Before I begin by pre-chapter shpeel, I shall say this: Hello mine friends, readers, companions, people who hate me, people who've never read this before and are likely reading this several days, or so, after this chapter is actually posted and welcome... to the very first time I've updated something a year after it was originally posted, almost exactly a year, so I hope you enjoy it though I suggest sitting down with a sandwich or something, because this thing is a monster of a chapter! That being said here's said shpeel, which you honestly don't need to read. What you do need to read is down at the bottom, but more on that later. Here's the shpeel!:

I honestly have no excuse for the delay. None what so ever, can't even use the 'my update schedule, or lack thereof, is usually like this'. Not possible; I spent literally two months on the last chapter, even less on the two chapters before that. By the time my self imposed two month deadline past, I was barely 2 thousand words into this. TWO THOUSAND! Don't think I can truly stress enough just how disappointed I am in myself with this. Actually... there is one excuse I could use, but its not far enough along in its creation to really count, I think; I'm trying to write a book. I literally have maybe a chapter, two-three thousand words at most, written at this time, and I want to get a little farther along before I start planning for it, but it might happen. That aside I only have a real quick question, I guess; How many of you like action and fighting? Because that's basically the entirety of this chapter!... or at least most of it, in any case. This will definitely be testing my ability to write DBZ, and its truly amazing how listening to DBZ's original opening will spur on writing, ya know? Also I've actually put the poll up, though admittedly its been up for months now, which I forgot to do when I posted the previous chapter to begin with so its there in case anyone wants to vote for who they want, if you haven't already in the several months its been since I've updated sorry about that, again, and, by the way, Broly is still in the lead... by quite a bit actually, taking into account the guest reviews and the actual poll.

And now... guest reviews:

NatNicole: The reason he saw 'Goku' in his vision was because he saw the canon time-line, or at least up till Frieza's death, something that I have only recently remembered, due to rereading my early plan for this story and realizing that without that rather important piece of information, a good bit of what I've planned for this story CANNOT come to pass (but more on that at the bottom). It was jumbled up and jumped around a lot but covered everything, including the things we didn't see in the anime or manga, like Goku's complete training on King Kai's Planet for example. Okay... so your voting for Vegeta... and someone else's OC? That's what I got out of that review, plus a possible reason as to why Vegeta could be Gohan's father using their canon relationship. Good to know (I think?).

DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT own Dragonball, Dragonball Z, Dragonball GT, Dragonball Z Kai, or any of the Dragonball/Z/GT/Kai games as they are own by FUNimation, Toei Animation, Fuji TV, and Akira Toriyama (With the exception of GT as Akira Toriyama cannot own something he had no part in creating and did not buy the rights to)

"Kaitlyn... no Gyoka" Speech

'So the future isn't set in stone' Thoughts

"Final Spirit Cannon!" Techniques

"Can you hear me?" Telepathy

And they ALL DIED! Flashback

Summary: Following Bardock's defeat of the pirate Chilled, he wakes up on Yardrat and finds himself under the tutelage of Soba. When he has a vision of his two children fighting on Earth he bids farewell to the Yardrat that trained him and rushes to stop them from killing each other. Fem!Goku, Massive AU, Side project.


Age 762; Planet Earth; Low Earth Orbit

Zarbon watched the soldiers gifted to her by Freiza with growing malice; What better way to wipe out a monkey than with a force of ten thousand ready and willing to die for their lord, or pay the ultimate price for their hubris. It was a shame really, in Zarbon's mind, that they couldn't muster the original fifteen thousand soldiers with which to lay waste to the inhabitants of the planet, mostly due to the need to keep their main base at peak operating condition, but surely ten thousand would be enough... right? Reading the power levels again, one at a massive thirty-four thousand, two at almost fifteen thousand, and the rest varying from a measly three thousand to just below ten thousand, Zarbon felt, for a brief second, that the eldest Saiyan would manage to wipe out enough soldiers that by the time he is overwhelmed and killed the others would be able to tear through the ragged soldiers left, and inflict a significant blow to the Planet Trade Organization before being dealt with by either one of the two Saiyans loyal to Freiza, 'Highly unlikely' Zarbon thought to herself, snorting quietly, or by Zarbon herself. She resigned to stay within the ship and watch over the battle; only time would tell the outcome of this battle, even if it seemed so obvious. Only time would tell.

Once the order was received to deploy, many of the soldiers became... apprehensive to say the least. It was a well known fact that one of the people they would be fighting had a power level rivaling Dodoria, and the concept of having to fight someone like that scared most of them. Still it was either die by the hands of their enemies in combat or die by the hands of Freiza in shame and humiliation. Most chose to die in combat rather than allow themselves to be tortured and made an example of by one of Freiza's many loyal, truly loyal, soldiers, such as Dodoria and Zarbon. That being said they all exited their respective crafts when the order was received, despite their apprehensiveness. And this was the sight that Bardock, and closely behind him the humans, saw once they reached space: a quite literal swarm of white, as most of the soldiers wore white full body armor, leaving the ovular ships that floated within the Earth's gravitational field. Needless to say it was quite daunting to have, and feel, the equivalent of, more or less, almost half of the Earth's population's worth of energy streaming from the ships and at them. But, as the earthlings could easily feel, Bardock stood before all of the miniscule powers approaching them as a veritable SUN among the cosmos of energy, with only four of the power levels coming anywhere near where he stood, and only a single one eclipsing the scarred Saiyan completely. As they left the relative safety of Earth's atmosphere, thankful for the lessons on surviving in space (coughflashbackforeshadowingcough) for a small amount of time, roughly thirty minutes to an hour at best, the humans slowed as Bardock did. "Remember, once you start to feel your air supply running low I want you to get back into the atmosphere as fast as you can, and make sure that when you do you give off as much energy as you can; no one likes burning to a crisp upon reentry" He said, his voice hard and gruff, as he stared at the horde of soldiers before him.

Flashback:

"Alright I'd say its time for you to learn the single most important thing for the coming battle," Bardock said, looking over the group of Earthlings, knowing that Kami, Raditz, and Piccolo already knew this.

"And that would be?" Chi-Chi asked, looking indignant at the fact that her training was being interrupted, as she tapped her foot on the metaphorical ground from her position in the air.

"Surviving in space" Bardock simply replied, grinning inwardly at the shocked and disbelieving looks on their faces.

"Bu-but that goes against all laws of physics!" Yamcha sputtered, dating Bulma did have the benefit of spending many days with a person you enjoyed being with and still learning things you didn't know.

"And flying doesn't?" Krillin asked sarcastically, grinning at his fellow Turtle School student. Yamcha's only response was a deadpan look and a glare leveled at the bald man.

"So does converting my body into a beam of light, that light moving to a specific location, and then converting said light back into my body," Bardock said, continuing with Krillin's statement and taking it a step farther. "Something I've learned is that nothing is impossible, and I suggest each of you take that to heart." Bardock paused for a few seconds to let what he said sink in before continuing with what he had originally planned on saying. "What I am about to teach you is simple, and short term" he paused, making sure to look at each with an accusing gaze, "This will last only so long as your Ki does, and in battle it will only last an even shorter amount of time" he then began to pour Ki from his body, effectively giving him an aura of blue energy, the sheer amount of energy causing several of the weaker humans to back up slightly out of reflex.

After several seconds his Ki output stabilized to a more manageable level for the earthlings and Bardock continued, "I don't really understand the basic principles of it, but it works sort of like a magnet; your Ki gives off a positive charge that attracts the negatively charged oxygen ions... don't quote me on this" he added at the end, shrugging, "Anyway you need a pretty good Ki output for this, so I suggest you get used to doing so now, before your life hinges on your ability to do this" at their shocked expressions he glared, "What? You thought we'd let them on the planet? Once on the planet they will be out of our control; they will scatter to eliminate all life, and if that happens it doesn't matter if we defeat them or not because they'd likely destroy the dragon balls in their extermination, then this planet would be lost. We are confronting them in space, and that means that you MUST master, or at the very least learn, this technique. You have three hours before I check back on you, so you'd best get started" Bardock grinned when he said 'check' before flying away, leaving the earthlings to grumble to themselves and begin working.

End Flashback

At their nods Bardock turned back to face the sky as he began to rise, glad for the fact that he did this many times while in Freiza's employ. 'Least something good came from that' he snorted as his body gave an involuntary shudder at the dropping temperature, giving him reason to increase his energy output slightly. He looked back at the people following him and grinned at the fact that they had not only caught up to him, but were also giving off enough energy to survive in the black void they would be entering shortly.

Within the larger group that was following Bardock, nervousness and apprehension were the reigning emotions, as opposed to Bardock's anger at Freiza and slight pride in his one time students. Yamcha, Chi-Chi, Raditz, and Tien led the pack, followed by Yajirobe and Chiaotzu, with Krillin, Kyodo, and Roshi taking up the rear. Piccolo and Kami were behind even them by at least thirty feet, Kami with Piccolo to ensure he didn't pull anything, and the last three humans behind Yajirobe to make sure he didn't try to run. As it was, the former ronin was nervously gripping the handle of his sword, a gift from one of the last true sword makers left in the world and the man's rudimentary teacher in the higher aspects of Swordsmanship. It looked almost identical to his old sword, which he had placed in a shrine to honor its service to him, save for the hilt was a rich maroon instead of black, and the blade was a gleaming silver instead of a dull gray.

"Do you think it will work in combat?" Krillin asked Kyo quietly, or as quiet as he could with the speed they were traveling at snatching their words from the air.

"It should... but I just hope we won't need to use it to save our lives..." Kyo responded shivering, whether due to the cold of the lower atmosphere or nervousness none knew.

"I have full confidence that it shall not come to that" Roshi said, coming in between two of his former students and placing his hands on their shoulders, "But it would be best to test in a battle such as this, where we have allies around us to aid us should it not work, instead of one were we are fighting a foe on our own with no help should it fail and leave us defenseless" the two men nodded, and continued their flight in silence, until Krillin spoke up as the sky turned black.

"Roshi... have you mastered that completely?" he asked, looking at the older man out of the corner of his eye and causing Kyo to raise an eyebrow.

"Master what?" he asked, turning to look at the former monk and Kame Sennin, "What are you talking about?"

"I have," Roshi said, nodding to Krillin before looking at Kyodo out of the corner of his eye and saying cryptically, "You will see when the time comes"

Bardock came to an abrupt stop shortly afterward, his sudden deceleration causing everyone else to slow to a stop just behind him. "What... is that?" Tien asked in shock, staring at the mass of white that was flooding out of the saucers that floated a good couple of miles out into space.

"The ten thousand soldiers we will be fighting," Bardock answered, closing his eyes and feeling for the energy of Vegeta and Nappa, the latter more than the former as he was more familiar with it, "And their ships. Just be glad that most of you are stronger than a good portion of them; else we would never survive this encounter" he said grimly, his eyes snapping open and a growl emitting from his throat as he felt them flying in the main bulk of the enemy, before the more rational part of his mind brought up the possibility of them trying to pull the wool over Zarbon's eyes, causing him to take a deep breath and close his eyes once more. What happened next... was not something he expected.

Age ?; ?

Nothingness, much like that which he felt when before he met Soba, was all Bardock knew... then came the pain. The blinding, thought shattering, mind freezing pain. He felt it in every part of his body, like someone had replaced his blood with liquid fire and increased his sensitivity to pain by a thousand fold. Just below this pain he could numbly feel the cold, unforgiving ground of some planet, though he knew it was likely not Earth. Suddenly he felt himself be lifted and, in a great feat of endurance, opened his eyes to find himself staring into the cold orbs of one Freiza. "What was that about my line being ended? My organization destroyed? My men slaughtered and myself being a mere shell of my former self?" the tyrant demanded, a cruel smirk forming on his face, before spreading from ear to ear. "The universe shall remember this moment! The moment The Great Emperor Freiza slaughtered the last and greatest of the Saiyans and became immortal! How does that make you feel you damn monkey?!" Freiza asked quietly, before driving his fist into Bardock's stomach, causing the man to cough up blood as he was unceremoniously dropped to the cold, hard ground.

"Who said... I was the greatest?" Bardock found himself saying through the pain, grinning with a bloodied mouth at the final form of the tyrant and inwardly wincing at the amount of pain just that simple gesture held. "And who said I... was the last?" he continued, the pain from talking worth the look on the tyrant's face; a mixture of shock, anger, and, what made all this completely worth it, fear. An emotion that none save the man's father King Cold had seen on his face and lived to tell the tale.

"Your pathetic attempts at lying are pointless; I personally killed your son, the bald 'General', and that insufferable 'Prince', you are all that remains of your race" Freiza spat out, anger flashing over his visage, but within his eyes was a seed. A simple seed of fear, and that's all that Bardock required to ignored the pain and increasing pressure in his chest and continue talking.

"You may have killed my son... but what of my daughter you pale freak?!" Bardock asked, laughing despite knowing he would die soon, but the color draining from Freiza's already white face and the seed within his eyes spreading its roots made it worth it completely. "My daughter is stronger than I ever have been, and you know what makes this even funnier? She's a Super Saiyan... and I never was a true Super Saiyan... so choke on that and shove it up your ass you arrogant lit-" Bardock's next words were left unsaid, as he suddenly found a hand sticking out of his stomach and blood welling up his throat. He threw up the blood and the last thing he heard was a scream, be it enraged or anguished he knew not, and flash of light. Then his sight faded to black as his vision of the future ended.

Bardock was thrown back into his body with a jerk, and the first thing he did was take a few shaky breaths as he stared at his knees. 'So that's what the Kanassan's felt like...' was his first thought before he shook his head to clear the thought from his mind 'No. I won't let that happen, even if its possible, I will kill Freiza and that will be the end of that' he reaffirmed in his mind, before standing straighter and glaring at the soldiers heading their way, significantly closer than before his vision.

"Bardock... are you okay?" Tien asked, floating up to the man, "You weren't moving, then you were staring at your feet sounding like you just fly around the world firing energy blasts into the sky the entire time"

"I'm fine," Bardock said, brushing off the man's concern, "I just had a vision"

"Of what?" Raditz asked, stretching lightly for the upcoming battle, sounding as if he didn't care. In reality, however, he did and quite a bit actually; if it made his father breath like that it must have been something important.

Bardock didn't speak for several seconds and when he did he spoke simply and quickly. "I'll tell you after the battle; if you knew right now then it would only get in the way" That sentence caused several of the humans to look at each other nervously due to the implications of what the Saiyan said. "Either way I will say this: stay in groups of at least two; if you get separated you will likely die. Cover each others backs and please try not to die; I don't think Gyoka would like it very much if everyone didn't make it back eh?" Bardock asked, grinning in excitement for the battle. Nodding and trying to ignore their nervousness the earthlings took a few breaths to calm their nerves, all silently agreeing that dying would be a bad idea.

"So how are we doing this exactly?" Piccolo demanded, suddenly feeling the need to kill something brutally and slowly as he cracked his knuckles.

"You and Kami need to stay together; if one of you dies then so does the other, and who better to cover your arse than you other half?" Bardock responded, grinning at the angry and slightly disgusted face Piccolo was making. "You earthlings should break into groups based on how well you'll work together, but no bigger than three people in each. Raditz and I will go find our betters. Give them no quarter; if you keep them alive they will kill you" Bardock sneered, his anger at Vegeta and Nappa palpable. "So... the oldest of Saiyan fighting techniques?" Bardock asked after Raditz floated next to him.

"Bum rush(1) and kill as many as possible as fast as possible?" Raditz asked, a cruel sneer finding its way onto his face.

"You got it son" Bardock agreed, a similar sneer appearing on his face, never really having imagined that he would ever actually call Raditz 'son'. "First to a thousand wins?"

"You'd better be able to keep up old man; I'm not stopping to pull your ass out of the fire" Raditz shot back as the two took identical stances in preparation to fly at their enemy full speed, their action causing the rest of the fighters to break into groups: Yamcha, Chi-Chi, and Yajirobe in one, Krillin, Kyodo, and Roshi in another, Kami and Piccolo in the third, and Tien and Chiaotzu in the last.

"I wouldn't expect anything less" Bardock grinned, slowly building up his Ki in anticipation. "On three?"

"Three" Raditz grinned in response, building his Ki much like his father

"Two"

"One"

"GO!" both Saiyans roared at the same time, taking off at full speed at the mass of white in front of them, their Ki output sending shivers down the weaker humans' spines as they watched the two in silence for a few seconds.

"Holding back in this fight will likely spell our death" Roshi said, breaking the silence. "This is the product of months of training!" the Kame Sennin exclaimed, clenching his fists and building up his Ki. All save Krillin and Kami expected him to enter his Max Power Form so to say they were surprised at what happened next is an understatement. Roshi charged his Ki to his bodies limit, molding it as he had trained in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber until he felt the familiar burn of the change taking place. Taking a deep breath he yelled, more out of reflex because of the pain than anything else, as the change began. His hair grew out and his mustache and beard receded into his face, his muscles were revitalized and energized, his flesh became more taunt and his blemishes disappeared. His bones broke into infinitely miniscule particles and reformed themselves to become stronger than ever and accommodate his increased size as he regained the height he had lost as he aged. The final, more gruesome, elements of the change were masked by a flash of light and a wave of power, eclipsing that of his former power level by several times. When the light died down everyone around, with the exception of the aforementioned persons, stared in shock as a man not seen on Earth for almost three hundred years stood in the place of the man they expected.

"Wha?... How?... Why?... WHO?!" Yamcha all but stuttered as he stared at the man that had taken the place of the Master of the Turtle School. "Who is that?!" He demanded as the man began to stretch, the negligible force of gravity causing him to spin head over heels slowly, though his sunglasses stayed on his face despite all this.

"Roshi, Master of the Turtle School of Martial Arts, Kame Sennin, and your sensei, at your service" the man replied, righting himself and grinning at Yamcha's dumbfounded expression, as well as the expression of shock on the faces of most others.

"Prove it" Chi-Chi demanded, breaking the humans from their shock, "I want you to prove that you are who you say you are"

"I taught your father, the Ox King along with Gyoka's adoptive grandfather Gohan" Roshi replied shrugging and glancing nervously at the specks that were Bardock and Raditz in the distance, "I died attempting to seal King Piccolo into the rice cooker he was freed from, and your sizes ar-"

"Enough!" Chi-Chi yelled, blushing furiously at the remark that she cut him off from saying, "I believe you, you don't have to say anything else"

"Now that we have that out of the way," Kami said, coughing into his hand to gather the attention of the warriors, "I suggest we catch up with Bardock and Raditz, strong they may be but even they will eventually succumb to our enemy's sheer numbers"

"Finally," Piccolo said from his position behind Kami, "I was tempted to kill one of you to stop this unnecessary talking" with that he took off toward the Saiyans, not waiting to here their reactions to his statement.

