Polaris, Chapter 4. Kame House, 5:19 pm.
Vegeta, Trunks and Goten touch down onto the soft sand in front of Kame House. Krillin, having sensed the incoming power signatures, was already outside grinning widely.
"Hey guys! If I knew you were coming, I would have cleaned up a bit. 18 and I have been, uhh… wrestling around the house."
Krillin tries his best to hold a poker face as Vegeta, his expression purposely vacant, walks toward him.
"Didn't think you'd buy that," Krillin chuckles. "What brings you guys here? Lemme guess… Goku ate you all out of house and home."
Krillin's smirk withers as Vegeta turns him aside and leans in close; "I wish that were the case," he sighs, a deep sadness tingeing his tone. "There's been an attack. Chi-Chi and… and my wife… are dead." He swallows, momentarily averting his gaze as his eyes well up.
Krillin's face teeters between anger and agony. "How? Who's responsible?" he asks, subconsciously striking his fist to his palm.
Vegeta simply shakes his head, leaning back up and turning towards Trunks and Goten; their faces showing the kind of bewilderment indicative of lost innocence.
"You two; come here," Vegeta calls out. The boys gloomily step forward, their feet dragging in the sand. "You'll be staying here with Krillin and 18, is that understood?"
Before they can nod in affirmation, Krillin yanks at Vegeta's shirt and pulls him back in.
"What do you think you're doing? I'm not babysitting; I'm going out there with you guys!"
Vegeta shrugs off Krillin's grasp and replies, "No you're not. Goku wants you here with the boys."
"To hell with what he wants!" Krillin snaps back. Vegeta, taken off guard, leans back slightly and scoffs.
"I know he's in a rough place right now. I don't even want to think about what I'd do if I lost 18… but I've known Chi-Chi and Bulma most of my life, and I've been Goku's best friend since we were kids. There's no way I'm letting him face this on his own."
Maintaining his glare, Krillin calls inside to 18.
As she opens the door and leans outside, wearing only a robe, Krillin turns to her and says, "Give Roshi a call and have him come here to watch the boys."
18 looks to her right and smiles mildly at Trunks and Goten. They don't even look up at her.
"You know that lazy old bastard won't leave his house to babysit," she sneers.
"Then tell him we're making dinner or something," Krillin replies, shrugging his shoulders.
18 shakes her head; "He won't fall for that one again." Sighing in agitation, Krillin turns and eyes her pensively.
He cracks a smile; "Well then just tell him you're making dinner in your bikini." 18 rolls her eyes and heads back inside. "If there's one thing that old fart will never say no to, it's tits," he adds with a chuckle.
Turning back to Vegeta with renewed seriousness, he asks, "Where's everyone at?"
Vegeta takes in a deep breath, replying, "They're at the lookout. Kakarot is fetching the Namek and Gohan, and we're to meet at the northern outskirts of Central City." Krillin nods to himself.
"Are you bringing 18?" Vegeta inquires.
Looking back up to him, Krillin ripostes, "I'm not bringing her. She comes and goes as she pleases."
Laughing aloud, somewhat in spite of himself, Vegeta retorts, "I'm guessing she goes more than she comes." Krillin simply frowns.
As if on cue, 18 reemerges from the house, this time wearing her usual attire.
"Roshi's on his way. When are we leaving?" Vegeta and Krillin stare at her perplexingly. "You whisper very loudly," she adds, brushing her hair away from her smirk.
Vegeta turns back to Trunks and Goten; "You're to stay here and wait for the old man. Understood?"
They both nod, still weary from grief. As they head inside, 18 crouches in front of them, holding them each by the shoulder; "Cheer up, guys," she says with a warm smile, "As long as we have the Dragon Balls, they'll never be more than a wish away." She gently rests her hands against their respective cheeks. "C'mon, gimme a smile," she adds. Trunks and Goten each manage to force a faint grin. "Knew you could do it," she beams, standing up and urging them inside.
Vegeta leans in towards Krillin; "She'll be a good mother."
Krillin smirks; "She better be. She takes care of me all day."
Vegeta chuckles softly, and as 18 closes the door behind her, they all generate energy auras and jet away into the dusk sky.
Just north of Goku's House, 5:18 pm.
Gohan and the mysterious man in gray stare icily at one another. No words are exchanged. Only the sound of leaves rustling in the gentle breeze of the oncoming night breaks the ghostly calm. Gohan deftly begins to raise his power as a thin, almost wisp-like energy wave flattens the grass concentrically around him.
"Who are you?" Gohan inquires sternly.
The man in gray cocks his head. "Why are you raising your energy signature if you don't know who I am?" he smirks.
