“WELCOME TO THE FINAL ROUND OF THE ROUGHEST, TOUGHEST, AND DEADLIEST TOURNAMENT THIS SIDE OF THE GALAXY!” An announcer belted into a microphone while the space station we were on trembled with the cheers of more than a hundred thousand people, all of them having paid top dollar for prime seats while the broadcast was streamed to billions of households across the galaxy. “More than a hundred thousand contestants have been narrowed down to just two! Let's give it up for our finalists!”
The crowd reached a fever pitch while I rolled my shoulders and cracked my neck.
“In one corner, we have an unexpected challenger! A Saiyan warrior! A mercenary that has been making a name for himself, so don't let his youthful appearance deceive you -- you are about to witness one of the deadliest fighters in the galaxy!” I bounced from foot to foot, waiting for my cue, and a light turned green in the waiting room. “Give him a warm welcome… Tarble!”
The stadium shook as I made my way down the walkway to the stadium that I would be fighting in. The crowd was to the sides and above thanks to gravity tech -- every seat was filled with aliens of all species. There were cameras on all sides that watched every movement that I made as I stepped into a barren stadium with white metallic floors under a shimmering shield dome.
And, in some of the best seats, I saw my team -- Caulifla, Cabba, Raditz, and Kori. All of them showed some injuries as they had been knocked out in prior rounds. Which spoke to the strength of our competition.
“In the other corner, his home away from home, we have the reigning champion! An Appoplexian that you all know and love! A member of Lord Frieza's Ginyu Force, one of the most elite squadrons of the Planetary Trade Organization!” The announcer continued. “We are about to witness a legendary battle between two of the premiere warrior races in the galaxy and between two of their greatest fighters! So welcome the five times reigning champion… Rath!”
At that, my opponent strode down the walkway. Nine feet tall, bipedal, and he looked like Tony the Tiger on steroids wearing a luchador mask. The crowd had gone wild for me, but there was an honest chance that the space station we were on would shake apart. And when Rath started to mime that he couldn't hear them, people started passing out from how hard they were cheering.
He raised a hand that a microphone then lowered itself to, and the moment he did, the cheering stopped like someone had hit a mute button. “My name is Rath! It rhymes with bath! Which is what you're going to need in an elaborate self-care ritual after this fight, bruther!”
The crowd reacted as if he’d delivered the single greatest burn that they had ever heard. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Caulifla visibly staggered by the trash talk before she started demanding blood.
“Rath had conflicting feelings about fighting a small child… until he stepped into the ring and smelled you!” He continued to taunt and… that was a little irritating.
“You take that back! I don't stink!” I shouted back, a little annoyed that the smack talk got a reaction out of me. “I bathe every day! Sometimes twice!”
“Upon being assaulted by your odeceous oder, Rath's conflicting feelings have been cleared. Rath decided he will assault the small child back… with his fists!” People in the crowd started to swoon, and Kori was nearly one of them.
“Can we just fight already!?”
Rath grinned and tossed up the microphone that floated up out of the barrier designed to protect the audience. The moment it had cleared, Rath exploded into action, blurring forward and crossing the hundred yards between us in a fraction of a second. I met him in the middle, our fists collided with a shockwave that bounced around in the arena before the floors absorbed it, but even they trembled.
Despite how he acted, Rath was strong. Very strong. Enough so that my arm buckled and I lost the initial exchange, my arm getting knocked back before Rath threw another punch. I simply clenched my other hand and focused my ki to my knuckles.
The past year had taught me a lot more about ki sensing. To my senses, Rath had a power level of around 250,000. Only that power level was pure physical ability. Rath couldn't fly. He couldn't use ki blasts. It was pure physical strength and endurance, so he hit harder than I anticipated. My knuckles stung and my bones felt bruised, but it didn't bother me. That was a sensation I was used to.
Our fists collided once more, but this time Rath found himself with an arm blown back from the impact.
Rath's eyes widened at the impact, his own knuckles bleeding before a feral smile tugged at his lips, revealing wickedly sharp canines. I matched his smile with one of my own before I dove in, using my tail to flip over a hook before I darted forward and drop kicked his face hard enough to send him flying. Rath crashed into the barrier, bouncing off of it, but I was already there to punch him in the gut and send him back into it.
