Chapter One

Was he dead? He did not feel like it. It did not look like it either. The thing was he remembered the moment he died. That feeling of his chest blowing up from the inside by Freiza's hand was too vivid, and far too painful to have simply left him alive. Yet here he was, somewhere that was clearly not Namek. All he could remember from the last time he died, he remembered yellow and billowing layer of particularly solid clouds spreading out as far as his eyes could see; the long winding line of souls waiting for judgement, and the horned announcers directing everyone towards purgatory.

While his stay had been short and never had been judged he did not know what to expect… but the iridescent clear blue sky, with nary a cloud, was not what he had expected to see.

He had not expected to wake to the gentle breeze roll over the small glen he found himself in, rustling the leaves. Nor had he expected the gentle wetness against his legs, a small stream of rippling water.

Was this heaven? He wondered for but a second before he took his first breath, and his chest screamed in pain, a pain that spread out through his limbs.

Curling his hands into fists, he rode out the pain with a painful growl.

"Ah hah ha, that hurts." He whimpered out through his teeth.

He laid there, just listening to the nature, not willing to move hopeful to stave off another wave of pain. Where was a sensu-bean when you needed them? Not with him, that was for sure. It was unusually quiet. There were a lot of trees, but no birds, a lot of brush but quite a lack in bugs and other insects. He heard no signs of small or big wildlife… it was downright creepy. He could not even sense anyone's, or anything's Ki.

He still wore the damaged armour he'd stolen from Freiza. The hole in it a silent reminder off just what he had been subjected to just moments before his death. It was so, God be damned, unfair. It was so unfair being just human. Everyone just seemed to be stronger and better than him just because they were born different.

He sighed.

No point beating yourself up over it Krillin, he thought.

Him complaining about it would certainly not help. But it sure would have been nice to have some of that Saiyan blood in him, at least it would have made all those beat downs so much more... rewarding. Instead he was nothing more than a glorified punching bag. At least considering the foes he'd been facing lately he had been nothing more than an annoying bug compared to those beasts.

Feeling his legs grow cold he finally bit through the pain and rose to his feet. Feeling his back ache at the rough treatment the rooted ground of the glen's ditch had given him. His boots sloshed as some of the water had managed to get inside. Even some of the moisture in the ground had managed to seep into his elastic body glove.

Inspecting the hole, he curiously stretched at the material. For being so soft and elastic it certainly worked, in a mysterious mind boogling way. It was weird that it was both hard and ungiving when subjected to sudden impacts but soft and, to be quite fair, comfortable when not. He had actually liked it, and after only having it for a few hours he was now forced to give it up… at least when he found something else to wear.

Looking around himself and peering through the trees, odd trees that he had never seen before but trees nonetheless. He saw nothing but alien vegetation, and unfamiliar woods. The fact everything was green and not blue was his biggest hint that he was not on Namek, and the obviously alien plants made him conclude he was, most probably, not back home on earth either.

Feeling a spindly cold grip sneak its way up his spine he launched himself into the sky.

In a shower of leaves he shot up above the treetops. All around him was a great sea of trees. He was hovering above a plateau. To one direction the tree line dipped down into a large flat grassy plain, to his right rose a mountainous range, some tips capped with snow. To his left and behind him he could see a sudden drop into a cliff side that rolled out into a hilly dale, rivers running between its rocky hills. Far in the distance he would see spires, artificial spires!

"Yes!" he shouted and whooped at his luck. With any luck he wasn't as doomed he had feared. Cause if there were life there were people and people meant a way home!

Wasting little time he set course for the distant spires. Enjoying the scenery as he went past it. The closer he got to the spires, he could see more and more life. Birds, and sheep mostly and oddly enough, but he also spotted a few strange fishes swimming in the clear rivers waters.

Embolden by the sudden changes he sped up even more.

After a minute of flying he finally spotted his first real sign of civilization, small pre-fabricated buildings. He also noticed the people milling about, in and around the buildings and the small round dugout in the close by hillside. Another small spire like structure was being tended to by a lot of people.

