Prologue A - Fragmentation

We find ourselves at the scene of a vaguely familiar sight: an alien planet by name of Plant, upon which two races foreign to humanity (yet eerily similar in form) battle for control. On the one side of combat, the Tuffles: very short, to deal with the planet's immense gravity; technologically advanced; and, for the most part, relatively intellectual. On the other side, the Saiyans: primitive, monkey-tailed warriors with access to a mysterious force known as "ki"; significantly less intelligent than their opponents, and far fewer in number, but led in battle by their strongest and smartest, a man known only as Vegeta. For years now, the two sides have been locked in a seemingly-eternal struggle, the innate power of the one side matched by the war technologies of the other. In mere months, though, this will change: a full moon, only showing itself once every hundred years, will incite a great transformation in the Saiyans, amplifying their power tenfold as they transform into monstrous ape-like giants.

In the universe we know, this is the trigger for the extinction of the Tuffle race. In a single night, the Oozaru wipe out the Tuffles, and the Saiyans claim the planet for their own, christening it "Vegeta" after their leader and newfound king. The Saiyans, after subsequent encounters with the planet of Arcose and its inhabitants, and their annexation into the empire of Lord Frieza, are ultimately annihilated alongside their planet by a titanic, sun-like ball of energy, leaving but a few members behind - some destined to continue the legacy of their race in humanity's embrace, others merely to die off as fatalities to the lucky few who pass their genes onward through time.

Not so in this continuum...

"King Mello!"

"Hm? What do you want?"

The Tuffle king turned from the latest set of battle reports before him to face the guard who had called his attention. Grossly overweight, and white-haired with age, Mello was nonetheless one of the more intelligent members of their race, and under normal circumstances, interrupting his train of thought would be considered a rather grave error, to put it mildly.

"A scout is here to see you, your majesty. Says he has important information."

"He can wait," the royal responded, frowning in consternation. "Or tell him to see one of my advisors or generals, if it's that important."

"He says this can't wait, and it has to be you he talks to."

"I'm busy right now. This war won't organise itself, you know."

"...I'll talk some sense into him, your majesty."

The guard left the room, and for a couple of minutes, the king was allowed to continue with his ministrations. To his annoyance, though, the guard swiftly returned.

"He's very insistent that he talk to you right now, your majesty. His words."

For a moment, all was quiet; then King Mello sighed. "Send him in, then," he responded. "I suspect it'll be quicker dealing with him than trying to get him sent off."

"At once, your majesty."

The guard left the room once again, and a moment later returned with a young turquoise-haired male in tow. King Mello slowly eyed the man, who it seemed was only just recovering from some form of exhaustion. Maybe this was more important than he'd first anticipated - his generals were told to keep their scouts in top condition, so the fact that one of them had worn himself out so much said a lot by itself.

"And what, scout, is so important that you must charge into the royal palace and interrupt my decision-making?"

"They... can transform."

"...what?"

"The Saiyans... they can transform into... I don't know what, but I overheard a group of them talking about it... nearly got myself killed to bring this to you, your majesty."

"...can they, now. And why is this a concern?"

"Their ki increases when they transform. I don't know how much it increases, but... from what they said, it could be anywhere between two and one hundred times. More than enough to... to crush us, at any rate."

"...and you can verify this with another source?"

"Sadly, no, but I doubt they'd be making anything up, your highness. They said it'd happen to all of them at once in a few month's time... does anything significant happen in a few month's time?"

"Not as far as I..."

Mello stopped himself mid-sentence. Now that he came to think of it, there was the centennial full moon to consider. It had been close to full for a long time now, but only for one night, eight months from now, would it reach total efficacy; in any other circumstance, the Tuffles would celebrate the night quite raucously, in contrast to their race's normally conserved attitude. In a war scenario such as this, though, the date in question would pass as almost an afterthought. Apparently, it would hold more significance than he'd first imagined. This was nowhere near certain, of course, but if what the scout had heard was true... quite suddenly, the king smiled - closed-lipped, but holding some degree of approval to it.

"You may have just saved our race, young man."