"That arrogant..." Yamcha growled, clenching his fist in anger but doing nothing as he knew the Namekian was far more powerful than him. "Chi-Chi, Yajirobe wanna stick with me?" He asked, turning to the two.

"Why not" the daughter of the Ox King said, shrugging and looking at Yajirobe, "What'd you say Yajirobe?"

"I say this is a horrible idea" the Ronin said glancing at the mass of white that was but a few miles away, "But I'm not just gonna lay down and let some aliens wipe out our planet" he growled.

"If we don't do something then who will?" Yamcha asked, a question that neither Chi-Chi nor Yajirobe had an answer to. "Well, let's not keep them waiting shall we?" he asked, grinning as he shot off to follow Piccolo, Chi-Chi and Yajirobe following a mere second after with Kami close behind; it wouldn't do for him to die because Piccolo was careless.

"Come on Chiaotzu, shall we show them why they shouldn't mess with Earth?" Tien asked his significantly shorter friend.

"Mhmm" the man said, nodding his pale head at the triclops before they to took off toward the Planet Trade Organization's soldiers.

"I guess that leaves the three of us" Krillin said, breaking Kyodo from his thoughts.

"Y-yeah" he said, still slightly shocked at his sensei's transformation, before shaking his head and nodding. "Let us show them the power of the Turtle School"

"Then as Master of the Turtle School I hereby order a full on assault," Roshi said, a grin of excitement growing on his face, "They will rue the day they made us enemies" and with that the last three of Earth's defenders took off at to join their companions in battle, each hoping the battle would be short, and successful. It would not be until the end of the battle would they learn just what those finale words meant, and the impact they would have on their lives and future.

(Insert line break here)

When Bardock and Raditz hit the front lines of the Planet Trade Organization's soldiers those watching could only call what they saw a few select words; a slaughter, death incarnate, a massacre, and, the most commonly used, Hell. To explain this one must learn how the two combated the soldiers. Let's just say they started it with a bang, and massive bang.

"Final Spirit Cannon/Double Sunday!" The two yelled at the same time, firing their respective attacks simultaneously, their power easily eclipsing that of most of the soldiers before them and thus their blue and pink beams not only killing all they touched, but wiping them from the face of the universe and existence itself, ensuring that their souls would be sent to King Yemma in Otherworld.

"I don't think we can count this" Bardock chuckled lightly, at both the number of soldiers they killed with their blasts and the reactions of those who survived, which was to either charge the two in anger over the deaths of their comrades, and possibly friends, or to slowly back away, at least until the more powerful members of the army arrived, sneering at the cowardice of their fellow soldiers and their weakness.

"Should we stop using Ki? It seems unfair; both of us are strong enough to cut through most of them with a single beam and then we wouldn't be able to count" Raditz asked, his arms crossed, as the first soldier reached him and he casually dodged the man's enraged, if his roar of anger was anything to go off of, attack by turning to the side.

"That does sound more fun" Bardock said, tapping his chin in thought as he dodged another two soldiers in a similar manner with the exception that he did it in a much more lazy fashion; allowing the soldiers to come within a fraction of an inch of hitting him before he moved, their fists sliding just barely past his armor. "Sounds like a plan, shall we end this farce and attack?" he asked turning to look at his son as several more soldiers reached the both of them and added their fists and feet to the flurry of limbs attempting to make contact with the Saiyans.

A nod was all the response that Raditz gave before the two of them shot out a single fist, faster than the majority of the soldiers had ever seen, or ever could see, which made its way unobstructed to the stomachs of the first two unfortunate soldiers, destroying their Battle Armor (2) and exposing their bodies to the vacuum of space. What happened next, needless to say, was bloody and brutal (and a combination of looking up the dangers and symptoms of decompression and common science fiction myth.); due to the sudden decompression of the soldier's entire bodies, and not just a single appendage like a hand, their entire body under went explosive decompression and their lungs were rapidly collapsed, forcing the air from their lungs and the temperature of the vacuum around them causing said air to flash freeze in their mouths and throat. The oxygen in their blood was expelled and, due to the pressure preventing them from breathing in once more the began to suffer from anoxia (3) as their body began to expand (searching around I've yet to find a reason for this multiplicative increase of body volume) until their Battle Armor prevented it from expanding any more. Their blood itself flash froze, forming small crystals that ruptured their arteries, veins, heart, and muscles, the sheer amount of flash frozen blood in their brain causing it to expand greater than their skull could accommodate and it exploded, the force removing their helmets as their corpses floated lifelessly in space. If there was any upside to this about thirty second long death, its that these two men were rendered unconscious after around ten seconds, leading to a relatively painless death. Though that did nothing to prevent the soldiers around them from reacting to the rather violent expanding of their comrades, or the explosion of flash frozen blood, bone, skin, hair, and brain tissue from underneath and behind their helmets, for what the broken items now were worth, as they slowly floated away from the corpses.

"You'd think they would have prepared for that," Bardock commented, grinning evilly at the soldiers that were staring in horror at the two corpses, "Word of advice: use your Ki to protect yourself from decompression; its no fun if you die after a single hit now is it?" At this several soldiers growled in anger and charged once more, only to be backhanded by Raditz causing them to fly away.

"Use your heads for something more than a punching bag," Raditz sneered, cracking his knuckles slowly and deliberately, doing a rather good job of intimidating the weaker fighters before him, "Charging head on will only get you killed, tactics are what will allow you to survive this encounter... not that we intend to allow that to happen; it would be rather... inconvenient for us to die anytime soon" The young Saiyan said this with such a confidence in his ability to not die that Bardock involuntarily cringed; a small part of him, despite how unreliable his visions can be, them showing him with a son being the only case he felt he needed to justify this, believing his vision of Frieza claiming to have personally killed his entire race, save himself and Gyoka. This didn't go unnoticed by one of the soldiers, a Litt if Bardock's eyes weren't deceiving him.

"Ain't you the guy who was supposed to see the future?" the Litt demanded, floating in front of the rest of his soldiers, idly noting how the soldiers that were backhanded had righted themselves and were rejoining their comrades, grumbling to themselves for their stupidity. "If that's true, then that cringe means that he," he pointed at Raditz, "Is gonna-" the soldier never had the chance to finish his statement, and the last thing he saw was Bardock's fist carving its way into his face as the power Bardock had put into the punch had broken his neck and removed his head from his shoulders.

"One" Bardock said just loud enough for Raditz to hear but, due to his close proximity to the rest of the soldiers, they heard him loud and clear. Needless to say, they back up in fear purely out of instinct, though the ones that pissed themselves... that was more a reaction of shock and loss of control. Which Bardock quickly took advantage of and he, using pure speed, maneuvered his way into their ranks and killed one of the people that relieved themselves by swiftly breaking their neck.

As Bardock began to pick off the soldiers, Raditz stay where he was, his mind occupied with what the Litt had said just before Bardock had randomly killed him, for reasons Raditz knew not. From their his mind trailed back to the comment Bardock had made just before they had charged: "I'll tell you after the battle; if you knew now it would only get in the way". "It would only get in the way..." Raditz muttered to himself before he was struck with an epiphany. "Get in the way... am I going to-" Raditz's mutterings were cut off by Bardock yelling at the man.

"Are you just going to leave everyone to me?" Bardock yelled, with two struggling soldiers locked under his arms. He kicked another in the face to separate himself from them before he continued "I'm already at twenty three! You're going to have to do something more than just float there if you want to catch up!" This knocked Raditz out of his stupor and the man shook his head slightly before answering.

"Better save some for me old man," Raditz yelled at his father, a grin forming as his former train of thought was lost to the recesses of his mind, "I wouldn't want you to die before I can beat you!" with that he charged in with a vigor, his battle hardened reflexes aiding him in dodging the limbs and blasts of Frieza's men.

"That'll be the day!" Bardock yelled back, flexing his arms and breaking the necks of the soldiers he was holding, "Twenty five!" he suddenly turned and buried his fist into the stomach of another soldier, before grabbing their head and brutally slamming it into his knee until the soldier stopped moving, which was admittedly rather quickly. "Make that twenty six!" Raditz's only response was to growl and charge into the fray, his previous thoughts forgotten and a grin on his face.

(Insert line break here)

Just behind the two Saiyans Piccolo floated and watched the slaughter with a blood-lust that only one born of evil could have. Sadly for him this would not last as he could easily feel the energies of his arrogant other half, why else would he call himself Kami of all things?!, and the pathetic humans he was forced to work with approaching. Sighing and resigning himself to the torture that putting up with them, he turned to face them as he waited for them to slow to a stop. When they did he grunted and asked, knowing full well it would likely annoy and anger them, "What took you so long?"

"Why are you just standing there?" Yamcha demanded, being the only one, sans Kami, brave enough to speak to him disrespectfully. "And why aren't you helping?"

"And interrupt their full scale slaughter?!" Piccolo asked, a vicious grin on his face as he gestured to the two Saiyans, who were throwing everything save energy blasts and the kitchen sink at the soldiers, "Why would I do that when I can learn more by observing?!"

"You can learn more alive than dead" Chi-Chi muttered to herself, only Piccolo's sensitive hearing allowing him to make out what she said.

"And you're going to kill me girl?" the Namekian sneered, floating closer to the woman. "Gyoka couldn't kill me when she tried her hardest, what makes you think you can?!" Chi-Chi merely growled and clenched her fists in an attempt to prevent herself from attacking the green man.

"Piccolo, now is not the time to fight with your allies," Kami said slowing to a halt just behind Chi-Chi, "Direct that anger to a much better cause; defeating your enemies"

"And just when did we become allies?!" the Guardian of the Earth's other half demanded, rounding angrily on the aged man, "I don't remember joining your group of protectors!"

"We became allies once you agreed to aid us in the defense of the Earth" Kami answered patiently, as if speaking to an impatient young child, "United under the cause of protecting the Earth from destruction" he stressed the word 'protecting' knowing Piccolo had walked right into this outcome, or barreled through it given his aggressive personality. "Now I suggest we split amongst the enemy," Kami continued, cutting off any rebuttal Piccolo might have had, "Strong our Saiyan allies may be, but they cannot stop an entire army from advancing on their own; eventually some will slip through the cracks"

"58!"

"Dammit!"

Ignoring the sudden outburst from the aforementioned Saiyans Kami turned to Piccolo, "Now will you come willingly and quietly with me or must I force you?" he asked with a pointed glare, knowing full well that Piccolo realized he was stronger and could, with relative ease in fact, force him to join the fight.

"Fine, but be warned when this is over you all die" Piccolo growled out, before shooting off toward the leftmost group of soldiers, said soldiers were in such a position that they almost had the opportunity to attack Bardock and Raditz from the side.

"Lovely" Kami said, sighing at Piccolo's last sentence before heading off himself.

"No time like the present eh?" Yamcha asked nervously, glancing at the army of aliens that was barely being held back by Bardock and Raditz, only their speed, strength, intimidation, and just how truly unnerving the 'game' they were playing kept it at bay, though for how long that would stand left somethings to be desired. Steeling his resolve by punching his fist into his hand he took off in the opposite direction that Kami and Piccolo had gone, with Chi-Chi and Yajirobe following him after the latter of the two swallowed loudly and gripped the hilt of his sword. Seeing what was happening Tien and Chiaotzu, and behind them the rest of the Turtle School, shot off to face a different group of enemies than everyone else.

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Yet another decision that would affect the tide of the battle had just been made: Zarbon decided she wanted to watch the battle from outside her flag ship. While this seemed unimportant at the time, the repercussion of this simple act spelled doom for several people, something they would experience before the day was up. When she left the left the ship she was relatively shocked to find that both Vegeta and Nappa had disobeyed her orders and were currently watching the battle from a mere 10 meters from where she currently floated. Needless to say she was not happy.

"Just what do you two think you're doing?" she demanded, sounding almost pleasant, just loud enough for the two Saiyans to hear her.

"Watching the slaughter of course," Vegeta retorted, his arrogance for his own power making him believe he was above listening to the Commander of Freiza's forces, "What else would I be doing?" Nappa, in his defense, had the intelligence to back up slightly from Vegeta and look apologetically in Zarbon's direction, knowing full well how angry that made the prince.

"I don't know," Zarbon said, slowly floating toward the two and only stopping when she was a mere seven inches from Vegeta, her peaceful and deceptively amiable face looking down at him, "Maybe, participating in the slaughter?!" this last bit was spoken louder, and her voice and face morphing into that of anger. It took all of Vegeta's willpower not to flinch in the face of Zarbon's anger, mostly because of the fact that her power level was more than twice that of his own, albeit only slightly.

Luckily for Vegeta, not that he felt that way about it, Nappa decided to prevent the death of his charge "Of course Lady Zarbon, we were just taking in the scent of despair and death to get our blood boiling in anticipation. We shall leave on your command" he said, bowing to the woman before grabbing Vegeta and using his superior stature to maneuver the prince in the direction of the battle. "Might I suggest showing these weaklings how a real warrior wipes out the enemy?" Nappa asked viciously, grinning madly as he his head slightly to face Vegeta.

Vegeta just grunted in response, flaring his Ki and flying off through the very center of the army. Nappa sighed quietly and turned to Zarbon, "I apologize for his rudeness, I think he believes Freiza to be more of a leader of the remnants of our race than yourself"

"Nappa! Weren't you the one who asked to show these weaklings a real warrior!?" Vegeta's voice called from the mass of soldiers, some less willing to head out than others; a good portion of them heard about Bardock and Raditz's little 'game' as it traveled through the ranks. Needless to say morale plummeted shortly after.

"At once my prince!" Nappa called back in an attempt to get back onto Vegeta's good side. He then gave one last bow to Zarbon before taking off after the Saiyan Prince, leaving Zarbon to wonder why she hadn't killed the arrogant spawn of King Vegeta as she decided to do as the Saiyans had before her, and watch the slaughter from outside her ship, her scouter connected to the crew inside.

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With the strongest fighters on Earth's side effectively blocking the center and left sides of the invasion, that left the three groups of humans to handle the right and they, despite some having reservations of possibly dying in space or fighting a force of this size, fought. Oh did they fight; for their lives, the lives of their friends, the people who went about their day as if an alien force wasn't a few miles from Earth's atmosphere, for those who were born, those who had just been born, for those who would be born, for the average man, the superior minds, the thugs and druggies, for their way of life, and their very right to live, they fought (4).

As Yamcha and his group flew Yajirobe began to stutter out his reservations on the matter. Despite their attempts to ignore the ronin by the time he began almost babbling incoherently they'd had enough. "Yajirobe!" Chi-Chi growled out, coming to a sudden stop and rounding on the man, "What is the problem?!"

"What's the problem?! The problem is that I'm going to be risking my life against an enemy that outnumbers us one thousand to one!" he yelled back, standing his ground for one of the first times against the daughter of the Ox King, "I understand trying to prevent our planet from being destroyed as we know it, but why are we doing this? We happen to some of the weakest people here in case you hadn't noticed, and didn't Bardock say there was someone stronger than him here?! We aren't even a quarter of his strength!"

"Would you rather let the world die?" Yamcha asked his head down, his hair obscuring his eyes, his voice but a mere whisper.

"W-well no bu-" Yajirobe began only to be cut off by Yamcha.

"Then what is there to question?!" he yelled, his eyes burning with rage as he head shot up, glaring at the man. "Everything we know and love is on the line here! Every single person on that rock we call home," he jabbed his finger in the direction of the Earth, the only green thing for light years, "Is counting on us without even knowing it! What right do they," here he pointed at Freiza's army, not realizing that his power level was slowly rising as his anger increased his Ki output, "have to destroy our way of life?!" he took a deep breath to calm himself, his Ki output staying constant nonetheless. "You have two options" he continued, holding up two fingers, "First you can stay back and let us handle this" here he ticked off a finger. "Or you can come with us and help save the world, ensuring that the innocents down there will be able to live another day in peace" with that he turned to Chi-Chi and said "Let's go" before taking off at the army once more, Chi-Chi sparing the swordsman a glance before following behind the student of the Turtle School.

Yajirobe 'stood' there for a few seconds as what was said sank in. Heedless of himself images of is past flashed through his mind; His beginnings as a Samurai to his decent into Roninhood. His start as a traveler to his meeting of Gyoka. Carrying the young girl on his back for three days up a sheer vertical climb, to helping her train to defeat Piccolo, however small his part in that may have been. He growled in anger at his own mind, clenching his hands before speeding off after the two, his mind now set in making up for the little help he had been to his friend over the years. If one attempted to look closely they might see the glint of several small bits of ice floating where Yajirobe had just stood, before a solar wind removed them from existence, breaking them down into their most basic parts.

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Tien Shinhan and Chiaotzu had no such problem with getting to the enemy, nor with beginning their attack. They had decided on the flight there to use a strategy focused around Chiaotzu's psychic powers and Tien's physical ones; Chiaotzu would freeze them with his mind and Tien would then kill them before they could break free from the paralysis.

"FREEZE!" Chiaotzu yelled, splaying his hands at the closest group of soldiers, his abilities discoloring the space around them into a slightly blue tinted area as they all froze in their tracks.

"Wha-" the first one began, only to be cut off as his head was removed from his shoulders, courtesy of one Ki sharpened strike at his neck by Tien. One hit killed the rest before they even knew what hit them, their heads floating wide-eyed next to their dead bodies.

"One of them-" another soldier yelled as she charged, only for a quick fist to the side of her face to break her neck quickly, with the only thing she felt being said fist hit her head.

"I'm sorry, but if I must protect my planet and friends, then I will be forced to harm you. Even if you are a woman" Tien said, closing his bottom two eyes, the third on his forehead following the soldiers, doing much to unnerve them.

What unnerved them even more was that it suddenly widened significantly and they were suddenly rent into a being of immobility. "The triclops is a psychic!" one of soldiers on the edge of the paralysis field yelled, charging the man. Upon hearing this a group followed him, confident in their ability to kill an unmoving enemy.