The humanoids looked friendly enough, not noticing any large Ki sources; in fact it was only thanks to their numbers he even felt anything at all. Which made him smile that he finally lucked out, even if they weren't friendly folks, he was confident he wouldn't get hurt if they turned on him.

He arched his way down, and with ease that only practice could give, he landed on the outskirts of the old ritualistic site bellow.

Only feeling a bit self-conscious about his appearance, he strode boldly into view. He was only slightly bothered when he saw some of the strikingly human looking aliens wearing weapons and armour, body fitting armours at that, he pleasantly noted as the obviously female soldiers amongst them.

"Damn," he whistled under his breath at the sight of them. He had seen his fair share of women in his life but these girls were pure gold, one ten and the other a solid eight on his scale. Nothing was left to imagination… almost; armour was still armour after all.

It did not take the soldiers long at all to notice Krillin, after all he did not even try to stay hidden. The guns they drew made him a bit weary though, thankfully they kept the weapons rested against their abdomens.

"Hey, kid, the area is off limits." The closest soldier, male and was exceptionally tall, to his eye he could easily have been over one eighty metre's tall. "Where did you come from anyway, did not know there was anyone living past the space port that way."

Krillin felt insulted, yeah he was small, very much so, but never had he been mistaken for a boy. Then again he did wear quite outlandish armour, even by his own standards. The soldier must have simply mistakenit on his unusual height.

"Ah, sorry, I did not know," he spoke and grinned as he nervously scratched the back of his head. Off all the places he could have chosen to land it had to be in a restricted zone so caution was paramount. "Um, can you tell me on what planet I am on?"

The man raised a questioning eyebrow.

"Alright, I think we will take this back at the barracks. Then you are going to tell me from where you are from, cause this is no laughing matter. This site is cordoned off for miles around," the man said and started to lead Krillin away, up the hill towards the buildings. Krillin felt more than a little frustrated at this, but did not struggle. He could always force his way if it came down to it, but he wanted this sorted out peacefully if he could.

Whoever these human looking aliens was they must have never faced what he have. Heck almost nobody back home knew what Ki was or that you could fly. Even simple guns had stopped working on him completely after all; how many people would believe you without actual physical proof that you could walk through gunfire unharmed? He knew he wouldn't way back when he trained under Roshi.

It took him actually seeing Goku performing the Kamehameha-wave to understand that Ki was more than simply a philosophic theory practiced amongst the Orin monks.

He was lead inside what he could only call a small cramped barrack. A small table sat inside the door in a kitchen, a few rows of double decker beds down the hall like room, and spacey looking lockers for each of the beds, it was cramped but everything still fit with enough room to move about.

He was directed to sit down and the male soldier, and the eight grade hottie sat down with him.

"Names Samuel," the male Soldier said as he took off his helmet and extended a hand which Krillin shook.

"Krillin," Krillin answered in kind, his eyes wandered over to the woman. Her armour beige and white, the same as the man's, odd colours he had to say. "Who are you cutie?" Her responding scowl made him drop the playful grin he had let out.

"Alright, 'Krillin' time to drop the stage play and explain why you were at the dig site, and don't play coy with me. It has all been all over the news all day yesterday."

Krilling sighed, great off to a good start.

"Yeah, and here's the thing I am not playing anything. I don't know how I got to your planet, I am just looking for a way off this rock so I can get back home to earth."

"Yeah, right," the woman spoke up harshly. "And next you are going to tell us you can fly and shoot lasers out of your eyes?"

"I don't know about the eye lasers but I can fly, I know a few people who can though."

"If you are seriously going to te-" Samuel was interrupted when he heard gunfire outside. "Stay right there."

Samuel followed by the angry woman left, weapons drawn. The door closing and the green holographic thing on the door turned red.

"Great, they locked me inside!" Krillin growled.

He rushed over to the window to see what was happening outside. He did not see much but he saw a few of the civilians run for the buildings up the ramp from the "dig site", and similairly to how he was locked inside, the door turned red as soon as it closed… he only managed to see two survive the run… the half dozen white coated people got ripped apart by gun fire.

