I landed on my feet.
Despite infusing ki into the ground, the stone still broke underfoot, but in the shape of a shallow crater as the densest stone remained strong.
"I know that!" I roared back at him, throwing a high kick as he descended. It was a feint. Spinning sharply, the bottom of my foot caught him in the stomach and sent him flying. "They were my team just as long as they were yours! They were my friends! My family! But what do you expect me to do when you start killing my family, Bardock?!" I shouted at him, closing the distance and punching him in the face.
A forest worth of trees was displaced as Bardock shot through it. Ancient and powerful trees were vaporized as he crashed through them, ripping more out of the ground from the wind force. He righted himself after a moment, catching my fist against his forearm, our eyes meeting.
"I never wanted to be King! None of this had to happen!" I continued, punching Bardock in the diaphragm in exchange for an elbow in the temple that was followed by a high kick to the bottom of my chin, launching me into low orbit. Even as Bardock raced up to close the distance, I continued. "No one would have had to die if you and father didn't decide things for others!"
The moment he closed in, I countered his jab and planted my fist in his face, landing directly on his scarred cheek. He was knocked to the side, then struck by lightning as we fought in the storm that raged below. The wind howled in my ears, sounding like death itself as we fought. The blows that were traded were harsh and brutal, every bit as brutal as every spar that we've had until this day. Only we knew that this time, only one person would be walking away.
"We could have talked it all out! No one had to die for a chair that means nothing!" I roared, planting a fist in Bardock's gut, and he countered by slamming a fist into my exposed elbow in an attempt to break my arm.
"You don't get to talk about talking things out when you murdered our team!" Bardock roared right back, screaming at the top of his lungs as he lashed out with a kick to my head. "They're dead because of you!"
I snarled, dipping underneath the kick and lunging for Bardock's head. I slammed my hands around his ears, disorienting him before I followed it up with a headbutt that sounded louder than the clap of thunder. Bardock shot down to the ground, tearing through the planet's surface in a long line. I quickly gave chase and found Bardock recovered enough to greet me with a high knee to the face.
"They're dead because of you!" I returned, kicking him in the side of his knee, and trying to land an elbow against his bleeding chin. "How long did you plan this?! A year? Five? Ten?"
"Longer!" Bardock shouted, delivering an uppercut to the bottom of my chin before following it up with a jab against my kidneys. I bent under the blow, but I followed the momentum and lashed out with a foot to his head. Spinning sharply, I kicked him in the back of the head, sending him into the ground, then I spun once again to deliver a devastating axe kick to the back of his head. Or, I would have if Bardock hadn't recovered and narrowly avoided the blow. He planted a fist against my nose, sending me flying through what felt like several buildings.
One collapsed on top of me. It reminded me of D'xe -- when I discovered the Wrath State. Bardock had sent me against the Vanguard-class scarab in an attempt to force the transformation. That had been our last mission as a team.
My power skyrocketed, blasting the rubble away and sending it raining down on the city to clash with Bardock in the sky above it.
"We never told you because we expected this! But I thought too much of you. I never thought you'd kill the team," Bardock spat, and the hypocrisy was galling. I punched him through a building and sent a ki blast after him. For a moment, I forgot my own strength. The ki blast exploded, expanding in every direction at rapid speeds. The city was wiped off the face of the planet with no effort.
Bardock still lived, firing back with ki blasts of his own. Dozens of them. I fired back, the ki blasts colliding midair and the world went white as all of planet Vegeta seemed to quake. The sound was thunderous, the wind stirring up the storm that seemed to only swell in intensity by the second. Still, I felt Bardock's presence. He was still alive.
More than that, I felt him charging a technique.
"Galick," I began, cupping my hands to my side. The ki swelled rapidly, sending powerful discharges of energy out in every direction. The lightning was intense, carving lines through the crater below, making the new cliffside fall as chunks were cut out of it. "GUN!" I screamed, launching the technique down at Bardock.
Something was off. I noticed it instantly when I didn't feel any resistance. That much was proven when I realized that there was a Riot Javelin traveling upstream. I grit my teeth and abandoned the Galick Gun to avoid losing an arm to the Riot Javelin. Something that Bardock was prepared for because not a moment later, two Destructo Disks raced towards me at angles to prevent me from dodging.
Tucking into a ball, I dodged by slipping between them while two Destructo Disks of my own formed in my hands that I launched back at Bardock. He dodged them effortlessly as he raced towards me.
I planted my foot in his face, "You knew I wouldn't betray my family, so you just went behind my back?!"
"What family?!" Bardock shouted right back, gripping my ankle and pulling me to his level to trade blows. "Your parents refused to acknowledge you. You've only met your brother a handful of times. And you still picked them over us!"
"Shut. Up!" I bit out, grabbing Bardock by the hair and punching him in the face a few times before he caught my fist and threw an elbow at my nose. I caught the blow on my forehead instead and punched him in the diaphragm for good measure.
"Can't handle the truth, Tarble?!" Bardock screamed, grabbing me by the head and kneeing me in the face. I recovered, catching a second knee before I twisted out of his grip and delivered a kick to the bottom of his chin.
"I didn't pick anyone! I'm not the one that drew lines in the sand and made sides, Bardock! You should have told me. I would have beaten the shit out of you. Then I would have beaten the shit out of my family. There was a way this ended where no one died," I bit out, flipping back and blocking a punch with my hand. Then another with my free hand. Bardock reared his head back, and I did the same and we delivered a harsh headbutt that squelched blood into our eyes on impact.
Bardock glared into my eyes, "For all that you've accomplished, Tarble, you are unbearably naive." He pushed back, going to kick, but I beat him to it by delivering a high knee to his face.
"No," I returned, axe kicking Bardock in the face. "I'm just the only one that's had to compromise my beliefs because reality didn't care what I believed in or what I desired. You couldn't do that, Bardock. Neither could King Vegeta. You can lament in hell for all I care, but this is your fault."
Ki spears formed in my hands, but I didn't throw them. A presence was approaching. My hands trembled as Frieza appeared, a smile on his face that could best be described as content.
The battle paused as he approached. "Oh, don't mind me, you two. I just wanted a front-row seat to the drama." He remarked, a cruel, mocking edge in his voice. I met his red eyes for a moment — and I saw fear in them. He was putting up a front. I could see it. By that, he meant that the moment there was a victor, he was going to kill them. He was using the loser to weaken the winner for him.
It seemed that he lost that reckless confidence in the Vega System with his arm and tail.
I looked at Bardock, his expression was fierce. Our gazes met, and a silent message was passed between us. He offered a curt nod, showing that he understood.
Then I descended and the fight resumed. I sent a command to the Warworld, preparing the main gun while I checked in on the evacuation. The Warworld reported that most of the Federation ships had been stolen as well as every reported ship on Planet Vegeta. It was too early to tell if the Saiyan race would live another day, but at least they were off the planet. It gave them a chance.
I threw the spear at Bardock, who narrowly avoided it. Cupping my hands to my side, I glared into his eyes. "Ka…" I began, blue light flickering in my palms.
I was thoroughly annoyed to see that he adopted the same stance, uttering the name of the technique in unison. ""Me… ha… me…"" the technique swelled to levels that were previously unthinkable. Something far beyond what I had used against Froot.
We thrust the technique forward in unison.
Just not at each other.
Both Kamehameha's raced towards Frieza, blocking any view of him behind the two powerful torrents of ki. Each technique was a planet buster, yet I saw both stall against Frieza's telekinesis. Mine made headway by virtue of being heavier, but he was still able to stop the technique in its tracks. So, I poured more into it. I completely let go of my restraint, an iron will that I had perfected over a decade, and just screamed at the top of my lungs in an attempt to push the technique further.
The Warworld glowed in orbit, through the dark cloud that covered the sky. It fired a second later, a bright red laser punching through the atmosphere. A vastly more powerful attack than I had blocked once before.
The red laser slammed into Frieza's back. I knew it struck because my and Bardock's techniques surged forward when his concentration lapsed. The Frost Demon was caught between all three of the planet-busting techniques, yet I still didn't feel him die. He wasn't uninjured. More so that he already was, but he still lived.
That much was proven when Frieza surged upwards, utterly furious and covered in burns. Some of which looked terrible. The prosthetics he had used melted, revealing the true extent of his injuries.
"You…" Frieza growled out, reaching out with a hand to the Warworld. He yanked it down, sending it on a collision course with planet Vegeta with effortless ease. "Damn… dirty… filthy… monkeys!" Frieza yelled at us, any semblance of composure gone without a trace. The Warworld fell from orbit behind him, slamming into the planet with explosive force. The sound was beyond loud and the entire planet recoiled under the force.
My connection to the Warworld sputtered, but remained. It was still operational, but it had suffered critical damage.
"So, you let me transform for this?" Bardock asked, floating to my level as we both squared off against a furious Frieza. I… I couldn't forgive him. And he couldn't forgive me. If somehow both of us survived this fight, then we would finish the battle we had started. But, for now, we could agree on something.
Frieza had to die. Today. Even if we had to die doing it.
"How dare you? How dare you?" Frieza hissed as he glared at us, grinding his teeth together as his only hand clenched into a fist that trembled with rage. "I will personally exterminate your species. I'll save you two for last so you can watch everyone you've ever known die!" Frieza lashed out at us, and I felt myself being gripped by an invisible force before being flung into the ground.
Stone and dirt gave way underneath me as it felt like Frieza was going to fling me through the planet that already felt like it was about to shake apart. Gritting my teeth, ki flowed to my hands as Destructo Disks formed, marking my trail before I suddenly stopped.