Sadly for them they were mistaken as when the first came within striking distance of Tien, that is exactly what he did, and did he strike hard; in a burst of speed he disappeared, leaving the group of widen their eyes in shock. The only ones that saw what happened next were the still paralyzed soldiers, and they could only watch in ever growing horror as Tien appeared behind the soldiers, his hands glowing with Ki that cast his face into an eerie visage that seemed to the soldiers to be a mix between regret and perverted glee.

With the same precision as before Tien beheaded the soldiers, quickly and efficiently, before turning his gaze to the frozen soldiers. Judging from the fact that one of them was frozen with a hand on their scouter, he assumed it was on. "Let this be a lesson to those who attack this planet," He began, slowly floating toward the group, closing his eyes once more and staring at them with his third. "If you wish to take this planet, you will be forced to go through our defenders, most far more powerful than myself!" and with that he cupped his hands into a triangle, feeling that the show of power would be worthy the slightly shortened lifespan. "Feel the wrath of our planet! Tri-Beam HA!" he roared, golden Ki exploding from his hands and washing over the soldiers, wiping them from existence and causing the soldiers that had been approaching to pause in their charge, Tien's words having been broadcasted throughout the surrounding area due to the scouters having been given a minimum distance they can broadcast, to prevent information overload across the entirety of the army.

"Chiaotzu, think you can hold more of them still this time?" Tien asked the small man, slightly surprised that none of the soldiers had noticed him during his attack.

"I think so, so long as I'm not distracted" said fighter replied, his response causing Tien to nod.

"Remember to be careful; I'm going to be dealing with them, I might not be able to protect you the entire time"

"I know" was Chiaotzu's reply, before he turned to the coming soldiers and splayed his hands once more, "They're all yours" he said grinning up at his lifelong friend.

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"How long have you been able to do that?!" Kyodo yelled out of curiosity, looking toward Roshi as he snapped the neck of the soldier he had in his grip, releasing the alien before dodging a blast from another, which ironically hit yet another soldier, causing the one that fired the blast to growl and remove the device on his arm that allowed him to shoot his Ki without training. It was a good thing he had good enough control on his emotions to not break down in horror once the first soldier stopped moving in his grip, else he would have already died. When Kami said killing an actual living being was harder than the animated constructs the Guardian of Earth created with his magic, he had been right.

"Its been about half a year now" Roshi stated, his foot lashing out and connecting with the face of a soldier, breaking their nose and stunning them before a simple Ki blast vaporized their head. "Kami woke me in the middle of the night, led me away from the lookout, and granted me this ability"

"I guess he's called 'Kami' for a reason huh?" Krillin commented offhandedly, his fist barreling into the stomach of a soldier. Truthfully he was, for once, thankful for his small stature; it made the soldiers underestimate him, and those that learned not to were quickly indisposed. "Though I guess being the creator of magical wish granting orbs would be reason enough on its own"

"Ya think?" Kyodo scoffed, his Ki enhanced kick literally kicking a hole in the unfortunate soldier that just so happened to get in the way of it. He then turned his attention back to Roshi, "So how did he do it? Give you that ability that is?"

At this Roshi looked uncomfortable, and it wasn't the because of the blood of his enemies on his hands; he'd seen enough blood to last a lifetime when King Piccolo had first appeared on Earth. No it was because of the promise he gave Kami upon receiving this ability, a promise that he intended to keep. "I gave my word I would tell no one" was his reply, unintentionally sharp sounding as the man turned to face another soldier.

"Really? Can't you ju-" Kyodo began, only for Roshi to cut him off.

"That is not something I can answer. Please do not ask again" the Kame Sennin responded, leveling a gaze that was somewhere between pleading and a glare, though more so on the later side of that.

"Yes sensei" Kyodo replied dejectedly; it was useful information and despite being someone who's power was mostly physical he understood that knowledge was also power. In the end, however, his respect and obedience to his Martial Arts Master was greater than his want for the power of that piece of information and so he turned his attention once more to the soldiers that were still flying toward the group and sighed. 'This is going to be a long fight' he thought, before shaking his doubts from his mind and taking a deep breath to center his control over his Ki once more.

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Piccolo was enjoying himself. Not for the typical reasons that Saiyans and other such races used, that reason being their love of fighting, feeling the thrill of adrenaline pumping through their veins when they fought worthy opponents. No, he was enjoying himself for two reasons, and two reasons alone: 1. Kami was currently in pain, something that he knew he couldn't do on his own, and the fact that it happened was something Piccolo couldn't help but enjoy, despite the fact that if the old man died he would take him with him to the afterlife. The second reason... was the pure, unadulterated, slaughter that he was currently participating in and being the cause of. Most of the other fighters were simply killing these soldiers as quickly as possible, to both give them short and painless deaths and to preserve their energy for later fights, Piccolo however was making their deaths as slow, and as painful, as he possibly could; ripping off limbs and beating their owners to death with them, shoving his hands and feet into their bodies and ripping out a good portion of their internal organs when said appendages were removed, blasting small, nonlethal holes in their bodies and leaving them in an obscene amount of pain before moving to the next, leaving tens of these injured soldiers floating in space, the pain of having multiple holes blasted into their bodies not letting them fall into unconsciousness and, by proxy of falling unconscious, eternal rest.

The best part of this, in Piccolo's opinion, was the fact that since Kami was busy fighting his own enemies the Guardian of the Earth couldn't do anything to make Piccolo end the suffering of his enemies. The grin that thought put on his face, coupled with the blood stains and the fact that his hand was sticking through someone's torso, sent chills down the spines of every soldier that could see it. And what one muttered summed up much of their thought processes in a nutshell: "D-demon..." the woman muttered, taking a proverbial step backwards.

It was this action that sent Piccolo into motion, ripping his hand from the now corpse and disappearing from view. It was only the woman who spoke that knew what was coming when he fazed back into eyesight right behind her, his cold breath creeping down her neck. Her eyes could only widen before she felt pain the likes of which she'd never felt before, and then her world turned black as the life left her eyes, courtesy of a gaping hole where her heart used to be. The Ki blast that he had fired ripped through the admittedly weak armor that the foot soldiers of the Planet Trade Organization wore and continued onward to engulf several other soldiers, ending their lives before they even had a chance to acknowledge the sudden glow that had appeared behind them. With another grin he let the body leave his grasp as a single thought floated through his mind: 'One hundred fifty three'. With that he charged into the fray once more, his fight taking him closer and closer to that of Raditz and Bardock's.

Kami was being significantly less... brutal than his evil counterpart, simply killing the soldiers with a single hand and as little pain as he possibly could, given how much stronger he was than the average soldier in this army, and a stoic look on his face.

This wasn't to say that he was indifferent to the fact that he was ending the lives of these soldiers, each of whom could be written off as simply evil and left at that. It was much more than this, however; He, albeit not wishing to end their lives, understood that if he didn't then their employer likely would, and if he was being very generous, based on his knowledge of the being in command of this army, they would likely be tortured for deserting in the middle of a battle. Each of these soldiers had a life, a family perhaps, a purpose for joining Freiza's army, be it survival or for money or the protection of their families, each had a story, and each was a person. They were not inherently evil, though some could arguably be considered such, they were simply following the orders of their superior officer, something that Kami understood well, having watched many of the Earth's armies from his Lookout over the course of his time as Guardian of the Earth. It was with this knowledge in his mind and, because of it, a heaviness in his heart that he fought on, hoping for their souls to be sent to Heaven, rather than Hell, intent on completing his task as Guardian and protecting his flock of the several billion inhabitants of Earth. The very least that could be said was that he was mercifully giving them quick and painless deaths, or as painless as he felt he could.

Right when he was about to put another one of Piccolo's victims out of their misery, something he seemed to be doing to much of recently, he felt something akin to a tickle in his mind. "King Kai, is that you?" he asked, having paused only slightly to place two fingers on his temple, looking sadly to the look of gratitude on the face of the soldier he'd just killed.

"Yes. Gyoka just got to Yemma's Palace, and she's ready to join the fight" was his reply, his eyes widening slightly at the fact that two hours had already past. He spared a glance back at the Earth, and the sun was slowly dipping beneath the planet, signifying that is had indeed been around two hours and that the sun's last glimmering lights would be fading behind the planet soon.

"I will be there as soon as I am able" Kami replied, taking his fingers from his head. He then turned to Piccolo and said, loud enough for his other half to hear over his laughter, "I am leaving these soldiers to you; I will be leaving to retrieve Gyoka shortly. Meet up with Raditz and Bardock until I return" With the last part he leveled a glare and a mental jab at the younger Namek, before sending a Ki blast to distract any soldiers intent on stopping him from moving and taking off back toward the Earth, but not before sending a quick message to Bardock to inform him of what he is doing, not even stopping to see if Piccolo would listen to his words, for he knew they had been heard.

To his credit Piccolo did in fact begin moving toward Raditz and Bardock, though he was already doing that anyway as their was a larger number of victims, or soldiers as Kami referred to them, near them. The thought of testing some of his abilities against the stronger powers he was feeling head toward the two was sending his blood pumping loudly in his ears, and a face splitting grin morphed onto his face.

This would be a fun day indeed.

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"Understood, old man" Bardock muttered to himself as he dislodged the head of an unfortunate soldier from their shoulders with a back handed slap. "Raditz, your sister will be returning to the land of the living and joining the battle shortly... play nice with her eh? You left a bad first impression" the man joked lightly, weathering his son's glare with a chuckle. "By the way," he added as an afterthought, only a moment of consideration going into whether or not to say it, "two thirty-four"

Raditz swore; he was around seventy kills down, and it didn't look like he was going to catch up anytime soon. As he was considering how to respond, or catch up in kills, the first part of the sentence registered completely, his glare having been at his father's jovial tone which caused him to assume he was being mocked, albeit slightly.

It was further proof of his Saiyan heritage that the first thing he thought when he heard she would be returning was that of fighting her, though this time on a more friendly level than their first meeting. Unfortunately he didn't have a response other than asking how strong she was, and that is something that, as a warrior, he understood could not be put into words; one must experience another's power for themselves before casting judgment upon their strength.

"Piccolo's heading our way, so I'd say it'd be a good idea to join up with him and keep these guys off Kami's back, unless we don't want a way to get Gyoka here" Bardock said, his way of referring to Kaitlyn causing Raditz's brow to crease in confusion; ever since he'd returned from Otherworld, as the man called it, he'd been referring to her by the name she received while on Earth as opposed to her actual name. And despite the face that this wasn't exactly the best time to be asking about it, Raditz felt that it was either ask it now or don't ask it at all, and he couldn't find the willpower to hold the question in any longer.

"Father... why are you calling Kaitlyn 'Gyoka'?" He asked, sending a Ki blast at the soldiers advancing on them to give his father time to talk. Bardock didn't answer for a little while, having turned to look in the direction of the planet Earth, trying to guess where on the blue and green sphere his daughter had grown up. When he did answer his words were quiet, almost imperceptibly so.

"Because that's who she is" Bardock replied, closing his eyes for a few seconds to calm his rushing heart; neither Zarbon, Dodoria, Vegeta, or Nappa had taken the field yet it seemed, or if they had they hadn't reached this far yet, and he doubted he'd be able to defeat Zarbon by rushing in blindly.

"But she's still a Saiyan, and your daughter, and my sister," Raditz replied almost immediately. "Why wo-" whatever he would have said next died in his throat when Bardock cut him off.

"Was she raised as a Saiyan?" the almost fifty year old man asked, turning to face his son, "No, she wasn't. Was she raised knowing of our existence? No. Of our race? She was raised as a human, for the first two and a half decades of her life she believed herself to be a human, and all she has ever known was being human. That's not something we can change, and we can't force a change either. Saiyan she have been born, but she was still raised as a human and it would do her adoptive grandfather a dishonor to try and change that" his last words seemed to strike Raditz like a slap to the face, his eyes suddenly wide and his face pale; to a Saiyan, a born and raised Saiyan, honor, strength, and pride were almost all they had, and even the weakest of them were respected should they prove themselves honorable. Despite this Bardock continued, knowing that their enemies would be closing in soon, but just as Raditz had felt the need to ask, he felt the need to finish. And it wasn't like most of them could actually do much damage to him to begin with, even with him doing nothing to stop their attacks. "The best we can do is to try to find our place in her life, and we can't do that if the Earth is in danger so less talking and more fighting" He finished, the ending sounding like it had been said to quickly, and with that he leapt back into the fray, fists literally glowing with blue Ki, leaving his son to contemplate his words. It would not be until the end of the battle, nay months, that he would truly understand what his father said that day, but the image of the burning emotion within his eyes would be burned into Raditz's memory until the day he left the world of the living for all eternity.

That, however was neither here nor there, what was was the fact that there were soldiers that were intent on both ending the lives of his only remaining family, but the beings that made their homes on the planet that his sister was so intent on protecting. That in mind, and the knowledge that actions would speak louder than any apology he could muster, he charged the enemy once more, fists raised and the key to Hell's gates in hand (5).

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Three figures were fast approaching the close grouping of Saiyans and the lone Namekian near them, a fourth heading to one of the groups of humans, and a duo heading for another. Each of their power levels, in fact all of them, exceeded that of the human's by at least eight thousand and all of them were greater than that of all but a single of Earth's warriors.

The highest of the six, shot ahead, smirking in arrogance despite the fact that their scouter had already blown up; just reading their power level was enough to overload all but the most recent model of scouter, something they didn't have yet, and it wasn't like anyone here would be a challenge to their power. With a savage grin, the being turned to the two powers that were closest to it, calling out "Maybe you weaklings should just stay back and watch; we wouldn't want you hurt now would we?" with a vicious sarcasm.

The larger power of the two made a move to speak up in indignation, but that smaller spoke up first "With all due respect we can handle these insects on our own. Maybe you should be the one to stay back; why dirty your hands with those who are so much weaker than yourself?" it countered, the thinly veiled insult going right over the being's head.

"Maybe I should, but if I don't show you how its done, then who will?" its ignorance causing the lowest two powers to giggle quietly to themselves and the second highest to sigh.

"With all due respect," the same being that sighed began, their statement lacking the sarcasm and insult the very same one previously had, "I believe we should split up and wipe out these soldiers"

"Well said captain!" the lowest power level yelled out excitedly, their voice declaring them to be female, as opposed to all others that spoke up before.

"Fine, but just leave the strongest to me. Strong, decide who does what, but keep them out of my way" the first voice said, truly serious for the first time. 'Its time for my previous mistake to be fix... permanently' it thought before charging into the midst of the battle... specifically straight for Bardock.

"Fine," the Captain sighed once more before turning to the rest of the beings. "Hei, Shi (6) you pick a group and wipe it out, then move on to the next. Vegeta, Nappa... you handle whoever you want. I'm taking the Nameks" Vegeta just grunted, altering his course to head for Raditz, with Nappa simply following.

Hei and Shi, two Triteks (7), mostly humanoid beings that stood at around 6 feet in height with light brown skin, saluted, the female, Shi, significantly more... enthusiastic than her twin brother. They were mostly humanoid in that they could be mistaken for humans, with the exception of the small horns that protruded from their temples, arms, and legs in various places. They had black hair, with Shi's being longer than her brother's, and their horns were a dark purple. "We won't let you down captain!" Shi exclaimed, her excitement growing with every second it seemed.

"I'll try to keep her in line captain" Hei told Strong once his older twin flew off, heading for one of the two three person groups.

"Please do, if she makes a mistake we will be down one of the only people stronger than those we are fighting, and a good person at that" Strong nodded as Hei took off after his sister. "Damned Catch 22s (8)" he muttered locating Piccolo, hitting full speed, and rearing his fist back. Several seconds later Piccolo found the man's gloved fist plowing into his face, the force of which launched him into Raditz, who happened to be nearby.

"What the?!" Raditz began only for Piccolo to brush him off and charge his new assailant, a savage grin on his face as he reveled at the prospect of finally fighting someone around his level of power that he had the option of killing.

The green alien met the dark skinned Captain head on, slightly shocking the man at its aggressiveness; he had just launched it at least thirty meters into another of its allies, why would it just charge back into the fray? This slight pause gave Piccolo the idea that he could mercilessly assault the man, and assault him he did; fists and feet flying at every vital portion of Strong's body, the moment they connected with something was the moment before they were brought back to strike something else. That is, until Strong caught Piccolo's left fist.

"Is that the best you can do, Namek?" he asked, tilting his head to the side slightly, increasing the pressure on his captive's hand. "I'd at least hoped for a challenge; you didn't even injure me" and it was true, because every strike Piccolo attempted to land on the man had been blocked by either a hand or leg, the defender at that instant somehow making it seem as if he were doing it lazily, as if it were the simplest thing to do in the world and there was no point to him having done it in the first place. In the instant it took for Piccolo to realize this and attempt to wrench his hand from Strong's grip, said grip increased to such that Piccolo's hand quite literally shattered into a mess of mangled flesh, broken bone, and coagulating purple blood.

Once Strong's hand let go of Piccolo's he back pedaled a bit, the fact that his hand hand been crushed to such an extent telling him he needed to use his brain and fight smart, and that he couldn't just over power his current opponent like he normally could. Right now the best he could do would be to treat this fight as one he would have with Gyoka; a fight against an opponent of equal or greater strength, who needed to be out smarted and tricked to be defeated. Grimacing at his prospects given that he couldn't even land a hit on Strong, he took a deep breath and, for the first time ever, slipped into a stance that had last been used by Kami before he banished his evil half from his body and became Guardian of the Earth; the stance used by the Senshi Namekians (9). Only time would tell if this would aid him.

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Despite the fact that Bardock was significantly farther away from his son than Piccolo was, he still felt the fact that Strong had reached the battle. From his memories of serving Frieza, seemingly an eternity ago when he and his mate lived in relative happiness on Vegeta, when he wasn't on a mission that is, he had heard tell of a soldier that despite being alive for less than two decades, was quickly rising through the ranks of Frieza's army. If he remembered correctly that soldier was Strong, Captain of Frieza's main base and the highest ranked person in his employ, just beneath Dodoria and Zarbon. If he was right, then Piccolo was in for a difficult, if not impossible, fight.

Then something occurred to him; if Strong had joined the battle, that meant that the upper echelons of Frieza's men had likely joined the battle, and that included Vegeta and Nappa. If he could just reach them then he could- That train of thought was cut off by the fact that he sensed the one power in the entire army that he had been praying he would face, not for the fact that it was stronger than all of his allies, but for an injustice that was left unredeemed.