The blows, however, didn't do much to Rath. They were solid, and he certainly felt them, but the alien was a walking brick. He was pure strength and endurance, which made him slow and not very smart based on him referring to himself in the third person. Rath cupped his hands and made to hammer my back, but I spun around the blow to deliver a kick to the bottom of his chin that sent him up in the air.
Grabbing his leg, I pivoted and sent him straight into the ground hard enough the floor boards warped. Around me, the crowd was losing its absolute mind at the domination, but I knew better.
Rath was uninjured. Perfectly fine. Bruised a bit, but the kind that left you a bit tender and not much else. He effortlessly flipped back to his feet, his claws lashing out in a blow that probably would have taken my head off if it connected. He was surprised by my strength, but after eating a couple of blows, he was confident that I couldn't hurt him without breaking the rules of the fight -- no eye gouging, no attacking genitals, and no holding.
Which is why he left himself open with the plan to counter attack when I delivered another blow to his face -- only this time, I seamlessly slipped into Kaioken x2.
His head snapped to the side in a spray of blood, stunning him momentarily at the sudden burst of strength. He shot off to the side, but I appeared between him and the barrier to knee him in the diaphragm, then above to kick him into the ground. Each time I felt like I was punching a brick wall, but with every blow, the wall started to crack.
Rath landed on his feet with a quick spin, darting up at me in the air, but I had the advantage there. I weaved through his attacks, slipping behind him to kick him in the back, sending him back down to the ground before I leveled a finger at him. “Dodon Ray!” I called out, firing a pale green ki blast at him.
Rath dodged them by rolling over, getting to his feet and managing to block an attack when I dove back down. “You won't defeat Rath… so easily!” He growled at me, showing that he was still in the fight.
But I had learned all that I could from him already. I slipped into Kaioken x3, the raw power flowing through my body once more, only this time it didn't tear me apart. My body had adjusted. Adapted. Now, it felt like putting on a well-worn glove. Rath's eyes widened as I overpowered him before delivering a kick to the side of his head that drove him into the floor. He went limp, his limbs splayed out, totally unconscious.
“I CAN BARELY BELIEVE IT! IN A DISPLAY OF UTTER DOMINATION, TARBLE HAS DEFEATED THE CHAMPION IN A SINGLE ROUND!” The announcer exclaimed to the galaxy. “WITH THAT STUNNING DISPLAY OF POWER, TARBLE HAS CLAIMED THE TITLE OF CHAMPION AND THE TWENTY FIVE MILLION CREDIT PRIZE!”
I raised my arms up in victory, smiling away as the crowd lost their absolute minds. The money was nice, but it was the experience that I wanted. A tournament with thousands of alien warriors all competing? It gave me experience fighting something that wasn't my team, or other Saiyans.
Thrashing a member of the Ginyu Force was a nice bonus, however.
…
“You won! You are the champion!” Kori shouted, all smiles as she shadowboxed as we made our way off the space station. “The match was most exciting!
“I can't believe I got knocked out at the semi-finals,” Caulifla groused, visibly annoyed. Next to her, Cabba was especially pleased with himself as he was the one who beat her in the semi finals, only to be defeated in turn by Rath. “I totally could have won it!”
“I believe you,” I replied placatingly, adjusting a champion belt that covered most of my torso. Proof of my victory, though I was contractually obligated to return in five years time if I didn't want to relinquish the belt. My credits were in my account already, and the twenty-five million prize was a nice chunk of change that we sorely needed. Feeding my squad was expensive, to say nothing about all the upgrades that I had planned for the ship.
However, as we arrived at the dock to get back to our Attack Balls, I saw a familiar, if bandaged face.
Rath.
He wasn't wearing his luchador mask anymore. Instead, he had on Frieza Force armor. It was pretty similar to the Dragonball equivalent, down to the pronounced shoulder pads. Only it was a full body with mechanical components to it. I fought off a frown when he waved at us as we approached, “Rath wants to congratulate you on your victory! It was an excellent match and Rath hopes that you do not grow complacent because he intends to win the best back next time!”
He was a member of the Ginyu Force, which had a slightly different lineup as there was a wider variety of powerful aliens to choose from. I wanted to dislike him as a matter of principle, but it was kinda hard when he was being such a good sport about his defeat. “I don't intend to,” I replied, crossing my arms. “And good luck trying to get the belt back. I only plan to get stronger from here.”