Frieza's telekinesis was the biggest obstacle that we had to deal with. More so than his raw power. However, I think it had weaknesses. Firstly, he needed line of sight. Secondly, how he had destroyed Mogo… it was a sight that I would never forget. But, because of that, I recalled how the planet Green Lantern had been crushed.
Almost as if a giant fist hand grabbed hold of it and crushed the planet in its palm.
Taking in a deep breath, I flexed my power and sailed upwards. Frieza flung me miles beneath the surface, but I was back to the surface in seconds. Two ki spears formed in my hands, finding Frieza's presence before I threw the spears at him. They flashed through the air, only to be stopped cold when Frieza thrust his hand at them. Fury was etched into his face. "Tarble!" He growled my name hatefully, but that rage was quickly transferred when Bardock made his move.
He dove in, closing the distance between them, and punched Frieza in the face with all of his strength. The Frost Demon sailed away, slamming into the ground below. My eyes widened as I recalled my spears, catching them in my hands as Bardock and I descended. "His hand," I told my theory to Bardock, who just grunted in response.
Frieza recovered, not so much as bleeding from the blow. He raised his hand, dark purple energy crackling in his palm before he fired it at us, forcing Bardock and me to split off. He went left and I went right as we narrowly avoided the blast that carved a deep line in the planet's surface. The energy seemed to make the storm above grow in strength, lightning pouring down like it was rain while planet Vegeta began to crack from the impact of the Warworld.
The planet was dying.
That didn't matter. My ki spears spun in my hands before I threw the shortest one at Frieza. He threw out his hand, blasting the ki spear away, only to fall prey to a knee to the back of the head. I threw the longer one at Bardock as I recalled the short spear, both of us pressing the attack. Frieza looked like he was going to have an aneurysm as he lashed out, an invisible force hitting Bardock and flinging him away. However, the ki spear caught the worst of it.
I dove in, lunging low with my spear, only to see my vision be filled with Frieza's hand. I felt something grip my head, and my skull felt like it was going to shatter from the pressure. I felt blood erupt from my ears and nose, but I still heard Frieza. "Tarble, it really is a shame it ends like this. You always were my favorite monkey," Frieza remarked, the pressure growing.
I grit my teeth and sent one of the Destructo Disks flying towards Frieza. The spiraling ki disk erupted from underneath where Frieza stood, and I felt the pressure around my head vanish. My vision was blurry, but I didn't need to see. Thrusting up, my short spear dug into one of Frieza's eyes, earning a high-pitched scream from the Frost Demon. Even with all my strength, and targeting soft tissue, I wasn't able to skewer his brain. I yanked my spear to the side, attempting to carve out both of his eyes, but I felt an invisible force hit me in the chest.
My sternum shattered, my ribs breaking like glass as I was flung backward. My organs ruptured, sending blood gushing up my mouth and nose. Even still, I took control of my flight path, flipping and digging my feet into the ground. It took me half a mile to slow myself down enough to throw myself back into the fight. I saw Bardock's golden glow darting about, attempting to stay in Frieza's blind spot.
As I raced forward, the planet's crust began to finally give out. I nearly flew face-first into a tidal wave of magma that gushed upwards like a fountain. The heat was intense, but I ignored it and flew higher. The action revealed that it wasn't an isolated occurrence. All across planet Vegeta, mountains rose and fell, volcanoes formed and erupted, tidal waves of lava and water swept over the land. The skies above were every bit as devastating — tornadoes formed by the dozens, lightning fell like rain…
The planet was dying and it was dying fast. I wouldn't put it at lasting for more than five minutes before the planet shook itself apart.
Meaning we had to make the most of the time that we had.
I blasted forward, my ki spear condensing into a ball as I flew above Frieza. Bardock and the tyrant clashed, and I felt more confident in my theory as I watched them fight. Frieza had macro telekinesis, not micro. More than that, he didn't seem able to properly use it without clenching his hand. A habit picked up from lazy training if I had to guess. Perfect practice made perfect, after all.
"Final…!" I began, cupping my hands in front of me as the technique began to form. There was so much lightning falling down that the discharge from the Final Flash wasn't even noticed by Frieza. "FLASH!" I roared, launching a powerful torrent of ki at Frieza. It raced down to him, but Bardock breaking off was the warning that gave it away, however.
I felt the technique slam into something. At first, I thought it was Frieza as he tried to fight against the attack. Instead, I quickly realized that Frieza had caught the Final Flash with his telekinesis and he was trying to push back. I grit my teeth, blood seeping from my nose and mouth while my hands trembled with exertion.
"Wrath State…" I bit the words out, a blood vessel erupting in my eye and dying my vision red. "Stage! Ten!" I screamed at the top of my lungs as pain unlike anything I had ever felt before tore through my body. It was as if every individual cell in my body was being torn to shreds a million times and I was being hit with all that pain at once.
I was thankful for it. The pain was the only reason I didn't blackout.
My technique surged downward, catching Frieza by surprise. He fought against it, but the weight pushed him down until the Final Flash was drilling through the planet. Yet, I didn't feel him die even as the Final Flash tore through the other end of Planet Vegeta. What I did feel was that incredible pressure on my body pressing down at every angle.
The Final Flash ended, revealing Frieza. His body was bulkier, and he was taller. His power level skyrocketed to heights that I hadn't known were possible. Double his previous strength.
The pressure grew until I felt bones snap underneath it. I couldn't let go of the Wrath State. If I did, then I was dead. Though, I might die anyway.
"Goodbye, Tarble," Frieza bit the words out, one eye closed as purple blood dripped from his face. The pressure grew, earning a snarl from me as I recalled the other Destructo Disks that I had hidden before. They raced out of the ground, converging on Frieza. Despite losing the eye, he was aware of his blind spot and I felt the pressure vanish as Frieza threw out his hand, a round shield made out of telekinetic energy catching the Destructo Disks.
A ki spear formed in my hand, and I compacted it as much as I could before I flung it towards Frieza with all of my strength. The sound barrier shattered as the tip glowed from superheated air. I saw Frieza's eye widen a fraction, but the spear slowed as it neared him until it stopped a fraction of a fraction of an inch in front of his only eye.
Bardock finished the blow, racing forward and grabbing the spear before thrusting it forward with all of his strength and momentum. The spear sank into Frieza's remaining eye, blinding him fully. Frieza screamed at the top of his lungs, blasting Bardock and the Destructo Disks away from him as his hand reached to his bleeding eyes. I flew forward as Bardock joined me.
We had blinded him, but Frieza was still a threat. He was still incredibly powerful. All we did was give ourselves an opening to end this fight.
Two Destructo Disks formed in my hands as two Riot Javelins formed in Bardock's. Frieza unleashed a wordless scream of pain and hate as he sent a blast of purple energy at us. He couldn't aim, so he made the blast wide enough that he didn't have to.
Bardock threw the Riot Javelins into the torrent of purple energy. A split second after, I threw the Destructo Disks before both of us were forced to try to catch the energy attack. All four attacks traveled upstream to Frieza, but the attack still hit us hard. We caught it with our hands, trying to push it back to keep it from overwhelming us, but it proved futile. It was like trying to stop the ocean with a teacup.
But that didn't matter. The momentum that propelled the attack forward died a second later, and over the claps of thunder, I heard Frieza howling in pain. When the energy faded, I saw his one arm was mangled from the Destructo Disks. His hand was cut in half, and a huge slice had been cut from the arm that bled profusely.
He wasn't dead. We were whittling him down, but it would just take one good hit from him to kill us.
"We're running out of time," Bardock remarked, his chest rising and falling in a shaky rhythm. "The planet exploding won't kill him, will it?"
"No," I answered. I doubt it would. We would need something else. My gaze drifted to the scene behind Frieza, the remains of the Warworld. I reached out to it with the mental connection that I had with it and asked it a silent question.
I was answered with an affirmative.
"We push him towards the Warworld," I decided before flying down. I threw a ki spear down at Frieza, the spear slamming into his skin, but only managing to knock him back rather than skewering him. I landed behind him and kicked him in the back while Bardock kneed him in the face.
"I will make you suffer!" Frieza raged, lashing out with his hand. I expected the action and kicked him in the wrist, knocking his hand up while Bardock dodged low. Without his eyes, Frieza was almost manageable. He countered with blinding speed and his attacks were absolutely devastating. If Bardock wasn't here to divide his focus… if Hal hadn't managed to wound Frieza… then I would have died a long time ago.
I kicked Frieza in the gut, sending him flying back while Frieza countered. Using the kick as a point of origin, he took aim and fired an energy blast from what was left of the palm of his hand. It was impossible to dodge the blow, it filled my vision. Gritting my teeth, my hands slammed against the surface of the ki blast as my feet dug into the surface of the planet. I reinforced it with ki, hoping to gain some traction before I heaved upwards and threw the ki blast up.
Not a second too soon because I felt an intense heat on the back of my legs. Blasting forward, I saw Bardock continue the fight. He attacked from the front, so I went from behind as we began to steadily push Frieza to the Warworld. No words were said. There didn't need to be said. There was just grim determination to win against a foe that the stakes were just too high to lose against.
More lava gushed upwards as we fought, the shaking of the planet growing worse by the second. We had less than a minute. We might have less than ten seconds.
The pressure fueled our resolve as Bardock and I worked in a perfect harmony created by so many years of fighting together. Our bodies remembered the feeling of working together, even if nothing would ever be the same between us again.