Turning away from Strong, Piccolo, and Raditz he located a single blob amongst the white, and once he verified that it was the one he was looking for, his feelings from all those years ago welled up and, for the first time since he returned to Planet Vegeta that fateful day, he let them take control and his rage caused his power to skyrocket, higher than ever before when not utilizing techniques like the Kaio-ken. And once he could hold it no longer he roared, his anger, sorrow, misery, and indignation all funneled into that one word. "DODORIA!" his voice swept across the entirety of the battlefield, and the very pressure his Ki was exuding all but killed those near him via heart attacks; since most were so unused to that much power being pressed on them so suddenly, their hearts couldn't handle the strain.

It was naught but a moment after Dodoria heard Bardock's roar and turned in his direction that the Saiyan's fist was plowing itself into Frieza's Third in Command's stomach, the force not only taking the being by surprise but causing him to spit up blood and bile, his eyes bulging from his head and his body rag-dolling threw several soldiers, both alive and dead.

"That was for Shugesh, you damned bastard," Bardock said darkly, a malevolent shadow falling on him as the last of the sun's rays peaked over the Earth and shrouded several parts of his body in shadow. "I've three more to give you, and by then if you aren't dead I'll take great pleasure in relieving myself of my pent up anger at your actions against my friends and race"

"If you think someone as weak as you can take me on, then obviously your race deserved to die... just like your pathetic 'crew'" Dodoria bluffed, sneering in an attempt to prevent a grimace from finding its way onto his face. It was a well known fact that Saiyans grew stronger the more angry they got, but he was banking on the fact that the angrier he got the more mistakes Bardock would make, and the more mistakes he would make the easier he would be to kill.

True to Dodoria's thought process Bardock did get angrier, so much so that he simply growled in response and charged, leaving his opponent less than a moment to prepare for the hardest fight he had ever had to date; even fighting Zarbon was easier, simply because she held nothing back and defeated him with only a few hits. He had no more time to ponder just how hard this fight would be; Bardock appeared right in front of him, fist reared and glowing blue, and in less than a second Dodoria's arm was raised to block it, only for his ulna to shatter upon blocking. Wide-eyed Dodoria did the only thing he could; swear. "Shi-" unfortunately for him, Bardock cut him off with a swift kick to the jaw, a sickening crack sounded, signaling the fact that Dodoria's jaw had broken from the force of the attack, and from the angle of his head he was lucky, or more likely unlucky, to not have his neck snapped.

"That was for Borgos" was all Bardock said as he watched Dodoria recover from the blow, rubbing his jaw in an attempt to alleviate the pain, if only a little. If the fight, if it could really be called such, continued like this then it would definitely be a long, and painful, fight for Dodoria. That much was guaranteed.

Age 762; Otherworld; Yemma's Palace

She had arrived at the end of Snake Way surprisingly quickly, given how long it had taken her to reach it. 'I guess I didn't realize how much faster I've become' Gyoka reasoned as she landed on the platform where she had received her tail back and half-walked half-ran into the palace proper, making her way to the room where Yemma judged the souls of the departed as fast as she could. When she arrived, she was surprised to see that there wasn't a line of souls, and just by feeling his Ki she could tell that Yemma had gotten much stronger in the time she had been training with King Kai.

"King Kai, are you listening?" Yemma said to himself, it looked, when his eyes fell on Gyoka, who simply raised an eyebrow at this fact. "Yes, she just arrived. Is that all you wanted?" he paused for a few moments before continuing, "You're welcome, but I hope you realize I can't play favorites like this all the time. This is a one-time, maybe two if you are lucky, deal" Another pause. "Glad you understand" and with that his eyes seemed to focus a little more and he addressed the woman in front of him. "Kami will be here to retrieve you shortly. If its any consolation I hope you don't die; from what King Kai told me if you do I'll have several billion more souls to judge by the day's end"

"Thank you... I think?" Gyoka responded, not quite sure how to take the last bit of information. In the end she just shrugged and spoke her mind. "How did you get so strong so fast, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Hmm? Oh that. I gave some of the more... unhappy inhabitants of Hell (or HFIL if you want to be all Funimation Dub about it) a deal; if they defeat me in battle they get to walk the universe once more. It was quick and easy, though it got tougher when I allowed them to attack in groups. There is no better way of gaining strength than experience" He replied lazily twirling his hand, obviously going over his memories of doing this in his head.

"That seems... unnecessarily risky. What if they did manage to defeat you?" Gyoka asked, blinking in surprise; as good a fight as that likely had been, unleashing the denizens of Hell upon the universe seemed to great a chance to take.

"Then I'd be out of a job, and the Kais would round them up. Most likely my punishment would be to guard Hell, or clean the Blood Lake. It depends on who got out and how angry they were by the time the escapees were recaptured" Yemma grunted, leaning on his hand, "But I didn't lose, nor do I intend to should I give them this chance again. Though I would appreciate it if you didn't inform anyone of this information; I have a feeling that several strong people are going to be entering Otherworld soon, be it you and your friends or Frieza's men. Either way, several strong people will soon be judged, and I have no doubt that they will refuse to accept their situation in the matter, so I want to be prepared for an inevitable fight"

Gyoka nodded in agreement, not wishing to anger the being that would judge her when she left the realm of the living for the final time. "If the fight has been going on... why is this place empty?" she asked, attempting to kill time until Kami arrived with conversation.

"I won't be letting them through until you leave; the living and the dead should not interact any more than necessary. It usually doesn't end well for either party" Yemma replied, before opening his book and creasing his brow in thought. He flipped through for a few moments, then tapped it when he reached the page he wanted. "The only notable exception would be the Kais and those they train, as well as an incident around two or so centuries ago where someone managed to escape for Hell. They ended up on the planet of their death, ironically being the very planet you were raised on, and for some reason got it into their heads that devouring the flesh of the living would return their mortal bodies. Luckily someone stepped in before it became a major problem, but I believe it was what gave Earthlings their fear of... 'zombies' I think you call them"

Admittedly an interesting factoid that would likely never see any use, Gyoka filed that away for later contemplation, resolving to find any and all natural entrances to Hell and Otherworld that exist on Earth once this business with Frieza is over. Thankfully for the slightly awkward conversation that had sprung up from a simple question Kami chose this moment phase into existence.

"King Yemma, I trust she hasn't been to much of a hassle?" Kami asked, bowing to the Ogre King (10) in greeting.

"Not really. Now if you could go? I have souls to judge, I want neither of you to be in the way, and the longer you are here the longer the line gets" Yemma responded flipping through his book again, his brow steadily getting more creased with each passing second.

"Of course. I thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to do this" Kami replied, placing his hand on Gyoka's shoulder. "And by this I mean no offense, but I sincerely hope I don't have to see you again any time soon" With that he and Gyoka faded from Yemma's view, beginning their journey back to Earth.

After they left Yemma scoffed lightly, nodding to one of the Ogres to let in the souls, muttering to himself "Now why would I take offense to that?" before opening his book and flipping through the pages to reach the page of the first soul. When he looked down over the edge of said book he was surprised to see that there were at least five people who had kept their bodies. "I wonder how she would have reacted to seeing them?" He asked himself as he looked down to the open page of his book, definitely glad he hadn't allowed any souls to enter until Gyoka had left Otherworld. 'I wonder how King Kai will feel about getting new apprentices?' he asked himself, positive that they had been informed to ask to train with King Kai should they die in battle.

Age 762; Planet Earth; low Earth orbit

When Kami and Gyoka arrived in the world of the living, they quickly made their way to the battlefield, with Gyoka trying to feel out her friends Ki signatures as they flew. What distressed her was the fact that several of them were missing, though that could be because of the sheer amount of latent Ki in the air so she couldn't write them off just yet. And even if she did, what kind of friend did that make her?

To her horror they past at least three bodies she recognized that were being slowly pulled into Earth's atmosphere, thankfully she saw them begin to fade as they got farther away but that didn't prevent her sorrow at their passing. The next two bodies she didn't recognize but she knew didn't belong to their adversaries, it was at this point that her sorrow began to turn to anger and as her anger grew, so did her Ki output. Just when Kami was about to tell her to calm down, she took off, faster than he could possibly go at the moment, for the nearest power levels, being Raditz, Vegeta, and Nappa.

She knew her approach caused a large group of people near the three to stop what they were doing, but she currently didn't care. What she cared about was stopping those attacking her home, and making sure her friends' deaths weren't in vain.

She stopped above the three and in between them and the Earth, her aura and the final rays of the sun illuminating her body, her Ki output causing most to back away, eyes wide. But it was her tail swaying into view from behind her body that caused the two that were closest to her brother to stop what they had been doing entirely, their eyes wide, mouths agape, and their limbs hanging limply at their sides. Raditz's reaction was almost the exact opposite; he gained a wide smile and his eyes lit up with hope, for what she didn't know, and he completely turned his back on the two next to him. Then he spoke, loud enough to be heard over the distant sounds of fighting and the engulfing and deafening silence that was created by Gyoka's arrival. "Kaitlyn... Its good to see that you're okay"

"Raditz..." Gyoka responded, moving down to the plane he was currently on. She paused in speaking, which didn't help Raditz's feelings on how she would respond. Just when he thought that he wouldn't be able to fix their relationship, she spoke a small smile on her face "I'm glad to see that you're okay, brother" At her words Raditz's face lost its slight look of fear as he returned the smile, and the smaller of the two warriors near him was shaken out of his stupor. "Do you know who killed my friends?" She then asked, wanting to get straight to the point.

"She... she's real, right?" He asked uncertainly, his voice not without a small amount of hope. "She is a real, living, breathing Saiyan female?" even as he spoke Gyoka could tell that his nervousness and fear were causing his lips to dry, as he would lick them every couple of moments, at least that's what she hoped was causing him to lick his lips.

"I am real, yes" Gyoka asked, raising an eyebrow slightly, her words causing what looked like joy to cross the two men's features. "Though I would appreciate it if my question was answered"

Her answer came from an unexpected source "Those weaklings? The same that will soon happen to you; we killed them" her head whipped in the direction of the answer to see two being floating in front of a less than shocked group of soldiers, one male and the other female. "Though in their defense they did put up quite the fight"

Age 762; Planet Earth; low Earth orbit; fifteen minutes before

Yamcha grunted in pain before the force of what hit him threw him back several meters. Up until now the battle had been simple; them fighting a large group of weaklings that could only hope to either overwhelm them with numbers or kill them when they were exhausted from fighting, and since they were conserving their energy the latter didn't look like it would be happening anytime soon. That, unfortunately for himself, Chi-Chi, and Yajirobe, all changed when these two beings showed up.

It happened fast; one moment he was fighting off a group of people who thought that surrounding him and attacking in tandem would be enough to overwhelm him. Normally that would have worked, but having been a bandit he was used to fighting more than one person so he was handling them easily, at least until he'd been blindsided by something that sent him sprawling out of the group of soldiers and into Chi-Chi.

"Who's the one with the death wish?" Yamcha demanded once he righted himself, mostly angry because of the fact that Chi-Chi was now glaring at him for hitting her.

"You're pretty funny" a feminine voice sounded from the group of soldiers he had just been launched from, which parted to reveal two almost identical beings, though one was obviously a female, "Thinking that you have a chance of surviving, let alone beating us!"

"Shi, you're starting to get arrogant" the other alien stated, his voice proving that he was male, at least so long as their voices could actually be used to determine their gender. "Do I need to remind you of how many times the Captain has told you that your arrogance will be your undoing?"

"But Hei, he's so much weaker than us!" She whined, turning to pout at her brother. "Can I at least play with him a little bit before I kill him?"

"Since when have you ever wanted my permission to do anything?" Hei deadpanned, continuing to ignore Yamcha, which caused him to get angry; they'd attacked him and now they ignored him!

"Good point!" Shi exclaimed, "I'll take the guy I hit, and the woman. You can have the fat one!" she pointed at each of the humans as she listed them. "Hey, you guys head onto the planet; we'll handle these guys" she yelled to the soldiers, all of which saluted.

"Yes Ma'am!" they yelled, before breaking their salute and flying toward the planet, only to be cut off by Yamcha.

"You think I'm just going to let you go and destroy our home?!" he demanded charging forward to plant his fist into the nearest soldier... or at least he would have, had Shi not beat him to the punch. Literally; he was thrown back in shock when the woman more or less phased in front of him, fist out stretched and plowing into his cheek.

"Sorry, orders are to let our guys on the planet and to remove you from existence" Shi responded, casually examining her hand in case Yamcha's face had somehow injured it. A quick glance immediately after had the soldiers Yamcha had stopped before advancing, only to be cut off by their deaths, courtesy of Yajirobe's sword, which was rather noisily returned to its scabbard several seconds after blood spurted from the now cut in half soldiers.

"Iagiri (11)" He muttered once his sword was replaced in its proper position at his side. Anything he would have said next was cut off by Hei appearing in front of him.

"Your sword is powerful, noted," He said to the Ronin, whose hand once more gripped the handle of his weapon. "I assure you, I won't let you draw it again"

"I wouldn't be to su-" Yajirobe began, attempting to preform another Iaigiri, only to be cut off by Hei backhanding him across the face.

"Physically you have a good portion of fat that helps cushion your body to some extent, while your arms and legs are mostly muscle. Your body leads others to underestimate you, allowing you to defeat stronger opponents before they realize that they will fall to your attacks. A mistake I will not make" Hei continued impassively as he stared down Yajirobe.

"Did you just compliment me... while calling me fat?" the ronin blinked as he recovered from the backhand, one hand rubbing his aching face and the other firmly grasping his sword's hilt.

"No," Hei stated, phasing from Yajirobe's sight. A mere second later the swordsman ducked out of reflex, and Hei's hand brushed the tip of his hair before the soldier continued, "Merely analyzing you. Nothing more, nothing less"

All Yajirobe could do was gulp and backpedal away from his attacker, hoping that he could draw his sword before either he got hit by one of those strikes, something he did not want to do, or the soldiers decided they had an opening to head towards the planet.

(Insert line break here)

Yamcha growled, his hand flying out to the side to catch the neck of Chi-Chi's shirt before she could get to far away from the battle at hand. As much as he hated to admit it the two of them were getting slaughtered as it was, and it looked like their opponent was playing around with them. It almost reminded him of Gyoka, though he growled at the thought of comparing his friend to the alien that stood before him, casually inspecting one of the horns on her arm. "Is this really the best you've got?" She called to the two of them, "Because if it is then I guess I'll just have to eliminate you; its no fun if you can't stand up to a couple light taps"

"Like hell you will!" Chi-Chi yelled, her frustration at not being able to injure the woman in front of her and her anger at her own injuries overriding her common sense telling her to stay away. That being said, she did the only thing she felt could be done in this situation: She charged. And that would be her undoing.

"Chi-Chi wait!" Yamcha yelled in a futile attempt to stop the woman, by the time he even did that she was halfway to Shi, and halfway to her death. Fortunately for her it was over in the blink of an eye; one moment she was in front of Shi, her fist reared to strike the woman in the face, the next she had a fist sized hole in her chest. Right where her heart was. The only thing she was able to do before death was shakily look at the hole in her chest and cough up a gush of blood before expiring, her corpse joining the others in their almost leisurely trip down to Earth, courtesy of its gravitational field.

"I do hope you won't be that stupid" Shi smirked, calmly, mockingly, wiping a drop of blood off her cheek with her thumb, all the while awaiting Yamcha's next move.

"Damn it," He swore his eyes flicking between Chi-Chi's corpse and Shi, fully aware that everyone likely felt her energy snuff out. "And here I was hoping to not be the one to have someone die... Bulma's gonna kill me" he lamented, fully aware of the fact that Gyoka wouldn't enjoy being told that her first friend, that was her age, died.

"That's the least of your problems" Shi's voice sounded from behind him, causing Yamcha's eyes to widen and his battle hardened instincts to kick in, allowing him to whip around and deflect the attack, which he quickly countered by driving his elbow into Shi's face. Having not expected him to block, let alone deflect, her fist Shi was caught off guard enough for Yamcha's elbow to plow into her face with the satisfying crunch of a bone being broken.

Shi backed up a few meters, hand going to her nose, only to find that it was covered in blue blood. She chuckled quietly to herself as she reached up and snapped her nose back into its proper position. "Not bad," she commented, flicking the blood from her hand, as a smile found its way to her face, "You just might be worth the yelling I'm going to get for playing around with you"

Yamcha's only response was to swallow loudly, and fall into a generic fighting stance, ready to switch at any moment.

(Insert line break here)

Yajirobe wasn't having a fun time, though he never really found fighting for his life and not being able to respond with anything other than dodging, and the occasional pointless attack, fun per say. In all brutal honesty the only thing that was keeping him alive at the moment was the fact that his opponent wasn't going all out and his battle won instincts that told him to dodge before the attacks started. He knew he couldn't last forever, especially since he just saw Chi-Chi have a hole punched through her chest. For what it was worth he was sorry... but he didn't really feel all that bad about it; he only knew her through Gyoka and the year long training session they went through with Kami, unlike Gyoka who he'd known since King Piccolo was released from the rice cooker. At her death he'd felt a great deal of anger and sorrow, something that he currently had neither the time nor inclination to feel to any extent other than the loss of a comrade at the time.

That being said his indifference was easy for anyone that was actually looking at their opponent, which Hei was. And after several moments his curiosity won out over his dislike for conversation while fighting. "I see you have no reaction to her death... why?" he more or less demanded, brow creasing in confusion.

"I refuse to think about it," Yajirobe replied, glad for the slight reprieve; it let him think about what he would do next, and how he would survive this encounter. "If I think about it... I get scared, and fear will take hold. Fear leads to hesitation, and hesitation leads to death" He then grabbed the hilt of his sword and charged forward, phasing out of view and reappearing in front of Hei, sword already being drawn. "Iaigiri!" calling the name of his attack Yajirobe became the definition of insanity; doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result, in this case the same thing being attacking. At least that's what was going through Hei's mind when he dodged the technique. In reality Yajirobe used it as a way to draw his sword, which in this case was the only thing he could think of that would keep him alive, Something that Hei caught onto within seconds.

