Going Super
Planet Vegeta was a wasteland.
That didn't bother Carol too much – she'd seen plenty of wastelands in the galaxy. Wastelands that were part of planets. Wastelands that were planets. Wastelands that had been formed by natural calamity, or more often than not, wastelands formed from the over-consumption of a planet's resources. A state of affairs that the kree would never allow, but then, other races weren't kree, be they skrull, xandarian, chitauri, or any other form of life that plied the islands of stars that drifted in the sea of space. Looking at this planet though, she was pretty sure what had caused it.
"What happened here?" she asked.
Just because she was sure, didn't mean she couldn't get more information. But as for the request, Mar-Vell smirked.
"Oh I don't know. Take a wild guess."
Apparently he was going to be a jerk. As in, his usual self. Frowning, Carol looked over the wastes of Vegeta – all around their ship were crater marks, and to their north, the ruins of a city.
"Meteor impacts?" she asked. "Some cosmic collision?"
"You're half right," Mar-Vell said.
"And what's the other half?"
"Oh, you'll find out."
Carol frowned.
"Oh do cheer up, this is going to be fun," he said, giving her a light nudge before walking out over the wastes. "And do smile more Carol."
She sighed as she followed him. "Everyone keeps telling me to smile more."
"And? Smiling's good for you."
Her grimace became a frown. "I didn't know that the future of the Kree Empire relied on my ability to smile."
"Well, you're a member of Starforce now, so when you're defending the kree from the skrull and whatever other wretches the universe has spawned, the powers that be expect you to look happy while doing so." He looked around as he kept on walking. "You're still not smiling."
Go to hell.
Carol didn't say that of course – Mar-Vell was her superior in rank, as well as ability. But even that aside, she had the feeling that she just might as well have stepped into Hell, or whatever place of fire and brimstone all races of the galaxy had at least some concept of. Vegeta wasn't on fire, but it was clear that it had been burnt in some form or another. Because the world was dead. Trudging to the city, she could see no sign of life, here, or for a hundred miles all around her. In all likelihood, she and Mar-Vell were the only living beings on this rock. The grains of sand drifting in the wind became caught in her hair. They burnt her skin, scorched her tongue. This place might not have been Hell, but Hell had come to it.
"Mar-Vell," she asked, catching up with her mentor. "Why are we here?"
"I told you. Training exercises."
"There's over a hundred planets where we can train. Why here?"
Mar-Vell didn't say anything.
"Fine," Carol sighed. "Lead on, oh master."
She really shouldn't have been surprised – her life was a blank before Starforce. Mar-Vell had been there to lead her from the outset, so why should now be any different? Still, just because no-one knew anything about her past, didn't mean that he had to be so cryptic about her future.
The two walked in silence across the wastes of Vegeta. The silence remained as they entered the city. Carol frowned – this city was…off, she reflected. There were great tall spires that reached up to the sky, their shining metal reflecting the light of the sun back out into space. Most of them were nothing but hollow shells, bits of twisted metal reaching up towards the sky in agony. Yet she couldn't be certain that they'd been destroyed in a meteor shower. Some, yes, but there were scorch marks on the lower levels as well. And beyond that, in the shadows of the skyscrapers, were smaller, simpler dwellings, made of brick and stone. They were missing the scorch marks the skyscrapers were, and many of them were still standing. Many cities on many worlds had old buildings in the shadow of the new, remnants of a less technologically advanced time, but here, the low-tech buildings were in better shape than that of the new-tech.
"Mar-Vell?" she asked.
Her mentor, who'd up until now just been walking through the city in silence, stopped and looked round at her.
"Did something happen here?" she asked. "Like, aside from the meteor shower?"
"Very good," he said, smiling. He poked her head. "More of a brain in there than Minn-Erva thinks."
Carol brushed her hair aside – she didn't care what Minn-Erva thought.
"But yes," Mar-Vell said, picking up his stride again. "More than one calamity has befallen this world within the last millennium. Can you guess what?"
Carol looked at the buildings again. "War?" she asked.
Mar-Vell snorted.