"I should have exterminated your species the moment daddy found you!" Frieza roared, his threats and rage growing more common the more he was pushed back. He seemed to adapt to missing his eyes, much to our horror. Each blow was immediately returned with one of his own, using the point of origin as a reference. Each narrow dodge grew narrower, and without the other, neither Bardock nor I would have been able to survive.
My blood surged in my veins as I punched Frieza back, sending him flying into the Warworld. His body tore through the thick metal like it was nothing and Bardock and I gave chase. We needed him to be in the epicenter. Even if it meant that we were caught in the blast too.
The Warworld began the preparations, a timer on the clock as we began to tear through the it, a ship that had been the closest thing I had to a home. I narrowly dodged a kick from Frieza that would have taken my head off without Bardock kicking Frieza's leg up an additional few inches. Frieza lashed out with a ki blast that only just avoided Bardock when I kicked Frieza's arm to the side. Bardock went in, punching Frieza in the throat, only to be kicked by me when Frieza countered and nearly tore Bardock in half with a wild haymaker.
I punched Frieza in the side of the head, trying to damage his ears. Bardock moved when Frieza went to counter, only to pivot. A feint. My eyes widened as blood splashed on my face from where Frieza struck Bardock, seeing through our strategy. A fist tore through his chest, directly through his heart.
Bardock was dead.
"Tarble!" Bardock bit the words out, grabbing Frieza's arm and holding him. He thrust a hand in my direction, his turquoise eyes meeting mine. There was no hate in them. No rage. Not even sorrow. Just acceptance. "Take care of the rest," he requested as the golden glow from his hair faded, returning it to a solid black. The golden aura that surrounded him condensed into his hand before it leaped from his palm, slamming me in the chest.
My body felt like it was dying as my power grew, Bardock's strength being added to my own. It was too much. It was far too much. It would kill me before long.
"Ka!" I started, cupping my hands together, light forming in my hands as I channeled the excess power into the attack. I had to get it out of me. I had to put absolutely everything into this final attack. My strength flowed to my hands as I dodged back from Frieza as he lashed out. "Me!"
"You're the last one left, Tarble! I can't wait to hear you scream! Always so stoic. I bet you'll be so much fun to torment!" Frieza yelled, ripping his hand free of Bardock's body.
"Ha!" I continued, not caring what he had to say. I had no interest in entertaining Frieza any longer. His last words would fall on deaf ears. "Meeee…!"
I sucked in a deep breath and gave the command to the Warworld. It seemed I would be saying farewell to all of my comrades this day.
"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" I screamed, thrusting my hands out and launching the Kamehameha at Frieza. He reached out, catching the blast, but it wasn't like the others. It contained all of Bardock's power given to me in his final moments. It contained all of mine as well.
It slammed into Frieza, and I heard him screaming as he flew back directly towards the Warworld's power source. The crystal containing limitless energy detonated, filling my vision with white light as the explosion that followed was so loud that my eardrums ruptured. The Kamehameha pushed me back, slamming my body through the Warworld walls as I fought to escape the glowing white explosion. A split second later, just as I burst forth from the wreckage of the Warworld, I felt it.
A presence that had dominated my life since the day that I was born. A presence of someone that I had once respected, but grew to hate.
I felt Frieza die.
The white explosion continued to grow outwards, enveloping all of the Warworld, then continuing to expand. The Kamehameha began to peter out, leaving me to turn my back on it as I flew to escape it. My mind raced, gathering up the last vestiges of my strength to blast forward, away from the explosion.
Thirty seconds. That's all I had. The power crystal held more power than a sun. Than a hundred suns. Self-destructing was the last resort for the Warworld because it would take out everything in the system when the following explosion caused a supermassive black hole that would envelop the entire solar system.
I had one chance. No other ship would be able to save me.
"Dammit, Bardock," I cursed under my breath, driven forward by his final request. I couldn't take care of Kakarot or Gine if I was dead. I spotted my destination, having memorized the coordinates for it years ago. I flew down, tearing through the cavern and mountains of sand.
Landing on my feet, I looked up to see the ship. A bone-white ship shaped in a ring. The ship that had brought the Saiyan race to Planet Plant. A ship that I had thought about over the years, a mystery that had tugged at my thoughts whenever I thought of Planet Vegeta.
In the end, it was obvious as I strode forward. Though, that might just be because I had gotten two obvious clues.
The Galick Gun was a key that had been converted into an attack.
Kindness was the way.
A Galick Gun formed in the palm of my hand that I reached out and directed it to the ship. Power didn't matter. We just thought it did because the ship responded to it, but we had been mistaken. It wasn't power. It was energy.
A lock worked by lining up the tumblers. The key was to give it the energy it needed to line them up.
The ship responded to my single-handed Galick Gun. It twisted in on itself, merging and shaping until it was a sleek saucer. A door marked itself on its surface that opened, revealing a set of stairs. I ignored them in favor of flying inside, finding the interior vastly larger than the ship should be.
"Danger imminent in the system. Evacuation recommended," I heard a voice say with a synthetic edge to it.
I didn't have a destination in mind. "Evacuate to the previous location," I ordered the ship, my strength fading as I walked inside. The interior was too white. White floors, white walls, and a white ceiling. Sterile. I drifted to a chair that seemed to be the command center and collapsed into it. I felt the ship rise through the air as I leaned back.
"Destination Sadala selected."
Those were the last words I heard before my eyes drifted shut and everything went black.
....
The next chapter is currently available on my Patreon and Subscribe Star, so if you want to read it a week early, all it takes is a single dollar in the tip jar. Or, for five dollars, you can read the chapter after that two weeks before its public release! I hope you enjoyed!
Fasha didn't think I would do it. I could see it in her eyes. She didn't think I was capable of it.
She was wrong.
My fist blurred forward as I screamed a wordless roar of grief and rage. Blood splashed on my cheek when my fist punched through Fasha's chest, directly through her heart. Her expression twisted to one of shock and anguish as I ripped my arm free. Her blood splashed out, soaking the sand red as she began to drop to her knees.
Fasha… she had been the closest thing I had to an older sister. A memory flashed in my mind from so many years ago — my first mission. How we had both stared into the vastness of space as she told me about her own first mission to reassure me. The universe had seemed so much larger back then.
Before her knees touched the sand, I grabbed her head with both hands, each covered in the blood of someone I had loved. I turned sharply, filling the abandoned lobby with the harsh sounds of Fasha's spine breaking. Her presence left her body. She was dead. I had killed her.
"Faaaassshhhhaaa!" I didn't need to look to know who screamed her name. The grief and heartbreak in the tone mirrored my own. Shugesh. He had loved Fasha for years. Decades. He never told her. Some battles were easier than others, he used to say when I questioned him about it once. He had been afraid of ruining what he had, so he didn't dare reach out for more.
Now it was too late.
"Shugesh!" I roared right back, pivoting where I stood to look at the short man. His eyes were a blazing yellow that dripped tears, his bowl-cut hair blasted back as he threw himself at me, driven by grief. The expression on his face didn't suit him. Shugesh had always been the most laid back of the team. Someone who understood his weaknesses and strengths well, so he stuck to them. We had been similar in the beginning, but as my power and responsibilities grew…
He was still family to me. I loved him.
My fingers pressed together as I threw an uppercut, using Shugesh's momentum against him. The soft skin underneath his jaw offered no resistance, nor did the bone as I skewered Shugesh's brain. He died instantly. A noise that sounded like it came from a wild animal escaped me as I sent Shugesh into a crash landing with the sand. He impacted hard, tumbling a fair bit and slamming through the ancient wall.
Distantly, almost faintly, I realized that the building was coming down. Tora and Borgos backed off, making a hasty retreat. I stood still, uncaring of the falling stone. My hands trembled, tears blurring my eyes as they raced down my cheeks. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. I was all too aware of what I was doing, but it was like I was watching someone else doing it. Watching my body murder my team. People that I loved. Looked up to. Admired. And hated.
"RAAAHHHH!" I screamed, my power surging. Like an invisible wall, the collapsing building exploded outward as sand and dust stirred. "Hnnh… gah…!" I tried to swallow a sob that rose from my throat, my hands going to my face. The salt in my tears stung at the wounds that Vegeta had given me. I barely felt it. Nothing could be compared to the hellish feeling in my chest. There weren't words. None even came close.
I tried to swallow it down. To give the same advice I had given Vegeta. The moment I thought about him, about my older brother, I saw the moment he died. It was seared into my mind.
"Bardock, we need-" I heard Tora shout, making me go still. My hands dropped from my face as I looked up at Tora. He was shouting into his scouter and I realized that neither Fasha nor Shugesh had been wearing theirs. They were trying to avoid being tracked. For all the good that it did them. "It's Tarble, he's betrayed us!"
Those words seemed to penetrate the fog that clouded my mind and it snapped me back. I was suddenly in my own body again, and every sense I had felt like it was dialed up to fifteen. The blood on my face and hands, the sand on my sweat-soaked skin, the almost gentle sound of my power surging and falling in a steady rhythm not unlike a heartbeat. I felt something bubble up from deep in my gut. At first, I thought it was another wordless roar.
Instead, I heard myself chuckle. My shoulders began to shake as they kept coming, growing in strength. A laugh escaped me, followed by another, then another. I tried to contain them, a hand going to my mouth that had curled up into a smile. I was laughing. It was too hilarious for me not to.
It was the first time I've laughed like this. From the gut, until it felt like my lungs were empty. Somehow, I don't think this was what Froot had meant.