"I hope you realize that won't help you in any way" Hei stated, slightly wary of a weapon that has proven to be capable of cutting through the Battle Armor of the Planet Trade Organization. "Especially," Hei muttered, just loud enough of Yajirobe to hear, before disappearing from sight and reappearing close enough to smell what Yajirobe had for lunch, "If I break i-" he continued, only to cut off by appearing a few meters away, his reflexes causing his body to move as a beam of golden energy ripped through the area he had just taken up, just barely missing Yajirobe as it was.

"That might have injured me" he commented, his eyes searching the vacuum for the source of the attack, only to stop when his arm shot up to block a Ki coated strike that likely would have severely injured him, if not killed him outright, especially since it was aimed for his less armored neck. "You are stronger than the fat swordsman" he commented, his eyes now drilling into his new opponent's three.

"And you are stronger than every single one of your comrades that I've fought, much more so" Tien replied in kind, his three eyes not breaking the stare down the two warriors were currently having. They stayed like this, staring each other down for several seconds, several long, agonizing, seconds, before blurring into action at an unknown and unspoken signal, returning to the untrained eye's vision around the middle of the space that was in between them when they began moving, both of their heads with a fist planted firmly on their cheek. Despite this their eyes never left those of their opponent's. They shot backwards to create some more space as they considered what to do; at the moment they seemed to be evenly matched, but both knew this wouldn't last long and when the scales began to tip was when one of them would be defeated, and likely lose their life.

The mere concept of that brought back memories of his training under Shen, the thought of the man dredged up feelings of both fondness and disgust and made him feel even more glad he'd left Chiaotzu to deal with the soldiers, though it did break their ignorance and reveal that Chiaotzu was the one that was paralyzing them. As an afterthought he felt that Roshi, Kyodo, and Krillin were heading in their direction, likely due to Chi-Chi's death, but this was pushed to the back of his mind as he reacted to Hei moving, following the Tritek's path just a second behind him, appearing in front of Yajirobe and blocking Hei's fist, which would have easily taken off the ronin's head. "This fight is between the two of us. If you focus on removing a third party you're as good as dead" he stated, hoping that Yajirobe got the hint to get away from the fight, but not letting any emotion show on his face.

"He is a nuisance," Hei replied, his hand straining within Tien's palm, "And you seem intent on protecting him. This makes him the ideal target" at this Tien struck, his leg flying to strike the soldier upside the head, only for it to be caught by Hei's open hand. Deciding it would be best to not speak, and thus reveal that Yajirobe was in fact someone he wished to protect, which would make him all the better a target, Tien disengaged, mentally giving a sigh of relief when he saw the ronin back up, looking as if he wished to help Yamcha against the other warrior. Deciding to play the cold warrior Tien said, without turning, "Get out of here, help Yamcha or simply leave; you'll only get in the way, and if you do you will die" he said this in such a way that it sounded as if he would be the one to end the man's life should he get in his way.

Luckily Yajirobe got the hint and hightailed it out of there, heading back in Yamcha's direction, hoping that Tien would make it out of this so he could beat the man for being an idiot and fighting someone so much stronger than him on his own of his own choosing.

Once he was gone Hei blurred into movement once more, meeting Tien with a fist reared and the intent to kill in his eyes, to which Tien matched in kind, blocking the strike and attacking with his own, which was also blocked in turn. "You sent him away from an enemy that would have certainly killed him to fight an enemy that, with enough help, might be defeated. You do care for the man" Hei commented as both he and Tien attempted to remove their limbs from the other's grasp.

The triclops didn't respond, he simply closed his third eye and reared his head back, smashing his forehead directly above his eye into Hei's nose before the Tritek could do anything. An oddly satisfying crunch sounded, though it didn't look like the soldier had much of a reaction other than suddenly pulling Tien towards him and ramming his knee into the man's stomach.

"That hurt, you know" Hei stated, glaring down at his bent nose as Tien shuddered from the blow and attempted to fill his lungs with oxygen, despite the distinct lack of the element, outside the little bubble he'd surrounded himself with when he left the atmosphere. Hei payed the man's plight no mind as he reached up and grabbed the aforementioned body part, quickly snapping it back into place and flicking the blood from his hand. With that single blow, the length this battle could last dropped significantly, leaving Tien with only a simple path: Defeat this opponent or die, be it by their hand or by asphyxiation.

Hei knew this and, unlike Tien, he had no such time restraints. That being said, he began to hold back more and more until Tien had the upper hand, intending to drag this fight on for as long as possible. At first Tien thought he'd simply exhausted himself, until he realized just what exactly Hei was doing and he began to press his advantage just a tad harder than he probably should have. Reinforcing his limbs with Ki he attacked mercilessly with bone-shatteringly powerful blows, attacks that Hei was hard pressed to defend against whilst holding back as much as he was. Truth be told it was quite the experience for the soldier; ever since he'd joined the Planet Trade Organization's army, only Freiza himself, the two Generals, and Captain Strong, as well as a select few others but they seemed to disappear shortly after revealing their strength, had been stronger than him and, aside from the aforementioned people, only Shi had been able to match him in combat. So being able to fight someone who, even though he was lowering himself to just below said person's level, that was stronger than he was, since fighting the Generals or Freiza was suicide and Strong rarely had time to spar since he had an army to manage, felt nice for a change, and an old, long thought dead, sense of exhilaration began to rise up within him. Once he felt it, it seeped into his being and a grin alight his face as he dodged a kick that would have likely removed his head, or broken his neck but either way he'd have died.

This kept up for several minutes, with more soldiers making their way toward the planet to set up bases for attack, as was their usual strategy given the quality of fighters this planet seemed to produce, with the more soldiers making it passed Yamcha's battle, if a fight that one sided could be called a 'battle', with Shi causing Tien's anger to increase, one of the only things keeping him from using said anger to fight being that Chiaotzu was screwing around with a good portion of the soldiers in the area's minds, and they seemed to be attacking themselves. The only ones in this area that were getting to the planet being the ones that managed to avoid the diminutive psychic, and they were few and far between.

Throughout all this Hei was enjoying himself, both because his opponent was killing himself for him and the fact that he had to work to survive, as it were. At least he was, until he noticed three people moving to aid the triclops he was fighting. Clicking his teeth in annoyance, his grin falling into a small frown, he backed off to await their arrival with his arms crossed; no point in continuing when he could be ambushed from behind. Tien, noticing them just after Hei backed off, breathed a sigh of relief when he felt that the three weren't enemies, despite his air problem. He used the time it took them to arrive to try to draw as much oxygen from his surroundings as possible; not all of it could have dissipated in the short amount of time since the precious element had been driven from his lungs.

"Krillin, its good to see you're still alive. Even better that you've kept Roshi and Kyodo alive as well," Tien said to the monk after drawing in as much oxygen as he could, which truly was a small amount. "I suggest you two go help Yamcha and Yajirobe; you'd only get in the way of this fight" he told the other members of the Turtle School without moving his gaze for Hei's calm form.

"Are you sure? If the four of us deal with this one then we could all go help them" Kyo suggested, not really liking being forced to move on when Krillin was able to stay and fight. Though he couldn't say he was stronger than the monk he could hold his own at least!

"That sounds like a good idea to me, Tien" Krillin replied seriously as he sized up Hei. He didn't look all that powerful, but if Tien was having trouble then at least he'd be able to, hopefully, even the odds, if only a little bit.

"No, he's to powerful for that, they'd only get in the way," Tien replied, shaking his head slightly, once more falling into a ready stance, an act that Krillin followed suit. "Think of it like us fighting Piccolo without Gyoka to help us; more people would be appreciated, but they'd only get in the way of the stronger fighters and likely die" Krillin nodded in understanding, the reference helping him get a gauge of Hei's power.

Kyodo began to fall into a stance as well, but Roshi merely put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. When he looked over his shoulder to see Roshi's face questioningly, the Sennin merely shook his head and pulled lightly, a quiet gesture to follow. When Kyodo hesitated, Hei blurred into movement, feeling that he'd waited long enough and wishing to take advantage of Kyodo's distraction. Everyone save Kyodo saw his movement, Krillin and Tien grimacing before blurring into action themselves. Less than a second later a bang sounded directly in front of Kyodo, the man whirling to face the noise in shock. What he saw made him reconsider fighting this enemy: Both Tien and Krillin straining to hold back a single leg from knocking his head off. Just one leg. And it looked as if they were slowly losing ground if the fact that they were getting closer, centimeter by centimeter, with each passing second. So with their muscles straining and screaming at they to stop opposing this force Tien and Krillin yelled at Kyodo at the same time, with the same words. "Get out of here!"

Kyodo, wide eyed and honestly scared for the first time today, nodded and, just before leaving, muttered barely loud enough for the two warriors to hear him "Good luck" before he and Roshi took off toward where they felt Yamcha and Yajirobe's energies, though admittedly it was more likely Yamcha's seeing as they recognized his far more than Yajirobe's.

"That makes the second time you've sent away you're allies to their likely deaths, yet you allow this one to stay... what makes him different?" Hei asked, eyes narrowing. He didn't understand why he was being so talkative, though it might be because he understood and, to an extent, sympathized with these beings; they were doing just as he had, once upon a time: protecting their home from invading forces. Unwarranted memories of his home's invasion flashed through his mind, distracting him enough for Tien to slip past his defenses and land a blow to his chest, cracking his armor and causing Hei to double over in shock, the attack bringing his mind back to the present.

"You don't need to know that" Tien replied monotonously, subconsciously falling back into the stoic, slightly malicious, persona that Shen's teachings created for fighting. He made to attack again, only for Hei to press his hand against Tien's chest. Eyes widening at the feeling of growing Ki he blurred away, Krillin taking his place on the offensive by appearing within Hei's defenses, using his uncommonly short stature to keep a step ahead of the soldier, his initial palm strike disrupting Hei's attempt to gather energy in his hand.

When Hei finally managed to acclimate himself with fighting a shorter opponent Krillin disappeared and was replaced by Tien, much like when Krillin appeared. Hei had to readjust his fighting style to fight people his size once more, and when he did Krillin swaped places with Tien. Hei growled in frustration every time this happened, and decided that he'd had enough: while strong in their own rights, these adversaries were ones he could no longer play around with; every time he got used to fighting one, the other took his place, and since he didn't know were the other was when not fighting him he couldn't draw them into fighting. If this kept up they might be able to overpower him.

"ENOUGH!" Hei yelled, surprising the soldiers within earshot of him. He never yelled, and if he was then something was about to happen, and they didn't want to be caught in the crossfire caused by it. "This farce has continued for too long!" he declared, suddenly striking Tien in the stomach with a Ki shrouded fist and grabbing him by the arm in a death grip. The triclops gasped and shuddered, staring down at the offending appendage out of the corner of his eyes seeing what appeared to be sorrow. In his last moments he could have sworn he heard his killer say "Under different circumstances we could have been wonderful comrades" before he blasted a hole in his stomach and pushed him toward the Earth.

Krillin watched in horror, time seeming to move by at a snail's pace, as Tien Shinhan, the strongest human to grace the Earth in the past ten thousand years, was thrown backwards by the power of the blast and Hei's push, eyes wide and pupiless, a small amount of blood leaking from his mouth as he died. His body only slowed when it crashed into a soldier, cracking his armor, and sending the man screaming to his death as he attempted to protect his body from the fire of atmospheric reentry by raising an aura of Ki. His screams soon fell silent, but Krillin was more concerned with the fact that the only human stronger than himself, and a man he had become friends with years ago, was just killed and he soon saw red.

"Tien!" Krillin yelled once he found his voice, his body shaking in visible anger, "Damn you! KARADA IKIOI! (Lit: Strong Body)" He roared, his body becoming enshrouded in an aura of blue as his power level jumped up. He blurred out of sight, his increase in speed catching Hei by surprise as the former monk plowed his fist into the soldier's face, sending him careening backwards and into a group of soldiers before bringing his hands together at his sides. "Ka... Me... Ha... Me... HA!" he yelled after several seconds of gathering his Ki, firing the azure beam, a darker blue than normal due to Krillin's use of the Karada Ikioi, at Hei, who merely covered his face with his arms and weathered the attack, frowning slightly at how the soldiers around him were literally vaporized by the human's technique.

Once the beam faded Hei's frown deepened at the distinct lack of armor on his shoulders and the chips and cracks in his breastplate. "So you are more powerful than the three eyed one? Good, that will make this more interesting" Hei said as Krillin charged at him, either not hearing or not caring about what the soldier said. Now that he wasn't caught off guard by a sudden increase of power he easily blocked the monk's strikes, grimacing at the sudden, nagging pain on his arms as he blocked. 'These burns will be troublesome...' Hei thought as he kept on the defensive, hoping that the monk would slow down so he could dispose of him with minimal effort. Unfortunately for him, Krillin neither slowed down or got weaker. If anything he put more force into his blows once he saw the grimace on his opponent's face.

More powerful than this fighter he may be, that didn't mean that his attacks didn't hurt, and given the fact that he'd already been burned there was amble distraction for Krillin to force his way through Hei's defenses and land many a blow on the soldier.

After nearly a minute of this onslaught, Hei moved: grabbing one of Krillin's arms and pulling, throwing the man off balance, before pulling him into an arm lock. "You know," Hei said, speaking quietly but forcefully, "I understand your anger, I really do. But maybe you should consider," he paused to pull on Krillin's arm painfully, eliciting a grunt of pain from the Turtle School student, "The fact that even though I just killed your friend, you and the rest of your friends have been killing my friends all DAY!" with that he pulled up and to the right, breaking Krillin's left arm like a twig, before kicking him away and gathering Ki in his hand once more. "And to be perfectly honest," Hei paused, his pale yellow Ki sending shadows dancing across his already dark face. He then raised his hand and pointed the ball at Krillin's still dazed form. "I'm rather sick of it! Say goodbye, Crusher Beam!" he declared, a small beam shooting from the ball faster than Krillin could react at the time. The monk had just enough time to look up at the soldier before he felt a burning sensation in his solar plexus. Then nothing; less than a second after the beam entered Krillin's body it exploded, violently, sending gore and blood everywhere. In less than a second Krillin died for the second time, and Hei merely muttered "Now let's see how Shi is doing" before moving on and leaving any soldiers around him to advance on the planet while he moved toward where Shi had been fighting when they split up.

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When Kyodo and Roshi arrived where they felt Yamcha's power, things didn't look good for Earth's defenders. In fact it looked down-right, monstrously, horrible. Unlike Hei, who had decided that he wanted to experience a thrilling battle and held back because of that, Shi was merely playing with her opponents. Getting hit by them and making like she'd been injured, only to counterattack while immediately after, faster than they could react and harder than either could remember feeling, Yajirobe had been on the receiving end of a dull sword during training and Yamcha had died (12). So she was, quite literally, making them wish they were dead.

Yamcha looked like he'd been to hell and back: large, ugly, purple bruises visible through his ripped gi, a black swelling bruise on his right cheek. He looked to have taken a good fist to his eye, it looking to have started to swell, in a couple of minutes it would probably be swollen shut. His left wrist was bent in an awkward and unnatural angle and he seemed to favor his right foot whenever he attempted to kick his opponent.

Yajirobe, conversely... looked even worse. His build, while giving him more strength, made him that much slower to dodge and an overall easier target. He had bruises all up his arms and legs, an already swollen eye, and minor cuts along the exposed part of his chest, arms, and face. Surprisingly his garb managed to stay intact throughout the battle, and it looked as if Yamcha was taking hits for him, or about as many as Shi would allow him to. He was panting heavily, and seemed to be attempting to reach the atmosphere, the battle likely having used up much, if not all, of his air and the Ki that was keeping him from feeling the full effect of the cold, vacuum of space, if his slightly blue lips and the skin beneath his finger nails was anything to go by.

"Oh, more weaklings?" Shi asked, turning her head to face Roshi and Kyodo, her hand a blur as it blocked Yamcha's strikes, the man opting to use more conventional attacks as opposed to his signature Wolf Fang Fist. Her indifference toward Yamcha's attacks, and apparent excitement at more people to fight. "I hope you're better than the three I've fought until now; these two can barely keep up with me, and the first one just up and died right away..." she sounded disappointed, this and her words causing both Kyodo and Roshi's angers to flare, but they managed to keep it together.

Instead of answering they joined Yamcha in his attempt to let Yajirobe reach the atmosphere, Roshi sending a fist at Shi's face, and Kyodo a foot to her stomach. Surprising the two of them she simply stood there, smiling as both attacks reached their mark. Other than her smile she gave no indication that she had felt anything, and the two warrior's eyes widened when they realized this.

They flew backward, toward Yamcha, as she began to speak. "I guess my hope was misplaced; you really aren't stronger than these two" she said, shaking her head before she moved. Their eyes barely able to follow her movement as she sped toward them, not that that did them any good seeing as they weren't nearly fast enough to dodge her fists, which were firmly planted in their solar plexus' a mere second later.

"Stop toying with us! Spirit Ball!" Yamcha yelled, evidently tired of what was happening as he poured energy into his attack, throwing it at Shi like he would a fastball. The soldier's eyes widened, having not seen any Ki techniques from the Earthlings other than their ability to survive in space and thus being caught off guard enough for it to impact her face. Yamcha stared in similar surprise, not expecting it to actually hit her. He quickly shook himself out of his stupor and yelled at Yajirobe "Go now!" The ronin nodded turning and flying off as fast as he could, Shi not recovering until he was a speck in the distance.

When the smoke caused by the Spirit Ballcleared, the fighters still near Shi had front row seats to the expression on her face, and it wasn't one of amusement like it had been for the entirety of the fight before now, but one of pure, unadulterated rage. "That hurt..." she muttered, just loud enough for the fighters to hear, spurring them to bring their guards up farther, deceptively calm as she look up, dark eyes glinting with malice and barely restrained hatred. "You know... I really don't like pain, at least when its me who's feeling it. And that... actually... HURT!" She ended her sentence with a scream, rocketing forward, completely unseen until her hand was around Yamcha's neck, slowly choking the man.

"So did my friend's death," Yamcha spat at the woman in front of him, pulling his hands together and silently charging Ki, the only thing giving it away being the blue glow, "And that pissed me off! Kamehameha!" He roared, firing the beam point blank into Shi's abdomen, its force and the suddenness it was fired with knocking her hand from Yamcha's neck. He kept the beam up for several seconds, until the drain of Ki exhausted him and he was forced to stop, lest he find himself in the vacuum of space's icy grip. He turned to follow Yajirobe, when he was blindsided by the very woman he just sent flying, said woman now looking significantly more angered with a single burn mark on the inside of her arm.