“That is most pleasing to Rath to hear! In fact, Rath has an offer for you!” He said, striking a pose, “Rath has made a recommendation to extend an offer to join the Ginyu Force! We are looking to expand our numbers as Lord Frieza's elites, and Rath believes you would be a perfect fit!”
I twitched, but that was the only reaction that I gave. Instead of flying off the handle at the idea that I would fit in with Frieza’s best killers, I took a breath and let it out slowly. “Thanks for the offer, Rath, but I’m not in a position to accept at the moment. I’m performing a long-term mission for King Vegeta. But if the offer is still on the table in a couple of years from now…?” I tried, swallowing my disgust of the idea.
Joining the Ginyu Force could be a great way to get close to Frieza. So, I’d leave the door open instead of slamming it in Rath’s face.
“Hmmm… Rath cannot say he isn’t disappointed, but he understands! The recommendation shall stand!” He said, accepting that easily enough. And, to my relief, that was all he wanted from us so we were able to board our Attack Balls and head back to our ship.
As we were flying back, Raditz spoke up through the radio, “You’re planning something stupid again.”
No point in hiding it, “Yeah, but not anytime soon.” We had been making great strides in our training, but I knew that Frieza was still well outside of my ability to fight. For now, at least. In the future? Oh, I planned on stomping him into the dirt and sending him straight to hell. And then I’d follow him into hell to kick his ass some more.
“Well, so long as I’m not getting dragged into it…” Radtiz said, accepting the answer for what it was. And thanks for the loyalty, Raditz. Always nice to know that I can count on you.
The trip was a short one to the Rebel Moon. We had to park it pretty far away from the space station as our ship was large enough to affect the gravity of space stations, but in the Attack Balls, the odd two hundred thousand miles were covered in the span of about three minutes. Through the window, I saw the dock open up and our Attack Balls took their place in the parking bay designed for them that looked a lot like an egg carton.
Getting out, we were immediately greeted with ten times the galactic standard gravity, matching Planet Vegeta. The maximum that the ship could survive in general outside of the training chamber. It had taken a bit, but Kori had adjusted to it.
“What’s next for us, Boss?” Cabba questioned as we flew through the halls of the Rebel Moon. For the most part, they were a dull gray and sterile white except for the scuff marks and the occasional dent that came as the result of a bunch of Saiyan kids flying around in it. Honestly, the number of times they had nearly blown up our ship…
“We huntin’ down another tournament?” Caulifla questioned hopefully. The hallways were long and with a lot of system checks. The ship was almost too big at times. Especially when there were so few of us on it. If it wasn’t for the gravity chamber in the heart of the ship, I don’t think the Rebel Moon would need to be a third as big as it was.
“Or a mercenary contract?” Raditz added, glancing hopefully my way.
“Oh! Can we aid in the liberation of the downtrodden?” Kori asked, perking up at the idea.
It had been a busy year. Very busy. Bardock had been right -- the galaxy was everything but peaceful. And that was with the Green Lanterns and the Galactic Patrol doing what they could to stem the bleeding. We were frankly spoiled for choice when it came to how we spent our time in space.
“Dunno yet,” I admitted as we headed for the command center near the center of the ship. It was strategically placed to be far away from the front but also away from the gravity chamber to prevent any… accidents. “Let’s see whats on offer. We should get something interesting with that broadcast.”
“So the tournament was just a marketing opportunity?” Raditz realized, making me grin as he was right on the mark there.
“It’s a good way to get our name out there,” I confirmed with a nod. Miles later, we arrived at the command center. Approaching the central computer, I brought up our inbox to see that there was the predicted influx of offers. In my last life, I hadn’t exactly been popular, so it was something of an odd feeling to see that we had north of a million messages.
Then I realized about two-thirds of them were hate mail, and the fuzzy feeling went away.
“Ada, sort the mailbox. Hate mail goes into the trash,” I sighed while the others snickered. With several hundred thousand messages going into the shredder, along with the incoming thousands of messages in the same vein, we still had hundreds of thousands of new messages. After a year of being a mercenary, we had the contract system more or less ironed out.