"Cut the sh*t!" Gohan yells, "I know what you did; I'm asking who you are and why you did this. What gives you the right to attack innocent people?"
The young man simply grunts and cracks his neck to either side.
"Have it your way," Gohan snarls, adorning a smirk of his own. "You'll answer for what you did, one way or another."
With that, Gohan bends his knees and raises his fists to shoulder height, releasing a shattering war cry as the ground ripples beneath him. Trees in all directions begin to bow outward as Gohan's hair flashes to gold and his eyes fade to a bright blue. The weak energy aura he was projecting condenses into a golden conflagration that swirls around him.
In the wake of this massive energy boost, the man in gray takes a cautious step backward. Before he can adjust his balance, Gohan leaps forward shattering the ground beneath him. The man in gray barely has time to flinch before Gohan's fist plows into his cheek. With a deafening crack, the young man is propelled at break-neck speed into the forest behind him, tearing a line of grass right out of the soil as he passes.
But just as Gohan begins to crack a smile, he feels a sharp and swelling pain in his back. The full force of an unhindered elbow, laced with an immense amount of energy, smashes into his spine, sending him careening into the same direction he sent the man in gray. As his body is flung through tree after tree, Gohan can feel a strange tingling in the lower half of his body. Losing speed, he begins to skid against the ground, smashing into a low-lying rock and tumbling over against a tree.
With his head still spinning, he begins to feel a warm stream of blood flow down his chin. He pushes on the ground trying to raise himself to his feet, but something is wrong. His legs aren't responding to his thoughts. Starting to panic, he tries wiggling his toes. Nothing. He leans his head back against the tree and closes his eyes.
F*ck. Knew I should have saved that Senzu bean…
As he opens them again, he is alarmed to see the man in the gray uniform standing just a meter or so in front of him.
"Relax," the young man says, "no need to die excited."
Gohan raises his arm to blast him, but the man in gray phases directly in front of him in a crouched position, holding his arm. Gohan grimaces as the man in the gray uniform clenches down tight and cocks his head in amusement.
"Who… are you?" Gohan sputters.
The young man smiles, replying, "Who I am is unimportant. Where I'm from is vital." Gohan swallows, feeling his breaths grow shorter.
"Then where are you from? Why are you doing this?" With a vague look resembling satisfaction, the man in the gray uniform takes in a deep breath and rests on one knee.
"I suppose I'll start from the middle," he says, resting his free hand on his leg. "A little over seven months ago, my planet was attacked. Not by an invader, or by an army, but by something indefensible; by something archaic and unaccountable.
"It was about mid-morning- or our planetary equivalent- when it happened. Our civilization is remarkably advanced, technologically speaking, but we still believe in the systematic cultivation of plant food. It was the farmers who first noticed a small shift in the shadows of their crops. At first they ignored it, assuming it was simply a solar flare—something common on our world. But as the moments passed, people started to feel unusual warmth, like the home star had begun to shed a portion of its corona. This was rather alarming, but since our world had a magnetic barrier to protect against excessive solar activity, people continued about their work. It wasn't until the sky began to glow yellow that people panicked. The autodefense network in high orbit hadn't activated, so the War Commission was just as unprepared as the rest of us. In an instant, a massive stream of golden energy poured through the atmosphere and struck the planet."
Gohan, feigning interest, relaxes his arm, allowing the man in gray to loosen his grip. "What was it?" he asks as his hair fades back to its natural black color.
"Nobody knew at the time," the young man responds. "But everyone felt it, regardless of where they were. I was on the other side of the planet. It felt like the world was being shaken from the inside. For a brief moment, the gravity tripled, buckling weak structures and crushing millions. The immediate effects were more apparent on the side of impact. One eighth of the planet, or about 40% of the livable surface, was vaporized along with nearly a billion and a half of my people. The shockwave it produced rippled across the planet with such force that any above-ground structure was flattened and torn away. The heat it brought glassed most of the planet, reducing a billion more people to molten ash. Since most of our permanent structures were underground to save space, a decent portion of our race was still alive. But this wasn't to last."
Gohan focuses his thoughts and begins to slowly build power in his left arm.
"After only a few minutes," the young man continues, "the planet core became compromised, sending seismic and thermal activity into complete chaos. As magma swelled to the surface, millions more were lost as their underground dwellings were engulfed in molten rock. As things steadily got worse, a planet-wide memorandum was sent to every survivor.
"Every being still alive saw the last desperate message The Collective—our government- would ever send. It read, 'Abandon. Abandon.' In what seemed like a dream, hundreds of thousands of pods burst from the interior of the planet. I was in one of the lucky ones. Just as our onboard navigation plotted a course to the nearest hospitable location, the planet burst. The light was the most intense thing I had ever seen. It was so beautiful… light of every color jetting from the core as its magnetic and gravitational auras dissipated. I wouldn't have smiled if I knew just how much we'd lost.