I breathed out, looking up at Tora, who gazed down with a determined expression. However, he couldn't hide the fear in his eyes. I killed half of the team already. "Who betrayed who, Tora?" I asked him, taking a slow step forward. "Who betrayed who?"
Tora opened his mouth, but I didn't care. I couldn't. I betrayed them? After they murdered my brother in front of me? Who were they trying to fool? It certainly wasn't me. They betrayed me. They betrayed my family. They betrayed everything we had gone through together. They betrayed the trust that had been forged in war when we only had each other to rely on.
Because would they really stop at just Vegeta? Who would be next? Me? Mom? Elery?
Gritting my teeth, I threw myself upward, closing the distance between Tora and me. He was in the Wrath State, as far as he could push it. He dodged the punch that would have torn through his heart, moving to counter. Because of that, he never saw the blow that killed him. I dipped under his counter, rearing back a fist that I slammed against the side of his head. His skull shattered on impact, his heart still pounding and sending his blood through the stump of his neck. It doused me, but his body began to fall to the ground.
Tora… he was an uncle to me if I had to put it into words. He wasn't a mentor, but he had been someone I looked up to. When I first took command of the team, it was his opinion that had mattered the most to me. Bardock had left large shoes to fill, and Tora had been the natural choice to replace him. Which is why I had pushed myself so hard to be worthy of the role as leader.
His corpse hit the ground in a plume of dust, rolling down a sand dune before he was buried in the sand that he had displaced.
A ki blast slammed into my back, exploding upon impact. I felt it, but it didn't hurt. It was more like a solid punch. I turned around, catching another to my chest. When the smoke cleared, I saw Borgos rushing me. The fact that his attacks did no damage didn't phase him. I don't think he cared.
Borgos was the quietest among us. It was easy to forget that he was there at times. But he had made his impression on me. When I had first joined the team, it had been him that welcomed me first with no reservations. A simple gesture of sharing some dried jerky, but at that time, when I had been so unsure of myself, it had meant the world to me.
I raised my hand, ki flooding my palm while my gaze never left his. Blue light erupted from my hand, washing over Borgos before the torrent of ki slammed into the ground with explosive force. I felt his presence vanish nearly instantly, but I kept the technique going for a moment longer.
It started to sink in what I had just done. Only when it was over did it process that I had been fighting against my team. And it was only when they were all dead that it sank in that I was killing them. I reached out with my ki sense and I found nothing in the city. Frieza was keeping his distance, likely for his own entertainment. I also felt presences begin to leave my range as they obeyed the order to flee Planet Vegeta.
However, the only thing that I could focus on was a familiar presence racing towards me.
Bardock.
My mentor. The man that I looked up to. That I idolized. The man that had been more of a father to me than my own father.
Who had also arranged for my brother to be murdered. Who had betrayed me in ways that there weren't words to describe.
"BARDOCK!" I roared, blasting forward to meet my mentor halfway. A sandstorm followed in my wake as I shattered the sound barrier instantly and raced beyond it. I moved faster than I ever had before. Faster than I thought possible without being a speedster like Burter. In mere moments, I left the desert and the ruins behind and closed in on Bardock.
It still took me long enough for him to realize what was going on. Bardock spotted me coming, launching ki blasts to deter me from coming straight for them. They slammed into my body, but I hardly felt them. They did damage, but there was just no room in my head for anything but this.
I could have killed him in the opening blow. I wanted to. I was soaked in my brother's blood. I was soaked in the blood of my team. I was soaked in my own blood.
Why? I had to know why.
I slammed into Bardock, grabbing him by the face as I sent us both flying to the ground. "Why?! Why?!" I screamed, slamming Bardock into the ground below and pushing him through the dirt and stone. He couldn't answer even if he wanted to. I knew that. Even still, the lack of an explanation set my blood boiling in my veins. "Why, Bardock?!" I lifted him out of the ground and threw him down.
Bardock struck the planet like a meteor despite the little distance. Rubble and dust went flying up as Bardock shot down beneath the surface, displacing minerals and dirt as he formed a tunnel with his body. He was still alive. I felt that much, and it was proven when Bardock fired up with a ki blast that blasted through the falling rubble to hit me. I caught the blast effortlessly.
I wouldn't have been able to do that before. Bardock, however briefly, had taken Vegeta's place as the third most powerful Saiyan alive. He was nearly my equal before the Vega system. Yet, with the power that surged in my body… it wasn't even close. Not remotely. Becoming a Super Saiyan made all the difference in the world when it came to power. More so for me given that for years, I was stuck in Stage Ten of the Wrath State.
Bardock blasted out of the man-made tunnel, looking bloodied. His armor had broken up, revealing most of his torso, though he still had one strap over one shoulder. He glared up at me as if I was the enemy. "Tarble, what did you do?!" He demanded to know, his face twisting into a snarl.
"You know exactly what I did, Bardock," I bit the words out. "Now tell me why you did it. Why did you murder my brother?" I forced out between clenched teeth. Every instinct I had screamed for blood. Demanded it. That one act of betrayal completely washed away what we were before. The moment that Vegeta was murdered, the team became my enemies.
An expression of rage and loss passed over Bardock's face as he realized whose blood I was drenched in. "You killed them?" Bardock breathed as if he could barely believe it.
My eyes narrowed into slits and I moved. Blurring forward, I crossed the distance between us and gripped Bardock by the neck. I held on tight, choking the life out of him as he pointlessly pulled at my hand. I held on, sending us both on a collision course with a cliffside that crumbled upon impact. Bardock gasped, his body taking the worst of the impact and I reinforced the cliff with ki to make it more durable.
"My brother, Bardock. My brother. I knew you two didn't get along, but this?! How can you justify this?!" I roared, squeezing tighter. Despite his position, Bardock glared at me. His face twisted into a snarl — there was pain in his yellow eyes. The same pain that had been in Vegeta's. The same that was in mine.
"For you!" Bardock roared back, pushing against my grip. "So you would be king instead of that elitist brat that was going to keep things the same because he liked being on top!" Bardock bit the words out and my grip lessened on reflex. "Because I know your father already tried to kill us once. What's to stop him from doing it again?"
"Me," I stressed the word, glaring into Bardock's eyes, completely dissatisfied with the answer. They murdered my brother to make me King? Just like how my father stripped Vegeta of his position as heir?
Meaning… meaning that Vegeta… he died for nothing. For no reason. We were fighting. Father already made me the heir, and Vegeta wasn't going to stop until he killed me or he died.
The moment we had set that aside for the good of our race, Fasha murdered him. With a gun stolen from one of my soldier's corpses.
I couldn't forgive it. I would never forgive this. I don't care how pure and good his motives were. I watched my brother die. I held him in my arms. I was covered in his blood.
I would never forgive them.
Bardock lashed out, a fist catching me in the cheek. I let it land. "What did you do to the team, Tarble?" He demanded to know, his lips curling back into a snarl. "Whose blood is that, Tarble?!"
"It belongs to people that I loved, Bardock," I answered.
A wordless roar of grief escaped Bardock as he lunged for me, tears budding in his eyes. I grit my teeth and slammed a fist into his gut, folding him over it before cupping my hands together and bringing them down in his back. Bardock shot to the ground and impacted hard enough that the cliffside began to break up from the miniature earthquake that he caused.
I should end this now. I knew Bardock. Or, at least I thought I had. He loved the team. He trusted them. They had been his closest friends for most of his life.
Bardock checked all the same boxes that I did. That Vegeta did. Vegeta had lost Father. I had lost Vegeta. Bardock lost the team. He had the power. He had the catalyst. The three of us were always the most likely to become Super Saiyans, but I never thought that the three of us would all become one on the same day.
"Tarble!" Bardock roared up at me, the sky stirring above as thunder began to crackle and his power skyrocketed. The sandstorm that I had whipped up was racing to close the distance between us. Golden light shone beneath me, the dust pushed back as Bardock too attained a form from myth and legend. His golden hair stood straight up, his turquoise eyes filled with hate.
I was still stronger, but the gap between us had been bridged.
Good.
"Bardock!" I returned, darting down and the two of us clashed in the middle. Trees were ripped up and sent flying from the shockwave of our fists colliding, the cliffside shook and further collapsed on itself. I didn't care. I only had eyes for Bardock.
His fists lashed out in blurs and I shook off how familiar the feeling was as we fought. For three years, we had trained every day together when I had been crippled by my fight with Mongul. Before, he had watched me and advised me during my fight with the Saibamen. Then we sparred more times than I could count during our years behind enemy lines. I knew how he fought.
Just like he knew how I fought.
I threw an elbow at his eye that he caught in the palm of his hand. He countered with a fist to the gut that was similarly caught by my other hand. Rearing our heads back, our foreheads collided with a clash that could be heard for miles. I grit my teeth, my nails digging into my palms until they bled.
"They were our team! You knew them your entire life!" Bardock shouted, punching me in the face, and opened himself up to a liver shot as blood filled my mouth.
I lashed out with a foot, catching him in the side of the head, dazing him, only to be caught in a trap when I learned he had faked it to punch me in the gut. He threw a high knee that I caught by slamming both of my fists against his knee, nearly breaking it. Bardock roared, just as immune to pain as I was, and slammed his fists into my back. I shot towards the ground, flipping so I landed on my feet.
Despite infusing ki into the ground, the stone still broke underfoot, but in the shape of a shallow crater as the densest stone remained strong.
"I know that!" I roared back at him, throwing a high kick as he descended. It was a feint. Spinning sharply, the bottom of my foot caught him in the stomach and sent him flying. "They were my team just as long as they were yours! They were my friends! My family! But what do you expect me to do when you start killing my family, Bardock?!" I shouted at him, closing the distance and punching him in the face.