He had to help, whoever they were he was sure he could defeat these attackers!

The door stood in his way for mere seconds as a Ki blast blew the door out of its frame in an ear deafening boom. He ran towards the artificial outcropping, giving him full view of what was happening.

The whole dig site was overwhelmed with a dozen cyclopic robots shooting at anything that moved, small tri legged guns flew around gunning down fleeing soldiers and civilians alike. He was caught for a moment with uncertainty, should he interfere? He did not know anything about what was happening, who these robots were or who was in control of them. For all he knew they could be working for someone powerful, far more powerful than he was.

His choice was made for him when one of the small drone like guns turned its aim on him. As one the whole robot cadre turned on him as one, guns aimed and shooting before he had much time to react.

"Crap baskets!"

He counted fifteen shots hit him in the chest, impacting hard enough to punch the air out of his lungs and made the armour crack and chip badly. Then a split second afterwards he felt one of the bullets impact on his forehead, hard enough to arch his whole head backwards with his body being tripped by the sudden imbalance.

Hissing at the burning wound to his forehead, he felt with his fingers over the tender and very burned skin. It felt raw and slightly numb to the touch, as if he's actually put a cigar to his forehead.

His finger returned slightly red from touching where the bullet had hit.

The guns had actually managed to injure him! He suddenly wasn't as keen to help out as before.

The small floating guns shot up over the hillside, barrels tracking him with uncanny speed when they came into sight.

Krillin did not know what kind of machines they were, but he knew he did not have the luxury to find out. It looked like he had been forced onto the human-lookalikes side in this conflict.

In a flash of movement he was back up onto his feet, one hand extended and screamed a kiai.

The drones disappeared almost simultaneously as three arching Ki blasts blew them up. One of the drones managed to take a shot at him before it blew up and caught him in the armoured shoulder pad.

The armour took it even though it cracked badly and attempted to throw him out of balance. Those things were no joke. Those guns where powerful despite their small size.

His mind was taken out of his musings as he heard more gunfire down below.

He sprung into the air, launching himself high and surveyed the battle. The robots were moving freely around the dig site now; the few surviving soldiers were falling back up the hills, giving ground to the advancing machines. He saw Samuel go down, a barrier had sprung up to block two or three of the hundreds of shots sent his way before he was ripped apart by the powerful weaponry.

Gritting his teeth he aimed himself at one of the robots and launched himself down onto it. Like a freight train he landed feet first on it, a transparent barrier flaring up, he felt the impact making his knees bend a fraction before he broke through and promptly crushed the thing with enough force to scatter the machine into a thousand bits and bury the rest into the stone work.

He noted how the machines around him froze, as if in surprise, at his action. It lasted only a fraction of a second before they stopped chasing the soldiers to focus entirely on him. Their eye shutters whirring open and closed in confusion before they all simultaneously raised their arms towards him and fired.

This time he was ready for the oddly synchronised action and threw himself into a high speed dash towards the closest bot. The robots aim tracked him with eerie precision, even if they could not fully keep up. He shouldered the entire machine, whose barrier flared up just like the previous machine's had that barely slowed him down, but this time all he did was lift it off the ground now that he did not have the ground to crush it against. Its muscle like body flexing and absorbing his tackle, for about a second before he rammed into a rock surface. A milky white, oily liquid squirted out through the machine, it chittered like a fax machine before he watched the single eye-camera dim. The whole machine lost its life in a creepily similar way to a normal living being.

When he heard gunfire resume behind him, he swore and ducked away. Bullets pelted him, scratching up his skin and burning him as he fled towards the retreating soldiers, whose ki he could distantly feel. Worse was even though he took flight the machines kept a good lead on him. Even as he dodged and weaved through the air he felt impact after impact hit him, which did a good job of throwing off his concentration.

It had only taken him a moment to fly past, and safely make it behind a hill, but he was feeling like a pincushion with the amount of bullets those machines had managed to hit him with.