Four months later, King Mello found himself wandering down a metal-lined corridor, flanked by two of his guards. Doorways were spaced evenly along each side; within the connecting rooms, scientists performed experiments with weaponry, defenses, and other, more esoteric subjects. This was a secret laboratory, lying hidden beneath the Tuffle king's palace; if the Saiyans knew it existed, they would surely do everything in their power to uproot and destroy it, for what lay in here was perhaps the key to winning this war at last. Soon enough, Mello and his guards reached a doorway at the end of the corridor; the king keyed in the entry code, then passed through the threshold alone once the doorway had opened.

A strange scene lay before him. The room itself was not necessarily overwhelmingly different to the previous corridor, in that it was entirely plated in reflective metal; however, the area it encompassed was quite massive. Rows of computers monitored by Tuffle scientists were present along each wall, and the entire place was lit up by two slightly different green hues. The source of one of these would be immediately obvious to any intruder: taking up the majority of the space was a giant machine, consisting of a yellow flower-like hemisphere, a pillar of glass from which emanated a bright green light, illuminating the area in an almost sickly manner, and another metallic yellow construct, this time a great ring suspended some distance above the first yellow shape. This was the supercomputer known as Hatchiyack - designed to, through some abstract process even Mello could only guess at, condense the hatred that the Tuffles felt for the Saiyan race into raw ki, which could then be utilised for any purpose desired. Right now, small amounts of ki were constantly being siphoned off of it, that the scientists located here might use it to amplify the weaponry used by their soldiers on the field; with no additional drain, however, the device would eventually gather the energy required to fuel some form of derivative superweapon, the likes of which were currently unknown to Mello. Standing before the device, now appraising the arrival of his king alongside a number of his lessers, was the single greatest scientist of the Tuffle race: Dr. Raichi. Dressed simply, possessed of long white hair growing from both his head and his upper lip, and perhaps even older than Mello himself, the man was without a doubt a gift to the Tuffles from whatever deities existed in the universe; Mello doubted that they would have survived for so long without his constant contributions to the war effort.

"Dr. Raichi!" Mello began, "So good to see you again. Everything is going well, I presume?"

"Indeed. Hatchiyack is continuing to gather ki at an increasing rate, and the defensive measures are improving at an increasing rate, of course bolstered by the ever-present time limit. We should be able to implement appropriately strong energy shields around our cities within three months."

"Excellent... but you don't seem particularly pleased with yourself. You're doing great things right now."

Raichi frowned for a moment.

"...a group of Saiyans cornered my granddaughter the other day."

Mello's eyes widened in shock. "Oh, no... is she...?"

"She's alive, but hospitalised. And... receiving treatment for mental trauma."

"...they didn't."

"I'd rather not speak of what they 'didn't'."

The monarch winced in sympathy. "I understand. Well. At least take comfort in knowing that Hatchiyack will benefit, and in turn, help to deal with them sufficiently."

"...hrm. I'd rather we found a way to deal with the whole race as soon as possible, but short-term solutions don't present themselves easily for such a problem. For now, Hatchiyack will have to do."

"Actually, I hear you've begun work on a secondary project of the same sort. I see that these rumors are not unfounded, and that whatever you're doing is progressing nicely..."

What Raichi was doing was linked to the second source of green light in the cavernous space: four tubes of blue-green growth-accelerating liquid, equally spaced around Hatchiyack, with each containing what appeared to be some form of giant glowing cell, connected to the tops and bottoms of each tube via fine strands growing out from the cells themselves. At their mention, the doctor allowed himself a thin smile, and motioned for Mello to follow him to the nearest.

"I'm proud of these, actually. I consider them my babies, to an extent, but the irony in that name couldn't be greater."

As Mello drew nearer to the tubes in question, he could see that the cells themselves were pulsing slightly, in time with the subtle increase and decrease of the glows they emitted, consistently pushing forward and back against the glow of the giant supercomputer, almost a simplified visual mirror of the constant struggle between Saiyan and Tuffle that had been going on for nearly ten years.

"What are they?"

"When they're finished, they'll be biomechanical parasites of a stem cell-esque nature, primarily Tuffle in ancestry, but capable of using ki to a far greater extent than the Saiyans ever could."

"Interesting... which Tuffle have you based them off of?"

"Oh, that's the good part," Raichi replied with a chuckle. "All of them."

"Pardon?" Mello asked, slightly shocked at the claim.