A forest worth of trees was displaced as Bardock shot through it. Ancient and powerful trees were vaporized as he crashed through them, ripping more out of the ground from the wind force. He righted himself after a moment, catching my fist against his forearm, our eyes meeting.
"I never wanted to be King! None of this had to happen!" I continued, punching Bardock in the diaphragm in exchange for an elbow in the temple that was followed by a high kick to the bottom of my chin, launching me into low orbit. Even as Bardock raced up to close the distance, I continued. "No one would have had to die if you and father didn't decide things for others!"
The moment he closed in, I countered his jab and planted my fist in his face, landing directly on his scarred cheek. He was knocked to the side, then struck by lightning as we fought in the storm that raged below. The wind howled in my ears, sounding like death itself as we fought. The blows that were traded were harsh and brutal, every bit as brutal as every spar that we've had until this day. Only we knew that this time, only one person would be walking away.
"We could have talked it all out! No one had to die for a chair that means nothing!" I roared, planting a fist in Bardock's gut, and he countered by slamming a fist into my exposed elbow in an attempt to break my arm.
"You don't get to talk about talking things out when you murdered our team!" Bardock roared right back, screaming at the top of his lungs as he lashed out with a kick to my head. "They're dead because of you!"
I snarled, dipping underneath the kick and lunging for Bardock's head. I slammed my hands around his ears, disorienting him before I followed it up with a headbutt that sounded louder than the clap of thunder. Bardock shot down to the ground, tearing through the planet's surface in a long line. I quickly gave chase and found Bardock recovered enough to greet me with a high knee to the face.
"They're dead because of you!" I returned, kicking him in the side of his knee, and trying to land an elbow against his bleeding chin. "How long did you plan this?! A year? Five? Ten?"
"Longer!" Bardock shouted, delivering an uppercut to the bottom of my chin before following it up with a jab against my kidneys. I bent under the blow, but I followed the momentum and lashed out with a foot to his head. Spinning sharply, I kicked him in the back of the head, sending him into the ground, then I spun once again to deliver a devastating axe kick to the back of his head. Or, I would have if Bardock hadn't recovered and narrowly avoided the blow. He planted a fist against my nose, sending me flying through what felt like several buildings.
One collapsed on top of me. It reminded me of D'xe -- when I discovered the Wrath State. Bardock had sent me against the Vanguard-class scarab in an attempt to force the transformation. That had been our last mission as a team.
My power skyrocketed, blasting the rubble away and sending it raining down on the city to clash with Bardock in the sky above it.
"We never told you because we expected this! But I thought too much of you. I never thought you'd kill the team," Bardock spat, and the hypocrisy was galling. I punched him through a building and sent a ki blast after him. For a moment, I forgot my own strength. The ki blast exploded, expanding in every direction at rapid speeds. The city was wiped off the face of the planet with no effort.
Bardock still lived, firing back with ki blasts of his own. Dozens of them. I fired back, the ki blasts colliding midair and the world went white as all of planet Vegeta seemed to quake. The sound was thunderous, the wind stirring up the storm that seemed to only swell in intensity by the second. Still, I felt Bardock's presence. He was still alive.
More than that, I felt him charging a technique.
"Galick," I began, cupping my hands to my side. The ki swelled rapidly, sending powerful discharges of energy out in every direction. The lightning was intense, carving lines through the crater below, making the new cliffside fall as chunks were cut out of it. "GUN!" I screamed, launching the technique down at Bardock.
Something was off. I noticed it instantly when I didn't feel any resistance. That much was proven when I realized that there was a Riot Javelin traveling upstream. I grit my teeth and abandoned the Galick Gun to avoid losing an arm to the Riot Javelin. Something that Bardock was prepared for because not a moment later, two Destructo Disks raced towards me at angles to prevent me from dodging.
Tucking into a ball, I dodged by slipping between them while two Destructo Disks of my own formed in my hands that I launched back at Bardock. He dodged them effortlessly as he raced towards me.
I planted my foot in his face, "You knew I wouldn't betray my family, so you just went behind my back?!"
"What family?!" Bardock shouted right back, gripping my ankle and pulling me to his level to trade blows. "Your parents refused to acknowledge you. You've only met your brother a handful of times. And you still picked them over us!"
"Shut. Up!" I bit out, grabbing Bardock by the hair and punching him in the face a few times before he caught my fist and threw an elbow at my nose. I caught the blow on my forehead instead and punched him in the diaphragm for good measure.
"Can't handle the truth, Tarble?!" Bardock screamed, grabbing me by the head and kneeing me in the face. I recovered, catching a second knee before I twisted out of his grip and delivered a kick to the bottom of his chin.
"I didn't pick anyone! I'm not the one that drew lines in the sand and made sides, Bardock! You should have told me. I would have beaten the shit out of you. Then I would have beaten the shit out of my family. There was a way this ended where no one died," I bit out, flipping back and blocking a punch with my hand. Then another with my free hand. Bardock reared his head back, and I did the same and we delivered a harsh headbutt that squelched blood into our eyes on impact.
Bardock glared into my eyes, "For all that you've accomplished, Tarble, you are unbearably naive." He pushed back, going to kick, but I beat him to it by delivering a high knee to his face.
"No," I returned, axe kicking Bardock in the face. "I'm just the only one that's had to compromise my beliefs because reality didn't care what I believed in or what I desired. You couldn't do that, Bardock. Neither could King Vegeta. You can lament in hell for all I care, but this is your fault."
Ki spears formed in my hands, but I didn't throw them. A presence was approaching. My hands trembled as Frieza appeared, a smile on his face that could best be described as content.
The battle paused as he approached. "Oh, don't mind me, you two. I just wanted a front-row seat to the drama." He remarked, a cruel, mocking edge in his voice. I met his red eyes for a moment — and I saw fear in them. He was putting up a front. I could see it. By that, he meant that the moment there was a victor, he was going to kill them. He was using the loser to weaken the winner for him.
It seemed that he lost that reckless confidence in the Vega System with his arm and tail.
I looked at Bardock, his expression was fierce. Our gazes met, and a silent message was passed between us. He offered a curt nod, showing that he understood.
Then I descended and the fight resumed. I sent a command to the Warworld, preparing the main gun while I checked in on the evacuation. The Warworld reported that most of the Federation ships had been stolen as well as every reported ship on Planet Vegeta. It was too early to tell if the Saiyan race would live another day, but at least they were off the planet. It gave them a chance.
I threw the spear at Bardock, who narrowly avoided it. Cupping my hands to my side, I glared into his eyes. "Ka…" I began, blue light flickering in my palms.
I was thoroughly annoyed to see that he adopted the same stance, uttering the name of the technique in unison. ""Me… ha… me…"" the technique swelled to levels that were previously unthinkable. Something far beyond what I had used against Froot.
We thrust the technique forward in unison.
Just not at each other.
Both Kamehameha's raced towards Frieza, blocking any view of him behind the two powerful torrents of ki. Each technique was a planet buster, yet I saw both stall against Frieza's telekinesis. Mine made headway by virtue of being heavier, but he was still able to stop the technique in its tracks. So, I poured more into it. I completely let go of my restraint, an iron will that I had perfected over a decade, and just screamed at the top of my lungs in an attempt to push the technique further.
The Warworld glowed in orbit, through the dark cloud that covered the sky. It fired a second later, a bright red laser punching through the atmosphere. A vastly more powerful attack than I had blocked once before.
The red laser slammed into Frieza's back. I knew it struck because my and Bardock's techniques surged forward when his concentration lapsed. The Frost Demon was caught between all three of the planet-busting techniques, yet I still didn't feel him die. He wasn't uninjured. More so that he already was, but he still lived.
That much was proven when Frieza surged upwards, utterly furious and covered in burns. Some of which looked terrible. The prosthetics he had used melted, revealing the true extent of his injuries.
"You…" Frieza growled out, reaching out with a hand to the Warworld. He yanked it down, sending it on a collision course with planet Vegeta with effortless ease. "Damn… dirty… filthy… monkeys!" Frieza yelled at us, any semblance of composure gone without a trace. The Warworld fell from orbit behind him, slamming into the planet with explosive force. The sound was beyond loud and the entire planet recoiled under the force.
My connection to the Warworld sputtered, but remained. It was still operational, but it had suffered critical damage.
"So, you let me transform for this?" Bardock asked, floating to my level as we both squared off against a furious Frieza. I… I couldn't forgive him. And he couldn't forgive me. If somehow both of us survived this fight, then we would finish the battle we had started. But, for now, we could agree on something.
Frieza had to die. Today. Even if we had to die doing it.
"How dare you? How dare you?" Frieza hissed as he glared at us, grinding his teeth together as his only hand clenched into a fist that trembled with rage. "I will personally exterminate your species. I'll save you two for last so you can watch everyone you've ever known die!" Frieza lashed out at us, and I felt myself being gripped by an invisible force before being flung into the ground.
Stone and dirt gave way underneath me as it felt like Frieza was going to fling me through the planet that already felt like it was about to shake apart. Gritting my teeth, ki flowed to my hands as Destructo Disks formed, marking my trail before I suddenly stopped.
Frieza's telekinesis was the biggest obstacle that we had to deal with. More so than his raw power. However, I think it had weaknesses. Firstly, he needed line of sight. Secondly, how he had destroyed Mogo… it was a sight that I would never forget. But, because of that, I recalled how the planet Green Lantern had been crushed.