It took him a minute to find the soldiers being harassed by another set of drone-guns. He hurriedly destroyed them with a handful of quick Ki blasts, but he was too late.

There was only one of the soldiers that was still moving, and she looked more dead than alive. Her arms shook as her right arm glowed orange as she applied some kind of salve to the many dozens of holes all over her. Her assault rifle gripped in her other hand rested slack against her lap. Her face was sickly pale, her beige armour stained red and sooty black from the alien weaponry. It was the woman who had been with Samuel, interrogating him.

Her eyes weakly and unfocused set upon him, her eyes widened only for a moment before she coughed.

Krillin could hear the wet gurgle as she tried to breathe, her teeth and mouth stained with blood.

Her hands started grasping for her neck and chest as she writhed in place. All he could do was watch the panic grow in her as she realized she was going to die, drowning in her own blood. Her eyes growing wet with tears as her coughs devolved into weak sobs.

He bit his lip as he watched helplessly as her life ebbed away. Her grasping arms go slack beside her, and her eyes, pleading for help, as her chest shook in pained useless breaths. Then nothing.

Krillin took a steadying breath, to calm his inner turmoil. If it was not one thing it was another, no matter where he was he was useless. By now even the scientists that locked themselves in must be dead. All he had managed to save was his own life, and he wondered if it had even been in danger to begin with.

Tearing his eyes away from the corpse he looked around the dale. It had been a dead end, only steep hillsides on all sides. The soldiers had tried to run but ran out of cover, he could see that some had tried to make it over the hill but not managed to get half way up the steep sides before the machines had rounded the corner.

The robots had met the same fate, before the drones had caught up with the fighting.

Far in the distance, he could hear more gunfire coming from the direction of the dig site. What was it that was so important about it that could justify all this violence? But he barely had time to think of it when an earth shaking roar caused him to look up. Through the clouds came the biggest spaceship that he had ever seen, hurtling down towards the ground, billowing red misting smoke that seemed to paint the very sky red.

Arching red lighting arched between its sectile carapace. The craft looked more like a living insect than any spaceship that he had ever seen. With little trepidation it landed, the very ground shook, next to one of the pillar like structures that dotted the landscape, as tall as the towering structures he'd followed and more than twice as thick.

His eyes managed to catch the swarms of smaller crafts storm away from their mothership.

More explosions and gunfire entered his world as his ears recovered from the ships roar. People could still need his help, no they would need his help, these people did not seem to have the power to defend themselves from these invading machines. And while he had failed these people he might be able to save others.

Again he took to the skies.

Blazing towards the fighting, his Ki leaving a bright yellow streak trailing behind him. He got sight of the desperate retreat of yet another depleted group of soldiers. He saw the bodies from the squad and the robots trailing a bloody path up the rocky hill he himself had taken towards the dig site. There were still three left alive when he came down, kicking up dirt and stones with the sheer force and speed of his landing.

He barely heard the remaining soldiers' shouts over the cacophony of explosives and sharp thumps of their guns. The robots had bolstered their numbers again, this time there were three red ones one towering over the others. None of the small gun drones were around.

With a battle cry he launched himself like a missile toward the spread out group of robots. Aiming for the big one he flew up and then down bringing his fists down upon its head. Crushing the eye and most of its neck servos.

Thinking the machine was out of action now that it could not see, Krillin turned about, to face the next robot to be demolished. He again saw them all had turned on him, guns already aimed at him. The battlefield suddenly deathly quiet.

How do they do that?!

"Aargh!" he screamed pre-emptively, and threw his arms up to protect his face then felt a barrel press against his back. With a mighty boom all he felt was pain blossoming from his back.

He came to, a cool, ticklish feeling spreading out between his shoulder blades. Bewildered and confused for a second, he knit his hands into fists. He could feel the pain dotting his entire body, vanish in a wave of cold run through is nerves.

It was quiet and still; he could hear no more gunfire, explosions, shouts, or weird screeching robot voices.