"We sent out swarms of microscopic drones several weeks ago," Raichi began as he started pacing around Mello, "to spread across the planet and gather DNA samples from every living Tuffle encountered, then transmit the resulting binary codes to Hatchiyack's servers for addition to the biomachines' own genetic structure. So far, we've got the genetic codes of what we estimate to be around seventy percent of the Tuffle race, including all available soldiers and scientists. And, of course, all those of royal ancestry. Sorry for not getting your permission first, but we figured you'd want to be included in those who were preserved in their genetic code."

For a moment, Mello was speechless.

"...when did the drones get to-"

"Trust me, your majesty," the doctor noted, "you wouldn't be able to tell, even in hindsight." Mello sighed in frustration, then refocused on the topic at hand.

"And pray tell, when will these biomachines be ready?"

"If all goes according to plan, they should reach maturity- and full power- roughly a week after the full moon, though they should become active a day beforehand. Oh, and before you ask, we only have the one Saiyan donor: Vegeta. We shouldn't need any more than that."

Mello nodded. It made sense - Vegeta was the strongest and smartest Saiyan currently alive. Using anyone else would be a waste of resources. That did spark a question, though...

"If we're only using Vegeta as a donor for strength and intellect, wouldn't it make sense to only use the smartest and most resourceful Tuffle as the other donor?" He gestured to Raichi at this point, but the scientist merely chuckled and shook his head.

"Oh, that's not why we're including the entire Tuffle race. I mentioned that you'd probably want your genetic code preserved, your majesty; the same is going to apply to the entire race. Worst-case scenario, every Tuffle on the planet dies. Then, because we have four sources from which to recreate any deceased Tuffles, the race reforms from apparent nothingness, takes the Saiyans by surprise, and reclaims Planet Plant once more. They're more like mothers than babies in that respect, you see: violent in defense of their kin, and able to produce more like them. Hence the irony."

"So we have five superweapons now: whatever Hatchiyack will be used to power, plus the, ah..."

"Call them 'Babies' for now. For irony's sake, like I said. We'll probably find a more suitable name eventually... maybe 'Mother' will work well enough, in hindsight."

"Plus the four Baby drones. And with the defensive barriers soon to be available for installation..."

"Everything should come to a head in four months' time, your majesty."

"Alright, then. Good work. Carry on."

The royal turned to leave the room. He didn't want to tell Raichi, but he felt almost disturbed by the existence of the Babies. He could only wonder how powerful they'd be at their full power... and, secretly, was glad he wasn't a Saiyan right now.

Another four months passed. For several days, the Saiyan army had been eerily confident in their assaults on the Tuffle's forces, seemingly becoming more and more reckless for reasons that the rank-and-file could not understand. The higher-ups, of course, knew the truth, but were sworn to secrecy on the matter; of course, the troops were not incapable of noticing the difference in their behaviour, and began mirroring it, becoming rather more stressed and suspicious than usual by both occurences. Then, precisely one day before the full moon was scheduled to appear, an order was sent out that every Tuffle on the planet was to retreat to within the boundaries of the nearest Tuffle city, there to wait until the all-clear was given. The soldiers didn't understand the logic behind this, but were at least relieved that they'd be off the field for at least one day; on the part of the Saiyans, they believed that Tuffle morale had finally broken, and the retreat to the cities was a last-ditch attempt by their coward leaders to save their people. So much the better, then, when the transformation finally happened; a segregated race would be a more easily genocided race.

Finally, the time arrived. Small groups of Saiyans had been posted to patrol around each Tuffle city; Vegeta himself, accompanied by a squadron of his five most elite soldiers, stood face to face with the capital. Vegeta believed that he could've taken it out alone once he became an Oozaru; however, he'd decided that more men would always be a good choice in a situation such as this.

No risks taken. Surely, the Tuffle race would die off tonight.

At last, the full moon arose from beyond the far horizon. The Saiyans of Vegeta's squadron stared at the moon for about half a minute; then, without warning, they simultaneously erupted out of the rags that substituted for clothes as their musculature and bone structure amplified in size, hair sprouted across their entire bodies, and their eyes were rendered a glaring shade of solid, bloody red.

As one, the newly-realised Oozarus charged immense balls of ki within their mouths, then fired them at the city in a single titanic beam of destruction, as had been planned. The resulting spherical explosion seemingly covered the entire city; surely, Vegeta thought, nothing could have withstood such an attack.