There was the high-paying stuff that we did on occasion when our funds were a bit low because of supplies, upgrades, or repairs. Then there was the pro-bono stuff -- jobs that we did for free or for a pittance because people in need of a helping hand couldn’t usually afford to pay millions of credits for that helping hand. Then there were the interesting jobs. The ones that would bring us against powerful foes or interesting enemies.
While places like Planet Vegeta or the PTO would have a great variety of contracts, I decided that being picky was better than variety and so far it had done the job. All the more so when I saw an odd dozen messages immediately catch my attention. One was a phishing scam, so that went in the trash, but another had a name that I recognized.
Jaco.
A member of the Galactic Patrol from Dragon Ball. He wasn’t particularly strong from what I knew, and he was something of a pushover, but everyone was in regards to Bulma. I also knew that he was a pretty good guy -- he was introduced as crash landing on Earth and getting help from the Briefs family, but he got expanded upon in the Moro arc. What he lacked in strength, he made up for in reliability and a genuine desire to make the galaxy a better place.
“Ada, how far away is planet Jangos?” I asked, looking over the contract. It was the first time that the Galactic Patrol had ever reached out to us. There was no reward offered, but I didn’t expect there to be one. Because that’s not what the message was.
It was an SOS and a call for reinforcements.
“Via hyperplane, we can arrive within three real space hours,” Ada answered through the intercom. So, far away, but we could get there fast. Hyperlane travel was a bit weird, but functionally, we would be traveling through a fold in space in another dimension just under the dimension that we lived in. Certain ships did it better than others, but for those three hours of travel time in real space, we’d spend about twelve in hyperspace. So, it was kinda like a crappy Hyperbolic Time Chamber.
“Chart the course,” I decided. There was a real lack of details in the message. Only the planet name, a GPS location, and a threat rating. Which was High, but I didn’t know what that actually meant. “Let’s see what the Galactic Patrol wants.” That was a connection worth making, I think. We had some brushes with them before, but only in passing and the occasional stop to check our intentions when we visited a world. And given that we flew in a massive warship, that was completely reasonable and fair.
“Yes!” Kori cheered while Raditz wilted.
“There’s not even a reward!” He protested, shaking his head in dismay. “We’ll burn more fuel heading there than we’ll earn…”
Cabba snorted, “Since when did you care so much for our finances?”
“I don’t. I just like it when the numbers go up,” Radtiz admitted with a small shrug. Yeah, that sounded about right. And it was a feeling I agreed with. I also liked it when the numbers went up, especially when we gained another zero in our bank account.
“Who cares about money? We get to fight something strong! Threat ranking: High means strong, right?” Caulifla questioned, just as pumped as Kori.
“Probably,” I replied with a shrug. That ‘High’ could mean a lot of things. But, in the past year, the list of things that we couldn’t handle had been dramatically shrinking by the day it felt like. “We have twelve hours, so we can get a little training in. Rock, paper, scissors?” I asked, holding up a fist.
The others were quick to agree and we threw hands. Each round narrowed down the victor with cries of despair and victory until there was only me and Cabba left. Things got… hectic when we all trained as one. And hectic meant damaging. And damages meant repairs. And repairs meant that we had to spend money. And I hated spending money.
While the others went off to pout and entertain themselves with something else, the two of us headed to the gravity chamber. And it was by far the most used room on the ship, even more so than our bedrooms. It was a very large domed room that was perfectly one hundred yards by one hundred yards, making it more of a stadium than a training room. The walls were white, minus the scorch marks, while the floor was a dark red. There were weights and other exercise equipment available.
“Ready?” I asked Cabba and got a nod. “Ada, set the gravity to one-fifty,” I instructed, and a split second later, I felt myself weigh over eight thousand pounds. My body suit and armor, which collectively weighed about five pounds, suddenly over seven hundred. I had braced myself for it, but even after a couple of weeks of training under it, I still wasn’t used to 150x the standard gravity.
“How long do you think we have before the others come demanding for a turn?” Cabba asked, throwing a few punches. The movements were sluggish, but still strong. We hadn’t fully adjusted, but I’d give it another few weeks before we were moving as light as a feather in the intense gravity.
“I’d give it an hour. Maybe two. Depends on if Kori can distract Caulifla,” I replied, doing some warm-up stretches. Goku had blitzed to 100x the galactic standard, largely because he had been on a time crunch. That, and he had Senzu Beans to bring him back to full health in a pinch. While we had stopped by the Saiyan Empire for healing pods, they weren’t cheap. They were actually prohibitively expensive, and the healing fluid cost millions of credits per gallon.