"That hurt even more!" She declared, anger overwriting the playfulness she had exhibited when fighting previously. Her arms became blurs once more, faster than could be seen by the fighters near her, pummeling Yamcha left and right, above and below, in front and behind, and every other direction they could reach. As it was, her attacks were so ferocious that he couldn't even bring his arms up to defend himself, and he'd yet to move from the same spot; every time he began to move she attacked from a different angle to prevent it.

The moment she reappeared to attack Yamcha, Roshi and Kyodo attempted to reach her, but were set upon by a group of soldiers who had decided to stay behind and allow Shi to have her fun by keeping anyone she didn't want to fight at the moment busy, and since she had been fine up until this point they hadn't intervened. Now that she was angry, they decided that letting her work out her anger on the person that angered her was a smart idea, and that holding off the other two people while she did was more beneficial to the survival of the man's friends than anything else; from what they could see and hear, the man she was currently 'fighting' was in a lot of pain.

Not that this really did anything other than annoy them. Roshi and Kyodo finished with their attackers as fast as they could which, admittedly, was rather fast considering they both were significantly stronger that the soldiers that Zarbon had brought to the fight, the only reason they had been having trouble up until this point being that there was more of them than they could count, each having killed several hundred by this point. By the time they were finished and heading to help Yamcha they were to late; Shi's blows had stopped, the soldier feeling there was no point in attacking a corpse. The man's body floated toward Earth, bloody and covered in bruises so much that it was surprising that he was recognizable.

Roshi swore, gathering his Ki as he rocketed forward, intent on avenging his fallen student. Kyodo, on the other hand, wasn't so sure about fighting this woman, but followed to aid the man who taught him to utilize his body's energy. When they reached Shi, she was smiling once more, sure that the stronger of them had been defeated. This wasn't necessarily false; while Kyodo was technically 'stronger', having greater Ki, Yamcha had more experience than him in both fighting for his life and utilizing said Ki, as well as being better at projecting said Ki into his attacks. That being said Kyodo could fight longer, and use more Ki based attacks, but ultimately Yamcha beat him in overall power and experience.

However Kyodo had something that Yamcha didn't, the very same technique that Krillin was using at this very moment, if his spike in Ki was anything to go off of. And he decided that right before hitting Shi in the face would be a good time to use it, so he did. Unlike Krillin and Roshi, the latter barely being able to use it because it put a lot of strain on his body when coupled with the strain already on it because of him forcing it to regress back to his youth, Kyodo had taken to the technique like a fish to water, being able to activate it in the midst of battle. He almost flaunted this ability, a split-second before striking Shi he calmly muttered "Karada Ikioi" and his aura burst forth, the same azure that Krillin had.

Shi's eyes widened when Kyodo's fist struck her face with the force of a jackhammer, her species natural resilience preventing the damage from actually showing, but she could damn well feel it! The blow sent her reeling, Kyodo keeping up with her easily and continuing to pummel her with attacks, hoping to defeat her in a similar manner to how she killed Yamcha; striking faster than she could react until she couldn't fight back.

Unfortunately this didn't come to pass; after several seconds and countless blows, Shi dodged Kyodo's attack, his surprise causing him to overextend and allowing her to jam her knee into Kyodo's stomach, driving the air from his lungs and deactivating Karada Ikioi. Eyes bulging, Kyodo couldn't react fast enough to prevent a fist from smashing into his face, breaking his nose and sending his body upright from the force, blood more or less pouring from his face. Another strike to the gut, follow by a roundhouse to the face sent him careening backwards, Roshi taking his place and managing to hold his own better than Kyodo, though it was only his three hundred plus year experience and reflexes honed on the battlefield against King Piccolo's original forces that allowed him to do this.

His strikes didn't do very much damage, feeling more like mosquito bites than actual punches and kicks to the Tritek, but he managed to annoy Shi enough that her full attention was focused on him, so she didn't notice that Kyodo had reactivate Karada Ikioi, and that Yajirobe was returning, something that most who knew the man would find surprising.

As Shi blocked the old master, and fought off Kyodo, Yajirobe flew at her, hand gripping his sword in preparation, unknown to all who couldn't sense Ki, and even then it was hard tell he was there given just how much Ki was saturating the atmosphere. As he drew closer he slowed and stayed out of sight, looking for the most opportune moment to strike.

What annoyed Shi the most was that even though Roshi was so much weaker than her, weak enough that she would normally ignore him in favor of stronger adversaries, he was still versed enough in combat that he could actually hurt her, meaning she had to split her attention between Roshi, for fear ignoring him could injure her, and Kyodo, because ignoring him would hurt her. And, like Roshi, she was also well versed in combat, enough that when she was busy blocking an attack from Roshi and dodging one from Kyodo her survival instincts screamed at her to move and, since they'd saved her many times, she did. And not a moment to soon as less than a second after she moved Yajirobe's sword occupied the space she just had for a mere moment as it arc downwards, its owner swiftly flying backwards to escape any possible retaliation.

She would have chased him down, feeling gypped that, even though she'd killed two of the three she fought originally, he had escaped because she had been caught off guard, except the two she had been fighting before she dodged, like moths to a flame, returned and the cycle of her blocking and defending began anew. She couldn't even fight back as whenever she began to Kyodo would disrupt her by firing a simple ball of Ki into her face. Sure it didn't hurt since it was fired with speed, as opposed to power, in mind, but it did screw with her timing and was annoying as hell. Now add a swordsman that would attack whenever he saw an opening with a blade that could actually hurt her, and you get a melting pot of nerves and annoyances, with the pot being a woman in her prime.

Anyone in a relationship with a female would be able to tell you that taking a woman that's already a bundle of nerves and annoying the crap out of her is equivalent to poking a sleeping dragon. Sure it may seem fun to begin with... then the dragon wakes up and eats you. Long story short, its a very bad idea, and should be avoided for those seeking to live a long, peaceful life. So it was rather unfortunate that Kyodo, Roshi, and Yajirobe found themselves fighting against such a being; they might have saved themselves a lot of pain had they been fighting anyone else. They weren't, so it was more or less a moot point by the time they realized it. Which happened within a few moments.

Yajirobe had just attacked, knowing that Shi would dodge just like she had every time before, his sword sweeping to the right as it attempted to bisect her at the waist, when he noticed something wrong. Normally by now he would have backed up, given that Shi would have already dodged and he didn't want to get attacked, normally being the operative word. Under normal circumstances, what actually occurred would likely be impossible; blocking bullets by snatching them out of the air merely requires exceptional reflexes, blocking a blade with just your hand is significantly more difficult, but still possible. Blocking said blade by putting your finger in front of it to stop its forward momentum, then grabbing it with two fingers to prevent it from moving? Not likely.

So as Yajirobe stared in shock at his sword being stopped, Kyodo and Roshi rushed Shi, hoping to be able to cause her to let go of Yajirobe's sword, or to injure her should she not. She merely acted with cold efficiency; blocking Roshi's kick with her hand, and kicking Kyodo in the face to prevent him from striking her.

Now that she had a moment to gather her Ki she didn't have to resort to beating them to death; she could simply blow them away. "Note to self: Remember to train my control" she muttered to herself, launching Roshi away from her with a kick before a ball of energy began forming in her hand. "Sorry this took so long, but I need to learn how to gather my energy while fighting" She simply stated, turning to Yajirobe and absentmindedly tossing the ball at him.

His common sense told him to dodge so, against his better wishes, he let go of his sword and launched himself to the side, the attack barely missing him as it careened toward the Earth, the distance eventually causing it to fade from existence long before it entered the atmosphere proper. Yajirobe breathed a sigh of relief turning to Shi, only to stop when a sharp pain blossomed in his chest. He slowly looked down to see his sword hilt deep in his torso, Shi's hand casually grasping the handle and her other holding another ball. "Ciao" she said driving the ball into the other side of Yajirobe's chest and pushing him toward the Earth, the hole caused by the ball encompassing a good portion of his chest and meaning that removing the sword from what little of his chest remained would do, and did, nothing to speed up his death. She examined the sword for a coupled seconds before tossing it in the direction of Yajirobe's corpse and turning to face her final two opponents.

"And another one bites the dust" Shi said, grinning. Had Kyodo and Roshi not been overtaken by rage at Yajirobe's death, despite their unfamiliarity with the man, they would have at least been grateful for the fact that he likely died immediately and felt next to no pain, instead of slowly bleeding out as he floated back to Earth. However they were enraged and it simply served to cause them to fight harder.

Unfortunately for them, with the lack of Yajirobe distracting her for any extended period of time they were quickly forced on the defensive, and in their current situation that spelt out their doom. Not even a minute after Yajirobe left the land of the living did Shi find a break in Kyodo's defense, widening it with an expertly placed fist that removed the breath from the man's lungs. She more or less slapped Roshi's attempt to aid his student away, and the Kame Sennin with it, before driving her fist into Kyodo's face, breaking both his nose and the concentration required to keep up his Karada Ikioi, sending his Ki levels plummeting to a point barely able to maintain the mini atmosphere around him, even that faltering upon her next hit, which broke his ribs and punctured his lung. Wheezing and in pain, unable to respond let alone retaliate, Kyodo merely floated there, glaring at the woman who merely put her hands on each side of Kyodo's head and, with a merciless finality, twisted sharply, ending his life in one fell swoop.

"Kyo!" Roshi yelled, pausing in his movement for a few seconds and gathering his Ki, "Dammit!" several seconds elapsed before Shi finally turned her gaze on the old martial artist, ensuring that the man in front of her was indeed no longer among the living. In those seconds Roshi decided to bank on something, something he hadn't yet confirmed to be possible, but something he needed to try if he was going to survive this fight. "Karada! Ikioi!" He roared, activating the power raising technique and rushing the soldier, taking her by surprise. He landed a single hit because of it, not that it did any noticeable damage other than ruffle her hair due to her being push back, however just when he was about to land another strike his Ki suddenly plummeted and he reverted to his usual form, causing Shi to blink several times in confusion.

"I've been fighting an old man this entire time?!" She demanded, more to no one in particular than it was to Roshi, "No thank you. Men he's all yours; I'm going to see how Hei is doing" with that she took off in the direction of her sibling.

"Oh no you don't!" Roshi yelled, converting his Ki to lightning as fast as his experience with the technique would allow, "Take this! Thunder Shock Surprise!" with that he launched the ball of lightning at the retreating soldier, who merely turned and batted it away with a Ki coated hand. Less than a moment latter she was glad she did as it hit another grunt, who began twitching for a few seconds before falling still, only the residual electricity causing spasms in their muscles allowing their bodies to move.

"Wow" Shi whistled watching the aftermath of the attack with a surprised eye, "Glad I didn't get hit with that" and with that she shrugged, not really wanting to deal with him when he couldn't very well fight back, and took off once more leaving Roshi to fend for himself amongst the soldiers.

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The first thing Vegeta did once he and Nappa broke away from Strong was find Raditz. His explanation? 'Finding out if the weakling can improve at all'. That being said they found him successfully fighting off a large group of soldiers with a Saiyan like efficiency... of course meaning as joyfully as possibly, and likely extremely painful at that. To say they were surprised would be the understatement of the century. They'd barely watched him fight for half a minute before he blew the soldiers back by expelling his Ki from his body in a large spherical wave, hands jutted out to each side. "Vegeta, Nappa... I assume you aren't here to join us just yet?" he asked, not even facing the two, causing Nappa to crease his brow in confusion and Vegeta to get angry.

"You dare speak to me like that, Low Level!?" Vegeta yelled, balling his hands into fists and gritting his teeth. "I am you Prince, dammit! Show me the respect I deserve as the most powerful of our race!"

"That would be where you're wrong, prince," Raditz stated, speaking the title mockingly, only serving to anger the man, "My father happens to be stronger than you, I can feel it from here that his power exceeds yours by leaps and bounds"

"The insolence..." Vegeta raged to himself before his face shot up to stare down Raditz, who managed to not flinch before the prince's power, to Nappa's ever growing curiosity. "I should kill you for this! And I would, had we not been one of the four Saiyans left alive!"

"Five Saiyans," Raditz replied, the sheer stupidity of his statement causing Vegeta to forget his anger for a few seconds, "There are five Saiyans still alive" Despite the complete idiocy of his words, they intrigued Nappa, though Vegeta didn't really care.

"Did the reentry melt your brain!? The only living Saiyans our us and your father!" Vegeta replied, soon clutching his stomach and all but roaring with laughter. "I knew you were stupid but this takes the cake! Who's the other Saiyan, your imaginary friend?!" at this he began to laugh harder, Raditz merely glaring him.

"That is a good question; who are you talking about?" Nappa asked, ignored completely by Vegeta. Raditz shrugged, causally tossing a Ki blast at a soldier that thought he could take advantage of his apparent distraction, before grinning smugly. Nappa frowned, having seen that kind of grin before, most memorably on the face of Vegeta's father, the late King Vegeta, when he was about to either kill someone or outplay them in just about every way possible. Before he could ask about it, however, Raditz spoke up, his words taking several moments to truly register in the heads of the two older Saiyans.

"Not my imaginary friend, no. My sister, she still lives, despite Frieza's intentions"

This thirteen words, simple in their use but powerful in their meaning, shocked the two Elites to their core; when one finds out that there is a living female of a dying race, a race that one happens to be a member of, the most typical response is to stare at the giver of said information in shocked awe or to be in a state of disbelief. Nappa and Vegeta found themselves feeling a little of both.

They stared at Raditz, whose smug grin continued to stay on his face, mouths agape and eyes wide. After several moments they turned to each other, just to see how the other was reacting. When they saw they each had the same look on their face they turned back to Raditz. "Do you want me to punch you to prove you aren't dreaming?" the eldest child of Bardock quipped, shaking them from their stupor.

"Touch me and die" Vegeta growled, despite a small part of his brain that said something like that would likely be a good idea so he didn't have to wake up to the nightmare of a race guaranteed to die. This part of his mind was brutally and effectively eradicated.

"It was just a question, my prince," Raditz stated, using the title in the same way he had before, "No need to get angry; I understand how hard a concept this is to believe"

"Hard? I would say its damn near impossible" Nappa snorted, a grunt of agreement coming from his side to indicate Vegeta's stance on the matter. "Why should we believe that your sister, who, in the two decades since our planet's destruction, you have never mentioned, is alive and managed to escape our notice for her entire life?" he all but demanded, crossing his arms and giving Raditz a hard, skeptical look.

"She's lived on a planet that hasn't even left its own solar system yet and produces fighters that have only just discovered Ki, how would she had gained our notice?" the eldest child of Bardock asked sarcastically, "But she should be here pretty soon, within the next few minutes I would assume. Stay here and help, or just float there, until she arrives. If she doesn't then just kill me; I'm weaker than you anyway" Raditz shrugged, before turning from his former teammates and launching himself toward Earth and the soldiers who got around him while he was distracted.

Vegeta and Nappa spared each other a glance, before shrugging and following Raditz as he fought, not participating at all. The only other thing they did was vaporize any soldiers that questioned why they weren't fighting.

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If he was being perfectly honest, and he usually was with this kind of thing, Bardock could easily say this was one of the funnest things he'd ever done. At first all he had been doing was brutally being the living hell out of Dodoria, which was fun in and of itself, but that quickly became pathetic on the pink monstrosity's half once his initial rage faded. After that he decided to try and give the man... beast... thing a chance to fight back, but given the current state of his body said attempts were laughable at best, and downright unmentionable at worst. As in Frieza would likely remove any mention of Dodoria from his empire should how pathetically the General was fighting come to light.

'Not a bad idea' Bardock mused, lazily sidestepping a Ki blast from the pink general, 'He killed off my crew and many of my race, I'll remove him from life and ever living record of existence' At this the Saiyan chuckled, feeling a sense of irony at the thought.

"Just what they hell are you laughing at?!" Dodoria demanded, somehow managing to keep his voice even despite the massive amount of damage his neck and vocal cords had already suffered at his opponents hands. He looked like he'd been to hell and back, and somehow managed to come across a pack of hellhounds and get away both alive and in one piece; his was covered in cuts and bruises, his left arm lay motionless against his side and his leg was stained with blood, one of his eyes was swollen shut, his already small nose broken and flattened against his face, and he was missing the tip of one of his ears. His foot looked broken, and his other leg was swelling beneath his jumpsuit. Truthfully it would be surprising that he was moving, or conscious for that matter, if one didn't know that he was one of Frieza's generals, and was thus able to shrug off most pain.

"Oh nothing that will concern you in a few moments, I assure you" Bardock replied, blurring from sight and appearing in between Dodoria and the soldiers heading for Earth, and away from Bardock mostly, as fast as possible. "Well its been fun, it really has, but I think its time for an old relic like yourself to be shelved. Permanently"

Hearing this Dodoria spun as fast as his body would allow at the moment, Ki gathering in his throat. "You should have died twenty years ago! Energy Cannon!" he roared firing the same beam from his maw that he used to try to kill Bardock all those years ago. Unpleasant memories reaching the forefront of his mind, Bardock growled, blurring out of the way once more. The result was Dodoria's attack hitting, and vaporizing, every soldier it hit. To make matters worse for said soldiers Dodoria didn't even realize this was happening, so he ended up shoving more Ki into the attack and causing it to grow larger, engulfing another dozen or so soldiers and obscuring his vision even more.

After a few moments of this, the adrenaline making it seem like days, Dodoria cut off the attack, looking around for Bardock and only seeing the remains of body armor. "Not so tough now, are you punk?" the general mocked, looking around smugly and getting ready to aim for the other fighters, sure that none of them were anywhere close to being able to match him, despite his current condition.

"I'm sorry, but was that supposed to kill me?" Bardock's voice asked from behind Dodoria again, causing the monstrosity's eyes to widen and his body to whirl around. Behind him stood Bardock, completely uninjured and smirking smugly. "Because I honestly didn't feel a thing, maybe you should have put more power into it?"

"You little- how did you survive?!" Dodoria demanded, growling angrily and readying for another fight, causing Bardock to laugh.