And yet, when the dust cleared, the city was seemingly unharmed. Impossible, an unbelieving Vegeta thought to himself. They've just projected an illusion or something; everything behind it is a crater by now! And yet, logic told him, whatever was projecting the illusion would also have been destroyed in the blast wave if it were within the city itself. No, he had to face the facts: the city had survived unscathed, despite the power behind the Great Apes' combined attack.

But, he reasoned to himself, it was almost certain that it would not survive another.

"Again."

"How are the shields holding up, Raichi?"

"Well enough, your majesty. The excess ki in Hatchiyack's system should be more than enough to hold the Saiyans at bay for the time being. Though..."

Mello frowned as Raichi hesitated. "Is something wrong, doctor?"

"I've been doing calculations, and I fear that with the current amount of ki we have stored, we may not be able to keep the shield up for the whole night. And if we go down, so does everyone else..."

"Gh... damn it. So all will be for naught if they break the barrier..."

"That being said, that outcome doesn't necessarily account for any additional ki generated beyond the norm, and whilst it's not necessarily going to happen, it may be that those inside the cities will hate the Saiyans all the more for trying to destroy their homes."

"...so we still have a chance?"

"We may do, if everyone hates them enough. We don't necessarily need too much additional ki; I myself have been considering every horrific act that they have performed in the last few months, which I hope will be generating significantly more ki than usual."

"Well, then. We can only hope."

Keep hating them, my people, Mello silently implored. Hate like you've never hated before.

Hours later...

The scene of the Tuffles' capital city was an interesting one. Five Saiyan warriors rested near the ground, observant of the sun rising and the moon setting at the same time, utterly exhausted from their attempts to break the shield surrounding the city, and unashamedly nude for their abrupt size change whilst in the Oozaru state. Only their leader continued to assault the barrier - long since drained of ki, Vegeta was reduced to throwing massive punches at the barrier, which, whilst more than enough to annihilate even a lesser Saiyan in their normal state, simply could not break through.

"Just give it up, sir!" one of them called up to him, possessing a shock of black hair directly atop his head, his mouth framed by a thin moustache. "The moon is setting, you're never going to get through in time."

"Screw... you... Nappa..." the giant Vegeta responded between punches, red eyes glazed with effort. "I'll... get through... even... if... it kills me!"

Alas, it was not to be; for even as he said these words, the moon finally sunk below the horizon, and Vegeta's Great Ape form subsided, leaving behind the naked, goatee'd Saiyan, who fitfully continued to assault the wall for a few moments more, before accepting defeat, and, with reluctance, lowering himself to the ground.

He'd failed. This was their best chance to destroy the Tuffles once and for all, and he'd failed. Whether or not the same could be said for the other cities... who was he kidding, if all of the barriers were this tough, there was no way the other soldiers had gotten through.

"Come along. We're done here."

Within the laboratory below the capital, the scientists were rejoicing. We've won, they cried, we've won! Which wasn't strictly incorrect - in holding off six extremely powerful Saiyans, a sort of victory had been achieved that day, if only a temporary one, and reports showed that nearly every other city was intact too. One or two had been destroyed by higher concentrations of Great Apes than might otherwise have been planned for, but on the whole, the barriers had proven an overwhelming success. Many of the scientists were hugging one another, or breaking down into tears of joy and fatigue from lack of sleep; Mello, for his part, had embraced a number of the others in the room, and even Raichi was caught up in the moment, performing a small victory dance with his hands to celebrate the occasion.

All thoughts of victory, though, were cut off by a loud blaring noise that lasted for no more than five seconds.

"Ah," Raichi exclaimed, "that'll be the Mother Drones."

The four tubes, which had for so long illuminated the room alongside Hatchiyack's own light, suddenly went dim, revealing child-like silhouettes within. The liquid containing them drained away, and they simultaneously opened, their occupants walking out slowly, to stand in a line between the supercomputer and the doorway into the room.

The Mother Drones, renamed from their working title of "Baby", were strange entities indeed. For starters, their heads were a very odd shape, almost conical in nature but for the rounded ends. And for another thing, they were all blue, though in a very specific pattern: the head and upper thorax of each drone were a lighter shade of blue (with the result that the heads appeared to be made of some form of slime), whilst the neck, arms, and remainder of the bodies all possessed a deeper hue. Furthermore, red and gold bands wrapped around their wrists, ankles, shoulders, and the backs of their heads, and each drone possessed, not eyes that could pass for Tuffle or even Saiyan, but blank blue visors that reflected black in the sickly light that now dominated the room.