Almost as if a giant fist hand grabbed hold of it and crushed the planet in its palm.
Taking in a deep breath, I flexed my power and sailed upwards. Frieza flung me miles beneath the surface, but I was back to the surface in seconds. Two ki spears formed in my hands, finding Frieza's presence before I threw the spears at him. They flashed through the air, only to be stopped cold when Frieza thrust his hand at them. Fury was etched into his face. "Tarble!" He growled my name hatefully, but that rage was quickly transferred when Bardock made his move.
He dove in, closing the distance between them, and punched Frieza in the face with all of his strength. The Frost Demon sailed away, slamming into the ground below. My eyes widened as I recalled my spears, catching them in my hands as Bardock and I descended. "His hand," I told my theory to Bardock, who just grunted in response.
Frieza recovered, not so much as bleeding from the blow. He raised his hand, dark purple energy crackling in his palm before he fired it at us, forcing Bardock and me to split off. He went left and I went right as we narrowly avoided the blast that carved a deep line in the planet's surface. The energy seemed to make the storm above grow in strength, lightning pouring down like it was rain while planet Vegeta began to crack from the impact of the Warworld.
The planet was dying.
That didn't matter. My ki spears spun in my hands before I threw the shortest one at Frieza. He threw out his hand, blasting the ki spear away, only to fall prey to a knee to the back of the head. I threw the longer one at Bardock as I recalled the short spear, both of us pressing the attack. Frieza looked like he was going to have an aneurysm as he lashed out, an invisible force hitting Bardock and flinging him away. However, the ki spear caught the worst of it.
I dove in, lunging low with my spear, only to see my vision be filled with Frieza's hand. I felt something grip my head, and my skull felt like it was going to shatter from the pressure. I felt blood erupt from my ears and nose, but I still heard Frieza. "Tarble, it really is a shame it ends like this. You always were my favorite monkey," Frieza remarked, the pressure growing.
I grit my teeth and sent one of the Destructo Disks flying towards Frieza. The spiraling ki disk erupted from underneath where Frieza stood, and I felt the pressure around my head vanish. My vision was blurry, but I didn't need to see. Thrusting up, my short spear dug into one of Frieza's eyes, earning a high-pitched scream from the Frost Demon. Even with all my strength, and targeting soft tissue, I wasn't able to skewer his brain. I yanked my spear to the side, attempting to carve out both of his eyes, but I felt an invisible force hit me in the chest.
My sternum shattered, my ribs breaking like glass as I was flung backward. My organs ruptured, sending blood gushing up my mouth and nose. Even still, I took control of my flight path, flipping and digging my feet into the ground. It took me half a mile to slow myself down enough to throw myself back into the fight. I saw Bardock's golden glow darting about, attempting to stay in Frieza's blind spot.
As I raced forward, the planet's crust began to finally give out. I nearly flew face-first into a tidal wave of magma that gushed upwards like a fountain. The heat was intense, but I ignored it and flew higher. The action revealed that it wasn't an isolated occurrence. All across planet Vegeta, mountains rose and fell, volcanoes formed and erupted, tidal waves of lava and water swept over the land. The skies above were every bit as devastating — tornadoes formed by the dozens, lightning fell like rain…
The planet was dying and it was dying fast. I wouldn't put it at lasting for more than five minutes before the planet shook itself apart.
Meaning we had to make the most of the time that we had.
I blasted forward, my ki spear condensing into a ball as I flew above Frieza. Bardock and the tyrant clashed, and I felt more confident in my theory as I watched them fight. Frieza had macro telekinesis, not micro. More than that, he didn't seem able to properly use it without clenching his hand. A habit picked up from lazy training if I had to guess. Perfect practice made perfect, after all.
"Final…!" I began, cupping my hands in front of me as the technique began to form. There was so much lightning falling down that the discharge from the Final Flash wasn't even noticed by Frieza. "FLASH!" I roared, launching a powerful torrent of ki at Frieza. It raced down to him, but Bardock breaking off was the warning that gave it away, however.
I felt the technique slam into something. At first, I thought it was Frieza as he tried to fight against the attack. Instead, I quickly realized that Frieza had caught the Final Flash with his telekinesis and he was trying to push back. I grit my teeth, blood seeping from my nose and mouth while my hands trembled with exertion.
"Wrath State…" I bit the words out, a blood vessel erupting in my eye and dying my vision red. "Stage! Ten!" I screamed at the top of my lungs as pain unlike anything I had ever felt before tore through my body. It was as if every individual cell in my body was being torn to shreds a million times and I was being hit with all that pain at once.
I was thankful for it. The pain was the only reason I didn't blackout.
My technique surged downward, catching Frieza by surprise. He fought against it, but the weight pushed him down until the Final Flash was drilling through the planet. Yet, I didn't feel him die even as the Final Flash tore through the other end of Planet Vegeta. What I did feel was that incredible pressure on my body pressing down at every angle.
The Final Flash ended, revealing Frieza. His body was bulkier, and he was taller. His power level skyrocketed to heights that I hadn't known were possible. Double his previous strength.
The pressure grew until I felt bones snap underneath it. I couldn't let go of the Wrath State. If I did, then I was dead. Though, I might die anyway.
"Goodbye, Tarble," Frieza bit the words out, one eye closed as purple blood dripped from his face. The pressure grew, earning a snarl from me as I recalled the other Destructo Disks that I had hidden before. They raced out of the ground, converging on Frieza. Despite losing the eye, he was aware of his blind spot and I felt the pressure vanish as Frieza threw out his hand, a round shield made out of telekinetic energy catching the Destructo Disks.
A ki spear formed in my hand, and I compacted it as much as I could before I flung it towards Frieza with all of my strength. The sound barrier shattered as the tip glowed from superheated air. I saw Frieza's eye widen a fraction, but the spear slowed as it neared him until it stopped a fraction of a fraction of an inch in front of his only eye.
Bardock finished the blow, racing forward and grabbing the spear before thrusting it forward with all of his strength and momentum. The spear sank into Frieza's remaining eye, blinding him fully. Frieza screamed at the top of his lungs, blasting Bardock and the Destructo Disks away from him as his hand reached to his bleeding eyes. I flew forward as Bardock joined me.
We had blinded him, but Frieza was still a threat. He was still incredibly powerful. All we did was give ourselves an opening to end this fight.
Two Destructo Disks formed in my hands as two Riot Javelins formed in Bardock's. Frieza unleashed a wordless scream of pain and hate as he sent a blast of purple energy at us. He couldn't aim, so he made the blast wide enough that he didn't have to.
Bardock threw the Riot Javelins into the torrent of purple energy. A split second after, I threw the Destructo Disks before both of us were forced to try to catch the energy attack. All four attacks traveled upstream to Frieza, but the attack still hit us hard. We caught it with our hands, trying to push it back to keep it from overwhelming us, but it proved futile. It was like trying to stop the ocean with a teacup.
But that didn't matter. The momentum that propelled the attack forward died a second later, and over the claps of thunder, I heard Frieza howling in pain. When the energy faded, I saw his one arm was mangled from the Destructo Disks. His hand was cut in half, and a huge slice had been cut from the arm that bled profusely.
He wasn't dead. We were whittling him down, but it would just take one good hit from him to kill us.
"We're running out of time," Bardock remarked, his chest rising and falling in a shaky rhythm. "The planet exploding won't kill him, will it?"
"No," I answered. I doubt it would. We would need something else. My gaze drifted to the scene behind Frieza, the remains of the Warworld. I reached out to it with the mental connection that I had with it and asked it a silent question.
I was answered with an affirmative.
"We push him towards the Warworld," I decided before flying down. I threw a ki spear down at Frieza, the spear slamming into his skin, but only managing to knock him back rather than skewering him. I landed behind him and kicked him in the back while Bardock kneed him in the face.
"I will make you suffer!" Frieza raged, lashing out with his hand. I expected the action and kicked him in the wrist, knocking his hand up while Bardock dodged low. Without his eyes, Frieza was almost manageable. He countered with blinding speed and his attacks were absolutely devastating. If Bardock wasn't here to divide his focus… if Hal hadn't managed to wound Frieza… then I would have died a long time ago.
I kicked Frieza in the gut, sending him flying back while Frieza countered. Using the kick as a point of origin, he took aim and fired an energy blast from what was left of the palm of his hand. It was impossible to dodge the blow, it filled my vision. Gritting my teeth, my hands slammed against the surface of the ki blast as my feet dug into the surface of the planet. I reinforced it with ki, hoping to gain some traction before I heaved upwards and threw the ki blast up.
Not a second too soon because I felt an intense heat on the back of my legs. Blasting forward, I saw Bardock continue the fight. He attacked from the front, so I went from behind as we began to steadily push Frieza to the Warworld. No words were said. There didn't need to be said. There was just grim determination to win against a foe that the stakes were just too high to lose against.
More lava gushed upwards as we fought, the shaking of the planet growing worse by the second. We had less than a minute. We might have less than ten seconds.
The pressure fueled our resolve as Bardock and I worked in a perfect harmony created by so many years of fighting together. Our bodies remembered the feeling of working together, even if nothing would ever be the same between us again.
"I should have exterminated your species the moment daddy found you!" Frieza roared, his threats and rage growing more common the more he was pushed back. He seemed to adapt to missing his eyes, much to our horror. Each blow was immediately returned with one of his own, using the point of origin as a reference. Each narrow dodge grew narrower, and without the other, neither Bardock nor I would have been able to survive.