So, we rationed what we had and kept some in reserve for emergencies.
While it had taken us the better part of a year to reach 100x gravity to Goku’s six days, we made the same gains. All of us benefited greatly from the training.
Cabba and I took positions across from one another, his ki spear forming in his hands, before we clashed. Even under the intense gravity, we were fast. Our blows sent out shockwaves that were absorbed by the paneling as not to affect the rest of the ship. The real challenge with such intense gravity was how it sapped your endurance.
Slowly but steadily, our power had increased. Our power levels climbed higher and higher and higher. The results spoke for themselves, I thought, glancing at a read out on a hologram near the door.
Tarble: 135,000pl
Cabba: 115,000pl
We had picked up scouter tech from a planet on the fringe of the Saiyan Empire. There were no wearable models in this universe, or none that we found, but we were able to apply the tech to the gravity chamber.
Cabba tried to punish me for my lapse in attention by his staff going limp like a noodle that he tried to wrap around my neck, but I was able to get my hands in the loop before it closed. He still flung me into the ground before I could slip the noose, and the ground hurt a lot more when you were close to ten thousand pounds in weight.
But I was back on my feet in an instant, grinning all the while.
He wasn’t the only one who tried his hand at getting creative with his techniques. His spear work had improved by leaps and bounds, especially when he started to devour the texts that Ulf had given us. Clenching my hand to at my side, I dipped underneath a slash and spun around the upward butt of the spear that transformed into a blade as it passed me by.
My fist lashed out, striking Cabba in the gut, and while he was thrown back, my arm suffered recoil from the technique I was working on. There was an ache bone deep in my arm, and I knew if I had tried it earlier when I was much weaker, then I could have lost the arm entirely. Instead, there was a bit of pain, but I could shake it off.
“No good?” Cabba questioned, landing on his feet with a lazy flip in the air.
“I pulled it off against Rath, but I’m not consistent with it yet,” I admitted. It was why his arm had been blown back the second punch. “It’s finicky. And it doesn’t work well with the Kaioken.” The problem there was ki control. Too little ki, and the technique was delivered with the force of a wet fart. Too much, and I suffered recoil. It needed precision and timing, and the Kaioken complicated things because my ki control got… ‘sloppy’ when it was increased by factors of two, or three, or five.
The technique in question?
Essentially, it was Tsunade’s super strength from Naruto. While techniques like Multi-Form still eluded me to a large degree, my eye had started to wander a bit to other settings for sources of inspiration. In particular, I wanted the Shadow Clones. No luck there either, but there were still usable techniques that I was looking to recreate. Tsunade's, in particular, was one I could understand, and the general principle transferred well from ‘chakra’ to ‘ki.’ It was a timed blast of ki delivered at a pin point location a split second before the impact of a blow.
The issue was, rather ironically, the gravity chamber. While taking a year to reach the maximum it could go was pretty slow in comparison to Goku, our strength had skyrocketed faster than I could maintain my perfect ki control. A year ago, I had a power level of 25,000. Now, I have one of 135,000. More than a 100k increase. The only way I could have maintained it was if I spent twelve hours of the day dedicated purely to ki control.
Which was, again, another reason why I wanted the Shadow Clones. I wanted to cram years of training into a single afternoon. That sounded amazing. Shadow Clones and a bootleg Hyperbolic Time Chamber? The idea of it was enough to make me weep.
“You’ll master it,” Cabba said, making it clear that there wasn’t a shadow of doubt in his mind. And, I had to say, there was nothing quite like having someone unrelentingly believe in you that made you want to believe in yourself. Cabba was a quiet guy, and more often than not, he blended into the background in the face of stronger personalities like Caulifla, Kori, and even Raditz. But, he was always there when I needed him. As reliable as anyone could ask for.
“You probably don’t want me to. Once I get it down, you can kiss your hot streak goodbye,” I told him with a grin, getting ready for another bout.
The spar continued for a couple of hours. Three to be exact, before Caulifla barged in demanding a turn. I didn't mind, deciding to let her join in on the fun for another few hours of nonstop sparring. But, as we always agreed, three hours before the ship left hyperspace, we would rest for the mission at hand.