Many of the scientists were shocked at how utterly alien these entities looked. The liquid, combined with the glow from the developing drones, had obscured their features up until now; yet here they were, in all of their biomechanical glory, ready to take on the Saiyans whenever they were commanded to.

"Doctor Raichi..." Mello began. "If I might ask, how the hell did you get them to look like this?"

"Minor alterations to their initial genes, before the addition of Tuffle and Saiyan DNA, your majesty."

"And how strong are they?"

In response, Raichi pulled out a scouter, and handed it to the nearest scientist, who placed it over his left eye and turned it on, readying it to measure power levels.

"Mother One, please begin powering up to your maximum level."

The drone on the far left entered a pose not dissimilar to that many Saiyans took when powering up, and silently began increasing its power, an aura of reddish-white energy enveloping it.

"And what does the scouter say, Doctor Grabe?"

"Uh... t-two thousand and rising... three thousand..."

Already, the others in the room were impressed. Most Saiyans never rose above a power level of 600, and even that was considered hideously strong by Tuffle standards. To have nearly hextupled that in mere seconds...

But the drone was not finished yet.

"A little faster, Mother One, if you would."

"...woah! Seven thousand and rising... ten thousand..."

"A touch more."

"Fifteen... twenty five... ho-holy crap-!"

At this point, the scouter exploded in the unfortunate scientist's face, sending shards of glass into his eye, and resulting in a string of curses and pained yelling, ended with the statement of "We really need to get safeties on these things! Like, fuses or something, so they don't freaking explode..."

"Duly noted, Grabe. I suggest you find a medic now, to get yourself fixed up."

"Th-thank you..."

The doctor promptly left the room in search of a medical officer, leaving everyone stunned at the new droids. Mello eventually broke the silence with "T... twenty five thousand?!"

"Oh, that's just a quarter of their power, your highness. At this level, they'll easily cap off at a hundred thousand units, and even more than that once they hit maturity."

Not a jaw remained undropped in the room. A hundred thousand units... it was said that Vegeta's own power level was ten thousand, and having remotely examined his ki signature whilst in the Oozaru form, they'd seen his power level top off at around the same level as the droid could supposedly reach. In other words, the infant form of Raichi's super weapon - it could be described as nothing less - was as powerful as Vegeta at his strongest. And they had four of the droids at hand. It was unthinkable to most of them what kind of power they now held.

"A thought occurs, Raichi." Mello continued soberly. "If the droids have just now finished growing into a usable state, and Vegeta and his men just finished their assault..."

"Then we can send one after them and get Vegeta back here for interrogation or the like. I accounted for that possibility, your majesty. Mother One, take a scouter, initiate launch sequence, find Vegeta, return him to the palace's dungeons alive, and guard him until further notice."

Quite abruptly, one of the scouters seemed to vanish from the nearby stockpile in the corner of the room, and Mother One apparently teleported from its place in the line into its original tube, scouter on face; the tube closed up, then reinforced itself as a metal barrier slid down from the ceiling, positioning itself between the glass and Mother One. A blue glow was briefly seen through the metal, and then shot up out of sight. The metal tube retracted itself, and the glass was left empty.

"...and pray tell, where does the launch sequence send the Mother Drones?"

"Straight up, your majesty. Up, and out."

A loud whump drew the attention of the retreating Saiyans, who turned to look back at the capital city. In the distance, an oval-like shape could be seen rising up, and up, and up... and all of a sudden split and fell back to the ground in two pieces, a loud-ish crack reaching the Saiyans' ears seconds later. Left behind, motionless in the air, was some form of humanoid entity that could barely be made out from here, small as it was.

"Er... orders, sir?"

"Nappa, go investigate."

"Yes, sir."

The bulky Saiyan began heading towards the entity in question, but got no more than two hundred meters before the being... teleported was the only way most of the observers could describe it, though Vegeta just barely made out the motion involved in such an act of speed. Before anyone could react, the being apparently turned to liquid, then... melded into Nappa's body? It certainly looked very intimate from Vegeta's standpoint, and quite shortly, the other being was completely gone. Nappa, meanwhile, simply hovered in the air, though it seemed he had gained one of the Tuffles' scouters from somewhere or other. Cautiously, Vegeta flew over to the young general, eventually hovering around Nappa's form to look at him from the front. Nothing had changed, it seemed, though his facial expression was rather more blank than usual. Or maybe he just never noticed before without the scouter... or the weird-looking eyes? He swore those had sharpened up, despite the expression.