"What?" she asked. "The scorch marks are consistent with energy-based weaponry. And there's over a dozen examples where war on a world has led to mass extinction. That's not even including the concept of the nuclear threshold and-"
"All true," Mar-Vell said. He kept walking, but he glanced back at Carol. "And yes, war is a good assumption. But…"
"But?"
"But for what happened on this world, war is not the best example of use." He kicked a pebble to the side as he walked on, the rock coming to rest at the base of a pile of rubble. "Genocide, extermination…these are better words to use for what happened here."
"Isn't that getting into semantics?"
"Words have a power of their own Carol. It's part of what distinguishes us from creatures like the chitauri."
Carol didn't bother contesting the point. And besides, Mar-Vell had come to a stop.
"Here we are," he said.
Carol came to a stop as well – had she gone on any further, she would have tumbled down into the great crater before her.
"Behold what was once the epicentre of truffle civilization," he said, opening his arms wide. "Behold the legacy of the saiyans."
"Tr…aiyans?"
"No. Truffles. Saiyans." Mar-Vell looked at her, a darkness in his eyes. "Both extinct species, only one became extinct before the other." He gestured down towards the crater. "I don't know what exactly stood here before the saiyans wiped it out. Probably the last bastion of truffle resistance."
Carol shrugged. "Crater must be one, two kilometres across? Lots of weapons could do that."
"Indeed. But imagine that weapon being the power of energy manipulation. Imagine that power coming from a single saiyan."
Carol looked at him. "You mean…?"
Mar-Vell nodded. "The saiyans did this with their ki – energy manipulation as you and I might understand it." He sighed. "Come on. I've got more to show you."
The two kree descended into the crater. As they did so, Mar-Vell continued to talk.
"Once, at some point, the conflict between the truffles and saiyans could be considered a war. The truffles – peaceful but more technologically advanced. The saiyans – primitive, but each with a strength beyond anything this world, or even the galaxy had seen. So when it came to war, at first, they were evenly matched. But then…" He sighed, gesturing up at the sky. "You see the moon up there Carol? What phase is it in?"
"Crescent?"
"Crescent," he said. "Vegeta's moon waxes full only once a century And on that night, when the moon turned full, the saiyans…well, they changed. Can't be sure how exactly, but whatever the case, they wiped out the truffles overnight. War turning to genocide in the space of minutes, the extinction of an entire species achieved in a matter of hours."
"So the saiyans won," Carol said. "So why aren't they here?"
"Well now," Mar-Vell said. "That's what I'm here to show you." He gestured towards the bottom of the crater, specifically a hole in the ground. One that was quite wide – wider than was necessary to accommodate a kree, or practically any other kreenoid species.
"After you," Mar-Vell said.
Carol peered down into the gloom – there was no ladder or rope, but the surface looked rocky enough to climb. Nonetheless, she set up her harness and descended into the gloom. Picking out a lumi-globe from her belt, she tossed it into the air.
"Oh my…" she whispered.
They were in a cave system. And while its size and scope was impressive enough, what truly caught her eye were the paintings on the walls.
"Behold," Mar-Vell said, descending down after her. "The last bastion of the saiyans, huddled beneath what was the last bastion of the truffles." He snorted. "Justice, it seems, has a certain irony to it."
"Or fate," Carol murmured.
"Fate, justice, what of it?" he asked. "Still, maybe we should be careful about what we deem justice, of mirroring one genocide with another. After all, we all know the tale of the Mad Titan now don't we?"
Carol did. All of the kree did. The skrulls were bad enough, but if the Mad Titan turned in their direction…
She shoved the thoughts aside. Thanos was thousands of light years away from kree space. She was here, on Vegeta, in the ruins of two civilizations. The smaller buildings among the truffle skyscrapers…they made sense now. Even if not for the paintings of giant kreenoid figures shooting energy from their hands at much smaller kreenoid figures. Slowly walking through the caves, she quickly realized that the saiyans had painted the history of their war. A war that was depicted as going only one way here, but reaching its climax with the full moon – a blood red orb over now even larger figures. Giant furry figures with big tails, breathing white light from their mouths. Soon, there were no more truffles in the paintings. Only pictures of saiyans celebrating their victory.
"So you won," Carol murmured. "So what happened to you?"