I had a couple of options for relaxation -- Warcraft was something that I could play all day, every day. This made me discount it, largely because I learned the hard way not to play the game before a mission. There was absolutely no feeling in this universe worse than having to leave a multiplayer game mid session. Even more so when it was a ranked match.
Instead, I turned to my other hobby.
A garden.
For the most part, it was a source of herbs and spices that we found that we liked in our journeys. I had kept an eye out for Senzu Beans, but I hadn’t found that little miracle plant yet. I had found some very interesting other plants, though. Carnivorous plants on Drxis III that grew fruits that kinda reminded me of dragonfruit, only they tasted like bananas a bit. A plant from Echna’g, which had something that acted like a Hypnotoad from Futurama if you looked at the flower too long. Then there was the Strangleweed I found on Yevvon, which was a weed that was determined to murder anything and everything around it.
That one I kept in its own special container. I always liked gardening back in my last life, and this just felt like a more extreme but natural extension of the hobby.
It took a little bit to water all my plants and make sure they got the proper nutrient slurry. I did have a drone system set up to take care of them if I wasn’t available, but sometimes, it was nice to give things a personal touch. By the time all my plants were cared for, I got a ding from Ada telling me that we were about to leave hyperspace.
Which is how I found myself back on the bridge once again.
‘Traveling in space is weird,’ I thought to myself as our nav data suddenly blinked back into place as we seamlessly emerged from hyperspace. The gravity on the ship made it impossible to feel momentum, so it felt like we were stationary even when we were racing forward at speeds that measured in lightyears. The whole affair was so unintrusive that you could completely miss that you were moving at all.
But, true to Ada's word, it had only been three hours in real space. We arrived in the same system as planet Jangos -- a binary star system with a yellow and red sun. Five planets in total, with one of them being habitable. Oxygen rich atmosphere so we didn't need masks, though it would probably be best to take some with us as prolonged effects could be harmful.
“Any sign of what this SOS is about?” I asked, enlarging the hologram of Jangos. It was a pretty green color with a gold sea that covered about thirty percent of it.
“None. My sensors cannot detect any outgoing signals from the planet,” Ada answered, which didn't exactly mean anything. The Galactic Patrol would be smart enough to not broadcast the SOS when it could lead to their position and whoever was the cause of the SOS… it could be that they didn't need a ship. Or, in the more likely case…
“Engage stealth mode,” I decided, and that was a big part of why we needed the money from the tournament. And why we hadn't done much in the way of filling the empty space we had. Stealth coating was expensive, and for a ship this large? The amount of money I’d spent made me weep.
But it was worth it, I decided. Even if I was only trying to convince myself. The stealth coating didn't just bend light around the ship, it eliminated our presence on thermal and passive sensors. The only way to find our ship in a system was when it was near a planet and you could calculate the minor effect that it had on its gravity, but even that only told you that my ship was ‘somewhere’ in orbit.
“Stealth mode engaged,” Ada replied.
“We have the coordinates. Let's head there and see what we find,” I decided, earning nods from everyone. “Ada -- continue trajectory to high orbit over Jangos.” I ordered as all of us headed to the dock. Ada gave the confirmation and after preemptively engaging stealth mode on the Attack Balls, we found ourselves racing through space.
Minutes later, I felt the tremble as the Attack Ball entered orbit, before it began to slow its descent. The sky was blue on the planet, I saw as we rocketed down near our target. The Attack Balls landed gently in a circle, but even before the doors opened, I sensed two presences outside my squad.
One was weak. Maybe… a 6pl. The other was stronger at maybe 900pl.
Much like those that were too strong, it got hard to gauge the power of those that were too weak.
The Attack Ball opened with a hiss of air and I got out. The first thing that I saw was we were in a dense jungle. A rainforest, really. Only unlike Planet Vegeta, there was a sharp humidity in the air that made the heat feel worse than what it was. My gaze bounced around before I sensed the presence's approach. One hung back, and it was the stronger one while the other…
“Woah,” I heard as Jaco revealed himself. He was about the same height as me, bipedal, and uniformly purple except for his light blue face and his yellow eyes. He wore white armor with the Galactic Patrol symbol emblazoned across his chest, white gloves and boots, with a blaster at his hip. “I did not expect for you to be my backup.”