"Hey, Nappa, are you oka-"

A turn, a flash of light, and the offending elite was instantaneously vaporised. Immediately, the other three Saiyans opened fire on Nappa, with Vegeta providing a physical assault from behind; yet nothing seemed to phase the errant Saiyan now, and with just three more flashes, only Vegeta remained to damage Nappa, and even he was caught by the much larger Saiyan, his wrists trapped within Nappa's massive hands. Something was wrong here; Nappa had never been at even half of Vegeta's strength, yet here he was now, restraining him like an overly tight vice. Had the strange entity possessed Nappa somehow...?

"You are Vegeta."

...what kind of moronic question was that?

"Of course I'm Vegeta, you simpleton!" the Saiyan leader exclaimed, violently writhing in a fruitless attempt to free himself. "Unhand me at once!"

Instead of following the order, Nappa opened his mouth and began emitting an unearthly, almost metallic screech that jarred Vegeta's senses in a quite horrendous manner. At the same time, a blue-silver fluid began bubbling out of Nappa's mouth, nose and eyes, and for a moment, it appeared that the latter consisted of nothing more than blue-tinted lenses.

Vegeta's scream of terror was cut short almost immediately.

"...and you decided to do that because...?"

"I believed that it would be the best way to follow orders whilst minimising collateral damage, Doctor Raichi."

A day had passed, and Vegeta and Nappa had remained within the dungeon (typically dungeon-like in nature, though perhaps not intended for prisoners the size of a Saiyan) of the Tuffle king's palace in an almost suspiciously calm manner. It was only when Raichi and Mello came to interrogate them that they realised this was due to Mother One's possession - the Saiyan leader through direct infestation, and his subordinate via an implanted seed that mind controlled the unfortunate whom it sprouted within. After clothing the two Saiyans - who, being comparatively huge, required an excessive amount of cloth by Tuffle standards, and not the rags they normally wore either - they had instead found themselves interrogating Mother One regarding his actions, which Mello felt may have all been a colossal waste of time, but which Raichi insisted was necessary to ensure that no bugs resided within the Mother Drone's system. "This is technically a developing, self-aware entity, after all; there's no telling if or when it will decide that it is superior to its creators and blow up everything else on the planet, Saiyan and Tuffle alike, and even mentioning the possibility in its presence might sway it on that matter so stop talking about it please your majesty."

Regardless, they decided that they needed Mother One out of the bodies of the two Saiyans if they were to interrogate them properly. Mother One, in response, explained that it had access to both of their memories, and would be a much better choice if they wanted the truth from him.

"Additionally, Doctor Raichi," it continued in Vegeta's voice, albeit a monotonal variant of such, "I have discovered a piece of information that you and King Mello will find interesting."

"Will, or may?"

"Judging by your recent thought patterns, there is a chance higher than 90% that you will find the information interesting."

"...well, then, tell us."

"The information is as follows: the reason the Saiyans so readily followed Vegeta in their fight against the Tuffle race is that, exceptional power level aside, he appealed to their desire to live in less primitive environments than they possessed at the time."

"Wait, wait," Mello interrupted, "so what you're saying is that this whole war has been over... housing rights?"

"A partially correct statement. The living environments of the Saiyan race in general have a tendency to be poor by their nature: a lack of hygiene, semi-tribal rules and regulations, typically patriarchal structure, an inefficient and not always wholly accurate system of classes, and, as implied by your statement, primitive housing."

"So... if we gave them what they wanted, might that end the war? I mean, we can easily provide the resources for new houses to be built for them..."

"There is a significant probability that Vegeta would be willing to discuss a treaty along the lines of what you have suggested."

Mello and Raichi looked at one another for a moment, then back to the possessed Saiyans.

"What are we waiting for?"

Vegeta and Nappa entered the throne room of the Tuffle's ruler, Mother One moving in behind them to make sure that, post de-possession, they didn't try to do anything potentially lethal to anyone. It was obvious that they were never intended to come in here - Nappa had barely been able to fit through the corridors of the building, and even this main room was only slightly taller than what would be considered an ordinary room by them. On the plus side, they loomed over literally everyone else around them, even given Vegeta's less than immense height of just under six feet. At the center of the room, two modified tables had been moved in to accommodate seating for the Saiyans, and King Mello himself sat at a separate table opposite these, with Dr. Raichi standing to the left of the setup. The Saiyans sat on their makeshift chairs, and Vegeta immediately asked "So why are we here? Clearly, you have something special in mind."