The paintings told her the answer – rocks descending from the sky, smashing into Vegeta. Interestingly enough, there was a painted figure among the painted clouds – some kind of creator deity? Had the saiyans attributed their doom to supernatural causes? Or had some celestial being actually caused their destruction?
"There's plenty of theories as to how the saiyans met their end," Mar-Vell said, as if reading her thoughts. "I mean, it's a given Vegeta suffered a meteor shower at some point, but there's other stories as well – that the saiyans fought themselves to extinction. That a being from the stars used them to carve out his own empire. Some think even the Mad Titan himself came to this world, and culled half their number."
"If he came, what happened to the other half?" Carol asked.
Mar-Vell shrugged. "Never said the stories were mutually exclusive. But it doesn't matter – here's what I wanted to show you."
He gestured further up the caves, and Carol followed.
"Here," Mar-Vell said. "Take a look."
Carol obliged, but she didn't see much reason to. It showed a number of saiyans kneeling, their heads lowered – all in reverence for the one in the circle's centre. A single saiyan levitating, his hair yellow and ablaze.
"A super saiyan," Mar-Vell said.
Carol snorted. "Seriously?"
"Serious enough for the saiyans," Mar-Vell said. "There's this myth that pervades everything we've been able to learn about their culture. The idea of a saiyan becoming so powerful that he might as well be a god. The one who would lead them to victory over the galaxy. Or in some sources, deliver them from their oppressor."
Carol couldn't imagine a race as mighty and barbaric as this being "oppressed." Still, looking further along the paintings, she saw a figure that differed from the sky daddy – one a shade of purple and lavender, with tail long and horns sharp. Like some kind of demon. One that the saiyans were also kneeling towards.
Not the Mad Titan then, she thought. She looked at Mar-Vell. "Why did you bring me here?" she asked.
"Same reason I bring every new member of Starforce here," her mentor said.
"And what reason is that?"
"Aspiration. Inspiration. Take your pick."
"Pardon?"
"A reminder of how even the most mighty can be brought low," he said, gesturing towards the painting of the meteor shower. "A reminder of the horrors that lurk in the galaxy, and how we must never bow to them." He gestured to the figure with the horns and tail. "And inspiration to ever better ourselves. To be more than kree." This time, he pointed at the painting with the so-called super saiyan.
Carol raised an eyebrow. "You think primitive fables are things I should get invested in?"
"Every culture in the universe has something to offer us," Mar-Vell said. "And besides, the idea of a kree rising above all others? One who could lead us to victory over the skrull, even while the saiyans failed? Yes, I find that appealing."
"And you think I'm that kree," Carol said.
"No."
"Oh." She lowered her gaze, fighting against the touch of disappointment that had sprouted within her breast.
"Still," Mar-Vell said. "I do believe you've got the potential to get even more powerful. And besides…" He ran a finger through her hair. "Blonde. Golden. Why, I can just imagine you going all super saiyan and doing to the skrull what the saiyans did to the truffles."
"Oh yeah?' She tugged her hair aside. "Can you imagine beating you to death?"
"Yes." He laughed. "Which brings us to the other reason we're here."
"Which is?"
"Vegeta is a wasteland. So when we engage in today's sparring session, neither of us will have to hold back." He turned and headed back to the grapple. "Come on Carol. Let's give Vegeta a battle worthy of its legacy."
She didn't say anything. She just scowled.
"And by all that's holy, smile for once."
Fuck you. Nonetheless, she followed him. Even as she glanced back at the paintings on the wall. At the meteors that doomed this world. At the god that never came. At the demon that lorded over all.
She could swear it was laughing at her…
A/N
So when the second Captain Marvel trailer came out, there was a running joke about Carol going super saiyan at the end - the whole "golden hair standing up" thing. To be honest, I thought the joke was stretching it as far as a similarity went. Then again, while I'm hardly an MCU fan, let alone a Captain Marvel one, I've found a lot of the criticism at the film to be quite bizzare (reading this, you can probably guess what). Still, gave me the idea to drabble this up - yes, this is me complaining about a joke going too far, whereas I write over 2000 words based on said joke, but meh.