"Easily; I didn't get hit" he replied simply, much to Dodoria's dismay. "Now if you'll excuse me, I believe I've had my revenge enough for one day, and my companions need my help. I'll see you in Hell once I finally die!" and with that, and a grin on his face, he charged his Ki and focused it into his right hand. "Sayonara asshole! Black Saturday!" he yelled, a sphere of dark Ki forming in his hand. He grinned ferally, bringing his arm back to throw the sphere as Dodoria's eyes widened in fear, before letting it fly the moment the general took off. Unfortunately for him he was to slow, and Bardock's aim was to good; the ball caught him in the back of the head, exploding violently after a few seconds of engulfing said limb. When the smoke cleared, dragged in all directions by the conflicting forces of gravity exerted by the celestial bodies, the only thing left of Dodoria was unidentifiable bits of blood and gore. "Now who needs more help?" Bardock mused, sending his senses across the battlefield. What he felt made him grin, despite the losses his comrades, for the moment, had fared. "Bout time" he mused, smirking lightly in pride before turning to the source of the soldiers and taking off.

(Insert line break here)

Zarbon was not happy, not at all. Despite their overwhelming numbers and, honestly, better trained forces only about ten percent of the soldiers they had arrived with had made it onto the planet, thus far awaiting orders before doing anything, another thirty percent were dead, mostly done in by Bardock, Raditz, Piccolo, and Kami, and the remaining sixty percent were held up by the soldier in front of them, though at least it seemed like some of the warriors they were facing had died, since more of the soldiers appeared to be approaching the planet. Honestly she could sympathize, slightly, with the beings fighting against her forces, at least the ones that weren't Saiyan; she understood the feeling of protecting one's home world, but since Frieza had ordered their civilization's destruction she could do nothing but oblige the man. He had, after all, saved her life, a life that she was more than willing to give in return for his kindness, despite the irony most would feel if they heard her statement about the leader of the Planet Trade Organization, a being widely acclaimed to by a tyrant. The reason she was unhappy was a simple one; her flagship's sensors had just picked up the disappearance of one of the more powerful power levels they had been fighting. Normally this would be a good sign... however there hadn't been any power levels around it when it disappeared and, when asked, the soldiers nearby had stated that the power level, apparently an old Namekian that was keeping its younger counterpart from killing them rather brutally, had abandoned the field prior to its disappearance from the sensors.

Common sense said this was a good thing, but her battle born instincts said that it was a cause for worry. Checking the sensors again, Zarbon located Strong fighting what the soldiers said was the younger Namek. She was about to open her mouth to give the man an order when one of the men watching the sensors barked into her scouter.

"Sir, the sensors are no longer picking up Dodoria! He is believed to be KIA!" he yelled, his words carrying a slight distance amongst the troops in the field. Though only the back skirts of the soldiers heard what was said, their communications lit up with worry and fear, at least for those who hadn't tried to measure the highest power in the area, and thus still had their scouters and a working ear.

"Enough!" Zarbon barked, the ship sending her message throughout the ranks as the chatter calmed down. "I don't carry if he's dead, that just means he made a mistake and that, while tragic," and she used the term very loosely in this case, "Is something that happens to the best of us. What is the status of the power he was fighting?" she asked, aiming her question back at the soldiers within the ship.

"It hasn't dropped since the fight began. In fact it appears to have risen slightly, by about four thousand units, since the beginning of the fight with Dodoria" the General swore under her breath, hoping that the bumbling idiot would have at least weakened the Saiyan who had the audacity to mock Frieza to his face. She sighed, reigning in her anger as it would only get in the way at the moment before speaking.

"Get Strong on the line, now" she ordered, calmly, clearly, and concisely, leaving no room for argument or hesitation in the execution of said order. After several moments her heard Strong's voice in her ear.

"Yes Lady Zarbon?" the general asked, the sound of fighting coming from his side of the 'call'. Leading Zarbon to muse that he was talking while fighting.

"How close to dead would you say your opponent is?" she asked, at the very least polite to the man who oversaw the management of all of Frieza's soldiers, and had for the past decade or so. It was better than most would get from her, Frieza excluded of course.

"Enough that he won't pose a problem to me or any of our more powerful soldiers, why?" the man asked, instantly curious as to why she would want to know.

His question was answered in several seconds, "I want you to make him completely dead, and then head off Bardock; he killed Dodoria, and I want him dead at any cost. Left alone he could completely decimate our forces before we finally take him down, and no one else in the amongst these warriors is strong enough to stand against you, so leave the weaklings to our resident savages" she replied, waiting a few moments for a response. When none came from the other side she continued "You are the strongest soldier currently in the field, and I am quite sure that you can remove him from the equation, especially with your abilities"

"High praise coming from you, milady. It shall be done" Strong replied, and she could almost see the bow that he would normally give to such an order. He didn't cut the connection with her, mostly because he didn't wish to die, and he addressed what she was assuming to be his opponent next. "I apologize, Namek, but I've been ordered to dispose of you before moving onto your ace in the hole. I would appreciate it if you accepted you fate and took this quietly"

Just as he said those words the sound of alarmed exclamations came from within the ship. "Lady Zarbon! The power from earlier has returned, and it has another alongside it!" the soldier yelled, making Zarbon glad for the fact that her scout automatically adjusted the volume in her ear so that she could still hear. "The new power level has that of twenty thousand units!"

At this Zarbon's eyes widened in shock; where had they been keeping someone this strong, so much stronger than everyone else they had thus far deployed? The ship's sensors encompassed the entire planet, and not once had such a being registered on them. She growled, before making a decision that would likely change the outcome of the battle. "Strong, change of plans! Stop what you are doing immediately!" she yelled, know that Strong would, quite literally, stop what he was doing, even if it was attacking, and killing, his opponent. "Another power has arrived alongside the one that left. Its power level is at twenty thousand units, remove it from existence before it can tip the scales in their favor! I'll handle Bardock"

"At once milady!" Strong exclaimed, immediately cutting the connection, leaving Zarbon to growl to herself at the annoyances this planet was throwing at her.

"Where is Bardock right now?" she demanded of the soldier within the ship, who quickly cringed at the angry undertone to her normally calm, and slightly melodic, voice.

"Caught up in dealing with a large group of our soldiers ma'am" the man replied, before pausing and thinking for a few seconds. "If you don't mind me asking, milady... but why do you wish to know?"

"I do mind," Zarbon replied, causing the blood to drain from the soldier's face, "But giving that you already asked I'll answer anyway. I am deploying; I'll deal with the monkey" with that she took off toward the coordinates that her scouter was given by the ship, having not wanted to risk her only means of communication with the rest of the soldiers exploding because it was overloaded. "We will talk about your questioning after this battle is over" that said, the soldier promptly pissed himself, shivering in fear and getting looks of pity from those around him.

(Insert line break here)

Raditz was not having a fun time at the moment, despite the fact that his Saiyan blood was roaring in excitement at the fact that he was fighting two superiorly trained, and more powerful, opponents. A few moments ago Vegeta had, in his lack of patience and overall bad mood because of Raditz's comments previously, decided that said Saiyan was lying and attacked him immediately. Nappa, who only received a look from the prince, joined in but only after sending a piteous look Raditz's way.

The man, to his credit, was managing to keep up with them, though the two kept him on the defensive. It was because of this that he failed to sense his sister and Kami's arrival back into the land of the living, and the fact that the soldiers around him were speeding toward Earth, making their way onto the side that the sun was setting on at the moment.

"Maybe you should just wait another minute! I know she's on her way!" Raditz yelled, barely avoiding an elbow from Nappa and sending a kick into Vegeta's stomach before pulling his foot back and backing up as well as he could under the circumstances.

"I'm tired of waiting, I'm tired of how pathetic you are, I'm tired of your voice, and I'm tired of your lies! If you were thinking that something as... blasphemous as this would save your life, you have another thing coming!" Vegeta roared, anger causing his veins to bulge in his neck slightly. To think that this low level scum would claim a female member of their race, and his sister no less!, was still alive just so he could live, or kill a few more soldiers, was unthinkably insulting to the prince. To give a man, resigned to the death of his entire civilization, one that he had been promised to lead when he grew older and more powerful than his father, the hope that maybe, just maybe, there was a possibility of salvaging their people before brutally crushing it because it was a lie, and then going on to continue to assure him that it wasn't, was like showing a starving, rabid animal a steak, making it hungrier than it already was and letting it get close and think it can have said steak, before casually pulling said steak out of reach and eating it in front of them. Cruel, brutally, and a very good reason to get killed by the 'animal', or in this case the former Prince of all Saiyans.

Nappa, for what it was worth, wanted to believe that Raditz sister was alive, and that he actually had a sister given that the reasons he gave earlier were more or less sound, he really did. Unfortunately his prince had ordered him to help killing Raditz with a glance, and he was still obligated to obey him. He did manage to get away with fighting without really trying, and thus allowing Raditz to keep him at bay, and Vegeta as well given that the prince was far to angry to really think about doing anything other than punching the object of his anger to death. This continued for several minutes, gathering a grouping of soldiers as an audience who could claim that they were 'waiting for an opportunity to aide them in their fight'. Needless to say they were simply there to watch the slaughter they expected to occur.

Most of these soldiers lacked scouters and Nappa and Vegeta were to busy fighting Raditz to even attempt to sense out energy, not that they would to be honest, so the fact that Gyoka and Kami arrived back in the world of the living went unnoticed by most of the being closest to them. It wasn't until Raditz blew Nappa and Vegeta back by forcing his Ki out of his body in all directions and making himself some space that either of the three noticed the power coming from the general direction of Earth. Raditz wasn't good enough at sensing energy to recognize people just by their Ki, and even if he was he'd never really felt his sister's so he couldn't know whether or not it was her, and Vegeta and Nappa didn't recognize it period so all three of the Saiyans paused in their fight long enough to turn to the source of the power, easily eclipsing Raditz's and a good bit above Vegeta's it left the three of them wary.

When the dark figure on the horizon stopped, above them by a few meters the sun's final rays illuminated it, and its own aura caused shadows to dance across its form. Floating tall, long black hair, and obviously alive, was a woman, whose Ki output was so vastly higher than most of the soldiers around the three Saiyans that they back up out of reflex. Vegeta was about to demand what she thought she was doing, either being stronger than him or interrupting his fight, even he didn't know which it was, when his jaw, along with his faithful bodyguard's, dropped: from behind the woman, with her power and natural attractiveness already causing Vegeta to feel some kind of emotion because, no matter what be said about him, he was not heartless and he truly didn't wish his race to die with him, swayed a dark shape. For the first couple of seconds Vegeta thought he was imagining it, until the sun's rays provided just enough light for it to be revealed to be a tail. A tail. Out of all of his experience studying as a child and attacking and conquering planets Vegeta hadn't once heard of an intelligent species, other than the Saiyans, that had tails and looked like them. This woman looked like a Saiyan, she felt like a Saiyan, and the look in her eyes, not that of her body but within her eyes, was that of a Saiyan prepared for a battle they were fighting for personal reasons, and one they were sure they were going to win. The fact that she had a tail only solidified the fact that she was a Saiyan. If he'd been told that she was a Saiyan that lost her tail, chances are he would have believed it.

That being said the only thing that Vegeta, and Nappa's, minds could think of at the moment was a single word, one they muttered under their breath, just low enough that neither heard the other say it: "Megami(13)" they muttered, Vegeta licking his lips as a veritable tsunami of emotions welled up within him, though the lip licking might not have been due to that but he didn't know at the moment.

So enraptured with her appearance were the to older Saiyans that they ignored Radtiz completely, whose face split into a wide grin and his eyes sparkled with the hope that they'd survive, especially if she was this much stronger than when they fought to begin with.

"Kaitlyn... its good to see that you're okay" the son of Bardock said as his sister floated down to his level. The sun prevented him from really seeing her expression, despite the fact that said celestial body was hiding for the most part behind the planet he had resided on for the past year.

"Raditz..." Gyoka replied, pausing to take in the battlefield and noticing that the soldiers surrounding them had backed up slightly from when she had first arrived. She glanced back at her brother, blinking in confusion at the sort of scared look in his eyes. "I'm glad to see that you're okay, brother" she said with a small smile that surprisingly reached her eyes. "Do you know who killed my friends?" She asked, her voice hardening slightly as her Ki output began to return to his previous high. Raditz quickly returned the smile and was about to say something when Vegeta cut him off.

"She... she's real right?" he asked, finding his voice while Nappa could not, "She is a real, living, breathing, Saiyan female?" his voice held no small amount of hope, something that was mirrored in Nappa's eyes. She did notice that he was licking his lips every so often, though that could be attributed to nervousness. Which Gyoka did, given the circumstances.

"Yes I'm real" she replied, turning to the former prince and raising an eyebrow, before noticing the sudden look of hope that jumped burst into existence in their eyes. "Though I would appreciate it if my question was answered"

Her answer came from an unexpected source "Those weaklings? The same that will soon happen to you; we killed them" her head whipped in the direction of the answer to see two being floating in front of a less than shocked group of soldiers, one male and the other female. "Though in their defense they did put up quite the fight"

"Who are you?" She demanded, her voice sounding calm but having an undertone of pure, unadulterated rage, the likes of which very few survived when dealing with someone of Gyoka's power, as rare as that was in this quadrant of the universe.

"Enemies, that is all you need to know" the male responded, "Though my sister is correct; the two men I killed put up a good fight. Unfortunately they didn't put up a good enough one" it didn't take a genius to figure out what happened, especially considering he outright admitted to killing two of her friends, but the only thing that bugged Gyoka was his wording.

"Two men... who were they?" She asked quietly, her head falling slightly and causing her hair to obscure her face in partial shadow. "Who did you kill?"

He hummed in response, tapping his chin in thought. "I don't know who they were, but I do know that neither had hair, one had three eyes and the other was short. He wore a similar outfit to yours. I hope you realize that you will be meeting them soon again anyway so its pointless t-" his statement was cut off when Gyoka, giving a rather uncharacteristic scream of both anger and anguish, especially given that up until then she had been rather quiet, disappeared from view and reappeared less than a second later in front of the man, fist cocked and eyes burning with anger.

His eyes widened as Gyoka, moving to fast for him to properly dodge given his surprise at her sudden movement, took the fist directly to his nose, which spurted blood and flattened against his face with a sickening 'snap'. "That was for Krillin and Tien" she muttered casually flicking the blood from her hand.

"Hei!" the woman yelled in surprise, eyes wide at the fact that this woman who literally came out of nowhere managed to punch her brother, someone who she'd only seen one person defeat in battle, in the face and break his nose. She growled and turned to the woman, about to launch herself at her when Hei raised his hand.

"Shi I'm fine, just caught me off guard" he said, bringing his hand from his nose. To say if was broken was an understatement; the few bones in it were shattered, all but dust, its shape held together by cartilage and skin alone. "Plus if she can do this then you don't stand a chance let m-" he was cut off once more, but this time it was by the arrival of the aforementioned person able to defeat Hei in battle, that Shi had seen; Strong.

He didn't say a word merely attacking Gyoka with quick and deadly strikes, each of them capable of severely injuring Hei and causing Shi to shiver at the ferocity of her captain's assault. To her credit Gyoka managed to dodge or deflect each of the strikes despite being caught slightly off guard by his appearance. Less than a second after Strong arrived Raditz noticed Piccolo flying after the man, and that Kami was coming from the other direction. Once Kami arrived, just a few seconds before Piccolo managed to, Strong and Gyoka broke apart by dodging an attack made by the other party at the same time, and with the same backwardly jumping movement.

"Vegeta, Nappa," Strong said, the first thing he uttered since arriving, his eyes not leaving Gyoka for a moment. "Lady Zarbon has decided that she will deal with this 'Bardock' person, and has ordered me to deal with... her" he gestured to Gyoka, the fact that his eyes didn't leave her body preventing him from seeing the angry expressions on the aforementioned Saiyan's faces. "I want you to either deal with the rest of these people, or head onto the planet. That's an order"

Vegeta and Nappa glanced at each other before nodding, positive that the other was thinking the same they were. With nary a word spoken they took off toward their next battlefield... in the opposite direction of Earth. Strong sighed, eyes still not leaving Gyoka's form. "Hei, Shi I want you two to deal with those two traitors, I'm sure you can handle it"

The Triteks saluted, snapping to attention when he said their names. "We won't let you down Captain!" Shi said before she and her brother took off, only to be stopped by Gyoka appearing in front of them.

"And where do you think you're going?" She demanded, her voice back to its previous 'calm'. "Don't think you can get away with killing my friends without fighting me" Strong made to attack her for making the first move, something he had been trained to believe would spell out your doom unless you held an irrefutable element of surprise, only to be stopped himself by Kami, Raditz, and Piccolo.

"If my sister wants to fight them, then she'll fight them. Let them have their fight" Raditz said, cracking his knuckles, intent on enforcing his statement.

"Our battle from earlier isn't done yet, either," Piccolo muttered darkly, casually ripping his hand off. "Let's see how you fare against a Saiyan warrior, and two of the most powerful Namekians in the world" he continued, grunting as a brand new hand shot out of the stump of a wrist he had left. To his credit Kami didn't join in the trash talking, merely closing his eyes for a few seconds to calm his energies before his eyelids snapped open, bursting with the purpose and vigor of a man a fourth of his age.

"Let us then, Namek," Strong replied just as darkly, "Once this is finished I'll enjoy watching my subordinates clean the floor with the woman there" for Raditz that was the final straw, causing him to charge Strong, almost blindly. When Strong made to retaliate, thinking it was indeed a blind charge, Raditz surprised him by slapping the first fist aside, and jumping over the man using the second as a push of point, before grabbing the back of his head and shoving both of his feet into the small of his back. To his credit Strong seemed to barely feel it and merely grabbed Raditz by his wrists and threw him in front of him. He would have done more, had Kami and Piccolo not appear on either side of him, already attacking with Ki coated limbs, leaving the Captain to either let go of Raditz and block the strikes, or not and quite likely be severely injured by hands and feet coated in pure living energy. He opted for the former and released the Saiyan, slapping away Kami and Piccolo's attacks. This would soon become a pattern; Strong attacking, focusing on one of them while said being attacks did nothing, only to let them go in favor of blocking the combined efforts of the other two fighters.

Needless to say it would be a long fight.