"You are one lucky guy, you know that." a man spoke from above him.

"I don't feel lucky." Krillin answered back as he lifted himself from the ground, groaning at how uncomfortably stiff and prickly his back felt.

Krillin looked up at the new figure. A dark armoured soldier, and saw him smile good-naturedly at him.

"What happened?" Krillin asked looking around confused at the new assemble of soldiers around him. He could see the group he had thankfully manage to save, tend to one of their wounded. Close by watching him curiously, stood a man, his armour almost pitch black with a red and white stripe going down his left arm. A bold lettered insignia saying "N7" on his breast.

"You got shot when you turned your back on the geth juggernaut," the N7 man spoke, disapproval clear in his voice. "Damn lucky your barriers held for that. Geth are all connected into a hive mind, just because you blinded it did not mean it lost sight of you."

"Oh…" That explained a lot to Krillin. In hindsight it was pretty obvious the machines had communicated beyond conventional means. How they moved so well together was simply too good.

"Thanks for saving my ass," he bowed to the 'N7' man, he had become overconfident in his own strength, and suffered for it. At least he had saved enough time for their help to arrive.

He got a small nod from the man in acknowledgement.

"Kaiden Alenko," the man who'd woken him up introduced himself with a smile, and reached out with a handshake.

"Krillin," offered, and gripped Alenko's offered hand and shook. Being mindful of his strengthKrillin nearly crushed Kaidens fingers.

"A-ah," Kaiden retrieved and massaged his hand tenderly. "Quite the grip," he added tentatively.

Krillin shifted his eyes down to his armour, or rather what was left of it. The latest blast had shattered the mere part of the back, and right shoulder-pad. He tsked in irritation; now there was no point in keeping it. He crawled out of the remains. His back feeling oddly taut as he did so.

What parts wasn't missing of the armour was damaged with large and nasty cracks, and chipped holes. It was a miracle it was even keeping itself together. He threw it on the ground. His undersuit was damaged and even ripped at places. His skin red pocked, as if he had been bitten by exceptionally nasty bugs. The injuries had otherwise healed. He could not see his back, but as he could not feel any pain either he guessed that it too was somewhat healed. Whatever this Alenko guy had applied to his wound, it must have worked. At least he was whole enough.

He looked up at the soldiers.

"What's the next move?" Krillin asked, directing the question towards the obvious leader.

"You are not coming with us." the man told him off.

"W-what," Krillin exclaimed in surprise. This was a first. "Why?"

The man crossed his arms and stared down at him.

"You are a civ' and all you will do is get in the way, and put the rest of us in danger," he said to Krillin's chagrin. "I can see you have done your part, but leave the rest to the Alliance.

"We are moving on, let's get to the beacon before the geth takes it!"

With the command Alenko and the two uninjured soldiers jumped into action and formed up behind the 'N7' man.

Krillin watched the squad jog away towards the excavation site; stunned to have been so casually dismissed.

He felt the soldier that got left behind move up to him.

"Don't feel bad," the beige armoured soldier spoke. "Without you jumping in when you did… we were screwed. My shield popped right when you smashed that big red one; I would have been dead if you hadn't drawn their attention."

Krillin gave the man a sombre smile.

"Eh, at least I did something." It wasn't really his fight to fight.

He looked at how the man favoured his left leg. They should find somewhere to hide. Not that he was too concerned about his own life, while the Geth's weapons hurt they really did little damage to him. He could not say the same for everyone else.

"Come on, let's find somewhere to sit it all out." Krillin said and waved the man to follow. He stepped into the air to get a better angle to survey the area from.

He was brought to a halt when the man gave a startled yelp. He turned around, confused as to what?

The man was staring at him, eyes wide. Oh… he forgot for a moment that normal people did not know about ki, and much less the abilities it could grant. For him, while he did not consider it normal, it was simply part of his life. Earthlings, especially compared to the rest of the galaxy, was extremely sheltered from it. While the rest of the universe basically functioned on ki earth did not.

"H-how do you do that?" The man stammered, looking awed at the sight of Krillin in mid-air.