"Well, Vegeta," the Tuffle king began, "you're here because the Tuffle race is rather sick and tired of having to fight the Saiyans constantly."

"We're not tired of fighting you, short stuff-" Nappa began, but was cut off by a swift elbow to the arm from Vegeta.

"Have some courtesy. We are in the presence of a king, after all," he stated, deliberately emphasizing the word to highlight his distaste for the monarch.

"Thank you. Now, I understand that this war has been going on for ten years, and under prior circumstances, we may have continued our fight for another hundred. However, things evidently changed. For one, you and yours all transformed into giant apes-"

"Monkeys, technically."

"-and then attempted to destroy our cities, but ultimately failed. Immediately afterwards, you two personally paid witness to the strength of our newest superweapon, the Mother Drones, each of which is already ten times stronger than you are now, and will continue to grow in strength for a while yet."

Nappa didn't remember the initial attack as anything other than a blur of something entering his body through his various orifices and injuries; Vegeta, on the other hand, remembered all too clearly the fear he had experienced upon realising that his subordinate-turned-temporary-foe was suddenly far stronger than him for no apparent reason, and instinctively knew that he never wanted to encounter such a terrifying event again.

"So it's an ultimatum, then. I surrender, or you sic your parents on us and destroy the Saiyans through the power of bad cooking or whatever."

"Aha... no, not quite. Certainly, we could destroy your race with the Mother Drones, as you intended to destroy ours with your, uh, giant monkey forms... but I find that one of my better traits is a willingness to forgive and forget."

"How pathetic."

"You'd think that, but in a civilised society, it's very good for making friends and allies."

"In case you haven't noticed, my people are anything but civilised."

"And therein lies the problem, from what I hear. This whole war has been going on, based on what information I've received, because you and your people don't want to live in the badlands any more."

"...I didn't tell you that, did I?"

"In a sense, you did. Drone possession, and so on, but let's not get into semantics. The point is, we know why you want us dead... and we're willing to compromise, in a way that results in no further bloodshed on the part of either of our races."

"...and why would I agree to such a thing?"

"Because in our ultimatum, either you sign a mutually beneficial treaty that ends the Saiyan-Tuffle war for good, and allows the two races to co-exist peacefully alongside one another, or we have the Mother Drones subjugate your species and put them to work in less than preferable occupations."

"Pfeh. Like you didn't do that before the war."

"...we didn't, as far as I was aware."

"Then clearly, you've been misinformed. See, your people would occasionally kidnap Saiyan children and have them work as slaves in one occupation or another, and because they'd grown into the position, they'd not think there was anything wrong with that."

"Yeah, I didn't realise that I was being gipped until Vegeta here saved me from that one place in that one city," Nappa chimed in. "And I'm very grateful to him for that."

"...I see." Mello continued. "That will have to be included as part of the treaty, then. Assuming you wish to sign such a thing...?"

"I don't see that we have a choice," Nappa stated. "I mean, it's either boring peace or boring slavery, and I've had more than my fair share of slavery, let me tell you."

"Not technically slavery. You'd all be paid for your work, see... you'd just not be allowed to do anything else."

"It doesn't really matter," Vegeta stated. "Either way, we get the short end of the stick. So..."

The Saiyan leader stood from his seat, resulting in Mother One aiming a hand at Vegeta in preparation to destroy him if he did anything stupid. Such was not on his mind, however.

"...so, the way I see it, a treaty would be the best way to make sure the Saiyans receive as much stick as possible."

Mello smiled, one that surprisingly held genuine warmth to it.

"Then let's begin with the deliberations."

So. First Dragonball Z fic I've made. Here's hoping I can write this well; I'm pretty sure I can, people tell me I'm a good writer. For reference's sake, we aren't going to spend a lot of time on Mello and Raichi beyond the prologue; this ain't their story. That being said, it isn't necessarily going to be the story of the Z Fighters either... so yes, fair warning: OCs abound. Not bad ones, I hope, though we can't tell until they actually show up. Also, spot the naming schemes, and feel free to ask questions.