Oh, wow. He sounded like the DBS sub version of himself.
“Why not? You sent the distress call out, didn't ya'?” Caulifla questioned, crossing her arms. She fidgeted in a way that told me she didn't care for the gravity of this planet -- it was a bit less than the galactic standard.
“Well… yeah, but that frequency is reserved for the Galactic Patrol?” Jaco said, his head bouncing as he looked between us before his forehead furrowed. “Um. Late question, but… you are here as backup… right?”
I fought off a frown beneath my mask. “We are,” I reassured him. “We answered the distress call because it appeared in our registry and we were nearby. You didn't forward it to us?” I asked, finding the situation a bit… odd when he shook his head, confirming that he hadn't.
This felt like a trap to me. Of what kind, I didn't know.
“Well, we're here now! So, who are we fighting?” Cabba asked, stepping forward. Jaco seemed to waffle a bit, not so subtly glancing over his shoulder at the other presence.
He scratched at his cheek, “If you're here to help… well, I guess I'll trust you. It's not like you need to lie,” Jaco decided before making a gesture for the presence behind him to approach. “The situation isn't great. My ship was destroyed in the middle of evacuating a VIP, and one of the last members of his species. The PTO is on the planet, and they're hunting for us.”
The figure emerged from behind a tree and…
Oh. Shit.
A Namekian.
He was old. His face dark green lined with wrinkles while two antenna drooped before his eyes like eyebrows. His ears were tapered off in a sharp point while he wore a simple garb made of plant fibers. I don't think I recognized him, but he did look a little like Kami.
“They seek me… and something else,” the Namekian informed with a raspy voice, walking forward with the aid of a stack serving as a cane. “Three artifacts that are hidden across the planet. One is already in their possession, taken when they captured me.”
Holy shit. The Dragon Balls?! Those were around!?
I was glad that I decided to wear the mask, because I don't think I could have kept my stunned amazement off of my face. However, the shock quickly wore off as I registered what he just said. “They captured you?” I asked first, calming my racing heart.
“Indeed. I am necessary for the artifacts to work, so they kept me alive. If barely,” the Namekian continued, coming to a stop next to Jaco. “They have been on Jangos for nearly a year looking for the other two artifacts, but yesterday, Jaco bravely rescued me from the prison of their ship.”
Jaco chuckled, a little bashful, “Eheh… it was nothing. Anyway, our escape wasn't clean and we got shot down on the way out.”
Okay. “What kind of presence does the Frieza Force have on the planet?”
“Five ships, so they have a couple of thousand soldiers combing the continent. They also have an elite force here, but I didn't stick around for names,” Jaco answered.
Raditz tilted his head, “If you're needed to make these things work, whatever they are, then this sounds as easy as sending you up to our ship and leaving them to it.”
To that, the Namekian clutched at his cane, a grimace passing over his face. “This is true,” he admitted.
No way. If there were Dragon Balls on the planet, then I wanted them. There were only three of them, too.
However, Jaco spoke up, “Maybe, but that won't solve the root of the problem. I have orders to make sure these artifacts don't fall into the PTO’s hands. And, even if I didn't… they'll never stop hunting for Dendan so they can use them,” he stated resolutely.
I hummed, “So, we find the other two artifacts, take the one that the Frieza Force has, and then we escape?” I asked, mulling the plan over. Then I chuckled, “I'll take any opportunity to ruin Frieza’s day. We're in.” Next to me, Raditz face palmed with both hands while the others were all for it.
The tension bled out of both Jaco and Denadn, telling me that they had been more worried than they let on. However, it was perfectly as Jaco started to open his mouth to say something, likely to thank us, a device beeped at his waist. Jaco's attention snapped to it like it had betrayed him before he slowly took it off his belt.
“Ah…” He started, sweating bullets when he saw whatever was on display.
“Ah?” I echoed, tilting my head. That was certainly a reaction.
“Well…” Jack continued, shifting from foot to foot.
“Well?” I repeated, gesturing for him to spit it out.
First he had to swallow a lump in his throat before he showed me what the device said. It was a warning in a language that I couldn't read. Not very helpful. What Javo said next was, though.
“Would… adding Kryptonians into the mix change anything? Because one of their warships just tore a hole through space and entered orbit.”
Oh.
Well, things just got a lot more interesting.