"It is hard to explain, but Ki basically," Krillin answered and ascended a bit more. He could answer the man's questions later when they both were safe…er.

From his vantage point he saw nothing. No machines and no soldiers or civilians. From his newfound height he could now hear the faint popping sounds of this world's guns. It came from the nearest spire. He could see the gigantic spaceship far off in the distance, though due to its size it looked a lot closer than it really was.

Its massive tentacle like arms moved as the entire hulk shifted, with a mighty heave it threw itself into the air and disappeared into the sky as quickly as it had appeared.

What had he gotten himself into?

He quickly spotted an alcove in the rocks that could hide him and the wounded soldier. It wasn't the best hiding spot as one of those floating drones could easily ambush them if they spotted their hide out, but it was better than being out in the open.

He descended towards the ground and started to float in the direction of the hidey-hole, beaconing for the soldier to follow.

"This way, I think I found a place for us to hide."

They got inside the alcove and the soldier eased himself to the floor. Groaning the whole way down. Krillin did much the same, feeling himself not only bruised and battered but also tired.

"What kind of biotic are you?" the soldier asked, still as much awed as before. "James, by the way"

"Krillin, I don't know what biotic is, but my power comes from my own energy, my Ki."

"Are you some kind of kungfu kid?"

"A martial artist, yes. I picked up a few tricks from my friends, and I am the strongest earthling in a matter of fact."

James blinked a few times, confused and doubtful about the short bald man's claims.

"Ki?" the soldier ventured, very much sure that it must be just a term Krillin used for his biotics.

"Yeah, here, I can show you," Krillin said and held his hands in front of him, palms facing each other. He concentrated and condensed his energy into a small ball of light. The trick was surprisingly easy, far easier than he had thought. He had never tried to do something so small and… well, non combat focused before.

He could feel the Ki between his hands and decided to try out a little trick. Turning one palm upwards he made the small ball of energy sip around their little hidey-hole. James stared at the small ball of light, but quickly shifted his attention back to Krillin. His eyes trying to see through his trick. Not that he could've. There was no devices on him or any other tells that spoke to it being anything else than an honest ball of energy.

"But, how…" James trailed off speechless. There was no biotic flare, no omnitool or any other device hidden on Krillin that could have made it. That it was a hologram had been disproven almost immediately when the ball had passed close by him. He could feel the heat it radiated. Never had he heard of something like this.

"Well, it is Ki. Energy from my life force, and it is through simple hard work and training that built it into such power, that I learned how to manipulate it. What I can do with it is nothing compared to some of my friends."

He let the ball of power dissipate and relaxed against the alcove.

"Believe me I was as stunned as you when I saw my first Kame Hame Ha. It was like magic. But after master Roshi's training, it was but a small feat. Most humans never have the chance to truly strengthen their bodies like I have had. Flying is something that just happens, anyone that learns how to manipulate their Ki will discover how to do it sooner or later."

"So you are saying that I could do it?"

"I…" Krillin hesitated a bit, "I guess, but it takes an inhuman training regimen and many more years of physical training to even start to think about Ki techniques. Ki is something you have to build up and unless it's really big it's near impossible."

"But possible?"

"Yes. But you have almost none, nothing more than I have come to expect from normal humans."

"How do you know?"

"It… is another technique I have learned. I can sort off sense the power of others. And you have very little, I can barely feel the life force in you."

That took a bit of the wind out of James' enthusiasm.

The time passed. Krillin enjoying the quiet, it had been days since he had been able to truly relax. Something he felt was long overdue. Someone could only handle being killed twice in a day after all... or well, once. But only because he had been saved by a sensu bean Goku had given him mere moments before being blown to bits.

He shuddered at the memory and quickly swept it away into a dusty corner of is mind. The feeling of his very fibre bursting at the seams had not been a nice feeling.

Close to an hour later James jerked into action.

"Come on, we are getting of this rock."

Krillin wondered curiously what James meant as he stood to his feet and followed the taller man out of their hideout.