My blood surged in my veins as I punched Frieza back, sending him flying into the Warworld. His body tore through the thick metal like it was nothing and Bardock and I gave chase. We needed him to be in the epicenter. Even if it meant that we were caught in the blast too.
The Warworld began the preparations, a timer on the clock as we began to tear through the it, a ship that had been the closest thing I had to a home. I narrowly dodged a kick from Frieza that would have taken my head off without Bardock kicking Frieza's leg up an additional few inches. Frieza lashed out with a ki blast that only just avoided Bardock when I kicked Frieza's arm to the side. Bardock went in, punching Frieza in the throat, only to be kicked by me when Frieza countered and nearly tore Bardock in half with a wild haymaker.
I punched Frieza in the side of the head, trying to damage his ears. Bardock moved when Frieza went to counter, only to pivot. A feint. My eyes widened as blood splashed on my face from where Frieza struck Bardock, seeing through our strategy. A fist tore through his chest, directly through his heart.
Bardock was dead.
"Tarble!" Bardock bit the words out, grabbing Frieza's arm and holding him. He thrust a hand in my direction, his turquoise eyes meeting mine. There was no hate in them. No rage. Not even sorrow. Just acceptance. "Take care of the rest," he requested as the golden glow from his hair faded, returning it to a solid black. The golden aura that surrounded him condensed into his hand before it leaped from his palm, slamming me in the chest.
My body felt like it was dying as my power grew, Bardock's strength being added to my own. It was too much. It was far too much. It would kill me before long.
"Ka!" I started, cupping my hands together, light forming in my hands as I channeled the excess power into the attack. I had to get it out of me. I had to put absolutely everything into this final attack. My strength flowed to my hands as I dodged back from Frieza as he lashed out. "Me!"
"You're the last one left, Tarble! I can't wait to hear you scream! Always so stoic. I bet you'll be so much fun to torment!" Frieza yelled, ripping his hand free of Bardock's body.
"Ha!" I continued, not caring what he had to say. I had no interest in entertaining Frieza any longer. His last words would fall on deaf ears. "Meeee…!"
I sucked in a deep breath and gave the command to the Warworld. It seemed I would be saying farewell to all of my comrades this day.
"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!" I screamed, thrusting my hands out and launching the Kamehameha at Frieza. He reached out, catching the blast, but it wasn't like the others. It contained all of Bardock's power given to me in his final moments. It contained all of mine as well.
It slammed into Frieza, and I heard him screaming as he flew back directly towards the Warworld's power source. The crystal containing limitless energy detonated, filling my vision with white light as the explosion that followed was so loud that my eardrums ruptured. The Kamehameha pushed me back, slamming my body through the Warworld walls as I fought to escape the glowing white explosion. A split second later, just as I burst forth from the wreckage of the Warworld, I felt it.
A presence that had dominated my life since the day that I was born. A presence of someone that I had once respected, but grew to hate.
I felt Frieza die.
The white explosion continued to grow outwards, enveloping all of the Warworld, then continuing to expand. The Kamehameha began to peter out, leaving me to turn my back on it as I flew to escape it. My mind raced, gathering up the last vestiges of my strength to blast forward, away from the explosion.
Thirty seconds. That's all I had. The power crystal held more power than a sun. Than a hundred suns. Self-destructing was the last resort for the Warworld because it would take out everything in the system when the following explosion caused a supermassive black hole that would envelop the entire solar system.
I had one chance. No other ship would be able to save me.
"Dammit, Bardock," I cursed under my breath, driven forward by his final request. I couldn't take care of Kakarot or Gine if I was dead. I spotted my destination, having memorized the coordinates for it years ago. I flew down, tearing through the cavern and mountains of sand.
Landing on my feet, I looked up to see the ship. A bone-white ship shaped in a ring. The ship that had brought the Saiyan race to Planet Plant. A ship that I had thought about over the years, a mystery that had tugged at my thoughts whenever I thought of Planet Vegeta.
In the end, it was obvious as I strode forward. Though, that might just be because I had gotten two obvious clues.
The Galick Gun was a key that had been converted into an attack.
Kindness was the way.
A Galick Gun formed in the palm of my hand that I reached out and directed it to the ship. Power didn't matter. We just thought it did because the ship responded to it, but we had been mistaken. It wasn't power. It was energy.
A lock worked by lining up the tumblers. The key was to give it the energy it needed to line them up.
The ship responded to my single-handed Galick Gun. It twisted in on itself, merging and shaping until it was a sleek saucer. A door marked itself on its surface that opened, revealing a set of stairs. I ignored them in favor of flying inside, finding the interior vastly larger than the ship should be.
"Danger imminent in the system. Evacuation recommended," I heard a voice say with a synthetic edge to it.
I didn't have a destination in mind. "Evacuate to the previous location," I ordered the ship, my strength fading as I walked inside. The interior was too white. White floors, white walls, and a white ceiling. Sterile. I drifted to a chair that seemed to be the command center and collapsed into it. I felt the ship rise through the air as I leaned back.
"Destination Sadala selected."
Those were the last words I heard before my eyes drifted shut and everything went black.
....
Now that we're pretty much at the end of the road with only the Epiloque left, I figured I should ramble my thoughts a bit.
The Super Saiyan transformation is remembered as a moment of pure hype, but that's how it's remembered. The dragonballs undercut it badly, but the first SS transformation is a moment of tragedy. Goku threw everything and the kitchen sink at Frieza, he finally thought he beat him, only to realize that it wasn't enough. His best friend was murdered in front of his eyes begging for him to save him and he couldn't. Also, given that at the time you couldn't be resurrected a second time, as far as Goku knew, Krillin was dead permanently.
A surge of power and emotions come, which is enough to turn the tide of the battle, but it also comes with horrible instincts. Despite the meme that Goku is a terrible father, he does love his kids -- yet he looked down at Gohan and told him to get off the planet, otherwise, he might kill him too. Kind, good-natured Goku was afraid that he would murder his own child so he told him to run. The same thing was seen with Gohan in SS2, he was a pacifist that started dragging out the fight to enjoy it more and to humiliate Cell.
The dragonballs made these moments be remembered as being purely hype and badass because they removed the tragedy most mortem. Krillin got resurrected anyway, the nemekians got a new planet, everyone that had died leading up to the transformation was brought back. So, all that was left was the moment of hype and the power up while the stakes that prompted the power up were forgotten over the course of decades.
Which is why Tarble's transformation was tragic. I know I'm developing a reputation that I just like to see my character suffer without ever letting them have anything, but that's not what this is. This is me sticking to what the SS transformation was at the start -- incredible power that comes with an absolutely terrible cost.
As for Tarble himself, I'm going to hold off until the epilogue is up to give my thoughts about his character arc up until this point. But, I will say is that the core of his character arc up until this point has always been about picking the least terrible option from a selection of horrible options. It's what he always tried to do throughout the war. It was the core of his philosophy -- do terrible things now, so there would be less suffering later. Kill billions now so quintillions don't die over the course of a century.
The Earth Saga is where Tarble decides to make better options, so to speak. What that means exactly, you'll have to wait to see.
Onto the big moments of the chapter -- Ever since the start of the story, the team was going to die. How changed over the story until about a year ago I settled on this because I think it's perfectly tragic. It would have far less impact if Vegeta or Frieza killed the Team because, firstly, it would be expected. Secondly, it's thematically appropriate -- ever since the start of the story, the team hasn't ever fully trusted Tarble. They were afraid that if they told him about what they planned to do, then he would betray them.
That secret that they kept from him was what undid them. Because they kept the secret from him, Tarble never saw it coming. Because he never saw it coming, he couldn't stop it. Because he couldn't stop it, there was no possible resolution that didn't end with bloodshed -- either they killed Vegeta, or Vegeta would kill them. And because they were going to kill him, they were left in the dark. They didn't have their scouters to avoid detection, so they didn't get Tarble's message to evacuate so they were unaware what was going on. All they did know was that Tarble and Vegeta were fighting, and Vegeta just became a Super Saiyan. Which is the worst possible outcome for their race to their views -- things would keep chugging along as they have been rather than changing like they would with either Tarble or Bardock.
All of the above fed into Bardock's transformation -- through his ambitions and manipulation and lack of trust, he got his team killed. Tarble was the one to do it -- the kid that he grew to respect enough to the point that he was willing to give up his ambition of being King. Whereas Tarble was made a Super Saiyan because of betrayal, Bardock was made a Super Saiyan because of what his ambition cost him. Two sides of the same coin -- Tarble ended up a SS because he trusted too much and Bardock because he trusted too little.
Lastly, there's Frieza. Not going to lie, Frieza has always been a favorite to write and that only became more true as the story went on. At the start, Frieza was portrayed to be an absolute monster -- the galaxy and everything in it existed solely to give him entertainment. However, he was likable because he wasn't an asshole to Tarble. He dotted on him, gave him favor, and Tarble benefited from being the favorite monkey.
However, that slowly began to change as the story went on. Frieza never changed in any way, but as Tarble rose through the ranks, he started to reveal other sides to himself that were always there and in your face, just not directed at Tarble. The lack of help, for starters, using Tarble as an insult against Cooler even if it meant he got killed. It all came to a head after Tarble lost Thanagar -- because the magic, so to speak, was lost. Frieza would absolutely kill Tarble despite all that he's accomplished. Despite being the favorite monkey, that didn't mean he was protected. That's when Tarble dropped the Lord before Freiza's name because he realized that.