"It wasn't until we arrived at a planetary outpost that we knew the true magnitude of the crisis. Of a civilization of more than four billion, only a few hundred had survived. It was all so sudden that when we finally started putting the pieces together, we realized that what happened to us was not an accident."
Having gathered a substantial amount of energy, Gohan sat in wait for his opportunity.
"After gathering what was left of our intellectuals and scientists," the man in gray says, taking in a slight breath, "we formed an investigative group to find out what had happened. Using a handful of technical equipment salvaged from a research vessel, the group found that our planet was struck with an enormous beam of concentrated energy. Using some clever telemetry, we traced where—and when- the beam originated. As the group addressed what was left of our population, we couldn't believe what we were hearing.
"Apparently, on a planet over a thousand light years away, something had emitted a massive beam of energy into space. It traveled for a millennium, losing so little energy on its journey that it was still just as potent as when it was created. It must have been sheathed by some type of magnetic field, which is why it was only bright after passing through the magnetic barrier. Because of this, our scientists decided that this energy came from within a planetary atmosphere. We were attacked... or so we thought.
"After combing through millennia of galaxy-wide historical and astronomical records, we found the source of the attack. At the edge of the galaxy, in a cluster of space dust, we found the origin signature of the blast. But there was no planet. Not even a moon. For about a week the investigation stalled, until one scientist found something intriguing.
"While searching the area for magnetic residuals, he found a massive trace of energy, followed by an even larger pulse, and then nothing; as if it completely disappeared. He fit the pieces together and concluded, using some impressive mathematics, that the same phenomenon which had destroyed our planet had also destroyed itself."
At this, Gohan's mind jumped. Something clicked in his memory that made him lose focus. "It can't be…" he thinks to himself.
"Is this starting to sound familiar?" the man in gray taunts. "It should, because this is the part of the story that concerns why I'm here. The thing that destroyed our world… the abomination that nearly drove us to extinction was one of you. It was a Saiyan."
Gohan swallows, looking into the man's eyes; "I'm sorry. I really am. Something similar happened to our race about forty years ago. But that doesn't give you the right to come here and hurt innocent people. We had nothing to do with what happened to you!"
In a sudden burst of anger, the man in gray plows his fist into the ground, causing Gohan to flinch.
"Nothing to do with it?! You had everything to do with it! You're the continuation of a massive genetic mistake that should have corrected itself. You knew what you were capable of, and still you spread your filth across the galaxy, destroying world after world. What happened to my civilization may have been random, but it was NOT a mistake." The young man, regaining his composure, pulls his fist from the dirt and takes in another deep breath.
"I'm here to correct that mistake. And unlike that pushover Frieza, I won't fail."
Releasing Gohan's arm, the man in gray instead grasps his throat, raising him up the tree as he stands. Gohan's feet sway beneath him, and as his full weight pulls on his severed spine, he groans in agony.
"I want you to know what's going to destroy you," the young man says, tightening his grip. "I want you to know that a soldier from Polaris was the cause of your extinction."
In his last desperate act, Gohan jets his arm forward ready to release his blast. But to his horror, the man in the gray uniform preempts his attack and grabs his wrist, snapping it like a twig. Gohan, overcome with pain, yells out at the top of his lungs.
"And now," the young man says, raising two fingers to Gohan's forehead, "you know but a fraction of the pain I've endured."
As his fingers begin to emit a faint white glow, the young man frowns. His eyes achromatize and seem to pierce into Gohan's mind. All Gohan can do is gape as an immeasurable fear permeates his entire being.
"I bestow upon you now the mercy that every surviving Polarian was spared; the mercy of death."
With surprising ease, the man from Polaris presses his fingers into Gohan's forehead. The sound of sizzling flesh gives way to Gohan's final exhalation as vaporized blood rises from the wound. Gohan's eyes roll into his head as his jaw goes lax, free from motor control. The man in gray pulls his fingers from Gohan's forehead and lets his body drop in a heap on the ground in front of him. As he stares down at the corpse, he holds his head askew and chuckles aloud.
Reaching down to Gohan's body, he takes the communicator from his pocket. Stepping backward, he depresses the large side switch labeled 'Video' and sets the communicator against a jutting root, facing the camera towards Gohan's lifeless form. Just before fading into ethereal space, he hears a piercing scream emanate from the clearing behind him.
A malevolent grin stretches across his face; a grin made all the more disturbing by the emptiness of the eyes above it.
"This is the beginning…" he says to himself. "The beginning of the end."