(Insert line break here)

Vegeta and Nappa flew silently and as fast as they were currently capable. Most of the time, for Nappa at least, they were fine with receiving orders, especially from a more powerful being than themselves, but being ordered to aid that being in killing the final female member of their race, which had been an order from the Commander in charge of the operation, which in turn could be traced back to Frieza himself as he had ordered his Generals to lead this assault to begin with, was something that neither of them could stand. They realized that Bardock was currently their best chance at survival, for both themselves for deserting and for their new allies, though admittedly their were more allying themselves with Raditz's sister, but the ally of one's ally is also one's ally correct?, so they resolved to, since they didn't sense a massive amount of Ki coming from a singular point, in fact they sensed Zarbon heading for her destination, and another powerful Ki, most likely Bardock, fighting in the midst of a massive group of cannon fodder- I mean soldiers.

With Bardock currently busy the best they could do would be to hold of Zarbon until he was capable of joining the battle, and hoping that they survived that long, or at least long enough for Bardock to clear out enough soldiers that the rest would be annihilated in the crossfire between the two powerhouses. It took less than a minute of going their max speed to interrupt Zarbon's trajectory, though she wasn't going her maximum speed because she knew Bardock was being held up at the moment. When they arrived in front of her Zarbon raised an eyebrow at both their sudden appearance and the fact that they weren't bowing, which at least Nappa had been doing up until this point. "Is there any reason why the two of you are here instead of removing the resistance? Unless said resistance has been wiped out, in which case I would be asking why you weren't already on the planet with the rest of the soldiers" she asked, slowing to a stop and crossing her arms under her chest.

"There's a reason alright," Vegeta muttered darkly, eyes anywhere but her chest since that would only anger her more, especially given what he was about to say; let it be known that Zarbon, while a flirt in some instances, was nothing but professional when it came to missions assigned by Frieza himself, not that anyone else in Frieza's employ had the power available to order her to do anything. "We quit!" he said, readying himself for a battle as Nappa did the same behind him.

"I'm sorry, I don't think I heard you quite right; I thought you might have said that you quit just now," Zarbon replied, feigning partial deafness and surprise, "If that were the case then I would be forced to wipe you from existence where you stood, but that couldn't be the case; especially since you are the last of a dying race, one that you've stated that you would recreate one day, despite the lack of any females of said race, and by doing so you would be wiping the Saiyans from the history books"

"You heard my damn it," Vegeta responded, growling at the minor taunt she casually flung his way. "We quit, and if we have to go through you to do it then so be it!" with that he and Nappa shot forward at the woman, knowing full well that if they didn't work together as best they could they would each die a horrible and painful death sooner than they could utter a two syllable, four letter, curse word.

"You have spunk at least, I like that" Zarbon replied, casually falling into a fighting stance and easily knocking both Saiyans off balance by attacking through their own attacks and quickly setting the stage for the rest of the fight; Zarbon would attack, they would defend, and occasionally they would try to strike her.

Not far off Bardock was dealing with a group of soldiers that seemed to be never ending; he had killed so many of them that their bodies were still floating in the area around him, and since more kept coming the only reason he wasn't having trouble telling which were alive and which were dead was because of the fact that he could sense their energies and move far faster than they ever would. Though that was mostly because of the fact that he was ending their lives. It would take a few minutes, but he would be able to thin them out enough that they likely wouldn't even consider attacking him until Zarbon arrived, and she would be awhile if the wasn't mistaken; he could feel the power that could only be her fighting two significantly smaller powers at the moment, not a two minute's flight away form the Earth from where he was right now. He could only hope whoever was fighting her knew what they were doing because if they made so much as one mistake they were both dead. The only thing Bardock could do was continue fighting the soldiers as fast as he could, and hope that he would finish and get to them before Zarbon killed them.

(Insert line break here)

If Hei and Shi thought that fighting Gyoka would be easy because they had the advantage of numbers then they had obviously never fought against a female Saiyan who was bent on removing them from existence, chances are that this was in fact the first time that anyone in twenty years had fought against a female Saiyan that was bent on removing them from existence. Her anger easily breaking through the barrier between reckless anger and focused rage, and allowing her to fight for longer, fight harder, and fight faster than she normally would be able to, increasing her already good advantage she had over the two soldiers to the point that it didn't matter that she was fighting two people.

Most of the beginning of the fight was Gyoka on the defensive, attacking only occasionally so as to test the waters of their offense and defense. Once she decided she'd tested them just fine she sprung into action, quickly overpowering the two and putting them on the defensive. Sadly for them it was for naught, as she was slowly wearing them down, and as they wore down so to did their reactions, allowing for more injuries and more slowing down. By the time Gyoka was done, Hei had several shattered ribs, a broken hand, wrist, leg, and hip, and a mild concussion in addition to his nose, and Shi was covered in bruises, with her eye sealed shut, her lip split, her arm and leg broken, her ribs all but stabbing her organs and her feet shattered. Both of them were missing many of their spikes, something that neither was happy about.

"For what its worth I apologize; had your leader not attack us then this wouldn't have had to happen" Gyoka said, actually saddened by the fact that she was about to take the lives of these two; she may have done it before, but it never got easier, and that was something she was truly grateful for. "I hope you find happiness in the afterlife. Ka... Me... Ha... Me... HA!" She said, yelling the last part, as the two tried to dodge. Fortunately for them they were unable to, and it quickly and cleanly ended their lives by vaporizing their bodies. It was fortunate in that they died almost immediately, having felt little to no pain, and any pain that they had would have been to short for their brains to register it. They died with their non broken hands clasped together, and with a serene expression on their face, the expression of someone who excepted the fact that they were going to die.

The last thing that either said was said by Shi, and it was a simple three words. "I'm sorry Captain". Despite the fact that she was no where near Strong at the time, and the fact that she barely heard it making it impossible for him to he visibly recoiled just as she uttered it, sparing a glance in the direction of their fight with Gyoka and seeing only a sapphire blue beam of energy.

"Damn it!" he swore, expelling his Ki from his body in a massive wave to fling Raditz, Piccolo, and Kami from him. With that he took off in the direction of Gyoka, tears streaming down his face at the deaths of the only two people in the army that he was actually close to. The three of them followed as fast as they could, not noticing the tears at all, and only arrived when Gyoka blocked another attack from Strong, who seemed stronger than earlier.

When they moved to help Gyoka dismissed their help instantly. "This is something he has to do against me, alone," she explained, all the while blocking the man's attacks, "I just killed his friends, and just like what I just did he wants to make sure that their killer doesn't go unpunished. Go deal with the other people here; I can handle this"

"Are you sure about this?" Kami asked as Piccolo merely grunted, glaring at her before taking off in toward the closest group of soldiers, only slightly slowed down by his injuries. Raditz also hesitated, before taking off slow enough that he could still hear her response. "It would be faster if we all helped"

"No, this is between the two of us. Please don't interfere," she replied, getting a nod from Kami. "Raditz!" she called as she flung Strong away with a sudden burst of Ki coming out of her palm. When the man turned to face her she smiled, "When this is over why don't we talk?"

"I... I'd like that," Raditz muttered, before nodding and calling back to her, "Of course! Don't die in the mean time!" with that he turned and flew off.

"I don't plan on it" she muttered to herself as she readied herself for the hardest battle she had fought yet.

(Insert line break here)

Nappa and Vegeta weren't having a good time. Yes they were having a great battle, if it could be called that, but the fact that the only thing keeping them alive was their teamwork and experience working with each other was a double edged sword; on one hand the fact that they knew each other's fighting style enough to react without the need for any kind of communication was a good thing and it was keeping them from taking to much damage at the hands of their former employer's most powerful operative, on the other hand the battle was causing their blood to sing an accompaniment of delight, and it was honestly rather distracting.

As Zarbon gripped Vegeta's wrists for the fourth time in the short minute or so that they had been fighting, intent of flinging him into Nappa so that she could kill them with a single shot, he decided to do something unorthodox; he grabbed her wrists as well and pulled with all his might. Caught off guard, Zarbon was easy to move, though neither expected her to end up pressed against his chest, floating at the same level so that their eyes were directly in front of each other. Less than a second of staring at each other in surprise elapsed before they both sprung into action once more, Zarbon ripping her hands from Vegeta's grasp and shoving them into his stomach, emptying his lungs of air, and Vegeta, in response to this, slamming his forehead into Zarbon's nose, succeeding in only causing it to bleed a little and move to the right with a small 'crack'.

Her hand immediately flew to her nose, the first injure she'd received in a long time, before her eyes burned with rage, piercing through Vegeta even as he retreated back to where Nappa floated, nursing his fractured wrist. "You will die slowly and painfully for that, monkey" she ground out, raising a single hand above her head, not noticing the fact that Bardock had finally broken free of the soldiers and was flying at her at full speed. Within seconds a ball of energy formed in her hand, the power of it freezing the two Saiyans in place, unable to do anything but watch as their death slowly gathered in her hands. "Prepare to die!" she yelled and, just as she was about to throw it, she was cut off by a voice that Nappa had never thought he'd be glad to hear.

"Final Spirit Cannon!" Bardock yelled, a lance of Ki slamming into Zarbon, burning her side and causing the sphere to dissipate. "Your fight is with me, bitch!" he called, causing Zarbon to growl in response, "Nappa, you and Vegeta should deal with some more of the soldiers; I'll handle her"

Nappa nodded, Vegeta merely taking a deep breath to calm his heart; not many responded positively to their imminent demise. "You'd better make it out alive Bardock; no one else here can handle her" Nappa said before ushering Vegeta back to the battle and away from the monster of a battle that would soon erupt in Bardock's general vicinity.

"You don't learn do you?!" Zarbon demanded, growling lowly, eyes flashing dangerously. "You tried this twenty years ago, and it didn't work then; you didn't even get to us, what makes you think that you'll be able to defeat me?!"

"The fact that I've trained with someone exceeding Frieza in strength for the past twenty years" Bardock replied, blurring next to Zarbon and lashing out with his fist. "And the fact that I really don't like the look of your face!"

Unable to take not only being injured by a being not even half her strength but also being matched in combat, no matter how little both had seen against each other, by a man thought dead two decades ago Zarbon roared, jumping into the battle like any Saiyan; with an animalistic ferocity that would intimidate most sentient beings. They traded blows, each resounding with a thunderous boom that not only occasionally peaked higher than the soldiers, living humans, and Saiyans could hear, with only Kami and Piccolo reacting to their pitch, but caused much of the fighting to stop as everyone within earshot stopped and turned to the battle between two, compared to them, gods on the battlefield. As this continued, with neither gaining the edge over the other, they found themselves falling toward Earth, both being so absorbed with killing the other that they didn't even bother to oppose the omnipotent force of gravity.

They fell through groups of soldiers, each blow they sent at the other sending the soldiers reeling at the least, and outright flying away at the worst, and the atmosphere, the Ki around them literally on fire as it protected them form a painful death by atmospheric reentry. As they fell, soon reaching terminal velocity, they continued to fight, the vibrations from their blows setting off many of the instruments on the planet at the moment; from seismometers to satellite television electronic devices began to go haywire, the very Ki the two were emitting causing problems with the electrons that powered said machines and the delicate insides their hard plastic or metal cases held. They finally landed after what seemed like an eternity of falling, their last glimpse of weightlessness for a long time to come and, if either had their way, the last time that the other party would ever feel that sensation, or any sensation for that matter, ever again.

When they landed, thankfully in a desert wasteland where their battle wouldn't kill any one other than one of their party, they shot off in opposite directions, each landing on a clifftop over looking a large canyon, the waxing half moon high in the sky its light, and that of the stars and Ki blasts being used by those still fighting in space, illuminating their battleground in the dark of the night. It was completely uninhabited, not even a single plant living within three miles of the place, a fitting place to die, in Bardock's opinion; in heated battle against an enemy of equal or greater strength in a place where one need not deal with elaborate burial ceremonies; simply leaving the body to the Earth was all most warriors needed or desired. And with that said he and Zarbon stared each other down, both glaring directly into the other's eyes despite the about twenty meter gap between them, in silence. Then, unbidden, a large flash of light illuminated the sky as a hole for nary a second, undoubtedly a Ki technique used by one of the fighters still alive. It was as if that were an unspoken but universal signal; as both the Saiyan low level and General of the Planet Trade Organization took off at speeds easily exceeding the sight of most, if not all, of the beings on or around the planet at the moment.

The met in the middle, both landing a fist on the cheek of the other, and savage scowl on their face as they both flew back due to the force that each put into the punch. When they landed and righted themselves, also at the same time, they stared at the other for another few seconds before jumping at each other once more, intent on pummeling their opponent to death, and loving every minute of it.


Post AN: IMPORTANT! READ! Okay... so for those who didn't review, and thus didn't get a PM about this, I made a mistake; Bardock only saw up until Frieza's death, but he saw all of it. Everything that happened in canon he saw with absolute clarity. Every single minute thing, no matter how small it was or unimportant. From Goku's first meeting with Bulma, to Frieza's death at his hands, and everything in between. This was in my original plan, its what most of the story is based off of, and without it a good portion of the story would be impossible. That being said I apologize for possibly misleading you guys due to my lack of remembering what I originally planned out... sorry. I honestly can't stress that enough; I've apologized to multiple people, multiple times. And I will likely continue to apologize, multiple times.

So yeah, another chapter done and another wait for the next. What'd you guys think 'bout the fights? Good, bad, indifferent? Because personally I liked 'em, and any, and all, deaths happened for a reason. Would this make me need to up the rating? Because rereading Piccolo's part, as well as certain other parts, it seems just a tad... gruesome to me. I don't know. Anyway! Next chapter we've got the finale of Zarbon and Bardock's fight, while Gyoka and co clean up Strong and the rest of his men. By the way, I'm closing the poll to determine who Gohan's father will be on December 24th. That's right, its closing on Christmas Eve. Specifically at 9PM Eastern Standard Time (or New York/Boston time for people who are to lazy to realize what time zone that is), so if you want to vote before then neh?

Holy crap guys its late, live scary late. I have no idea why I'm still up other than the fact that its still technically the 17th thanks to the fact that the fanfic servers are on the west coast, and I live on the east. Yay loopholes. Now enough of that, none of you really care to begin with, well maybe a few of you do but I highly doubt that, what you do care about, probably is this: The Numbered Points of Interest (Lots of them this chapter) right before the power levels as usual. Thanks for reading, and here they are:

1: Bum rush. I'm pretty sure everyone knows what this is, but this is in case you don't, and I use the term and the tactic quite of\ten in FPS MMOs. Basically its charging forward without a plan or any thoughts on your own safety, completely different than a Blitzkrieg but based on the same principle of fast movement. That make sense?

2: From what I've found, a lot of people call this Saiyan armor because the first time we see it, and any variations of it, are on Saiyans; Raditz, Vegeta, Nappa. To prevent the possibility of misunderstandings, the whole reason I actually made these Points of Interest, the wiki states that this is called Battle Armor and was used by the Planet Trade Organization long before the Saiyans joined it following their success in the war against the Tuffles.

3: Anoxia is the lack of oxygen in body tissue, in this case due to explosive decompression. Explosive decompression is when something, typically an aircraft, is unexpectedly and almost completely decompressed. Its usually rather bad...

4. Not really a point but something I think would be kinda, maybe, sorta funny to throw in here: For the preservation of their Blue and Pure World! Cyber cookie to those who know where that's from.

5. Some people are... not that fast at perceiving the difference between literature enriching metaphors and actual reality within stories, I myself am counted in this category at times but then again who isn't at at least one point in their life? Its a metaphor, meant to both sound awesome, at least in my opinion, and to play off the saying 'Opening the Gates of Hell' or 'Unleashing Hell'. Stuff like that. I just wanted to clarify.

6. Hei and Shi. They're twins, as stated just after they're introduced, and their power levels are below. Their names are a combined pun, much like Kyodo and Jin's, on the word 'Heishi' which means Soldier.

7. Tritek is the name of a planet that is only mentioned in the English version of the anime, and even then its only once by Nappa when he plants the Saibamen. As Vegeta and Nappa were on Morpheus instead of Tritek in this story I decided to use them as the race that these OC soldiers are. The wiki gives no pictures of them, so I gave them an appearance I came up with.

8. He's calling it a Catch 22 (Damned if you do, damned if you don't situation) because of the fact that, as a commanding officer, he doesn't want to get to know the soldiers under him personally because if they die then it'll be the death of another friend, but as a sentient person he can't not get to know those he's served with. Shi is really hyper, but you can probably see that already, and she tries to make friends with a lot of her fellow soldiers, regardless of their rank. She succeeded with Strong, and Hei is never very far from his older sister.

9. Senshi means Warrior. I would call it by its English name of Warrior-Type Namekians... but that sounds stupid. Senshi sounds better, in my opinion

10. I'm assuming things here; he's the largest, and most powerful, of the Ogres that judge the dead, and he has 'King' in his name, at least in the anime. Why shouldn't he be the Ogre King?

11. Iaigiri is an actual sword technique. You take your sword and, in a single motion, remove it from the scabbard and slice through your opponent. Yajirobe used this to kill Cymbal in Dragon Ball.

12. Another one of the changes to the time line, if you want more information either PM me or wait until I get around to explaining it. The later will likely happen in a couple of chapters or, if I don't touch on it, in something I intend to do once this story is over; mostly because I can't focus on writing this and writing something that has to do with this universe once this story is complete. Hint. Hint.

13. Just the Japanese word of 'Goddess'. Nothing much other really, mostly there for literary flashiness, I guess. Its a little hard for me to explain why its there, but I think it fits. Take that for what it is.

Bardock:

34,000

36,000 (before charging Freiza's men)

40,000 (just before attacking Dodoria)

Chiaotzu:

2,950

Chi-Chi:

7,850

8,250 (right before her death)

Dodoria:

30,000

Freiza's Men (on average):

6,750

Gyoka:

20,000

22,675 (angry at the death of her friends)

Hei:

17,500

Kami:

13,500

King Kai:

6,950

Krillin:

9,750

12,187 (utilizing Karada Ikioi (adds %25 of your power)

14,000 (Firing the Azure Kamehameha)

Kyodo:

9,350

11,687 (utitilizing Karada Ikioi)

Nappa:

18,350

Piccolo:

14,950

14,500 (after regrowing his hand)

Raditz:

14,900

Roshi:

3,000 (base form)

9,000 (young form)

2,145 (after attempting Karada Ikioi in young form)

Shi:

17,000

Strong:

19,000

Tien Shinhan:

9,850

Vegeta:

19,450

Yajirobe:

7,575

Yamcha:

8,750

9,800 (throwing his Spirit Ball)

10,000 (firing the Kamehameha)

6,478 (after firing the Kamehameha)

Zarbon:

40,000 (base form)