There was a comment last chapter I want to reference -- it was about how Frieza doesn't have a character arc of any kind despite being in a new universe with peers. To this -- Frieza is not a character that has a character arc. In canon, he was dead for twenty years in hell, and when he came back he was up to old tricks in no time. What Frieza has is a character line, so to speak, that he leans into or away from at times.
Frieza is a cat at heart -- a fat, lazy cat. When he trained, he did so lazily. He didn't want to put forth physical effort, so he trained his tk but perfect practice makes perfect. When Frieza trained, he did so lazily because there was no one to harp on him that he should train at all, much less train properly. It's ultimately the character trait that got him killed. He was more than a match for both Tarble and Bardock, but he lost because he was born strong. Because he was born strong, the pressing need to become stronger just wasn't there. He made token efforts at best.
Additionally, Frieza is a cruel guy. There were two possible responses to his defeat at Hal's hands -- he buckles down and starts training so that it won't happen a second time... or he makes himself feel more powerful by tormenting those weaker than him. Which of those sound more like him to you?
I think that's pretty much it. The epilogue will wrap up some final loose ends and set the tone for some major characters going forward. It'll be posted next week, but after that, it'll be two weeks until the sequel is posted. I'm really looking forward to it -- there were times when I honestly never thought we would get to Earth. But we're almost there and Going Native will get that ever-elusive (Complete) tag.
The Super Saiyan transformation is remembered as a moment of pure hype, but that's how it's remembered. The dragonballs undercut it badly, but the first SS transformation is a moment of tragedy. Goku threw everything and the kitchen sink at Frieza, he finally thought he beat him, only to realize that it wasn't enough. His best friend was murdered in front of his eyes begging for him to save him and he couldn't. Also, given that at the time you couldn't be resurrected a second time, as far as Goku knew, Krillin was dead permanently.
A surge of power and emotions come, which is enough to turn the tide of the battle, but it also comes with horrible instincts. Despite the meme that Goku is a terrible father, he does love his kids -- yet he looked down at Gohan and told him to get off the planet, otherwise, he might kill him too. Kind, good-natured Goku was afraid that he would murder his own child so he told him to run. The same thing was seen with Gohan in SS2, he was a pacifist that started dragging out the fight to enjoy it more and to humiliate Cell.
The dragonballs made these moments be remembered as being purely hype and badass because they removed the tragedy most mortem. Krillin got resurrected anyway, the nemekians got a new planet, everyone that had died leading up to the transformation was brought back. So, all that was left was the moment of hype and the power up while the stakes that prompted the power up were forgotten over the course of decades.
Which is why Tarble's transformation was tragic. I know I'm developing a reputation that I just like to see my character suffer without ever letting them have anything, but that's not what this is. This is me sticking to what the SS transformation was at the start -- incredible power that comes with an absolutely terrible cost.
As for Tarble himself, I'm going to hold off until the epilogue is up to give my thoughts about his character arc up until this point. But, I will say is that the core of his character arc up until this point has always been about picking the least terrible option from a selection of horrible options. It's what he always tried to do throughout the war. It was the core of his philosophy -- do terrible things now, so there would be less suffering later. Kill billions now so quintillions don't die over the course of a century.
The Earth Saga is where Tarble decides to make better options, so to speak. What that means exactly, you'll have to wait to see.
Onto the big moments of the chapter -- Ever since the start of the story, the team was going to die. How changed over the story until about a year ago I settled on this because I think it's perfectly tragic. It would have far less impact if Vegeta or Frieza killed the Team because, firstly, it would be expected. Secondly, it's thematically appropriate -- ever since the start of the story, the team hasn't ever fully trusted Tarble. They were afraid that if they told him about what they planned to do, then he would betray them.
That secret that they kept from him was what undid them. Because they kept the secret from him, Tarble never saw it coming. Because he never saw it coming, he couldn't stop it. Because he couldn't stop it, there was no possible resolution that didn't end with bloodshed -- either they killed Vegeta, or Vegeta would kill them. And because they were going to kill him, they were left in the dark. They didn't have their scouters to avoid detection, so they didn't get Tarble's message to evacuate so they were unaware what was going on. All they did know was that Tarble and Vegeta were fighting, and Vegeta just became a Super Saiyan. Which is the worst possible outcome for their race to their views -- things would keep chugging along as they have been rather than changing like they would with either Tarble or Bardock.
All of the above fed into Bardock's transformation -- through his ambitions and manipulation and lack of trust, he got his team killed. Tarble was the one to do it -- the kid that he grew to respect enough to the point that he was willing to give up his ambition of being King. Whereas Tarble was made a Super Saiyan because of betrayal, Bardock was made a Super Saiyan because of what his ambition cost him. Two sides of the same coin -- Tarble ended up a SS because he trusted too much and Bardock because he trusted too little.
Lastly, there's Frieza. Not going to lie, Frieza has always been a favorite to write and that only became more true as the story went on. At the start, Frieza was portrayed to be an absolute monster -- the galaxy and everything in it existed solely to give him entertainment. However, he was likable because he wasn't an asshole to Tarble. He dotted on him, gave him favor, and Tarble benefited from being the favorite monkey.
However, that slowly began to change as the story went on. Frieza never changed in any way, but as Tarble rose through the ranks, he started to reveal other sides to himself that were always there and in your face, just not directed at Tarble. The lack of help, for starters, using Tarble as an insult against Cooler even if it meant he got killed. It all came to a head after Tarble lost Thanagar -- because the magic, so to speak, was lost. Frieza would absolutely kill Tarble despite all that he's accomplished. Despite being the favorite monkey, that didn't mean he was protected. That's when Tarble dropped the Lord before Freiza's name because he realized that.
There was a comment last chapter I want to reference -- it was about how Frieza doesn't have a character arc of any kind despite being in a new universe with peers. To this -- Frieza is not a character that has a character arc. In canon, he was dead for twenty years in hell, and when he came back he was up to old tricks in no time. What Frieza has is a character line, so to speak, that he leans into or away from at times.
Frieza is a cat at heart -- a fat, lazy cat. When he trained, he did so lazily. He didn't want to put forth physical effort, so he trained his tk but perfect practice makes perfect. When Frieza trained, he did so lazily because there was no one to harp on him that he should train at all, much less train properly. It's ultimately the character trait that got him killed. He was more than a match for both Tarble and Bardock, but he lost because he was born strong. Because he was born strong, the pressing need to become stronger just wasn't there. He made token efforts at best.
Additionally, Frieza is a cruel guy. There were two possible responses to his defeat at Hal's hands -- he buckles down and starts training so that it won't happen a second time... or he makes himself feel more powerful by tormenting those weaker than him. Which of those sound more like him to you?
I think that's pretty much it. The epilogue will wrap up some final loose ends and set the tone for some major characters going forward. It'll be posted next week, but after that, it'll be two weeks until the sequel is posted. I'm really looking forward to it -- there were times when I honestly never thought we would get to Earth. But we're almost there and Going Native will get that ever-elusive (Complete) tag.
The next chapter is currently available on my Patreon and Subscribe Star, so if you want to read it a week early, all it takes is a single dollar in the tip jar. Or, for five dollars, you can read the chapter after that two weeks before its public release! I hope you enjoyed!
- Location
- Writeland
No way Frieza's dead forever though. He'll be back and shinier than ever.
- Location
- Germany
so... where Tarble arrive?
at an actual hidden planet?
at an Asteriod-belt/field?
or where Oa used to be?
No Dragonballs in this universe, or at least noone has mentioned them.
Looking forward to the epilogue and your final thoughts about things are great. Because we remember the series with nostalgia and for me because it has been years since I last saw the source material some things that you write came either as a maturing of the source material or wholly different from how I remember them. But reading your insight about why you write the way you did and and then rereading first SS in the original I can see that you tried to portray faithfully to the circumstances that fuelled them rather than how I remember of the hype way as you put it. Also wondering when will you continue after the epilogue, is there a timetable or whenever you can iron out the storyline? As always thanks for the chapter.
ExNihilo
SPACE!
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Given that the Super Dragon Balls, and Namekiens, have been mentioned, there's a greater probability than I think you're allowing. And, you know, the DC universe has dozens of ways to avert death. While a Lazarus Pit might be out, there are Black Lanterns, ripping your way out of hell (possibly with outside help?), and no doubt others I haven't heard of.
Stratagemini
Totally a Fire Ferret.
- Location
- Central Park
- Pronouns
- He/Him/They/Them
Great chapter. All the foreshadowing led to this point and I can really see it clearly in retrospect, but I still didn't see it coming. Nice job.
Hestia&theCourt
Turns out we're plural too.
- Location
- In transition
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I wouldn't call that a means of undoing death, really. You're right that there are a number of ways to bring back dead loved ones in DC, but having your corpse puppeted by a ring that's using your memories and appearance to provoke a specific emotional response from your friends, family, and enemies in order to kill them and harvest their emotions as energy ain't one of them. If anything, you'd want the White Light for that.
That's the one plot thread I think has still been left dangling. White Lantern Sayan when? He has all the emotional spectrum rings/gems now. It feels like there needs to be a sequel where this is explored. The main character retiring to Earth to raise Broly and Goku would be hillarious.
- Location
- Brazil
Hope you don't fall into the trap of SS2,3 & GOD. The cool thing about SS4 is that it is build on a stabilished element thathad been discarded. Just make it so SS transformation is not something one can enter at will, like super-instinct, and you can keep its panashe and cool factor.
Arimai
Curmudgeon
There most explicitly are dragon balls in the setting. The number four and seven encased in orange moon sized crystal were orbiting Larfreeze's planetoid. Part of the treasure Froot brought to Larfreeze
Last edited: